#what was happening with Brainy than she was seeing and allowed herself to keep thinking the best of him that hope was shattered

[oetravia]

Every Brainia Scene Ever: 5x19 [2/3]

#supergirl #supergirledit #brainia #brainiaedit #dreamdox #m'gann m'orzz #nia nal #(the throwback to the chocos...my poor battered heart) #and I'm so glad that this conversation happened with M'gann because she knows enough about the situation to listen and offer advice #but she's also pretty much the most neutral voice Nia could possibly be talking to in that moment. Especially where Brainy's concerned #because we know after 518 that Kara thinks Brainy is lost to them and I have to assume the rest of the Super Friends are following suit #including Nia much as it's clearly difficult for her to try to do regardless of what she said to him in the aftermath of the DEO collapse #because even now she cares about him and she still can't shake him from her mind and it's worse now because as far as she knows #he couldn't explain why he's working with their worst enemy and greatest threat so there's only one conclusion she can draw #which is why she pushes back against M'gann's advice because the last time she allowed herself to consider that there was more to #what was happening with Brainy than she was seeing and allowed herself to keep thinking the best of him that hope was shattered #and the rest of her little speech here...ugh #she really does touch on what makes them such a great pair. The way that their romantic relationship is only one facet of their bond #they work together because they really are partners in every sense of the world. They know each other better than anyone and that's what's #so exhausting for Nia at this point. She doesn't know how to process everything she's learning about Brainy because she doesn't know #how to deal with this new Brainy in general because she hasn't recognised him since he took off his inhibitors #and it's clearly been weighing on her if she was right to encourage him to take them off in the first place #and the mixed feelings because all she ever wanted for him was for him to be able to comfortably be himself #but apparently that's led to him working with Lex Luthor and turning his back on the Super Friends and her specifically #how is she supposed to deal with that? She wanted him to be himself...can she really be angry because the real Brainy #isn't everything she hoped he'd be? That despite all her assurances that she knew the real him apparently she didn't? #mine #my gifs #*ebs

[amnesia-yourself]

It starts on a game night unlike any other, because this time, in what Kara is narrating to the bored audience of three as the plot twist of the century, Lena is losing.

Lena, Kara realized very early on in their friendship, is extremely serious about game night. She will not play Monopoly unless everyone promises not to tap out out of boredom. The vein in her forehead will throb when paired with Brainy for charades. She will dust off her yoga mat the day before to stretch her muscles for twister.

All this is to say that Lena hates, hates, losing. If there is one thing that she hates even more, it’s losing in front of an audience- and not just any audience, but Nia, Sam, and Winn, who will tease her mercilessly for it.

Alex is rapidly draining Lena’s money from the plethora of traintracks which Lena, by some ill stroke of luck, keeps landing on over and over again, having to pay 200 dollars each time, and she wastes no energy trying to hide her smug delight, her evil cackling rivalling Lex’s. Lena’s all huffy and annoyed despite her best attempts to hide it when she finally succumbs into bankruptcy.

“Aw, it’s okay baby.” Kara throws an arm around Lena’s shoulder to pull her in for a sidehug, but Lena doesn’t melt into it- instead she stiffens, aiming a deeply unsettling glare at Kara.

“Do not call me that.”

Sam is now openly laughing at Lena’s lousy sportsmanship and Winn is doing some sort of jig with a wicked grin. Kara, for her part, can not for the life of her remember whether she’s called Lena baby before now.

A part of her is sure that she has, and that Lena had taken it well- lit up, even, and gone soft in that play-reluctant way of hers that Kara loves. But the other part, the forgetful one, the one that had been daydreaming of scenarios similar to this one for years before Lena and her recently started dating, isn’t so sure.

No petnames, noted, she thinks, and soon forgets about it.

Lena’s bruised ego is soothed by her subsequent wins in pictionary and hungry hippo, and she ends up eagerly staying over. They have a wonderful night, and a wonderful morning. It’s a flurry of heartbearts and all those feelings that people attribute to the honeymoon phase but which Kara thinks will probably be for forever, because she’s been getting the same butterflies since the day she met Lena all those years ago.

So it’s really odd when, sometime during Lena’s stay, her mood shifts.

It’s not the first time it’s happened. Usually if she’s bothered by something serious she tries to hide it and act like nothing’s wrong, but when it’s something silly, like starting the day with a bad cup of coffee, or Andrea missing one of their weekly lunches, it renders her heavy footed, frowny, silently begging for Kara to ask what is wrong and fix it with a hug or a forehead kiss.

Kara is bemused and half worried that Lena’s heavy steps would break that one rickety floorboard in her kitchen. She approaches Lena from behind and molds herself to her back.

Lena melts, her grip on the tea box easing. Kara’s heart starts fluttering rapidly the way it’s been doing each time they’re physically close. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she says.

Lena’s grip tightens around the tea bag like she’s gathering the strength to send her away. Kara sneaks her hand under her shirt, warm hand splaying over her tummy. She kisses the back of her neck, nuzzling the skin. “Tell me. Please?”

Lena turns around and kisses her. Kara doesn’t so much allow herself to be distracted by it as she is swept into it. Lena tastes like the tea she was replenishing, feels like heaven, and before Kara knows it she has Lena perched on the counter and is pressing herself as closely as she can between her legs, sucking the last hint of sweetness straight off Lena’s tongue.

Her brain catches up and she pulls back, fingers gently weaving through Lena’s hair to stop her from following. It takes a few more kisses and soft touches to coax the answer out of Lena, and when it finally comes it’s so sweet- Kara will never forget the shy drag of Lena’s nose along her cheek where she chose to hide her face, or the agonizing preciousness of having to urge the words out of her, or the way she made Kara’s heart flip-flop in her chest in a display that would’ve been the highlight of the Olympics.

“What did you say?” Kara asks, and Lena whines at having to repeat herself.

“You stopped calling me baby.”

Kara knew it. She knew Lena loved it when she called her that, but the vehemence with which Lena reacted to it on game night confused her.

“I thought you hated it?”

Lena’s nail scratches down Kara’s shoulder, slipping under her collar. “Not when we’re alone.”

Kara grins. She loves having like Lena like this- more bossy, more affectionate, more playful, more everything that Kara loves about her. It’s as if she’s finally getting to see the full scope of Lena Luthor. She knows that it’s harder for Lena to show her good side than it is her bad, and she is honored, so honored.

“Just for me?” she asks, teasing, and Lena huffs, her expression souring.

One baby is all it takes to fix it. Kara adds an I love you for extra measures.

#y’all i couldnt figure out how to add the continue reading thing exqueeze me #its a thinking abt grumpy girls who’re just trying to get ur affection typa day #like stop i will fall in love with u #& so Baby Lena Luthor strikes again #supercorp #supercorp fic #mine

[thornedrose44]

Prompt: Lena accidentally creates something that makes everyone attracted to her except kara (she is immune) basically jealous!kara 😬

Read on AO3 (Prompt from @urjustwaiting)

“My dearest Lena,” Brainy began, brown eyes bright and earnest as he cradled Lena’s hand in both of his like it was something precious and fragile, “I have always considered you to be my intellectual equal and a friend of the highest order. Recently, however, I have found my feelings of friendship for you have shifted - grown into something unexpected and wondrous.”

Brainy inhaled sharply, gathering his courage as Lena’s eyes widened with abject shock and horror at what was occurring.

“Lena Luthor, I have fallen irrevocably in love with you”, Briany declared confident and unfalteringly certain, “and I was wondering if I could spend time conversing with you over a sizeable meal?”

To say Lena’s day had started strangely would be the understatement of the century. She had arrived at the DEO following the news that there had been an attempted break-in last night at the secret facility that had been successfully fended off by Kara, Brainy, Nia and Andrea (the newest superhero to join the club).

Alex, who had taken her first night off since becoming director, had rushed onsite as soon as she was alerted to what had happened; her first order had been to bring Lena in to evaluate the building’s defenses and put in suitable improvements for any weaknesses identified. It was a sign of how much trust Lena had earned amongst the Superfriends, and more specifically Alex, that no one hesitated to call her in for help with something as sensitive as security flaws.

Lena had fought hard to earn back the trust she had nearly lost, rebuild the bridges both sides had burnt and therefore she didn’t balk at the ridiculously early wake-up call and did not even consider saying no to Alex’s request.

The second she arrived at the DEO, she knew something was off.

People were staring at her, which shouldn’t have been odd for a Luthor in the slightest but Lena was used to being ignored at the DEO. The agents milling the corridors would give fleeting glances and welcoming nods but nothing more - many of them owed their life to a last minute scientific breakthrough courtesy of Lena’s intellect and as such they respected her enough to treat her like she was one of them - like she belonged here - because of it. Walking into the DEO to find herself the subject of many furtive gazes and unsubtle wandering eyes was therefore worrisome to say the least.

Lena’s concern merely increased as she made her way further into the DEO where she couldn’t go more than a metre without being approached by agents trying out a cheesy pick-up line or inviting her to coffee/dinner. Two rather charming agents actually dropped down on one knee at the same time to propose to her there and then - Lena was saved from answering as her wannabe future spouses got into a fist fight. The worst one, by far, was Pam from HR who shouted that she was enthusiastically willing to bear all of Lena’s future children - Lena promptly sprinted into the command centre and had been momentarily relieved to see Brainy there waiting for her.

The relief was obviously dashed a minute later when Brainy grabbed her hand and sweetly announced his love for her.

“Brainy, what the hell!?”

Those were the exact words Lena had wanted to shout but had been unable to find her voice to do so, thankfully (or not so as the case may be), Nia had voiced them for her and was striding into the room with a furious expression on her face.

“Nia, it’s not what it looks like-” Lena rushed to reassure as Nia pushed her boyfriend away from the youngest Luthor.

“How could you?!” Nia demanded, rounding on the Coulan.

“Nia, I think there’s something wrong-” Lena began to interrupt, knowing how much Brainy loved Nia and her alarm bells from the agents earlier ringing loudly in her head when....

“I wanted to ask her out.” Nia exclaimed stamping her foot childishly before turning to face Lena with fluttering eyelashes and a seductive pout. “Lena, please my love is far more real than Brainy’s. Don’t go out with him.” Nia pleaded as Briany scoffed derisively behind her.

“Lena is smart enough to see through your fraudulent affection. She was on the precipice of accepting my offer of a date.” Briany cut in with a superior raise of his chin.

“No, she wasn’t!” Nia rebuked, turning back to Brainy with clenched fists.

“Yes, she was!” Brainy returned, chest puffing out as they both stepped forward as if to engage in battle when a sudden red and blue blur appeared between them as a physical barrier.

“What on Earth is going on?” Kara questioned, brow creased in confusion as she looked between the couple that seemed to be seconds away from trading blows.

“I LOVE LENA MORE!” They both shouted in answer whilst they simultaneously lunged towards one another.

“What?!” Kara gasped as she hurriedly tried to keep the two apart. “Lena?” Kara asked, wide-eyed and gobsmacked, clearly looking for an explanation.

“I don’t know!” Lena responded quick and panicked. “I came in and everyone’s been…”

“Everyone’s been what?” Kara prompted as she ducked a wild swing from a feisty Nia.

“Like this.” Lena gestured to Briany and Nia who were futilely trying to dodge around the kryptonian superhero.

Kara blinked rapidly at this information but reacted quickly, super speeding Brainy and Nia away from the command centre as carefully as she could. Kara was back less than a minute later, appearing harried and uncomfortable but she wasn’t looking at Lena any differently to normal. Soft blue eyes watched her the exact same way and as soon as she was back, she gently encouraged Lena into their standard hug with a light touch to her elbow.

Lena folded happy and willing into Kara’s arms burying her face into the kyrptonian’s shoulder as Kara gently stroked her back.

“So… interesting morning so far?” Kara teased managing to pull forth a relieved chuckle from the CEO.

“You could say that.” Lena sighed, letting her eyes slip closed for a fleeting second as she quickly inhaled Kara’s familiar airy scent before pulling away and putting her armour back on. “I seem to have suddenly become irresistible to everyone here.” Lena explained, nearly convincing herself that she saw a flash of a sad pout on her best friend’s face when she ended their hug. “Except for you, of course.” Lena clarified.

“Well… uh… I…” Kara stammered, face blushing a bright red as she self-consciously rubbed the back of her neck.

“Don’t worry, Kara, I’m not offended.” Lena reassured, giving Kara an out even as it caused her heart to painfully twinge with a familiar loss and yearning that always accompanied the realisation that Kara would never see her the same way.

“Lena-” Kara began, lips pressed tight together as she took a tentative step forward.

“Lena, there you are!”

Kara and Lena’s heads turned immediately to see Andrea striding into the room, dressed to impress in a tight black dress and red soled heels that drew attention to her long, sinful legs.

“Oh, dear…” Lena murmured, swallowing thickly, as Andrea approached with a dark predatory gaze that promised to fulfill all of Lena’s long forgotten teenage fantasies.

Lena was so fixated on the sight of her first crush looking like she was about to devour her right there in the DEO command centre that she didn’t see the heavy frown form on Kara’s face, nor the way blue eyes flickered red for a flash.

The sound of a rumbling growl was the only thing that broke through Lena’s stupor and pre-empted a red-blue blur sweeping Andrea out of the room, presumably to deposit her in the same place as Brainy and Nia.

“Was that your stomach?” Lena asked when Kara reappeared a few moments later.

“Was what my stomach?”

“That growling noise?” Lena inquired with a tilt of her head.

“Uhhhh….” Kara’s mouth opened and closed, the tips of her ears turning red before she nodded her head in jerky agreement. “Yep, stomach, super hungry, no breakfast.”

“You must be, you’re dropping verbs.” Lena joked.

“Uh huh.” Kara muttered, shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot as she intermittently shot discouraging glares to any agents that looked like they were even considering coming up to Lena. “Do you have any idea what’s causing this?” Kara questioned, placing her hands on her hips and trying to ease into her Supergirl persona.

“No.” Lena answered honestly.

“Were you exposed to anything? Or working with anything that might have caused something like this?” There was no accusation within the questions, just genuine curiosity and a desire to work through the possible causes. Lena didn’t doubt Kara’s trust in her, not after everything they had been through.

“No.” Lena replied after thinking carefully.

“You were here yesterday and everyone was fine.” Kara rationalised, “So it must have happened since you left.”

“Kara, I didn’t do anything after I left. I went home, watched a documentary, had a bath and went to bed as I promised you.”

Lena’s work hours since re-taking L-Corp as her own had exploded and her rare free time was regularly being utilised to support the Superfriends. Lena had spent yesterday tweaking Kara’s supersuit to improve its diagnostic capabilities to provide Kara an edge when flying into an unknown situation. It had taken Kara forcibly frog marching her out of the building and using her puppy dog eyes to get Lena to promise that she would finally go home and relax.

“Good girl.” Kara said, softening immediately at Lena’s answer, blue eyes twinkling with pride.

Lena internally screamed at herself to keep her praise kink under tight control.

“Then maybe something happened overnight? Or whilst you were on your way in?” Kara continued to theorise allowing Lena much needed time to regain her cool.

“Unlikely,” Lena replied thoughtfully, “I stopped for coffee on my way in and no one there acted oddly. It wasn’t until I got to the DEO that things changed.”

“Then-”

“SOMETHING WEIRD IS GOING ON!” Alex announced as she strode in, practically snarling at the agents that were working at their consoles, all of whom had looked a second away from getting to their feet and rushing eagerly towards the older Danvers as soon as she appeared.

Kara, meanwhile, instantly moved to be slightly in front of Lena like a personal shield ready to jump forward but careful not to overstep and diminish the CEO’s autonomy - Lena couldn’t help how her heart fluttered at Kara’s mindful concern.

“Are you in love with Lena too?” Kara challenged, narrowing her gaze at her sister.

Alex came to a sharp and sudden stop, jaw dropping open as she looked between Kara and Lena, “Too?” Alex echoed, and Lena watched in confusion as a slow and incredibly bright grin appeared to light up the Director’s face. “Did you finally-”

“BrianyandNiaareinlovewithLena!” Kara yelled, panicked and fast paced, hands flapping wildly at her sides.

The smile vanished alongside whatever Alex had been about to say. “I’m sorry, did you say Brainy and Nia are in love with Lena?”

“Yep.” Kara popped as she let out an unusually large sigh of relief that made Lena think she may have missed something important in the sister’s aborted interaction. “As well as nearly all the DEO agents, but no one from the coffee shop so we think it's localised to here which is weird because we can’t seem to find a potential cause that would explain that.” Kara rambled, clearly intent on brushing over whatever had just happened. “Therefore I asked if you were in love with Lena like Briany, Nia and Andrea.” Kara explained placing unnecessary emphasis on their friends' names.

Alex glanced from Kara to Lena, frowning heavily, “Sorry Lena but I’m quite happily taken.”

“Shame.” Lena tsked, earning her an affectionate eye roll from the redhead, before being struck by a sudden realisation. “Wait, then why were you coming in yelling that something weird is going on if you didn’t know about me?”

Alex shot a look over her shoulder before moving closer to the other two and dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “People are being… ‘overly friendly’ to me.”

Kara and Lena shared a look.

“Hey!” Alex snapped, bringing guilty green and blue eyes back to her. “I’m being serious here!”

“So by ‘overly friendly’ you mean…” Lena prompted.

“People keep trying to hug me and ask me how my day is going. And they keep… complimenting me.” Alex whispered like she was sharing some heinous crimes.

Both Kara and Lena’s eye muscles twitched with the desire to share another look but they managed to resist - just.

“It’s weird.” Alex defended haughtily. “Yesterday, they were too scared to look me in the eye for longer than a second and now they can’t go ten seconds without giving me a motivational speech about how good a job I’m doing.”

“It could be worse.” Lena said trying to be comforting,

“How?” Alex huffed.

“Well, Pam from HR told me she wanted to bear my children.” Lena said with a shrug that was immediately followed by a loud CRUNCHING noise.

Lena turned to find the source of the ear-splitting sound only to discover that the round titanium table Kara had been leaning against was now heavily crumpled around two tightly clenched kryptonian fists.

“Kara?” Lena squeaked whilst Alex merely face-palmed.

***

“It doesn’t make sense.” Lena mused, unknowingly posed like ‘The Thinking Man’ on the stool as Alex and Kara paced the space.

They had made the wise decision to move to what was considered Lena’s lab at the DEO to free themselves of the foot traffic of the command centre that had both Danvers sisters glowering at any agents that dared to approach (though for vastly different reasons).

“What are you thinking Luthor?” Alex asked, plopping herself down heavily on the stool by the CEO.

“Disparate pieces that don’t logically fit together.” Lena murmured quietly more to herself than to the other two before she lifted her head and tried to slowly talk through what her mind was attempting to process. “Whatever happened, clearly happened in the last,” Lena glanced at her watch, grimacing at the time as her head pounded with lack of sleep, “eight hours. I left here at six yesterday and no one was acting any differently to normal. Whatever has happened changes people’s behaviour towards us.” Lena gestured between herself and Alex, “but only us. And whatever is doing it is localised to the DEO.”

Lena paused, giving the sisters a chance to disagree with her assertion of facts, both Danvers nodded in agreement and encouragement to continue.

“Therefore, we have two options:” Lena continued, laying out the two theories she was working with, “either something happened at the DEO that is causing this and we are merely triggers for it. Or something happened specifically to us and being here is triggering it.”

Alex pursed her lips, thinking carefully through Lena’s logic, “Which do you think is more likely?”

“Something happening at the DEO.” Lena answered with a shrug, “One target, one location, rather than two is more straightforward.”

“Agreed.” Alex sighed, “And we know something did happen after we both left last night.”

“The attempted break in.” Lena concurred.

Alex nodded, shifting to face the kryptonian who had been listening intently to the conversation, “Kara, give us a rundown of what happened.”

Kara frowned, hands moving to rest on her hips in classic Supergirl pose, “It was just dumb thugs looking to make a quick buck. They’d stumbled upon some alien tech that they knew fetched a good price on the black market. Rather than sell it quickly and get away with it, they got greedy. They knew more tech was held here and figured they could double their profits if they used the tech they already had to pull off a heist.”

“I want it noted that the DEO is the worst kept secret in this city,” Lena snarked, with a roll of her eyes, “and that’s saying something considering Supergirl's disguise is a pair of glasses.”

“Noted,” Alex grunted, shooting the youngest Luthor a smug smirk, “which is why making it your job to fix that for us.”

Lena chuckled darkly, “You couldn’t afford my consultation fees.”

Alex’s smugness increased tenfold at that, her chin lifting defiantly as she laid down her ace, “That’s why I’m making Kara be the one to ask you.”

Lena gasped, utterly outraged, “You underhanded-“

“Guys, focus!” Kara bellowed, clapping her hands loudly together to break the two of them out of their regular snarky banter that could go on for a good hour if not interrupted quickly (it was how they showed their affection for one another).

“Right.”

“Sorry.”

Alex and Lena murmured apologetically, gazes dropping to the floor as Kara shook her head in amusement at their familiar antics.

“What tech did they use?” Alex questioned, bringing them back on track.

“Stupid gas.”

