Cultural Differences
It was with an utterly world weary sigh that a certain blonde Kryptonian came slinking back into Lena and Maggie’s booth. Said exhausted sigh was accompanied by the unmistakable sloshing sound of a weighty bottle clunking on thick hardwood. Lena quirked her brow as Kara seemingly ignored them in favour of plunking a shot glass down in front of herself. Then the cap came off the opaque, unlabelled bottle and Kara poured herself a drink.
...a steaming, bubbling, deep violet one?
It took Lena a second of staring in confusion before she came across the rather obvious conclusion.
Alien bar for aliens.
Then, in a showing that was quite surprising, the seemingly innocent blonde knocked back the shot and blew out a gout of steam like a bloody dragon. All before pouring another shot and repeating the process again. The CEO found herself just...staring at the mass of contradictions and surprises in front of her.
Sweet, innocent, baby faced cutie patootie, perpetual designated driver Kara Danvers...knew how to pound shots like a goddamn college freshman?
Lena just...needed a damn second to continue to recalibrate her perceptions of the universe and her obvious piss poor ability to read people. Clearly the deeply ingrained, highly trained Luthor skills for emotional manipulation and management...were much less effective than she thought.
Granted, this evening had already been full of surprises, so what was one more. Of course Kara had been hiding her more alien features for years. Of course she had some sort of strangely close friendship that looked to maybe include some platonic BDSM with a literal ex assassin/time traveler. Of course Kara just...happened to be a rather large fan of an increasing number of distinctly non-naive vices she just never let Lena know about.
It stung for a second, she had to admit.
Though, rationally, she knew it was likely not about her at all. When they were inseparable best friends slash mutual hopeless straight crushes they were at each others houses every other day for years. She knew Kara’s schedule, baring super based obfuscations, down to a fucking T.
There was no alcohol, alien or not in Kara’s home. She never came home from seedy bars drunk or otherwise. Lena knew that Kara hadn’t had more than a drink or two a night basically since she’s known her. Occasionally the superfriends got her to bend her rules a bit. Especially when goddamn Mike, of the interns was still around. There was a time or two Lena could remember at National Citie’s alien bar where Kara might have gotten a bit tipsy.
...and handsy, especially with her close female friends. Something which was a wonderful, fulfilling, tortuous experience to be on the other end of.
(dear lord above, Lena prays, please strike this stupid, useless lesbian down for writing that off as a ‘normal affectionate straight girl’ thing to do)
No, whatever her now vacant hangups about alcohol, it was a longstanding thing that predated Lena considerably.
...she silently bet herself even money it was either a respect for Alex’s history with the bottle thing, or a long ingrained fear of losing control due to the alien closet thing. Probably a mixture of both. Not that either applied at the moment.
“So. We started this whole digression by talking about...kryptonian conventions for attraction right?” Kara said gruffly, knocking Lena out of her musing. Glancing over, the CEO took in the lax, slumped over form of her friend, who was listlessly leaning her head back as far as it would go. There was even just the faintest hint of a pleased slur to her words.
Clearly, whatever the alien liquor was, it worked fast. Which was perhaps somewhat concerning, even if it meant that honest answers were probably going to be much easier to prise from Kara’s normal stranglehold.
“Well, yeah, whatever you want to share, I’d like to hear. No pressure to go anywhere too...sensitive or anything.” Lena replied, feeling bolstered at Maggie’s strong nod. Kara chuckled mirthlessly, her throat rumbling harshly.
“I guess it’s as good a starting point as any. Actually connects in pretty nicely with the whole...me being an awful liar thing. So, well, um...Fuck. How do you...” Kara said, making a series of aborted hand movements. Her expression pinched in deep concentration as the blonde sought to find a place to really begin.
“You know what. Fluff it. Here’s a question to illustrate the point. What sex and gender do you think I am?” The kryptonian eventually growled out, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
Lena blinked, her eyes widening.
The implications of that-
Just. What.
