Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jessica Hoang takes her job very seriously. It’s odd, or uncommon, as she’s learned- people are always so surprised when she seems more loyal to Lena Luthor than the advancement of her own career. She used to think that the whole trope of secretaries selling out their bosses for personal gain existed only in bad TV shows, but, as always, she overestimates the human race.

It’s disgustingly easy- a businessman will walk out of Lena’s office, lean over Jess’s desk with a charming smile, and ask her out to dinner as if she’s supposed to believe that he genuinely wants her company(with the occasional but not occasional enough racial comment on how lovely her Asian features are). She smiles back, suffers through the dinner where he most likely talks about himself the entire way through (those that don’t at first easily grapple onto Jess’s faked interest in their lives), or prods about Lena (she offers up lukewarm answers that don’t hint either way,) then leads her back to his apartment, and she excuses herself to the bathroom to tap into his network and send Lena all the relevant files to either destroy him or blackmail him.

She was picked up from the IT department, after all. Coming out of the bathroom in a panic saying that Lena’s looking for her is always enough to get them to pale and almost throw her out of his apartment.

She’d feel more bad if it doesn’t always turn out that he had some scheme or another to ruin Lena that he was planning to use Jess in.

It’s a little odd, she supposes, for her to be so loyal to L-Corp, but she is- and she always will be as long as Lena Luthor is at the head of the company. In this realm where words are weapons and the slightest misstep in an expression can be catastrophic, Lena is without so much as a proper family and Jess will not throw her to the sharks.

(She knows how hard it is, to fight every day of your life with words and appearances and making sure you don’t hint at any weaknesses because your enemies can smell the blood. Going to school as an immigrant girl in a white community was… interesting, to say the least)

So when Kara Danvers the reporter starts showing up more often, she’s wary and a little irritated. Yes, Lena said to let her in at any time, so she does so dutifully, but she’s seen her share of reporters and she’s not impressed with the bunch. Words are their trade, and it wouldn’t take much to motivate a reporter to twist Lena’s image around for a pretty buck.

“Miss Luthor, I’m sorry to interrupt- your four o’ clock has been cancelled,” she says, laying a file onto Lena’s desk. Kara Danvers stops whatever she was saying with animated gestures and opts to fiddle with her glasses instead. “Mr. Talbot had an emergency and had to fly back to Britain. He left this for you.”

“Thank you, Jess,” Lena breathes, holding the papers up for inspection, lips pressed in a thin line. It’s probably the contract they’d been discussing for a while. “Do you know what kind of emergency…?”

“His daughter’s condition took a turn for the worse,” she says, and Lena frowns at the confirmation of the unspoken question. “I’ve already arranged for a stuffed ball python doll to be sent to her, if you could sign off on it today.”

“You made sure it’s hypoallergenic?”

“Of course. And if I may,” Jess starts, toeing carefully as always, because Lena Luthor is a private person with sensitive feelings and an titanium emotional wall that snaps up fast enough to bruise anyone who toes too close. “A handwritten card may be a nice touch.”

Lena seems to consider it before taking one of her pens to sign the contract with a sigh.

“Yes, it would. Thank you, Jess.”

Jess nods as she leaves the office, hearing the conversation trail on again behind her.

“I’m sorry about that, Kara, a business associate of mine has a daughter…”

And Jess wonders defensively if Kara Danvers will question Lena, see the response as sycophantic, taking advantage of a difficult situation for business purposes. (And it is, to a degree, but most of Lena’s moves have to keep business in mind and someone like Kara Danvers doesn’t understand what it takes to navigate the cold, predatory world that Lena has to live in.)

She turns around briefly to close the door behind her and catches the brilliant smile Lena’s giving; one that she’s only seen once or twice on the rare occasion, and never without the influence of alcohol. Worry twists robustly in her gut.

Not because she’s jealous or anything- because jesus, that’s weird to even think about, god no- but because Lena has her guard down around Kara Danvers and that’s dangerous. Because it takes one change of heart on the reporter’s behalf to have all of Lena’s world crashing down, and Lena won’t see it coming.

Jess can sort of see why, though- Kara Danvers has that sunny smile, that clumsy persona who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and the blonde but not too blonde hair just finishes the look. But looks can be deceiving and Jess fusses over her papers to distract herself from the fact that, as it is now, Kara Danvers could seriously hurt Lena (sensitive Lena Luthor, who so rarely puts her guard down, Lena Luthor who rambles to Jess in the car about how Emily likes snakes, isn’t that cute? Isn’t that unique for a girl her age?  Hopefully Emily gets better soon, and can Jess check their investments on medical advancements for her?)

Jess knows Lena Luthor has thick skin. But Kara Danvers has gotten under that and, well. She tells herself she can’t be blamed for the slightly accusatory look she gives Kara Danvers as the reporter is leaving for the elevator.

“What’s this?”

Jess laughs as Lena frowns at the Tupperware.

“Thanksgiving food?”

“For me?” Lena’s brow raises incredulously and Jess fights the urge to roll her eyes.

“Seeing as how I put it in your office fridge, I would say so, Miss Luthor,” she can’t help but tease a little, watching Lena roll her eyes at her now. “Would you like me to prepare a plate for you for lunch?”

“Yes- wait- why?”

Lena isn’t one to trip over her words and it… It’s a little sad, really, when Jess watches her boss stare at the Tupperware as if it’s some new machinery that breaks her understanding of physics.

So Jess stands there, wringing her hands, as she tries to find the right words,

(because Lena is still her boss and she needs to be careful not to step on any toes)

“I don’t really celebrate thanksgiving,” Jess says, and laughs, because when she landed in the states as a child it seemed like such a random holiday and never anything more than a long weekend for her family, “But I figured I would flex my cooking skills a little.”

She doesn’t say the real reason out loud- I saw the dinner invitation from your mother, she seems like a real bitch and put all these conditions between the lines and I just wanted you to have a nice meal to yourself, no strings attached- because she knows that Lena Luthor is all fresh bruises under the polished steel exterior, and Jess is really no good with words or comfort. She doesn’t know how to tell someone that things are going to be okay, because she knows how fake it sounds, how much she would hate to hear that from someone else, how everyone else says it to Lena as trite consolation but she doesn’t know how else to comfort someone.

No one knows if it’s going to be okay. I know that right now it just hurts and there’s nothing that can be done to make it go away. I can understand how it feels and I don’t want to minimize that. It’s okay to be sad.

All of it sounds so…. Defeated. She doesn’t know how to make a meaningful contribution so she just keeps her mouth shut, lets Lena survive as she always does, and provides whatever the CEO doesn’t think to provide for herself (and that’s a lot sometimes, because Lena doesn’t think very highly of herself in certain aspects.)

“I… Thank you, Jess,” she says, hesitantly, looking unsure, and Jess thinks maybe Lena Luthor doesn’t know how to thank people without ulterior motives, or that she hates navigating around rituals of consolation as well. So Jess just smiles, nods, and doesn’t ask questions as she gives Lena her space, as always.

Jess is still working when Lena comes back to the office at 11pm, and they both stare at each other like deer in headlights.

“Miss Luthor,” Jess goes first, “what are you doing here? It’s late, you should be home.”

“I was just- speak for yourself,” Lena sighs, laughing a little, and it sounds kind of ragged and she seems so tired and Jess wonders what happened to make Lena Luthor sag a little in her coat. “People are going to think I overwork you.”

The joke falls a little flat. “People think a lot of things. I still needed to file for the repairs and the press release.”

She looks up at Lena in a what’s-your-excuse kind of way, but her boss doesn’t say much, staring off a little blankly and Jess is worried because Lena Luthor, even when upset, is always so sharp.

“Well, the heater is still on in your office, Miss Luthor. I’m here if you need me.”

Lena nods and retreats into her office, and Jess frets in silence until Kara Danvers comes bursting out of the elevator.

“Jess,” she breathes, hands wringing. “Is Lena here?”

And like that Jess is on the defensive. Something definitely happened- a reporter faking concern to get a scoop on Lena isn’t new.

Thing is, Lena knows well enough to politely direct them away. But Lena trusts Kara Danvers far too much, and Jess can’t let some blue-eyed reporter spin a story for her own gain and-

“She’s not available, Miss Danvers, I can book you in for tomorrow if you want-“

“Please,” Kara says, putting her hands on Jess’s desk and frowning, pleading. “I need to see her.”

It a test of will. Jess stares back hard as Kara Danvers stays there, firmly planted, her eyes saying that she’s not going to go anywhere until she sees Lena.

“Any questions you want to ask tomorrow, Miss Danvers, or at a press conference if it’s that important. Miss Luthor is unavailable tonight.”

She does her best impression of hammering the last nail in a coffin with her glare as she starts typing without looking at her screen.

Kara Danvers, to her credit, has the decency to look confused, and then offended.

“What- No, I’m not- I’m not here to interview her, I’m here as a friend.”

Friend. She says it so… emphatically, brows furrowed, lips going through the full motions around the word as if she means every single syllable. For a second Jess wonders that maybe, maybe Kara Danvers is telling the truth, that no one can be that good at acting, but the decision is taken out of her hands when Lena opens the door to her office.

“Kara?” She breathes, as if she’s stranded and just found a light in the distance: fearful, unsure, hopeful. “What are you- how?”

“Supergirl told me,” Kara says, and Jess notes that the reporter knows Supergirl, and that her hands are reaching forward haltingly, as if she wants to hold Lena and she’s waiting for permission. “Lena, I’m so- are you okay? No, of course you’re not, that’s stupid, I’m sorry-“

Kara takes a step forward to offer a hug and Jess looks away dutifully. She doesn’t know if she’s surprised or not to hear the rustle Lena accepting the hug. Lena leads Kara into her office, and Jess worries, but maybe a little less.

Because a hug is so- so intimate, friendly, a cloyingly extravagant gesture of sympathy, and yet from Kara Danvers it’s like sunlit honey and so goddamn genuine at face value, the way that she waits for permission, leaves herself vulnerable first before asking for openness in exchange. An hour later she hears Lena laugh through the doors and she finally thinks it’s okay to pack up and go home for the night.

And when the headlines hit the next morning, Jess is booking a meeting on the board to issue a statement and she notices that there’s no word from CatCo, no gossip, no conjecture, no breach of trust or intimacy.

Jess thinks, for the first time, that maybe this girl is for real.

Sunny Kara Danvers bursts out of the elevator again with two coffees in hand, unannounced, and Jess is already rehearsing what to do if Lena’s one o’ clock appointment comes early.

