Chapter Text
“Am I terrible?” Lena asks as Kara continues their energetic push-pull situation around the storage room.
“No, you’re not,” Kara beams back. “I mean, I’m not submitting you for any Tony awards, but. You’re not terrible.”
“Right back at you,” Lena chuckles. “Maybe—a couple drinks from now, of course—I might do this with you upstairs.”
Kara’s eyes widen, but she makes a visible effort to contain her shock and excitement. “Really? I mean, you don’t have to. You really don’t.”
Lena shakes her head. “I don’t want to be scared anymore,” she breathes. “I’m sick of feeling held back, and I want to do something brave.”
Kara scrunches her face up. “Is this like when people go through a breakup and they do something drastic to their hair?”
Lena takes a second to consider, then lets out a single, grim chuckle before finally shrugging. “Maybe?”
“Well, I’m gonna make the choice to be radically supportive of whatever choice you’re making at that exact moment, knowing I may have to adapt quickly. Sound good?”
“Yeah,” Lena smirks. “I think that’s precisely what I need right now.”
“Then I’m here for you,” Kara agrees, sauntering over to one of the shelves and selecting a bottle of scotch, showing the label to Lena before asking, “Will this work?”
Lena tuts, rolls her eyes. “We can go upstairs and actually buy—”
“I wanna stay down here a little longer,” Kara murmurs. “Just us. Jonn won’t mind.”
She takes two rocks glasses off another nearby shelf, opening the bottle and pouring them each a small measure. Lena raises her eyebrows.
“You’re going to drink scotch?”
“You’re trying something new tonight, being brave,” Kara shrugs. “Thought I might, too. Solidarity.”
They clink glasses before drinking, and Lena luckily manages to get her first sip down before Kara starts hers, because upon first taste, she immediately begins coughing and borderline choking, and Lena begins laughing at her in a way that would have made it impossible for her to swallow.
“Okay, some ideas are better than others,” Kara gags. “Oh god, it tastes like wooden ashtray juice.”
“It’s not for everyone,” Lena concurs, walking over to the shelves. “I’ll make you something else. What do you want?”
Kara cringes sheepishly and heads over to a large, industrial refrigerator against the wall, pulling out a blender carafe full of unblended pink drink.
“Megon likes to be prepared,” she informs her. “Just add ice and whir.”
Lena laughs, pouring herself more scotch and then placing it on the prep table by the blenders, sliding her body behind Kara’s as she prepares her own drink, putting her arms around Kara’s waist.
“You’re cute.”
Kara slips one hand around to squeeze Lena’s hip. “You think?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Once they both have drinks in their hands, they return to their less energetic dancing, their bodies pressing closer and closer together until their drinks are entirely ignored, clasped in a hand that rests low on the other’s back.
“Gosh, you’re hot,” Kara murmurs into her ear. “You’re like, the hottest person alive, and I’m glad there’s photographic evidence that we’ve made out, because I’m not sure anyone would believe me, otherwise. You’re too hot, and brilliant, and good, and there’s no way anyone would ever believe that I got to be with you if it weren’t all over the internet.”
Lena huffs, feeling a little breathless. “Oh, so that’s why you’ve been so extraordinary through all this? Trying to accumulate viral evidence of your conquest?”
“More like when they take your picture during the drop on the rollercoaster,” Kara snorts. “You’re so busy feeling it in the moment that you forget to make the memory of what it felt like. So it’s a good thing they take your picture, so you can buy an overpriced print of what your face looked like to help you remember forever what you felt in that moment.”
Lena bites her lip, looks into enchanting blue eyes. “You always talk like you think this could end at any second.”
Kara pauses, cocking her head slightly. “Don’t you?”
She takes a second, slowly pulling in a ragged breath as she takes in the earnestness of Kara’s expression.
“It’s not personal,” she whispers. “It’s self-preservation.”
“I know,” Kara whispers back. “Trust me, I know. I’m not taking it personally. I hope you aren’t, either.” She runs her fingertips over the outline of Lena’s face. “We both know how quickly and how easily the things most important to us can disappear. It’s not a commentary on you, or an assumption that you’ll run away—I’ve just learned to cherish what I have when I have it, but never take for granted that I’ll have it forever.”
Lena’s eyes flutter closed, and an image pops into her head. One she’s repressed for years, but which is clear as the day it happened: Jack’s vitals monitor as he went into asystole. She still remembers watching his heart stop in real time, holding his cold, mottled hand and watching the life leave his eyes.
“I think we both know not to take good things for granted,” Kara iterates, punctuated with a kiss to Lena’s forehead.
“You have a point,” Lena murmurs back. “It’s just…I don’t want you to be sad.”
“M’not,” Kara huffs out a laugh. “I’m so, so happy, Lena. I’m drinking my favorite drink and I’m dancing with the greatest woman I’ve ever known, who I kinda hope will come home with me tonight, or at least let me stop at my apartment before I go home with her, because now that I know photos of me will pop up online with my name attached, I feel self-conscious wearing the same clothes three days in a row.”
Lena chuckles. “Of course, darling. We can stay at yours tonight.”
“We can make it just a pit stop,” she repeats. “If you wanted me…more…inside you.”
“I appreciate the thought, but your fingers have never failed to do the trick,” Lena purrs. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”
“If I ever don’t want my fingers inside you, that’s when you should have me committed for a psych eval.”
Lena kisses her, but Kara pulls away.
“Jonn would kill me if we had sex down here,” she warns. “Drinking his booze, fine, but—I’m like a daughter to him, it would be so weird—”
“Kara,” Lena interrupts. “It’s fine. I understand. I won’t kiss you.”
“I mean, that’s not exactly what I said.”
Lena chuckles, kisses her. “Let’s drink, so we can get back to your friends.”
“They’re gonna be ecstatic you’re dancing with us, you know,” Kara grins. “Nia will insist on dancing with you. Winn, too, probably.”
“I’d expect nothing else from them.”
----
By the time they make it upstairs, Lena is tipsy, but nowhere near tipsy enough to actually follow through on her proposition. She’s halfway through planning her escape when she notes the unbridled enthusiasm on Kara’s face as she leads them through the crowd of people to the corner of the dancefloor occupied by her friends. That enthusiasm is then mirrored on the faces of Kara’s friends as they see Lena being bodily dragged into a space where dancing is expected, and against her better judgment, Lena caves, and allows herself to be involved in the activity.
At first, she tries to do so as passively as possible, but the others seem determined to thwart these attempts, and after a while, she realizes she’s having fun. It’s nerve-wracking, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and she feels frequent bursts of self-consciousness, but it’s also distinctly fun, the way people keep grabbing her and spinning her and encouraging her to move with them, goofy and free and uncaring of who might be looking at them or how much space they’re taking up. In fact, when they start to encroach on other dancers’ space, they bring that person into their orbit for a while until they’re laughing along and enjoying being part of the group’s antics for however long they choose to be.
