Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The mixed nuts look a little kaleidoscopey.

They zoom in and out of focus and also rotate, boat-shaped shells that twist, which is strange for a handful of cashews.

Kara blinks, and blinks again, then readjusts her frames on her face because it might be her glasses, is probably her glasses, a little bit of overwhelming sensation leaking through despite the lead lining. Kara wonders if peanuts have skeletons and resolves to find out. She sets her sights on the bowl, glaring at the assorted nut collection until she feels the familiar tingle behind her optic nerve.

Nope.

Bad lasers.

Do not scorch the peanuts in the bar, Kara.

The voice in her head sounds a lot like Alex.

“You’ve always taken interests in the strangest things, Little One.”

Not Alex.

Not in her head.

Kara jerks her head up so fast she bumps into the back of the booth, thankfully reinforced with steel and titanium beneath the cushions to accommodate the masses of multiple alien species. Because she’s in an alien bar with her alien friend, drinking alien alcohol. It's to work off a rough week... and, so she can check to see if the other night was a fluke, or if it’s really possible that she can talk to her—

“Aunt Astra?” Kara asks, slightly woozy from the previous shot.

It was only number twoty-threesy. And after the week she had, worrying over the Guardian, saving Mon-El, trying to outrun Cadmus—she understands why Cat always needed her go-to Scotch. She’s only on number eleventy.

She’s fine.

“This is a sorry place,” Astra announces, imperious and stern as ever, but her eyes soften as they always had when she turns her assessment back to Kara. She is dressed in black. The catsuit, not the burial robes from the pod. She's wedged herself between the table and the wall on the opposite booth bench, her legs pulled up and extended over the seat. Astra rests one arm on top of her bent knee, and in that arm—hand, Kara, hands have toes and feet have fingers—in her hand, she holds a glass half-full of something purple and foul smelling.

“It’s a bar,” Kara says stupidly.

“So I gathered. A sorry place, and even worse company,” Astra retorts, sipping on her drink without the slightest twitch to her lips. Like she’s actually enjoying the taste, and not the woozey feeling she gets post-swallow.

“My friend ‘s here,” Kara slurs just a bit, her fluttery blinks returning, because the last time she got drunk she only saw Astra, never spoke to her. “You’re dead.”

“No,” Astra says. “Not if you can see me.”

“What do you mean? What are you doing here?” Kara stands, and the table separating them goes with her, tilts so severely it sails through Astra’s body until Kara grabs hold of the edge, splintering the top beneath her grip.

“Yo! Kara, are you alright?” Mon-El calls from the bar, where he’s currently stuck behind three other aliens waiting on their drinks. The girl who replaced M’gann looks slammed, and there’s only one other person on staff, currently sprinting from table top to back room, running food orders from the kitchen to all of the impatient patrons.

Kara waves uncertainly back to Mon-El and hears Astra scoff, returning to her seat and setting the table carefully back in place.

“I am here because you and I are connected, Kara. You only see me when you drink, is that correct?”

“Uh huh,” Kara nods dumbly, because Astra looks real, she looks like she’s sitting opposite her in this weird alien bar without a chest wound large enough for Kara to stick her head through.

“You’ve built up a tolerance to the sensations of this world. Have—what is the phrase?—rewired your brain a bit to cope,” Astra takes a sip of her ghost wine and sets the very solid-looking glass atop the table. Kara even hears the thunk against the wood, and feels a swell of pride surge concerning the realisticness—not a word, Kara—of her hallucination.

“You mustn’t worry, I did the same when I first arrived," Astra continues. "It was why I never knew you lived, not until your Supergirl debut.”

“But… uh…” Kara feels floaty again. Floaty like drinky floaty and not floaty like flying floaty. Floaty. Floaty-boaty. Fllllllohhhhtie. Floaty is a funny word. “Aunt Astra,” Kara blinks, “when I drink I see peanut skeletons.”