“Hi Jess,” Kara says, shifting the two coffees in her hand. “Is Lena in?”

“Yes- is that a caramel macchiato?” Jess asks, hand halfway to her intercom, catching the writing on one of the cups.

“Oh,” Kara lifts up the cup to glance at it. “Yup. Lena’s usual.”

Jess feels her own eyes bulge out at Kara’s bright, self-assured smile.

Lena’s usual. Caramel.

“Miss Luthor, Kara Danvers is here,” she says into the mic, a little blankly, trying to process the information.

“Send her in,” is the reply, as always, and Jess hears how happy Lena is to see Kara through the doors and she just feels like she’s been turned into a living incarnation of a question mark.

Lena Luthor despises caramel. Like, really, really hates the stuff. Jess can’t imagine that she likes Kara Danvers enough to stomach a whole drink of it but when Jess goes in later to hand Lena her mail there’s an empty Starbucks cup sitting innocuously in her small wastebin and Jess leaves the office a little bit concerned.

Apparently, Kara Danvers has Lena Luthor wrapped around her finger. In no world is this good news- but Jess remembers Lena’s laugh, now knowing that it was only an hour after Lillian Luthor’s arrest, and hopes, just a little tiny bit, that there’s a chance this won’t end in a very publicized disaster.

Chapter Text

She doesn’t see Kara Danvers for the next while after that for some reason or another, possibly because the reporter is probably busy covering the hostile alien colony setting up shop in the Mojave. She’s out getting herself a coffee when it happens—same shit, different day.

“Hey there,” the guys says, leaning over, smiling because he thinks he’s being charming and Jess tries to have faith but she knows what’s coming. “Where are you from?”

That’s what he opens with? She tries not to groan as she leans against the barista counter, waiting. She’s from Metropolis, lived there since she was ten, but she knows “where are you from” is code for “what the fuck are you because you’re obviously not from here” so she opens her mouth, tries to be polite, when he cuts her off.

“Wait, no, let me guess,” he says wit a huge grin, like he’s at a circus and she’s a guessing game booth. “Chinese?”

“Hong Kong,” she says, dryly, praying her coffee comes soon.  

“Ah ha, I knew it, you’ve got the look,” he says gleefully, gesturing to her eyes, as if he knows the difference between Asian eyes.

Congrats, you win, here’s your prize, go away.

She gives him a painful smile as the barista finally hands her her coffee, walking away as fast as she can despite his awkward attempt at a ‘bye’ and she catches what his shirt says before she’s out of the café.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

The thought of the big ‘S’ gives her a headache as she boards the elevator to the top floor. Oh yes, the Supers are so relentlessly American, aren’t they? Being aliens and all. Jess wonders what Supergirl’s day job is, for a moment. How effortlessly she would blend in with her blonde hair and blue eyes, not anyone any wiser that she’s not from here.

She’s re-filing one of Lena’s cabinets when Supergirl herself barges in through the balcony door and nearly gives her a heart attack.

“Miss Hoang,” the superhero breaths, and Jess wonders how the hell she knows her name. “Is Lena here?”

Lena. Jess grits her teeth a little at the little slip, the little notion of Supergirl knowing Lena well enough to be on a first-name basis, and though she knows she should be happy that Lena is trusted she wonders if Supergirl knows how much pain it causes Lena to see that damned logo, every time.

Jess knows. Jess sees the way that Lena scrolls down her tablet faster every time she’s forced to look at the logo, or the way she turns her daily newspaper over when the darling superhero has a cover picture- Jess sees the way that Lena leaves room for herself to feel the inevitable resentment for the symbol lest it eat away at what little hope she has left.

“Not at the moment,” she says briskly, closing a drawer a little more sharply than she intended. “I can take your message for her.”

She glances at Supergirl quickly and feels smugness and bitterness smoke in her chest in equal measure at how taken aback the blonde looks. Of course she isn’t used to coldness or acerbic comments from ordinary people, they’re supposed to worship her.

“Oh- uh, well, it’s, a little bit confidential,” Supergirl says, crossing her arms and shifting her weight.

“Then you can try again later. Miss Luthor is a very busy woman.” Jess snaps another cabinet open and fingers through the files, not looking at that- self-righteous alien who just walks around thinking that she’s welcomed anywhere, who doesn’t stop to think about what her presence means. “As I’m sure you are as well.”

Supergirl coughs at the dry comment, shifting again. “Right,” she says, a little awkwardly, and Jess can see the blue and red swishing for the balcony door out of the corner of her eye.

“Well, then, have a nice day, Miss Hoang.”

She doesn’t bother with an answer, instead just wallowing in that shameful sense of self-assurance that comes when you do something for the sake of petty satisfaction. She knows, oh she knows, the aggression isn’t really deserved, she knows she’s being a bitch but it infuriates her how Supergirl just struts about, entitled to all the space in the world. She hates how she can just walk around, unaware of how it feels to live in this world with pre-packaged judgements tattooed onto your skin- and Jess hates how this isn’t entirely about Lena and what she goes through every time she has to look at the Super logo.

She grips the white metal cabinet until it bites into her palms. It’s not fair. Supergirl is supposed to be an alien, an outsider, just like her, and yet Jess is the one who has to tread lightly on her own planet.

 “You don’t belong here,” “You’re not one of us,” the world reminds her every day and she lives with that, the multiple consequences of her race lives alongside her every second, muted at times but never gone, like a shadow. Except, it doesn’t follow her around on the ground, it’s painted all over her skin, ingrained in the rise of her cheekbones and encoded in the black-brown of her eyes.

And Supergirl, the alien, the outsider from a presumably uncountable number of lightyears away, walks on earth adored, immediately accepted as American—an identity that Jess has to fight for every day— blending in by virtue of her blonde hair and darling blue eyes.

She slumps over the files, suddenly exhausted. She doesn’t- she doesn’t like thinking about this. She prefers when she can just file it away in the back of her head like an annoying clause in her life, not the suffocating knowledge that her home has become a not-home from a decade of absence and the home she’s made here will never really welcome her.

She finishes filing in silence and goes back to her desk, forwarding emails and maybe testing the firewall for kicks when she runs out of things to do.

Her desk phone rings.

“Hello, this is Lena Luthor’s office, how can I help you?”

“Didn’t I tell you not to come in today?”

Jess laughs.

“And I told you not to hole up in your hotel room working during your emergency trip to Hawai’i, but here we are.”

There’s a pause where Jess is pretty sure her boss is considering denying it, but it still stands that Lena can’t have known that Jess is working today if she weren’t as well.

Lena scoffs on the other end. “Touché, I suppose. You know you have an absurd amount of paid vacation stacked up, right?”

“You can chastise me when you’ve taken more than a week off work over the course of a year, Miss Luthor.”

Jess can practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“In any case, don’t stay too late. And you don’t need to come in tomorrow, either—I’ll be landing late that evening. Can you arrange for a car to pick me up?”

“Already done.”

“Of course,” she chuckles, almost fondly—Jess lets herself smile.

“Will you be needing anything else?”

“No, that’s it. I’ll see you on Wednesday. And Jess,” she pauses for gravity, “I better not see you online on the network tomorrow.”

“You won’t if you go out and enjoy the beach.”

“Please, I’d burn in the shade.”

“It’s winter.”

“My point still stands,” Lena says, laughing at herself good-naturedly. “Seriously. Go home, Jess.”

“Yes, Miss Luthor.”

It’s Christmas Eve. Jess is arranging food around Lena’s desk, still fresh and hot on her chilled fingers—she ran back from the restaurant just now, loathe to stay in the cold any longer. Lena’s in the hall on some phone call and Jess wonders who the hell else is working that day.

“Sorry about that, Jess.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

They sit across from each other, and Jess nearly laughs at how absurd it seems—acting CEO and assistant, having Christmas dinner together in their office. Not that she minds, really—Lex Luthor is still under police custody while they investigate and Lillian is being more of a bitch than usual; it’s not the first time Lena’s skipped out on a Luthor Holiday Gala, and Jess has a feeling it won’t be the last.

 “I really don’t mind if you head home, Jess,” Lena says as she piles some of the takeout on her plate. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

Jess laughs. “Would it be sad if I told you I’d rather spend time with my boss than have to see my brother?”

Lena chuckles. “I’d tell you the exact same thing.”

There’s a wistfulness in her laugh and Jess doesn’t really dwell on it. They’re in the same boat, mostly. Jess appreciates the company, as odd as it may be. She’s been with Lena the entire time since Lex’s arrest and the board’s subsequent dumping of responsibilities on Lena, and god knows they both deserve a break from the insanity of bad press and plummeting stocks.

“Don’t you have a fiancé to go home to?”

Jess shrugs. “He couldn’t get time off like he wanted. We’re having dinner tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

The silence is comfortable, familiar- both of them are very good at making conversation when need be, but neither actually enjoy it.

Lena finishes chewing a mouthful and sighs. Jess looks up to find her staring out the window.

“Food not good?” She asks, softly, treading. Lena glances back at her, shaking her head.

“What? Oh, no—the food is fine, thank you, Jess.”

“Is something wrong?”

 “What isn’t these days?” she laughs, shaking her head.

Jess winces sympathetically. “We’ll get through it.”

The ‘we’ is more them as Luthercorp, but Jess leaves it open to interpretation because, well. She could have bailed when things went south. But she’s not that kind of person.

“Not if we stay here,” Lena says, staring out the window at the glittering snowglobe-esque view of Metropolis. “Too many people are too close to what happened. We’re never going to get back any sort of footing here.”

Jess is quiet, because she knows a politer person would have simply reassured Lena, but she knows it’s true. She’s smart enough to see how doomed the efforts are and she’s not going to insult Lena by pretending she’s not.

“If we move the company, the press is going to follow us, but there’s a better chance of it blowing over. More people will have less personal stake in what happened, more willing to give Luthercorp a chance,” she continues, gaining momentum the way she does when she’s talking out ideas to herself. “We can’t stay here.”

“Where were you thinking we’d go?”

Lena looks back at her, because Jess still said ‘we’.

“National City.”

The biggest city on the West Coast, the only place big enough to generate any kind of revenue for a corporation but still far enough away. Very far away.

“We can start winning back the public there. There’s already a building—we just have to repurpose some of the floors for R&D. Get rid of the stigma.” Lena folds her hands in her lap, leaning back in her seat, fire in her voice. “Rename the company. Sever the bad associations.”

Jess gulps.

“Is this a notice of termination or a job offer?”

Lena smiles wryly.

“Well, this isn’t how I planned to tell you.” She sighs. “You’d get your own desk, big enough to have all your IT setup there. Fifty percent salary raise.”

