#superfics

L!L is acting moody around the holidays and Lena has no idea why. Christmas Eve, Maggie catches her underage drinking in public with a couple of friends and tells Lena who’s angry about it when she picks her up at the station. In LL’s drunken stupor, she asks Lena if she is going to hit her like Lillian used to. When she’s sober, Lena tries to talk about it with her, but L!L refuses and storms out of the apartment upset. Lena, worried, calls Maggie who tracks her down and gets L!L to open up about how Lillian was horrible, especially around the holidays when neither Lex nor Lena visited and took her anger out on L!L. Maggie tells Lena, who feels incredibly guilty, but L!L explains it’s not her fault. They spend the night watching movies with lots of cuddles, during which Lena convinces L!L to maybe see a therapist, cause drinking away her issues is a bad idea, and plots on adding another life sentence to Lillian’s jail time as a personal Christmas gift to herself

@qualitytrashtho

word count: approx. 2,000

“Aren’t you excited for the holidays, Y/n/n?” Kara chirped, as she carried boxes filled with Christmas decorations through the door of the penthouse you shared with Lena.

“They’re nice, I guess I like them,” You shrugged, not looking up from the homework you were doing while sitting on one of the barstools.

Kara grunted as she put the boxes down gently, “Huh, Lena told me you used to love Christmas as a kid.”

“Mhm,” You agreed, making it clear you didn’t feel like talking about it but trying not to hurt Kara’s feelings.

“When you’re done with that do you wanna help us decorate?” Lena asked you when she came out of the bathroom.

You sighed softly, beginning to get annoyed, “Sure,” You mumbled, still typing away on your computer.

Lena and Kara shared a look, but knew better than to pry, so they let it go and didn’t say anything when you went straight to your room when you were finished with your homework.

The only thing you were looking forward to about the holiday season was that you and your friends would be going out on Christmas Eve.

You told Lena about it in advance, saying that it was just a party, reassuring her that you would be fine and your friends would be there.

One of your friends came to pick you up at 9, and you said bye to Lena and Kara (they were both there) before leaving to the bar your friends frequented.

It hadn’t been long since you’d started drinking. You didn’t really enjoy it very much, either, but a lot of your friends did it, and you gave in when they begged you to down a few shots at the last few parties you guys were at.

Unfortunately, you’d ended up getting very drunk last time, so you texted Lena to let her know that you were exhausted and would be staying at one of your friends’ house for the night.

The last thing you wanted was for Lena to find out you were drinking. You knew that she obviously wouldn’t approve and she’d make a huge deal out of it, besides, she didn’t need anything else to worry about, especially not her little sister.

Only half an hour after you’d gotten drunk, Maggie walked in the bar.

You recognized her immediately and smile, yelling loudly over the music playing in the bar, “Mags! Get over ‘ereee”

Maggie’s expression morphed into one of confusion immediately as she walked over to you, “Y/n, are you drunk?”

“Psh, nooooo,” You smack Maggie’s shoulder lightly, but the face she gives you makes you cower.

“Alright, let’s go, and you guys,” Maggie pointed to your friends, “You guys are out of here too. I’ll wait for a cab to pick you guys up and I want you going straight home.”

You groaned and let Maggie pull you outside, stumbling as you tried to follow her.

Your friends left within the next five minutes, Maggie talking to the driver and explaining that she was a cop and she wanted your friends home safely, paying him cash before watching him drive off.

Maggie sighed when they were gone, “C’mon, let’s go. I’m taking you to the station so Lena can pick you up.”

“What? Maggie, nooo she’ll kill me,” You groaned, but got in her car anyways, hoping you’d be able to convince her to take you somewhere else.

“You know better than this, Y/n,” Maggie shook her head. “I can’t do anything to get you out of your mess this time.”

You groaned and looked out the window as Maggie dialed Lena’s phone number when she got to a red light.

Their conversation was brief, but you knew you were in trouble.

When you arrived at the police station with Maggie, she pulled up a chair next to her desk and let you sit while she did paperwork from a case she was working on, “I was planning on going out tonight, but while I’m here, I might as well get some work done.”

It didn’t take long for Lena to get to the station, and as soon as she did you knew it was her because of the rapid clicking of her heels.

By this point you were exhausted and you didn’t want to deal with anything, walking was a struggle because you couldn’t keep your balance and your brain was feeling fuzzy.

Lena stopped walking and you looked up from your feet.

