Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

One of these days, Lena is going to have to start doing her grocery shopping at normal hours, like an actual adult.

Rationally, she knows that she has perfectly good reasons for being in a Whole Foods at 11:57 p.m, still clad in her work clothes from the day. Albeit a bit wrinkled. Her increasingly demanding job, for one. Paparazzi and half-wit ‘reporters’ who still seem able to find her at all hours of the day—despite upping her security, again, last week—constantly demanding a quote of her about Lex, and snapping as many unflattering photographs of her as they can manage to get.

At least Lena is not wholly alone in her midnight shopping endeavors. The store isn’t full by any means, but there are a good twenty or so other customers milling about all in various states of dress. It makes her feel a bit better to know that the one lone woman at the checkout counter isn’t just waiting for her. Lena suspects that at least some of the other customers are here for the same reason that she is tonight: failure to notice that her entire apartment is empty of edible food, until it's too late to be reasonable about it anymore. If it weren’t a Saturday night, and her doctor hadn’t been on her about managing healthier eating habits—a product of Lex’s trial that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon—she would have just gone to bed hungry and dealt with it in the morning.

It would be cruel, to make Jess come over and give her a banana on a Sunday morning. Lena refuses to be that boss. She is an adult, and she can manage to feed herself like one.

She turns down to the baking aisle, because when she does eat, she usually opts for quite healthy foods, but she has a sweet tooth, and a steady supply of almond Hershey kisses are a necessity. She grabs a large bag and tosses it into her basket, then notices a young girl with incredible curly dark hair, reaching up on her tiptoes and trying to yank down five boxes of brownie mix all on her own. Lena laughs and walks over, pulling a few the boxes down and holding them out to her. “You having a party?” she asks with a laugh.

“Um,” the girl wrinkles her nose up in confusion. “No?”

Lena looks around, but doesn’t see an adult who appears to belong to the girl anywhere in this aisle. “So, you’re just going to make five boxes of brownies all for yourself?” she laughs again. “Ambitious, I like it.”

“No,” the girl shakes her head, the curls flinging around her face wildly. She looks as though she could be anywhere between the ages of seven, and a very small eleven year old. Lena has no real idea. She doesn’t spend very much time with children one on one. A few school trips have come to L-Corp over the last few months, but they always come along with teachers who are in charge of them, and yell out all of their ages excitedly. This girl is just frowning. “My—” her frown deepens as she searches for the right word, “friend and I are making them.”

“Your friend?”

The girl nods vigorously, the curls whipping her in the mouth.

“Well,” Lena takes another quick glance around. “Where are they? Do you need help finding them?”

“She’s a she,” the girl says. “My friend,” she holds out her hands and collects all five of the boxes together impressively.

“Mon—Myka!” a voice calls out. Lena recognizes it instantly, though it’s a rather new one in her life. And it’s confirmed at the sight of wavy blonde hair, the lithe body clad in a pair of dark leggings, and the glasses adorning her face. “There you are,” Kara says, her shoulders sagging in relief. “I told you that you can’t just go off on your own on this planet. You could get lost.”

“Or, on any planet, one would assume,” Lena says. Kara’s entire posture changes; she whips her eyes up to Lena’s and then that nervous laughter that Lena is becoming increasingly familiar with bubbles out. And… there is the glasses adjustment, and the adorable stuttering.

“All planets,” she nods. “You — children should stay with the adults who are watching them on all planets,” Kara laughs, high and loud and then clears her throat. “Lena, fancy meeting you here. Hello.”

“It’s the closest grocery store to my apartment,” Lena explains. She watches, as Kara’s hands reach out and protectively pull the girl to her front, keeping her hands on her shoulders and holding her firmly in place, as if afraid that she will dart away at any moment. “It’s… not all that close to yours though,” Lena adds, curiously.

“No, it’s not.”

Lena quirks an eyebrow at her and is greeted once again by Kara’s nervous laugh. It is far too easy, and far too much fun, to fluster Kara Danvers.

“It’s… we’re on a brownie hunt,” she explains, lifting the boxes out of the girl’s hands and putting them into her own basket—nothing healthy in there to speak of. Lena’s doctor would be appalled. “This is the best kind that’s not from scratch. Myka hasn’t had them before.”

“Ah,” Lena turns her attention back downwards. “Well, you’re probably in for a treat, then.”

“Oh, gosh,” Kara’s body jerks and she pulls Myka along as she steps a little closer to Lena. “I’m sorry. Lena, this is Myka. My… cousin, who’s staying with me for a while. Myka, this is Lena Luthor, my friend.” The inflection on the word ‘friend’ goes up, like it’s a question. Like Kara is worried that she’s somehow being too forward in assuming as such, despite the fact that Lena has already fully embarrassed herself by accosting Kara at her work, admitting that she has no friends, and begging her to come to a party.

Lena smiles at Kara warmly, then bends down to Myka’s level, teetering ever so slightly on her heels as she balances her weight in a crouch. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she offers her hand.

Myka hesitates, just for a moment before jamming her hand out and shaking Lena’s with such force that she nearly topples over. Only Kara’s arms stop her from the embarrassment of falling undignified to the dirty linoleum floor. “Sorry, she’s… a lot stronger than she looks.” Kara gives Myka an indecipherable look, and she sheepishly tucks herself into Kara’s side and mumbles an apology up to Lena.

“No harm done,” Lena assures them both, once Kara’s got her steady again. And that is something she very much shouldn’t be focusing on, but Kara’s hands are warm and her life is painfully touch-starved these days. The fact that Kara doesn’t make any move to step away from her isn’t helping the quickening of her heartbeat, and if anything, that seems to make Kara focus her attention on Lena even further. Myka too. But, that’s ridiculous, people can’t just hear each other’s heartbeats in the middle of grocery store aisles without any medical equipment. Well, regular human, non-alien people certainly can’t. She studies Kara intently, for about the millionth time. “I’m fine,” she says, but neither of them takes a step away from her. “So, how long are you staying?” she directs towards Myka, hoping the girl will be easier to deflect the attention to. It may have been the wrong question to ask, because Myka looks up at Kara with such uncertainty that it hurts from all the way over here.

Kara finally steps away from Lena, but it feels anything like a victory. “For—indefinitely,” she says, giving Myka a reassuring smile. Myka only frowns at the word. Probably under ten then? Though, Lena knew the word ‘indefinitely’ by age seven, so she doubts that’s a proper way to make a judgment call on such things.

“For a long time,” Kara corrects. “For — Myka’s living with me now. Like, sort of permanently,” she gently knocks herself into Myka’s shoulders, bumping into her three times in quick succession until she pulls a small smile out of the little girl. “We’re roommates. And,” she snatches one of the brownie boxes out of the basket and holds it up triumphantly, “brownie makers!” she’s laughing now, bright and uninhibited as Myka beams up at her and does a little dance of excitement, and Lena takes the chance to look her over now that her guard is down.

Lena hasn’t seen Kara since her party. Well, alien trap of a party—in more ways than one. It’s been a few weeks, and now, Lena can see that Kara has had her hands rather full. The few text conversations they’ve had since have all been light and casual; showing no signs of off the record questions, or requests for more alien ring location favors, but, also nothing that really gives Lena any indication that they’re striking up a genuine friendship. Other than the simple fact that both of them have used the word ‘friend’ to describe each other at least once.

But, no one else who isn’t employed by her even texts Lena at all, so, that alone might qualify Kara as her friend. She’s never been altogether sure on how this works; genuine friendship has eluded her since the second grade, when Jenny McKenna moved to England. Everyone else was just, someone she went to school with, children of the Luthor’s many employees, forced to entertain her while their parents did business, peers who hated her, women that she’s slept with, and Lex.

Kara fills exactly none of those boxes. Presently.

Her hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, a little limp, but there’s still some curl left to it. There’s a tiredness to the edges of her eyes, but Lena is certainly not one to talk where that is concerned.

Kara and Myka continue with their little brownie dance until an old man with an overfull cart and a deep, permanent-looking frown shoves his way between them with a growl of, “Watch out,” as he passes. Kara stops immediately, pulling Myka back to her and apologizing to the man with earnest. “That girl should be asleep,” he snaps back, yanking a can of pan spray off the shelf and all but chucking it into his cart. “What a terrible mother,” he mutters underneath his breath. “Probably way too young…”

Kara looks utterly distraught at his words and Lena seethes. “Mind your business,” she calls after him sharply.

“It’s okay,” Kara says quickly, a hand gently coming up to rest on Lena’s bicep. “It – I didn’t actually realize how late it was,” she looks disappointed with herself, and Lena is overcome by a wave of affection for her, not for the first time. She really has to get that under control. It won’t lead to anything but disappointment.

“It’s the weekend,” she offers. “Every kid deserves to stay up late to make brownies on the weekend once in a while,” she knocks her basket lightly into the one in Kara’s arms, and gets the smile that she was edging for. “You’ll have to tell me how they turn out. I’ve never had the store bought kind.”

“WHAT?” Kara is flabbergasted, her mouth gaping open at Lena like she just told her that she’s had three heads the entire time that they’ve known each other, and Lena has only brought it to her attention this minute. “You – you haven’t – I’m,” she glances down at all the boxes in her basket. “You’ll have to come make them with us then,” she nods to herself, too many times in a row. “It’s too late to make them tonight anyway.” Myka pouts a bit at this news, but she also yawns deeply, only furthering to prove Kara’s point. “Are you working tomorrow?” Kara asks, her face not even trying to hide the fact that if Lena is, she shouldn’t be. But it doesn’t feel like a judgment, or pity, just… concern. Lena thinks that she would rather be judged, that at least, she knows how to deal with.

She’s not working tomorrow. Not in any official capacity where she is going into the office, but, she does have a few things that she was planning to work on from home. (If Kara were judging her for being a workaholic, she wouldn’t exactly be wrong.) None of them seem altogether appealing or urgent anymore, not with Kara’s bright, hopeful smile directed her way.

“I’m not,” Lena hears herself saying.

“Yay!” Kara cheers. “Okay, so like… 10 am? My apartment? You remember where it is right?”

Lena nods. She was never actually given the address by Kara herself, but, yes, she knows exactly where Kara lives. “Sounds lovely. I’ll see you then.”

“Awesome,” Kara jumps forward, and before Lena knows what is happening, she finds herself being pulled into a quick hug.

The second that Kara steps back, Myka shrugs and throws her arms around Lena too. Her solid little head collides into Lena’s stomach, and she can’t help the grunt it elicits. “Bye,” Myka says, releasing Lena and walking down the aisle with Kara. “See you later.”

“Goodbye,” Lena mumbles to their disappearing frames, blearily wondering if it’s possible that she has actually fallen asleep at her desk again, and this has all been a very odd dream.

…

…

It wasn’t a dream.

Lena knows this because she wakes up to three texts from Kara, telling her that, it’s probably not a great idea to wear a top that you would have to get dry cleaned, and, if you like milky stuff in your coffee, you’re in luck cause there’s this great coconut milk half-in-half stuff that I found! And, two minutes later, also good morning! Hope I didn’t wake you up, see you soon!

The idea of Kara waking her up at 8:42 am is almost laughable; Lena hasn’t slept past seven am in years. She shuffles around her apartment almost aimlessly, with no idea what to do with her time until she is supposed to be at Kara’s apartment at ten. She busies herself by making some coffee and finding something to eat from her grocery shopping endeavor the night before. While she slowly picks at a banana, Lena considers the strained looks that passed between Kara and Myka last night. Clearly, there is far more to the story than Kara just becoming roommates on a whim with her prepubescent cousin. There was something familiar to the look in Myka’s eyes; haunted almost, looking seven and ninety-five all at once while Kara scrambled for the right words to explain their situation. Lena has a feeling that Kara will explain further, in time, but she is impossibly curious now. Finally, Lena manages to eat nearly the entire banana with another hour to spare. She caves and pulls out her laptop, drinking a third cup of coffee, and answers a few work emails.

She gets so caught up in her work, that by the time she looks at the clock, she’s going to be late to meet Kara and Myka. Lena slams her laptop closed, grabs her jacket and sends a quick text to Kara apologizing before she rushes out the door.

Kara answers both the text and the door cheerfully, waving off Lena’s apologies. When Lena steps into Kara’s apartment for the second time, she’s greeted by the sight of a little girl, crouched on top of the counter with flour in her hair, instead of Kara’s sister hovering awkwardly. Lena remembers the intense flare of jealousy at the sight and is hit by a wave of embarrassment all over again. She smiles at Kara to cover it, too brightly, too many teeth, before she follows her into the kitchen.

“Myka — maybe you could try stirring with this wooden spoon instead?” Kara offers, holding it up. Myka has been attempting to stir brownie batter with a soup spoon, and it’s gotten all over her hands. She studies the spoon that Kara is offering with a small frown, then shrugs and takes it, tossing the other one down on the counter without a second thought. Lena waits, with a twist in her gut, for Kara to scold Myka for making a mess, but Kara just turns to Lena with a huge smile and says, “I’m so glad you came. Want to stir that bowl?” she points towards another—very full—bowl balancing precariously near Myka’s knee.

“Sure,” Lena perches on one of Kara’s stools, still a little thrown off by Myka being allowed to crouch up on the counter as she is; if Lena or Lex had ever tried to climb on top of furniture they would have been scolded immediately. That’s without even mentioning the bits of flour and batter that she’s gotten all over herself. Myka looks up from her bowl and gives Lena an impossibly bright smile and whips the batter around, clearly having a fantastic time. Lena finds herself grinning back at her automatically. “So,” she starts, “are we making all five boxes?”

“Yes,” Kara and Myka answer simultaneously.

“And… eating them all?” Lena looks dubiously over at the various cooking sheets and pans taking up all of the available table surfaces; there is even one propped up on the windowsill.

“Well, Alex will help us. She’s coming over this afternoon,” Kara explains. “She… needs a lot of brownies right now,” her face twists into a frown, and Lena watches her attack the batter in front of her with much more force than is necessary.

“A girl doesn’t like her,” Myka tries to whisper in Lena’s direction. “Which, is just stupid. Because Alex is a babe with a gun,” she adds, abandoning her attempts to whisper and grinning madly. “That’s what Winn told me that you call beautiful women here—babes. Right?” she asks Kara.

“Um,” Kara’s face pinches. “Remember, how I said that Winn isn’t maybe the greatest person to ask if you have questions about women. Or, things in general that aren’t Star Wars, or computers. But, you’re not… totally off the mark.” Kara smacks at the batter again. “Alex is a beautiful person,” she all but snarls. “And Maggie Sawyer should be so lucky.” Her face instantly twists into panic and she looks over at Lena. “Um, don’t… tell anyone about… um, she’s not… Alex isn’t…”

“Out?” Lena deduces. Kara nods, looking like she might throw up. “Don’t worry Kara, of all people, I’m certainly not going to out anyone,” she assures her.

“Right, of course,” Kara nods, then frowns down into her batter. Pulling out a piece of eggshell, she asks, “Why you of all people?” as she flicks the offending shell towards the garbage disposal.

Lena’s eyebrows knit together. She was sure that Kara, a reporter who’s done an article and research on Lena, would know this information already. It’s certainly out there to be found with barely a minor Google search. “I’m a lesbian, Kara,” she states flatly.

Kara blinks at her. “Oh,” she says. “Cool, I didn’t know that,” she resumes attacking her batter, eyes never leaving Lena’s. “Well, Alex is… not really sure what she wants to call herself? It’s a new thing. Sort of. Well, I mean not really,” she sighs, poking the spoon in the middle of the bowl, not even attempting to stir it anymore—just attacking it. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think she’s really ready to talk about it all that much. So,” Kara shrugs. Clearly, she does not do well with being unable to talk about anything with her sister. Lena remembers feeling like that about Lex; every scrap of information that he hid from her made her furious, she always told him everything that was on her mind. Of course, as they got older, the information he was hiding made her furious for a much different reason, but, she doesn’t need to dwell on that thought right now. Or ever again, really.

“What’s a lesbian?” Myka asks, causing Lena to realize that she forgot about the child entirely in the last few minutes.

“A woman who likes other women,” Kara supplies easily, then frowns again. “I see an eggshell in that one too,” she bends forward and stops Myka from whacking her hand while she reaches in and digs it out. “The egg cracking was… not Myka’s forte,” she directs towards Lena. “It’s probably better that you missed it. But, maybe check yours too. I think she cracked a few more when I wasn’t looking.”  

“I did,” Myka proclaims proudly. “I like women too,” she adds. “I like you, and Alex, and… well, I don’t know anybody else that’s a girl,” she frowns, then looks over at Lena and grins. “Well, Lena!” she points at her with her spoon, flinging some batter onto Lena’s cheek. “I know her now, and I like you so far,” she decides.

“Thank you,” Lena says, stifling a laugh and wiping her face. “But I think Kara meant to say romantically. It’s a different kind of like. The English language can be confusing like that.”

“It’s so stupid,” Myka agrees. “Daxam and Kryptonian are way easier.”

“Ha!” Kara yells. “Haha, she’s…. she is super into aliens. Right, Myka? Just, she wants to know all about them, and she’s learning… a lot of… stuff,” Kara falters and Lena watches as she struggles to find something else to say. “It’s… yeah. Aliens, man. So interesting!” she claps her hands together, “Anyway, I think we’re ready to put the first batch in!”

“You’re being weird again,” Myka informs her.

Lena has to agree, but the panicked look on Kara’s face is so severe, that she chooses to let it go.

Mostly.

“Well, maybe Kara will introduce you to Supergirl someday,” she tells Myka with a smile, trying something out. “She invited her to a party of mine at my request a few weeks ago.”

If anything, this only sends Kara further into a clumsy sputter. She slips on some of the batter that’s dripped down onto the floor, and her elbow slams into the edge of the counter as she catches herself from falling. “I’m fine,” she insists at Lena’s worried look. “Totally fine.”

And, that’s interesting Lena thinks as she watches Kara attempt to feign rubbing at her elbow and wince. Not seconds later, she jerks that same arm out to help Myka, not a hint of pain in her face to speak of. Lena quirks an eyebrow. Well, there’s another tick in her mental Kara Danvers Is Probably Supergirl list. It’s mostly conjecture and a mass of guesswork at this point. Nothing that Lena can prove—not yet—but she’s sure enough that she’d be willing to put a certain amount of money on it. And, that thought makes her turn and study Myka a bit more as she clambers over to help Kara fill in the brownie pan. There is much more going on here than Kara’s mentioned.

“So,” Myka looks over at Lena as she holds the bowl up patiently for Kara. “Romantic, you mean like kissing?”

“Yes,” Lena pushes her bowl over towards Kara. “I think this is done too?”

Kara inspects it for half a second, then nods. “Good job.” Lena is embarrassed to find that the praise makes her blush.

Myka scrunches up her face into a frown. “But I don’t want to kiss you,” she tells Kara.

Kara mock gasps and stops shoveling batter into the pan. Whipping the spatula in Myka’s face, she says, “Well, that’s just too bad, because I totally wanna kiss you,” she grabs Myka’s face and kisses every bit of her cheeks, forehead, and nose before Myka laughs and nearly falls off the table trying to get away. As it is, she drops the bowl that was in her arms. Only Kara’s—impossibly quick, Lena notes—reflexes stop Myka from cracking her head wide open on the countertop. “Although,” Kara adds, once she’s got Myka steady again. “Consent is very important, so, you should never kiss someone like that if they say not to.”

“I didn’t really mind,” Myka shrugs. “But I don’t know what consent means.”

“It means you agree,” Kara explains. “Like, if I ask you: Myka, can I give you a kiss? If you say yes, then it’s okay. But if you say no, then it’s not. Same goes for like, hugs and stuff. Sometimes people don’t want to be touched, and you have to respect that,” Kara wiggles her eyebrows. “Even though that’s crazy, because hugs are amazing.”

Myka nods her agreement, then turns to Lena. “Did you mean kissing like that, or the on the lips kind?” she asks turning her attention back the batter.

“Um, the lips,” Lena answers, feeling a little ridiculous.

“I don’t want to kiss either of you on the lips,” Myka informs them both. “Or Alex. I don’t want to kiss anyone on the lips. No consent. Only cheek kisses.”

“I think that’s fairly common for children your age,” Lena shrugs. “How old are you, actually?”

This should be a simple enough question to answer, but Myka’s lips pinch together and she looks to Kara for help. “She’s nine,” Kara supplies.

“And a quarter,” Myka adds.

“Quarters are important,” Lena says, giving her a smile, and she’s rewarded by a beaming one etching out onto Myka’s face. This kid could give Kara a run for her money. As it is, Kara looks up at Lena gratefully, a matching huge smile on her own face, and it’s achingly foreign, to have two people positively beaming at her like this, that Lena doesn’t quite know what to do with it. “Um, where’s your bathroom?” she asks, needing to escape for a moment.

Kara points her down the hall, and Lena all but sprints, shutting the door and resting against it with a heavy sigh. She considers, for a concerning length of time, barricading herself in here until she can come up with a plausible work excuse and leave as soon as possible. The pounding inside of her chest cannot be normal, and she doesn’t know why she is so uncomfortable right now. It could be that she doesn’t know how to take a day off from work anymore, and this is making her feel lazy, a little guilty, and unaccomplished. Or, it could be that she is painfully lonely right now, and almost desperate for Kara’s friendship in a way that makes her attraction to Kara very difficult to manage. Or, the fact that Alex Danvers is coming to join them in a matter of hours, maybe even less, and Lena finds herself entirely incapable of acting like a normal human being around Kara’s sister; the shame of her ill-placed jealously, and Alex’s almost knowing face popping up and thickening the air awkwardly between them. It could be the mere presence of Myka; a child that Lena has no idea how to interact with, who is bringing up a whole host of Lena’s childhood issues just by making that one impossibly small and sad face. Or, the fact that undoubtedly, Kara is most likely lying to her, and she is Supergirl. Which, is all fun and games to speculate about, but actually dealing with her feelings regarding the Supers is a whole other thing entirely. It was something manageable when it was just Supergirl, the alien, removed from Lena in a way that couldn’t really touch her, like a rumor about a stranger. But it’s not that simple if it’s also Kara, Lena’s would-be-friend. Part of Lena doesn’t really want to know, dreads it, even.

The rest of her wants to grab Kara by the shoulders and demand answers, desperate for information in a way she hasn’t felt since before Lex was arrested.

Hell, it’s probably all of that and more, but if Lena doesn’t come out of this bathroom soon, Kara is going to think that she is sick or something, and break down the door, or do something else ridiculous and sweet. Like offer to make her soup, or give Lena another hug.

Coming here was a mistake.

Lena casts her mind around for the last time she felt this unmoored, this off-balance, by a woman, and can't come up with anything. Kara Danvers is unlike anybody that Lena has ever met; the sweetest, bubbliest person Lena’s yet to come across, and simultaneously one of the saddest, who is probably lying to everyone that she meets. It’s an impossible contradiction to wrap your head around, and Lena should probably stop hiding in this bathroom and trying.

She turns the faucet on, runs it for a few counts of ten, then shuts it off and walks back out into the kitchen.

She’s greeted by Kara’s concerned smile, and Myka yelling out happily, “Lena! Taste this!” as she sticks out a palm full of white chocolate chips. “It’s the best thing I’ve had on Earth so far.”

Lena does not make a note of the strangled little huff that comes out of Kara. Today, she just needs her to be Kara Danvers, her friend whom she is making brownies with. The alien thing is just going to have to wait for some other day.

She forces a smile onto her face and accepts a few pieces of the chocolate. They’re half melted and sticky, but Lena gamely mashes the mess into her mouth anyway. Myka jumps up onto her feet, nearly giving Lena a heart attack. She shoots her hands out to steady the girl and casts a worried look down towards Kara, who’s busy trying to shove pans into the oven and frowning.

“Do you love it?” Myka asks, placing her face directly right into Lena’s—their noses almost brush. She’s not shy at all, apparently.

“Delicious,” Lena agrees. “But, I would argue, not the absolute best on Earth. That is reserved for Hershey’s almond kisses.”

Myka squawks. “What are those?”

It’s odd, that a nine-year-old girl wouldn’t have any clue what a Hershey’s kiss is, and Lena is confronted yet again by the fact that everything here isn’t exactly what it seems. Ignoring that for the day isn’t going to be easy. “Hang on, I think I might have some in my purse.” She always has some in her purse, pretending otherwise just makes her feel less like her grandmother—constantly hoarding caramels in every purse that she owns. She frowns at Myka, teetering on the countertop, half using Lena to keep herself upright. “Want to get down and help me look?” she offers.

“No,” Myka actually looks like she is about to attempt a pirouette or sorts, and Lena reaches out and grabs her without thinking. It’s so surprising to them both, that they just… stare at each other. Lena, does not know how to hold a child, let alone one covered in brownie batter with flour in her hair. She is light, though Lena has no idea what nine-year-olds are supposed to weigh, do they even get held like this at nine? Lena certainly didn’t.

“Um,” Lena panics and nearly drops her, then gets a hold of herself. “So, you wait here,” she sets Myka down, hyper-aware of the fact that she now has Kara’s full attention. Lena quickly digs through her purse and comes up with a bag of kisses, nearly empty. She’ll have to go back to the grocery store, then. “Here,” she holds one out to Myka and the girl shoves the entire thing—wrapper and all—into her mouth before Lena can tell her not to.

Myka grimaces and spits it out into her hands. “Ew,” she groans.

“That’s the foil,” Lena gapes at her. “You don’t eat it, you unwrap it.” She pulls out another one and unwraps it for her, but Myka looks at her warily, so Lena pops it into her own mouth. “More for me I suppose,” she shrugs.

“Can I have one?” Kara asks, not subtly at all.

Lena presses her lips together to keep from laughing and very exaggeratedly hands one to Kara. She peels the wrapper off, pops it into her mouth, and makes a noise that is very, very unhelpful to Lena’s Quest to Genuine Platonic Friendship. Especially with a child right in front of them.

Myka jumps up and down, then clutches at the ends of Lena’s shirt, tugging it and bouncing on her toes. Kara’s suggestion for a shirt she doesn’t care about was a good one—Myka still has batter all over her, and now it’s on Lena too. “Can I try another one?” she begs. “Please?” she stops bouncing and gets that look on her face again. “I’ll do it the right way this time. I promise.”

Lena might end up giving this child anything that she ever asks for.

She peels the wrapper off another and passes it over to Myka, who crams it into her mouth and then absolutely beams. “You were right,” she says, bouncing up and down again. “This is the best kind.”

Before Lena or Kara can respond, the door to Kara’s apartment bursts open and Alex Danvers saunters through. “Holy shit,” she exclaims. “What did you guys do?”

“ALEX!” Myka cheers, extracting herself from Lena and sprinting at Kara’s sister. Alex catches her, but it’s a near thing. As it is, Lena hears her yell out in pain, and they both go crashing down to the floor. “Sorry,” Myka quickly scrambles up and pulls Alex along with her, using impressive strength for a nine-year-old. “Did I bruise you?”

“Maybe, but I’m usually a little bruised anyway,” Alex says good-naturedly, though Lena can see her eyes flash with pain. She covers well, bends down and gives Myka a quick cheek kiss and picks some flour out of her hair. “So,” she glances up at Kara and Lena, “how’s the brownie making going?” she swipes some batter off Myka’s face and tastes it, raising her eyebrows at Kara.

“Great,” Kara insists. “Very good. Delicious,” she frowns a little at the state of the apartment. “Messy doesn’t mean bad brownies. Messy usually means good brownies,” she grins, poking Alex in the side of her stomach. “Pretty sure you told me that only like, a week or so after I moved in.”

Alex smiles fondly at the memory. “Well, you were hopelessly messy. I was just trying to make you feel better, cause you were twelve and pathetic.”

Kara gasps, no real feeling behind it, and smacks Alex in the shoulder. “I, was adorable at twelve,” she declares. Alex nods, but then looks down at Myka and mouths, totally lying. Kara narrows her eyes. “Don’t make me get the pictures from your tenth-grade science fair out Alex,” she threatens. “Cause I’ll do it.”

Alex momentarily looks truly terrified, and now Lena very much wants to see those photographs.

“You’re the most adorable, most beautiful person alive,” Alex says, hugging Kara tightly around the middle. “And if you bring out those pictures, ever, I’ll kill you, and they will never find your body.”

“Eliza would ground you for life,” Kara quips, shuffling them all back towards the kitchen.

“I’m twenty-eight, she can’t ground me.”

“Tell her that.”

Alex frowns. “Shut up.”

“You shut up,” Kara pushes a brownie box at Alex. “Supervise that one’s egg cracking,” she points towards Myka. “She can’t be trusted.”

“Mean,” Myka deadpans, looking startlingly like Alex. She climbs up on the free stool and reaches for the eggs anyway, and Alex has to hold them up over her head. “I can jump up and get those,” Myka says.

Kara and Alex both react with varying degrees of alarm—Alex, much calmer than Kara when she says, “No, I’m taller. Remember?” while Kara makes a sort of choking noise and adjusts her glasses.

“Lena!” she claps her hands, “want to help me with this batch?”

“Sure,” Lena moves over towards the opposite end of the kitchen with Kara. And, she only just decided that she doesn’t need answers today, but, that isn’t helping to stave off her curiosity about Myka. “So,” she begins carefully, her voice low. “Your nine-year-old cousin is living with you, sort of permanently?”

Kara’s face goes through a series of complicated emotions, and then she passes the eggs over to Lena to crack. “Yeah,” she finally says. “Sorry that I didn’t mention it before, things have been a little…” she waves her hand around and lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “It was a sort of spur of the minute thing.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations Kara,” Lena assures her. “It’s not my business. If it’s not something you want to talk about, that’s completely fine. We can make brownies. Or, I can go, if you—”

“NO!” Kara yells, catching everyone’s attention. She laughs nervously, “Sorry, no. Lena, please stay,” she huffs and dumps some oil and milk into the bowl, not bothering to check the proper measurements. Lena isn’t sure if this is how baking is supposed to go—she’s never done it before—but it doesn’t really seem right. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she says, for the second time this morning. “There was just a lot, getting Myka kind of settled.” Kara’s face pinches as she searches for the right words. It takes her a few moments of them just… attempting to mix the batter properly together. Lena is sure this particular batch is going to be a complete disaster—maybe that’s why Kara bought five. “Her parents died,” Kara finally says, voice, low and careful. “I didn’t really know them,” she adds. “So, I’m the closet relative that she has.”

Lena looks up at her, surprised for a long second. “She’s a relation to your parents? Not the Danvers?” she steals a glance over at Alex and Myka, having a much better go at their batch than she and Kara are managing, easy smiles on both their faces.

“Um, yeah,” Kara says, but it doesn’t quite sound like the whole truth. “I didn’t know about her until she showed up.”

“Oh,” Lena says, it’s not her most eloquent moment ever.

“Did you ever,” Kara bites at her lower lip, and Lena knows what she is about to ask her. Her hands tense against the counter, and she thinks, don’t, please, please don’t ask me, as hard as she can. Alas, Kara doesn’t seem to possess the ability to read minds, which, Lena should be grateful to learn, but right now desperately wishes were the opposite. “Did you ever look for your birth parents?” she asks softly.

“No,” Lena states, her voice nothing more than a croak. She laughs, trying to cover, but there’s a stretched sound to it, like it’s straining against the solid weight of pain dragging her downwards. Kara’s hand comes up to her shoulder then, and it jolts Lena so much that she actually staggers back, hating the flash of hurt on Kara’s face as she quickly jerks her hand back. “I’m sorry,” Lena gasps.

“No,” Kara insists. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Lena shakes her head, too many times in a row to appear natural, but she can’t seem to stop herself. “It’s fine,” she says, though it’s painfully clear to everyone in the room that it’s not. Alex and Myka are both looking over at her now, Myka’s face is confused, and Alex’s far too knowing. Lena sucks in a breath and gets a hold of herself, pulling a smile onto her face that probably doesn’t work at all, but she refuses to drop it. “It’s fine,” she repeats. “I haven’t. And I have no intention in doing so.”

“Okay,” Kara’s fingers jerk, like she wants to reach out and touch Lena but thinks better of it. Lena knows that Kara is unable to fathom not being affectionate with her friends, she’s seen the evidence of it, but Lena just… doesn’t know how to work like that. If Kara were to try and hug her right now, Lena might actually just run out of the apartment and never come back.

A silence falls between them as they slowly return to working in tandem, and it’s not uncomfortable, but it’s not quite comfortable either, tension still sits in both of their shoulders and Lena doesn’t know how to shake it off.

Alex saves them. There’s a delighted yelp and Lena and Kara turn around just in time to see Alex flick some more batter into Myka’s face. She looks over at Kara with a mischievous grin and Lena quickly takes a step back. The batter hits Kara directly in the face and she laughs as she tries to scold Alex. Myka, ducks for cover and Kara and Alex start attacking each other with whatever is closest to them. Batter and flour mostly, but then Kara picks up an egg, and cracks it over Alex’s head before she can so much as blink.

“Oh my god!” she yells, egg whites dripping down her face. Kara giggles and darts away, tugging Lena out of Alex’s line of aim. She immediately hides with Myka underneath the table.

“I’ll protect you,” Myka says, so seriously that Lena’s entire heart melts right out of her body. The little girl is armed with a full tray of eggs and holding one up, ready to fling it at whoever dares to get close enough.

“Well,” Lena plucks one of the eggs from the tray. “It’s only fair if we cover each other,” she grins. She doesn’t think that she has ever been involved in a food fight in her entire life. Kara manages to knock Alex to the floor, screaming and calling her out for cheating, and Lena and Myka take the opportunity to pelt them both with eggs, declaring victory.

“Oh my god,” Kara moans, once they’ve all surrendered and uprighted themselves. “This is gonna take forever to clean up.”

“I’m sorry,” Lena frowns. “I have a cleaning service. I can call them for you.”

“Seriously?” Alex asks.

“No,” Kara says, “we can clean it. It’s just… gonna take a while.”

“It’s really no trouble,” Lena insists. “It’s for things like this. Not just, making a bunch of women clean up our mess for us. It’s an industrial cleaning service that L-Corp has on hand.”

“Do it,” Alex says, mostly towards Kara.

“This was your fault!” Kara yelps at her.

“You didn’t have to fight back!”

“Yes, I did!”

“Is this round two?” Myka asks, spatula at the ready.

“No,” Kara takes the spatula out of her hands and holds her in place. “Look what you did,” she says to Alex.

Alex merely smirks. “I, made the kid have a great afternoon,” she points towards Myka, who nods at her enthusiastically in agreement, eggs shaking out of her curls. “And, I got brownie batter in Lena Luthor’s hair,” she turns to Lena, and for only the second time today, truly looks her in the eye. There’s a crinkle around her eyes, a lightness to her face that makes anyone immediately respond in kind. Lena can’t figure out the look for a few beats, then Alex pulls a quick face and motions to Lena’s head, laughing and oh, no one has looked at her like that apart from Lex. Years ago now, it seems. Lena’s breath catches into her throat and she has to look away, pretending to pull some brownie bits out of her hair. Alex knew exactly what she was doing when she started that food fight. And according to Kara and Myka, this brownie adventure was half inspired to cheer Alex up, not to cheer up Lena.

Lena is going to find a way to repay that kindness back, somehow.

“Well, everyone needs a shower and new clothes,” Kara says, picking an eggshell out of her hair and flinging it at Alex.

“But we get to eat the brownies first, right?” Myka asks, terrified at the prospect of being denied the chocolate.

“How about you and Alex go get cleaned up first? And Lena and I will get some of the brownies ready.”

“Ugh, but—” Alex picks Myka up and throws her over her shoulder, cutting off any further protests, and heads towards the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Kara says once they’re out of earshot. “If you want to get cleaned up first you can. It was Alex’s fault; she can sit here with eggs congealing on her face if you want. Just say the word.”

“It’s fine,” Lena insists and moves to help Kara clean up a bit. “I had fun.”

Kara lights up, actually bounces up and down, shaking some of the flour out of her hair. It’s painfully adorable, and Lena can only hold her gaze for a few moments. “Did you really?” Kara asks.

“Yes,” Lena says truthfully. “Thank you very much for inviting me.”

“Anytime,” Kara says, and Lena almost lets herself believe that she means it. Myka screams out, half delight, half terror from the bathroom, and they hear Alex yelp about cold water only a few seconds later. Kara rolls her eyes, a fond smile on her face as she pulls out the first two batches of misshapen brownies and then frowns at them. “Hum, maybe we should have followed the recipe.”

Lena bites back a grin and pokes at the mass. “I’m sure it will taste fine,” she offers, not wanting to eat it at all.

“Noonan’s makes really great brownies,” Kara hums. “And they’ll deliver to me, cause I’ve begged, and they took pity on me when I was Cat’s assistant.”

“Or, we could call my cleaning service, and just get the brownies while they clean,” Lena offers. “My treat. It is almost lunch.”

“Oh,” Kara frowns. “Myka’s gonna be starving. We didn’t actually buy any groceries last night. Just the brownies. I’m not really all that great at this whole, taking care of a kid thing yet,” she admits.

“I disagree,” Lena says firmly. “She seems very happy. You’re great with her.”

Kara’s face does something wonderful at the praise, and Lena swallows thickly. “Thanks,” she mumbles, tucking some hair behind her ear. Lena tries to get a handle on her thoughts, which are spewing unhelpful, panicked ideas like, kiss her! And, don’t fuck up the fragile possibility of having an actual friend, you idiot! She turns away from Kara and grabs for her phone, quickly sending out an email to the cleaning service and trying not to do anything else stupid before this day is over.

Alex yells out that someone can go next in the shower, and that she is raiding Kara’s closet a few minutes later. Myka joins her, yelling out, “I’m starving! We should eat all the brownies now!”

“You can go first,” Kara offers. “I’ll find something that might fit you.”

The idea of wearing Kara’s clothes is… not helping to calm her down in any way, but Lena manages to nod and shut herself in Kara’s bathroom for the second time today. She’s quick. Scrubbing her hair with Kara’s—amazing—shampoo, and praying all of the flour, batter, and egg is out when she jumps out and towels off only six minutes later. There was a knock on the door halfway through conditioning her hair, and Kara cracked it open and left some clothes for her by the sink. Lena pulls them on without really looking at them. Dress pants, a little snug around the thighs and waist, but not too unmanageable for a few hours, and a loose, deep blue top that makes her breasts look fantastic.

Lena quickly exits the bathroom, knowing that Kara is still covered in congealing eggs and would probably like to shower in her own home before all of the hot water is gone.

“Oh good, they fit?” she asks, trying not to knock into Lena as she heads into the bathroom.

“Yes, it’s fine. Thank you.”

Kara grins. “Alex and Myka are back in the kitchen I think. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

When Lena enters the kitchen, Alex and Myka are nowhere to be found. She hears laughter, and turns, finding them on the couch picking at the brownies, still in one of the pans. “Want some?” Alex offers. “This isn’t from the first batch.”

“Um, sure,” Lena moves over to join them, sitting a little oddly in Kara’s just too tight clothes. Alex grins at her knowingly and holds out a chunk of brownie. “Thank you.” Lena picks at it slowly, happy to find that it tastes much better than it looks. She sits there and mostly just watches Alex and Myka; it should be more awkward, probably, she really doesn’t know either of them very well. Instead, it's not-quite-comfortable as they wait for Kara to reemerge and be a buffer to them all. Alex seems hyper-aware of Myka’s moods and body language at all times. The second that Myka tugs at her shirt and whines, Alex is there, shifting the collar until Myka lets out a sigh of relief. Lena studies them for the rest of the afternoon, and notices more little moments like this; Myka, wincing as they walk into the hub of the restaurant, clapping her hands over her ears as if the noise is far louder than it is, and Alex’s easy and calm reaction, rubbing at Myka’s shoulders and directing her attention to the dessert menu, asking her questions until she’s focusing only on Alex’s voice; Myka, digging into her burrito right away, despite the server informing her that it was extremely hot, and not seeming to burn her tongue at all, or notice the red mark on her hand from where it’s resting on the hot plate; the lights boring down on them, causing Myka to blink excessively until she gives up, and knocks her face into Alex’s shoulder, refusing to move for the rest of the meal. All of these pileup, Kara and Alex both move to cover them, half pretending they don’t exist while Lena is looking, and making sure that Myka is comfortable at the same time.

Finally, Lena rolls her eyes. “I know what Sensory Processing Disorder is,” she says, a little annoyed. “You don’t have to pretend that it’s not happening on my account.”

Kara frowns. “I don’t.” Alex kicks her underneath the table. “I don’t,” she repeats. “Also, ow.”

“What is it?” Myka asks, lifting her head up from Alex’s shoulder.

“Do bright lights, loud noises, and some fabrics bother you?” Lena asks her. Myka nods. “There’s much more to it, but it’s possible that you have it,” her voice lowers, and she directs the rest towards Kara. “Or it could be a sort of temporary reaction to trauma. I can recommend some doctors if you want,” she offers.

“No,” Kara and Alex say quickly. “Um,” Kara adjusts her glasses. “I don’t think that’s necessary, but if I change my mind, I’ll let you know,” she smiles.

“Okay,” Lena says, and quickly grabs the check before Kara or Alex can make a move to do so. “I’m still rich,” she says, signing and passing it back to the waiter. “I said that it was my treat, and I meant it,” she feels a little ridiculous, but she forces herself to make eye contact with all three of them. “Thank you for including me, I had a wonderful time.”

“You can come over whenever you want,” Myka offers. “Nothing about you is too loud,” she grins, wriggling her way out from the booth and running around it. “I like being your friend, let’s get ice cream,” she tugs Lena out of the booth, so quickly that Kara has to steady her—again.

“Myka, be gentle,” Kara reminds her.

“Whoops, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kara assures her. “Just keep trying to remember.”

“I will! I will, but ice cream might help me.”

Kara laughs, loud an uninhibited, and Lena might genuinely be done for with how warm she feels right now. “Ice cream always helps,” she agrees. “You’re right about that.”

Chapter Text

Kara jolts awake at the sound of a piercing scream. She is out of her bed and in the kitchen in less than a second, and there is Myka, standing in front of the oven, panicking and trying to put out a mini fire. Kara jumps in front of her, using her freeze breath to put it out and turning the burner off. “Myka!” she whips around and quickly scans her for any injuries. “What were you doing?”

Myka bites down hard at her lower lip, looking a little ashamed. “I was hungry,” she mumbles. “I didn’t want to wake you up, cause you looked really tired last night. But I forgot how much fire you’re supposed to use.”

Kara sags and pulls Myka in tightly for a hug. Thank Rao she inherited resistance to fire as one of her powers on Earth. “None,” she states firmly, pulling Myka back and making sure that she is looking Kara in the eyes. “On Earth, children don’t get to use any fire. They wake up adults—even if they look tired—or they eat cold things until the adults wake up on their own.”

“But it can’t hurt me,” Myka says, frowning. “Look,” she sticks out her hand and presses it down on top of the still scalding burner without flinching. Kara snatches her hand away regardless; even knowing that she is perfectly fine, a band of worry still blooms inside her chest at the sight.

“The apartment isn’t flammable like us,” she reminds Myka. “And neither are our neighbors.”

“Oh,” Myka looks up, her wide little eyes full of panic. “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kara reassures her quickly. “Just, something that we’ve got to keep reminding ourselves. Now, want me to make us some scrambled eggs?”

“With the green stuff and the peppers?” Myka asks, rising up and down on her toes with excitement.

“Spinach,” Kara reminds her. “Sure, I can do that,” she claps her hands together and pulls out the ingredients from the refrigerator. Myka drags a stool over beside Kara and crawls up onto it, leaning over and offering to help crack some eggs. Kara quirks an eyebrow up at her. “That didn’t go so well two days ago.”

“Alex only found one shell in her brownie,” Myka protests. “And she said that it didn’t taste that bad.”

“All the same, I think we’ll leave it to me for now,” Kara decides.

“Okay,” Myka shrugs. “Do you think Lena likes green stuff in her eggs?”

“Spinach,” Kara supplies, adding the eggs into the frying pan.

Spinach, Myka mouths, trying out the word again. Twice over. “Do you?” she asks a few beats later.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never had breakfast with her.”

“We should invite her!” Myka cheers. “Get your block thing out and call her.”

“Cell phone. It’s called a cell phone.”

“Can I call her?” she leaps off of the stool and finds Kara’s phone. “Please? I haven’t talked to her in two days,” Myka bemoans.

Kara mixes the eggs and veggies, turning the burner down a bit and finding plates for them both. “You’ve only known her for two days.”

Myka climbs back up onto the stool with Kara’s phone in hand. “I’ve only known you and Alex for…” she frowns, thinking back in her head. “Thirty-five days. And I’ve seen you both on all of them.”

She makes a solid point. Kara can’t argue with her there.

“Come eat this,” she sets plates out for both of them, pulling Myka—stool and all—over to the island table. Plucking the phone out of Myka’s hand, she replaces it with a fork and asks her if she’d like some hot sauce. The distraction works well enough for a few minutes, then Myka is grabbing for Kara’s phone and asking about Lena again. She seems to have really made an impression on her. Kara smiles. “We can text her, if you want. But we’ve got to get over to the DEO in… about ten minutes. Shoot,” Kara notices the time and starts shoveling eggs into her mouth. “So, breakfast with Lena might have to wait for another day. Besides, I’m pretty sure Lena will have been at work for like, more than an hour at this point.”

“But it’s early!” Myka gapes.

“She’s a very hard worker.”

“Cause she’s the boss,” Myka nods, with an air of seriousness that Kara can’t help but smile at.

“Quick, eat up, get dressed, and then we gotta go.”

“And text Lena!”

“Yes,” Kara smiles, unlocking her phone. “What should we say?” she asks. Myka shoves more eggs than will actually fit into her mouth and frowns as some fall out. It’s too perfect not to snap a picture of, so Kara does, sending it to Lena with the caption: this one would like to have breakfast with you sometime! before allowing herself to second guess it. Myka’s immediate attachment to Lena warms Kara’s heart in a way that both excites and worries her. Everything about Lena Luthor so far is a bit of a muddled mass of confusion for Kara. She likes her, very much, but she doesn’t know her all that well, beyond the surface and the small glimpses that Lena allows very occasionally.

That’s not even getting into the complications of Supergirl, and Myka’s Daxamite heritage.

Lena’s response appears on Kara’s phone just as she is shuffling Myka into a clean t-shirt.

I would enjoy that very much, I think. If the brownie endeavor is anything to go off of :)

Kara beams, her whole body going a little warm, and Myka frowns at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Kara clicks her phone off and slides it into the pocket Winn had fitted for her suit. Holding her arms out to Myka, she grins wide. “Lena says hello.”

Myka launches herself into Kara’s arms, laughing as they fly out the window and off to the DEO. “Hello, back,” she sing-songs. “Let’s do a flip!”

…

…

The monitor attached to the little girl beeps along steadily, and Kara sits beside the bed, quietly promising that she will be here when the girl wakes up. Alex’s words from their fight earlier in the day ring out in her ears, and she can’t seem to make them go away, now that they’ve been put out there.

“Does he understand that he abandoned you to us? Do you?”

Kara looks at the little girl, and gently reaches out and twines their fingers together. Her heart rate on the monitor speeds up, and Kara rubs at the outside of her thumb. She looks impossibly small, swimming in the hospital bed that Alex and the other agents have arranged for her. Kara can’t help but wonder her name, if she knew her family back on Krypton, if there might still be others, alive out there somewhere.

Maybe her parents—

No.

The beeping picks up, and Kara looks at the girl’s face, her eyelids fluttering, just a bit. Kara sucks in a breath and bends closer. “You’re alright,” she whispers softly.

The girl’s eyes shoot open, and she panics. Flinging her body around, she rips out her IVs, tears the sheets on the bed in two, and nearly breaks Kara’s arm trying to dodge out of her grasp. “It’s okay,” Kara insists, trying to get a hold of her. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

The girl throws Kara across the room—she has super strength, then—and runs. Kara’s blood runs cold at the thought of the DEO agents, of Alex, getting in her way, and she lugs herself up and chases after. The DEO bullpen is in a panic, agents reaching for their weapons on instinct, only to freeze at the sight of a child. Kara looks around wildly for Alex, and finds her exactly where she hadn’t wanted to, crouched down, hands up, trying to coach the girl into calming down. There’s blood dripping down from Alex’s head, and Kara can’t move, just for a second.

“It’s okay,” Alex says, voice low and calm. “My name is Alex, and you’re somewhere safe. I promise, no one here is going to hurt you.”

The girl has pressed herself underneath the main desk, monitors and computers trashed and flickering all around her. She’s hunkered down, pressed into herself as tightly as possible, like a wild animal, cornered and terrified. Her eyes dart back and forth so quickly that even Kara can’t focus on them. Her breath comes out in ragged gasps, and she clamps her hands over her ears, moaning as a siren begins to ring out.

“Shut that off!” Kara screams. She sees Winn scramble towards something out of the corner of her eye. “Everyone be quiet and get out!” she orders, moving slowly to crouch beside Alex. She puts her body halfway between Alex and the girl, not taking any chances. “Hi,” she directs, to both of them.

The girl moans again, and Kara can see tears in her eyes.  she asks, repeating herself over and over again. Alex looks towards Kara helplessly. 

“I don’t know where your mother is,” Kara answers, then, repeats herself; her Kryptonian comes out almost stilted, her tongue unused to the sounds any longer. It scares her, that the words don’t come as quickly as she would expect them to. An icy chill of fear settles over her; she can’t lose her language, not on top of everything else. she adds. “You’re okay.”

The girl shifts her weight, leaning forward like a cat preparing to pounce. Alex and Kara both move at the same time. Kara, faster, gets in between them fully and catches the girl. She kicks and protests in Kara’s arms, screaming. For help. For her mother. Her words mix into what sounds to Kara’s ears a bit like Daxam slang, though she can’t fully be sure. Alex comes up with a syringe and Kara yells no, trying to pull them both away, but the girl is fighting strong, and Alex is fast—the neon glow from the Kryptonite makes Kara gag as it sinks into the girl’s arm. Her screams pierce through the air, and Kara sees Winn clamp his hands over his ears, looking horrified. The girl sags in Kara’s arms, breathing heavily, all of the fight seeping out of her and whimpering.

“Alex,” Kara screams, cuddling the girl close.

Alex flings the syringe away from them without looking behind her, scooting closer and taking the girl’s pulse. “If I had something else that would work as a sedative, I would have used it. I tried to calm her down without it,” she says firmly, and Kara notices the blood on her head again.

“Let’s get her back to the med bay,” J’onn says, coming up behind them both.

Kara nods, and rises, lifting the girl up easily into her arms, now that she’s not fighting it. Alex follows half a step behind, and Kara can feel her agitation like it’s screaming at her. The second that Kara moves to set the girl back down, she clings to Kara’s suit. she says, and Alex flinches, recognizing the words from Kara’s early days on Earth—waking with nightmares, her skin feeling like it was on fire.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says to her gently, reaching for a sunlamp. “This will help. We just, we need you to stay calm. You’re a lot stronger than some people here.”

Kara pushes some of the wild curls out of her eyes, and asks, “What’s your name?”

“My father calls me Mon-El,” she answers. “Is he here?”

“No,” Kara tells her, locking eyes with Alex. “I’m sorry. Are you… are you from Daxam? I thought I recognized a few words.”

Mon-El nods. “My father is the king.”

Kara’s eyes widen. The Daxamite king, as far as she knows, was an authoritarian xenophobic ruler. Like his father, and his grandfather before him, they were isolationists, and abhorred space travel. All of the tales that children told each other in whispers spoke of him as a cold and imposing man, his wife, something like an ice queen out of a fairytale. The six Daxamite princesses, the youngest of which, is now apparently sitting in Kara’s arms, were all revered for their beauty and charms, but were rumored to be spoiled, thoughtless, and cruel. Their royalty fit with what Kara knew about Daxamites in general.

And, here is Daxam’s last daughter, cuddled in a Kryptonian’s arms. It’s a lot to wrap your head around. Kara looks up and meets Alex’s eye, J’onn, frowning slightly just behind her. “Well,” she begins, because no matter what Kara has heard, this is nothing more than a terrified little girl right now. “My name is Kara Zor-El, of Krypton. And this is my sister, Alex Danvers,” she gives Mon-El a little smile and a wave. “And that’s our friend, J’onn J’onzz, of Mars,” he nods.

“Where are we?” Mon-El asks.

“Earth,” Kara swallows thickly. “We’re on Earth.”

…

…

Myka runs over and slams herself into Alex’s waiting arms. “Good morning,” she beams, ignoring Alex’s small grunt of pain and hugging tightly for half a second before squirreling her way onto Alex’s lap. An agent behind them snickers, and then sobers immediately at Alex’s pointed glare.

“Myka, Myka, Myka,” Winn chants, “sup girl,” he holds out his hand and Myka slaps it. From the sharp wince on his face, he regrets the move deeply. “That super strength is still going strong,” he groans. Kara rolls her eyes. Winn has been a bit awkward and unsure of how to interact with Myka since day one, despite enthusiastically trying to bond with her. Kara isn’t sure if it’s the alien thing, the child thing, the princess thing, or some combination of the three, but hopefully he gets over it sooner rather than later.

“Did I hurt your hand?” Myka asks, worrying at her lower lip. She’s becoming slowly more aware of her strength, but usually, not until after the fact.

“Nahhhh,” Winn drawls, clearly lying.

“Come on,” Alex says, shifting Myka off her lap and rising. “Let’s go see how fast you are today.”

“Maybe I’ll beat Kara!” Myka exclaims, catching Kara’s eye mischievously.

“Not a chance kid,” Kara grins.

“One, two, three, go!” Myka takes off running, and five agents leap out of her way, papers flying.

“Sorry!” Kara calls, catching them all and returning them to their—hopefully—rightful owners as she chases after Myka. She can hear Alex laughing behind her, and grins.

…

…

“So, she’s a princess?” Winn whispers, huddled beside Kara and not being exactly subtle with his staring. “But, she’s so little.”

“Focus please,” Kara huffs.

“Right!” Winn pokes away at his tablet, and Kara waits impatiently beside him. “So, let’s see what the princess can do!” he cheers, then, drops his voice to a whisper. “Is her name actually Mon-El? Does she want to be called that? Or… Mon, Mony? Nah, that sounds like money. El? Oh!” he yells out happily, “Like Stranger Things! She’s a little alien girl with powers! Let’s call her El!!”

Alex whacks him in the stomach with the back of her hand. “We will call her whatever she wants. Focus,” she snaps, and Winn doubles over dramatically and groans.

“Do you want to be called El?” Winn asks, once he’s got himself under control. “Cause I should probably make you an ID soon.”

“What’s an ID?” Mon-El asks quietly.

“Um, identification? On this planet, we… have like, cards and paperwork that say who we are.” Winn turns to Kara, “am I explaining this right? I don’t feel like I’m explaining this right?” he turns back to Mon-El. “You know what, don’t worry, we’ll go through a whole database of names, and you can just pick whatever one you want,” he gives her a double thumbs up, and Mon-El just stares at him. “I’m not sure that me and the kid are hitting it off,” Winn hisses out of the side of his mouth. “Someone else want a go?”

Alex whacks him again when Mon-El isn’t looking.

…

…

“So!” Winn bellows, using a dramatic announcer voice. “Here, we have Kara Zor-El, the Last Daughter of Krypton. The Girl of Steel. The Maid of Might. Suuuuuupergirl!” he cups his mouth, making wooing crowd noises loudly while Myka giggles and Alex rolls her eyes. Kara does a little twirl, pulling a grin out of Alex. “And, bravely facing off, we have her opponent, Myka Mon-El, Princess of Daxam,” he halts, searching for another descriptor, and Myka’s face falls. “Valor!” he yells out.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Go with it,” Winn hisses at her.

“Vaaaallloooorrr,” he chants, adding more crowd noises. “Ladies, take your positions.” Kara and Myka stand beside each other, bent over, ready to run. Kara grins, knocking her hip into Myka’s playfully and getting the delighted squeal that she was aiming for. “Get set!” Winn calls. “Go!”

Kara takes off. Myka is only a few steps behind her, arms pumping at her sides and grinning madly as the two of them sprint around the DEO training room. She can hear Alex and Winn cheering them on, and does a little flip, just for fun. Myka squawks and jumps to mimic her, backflipping instead of doing a front flip. Kara lifts up into the air in retaliation, beaming down on Myka as she flies around her. Myka yells, and leaps up into the air, climbing up all of the levels and back down again in a flash. Kara can hear Winn ‘waho-ing’ from the front of the room and she laughs, flying up and catching Myka in mid-jump. Myka yelps happily, and Kara holds her tight, flipping them both backwards four times in a row before landing back on the ground.

“How is she not dizzy after that?” Winn asks. “How aren’t you?”

Kara shrugs. “Want a turn?”

“No,” Winn steps back, clutching his tablet. “No, I do not.”

“It’s really fun,” Myka insists.

“Your idea of fun and my idea of fun involve very different things. Being flipping around and then throwing up, not fun for me.”

“Baby,” Alex mutters.

Kara whips around and grins devilishly at Alex, who backs up, holding her hand out in front of her. “No,” she orders. “Don’t you dare.”

“Catch her!” Myka cheers, and sprints towards Alex.

Alex, lets out a real, proper scream and runs, a huge grin on her face. Kara hasn’t seen her look this relaxed in weeks. This is the first time since making brownies that she’s seen her sister smile this much, so she flies over, hauls her into her arms, and flips her backwards in the middle of the air. Alex, screaming the whole time, while Myka and Winn cheer her on from the ground.

…

…

“She’s not quite as strong as you, but damn, she’s pretty close,” Winn says, while Mon-El sits over in the other corner of the training room, drinking some water and picking at the edge of the sweatpants they found for her to wear. J’onn huddles beside Kara, listening to Winn and Alex’s findings.

“Super strength, super speed, and pretty much all of your invulnerabilities to cuts, bruises, etc,” Alex adds. “We… very carefully tested it out and she’s immune to fire. But, Kryptonite doesn’t seem to have the same effect on her as it does on you. It weakens her, which you saw earlier, but I don’t think it’s fatal or toxic for her the way that it is for you and Clark.”

“But, she does seem to have a reaction to lead,” Winn says. “It cut her skin, and it left a bit of an irritation that isn’t healing quickly. So, we’ll have to watch out for that. You and Clark can’t see through it, and it can hurt her.”

“She has x-ray vision though,” Alex says. “Same as you two, can’t see through lead.”

“But, no freeze breath, heat vision, or flight as far as we can tell,” Winn chimes in. “I’m not sure if that’s because she’s a Daxamite, or because she’s nine. Which, according to Earth’s standards, she’s a bit on the small side for nine. I don’t know what the average height and weight are for a Daxamite kid, but she’s closer to the average seven-year-old girl on Earth,” he shrugs, flicking past screens on his tablet. “She might grow into more powers. According to Clark, he didn’t get flight until he was around twenty-one.”

“Speaking of Clark,” Alex begins, looking to Kara.

“He’s on his way,” she confirms.

“But he just left,” Winn says. Behind him, J’onn makes a face and rolls his eyes, still not as enthusiastic about Clark as Kara would like. She frowns at him, pulling what she hopes is an impressive pout. From the way that his shoulders sag of tension, and the second eye roll he gives her, she’s successful.

“He’s coming back to meet her,” Kara begins, and before she can even finish her sentence, Clark walks into the room, in full Superman regalia.

He sure flew fast.

Mon-El sits up and stares at him, eyes wide with a hint of fear as she scoots back behind a pile of mats. Alex walks over and sits down beside her immediately. “Clark,” Kara jumps over to greet him, hoping that her relaxed body language towards him calms Mon-El.

“Hi Kara,” he opens up his arms and hugs her tightly, looking over her shoulder at Mon-El and Alex, sitting together on the floor. Alex, gently tapping out a beat on Mon-El’s knees, slowly pulling a twisted little smile out of her. “So, how is she?”

“Good,” Kara says, wishing there was more confidence in her tone.

“Kara,” Clark begins, moving them out of Winn and J’onn’s earshot. “We don’t really have a precedence for this. I mean, well,” he looks deeply uncomfortable as he locks eyes with her. “I can, there are a few other people that I know of who might be able to help. No one that I trust as much as I trusted Eliza and Jeremiah,” he says with a frown. “But, I can check a few things out and—”

“Wait,” Kara cuts him off. “What are you talking about?”

Clark looks surprised. “To…” he glances back over at Mon-El and Alex. “To take care of her.”

“She has us.” Clark’s eyes flash with surprise at the hard tone in Kara’s voice, and she’s a little surprised by it herself, but she doesn’t dial it back. “We’re not abandoning her. She’s staying here.”

“Kara, you’re twenty-five, and you’re alone, and I—”

“I’m not alone,” Kara insists, confused as to how he could even think that. “I have Alex. And J’onn, my friends, Eliza, you,” she sucks in a breath and watches Clark’s face flicker with something she can’t read. “I’m not alone,” she repeats. “And even if I was, I’m not leaving her to be alone. She doesn’t need some family that she doesn’t know. She needs us. Me. People who know what she’s going through. Someone who knows what it feels like to wake up in a pod and find out that your entire world is gone and that you’re the only one left,” she’s raised her voice more than she meant to, and she can feel everyone’s eyes on her—Mon-El’s included.

“Kara…” Clark’s voice cracks, and he looks younger than Kara has ever seen him, just for a beat. He runs his fingers through his hair and then glances back over at Mon-El, before staring at Kara unblinking, for long enough to make her shift underneath his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, apologizing for what exactly, at this moment, Kara doesn’t know. She nods her acceptance of it either way, and Clark lets out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he looks over at Mon-El again. “Okay, I’ll help however much you need me to.”

There’s a determination to his tone that Kara hasn’t heard before, and all of her built up anger seeps out of her body—for this moment at least—and she shoves herself into his arms. He clings back to her, so tightly that for a surprising second, it actually hurts, and she feels wet tears on the top of her head. “Thank you,” she whispers, holding him back just as tightly.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m so sorry.”

…

….

“So, can we go say hi to Lena?” Myka asks as they leave the DEO.

“Um,” they’re walking side by side through the bustle of people in National City, and Kara quickly reaches out and takes Myka’s hand before she gets lost in the shuffle. She may be solid and strong, but she’s still small enough to get knocked over or lost quickly. “We’ve got to get to CatCo. But, maybe this afternoon we can see if she has any free time?”

“Okay,” Myka’s not thrilled by this answer, but she follows along dutifully as they slip into the elevators and sneak by Snapper’s desk. Kara hasn’t enrolled Myka in school yet, and though James is aware—and gave her temporary permission—she has been sneaking Myka into work with her every day. Whenever Snapper walks by, Myka ducks down underneath the nearest desk. It’s become something of a game. Myka had charmed over a third of the other reporters and all of the interns into helping hide her from Snapper by her third day at CatCo. While Kara works, she shuffles back and forth through everyone, learning the ins and outs of whatever article they are working on, helping the interns deliver coffee and paperwork, and slowly learning code from a few of the guys in IT. It’s not a terrible way for her to get more acquainted with Earth and its customs, and when she gets too overwhelmed by the noise, she takes a nap on the couch in the sixth-floor ladies room—the one hardly anyone ever uses, due to its location. They’ve formed a bit of a routine in the last few weeks, though Kara knows it can’t be kept up forever, and she needs to figure out something for school sooner rather than later.

“Ponytail!” Snapper calls out gruffly. Myka drops Kara’s hand and ducks behind a coffee cart.

“Yes?” Kara adjusts her glasses and waits patiently as he zeros in on her.

“You got a bleeding heart. Get me a five hundred word follow up on how the new Children’s Hospital is doing after the Luthor charity party a few weeks ago,” he breezes past her, moving on to bark out an order to a senior reporter named Frank. “Ready to print by end of tomorrow!”

Myka reappears by her side, supporting a bright grin. “Luthor party means we get to talk to Lena, right?”

“I wish,” Kara puts a hand on her shoulders and directs her back out the way they came. “It means we need to go talk to people who work at the hospital. Or, I do. Maybe you can go hang out with Alex.”

“I just saw Alex!” Myka protests. “I haven’t seen Lena yet though.”

Kara would much rather go hang out with Lena too, but she knows that Lena is probably even busier than she is right now. “Soon. I promise.”

“Fine,” Myka harrumphs. “But can I use your plastic square thing to buy chocolate?”

“Credit card,” Kara corrects her. “And no.” When Myka’s face falls, she wiggles her eyebrows at her conspiratorially. “You can use Alex’s though.”

…

…

“Miranda? Molly? Morgan? Maeve? Meredith? Mary? Mabel? Millie? Mia? Madeline? Oh! That’s a good book, have you read Madeline yet?” Winn asks. Mon-El is sitting in a swivel chair, not paying much attention to him as he reads off from a list on his computer.

“No,” she answers him, quietly.

“Do you like the name?”

Mon-El shrugs.

“Okay,” he turns back to his computer. “Madison, Margot, Maureen, Maya, Mandy, Minerva, you could be like a Harry Potter character with that one.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“I know, we’ll fix that. Harry Potter and Star Wars, right away.”

Mon-El spins her chair around. “What else is there?”

“Well, Star Trek too,” he says. “And then there’s—”

“Names,” Mon-El interrupts. “I meant what other names.”

“You don’t like any of these so far?”

Mon-El shrugs again. “Not really.”

Winn sighs and turns back to the list. “Okay, um, Matilda—side note, also a literary little girl with superpowers—Maggie, oh, we already know a Maggie. That could get confusing. Michelle, Michaela—”

“I want a short one.”

“Back to Maya? Or Mia?”

Mon-El scrunches up her face and shrugs. Her apparent favorite form of communication for the day. Kara spins in her chair, holding her legs up and smiling once Mon-El mimics her.

“Meara? Mila? Myka? Mini? Could be like the mouse,” Winn contemplates.

“I like it,” Mon-El pauses her spinning and scoots closer.

“Mini Mouse?” Winn frowns. “Well, sure I guess.”

“No,” Mon-El gets out of her chair and leans over Winn’s desk, looking at the screen. “Before that.”

“Mila?”

“No,” she jams her finger against the screen and Kara has to reach out and grab the back of his chair to stop him from freaking out. He’s got a thing about people touching his electronics without asking first. “That one.”

“Myka?” Kara asks, reading it off. She watches the girl mouth the word twice to herself before nodding, and smiles. “Okay, Myka it is.”

“Myka Matthews,” Winn starts typing and doesn’t notice Mon—Myka’s frown.

“I don’t like the other one,” she announces.

“Well…” he turns back to her, floundering a bit when he says, “It can’t be Mon-El. That... that’s not really a common Earth surname. And, we sort of have to pick something, for documents and stuff,” he looks up to Kara nervously. “I mean, I can find something else but, the Matthews family died in the best cover to be realistic, so it might take a little while to find—”

“No,” Myka shrugs, again. “It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Kara asks.

“Yeah,” Myka looks up at Kara and gives her a one-shouldered shrug.

“Okay,” Kara sticks out her hand and grins. “Well, Myka Mon-El Matthews, welcome to Earth.”

Myka takes her hand, and finally gives Kara a real smile.

…

…

“Danvers,” a voice calls out, and Alex freezes. Beside her, she can feel Myka zone in on how uncomfortable she feels right now, and she groans internally as Maggie walks up to them. She’s smiling, but it looks like she is forcing it to try to appear easily on her face. “Fancy meeting you here,” she nods to the park surrounding them. “Your day off?”

“Kind of,” Alex manages to answer without sounding like it hurts to be within ten feet of Maggie right now. “I’m…” she motions towards Myka. “I think I mentioned that Kara’s little cousin is living with her for now.”

Maggie’s eyebrows go up, but she pulls an easy smile towards Myka and sticks out her hand. “I’m Maggie Sawyer, nice to meet you.”

Thankfully, Myka remembers her strength and shakes Maggie’s hand gingerly. “Hello,” she mumbles, a hint of a glare to her eyes that worries Alex. “I’m Myka.”

“Hi Myka,” Maggie says cheerfully.

Myka crosses her arms in front of herself, glaring up at Maggie as she scoots over until she is so close to Alex, she’s nearly on her lap. “What do you want?” she demands.

Alex wraps an arm around her and forces a laugh, just shy of hysterical. “She’s a jokester,” she quickly says, to Maggie’s surprised face. “And she has better manners than that,” she whispers towards Myka.

“I don’t like her,” Myka whispers back, easily loud enough for Maggie to hear. “She mad you sad.”

Horrifyingly, Maggie’s face falls. The hands at her sides jerk, like they’re going to reach forward, and Alex jumps off the bench, lifting Myka along with her in her urgency to get as far away from Maggie right now as possible. “Alex,” Maggie’s voice cracks around her name, and Alex cannot look at her.

“We’ve got to go,” Alex insists, setting Myka down and tugging her along.

“Alex, please—”

“We have a meeting to get to,” Alex lies.

“With Lena Luthor!” Myka adds. Alex and Maggie both stare down at her, and Myka just grins back at them both with ease.

“Right,” Alex says, not sounding altogether very convincing.

“Alex—”

“Bye!” Myka yells, pulling Alex with her as she starts to walk away.

“Myka,” Alex hisses, once they’ve left the park’s grounds. “That was rude.”

“I don’t have to be nice to people I don’t like. My sisters never were.”

“That’s,” Alex runs a hand through her hair and tries not to think about a pack of spoiled alien princesses teaching this kid how to behave in the world. “Not true, unfortunately. We have to be kind to people, and we shouldn’t lie. Everything I just did, don’t do.”

“Well… if we go see Lena, then we aren’t lying!” Myka says excitedly.

Alex frowns. “What’s so great about Lena?” she half-jokes. Part of her is incredibly curious as to her sister and Myka’s attachment to the woman. She seems nice enough, and she wasn’t bad company in a food fight, but despite all evidence so far pointing in her favor, there is still a little voice in the back of Alex’s head that hums Luthor. Kara is too trusting, and it seems as if Myka is following right in her footsteps. She’s a sheltered little princess who’s only ever had people looking out for her best interests, on a planet where she needs to hide her identity from those who would do her—both of them—harm. Alex very much hopes that Lena Luthor is not one of those people, but one of them has to be wary.

“Everything,” Myka answers.

“Oh, everything?” Alex jokes, tugging her down the sidewalk. “Everything about Lena Luthor is great?”

“Yep!”

“What am I, chopped liver?”

Myka frowns. “What?”

“It means sort of like, ‘what about me?’ or, I guess more like, ‘does that make me this gross thing, instead?’ It’s an expression.”

“Everything about you is great too!” Myka yells out, completely sincere.

Alex takes a beat and lets herself believe it, it’s not a long moment. “You really wanna go see her?”

“Yes!”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Hell, why not?”

Myka cheers at the top of her lungs, scaring every bird and animal within a fifty-foot radius.

…

…

“Are you sure about this?” Alex asks Kara. There’s a flicker of uncertainty in her sister’s eyes as she looks over at Myka, sound asleep on her couch, but then the steely determination is right back, and she nods.

“Yes. I know what she feels like, better than anyone on this planet. She’s going to need me.”

“I know that,” Alex reaches out and tucks a loose bit of hair behind Kara’s ear. “But, it’s a huge undertaking. I just… want to make sure you’re prepared for what it will really mean. I can call Mom. She’d probably be ecstatic about the idea of hanging out with an alien nine-year-old. Our old room is still kid-friendly, and she knows what she’d be signing up for.”

