shasta-reese

[shasta-reese]

AND THATS JUST PART 1 Part 2

[shasta-reese]

Alex and Kara looked at each other. Kara stood before her desk in full Supergirl regalia, cape feeling heavy on her back.

“There has to be an explanation for this,” said Alex.

Kara couldn’t accept that. If Lena had gone no-contact for a time, that would be reasonable. She’d sometimes hole up in her lab for days at a time, barely sleeping or eating, consumed by an idea- but she would warn Kara first. She definitely wouldn’t no-show a brunch da… a brunch friend meetup between friends at their favorite patisserie and then go totally off radar for three days.

“She didn’t show up to our brunch,” Kara said. “We have to find her. I need to know she’s okay, Alex.”

Her sister sat back in her chair and looked back at her over her desk.

“Have you looked? You can cover more ground and do it faster than we ever could.”

“Of course I’ve *looked*,” said Kara. “That’s why I’m so worried. I flew past her apartment and things weren’t right. There was a mug of tea left out on the counter. The place was messy. Lena doesn’t do messy.”

“But no signs of a struggle,” said Alex.

“I called Jess and she said Lena left her a message saying she needed a few days away and she’d be back by Friday.”

“So,” said Alex, “sounds like you should wait until Friday.”

“She missed our date, Alex.”

There was a heavy, uncomfortable pause. Alex went very still, examining Kara with calculating eyes. She picked up a pen and toyed with it in both hands, frowning.

“Maybe she just needs space?”

“Why would she need space. I’m her best friend. We were having Sunday brunch. We have Sunday brunch every Sunday.”

Alex rocked slightly in her desk chair.

“Okay. I’ll order Brainy to start a search and we’ll see if we can pin her down, but Kara… she’s your friend. Sometimes friends need space. Something may have come up.”

Kara crossed her arms. “Then why wouldn’t she tell me? She wouldn’t just ghost me, Alex. I’m telling you she wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Alex began, “alright, like I said, we’ll start a search.”

She said something else, but Alex’s voice was drowned out by another.

Lex.

“Hello, Kara. Don’t move, don’t react. I’ve hacked the DEO systems and I’m broadcasting on a frequency your charming sister can’t hear, only you. You’re going to follow my instructions. Say okay, or there will be consequences.”

“Okay, Alex,” said Kara, “I’ll go home and try to relax.”

Kara had to use every ounce of her Kryptonian control over her muscles and breathing to appear calm.

“I’ll let you know if we wind anything.”

Kara nodded and turned to leave.

“Go to your locker, and change. You’ll find one of my agents has left a note with an address. Go there, and do not change back into that cheerful little costume of yours. This one is for Kara Danvers.

Thinking along the way, Kara walked silently to the locker room. Once she was inside, and free of cameras, she hurriedly texted Alex, urging her not to react or do anything obvious but that the system had been compromised and there was at least one Cadmus goon in the building.

Then, she changed. The note was in the pocket of her shirt.

Grinding her teeth, Kara left the DEO as a human did, on foot, and traversed National City as a human did, slowly. It didn’t take long for her to spot the drones; she was being watched.

The address wasn’t far, a small commercial building about ten blocks from the DEO, a nondescript brick block with roll-up garage doors not unlike a dozen others on the same street. Kara walked around to the side of the building where a glass door buzzed and unlocked.

Kara opened it and stepped inside. Immediately inside the entrance was just an empty vestibule with an occupied receptionists’s counter and an old chair. A sticky note hung on the wall with an arrow.

Following it, Kara found a solid door that was lined on the inside with lead, as were the walls, of course. She turned the knob, super-hearing amplifying the turning of its oiled core, and stepped through.

On the other side was a large pod hooked up to a variety of tubes and cables. As she walked in, Kara passed a bank of monitors lining the wall with the door. A Bluetooth speaker sat on a folding table. Lex’s voice carried from it.

“Hello, Kara.”

“What is this?”

“I know you’ve been frantically looking for my sister. She’s been here the entire time. Look- but don’t touch. You won’t like the consequences.”

As he spoke, the outer shell of the pod rotated open, revealing a tank of amber liquid. Lena floated inside, an oxygen mask on her face and sensors stuck to her body. She was dressed in a black bodysuit, and looked changed somehow. Kara wasn’t sure how, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Sleeping beauty herself.”

“What have you done to her?”

“Well,” said Lex, “it’s quite a long story and you’re a bit too dull to grasp the complexity so I’ll sum up: a little bit of Harun-El here, a bit of your DNA that my mother stole there, and a tiny sprinkle of a special bespoke Kryptonite with a very short half life… the short answer is that I’ve given my sister superpowers.”

Kara blinked.

“You… what? Why?”

Lex laughed, tinny and distant. “It’s simple really. It’s all about the final, secret ingredient, another type of Kryptonite radiation courtesy of my… what’s the word I’m looking for… my inferior imitator, Max Lord. You may remember it.”

“Lex,” Kara said. “What did you do?”

“Let me show you.”

The pod’s inner transparent walls opened and dumped Lena on the floor. She landed on her knees, gasping as she yanked the mask away from her mouth and stood up.

“Kara?” she said. “Where are we? How did we get here? I was about to leave for… I feel strange.”

Lena looked at her with wide wild eyes and Kara edged closer, her heart pounding harder with every step. Her dark hair was slicked back over her neck from the fluid in the tank and she looked pale, but her cheeks were just a touch fuller.

Then it hit Kara, why Lena had looked different. She looked to have put on fifteen pounds at least of muscle, adding a blocky quality to her shoulders, thickening her legs and biceps. She didn’t seem to notice.

“Lena dear,” said the tinny speaker, “sister mine. I must tell you something.”

Lena winced. “Why is he so loud? Wait, Lex? What is this? What did you do?”

Kara froze, a cold ball forming in her stomach. Oh great Rao.

She could see it. A faint hint of a red sparkle in the whites of Lena’s eyes.

Courtesy of Max Lord.

“Lena,” said Kara. “Listen, okay? Try to stay calm. I’ll get you som help.”

“No, listen to me,” Lex said. “I have a little secret to tell you.”

Lena’s gaze snapped around to the speaker. Behind Kara, the monitors turned on, and Lena’s eyes went wide. Kara paused for a moment and then turned, dread coiling like a serpent in her guts.

One monitor showed her catching a bullet. Another, yanking open her shirt to reveal the crest. Another… another… another. There was even one with a feed of her changing out of her suit in the DEO locker room.

“Kara Danvers,” Lex intoned, “is Supergirl. She lied to you. She’s been lying to you. She’s always lied to you. It’s just as I said- the alien has been using you since the start.”

“Lena,” said Kara. “He’s lying.”

Lena looked at her sharply, eyes narrowing. “About you being Supergirl?”

“No, I am,” Kara admitted, “but I would never use you. I have my reasons why I didn’t tell you and I promise I’ll tell you everything, but first you need help. Lex has poisoned you. You will get very sick if we don’t take you back to the DEO.”

“So she can take your powers!” Lex said. “The powers I gave you. I didn’t poison you, I made you a god. We’re going be gods together, Lena. Once we rid the world of these alien freaks we’ll show the world a better tomorrow.”

“Lex,” said Lena, “shut the fuck up.”

“She lied, she lied!” the speaker cackled.

Lena looked at it. “Where are you?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as you’ve dealt with the Kryptonian.”

Lena smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Only a baring of teeth.

“I see. I need a moment in private with Kara.”

Lena glanced at the speaker and it exploded in a shower of sparks and melted plastic, leaving scorch marks on the table.

Oh Rao. It took Kara years to use her heat vision. Lena had tapped into it in what, a minute?

