Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lena had gone back to sleep after that nightmare. Kara had soothed her until her breathing had settled. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the question again. She was unsure if she’d even asked it in the first place. 

She’d leaned into the blonde. The warmth of Kara’s body and her firm hold were like grace from heaven, and in the safety of them, Lena let Kara hold her until they both went back to sleep as she thought of the beautiful time they’d shared earlier. 

Lena opened her eyes the next morning to the blonde sound asleep next to her. She had a few minutes before they went about their day, and she used them to gaze at Kara. 

Lena had been kidding herself pretending Kara wasn’t the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. Everything about her was perfect. Even that little scar by her forehead, which she now wondered how the kryptonian had gotten if she could heal instantly. 

The sense of ease she felt with Kara next to her was so unusual, but she chose not to fight it. For once, she didn’t feel like being exposed or being vulnerable was a horrible thing that she had to avoid. 

“I can sense you looking at me,” the blonde spoke with her eyes closed, startling Lena.

“Fuck, you scared me,” Lena replied. 

Kara chuckled as she lazily opened her eyes. “Sorry.”

“I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep in someone’s arms,” Lena said. 

Kara smiled. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate my arms? 8 being the lowest option,” she joked as she grabbed some chapstick from the nightstand and put it on. It was mint, Lena had tasted it on her lips last night. 

Lena laughed, “8?”

“Well it couldn’t possibly be lower than that.”

Lena smirked “7,” she said, though it was more like a 9.

Kara opened her mouth wide in feigned shock. “Ouch.” 

Lena chuckled.

“I take it your memory hasn’t come back,” the blonde said.

Lena shook her head. 

“Bummer. I was kind of hoping the sex would be so amazing everything would come rushing back,” she said with a smirk.

Lena laughed out loud. “You are something else. But you should have asked me to rate the sex before making such an assumption.”

“Alright. Scale of 1 to 10, 7 being the lowest this time.”

Lena smirked. “I took you down a notch didn’t I?” she teased. 

“If you’re taking this long to answer I probably don’t want to hear the answer,” Kara said smiling.

Lena chuckled. She was stalling, but not because the answer was terrible. Last night, Lena had been wet, loud, and satisfied 3 times. Anything other than a high praise would be bullshit that Kara would see right through. Lena knew it, Kara knew it. 

“It was fantastic,” the brunette admitted, “but since it didn’t bring back my memory maybe you’ll have to try harder next time, really break a sweat.”

Kara chuckled but Lena’s smile faded as she realized the inevitable end to this. Who knew if there would be a next time. There were no assurances. The night might have been right, but so many things weren’t right for Lena yet.

Kara smiled sadly as if she too knew there was uncertainty in her words. 

“So, about that folder you brought yesterday. Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?” Lena asked dreadfully. 

“Oh yeah,” Kara sat up slightly, the sheets slid down her chest and though Lena got slightly excited for the view, Kara was wearing underwear now. Still, she got a look of those tasty abs. “I looked into Spheerical Industries.”

Oh, Spheerical Industries. Not the divorce papers. She felt such relief. Lena sat up too. “And?”

“You’re right. Something is off. Someone I spoke with told me that their nanobots project isn’t what it seems. And I got pictures,” she said as she got out of bed to retrieve the folder from the kitchen.

“Check it out,” Kara said as she took photos out of the folder as she returned to bed. “These aren’t mine, but from an ex security guard from the company. He got these from security tapes. These animals and people go into the lab and never come back out. At least not alive.”

“Holy shit. Failed trials for the nanobots?” Lena asked as she looked at the evidence.

“I think so. And get this, a scientist that had some moral concerns about the project was fired last year. Two weeks later, he dies of a heart attack. And I think it all leads to CFO Beth Breen,” Kara said as she pulled out a photo from the pile with a woman’s face on it. 

“Shit, nicely done,” Lena said. She was impressed, that was for sure. 

“Thanks. I’ll keep working on it, but there’s definitely something there.”

Lena smiled and there was some silence. “Kara…” she cleared her throat, ”how did I get the scar on my chest?” she asked firmly this time before she cowered. 

Kara swallowed and sat up straighter. 

Oh, it was serious then. 

Kara breathed out heavily. She couldn’t even look at Lena at first but then she gave her the courtesy of eye contact.

“After you hacked into Edge’s servers, you found more than you’d bargained for, a lot more. It involved your family,” she began. “And part of the deal you cut with the DEO and the FBI included… turning your family in,” Kara explained.

Lena’s brows immediately pinched and she tilted her head. “What?” 

“Through Edge’s company, you found out that your mother and Lex were involved in many illegal things. You tried to tell them to stop but they didn’t want to. And so you turned them in,” Kara stated. “And then there was an attempt on your life,” she paused, “ordered by Lillian and Lex.”

Lena shook her head and scoffed a laugh. “What? No, they wouldn’t.” 

Kara sighed at the dejavú. She’d wanted to avoid exactly this pain for Lena. 

“I’m so sorry Lena, I didn’t want to-“

“No!” she said as she raised her voice, getting defensive. “That’s not right. It’s wrong, it’s all… fuck, no. I would have never done that, turning them in, they wouldn’t have…fuck…” she breathed out as her chest began to ache. These fucking aches were driving her mad. But it seemed so obvious now what their cause was.

Kara’s hands hovered over her, unsure if she could touch her, and just as the blonde’s hands began to settle down on Lena’s skin, the brunette jumped out of bed. “Bullshit,” she accused Kara. 

The blonde sighed, “I wish it were, Rao I wish it were.”

Lena stood in silence for a few seconds, gauging the blonde’s reaction, and as if trying to find proof in her face or her body language that it was all a lie, but she didn’t find any. Still, the denial was too strong. 

“I have to see them,” Lena said as she turned around and made it to the bathroom to take a shower.

“What?” Kara asked as she went after her. “Lena, I know this is the last thing you’d want to believe but-”

“I want to see them!” she hollered, “I want them to admit it, I want them to say it to my face!” 

“It won’t do you any good,” the blonde promised. 

“I don’t give a fuck,” Lena said as she grabbed a towel and got the shower water running. “Do you mind?” she turned to the blonde a bit crudely to ask for privacy. 

Kara sighed. “I’m here if you need me,” she said, and left the bathroom. 

Lena sat stiffly in the prison chair in the visitors area. She was now picking at her nail beds, something she’d stopped doing in college. When she heard the door unlock and the prisoner about to come out, she sat up straight, or straighter, and put her hands aside. She needed to come across as if she were in control because she knew who was about to walk in, the unspoken battle for dominance that would occur. She needed to be calm but fierce. She knew the person that was coming would look poised and commanding, even from behind bars. She knew their woeful smile would make her uncomfortable. And if she’d let them, she knew a few words of theirs could undo her entirely, cut her down to a size so little she’d sink in her seat. 

But not this time. This time she’d come with emotion to match theirs; rage bottled up so tight that anything could set it off, violence so strong that it always lingered menacingly behind like a backup plan if needed. She finally understood what it was like to be them for just a little bit. 

Today, she’d finally come to visit Lex, and in seconds, she’d taken on his persona, courtesy of the triggering news Kara had delivered an hour ago. 

As the door opened, a tap sounded behind it, and then appeared a cane. Lex limped into the room in the most pathetic fashion, not to mention he was cuffed from his feet and hands, utterly miserable.  