Without either of you having to say anything, you brought yourself to your feet and waved goodbye at Maggie, following a foot or two behind Lena as she walked out of the station.

You stopped outside the door, your head feeling a bit oozy and the temperature outside was much colder than you thought it was, “I don’ wanna go home,” You groaned, mainly because you knew you were in deep shit trouble.

“Let’s go, Y/n,” She said, coldly as she waited outside the car. It wasn’t a tone of voice she used with you, you never did anything bad or got her upset, so there wasn’t a reason to.

You cowered at her voice and tears started to well in your eyes, “Are you gonna hit me like Lillian?”

Lena’s eyebrows creased and she walked over, but you stepped back, so she gave you the space you needed, “Baby, I would never hurt you.”

You nodded a bit as tears began running down your face and walked over to Lena, letting her wrap her arms protectively around you.

She kissed the top of your head with care and rubbed your back, “It’s freezing out here and you don’t have a coat, Y/n/n, let’s get in the car, okay?”

“‘kay,” You mumbled after nodding and stepping away, holding onto Lena’s arm to keep yourself from tripping.

Lena helped you inside, and by the time you guys had arrived at the penthouse, you were already asleep, so she called Kara, who was upstairs, and had stayed while Lena went to get you, to carry you upstairs so you could continue sleeping.

Kara was down within the minute and soon the three of you were upstairs.

Kara laid you down on your bed and went to get a glass of water and Advil while Lena worked on carefully tugging a random hoodie over your head.

—

You woke up in the morning with a pounding headache in your own bed with one of Lena’s old college hoodies on, over the dress you’d gone out in.

“Shit,” You mumbled, turning over and taking the Advil and water off the nightstand to drink it.

After a while, you were feeling better, not by much though.

You soon heard a knock on your door before Lena opened it slowly and came inside, offering you a tiny smile.

“Hi, Merry Christmas,” You gave a small wave and waited for her to sit at the end of your bed, like you knew she would.

Lena cleared her throat a bit before she started talking, “Merry Christmas, honey, but, can we talk about last night, maybe?”

“I know already, no more drinking, and I’m grounded for even trying it,” You shrugged, knowing that you deserved it anyways.

“No, actually, none of that, I just wanted to talk about what you said,” Lena paused, trying to give you time to remember what she was talking about but you didn’t understand so you just shrugged. “What you said about Lillian hitting you?”

You sat up quickly and shook your head, “No, I shouldn’t have opened my dumbass mouth.”

“I’m glad you said something about it though, I couldn’t have known otherwise since -“

“No, no - I shouldn’t have, uh - I’m gonna go, I’ll be back,” You got up and slipped on a pair of sneakers before grabbing your coat and leaving the penthouse.

You knew what you were doing was mean, and you felt bad, but you couldn’t talk to Lena about this when you knew it would only make her feel awful.

The only place you could think of going was to Alex’s apartment, but she couldn’t lie to Lena and tell her that you weren’t there, same with Kara’s apartment, so you settled on going to the park and sitting on a bench for a while.

After a few minutes, when you hadn’t returned, Lena called Maggie, afraid something had happened.

Maggie promised Lena that she would find you, and it took her a short five minutes to find your location, ten to get there. She shot Lena a short text, letting her know that you were safe before walking up to the bench where you were sitting.

“Did Lena send you?” You asked, chewing the inside of your lip.

Maggie nodded, “She did. Do you wanna tell me what’s going on with you?”

You sighed and nodded a bit before scooting over on the bench so Maggie could have space to sit, “Lillian made the holidays miserable for me. She was always awful to me, but during the holidays everything got worse. Neither Lena or Lex ever visited her, or me, so since that made her really upset, and since she already hated me, she took it out on me in a more physical way-“ You cleared your throat before continuing. “And she blamed them not visiting on me, which, might’ve been Lex’s reason, but I know it wasn’t Lena’s.”

“Wow, that’s a lot,” Maggie nodded. “And you’ve never told Lena any of this?”

You shook your head and looked down at your fingernails, “No, I didn’t want her to know.”

“You know that now we’re going to have to tell her, right?” Maggie put an arm around your shoulder and let you lean into her.

“Yeah, I know,” When you looked down at your hands again, you realized that your anxiousness had caused your hands to start shaking, which Maggie took note of.

“If it makes it any easier for you, I can tell her,” She said, rubbing your arm gently.

“Can you?”

“Of course, I’m here to help,” Maggie reassured you. “We should get going back to Lena though, I told her I’d bring you back as soon as I could.”

