Lena remembers asking her parents (her real parents, the ones who made her and loved her and wanted good things for her) how they’d come together.
“Did you follow your string?” she’d asked, wiggling the fingers of her left hand.
(All strings are threaded around the left ring finger. That’s why wedding rings are worn there, her mother had explained once. To mark the fulfillment of your thread’s purpose, to transform it from a straight line to a completed circle. And Lena is only four years old, but she thinks it’s such a pretty tradition.)
“No, darling,” her mother had said, both of them chuckling and shaking their heads. “No one follows their string of fate. When the time is right, it will lead you and your love together on its own.”
“Oh, good,” Lena had said with a relieved sigh. “Mine would be hard to follow.”
“And why’s that?” her father had asked.
“Because it goes into the sky!” Lena had giggled and spun on her toes. She was only four. She didn’t see their shared look of concern, but if she had, she wouldn’t have understood it. “Maybe my love is an angel!”
“Maybe,” her mother had murmured quietly.
Lena thought later that they’d probably intended to explain to her when she was older that a string leading to the sky meant your fated love had somehow passed on early, but they never got the chance.
Lena’s parents had died only weeks later.
Lena never spoke of her thread to the Luthors, not even to Lex. She’d never needed the talk about the meaning of it extending towards heaven.
She’d been given a firsthand demonstration of what death was, after all.
//
She remembers waking in her dorm room at the age of sixteen, opening her eyes to find that the familiar stretch of red thread ascending to the sky was missing. She’d bolted upright in a complete panic only to discover that it ran horizontally instead, just out of her line of vision when she’d opened her eyes.
It stretched through her wall and beyond and Lena hadn’t believed her eyes. She’d dressed and sprinted from her dorm, only to see the thread stretched on and on. No longer up.
Even after hours of research, she hadn’t been able to find any explanation for it. There simply weren’t any stories like it anywhere she’d looked. So Lena had kept it to herself. As far as anyone else had known, she had no thread at all.
And Lena hadn’t let herself believe anything had changed.
//
She remembers all of this so clearly, remembers giving up on it so vividly, that it is a shock to her system when she walks into the National City Luthor Corp office (L-Corp, she reminds herself. She must start thinking of it as L-Corp) to find her string’s end attached to the finger of a woman standing in the lobby.
Lena freezes mid-step, the air stuck in her lungs. It’s like suddenly a thousand voices are rising up and singing a chorus of hallelujahs in her head. Here is her angel, here is the person she never thought she’d find. Here is the answer to one of the only unanswered questions in Lena’s life. The most important question, even above could I have saved Lex? Because here was the person who could save her.
She can’t stop staring, not even when the woman looks up and their eyes meet across the lobby. She takes a jerky step forward, then another, everything else fading to muted colors as her soulmate comes into sharp focus. All she can think is I must get to her, and she’s so intent on it that when a body steps between them, it takes a moment for her to switch her attention there instead.
“Miss Luthor,” Clark Kent says with a polite smile, extending a hand for her to shake.
Lena frowns at him. Doesn’t he know what a monumental moment this is? Even people like him should know better than to step in between two people only just discovering where their threads of fate have led them. It is one of the biggest occasions of a person’s life, and she… she’d given up all hope of ever having it.
So she sidesteps him and finds the woman again. She wants to see the recognition, wants to see the smile and hear the gasp and feel the warmth of her when they come together. She wants to slide her fingers into the honey and silk of her hair so that she can know for certain she is real and there and what she’s been waiting for.
But the woman is only looking back at Lena with a polite, if slightly baffled, smile.
Lena’s frown deepens and she draws herself in with her confusion. Her eyes drop down to double-check and sure enough, the thread looped around her finger stretches only a short distance, its end circling the matching finger of the woman across from her. She looks back up, switching her attention from her soulmate to the familiar face of Clark Kent.
“Mr. Kent,” she greets at last, a bit coolly, hand reaching out for his again. “My apologies. I didn’t recognize you for a moment there.” Her expression gives away nothing now, but inside Lena is churning. Is she pretending she can’t see the thread? But no, no one can ignore…
God, what if Lena’s thread leads to her, but the thread this woman can see leads her to someone else? Maybe Lena’s intended soulmate had died and so fate had redirected her. But somewhere the universe had gotten itself mixed up and now she is attached to someone fated for someone else. Is it possible?
“I’m afraid I’m a little behind today so I must head upstairs, but please, feel free to follow.” She starts to walk because she can’t just stand there anymore. She already feels foolish, she already wants to lock herself away and pretend it never happened.
“Miss Luthor, you were supposed to be aboard The Venture yesterday, but you were a no-show,” Clark says as the pair of them follow to the elevator. And of course that’s why he’d be here, the high and mighty Clark Kent, “friend” of Superman himself. As if Lena didn’t know his secret after years of witnessing his friendship with Lex. As if Lena hadn’t put together ages ago what the real connection was. As if she is stupid enough to believe a reporter from the Daily Planet would travel all the way from Metropolis to National City for a story on the less notorious Luthor without an outside motive.
She only hums in agreement as they rise up and up and up towards the top of the building, eyes trained on the doors of the elevator.
