On the third day Alex holds her up in a locker room shower, steam swaddling them both in a thick cloud. Kara tries not to lean on Alex too much as her fingers work grime and fragments of neutralized kryptonite from her hair.

The weight of her is too much for them both to bear for long, and eventually she sags down the tiled wall.

She has always felt too heavy.

-

On the morning of the sixth day, a ransom note materializes in J’onn’s desk.

CatCo Roof. 8pm tonight. Come Alone.

Alex opens her mouth to protest, but the words die on her lips at the sight of Kara’s tensed jaw and tightening fists. The paper turns to dust beneath her grip.

They both know Alex couldn’t stop her if she tried.

-

At 8pm Kara lands at CatCo, illuminated by the bright full moon. The city twinkles below like a scattering of stars.

Three masked men wait for her on the roof, dressed in black and holding guns made from alien tech. A glowing green energy core burns at the heart of each weapon.

“Welcome, Supergirl. Or do you prefer Kara Zor-el?”

She doesn’t respond but a dark distortion of her own voice sounds in her mind.

I did this.

On the center of the rooftop helipad is a lead lined box. The leader, a man in a mask of featureless black, gestures toward it.

“Cuff yourself,” he instructs, voice modulated.

She’s halfway through calculating how many seconds it would take to incapacitate him when his two goons step apart.

Behind them is Lena, zip tied at the wrists and ankles to a rolling computer chair.

She’s gaunt and pale, but when her eyes meet Kara’s they blaze in the green light emanating from the kryptonite infused guns at her side.

Kara puts on the cuffs.

The scorch of pain feels dull compared to that of her anger.

“What do you want?”

“Kara, don’t give him anything,” Lena says quickly. The leader whirls on her, face so close to Lena’s that Kara’s can see her eyes reflected in the smooth black expanse of his mask.

“Now, Miss Luthor. I thought we already established that your mouth is much too pretty to cover up. So, keep it shut.”

Kara wants to throw him from the roof and watch him turn to mist against the pavement.

Before she gets the chance, Lena spits in his face.

Kara’s heart surges with pride and terror. The sting of Kryptonite courses through her veins alongside it.

She struggles to stand on trembling knees, refusing to kneel.

“Such poor manners for a little rich girl,” the modulated voice says in disappointment. He steps back from Lena and nods to his lackeys.

Kara watches in horror as Lena’s chair rolls closer to the edge of the roof. Her knuckles flash white against the armrest, but her face remains set in stony defiance.

Kara lurches forward, her body screaming in protest before her mouth can do the same.

“Every inch you take forward is an inch she takes back, Supergirl,” he leans back casually to assess the distance. “So think carefully about your next step. We wouldn’t want anything tragic to happen to Miss Luthor here.”

Kara’s chest feels heavy with the weight of the threat, kryptonite laced lungs squeezing rapidly as she struggles to catch her breath.

She collapses to one knee.

Lena’s chair stops, a breath away from open air.

The masked man takes one steady step toward Kara, and she can see her face reflected in his mask, distorted and shimmering in the moonlight.

-

His request is equal parts simple and complicated. A trade: something he wants in exchange for Lena.

Kara would give anything to save her, including her own life.

“What do you want?” she repeats, voice strained from the kryptonite diffusing her body, and the resolve in Lena’s eyes. Kara alone can spot the current of terror flowing underneath.

Lena would do anything to keep the ones she loves safe, be it by blackmail or gunshot or becoming a streak of red across the sidewalk below.

“Simple,” the modulated voice rumbles. “I want you.”

“Kara, no—“ a single wheel slips back over the threatening edge, so sharp and final it may as well be knife pressed to Lena’s throat.

Kara’s other knee touches the ground in submission.

“Done.”

-

Lena is cut free, the skin of her human wrists burned bloody from being bound, and horror now plainly spelled across her face.

When Kara lifts shackled hands over her head to wrap strong arms around her they’re both trembling.

The masked man promises to call on her soon, and then all three are gone in a blink, so quick even Kara misses it.

Her flesh is crawling with pain, and it sears white hot where Lena’s face presses into her neck, where her fingers grip the front of her suit, where her tears fall hot and wet between them.

She leans into the contact, letting the pain swirl into comfort as once again consciousness fades.