“When you drink, you are more open to sensation,” Astra corrects, smirking over the rim of her glass. “And rather entertaining.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Why are you wasting your time with that Daxamite heathen?” Astra interrupts. The hostility in her voice is tenfold what it is—was—when discussing humans. Astra didn't necessarily dislike humans, just thought them inferior.

At least the human’s Earth was still spinning (like Kara’s head). Unlike Krypton. Unlike Daxam.

“What do you—Mon-El’s not like other Daxamites.”

“If you tell me that ‘he’s different’, I will launch myself through this table and strangle you, Oh-So-Little One.”

“What are you—”

“You must see that he has designs on your affections, Kara,” Astra tells her, and Kara’s head gets woozier than it did immediately after swallowing the shot of… something… Mon-El had retrieved for her.

“He’s just a friend.”

“You thought the same of your previous ‘friend’. Is that not correct?”

“How do you know that?” Kara slaps her hands over her face and runs her fingers down her cheeks. “How are you here???”

“This is not about me,” Astra answers cryptically. “This is about you. Perhaps my advising you to take a step back and see that cowardly man for what he is will prompt you to act. Where is your sister? Normally I do not have to intervene when she takes such good care of you.”

“She’s going through… stuff,” Kara deflects, playing with the peanut shells and crushing them to dust. Astra looks at her for an uncomfortably long moment, her smirk growing the longer she stares. She reaches for her glass and nods to herself.

“Ah,” she says, the tilt of her lips curling round the rim. “I see.” Astra drinks with such ease, it’s almost elegant.

“You shouldn’t because you’re dead,” Kara argues, feeling a thick, hot sort of pressure in her throat. It's kinda like one of those beers from Felspoon that taste like jalepeños. “If you don’t tell me I’m going to get sad. I am sad,” Kara thinks, furrowing her brows to concentrate. “I’m sad a lot. Ms. Grant left and Alex didn’t trust me and I don’t know where Cadmus is… Jeremiah,” Kara hiccups, flopping her elbow on the table and resting her chin atop it. “Daxam is a desert and you died. You died, Aunt Astra.”

Kara lets her head fall and her hand slide across the table. She makes grabby motions with her fingers, wanting Astra to pull her out of this dumb booth in this dumb bar and take her home so she can make her hot Nashbelli soup and tell her about the latest developments on Streld.

“I miss you,” Kara whispers. “Not like mother… I miss you everyday.”

“Kara—”

“You’re fresher. You’re… you went away and I never got to say goodbye. You never let me say goodbye before you went off-world.”

“I will not add to your burdens, Kara,” Astra tells her, a phantom hand hovering in the space above Kara’s flexing fingers. “Suffice it to say that before you were born, your mother and father ensured that I would know you, even if you never knew me. A bit of experimental science thanks to Zor-El, when I was deployed… before I could meet you. Your mother’s idea, actually.”

“Mother got you to come to the bar?” Kara asked, unable to follow her aunt’s explanation.

“Rao, did she ever,” Astra replies, smiling despite herself. “Alura could outdrink the both of us together.”

“Mother?”

“Alura was a judge in high society, Kara,” Astra responds. “Most of her evenings were spent in senators’ home and at balls hosted by the Council members. Thankfully you did not inherit her tolerance.”

“I… you…”

“Kara!” Mon-El shouts, pointing to something pink and garish looking in a glass that’s as large as her forearm. He’s nodding emphatically while some alien lady to his left follows his line of sight to Kara. Her face pinches together and she hisses, turning away from her conversation with Mon. He shrugs, limps around to cut line, and points for another.

“Rao bless it, will he not leave? Was he not injured recently? A Daxamite would rather drown their sorrows instead of put any effort into physical recovery…” Astra mutters, tossing back the rest of her drink in one experienced gulp. “Listen, Kara, we have little time. This boy is not worthy of you, not the last daughter of the House of El. You are strong and compassionate. He accuses you of selfishness one day, and then exploits your sacrifice the next.”

“How do you know about that?” Kara asks. “About the him beating up...how do you know what he said?”

