Supercorp Identity Reveal. Warning: Major Angst! (but happy ending)
Everything fell apart when Lena found out.
The cracks were already in the glass, trust and friendship and admiration lost under the stress of Wordkillers, alien technology, and unspoken truths. Every small seed of doubt grew insidiously within them. The wounds festered, left untreated and uncared for until neither of them could ignore it any longer. By the time Kara showed up at Lena’s doorstep, eyes watering and lips trembling in fear, their friendship was hanging on by threads.
And yet, Lena still shattered at the sight of a familiar emblem stretched across Kara’s chest. Her heart sank, drowning in the pooling pit of dread that collected at the base of her abdomen. As she stared, her reality warped with painful clarify.
There truly was no one left who trusted her. Perhaps there never was.
Even as Lena’s heart ached at the sight of Kara in tears, it began to calcify with bitterness and fury.
They didn’t speak for over two years. After that night, Lena refused to see Kara or anyone remotely affiliated with her. Never once did the Girl of Steel dare to show her face to Lena again. All active projects partnered with the DEO were discontinued. She paused her sponsorship of Supergirl’s personal charity, redirecting funds and resources to adoption agencies and orphanages.
Lena couldn’t resist the pull of the Luthor madness the months after. With no friends to check her anger or sense of retribution, Lena spent nights obsessing over anti-Kryptonian technology, creating blueprint after blueprint that would have made Lex green with jealousy had he been there to witness her. And she enjoyedit. It felt disquietingly goodto fuel her rage, to dip herself into the forbidden pool of spite and dark temptation that had long drowned the rest of her family. Like a child finally growing big enough to fight back against her bullies, Lena relished the comfort that came from her growing dominance. It could have been the beginning of the end.
But it wasn’t. Time, and Lena’s dogged abhorrence of family legacy, cooled her fiery anger to a simmering cynicism. Clarity and sanity eventually returned and cleared the hazy fog of paranoia that fueled her obsession. Lena took her blueprints, her devices, her formulas, and locked them far far away, more afraid of herself than ever before. She nursed her furious pain into a more manageable beast, something that could sit on her chest and not immediately crush her lungs.
For all her eagerness to give into her darkest self, Lena was simply (perhaps frustratingly) too good of a person. As she slowly crawled back to reality after her mad spell, Lena set off to reshape L-Corp as a truly neutral corporation, reflecting the stance she personally had settled on after everything. She vowed to remain impassive, a grey figure in a world that seemed ever more divide into good and evil with every battle fought in the streets of National City.
Twenty-seven months since Lena and Kara’s last conversation, National City found itself again at the epicenter of a cataclysmic alien event, this time at the hands of a Kryptonian abomination that would have made Lex preen with vindication. First it was only sparse attacks, mysterious sightings and a trail of carnage left in its absence. But now it had escalated to terrorizing the city on a daily basis, growing stronger and stronger with every growing second soaking up the bright yellow sun. The people called the creature ‘Doomsday’, and he owned up to his name.
Lena had chuckled humorlessly at the morbid nickname. Seemed like that was all there was left to do. Laugh, when you find crying does nothing for you anymore.
Despite her purposeful exclusion from all things alien, Lena had done what she could for the city - offering support to the emergency responders, providing transport for evacuations out of the city, distributing L-Corp resources to shelters. She sent home the majority of her employees, left with only a few who volunteered to stay behind and help aid efforts.
Lena had no plans to leave the city. She preferred to think it as a stubborn refusal to let any alien dictate her life anymore, even one as seemingly indestructible as Doomsday. She certainly doesn’t want to dwell on the other alien that, despite her greatest efforts, refused to leave her mind.
Tonight, Lena left an empty office building and entered an empty home like the many nights before. It was not until five minutes in, with her heels kicked haphazardly at the door and a generous amount of whiskey in a crystal tumbler, that Lena noticed she was not alone. She snapped around, amber liquor sloshing across her hand, only to find herself staring at blue eyes that have haunted her for more than two years.
The shock of seeing her again left Lena frozen in her spot, her muscles rigid with tension, her neck held so tightly she could hardly breathe. Supergirl remained where she was, unmoving, yet vibrating with an intense energy underneath red and blue. Lena’s eyes began to water from staring so long into eyes that were emptier and duller than she ever remembered. But it was Kara’s expression, forlorn and remorseful, that spurred the sudden fury to ignite in Lena’s heart once more.
“You…” Lena hissed, her voice tight and vitriolic. “How dare you? How dareyou!”
“Lena please,” Kara begged. Lena hated how her chest twisted painfully at the sound of that voice. “I’m sorry I broke in. It’s inexcusable. But I needed, I had to-,” Kara paused, swallowing as if her throat had clamped down on itself. The sheen of unshed tears glistened in the dark making Kara’s eyes look so bright they almost glowed. “There’s not much time.”