He’d grown so old. That was the first thing she’d noticed. He was only a couple years older but he had so many wrinkles and his face had fallen, his eyes were droopy and dark. He looked nearly their mother’s age, and frankly, Lillian looked better. 

And he’d lost weight. A lot of it. He looked underfed and she could see bones stick out where they shouldn’t. He looked so weak . Everything she’d ever thought of him fell flat in that moment. He was no longer her all mighty brother as she’d seen him her entire life. He no longer inspired fear in her, or respect. 

She watched him make his way to the chair in front of her, sit down with difficulty and put the cane on the table. She watched him sit and analyze her from head to toe. She watched him try to intimidate her, but it failed. All she felt for him was pity.

“You finally have the nerve to visit me after all this time. I’d like to hear it,” he said. 

She frowned. “Hear what?”

“Your admission that I was right. Your plan to finally make amends by getting me out of here!” he screamed. 

All the grace she was thinking she’d see in him, he’d lost it. He had no confidence left in him, no dignity. 

“You’re confused about why I’m here,” she said firmly.

He huffed a laugh. “The only reason you should dare to visit me is to tell me I was right in trying to rid the world of the disease that is Supergirl, to thank me for it. And to tell me how you’re going to get me out of here and how you’re going to help me, because it’s not a fucking choice, you will help me find her, and make her pay for what she did to me.” 

He’d been bottling all that up, obsessing. All that anger aimed at Supergirl, at her. He’d been waiting for her to come, she figured. It probably ate away at him every day she didn’t go to give him a chance to demean her.

He slammed his cane on the table, but Lena didn’t flinch. His fear tactics were useless against her now. She immediately gathered that his little stunt to kill Supergirl had gotten him handicapped. She doubted the blonde had done it on purpose, it wasn’t her style. It was more likely his own actions had resulted in that. 

“As a matter of fact, if you finally understood a shred of your fucking betrayal, how you turned your back against your family, you’d tell me I was right in trying to kill you . Our mother fought it, but even she came to be convinced that it was the fate you had earned, the one you deserved!” he spat out. 

Lex had cracked in prison. She truly thought she’d never see the day, but here it was. He was a desperate, broken man. And despite his cruelty, despite the fact that he’d confessed to the exact thing she’d wanted to ask about; a conversation she’d rehearsed the entire hour on the way to prison, one she’d thought was going to be long and dragging, like a knife slowly twisting; despite all this, she just felt a deep heartbreak. Heartbreak for the girl that she’d been who had looked up to her brother her whole life, and now she couldn’t for the life of her remember why. Heartbreak for Lex, who was living proof of how anger consumed you and left nearly nothing in body and less even in spirit. Heartbreak for the dysfunctional family that she’d had, because damn it, she had deserved better than this. And all the anger she’d brought with her, that fury she thought she needed to match his, to stand up against him and be just as threatening as he was, simply faded away. It was all a bit anticlimactic, but she couldn’t have cared less.

She stood up. “Thank you Lex,” she said with an honest smile, for what else could she say? She was thankful to him, for finally showing her who he was, for giving her such clarity that she finally understood what path she’d be heading if she decided to hold on to her anger, her resentment, all her poisonous feelings. He was the last person she’d ever want to end up as, and for allowing her to see that, she had to thank him. And with gratitude, a wave of forgiveness followed right behind. 

“What?” he shrieked as he tried to stand too quickly and nearly fell face flat onto the table as one of his legs failed to hold him up. He looked irate and confused. “Where are you going?” he blared at her.

Lena turned around, “Oh, and… I forgive you,” she said with an even bigger smile. 

His face contorted, his body tensed, he looked on the verge of a seizure. He was paralyzed in shock, or rage, or whichever emotion he needed to use to mask his hurt. The guard opened the door and she walked out. Lex began howling as soon as she was gone, curses and insults, but Lena didn’t hear a word of them. It didn’t matter to Lena, didn’t get to her. She still simply took pity on him, hoping that one day he might be free from all his poisonous feelings. 

Once she stepped out of the prison and in her car, she sat for about 4 minutes, quietly going through Kelly’s soothing technique as she did. How evident it all was now. Her body remembered all right, it remembered the hurt and pain her family had caused her, no one else (well, maybe she’d caused herself some pain too). How could she not have noticed sooner? 

And then, she realized, if she could make it through Lex, her mother would be a breeze. She had no intention of having any kind of anxiety attack after the call she was about to make. In fact, she was starting to feel quite calm. 

She picked up her phone and dialed the same prison she was just outside of, except the women’s wing. 

“Now you don’t visit, just call,” Lillian critiqued.

“I don’t think visiting you would do me any good frankly,” Lena replied honestly. It came out easily. Her body no longer held any tension as she spoke to her mother. “I think I forgive you for trying to kill me mother, but I don’t want to see you anymore,” she said bluntly. 

Her mother sighed. “Just as well. I knew it wouldn’t last,” she said, understanding perfectly it seemed. 

“I finally paid Lex a visit,” Lena said. 

“Oh,” she heard her mother’s surprise, “and how is he?”

“Not well. His rage is eating at him. If he keeps it up he might kill himself in a few years with some heart failure or seizure.”

Her mother sighed again. “I always figured that’s how he’d go. Either his hubris or his rage would kill him. I suppose in a way, both already have.”

“Out of curiosity,” Lena spoke, “how was it exactly that Lex ended up handicapped?”

Her mother was quiet for a moment. Lena thought maybe the question gave away her memory loss somehow, but she waited quietly. 

“Well, he claims Supergirl broke his back, but I know it was a malfunction in the suit. He would never admit to that because it was his design, but I know the truth,” she explained. 

Lena hummed to convey that she’d gotten the message. “How long had he worked on that suit?” Lena wondered. 

“Oh, from much sooner than we’d been arrested. He’d always intended to kill Supergirl with it, trying to prove himself a god or something of the sort.”

Lena’s mouth nearly dropped at the information, but she gave no verbal cue to her mother. “Another one of his wonderful traits,” she said instead. “His god complex.”

“Indeed. Perhaps if I’d been a man I would have been the same,” Lillian remarked, as if thinking aloud. 

“Your lack of a god complex is probably what kept the Luthor empire alive for so long.”

Her mother chuckled, “indeed, I was always more cautious.”

Lena smiled to herself. 

“I always knew you were different,” her mother then said.

The sentence came to Lena by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean from us, the Luthors. There was something about you. You had… principles. You cared about other people, wanted to help them. I always thought you couldn’t be successful and kind, but you… proved me wrong with your company and your success,” her mother spoke earnestly. 

“You certainly never made it seem like I proved you wrong,” Lena remarked. 

“It was too late for Lex and I to change. I built the Luthor empire on fear, I couldn’t suddenly rule by kindness, it would have wrecked it all. But you, you were the best of us. When I found out about your little side gig, I had quite the shock.”

“Side gig?” Lena asked. 

“This Tess Mercer persona you’d come up with years ago,” her mother elaborated.

“You knew about that?” Lena sat up in her seat. 