“I know. But—”

“She needs another alien,” Alex finishes for her. “I know.”

“It’s not that she wouldn’t be okay otherwise,” Kara insists. She reaches over and takes Alex’s hand in hers, her thumb rubbing small circles across the back of Alex’s hand. “It’s not that I wasn’t,” she says, locking eyes with Alex. “I just think it would be easier. Would have been, for me, I mean.”

“I know,” Alex tells her, because she does. She’s understood Kara’s feelings regarding Clark leaving her with their family for years without Kara ever needing to explain them. Which is a good thing, because Kara never really tries to articulate them. “I get it.”

“I’m probably gonna call Eliza for help by like, tomorrow morning,” Kara jokes.

“Call me first,” Alex demands.

“Well, obviously,” Kara swings their hands and then releases Alex’s as she moves to get them both some ice cream. “You’ll already be here.”

“Yeah,” Alex smiles, “always.”

Kara beams, twirling and presenting the ice cream with a flourish. And Myka wakes the minute that Kara gently shakes her and introduces her to the wonderful earthly concoction. And then the three of them are sitting, squished together on Kara’s couch, wrapped up in unnecessary blankets and sharing three different pints of ice cream. Myka stopped being hesitant about her arms bumping into the both of them once the ice cream was in her mouth, and now, she’s not shy about leaning over Alex to grab for the mint chip at all. Her hand presses down on Alex’s lower stomach without embarrassment or acknowledgment. She grins up at her, shoving a huge bite into her mouth and dripping onto her shirt. It surprises Alex suddenly, the little bubble of affection that grows as she watches Myka try to wipe at her shirt and take another bite of ice cream at the same time. Alex looks over at Kara, laughing with a near mirror image on her own face, and Alex’s heart clenches warmly as she reaches down and wipes Myka’s shirt for her. Kara, excitedly remembers how much better mint chip and chocolate taste when you mix them together, and then Alex gives up trying to clean up either of them.  

All three pints are gone within minutes, and Kara quickly flies out to get them three more.

…

…

Lena Luthor’s office is impressive. It also doesn’t look much like any office that Alex has ever stepped foot in. Something about it reminds her oddly of a break room. Probably the TVs.

The shock of surprise on Lena’s face when Alex and Myka walk through her door is damn near priceless, but it’s nothing compared to the mix of emotions that flicker through it when Myka screams out, “Lena!” and bolts over to her, slamming into her with a tight hug. Lena finally cottons on to what’s happening quickly enough to try and return the hug, but it’s awkward, like she doesn’t know where to put her elbows, and then Myka pulls away. “We came to visit you so we didn’t lie!” she announces, bouncing up and down in front of Lena. She turns and assesses the room. “Wow, is this your office? It’s so big.”

“Um,” Lena looks up to Alex, worrying at her bottom lip. Part of Alex wants to leave her floundering, because it’s a little amusing, but her instincts kick in and she smiles warmly at her instead.

“Kara’s working. Myka wanted to stop by and say ‘hi’ quickly. We won’t keep you if you’re busy,” she promises. If the stack of papers on her desk is anything to go off of, she is. 

“What time does school let out?” Lena asks, her eyes flicking to the time on her computer.

“I don’t go to school,” Myka informs her cheerfully, reaching over to pick up one of the files. “I go to work with Kara.”

Alex groans internally. They’ve been trying to keep that on the down low until Winn can forge some more records, and they come up with a feasible plan for integrating an alien who’s had tutors all her life to school on Earth.

Lena looks up at Alex in surprise and reaches over to take the file out of Myka’s hands gently. “Oh?”

“I can help you with your work!” Myka offers. “I help people at CatCo all the time.”

“Really?” Alex can’t quite work out what Lena’s facial expression means. The woman is good at keeping her cards close to her chest when she wants to be.

“Yep,” Myka nods, shoving some of Lena’s papers out of the way and hoping on top of her desk. Alex sighs deeply; they’re still working on ‘personal space’ and ‘touching things that don’t belong to you without asking first.’ Apparently, Daxamite princesses pretty much have free reign and little to no rules or consequences for their actions. “I can get coffee, and deliver paper stuff, and help look up stuff, and sing to you when you’re stuck,” she offers happily. “Frank likes that. He’s super old.”

Lena presses her lips together, clearly trying to stop herself from laughing, and Alex can’t help but grin a little at the sight. Laughter looks good on Lena Luthor.

(It also doesn’t look like it’s familiar, a thought that simmers uncomfortably in Alex’s chest.)

“We’re working on the school thing,” Alex offers, moving closer towards the two of them. “It’s on the to-do list. Frank, whoever he is, will just have to suffer along without you.”

“He’s a reporter.”

“Good for Frank,” Alex quips, and Lena’s smile grows.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” she says. Alex can tell that she means it, but her secretary pops her head around the door and gives her an apologetic look. “But—”

“We’ll get out of your hair,” Alex says quickly, relieving Lena from the burden of dismissing them. She hauls Myka up off Lena’s desk, holding her out by her waist. “Say goodbye Lena,” she directs.

Myka reaches her arms out and manages to get them around Lena’s neck while still in Alex’s arms. The three of them are connected a bit awkwardly, and Lena only brings up one hand, barely resting it on Myka’s back, her knuckles brushing against Alex’s as she pulls away.

“Goodbye Lena,” both of them parrot. And Alex cracks with laughter when Lena meets her eye, Myka giggling as she releases her. Lena smiles back at her, a little sheepishly, and damn, Alex gets it now, why Kara and Myka like her so much. She’s not letting herself blindly trust the woman, not by a long shot, but she feels the urge to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Thank you for stopping by,” Lena says to her. “It was a very lovely distraction.”

Alex shrugs, hefting Myka up and depositing her on the opposite side of the desk. “Sure thing,” she gives Myka a gentle push towards the door. “See you later Luthor,” she says, noting the way that Lena flinches, just a bit, at being called by her last name before she masks it with a tight smile.

“I look forward to it,” says Lena. And Alex finds that she does, too.

Chapter Text

Kara stares down Myka across from the kitchen island, trying to keep the steely glare to her face. Myka’s own matches Kara’s, her fists clench tightly on either side of her plate.

“Three, two, one,” Alex counts off, “go!”

Kara and Myka both stuff their faces.

James, Winn, and Alex cheer them on, Alex keeping an eye on the clock running down on her phone. Kara chews as quickly as she can, taco sauce dripping off her chin. She looks up from her plate briefly and has to choke out a laugh; Myka hasn’t taken her eyes off Kara, there is way more sauce dripping off of her, and she’s halfway through her plate already. Kara quickens her pace.

“Thirty more seconds!” Alex calls out.

“This is the grossest, most insane thing I’ve ever seen,” Winn whispers towards James. “I love it.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat a taco again without picturing this,” James says back, a huge grin on his face.

“TIME!” Alex yells, and Kara and Myka both throw their hands up into the air.

“Annnnnd we have a winner,” Winn declares. “Kara!” Myka reaches out and shoves the last half of her taco into her mouth so that her plate matches Kara’s. “Nope!” Winn points towards her. “Cheating!”

Myka doesn’t bother swallowing as she swivels around and glares at him, sauce all down the front of her shirt. “What’s cheating?” she mumbles. Kara winces as a bit of taco falls out of her mouth.

“It’s when you’re being dishonest or unfair. If you do something that’s not allowed in order to win something. Basically, not playing by the rules,” Kara explains, reaching out and wiping at Myka’s mouth. It’s not much use, she’s definitely going to need a shower and new clothes.

Myka frowns, holding up her hands compliantly when Kara tugs her shirt up over her head. The sauce has already soaked through to the undershirt that Myka’s wearing. “But, that’s just good business,” she frowns, looking between Kara and everyone else. “You do whatever it takes, and then you’re the best. Like my dad. That’s how you run a kingdom. Right?”

Kara presses her lips together. The more that Myka tells her about Daxam, the more that all the stories Kara remembers from her childhood sound justified. “Not here. Not on Krypton either. Here, cheating and lying your way through life is bad.”

Myka’s frown deepens, her eyebrows narrowing into a little crinkle that’s beyond adorable. When Kara looks up at Alex, she’s laughing and motioning to her own eyebrows. Crinkle, she mouths, pointing at Kara smugly. She rolls her eyes and throws Myka’s dirty shirt at Alex’s head. “But we lie all the time,” Myka protests. “About Supergirl. About us being aliens. You said that we’re not allowed to tell Lena. Or your neighbors. Or Frank from work. So… is it bad or is it good?”

Well, shit. Kara looks over to Alex, a bit helplessly. “Um, that’s different,” she starts.

“Different how?” Myka asks.

“Well…”

Alex walks over, carrying Myka’s dirty shirt. “How ‘bout we hose you off while we explain?”

Myka looks down at herself and laughs. “But quick,” she demands, leaping off the stool and making a break for the bathroom. “I want a piggyback from James before he leaves.”

Kara rolls her eyes as James harrumphs triumphantly from behind her. “I can fly you higher than James can hold you,” she reminds Myka, for probably the eighth time. She is not jealous. Not at all. James flashes her a smug grin, and Kara, very petulantly, sticks her tongue out at him before following Myka and Alex. His laugh haunts her the whole way down the hall. “I can also throw James into space!” she yells out. His laugh only grows louder.

Alex has already got the shower running, and Myka is in it, conversing through the curtain as Alex tries soaking her shirt in the sink. “This is probably going to stain,” she frowns as Kara walks into the bathroom.

“I’m getting her a bib,” Kara announces, only half kidding. “For a princess, she’s way too messy. And Snapper does not pay me as well as Cat.”

She finds a clean t-shirt and a pair of soft leggings with a ridiculous colorful zig-zag pattern that Myka has fallen in love with, and places them on the counter.

Myka squeals from the shower, and then there is a thud. “I dropped the hair soap bottle!” she announces. “I didn’t fall!”

“Shampoo,” Kara supplies.

“No, it’s the other one,” Myka yells out over the water.

“Conditioner.”

“That one!”

Alex gives up trying to soak the shirt and tosses it into the hamper. “It might be okay if you bleach it. I’m gonna go fight Winn for the last brownie.”

“NO!” Myka yells in horror. “I didn’t get one!”

“You got five,” Kara reminds her.

“That was ages ago!”

“It was two hours ago,” Kara informs Alex. Her sister grins and heads past her, out of the bathroom. The water shuts off a second later and Myka yanks the curtain back with a flourish. She is not shy whatsoever about nudity. Apparently, on Daxam, she and her sisters actually had handmaidens who dressed them. Sometimes she still forgets to bother with it herself; she’ll just wander around the apartment in just a t-shirt and her underwear until Kara tackles her into a pair of pants. Part of Kara is happy that she’s not embarrassed about her body, the other part winces at the thought of her opening the apartment door to greet the mailman in nothing but her underwear again.

Kara rubs a towel over Myka’s hair, then holds out a hand to help her step out of the shower. “So,” Myka asks as she dries herself off. “Why do we have to lie to Lena, and Frank, and everyone about being aliens. But other lying is bad?”

Kara sits down on top of the closed toilet seat and sighs. “Because… not telling people about my identity as Supergirl is for protection. If people knew… they’d hound Eliza. Alex’s job would be much harder than it already is. My friends might get hurt by someone trying to get to me. And, I wouldn’t be able to keep my job at CatCo probably,” Kara frowns. “That’s… the selfish part. But the rest is to try and protect the people I care about. It’s why Clark keeps his identity a secret too. To protect the Kents and Lois. From people like Lex, or others who would exploit that if they could.”

Myka drops the towel unceremoniously to the floor and grabs the underwear, nearly crashing to the floor in her attempt to get both legs through the holes. Kara reaches out and steadies her. She keeps her hand out as Myka tugs the pair of leggings on. “So… we don’t tell Snapper and Frank and everybody so you can still work at CatCo, and so reporters don’t tell everyone?”

“Yep.”

Myka holds her arms up, forgetting to pull the shirt on herself. Kara just tosses it at her and she laughs, catching it and pulling it over her wet curls. “But,” there’s a deep frown on her face once she gets it over her head, fighting with the armholes until Kara takes pity and helps her. “We lie to Lena because of her brother?”

“Oh, no,” Kara stalls. “That’s not… no.”

Myka crosses her arms in front of her chest and cocks out a hip. So reminiscent of Alex when she’s had it with a DEO agent or some random asshole that Kara has to stifle a laugh. “So, why? Lena’s our friend.”

“Yes,” Kara picks the towel back up and gently tugs some of Myka’s hair over, squeezing it into the towel so she’s not just dripping all down the back of her shirt and onto the floor. “But…”

“But what?” Myka demands.

“It’s a little complicated,” Kara admits. “I’d like to tell her. But, we haven’t known each other for that long. And… honestly, the fewer people know the better. The more people who know, the harder it is to keep it a secret.”

Myka narrows her eyes.

“Slowpokes!” Alex yells from the living room. “Hurry up! Or the last brownie is gonna be gone for real!”

Myka’s eyes widen. Lena, forgotten entirely, and she’s out of the bathroom in an instant. By the time that Kara gathers everything into the hamper and joins her, she’s already monkeyed her way on top of James’s shoulders, happily licking her chocolatey fingers.

…

…

“When are we gonna see Lena again?” Myka asks, flopping herself down onto Kara’s bed at 7:00 am the next morning.

“Good morning to you, too,” Kara grumbles, pulling the blankets up higher around her.

Myka takes that as an invitation and crawls up the bed, laying down beside Kara. Above the covers. “It’s been a hundred years,” she groans.

“Alex took you to Lena’s office four days ago,” Kara reminds her.

“Four,” Myka rolls her body on top of Kara’s. “Whole,” she grips the sides of Kara’s face with both her palms. “Days,” she presses their faces as close as possible, noses touching. “Ago,” she finishes, with an exaggerated gasp. Releasing Kara’s face, she flops her entire body weight down on top of Kara’s and slams her chin down on Kara’s chest bone. Kara huffs at her and wiggles, trying to shake her off. “What if she needs me to sing to her like Frank?” she asks, unbothered by Kara’s attempts. “I have to sing to him at work every day. And he just writes about the sports things. Lena is a BOSS!”

Kara laughs, tugging her arms out from under the covers and holding Myka in place with a vice grip. “If we call her to see if she’s free this afternoon, will you read some more of that book Alex got you?”

“Ugh,” Myka groans. “It’s boring.”

“It’s stuff you need to know for school.”

“School sounds stupid. Why can’t I just have a tutor like I used to?”

“School isn’t boring! It’s fun. You’ll make friends, and learn more about Earth. Plus, it’s legally required. So you don’t really have an option. I can’t homeschool you. And tutors are expensive, probably.”

“I already have friends,” Myka protests. Kara takes this opportunity to float them both off the bed, pulling a smile out of Myka even as she objects. “You, Alex, and Lena. Plus, Winn, J’onn, James, and Frank. That’s plenty.”

Kara deposits her onto the floor and moves to make some coffee. There’s a chance that she’s never going to be able to sleep past eight ever again. She’s going to need to stock up on more coffee. The caffeine doesn’t really affect her, but the thought of it doing so helps.

“Friends who are your age,” Kara says.

“I was in the pod for,” she pauses, mouthing and counting with her fingers. Kara doesn’t think those tutors on Daxam spent enough of their time teaching her; basic math seems to elude Myka. “Thirty-nine years!”

“Thirty-seven,” Kara corrects her.

Myka frowns and sticks all her fingers out again. “So… I’m forty-six and a quarter? None of those kids at school will be my age.”

“No,” Kara sets three bananas down in front of her. Myka begins to peel them without comment. “You’re nine.”

Mouth full, Myka says, “For a really long time.”

“You were asleep. In stasis. It doesn’t count.”

“If it did though,” Myka digs in on the second banana. “I’d be older than you. And then I’d be the one in charge.”

Kara flings a bit of banana peel at Myka’s head. “God help us all.”

“What’s god?”

“Like Rao. For some people on Earth. There’s a lot of other names for it, with different cultures. Which,” Kara starts cracking eggs with gusto. “You could learn about. In school.”

“Or, you could just tell me,” she grins.

“Or, you could go to school and take a history class,” Kara counters.

Myka considers this as she throws her banana peels into the trash. Thankfully, she’s starting to remember that there are no servants here, and she has to clean up after herself now. “If we go see Lena every day, then I’ll go to school.”

“Sorry kiddo, I can’t promise that,” Kara’s starting to get a little worried about how much Myka seems attached to Lena already. She didn’t think too much of it until both Alex and James commented on it a few days ago. Kara likes Lena very much, but she’s a very busy woman, and Myka can be a little draining even if you want her around.

Plus, there is the whole, Kara is technically lying about herself and Myka not being quite human part, as Myka so helpfully continues to point out.

Kara hates keeping secrets from her friends. With each day that passes, she comes closer and closer to blurting it out to Lena, but Alex will kill her. It’s already bad enough that half of the agents in the DEO seem to know who she actually is underneath her suit.

“The eggs are burning,” Myka announces calmly. “Also, why not?”

“Shit,” Kara mumbles and turns the burner off, yanking the pan away from the flame. “Um, because… we don’t want to bother her. And every day seems excessive.”

“What’s excessive mean?”

“Too much.”

Myka clucks her tongue in disappointment and moves to dig into her eggs. The last person Kara was around who made that sort of casual dismissal of her words was Ms. Grant, which is just… surreal in so many ways. God, she wonders what Ms. Grant would make of Myka. They’d either get on better than anyone Kara’s ever met, maybe, or they’d loathe each other. Loudly.

But, Ms. Grant is gone now, so, there’s no real point in dwelling on it. Kara picks at her eggs slowly, pushing them around her plate.

“So, how about every day that I have to go to school then? How many days is that?”

“Five. School’s Monday through Friday.”

“WHAT?” Myka yells. “That much!”

“Not the entire day. It’s like… I dunno, eight until three or something.”

“No way José,” Myka shovels the rest of her eggs into her mouth and jumps off the stool. Running out of the living room and into what used to be Kara’s, office/studio/extra room, and is now her bedroom. Plus, a lot of art supplies.

“Where’d you learn that phrase?” Kara calls out in her normal voice, knowing that Myka can hear her just fine.

“Winn,” Myka calls back, much louder.

“Of course,” Kara mutters to herself. “If you come put your plate in the sink, then we can see if Lena can hang out later today.”

Myka is back in the kitchen in a flash. She’s coming close to being able to give Barry a run for his money, by now. Wally, for sure.

…

…

“Myka,” Kara hisses, “wait!”

Myka doesn’t listen. She bursts into Lena’s office, loudly proclaiming, “WE BROUGHT DONUTS! HAVE YOU EVER HAD THESE!?”

Kara sprints after her, apologizing to Jess and apologizing to Lena the minute that she locks eyes with her. Thank god there’s no one else in her office, and Lena doesn’t appear to have just hung up the phone in shock.

Though, shock is certainly the main expression on her face.

“I’m so, so sorry. I told her we had to wait until Jess let us in,” Kara directs towards Myka. Who, has already run around to Lena’s side of the desk, hopped on top of it, and is pushing a Boston Crème donut right under her nose.

“This is better than Hershey kisses,” she grins. “Try it.”

Lena laughs, taking the donut from Myka carefully and smiling. “I’ve had them before actually. And I disagree, though they are very good.”

“I’m sor—”

“I’m glad you came,” Lena says, looking up at Kara and beaming. “I was just thinking that I should be done working for the night. Perfect timing.”

“Look,” Myka pulls out another donut from the bag. “There are pink ones!”

Lena laughs, uninhibited in a way that Kara’s never seen from her before, and she stalls on her way over to the couch at the sight. It’s not until Lena looks back up at her, a bright smile accompanying her laughter, that Kara remembers to move.

As Kara sits down beside Myka, happily sitting between the two of them, chattering away about all the kinds of donuts that exist out there in the world, all Kara can suddenly think of, is one time that Winn was going on about something at CatCo. Kara can’t remember the main point to their conversation anymore, but he’d come around to a point where he’d been talking about facets of love and attraction, and how people know when it hits them. He’d might have actually been talking more about his love of a computer thing? Kara really can’t remember; she’ll have to ask him. The only bit that stuck in her brain was him saying, It’ll be all, wah-pow! She’d thought she knew what he was talking about, later on, when she met James for the first time, and finally learned what the Earth phrase butterflies in her stomach meant. But now, hearing Lena laugh like this, beaming at Kara and Myka, and gamely trying every single last donut that Myka asks of her, all Kara can think of now is: wah-pow.

That’s not good. That’s not going to make her life less complicated at all.

She shoves three donuts into her mouth in a panic, then promptly blacks out for the rest of the conversation. Jerking when a hand rests lightly on top of her knee and she’s met with Lena’s slightly concerned face saying, “Kara?” so softly it burns.

“Sorry,” she blinks. “What?”

“Myka feel asleep,” Lena points to the lump between them, her solid little head knocked into Lena’s side. “I asked if you wanted to wake her.”

“Um,” Kara brushes non-existent donut crumbs off her fingers and rises from the couch. “No, it’ll be easier just to carry her actually. She usually takes forever to fall asleep. If I can keep her that way, I’m going for it,” she jokes. Then, bites at her bottom lip. Maybe that makes her sound like a terrible guardian. “I mean, I just…”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Lena says with a soft smile. “But Kara, you don’t have a car. She’s nine. It would get heavy even if she were a toddler. There’s no way that you can carry her all the way home. Let my driver drop you off. I’ve just got to call him.”

“Oh, really Lena, that’s fine,” Kara tries to say, but Lena waves her off, insisting. There isn’t really a great way to say, I can just fly us back in like two seconds, without actually saying it, so Kara just clamps her mouth shut and nods. “Thank you.”

As Kara bends to lift Myka off Lena, Lena tries to help push her up into Kara’s arms, and they sort of weirdly end up half holding each other’s hands for a few seconds. Wah-pow, rings out over and over in Kara’s head as she laughs sheepishly and follows Lena out of the office and down to the lobby. It’s the most awkward that she’s felt around Lena since the day that she met her. For entirely different reasons. Lena seems confused by Kara’s sudden silence, and Kara wishes that she could think of literally anything to say right now apart from fucking wah-pow.

She is going to kill Winn tomorrow. Definitely.

“Do you need any help getting her up?” Lena asks, and Kara snaps back to attention for the second time that evening. They’re already at her apartment building.

“No, I got her,” Kara slides out of the town car carefully, shifting Myka, and hesitating beside the open door. “Thanks though. She… well, she’s been bugging me about seeing you for like a full week. Thanks for indulging her.”

Lena smiles up at Kara warmly, her gaze dropping down to Myka’s face for a moment. “Well,” she swallows, seemingly at a loss for words.

“We’ll have to do it again soon,” Kara says, quickly. Thrilled when the lost look that was on Lena’s face disappears. Replaced with a small smile. “Maybe a few less donuts,” she jokes. “But still, soon?”

“I’d like that,” Lena says. “Have a good night Kara.”

“You too,” Kara says, and then the door is closing, and the car pulls away from the curb. “Wah-pow,” Kara whispers angrily.

“What’s that?” Myka grumbles, her face tucking further into Kara’s neck.

“Probably something that’s going to end badly. The opposite of donuts,” Kara says as she walks into the building.

“Puking?” Myka offers sleepily.

“Honestly, that’s a possibility,” Kara groans.

“Gross.”

…

…

Lena hasn’t been out to a bar in ages. (Years, probably.) She’s not sure what spurs it on exactly, other than the fact that she can’t stand the thought of sitting in her apartment for a minute longer. Having a staring contest with a half-blank document, full of all of the meager information that she’s managed to gather on Cadmus so far.

She snaps the laptop shut with slightly more force than is necessary, and is dressed and out of the apartment before she can put too much thought into it.

(She probably should have put some more thought into it.)

The bass from the music in the club is so loud that Lena nearly turns around and walks right back out. But the thought of lying in her bed, desperate for sleep and unable to quiet her mind makes her more nauseous than the music, so she heads for the bar. Determined.

The bartender, an older butch woman, whose nametag reads Sue, has her nails painted a shade of neon yellow that Lena can’t stop staring at, and snaps her gum as she passes over Lena’s drink, without making a single crack about the non-alcoholic version that she asks for. She makes easy small talk, her accent washing over Lena, and reminding her of a nanny that Lillian hired when she was about six and Lex was twelve. A plain, slightly round grad student from a backwater town that Lena’s still never heard of, all these years later. She doled out hugs like they were nothing, with a bright smile, and would say y’all in a way that made Lena wish that she could taste sound, just to see if it would glide like sweet tea over her tongue. Lillian fired her within two months and snapped harshly every time that Lena said y’all, until the urge disappeared entirely.

Sue says it the same way, rolling off her tongue and filling Lena up with warmth as she winks and turns to help another customer. An easy, “Holler at me when you want a refill honey,” that doesn’t sound condescending or forced as she turns away. Lena tucks a hundred dollar bill into her tip jar when she’s not looking.

Lena nurses her drink for a few minutes, sipping at it slowly and wondering if it’s possible to feel more awkward than she does right now. Two women come up and hit on her in the span of half an hour, and though one of them seems genuine and is stunning, they both make the hairs on Lena’s arms raise. Everyone does, these days.

When a hand gently touches her shoulder, Lena flinches, ready to bolt and call for her bodyguard, but the familiar voice stops her. “Of all the gin joints, in all the… how does it go?” Alex scrunches up her face, her hand falling away as she leans down onto the bar with both elbows. “I haven’t seen that movie in forever. Kara would know,” she meets Lena’s eye, and that’s when Lena realizes that Alex is as awkward and jittery as she feels right now, though probably for an entirely different reason. “Hi,” she says. “Small world huh?”

Lena laughs. “Apparently, smaller every day.”

Sue comes back over before either of them can say anything else, that warm drawl sinking right into Lena’s marrow. “Hey, doll, what can I get for ya?”

Alex flinches, her whole body tensing as she stares at Sue. Lena tracks the way Alex looks her up and down, getting tenser and looking younger with each passing second. And then she remembers, how new this all is to Alex. How terrifying. God, Lena didn’t go to a gay bar until she’d been out for years. Barring one misstep in high school. Alex is infinitely braver than she will probably ever be. She has also been kinder to Lena than anyone else that she’s met in the last few years—save Kara—and there is an odd protective feeling that grows underneath her skin as she watches Alex flounder.

Lena elbows her, lightly. “So, how’s Myka?”

It’s the right question to jolt Alex back to life. She eases down onto the stool beside Lena and orders a rum and coke, not quite meeting Sue’s eye, but her words come out naturally. “Oh, she’s good. Eating all the chocolate that she can find. Charming all of Kara’s neighbors,” she shrugs. “Pretty good, all things considered.”

“And Kara?” Lena asks, hoping that there’s no hitch to her breath. Nothing more than one friend inquiring about another. Alex’s eyebrow goes up, just a tick, but her face is neutral and unreadable as she accepts her drink, and takes a sip before answering Lena.

“She’s pretty good too. Same old Kara,” she pauses. “How about you?”

“Pardon?”

Alex smirks and takes another sip of her drink. “How are you, Lena?” she asks, an amused, teasing quality to her tone.

“Busy,” she admits. “But fine.”

Alex hums, and the two of them drift into an awkward silence. They don’t know each other very well, and the two people who’ve served as buffers in their past interactions aren’t here to help at the moment. The only thing that Lena can think of that they have in common is their queerness; hence, the bar they’re both currently sitting in.

“So,” Lena draws the word out. “How are things going with… Maggie? Was that her name?” she asks. Alex stiffens as if Lena has just made a threat to her life, and looks about five seconds away from bolting. Lena curses internally; this is why she has no friends. “I’m sorry,” she adds. “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it. I just figured…” Lena shrugs, “I know what it feels like to realize that you have feelings for a girl, come out, and have it blow up in your face. Granted, I was fourteen and then teased mercilessly by the entire student body before getting publically outed a few years later. So, I think you’ve got one up on me,” Lena laughs, just this side of bitter. When she finally looks over and meets Alex’s eye, there’s a fierce glare resting on her face.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Oh, you know,” Lena twirls the straw around in her drink. “Rich girls who have too much time on their hands in boarding school. I think you’ve met her actually. She calls herself Roulette now,” says Lena. Alex’s glare deepens and Lena lets out a sigh. “I got over it. Plus, Lex got revenge somehow. I went back my sophomore year and everyone left me alone.” Lena still doesn’t know what he did. Now, with everything, she’s not sure that she ever wants to. “It didn’t last long. Reporters always wanted to get the latest scoop on the Luthor family. Paparazzi caught me sneaking into a gay bar when I was seventeen, and it was the headline the next morning. My mother nearly had an aneurysm.”

Alex's hands clench into fists beside her drink, and her voice is flat when she says, “You were a minor. How were they allowed to print that?”

Lena chugs the dregs of her drink, the syrup at the bottom congealing and cold. “Alex, people printed whatever they wanted about Lex and me. My father being in the public eye made it fair game, sometimes. Most of the time.”

“How’d he take it?” Alex asks, carefully.

Lena smiles. “He got the person fired, and blacklisted. And he made it very clear that he’d do the same to the next person who tried to make his daughter’s love life a public spectacle. Not that I had one,” she adds blithely. “People either wanted to use me for my status, or were too afraid to get roped into everything that comes with being around a Luthor.” Her throat catches, and she can’t push the bitterness out of her voice. “Not that that’s changed much.”

“Lena—”

“So, all things considered,” she presses on, not allowing any of Alex’s pity to touch her. “I’d say that you’re doing great so far.”

Alex, either notices that Lena won’t accept her pity, or wants to change the subject herself. She smiles, if a little forced, and chugs the remains of her drink as well. “Well, sure. So far rejection, and losing the only other queer friend that I’ve had is going great.”

“That’s too hard anyway,” Lena says. “If the person that you’re dating is your only other queer sounding board. It can get messy.”

“Well,” Alex shrugs. “It’s not like I’ve got many other options. Making friends has never really been my strong suit,” she laughs, a bitter hoarse thing that might actually not be a laugh at all. It’s so familiar that Lena’s chest clenches. “My sister is basically my only friend.”

Lena could keep her mouth shut. She almost does, but, “Lex was my only friend,” she says softly. Alex turns her head, meeting Lena’s eye. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, and Lena knows that she probably looks as shaky as Alex right now. “Guess we have that in common,” she tilts her empty glass towards Alex.

Alex looks down at it, then back up at Lena. A ragged laugh escapes her, and she lifts her glass over and clinks it with Lena’s. “I’ve heard that’s bad luck. If they’re empty.”

Lena’s laugh is far more ragged than Alex’s will probably ever be. “The worst thing that could have happened, already happened to me.”

Alex stares. For a good two minutes full of silence while Lena shifts uncomfortably and very nearly gets up and bolts for the bathroom. She appears to be working through something, and Lena’s not sure that she wants to know the answer. Finally, Alex’s spine straightens, and then one of her hands slides over and clasps itself with Lena’s, deliberate. She steels herself and meets Lena’s eye and says, “I’m sorry, about Lex. Of everything else he did — that was a shitty thing. As a brother. I can’t even imagine ever leaving Kara alone like that,” the hand that’s holding Lena’s tightens. “That’s on him, not you. For the record,” she adds, a dry laugh escaping her. “If you’re anything like Kara, you’re probably blaming yourself. But, that’s total bullshit. If he was even a halfway decent brother, he wouldn’t do that to you.” Some part of Lena’s head explodes—she’s sure of it, there’s a pop in her brain loud enough to actually be a gunshot; somehow, she doesn’t flinch when Alex squeezes her hand again and finishes her sentence. “It just sort of seems like no one’s said that to you. That it’s not your fault. So,” Alex trails off, losing steam and looking awkward again, but she doesn’t let go of Lena’s hand.

Lena swallows roughly. “Thanks,” she manages to croak out, but she’s not sure if Alex can hear her over the music.

Sue comes over and refills Alex’s drink. Doesn’t comment on the fact that they’re still holding hands, and barely looking over at each other, and Lena almost pulls out her purse to give her another tip after she leaves, but Alex speaks up first. “So, um,” her hand slips out of Lena’s, but she stays leaning in towards her a bit. Like she doesn’t want Lena to think that she’s been dismissed or something. “Look, I don’t really know how to say this, and… Kara probably won’t, and I really don’t want it to come off as harsh, but I don’t really know how to say it without just saying it—”

“Spit it out, by all means,” says Lena, a little brusquely.

Alex sighs. “Look, Myka is kind of attached to you.” It’s… not at all where Lena thought that Alex was going with this, and she stalls, blinking and watching as Alex begins to fidget with her hands. “And you… you’re under no obligations to her whatsoever,” she insists. “But she’s been through a lot. And she’s lost a lot of people.” There is definitely more to that then she is letting on. And again, something in The Danvers Family Isn’t What It Seems list ticks off another box in Lena’s mind. Alex pauses, biting down on her lower lip, as if to stop herself from adding something. Lena opens her mouth, to say what, she doesn’t really know, but Alex beats her to it. “She’s asked about you more in the last couple of weeks than anyone she’s met since coming to National City. Literally, every other word out of her mouth is, Lena this, and Lena that,” Alex laughs and tries to catch Lena’s eye, offering up a smile. Lena sort of wants to claw it off her face. Anything, to get her to stop talking about this anymore. “You made an impression,” her smile drops into something serious. “So, if… a really excitable nine-year-old isn’t something that you can handle—which is absolutely fine—you gotta tell me and Kara now. Before it gets worse. We just… we can’t set her up for any more disappointment or hurt.”

Lena clenches her teeth together, her jaw stiff until she sucks in a breath and forces it loose. “I’m sorry,” she says, like an errant child. She hates Alex then, in a sudden flash. She’s not her kid sister; she’s not some lost little girl in need of nurturing and some bullshit pseudo second family. She can’t believe not two seconds ago, Alex treating her that way had felt amazing; everything she wanted. She’s a Luthor, a CEO, their friend, and they ought to treat her like it. “I didn’t know that my only options were to sign adoption papers in order to talk to a child more than three times, or never to see her again. God forbid the big bad Luthor be a disappointment,” she snaps, seeing red.

Alex blinks, then her hands jerk out, and for one horrible moment, Lena thinks she might be trying to reach out and hug her, but then her hands freeze halfway across the bar. “That’s not… I didn’t mean it like that, Lena—”

“No,” Lena bites out, throwing some money down on top of the bar and grabbing her purse. “Of course not. No one ever means it like that,” she pushes off of the stool and stalks through the bar, knowing Alex is following behind. “And yet, everyone says it like that. God, I can’t believe I actually thought you and your sister were different.”

“Lena,” the word falls out of Alex with a horrible quiet hitch, and Lena’s stomach flips. She’s only ever gained that sort of pity from nannies throughout the years. Once, from Jess. It only serves to fuel her rage. She’d much rather have someone be disgusted by her than pity her.

“Save it, I’ll be sure never to speak to any of you again,” and it’s pathetic, how much that thought hurts. How she can’t stop the image of Kara’s bright smile from flashing before her eyes painfully. Myka’s crushing hug. Alex’s hand, determined and strong held in her own, only moments before.

“Lena, wait,” Alex’s hand is on her again, just as purposefully as before. She grips Lena’s bicep, holding her in place, far more gently than seems possible. “Kara will kill me if I hurt your feelings and fuck something up. Please, wait,” she begs.

Lena pulls her arm back, crossing them over her chest and lifting her eyebrows at Alex impatiently.

“That seriously wasn’t what I meant,” she starts. “It has nothing to do with you being a Luthor. And no one is saying that you’ve got to sign up to be a goddamn parent. Jesus, even Kara and I aren’t doing that. Or, not really,” her mouth twists into a frown. “I don’t know,” she admits. “We’re really just trying not to screw her life up even more than it already is,” she sighs. “I just wanted you to know that Myka basically considers you to be her new best friend. And I know that you’ve got a lot going on, with your company and everything. I just meant… hanging out with a kid isn’t everyone’s thing,” Alex shrugs and looks genuine when she says, “that’s fine. But if it is, could you just let us know ahead of time if you’re gonna have to bail for a work thing? So we can prepare her. That’s all I meant,” she laughs, tugging a hand through her hair and looking vastly uncomfortable and worried. “Hell, Kara and I both have jobs where we’ve got to drop everything and go at a weird moment’s notice. We’re adjusting too. It’s just that, I mean it’s sort of our job to. She’s… family,” there’s the weird pause again. Alex speaks quicker, as if to try and cover it. “But you’re under no such obligations. I was just trying to give you an out, if you want it. I swear to god, no judgment,” she holds up her hands, huffing out a breath and refusing to drop Lena’s gaze for even a moment. If Lena wasn’t still sort of furious with her, she’d be impressed.

She almost presses Alex on the weird pause. Almost opens her mouth to demand answers. Full honesty. If it wasn’t Alex standing before her right now, if it were Kara, she would. But, Lena won’t ever get any answers out of Alex. Not about this. Alexandra Danvers would quite literally die before giving up anything about her sister, Lena’s known that since the moment she met her.

She is a much better sibling than Lex, nearly all things considered.

The anger evaporates, just like that. Lena takes one step back, lets out a breath, and it drains from her posture as her shoulders settle and her hands fall down to her sides. “Right, well…” she doesn’t know how to apologize for freaking out and jumping to conclusions. She’s embarrassed and furious with herself, and she wants to erase the last ten minutes from existence.

Alex saves her yet again. It might be a staple trait that’s developing in their relationship. “Guess I’m as shitty at making friends as I thought.”

It’s painfully untrue. All Alex Danvers has done since the moment that Lena met her was try to make her feel comfortable. Even when she really, really didn’t have to. Lena is the one who doesn’t know how to make friends. “You’re not,” she insists.

Someone bumps into her, calling out a ‘sorry’ over their shoulder as Lena teeters in place. Alex’s hands reach out and steady her without thought, and it only further serves to make Lena feel like an asshole. This sort of conversation is pretty much the opposite of the kind of thing Lena is good at, but if Alex can swallow her pride, so can she. “Want another drink?” she asks, a little more sharply than she’d been going for.

She’s rewarded by a slow, startled smile, and Alex starts to nod, when her phone goes off. She winces and grabs for it, apologetic when she looks back up. “I do, but… rain check? There’s some sort of alien fight going on in the south side.”

Lena doesn’t love the fact that she’s grateful to be interrupted. She’d been prepared to sit there in awkward silence until she gathered up the courage to try and make small talk again, but that doesn’t mean she was looking forward to it. “Sure,” she crosses her arms back in front of her again. “Rain check sounds fine.”

Alex nods, jamming her phone back into her pocket and leading them out of the club. She laughs awkwardly, shifting on her weight and glancing all around as they exit. Lena remembers that tonight, might be the first time that Alex has ever stepped foot inside anything designated for queer people, and Lena all but attacked her.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “About…”

“No, me too. It’s,” Alex laughs. “Me too.”

“About Myka…” she trails off and Alex waits, even though she probably has to get going. They’re nowhere near the south side right now. “Um, I’m not sure…”

“You don’t have to know right now,” Alex shrugs. “Just think about it.”

Lena nods. “Alright. Um, be careful.”

Alex smirks and jams out her hand, hailing a cab. “Will do.” There’s a complicated flash of emotions to her face, and then the smirk is back; easy and teasing, and it’s familiar until Lena realizes it’s how she looks at Kara. “See ya later, Luthor,” she calls out, and climbs into the cab.

It’s not until Lena is halfway home herself that she realizes, Alex called her ‘Luthor’ deliberately, and Lena didn’t notice. That Alex thought about it, and made the choice and smiled while she did it. Smiled at Lena in the same way that she smiles at her little sister. It’s the first time in a long time that being called by her name hasn’t felt like an insult or a weapon. Perhaps it wasn’t such a horrible idea for Lena to force herself out of her apartment after all.

…

…

She wakes up to a text message from an unknown number the next morning. Halfway through making herself coffee and picking at a bowl of yogurt and fruit, her phone goes off.

[06:04 am] I hope you’re asleep, and I hope I’m not waking you, (Kara’s told me the crazy hours you keep, stop that. Also she gave me your number) but I’m just getting home (alien crisis averted!) and abt to crash. So, before I forget, I meant it abt the rain check. It’d be nice to have a friend to talk abt Maggie with who like, gets it.

[06:05 am] plus you can tell me all abt the girls you’ve dated. That’s a thing friends do right? All my college friends never used to shut up abt how many guys they’d been with.

Lena laughs into her coffee. She really never thought much about Alex until now, other than as an extension of Kara. It’s nice, to find that she actually likes her separate from that. If Lena didn’t scare her off last night, there’s a good chance she can actually manage to do this friend thing. If nothing else, it won’t be complicated by constant thoughts about wanting to kiss her like her friendship with Kara. Not that Alex Danvers isn’t attractive, but thankfully, the urge is entirely absent.

Lena’s life is complicated enough right now, thank you very much.

She adds Alex to her contacts in her phone and hurries to head off to work. Nodding hello to her driver, she pulls her phone back out to respond to Alex.

[06:15 am] I’m always awake this early, you wouldn’t be waking me. I’m glad that you’re alright and the crisis has been averted. I meant it about the rain check as well, but perhaps get some sleep first.

[Alex Danvers 06:17 am] crashing now : ) have a good day!

Lena clicks her phone off. She hasn’t really been able to stop thinking about Alex’s question of her presence in Myka’s life since coming home last night. She has no unearthly idea what to think. She likes Myka, sure. It’s easy to like Myka in a casual sort of way. She’s goofy and charming, and very enthusiastic about food and hugs. But, the idea of a child being so attached to her, expecting things from her… it’s a little unnerving. Lena doesn’t really have anything to offer, beyond an endless supply of expensive chocolate.

But, Myka is sort of… a package deal with Kara now. Like Alex. And Lena… doesn’t know what to do with that. Other than take the knowledge that her life has been infinitely better with Kara’s friendship, and decide to lean into it.

“Can you understand being alone for so long, that you would go out in the middle of the night and put a bucket into the well, so you could feel something down there tug at the other end of the rope?” Lena mutters to herself.

“What?” Jess shocks her. Lena hadn’t noticed her coming into the office.  

She sits up with a jerk, smoothing down the front of her blouse. Unnecessarily. “It’s from The Abandoned Valley, by Jack Gilbert,” she explains. Jess’s face looks like she is about to have a lot more to say about that, but Lena’s phone rings, and then Jess’s line starts going off as well. “Time to greet the day,” Lena arches an eyebrow and picks up her phone. Noting that it takes much longer than usual for Jess to back out of her office and leave her alone. “Lena Luthor,” she says into her phone. “How can I help you?”

She’ll have to figure out what to do about the rope some other time.

Chapter Text

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive, is being belted out as loud as Myka’s lungs will allow for, which, as far as these things go, is substantial. Kara panics and jumps away from her desk, ready to find—and kill—Frank before Snapper hears them.

When she walks over to Frank’s office, Myka is perched on top of his desk, belting into one of his baseball trophies like it’s a microphone while Frank taps two pencils on his desk like drums. Oh honey, tramps like us, baby we were born to run, Myka sings while Frank provides off-key backup. Before Kara can move to clamp her hand over Myka’s mouth, Snapper is behind her, practically hissing with fury.

“What. Is. That?” he points at Myka.

Kara jumps over and grabs her, pulling Myka off the desk and pressing her to Kara’s front. “Um, Snapper, this is my cousin Myka,” she fidgets with her glasses then drops her arms down across Myka’s chest. “I’m actually her guardian now, and she—”

“Is sick with the flu, and therefore unable to go to school?” Snapper cuts her off. “And the cure is, distracting Frank with Bruce Springsteen?”

“Um… actually, she only recently moved here,” Kara starts to explain. “And we haven’t enrolled her in—”

“Danvers, today, is not take your daughter to work day. And if she is sick and infects my reporters, I’ll be sure to make up the difference with your pay.”

“Snapper, I don’t think—” Frank tries to come to Kara’s defense, but is immediately silenced with a single look from Snapper.  

“Get her in school. Get her out of my office,” he orders and walks away.

“I don’t like him,” Myka announces.

Frank nods. “Yeah, he’s a hard one to like,” he agrees, tucking both pencils behind his ears. “Sorry Kara,” he looks up at her. “We got a little louder than I realized. Springsteen does that to me.”

He clearly feels horrible, but Kara is finding it hard to drag up much sympathy for him. Frank spends a good seventy percent of his time goofing off and never gets punished for it. But for whatever reason, Myka likes him. And, Snapper isn’t wrong. She needs to be in school.

“It’s fine,” she sighs, tugging Myka along with her. “He’s right. Have a good rest of your day Frank.”

“Oh honey, tramps like us, baby we were born to run,” Frank sings out. Myka joins him, even as Kara pulls her out of the office.

“We don’t really have to go to school though, right?” she asks once they’ve made their way back to Kara’s office. “I mean, we were just saying that until Snapper leaves us alone.”

“Nope,” Kara says popping the ‘p’. “You, are going to school.”

Myka’s face can’t be described as anything other than distraught.

…

…

Kara ends her phone call and genuinely drops her forehead down on the kitchen island with a groan. Alex has taken Myka to the park as a means of distraction, while Kara calls and speaks with nearly every public and private school in National City.

There are a lot of them, apparently.

Her list is narrowed for public schools, but that still ends up leaving her with three options, since Kara somehow lives smack dab on the district line for all of them. She couldn’t afford a private school to save her life, but Winn put them all on her list anyway, because according to a simple Google search, two outta those three are basically child prisons. Maybe alien refugee scholarships exist? Kara humors him and she very much wishes that she hadn’t, because now her head hurts, and she’s aware of just how much children and a decent education costs.

A hell of a lot more than she makes, that’s for sure.

If she calls this last school, parrots the sob story that they’ve come up with, and talks around Myka’s fudged school transcripts successfully, then she’s allowed to get ice cream when Lena comes over.

This has somehow become Kara’s life now, a sad little bargaining system that she’s set up with herself: do your work and get a treat. Basically, the same system that she’s been applying to parenting Myka, which she’s pretty sure qualifies as bribery and is frowned upon with regards to children. Kara sighs as she dials the last number. She’s pretty sure that by twenty-five you’re supposed to have worked out how to do boring stuff just because it needs to be done, and not because you’ve promised yourself ice cream after the fact. She’s thought about asking Alex how she gets through menial tasks, but she really doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of an arched eyebrow if she doesn’t have to be. She already feels inadequate enough half of the time in the DEO and at CatCo, that she doesn’t want to risk anyone else knowing that she’s basically making all of this up on the fly as she goes along. There is the possibility that everyone approaches adulthood like this, and she’s not odd or abnormal at all, apart from being an alien from another planet. Kara doesn’t think it’s very likely, but possible enough to be getting on with—

—and now she’s spent three minutes that she could have been talking to the headmistress thinking about the damn ice cream. Kara sighs, and dials.

Lena knocks on her door just as Kara is wrapping up. She runs over to greet her, noting the way that her entire mood shifts the second that Lena is within her sight. Kara waves her inside and starts nodding along with the things the headmistress is saying before she remembers that she can’t be seen over the phone. Sorry, she mouths to Lena.

Lena smiles, moves over and sits on a stool after Kara motions to it, and seems perfectly content to wait until Kara is finished.

“Thank you,” Kara says into the phone. “I’ll call back if I want to make an appointment. Have a great day!” she hangs up and groans with relief. “Hi!” she directs towards Lena. “Sorry, I’m trying to get as much of this school nonsense done while Myka’s out with Alex. When I tried to call the first school, she grabbed all the pots and pans from the kitchen and started banging on them to try and get me to hang up.”

Lena lets out a bark of a laugh, surprising both herself and Kara. Kara beams back at her and moves to get them both some coffee. “I take it she’s not exactly thrilled by the idea of going back to school?”

“Um,” Kara pushes the mug of black coffee over towards Lena, and moves to get sugar and flavored cream for her own. “She’s actually never been,” Kara admits. Lena’s eyes go wide and Kara bites down on her lip, trying to figure out a way to present this as honestly as possible. “She was tutored. Home-schooled,” Kara sits down on a stool beside Lena, hyper-aware of the way that Lena turns her whole body towards Kara, giving Kara her full attention.

Kara takes a deep breath. “So, from what I know of her parents, they were… very wealthy, and very busy. Like, mayors, or governors or something?”

“Where were they from?” Lena asks, sipping her coffee. “Maybe I knew them.”

There’s something in the tone of Lena’s voice that catches Kara’s attention. It’s not quite an alarm in her head going danger, Will Robinson, but it’s close.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “They moved around a lot. I think her dad worked internationally quite a bit,” Kara shrugs. “She and her older sisters were all tutored. And honestly, from the sounds of it, a bit spoiled. She’s old enough to go into fourth grade, but I don’t know if she’s actually at a fourth grade level in anything. It sounds like she was mostly given free rein and not a lot of supervision for most of her life.”

Lena takes a very slow, deliberate sip of her coffee. Humming as she sets it down and catches Kara’s eye. Unblinking, she asks, “So, how exactly are you related to her parents again?”

“Um.” It feels very much like Lena is asking her an entirely different question. Kara opens her mouth, not at all sure what is about to come out of it, when her front door opens and Myka and Alex come bursting through. Kara clamps her mouth shut, relieved and bewildered by her luck in their timing.

“LENA!” Myka screams happily. Alex reaches out to grab her shirt and hold her back, but she isn’t quick enough, and Myka slams into Lena’s side with enough force to knock Lena off her stool. Kara catches them both, shooting a disapproving glare towards Myka and trying to asses Lena for damage. “I’m sorry,” Myka backs away, hands covering her mouth, tears already welling up in her eyes. “I forgot—I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Lena sucks in a heavy breath, and Kara can tell that she actually is hurt a little. There’s no broken bones or anything serious, but Lena is probably going to have a bruise on her side from her body hitting the countertop at that angle. Goddammit.

“Lena…” Kara’s hands hover awkwardly at her hips. “I’m so—”

“I’m fine,” Lena insists, firmly. She catches both Kara and Alex’s eyes, and it’s clear that there is not a single argument to be made otherwise. Lena allows Kara to help her upright fully, then gently pushes her hands away, turning her attention to Myka and no one else. “I’m fine,” she repeats, smiling down at her. “And I’m very glad to see you too.”

“I’m sorry I slammed you into the table,” Myka whispers, head dropped down towards the floor.

“Thank you,” Lena says. “Apology accepted, and no real harm done,” she sticks her finger out and bops Myka lightly on the chin, getting her to look up. “So, how was your day?”

Myka looks over towards Kara, and she gives her a small smile and nods, not wanting her to think Kara is actually angry with her. She remembers the look on Eliza’s face after she accidentally broke a lamp that her grandmother had saved through the Holocaust. The time that she nearly tore Jeremiah’s arm from its socket in excitement, and the horrible, sinking feeling that they were going to want nothing to do with her anymore because she couldn’t control herself yet. Lena is alright, and Myka is going to remember the wince of pain on her face and be gentler next time. It’s a terrible enough lesson on its own, another reminder from Kara is only going to make her feel that much worse.

The tension in Myka’s shoulders drops at the sight, and she climbs up onto one of the stools beside Lena with great care. “I got fired from CatCo,” she announces with a tired sigh. “How was your day?”

Alex barks out a laugh and moves to get herself a glass of water. Myka shoots a glare her way. “That’s mean Alex. Mean, and rude. Also inconsiderate,” she turns back to Lena, seeking approval for her growing vocabulary. She preens when Lena smiles at her. Kara doesn’t blame her. She feels the same way nine times out of ten.

“You didn’t actually get fired from anything,” Alex corrects Myka. “Singing Bruce Springsteen songs to an aging, grubby sports writer is not a job.”

“It helped,” Myka insists.

“But you weren’t getting paid for it,” Alex says. “Ergo: not a job.”

Myka’s eyebrows narrow as she stares at Alex. Primly, she finally says, “Well I don’t know what ergo means. Lena, do you need an assistant? Because I’m free now.”

“No, you’re not,” Kara says pointedly. “You’re going to school. We’re going to visit two elementary schools tomorrow morning.”

Myka groans loudly in protest, dragging her palms down her face.

“Which schools?” Lena asks.

“Um, we’re on the district line for Howard Elementary, PS 18, and Jefferson I think. But PS 18 is the furthest away, so I doubt she’s gonna go there.”

“Plus, it’s a terrible school,” Alex adds.

“Why?” Myka asks. “Also, all of them are terrible. I want to be Lena’s assistant instead. Or yours! Kara, I can be your assistant,” Myka sits up straight. “Since we have the same pow—” her face freezes, and Kara and Alex both stop breathing. Myka starts fake coughing and Kara has to force herself not to groan or roll her eyes. “I guess I can’t,” Myka says, once she’s finished her fake coughing fit. “Since Snapper doesn’t like me. But I could be your assistant Alex,” she quickly diverts her attention, jumping down off the stool and punching and kicking the air. “I could help you stop bad guys. Ask Lena, I’m really strong.”

Kara and Alex both wince.

“Also I’m still very sorry,” Myka adds quickly.

“Yeah, sorry babe, you’re not joining the FBI,” Alex tells her calmly. “Gotta finish fourth grade to qualify.”

“Or, third! Or even second!” Kara pipes up quickly. Alex and Lena both frown at her. “Any of those options might be available to you,” Kara says with a shrug and probably far too exaggerated smile. “We don’t know yet.”

“Right,” Alex catches on. “Well, you gotta finish all of them, at any rate.”

Myka turns away from Alex with a harrumph and drops her hands to her hips. “Do you want an assistant who will sing to you?” she asks Lena. Kara presses her lips together to stop herself from laughing when Myka tries to bat her eyelashes. They watched a marathon of noir films this weekend, and Myka really liked the femme fatales. She has been calling everyone ‘darling’ and swaying her hips dramatically as she walks for the last two days. She also asked Kara if she could get a fedora hat and a pipe, so that she can ‘switch it up and be a detective sometimes too.’

Lena struggles with trying to hide her amusement just as much as Kara, but she manages it with much more dignity in the end. Alex snorts out loud, not bothering to hide it at all.

“As delightful as that sounds, I wouldn’t want to hurt Jess’s feelings by replacing her. And I actually loved school Myka, I think that you’re going to enjoy it. But, um,” she turns towards Kara. “I could put in a few calls for you at Lexington or St. Mary’s if you wanted.”

“Oh, I think those are both private schools,” Kara says, rising and setting all of their empty mugs into the sink. “I don’t think that either of them has any scholarship things that Myka would be qualified for. From what I heard when I checked. Thanks though,” she turns around and smiles at Lena, who returns it, if a bit half-heartedly. Clapping her hands together, Kara directs her attention to Myka, who has sunk down very low in her seat and is frowning down into the table. “So, anybody want to go get ice cream?” She did, after all, complete all of her boring tasks for the day. She wants to get some ice cream.

“YESSSS!” Myka cheers, leaping off the stool and running around in a circle, chanting, ‘ice cream, ice cream’ over and over again. Kara grins when Myka twirls over, grabs hold of her hands, and pulls her into joining along as they spin their way towards the front door. 

Alex rolls her eyes, shrugs back into her jacket, and says, “Come on Luthor, save me from these overexcited monsters.”

Kara looks back over at them in surprise. Lena doesn’t seem uncomfortable with Alex addressing her by her last name. She picks up her purse and walks beside Alex almost with ease, and Kara bites back a smile. Apparently running into each other at that bar went much better than Alex had let on afterward. Kara doesn’t know how to describe the feeling that’s bubbling up inside of her at the sight of them getting along, but it’s… good. Lena looks up and catches Kara’s eye and her smile widens. This unencumbered, bright thing that goes all the way up to her eyes when Kara feels herself returning it. There is really no denying what she feels now, wah-pow nonsense aside, it’s painfully clear that Kara just likes Lena Luthor.

A lot.

It’s going to make things very complicated.

Myka tugs Kara down the hall in anticipation of ice cream, and Kara lets her. It’s better, that she gets most of her energy out now before they’re out in the greater public.

Which is yet another level to the already complicated crush that Kara is harboring. Myka bounces up and down on her toes, one hand clasped with Kara’s as she begs Alex and Lena to hurry up. Kara swings their hands as the four of them make their way down the sidewalk, Alex and Lena still a little way behind.

“So,” she starts, “what’s one of the things that you’re most excited to learn about in school?”

Myka’s excited smile drops instantly. “Why can’t I just stay with you?” she asks quietly. “I mean, I don’t have to go to CatCo. I can go to the DEO with Alex and Winn and J’onn! I have superpowers too, I can be your sidekick! Like, that boy Robin that Clark knows!” Myka jumps up with excitement, and it’s only Kara’s quick reflexes that stop her from nearly scaling the building they’re walking past. “Please!?” she begs, keeping her feet on the ground this time as she hugs Kara around the middle while they walk. “Please, please, please? I’ll do everything that you say. I’ll even listen to Winn and J’onn, I promise. I’ll be the best sidekick ever! What should my code name be?”

“Myka,” Kara quickly tries to quiet her as Alex and Lena start to catch up to them. “We’re not going to do that. You are going to have so much fun in school,” she says, trying to spin her around again. Myka frowns and tugs herself out of Kara’s arms with a pout.

“Why not?” she whines. “I’m strong too. I can help!”

“Myka,” Kara warns as they approach the ice cream parlor. Alex catches her eye and frowns, raising her eyebrows in question. Kara just shakes her head once.

“I can!” Myka insists.

“Myka, not here,” Kara whispers firmly.

Myka glares up at Kara, crosses her arms, and then plants her feet and refuses to move. “I don’t care if Lena hears me. She’s my friend. She’s your friend.”

“Myka,” she warns again.

“I don’t want any ice cream,” Myka announces as Alex and Lena walk up beside them. “I’m waiting here.” She drops down and sits in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to look up at any of them.

“Myka, come on,” Alex tries. “They’ve got mint chip today. Your favorite!”

“I don’t want it,” she grumbles.  

Kara sighs, feeling the crinkle forming between her eyebrows. “Maybe you two go on and get started and we’ll meet you in there?” she asks.

“Sure,” Lena says easily. “No problem Kara.”

They head inside and Kara turns back down to Myka, currently splaying out her legs to take up the entire middle of the sidewalk. Just to be more of a brat. Kara gives a busy looking man in a suit a small grimace as he nearly trips over one of her legs, and asks her to please stand up so that they can talk.

Myka ignores her.

So, they’ve finally reached the unpleasant disciplinary part of this whole guardian thing then—awesome. Kara sighs, then bends down, hauling Myka up into her arms and carries her—arms still angrily crossed, legs kicking out in protest—over to the edge of the curb. She deposits Myka gently and sits down beside her, the two of them staring out at the street. “You have to go to school,” she begins softly. “And apart from the fact that it’s the law here, I really do think that you’re going to end up liking it. Despite a lot of initial confusion, and a couple of hard things about fitting in, ultimately, I did.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know,” Kara says with a small laugh. “You’ve made that… abundantly clear. But you also haven’t even given it a chance yet.”

Myka crosses her arms tighter, refusing to look over at Kara.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Kara asks. “Why you feel so opposed to this?”

“Why can’t I just stay with you?” Myka asks her, quietly. Kara’s heart clenches when she hears the tightness of her throat, sees the tears welling up in Myka’s eyes. “Why do I have to go somewhere new? Why do I have to pretend to be human? I hate it! I don’t want to keep lying and learning about stupid human things. Why can’t I just go with you and help you with Supergirl stuff instead?”

The fact that she remembers to whisper ‘Supergirl’ so quietly while in the middle of an emotional outburst breaks Kara’s heart. She reaches out and tugs Myka into her side. “Myka,” Kara’s voice cracks on her name. Myka doesn’t unfold her arms or participate in the hug at all, but she doesn’t push Kara away this time. “I know that everything is new and confusing. And I know how much the differences from home just pile up until it feels overwhelming. But,” Kara lets out a breath. “Even though I miss Krypton all the time, I do love my life here on Earth. There are a lot of good things about it. And I think that going to school is only going to help expose you to more of them.”

“But I could go help the DEO instead,” Myka insists. “I could learn stuff doing that too. Maybe even more. Better stuff.”

“Myka, you’re only nine years old. I don’t want you out there risking your life when you could be at home learning, and watching cartoons, and eating loads of chocolate like a kid instead,” Kara grins. “Doesn’t that sound more fun anyway?”

Myka shrugs, and counters. “But I can’t get hurt though. So I wouldn’t be risking my life.”

“You can,” Kara insists. “Myka, you can get hurt. And so can I,” she turns their bodies so Myka is looking her in the eye. “We can get hurt. It might be much harder, but it can still happen and I need you to be aware of that.”

“Okay,” Myka says, though with less understanding than Kara would hope for. “Fine,” she rises from the curb and stands there awkwardly, hovering beside Kara but looking somewhere over her head. “Fine. I’ll go to school and keep lying to everyone if you want. But I’m kind of mad at you about it, and I still don’t want any ice cream.”  

“Myka—”

“You can go get some if you want. I don’t mind waiting,” she offers.

Kara looks up and catches Alex’s eye through the glass. She and Lena have clearly been watching them both through the store window the entire time. Ice cream cones in hand, they’re waiting patiently for them at a small booth. Lena at least has the decency to pretend to be distracted by her ice cream when Kara looks up. Alex has no such qualms. She mouths ‘what’s wrong’, and gestures dramatically, nearly whacking an employee in the arm on accident. While she’s apologizing, Myka heaves out an over exaggerated sigh. Kara wanted an ice cream, but it feels tainted now, with Myka not having one. She shrugs at Alex and hates that Lena is witnessing this colossal parenting failure.

“Are you sure?” Kara prods Myka one more time.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t have to be hungry for ice cream!” Kara giggles and knocks her hip lightly into Myka’s side, but it doesn’t pull a smile out of her like it usually does. Kara is at a loss. “Okay, well, that’s fine,” she says sadly, heading inside and directing Myka over towards the booth. She plops down beside Alex with a pout, clearly leaving no room for Kara to sit anywhere near her.

“None for you?” Alex asks, picking up on her sour mood.

“I don’t want it,” she states flatly and turns to squint down the floor. “Are we going back to your apartment now?” she directs towards Kara.

“Um,” Kara looks between Alex and Lena.

Alex takes a huge lick of her ice cream cone. “What flavor are you gonna get Kara?” she asks, ignoring Myka’s mood. “I got coffee and chocolate almond,” she licks it again. “Delicious.”

“What’d you get Lena?” Kara asks.

Lena smiles, gracefully scooping a small bite from her cup into her mouth. “Chocolate almond and mint chip.”

“Oh! They have Oreo today!” Kara skips over to the line in delight. She deserves ice cream today, parenting failures aside. Maybe she can turn it around with ice cream.

She sits down in the booth beside Lena once she’s got her cup, smiling shyly when Lena grins at her choice. (Oreo, chocolate almond, mint chip, and blackberry. Topped with M&Ms.) Myka’s eyes widen at the sight, and Kara grins when she drops her eyes down to the table when she’s caught staring. Kara scoops a large bite into her mouth, going on and on about how delicious it tastes. Alex and Lena join in, commenting on their own ice cream, and Myka slinks further and further down into her seat and promptly tries to ignore all three of them.

She’s nearly salivating within minutes, grumpily slouching in her seat and kicking her sneakers against the linoleum floor to make them squeak.

“Well, that was a fun pre-dinner treat!” Kara declares once they’ve finished. (Kara before Lena, to her hopefully delighted and not disgusted surprise.) “Did anybody have food preferences?”

Myka sits up, mouth open in excitement before slouching back down and pinching her lips together. She shakes her head with a frown. Kara, Lena, and Alex all wait her out, tossing ideas among themselves without any real attachment as they make their way out of the booth. Myka gives the ice cream parlor a final look of longing as they leave, but walks out in determination when she catches Kara watching her. Kara is both impressed and terrified by her stubbornness. She doesn’t think that she could ever pass up an opportunity for ice cream, no matter the principals behind it.

Kara walks down the sidewalk beside Lena, darting glances behind her to Myka every few seconds until she feels Lena’s hand brush against her shoulder and jolts. “She’ll be fine,” Lena says softly.

Kara sighs, giving Lena what ends up being more of a grimace than a smile. “Thanks. I mean, I know, mostly but…” Kara shrugs. “I hate that she’s mad at me. This is a lot harder than I thought it’d be,” she admits. “And I thought it was gonna be pretty hard.”

Lena hesitates for half a second, and then Kara’s heart is hammering in her chest as Lena reaches over and squeezes her hand. “You’re doing amazingly,” she says, like it’s simple. Lena says this like it’s not a platitude or some false sense of encouragement. She states it as if she were simply saying ‘look, the sky is blue today’, a happy, plain fact. She says it in a way that allows Kara to believe it.

Mostly.

Kara releases the breath she had been holding, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear and resisting the urge to fiddle with her glasses. Lena’s hand is still entwined with hers. “Thanks,” Kara mumbles. “I’m trying,” she adds, louder.

A small, slow smile creeps out onto Lena’s face, and the hand that’s still in Kara’s squeezes again before she gently pulls it away. “I think you and I both know how much that part matters, in the long run.”

Kara thinks about Eliza and Jeremiah, a bit helpless in their methods to try and find what exactly Kara needed from them. About Alex, brusque and prickly in her affection for years before they got to the easy, comfortable place they’re at now. So much of Kara’s early life on Earth was full of awkwardness, confusion, and pain—but all three of them tried. Over and over and over again. They never once stopped trying to make Kara feel comfortable, loved, and supported, even if they bungled it up a few times along the way.

Kara looks over at Lena and thinks of what little she knows about Lillian, Lex, and Lionel and how isolated Lena seems to keep herself in the result of that. She wonders when the Luthors stopped trying for Lena. Resolve sets in Kara’s shoulders as she beams back at Lena, relishing in the smile that it pulls from her in return.

“How ‘bout pizza?” Alex calls out. Myka, shuffling along slowly half a step behind her, perks up.

“Yeah,” she says excitedly, running up towards Kara, before remembering that she’s trying to be mad at everyone. “I guess,” she shrugs, not fooling anyone.

“I know a place just up ahead here,” Kara offers.

“Of course you do,” Alex rolls her eyes and Kara reaches over to flick her shoulder. Alex retaliates by tugging on the end of Kara’s ponytail, and she yelps, swatting at her sister. Myka and Lena both laugh, stepping out of the way as Kara and Alex play-fight their way down the sidewalk.

Kara listens and hears Lena whisper, “Are they always like this?”

“Yeah,” Myka answers, “pretty much. It’s dumb. But kinda fun.”

When Kara looks back at them, Myka has looped her hand with Lena’s, and the shock of surprise on Lena’s face would almost be comical if it weren’t so sad. Kara waits, watching a series of emotions flicker across Lena’s face before her spine straightens, her shoulders relax—just slightly—and she gives their clasped hands another frown before swinging them once. Myka grins up at her, swinging them with much more force and even skipping a little as they reach the pizza parlor.

She drops Lena’s hand and sprints inside, Alex leaping after her and Lena makes a face at Kara. “Well…” she shrugs, crossing her now empty hands and laughing.

“It’s patently unfair how much more she likes you than me,” Kara teases.

The smile on Lena’s face drops. “No, that’s not true! Kara, she adores—”

“I was joking,” Kara cuts off her panic before it blooms too much. Her hands are on Lena’s shoulders before she’s even thinking about it, and both of them notice at the same time. Lena’s eyes go to Kara’s lips, and Kara drops her hands like she’s been burnt. They both laugh awkwardly at each other. “Um,” Kara mumbles.

“HURRY UP!” Myka yells across the restaurant, saving them both. “I’m STARVING!”

“Don’t yell,” Kara orders, in her normal voice. She knows that Myka can hear her, but Lena doesn’t, and she laughs as they make their way over to the booth Myka and Alex have commandeered. “She’s impossible to take anywhere,” Kara jokes.

“Well,” Lena says, “she’s learning,” in such a loaded way that Kara freezes. There have been a lot of comments like that from her recently. Innocent enough at first pass, but add them all up and Kara’s not so sure. Lena’s eyebrows raise, almost in a challenge and Kara swallows. She is not ready to have this conversation today. Not after Myka’s small fit earlier. Not where Myka can hear.

Kara’s heart hammers inside her chest, and she sees Myka frown up at her out of the corner of her eye. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Kara slides into the booth beside Myka, purposefully forcing Lena to have to sit opposite, next to Alex. Kara wraps an arm around Myka and tries not to make eye contact with Lena, relaxing enough so Myka doesn’t notice anything amiss. “So,” she grabs the menu that’s in front of them. “Ever tried Hawaiian pizza?”

Alex groans loudly. “No. No pineapple on pizza.”

Lena’s face scrunches into a frown as well, but she’s much more polite in her refusal.

“Why not?” Myka asks. “Is that a weird thing on Earth?”

“Um,” Kara’s eyes automatically shoot to Alex’s, she can’t help it.

“Yeah, is it Kara?” Lena asks, so pointedly that everyone at the table freezes.

“Um,” Kara repeats, like an idiot.

“Well I want to try it,” Myka announces, ignoring the mood of the table. “Waiter person!” she hollers.

“Myka,” Kara and Alex both hiss at the same time. “You can’t talk to people like that,” Kara adds. “Customer service is one of the hardest and most annoying jobs in the world. You have to treat the people who serve you with respect.”

“But I don’t know her name?” Myka shrugs. “Besides, that’s how my parents talked to servants.”

“She’s not a servant,” Kara explains. “And maybe your parents weren’t right about everything.”

Myka snaps her menu closed and glares at Kara. “Maybe you’re not right about everything either.” Alex and Lena both pull their menus up, covering their faces and pretending that they aren’t listening. Kara resists the urge to let out an impatient sigh. This whole guardian thing is just fucking fabulous today.

“I know that I’m not,” Kara tells her. “But I also know that it’s always going to be better to be kind to someone.”

Kara turns to Alex and Lena then, letting Myka sit there quietly as the three of them peruse the menus and pick out options. Their waitress shows up a few moments later, beaming at them all and whipping out her notepad. “Hi, I’m Jenny. How is everyone tonight?”

“I’m mad,” Myka says before anyone else can speak. “But I guess I’m supposed to be nice to you anyway,” she doesn’t sit up from her slump, but she doesn’t grumble or look away when she politely asks, “How are you?”

Jenny pauses, looking between Kara, Alex, and Lena before turning back to Myka. “I’m doing pretty well, thanks for asking. I’m sorry that you’re mad.”

“Me too,” Myka drops her head onto her elbow. “Do you like pineapple on your pizza?”

“I don’t actually. But my boyfriend loves it,” she offers with a shrug. “And he swears that ours is one of the best.”

“I don’t know if I like it,” Myka says, sitting up further. “Alex and Lena don’t,” she points across the table. “Do you?” she asks Kara, visibly making an effort to keep her voice polite. Kara decides to reward progress and smiles at her with a nod. “Can we have a little-ish one?” Myka asks Jenny. “So I can try?”

“Yep,” she double checks with Kara, who nods, and then she scribbles it down. “I can do that. What else can I get you?”

Lena orders some fancy artisanal vegetable thing, Alex goes for classic pepperoni, and Kara gets half meat lovers-half veggie along with the Hawaiian for Myka, whose mood, thankfully, seems to be on the upswing. Lena doesn’t bring up the ‘weird on Earth’ comment again, and Kara is grateful to brush over it for now.

They slip into an easy conversation after a few minutes, and then Lena has got Myka laughing and leaning into Kara, and forgetting entirely to be mad. Kara’s astounded.