Lena ignored the desperation in Kara’s words, choosing to fan the fire in her chest if only so that it could burn away the lingering urge to sooth the frown etched on Kara’s mouth. Her fingers clenched so tightly across the crystal tumbler it seemed on the brink of shattering.
“I want you gone, Kara,” Lena said, her voice low and rough. “Whatever you envisioned happening here, a reconciliation or last-ditch recruitment, you can count me out.”
“Lena, please,” Kara pleaded, voice small and cracking, “Just listen.”
She doesn’t want to. God, she wanted so badly to turn around and storm out, to not give Kara the satisfaction or the privilege of her attention when she had done nothing to earn it. But something stupid, naive, and frustratingly kind in Lena kept her in a standstill.
Lena clenched her jaws tightly, her teeth grinding as the hurt from years of dishonesty swept over her in waves. She continued to glower at the alien, refusing to soften her hard features even as her own throat tightened seeing Kara so close to breaking.
Realizing that Lena wasn’t banishing her just yet, Kara deflated as she sighed with relief. Her eyes shut in silent thanks to Rao for making Lena stay. The alien swallowed nervously, fingers fumbling anxiously against each other as she met the piercing green gaze that always left her weaker than Kryptonite did.
“When I was eleven, I got into the Science Guild,” Kara said, head bowed and voice hushed. “Everyone was so proud of me - my parents, my aunt, my friends. No one knew that I barely scrapped through the qualification test.”
“I might be smart by Earth standards, but on Krypton, I was mediocre at best.” Kara huffed humorlessly. “I never told anyone. I was so ashamed of ruining my family name.”
The sudden tangential confession threw Lena off balance. She took a second to recover. Ready to demand an explanation, Lena parted her lips to spew out a few low and painful jabs where she knew it would hurt. She never managed.
“When I was thirteen, I killed a cat,” Kara continued, bulldozing forward as if it were her sole mission. “It was an accident. I-I never meant to harm her. But I was still struggling with my powers, and she was squirming in my arms, and I tried to keep her still, and I squeezed once and –” Kara dropped her gaze and looked away, working her jaws as if biting back her terrible admission. “I buried her under a sycamore tree four mile away from my house.”
Kara barely took a breath before she went on.
“When I was fifteen, I started to stuff my bra.” Kara blushed at the admission, and Lena hated the way her eyes flickered to Supergirl’s chest in a moment of weakness. She pretended not to see how Kara noticed. “Turns out Kryptonians don’t mature as early as humans. A tissue fell out once in the locker room while I was changing. I never felt more humiliated in my life.”
Green eyes furrowed even deeper. Lena’s mind worked furiously trying to decode Kara’s endgame. A part of Lena resented how Kara’s quivering jaw still managed to affect her. As much as her mind was set on forgetting Kara, her body refused to forget the way it reacted like synaptic impulses to the woman’s every movement.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but —”
“When I was nineteen, I kissed a girl at a frat party,” Kara cut in, her words loud and fast as she blurted them. But her eyes held steady, locked onto Lena’s in a gaze so intense that Lena momentarily forgot to breathe.
“She was drunk, and I had the biggest crush on her ever since I saw her in my English lit seminar.” A raging pulse thrummed in Lena’s ear as Kara talked, her eyes never leaving Lena. “She didn’t remember that night, and I never had the guts to approach her ever again.”
And then, Kara’s eyes softened, the blue warming from ice to water as she looked longingly at Lena. Lena’s hand twitched with the urge to slap it off the alien’s face if only so Lena would not have to bear the weight of such a heavy gaze (or how much she still wanted to be on the receiving end of that gaze).
There it was again, that inexorable unending tension. It felt so much like it had before, when there were no harsh words between them. The tension that pulled at Lena’s heartstrings every time she was with Kara. The one that always hinted at something powerful and more than she dared to imagine. The feeling that left the tips of her fingers tingling long after they had touched Kara’s skin. Back then it was exciting, almost enjoyable. Now, the flood of nostalgia just made her heart tumble painfully in her chest.
A scream threatened to spill from her lips. Lena wanted to yell at Kara, to stop whatever she was doing before it was too late. Lena could feel something coming, something monumental that would once again shift the tectonic plates underneath her and Kara’s relationship. She didn’t want to be here when it happened. She was afraid the aftermath would finally break her irreparably.
And yet Lena’s body betrayed her, locking her in place with every muscle in her body rigid and braced for impact. Lena waited, watching as Kara took a step closer.
“When we last saw each other, truly, as friends, before I ruined everything, you were having a really bad day. ‘A goddamn shit storm of a day’, I think you said.” A small smile quirked in the corner of Kara’s lips.
“We were sitting in the park, and I noticed you gazing up at the cloudy skies with a look of such longing. You looked at the clouds like you might never see the sun again. When I was called away, I flew up right above where you were and used my super breath. I was probably up there for 10 minutes breathing that cloud away. But it was worth it. There was sunshine for a good hour before the clouds swallowed it up again, but I’d like to think you enjoyed it.” Kara spoke softly, reverently, as if the precious memory was a benediction.