“Lena,” Kara said, as softly as she dared. “I need you to listen to me.”

“No, you’re going to listen.”

Lena blurred. The impact shook Kara to the bones, rattled her teeth in the sockets. Before she knew what happened, she was against the wall, wrists held firmly in Lena’s hands, pinned above her head. Lena leaned in close, languidly pressing her entire body against Kara’s.

“Do you remember,” Lena husked, “that day in my office when you were being a little brat about doing your job and I called you to the carpet for it?”

Kara blinked.

“Yes,” she said, quietly. “I don’t think brat is the word I’d chose.”

“I would,” Lena said, her voice low and sultry, as she looked at Kara through her lashes. “That’s exactly what you were until I put you in your place, and then you were ready to be a good girl for me.”

Kara’s brain short circuited. It took her a half minute to stammer a few nonsense syllables as a jolt shot up her spine from low in her hips to the crown of her head, like she’d been plunged into frigid water.

Kara stared back at her, feeling a strange squirming pressure that she quickly realized was Lena pushing her thighs apart with one of her own, pressing her knee between them to drive her thigh muscle into Kara, against the apex of her legs.

“Interesting,” Lena whispered, her blow eyes scanning Kara’s features. “The flush is obvious… but the heat bloom on your skin and the pupil dilation.”

Kara gasped.

“See,” Lena whispered into Kara’s lips. “Good girl.”

Kara honest to God whimpered.

“My brother. Silly boy, probably thought I was going to go into a rage and kill you because you lied to me for so long.”

Kara nodded. “Yeah that was probably his plan.”

“He’s such a silly goose,” said Lena. “I’m sure he’ll be surprised when I rip his head off his neck.”

“Lena!”

“Oh come on, you know you want to. You must have thought about it. It would be so easy to just… finish it.”

“I have,” Kara admitted, “but it wouldn’t be right. I can’t just murder a man in cold blood.”

Lena’s body undulated against her.

“Please stop.”

“Why?”

“He exposed you to Red Kryptonite. You’re not thinking straight. I’d be taking advantage of you.”

“It seems I’m the one who’s pinned you, miss Danvers. I don’t think you’re taking advantage.”

“Lena,” Kara said, “I want to talk, okay? I want to talk about all of this and… and take things slow. Your brother is probably watching this.”

“Let him,” said Lena. “I’ll be the icing on the cake. You know all this sturm and drang of his is just Lex throwing a tantrum because Clark wouldn’t fuck him.”

“Lena!”

“I’ve seen the way you look at me, Kara. The way you look at my tits. We both know you want this.”

“Okay maybe I was looking,” Kara admitted, breathing harder. “You’re v-very… very pretty and I’ve been feeling things for you for a long time and… and Lena please I don’t want to do this like this.”

Lena drew back.

“You’re terrified.”

Kara nodded, biting her lip. Slowly, Lena released her grip on Kara’s wrists and stepped back.

“Please come with me to the DEO. It hasn’t been long but the longer you go without treatment the worse you’ll get. Pretty soon it won’t matter if I say no.”

Lena recoiled, horrified. “I would… I would never.”

“When I was poisoned like this, I threw Cat Grant off a building.”

“Apparently, it didn’t work. I’m sure she had it coming.”

“I almost killed Alex.”

Lena frowned. “Oh.”

Kara extended a hand. “Come with me, okay?”

Lena hesitated, then closed a firm grip around Kara’s outstretched palm and let Kara lead her back to the door. Kara took a sharp breath and guided Lena outside.

As soon as they hit the open air, Lena clapped her hands over her ears and screamed.

“Kara! Kara, what’s happening, what is this?”

“It’s your super-senses. Just try to focus on one sound. Here.”

Kara pulled her into an embrace, guiding her ear to Kara’s chest as Eliza once did for her. Gritting her teeth, Lena locked her arms around Kara and breathed hard, squeezing Kara’s ribs.

“Come on, I’ve got you.”

Finally, Alex showed up with five vans full of DEO agents. Kara focused on guiding Lena into the back of one of the vans.

“Was he here?” said Alex.

“Clear the building and all that but get us back to the DEO now,” Kara demanded. “Tell Brainy to get the Red K protocol ready.”

“What? Oh God, Kara, have you been exposed?”

“No, Lena has.”

Alex blinked.

“Wait, what?”

“Just get us back!”

Alex turned and made a motion at the driver and the van backed into a j-turn. Lena was still clinging to her.

“Kara, it’s too much, it hurts.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’ll get you some noise canceling headphones when we get back. Just listen to my heart, okay?”

Lena nodded against her chest.

When they finally arrived, Kara gently picked Lena up and carried her inside and directly to the med bay, laying her on a the sunbed, while Brainy helped Alex set up the Red Kryptonite scrubber protocol.

Lena relaxed into the bed as Kara placed the headphones on her.

“Kara,” said Alex. “A word.”

Kara followed her outside, then immediately dumped everything on her.

Alex blinked a few times.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” said Kara.

“You didn’t have to be that detailed, Kara. I could have gone without you describing Lena doing the knee thing to my little sister.”

“The what?”

Alex rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, okay. She’s going to be okay. Except she has superpowers now. She still needs a complete physical, just to make sure he didn’t do anything else, no surprises.”

“Right.”

“I can’t believe that was his whole plan. Make Lena a super and expose her to Red Kryptonite?”

“If he could give her powers, he could give himself powers, or someone else. This is serious, Alex.”

“I know, but seriously, what did he think was going to happen? She’d lose her mind and attack you?”

“I think that was the idea, yes.”

“Okay. Okay. Okay. This is a lot. One step at a time. We’ll need to find him. Let your girl sleep off the treatments and we’ll talk to her, see what she knows that might help us.”

“My girl?” said Kara.

Alex rolled her eyes.

Kara was on the balcony when Lena joined her, having changed into a borrowed set of DEO fatigues. She nervously walked out into the night air and leaned next to Kara.

“Have you adjusted to the noise?”

“Yes, but I…” she trailed off.

Lena stood up and her gaze fell upwards. She stared at the sky, dumbfounded.

“There’s… there’s an aurora. There’s an aurora and… colors. My God, is this how you see it?”

“Yeah,” Kara said softly, too busy staring at Lena.

Finally, Lena looked at her.

“About earlier. I’m sorry. I pushed boundaries and… thinking about it scared me. I would never hurt you, Kara.”

“I know,” said Kara. “I know that, but I also know what it’s like to be exposed to that stuff, to have all your worst thoughts come to the surface. To not feel control of yourself. I forgive you.”

Lena nodded, wringing her hands.

“About what I said, though.”

“About what you said.”

Kara turned and lunged, pulling Lena to her, lifting her slightly off her feet. Lena’s eyes went wide.

“Is this okay?”

Lena blinked a few times and nodded.

Kara kissed her.

She kissed her freely, without worrying about injuring her. She held her the same way, pressing firmly. Lena’s hands curled around her arms with stunning strength and Kara felt her belly do a backflip as Lena actually pushed her back a step and into the balcony railing.

Kara didn’t have to worry about hurting her. She didn’t have to hold back. Lena apparently had never even considered holding back, because she was apparently going for the Knee Thing again. Kara thought she heard the sound of something cracking, but that made no sense.

“Kara!” Alex barked.

Kara broke from the kiss, looking over Lena’s shoulder to find Alex glaring at her.

“Kara,” said Alex, “I’m glad you two dipshits finally realized that you’re dating, but please do not destroy the building.”

Kara furrowed her brows, then looked down to realize that her butt had cratered the retraining wall behind her.

“Oh,” said Kara. “Right.”

“We need to talk about next steps. Lena, I need to know what you know about-“

“Lex is, or was, at an old LuthorCorp satellite lab in Central City. I recognized the background sounds while he was talking.”