When the pizza arrives, Alex turns up her nose at Myka’s choice and digs into her own. Lena primly eats her pizza and watches Myka in fascination as she inhales a piece. “I like it,” Myka declares, and promptly eats four pieces in two minutes, leaving Lena slightly horrified. She catches Kara’s eye, and she just knows, that this secret is not really holding up very well anymore. At least not when it comes to Myka. Kara meets Alex’s eyes and the band of worry around them increases, then disappears. Alex shrugs.

Now isn’t the time. But, soon.

Soon, for sure.

Chapter Text

Lena closes her email slowly, warily, like the words are somehow going to come to life and jump out at her. She peaks down at the attachment that she’s saved to her phone once more: Myka, clad in a pair of overalls with white stars painted all over them, sans a shirt, with pink cowboy boots, and a pair of pink, star-shaped sunglasses on her face, holding a wicker basket in the crook of her elbow, and a grin on her face as she walks down the sidewalk with confidence. The caption from Kara: farmer’s market bound. I can’t get her out of these, she’s worn them for 3 days straight. The rest of the email has nothing else from Kara at all, besides the quick intro at the top. 

I set her up with an email, rather than give her any sort of option to text you eight hundred times a day. I thought it might be good writing practice for school. We’ve already talked about how busy you are, and how many emails you already get, so she knows not to expect lengthy or timely responses. She might just start writing you real letters. Actually, that might be a better idea… she’s sort of taking over my laptop. I do kind of need it for work… see you Friday for dinner!

The dramatic tone change to Myka, recounting the farmer’s market endeavor, and her entire two days since Lena has last seen her, was adorable and shocking. It might be one of the longest, most indecipherable emails that Lena has ever received.

Myka very much needs to be in school. She also might have a career as a novelist in her future. If she can learn grammar and sentence structure, she’s certainly not wont for material or imagination.

Lena hesitates for about half a minute, then picks up her phone and dials the number that she’s had on a post-it for the last two days. She went home from her afternoon of ice cream and dinner with Kara, Myka, and Alex and spent five minutes on Google before she had what she needed. But she hasn’t called—yet.

She’s not sure how large of a boundary she’ll be crossing. Or what it means, that she wants to.

Lena scans the email one more time, her eyes drifting down to the end.

It was the BEST but it would be the bestest if YOU HAD BEEN THERE TOO!!! YOU HAVE TO COME NEXT TIME PLEASE PLEASE SAY YES!!

Love you! from myka matthews (kara and alex’s cousin)

Her eyes, as they have the last three times that she has read the email through, zone right in on the ‘love you’ yet again. It’s not a big deal. Children spout out that phrase without shame or any real understanding all the time. Lena knows this (due to a panicked Google search and a brief glance at a forum mainly for nannies) but it sticks in her brain all the same.

The last person who said that to her and meant it, was Lex. The person who said it most recently was her mother, to reporters, outside of the courtroom during the end of Lex’s trial. It had far less to do with Lena herself, and far more to do with the perception of the remaining Luthors.

Lena doesn’t know what to do with this information. An innocent sign off from a child that is increasingly worming her way into Lena’s day to day thoughts. She contemplates it for a few more minutes, worrying at her bottom lip as the sun sets slowly behind her, then, without putting any more thought into it, she picks up the phone, and dials.

Extremes seem to be all that she’s capable of, Lena is either all in, or all out. Alex had asked her a question, in that bar, and with this phone call, Lena is pretty sure that she now has an answer to give. 

“Lexington Elementary Prep, this is Carly speaking, how may I help you?”

Lena pulls her checkbook over, looks at the picture of Myka again, and smiles.

…

…

“Wait, seriously?” Alex asks, grabbing a handful of popcorn and tossing it into her mouth.

“I can’t believe it either, but yeah,” Kara motions for Winn and James to grab whatever they want from the take out bags that are covering the kitchen island. “A full scholarship, and free one-on-one tutoring for the next three years. She has to start in third grade, not fourth. They almost said second at first, but instead of holding her back further, she’s gonna have a tutoring study period to work on more basic stuff,” Kara shrugs and pulls out the game, laying it out on the table. James moves to help without prompting, and Kara smiles at him.

“I thought that there weren’t any scholarships available,” Winn says, eyebrows knotted together as he sips at his beer. “I mean, I checked and you checked.”

“Yeah. There wasn’t. Aren’t. Apparently, rich anonymous donors sometimes ‘sponsor’ a kid’s education or something. They didn’t have any offers when I first called, but someone offered after the fact, and the dean put Myka down for it.”

“So who’s sponsoring her?” Winn asks. “ALSO WHERE IS SHE?” he hollers out. “BECAUSE SOMEONE WANTS TO PLAY ALREADY!”

“She’s trying on her new uniform,” Alex throws popcorn at his head. “She’s crazy nervous, leave her alone. The whole point of tonight is to calm her down. Also, what part of ‘anonymous’ don’t you understand?”

Winn throws some popcorn back at her. Alex moves to catch it in her mouth easily and Winn pouts as she gloats at him. “The fact that you’d go along with it, for one,” he retorts. “Want me to hack into their servers and find out who’s signing the checks?”

“I asked who it was,” Kara tells him. “A few times.” She’s still not altogether comfortable with this, somehow it feels reckless, entrusting Myka’s life with someone who Kara doesn’t know a thing about. “The school just kept saying that’s not how it works. Sponsoring kids is a real thing that they do. It’s not always anonymous, but about half of the time it is. I did check on that,” she shrugs, dropping down into a seat at the table and tucking one leg up underneath her. Alex slides into the seat to her right, eating another handful of popcorn. “I started to say no,” adds Kara, biting on her lip. “But it’s a really good school, and Myka loved the woman they’ve assigned to be her tutor, and she seems to like the guy who would be her third grade teacher. So,” she shrugs again. “It seemed stupid to turn down a good education, especially now that Myka seems more excited about it.”

It does seem weird—and awfully convenient—that this opportunity has just been plopped down into her lap. When she looks over at her sister, Alex’s eyes are narrowing in a way that always means that she’s thinking hard on something. It’s the same look she had on her face whenever she was working out a complicated homework problem, or figuring out a way to attempt to trick Eliza into letting them do something fun, but possibly dangerous.

“It is crazy lucky,” she muses.

An idea floats somewhere in the back of Kara’s mind—and has, since the dean called her—but Kara hasn’t allowed herself to dwell on the possibility, for fear of everything it will mean if it turns out to be true.

But, still. She catches Alex’s eye and just knows that her sister is considering the same idea that Kara has been avoiding. Alex’s eyebrows quirk up, and Kara looks down at the table, fiddling with one of the game pieces. When she looks back up and meets Alex’s gaze, a teasing smile is on the edges of her mouth, but she says nothing—to Kara. To Myka, she yells, “LET’S GO PRINCESS. PEOPLE ARE DYING OF HUNGER OVER HERE!”

James snorts into his beer, motioning to the island, covered nearly every inch with food. Alex throws a piece of popcorn at his head.

Then, Myka comes running into the living room, sliding on the wood floors in her pristine new white socks. She displays jazz hands—courtesy of the movie musicals that she and Kara have been watching all weekend—and yells out, “Ta-da!” as she twirls to show off her school uniform. The only thing that Kara is required to pay for, apparently.

They’re still not cheap. Hopefully, Myka doesn’t go through too many growth spurts in the next three years.

Everyone claps and cheers as Myka does a second twirl. She looks adorable. Kara’s immediate thought for some reason goes to the movie School of Rock, rather than literally any other medium to do with children’s school uniforms, and she pictures Myka trying to maneuver holding a guitar and giggles.

It’s not a bad idea, actually. Music ended up having a lot to do with helping Kara learn to control her powers when she came to Earth. It’s sound but it is also touch; vibration and force and knowing exactly what pressure or exhale is required to strike the note just right. It’s learning how much to manipulate or adjust that resulting sound to produce something even greater. When Kara realized how much stronger she was on Earth verses on Krypton, she was always so hesitant with her strength, afraid of breaking everything around her. After she began to play around with Jeremiah’s old guitar, one thing she learned from music was how to touch lightly, and it made everything else that much easier. She didn’t have much natural musical talent; she could sing pretty well without putting much thought or training to it, but figuring out the instruments was different. Eliza loved piano, and Kara picked up learning when Alex groaned and threw one of her last major teenage fits, finally allowed to stop her lessons. Kara used music to learn how to re-calibrate her senses to this world. It helped to block out some of the noise, and taught her to hone in on one thing without thinking about it too much.

Myka’s not quite catching on just yet. When they went out to the farmer’s market a few days ago, she panicked halfway through shopping when she got separated from Kara for half a second, caught up between people brushing past her loudly and burst into tears from the noise and sensation. Kara had to carry her out to an open area and cover her ears, talking soothing nonsense until Myka could focus on just Kara’s voice.

It’s going to be interesting to see how school goes, for sure.

Hopefully, this final crash course will help her out a little. Myka grabs two burritos and climbs up onto James’s lap, refusing to take the empty chair near the end of the table in favor of a spot closer to the chocolate, and Kara.

Kara preens and bends down to take a bite of the burrito closest to her, grinning as Myka squawks in indignation and pulls it away, getting sauce all over James’s arm.

“Should you maybe not wear the clean uniform to dinner?” he asks warily.

“Um,” before Kara can say anything else, Myka drops her burritos and jumps off James’s lap.

“I’ll show you my overalls!” she screams happily. “They’ve got stars on them!” she sprints back into her room and Kara and Alex both groan simultaneously.

“We just got her out of those. We were going to throw them in the wash.”

“Sorry,” James shrugs. “But a pair of old overalls probably work better with burrito sauce than brand new school uniform?”

“Yeah,” Kara mumbles. “But still.”

“HURRY!” Alex shouts.

Myka sprints back into the room, nothing but the overalls on. Like Kara, she doesn’t get cold easily, but unlike Kara, she doesn’t care to pretend otherwise. Plus, many fabrics still bother her, foreign to Daxam, and built to frame the body differently. The fewer clothes Myka has on, the happier she usually is—unless they’re these overalls. Myka sticks her tongue out at Alex and picks a burrito back up. “Was I faster than your friend Barry?” she asks Kara, mouth full.

“Pretty close,” Kara gives her a wink. “Let’s play a history game!”

“Ugh,” Myka groans. “I thought this was just gonna be fun, not learning.”

“It’s going to be both,” Kara insists.

“Where’s Lena?” Myka asks.

“Um,” Kara rolls the dice onto the board. “Well, this is more of a last minute crash course in things you need to know to help blend in as a human, so. Lena can maybe come to a regular game night later instead,” she offers, overly perky.

The look Myka gives her only further adds to Kara’s guilt over the lie about her identity. With pretty much each new day that passes, Kara’s reasons for not telling Lena feel weaker and weaker. She has almost blurted it out twice in the last week alone. It feels inevitable, now. It’s just a matter of working up the courage and finding the right time.

Myka is consistently losing patience with not being completely honest about herself to Lena. She’s becoming the morality police about everything, this especially. She slumps back into James’s chest now in a pout and glares at Kara. Alex throws popcorn at her face, her apparent mode for relieving tension and telling people off tonight. Myka giggles and tries to catch some of it in her mouth. When she finally manages it, after Winn has taken his turn, Myka yelps, jumping off of James and nearly falling and knocking the whole table down with her.

“What!?” Kara screams, reaching to grab her. “What’s wrong?”

Everyone panics, and freezes, until Myka sits up and chomps down cautiously on the popcorn that’s in her mouth, her eyes widen comically as she stares up at them all. “What is this?” she gasps.

“It’s — what?” Kara keeps sticking her hands out, trying to check Myka for signs of injury or allergy, or whatever it is that’s causing this extreme of a reaction from her. “Popcorn,” she explains. “You’ve had it,” she turns back to Alex for confirmation. “Hasn’t she?”

“No,” Myka climbs away from James and hauls herself up onto Kara’s thighs, her shins tucked up underneath herself as she sits beside Myka on the floor. She grips at Kara’s shoulders to balance herself in this awkward position and runs her tongue over her teeth. Kara can see a few kernels stuck in them. “This isn’t… it’s different,” she insists.

“It’s… white cheddar flavor,” Alex supplies, shrugging.

“White cheddar popcorn,” Myka says, almost reverently. “What’s in my teeth?” she grips Kara’s cheeks, opening her mouth and sticking it directly in Kara’s face. “What is it?” she asks, not closing her mouth, nearly indecipherable.

“Kernels,” Kara explains, pushing Myka back a bit. She hauls her up and sits back down in her own chair, Myka hovering beside her. “We can floss, or get you a tooth pick if you need.”

“But it’s… stuck!” she screams, manic with happiness. “This feels… so weird and cool!” she runs around the table three times, before stopping beside Alex. Worming her way onto Alex’s lap, and directly in front of the bowl of popcorn, she takes a few more handfuls and shoves them into her mouth, squealing happily and nearly choking in the process. “This is my favorite thing,” she declares, once Alex has held her hands down onto the table to prevent her from picking up any more until she’s chewed and swallowed.

“I thought brownies were your favorite thing,” Winn teases.

“They are. I have two favorites.”

“What about Lena’s Hershey Kisses?” Winn adds, sipping his tea very pointedly. Kara rolls her eyes but then jumps up, remembering her own tea, probably cold now by the kettle.

“I can have three favorites,” she insists.

“Pizza?” Alex asks.

“Fou—”

“Burritos?” James says, joining in on the fun.

Myka huffs. “ALL OF THEM,” she yells. “They’re all my favorite.”

“That defeats the purpose of favorite—just so you know,” Winn says. Myka glares impressively at him until Alex wraps her into a hug, kisses her entire face, and shoves more popcorn into her laughing mouth.

“Okay!” Kara sits back down, re-heated tea in her favorite mug clutched between both her hands. “Are we finally gonna play, or what?”

“What’s McCoy’s nickname?!” Winn yells, pointing to Myka.

“BONES!” she answers excitedly.

“That’s… probably not going to be the main topic of discussion among third graders,” Kara says. “Or on the curriculum.”

“You don’t know that,” Winn grabs a slice of pizza, chomping on it. “But okay, fair play,” he rounds back on Myka. “Favorite Star Wars?”

“LEIA!” Myka cheers.

“No,” Winn laughs. “I meant which movie.”

“All of them,” Myka shrugs. “This is easy,” she grins and kicks her legs out happily. “This is what I have to learn about!?”

“No,” Alex quickly cuts in. “Not quite.”

Myka grabs some more popcorn, smacking her lips happily. “Whatever, can I take this in my lunch when we go tomorrow?”

Kara sighs, sharing a look with Alex across the table. She has no idea how this is going to go. “Sure,” she answers. “Cheddar popcorn for lunch it is.”

Myka runs around the table three more times, cheering at the top of her lungs.

…

…

Her excitement dissipates when they are standing in the front lobby of the school the next morning, Myka’s face pressed into Kara’s side as children run around them on the way to their classrooms.

“I should come to work with you,” she says, again.

“Myka, it’s gonna be fine.”

“But what if you need help?”

“I have people at CatCo who can help me. James. Snapper. The interns. I’ll be fine.”

“But what about other help?” she asks, attempting to wink. Both of her eyes blink closed a few times until she gives up. At least her face isn’t firmly tucked into Kara’s stomach anymore.

“I’ve got Alex, and J’onn, and Winn.”

Myka looks at the other third graders dubiously as they reach her new classroom. “Maybe Lena needs help. Jess might be sick.”

“There are other assistants at L-Corp in case that happens.”

“What if they’re all sick too?”

“Then she can call a temp agency.”

“What’s that?”

“Something you might learn about in school!” Kara tries. Myka plants her feet and frowns. Sighing, Kara stops along with her. “It’s temporary work. People go give their information, and they get called if they’re needed later, basically.”

“I could do that. Instead of third grade.”

“You’d need a third-grade education to do the temp jobs. Sorry, bud.”

Myka huffs, arms crossed over the uniform she spent a full hour fussing with before Kara managed to get her out of the apartment. She’s been radiating nervous energy since she woke up at five a.m. She wouldn’t even eat anything until eight, and by then she was starving. She looks into the classroom, then back at Kara. “I get to go flying once it’s over?”

Kara nods. She’d promised. If Myka goes without complaint, they’ll go flying this afternoon, and get donuts, and go see Lena. Kara holds out her pinkie finger and Myka happily takes it, loving the Earth custom that Winn taught her.

“Okay,” she nods to herself, squares her shoulders, and walks into the room as if going into battle. Kara’s chest clenches as she waves to the teacher and walks away. She had no idea that she could be this worried about something so benign as leaving a kid at school.

She spends the whole morning obsessively checking her phone in case the school calls and tells her that Myka accidentally broke a chair, or jumped up a flight of stairs, or started speaking in foreign tongues. Alex calls and teases her during her lunch break, and Kara’s shoulders lose some of their tension by the time they hang up. Lena sends her a text confirming her free afternoon around two, and Kara only has to last one more hour.

She doesn’t end up getting anything useful done at CatCo, but thankfully, Snapper is busy directing his wrath at someone else when she slips out at three.

Myka is standing in the middle of a gaggle of children when Kara walks up to the front of the school. She’s chatting happily with another girl, a few inches taller than her, and a boy who towers over them both. She beams when she catches sight of Kara and waves her over. Bouncing up and down on her toes, Myka yells excitedly, “Kara! This is my new friend Avani,” she points to the girl, who grins up politely at Kara. “And this is Trevor!”

“Hello,” Trevor mumbles, not looking Kara in the eye.

“Hi,” Kara grins, “it’s nice to meet you both.”

Avani points to a woman approaching. “That’s my mom,” she reaches over and hugs Myka. “See you tomorrow!” she tries to reach up and hug Trevor too, but the gangly boy sort of mumbles and high fives her instead. Gamely, Avani slaps his hand and smiles, turning back towards Kara. “Bye Mrs. Matthews!” she says as her mother reaches them.

Confused for a second, it takes Kara a beat to realize that Avani means her. “Oh, no. It’s Danvers.” Avani’s mother smiles at her. “Kara Danvers,” she introduces herself. “I’m Myka’s cousin actually.”

“Oh right,” Avani frowns. “I forgot she said that.”

“It’s alright.”

“Hello,” Avani’s mother sticks her hand out. “I’m Bheema Shah.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kara says. They talk for a few minutes, re-introducing themselves when Trevor’s older brother, Anthony, comes over to pick him up, then say their goodbyes and head off towards L-Corp. “So,” Kara says, knocking her hip into Myka. “Looks like it wasn’t so bad after all.”

Myka shrugs, tugging at Kara’s arm until she jumps behind a bush to yank off her street clothes, and bends down to haul Myka up onto her back. They shoot up into the air while no one is looking, and Myka yells with delight as her hair goes flying all around her face. “It was okay,” she finally answers. “I like Avani and Trevor, but some of the other kids are kind of mean, and I didn’t know a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah, but that’s what you’re there for,” Kara reminds her. “To learn it. You aren’t supposed to know it already.”

“Yeah, but the other kids kind of did.”

“They’ve been on Earth longer than you have.”

Myka shrugs and bends down, tucking her forehead into Kara’s neck, out of the wind. “Let’s get donuts.”

“Now you’re talking.”

They fly through a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through, to the delight of the teenage boy behind the window, and Kara nearly lands on Lena’s balcony before she forgets that Myka is still on her back, and she has to be Kara right now, not Supergirl. Though, that sure is one way to go about breaking the news to Lena.

She’s half tempted to take it, but it wouldn’t really be fair to Lena, or Myka, to just spring it on them like that.

Probably.

Kara flies around to the other side of the building and Myka leaps off her back, grinning madly as she does a flip and lands perfectly from about thirty feet up. Kara quickly changes back out of her suit and they run inside before they’re spotted.

“Hi, Jess!” Myka yells cheerfully as she runs towards Lena’s office. “I got you a chocolate donut!”

Jess grins as the bag is shoved at her. “Thank you Myka,” she meets Kara’s eye and smiles. “She’s free, you can go on in.”

“Thanks, Jess,” Kara hands her the napkin Myka neglected to pass over and follows her inside. Myka is already sitting on top of Lena’s desk, pulling donuts out of the bag and telling her about how many things her new friend Avani knows.

Lena looks up and catches Kara’s eye, smiling softly at her while Myka keeps talking a mile a minute, even with donut in her mouth. Kara returns the smile and sits down in the chair opposite them, quietly munching on her own donut while Myka talks. Kara’s eyes stay on Lena the entire afternoon. They eventually migrate over towards the couch, then out of Lena’s office, then out of L-Corp entirely. It wasn’t planned exactly—Kara only promised Myka donuts and a hello if all went well at school—but Lena doesn’t seem to want to get rid of either of them, and Myka would physically attach herself to Lena’s hip if she thought it was a genuine possibility, and Kara—she’ll take all the time Lena will give her.

They end up back at Kara’s apartment, per usual. In all of her months of knowing Lena, Kara doesn’t think that she has ever actually seen the inside of Lena’s apartment before. She turns and watches, smiling as Lena sits down on Kara’s couch with Myka, looking genuinely relaxed and comfortable to be here for maybe the first time ever. Only noticeable to Kara now that she sees what an actual relaxed version of Lena looks like. Kara shuffles around in the kitchen, scrounging up some food and realizing that they have enough to mix together a stir-fry. Myka, always excited to help, runs back into the kitchen and starts chopping up vegetables with aplomb until Kara turns around and sees Lena panic and grab the knife away from her.

Myka pouts, but Kara just pushes a chair over by the stove top and tells her to stir carefully instead before she can start arguing that her skin is too strong to be cut by the knife.

That’s another way to break the news to Lena—Myka nearly chopping all of her fingers off with no blood to speak of. Might be a tad too traumatic.

Kara doesn’t mean to, but she keeps bumping into Lena as they work on dinner. There is almost infinite space in her open kitchen, but somehow, Kara and Lena are constantly right next to each other, elbows bumping, fingers resting on shoulders and hips as they maneuver their way past each other—it’s incredibly distracting. By the time dinner is finished and they’re all filling up their plates and sitting down at the table, Kara is halfway convinced that Lena is doing it on purpose. She’s pretty sure that she is being actively flirted with now. Lena stabs a snow pea and slowly pops it into her mouth, staring at Kara the whole time, and she nearly chokes on her own food, Lena smirking at her as she gracefully wipes at the corner of her lips with a napkin.

Myka frowns at them both while Kara guzzles her glass of water. “You’re not listening,” she accuses.

Lena immediately turns her attention to Myka. “You were telling us that your new friend, Trevor, has five older brothers,” she repeats easily. “Salvatore is the oldest one right?”

Kara is impressed. She didn’t hear anything that Myka just said for the last twenty minutes. She’s pretty sure that she still doesn’t know Trevor’s last name. Something Italian sounding. Possibly.

“Kara?” Myka asks, clearly having said her name more than once before.

“Hum?”

Myka rolls her eyes, dramatic and exaggerated, and Lena’s smirk only grows. Kara shovels a large bite of stir-fry into her mouth; she has got to pull herself together. Fast. 

…

…

They make it a full two and a half weeks without any major problems at Myka’s new school.

Kara just starts to let her guard down, thinking that the two of them are finally catching something like a routine when she gets a call from the school in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. The stern tone of the dean’s voice makes her stomach drop, and she’s flying to the school in a panic before she realizes that she has to stall to make her drive over there seem more believable. She paces around in front of a hedge for an agonizing five minutes before giving up and running inside.

She finds Myka, miserable, eyes red, slumped into a tiny ball on the edge of a bench outside of the dean’s office. Trevor and Avani sit beside her, equally miserable, while two older looking boys and a blonde girl squeeze together on the other side of the bench. One of the boys has a gauze bandage on the side of his face, and the other is clutching his arm and trying not to cry.

Kara’s stomach drops again.

Myka looks up and finds her and a new wave of tears hit, Avani scooting closer and wrapping an arm around her. Kara walks over and before she can say anything, the dean walks out of the office with a parade of parents behind her. Kara recognizes Avani’s mother, who gives her a tight, but not quite angry smile as she passes by and collects her daughter. The other parents all give Kara death glares, and one man jumps in her face and starts screaming about suing her for all that she’s worth before his husband pulls him back and tugs the boy clutching his arm up off the bench.

An impossibly tall and wide woman pauses in front of Kara after the commotion dies down, and before Kara can say anything, she is pulled into a fierce hug. “I know everyone is furious, and it’s not how she should have gone about it,” she whispers. “But thank you. If your daughter hadn’t defended Trevor—” she pulls back, smiling through her tears, “—I might be taking him to the hospital today. Not even his brothers have stood up for him like that before. I don’t care what they say, you’re raising her right,” she places a kiss onto Kara’s cheek, then bends down and does the same to Myka, tugging Trevor along with her as she and Avani’s mother walk out of the school together.

“Miss Danvers,” the dean says, “please come in.”

Kara holds her hand out, and very reluctantly, Myka takes it as they walk into the office together. Kara drops down into one of the chairs, Myka slumping back into a tiny ball in the other, and Kara hates this so much. The dean is curt, and says things like ‘zero tolerance fighting policy’, and ‘unacceptable behavior’, and ‘nearly broke his arm’, and Kara’s skin feels too hot. Myka is full on sobbing now, and Kara can’t just sit here and ignore that in favor of listening to this woman, so she moves and pulls Myka onto her lap. Myka doesn’t move to untuck herself, or hold on to Kara in any way, keeping herself awkwardly huddled as Kara rubs her back and tries to pay attention to the dean.

They leave with a week-long suspension and a warning that this is her one and only second chance. The two boys are known bullies, who have had more than one warning among them and apparently instigated the entire thing—Myka’s only saving grace.

Kara apologizes and promises that she will do her best to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again, and then they are dismissed.

Myka hasn’t stopped sobbing. Her whole body shakes and Kara gives up trying to walk her outside and just hauls her up and carries her out of the school.

Instant remorse. Doesn’t seem aware of her own strength. Defending another student. Immediately ran to notify a teacher. Still unacceptable.

“I’m sorry,” Myka finally manages to say in between sobs, clinging to Kara’s front. “I didn’t mean to,” her whole body shakes again, and Kara’s chest tightens as she sits them down on a bench. “Please don’t send me away,” Myka cries.

“What?” Kara gasps. “I’m not—” she pulls Myka’s face up, cupping the sides of her cheeks and forcing Myka to look at her. “I’m not sending you away.”

“But I keep forgetting,” Myka yells. “I’m stupid! I don’t know anything they’re talking about in school. And I almost broke Seth’s arm because he’s horrible, and was so mean to Trevor. And I’m not good at pretending to be a human at all.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Kara says. “Well, no,” she corrects quickly. “I do. I do care about that, but none of that is going to make me send you away! Myka, I’m not—” she runs a frustrated hand through her hair. This isn’t coming from out of nowhere. Myka has clearly been worrying about this for longer than she has been letting on. “You’re part of the family now,” she insists firmly. “I’m sorry if I didn’t make that 100% clear. That’s my fault. You’re here to stay—as long as you want. You’re a Danvers. Yes, you have to do your best to keep remembering your strength, and it’s not okay that you hurt that boy’s arm, but it is not going to make me send you anywhere. Okay?”

Myka hiccups, staring intently at Kara for a moment, then, she nods and tucks her head back down into Kara’s neck. “I really didn’t mean to hurt him that much,” she mumbles. “He’s just so mean. He makes Trevor cry all the time when the teachers aren’t around. He calls him Sasquatch, because Trevor’s really big and kind of falls a lot, and he bumps into stuff, and isn’t really as smart as a lot of the other kids,” she sits back up, wiping at her eyes. “But I’m like that too,” she shrugs. “I knock into way more things than Trevor does. And he knows way more than I do. He’s just quiet and kind of shy, and I’m not. I yell back at them when they’re being jerks. He just lets them be mean and never says anything.”

“I’m proud of you for sticking up for your friend,” Kara says, because she is, probably more than she should be considering the circumstances. “But you have to try and remember to be more careful.”

“I know,” Myka says, miserably picking at the collar of Kara’s sweater. They sit there in silence for a few moments, and Kara decides that they’re going to Midvale for the weekend. She’ll call Eliza as soon as they get home. Myka needs a break, Eliza will know how to help, and the piano is still in the living room.

Kara’s phone rings, breaking their silent hug. Myka shifts on Kara’s lap, letting her dig the phone out of her pocket. They both smile at the name on the screen. “Hi Lena,” says Kara.

“I was wondering if you were busy tonight?” Lena asks, sounding oddly nervous.

“Um…”

“I’d love to take you and Myka out to dinner, if you’re free. I haven’t seen either of you in a while,” she quickly goes on before Kara can interject. “I know that’s partly my own fault, with the new tech we’ve just released, and your latest story, and Myka getting settled in school, but,” she trails off, and Kara can picture the way she is biting at her lower lip, or twirling a strand of her hair nervously. “I thought it would be nice, if you don’t have any other plans already.”

Kara looks at Myka, who can hear every word, even if she weren’t still leaning on Kara’s shoulder, directly beside the cell phone’s mic. She drops her face further into Kara’s neck, miserable and sure that her punishment for nearly breaking a classmate’s arm and getting suspended, is not getting to go to dinner with Lena. Part of Kara thinks that maybe she shouldn’t get to go, but the other part feels like Myka has had enough punishment already. From the way that she’s still half crying, with resigned, soft acceptance, Kara knows this lesson has finally been driven into her. Keeping her from Lena on top of it just feels cruel.

“We’d love to,” she says, pulling Myka further into her side. The little gasp of excitement that bursts out of her only solidifies Kara’s decision for her. “What time?”

“Around seven?” Lena asks. “If that’s not too late. I’ve got a last minute thing that will probably end up going a little after six. But if I get out earlier I’ll call you?”

“Sounds great,” Kara beams, hearing Lena’s heartbeat pick up through the line.

“Wonderful,” she says. “I’ll see you then!”

“Bye Lena,” Kara hangs up, looking down at Myka and tapping her on the nose. “Homework first,” she orders. “They’ll be sending you work during your suspension. It’s not a vacation.” Myka nods, still playing with Kara’s collar in favor of meeting her eyes. “Should we fly home?” Kara offers.

“Really?” Myka looks up hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Kara tugs her street clothes off and shoves them into Myka’s backpack, her suit underneath. Myka crawls back into her arms, clinging like a monkey. By the time they make it back to their apartment, her smile isn’t hesitant anymore, and the redness from her eyes has lessened to almost nothing.

…

…

Lena sees Kara and Myka before they see her. The two of them are standing outside of the restaurant, Myka is up on Kara’s back, and she’s spinning around, then stopping, and spinning around the opposite way, both of them giggling. Lena stays where she is and watches them for a few seconds, a fond bubble of affection growing steadily. It explodes inside of her when Kara spins to a stop, looking a little dizzy, and they both catch sight of Lena at the same time. Matching, bright smiles break out onto their faces, and Lena doesn’t think anyone has ever looked at her like that before; not with it coming so easily, so genuine and without stings attached.

Myka wriggles down from Kara’s back and sprints over to Lena, very forcibly stopping herself directly in front of her, and reaching over to hug her, so gently that Lena barely feels it. It’s a total break from the norm. Myka is usually exuberant and overly affectionate. Lena finds herself disappointed as she pulls away and stands carefully beside Kara, some of the spark missing from her smile.

“Hi,” Kara gives her a one-armed hug.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Nope,” Kara shakes her head. Lena watches Myka slip her hand into Kara’s, still subdued, not quite meeting Lena’s eye. “We only just got here,” Kara swings Myka’s hand a little, clearly trying to get more of a smile out of her.

“Shall we go in?” Lena asks, after a beat. Kara nods, and follows along, hip checking Myka as they walk until she giggles. “Table for three?” Lena says to the hostess. “For Luthor?”

“Right this way Miss Luthor,” the girl grabs some menus and leads them over to a more private section of the restaurant. The tables are awkwardly a little higher than normal—trying to be hip perhaps—Lena’s never been here before, but she’s heard fantastic things about the food. Myka frowns as her chin meets the edge of the table, and twists around until she is sitting up on her knees, refusing the offer of a booster seat from the hostess.

“I’m nine,” she insists.

“And a quarter,” Lena supplies, remembering the first afternoon they spent together. It’s the first real smile she gets from Myka, and it’s embarrassing how much it affects her.

“I’m gonna get taller soon, right?” she asks Kara. “Because I’m the shortest person in my class, and they’re all eight. I’m the oldest and the shortest. That’s not fair.”

“Some of them are already nine too,” Kara says, opening her menu.

“But I’m the only one who’s closest to ten.”

“No, you’re not. That kid Jorge will be ten in a few weeks. You’ve got months.”

Myka slumps down in her seat a bit, nearly disappearing from view. “He’s tall though. Like Trevor.”

“How is Trevor?” Lena asks, hoping to steer the subject to something Myka will be happier about. Clearly, she misses the mark, because Myka does disappear from view this time, slumping all the way down and mumbling something that Lena can’t understand. She looks to Kara for help.

“He’s okay now,” Kara says. “He was getting picked on a bit, and Myka stood up for him.”

“Oh,” Lena looks between them. Myka’s head drops down to her lap, full of shame, and Kara keeps biting anxiously at her lower lip and adjusting her glasses. “That’s very good of you Myka,” she says slowly.

“It was,” Kara agrees. “But she’s going to learn to do it with words and not fists next time.”

Ah. So, there’s the explanation for their weird behavior. Kara meets Lena’s eye and mouths, ‘a week suspension’ and something in Lena goes white hot with anger for a flash of a second. Her hands reach for her cell phone, ready to chew out the dean for the way that Myka’s shoulders keep drooping lower and lower as she curls into herself with embarrassment. She balls her hands into fists underneath the table instead, her nails digging into the palms, and noting the way that Kara is staring at her.

“Well,” she says, forcing a veneer of calm into her voice as she reaches for her water. “I know that you’ve mentioned your boss doesn’t love having Myka in the office, so she’s welcome to come and do her work at L-Corp until she goes back to school.”

“Really?” Myka gapes up at her, surprised, for a long second. “You still want to be friends with me?”

It's amazing what a certain combination of letters can do, how they can string themselves around your heart and squeeze. Lena stares at the hopeful shock on Myka’s face and hears Kara inhale sharply from across the table. Myka doesn’t take her eyes off of Lena for one second, and suddenly everything about her behavior tonight clicks into place. Her hesitancy, her embarrassment, the fear twisting her body into a miserable hunch. Lena swallows thickly. This is different from realizing how much she cares for Kara, infinitely so. That at least, is quantifiable. Kara is attractive, endlessly kind, and observant. She seems to understand Lena in a way that she’s never felt before with another person. Lena understands her feelings for Kara shifting from platonic to romantic, however annoying they may be.

She has no frame of reference to explain the fondness that washes over her at the sight of Myka beaming at her. At the way that she can’t seem to go a single day without telling Lena something about a new food that she’s tried, or a movie that she’s seen, or an animal she got to pet. Lena has never met another person who seems so effortlessly happy to be around her, not even Lex.

Not to mention that there’s something painfully familiar about Myka, so starved for affection that she almost fears it, that speaks volumes to parts of herself that Lena generally tries not to address. She swallows down the tightness in her throat and gives Myka a shaky smile. “Of course,” she says, clearly, and tries not to let on how much she’s affected by the way that Myka’s entire body lights up, her mood altered dramatically as she sits up straight and starts telling Lena about all of the things she knows about elephants now.

After the waiter comes and goes, and Myka is still happily chatting a mile a minute about matriarchal societies, and brilliant memories, and all of the things that elephants can do with their trunks, Kara catches Lena’s gaze across the table and gives her a soft smile. It’s loaded. There’s something behind her eyes that gives Lena pause. It’s not until they’re halfway through the evening, waiting for their dessert to arrive when Lena realizes just how much this whole thing feels like a date. Kara has been giving her shy smiles all evening, and Lena, without realizing it, has been flirting shamelessly. The waiter winks at her when he drops off the check, and Lena panics, quickly darting a glance over at Kara to gauge the situation.

She’s not paying attention. Busy trying to wipe some chocolate off of Myka’s face, but she turns and catches Lena’s eye a beat later, grinning at her shyly again, and Lena scribbles her signature and stands up quickly, offering to give them a ride home. She hardly ever drives anymore, but she had tonight, and now she’s grateful for the distraction of the traffic.

Myka hums along with the radio from the backseat as Lena concentrates on driving, all too aware of Kara, directly to her right, arm resting on the center console, tapping along to the music in silence. Lena goes the long way, because she’s selfish and wants to keep them both with her for as long as possible, and because traffic is terrible tonight, somewhat forcing her to do so. By the time she pulls the car over towards the curb in front of Kara’s building, Myka is slumped over in the backseat, sound asleep.

Kara and Lena both look back at her at the same time, their elbows knocking together as they turn around, laughing quietly at each other. When Lena looks up and meets Kara’s eye, something seems to pass between them, a subtle rearranging of air. Their faces are so close, and the hairs on their forearms are raised, pressed against each other still. She could lean in and kiss Kara so easily; it would just be two new bits of skin touching. That's all it would be.

Kara’s eyes drop down to Lena’s lips, and before she can think about it any further, she leans in, pressing them to Kara’s. Kara inhales with surprise, directly into Lena’s mouth, and she moans quietly at the sound. They’re hesitant, but Kara’s hands reach up and end up cupping Lena’s forearms, while her hands rest on either side of Kara’s cheeks. Lena feels like she can't soak up enough touch, like her skin is tingling, strapped on too tight. Kara smiles into her mouth, and then her tongue is running along the bottom of Lena’s lip, and she can’t breathe.

Kara pulls away a few seconds later, her smile shy and warm, until it slips into a worried frown. Lena freezes. She’s fucked up somehow. Again.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, desperate to salvage her mistake. As much as she wants to kiss Kara again, as much as she wants far more than that, she needs Kara’s friendship even more than she wants anything else from her. If she’s read this completely wrong, and Kara doesn’t feel the same, Lena doesn’t know what that sting of rejection will do. She can’t lose Kara, Myka, and Alex in one fell swoop. She can’t.

“It’s okay,” Kara says quickly, her hands still on Lena’s arms. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” she admits, and Lena exhales in relief. “It’s just… Lena, there’s something I’ve been trying to tell you for a while,” she bites down at the lip Lena had just been kissing and forces herself to meet Lena’s eyes. “I wasn’t sure how to say it.”

Alarms go off in Lena’s head, and she holds her breath as Kara opens her mouth and says, “I’m Supergirl, and Myka is an alien. We both are.”

And there it is: quiet confirmation. Months of notes, carefully crafted in Lena’s mental checklists ticked off in one shaky sentence. No more if-then-maybe; this is the real thing, at last. It shakes the air as it thuds down between Lena and Kara, dense and electric and too heavy to move. They’re stuck with it now.

“I know,” Lena whispers. “Well, I didn’t know, but I suspected.”

Kara’s eyes widen, and she starts talking a mile a minute, about how often she’s wanted to say something, about how it wasn’t about a lack of trust, about how many times Myka had a fit about not being honest with Lena. How guilty she felt, wanting to kiss Lena while she was actively hiding part of herself from her. She’s rambling, clinging to Lena and growing more and more panicked by the fact that Lena isn’t saying anything else in return.

She’s trying. Lena opens her mouth to say something else, but she can’t make it work. Kara is an alien. Kara is Supergirl. Kara has saved her life, more than once. Every odd bout of strength, lack of injury, odd comment—flew here on a bus, good god—makes perfect sense now. Myka’s lack of knowledge, her reaction to loud noises, her crushing hugs, every look of warning from Alex—it clicks into place. All of Lena’s suspicions finally confirmed. Finally, she’s entrusted with the truth.

And she cannot make her voice work.

Kara chokes on a sputter of nervous laughter. “I’m – I mean are you okay?” she asks. “Are you mad, or freaking out or, do you have any questions or, are you not…” she stops, looking baffled at herself as she reaches the end of that thought with no idea where to go from there.

Lena would give anything to open her mouth and reassure her, but she doesn’t. She just… stares. Myka stirs from the backseat, shifting and jolting both of them with her presence. Lena turns and stares at the little girl—the little alien, and cannot make her mouth form any words.

Kara leaps out of the car, pulls the sill asleep Myka into her arms and bends down in front of the window. “Um, I’ll give you some time to…” she shrugs helplessly, and Lena wants to reach out and pull her into a hug. “Unless you want to come up and talk?”

She does, but she also cannot imagine anything she would like to do less right now. Lena feels herself shaking her head, and Kara’s shoulders droop. She swallows, and pulls herself together. “Not tonight,” she croaks. “I have an early meeting tomorrow,” she says. She does, and she’s completely unprepared—fuck. “Tomorrow?” she asks, looking down at Myka as she shifts in Kara’s arms again, tucking her head down. “After work?”

“Okay,” Kara nods. “Call me when you’re ready.”

Of course, she would leave this to Lena. Of course, she won’t push. God, Lena feels such a powerful rush of affection that she nearly climbs out of the car and wraps herself around Kara and Myka both, but she grips the steering wheel tightly and presses her thighs down into the seat instead. She needs space to process this alone. They both know it.

“I will,” she promises. “Goodnight Kara."

Chapter Text

“Are my legs straight?” Myka asks, from upside down. 

Alex turns and glances over at her, balanced in a handstand, legs pressed tightly together and toes pointed straight up. “Yep.”

“Do I look like the girl in the video?”

Alex looks over at the YouTube page open on her laptop. “Pretty close.” Her doorbell rings and she walks out of the living room. “You’ve got to do the split part for it to count though,” she teases, opening the door and freezing at the sight of Maggie. “Hi,” she breathes.

“Hey Danvers,” Maggie says with a soft smile.

Myka slams down to the ground behind her, and the three of them drop into an oddly weighted silence until Maggie glances around behind Alex’s back and grins, slow and easy. “Hey, Myka, nice handstand skills.”

“I have a lot of skills,” Myka says, coming up and standing directly in front of Alex, arms crossed as she stares defiantly up at Maggie. “I could kill you with my pinkie if I wanted,” she adds, in a perfect imitation of Kara’s overly cheerful threats.

Maggie’s eyes go wide, and she darts an unsure glance back to Alex, who laughs nervously and grips Myka’s shoulder’s—hard. “She’s been watching way too many movies. Winn’s fault. Myka,” she hisses. “Tell Maggie that you didn’t actually mean that.”

“But I did,” Myka shrugs. “That’d be lying.”

“Then lie,” Ales demands, digging her fingers into Myka’s shoulders—knowing that it doesn’t actually hurt her, just annoys her. Maggie shifts uncomfortably from one foot to another and Myka heaves a dramatic sigh before giving her the world’s least sincere apology. “I’m sorry,” Alex piles on, pushing Myka back towards the couch and her laptop. “I didn’t think I was going to have to watch her today. Kara had a work emergency with Snapper, and Lena is crazy busy and also, she and Kara are sort of avoiding each other right now because of, um, things.”

“Things like how they’re both totally hot for each other?” Maggie teases once Alex motions for her to come inside.

“What?” Myka asks, head snapping back up to attention. Alex closes her eyes and prays for an alien to attack, a small natural disaster, hell, a bank robbery—anything that will allow her to run from this conversation. “What do you mean? Are they sick!?” she panics.

“Um,” Maggie looks to Alex for help and seriously, of all the times work has ruined her life with its timing before, she is owed one now, surely.  

Alex sucks in a breath, it’ll be fine, just like ripping off a Band-Aid. Get it over with. “Myka, Kara and Lena are both fine. Hot for each other is an expression. It means that they like each other. Speaking of,” she adds pointedly, turning to look over at Maggie. “Maggie and I are dating now, so, you need to stop with the weird threats and glaring. We were going to tell you and Kara later today, but, well… now we're going to visit Mom tonight instead, so.”

Myka sits up fully and stares between them both. Finally, she settles on Maggie, and Alex prepares herself for whatever is about to come out of the nine-year-old’s unpredictable mouth.

“You’re dating?” she asks.

Alex nods, unable to help the smile that fills her face at the word. They’ve technically gone on three dates—if you count the make-out session on Alex’s couch four days ago—which she definitely does. Alex has been wanting to scream it from the rooftops since that very moment, but with Myka’s suspension, and Kara telling Lena about being Supergirl—there’s been a lot going on in a very short amount of time.

“So…” Myka stares at Maggie with narrowed eyes. “What are your intentions?” she finally asks, primly and Alex bursts out laughing, which quickly delves into a sort of panicked, choking thing that has Maggie jumping over and nervously rubbing at her back until she calms down. “That’s what my dad asked a boy who he found kissing one of my sisters once!” Myka defends. “It’s important! Plus,” she points her finger angrily at Maggie, “before, she made you really sad, so I don’t think that I like her even,” she huffs, the frown on her face dropping the longer she looks at Maggie. “Maybe,” she adds.  

“To be happy,” Maggie says, calmly answering. “And to make Alex happy.”

Alex fucking swoons. It’s incredibly embarrassing. It’s made even more embarrassing because Myka—like Kara—picks up on it on basically a cellular level and gapes at Alex for a few minutes. She stares between them, then grins, almost as widely as Alex is grinning.

“Well, that’s okay then,” she declares happily. “But, if you stop making her happy,” Myka warns. “I can kill you with my pinkie.”

“Myka!”

“Right, cause of the alien strength thing,” Maggie says with an easy shrug. “I got it kid,” she holds up her pinkie finger and Myka grins and locks hers with it automatically before Maggie’s words sink fully in. “Promise.”

Alex and Myka both gape at Maggie together. Myka, still with her pinkie locked with Maggie’s, gulps and looks up at Alex with panic. “What?” Alex sputters nervously. “I don’t — she’s — that’s — haha, what?”

“Alex,” Maggie says, motioning down to Myka as she gently releases her pinkie. “Come on. She’s… probably one of the most alien aliens that I’ve met who isn’t visibly different looking. And, I mean, Kara’s disguise is glasses. Even without that, I’ve never seen you get more worked up or nervous about anyone’s wellbeing as much as Kara’s—and Supergirl’s.”

Alex is still gaping at her as Myka comes over and stands beside her, looking nervously between them both now. The one thing that has actually stuck and been drilled into her since moving in with Kara is the importance of keeping this secret. She reaches up and holds Alex’s hand.

“I’m a detective Alex,” Maggie adds. “And honestly, you guys aren’t… all that subtle.”

“I’ve told her that disguise wouldn’t work a hundred times,” Alex finally says with a relieved sigh. The thought of lying to Maggie about Kara and Myka constantly was terrifying, it’s more of a relief than anything to not have to worry about it anymore. Even if the fact that it was so easily guessed is a little worrying, in the long run. She swings Myka’s hand a little, hoping to calm her down.

Myka looks up at Maggie with a new light, for the second time this afternoon. “You’re smart,” she says, in awe.

“Thanks,” Maggie responds with a smile. It is really embarrassing how much that affects Alex. God, to think she thought that she was incapable of feeling this only a few months ago is crazy. It feels amazing, to finally have this part of her life figured out—mostly.  

Myka sticks her free hand out, pulling away from Alex and going down into a deep and perfect curtsy, adding a sweeping motion with her hand that Alex has never seen before. She forgets sometimes, that this kid is legit royalty. That she has been trained for all these formal and intricate things, but also, doesn’t know what personal space is or how to tie her shoelaces. “I’m Princess Mon-El of Daxam, seventh daughter to King Lar-Gand and Queen Rhea,” she straightens up fully, “but on Earth I go by Myka Matthews. I like the Myka part a lot better,” she grins and sticks her hand out to shake before frowning. “But I don’t like the Matthews part at all.”

Maggie accepts her hand and shakes it with a smile, taking all the new information in stride. “Well, I’ll stick with Myka then.”

Myka beams and bounces up and down on her toes. “Want to see me do gymnastics?”

“No flips!” Alex says quickly. “I already need a new lamp!” Maggie’s laughter rings out in Alex’s ears and she feels a perfect kind of happiness that she never thought possible when Maggie turns back around and beams at her, hand reaching out, teasing, come on Danvers, show us what you got, playing on her lips. “Oh, you better prepare yourselves,” Alex laughs and throws her body into a terrible handstand as Myka squeals with delight and Maggie laughs and laughs and laughs, and Alex could not wish for anything else in this moment. Not even kicking Myka out to have make out time on the couch.

Well, maybe.

…

…

“You’re way better at this than Kara,” Myka states happily. Alex cracks with laughter as Kara pouts from the other side of the kitchen.

“Kara has many other talents,” Eliza says easily. “Frankly, I’m a little bit thrilled that neither of my girls are particularly apt bakers,” she turns and smiles at both of them, whipping the batter expertly. “It means they have to come home for treats and see me.”

“We should do this every weekend,” Myka declares, swiping a finger into the frosting while Eliza isn’t looking.

“I saw that,” she says, eyes on Alex.

Myka freezes and Alex and Kara both roll their eyes. “How?” she asks suspiciously. “Your hearing isn’t as good as mine and Kara’s!”

Eliza turns around and smirks down at Myka. “I have eyes in the back of my head,” she says, pushing the bowl into Myka’s hands. “Stir this.” 

Myka takes the spoon obediently, but keeps a wary eye on Eliza, trying to get a good look at the back of her head. “Do all humans have an extra eye back there?” she asks Alex. “Do you? Does Lena!?”

“Nope, it’s a mother thing,” Alex swipes a bit of frosting of her own and takes great delight in the way that Myka’s eyes go large, the spoon not quite making the full round of the bowl anymore.

“It’s an expression,” Kara says with a sigh. “You’ll confuse her,” she swats at Alex’s shoulder, then swipes some frosting right along with her.

“All of you, fingers out of the bowl,” Eliza orders. “Alex, take Myka outside to play—Kara and I will finish in here.” Her voice leaves no room for argument, though Kara and Myka both open their mouths to protest. Alex knows that tone, Kara’s about to get grilled for her moodiness, for telling her secret, probably for kissing Lena—which, Alex still can’t believe. She’s all too happy to get out from the line of fire. Gushing about Maggie might be her new favorite thing, and her mother’s increasing grin at Alex’s happiness is… amazing, but also, highly embarrassing. She’s already had her turn of Eliza’s rapid fire questions, it’s Kara’s now.

She reaches over and hauls Myka up and over her shoulder, the girl squirming without any real fight and trying to get in one more swipe of frosting as they exit the kitchen. “But I’m helping!” she protests.

“Come on, you haven’t seen the tree house yet.”

Myka gasps happily and leaps out of Alex’s arms. “Race you,” she yells, running out the door before Alex can grab her.

“Traitor,” Kara whispers. Alex smirks and sticks out her tongue.

She finds Myka already up in the tree house, which freaks her out a little, because it’s been ages since anyone climbed up here, and who knows how the wood is holding up. It was sort of a rush job to begin with—Jeremiah is brilliant, but he’s not great with construction.

Alex climbs slowly, testing her weight on each step until she slowly crawls inside and sits down beside Myka. Close to a thick branch that she can grab in an emergency.

“This is so cool,” Myka whispers, not looking worried about the structure of the wood at all as she bounces up and down on her toes.

“Cool it,” Alex says, and forces her to sit down. “I’m not in the mood to fall out of a tree.”

“I’d catch you,” Myka offers easily, and Alex grins. That’d be a sight for the neighbors.

The two of them are quiet for a few moments, taking in the sunshine and the view of the lake. Alex closes her eyes and leans back against the wall. The last time she can remember coming up here was the night before she left for college. She hadn’t been back up in about four years, it felt like a weird goodbye. Mostly she just cried and missed her dad until Kara came and found her.

“So, are you going to marry Maggie?” Myka asks, ruining the peaceful moment and nearly causing Alex to fall to her death.

“What?” she gapes, grabbing onto the branch.

Myka frowns at her. “Maggie. Are you going to marry her?”

“I’m not — why would you — kid we’ve been on three dates!”

Myka shrugs. “So, yes or no?”

“Why would you think I would know that? This is… we’re still getting to know each other. I’m not even thinking as far as next year, let alone that far into the future.”

“But,” Myka’s frown deepens, and she scoots around so that she’s facing Alex. “She’s your match right? What does time have to do with it? Don’t you have to marry her?”

“What? No.”

Myka scrunches up her face. “But, when my sister Lyla turned eighteen, they matched her with Tyr-Us, the son of a councilman. Same thing with Dara, and Cir-El. They both married noblemen,” her face twists into a deep frown. “I didn’t like either of them, but Tyr-Us was nice enough. “Zara, Ayla, and Elka weren’t old enough yet. Zara was almost,” her frown remains as she picks at the rubber on the sole of her shoe. “She was mad about it. She kept having fights with our parents. She said that she was in love with a girl who worked in the kitchens,” Myka shrugs. “But you can’t marry a servant.”

Alex sits silently and takes this all in, it’s the first time that Myka has even mentioned any of her sisters by name. They’ve been trying not to push her into talking about anything that might be painful, waiting, until she brings it up on her own.

“Well… that sounds like arranged marriages. Which, most cultures don’t really do anymore. Some still do, but that’s definitely not the norm here. People get married if they want to. If they fall in love and it’s something they want. And they’re usually older than eighteen.”

“You’re older than eighteen,” Myka points out.

“Yeah, but I just met Maggie. I’m… not thinking about marriage.” Well, she wasn’t, now, she’s sort of freaking out and amazed that she’s managing to hold her own in this conversation.

“Is Kara going to marry Lena?”

Jesus.

“Um, again, they’ve kissed once, and I don’t think that’s on their minds right now.”

Myka scoots closer up towards Alex, practically dragging herself onto Alex’s lap. “It’d be so awesome though! Then we’d all get to live together!” her excitement immediately drops. “Wait, I’d still live with Kara if she got married — right?” she looks down at Alex’s lap instead of her face. “Or, would she send me away so she could have her own family?”

Alex reaches over and grabs hold of Myka’s chin, tilting it up and holding her gaze. “You are part of our family now dummy. And Kara will tell you the exact same thing, she’ll just be nicer about it."

“But… Lena might want her own family,” she bites at her lower lip.

“How about we stop worrying about hypothetical marriages that may never even happen, and worry about how many cookies we’re going to sneak when Mom isn’t looking?”

Myka grins. “I want twenty-four.”

Alex bursts out laughing and starts to slowly make her descent from the tree house. “Ambitious, I like it.”

Myka forgoes the ladder and leaps to the ground, beaming up at Alex. “Lena said that to me when we met.”

“Well,” Alex takes the last three rungs carefully and sighs with relief when her feet hit the dirt. Success. “Great minds think alike and all that.”

“Is that another Earth expression?”

“Yep.”

“And… Eliza really doesn’t have an extra eye behind her head?”

Alex shrugs. “If she does, I’ve never seen it,” she places her hands on her hips, squinting into the kitchen window. Eliza and Kara look deeply locked into their conversation, Eliza moving to wrap Kara up into a tight hug. Not a great time to scavenge for treats. “Want to go for a run before we eat all those cookies?”

“Yeah!” Myka cheers.

Alex nods for her to follow and the two of them begin to jog side by side. Alex keeps Myka in closer towards the grass, and takes the side near the road. She’s glad that they’re already wearing comfy enough clothes to run in.

They jog mostly in silence for a little while, apart from the laughter accompanied from a small bout of trying kick each other in the butt without stopping. They’re going at a comfortable enough pace to talk, and Alex finally opens her mouth and asks what’s been on the tip of her tongue since Myka brought it up.

“So, what were your sisters like?”

Myka looks up in surprise, then quickly puts her eyes back on the road. There are barely any cars out here, they haven’t made it close enough to town. Myka’s face changes entirely when she opens her mouth and starts talking. There’s a weird flicker of emotion, detachment, and anger, and pride all at once before it drops back to a sort of neutral.

“Lyla’s the oldest. She has a son named Ray-Us. He was born when I was two. I helped with him sometimes, when she would come back home to visit the palace. She looks like our mother, but she’s… nicer,” Myka shrugs, as if the information that her mother isn’t as nice is just a fact of the world. Alex’s fists clench tighter as they run.

“Really, what about the others?”

“Dara has two daughters,” Myka’s face wrinkles into a frown. “They’re really annoying but nobody ever yells at them when they pull at my hair or kick servants if they’re mad. Cir-El doesn’t have any kids, she only got married two years ago. I think she likes him fine, but I think that he smells funny and he smiles kind of weird. Like he’s faking it. My mom hates him,” she smirks. “But she puts up with him because his mother is her friend. Sort of. I mean, my mom doesn’t really have friends, but it’s probably the closest thing.”

“Wow,” is all Alex says.

“Zara’s the nicest,” Myka continues happily, nowhere near out of breath. “She almost always lets me into her room, and borrow her books, and she helps me hide from my tutors sometimes. Alya barely ever talks, and now that she’s got boobs, she hunches over all the time trying to hide them. Our mother has to tell her to stand up straight like fifty times a day. Elka makes fun of her. They’re only a year apart, but everybody thinks that Elka is older cause she acts like it, even though she only just turned thirteen,” Myka rolls her eyes. “We had this huge party, everyone was there for the first time in forever, even Lyla. But, then… well,” she goes quiet, and she picks up speed, Alex sprinting to keep up with her. “Well, then you know the rest. Zara put me in the pod and I came here.”

“Your sister did?” Alex huffs, she never thought to ask how Myka got into the pod. Now, she has no idea why the thought never crossed her mind.

Myka nods. “She wouldn’t get in it with me. She went back to try and find the kitchen girl,” she stops in her tracks, looking up at Alex and pressing her palms together. “Do you think maybe they found another pod? Maybe they got out too?”

Alex stops beside her, breathing heavily now. She bends down and crouches at Myka’s eye level anyway. “It’s possible. She sounds like a pretty good big sister to me.”

Myka smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah. You kind of remind me of her.”

Alex’s heart swells painfully and she grabs hold of Myka’s hand, rising from her crouch and swinging it back and forth between them. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was,” Myka smiles up at her. A real one.

“Race you back for cookies?” Alex dares.

Myka beams. “You’re on,” and then she takes off, beating Alex by a mile. It doesn’t feel anything like a loss when Alex finally pants back up to the porch, and Myka is doing a victory cheer, the weight of a whole world, dead and gone, no longer pressing her shoulders down in this moment.

“You win,” Alex pants, bending over and heaving and she flops dramatically to the steps. Myka jumps around her, continuing her victory cheer. Kara steps out onto the porch and laughs at them both, and Alex can’t help but smile at the sight of Myka cheering louder, and jumping on top of Kara, yelling out her victory as Kara spins them both around.

“Loser gets the first cookie,” Eliza declares, coming over and kissing Alex on the cheek. Myka gasps in indignation, and Alex smirks as she chomps down on the cookie, sticking her tongue out and laughing as Eliza rolls her eyes.

…

…

Myka bangs away enthusiastically on Eliza’s piano for the hundredth time this weekend, determined to find a tune inside of her somewhere.

Kara’s pretty sure that it’s never going to happen, but it is making her happy, and it’s making her pay more attention to touch—which was the whole idea.

“Five more minutes,” Kara calls out to her, dropping their bags down beside the front door. Her phone dings with a new message, and Kara digs it out of her pocket, freezing at the name on the screen.

Lena.

She swallows, swiping the screen open and tapping until the message is in front of her. She hasn’t heard a word from Lena since Thursday. When she kissed Kara. When Kara told her that she was Supergirl. It’s been an agonizing two and a half days.

[Lena 10:26 a.m.] When you get home, I’d like to talk.

[10:26 a.m.] I’ll drop Myka off with Winn. Is one okay?

[Lena 10:28 a.m.] Yes. Your apartment, or mine?

[10:29 a.m.] whatever you want.

(…)

Kara watches the typing bubble start, then stop again twice. Myka starts singing tunelessly along with her attempts at ‘Chopsticks’ and Kara worries at her bottom lip. Finally—

[Lena 10:37 a.m.] My address is 218 Spear St. Apartment 8E. Give your name to Henry, the man at the front desk. I’ll put you on my list. He’ll let you up.

[10:39 a.m.] okay, I’ll see you at one.

Kara clicks her phone off, and lets out a breath. Eliza walks out of the kitchen and frowns at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not — Lena texted me,” Kara admits. There’s no point in lying. Eliza can always tell. Besides, she told her the entire story yesterday while Alex and Myka were outside. She already knows everything anyway.

“What did she say?” Eliza asks. She wasn’t… as thrilled or as supportive of Kara telling Lena her secret as Alex has been, but Kara gets why. Eliza doesn’t know Lena. She’s not thrilled about Maggie knowing either, or even Winn and James, apparently.

(Though she was thrilled when Alex announced that she and Maggie are dating, and insisted that she come for the next visit so she can meet her. Which threw Alex into the deepest blush that Kara has ever seen. She and Myka teased her about it for the whole rest of the day. Alex very nearly left to go sleep on the couch in the middle of the night when Myka couldn’t stop giggling. Kara had clamped a hand over her mouth and shoved a pillow over her head until Alex lay back down in her old bed, shooting daggers and the two of them curled up in Kara’s.)

Eliza’s fear has much less to do with not trusting any of them than it has to do with maternal worry, and Kara knows this, even without Eliza reassuring her more than once. She just doesn’t want anything bad to happen—again.

“She’s ready to talk,” Kara shrugs. Listening to Alex yell loudly, ‘for the love of god, all done on the piano!’  and laughs along with Eliza.

“Maybe lessons for that one,” she jokes.

“Yeah,” Kara smiles. “Someone with a very strong piano and even stronger patience.”

“Whatever Lena says,” Eliza walks over and wraps her arms around Kara. “It was very brave of you to open yourself up like that, and I’m proud of you.”

Kara swallows thickly and hugs Eliza back. “Thanks.”

Eliza kisses her temple as Myka abandons the piano and runs into the front hall, Alex right behind her. “Are we leaving now?”

“Not without a hug,” Eliza demands, releasing Kara and opening her arms. Myka throws herself at them, causing Eliza to stumble and grunt as she catches her. She laughs when Myka tries to pull some of her hair back, looking for an eye in the back of her head for the fifth time this weekend. “You’ll never find it,” Eliza teases, and kisses Myka’s temple too.

Myka shrugs and skips over to Kara happily while Alex hugs their mother. Then Alex grabs hold of their bags, and Kara gets a good hold on the both of them, and then they’re up in the air, flying away as Eliza waves from the porch. Kara’s stomach twisting into nervous knots.

…

…

Lillian shows up on Saturday.

Lena has barely been able to think of anything other than Kara and Myka since Thursday evening. Her meeting the next morning was a disastrous blur, and she’s never been more thankful for it to be the weekend before. Jess was shocked when she left at three p.m. with no files in her hands. Lena was too.

She nearly called Kara as she walked home, but then remembered the text from that morning.

[Kara 8:25 a.m.] We’re going to Eliza’s for the weekend. We’ll be back on Sunday. Let me know whenever you’re ready to talk — I can be there basically in a few minutes.

Lena hadn’t responded. She still doesn’t know what she wants to say. Lena doesn’t know how to do this; relationships are so out of her purview that it isn’t even funny. Sex and expensive presents, she can do. But, maintaining a relationship, Lena is wildly out of her depth. Adding her complicated feelings about Supers, and aliens into the mix—

Her daily email from Myka hadn’t mentioned anything about the secret—or the kiss. So, Kara hasn’t spoken to her about it yet it would seem. Lena doesn’t know if that is making her panic more, or if it’s a relief.

True to her word, Kara hasn’t called, or texted since—giving Lena space to work out her feelings. Myka emails her every day. Cookies and piano seem to be at the forefront of their family weekend.

It’s painful how much Lena aches to see Myka happily helping in the kitchen again, as she makes more of a mess than anything, or to hear what sort of piano skills she possesses. It’s ridiculous, to miss someone this much after only two days apart. Completely ridiculous.

It’s quickly becoming her new normal.

So, of course, Lillian shows up when Lena’s at her lowest, one finger away from calling Kara and begging her to come home.

“I’m not on the list?” Lillian snips once Lena has assured Henry that it’s alright to let Lillian up—this time.

“No one is on it Mom,” Lena says with a sigh. “Just my assistant. I’m new to the building. And to the city. Also, I haven’t seen you in months.”

Lillian hums, and inspects the apartment. It’s not particularly lived in, apart from her bedroom, which Lena has no intentions of letting her mother see.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” she offers. Lillian hasn’t even moved to take off her coat.

“No thank you dear, I can’t stay long.”

Of course not.

Lena shifts, suddenly aware of the latest email from Myka, open on her laptop right next to where Lillian is standing. “What can I do for you Mom?” she asks, trying to direct her attention.

“You invited Supergirl to a party of yours,” she says. It’s an accusation, not a question.

Lena frowns. It was also months ago now. “Yes?” she doesn’t flinch underneath her mother’s unwavering gaze. “It was good publicity for L-Corp. As you can see from our stocks the last few months. It’s the highest that they’ve been since before the trial.”

Lillian doesn’t smile. “Superman is the reason that your brother is in jail.”

“Lex is the reason that Lex is in jail,” Lena counters.  

“Perhaps,” Lillian turns slowly, her eyes scanning past Lena’s laptop and settling on Lena’s face. “Still, those aliens aren’t to be trusted Lena. Publicity is all well and good, but don’t make a habit of it. There are other ways. Be smart enough to think of them.”

“That party was months ago Mom,” Lena snaps. “And you didn’t even respond to my invitation, let alone show up. So, why are you bringing this up now?”

“I’m just looking out for you dear,” Lillian says, in that way that always makes Lena’s head hang a little lower, chastised for something that she can never figure out.

“Supergirl has saved my life twice,” Lena says, her voice coming out thankfully steady. (And Supergirl is Kara.) “If I don’t want people to look at me and expect the same as Lex, I’m not going to look at her and expect the same as Superman. It only seems fair.”

Lillian’s eye flare dangerously, and Lena knows that she’s said the wrong thing. Defended Kara too strongly. Her mother’s hatred is blind when it comes to Superman, irrational and unrelenting. Nine times out of ten, Lena sort of can’t help but feel the same. She didn’t even mean to defend Supergirl like that; it wasn’t what she thought she was going to say when she opened her mouth, but now that it’s out there, Lena finds that she doesn’t want to take it back. It’s true, even if Supergirl and Kara weren’t the same person.

But they are.

“I see,” Lillian says, slowly. She turns, walking back over towards the door, and when she turns back around and looks at Lena, she feels her spine straighten up on instinct. “Don’t lose focus Lena,” she opens the door and hesitates, like she wants to say more. Lena waits, but Lillian just sort of softens for half a second, then turns and walks down the hall. Lena heaves a sigh of relief, anger, and something like regret.

She doesn’t call Kara.

…

…

The next morning, she wakes to an alert from Myka’s latest email, which means that she’s slept past eight a.m. Which hasn’t happened in ages. Her mother’s words ring around inside of her head as she reads Myka’s detailed email with a blooming smile. She stews on them while she makes herself some coffee. While she pours frozen fruit and yogurt into a bowl and waits for it to soften, while she re-reads Myka’s email, and Kara’s texts, and remembers the feeling of Kara’s lips on her own.

Kara is Supergirl.

It’s one thing, to suspect, to be almost sure, the truth of it presses down onto Lena’s chest until she can’t quite breathe. She abandons her breakfast for now and pulls out her yoga mat, sitting unused in her closet. The positions come back to her with ease after a few minutes, and Lena focuses on her breathing.

Not on Kara. Not Myka.

Not Supergirl, or aliens of any kind.

Just her breath inside of her body. She’s halfway through a fifth sun salutation when she loses the battle of not thinking about Kara, but she doesn’t stop. Her body goes up, halfway, down; breathe in, breathe out, think about Kara’s lips.

It becomes a mantra in of itself.

She breathes into warrior one and thinks about being in that helicopter, Supergirl pulling it back down to safety as all of her breath left her body, her hands shaking. She breathes out and thinks of Kara’s article on her, the first reporter in ages that had given her the benefit of the doubt, but hadn’t blindly touted out PR gloss, ignoring everything that Lena was working towards. She drops down into warrior two and thinks about how simply and happily Kara agreed to come to Lena’s party when she begged. About the fact that she was just as willing to come as Supergirl. About the… almost proud look on Supergirl’s face when Lena had managed to get the blast to wipe out the alien technology to work.

She twists her body into crow, balancing precariously on her elbows and thinking about Myka’s face, that night in the grocery store, shy and quiet and unsure. She thinks about the fierce little way that Myka promised to protect her from brownie batter the next day. She breathes out, drops down into cobra and pictures her crushing hugs, and the way that her face lights up whenever she sees Lena. She breathes in and thinks about Kara’s lips, again, and sags down to the floor.

Lena lays there on her back, breathing heavily as a sharp certainty grows in the pit of her stomach. She has a lot of questions, but the answers to them don’t seem as important as how calm, happy, and wanted Kara and Myka both make her feel. Even as she’s terrified by it.

She rolls over, picks up her phone and types out a message to Kara.

She receives an answer immediately, and she beams as she drags herself up off the floor and back to her yogurt and fruit. When Kara asks her where she would like to talk, Lena freezes. Kara has never been inside of her apartment, but it feels too much like giving her all of the power in this situation for Lena to go to her. Lena hesitates for another minute before deciding that she needs the security of being in her own apartment for this, and types out her address.

Now, she just has to wait.

She manages to finish about half of her breakfast before dumping the rest of it down the garbage disposal. She takes her time in the shower, a luxury that she almost never bothers with, letting the hot water slowly loosen her muscles until it begins to grow cold. By the time that she is dressed, her hair up in a wet bun, she’s antsy again. She does all of her dishes, starts laundry, wipes down every counter, rearranges her living room furniture and vacuums.

It’s still only noon.

Lena scrounges up something for lunch and pulls out her laptop, diving into work. It’s the only thing that will actually manage to keep her distracted. She goes over everything from her meeting on Friday, amazed by how many notes she has with how zoned out she was throughout—Jess deserves a raise. She’s finally got a bit of a rhythm going and is just finishing an email to an investor when there is a light knock on her door.

It’s exactly one o’clock.

Kara.

Lena shoves her laptop away and glances down at herself. She was going to change. She was going to put on makeup. Shit. Lena opts for smoothing down her old Harvard t-shirt, and walks over towards the door on somewhat shaky legs. This is not how she wanted to look when Kara showed up. She doesn’t think that anyone has seen her in a t-shirt and leggings since she was in undergrad, when she bought this damn t-shirt.

Lena peaks through the hole in the door and curses; Kara looks lovely in a yellow sundress, her hair half pulled back, clearly trying not to fidget with her glasses. The fact that she looks as nervous as Lena feels brings her a sudden sense of calm, and she opens the door and smirks.

“So, do you need the glasses or not?”

Kara reaches for them on instinct. “Um,” her eyes widen at the sight of Lena’s clothes, and she visibly swallows when she looks at Lena’s legs. Maybe the leggings aren’t such a bad thing after all. “I don’t,” she says, looking back up and meeting Lena’s eyes. “But it’s more… habit and comfort I guess? My foster dad gave them to me,” she shrugs.

“Oh,” Lena says dumbly. Then, she shakes her head and steps back, opening the door all the way. “Come in.”

She doesn’t know how Kara’s… powers work exactly, but she has a pretty good feeling that Kara is fully aware of how hard her heart is beating inside of her chest, because she follows slowly, like she’s trying to maintain a respectful distance between them. Kara inspects Lena’s apartment completely different from the way Lillian had the day before; where Lillian cast judgement, Kara looks like she is trying to soak it all up.