Lena’s brow furrowed at the response and Alex’s aggrieved grunt that followed it, “I’m sorry, what?”

“It’s a bio weapon that makes-“

“People stupid?” Lena guessed.

“Hyper emotional, but… yeah.” Alex clarified, “Like when I was exposed to it, I just laughed for like an hour straight.”

Lena hummed thoughtfully, brain whirring away to make connections with this new information, “Are kryptonians immune?”

“No.” Alex laughed, earning her a pout from the Super that made Lena take a mental note to beg Kara for the obvious story behind it another time.

“Then why isn’t Kara affected by all of this?” Lena questioned, throwing in the other variable they hadn’t considered.

“Now that you mention it, the stupid gas didn’t work on me last night.”

Alex’s face scrunched up in confusion, “It did last time.”

Kara shrugged, seemingly unconcerned, “I think Lena’s upgraded suit protected me.”

“My upgraded…” Lena began slowly, her eyes suddenly going wide as she recognised the suit Kara was currently wearing to be the one she had been tinkering with all day yesterday, “Kara, I told you not to wear that yet. I hadn’t finished tweaking it!”

Kara winced at the sharp tone, hands flying up in supplication and surrender, as she whined defensively, “It worked perfectly Lena.”

“That’s not the point-“ Lena rebuked, crossing her arms aggressively causing the superpowered alien to shrink under her green-eyed glare.

“Kara’s not affected...” Alex murmured, though her voice was quiet there was something sharp to her tone that cut through the room - it was the tone that preceded a ‘Eureka’.

“Alex?” Kara and Lena both prompted.

“I have an idea.” Alex announced jumping to her feet, and snatching up her jacket, “I need to test something out.”

“Okay, what are you thinking?” Kara called out as Alex rushed out of the lab.

“I’m thinking that I’m grateful I memorised the number of that twenty four hour Chinese takeaway.”

***

Lena and Alex stood back and watched in complete horror as the DEO agents ravaged the table loaded up with potstickers, stuffing their mouths with ten at a time and throwing punches over the last handfuls. They had to forcibly pull Kara away from the scene who twitched with the obvious desire to throw herself into the mix to get a share for herself.

“I don’t understand.” Kara wailed, stamping her foot pathetically, once they had returned to the lab.

“Oh my god.” Lena muttered, snatching up the tablet she had been using yesterday and scrolling through everything she had done to Kara’s suit, leaving the explanation task to the older Danvers.

“They’re feeling what you feel.” Alex announced, “Lena and I aren’t the catalyst. You are.”

Kara’s crinkle appeared and deepened.

“It’s why everyone has been so friendly to Alex.” Lena mumbled, taking over the explanation absentmindedly as she distractedly ran through data, looking between the suit upgrades and the specification of ‘Stupid Gas’. “They feel your sisterly love for her and are treating her like you would but to an extreme degree. It must be because of their exposure to the gas mixed with some upgrade I put into your suit.” Lena frowned, mind running a mile a minute, “I fitted in further diagnostic capabilities that might be able to identify biological toxins and alert you, but-“ Lena froze, head snapping upwards to stare dumbly at her best friend, her entire brain grinding to a dead halt.

“Lena?” Kara inquired, blue eyes instantly glowing with concern at Lena’s absolute stillness and dead-eyed stare.

Alex nudged Kara’s side and whispered helpfully, “I think she’s just realised.”

“Realised what?”

Alex directed a soft and understanding smile at her sister, “How people have been acting towards her and what that means…”

“Oh…” Kara squeaked, paling considerably and breath held tight as she waited for Lena to finally react.

“You want to bear my children?!” Lena yelled incredulously, shattering the awkward silence with that explosive revelation.

Kara’s entire body flushed crimson, as she spluttered out (unable to stop herself), “Ummm… I mean… Preferably after a few dates…”

“Annnnnnd that’s my cue…” Alex announced, turning on her heel sharply and marching out of the room.

Lena blinked repeatedly, still not fully rebooted from this turn of events and everything it could potential - hopefully - entail.

“Lena… I…” Kara began, voice thick with emotion as she took timid, shaky steps towards her best friend, “I don’t know what to say…”

“You love me?” Lena asked, the bluntness of the question softened by the tremble to her voice that highlighted the vulnerability and hope of the question.

It was the hopefulness in Lena’s voice and the way green eyes were dark with poorly hidden want that gave Kara the courage to lift her chin, puff out her chest and declare sincerely, “More than anything.”

Lena let out a shaky breath, throwing her tablet down on the bench and demanding sternly, “Take off the suit.”

“Really?” Kara’s eyes bulged at the request, the flush from earlier deepening to a boiled crimson, “I mean I’m not saying no but I was kind of hoping we could go out on a date first. Maybe? If you’re interested?”

“Kara,” Lena said stepping forward into Kara’s personal space which effectively stopped Kara’s ramble, “you’re still wearing the upgraded suit which is feedbacking to everyone in the DEO your emotions. If you take it off everyone goes back to normal.”

“Oh,” Kara breathed, shaking her head with embarrassment, “I thought-“

Lena reached out, threading her fingers through Kara’s golden hair affectionately before seeking out the nape of her neck to gently tug Kara down the couple of inches between them so that she could press their lips hotly together. Kara’s hands instantly sought out Lena’s hips even as her mouth slipped open granting access to Lena’s insistent tongue.

Lena’s free hand traced the emblem on the supersuit whilst she teased her nails against Kara’s neck earning her an appreciative groan that served as the only warning before Kara effortlessly hoisted Lena up onto the lab bench pressing eagerly forward into the space between Lena’s legs.

Lena nipped at Kara’s bottom lip before breaking away, panting heavily to regain her breath. Kara, meanwhile, didn’t even hesitate to track kisses down Lena’s jaw and neck, sucking at her pulse-point until Lena’s legs wrapped tightly around Kara’s body desperately trying to earn some relief.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?” Lena gasped.

“Oh, I do.” Kara murmured earnestly, leaning back to fully appreciate how wrecked Lena looked.

Lena lightly shoved Kara back with a playful laugh, fingers tapping against the edges of Kara’s supersuit emblem as she quirked a mischievous eyebrow. “The sooner you take this off, the sooner the problem is fixed and we can go on that date.”

Kara’s entire expression lit up at that and in flash she had disappeared only to return less than a second later dressed in the DEO sweatsuit that Lena adored.

“Shall we?” Kara checked, bouncing up and down so excitedly that Lena couldn’t resist pulling her back in for another deep kiss.

#supercorp #supercorp fanfic #supercorp fic #supercorp prompt

[vox-ex]

Things you interrupted me to say

(Kara and Lena)

Okay, so I took this as a chance to write how I would have adapted the ending in the comic version of Crisis (#7 ) to fit the show.  Basically, Lena was chosen as the Paragon of Humanity and Kara is a self-sacrificing idiot who knows she was supposed to die but couldn't tell her. I hope you don't mind.

Kara wonders what they must look like.  

Lena pressed against her side, her hands braced around Kal's fallen frame, their feet sliding together as they try to find purchase on the rubble underneath as more threatens to fall on top of them.

Truth and hope and humanity huddled together at the edge of the universe.

But Kara doesn't feel like the saint of any virtue now.  

She is just scared.

And it's a fear so familiar, so haunting, that when she closes her eyes, she feels 13 again. Feels her mother's arms around her under a sky that is still red and a world that is still burning somewhere light-years away and decades in the past. She hears her father's last words again, hears his broken promise reaching through all that time and all that space until it fades into nothing but the faint sound of her name echoing in its place.

"K-Kara?"

She feels Kal shift beneath her, and she opens her eyes, the two worlds now burning as one again as she feels her strength starting to falter, and she knows whatever has to happen has to happen now. She looks down, Kal's blue eyes, hazy and pained but as familiar as the day she first saw them — as innocent as the day she first promised to protect him — and as much as she hates herself for it, she can't stop herself from repeating her father's words as she wipes away the sweat from his forehead.

"It's okay, Kal."

And even if she still can't forgive him for leaving her behind, maybe she finally understands why he did.

She looks over her shoulder, sees the Anti-monitor trying to make his way through the fallen debris, armor half torn and steps faltering but still stronger than he should be.

"It's okay. I-I know what to do."

She has time, but not much.

Because she had been sent to Earth for one reason, and then she had chosen another, had decided to protect the Earth like she never could Krypton.

She lets her head fall, allowing the weight of what's about to happen settle on her shoulders.  

Knows she can't look at Lena when she asks her to let her go.

"Take Kal, find the others, get out of this universe as fast as you can."

Not after everything it took to get her back. 

"Kara?"

And she hates the way Lena says her name with all the pain she promised never to cause her again.

"Lena, please, I need you to help me save him."

But she just needs her to understand.

Because she had been sent to Earth for one reason, and then she had chosen another, had decided to protect the Earth like she never could Krypton.

"What about you?"

And they both sound so desperate, so tired, so angry at the things that put them in this place, that forced them to make this choice.

"Lena, please, there isn't time; this is how it has to be."

"How it has to! —" And Kara knows then she does. Understands what was in the book of destiny that Kara hadn't wanted her to see, that she had been too much of a coward to tell her herself.

And still, she can't look at her. Because if she does, she'll see just how selfish she had been again, just how much pain she had caused again. All those moments, she could have said something and didn't. All those times, she told herself she was doing the right thing.  Kal had been wrong; love wasn't always the most unselfish thing in the world; sometimes, it was the most.

"No! You promised!"

And Kara can feel Lena's hands on her chest as she tries to push her away.

"You said no more lies!"

Feels them push harder as Lena tries to make her look at her.

But Kara keeps her head down, keeps hold of Lena's hands, keeps them pressed against her chest, her words quiet and gentle among the chaos around them.

"I know."

And as she steadies their hands together over her heart, she tries to hold onto that one last piece of proof of how they fit together, of how they had ever existed in the same place at the same time.

And Lena suddenly sounds so lost, her anger so quickly turning into desperation, to bargaining, to anything but acceptance.

"It doesn't have to be you...I mean I wasn't supposed to be a fucking Paragon. It was wrong then. It could be wrong now."

And Kara sends one last prayer to Rao that she's right, but she doesn't dare lie. Not again.  Not now.

So she doesn't say it's okay.

She doesn't say everything will be fine.

And yet, she still can't bring herself to say goodbye.  

"I have — I have to go."

She moves to stand, pulling herself to her feet, Lena's hand sliding off of her shoulder and down her arm, but as she steps forward, Lena's hand stays in hers, and she is forced finally to look up at her one last time.

"Ple-"

But her desperate plea to be let go — to be forgiven — is cut off by the urgent rush of Lena's body into hers, by the hesitant press of lips and the quiver of fingers against her cheek that seek for so much more time than they are given.

But when Lena finally lets her go, it's with a simple confession.

"I didn't want there to be any more lies between us."

The look in her eyes is all at once everything Kara feared and everything she always hoped for. A moment of clarity unmasked by both of their pain — every doubt she ever had that Lena could love her, had loved her, gone, replaced by the proof of Lena in her arms that no matter how brief and no matter how fleeting she could keep in her heart forever.  

And it's all she can do to hold onto that feeling as the ground underneath them shifts again, forcing them apart on last time.

But when it all settles, the anti-monitor stands in Lena's place. The sky behind him slips between red and purple as explosions fill the air with the smell of ozone and sulfur and burning carbon.

His words echo through the rubble.

"I will wait no longer! You will die. And your Cousin, your family...your worlds. All shall die with you!"

And there is something in his vengeance that seems so mortal to her, so human.  Even as he stands there with his chest heaving with light and his hands glowing with embers, she knows he is not the god he proclaims to be, that he was born from the same stars as her — maybe he can be broken the same as her too.

"You have sealed your fate. As have I."

But he just steps forward, unconcerned about the building inferno around them as he mocks her.

"Do you wish to die, Kara Zor-El?"

Kara can't bring herself to answer him, throwing herself at him instead, forcing her body to move faster than her mind, to push past all the hope that still lingered to the anger that lay underneath.

She tried to stay just out of his reach, tried to be smarter and faster, but all it took was one moment in the wrong place and —

"Kara! Watch out!"

She felt the Anti-monitor's massive hand tighten around her, pulling her toward the ground, her cape fluttering uselessly behind her as Lena's voice echoed in her ears along with a pain that made it impossible to breathe, to think.

She was out of time.

She could see Lena and Kal on the other side of them. Could see Lena holding onto Kal with one hand while the other gripped the extrapolator, thumb shaking as it hovered over the button that would pull them out of this place.  

She tries to look at her, to ask her to forgive her one more time, to thank her for helping keep the promise she made to her parents all those years ago, and for saving the world together one last time.

She sends one last prayer to Rao, and ignoring the agonized protest of her heart that is telling her it's not ready to let go, she pushes her fists into the center of the anti-monitor's chest until she feels all at once the weightlessness of space the impossible heaviness of sun.

It was like touching every part of the universe.  

And for a second, there was something beautiful about it.  

But then she felt it all come apart.

Every cell.

Every atom.

Colliding and combusting — breaking apart.

She could feel the Anti-monitor's chest give way, feel it replaced by nothing but emptiness.

She pushed harder.

Every part of her, becoming a part of him.

Light and dark matter warring for the same space.

It could only end in destruction.

She tried to look back one last time, to make sure Lena and Kal are gone, but all there is a blinding light and then the feeling of being pulled, of falling, and then nothing.

---- ---- ---- ----

Lena feels the cool metal of the ring against her finger. Its weight different now than when it had been hidden in her pocket. Brainy's instructions and calculations, and warnings ringing in her ears as she watches the Anti-monitor hold Kara a loft.  

Her thumb skims the button on the extrapolator she had modified.

She looks back at Clark, at Kal.

She's running out of time.

Kara's running out of time.

She can hear Alex's voice in her ear, asking what the hell is happening.

If they've destroyed the machine?

If they're ready to come back?

If everything is okay?

She thinks how the answer is yes to everything but the last one.

Because she is sitting here deciding whether or not to leave Kara to die, and so no,  Alex, everything is very much not okay.

Kal moves behind her, trying to stand, to help, but she knows he's still too weak, and fuck what would Lex think of her now he could see her, with the fate of two Supers in her hands. She can't help but offer a smile at the not-so-subtle irony of the world.

She holds on tighter to the extrapolator just as she finds herself knocked off of her feet.  

Lena goes blind for a second, but when her vision clears, she sees them both still suspended in the sky, Kara and the Anit-Monitor surrounded by a bright light as they fall through the sky. 

She manages it get to her feet again just in time to watch as the light around them starts to collapse, manages to pull Kal up with her, hanging onto his cape with the hand now bearing Brainy's legion ring, and it's all adrenaline and weightlessness and a feeling she'd never be able to describe again as she feels her feet leave the ground.

But fuck she still hates flying.

And when she's finally close enough, she reaches out, fingers just touching the fabric of Kara's cape, her hand just close enough to feel its heaviness, but then there's a flash of light, and there's an unbearable wave of heat, and so she pulls, she pulls unknowing if it's enough and there's nothing to stop her body falling backward, the heat and atmosphere and dust and ash passing over her as she lands, sharp rocks digging into her back.

There's a quietness that follows the chaos, and she watches the muted explosions above her give way to only sharp white light before she finds herself staring up at the first blue sky she's seen in what feels like years.

She doesn't remember pushing the button on the extrapoltaor.

But she must have.

If they are here.

If they are any place that isn't there.

But where is the question now.

She rolls to her side, can feel the blood that follows down the side of her face as she does.

And fuck, that hurts.

She sees the back of Kal's cape in front of her; it's red so much brighter now that the world has been thrust back into its normal vivid hues.

But something still feels wrong.

And it's then she sees the way his shoulders shudder with each breath he takes.

It's then she sees Kara's head cradled against his chest, her cape torn and hanging from her shoulders as if its weight alone could pull her from his arms.

"No."

She says it first in disbelief.

"No!"

Then again, in resolution.

She says it to herself and to the universe and to the god she knows Kara prays too and the god she stopped believing in when her mother died.

This is not how this ends.

She presses up onto her elbows and then onto her knees, the world tilting at every angle, and she never even makes it fully to her feet before she is next to them, before somehow Kara is in her arms instead of Kal's.

And she is everything the world isn't.

Quiet.

Still.

Cold.

"Kara," she whispers.

And for some reason she Lena feels the overwhelming need to be gentle with her, like she wants to push away the hair that has fallen across her face and wipe away the streak of ash beneath her cheek.

"Kara," she whispers again.

"It—It's over now. It's okay now."

She looked back at Kal. His head held in his hands, broken, hurt, but still breathing. She hears Alex in her ear again, hears her saying that they are on their way, hears her asking for coordinates.  

Lena had helped Kara keep her promise to everyone else but her.

"Lena?" It was Alex again. "Lena, what's going on?"

"I-I need a, I just, I need —"  She tries to breathe, she tries to think, she tries to talk, she rips the comms from her ear when she can no neither.

And with the warmth of the sun at her back and tears falling onto her hands, she feels for the steady beat of Kara's heart.

---- ---- ---- -----

The sky isn't red.

The sky is blue.

The sky is blue, and the sun is warm, and Lena's eyes are green, and the world is still standing.

Kara can see Lena's comm hanging from her ear, bent, and dented in on one side, barely held together by the wires through which she can still hear Alex's frantic voice.  

"L-Lena—please—."

But Lena doesn't look like she can hear her.

Instead, she's looking right at her, tears making her eyes that much more green.

"Kara? Kara, can you hear me?"

And there's a layer of dirt over both of them, and Lena has a streak of blood along the side of her face and staining the top of her shirt. But still, she can't help but think she looks beautiful despite it all— that she's never looked more beautiful.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and she doesn't know where those words come from. But she has so many things to be forgiven for, she supposes.

"You're sor—, you're an idiot."

Lena reaches out to touch her face, fingers slipping through her hair and resting on the base of her neck as her head falls against her chest.

Kara closes her eyes and lets the touch try to take away some of the pain.

She feels Lena let out a deep breath, shaky, and unsteady as if she had been holding it in for too long.  

"I think that the gods sent you here to punish me."

Kara opens her eyes slowly, her voice quiet as she lifts her arm, trying not to wince as she reaches up to wipe the tears from Lena's cheek.

"You told me you didn't believe in God."

But Lena just shakes her head and shifts closer, her hand moving to brush the hair from Kara's forehead as a gentle laugh tries to mask her pain.

"Well, the universe then, the universe and the stars, and every atom and particle, they all conspired together to send you here to punish me."

Kara smiles and kisses the back of Lena's hand, thinking not for the first time about just that, about everything that should have kept them apart that somehow brought them together … "but you decided to love me instead."

Lena nods, resting her head again on her chest, their bodies pressed together… "Yes, I've decided to love you instead."

Kara knows they won't be alone much longer.

She knows they will have to share each other with the world again.

Knows all the other people they have both missed that are waiting for them.

But for this moment, they are in each other's arms, and the universe is not a vast place of infinite worlds; it is only here and only now, and it is only them.

#supergirl #supercorp #happy supercorp sunday #sg prompts #crisis redux #angst with a hopeful ending #because it's my thing #happy supergirl sunday #ask away friends

[janusa]

A MOMENT TO BREATHE (AND LOVE)

Things are good, for the first time in a long year, things are good and Kara can allow herself a moment to breathe. Kelly and Alex are dancing with Esme in the middle of them, all laughs and rosy cheeks, behind them is Brainy with Nia in what seems to be a dance competition between only the two of them.

Kara sips from her champagne, the alcohol does nothing for her but the bubbles are nice, she closes her eyes, lets the upbeat music surround her, and the lower sound layer of insects and little animals in this salon garden to accompany it. Two tables back from her are J’onn with M’gann, they are not talking, at least not aloud, why would they need to when their minds are connected, when they can feel what the other rather than say it?

She finishes her flute, that sight alone gives her the warmth alcohol doesn’t.

“Why are you brooding at a wedding?”

Kara turns her head, already knowing it’s Lena as if she could ever miss the sound of her heartbeat or the smell of her perfume. 

“I’m not brooding.” 

She turns her body to fully face her, Lena pulls out the chair that is in front of hers and sits. Not for the first time today Kara is mesmerized by Lena’s look. The pronounced cleavage of her top shows a trail of moles that gets almost down to her navel; the contrast of dark eyeliner making her eyes look like green sea glass; her hair, pushed back and leaving in display the sharp angles of her face and elegant neck.

Kara is a journalist, was- well, still is but it takes her a good minute to be able to string a sentence.

“It’s nice, you know, to be able to just watch once in a while.”

Lena smiles, soft eyes and with her head tilted to one side, a smile she has noticed she ever just shows with her or Brainy. It’s one she’s learned to associate with immense fondness and just the thought of it makes Kara’s heart clench, but it’s good, to love someone so much that your heart doesn’t know what to do with it.

Lena leans in and places one of her hands on the table, she’s close enough so only Kara can hear her words. Not because there’s a big secret to keep or grave information to disclose but for intimacy, Lena has always had the ability to make her feel seen; thoroughly.