“Oh. Okay. We should-“

“Later,” said Lena.

Alex put her fists on her hips. “I don’t work for you, Luthor.”

“True, but your sister does,” said Lena. “Don’t you, darling?”

“Um, yes,” Kara said softly.

“I hate my life,” Alex muttered, as she stormed back inside.

Lena turned her full attention back to Kara, tilting her chin down to look at her through her eyelashes and smirk.

“Now, let’s pick up where we left off.”

[shasta-reese]

Directors vs Katie McGrath

“Katie, stop trying to make supercorp happen. It’s not going to happen!”

[shasta-reese]

Tradition

Something had changed.

Lena could sense it, in the kisses and the small touches, in the way Kara would watch her in the mornings as Lena slowly woke. Her girlfriend had grown more pensive, looking at Lena with curious eyes - a touch of stress on her brow.

“Are you alright?” Lena murmured one morning, as Kara brushed a stray lock of hair behind Lena’s ear.

“Yeah,” Kara said, pressing her lips briefly against Lena’s, “Just thinking.”

---

Lena tried to let it go.

There was no real worry inside her. It did bother her, an itch somewhere in her mind, that Kara was holding something back. But this wasn’t like before - there was no fear or loneliness or distrust. She knew she loved Kara; she knew Kara loved her. That was all that mattered.

But she was certainly curious.

Luckily, there was always work to do to distract herself. Running the Foundation, tweaking experiments in the Tower, being a voice in Kara’s ear when the hero went out to fight. Plenty to keep herself busy in the day, before she and Kara went home at night. She could be patient.

It only took a few weeks for Kara to say something, on the couch one evening. “I promised you I would be open with you,” Kara said.

Lena glanced up, reaching her arm across to give Kara’s hand a light squeeze. “I promised that too.”

“What if I’m not supposed to be?”

Lena frowned curiously. “Kara, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing bad,” Kara emphasized, “I just- I don’t understand Earth romance. We didn’t have that on Krypton. Parts of it are still a little alien to me.”

“Okay,” Lena mulled, trying to understand, “We can- we can talk about it? We can slow down-”

“I don’t want to slow down,” Kara said emphatically.

“What do you mean?”

Kara eyed Lena for a moment, then glanced down to her lap, shifting shyly. “If you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, shouldn’t you talk about it first?” Kara asked, “Shouldn’t they decide that together? How do you make it… a surprise?”

Oh, Lena thought, her heart fluttering lighter as she realized the source of Kara’s concern, she wants to propose.

It brought a smile to Lena. She wants to propose…

Lena leaned forward, brushing her lips to Kara’s, trying to soothe the blonde’s confusion. “We’ve talked about our lives together,” she murmured against Kara’s lips, “What we want to do, how we want to live, what it will be like to grow old. Those are the things that are important to me.”

She could feel the tension in Kara’s body dissipate, as Kara wrapped her arms around Lena, kissing her back. Lena felt herself melt into Kara’s embrace as the ardor grew, leaving thoughts of the future for some other time.

---

“Could I fly you somewhere?” Kara asked one Saturday night.

Lena looked up from the couch, where she had settled in to read a book after dinner that evening. She took in Kara’s expression, watching as the blonde fidgeted shyly. Oh, Lena thought, trying not to smile, “Sure.”

Still in her pajamas - not that she minded - Lena and Kara went out to the balcony. “I’d like to blindfold you first,” Kara said shyly, and Lena nodded. The scrap of cloth went around her eyes, and she felt as Kara’s hands directed her closer, before Kara scooped her up into her arms.

She wondered how far Kara would take her, but she didn’t ask. The cool breeze of the night was a welcome relief from the warm day, and they quickly found themselves descending.

Still blindfolded, Lena felt as Kara gently set her on the ground. Blankets?, Lena thought, now sitting somewhere outside, feeling the warm and fuzzy bedding against the palms of her hands, when did she set this up…

The blindfold lifted from her face.

Lena looked around. She was indeed in a nest of blankets, giving her cozy warmth on that cool night. Her eyes drifted to the Irish pastries and wine near her feet, two glasses sitting neatly next to one another.

She glanced up, gasping softly at what lay ahead - a lake, blanketed in night, with an array of trees and stars behind it. The reservoir, she realized, recognizing their picnic spot as one she and Kara had been to a dozen times before. A place that had grown fond to them, despite their terrifying first night there.

“When I came to Earth,” Kara said nervously, kneeling next to Lena, “Everything was new, and strange. People talked about all sorts of beliefs, different types of magic. There were so many cultural practices, so many languages. It felt like I landed on hundreds of planets at once.”

Lena placed a gentle hand on Kara’s arm.

“I didn’t understand romantic love,” Kara continued, eyes glancing up to meet Lena’s, “But I started to feel it, fragments of that spark, figuring out what it meant. And then I found you, Lena. And I realized something important - that Krypton had hidden more than one type of magic.”

Lena smiled, already feeling the sting of tears in the corner of her eyes, emotion bubbling up in her chest.

“This was the place I realized it,” Kara said, looking out to the reservoir. “I was holding you above this lake, and I realized I could never let go.”

Kara hesitated, turning back towards Lena as a hand drifted to a pocket, and Kara pulled out a small black box to present to her girlfriend. “Lena Luthor,” Kara said, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Lena said, realizing her voice was thick with unshed tears, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Kara’s lips, “Yes, yes, yes,” she said over and over again, as Kara kissed her back, as the two pulled each other close.

When they finally broke apart, Lena laughed, as Kara struggled enthusiastically to get the ring box open, before finally sliding the ring on Lena’s finger.

Kara leaned forward again, brushing her lips one last time on Lena’s. “I hope I did that right,” she murmured.

“Darling, this was perfect,” Lena whispered back.

[shasta-reese]

There was someone in her penthouse.

Lena paused at the door, listening. The short hairs on the back of her neck stood up, a tingling sensation running down her spine. She wasn’t sure what tipped her off, but after the fifth kidnapping and three or four attempted murders in her own spaces -office, lab, here- she always listened to those instincts. Kara never complained if it was a false alarm when Lena activated her signal watch.

Her thumb hovered over the button. She took another step inside and the door latched behind her. She was about to press when Kara said,

“Please don’t press that.”

Something was off. Her voice was raspy, as though she had a sore throat, and oddly distorted. It was as if she spoke through a damaged speaker. Lena edged from the foyer into the kitchen, her heart still pounding.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Kara was standing in the living room in her super suit, or so Lena thought. Her cape was there, but the silhouette was different. Lena reached for the light switch and again Kara spoke.

“Don’t. Please.”

“Kara?”

“I’m not your Kara. I’m just… passing through.”

“Passing through my penthouse?”

Lena ran her thumb around the button, ready to press.

“Are you together in this world?”

Lena froze. The figure in her living room, Kara-but-not, was holding the framed photo of Lena with Kara smiling together, the one she’d once shattered. Kara had bought her a new frame for it when they were healing, still working out who they were going to be together, if their friendship could survive with a foundation that had so profoundly crumbled.

The glint caught Lena’s eye. One of Kara’s hands. At first she thought it was a medal glove but that wasn’t right. The shape was wrong, the fingers too thin, skeletal and claw-like. As her eyes adjusted, Lena could pick out more details.

Good God. The whole side of her face was missing, rebuilt into something inhuman and skeletal. A faint emerald glow from her chest and eye cast a pallid light across the living room.

“She’s my best friend,” said Lena.

“Best friend,” the creature whispered, her voice even harsher and more distorted.

“What do you want?”

“I told you, I’m passing through. I won’t be here long. But… can I look at you?”