Tears pricked at the corner of Lena’s eyes. Stuttered breaths threaten to spill over with emotions she had long repressed. The last thing Lena wanted to be reminded of was how blissfully happy she was with Kara. She didn’t want to think about how much brighter her life had been with Kara. And she definitely didn’t want to remember just how much she missed (misses) it.
“And when I lost you,” Kara whispered, her voice tremulous and quiet with grief, “when everything fell apart, that was the first time I realized how important you were to me. It was like losing Krypton, losing my parents, all over again. I didn’t know until it was too late. I didn’t know how close I kept you to my heart until it broke.”
Lena trembled as the words sunk into her skin. “Kara…what is it you’re trying to do?”
“Telling you every secret that is mine to give. Letting you know that I’ve got a lifetime of mistakes of my own. Admitting that out of all of these mistakes, there is not one I regret more than not being truthful with you.”
Lena’s heart clenched so tightly she could hardly breath. There was a time when those words would have made her heart soar and never come back down. Now, she only felt the sting of incoming tears. Kara took a step forward, no doubt hearing the bounding heartbeat that Lena could hear in her ears. A hand twitched at the alien’s side as her face filled with shame.
“Everything you said I did — it was true.” Kara sounded so sincere, so genuine. Lena ached to believe it.
“I lied to you, kept you in the dark, manipulated you. I used your name against you, even when all you’ve done is proven how different you are from your family. I let my fear of kryptonite cloud my judgment. I allowed myself to keep hurting you, thinking that I was doing the right thing, that I was protecting you, when all I was doing was protecting myself. By the time I knew you - knew what you really were like - I’d already made a mess of things.”
Kara took a stuttering breath, her chest catching with the beginning of a sob. The tears that trickled down her cheeks felt like stones in Lena’s stomach.
“I hurt you, deeply, more than I could ever apologize for,” Kara glanced sorrowfully at Lena, regret swimming in the blue pools of her eyes, “and our fallout took away every other relationship you had - Sam, James, Alex. I…I never wanted to do this to you.”
It would have been easy then, to let the past die, to stop fighting so damn hard against someone who always managed to tear down her walls. Every last vindication Lena gluttonously fantasized over, every fault she accused Kara of, had finally been uttered through trembling lips and repentant eyes. It was what she had longed for, dreamed of, since that night. Here was Supergirl, all but laying herself at Lena’s feet. Lena should be satisfied. She should feel victorious. She should be ready to move on.
Then why did it feel like she was dying all over again?
Lena tightened the white-knuckled grip around her heart hoping it would keep it from falling apart. She doesn’t have the energy to stop the tears from slipping out.
“Do you expect me to forgive you, Kara? Because that’s not happening today.”
“No, I know that,” Kara whispered back, her eyes downcast. “I don’t blame you, I just don’t —”
There’s a raw desperation in her eyes when she looked back up at Lena. “Don’t blame yourself, ok? Whatever happened, whatever happens, don’t blame yourself. That’s all I ask.”
Lena felt dizzy, her system overloaded with Kara and her emotional nuke of a conversation.
There was still so much between them, so much pain, anger, and guilt that had hardened over the years like magma from a nearby volcano. Lena felt herself unraveling at the seams. If she opened her mouth right now, she would lose the vice grip on her composure and fall apart in front of Kara.
Lena stood rigidly, the only thing moving was her heaving chest as she worked to keep herself from weeping. She remained silent. Kara took in her silence, and after a few seconds nodded. Whether it was out of pride or self-preservation, Kara knew Lena couldn’t bring herself to admit any semblance of sentiment or forgiveness just yet. She understood. She would not have expected anything less.
“If we don’t see each other again, I want to let you know…you were right to be mad. And I’m sorry.” For a split second, Kara’s face collapsed with grief. “I amso, so sorry,Lena.”
Kara sniffed, brushing a hand under her nose and wiping away the wetness on her cheeks. For a few seconds, she allowed herself to look at Lena, to memorize the image of the woman before her and brand it into her memory. Just in case. Kara wanted to be able to recall Lena, to give herself some comfort at the end. Even with Lena standing there, posture stiff and unwelcoming, it was better than the years of enduring her absence.
With one last glance, Kara turned to face the wall of windows leading to the balcony she used to frequent. With another hitched sigh, Kara pushed down the anguish of leaving Lena and took the first few steps back to the sliding glass door.
The unexpected softness in Lena’s voice stopped Kara. With a beat of hesitation, Kara slowly turned around. Lena’s face was still hardened in an expression of neutrality. It was only in green eyes that any sign of vulnerability existed in the woman’s façade.
“Stay closer to the docks,” Lena said firmly, strong and commanding like the CEO she was. “That area has been evacuated. The only collateral damage you’d run into is my regular LCorp shipments – which I also suggest you avoid if you value aid efforts.”
