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Kara’s first age-related panic attack begins on her 26th birthday.
Her and Lena were still in the Weird Zone, a month after she’d revealed herself as Supergirl and had a wine glass thrown in her direction. Their conversations were mainly one-sided things, a once-daily Hey Lena, it’s me. again. accompanied by an invitation for lunch or a meme being sent. Sometimes she got drunk and sent worse messages, but the general gist was always somewhere in that weird space-slash-longing territory.
Kara was walking through the park one day, hand poised on her phone to send Lena her daily not-daily message and a picture of a cute dog, when she spotted them. An older lesbian couple, a few grey streaks pinned through their hair, holding hands and steadily about to walk past her. Gay people, of course, were a normal occurrence, but something about these two people just stuck out. The one was taller and had blond hair, beautiful tan skin, and kind eyes, the other with a longing, intimate gaze, and dark black hair. If Kara squinted, she could probably see the resemblance between an older her and Lena.
It was then, like a bolt of lightning, anxiety struck her. It was a punch in the gut, a shot to the heart, and Kara’s mouth slightly opened to try and accommodate for what felt like a sudden lack of air. She dropped onto a bench and grasped a hand to her chest; Why did the world suddenly feel so small? Like it was spinning and collapsing?
Fuck, her brain thought, standing before she realized it, stumbling away to an alley and flying to the only place she could think of: Lena’s.
“Lena,” Kara wheezes, knocking on the penthouse balcony door, knowing she’s screaming loud enough Lena can definitely hear. She collapses on the door but still pounds, other hand held tight to her chest. Is she going to vomit? She can’t tell. There’s a lump in her throat and its growing, but still, she screams, “Please, help, I’m sorry I know you’re mad and you should be of course you should be but I- I can’t breathe and I don’t know what to do the whole world is just col--”
The door opens. Kara glances up from her tunneling vision, sees Lena spinning, and promptly vomits bile onto what she can pretty certainly decide are red high heels.
“What the fuck?” Is Lena’s first reaction, taking a step back. “Kara,” she continues, voice wobbly, “You can’t be here.”
“I-I know, I’m sorry. I just don’t know where to go. Please just, I’m sorry, I just can’t breathe and I don’t know what to do I think I’m going to vomit again just please help in some way please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry but you already know that.” Kara snaps her mouth shut in fear of retching again.
The sound of Lena’s heels click away for a minute, and Kara’s heart drops. Her head slams against the wood and then, after a lifetime, it’s nudged by a toe.
Her panic ebbs a little, but not much, as Lena brushes the vomit off of her face with a wet washcloth.
“What you are having is a panic attack,” she says, clearly separated and methodical in her words, kneeling down to Kara’s level. “I need you to tell me five things you can see.”
Kara does.
“Four things you can hear.” Kara does, again.
They go around like that for a few minutes until the panic seeping into Kara’s bones slows a little.
“Do you know what caused this?” Lena says, more gently she’s ever talked to Kara in the past month since The Betrayal.
Kara shakes her head, and flies away. There’s a buzzing message from Alex about what kind of cake she wants for her birthday surprise tonight, but she leaves it on read.
Cake doesn’t matter in the grandeur of the fact that she’ll have at least 184 more birthdays.
Two weeks later, Lena sends the first text. It’s a simple Hey. Nothing more, nothing less, just three letters and a period. Still, to Kara, it feels like a whole conversation and a warm hug that says I can begin to grow from what happened. They schedule a coffee shop date, and Kara picks at the threads of her cardigan as she waits for Lena to show.
It’s awkward at the beginning, once Lena arrives a solid ten minutes late, her eyes clearly showing how conflicted she is, bouncing back from dark and stormy to understanding and worried. She traces a finger over the rim of her latte filled cup, listening intently as Kara explains her apology, over and over again until she finally interrupts with: “I don’t think the word sorry has a place in our relationship anymore.”
Kara stares at her, quiet and saddened, jaw-closing quietly and hands wrapping around her cup. So, this is it, she thinks, the closure I’ve simultaneously wanted and dreaded. She shoots her head up, lump in her throat, as Lena continues.
“I’ve thought about what you’ve said to me. I’ve wrote and re-wrote texts to you, monologues engraved in my head, apologies, and goodbyes, and thought shitty things I shouldn’t even dare to think. Nothing worked. Nothing felt right. I just feel like, maybe, we should move forward without the sorry’s, because I’m still hurt. Apologizing won't change that… I think I just want to be honest.”
“I’d like that too,” Kara murmurs with a small smile, pressing her mug to her lips and taking a sip, cautiously trying to move the conversation foward. “Why don’t we get the big secrets out of the way? We can say them at the same time. Maybe we even share one?”
It’s a really bad idea, Kara knows it too, but she wants to get the dirty laundry (and heartbreak) out of the way now before it comes up later.
“Okay,” Lena sighs, “One… two... thre--”
“I’m in love with you,” they simultaneously breathe out in a whoosh like they can’t get it out fast enough.
“You are?” They say again, still in sync, devolving into quiet, delirious, laughter.
“I’ve been in love with you since I saw you eat that ice cream whole in front of L-Corp!” Kara nearly yells, slapping a hand over her face and laughing silently.
“That?” Lena says, mouth agape. “I was in love with you since you told me you flew here on a bus!”
A flurry of words and conversations flow out of their mouths too easily, like they can’t get out fast enough, and then, what feels like a few minutes later Kara is nearly climbing over the coffee table and kissing Lena. Rao, she’s kissing Lena.
It’s exhilarating, it’s exciting, and it’s the closing of one chapter and the opening of a whole new trilogy.