“I guess that after everything that’s happened, you’re right, you need a break.” then she makes a pause and goes for a lighter tone. “But after that, I hope journalist Kara Danvers is back in action because otherwise, I don’t know who else will be willing to cover my projects.”

They laugh and talk about the plans they have for the future, about Kara planning on going to Argo for a while, maybe suggesting Lena should go with her too, about Lena’s new foundation, the projects she has in mind, about Kara retaking her career even if it’s outside of CatCo. It sounds like a bright future, like a good life and Kara wants it, wants this and more, and for the first time since she sent Mon-El on that ship, she thinks that she can have it all.

“There’s something I have to tell you… and ask you.”

She takes a deep breath, this is Alex and Kelly’s day but this atmosphere; so full of love and acceptance and loyalty... to see her sister finally having everything she always dreamed about, is giving her the courage that not even the totem’s test could and she can’t risk losing that momentum now.

Lena frowns and purses her lips in a line.

“Should I be worried?”

“No! No.” she hurries to reassure her friend, putting her hand over hers and staring at them intently. When Kara looks up, she realizes Lena is already watching her with a glassy look and an unreadable expression. “At least, I don’t think so.”

Lena turns their hands over the table and intertwines their fingers.

“Hey everybody. Gather for the group picture!” screams James from the dancefloor, Lena stands up and drags her by their joined hands towards their family.

Lena’s hand never leaves hers. Not in the picture, not during the party, not during Kara’s confession, and not for the rest of their lives.

#only the finale can make pull out in an hour a fic that would usually take me two weeks #yeah. im that slow #supercorp #supercorp fic #kara x lena #kara danvers #lena luthor #kara zor el #supergirl #jan writes

[supercorpkid]

It’s called agony, honestly.

Part 3 of T is for Trauma - The Series

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader

Word count: 2510.

Warnings: All aboard the angst train.

Notes: This is happening at the same time of part 2, but from a different perspective.

Previously on the series – part 1, part 2

“Guys, I brought dinner!” Kara yells going into the kitchen and Lena walks in a while later. Kara is setting the table and already has a potsticker in her mouth, she looks behind Lena. “Where’s our little moody teenager?”

“I don’t know. I just got home.” Lena goes to Kara and they kiss, lovingly. “She’s probably in her room, on her phone, trying to ignore us. Is it weird that exactly when she turned 16, she started being moody?”

“It took her long enough.” Kara smiles, then kisses Lena one more time. “I’ll go check on her, don’t touch my potstickers.” She points at Lena with a smile, who rolls her eyes in response. Kara runs to your bedroom, and knocks on the door. “Hey, kid. Food is here.” No answer. “Kid! Come on!”

When she doesn’t hear anything back, and doesn’t see you inside with her x-ray vision, she opens the door unceremoniously to investigate inside.

“Kid, that’s not funny. Where are you?”

When she finally realizes you’re not in your room, she comes back to the kitchen, looking confused with her furrowed brows. Lena looks back at her.

“She’s not home.” Kara announces it. She used her x-ray vision; she is sure you’re not around.

“What do you mean she’s not home? It’s really late.” Lena points at the clock, like Kara doesn’t know it’s way past your time to be home. She then goes to the refrigerator to look at the calendar on the door. “Was there something at school? It’s not on the calendar.”

“Not that I know of. She doesn’t have training today either. Did you see her at L Corp today?”

“No. I had to ask them to stop letting me know when she was there, remember?” Lena looks back at Kara who looks like it’s seconds away from panicking. “Just call her. Maybe she’s distracted with something.”

Kara takes her phone out of her pocket and tries calling you. No answer.

“She’s not picking up.” Kara is now on the verge of a breakdown, and Lena knows it, just by how her eyebrows look.

“Keep trying. Let me call Jamie.” Lena goes to the living room where her phone is, and Kara follows her closely, phone still on her ear, as she is trying to call you again. “Jamie.”

“Hey, aunt Lena.”

“Hey hun, is your cousin with you?”

“uh…No?”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“When we left school. Why? Is everything alright?”

“Did she tell you where she was heading to?”

“Yeah, she was going to L Corp to talk to you. Why? What happened? Did you two talk?”

“No. But do you know the reason for the conversation?”

“I mean, yeah, but… I think it’s best if you and aunt Kara talk to her first.”

“Ok. Well, thank you, Jamie.” Lena hangs up and looks at Kara ready to pass the information along, but Kara already heard everything.

“I’m going to L Corp. Keep trying her phone.” Kara flies out the window and Lena tries to call you and texting you a few times.

It doesn’t take long, maybe a little more than five minutes, for Kara to call Lena again with news.

“She’s not at her lab, and I asked around L Corp and she hasn’t stepped foot in here today.” Kara's heart is beating incredibly fast, and her hands shake so much she almost drops her phone a few times. Lena sits on the couch at home, her own heart going crazy, and she allows herself to have the same reaction Kara is having. Something is wrong. She was trying to ignore her mother's sense, but now she can’t anymore. They don’t talk for a full minute. “Lena. What do we do?”

“The watch.” It’s like they even forgot about all of that. Lena runs to her laptop, while Kara looks at her own watch to see your location in it. She doesn’t even take the phone out of her ear. “She’s close.”

“Yeah, I’m tracking her on the necklace’s GPS and it seems she’s around L Corp.” Lena agrees, and Kara uses her super speed to get to you. But, it’s not you.

“Lena…” Kara bends down to grab both the watch and the necklace from the ground. “It’s on the sidewalk, both watch and necklace together.”

“What? She never takes off the necklace.”

“I don’t think she took it off.” Kara flies high, phone still in her hand and glued to her ear. “Call Alex, go to the DEO, I’m going to fly around to see if I can locate her. I’ll see you there in a few.”

When they talk again, it’s already on the DEO. Alex, Brainy and Lena are all there. As soon as Kara lands and Lena doesn’t see you with her, she starts crying. Kara goes to her and hugs her, trying to calm her down, but it’s hard when she is fighting her own tears.

“We’ll find her.” She whispers on Lena’s head and turns to Alex, waiting for good news.

“Maybe you should try flying around the planet?” It’s Alex's suggestion and Kara breaths heavily, knowing there’s no good news yet.

“I did. Twice.” She looks at Brainy. “Any portals to different dimensions were open today? Any readings on fifth dimension magic?” Brainy has already denied both options. “If someone took her, they have kryptonite. Any luck on that lead?”

“Still looking into that.” Brainy says and goes back to the computer. Alex gives a couple of steps towards your moms, holds Kara’s arm, squeezing it lightly.

“We’re going to find her.” Alex says reassuringly. She then goes to where Brainy is, leaving Kara and Lena alone to talk.

“Do you think she-she…” Lena’s lips are trembling, her hands are shaking so much, and there are so many tears her entire face is wet. “She ran away from us?”

“No! Lena, no!” Kara says, grabbing each side of Lena’s arms, and she shakes her head in denial. “No! She wouldn’t have left everything in the middle of the sidewalk like that. Not the necklace.”

“But she was so upset yesterday, and it’s our fault. Kara! Kara, it’s our fault. We let our baby down.” Lena sobs desperately. “What if she wanted to leave? What if she doesn’t want us to find her?”

“Hey, hey. That didn’t happen. I know she was mad, but she wouldn’t ditch everything on the sidewalk like that, she would’ve left it home or… Lena, love. It was just a stupid fight; she wouldn’t run away from us.” Kara says, but it’s not how she really feels, she is just saying that to reassure your mom. In her heart she knows they let you down. “And you heard Jamie, she wanted to go to L Corp to talk to you. So she couldn’t be that mad-”

“She might have changed her mind.” Lena says before she’s finished. Kara looks down, and then around. She breaths deep a couple of times knowing that if the two of them get desperate at the same time, nothing will get done.

“Lena.” Kara holds her tight. “I think I would rather have her run away from us and be safe, than the scenario I’m playing in my mind right now.”

“You don’t think I have that scenario too?” Lena tries to let go of her embrace, but Kara keeps her in, protectively. “I have every scenario playing in my head. I have everyone who could harm her listed in my head, and I-I should’ve figured out a way to put a microchip inside her. This is all my fault.”

“Love, we’re going to find her.” Kara kisses her forehead, and that makes Lena cry even harder thinking that’s how they sooth you. “I’m going to fly around again. Maybe I missed something.”

“Please. Kara, please, find our baby. Please.” Lena asks desperately and Kara’s heart shrinks even more.

“I’ll do whatever I can, love.” She kisses Lena, and yells at Alex on the other side of the room. “Find every building made out of lead. I’ll burst into every single one of them if I have to.”

“We’ll cross data with readings of Kryptonite.” Alex answers and Kara leaves right after.

“Tell me how I can help.” Lena asks both of the DEO agents, aggressively wiping her tears away. They both look at her with pity in their eyes.

“Lena-” Alex starts, but your mom doesn’t let her finish.

“Alex, don’t. Your daughter is home, safe and sound. You’re not allowed to do that, to look at me like that!”

“Little boxes, comrade.” Brainy jumps in, trying to help. Her eyes are filled with tears instantly.

“No offense Brainy, but there isn’t a box big enough for this. Just-Just please. I can’t sit around and do nothing. Please, tell me what to do.” She pleads in so much agony, Alex can’t ignore it.

“Come here.” Alex sits her in front of a big screen. “Kryptonite usually leaves a signature, but it disappears after a few hours. Jamie was the last one to see her, and that was after school. So, we’re having a hard time scanning for kryptonite. Brainy is looking at lead covered buildings, I’m looking into surveillance cameras on the way to L Corp. Can you keep scanning for kryptonite?”

“Yes. I’ll do it.” Lena goes back to the computer. Hearts jumping in her chest in anticipation.

She has to find you. She has to tell you that you were right. She promised she would be at your science fair, and she should’ve left everything and everyone behind, and kept her word. You’re the most important person in her life. No business deal is worth having you disappointed at her. And you were right, she was being selfish. She gave you a lab at L Corp to have you around her, while she could work at the same time. That wasn’t fair to you, it wasn’t quality time, since her mind wasn’t there with you. She has to find you. She has to apologize; she has to hug you and tell you she loves you. She has to.

“Alex, tell me you found something.” Kara comes back to the DEO after a few more rounds around the planet. It didn’t take her long to do so, but lucky for her, Alex has new leads.

“Surveillance camera.” Alex points at the big screen in front of them. Kara sees someone throwing you inside a van, and dropping your belongings on the floor. “You can try to find the van, there’s too many places with lead around here.”

“I’ll try that first, but keep going on the lead hiding spots.” Kara looks at Lena before flying away again. She is not crying anymore, but her eyes and face are still red and puffy. Kara wants to stop and comfort her, but she can’t, not unless she finds you. Until you’re back in their arms, there’s nothing she can say or do to comfort your mom, or herself.

Kara flies out again, knowing what to look for now. It takes her a while but she finds the van dumped on the side of a dark road. She opens the van with so much anger, the door comes out in her hand, leaving a hole where it used to be its place.

You’re not inside. There’s no one inside. Kara grunts in frustration and holds the bottom of the van, flipping it over in agony.

She can’t believe she hasn’t found you yet. She feels her heart squeezing in her chest and tears falling without her consent. It’s her fault you’re missing, that’s the only thing in her mind right now. If she wasn’t Supergirl, if she hadn’t pissed off so many people in this life, you wouldn’t be in this situation. She knows, by looking at your face in the video, that you were in so much pain because of kryptonite. There you were, in pain, and where was she when you needed her again? Why does this keep happening? Why can’t she ever protect you? This is all her fault, it’s all her fault. Kara’s heat vision explodes the van, while her mind plays tricks on her.

She flies high in the sky to look around. There is no place around where you could be, they ditched the van to trick her.

“Kara, get back to the DEO now.” She hears on her earpiece and she sure never flew so fast in her life before.

“What is it?” She asks appearing before them, out of the blue, making all three of them jump in surprise.

“The van?” Lena asks and Kara’s response is a head shake in denial.

“Dumped on the side of the road.” She looks at Brainy who’s currently looking for a way to focus on something in his tablet. “What is it?”

“Caught a message.” He says mysteriously. He puts whatever is in his tablet on the TVs in front of them. “It could be from anyone. It’s morse code.”

“Does she know morse code?” Kara looks at Lena who shrugs her response.

“It says. G-O-T. L-I-L-1.” Brainy looks back at them. “Does any of that means something to you?”

“It’s her.” Kara says, feeling her heart jumping in her chest. “Little one. It’s her.” She looks back at Lena. “Lena. It’s her!”

“What does G-O-T mean? Any idea?” Alex asks, going to her own tablet.

“I don’t know.” Lena sits in front of the computer again, typing furiously to find out. Everyone is silent for a few minutes, until Kara opens her mouth. “KARA, if you say Game of Thrones, I swear to GOD-”

“The van.” Kara looks at Alex, and then back at the message. “The van was on the road to Gotham.”

“Gotham.” Lena stands up fast. “Our baby is in Gotham.”

“Kara, wait!” Alex manages to hold her hand just in time before she flies away. “If they took her, they have Kryptonite, you said it yourself. You can’t go alone. You need a team.”

“Alex, the more she is exposed to Kryptonite, the less chance she has to survive.”

“I know. Brainy call J’onn! Kara, let me get some heavy armory. Supergirl doesn’t kill, but Agent Danvers sure does when someone messes with her family.” Alex says leaving everyone behind. Brainy is already talking to J’onn. Kara looks back at Lena, hearing both of their hearts jumping in anticipation.

“Supergirl might kill.” Kara mumbles with so much anger, it sends a shiver through Lena’s spine.

“Honey, listen to me.” Lena holds her arms. “I hate them just as much as you do, but don’t do it. Get our daughter, bring her home. That’s it. That’s the only thing you have to do. Let everyone else care about whoever did this to her.” Kara reluctantly agrees with her head. “This is your only mission. Bring our baby home.”

“I promise.” Kara brings Lena’s hand to her mouth and kisses it, gently. “I’ll bring our baby home if it’s the last thing I do.”

#supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp #kara x lena #supercorp fanfic #supercorpfamily #kara x reader #lena x reader #supercorp daughter #reader insert

[naralanis]

little bumps in the road (pt. 20)

PART TWENTY OH MY GOD YOU GUYS WE’RE NEARING THE END

Ahem. Previously on LBitR...

The next time Lena wakes, it’s to the weirdly familiar yet inconceivable exasperating sound of loud, obnoxious slurping.

Before she can even begin to blink the bleariness out of her eyes, the sound assaults her ears again—it is so visceral it disconnects her from the space she’s occupying (namely, the bed on a DEO medbay somewhere) and transports her somewhere else, far, far away, to a diner in the middle of nowhere. With Kara.

The slurping resumes and she sits up like a shot, fast enough to make herself dizzy. She’s still in handcuffs, and her sudden movement makes them rattle noisily against the railing of her bed, cutting her movement short abruptly and making her bounce back into her pillows.

“Kara?”

The name leaves her lips before her brain can fully catch up with the improbability of that logic, though it arrives at that conclusion moments later, when Lena’s eyes adjust and see Nia’s quirked eyebrow eyeing her back curiously as she sips from a plastic to-go cup.

“Nope,” Nia quips after another unnecessarily loud slurp. “Just little ol’ me. Here,” she extends a hand to Lena, who takes the second to-go cup the young woman offers without even thinking. “It’s kale. Your favourite—for reasons unknown to mankind.”

Lena takes a tentative sip—she has to lean forward, a little clumsily and awkwardly, since the handcuffs don’t allow her to bring the cup closer to her face.

Nia pulls a face at Lena’s second, much less tentative sip. The smoothie tastes amazing, and it makes her release a happy little hum before she can catch herself, and Nia’s offended grimace reminds her so much of Kara. It’s weird, but a happy kind of weird, and Lena knows it’s probably the last reprieve they’ll get before shit well and truly hits the fan. So, she’ll take it—the reprieve and the smoothie.

Nia watches her down half of her cup in a matter of seconds with an expression close to abject horror. “Gross,” she mutters, then slurps again at her own smoothie, a purple concoction that admittedly looks quite good.

“Don’t judge me,” Lena says, amused and smacking her lips with delight. “I’ve been eating nothing but fast food for weeks. I can’t remember the last time I even saw a vegetable.”

Nia laughs. “No judgement, I have nothing against vegetables. I love salad. I just don’t blend it.”

“Well, thank you for my blended salad,” Lena drawls with a waggle of her brows. “I—and my arteries—deeply appreciate it.”

“You and your arteries are welcome,” Nia says, pulling out the rickety metal chair by Lena’s bedside and plopping down rather ungracefully. “I thought I’d keep you company for a little while, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Lena begins, but there’s something off about Nia’s tone—a slight warble of worry that Lena only spots because the young superhero won’t meet her eyes.

“Not that I don’t appreciate your lovely company,” she starts again, fiddling with the straw of her drink. “But… there’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“There’s a ton of stuff I’m not telling you,” Nia replies easily, though her eyes are darting around everywhere in the room, except to Lena, in clear discomfort. “I’m a woman of mystery.”

Lena taps her nails against the plastic of her cup, squeezes it slightly, jostling the ice and making the plastic bend and creak as she scrutinizes Nia’s face. The young woman’s playfulness has all but vanished, and there’s a tension in the air that wasn’t there before, and it worries Lena.

“You’re here to keep an eye on me…” she starts with the obvious, watching for the most minute changes in Nia’s expression to indicate whether she was in the right path. “… because of Lex—no, that’s too easy; everything is because of Lex.”

There’s a slight sag to Nia’s shoulder’s, a microscopic shift to her brows, and they tell Lena what she wants to hear without words. “Because of Kara,” she breathes, and the way Nia chokes on her smoothie all but confirms it, and Lena immediately snaps into panic mode.

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “You heard something—you know something,” she says, free hand clenching around the flimsy sheets of her bed. It’s not a question, and Lena doesn’t phrase it as one, but the guilty look on Nia’s face answers it perfectly either way. “Is she here? Is she on her way?! Nia, you can’t let her come, we have to stop her! It’s a trap! She cannot come!”

“I know, I know, Lena,” Nia says, forcing a bit of calm that is not naturally occurring in her tone at the moment. “Please calm down; Kara is not in National City,” she grimaces. “At least not yet.”

“Then where is she?” Lena asks, voice wavering in a way she doesn’t even attempt to control. “She absolutely cannot come here.”

“I know,” Nia sighs. “We know. She was spotted by one of Lex’s satellites in Mexico.”

“Mexico…” Lena murmurs, mostly to herself. “For some sun, probably. Is she alright?”

“I would assume so; she was a literal blip on the radar, almost too fast to be picked up at all.”

Lena breathes a deep sigh of relief, sinking into the miserable pile of crappy pillows at her back. “Good,” she says, closing her eyes, already trying to map out the next steps from here. “Good, that means we still have some time.”

Nia quirks a brow in question. “Time? Time for what?”

Lena looks at the young woman like she’s gone insane. “Time to foil whatever Lex is planning to do next,” she explains as if Nia is missing something painfully obvious, because isn’t it? Painfully obvious? Does Nia just expect her to sit tight, handcuffed to this bed, while Lex continues with whatever lunacy he has in store for Kara?

“Brainy said the implant can’t be removed or disabled from a distance, but I was the one who created the system they run on. If I could somehow sneak into the mainframe, maybe I could—”

“Woah, woah, woah, let me stop you right there, Lena,” Nia interrupts, looking panicked. “Hold your damn horses—you are not going anywhere except another, more secure facility. You’re not stepping foot in LuthorCorp—no way.”

“Nia,” Lena hisses, vaguely aware she’s close to sounding like a petulant child, but not even remotely close to caring. “I have to—I’m the only one besides Lex himself who stands a chance in hell of disabling those systems.”

“No way, Lena. No. It’s too risky.” Nia says with an air of finality.

Of course it’s risky. Lena’s not blind to that simple fact—never has been. But the other simple fact is that any world with Lex Luthor in it presents more risk than anyone would be willing to accept.

“What’s the alternative, then? Keep me here, handcuffed, while Kara swoops in for a rigged death match against my brother??”

Nia flinches, and that tells Lena everything she doesn’t want to hear.

“Oh my god, you are,” she practically yelps, watching Nia shrink into herself at her outburst. “You can’t just keep me here! I could help, I could—I have to help—”

“I can, and I will!” Nia suddenly shouts, standing up so abruptly she sends her chair screeching backwards across the floor. “Don’t you understand, Lena? Lex wants to use you and Kara against each other. Every time I close my eyes, I see my friends—my friends, Lena, which includes you, you asshat! I see you two killing one another, over and over again! It’s already happened once, and I cannot let it happen again!”

Nia’s shoulders are shaking—her smoothie dropped and now leaking all over the floor. Lena can see the tears threatening to spill from her eyes; her fists are clenched and trembling at her sides, and all Lena wants to do is reach out and hold the young woman’s hands in her own, to tell her everything will be OK.

But can’t make those assurances; they both know it.

Nia releases a breath—it comes out as a sad little laugh. “You won’t be… you know, you won’t be handcuffed,” she says, as if the restraints were the whole point. “You’ll be at another facility, out of Lex’s reach until this is all over.”