Jess just stares for a moment, and Lena finally starts to fidget a little.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, with your fiancé and all, I understand completely if—“

“Are you kidding?” Jess breathes. “That’s—that’s amazing.”

She could pay off her student loans, buy a condo for herself and Jack.

Lena smiles brilliantly.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Jack’s always wanted to go to California, anyway.”

“Jess! You’re home!”

Jess tiredly kicks the door shut behind her, sighing. Spending her first winter away from Metropolis in years is- weird, really, because she feels that natural aversion to having to walk home but always finds that it’s just not as painfully cold as she’s expecting it to be, like missing a step at the bottom of a staircase.

Two pairs of kitten eyes stare at her, one from her actual kitten and one from her neighbor and friend and part-time catsitter.

Peebee blinks, the film under her eyelids slicking over her eyes that are mostly pupil and iris that contract vertically just like a cat’s, except that her barely visible sclera is black. Both of their pupils are dilated round in the darker night ambience and Jess’s cat jumps from Peebee’s blue hands.

“Hey, baby,” Jess coos, sitting down to take her boots off as Marco headbutts every inch of her that he can get, trilling happily. “Thanks for watching him again, Peebee.”

Peebee laughs at the Marco’s spectacle of affection. “I should be thanking you, really, he’s so lovely.”

Jess snorts.

“Lovely is a strong word,” she says, petting Marco as he purrs in blissful ignorance. “I’m glad you think so.”

“If I could afford him, I’d steal him from you,” Peebee teases, sticking out her forked tongue as she resettles on Jess’s couch. “How was work?”

“Same old. A bit boring when my workaholic boss isn’t around,” she laughs, dropping her bag and coat by the couch and collapsing on it herself. “How was Marco?”

“Same old,” Peebee grins as the cat joins them. “He kind of peed on his foot though.”

“Gross.”

“Right? And he acted like I was the horrible one when I was bathing him.”

Jess laughs. She looks over to notice the TV flickering blue.

“What were you watching?” she asks absently, purring a still squirming Marco.

“Oh!” Peebee lights up like she does when she gets the opportunity to talk about things she loves, webbed ears perking up. Jess finds herself absurdly fond of the quiet clicks of her blinking eyes and slight excited hiss-lisp. “A Supergirl documentary. Did you know she can see up to three miles with her x-ray vision?”

Jess sours a little, because she usually likes listening to Peebee ranting about things, usually some new software or another, but this isn’t really something she wants to listen to.

“—thousand metric tons—Jess?” Peebee stops in the middle of flailing gestures. “What’s wrong?”

Jess considers not saying anything, but it wouldn’t work anyway. Peebee’s vision is especially attuned to slight changes in facial expression, and apparently her skin is webbed with some sort of tele-empathy thing—Peebee’s always been able to sense minor changes in emotion.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Jess asks, frowning as she stares at the blue of her TV. “How she can just… blend in?”

Peebee tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

Jess sighs. “I mean, you have to stay home, try to find online jobs, cover yourself in clothing to even go out to get groceries, and there she is, all… blonde and pretty and accepted.” Jess looks over at Peebee. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

The alien seems to think about it for a moment, worrying her purple knuckles, ears flattening and moving.

“I never really thought about it like that,” she admits quietly. “Maybe it’s just—nice, you know? Seeing her out there, helping people, being able to put herself out there. She’s so strong, and good, and, it’s nice to think about having her in my corner,” Peebee laughs. “She’s always been on our side, you know? Gives me hope that I can just… walk out there like that too one day.”

Jess swallows because she knows it’s not possible. Peebee will never walk out the way that Supergirl does, not accepted, not belonging, not like that. Jess, a human, can’t even do that.

But Peebee smiles at her, a toothy grin that’s all fangs, and Jess hates that she has to hide like this.

“I hope so too,” she sighs.

The next time she sees Kara Danvers, She’s not expecting it. At all.

That Friday night her phone rings just as she’s stepping out of the shower, Peebee’s number coming up on the front.

Except it’s not Peebee. Her neighbor is apparently passed out drunk at a bar somewhere and the bartender just dialed the first number on her cell. It’s about 1am so Jess groans before hauling ass out to go save her.

The address she gets apparently leads her to the back of an alley, and she knocks and says the password, which is weird but she understands when she walks in to see three eyes glancing at her from one face.

Alien bar. Jess feels a little nervous and out of place before she spots her friend, true to the bartender’s word, passed out in a booth.

It’s when she’s got a drunkenly muttering Peebee hoisted up and limping towards the exit when she bumps into Kara Danvers, both of them freezing to stare at each other. Danvers has an empty glass in her hand that she was apparently going to refill and Jess has an alien dangling off her shoulder and it’s, well, awkward.

Danvers breaks the silence first, eyes owlishly big behind her glasses.

“Jess—hi,” she breathes, laughing awkwardly. “What—what are you doing here?”

Jess just kind of looks at Peebee before looking back up at the blonde.

“Right—yeah, of course, me too, I mean, I’m here, for a uh, friend, yeah, because I’m really really human and um, do you need some help?”

Peebee groans and slumps more, dragging down Jess’s shoulder farther.

“Please, thank you,” Jess grimaces, because Christ why was she so heavy?

Danvers apparently doesn’t agree because she hoists Peebee up like it’s nothing and helps them out to Jess’s car, looking around nervously the entire time.

“Thank you,” Jess breathes when Peebee is finally tucked into her backseat.

“No problem!” Danvers says a little too enthusiastically. “I’m—I’m happy to help, you know, my friend is, an alien too and—“

“Miss Danvers—“

“And you know how it goes, well, you might not, and I don’t, either because I’m one hundred percent human—“

“Danvers, no offense,” Jess cuts in finally, crossing her arms. “I don’t care.”

“And—oh.” Danvers finally stops.

Jess sighs.

“I don’t care if you’re not human, I’m not going to tell anyone, it’s none of my business.”

There’s something that doesn’t sit well with her about a reporter hanging around Lena Luthor who just happens to be an alien, that Lena doesn’t know, but there’s nothing she can really do about it because she’s not about to out Kara Danvers either.

“Oh. I. I’m not,” Kara tries again, weakly. Jess fights the urge to roll her eyes.

“Just—do me a favor and watch yourself?” She hisses. “Lena lives with a target painted on her back. There are people who can seriously hurt her if they knew she associates with an alien.”

Kara Danvers looks a little crestfallen, maybe a little bit hurt, but Jess appreciates the gravity of her determined nod.

“Of course.”

Jess wonders if Kara Danvers understands the concept of subtlety when she walks in on Friday afternoon with three coffees.

“Here, for you,” she says with a grin, handing her a cup from the tray. “I didn’t know what you would like so I just kind of got a regular mocha—“

Jess sighs.

“You don’t have to bribe me. I’m not going to say anything.”

“Bribing? Who’s bribing?” Kara laughs awkwardly, shuffling her glasses again. “I’m not trying to bribe you, I just wanted to, um,”

Beg Jess not to say anything, she knows—bribing probably isn’t in Kara Danvers’ vocabulary as anything other than a distant slightly sinister concept, but really, she doesn’t have to be so damn obvious about trying to buy Jess’s favor.

“Who’s bribing who?”

Lena asks amusedly, leaning against her doorframe, a killer blood red smile on her lips.

“Lena!” Kara stammers. “Nobody, no one’s—“

“Miss Danvers was just telling me about one of her scoops,” Jess says, rescuing the hapless blonde. “I’m sorry for keeping you,” she says, with the sweetest smile she can manage and Danvers looks taken aback.

“Yeah, of course,” she laughs, exaggerated. “I was just, yeah, telling her about one of my stories.”

Lena lifts a brow. “Really? Must be exciting if it’s about bribery. Mind telling me about it?” She laughs, standing up straight and putting a hand on the door handle to invite Kara in.

Kara looks at Jess, kind of panicked, and all she does is shrug. Her problem now.

Kara passes Lena her coffee and then she remembers.

“Wait,” Jess says, before Kara can go in. “Is that a caramel macchiato?”

Kara looks confused at Jess’s perfect act of pretending she didn’t know already.

“That’s actually my favourite,” Jess beams, putting on a bit of a pout. “Miss Luthor, if you wouldn’t mind…”

Then she has to fight off a peal of laughter because the look Lena gives her is pure, priceless gratitude.

“Of course, I don’t mind either way,” Lena says graciously, all but shoving the macchiato into Jess’s hand and taking the mocha.

Jess watches them retreat into the office, and sighs. If she’s being honest with herself, she can’t remember the last time she saw Lena so animated before Kara Danvers showed up, so she quietly takes a sip and makes a decision.

 When Kara Danvers finally leaves Lena’s office, Jess gets up, grabbing her set of keys from the desk.

“Wait, Miss Danvers,” she says, walking around her desk to catch up. Kara peeks out from the elevator, open button held. She smiles at Jess as she walks in, hitting the button for the first floor before folding her hands together.

“Thanks,” Jess says.

“No problem.”

There’s a bit of nervous silence before Jess speaks up when they’re at the 20^th floor.

“Miss Luthor hates caramel.”

“I—what?”

Jess pulls out a small notepad from her pocket, uncapping the tiny pen on her keychain.

“She hates caramel, a lot. It always gives her a headache.”

“But I thought,” Kara starts, before trailing off into realization. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because as much of a liability I think you are, I’m not getting rid of you anytime soon. She likes you.” She pretends not to notice the fond smile and blush. “So I figured I might as well help you get it right,” she says, finishing and capping her pen. “Here,” she rips off the page for her. “This is her usual order. It’s a little bit complicated, but—“

“Pfft,” Kara laughs, glancing it over. “Please. This is nothing compared to Miss Grant’s usual,” she smiles. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Jess says. She staves off her curiosity for one entire second. “How do you know Cat Grant’s usual?”

Kara beams. “I was her assistant before I was a reporter. The longest lasting one yet,” she declares proudly, and Jess laughs.

“You make it sound like such an achievement. That bad?”

“Well, not bad, just demanding,” Danvers says, scrunching her nose, and Jess can see what Lena finds cute about her. “But I don’t really have a frame of reference, seeing as I’ve never worked for anyone else.”

Jess smirks. “Miss Luthor is the opposite, she’s not nearly demanding enough. She spends so much energy on things she could easily delegate. I don’t even know if she’d even go home if I didn’t evict her from her office every night.”

Kara laughs, and Jess is surprised with her admission, the easy conversation, because she’s not used to talking so easily with people without meaning to.