Her words hung in the air, ringing as silence took over. Then, the smallest twitch of Kara’s lips tipped into a soft smile. The sight still made Lena wobble on her feet. “I will,” Kara replied softly.
Kara hesitated before smiling again. “It feels good to hear you say my name again. I missed it.”
The soft admission was a punch to the gut. Lena gasped quietly as if the air had been forced from her violently by those gently words. She squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth refusing to break down, not when she had managed to keep it together for so long.
Lena waited. Waited for the pounding of her heart to stop rushing through her ears. Waited for the anvil on her chest to lift away. Waited for the ground to stabilize under her feet. She heard a trembling sigh in front of her, much closer than she anticipated, before hearing the balcony door slide open and the telltale sound a flutter cape drift away.
When she opened her eyes, Lena knew that Kara was gone. But the sight of an empty apartment and an emptier balcony sent her tumbling to her knees. The wrenching sobs that finally tore through her chest were suffocating. She could hardly breathe without weeping, and yet with the last reserves in her lungs, Lena used them to utter the same word over and over again.
Somewhere in the outskirts of National City, a god wept.
In a week’s time, Supergirl was dead.
The coverage of her death ran on every station throughout the world for a solid week. For some children, it would be the first time they saw the world collectively shake, much like how an earlier generation remembered 9/11. There was not a soul on the planet who did not know her story. The story of the Girl of Steel, an alien refugee from a dead planet who became the world’s beloved hero, who gave up her life taking on Doomsday in a fight that nearly razed National City, who left behind nothing but a ripped cape and a mourning planet.
No one mentioned how Supergirl had failed to defeat Doomsday, or how the alien abomination was only weakened but still capable of leveling the city, or how Doomsday was truly defeated by the DEO with the help of an anonymous donation of anti-Kryptonian tech.
No. Supergirl was dead. And that was all anyone on Earth cared to remember.
No one cared to investigate the underground base located many miles away from the city, with a bunker full of old blueprints and newly constructed technology, and the fragile recovering body of a woman who loved her adopted planet more than she loved herself.
And no one cared that next to her stood a woman who had vowed to never stand next to her again.
On an ordinary morning in an extraordinary situation, Lena watched as Kara opened her eyes for the first time in three weeks.
Hours earlier, Lena nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the fluttering movements of Kara’s eyelids. While the eyelids stilled after a minute, the rapid thumping in Lena’s chest persisted well after. She had rushed up to Kara, hands outstretched intending to reach out, only to hesitate an inch before reaching her skin. No,Lena remembered, chastising herself, you don’t know yet. She could still…you can’t risk it.
Weeks. It has been weeks since Kara first arrived in the bunker – bloody, beaten, and broken – and attached to the modified (and unpredictable) Daxamite technology Lena had been tinkering with for the past year. And during those taxing weeks, there was hardly any sign of improvement. Even with Alex and J’onn helping her (it wasn’t really a choice given they arrived with Kara practically attached to their sides), they’d made little progress aside from fixing Kara’s worse physical injuries. But her brain…she’s barely shown signs of life beyond the vital brainstem functions of breathing and pulsating.
It has been three weeks, and in that time Lena has yet to find the courage to touch her.
It wasn’t out of lingering spite or bitterness that had Lena hesitating to touch Kara (though there was plenty of that still within her). Rather it was quite the opposite. While Alex had been openly emotional and frantic as they wheeled Kara in, the silent panic that raged within Lena had been just as overwhelming. It was in those initial moments of sheer panic that clarity hit Lena. Kara must have known. She must have known that she likely would die fighting Doomsday, and with the precious time she had left, Kara had come to see Lena.
Guilt tore at Lena’s chest, tears of regret burning her eyes and words of apology lingered just behind her lips. The sight of Kara, limbs shattered, skin black and blue, blood turning blonde hair pink, was hard enough for Lena to stomach. Touching Kara? Feeling her skin cold and stiff as the threat of death loomed over them? That would certainly break her. And she couldn’t break. Not when Kara needed her. Not when Kara’s life was in her hands.
Now here Lena was, sitting at the foot of the bed, eyes trained on Kara as she typed mindlessly into her tablet, waiting for the woman lying supine on the bed to wake up. It was only a matter of time now, seeing as how she had almost woken up four hours ago.
Lena tried not to think how she had placed herself just far enough to resist any temptation of touching Kara while still staying in her line of sight. Something possessive throbbed in Lena’s chest, both loving and hating how she wanted the first thing Kara saw to be her. Wariness and caution still sat heavy in her heart, but now it battled against a newer, instinctive, almost primal urge to be near Kara, to rekindle that unspoken connection that had drawn them so impossibly close before secrets forced them apart.
The gentle pattering of fingers on her tablet was interrupted with a muffled groan. Whipping her head up, Lena was just in time to see eyelids flutter, flutter, then open. Bleary and dazed, but still as brilliant as ever, blue eyes found their way to green. Lena froze, suddenly paralyzed under the gaze of those piercing sapphires. Her breath quickened, red lips parting but remained wordless. There was an unbearable tightness constricting her heart making her pulse race against her ribcage.