Lena shakes her head, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell Nia that it’s useless. There’s no place Lex can’t reach. “What about Alex?” she asks instead. “She’s got an implant too.”

“Alex will go to the secure facility with you. She volunteered—she doesn’t want Lex to use her to hurt Kara either.” Nia sighs, finally looking Lena in the eye, though she looks defeated. “Lena, I know this isn’t ideal. But we’re running out of time, and we’re running out of options. It’s the best we can do.”

Lena doesn’t voice her disagreement—her gaze makes it clear enough that Nia sighs again, sinking back into her chair with a frown.

The silence is tense; Nia is not looking at her. Lena runs through all the possible arguments she thinks of in her head, before deciding they are all moot. The decision has clearly been made.

But Lena is stubborn. To a fault, really.

“Nia,” she whispers, waiting for the young woman to raise her head to look her way. “Why did you take me to Kara? When she was on the run?”

Nia shrugs. “I had a vision of you two—Kara was wearing her suit, but she had short hair.”

“And what happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Nia admits, biting at her lip nervously. “I’m still trying to decipher it. But I knew—with or without the vision, I just knew you wouldn’t… kill her. I knew you two had to be together for any of this to work.”

Lena takes a deep, deep breath—she’ll analyse whatever Nia’s trying to convey later, but now she has to grasp at the only out she has.

“Together you said,” she repeats, voice breaking. “Then you’ve got to let me help her.”

<< Previous || Next >>

#nara's word vomit #LBitR #supergirl #supercorp #lena luthor #kara danvers #fic writing #femslash #I cannot believe we're almost there #2 or 3 parts maybe #sweet suffering jesus #CAN YOU BELIEVE?? #also look at me Not Being a Bastard #(this time)

[ajeepgirl]

Not Again

Just a little scene showing what is happening to Kara while in the phantom zone...

OR My take on what I think it is like for Kara in the phantom zone... Because I am not convinced that anything that has happened to her so far has been real/outside of her own mind.

Kara lays on the rock she now calls a bed, staring at the ceiling of her cave. She has no idea how long she has been in the phantom zone. Days, weeks, months, years… hell, decades could have passed by now. Her eyes fill with tears of frustration as she silently curses her friends and family back on Earth. How have they not found a way to bring her home yet.

“Kara?”

By now, Kara doesn’t even react. She is so used to the twisted tricks and mind games that the phantoms play here. They make her see what she wants to see. Each time slightly different, but the ending is always the same. They play out a scene, building up the hope in her, only for it to be absolutely crushed, taken away from her at the last moment.

She hears them take a step towards her. “Kara, it’s me.”

“Go away, you aren’t real,” Kara finally says. She rolls on the rock, turning so she faces away from her.

The figure stops moving, letting out an audible sigh. There is silence for a moment. “Kara, I know it’s hard to believe. I can’t imagine what horrors you have been through. I know it’s taken us too long to get here. But I’m here now to bring you back.”

Kara barks out a laugh that is so un-Kara-like, the person visible shudders.

“Kara, please.”

Pent up frustration and anger finally unleash as Kara sits up and faces them. “It won’t work this time. I know what this is. You. Are. Not. Real. You come to me. Convince me that we have a way out. We traverse through the phantom zone to some other part of it, to some new potential exit. Only for it to be ripped away from me somehow at the last possible moment. Usually with you dying in the process. So, no. I. Will. Not. Do. This. Again. I’m done. You’ve won. Ok. You. Have. Won. I’ve given up hope of ever getting out of here.”

“Kara, it’s me. It’s Lena.” Lena’s eyes fill with tears, seeing Kara broken like this.

Kara shakes her head. “No, it isn’t. You aren’t real. The real you is on Earth. You’ve all probably given up on finding me already.”

Lena runs up, kneeling down in front of Kara. “Kara, you know that isn’t true. We would never stop. Never. Now please, we have to go. The portal won’t stay open for long.”

“No,” comes Kara’s curt reply. She looks away from Lena, defeated.

Lena sighs, trying to think of a different tactic. “Ok… let’s say you are right. That I am just a figment of the phantom zone sent to torture you again. What if you’re wrong?”

“What?” Kara asks, only sounding mildly intrigued.

“What if you are wrong? What if I really am Lena from Earth? And you are throwing away your one chance at going home with her? With me?”

Kara chews on her lip, mulling over Lena’s words. She lets out a slow breath. “You’re saying even if I don’t believe at all that you are actually Lena, that doesn’t change the fact that I should still follow you. Even if I know this will just end up in catastrophe and heartbreak… I should still try in the slim chance it is actually a way out.”

Lena nods.

Kara looks away again, debating, her mind in conflict with itself. It’s a few minutes before Kara finally lets out a sigh. “Ugh. Fine. But when you die, I’m going to yell at you that I told you so... Phantom Lena.”

Lena smiles. “Deal. Now, let’s get going, please.” She stands up and reaches her hand out, hoping Kara will take it. Kara looks at it and pauses for a brief moment before reaching out and taking it. Kara is surprised when Lena doesn’t let go of her hand after they start walking.

“The portal is up and over this ridge, across the valley. It took some time to locate you based on a phantom we have in captivity on Earth. But even that didn’t pinpoint your exact location, just which plane you were on.” Lena says it all in a hurry as she pulls Kara along, who seems to be in no hurry to see Lena die again.

“Yeah yeah, I know I know. There is always some really great explanation for how you got here.”

Lena grits her teeth but doesn’t respond to Kara’s lashing out.

“Is it always me?” She asks Kara after some awkward silence.

“What?”

“That comes to you? That you see die? Is it always me?”

Kara is silent for a moment. “Not always… every once in a while it’s Alex.”

“So, it is usually me?”

Kara sighs. “Yes. Why are you asking this? It isn’t like you don’t know this. You are creating these things because you’ve seen inside my mind. You know who is most important to me Phantom Lena.”

Lena doesn’t respond.

They walk another ten minutes in silence before they peak up over a ridge.

“There!” Lena says, pointing to a portal. She looks excited, but it quickly dissipates as she looks over to see Kara with a downtrodden look on her face.

“Yeah yeah, let’s just get this over with.”

Lena nods and continues to pull Kara along with her, hand in hand as they make their way down the ridge and across the valley to the portal. “Come on, we need to hurry. It is set to close in a few minutes.”

“And there’s the catch,” comes Kara’s sharp reply as she stops walking, pulling her hand free from Lena.

Lena turns around to face Kara, red faced and exasperated. “Kara, dammit! I know you don’t believe me. I know this place has fucked with your head beyond my comprehension. But right now, right here, I just need you to listen to me. Ok. It’s me. Your Lena. The one who totally fucked up this past year and has been trying so very hard to get you back for weeks now. The one who wants nothing more than to pull you back through this portal to Earth so I can finally tell you how much I have missed you and how I might actually be in love with you. So come with me now… Please.” Lena ends her monologue breathless. Her eyes going wide as she realizes exactly what she just said.

Seeing Lena so exasperated, hearing the words she said, something in Kara jolts. She nods. Lena again reaches her hand out. Kara takes it. They turn towards the portal and start to run. As they run, Kara sees it, the sides and top of the portal starting to close.

“It’s closing Lena!” Kara says.

“You go first!” Lena says determinedly.

“Lena!”

“Kara!”

Kara chances a glance over, the memory of the last time she heard Lena yell her name like that coming to her mind. As she does, she sees Lena also looking at her.

“You are getting out of here, today.” Lena says this part much calmer. And though Lena doesn’t say it, Kara hears the implied part.

With or without me

They sprint the rest of the way as the portal starts to close, inch by inch. Kara’s eyes go wide. Her mind is telling her it is too late, but her feet keep racing towards the portal. As they close in on the portal, Kara suddenly feels Lena’s hand on her back. Kara has just enough time to look over and see a sad smile on Lena’s face, before she feels an extra force, pushing her through the portal.

As Kara falls through the portal, she rolls and lands hard on the ground. Her vision is blurry, and her ears are ringing. When she finally comes too, the first thing she sees is Alex, bent over top of her, her eyes full of tears of joy.

“She did it,” Alex says softly. “She really did it.”

Alex pulls Kara into a hug. Kara finally takes in her surroundings, realizing that she is back in the Tower, on Earth. She made it; she is back. She then finally sees everyone else, gathering around. Nia, Brainy, Kelly, J’onn, and M’gann.

Kara realizes it then. “Where is she? Where’s Lena?” Kara asks, pulling out of her hug with Alex.

Alex’s expression changes from happiness to sadness. “Kara… she… she didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Alex looks away, her eyes full of new tears now. Brainy steps forward. “The portal we managed to design. It only allowed for the same number of beings to pass through in each direction. Therefore, because only one person went into the phantom zone, only one could come out.”

Kara leans back, away form Alex as Brainy’s words sink in. “No… no… just… open it back up… open it up so she can come back through.”

“We cannot. It was designed to open where you were.”

“So… so design it to open where Lena is.”

“We do not have the necessary tools to do that. Besides, someone else would need to enter in order for her to come out. The same problem would occur.” Brainy says it all matter-of-factly, though the pain was clear on his face. Nia steps up behind him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“So fix it!” Kara says, looking from Alex to Brainy, back and forth, trying to understand what is happening. Alex gives her a sad, defeated look. Kara’s eyes fill with tears. “No no no. This is not supposed to happen. How can I get out only to still lose her!”

That’s when it hits her. The realization dawns on Kara.

“This isn’t real. I’m still there.”

“Kara…” Alex says softly.

“No. This isn’t real. This is another vision. Another hallucination.”

The others move closer to Kara, a shared look of concern on their faces. J’onn finally speaks. “Kara, I know this is hard to believe, but you are home, with your family.”

Kara crosses her arms and shakes her head. “Lena would never save me just to lose me again. You all would never let her sacrifice herself to save me. This is the phantom zone finding a new way to torture me.”

Alex stands up. “Kara, you don’t know what you’re saying. Let’s just get you up, get you into the medbay, under the sun lamp. You’ll feel better.” She reaches out her hand, offering it to Kara.

Kara refuses. She keeps her arms crossed and stays planted on the floor. “No, Phantom Alex. You aren’t real. None of this is real. This is all in my head. I’m ready to go back to my rock bed now.”

The Superfriends all glance around to each other, before Alex shrugs.

“Very well, Kara Zor-El.”

The next thing Kara knows, she is waking up, on the rock she has become familiar with, in the cave that has become her home. She stares at the ceiling. The events of the last attack passing through her mind. Phantom Lena told her she loved her. They pulled that from Kara’s own mind. Because apparently, that’s what Kara wants. She wants Lena to be in love with her. Because she is in love with Lena.

“Well… fuck,” Kara says out loud to no one but herself.

She continues thinking about her own feelings for Lena. How strong her reactions towards or about Lena have always been, since they became friends. How quickly she defended Lena, even when she didn’t know her that well. How much she didn’t like when James and Lena dated, even though she never told a soul about that. How relieved she was when they broke up. How scared she was to tell Lena the truth about being Supergirl. More scared than she has ever been to tell anyone.

“Oh… I’m an idiot,” Kara says to herself. “I’m in love with Lena Luthor… and it took being stuck in the phantom zone… with phantom versions of her… to realize this…”

Kara stares at the ceiling for a long time after this realization. Because no matter how much of an epiphany this is. It does not change the fact that she is, in fact, still stuck in the phantom zone with no foreseeable way out of it. And while she has faith that Alex and Lena and the others are doing everything that they can to get her out, it is hard not to lose that faith. Because with each passing moment and each time she falls into another vision, she does lose that hope and that trust that she will one day get out of here.

But now? Now she might have a renewed sense of that hope. Because now she has a reason to hang on to it. She needs to tell Lena that she loves her. That she has been in love with her for a long time now, but she just didn’t realize it. And that maybe being in love with Lena is a big part of the reason she found it so difficult to tell her the truth. And also, maybe, if Lena is up for it, go on a date.

Kara keeps all this to herself though, she doesn’t say it out loud. She wants the phantoms to think she has lost hope so that maybe they will leave her alone for a while, maybe give her a chance to come up with a new plan. Or maybe, hopefully, Lena will come for her, finally.

#supergirl #supercorp #phantomzone #kara danvers #lena luthor

[owl-with-a-pen]

I would love to see a Valentine’s Day chapter with Brainy and nia. We didn’t get to see much of it on that one episode, beside that fact Brainy went to her party and gave her chocolates that Yvette ate later. Just a simple one where Brainy is super sweet and asks nia to be his valentine wether this is before or after they’re together. Thanks!

Anon also asked:  Hi there! would you ever think of doing a valentine's themed fic for brania? I miss them so much and I love your work!

- I know I’m a day late, but I hope you guys enjoy! Thanks for the prompts x

Valentine’s Day was going to be weird this year, Nia knew it.

After everything Brainy had been through over the last few months, the last thing Nia wanted was to push the most commercial of commercial holidays on him, especially considering they’d never actually had a Valentine’s Day together. She couldn’t exactly count the epic failure that had been their first Valentine’s party  on account of the fact that they hadn’t seen each other the whole night.

And, last year?

There was no use sugar coating it; they’d both been going through hell last year. The break-up had still been fresh in Nia’s mind and although Kara had tried to help her out of the funk she’d been in, Nia had still spent the whole day curled up on the sofa - her only hot date that night had been with an ice cold tub of Ben and Jerry’s.  

Now that Nia understood the reason behind their break-up, she knew that Brainy hadn’t been faring any better than her at the time, either. The only thing he’d had to keep his mind occupied were the asinine tasks Lex had kept him performing as placeholders whenever a new piece of his plan had yet to unfold.

Nia tried not to linger on that year. What mattered now was that the truth was finally out. Brainy was safe and healthy and, most importantly, he was finally starting to feel like himself again. 

Nia didn’t care that Brainy hadn’t so much as made mention of the holiday – not even after Kara had invited them to a lowkey Valentine’s get together at her place later that evening, an invitation that had only been extended as far as the Super Friends. Considering Brainy had been reluctant to hang out with everyone as a group since Leviathan, Nia was only glad that he’d wanted to go at all. Besides, she didn’t care about gifts or celebrations, she was just thankful to put the past behind her and finally have Brainy back in her life.

Which was why she was all the more surprised to open their apartment door that evening and find Brainy stood on the other side, a bunch of roses held tightly in one hand.

A grin lit up Nia’s face in an instant. “Hey,” she said, not even trying to hide the glee from her voice. “Are those for me?”

“Indeed,” Brainy said, taking a step forward. In the same motion, he removed his other hand from behind his back, revealing a heart shaped box of chocolates. “I – uh – appreciate we have never successfully completed a Valentine’s Day tradition before, so allow this to be the first.”

Nia didn’t think she could smile any harder if she tried. She took the flowers from Brainy, the fresh scent of their petals brushing against her nose as she brought them to her face. She felt a blush race across her cheeks. “Real flowers, huh?” she asked mischievously.

Brainy’s lips quirked into a small smile of his own. “That is the custom,” he said, offering the chocolate box out to her with a practiced flourish. “As is this.” He cleared his throat, raising his chin. “Nia Nal, will you be my Valentine?”

A blush flooded across Nia’s face as she grinned again, nodding hard. “Yes, Brainy, of course I’ll be your Valentine.” She accepted the chocolates from Brainy’s hand, juggling them along with the flowers until they were both cradled in one arm. 

“This is amazing,” she said honestly, closing the space between them so that she could hug him with her free arm. She ducked her face into Brainy’s shoulder, squeezing him tight.

The warmth of him spread through her face as she buried her head into his throat. A moment later, she could feel Brainy’s hands travelling around her waist, pressing firmly against the small of her back. His touch sent something electric dancing up Nia’s spine and she softened against him, pulling away just enough to press a kiss against his lips.

When they parted, Nia didn’t miss the elated glimmer behind Brainy’s eyes. It was such a soft expression, one that hadn’t adorned Brainy’s face for so long, Nia had almost begun to forget what it looked like. Now that Brainy had begun to relax into himself, that happiness had become far more commonplace, although it still warmed Nia’s heart whenever she got to see that expression and know that she was the cause of it. Impetuously, Nia reached for Brainy’s face, brushing her thumb along his jaw, hoping to preserve that smile for as long as possible.

She blinked suddenly, realising belatedly that they were still stood in the middle of the doorway. “I should really put these in water,” she said, hugging the flowers against her side. She ushered Brainy inside with her free hand, turning to the kitchen to find a vase. “And by the way,” she continued over her shoulder, placing the heart-shaped box on the closest counter, “this isn’t technically the first time you’ve bought me a Valentine’s gift.”

Nia didn’t need to turn her head to know the face Brainy was pulling. “Ah, yes,” he murmured apprehensively. “Although, I wouldn’t say our first Valentine’s Day necessarily went… according to plan.”

“Oh, I remember,” Nia said, selecting an empty glass vase from the top shelf. She headed to the faucet, filling it with water. When she glanced up, she found Brainy watching her from across the kitchen counter, his arms folded across its surface. She smirked. “Didn’t you spend most of that party hidden in my closet?”

Brainy offered a tight smile, ducking his head. “Yvette was certainly a force to be reckoned with,” he admitted lowly, glancing up at her. “Although, I do appreciate you talking with her about boundaries.”

Nia’s expression softened. “Any time.”

She’d known Yvette hadn’t meant to take Brainy out of his comfort zone by dragging him to the dancefloor that night. Considering Nia had made herself MIA for most of that party – a party she’d specifically invited Brainy to - Yvette had only wanted for him to feel included.

But, the party hadn’t been Brainy’s thing to begin with. She’d left him to his own devices in a room otherwise filled with strangers, and maybe at the time she hadn’t realised just how anxious Brainy got in those sorts of situations, but she knew better now. Still, it didn’t stop her from feeling all kinds of crappy that she’d allowed that to happen, even if her head hadn’t totally been in the game at the time.

Nia played with the roses’ arrangement in their new home, spreading them equally around the vase. She sighed. “I didn’t exactly make that night any easier for you, though.”

“You had a lot on your mind,” Brainy said softly.

Yeah, Nia thought. She’d been so obsessed with finally making strides towards her role as a hero, taking up the mantle her mom had so proudly left for her, she’d even dismissed Brainy’s incredibly sweet gesture the first time around, disregarding his gift of chocolates in favour of a new training regime. But, not anymore. This time, they were doing this right.

“Well,” she said decisively, setting the vase to the side, “right now, my mind’s totally clear.” She glanced again towards the box of chocolates, biting the inside of her cheek. “C’mon,” she said, snatching them from the counter. “We can share these.” 

As she walked around the breakfast bar, she took Brainy’s arm, urging him towards the sofa. Brainy followed curiously a pace behind her.

As Nia settled, tucking her legs beneath her, she popped open the box, reading the label on the inside. She grinned. “There’s coffee flavour ones in here, too? Okay, I take back what I just said. We can share any except for those.”

Brainy supressed an obvious shudder as he sat down. “They are… all yours.”

“What?” Nia prodded playfully, nudging his arm. “Not a fan?”

Brainy wrinkled his nose, gesturing vaguely ahead of himself. “I just don’t understand how two opposing flavours serve to compliment one another.”

“Oh, and yet apples and olives are just… a natural choice on pizza,” Nia scoffed.

“Either one would be far more palatable covered in chocolate.”

Nia rolled her eyes. “Hey, I’ll agree with you about the apples,” she said, already perusing the selection, trying to find the coffee flavoured truffle as advertised on the card. “But, I’m pretty sure chocolate covered olives are a crime against nature.” She beamed when she found her prize, taking a large bite out of the candy. When Brainy’s face scrunched in disgust, she laughed, covering her mouth before any wayward chocolate dribbled out. 

She held the chocolates out on her lap for Brainy to browse, which only fuelled the next twenty minutes’ topic of discussion with good natured jabs aimed towards each other’s preferred chocolate flavours. 

By the time they needed to head out for Kara’s party, the first layer had been all but demolished.

“We should probably get going,” Nia said as she spied the time on the kitchen clock. She pecked Brainy’s cheek before unfurling herself from his side, stretching out her arms.

When she stood, she realised that Brainy hadn’t followed her up. Instead, there was a reserved look in his eyes, a nervous twist to his lips as he remained sat on the sofa’s edge, toying absently with his Legion ring. 

“Brainy?” Nia asked, her voice softening. When Brainy looked up, she smiled gently. “Everything okay?” 

Brainy opened his mouth as though he might answer, but instead, no words came out. Nia sat back down, resting her hand on his leg. “Hey, you sure you’re up for this? You know there’s no pressure.”

Brainy shook himself a little, clenching and unclenching his hand hesitantly. “I do,” he said carefully, glancing back towards her. “I am. It’s just…”

“I get it,” Nia said, squeezing his leg. And, she did. Even though the gathering would be small, filled with the people Brainy cared about, on some level, Nia understood that that was what he was dreading the most. As much as he knew that his friends had forgiven him, the real issue was that Brainy hadn’t yet reached a place where he’d been able to forgive himself. It’d come in time, but if he refused every get-together or social gathering entirely, it’d only take him that much longer to reach the obvious conclusion.