So, as she waves Kara off at the lobby and heads towards the mail room, she hopes. Kara Danvers is infectious, magnetic, ostensibly just a bubbly blonde but Jess is starting to see something under that persona, something that lets her keep up with as powerful a personality as Lena Luthor, something that can hold up the heaviness in Lena’s life without buckling.

And God knows Lena Luthor deserves to be more than lonely Atlas holding up her family’s sins.

Chapter Text

Jess knows it was bound to happen eventually, but she’s still not prepared when it does happen.

There she is, minding her own business, gathering up the printed reports Lena asked for, even knocking before she goes into Lena’s office. Because she knows Kara Danvers is there and she’s not stupid.

“Miss Luthor, I’m – oh Jesus Christ.”

She doesn’t even stay to see Kara and Lena jump apart, turning around and exiting without missing a beat. Seeing her boss pressed against her desk isn’t something Jess ever wanted to or planned for, but there she is, unwanted scene haunting her as she sits and tries to focus on some other task.

Well, at least they’re finally together now, or whatever, she thinks, though it’s a lot faster than she expected. Kara Danvers is dense and Lena Luthor is a tightly wrapped emotional shipwreck so Jess took for granted that the oblivious googly-eyeing each other would last damn near forever.

She tries her best not to look up when Kara exits Lena’s office a few minutes later. She doesn’t want to subject herself to acknowledging the reporter like, hey, I saw you macking on my boss but we’re going to pretend that didn’t happen and I’m waving you goodbye.

But she does anyway because she loves suffering apparently and when Kara smiles at her sheepishly with a smudge of what is very obviously Lena Luthor’s lipstick on her chin Jess can feel a bit of her soul leak out of her body with a whimper.

“Miss Danvers,” she hurriedly calls before Kara can board the elevator and kickstart a scandal. “Wait,” and she hates that she has to lay her own two eyes on freshly made-out-with-Lena-Luthor Kara Danvers once again as Kara turns to her, confused.

Jess stops for a moment because how do you even? Point that kind of shit out? But Jessica Hoang is a woman with things to do so she just dives in headfirst.

“You’ve got.” She points to the spot on her own face where Kara has the smudge. Kara does the whole confused to horrific realization routine, clapping her hand over the lower half of her face. “There’s a bathroom down the hall,” she sighs, slumping into her chair with relief as Kara disappears around the corner with a squeaked “thank you”.

By the time Kara comes into view for the second time, Jess is successful at looking engrossed in some task and pretending not to see the blonde do a hurried trot of shame to the elevator. This has got to be the worst day she’s had since having to threaten her ex-fiance out of the city. She waits five more minutes before reattempting to hand Lena the reports so that Lena has time to straighten herself up and Jess doesn’t have to see a freshly-made-out boss.

“Miss Luthor, here are the reports from Shanghai.” She places them on Lena’s desk and prays that her boss will play along and pretend nothing happened, but no, instead she fidgets guiltily before looking up pleadingly and it’s p a i n f u l l y awkward.

Lena clears her throat. “Thank you, Jess. I hope you can forgive me for that slightly…” Jess braces herself for whatever descriptor Lena’s about to throw out. “Unprofessional display.”

Slightly unprofessional? Really? Jess would laugh but she feels too much like expiring on the spot.

“I’ll remember to knock louder when Kara Danvers is here,” she says, pretending to be doing something important on her tablet. She looks up when Lena doesn’t say anything in response, because she’s kind of praying that her boss will clear her throat and say Thank You Jess as always and move on. But Lena’s frowning at her, not in a scary the boss is disappointed way, but in a sad way. Jess doesn’t know what she’s said wrong.

“I know you disapprove,” Lena says, softly, lacing her fingers together on her desk very unlike the usual confident manner she exudes.

Jess blinks, slowly, starting to catch on. She hugs her tablet closer to herself, pursing her lips.

“It’s not my job to approve or disapprove of your personal life,” she says, consciously being softer and sweeping away the snark that she’s realized she let slip into her earlier comments. “My only concern is assisting you in your work in whatever way you need.”

It’s not the answer Lena was looking for. The CEO frowns a little more, looking down at her wringing hands and Jess thinks that Lena’s always been so expressive with her hands.

“I know I’m your employer, and we’re not exactly friends, but,” Lena pauses to find words, looking back up. “You’ve been my assistant for three years now. I value your opinion, Jess.”

The low burn in her eyes catches her entirely off guard. Jess blinks a few times in surprise, and maybe a little a lot to wipe away the unexpected feeling fluffing up in her chest. Her hands grip her tablet and shift like they don’t know where to go and she barely stops herself from shuffling her heels.

And she thinks that Lena Luthor has been spending entirely too much time with Kara Danvers because this is the first time they’ve ever openly talked about each other in any way other than bantering in that classic Workaholic Boss and Beleaguered Assistant way, and Jess…. Jess doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to just put herself out there so openly like that, not in a work setting with no precedent and not since leaving the last person who knew her as intimately.

She wants to say something, express something to let Lena know how much that admission means to her, how she feels the same and how she’s kind of proud to see Lena opening up like that but the words don’t form and her mouth feels like old stone cogs that haven’t been turned in centuries when she tries.

So she just blinks and puts on the realest smile she can manage.

“My opinion is if you like her enough to pretend you don’t loathe caramel with every fiber of your being, all I can do is try to be helpful.”

She gets an embarrassed, laugh-tinted grimace at that.

“Oh God. It’d be too much to ask you to let me live that one down, wouldn’t it?” One glance at Jess’s stifled grin gives Lena her answer. “Please just don’t tell anyone about it.”

“My lips are sealed, Miss Luthor,” she replies dutifully with that same delighted grin. “Do you want me to send her an invitation to the Christmas Gala, or will you be inviting her in person?”

Lena’s smile lifts for a moment before twisting into a wry one.

“Neither, unfortunately. I’m cancelling the gala.”

Jess feels her brows lift. Lena gestures, chagrined.

“Not much point in having the annual Luthor Christmas Eve Gala when two-thirds of the family is in jail, is there?”

Jess frowns a little, because Lena’s right, and she can’t begrudge her that—but it also means that Lena will be all alone for Christmas. Jess has plans written up neatly in her mental notes, how Kara Danvers would have inevitably been there for a bit at least, helping Lena suffer through it, before maybe probably hanging out after.

Now those plans aren’t happening and Jess feels something like unhappiness settle in her chest at the thought of Lena spending another Christmas Eve in her office.

“I’ll call the caterers and venue, then,” she says, opening up tabs in her tablet.

“Thank you, Jess. I’m sorry to cause you more trouble.”

Jess shakes her head. “It’s my job.” She looks up to see Lena’s unhappy frown again and adds, “It just pains me personally to have to cancel on champagne.”

Lena laughs. “Don’t I pay you enough to enjoy that on your own time?”

“But it tastes so much better when it’s free.”

Jess wishes she didn’t proclaim the day to be the worse day she’s had in recent history, but, again, she loves to suffer.

The sweet embrace of her couch, Netflix, and Marco seems so close as she walks up to her apartment until she hears someone yell in the alley past the building’s driveway.

“Fucking alien!”

There’s a scream, double-pitched and inhuman and in a second she’s jumping out of her car and running as fast as she can in her heels.

She rounds the corner and Peebee, protective hood thrown back to expose her alien skin, is lying on the dirty pavement clutching the part in her stomach where a knife handle is sticking out from and for a sickening moment Jess thinks she’s too late. She screams Peebee’s name, falling to her knees by her side, hands wanting to hold her but not knowing what to do and she can’t think or breathe and oh thank god, she can still see breaths rising and falling under the oversized hoodie but it’s still staining rapidly with blue blood and Jess doesn’t know what to do.

“Peebee, Peebee, what happened?” she asks, folding the hood back around her head to keep her warm, and she’s never been so relieved to hear the soft clicks of Peebee’s blinking eyes.

“Jess,” she breathes, and Jess hates how watery and broken her voice sounds, she prays that the knife didn’t get in her lungs somehow, she hates that she doesn’t know what to do.

“Peebs,” she says, trying not to cry as she bundles the hood around Peebee’s head tighter. “What happened?”

“Wasn’t my fault,” the alien pouts, as if she’s trying to get a laugh out of Jess in this absurd situation. “I was just taking the trash out, I promise.”

Peebee grins up at her limply and Jess wants to throw something.

“God fucking dammit, Peebee, I—“ she doesn’t know what she wants to say, what she wants to yell, she’s so helpless, stupid, useless—

With a rush of air and a slam, Supergirl lands a few feet away from them and Jess nearly screams.

It takes Peebee another second to realize what’s happening. “Supergirl,” she whispers, in awe, so softly, so weakly.

Supergirl is all red righteousness and blue concern, stepping closer and kneeling down to assess the wound.

“What happened?”

“She—“ Jess can only look at the knife handle desperately and then back up at the hero.

Supergirl nods, then, arms sliding underneath Peebee gently to take her from Jess and lift her.

“I’ll take you to the hospital—“

“Wait,” Peebee manages, coughing in pain. “They won’t—they can’t treat me there.” It’s another laboured breath before she speaks again. “Down on seventeenth and Wallace, right next to the old factory, there’s a clinic,” she rasps.

Supergirl doesn’t need to be told twice.

“I’ll let you know when she gets there safely,” she says to Jess, before taking off into the air and Jess doesn’t spare a second before dashing to her car and starting it up again, hands shaking.

Some part of her knows it’s a bad idea, driving when she’s this upset but she doesn’t care—she goes into autopilot as she frantically watches the avenue numbers count down. She’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, she begs herself.

She nearly causes a car crash when her phone rings, pulling over a little bit roughly to fish it out of her bag. Peebee’s number comes up on the screen and she nearly drops it trying to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Miss Hoang, this is Supergirl,” and Jess doesn’t know whether to hope at the solemn tone. “She’s being treated right now. The doctor says she’s going to be fine.”

Something drains out of her so immediately and completely, then.

“Oh thank god.”

“She doesn’t have an emergency contact or guardian,” Supergirl continues. “Are there any family members you can contact?”

“No,” she shakes her head even though she’s alone in the car. “Just me. I’ll—I’m still on my way, I’ll be there to take care of things—“

She probably should be embarrassed that she’s rambling to a superhero but she feels so limp she doesn’t care.

“Right. I have to go, but I wish you well, Miss Hoang.”

“Thank you,” she manages, before Supergirl hangs up.