“At some point I gathered. I thought, well, there she is, being a Luthor, using those computer skills from her teen years that I thought initially would go to waste to get something for herself. I thought I’d had you all wrong for a moment, I thought the apple hadn’t fallen as far from the tree as I’d imagined. You were a Luthor after all, I said to myself. But then I found out you were using that persona for good too. In a way, that wasn’t so surprising. But I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how you’d put yourself in danger of getting arrested just to help others when you already did more than enough in my view. That part still makes no sense to me, but I think I have come to understand that you are just different, and I will never make sense of it. And perhaps that’s why it was so easy to turn us in.”

“Easy? I think it was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done,” Lena replied. She shouldn’t speak for her unremembered self, but there was no way in hell that it had been easy to do that. 

“Well, that brings me some comfort at least. Either way, part of me thought it was the inevitable conclusion for our relationship. The only person who’d be capable enough to take the Luthors down had to be another Luthor. Not Supergirl, but you.”

They remained in silence for a while. Lena figured she should say something before the phone call was cut short, but she didn’t know what. 

“Darling…” Lillian spoke. Lena could hear her swallow, could almost sense the remorse through the phone, a feeling she’d never recognized in her mother before. “I am s-”

Could it be? Was her mother about to… apologize?

“... starting to get distressed in here, the beds are quite incommodious. Could you get me an upgrade from the commissary?” Lillian finished.

Lena chuckled. Of course it wasn’t an apology, but her mother was out of sorts if her exaggerated vocabulary was any sign. “I’m sure you can get your own upgrade mother,” she replied politely.

“Right, yes, of course.”

Lena sighed, feeling a sense of relief. 

“Darling?” her mother asked after there was a quiet. 

“Hm?”

“Might you at least consider calling every now and then?” Lillian asked. 

Lena could hear her softness through the phone, a tone she’d never taken with her before. It felt sincere, vulnerable. It was the most bizarre feeling. “I’ll think about it, but I won’t promise I will.”

“I understand.”

“Goodbye mother.”

“Goodbye darling.”

Lena hung up first. She took another sigh of relief. 

Lena hadn’t gone directly back to the apartment after that. She’d asked the driver to take her to a park near the city and then told him to leave. She decided she’d walk back to the apartment on her own after spending some time in the park. 

She’d been reactive ever since this entire ordeal had begun, and she decided to be like that no more. During her walk she’d spent the time thinking about everything. Her mother, her brother, Kara, her marriage, her work, everything since the incident that had wiped her memory. 

And after it, noting how cutting off all ties with her family and starting fresh made her feel utterly alleviated, she’d decided that she felt most comfortable resetting everything else in her life until she was completely sure she wanted it. If she was to have a life, any kind of it, she had to make a conscious choice for it, not just go along with it. That had never been her way. 

That meant taking a break from work, from her projects at her lab, and L Corp as a whole for however long she needed. Even though Sam had caught her up on a lot, Lena needed to find her way back to the work that inspired her now, whatever that may be. Sam would understand, she had no doubt. If it was meant to be, she’d go back to L Corp, but in truth, she didn’t know where this time of introspection and search for new purpose would lead her.

She took a bus over to L Corp and headed directly to Sam’s office. 

As she entered the office, Sam sent her secretary away. 

“Any chance you’re coming to tell me what an amazing friend I’ve been the last 5 years because your memory has miraculously come back?” Sam began with a light tone.

Lena shook her head. “Unfortunately not.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, I could tell.” Sam knew her well.

“I need a favor,” Lena said.

After she’d explained her decision to Sam, she’d also asked her to allow her to move in with her for a while. She didn’t want to be alone right away. Sam was more than happy to have Lena stay with her, and she immediately understood Lena’s decisions.

But this reset business also meant… leaving Kara and ending her marriage. She couldn’t continue in a relationship she didn’t recall starting and committing to, that much she knew. 

Lena went home realizing Kara wouldn’t be there. She needed to get some things in order. The rest of her life for starters. She needed to take some time and really think about what she wanted, what she needed, and what she had to do to get those things. Plan ahead on her own for a change.

She’d grabbed her phone and in some last hope that they’d trigger her memory, clicked on one final video.

The video began a little unstable. It was clear Kara was holding the camera a little clumsily. Lena could see the decorations all over the apartment; red hearts and roses. 

“I hope she likes it,” Kara said to the camera where it was evident she held some roses in her arm. “Here she comes,” she added before aiming it at the door. 

Lena walked in. 

Her first reaction was widened eyes. “Oh God, what is this?”

Kara laughed. “I have an important question to ask.”

“Alright,” Lena said as she smiled and put her work books down along with her bag. 

“Would you be my valentine?” Kara asked as she approached Lena. 

Lena beamed. “You’re such a dork. And of course I will,” she said as she leaned in and kissed her. 

“Oh good, I was worried,” said the blonde humorously.

Lena chuckled. “You didn’t have to do all this, you know.”

“I know. But just because we’re together doesn’t mean I should assume you’d be my valentine.”

“Yes it does,” Lena replied as she grabbed Kara’s phone and kissed the camera and then aimed it at Kara. “I’d be your anything.”

It was Kara that beamed now. “My anything?” she asked to be sure. 

“Mhm.”

“So like… would you be interested in being my… more sometime in the future?” Kara asked. 

Lena chuckled. “Your more?”

“Yeah, something more, more than my valentine,” the blonde said as she bit her lip. 

“Yes. I’d be very interested in that,” Lena said with a blush.

Kara couldn’t stop beaming. “Who would’ve thought it? A Luthor and a Super together.”

“Certainly not me, but you’ve changed my mind. You’ve changed me,” Lena spoke softly as she pushed a hair behind Kara’s ear tenderly. 

“You know I love you more than anything.”

“Are you sure you’d want me to be your… more?” Lena asked.

“I’m sure of it. In fact, with a love like this, I’m sure we’d make it through absolutely anything, as cheesy as it sounds. I’m prepared and ready to love you forever, through anything and everything.”

“There is just one thing before all that,” Lena spoke. 

“Alright.”

“You have yet to take me out on a real date,” Lena said. 

Kara chuckled. “True. I’ll fix that, but only cuz I love you.”

Lena leaned in and kissed Kara tenderly. “I love you too, so fucking much.” She was now in view of the camera as she put it on the table facing up while leaning on some of her books. 

Kara smiled at her. 

“We’ll see how you feel about loving me once you find out how much kale I love,” Lena joked.

Kara winced in exaggeration. “I love you so much I’m willing to overlook it,” she said. 

Lena chuckled. “Through anything and everything huh?” 

“Yep. Hit me with anything, I’ll still love you.”

“You shouldn’t tempt the fates,” Lena warned jokingly. “You never know what could happen.”

“I know I’ll never not love you,” Kara said softly as she looked at Lena like she was the world. “And that I not only want more with you, I want so much more. Not to freak you out but that includes and is not limited to marriage, children, a family, the rest of my life, if you want it, and whenever you’re ready to talk about each part of it.”

Lena’s lip quivered as her eyes teared up. “Shit, well, I might be losing my mind but I think I want it all with you. All of it, even though it terrifies me,” she said as she kissed Kara again. 

“We’ll take it slow.”

“Especially the kids thing,” Lena added.

“As slow as you need,” Kara reassured her. The blonde pulled her into a hug to which Lena held tightly. 

The brunette then pulled back a little. “We can talk about more later okay. For tonight, I have a really special outfit for you,” Lena said with a wink.

“Oh Rao, I can’t wait to see you in it,” Kara said as Lena grabbed her by the hand and began pulling her towards the bedroom. 

