Chapter 1
Lena pulls up to the curb of the Danvers' residence and turns off her engine. Before getting out she just sits there and takes a moment to calm her nerves.
Come on Luthor. Get it together, its been six years, get over it already. Lena tells herself and she forces the memories trying to surface back into the teeny tiny - totally not ginormous - boxes at the back of her mind.
Turning her head Lena takes in the now immaculate looking front garden where her younger self used to tear up the grass with Alex whist practicing their football. They would alternate between who would be the goal keeper and who would be the striker, Kara often sitting on the front porch cheering them both on excitedly as she pretended to be the commentator and the rowdy crowd at the same time.
She can still remember when she slipped on a wet lump of mud and sent the ball sailing straight over the top of the crossbar of their small plastic goal, the ball hitting the blonde straight in the face and to her horror, flinging her glasses off of her face and red blood almost immediately dripping down her face in a steady stream and staining the white and pink striped shirt Kara had been wearing.
The blonde after over coming the shock of a pretty hard shot to the face just uses her sleeve to wipe her nose, stands up and with a huge smirk responds with "Oh come on, Lena. I know my beautiful face is distracting but you don't have to rearrange it!" Before sitting back down and ordering us to carry on.
It is one of her favourite memories growing up and absolutely one of the reasons she started to fall for the younger Danvers sister in the first place.
Even now as she thinks back on that memory, her first thought is still the same... beautiful indeed.
She is snapped out of her reverie by a sudden tapping on her window. With a few startled blinks, the woman plaguing her mind comes into view, gesturing for her to hurry up and get out of her safe car.
As soon as her door has closed and she is standing on the newly laid tarmac pathway, she is being enveloped by her old friend.
"Oh my goodness, Lena!" She practically squeals "You came!"
If I had any sense, I wouldnt have. She thinks to herself sadly.
"Of course! You asked me." She says softly as they pull apart. Kara looks older, she thinks... in a good way though. Wiser and more mature Lena supposes. She still has her laughter lines, so Lena guesses she must be happy.
"So how have you been? It's been ages since we last had a chance to catch up, I've missed you!" Kara says with a playful nudge of her arm.
"Yeah, I'm good. Really just... great." I say with a forced laugh.
"You don't sounds so sure of that," Kara teases, subtly calling my bluff with a soft smile.
With another forced laugh I push past her gentle probing, "Haha, yeah. It has been a while though hasn't it, I have just been crazy busy, don't get much time to myself nowadays. How about you? You're getting married!"
"I'm alright, yeah. Can't complain really and yeah! I'm so excited! Mon-El is... he's... he's uh...-" Kara answers wistfully, as she turns her gaze to the ground in front of us. "- busy huh? Your team has been doing so well that I'm not surprised!"
That kind of body language doesn't exactly scream excitement...
"Kar? Is everything-" I start to ask but I'm cut off by a man's voice coming out of the front door.
"Sugar-plum, you out here? Your mum won't stop moaning at me about those-" The man - Mon-El - pauses, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration before a cocky smile breaks out onto his face.
"You must be Lena? Wow, I'm surprised you came, last I heard you bolted from this place with your tail between your legs before anyone could say the word lesbo," he says almost matter of factly, cupping his hands around his mouth while pretending to shout the last part.
Ugh, gross. Alex did say he was still just a smarmy little man child.
"Mon-El!" Kara chastises. "That was rude. You can't speak to Lena like that!"
"Its fine Kara." I tell her softly before turning to face Mon-El.
Squaring my shoulders as I stand to my full height and making sure to keep my tone as polite as possible as I hold his eye contact. "But, to clear up any confusion, I did not "run with my tail between my legs" as you so put it. I left to persue my career and for personal reasons that are of no concern to you. And in case you haven't heard, my career bloomed fabulously so... if you'll excuse me, I really must be leaving now. I only stopped by to announce my arrival." I tell him.
I turn to Kara and lift my hand in a small wave before turning and reopening my car door only to be stopped by a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Lena, please wait. I'm sorry about Mon-El, he shouldn't have spoken to you like that." She says apologetically, her hand slowly sliding down my arm until she is holding my right hand in hers.