It's fun. It’s free. As far as she’s aware, it’s unphotographed, but that doesn’t even really cross her mind.
She just wants to live her life.
----
She wakes up on top of Kara, still.
She…doesn’t fully remember how that happened. Well, she remembers the on-top-of-Kara part—vividly, and with sore thigh muscles as souvenirs—but she doesn’t remember falling asleep quite like this. Usually, no matter how tired they are, they have the wherewithal to, at the very least, roll into a spooning position before they fall asleep, if not onto their separate sides of the bed.
But no, she somehow managed to fall asleep with her full weight on top of Kara, with both of Kara’s hands fully glued to her ass cheeks, and she doesn’t know how long they’ve been asleep, or what time it is, or when they fell asleep, but. For some reason she’s still on top of Kara, and she starts to panic a little until Kara rumbles underneath her.
“You were still extremely orgasm brain, so you actually said yes when I asked you to be my blanket.”
“Ah,” Lena replies, a vague memory surfacing after being prompted. “Right. I thought I’d be too heavy, but you insisted it was like a gravity blanket.”
“Mmhmm,” she hums happily. “Naked blanket. Best sleep I’ve ever had.”
Lena rolls her eyes, but settles back down on top of her, resting her chin on her shoulder, and Kara responds in kind, squeezing her butt with a sullen sigh.
“Do we have to go to Pride? Can’t we just celebrate being gay by staying in bed and having tons of sex?”
“That’s how we celebrated last night,” Lena reminds her, kissing listlessly at whatever skin happens to be under her lips. “And how we can continue to celebrate next weekend, when your friends aren’t waiting and excited to attend a slate of parties with you.”
“With us,” Kara corrects. “And I guess you have a point, but…I like having you on top of me.”
Lena smirks, slots her thigh between Kara’s. “I can tell.”
One of their phones vibrates on the nightstand; they ignore it.
“Lena,” she pouts, then buries her face in the crook of Lena’s neck. “Ugh, Pride is stupid.”
“Actually,” Lena murmurs. “I’ve quite been enjoying it.”
“Really?”
“Really. Haven’t you?”
“Like never before,” Kara growls back, nipping at Lena’s collarbone. “You’ve made me so happy.”
“What else can I do, hmm?” Lena purrs. “How else can I make you happy?”
Another vibration from the nightstand; they ignore it again.
“Just keep being you,” she chuckles lowly. “It’s not what you do that makes me happy. It’s who you are.”
This time, the vibration is continuous, a call coming through, and Lena grunts in frustration before snatching her phone off the nightstand, only to see it’s Sam calling. She takes a steadying breath, closes her eyes briefly before casting an apologetic glance at Kara.
“This may take a moment.”
Kara shrugs. “It takes as long as it takes. I’ll be here.”
Lena thanks her with a kiss on her forehead, then answers the phone as she’s climbing off the gorgeous body below her.
“Hey, Sam.”
“I know you already know,” Sam begins in lieu of a greeting. Her voice is level, cautious. “So just tell me what you need from me. Backup? An alibi? A bathtub full of lye?”
Lena smiles wearily at her friend as she slips out of the bedroom and heads toward the kitchen, her smile turning into a frown when she immediately notices her bra dangling precariously across the top of a floor lamp. She plucks it up, folding it neatly and placing it on the couch, peering around to find where else her clothing was strewn last night as she patiently tells Sam:
“I’m not going to murder Andrea.”
A pause.
“You’re not?”
“I’m not,” Lena confirms, spotting her skirt pooled on the welcome mat, a little thrill shooting down her spine as she recalls how eagerly Kara stripped her of it. “I can’t deny that it was my initial response, but I have since realized that I would be playing directly into her hand if I struck back in anger. She wants to manipulate an extreme reaction out of me so this decade-long game of ours can continue, but I don’t want it to continue, so I’m not going to react.”
Sam whistles. “Look at you, being all emotionally mature. I guess this means Kara isn’t pissed at you?”
“Not at all,” she murmurs, looking toward the curtain separating the bedroom and the rest of the loft. “She’s handling it better than I am, in fact.”
“No offense, but that’s a pretty low bar, sweetie.”
“She might have talked me down a little.”
Sam chuckles lowly. “You owe her big time, you know. I’m talkin’ deep, dark fantasy fulfillment.”
“Samantha—”
“I’m just saying. Nothing says ‘thank you for putting up with my psychotic ex-girlfriend trying to destroy our lives’ like kinky sex.”
“Must you always be so crass?”
There’s an unexpected pause.
“Do you need me to be something else?” Sam asks sincerely. “Look, you know I’m here for you. If you need me to cut a bitch, I’ll cut a bitch. Don’t forget I’m a Scorpio.”
“Don’t forget that I have no idea what that means,” Lena deadpans, still looking for her shirt. “I appreciate the sentiment, but there will be no bitch-cutting needed. Like I said, I’m not going to react. I refuse to give her the pleasure.”
“You’ll be the prettiest grey rock there ever was,” Sam coos.
“It’s what I should have been doing this whole time,” Lena sighs. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you earlier, I should have—”
“Relax,” her friend snorts. “I understand. Sometimes it takes the right kind of push. I’m not offended that it took you this long to realize I’m always right.”
Lena sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. “Right now, this is just juicy gossip. When word breaks that I’m buying CatCo—”
“One step at a time, hon,” Sam clucks her tongue. “You know how these things work. People will always believe what they want to believe. All you can do is tell the truth. And since nobody knows Andrea Rojas was making a bid, and I doubt she’ll readily admit to having spent the last year negotiating to no avail, your intentions will look even less…muddied, to the public.”
“I hope you’re right,” Lena murmurs. “For her sake, I hope you’re right.”
Sam sighs. “Lee…”
“I won’t let Kara be hurt by this,” Lena bites. “I’d walk away now, but…”
Another pause, as if Sam’s waiting for Lena to continue, and when she doesn’t, she supplies:
“You know Kara would never let you walk away. Not like this.”
“It’s not just that,” she exhales, lowering her voice just in case before continuing. “I always run, Sam. I always—I run away. I don’t confront, I don’t deal, I don’t—I just run away, and I don’t want to run, this time. I want to try.”
“Good,” Sam brightens. “I’m happy. I’m really, really happy for you, and whatever I can do to help, just let me know. I mean it. My Scorpio expertise extends beyond cutting a bitch. I can fuck a bitch up in so many other ways—”
“Never stop being you, Sam,” Lena interrupts with an amused huff, then promptly, wearily, changes the subject. “Did Ruby win?”
Sam groans. “They lost in the finals. On penalty kicks. She’s devastated; it is going to be a very long bus ride back home.”
“Poor thing,” Lena tuts. “Did you buy her ice cream?”
“At this point, I’d buy her a house and a pony and a house for her pony if it meant she’d stop making that angry little sad face she makes,” she pouts. “I don’t like when my baby is angry or sad, let alone both.”