At the last second, Kara reached back and locked her phone, effectively ending the video. 

The cruel irony of the video was not lost on Lena. She sighed sadly. Kara had truly loved her, that much was obvious to her, and she had truly loved Kara back. Yet she couldn’t remember any of it. This seemed like the kind of video that would spark memories if any. But no such luck. 

So that was that. She’d given it one last shot. And now she could move on. Had to. She decided right away to get a new phone in this next phase of her life. It made no sense to see videos of the self she didn’t recognize or remember and that frankly brought her more sadness than she’d anticipated, even shame for not being able to remember any of it. 

She thought of the steps that would follow now. She’d have to make an announcement to the public of course, both regarding her break from work and her marriage. Perhaps she wasn’t in magazines left and right, nor were there paparazzi following her 24/7 unless some new product or scandal came out, but she was still a public figure after all. 

There were a few things before all that though. She had to make some amends first, for the havoc she’d caused during that dinner a while back. 

And then of course, she had to tell Kara. 

The blonde walked into the apartment that day. Lena sat on the couch waiting for her.

Immediately, Kara seemed to know something was the matter.

She sat next to Lena. “So?” she asked.

“I… I went for a walk and did some thinking,” Lena began as Kara nodded. “And I’ve decided that I need to start fresh.”

“Fresh,” Kara repeated, “as in… start over.”

Lena nodded. 

Kara sighed and closed her eyes, taking it in, but as if she’d expected it in some part. “You never asked how this all happened you know.”

Lena’s brows pinched. “My memory loss?”

“Yeah. I figure I should tell you the truth now. You see, it was all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” 

“We were… looking for a new place, a bigger one, somewhere to start a family.”

Oh. That’s why Lena had been signed up to all those realtor emails she’d found in her inbox some time ago. 

Kara went on, “and I was so adamant on going on this one day, because I had prepared a picnic and I was going to surprise you with the new house. But it began raining badly, and I got delayed because of an attack in the city. And you had to drive there on your own, which you never do. I said I’d catch up, and just before we hung up an animal jumped in your way… you swerved out of the road and crashed into a tree. If I hadn’t been on the phone with you, if I had been there with you, I wouldn’t have distracted you, I could have protected you,” Kara explained as a tear fell down her eye. 

“Kara,” Lena spoke softly, “it was an accident. That wasn’t your fault. You can’t possibly blame yourself for something like that.”

“If I had just left it for another day, if I had-”

“Kara, stop it. There’s no use in beating yourself up. It was an accident,” Lena said, “I’m certainly not blaming you.”

“Well you should,” Kara stated.

Lena softly caressed her arm, “No I shouldn’t. And neither should you. It was just shitty luck.”

“Bad luck that has ruined my life, my marriage, my everything,” Kara said as the tears kept rolling down. 

Lena didn’t have much to say to comfort the blonde. Nothing would make this easy. And she felt herself begin to get quite emotional too. “You know, I had promised Sam I’d ask you something personal before ending this all.”

“You can still ask,” Kara spoke softly.

Lena thought about it. She looked at Kara and thought about asking her about the scar on her  forehead. She’d wanted to know about it. But all that came out in a whisper was “How?” 

Kara’s brows furrowed. “How what?”

“How did you fall in love with me?” Lena asked. “I’m… rude and cold and downright unlovable, and yet… I just don’t get it.”

Kara smiled. “Falling in love with you was the easy part,” she said as she moved closer to Lena.

Lena huffed a laugh at the absurdity of the sentence. 

“Loving you is the most alive I’ve ever felt,” Kara went on, “and I’ve fought dragons, and I’ve saved the Earth- twice, but nothing compares to how I feel when I’m with you. You make me want to be better, you do make me better.”

Lena shook her head and closed her eyes. “I get it even less now.”

“You’re not unlovable, you know,” Kara spoke softly. “You just needed the right person to love you for you to let yourself be loved.”

Lena’s eyes teared up slightly. “Kara I’m so sorry for… everything. For the way I treated you, and your family and friends, but mostly you. I’ve been so selfish.”

“It’s alright. It’s been hard for you. I can see that you’re hurting,” Kara said understandingly, as she always was, but holding back from tears. 

But it had been hard on Kara too, she’d been hurting too, Lena knew. Most of that was Lena’s fault in part. 

“By the way, I finally got why I stopped talking to my family. It’s because they tried to kill you, wasn’t it?” Lena asked for confirmation. 

“Yes. Lex had a kryptonite suit built. He escaped prison and went on his kill mission. But he forgot that Supergirl isn’t really a one-woman operation. I had all the Superfriends with me. You included. It was a hard fight, and he hardly made it out of it.”

“I went to see him,” Lena said. 

“Right, I nearly forgot. How did it go?” 

“I think I can finally let him go,” she said with a small smile. 

Kara smiled back. “For the second time,” she clarified. “Would it be terrible if I had a hope that maybe after all this you’ll think about me again?”

“Hey, who knows, maybe in a few months after I’ve had some time, if we see each other again you could ask me on a first date like you promised you would.”

Kara looked up at her quickly, her eyes now filled with hope. “You remember about that?”

Lena shook her head, “oh, no. Sorry, I just watched a video about it.”

“Oh, right,” Kara said as she nodded and let the disappointment not hit her too hard. 

“I know we were thinking of adopting,” Lena let out. 

Kara sighed. “Yeah, we were.”

“Yet another thing I have to apologize for.”

“No, no… I know what fresh start means, I get it.” 

“Thank you Kara,” Lena said.

“For what?” 

“For everything. For being so kind, and understanding, for your support. Everything,” Lena said as tears began to fall down her eyes too. 

It only made Kara cry a little harder. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but just know that I will never not love you. And if you ever need anything, from me, or me as Supergirl, I’ll be there for you.”

Lena wiped her own tears as she watched the blonde come to terms with letting her go. 

“So,” Lena took a look at Kara from head to toe, wiping her nose with a napkin now.  “I noticed, but fail to comment on the fact that you, or Supergirl eventually decided to wear pants. Did I get any of the credit for giving you that idea?” she said with half a laugh. 

“Any credit?” Kara said with a small smile, “you got all of it. You made the new pantsuit for me.”

Lena chuckled mid cry as she continued wiping her nose and eyes, along with Kara. “Well, I didn’t tell you but it looks damn good on you.”

Kara smiled at her. “Thank you.”

There was a quiet between them and Lena hugged the blonde. 

“So, now what?” Kara asked with her head burried in Lena’s shoulder.

“I… asked Sam if I could stay with her. And I think I should pack some things if that’s alright,” Lena said as she pulled back.

Kara nearly burst into heavier tears but held back. “Right. I don’t think I can help with that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Lena said. 

Kara kindly stood and gave Lena the space she needed to pack. 

Lena wore Kara’s pajamas again that night, the shorts she’d grabbed on that first night in the apartment. It would probably be the last time she’d wear them. 

Packing, of course, took more than a day. That night though, Lena had grabbed the essentials, then gone to Sam’s apartment. She’d been about to leave Kara’s shorts, with the intent to not have much to remind her of the blonde and to focus on moving on, but ended up putting them in her bag unthinkingly. She’d also taken some of the books Kara had gotten her too, just because it seemed a shame to leave them behind. 

