Lena I
Luthor's don't dress to look nice. Dressing to kill is between literal and semi-literal for her family. So when Kara stops short in her regrettable powder blue-dress and her hands start shaking when Lena's eyes meet hers...that's a good thing? Right? With a girlfriend like that, with shoulders like those anything that makes her sag must be powerful indeed.
A sudden case of tinnitus seems to have developed. Everything rings. Everything is loud and is too much and Kara won't stop, spilling her words out like blood from a wound.
"...and then one day, you were so angry at Supergirl. But you still loved Kara. And I thought if I could be Kara, just Kara...I could keep you as a friend."
"Please," Kara gulps. "say something. Gra mo chroi, say something."
There's a monster. Because of fucking course there's a monster when Kara her sweet (not so sweet?) girlfriend is bawling, babbling, and admitting that she's the one who fights the monsters. Because of fucking course something interrupts them as Lena's brain is pinballing through every moment when she wanted to scream because it was scary and Kara had disappeared.
Every time. Every single time, before the bullet or knife or bomb could take a pound of Lena's flesh for Lex's crimes, Supergirl descended. The sun-goddess, radiant and beyond lesser beings and sizzling with wrath. The closer the call for Lena, the more Kara's approach to the threat scared her. In case after case, defense attorneys for tough-guy mercs and hired killers whined. Shook on the stand recounting their fights. One, pissed himself, shrieked, and fainted when Kara-as-reporter slid into a seat in the courtroom to report on the trial. He never said why and the fact that it happened that exact instant was written off. Some critics call for charges against Supergirl after each save. Assault with a deadly. Attempted manslaughter. Otis Graves sued her for emotional suffering from supermax, something that amuses Lena to no end.
There was a case when Kara replied to a bounty placed on Lena in the alien community with a promise that aliens would never thrive on Earth if they could not forgive. That clip on Twitter hits different in hindsight. An alien with the power to sterilize the planet's entire surface was hinting to her fellow refugees that Lena's survival dictated theirs. When it was made clear that Lena was off-limits in a publicly visible manifesto, that was when she and Kara Danvers were 'just friends'.
A fresh scream, a whizzing noise from Alex Danvers' alien gun, and a dusting of plaster shaking loose from the ceiling remind them of a time limit. Kara will have to go deal with that and Lena should just let her. Just let her go. A nod towards the problem, huff out her title and set her jaw, steel herself, and close up.
Kara saw the tail end of Lena's little duel with Eve Tessmacher in the jet in Kasnia. As soon as the wheels went up, Kara climbed into Lena's lap, turned Lena's face upwards, and kissed her. Gasped into her mouth about how it's okay to be weak because Lena is loved and there's no world without Lena in it Kara can live in . Kara putting her glasses in one hand when they kissed and putting Lena's other in that (apparently literally) inhumanly amazing hair felt like a goddamned marriage proposal. She gave Lena her permission to take away the glasses she fiddled with when she was scared.
There's no forcing or faking something like the insanity of their first week together. A four-year-old friendship caught fire like a forest struck by lightning when they first kissed. Lena can't find a shred of a lie in them. In their surroundings, yes. In the flock of badasses that Supergirl surrounds herself with who play board games with Kara, yes. In Kara herself...no. Perhaps if Lena had ever just asked if Kara was Supergirl straight on, yes or no, rather than implying and commenting about the resemblance, she wouldn't be standing here feeling like she's about to puke mediocre champagne onto the expensive, antique carpet.
When she asks Kara a question and makes it clear she wants an answer, she gets it.
She asked Kara why Kara led her on, letting her think she was straight. Kara didn't hesitate, lie or deflect. Didn't do any of the things Lena's so afraid of and she was right: sexuality is a private identity. Not so far from alienness. She thought for a few seconds and said it was that she couldn't deal with just how queer she was. In fact, after an adorable half-hour of croaked non-words, it turned out she could only explain how amazing and sexy and wanted Lena was if she closed her eyes and snuggled into the crook of Lena's neck because looking at Lena took too much of her brain, she claimed. Kara said she had never felt more than a throb about a girl before, never interest. Never yearning that lasted past a few messy strokes in her own bed and an orgasm. Never had someone grabbed her world and spun it, throwing her off course like Lena did.
Lena can barely hear, her pulse is so fast from her anger but summoning all the wickedness and sickness in her Luthor blood, she still can't sour the memory of that messy first time in the corporate jet. Teeth clacking, fingers squeezing and flicking, Kara tossing Lena's legs over her shoulders and diving in. Leaving stains on the upholstery that the ground crew still gripes about. They were both sizzling with post-kill adrenaline and it was too much, far, far far too fast given what remained unsaid but there was more honesty than in Kara's moans and random, untutored touches than in all of the gold diggers, would-be sugar babies, and every other well-practiced woman to ever sling Lena's thighs over her shoulders. Kara's earnestness boiled away memories of fuckbuddies and one-night stands into a multicolored smoke of not good enough in her memory.
The screams are now a symphony from the theater and someone is talking to Kara in a hidden earpiece.
What comes out of her mouth surprises Lena more than Kara.
"Go destroy..."
She waves her hand at the auditorium where the battle is shaking the building.
"...that."
"And the instant you're done, you will superspeed to my penthouse, strip naked, fold your clothes, go to the balcony and wait. On your knees," Lena hisses. She meant for it to sting but those baby blues are so bright that maybe it backfired.
She might not be able to survive Kara's betrayal. It might have been over the instant they met. Doomed. Tragic and star crossed and...no. That's Lex. Lex is stuck on his (probably homoerotic) feelings of betrayal regarding Superman.
Lena is going to call Cat Grant and get some pointers on making Kara small. There's no way Cat Grant didn't look Kara Danvers right in the eyes and ask her. So if anyone knows what Kara looks like lying, telling a big lie, it's Cat. Another reason to reach out.
If all-she-can-eat hate sex with Supergirl and nightly cuddle crying with Kara Danvers can't fix this, it's not fixable in the first place. Lena isn't ready to believe she's that broken.
"Kara?"
"Yes."
"Glasses. You'll get them back at my penthouse. Until then, you feel everything."
Kara takes her glasses off and strokes a finger down one arm in a peculiar way as she folds them.
Blue crystals materialize around Kara's skin. Kudos to Brainy for using the glasses as a trigger.
The new suit does look good. She wanted one with pants, Supergirl told Lena. Like that suit Lena wore when they went to Lex's prison. If Lena had been designing it to make Supergirl into eye candy, she wouldn't have changed a single cut, seam, or stretch of fabric over a stretch of muscle. Maybe her libido knew the truth before she did. All the same, Supersuit 3.0 is clearly needed. Anti-Kryptonite tech in every fiber. The heavy-armor hardsuit will have to be redone ground up. She can dip into the caches of Lillian and Lex's goodies she keeps in the vaults. She will need Lex's research on Kryptonite-X to really make this work.
Kara being Supergirl ruins Lena's ideal fantasy threesome. If Kara wants to be forgiven for taking that fever dream away, she has to come home. Every time.