She drops her phone in her lap and leans her head on the wheel—she can’t help it. She can’t imagine life without Peebee. She’s only known the alien for just under a year now and she’s never been able to tell herself just how much she cares but now, with the panic and relief and grief so evident in her chest she lets herself cry.

The story of how she meets Peebee is probably a little too dramatic for her tastes.

It happens in two parts, and the first is a scare she never wants to re-experience ever again.

Her work day ends disastrously—Miss Luthor asks if she’s doing alright, that she’s allowed to take a break when they both know that neither of them can afford to spend a single second relaxing amidst the company move and honestly it feels like pity and Jess takes it worse than she rationally should.

“With all due respect, Miss Luthor, unless it’s affecting my job performance, it’s not something that needs to be discussed.”

And oh the regret hits her as soon as she says it, because why the fuck is she sassing her boss, and Lena Luthor looks shocked for a moment before becoming stonier and orders her to go home for the day, and she isn’t allowed back a second earlier than nine in the morning the tomorrow and Jess just wants to scream. What is she supposed to do if she’s not working, just wallow in her feelings? Be left alone to her own thoughts? She indulges in her childish thoughts and rants to herself about how it’s an unfair punishment as she trudges up the stairs to her new apartment.

Her new apartment, without Him. Strange and filled with boxes and not Home at all, no, home is still the one bedroom in Metropolis laughing in the kitchen while her fiancé tries to cook and home is across the ocean in a small house in Hong Kong years ago concentrating on the video game her brother’s trying to teach her how to play and neither homes exist anymore. The apartment and house are both owned by people she doesn’t know and never will and neither of the people she loved ever existed, both of them just fictional characters played by sad, cowardly, selfish men.

And apparently the world wants nothing more than for Jess to know how much it hates her, because as she’s walking down the hall to her apartment, one of her neighbor’s door is left slightly ajar and so, like a normal person she knocks to let them know.

There’s no answer. She’s tempted to just close it but the doors here lock automatically and she’s afraid that she might be locking someone out of their apartment. She contemplates just moving on before she hears a quiet, raspy “help me” from inside and swears before trudging in.

And there’s when she realizes how the hell she managed to get this apartment on such short notice and with barely and questions asked.

She’s heard about aliens but this is her first time really seeing one, sprawled on the floor, with smooth skin in a purple to blue gradient across the body, webbed ears flapping listlessly. The alien looks up at her, and Jess jumps, because those eyes are all purple iris and no sclera, huge with no nose inbetween, only slits—

The alien reaches for her and rasps a plea for help again, so Jess shakes off her shock and kneels down next to… it.

“What—“ she’s not sure what to do. “What do you need?”

“Too cold,” is all the alien can manage and Jess notices that it is freezing in here; not that California springs are particularly cold but there’s a cold front in the city right now, and by the looks of it, this alien’s apartment hasn’t been heated at all. She looks over at the heater and sees an open panel and a screwdriver lying around, the traces of a frantic attempt to fix it.

The alien slumps over a little from the effort of raising a hand, and Jess notices that the back of the neck is a bit… scalier. That means reptilian, right? She remembers when her roommate in college had to get a sunlamp for her snake, talking about cold-bloodedness and something about internal temperature—Jess doesn’t have time to try to recall the specifics. She hauls one of the alien’s arms around her neck and tries to haul it up, struggling. The alien has to be easily six feet.

After a long struggle, she manages to dump both of them onto her couch, untangling herself and jumping up to turn up the heat. She briefly considers wrapping a blanket around the alien, but, that only works on humans because warm blooded animals generate body heat and cold blooded ones don’t, or something. She grimaces and resists the urge to punch something—this really, really is the last thing she needs right now. What is she going to do if the alien dies on her?

She manages to get a heat pack into the microwave before she breaks down. It’s too much. It’s really, really too much and she just wants to curl up in bed and sleep until she doesn’t remember what He looks or sounds like anymore.

But the alien curls up around the heat pack instinctively when Jess drops it onto her lap, so much like her old roommate’s snake – Mr. Snuffles—and Jess lets herself snort. How cute.

She’s content to let the alien—her neighbor, she corrects herself— sleep on her couch until the cold front blows over, but the peace doesn’t last. She changes into her pajamas and takes off her makeup when the doorbell rings, and she tries to look as presentable as she can at 11pm because it’s probably the alien’s roommate, or something.

It’s not. Oh god it’s not. It’s Jack, with his red hair and freckles and blue eyes and Jess hates how she still feels, how his features still feel so familiar and beautiful and how her chest still rises up because she’s still in love with him and she doesn’t want to be, she doesn’t want to be, she just wants it to be over soon but here he is again.

“Jess,” he says, and he looks so sad and it breaks her hearts still and she tries to muster up all her anger, all her hurt. “We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing left to talk about, you’ve made yourself perfectly clear,” she mutters, trying to close the door on him but he stops it with painful ease because part of her has stopped her from really trying.

“Jess, no you can’t,” his voice breaks. “You can’t do this to me,”

“What am I doing to you?” She tries not to shriek but goddammit—how dare he, how is this her fault—

“You can’t just leave me like that!” He’s crying now. “You can’t just leave me for a job—“

“I wasn’t the one to force a choice, Jack,” she hisses, and fuck she’s trying not to cry too.

“Why can’t you understand how I feel?” (Jess feels like screaming) “I’m a guy—living off my fiancée while she earns more than me—that’s—you have to understand how that feels?”

“No, I don’t, because I thought you saw me as more than just a girl,” she yells now, matching his volume, neighbors be damned because he can’t just come here and make it to be her fault, again, make her feel like she’s being the unreasonable one, set her up to lose like that. “Because I was doing it for us, and I thought you’d be happy for me.”

He throws his hands up.

“This is why I couldn’t talk to you, you’re not trying to see it from my side at all,” he says, angrily, “you never compromise, it’s always about you—“

She can’t pretend it doesn’t sting still, that part of her still believes him.

“That’s fucking rich coming from the one who said I had to choose between an amazing job and him—“

“In another city, Jess, what, was I supposed to pack up my entire life for you?”

“Of course, because you had so much of a life to pack up anyway, working freelance at home with all your friends moved away—“

“And what was I supposed to do?”

“Be happy that I was going to earn enough to make us both happy?”

“I have my pride, Jess, you can’t ask me to let go of that—“

“Yes I fucking can, and I did—“

“No, listen to me—what the fuck?!”

Jack looks behind her, staggering back a little, and she looks over her shoulder to see the alien—her neighbor standing up in all six feet, stomping over, towering over both of them.

“What the fuck is that!?”

He doesn’t get an answer.

“She doesn’t want you here!” Her neighbor hisses, but not in the metaphoric way but really hisses, inhuman intonation echoing in behind her words, pupils contracted to complete slits, ears flared up menacingly.

“What the fuck are you—“

“LEAVE,” the alien roars, mouth opening up to teeth that were all fangs, forked tongue flailing wildly—it’s more a dragon roar than a word, and Jess finds herself clutching the door for her life.

Jack’s long gone by the time the alien turns to her, chest clutched.

“I’m so sorry,” her neighbor says, with a voice softer now, lilting, almost. “I know it’s none of my business, I just—he was making you so upset, it woke me up.”

“What.” Is all she can manage at that. The alien is saying words, sure, but she understands all of them individually and not together.

“Oh, Arzhe’atta, I’m sorry, you probably don’t know what I am—I’m—Oh, how do human introductions go—“

The alien flails around a bit.

“I’m—my name is Peebee, it’s nice to meet you.”

The alien holds out a scaled blue hand and Jess just. She laughs. She cracks up at the absurdity of everything, she doesn’t know if she’s just so tired she can’t process anything but it’s just so fucking funny for some reason and she’s laughing until the line between laughs and sobs gets a little blurred.

“Oh, no, was it that bad? I’m so sorry, I haven’t been here very long—“

The poor thing is panicking.

“You’re fine,” she wheezes, straightening up. Peebee offers her a nervous smile.

“I’m Jess.”

The clinic isn’t what Jess was expecting and she kind of hates herself for that. Honestly, without her consent, her brain conjured up this image of a broken down warehouse with an abandoned asylum atmosphere with grody equipment but no, it’s just an old building—it looks as normal as any volunteer-run community initiative would. It’s obviously a repurposed old house built around the 30’s, the wallpaper hasn’t been changed since the 70’s and it smells a little musty like old buildings do but it’s bright and clean, modern furniture against old floors. Not highly funded but an honest effort at providing a service that no one else can.

She gets there around noon during her lunch break and the nurse leads her to Peebee’s room, a bright yellow one with a beige rug and clean white curtains. Peebee smiles brightly at her, albeit still a little weakly.

“Jess,” she rasps happily.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Jess says, walking over to sit at the bedside. “Miss Penelope Brooke,” she teases.

“How did you—oh.”

“You could have told me,” Jess laughs. “It took ten minutes for them to figure out who I was here to see last night.”

“I’m sorry,” Peebee says, cheeks colouring indigo sheepishly. “I forgot.”

Of course she’d forget her own legal name. Jess snorts.

“Penelope is a nice name; why don’t you use it more?” she asks, settling her bag down on the floor.

“Well, it’s nice, but it’s not really my name,” Peebee says, ears wiggling a little. “It’s more of an excuse because the guy who made my ID said I couldn’t name myself Peanut Butter.”

“Are you serious.” Jess shakes her head. “Who am I kidding, of course you are.”

“It’s the greatest human invention I’ve ever come across in all my time here,” Peebee declared with the gravity of an orator giving a speech on the philosophy of technological advancement.

Jess just laughs.

“Speaking of,” Jess reaches into her bag to pull out the sandwich bags. “I brought you some of your favourite.”

Peebee lets out a delighted squeal, flapping her ears, and rips into the plastic. Jess is half afraid she’s going to eat the wrapping as well in her zeal.

“PB&J is the best,” she says through a mouthful of sandwich, which is a lot considering she can fit an entire sandwich in her mouth. “Heh. Like you and me. Peebee and Jess.”

The affection that surges through her at that is absurd, and she’s sure that Peebee can feel her emotions lighting up like a bonfire. But the alien doesn’t say anything—she just smiles with peanut butter and bread bits stuck between her fangs and continues digging into her food. Small mercies: Jess doesn’t know what to do in emotionally charged situations, and she wonders when she became so guarded as to need the kind of nuanced care that she tries to give to Lena Luthor.

It’s not long after Peebee eats all six sandwiches and passes out, needing to recuperate—Jess learned long ago that Telari, Peebee’s species, need more energy to recover from wounds than humans do. Once Peebee got a papercut and had to take a three hour nap on Jess’s couch.