-

When it returns the moment is all too familiar: the DEO, Alex’s scowl, Kara bathed in golden light. Kara cracks an eye open just enough to see Lena curled up in a bed across the room, IV line tethered to the back of one hand.

“How bad?” her tongue is useless leather in her mouth, and the words come out slurred and heavy.

Alex’s face softens almost instantly.

“She’s okay. I had to sedate her to get her to sleep. It’s been about nine hours.”

Kara struggles to sit up but she’s weak enough from the kryptonite and unbridled terror that Alex’s hand on her shoulder keeps her reclined.

“You need rest."

“I need to find him.”

“And when you do, then what? You can barely sit up, Kara,” the hand on her shoulder rubs one small, soothing circle that does nothing to ease the tension in her bones. “Lena is safe. Let me take care of you both.”

Kara wants to struggle, to fight, to fly off like a bullet until she strikes a heart whose pulse she took the time to memorize, so that even a mask would never be enough to hide behind.

But Alex’s fingers are firm, and the sun lamps are warm above her, and Lena is safe. Lena is safe.

She takes one last look across the room and let’s sleep come.

-

Her dreams are plagued by visions of black masks, broken bodies, and an expanse of starless space so deep and dark that she could fly forever and never conquer an inch.

-

“Where my heart burns and rests, Lovely one. Lovely one. Your eyes are too big for your face,” a voice is saying in Kryptonese against her ear, sweet and soft, the language just a little broken. It floods Kara with more strength than a thousand yellow sun lamps.

“Your eyes are too big for the earth—”

“Ieue?”

The voice stops and there’s a hand at her hair, soothing over her scalp with careful, calloused fingers. Kara leans into the touch, not needing to open her eyes to know who it is.

“Lena,” she whispers, and when her eyes do finally open it’s to to see Lena staring down at her, relief writ large on her face. She takes a deep, shaky breath and Kara feels it like Lena’s lungs are her own.

“Hey, you.”

Lena’s hand leaves her hair long enough to set down her book, the cover printed in neat Kryptonese. She shifts the pillow beneath Kara’s shoulders to help her sit up.

“How are you feeling?” they ask at the same time, before breaking into matching smiles, both faces glowing in simulated sunlight.

“They didn’t hurt me,” Lena reassures, hand returning to Kara’s face to smooth against her cheek. She is warm and alive, and relief floods Kara more thoroughly than kryptonite ever could.

“They never will,” she promises. Her muscles are sore, body still weak, but she reaches up to press her palm against Lena’s fingers, turning just enough to place a feather light kiss below the chafed skin below Lena’s hand.

“Your wrists...”

Lena looks down at the touch in something like awe as Kara’s fingers brush below the ligature.

“Not the first time I’ve been zip tied to a cheap computer chair,” she says with a soft exhale. “Probably won’t be the last.”

“It will be,” Kara says firmly. She hopes Lena can hear the echo of promises past in her voice.

They stay like that for a few minutes, watching each other in the golden light, fingers brushing.

A throat clears across the room, and Lena pulls back, but Kara doesn’t look away. Doesn’t think she could, even if the room were burning down around them.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” J’onn says from the doorway. “We have some information.”

-

They’ve learned that Lena’s abductor is an alien, his name unintelligible to human ears. Like Kara herself he is one of few survivors from a planet long dead.

In another lifetime it might cause her to feel empathy. In her mind’s eye she sees him crouched before Lena like a lithe dark panther ready to strike, and feels nothing but loathing and fear.

“We’ve arranged to have Lena moved to a safe house,” Alex says.

“Absolutely not,” Lena says at the same time Kara breathes, “good.”

This time they wear matching frowns.

“I won’t be hidden away like a damsel in a tower because of one idle threat,” Lena says.

“There’s nothing ‘idle’ about being dangled over the edge of a skyscraper!”

Alex and J’onn share a cryptic look across the table, but Kara and Lena are too wrapped up in arguing to notice.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she reaches out a hand, palm flat against the table between them where Kara could so easily cover it with her own. “I’m right here, and I’m going to help. Whatever comes next we face it together, remember?”

“We face it by making sure you’re safe and can’t be used as a pawn in whatever game this guy is playing.”

“Kara, I’m a big girl, and I get to make my own decision. We have always been stronger as a team. E—“

“If you say el mayarah to me right now, I swear to Rao.”

