Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Lena killed someone. Lena murdered Lex. He’s dead. Lena killed him” has played on a constant loop in Kara Danvers head for the past twenty four hours.

It’s all she can think about now, as she stands in front of Lena’s apartment door, with a bag of her favorite risotto, from her favorite Italian place in the city, trying to pluck up the courage to knock.

She knew something was wrong, knew it in every fiber of her being despite no concrete proof, the same way all of her cells constantly remind her that the sun is supposed to be red. She’d known it since that game night last month. Kara had already been worried about Lena with everything that happened, but she knew the moment she walked in the room that something was wrong. 

She acted as though everything was normal, because that was clearly what Lena was trying to, but something was off. Lena is a very good liar, although she has a few tells that Kara can pick up on. She’s not sure if the skill comes from her best friend status, her super powers, or a combination of both. She thinks even Alex was fooled by Lena’ game night performance. But Kara knew better.

She couldn’t express in words, even to herself, the difference. Lena was controlling every physiological response she could, which means only a Kryptonian could detect the things she couldn’t. The best Kara could come up with was that it was she was vibrating at a slightly different frequency.

It is a source of constant frustration for her that she speaks 14 languages and none of them have words for the majority of what she’s feeling. She’s the only being alive who grew up on Krypton and Earth. It got easier after she became Supergirl. Kal has some terms for their powers and experiences, and Alex and Winn came a bunch of them too. Even reporters or citizens will coin a phrase for Supergirl’s powers. They’re not necessarily wrong, but also not exactly accurate.

Fans of Kara’s work often talk about how they love how descriptive her writing is. How it makes them feel like they were actually there. She always smiles at the praise, but every time it reminds her of lifetime searching for words that never existed to describe sensations no one else has ever felt.

So she knew the first time she saw Lena after Lex died that something was wrong. But she literally couldn’t say what it was, and Lena was telling either.

Until she was.

Lena’s been avoiding Kara and their friends for almost a month. Well, not avoiding exactly. She still dutifully shows up to game night, and lunches, and the DEO when Alex asks for help. But she’s also not there completely. She’s shut a piece of herself off from all of them and only Kara can see it. 

Kara has seen her 22 times in the last 30 days and hasn’t once felt like she and Lena were even in the same room.

She tries to be patient, tries to listen to Alex talk about trauma and making people feel safe. (Alex has thrown a lot of psychological jargon at her recently, which Kara thinks has to do less with Lena and more with Alex regularly making out with a psychologist. If her sister hadn’t been so happy lately, it might have annoyed her.)

And she has, been patient, for an entire month, in 22 encounters. (29 including encounters including Supergirl, which Kara can’t, obviously). 

Okay, so most of her patience has to do with wanting her best friend to be okay. And a tiny bit of it has to do with wanting her best friend to be okay just enough that she can finally tell her she’s Supergirl.

So, after a month, she gets a little impatient. 

They’re sitting on the balcony of Lena’s apartment, after dinner and a movie. The entire structure is under 100 square feet, but Kara couldn’t feel as though they were further apart if she were on Argo City. So she carefully broaches the subject.

“So, uh, what’s been up with you?”

Lena balks, for just a split second, before she whips around to face Kara, eyes cold. “Excuse me?”

“Well I…I just meant like hello, how ya been, what’s up, you know?” She swings her arm, punching at the air, in a show of faux casualness and regrets it immediately.

Lena’s not buying it. “And if that’s what you meant, why didn’t you ask me that 4 hours ago, when you arrived?”

“I forgot?”

Lena looks at her unimpressed.

“Fine. I didn’t forget. And I didn’t mean… Something’s been wrong, for awhile now, I know it . And at first I thought it was everything with Lex, and James, and everything else, but now I think it’s something more. And I just wish you’d talk to me about it.”

“You wish I would talk to you”, Lena says incredulously 

“Yes? I mean, no! I mean it doesn’t have to be me! I just wish you’d talk to someone. I know something is weighing on you and I just want you to be okay.” Somehow Lena gets madder as she speaks and Kara doesn’t know why.

“And if I don’t want to talk about it? Surely you don’t have to tell anyone everything about you, even your best friend, just because they ask...”

“No! I mean, yes! You’re right. You don’t owe me anything. But you owe it to yourself to have someone to help you with whatever you’re dealing with”

“Is that so?” Her voice cracks on the last syllable, and a range of emotions passes over her face before her expression goes cold again. Kara can decipher all of them, could even without her superior perception. She’s spent enough time with Lena, processing with Lena, facing near-certain death with Lena, that she knows that she’s not only furious that this made her upset, but that she’s horrified that she may cry, that whatever weakness she perceives in herself may be visible.

Kara knows enough to give Lena the grace of ignoring it.