Blue eyes brightened as a sheen of tears form, pool, then spill down mottled cheeks. The grip in Lena’s chest tightened painfully.
“Lena,” Kara finally croaked, voice raw and trembling, but still so full of that gentleness and awe that Lena loved. Kara’s lips quivered. “Lena.”
The Kryptonian crumbled, great heaving sobs wracking a broken chest. Kara grimaced in pain as hiccupped gasps pulled against bruised ribs. Chair legs screeched painfully as Lena shot up from her seat, taking four quick steps to reach Kara’s side and stretching out her hand only to pull back at the last minute. Her hand hovered, then fell haltingly to rest on the guardrail of the bed. Kara didn’t notice in the haze of her hysteria, which Lena was grateful for.
“Shhh Kara, you’re ok,” Lena said soothingly, surprising herself with how gentle she sounded. “It’s alright, you’re safe now.”
The hushes and murmured reassurances belied the growing worry at Kara’s state. Lena’s hands itched to brush soothing circles across Kara’s arms. Instead she kept them steady, gripping onto the guardrails until her knuckles turned white.
“I’m s-sorry,” Kara’s voice wobbling, still hiccupping despite the sniffles that replaced the wracking sobs.
“Don’t be,” Lena said softly, genuinely meaning it.
Kara offered a wobbly smile through her split lip. Her blue eyes still shined with grief. “It’s just…I just never thought I’d see you again.”
The flood of pained affection startled Lena. She thought she had all but pulverized such reactions in her exaggerated attempts to spite Kara. To see her old self rear its head from behind the iron curtain and blink owlishly at such unhindered affection towards the blonde was both nostalgic and incredibly frustrating.
Confused, Lena fought to find the right response. There’s a deep desperation to let her emotions run free, to reveal the hopes and desires that had been dashed away by betrayal. She just wanted to let it go.
Instead, Lena tightened her grip.
“I’m here,” Lena replied coolly, though not unkindly.
Relief spread across Kara’s face, but the slight hesitation told Lena that she had registered the shift. The way Kara nervously averted her eyes and bit the corner of her mouth sent heat shooting throughout Lena, not all of which were pleasurable. Some of that heat settled at the base of skull, reminding Lena that there was still plenty of unresolved tension fueled by Kara’s betrayal.
An awkward silence filled the air as both Kara and Lena avoided looking at one another. The chirping of Kara’s heartbeat echoed loudly in the sterile air.
She looked up to see Kara, timid despite her alien strength, gazing at her with wide scared eyes like a wounded puppy. Lena sighed, her chest deflating as guilt worked its way up her throat. Unable to completely abandon the urge to reassure Kara, Lena allowed the slightest hint of a smile to tug on her lips. It was all Kara needed to continue.
Kara’s multitude of questions about her whereabouts, about what happened to Doomsday, to National City, Lena took them in stride. When Lena mentioned the anti-Kryptonian weapons, Kara blinked slowly but made no other move to question or argue. Lena tried to limit telling Kara her own involvement in her recovery, but she can tell in the way blue eyes widen with surprise that Kara once again was able to see right through her.
“You saved me,” Kara breathed, disbelief coating her words as she looked at Lena so affectionately it made Lena want to run away.
“After everything that happened between us, I thought –” Kara shook her head, words unsaid but hanging in the still air above them. “You saved me.”
In the mixture of emotions that surged through Lena at that moment – guilt, adoration, wariness, hope – Lena clutched onto the safest, most familiar one. Anger.
She stood there, back rigid and face unreadable, successfully remaining stoic but failing to ignore the deep ache in her heart. Buildings could fall, earthquakes could shatter, and Lena would still save Kara every time. Baggage or no baggage. Because it was Kara.
Somewhere in the messy fallout, uncertainty polluted their friendship to the point that Kara had lost sight of that blind devotion.
“Of courseI saved you, Kara,” Lena snapped, her face hardening as she whipped her head to look at Kara with an offended expression. Green eyes lingered, ablaze with undecipherable emotion. “Just because I was mad – no, furious– at what you did, doesn’t mean I want you dead.”
Kara flinched. Regret flooded Lena, but her face remained trained and still. The silence extended between them until Kara broke it with a tentative question.
Lena inhaled sharply before she cursed inwardly at the slip.
“Am. Maybe. I don’t know,” Lena huffed, hands waving with annoyance as green eyes diverting away with a look of frustration.
The words hung in the air, letting the uncertainty and vulnerability dissipate and saturate around the them. While Lena stewed in frustration, a quick glance back at Kara showed guarded blue eyes. But the timid glimmer of hope in them sent a wave of fear through Lena. Fear at how much Lena still wanted to grab onto that hope and follow it down a path she had so longed for before. Fear at how easily just that one glance seemed to crack a dozen seams across her fortified walls. She could never prevent how much Kara affected her.