“She’s just begun being a teenager,” Lena counters. “You better start getting used to her being every emotion all at once, in overdrive.”
Sam groans cacophonously.
“In the meantime,” she continues. “I will gladly assist you in a happy distraction. Shopping sprees, sports tickets, international travel. Whatever will cheer her up and reward her for giving it her all.”
She can almost hear Sam’s beam.
“You’re a magnificent gay aunt, you know that, right?”
“Only the best for Ruby.”
“Well, the WNBA All-Star Game is coming up in Central City…”
Lena shakes her head. “Done. We can work out the details over drinks on Tuesday.”
“Sure you’ll be able to walk by then? We can push till Wednesday.”
“I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?” she remarks dryly.
“Yes, but you’re not accounting for the kinky, kinky sex you owe her.”
“Noted. But I think the amount of office bullshit I have to deal with in the coming days will sufficiently distract me from whatever soreness persists.”
“If it does, you’re not doing the kinky sex right. You better be walking into work sideways tomorrow, or I’m knocking you unconscious, dressing you in unforgivably provocative lingerie, and sexting Kara until she breaks into L-Corp just to ravish you.”
Lena lifts an eyebrow, though Sam can’t see it, when she finally discovers that her shirt, discarded under an overstuffed living chair, with several of its buttons scattered about the area.
“Oh, I assure you, darling. It takes very little provocation to get her to ravish me.”
Sam snorts out a laugh. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Biting her lip, she casts another glance toward the curtain leading to the bedroom. “I should go. I’m…well, I’m sure you know where I am.”
“Be careful, if you’re at her place,” Sam warns. “You never know who might know something and be willing to give it up.”
Lena half-smiles to herself. “It took Andrea’s blind rage to finally reveal Kara’s name. Anyone who knows her also likes her, and they will respect her privacy. Think of all the reporters at CatCo, and regulars at The Tower, and pizza delivery people who saw those pictures of me and her and didn’t immediately call up every gossip rag in town and try to sell her name for personal gain. It’s almost impossible to wish ill upon her.”
Sam draws in a long, slow breath. “I hope that’s true, babe.”
“It is,” she murmurs back. “It has to be.”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Lena hangs up, running a hand through her hair before moving to return to the bedroom. As she reaches the curtain, though, she hears Kara’s harsh whisper.
“This is a terrible idea, and I can’t believe you—”
A pause.
“It is, Nia, and you should have asked me before—”
Another pause, then an indignant huff.
“You suck,” Kara grumbles. “This better work.”
Another pause.
“Of course I’m bringing the donuts. Then I’m gonna kick your butt in person.”
One more pause.
“Yeah, yeah, I love you too. You still suck, though.”
Kara hangs up the phone, and Lena sheepishly pulls the curtain back.
“Hi.”
Kara sighs. “You heard?”
“Only a little bit. I didn’t mean to.”
“S’fine,” she smiles briefly. “Stuff happens.”
“So,” Lena hums, slinking over to the bed and perching on the side. “What exactly is Nia’s terrible idea, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Kara groans thunderously, flopping against the pillows.
“You don’t have to tell me, darling. It was rude of me to listen in without you knowing.”
“It’s okay, it’s just…she’s an intern for CatCo’s social media department,” she exhales wearily.
“She mentioned something to that effect.”
“And apparently, without my permission, she proposed a plan to her bosses about how to handle the whole…you and me being public knowledge situation.”
“Ah. And what does this…plan…entail?”
She bites her lip, averting her gaze to her wringing fingers.
“It, um. It entails me…revealing myself, so to speak. It entails CatCo launching a social media campaign where they sort of make light of it, and post stuff about me. Letting people get to know me. Making me seem normal, and likeable, or whatever.”
Lena shrugs, bringing one leg onto the bed to better face Kara. “I mean. It makes sense. You’re terminally likeable—it’s almost impossible not to be endeared by your every word and facial expression. Everything about you is infuriatingly earnest and adorable. It’s not a terrible idea to just…embrace that.”
Kara shakes her head nervously. “It just…feels weird. I don’t know how I feel about people knowing things about me.”
“They’ll find things out about you soon enough, whether you like it or not,” Lena reminds her gently. “It might be helpful in coming to terms with that fact if you can have some semblance of control over what they know. Even if only for a little while.”
“I can’t believe you’re in favor of this,” she replies, sounding nonjudgmental if not somewhat appalled.
“It’s ultimately your choice, of course. But it could be good. Keep your reputation from getting sullied by my name.”
“But I don’t mind getting sullied by you,” Kara smirks, reaching out and pulling Lena the rest of the way onto the bed, rolling their bodies until they lay side by side in the middle of the bed, facing each other, intertwined.
“You’re incorrigible,” Lena remarks dryly, but doesn’t fight the new position, instead throwing an arm around Kara’s waist. “I’m just saying. You’re annoyingly likeable, and if the whole thing is curated and controlled by experts in social media, it could actually work.”
Kara frowns, then reaches up to fiddle with her glasses, only to realize she isn’t wearing them, then gets embarrassed and struggles for a moment, clearly unsure what to do with her hand, so she instead puts it on Lena’s face. “I don’t want it to backfire on you once news comes out about you buying the company.”
“I’m not concerned about me,” Lena reiterates. “All I care about is making sure you survive this with your reputation and burgeoning career intact.”
“I’m resilient. I can handle it.”
“I don’t want you to have to handle it,” she counters. “I want it to be easy for you. As easy as possible. You’re allowed to have a personal life—we both are—without it affecting your professional success or public image. It isn’t fair for all that to get ruined for you because you picked up the wrong girl at a bar.”
“You’re not the wrong girl,” Kara grins, tracing Lena’s cheekbone with her thumb. “You’re not. And even if it isn’t always fair, it’s worth it. You make it worth it.”
Lena rolls her eyes. “Such a goddamn charmer. See? All you have to do is bottle up that charm, turn it into a caption on CatCo’s Instagram, and—”
“M’serious,” Kara pouts. “I don’t need all that. Also you smell good.”
“Smooth transition.”
“Just pointing out the obvious.”
“You simply can’t help yourself, can you?”
“You’re naked. In my bed. How could I possibly be expected to help myself?”
“You are an adult capable of impulse control, yes?”
“Not when your boobs are smooshed against my boobs,” Kara snorts. “I’m not even sorry. You’re too pretty.”
Lena rolls her eyes. “We need to stop at my apartment before we go wherever we’re going.”
“For strap-on sex?” Kara asks hopefully.
“For clothes,” Lena clarifies in a reprimanding tsk. “I can’t find my underwear, and you tore half the buttons off my shirt last night, I’ll have you know.”
“Who needs underwear?” Kara mumbles, diving in to kiss her neck with characteristic vigor. “Besides, I can sew. I’m not all just brute strength, I have some finesse in me, too.”