“Look at me? I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Just let me look at you and I’ll go. Promise me you won’t scream or call me a monster.”

Lena swallowed hard.

“Should I turn on the light?”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

“Alright, then.”

The figure slowly replaced the photograph and turned, moving towards Lena. She limped, just a little, left foot dragging. Lena gasped.

It was Kara, but not. She had been… mutilated was the only word Lena could find for it. Half her face, her right arm, her leg, and worst of all, a gaping hole in her chest that contained a chunk of vile green Kryptonite burning inside. Her skin was deathly pallid, almost blue, raked through with sickly green streaks surrounded by faint bruises, as if her blood itself was poisoning her.

“My God,” Lena breathed.

“You’re so beautiful,” Kara said, her remaining eye so full of sadness and regret that Lena felt tears welling in her own.

When Kara wept in return, she wept verdant blood. She drew closer, and Lena stood stock still as Kara pressed a corpse-cold palm to her cheek.

“It’s been so long since I heard your heartbeat,” she said. “Thank you.”

“W-what happened to you?”

“Your brother, what else? He impaled me with a Kryptonite harpoon. You saved me. It’s almost funny. The Metallo Protocol kept me alive. If you can call this living.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lena whispered. “Can I help you? Is there something I could do?”

Kara shook her head, mechanical joints in her neck grinding. “There’s no cure for death, zhao.”

Lena blinked. Zhao? Was that Kryptonian? She wasn’t sure what it meant.

The cold palm fell away from her cheek.

“There must be some way I can help,” said Lena.

“In my world I killed your brother,” said Kara.

“In this world, I did. For her.”

“She loves you.”

Lena flinched. It felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her and her legs went weak. She had to steady herself on the kitchen island.

“What?”

“Kara. She loves you.”

“How… why do you say that?”

“I have visited thousands of worlds. Thousands of timelines. There are many where you don’t even exist, where I don’t. But in all the ones I’ve found with the both of us, there is one constant: Kara Zor-El loves Lena Luthor. It’s inevitable, it’s like gravity. There is something in all of me that must love you.”

“You’re traveling across dimensions?”

She nodded, closing her one eye. “I’m searching. Before I killed Lex, he used his masterstroke against me. He couldn’t kill me, so he hit me where he could do the most damage. He sent Lena to the Phantom Zone before I ripped his heart out of his chest. Then something happened… the yellow aliens told me there was a crisis, a multiversal collapse that split the phantom zone into infinite shards.”

“Yes, the Crisis, but there should be only one Earth now. Your world should have been merged with ours.”

Kara sighed, a broken, pained rasp. “What happens when you subtract infinity from infinity?”

Lena frowned. “I see.”

“I know she’s out there. I can feel her. I thought your world might be the one, but there’s another me here, and the wrong you.”

“I hope you find her.”

“Thank you. May I ask you something?”

“Go ahead” said Lena.

“Do you love her?”

Lena didn’t need to ask who she meant. She felt a lump form in her throat even as her chest fluttered. This cold broken wreckage of another Kara stared into her as if to parse the strands of her soul.

“Yes,” said Lena.

Kara edged closer. “Then tell her. Please. Don’t make her wait. She’s too scared to tell you. She’s like all of us- she’s so afraid of her own strength that she won’t hold anyone truly close for fear she’ll crush them. She’s afraid of losing you, or losing you again. She’s lost everything. Her world, her people, her culture, two mothers and two fathers- there is so much grief in her that it could freeze a newborn star but you, you are the light that shines in the darkness. You are her red sunrise.”

Lena said nothing, fighting the tremble in her lip.

“I must go. She’s out there and I have to keep trying to find her.”

She turned away and Lena caught her arm, gently tugging. She stopped.

“Wait?”

Kara turned back to her, and Lena darted in close and pressed a soft kiss to her cold lips.

“What?” Kara blurted.

“For luck. You’re going to find her.”

“I wish I had your faith.”

Lena now pressed a palm to Kara’s cheek.

“You will. You’re Supergirl. You can do anything.”

Kara smiled with half a face and pulled free, activating a device on her belt. A portal opened before her, filling the penthouse with blazing light. She stepped through and was gone.

Lena stumbled to the sofa and collapsed onto it, hugging herself as the tears flowed.

A few moments later, the familiar sound of stacked heels thudded on her balcony and the door slid open.

Kara, her Kara, swept into the penthouse, frantic.

“Lena, what happened? I saw that flash. I was out on patrol and… are you crying?”

Kara knelt beside her and brushed her hair back from her eyes with her soft warm hand and said, “Baby, are you okay?”

Lena looked at her, really looked at her, and was simply overwhelmed. There was so much depth in her blue eyes, so much kindness and compassion and love.

“I am now,” said Lena.

Kara blinked a few times. “I don’t understand. What happened?”

“I promise I’m tell you someday, but first I have to ask you something.”

“Ask,” said Kara. “Anything you want, you know that.”

Lena curled a finger around Kara’s chin and watched her eyes widen, first in confusion and then in nervous anticipation as Lena bent towards her and tilted her head just slightly to press their lips together.

At first Kara didn’t react and Lena thought she’d made a terrible mistake, but then something in Kara came around and she lunged onto the couch, pressing Lena down to the cushions.

“Lena,” Kara breathed. “What… how… do you… with me?”

Lena hugged her fiercely.

“Stay with me, Kara. That’s what I want. Stay with me.”

“Always.”

[shasta-reese]

[shasta-reese]

Clean version of a comic I drew in history class

[shasta-reese]

Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4

Kara felt Alex staring at her, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the screen. She distantly heard woman - no, Lena - talking excitedly to her, absolutely ecstatic at learning her name. She reminded Kara of little kid bubbling away about something new in their life.

But Kara wasn't able to feel happy for her. Because her new ghost friend wasn't just Lena. She was Lena Luthor.

"Kara, are you not happy for me?" Lena pouted which was adorable but didn't go with her image of business woman. Lena flickered a bit and reappeared beside Kara, looking progressively more worried.

Kara couldn't help but flinch.

"Kara?" Lena reached out her hand tentatively, and even if Kara knew she won't be able to touch her, she still moved out of reach.

"Sorry! Sorry, I need to talk with my sister a bit! We'll be back!" Kara stammered and swooped Alex to the next room, trying not to think about Lena's hurt eyes.

Alex almost fell off the chair where Kara settled her before starting passing before her with the speed where she left traces on the floor.

"Kara! Calm down!" Her sister huffed, when her eyes wasn't able to trace Supergirl anymore.

"How can I calm down?! I'm seeing the ghost of Lena Luthor of all people and she knows my secret! Why are you so calm?!" Kara hissed, glancing at the door.

"Oh, believe me, I'm freaking out too, but panicking won't help us. We need to think, not freak out!" She was already texting J'onn, who definitely will nag them about leaving them alone for the weekend.

"Text Winn too. We... we will need to confirm that she's a ghost and not some trap Lex laid out for us". It felt wrong to accuse Lena like that. But Kara wasn't going to risk her family and friends for the vague feeling of someone being the good person.

"Already. He says he's excited to become a ghost hunter but I'm sure he's shaking right now." Alex chuckled and it somehow calmed Kara a little.

"Okay, let's return. I will talk with her. Maybe we will learn something"

/ / / / / / / /

When they went back into the room, Lena was sitting in front of screen, reading her file again and again. But she was flickering constantly, coming in and out of her transparent form.

When sisters returned to her, Lena looked at them almost afraid, disappearing for almost three second, before returning in the corner of the room. She looked ashamed and didn't raise her head at all.

"I- I swear, I wasn't snooping around!" She started before Kara could open her mouth. "I was just reading what happened to me. I didn't touch anything else..."