That he was loved. And that was never going to change.

And, hey, what better time to remind him of that than on Valentine’s Day?

“I’ll be with you the whole time,” Nia assured him. “And, if you’re not feeling it, we don’t have to stay for long. What d’you say?”

After a long moment’s consideration, Brainy glanced down, taking Nia’s hand. He smiled, a little of his confidence returning as he nodded his head. “Okay,” he said.

Nia grinned. “Okay.” 

Maybe she’d been wrong, maybe Valentine’s wasn’t going to feel as weird this year. After all, with flowers, chocolate, and finally having the chance to spend the day with Brainy at her side, Nia realised that maybe this might turn out to be the best Valentine’s Day she’d ever had.

#supergirl #my writing #my prompts #icey-slice #brainia #nia nal #brainiac 5 #querl dox #brainy #i did plan to post this yesterday but i ended up just not having the time #but hey! better late than never amiright

[handlewithkara]

Supergirl spoiler roundup

Lex/Nyxly

"Lex is not only returning, but he's finally going to fall in love with a character who is his equal, who might be named Nyxly [Peta Sergeant],  "They're just deliciously evil and powerful and surprising," says Queller of Cryer and Sergeant's on-screen dynamic. "It's just wonderful."  "[This] allows us to explore new ground for Lex this season, as well. It was fun to see Lex in a new light."

“One of the things we’re excited about is that Lex and Nyxly are gonna team up in a, not only a world domination way, but a love story,” Rovner revealed to TheWrap. “So we’re excited to see that.” “Lex is gonna finally fall in love with his equal,” Queller said.

I still strongly suspect that this is not going to be a genuine love story, but something done calculatingly to attain the token of love. The question is whether this is Lex poisoning Nyxly, Nyxly poisoning Lex or them doing it together, mutually. 

Okay, this is a big lean, but genuinely, I’ll eat a hat if that “love” happens without some sort of magic manipulation being involved on at least one side. Considering they speak of Lex falling in love I hope it’s Nyxly poisoning Lex. Because even though “Lex sees powerful creature, Lex magics Nyxly who hates what he stands for to love him so she will do what he says” seems completely in character for him, I really, really, really, really don’t want the last arc of the show being around Lex roofying/date raping Nyxly. 

But yes, even if the “love” between them is really of magical origin, their obsession with Lex and continued interest in exploring new sides of him (when they could be doing that with you know Kara? Alex? The leads of the show?) continued to be blegh. 

Lena

"We wanted to explore new territory for Lena, but also to show Lena's growth over the series, but also the season as she wrestles with balancing the scientific part of her with the magical part of her. How does she redefine herself on her own terms?" says Rovner. "As we were looking at the season and the villain that we were up against, who was of magic, it felt important that we have somebody on our team that could help with that."

"I think in the journey of Lena learning to trust herself and her intuition that it seemed like an apt metaphor," she says. "She's always over-compensated with her brilliant intellect, but the more that she is able to let go and trust her deep friendships and trust herself, there seemed like something very potent in giving her these magical, intuitive, innate powers in deepening her character."

@peggystormborn   I think the emphasis of innate powers is another strong indicator that Lena will keep her powers by the end, that it is about accepting her powers. It’s really interesting how in a way the show has basically removed all of Lena’s signature character signifyers. She apparently has lost the company and with the focus on magic maybe she no longer wants to return to it and instead focuses on something else, now the show moves her away from her science background towards magic and honestly in this interview borderline portrays science as a bad thing and that Lena’s journey is about rejecting science and embracing intuition, and we have Katie saying things like  'You know what? I'm Lena. I'm not Lena Luthor. I am my own person.' (which personally I kind of approve of, why bother redeem the Luthor name if the Luthors are assholes (same reason why I never saw a purpose in “redeeming” the monarchy of Daxam, fuck ‘em, let ‘em burn, nothing of value was lost) though I would laugh my ass off if the show ended with Lena going “you know what? I go by Lena Walsh now”. 

The other interesting part is the friendships in plural. I wonder if that will mean Nia, Alex, Brainy or Andrea (or even William?) other than presumably Kara. (in my mind Andrea is the only one that could maybe count as a deep friendship since to me the friendships with Nia or Alex still feel pretty new and shallow, but that’s just me)

Acrata

“What we can say about Acrata is that, in her quest for getting further embedded in the Super Friends, you know, she causes a bit of trouble,” Rovner said.

The word choice of embedded is very odd for what should be more like “finding out more information”. I guess she embedds William deeper into the Superfriends? Still, weird word choice. 

The totems

"Each gauntlet will make our characters face different things that are thematic to what the totem represents," says Rovner. "So, they really push our characters in very interesting ways — especially on top of that dealing with a magical character like Nyxly. [In the previous episode], Supergirl declares she would use whatever power she can to defeat her. [Kara] trying to find that power is something that she will be forced to reckon with as the season progresses."

"The courage totem is very complicated because what some characters might consider courage is not what the gauntlet is looking for," Queller teases. "Courage comes in many surprising forms, so I think we had a lot of fun defining what courage means for each character."

This strongly suggests that the tests won’t all be passed by Kara herself because of the wording of “our characters”.

I wonder if that stuff about power means that Kara will be given the chance to use some powerful magic stuff against Nyxly but has to reject it, or whether this is going to be typical “Kara realizes that friendship and bravery is a greater power than magic!”

https://www.thewrap.com/supergirl-showrunners-reveal-lex-luthor-nyxly-romance/

https://ew.com/tv/supergirl-season-6-lex-luthor-love-interest-nyxly/

(I focused on the sections that contain actual quotes from the writers and omitted the part that is just the publications recapping or summing up which I take to often be their take on things rather than necessarily what the writers have said) 

#supergirl spoilers

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

The Supergirl Team calls you in despair. You’ve 2/3 episodes to save this season and leave a cliffhanger to the next season. You can do any ship, cut any actor, unlimited budget. What do you do?

My first call is to Brenda Strong, clearly. Lillian caustically provides Lena a reality check by not so subtly reminding her how Lex is an asshole and can't be trusted. She reveals she retained her pre-crisis memories, and remembers more than Lex deigned to tell her.

Lena is unimpressed, and dryly remarks, "And now you finally get to see everything Lex should have been. You must be thrilled."

"Yes, I do," Lillian affirms. "But a victory without sacrifice isn't victory. It's a handout."

Luthors don't accept handouts.

Lena stares at her mother, confused and wary. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying Lex didn't earn it."

None of this was earned through toil. Lex chanced onto an opportunity and manipulated it to his utmost ability. Once upon a time, she might have been proud of his aptitude for machinations, Lillian admits, but she finds herself disillusioned with him.

"Not only does intended matricide sour the relationship somewhat," Lillian elaborates, "but more and more lately I've come to realize that while Lex indeed had incredible potential, I allowed that potential to blind me to yours."

Lex didn't earn his success, but Lena did. In just a few short years, Lena embodied the Luthor spirit unlike any Luthor had since the first generation-- since the generation that worked for their first million, their first merger, the first everything. She battled prejudice and attacks and failures, and though there may have been times she may have wavered, she always persisted.

"So why," her mother asks, "are you giving up now?"

Finally, Lena gives voice to her helplessness. How her friends have forsaken her and how in this world, she feels nineteen again, like she can do nothing without Lex.

"How can I," Lena asks, "when he crafted this very reality?"

"He has always crafted your reality, Lena. Your entire life has revolved around him, been shaped and warped by him. But what I've come to realize is that this world isn't his. It never was. All along, it was yours."

And so begins the tentative yet deepening relationship between Lena and her mother, as they conspire against Lex. They know he's up to something, but don't know what. In the end, they decide it doesn't matter what it was-- they would simply need to neutralize him.

Permanently.

----

On the other side of things, the superfriends start to realize that their goal of taking down Lex from the outside isn't working. They learn Brainy is compromised, and find themselves without a significant resource they had counted on. So they focus on mitigating the fallout of his use of the DEO.

Alex and Jonn find their way to helping aliens recover after DEO raids. Sometimes its just property damage, sometimes its arrests. They commiserate with the victims, promising that Lex won't be in power for much longer.

"It doesn't matter who is in power," the victims reply. It will only be someone just as cruel, or even indifferent. The DEO has always been this way, and it will always be this way.

When one alien mentions a specific raid, Alex realizes it was one that occurred under her tenure as Director. That as an agent and director she contributed to the abuse of aliens rights, liberties, and persons.

Later, she confesses to Kara that she always thought she was doing good at the DEO. But all along she'd really only been doing good for Kara.

"I will always be there for you, you know that right?" she asks, and Kara nods. "But I think, for the next little while, I need to focus on doing good for everyone else."

----

Meanwhile, at CatCo, Nia finds herself in a quandary. One day, Will asks her to grab him a coffee. Taken aback, Nia doesnt have time to respond before Will is off on his way. Unsure of what else to do, she uncomfortably obliges, choosing to believe it was a one off.

It isn't.

Again and again with increasing frequency, Will asks her to do things like grab coffee, make copies, etc. Soon she finds herself stuck in a cycle of doing what she's told and is too nervous to call him out after so long.

It takes Kara noticing and offering to speak to William about it before Nia bucks up the courage to do it herself.

"No," she says, the next time Will opens his mouth in her direction. "I will not get your coffee, or make your copies, or pull your copy edits. I am a reporter, just like you. Maybe a little less experienced, sure, but the only way I'm going to get experienced is by doing my own work and not the work of your assistant."

Will stares at her, and then flushes. "Nia, I am so sorry, I thought you were the office assistant. I had no idea."

This time it's Nia's turn to stare. "What? But-- I have over a dozen by-lines."

"Really?"

"I've been at every pitch meeting!"

Grimacing, Will meets her gaze. "I thought you were there to take notes. Honestly, I thought you and Kara were tight because she came from the assistant pool."

Nia scowls. "You also could have just asked me."

"And I should have. I truly am sorry, I've just been so wrapped up in--" He catches himself abruptly, then swiftly changes the subject. "Let me make it up to you. I have an interview with Lenny Maddow in twenty minutes. Would you like to sit in?"

Sit in with a Nobel-winner who isn't Lex Luthor?

"Uh, YEAH."

Nia recoups more of her pride when she asks some insightful questions that gets their guest to open up to an insane degree, and Will recognizes her talent as a reporter. He even tells her as much.

"I don't know how I ever mistook you for anything else."

He starts lending her more advice and opportunity-- before long he's the kind of mentor Kara used to be, but lost the time for. And after Will decides he can trust her he brings her in on his secret project investigating the Luthors.

Namely, Lena.

"She's the weak link. If she goes down, the rest will follow like dominos."

---

"I know we're kind of not on Team Lena right now," Nia remarks to the others at the tower later, "but the kind of things he thinks she's responsible for doesn't sound like Lena. In any reality."

J'onn and Alex both look at Kara. "It might be time to set aside our wounds for a moment," J'onn observes. "I don't need to be a fifth dimensional imp to deduce that a downfall for Lena would not be a good thing."

"Lex would be left unchecked," Alex chimes in.

Kara doesn't need convincing. She goes to Lena immediately, and squares off against Lena's chill reception with concern.

"I came to warn you."

"Let me guess... Lex can't be trusted."

With a grimace, Kara equivocates. "Yes, but I'm not the only one who thinks so. William Dey is digging into the Luthors, and for whatever reason, he's decided your the fulcrum to the entire operation."

"The reporter, William Dey?"

Kara shares what she knows of William's vendetta-- the best friend who died, the suspicions that Lex was involved. To her surprise, Lena huffs a mirthless laugh.

"He said he was going to be better."

"You... say that like you don't believe him."

"Of course I don't believe him. But I wanted to."

Lena knows better than to leave LuthorCorp. But she does pledge her help.

"This doesn't make us friends," Lena clarifies. "But whatever Lex is planning, he'll burn the world to the ground to get it."

Kara nods solemnly. "I understand."

---

The Superfriends now have their in. It's Lena who finally pieces together that Lex is after Leviathan. It's Lillian who pales at the mention, and after much toothpulling reveals that what no one ever told Lena is that her mother didn't just die-- she was murdered.

"Your home was broken into shortly after you were removed. The investigators only found one item of interest, hidden behind a piece of loosened baseboard. A cipher, on a folded piece of paper. Even Lionel only managed to translate two words. One was Leviathan."

The other, Lena soon discovers, was Acrata.

---

Altogether, the superfriends and Will and Lena all manage to erode Lex's stranglehold on the new reality. Lex doesn't make it easy, but a combination of J'onn and Alex earning more of the public trust, Supergirl resisting Lex at every turn, Will and Nia tag-teaming Andrea's connection to Leviathan, Lena beats Lex to the Leviathan sanctum.

By a matter of minutes, sure, but the fact she finds her way there on her own when Lex has to be led by Gamemnae is a true victory, and a practical embodiment of Lillian's earlier words.

Lena's victory is compounded when Lex's eyes flash with irritation: he doesn't expect to see her there.

"Heya, sis. I didn't realize we had a meeting."

"We don't," Lena tells her brother, even her eyes lock on the woman beside him.

The woman steps towards Lena, her lips curling into a pleased smile.

"We do," the woman confirms. It's clear she doesn't include Lex.

Before he can do more than sputter, she continues. "I was wondering how long it would take you to find us."

Lena holds her gaze. "The medallion."

Gamemnae nods. "Ever since it was found, we knew it would only be a matter of time."

There's only one question Lena intends to ask.

"Who was my mother?"

And so she learns that her mother was part of Leviathan-- that she had grown lonely, and sought comfort in the arms of mortals. It had only meant to be temporary, but when the unthinkable happened, and she found herself pregnant, she chose to remain in the mortal world with her daughter.

What Gamemnae doesn't explain, but Lena senses instinctively, is that her mother had sought to protect Lena from Leviathan. To keep her human, keep her alive. That somehow, despite being an agent of destruction, Lena's birth had prompted her mother to leave Leviathan behind, and to be better than she was.

Gamemnae's pitch is enticing-- the ability to bring humanity together through disaster, to call upon their communal instincts by reducing their numbers, reset the world so that the planet and its population have a chance to survive for eons to come.

She offers power and influence, and a long life-- millenia to engage with and observe the discoveries still far in the future.

It's almost enough for Lena to say yes.

Almost.

It is enough for Lena to accept the medallion, the only true memory Lena has of her mother. Gamemnae summons it from the ether, and Lena takes it in her fingers, cradling it like the precious artifact it is.

When she closes her hand around it, Lena blinks and finds herself in a place of utter darkness. But despite the emptiness, she isn't afraid.

"Lena."

"Mom."

The woman who appears before her is familiar in a way that touches deep in Lena's soul. Tears fill Lena's eyes as she drinks in the sight of her mother, committing her to memory.

"I forgot what you looked like," Lena confesses with a breathless laugh. "When I generated an avatar of you, I had to base it on my own image."

The embrace her mother wraps her in is unbidden and unexpected. It steals Lena's breath and floods her with warm. Her tears spill over as she clutches her mother tight.

"I've missed you."

"And I you, my darling," her mother murmurs. "You have grown to be everything I ever wanted for you."

A bolt of shame travels down Lena's spine, and she pulls away.

"You mean embroiled in the most hated family in history?"

"I mean that you are strong, and powerful, and brilliant. Your compassion and empathy are a force powerful than you know."

Lena looks away. How can she explain how close she had come to lose the soul her mother had loved so dearly. Non Nocere burns like a hot poker of shame, digging deep in her belly and twisting sharply.

But her mother cups her cheeks, tilting her gaze up to meet hers once more.

"We all make mistakes, my love. What matters most is what you do to correct them."

Before Lena can say anything more, her mother kisses her on the head, and offers a smile as warm as the sun.

"Everyone you have ever loved is carried inside you. They speak to you every day. When times are uncertain, listen to your heart. They will never lead you astray."

Lena blinks back to the Leviathan sanctum to find Lex pelting Gamemnae with outrage and accusations.

"We had an agreement! You and I had a partnership!"

"And now that it has brought me your sister, I am no longer in need of it."

"You forget that I watched Rama Khan in our previous reality-- I know Leviathan's style. My baby sister isn't the type you would want to recruit."

"You don't comprehend what Leviathan is," Gamemnae only smiles sweetly, unfazed by Lex's posturing. "We are born and chosen both. That is what Lena is. And you, Alexander Luthor, are neither."

"Buh--"

With a wave of Gamemnae's hand, Lex disappears, transported.... somewhere. Lena can barely think to consider his welfare before Gamemnae turns her powerful gaze towards her once more.

"Welcome home, Lena."

---

In the end, Lena doesn't accept. The power offered her is tempting, but she's wise enough to know that a deal so sweet could never come without strings. Whether it be her humanity, her soul, or something else entirely, she would lose something dear. Something precious.

"Come now, Lena," Gamemnae cautions. "I know how ingelligent you are. You know that you won't be allowed to leave alive should you decline."

Her mother's voice echoes in Lena's ears: listen to your heart. She does, and she hears them all-- her people. Her loved. Her lost.

Her mother.

Jack.

Even Kara.

It's Kara that makes her pause, nearly has her agreeing. She knows the prospect of Kara's future, a life of longevity that would see her watching all her family die, for generations to come. If Lena could share those centuries with her, surely they could eventually find forgiveness and trust once more.

But Kara wouldn't want her to. Not like this.

So instead of taking Gamemnae's hand, Lena snatches her by the wrist and closes her hand around the medallion. This time Gamemnae appears in the void with her, where Lena's mother waits again.

"I need your help," Lena says. "All of you."

One by one, they materialize. All of the voices who have guided her appear from the shadows, their features kind and ready. Lena pushes Gamemnae towards them.

"Make our guest comfortable. She'll be staying with you for the foreseeable future."

Jack is the one who steadies Gamemnae. When he blinks, his eyes open to pitch darkness. So do the eyes of those around him, wraiths all. Even Lena's mother.

Lena hesitates only long enough to give her mother one last look.

"I love you."

Her mother nods. "I never doubted for a second. Go," she urges, "and live."

Lena returns to the Leviathan sanctum alone. She shatters the medallion to ensure no one else would use it, and sweeps the pieces up to liquidate against any attempts to reconstruct it.

Leviathan is done, without a single drop of blood shed.

Back at LuthorCorp, Lex is nowhere to be found. After a perfunctory search, control falls to Lena. Though she'll have to wait a mandated period of time before she can rebrand back to L-Corp, things are already feeling normal.

At least, right up until the moment Lena finally visits the Tower for the first time.

"Lena!" Kara calls in delight. During their time working together, things between them have repaired enough for her to wrap Lena in a brief hug and usher her further into the space.

"Come to beg us to back to the DEO?" Alex taunts. "I gotta warn you, I've gotten used to being my own boss."

"Actually," Lena says, "I'm disbanding the DEO."

There's a beat of silence, and then the entire room erupts into chaos. Questions fly at her from every direction, and she endures them quietly until she finally lifts a hand for quiet.

"It's time. The DEO has never been entirely above board, and if we're going to make strides in accepting aliens into Earth society, we have to start with nixing the extrajudicial arrests and imprisonment."

Lena looks at Kara, who has been suspiciously silent. Kara meets her gaze in apprehension.

"What does that mean for Supergirl?'

Lena offers her a smile that refreshes her soul.

"Well, it would be foolish to claim she isn't still needed, and that heroes don't do a lot of good. So I've already talked with the mayor about implementing a municipal licensing program for vigilante heroes. If successful, you'd basically be doing the exact same thing, with just a little more oversight, and a little less smash and grab."

Nia beams. "That sounds so cool!"

"And," Lena adds, sliding her gaze towards Alex and J'onn, "the program is going to need leadership that's familiar with both heroes and bureaucracy."

J'onn nods his readiness and agreement, but to everyone's surprise, Alex hesitates.

"It sounds like a great idea, Lena, really," Alex obfuscates, "but I think I still have more work to do on this side of things. As you say, the DEO has a lot to make up for."

Kara hugs her sister tight. "I'm so proud of you," she whispers.

"Wait, wait, wait..." Nia says, pumping the brakes ever so slightly. "Does this mean we don't get to be the Superfriends anymore?"

But Lena has an answer for that too.

"As the pilot heroes of this new program, I'm sure all of you will continue to work closely together, and I'm sure the legislation will include provisions for teams as well as individual. Which means that as National City's first and premier superhero league, the only thing you're missing is a sponsor." Which is to say, Lena intends to sponsor them.

"From my personal accounts," Lena is sure to specify, "and with tech either commercially available or engineered in my personal lab. LuthorCorp will won't be anywhere near it, and I will be operating as anonymously as possible... though given our history, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard a guess for people to figure out."

When the team leaves for celebratory drinks, Kara and Lena linger. The air hangs thick and heavy between them, until Lena finally speaks.

"You once asked for bygones--"

"I did," Kara confirms. "And as much as I would love to return the favor--"

"We have a lot to talk about."

Kara nods, and Lena takes a deep breath. "All I ask," she continues, "is that you accept the good with the flaws. And that I only ever wanted to do good."

That much, Kara agrees without hesitation.

"I never thought anything else."