“I know what you know, Kara. When you let me,” Astra smiles at her, taps at the side of her head and gives her a conspiratorial wink. “Little One, heroism is costly. You sacrifice pieces of yourself doing what you do, and he dares to imply that you are infatuated with the celebrity it affords you. If that had been the case, you would have ceased your actions as Supergirl when the city turned against you last year. It is not the accolades and the attention you garner, but the hope you inspire, Kara, with what you do. Do not dare to lessen everything you’ve built so he feels better about himself. He has been granted those powers, and is too craven to do anything with them.”

“Well—well w-w-who are you to lecture? You had powers and you tried to take over the world!” Kara argues petulantly. She hates how small she sounds. She hates all the peanut rubble beneath her oily fingertips. She hates that Mon-El got shot, and that Cadmus took her blood.

She hates that Lena’s mom wants to kill her.

She hates that Alex killed Astra.

She hates that Krypton died, and Cat left.

“I fought for something greater than myself. I always have,” Astra rebuts. “You do not understand my motivations, Kara, and you have not borne the burden of knowing that the end is coming. Knowing that it is coming, and that others will not heed your warnings. I wish for you to live a long and happy life, my darling girl,” Astra says, reaching out across the booth, her hand drifting near Kara’s head. Kara can’t feel her, shouldn’t even be seeing her, and yet here sits her aunt, giving her…

Dating advice?

“This is what it was supposed to be like.” Kara’s smile is unstable. Her eyes are doing the raining thing, and her stomach is doing the roiling thing, the thing it does after two dozen pot stickers before going supersonic in flight.

“Pardon?” Astra asks, tilting her head to observe Kara.

“Like this!” Kara says, flinging her arms wide, putting a hole through the wall with her fist. “Not… that, but us,” Kara clarifies, yanking her fist from the dry wall and moving quickly to block the damaged rubble with her body. “We could’ve… I never got to hang out with you.”

“No,” Astra returns, that ever-present sadness that resides in her eyes magnified by alcohol and incomprehension. “No, we did not. But you have many others, Kara. Others who believe in you. People you can… hang out with. Who are worthy of you.”

“It’s not just because he’s a Daxamite?”

“Kara, I have been to more planets than these humans know exist,” Astra chastises her. “I have met all types, and I must say, it is not a race but an individual who holds honor. That man, the one who disobeyed orders, who uses his powers for profit, who remained ungrateful despite your attempts to help with his integration into human society, he is not for you. You have many other prospects, Kara, so many humans who would give anything to be with you.”

“Why is this pep talk making me cry?” Kara asks, wiping at her eyes. There’s salt from the peanuts and cashews and Brazilian nuts but it doesn’t sting like human tears. It stings like lasers and loneliness when she’s in a roomful of people. “Why won’t you tell me how you’re here?”

“I have always wanted to keep you safe,” Astra reassures her. “I know you do not wish to burden your sister during this difficult time. And you are in a precarious position, given that not all of your other friends know of your powers. Your Cat Grant has left, as has Major Lane. And your friend, Ms. Luther, cannot know of your identity. I am here only for you, Kara, to keep you from making a mistake. He is charming and boyish and attractive in the ways that these humans favor and idolize, and he has garnered sympathy, rightfully so, with his injury. But he has done nothing to prove himself worthy of you. If he attempts to change for you, to please you, he is changing for the wrong reasons."

Astra takes a large breath, eyeing Mon-El as he smiles and flirts, waves his arms about and gestures toward his injured leg for the benefit of the aliens at the bar.

"Remember, compromise is but one form of manipulation," Astra continues. "His motivations should be internal, driven by something greater. For when you disappoint him, he will revert to his old ways if he doesn’t truly believe in doing good.”

“But he gets it, doesn’t he?” Kara asks uncertainly. Astra sounds like Alex, warning her for believing the best in people. Maybe she wants to think there’s good in everyone. Family members who do the wrong thing for the right reason…

Astra.