“Do you want some water?” Lena offers. “Or something to eat?”

“No, I’m fine.”

It’s the first time that Lena has ever seen Kara refuse an offer for food. She blinks and stares at her until Kara realizes and begins to laugh. “I… ate a lot on the way over here. I was nervous.”

“How much did you eat?”

Kara bites at her lower lip, almost hesitating, then says, “Ten hot dogs, two churros, four donuts and a burrito with everything.”

“Seriously?”

Kara nods, looking sheepish.

“Is that because…”

Kara nods again. “My metabolism is different from humans. Faster. Underneath a yellow sun.”

“A yellow sun?”

“Krypton has a red sun. I didn’t — I didn’t have any powers there. It’s only because the radiation from a yellow sun is different than back home, that I do here.”

“What are your powers exactly?” Lena asks. “Apart from being incredibly strong and able to fly?”

“Um, freeze breath, heat vision, x-ray vision, super hearing, sight, speed,” she lists them off quickly, almost embarrassed. “I don’t get sick, my skin’s… I can’t get blood drawn or cut or anything. I’m sort of fireproof.”

“Fireproof?”

“Well…. kind of, yeah.”

Lena sits down on her couch, motioning for Kara to sit beside her. “What about Myka?”

“No freeze breath, heat or x-ray vision. And as far as we know, she can’t fly. But Cl—Kal couldn’t fly until he was in his twenties, so, maybe.”

“Kal? Is that Superman’s name?”

“I can’t… um, yes. But Lena, I can’t tell you who he is. That’s not my secret to tell.”

“Okay,” Lena says, shifting and tucking one leg up underneath her. “That’s fine. But he’s… really your cousin? And Myka?”

“Um, Kal, yes. Our fathers were brothers. Myka isn’t from Krypton. She’s from a planet called Daxam. Thousands of years ago, some people from Krypton migrated there in a rebellion. We’ve sort of been at odds ever since to… put it mildly.”

“So, she’s not related to you?”

“No.”

“Then… why? I mean, there has to be someplace else for her to go?”

“She was in a Kryptonian pod. I thought — I thought there were more survivors. But,” Kara shrugs, looking down at her lap. “I was only a little older than her, when I woke up in a pod on a foreign planet. I know exactly what she feels like, except that I got to say goodbye—however briefly. I wasn’t about to abandon her.”

Lena stares over at Kara, and it hits her, the enormity of it. There are two whole worlds dead and gone. It’s more than just one family or a few remembered laughs and touches. There are hundreds of fathers dead. Brothers gone in more ways than just out of sight. There are no more mothers, jerks, waitresses, or kind old ladies. A whole world is burnt up and just gone from existence. No more dog-eared paperback books, magnificent skyscrapers, thousand-year-old trees, playgrounds, stores, purple irises—but a heart can only hold so much. Kara is trying to hold an entire world inside of her.

Lena reaches over and pulls her into a hug without thinking. Kara jerks in surprise, but then her arms slowly wrap around Lena too, and they hold on like that, silently, until it becomes awkward and they both pull back with shaky laughs.

“I’m sorry,” Lena says.

“I’m not,” Kara smiles. “I like hugs.”

Lena laughs and rises from the couch, walking over towards the kitchen and getting herself a glass of water. She raises her eyebrows in question and this time Kara nods, following her and accepting the glass when Lena passes it over.

Lena studies Kara while they both drink. She tries to really push Supergirl and Kara into one being in her mind, to reconcile them both with the girl standing in front of her.

“Can you—”

Kara hovers, floating up until her legs are at Lena’s eye length and Lena gapes up at her. She floats back down nervously, and before she can open her mouth—to apologize, to explain—Lena doesn’t know, she doesn’t care, at this moment. She reaches over and tugs Kara to her, bringing their lips together again.

This kiss is much different than their hesitant, shy one in the car a few days ago. Neither of them is trying to be quiet for a sleeping child, and all of their cards are pretty much out on the table now. Lena wraps herself around Kara and delights in the surprised moan that she gets in response. Kara’s body is warm and strong and when she tugs Lena even closer, the moan escapes from Lena this time.

Lena is the first to reach in and kiss Kara, and she is the first one to pull back. She doesn’t go far, her hands are still resting on Kara’s elbows, which are still wrapped around Lena’s torso. “I’m not… going to be very good at this,” she admits.

“Kissing?” Kara laughs. “I’m pretty sure that’s the best kiss I’ve ever had. I think you’re fine.”

“No,” Lena smirks. “Though that’s good to know. I meant — Kara, as my only real friend I’m sure that you’ve guessed I’m terrible at keeping any sort of relationship alive. Platonic or otherwise. Not to mention… what about Myka? I’m just saying that…”

“Do you — do you want us to stay friends?” Kara asks slowly, pulling back from her just a little. Lena’s entire body protests, following as she leans back into her.

“No,” she says. “I’m just… trying to be honest.”

“Oh, well then in the spirit of honesty, I’ve also never really um, done this sort of thing before. With much success.”

Lena looks up and meets her eye. Kara looks nervous again, and the sight of it brings on a sense of calm again. That’s going to be helpful. She leans in and kisses her softly again, and Kara smiles into her mouth. “I guess we’ll both just have to figure it out as we go then,” she says once she’s pulled back.

“Sounds like a plan,” Kara is practically vibrating with excitement now, and her smile could probably break something, it’s so big. “So, um, does that mean we’re dating now? Just, for clarification?”

Lena smirks, this might not end up being as hard as she thought. She kisses Kara. “Yes,” she kisses her again. “For clarification.”

Kara beams and Lena presses herself closer. They’re still in the middle of Lena’s kitchen, making out like a pair of teenagers when Kara’s phone goes off. “Sorry,” she reaches for it. “It’s Winn, he’s got Myka so I—”

“Answer it,” Lena directs easily.

“Hi Winn, is this an emergency?” Kara asks, looking flushed and frustrated. Lena bends her head down and starts pressing kisses along Kara’s neck, relishing in the way that she whimpers, her voice cracking as she tries to talk.

“Um, okay Kara, don’t freak out,” Winn’s voice says through the phone line. Lena freezes at the exact same time that Kara does.

“Why?” Kara says, her voice strained for very different, non-kissing reasons. Lena takes her lips off Kara’s neck and stands up straight, her ear pressed right next to the phone along with Kara. “What’s wrong?”

“Look, she’s fine,” Winn says.

Lena grabs the phone before she can even think about what she is doing, and snaps. “What happened you numskull?”

“Lena?”

“Winn, what happened!?” Kara yells. It’s only then that Lena realizes that she grabbed the phone away from Kara, and she quickly holds it out between the two of them, hitting the speakerphone button.

“Well, she fell. I mean, jumped a little bit. Look we were having this competition—” he starts.

“I’m going over there,” Kara announces and Lena realizes that she’s about two seconds away from flying out of her apartment.

She makes a snap judgment and grabs hold of Kara. “Me too.”

Thankfully, she doesn’t have much time to panic about flying in Supergirl’s arms, because she’s panicking too much about Myka, and they’re in Winn’s apartment in a matter of minutes. Despite running terrified into the living room and looking for Myka, Kara still lets her down so gently it almost aches.

“What happened!?”

“Kara!” Myka yells, coming out of the bathroom. “Look at my mouth!” there’s a lisp to her voice that Lena’s never noticed before, and she gasps when she notices the difference. Two of her top front teeth are gone. Myka jumps up and grins, mouth open wide as Kara freezes in place.

“What…”

Myka looks behind Kara and notices Lena for the first time. Her grin—if possible—widens and Lena’s heart clenches in a way that’s becoming familiar. “Lena!” she cheers. “Look at my teeth!” she dances over to Lena and grabs her hands, swinging and bouncing up and down so Lena can get a better look.

“I told you not to freak out,” Winn says. “Don’t freak out means it’s not a fly right over here emergency.”

Kara sags with relief, then she frowns, winds up, and smacks him on the shoulder. “Why’d you call and freak me out then!” she asks as Winn dramatically rubs at his shoulder. “You knew where I was!”

“I…” Winn points accusingly down at Myka. “She made me!”

“No, I didn’t!” Myka yells, with a very guilty looking face. She hasn’t let go of Lena’s hands, and now she turns, leaning back into Lena’s body and holding her hands down in front of her chest. Like it’s something they do all the time. Lena swallows and catches Kara’s eye. The look on her face at the sight of them nearly bowls Lena over, but she digs her feet into the floor and refuses to give into it. Surely this has to stop happening sometime soon.

“She totally did,” Winn whispers to Kara.

Myka looks up at Lena, upside down, and smiles her newly-toothless grin, bright and wicked. “I did a little bit,” she admits. “I wanted to see you.”

Lena’s chest lurches, and when she meets Kara’s eye again, the smile that’s spilling out onto her face is impossible to stand underneath. Kara skips forward, nudging Myka and rolling her eyes, and that smile never leaves her face, and it never stops being directed at Lena. It feels like something that she’s just going to have to get used to.  

“So, everybody knows that everybody is an alien now?” Myka asks, still looking at Lena upside down.

“Um, if they didn’t before, they do now,” Kara says with a laugh.

Myka pulls away from Lena in a panic. “Did I—”

“No,” Kara says, catching her quickly. “She knows.”

“Oh, good,” Myka sighs dramatically, flopping her body at Kara’s, completely dead weight. She twists in Kara’s arms until she’s turned back around, looking up at Lena again. “So,” she smirks, “are you guys consenting to kissing now?” she wriggles her eyebrows, in the same way that Lena has seen Alex do before, and she laughs out loud, remembering the conversation about consent over brownies, forever ago it seems now.

Kara looks suitably embarrassed for half a second, then she just grins at Lena again. “Yes,” she says, not taking her eyes off Lena for a second. “We’re going to be doing a lot of consensual kissing.”

“A lot of it,” Lena agrees with a smirk.

“I… don’t think I need to be here for this,” Winn says, raising his hand for some reason.

“No, probably not,” Kara agrees, and she leans over, Myka still in the middle of them and kisses Lena softly.

“Oh, gross,” Myka grumbles, “let me out!”

“This is my apartment!” Winn yells. “I shouldn’t have to leave my apartment!”

“He makes a solid point,” Lena murmurs into Kara’s mouth.

“Not totally of the mark,” Kara agrees.

“I want to see what eating donuts tastes like with no teeth,” Myka says, trying to push her way out from between them.

Lena catches Kara’s eye, and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

Chapter Text

Lena is doomed.

“YOU HAVE A WHOLE TABLE FULL OF DONUTS!?” Myka screams with delight, jumping up and down and giving Lena a crushing hug before sprinting away.

Jess turns and stares over at Lena. “Aren’t those for the meeting that’s in half an hour?”

“Oops,” Myka turns back around, sheepish, jelly spilling all down the front of her t-shirt and onto the floor. “Um, this one had… stuff in it,” she frowns, putting it back on the table despite having already taken two bites from it. “I guess not all donuts are good,” she reaches for three Boston Crème ones instead, grinning at Lena with her mouth full. Lena smiles back as Jess pinches the bridge of her nose and moves to order more donuts.

Doomed.

…

…

Kara calls four times in two hours, making sure that everything is going okay and asking Lena if she needs to take back her offer of having Myka at L-Corp during her suspension. Lena doesn’t think that she has ever rolled her eyes this hard, or been more charmed in all her life.

By the fourth phone call, Lena has to apologize to a group of investors and hang up on Kara. Myka runs out to Jess, calls Kara back and forgets Lena’s orders of calmly tell her that everything is fine, and instead screams, ‘I’M BEING GOOD, LEAVE ME ALONE’ at the top of her lungs before hanging up. An investor chuckles into his water while another glares at the closed door.

Jess sends Myka on a scavenger hunt down in the labs that distracts her for a good forty minutes. Lena is starting to lose track of how many raises she has given that girl in the last year.

It’s a weird line to balance, being in charge of Myka, but not… really being anything official to her. Lena isn’t her guardian, Kara is. Lena is just… the woman who is dating Kara. She’s also never been alone with Myka for more than a few minutes, never been tasked with discipline, with making sure that she’s fed, and happy, and in general just… okay. That has never been her job before, and now she’s not entirely sure whether or not she is genuinely up for the task.

She spends the entire first morning in a complete panic, working on autopilot, and saying ‘yes’ to everything that Myka asks of her in case she has some sort of tantrum that Lena isn’t equipped to deal with.

“LENA!” Myka comes running back into her office, quickly going quiet once she realizes that it’s in the middle of another meeting. “Hello gentlemen,” she nods to the men seriously, planting her hands on her hips in exactly the same, slightly uncomfortable way that Kara does when she’s being Supergirl. She walks over and stands beside Lena at her desk. “I’m one of Miss Luthor’s many assistants,” she drops her voice to what she clearly thinks is a conspiratorial whisper, but isn’t even close. “Because she does so many big, important, save the world things,” Myka winks and Lena resists the urge to slouch in her seat with embarrassment. It seems to amuse the CEO that she’s trying to schmooze however, so she merely smiles at him as Myka straightens back up and speaks in a normal register. “May I get you some of coffee? Or tea? Or some chocolate milk?”

“You know,” he smiles, beckoning Myka closer. “I would love some chocolate milk.”

Myka claps her hands together excitedly. “Coming right up!” she runs out of the office and Lena breathes a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry about that,” she apologizes. “We’re working on a… sort of potential tutor program.”

Myka reappears, carefully balancing a glass of chocolate milk so dark that Lena wonders if she just dumped an entire bottle of Hershey’s into the single glass.

“Here you go, sir! Would anyone else like anything?”

Everyone in the room turns and looks at Lena, who’s phone rings.

Kara.

Lena pulls a tight smile, silences her phone, and directs Myka to sit as she pulls up the rest of her presentation. Thankfully, Kara doesn’t call back, and Myka sits quietly in the corner until the meeting is over, pretending to take notes. Once everyone has filed out of her office, Lena rounds on Myka, who gives her an absolutely ‘who me?’ look right back.

“Right,” Lena sighs. “New ground rules, then.”

Myka huffs and flops back into her seat. “Alex wins ten dollars,” she pouts. “Can I please borrow ten dollars?”

“I’m… what?”

“She bet that you’d be scared of me and let me do whatever I wanted, but that you’d cave before lunch.” Lena’s eyes go wide as Myka wriggles around in her seat until she’s looking at Lena upside down. “Kara said that was mean, and that she had full confidence in you. I said that you give me what I want because we’re best friends. But if you’re giving me rules, that’s not what I want, so that means I have to give Alex ten dollars.” Myka holds out her hand, smiling at Lena. Still upside down, still toothless—a fact that she keeps remembering at the most random of times. Lena will look over and catch Myka running her tongue over the top of her newly exposed gums, making faces at herself in the mirror or Lena’s phone camera. “May I please borrow ten dollars?”

“To give to Alex on a bet about me?”

“Yep.”

“No,” Lena decides after a moment.

“But… I don’t have any money.”

Lena shrugs, walking back over to her desk. “You can earn it.”

Myka flips over and lands onto the ground with a thud. “How?” she asks, with narrowed eyes.

“Well, first, you can listen to the new rules. Then we can talk about compensation.”

Myka flops her entire body onto the ground and groans, loudly. After a full minute and a half, she says, “Fine,” mumbling into the floor.

But, she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t protest, and she does what Lena asks. Eventually, she even smiles, so… maybe Lena can handle this after all. Maybe Alex is going to owe her the ten dollars. Only seems fair.

…

…

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“… what?”

Lena sighs, looking up from her computer and raising her eyebrows at Myka. “You heard me.”

“But… I thought we were having fun!”

“We’re working,” Lena says dryly. “We’re at work.”

“But… so, I can help you then! Do you need coffee?” she jumps up from the couch and starts to run out of the office.

“Sit,” Lena orders. Myka turns slowly, the beginnings of a frown etching out onto her face. “Homework,” Lena points. “I have coffee already. And you’ve had four glasses of chocolate milk, three boxes of donuts, and two entire pizzas. There are no excuses left. Homework.”

Myka’s frown grows, but she slowly makes her way back over towards the couch, staring at Lena with narrowed eyes as she sinks down and tugs her books onto her lap. “What happens if I don’t?” she asks, a beat later.

“Then you won’t get any more treats later today,” Lena says easily. Knowing Kara, it might not be the entire truth, so, she adds, “You’ll fall behind in school, which will make you less educated. And having an education, having knowledge is one of the most powerful tools that a person can have in their life. I’d be sad if you didn’t take advantage of that opportunity.”

“You’d be mad?” Myka asks, worry in her voice.

Lena looks up from her computer, smiling at her softly. “Is that what I said?”

“No,” Myka says slowly. “But… would you be?”

“No,” Lena answers, turning back to her computer. “I’d be a little disappointed, though, because I know how smart you are. I’ve seen how quickly you can learn when you put your mind to it. It would make me sad if you didn’t want to take advantage of all the opportunities that you’ve been given. Some people don’t get any of them.”

Myka slumps back down into the couch, gaping over at Lena. She bites back a smile and keeps her gaze directed onto her computer, only glancing at Myka out of the corner of her eye. It takes almost everything that she has not to let her heart rate pick up with excitement when Myka grabs her pencil and practically attacks her book with it a few moments later. Her tongue sticks out adorably as she scribbles; Lena snaps a quick photo with her phone while Myka isn’t looking and after saving it, sends it to Kara.

She gets several exclamation points and emoji in return.

The two of them work together well for the rest of the afternoon. Occasionally Myka will groan, or throw one of her books out of reach, pouting and saying that she can’t do it until Lena asks her to explain what’s got her stuck. Each time, it only takes a few minutes of explaining before Lena has her back on track, and newly re-energized once she understands. (You’re way better at explaining things than my teacher!) By the time that Myka has completed everything that her teacher sent for the day, Lena is mostly done with her own work. Or, done enough that she can justify telling Jess to go home and dragging Myka down into the labs with her.

Done enough that by the time Kara shows up, (expecting to ply Lena with food and to have to drag her away from her work) the two of them are adorned with safety glasses and—at Myka’s request—lab coats, learning a few chemistry tricks.

Kara is just as delighted at the explosion as Myka is, though unlike Myka, she doesn’t turn around and nearly climb up Lena with excitement.

It’s hard to grab hold of her—she’s swimming in the lab coat that Lena found for her, and Myka is never still, even for a second—but Lena manages to get all of her limbs under control and some semblance of a grip on her. She grunts underneath the weight when Myka somehow manages to get a leg over her shoulder, teetering until Kara jumps forward and steadies them both.

“Hi,” she grins.

“Oh thank god,” Lena groans. “She’s ruining my hair, get her off my head.”

“Kara!” Myka cheers, and leaps off of Lena. “We’re blowing things up!”

Lena smooths down her hair and dress, smiling almost shyly at Kara, who appears to be tucking Myka underneath her arm like a football. “We’re learning about conducting experiments, actually.”

“Awesome,” Kara beams, jumping forward and crashing her lips against Lena’s eagerly.

“Ew,” Myka groans, kicking her legs out. “Stop putting me in the middle of this!”

Lena and Kara both ignore her, but Kara lets her go and busies her hands with Lena instead. Lena sighs softly into Kara’s mouth when they both pull back. “Was she okay?” Kara asks.

An explosion rings out, and Kara throws Lena behind her. When they both turn and look, Myka’s lab coat is covered in some sort of green slime. She wipes at her goggles until she can see them both, beaming sheepishly over at them with her missing front teeth. “I like science, I think,” she declares. “Look, we can skate in it,” she dances her feet back and forth in the slime, trying for a spin before she falls in it.

“I will make her clean that up,” Kara promises, turning back to Lena.

Myka doesn’t seem at all bothered by her fall as she starts sliding herself around the floor, slithering back and forth like some kind of demented snake. Kara groans and drops her forehead down onto one of Lena’s shoulders. “She’s so weird.” Kara’s forehead is warm, and she’s laughing against Lena’s neck. “What are we gonna do with her?”

And, Lena has more memories of her brother than she knows what to do with, most days. More than she could possibly write down in any book, if she wanted to try and explain the person that he was to her, once upon a time; she is fit to bursting with twenty-five years of butcher-knife smirks and skinned knees and warm, tight hugs that made her feel like there was nothing in the world that could ever get at her, but, Lena doesn’t remember ever being this happy, before.

That has to be sad, somehow. Nearly thirty years old and now is her happiest memory? This? A toothless alien girl slithering around in a slime mixture, beaming up at her, and another, warm and laughing into her neck? Trading kisses back and forth like it’s something that they’ve always done? Might always do from now on?

Lex would be horrified.

There’s not a single bit of Lena that cares, which is alarming and lovely all at once.

“Toss her in a pool, maybe,” she answers, remembering another good memory, once upon a time.

Kara laughs, and Lena allows herself to feel it, to feel how happy she is, without worrying for once about when the other shoe will drop. Even if she knows that it will, eventually. Right now, it doesn’t matter.

…

…

The week goes by slowly, which delights Lena in a way that scares her, a little.

Having Myka around every day is such a shock of emotions, she’s sort of left on the edges of them all, unable to allow herself to really think about what it means, or it will make everything seem far too real, far too soon.

She decides to just lean into it on Wednesday.

Myka has finally learned that when Jess says no, she is in a meeting right now, it means that no matter how excited Myka is about whatever particular thing at that very moment, she has to wait.

Waiting, is not her strong suit.

Lena comes up with an idea after the chocolate milk fiasco that instead of bursting into her meetings, Myka can write Lena a note containing whatever thing she wants to talk about at the current moment—so she doesn’t forget her thought—and she may give it to Lena after the meetings are over. Myka is at first skeptical, then delighted by the prospect. Apparently, she loved writing Lena emails every day, but it just seems sort of dumb now that she’s right there and Myka can talk much faster than she can type, obviously. But now, she gets to do both.

Myka writes mostly about creatures that she’s recently discovered and about sandwiches. She often forgets punctuation or capital letters, and sometimes there are strange little sketches in the margins, labeled in a scrawl that Lena and Kara can’t read but Alex always can.

Lena saves every note in a folder inside of her desk drawer, smiling each time that she adds a new one into the pile. Today, she’s fascinated by a live stream of a giraffe giving birth in a zoo that, frankly, grosses Lena out a little bit, and, as always, birds.

The fastest bird alive is the pergreen FALCON!!!!!! Jess helped me google it. (google is a funny word.so is yahoo Jess said you can call someone a yahoo as a joke PLUS IT’S A DRINK! Do we have it?) the eagle is next but only the golden kind? Do you think we could get an eagle for l-corp?! !!???!!!!!!!!!!!!????!!! PLEASE?!!!!!?

love myka!!!!

p.s. hurry up please!!!

She is apparently extremely jealous that Kara and birds can fly, and that she cannot. Lena doesn’t know what to say in response to that other than, “I can’t fly either.”

Myka’s not impressed with her answer.

The note gets shoved underneath Lena’s office door, in direct violation of the rule: Give It to Jess Once You Are Done. No one apart from Lena and one of the younger assistants seems to notice. He turns and raises his eyebrows at it while his boss speaks and Lena merely shrugs when he catches her eye. When his boss turns, he scrapes it up off the floor, holding onto it until he gets a moment to pass it to Lena. She mouths, thank you, and he only winks in response. When she directs everyone out of the office once the meeting has concluded, he gives her a salute as he follows his boss out.

Due to her credit, Myka manages to remain perfectly seated beside Jess as everyone walks to the lobby. She even waves and tells them all to have a wonderful day and to please come back soon.

Then she crashes into Lena. “Are we done yet?” she asks, looking up from where her forehead has collided with Lena’s stomach and possibly knocked the wind out of her.

“Not quite.”

Myka groans. “That meeting took for-ev-er,” she drawls the word out, knocking her forehead against Lena with each syllable.

“How about you use my laptop and find out some more things to tell me about eagles? Or watch baby goats on YouTube? I should be done in half an hour, and Alex should be here to pick you up by then.”

“Can I sit at your desk with you?” Myka twines their hands together, swinging them as they walk back into Lena’s office. “I’ll wear headphones and I won’t distract you,” she crosses her finger over her chest. “Promise, and hope to die,” she frowns. “There’s more to that, Trevor taught me but I forgot.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” Lena says, pulling the extra chair that Myka has been using back over to her desk. “It’s a saying,” she shrugs and motions for Myka to sit down, getting her laptop set up before sitting down herself.

Myka spins the chair around. “That… is very dumb. Why would you hope to die? And why would anyone stick needles in their eye? Or ANYWHERE? Nobody sticks needles in anybody on Daxam.”

“Really?” Lena turns, intrigued. “How do doctors distribute medicine or vaccines?”

Myka shrugs. “Which goat video should I watch first?”

Lena rolls her eyes and turns back to her desktop, still curious what their society used if not needles. She’s going to have to ask Kara if she knows. “Whatever you want.”

“Can we get a goat with our eagle?”

“What?”

“L-Corp should have mascots! Also, I should have a pet. Two rocks!” she grins, placing the headphones on and spinning around four times before she stops and plugs them into the laptop.

“The phrase is two birds, one stone.”

“I only need one bird,” Myka yells, now that the clip has started playing. “Just an eagle!”

Jess sticks her head around the door. “What?”

Lena quickly waves her off before Myka catches sight of her. “Nothing.” The last thing she needs is Myka trying to convince Jess that she needs more food. She’s already suspicious enough of her eating habits.

Lena works with a light hum of music playing, occasionally intercut with Myka’s giggles. She had been worried, earlier in the week, that she wouldn’t be able to get anything done with Myka here, and would have to take back her offer. Thankfully, as excitable as Myka is, the few mishaps have all been relatively minor. Chocolate milk and a few notes aside, Myka is thrilled to just sit beside Lena while she works and read a book, or watch a movie, or dig into her own homework. As long as she gets to be in the same room as Lena, she is perfectly happy to mostly entertain herself and let Lena work.

The only two people that Lena can remember working this well with are Lex and Jack.

Myka giggles again, clamping a hand over her mouth and slinking down into her seat. She looks up at Lena and tries to whisper, but doesn’t manage it at all. “When you’re done, you have to watch this one. They’ve got sweaters.”

They’re both laughing at the video when Alex strolls into her office. Myka perks up at the sight of her, but doesn’t bolt over and crash into Alex, which Lena makes a note of only because Myka does that to her literally every time that she sees her. Even after Lena came back from the bathroom, once.

“Whatcha watching?

“Baby goats,” Myka spins her chair around and taps at Alex’s legs, once she’s close enough. “Lena’s gonna get an eagle for L-Corp.”

“I am not,” Lena says, quickly shutting that idea down. Myka whips around and gives her a pout that very nearly has her folding and reaching for the phone to ask Jess where, exactly, one could purchase an eagle before she catches Alex’s eye. “No one is getting an eagle. They’re wild birds. They don’t want to be mascots. Or pets.”

Myka pouts further, sinking into her chair, and Lena might actually be dying right now. This must be what kryptonite feels like to Kara.

“Goats aren’t wild,” Myka tries, a beat later.

“You’re dangerous,” Alex declares, reaching over and scooping her out of the chair. Lena agrees with Alex, if she thought that paying for school was extravagant, this is another thing entirely. Alex shakes Myka gently until she’s not pouting anymore, then throws Myka over her shoulder. “And you,” she points at Lena, “are eight-hundred times worse than Kara.”

“Excuse me?” she leans back into her seat and crosses her arms.

“When she pouts, Kara flies right out to get her what she asks for, and you jump to buy it. At this rate, she is gonna be the most spoiled, weird, alien princess around.”

“I am not,” Myka protests, trying to climb her way back around Alex’s front.

“You totally are,” Alex says, she loosens her grip slightly and holds Myka out towards Lena, reminiscent of the first time that Myka ever visited her office, a few months ago now. “Say bye,” she orders. “Maggie’s waiting for me.”

“She can stay longer if you need her to,” Lena offers. “I can bring her back later.”

“Oh, no that’s cool,” Alex shrugs, then grunts as Myka lunges and manages to get her upper body wrapped around Lena’s neck. “She’s just got take out. Eating early before she has to go back to work on her case. Plus, this one’s always hungry.”

“Oh, okay,” Lena hugs Myka back. It gets a little less awkward, feels a little more natural, each time that she does it.

Alex gets a better hold on Myka’s legs and tugs her back, grunting as Myka twists around until she’s situated happily in a piggyback. “Besides,” Alex winks, “I’m pretty sure Kara is bringing take out to you later too, so.”

Lena does not blush.

Alex preens, then starts walking backward out of Lena’s office, Myka waving happily from on top of her back. “I can’t believe that you were gonna buy her a friggin eagle Luthor.”

“I wasn’t!” Lena insists to Alex’s eye roll. “I wasn’t!”

All she receives is a snort in return.  

…

…

It takes a long time for Kara to finally pull herself away from Lena and fly home.

A lot of that is Lena’s fault.

But, a lot of it is Kara’s, too.

Kissing is much more awesome than Kara remembers. There’s also the fact that every time they pull away a little bit to catch their breath, Lena’s nose does this little… scrunchy thing? It’s very distracting, and beyond adorable, and Kara can’t stop looking at it and grinning, every time. Plus, it makes the skin by her eyes tuck up into adorable little hints of crow’s feet, (a fact that Lena is less charmed by than Kara, once she points it out) and there’s this freckle just underneath Lena’s left eye that Kara decides also needs to be kissed, which then causes Lena to burst out into genuine giggles, and that does horrible, wonderful things to Kara’s stomach.

Mostly, she’s just deliriously happy that she gets to make out with the woman who’s become one of her best friends, and she doesn’t have to spend any time pretending to be something that she’s not anymore. She can fly into Lena’s office, and eat as much food in front of her as she wants, and talk to her about Krypton, and being Supergirl.

It’s great, is the point.

Even getting teased mercilessly by Myka and Alex when she gets home doesn’t manage to put a single dent in Kara’s mood. Myka flops around the apartment, making smooching noises, while Alex asks Kara why she is blushing so hard, and all Kara can do in response is smile.

Her phone dings, and when she manages to dig it out of her pocket—Myka has decided that she needs to use Kara’s actual skin, to make the smooching noises sound more realistic, and has pushed her down onto the floor and is smacking her lips against Kara’s arm—she beams at the sight of Lena’s name.

“You are so mushy,” Myka says, rolling her eyes.

“I know,” Kara grins. Alex snorts from the couch, and once Kara finishes typing back her message, she looks up and levels her sister with a look. “So,” she teases, sitting up and hauling Myka along with her. “How’s Maggie?”

The blush that immediately creeps onto her sister’s face is extremely satisfying. “She’s good,” Alex mumbles into her tea.

“You’re both super mushy. Can we have ice cream?”

Kara drops Myka down on top of Alex, who grunts and holds her tea out of reach. “Why not?”

“I could have burned myself,” Alex calls out, setting her tea down on the magazine stand and shoving Myka over until she’s got her lap free again.

“I wouldn’t have let it,” Kara calls back easily.

Alex harrumphs in response, then orders Myka to go find them blankets. Happy to have a task, Myka runs around the apartment until Alex is covered in blankets from head to toe, yelling ‘no more’, and Kara sits down on top of all of them, three pints of ice cream in her hands. Myka grabs the closest one, not bothering to check the flavors and burrows her way underneath the blankets.

“What are we watching?” Kara asks.

“Lilo and Stitch,” Alex mumbles, using one arm to free her head. She blows some hair out of her face, then holds her arm out for her pint. “Let this one see what happens to rogue aliens who don’t behave.”

“They get adopted and loved and never left behind?” Kara grins, rolling her head over and knocking it against Alex’s.

“They get thrown into the ocean, first.”

“We can go in the ocean?” Myka gapes.

Kara and Alex share a look. “Did we forget to take her to the beach?” Kara asks. “I could have sworn we did that.”

“WHAT!?” Myka screams.

“Let’s watch the movie first,” Alex decides, pressing down on Myka’s legs as they start jiggling a mile a minute. “Beach later.”

“Why not now?”

“It’s dark out.”

“I can see really good though,” Myka argues.

“Well,” Kara corrects, reaching for the remote and hitting play on Netflix. “You say it like, ‘I can see very well’, not good.”

“Either way, I think we should go into the ocean now.”

“Alex, sit on her in case she tries to make a break for it.”

“You’re stronger than me. You sit on her.”  

“You’re closer.”

“You could get on top of her faster.”

“I’M GONNA CALL LENA,” Myka screams, leaping out of reach. “SHE’LL TAKE ME TO THE BEACH!”

“Oh, you still owe me ten dollars,” Alex calls out after her. “I’m gonna start charging you interest.”

“FINE, I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.”

“Oh, shit,” Alex says, pulling Kara’s attention away from the movie. “She’s about to jump out of the window.”

Kara catches her just in time, waving awkwardly at their neighbor across the street.

…

…

Myka accidentally kicks sand into Kara’s food as she sprints past, James chasing after her. “Myka!” she pouts, but after a little bit of dusting, shrugs and takes another bite anyway. Lena scrunches up her nose at the sight. “Tastes basically the same,” Kara holds it out towards her mouth. “Just a little grittier.”

“No, thank you,” Lena says, as politely as possible.

Kara grins at her, which, as it does every time causes Lena to blush and grin right back. A high pitched yelp from Myka’s makes them both turn and look out at the water. James has her held up over his head, wadding slowly deeper into the waves as Winn flings bits of seaweed at them. James tosses Myka into the water, then lunges at Winn, tackling him underneath the waves, and Kara jumps up and sprints towards the water.

“She doesn’t know how to swim!” Kara screams, but James can’t hear her from under the water. Myka comes up sputtering and Kara grabs her and hauls her up. Even though the water is shallow and only comes up to Kara’s hips, Myka is shaking and flattens her body against Kara’s, holding on for dear life.

Once James and Winn both come up and realize what’s going on, they both panic. “Oh my god,” James looks horrified. “I thought she — nobody said—”

“She’s fine,” Kara says quickly, because she has never seen him look so scared or guilty in all the time that she’s known him. “It’s okay.” Kara pats at Myka’s back, who is still refusing to let go and is now glaring down at the ocean like it’s personally offended her. “Myka, tell James that you’re fine before he cries.”

“I’m not gonna—” James rolls his eyes and Kara grins at him. Crisis averted. “Well played,” James says and splashes her. “I am sorry though. I should have thought to ask before I tossed her in.”

“Is she alright?” Lena asks, bending over and panting at the edge of the water. Kara looks up at her, impressed. She clearly took off seconds after Kara did, and it’s really only been a little over a minute or two since Kara reached them. Lena was sprinting. Which Kara knows is not something that she does often. Or ever, if she can help it.

“The ocean tastes horrible,” Myka declares, loosening her grip on Kara only enough to turn her head and look over at Lena.

“You guys okay?” Alex calls from about ten feet behind Lena, Maggie, beside her with the volleyball they had been playing with.

“Yep,” Kara yells back. “Wanna help teach Myka to swim?”

Alex lights up and jogs over, and Myka panics and tries to meld her body with Kara’s. It takes some convincing from Kara and Alex, but they get Myka to stop clinging to Kara so tightly after a few minutes. James and Winn happily demonstrate how to breath out and not in the water, and then they start having a dunking contest that is no help whatsoever.

Lena and Maggie lounge in the sand, much closer than they had been before, so they have a better view. M’gann joins them once J’onn abandons the volleyball in favor of helping Kara and Alex.

Mostly, Myka leaps from one of them to another, barely doggy paddling and then lunging herself into the closest person’s arms and refusing to let go again. Somewhere along the way, J’onn gets a terrible glee in his eyes, and he tosses Myka to Kara, then holds out his arms for her to toss her right back. Myka screeches with what sounds like delight and terror all rolled up into one, but she’s absolutely beaming once Kara tosses her back.

“Not fair. No one else is strong enough to play catch with a nine-year-old,” Winn pouts.

“I am,” M’gann says from the sand.

“Catch,” J’onn says, and tosses her.

Myka screams, flips her body into a tight ball in the air and laughs once she’s in M’gann’s arms. “Again,” she demands, and M’gann chucks her to Kara. Thankfully, this is a very secluded and small beach that they mostly have to themselves.

Kara feigns tired arms, and leaves Myka with J’onn, flopping back down onto the towel that’s laid out beside Lena and squints up at her. “Hi.”

“You gave me about seven heart attacks throwing her, just so you know.”

“She’s very solid. Also agile.”

“Still.”

Kara rolls up onto her elbows and kisses Lena’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

Lena tries to frown, but it doesn’t last very long. “You’ll just have to make it up to me later I suppose,” she says flirtatiously.

Kara blushes so hard that Myka asks if she needs more sunscreen already, Lena’s laughter ringing out in her ears and filling her up. When she finally looks back over, Myka has squirreled her way up onto J’onn’s shoulders, and Winn is up on James’s.

“This is not a fair fight,” Winn protests, wobbling until Myka gets a hold of his arms. “Just, for the record.”

“Prepare to die,” Myka grins and tosses him into the water easily. Winn comes up sputtering and J’onn and Myka do a victory chant while James frowns at them both.

“You two can’t be a team,” Winn declares once he’s upright again. “Only one alien per team.”

“Okay,” Myka holds her arms out towards Winn. “I’ll be on your team, and James and J’onn can be the other.”

J’onn lifts Myka off his shoulders and gently sets her into the water, despite her kicking legs. “You can make it to him,” he assures her. “You went further a few minutes ago.”

Myka doggy paddles furiously towards Winn, nearly dunking him in her attempt to get up out of the water and onto his shoulders. Kara nearly sprints out there again, but J’onn is closer, and if he trusts that Myka can handle it, he probably knows better than Kara does about this kind of stuff. It makes her feel a little better, that she can feel Lena stiffen with worry beside her. That she’s not the only one.

Lena reaches her hand out, almost before she even realizes that she does it, and Kara grins, locking their fingers together. “She’s very solid, and very agile,” she repeats.

“I know,” Lena sighs, leaning back into Kara. “Still.”

“I know,” Kara hums. “Still.”

“God you guys are sappy,” Alex says, as she stops in front of them. Then, she squeals, because Maggie and James creep up and double team knocking her back into the water. When she comes up raging, Maggie just drops a kiss to the top of her head and smirks, until Alex turns around and dunks her in retaliation.

Kara must fall asleep, because the next thing that she knows, she’s waking up and Lena is gone. When she sits up a bit, she squints, finding Alex, Maggie, James, Winn, J’onn and M’gann all out of the ocean, dried off, and back to playing volleyball. She looks around in the opposite direction and narrows in on the two familiar heartbeats. Lena and Myka are sitting down in the wetter sand, making drip castles. Kara smiles and listens closely.

‘So, how many different whales are there?’

‘I don’t know every species, off the top of my head.’

‘But you’re the smartest person I know!’

Kara can feel the way that Lena explodes with a mixture of pride and delight at that, and she grins, rising and walking over towards them.

“Hi sleepyhead,” Lena says, once she notices her. Kara can see the way that her eyes light up, even behind her sunglasses. She bites down on her lip and squats down beside them.

“Hi.”

“We’re making castles!” Myka says, pointing. She is covered head to toe with wet sand and doesn’t seem to mind one bit. Lena has pulled a cover-up dress back on over her bikini and is much drier and more comfortable looking than Myka.

“Awesome,” Kara says. “Can I help?”

“Of course!” Myka shoves a handful of wet sand into Kara’s arms. “You let it drip down like this,” she demonstrates gleefully. “Lena taught me.”

“Well, Lena’s very talented,” Kara teases, grinning at the way Lena blushes, but rolls her eyes.

“I know right!?” Myka yells out, oblivious.

Kara helps add to the castle, but Lena starts making a tiny tower on top of Kara’s thigh instead. The cold sand tickles but feels good, and Kara smiles over at her. Lena raises her eyebrows back and Kara blushes again, very aware of the way that Lena’s eyes rove her entire bikini-clad body.

She’s pretty sure that that’s not going to stop happening anytime soon. She’s only grateful that she can easily get Lena to blush right back when she tries to. It makes everything much less embarrassing.

When Myka looks up and notices what Lena is doing, she grins mischievously and starts making a small tower on top of Lena’s calf. Lena jerks in surprise at the first touch of the cold sand and Kara grins, sticking out her tongue. “Payback,” she teases. “That one’s on my team.”

It falls out of her mouth easily, and Kara doesn’t even take in the potential meaning of it until Myka looks up at them both with a flash of surprise. She bites at the bottom of her lip, looking between them for a minute, then jumps up without warning, announces that she has to go to the bathroom, and runs away.

“Shit,” Kara mumbles. “I think I might have just fucked something up.”

Lena reaches for her. “I don’t think…”

Myka comes to a complete stop in the middle of the beach, turns around, and runs right back in front of them. “I lied, I don’t have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay,” Kara says, reaching towards her. “Myka, we…”

“I want to be on one team,” she interrupts. “All of us. I don’t want to… my sisters always used to make us pick. And that just made them madder. I don’t want… can’t it be all of us?”

“Yeah,” Kara sits up onto her knees, eye level as she grabs Myka’s hands. “Sweetie, it was just a joke, I promise.”

Myka looks between them dubiously for a second, then nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Kara shakes her hands until she’s got Myka wiggling and laughing.

“So, now I’m hungry,” Myka announces. “Also, there’s sand inside my bathing suit and it’s itchy.”

Lena bites back laughter as she moves to stand up. Myka jumps over and helps tug her upwards, not releasing her hand, and taking Kara’s in her other one, swinging them both happily.

“You two are always hungry,” Lena says as they make their way back over to everyone else.

“Yeah, but now I’m extra hungry,” Myka explains. “Starving hungry.”

“Me too,” Kara says, a little less dramatically than Myka. But only a little.

“God,” Lena rolls her eyes. “What the hell am I gonna do with the pair of you?”

“Feed us, obviously,” Myka says, matter-of-fact.

Kara grins, pulling puppy dog eyes at her until Lena laughs. “Anybody else hungry?” she calls out and is greeted by a chorus of ‘yes’ in return.

They consider getting cleaned up and going to a restaurant, but it’s only about half an hour until sunset, so instead, half of them go to help carry food back, and half of them clean up and claim a new spot up on the rocks. By the time that the sun is fully setting over the ocean, Kara is halfway towards stuffed, with a tired, sleepy Myka on her lap, Lena contently pressed against Kara’s side, surrounded by all of her friends.

“Did you have fun today?” she whispers.

Lena tilts her face towards Kara’s, a soft smile tugging at her lips. “Yeah. I did. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for wanting to come.”

Lena moves over and presses a gentle kiss to Kara’s mouth, and Kara hums with happiness, even as Myka squirms in her lap, and Alex wolf whistles from somewhere behind her.

Chapter Text

Kara’s phone goes off, ruining any chance that she had of sleeping in past nine. Myka had crashed after their trip to the beach, and Kara had planned on taking advantage of that.

Lois seems to have other plans.

“Little Danvers, wake up!” she sing-songs once Kara rolls over and accepts the call, not realizing for a second that it’s FaceTime.

“Ugh,” is her only response. Kara smacks her head back into the pillow, and Lois’s laughter rings out. Kara can’t help but smile, most traces of annoyance disappearing at the sound.

Lois grins, looking immaculate and disheveled all at once. Tucking a pencil behind her ear because she likes the aesthetic of it, leave me the fuck alone Smallville, you wear a cape that your mom made. “So kid, want to work on a story with a Pulitzer winner?”

Kara shoots upright in bed, nearly dropping the phone. “What?”

Lois wriggles her eyebrows up and down, beaming. “You heard me. I’ve got a story that I’ve been working on for a few weeks. Perry is kicking my ass because, mostly, I think he enjoys that I will yell right back at him. Clark’s swamped with a few other assignments that have earlier deadlines, and Perry’s trying to enact this whole mentorship thing—” she waves her hands around, trailing off and clearly walking through their apartment. She must set the phone down somewhere, because Kara can only see her hands moving to make a fresh pot of coffee. “Anyway, I heard that Cat is off somewhere in a yurt—or something else equally ridiculous—and I thought this would be a fun way to kill two birds with one stone. I need a fresh pair of eyes and someone to boss around. I miss you. And I get to stick it to Cat, by reminding her that I was your favorite mentor first.”

Kara laughs and starts crawling out of her bed. Seeing Lois with coffee is only making her eager for some, the dreary skies out the window only adding to the urge.

“Why do you two always fight?” Kara asks, for what feels like the hundredth time. She has yet to get any sort of clear answer out of anyone.

This time, however, Lois smiles softly around her mug. “Mostly, because it’s fun.”

Kara tip-toes into the kitchen, hoping Myka sleeps in a little longer. She knows that Lena has a bunch of early meetings, which Kara thinks is criminal for a Friday, but something that Lena seems to just shrug and accept. It’s Myka’s final Official Day of Suspension, and she is adamant about spending the full week of it at L-Corp, despite the fact that Frank has been asking after her, and Alex offered to bring her into the DEO with J’onn’s permission.

I’m on suspension. It’s not a vacation. We have work to do, and Lena needs my help.

Kara actually dropped the mug in her hands when Myka declared that, completely serious on Wednesday morning. (She caught it, her reflexes are amazing—but still.)

“So, kiddo, what do you say?” Lois asks. “It’s a pretty big story, and you’ll get your name on the byline if you impress me enough to insist with Perry. Plus, you get to hang out with me for a few days.”

“Um,” Kara glances down the hall, hearing Myka stirring. “I’d love to,” she admits. “But I’ll have to figure out something with Myka…”

“Oh, sure,” Lois shrugs, then wrinkles her nose. “I forgot about that actually. It’s super weird to think of you as like, a mom. You’re a baby.”

“I am not,” Kara protests. Lois only scrunches up her face and coos. “I’m not Lois!”

“You are to me,” she laughs.

Before Kara can add that she’s not actually anyone’s mother, Myka pads into the kitchen, rubbing at her eyes and tugging at her clothes. “There’s still sand on me,” she grumbles. “I changed my mind. I hate the beach.”

“Oh my god is that the baby?” Lois sticks her face closer to the iPhone camera, as if that will do anything other than give Kara a clear view up her nostrils.

Myka frowns. “Who’s that?”

Kara turns the camera towards Myka. “Lois, this is Myka. Myka, this is Lois. Clark’s girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Myka walks closer and waves, suddenly shyer than Kara has ever seen her before. She tucks herself into Kara’s side, knocking her head into Kara’s stomach and only looking at the phone out of one eye. “Hello.”

“Hey Baby Danvers, it’s nice to meet you.”

Myka lights up at the moniker, and Kara’s heart swells, just a bit, hearing it. “It’s actually some dead family named Matthews,” Myka explains, frowning. “But it’s nice to meet you too. I like your hair.”

“I like yours,” Lois counters. “I can never get mine to hold a curl like that. It droops in like an hour, no matter what.”

“Mine just goes like this,” Myka shrugs. “It has sand in it right now.” She shakes her head to demonstrate, and Kara gets a face full of curls and sand in her coffee. Lois chuckles on the screen and catches Kara’s eye, grinning. She mouths, I like her, and Kara bites back a grin of her own.

“So,” Lois tugs the pencil out from behind her ear. “Yay or nay Little Danvers? Because if not, I gotta grab a stringer from the Planet. And I sort of need to get going today. I’d have given you more notice if I had it,” she apologizes. “But it’s kind of all the sudden had a bunch of developments.”

“Me?” Myka asks, shifting so that she is no longer hiding behind Kara’s body.

“I said Little Danvers, not Baby Danvers, didn’t I?” Lois chugs some coffee, and Kara can see her pulling her laptop closer, email notifications chiming in the background.

“I’d love to,” Kara says, knowing a good opportunity when she sees one. Even Snapper wouldn’t say no to outsourcing Kara to the Planet if it’s Lois calling. “Um, how soon do you need me?”

Lois keeps her gaze somewhere on her computer, setting the phone down again and giving Kara and Myka an angle of her legs. “Well kid, since you can fly, like ten minutes?” she asks, typing away furiously.

“And this would be an all weekend project?” Kara clarifies.

“At least,” Lois hums. “Might bleed into the week. Hoping to get everything out by Tuesday at the absolute latest. But Monday is the goal.”

Kara looks down at Myka, who frowns back at her. “Um…”

“Am I going to L-Corp now?”

That gets Lois’s attention. “L-Corp?” she reaches for the phone again, and her face comes back into view. “LuthorCorp?”

“That’s not its name,” Myka says primly.

“Right,” Lois waves it off. “Like, Luthor though? Lena Luthor?”

“Yes,” Kara says. “Like Lena Luthor.”

“My best friend and Kara’s girlfriend,” Myka adds, and Lois’s eyes go wide. Kara swallows and gives Lois a pointed smile. She has always been very opinionated about the Luthors, taking to heart how much Lex hurt Clark.

“She’s great Lois,” Kara says, knowing that she’s gushing a bit. “I really think you’d love her.”

“Hum,” is all Lois says in response to that.

“Let me just work out a few things with Alex and I’ll be there in like… half an hour-ish?”

“That’s fine,” Lois says, all her attention back to her computer now that it’s settled. “See you soon. Nice to meet you kid,” she adds towards Myka, then hangs up, leaving the pair of them staring at a black screen until Kara sets her phone down on the counter.

“You’re going to Metropolis all weekend?” Myka asks, tugging at the end of her shirt.

“What do you think about that?” Kara asks and moves to get them both some breakfast.

“Well…” Myka climbs up on top of a stool, tapping out a beat against the table as she considers it. “Will I go sleepover with Alex? Or will you come back at night?”

“Um… I think I’ll probably try to come back?” Kara pushes two bananas in front of Myka and she nibbles on them without complaint. “But I’m not sure. We might have to play it by ear.”

“Well, but you’ll call and say goodnight to me still… right?” she looks up, worried at the prospect. “Because you always do that even if you have to go out and do Supergirl stuff late at night.”

“Of course,” Kara says, putting a glass of water in front of Myka and dropping a kiss to the top of her head. She bends down a bit, so their faces are at the same level. “So, how do you feel about it?”

“Do you want to go?” Myka asks.

“Yeah,” Kara says truthfully. “But if you want me to stay, I can call Lois back and tell her it’ll have to be another time. I know this week has been a little weird for you. Apart from all the fun that you’ve been having with Lena.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Myka decides. “I think you should go.”

“You sure?”

Myka nods enthusiastically. “Yep,” she jumps down and runs back into her room. “We should get dressed now! Woah, look at the rain!”

Kara laughs and follows her, dialing Alex as she goes, the excitement building the more that she thinks about working with Lois.

…

…

She’s finally doing her grocery shopping at normal hours, like a real adult.

Granted, this is more of a panicked, very last minute jump to stock up on supplies that probably wouldn’t be necessary if she shopped on any sort of regular schedule, but from the way that people are running around the store with wild looks in their eyes—at least she’s not the only one. It's just some rain, but everyone is preparing like it's the end of the world. Californians aren’t often well-equipped to deal with storms, from the looks of things.

The news keeps saying to be prepared, pleading with people not to drive unless it’s an emergency. There have already been a few accidents that Lena knows of. By noon, she had canceled nearly every one of her afternoon meetings and sent most of her employees home.

Myka dodges between a mother, trying to tug her toddler off the floor, and a college student reaching for a bottle of gin, appearing in front of Lena with a huge grin. “I found the brownie stuff!” she drops a pack of boxes into their cart.

“Ten boxes?” Lena frowns. “Doesn’t that seem like a bit much?”

“The news said to stock up!”

Lena rolls her eyes. “Alright.”

The mother manages to get her son up into her arms, still wailing. She rocks him as her other son bounces impatiently beside her. “See!” he complains, pointing at Lena. “Her mom is letting her have treats!”

Myka turns around and stares at the boy. Reaching into their cart, she pulls out one of the boxes and holds it out to him. “You want one?”

“No, thank you,” the mother answers, catching Lena’s eye as she gets the toddler back in the seat of the cart, his face still red, but no longer screaming. The older boy’s face scrunches up, like he’s about to start yelling too, but Myka bends down and whispers something into his ear, and he frowns, then gapes up at her in awe. Myka nods, grinning, and he steps back and stands patiently beside his mother. “Um,” she says, looking between her son, Myka, and Lena in confusion. “Good luck,” she settles on, and shuffles her kids towards the cashiers while they’re behaving.

Myka whips around and drops the box back into Lena’s cart. “We’re gonna need donuts too. But no jelly,” she declares, walking over and squirreling her way in front of Lena, to help push the cart. “Isn’t it funny that that lady thought you were my mom?” she looks up at Lena, upside-down. “Do you think we look alike?” she frowns. “I don’t really think so. I mean, we’ve both got black hair and pale skin,” she shrugs. “Oh! Look! There’s goldfish!! Have you had these!?”

Lena’s still sort of stuck on the whole ‘mom’ thing. It’s not the first time that someone has assumed that this week; a few new investors and a group from a rival company who either didn’t do their research on Lena or just didn’t think about it, commented on how well behaved her daughter was during meetings on Thursday. Myka hadn’t been within earshot—or paying attention enough to listen in otherwise—and Lena had frozen on the spot. Trying to sputter her way through explaining her actual role in Myka’s life. It’s one of those things that’s increasingly at the back of her mind that she has no idea how to deal with. So far, she has chosen: ignore. A problem for another time.  

Myka chucks things into the cart, seemingly not needing an answer to her question, or already forgetting about it, and Lena releases a breath and follows suit. Her phone goes off, and Lena nods for Myka to take over pushing the cart, knowing more items that she has not agreed to are going to wind up inside of it, and answers her phone.

“Miss Luthor? I’m so sorry to bother you,” Jess’s voice crackles through the line, cutting in and out with the poor service from the burgeoning storm.

“It’s fine Jess,” Lena presses a finger to her other ear, trying to hear her better. A man knocks into her, calling a rushed apology over his shoulder as he runs towards the cashiers. Lena quickly makes sure that she can see Myka. This store is getting too crowded. “How can I help?”

“It’s not… I’m… called him… postponed… th—storm,” her voice keeps cutting out, and Lena can barely hear her.

“What?”

“Stuck at L-Corp… tried to… for the…”

“Jess! You’re breaking up too much!” the calls beeps with a warning, then drops and Lena sighs. She quickly shoots off a text, hoping that will go through easier and looks up to find Myka. There’s a swell of instant panic when she can’t pick her out in the crowd. Another person knocks into Lena, and she jumps forward. “Myka!” she calls, hearing the panic in her voice. “Myka!”

“You okay?” an employee asks, catching Lena’s arm.

“I’m looking for a nine-year-old,” she says, forcing a veneer of control to her tone. “She comes up about to here,” she points to just above her hips. “Black curly hair. Pale skin, blue eyes, and freckles. She’s got our cart. She was right in front of me a second ago. But if she saw some treat, she would run towards it without thinking about the crowd.”

The older woman chuckles a little, her grip on Lena’s arm gentle as she rubs at it. “Okay sweetheart, take a breath. We’ll find your daughter. God knows my own used to run off. They’re usually close. If we have to get on the loudspeaker, we can.”

Lena opens her mouth to correct the woman, but just closes it as she turns and starts scanning the growing crowd. “Okay. Thank you,” she looks at the name tag on her shoulder vest. “June.”

“Not a problem honey,” she smiles. “Myka!” they both call. It takes a few more seconds of blind panic shooting through Lena’s entire body. She opens her mouth and yells it a little louder, not bothering to try and still her heartbeat, and then Myka appears in front of her, looking terrified. Lena sags with relief and bends down, hauling Myka up into her arms without a second thought.

Myka twists around in her arms, wiggling and trying to inspect Lena’s body. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Did someone hurt you? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m fine,” Lena says quickly. She’s seen that exact same look on Supergirl’s face. She does not need Myka busting through a crowd of panicked people, ready to punch out anyone who made Lena feel scared for half a second. “I just… you can’t go off like that.”

June smiles at them both, rubbing Lena’s back in a way that’s achingly kind and Lena smiles back at her. “Thank you for your help.”

“Of course,” she smiles at Myka, gently tapping her on the nose. “Stick close to your mom little one. This storm is getting bad enough,” and then she turns to help someone else.

“People keep thinking you’re my mom today,” Myka comments.

“Well…” Lena sets Myka back down, then just shrugs, feeling incredibly awkward. “Where’s the cart?” she asks, grabbing hold of Myka’s hand as she jumps forward to get it.

“Over here.”

Myka is knocked into as she’s reaching for the cart, and Lena snaps at the man much more harshly than she probably needs to, apparently still a little shaken. “Okay, I think we have plenty of supplies,” she decides. “Let’s get out of here.”

“BUT PIZZA!”

Lena’s phone dings, finally Jess’s message coming through. Lena frowns and directs Myka towards the front. “We can grab some at L-Corp,” she says. “There’s still some left in the break room freezer. I have to go back quickly before I drop you off at Alex’s.”

“But… I mean, you’re gonna come to Alex’s with us too right? It’s a storm! You’re not supposed to be alone.”

They start unloading the groceries onto the conveyer belt. The cashier looks confused at their selection of items, compared with everyone else stocking up on toilet paper, batteries, candles, and food. In retrospect, they do have a few candles, but mostly, brownies, goldfish, and a bottle of scotch. Myka throws a pack of glow sticks on top and makes puppy eyes at Lena.

Lightning strikes outside, and Myka jolts, grabbing at Lena. “It’s okay,” she jams her phone back into her purse, tugs out her keys, and holds out her hand for the groceries.

“I can carry that,” Myka offers, when Lena struggles to get them all. She still looks warily at the sky as they run out of the store together. The rain has temporarily let up from the steady stream that's been coming down all afternoon, and they make a run for Lena’s car. She dismissed her driver for the weekend. Myka clambers into the backseat, throwing the groceries in front of her and screaming when thunder claps loudly. Tears fill her eyes as she clamps her hands over her ears and Lena curses underneath her breath.

“There are some noise canceling headphones somewhere in here,” she mutters, digging in the truck as Myka cries. “They might help.”

“I’m okay,” Myka insists, breathing slowly in and out. “It just… I wasn’t ready.”

Lena finds the headphones and lets out a triumphant yelp, clamping them over Myka’s ears and jumping into the driver’s seat. There’s another violent strike of lightning, and then the rain starts coming down in sheets. Lena flicks the headlights and the wipers on and pulls out to the road slowly and carefully.

It takes them ages to get back to L-Corp, and they both scream as they run towards the entrance to the building, water splashing against Lena’s bare legs as she keeps a steady hold of Myka. They’re both soaked just from the short run through the parking lot, and Myka rips off the headphones and shakes herself like a dog, giggling as Lena squeezes out her hair.

“Well… come on.” She heads up towards her office, Myka in tow. “Why’d you bring the groceries?” she asks, noticing the bags in Myka’s hands.

Myka shrugs and drops them on top of the lobby desk. “They were in my hands.”

Good a reason as any, Lena supposes. The wind is howling outside, and Lena reaches over and tugs Myka away from the elevator. “The power might go out,” she explains. “I’d rather not get trapped inside.”

“I could bust us out,” Myka offers, holding up her arms and flexing. Lena bursts out laughing. The combination of her ballet tutu and dinosaur t-shirt with her dripping curls and her serious pose is too much. Myka giggles and skips happily to the stairs. “What does Jess need us to do?”

“If you can believe it, send a fax.” Lena rolls her eyes. “It’s not the middle of a storm in Beijing. And this needs to go out before the weekend. So, we should probably hurry in case the line drops.”

“Okay!” Myka says and takes off running.

They find the papers right on top of Jess’s desk, where she left them, and Lena quickly sends them out through the machine, anxious as it creeps slowly and the wind howls. It’s louder up here, the rain pounding onto the roof, and Myka tugs the headphones back on with a squeak when another clap of thunder rings out.

Lena pulls up her email, checking the latest messages and sending out a companywide memo for no one to bother coming in until Monday. The connection lags and Lena frowns. “Myka, will you hand me my phone please?”

“Sure!” she digs it out of Lena’s purse and hands it over. “Do you think I should take ballet? Avani does,” she holds out her tutu. “This is hers. She gave it to me to borrow while I’m suspended. But I forgot about it until today, so I’m gonna wear it all weekend!” She tries to do a pirouette and falls over, knocking into Lena’s desk with a thud.

“Alex?” Lena can barely hear through the connection.

“Lena… close… Mag… nasty…” it cuts in and out, Lena only catches a few words. She gives up trying to make them out and hopes it’s better on Alex’s end, shouting only, ‘we’re at L-Corp,’ before the call drops.

“Okay, so,” Myka taps on the fax machine with her pointer finger. “Once we’re done, you have to come to Alex’s with me.”

“I have plenty of extra batteries and candles at my apartment,” Lena assures her.

“But no me! Or Alex! Or Maggie!”

Lena smiles. “That is true.”

The sound of the rain is becoming background noise now, familiar. Myka keeps the headphones on, but Lena can tell that she just likes the feel of them. Now that she’s concentrating, the recurring claps of thunder make her flinch less and less with each new one. She should not go out for ballet, from the looks of things. But as she frowns and tries again, Lena can’t help it, she walks over and asks if she can move Myka’s hands into the correct position.

“You know how to ballet?”

Lena bites at her bottom lip, carefully positioning Myka’s hands correctly and tucking her stomach back. Spine straight, feet turned out. “Ballet itself isn’t really a verb like that. But yes, I know how to dance some ballet. My mother put me in lessons for a little while when I was a bit younger than you. To help with poise mostly. I have no rhythm, unfortunately. They didn’t end up lasting particularly long.”

“Avani’s really good. She wants to be a ballerina. But Ruby Thompson said she’s never seen an Indian ballerina before, and Avani looked really sad,” Myka drops her arms and looks down at the floor. “I punched her, too. But the teachers and Kara don’t know about that. It was a while ago. Way before I got suspended.”

Lena taps Myka’s shoulder until she turns around and meets her eye. “You know that you shouldn’t be punching anyone, right?”

“Well… Alex said you can punch Nazis.”

Lena snorts, surprised as she quickly covers up her mouth. “Well, yes,” she tilts her head in agreement. “I suppose that would be the exception to the rule. But punching your fellow third-graders isn’t okay, even if they are starting to internalize racist nonsense.”

Myka jerks at the clap of thunder and Lena walks over towards the fax machine. Finally. She nods for Myka to follow, and the two of them head back downstairs as the lights begin to flicker ominously. “So, saying that Avani can’t be a ballerina because her family is Indian is racist?”

“It is.”

“And so, if I can’t punch Ruby, then can I push her over at least?”

“No,” Lena says firmly. “You may not.”

“But—”

“Use your words,” Lena says. “Tell Ruby why she is wrong, stick up for your friend, and be kind. If anything escalates, then you go and get a teacher,” she turns around and makes sure that Myka is looking at her. “Don’t hit anyone.”

“Fine,” Myka sighs.

“Now, let’s get out—”

The lights flicker, and another deafening clap of thunder rings out. Myka screams and flattens herself against Lena’s legs, and they shuffle carefully through the lobby.

There’s furious pounding on the entrance to the building, and Lena can hear her phone going off before the call drops.

“LENA!” a familiar voice yells over the rain and wind. “MYKA! OPEN UP!”

They can see Alex and Maggie, looking like a pair of drowned rats, phones to their ears as they bang on the locked door. Alex catches sight of them and visibly sighs with relief, jamming her phone into her pocket and waving for them to hurry up.

“Finally,” she mutters and jumps inside, shivering and jumping up and down to shake off some of the rain.

“We were just about to come to your apartment,” Lena says. “I had to send a last-minute contract out before the power went. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Luthor, breathe,” Alex orders. “Your text went through. The power went out in my building. Maggie’s too. We were hoping your fancy rich building had better luck and also, maybe that we could crash. Kara’s building is out too. It’s a pretty wide stretch of the city last I heard before we lost the radio connection.”

“Still have 3G though,” Maggie grins, holding up her phone. “At least, for the moment.”

“Of course you can all stay,” Lena says, trying to picture the three of them in her apartment and coming up with nothing. There has never been that many people inside of it before. She can’t even picture it. God, she does not have enough food for them all. “We might need to grab a few things…”

Alex turns on the television in the lobby and Lena frowns at the report. “Um,” Alex points, “isn’t that—”

“My street,” Lena sighs. “Yes.”

“So, power’s out there too.”

“There’s plenty of food and water here,” Lena decides. “And even if the power goes out, there are more supplies than my apartment will have. We have blankets and disaster relief supplies down in the labs, and there are showers and couches. But, whatever you want to—”

Her phone goes off again. Kara. Lena hits speaker and holds it out, the four of them gathering around it in a little circle.

“Hi Kara,” Myka says cheerfully. “Is it a storm where you are?”

“You’re on speaker,” Lena explains. “It’s been cutting in and out, so the call might drop.”

“Are you guys okay?” Kara asks, sounding worried. “The news said there were a ton of power outages.”

“Yeah. All our buildings actually,” Alex says.

“Damn,” there’s crackling, and Lena strains to hear. “Want me to come get you?” finally rings through. Lena pictures flying with Kara through a downpour lighting storm, and decidedly does not want to partake if given the option. Alex catches Lena’s eye, and the same grimace is displayed on her face.

“There’s actually still power at L-Corp,” Lena says. “And we have plenty of supplies here. Plus, you’re busy with your investigation—”

“I don’t care about that…” it cuts out, Kara’s voice distorted until there’s a second one in the background, just as difficult to make out. Lena guesses this is the famous Lois Lane. “I’ll… not a lot of room… doggy pile… blankets… oh, shit… LOIS!... is… what… Lena?”

“We’re still here Kara, but you’re breaking up.”

“I CAN FLY BACK!” she screams as the line finally comes through loud and clear. All of them lean back from the phone simultaneously.

Lena catches Alex’s eye, then Maggie’s and they both nod. “Nah,” Alex calls out. “We’re good. Kick butt with Lois and we’ll see you later.”

“We’ll try to call you in the morning,” Lena says, hearing the connection drop in and out again. “But if we can’t, we’re all okay. We’re at L-Corp.”

“Okay!” Kara yells. “IS MYKA THERE?”

“Yeah!!” she yells back, reaching over to hold the phone.

“Goodnight,” Kara says, and Lena can hear the smile in her voice.

Myka laughs. “It’s three o’clock. I’m not going to bed now.”

“Yeah… but…”

Myka’s face falls as it seems like the call has finally dropped and Alex reaches over and squeezes her shoulders.

“Promised,” crackles back through, and Myka beams.

“Night Kara,” she says and hangs up. “We should eat pizza,” she announces. “Before it melts.”

“Pizza doesn’t melt, you dork.” Alex hip checks her. “Ice cream does.”

“Oh, we should eat that, too!”

Maggie catches Lena’s eye and quirks an eyebrow. “It’s gonna be a long night,” she smiles, dimples on full display. Lena returns the smile as they follow the bickering pair down towards the kitchen. “So, how are things with you and Kara?” she asks, once they’ve lagged a bit behind.

Lena blinks down at her. “Oh, good. And, you and Alex?”

“Good,” her smile grows momentarily. The two of them hover in near the door of the breakroom kitchen while Alex and Myka forage for ice cream and leftover pizza. Maggie watches as Myka says something that makes Alex laugh, her eyes lighting up, head thrown back with abandon and a small frown slips onto Maggie’s face. “I’m sort of glad that you’re here actually,” she says.

“Oh?”

“I haven’t spent all that much time with the kid,” Maggie says, nodding towards Myka. “I think she’s still not quite my biggest fan.”

“What?” Lena blanches at the admission, looking between Myka and Maggie. “No, that’s not true.”

Maggie shrugs, leaning back against the wall and keeping her gaze mostly on the pair in front of them. “Nah, it is. At least a little. I think it’s — I mean, I’ve kinda been keeping my distance,” she tilts her head against the wall, and she looks back to Lena. “Kids and relationships aren’t always… I don’t want to give her any expectations,” she says softly. “Alex and I are still really new, and I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” she adds, after a long and thoughtful silence. This is something Lena likes about her, she realizes. So much goes on underneath her eyes.

“I know what you mean there,” she says, looking back at the sound of Myka’s laughter. “This week has been… lovely, but stressful.”

Maggie chuckles lightly, fluffing a few wet strands of hair. “I’ll bet,” she says wryly. “But I think our situations are a little bit different. That kid adores you, and has for months.”

“I—”

Maggie purses her lips, hiding a very obvious smirk and Lena sighs.

“That doesn’t make things easy,” she says. “I think it actually might take some of the pressure off, if she liked me a little less.”

Maggie laughs loudly enough to draw attention from Alex and Myka, who both have chocolate ice cream on their faces—Myka much more so—and it only adds to Maggie’s laughter. Alex frowns at her in confusion, but she’s starting to move towards Maggie, a smile pulling out at the sight of her girlfriend’s laughter. Myka takes the opportunity to shovel some of Alex’s ice cream into her mouth while her back is turned, giggling to herself.

Another crack of thunder rings out, and Lena can feel the vibration in her chest.

The spoon in Myka’s hand drops to the linoleum floor with a clatter that none of them—save Myka—can even make out; swallowed up by the thunder. Lena watches Myka breathe in and out slowly, her eyes closed, and she steps forward, but Alex is closer. She gets her arms around Myka quick, practiced. Presses her back to Alex’s front and puts pressure on Myka’s chest, whispering things directly into Myka’s ear for her to focus on, and it only lasts less than a minute, but Lena can’t take her eyes off Myka’s face regardless. Her hands bunch into fists at her sides until a finger taps the outside of her left palm.

Lena glances down in surprise at Maggie’s finger, tapping out a little beat, not looking at Lena, but watching Alex and Myka. Lena focuses on Maggie’s finger, tries to place the tune and comes up with nothing, but her fists unclench.

“We should make a fort in the lobby with the couches,” Myka declares a beat or so later, still in Alex’s arms; she laughs and looks to Lena in question.

“Why not?” she shrugs.

They head back out of the breakroom, Myka skipping ahead of Alex as if nothing happened. Lena swallows, turning to Maggie but she just gives her a wry grin and shakes her head. “Let’s go make a fort,” she laughs. “Haven’t done that since I was her age.”

Lena smiles, hoping her thanks is conveyed, whether Maggie will allow her to voice it or not. “I don’t think I ever have.”

“WHAT!?” comes the incredulous scream from a floor down. Myka’s head appears in the stairwell, gaping up at Lena in horror. “Lena gets to go in first!” she calls back to Alex.

...

…

Kara falls asleep.

She doesn’t plan on it, is absolutely embarrassed by it, actually, but it happens anyway. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, and she just conks out like a toddler, her face pressed down onto Lois and Clark’s kitchen counter, a pen still in hand, waiting for a large crop of PDF files to load on Lois’s laptop.

Maybe it’s a good thing that she didn’t try to fly to L-Corp and bring four people back here.

She wakes to fingers lightly tapping out a beat on her temple, then running through her hair gently. When she cracks an eye open, Lois is smiling at her with a mug of coffee in her other hand. “Good afternoon,” she hums, eyes full of warmth as she sets the mug down by Kara’s elbow. “Hope that nap did you well because we’ve got a lot of work left to do before you’ll get another chance to sleep.”

Kara makes one of those noises in her throat that is caught between a laugh and a heavy breath. “Sorry,” she says, voice slightly raspy, as she brings her coffee up for a taste. “I just… set my head down for a sec and…”

“It happens,” Lois laughs. “One time Clark found me asleep in the bathroom with my toothbrush still in my mouth. I punched him on instinct and then worked for seven more hours.”