—

When you both arrived back at the penthouse, Lena stood up from the seat she’d taken in the kitchen and you went over to hug her.

Once you were sitting, Maggie started explaining what you’d told her to Lena, and when she was done speaking, Lena had tears in her eyes and you could tell that she felt guilty.

“Y/n/n, I am so sorry -“

“Lena, don’t even bother. It isn’t your fault,” You shook your head, taking Lena’s hand and squeezing it gently.

“But if I would’ve been there this wouldn’t have happened to you,” Lena pulled you in for a hug, holding you tightly.

“This isn’t your fault, it’s Lillian’s,” You reassured her, not wanting her to feel badly for something that wasn’t her fault at all.

“I think I’m going to head out, I’ll see you guys soon,” Maggie offered a small smile and waved goodbye a bit, closing the door behind her.

—

An hour later, you were showered and changed into pajamas, cuddled into Lena’s side while the two of you watched Christmas movies and ate cookies.

“Maybe I can take you to a shrink,” Lena suggested. “You don’t have to stick with it, but if they can help you that would be great.”

Being anemic was something you’d pretty much always had to deal with the inconveniences of.

When you were younger it wasn’t as bad, but once you got to high school it got a little worse over time when you started pulling back on the amount of meat you were eating.

You often visited Alex at the DEO and spent time with her while she worked, just to keep her company. Sometimes you would hang out with J’onn or Winn, even Kara, whenever she was at the DEO for more than half an hour at a time.

You’d ended up eating lunch quietly in Alex’s office as she worked.

Usually the two of you would talk, but she seemed busy, so you let her do whatever she needed.

When you were done eating, you stood to throw away your plate, but before you could even grab it off the desk, you fainted from standing up too quickly.

Alex heard the thud on the ground and knew what happened as soon as she turned around, “Damn it.”

Alex picked you up and took you to the med bay, which was only a room over, and laid you down on one of the empty cots (they were all empty, some of them just had stuff on them).

When you regained consciousness, Alex was sitting right next to you and helping you sit upright slowly, “You okay, kiddo? You didn’t hit your head, did you?” Alex asked, her brow creased.

“I’m fine, I fell on my side,” You nodded.

“I think you should start taking iron supplement pills. It’ll be really good for you, and you won’t faint as much,” Alex said, hoping you would agree.

“I mean, if you think they’ll help I’ll give them a try,” You shrugged.

“Perfect,” Alex smiled a bit. “Thank you, Y/n/n.”

“I should be thanking you instead,” You chuckled. “But really, thanks for getting me off the ground and making sure I’m okay.”

“That’s my job, I’m your big sister, which means I’m also your security guard. Someone’s gotta keep their eye on you and there’s no one better to do it than me,” Alex said smugly, clearly enjoying herself.

“Yeah, okay, if you say so Ms. You-Can-Walk-To-The-Park-Alone-You’re-Eight,” You laughed.

"I think they're trying to mock us now," Tony yells just as he raises his palms to fry some bots. "This tech is so 1980s, they could've at least tried."

In between punches, Steve laughs. "I wouldn't know." Scraps of metal litter the asphalt, along with broken wires and tiny screws, all of which would've looked much more gruesome if they were bones and blood. Steve was just thankful it was grease and metal. 

It was just another day, another failed attempt of some crazy scientist to take over the world. The usual.

Steve wonders who will get tired of the cycle first: the heroes or the villains. One runs on obligation, the other on motivation, but both live on dedication. 

(Sequel to Inadequacy.)

Steve knew what he signed up for when he first kissed Tony Stark.

He grabbed Tony's face then and pressed his mouth on his, and he found the genius billionaire returning the kiss with more intensity and passion. When their lips parted, and they were out of breath, Steve looked into Tony's eyes- bright and brown and lost. 

He heard about Tony even before that incident. How he drinks. How he shuts people out. How he doesn't seem to have any tact. He's heard them all, the good and the bad stories. Even with the knowledge of Tony's volatility and spontaneity, he kissed him. Steve didn't care that Tony had a horrible past. He knew how to talk to him. He was immune to his witty insults. 

Steve didn't care that Tony himself was a walking time bomb. He didn't care because Steve cared about him. He loved him. He loved Tony Stark and all the little cracks in his armor.

He loved him then when they first kissed, and he loves him still.

Even if they're both broken down to the last vein, he loves him. 

They will be all right again. Love conquers all, right? 

Bullshit. It doesn't.