Lolling her head back, Lena hums. “I’m intimately familiar. But I’d rather you use that finesse for things other than sewing.”
----
Eventually, they do make it to Lena’s apartment. A hopeful call to Cooper—who thankfully doesn’t mind taking an hour out of their Sunday to pick them up in the alley behind Kara’s apartment and then drive them to parking garage underneath Lena’s building (in exchange for a generous sum of money, of course)—was all it took to ensure a little privacy. She makes Kara stay in the car while she calmly, confidently enters her building. She knows that thanks to her careful planning, nobody will see her do so, but she can’t help but walk as if she has somebody to impress with her nonchalance.
Yes, she was photographed in these clothes yesterday, and yes, her shirt is being held together with a series of haphazardly-placed safety pins. Part of her almost wishes she could be photographed in these same clothes again this morning, if only to spite them—whoever “they” are.
But it wouldn’t be fair to Kara, and she owes it to Kara to protect her, so she takes the secret parking garage elevator she hasn’t bothered to use since the immediate aftermath of Lillian’s trial. For Kara’s sake. Just in case.
Anyway, she makes Kara stay in the car. She goes upstairs, showers in her own, luxurious shower with her own, luxurious products. She changes as swiftly as possible into the most provocative yet comfortable outfit she could assemble in her brain while in the shower, verifying briefly in the mirror that she does, indeed, look good in it before returning to the car, where Cooper, Kara, and the two dozen donuts they had picked up during Lena’s absence are waiting.
Lena slips into the backseat alongside Kara, who beams unabashedly at her.
“Hi,” she greets her dryly.
“Hi.”
“Would you like to give Cooper your sister’s address, or would you like to celebrate the remainder of Pride weekend in the back of a town car.”
“Right. Sorry.”
----
Potluck brunch at Alex and Kelly’s is more or less what Lena would have expected. There’s alcohol, enough sweets to warrant an FDA research grant to study the effects of this single meal, and multiple loud and lively conversations occurring at the same time in such a way that makes it impossible to follow any of them.
None of the conversations, however, are about Andrea, or what she did to Kara, or what the repercussions may be, or what Lena plans to do in response. In fact, they barely talk about Lena at all, instead extensively talking to Lena, trying to include her in any of the multitude of their impossible-to-follow conversations. Like they want to know her, or like having her around, or something ludicrous like that.
She tries not to be suspicious. She tries not to think about it at all, honestly, and instead just continue her strategy from the night before: she tries to relax, enjoy, live her life.
It also helps that her personal potluck contribution is multiple bottles of not-insignificantly-priced champagne, which they open and pour freely throughout the brunch.
“To never going to the goddamn motherfucking parade,” Alex proposes as a toast, once they are fully assembled and armed with drinks.
“I second, third, and fourth that,” Lena pipes immediately, instinctively, much to the delight of the others.
“Is the Mega Queen of CEOs herself taking an anti-corporate stance?” Nia performs astonishment.
“Feel free to tweet about it,” Lena hums noncommittally. “The world should know the depths to which I detest the parade.”
The subject is quickly changed, but that is the extent to which they discuss Nia’s master plan to handle Kara’s exposure. Kara is a little icier with Nia than she normally would be, perhaps, but icy by Kara’s terms is still extraordinarily affable by any other standard, so if anyone else notices—and they certainly do—they don’t bring it up. They seem to inherently understand that whatever tension exists needn’t be addressed in this moment, on this day, and they let it remain ignored.
They spend quite a while simply eating, drinking, talking over each other, and at some point, Lena realizes she has no idea what the plan actually is. She knew they were coming here, but after that, Kara didn’t tell her what they were doing with their day.
Usually, that would make her spiral. It would trigger every control issue she has ever had and leave her demanding answers or formulating a plan of her own, but instead, she finds it exhilarating. She doesn’t know what’s about to happen. She’s trusting the process. Trusting strangers, practically, because even though she feels comfortable, she doesn’t really know these people. She can’t really call them her friends, can she?
Can she?
“Okay, so,” James begins, topping off his glass before doing the same to the others’ glasses. “What’s today’s rundown?”
Nia and Winn whip out their phones, tapping a few times before sidling up next to each other, studying both their phones at once.
“Well, tonight’s main even is probably going to be the waterfront party,” Nia declares. “Starts at ten, ends when we get bored.”
“But there is a party in the warehouse district that starts at nine and ends at two, so there is potential for overlap, and the waterfront might not start getting rowdy till past midnight,” Winn amends. “We can wait to decide though, because there are many options for what we do this afternoon.”
“There’s Pridefest, as always, but it’ll be lame,” Nia takes over. “There’s a 2000s-pop themed dance party at a bar I’ve never heard of, so it’s probably just cis gay men—”
“Hey!” Winn scoffs, before rolling his eyes. “I mean, fair, but.”
“There’s the usual queerness at The Tower and Alien Bar, there’s a queer haunted house in—”
“No scary things!” Kara protests loudly.
Nia rolls her eyes dramatically. “Fine, I’m just listing what I’ve found. There’s also a drag show at SloMo and a kink party at Hot Rabbit—”
Alex interjects this time. “I’m absolutely not going to kink party with my little sister.”
Lena quirks an eyebrow, feeling daring. “But you’d go to a kink party otherwise?”
It causes the expected roll of laughter and sputtering protest from Alex, so Lena’s immediate awkwardness subsides. They react to her gibe as they would have had anybody else remarked it, not as if she were a guest who had trespassed the boundaries of her welcome, so she feels okay about her decision to speak up. Kind of. As okay as she can feel, that is.
“Anyway,” Winn continues, waggling his eyebrows but otherwise disregarding the interruption. “I do have several potential game plans and walking and/or travel times between all iterations of crawls between—”
“Or we can wander aimlessly and on our own accords and agree upon a pre-waterfront meeting time and/or place,” Nia retorts teasingly, then adds, with an eyebrow waggle, “Some of us don’t have little sisters.”
Kelly pulls a face before saying, tentatively, “Splitting up would ease a great deal of tension. We might actually be able to leave here and enjoy the day before sunset.”
“Fine by me!” Alex shouts, too loudly and quickly to appear even quasi-natural, and Kelly glances oddly at her for a moment before letting it pass without comment, merely turning back to the group as they continue to discuss the possibility amongst themselves.
“It would make for a lot less arguing,” James agrees with his sister. “We can always change our minds and meet up earlier if we want.”
“True,” Winn drawls. “And I can send you all my spreadsheets if you decide—”
“Babe,” James interrupts. “You made those spreadsheets for your own pleasure, and we all know it.”
Winn opens his mouth to protest, then seems to rethink, instead coyly shrugging one shoulder. “I do love making potential game plans.”
“I’m glad you were able to pursue your passions,” Alex remarks dryly, draining her glass. “So…we split up for a few hours, then reconvene before the main event.”