How many damn more things could happen tonight. How many fucking layers to the stupid onion-
Fuck!
Lena clamped her fist down on her leg painfully to stop that line of thought from progressing. This was not about her. They were moving on. They were talking about it. She was not going to blow up on Kara again for sharing a deeply held, obviously emotional secret. She was not going to make this into a self-fulfilling prophecy of secrets and lies to protect the secrets because Lena always gets mad when they’re shared.
“Wait, Kara, are you trans? Shit, have we been using the wrong pronouns for you all this damn time?” Maggie helpfully offered while Lena was too busy being a conflicted nutcase to properly respond.
Damn. Lena has the best girlfriend.
Surprisingly though, rather than the expected descent into melancholic reveals of long held crushing dysphoria, Kara only smirked. Those gorgeous blue cat eyes sparkled as the blonde leant forward brimming with reassuringly familiar excitement. It was honestly a bit overwhelming to see an expression so typical of her best friend on these new features. Despite everything between them. Despite the alien features Kara had been hiding for years. Kara still had that same passionate, excited, driven expression on her face like all those times before when she got the bit of a cause she believed in under her teeth.
...Lena felt the beginnings of a blush creeping over her cheeks. After all, having that beaming, megawatt, excited gush of knowledge and emotion directed at her had always been effective.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. But Maggie, do you see what you just did?” Kara asked, grinning. Lena and Maggie glanced at each other, clearly a bit confused at this point. After a shake of her head Kara gave a cute little wiggle in her seat before continuing on with her explanation.
“You made a...more or less reasonable assumption based on the incomplete data you had. Given that Kryptonians tend to look so much like humans, most people also assume things like gender, biological sex and sexuality work in roughly same way.” Kara continued, tapping her fingers in front of her.
“They don’t then, do they? I’ve talked to a few aliens that diverged along similar lines, but I’d never really heard anything about Kryptonians. More fool me I guess. Superman is just so...” Maggie jumped in, an excited look trailing off into somewhat awkward silence. Maggie always loved talking about gender theory. While she hadn’t known the reasons at the time, the big, original S was always something of a touchy subject with Kara.
Luckily, Kara didn’t seem to mind.
“Vanilla? White-bread? Knuckleheaded cis-het Male?” Kara supplied, the beaming grin only faltering for the briefest of moments.
“All of the above I guess. Plus, it’s not like he’s ever been willing to give any, you know interviews on Kryptonian society or anything.” The ex-cop said, raising a questioning brow.
“To be fair, he never actually knew Krypton. All he knows is second hand accounts like you might read in a 9th grade biology textbook. All the day-to-day context and nuance is lost on him as well. I was over at the fortress once looking over some of what his parents sent with him. I’m pretty sure my uncle may have…selectively edited some of the less pleasant parts out of our history.” Kara replied, getting a strange far off look in her eyes. A mournful whine left her throat a few moments later.
Lena found herself reaching out to squeeze her hand without much conscious input on her part. Kara started in her seat briefly, before turning a soft expression on both other women. A faint blush worked its way up the blonde’s cheeks. After a second or two, Kara started unconsciously wringing her fingers together and raising her hand to adjust her non-existent glasses. Two ticks Lena knew indicated she was particularly nervous.
“So, er, I guess in a nutshell...yeah. Krypton’s gender’s were... different, very different.” Kara said, the flush getting just a touch deeper. “You have to understand, we were um, a much older society than humanity. Natural births were more or less replaced by a machine called the birthing matrix five thousand years ago. The man-woman reproductive dichotomy was...more or less meaningless.” The kryptonian concluded strongly, that same look of passion on her face. Something which told Lena all she needed to know about Kara’s heartfelt desire to share more about the history of her people.
...While she didn’t let it distract her from the conversation at hand, it did make her wonder once more about why Kara was so determined to keep it a secret.