She looked at the verge of tears despite her eyes being completely dry. And seeing cheerful woman, who just yesterday boldly called herself a ghost and then gave her a lecture on the fashion, behaving like that made Kara's protective instincts kick in.

"Lena, what happened? Of course, you can read your own file! It's okay!"

Lena just stayed silent before taking deep breath.

"I was someone bad, wasn't I?" She sounded small and unsure, glancing at the screen and never at Kara.

It would be helpful if kryptonians can use telepathy because Alex was looking at the questioningly but couldn't bring herself to repeat everything Lena said.

"Lena..."

"No, don't tell me actually. I think I'm better not knowing", Lena smiled weakly and her face slowly morphed into professional mask of indifference, which Kara was yet to see on her. But it somehow hurted. "What if I remember and become bad again?"

"Kara, what is she saying?" Alex whispered but it sounded loud in the almost empty room.

"I will get out of your hair then", Lena gave curt nod, her voice now steady and devoid of emotions. "You promised to help me learn my name and you did it. And I will took your secret to the grave", a humorless chuckle, "Thank you. I won't bother you anymore".

And then Lena vanished before Kara's very eyes.

[shasta-reese]

Lex: i’m trying to kill you

Kara: LENA

[shasta-reese]

2. Courage

(on ao3 here)

"Aunt Kara! I forgot, I have something to give you!" Esme is a blur as she races to her bedroom, curls streaming behind her. She returns with a piece of paper held in her hand. Kara pulls the girl into her lap as she sits on the floor and arranges the paper in her hands in front of them.

Kara has the absolute pleasure of watching Esme while her moms take a much-needed long weekend away together. ("I can't remember the last time I had sex with my wife," Alex had said when she asked Kara if she could stay with Esme for the weekend. "ALEX! I did not need to know that," Kara exclaimed, her head buried in her hands.) She had plenty of plans laid out for the weekend with her adorable niece, including Disney movie marathons in the blanket fort they had built. Currently, they're waiting for Aunt Lena to arrive from work before diving into Lilo and Stitch with lots of popcorn and chocolate.

"Wow, thanks Esme! Can you tell me about it?" Kara regards the drawing. In the middle of the page, in broad, thick crayon strokes, is obviously Kara, but she's not quite sure what's going on in the rest of the illustration.

Esme grabs Kara's hand with her smaller one. "The word of the week at school was 'courage.' I drew you for it!" Kara smiles and places a kiss on her niece's cheek.

"Aw, that's really sweet of you, bug!" Kara scans the illustration again, trying to piece together the scene, but she's still stumped. She sees herself in the center of the page, a stick figure with blonde hair in a green dress. To the left is a gray blob she's not really sure about, and to the right are three more stick people. "You didn't draw me in my supersuit, though."

"You don't have it yet, silly," Esme states as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You're not old enough to be a superhero yet." That's the excuse Alex had been giving to Esme for the past few months when she insisted she was ready to join the ranks of the family business. Apparently, according to Alex, the proper age to join the rest of the superhero family was 35. Kara wasn't even technically that old yet, but it would probably take Esme another couple of years to figure that out.

Kara takes another critical look at the illustration, realization dawning on her. Softly, she asks, "Esme, is that my pod?" Esme nods her head vigorously, curls bobbing.

"Yeah, the day you landed on Earth. And there's Grandma, Grandpa, and Mama!" Kara traces the three stick figures representing Eliza, Jeremiah, and Alex with her fingertips, feeling the waxy crayon strokes and swallowing the lump in her throat she hadn't realized had formed.

"What made you decide to draw this?" Kara manages to choke out. It had only been recently that Kara had shared her past with Esme, leaving certain parts out that were perhaps too heavy for a six-year-old. But Esme understood most of it, maybe better than most young children would.

"You left your home and came to Earth to take care of Kal. It was very brave of you," Esme says matter-of-factly, squirming to spin around in Kara's lap and wrap her arms around Kara's neck.

It always surprises Kara how insightful Esme could be, even though she hasn't been on Earth for that long and has known all of them for even less time. Perhaps it was just the way that Esme was, or perhaps it was because she was always observing every new thing, trying to soak in as much of her new life as possible.

Her heart contracts painfully with the implication of Esme's words. The pain of Kara losing her planet and everything she knew may have faded over time, but it still left scars. Scars, she knew, that Esme shared with her, at a much younger age than even Kara experienced.

Kara brings her hands up to Esme's back, giving her a quick squeeze before letting go. "Do you feel brave that you came to Earth, too?" Kara asks, looking into her niece's warm hazel eyes.

Esme sighs. "I guess. I don't remember much from before." Kara nods, rubbing Esme's back comfortingly.

"That's understandable, honey." Kara softly grabs Esme's chin and lifts it, so Esme is looking right at Kara. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here to listen, okay? I understand."

Esme gives her a small, shy half smile, but the moment is interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Aunt Lena!" Esme scrambles from Kara's lap under the blanket fort and runs to the door to let her other beloved aunt in.

Later that night, Esme is asleep on the floor in the blanket fort, cuddled in her favorite blanket with her Lovey clasped tightly in her arms. Meet the Robinsons plays softly in the background, the light from the TV flickering across the girl's face as her eyelids flutter.

Kara is deep in thought, watching her niece take slow, steady breaths in and out. Sometimes, even Kara forgets the trauma the young girl must have gone through in her short life. Leaving her home, losing her family, getting put in a system that wasn't designed to help human children let alone alien ones. Esme wears it well — always enthusiastic and bright and precocious.

But Kara knows better, should know better. She does the same thing: putting up an exterior of cheer and warmth to hide the shadowy depths beneath. Just like Kara, Esme had found a wonderful family, and she knows that Esme knows how much she is loved. For Kara, that still doesn't change the pain of all that she experienced before, and it was likely the same for Esme. Kara knows that Esme has her moms to talk to, but she's also glad that if Esme did have to go through everything she had gone through, that Kara could be there for her, could understand in a way that Alex and Kelly might not be able to.

Kara feels a hand grab hers. "Hey," Lena whispers. "You seem lost in thought."

Kara tears her eyes away from Esme's sleeping form and looks at Lena. Her brows are furrowed, gazing concernedly at Kara as she softly rubs Kara's hand with her thumb.

"Just thinking about Esme, about her past." Kara whispers back with a sigh. She rummages around in the blankets until she unearths the drawing Esme had shown her earlier. "Esme drew this for me. It's the day I landed on Earth."

Lena scoots closer to Kara and wraps an arm around her, placing her chin on Kara's shoulder to look at the drawing. She studies it as she strokes Kara's arm. "You told Esme about that recently, right?" Lena asks.

"Yeah. Parts of it, at least." Kara cuddles into Lena's warm embrace. "It just reminded me of everything Esme's been through, too. That it's important to recognize and leave space for her past, too."

Lena nods. In the months since their reconciliation, Kara and Lena had many late night talks about both of their pasts and the trauma they still brought to daily life. Though Lena hadn't come from a dying planet, she could relate to the loss and isolation at a young age, and they both found that sharing their pasts with each other brought them to a better understanding of each other.

"I know it must have been hard for you, Kara, to come to Earth. You didn't have anyone to look up to who understood what you were going through." Kara's heart squeezes painfully again, thinking about the loneliness she felt when she first arrived in Midvale. No one knew from the outside what she had gone through on Krypton, what she went throughon Earth as she struggled to adjust to new customs and norms. No one who truly understood the loss and the isolation. "But Esme does have that. She has you. And she knows you're there for her."