My gaze falls to where Kara starts to play with my fingers, its what she used to do when she wanted to say something but was too nervous to actually speak the words.
I swallow thickly before pulling my hand away, the familiarity even after all these years is like having a noose tightening around my throat. Emotions never were my strong point.
I swallow again before meeting Kara's eyes only to see sadness darkening the usually ocean blue orbs which she quickly seems to push aside in favour of another forced smile.
"I'm sorry again," she finally says after a moment, "but uh- you know you don't have to stay in a hotel right? You'll always be welcome here, Eliza even still has some of your old stuff in the spare room from when you used to stay over..."
"Why?" I ask in shock.
"Its your room," Kara replies with an easy shrug.
"Do you want me to stay?"
"Of course I do!" The blonde says a little too loudly.
With a sigh my next words flow out, "Are you trying to convince me or yourself Kara?"
"What? Lee-" Kara splutters but I interrupt.
"Kar, it's fine. I get it, I'll just see you later, okay?" And with that I take my seat behind the wheel and drive away.
In my review I can see Kara watching me drive down the road, her arms wrapping around herself.
Driving with no particular direction in mind had me ending up at Jens Cafe. Jen being a woman in her late 60s, shoulder length brown, greying hair, chocolate brown eyes and a tongue that has no mercy should you ever piss her off.
I park up and head into the diner and walk up to the counter to order a black coffee. The young looking guy tells me to find a seat so just as I turn to look for one somebody shouts at the top of their lungs, drawing not just my attention but the rest of the cafés patrons.
"Yo, Maleficent! Over here!"
"Agent Romanoff, is that you?!" I respond in shock whilst turning towards the person with an excited smile probably taking over half of my face.
We both uncharacteristically squeal rush to pull each other into a tight hug, rocking from side to side before pulling apart a taking our seats.
"Fuck me. Its so good to see you Alex!" I say as I reach across and squeeze her hand.
Alex smiles brightly, "You too Lee. I wasn't sure you were going to come... I'm glad you though, I'm not sure I could get through this shit show if you weren't!"
"I wasn't either to be honest." I say as I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly.
"You're still not a fan of Mon-El then," I reply, chuckling as Alex's face scrunches up in disgust.
"Never was, never will be. Mom doesn't like him either but she promised Kara she would support her if she was serious about him."
"I saw them before coming here, he was... delightful. Did you know I ran from midvale with my tail between my legs?" I ask in amusement.
"No... did he really say that to you?" Alex says in a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
"Sure did. Looked so proud of himself too. Seeing Kara admonish him straight after was like watching a mother tell of her bratty kid."
Alex smacked the table as she cackled with laughter.
I've missed her. I think to myself. It must have been at least a year and a half since we last saw each other. Our teams were set to play a friendly match against each other. What a wild after party that was...
"Sorry, you just kind of hit the nail on the head there, that is exactly what their relationship is like 24/7. I don't know how and definitely do not know why Kara puts up with it. She puts on this facade of being happy and in love when I truly don't think she is, I've seen her happy and however she is feeling... isn't it, you know?" Alex says suddenly becoming a lot more serious than she was a second ago.
"I do. She didn't seem like the typical happy bride to be, but I just put the way she was acting was awkwardness at seeing me turn up..." I say with a sad shrug.
"Nah, doubt it was you, she has missed you. I never said anything before because of how hurt you were but Lena, Kara changed quite a bit after you left. It didn't happen straight away, but it didn't take long for me to notice. I mean she started blowing off my match invites, she starting hiding out in her room all the time, if she wasn't in there she spent nearly her time at the library in the corner where you both used to study... there's more but yeah the main one is her 'interest' in Mon-El."
That doesn't sound like Kara. Kara would never blow off Alex and especially not for a library or, or some boy and Eliza! Eliza likes everyone, even Lillian!
Maybe Alex and I are wrong though, maybe Kara is happy and she is just stressed with all the wedding planning... that has to be it right? Kara wouldn't marry somebody she didn't love... would she?