Over the next few days, she’d gone to L Corp to shut her lab down, clean the whiteboard and shut down her projects and what not. She’d packed her notes and decided to take them in a box just in case she’d get curious about them later, even if it was unlikely for now.

But she had other important things to wrap up. Days later, she’d gone to the tower where Kara had taken her that first night of her memory loss. She’d apologized in person to the whole Superteam for her behavior and they’d kindly accepted it. 

She’d also taken a private moment with Alex to give her the kryptonite necklace she’d kept. She’d told the blonde’s sister that she had no use for it and thought it would be best kept safe with her. Alex thanked her and gave her a hug and wiped a tear. Lena hadn’t seen her all that often, but she knew Alex wasn’t much for feelings, so Lena knew this wasn’t easy for her.

As she awkwardly waved goodbye to the Superteam from the elevator, they looked at her, and though Lena barely knew them, she felt the love and care they had for her. It hit her just as the elevator doors closed that though she had lost her family, these people had become her new one. And she’d been too angry, too overwhelmed to even notice it. She hadn’t processed it all, until right now, and she was forced to wipe a tear as she left. 

All this wrapping up had taken the better part of 7 days. And on the 8th, she placed her wedding ring on the table at Kara’s apartment (she’d gone there at noon, knowing the blonde would be at work, in the hopes of making it easy by not seeing her). 

She was about to leave when Kara flew through the window. 

“Oh, hi, I’m sorry, I thought you’d be at work,” Lena spoke. 

Kara was surprised to see her. “Hi, yeah, I was, but I spilled something on my shirt so I just came to grab another.”

“Right.” 

Kara walked towards her. She glanced at the wedding ring on the table. “This is it then?”

“I thought it would be easier not to see me,” Lena commented.

Kara nodded. “You know, no matter what, I will always be rooting for you.”

Lena chuckled, “everyone’s been saying that to me lately. And everyone must be so exhausted with that. Rooting for the anti-hero.”

“You’re not the anti-hero,” Kara said. “You’re just figuring yourself out. And that’s what heroes do. And it’s brave as hell.”

Lena nearly cried all over at that. How could Kara be so compassionate with her after it all? She wasn’t sure she deserved it, but she figured that at some point, she’d have to stop blaming herself for making a decision like this. “Thank you.”

The blonde nodded. 

“Goodbye Kara,” Lena said, her lip quivering. Gosh, she was never this emotional before, but the emotions just kept hitting her with every goodbye she had to make for this life that she supposedly wanted to reset. 

“Goodbye Lena,” Kara said as they both leaned in to hug for a moment. 

It was a long and tender hug, and Kara breathed her in before letting her go slowly. 

It had been 5 months since Lena had moved out of Kara’s apartment and called her entire life off.  

She’d spent about 2 weeks with Sam before renting herself an apartment away from the city, all on her own. 

During the first month, things had seemed normal, like they had been before Kara. She was alone, like she recalled being. She still talked to Sam and they checked in on each other. She spent most of her time reading, meditating; she’d filled her schedule with cooking and baking classes (it was about time she learned to feed herself), yoga and pilates or some other physical activity while listening to some enlightening podcasts, and she enrolled in several advanced physics and science courses from local and international universities to catch up on the latest findings and advancements; and she’d even started to go to therapy once a week (decidedly not with Kelly for her own good.) 

She’d never had so much time to herself, for her own growth, but it did her nothing but good. Sure at times it was difficult, she struggled to move on from some things; to come to terms with her memory loss some days, to not worry about whether she’d done the right thing starting over and leaving it all behind. But mental health and wellbeing were not linear as her therapist reminded her. 

About 2 and a half months into her new life, she’d picked up the books that Kara had gotten her as they’d suddenly seemed appealing (along with some new ones). Her notes on these books (which she hadn’t remembered writing) resonated with her and she’d felt a kind of joy in finding her ideas already annotated in the margins just as she read the lines that inspired them. She’d also dusted off her work notebooks and taken a look at the projects she’d shut down. 

3 months in, and she’d actually made friends. She’d befriended the scientists she’d met in the courses she’d enrolled in and had begun spending time with them via Zoom calls or in person whenever she could. They discussed meeting more often and working together in the future just as she’d started thinking about new projects she could develop that were aligned with her previous L Corp ones. 

4 months in, she opted to change her routine up a little, make it slightly more flexible, and one morning decided to get coffee in the city, where she rarely went to these days. She took the bus and made her way to a new café that looked pretty busy. Just walking into the smell of coffee and freshly baked goods made her feel good. She took a few moments while waiting in line to enjoy everything around her (something she’d started to do thanks to therapy). She looked at the people waiting in line with her, others that sat and talked on the tables, the people working or studying on their laptops. The busy feel of it all was a nice change from the quiet parts she currently resided in. Maybe she’d move back to the city, she thought. She missed the quick pace that came with it. 

About 5 months into self discovery, she had moved back to the city. Most scientists she wanted to work with lived in the city anyhow. And every piece of equipment she needed delivered to her outside of town took twice as long to get to her. Plus, she had nowhere to put them. To her fortune, Sam had told her that her lab was always available if she needed it. So it seemed most logical to move back. By 5 and a half months, her projects with the new scientists, one of them named Eve (and whose company she greatly enjoyed) looked promising (even if in early stages) and she was back in her lab daily, working. She’d cut down on some of her other activities, and focused more on her ideas that month (while making sure to not neglect her health like she used to be in the habit of doing). 

The café that she’d entered that day not long ago became a part of her new routine. It had the best coffee in National City without a doubt. 

She’d gone to the café early that day, way too early for her taste. But she had a meeting with a scientist in Singapore (she’d made a fair share of new connections) and the time difference was a killer. 

She was making her way out of the café one thursday, yawning and carrying her cup a little too softly while mindlessly looking about, when she bumped into someone. 

“Shit,” Lena said as she nearly spilled her cup. 

“I’m sorry,” the familiar voice replied at the same time. 

Lena smiled as she looked up. And facing her were the most beautiful eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. “Kara.”

The blonde lit up in recognition. “Lena.”

“Hi, how are you?” Lena asked. It seemed like the right thing to ask. 

“I’m… you know,” the blonde said. 

One didn’t recover from a 5 year marriage to a woman turned amnesiac that quickly, if the superhero bumping into her was any sign of how out of sorts she was.

“Right,” Lena said. 

“And you?” Kara asked. 

Lena thought about lying. Telling Kara her life was horrible just to make her feel a little better, but the brunette knew that was not the kind of answer the blonde would be looking for anyway. So she went for the truth. “I’m great actually, I’ve been good recently.”

“Good, good, I’m glad.”

“You trying out this new café?” Lena asked. The blonde had been on her way in. 

“Yeah, it opened a couple months ago and everyone’s been raving about it. Thought I’d try it,” Kara explained. 

“It’s really good, won’t regret it,” Lena said with a smile. 

Kara nodded. 

There was a short silence. 

“Are you getting to work?” Lena asked. 

“Yeah, I like to go a bit early and work on some articles to make up for the time I don’t spend in the office because of… well you know, crime never sleeps,” she explained. 

Lena smiled. Supergirl never slept either, or so most people thought. In the last few months Lena had done her best to not watch the news for her own mental health, and partly to avoid looking at Kara with the intent of moving on, but avoiding Supergirl entirely was nearly impossible. And in a way, Lena had slowly grown fond of seeing the blonde all over, saving the world, one big or small act at a time. She had to admit, the blonde looked really good on TV. She was very photogenic. But Lena also couldn’t deny that she often thought about how Kara was, how she was feeling, how she’d coped with the breakup.  