She loops her arm through Lena's, and together they walk towards the lift. As it rises to collect them, Kara rocks back on her heels.

"A lot of changes are coming our way," she remarks.

Lena hums an agreement, but misses the glance Kara gives her as they step into the lift before issuing one last pardon.

"There's no one else I'd rather face them with."

The elevator gate closes on the image of them gazing at each other, eyes locked and smiles brimming with the possibility of something new.

#supercorp #yall freaking asked for it #this took me one day #and one single brain #imagine if i had a full team fleshing this out with me #wall of text #sorry the inbox/mobile app doesnt allow for read mores #tell me what you think #edited to add read more

[goneseriesanalysis]

Astrid Ellison

So here are my opinions on Astrid Ellison from book 1. Astrid was the character on which my opinion changed the most, which is why it’s taken me so long to get my thoughts together. Sorry for the length again but it seems I have a talent for ✨rambling✨

Spoilers for Gone by Michael Grant down below

Original Opinion: Astrid was one of my least favourite characters. I remember finding her irritating and self-righteous and honestly couldn’t think of a single good thing to say about her.

New Opinion: Astrid was my favourite character in this book. She had moments where I found her slightly irritating - but I think that was Michael struggling to right a smart character more than anything else. She was so kind and brave and not at all like the emotionless and manipulative girl that I remember hating at the grand age of 14. 

1.) Astrid’s appearance - Astrid is one of the better described characters in Gone. In the first chapter we find out that she “had shoulder-length blonde hair, and liked to wear starched white short-sleeved blouses that never failed to catch Sam’s eye.” This description immediately establishes her as Sam’s love interest, from her being the first character to get a proper description to Sam’s clear infatuation with her. This is perhaps one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of their relationship – it was obvious from page 3 that they were going to end up together.  We get three other main descriptions of Astrid throughout the book that really stood out to me:

“Her normally sharp, discerning blue eyes were wide, with way too much white showing” – Chapter 1

“She sat in the big white wicker rocker with her feet propped up on the railing. Her bare legs were blazing white in the sunshine.” – Chapter 20

“The starched white blouses of the pre-FAYZ had given way to t-shirts” – Chapter 28

What really stood out to me in these descriptions is the repeated use of the colour white. Now, in religion white is symbolic of faith, innocence and sacrifice, all of which really seem to fit the characterisation of Astrid. She has a lot of faith in the beginning, not only in God but also in herself. She is relatively confident in who she is and in her place in the world. As the book continues, however, she begins to lose this faith. As she sacrifices more of her time to the care of Little Pete (I really don’t like how Michael constantly treated him as a burden but that is a topic for another post), she becomes less and less confident in her faith and begins to resent what she has become. 

As for Astrid’s innocence, I believe this is more of an insight into how Sam views her as opposed to how she actually is. Astrid is intelligent and brave and caring (although a lot of the time I think she struggles to show it) – but is she innocent?? I don’t think so, at least not in the traditional sense. She has grown up as a parent, been forced to mature faster than other children her age. She is Little Pete’s constant defender, and I think in this way Sam underestimates her. As the book continues, he begins to see this, with her staple white blouses transforming into t-shirts, he begins to see her for who she is. 

2.) Astrid’s Personality and Character - Aside from Astrid’s intelligence and religious beliefs, Astrid has a very well-rounded personality. She is brave and kind-hearted but seems somewhat socially inept, meaning that the softer side of her personality is often hidden by her cool exterior. (I think there is a possibility that Astrid is autistic-coded but I don’t know enough about the topic to develop this point past mere observation). She takes on the role of a mother to Little Pete and this calmer, kinder, and more protective side of Astrid is often shown in small moments throughout the books. Astrid is the first person to offer comfort to Quinn when he realises his parents are missing, and it is only once she does this that Quinn finally allows himself to fall apart (Chapter 2). She places a hand on his shoulder and for the first night is the one who hears out Quinn’s wild theories, instead of shooting them down (cough cough Sam). 

Her relationship with Little Pete is a complicated one. While she often seems resentful about her new position as a guardian, it feels like her resentment towards Little Pete is a way for her to mask her anger at things that are beyond her control. She is furious that the FAYZ has left her without parents, and is even more furious because she can’t truly understand why it has happened. So, to stop these feelings of helplessness, she targets her resentment towards the person she is closest do (as most of us unfortunately do when we feel this way). But despite her anger, her unconditional love always wins out. And this is one of the things I absolutely adored about her when re-reading. Despite her often feeling trapped by her new role in Little Pete’s life, she is still willing to distance herself from Sam, Edilio and Quinn (who are, as far as we know, the closest thing she has to friends) in order to keep him safe. She realises that Little Pete caused the FAYZ in chapter 11 and, even when Sam confronts her, her first move is to defend LP – she is not concerned with what they think of her, only with the safety of her brother. 

Further on in the book, after Drake forces her to call Little Pete a slur, she is horrified with herself. She gives almost no thought to the pain she went through stating that “now she was far more angry at herself than she had ever been at him.” I think this really just shows how devoted Astrid is to her brother and, when you remember that she is only 14 it really is amazing how strong she forces herself to be for him. I began to notice on this read through just how much she neglects her own emotions and wellbeing in favour of protecting others (she even shields LP with her own body when the church collapses on top of them and we get no indication as to how injured SHE is). Once again her thoughts are only on her brother. While I wish she had made more of an effort to communicate with Little Pete in a way that he could understand (the few times she does this in the book, he does respond well and it would have been interesting to develop this side of their relationship more, rather than just the one sided protector/protected dynamic), when you think about her age and the trauma that she must be experiencing, I think she does exceptionally well to stay so kind, patient and collected for the majority of the time.

 One thing that really surprised me the most when revisiting Astrid’s character was her immense bravery. This is a huge part of her character that I had completely forgotten about, leading me to remember her as little more than a typical damsel in distress. While she often uses her intelligence as a defence mechanism, such as in Chapter 15 when she stands up to Diana, in times when a verbal smack down is inappropriate, she is perfectly willing to put herself in danger in order to protect those that she cares about. We first see this in chapter 10 when she breaks up the fight on the highway. We see it again when Panda and Quinn attack Little Pete, with one of my favourite quotes of the whole book, “Did you throw a rock at my brother?’ Astrid yelled. Fearless in her outrage.” It reminds me so much of the Frankenstein quote “I am fearless and therefore powerful” and was the point in the book where my past prejudices got completely wiped away and were replaced by my new love for her. She cares so much about people, and gets hardly any recognition for it. I just want to give her a hug 😥

Another thing I noticed about Astrid, which I thinks fit’s in really well with the idea of her being this awkward social outcast (I mean did she even have any friends before??) is that while many pop culture references are made by a variety of characters, Astrid makes multiple references to historical figures:

“Patrick was named for Patrick Star, the not-very-bright character on Spongebob” – Lana’s pov Chapter 2

“It’s like a roadrunner cartoon” – Quinn Chapter 9

“I’ll bet you’re one of those brainy Lisa Simpson types” – Diana Chapter 14

“Let me guess, you’re secretly a wizard who was raised by muggles.” – Sam Chapter 21

“And this isn’t exactly the time for me to consult Yoda on how to use my power” – Sam Chapter 26

“..an ornate, heavy iron thing that Coates kids joked was the tenth Nazgul” – Jack’s pov Chapter 32

“Too bad Dr Phil’s not around.” – Diana 39

VS

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – Astrid Chapter 5

“To understand this you’d have to be Einstein or Heisenburg or Feynman, on that level” – Astrid Chapter 13

“Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I forgot who said it.” – Astrid Chapter 17

I don’t have much else to say about this other than I find it quite interesting and I think it perfectly highlights how Astrid never quite fits in, no matter how hard she tries. 

3.) Astrid’s Intelligence - Astrid’s intelligence is mainly used for world building throughout the first book. It is from Astrid that we learn the full story of the power plant incident, learn that the barrier is a dome and are introduced to the idea of animal mutations, as well as many theories about the outside world/ what caused the FAYZ (although those last theories are a misdirection on her part). This works well for the most part as it means that important information can be spaced evenly throughout the book, without the need for info-dumps. However, sometimes Michael’s attempts to showcase Astrid’s intelligence were, I think, a little on the nose and took me out of the story. The worst offender for this, in my opinion, is in chapter 2 with the line “Is that meant to be a pro forma reassurance or a specific commitment?” This is a really nit-picky complaint but this line just really bugged me as it seemed like he was making her smart for the sake of being smart and it kind of came off as annoying. I know one of her character flaws is her social awkwardness but this just felt too much. I love the way she over-explains and over-analyses things when she’s nervous, and I think her constant referencing to things that the other characters just don’t understand perfectly demonstrate this flaw, but lines like this seemed a little irritating and obnoxious. 

The secondary use for Astrid’s intelligence in this book is as her primary line of defence. Her intellect is something that she prides herself on, but it is also something that separates her from everyone else. People are intimidated by her, and, as a result, she has learned to use her intelligence as a weapon when necessary. This is clearly seen in chapter 14, when Diana tries to intimidate her and Astrid immediately starts asking Diana questions about the cause of the FAYZ (questions that she knows Diana has no answer to). It’s later seen in chapter 22. When Drake begins to bully Astrid into calling LP a slur, she fights back by explaining that said slur is outdated; explaining the meaning of it; and then explaining how it does not fit LP anyway. While she knows that she cannot use her physical strength, her intellect is something that she can weaponise in certain situations in order to protect herself and those she loves. Her proficiency in this tactic also leads me to believe that Astrid has probably been in similar situations before. Everyone in Perdido Beach seems to know about LP. Is that why she has no friends?? Has she distanced herself from her peers in order to protect LP from their ignorance, whether consciously or not??

4.) Astrid and Religion - I don’t have as much to say about this, as I’m not religious myself and have very little understanding of Christianity (Or Catholicism – I’m actually not sure which Astrid is meant to be so if anyone knows I would appreciate it), but I feel like this is a such a huge part of who Astrid is that I had to at least mention it. One thing that I do like is Astrid’s seemingly constant battle between her scientific beliefs and her religious beliefs. While she does believe in God, she won’t accept him as an explanation for the FAYZ, and still looks for a scientific answer. Her relationship with religion seems to act as more of a moral guideline rather than a fundamental belief system. She looks to God for guidance and support in times of trouble, such as at Bette’s funeral (Chapter 17), as she is being chased by Drake (Chapter 24) and when the church is collapsed on top of her (Chapter 45) and seems to be convinced that her morality is directly tied to her faith. However, she relies on facts (things she can explain and control) for true comfort, and doesn’t allow her faith to interfere with her action. I think these ideas are perfectly encompassed by this quote from Chapter 40 “No. I believe in free will. I think we make our own decisions and carry out our own actions. And our actions have consequences. The world is what we make it. But I think sometimes we can ask God to help us and He will.” – And I am quite excited to see how her faith/ loss of faith changes her perceptions in the later books. 

5.) Astrid’s Role in The Book - For the most part, Astrid has three main roles in this book:

- To act as LP’s protector

 -To act as a source of plot-relevant and world building information to the reader

-To be Sam’s main motivation is becoming the leader

And this, in my opinion, is a phenomenal waste. Astrid was the perfect candidate for the leader of the FAYZ, and giving the role to Sam made no sense?? I think what Michael was trying to do was suggest that Sam had to be the leader instead of Astrid because, while Astrid is the intelligent one who knows how to work people, Sam is the one who people look to when things go wrong. (Think of Katniss and Peeta’s dynamic in The Hunger Games). But, it just doesn’t work. For one, we know that what the people of Perdido Beach think has very little effect on leadership. There was no uproar when Caine took over. Were people scared and upset?? Yes. Did they run to Sam’s aid and rebel against Caine?? No. So why should it matter whether they prefer Sam to Astrid – Sam could still be the hero without being the leader. In fact, I think it would have made both characters so much better if this was the case. Also we know that in times of crisis, people DO look to Astrid. Albert’s cat anyone?? Furthermore, Astrid’s ability to use her intellect to play on people’s emotions is a much better match for Caine’s easy charm than Sam with his flame throwers. I mean please. Astrid has a cool and intimidating exterior that actually hides a well of deep emotions that she can pull from and use to manipulate people into doing things they never thought they were capable of (we mostly see this work with Sam in this book during the fire, chapter 4, and the first time he controls his powers, chapter 28). Caine has an easy going and charming exterior that hides his lack of empathy, allowing him to use people for his own gain as he sees them as expendable. They are such PERFECTLY MATCHED OPPOSITES. But no. Michael wanted the leader to be Sam because?? Fire?? Ugh. Even when the question of who will take over if Sam poofs comes up in chapter 40, NOBODY EVEN MENTIONS HER. Astrid suggests that Edilio takes over and that’s that. (With that being said I do find it interesting that Astrid basically chose both the leader AND the backup leader but still. Let her live up to her full potential Michael.)

I think I’ve pretty much covered the first two bullet points in other sections but I’ll just quickly mention her part in Sam becoming the leader. It’s very clear from the fire onwards that Sam being in charge is Astrid’s main goal. Is this so that Sam can protect her?? Maybe. Idk. But it kind of frustrates me that she is broken down into Sam’s love interest towards the end, rather than coming into her own role. We are constantly shown that she is the main reason that Sam is becoming the leader, and this is even explicitly stated when Sam tells his mother/the gaiphage that he has “someone I have to stay here for” – chapter 46. I think the book should have ended with Astrid taking on her own role (as the leader obvs but I would have settled for something smaller or, you know, ANYTHING), instead of her just becoming Caine’s human shield. I do have more to say on this topic but I feel like it falls more into the relationship category so I’ll leave that for a later post.

And I’m not even going to talk about her powers past saying: what was the reason?? As far as I can gather Michael wanted a reason for Astrid being so insistent about Sam taking on the role of leader and so gave her a weird power and then decided hmm no. 

Thank you so much for reading and I would love to hear all of your thoughts on Astrid. I think I’m going to do Caine next but who knows.

#the gone series #astrid ellison #Gone

[thornedrose44]

Prompt: “I can’t do this. Just leave me alone.”

Read on AO3

"Goodnight, Kara." Lena said from across the room when she finally managed to catch Kara's eye.

It was the first time they had made eye contact since Kara had welcomed her inside at the start of the night. Kara startled at the sudden sight of Lena, waving farewell as she stepped quietly towards the door, but made no move to follow after her and when the door swung quietly shut behind her Lena knew things would never be the same.

It was Kara's birthday party (her Earth birthday party to those that happened to be in the know, which to Lena's un-surprise was a rather considerable group all things considered). Kara had invited her, further proof of the strength of their newly reaffirmed friendship. Lena had been grateful for the invite, appreciating it as the sign that they were back on the right track, and accepted it without hesitation.

She had then proceeded to spend hours upon hours thinking of the perfect gift for Kara, excitement and anticipation building in her stomach.

It would be her first proper night out in months after being thrown back into her role as CEO and dealing with all the negative press following Lex’s downfall and upcoming conviction. Her working hours had reached an excess that she had never achieved before. The blowback onto her in the form of hatred for the Luthors was even greater than last time as well, despite her crucial role in taking Lex down. She was still deemed guilty by association especially since she had been working closely with Lex for a long time before revelations about his villainy became apparent.

The news were critiquing her every move, slandering her every chance they got and rallying the masses to a fervour - she was now facing at least one assassination attempt every week.

Regardless of all that, Lena had one salvation, one light of hope that she clung onto. Her friendship with Kara. It was growing again. They were spending time together. Relearning one another or learning about each for the first time in Lena's case. The conversation was finally less stilted and the trust was back.

But there was still something missing, something stopping them from returning to exactly where they were before.

Lena, as the months ticked by, realised that they were no longer as physically close as they once were. Hugs were rare. Gentle touches of the hands were swiftly snatched back to prevent lingering. Even extended eye contact was fleeting.

Lena at first thought the problem was that she had hurt Kara so badly that the woman who sometimes communicated solely through physical affection no longer wanted to be touched by Lena. That broke something in Lena. That Kara, even though she was trying to be kind, friendly and forgiving to Lena, was not comfortable with any sort of physical contact between them, drove Lena into a drunken stupor of college-level proportions.

Once the alcohol was out of her system and she had suitably recovered from her hangover, Lena had allowed the scientist within her to take over.

No more assumptions.

She would gather evidence, make an hypothesis and work towards a solution.

If she wanted Kara back in her life properly - cuddles on the sofa and lengthy hugs a necessity of that - Lena would put the effort in.

So she observed… and what she observed was this…

Pink cheeks and bashful expressions whenever their gazes met.

A thick swallow and faltering breath whenever their hands brushed.

Deep sighs and fingers digging fleetingly into her back as if on the edge of pulling her closer whenever they embraced.

Dark eyes and teeth biting into a bottom lip whenever Lena stretched or moved her hair away from her neck.

Attraction, affection and interest .

Lena didn’t believe the results of her evidence; she re-ran the tests over and over again trying to work out if she had just interacted with Kara on an odd day, if she just happened to be thinking about something (someone) else at the same time but… it kept happening over and over again.

If it had been anyone else, Lena wouldn’t have doubted what she was seeing but… but.. This was Kara.

Kara, who she had been in love with since she had walked into her office with her cousin.

Kara, who had never picked up on or reacted to her flirts.

Kara, who had broken her heart with lies.

Kara, who meant so much to her.

Kara, who she had only just gotten back.

Was it worth the risk?

Fear had blinded her, of that she had no doubt, but was it keeping her safe from the hurtful truth of Kara not wanting to touch her anymore or from the potential happiness that Kara returned her feelings but was too sweet or shy to put herself in a position that would make Lena uncomfortable.

Lena decided to take a chance - just this once because even if she was wrong about Kara not feeling the same, she had to believe that Kara was incapable of being cruel to her if she misread it. They promised each other honesty and Lena intended to show it.

It was why she needed to buy the perfect present, something that hinted that Kara’s feelings (if Lena was right) were returned. And just a week before the party, she knew exactly what the perfect present would be.

She wrapped it personally (normally Jess would wrap any gifts she had to send out), wanting to go the extra mile. It wasn’t perfectly done, a bit messy in places and the sellotape was excessive but she had done it herself which she knew Kara would appreciate more than professional gift wrapping.

Lena, however, realised that she had made a mistake the second she arrived at Kara's.

Knew she had misread… everything …

Because Kara… Kara couldn't stand to be near her for longer than it took to say hello, accept the present and then disappear off.

Lena hadn’t expected to be with Kara for all of the party; it was Kara's party and loads of her friends were in attendance, all of whom wanted to spend it with Kara. Who wouldn't?

It's just… Lena…

Lena didn't have anyone else.

It was made abundantly clear to Lena within the first thirty seconds that she was not welcome. Alex gave her a gruff nod from across the room before turning her back to her - she still didn't trust her and Lena had prioritised winning Kara back over the last few months above everything else. Brainy and Nia smiled at her but they were deep in conversation with CatCo employees all of whom were practically snarling at Lena (clearly not Luthor fans). James was here as well and dear God did he give her such a blazing look of hatred Lena was surprised she didn't burst into flames under its ferocity. (They hadn’t dated in this rewritten universe, much to Lena’s pleasure, though his original dislike for her was clearly a mainstay of every universe).

So… Lena grabbed a drink and stood in the corner as Kara moved seamlessly between her various groups of friends and colleagues, never once sparing Lena even a glance. The majority of her movements were accompanied by William Dey, who repeatedly tried to sling an arm around Kara's shoulder - the only joy Lena got from the evening was watching Kara repeatedly squirm out from under his touch.

She held out for two hours, sipping three beers and glancing intermittently at her phone as she stayed in her corner, hoping that Kara would come over for just five minutes.

Five minutes with Kara wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

Five mere minutes with Kara would have made the whole night worth it, made the glares and malevolent whispers sent her way worth it.

It was at the two hour mark that Lena accepted the truth.

Kara wasn't going to come over to talk to her.

Kara hadn't been pulling away from her due to a sudden realisation of feelings and attraction.

Kara hadn't expected her to accept the invite. Hadn't wanted her to accept.

Kara was ashamed of her, that was why she pulled away, why she didn't acknowledge her.

Lena couldn't really blame her but that didn't mean she had to stay and take it. So gathering what was left of her dignity, she shuffled towards the door, caught Kara's eye, waved and slipped outside… though, not before retrieving the present she had brought for Kara… it would have revealed far too much and Lena didn't need to deal with that on top of everything else.

Lena returned to her office for no other reason that she still had some good liquor stored there - Kara had encouraged her a couple of months ago to cut back on her drinking and she couldn’t deny the baby blue puppy dog eyes. She staggered into her office, chucking the present she had spent hours creating onto the sofa - she would buy Kara some random meaningless gift like a nice scarf or jumper tomorrow instead - and poured herself a full tumbler before flipping open her laptop and getting to work. She lost herself in designs and business plans as she made her way through the bottle.

She used to sit and brood when she drank but Sam had made her promise she wouldn’t do that anymore, hazel eyes filled with concern at where Lena’s mind wandered when unoccupied and fuelled by alcohol. Whilst Lena was in a pretty bleak space, she refused to hurt her last (and only) friend by breaking the one promise she had made to her.