A few minutes after Peebee falls asleep, there’s a soft knock on the door and Jess looks up from her tablet to see Kara Danvers nervously edging into the room with an armful of flowers.

“Miss Danvers?”

“Hey, Jess,” the reporter says softly, noticing that Peebee’s asleep. “I, uhm, heard what happened last night and—“ she steps closer and adjusts her glasses before hurriedly putting the flowers down on the bedside table. “I—uh—Supergirl wanted be to drop these off for you two.”

This is the second time she’s hearing about Supergirl’s tendency to tell Kara Danvers many things about her exploits and she wonders just how well-connected they are.

“I… thank you. Peebee’s going to be thrilled when she wakes up.”

Lose her mind and flip her shit, more like, but she just smiles up at the reporter and gets back a brilliant smile in return.

Then, you know, she remembers that she’s looking at the woman she caught making out with her boss just yesterday and things get a little awkward because, Kara visiting Lena after Supergirl tipped her off makes sense, but this doesn’t really. They’re not friends, or anything, and Jess doesn’t put it past Kara to be so unfailingly nice that she’d come give flowers to an acquaintance but the old paranoia of being buttered up to be used against Lena still kicks in a little bit.

“Oh, and,” Kara says, gesturing. “Lena said to tell you you don’t have to come in for the rest of the day, she’s got it handled.”

Jess blinks. “Lena knows?”

“Yeah—oh, no, not about the alien thing, just that your friend got attacked last night. I mentioned it this morning.” She does that awkward smile and clasping her hands together lightly thing that she does. “She was worried about you.”

Her chest warms at that, and she thinks that Kara Danvers is definitely trying to butter her up, but more because she’s Lena Luthor’s assistant and Kara wants her approval as a suitor. She feels like she should be alarmed at how much she believes that but there’s nothing to do about the frankness with which Kara simply exists.

So Jess stands up with her bag slung over her shoulder and smiles.

“I was just about to get some lunch while Peebee’s passed out. Want to come with?”

And just as she predicted, Kara blooms at the invitation, the small acceptance of her efforts.

“Yeah, that’d be great—I know this place that does great potstickers a few blocks down.”

Jess blinks. “Potstickers?”

“Yeah, the little—Chinese dumplings. Didn’t Lena have some at her Gala? They tasted amazing, best I’d ever had…”

Kara rambles on and Jess realizes she’s talking about the high-end gyoza that were served, courtesy of an expensive Japanese catering company and she also realizes that Kara’s probably never had a proper “Chinese dumpling” in her life.

Normally, she leaves white people be with their ventures into “ethnic” food. It’s more energy than it’s worth to care about it, or try to represent it well. But she sees Kara Danvers light up like these potstickers, a phenomenon of americanized catering to white people’s preconceptions of Chinese cuisine, are the greatest things to exist in this world and Jess feels deep-seated, existential pity.

This won’t do. If she’s going to make an effort to befriend her boss’s girlfriend, she’s going to have to go in all the way.

“Actually, come on, we’re going to try and find dim sum around here.”

Kara blinks. “A what?”

“A Chinese restaurant. Just—just trust me.”

Chapter Text

“You’re nervous.”

Jess blinks. She’s just rattled off their order to the cart lady in the smoothest Cantonese she could manage (Kara looked confused but intrigued by all the options. Jess took initiative to order a little bit of everything). It’s not a questions—yes, she is nervous, her heart is pounding a mile a minute because she hesitated over a few syllables for a beat too long, and the shadow of her half-lost heritage is always following her as little whispers in her ear: you’re never enough, you’re never enough.

“Oh. I… I guess.” Jess laughs. “My Canto is a little rusty.”

Kara Danvers then smiles, sadly, softly, with something like nostalgia and understanding and Jess is suddenly viscerally reminded of who she’s talking to. She wonders if Kara is a refugee, if Kara dreams about a home she can’t ever return to.

“Do you not get a chance to speak it often?”

Jess laughs. “No, not really. I call my mom every once in a while, but it’s not much practice because I can just say the English versions of words I don’t remember and she’d understand.”

Kara chuckles along with her. “That’s really… cute.”

And she doesn’t say it with any sort of condescending “appreciation”. Kara looks so wistful then, and Jess remembers Lena telling her that Kara’s adopted too.

“Do you get any chances to speak your language?”

“I, uh—“ Kara fumbles. “I don’t, I mean, I do! English is my first language, since, you know, I was born here—“

“Kara,” Jess sighs. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to admit it if you don’t want to. But it’s pretty obvious,” she laughs, grabbing a pair of plastic chopsticks from the cup in the side of the table. “And I’m not about to go spreading it around.”

Kara hesitates, seemingly thinking over protesting again, before she sighs and plucks a pair of chopsticks too.

“No. I don’t… I’m the last native speaker left.”

A sole survivor. Jess tries to imagine it—the weight of a lost culture on one person’s shoulders, the ghosts of the less fortunate haunting one body, and not shared amongst a generation like a communal scar, the sheer isolation of being the last—

She tries, but she can’t. The thought of it feels vaguely like a cold dagger in her gut: fear, sympathy, grief.

“I’m sorry.”

The words sound so hollow, so trite compared to the weight of the loneliness that Jess can’t even stand to imagine but Kara smiles at her with slightly watery eyes and Jess thinks that Kara is so much stronger than she lets on.

“It’s. Hard. Sometimes. Listening to what people have to say about aliens when I’m right there, and they just… They don’t know. Because I don’t look like what they think an alien looks like.”

Jess nods. “I know. I mean…” she hesitates. “It’s not the same, I know, and I’m not trying to say it is. But people will say just… the worst things about black people or darker skinned Asians or what have you around me because I’m supposed to be on of the “good ones” and…” Jess sighs. “It’s not fun.”

Kara stares at her then, intently, and Jess shifts because she wonders if Kara can sense emotions like Peebee or have some other alien intuition apparatus.

“What?”

Kara shakes her head.

“Sorry, I just… I’m surprised, I guess.”

“Why? Because I work for Lena?”

Kara grimaces. “Kind of. I was… upset when she showed me the alien detection device. She believes people have a right to know who among them are aliens. I figured you thought so too.”

Jess contemplates her utensils for a moment.

“I used to. Things change when you get a huge crush on your alien neighbor.”

That’s. Not at all what Jess was aiming to say and the admission has her frozen for a moment, because, goddammit. She could’ve left herself well alone never thinking or acknowledging anything to do with that.

“I mean,” Jess coughs and backtracks. “I care about Peebee. I see the way that she has to live, now more than ever after the whole…”

She waves her hand vaguely.

“Getting stabbed thing?” Kara offers. Jess snorts.

“Yeah.”

Kara looks down at her hands, fiddling with the plastic, and Jess wonders if she’s thinking about Lena and what Lena would think. It’ll be a shock, for sure, Jess knows it’s not going to be just… “Oh, okay, cool,” type deal, with how many anti-alien investors Lena’s grown up around.

But what sets Lena apart from her family, what makes her the one who’ll make good of the Luthor name, is what’ll make it work between the two of them—Jess believes that wholeheartedly.

“When you care about someone, you start to see things differently,” Jess says. Kara looks up and she holds eye contact evenly. “Trust me when I say that whatever prejudice she has left over is overshadowed by how she feels about you.”

Kara is so hopeful, then, blue eyes crinkling with a grateful smile.

“Thank you.”

Jess shakes her head. “For what?”

“For saying that. I thought… I didn’t think you liked me.”

Jess sighs.

“I’m sorry if I seemed… testy.” She laughs derisively. “It’s not you that I don’t like. It’s everything about all the bullshit Lena has to deal with and what… what kind of things you’re adding to the mix.”

Kara deflates a little.

“I’m a risk to her, aren’t I?”

Jess snorts. “Does it matter? You know she’s not the kind of person who’ll let things like controversy get in the way of what she wants. And she wants you.” She looks at Kara, mouth twisting wryly. “I’m sorry for being kind of a dick. I don’t trust people so easily. She’s been through a lot.”

And Kara smiles at her like the sun and Jess wonders how she ever thought Lena Luthor wouldn’t be pulled into her orbit.

“I’m glad she has you, Jess.”

Jess smiles, pleasantly surprised, absurdly proud of hearing something as validating as that.

Then their food arrives, and Kara eyes everything curiously, eagerly, wielding her chopsticks with surprising delicacy, and Jess watches intently for the first moment that the taste of dim sum registers in Kara Danver’s tastebuds. It’s a momentous occasion—she’s most likely watching the birth of a new love.

“What is that?”

Kara’s blue eyes go as wide as the dumplings themselves and Jess can see the way her shoulders tense up in abject wonder, a new enlightenment.

She preens with pride.

“Har gow,” she says, and Kara repeats it back to her as if the memorize the name.

The next moments are spent with Kara tasting a new kind of dumpling, being stunned into silence for a moment before Jess plies her with the name, Kara repeats it back to her with what Jess can only assume is alien linguistic prowess. They make a second order, and then a third—Jess nearly has to fight for her own share and the table is piling up with empty steamers and she laughs thinking of when she was little and fought her brother like this, then.

Home is an imaginary concept nowadays, but Jess thinks that maybe it’s moments like these— where stranded people come together and share whatever home they carry inside of themselves—that taste a little something like relief, hints a little at belonging.

Jess pays for the both of them to Kara’s protest, leaving a large tip and making a mental note to tell Lena that’s it’s absolutely unethical to bring Kara to any all-you-can-eat type establishments.

Owen’s wedding invitation sits unopened in her bag, burning at the edges of her thoughts as she tries to focus on getting to her new office. It’s her first promotion at Luthorcorp. She’s stopped a corporate hack last week and now instead of being reprimanded for overstepping her authority as a junior IT worker she’s being promoted to personal assistant of Lena Luthor and honestly she’s kind of confused why she’s going from IT to assistant but whatever, the pay grade’s a huge step up.

She doesn’t want to think about her brother’s wedding. She doesn’t want to think about being invited like nothing’s wrong, like he didn’t use to throw her down the stairs and steal her things and get away with it because he’s the precious elder son, all he had to do was go crying to dad and that was that.

She tries not to think about it. She walks through the hall to arrive at the office of corporate executive Lena Lutessa Luthor, straightens out her shirt, thinks to herself that this family is sure obsessed with alliteration, and knocks sharply.

She’s expecting to see some stuck-up woman sitting at her desk, with a severe outfit and glare, maybe a touch condescending.