“If they ever get cameras at your work you’ll be screwed,” Lena joked. 

Kara chuckled, “yeah, I’ll be voting for keeping our privacy if that ever comes up.”

Lena smiled. “So, I should let you get your coffee.”

“Right,” Kara said with a sad nod. Lena could almost see the hope she’d had that maybe this conversation would go longer, but Lena wouldn’t even know where to begin. “Maybe I’ll see you at this time tomorrow?” Kara asked warily.

“Yeah, you probably will.” A blatant lie she didn’t know where it had come from. “I’m hooked on their coffee,” she added some truth. 

“Maybe I could buy you a cup one day,” the blonde suggested. 

Lena smiled, “maybe I’ll buy you one,” she surprised herself by saying. 

Kara beamed. “Maybe.”

Lena said goodbye and they parted ways. And that was that. Some semblance of closure. 

Or so she thought. 

The next day, Kara was there before Lena (the willpower it had taken to get up that early again was monumental) and had apparently bought her coffee. The wrong one. 

“Oh, I drink black,” Lena had commented as politely as she could. Didn’t Kara know that? She used to bring Lena her coffee.

“Oh, really? I couldn’t have possibly guessed, my bad,” the blonde replied with a small smirk.

Lena lifted a brow, and she quickly understood. Kara was trying to start over, fresh. 

“Right, no way you could have known,” Lena stated with a smile. “Oh, remind me your name won’t you?” she played along. 

“Kara,” the blonde said with a smile of her own, “Danvers.”

“Kara Danvers. Unusual name,” Lena stated as she took the wrong coffee order and drank it anyhow. 

“Yeah, my parents were weirdos,” Kara remarked. 

Lena chuckled. 

“And your name is?” Kara asked. 

“Lena Luthor.”

“Wait, Luthor as in L Corp?” Kara said in an exaggerated consultation. 

Lena chuckled, “yes, but I mostly work in the lab these days.”

“Oh yeah?” Kara beamed again. Lena was back in her lab. “And what do you do there?”

“Mostly boring stuff, research and development.”

“That doesn’t sound boring to me. Maybe I could walk you there and you could tell me about it?” she suggested. 

Lena considered it. “Okay, but I can’t promise you won’t be bored.”

“I won’t be. Beautiful women have a way of keeping me captivated,” Kara said boldly. 

Lena blushed at the comment. 

“A week later and Kara was walking Lena to work every day. The blonde now bought her black coffee like Lena actually drank, and at those hours, Lena desperately needed the drink.

In the 15 minute walk to work, Lena would tell Kara about her work, and Kara would listen. If Lena said something that Kara already knew, the blonde never let on, she always reacted as if it were all new. And maybe it was a little. 

“So,” Kara said just as they’d reached L Corp one Friday. “I was wondering if-”

“Would you go out with me?” Lena interrupted. 

“What?” Kara said out blankly.

“That’s what you were going to ask me, right?” 

“I can’t believe you just stole my chance to ask you out,” Kara stated.

Lena chuckled in a little disbelief, “stole your chance?”

“Yes. I had to ask you out.”

“Why’s that?”

Kara paused. “Because it’s my chance to take you on a first date, for the first time, like I had promised.”

Lena was quiet as she contemplated the words. It was the first time Kara was bringing up anything from their shared (but not entirely remembered by Lena) past. “Well, I thought we could do things a little differently,” Lena said with a smile. 

Kara smiled. “How can I say no to dimples like that?”

Lena laughed, “you can’t see my dimples,” she immediately countered. 

“I can now,” the blonde replied with a smirk.

Lena bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, tucking her dimples back into their subtle place. She found herself easily falling into Kara’s charm. 

No pressure. That’s what Lena had been saying to herself the entire day as she got ready for her date with Kara. Lena had even decided to keep it a lunch date. Something about going out at night made it too personal. 

She hadn’t dated in the last 5 months, which she was more than fine with, so this would be her first date in… the math with her memory loss was confusing her, but it was her first date in a while. She didn’t know if it was a terrible idea to do that with Kara. With all the history between them, would any of this work? She’d told her therapist about the date and gotten motivated to go through with it and see how it made her feel. Her therapist had recommended that Lena remove all pressure and just act as if it was her first real date. Technically it was. Like Kara had said, they’d never been on a first date before. 

The date had been canceled . Saving the city took priority that night. 

Lena didn’t blame Kara for that. And in the distraction that a new villain gave Supergirl, it wasn’t rescheduled. But so be it, Lena felt. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

Until the phone rang. The DEO calling. Alex . 

They needed Lena’s help taking a villain down. Lena, unsure what she could do, said yes anyhow. But given that she already knew the identities of all the heroes and had the expertise they needed, she turned out to be the perfect person for the job.

It had taken the better part of a week to defeat that villain. Lena had taken a break from her work (with some not convincing excuse given to her recently formed team of apprentices and scientists) to help the Superteam, and frankly, she’d enjoyed every minute of it. The excitement, the intensity; the stakes were high and Lena was challenged. She’d enjoyed it a little too much maybe. And she’d learned that she actually worked quite well with the Superteam. 

She and Kara had talked in between it all, but the blonde hadn’t brought up the date again. It was all business (plus, the superteam was always around), and maybe some fun fighting bad guys. 

She’d thought it was a one time thing this whole helping the DEO save the world, but supervillains never slept. After that time, the DEO kept Lena close by, and the brunette got more active with helping save the city. She hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but she was pretty sure she was kind of part of the Superteam. 

“Kind of?” Nia asked while they were all working in the tower. 

Lena snapped her head. Had she said that aloud?

“You are part of the Superteam,” Nia confirmed.

“I am?” Lena asked shily. 

“Indeed,” Brainy affirmed.

“For how long?” Lena asked.

“Weeks,” Nia confirmed.

“I didn’t know that,” Lena replied with a small smile.

“We don’t really have a ritual or rite of entry or anything but if you know our identities and you help us stop crime, then you’re part of the team,” Alex said. “Now can we focus on Supergirl please?” 

“You are 3000 feet from target,” Brainy was back to business.

Lena hid an even bigger smile and focused on her work. Huh , she was part of the Superteam, her, Lena Luthor. Wasn’t that something?

“Hey, Kelly, can I steal you for a moment?” Lena asked the brunette one day after game night. These events apparently occurred on a semi regular basis and she’d been invited as of a couple of weeks. Lena Luthor, as it turns out, was fucking amazing at board games. But this wasn’t about that; she’d had something on her mind lately. 

“Yes, of course,” Kelly said politely as she stepped closer to Lena as the game night wrapped up. 

“I was wondering, if it’s okay, that I might get back to therapy with you,” Lena said.

“Oh,” Kelly looked quite surprised. “I was not expecting that. I thought you’d mentioned you had one right now. Is it not working out?”

“No, they’re great, but no, it’s not working out. They live outside the city and we did video calls but it’s not quite the same. I was hoping to get one in the city and I was going to look for one until I remembered I already know the best in National City,” Lena said.

Kelly chuckled.

“What?” Lena asked with a raised brow. 