One question lingered on the tip of her tongue, one that had plagued every thought ever since Kara came under her care. A quiet tremor shivered through Lena, shaking every cell as if her body was desperate to wring out the intense emotions she had long stored away. Lena hugged her arms tightly around her center as if she could physically hold herself together. But she was so tired of holding on.
“Why did you come back?” Lena said softly, masking the burning intensity beneath her skin.
Kara furrowed her eyebrows, blue eyes confused as she shook her head. “Come back?”
“Why did you come back that night, before Doomsday?”
The initial confusion bled away from Kara, her blue eyes widening as she grasped the purpose behind the question. Lena watched as the nervous gaze shifted quickly away from her.
“I-I told you, I wanted to apologize.”
Anxious fingers twisted on top of white bedsheets. Not even Kara looked convinced with her words. Tears from dread and frustration pricked behind Lena’s eyes.
“Did you come back to say goodbye?”
“Did you know?” Lena demanded, her trembling voice low and dangerously intense. “Did you know you were going to die?”
The glaring silence is enough to sink Lena’s stomach. Like water through a broken dam, the unimaginable horror of losing Kara finally slammed into Lena sending her reeling. She sucked in a pained gasp through trembling lips, quickly turning around taking a few steps back. Hands braced themselves around her waist as Lena’s chest tighten impossibly with the throb of heartache. All the images she had kept at bay of Kara lying bloody, dead, stone cold in the ground now bombarded her, stealing her breath away with each awful vision.
And to imagine that the last memory Lena would have of Kara would be her forlorn expression, the tears in blue eyes; to think that Lena’s last words to her were cold, bitter, and dismissive.
How? How could Kara…? And after everything, to have it all end without closure?
Raw and exposed, Lena felt a sudden spike of anger flare within her. The hot burning feeling pulsed through her like wildfire. Cheeks wet with tears, Lena spun back around, stalking back to Kara glaring at her with fury ablaze in her eyes and lips curled into a snarl.
“You want to know why I saved you?”
Kara froze, a startled look plastered across her face. She looked scared of the answer. A bitter laugh escaped red lips.
“Do you think I created that anti-Kryptonian weapon out of the goodness of my heart? No, Kara. It was because for a moment, I allowed madness and rage and spite to take over my life. I had let the closest thing to my heart lie to me, had cut myself of everything that grounded me, and I had no one else to turn to, only the remnants of my family legacy.”
There was no hiding the anguish in those green eyes.
“I barely crawled out of that hellhole,” Lena admitted, voice steady yet devastating. Kara looked on the verge of tears, guilt oozing from her forlorn expression.
“And then, right when you gave me a reason to at least think about trying to bring you back into my life, you go and almost die on me.” Those last words were whispered as if through a small crevice, forced and with unimaginable difficulty. “Do you know what that would have done to me?”
Lena’s entire body was torn between a desire to scream and a need to collapse and break down. Tears flowed unendingly as her voice thickened with emotion. Standing taller with tight shoulders, Lena gripped her hands on the guardrail of Kara’s bed to tower over Kara, who looked utterly crestfallen as tears finally spilled down pale cheeks.
“You don’t get to just walk back into my life and say the things you said just to leave me again,” Lena said forcefully as she jabbed a finger at Kara’s chest. “You don’t get to do that.Idon’t deserve to fall into that pit again. That’swhy I saved you. This?” Lena waved her finger back and forth between her and Kara. “This isn’t over. Not until I say it is.”
The lab echoed of heavy breathing. Lena felt her chest heaving up and down like she had just run a marathon. Though the tainted energy of her rage still fed the rapid beating in her chest, Lena could slowly feel her body loosen. She had been so tightly wound from holding in her anger, letting it build up and drive her for so long, and now it was finally leaving her. There was a sense of relief, a wonderful reward of catharsis within Lena, but a small part of her was already beginning to regret it as the anger was slowly replaced with pain.
This isn’t over.The double meaning wasn’t lost on Lena. Even with her harsh words, Lena couldn’t help but remember when she had longed to say those same words, whispered intensely and reverently, forgiveness softening the edges while she caressed soft cheeks.
Kara sat there, immobile, still but for the periodic clenching of her hands. Her mouth twisted into a tight frown, her teeth biting on lips to keep them from trembling. Glistening eyes wallowed in anguish as she took the brunt of Lena’s outburst. A reciprocal pain ached in Lena, who perhaps was finally accepting how emotional linked she was to the woman in front of her.
A heavy sigh from Lena saw her posture deflate. Like someone loosening the string holding her spinal cord taunt, Lena let her shoulders fall, now more hunched than towering over Kara as she braced her weight on her hands. She was so tired. They both were. And now with her anger no longer strong enough to hold her pieces together, she felt more fragile than ever. The silence, familiar and restless, stretched on.