Lex?

“Being new to this planet,” Kara mumbles, “with these powers—”

“He does not have the same perception of those powers as you,” Astra articulates, fading, shimmering. “Hear me now: he does not deserve you, Kara. James has honor. Misguided, but present. Your Ms. Grant, Lucy Lane, even Winn, whom you have rejected, know something of honor. Your sister is the most honorable soldier I’ve ever faced. From what you, and therefore I, have seen of the Luther girl… there is some honor there, perhaps, if she is to truly denounce her family for their actions. I still have my reservations concerning her, but if all of these humans, powerless though they may be, possess an understanding of greater responsibility, why are you gravitating toward someone who shares one minor commonality? Honor is power, Kara. Not strength. Not lasers. Not flight.”

“I didn’t realize…” Kara trails off, swiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“I am here to guide you,” Astra says, glancing at her shimmering hand, rotating it in the air. “However briefly.”

“Wait,” Kara stands, her head clearing, Astra’s form fading before her. “Wait!”

“Kara,” Mon-El calls, returning with two of those humongous pink things that look like flamingo innards run through a blender. “They’ve got these two ice drinks on special for—”

“I need to go,” Kara says abruptly, gathering her purse and jacket from the booth.

“Go? I just got these.”

“I hope you enjoy them,” Kara responds, slipping her arm through her cardigan sleeve.

“What’s the problem?” Mon-El asks. “I used the last of my shakedown money on this.”

Kara pauses and casts an uneasy glance at Mon, who’s looking terribly wounded, and not just because he took a bullet to the leg three days ago. “You should probably look into creating a budget.”

“A budget?”

“Yes, it keeps track of your spending.”

Mon-El screws up his face and rests his injured leg against the booth bench Astra had just vanished from. “That sounds boring.”

“Yes, it is. But it’s also something that people do so they can live within their means. I’m sorry to rush off, but… uhm, thank you for tonight, I’m sorry, I really do have to go,” Kara flushes, darting for the entrance of the bar. She doesn’t want to look back at the booth and see the crushed peanut shells and the hole in the wall. If she does, she’ll have to admit to herself that she might’ve been hallucinating. She’ll recognize that one of the burning feelings that she felt tonight—from alcohol, from tears, probably from a little bit of vomit—was also from hope.

Hope that Astra might still be out there.

Hope that she’s not really dead.

And hope that Kara, if she’s really as great as Astra says she is, can bring her back.

If it's hope, how can it be false?

But there’s the ever-present doubt associated with Astra’s crusade. Myriad. An objective she died for, was willing to fight against Kara for. Was it different now? What did it feel like to have someone you loved so whole-heartedly, who you looked up to and would’ve done anything for, turn their back on you in pursuit of some fantastic higher cause?

It’s late.

Her week has been terrible. She throws open the door of the bar and jumps at the slam it makes, denting the metal wall behind it from the untempered force. Kara winces, ducks her head, but keeps walking in the darkness.

She’s just ditched Mon-El and can’t go to Alex, working a late shift to get her mind off Maggie. They played pool together the other night and Alex hadn’t looked broken-hearted upon her return.

Friends, Kara. We’re trying to be friends.

Friends. Sure, even though Alex hasn’t really kept in touch with any friends… ever.

Not in high school, or through college. She only considers the DEO agents her ‘friends’ because she’s in charge of them. Lucy might’ve been her friend… or… well, that was before all these feelings came out of Alex.

I’ve had feelings like this before.

The only women Alex had spent any time around last year with any degree of regularity were Lucy, Vasquez, and then Astra—

Kara forcibly shakes her head as she flees down the sidewalk, rubbing the heel of her hand in her eye to distract herself from her brain's wild trajectory.

She can’t go to Winn, or to James, the two of them wrapped up in some superbuddies project she’s not yet been privy to.

Cat’s gone.

Lucy’s gone.

Hank’s sick and Jeremiah’s alive and Lillian Luther has her blood.