The second age-related anxiety attack comes a few months later when they’re walking through a park. Kara’s talking about new ice cream flavors to Lena as they hold hands and stroll in the early summer afternoon until she abruptly stops mid-sentence.
There, right in front of a nondescript building, is a massive billboard. It has a picture of a smiling, blond woman, gray streaks in her hair as she tips her head back and laughs, white teeth nearly blinding. There’s red, bright, cursive font next to her, reading off Age is Power: Why Hide it? - CatCo magazine, starring Allison Hart, a celebrity Kara’s never even heard of but bears a striking resemblance to her.
“Darling?” Lena says quietly, tugging on Kara’s hand. It doesn’t work, she feels rooted to the spot, like the world is spinning too fast for comfort. “Darling, come here, let's sit down.” Kara lets herself be guided to a nearby bench and curls her hands into fists, so tight her nails bite into her palms.
“No, none of that, baby,” Lena murmurs, taking each of Kara’s hands into one of her own. “Remember what we did before? Can you name 5 things you can see?”
“I don’t want to die alone!” Kara gasps instead, eyes wide at the realization. “I don’t want to die before you or our kids or Alex or anyone else.”
“Okay, thank you for vocalizing. Let's breathe, we can talk through this. What’s going on?”
“I live for 300 years on Earth I’m gonna die alone, Rao I’m going to die alone,” Kara weeps, silent tears tracking down her face.
“No, baby, no,” Lena says so insistently that it makes Kara pause in her anxiety, if only for a second. “We’ll figure out something. I promise you. To the ends of the Earth, I promise.”
They sit in silence for a while after that, wrapped up in each other's arms, the quiet comforting and not enough yet too many words.
It’ll never be enough to make Lena stay for the next millennia, Kara knows, but for now, it is.
The third anxiety attack comes from a magazine from Argo. How it got to Lena and her’s apartment, Kara has no idea, but here it is, in all its glossy glory: Argo City News! in a bright capital font. Kara flips through the pages absentmindedly until one catches her eye: An advertisement, clear and simple. There’s a bottle of pills taking up most of the page, a human-seeming hand grabbing them.
Tired of Argo? The advertisement reads. Take a long-term vacation to Earth, with the new quick-time ships installed on several convenient ports(listed below)! With these pills, your aging will continue and will no longer limit how long you stay. The possibilities are endless: Where will you go?
Kara shoves the magazine closed and feels a wave of nausea rush over her. Lena had just gotten her first gray hair a few weeks ago, and it was killing Kara inside, stewing inside of her until it just exploded. She would never have those grey hairs, but what if she did? Lena would never find her attractive, Lena would never love her, Lena never could--nobody would love her if she was old.
“Would you love me if I was wrinkly and gross?” Kara wheezes, bursting into Lena’s home office so hard the door rattles against the wall as it slams into the frame. “Would you still love me if I had grey hair?”
“Jesus, Kara!” Lena jumps, turning. “Yes, of course I would. Why?”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Kara decides, pacing. “I’d be an ugly gray-haired person. I’m ugly now, Rao, could you imagine me wrinkled? I should just, I could just de-age. Yeah, that would wo-”
“Baby, stop,” Lena says, standing and stepping forward to grasp at Kara’s cheeks and try and rub her anxiety away. “I am telling you from the bottom of my heart, I love you regardless of how you look. I would love you if you were eighty-two and had a diaper. I would love it if you were twenty-two for the rest of your life. Fuck it I would love you if you looked like you were ten years old!” Lena says, waving her hands around, immediately tacking on: “I rescind that statement because that would be like me dating Ruby,” with a small snort. “What I mean, darling is that I don't care how you look. If you’re eighty-five and still sexy as ever, then so be it. I have to get my eye candy somewhere, don’t I?” Kara sniffles a little and looks up from her palms, looking at Lena. “And- and what if I wanted to try and age as you do? On Argo, they--they think they've found a pill that could allow Argo emigrants who are coming to Earth to age at a human pace.”
“Then,” Lena says, grabbing at Kara’s hand in both of hers, “We do that. I would love you if you were gray and wrinkly, or if you were young and spry. I love all of you,” she repeats, pecking Kara’s forehead lovingly.
“And,” Kara grins, glancing up again, “What if I was a worm? Would you love me then?”
The groan Lena lets out is well worth it, even when she promises to make Kara sleep on the couch for the next week if she says it again.
“For the last time,” she says, exasperated, “You would share an anus with your mouth. Not happening.”
“Glad to see conditional love is still in season,” Kara rolls her eyes, wiping at her eyes with a sniffle. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t love me as a worm.”
“It’s illogical!” Lena insists, riled up by the mere idea that Kara, a Pulitzer-winning writer, cannot comprehend why she wouldn’t want to date a worm. “How would I even cuddle you? I’d crush you.”
“You’d find a way. You’d keep me in a dirt jar and feed me peas and cuddle the jar.” “I am not cuddling a jar,” Lena states firmly, standing. “You would get bedside table privileges, max.”
“So you admit you’d love me if I was a worm!” Kara grins, “I knew it!”
Lena throws up her hands. “Fine! Yes! I would love you if you were a worm!”
She gets a wet smack on the cheek for that one, and a hug so firm it nearly topples her over. “Love you,” Kara murmurs into her shoulder, “But I stink from work. Can we bathe?”
“Depends. Is it going to actually be bathing, or are you going to “accidentally” grab my boob when I ask you to wash my back?”
That sends Kara into another laughing fit, because apparently hearing Lena Luthor saying the word “boob” was hilarious. The latter just raises her eyebrow and tells Kara to get in the bath, promising her plenty of cuddles after if she behaves for that long.
(Kara definitely doesn’t).