“God,” Kara groans. “You might be the superhero.” She sits up all the way and rolls out her shoulders, straightening and curling her spine until she feels somewhat lively again. Another sip of coffee helps.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Lois jokes.

Kara chuckles into her mug, taking a much larger sip before setting it back down and hopping off the stool. “Bathroom,” she says. “Then right back to work. Promise. No more sleeping,” she crosses her fingers over her chest like Myka has taken to doing on the regular, and Lois just shakes her head and smiles. It’s nearly the same one that’s awarded to Clark, and Clark alone, and once Kara had come to that realization a few years ago something hums warmly inside of her chest every time that it’s directed her way; something that she has no name for, but it makes her feel content despite all the guilt that she still has for the way she resented Lois back when she first came to Earth; assuming that she, and she alone, was the reason that Clark didn’t keep Kara with him. Blaming Lois for things that ultimately, were never her fault at all.

(Quite the opposite, apparently; though Kara only learned of that on accident a few years ago, and has not brought it up to anyone since.)

When she turns to wash her hands in the sink, she pauses, staring at her own reflection in the mirror. She’s made a habit of this recently, studying herself in the mirror after she wakes in the morning, or before she heads off to bed. It’s not about vanity; she doesn’t bother inspecting her face for signs of aging, or hints of scaring or blemishes, they wouldn’t exist—not on this planet. Instead, Kara remembers the shock of surprise one night when she had looked up at her own reflection and felt like a stranger was looking back at her. There was something jarring to the look in her eyes, something resigned about them, as though she was just going through the motions day in and day out; wake up, patrol the city, go to CatCo, fight crime in the afternoons, eat dinner with Alex, go to sleep, rinse, repeat. She hadn’t looked like herself, suddenly, and it was such a shock that Kara still wonders how she could have allowed herself to disappear so much that she even hadn’t even noticed. The whole point of becoming Supergirl had been to feel more like herself, not less.

So, every day, for the last couple of months or so, Kara reminds herself of how different her life has been for the last year and a half. She looks into her own eyes and takes a few deep breaths before smiling at herself. Sometimes the smiles don’t come as easily, when her body is exhausted and spent after a fight, or she’s feeling like she has barely made a dent in her new career, or she can’t help standing in her bathroom and wishing, with everything that she has, that she was still on Krypton. But lately, they feel less and less like something that she is forcing herself to do, and something more natural and genuine.

Kara reminds herself of the family that she has now and how they’ve never given up on her; how immediately they opened their arms to a little girl from another planet and never once let go, even when Kara was awful to them in return, drowning in her grief. She reminds herself that she has Alex. Her sister’s constant and steady presence by her side, always. Her soft and knowing smiles whenever Kara isn’t quite ready to talk about something, but how she is always there to drop everything and listen when she is. She reminds herself of Myka, who with almost each passing day, she loves more than she ever thought could be possible back when she broke open the pod and made the decision to take care of her. She closes her eyes and remembers the feeling of her mother hugging her tightly as the world shook around them. Pressing Kara as close as possible until the very last minute, reluctant to let her go; her proud teary smile the very last thing that Kara saw before she closed her eyes.

She doesn’t have to work very hard at all to remind herself of Lena, and the friendship that she had never seen coming, along with everything more that has grown between them since. It fills Kara up with more happiness than she ever could have imagined, just a year ago. And then she reminds herself of all the support that has been given to her, by her new family here on Earth, from Ms. Grant, her friends, from J’onn, Lois and Clark; their unwavering belief that has pushed her through some of her most painful and difficult times. Kara takes a minute to remember all that she has in life now, despite all that she has lost, and smiling doesn’t feel as hard as it used to.

She turns off the water, smiles to herself, and walks back into the kitchen to meet Lois. The news is playing quietly in the background while she works, feet up on the table, squinting at the papers in her hands. “Storm’s knocked out half of the city’s power,” she announces.

“Lena sent a text right before I fell asleep. After the call cut out. They’ve already eaten ice cream in case it melts, and they’re making a fort inside L-Corp,” she laughs. “Sounds like they’re gonna be fine.”

“Sounds like they’re having more fun than we are,” Lois says, holding out a stack of papers for Kara to read through. She groans, but takes them and sits back down. “Except that we’re having a blast,” Lois sticks her tongue out, then motions for Kara to pass her coffee over.

“We are,” Kara agrees. Building a fort does sound more appealing than reading through hacked emails that are duller and more sexist than Kara would hope for. But, the late afternoon sunshine spills through Lois’s window, bringing out bits of a red tint to her dark hair. The coffee is strong and delicious, and Lois hums to herself while she reads, delightfully off-key. The quick nap did wonders for Kara’s energy, and she rolls her shoulders before reaching for her phone, snapping a picture of the stack and sending it to Lena. She’ll get it eventually, even if the power cuts out.

Instead, she receives a message not ten minutes later. A photograph of Myka holding two couches above her head, pretending to chuck them at Alex and Maggie, doing their best impression of The Scream painting, with the caption: miss you.

Kara smiles and Lois laughs from beside her, tapping her on the forehead with her pencil. “Damn kiddo, you’re done for aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Kara retorts, and Lois just laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

…

…

There is considerable banging on the closet door, and Alex promptly ignores Myka’s demands and continues busying herself with Maggie’s lips.

“Alex—”

“No. If we ignore her, she’ll go away.”

The banging increases, reverberating off the walls and Maggie chuckles into Alex’s mouth. “She’ll go away, huh?”

“I CAN HEAR YOU!” Myka shouts. And Alex does not need X-Ray vision to be able to know that she is stamping her left foot down onto the ground and pouting.

“We’re busy,” she calls out. “Go find Lena.”

“She’s working,” Myka groans. “It’s boring!”

“Well, just—” The power cuts out and Myka screams. Alex sighs before pulling away from Maggie. “Fun while it lasted,” she mumbles. “It’s okay Myka,” she calls out calmly. “Stay right there. We’re coming out.”

She opens the door and hears a thud, cursing, as she reaches out. “Oh my god, did you hit her?” Maggie says from somewhere behind Alex. She feels her hand reach out and attach a finger through a belt loop so they don’t get separated.

“Myka?” Alex reaches out blindly towards the noise.

“You hit me,” she accuses, and then Alex manages to get a hold of her… arm?

“Not on purpose,” she grits, tugging Myka closer. “I didn’t think that when I said, stay there, you’d stand right in front of the door. How else did you think we’d get out?”

“Not by hitting me,” she grumbles, though from her tone, and knowing how solid she and Kara both are, Alex can tell that she is perfectly fine, just annoyed and grumpy.

“We should find Lena,” Maggie says. “Get flashlights.”

“I can sort of see still,” Myka says, turning around in Alex’s arms. She gets a good grip on Myka’s hand in case she gets any ideas about running ahead of them. “Lena went back up to her office. It’s this way.”

“How much can you see?” Alex asks, because she’s got basically nothing still, even as her eyes are starting to adjust a bit.

“I know how to get there anyway,” Myka says, as if this should be obvious. “I’ve been here all week.”

“Of course,” Alex rolls her eyes. “How could I forget.”

Myka reaches behind and pinches her. Alex yelps, jumping and nearly knocking Maggie over in the process. Myka, who started all of this in the first place, jumps and catches them both. Alex turns her back around, grabs hold of her hand and Maggie’s, and orders Myka to walk them carefully up to Lena’s office.

By the time they make their way up the stairs, Lena meets them with flashlights. “Well, I guess the universe wants me to stop working,” she jokes.

“The universe is smart,” Myka declares. Secretly, Alex agrees with her. Lena works way too much. “I think it’s telling us to watch a movie,” Myka adds.

“Um,” Alex taps on her shoulder. “Kid, the power’s out. No tv.”

Myka gasps loudly. “Lena!” she says in a panic. “Bring it back!”

“That’s not quite how it works,” Lena says, apologetically.

“We’ll find something else to do to entertain ourselves,” Alex says, accepting one of the flashlights that Lena passes over. “Relax.”

Myka whips around and glares up at Alex, directly pointing a flashlight into her eyes. “Like make out in a closet?” she growls. “Because I think that’s gross and boring.”

Lena quickly covers up her mouth, trying to contain her laughter and Alex is grateful for the power outage suddenly, because the blush that creeps onto her face is much harder to pick out. Maggie chuckles at Alex’s side.

“Well, what do you want to do?” Alex asks.

Myka grins devilishly, and in hindsight, Alex really should have known better.

…

…

Kara is running after Lois as she berates a man into giving up a flash drive full of information when her phone goes off.

It’s another picture from Lena. Apparently, the power is now out in L-Corp, but they still have a bit of spotty cell service, and Lena has multiple battery packs.

It’s a picture of Myka and Alex, grinning madly as they slide down a banister in L-Corp’s lobby. 

[Lena 6:49 p.m.] T hey’re going to give me a heart attack. Hope your story is going well:)

Kara grins, then quickly jams her phone back into her pocket and jumps to make sure that Lois doesn’t haul off and punch the man.

…

…

They’ve pushed two couches together to make a large nest-like bed—Myka’s idea.

(Lena had blanched at the thought of sleeping with everyone in a pile at first, but Myka had grabbed for her hands and pleaded, and Lena realized that she has lost all ability to say no to the girl. Alex and Maggie had shared a look, and Lena was grateful to find that she wasn’t the only one among them slightly uncomfortable with the idea at first.)

Lena has drawers of extra clothes in her office, but none of them are particularly acceptable as pajama substitutes. Thankfully, they have L-Corp merchandise in the lower level of the building, and while Alex and Maggie work on their makeshift bed, Lena and Myka head down to find comfortable clothes for everyone.

“Oh, can I wear this?” Myka asks, holding up an XXL bright pink t-shirt with the L-Corp design on the chest.

“We have children’s sizes,” Lena offers.

“Yeah, but then I don’t have to wear any pants!”

Lena bites down on her bottom lip. “Sure,” she laughs. “It’s all yours.”

Myka holds up another one, grinning. “Want to match?”

“No thank you,” Lena says, as gently as possible. “But I’ll wear a pink one as well. So, we can sort of match?”

“Okay!” Myka wriggles out of her clothes, completely shameless, and tugs the t-shirt over her head. She busies herself with trying on different hats and sunglasses while Lena changes into a t-shirt and a pair of leggings. Then they grab the t-shirts and sweats that they picked out for Alex and Maggie and head back downstairs. “I wish Kara were here,” she says, once they’re reaching the lobby. “This is fun.”

“Me too,” Lena smiles, recalling the last message that went through. Kara, snapping a photo of Lois, mid-rant with an ice cream cone in her hand, and Clark, laughing behind her. “But she’s working hard, and it’s a very good opportunity.”

“When she gets back, can we have another sleepover here?”

“Maybe,” Lena says, proud of herself for not just saying yes right away.

“CLOTHES!” Myka screams, in Alex’s direction, and leaps, skipping an entire flight of stairs and landing with a thud that shakes the entire building.

“Myka!” Alex scolds, but she’s grinning a little as she accepts her bundle.

“The power’s out,” Myka says haughtily. “That means no security cameras.”

Maggie accepts her bundle and hip checks Alex. “She’s not wrong.”

“Thank you, Maggie,” Myka beams.

Alex rolls her eyes and heads off to the nearest bathroom to change, Maggie following behind with a grin.

Myka flips herself over the back of the couches, landing in the middle of the blanket pile and grinning up at Lena, upside down. Lena crawls inside much more carefully and lowers herself down to sit beside Myka. Despite how much Lena has grown to enjoy spending time with Myka, she’s consistently careful and aware of any physical affection between the two of them. She’s never thought about it much—not until Kara and Myka came into her life, if she’s being honest—but until she started realizing just how much something as small as a brush of their fingers could affect her, she hadn’t known how touch-starved she actually was.

She usually follows their lead, letting them initiate contact and reacting to it, because sometimes it feels like if she has any say in the matter, Lena won’t ever let go. Which makes her feel embarrassed and pathetic, and at some point, it would become incredibly inconvenient once things like their jobs or their bodies natural functions got in the way.

Myka rolls over onto her back, shifting to find the most comfortable position. Her hair is falling into her eyes, and Lena is resisting the urge to reach out a hand and push it away when Alex and Maggie join them again.

Alex flops down, rolling towards Myka and sticking her tongue out as Myka giggles and shoves at her body. Maggie takes Lena’s approach to climbing in, and sits down in the opposite corner, catching Lena’s eye and smiling at the antics of the other two in the middle. Briefly, Lena wonders if this is the first time that Alex and Maggie are going to spend the night together. She’s not sure if their presence helps to make it less awkward, or more so, and once she thinks too hard about it, she can only wonder how she would be feeling right now if Kara were with them as well. She swallows and checks her phone again. The last two messages had failed to send, and there is nothing new from Kara.

Lena sets it aside, and shifts, trying to get comfortable. She’s always had trouble falling asleep, and she doesn’t think she’ll end up getting much, regardless, but relaxing will do her well either way, so she tries her best. The sound of Myka and Alex’s whispering becomes a familiar hum, and Lena closes her eyes, not bothering to try and make out their conversation. She curls up on her side, facing the back of the couch, and lets the steady drum of the rain lull her achingly into sleep.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she must, because she wakes hours later to a loud clap of thunder. When she rolls over, she’s happy to see that it doesn’t seem to have woken anyone else, not even Myka. She shifts, facing the middle of the couch pile and trying to get comfortable again. Maggie is on her side across from Lena, one arm flopped across her face, sound asleep, and Alex and Myka are curled together in the middle between them. Alex is turned towards Maggie, one arm protectively slung across Myka, and Myka has pressed herself as close to Alex as she can get, her back to Lena. The covers have shifted down to her legs, and Lena reaches over and tugs them back up, tucking them gently around her. Myka shifts happily towards them and Lena smiles before closing her eyes again.

When she wakes a second time, there’s a hint of light pouring through the windows, but the rain is still coming down steadily. Lena shifts, confused for a second at the weight on her chest until she blinks and realizes that Myka has rolled in the night and is now using Lena’s stomach as a pillow. Her feet are draped across Alex’s chest, and Lena reaches out very carefully, lifting them off in case Myka wakes and accidentally kicks Alex in the face. She shifts at the movement, rolling and tucking herself further into Lena with a sigh, but her feet don’t go back towards Alex, and Lena breathes out with relief. She smiles when Myka blinks open her eyes and looks up at her.

“Good morning,” she hums.

Myka grins sleepily up at her. “You’re a good pillow.”

Lena laughs, the motion bouncing Myka’s head up and down and causing her to giggle. “Thank you. I think.”

Myka hoists herself up, lying completely flat on top of Lena and grinning. “We should have ice cream for breakfast.”

“No,” she laughs, reaching for her phone. “We should not.”

“Kara will say yes if you ask her,” Myka whispers, looking over and realizing that Alex and Maggie are still asleep.

“Kara is not a good role model to base your relationship with food after,” Lena counters.

“Are you?” Myka asks, dropping her chin down onto Lena’s sternum.

“Well, I certainly eat more vegetables than Kara does,” Lena says, feeling Myka’s giggles reverberating on top of her chest as she tries to check her emails. Still no dice. “Are you hungry already?” she asks, setting her phone back aside. Myka nods and Lena nearly rolls her eyes. She should have known the answer to that. “Well, pop up then,” she gently pats at Myka’s sides. “We’ll go find something.”

Myka does not pop up, she rolls off Lena, directly into, then on top of, Alex. “Goooooood morningggggggg!” she sings quietly. Alex grunts in response and tries to kick her off, but Myka clings. The noise wakes Maggie, and Lena smiles over at her as she sits up to stretch. “Everyone up!” Myka orders, standing and tugging at Alex, who seems determined not to move.

Lena carefully climbs over the back of the couch, stretching a bit more as she watches. Alex sticks her face into her pillow and refuses to budge. Myka stops trying to tug her up and sits down on top of Alex’s back instead, bouncing her body up and down gleefully.

“Lena,” Alex grunts. “Get her off. She’s your responsibility this early.”

Lena blinks in surprise at the casual way that Alex states this, studiously avoiding Maggie’s gaze as she reaches out and tugs gently on one of Myka’s arms. “Come on. Let her sleep.”

“But—” Lena shoots her a look, and Myka clams up, sighing and rolling off of Alex. “Fine,” she grumbles, crawling over the back of the couch and using Lena’s body to steady herself as she lands on the floor.

“I’ll start some coffee,” Lena announces, catching Maggie’s amused gaze. “We’ll be down in the kitchen.”

“Sounds good,” Maggie says. “We’ll meet you down there soon.”

Myka laces her hand with Lena’s and starts skipping in the direction of the kitchen, and when Lena looks back behind her, she smiles at the sight of Maggie bending over and brushing some of Alex’s hair out of her eyes, Alex beaming up at her. Myka giggles at her side, and when Lena turns and looks at her, the giggling only grows. “So, are you and Kara gonna be gross like that all the time now too?”

Lena smiles, swinging their hands back and forth until Myka starts twirling happily. “That’s the plan.”

…

…

When Alex and Maggie make their way into the L-Corp kitchen, Myka is perched up on top of the counter while Lena cooks what smells like pancakes.

It’s a little weird for a few seconds, to see Lena Luthor this… relaxed and normal looking. Donned in a pair of leggings and a t-shirt with her hair up in a messy bun, smiling over a mug of coffee, flipping pancakes and listening intently to something Myka is telling her about turtles. It’s not something that Alex ever pictured would be in her life, but then, neither is the warm hand laced with her own. Maggie, covering a grin and rubbing her thumb against the back of Alex’s hand absently, her hair tousled from sleep, her lips pink from the quick make-out session they had indulged in before heading off in search of food.

So.

Alex rolls with it. She walks past Lena, reaches above her and grabs two mugs, tapping her fingers gently on Myka’s head before pouring coffee into the cups. “Morning,” she hums, handing one over to Maggie.

“Good morning,” Lena responds, looking a little awkward as she tugs at the bottom of her shirt, self-consciously.

So, it’s not just weird for Alex. The sight of it brings out a protective urge that has been steadily growing in Alex since their run-in at the bar. God, nearly four months ago now. Alex tugs a hair tie off her wrist and reaches up, gathering Myka’s hair that is falling into her face and pulling it back into a ponytail before they end up with a stack of pancakes full of her curls.

“That smells halfway decent Luthor,” she teases. “I’m impressed that a rich kid like you knows how to make something as common as pancakes from a box.”

Lena rolls her eyes, and Alex watches as the awkward tension seeps right out of her shoulders, grinning happily to herself as she moves to sit down by Maggie. “Just because I never have any time to do it, doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to cook for myself.”

Alex raises her eyebrows at Lena over her mug and is granted another eye roll. Maggie reaches over and swats at her arm. “Be nice,” she demands with a laugh.

“Lena knows I only tease out of love,” Alex protests. “Right Luthor?”

“Sure,” Lena says, sarcasm dripping in her tone as she pours more batter into the frying pan. Alex laughs until Lena turns around and flicks some batter into her face.

“I feel like you kind of deserved that babe,” Maggie says once Alex turns to look over at her incredulously. Alex nearly throws some walnuts over at Lena in retaliation, then notices the look on Myka’s face and quickly grabs hold of her hands and flattens them against her instead. Myka pouts, but forgets about the potential food fight the second that Lena sets a plate of pancakes in front of her. “Thanks for cooking,” Maggie says, once Lena passes her a stack as well.

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Lena says, turning off the burner and joining them at the table.

“Damn,” Alex moans, after taking a bite. “These are amazing.”

Lena blushes at compliments once Maggie and Myka chime in and shrugs a shoulder. “I’m glad you like them,” she sips at her coffee. “I’m also just glad we can still use the stove top.”

Alex reaches for her phone, the service is still spotty, and it takes a few tries, but she gets her news app to load. “Power’s still out in a few sections of the city,” she reports. “But it looks like the storm is starting to clear up, and they think everyone should have it mostly back by tonight at the latest.” Before she can read anything else, the service drops again.

“Well, that’s good,” Maggie says, peeling a banana.

“Is Kara coming back yet?” Myka asks, mouth full of pancake and syrup dripping down her chin. Alex hands her a napkin and shrugs.

“She’s probably still working with Lois.”

Myka’s eyes narrow at Alex. “Do you not like Lois?” she asks, drawing Maggie and Lena’s attention.

“I like her fine,” Alex says, shrugging and busying herself with her food.  

Myka’s gaze remains on her, eyes narrowing further. “Your heartbeat is weird though,” she frowns. “And your skin is all warm. And your voice changed.”

“What?” Alex laughs, trying to cover the awkwardness. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” Myka insists. “I can hear better than you can. It’s all weird.”

“Well, you’re hearing things then,” Alex says and stands up to get another mug of coffee, highly aware of everyone’s eyes on her. When she turns back around, Myka is frowning at Maggie, and when she turns back around and looks at Alex, her eyes go wide.

“YOU LIKE HER!” she yells, standing up on her chair.

Alex chokes on her coffee. “What?”

“Your voice sounded like how it sounds when you talk about Maggie!! Only a little bit mad too,” she adds.

Alex snorts, laughing uncomfortably and not daring to take another sip. “I do not,” she insists. Myka doesn’t look convinced and Alex sighs. “Look, the truth is, Lois kind of drives me nuts. Kara adores her, so,” Alex shrugs. “But she’s loud, and she makes everything about her! And this one time, when we all had to go to the Kents for Christmas, she kept elbowing me and making all these stupid jokes about my crush on Johnny Depp, which like, had a lot more to do with the whole pirate thing than the actual: being Johnny Depp thing,” she is rambling now, but she can’t seem to get herself to stop. “And, I guess in retrospect, it probably had a lot more to do with her being uncomfortable and trying to bond or whatever, instead of focusing on the whole, my boyfriend has a new alien cousin and this entire affair is very weird and sad thing. But all it did was make Kara confused, and make me want to punch her. And then she threw up on Martha’s rug!” Alex sets her mug down with a bang and everyone is sort of gaping at her. Myka, still standing up in her chair, tilts her head and frowns.

“Yeah… well, your body is doing that stupid vibrating thing that it does when you talk about how much you like Maggie, so…”

Maggie laughs into her palm and Lena tries very hard not to make eye contact with either of them. Alex thinks about all of the times that Lois has annoyed her in the past, and now that she thinks about it, all of them directly happen after she and Clark do something god-awful and romantic, or when Lois smiles at her.

“Oh fuck,” she mumbles. “I totally used to have a crush on Lois.”

Maggie and Lena don’t bother covering up their laughter this time, and Alex sags back into her chair. “How the hell did I not know that?” she whines as Maggie reaches over and rubs at her back.

“Heteronormativity,” she supplies.

“Well, that sucks,” Alex declares. “And I can never look Lois in the eye again.”

“Can I please be there when it happens next?” Lena asks and Alex gapes at her.

“Friendship revoked!” she yells, but Lena only smiles at her. Damn, they’re officially comfortable with each other. It would have been nice for it to not come with this horrifying realization about Alex’s teenage feelings for Lois, but it’s nice to know all the same. Especially with knowing how completely head over heels her sister is for the woman.

“Right well… this is boring now,” Myka announces. “Can I see how many floors I can jump since the cameras still aren’t working?”

“No,” Alex and Lena chorus in unison. 

Chapter Text

Lena hears what is unmistakably the sound of an explosion, followed by some giggling, and glances up from her paperwork to catch Maggie’s eye.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left them alone together,” Maggie says with a smirk.

Another explosion rings out. Then, Alex’s calls up from somewhere in the labs, “IT’S JUST A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. EVERYTHING’S FINE!”

Myka’s voice adds, “WE’RE GONNA CLEAN IT UP! DON’T WORRY!”

Lena sighs and turns back to her paperwork. “My building better still be standing after this storm,” she says dryly. Maggie chuckles and turns back to her book.

…

…

The only person among them with even a semblance of rhythm is Maggie, but according to Myka, (who is quoting Kara) that is the least important element of a dance party. Lena is nonetheless very glad that Kara is not here to witness her terrible dance skills as she bops along good-naturedly and dips Myka when she asks.

…

…

“Chips can’t be your whole lunch,” Alex says, taking a bite of an apple. “Sorry babe.”

Myka takes another large mouthful of chips before reluctantly holding out the bag. Alex snatches it and tosses it to Maggie, who catches without bothering to look and puts it back on the counter. Lena pauses making her salad and claps in her direction, getting a smile and an eye roll out of her.

“If I eat three apples, then can I have three candy bars from the vending machine?” Myka asks, to no one in particular.

“I suppose,” Lena answers, after Alex catches her eye and shrugs. She moves over and sits down at the table, hair still wet from the shower that she took a few minutes ago. As nice as it was lounging around in L-Corp clothes, she feels more like herself now that she’s donned in a pair of slacks and a blouse. Alex had rolled her eyes the minute that she saw her and pointedly asked if she could have a second L-Corp t-shirt to wear after her own shower.

Myka runs over towards the vending machines and crams her hand up inside of it. Lena winces, afraid that she’s going to get stuck. Myka just snakes her hand out, one candy bar down, and starts violently shaking the de-powered machine instead, cheering as more fall down.

Lena’s phone dings with a new message and she smiles once Kara’s name appears on the screen. Service has been much more consistent since they woke up, and there’s only been one small bout of thunder and lighting.

The rain, however, is still going strong, and according to the news they’ve managed to get, flooding has been happening in a few parts of the city and in the suburbs.

“Kara thinks they’ll be done with their story today,” she relays. “They got a ‘smoking gun’ according to Lois, and they’re working furiously to type everything up properly now.”

“Awesome,” Alex says. “Good for them.” 

“When is she coming back?” Myka asks eagerly, peering over to look at Lena’s phone.

“Once they finish,” Lena shrugs. “They’re not sure yet. She says that she’ll keep us updated.”

“You mean, she’ll keep you updated,” Alex says with a teasing grin.

Lena shifts in her seat and takes a bite of her salad. Not answering. Alex’s grin only widens.

…

…

“MYKA!” Alex screams, gasping and falling into Lena as Myka lands down in front of them with a thud. Lena tries to steady Alex while not having a panic attack herself, looking up and wondering just how far up Myka jumped from.

Myka laughs evilly and throws her arms up into the air. “On a scale of one to ten, how much did I just scare you?”

“Fucking eleven,” Alex curses.

“Swear!” Myka cheers gleefully. “You owe me a dollar!”

Alex chases after her, Myka screaming with delight while Lena tries to steady her heartbeat. “How many floors do you think she cleared?” Maggie asks, looking above them.

“I don’t want to think about it honestly,” Lena says, releasing a breath.

“Gotta be like ten, at least,” Maggie whistles.

“MAGGIE, COME MAKE HER STOP TICKLING ME!” Myka screeches from another room.

“Oh my god,” Lena groans. “This storm has to let up soon.”

Maggie pats her on the shoulder as she goes past, laughing and jogging over to tackle Alex. Lena holds up her phone and snaps a picture, sending it to Kara.

…

…

Alex and Maggie have disappeared somewhere, and Lena is happy to leave them to it. She’s given up trying to work and has taken Myka back into the lobby. She mentioned earlier that Eliza was trying to teach her piano, and that Kara had said once that music had helped her learn to control her powers. While the ballet lessons didn’t end up sticking for Lena, the piano lessons did, and this is something that Lena is capable of helping Myka with.

They’re sitting together on the piano bench, and Lena is showing Myka the different keys. Myka is happier to make requests and listen to Lena play, but preens at any praise Lena heaps upon her whenever she gets something right herself.

Lena winces while she tries to play with her elbows, and can’t help but laugh once Myka looks over for her approval. “How about we try scales again?”

“Or, you could play me something,” Myka counters.

“Or, we could try scales again, and then I’ll play you something.”

“Deal,” Myka sits up straight beside Lena, placing her hands in the correct position and plows away. It’s still not anywhere close to what Lena had shown her, but it’s an improvement from the first couple of tries, and Lena says as such. Myka beams and goes again, concentrating fully.  

“Tap it a little lighter,” Lena instructs, reaching over to help relax her fingers. “Here, actually, my teacher used to do this when I was first learning,” she moves her hands over. “Rest yours on top of mine. I’ll play it and you get a feel for it.”

“I can’t reach,” Myka frowns once they try. “It’s weird to bend over like that.”

Lena shifts over. “Sit on my lap,” she offers. “Then the angle won’t be as awkward.”

Myka scoots over happily and settles herself, leaning her head back to rest on Lena’s chest and pretending to fall asleep. Lena rolls her eyes and bounces her legs until Myka laughs and sits up properly, fixing her fingers into the correct position on top of Lena’s. They play the scales over three times, and by the fourth try, Myka remains where she is, but plays it herself. Correctly.

“I did it!” she whispers, in awe.

“You did,” Lena smiles proudly. “Good job.”

“Can we play something fun now?”

“Sure.”

“Can I dance on top of the piano?”

“No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

Lena smiles. “No.”

…

…

When Kara lands down in front of L-Corp with Lois and Clark, she can hear Maggie’s voice ring out, “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!” and screaming accompanied by it immediately afterwards.

Clark laughs as they head inside and Lois frowns at him. “Not fair,” she says. “You have to tell the one regular hearing person what’s going on when I’m the minority. That’s the rules.”

“They’re playing a game,” he supplies.

Kara walks ahead of them, tuning out Lois’s, what kind of game? you have to be specific Smallville, this is why Perry makes you edit your articles so many times, eager to see Lena and Myka.

She is greeted by perhaps, the best sight that she has ever witnessed so far in her time here on Earth. Maggie is casually standing on top of the front desk, looking smug as Alex tries to stretch her legs from one chair to another, balancing using mostly her upper body strength. Myka is hanging from the banister on the stairs, supporting Lena’s body with her legs wrapped around her middle.

Lena looks terrified.

Myka looks up from reassuring Lena that she, totally has this, please stop worrying, and catches sight of Kara. She lights up and yells, “The floor is lava!! You can’t step on it or else you die!”

Kara floats up immediately, and Lena finally looks over and notices her. There’s a thrill, from the way that Lena’s heartbeat picks up, and the slight flush that comes over her entire body. She smiles at Kara, then yelps when Myka adjusts her grip, clinging to her legs as Kara flies over to them.

“Who’s winning?” Kara asks with a laugh.

“Us, totally,” Myka declares, releasing one hand to give Kara a thumbs up and causing Lena to have a full blown panic attack.

“Excuse me?” Maggie calls out. “I got off the floor first.”

“Yeah, but you picked an easy thing,” Myka counters. “We get extra points for this!”

“Please get me down,” Lena whispers to Kara.

Kara laughs and holds her arms out, easily lifting Lena out of Myka’s grip and securing her in her arms. The breath of relief Lena lets out is adorable, and Kara shivers a bit as she snakes her arms around her neck. “For the record,” she says, “she totally had you.”

“I did,” Myka says, with a hint of a pout. “Winn did tests. I’m almost as strong as Kara.”

“Almost,” Kara teases.

“Impressive,” Clark says, floating over beside them. Per the rules to the lava game, Lois is in his arms in the same position that Lena is in Kara’s. Bridal style.

Myka’s eyes narrow at him. “I can’t fly though. But flying is cheating anyway. Right, Alex?”

“Right,” she grunts. The chairs that she is balancing between both wobble precariously. “Someone fly over here and help me before I fall please,” she adds, through her teeth.

“You could let go,” Maggie offers with a shrug.

“Then I lose.”

“Exactly.”

“Kara!” Alex calls. “Get over here!” the chairs shake again. “And push Maggie over on the way.”

“No way!” Myka yells, lifting her legs up and swinging her body around until she can leap over to the other set of stairs. “If Kara helps you then you forfeit!” she declares, landing perfectly balanced, but smashing her foot down through the chair. “Whoops.”

Kara is going to have to figure out a better way to teach her how to calculate the force of her landings. Third grade is a bit young for physics. Maybe Lena will have some ideas that can help.

Alex wobbles again. “She helped Lena!” she protests.

“Temporarily,” Myka decides, looking back over at Kara. She leaps back to the banister, hanging above Alex with one arm and holding the other out. “Give her back,” she demands.

“Do not,” Lena whispers directly into Kara’s ear. “It’s not that I don’t trust her…”

Kara merely smiles, flies over and sets Lena down on top of the desk beside Maggie, before she turns, hovering in front of Alex and laughs. “You brat,” Alex groans. “If I fall and land into a split, I’m gonna kill you.”

Kara reaches out and tugs her sister into her arms, despite Myka’s protests.

“So how long does the floor have to be lava?” Lois asks. “Because I’m beyond starving and we’re supposed to be here to celebrate my article being finished.”

The power kicks back to life before anyone can answer, and through Myka’s cheering, Kara can hear Lena letting out a relieved sigh. She sets Alex down, and floats to the ground herself, holding out her hands to help Lena and Maggie climb off of the desk.

Myka waits until Clark floats down as well, jumping down to the floor last before grinning up at Kara. “I win,” she announces before running over and tackling her into a hug. “I missed you,” she whispers.

Kara wraps her arms around her tightly and grins. “I missed you, too.” She looks up and catches Lena’s eye. “I missed everyone,” she says, to Lena.

“Great,” Lois calls out, teasingly, “can you two make out on the way to the restaurant?”

Clark tosses Lois over his shoulder and grins at everyone. “She needs to be fed every few hours, or she gets cranky.”

“Smallville, I will kill you.”

“That’s Lois speak for: Clark, I love you dearly.”

“No. It’s: I will kill you, you Kryptonian asshole!”

“You owe me a dollar,” Myka announces, detaching herself from Kara and walking over to Lois and Clark. “That was a swear.”

Lois looks down at Myka and laughs. “Kid, I’m gonna need to give you at least a twenty in advance then.”

“Sounds good to me,” Myka shrugs and holds out her hand.

Kara rolls her eyes. Myka trying to hit people up for money has become one of her new favorite things. She made ten bucks off of Winn earlier this week before he even realized that the swear rule was a quarter, and only for the big ones. Lois, however, is no Winn, and she is going to eat Myka alive.

Kara bends over and kisses Lena lightly. “Did I mention that I missed everyone?” she whispers.

“You did,” Lena smiles.

“Cause I did,” Kara kisses her again. “Miss everyone. But especially like, one person.”

“Myka?” Lena deadpans.

“Eh,” Kara shrugs, feigning interest. “A little, sure. But I was talking about someone a little bit taller, a little calmer, and a little more human.”

Lena laughs into her mouth, and Kara kisses her until Myka and Lois team up to start teasing them—loudly. “That’s gonna be a bad combination,” Clark declares. “We never should have introduced them.”

“So,” Lena turns towards him slowly. “Clark Kent is Superman?” she says, and Kara freezes when she remembers that technically, Lena didn’t know that until right now. Clark’s secret is Clark’s secret, and Kara wouldn’t expose him. She only told Lena that Superman’s name was Kal.

Clark merely smiles back at Lena, and walks closer, holding his hand out. “I am,” he confirms. “It’s nice to properly meet you. Again.”

“We’ve met a few times,” Lena reminds him.

“Yeah, but now you know all of me.”

His hand hangs in the air between them, and Lena stares at his face for a few beats before accepting it. She smiles back at him, but Kara has seen a real smile on her face now, and this isn’t it. She knows, when the two of them are alone, they’re going to have a bit more to talk about regarding the Superman elephant in the room.

For now, though, Lois walks up and punches Clark’s shoulder, then leads Myka outside. Clark is beaming as he follows them and Kara knocks her head into Lena’s shoulder. “He’s right,” she whispers, as they all head outside, the rain thankfully lessening to a drizzle as the storm winds down. “They are going to be impossible.”

Clark and Myka scope out an open restaurant for them all. Clark is surprised when Myka jumps forward and declares that she’s coming with, climbing onto his back and telling him to check her favorite Indian place first. He looks back over at Kara, eyebrows raising in question and she just shrugs and nods.

They’re back in only a few minutes. Myka grumbling that the restaurant she wanted still doesn’t have full power as she slinks off his back.

“But there’s a great Italian place that does,” Clark says, cheerfully. “They’ve got a wood fire stove for pizza. Apparently, they’ve still been semi-open, and now that the power’s back up, they’ve got pasta back on the menu too.”

“Sounds good to me,” Lois shrugs. “Are you two carrying everyone or…”

“Um, I have a car,” Maggie points.

“So do I,” Lena adds, neither of them looking thrilled at the prospect of flying through the rain.

“Great!” Lois turns. “I’m in Lena’s,” she declares, and Kara’s stomach drops at the determined look on her face. Lena doesn’t give off any sign that she’s uncomfortable outwardly—her poker face is astounding—but Kara can hear the change in her heart rate.

So can Clark. And Myka.

“Me too,” Myka walks away from Clark and stands in front of Lena, staring up at Lois.

Clark catches Kara’s eye. “Um, well, I can—”

“You’re with us then,” Alex says, clapping him on the back. Kara can hear her say, they’ll be fine, as she directs Clark towards Maggie’s car.

Lois spends the entire ride mostly ignoring Lena, to everyone’s—apart from Kara’s—surprise. It’s the first step to intimidation for Lois: ignore and lull them into a false sense of security. She chats easily with Myka instead, eyeing Kara and Lena in the rear view mirror occasionally. Kara reaches across the console and slides her hand into Lena’s while they wait at a stop sign. Nothing to do with Lois, and everything to do with just… wanting to touch Lena. The smile that she receives in response is completely worth it.

Maggie, Alex, and Clark end up beating them to the restaurant, and they’re just securing a table for everyone as they walk inside.

Kara links her hand with Lena’s as they follow the group over to their table, absently rubbing her thumb on the back of Lena’s palm as they slide into the large booth. Kara ends up with Lena on one side, and Clark on the other. Maggie and Alex across from her, and Myka and Lois taking the outside seats, pulling up extra chairs to fit everyone in. Lois opens her menu, and without looking up at anyone says calmly, “So, Luthor, huh?” and everyone freezes.

“Lois,” Kara says, warningly.

Lena squeezes her hand underneath the table and sits up straighter, patiently looking over at Lois. “Yes,” she says, the challenge clear.

Lois closes her menu, sets it down, and rests her hands up on her chin before looking over and locking eyes with Lena. “So, how’s that been going for you?”

Lena barks out a laugh. “Oh, wonderful so far.”

The corners of Lois’s mouth twitch, threatening a smile and part of Kara relaxes. “I’ll bet,” she drawls and reaches over to take the first piece of bread from the basket. Pulling it apart, she shrugs one shoulder. “I’m sure that you’re lovely and all, from the way that Kara has been unable to talk about—cover your ears kid—” she directs to Myka, who obeys happily, “fucking nothing else all weekend. But, at the risk of bringing up a sore subject, I once thought the sun shone out of Lex’s ass too, so,” she shrugs and pops a piece of bread into her mouth. “So did Clark.”

“Lois…” he warns.

Lois smirks at him. “Did he ever tell you about the time we almost had a three-way?”

Clark chokes on nothing, frantically tugging at the tie that he is still wearing for some reason. Alex and Maggie’s eyes go wide, and they both struggle to stifle their laughter. Kara whimpers and slinks down into her seat, desperately trying not to imagine anything to do with her cousin and Lois being naked and failing, miserably. Lena is the only person at the table unruffled by the news, apart from Lois, and she sips at her water calmly and looks amused. Kara envies her.

Myka scrunches up her nose and looks around the table. “What’s a three-way?” she asks.

“When three people all have sex with each other,” Lois answers easily, just as the waiter walks over to take their orders.

“Um,” he says, pen poised at his ticket book.

“You had sex with Lena’s brother and Clark?” Myka asks, nose scrunching up further. “Why?”

“We didn’t, actually,” Lois runs her fingers through her hair and smiles at the waiter. “I’d like the alfredo pasta with broccoli and chicken please.” He blinks at her for a moment, then just nods and scribbles her order down. Kara sort of wants to die. That, or to lunge across the table and clamp her hand over Lois’s mouth.

“Oh,” Myka re-opens her menu. “What’s alfredo pasta?”

“White sauce,” Alex croaks, not looking at either Lois or Clark.

“I want that too,” Myka declares, handing the waiter her menu. “So, why didn’t you guys have sex? Did you stop liking each other?”

“Well, Clark was um… busy,” she says pointedly, tapping to her chest and wiggling her eyebrows. “With work, unexpectedly. So, the moment was kind of over. And then of course, later, Lex went a little…” she waves her hand around the air, the waiter giving her his rapt attention. “I mean, evil batshit crazy, for lack of a better term,” she finally shrugs. “It killed the mood. Plus, I figured out Smallville was the one and only for me,” she grins over at him. Even though he also sort of looks like he wants to die of embarrassment, or kill Lois, he can’t help but grin back at her before he manages to narrow his eyes.

Myka frowns, looking between Lois and Lena. “Wait…”

“Why don’t we all order before asking any more questions?” Kara jumps in quickly. The waiter looks a combination of disappointed and relieved as he turns from Lois to take the rest of their orders. After he’s collected the menus and left, Myka frowns up at Lena.

“What did Lois mean? About your brother being evil and crazy?”

The temperature in the room drops. Kara can’t feel it, but it must be happening anyway. In all honesty, she’s a little surprised that they’ve managed to make it this long without bringing up Lex to Myka at all. She just desperately wishes that they didn’t have to have this conversation in front of everyone, in a public restaurant. Lena shifts uncomfortably beside Kara, her heart rate going a mile a minute as she presses her lips together into a thin line. Myka picks up on all of it as easily as Kara can, and her frown only deepens as she waits. Showing much more restraint than she usually does.

Lois quiets, for all her teasing, she knows to be serious when the moment calls for it. Everyone at the table waits, allowing Lena to take the lead. Kara’s thumb picks back up making the gentle circles on the back of Lena’s palm. She is visibly uncomfortable with the attention and the topic, but Kara watches as she swallows it down and pulls a fractured, false smile onto her face as she turns to Myka.

“Lex has some strong anti-alien opinions,” she says carefully. “He hurt quite a few people, and he was arrested for it. He’s in prison for the rest of his life. It’s nothing that you need to worry about,” she reaches over and sips at her water, and Kara knows that is all she wants to say on the subject right now.

“So,” she says, picking up her own water. “We should all toast Lois. She’s been working on this article for months and it’s going to be great!”

Everyone jumps to grab their waters and hold them up, eager for the subject change. Myka’s face is still etched into a deep frown, and she opens her mouth to protest, but Kara quickly says, not now, in a low enough register that only Myka and Clark can hear. Her frown twists into an angry little pout, but she picks up her water and holds it out with everyone else. They all clink glasses, congratulate Lois—and Kara—for the hard work, and jump to ask her questions about the investigation until their food arrives.

While Myka begins recounting their weekend during the storm, Lena relaxes a bit into Kara’s side. Occasionally, she catches Kara’s eye and smiles, and each time that it happens Kara feels a burst of affection so strong that she doesn’t know what to do with it anymore. The progression of her feelings seems both incredibly fast and simultaneously like they’ve been there for ages. She can’t remember ever being this happy, and she wants it to last forever. Or at least for as long as possible.

Her attention goes back to the conversation as Myka and Lena both burst out into laughter, Alex looks nauseous, and Maggie just looks amused at something that Myka just said about Lois. Confusion pulls out onto Kara and Clark’s faces, but something like understanding spills out of Lois’s, and she turns to look at Alex, a wicked grin forming. “Oh my god Danvers,” she says, voice full of teasing. “Did you—”

“Please shut up,” Alex moans into her hands.

“Well, I’m damn fine,” Lois flicks her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t blame you. And I’m flattered.”

“What is she talking about?” Kara whispers to Lena. Clark still looks equally as confused.

“I’ll tell you later,” Lena whispers back.

“When Alex was youn—” Lena clamps a hand over Myka’s mouth.

“Thank you,” Alex says, pained. Lena just smiles at her.

…

…

Lena sits in between Kara and Myka in a booth and tries not to spend the entire evening glaring at Clark Kent. It’s not hard, because he’s a charming person. She’s always thought so—from the brief interactions they’ve shared over the years. He’d turned wary and distrustful, but always remained polite any time he was around reporting on Lex’s trial. Far more so than most.

She suspected that he was Superman once she’d spent any sort of time thinking about it. Kara refused to tell her his identity, and Lena understood. She hadn’t asked or prodded for any information—but it wasn’t hard to put two and two together, once she actually thought about the people in Kara’s life. Clark Kent isn’t Alex Danvers’ cousin.

Like finding out that Kara is Supergirl, it’s different; suspecting, and knowing.

Knowing that this is the man who held Lex’s arms back while he raged, manic with laughter with innocent dead bodies sprawled out between them. Their blood on Lex’s hands. And his alone.

Lena swallows and shakes the thought away. Furious that Lex can taint something as simple as a group dinner with friends for Lena—still.

Kara must realize that something is off, because her hand rests on top of Lena’s knee and stays there for a few minutes. Lena’s still not quite used to that—how in tune with her body Kara is—it still surprises her every time. She smiles at Kara reassuringly and turns back to the conversation happening around them. Kara’s hand remains where it is.

Lois is currently good-naturedly teasing Alex, and by extension, Maggie. Lena catches Alex’s eye and gives her a smile. Alex just rolls her eyes and continues trying to ignore Lois. Maggie looks like she’s having a great time. She doesn’t fluster easily.

Lois says something that Lena doesn’t catch, between the multiple conversations currently going on, but she feels the way that Myka stiffens beside her. She’s bounced back from her sulk earlier when Lena forced the words about Lex out of her mouth, but now Lena looks down at her, worried.

“What?” she asks, to Lois.

Lois pauses mid-conversation with Maggie and turns her attention to Myka. “Hum?” she asks.

“You… what did you say about Kara?” she asks.

“Um…” Lois looks confused, thinking back to what she had just been saying, and then Lena feels Kara stiffen on the other side.

“You said…” Myka looks between Lois and then over across the table, at Clark. A frown slowly etching out onto her face. “You said back when Kara almost lived with you. But that’s…” she looks, almost helplessly, over to Kara, who is now frozen beside Lena. “Kara’s like my…” she fumbles, searching for the right word, and doesn’t seem to be able to come up with one. Opening and closing her mouth twice. “But you’re her cousin,” she finally says, looking at Clark almost accusingly. “You’re her real family. Why…” she looks between him and Kara, sitting beside each other, matching looks of horror as they both reach to fidget with their glasses at the same time. “Why didn’t you take care of her?” Myka demands. “Kara’s taking care of me, and she doesn’t have to.”

Clark looks on the verge of tears, and Lena feels it when Kara reaches her other hand over towards him. He flinches at her touch, looking guilty and remorseful.

“Well, because, I—”

“Lois,” he says sadly, “don’t.”

“Clark—” Kara tries, but he shakes his head. Alex and Maggie both suddenly become incredibly interested in their napkins. Kara has never talked about any of this with Lena, but from all of the things that they have talked about over the last few months, she can take a pretty good guess as to where this conversation is going. It’s just as loaded for them as the topic of Lex is for her, and Lena wants to be able to do something to rescue Kara from the way that she is feeling right now.

Clark tugs at his tie, then turns his body towards Myka, looking up from the table and meeting her eyes. “I was scared,” he admits as tears do begin to well up. “I wasn’t ready to take care of anyone like that. I wasn’t… I didn’t know how to be a parent, or anything like that, and I panicked. I’ve regretted it for a really long time,” he says, this time looking at Kara, whose own eyes are spilling out with tears. “Kara’s stronger than me,” he says, with a proud smile. “Physically and emotionally,” he turns back to Myka. “That’s why.”

The table is silent, save for Kara’s sniffling. Lena has a vice grip on her arm, all her attention focused on Kara until Myka just says quietly, “Oh.”

“So,” their waiter comes back and claps his hands together. “Are we interested in any dessert tonight?” he quickly assesses the mood and panics until Lena smiles up at him.

“Yes please,” she says warmly.

“Great — I’ll, grab you some dessert menus and be right back,” he all but runs away.

Lena looks across the table to Alex. “What do you want for dessert?” she asks, trying to give Kara and Clark a minute to breathe. Alex picks up on her intention quickly, tapping her fingers on the table and wondering aloud how much chocolate she’s in the mood for.

“That depends what kind of chocolate,” Maggie adds. “There are many kinds. Have you had white chocolate yet Myka?”

Myka’s eyes widen. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh damn,” Alex grins. “We’ll have to change that then.”

“I’m not much of a fan of white chocolate by itself,” Lois says, playing with her napkin. “I like it mixed though.” She’s talking to Myka, but Lena can tell how all of her attention is focused on Clark. Lena feels the same way about Kara right now. Kara and Clark are looking at each other almost silently, but Lena can see their mouths moving, and she knows that they’re having a conversation at a low register. Nothing that Lena can pick up on, and she’s sitting directly next to them.

It blows her mind still sometimes, the realities of their powers.

“I’ll try it,” Myka says, slinking back into her seat. Lena looks down at her. She’s staunchly not looking over at Kara and Clark, but Lena can tell that she can hear them. The frown and way that she is gritting her teeth proof that she’s trying not to listen. She’s trying to give them some privacy and tune them out, but it’s not working.

The conversation lulls after the waiter takes their dessert orders, and Lena is about to try and say something else to bring some levity to the mood when Myka stands up and announces that she needs to use the restroom, all but sprinting away from the table.

“Yeah,” Alex says, sneaking past Lois and pushing Maggie out of the booth with her. “Same.”

Before Lena can say anything else, Lois reaches over and grabs her arm, tugging her. “Come on Luthor, I gotta give you the, ‘you hurt Little Danvers, I hurt you,’ talk. Let’s go pester the waiter for our desserts while we do that.”

“Lois,” Kara starts, “you don’t have to—”

“Can it kiddo, this is happening.”

Lena gives Kara a helpless shrug and allows herself to be dragged out of the booth and over to the register. At the very least, she can pay the bill while no one else can make any protests. She doesn’t think that Lois will fight her over it.

“Not at all,” Lois laughs, once Lena says as such. “You’re the rich one here. I have no problem letting rich people pay for my things. In fact, I insist upon it,” she grins.

Lena rolls her eyes and passes her card over to the girl at the front. Lois leans on the counter beside her, studying Lena in a way that suddenly makes her very uncomfortable. She has no idea what exactly Lois is looking for.

“Is it true?” she asks, trying to gain some semblance of control in this relationship. “What Clark said, about Kara?”

Lois’s face falls and she turns to play with a cup full of toothpicks. “Yeah,” she finally sighs. “I mean, I panicked too. I’d only known about… the ‘S’ thing, for a few months at that point. It was a lot, to go from thinking that I’d been dating a nerdy reporter to… that. With a kid on top of everything. He wasn’t alone in the panicking. But… he was the one who stayed in it.”

Lena blinks over at her in surprise. “You… wanted Kara to stay with you?”

Lois shrugs. “I wanted him. I figured she was family; she was gonna be part of that deal. I panicked, then I thought about it and…” she shrugs again, picking out a few of the toothpicks and stacking them into a small house. “I spent most of my teenage years taking care of my kid sister, it wasn’t like it was something that I knew I couldn’t do.”

The girl comes back with Lena’s card and the bill. She bends and signs it as Lois’s toothpick house falls apart.

“His parents were gonna take her, once they realized Clark really just… couldn’t do it. But he didn’t want to put that on them again. Which I think mostly made Martha furious. Apparently, he took Kara to the Danvers without telling her, and she chewed him out more than she ever had in his whole life. They didn’t talk for almost two months, after.”

Lena stares at Lois, the two of them moving out of the way of another customer together. Waiting up by the counter for their desserts. Lois seems unable to just, stand still and talk, reaching for more things to fidget with. She taps some straws against the counter like drums with no beat whatsoever.

“Anyway,” she sighs. “I know that you’ve probably got some preconceived opinions about him, which, is fair, but… he’s a good guy,” she says, with as much conviction as Lena’s only ever heard come from Kara or Myka before. A surety of something that Lena hasn’t felt in years. “He fucked up. Most twenty-somethings do, superpowers or not. Kara’s kind of the exception,” she smiles fondly, looking up at Lena at last. “Not the rule.”

“I know,” she says, smiling back.

“Luthor?” the boy behind the counter asks, a tray of desserts in his hands.

“That’s us,” Lois says happily, hip checking Lois. She doesn’t think she has ever been hip checked this many times in all her life, but it’s becoming a thing the more that she spends time with people who know Kara.

“Thank you,” Lena says, smiling and accepting half of the desserts while Lois takes the rest. They make their way back towards the booth, noting that Alex, Maggie, and Myka have returned, and the mood appears to have lifted.

“Anyway,” Lois says before they approach. “Like I said. I love that girl. And she and Clark are both way more trusting than I am,” she looks over at Lena seriously. “I know what it’s like to have a family member you fundamentally disagree with. My dad’s General Sam Lane. I know what it feels like to be in love with an alien while your family basically wants them dead. So I’m not…” she sighs. “I knew your brother. Not like, as well as you, obviously, but well enough to know that you two are different. I’m not saying this because of your last name, is the point I’m trying to make. But, if you hurt her, I will hurt you. Even if it’s only in the press.”

“Noted,” Lena says dryly.

“Also, since I know what it’s like to be in love with an alien who likes to throw themselves headfirst into danger and leave me behind to fucking panic, I’m not a terrible person to have in your contacts list,” she smirks as Lena looks at her in surprise. “We’re sort of a club of two. So, gotta stick together, right?”

Lena smiles at her. “Right,” she says, and feels more than she even knows how to describe right now, as Lois grins back at her and they set the desserts down at the table to cheers.

Myka crawls out of the booth to let Lena slide back in beside Kara, and she grins at her in thanks. Kara’s hand finds her own immediately underneath the table, and she raises her eyebrows in question. Lena kisses her cheek in response and simply smiles. Kara relaxes and smiles back before reaching across the table and shoving half a piece of cake into her mouth.

Lena catches Lois’s gaze and rolls her eyes.

…

…

Before Lois and Clark head back to Metropolis, he and Kara fly off quickly to help a car accident due to the storm. Myka pouts that they won’t let her come help the whole time they’re gone. She’s clearly overtired, because she flops against Alex and refuses to look at anyone else, despite Lois’s attempts to tease her back into a good mood.

She’d perked up a bit while they had dessert, but Lena could tell that she still had a lot of questions on her mind and is annoyed that she hasn’t been able to really ask them. She refuses any hugs from Lois or Clark when they come back, standing sullenly as everyone else hugs each other goodbye. Lena watches Alex bend down and whisper something in her ear before climbing into the car with Maggie, and it loosens the frown on her face, but doesn’t make it disappear.

“Do you want a ride?” Lena asks Kara, once they’re the last three left outside the restaurant.

“Oh, I forgot that you drove,” Kara says. “Sure!”

Myka climbs into the backseat, quiet as Kara chatters lightly while Lena drives. It sinks in about halfway to Kara’s apartment that after being surrounded by people all weekend, Lena is going home to an empty apartment.

That’s been the case for over two years now, but all the sudden it’s shocking to think about. She looks over at Kara in the passenger seat and wants nothing more than to follow them up to her apartment. She wants to be there for whatever breakdown Myka is clearly about to have. To help explain her part in it, with Lex. To fall asleep in Kara’s arms, even though that’s something that they’ve never done before.

She grips the steering wheel tighter. They’re way too early in their relationship for that to become any sort of regular occurrence. They’ve only technically been on four dates. Two, if they don’t count their outings with Myka since making it official.

Kara looks over at her in confusion, picking up on some reaction to her body that Lena’s unaware of. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Lena assures her, but the crinkle between Kara’s eyebrows remains.

“Do you…” she looks up at her apartment building. “Um…”

“I should get some work done,” Lena hears herself saying. It’s true. They’ve been in a power outage all weekend, there’s a lot for her to catch up on.

It also could wait for Monday. Lena had been explicit in her emails for no one to come in until Monday, despite what happened with the storm. She could take her own advice.

Kara looks at her hopefully, and then Myka unbuckles and leans into the front, between them. “Why are we just sitting in the car?”

“Myka,” Kara says, looking at Lena with a mischievous grin. “Do you want Lena to come hang out with us for a sleepover?”

“YEAH!!” she cheers, directly into their ears. Lena winces as Kara giggles.

“I don’t know Kara—”

“Please?” she asks. “It doesn’t—” suddenly a blush breaks out onto her face and her eyes widen. “Um, I didn’t mean… it doesn’t… I can sleep in Myka’s room! Or the couch! I didn’t mean that…”

Lena reaches over and rests a hand on top of Kara’s. “I knew what you meant,” she assures her, lacing their fingers together. “And it sounds lovely, but I think I’ll have to take a rain check.”

Kara’s face falls, and Myka grumbles loudly in protest, but Lena knows at this moment that if she follows them up to their apartment right now, she is never going to want to leave. She needs some time away from them. She needs to get herself under control.

She does have a lot of work to do.

“Promise?” Kara asks, looking hopeful.

“I do,” Lena says, and she means it; she’s not ready for that—yet—but she wants to be.

“Okay,” Kara leans over and kisses her. Myka groans and jerks her head back before jumping out of the car. Lena revels in the feeling of Kara’s lips on her own for a moment, then gently pushes her back. “Goodnight,” Kara says in a hush.

“Goodnight Kara.”

“Thank you,” she adds. “For this weekend. For all week. You’ve been amazing.”

Lena waves her off, but Kara shakes her head and grabs hold of her hand. “No,” she insists. “Seriously. Thank you for taking care of her.”

“THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF ME!” Myka yells, from where she’s trying to do a one-handed headstand on the sidewalk.

Lena laughs as she looks out the window. “You’re welcome,” she says, at a normal register.

Kara kisses her again before finally climbing out of the car. “Night,” she hums, beaming at her. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

Lena nods. “Sounds good. Maybe we can get lunch together this week?”

“Definitely,” Kara says eagerly.

Myka comes running back over and stands beside Kara, waving to Lena as she peels away from the curb.

Her apartment is too quiet.

Lena tugs herself out of her clothes, indulges in a longer shower than she usually allows for, and frowns when her phone rings and her mother’s name pops up on the screen. Nothing good will come of talking to Lillian this late at night, while she’s already feeling annoyed with herself and lonely. Lena silences her phone and climbs into bed, earlier than she has in months. Her phone goes off again, and she sighs as she moves to finally answer it, a snap and a brush off on the tip of her tongue until she sees that it’s not Lillian—it’s a message from Kara.

It’s a series of selfies: Kara and Myka sticking their tongues out to the side of their mouths; the pair of them doing headstands on what must be Kara’s bed, and both of them blowing kisses at the camera, at Lena. She falls asleep with a smile on her face, her phone resting against her chest. 

Chapter Text

Kara reaches down, grabs hold of Myka’s ankles, and tugs.

“NO,” she yells, gripping the headboard and refusing to be dragged out of bed.

“Myka,” Kara warns, seeing the wood begin to threaten to break. “It’s been a week, but now you have to go back to school. Aren’t you excited to see Avani and Trevor?”

“No, thank you,” she says and starts kicking her legs up and down, trying to loosen Kara’s grip.

Kara sighs, she really does not want to have to replace the headboard. “Myka, please let go,” she asks calmly.

“I would rather not,” Myka says back, just as calmly.

Kara rolls her eyes, dropping Myka’s legs with a huff. Myka gloats, scooting backwards in the bed until Kara finally just climbs up and lies down beside her. Myka readjusts her grip quickly and Kara sighs. “I’m not going to pull you out of the bed,” she tells her. “That will only make me have to buy you a new headboard. And currently, Snapper is threatening to fire me every few hours now—so I’m not in a place to afford extra expenses.”

“Lena has money,” Myka shrugs.

“Lena has her own money,” Kara says, rolling over to her side so that she’s facing Myka. “And constantly breaking and replacing things just because you can, is a pretty irresponsible way to live. Most people can’t afford to do that. It’s a waste of money that could be spent on better things. Also, again, it’s not our money.”

Myka releases the headboard and rolls over so that she is facing Kara too, a frown on her face. “So, mating here on Earth doesn’t mean that you share all your assets once you’re bonded?”

Kara blushes, biting at her lips as Myka giggles over her reaction. “Um, from what I’ve learned over the years, marriage usually means that you share your assets, yes. But Lena and I are just dating. We’re not, um, we’ve only been on a few dates.”

Myka frowns, cupping her hands underneath her cheek. “But…”

“Myka it’s not going to make a good impression for you to be late to school on your first day back from a suspension,” Kara says, interrupting. “So, I’ll answer your questions, but only if you get up and get ready while you ask them.”

Myka huffs, but sits up and moves off the bed. “Fine,” she grumbles, yanking her t-shirt over her head and looking for her uniform. “Do you know where my skirt is?”

“Right here.”

Myka dresses hurriedly, her blouse untucked and her socks mismatched as they head into the kitchen. Kara will fix them after she’s eaten—it’s easier. Myka crawls up onto a stool and reaches for a banana, peeling it as she grabs some peanut butter and starts spreading it on. Mouth full, she asks in almost a single breath, “So, how long until you and Lena share your money? Is she going to move in here? Or are we moving in with her? Cause, I’m coming if that happens right? Not just you? Am I one of your assets now? On Daxam, children usually stay with their mothers if it’s not a same-sex marriage. If it is, then they go with the older parent usually. Or the richest. Unless one of them’s a noble. Then they get the kids.”

“Um…” Kara picks up a hairbrush and turns Myka around while she eats, gently working through her tangles. She decides to start with the first question. It seems the easiest to tackle. “Honestly, I have no idea. Money isn’t really… I don’t really care about that. I’ve got a job, and she’s got a job, and it’s not really something we need to worry about.”

“But, she has way more money than us,” Myka supplies, reaching for a second banana.

“Sure,” Kara shrugs, setting the brush aside and gathering some of Myka’s hair to braid out of her face. “But we’ve got plenty for what we need,” she bends down, smiling. “As long as you’re careful not to break any of the beds, or tables and the like, we should be just fine.” She kisses Myka’s cheek and turns her back around. “Tuck your shirt in and drink some water while I get my stuff. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

“Do we have enough money for ballet?” Myka asks as Kara heads back into her bedroom. “Because Avani has class every Thursday after school. And sign-ups are almost over.”

“Um,” Kara wrinkles up her nose, looking for her phone, and hoping this distracts Myka from wanting an answer to all of her other questions. “I don’t know. How much is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we can find out I guess. If it’s something you want to try.”

“I’d need my own tutu.”

Kara cheers when she finally sees her phone, halfway underneath her bed, and grabs it, heading back into the kitchen. Myka is waiting for her, kicking her legs back and forth as she sits on a stool and munches on some dry cereal. Kara notices the time and runs towards the door. “Shoot, come on. We’ve got to go.”

Myka leaps off of the stool and grabs her backpack, following Kara out into the hall. They run downstairs together, yelling ‘good morning’ to the man who lives below and make it to the bus stop just in time. They’re not quite late enough yet that Kara needs to risk grabbing Myka and flying.  

“Good morning Julia,” Myka greets the bus driver.

“Morning sweetie,” she smiles back, closing the doors behind them as Kara ushers Myka back to find a seat.

It’s crowded. Kara waves off a woman trying to shuffle over to make enough room and grabs hold of the bar above her, smiling. “We’re fine,” she says, “thanks though.”

Myka leans into Kara, unable to reach the bars above and not really needing them to balance anyway. She adjusts her backpack before looking up at Kara. “So, are you picking me up today?”

“Yep,” Kara smiles, “three o’clock sharp. I’ll be there.”

Myka nods and turns to look out the window, thoughtful and quiet for the remainder of their ride. They spent nearly half the morning yesterday talking about Kara and Clark, and the rest of the day talking about Lex. Most of Myka’s questions, Kara had no answer for. Either she simply didn’t know the answer, or she felt like it wasn’t her place to say. When Lena had called—around four in the afternoon—she’d sounded incredibly tired, and Kara didn’t want to bring it up other than to tell her that they’d talked about it a little.

Lena had gone silent for what felt like ages, until finally she’d released a sigh and said, softly, “Okay.”  

“Are you okay?” Kara asked.

“Yes,” she hummed. Kara could hear her shifting around, and tried to picture her sitting on her couch. “It’s just been a long day.”

“A long Sunday,” Kara teased, getting the light chuckle that she was looking for.

“I told you that it was going to be,” Lena said. Pausing, she’d almost sounded flirtatious, but it faded quickly; the resigned, tired lilt to her voice popping right back up. “Is Myka… does she… where did you two leave it?” she finally asked. 

“Filled in a few more general blanks from what you told her in the restaurant. Told her a bit more about Clark, etc.”

“That’s it?”

Kara leaned against her kitchen counter and sighed. “It wasn’t really my thing to tell her Lena,” she said, quietly. “And I don’t actually know much more. You and I haven’t—and that’s fine—I just,” she trailed off, hearing how much effort it took Lena to swallow.

“I know,” Lena said. “I’m not… tonight is… I don’t have the energy right now Kara,” she said, apologetically.

“I know,” Kara assured her. “I wasn’t saying—”

“I’m not—”

They both laughed simultaneously. “Sorry,” Kara said, “go on.”

“No, it’s fine. I should go actually. I’ve got an early meeting at seven tomorrow.”

Kara had groaned at the prospect, pulling another tired laugh out of Lena. “I might have a free hour around one though,” she’d added. “Maybe we could get lunch together?”

“It’s a date,” Kara grinned.

“Okay,” Lena’s heartrate skipped, and Kara’s grin widened. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow then. Um, tell Myka goodnight for me?”

“She’s been asleep for two hours.”

“Oh,” Lena had sounded disappointed, and Kara nearly considered waking Myka up for a minute. “Okay, well then, tell her good morning tomorrow I guess.”

“Okay, night Lena.”

The line went quiet for a moment, and Kara waited, listening to Lena’s steady heartbeat and the dip of her breathing before she said softly, “Goodnight Kara,” and hung up.

Kara jolts a little now as the bus jerks to a quick stop, and Myka reaches out and helps steady an older woman in front of them, smiling up at her when she blinks and thanks her. Myka shrugs, going shy and leaning back into Kara. “You’re welcome,” she says, once Kara nudges her a little.

The woman smiles at them both once the bus starts up again. Giving them a nod when they slip past her and exit the bus on the next stop. Kara catches Myka’s hand and swings it back and forth until she’s grinning as they approach her school.

Avani and Trevor are both waiting for her on the steps. Avani jumps up and down, then yells out happily and takes off at a run, her mother shaking her head in amusement in front of the school. Avani collides with Myka and the two girls hug each other and spin around while Trevor carefully walks over towards them, hunched over and shyly smiling up at Kara before wrapping his arms around both girls.

“We missed you,” he says quietly.

“I missed you too,” Myka says, once she’s released from their hug. “Guess what?” she directs towards Avani. “I get to be in your ballet class!”

“Um—” Kara frowns, they hadn’t actually decided on that. And there is no way that Avani’s class is a beginner’s—she’s been dancing since she was two.

“Really!?” Avani screams at a pitch high enough for dogs to hear and clings to Myka again.

“I’m doing soccer,” Trevor announces.

“You should do ballet with us!” Myka yells, grabbing his arms. Trevor frowns, but doesn’t say no.

A bell rings and Kara starts shuffling them towards the front of the school. “Okay, come on guys,” she gets a hold of Myka’s backpack strap, halting her. “Hey,” she smiles, behind down and lowering her voice. “Behave. Have fun. I’ll see you at three.”

Myka nods and runs off after her friends.

…

…

When Kara looks up from her desk, she sees Lena walking through CatCo and beams. It’s been an exhausting and stressful morning; Snapper has been in even more a foul mood than usual and has been throwing extra work at everyone in range. Lena is a welcome sight. Lena bearing food, even more so.

Kara jumps up and kisses Lena, surprising her and laughing. “Hi,” she grins.

“Hello,” Lena says, fighting back a smile of her own. “I brought lunch.”

“I can see that,” Kara takes Lena’s hand and heads out towards the balcony. “You definitely know the way to my heart.” She pulls out a chair at one of the tables and Lena slides down into it, pressing her lips together, eyes warm as she opens the bags and starts setting up their food.

“Busy morning?” Lena passes her an iced coffee.

“Snapper’s on a bit of a rampage,” Kara rolls her eyes and takes a huge bite of the deli sub that Lena puts in front of her. “But it’s all good. Glad you’re here though,” she grins, some lettuce falling out onto her plate. “You?”

Lena shrugs one shoulder, stabbing at her huge and colorful salad. “What I expected after a weekend power outage. I read your article with Lois,” she smiles. “It was very good.”

Kara beams. She’s read it five times herself already. “Lois wrote basically all of it,” she shrugs. “But yeah. It was really cool to see my name on the byline with hers.”

“I’m proud of you,” Lena smiles, there’s a lightness to her, now that they’re settled and talking and Kara grins back at her. “There’s some mustard on your cheek,” Lena laughs. When Kara reaches up and swipes at her mouth, Lena’s laughter only rings out louder. “Come here,” she motions, and Kara leans forward in her seat, feeling a bit embarrassed until Lena’s fingers are gently brushing the corner of her mouth and her left cheek with a napkin. They linger, for a beat, sort of cupping Kara’s chin as Lena just… studies her. Kara waits, fighting the urge to squirm underneath Lena’s gaze, because she seems to be searching for something important. Finally, she just smiles and releases Kara’s face, leaning back in her own chair and sipping her coffee. “So,” she says, a sly smirk etching out onto her face. “My guess is you infused yourself with Earth culture when you first arrived, trying to blend in. So, favorite childhood band?”

Kara laughs. “NSync.”  

Lena’s grin widens. “Favorite member?”

“Well, Lance had a company called Bacon and Eggs, which really just speaks to my soul…”

Lena chokes on her coffee through her laughter.

“Plus, he wanted to go to space,” Kara adds, grinning at the way Lena’s smile has seemed permanently etched onto her face since she walked through the doors of CatCo, the way the tension in her shoulders lessens with each passing minute. “What about you?” she asks.

“I was always partial to JC myself.”

Kara moves on to the second sub, while Lena works at finishing her salad. “I loved Justin too though,” Kara says.

“Would you rather NSync got back together, or Justin and Britney?” Lena asks.

Kara groans, pretending to jab at her chest and causing Lena to giggle, which is something Kara has never seen from her before, and wants to see a lot more of in the future. “No, I want both,” she demands. “That’s too unfair a question.”

“Okay then, favorite show that you and Alex are binge watching right now?”

“We’ve actually been doing Gilmore Girls for a while now.”

Lena sips at her coffee, pushing the empty salad container slightly away from her. “I think I’ve seen a few scattered episodes of that. Small town, single mother right?”

Kara gasps. “You’re coming over tonight, we’re gonna watch some after Alex gets out of work.”

“Oh, I don’t know if—” Kara pouts at her, not wholly on purpose, but Lena’s smile drops to something fond and she sighs. “Maybe around seven?” she says, acquiescing. “But I really do have a lot of work to do,” she glances down at the time on her phone, some of the tension pulling back into her shoulders as she frowns. “I should probably get back actually,” she says, not sounding happy about it.

Kara’s not thrilled either, but she can see Snapper hollering at an intern, and she probably should get back in there too. “Yeah,” she sighs, moving to collect their trash. “Me too. Oh hey, Myka is going to try to do ballet with Avani, which should be very funny.”

Lena chuckles. “Yes,” she moves to stand, tossing the remains of her coffee into the trash, only ice chunks now. “She doesn’t have much rhythm. I tried to show her some of the feet positions on Friday. She fell over four times.”

