#Kara just glossing over massive trauma in canon will never not be bizarre

[natalievoncatte]

CW: discussion of death and dying.

The gun was still on her hip when Lena walked into her penthouse. She probably should have gotten rid of it, just for the sake of disposing of evidence. It was far from the only one she owned, and she wouldn’t miss it. Then again, one does not discard lightly the weapon of fratricide. She’d decide what to do with the murder weapon later; right now, there was only one thought screaming in her head.

I killed Lex. I killed my brother.

It kept repeating in her brain on an endless loop.

I killed my brother for a liar. A betrayer. He was right and I was wrong. She only-

Lena was not alone. There was a figure seated on her sofa, staring straight ahead. Lena knew those blond curls, falling in a dark river like warm honey. Supergirl.

Supergirl, not Kara. Kara was good. Kara loved her, trusted her, watched out for her, had her back. Kara kept her secrets and gave her a shoulder to cry on always had her back. Kara was good, and Kara was a lie.

Lena walked around the couch, eyes wide and lips trembling, her features pulled into a mask of morose fury. How dare she just break in here and… sit there.

“I died.”

Lena froze.

“I died,” Supergirl said, again. “The clone of me that Lex had, she was a duplicate created by Harun-El somehow. She killed me. I died.”

Supergirl’s brilliant blue eyes flashed in the twilight of Lena’s dark apartment and locked on her.

“There was nothing. No warm light of Rao welcoming me home to live in peace with my people forever. No tunnel of light. There was just nothing. I was gone and then I wasn’t. Alex said the grass brought me back.”

Lena licked her lips. She was fixed to the spot.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m Kara.”

Those two little words, those treacherous words, hit Lena like a freight train. Her knees buckled and she sagged, catching herself by an end table.

Kara met her gaze.

“There were a million reasons why I never told you. They’re all stupid and pointless. When I woke up that was the first thing I thought of. I died and I never told you.”

Lena tried to speak, but her throat had gone so dry that it was like trying to breath through a mournful of sand. She sagged further, barely able to fall into a side chair.

“At first I just didn’t know you well enough. Then I screwed everything up by being a complete ass to you, and I never even said I was sorry. But I was sorry. So I was too scared to tell you because I didn’t want you to hate me. Then by the time I wanted to tell you again, all of this had happened and I was still afraid you’d hate me.”

Kara looked down at the floor.

“But then I was dead and none of it mattered anymore. None of the things that had been important to me mattered when I was dying. You know what I was thinking as she crushed the life out of me?”

“No,” Lena choked out.

“This is it?” said Kara. “All that… and this is it? Just like that? This is all I get?”

Silence ruled the dark apartment. The back edge of Lena’s gun dug uncomfortably into her flank. Kara just sat there, looking through the floor. Perhaps literally.

“Kara,” Lena said, without quite knowing why. “I’m sure… you weren’t…”

“No, Lena, I died. It wasn’t like when Reign beat me to a pulp and threw me off a building. That was different. This was different. I can’t even say how. I just know.”

When Reign…

Lena had been there that night. Reign had beaten Supergirl into a coma, thrown her off a building and left her broken and bloodied in the street. Lena thought she’d died that night.

Wait.

That was Kara, too.

Sharp, rancid bile, harsh and acidic, burned the back of Lena’s throat. She choked it down, trembling.

Kara looked at her again.

“I have something else I have to tell you.”

Lena needed a drink. Now. She wobbled across the room to the kitchen and grabbed the nearest wine bottle, pouring herself a glass and downing half of it in one go. It was a dry red, harsh and sharp on her tongue.

“Kara,” Lena began. “Before you say anything else-“

“I’m in love with you.”

Lena wasn’t sure what she expected Kara to say, but not that. Not just… say it. She couldn’t say it. Not when Lena has been grasping that secret so hard that it always threatened to slip from her fingers, reedy to leap from her grip from being held so tight. The words simultaneously made her feel as if her heels would float from the floor and nearly drove her down to it. She leaned on the white marble countertop, trembling.

“None of the reasons I kept that secret matter anymore, either. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. I’ll leave if you want me to. I just… I died,” Kara’s voice crumbled into a sob, barely intelligible, “and I didn’t tell you.”

Lena said nothing. She downed the rest of the wine.

“What do you want from me?” She finally choked out.

“I want to tell you about Krypton. I want movie nights and game nights and big belly burgers and brunches. I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you so bad I don’t know how I never did. If you want that.”

Again, Lena went silent.

“I want to make up for the shit I’ve put you through. I want to show you how much I care for you, as often and as thoroughly as I can. Dying without you fucking sucked. I want to live with you instead.”

Lena’s breath quickened. Kara’s boots creaked as she stood up, her cape billowing slightly behind her as she crossed the room, keeping a respectful distance.

“I’ll go, if you want. I just had to say it.”

Lena pressed her fingers against the countertop until they went white and her palms trembled. She felt the weight of the gun on her hip.

“Stay,” she whispered.

There is no prompt for this one. The idea just came to me and I had to write it out.

#supercorp #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl #supercorp fanfic #lena luthor #kara danvers #kara x lena #karlena #supergirl fanfic #ficlet #shit gets real when Kara curses #angst #angsty supercorp #these two are a mess seriously #get them some therapy #Kara just glossing over massive trauma in canon will never not be bizarre #she died can she have a minute here