Kara's lip quivers slightly, a tear rolling down her cheek. She and Lena had been through a lot, too, but after everything, Kara is so relieved and thankful that Lena is able to see her whole self — the good, the bad, and the messy — and still wants to sit beside her.

Kara closes her eyes and exhales. "Ah. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring the mood down during our super awesome aunties' weekend with Esme. She just…surprised me."

Lena places a soft kiss on Kara's cheek, wiping away the tear streak. "Hey, don't apologize. You said it's important to recognize and leave space for Esme's feelings. You deserve the same space, too." Lena wraps her arms around Kara tighter. "I'm here for you."

Kara grabs Lena's hand and squeezes. "Thank you, Lena. I'm glad we both have you."

[shasta-reese]

parents

[shasta-reese]

Ripples

“Aunt Lena!”

Alex would be the first to admit that she could have reacted poorly to her 12-year-old daughter asking if her godmother could chaperone the sixth grade field trip to the Smithsonian’s first West Coast expansion — the Museum of Magic, which she had already visited with Lena the day it opened — when Alex had gone to sign the permission slip.

And that she probably would have if her wife hadn’t preemptively swooped in, telling Esme — but really Alex — that of course she could ask whoever she wanted.

Alex had snorted to herself at the idea of Esme needing to ask. But fortunately, the preteen had already been slipping off the kitchen stool and whipping out her phone with a giddy “thanks,” so Alex had needed only to contend with Kelly’s sympathetic disappointment.

Now, two months later, the former director of the Deparment of Extranormal Operations, literally stopped in her tracks at the sight of a horde of middle schoolers, maybe half the class, beaming and cheering in unison at 6 a.m.

At least a dozen even rushed at the former CEO, taking turns giving her quick hugs, which Lena accepted with a small, but exceedingly warm, smile and faint blush.

“Ms. Smith, I think it’s time we got on the bus. Now that our guest of honor has arrived?”

Kelsey Rudd.

Despite Kelly’s cautionings, back when Esme was starting kindergarten, about not rushing to judge other parents… Alex’s rushed judgment had been correct.

Kelsey Rudd was a stuck-up bitch.

So far Alex had held her tongue, though, because Gianna Rudd had been Esme’s best friend since kindergarten. Naturally, Alex had laughed at the irony for years. Until Kelly had asked her to consider that Gianna, who was truly a very sweet girl, might not be so close to Esme solely because of Esme.

Alex had assumed her wife meant that Gianna appreciated the opportunity that playdates or hang-outs, as she was now supposed to call them, afforded her to not spend as much time at home — which she had not, to her shame, considered.

Watching Gianna meekly shuffle out of Lena’s embrace, however — as Lena tensed and stepped back simultaneously — Alex felt even more humbled.

And next thing she knew she was ruining her day.

“Hey, Ms. Smith. Need any more chaperones?”

“Actually, yeah! A couple just called out, so that would be amazing.”

Alex couldn’t tell if the clipboard-clad twenty-something was more relieved at the extra help or the excuse to step away from Kelsey… who promptly slung her arm around Alex like they were old sorority sisters.

“Any chance you got a flask in that jacket?”

——

After they stepped off the bus 12 hours later, and Kelsey offered her a parting air cheek kiss and promise to catch up again soon, Alex swore her ears were still ringing.

She knew that it had been worth it, though.

Even before she’d ushered Kelsey into a seat at the front of the bus this morning and glanced at the back to find Esme already watching her with a grateful smile.

Even before Esme and Lena finally said their goodbyes to the fan club and made it over to where she was waiting by the car and her daughter hugged her extra tight before sliding into the backseat.

“How’s the headache?”

Alex could haven’t stifled the bark of laughter if she’d tried at her sister-in-law’s dry greeting. With how sappy Lena got around Kara, Alex sometimes forgot how similar she and Lena actually were.

“I’ll live. I feel like I should be asking you, though. I had one adult talking my ear off. Not 20 tweens.”

Up close, the younger woman’s blush was quite prominent as she chuckled… or tried to.

“Lena?”

Alex stepped closer on instinct, lightly gripping her elbows, as she knew Lena found grounding.

“Thank you, Alex.”

Alex was already shaking her head, her gut twisting guilty, but apparently Lena wasn’t finished.

“I don’t know if it’s just the hormones talking, but I - I think this was one of the best days of my life.”

Alex had never stood in the way of Esme spending time with her godmother. Obviously.

Though she also, obviously, couldn’t have said before today that she realized the impact giving her blessing for Lena to volunteer at Esme’s school and occasionally asking if Lena was available to supervise Esme’s playdates over the years had had.

On her daughter’s classmates, let alone on her sister-in-law.

“Imagine if they knew you were a witch. They wouldn’t have given a shit about the museum.”

Lena laughed brightly, the way usually only Kara could make her, and Alex felt a hint of pride… until her brain stalled out.

“Wait, hormones?”

Lena slowly smiled, as widely as a wobbly chin would allow, and Alex immediately felt tears spring to her own eyes.

“Kara doesn’t know yet. I wanted to tell you first since you’re the one who made it possi—”

“I call godmother!”

As Alex flung her arms around Lena, she was perfectly positioned to watch Esme accidentally, and quite forcefully, fling her phone against the car window.

[shasta-reese]

[shasta-reese]

The first time it happened, all agents took their weapons out the moment Lena entered the building like she owns it.

Alex considered firing everyone who let her past the guard post and then shoot her. In the leg. Maybe.

"Take it", Lena threw something at Brainy, who somehow was completely calm. It relaxed Alex too, since Brainy was an expert on calculating danger level of everyone.

And then Lena just turned around and exited the DEO, like she was dropping of their lunch or something. And she was still fighting with Kara!

"What the hell, Luthor!?" Alex shouted to her back, only to recieve resolute "Shut up!" in return.

Alex sputtered, because: excuse me, but you came to the secret underground goverment facility like to your own office! Brainy muttered something, tinkering with the thing Lena brought.

"It's anti-kriptonite suit", he said in wonder, already running some simulations on his tablet. "She shouldn't has figured this out for ahother five years".

"Brainy, test this thing in every way you can, and if it's safe, take it to Kara immediately", Alex grumbled, but her sister's safety was more important than Luthor's strange wims.

/ / / / / / / / / /

Next time everyone still grabbed their weapons, but wasn't ready to shoot just yet, as Lena angrily stormed into the building. Perhaps it was because despite her stare she complied with every security measure guards asked of her.

Which didn't stop her from slamming thick file into Alex's chest.

"What the hell, Luthor!?" Alex saw how Brainy grabbed Nia's hand to stop her from standing up.

"Shut up", Lena returned, as she went back without any explanation.

Alex was left with papers and strange sense of deja-vu.

Looking through evidence on their resent villain and drafts of some devices to counter his powers, Alex thought about how Lena always choose time when Kara was absent from the building.

/ / / / / / / / / /

When they reached fifth visit like that no one was surprised anymore. Because everytime they would be stuck, Lena will miraculously appear with what they need. But she still stubbornly refused to talk with anyone besides Brainy and only about science behind her inventions.

This time she confidentely walked into the building, but Brainy instantly stood up. Everyone around them tensed, powers and guns ready. Lena opened her mouth to protest but he forced her to sit under bewildered eyes of everyone in the room.

"She's injured", was the only thing Brainy said, as he pried another helpful thing from Lena's hands.

"Am not", Lena replied, and Alex noticed how she slurred her words a little. "Take this shit and let me go".

Nia was already out of the room, fetching medical supplies, when Alex moved Brainy to the side to check on her.

"Left side, one inch lower than her ribs", he told Alex. Nia, who put Alex's medical bag down, gently rubbed his back, even if it was almost invisible that he was worried.

Alex pressed her hand under Lena's jacket where he instructed, and her fingers returned covered in blood.

