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Kara sits next to her sister, surrounded by her friends, smiling widely. They are celebrating another victory. They had managed to stop a massive terrorist attack and apprehend the leaders of the organization, hopefully stifling their activities for a long time, if not stopping it permanently. It is a good day to be a Superhero.
But as the celebration carries on, Kara can’t help but notice the glances coming her way. Every so often she catches Lena staring at her. Lena’s eyes are full of thoughts, swirling with emotions that Kara isn’t quite sure she understands. It bothers her. After everything they have been through, all the highs and the lows, she feels like she knows Lena better than ever. But the looks she gets this evening; Kara just can’t decipher them. She knows Lena is processing something, clearly something to do with her, given how often she has caught Lena staring at her. But with everyone around, celebrating with food and drink and games, she can’t exactly pull Lena aside and ask her what is wrong. While Lena is perhaps a bit quieter than usual, it isn’t anything anyone else seems to notice. Lena still engages with others. She talks softly in a corner with Nia about magic, shares a glass of whiskey with Alex, and beats Brainy at a game of darts. To anyone else, Lena is engaged in the celebration as much as the others. But Kara notices. Lena engages with everyone else, but rarely with Kara throughout the entire evening, unless she is engaged with Kara and another person. Again and again, as she talks and drinks and plays darts with the others, her eyes drift back to Kara. Clearly, something is on her mind that she keeps coming back to. And whatever it is, it is causing her to be just the tiniest bit off with Kara.
As the party started to wind down, Lena volunteers to stay behind to help clean up. Again, not unusual behavior on Lena’s part. Anytime the party is at Kara’s place, Lena stays. That’s just the routine they have now. But Kara is sure tonight is different. Something is going on with Lena. And given how close they have gotten since reconciling, she is sure Lena wants to talk to her about it. Kara wonders if maybe something happened with her Foundation, but isn’t sure how that is possible, given the entire team spent the past several days dealing with the terrorist threat. Lena was locked in the entire mission.
Sighing to herself as she closes the door, she turns to see Lena busying herself with picking up various plates, cups, drinks, and other remains of the celebration.
“You know,” Kara says, trying to act normal, “I could just use superspeed and have this cleaned up in a few seconds.”
Lena chuckles. “Yes, but then I wouldn’t have an excuse to stay behind.”
Kara leans back against the door. “You know you don’t need an excuse. You can stay just because you want to.”
The heaviness of the statement hangs in the air between them. Kara means the words, deeply. And Lena knows it. Neither of them knows exactly how much she means it though. For months now, they have been dancing around each other in some sort of unspoken, weird, avoidance of the truth. Neither wanting to risk the delicate balance in their friendship that they had rebuilt since they had their falling out. Both seem content with what they have now. Neither seemingly want to admit they might want something more, a fear of shaking and destroying the balance they have found with one another – a fear too deeply rooted in them both at this point in their relationship.
Lena sits some dishes in the sink, drying her hands on a nearby towel before turning back to face Kara. She clears her throat, anxiety on her face. “There is something I want to ask you about.”
Kara pushes herself off the door and walks towards Lena. “Shoot.” She gives her a small smile of encouragement, thankful that Lena is being direct like this.
As Kara leans against the kitchen counter, relaxed and open, Lena tenses up, her hands squeezing one another as she searches for the words. She starts by stating, “Tonight. The battle.”
Kara’s forehead crinkle of confusion forms immediately. “What about it?” Kara thinks back. It was a straightforward fight. The enemy somehow had kryptonite, which the team decided to check more into tomorrow. But otherwise, it was just a bunch of bad guys with weapons like guns and bombs. Just their everyday sort of routine terrorism.
“The kryptonite,” Lena adds.
Kara’s face just gets more confused, her head tilting slightly to the side. She wonders if Lena is concerned about her. “What about it? Lena, I’m okay, I promise.”
Lena lets out a small huff. “I know… but they tried to form a kryptonite wall or barrier or whatever, around you.” Kara nods in agreement but clearly still didn’t understand. Lena adds, “and you just walked right through it.”
Kara shrugs. “Well, yeah, I mean, it hurts but I’ve been around it enough now that I can push through the pain. I was able to push through the barrier and run right into the one guy who had the machine that was maintaining it. And so, once it was down, my powers came back full force.” She still wasn’t sure why Lena was so rattled by the battle, but she wanted to reassure her that she was okay. It wasn’t her first run in with kryptonite. It probably won’t be her last.