Kara laughs and reaches over, linking their hands together as they—slowly—make their way back inside. Lena’s heart races a bit, and there’s a slight flush to her cheeks that Kara can’t help but reach over and kiss, only further adding to the problem.

“Like I said, should be funny.”

Lena lets out a breath when they reach Kara’s desk. Kara doesn’t want to let go of her hand, doesn’t want to go back to work, or Lena to leave. She drops her head down lightly against Lena’s shoulder and huffs. Lena’s free hand comes up to the nape of Kara’s neck, gently massaging it. Her voice is a bit strained and quiet as she asks, “How was she? Today?”

“Going back?” Kara asks and feels Lena nod. “Okay. She had a lot of embarrassing question to ask me this morning though.”

“Embarrassing how?” Lena asks.

“Um,” Kara lifts her head up, meeting Lena’s waiting gaze. “About like… you and me mostly. And, Earth’s dating customs.”

Lena’s face goes pink. “Oh?” she says, a slight crack to her voice.

“Um, it’s a bit different on Krypton—and even more so on Daxam—so she just… was a little confused on a few things. That’s all. She got distracted by ballet and Avani. Which was great for me,” Kara adds, laughing nervously.

“What exactly is different?”

“Um, dating in general, I guess?” Kara shrugs. “Less so on Krypton, though it is still mostly just matches. Especially for members of guild families or nobles. From what I know of Daxam, everyone is matched, otherwise there isn’t any marriage and it’s just, um,” Kara is blushing now, furiously, “like, sex stuff,” she lowers her voice considerably. “But not really, dating. It’s, not really a thing? I guess?” Kara drops Lena’s hand and quickly sits down at her desk, fidgeting with her glasses and pretending to shuffle some of her papers around. “I mean, I don’t really know. I was twelve. Dating customs of other planets weren’t really on my radar.” When she looks back up, Lena’s face is thoughtful and interested.

“I want to know more about this,” she says. “But I really have to get back now,” she bends down and kisses Kara on the cheek, smiling against her skin. “Hopefully I’ll see you tonight.”

“You better!” Kara calls after her, and Lena laughs as she walks towards the elevators.

“I’ll do my best,” she says softly, from across the room. She knows that Kara can hear her perfectly. Kara smiles at her until the doors close.

“Danvers!” Snapper yells. “Don’t think just cause you got your name on a byline with Lois Lane that you’re above grunt work. Hop to it!”

…

…

Myka is terrible at ballet.

She makes up for her complete and utter lack of grace and rhythm with boundless enthusiasm, and Avani’s teacher allows her to be in their class. Though she pulls Kara aside two weeks in and says something about putting her with a different class for the end of the year recital, looking very sorry about the whole thing.

“As long as she gets to do it at all, I really don’t think she’ll mind,” Kara assures her. “She knows that Avani is at a different level.”

“She’s very encouraging to the other dancers,” the teacher, whom they all call Miss Cindy, says with an amused smile.

“Yeah, that’s not surprising,” Kara laughs. They can hear Myka loudly praising one of the other girls for her pique turns from out here. When Kara sticks her head into the room, she manages to catch Myka attempting the turns herself and nearly crashing right through the floor. Avani winces and very kindly tries to help Myka learn how to spot through her turns, again.

It doesn’t take.

Myka seems wholly unconcerned. She stomps her way through all of the moves with a huge grin on her face, looking absolutely nothing like the other dancers and not the least bit self-conscious about it. She pauses halfway through part of the choreography to tell another girl that her kick was awesome and then catches sight of Kara watching and waves before remembering that she is supposed to be focusing.

She falls eight times in two minutes, grinning the whole time.

The other dancers don’t seem to know what to make of her, but from what Kara can tell, they all like her just fine. She doesn’t seem offended in the least when Miss Cindy calls her over to help with the music and the other girls do the choreography without her. She calls out encouragement and corrections right alongside Miss Cindy, twirling by herself in the corner when they finish and clapping wildly.

She’s having a blast, so Kara could honestly care less if she’s good at it or not.

“Oh, I’m really bad,” she says cheerfully, responding to the barista who takes their orders on their walk home afterwards.

“She’s still learning,” Avani says kindly.

Kara just smiles and ushers them out of the coffee shop, cookies in hand, skipping happily in their matching tutus.

…

…

She manages to have lunch with Lena almost every single day.

There are only a few instances where one of them is too swamped with work to meet the other, and usually, Kara calls Jess and makes sure that she orders something for Lena—just in case she gets so wrapped up that she forgets to eat altogether.

They do their best to try and have dinner together a few nights a week as well. It happens much less, Lena is often at work until at least six, and sometimes she is still there around nine when Kara calls to let Myka say goodnight. She never chides her for being at work so late—Myka does it for her—and she’s much better at guilting Lena into dragging herself away from her desk.

Kara never wants to guilt Lena into anything. Myka doesn’t have those qualms, but she also wants more than just about anything in the world, for Lena to be happy, so Kara never scolds her for it.

Lena becomes a semi-regular fixture at Game Night, winning nearly every time. She and Alex become incredibly competitive, and Myka takes turns cheering the both of them on, refusing to commit to either side.

“Kara?” Alex demands.

“No way,” Kara holds up her hands. “I’m with Myka. I’m on both sides.”

“You can’t be,” Alex insists. “This is a game. One of us wins. One of us loses.”

“I’m team, ‘I hope you both tie.’ Sorry,” Kara grins at them both.

“I hope you both crush each other!” Myka yells, not exactly understanding the way the phrase works. She slams her fists down on the table with enthusiasm and sends all of the pieces flying anyway. “Whoops,” she says as Alex scowls.

“I was winning!”

“No, you weren’t,” Lena insists. “I was.”

“No way in hell Luthor.”

“Are you questioning my integrity?” Lena asks, crossing her arms over herself. Only Kara can easily tell that she’s joking, and Alex freezes, looking almost guilty until Lena can’t help the smile that breaks out onto her face.

“Oh, you asshole,” Alex yells, and whacks her with a couch pillow, Lena laughing brightly as she tries to dodge out of the way.

Myka flops down next to Kara, knocking her head into her shoulder. “This is so much fun,” she whispers.

“I know,” Kara whispers back, and catches Lena’s eye, their smiles both growing together. 

…

…

Kara freezes in midair.

Hello Kryptonian, the voice in her earpiece taunts. There’s something familiar about it, but Kara can’t think clearly once the voice continues. I’m inviting you over. We already have a guest waiting for you—your little Daxamite friend. But, if you tell anyone where you’re headed—she dies. If you refuse to come—she dies. Come to me Supergirl, but I should warn you, in the myths, Cadmus was really only famous for one thing. He killed monsters.

She flies as fast as she can, but she just ends up in an empty building.

She walks warily down the hall until she’s face to face with the real Hank Henshaw. She knows it’s a trap, she’s not stupid. But somehow, they have Myka, so it doesn’t really matter.

That’s all she can think about as she’s slammed into a wall and falls unconscious.

…

…

Lena’s phone rings three times in quick succession. Before she goes to silence it again, the doors to her office burst open and Alex, phone up to her ear, comes barreling through.

“Why aren’t you answering?” she snaps, radiating nervous energy.

“What? Alex—”

“Grab your stuff,” she cuts her off, walking over to Lena’s desk and grabbing her arm, hauling her upwards and starting to drag her out the door.

“Alex!” Lena snaps, trying to yank her arm back. “What is going on?”

“I’m taking you to the DEO,” she says. Her hands are shaking around Lena’s arm, and her stomach sinks with dread as she grabs her purse. Alex likes to be annoying; she enjoys picking on Lena to show her affection, but there’s something like wild panic to her eyes right now, and Lena knows that that is not what this is. Nothing about Alex is teasing right now.

“What happened?” Lena breathes. “Is it Kara?”

Alex shakes her head, then shrugs. Swallowing back something that sounds horribly like a sob, she grips Lena’s hand. “They’re… Myka is…”

Lena doesn’t register anything else after that, though Alex tries to explain, multiple times over on their way to the DEO. She’s barely holding herself together, but Lena just goes cold and silent. The only thing that she can hear is her own heels clicking against the linoleum floor of the DEO. Alex only releases her hand to drive, clinging to Lena once again the minute they are out of the car. Agents come up and surround them immediately. Alex is clearly a high-level agent here, and she swallows her way through orders and listens to Winn rattle off a jumble of facts. But she never lets go of Lena’s hand, not even when Maggie comes running up to them and pulls Alex into a fierce hug. It doesn’t seem to be something that she’s conscious of.

Lena just stands beside her silently until someone—Maggie, she thinks—gently pushes her into a chair. Alex is pacing anxiously, barely holding herself together. Winn is flustered and keeps hitting the wrong keys on his keyboard. Maggie looks shaken, and switches between comforting Alex, to checking on Lena, to offering up possible suggestions to other agents. And even J’onn, whom Lena has only met properly on their excursion to the beach, weeks ago now, is visibly worried.

Only Lena sits still, her back straight and coolly silent. She thinks there must be something wrong with her, but she just feels numb.

…

…

When Kara wakes up, she sees Myka crouched into a little ball in the corner of a cage.

“Hi,” she whispers. “Are you okay?”

Kara jerks up, nearly slamming into the bars of the cage dividing them as she tries to get to her. “Are you okay?” she asks, quickly clocking her and checking for injuries. Myka nods. “What happened?” Kara asks. She jumps up to try and pulls the bars apart but it’s no use. They’re not made with any material found on Earth.

“A lady came to my school,” Myka says, while Kara paces the cage, still trying to break their way out anyway. “She said she worked with you at the DEO. That you told her to pick me up because you guys were all busy.”

“Myka…” Kara crouches back down to sit beside her, reaching out and taking one of her hands.

“I told her I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere with strangers,” Myka insists. “I was gonna go with Avani to her house, but…” tears pool in Myka’s eyes and Kara reaches through the bars and swipes at them gently. “Then she said she was Lena’s mom.”

Kara’s hand freezes in midair.

“She had pictures of her with Lena in her wallet. So. I thought…” she hiccups and Kara hates the bars that are separating them right now. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kara insists.

“It’s really not dear,” an icy voice says from above. Kara jerks her head up and comes face to face with Lillian Luthor, smirking down at her. “Hello, Supergirl.”

“What do you want?” Kara snarls, rising and trying to place herself in front of Myka.

Lillian’s smirk grows. She looks down at Myka, who attempts to glare back up at her. “I wanted to see exactly what the aliens who appear to be inserting themselves into my daughter’s life think they’re doing,” she drawls. “Also, I need a little something from you, Supergirl, and this seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone. So, Supergirl,” she says her name like it’s a curse, “what exactly are you to my daughter?”

“A friend,” Kara snarls back, incredibly aware of the suit she is in right now.

Lillian’s eyes narrow, but she says nothing to Kara in response. Instead, glancing down at Myka she asks, “And you?”

Myka rises. The slightest shake to her legs is the only hint that she’s frightened as she glares up at Lillian impressively and says, “I’m her friend too,” fiercely.  

“And how exactly, did an alien child befriend my daughter?” she asks, turning back to Kara.

“By being nice,” Myka answers, before Kara can say anything. “And making brownies.” Lillian doesn’t take her eyes off of Kara as she reaches behind her and pulls out a gun.

“Daxamites have a slightly different genetic make-up to Kryptonians,” she says easily, loading the handgun. “Lead, for instance, is a bit of a nasty allergen.” She points the gun at Myka and Kara screams. “Step out here and blow out your powers, or I put a lead bullet into her leg. Then another. And another, until I feel like putting her out of her misery.”

“Ka—Supergirl,” Myka pleads, grabbing her hand through the bars. “Don’t.”  

“It’s okay,” Kara assures her and follows Lillian out of the cage silently.

Myka screams when Kara does; exhausted and in pain as she slumps to the floor, powerless. She hears Myka scream again when Lillian smacks her and draws blood. She hears her scream again as she is lifted up and dragged out of the room, trying to assure Myka that it’s alright, trying to demand that Lillian let her go.

She has no energy to fight anyone off when Lillian comes over and draws some of her blood. She’s still aching when they drag her back into the cage, this time throwing her into the same one as Myka and slamming the door.

Myka sprints to her in an instant, clinging tightly and crying. Kara tries over and over again to reassure her that she’s alright, but Myka keeps shaking, unable to take her eyes off the tiny bit of blood at Kara’s lip.

“Lena’s mom is really mean,” she finally whispers against Kara’s chest. “I think I hate her.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not her biggest fan,” Kara says back. The lights flicker, and Kara shoves Myka back behind her when a man appears in front of the cage, but freezes when he pulls off his hood. “Jeremiah?” Kara whispers, unable to believe it. He opens the cage door, smiling and holding his arms out, and Kara leaps into them. “What—”

“There’s not much time,” he says quickly, pushing Kara back a little and motioning for them to follow him.

Kara grabs hold of Myka’s hand and runs after her foster father, firing questions off as they sprint down the halls. He gives her half-answers back, smiling and saying how proud he is of her. Of Alex. Alex, god, Kara can’t wait to see Alex’s face when she sees Jeremiah again, except…

“What do you mean you’re not coming?”

“Not yet,” he says.

Kara doesn’t want to let go of him. She doesn’t, can’t, it seems; he has to pry Kara’s fingers off—still nowhere near her full strength—and push her towards Myka and the exit.

“I don’t… please…”

Jeremiah just smiles and turns to distract Cadmus’ guards, giving Kara enough time to turn around and grab Myka, running out the door with tears in her eyes.

She’s not actually strong enough to hold Myka and fly right now, but she tries anyway, thinking of nothing but getting Myka to safety, and getting to Alex so that they can go back and get Jeremiah.

She passes out basically the minute that they land in front of the DEO, vaguely aware of Myka picking her up and carrying her inside before everything goes black.

…

…

When she jerks awake, Alex’s arms quickly wrap her up and try to hold her back down to the bed. She starts yelling about Jeremiah, but Alex cuts her off. Explaining that Myka already told them. That they already went back to where they had been held to find it cleared out and empty. No trace left at all.

Kara sags, trying to swallow back tears at the way that Alex’s voice cracks painfully over their father’s name.

“Myka!” Kara quickly panics until she looks to her left at the little, ‘Right here,’ that gets her attention. “Are you okay?” she asks.

Myka, sitting on Lena’s lap in a chair right beside the sunbed Kara is sitting on top of, nods. Lena stares somewhere off at the wall behind Kara, her hands wrapped tightly around Myka’s middle, knuckles going white. “I’m fine,” Myka insists.

“She is,” Alex reiterates, in a way that sounds like she’s been repeating herself. Kara tries to catch Lena’s eye, but she’s completely zoned out.

“Lena,” she says softly.

Alex steps back, reaching a hand out for Myka to give them a minute of privacy, but Lena’s hands around her tighten, and a horrible sound falls out of her lips. Kara jumps off the bed and throws her arms around Lena’s neck, whispering, “It’s okay. She’s okay. Everyone’s okay,” over and over again until long after the noise has stopped, while Alex hovers, wringing her hands together.

“You should get back in the sunbed,” Lena says, eerily calm.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not though,” Lena says, finally looking Kara in the eye. “Myka told us what happened. Get back in the sunbed.”

“I’ve got a smaller sunlamp at home,” Kara counters.

“That’ll take longer.”

“Yeah,” she shrugs.

“Kara—”

“Please,” she begs softly. “Let’s just go home.”

Lena freezes for a moment, and Kara doesn’t realize what she’s said until they’re all climbing out of Lena’s car and walking into Kara’s apartment together. Kara’s hesitant to leave them alone and shower until Myka scrunches up her nose and says, “You kind of smell though.”

Her hearing comes back slowly, but quicker than any of her other powers. She listens in on their conversation in the kitchen as Lena asks if Myka is hungry, then they move into what is now Myka’s bedroom when she says, no, just tired, while Kara washes the dirt and blood off her body.

Her hair is still dripping a bit down her back when she walks into Myka’s bedroom. Lena is perched on the edge of her bed, and Kara watches as Lena tries hold Myka close and flinch away at the same time. Then Myka yawns and crawls underneath the covers, looking not in the slightest like a girl who was kidnapped only a few hours ago and just like a regular third grader who’s exhausted. She looks up and notices Kara in the doorway, and only then is there any hint that something might be wrong. She frowns, inspecting Kara for a moment with worry behind her eyes. Worry that extends to Lena, silent and rigid in front of her. Myka doesn’t seem to know what to make of any of it, so she rolls over, facing away from them both and says quietly, “Night,” before closing her eyes and refusing to say anything else to either of them.

When Kara steps over and gently places her hand on Lena’s shoulder, she jerks in surprise. “Sorry,” Kara says, starting to pull her hand back, but Lena grabs it.

She turns and looks up at Kara, saying nothing as she sort of hovers on the edge of Myka’s bed. She stares up at Kara for what feels like a full minute or two, almost searching for something. Kara doesn’t shy away from the attention, doesn’t flinch when Lena reaches across the space between them to lift a wet strand of hair from clinging to Kara’s cheek. It’s something she’s been doing a lot more of in the last few weeks, with both Kara and Myka. Even on one or two occasions, Alex. Kara has no idea what’s going on in her mind when she does it, but her touch is always light and there’s something hesitant about the gestures, despite how deliberate and determined her face usually is when it happens. Her fingers linger this time, sliding slowly down from Kara’s cheek to her neck, just her fingertips, and when Kara shivers slightly, Lena swallows hard enough for it to be heard in the quiet room. Her mouth opens, then closes again before she presses herself off of the bed and directly into Kara’s personal space. She tries one more time to say something, and Kara remains silent, trying to give her the space to say whatever it is she needs, but Lena’s mouth just closes again. Tears spill out of the corners of her eyes and Kara gently swipes at them, remembering the exact way she did that for Myka, only a few hours before, and then she’s the one who breaks down crying.

Lena wraps her arms around Kara and holds her tightly as she cries. Her cheek presses against Kara’s own, and Kara’s wet hair sticks to her skin. It’s a stupid thing to focus on, but everything else feels a bit too big. The image of Jeremiah’s face, smiling before turning away from her won’t leave her mind, and she’s surprised when she realizes that Lena has directed them out of Myka’s room and into Kara’s.

“Please stay,” Kara begs, suddenly horrified at the thought that Lena might let go of her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lena says, something firm in her voice, even though it cracks and her eyes fill with tears.

“Okay.”

Kara flops backwards, suddenly too spent to hold her body up any longer, and Lena falls with her, the two of them sort of colliding on top of Kara’s bed. This is not at all how Kara wanted to spend the night with Lena for the first time. She wanted it to be romantic. And happy. If not sexy, then at the very least they should have been granted that. Instead, Kara is beyond exhausted and she’s scared. Of the feeling she hasn’t been able to shake since the moment that she heard that Cadmus had Myka. Of the complete numb and silent fear that won’t leave Lena’s face. Of the fact that Lillian Luthor probably knows that she is Supergirl now, and has held Jeremiah hostage for who knows how many years.

Mostly, she’s scared because she has no idea what to do about any of it.

She desperately wishes that her mother was alive. Or Astra. Everything feels too big to deal with on her own. It’s the most terrified and unprepared that she’s felt since the moment that Myka’s pod fell from the sky.

Since the moment that she pressed her lips to Lena’s and told her that she was Supergirl.

“Kara?” Lena asks, “can I borrow some clothes?”

“Oh, yeah. Course.” She lifts up from the bed, happy to have an easy task to do, and digs around in her drawers until she comes up with a large soft t-shirt. Lena turns, and Kara unzips her, watching as she steps out of her heels and tugs the dress down. She doesn’t hesitate in unclasping her bra, and Kara doesn’t turn away. Nothing about it feels voyeuristic or unwanted. Lena pulls the t-shirt over her head and turns around and sinks into Kara’s arms in almost one motion, and the two of them lie back on the bed together.

Kara loves her. She’s never known something so fiercely or more suddenly, and she nearly blurts it out, but god, have they even been dating for three months yet? She’s too tired to think back and do the math, but it feels too soon to say it. Lena already looks ready to bolt, something about her panicked in the way that she keeps glancing towards the wall that separates the two of them from Myka’s room.

“Lena—”

“What did my mother do?” she asks, interrupting.

“What did Myka already tell you?”

Lena’s body goes rigid in her arms, then she shifts, pressing herself closer so that her face is tucked into Kara’s neck, not meeting her eye. “She showed her pictures of me. To get her to trust her.” Lena doesn’t need to voice how much she is blaming herself for that, it’s in every cadence of her voice. Kara wraps her arms around her tighter and kisses her temple.

“That’s not your fault Lena,” she says fiercely.

Lena shakes her head and just presses on as if Kara hadn’t said anything. “She put her into a cage, and she couldn’t break herself out, and she wasn’t there very much longer than you were. She said that you showed up about fifteen minutes or so after my moth—after she did.”

“She needed my blood for something,” Kara says, and Lena finally looks up at her again. “She made me solar flare. Blow out my powers, so she could get it. My skin doesn’t—”

“I remember.” Lena swallows thickly and steels herself. “Did she hurt Myka? She wouldn’t… she kept saying that she was fine, and that my mother didn’t hurt her at all but… did she?”

“No. She threatened to. If I didn’t blow my powers. But, no.”

Lena nods, but her expression remains unchanged, and the band of worry around Kara’s chest pulls tighter. It takes forever for her to fall asleep, too wrapped up in checking to make sure that she can hear Myka’s steady heartbeat in the next room. On the dip and fall of Lena’s breathing as she clings to Kara in her sleep, and the way that part of her feels like this is how things should be every night, apart from the overwhelming fear, kidnapping mothers, and suddenly reappearing fathers.

…

…

Lena wakes up impossibly warm. When she tries to roll over—disoriented, to find the time—she realizes that she’s stuck between two bodies.

The source of the warmth, then.

Lena blinks over Myka’s curls and catches a glimpse of the clock on Kara’s nightstand: 6:44 a.m. She lets her head flop back down onto the pillow, trying to decide if she should attempt to extract herself or just try to go back to sleep when Myka shifts. Her eyes blink open slowly, taking a moment to focus on Lena, and when she does, she frowns, face scrunched up in confusion before smiling at her.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hello,” Lena whispers back, trying to allow Kara some more sleep. “You weren’t here when I fell asleep,” she states, balling her hand up into a fist to stop herself from reaching out and brushing Myka’s hair out of her face.

“I know,” Myka shifts again, closer to Lena, but not touching her. “I had to go to the bathroom. And then I was too tired to go all the way back to my room. Kara’s is closer,” she smiles, a bit teasing. “I didn’t know that you were gonna be in here.”

Lena does not blush at the implications of an innocent nine-year-old, but she does clear her throat and stumble through an explanation.

Myka rolls her eyes. “I know about sex stuff. Remember? Lois almost did it with your brother.”

Lena chokes on nothing, and Kara stirs behind her. They both go quiet for a moment, and Kara settles, her arms snaking further around Lena before she lets out a sigh. Lena doesn’t really know what to do with how many different emotions are running through her body right now; the whiplash of last night to this, content, blissful morning is staggering. Myka picks up on some of her hesitation—how, Lena doesn’t know—her heart rate, some shift in her face, some thing that Myka can feel and Lena cannot. She searches Lena’s face for a moment, unsure, then scoots even closer, very slowly reaching one hand up and tapping out a pattern on Lena’s shoulder. It’s something that Lena has seen both Alex and Kara do for Myka before; giving her something to focus on when her senses overload, and that she’s doing it for Lena now, trying to comfort her in one of the only ways that she knows how, brings tears to Lena’s eyes.

Myka pulls her hand back quickly. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I forgot to ask if you wanted to be touched.”

“No,” Lena finally reaches over and tugs Myka back into her space, wrapping her into a tight hug the way she has wanted to since last night. “That’s not why… thank you,” she sucks the tears back and smiles down at Myka, their faces pressed close together. “Thank you,” she repeats.

Myka resumes her tapping. The two of them silent in the early morning while Kara sleeps soundly, hopefully, restoring her powers as the sunlight kisses her skin.

“Lena?” Myka asks, a few minutes later. Lena hums, eyes closed and waits. “Um, your mom… she…”

Lena opens her eyes.

“She sort of reminds me of mine a little bit,” Myka finally says, and Lena cannot stop the sound that escapes her. Kara wakes with the noise, her arms tightening around Lena’s middle, her head shifting upwards. Myka looks much, much older than nine as she looks up at Lena sadly and Lena doesn’t know what to say.

“How so?” Kara asks, a slight croak to her voice. Lena suspects that she’s been awake a bit longer than either of them realized. Or at least, then Lena has realized. If Myka noticed, she didn’t say anything.

Myka shrugs a shoulder and moves to sit up in the bed, pushing her hair out of her face. “I guess… I don’t know. They smile the same. Like they’re mad they have to do it, a little.”

“I—” Lena starts, Kara’s chin tucks against her shoulder, then she kisses it, and Lena falls silent. She’s not sure what she was going to say, anyway. Instead, she reaches up and tucks some of Myka’s hair behind her ears. It needs to be washed, her fingers catch on a knot. “I’m sorry,” she says finally. “For what she did. To both of you.”

Kara begins to protest. “Lena—”

“That’s not your fault!” Myka insists fiercely.

Somewhere, a part of her knows that. “I needed to say it,” she admits. Myka’s angry frown remains on her face, but Kara kisses her shoulder again, and when Lena gathers the courage to roll her head over and meet her eye, she knows that Kara understands.

Disagrees, but understands.

“Oh god,” Kara groans a few seconds later. “Today’s the first day of Passover. Eliza and Alex are going to be here in like, less than an hour to start cooking.”

“Really!?” Myka says, excitedly.

Lena swallows and starts to extract herself from Kara’s arms. “I’ll get going.”

“What! No!” Myka yells.

“I’d like you to stay,” Kara asks, careful and shy. “It’s… there’s no pressure,” she insists, the two of them sitting up as well. Myka crawls halfway between them, pouting up at Lena like a puppy. Kara rolls her eyes and grabs Myka’s head, tugging her back and laughing. “I mean it,” she says. “We’re not… Eliza is Jewish, but she’s about as Reform as you can get. Her parents weren’t religious, and she’s not. I think she took me to temple like, once, to show me what it was like. But that was about it. It’s really just mostly the three of us eating a ton of food and catching up. It’s not… there’s no pressure,” she adds again, earnestly. “She’ll say a couple of prayers, maybe. And she might be excited to make Myka get into a couple of things now that we’ve got a kid around again, but other than that…” she shrugs.

“I don’t want to encroach on your family time…”

“Pleeeeasse,” Myka begs.

“Lena, I’m inviting you to be—” Kara blushes, and her eyes go wide as she cuts herself off. Lena sucks in a breath, but Kara only smiles a little sadly. “Eliza has been asking to meet you. She’d be happy. Maggie’s coming. So is Winn, and James. You’re not intruding, Lena,” she adds, quiet. “But, it’s okay if it’s not something you’re comfortable with yet.”

Lena knows that she means it. Kara won’t hold it against her if she declines. She’ll be sad, but nothing will change. Not because of that anyway. Last night changed many things.

The idea of meeting Kara’s foster mother terrifies Lena, but the idea of going home to her empty apartment after last night terrifies her even more. She’s not sure if she’ll be able to handle having Myka or Kara out of her sight right now. It’s taken every bit of restraint that she possesses not to call her mother and scream.

“Okay,” she says, finally.

“YAY!!!” Myka cheers, and stands up to jump on the bed until Kara catches her in midair.

“I’ll need to borrow some clean clothes,” Lena says. “And shower.”

Kara grins, turning and not making any attempt to hide the way that she’s checking Lena out as she rises from the bed, clad only in one of Kara’s soft t-shirts and her underwear. “Not a problem,” she says and bends over to kiss Lena’s cheek.

…

…

By the time that Eliza arrives, Lena is showered and wearing the same yellow sundress Kara wore to her apartment when they officially decided to start dating. Lena laughs when she holds it out to her, asking, think this one will fit? Kara blushes once she realizes why, and Lena drops her towel unceremoniously and steps into it, turning and asking Kara to zip her up. It’s a little tight around her bust, but not so much that she’s uncomfortable and unable to really move around. Lena delights in the way that she can hear Kara’s audible swallow, and presses back into her a bit once she’s zipped all the way.

The doorbell interrupts them, and Lena immediately stops thinking about sex and panics at the prospect of what Kara’s foster mother will think of her. Her own mother has already made quite a terrible first impression as far as these things go.

“ELIZA!” Myka’s voice rings out happily, and Lena steels herself.

Kara laughs lightly and cups Lena’s face. “She’s going to love you just as much as we do,” she promises. If she thought that was going to calm Lena down, it has the exact opposite effect. The word love rattles around in Lena’s brain as they walk hand in hand out into the living room, and she’s sure that she looks like a crazy person as Eliza turns and smiles at them both warmly.

“Kara, sweetheart,” Eliza wraps her up into the kind of hug that Lena always used to dream about, but was never given, coming from her own mother, then turns and smiles over at Lena. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you,” she says, gently pulling Lena forward into her arms. “You seem to be all my girls can talk about as of late.”

Lena is blushing when they both pull back, and she has never had problems interacting with people like this before, but she supposes these people matter to her more than potential investors, or idiots on the street, and that surely has something to do with the way that she can’t quite seem to get her voice to work. “All good things, I hope,” she manages to joke.

“All wonderful things,” Eliza says easily.

Lena wordlessly commiserates with Maggie after she and Alex arrive. Maggie lets out an exaggerated breath once the Danvers women have all turned around, and Lena laughs, passing her an apron.

“Damn, she’s nice,” Maggie whispers.

“I know. It’s very confusing.”

“My mother’s not that nice,” Maggie says, tying the apron around her waist. “I mean,” she shrugs. “I guess she is to other people.”

“My mother kidnapped my girlfriend and my… and Myka last night,” Lena says, much calmer than she expects. “I suppose she’s nicer to other people too.”

“Yeah, you might win there,” Maggie says good-naturedly. Lena’s grateful that Maggie doesn’t make a big deal out of it, she’s already overwhelmed enough as it is. “We should get our moms together for a dinner party,” she adds, just a hint of bitterness to it. “It’ll be a hoot.”

Lena barks out a laugh. “Sure, why not?”

“Maggie,” Myka calls from the kitchen. “Want to taste this?” she walks over, swimming in the full body apron she had chosen, holding out a wooden spoon and spilling most of whatever it is onto the floor by the time that she gets to Maggie. Alex follows her, swiping a towel behind her spills with her foot and smirking.

“It’s good,” Maggie declares, gamely bending down and allowing Myka to put the spoon in her mouth.

“She likes it!” Myka announces to Eliza, who can clearly hear them from only a few feet away. She smiles indulgently anyway and waves Myka back over to help. She waddles, trying not to trip on the end of her apron. 

Lena spends most of the morning quietly helping wherever she is asked, never fully growing comfortable with the full apartment. At some point, after James and Winn arrive, Kara and Alex shuffle Eliza into Kara’s bedroom together and must tell her about Jeremiah in private, because all three of them come back out with slightly red eyes and a bit more somber. Eliza looks at Lena and Myka differently as they all sit down at the table, and Lena realizes that she might not have known about the kidnapping, and the source behind it, until just now. She shifts uncomfortably underneath her gaze for entirely different reasons that she had been before, and Kara’s hand comes up to rest on top of her knee. Eliza only passes her a plate with the same warm smile, saying nothing. Lena can’t decide if that’s a good sign or a bad one.

Eventually, Lena relaxes as much as she is going to. Winn and Alex get into an argument that takes up half the meal and gets Eliza and Lena into it by the end. Eliza laughs when Lena argues against her, delighted once Lena manages to get both she and Alex onto her side, leaving Winn pouting on the opposite end of the table. Kara rolls her eyes at them fondly and helps herself to an early desert while James and Maggie just sip at their wine.

Myka cheers on everyone and gives Winn a hug when it becomes clear that no one is going to be swayed back to his side.

Once Lena is full and contently leaning into Kara’s side, an explosion of blue light appears above the dinner table. Everyone jumps back in surprise, Kara jumps in front of Lena, and they both reach towards Myka with blind panic, still on edge from last night.

“What the…” Winn asks, holding his glass of wine up protectively.

“Um, that might be…” Kara frowns and the light disappears. Nothing else happens. Everyone waits for a few beats, but it doesn’t reappear.

“That was weird,” James chugs some of his wine.

“Word,” Myka says, and James laughs so hard he has to sit back down before he falls over.

They start clearing the table warily, every once in a while throwing a cautious look at the air above the table, but nothing happens again, and there are no reports sent to Alex, Maggie, or Kara, so they move into the living room as if nothing happened for now. Lena ends up sitting on the couch between Kara and Eliza and tries very hard to appear both respectful and comfortable in her relationship and fears that she fails at both. Kara keeps touching her, confused when Lena tries to subtly push her hands away, or makes a grab for them with purpose, depending on what she thinks Eliza is thinking. Myka starts by sitting on the floor, a plate of brownies on the magazine stand in front of her like a table, and ends up playing musical chairs on nearly everyone’s lap once she grows tired of being the only one without a free seat of her own.

In the midst of trying to go from Winn’s lap to Kara’s, she nearly collides into the magazine table, and Lena calls out, careful, at the same time as Kara and Eliza. Myka changes course correction and ends up halfway on top of Lena’s lap, perfectly comfortable, and Lena feels Eliza’s watchful eyes on her as she wraps a steadying hand around her middle and keeps her gaze at the television.

By the time that Myka is yawning and slumping further back into Lena’s chest, Winn and James are shuffling around for their things, and Lena realizes that Eliza probably plans to spend the night at Kara’s.

She hasn’t been invited to stay for another night, and part of her wants to grab her things and follow the boys out of the door, but the idea of being away from Kara and Myka right now still sends a chill down her spine. It’s moot anyway, a few moments later, when Myka shifts on her lap and twists so that her face is tucked into Lena’s neck and closes her eyes. “Are you sharing with me or Kara?” she asks sleepily.

“Um,” Lena looks up at Kara, hoping there’s no note of panic to her voice that she can detect.

“I can go with Myka, or I can go to Alex’s,” Eliza says easily. Though, Alex waves her arms around wildly from somewhere behind her mother, and mouths Myka’s, the minute that Kara turns around.

Kara locks eyes with Lena, the question, do you want to stay again? written all over her face. Lena nods, delighting in the way that Kara’s entire body lights up at the motion. “Will you tuck me in then?” Myka asks.

Eliza’s gaze remains on her as Lena says, “Sure,” softly, and shuffles Myka up off of her lap. Taking her hand as she leads her back into the bedroom, Myka yawns again, yelling night, to everyone as they make their way out of the apartment.

Lena waits while Myka brushes her teeth, finding a nightgown with stars on it that Myka happily yanks over her head once it’s presented. She climbs up onto her bed and kicks her legs around until she’s wriggled down into the covers, then she smiles sleepily up at Lena and holds her arms out. Lena sits down and hugs her, but when she moves to pull back, Myka holds her tighter.

“Lena?” she asks, voice loaded. “Are you okay?”

Lena tries to steady her heartbeat, but she’s not altogether sure that is a thing human beings are really capable of. She kisses Myka’s temple then pulls back, a smile plastered onto her face. “Of course I am,” she says. “Are you?”

Myka shrugs. “Yeah,” she taps her fingers on top of her blanket, not looking Lena in the eye. “So, are you gonna be staying here now all the time, or what?”

“Um, probably not. No,” she says, her voice somehow managing to crack on a whisper. Myka doesn’t look disappointed, or sad, or much of anything really. She just stares back at Lena with a neutral, waiting expression. It’s worse. Lena wishes she would give her some indication of what she’s looking for right now. It makes her start rambling. She’s never been a person who rambles before, but Myka seems to bring out a whole host of emotions and characteristics that Lena never thought herself capable of before. At least with Kara, it’s clear: attraction, affection, possibly even… Lena swallows that word down, refusing to think about it too much just yet.

But, it makes sense. Dating, while awkward and full of its own complications, is generally straightforward enough to parse.

Myka, is an anomaly.

Kara saves her, again. A quiet knock raps against the doorframe and Lena and Myka turn simultaneously at her soft, “Hey.”

“Is Eliza tired yet?” Myka asks.

“Not just yet,” Kara says, coming over and standing in front of Lena, their hands find each other without really thinking about it, and when Lena turns her attention back over to Myka, she’s smiling down at their joined hands.

“Is she going to be tired soon?”

“Yep, but you should try to fall asleep first okay.”

“Fine,” Myka scoots lower in the bed, waiting as Kara bends down and kisses her forehead and turns off the lamp. “Night,” she says, and then Kara gently tugs Lena out of the room with her.

“How much of that did you hear?” Lena asks when they pause in the hall.

Kara smirks, looking sheepish. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Lena runs her fingers up and down Kara’s arms, smiling at the shiver she gets in response. “But how much?”

“Pretty much all of it,” Kara admits. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging.”

“How gallant of you,” Lena teases.

Kara laughs brightly, clamping a hand over her mouth and shooting a look at Myka’s door. “Come on,” she starts to tug Lena back out to the living room, to where Eliza is still waiting, and part of Lena resists enough for Kara to pick up on it. “She loves you,” she insists.

“Kara—”

“She literally just hugged me for like a full three minutes and told me how lovely you are, and how happy she is to see me so happy,” Kara says with a grin. “Please try to relax around her. I know things are… a lot right now, and she gets that. She’s not judging Lena.”

“My mother has possibly had her husband held hostage for who knows how many years, and she also kidnapped you, yesterday. I can’t imagine she is ready to welcome me with open arms.”

“Except that she is,” Kara argues, looping her arms through Lena’s and resting into her side. “She knows that none of that is your fault, Lena.”

Lena sighs. “I can only promise that I’ll try.”

Kara kisses her cheek. “That’s all I ask.”

…

…

Smoke billows out of the bar and Kara chokes, looking around in a panic. “MYKA!” she screams. “ALEX!? M’GANN!?” she runs, barely feeling any relief when she sees Myka, coughing outside of the bar. “Myka!” she runs and grabs her.

“They’re dead,” Myka coughs. “There… the people in there…” she starts crying and Kara lifts her up, hearing footsteps behind her.

“Kara!” Alex yells and is beside them in an instant. “Back up. It’s some sort of poisonous gas,” she tugs them as she speaks, reaching over and checking Myka’s eyes. “Why were you running ahead?” she snaps.

“I thought I saw M’gann,” Myka croaks. “I wanted to say hi first.”

“Alex — what—”

“Get in the van both of you,” she orders. Kara can see Maggie come running up towards them, and she moves to push Myka into Alex’s arms.

“I have to go help—”

“No,” Alex snaps, no argument in her voice. “All the humans are okay.”

“What?”

Alex’s face twists uncomfortably, and she pushes Kara into the back of the van, Myka still coughing violently. “All the aliens who were exposed are dead. Neither of you are going in there.”   

“Alex—” Kara starts, and then Myka begins to jerk violently in Kara’s arms, and she stops arguing and looks at her sister in a panic.

…

…

Kara’s pacing in front of the med bay in her suit when Lena comes running into the DEO. Kara sinks into her arms, trying to hold back tears.

“What happened?” she asks. “There’s… Winn said…”

“An explosion. We were going to pick up M’gann for lunch. Myka ran ahead to say hi, but she wasn’t… she wasn’t inside yet. Neither of them were. M’gann got her wires crossed, she had left a few minutes early to meet us all at the restaurant. Myka thought she saw her but…” Kara chokes back a sob and Lena’s hands clutch at her shoulders.

“What?”

“It killed all of the aliens inside. And Eliza said Myka’s been exposed. She’s — she’s sick. It’s all my fault,” she cries and Lena pulls her down into a chair and holds her tight.

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s why Lillian needed my blood,” Kara admits. She feels Lena freeze against her before she pulls back enough to look at Kara’s face. “It’s Kryptonian.”

“Kara, you’re not making any sense.”

Kara sucks in a breath, looking down at her hands, tangled together with Lena’s. “The virus was in the Forest of Solitude. Only my blood or Kal’s can open it. Lillian and Hank broke in and took it, and this was a test run. There’s some other device—Winn said he thinks maybe LuthorCorp has it. But, the virus, my dad made it,” her voice cracks and Lena’s fingers tighten around her, but Kara barely feels it. “It can’t hurt me. But it will kill all other aliens on this planet. The only reason that Myka is alive right now is because Daxamites have nearly identical DNA to ours. But she—”

Lena hisses, a horrible, animal-like sound and Kara grips at her.

“We have to find a cure. She’s going to try again. Some isotope thing. Do you know what that is?”

Lena goes still beside her for a few seconds, and when Kara looks over at her, there’s no expression to her face. Even though there are agents bustling around everywhere, and Kara can hear Eliza and Alex talking in the other room, the hum of Myka’s monitors, all she can focus on right now is Lena, breathing in and out in this perfectly controlled way that’s a little scary. Kara’s furious all of the sudden, in between her panic and the jittery sense that she should be doing something. She was in bed with Lena only four hours ago. Laughing and kissing as she commentated Myka and Eliza’s conversation to her, then, not managing to string together much of any words at all when Lena crawled down her body and started using her tongue in a few different places. 

It hadn’t lasted particularly long at all, because Myka’s hearing is just as good as Kara’s, and she’s even more impatient when it comes to food and things like spending time with Lena. But it lasted long enough to be an amazing promise of what’s to come when they manage to shove Myka off with Alex for an afternoon in the near future.

Eliza had made a teasing comment when they shuffled out to join them for breakfast that had Kara blushing much harder than Lena, and she hadn’t been able to stop smiling, thinking the panicky feeling that something bad was going to happen was behind them. The three of them ganging up together to beg Lena not to go to work, but hang out and relax with them all day had been more fun than it should have been.

Everything was getting better.

“I need to go back to my office,” Lena says, her voice stiff.

Kara whips her head towards her. “What?”

“My mother is meeting me at two. It’s one-thirty.”

“What?” Kara gapes. “Lena—”

“It’s more important now that I speak with her than it was before,” she says, rising and pulling herself out of Kara’s arms.

“Lena—”

“I’ll call you after. Or I’ll come back here,” she still hasn’t met Kara’s eye once. “Tell Alex to use your DNA for comparison. There might be something they can find within your blood as a cure for Myka if your DNA’s are close enough.”

“I… they are,” Kara says. It’s the first thing Eliza had started on.

“Okay,” Lena says, stiffly. “Good. That’s good.”

“Lena, I can’t let you—”

“You don’t let me do anything,” Lena snaps.

“That’s — that’s not what I meant,” Kara insists, because it wasn’t.  “I just — Myka is already,” she swallows thickly and Lena flinches. “I can’t handle something happening to you too.”

“My mother isn’t going to do anything to me,” Lena says, but she sounds almost unsure. “I need to talk to her Kara,” she admits. “And I need for you not to be there.”

Kara pushes her palms down into the bench so hard that it snaps underneath her weight. She jumps up, ashamed at the blink of surprise in Lena’s eyes. “Yeah, okay,” she says, proud of how steady it comes out.

“I’ll call you the second I feel like I need you,” Lena promises, and Kara nods, but neither of them reaches out to touch each other as Lena hesitates, then turns and walks away.

Kara rolls back her shoulders, wipes her tears away, and walks back into the med bay. “Give me something to do,” she says, meaning for it to come out steady and like an order, but it’s a plea instead. Ragged as it scrapes its way out of her throat. Alex and Eliza both look up from their work and stare at her. Alex looks ready to punch something, anything, and Eliza just looks worried.

“There isn’t…” Alex grits her teeth. “Sit with her. We’re going to test this down in the labs.”

“Alex I need—”

“I know,” she walks past Kara, squeezing her tightly with one hand, a tube of something in her other. “Sit with her though, okay.”

Kara nods, and then they leave her alone with Myka. She paces for a while, glancing over at Myka every so often, and then she just starts talking. Half of it is inappropriate, probably. If Myka could really hear her, Kara shouldn’t be telling her about how scared she is right now. Or how worried she is about Lena, how much she wishes she were strong enough to just say the words that have been pushing onto the tip of her tongue for a couple of weeks now. What she should be saying is that it’s all going to be okay. That Kara is going to take care of her, and she is going to be fine. Better than fine. That she’s going to wake up and get brownies and cheddar popcorn, get to go to dance class with Avani, that Lena is hopefully going to be spending a lot more nights at their apartment, that everything is going to be amazing.

But Kara doesn’t know if any of that is true, and more than anything, she doesn’t want to lie to Myka.

She stops pacing and sits down at the stool beside the bed, reaching over and carefully taking one of Myka’s hands in hers. “I love you,” she says, softly. “I probably should have told you that before, but in case you didn’t already know—I do. A lot. It’s kind of crazy, to be honest,” she laughs. “You’re really good at worming your way into people’s hearts,” she runs her fingers through Myka’s hair gently. “Please stick around,” she whispers, so quietly that it’s barely audible. “People always leave. I can’t lose anyone else.”

“Kara!” Alex shouts, running into the room. “Lena’s…” she looks confused and angry all at once. “She’s working with Lillian.”

“What?” Kara stands up and walks over towards her.

Alex shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know what her plan is. She didn’t call in. She didn’t… they’ve got the isotope. It looks like they’re releasing it.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Alex says, like she’d say if it were Kara. Implicit trust. “I just don’t know what her plan is.” Kara turns and looks at Myka, so small, in the same bed she was in when they first pulled her out of the pod, months and months ago now. “Mom has an idea,” Alex adds. “Go help Lena, we’ve got her.”

“Alex—”

“I know,” Alex squeezes her hand, and Kara runs.

…

…

Lena sits beside her mother silently on the drive. She can play this part much easier than she thought possible; it’s not a comfortable realization. The childish part of her still hopes that somehow, this is all part of a cruel trick. Unforgivable, but something that she can try and wrap her head around. Maybe if she’d told Lillian about her relationship with Myka. Not about Supergirl—she’d never be able to handle that—but just an alien child who means her and humanity no harm at all? Surely Lillian could understand. Surely Lena could make her.

She’s aware of how ridiculous she sounds. She saw the way her mother’s mouth twisted when Lena asked about refugees, about aliens without powers, or superhuman strength, she’s not sure anything could change her mind right now. Lex could maybe, but not Lena.

They climb out of the car together, and Lena’s legs shake just for a second as she follows behind Lillian. One jerk of her knee, then she’s matching her mother’s long legs stride for stride. Lillian pulls a chain off from around her neck, and Lena straightens up her spine. If Lex were here, then he’d tell her to get herself together. “Some mothers wear lockets with pictures of their children around their necks,” Lena says dryly. “You wear the keys to a bazooka.”

Lillian chuckles, and it stings, that in this moment Lena still feels proud that she can get her mother to laugh. She wants to ask why. She wants to ask what is wrong that Lena isn’t enough for her? That Lillian feels the need to do this? But she doesn’t. Her eyes are dry, her spine is as straight as her mother’s, and not a single part of her body shakes as she takes the keys from Lillian.

Kara shows up, then, as Lena assumed she would.

She looks confused and pleading, but she doesn’t look angry. She doesn’t look betrayed. Not even when Lena twists her face cruelly and says, “Why not? I’m a Luthor, aren’t I?”

She flies after the isotope, and Lena jumps out of the way as J’onn and Hank fight in front of them. Lillian presses the detonator and Kara falls from the sky. Lena’s chest clenches, even though she knows that Kara is alright, that the substance won’t hurt anyone. Lena pulls her gaze away from Kara and watches her mother. She wants to see the moment that realization hits her.

It’s satisfying. “You did this,” she all but gasps. “You switched the isotope.”

“I did,” Lena smirks. It’s not often that she ever gets to outwit her mother. Lillian Luthor is almost always five steps ahead of everyone else. Lena nods towards the flashing lights appearing in the corner of her eye. “And I called the police.”

At first, Lillian says nothing, just stares at Lena, unresisting as the police surround her and clasp cuffs onto her wrists. Then she says, “The alien child. And Supergirl,” she sneers. “They’ve corrupted you. Brainwashed you.”

“Quite the opposite Mother,” Lena says, proud of how steady it comes out. The façade is slipping quickly. “They’ve embraced me as a part of their family more in only a few months than you ever did in nearly twenty-five years of living together.”

Lillian’s eyes flash. “Don’t trust them,” she says, and then is pushed into the back of a car.

Lena can see Maggie, giving her a solemn nod from across the lot, and she manages to return it. Then, Kara is in front of her, hands reaching out and hesitating until Lena sags directly into them. “There are a lot of people here,” she whispers. “Your cover.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“You should. I do.”

Kara lifts her up and flies away without giving any of the officers or reporters a second thought. “So Supergirl gives Lena Luthor a lift home, so what. The public knows that we’re friends.”

“Do they?”

“They do now.”

Lena closes her eyes, trying to enjoy the ride but failing. “Kara—”

“You saved everybody,” she says, sounding so proud it stings.

“I didn’t,” Lena insists.

“Yeah, you kinda did Luthor,” she teases. Lena barks out a ragged laugh and Kara squeezes her tightly. “You’re amazing,” she adds, nodding when Lena starts to shake her head.

“Is she…”

“I don’t know,” Kara says, her voice ragged now. “Alex and Eliza are working on it. Alex thought they might have a solution. But I don’t know yet.”

They land down on one of the balconies to the DEO and Kara sets Lena down gently. They both cling to each other’s hands as Alex and Winn run up to them.

“She’s awake!” Alex pants. “She’s… Mom did it.”

The breath that Lena had been holding rips out of her and Kara has to half drag her along as they all run back to the med bay together.

Myka is sitting up in the bed, attempting to bribe Eliza into taking the oxygen tube out of her nose. Kara freezes beside Lena at the sight, and then she knocks herself into the bed, hugging Myka as tightly as she can only hug her, or Clark, crying happy tears.

Alex slides into the space Kara had just been occupying at her side, and Lena hears her release a shuddering breath. She holds her hand out and Alex grips it without looking at her until Eliza walks over and smiles reassuringly at them both. “She’s going to be just fine,” she says warmly. When Lena hesitates further, Eliza bends over and kisses her cheek. “That was a very brave thing you did.” Lena blinks at her in shock, and Eliza’s smile only grows, a bit teasing and cross when she adds. “Next time don’t do it on your own though. You had us worried.”

“Yeah dumbass,” Alex says, though it comes out raw.

Eliza slaps her gently on the shoulder. “Alexandra, be kind,” she says, tugging Alex towards her and giving Lena a gentle push towards the bed. Towards Kara and Myka. “Come on, let’s go see if anyone else needs our help for a bit.”

Lena is left alone in the room with the two people she doesn’t know how to interact with, suddenly. Kara still has Myka in her arms, half pulled onto her lap, and they’re both laughing now, though Lena can hear the roughness to Kara’s voice even from here.

She steps forward slowly. Myka looks up at her and grins, holding out her arm that’s not wrapped around Kara. Lena doesn’t realize she’s crossed her arms over her chest until she has to uncross them to bend down and hug Myka. She doesn’t know how she manages to keep herself together after everything, but she does. When she pulls back, her eyes are a bit watery and red, but she’s collected enough not to scare Myka.

“I think I’m gonna need brownies,” Myka declares. “Extra probably. Since I’ve been sick.”

Neither Lena nor Kara can stop the burst of laughter that cracks the air between them. Myka giggles, but her breath is wheezy and weak still, and Lena grips for Kara’s hand the same time that she grips for Lena’s. Behind Myka’s back, where she can’t see.

“I think brownies can probably be arranged,” Kara says, after a beat.

“And ice cream?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Lena warns. Myka pouts, leaning back against Kara, but then she shrugs half a beat later and accepts it. When Kara catches her eye, Lena stills. She opens her mouth then closes it. Twice, like a fish. Then she just surges forward and kisses Lena hard on the mouth, causing Myka to groan and demand for them to stop doing this while she’s stuck in the middle of them, but Lena barely registers her words. It’s a very different sort of kiss than anything that Lena has had before, frantic, and almost painful with how much Kara is trying to say with it. Lena gasps into her mouth and Kara lets out a whimper, and then Myka has had enough. She shoves at both their chests, yelling to be let out if they’re going to start doing sex things, and then Kara is laughing against Lena, and Lena can barely hold herself up anymore.

Her mother is in jail, and Lena put her there.

She’s probably in love with Kara, with Supergirl, and everything that comes with that.

And there is this little girl between them, that the thought of losing nearly broke Lena in half. Twice, in the span of forty-eight hours.

She catches Kara’s eye, and Kara just nods at her as they hug each other around Myka, who is still demanding that she ought to be allowed ice cream with her brownies. They’re not the same people they were an hour ago, and they never will be again. They know each other too well to turn back now. Lena rests her forehead against Kara’s and breathes out, slow and steady. 

Chapter Text

Another Luthor arrested in less than two and a half years stirs up the media in a way that leaves Lena dodging reporters on her way to work, to Kara’s, to CatCo, and no chance in hell of her being able to join anyone at the alien bar. The one time that she tries to pick Myka up from school leaves both Myka and Trevor in tears, and Avani nearly knocked down by a man trying to get a photograph.

Lena doesn’t try it again, and sends apologies to Avani and Trevor’s parents, feeling useless.

It’s both a bigger media frenzy than it was with Lex, and doesn’t come anything close to touching the scope of it. Bigger, because it’s the second time. Bigger, because now it’s not an anomaly, it’s a pattern. If people thought that the Luthors were toxic before…

But, Lex succeeded in murdering nearly a hundred people in his quest to incapacitate Superman. Lillian was thwarted before she could hurt anyone.

By Lena.

The media is relentless in trying to get her statement, to twist the narrative to seem like she could still be on her mother’s side. The next ticking time bomb named Luthor, poised and ready to go off at any moment. There are a few select articles and publications who aren’t twisting the facts, but not exactly doing much to tamper down the ones who are. Fewer still, who laud Lena as the brave final member standing, who went against her own family for the greater good. Who saved lives at the expense of great personal cost.

Kara, and Lois, and Clark, chief among them.

By the second week, Lena has to call Lois and ask her to please stop getting into fights with people on Twitter over her honor. Surely, there have to be better uses of your time.

“Luthor, working up sexist assholes on the internet is one of my favorite pastimes,” Lois drawls. “It gives Perry this cute little streak of gray that makes him check himself in the mirror like eight times a day. Especially if I piss them off enough to warrant death threats,” she says, far too casually. “And then, I get to make fun of him for caring about me so much that it’s obvious to anyone bothering to look at his head. And then, he yells at me. And then somehow, I usually get a free coffee and a hug. We’ve got a whole song and dance, to be honest, it’s a little narcissistic that you think this is about you.”

Lena blinks through Lois’s laughter, then sighs. Nothing that she says is going to have much effect on what Lois Lane does, she probably should have known that before trying. It’s a bit annoying, how much her warm teasing means to Lena, but it’s a feeling that she’s growing more and more familiar with.

People care. Lena is learning to let them.

Or, she’s trying to.

After Myka was checked over again by Eliza—to her annoyance and Kara’s insistence—they gave her a full plate of brownies and let her up out of the bed. Within half an hour, she was trying to see if she could lift both Winn and Alex above her head with just her pointer finger; an experiment that Alex was definitely up for and Winn cried through, just a little.

Kara hadn’t let go of Lena’s hand once. She was vaguely aware of agents scurrying about, mountains of paperwork being filed, and the faces of Kara’s family turning and checking on her, but all Lena allowed herself to focus on was the feeling of Kara’s hand in her own, and Myka, alive and smiling, and getting chocolate frosting all over her face.

She didn’t think about her mother until she was alone, a day and a half later. And then, she cried in her shower until the water ran so cold that she was shivering for a full hour afterwards.

Kara noticed, when she and Myka came over, hours later. Lena wasn’t sure how, but she was immediately wrapped up in Kara’s warm arms, grateful that she didn’t say anything, didn’t scold or try to make Lena feel better—she just held her.

Myka showed off her handstands until Lena smiled, then demanded a tour of her apartment and asked for permission to jump on Lena’s bed.

It’s confusing, to be around Kara and Myka, completely aware of the depth of her feelings now, but still not able to voice them. There is a small bit of comfort in the fact that Kara seems to be in a similar boat; she’s perpetually jittery and keeps laughing nervously, blushing so hard at the most innocent of comments that Lena decides to just focus on teasing Kara, rather than deal with her own hang-ups.

It’s a good distraction, for a while.

So is sex.

At first, Lena and Kara both grow anxious if Myka is away from either of them for more than a few hours, which puts quite a hamper on anything resembling alone time. For a while, neither of them care, but when Myka stands up in the middle of Lena’s apartment and screams at the top of her lungs, YOU’RE SMOTHERING ME, after Kara simply asks if she had fun at ballet that afternoon, it becomes clear that they’re not exactly helping the situation.

Kara sighs, sagging into Lena on the couch once Myka has taken control over Lena’s bedroom and is happily sedated with Netflix. “I feel like I’m doing everything wrong,” she admits.

“You’re not,” Lena says, brushing some hair out of her face.

“You don’t know that,” Kara mumbles grumpily. “What if she’s traumatized and we don’t even know it? What kind of therapist specializes in child aliens who’ve been separated from their family and planet, only to be kidnapped and poisoned, and left in the care of inept twenty-five-year-olds?”

“Well,” Lena starts playing with Kara’s hair. “For starters, I’m twenty-nine.”

Kara chokes on her laughter, then twists around so that she’s got her head resting in Lena’s lap. “That’s true. I forgot that you’re an old lady,” she jokes, and Lena scoffs and smacks her. “Tell me, what wisdom have you gained in the four years you’ve got on me?”

She continues talking before Lena can decide whether or not she’s going to dignify that question with an answer.

“Though remember that, technically, I’m eleven and a half years older than Kal. Plus, I spent twenty-five years in the Phantom Zone, so that makes me…” her face scrunches up adorably while she tries to do the math. “Um, sort of thirty-eight? ish?” she pouts. “So now I’m only like, one year older than him. Technically,” she grins up at Lena. “Older than you, though!” 

“Sure, technically,” Lena rolls her eyes. “What sort of wisdom did you gain then, sleeping and not aging for twenty-five years?”

“Point,” Kara shrugs easily.

“I’M TECHNICALLY FORTY-SEVEN!” Myka yells from the bedroom.

“She is not,” Lena gapes down at Kara. “Is she?”

“I AM!”

“Um,” Kara taps her fingers lightly on Lena’s thigh, sending shivers down her spine. “Yeah actually. I think she’s right. She was nine when Krypton and Daxam fell, and she spent the twenty-five years in the Phantom Zone same as me. Except she also spent all thirteen years I’ve been on Earth there. So, sort of,” Kara shrugs and Myka walks into the living room, supporting a delighted smirk.

“Technically, I should be the boss.”

“Of what?” Kara asks.

“Of you!” she points, and it’s not totally clear whether or not she is pointing at Kara, or Lena, or both. Either way, they both roll their eyes and say, no at almost the exact same time, and Myka pouts. “Whatever, I’m going to watch more of The Office,” she walks back into Lena’s room.

“Is that show appropriate for a nine-year-old?” Lena asks.

“ALMOST TEN!”

“No,” Kara says, ignoring Myka. “No, it’s not. But that’s Alex’s fault, not mine.”

Lena snorts and pushes at Kara’s head until she lifts up, moving to get herself a glass of water. “Really?”

“It is,” Kara insists, following her into the kitchen. “And at this point, she’s seen so many episodes that we’re basically too late to stop her, and more than half of the jokes go totally over her head. If you wanna blame someone, Alex is your girl, not me.”

Lena is rolling her eyes when Kara leans over and kisses her.

She is decidedly not when Kara lifts her up on top of the counter and pushes herself between Lena’s legs, trying to get as close to her as possible. Her lips find their way to Lena’s collarbone and she moans, low and guttural, and Kara’s whole body reacts to it.

“GROSS!” Myka screams. “I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW!”

“Speaking of Alex…” Lena whispers against Kara’s neck.

“Bout time she had a sleepover with Myka, probably,” Kara finishes, and Lena nods vigorously, then whimpers when Kara’s hands hover around the top of her yoga pants.

…

…

“HI MAGGIE!” Myka calls, running into Alex’s apartment and essentially ignoring her.

“Hi Myka,” she says, pointedly, at her disappearing form. She turns back around and looks at Kara incredulously. “When did I stop being her favorite?”

Kara holds out Myka’s bag for Alex and laughs. “She likes my girlfriend more than me too,” she shrugs. “You’re not gonna get any sympathy from me.”

“I—”

“She likes Lois better than Clark, too.”

“Everyone likes Lois better than Clark,” Alex rolls her eyes.

“Some of us more than others,” Kara teases, and Alex’s eyes narrow and she pushes Kara back into the hall.

“Goodbye,” she snaps. “Have fun boning your girlfriend while I keep your kid alive.”

“I will!” Kara yells cheerfully, as Alex slams the door closed on her.

…

…

Snapper, is still not her biggest fan. He also doesn’t seem overly concerned with the fact that people are disappearing at alarming rates, and when Kara says that she is going to investigate, he looks her up and down, says nothing, and walks away.

So, naturally, Kara dives head first into a missing person investigation with nothing to go on but a small tip from Maggie, and an attempt to fake Lois’s easy way of cheerfully bluffing her way in and out of anything that comes along.

It doesn’t go all that well. In that, she sort of, a little bit, gets herself held hostage on a slave planet without her powers. But, she manages to help everyone escape anyway, and as they’re running, and Kara’s trying to formulate some sort of plan to get the portal back open, Alex shows up.

Kara sinks into her arms, eternally grateful that no matter what problem she seems to get herself into, Alex is always there, ready to have her back.

“Slave planet,” she says, “really?”

“Found the missing girl, didn’t I?”

“Didn’t you just get back from jumping to another universe with that flash kid?” Alex scolds.

“I was only gone for like, five minutes with the weird way that everything shook out,” Kara protests. “And I didn’t really have time to—”

“You need to always, have time,” Alex snaps, still a little annoyed. (Lena had been even more annoyed. You went to another universe and you didn’t take me with you!) But then she rolls her eyes, and there’s a proud smirk playing at her lips, and Winn starts yelling about getting to come to space and not being a red shirt, and Kara gets to watch a mother and daughter be reunited.

Snapper calls her a bleeding heart, but she hears him whisper, ‘atta girl Danvers’ as she walks down the hall, so all things considered, she’s calling this one a win.

The hooded figures who hovered around the edges of Roulette’s operation looked at her funny, and Kara could swear that she heard them say something about Daxam as they were running away, but, Izzie is back with her mother, and Snapper is as proud of her as he ever gets, and Lena’s lips are right there, and Myka is fine, so, she sort of forgets about it.

…

…

“Myka!” Kara yells, grabbing the scissors out of her hands and gaping at the bits of curls that have already fallen to the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Cutting off bits of my hair to give to Stacy Weston,” she answers in a huff, then reaches for the scissors again. Kara holds them out of reach. “I can jump that high,” Myka says dryly, as Lena lets herself into the apartment.

Her eyes go a little wide as she takes in the scene. “What’s going on here?” she asks, casual.

“I’m cutting off bits of my hair to give to—”

“Stacy Weston,” Kara completes. “Right, got that part. But why are you cutting off parts of your hair and giving it to one of your classmates, is the more important part of that question.”

“Because Stacy Weston is my new enemy,” Myka says, with all the seriousness that she possesses.

Kara has to try very, very hard not to laugh, especially when she catches Lena’s eye. “I’m sorry?” she asks. “There’s… what?”

Myka huffs and bends down to gather a few of the curls. Kara notices the chunk missing from her head and sighs. “We learned about it in history,” she explains, as if Kara and Lena should already know this. “In Ancient times here on Earth, kings would cut of part of their hair and deliver it to their enemies to declare war. The longer their hair, the longer they had gone without fighting. So, longer, is more intimidating,” she frowns at the mess of curls in her palms. “But mine kind of bunches up,” she turns and looks thoughtfully at Lena’s head. “Our colors almost match,” she decides. “Can I use a bit of your hair?”

“No,” Kara decides, before Myka can work her puppy eyes and get Lena to agree to basically shave her head.

Lena frowns at her like she knows exactly what Kara was thinking, and doesn’t appreciate it, but is also aware that she doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this situation, as someone who bought Myka a wild African elephant only yesterday when she asked to be its sponsor. Its mom died, and it needs food, and to be adopted, and we can help! Also, can we go pet it? After we send it money?

The answer to that was no, also. Mostly because Kara was afraid that Myka would pick up the baby elephant and try to get Kara to fly it home with them, and she’d have to explain about natural habitats, and there would be crying, and it was much easier just to avoid the whole thing if possible.

“Why is Stacy Weston your enemy now?” Lena asks, setting down her purse and moving to get herself a glass of water. Kara smiles at the familiar way that Lena navigates her kitchen. She’s been here a lot in the last few weeks, and Kara and Myka have both spent quite a bit of time at her place, too.

It’s been awesome.

Lena catches Kara’s eye and smiles, sipping her water and waiting patiently for Myka’s explanation, but it doesn’t come.

“She just is,” Myka huffs. “This hair will have to work I guess,” she turns and walks back into her bedroom, promptly ignoring them both for the rest of the afternoon.

“Well, she’s going to need a haircut now,” Kara sighs, putting the scissors away and brushing the remains of Myka’s hair into the trash can.

“I don’t know, she could rock the uneven look,” Lena jokes.

“Sure why not?” Kara wraps herself around Lena’s back, hugging her around the middle. “She can be a third grader with an undercut. Start a rock band with Trevor and Avani.”

“Avani would be up for it.”

Kara laughs. “Can you imagine Trevor up on a stage? I’m lucky if that kid makes eye contact with me when I say hi. Myka, is lucky if that kid makes eye contact with her, and she’s one of his best friends.”

“You never know,” Lena hums. “People can surprise you,” she turns around in Kara’s arms, smiling shyly at her and Kara’s whole body goes warm. There’s been a lot of that. Loaded, but silent looks shared between them, on both sides. There’s so much that Kara wants to say, that she can’t decide on what to say first, so, she’s mostly just been opting for kissing Lena instead.

It’s working, but it’s not going to keep working for long, if the way that Lena stares at her face now is any indication.

…

…

Lena does her best to focus on Kara, Myka, and work, but thoughts of her mother fight their way into her day to day regardless. Lillian is still formidable, and the usual legal hurdles that can drag out trials are quickly speed through. By the time that Lena feels almost secure and like they’re falling back into a routine, the trail looms just on the horizon, and Lena can’t help but think about it. 

She’s going to have to testify this time around. She didn’t, with Lex. His lawyers had wanted her too, at first, as a character witness. Lex’s love for his baby sister was always a well-known thing, but in the end, they had her submit a written statement instead, and part of Lena had been relieved. Torn between wanting to help her brother somehow, despite everything, and the very thought of condoning anything about him after what she saw made her nauseous. A piece of paper with a mess of her own words shuffled in felt like a compromise she could live with.

Lillian, of course, had testified to try and help Lex but had expertly toed the line of keeping up appearances that she didn’t condone his methods at the same time.

Thankfully, Lena is scheduled to testify early. Day one. Get it over and done with and then get back to her life.

The night before, Kara asks if she’d like to stay over and Lena finds herself shaking her head and declining, even though she would like nothing more. She’s spent at least two, sometimes three nights a week at Kara’s since Myka’s kidnapping, and Kara usually spends at least one night a week at her apartment. Myka has a regular sleepover date with Alex that shuffles around depending on schedules, but usually tries to fall on Friday nights.  

Not to mention, Myka, Avani, and Trevor have been sliding the words sleepover party into conversations with increasing enthusiasm as of late.

Lena still isn’t altogether comfortable breaking down in front of Kara when it comes to her family. Twenty-five years of putting on a brave face and keeping family matters within the family is hard to break, even when Lena is actively trying. Even when Kara is lovely and hasn’t ever judged her, not once.

Kara nods and gives Lena a sad smile, but kisses her and hands Lena her purse. “Okay,” she hums. “I’ll meet you at the courtroom, then?”

“Kara, you don’t have to—”

“We have to cover it for the magazine anyway,” Kara says. “I’d be there regardless. Unless you tell me that you don’t want me to,” she hesitates, biting at her lower lip. Lena considers it for a moment, tries to picture sitting up in front of everyone and having Kara looking back at her. Would that make her feel safer, more secure? Able to speak the truth with more ease? Or would it make her nervous and uncomfortable? To bare everything terrible about her family and have Kara hear her own parts in it.

She’s going to hear about it anyway, and having a friendly face in the courtroom will probably make Lena feel better.

“No, that sounds good,” she says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay, I lo—” Kara chokes on nothing that Lena can see. Swallowing the words that had been about to come out. It’s not the first time. Lena stiffens every time that it happens, giving off some signal that she’s not ready quickly enough for Kara to pick up on it and change course. It always leaves them both awkward and fumbling, one or the other making a mad dash to leave and then both pretending that nothing happened at all when they see each other again after.

True to form, Lena shoves her purse over her shoulder, smiles, and steps out into the hall. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and leaves, wondering what Kara can hear as she walks away. Wondering how long before she is out of range. Sometimes, Kara says, she can hear her heartbeat across the city if she listens hard enough. It’s both intensely reassuring and romantic, and mildly horrifying for Lena to think about. 

She goes through the motions of getting ready for bed, trying desperately not to think about Kara, or Myka, or her mother, and fails on all counts. By the time she is ready to lie down, the idea of being alone in her bed with just her own mind is terrifying enough that she reaches for the leftover sleeping pills in her cabinet instead. She hasn’t had need of them in months now, but she swallows them dry and closes her eyes, waiting for them to take over.

She wakes up groggy, an annoying side effect and one of the reasons she hates the pills, and it takes her much longer in the shower to properly feel awake. When she steps out to get dressed, there are a few messages waiting for her on her phone. Jess, with something relatively banal about shuffling a few meetings around. One of L-Corp’s lawyers, reminding her of something that he has told her at least nine times in the last two days about testifying. And texts from Kara, Alex, and Lois Lane. 

Kara’s is cheerful, familiar, and predictable; saying good morning, sending her a funny picture of Myka half asleep in Kara’s bed, and letting her know that she’ll see her in a bit.

Alex is apparently coming to the trial as well and will be bringing extra coffee for Lena. Coffee that she is willing to spike should Lena so request.

Lois tells Lena to wear blood red lipstick and says that dinner is on her and Clark. So, they’ll be coming too, apparently.

Lena sets her phone down and does her makeup slowly, breathing in and out through her nose until she’s done, blasting music the entire time.

She’s surrounded by reporters the second that she steps out of her car, but her bodyguard shuffles her through the crowd expertly and then she’s surrounded by her friends. Lois calls out something embarrassing to one reporter that manages to get a little too close, and his face goes red as Lois smirks and snakes an arm around Lena.

“Lois,” Kara rolls her eyes, reaching out and waiting until Lena takes her hand.

“What?” she snorts, “believe me, he deserves it. Right Clark?”

Clark looks dubious, but nods along half-heartedly anyway, giving Lena a small, respectful smile. They’re still a bit awkward with each other, and Lena suspects that they might always be.

The lawyers motion for Lena to follow them, and Alex pushes a cup of coffee into Lena’s hands. Whispers, “It’s not spiked. Maggie advised against it. She’s working, but she said to say ‘knock ‘em dead.’ So, you know, do that.”

Lena rolls her eyes, but Alex’s shrug and grin appears to be exactly the thing she needs in this moment, because she feels some of her nerves dissipate. Especially once Kara squeezes her hand, catches her eye and smiles before Lena walks into the courtroom after the lawyers.