It must have been two am when Lena heard a familiar thud from the balcony followed by a gentle knock that could only belong to one person.

“Kara, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Lena called out, not bothering to lift her gaze away from her laptop screen - she wasn't sure whether the sight of Kara would evoke tears or fury and she wished to give Kara neither.

“Hey… I just wanted… I was…" Kara stammered out; Lena didn't need to see her to know that she was fidgeting with the edge of her cape as she tiptoed nervously closer. "You know… flying around and saw the light on and figured I would check in on you, see how you were doing…”

“I’m fine. Just working.” Lena replied brusquely taking a sip of her whiskey.

“And drinking…” Kara muttered, her tone more worried than disapproving but Lena took offense regardless.

“Yes. It’s a Saturday night, cut me some slack.” Lena snapped back, defiantly swallowing what was left in her glass before slamming it down onto her desk.

The loud clack as it connected with the surface was followed by a heavy, almost suffocating silence.

“You left early.” Kara whispered into the unnatural stillness, shattering the fraudulent focus Lena had on her computer screen with those three words. Kara didn't sound confused or upset, just painfully neutral as if to emotionally step back from the situation so that she could garner some emotional truth from the CEO instead.

Well, Lena was done with that, done with giving more of herself than Kara wanted so she took a deep, calming breath and allowed her painstakingly crafted mask to slip into place.

“I wasn’t the first to leave.” Lena pointed out calmly, finally turning to look at Kara, certain she could keep her voice and face blank. It was then that she saw how… small Kara looked, which was never a word Lena would have used to describe Kara in full Supergirl regalia in the entire time she had known her. Kara looked defeated and lost, a tremble to her lip and very being that she tried to hide behind a shy smile.

“Well… I didn’t get a chance to talk to you…” Kara replied, ducking her head meekly as she admitted. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Lena pursed her lips at that, “I was there for over two hours, Kara. You could have come over whenever you wanted. It wasn’t like I was occupied.”

“Yeah… what was that about?” Kara laughed, rubbing the back of her neck, trying far too hard to make her tone light as if even the idea of Lena being without company was an entirely absurd concept.

The high-pitch to Kara's laugh and the unfamiliar tension around her eyes revealed to Lena that Kara knew exactly why Lena had been standing all alone that evening.

“I’m a Luthor, Kara." Lena replied sharply, not interested in trying to smooth over the harsh truths like Kara was always so keen to do when it suited her. "No one wanted me there and they all made that very clear.”

“I wanted you there.” Kara replied so soft and earnest that Lena nearly believed her.

“I highly doubt that.” Lena scoffed derisively.

“I did.” Kara insisted, eyes desperate and pleading.

Lena merely shook her head, turning back to face her computer, “If you say so…”

“Lena, I-”

“Kara… I can’t…” Lena muttered, her voice cracking in the exact way she didn’t want it to. “I can’t do this. Just leave me alone.” Lena requested, hating how it verged on begging.

“What?” Kara murmured in shock.

“I can’t just… pretend that I’m not hurt or upset.” Lena confessed, fingers curling into fists on her desk, eyes slamming shut to lock in the tears. “I just need… time to get over it and accept what we are. So until then… please just leave me alone.”

“I hurt you.” Kara repeated, her voice broken and raw .

“Kara, I didn’t…” Lena shook her head angrily, she didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to inflict herself on Kara who had tried so hard to be her friend. “It's your birthday, Kara.” Lena sighed sadly, “You get to spend it anyway you like with whomever you like.”

“I wanted to spend it with you.” Kara breathed, and Lena could hear the sharp inhales between each word that revealed that Kara was crying.

“Kara, you don’t need to…” Lena assured, with a wave of her hand, eyes focused on her lap, “let’s just leave it, okay?”

“No…” Kara gasped, and suddenly Lena felt a trembling hand connect with her own tightly curled fists, “wait… what did you mean ‘get over it’ and ‘accept what we are’?”

Lena sucked in a sharp breath at the question, biting down harshly on her bottom lip.

“Lena?” Kara pressed.

“Fuck it, fine.” Lena snapped, yanking her hands away from Kara’s infinitely soft touch and shoving herself out of her chair before storming away from Kara, desperate for space. “I thought you liked me.”

“I do-” Kara began, taking a tentative step after her.

“No, Kara.” Lena yelled, spinning back to face Kara, with a twisted snarl of total self-loathing. “Liked me.” Lena stressed, before throwing her hands up into the air as it all just boiled out of her, “God, I sound like a teenager. I thought you liked me. I thought you were touching me less because you were attracted to me. But then… I go to your party and you don’t… it was like you were ashamed of me, I sat in that fucking corner for two hours as everyone wished - out loud, I should say - that I would go. I sat in that fucking corner in the hope that you would speak to me for five minutes. For just five minutes. Because that… that would have made it all worth it. But you could barely look at me. And I realised you didn’t - don’t - like me… you’re ashamed of me, but you’re too kind to abandon me. Too noble and generous but even you have your limits. Of course, you didn’t want to spend your birthday talking to me. Of course you didn’t.”

Lena wanted to punch a wall, wanted to down the rest of her whiskey, wanted to do literally anything than be here in this moment watching the horror-struck expression on Kara’s face grow and grow with every word, watch Kara’s body tremble and shake with each harsh sweeping gesture.

“Lena, no… you…” Kara sobbed, striding towards her with fingers twitching at her sides, “you have got the complete wrong end of the stick. Actually, you’re right but also really wrong. And…” Kara swiped aggressively at the tears rolling down her cheeks as she approached Lena, stopping when the raven-haired woman flinched at their sudden closeness. “I screwed up but-”

“No. You don’t need to do this.” Lena cut in, holding a hand up to stop Kara, wanting Kara to know that her guilt was unnecessary and that she could finally be free of Lena.

“Lena, I’m so-”

“You don’t need to apologise.” Lena insisted, taking a deep breath to rein back in her swirl of her emotions. She could do this. She could let Kara go. “You were trying to be kind but you shouldn’t… god, if I make you that miserable, that uncomfortable, you shouldn’t have to force yourself to interact with me.”

“LENA!” Kara bellowed, stamping her foot to the ground and lifting her chin to reveal a determined expression.

Lena blinked in shock at the sudden volume and intensity; falling obediently quiet.

Kara placed her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, looked Lena straight in the eye with earnest, beseeching blue and declared, “I want to kiss you right now because that would be the big sweeping action that would prove to you that I mean what I’m about to say next but… you’ve been drinking… heavily from the looks of things.” Kara shot a displeased pout at the nearly empty bottle of whiskey as if it was all the bottle’s fault for Lena’s current state of inebriation and not the youngest Luthor’s unhealthy coping mechanisms. Kara turned back to face a stunned Lena, with a fond smile, “And I really want our first kiss to be one you remember and one you can fully consent to. So, you’re just going to have to believe me… please, please believe me when I say… I’m in love with you and I fucked up massively tonight. Really, really fucked up.”

“You never swear.” Lena murmured quietly, and it probably wasn’t what she should have been focusing on but her brain was currently stuck like a record scratch unable to fully comprehend what Kara had just told her; and the swear was just the cherry on top of an entire sundae of confusing and out-of-the-blue revelations.

“Which shows how much I believe that I fucked up.” Kara replied with a helpless shrug.

“But-”

“You were the only person I wanted to spend my birthday with.” Kara confessed, “Well, Alex at some point as well. But you mostly. Alex planned the party and I couldn’t…” Kara huffed out a frustrated breath and rolled her eyes, “she did this whole thing and I didn’t want to turn around and say I didn’t want it. That all I really wanted was a quiet night watching films with you because…” Kara sighed, “because then she’d know… To make it more bearable I invited you but there were so many other people, and I will be honest… I don’t even like half of them. Alex, just invited everyone I was friends on facebook with which is not a good barometer of friendship.”

Lena cleared her throat, none of it making sense, “Then why-”

“Did I ignore you?” Kara guessed with a painful wince.

“Yeah…” Lena muttered, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.

“Because… because I knew, or at least I thought I knew, that you hadn’t noticed how I felt about you.” Kara explained inching just that little bit closer towards Lena, attempting to bring them within touching distance of one another. “And I knew it was only a miracle that you hadn’t until now because…” Kara smiled a lopsided, rueful and self-deprecating smile, “Lena, I am not subtle. Not at all. And I knew… I knew if I interacted with you at the party… everyone else would be able to tell in an instant how I felt.”

Lena exhaled slow and deep, arms tightening their hold around herself, “And you didn’t want them knowing you liked me?”

“Love. Not like.” Kara corrected, patient yet firm, “Love. And no, I didn’t.”

Lena nodded once in understanding, letting out a hollow laugh, “I get it. I wouldn’t want anyone to know I loved me either.”

“Lena… no… no… you…” Kara rushed to explain, finally stepping close enough to reach out and place her hands gently on Lena’s curled biceps. Lena couldn’t help how she instinctively shifted closer, wanting to increase contact with Kara after being denied it for so long. “I didn’t want anyone knowing before you.” Kara admitted.

And that… that snapped something back into place for Lena.

Made the doubts screaming inside her head quieten down just enough to think… maybe…

Because… it was being last that had broken them the first time. Being the only one not to know and now…

“I didn’t want Stacy, who used to cheat off me in exams in college to know how I felt about you before you did.” Kara said, thumbs moving back and forth against the bare skin of Lena’s arms causing a swathe of goosebumps to rise like a wave in the wake of Kara’s every touch. “They didn’t deserve that. They didn’t deserve…” Kara’s jaw clenched, eyes darkening as she studied Lena’s face, “I was trying to protect you from them. They said horrible things about you and you should know, the minute after you left, I kicked everyone who so much as looked at you funny out. It was just me, Nia, Brainy and Kelly left… Alex, as well, but we had a rather heated argument before she was allowed to stay.” Kara bowed her head in shame, “I should have kicked them all out immediately but-”

“Then they would have known.” Lena finished for her.

“I had this whole thing planned.” Kara breathed out, her hands gradually shifting away from Lena’s arms around to her back, surrounding Lena in a loose hold, Kara’s eyes flickering over Lena’s face and body rapidly searching for even the slightest sign that Lena was uncomfortable with their contact. “Once everyone left, I had set-up the roof with lights and cushions and… I was going to tell you how I felt. I just had to make it through the birthday party from hell and I was trying so hard to keep to the plan. To not spoil it. To keep it a secret so that it could just be ours but... I…” Kara’s eyes slid shut and she inhaled a shuddering breath filled with pain. “I hurt you. And there is nothing I can say to make you forgive me, but I do… I do love you so much. And I will never, ever be ashamed of you.” Kara blinked her eyes back open and leaned forward to place a kiss on Lena’s forehead. “I just wanted it to be ours and not theirs. I didn’t want to share. You’re the only thing in my life that… I didn’t want to share.”

“Open your present.” Lena demanded, stepping out of Kara’s loving embrace.

“Lena-” Kara whimpered, pained at the sudden loss of closeness.

“Open your present, Kara.” Lena repeated, jerking her chin towards the sofa where the roughly wrapped present lay.

“I… okay…” Kara replied, watching Lena closely as she tried to make sense of Lena’s clear request. Kara walked cautiously over to the couch, picking up the gift with gentle hands. “Did you wrap it yourself?” Kara asked, her entire expression brightening as she stared down at the crooked, over sellotaped wrapping.

Lena harrumphed at the question, pursing her lips.

“You did, didn’t you?” Kara teased.

“The present isn’t the piss poor wrapping.” Lena replied with an exaggerated roll of her eyes that had the corners of Kara’s lips quirking even further upwards.

“Lena Luthor wrapped my present herself…", Kara whistled in awe, blue eyes twinkling with true delight for the first time that day, "what better gift is there?”

“Open it and you might find one.” Lena said, heart leaping into her throat as Kara’s deft fingers found a line of wrapping paper she could tuck them under.

The sound of paper ripping was deafening in the stillness; all Lena could do was watch and wait.

The paper fell away leaving behind a small black box, Kara shot Lena a hesitant look and it wasn’t until Lena nodded for her to continue that Kara clicked it open.

There was a pause.

A heavy, endless pause in which Lena couldn’t bring herself to even breathe.

“What is-” Kara began before cutting off immediately as she lifted up the beautiful bracelet made of nth metal and inscribed with ‘stronger together’ in Lena’s own cursive handwriting in both english and kryptonian.

The bracelet shined under the lights in Lena’s office, but in Lena’s opinion, Kara’s eyes shined impossibly brighter.  

“You’re in love with me.” Kara whispered, seeing the present for everything Lena had hoped it would convey.

“Yes.” Lena confirmed because there was no hiding it now.

With trembling fingers Kara clasped the bracelet onto her wrist, long fingers tracing the words delicately inscribed with no small amount of wonder. Finally, she turned around and stared at Lena with so much sheer love that the youngest Luthor felt overwhelmed and like her heart might burst right out of her chest in its desire to be in Kara’s possession

Clearing her throat and clasping her hands behind her back, Lena gathered her courage and asked, “If I promise you I’ll remember it and that I am fully consenting… will you kiss me now?”

Kara was in front of her in the literal blink of the eye, hands reaching out to cup Lena’s cheeks as Lena’s hands moved to rest on Kara’s hips gently encouraging their bodies closer with a light tug.

“There is nothing I want more.” Kara assured with the widest grin that Lena had ever seen and couldn’t help but return.

Their first kiss could barely count as a kiss.

Their smiles were too wide to allow for it, but Lena wouldn’t change it even slightly. They pressed their smiles against one another, teeth knocking together and noses brushing.

It may not have been a successful kiss but it was tender and filled with so much joy that Lena wouldn’t describe it as anything less than perfect.  

Their second kiss was an actual kiss, lips slotting together, tongues seeking each other out and teeth tugging whimpers and moans from one another in an endless cycle.

Their second kiss turned into a third, a fourth, a fifth.

They kissed until the sun rose.

Kissed until their lips ached and any remaining doubts Lena may have had were pushed back into the shadows by the light of Kara’s smile and blue eyes.

#supercorp #supercorp fic

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 9

Buster hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and stared up with admiration at the 120-foot crane. Having been delivered to the set in multiple pieces by a fleet of huge trucks, the workmen had just finished putting it together. “Beautiful, ain’t she?”

At his side, Joe grimaced. “Did you have to?”

“ ‘Course I did,” said Buster. “How else are we going to lift the hospital off me in the cyclone sequence?”

“I just didn’t expect it … it’s so big, you know?”

“Damn right it is.”

“How much did it cost?” “How much did it cost? Really?” Buster said, feeling like Joe had just stuck a pin in his mood and popped it. “It cost what it cost.”

Joe rubbed the back of his neck as he looked up at the crane. “I just wish you’d said something first. Harry’s worried about going over budget.”

“Tell him he can blow it out his ass,” said Buster. “I’m getting damn sick of Harry. Didn’t we all sit down and agree a cyclone was just fine?” He bit his tongue and didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ because if they’d stuck to the original plan, there wouldn’t have been a crane. He wasn’t sure how much the cyclone had run them so far, but it was already over $20,000.

“Yeah, I guess we did. Just try to—” said Joe. “Well don’t go overboard, is what I’m getting at.”

Buster, who had already handsomely paid to go overboard, kept his silence again. “Sure.”

They took a street car to K Street. The sidewalks were still busy when they arrived at the Senator theater around 6:30, everyone parading around in their Saturday night finery. She felt good about the ensemble she’d chosen, a short-sleeved dusty peach cotton dress with a mauve straw cloche hat and silk stockings. Inside, the Senator was cool. She’d been to a picture there only once before, but it was enough to make her fall in love with the place, which had been built just two years prior and was new like everything on the West coast was new. It was adorned in velvet drapes and jardinières heaped with fresh chrysanthemums, plush wall-to-wall carpeting, and fringed lamps, but her favorite feature was the painted dome and the enormous multi-tiered chandelier hanging from its center.

As she and the Kimbles took their seats in the balcony, she looked to the box seats on either side of the theater, half-expecting to see Buster in one, but she didn’t. Maybe he was in the crowd, but there was only so much gawking she could do before attracting attention. She saw him in person nearly every day now, but always at a distance and always when he was busy in front of or behind the camera. River Junction had been a bustle of workmen and noise in the mornings as they rebuilt sets for the cyclone and put together the biggest crane she’d seen in her life. Bert allowed her to take breaks a couple times a day to watch the filming. Even though she was behind the scenes now and could see everything, from the cluster of noisy cameras to the even noisier rain machines, the sight of Buster falling into a puddle up to his waist or being blown off his feet by a gust of wind was still a laugh. On Thursday, she’d been called upon to place an order for five large loaves of bread from a bakery, but they were spirited off to an unknown part of the set and their purpose remained a mystery. 

Her brief acquaintance with Buster seemed to have come to an end and she wasn’t inclined to press it any further, having made an ass of herself the first day in his dressing room and then later after the party at the blind tiger. It was enough that he knew her name. She’d begun hoping that the company would keep her on when they wrapped filming and packed up for Hollywood in a few weeks. The more she stuck around, the more people would know her face, and the more people knew her face, the greater her chances were of being recognized by a studio.

She shared Joe and Maggie’s jumbo box of Junior Mints as the lights went down and the opening short started. An organ in an arched box with pillars provided accompaniment. 

When the opening credits of Buster’s feature began, Nelly’s pulse quickened a little bit. It was surreal when he finally appeared on the screen, walking beneath an umbrella with his mother in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin; she’d gotten used to him as a flesh-and-blood person. She now knew how his production company made that rain and that there were cameras in front of him tracking his every step. She also knew that the person inside the truck driving down the street in the background was an extra. Nevertheless, the scene still looked believable, and pretty soon she was sucked into the story like the rest of the audience.

Buster played a brainy college freshman without a lick of athletic ability, which happened to be the only thing his girl cared about. He spent most of the picture trying out for sports to impress her and failing miserably. Buster often took two or three-hour lunches to play baseball with his production team, so Nelly couldn’t quite buy that he didn’t understand the rules of the game and couldn’t hit a ball to save his life.

As the movie wore on, she became aware—and it gave her an unpleasant sensation, like an itch—that he was better-looking than she remembered. It embarrassed her somewhat to see him in his skimpy track outfit. In one scene where he sat on the sidelines, the shorts rode up so high she could see where his tan ended and his natural skin tone, considerably paler, began. She was almost glad when the movie ended. The last few seconds had been queer, besides. The scene of Buster and his girl walking out of the chapel after being married had melted into a scene of them sitting at home while their children played in the background, then one of them in old age, before concluding with a shot of two headstones.

The organ died away and the lights went up. 

“What on earth did that ending mean?” said Maggie, with a look on her face.

“I don’t know,” said Nelly, but it had given her a bad taste. Judging by the expressions on their neighbors’ faces, they weren’t alone in their confusion. Even in Shakespeare’s time, everyone knew that you ended a comedy with a marriage. To do otherwise was to let your audience down. The abrupt, morbid ending brought her back to reality and reminded her that the real Buster was not to be confused with his handsome, whimsical on-screen counterpart.

Joe was the only one who seemed to find the ending funny and tried explaining it as they made their way up the balcony and down the stairs. Nelly was busy searching the exiting crowd for Buster’s face and only half listened. They made it out onto the sidewalk before she accepted she wasn’t going to see him that night. 

Maggie proposed getting hamburgers before they went home and Joe and Nelly agreed. They found a diner on L Street and sat in a booth with a checkered red-and-white tablecloth.

“So what’s he really like?” Maggie said, after their food arrived and they were tucking into burgers and coleslaw. She was a heavier girl, pretty, with auburn hair and freckles on her nose. Her claim to fame was that her maternal grandfather had been one of the original inhabitants of Sacramento when it was first incorporated. She’d asked Nelly the question before, but Nelly didn’t mind answering it again. Buster had rubbed off some fifteen minutes of fame onto her and there was no sense in not using them. Of course, she hadn’t told them that he was her savior the night of the party; in her untruthful retelling, Bert had played that role. They did know, however, that he had invited her to be an extra and that she’d baked him cookies after his accident with the baseball.

“Not much like that,” said Nelly. She looked up and scanned the faces in the other booths as if one might belong to Buster, but they didn’t. “He smiles in real life, but you know that, I’ve said that before. He can be very solemn. He’s not boyish like he is in pictures. I think he’s a kind person, mostly.” She was almost surprised to hear herself say it, but it was a conclusion she’d come to in spite of how he’d appalled her at their first meeting. He’d been a gentleman through and through when he rescued her at the party and took her back to his hotel room, and she couldn’t help but alter her opinion because of it. “He keeps a lot to himself and sticks to his own pals. And he’s very funny, just as funny as his movies.”

“He’s a real athlete too,” Joe said. “He can’t hide that.”

Nelly agreed. “Yes, he plays a lot of baseball with his team.”

“I liked the picture anyway. The gags were funny,” said Joe.

“It was alright,” Nelly said.  

Maggie added, “I’m still not keen on that ending.”

“No,” said Nelly. 