Kara pulls out her phone and presses the icon before she can talk herself out of it.

“Kara?” the voice on the other end of the line sounds concerned over the transmitted waves. “Kara, is everything alright?”

“Lena,” Kara exhales, pausing beneath a streetlight. “Hey, where are you? Can I come see you?”

“Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know—I don’t—I think I…” Kara watches as the bus approaches, blinking against the blinding headlights, digging through her purse for extra change. She could fly. Definitely shouldn’t fly. “You're uptown, right? I'm gonna...oh, Rao!”

“What? Kara, hey, are you alright—”

“I’m getting on the bus,” Kara tells Lena, and this is a bad idea, a terrible idea, because she might be Kara Danvers right now, but Lillian could be hovering on any floor of L-Corp, ready to pounce and split her lip wide again. Ready to shove that needle back in the pulsing vein in her arm and draw enough blood to drain her dry. “I just… my sister’s at work and I really want to…talk.”

“Where are you?” Lena asks instantly. “I’ll send a car, don’t you dare take the bus.”

“Too late,” Kara says, depositing her change in the till and shuffling into the nearest empty seat. “L-Corp, right?”

“Early night,” Lena corrects her. “I’m in an apartment complex on Seventeenth and Washington.”

“You mean the high-rise?”

“Do you need to stay on the phone with me?” she asks her, and Kara wonders if Lena's eyes are doing that sparkly green thing they do at night time when she looks out the window at the cityscape. Kinda like Astra’s, like her mother’s eyes. And yet… not like them at all.

“No, I’m… what’s the building?” Kara asks.

“The Mabinogian.”

“The what?”

“The Mabinogian. It’s Welsh.”

“What the hell, Lena?” Kara thinks, so fed up with the stupid names. Myriad. Cadmus. Medusa.

Mabi-gonna-get-ya.

Stupid criminals and their stupid names. But Lena wasn’t a criminal. Just her mom. And her brother. Right?

"Did you just... swear?"

“You’re rich like Ms. Grant,” Kara grumbles, hit with a sense memory of scotch in the night air. “What’s your doorman’s name?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and Kara wonders why it’s taking so long for Lena to answer. Does she know? Cat didn’t know her doorman’s name for the longest time until Kara told her, despite having sent the man a Christmas card every season.

“Kara, are you drunk?”

“No,” Kara mutters, pauses, sighs. “Maybe… A little. I’m coming down, though.”

“But you swear you’re alright?” Lena asks. “I didn’t think you drank… ever.”

“I don’t.”

“Obviously.”

“I just…” Kara looks up and sees Astra sitting across from her on the bus, flashes of her aunt materializing and fading every time they pass the glow of a store sign, the shadows of a street lamp. It’s different than at the bar… it seemed more real when she was more… drunk.

Tipsy. Kara is tipsy.

The bus makes a turn onto Fourteenth and Kara sways with the momentum.

Flooooohty.

“It’s been a really hard week,” Kara manages, curling her fingers over her jaw, trying not to cry on a public bus as the mirage of her dead aunt stares back at her from the crusty leather seats.

“Then come on,” Lena tells her. “You shouldn’t be drinking alone.”

Kara can’t tell her that she wasn’t drinking alone. Kara can’t tell Lena that she met her mom, and that Lillian had strapped her down to a table and tortured her, slapped her so hard she could still feel the sharp crack against her lower jaw. Then there was Mon-El, hurt, and Alex, hurt, and Astra, dead—

“Kara—”

“I’m okay, Lena,” Kara lies, drawing stares from fellow bus patrons as she swipes beneath her glasses. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Kara.”

The word hangs in the smart phone nethersphere for the longest of times. Kara can hear Lena breathing, thinks she hears a washer or the television or a laptop humming in the background.

“Be safe, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kara says, and hangs up the phone, stares out the window, then closes her eyes so she doesn’t see her dead aunt’s reflection.