“I thought of you, you know?”
The words cut through the silence like a knife. Kara spoke barely above a whisper, but her voice was deafening in the spacious bunker.
“When I fought Doomsday, I was…just waiting for the end. But in those last moments, I thought about how much I loved the way your eyes brighten when you get excited. I thought about how much I love the crinkles around your eyes when you laugh – reallylaugh, loud and full and straight from your belly.”
Kara gave Lena a pained smile, the memories aching like pressing on a fresh bruise. “I thought about how every time I was with you, I’ve never felt more like myself. I thought about how you probably have found an ingenious way to defeat Doomsday without having to rely on brute strength. Knowing that the last time I heard your voice, you were crying my name.”
Lena choked back a whimper, and Kara was doing no better with how her voice thickened with each sentence. She looked at Lena, her face filled with such sorrow and devastating affection that Lena could hardly breathe.
“But most of all, I thought about how much I regretted how things had ended. How I couldn’t touch you, hug you, comfort you in our last moment. How I couldn’t tell you how deeply you meant to me. That you were, and still are, the best part of my life.”
Silent sobs tore at Lena’s chest. It was too much. It was everything she had wanted to hear, and yet it was unbearable, like pressing a hot compress onto raw skin. It was meant to heal, yet all Lena could feel was the instinctual desire to flee. She fought it, raising a shaking hand to wipe at the wetness on her cheeks and knead her forehead. The incoming migraine was well overdue.
With a pained groan, Lena collapsed onto the chair behind her. She was exhausted, and from the looks of Kara across from her, the Kryptonian was no better. Lena lingered her gaze of Kara. Kara looked miserable – wet cheeks blotchy from crying, her eyebrows crinkled with conflict as she watched Lena intensely. But even with the heavy air around them, even with her bruised and battered body lying in a scratchy gown, Kara radiated earnestness. It reminded Lena of how hope and optimism clung to Kara, stirring up a memory that recently had been playing in her mind on repeat like a broken record.
Lena fidgeted, dropping her eyes down to her lap as she worked her mouth around words she had yet to find. “That day in the park,” Lena began slowly, bringing her eyes to connect with Kara’s. “I remember it.”
The surprise that flashed across Kara’s expression slowly turned soft as she offered a trembling smile. Lena swallowed down her nerves as she folded her hands neatly in her lap.
“I’d had the worst day. Investors were backing out of a project I spent years developing. Board members were pulling me in all directions I felt like I was being drawn and quartered,” A quiet chuckle floated from Lena, shaking her head lightly at the occasional absurdities of her job.
“I remember feeling so relieved when you arrived. I could feel my chest getting lighter, feel myself smile like I’d never smiled before in my life.” Lena felt the tug of one at the corner of her lips. “Whenever you came, wherever we were, you lit up my life like the sun.”
Kara looked at Lena with such a tender affection that she might have collapsed were she not already seated. Lena doesn’t think anyone has looked at her the way Kara looked at her right now.
“I remember how quickly the gloom settling back in when you left in a hurry. I remember thinking that if only the sun was out, maybe I’d feel as warm as I did when I was with you,” Lena murmured, suddenly shy and free of the bitterness that possessed her just minutes before.
“And then, like an answered prayer, the sun appeared. It was like the clouds parted, defying meteorology and physics, to let me soak a bit of warmth back into my bones. I remember feeling…” Loved, Lena thought, her heart jumping in her chest at the power behind that thought. “I remember thinking that the only way this moment could get better was if you were by my side.”
The radiant smile plastered across Kara’s face despite her wet cheeks sent a wave of warmth through Lena, the sensation so achingly nostalgic that she was tempted to indulge in the pleasant sensation. But there were still words that needed to be said, heartaches that needed to air out. Lena grew serious, her eyes somber and pointed.
“What you did Kara, it nearly killed me,” Lena said, not hiding the hurt in her voice. “But you also saved me. You made every day a brighter the longer you were in my life. You gave me the sun, because you – Kara, you needto know – from the moment we met, you were the sun to me.”
Lena took in a deep shaky breath, her gaze shifting only to avoid how blue Kara’s eyes looked when they glistened.
“There once a time when I would have died for you, when I believed in you so much that it was worth my life.” Lena trembled, terrified as she let herself fall off the deep end. “I…I don’t believe something that strong could ever truly be lost.”
Kara huffed out a breath of disbelief as if Lena’s words had physically punched her in the chest. Awe and hope flooded the Kryptonian’s expression, staring at Lena as if she could hardly believe the turn of events. She scrambled to reply before Lena closed the door on her again.
“Then let’s try,” Kara said eagerly, tripping over her words in her haste to grab Lena’s olive branch. “Let’s try to be like we were.” Kara didn’t even bother hiding the desperation in the strain of her voice, her blue eyes wide and pleading. “I’ll take anything.”
Lena hesitated, eyes full of heartache, her jaw working as she chose her next words judiciously.