Lena was still swearing, when Alex cleared her wound - bullet hole - and dressed it.

"You need medical attention, Luthor", Alex said quietly. After everything she was still angry at the other woman but it didn't mean she wanted her dead.

"If I show it to someone, I'm as good as dead", Lena chuckled, cleary half-delirious from pain and pain-killers. How she managed to get there on the sole willpower was beyond understanding. "Even if you want it, I would like to live a little longer".

Alex didn't answer. Couldn't. Even if she knew it wasn't true, some part of her wanted Lena to believe it. To suffer.

It was a shameful, selfish thought.

/ / / / / / / / / /

"Lena?" Kara's weak voice sounded incredibly loud in the quiet of their usual exchange.

Lena stiffened and promtly turned to flee in the middle of her conversation with Brainy.

"Lena!" Kara could catch up to her in the blink of an eye, but somehow near Lena she always forgot she has powers.

Lena spent too much time talking over some sort of mathematical models and Kara wrapped up her mission early.

"Please, wait!"

"Leave me alone", Lena gritted through her teeth, but even Alex saw tears in her eyes, as she sped up.

"She's hurting", Brainy supplied from Alex's side, as they both watched this strange chase.

"She's injured again?" Alex asked with small pang of guilt.

"No, she's hurting emotionally. More than she shows."

He didn't add anything else. They watched door slamming into Kara's pitiful face.

/ / / / / / / / / /

"Why are you helping us?" Alex asked her about a month after Lena and Kara's dramatic meeting.

"Shut up", Lena answered, tired as hell after three all-nighters they pulled to rescue Kara from another dimension.

"It's getting old, Luthor. Spill the beans".

Perhaps it's exhaustion, perhaps it is somehow sisterly look in Alex's eyes, but Lena is silent suddenly, before almost pushing words out.

"You said you will turn over the world for your sister, didn't you? I had someone like that once. My big brother, who would be the only one to treat me like a person in the place that was supposed to be my home. Who protected me from everything he could. And whom I admired so much I wanted to be just like him".

Alex tensed, as always when talking about Lex. But Lena's voice was quiet, and her face already wet from tears she seemed to hold for so long, and Alex shut her mouth this time.

"When he did all that he did, I was disappointed. But I still loved my big brother. But when he first tried to kill me? I was heartbroken. The person who withstood father's beatings in my place tried to kill me", Lena chuckled through her sobs.

Alex never allowed herself to think about Lex past his atrocites. She couldn't afford any pity for the person who tormented her sister and her family. But right now there was another little girl beside her who lost her only family.

"You said you will turn over the world for your sister, didn't you?", Lena turned to her. "I killed my brother for her".

She didn't said anything after that. Just cried herself to sleep. And Alex was just sitting there, left alone with shocking news and even more shocking realizations. Lex was dead. Lena was the one who killed him. He told her Kara was Supergirl and she still killed him.

/ / / / / / / / / /

"Don't pity me, it makes my skin crawl", Lena said the next day, when she was given her own pass to the DEO. She threw it on the table right in front of Alex, and agent considered asking 'what the hell, Luthor' just for the fun.

"I'm not. But after what you did for my sister and what you continue to do, the least I can do is to give you free entrance".

Lena sat beside her, tired and feverish from overwork.

"Don't care about me either".

"When will you talk to Kara?" Lena scowled when Alex ignored her, but still took the pass.

"Never, perhaps. I look at her and see the dead body of my brother. It's not something a little talk can fix. And she will blame herself, burdening me with another endless boundle of her apologies".

"She will learn of his death eventually, and then she'll found out how he died. It will happen anyway. And yes, of course, nothing will be fixed just because you too will talk. But maybe you can relieve some of your burden, and maybe several small talks will help you both".

Lena didn't lift her head from the shiny surface of the table. But she nodded tiniest bit.

/ / / / / / / / / /

Lena kept coming to help. Kara kept trying to talk to her.

One day Lena conceded, and then she screamed at Kara for an hour in the empty conference room and stormed out.

They had reverse situation later, when Lena came injured once again. Kara screamed about her being reckless, and they eventually reached her past sorrows.

They screamed, then talked, then whispered. And slowly started to smile again. Later came tentative touches, lunches and game nights.

So when almost two years later Alex found them in the kitchen doing something she would prefer to erase from her mind, everything finally became as it should.

[shasta-reese]

Kara had a guilty pleasure, one she didn’t share with anyone. It would have been awkward, and besides, everyone- friends, family, Lena; they all would have mocked her, relentlessly. It was the first of September and Kara was bracing herself for six months of the most exquisite torture.

She wasn’t expecting it on Lena’s desk.

When she walked into the office, the scent hit her. It tickled something in her brain and set her nerves alight, cascading shivers of excitement running down her limbs.

Kryptonians, you see, are not human. They are aliens, and react to things, to stimuli, in ways humans do not. The most obvious implication of this is Kryptonite, or rather the Kryptonite radiation it emits, which is unique to Kara’s lost homeworld and is deadly poisonous to her while being essentially harmless to humans without both significant and prolonged exposure.

There were, however, other things that Kara responded to differently. Certain flavors were too intense; some things her peers found pleasant were overwhelming or inexplicably bitter or otherwise unpalatable. Her enhanced hearing, even without her powers active, made her sensitive to noises that a human wouldn’t even notice. The list went on and on.

One thing in particular, though, was especially… stimulating to her. It got her motor going, as it were. Not like that, of course. Ironically it had the same effect on her that caffeine had on humans, even in small quantities.

There was something in pumpkin spice that excited Kara. Just not like that.

Okay, maybe a little like that. Even the scent of it made her feel things, and there was a steaming hot cup of it on Lena Luthor’s desk.

Kara had been summoned over some editorial matter of little consequence, probably an excuse to chat. When she stepped into her office, Kara stopped dead because Lena reached across her desk and picked up that cup and Kara was already having trouble.

Lena was… Lena. She was dressed in thigh high boots and black jeans and a tight, low cut green sweater that revealed a generous swell of cleavage that immediately drew Kara’s brazen eye. She caught herself looking and quickly put a stop to it, but Lena was looking right at her, smoldering green eyes peering at her over the rim of that damned coffee cup.

Great Rao, Lena was beautiful. Her hair was swept over one shoulder, baring the elegant column of her neck and her sharp jawline. Her visible ear carried multiple piercings dripping with diamonds and there was a faint pink tinge to her pale cheek. The red of her lipstick was almost violent and she positively smoldered. One might have thought she was dolled up for a photo shoot.

Kara was staring at those lips as she took a sip of coffee, leaving a faint white stain on the white cup.

Such a visual feast with the mere scent of the spices in her coffee was enough to weaken Kara’s knees and make her secretly fidget her toes inside her shoes. It was only a quick chat, a five minute conversation, but it was excruciating trying to get through it like this.

“Earth to Kara,” Lena sighed.

Kara blinked. “Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll go?”

“Where am I going?”

Lena rolled her eyes.

“Okay, Kara, you’re benched.”

“Wait, what?”

Lena huffed. “Look, it’s noble, going days without sleep while you live your double life, and we did agree that Supergirl duties will take precedence over your work here… but I can see you’re exhausted. I can’t order you to stop rescuing cats from trees and helping old ladies with their taxes, but I can order you to take the rest of the week off from working here. Which you are. Starting now.”

Actually, Lena probably could order her to stop doing things. Lena could probably order to do anything with the spicy tang in her nostrils and the quivering weakness in her limbs as heat gathered low in her belly. Kara was glad that she had just been ordered out.

“Oh,” Lena said, “and stop at Noonan’s on your way out. I hear the pumpkin spice lattes are your favorite and well,” she gave her cup a little shake.