“I mean, not like we’ll be leaving any stragglers behind to fend for themselves, right?” James shrugs, sending a wink toward Lena.
Feeling how Kara deflates almost imperceptibly at his words, Lena glares back at him, taking perverted joy in how he shrinks just-so under her stare.
The conversation around them breaks back into the prior chaos, and Kara bumps her hip against Lena’s.
“So what do you want to do?” she asks her quietly, a private discussion of their own.
“I have no idea what any of the presented options would even entail,” Lena reminds her, toying with the stem of her glass. “Mine is the least informed decision.”
“Well,” Kara drawls conspiratorially, lowering her voice even more. “A kink party is sort of like what we normally do, but with other people around, and probably more—”
Lena cocks an eyebrow, letting her eyes drift pointedly to Alex, who is in a dedicated conversation with Winn and Brainy and therefore not paying her sister a lick of attention, but is still in reasonable earshot, and Kara cuts herself off abruptly, blushing slightly and adjusting her glasses.
“Getting brave, are you?” Lena breathes.
“It’s a risk versus reward situation,” Kara half-smiles. “Besides, she owes me. You only know the in-a-mature-relationship-with-Kelly version of Alex. When she was with Maggie, I was constantly learning more information than I wanted to know.”
Lena smirks in response. “I’d ask for details, but I’d hate to reopen old wounds.”
Kara mirrors her smirk, then cleanly transitions back to the former topic. “I’m serious, though. What do you want to do today?”
“And I’m serious when I say I don’t care,” Lena counters. “I just want to spend time with you; I don’t care what we’re doing. I don’t have an opinion one way or another, because I can’t, so my only input is that I’d like to see you happy.”
Kara reaches out, pinning a lock of Lena’s hair behind her ear. She’d left it down, today, for sake of time, but she’d gone through the effort of carefully blow-drying it to attain the sleek, silky-smooth effect that she knows Kara drools over, so she feels a swoop of pride low in her stomach when Kara completes the gesture while absentmindedly darting her tongue out to wet her lips.
“Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult.”
----
At three-thirty the next morning, with her head resting on Kara’s chest, reveling in the long, slow breaths of Kara’s peaceful sleep, Lena tries to remember a single thing they did that day.
They drank. They ate. They talked. They people-watched. They went to…two different bars, she thinks, maybe three, before eventually meeting back up with the group for a late dinner before ultimately ending up at the waterfront party, where they continued to drink, and talk, and people-watch, and Lena even acquiesced to a little dancing, by that point in the night. She and Kara left the party for Lena’s apartment a little before two, and barely made it through the door with their clothes on, and their sex was hasty and needy and perfect, but they tired out quickly, and instead laid, quietly and peacefully, in each other’s arms until Kara drifted off.
She knows all these broad strokes, but the details of them are lost. It all passed by in a magnificent, joyous blur, and now that it’s passed she wishes she’d paid more attention. She wishes she’d known to cement the memories, to take mental notes, mental pictures.
All she has now is this lingering feeling, and she tries to sit in it. The feeling that it doesn’t matter what she did, because she was so busy being happy, it didn’t occur to her what she was doing. It didn’t really matter, did it? All that mattered, all that matters, is this feeling. This feeling of her cheek to Kara’s naked chest, of Kara’s arm, lazy in sleep, curled around her shoulders, and how when Lena realized Kara was asleep and tried to move away, Kara stirred just enough to press their bodies back together, murmuring incoherently before falling back asleep.
She tries to recall a time she ever felt this peaceful, this happy, this loved, and not only loved but liked, and cared about, and cared for, and her memory falls short.
And sure, maybe she doesn’t know many details about the day, but she does know that it was one of the greatest days of her life.
----
They wake up at six-thirty, running on only a few hours of sleep, wholly reluctant to leave their bubble.
“Don’t wanna get up,” Kara grumbles into Lena’s hair as soon as the blaring alarm is shut off. “Wanna quit my job and devote my life to having sex with you.”
“As tempting as that is,” Lena drawls, her voice rough with lack of sleep. “I think we’d get restless eventually.”
“There’s a long time between now and eventually.”
“I’d get sore.”
“I’d kiss it better.”
“Darling, don’t tempt me.”
“You’re one to talk.”
Lena doesn’t respond to that, and they lay in silence for a moment before Kara groans monstrously.
“Today is gonna suck.”
Frowning, Lena pulls away, bracing herself on her elbows to hover over Kara’s body.
“Yes,” she states frankly. “It is. And I’m sorry about that.”
“S’not your fault.”
Then, skating the backs of her fingers across Kara’s cheek, Lena feels inspired.
“Oh, so then I guess you’re not interested in me making it up to you.”
Irresistible blue eyes light up with anticipatory glee.
“Make it up to me?”
“Mm,” Lena hums noncommittally. “See, I’ll inevitably be working late. Very late. So late, nobody else will be in the building, and even though I’ll be working, I might get lonely. Maybe I might appreciate some company.”
Kara gapes. “Like…sex company?”
Lena rolls her eyes, then regains her composure, lightly scratching her fingernails against Kara’s scalp. “It’s probably silly of me to presume you’d want to fuck me in my very impressive, exquisite office, with its large windows and sturdy, pristine desk…”
A series of meaningless sounds sputter out of Kara’s mouth, and her skin turns decidedly scarlet.
“My mistake for even suggesting,” Lena concludes coquettishly, knowingly, but Kara smacks her half-heartedly on the hip.
“How could you?” she scoffs. “Now I have to go through my whole, horrible day thinking about bending you over your super fancy CEO desk?”
Lena presses a kiss to the hinge of Kara’s jaw, then works her mouth against her earlobe. “Well, maybe it’ll help if you look forward to it. Like a reward.”
“A reward?” Kara gulps.
“Yeah. Your day will be so hard. Don’t you think you deserve a reward for getting through it?”
----
Kara arrives at L-Corp around eight that evening.
As soon as Jess announces her presence, Lena dismisses her assistant for evening. It’s partially practical, and partially because she hadn’t realized how long Jess had stayed on her post until Jess announced Kara’s presence, so. Lena remembers that Jess’s birthday is only a couple weeks away, and she doubles down on her demand to make over-the-top reservations.
“You don’t need to do that, Miss Luthor.”
“If you won’t tell me how many to make the reservation for, I’ll book the whole restaurant,” Lena threatens in a deadpan, and it only takes a few seconds until she hears Jess’s resigned sigh over the intercom.
“A party of eight should suffice.”
“Twelve it is,” Lena murmurs to herself, scribbling on an actual sticky note to remind herself to make the effort. “Okay. I’ll make the call and send you the details tomorrow morning.”
“Miss Luthor, I appreciate it, but you—”
“Send Kara in, and then go home. Thank you for staying late tonight, I apologize for losing track of time.”