“Do you want to know what I’m dealing with?” she asks in what Kara dubs (only ever in her head) ‘Luthor-mode’, all perfect posture and intense eyes, in a voice calm and even, annunciating just enough that the underlying threat isn’t missed.

Now it’s Kara’s voice that cracks in one syllable. “Yes”

For a split second Lena’s expression is wide open. This time Kara is sure she would have missed it, if it weren’t for her Kyptonian reflexes. Even in the moment Kara knows she’ll be dwelling on that image for months. Lena seems to make a decision, certain as always, as she locks back into Luthor mode.

“I killed Lex”

Kara is frozen. She’s not sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this.

“To be clear, I murdered him, in cold blood. He manipulated me into finding him, and he started to insult me, with one of his lengthy self-righteous speeches. And I’d heard enough of them for a lifetime, so I shot him. In the chest. Then I watched him bleed out.”

Kara gasps, not only at Lena’s words, but also the barely restrained glee in her voice as she said them. “Lee- no...Supergirl killed Lex. He fell..He couldn’t have survived th-”

Lena laughs, humorlessly. It haunts Kara - her favorite sound, devoid of anything she loves about it - and she’s stunned silent. She briefly wonders if any language in the universe has a word for whatever noise Lena’s making.

Through her non-laughter, Lena gets out “no, as per usual, Supergirl just couldn’t get the job done when it mattered”. She scoffs, smug. That expression almost always precedes her taking a sip of whatever alcoholic beverage is closest. There does turn out to be a split second where Lena seeks out her glass of scotch only to realize it’s empty. She’s disappointed but too stubborn to actually go refill it. 

Watching it would have filled Kara’s chest with warmth, in any other moment but this one.

“Well, I...sorry, it’s not y- I’m just processing”

“I’m sure you are” Lena says as she actually does walk inside briefly to grab her bottle of Macallan 72. She feigns carelessness, but Kara knows she considers that bottle her strongest armor.

‘Lena killed someone. Lena murdered Lex. He’s dead. Lena killed him’ starts repeating in her mind, but that’s not what’s paralyzing her. Her entire being is wrestling with the fact that her first response to Lena’s confession was regret. She wishes that Supergirl did kill Lex. If it’d kept Lena from having to do it, from having to face him one more time. So much of Kara’s identity hangs on her reluctance to kill, and now she wishes for nothing more than do have done it properly. If she could go back in time, she’d fly him higher first. She’d use her powers. She do it over and over for the rest of eternity if it would spare Lena from the hollow chuckle she just heard.

After wrangling with this realization, she has to contend with her next intrusive thought - that she wants to confess to Lena. Now. She wants to apologize for failing to offer this one grisly mercy. Her hand is halfway to her glasses before she realizes how selfish it would be for her to come out now. How she can’t make this moment about herself, or her and Lena, or their families’ decades-long feud. This moment needs to be about Lena and how she was forced to kill the only person to offer her comfort after her entire world was ripped away. Her Alex.

“Lena, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I’m so sorry Supergirl couldn’t spare you that agony. I’m so sorry you felt you had to keep it inside for a month. And, you didn’t kill him in cold blood, no matter what happened during that meeting. What you did was self-defense, not just for you but for all of us, the whole human race.”

Lena, who’s expression started to open and eyes started to glass over as Kara was talking, closed off completely at that point and she cut her off. “Stop. Please. I don’t, I don’t want one of your speeches, and I don’t need you to tell me I’m a good person or that you believe in me. I don’t want any...I guess it’s like you said, I just didn’t want to keep it inside anymore. So now I’ve told you, and you can do with that information what you’d like.”

“Lena, I would never-”

“Kara” her voice cracks again. This time it’s harder for her to compose herself. She takes a deep breath, and a 6000 dollar shot of scotch as Kara stands helplessly, before continuing, steadier with “I think what I really need right now, Kara, is to be left alone for a bit. Please.”

“I- okay. Can...can I hug you?” Kara gets out through tears.

Lena’s body language says no as she forces a nod and says “sure”. Kara makes sure to hug her tight, but quick, like she needs, and finds there’s almost no comfort in it, for either of them. Lena is holding her tight, one arm around her shoulder, one around her waist, head against Kara’s neck, like always. But something’s off. She’s still so shut down, even after this huge confession. She’s still vibrating at the wrong frequency.

Kara vows to get to the bottom of it as she turns and walks away, before stopping, turning back and putting as much sincerity into “Lena, I promise you, I will always have your back” as she can.

Lena doesn’t even try to speak this time. Just looks at Kara with a dismissive nod, as she holds back tears. Kara knows Lena wants her gone before she breaks down, so she turns, against all of her instincts, and walks away.

She decides to walk home, and listens to Lena’s sobs the entire way.

She’ll keep Lena’s secret, give her space tonight. But she’s going to make sure she tries again tomorrow.