Chapter Text

“How do you still love someone who has done horrible things?” Kara asks, setting the wine glass aside after chugging it, just as Lena begins to pour her own. The liquid is as red as her lipstick, as her fingernail polish. Even at home, dressed down in designer jeans and a sweater soft enough to melt into, Lena looks slightly imposing. Must be all the red accents.

“How do you trust their judgment?”

“Did you just drink that whole thing?” Lena asks her.

“How do you still love Lex?” Kara presses, seeing Lena’s jaw clench, the wine dribble, the woman’s smooth hand falter in what must have been a practiced pour. “After everything he’s done—”

“It’s complicated,” Lena says, eyeing the bottle before her, then tipping the neck unceremoniously over the rim again, filling the bowl of the glass with more than is customary. “Is it going to be one of those nights?” she asks, bringing the bottle with her as she rounds the countertop of her kitchen, traverses the open-concept space of her sleek, streamlined apartment and struts into the living area. “Are you going to use everything I say here on some tell-all exposé?”

“You know better.”

“Yes,” Lena nods, and it’s with the same confidence and know-how that Astra possesses, a wisdom or an insight that Kara just can’t seem to reconcile yet. “I think I do, but a girl's got to take precautions,” she says, turning her attention away from her glass back to stare at Kara’s undoubtedly mussed and sloppy appearance. “Do you mind my asking what’s brought this on?”

“Drinking,” Kara says truthfully, because she doesn’t spend a lot of time imbibing. At least she hadn’t until Mon-El arrived. “I don’t like to do it much because I get… sad.”

“Oh, Kara,” Lena says, smiling reassuringly. “So many sad people indulge so they’re not sad anymore. It would be just like you to do the opposite.”

“I’m not that unique.”

“Give yourself more credit,” Lena reassures her, taking a sip of wine. “As to your question… unfortunately, I don’t have a straightforward answer. There are qualities I will always love about my brother.”

Lena takes that red-tipped index finger and circles the lip of her glass, a high, trilling sound emanating from the surface. Kara shudders, thinks of the blood splotches from Cadmus, how she’d showered in the DEO locker room to get the dried remnants of her capture scrubbed off her body. Lena’s supposed to be her friend (Kara’s friend, not Supergirl’s, her mind corrects).

But Lena wouldn’t approve of what happened to Supergirl, right?

Does Lena know what her mother’s doing?

How many people she’s hurting?

How she carelessly shot a defenseless alien who was no threat to her, locked up in a cage?

Kara thinks of the press conference, of Alex pummeling that guy and then of Lena, blood-red nails wrapped round the stock of a handgun, putting bullets into a man’s back.

“Lex is a brilliant, patient man. He was the first to teach me to use a soldering iron,” Lena continues. “The first to tutor me, when I wasn’t living up to Luther expectations in some of my advanced courses at prep school. To go from having no one to having Lex with me, encouraging me, molding me and teaching me how to be better… and then to know what he was capable of inflicting on others?”

Lena takes another substantial gulp from her bottomless wineglass, the long stem and slim base defying physics for the sake of aesthetic. Kara thinks the chic glass might topple over and stain the steely grey carpet at any moment. Kara thinks it’s only a matter of time before more blood is spilled.

“It’s like he’s two different people to me.”

Kara almost snorts at that.

Two different people.

There’d always been talk of an anomaly—twins on Krypton—two different people exact in every biological way. But never more different in temperament, in outlook, in humor, in grief, in all the little personal characteristics that enabled Kara to tell them apart with a glance. Her mother had always been more difficult to read, though she set clear expectations, clear goals. Astra was always open, passionate, always brighter than burning suns light years away, most likely because her presence was sporadic at best.

But when she was there for Kara, she was there. Constancy and aid and the type of guiding hand that Lena had just described, all couched in unconditional love, until her drive overran her loyalties, and it all went to ruin.

“Do you miss him?” Kara asks, because she misses Astra so desperately it hurts, feels like Kryptonite in her chest.