(She can feel the woman just behind her, can feel the heat radiating from where she stands. Every nerve ending in her body seems suddenly attuned to her and it’s unnerving, to say the least, though Lena gives nothing away.)
“Why didn’t you go? You must have heard what happened,” Clark asks and Lena smirks, turning her head to meet his gaze.
“Is that an accusation, Mr. Kent?” she asks as the doors slide open. She steps briskly into the hall beyond, carefully avoiding the sight of the woman she has yet to acknowledge since realizing she can’t (or doesn’t want to) see the thread between them. The pair of them walk behind her, matching her pace, and Lena feels like she’s going to crawl out of her skin. Everything is buzzing, the thread around her finger feels like it’s tightening and tugging, and she can’t do anything about it.
“It’s just a question,” he replies as they round the corner towards her office. Jess starts to stand, but Lena waves her down again, offering a somewhat shaky smile as they pass.
“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I wasn’t aboard The Venture yesterday,” she tells them as they walk into her office. She explains to them as she hangs her things, taking a moment with her back to them to collect herself. She can feel both of their eyes on her back, one pair accusing and the other… God, she doesn’t know how this woman sees her and she’s almost afraid to look. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to stand it if she turns and sees her looking at her the way Clark Kent looks at her.
“Lucky,” Clark says and Lena scoffs before turning with a smile.
“Lucky is Superman saving the day,” she says with a pointed look at him. He replies with his own barely veiled contempt for the Luthor name and Lena… she can’t really blame him. For all the mistakes Clark made with Lex, it was Lex who became what he did. It was Lex who attacked him. It was Lex who killed all of those people. Lena breathes and tries to reply a bit more kindly.
But to her surprise, it is the woman who speaks next.
Her words don’t register, only the sound of her voice. The blood is rushing in Lena’s ears as her attention turns to her. Everything in her is hyper-focused on her now, everything is vibrating, the insistent tug of the thread grows more difficult to ignore. Lena is frozen and staring and she can’t move or focus or breathe and suddenly her throat is so, so dry.
“And who are you exactly?” she asks, moving past them towards the water pitcher Jess would have refilled fresh before she came in. She forces a smile, forces humor into the question, but nothing she’s ever asked has ever felt this vital. She wants – no, needs – to know her. Everything about her. This is her soulmate, the person fate has given her. Even if… even if that need is not mutual, Lena needs to know.
“Um. Uh. Kara Danvers,” she says. She goes on to explain her presence, but Lena can hardly focus on all of that. She wants only to reflect on this new information. Kara Danvers. Her name is burned into her now, her heart beats out its syllables, and she can’t do this anymore. She needs to do research, she needs to figure out what’s happening. And to do any of that, she needs these two to leave her goddamned office before she breaks.
So she rushes them through the whole thing, explains that she doesn’t want to be defined by her family name anymore.
(“You understand that?” she asks Clark, but it is Kara who answers.
“Yeah.”
Lena’s eyes flicker briefly to her and she aches, she needs to hold her, but she can only push it away.)
She gives them the data files on the oscillator and watches them leave again, her eyes on Kara the entire way. Clark goes through the doors without a backwards glance, but Kara pauses just inside of them and looks back at Lena. Their eyes connect, hold, and Lena sucks in a sharp breath. A beat, then two, and she nearly asks Kara to stay.
But then Clark calls for her and Kara shouts, “Coming!” and with a last smile and a small wave, she’s gone.
Lena closes her eyes so that she doesn’t have to see her string grow long again.
//
She has Jess cancel everything for the rest of the day and dives into research because she’s Lena Luthor and that’s what she does.
It should be easier to find things now than when she was sixteen. There is so much more information out there and it’s readily available at any given moment, right there with just a few taps of her fingers. She reads so many articles that her eyes burn and she has to switch from her contacts to her glasses after a while. She researches for so long that it gets dark, but she doesn’t even notice until Jess steps in to check on her and flicks on her overhead lights.
But no matter how many articles she reads, there is no substantiated evidence of people’s soulmates changing, even after one dies. There are dating sites for people like that, people who’ve lost their soulmates, people whose strings extend past the sky and never come down again. “For people who will never find The One, but can still find someone,” is the slogan, but there’s no mention of strings changing.
Likewise, she finds nothing about the threads leading to a person who’s tied to someone else. It just isn’t something that happens. How suitable, Lena thinks, that the universe should mess up only once, and that the person it messes up with is Lena. It feels suiting.
She tries one last search, this time for people who can’t see their own red string, and it’s kind of done with the desperate hope that maybe there’s some quirk and Kara really is fated for her but doesn’t know it. Doesn’t see it. Most of the articles she finds are hokey, but there’s one that catches her eye.
She can see the words in an interview with Superman and she clicks because she wants to know what Clark has said on the subject, what he thinks, why it’s relevant to her search. She shouldn’t care, but she does. After all, she met Kara because of Clark. Maybe, just maybe…
But the article is only about how Kryptonians cannot see their fate threads. They exist, he says, because all mated species are connected by these threads. But unlike humans, Kryptonians have not developed the ability to see them and must go only on feeling. Lena scowls at the words because it’s all utterly useless to her.