Lena scoffs, and it makes the skin on the back of Kara’s neck bristle. Her tone softens to almost a whisper.

“You were inches away from dying. Dead. Gone.”

“Kara—“

“I can’t lose you again,” a plea. The only one she has left. “And I can’t fight him unless I know you’re safe.”

Lena stares at her for a long moment, expression unreadable, before slowly turning her hand over on the table, offering up her palm.

Kara covers it with her own and releases a long, chilly breath.

“Thank you.”

At the other end of the table Alex and J’onn are watching them carefully.

-

Another note materializes, summoning Kara to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city.

After a fifteen minute argument obscured only by a glass wall, Alex agrees to go with Lena instead of Kara.

“You’re the only person I trust to keep her safe,” Kara says. Her sister crosses her arms, considering her thoughtfully for a moment.

“Are you ever going to tell her?”

Kara looks away, through the glass wall where she can see Lena talking quietly to J’onn. She looks small and tired, dressed in DEO fatigues that fit just a little too big.

Their eyes meet through the glass and Lena gives her a small nod. Kara’s hands flex with wanting.

She turns back to Alex.

“I think she knows.”

-

The warehouse is a tall dark shadow at the end of town, littered with shattered windows like broken teeth. Kara listens carefully from her place in the sky, picking up three alien heartbeats and no more.

“You’re invited you join us,” the modulated voice says as though he were beside her. She doesn’t waste another second.

In a flash she is before them, three kryptonite barreled guns staring her down in place of eyes.

Their masks gleam, even in the darkness.

“What?” she asks, cutting to the chase like a knife through the tension.

“I’ve called to collect,” the leader steps forward, gun at his side, long leather coat sweeping around his ankles. He is an almost amorphous mass of black.

“Just tell me what to do,” she says between gritted teeth. “And then we’re through. This is over.”

His free, gloved hand raises to his mask and lifts it slowly. She could never have prepared for what is underneath.

Slick white skin, as though carved from marble, featureless and stark.

It’s only then that Kara realizes why his voice has been an electronic distortion. He has no mouth, no eyes to see with, just a blank slate where a face should be.

He slips his free hand from its glove, the leather dropping to the floor, and his hand is as white as a sliver of moonlight.

He extends it between them as though waiting for a handshake.

“You are so strong, Kara Zor-el. The strongest being on this pathetic planet, and yet you refuse to wield your power in a way that honors it. You serve the humans like a pathetic dog.”

The muscles in her arms strain with the effort it takes not to streak across the small space between them and rip out his beating heart.

Kara thinks of the Earth, the second home she has dedicated her life to protecting. She thinks of Alex and Kelly with Esme in their arms, of Winn’s eyes when he solves a problem, of Nia’s teasing laugh.

Kara thinks of Lena’s eyes, fierce and unyielding in the face of imminent death.

She takes his hand in her own.

“With your strength, I will rule them all,” he says, electronic voice grating through the air, sourceless and echoing. “With your face I will make them bow.”

A second later she realizes her mistake.

It’s like being sucked through the vacuum of space. Every fiber of her being stretches to the breaking point until she’s sure she’s been ripped in two.

She squeezes her eyes shut against pain that goes on and on for what feels like forever.

When it finally stops, she collapses to the ground, hand slipping free of his soul sucking grasp.

If she had eyes left to open, she would see her own face, grinning down at her.

-

She can’t see. Can’t speak. Can’t move for the way her body aches to every last inch. It’s like blowing out her powers tenfold. It’s like being dead.

Kara lays on the cool cement floor of the abandoned warehouse, trapped inside an otherwise hollow body, alone in the dark.

-

“It’s her,” someone is saying, but it sounds far away, like listening through a wind tunnel. It takes her a moment to realize the wind is her own blood rushing in her ears.

“We can’t be sure.”

“So DNA test her,” the same voice snaps. It’s Lena, sounding tired and on the edge of patience.

“It’s in the works, but these things take time.”

“Someone stole her face and is rampaging around the city with her powers, destroying her name. There is no time.”

Kara sags back against the DEO med-bay bed. She can feel the warmth of the yellow sun lamp overhead despite not being able to see it, and for a moment she’s glad.

It’s too familiar at this point. She’s too tired.

I did this.