Kara decided she would not stop at Noonan’s.

She stopped at Noonan’s. She got a PSL and a pumpkin spice bear claw and a dozen pumpkin spice donuts and consumed them all in the span of five minutes once she set foot inside her loft, after which she spent the next thirty in the shower thinking about Lena’s pillowy red lips and how kissable they were and her pale skin and how badly she wanted to mark it as hers and she sort of spent an hour in a pumpkin spice fueled fugue, and then passed out on her bed buck-ass naked.

Which was where she still was when the knock came at the door.

Her head shot up from the bed and she realized that it was movie night and she was hosting. She had no movies picked out, no snacks, and no clothes.

What she did have was super-speed, and this had a spread of frozen snacks ready to go in the oven, and a stack of blu-rays to be voted on, and pants. She needed pants and probably a bra and definitely a shirt. Humans were weird about their torsos. Fortunately Kryptonians were, too. Kara was rather lucky that she hadn’t landed on a planet that considered shirts obscene.

There were at least two like that, which isn’t a lot, but it was more than you’d think.

Kara opened the door and greeted Alex and Kelly, ushering them in. Brainy and Nia were next.

Lena showed up last, dressed in one of her peculiar movie night fits- a stylish leather jacket over honest to god fluffy pajamas, like a fashion plate going to a slumber party. Her hair was down and wavy and she looked soft and inviting and Kara wanted to snuggle her relentlessly and was very glad that the pumpkin spice was largely out of her system.

Largely.

Oh.

Lena lifted the two six packs she was carrying, giving Kara a suggestive arch of her eyebrow. Lena liked to bring gifts when Kara hosted, usually wine. Tonight she had twelve chilled bottles of… pumpkin spice beer.

Kara wanted to scream. Or possibly moan. Or possibly make Lena moan and maybe spank her a little.

Fuck!

“Hi-hi,” said Kara.

“Hi yourself,” said Lena. “Mind if I come in, or do you want to drink these right here?”

“C-come in,” said Kara.

“Eyyyyyy,” said Alex, as she saw the six packs. “The spice must flow!”

“The spice must flow,” Kelly repeated.

“Chai Hulud,” Nia said, in a faux-deep voice.

“I believe it is “Shai Hulud,” said Brainy.

“Sure, honey,” said Nia, patting his knee.

“You gonna hand those out?” said Alex.

“These are for our host,” said Lena. “Kara has plenty of spirits in her fridge.”

Alex busted out laughing, confusing the others.

Kara remained stone-faced.

Movie night then went on as normal. Everyone took seats, the first movie was voted on, snacks were enjoyed and beers were had. The pumpkin bottles sat in their cardboard holders in the fridge, untouched.

Until they got into the second movie, and Lena sauntered over from the kitchen carrying two bottles, and thrust one into Kara’s hands as she wedged herself in between Kara and Nia, casually tossing her legs over Kara’s lap.

Kara steadfastly did not look. She would not look. She would not look. Surely Lena was just making herself comfortable and private hadn’t noticed that the top couple of buttons on her pajama top had popped themselves and she was showing quite a generous amount of…

Kara looked away sharply. She had looked.

“Do the thing, darling,” said Lena.

“Do the thing! Do the thing! Do they thing!” Nia began to chant.

Sighing, Kara took her bottle and Lena’s, and popped the caps loose with a flock of her thumbs. Lena squealed in delight and Kara realized that actually drinking this concoction was an amazingly terrible idea.

Especially since Lena was basically in her lap now.

Kara tried not to drink, but the hint of that spicy scent from the beer was enough to make every nerve ending tingle and start a fire in her belly. She took a long pull on it and quickly realized she’d drained the bottle in one go.

Lena, grinning, stood up. Kara watched every sway of her hips as she marched to the kitchen, bent to grab another bottle from the bottom shelf of the fridge, and sashayed back to shamelessly plop right in Kara’s lap and offer her the new bottle.

The little display has gotten at least Alex’s attention, and she looked somehow at once horrified and amused and whispered to Kelly, who snorted.

Nia picked up on it next, after Kara had downed her fourth one of the cured pumpkin brews and her brain was sloshing around in sweet cinnamony goodness.

She was running into a considerable problem. Lena was curled up in her lap, draped across her in fact, a soft weight that was driving her absolute insane even as the scent of Lena’s… of Lena mingled with the spices singing in her veins. She forgot the movie. She forgot the existence of everything but Lena, and barely noticed when Alex announced,

“Guys, it’s late. I think we better head out so that Kara and Lena can clean up.”

“Perhaps we should help,” Brainy suggested.

“Nah, let’s go,” said Nia, who then muttered, “seriously Querl we need to go.”

Kara blinked and watched them all pile out, Alex shooting Lena a knowing look before rolling her eyes and closing the door.

Two seconds after the door closed, Lena twisted languidly in Kara’s lap, and was now no longer sitting in her lap but straddling her.

Kryptonians, you see, are not human. They are aliens, and react to things, to stimuli, in ways humans do not. They also have anatomical structures that humans do not, something that was was currently causing Kara to blush furiously, because Lena was well… sitting on it.

“I can explain,” Kara squeaked.

The look Lena gave her would have been devastating, pumpkin spice or no pumpkin spice. Lena’s face filled her vision as Lena placed her hands on Kara’s sides and rolled her hips, dragging a groan out of her.

“Is that explanation going to include a hands on demonstration?” said Lena. “I may need a few rounds before I fully understand.”

Kara swallowed hard. “You mean… you w-want to…”

“Kara,” Lena sighed. “How is someone who’s been flirting with me for five years so bad at flirting?”

Kara stared at her.

“Just, um, to clarify, you’re flirting with me, right?”

“I’m sitting in your lap unbuttoning my top, darling. I believe that qualifies.”

“You’re what?”

Lena grinned and swept her fingers down her chest, popping the rest of the buttons in sequence. The pajama top suddenly hung lose, baring the lush inner curves of her breasts while obscuring the rest of her in an agonizing promise.

Kara, finally, after years of this, took the hint and had Lena relieved of her fuzzy pajamas by the time they hit the bed.

The next morning, or rather next afternoon when Lena woke up, Kara looked over at her. Her eyes had just opened and she was grinning ear to ear.

“Lena?” said Kara.

“Yes? Before we go again I’m going to need a protein shake and some supplements.”

Kara felt her ears burning as her cheeks heated.

“Did you know about the pumpkin spice thing?”

“Pumpkin spice thing?” said Lena.

“Alex told you, right?”

Lena pursed her lips.

“Nope.”

“Cat Grant?”

“No, although I did ask her and she said you, and I quote, ‘creamed your khakis’ in front of her one time.”

“Then who?”

Lena grinned.

“I went to Clark to ask him the right way to go about seeking your attentions. Lois overheard and pulled me aside. Apparently you two share the same weaknesses.”

“My only weakness is you, baby.”

“Oh, it’s baby now, is it?”

“Yup,” said Kara.

[shasta-reese]

Korra is such a fun character.

With her it's like. You had no political or diplomatic training? A lot of the issues you will resolve will be very political.

You had trouble with spirituality? You are going to be remembered as the Avatar who brought spirits back to the world.

You had trouble with Airbending? Air will end up being your most used element and you will also be remembered as the person who brought Airbenders back from the brink of extinction and helped rebuild the Air Nation overall.

You originally were jealous of Asami because of Mako and didn't like her very much? Give it a little bit of time, not only will she become your best friend in the following months, but you're also gonna fall in love with her and you'll both end up dating each other in a few years.

Like. The development was insane with her lmao.

[shasta-reese]

They’re so married.