“Everyday,” Lena confesses. “I miss what he was,” she clarifies. “Not what he turned into.”

“I know the feeling,” Kara commiserates, reaching for her glass, stopping short when she realizes it’s empty.

“Do you want more?”

“No, no, I think I’ve had plenty for one night,” Kara mutters, fearing the hangover, knowing she’s got three different sets of copy due on the police beat in the morning.

Snapper is going to take one look at her blood-shot eyes, call her ponytail, sniff, rub his hand against the mustard stain on his shirt and then dismiss her with a rough word that doesn’t have the finesse or refinement of Ms. Grant’s disapproval. In some ways, Kara thinks Cat’s disappointment was easier to get over because of her exceptionally creative delivery, because underneath the yelling and the insults there had always been an inspirational speech lying in wait. A belief that Kara could do better. With Snapper, it’s just gruff and short, like he never believed in her from the outset.

Cat told her she could do anything. Cat made her feel like a hero.

Cat's gone, now.

“I really didn’t mean to bother you, I just… something happened with my family and with a friend of mine. I didn’t realize I was trying to change him and it just—” Kara spirals her fingers in the air, pantomimes a crash-and-burn that has Lena Luther laughing, chuckling over her wine glass on a dim National City night. Her eyes are doing that sparkling green thing but she’s not looking out over the cityscape. Just at Kara, in all of her scattered, slightly drunken bafoonery.

“I like to think that people can change,” Lena offers, and Kara knows that she truly believes it. “But this change is my own; I’m not changing to help Lex. He’s made his bed. So has my family, those rare few who’ve stood by what so many other see as… atrocities.”

“How do you see it?”

“I see a desperate man who would do anything to save the planet that he loves from threats. I think he misjudged, severely, what constitutes a threat to our world.”

Kara smiles and rests her head back on Lena’s couch, turns to look over at her friend, who is merely regarding her with the kind of openness Kara’s always sought in her relationships. Lena has so much to hide but in this moment, with the alcohol and the hedge of vulnerability to her voice (own your power, Kara—you are brilliant, Kara), Kara decides to trust her gut, to trust that Lena is being honest with her.

“I’m glad you don’t think that Superman’s a threat,” Kara says carefully. “Or Supergirl, for that matter.”

“I think anyone can become a threat given the right motivations,” Lena replies. “It’s the responsibility of the people who have the power to make change to wield that power with some degree of justice—perhaps justice isn’t the right word. To wield it with… fairness. Supergirl is good, but it’s almost as if people have forgotten her slip last year. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? We need to make fair judgments, and acknowledging weaknesses and faults is part of that.”

“There’s no predicting the future, I guess,” Kara shrugs, tries not to tear up, having almost buried the memories of red kryptonite so deep she’d never have to confront them again. Trust a Luther to pull all of her most destructive qualities to the surface.

“There’s no predicting anything. There’s planning, and there’s hoping you can do a good thing. There’s hoping people won’t manipulate you into the wrong decisions. Even Supergirl… we’ve seen she can be influenced, manipulated, even. But she keeps trying despite that, which I guess is heroic in its own regard. I think Lex knew that Superman was weak, in that he was susceptible to manipulation. And I think that’s what scared him enough to do what he did.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispers, fidgeting with the end of her cardigan sleeve. “Not for him, but for how he disappointed you.”

Lena returns to her wine, and Kara feels like her friend might be catching up with the way she's talking, so open and honest and critical and candid.

“We can only keep trying,” Lena says, setting her glass down and shifting on the couch, turning so that she can tuck a knee beneath her body and face Kara full-on. “For example, I’m trying to provide green energy and keep prices low… that’s a fine line to walk in this industry. Especially with Max Lord’s techs nipping at my proverbial high-heels.”

“Lord?” Kara asks, having almost forgotten about the man, as if he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

“Yes. I had wondered if bringing L Corp to National City would overrun some of his playboy stunts in the papers. It seems to have had some effect on his appearances.”