Her actual testimony is a blur. She tries not to look at her mother, but she doesn’t want to come across as unable to do so, and the two times that she looks over there, Lillian is staring back at her. Once, cold and impassive, the other time a small smile playing at her lips, not unlike the one that was there moments before she was arrested. Lena quickly turns her gaze back over to Kara.

She remains after her testimony, joining Kara and co. as they procced with the rest of the day. She sits with her back stiffly pressed against the wooden bench, Kara’s hand clasped in hers, and listens to Alex’s dismissive snorts and comments. A few times she has to reach over and dig her nails into Alex’s thigh to get her to quiet down, least she get herself thrown out or arrested for something idiotic like being disruptive. Thankfully, she slips out before everyone, offering to be the one to pick up Myka from school and shoving a flask into Lena’s purse with a wink as she goes.

“I love that girl,” Lois says, laughing after she leaves.

Kara rolls her eyes and stares forward, trying to take as many notes as Lois and Clark.

When they finally break for the day, Lena is exhausted. The idea of joining everyone for a big dinner doesn’t sound like something that she’s up for, but the idea of sitting alone in her apartment again makes her want to scream. Kara takes one look at her and tells Lois and Clark to go join Alex and everyone, saying they’ll try to catch up later. Lois looks like she might argue the point, but finally nods, then pulls Lena in for a tight hug and pushes Clark along before leaving them alone.

“I think we need donuts,” Kara declares.

“I need to check in with work,” Lena says.

“Okay,” Kara grabs her hand. “How ‘bout I drop you off, get us donuts and meet you back there?”

“You can go have dinner with everyone,” Lena offers. “I’m going to need longer than it will take you to find donuts.”

“I don’t want to leave—”

“Please,” Lena asks.

“Okay,” Kara finally agrees. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Sounds good. Thank you.”

“Course,” Kara shrugs. Her face does the thing again, and she chews at her bottom lip while Lena loses all ability to breathe, but thankfully Kara just leans in, gives her a kiss and trots off down the sidewalk.

Lena throws herself into work. So much so that when Kara peaks her head around the door and knocks, holding up a bag full of donuts and a smile, she’s surprised to find that it’s been three hours already. Gratefully, Lena sinks down onto her couch beside Kara and picks at a donut slowly.

“Everyone in National City has an opinion on me,” she murmurs. “Ungrateful daughter. Heroine. Bitch. But, it actually felt good to testify,” she adds while Kara just listens to her thoughtfully. “I got to say my peace, finally distance myself from the Luthor name. Again,” she chuckles, bitterly. “Then I came back here to twelve calls from her lawyers. She wants to see me.”

“What do you think she wants?” Kara asks, picking up her own donut and taking a large bite.

“Probably to tell me that my outfit in court was horrible and that I need a makeover,” Lena jokes, her voice going a bit raw. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. She kidnapped Myka. You. I just—I thought I had finally closed the door on that you know? Done with being a Luthor.”

Kara scoots closer, demolishing a second donut while Lena picks slowly at her first.

“You don’t think I should feel guilty for not wanting to see that monster right?” she asks, but what she almost asks is, should I feel guilty for wanting to see her? After everything that she has done to us. Mostly, Lena never wants to have to see her mother’s face again, but there is still a small part of her that craves Lillian’s validation, and it is very hard to get rid of. Always has been.

“Well,” Kara hums, “do you think you would find peace of mind visiting her, and telling her how you feel?”

“Even if I did, it wouldn’t make a difference. She’s been the same way since the day I met her.”

Kara sighs, turning and looking out the window. Lena doesn’t feel any judgement coming from her; she shouldn’t be surprised by that, but she is anyway. Lena saw Kara’s face when she realized how sick Myka was because of Lillian’s actions. Lena’s not sure what she would say to Kara, if the shoe were on the other foot. But Kara just considers it, shifts her glasses, and eats a third donut before saying softly, “I’ve spent most of my life wishing that I could talk to people who are no longer here. If… I think if my aunt Astra were still alive, I’d want to talk to her. It’s not totally the same, but,” she shrugs. “She’s still here. And she’s still your mom.”

“Yeah,” Lena hums.

Kara holds another donut up in front of Lena’s face, “But for now, this might help,” she grins. Lena opens her mouth and takes a bite, laughing as Kara giggles and wipes some sugar off her face.

…

…

When Kara sees Lena the next morning, she’s somber in a way that’s a little scary. It takes a second for Kara to get her attention, and when she does, Lena only sort of blinks at her like she’s in a daze.

“Lena?” Kara says gently, “are you okay?”

“I saw her last night,” Lena says as they walk inside the courtroom together.

Kara’s eyes widen. She’d left Lena around nine p.m., after trying to see if she wanted to come back to her apartment, but Lena had declined again. Kara understood (slightly) the urge to be alone, and didn’t want to push, but she’d been disappointed. Myka had been even more so.

“Did it… are you okay?” Kara asks again. “Do you want to go somewhere and talk, or—”

“No,” Lena says, a roughness to her voice that she tries to clear. “I… need to be here.” Lillian is brought in then, regally stalking through the room and smiling, feline and almost predatory. When she locks eyes with Lena, it goes soft for a beat, before she turns and stares forward. “I’m a Luthor,” Lena whispers, so quietly that only Kara can hear. Clark, down at the other end of the bench, frowns, but then stares forward and strikes up a conversation with Lois to try and tune them out and give them privacy.

“What do you mean?” Kara asks, as John Corbin is led into the room.

“Biologically,” Lena croaks. “Lionel was… my father was my father.”

Kara freezes. Lena looks like she is barely holding herself together. Kara tries to reach over and take her hands but Lena jerks at the contact and Kara hesitates.

“I’m sorry,” Lena whispers and grabs for Kara’s hands.

“It’s fine,” Kara waves it off. “But Lena, do you want to—”

John Corbin stands up and starts attacking people with kryptonite, and anything that Kara was going to say is cut off.

He frees Lillian, and when Kara flies after them, she’s forced to choose between stopping Lillian or saving innocent civilians, and… it’s not really a choice, so Lillian gets away. Kara is frustrated, and Lena goes silent, and when Maggie’s phone rings, her face going hard and conflicted, Kara’s stomach sinks.

“What?” she asks. “Maggie… what…”

Maggie swallows thickly, pulling up footage on her tablet and hissing out a breath of frustration. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice thick.

“For what? Maggie…”

“Lena, can you explain this?” Maggie asks, her voice almost pleading. Kara twists her head to be able to see it too and goes stiff once she sees what looks like video footage of Lena, bending down and grabbing some kryptonite. “You’re the only visitor on record last night,” Maggie adds.

“That’s not me,” Lena insists, no longer silent and cold. Her eyes are frantic and pleading when she turns to Kara. “That’s not me. I visited my mother but I didn’t—you told me to. I didn’t—that’s not me.”

“Okay,” Kara says quickly. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. Maggie, what are you doing?”

Maggie’s lips press into a thin line as she steps behind Lena, cuffs coming out. “I’m sorry,” she says, to them both. “It’s my job.”

“What!” Kara leaps forward, but Lena just goes limp and resigned. “No, Maggie. Obviously, there’s been some mistake—”

“I know that Kara,” she says, cuffing Lena. “But until I have evidence that says otherwise, it’s either me who takes her to the station, or someone else. And someone else isn’t going to know that it’s a mistake.”

“Maggie, please—”

“It’s okay,” Lena says, quiet. Even though it is anything but as Kara watches Maggie ease her into the back of her car as gently as she can. Kara turns around and flies up into the air, shaking as she pushes herself faster and faster. She flies around the entire planet, twice, before she lands on her balcony, completely spent and still furious.

“Kara?” Myka asks, turning and gaping at her. Kara must look a bit odd, because Myka approaches her hesitantly. “Where’s Lena?”

She tries, really, really hard not to, but Kara bursts into tears. 

…

…

Alex listens to Myka’s shaky, worried voicemail and practically runs to Kara’s apartment. She finds the two of them sitting on the floor. Kara’s still in her suit, Myka on her lap, holding Kara tightly and whispering, ‘it’s okay Kara, everything’s gonna be okay,’ over and over again. When she looks up and sees Alex, her face floods with relief, but she doesn’t let go of Kara.

“I want to help,” she insists, when Alex tries to get her to go to bed.

“I know babe,” Alex taps her chin. “You did.”

“Where’s Lena?” Myka asks, like she knows that she is going to hate the answer. “What happened at the trial?”

Alex looks at her angry little face, and she doesn’t have the heart to tell her that everything is fine. For one, it’s a bald-faced lie, and Myka would suss her out in a second, but if she tells her the truth of where Lena is, Myka will flip out, and that will only break Kara further.

“A lot happened,” Alex says. “But, we’re gonna fix it.”

“But what is it?”

“If you go to bed now, and don’t listen in on me and Kara, I promise, I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”

Myka narrows her eyes at Alex, but she takes one look over at Kara then nods slowly. “Pinky promise,” she holds out her finger and Alex reaches over and locks her own with it. “I’m almost ten,” Myka says. “I can handle a lot of stuff.”

“I know,” Alex smiles. “But sleep now, okay?”

“Fine,” Myka grumbles.

Alex corrals Kara out of her suit and into her bed, and it takes ages, but eventually, she tires enough to crash. Alex climbs out of her bed and calls Maggie, checking in and hating the guilty crack to her voice as she apologizes.

“It’s your job Maggie,” Alex says softly, trying not to wake Kara or Myka. “No one is blaming you.”

“Alex, I’ve never seen her look like that before,” Maggie says. “She’d just given up. Like this was inevitable, and honestly, there was nothing I could say to reassure her. The evidence is damming. I’ve got nothing that might convince anyone that she’s innocent. I’ve had techs working on the video all night, it’s not doctored in any way that they can find.”

“Did you give a copy to—”

“Winn, yeah,” Maggie says. “He says the same thing. But he’s going to keep working on it.”

“Fuck,” Alex curses.

“Yeah, basically.”

“There has to be something. Lena didn’t do this,” Alex says, convinced in her words. “I mean, I’ve known the woman for almost a year now and… nothing points to this.”

“Unless she thought she was helping in some way. Or… I don’t know. She went off on her own a few weeks ago, when Lillian was arrested.”

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe it could be something like that but… if that was her, there’d be a good explanation for it. And no way in hell would she be hiding away kryptonite. Have you seen the way she looks at my sister? God, they’re practically married at this point. She’d never.”

“I’m agreeing with you babe, I just don’t have anything I can do.”

Alex kicks out at the couch and sighs. “I’m gonna crash here. We’ll figure something out in the morning.”

“Okay, call me.”

“I will.”

Alex hangs up, peels off her clothes until she’s down to just her underwear and a tank top, and walks back into Kara’s bedroom, easing underneath the covers. She falls asleep to the rhythm of Kara’s breathing, wanting to wring Lillian Luthor’s neck.

…

…

It doesn’t get any better in the morning.

Alex wakes before Kara does—the result of her trying to race around the entire planet one too many times—and she’s confronted by Myka, bedhead full of curls and her arms crossed angrily, sitting on top of the kitchen island.

“So, where’s Lena?” she demands. “It’s morning.”

Before Alex can say, jail, actually, her phone rings and Maggie delivers even shittier news. Lena has also escaped from jail. Or she’s been kidnapped. Both options are pretty terrible. Myka can easily hear her through the phone, and she leaps off the counter and runs into her bedroom, dressed and back long before Alex hangs up with Maggie.

“I’m coming to help,” she demands.

“No, Myka—”

“I AM COMING TO HELP!” she screams, and Kara comes running out of her bedroom, wild-eyed and bracing for who knows what. “If you try to stop me, I’m just gonna sneak out and follow you,” Myka warns.

“What happened?” Kara asks. “Alex—”

“Lillian broke Lena out, they’re both missing now. There’s more footage, and James was there. Metallo… it’s… pretty bad Kara. It makes her look even more guilty.”

Kara punches a hole into the marble counter, and honestly, Alex doesn’t really blame her. If it wouldn’t break her hand in half, she’d be doing the same right now. “What do we do?” she asks, sounding as young and scared as when she first came to live with them.

“We go to the DEO, and we figure something out,” Alex decides. Kara squares her shoulders and nods, going to change into her suit, and Myka opens her mouth to protest only for Alex to sigh, “all of us,” she promises. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on Myka there anyway.

The minute they walk through the DEO’s doors, Maggie comes running up, looking guilty and approaching Kara hesitantly. Kara says nothing to her, but she steps forward, wraps her in a tight hug and then walks past to find Winn. Myka chases after her before Alex can grab her, so she kisses Maggie. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she returns.

“So, this sucks.”

Maggie laughs. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

They walk further into the DEO and find Kara and Myka pacing behind Winn, Lois with her feet kicked up on top of his desk, offering everyone chocolate and a calming, if slightly teasing presence. Alex catches sight of Clark, James, and J’onn over in the corner, whispering to themselves. She nods when J’onn catches her eye and walks over towards her sister.

“Anything?” she asks.

“No,” Myka grumbles, glaring at Winn as if this is all somehow his fault for not finding anything yet. Lois reaches out as she paces closer and yanks her over into her lap, pushing a piece of chocolate into her mouth.

“Gotta give the boy some breathing room kid,” she says.

“You’re not,” Myka objects. “You’ve been bothering him since before we got here.”

“That’s… that’s true,” Winn says, and Lois glares at him.

“Can everyone please focus?” Kara snaps.

“Yeah, sorry kiddo,” Lois says, reaching up and rubbing her back. “We’re just trying not to go crazy in the meantime. That won’t help out your girl.”

Kara sags a little into her touch. “I know,” she says sadly.

“OH!” Winn suddenly yells. “I… I know that code. That’s… this is the real Hank Henshaw. HOLD UP!” he yells excitedly, tapping away as everyone gathers around him. “And lookit here,” he grins as the video changes, showing Hank Henshaw with the kryptonite instead of Lena. “Exoneration?” 

Alex turns to Maggie, who is beaming. “I mean, as long as we’re sure Lillian kidnapped her. Which shouldn’t be hard to prove. We’ve just… got to find her.”

“Um,” Clark points to another monitor from across the room. “Will this help?” he asks. “Is that showing kryptonite?”

Winn swivels his chair around. “It is,” he says, grinning up at Clark. “Handsome and smart.”

“Hey, back off, he’s mine,” Lois jokes. “You can have Jimmy,” she pats James on the thigh as she swivels her chair behind Winn. Myka mimics her. “You might have to fight my baby sister for him though. Not sure where they left that whole…. thing.”

“James,” he corrects. “And we broke up.”

“Sure thing Jimmy,” Lois says. “Winn can call you James, if you want. Also, it better not have been you breaking Lucy’s heart, or we’re gonna have some words,” she says, mock-serious. But Alex has known Lois long enough to catch the sour tinge to her tone, just enough to know that underneath the jokey veneer, she’s deadly serious.  

“This must be where Metallo is,” Winn says, ignoring them all and looking at Kara. “But, he’s not stable at all.”

“It must be synthetic kryptonite,” Clark says. “I destroyed all of it that J’onn gave me. There isn’t any left to find. That’s why it’s so unstable.”

Kara turns and flies out of the room, and before Lois or Alex can grab Myka, she takes off running after her, leaping at least fifty feet.  

“Myka!” Alex runs, but Clark passes her.

“I got her,” he promises and shoots into the air.

Alex turns back around and taps the comms in her ear. “Kara, you have to hurry,” she orders. “This is highly unstable, and if you’re within range when he explodes—synthetic or not—you’ll die.”

“I know,” Kara says, firmly.

Clark lands back in the middle of the DEO, a squirming, kicking, and furious Myka in his arms. “I don’t really think I should put her down,” he says, a bit awkwardly.

“I HATE YOU,” Myka screams. “LET GO OF ME!”

“Myka,” Alex starts, then she hears Kara cry out in pain over the comms and panics. “Supergirl!”

“What is it?” Myka asks, worried.

“Kara,” Alex orders. “Kara!”

“Get out of there now,” Winn yells, staring at the monitor. An explosion rings out on it, clear as day, and Alex’s heart stops.

“Kara?” she asks again. Nothing. “Kara!”

There is some interference, then breathily, Kara’s voice cracks through the comms. “I’m okay. I got her. We’re okay.”

Alex sags with relief, then laughs when Myka kicks Clark in the shins and he drops her with a groan. “Damn, she’s strong,” he winces.

“That’s what you get!” she screeches. “WHEN I SAY PUT ME DOWN, PUT ME DOWN!”

…

…

Kara flies back into her apartment from helping a few people get to the hospital after a car accident, bone weary. She had to drop Lena and Myka off at her apartment then shoot after Clark, hating leaving them so quickly after everything, but Lena had all but pushed her out the door. Don’t you dare let anyone else get hurt on my account, she demanded. I’m fine now. Kara hadn’t believed that for a second, but she knew that she was fine enough, and hovering would only make Lena angry.

She shucks out of her suit as she walks through her apartment, turning away from the direction she had been heading to check on Myka when she hears two familiar heartbeats together in her room.

Lena and Myka are sound asleep on her bed. Kara reaches down into a pile of what sort of looks like clean clothes and tugs a t-shirt over her head. She smiles at the sight in front of her; Myka is curled around Lena like she can protect her from the world with her own skinny body.

Kara eases down onto the bed behind Lena. She stirs a bit, turning around to give Kara a sleepy half smile, tilting her head in a way that’s so achingly familiar, it makes something inside Kara tighten into hard knots, and sometimes, just sometimes, she can’t breathe. “I love you,” she whispers. In all honesty, that’s not what she intended to say when she opened her mouth, but she’s glad that it’s what came out. It’s been pressing against the tip of her tongue for weeks and weeks now, so close to spilling out it’s been almost painful to keep it in.

She's rewarded by a bright, startled smile from Lena. Still half asleep, still completely worn out from the last forty-eight hours, Lena laughs and rolls into Kara mumbling, “I love you too,” before conking out again.

Despite how exhausted she is, it takes ages for Kara to be able to calm down enough to fall asleep after that. And she wakes with a smile still on her face. 

Chapter Text

When Lena wakes the bed is cold and she’s alone, but she can hear voices murmuring from somewhere in the kitchen. She stretches out, rolling and looking for the clock as she hears Myka squeal excitedly and Kara quickly trying to shush her. Lena smiles, then shoots up and nearly falls out of the bed once she realizes what time it is.

“Kara!” she calls out, “you turned off my alarm!?”

“What?” Kara pokes her head into the room, “no I didn’t. You did,” she catches Lena’s hands, frantically trying to work out the tangles in her hair. “You called and told Jess you weren’t going to be in today.”

Lena’s hands stop, caught on a tangle that makes her wince and she sighs, remembering. “I… forgot,” she admits. “I wasn’t…”

Kara smiles at her fondly, then bends forward and places a kiss in the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, I figured. Um,” her face scrunches up, as if preparing herself. “Please humor her,” she whispers. “She’s been up since almost five working on this.”

“Working on what?” Lena asks, a bit warily, but she allows Kara to gently push her back down onto the bed.

“TA-DA!” Myka screams and walks into Kara’s bedroom holding three trays nearly spilling over with breakfast foods. One in each hand, and one balancing on top of her head precariously. Kara quickly grabs that one, turning and smiling shyly at Lena. “I did it all myself,” Myka declares proudly.

Lena looks up at catches Kara’s eye, who mouths, mostly, smiling proudly at Myka. “I also called in sick today. Myka and I have both come down with horrible colds that have left us bedridden and unable to go to work or school.”

Myka coughs with extreme exaggeration, smiling and holding up the tray with Lena’s coffee on it to her.

“That’s very unfortunate,” Lena says, taking the coffee and fighting back a smile.  

“It is,” Myka agrees solemnly. “Want some pancakes?”

Lena laughs and scoots back in the bed. “Sure,” she says and Myka and Kara spread out the trays of food and climb in beside her. Myka starts explaining everything that she made, and Lena opts for picking at a few things and mostly sticking with her coffee. Kara doesn’t have the luxury of pretending that she’s not all that hungry right now, because no one in the world would ever believe her, so Lena rubs at her back while she shovels some soggy toast into her mouth and grimaces. Myka is appeased enough and turns her attention to the television, cuddling into Lena’s side and ignoring them both once the movie starts. Lena sips at her coffee and takes the piece of pineapple that Kara had been about to put in her mouth with a wicked grin.

“That was rude,” Kara says, half a pout. She twists and snags the last one before Lena can get it too, laughing and then Lena remembers what they both said last night. It must show on her face. It must show with her whole body, because Kara and Myka both pause and look at her warily, anticipating something else going wrong. Lena going skittish, maybe. But, Lena is so far beyond letting her mother or brother taint her relationships any further, so she smiles back at Kara. Kara, who loves her. Without any strings or conditions attached.

“Well, you love me anyway,” Lena teases, and rests back against the pillows, delighting in the way that Kara’s face breaks out with a grin.

“I guess,” she teases back. “But I’ll have you know, I’m not willing to overlook you taking my food nine times out of ten. It’ll be a deal breaker.”

“Really?” Lena smirks and takes the cinnamon toast right out of Kara’s hands.

Kara yelps then grins in a way that makes Lena nervous. “Give me that back,” she demands and hovers above the bed before reaching down and tickling Lena’s sides.

Lena screams, food goes flying everywhere, and Myka cheers them both on. It’s the best sick day that Lena has ever taken in her whole life, even if she does spend the majority of it with maple syrup stuck in her hair.

…

…

Lena is publically cleared of all charges relating to Lillian’s escape. It doesn’t stop a few assholes on the internet dredging up conspiracy theories as to her involvement, but the majority of people start leaving her alone and stop looking at her like she’s a pariah.

It helps, that it’s also very public knowledge now that she’s Supergirl’s friend.

Everyone is awkward around her for about forty seconds when she walks into the DEO a few days later to meet Winn for lunch and Lena rolls her eyes. “I know you were all trying to help, can you please stop looking at me like I might burst into tears at any moment?”

Only Maggie stumbles, feeling extra guilt over arresting her, and Lena wants to shake her. “I understand how these things work better than most,” Lena says. “You were doing your job. You would have been in trouble with your superiors if you hadn’t. Can we please just move past it?”

Maggie holds her gaze for a few uncomfortable seconds, and Lena squares her shoulders and refuses to look away. Finally, Maggie chuckles and rolls her eyes, but her voice is still serious when she says, “You’re allowed to be pissed at people you know. It’s not going to make them disappear from your life.”

“I’m not—” Lena blanches, a bit. Maggie’s face is far too understanding, and really, there is only so much that she can handle at a time. Lena jerks her head into a nod, and walks away, claiming that she needs to get back to work.

It takes her a few days of avoiding Maggie until she’s able to act like a human being around her knowing gaze again, but, she is able to do it, and that’s more than she would have been able to say a year ago.

…

…

“GO TREVOR GO!” Myka screams at the top of her lungs. Lena sees Kara wince out of the corner of her eye as he tries to run to first base and trips halfway. He slumps off the field while Myka and Avani both boo loudly at the Umpire. A pack of boys who all look like him to varying degrees take turns taunting and cheering him on from beside Lena, Kara, and Alex, depending on whether or not their mother is close enough to whack them.

Avani walks up to base next, waving happily when she recognizes Alex’s voice calling out encouragement. Myka yells from the dugout, still barely understanding any of the rules and only nodding when Trevor bends over and whispers something in her ear.

Avani cracks the ball into the air, and sprints towards first base, Myka and Trevor both going wild as it looks like she’s going to make it to second. Kara jumps up beside Alex and Lena, all three of them cheering as she makes it to third. Bheema blinks and smiles when Avani goes sliding into home, and Myka and Trevor tear out of the dugout and tackle her into a hug.

It takes a few minutes for them to all calm down enough for Myka to take her turn at bat. Kara grabs Lena’s arm. “This might not go over well,” she whispers, worry and anticipation laced in her voice.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Lena says calmly, though, with Myka’s track record, a small part of her secretly doubts it.  

“Twenty-bucks we never see the ball again,” Alex says, and Lena rolls her eyes.

“Come on Myka!” the coach calls as she misses the first pitch. “It’s okay, just keep your eye on the ball!”

Myka frowns at him, then after turning back to look at the catcher, she shrugs, bends down, and tries to stick her eye on the ball resting inside his glove.

“Oh my god,” Kara groans as the entire crowd bursts into laughter, and the boy tries to push Myka up off of him.

“How does that help?” Myka demands of the coach, shoving the catcher back.

Lena bites at Kara’s shoulder trying not to laugh, and Alex nearly falls through the bleachers she’s laughing so hard. Kara and Bheema both reach their hands to out to steady her. Trevor’s brothers all cheer Myka on, delighted by the turn of events. And in the dugout, Avani drops her face into her palm while Trevor smiles so brightly at Myka, that for the first time since Lena has met him, he’s not hunched over shyly anymore.

“What does my eye have to do with anything?” Myka yells. “He won’t let me,” she pushes the catcher into the dirt, the Ump quickly moving forward to intervene.

“A career in baseball may not be in her future,” Lena whispers, as Myka huffs and misses the ball again.

“Yeah, she’s having way less fun here than in ballet,” Kara says, then jumps up as Myka throws the bat down in frustration after she misses again.

“It’s okay Myka,” Trevor calls out, surprising everyone who knows him. “Hold it like this!” he steps out of the dugout and demonstrates, waiting patiently while Myka mimics his position and sticks her tongue out just like him.

“Oh god,” Lena cranes her neck up. “Someone make sure that boy playing catcher steps further back,” she clamps one hand over her eyes, barely peeking through it as Myka winds up. She doesn’t hit the catcher, and she does manage to finally hit the ball. She drops the bat and sprints like her life depends on it while everyone cheers her on until they realize it’s a foul.

Myka however, doesn’t know that, and keeps running, thinking that the people still yelling are cheering her on. She runs the entire length of the bases, stomping on home proudly and turning to make sure that Kara, Lena, and Alex are watching her. She waves. “I did it!”

Kara gives her a thumbs up, weakly, while Lena and Alex wave back at her.

No one tries to tell her that she was out the whole time. Avani and Trevor both lift her up after the game and chant while they wait for their ice cream. They lose by twelve points.

“Yeah, probably no baseball,” Kara whispers to Lena.

…

…

There’s a routine that Lena has slipped into, over the last few years, that she doesn’t often deviate from. It’s not that she can’t, or won’t, it’s just… a surprise whenever it happens. It takes her brain a second to catch up.

She wakes up between five and five-thirty, depending on the day and how many times she allows herself to hit the snooze button. She does yoga for half an hour, then plays a stream of news while she showers and dresses for the day. Checks her emails while she eats breakfast—which mainly consists of coffee, possibly a banana, or yogurt—and is at work before seven, usually greeting the night time janitorial staff as they head home for the day.  

Similarly, her nighttime routine depends on what time she ends up leaving L-Corp but often consists of music or news playing in the background while she changes. Occasionally working while she eats dinner alone at her kitchen table, and rolling around until she eventually falls asleep or caves and takes a pill.

This hasn’t been her routine for weeks now, but it still surprises her each time it’s interrupted, no matter how welcome the change.

Kara sort of smiles at her in this very specific way that means, please stay, but she only ever asks Lena occasionally. If she knows that Lena isn’t going to be as busy in the morning, or if she hasn’t been there in the last few nights.

No pressure.

Except for the pressure they seem to be imposing on themselves. It seems nonsensical, to spend every single evening with her girlfriend. To walk into her own space and have it suddenly sound far too quiet, to feel like there’s something missing, where previously, she had just been perfectly capable of going about her life. Kara was her friend. She saw her frequently, but she didn’t feel like she had to be around her all the time.

She still doesn’t. Have to. Lena can go home, and be by herself, and get her work done and she is fine. She’s done it enough times, as if proving something to herself. If this all went away tomorrow, she’ll survive. It’s morbid, but, her whole world did just up and go away once—twice, actually.

So, it feels necessary to test out. To be sure.

Lena can survive without Kara. Without Myka. Or Alex, or Maggie, or Winn, or all of them. She’ll be okay if something horrible happens and Kara decides that a Luthor is too difficult or not worthy anymore. It will hurt, terribly, possibly more than anything else ever has, at this point, but she will survive it.

She doesn’t want to, is the thing.

Regardless, she forces herself to go home and spend her nights alone at least once or twice a week, and she’s bored and lonely. It starts to feel more like a punishment than a test, and the test itself feels more idiotic with each week that passes.

But god, officially, she has only been dating Kara for about four months. She has only known her nearly a full year. It’s way too soon, to be talking about things like moving in with each other… isn’t it?

Lena has no real frame of reference. Already, this is the longest romantic relationship that she’s ever managed to find herself in. Not to mention, there is a child involved in this one, who doesn’t make things easy or allow for any subtleties whatsoever.

But why are you going home? But why can’t you stay tonight? But Lena, look at all the ice cream we have! Your apartment doesn’t have any ice cream; I ate it all yesterday. But, why, but why, but why?

Kara’s very specific, puppy-like, please stay smile accompanies Myka’s pleas—every time—and it is getting harder and harder to come up with any sort of feasible excuse, even to herself.

Essentially, Lena is realizing that she is doomed.

Slowly, more and more of her things wind up in Kara’s apartment, and no one really says anything about it. But, Kara beams when Lena pulls one of her own dresses out of the closet and dresses for work on a Tuesday, and Lena stumbles at the sight, just a bit, before recovering and turning around. “Zip me up,” she says, and Kara jumps forward eagerly, kissing the back of Lena’s neck, and both shoulders once she’s done.

“See you later for lunch?”

Lena turns back around, notices the time, and quickly kisses Kara before running out of the bedroom, calling, “Yes! Around one!” over her shoulder as she dashes out of the apartment.

Her routine is altered, slowly. Only occasionally at first. A slightly later morning or two here, an earlier evening off from work there. Same as it was before, when Lena was friends with Kara, or when they first started dating. Except for that it stops just being an occasional interruption.

She goes into work at ungodly hours because she wants to, not because she needs to, technically. She did a year ago, when she first shifted headquarters from Metropolis to National City. There was always something to do, some reason for her presence, but, that has died down considerably in the last month or so. People are mostly settled. She could pull back on her own workload, if she wanted to.

It’s an astounding thought to someone who was never allowed to be anything other than her best, always. If Lillian were here, she’d be going on and on about duty and responsibility to uphold the Luthor name, but Lillian is currently a fugitive, and she’s the one responsible for tarnishing the Luthor name at the moment, not Lena.

Quite simply, her mother can fuck right off as far as Lena is concerned.

If she could talk to Lex, (the man that he used to be, the one that she chooses to remember, when she needs to) he’d smile at her wryly. He’d say, cheers to that Ace, you go on and tell her. He’d tell Lena to allow herself to be happy, for fuck’s sake.

He’d be right, probably. Right, where he was wrong about so many other things.

So, Lena starts to set her alarm for six-thirty, instead of five. Sometimes, when she wakes up and slips out of Kara’s arms, Myka greets her. Bleary-eyed and yawning, she’ll crouch down next to Lena in the living room on a second yoga mat, and by the time they’ve gone through three sun salutations, she’ll be awake and smiling. Practicing her headstands. By the time that Kara stumbles out of the bedroom to start making breakfast, Lena would usually be at work. Instead, she showers and joins the two of them for breakfast and actually eats a full meal, laughing and relaxed by the time they drop Myka off at school and all go their separate ways.

Some mornings aren’t anything like that at all. Sometimes, she wakes to find Kara already gone; her suit missing and a note on the pillow.

Car crash on the south side; alien brawl in Chinatown; DEO thing. Etc. etc.

Lena has learned that on mornings that she doesn’t stay the night, the notes are left on Myka’s pillow, and they have specific rules as to what she is, and is not allowed to do alone in the apartment until Kara is back.

The stove is off limits. School is not optional. Usually, Myka sleeps in for as long as possible, dresses herself in a hurry, and eats ice cream and cookies for breakfast before getting on the bus.

Kara hates this and does her level best not to leave Myka alone whenever possible. It’s only ever happened a few times that Lena knows of. True emergencies. Usually, she just picks a sleeping Myka up and flies her to the DEO before heading out to whatever emergency is currently happening. Agents are almost used to an alien child in her pajamas being tossed into their arms as Supergirl flies off to stop whatever disaster is imminent. One of them, Hector, who Lena finds out has two daughters of his own, is particularly good at braiding Myka’s hair in intricate ways that gets her to behave and head off to school without complaint.

Lena still finds it terribly difficult to drag herself away from work before six most nights, but she manages it, occasionally. But it’s still a surprise every time. It still takes her brain a minute, as she walks into Kara’s apartment, Myka shouting for her to watch as she tries to perform a headstand holding herself up with just her pinkie, or Kara, running forward and shoving a new article in Lena’s face, exhilarated. Greeted by domestic familiarity. It’s impossibly foreign.

It’s different, but it’s a very good different.

…

…

“Well, I mean, how often does Maggie stay over at your place?” Kara asks, fishing as she and Alex wait in line for their coffees. Alex goes a little red and avoids Kara’s gaze. “How often?” she repeats, curious now. Lena spends a lot of time at her place, and Kara goes to hers a lot too. Alex mumbles something and Kara frowns. “I have super hearing, and I didn’t even catch that.”

Alex sighs. “I don’t know,” she shrugs, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Like, most nights. I guess?”

Kara feels a teasing grin breaking out onto her face as they move forward in the line. “Has she moved in?”

“No,” Alex insists. “She still has her own place.”

“But—” Kara prompts. Alex goes even pinker, and she knows that she is right. She raises her eyebrows and waits.

“But,” Alex rolls her eyes and straightens up, trying not to look phased and failing drastically. “Most of her stuff is at my apartment, and… I dunno, her lease might be up soon. We haven’t like, formally talked about it,” Alex rounds on Kara, eager for a subject change. “Why? How often is Lena at your place?”

It’s Kara’s turn to blush, just a bit. “A lot,” she admits.

Alex looks triumphant only for a few seconds. “We might be pathetic,” she frowns.  

“It’s possible,” Kara hums, bouncing in anticipation. She’s starving. “Or, we’re just that awesome, and our girlfriends love us.”

“Let’s go with that one,” Alex agrees, and they take their food to go sit outside.

“Is it—” Kara crams an eggroll into her mouth, “—do you think it’s way too soon for like, really living together? It’s there a stereotype about that on Earth?”  

Alex shrugs. “How should I know? I only figured half of this out months ago. Ask Maggie,” she says, mostly joking.

Kara does anyway, though.

Maggie chokes on her coffee when Kara accosts her at the NCPD station and asks about lesbian stereotypes, and appropriate relationship timelines on Earth. “What?” she sputters, grabbing Kara’s elbow and dragging her out earshot from her partner.

Kara shrugs. “I don’t know, you’re like… a well-adjusted person. You seemed like someone who might know. Alex was no help at all, and if I ask Eliza, she’ll get too excited and I’ll never hear the end of it. Clark will just smile at me and tell me to follow my heart or something, and if I do that — well,” Kara blushes and waves her hand around in front of her face wildly, trailing off to nothing. “Lois will just tease me. She’ll eventually give me advice, but I figured that I’d just try you first. Asking Lucy or James might be too awkward. Winn knows even less about relationships than I do, and Ms. Grant is off somewhere in a Yurt, last I heard from her,” Kara sighs and flops down into Maggie’s chair. “Rao, I miss her. I hope her sabbatical is over soon. There’s a lot of advice that I need. I’ve been writing things down in a notebook so I don’t forget to ask her later.”

Maggie pinches the bridge of her nose, then sits down on top of her own desk. “Okay, fine,” she smiles, a bit long-suffering, but with a hell of a lot of warmth to it, and Kara knows that she picked the right person to ask. “What exactly is your question?”

“Is it too soon for us to move in together?”

“What, you and me?” Maggie teases lightly, and Kara laughs, relaxing a little. Maggie shrugs. “Every relationship is different Kara, only you and Lena can really know the answer to that. Have you talked to her about it?”

“Right, here’s the thing—” Kara starts as Maggie frowns. “I don’t want to scare her away,” she admits quietly. “I… I mean, I know what I want, but…”

“You should just ask her,” Maggie says, gently. “For the record, anyone who spends five minutes with her knows that she’s absolutely crazy about you, and, you haven’t scared her away yet. And you guys have been through a lot. So, if she were going to get scared away, it probably would have happened by now.”

“Yeah,” Kara smiles, unable to help herself. “I think I just… wanted to hear someone else say that I wasn’t acting like a crazy person, mostly.”

“You are a little,” Maggie says easily, and Kara gapes at her. They’re still a little… not reserved with each other, but, testing the waters of their relationship one-on-one. Maggie doesn’t tease her like this often, it’s kind of nice.

“According to Alex, your lease is up soon,” Kara shoots back. The way that Maggie’s cheeks go pink is absolutely worth it, and Kara beams as she jumps out of her seat. “So,” she wriggles her eyebrows. “Kettle and pot, and something else, that I don’t really remember.”

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Go save the world or something and get outta my hair, Little Danvers. I’ve got shit to do.”

…

…

Maggie cannot be the person that literally everyone that she knows now comes to for advice. That cannot be her role here. She’s not actually a relationship guru. She’s got a string of shitty relationships to prove it. So far, this thing with Alex has been an exception to that rule. Not the standard.

Regardless, Lena shows up at her apartment the next morning, wringing her hands together and looking like she might actually combust on the spot. “So, in your experience, how soon is too soon to move in together?” she asks, cutting right to the chase.

“Jesus Christ,” Maggie mumbles. She shoves her door open all the way, motioning for Lena to come inside. “Let me get some coffee first, at least. It’s seven a.m.”

Lena frowns as she looks around Maggie’s sparse apartment. “Have you moved in with Alex?” she asks.  

“Technically, no,” Maggie says.

“Because you think it’s too soon?” Lena asks, looking worried.

Maggie moves to start the coffee. “Sit,” she orders. “And our situations are pretty different, all things considered.”

“Not that different,” Lena counters.

“Well, for starters, yours are both aliens.”

Lena sits up, primly, and Maggie remembers that she grew up in a goddamn mansion. She probably had butlers and servants, and she was constantly talked about in the press, while Maggie grew up crammed into an apartment meant for two with her parents, a few cousins, and her grandparents, until it was just her aunt and the space around them felt enormous. God, they’re so different.

But, Maggie knows how Lena likes her coffee, at this point. She knows that Lena is generous almost to her own detriment, desperate to prove herself worthy of people’s affections and time. She may have grown up with ungodly amounts of money and privilege, but her parents dismissed her almost as easily as Maggie’s did. Just in different ways.

It doesn’t really matter, in the long run. Maggie makes their coffee strong, pours it into two clean mugs and passes Lena the black one, spooning a bit of cream into her own and stirring it. The two of them both fell head over heels for the Danvers sisters, they’re both just humans, trying to make sense of all of this crap that they’ve found themselves tangled in via proximity. Maybe, all things considered, they’re not really so different after all.

Lena blows at the top of her coffee impatiently, wincing as she takes a sip and it’s still a bit too hot. “Do you think I’m being crazy? Or rushing into things?” she asks, sounding a lot younger than she looks, for a beat. Unsure of herself in a way that Maggie’s not used to seeing her. She puts on a pretty damn good front, most of the time, but if you bother looking it’s not all that hard to see the cracks in her mask.

“No,” Maggie says easily.

“Well,” Lena frowns, seemingly unable to know where to go from there.

“I think you should talk to your girlfriend,” Maggie supplies, grinning. “If our conversation when she ambushed me at work yesterday is any indication, you guys are pretty much on the same page already.”

Lena’s eyes go wide. “She… what?”

Maggie sips at her coffee and laughs. “Go talk to your girlfriend Luthor, and quit panicking.” Maggie sort of doubts that she’ll be able to quit panicking, but it’s worth a shot. “You hungry?” she asks, and Lena sort of nods at her dumbly, staring down at her mug. Maggie turns and inspects what she might have that’s not expired already, giving Lena a few minutes to catch her breath.

By the time they’re munching on the crackers and peanut butter that Maggie finds, Lena looks more like her usual self. There’s a determined set to her shoulders and the edge of her mouth, and Maggie suspects that Kara is probably done for. She smiles, hoping that her work here is done. It’s weird, to have her life so full of people again. Maggie forgot just how much she missed it.

…

…

Kara comes bursting through the apartment in a flurry, tripping out of her boots and nearly doing a face plant as she yanks herself out of her pants.

Lena reaches behind her, grabs hold of Kara’s suit and tosses it into the air. Kara catches it gratefully and starts yanking it on over her underwear, nothing graceful about it. Efficient and quick. She starts muttering something that Lena only half follows as she pauses to listen to Alex in her comms partway through her explanation.

“Ugh, sorry,” she says, turning quick and placing a sharp kiss to Lena’s cheek, then Myka’s. “I might not be back for a while.”

“Can I come help!?” Myka asks, jumping up eagerly from her homework.

“NO,” they both answer, simultaneously.

Myka slumps with a hint of a pout but doesn’t argue. “Can I do anything?” Lena asks. Kara shakes her head, grins, and jumps off of the balcony. Lena watches the blur of blue and red shoot its way through the sky before turning back around to Myka. “Just you and me tonight I suspect,” she says. “Anything you’re craving for dinner?”

“Brownies,” Myka offers.

“Let’s try something with vegetables first.”

“Fine,” Myka frowns down at the paper in front of her. “How do you spell definitely?”

“D-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y,” Lena dictates, watching as Myka scribbles away then shoves the papers away.

“Done,” she announces. “Can I watch animal videos on YouTube till you’re done?”

“Sure,” Lena unlocks her tablet, then pushes it over to Myka and turns back to her emails. Occasionally, she’s interrupted to look at how big this eagle is!! or how cute this bear looks!! but they work well together now. A new routine in of itself.

By the time that she is finished with her own work, Myka is starving and ready to help scrounge up some dinner. Lena has never been a particularly good cook, but she has learned how to make a few things well enough. She finds a mish-mash of vegetables, throws them into a pan with some coconut oil, and tosses in some leftover chicken strips to make a stir-fry. Myka loves it. Lena considers it a success.

Lena tries to check the news when Myka isn’t looking, distracting her with making brownies, but Myka manages to suss her out in a matter of seconds. Cracking an egg with gusto and grabbing for Lena’s phone with her other hand.

“Is she okay?”

“It looks like it,” Lena says, then puts her phone away and pulls out bits of eggshells from the batter.

Myka stirs it vigorously until all of the lumps are gone, and they spread it onto a pan of Kara’s. “We’re both pretty good at this now,” Myka grins while Lena sets it in the oven. “We both sucked at it when we first met.”

Lena frowns down at her, teasingly. “I was much better at it than you.”

“No way,” Myka insists, flinging a bit of leftover batter up at Lena’s face. She squeals delightedly when Lena retaliates, and they end up making something of a mess of Kara’s kitchen, and themselves.

“Come on,” Lena directs, picking some batter out of her hair. “Shower.”

She cleans up the mess in the kitchen while Myka showers. Setting the brownies out to cool before going back to make sure the bathroom isn’t a warzone in of itself. Tossing their dirty clothes into the laundry, washing her hands and arms enough so that she’s not getting batter everywhere anymore.

Myka is supposed to step out of the shower and into the towel that Lena is holding up waiting for her. Instead, she steps out, dripping water everywhere, and walks in a slow circle around Lena, one finger tapping against her chin, and says, in a deep low register, “Hum, yes, you have just the wingspan I’ve been looking for.”

Lena blinks at her in confusion for a second, then decides that she probably doesn’t want to know, she catches her, wrapping the towel tightly and laughs, and laughs, before shuffling her out of the bathroom and telling her to get dressed.

“And wait for me to eat the brownies. They’re not cooled yet,” she orders, shucking off her own dirty clothes and stepping underneath the warm stream of water.

Myka rolls her eyes, but calls out fine, but hurry, tossing the towel to the ground unceremoniously as she starts yanking on underwear and pajamas.

Lena checks the news again before they eat the entire tray of brownies. Saving three, at least, Myka come on, for Kara and heading off to bed. Myka gets antsy, same as Lena always does while Kara and Alex are out in the field, fending off some horrible disaster and putting themselves in danger, and she follows Lena into Kara’s room. She says that it’s just for the Netflix, which isn’t an option in her room, as though it should be, but Lena can see the worry behind her eyes. She pats the space beside her and Myka tucks in, asking for The Wizard of Oz. One of Kara’s favorites.

They’re both asleep when Kara comes tip-toeing back inside, and when Lena tries to roll over at the sound of her, she finds the deadweight of Myka on top of her chest, preventing her from moving. She hears Kara chuckle lightly and blinks.

“I can’t move,” Lena whispers. “Did you see the brownies that we left for you?”

“I ate them already,” Kara says, suddenly much closer.

“Of course you did,” Lena waits as Kara gently shuffles Myka off of Lena so that she can sit up and kiss her. “Are you alright?” she asks.

“Fine,” Kara sighs. “Just tired.”

“Is Alex alright?”

“She’s great,” Kara says, peeling her way out of her suit. “Not even a bruise.”

Myka shifts, a leg going out dangerously close to Lena’s head, somehow. Kara rolls over so that she’s in the middle of them, shoving Myka over further. “I’ll put her back in her room,” she offers, and then Myka jerks up, wide awake.

“No,” she demands. “Did you fight the bad guys?” not all that awake, then. Kara easily slides Myka into her arms, making a face at Lena as she walks Myka back to her bed, chattering away in a low register until Myka is sound asleep again.  

…

…

Myka has been in a foul mood for four days straight, and it’s starting to seep into Kara’s mood.

She has no idea what it could possibly be. Ballet has been just as much fun as ever. There have been no problems at school, she’s actually been doing great; her tutor is unbearably proud and impressed and Kara suspects that Lena is also sort of tutoring her without letting Myka know that’s what she’s been doing.

Lena is there all the time now. She hasn’t technically given up her own apartment, but none of her stuff is there anymore, apart from some furniture that she doesn’t seem particularly attached to. The only reason Lena hasn’t given it up yet is because Kara had gotten a text from Lucy recently that hinted towards her banishment in the desert or wherever hopefully being done soon, and she might be in need of an apartment in the next few months.

They didn’t really have a full on… conversation about it. Kara had opened her mouth to try, after talking with Maggie, but Lena had kissed her, and then, well…

“My place is technically bigger,” Lena had said, very softly, after, not looking at Kara. Her gaze focused on the ceiling. 

“It is,” Kara agreed. She would have been perfectly happy moving in with Lena, but something to her tone, to the way that Lena said that, made her think it wasn’t exactly what she wanted.

Lena has no attachments to that place. Or anything in it, really.

“But, mine is closer to Myka’s school. And it’s actually about in the middle of CatCo and L-Corp. Our commutes would be about the same.” Lena had beamed up at the ceiling and Kara knew she had guessed correctly.

“And Myka thinks of this as her home,” she’d added.

Kara rolled over, hovering above Lena again. “Myka will be happy wherever if you’re there too. So will I, for the record.”

“So…”

“So,” Kara grinned. “Do you want to move in?”

Lena flipped them over, grinning as she kissed her way down Kara’s body. The ‘yes’ was heavily implied.

Myka had screamed happily for a full three minutes straight, later, when they started bringing the rest of Lena’s stuff over and told her, so—it can’t be that.

There is no reason for her mood that Kara can figure out, and she’s been trying, really hard, for the last four days. She sulks in the morning, needing to be dragged out of bed. She’s snappish with everyone, and nothing anybody offers gets so much as a smile out of her. A shrug and a mumbled, ‘fine’, is the best they can do. Even Lena.

By the time that Friday rolls around, she’s clearly reaching her breaking point—they all are—and Kara finally snaps a little bit back, and just asks her what is wrong? and Myka glares at her, silently fuming for a second before she throws her backpack at Kara’s head.

“I need a permission slip signed,” she hisses, through gritted teeth. Kara frowns, digging into her backpack to find whatever it is that she’s talking about as Lena comes out of the bedroom to see what’s going on.

“Why would that make you—” Kara reads the top few sentences and trails off, looking back up at Myka, who has hunched up into herself angrily. “Myka,” Kara says, pained, and Myka unclenches, only for a second, as tears fill her eyes. Lena tries to reach for her but Myka yanks herself away sharply and Lena jerks back as though she’s been burnt.

“Myka—” Kara tries again, but Myka steps back from her too.

“I DON’T CARE!” she screams. “It’s stupid.”

“What is?” Lena asks, looking to Kara for answers.

“Parent career day,” Kara supplies, her voice cracking on the words.

“They know I’m an orphan,” Myka rages. “It’s stupid. I don’t care.”

“Myka, we can—”

“NO,” she snaps. “I don’t care,” she’s backing away from them both, and Lena is crying now too, and Kara’s whole face feels hot, her throat too thick. “I hate having this stupid fake last name,” Myka yells. “AND I HATE YOU BOTH,” she runs out of the apartment.

Kara flies after her without thinking. She gets halfway down the road when her comms start blaring inside her ear and then Lena’s voice is there saying, come back here right now and get me too, you asshole! and Kara turns sharply back to the apartment.

“God, Kara,” is all Lena says, holding out her arms. Kara never stops, just flies in, grabs Lena and flies back out, searching for Myka.

“Um,” Winn’s voice cuts through her comms not a full minute later. “So, I’ve got an upset guest who gave me specific instructions not to call you and is pretty mad at me for doing so right now. I think she just broke my PlayStation,” he moans.

Myka won’t look at either of them. She announces that she’s sleeping over at Winn’s and that he’s already said that it was fine, and Lena looks at him murderously before Kara can do anything about it.

“Myka…” she tries again.

“Leave me alone,” she demands. Then her voice cracks. “Please.”

Kara starts to nod, trying to give Myka whatever space she wants, but Lena opens her mouth and sharply says, “No,” and plants herself on Winn’s couch. “If you’re sleeping here, then so are we,” she announces. Winn looks a bit green, but he doesn’t argue the point. Kara doesn’t blame him. She’s not about to argue with Lena looking like that either.

Myka blinks at Lena in surprise, then her face goes angry and red and she shoves herself right into Lena’s personal space. Lena doesn’t flinch. Not at her motions, she does flinch at Myka’s words. “I don’t want you here,” she snaps. “And I don’t have to listen to you. You're not my mom. You’re not my anything,” she yells at them both.

Lena goes cold, and Kara’s whole body aches, but neither of them moves. Myka huffs angrily when she doesn’t get the reaction that she’s looking for, and now Kara remembers the fight she’d had with Eliza, the second year that she had lived with them. She’d grown comfortable, almost, and it terrified her. She liked Eliza. Alex. Jeremiah. She loved them, and it scared her. She wasn’t sure if it was allowed. If it meant that she was replacing her parents, somehow.

She had screamed at Eliza till she was hoarse, powers blown out and exhausted and Eliza had to nearly carry her to bed, refusing to leave her side. Assuring her the whole way that it was alright. She knew, without Kara voicing it, what was wrong. She always seems too. No matter what.

God, Kara wishes that she was here right now.

“Myka,” she says, trying to remember what Eliza had said to her. “It’s okay.”

“I’M NOT—”

“It’s okay to be mad at us. It’s okay. We’re not… we’re not replacing your family,” Kara steps towards her slowly. “We’re just adding to it.”

Myka looks up at her sharply, her hands clenched so tightly across herself that she’s leaving horrible pink marks on her arms.

“I love Eliza,” Kara tells her. “But my mom is still my mom, and I miss her. It took me a while to realize it, but it’s okay for both of those things to be true. And it’s okay to be angry about it, sometimes, when you don’t know what else you’re feeling.”

Myka studies Kara for a few agonizing moments, looking between her, Lena, and Winn before she lets out a sad and wet huff of a breath. “I hate this,” she mumbles, to the floor.

“I know,” Kara says.

“My head feels too loud,” Myka says, and Kara nods, understanding. “And, I don’t have anyone to come for career day.”

“Yes you do,” Kara says. “You have lots of people. Me, for one,” she turns, smiling as Lena slowly approaches them. “Lena too, obviously. That’s two already.”

“Three,” Winn offers, holding up his hand like he’s been called on in class.

“That’s not even mentioning Alex or Maggie,” Kara grins. “Does any of that sound good to you?” she asks.

“No,” Myka says when she’s good and ready, which is about thirty seconds later. But, the corners of her lips twitch upwards, if not a ghost of a smile, certainly the ghost's cousin. 

“Clark also, probably,” Kara says then. “And Lois. James. J’onn. M’gann. Eliza,” she grins, as Myka lets them both crouch in front of her now. “That’s a lot of people so far.”

Myka huffs again, but Kara can tell it’s more for show than anything else at this point, and she hears Lena release a soft breath beside her. “I hate my fake last name,” Myka mumbles. “Can you change it to something better?” she asks, looking up at Winn. “Matthews is stupid. Stacy Weston makes fun of me because of alliteration,” she scoffs. “Which, I don’t even know what that means, but it makes me want to punch her.”

“Don’t punch her,” Kara says quickly.

“I know,” Myka rolls her eyes, already looking like herself again.

“I’m sure that we can figure something else out,” Kara says, looking to her side. Lena is staring off into the space behind Myka’s left shoulder, thoughtfully. She bites at her bottom lip when Kara manages to catch her eye. Both of them blush.

“Sure, awesome,” Winn claps his hands, voice pitched high. “So, how many of you are sleeping over? Because I do only have the one bed.”

Kara looks back and Myka and raises her brows in question, waiting as she stares down at the floor. “No one, thank you,” she finally mumbles, and Lena sags beside Kara. She still doesn’t reach out to try and touch Myka as the three of them walk home together. They keep catching each other’s eye above Myka’s head, blushing and swallowing hard.

Myka has more people at her school for career day than anyone in the entire third grade. Even Lucy shows up, breathless and wide-eyed when Lois saunters over and teases her about X-files nonsense in the desert, and how she is absolutely going to expose her, sisterly loyalty be damned.

Kara sits beside Lena while some of the other parents talk, bending over, she whispers directly into Lena’s ear, “I know that you’re Myka’s anonymous scholarship sponsor, by the way.”

Lena’s eyebrows hit her forehead and Kara laughs. “You are!” she whispers. “I wasn’t actually sure, but I guessed—and, Lena!”

Lena stops looking panicked and then just rolls her eyes. “Pay attention Kara,” she chastises, as Trevor’s father tries to make accounting sound exciting to a group of eight and nine-year-olds. Myka whips around at glares at them both for being distracting, then she notices Lena’s arms slung around Kara’s middle and beams, turning back around and whispering something to Avani that Kara purposely tunes out. Both girls turn around and giggle at them, so Kara shrugs, and kisses Lena, grinning as the giggling increases. 

Chapter Text

A spaceship comes to Earth. A Daxamite spaceship.

Kara can’t breathe, really, when Alex’s voice shakes through her comms with the news, and seconds later someone slams into her bodily. Someone just as strong as Kara. Someone who sends her flying, scrambling for purchase before she nearly falls off the roof.

“Kryptonian,” a female voice snarls. “So, the rumors are true. Not only did you destroy my planet, but you stole my youngest child from me as well.”

Kara’s head snaps up, gaping at the woman standing in front of her. So, this must be Queen Rhea. “I didn’t—” she’s slammed into again before she can finish that sentence, this time from behind. Another woman, who looks a bit like the queen is glaring at her when Kara turns around. And then there is a third, and well, the odds are not really in Kara’s favor, just now. “I didn’t steal anyone,” Kara says, and then all three of them attack her at once. Alex’s voice is hoarse and worried in Kara’s ear, and she’s pretty sure that she’s fighting with Myka’s sisters, and they’re winning, a little bit. Kara can’t get much of a word in edgewise to try and de-escalate the situation.

“KARA!”

Everyone freezes at the sound of Myka’s voice. The two women who had been holding Kara drop her in surprise, turning and gaping at Myka. The third stands stiffly beside Queen Rhea, eyes wide, but showing no other emotion. “Mon-El,” Rhea coos, something off about it that prickles Kara’s insides. “You’re alive.”

Myka is deathly pale as she gapes at her mother. She blinks, between Kara, slumped down onto the floor, and her family, towering above her. “Stop hurting her,” she finally whispers. “She’s my friend.”

Rhea frowns, her eyes flash dangerously as she glances down at Kara, but there’s only a fractured sort of warmth in them as she looks back to Myka. “Of course, dear,” she holds her arms out dramatically, walking towards Myka, and Kara’s skin crawls, unsure fully as to why. “We had no idea,” Rhea insists. “We thought — oh darling, we thought that you were dead. Captured. Like your sisters.”

Myka blinks, looking up at the three other women. “What… who…”

The girl closest to Kara—for she is only a girl, Kara realizes now—scoffs angrily. “Cir-El and Zara are dead. We all thought you were too.”

“We don’t know if Zara is dead,” one of the women says softly.

Rhea pulls Myka into a hug, ignoring the way that she is shaking, that she can’t seem to find the energy to bring her arms up and hug her mother back. Kara struggles to get up off the ground, and then the youngest girl smacks her back down, hard.

“Stop it, Elka!” Myka screams, pushing out of her mother’s grasp. “Leave her alone.”

“She is a Kryptonian,” Elka spits, glaring down at Kara.

“She’s my friend,” Myka glares, getting in her sister’s face.

“Girls,” Rhea snaps. All four of them go stiff and quiet, turning and waiting for Rhea to continue. Kara hates it. “If Mon-El says this Kryptonian is her friend, not her captor, then we’ll listen,” Rhea slinks forward, holding a hand out to Kara as if it’s a dare. “Come, let’s go back to the ship. Your father and sister will be so pleased to see that our search was not fruitless.”

“Ayla’s okay?” Myka whispers, still shaking.

“And desperately eager to see you again,” Rhea coos. Myka looks to Kara, confused and panicked, and Kara drags her body up to stand next to her, taking her hand and noting the way that Rhea frowns when she sees. “The Kryptonian is welcome of course,” she adds. It sounds anything but.

Kara nods anyway, holding herself up straight. “Kara Zor-El,” she says.

One of the women’s eyes drops down to the symbol on Kara’s chest. “An El,” she spits, “of course.”

Kara grips Myka’s hand, and before she can so much as tap her comms to tell Alex what is happening, they’re all beamed up to the Daxamite ship, and Kara’s stomach revolts a little with the pressure. A man—the king, must be—and another girl comes running at Myka, scooping her up with tears and relief, and Kara is pushed to the side without thought. Rhea keeps her gaze on Kara, not partaking in the family hug. Neither does the daughter at her side. Dara, Kara learns a few moments later; the second oldest. Lyla, introduces herself as the eldest, once they all calm down enough to sit and make a pretense of eating a meal. Servants scuttle around them, half in fear, and everyone barks orders and no one says thank you, not even Ayla, who seems impossibly sweet and can’t stop crying or holding Myka’s hand.

Kara, unable to help herself, makes a biting comment about slavery and Rhea’s eyes go hard, then amused as she leans back in her chair and sips at her wine. “You Kryptonians are always so arrogant and self-righteous,” she drawls. Beside her, Myka slinks down into her seat and stares at her hands in her lap.

“Mon-El,” Lyla says, changing the subject, “tell us how you survived and came to be on Earth.” Her son, Ray-Us, sits beside Lyla quietly. He looks a few years younger than Myka, still, and Kara wonders if they were all suspended in the Phantom Zone too, but doesn’t actually care enough to ask just now. He smiles, almost sadly across the table at Myka. His father didn’t survive Daxam’s destruction. Neither did Myka’s older sister Cir-El, or her husband. Lyla’s own husband, Tyr-Us, died trying to save them both. None of them know what happened to Zara after she put Myka into the pod.

Kara hopes that she found the girl she loved and escaped. Looking over at Rhea’s face, she doesn’t seem overly concerned about the fate of her other child anymore.

Myka speaks with a shaky voice, barely looking up from her plate. Ayla rubs at her arm encouragingly. “And then Kara found me,” Myka says, finally looking up and smiling at her. Kara smiles back immediately. “And she’s been taking care of me ever since. Also, I like to be called Myka, now.”

“Really?” Ayla blinks. “That’s pretty.”

Dara rolls her eyes and scowls, her daughters mimicking her. They look menacingly over at Myka, and Kara remembers being told that Myka’s nieces have been horrible to her since they were both born. They both look about six or seven or so, a bit older than Ray-Us, but younger than Myka, their scowls match their young mother’s. And their grandmother.

“Of course dear,” Rhea waves absently, “whatever you like.”

Kara’s comms start crackling again, the signal cutting in and out since she boarded the ship. “I should be getting back,” she says, sliding herself away from the table. “My co-workers will be worried. I’ll need to reassure people that you mean no harm,” she says, though no one has actually said otherwise.

Rhea studies her again, her attention unnerving until Myka pushes her chair back with a scrape, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “Me too,” she says, not looking at her mother. “I should go back with Kara too.”

“And why would you do that dear?” Rhea scoffs.

“It’s… they’re my friends too. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“Mon-El, don’t be—” Rhea starts, moving towards her daughter. Myka jerks back, pressing herself into Kara and taking her hand, and Rhea’s posture turns even sharper, eyes narrowing and head tilting to the side as she turns her attention on Kara until she resembles a falcon, eyeing prey.

“I told you,” Myka whispers into Kara’s hip. “I go by Myka now,” finally she looks up. “Please, Mother.”

Rhea pulls a smile onto her face—false if Kara’s ever seen one—and she coos, “Very well dear,” before narrowing her sharp eyes back to Kara. “We’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, like it’s a warning. “Bright and early.”

Dara, Elka, and Rhea all glare at them as they’re beamed down off of the ship. Lar-Gand, Ayla, and Lyla looking conflicted. The minute that they arrive in the middle of the DEO, Myka pulls her hand out of Kara’s, and Alex slams into them both, Winn and Lena half a step behind her.

Everyone is talking all at once, and Kara tries to answer their questions and keep track of Myka at the same time, but she pushes herself out of everyone’s arms, ignoring their questions and just shrugs and folds into herself the longer that Kara talks.

Kara has no idea what she is feeling right now. She can’t even imagine what would be going through her mind, if her parents showed up in a ship, alive, having been searching for her for years, now that she’s accepted that it won’t ever happen. Now that she’s made some sort of peace with it. Now that she loves so much about her life here on Earth.

She has no idea what Myka is thinking right now, but her own chest hurts; it’s too tight, and everything is too loud. Finally, Lena pushes through everyone, grabs hold of Kara’s hand, doesn’t let Myka shrug her off, and says that everyone needs to go get some sleep in a voice that doesn’t leave any room for arguments. Not even J’onn questions her as she leads them both out of the DEO and home.

Myka still won’t talk to either of them, and Kara can see how much it is killing Lena. She needs information, she doesn’t know what to do with herself when she’s without it; it drives her mad. So, Lena plows into something that she can tackle. She finds food, and even though technically, Kara just had dinner with Myka’s entire remaining family on their spaceship, she didn’t actually eat all that much, and the fight with them wiped her out, so, she sits down when Lena pushes her into a chair and eats.

Myka stands dumbly beside Lena, allowing her to gently tug her out of her clothes and into pajamas, and then into her bed. She says nothing the whole time, and when Lena tries to bend down and give her a kiss on the forehead—something that Myka loves—she rolls away.

“Fuck,” Lena whispers, once the two of them are standing in their dark bedroom.

Kara laughs, until it turns into a ragged cry, and she and Lena step towards each other at the same time, gripping tight until they both finally fall asleep.

…

…

When Lena meets Myka’s mother for the first time, she has no idea who she is talking to. Despite everything going on, of course, this is the time Lena has to deal with a minor crisis at work, bright and early. Myka still won’t say anything to either of them about what she is thinking, and none of them know what to do, so, Lena and Kara both go to work, and Myka insists that she wants to go to school.

Rhea walks through Lena’s office pretending to be a human. A potential partner. Waxing poetic about inventions that could save the world. Solve world hunger. Stop climate change. Lena’s personal life might be ripping apart at the seams, but this isn’t just something that she can ignore.

There’s a tingling suspicion at the back of her neck as she talks to this woman, but she can’t place the source of it. She blames it on her own emotions, being worried about Myka and Kara, and then Rhea claims that she has to run to a meeting, leaving the specs for Lena to consider and go over, so.

It’s not until hours later, after two separate phone calls with Kara that have left both of them at least partway in tears, a bit, and Lena is genuinely unable to hold in her excitement about the project, that she sees Rhea again.

She’s still not sure, but she’s suspicious enough, at this point. She lies about needing a fingerprint, holds out her old alien detection device, and is suddenly, furiously glad that she didn’t destroy it when she first considered it.

“You’re Myka’s mother,” she says, pulling the device back. “An alien. And you lied to me.”

Rhea’s body goes from demure to sharp in half a second, and Lena refuses to back away. To show any fear. Rhea waxes on about wanting to see the people who her daughter has been spending so much time with, about being afraid that Lena wouldn’t want to help them get home, if she knew what the device was really for, and Lena swallows and tries to keep herself together.

“You want to use the portal to get home,” she repeats, dully.

“Yes,” Rhea insists. “But it also could do wonders to heal your own planet. You’ve read the calculations yourself. Nothing else that I said was a lie,” she slinks forward, pressing herself into Lena’s personal space. “I didn’t mean to deceive you. From what I can tell, my daughter thinks very highly of you.”

“I think very highly of her as well,” Lena says, because it’s true, and she can’t actually say what she wants. Which is get out and never come back. You’ve ruined everything. And then, because she knows now that she can’t say no, she says, “I’ll do what I can to help you,” each word cutting deeper into her throat until she’s afraid that she’ll choke on them. Rhea smiles, a sly too-wide thing, and says that they should all have dinner together tomorrow. That’d she’d just love to get to know the people who have been so kind to her daughter. That she’s so grateful to have Lena’s help. She’s done her research, and as far as she is concerned, Lena is one of the shining examples that humanity has to offer.

Lena genuinely has no response to that. Thankfully, Rhea doesn’t seem to need one.

“You said you’d help her?” Kara gapes, later, when Lena comes home and tells her what happened. Who the woman really was.

“What was I supposed to say?” Lena snaps, tugging her skirt down. “Sorry, I’d like you to fuck off actually. I love your daughter and I don’t want you to take her anywhere. Thanks so much! Honestly,” she rolls her eyes, pulling too hard at her zipper and catches some of her skin, yelping.

Kara jumps forward to help, blowing some icy breath on it until it stops stinging. “You said you loved her,” she whispers, a beat later.

“What?”

“Myka,” Kara clarifies, standing upright. “You just said that you love her. You’ve never said that before.”

“I—” Lena blanches. “Well obviously I do!” she yells, feeling a bit frantic. Damn, her hip still hurts.

“I know,” Kara smiles, easing Lena out of her skirt before she takes off any more of her own skin. “I’ve just never heard you say it.”

“Well… I…”

“It’s harder for you,” Kara says, full of understanding. “I know. It’s okay. I’m only saying… it was nice to hear. I’m sure Myka would like to hear it too.”

“I… Kara…” Lena swallows. It is hard for her. She’s only said the words out loud to Kara twice so far, technically. Kara says them all the time, never seeming to need reciprocation. She knows; in the way that Lena kisses her; or smiles at her; or feeds her. It’s there. The words are just harder than actions. Lena’s unused to giving them so freely. “I really hate this,” she says, instead of whatever else she had been about to say.

“I know,” Kara mumbles. “So do I.”

“We don’t have a choice though, do we? I mean, it’s her family.”

“Yeah,” Kara says, into Lena’s shoulder. “They are.”  

…

…

Dinner does not go well.

Kara shifts in her chair, unable to hide her distrust or anger very well. At least she’s being slightly more subtle than Alex, who has had a deep set frown on her face since this morning and hasn’t taken her eyes off of Rhea once since they entered the restaurant.

The restaurant was Myka’s idea. She wanted to show her family some of her favorite Earth foods. She sits across from Kara now, beside her sister, Ayla; fourteen and sweet, as far as Kara can tell, but docile, and will do whatever her mother and sisters tell her to. Myka looks almost exactly like her, and it puts something heavy and confusing into Kara’s gut, to know that she is basically looking at an image of what Myka will probably look like as a teenager.

It might be the only time she gets a glimpse of it, if Rhea and Lena can manage to work out the portal.

Which, who knows, at this point. Lena is practically stabbing at her tablet as she swipes through the pages of notes they’ve taken, frustrated and tense at a problem that she cannot seem to solve yet. Kara reaches over and gently rubs at her knee, underneath the table a bit. Rhea does this thing, her whole face softens in a way that Kara hasn’t seen before, all her attention focused on Lena. The words coming out of her mouth are all things that Kara has said to her before, Alex too, but, Lena sags and believes them coming from Rhea. Kara watches, trying to conceal her surprise by taking a sip of her water.

It’s maternal, Kara realizes. It’s all of the things that Lena aches to hear from Lillian, no matter how many times she hears from Kara how brilliant, and kind, and strong, she thinks that Lena is, she aches for the approval of a mother.

And Rhea can see that, and is using it to her own advantage.

Kara looks across the table and catches Myka’s beaming gaze as she watches Rhea and Lena interact, and something like dread settles into her body. Whatever is about to happen, Kara feels useless and unable to prevent it.

Myka is happy. Happier than Kara has seen her in a long time, even with the snide comments from Dara, Elka, and her nieces. She falls back into patterns that Kara had thought she had learned better than, by now; dismissing the waiters and not bothering to say thank you, same as her sisters. She blinks in confusion once she catches herself, and looks worriedly over at Kara, expecting to be reprimanded. Except of course, Rhea waves her off before Kara can really say anything, and assures Myka that she’s being perfectly well behaved. And well, she is her mother, isn’t she? Kara sips at her water and says nothing, Myka’s eyes flickering back and forth between them, watchful.

Dara says something that Kara doesn’t hear, too focused on Myka, Lena, and Rhea, and Alex snaps beside her, silverware bouncing on the table and everyone going deadly silent. Dara smirks, her daughters mimicking her like evil little twins from that Shinning movie that Alex made her watch, years ago. Alex’s entire body goes stiff and Kara reaches for her, trying to be subtle, but Alex shrugs her off and jerks back from the table.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” she announces, then heads off.

Rhea clucks her tongue, that slinky amused expression permanently affixed to her face, it seems. “Honestly, these humans,” she rolls her eyes, ignoring Kara and turning only to Myka and Lyla, at her right hand. “I don’t know how you’ve lasted dear,” she directs, to Myka. “Except for you of course,” she turns towards Lena, the false smirk replaced with a real smile. “You are brilliant. The best that humanity has to offer, as far as I’ve seen.”

Lena’s face changes entirely. There’s a weird flicker of emotion in her eyes, defensive loyalty to Alex, and shock and disbelief tangled together and fought to the death in just a tiny moment. Then she masks it with a fractured, not quite real smile. But it’s real enough that it scares Kara. It’s real enough that it fools Myka into relaxing again, grinning, that they’re getting along.

Kara feels like she is going insane. Maybe she’s just too jealous and defensive and it’s clouding all her other emotions. She should be happy for Myka. She can’t imagine how she would feel, watching her mother and Eliza try to interact with each other over some pineapple pizza.

She wants the chance to find out, which isn’t helping underneath all of the other things that she is feeling right now. Myka didn’t do anything, and being jealous that she got her family back, while Kara’s will never return isn’t productive, or fair, or…

She can’t help it. It’s there, underneath her defensiveness, and Rhea can tell. Rhea sees much more than Kara would like her to. Her eyes sharp, and watchful, and knowing. Kara feels impossibly small underneath her gaze.