Until suddenly is isn’t.
Because Clark isn’t the only Kryptonian on Earth, Lena realizes. He isn’t the only one left. There’s another, and she’s right here in National City. There’s another and her hair is that same soft honey blonde, her eyes are that same clear blue. There’s another and no, Lena thinks. No, there’s no way fate has connected a Luthor to an alien, to a Super.
But she thinks of Clark, how his disguise is a terrible sweater and a pair of thick glasses. She thinks of Kara…
She nearly questions if a human and an alien can even be connected, but then she remembers the beautiful and sharp Lois Lane and her love affair with one Clark Kent and she knows.
Lena Luthor’s soulmate is Supergirl.
//
She lets it slide for some time because she’s still trying to process.
Even when Supergirl rips open the helicopter after saving her life and she sees it right in front of her – the way her thread ends at the hand pressed to the helicopter door – she keeps it locked away. She thanks her and walks back inside on shaky legs, (god, she hates flying) and tries not to think about it.
Kara interviews her and she ignores it, though it feels heavier where it dangles between them.
And then Kara comes by later that week and they discuss the article and the thread is literally pulsing and she can’t take it.
“Kara,” she says, almost hesitantly now, and Kara looks up from the way she’s been shyly looking at the floor to meet her eyes again. A lingering smile tilts her lips and Lena can’t help but return it even as her heart rate starts to pick up. Kara’s head tilts and she looks almost baffled and it occurs to Lena she must be able to hear it. The way her heart always beats so quickly around her. The other times she would have been able to excuse it (when she’d been questioned about The Venture exploding, when she’d almost died in the helicopter, when they’d argued about her alien detection device), but there was no reason for it now. Not during this quiet peaceful conversation.
No reason, of course, but the actual reason.
“What’s wrong?” Kara asks when the silence stretches and Lena shakes her head, quickly sliding close enough to cover one of her hands with her own.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. I was just wondering… Can I ask you something personal?”
“Oh.” Kara seems surprised, maybe a bit hesitant as well, but she nods. “Sure. Shoot.”
“It’s about… well. About your fate line.” And she sees it only because she’s searching for it, the flash of surprise, the automatic worry. And then it’s gone and she’s smiling somewhat awkwardly, an uncertain laugh escaping.
“Wow, that is… really personal.”
“I know.” Lena bites her lip and pulls her hand away. She doesn’t know how to ask, what to ask. It’s so difficult to broach the subject, especially with Kara watching her so steadily. Her heart is slamming in her chest now, thudding so hard against her ribs that she can feel it. “You see, Kara, I… I recently discovered where my thread ends, who it ends with, and I was wondering… Have you found your soulmate?” Green eyes lift, staring hard at Kara. “Can you tell me what it’s like?”
“Oh,” Kara says again, her eyes going wide behind her glasses. “No, I haven’t, to be honest. I don’t think...” She’s struggling and Lena almost feels bad. It must be hard, trying to cover up the fact she hasn’t been able to see it her entire life. “To be honest, Lena, I think I must have lost my connection when I was still young.”
It makes sense. Kara’s entire home planet is gone and of course, of course she must have thought her entire life that her soulmate was on Krypton when it went. Lena aches for her and this time when the urge comes, she doesn’t hesitate to move forward and slide her arms around Kara’s waist, hugging her close.
“You can’t see your thread, can you?” she murmurs, and Kara jerks in her hold, pulling back with another nervous laugh as she fiddles with her glasses.
“What? No, of course I can- what even made you- pfft.”
“Kara.” Lena smiles and finally it feels genuine, like a pressure has lifted from her chest, like for the first time in her entire life, her lungs can fill and expand to their full potential. “You can’t see it because Kryptonians can’t see their threads.” Kara goes still, but Lena only shakes her head and takes Kara’s left hand, pressing her own against it so they’re palm to palm with the string only she can see trapped between them.
“But I can,” she whispers. “I can see it, Kara. Both ends of it, right here.” Tears sting her eyes and she looks from their hands to the wide, wondrous blue eyes staring back at her.
“Your thread ends with me,” she whispers shakily. “And mine...”
“Ends with me,” Lena finishes.
Kara exhales and murmurs something Lena doesn’t understand. In Kryptonian, she realizes a moment later. She’d spoken in her native language, right there in front of her. It amazed her, that trust, that intimacy.
“What does it mean?” she asks after a moment.
Kara smiles and brings their joined hands to her cheek, pressing the back of Lena’s there as she closes her eyes and the first tear falls. “It means like… Um… It’s hard to translate. Something like ‘our circle meets.’” Those eyes open again, wet and wide. “when I met you the first time, I felt something. I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t understand that… I never thought that...”
Lena leans in and knocks their foreheads gently together, smiling as Kara does. “You’re here now. Stay, Kara. Please.”
And she does.
//
When the time comes, they marry beneath an arbor of plumerias. Their rings are plain bands of silver, each engraved with the words our circle meets.
Above them the universe stretches endlessly, clear and dark and sparkling, as if it knows they had to travel through it to find one another.