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Lena is tired.
Betrayal digs its nails into her shoulders, long fingers pressing down on the flesh just behind her collarbones- hard. She slouches in her chair, wilting beneath the weight of her mother’s parting words.
Well, well, Lena… You might have more Luthor in you than I thought.
A soft whoosh of air brushes over her skin, sending nervous skitters down her spine. Inwardly, she sighs. She’s left the balcony door open again- whether out of habit or instinct, Lena can’t muster up enough energy to care.
Longing, a quiet voice in her head supplies, tinny and hesitant. You wanted to see her.
Lena smirks, shaking her head, and takes a long drink from the glass of ridiculously expensive bourbon in her hand.
Then she turns her chair to face an unusually solemn Supergirl.
The somber air lasts for mere seconds before the other woman blanches at the sight of Lena’s disheveled appearance, stoicism quickly replaced by shock and the mildest hint of concern.
She’s barefoot, heels having been unceremoniously kicked off within minutes of sitting down and pouring herself the first of many drinks. The usually put-together CEO has her hair down in messy waves that softly frame her face, bobby pins scattered across the smooth mahogany of her desk.
Sometime after what might have been her third glass of bourbon, the top buttons of her silk blouse had managed to come undone, exposing ample amounts of the pale, creamy skin underneath.
“Miss Luthor-”
She cuts her off with a sharp bark of sound that barely passes for a laugh. “Lena, please. My family’s tried to murder yours often enough that it warrants being on a first-name basis on my end, don’t you think?”
“You haven’t,” the blonde quietly corrects, stepping closer to Lena’s desk, “You saved me tonight. You saved us all.”
Lena shrugs, tilting her head to the side, but never breaks her gaze. “Most people that I push away tend to stay away, you know.” ‘Why?’ is what she longs to ask, what threatens to claw its way from her throat, but she phrases it as fact rather than a question because she can’t allow herself the luxury of asking anything else from the person her family had already taken so much from.
“I’m not most people, then.” She steps even closer, and it takes more strength than Lena expects to keep from losing herself in the warmth that Supergirl brings with her, chasing away the chill that has long-since pervaded even the very marrow of her bones.
Supergirl smells like the sun- the very thing that gives her the power to skim the clouds and bend steel with her bare hands. Still, she radiates a deceptively convincing aura of harmlessness, despite the fact that Lena’s witnessed her abilities first-hand.
But there’s nothing deceptive about the fact that Lena feels nothing but safe in her presence.
"You should know that,” she continues, reaching down to trace the slope of the brunette’s cheek, ocean eyes glimmering with an all-too familiar expression, "Lena.”
Her breath catches in her throat like a butterfly caught between cupped palms, gossamer wings straining against a prison of skin and bone.
The way that Supergirl says her name is something Lena knows- something familiar.
Everything slides into place slowly, with the inevitability of an avalanche being born- sure and strong. Realization slips into place like the fit of a key into its lock, the missing piece to a puzzle she hadn’t even noticed was incomplete.
It’s Kara- Supergirl is Kara, and the look in her eyes is the same one she’s had since their very first meeting, the same one whose inorexable pull has quickly become something of a vice for Lena Luthor-
Hope.