Jess doesn’t respond; she normally wouldn’t, of course, but then after a slight pause, she quips, “Ma’am. You always lose track of time. That’s why I have a job.”
Lena quirks a half-smile. “Fair. Good night, Jess.”
“Good night, Miss Luthor.”
Kara enters a couple minutes later, all pleated slacks and blushing cheeks, and Lena considers following Kara’s own impulse from that morning of quitting her entire job just to sleep with this impeccable woman.
“Hi,” Kara murmurs, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I, um. Hi.”
“Hello, darling,” Lena replies, gesturing for Kara to take a seat. “How was your day?”
“Sucked,” Kara grumbles as she falls into a chair, wringing her hands absently in her lap. “Some people were treating me weird, but I barely had time to notice. I spent most the day with social media and PR people while they strategized about how to best advertise my private life across multiple platforms.”
“Whenever I have to talk to PR people, Jess brings me a pastry to cushion the blow,” Lena hums. “Can I offer you whatever the Kara equivalent of that is? Pizza? Chinese? A gallon of ice cream and a rotisserie of soft pretzels?”
Kara pouts, but raises her eyes to meet Lena’s. “Can I have breakfast for dinner?”
Lena chuckles lightly, then unlocks her phone, opening her food delivery app before handing it over to Kara. “You can have anything you want, sweet girl.”
With a wide, genuine smile, Kara accepts the phone, her eyes lighting up as she searches for and presumably finds a fitting restaurant.
“Should I get pancakes or waffles?” she murmurs to herself, then gasps. “A breakfast burrito rolled in a crepe?!”
“Get all of it,” Lena tells her distractedly, most her attention on an email that just pinged into her inbox. “Buy the whole restaurant if that will make you—no, you nitwit, why would you expand the age parameters of the trial without—why do I even bother to—”
She takes a frustrated breath, pinching the bridge of her nose and reaching for her desk phone.
“Will you excuse me while I make a phone call to an incompetent biomedical researcher?”
“Of course,” Kara nods. “I’ll order the food, and then I actually have an article I need to finish. I figured you wouldn’t mind, since you said you’d be working, but if it’ll bother you I can—”
“It won’t bother me in the least,” Lena assures her. “Do what you need to do.”
She picks up the receiver, but is interrupted from her dialing by Kara’s hand on hers.
“Have I mentioned how pretty you look?”
Lena smiles coyly. “You neglected to mention it.”
“Well, you do,” she declares. “Superhumanly pretty. Makes me wanna do stuff to you.”
“Stuff?”
“Stuff,” Kara confirms with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.
“After I feed you,” Lena warns. “And after I spare this clinical trial from an inevitable demise caused by careless men.”
Kara grins impishly. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lena isn’t sure if the article ever gets finished; she’s acutely aware of the way Kara intently watches her throughout her phone call, and the two phone calls that result from it. She’s acutely aware of how, while eating a truckload of breakfast food, Kara always keeps one eye on her.
And as she watches her shove a forkful of some monstrosity called Nutella stuffed French toast into her mouth and smile rakishly at her, Lena can’t bear to work a single moment longer.
“You’re distracting me, you know.”
Kara’s grin grows around a mouthful of pure sugar. “Cuz you want a bite?”
“Over my dead body,” Lena responds without skipping a beat. “Because you keep looking at me like that.”
“Like how?”
Even if Kara didn’t immediately set aside the clamshell of food, Lena would know from her tone alone that she’s onto her, so she decides to skip the part where she might mince words or pull punches, and instead looks directly into those enticing, impeccable blue eyes and states, clearly and without hesitation:
“Like you want to devour me.”
Kara’s casual shrug exudes a confidence that reads like a mask, and Lena knows in this moment that she needs this—she needs to feel in control, even if only for a moment, and Lena wants nothing more than to grant her that control.
“I want you,” Lena states simply. “How do you want me?”
That’s how Lena finds herself pinned, face first, against the glass door of her balcony, with three fingers pounding into her so hard that her feet almost leave the ground on most thrusts.
Much to her chagrin, however, she only gets to come once before Kara notices that her own food has gone untouched, and she draws the same line that Lena herself has, and thus can’t argue against.
“No more sex till you eat,” Kara murmurs while contradictorily nibbling on her ear lobe. “I have a feeling you haven’t ingested anything but coffee since the sad excuse for dinner you ate last night, so. The rules apply to us both.”
Lena whines. “Just another quick one?”
“Nope,” Kara chuckles throatily in her ear, reaching down to fix Lena’s very displaced skirt. “Eat your food so I can eat you.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s an atrocious pickup line.”
“Maybe, but you’re falling for it.”
A shiver rolls up Lena’s spine, and she arches, pushing her ass back into Kara’s pelvis, equally unable and unwilling to deny that assertion as Kara’s lips trail down her neck, so she decides instead to play along.
“Don’t I taste better than Nutella French toast?” she teases breathily.
“You know you do,” Kara growls. “Wanna try?”
Before she has a chance to respond, Kara’s fingers are dragging lazily across Lena’s lips, so she opts to just take them into her mouth rather than respond verbally. The gasp that Kara emits is all Lena needs as encouragement to continue with increased vigor, letting her tongue trace every single ridge and wrinkle of Kara’s fingers, sucking her own wetness off each millimeter.
“No fair,” Kara whines. “You can’t tease me when I’m supposed to be teasing you.”
Lena chuckles around Kara’s fingers before slipping them from her mouth.
“You started it.”
“Nuh uh,” she protests. “You started it this morning when you promised me sex rewards if I made it through my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And I did, even though I spent most of it picturing you naked.”
Kara sighs fondly, then buries her nose in Lena’s hair.
“I kept thinking of how hard you squeeze my fingers when you’re about to finish,” she breathes into raven hair. “And that time the other night, when you took four, and you squeezed me so tight I thought you’d never let go.”
Lena whimpers. “Kara, please—”
“Nope. I had to wait for my reward, so you hafta wait for yours.”
A sudden, strange feeling washes over her: guilt, she realizes. It’s one of two emotions she is capable of recognizing immediately—the other being anger—and she turns in Kara’s embrace, taking her confused, eyebrow-crinkled face in her hands and conveying sincerely.
“I’m sorry your day was hard because of me.”
Kara’s eyebrow crinkle, if possible, deepens. “I was joking. I mean—I didn’t mean—”
“I’m not talking about turning your thoughts X-rated with my pillow talk,” Lena cuts her off. “I’m talking about the fact that I had to promise you a reward to begin with, because I turned your life into a hellhole.”
After an extended moment in which she does little more than faintly frown while studying every inch of Lena’s face, Kara eventually reaches out to stroke a pale, prominent cheekbone with her thumb.
“Have you heard from her?”
“Thankfully, no,” she snorts back. “But frankly, I’m glad. If Andrea reached out, well. I’m sure my mugshot would be plastered all over the news, by now.”