They ate their burgers and the conversation moved to the Senators game (everything was called Senator here since Sacramento was the capital) and how, according to Joe at least, the team hadn’t been the same since Brick Eldred (whoever he was) left. It was getting late by the time they left the diner, and they took a taxi back to 22nd Street, Nelly and Maggie deciding that they’d forgo the dance hall for the evening. 

Nelly had almost forgotten about Buster by the time she crawled into bed around eleven. She tried to drift off by boring herself with thoughts of baseball. Her father and uncle liked the White Sox, but she’d never really understood or cared for the game. Her only memory of the game she’d been taken to as a little girl was of eating hot dogs and popcorn and wandering the stands with Ruthie. Although she couldn’t say why, fantasies of men had not been satisfying since the incident with Tommy, not even her go-to of John Barrymore. The idea that a man might take up baseball or another sport he was abysmal at in order to win the love of a girl seemed laughable now that she thought about it, but Buster had done it—and more—in College. He’d even rescued the girl from his rival who was trying to ruin her reputation.

Her eyes shot open. She hadn’t thought of it until now, but Buster had rescued her that night at the blind tiger. Of course, he hadn’t done it out of a sense of love and there was no reading into the coincidence since the picture had been shot long before she’d met Tommy or Buster, but it struck her regardless. Maybe Buster’s pictures did reveal something of his character. As she puzzled over it, her thoughts got hazier and hazier, until finally she dropped off to sleep.

Note: Bonus update this week. I think you all deserve it after current events! Also, do admire this screengrab where Buster’s tan ends and his normal skin color begins. 

#Buster Keaton #Fan fiction #Fan fic #RPF #Actor RPF #Golden Age Hollywood #silent films

[kassies-take]

It’s A Luthor’s Life

Summary: Lex Luthor knows everything. Everything besides what is in Lena Luthor’s penthouse.

A/n: I should really get to the requests before I start something new... Too late, I have to right it down before I forget it.

Warning: Isolation, Assurance

Lena Luthor x Reader

Word Count: 2270

After the whole Crisis thing, Lena Luthor hasn’t gotten a break. She went from powerful CEO of L-Corp to second in command to her deranged brother of LuthorCorp. She went from ‘oh I wouldn’t know I never stood behind a man’ to standing behind the worst man possible. She has lost everything she has built towards a good name for the Luthors, ever since the New World kickstarted. It doesn’t help that her own office is invaded and even her lab infested with her brother’s personal belongings and tech. Who the hell does Lex Luthor think he is? 

There is at least still one place the former CEO could go to for sanctuary. Her own penthouse. Her home, which is actually ironic due to the fact that after she ran from letting her mother drown she hasn’t stopped running since. She had tried to make it work in Metropolis, in National City yet that all came back to bite her in the ass. 

The penthouse that was once empty, dull, and colorless. A place she was rarely in before, is now the place she wants to be in the most. Granted it was still empty, dull and colorless but it was at least free from the hands of the cold and dangerous would outside. She made sure it stayed that way. 

Right now the safest place for Lena was in her penthouse. At the moment she was using that to her advantage, she did not want to be found. She was taking a well deserved bath with scented candles and aged wine. The fluttering lights, the warm bath and the beautiful wine was doing wonders on her mind. She could feel the weight on her shoulders disappear, that was until a deafening crash erupted in the silence of her own penthouse. 

The brunette immediately dried herself off, wrapped herself tightly with a long white robe and put on some underwear. She did not need anyone to see her naked glory right now.  

Every scenario the Luthor ran in her mind, did not prepare her to find a young adult. Not to mention a young adult, battered, bruised and bleeding from the obvious glass beneath them. How the “child” managed to get through the window wouldn’t have surprised her if she lived on the first floor, but she was living on the goddamn twenty-third floor. 

The “odd” Luthor immediately looked to the sky as if expecting some alien creature to attack, or even kill, the groaning figure in front of her. Fifteen seconds, thirty, a minute goes by before the woman closes the broken window with a force shield. 

Only then did the lively and noisy city below become muted, but the huffs and puffs amplified from the damaged stranger. 

“No one can know I am here,” the stranger coughed out.

“You need a doctor.”

“I do n-” she was interrupted.

“You are bleeding out on my floor.”

“I’ve been through worse. Luthor assassinations and kidnaps from Cadmus.”

“Who are you?” ‘

“(Y/n) Luthor. CEO of L-Corp and probably paralyzed now.” 

That was all the older, got. Another Earth or possibly another odd one out. That was impossible, even if this dying stranger was the product of another Lionel affair there was no L-Corp. The business woman’s thoughts were interrupted when she spotted a light blue glow in a bottle like cylinder. 

Curious a Luthor will ever be, she took it from the unconscious person in front of her. Her curiosity would’ve been better if she did not press the button on the bottom or the top whichever it was. Lena screamed at the expansion of the clear glass. The curiosity did not kill the cat yet, the Luthor’s eyes shined at the hologram controls of what now seemed to be a healing chamber. 

A small glance was given to the other supposed Luthor, and she was compelled to help. She first deactivated the healing chamber and opened her closet door. Like her office, she had a safe room in her home and activated the chamber in a lead-lined room. She placed the (h/c) haired in the chamber. As it sealed shut the same hologram appeared with settings, though the technology seemed to complete the setting on it’s own. 

The tank slowly filled with a light blue liquid, a breathing apparatus placed on their nose and mouth When the tank was completely full, a holographic gauge appeared on the glass. The level of healing measured, and by the looks of it, it seemed as if they would be in the chamber for a while as different machines were being indicated to be needed for a faster recovery. But because the technology was not existent at the moment the recovery would take longer than it usually would but a lot faster than in medical innovations set in this time. 

Lena had been checking on the mysterious stranger daily for six weeks. There was some familiarity to you. Someone she couldn’t bare to face at the moment.

What she didn’t know was that that familiarity was the truth.

In 2043, a year before the heroic sacrifice you had convinced Stephanie Olsen-Danvers to use an image inducer to change spots with her. Lena didn’t allow you to be a field agent but that’s all you wanted to be with your two older brothers, Liam and Lucas, (twins) flying around. Your powers had not yet manifested and you wanted to see if they would activate during the field, Stephanie was better at all the businesswoman stuff anyways. You got your wish, but the cost was Stephanie’s life, an assassination attempt was successful. You watched as your brothers and your parents grieved, and so long you were wearing the image inducer, Stephanie would still be wearing your face. You stayed with Dansen that night, they were sad they lost their favorite niece and they knew “you” would’ve been worse because you and Stephanie were close. There was family therapy before the funeral with Kara, Lena, Liam, Lucas, Alex, Kelly and “Stephanie”. You bursted into tears the moment the session started and refused to accept comfort. You reached up to deactivate the image inducer while mumbling the word sorry repetitively.  

Gasps and sighs of relief mixed in the room. 

“I’m so sorry, I co-convinced her to sw-switch places with m-me. I wanted a b-break from L-Corp and she h-helped me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” 

Dansen were both furious. Alex more than Kelly. Kelly knew you didn’t know, she knows you would take it all back if you could, and that Stephanie would have felt the same guilt if you had truly died and she couldn’t have made the choice to save you. Alex argued with Kara, Lena and Kelly any chance she got, she refused to even speak to you unless they were on missions.Your brothers were torn, they were relieved you were alive but devastated Steph was gone. 

Then the inevitable happened. While Superfriends went ballistic on each other another attack was made. A threat far worse than murder but genocide. A massive nuclear bomb was set to blow all of National City and neighboring counties. Alex, Brainy, J’onn and Nia set to the MedBay, Kara and Lucas under sun lamps due to Kryptonite radiation and Liam left to tell everyone of the tragic news. Liam had gotten everyone to safety when the aftershock shook, Kryptonian DNA had mutated, during this generation of Supers to absorb explosions. You and Liam were supposed to absorb it together after Kara and Lucas were infected by a Kryptonite gas in another room. But you took the blow yourself. 

In the last seconds you remembered Sara’s time portal watch and used it to diffuse the bomb. Most of the explosion happened in the upper atmosphere of a different time while small chain reaction bombs reached National City. You were supposed to die, and yet here you were in your mother’s old penthouse. 

Your healing was nearly complete when Lena moved to the kitchen to make herself some tea. Kara landed right outside.

“Let me guess you’re here once again to tell me not to forgive you. Or maybe that I shouldn’t work with my brother?” She had to keep up her act, it was hard but she had to.

“Not this time. I realized I made a mistake in hiding my identity from you for so long but the past is the past, and I can’t change it. Forgive me or not that’s your choice. Just like it’s your choice to work with Lex. I’m done blaming myself for your bad decisions.” The last line hit Lena like a bus.

“Then why are you here?” Lena asked emotionless.

“To tell you that from now on, you’re accountable for your own actions. If you decide to forgive me, I will be there for you. But if you continue to work with Lex... If you go through with whatever it is the two of you are planning, I will do everything in my power to stop you... just like I would any other villain.” Lena didn’t want to be the villain, she was never the villain but this is the only way.

Lena left the tea untouched and marched towards her closet. The healing liquid fully drained as your eyes shot open. You pressed on the glass to open it as Lena stood watching.

“What she is not telling you is that she saw possible outcomes in which she told you she was supergirl earlier than Lex.” You began to change settings on the chamber.

“How do you know?”

“You can say that where I’m from, we’re close. But every situation in which she tells you there was always a worse outcome. So when would it have been a good time for her to tell you?” You turned to face Lena once you clasped the chamber into pocket size.

“Before Reign became all World Killer like.”

“Ehh....” you sighed before walking towards Lena’s kitchen.

“It was the right time in our friendship for her to have told me.” She followed after.

“You end up defeating Reign without Kryptonite, but it costed your life and Kara was not willing to live a life without you.”

“Well then maybe right from the start.”

You froze and looked up from the teapot.

“What, we would be able to have worked together. A super and a Luthor. We would be unstoppable.”

“Unstoppable until you get kidnapped, and Kara reveals her identity to the world to save you. But that information would be used to target all of your friends and they will all end up dead.”

“She wouldn’t reveal her identity for me.”

“You underestimate how much you actually mean to her. And before you say you’d be better off without Kara in your life, you are so wrong. Kara, time and time again, despite keeping a big secret from you has always been your number one supporter. The sole reason you haven’t turned evil was due to the fact that Kara Danvers always had your back.”

“How can you possibly know that! You don’t know that I’ve been betrayed by everyone in my life, by the ones I love the most!”

“Well it certainly won’t be betrayal if it’s by an enemy.”

Lena glared at the true statement.

“I let her in! While she was shutting me out!” Lena’s eyes began to tear.

“There are even certain things you have to keep to yourself. But you can’t do it alone. Humans, Kryptonians even Martians, we all need someone there with us, otherwise we will be nothing. Luthors especially.”

“You’re. You’re my daughter aren’t you.” The older walked towards you.

Your eyes watered behind the red and Lena cupped your face. “I know what it’s like to lose everyone. I know what it’s like to buy into my demons. But if it’s anything you taught me, is that you can still be who you are despite what everyone thinks.”

“So I can’t tell you what to do, I mean that would just mess with the timeline.” You and Lena chuckled. “But just know that everything will be okay for you. Obviously I was born.” You flipped your hair before you sniffed again.

“Why do I get a sense that it won’t be okay for you.”

“Because I killed my own cousin, I was selfish and I convinced her to be me. Luthors just can’t seem to get a break.”

“I agree with you on that. But you are my little secret so maybe you can help me with this Lex situation.”

“Huh,” you smiled.

“What?”

“My mom always told me that she didn’t stop Lex on her own. I always thought it was with Supergirl.” 

“The past and the future can be surprising.” Lena smiled. “What was your name again?”

“Uh for the sake of the timeline, you can call me Miss Luthor. I hope you also know that that means I won’t tell you anything about the future.” 

“Well Miss Luthor, I hope you know that you did not do a good job of hiding who you are.” Lena smiled at the House of El logo on your shoulder. “ A Luthor’s life is always going to have trouble, unless you have the House of El with you.”

“It’s a Luthor’s life. Well our part of the Luthors.”

“So I marry Kara? Do you have any siblings? Does Lex get what he deserves?”

“I said I can’t reveal anything more about the future.”

“How could you not want to ask questions? I am a Luthor afterall.” 

#lena luthor x reader #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor imagines #lena luthor #lena luthor x daughter!reader #supercorp #supergirl #supergirl x reader #supergirl imagines #supergirl imagine #supergirl 100th episode

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

My brain is rotting

Maybe isntead 

All dumb shit - (x)

“ Whether or not you believe Lena Luthor was behaving out of character on Supergirl season 5 or not, there’s no denying that Lena has a lot to make up for and make right on Supergirl season 6. “ 

yeah, out of character. She was never manipulated by her brother, never killed people,never threw a tantrum, never did morally wrong experiments, never was sure she is right when she wasn’t, was never blinded by her emotions, blah blah blah

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done with Lena Luthor during Supergirl season 6 after a season of her siding with her brother and the writers consistently destroying the relationship between Lena and Kara over the big Kryptonian secret.

What a lot? All they need to do is put the bitch in jail. Tell me, why Lena won’t admit on public she was hapily helping Lex with lobotomizing whole fucking humanity? That she kidnapped and enslaved people? Why? Because she KNOWS she would end in a jail. What makes her a fucking coward. What makes her redemption a SHIT.

If there’s any way to make sure this is done (and done correctly), it’s to bring Lena into the fold and give her a pivotal role in these stories. Let’s start by making her a super friend.

 Pivotal. LOL. She HAD pivotal role in season 5 and that’s why this season SUCKED BALLS. And she was a superfriend. And guess what? She used Kara and manipulated them all, put them in DANGER, because she was butthurt. 

Making things right needs to be Lena Luthor’s top priority on Supergirl season 6. She really screwed up. (I personally don’t agree with the narrative that the show painted of Lena’s actions, as it was very clear that her past abuse and trauma was clouding her judgment and she was actively being manipulated by one of her abusers, but nonetheless…) Her relationships are in shambles, but for the first time in her life, she has the chance to put the pieces back together.

I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Her top priority should be going to police and confessing her crimes. But we all know she won’t, because she is a coward.

Sure, you don’t agree because Boo Hoo Hoo Luthor showed her true colors. Yeah, sure, she had traumatic past and Lex and Lilian abused her all the time, we just don’t know how exactly. Plus, sorry not sorry, your traumatic past don’t give you the rights to kidnap, enslave, manipulate, lie and torture people. And plan to lobotomize whole humanity because you are too poor to go to theraphy... WAIT.

STOP excusing abusers and toxic people’s behavior. It’s fucking disgusting. Especially when all what they have to do is cry (crocodile tears) and help to fix shit THEY CREATED. ONCE AGAIN. 

The abuser she first SHOT IN COLD BLOOD and then happily work with, when he was magically brought to life, because oh yeah, he made Luthors look good. LOL

Her relationships are in shambles and it’s her fault. What first? She had that chances in s2. 

Lena’s finally seen the light and the truth about who Lex and Lillian are, so it’s given her a new lease on life, one where she can begin to put her past behind her and move forward for the first time in her life. She can, hopefully, start to have a life that isn’t constantly dragged down by her family. And I think the best way to do this is to make her an official super friend.

I’m dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying. Lena shot Lex with cold blood because she knew who he was. And then she was still manipulated by him. For the THIRD TIME. And she had that life in STARCITY and she threw it away, because she wanted to be a LUTHOR. Once again, it’s on HER. She could walk away every fucking second. But she chose to stay. And do horrible

On this point I’m pretty sure she is a dumb bitch that can’t learn on her own experiences what makes me wonder about people calling her a genius. 

Lena’s often kept out of the loop until the very end when she invents some life-saving device and stops the villain, which is tiresome and shows that the writers truly don’t understand the complexity of the character and how impactful her relationships with the other characters could be.

How many times the shit she “helped” to fix was HER fault? Because she knew better and didn’t listen to her friends? This is IN character and writers know exactly who she is. Sorry not sorry, canon.

I’m not saying that Kara and company are going to immediately trust Lena to be on their side and always do the right thing. That will be part of the tension of Lena joining the group at first, proving that she’s capable of helping them and being a positive addition to their group. With Lex on the loose (hopefully not for long), this provides the perfect opportunity to begin Supergirl season 6 with Lena in the fold, finding more reasons to keep her there along the way.

Sure, once again Superfriends need to offer their hand to their ABUSER and invate her to their circle. So she can fuck shit again. Positive addition, yeah - butthurt, complains, eternal bitching about how people call her Luthor, being always right, not listening to the others. But oh yeah, she can produce more kryptonite to torture Kara. Once again, why keep her? Put her in the jail, case close.

(...)now is the time that Supergirl seems to be relying heavily on the team element, and leaving Lena out would be disastrous. The entirety of the Lena vs. Kara story on season 5 could have been avoided if Lena was brought into the fold earlier (and seeing only a few alternate realities doesn’t convince me that there was no way Kara could have told Lena earlier… that’s a pathetically easy way out of the story and the writers surely know it).

Sure. Blame Kara once again for rightfully protecting herself. And sure, CANON can’t convince you that telling Lena earlier would have changed a shit. Some people can’t understand that Lena is the pathetic control freak and has to know everything, because if not boo hoo hoo, people call her a Luthor.

This is canon Lena Luthor. I’m sorry she doesn’t fit your headcanon.

 And aside from Kara, Lena needs to work out her relationships with the others, too. She had minimal scenes with Alex — which is the second most important relationship to develop next to Kara and Lena’s on Supergirl season 6 — on season 5 and Brainy, too. But have Lena and Nia even been in a scene together? That’s a tragedy in and of itself. Plus, Kelly was the only one on good terms with Lena, and that could grow into a beautiful friendship, especially because of the relationship that Katie McGrath and Azie Tesfai share off-screen.

Her most important relationships are: her and her ego, her and her last name, her and her mommy issues, her and her brother. What she needs to develope is a fucking conscience. 

And Jesus Christ, leave Nia out of her fucking clucthes, we don’t need her corrupting poor Dreamer (aside of the fact Dreamer is protective of Kara and is going to show Lena her middle finger in s6). Why we need being tortured but going through Lena making friends with everybody?

Lena’s been a series regular on the show for three seasons, yet she’s continuously the person left out. Nia’s a superhero and knew Kara’s identity before her, Kelly has close ties with Alex and Kara even if she’s not officially in on the secret yet, and Brainy instantaneously became part of the group when the Legion showed up during season 3. Because of the ridiculous good vs. evil story, Lena has not been allowed to grow and develop real relationships after three seasons. Supergirl season 6 must rectify that.

LOL, she was in the cricle. All the time. She just didn’t know Kara’s secret. But sure, it kept her form growing up *dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*. All of the characters that knew earlier were worthy Kara’s trust. Canon showed Lena was and is not. She is ruled by her BUTTHURT. That’s the problem with Princess Lena. She was blinded by her emotions by MONTHS. And for sure it will happen again, because Miss Luthorgirl is unable to understand her own fucking flaws and blames everyone but herself.

After painting Lena out to be a villain for the entirety of season 5, Supergirl season 6 absolutely cannot follow their history of major interpersonal developments occurring off-screen with Lena, especially when it comes to her relationship with Kara.

Not painiting. She was the villain. Yeah, all we need is focusing on Lena’s being sad and uspet and Kara trying to fix shit again. Because we don’t suffer from it since s2. 

Maybe instead of wasting time on a white privileged white bitch, who makes the same msiakes all the time and never paid for it, who kidnapped, tortured. enslaved and lobotomize people and her friends, let’s focus on dansen, developing Kelly, focusing more on Alex and Alex and Kara, giving Nia more screen time. I wonder, why the author thinks Lena and her whiny ass should get anything more?

This goes for all relationships, honestly, not just those involving Lena. While I do think everyone should get these moments on-screen, it absolutely has to happen with Lena if we’re going to believe her journey going forward. Making all of these moments happen off-screen is quite a bad habit that has constantly dragged Supergirl down, but should we actually get to see the emotions and growth exploring during Supergirl season 6, there’s a lot of potential, particularly because of how talented this cast is.

Sure. But the others, REAL representation, are not that important as Lena and her privileged ass. Who needs her journey going forward? She had her chance. She fucked it more than once. 

And now, amazing how this person totally IGNORED that Lena kidnapped, killed, lobotomized, enslaved, tortured Kara and hurt her physically and emotionally like NO ONE EVER HAD, that she supported and happily worked with a mass murderer and terrorist, that she planned to DESTROY Kara and her family. Like all she did was some bad things, but it was not her fault that much, because her family abused her and Kara lied to her, what a crime!, let’s not talk about what she really has done. The shit since s2. The list is LONG. Because, ha ha haaaaaa, Lena doing bad things, while being “blinded by her emotions” is NOT only s5.

Lena Luthor is not a poor victim of circumstances and her family. Her crying and helping people fixing HER shit is not a redemption. Her apologizing to Kara is not REDEMPTION. All of she has done is still THERE. If she wants redemption, she needs to PAY for her SHIT and earn it. 

The problem is, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. She can rot in jail. And tbh, this is what she deserves. 

Kara deserves better. Superfriends deserve better.

#anti lena luthor #anti sc #my shit #gmo lena #antilena