“I don’t want to go back to the way things were.”
Her words were soft, but the heartbreak on Kara’s face was unmistakable. Devastated, Kara looked down, swallowed, and nodded in defeat. Her body shrunk, back hunched and shoulders sagged as Kara pressed her lips into thin lines holding back tears.
“What we had is something I will always cherish. But I don’t want to pretend like I didn’t want more.”
Lena waited with baited breath, watched as Kara slowly took in her words, watched as her eyes came back alive, watched as she jerked her head up to stare at Lena with muted shock.
“Kara, I was in love with you.” Lena said simply, bulldozing through her fear. Kara met her gaze with an intensity she’d never seen before. “I amin love with you.”
“I’m not going to try and build back our friendship if it’s destined to break again because of how I feel for you. Because, because – God, Kara, you were everything to me,” Lena confessed, burning with the strangest alchemy of anguish and elation. “You were everything,” she repeated softer.
Lena collapsed back into the chair, as if the admission and emotional release had drained her dry. She cradled her forehead, trying to keep her tears at bay. She gave herself three deep breaths before straightening back and letting her hands drop onto the bed beside Kara.
“I can’t go through this again, Kara.”
Lena wanted to say it like an ultimatum, to stand her ground and build her walls and close the gates until she found reason to unlock them again. Instead, the words left Lena’s lips on a plea, letting slip a vulnerability that somehow Kara always managed to coax out of her. Her eyes said what she cannot voice – a confession that begged Kara to be gentle with her glass heart that was (and has always been) in the palm of her hand. Lena sat there rigid, ready for the pain of rejection but so deathly afraid of it at the same time.
When Kara finally spoke, it was as warm and soft as velvet.
“Lena,” she murmured, blue eyes gentle and loving, “I’ve held you close to my heart ever since I met you. And you’ve never left.”
Kara looked at Lena with such an intense affection that tears immediately spilled over her cheeks. She let out a small sob of complete relief and joy. There was such a pained gratefulness in her green eyes, like she finally had victory over her own destiny. The longest, most satisfying sigh escaped Lena through trembling lips. Eyes closed and head dropped low, Lena nodded gently as if reassuring herself that Kara won’t hurt her again.
Kara leaned forward, stretching out her hand. When Lena didn’t move, she shifted just enough to brush the side of Lena’s hand and intertwine their fourth and pinkie fingers together. It’s a timid gesture, one that wasn’t entirely sure of its boundaries but was earnest in its intent. Lena opened her eyes and tilted her gaze to their intertwined fingers. After a long stare, she curled her fingers tighter against Kara’s, looking up to see the unadulterated love swirling in blue eyes.
A sudden urge to giggle only added to the giddiness inside of Lena. Like a punch-drunk idiot, Lena let out a breathy chuckle, silly and girlish in a way that lit up Kara’s face. Her laugh grew as she watched those beautiful laugh lines crinkle around Kara’s eyes, her own light giggle joining Lena’s. Lena clutched onto Kara’s hand tighter, never letting go as the room bounced with the delightful sound of their laughter.
They come together slowly, tentatively, as Kara slowly but surely recovered. Lena was still mad. They both were still hurting. But now the anger was less sharp, the pain less crushing, as affection, curiosity, and the pleasurable kind of tension filled the void between them. Kara spoke at length about Krypton, about her childhood spent under orange skies and a red sun. Lena revealed the depth of the technological development, grateful that even with her full transparency, Kara took the news in stride.
The touches remained simple. Fingers brushing over fingers. Holding hands occasionally as Lena sat in the chair beside Kara. They graduated to hair stroking, cheek grazing, the occasional squeeze on the arm or leg. Lena migrated from her chair, first to standing beside Kara, then to sitting on the small space off to Kara’s knees.
And when Lena and Kara finally found themselves in bed, cuddling with Lena lying almost on top of Kara, Lena was the one to whisper a confession into Kara’s neck – “I missed you.” Kara tightened her arms in response, holding Lena snug against her front and pressing a tender kiss to her temple.
And when their first dizzying, earth shattering, toe curling kiss ended, Kara was the first to recover from her dazed state only to realize she never told Lena.
She brushed her lips gently over the shell of Lena’s ear. “I do love you, Lena.”
Lena sighed sweetly, urging Kara back out from the crook of her neck into another deep kiss.
It’s the slip of Kara’s native language that made Lena cry. She cried at the realization that she was no longer angry at the reminder of Kara’s secrets. She wholeheartedly adored them now, knowing that every little slip of Kryptonian was affirmation of the trust they mended between them.
She pressed a passionate kiss against Kara’s lips, tasting the faint salt of both their tears as they held each other fiercly. Lena turned to bury her head against the column of Kara’s neck and whispered her love, fervently, ardently, into the depths of impenetrable skin.
There were no more secrets, no more lies, only the truth. And the truth was that Kara loved Lena. And Lena loved Kara.
And that was all they ever needed.
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