“Somehow I think you’d still look hot even in a mugshot,” Kara murmurs. “But I don’t think you’d stoop so low. I think you’d take the high road, not let her get to you. I’ve seen you do it before.”
Lena bites the inside of her cheek, diverting her gaze to Kara’s clavicle, taking a step back to separate herself from their touch. “That was when it was just between me and her. But…it’s different now.”
She darts her eyes up just long enough to catch the confusion set deep into Kara’s face before darting them to the floor.
“I can take care of myself,” Kara asserts, and it’s tender and kind, but it still grates on Lena’s last nerve.
“I know you can,” she gnaws out. “But it kills me that you have to, and I don’t want to merely support you in this thing I was partially responsible for. I want to take the burden off you, to lift you, to fix it. All I want is to fix it for you, and I know that’s impossible and irrational but it’s my first impulse when I hear that you’re in distress, so…”
She trails off, suddenly aware that she actually has no idea what she wants to say next. So she stops, hoping Kara will speak and thus give her something to respond to, but regretfully, Kara instead prompts her to continue.
“What?” she whispers. “So what?”
Lena feels her throat constricting. “So it hurts that I caused this, but I can’t fix it.”
Kara sucks in a sharp breath, closing the distance between them, but notably not touching Lena.
“You didn’t cause it,” she states matter-of-factly. “And there’s nothing to fix. Yeah, it sucks, but…I wouldn’t trade it. If given the choice between dealing with this or not having you in my life, the choice is easy.”
Pouting, Lena splays her hand over the firm flesh of Kara’s right pectoral. “It’s difficult to argue with you when you’re all charming like that.”
One corner of Kara’s mouth curls into a smile. “Tell that to Nia. She wants me to start a new, public Instagram called DaddyDanvers and post nothing but thirst traps of me, like, holding animals, or after the gym.”
A shiver rolls down her spine, and she dances her fingers across Kara’s chest to undo the top button of her oxford. “Hmm. Perhaps I should offer her a full-time job at the end of her internship, after all.”
Kara snorts. “Don’t encourage her. She’s a menace.”
Lena just hums in acknowledgement, tucking her hand inside Kara’s shirt, returning it to its spot on her chest. Kara responds in turn, finally reaching down and curling her hand low on Lena’s hip, so she leans into it, resting her chin on Kara’s shoulder. They remain like that for an extended moment, and then Kara lets her other hand cup the back of Lena’s neck, absently playing with the baby hairs at her nape.
“Thank you,” she murmurs.
“For what?” Lena whispers back.
“Best Pride ever.”
“We’ve already thanked each other for that.”
“I know,” Kara whines. “Still, I’d rather be redundant than worry you don’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt how I really feel.”
Lena chuckles. “Well then let me remind you that this was, by hundreds of thousands of miles, the best Pride I’ve ever had, and that I appreciate you, sweet girl, for coercing me into it.”
Kara huffs. “I like when you call me that.”
Feeling her heart warm, Lena smiles to herself. “Yeah? You do?”
“Mmhmm,” she responds simply. “I also like it when you eat.”
Lena arches an eyebrow. “I like it when you eat, as well.”
Kara’s jaw drops, unfettered glee twinkling in her eyes. “Did…did you just make a dirty joke?”
“Yes, well,” Lena purrs. “Something must have inspired me.”
Kara wrinkles her nose. “Fine,” she acquiesces. “But just once, and then you have to eat.”
Lena grins lasciviously, pulling Kara by the collar toward her desk, letting out a smug chuckle when, after she sits in her chair, Kara immediately sinks to her knees in front of her.
It’s lucky she ordered a salad, or her food would have gone very, very cold by the time she finally got around to eating it.
----
Kara starts falling asleep in her chair around midnight.
She keeps insisting that she isn’t asleep, but. Lena has eyes, and no matter how much those eyes should still be stubbornly focused on her work responsibilities, she knows that Kara is asleep, and despite Kara’s insistences that she can take care of herself, Lena sends her home in an Uber.
She then pours herself a healthy glass of scotch and continues to fail at paying attention to her work responsibilities. Instead, she leans back in her desk chair, revels in the memories of the sordid acts so recently performed in and around its presence, and stares into the middle distance of the National City skyline, wondering how the hell she managed to get so lucky.
She’s never let someone in so deep.
Hell, it took Andrea years, and even that was less by virtue of Lena’s permission and more the result of constant, low-grade weaseling on Andrea’s part. After enough years of being gradually worn down, your resolve to keep secrets becomes too exhausting to be worth it—and Lena’s resolve to keep secrets knows almost no bounds. Except for that with Kara, there is no resolve. There’s no wearing-down, no weaseling. Kara merely exists, and Lena just tells her things, and then Kara just likes her anyway.
There’s something inherently wrong in that equation, if you ask Lena.
She’s told Kara more than she’s ever told anyone other than Andrea, and Kara has yet to use it against her in a single way.
…She’s told Kara more than she’s ever told anyone other than Andrea, and Kara has yet to use it against her in any single way.
This is what the scientific method is for, and sure, she sleeps only two hours on her office couch that night, but Lena knows how she can test her hypothesis, and that’s worth a week of sleep, in her mind.
----
Like clockwork, Sam barges into her office at five o’clock sharp Tuesday afternoon, wholly unannounced while simultaneously being eternally expected.
“So,” she begins without preamble or pleasantry, dividing her attention between Lena and finishing a text message. “I know we love the Tower, and we love Daddy, obviously, but to be honest and a little selfish, I wouldn’t mind some one-on-one Lena time, just because we have so much to gossip about, so I was thinking we could go—”
“I…need to tell you something,” Lena blurts, and Sam furrows her brows, immediately tucking her phone away.
“What’s wrong?”
“You need to know something about me,” she begins cautiously. “Something that…may or may not affect the way you see me, and think about me, but—I can’t bear to keep it from you anymore, I can’t bear to—you should know. You deserve to know.”
“Lena, you’re scaring me.”
“Lionel is my biological father,” Lena states matter-of-factly. “Before her trial, Lillian told me the truth. He had an affair with my mother, my real mother, and covered it up. Had her shipped back to Ireland when she was still pregnant with me, but when she died, word got back to him, and he forced Lillian to take me in. I’m not a sad, orphaned charity case unwittingly subjected to a life with the Luthors—I am a Luthor.”
Sam tilts her head, studying her friend. “She’s such a manipulative fucking cunt.”
Bewildered, Lena blinks. “…What?”
“She told you that before her trial? Jesus. I bet she played the fucking victim, too, yeah? Acted like Lionel’s affair hurt her oh-so-much and that’s why she treated you like vermin your whole life? Christ on a cracker, if I’m ever in the same room with her again, I swear—”
“Sam,” Lena interjects firmly. “You heard what I just told you, yes?”
There’s a brief pause, and then Sam sets down her purse, crossing over to Lena and placing her hands on the shorter woman’s shoulders.