“I take it then, most Kryptonians were... pansexual or bisexual? If those words even apply in this context?” Lena asked after a pause to have a fortifying slug of wine. Trying to simultaneously not be a needy creep about Kara’s sexualty, and not step her foot in any interspecies etiquette messes was hard.
“I g-guess. I mean, people had preferences one way or the other when they wanted to have y’know...i-intercourse. But, well... whether someone had a p-penis or a v-vagina was much less relevant to attraction than basically any other consideration.” The blonde replied, the blush now reaching all the way down from her ears to her cheeks.
“Which would be?” Lena queried her tone just on the side of sultry.
Sue her. Blushing, stammering Kara was cute. Especially when she practically explodes in a poof of crimson excitement over Lena basically asking what she’s into.
“Um, t-they a-are. U-um. F-flufferdoodles.” Kara stammered, fanning herself a bit with her hand.
“L-Lena, do you remember me ever talking about how where I’m from accepting help was not a sign of weakness.” The kryptonian eventually offered. Lena quirked a brow a bit curiously at the topic shift, but nodded politely anyway.
Kara, embarrassed and rambling, still always got to her point eventually. The CEO was more than willing to just wait for the blonde to meander her way to connecting the trains of thought.
“It was...h-honestly I was more or less drastically u-underselling it. Helping your fellows was almost… sacred. Honestly it was even something of a biological imperative. Like our whole society was built around interlocking systems of social cooperation.” Kara explained, the fetching blush on her cheeks slowly ebbing away for a driven stare.
“Sounds nice. I’m not sure I’m quite following how this connects to Kryptonian views on gender?” Maggie replied, obviously a bit less patient than Lena herself.
“I was just getting there. Um. As we were e-evolving, and especially after the birthing matrix, our system of gender and sex broadened to s-support that cooperation instead of just base reproduction.” Kara said awkwardly, fidgeting in her seat. The Kryptonian took a couple of deep grounding breaths before reaching a pale hand up to tug down the high neck on her T-shirt.
“F-far more relevant than male or female, is where t-these show up.” Kara stuttered out, blushing even more than usual. Lena wonders briefly if the poor girl is going to pass out from all the blood rushing to her head before her eyes snap to the column of pale flesh that is more fully exposed.
It’s only a breath later that Lena sees what her friend was actually referring to. On either side of the nape of the Kryptonian’s neck below Kara’s black leather collar are two slightly raised bumps. They’re a little red, obviously a bit swollen. Leaning forwards, the CEO sees a strange swirl of ridged skin spiraling into the center of the bump. Without being really conscious of it, Lena’s curious scientist brain takes control of her damn fool hands.
Before she really has a chance to react, her long fingers are gently brushing across the bumps...no, glands maybe? Even with the distance of the booth table between them they have the strangest, almost sweet, musky scent to them. As her fingers brush the smooth skin there’s a very faint hint of warm oily wetness to them. Repeating the process secretes a bit more of whatever the strange oil is. Enough to let her fingers slip smoothly over each other. Bringing them to her nose reveals the oil is the source of the strange, but very pleasant scent. Almost like toasted chestnuts. A scent that is, in retrospect, quite familiar. After all, it's always confounded her how exactly Kara managed to find the perfect body wash.
A wrecked whimper fills the booth.
Maggie’s highly amused snickering brings Lena back to reality. The CEO blinks and glances around, takes in the unmistakable flushed cheeks and blown eyes of Kara and suddenly realized.
Fuck.
Ask before goddamn touching, Luthor.
“S-Sorry. I was just, y’know curious. Should have asked. Sorry.” Lena says, groaning at her own stupidity. The groan deepening even more as Kara leant back bonelessly into the booth.
“Oh no, do not apologize. That felt very, erhm, good. Very g-good.” Kara whispered, a pleased and slightly drunk grin on her face.
“I bet.” Maggie guffawed, to the ever deepening blushes of both Lena and Kara.
Lena coughed awkwardly and decided to just cut through the tension.
“I uh, apologize if I interrupted. You were, um, saying?” The CEO begged desperately, hoping to move on from this awkward moment.