Lena nods, giving a brief, closed smile before saying, “I understand the logistics of it, Kara. That’s not my question.”
Kara stands up fully, sensing they are finally approaching the actual concern, racking her brain to understand. Coming up empty, she asks, “What is the question, Lena?”
Lena walks around the kitchen counter slowly as she explains. “Five months ago, when I… when I did the same thing to you, in the Fortress…”
“Lena…” Kara starts, not wanting Lena to still be blaming herself for that, but Lena continues before Kara can reassure her.
“You could have walked through it.” Lena’s question is more of a statement, and it hangs heavily in the air between them. Their eyes lock onto each other, and Kara finally realizes what Lena is asking. Kara simply nods once as an answer. Lena stops a few steps away, her throat feeling dry, she struggles to get out the next question. Her voice fades into a whisper by the time she finishes. “So… so you… you just stood there. You… you could have stopped me. Kara, why didn’t you stop me?”
Kara looks around her apartment for a few seconds, thinking back on the memory, on something she tries not to dwell on anymore. During their fallout, Kara had thought about a hundred different ways she could have responded, whether pleading, or falling to her knees, or forcibly stopping Lena, Kara knew one thing for certain in all the “what if” scenarios – she could have never done anything to hurt Lena like that. She had already hurt her enough by then. Her eyes find Lena, Kara responds quietly with a small shrug, the best answer she has to give, “Because it was you.”
“Be… because it was me? What does that even mean?” Lena’s eyes swirl with emotion as she tries to process Kara’s words, trying to understand. She stutters her words as she continues on, still trying to figure it all out. “You… you are the strongest person on the planet! I… I watched you charge through a wall of kryptonite today, like it was nothing! And it is supposed to be your greatest weakness!”
Kara shrugs again, as she responds like it is the easiest, most casual question and answer in the world. “Lena, I wasn’t going to risk hurting you even more.”
Lena scoffs unconvinced. “So what? You just let me put you in a kryptonite prison? Take a weapon of mass mind control, and walk away?” The tone of Lena’s voice grows with each new question.
“Yes”, Kara answers matter of factly.
“Because it was me?!” Lena stares at Kara, mouth agape, clearly not understanding.
“Yes” Kara answers calmly. Her eyes still locked on Lena.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Lena finally says, her hand hitting the counter in frustration.
Lena lets out a huff. Kara lets out a small sigh. She hates to see Lena this worked up. Kara knows she could explain more… that she should explain more. But she might also be risking letting another proverbial cat out of the bag. She knows this is a risk she must take though. She doesn’t want Lena to feel like this. She takes a small step towards Lena, giving her a soft smile. “Let’s go sit on the couch and I will try to explain more,” Kara offers, holding her hand out. “Please?”
Lena seemingly lets out another huff but takes Kara’s hand and lets herself be led to the couch, where Kara sits them down next to each other. Lena crosses her arms and leans back, awaiting a more thorough response.
Kara tries but fails to stifle her smile at Lena. “Lena,” she starts, “I love that logical, rational mind of yours. How you try to figure out and understand everything. And I wish I had a logical, rational explanation to give you. But I really do mean what I said. I did what I did, because it was you.”
A slow, heavy breath comes out of Lena. She searches Kara eyes for more answers. Finding none, she asks calmly yet firmly, “But what does that mean, Kara?”
Kara ponders the question for a moment, realizing that maybe it is time for her to tell Lena the truth. Maybe it is time for her to really live her full truth, like she said she wanted to embrace back at her sister’s wedding. She lets out a shaky breath as she starts, “It means… you’re the first person I want to talk to in the morning and the last person I talk to before I go to sleep. You, Lena Luthor, are the most brilliant person I know, and the most kindhearted. You were my person. You are my person. So, it means that I was never going to do something to intentionally hurt you, especially not after having kept my secret from you for so long, knowing that keeping that secret was going to hurt you. And I think that, deep down, I knew that I had to let you be the one to stop yourself from taking that path. And that maybe… maybe we had to lose each other for a while to appreciate what we have now.”
Lena stares at Kara, her mind wheeling from Kara’s words. “I’m… your person?” she asks softly.
Kara lets out a single chuckle, “Lena… you are my person. You have been my person for a long time now.”
Lena’s heart starts to race as Kara repeats her words. She meant what she said in the monologue. She stated it plainly just now by itself. Suddenly, Lena feels that flicker of hope igniting somewhere deep inside herself. A feeling she had shoved very far down into a locked box that was buried deep underground. She feels it cracking open. “What… what does that mean… to you?” Her voice is a hushed tone at this point, every question feeling like a revelation.