“No press is bad press,” Kara echoes Snapper’s first doctrine from the writer’s room.

“But Max Lord is smart, Kara. Every moment he’s not out groping some model for the paps, he’s locked up in his lab, developing something that my techs will have to compete with. There’s been talk about new, clean energy, the likes of which we’ve never seen before—”

“I feel like that’s in every advertisement I see companies run these days,” Kara argues. “New and improved! Never-before-seen!”

“I wouldn’t put it past Max to have taken a page out of someone else’s book,” Lena says, her calculating nature magnified once they shift to business talk. “He was in cahoots with Supergirl for the entirety of last year. It’s like National City forgot their favorite playboy had that antagonistic relationship with the girl of steel. For all we know, it could be a cover. They could be working together.”

Kara chortles, unable to suppress her astonishment.

“You don’t think so?” Lena asks, smirking at Kara’s antics.

“No, it’s just… I’ve been around Max Lord a little, because of Ms. Grant.”

“Right,” Lena snips, retrieving her wine and taking another sip at her former boss's mention. “CEO Catherine Grant.”

“Cat,” Kara corrects, and Lena arches an incredulous brow. “What? Would you like it if I called you Lenora?”

Kara sees Lena’s knuckles go white against the glass. “How do you know that?”

“Found your records at the adoption agency in upstate New York, Lenora,” Kara teases, and sees the most lovely flush rise high on the apples of Lena’s pale cheeks. It might be the wine, but Kara doubts it. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s pretty… romantic sounding, you know?”

“It sounds like a dead poet’s obsession,” Lena corrects her. “Fine. Cat Grant. I didn’t realize you were so… protective of her.”

“She’s done a lot for me,” Kara answers, adjusting her glasses, hoping Lena gets the hint that Cat’s an off-limits subject. Especially after she’s been drinking. Those late-night moments on the CatCo balcony are hers and Cat’s alone, and she’s not ready to share them with anyone else. “I just… things are changing so fast and I think I’ve sorta—I don’t know—latched onto people that I have things in common with. My friend Mike and… you.”

Lena looks up from the study of her couch cushions and offers a tentative smile. There’s that moment of solidarity, two women doing their best in a city ready to swallow them whole.

Lena doesn’t reply immediately, just finishes her wine and stands, takes Kara’s glass and the bottle, then moves back to the kitchen.

“You’re more than welcome to take the guest room, if you want,” Lena says from her spot over the sink. “Borrow a blouse if you need it for tomorrow. It would… I would feel a lot better if you didn’t take the bus alone this late.”

“That’s kind of you, but I’m not that far, I promise,” Kara won’t grant Lena an overnight, but she will leave her with a smile. “I’m much better now, Lena, thank you.”

“We should do lunch this week,” Lena says over the flush of the sink, the water diluting the remaining drops of Cabernet. “If you’re available.”

“I’d like that,” Kara says, shouldering the straps of her bag, not meeting Lena’s eyes. She can’t put a name to what she sees there, support or understanding or affection, perhaps a tiny mixture of it all.

“Will you text me when you make it back to the apartment?”

“Why so worried?” Kara asks, adjusting her glasses as she prepares to make her exit. “I’ve been taking the bus at night for plenty of years, you know.”

“You may have lived here for plenty of years, but you've only been my friend for a scant few months. If anything happened to you… well,” Lena says, setting the wineglasses upside down in some sleek contraption, a steel-blue plastic thing that probably dries in seconds without leaving soap spots. “I’d be devastated if you missed our lunch date.”

Kara blinks at the phrasing, but offers Lena a shy smile in return. “It’s a good thing I’ve got somebody watching out for me, then.”

“You sure put a lot of faith in Supergirl,” Lena replies, toweling off her hands.

“No,” Kara says, watching Astra at Lena’s side, arms crossed over her catsuit as she looks the woman up and down. Her appraisal is so comfortingly militaristic that it gives Kara some measure of reassurance.

“Not Supergirl this time.”