...Where was a kidnapping attempt when you really needed one anyway?
“Right. Yeah, I guess I was. I was, um. S-some Kryptonians have those glands by their wrists instead.” Kara began as she slowly pulled herself out of whatever stupor Lena’s wandering fingers had thrown her into. Maggie hummed in understanding beside her and Lena was pleased for the support.
“So, uh, gender roles and expectations were based more around that. English has no proper vocabulary for these things, but um, the word I used when I described it to Alex was people with their glands by their wrists were...something like oracles.” Kara explained, a wistful, sad look on her face.
“Wait, you’re saying some Kryptonians were pre-cognitive?” Lena asked, her eyes widening.
“No. Not exactly.” Kara replied, grimacing briefly at the misunderstanding.
“It’s, uh, it’s just... well most problems Kryptonians dealt with were too big to accomplish as individuals. Uncovering the innermost secrets of the universe doesn’t just happen from a lone hermit writing books in a cabin in the woods all their life. Do you follow? ” Kara continued explaining, that determined shine coming back once more.
“I’m...not too sure I do actually.” Maggie interjected. Kara let out a deep rumbling sigh, that Lena knew she probably didn’t mean to sound quite as annoyed as it did.
“Okay. So, to make it simpler. There was lots of variation of course, nothing is ever as easy to box up as society’s expectations. Just like on Earth. The stereotype at least, was that Oracles were the dreamers, the artists, the visionaries and the leaders. They who take in the wide, uncertain future and decide on a path for the rest to follow.” Kara explained passionately. Lena found herself hanging off of every word, especially as the underlying hum of tension in Kara’s voice started to ebb and flow.
“Right. What about people like you then Kara?” Maggie probed curiously.
Kara dimmed considerably, and Lena felt a pit of apprehension building in her stomach. She wasn’t sure yet at all where this was going, but she had an inkling that something was...off, somewhere under the surface.
“People like me were, um, called something more like ‘scribes.’ We tend to be more detail oriented. A lot of our jobs and opportunities...supported Oracles in various ways, or were otherwise decided by the lead Oracle of the family. The joke at least was that if you wanted a task debated for sixteen cycles and forgotten once it was no longer relevant, give it to an Oracle. If you wanted it to actually get done, give it to a scribe.” The Kryptonian argued, more than a hint of defensiveness in her voice.
Lena smiled, even as the pit in her stomach got a bit heavier. It was definitely cute...but it spoke of something else, less than utopian going on. Kryptonian society sounded...perhaps a bit more rigid than she was expecting. Especially if apparently Kara’s family had wide power to decide even basic things like the girl’s damn career.
An awkward clearing of a throat brought her attention back to the Kryptonian.
“So to finally ramble on and answer the original question. As a scribe aligned Kryptonian, the traits I find attractive include…” Kara began, her glowing eyes shifting to practically stare into Lena’s damn soul. The CEO stared back, practically feeling the heady implication of the moment.
“A drive to push the status quo, an empathy for those less fortunate, fierce intelligence with wisdom to temper it...and perhaps a certain sense of confident power. The sorts of things...both of you have in abundance.” Kara eventually listed, her dead serious tone contrasting with the ever rising blush on her cheeks.
Lena grinned victoriously, even as a nervous little flutter of butterfly wings danced around her chest. That was that then. Definitive confirmation that even though Kryptonians used a completely different system of gender...Kara was attracted to them. A glance at Maggie saw the detective beaming away beside her and a warm brush of their fingers confirmed this was definitely a good thing.
Then, of course, rather than riding this train of thought right on home to the bedroom like a normal, rational human being, Lena opened her big fat mouth.
“So, what was the connection then to the whole…secret identity?” Lena asked evenly, cursing herself and snapping her mouth shut the second she realized what she said.
...Though, the morbidly curious part of her refused to take it back.