“Aside from having another therapist, that was roughly how you put it the first time you asked me to be your therapist. And I’d present my objections again-”

“But I’d convince you to do it either way,” Lena finished her sentence with a smile. 

“Pretty much.”

“So, I’ll call your office for an appointment?” 

“Anytime,” Kelly stated.

“Who does he look like?” Lena asked aloud as the Superteam fought an alien called Naxim Tork while she helped from the tower. It was past midnight when they’d all had to rush out of bed to figure out how to fight this alien that had come out of nowhere. 

”Mystique from X-men?” Nia asked from her comms.

“No, it’s a children’s thing.”

“Megamind!” Brainy suggested. 

There was a silence that followed. “You know Megamind?” Alex asked through comms.

“Nia has been showing me what she considers to be the best animation films lately, and I’ve largely enjoyed that one,” he explained. 

“I don’t even know who that is,” Lena answered. “Supergirl, to your left,” she warned the blonde.

“Electro from Spiderman?” Supergirl chimed in as she moved out of an attack.

“No, that’s not it, it’s that… that water person,” Lena replied. 

“That thing from The Shape of Water?” Alex asked as she dodged a laser bullet he’d fired her way. 

“I don’t think I’ll figure it out, but thanks for trying everyone.”

Not long after, Tork was defeated and everyone was back in the tower. 

“Still don’t know what it is?” Alex asked. 

“No, but it’s a blue person, with blonde hair and they’re in the water,” Lena explained. “I remember something like that from my childhood. I think it was a woman.”

“OMG!” Nia nearly screamed out, “Ursula!” she exclaimed. 

Alex raised a brow, “from The Little Mermaid?”

“Yes, yes, that!” Lena exclaimed. 

Alex rolled her eyes, “you couldn’t remember the name of an iconic character from one of the most iconic children’s books and movies?” she turned to Lena. 

Lena shrugged, “I wasn’t allowed to see any of that as a child. I only caught a glimpse of it once when I was left alone.”

“How does Tork even look like Ursula?” Alex asked. She looked up the character and showed it to Lena. 

“Blue skin, blonde hair, evil… those general characteristics match,” Lena said half-convinced. 

“Nia?” Alex asked. 

“Sorry Lena, not all blue people look alike,” the brunette teased harmlessly with a smile.  

“Agreed,” Brainy followed Nia’s words. 

“If you’d said Brainy, it would’ve been closer,” Alex teased some more. 

Brainy gave them a look, and Nia kissed him on the cheek.

“I think it looks similar,” Kara jumped in. 

Nia and Alex looked at each other. The blonde always had a soft spot for Lena. 

“So you secretly watched The Little Mermaid? How rebellious,” Kara said to the brunette. 

“Oh yes, I was quite the rebel at 5 years old,” Lena joked. “But you really should have seen me at 16, or maybe worse 19.”

“What’d you do? Watch Princess Diaries when you should have been practicing chess?” the blonde asked. 

“Well, at 16 I went through a serious goth phase, had a general distaste for people, including my family and all things related to the sun,” Lena explained.

“I see that last part continues,” the blonde teased. 

Lena gave her a look, “but at 19, oh boy. I mean don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly focused on my studies but I had this one semester where my mother pushed me right at the wrong time and I ended up buying her a pair of dildos that I made her open unsuspectingly during one of her parties,” Lena said nonchalantly. 

“Hot pink?” Nia asked as soon as she was done laughing. 

“Rainbow and black,” Lena corrected. Nia continued laughing. 

“That is quite rebellious,” the blonde said. “What did your mom do?”

“Paid my girlfriend at the time to break up with me, then told me she’d done it to prove my girlfriend was only with me for the money,” Lena explained. 

“Shit,” Alex replied. 

“You mess with the devil and you’ll get her horns,” Lena stated. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the blonde. 

Lena couldn’t quite tell if she’d already told them all that story in her other life memory. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I ended up getting two very useful dildos out of that deal before my mother threw them out,” Lena said with a wink aimed at the blonde. 

Alex and Nia looked at each other again. Because if it wasn’t enough that Kara still had heart eyes for Lena, they’d also been flirting around each other ever since Lena had joined the superteam. One or the other would make a comment and they’d forget they were surrounded by anyone else. Alex found it nauseating, Nia amusing, Kelly found it cute, Brainy barely noticed. 

“Is that when your interest in dildos began? Because this is maybe the fourth time you’ve brought them up in a couple of weeks,” the blonde said as she stepped closer. 

Lena stepped up to the blonde as well, “the last time, Nia brought it up.”

“I don’t think she did,” the blonde argued. 

“Yes, she was looking through some comments on a video of yours and one said that it looked like you were… you know, packing down there,” Lena explained as her eyes bounced down and then back up.

Supergirl stepped closer and Lena finally stepped a little back, finding herself against the desk. “Okay, so maybe it was Nia,” the blonde acquiesced. 

“Oh my God, please stop,” Alex stepped in. “I don’t want to see or hear this.”

Supergirl stepped away from the brunette as if realizing their position and Lena cleared her throat as she too noticed their actions were a little… flirty was it? It was just friendly flirtation. 

“Seriously guys, it’s getting worse, get it together or get a room,” Nia pointed out, mostly to tease.

Get a room? That was a bit much, Lena thought. This kind of thing didn’t happen often. 

“Don’t give us that look, this has been going on for weeks,” Alex said as she looked at Lena. 

A look? What look? Her face was usually stoic, but it must have given something away. 

“Weeks?” Lena asked, almost indignantly.

“Yes, you two are constantly flirting,” Alex stated clearly. 

“We are not,” Kara stated, just as Lena was about to. 

“Yes, you are, and it’s interfering with my… peace of mind,” Alex said, “so seriously, either go out on a date, or just stop with the blatant flirtation.”

“I… I deny all charges,” Lena stated with conviction. 

Alex turned to her, “last week it was talking about how good you are with your tongue.”

“I was talking about making a knot with a cherry stem,” Lena defended.

“Half of us are lesbians, we know what it means when you can do that,” Alex countered. “The week before it was your long fingers and how useful they are.”

Lena tried to recall that conversation, “I think I was talking about pulling something I’d dropped in between a tight space.”

“Oh, oh,” Alex recalled another, “Nia, do you remember the conversation about using a stripper pole?”

“I said a friend took me to a few classes but I believe it is common knowledge that I can’t dance, much less with a pole,” Lena replied. 

“And today it’s dildos, I mean it’s escalating,” Alex stated in frustration. 

Kelly and Nia chuckled and laughed in the background while Nia covered Brainy’s ears jokingly.

“Alex, she didn’t mean any of those like that,” Kara defended.

“Oh, don’t even get me started on you. Lena might sometimes talk about general sexual things, but you…” Alex prepared to attack.

“I what?”

The sister raised her hands to begin listing incidents. “The mention of your strong strong strong muscles, yes, I think you said it three times; the mention of you never tiring; something about how you looked all wet when you lifted something out of the water…”

Kara was opening her mouth but coming up with little to respond while Alex continued.

“Talking about your insatiable appetite, that joke about needing to use the power cuffs on you, that entire day you spend trying to outwin each other with literal pick up lines!” 

“I think the appetite one was about food, in my defense, and the pickup lines thing was just for fun, even you and Nia and Kelly joined in,” was all Kara could say. 