What she’s not expecting is a young woman, no more than a few years older than her, hair pulled back and wearing a slightly grease-smudged labcoat with Lex Luthor himself clapping her on the shoulder. They’re standing there, laughing, and Jess blinks because she cognitively knows they’re siblings but it’s another thing to see them be brother and sister right in front of her.

Lena notices her first, straightening up a little and fond laugh falling to a friendly smile.

“Oh, you must be Jessica. Come on in, it’s nice to meet you—“ she walks towards her desk to pick up a few files as Jess walks further into the room cautiously. “Lex, this is my new assistant.”

“Lex Luthor.” Lex Luthor introduces himself like she doesn’t know and extends a hand towards her with a friendly smile, and he’s more charming than Jess expected, if Jess was expecting to meet the literal CEO of the company she works at. She takes the hand, heart jumping in her throat because it’s a little terrifying, and works on her best professional voice.

“Jessica Hoang. It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“Please, the pleasure is all mine. And please don’t call me sir, it makes me feel old.”

He laughs and Jess finds herself chuckling along at the charming quip.

“I’ll be sure to remember that, Mr. Luthor.”

“Just Lex is fine,” he shrugs, still smiling. “Can I call you Jess?”

“That’s what I’m usually called,” she laughs, finding it alarmingly easy to talk with Lex Luthor, considering his mega-CEO status.

“Stop trying to steal my assistant, it’s her first day,” Lena Luthor admonishes him, swatting him lightly with her file. He pretends to be hurt, flinching facetiously with a grin.

“You can’t blame me, Leelee, you get someone who’ll actually understand what you’re talking about, and I still have to deal with pompous twenty-somethings from Harvard business.”

“You’re a twenty something from Harvard,” Lena laughs, swatting him lightly again. “And too bad, I heard about her first. Snooze and lose, Lex.”

Jess stands there with the awkwardness of being the odd one out around two people who are completely comfortable around each other, until a beeping interrupts their laughter and Lex checks his phone.

He sighs. “Another day, another meeting with the board.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Lena smiles, and Lex snorts.

“Then not a single board member would get any sleep,” he laughs, pocketing his hands and standing a little straighter. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Jess. Take care of her for me,” he says, nodding towards Lena before exiting just as his sister rolls her eyes.

“Go bother someone else the next time you’re slacking off,” she calls after him only to get an absent wave in response as he rounds the corner. Lena laughs before turning to Jess.

“Sorry about that. Here’s your contract,” she says, handing her the file. “Would you terribly mind talking it over with me while walking? I’m sorry, but there’s something I have to attend to in the lab right now.”

Jess blinks several times before she can muster up an answer.

“No—I mean yes, that’s fine,” she stumbles, taking the file from Lena’s hands. Lena gives her a smile that’s wicked sharp in a pretty kind of way before heading to the elevators and Jess tries not to smoulder with jealousy.

How nice it must be. Having a brother who acts and cares like an older brother should.

There are few pieces of knowledge in this world that Jess actively keeps from Lena. Everything Lena doesn’t know about Jess is from omission by irrelevance, or professionalism, except for the fact that Jess still holds herself to Lex Luthor’s smiling request for her to look after Lena.

It’s cruel to bring up what Lex Luthor used to be to Lena in any capacity. That’s why she’ll never say it, but for Jess, Lex Luthor is dead. The man in prison is a sad creature warped into madness by fear and ambition and the cruelty of Lillian Luthor. Lex Luthor is dead, and Jess holds herself to a dead man’s sincere wishes for his little sister.

So when there’s another (foiled) attempt on Lena’s life, Jess stays way past closing hours worrying about how to get the whiskey out of Lena’s hands and the CEO herself safely home.

Jess doesn’t know how to do these things, not really. She doesn’t know how to go in there and overstep her authority to take the alcohol out of her boss’s hands, how to have the gall to tell someone in pain how to deal with that pain. Because she gets it. It’s devastating every time, even more so when there’s an audience to put up an apathetic face for.

Jess can protect Lena on the corporate side of things. She can watch the stocks and issue a statement and arrange for charges to be taken up against the offending party and watch the network for any board members even thinking about taking advantage of Lena’s weakened position. She can hack the entirety of National City to keep things quiet for Lena but for fuck’s sake she can’t do a single thing to safeguard her emotional wellbeing.

So she calls Kara Danvers, because she knows that Lena won’t have done so already.

When Kara arrives there’s only a solemn nod exchanged between them before Kara heads inside. Jess slips on her headphones and works quietly for a while, copying down the contact info for a few security companies with better systems, as well as the pros and cons of each.

She looks up an hour and a half later, when Kara peeks out of the office doors and she looks surprised—understandably so considering it’s fifteen past midnight.

She takes off her head phones and stands up.

“How is she?”

“Asleep,” Kara says, letting the doors close softly behind her. “Thanks for calling me.”

Jess nods. “Thanks for coming.”

Kara gives her this little tight-lipped smile, like things aren’t okay but they’re getting there and it’s enough for now.

“I don’t know where she lives. Can you call a cab for her?”

Jess shakes her head. “I’ll drive you both home.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to.”

Jess already has her keys though, and she frowns at Kara while she shrugs her coat on.

“It’s fine, Kara. I’d sleep better driving her home myself. And I know you don’t have a car.”

Kara still looks like she’s going to protest, and Jess resigns herself to a bit of wrangling before they’re finally in Jess’s car, Lena tucked safely in the back seat.

“You’re stronger than you look,” Jess chuckles quietly as she turns the ignition, still reeling a little from seeing sunny cardigans Kara Danvers carry an adult woman bridal style without so much as breaking a sweat.

Kara laughs, a little awkwardly. “I work out.”

“Evidently.”

She drives quietly for a while, noticing Kara look back at Lena every now and then.

“How’s Peebee?”

Jess starts a little. Out of the corner of her eyes she can see Kara looking at her attentively.

“She’s doing okay, still needs her rest. They discharged her a few days ago, and she’s got a whole workstation set up in bed,” Jess snorts.

“Really? What does she do?”

“Freelance software developer. She asks me to front for in-person meetings sometimes.”

Jess realizes she’s smiling when she glances over to see Kara beaming at her. She drops her smile like a hot potato.

“Speaking of, can I ask you a favor?”

Kara blinks at the change of topic but catches up nonetheless with a smile.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Can you pass something onto Supergirl?”

Kara frowns. “What?”

Jess purses her lips as she stops at a red light.

“I have a bit of a bone to pick with her. I know you’re friends, I understand if it’s awkward, I just doubt she has time to see me in person.”

Kara shakes her head.

“No, no, I—what is it?”

“Do you remember the alien clinic?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know it existed, really, it’s amazing what they do there.”

“Well, apparently neither did Supergirl. She’s been sending all the injured aliens she finds there.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It would be if they were better equipped,” Jess snaps. “They’ve overencumbered and overcrowded. They don’t have even half the funds to take care of the sudden influx. I need to tell Supergirl to take responsibility, that she can’t just go around doing what she wants in her little superhero bubble—“

Jess stops and takes a deep breath because her volume is rising and she’s indulging her anger a bit too much and Kara looks so deflated.

“I’m sorry. I’m just… frustrated.” She feels bad for insulting Kara’s friend so much. “It’s good that she wants them to get proper care, it’s just… intentions only go so far. The world’s a lot more complicated than punching out criminals and I wonder if she sees that.”

Kara’s quiet for a moment.

“Sees what?”

“All of us little people. The ones who can’t fly, who have to deal with bureaucracy and lack of resources, the ones who have to find a place to fit themselves in the system,” Jess sighs. “Must be nice being above it all.”

“She’s not.”

Jess glances over to see Kara smiling sadly, wringing her hands.

“She sees everyone. It’s just… It’s hard to keep track of things is all. You’re right. There’s a bit of a bubble,” Kara laughs wryly. “I—She can fly and do amazing things, she’s so used to being at the front of things that it’s easy to forget that it’s not just over after the bad guy’s down, that there are things for people to do after. She’s trying, though, I promise.”

She says it with such conviction, such faith, that Jess wants to believe her.

So she just laughs.

“You’re such a… good person, Kara.”

Kara shakes her head. “No, I just— I’m,” she hesitates, and Jess steps in to her rescue.

“You want to see the best in people. That’s rare. I’m glad Lena has someone like you.”

She takes advantage of a red light to look Kara in the eyes and make sure that she knows she means it. Kara’s blue eyes twinkle a little in the city lights filtering through the windows of the dark car. It’s genuine, and Kara Danvers may be the sun but the Sun is also a star and she is more than capable of becoming a quiet starry sky to Lena’s moon, to stay by her side.

The light changes and she brings her eyes back to the road. It’s another moment before Kara whispers a small “thank you”, a little bit choked.

Lena stirs a little bit, and they both fall dead quiet for a moment, Kara turning back to keep an eye on the CEO. She sits back into position when she’s sure Lena’s still soundly asleep.

“What are you doing on Christmas Eve?”

Kara blinks at the question.

“Oh, not much. My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas much anymore after my dad, um, passed away.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Kara smiles placatingly. “Don’t worry. It was a while ago. Anyway, I thiiink the 24^th is the first day of Hanukkah this year?” Kara scrunches up her nose as she tries to remember. “My foster family’s Jewish from my mom’s side, Reform Jewish, so even though our dad wasn’t Jewish, we still get to go to all the big dinners and stuff. I never converted, but they’ve always been really welcoming.”

“You never converted?”

Kara shakes her head. “Nah. We had our own… our own religion on my planet. It was too hard to let go of. Judaism is surprisingly close, though,” she says, smiling, “it made me feel a little more at home.”

“I’m glad,” Jess says, “Though I guess that means you won’t be free then?”

Kara thinks for a moment. “Well, the dinner’s more of a really early supper, and I don’t have to stay for the rest of the night, if I didn’t want to. Why?”

Jess hypothesizes that Lena heard the first thing about Kara’s plans and gave up the notion of spending Christmas Eve together entirely. She sighs.

“Lena cancelled the annual L-corp Christmas gala.”

Kara’s quiet. “So she’s spending it alone?”

Jess nods, and from Kara’s determined pout she knows she’s done her job.

It’s a bit like deja-vu when Jess knocks and steps into Lena’s office and gets stared at like she’s grown a third head.

“Jess,” she breathes. “You’re still here?”

Of course she is. It’s Christmas Eve and she’s had her ass sat down dutifully at her desk and isn’t leaving the building until she sees Lena Luthor walk out with her own two eyes.