A pained grimace set in on Kara’s face and the poor girl started slowly curling into a ball on her seat. Maggie gave a wide, alarmed glance at Lena before shifting out of her seat to Kara’s side of the booth. It took a solid minute of Maggie whispering comfortingly at Kara before the blonde seemed to uncurl herself and look Lena in the eye again.
She winced, hoping dearly that whatever landmine she’d stepped on could be forgiven. She had after all, been trying to be as non-confrontational about it as possible. She was mostly only curious at this point after all.
“Uh... I guess I should say that Kryptonians have a, uh, symbiotic relationship with each other. For example, oracles have a bad habit of staring off into the clouds for days without eating if a scribe isn’t around to remind them. Meanwhile scribes without an oracle to give them some direction tend to flounder their way into a panic attack. Simultaneously trying to do every conceivable task perfectly. Pheromones communicate and reinforce a lot of that instinctively, so it’s hard to y’know, explain. Especially to a different species that doesn’t experience anything similar” Kara replied, voice thick and trembling. Lena leant over and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Kara’s instinctive flinch at the approach of the CEO’s hand stung. Even if a second later Kara’s own hand practically launched forward to lean clasp it back and squeeze it for comfort.
...The worried stone at the bottom of Lena’ stomach put on another couple pounds of weight.
“One, um, thing is. We can, y’know, ignore a lot of those urges. It’s not some huge deal, just uh, uncomfortable. So, for example, Scribes, especially when we're kids... have an instinctive urge not to lie to the authority figures or our family. After all, they couldn’t guide us if they didn’t have all the facts. It just...gives us this strangest sense of guilty wrongness that’s so hard to ignore. Even if I tried witheverything I had. So, y’know, when I came to Earth at 13...” Kara continued explaining before trailing off. The whole time the buzzing hiss in her throat kept picking up and up, becoming a dissonant hum of quivering anxiety. Lena could practically see the quiver of Kara’s fingers indicating she was just on the edge of an overwhelmed breakdown.
That pit in her stomach felt beyond leaden at this point.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite sure where all this was going. Some strange thing at the back of her brain was throbbing away. Like a rock stuck under her shoe that just wouldn’t come out. She knew where this was going on some level, but she just couldn’t put it together in words.
Her ex-detective girlfiend, however, could suss it out much more readily than the CEO ever could.
“So then when Clark picked you up?” The ex-cop breathed out, stunned and disbelieving.
Kara whimpered and gave a bitter nod but refused to look up again.
Lena remained confused. She shot a glance and a quirked brow at her girlfriend to prompt her to explain.
“Lena…” Maggie started, before glancing askance at Kara. When no objection came from the now silently crying woman, she turned to face Lena again.
“What do you suppose would happen when Superman stumbled across his 13 year old traumatized cousin. A man, who by the way, is so notoriously paranoid Alex told stories about how he didn’t even tell his damn partner he was an alien until they were already fucking married. What do you think his goddamn reaction would be when he found out that his young, vulnerable, lonely cousin physically couldn’t keep his identity a secret to save her life?” The ex-cop hissed out, restrained fury reverberating through every breath.
Lena’s eyes widened in realization, snapping over to Kara.
The Kryptonian whimpered, flinching in her seat away from the touch of both women.
...An action, which now that she thought about seemed awfully familiar. An action, which sent Lena’s brain down a whole host of new, ugly pathways. Things she never would have even conceived of applying to the perpetually upbeat blonde now seemed disturbingly...plausible.
Kara, for her part rapidly paled as she seemed to realize what both women had started to figure out. If Lena hadn’t been observing the blonde like a hawk at that exact moment, she’d definitely have missed the panicked whisper leaving her lips.
(That was also the moment Lena quietly revised her plans to slowly destroy all the Kryptonite she’d ‘procured’ from the labs when she left L-Corp.)
“It wasn’t! Y’know, it wasn’t bad. Whatever you’re thinking. It was just...just training. It wasn’t his fault I was such a fuckup and couldn’t get it right back then. It would have gotten anyone frustrated!”