If she had eyes she’s sure she would be crying. A shaking hand raises to the smooth expanse of skin where her face should be, and she feels it out slowly. Hard as glass and twice as smooth.

“Kara!”

Lena is beside her faster than if she had super speed. A gentle hand wraps around her wrist, pulling her own back down to her side.

Lena, she thinks, because it’s all she can do. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't think...but you’re safe.

Kara remembers what she heard about her powers being used to terrorize National City, of all the people that must be dead or dying.

Her chest aches more than when kryptonite had coursed through her veins.

You’re safe and I’m sorry.

“They’re going to find him,” Lena says in her ear, one hand tangled in Kara’s, the other coming to graze the edge of her blank face. She flinches away from the contact but Lena’s fingers chase the movement until her palm is pressed flush with smooth, pale skin.

“Alex is going to find him,” she reassures quietly. Kara allows herself a moment - just one - to lean into Lena’s touch, to feel the warmth of her body and her words.

What if she can’t?

What if more people die?

What if I’m stuck like this forever?

What if I never see you again?

Softly, as though she can read her mind, Lena’s lips press a feather light kiss against the place where Kara’s mouth would be.

Kara can feel every brush of her lips as she whispers, “el mayarah.”

-

Alex does find him.

It’s a bloody, exhausting battle that causes more damage and lives, but in the end the specter wearing Kara’s face is subdued by his own kryptonite infused weapon, clutched in Alex’s steady grip.

-

When Kara's hand is pressed against his once more, it’s like drowning. A dam bursts between them and her powers surge back.

For a single second she’s sure she’s going to die, before their palms break apart and the feeling settles.

Kara opens her eyes, and Lena kisses her.

-

People call for her head, angry in the wake of destruction she’s seen before. She remembers red kryptonite in her veins, and Red Daughter’s lost and helpless eyes, and a distorted version of herself reigning terror.

Lena doesn’t leave her side, and they huddle together in a DEO bunk room to take a break from the clean up strategies being planned outside.

Kara sinks onto the small bed, let’s Lena wrap her up in her arms and press their bodies together in an effort to anchor her to the moment.

They lay face to face, for a while just breathing.

“I did this,” Kara whispers after a while, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. It took a while after getting them back, for them to feel like her own again.

Only when looking into Lena’s face does it finally feel like her vision settles.

“You saved me,” Lena says in return. “You save us all, so often. It’s okay to need saving in return sometimes.”

“Not just what he did,” Kara shakes her head and Lena’s hand comes to rest against the back of her neck, smoothing through her hair. “I put you in danger. I told the world I’m Supergirl and they knew exactly how to get to me, through you.”

Lena looks at her for a long time, green eyes sliding over every inch of her face as though she’s memorizing it for the first time.

“It’s worth it,” she says finally. “You getting to be yourself, your complete self. I would risk my life for that, every time.”

“I wouldn’t,” Kara says firmly and Lena laughs. Actually tilts her head back and laughs, long and loud from deep in her chest.

It makes Kara a little breathless.

“Then it’s a good thing it’s not up to just you, isn’t it? I don’t know how many times I have to tell you we are in this together for you to believe me, but I promise to never stop saying it.”

Her hand moves from Kara’s neck to her face, gently tracing over every feature. Lena’s thumb grazes over her mouth and Kara presses a kiss to her fingerprint as they watch each other.

“Together,” she whispers against the pad of Lena’s thumb, and across from her green eyes shine with unrestrained love.

“Always.”

Lena’s thumb slides away just far enough to be replaced by her mouth as they kiss, slow and soft.

“Even when I don’t have a face?” Kara mumbles against Lena’s lips, unwilling to move away just yet. She can feel every muscle in Lena’s smile and can’t resist pressing in for another kiss before she answers.

“It’s not just your face that I’m in love with, Kara Zor-el,” she says into Kara’s mouth, cold nose nuzzling against Kara’s own. “And it’s not your face or your powers or even your name that makes you a hero.”

She presses her hand over Kara’s heart until they can both feel it beating.

“It’s this.”

Kara covers Lena’s hand with her own and captures her mouth in another kiss, this time more heated, hoping to convey all the I love yous she's never said.

When they finally break apart, it’s just far enough to press their foreheads together.

“I know,” Lena whispers.

Kara kisses her again.