She isn’t so disgruntled as she usually is when she goes in to evict Lena from her office, because Lena Goddamn Luthor is dressed to the nines, hair in an elaborate updo with a gorgeous low-cut black dress covered with a deep burgundy sheer wrap. She’s got her blood red lipstain on and her eyeshadow is all-out masterful, and Jess is 90% sure she’s got her fifteen hundred dollar “fuck me” heels on.

Jess grins, widely.

“Just got a few things to finish up, Miss Luthor.” She shuffles the files in her hands triumphantly. “You look lovely. I assume you have plans this evening?”

Lena puts down her pen and rolls her eyes.

“You would know, seeing as you’re the one who told Kara to ask me out this evening.”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing, Miss Luthor. I simply provided the information that you had no previous engagements tonight.”

Lena snorts and stands up, closing her laptop. “At least try to look like you’re not thoroughly enjoying this.”

“Duly noted. How come you didn’t go home to change?”

Lena sighs before leaning against her desk and looking out at the city. “Last-minute conference with the investors in Japan. I brought my things with me because I thought that might happen.” She looks back at Jess, frowning. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you not going home again this year?”

Jess laughs wryly and shakes her head. “My brother is still being insufferable. I’m having a movie marathon with my,” and just what is Peebee to her, she asks herself, “neighbor.”

Lena checks her watch. “Won’t you be late for that?”

“No, I have a bit of time to kill. She works freelance, and her client is throwing a tantrum as of the moment.” Jess smirks. “Shouldn’t your date be here now?”

Lena shakes her head as she goes back to staring out the window. “She’s fl—driving in from a family dinner.” Lena seems to catch herself smiling like an idiot and clears her throat, crossing her arms. “Remind me to give you a raise.”

Jess laughs. “I see we’ve caught the generous holiday spirit.”

“Mm.” Lena hums. “Jess, how would you say we’re doing right now?”

Jess tries to orient herself around the sudden change of topic, shuffling her heels.

“Pretty good. Stocks are rising, not a huge amount but a steady increase. The investors are happy with the Shanghai construction and if the board tries anything I have gigabytes of corporate infraction records to shut them up with.”

Lena pauses. “What percent of our funding still comes from anti-alien sources?”

Ah. The million-dollar question. Lena’s been struggling with balancing the reforms for the company without leaving themselves bankrupt for ages now, the alien-detection device being a compromise: they were being pushed to develop a much more aggressive kind of anti-alien device. If they flat out say no, there’s no telling how much funding they’ll lose.

“A fair amount.”

Lena’s mouth twists.

Jess wonders what she’s got in mind. “It could be counterbalanced with the right move. We’re in National City—locally-based businesses are more likely to support pro-alien changes because of the positive publicity they’d get. Why do you ask?”

Lena just stares out at the city in question, thinking hard enough for Jess to hear.

“If L-corp were to fund the expansion of an alien clinic, how do you think that would go down?”

Jess freezes in her tracks as Lena gains momentum.

“There’s an abandoned warehouse next to the clinic that can be repurposed to save construction costs. We can relocate the overflow of patients to some of our facilities, recruit alien physicians to train ours, and create jobs. Develop our own insurance program.”

Jess’s hands shake a little bit. “Kara told you.”

Lena turns around at that, a little bewildered. “What?”

“Kara told you about the clinic.”

“Yes, but—“ Lena stares. “How did you know that?”

Jess blinks a little, apprehension giving way to understanding because of course, this is Kara Danvers that they’re talking about, and Kara wouldn’t give out private information unless it’s extremely important and she must not have said anything.

“My friend, who was attacked,” Jess starts, because if Kara’s told Lena about the alien clinic then maybe Lena knows about Kara and Jess having a big crush on/living next to an alien isn’t going to be such a big deal. “I didn’t tell you where to send flowers because she was being treated at that clinic.”

Jess sees it click for Lena.

“Oh.”

Jess has no idea what to say next but she’s saved by Lena laughing a little bit and smiling like she’s relieved.

“Well, thank god. I was afraid you’d disapprove.”

Jess shakes her head. “Of course not. I’m the one who complained to Kara about the clinic getting overworked.”

“Were you?” Lena raises a brow. “I’m… I’m glad.”

Jess sees Lena look down at her hands, then, and remembers something that she said to Kara that day at the restaurant: when you care about someone, you start to see things differently. Jess knows that caring about someone… different means that you either isolate that person from their Otherness and continue being a bit of an ass, or you change your perspective. Jess knows that this whole clinic thing is more than a business venture or an attempt to get into Supergirl’s good graces and she feels…

Proud.

“As for the expansion,” she says, laying the files on Lena’s desk. “It’s a gamble. Losing all our anti-alien leaning investors is a guarantee. The issue then is if we can gain enough from the pro-alien side to make up for it, or even profit.” She sighs. “We’re a tech development company, we sell to other corporations and not straight to consumers. We don’t profit from publicity campaigns that cater to a political leaning. That said, if we make enough noise, then other companies will be wanting to associate with us to reap the benefits… We need to make it as public as possible. Do advertisements and outreach programs leading up to the construction, do clothing drives for alien communities. Make the announcement press conference massive. Even have an appearance from Supergirl, if we can swing it.”

“We can,” Lena says confidently.

Jess wonders. “Well, then. If we can get Supergirl to endorse us every step of the way, and pitch to companies that “associated with L-corp” will increase sales, then… even if we don’t win the gamble, the losses won’t be so significant.”

“So you think we can do it?”

Jess nods. Lena thinks for a moment for smiling, folding her wrap closer around herself.

“I can always count on you, can’t I?”

Jess smirks. “Well. A raise won’t hurt.”

Lena laughs then, full-bellied and frank, and when Jess finally leaves for the night with the promise that Kara’s on her way she feels warm the way that one does at the end of the year, parses how far they’ve come and find themselves more than content with the answer. Lena Luthor is happy, Lena Luthor is not alone and she heads home to relax from a job well done.

“Jess!”

A tall hooded figure greets her just outside the building, wrapped up tightly in a scarf that covers most of the face and sunglasses even though it’s nighttime.

“Peebee,” Jess grasps one of her arms. “Why are you out here? It’s cold, people are about—“

“They’re all distracted because it’s the holidays,” Peebee giggles, muffled by the scarf. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Jess laughs as she lets her hand fall into Peebee’s mittens. “Well, I’m sufficiently surprised. Let’s get you home.”

Jess feels thick wool clamp around her hand.

“Actually, I was thinking we’d walk for a bit? It’s all lit up and really pretty and it’s the rare time no one’s likely to bother us.”

“Are you sure? It’s pretty cold.”

The scarf shifts and Jess laughs because she knows Peebee’s giving a fangy grin.

“I’m prepared! I have heat packs lining my jacket. I’m good for another three hours out here. See?”

Peebee grabs Jess’s hands and presses them against her stomach, and sure enough, Jess can feel little packets of warmth faintly through the coat.

She laughs and pulls her hands away, holding one of Peebee’s again.

“Alright. Let me know when you get cold, I’ll drive us home.”

Peebee’s scarf moves over a grin again and she’s about to say something when Jess sees her ears flick under her hood before she looks up at the sky.

“What’s up?”

“I thought I heard—“ Peebee gasps, swearing in Telari, tugging on Jess’s hand.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Jess tries, looking up at Peebee’s frantic pointing and not seeing much but maybe a moving speck? “I don’t see anything, I can’t see in the dark like you can—“

“It’s Supergirl,” Peebee hisses, lisp-accent in full swing. “She’s carrying your boss and they kissed.”

Jess parses the information she has, and then the penny finally drops.

Peebee looks at her, probably bewildered, as she laughs, edging into guffawing territory.

“Jess, I’m not joking, I saw them—“

“I know,” Jess says, rubbing Peebee’s arm placatingly. “I believe you.”

Peebee stares for a second.

“How is this not more exciting news for you?”

“I’m a little distracted by the pretty girl holding my hand.”

Oh my fucking god that’s not what she meant to say.

Peebee just freezes and stares at her, and Jess can’t tell what kind of expression she has or what she’s thinking and she’s on the verge of just screaming and running for her life honestly when Peebee suddenly crushes her into a hug so tight she can feel the heatpacks against her face.

“J’ann sareia t’enn,” she says, and Jess feels like she should be alarmed by how attracted she is to the way Peebee’s voice rumbles in her chest.

“Still can’t speak Telari,” Jess wheezes, “and still need oxygen.”

“Arzhe’atta, I’m sorry,” Peebee lets her go, patting her from head to shoulders like she’s checking if Jess is still intact. “I just—sorry.”

“You’re fine,” Jess coughs. “I take it the comment wasn’t unwelcome?”

“Of course not,” Peebee sighs. “I just—courting customs are so different everywhere, I didn’t—not sure how to…”

“A kiss is a good start on Earth, I’d say.”

Okay Jess officially needs to learn how to shut the fuck up.

Against all odds it works anyway because in a fit of boldness and bravery Peebee pulls her scarf down and leans into kiss her. Jess has to get on her tiptoes to meet her halfway but she doesn’t really care because the kiss is soft and nice and so different than anything she’s ever experienced and it feels kind of like a culmination of a year’s worth of healing and caring and gentle edging towards one another.

So when Peebee pulls away, Jess tries to think of something to say, something meaningful, something to tell Peebee how happy she is and what this means to her.

“You stuffed your boobs uneven today.”

How romantic.

“Aw, I did?” Peebee tries to shuffle the cotton pads inconspicuously but gives up with a sputtering sigh. “Boobs are so weird.”

Jess laughs. “They are, but you don’t have to do them anyway.”

“Whaaaat. I thought all human females had boobs?”

“Well. Not always? And you don’t have to present as female anyway? Not that you shouldn’t, or anything.”

Peebee sputters in exasperation again.

“What the fuck does not always mean?”

“It’s complicated,” Jess offers.

“First you tell me there’s only two genders here, and then you tell me it’s complicated…” Peebee grumbles. “Mammals.”

Jess laughs then, so absurdly enamored with the way Peebee grumbles it like an insult and she swears she falls a little bit in love.

Jessica Hoang takes her job very seriously. It’s odd, she knows, for her to care about her boss like an older sister, overprotective to a fault, but between falling for her alien neighbor and being friends with Supergirl herself she knows she’s far past odd now. She used to think happy endings and romantic beginnings only existed in stories, but the world extends far beyond the short-sighted reach of humanity and, just maybe, she’s underestimated the universe.

“Happy Christ-mas,” Peebee says, enunciating the ‘i’ as they’re walking down the sparkling boulevard, hand in hand.

Jess laughs.

“Happy, Christ-mas, Peebee.”