Alex shook her head and gave her a look, “you started that pick up lines thing and you know it. And I swear, you have better been talking about food that day. ” 

And even Lena was finding it hard not to chuckle now. 

Had she and Kara been flirting for weeks? Apparently they had. How did two people flirt and not notice? She was just as guilty as the blonde it seemed. 

“So just to be clear, I will not tolerate one more innuendo,” Alex stated firmly. 

“She’s kidding,” Kelly said as they all packed up to leave.

“No, I’m not,” Alex insisted. 

“She is,” Nia affirmed. 

“I’m being serious!” Alex tried in vain. “Fine, screw it, I’ll just cover my ears and give you a death stare whenever possible,” she said as a last word to the blonde before leaving with Kelly. 

The team packed up, and left, except for Kara and Lena, which didn’t go unnoticed by the rest. 

“Long day huh?” Kara asked.

“I’m not the one who fought an alien.”

“Well, you did help. Mental exertion is exhausting too,” the blonde said. 

“You never like to take credit.”

“I could say the same thing about you, twelfth level intellect.”

Lena blushed a little.

“Could I walk you home?” Kara asked gently. 

Lena smiled and looked out the window. It was nearly sunrise. “How about I walk you home?”

Kara raised her brows. “Doing things differently?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. You can walk me home then.”

They’d walked in a little silence as they approached the area of Kara’s building. 

This, Lena had to say, had turned out to be sort of like a first date. The walk to Kara’s apartment wasn’t short. And on the way, Lena had done some thinking while enjoying her time with Kara.

The city was quiet at sunrise, but she could hear the birds chirping, and feel the cold morning breeze. 

They made it all the way to Kara’s door.  “Could I use your bathroom?” Lena asked. It wasn’t a way to get inside, she’d drunk too much liquids and really needed a bathroom. 

“Yeah, of course.”

Lena entered the bathroom as Kara waited in her own living room. In there, she gave some thought to the things Alex had said. If she and Kara had in fact been flirting, and if she was already willing to try a first date not too long ago, then maybe it was time to try again. She wanted to tell herself to be careful with the territory she was stepping into, but she didn’t feel scared. This time, this felt like her choice, and every choice after would be hers, and she could make whatever she wanted out of that. With that thought, came a sense of relief. 

Lena stepped out of the bathroom into the living room and stood there for a while, looking at the sunrise from Kara’s window. 

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” the blonde spoke as she faced the window with open arms as the sun shined on her.  

“Yeah, it is,” Lena said as she looked from the sun to Kara, recalling the small conversation they’d had what felt like so long ago about how Supergirl recharged her powers.  

“The sun gives you power,” Lena remarked in a thought said out loud. 

“Yeah,” Kara nodded, “the sunlight.”

“It’s the opposite of kryptonite.”

“Mhm. Kryptonite sucks all the power from my cells, weakens them and gives me pain,” Kara spoke as she kept her eyes closed and her arms wide open towards the window. “But people don’t get that. Ever since they’d found out that kryptonite makes me weak, over the years, it’s become a whole thing.”

“What has?” Lena asked. 

“Saying that something is someone’s kryptonite. As in to ask what their weakness is. And I get that but they’re using it all wrong. They’re even using it for love.”

Lena’s eyes were fixed on the blonde now, she was more stunning than the sunrise as Lena could swear Kara’s skin almost glowed under the light. “Love?”

“Yeah. It’s all over shows, and movies, and books. Whenever someone loves someone now they say that person is their kryptonite, and I hate it.”

“Because they’re not their kryptonite,” Lena finished the idea. 

“Right, they’re not. It’s the exact opposite of that.”

“They’re their sunlight,” Lena continued in a near whisper.

Kara opened her eyes and turned to the brunette. She smiled wide. “Exactly. You get it.”

Lena had a small flashback. “That’s what our wedding ring said,” she spoke softly as her mind began whirling and she remembered when she read the inscription that one time. 

But suddenly, it was as if she remembered reading it many times before. 

“Yeah. Loving you for example was never my kryptonite. It was my sunlight. You were my sunlight.”

“I should get going,” Lena said a little sharply. Maybe Kara’s reminder was a little too much. Lena was starting to feel dizzy. 

“Right, yeah,” the blonde said as she dropped her arms and moved to get the door open for Lena, but the brunette went to it first in a rush.  

Lena placed her hand on the door knob before pausing. “Sunlight,” Lena whispered. 

Kara’s brows furrowed. “Are you okay?” she asked. 

Lena looked up at Kara, then at the sun rising. It blinded her now but she couldn’t look away. “Sunlight,” she repeated. 

“Lena?” the blonde asked, but Lena didn’t hear as her vision went white and her mind flooded with memories.

Memories of Supergirl catching her hacking a company. Twice

Memories of shooting Supergirl with a stun gun. Twice .

Memories of Kara telling her the truth behind her attempted assassination. Twice. 

So many memories, twice . 

She turned around to face Kara. “ I remember ,” Lena said as a tear fell down her eye.

“What?” Kara asked in disbelief. 

“I remember. All of it.” Lena began laughing, hysterically, as tears simultaneously fell from her eyes.

Kara opened her mouth and stared, confused as ever. 

Lena laughed and jumped in her spot before running full throttle into Kara’s arms. 

The blonde caught her effortlessly and embraced her as Lena cried and laughed and repeated the words over and over. 

Kara held her in shock. “You… remember?” 

“Don’t cancel the adoption,” was the first thing Lena let out, “fuck, I want a family with you. Did you cancel it?” Lena asked, pulling back a bit. 

“Yes, it was a while ago, but we can start the process again, don’t worry. Are you serious right now? Do you remember?”

“Yes, everything, all of it.”

“All of it?” The blonde asked in disbelief.

Lena nodded and held her as tightly as she could. Lena cried over and over into Kara’s shoulder and the blonde, after a few seconds, seemed to finally take the knowledge in, and began crying back just as much. 

“I love you,” Lena said, over and over as she pulled back only to kiss Kara. It was messy and wet from all the tears but she didn’t care. She did love her, and she remembered loving her, she remembered how it felt, how her love for Kara made her veins feel honeyed. She remembered how loving and giving to Kara made her better. 

“I love you so much,” Kara said back as she kissed her and held her. 

They remained like that for a while, holding on to each other as Lena let herself get used to Kara’s warmth again, her touch, just her.

“I’ve missed you,” Lena whispered as her head was against the blonde.

“You have no fucking clue how much I’ve missed you,” Kara said.

Lena chuckled. “You curse now?” She asked in surprise.

“When the situation calls for it.”

“Well, I can think of a situation that calls for a lot of cursing,” Lena said as she grabbed Kara by her hand and led her to the bedroom. “You might want to cancel any and all plans for the next week. I plan on really tiring you out.”

Kara smiled, “what’s the special occasion?” she joked.

Lena laughed aloud. “Us, at last. Oh and, our first date of course.”

“Lena Luthor, you have sex on your first date?” Kara teased. 

“Told you I was rebellious,” Lena said with a wink. “I hope you got enough sunlight, you’re gonna need it.”

Kara rushed in and carried the brunette, landing a deep kiss on her lips. 

Lena pulled back for just a second, “hey, I want you to know, I was willing to do it all over again.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, right now, in the bathroom, I’d decided I was ready to try this, before I got my memory back. Just know that.”

Kara beamed, “didn’t I tell you, through everything and anything?”