Kara reaches over and takes Lena’s hand between her own, both women feeling comforted by the touch. They were always a bit physical, especially compared to their other friendships. That has only increased since they had reconciled and developed an even deeper friendship.
“It means,” Kara says, taking a pause before she dives into her explanation more fully, “It means that I love having you in my life, that I love how we talk every day now, how we have dinner, how we work together in the Tower, how, with no more secrets between us, we just fit together so well in each other’s life. And that, perhaps unintentionally, over these past five months, I’ve built a life around us. And it has made me incredibly happy. My life feels full because you are in it, Lena.”
The box hidden deep inside Lena is threatening to fully burst open at this point. Her green eyes continue to stare intently into Kara’s blue eyes, searching for more. She must be certain. And while that certainly sounded like a confession – Lena knows better than to assume. She might live a softer, calmer, and happier life now that she has been able to live outside of the Luthor shadow. But thirty plus years in that environment does not go away overnight. All the emotional burns, cuts, and gunshot wounds she had gotten in those years have left scars. Besides, she has seen Kara be a bit oblivious when it comes to social things. And while she adores all parts of Kara, she knows sometimes Kara doesn’t quite read the room as well as she herself has been trained to do.
She decides to approach this from a tentative, open, curious place. “Kara, I… I know we have gotten to dive into earth versus Kryptonian customs and cultures over the past few months, which I absolutely love, by the way,” Lena adds with a quick smile; She wants to make it clear she does not want that to end, no matter where this conversation ultimately goes. “But we haven’t necessarily talked about all the different relationship or social customs.” Kara nods, urging her to continue. “So… what you just said, all of that. I um… I am wondering exactly how I should interpret it. You see, thinking about it from a human perspective, some might interpret what you just said as a romantic confession of sorts.”
Lena pauses there, waiting for Kara to confirm or deny. She watches as Kara face softens into a lopsided smile. “It would be the same interpretation on Krypton.”
The confirmation causes Lena’s stomach to turn upside down and twist itself all around. “Really?” she can’t help but ask in disbelief.
Kara’s smile falters, suddenly second guessing herself. “I… things don’t have to change, Lena. We can keep our relationship as it has been. I just… that’s why I did what I did that day. I couldn’t fight you. And I feared that if I pushed out of the kryptonite forcefield, I would essentially be declaring war on you. On my person. And I couldn’t do that.”
“How long?” Lena barely gets out.
“How long what?” Kara asks, confused by the sudden shift.
Lena adds her free hand onto Kara’s hands, which are still holding her other one. “How long have you been in love with me?”
At this question, Kara blushes. “That’s… I’m not sure, really. I think it happened without me even realizing it. And then things got complicated with the whole Supergirl thing so I just kind of pushed those feeling aside and ignored them.” Kara’s thumb absentmindedly runs over Lena’s hand in reassurance. “Like I said, this doesn’t have to change anything. I don’t want to lose you, Lena. Not ever again. Having you in my life is the most important thing to me. Whether that is as a friend or… or something more – I can be happy with either of those. As long as you are happy.” Kara’s chin drops to her chest as she looks down at their hands, waiting to see how Lena will respond, but unable to look at her as her heard thuds in her chest and her face flushes at being so vulnerable.
The box in Lena bursts open completely at Kara’s words. She can feel how sincere and genuine Kara is. How much she cares about Lena. How much she loves her. Unable to find any more words or questions, Lena lifts her free hand up to Kara’s chin, gently requesting Kara to look up. Kara doesn’t fight her, letting her head be easily moved so she is again staring directly at Lena. “I think that’s enough talking for tonight,” Lena says firmly. Kara’s face starts to twist in confusion but is interrupted by Lena’s lips on hers. She is surprised for a second, before she realizes what is happening. She responds to Lena, kissing her back, an inhale of breath as her hands wrap around Lena and pull her in easily. Lena chuckles as she pulls away from the kiss just enough, resting her forehead on Kara’s. “Easy there, Supergirl. Take a girl to dinner first.”
They have always had good banter, a little flirty at times even. But hearing Lena’s husky voice after having just had what is the best kiss in her life, with the clear inuendo, makes Kara’s entire body vibrate. Kara closes the distance and gives Lena one final light kiss. “I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go, Lena Luthor.”