“My parents had me when they were nineteen,” she says softly, compassionately. “My dad fucked off before my first birthday, never to be heard from again. My mom stayed, but only out of obligation, not actual desire to raise me. And when I was seventeen, and pregnant, and terrified, and I told her as much, she kicked me out. Because she hadn’t even wanted to raise me, let alone raise me and my kid. So I was on my own, at seventeen, with no role model for how to be a stable, real parent. Do you know how many times I doubted myself? How many times I thought—but nothing had ever mattered more to me than proving I could be better. I knew I had options, and trust me, I considered them. Especially once Ruby’s dad made it clear he didn’t want any responsibility beyond paying for an abortion I wasn’t sure I wanted, because call me crazy but as soon as the stupid little pee stick told me I was pregnant I was in love. I loved an eight-week-old collection of cells more than either of my parents ever loved me in my fully formed human self, and I was seventeen and stupid and out to prove a point and it was the greatest decision I ever made. Ruby is the best decision anyone has ever made in the whole history of existence.”
Lena’s lower lip quivers. “What’s your point?”
“You are not your blood,” Sam underscores. “My parents hated me from the moment they learned about me. My mother begrudgingly took up the task of raising me, just like Lionel and Lillian did for you. Does that mean I’m destined to be a horrible mother?”
“You’re the best mother in the world,” Lena scoffs. “What’s your point?”
“We are not defined by the fuckers we’re related to,” Sam concludes. “We are defined by how we learn from the fuckers we’re related to, and how we respond to the fuckers we’re related to, and I’m pretty sure even the people who lost loved ones due to the actions of Lex and Lillian don’t hate them half as much as you do, so will you stop acting like you’re the devil incarnate because you share some DNA with a couple of psychopaths who tried to kill you and come get drunk with me?”
Instinctively, Lena lunges forward and wraps Sam in a giant, close hug, burying her face into the crook of the taller woman’s neck, and Sam tenses for a moment before awkwardly returning the gesture.
“Are you…okay?”
And Lena’s not surprised this is her response; they aren’t usually so affectionate with each other. They hug hello and goodbye, occasionally put hands on forearms or knees or shoulders, but it’s all casual and fleeting. They don’t comfort each other like this, and never have, and it’s for no clear reason other than the fact that they simply never have. Even during the weeks following an Andrea breakup, when Sam would spend the occasional night in Lena’s penthouse, and they’d get sloppy drunk together, they usually did so from opposite ends of the couch. It was merely the way their relationship had been established.
But now, Lena is fully enclosed around Sam in such a way that Sam has no option but to return the favor, and though it’s unfamiliar at the beginning, they ease into it quite quickly.
“It’s okay,” Sam coos. “I got you. M’not goin’ anywhere. I know who you are, and I’m not about to get scared away from my best friend because of her lineage.”
Lena inhales shakily, but doesn’t respond.
“Besides, I mean. All I’m hearing from this is Lillian still isn’t your mom, so. I’m still convinced her genes are the evil ones. Maybe Lionel was actually the unsung hero, you know? Lex and Lillian didn’t do any mass murders till after he croaked, right? I think there’s something to explore there.”
“He was a miserable, abusive alcoholic,” Lena murmurs, but doesn’t expand, and Sam doesn’t force her to. She just, unexpectedly, tightens her grip.
“You haven’t hugged me like this since he died.”
Automatically, Lena bristles at the mention. She and Sam were nearly a decade away from knowing each other when Lionel died, so there’s only one ‘he’ this could be about, but Lena still doesn’t necessarily follow the plot, here.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t expect you to remember,” she snorts. “It was after his funeral. I sat with you the whole time. Andrea was nowhere to be seen, of course, so afterwards I came home with you, so you wouldn’t be alone. I think you said six words the whole night, but in fairness, your mouth was pretty busy drinking an entire bottle of scotch. Then when you were done, you just sort of…fell over? I helped you to bed, and you asked me to stay, so I played big spoon all night while you played that super depressing song on repeat until your phone died.”
Lena winces. “Jack loved The Smiths.”
“Of course he did,” Sam chortles.
Then, there’s a pause. It’s a weighted pause, one which grows exponentially with every second until Sam finally sucks in a breath through her nose and says:
“You said his name.”
Lena pulls away, then fully turns away from Sam, all in one abrupt movement. She crosses her arms over her chest, looking out at the skyline views her vast office windows provide and deliberately ignoring the slight reflection of her best friend’s confusion that is visible on said windows.
“I’ve been so afraid to get close to anyone,” she muses. “And when I stay up too late at night and my thoughts drift to it, I…well, I blame Andrea. I blame Lex. I blame the people who I loved who hurt me and who colonize my thoughts as a result. I don’t even consider it might have something to do with the people who hurt too much to think about.”
Sam takes a deep breath, and she mimics Lena’s posture, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking one hip out.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asks softly, compassionately.
Lena bites her lip, averting her eyes briefly to the floor before darting them back up to the reflection of Sam’s face, calling upon all her Lillian- and patriarchy-enforced training to keep her composure enough to get out the next words.
“Jack withheld information from me,” she states matter-of-factly. Sounding almost detached, as if she could be. “It wasn’t…exclusively my fault, that I couldn’t save him.”
Then, the breath leaves her lungs in one, solid umph when Sam lunges forward to wrap her in a firm, strong hug from behind.
“Samantha.”
“Did I not tell you that mind-blowing sex would heal all your wounds?”
Lena huffs out a tiny laugh, laying her hands atop Sam's forearms. “You wanna know the worst thing? It isn’t just sex.”
“I know, babe,” Sam tuts. “You love her.”
Lena blanches. “Let’s not get crazy.”
Sam pecks a cheeky kiss to Lena’s temple. “You’re opening up about your emotions. To me. While sober. She’s unlocked something in you, and personally, I’m all for it.”
“Speaking of sobriety…”
“Yes, yes,” she sighs. “Happy hour calls to us like a siren on the sea. But Lee?”
“What, Samantha?”
“I know it’s sappy and gross and the last thing you want to hear,” Sam preludes while turning Lena in her arms, even squatting slightly so they can directly meet eyes. “But I love you, and I’m so, so proud of you in a way only a mother can be, even though I’m acutely aware I’m not your mother, because I’m way too young and hot to be your mother.”
Lena can’t help herself; she laughs, and she reaches out to stroke a thumb across Sam’s cheekbone.
“Please tell me you at least had chaotic break-up sex with that soccer mom of yours while you were stuck in a hotel in Sacramento chaperoning teenagers.”
Sam smirks. “I had such chaotic break-up sex with that soccer mom. She’s already texted me three times today.”
“You’re such a fuck boy.”
“I am how God made me.”
Lena smiles. “Let’s not go to the Tower, okay? I wanna spend time with my best friend. Just us. Is that okay?”
Sam continues to smirk as she boops Lena’s nose. “Always, babe.”