Alex comes back calmer as she sits down beside Kara, and a waiter comes over with their check. Kara’s head whips up as she catches the tail end of Ayla and Myka’s conversation. “I’ll show you when we get back to the ship,” Ayla says, excitedly pointing towards something on a small tablet.

Myka freezes. “Oh, I—”

“You are coming back to the ship with us,” Elka says, tauntingly. “Aren’t you Mon-El?”

“Um,” Myka glances up, her gaze flickering between Kara, Lena, and her mother. She doesn’t know what to do, until the taunting in her sister’s tone grows, and she sits up, defiant. “Yeah,” she snaps, “obviously.”

Kara feels Lena sag beside her, the only outer showing of disappointment that she allows, her face quickly slipping into a neutral mask.

Kara can’t stop her own from showing the entire table her feelings, and Myka sags down into her chair.

“Lovely,” Rhea says. “It will be so nice to have the whole family under the same roof again.”

“But it’s not,” Myka says, quiet. “Zara and Cir-El aren’t—”

Rhea waves her hand, dismissing Myka’s words, and she clams up instantly. “Well then,” Rhea pushes back from the table, Lyla and her father immediately mimicking her, then all of the sisters following, a practiced motion. Following the queen. “Lena, dear,” Rhea’s hand comes up to gently cup Lena’s chin, and she almost melts into it, despite everything. “We’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. Get some rest.”

Lena nods, and they all slip out of the restaurant, leaving the three of them silent and shaken.

“Fuck this,” Alex mutters, into her napkin, and she reaches for a glass of scotch, downing the shot in one painful go.

…

…

Rhea corners Kara when she’s alone. Taunting and bold and telling her not to interfere with her daughter, with her plans.

Kara is too raw, too tense, too everything, and she takes the bait even as she knows that it’s a trap. She’s yelling and punching, and then Myka is there, watching as Kara attacks her mother, and to her eyes, it looks unprovoked.

Rhea planned it perfectly.

She smirks at Kara, above Myka’s head, even as she coos and turns towards her daughter, who is glaring daggers at Kara in a way that she hasn’t ever before. She looks just like her sisters, for a moment. Angry as she yanks herself away from Kara’s reaching arms, pushing herself back into her mother.

“Why’d you do that?” she asks, horrified and confused.

Rhea gloats above her, triumphant, and Kara wants to scream.

…

…

“Work on a plan,” she orders, flying back to the DEO. “Something, anything. We have to figure out what she’s up to.”

“Finally,” Alex mutters, and she and Winn jump to computers while Kara paces.

…

…

She should have called Lena.

That should have been the very first thing, but she’d needed information, she went to Alex on instinct. Without thinking about it.

But she should have called Lena.

Because of course, Lena gets the portal to work. Lena is brilliant, and Kara never doubted her for a second, and she should have called her. Right away.

It’s too late, now. The portal is working, and ships are coming through, and Lena has never looked more horrified and scared in all the time that Kara has known her, save when Myka was poisoned. Kara runs towards her, but Rhea slams into her first. Kara hears Lena scream, and she jumps up, all rage and crashes back into Rhea, trying to get to Lena and gasping when more arms—strong—are on her. She hears Lena scream once more, then nothing, and she bucks against the hands holding her, a wild animal-like scream ripping out of her. And then she feels sick, like the effects of kryptonite, almost. But, that can’t be right. Clark destroyed it all. There isn’t…

She must be seeing things. Rhea is taunting above her, and Kara still feels sick. Wrong, somehow. But, Clark is here. Clark is here and he is… wrong, too. There’s a different shade to his eyes, and he’s advancing on her like Kara is the enemy. Rhea laughs, a cruel, airy thing that turns Kara’s stomach in, and she can’t find Lena.

Clark attacks and Kara can’t do anything but try and defend herself. Try to talk him down from whatever Rhea did to poison him. She’s exhausted, and they’re destroying parts of the city. Scaring people further. Aliens have invaded, and Superman and Supergirl have turned on each other, and Kara can’t find Lena.

She punches Clark, as hard as she can manage, slipping in the water from the fountain they landed in, and finally, he goes down and stays down. Kara slumps, so devoid of energy, she doesn’t breathe, for a few seconds. Then, Alex’s arms are around her. Familiar and strong.

“I got you,” she says, firmly. “It’s okay Kara. I got you.”

Kara passes out.

…

…

She wakes painfully, with a start. Alex is at her side immediately, giving her information, and they both hesitate as Clark jerks back into consciousness, but he blinks, confused, and says, “Kara?” and she knows that it’s him.

She sags into his arms. Two seconds later, Lois is knocking a poor agent who is only trying to do his job in the nose with her elbow, shoving her way past him, and barreling into Kara and Clark.  

“What the fuck, Smallville,” she yells, pulling back and punching Clark in the shoulder. She grimaces, shaking her hand out as Clark takes it, fond and exasperated. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snaps at him. “You absolute fuck,” she clings to him again, shaking with worry.

“Where’s Lena?” Kara asks and is met only with worried silence. “Alex…” Kara whispers.

Alex swallows thickly. “I think… we did a full sweep of the labs but…” Kara notes tears welling up in her eyes before Alex can shake them away, and she stiffens. “She’s up there. With Rhea. Myka too. They took her during…”

Lois releases Clark and wraps her body around Kara’s. “We’ll figure it out kiddo,” she promises, but Kara can’t breathe all that well.

And of course, that’s about when all hell starts breaking loose.

Rhea’s face covers every television screen, declaring Earth under Daxam control. Declaring herself as their new Queen, and fighters, alien and strong, land to the ground and start taking places by force.

The DEO is infiltrated, right away.

Everyone jumps into action. Clark grabs Lois, punching as he flies her out after a nod from Kara. J’onn is still unconscious from their fight last night. Alex shoves Winn out the door, yelling at one of the agents to take J’onn, and then she and Lucy start running and shooting together. Alex gives Kara a nod and she jumps into the air seconds before Alex does. Lucy doesn’t hesitate, even though she’s never practiced this the way that Kara and Alex have, and Kara catches them both easily, grinning, despite everything at the crack of relieved laughter that Lucy lets out.

“You have to admit,” she says, “that was fucking cool.”

Alex rolls her eyes at Lucy, but she’s grinning too when Kara catches her eye, and it’s a moment of relief that’s over all too soon.

“Is that…” Lucy starts, pointing at a television screen as they fly by. The President is on the screen, assuring people and threatening Rhea right back. Kara is so glad that she voted for her. And there’s another woman at The President’s side.

“Ms. Grant,” Kara gapes, landing down in front of the alien bar.

“Kara,” Alex warns, as the screen blinks and both women lurch to the side. Air Force One is being attacked. Kara shoots up into the air before Alex has to say anything else. She should probably be focusing on saving The President, but she sees Ms. Grant’s form spiraling through the air and doesn’t hesitate until they’re both safely on the ground. Kara gasps, horrified at what she’s done until The President pushes herself out of the rubble looking… distinctly unlike herself. Kara gapes at her as Ms. Grant merely rolls her eyes and makes a quip.

It’s immensely comforting, to know that despite all of the world-ending, terrifying nonsense swinging around them, Ms. Grant will face it all with a smirk. It settles something in Kara’s shoulders as they fly back to the alien bar.

Winn runs forward and hugs Ms. Grant, and Cat lets him. She makes a joke about lizards and pot brownies and Kara is trying to wrap her head around the fact that The President is an alien, and she went to college with Cat, and then Cat and Lois are sizing each other up. Lucy catches Kara’s eye and makes a face that releases some more of the tension Kara is holding in her shoulders.

Of course, all of it comes right back, when Lillian Luthor walks through the door with Hank Henshaw in tow.

Kara snarls and jumps in her face, finally something that she can do. But Lillian pleads that she wants to help Lena, and Kara doesn’t believe her for a second, except that she does. Lillian’s face is as honest as Kara has ever seen it, and mostly, she doesn’t even care as long as Lillian has a plan to get Lena back. She can worry about everything else later.

Alex has other ideas, but before Lillian struts out as quickly as she came in, Kara catches her eye, and Lillian slips a device into her hands, telling her to contact her if she changes her mind.

Kara rolls her fingers over it anxiously as The President orders them to fire on Rhea’s ship. Alex looks over at Kara, swallowing thickly, but nodding and accepting The President’s orders.

Kara feels sick as Alex and Lucy move to lead her out of the bar, agents escorting her safely back to D.C. Clark tries to catch her eye, from where he’s peering over a few computers with Winn and Lois, but Kara ignores him, walking out the back of the bar and slamming the door closed with more force than is necessary.

She paces, breathing heavily for a second before she realizes that she’s not alone out here. “Ms. Grant,” she says in surprise. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was out here.”

Cat is sitting atop what can only be described as a garbage throne, beside the dumpsters. It’s such a jarring image that Kara nearly laughs, despite everything.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you earlier,” she says, as Kara walks over to stand beside her. “For saving me.”

“Oh,” Kara waves her off, staring up at the sky, wondering which ship Lena and Myka are on.

“So,” Cat says after a moment. “Who’s up there?” When Kara swallows, trying to come up with an excuse, Cat rolls her eyes. “Oh please, we both know that Winslow is incapable of keeping his mouth shut,” she says, in her own sharply fond way.

Kara laughs a little, then grows somber as she looks up at the sky again. “My girlfriend,” she says, “and… my…” Cat waits, far more patiently than usual, while Kara struggles to find the right word. She laughs, a little bitterly, pressing her heels back into the pavement. “I guess technically she’s not my anything, but she feels like it.”

“Elaborate,” Cat says, softly.

“I found a girl in a spaceship, not too long after you left,” Kara tells her. “I thought… at first, I thought someone from my planet had managed to survive, but, she’s…” Kara looks up again.

“One of them?” Cat asks. “This Queen of Daxam.”

Kara nods. “They were a sister planet of Krypton. Thousands of years ago they descended from us. After a war, isolationists broke away and inhabited a planet nearby. We’ve never gotten along.”

“And then a girl fell from the sky,” Cat prompts.

Kara smiles at the memory. “Yes. And — did I ever tell you that I was supposed to take care of Superman? It’s a bit of a — well, I’m older, technically. It’s a long story. But, the reason I was put in a pod was to come to Earth and protect my cousin. You know some of the rest,” she smiles, turning to Cat, who nods and motions for her to continue. “It felt a bit like…”

“Kismet,” Cat offers.

“Like I was finally doing what I was supposed to,” Kara agrees.  “She was all alone. Scared and confused, and… I knew exactly how she felt.”

“And, you’re a hero,” Cat says, easily. “So you took care of her.” Kara shrugs, looking up again, her throat hurts from keeping tears back. “And then her homicidal family came back to collect?” Cat asks, inferring correctly.

“Something like that, yes.”

“So, you have a girlfriend now?” Cat says, a bit teasingly. Changing the subject. Giving Kara a moment to collect herself. Something not as heavy to focus on. “That’s new.”

“You don’t know everything about me Ms. Grant,” Kara shoots back. “Maybe I just never told you.”

Cat hums. “No, I think you would have.”

“Probably,” Kara says, truthfully. “And now… two people that I love are trapped up there. And if we destroy that ship…” Kara grits her teeth, wanting to hit something. “I’m being selfish,” she admits. Two people, or everyone. A whole planet full of families.

“No,” Cat says gently. “It’s human.”

I’m not, though, Kara thinks, but turns and listens to Cat all the same. She’s not human, but she does love humans. She has similar instincts. Similar feelings. She knows that Cat is right, whether she is human or not, she’s better because of the people that she loves. That has always been true, human or not.

“It’s funny,” Kara says, her voice no more than a croak. “I’ve known how much I loved her for a while, but, I’ve never felt like I was her mother. I didn’t think I had the right. Still don’t, probably.”

“Motherhood is endlessly complicated,” Cat says softly, and Kara remembers how her face lights up around Carter. The unsure, awkward, but intense love on her face when she looked at Adam. And the pain and need for approval, when she looked at Katherine. Cat knows what she is talking about.

Kara does, too. She pictures her mother’s face. Eliza’s. Astra’s. Lois. Even Cat, right in front of her. She wouldn’t give up any of them.

“Well then, stop dawdling,” Cat orders. “Up, up, and away and all that.”

Kara grins, squares her shoulders, and shoots up into the air.

…

…

When Lena wakes, her head is throbbing painfully, and someone is gently brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Kara,” she mumbles, rolling over and jerking away once she sees who it is. “Where am I?” Lena demands, horrified as she realizes that someone has changed her clothes.

“Safe,” Rhea says. When she reaches for Lena again, Lena shoves her away. Rhea barely blinks, smoothing her own hair back—drawing attention to the crown that is now adorned on top of her head. She starts prattling on about the scourge of humanity and making a better world, one that is deserving of someone like Lena, and Lena freezes up. That is what Lex had said, too. That he did it for her. That he wanted to make the world better, for her.

Lena tells Rhea to go fuck herself, and she stops putting on the kind, maternal act. Honestly, Lena is horrified that she ever fell for it at all. Kara was right not to trust Rhea. She never should have offered to help them one bit.

“Lena!” Myka yells, running into the room and slamming into Lena, wrapping her arms around her middle and holding tightly.

Rhea smirks above her head. “I told you dear, she is perfectly fine.”

Myka doesn’t let go of Lena, but she twists around, frowning up at her mother. “Where’s Kara?”

“Dear, we talked about this,” Rhea reaches up to caress Myka’s cheek, and she pushes her arm away.

“Mother—”

“Mon-El, behave,” Rhea snaps. Myka sulks back into Lena, but goes quiet. It reminds Lena of herself, at that age, with Lillian.

She hates it.

“Why are we here?” Lena asks, hoping to change the subject. “What do you want?”

Rhea’s smile goes too-wide, Cheshire, and she turns as the door opens, Lyla and Dara stepping into the room. Ayla and Elka right behind them. “Bringing two worlds together,” Rhea says, holding her hand out and pulling Lyla to her side. Lyla looks apprehensive, but she doesn’t argue with her mother. Not even when she says the word marriage. Or heir.

“What?” Lena snaps. “Are you kidding me? You are insane if you think I’m going through this pageant for you,” Lena says, as firm and calmly as she can manage right now.

“Well,” Rhea says, holding her hand out behind without looking. Dara sets a tablet into her palm, and Lena’s stomach sinks with dread as she swipes at the screen and holds it up. It’s the Luthor Family Children’s Hospital. “We could stall, if you like,” Rhea says, turning the tablet back around and swiping at it again. “But you two will get married, and produce a new heir. And after that, you can spend the rest of your days rotting in a cell for all I care. The question is, will you agree to the ceremony now, or only after I’ve murdered thousands of lives in the city below,” she turns and almost sighs down at the screen, like it truly couldn’t matter less either way. When she turns back and locks eyes with Lena, everything about her is a threat. “After all, the Luthor Children’s Hospital isn’t the only hospital in town.”

She means it. Lena’s cheeks burn as she swallows and takes a final look at the image projected behind Rhea. She can hear how tight her voice gets, choked in the middle of her throat like a gloved hand. “Fine,” she croaks, sealing her fate. “But I don’t know what you’re dreaming about if you think that the two of us can give you an heir,” she snorts, motioning between herself and Lyla.

Lyla gives her a cracked smile. “She doesn’t need us for anything. There’s a birthing matrix on the ship. Only our genetic materials are necessary Biological sex makes no difference to Daxamites.”

“Which I collected while you slept,” Rhea says, grinning horribly.

Lena hisses in a breath and in her arms, Myka goes stiff. “Mother…” she swallows. “Why are you…”

“Darling, you get everything that you wanted.” Myka flinches away from Rhea, slowly shaking her head.

“No, this is mean. Lena doesn’t even know Lyla! She loves Kara. Why are you—”

Rhea sighs, almost bored. “A Kryptonian marriage won’t help forge Daxamite and human bonds, dear. I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. Now, I’ll leave you to get ready,” she smirks, whirling around as Dara and Elka follow behind.

“I’m sorry about this,” Lyla whispers, looking it, before she turns and follows her mother as directed. “Come on Mon—Myka,” she corrects, holding her arm out.

“No,” she glares up at her sister. “I’m mad at you.”

Servants push their way into the room, directing Lena down into a chair and fussing with her hair and makeup. Ayla gently tugs Myka out of the room with her, Myka yelling at her the whole way. But, she’s finally surrounded by people who are all as strong as she is, and not worried about manhandling her.

Lena grits her teeth, and hopes to hell that Kara has a plan.

…

…

Lois and Lucy won’t stop bickering.

Kara had thought she would need to worry about Lois and Cat, but the pair of them took one look at each other, made a few pointed comments, then hugged and have been perfectly civil ever since—apart from each time that Cat leans over and flirts with Clark, her eyes on Lois nearly the entire time. But, all things aside, they work really well together. Fall into rhythms that they’ve been used to for years. And they’re both all too delighted to go with Winn to CatCo and “get out a message to the people” bickering amiably the whole way. 

It’s a relief. Where Lois and Cat’s bickering stems from a comfortable, teasing, respect, Lois and Lucy’s stems from unresolved childhood issues that they really don’t have time to unpack right now. What with the whole, alien invasion thing.

Clark gives Kara a look, pained, proud, before shooting up into the sky and heading off to prevent as much damage as possible on the ground. M’gann and James right on his heels.

Which leaves Alex and Maggie to destroy the ship, and Kara and Lillian not very much time at all to rescue Lena and Myka before that happens.

Alex walks up to Kara, tears already forming in her eyes as she grips at her shoulders. “You have to be faster than me,” she pleads. “If you’re on that ship when — I know that you’re fast, but you have to be faster.”

Kara jerks her head into a nod, holds her sister tightly, then walks over to Lillian. “Let’s go,” she says, and holds out her hand, not looking at her. Lillian takes it, and they fly to the Fortress as the world around them screams.

…

…

The wedding is rudely interrupted by Cat Grant.

Lena can hear a voice that sounds suspiciously like Lois Lane bark out a correction from somewhere behind the screen as Cat rolls her eyes, and, if Lena isn’t about to be forced into a loveless marriage with Myka’s eldest sister and trapped in a dungeon forever, she is going to send Cat Grant an impossibly large flower arrangement in thanks. Lois is going to get lots and lots of chocolate.

Rhea stomps around angrily at the interruption. Since her attention is away from them for the moment, Lena isn’t going to waste the opportunity. As guards start leading them down the hall, back to their rooms no doubt, to wait like pets, Lena tries to appeal to the apprehension that she saw blooming on Lyla’s face.

But, her sister snaps before Lena can so much as get four sentences out. Dara shoves her way in between them, hard and angry, and when Lena tries to push herself away, Dara grabs onto her arm so tightly that Lena cries out in pain, unable to help it.

Myka throws herself at her sister, screaming wildly. “LEAVE HER ALONE DARA!” she rages and manages to shove her across the room. Everyone gapes at Myka. “I’ve been living under a yellow sun longer than you have,” Myka snarls, blocking Lena’s body with her own. Lena tries to grab her out of the way when Dara lunges, even though she knows that Myka is at the very least stronger than she is, but she can’t help it. Myka is tiny, and Dara is just as bitter and dangerous as her mother.

“Stop it,” Lyla snaps, authority in her voice. Dara hovers angrily above Myka, but listens to her sister. Ayla presses herself against one of the walls, covering her face in her hands, and Elka jumps right beside Dara. “All of you stop it,” Lyla says again.

“Please,” Lena says quickly. “Let us go. You have to see that what your mother is proposing is insanity. You can’t honestly want to marry me.”

Lyla’s gaze flicks down to Myka and back up to Lena. Her heart beats a frantic staccato in her chest, and she knows that everyone in this hall can hear it. Lyla hesitates, just a beat too long, and their father comes running into the hall, calling for them. Lyla’s face goes neutral and a bit hard again, and Lena wants to cry. She thinks that he means to drag them back into the main part of the ship, the wedding back on, instead, he crouches down in front of Myka.

Whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t get the chance, because a knife lands into his back, and when he slumps down to the floor, Rhea is standing behind him calmly. “Girls, back to the wedding.”

Ayla bursts into tears and Rhea sighs. Myka scrambles backward, away from her father’s body, from the blood seeping out onto the floor. She clings to Lena, who stares, horrified until she pulls Myka up into her arms.

“Mother,” Lyla breathes, staring at the floor. “Why…”

“Because your father is weak, girls. And we cannot have any more interruptions.”

Dara is the first to recover. She turns on her heel and pulls the still sobbing Ayla into her arms, the first kind thing that Lena has seen her do since she met her. But she drags her crying sister along after her mother, reaching out and grabbing hold of the shocked Elka as she goes. Lena holds Myka tightly as guards push her forward. Lyla stumbles for a moment behind them until she catches her feet.

Then of course, since this day hasn’t been weird enough, Lena turns the corner and sees her mother. She freezes, nearly dropping Myka in shock, and Lyla bumps into her from behind. “Mom?” Lena gasps, afraid that she is seeing things. “You… came?”

“Yes,” Lillian says, looking at her with more warmth than Lena can ever remember coming from her mother before. Myka lifts her head up and blinks.

“Lena?” says a voice, and then Kara is there, wrapping her arms around them both and Lena feels a flicker of hope burn inside her chest. At least they are all together now, regardless of whatever happens next.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rhea sighs.

Kara flies forward and slams her into a wall, and everything starts happening very quickly from there.

Lillian tries to get Lena to put down Myka and run with her, but Lena scoffs, holds Myka tighter and walks in the opposite direction. If she hadn’t told her to leave Myka, she would have probably thrown herself into her mother’s arms, and Lillian realizes her mistake, chasing after her quickly. Lena sets Myka down, and she punches two guards while Lena yanks the crown that Rhea had stuck on her head off and uses it to disable the lock on the corridors so they can get through.

“Lena, come on,” Lillian starts. “I have—”

“We’re not leaving without Kara,” she snaps.

“Lena, be reasonable,” Lillian says, sounding cross, but not in the same way that she usually does when she’s berating Lena. There is a twinge of real fear and worry to her tone, and it surprises Lena just as much as the fact that she’s come onto an alien ship to try and help her. With Kara. She focuses on the lock, her hands shaking as she hears crashes all around her, worried about Kara’s wellbeing. “We can bring the child,” Lillian acquiesces, pointing down at Myka. Who glares back up at her with narrowed eyes, then knocks out a guard who runs around the corner with one hard punch.

“Not without—”

“Yes,” Lillian snaps. “I heard you. Not without Kara.”

“Whoops,” Myka says. “Secret Identity.”

“She already knew,” Lena says, turning and quirking her eyebrows defiantly at her mother. “Didn’t you?”

Lillian responds with a mixture of a shrug and an eye roll, and then the crashes get much closer. “Lena,” Lillian urges, “please.”

Myka rolls her eyes and pushes Lillian behind her as well, face to face with a wide-eyed Ayla. “Mon-El!” she yells. “Sorry — Myka,” she runs and tries to grab Myka’s hand, but Myka pulls back. “Come on,” Ayla insists. “Our blood is… Mother’s winning.”

“What?” Lena asks. “Your blood is what?”

“Lena,” Lillian tries to tug her away.

“Kryptonite,” Ayla says, shrugging. “From the air. I don’t know. Mother and Dara have gone mad. Elka’s crying, and I can’t find the twins. Lyla told me to come get you.”

“Lena—”

“No, Mom,” Lena snaps. “If you want to go, then go. I love Kara. This is my family. I’m not going anywhere. If you were serious about wanting to be a better mother to me then you’ll understand that.”

Lena doesn’t wait for Lillian to respond, she holds out her hand, Myka grabs it, and they run after Ayla together.

Kara is on her knees, struggling as Rhea hovers over her, Dara circling them both. Elka, usually quick to follow whatever Dara does, is hiding in the corner, hugging her nephew and covering his eyes. She finally looks her age; newly thirteen and terrified.

Lena moves to run forward, to do what, she doesn’t know, but the sight of Kara, crouched over in pain is too much for her to bear. Myka yanks her back roughly and runs ahead of her instead as Lena screams. Myka steps between her mother and Kara, and the only thing that stops Lena from doing the same is her mother’s arms, wrapping around her tightly and holding her back. Lena struggles against them, but Lillian’s grip is relentless.

“Stop,” Lillian whispers into her ear. “I have an idea.”

“You don’t—”

“Lead,” she says, as quiet as she can manage. “They’re allergic. It won’t harm Kara.”

“It will hurt Myka,” Lena insists.

“Then we’ll have to make sure that it doesn’t touch her.”

“There are more children here than just Myka,” Lena snaps back.

“So, we’ll have to act smartly then,” Lillian responds. “You’re very good at that.”

It actually sounds like a compliment. Leave it to her mother to finally start acting maternal while they’re plotting possible murder.

Kara drags her way back up to her feet, and Rhea blinks in surprise. She pulls Myka behind her and slams into Rhea, again, and again, and again. Before Dara can intercept them, Myka screams and jumps onto her sister's back, pushing her down onto the floor and sitting on her head. “Help me,” she yells to Ayla.

Ayla hesitates, but finally runs over and sits on top of her sister’s legs. “Elka,” she yells. “Stop crying. I’m the one who cries, you’re the one who tackles.”

“Not Dara,” she counters, wiping at her face angrily.

“BOTH OF YOU GET OFF ME,” Dara screams, kicking her arms and legs around wildly. Myka and Ayla press down firmly, holding her in place.

“Come help us you jerk,” Myka snaps. Elka glares at her, but does as she’s told.

“Stop it,” Lyla snaps, her voice commanding. “All of you.” Kara raises her arm to punch Rhea again, and Lyla catches it in midair. “I said all of you.” Rhea weakly tries to surge up from the floor and Lyla presses her back down. “All of you Mother.”

Rhea’s eyes go wide, and she wheezes. “Lyla—”

“No Mother, this has gone on long enough. I’m sick of seeing planets destroyed. I just want to take my son and go home.”

“Lyla—”

“No,” she snaps. “My husband is dead,” her voice cracks. “And you wanted to marry me off? Kill father. Don’t worry about whether or not Zara is even alive. Have you even asked Myka what she wants? Once?”

“Mon-El is a child—”

“So is my son. So is Ayla. Elka. The twins. None of them deserve this. I’m sick of it.”

“Well, I am the queen,” Rhea says haughtily. “So it doesn’t really matter one way or the other what you are sick of or not.”

“Actually, it does,” Lillian says, and drives a lead knife up into the back of Rhea’s neck. Lena gasps. Her focus had been on Lyla and Rhea. She hadn’t even noticed her mother walking away from her. One of the children scream—Lena doesn’t know which one, only that it’s not Myka—and Rhea crumbles to the ground, her body twisting and almost melting horribly from the lead.

Dara rages from the floor and manages to kick the girls off, with their attention on their mother’s body. Myka screeches as Dara gets her arms around her neck, and then Kara slams into her so hard that the floor cracks, pinning her and shaking with anger as Myka crawls out of the way.

“STOP,” Lyla yells again, a warning.

Dara’s daughters both run into the room and the sight of them seems to jolt her out of her rage, she blinks over at her sister, down at her mother, then nods once, before shoving Kara away and embracing her daughters.

Lena runs over to Kara and Myka. Both of them are trying to hold the other up. Lena smacks Kara’s hands away as she tries to hold Lena too, and slides her arms around Kara’s middle, steadying her.

“I think it’s far past time we leave,” Lillian says, coming back over towards the three of them.

“After you killed my mother?” Dara snarls, only half-hearted.

“After you invaded my planet and kidnapped my daughter,” Lillian shoots back.

“Enough,” Lyla says. All the guards turn to Lyla and wait for instructions. The king and queen are both dead, and Lyla is the oldest. Lena swallows and hopes that her instincts about the woman were correct. “We’re going home,” Lyla orders. She looks over at Lena and sighs. “You’re free to leave.”

“Wonderful,” Lillian tries to pull Lena along again, and she plants her feet and focuses on keeping Kara upright; she is beginning to sway dangerously.

“What about—” she croaks, reaching towards Myka. Lena holds her breath.

Lyla looks down at her sister as guards and servants move around, beginning to clear away the debris—and the body. She walks towards her and crouches down to her level. “I won’t make you come with us,” she says, “but I want you too.”

Lena holds tighter to Kara, and Lillian hovers impatiently behind her.

Myka’s lower lip wobbles and she looks up behind Lyla at the rest of her sisters. Dara rolls her eyes, but presses her daughters closer and nods anyway. Elka sticks out her tongue. Ayla smiles. Lena grips Kara so tightly, she’s afraid that her fingers will break.

“Really?” Myka whispers.

“If you want to,” Lyla says, glancing back at Lena and Kara. “But if you don’t, then that’s okay too. We won’t be angry with you.”

“I—” Myka sucks in a wet breath, looking between her sisters and Lena and Kara, completely panicked and unsure. “I don’t—” her hands shake at her sides and Lena swallows.

“It’s okay Myka,” she hears herself saying. Kara echoes her as Myka whips her head back around towards them. Lena smiles, sure in this moment that she is never going to see her again. “It’s okay,” she repeats, not wanting Myka to feel guilty for even a second for choosing her family.

Myka turns and launches herself into Lyla’s arms, and Lena suppresses the small sob that escapes her as best she can, but Kara’s grip in her hand tightens, so she knows that she doesn’t manage it very well. Kara sways again, tears in her eyes, but trying to put on a brave front. Her breath catches, when Myka speaks again, whispering to her sister. Something that Lena’s ears aren’t strong enough to hear.

“Thank you for coming back for me,” she says, and steps back. “But I — I think I belong here.”

Lena can’t help the gasp that rips out of her. Neither can Kara.

“Yeah, I thought as much,” Lyla says, smiling as she brushes some of Myka’s hair out of her face. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” Myka says, in what must be Daxam slang. And then she hugs her again. Slowly, she walks over and hugs her other sisters and her nephew. Ayla and Elka both cry, and it brings on a new wave of tears from Myka too. She hesitates in front of Dara and her daughters until the twins’ sigh and step forward to hug her at Dara’s prompt. They both tug on her hair when they step back, smirking until Dara pushes them towards her younger sisters.

“Goodbye brat,” Dara says and hugs her tight.

When Myka finally walks away from them, she is crying so hard and quietly that her whole body is shaking. She tries to wipe at her eyes, unsuccessfully, as she makes her way over to Lena and Kara.

“Are you sure?” Kara asks, cupping her face so gently it must be taking all of her strength. “You could go back to your planet,” her voice breaks. “You could go home.”

“I am,” Myka smiles up at them through her tears, and Lena’s heart feels so full it almost hurts. 

Chapter Text

Kara wakes to… more voices than she is used to. She picks up Alex’s heartbeat right away—the most familiar—Lena’s immediately after that, along with Myka’s. But, there’s more. Familiar, but she can’t be sure. She rolls over and groans from the motion. The sheets are too starchy. Her skin still feels too raw.

Lena guessed that the emotional toll of yesterday mattered just as much as the physical. Kara thinks she was probably right, if her exhaustion right now is anything to show for it. She glances at the clock on the nightstand, smiling as she sees the book that Lena has been reading for the last few days beside it. It’s a massive thing; a dense history biography or something, Kara only managed to skim a few pages before she passed it back over.

Rao, she loves a nerd.

It takes a lot of energy to pull her body up into a sitting position. Kara breathes for a few minutes quietly, focusing on the voices and the heartbeats in the other room. Lois and Lucy, she’s pretty sure.

And… yep, now they’re arguing. Definitely them.

Before Kara can pull herself up and make sure that the Lane sisters don’t kill each other, Myka appears in the doorway. “I didn’t tell anyone that I heard you wake up,” she whispers, almost shyly, not looking Kara in the eye. “Alex and Lena are trying to make sure that Lois and Lucy don’t kill each other,” she smiles, almost surprised by it. “They’re kind of funny, but, they’re a little…” she frowns, still hovering in the doorway. Still not moving any closer to Kara. “Not mean,” she decides. “Mean is the wrong word, but it’s something like it.”

“Their relationship is complicated,” Kara supplies.

“How come?”

Kara runs a hand through her hair. The sunlight is finally reaching her face through the curtains, and the sheets feel a little less scratchy then they did a few minutes ago. “Family can be hard,” she says, shrugging. “Lois had to do a lot of the parenting. They moved around a lot because their dad is in the army, and he’s… a bit difficult.”

Myka studies her. Takes her time with it, and Kara does her level best not to sit there uncomfortably underneath her gaze. To just wait, until Myka figures out whatever it is that she is looking for.

“So, their relationship isn’t as hard as Lena and Lex’s, but not as easy as you and Alex’s?” she asks. “They’re in the middle?”

“Um…” Kara’s not sure how to answer that without making things endlessly more complicated. “I guess that’s… one way you could put it,” she finally shrugs, scooting off of the bed. “But, Myka, relationships are all complicated, and none of them are easy.”

“I know,” Myka says simply. “Are things still too loud?” she asks, frowning up at Kara as she tries to shake out her limbs and winces.

“Getting quieter by the minute,” Kara assures her, smiling. “Are things too loud for you?”

“Only in my brain.”

Kara pauses, frowning as she tries to work out what Myka means by that. She tugs the shirt that she had slept in over her head and reaches for a clean one. Finds a pair of sweatpants and steps into them, tugging her hair back and up into a messy bun. Myka is still standing in the doorway, and Kara thinks that she finally gets what Myka means. She’s not in a sensory overload, she’s in an emotional one. It’s only loud in her brain. Kara smiles as she walks over towards Myka. As usual, Lena was right.

“Yeah, my brain is a little extra loud this morning too,” she says, pausing a bit further away from Myka than usual. Neither of them go for much personal space. They’re both incredibly tactile, with each other more than anyone else, because they both crave it in the same way. A physical reminder that people are there. The planet is still spinning. Kara swallows. They know at least one more planet is spinning out there again, now. She searches Myka’s face for any hint of regret. She’s only nine, major life decisions shouldn’t be made by nine year olds. She might wake up two years from now horrified that she chose to stay.

(With Kara. She chose to stay. So many people have left her but—

Myka wanted to stay.)

She swallows thickly. But, Lena was able to get the portal to work once. She has that knowledge now, if not all of the equipment anymore. It’s not as unfound a possibility as it once was. If Myka really wants to go home… they’ll figure out a way.

Now, Myka doesn’t move any closer, but she lifts up her hand and takes hold of the end of Kara’s soft t-shirt, playing with the fabric absently as she talks. “Everyone is being sort of weird,” she says.

“How so?”

Myka shrugs, playing with the ends of Kara’s shirt, not looking at her. Kara can hear Lena’s heartbeat quicken, a flash of panic as she looks around, checking for Myka. Honestly, Kara is a little impressed that Myka got away from her this long already, after last night. Lois and Lucy must really be a handful at the moment.

Myka can sense Lena’s panic too. “Like that,” she says, calmly. Then, louder, “I’m in here. Kara’s awake!”

“Being worried about you is weird now?” Kara asks.

“No, but… people aren’t usually worried like this.”

“Well, a lot happened yesterday,” Kara says, hearing Lena’s footsteps approaching, slow, not wanting to interrupt.

Myka shrugs again. “I guess.”

“Do you want to talk about any of it?”

Myka finally looks up at her. “Aren’t you hungry?”

Kara laughs. “Food can wait. You’re more important.”

Myka looks up at her, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “Then food,” she gapes. “Then ice cream?”

Kara bends down and knocks their foreheads together. “Yep,” she says easily. “Even mint chip.”

Myka sucks in a wobbly, wet breath, then slams her body up into Kara’s so hard she knocks them both over. Kara is still not fully recovered from yesterday, and her reflexes are shit. She grunts as her elbow knocks into the floor, but she catches Myka and tugs her close anyway. Lena finds them like that, and she stands in the doorway where Myka had been seconds earlier, smiling down at them both fondly.

“Morning,” she says softly to Kara.

“Hi,” Kara grins back.

“GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE LITTLE DANVERS!” Lois yells. “TELL LUCY THAT SHE’S WRONG!”

“I’M NOT!” Lucy yells, aghast.

“You both are,” Alex says, with a long-suffering sigh.

“So,” Lena smirks, “it’s been an interesting morning so far.”

…

…

They watch Myka carefully the next few days. Both of her parents were killed in front of her, and her culture, planet, and family were given back to her only to be taken away, again, in a very short time. Whether it was her choice or not, it’s a lot for anyone to wrap their head around, let alone a kid.

Lena finds an alien therapist who specializes in children and refugee trauma. How, Kara has no real idea, but Lena says something about Cat Grant and The President, and Kara’s brain hurts too much when she tries to think about all of those pieces in one place so she just nods.

“Good,” she’s still nodding. She should probably stop. “That’s,” more nodding. “Good.”

“Are you broken?” Myka asks, coming up behind Lena to stare at Kara.

“No!” She might be though; the nodding still hasn’t stopped. “What did Ms. Grant say, exactly?”

Lena frowns at her, between answering an email on her phone and reaching over and snatching a pint of ice cream out of Myka’s hands without looking, replacing it with a banana. “Why?” she asks. “Is there something that Cat should have said?”

“Cat,” the nodding will not stop. “Is... do you know Ms. Grant?”

Lena sets her phone down and looks at Kara. “She’s Cat Grant. Of course, I know her.”

“No, I meant — I mean,” Kara gulps. “Myka’s getting more ice cream,” she points out instead.

“Traitor,” Myka hisses, as Lena takes another pint away from her.

“Are you broken?” Lena asks, rising out of her seat and moving over towards Kara. She cups her hands on either side of Kara’s cheeks, pressing a bit firmly to stop the nodding.

“Nope,” Kara cracks. “Just… peachy.”

“I don’t believe her,” Myka decides. She’s on top of the table now. Cross-legged, munching on Lena’s pita and hummus. “She might be a pod person,” Myka narrows her eyes. “Check the back of her neck for a cut.”

“I’m not a pod person,” Kara argues. Winn is no longer going to be allowed to have movie nights with Myka unsupervised.

“That,” Myka jumps down off the table. “Is exactly what a pod person would say,” she accuses.

“Pod people are aliens in that,” Kara retorts. “Aren’t they? We are the pod people! We came here in pods. We’re already the pod people!”

“I don’t think that’s right,” Lena frowns. “But I don’t actually know what movie you’re talking about.” She releases Kara’s face, the nodding finally stopped, and goes back to her emails.

“I fell asleep,” Myka shrugs. “Turn around,” she pushes at Kara’s body until she gets her to bend over. “I’m checking anyway.”

Kara doesn’t argue as Myka shoves her hair off of her neck. She’s still focused on the whole, Ms. Grant recommended an alien therapist to my sort of child thing. Cat might know. Cat made a lot of weirdly pointed comments when Kara went back to work yesterday.

Cat might know.

Kara decides not to think about it too hard. There is enough going on to worry about right now.

Mostly, Myka is her usual weird self; a little more somber, for a while, but it comes and goes in waves. One minute she’s fine, chattering away with Lucy about whether or not Roswell is real, and if she can meet the green kind of aliens please, and the next she’s staring off at the wall, silent, apart from mumbling single word answers when asked. Increasingly grumpy when people try to talk to her and squirming out of anyone’s grasp if they try to touch her for more than five seconds.

Kara doesn’t really know what to do. She treats Myka how she normally does, mostly. They’re a bit back to acting the same way around each other when Myka first showed up in the pod. A little unsure, a bit extra careful with everyone’s emotions, treating Myka a little bit too much like she is something small and fragile.

It drives her crazy. She snaps three days after the invasion, while the city is still recovering from the damage. Kara says something innocent, she thought, but it sends Myka into a fit. She starts screaming about how she is fine, and she wants to be left alone, and everyone needs to just shut the fuck up already! And then, she’s in trouble for swearing, and that only leads to a further sulk.

Myka slams her bedroom door and it shatters off its hinges. She stares at it, then across the room to Kara and Lena, before she slumps to the ground in a burst of tears. It takes ages to calm her down enough to assure her that they’re not mad about the door and that it’s going to be okay. She falls asleep with her head pressed against Lena’s chest, her shirt soaked with Myka’s tears.

They go to the therapist the next day, and this time Myka doesn’t argue.

She comes out of the session a bit subdued, but she’s neither sad nor sullen, and she agrees to go back weekly for a while. So, they take it as progress. A minor win. They stop treating her like she’s going to explode at any moment, and she mostly stops exploding.

It takes a little prodding from Lena, but Kara decides to see the therapist too. Just to see. The idea of talking honestly about her issues with a therapist who knows that she is an alien has never been a possibility that she’s had, or considered seeking out before.

“I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was four,” Lena says easily. “I’ve never found it particularly easy. But, it helps. To talk,” she frowns into her book. “I should probably make an appointment for myself. I haven’t been since after the trial.”

“Lillian’s?”

“Lex’s.” Lena sets the book down on the nightstand and rolls over until she’s straddling Kara’s lap. “I never said I was good at keeping up with it,” she says, kissing Kara’s neck. “Just that I’ve been in and out of it for years.”

Kara laughs, and then Lena’s lips land on her own, and they do a lot less talking, for a while.

…

…

“This is tenser than any western movie that I’ve ever seen,” Winn whispers into Kara’s ear. James chuckles from his left, and sips his coffee. Kara worries at her bottom lip. “Ms. Grant wouldn’t… try to fight a kid would she?” asks Winn.

“Sure she would,” James shrugs. “But she usually likes them,” he frowns, head tilting as he watches Cat and Myka stare each other down in her office.

“Myka wouldn’t try to fight her back, would she?” Winn asks, sounding horrified. “Ms. Grant is really tiny. Myka might snap her bones in half.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Kara hisses.

“I’m just — what is happening!?” he yelps. “They’re just staring at each other!”

“They can hear you, Winslow,” Cat calls out pointedly. “The door is wide open.”

“Yeah!” Myka says. Adding, “but I don’t need the door to be open.”

“Oh really?” Cat says, sly, looking directly at Kara through the glass wall. “And why is that?” Kara laughs, way too loudly, and James and Winn both step away from her in alarm. Cat sighs. “Articulate as ever Kiera, bravo.”

“What does articulate mean?” Myka asks.

“Well-spoken,” Cat supplies, and finally sits down at her desk, eyes still narrowed at Myka.

“She is sometimes,” Myka says, defending Kara. “But words are hard.”

“Indeed,” Cat drawls.

Myka stares back at Cat for a moment, then she shrugs, jumping backwards from the desk. “Want to see me do a handstand?” she asks and flings her body down into one without waiting for any confirmation. Kara watches the corners of Cat’s mouth tick up into a smile, and then she claps a few times as Myka jumps out, and curtsies.

“I think they’ve made some sort of alliance,” Winn whispers. “Dunno which one’s the white hat though.”

“We’re both white hats!” Myka yells. “Winslow,” she grins wickedly and Cat breaks out into a real smile.

“Oh,” Winn groans. “This might be really bad for us.”

Kara can’t help but agree. As thrilled as she is to have Ms. Grant back.

…

…

Lillian walks back into Lena’s office four days after she disappeared the moment they were beamed off the ship.

She is as put together as ever, but she’s far more watchful, a little wary, checking over her shoulder. She is, after all, still a woman on the run. Despite the chaos of the most recent alien invasion.

“To what to I owe the pleasure?” Lena asks dryly, barely looking up from her computer.

Lillian scoffs, and when Lena quirks one eyebrow up at her, she smooths her hair down awkwardly. “A mother can’t come by and say hello?” she snaps, then sighs heavily, as if almost forcing herself to be calm.

“A mother can,” Lena says. “You don’t tend to.”

“You were recently kidnapped,” Lillian says, pacing the length of Lena’s office. “If ever there was a time to check in.”

“Yes, and a few months ago I was kidnapped by you,” Lena retorts. “Framed before that too, if you recall.”

“Must we dwell on the past?”

“We must,” Lena smirks, twirling the pen in her fingertips. Lillian stalls, her lips twitching for a moment before she sighs heavily again. Lena waits her out. Icy silence fills the office as both women stare at each other.

“Well, are you alright or not?” Lillian snaps.

“L-Corp is fine Mother,” Lena says, turning back to her computer and opening another email. “No one associates us with Cadmus.”

“I wasn’t asking about the business,” Lillian says, archly. Lena looks up at her in surprise and watches as Lillian tries to soften her face and fails. Storming over to the sink and pouring herself a glass of water, she drinks the entire thing before turning back to Lena. “Well?” she prods.

“I’m fine,” Lena says, a bit dumbly.

Lillian nods. “Good,” she says, pushing off the wall and stalking over to the office entrance. It’s like there are two sides of her warring with herself. Curbing the biting comments back. Trying, if mostly failing, to tamper them down when her instinct is to run with them. “And… everyone else in your life is… good as well?” she asks, hesitating by the doorway.

“Are you asking me about Kara and Myka?” gapes Lena.

“I suppose!” Lillian says with a huff.

Lena… has no idea to respond to that. She has never seen her mother like this. Flustered is entirely the wrong word, but it’s the closest that she may have ever come to it that Lena has seen. She’d almost prefer the biting comments. At least they’re familiar territory.

“I’m — they’re both fine,” she says finally.

“Wonderful,” Lillian says, dripping once again with sarcasm, but her face changes, softens, if only for a second. “Take care of yourself,” she says, a demand and a plea mixed up in one, and then she is gone again.

Lena sits there in confusion for a moment, then just rises to get herself another cup of coffee and goes back to work. If she spends anymore of her time dwelling on whatever the hell is going on with her mother, she’ll go as mad as Lex.

…

…

“So, my mother is still around,” Lena says, when Kara slumps down onto their bed later that night. Kara twists her body around sharply, nearly falling off of the bed in the process.

“Oh?” she asks, carefully. Once she’s righted herself. “Um…”

“I’m not freaking out,” Lena assures her.

“Right — I wasn’t, I know that,” Kara snorts, unconvincingly. Lena smirks down at her and Kara wiggles around until her head is resting on Lena’s lap, pushing her laptop out of the way. “Are you… how do we feel about this?”

“How do I feel about my mother, popping in while on the run from the government for attempted genocide, to ask me how I’m feeling after being kidnapped by aliens?” Lena asks, her voice dripping with enough sarcasm to rival said mother. Kara rolls her eyes, poking Lena in the stomach. She reaches down and starts playing with Kara’s hair, staring up at the ceiling while Kara stares at her. “Weirdly ambivalent,” she decides.  

Kara hums, thoughtful as Lena slowly drags her fingers through her hair. After a few minutes, she’s got Kara pliant and boneless in her lap, and she doesn’t really want to think about her mother anymore. She says as such when Kara asks, pushing her back into the mattress and kicking one leg over, straddling her.

“Well,” Kara says, while Lena kisses her neck. “Are you sure that—”

“Kara, stop talking about my mother,” Lena orders, and yanks Kara’s pants off.

“Sure. Yeah, definitely,” Kara grins. “No more talking about mothers for a while.”

…

…

When Lena walks into their apartment in the middle of the afternoon, she’s greeted by the sight of Alex and Winn in the middle of some sort of… staring contest, by the looks of things.

“Hello?”

“Kara’s not here,” Alex says, without taking her eyes off Winn.

“Sure…” Lena sets her bags down and moves to get a glass of water. “And… what are you doing?”

Winn’s eyes narrow, never leaving Alex’s face. “Settling an argument.”

“Lovely,” Lena hums. “Where’s Myka?”

“Ballet,” they both answer simultaneously.

The front door opens and Lena wonders how many people actually have a key to this apartment when Lucy steps through. She takes one look at Alex and Winn, pauses, then glances over at Lena.

Frowning, she asks, “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know. I just live here.”

Lucy shrugs, unbothered or used to their antics already. “Want to get a drink?”

Lena grabs her purse, calls goodbye over her shoulder and tries not to laugh at the image of Alex and Winn holding their hands up and waving, never taking their eyes off each other. She’s never had this many people in her life like this before, it surprises her, as they walk outside, that she is used to this now. That she doesn’t even question it anymore. That what she’s no longer used to now, is being left alone.

“So,” Lucy asks, “want to help me plot Lois’s death?”

Lena rolls her eyes. “What did she do this time?”

“All you need to know is that she deserves it,” says Lucy. “And that I’ll make sure no one can trace it back to us.”

“Well, that’s good,” Lena laughs.

…

…

“No,” Lena says, for the fifth time.

“PLEASE?” Myka yells, trying to contain the four scruffy kittens from jumping out of her arms.

“No.”

“But, Lena—”

“We don’t even know who they belong to. You can’t just take a box of kittens that you found on the street!”

“But they were abandoned!” Myka yells, aghast.

“You don’t know that. And they look rather well-fed to me.” Sort of. One of them starts jumping on top of her work papers. “Myka!” They both lunge for the kitten at the same time, and it dashes away, another running underfoot and Lena nearly slams her head against the table in her attempts not to step on it. Myka catches her, razor-quick reflexes, and glares down at the kitten in betrayal. “No,” Lena says after Myka’s steadied her. “We are not keeping four kittens in this tiny apartment.”

“It’s not that tiny—”

“It is,” Lena argues. Though it’s a perfectly fine size most of the time, it has felt smaller and smaller the last few weeks. Full of more people on a regular basis, Lena supposes.

“You’re just rich and used to big things,” Myka counters. “I am too,” she adds, grinning. “I grew up in a castle.” She frowns as two of the kittens try to rub against Lena’s legs and she pushes them off—gently. “We should get a bigger place to live.”

“I agree,” Lena says, without thinking. Myka starts cheering and dancing with one of the kittens. “Not for cats!” Lena adds quickly. “We are not keeping all these cats, no matter whether we move someplace else or not.”

“Aw, come on Lena, please,” Myka holds two of the kittens up on either side of her face, pouting between them. It’s disgustingly adorable. “Don’t tell Solo and Guinevere that they have to leave.”

“No. No, do not name them. We are not—”

Kara flies into the apartment in her suit, a box of donuts in her hands, and her face goes wide with excitement. “Kittens!” she cheers and scoops up the other two.

“No,” Lena says, weakly.

Myka skips over and pushes one of them into Lena’s arms before wrapping herself around Lena. Kara promptly sits down on the floor and begins to play with the other three without preamble. “This one only has one eye, we can’t abandon him,” begs Myka.

“Myka—”

“What should his name be?” Myka asks, pressing her chin into Lena’s arm.

“Cyclops,” Lena says dryly.

Kara glances up from the floor. “Rude,” she says, then giggles as the black cat jumps onto her head—Solo, Lena thinks. No. They are not naming them. They are not keeping them. “Also, a bit unoriginal, don’t you think?”

“I kind of like it,” Myka says, tilting her head to study the kitten that is squirming in Lena’s arms.

“I was joking,” Lena sighs. “Kara, we can’t keep four cats. Both of us work constantly. We already have to drop Myka off with half of the people we know multiple times a week. And that one is on my files again,” Lena shoves the dark gray cat into Myka’s arms and reaches for the orange-ish looking one.

“Ethel,” Myka supplies.

“Ethel is going to the animal shelter,” Lena says, dropping the cat down onto Kara’s stomach.

“Lena thinks that we should move into a bigger place,” Myka says, sitting down on the floor beside Kara. “We could get a house with a room for the cats!”

Lena sighs and sags down onto the floor beside them. The one-eyed, dark gray kitten crawls over to her. “I’m not actually calling that thing Cyclops,” she announces.

“How about Fergus?” Myka offers.

“Ooooh,” Kara says, “I like it.”

“I hate you both,” Lena announces, to matching grins.

…

…

They do not keep all of the cats. Thank god.

Three days into the experiment and they were darting all over the apartment, driving everyone crazy, even Myka. Lena tripped trying not to step on two of them and nearly tore open her chin, and Kara finally turned to Myka with a frown.

“One,” she said. “Pick one of them. We’ll find homes for the rest.”

Myka pouted for two days straight, agonizing over the choice as dramatically as possible, but in the end, Fergus, the one-eyed cat takes up residence in the apartment.

Winn was only delighted to have a cat named after Han Solo. Trevor was allowed to take Ethel. And Stacy Weston, Myka’s former sworn enemy, took Guinevere, and an alliance was formed between the two girls just in time for summer break. Myka stops threatening to cut off bits of her hair and throw it at her feet in a challenge.

Lena stares at the kitten’s one eye, frowning at him. “Stay off of my things,” she orders seriously. Fergus rolls over and falls off of the couch, landing on his feet, almost surprised by it himself. Lena sighs. She supposes off all the sort of animals that Myka could have brought home, a kitten is by far the easiest to deal with. She’s still asking after the baby elephant. She still won’t shut up about eagles, and if she asks Lena for a goat with that puppy-face one more time, Lena is going to cave, and it will be the most ridiculous thing she has ever done, possibly.

“I think he likes you,” Myka grins, watching Fergus wobble towards Lena.

“Good for Fergus,” Lena says, frowning down at her monthly reports.

“I think you like him too,” she grins, grabbing the arm of the couch, flipping herself over it, and landing—deftly—in Lena’s lap, crushing some of her papers underneath her.

“If I tell you that I like the cat, will you let me get my work done?”

“Sure,” Myka grins. “But only if you mean it.”

Lena glares at the cat, who falls over for no reason whatsoever. It’s ridiculous. It makes Myka light up with laughter. Goddammit.

“I like the cat,” Lena says. Myka grins, reaching her arms up and tugging Lena until she’s bent over and Myka can reach her face. She kisses both cheeks, then her forehead.

“I knew it,” Myka grins, and runs off to play with the cat.

“Goddammit,” Lena mutters and goes back to work.

…

…

It’s going about as well as anyone could have hoped for.

Myka looks suitably adorable in her white leotard and tutu. Lena had managed to get her to sit still long enough to tug her unruly curls into the two French braids the teacher had asked for. James has taken up to around fifty pictures already, Myka and Avani, mugging for the camera, and quite a few candids. Lena catches him with the camera aimed at her as they wait for the recital to begin, a smile playing at his lips as he lowers it. She blinks, looking back around her in confusion. What he could have thought worthy of capturing, she has no idea. She’s just been standing there, Kara’s hand linked in her own, fussing a bit with Myka’s tutu as they wait in the hall. His smile is bright and wide though, and Lena knows he’s talented, so, she tells him to give her a copy, of whatever it turns out to be.

“Course,” he grins.

Myka sits on Alex’s lap, clapping wildly throughout Avani’s solo performance. When Alex and James both break out into wolf whistles at her bows, Avani grins so hard that she complains her face hurts, later.

When it’s Myka’s turn, Lena holds her breath and prays, or as close to praying as she ever gets, that if nothing else, Myka doesn’t fall on her face or end up crying. She’s not in Avani’s group for the recital. Instead, she is towering over a pack of four and five-year-olds, and they make it part of the dance.

Or, Lena thinks that’s what’s happening. She’s never actually been to a children’s dance recital before, apart from the two that she performed in herself. It’s a wildly different experience, being an adult, watching from the audience. As a child, Lena remembers being breathless with nerves, sweaty underneath the lights, and thrilled, when she whisked out onto the stage and was greeted by the deafening cheers of Lex before Lillian managed to quiet him.

As she watches Myka’s recital, Lena realizes that she is sure of two things.

The dance recitals of small children can be used as proof that people must love their kids, because Lena cannot think of any other deliberate reason to subject yourself to a bunch of small children dancing badly to public domain music, with the rare exception of ones such as Avani, who possess enough talent to take your breath away. And attending the dance recitals of small children is tantamount to nursing a cup of perfectly made coffee on a brisk winter morning, but for your soul. If such a thing exists. Because as Lena looks to her right and watches the way that Kara’s face twists and lights up with sheer pride and delight, she can think of nothing quite as charming as a line of tiny girls in puffy tutus dancing (or not dancing) with various levels of skill and enthusiasm. She watches as Myka finds them in the crowd and pauses to wave, just like many of the other children have done, before twirling her body around fearlessly, without an ounce of control or rhythm to it. She slams onto her knees, and grinning, begins swinging her body around like she is trying to break dance and it’s all part of the choreography.

Her teacher furiously tries to get Myka back on count for the rest of the song before the other girls crawl down and mimic her, and Alex barks out laughter, clamping her hand over her mouth and knocking her head into Maggie’s shaking shoulder.

“Please tell me you got that,” Kara whispers over to James.

“It’s frame-worthy,” James promises.

By the time all of the children have taken their bows, Lena’s sides hurt from laughter, and Kara is unable to stop grinning for the rest of the afternoon. They go out for pizza on Myka’s request, and she refuses to change out of her costume, but is eventually corralled into changing out of her ballet shoes.

She offers to perform part of her dance to the waiter as a tip, and Lena slides a fifty into his palm after he humors her, his face blinking at her in surprise. She knows that the others already tipped him well over twenty-percent, but he cheers Myka on with genuine enthusiasm, and Lena is in a ridiculously good mood.

…

…

Kara laughs as Fergus paws his way onto Lena’s lap. Lena frowns down at him for the intrusion, but doesn’t push him off when she reaches over to accept the coffee that Kara is holding out to her. She won’t admit it if asked, but she’s warmed up to the kitten considerably in the last few weeks.

“So,” Kara asks, flipping one of the pancakes. “Were you serious about getting a bigger place?”

Lena’s eyebrows knot together in confusion, and Kara catches her scratching the cat’s ears, just a little. “What are you talking about?”

“When Myka brought home all the cats,” Kara supplies, and Lena’s face twists with recognition.

“That was weeks ago,” she says. “I forgot.”

“So, you weren’t serious?”

Lena shrugs. Which is unhelpful. That could mean anything. But Lena’s face is carefully neutral, one of her many skills. She doesn’t give much of anything away at all, if she doesn’t want to. “I like this apartment,” she says, a moment later.

“So do I,” Kara flips another pancake. “That’s not really my point.”

“Kara—”

“If you were serious, then we should talk about it,” Kara says, feeling the determined set to her shoulders settle in. Lena bites at her lower lip, keeping herself from saying what she wants. Kara hates it when she does that, but it’s an old habit, one that she is growing out of less and less, now that she knows Kara isn’t going to just up and change her mind and disappear if they get into a small fight.

Kara does it too, occasionally. It’s something they’re both working on.

“I don’t want to — it’s not that I don’t like living here,” she says, firmly. “It’s just that it’s felt a little… cramped, as of late.”

Kara chuckles, pouring some more batter onto the griddle and reaching for chocolate chips to sprinkle in. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. We’ve sort of become everyone’s main base.”

“How many people have keys?” Lena asks, amused.

“Oh, um,” Kara presses her lips together, thinking. “Well, Alex,” she shrugs. “This used to be her apartment. That’s how the rent is so low. I got grandfathered in to some rent control thing,” Kara shrugs. She never really paid attention to what Alex and the landlord had told her about that, just paid off the bills that she received when she got them.

Myka shuffles into the kitchen sleepily, dropping down into a stool beside Lena and resting her head down on the table. Lena’s hand reaches out and rubs at her back. “Good morning,” she says.

“Ugh,” Myka grumbles.

“Pancakes?” Kara asks.

“Do they have chocolate chips?”

Kara catches Lena’s eye roll and laughs, dropping a stack of three already made down beside Myka’s head. “They do.”

Myka lifts her head the bare amount, chin still resting on the counter as she reaches for the syrup and a fork. Fergus paws at her thigh, but remains on Lena’s lap. Kara presses her lips together to keep her smirk at bay; despite being the most vocal opponent to the idea of the kitten, Fergus has taken quite a shine to Lena. He goes over to her more than anyone else, to Myka’s continual disappointment.

Kara thinks that a tiny part of Lena is becoming smug about this, but she will not admit it to anyone, least they think she enjoys having the scruffy thing around.

“Lucy too,” Kara says, jumping right back into their conversation. “She watered my plants for me a few times while I was busy, and it was some DEO security measure thing,” Kara shrugs. “Also, Winn. For emergencies.”

“Huh?” Myka asks, mouth full of pancake and syrup.

“Apartment keys,” Kara says, and drops a plate of pancakes sans chips, with blueberries, in front of Lena. Lena hums at her in thanks. “So,” she prompts after a minute, “are we being serious about it?”

“About what?” Myka demands, never one to be left out of anything.

“Potentially moving to someplace bigger,” Lena says, locking eyes with Kara.

“Your old place?” Myka asks, not exactly with a frown, but not with much enthusiasm.

“No, Lucy’s subletting. Once the lease is finished, I’ve got it set up to transfer into her name.”

“We could switch,” Myka suggests.

Lena catches Kara’s eye, taking a bite of her pancake and shoving Fergus off of her lap as he gets too close to the syrup. Kara turns off the griddle after tossing three more pancakes onto Myka’s plate. Grabbing a plate of her own, she loads it with syrup and joins them at the island. Lena’s old place isn’t that much bigger than this one. It’s much closer to L-Corp, but Myka’s school is pretty far away. Not that it really matters; Kara could fly her there in less than a minute, if she needed to, but.

“I was thinking more along the lines of something bigger,” Lena says, careful. She watches Kara almost anxiously, waiting for her reaction.

She’s lived in this apartment since she moved out of her school dorms. And she likes it a lot, but, she has been getting the feeling that Lena mentions too. There are a lot of people coming and going, and more often than not, their apartment is the hub of game nights and large group dinners. Kara doesn’t want to change that, and she hasn’t gotten any hint that Lena or Myka do either. But, some more space to do all of that in would be nice.

Plus, this place was just Kara’s, for longer than it’s been the three of theirs. It would be kind of nice to have a place that is theirs. Kara knows that Lena still feels a bit like a guest here sometimes, despite all evidence to the contrary.

And technically, Myka’s bedroom was designed to be an office. She’s already filling it nearly to bursting, and that’s only bound to get worse, the older she gets. There’s no space for a desk in there, and all three of them currently share the kitchen table to spread out and do their work.

Kara meets Lena’s eye, shovels an overly large bite of pancake into her mouth, and grins. “I think that sounds like a plan,” she agrees, and Lena’s shoulders sag with relief.

“I’ve already got a few ideas,” she admits, and Kara laughs.

“Of course you do.”

…

…

“Alex!” Kara complains, “I was sitting there.”

Alex takes the pint of ice cream out of Kara’s hands and settles further into the couch. Myka mimics her. From the loveseat, Lena rolls her eyes and tries to push Fergus away from her. It doesn’t take. Kara huffs, then just flops her body down on top of Alex (and partly Myka) completely deadweight. Alex groans. “Kara!” she rubs at her head. “You could kill a person doing that. You’re basically made of steel.”

“You started it,” Kara warns her. “Give me back my ice cream.”

“Lena,” Alex calls, shoving at Kara’s stomach and holding the ice cream out of her reach. “Get her off me.”

“I can’t control her,” Lena says, smiling impossibly fondly at Kara. Her face goes pink in response, just a little. She would have thought that would stop happening by now, but it might be something that is just… here to stay. It’s both very embarrassing and kind of nice.

“She said that she’d do whatever you wanted last night,” Myka says casually, popping a huge bite of ice cream into her mouth.

Kara goes beet red now, remembering what brought those words on, and Lena chokes on air.

“Ew,” Alex laughs. “Maybe line your new bedroom with lead.”

“No!” Myka yelps. “I’d die.”

“You wouldn’t die,” Alex counters, still holding the ice cream out of Kara’s reach. “It would be inside the walls. Not touching you.”

“Then I couldn’t see through it either,” Kara points out. “And what if there was… that could be dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Myka says. “Plus, I could die.”

Alex and Lena have been working on that, actually. Terrified of the day that Myka grabs for the wrong thing, or someone with a grudge and knowledge acts against Kara. From what Kara’s gathered of their conversations, they’re very close to having something workable as a cure, or a sort of alien EpiPen for Myka’s allergy.

Alex rolls her eyes and taps her spoon against Myka’s head. Myka harrumphs and Kara takes the opportunity to grab for the ice cream, pressing more of her weight on top of Alex. Alex yells, both of their legs kick out, and Myka abandons them and moves over to sit on the armchair of the loveseat beside Lena.

“You two are a pack of children,” Lena says, but when Kara yells, triumphant with the ice cream, she’s unable to keep a smile off of her face, and she gives Alex her own pint even though Kara tells her not to.

“One of you loves me,” Alex says, pointedly glaring at Kara.

“I can love ice cream and you and still not want to share,” Kara retorts. “I contain multitudes.”

Alex snorts and Myka slides off of the armrest and down onto Lena’s lap. “Are we ever gonna start the movie?” she demands.

Fergus leaps onto her head in an attempt to try and get back to Lena, and Myka drops her ice cream onto the floor with a yelp before Kara can answer her. Myka looks down at the pile of ice cream, horrified before she turns and glares at Fergus. “You are banished,” she tells him.

“Finally,” Lena hums, but she reaches out and pets him with a smile.

…

…

It takes them over a month of looking and planning, but they find a place.

It’s a brownstone in the heart of the city that Kara could have never afforded on her own, and she hesitates only briefly over letting Lena pay for the majority of it.

They move in over a sweltering day in the middle of August, two days right before Myka’s tenth birthday. Kara and Clark carry nearly everything, and Barry hops universes to give Myka a birthday present, and help unpack, grinning as he finishes three rooms while Kara finishes one. They race for the rest, leaving everyone else feeling a bit useless for a while.

Lena sits on the small porch with Eliza and fans herself, directing them both expertly.

Winn, Clark, and James get distracted unpacking the kitchen, arguing over dishes and the best place for pans to go with more passion than Kara would have ever thought. But, Clark and James both love to cook, and they’re good at it. Kara suspects Winn to be mostly making up his arguments as he goes along, but it’s an entertaining half hour either way.

There are three floors to the house, not counting the roof. They ended up picking this one because of the easy roof access that Kara can fly in and out of without being seen from the street. It’s much less conspicuous than jumping out of her apartment window.

Lena, Winn, and Alex spend half the afternoon setting up a security system that seems to rival the DEO’s, and J’onn whistles and asks Lena if she ever wants to spend a day or two tightening up the DEO’s system. To which Winn temporarily takes great offense, but then furiously begs Lena for access to the code. Resorting to bribery by the time they’re all filling into the kitchen for dinner.

The kitchen can fit everyone. They can’t all fit at the one table, because even the Kents come to their housewarming—stopping by on their summer vacation to the beach—but they all manage to squeeze in at the table, around the island, and with Barry and Sara perched on the window seat, they’ve got a full house and enough elbow room for everyone.

“So, I’m sorry I just want to make sure that I’m not getting this wrong,” Martha asks, turning to Sara. “You’re from a different universe, and you have a time machine?”

Sara smirks wickedly and shovels some curry into her mouth, nodding.

“What do dinosaurs look like?” Myka asks. “Do they really have feathers?”

“Only a few that I’ve seen.”

“Really?!” Myka twists around from her spot beside Lois at the table. “Can I come see?”

“Sure,” Sara shrugs, missing Kara’s waving arms, or perhaps, because of them.

“Me too,” Lois says.

“I’m sorry, I want to time travel too,” Alex adds.

“Oh! Me!” Winn cheers, from the island, arm up in the air like he’s been called on in class. He nearly knocks M’gann’s water onto the floor, dropping his arms and apologizing as she rolls her eyes towards J’onn.

“I would like to see Ancient Egypt,” Jonathan muses, casual.

“I couldn’t pick just one option,” Eliza sighs, looking giddy as she considers the possibilities. When Kara looks over, Alex and Lena have matching eager looks on their faces.

“Honestly, I’m good here,” Maggie says. “In this universe. Regular time.”

“Cheers,” Lucy says and holds up her glass for Maggie to clink.

“Can we time travel for dessert?” Myka asks, nearly falling out of her chair with excitement.

“Ship’s not in this universe kiddo,” Sara apologizes. “But how about I owe you one?”

“For my birthday!?” Myka asks. “It’s on Thursday!”

“Umm…” Sara glances up at Kara and Lena this time, and Kara senses the panic that shoots through Lena at the thought, resting her hand on top of her knee. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but every once in a while, both of them panic with Myka out of their sight. Poisonings and kidnappings will do that to a person, according to all of their therapists. Myka has had a few small panic attacks and one or two full-blown tantrums in the last four months, but all in all, they’ve been okay. Therapy has been doing wonders for all three of them.

Kara bought Cat twenty-eight huge bags of M&Ms and left them on her desk in thanks. Neither of them has acknowledged it, or the Supergirl elephant in the room yet, but Kara is more and more sure with each passing day that Cat knows.

“Maybe for your thirteenth?” Sara suggests. “You get a whole hullabaloo for that one when you’re a girl in Judaism too, right?”

“Oh!” Eliza says, thoughtful and smiling. “We could give her a Bat Mitzvah. Alex had one, but Kara didn’t. There was so much going on, that first year,” she frowns, looking over at Kara apologetically. Kara smiles back. She probably wouldn’t have wanted one back then, if they’d asked. And then she would have felt guilty for rejecting a family ceremony. It probably worked out for the best that no one tried to bring it up.

“Are there pictures of this?” Maggie asks, teasingly looking over at Alex.

“Several,” Lois supplies.

Alex chokes on an eggroll. “When did you see them?”

“That one Christmas Eve. Don’t you remember? Kara and Clark fucked off to the Fortress and left us alone, and we got drunk your first year back from college. You showed them to me.”

“Oh my god,” Alex groans into her hands. Clark swats Lois, and Myka holds her hand out. Lois slips her another twenty without blinking and tells her to cover her ears or not to repeat anything.

“I knew that you had been drinking,” Eliza chides, looking pointedly at Alex. “You were not twenty-one yet young lady.”

“She was the adult,” Alex points accusingly at Lois. “Don’t look at me, blame her!”

“Traitor!” Lois yelps. “Also,” she turns to Eliza. “I only let her have a little, and I was paying attention the whole time.”

“You so were not,” Clark laughs.

“Smallville!”

“Why were Kara and Clark crying?” Myka asks, swiping some of Lena’s curry.

Kara and Clark share a look, somber. Martha reaches over at rubs at her son’s back. “His present made me sad and happy,” Kara supplies, not explaining any further. Myka shrugs and accepts this easily, and Clark gives her a sad smile before it turns into a real one. Kara throws a fortune cookie at his head, grinning back at him.

The conversation turns to something else, and Kara leans back into her seat, Lena’s hand resting on her knee, rubbing in light circles underneath the table, smiling as the people she loves loudly talk over one another and eat dessert.

It takes a long time for everyone to file out. Eliza and the Kents are sleeping over, rather than book extra nights in hotels, and because they have the space now to accommodate them all. Sara and Barry give crushing hugs, and Sara flirts a bit with Lena, just to throw everyone off, and because she’s a bit of a shit. Kara rolls her eyes, pushing her out the door with a wide smile.

The kitchen is far emptier in the morning, but still lively with Eliza and the Kents up at the crack of dawn, making breakfast early with Lena. Myka and Kara shuffle out last to find them all sat around the table, eating and chatting over the news. Lena catches her eye, and though she is much more comfortable with Eliza now than she has been previously, she’s only just met the Kents, and she releases a breath of relief at the sight of them. Kara drops a kiss to her cheek as she passes by, and steals some of her coffee before getting her own and sitting down.

Kara feels the sunlight spilling in from their windows on her face and hums delightedly into her mug.

…

…

She knows that she is spoiling Myka with all these presents, but she can’t really bring herself to care, in the moment; a girl doesn’t turn ten every day, and Myka has come a long way from her days of dismissing waiters as servants and considering everything that’s material in her life to be easily replaceable.  

Lena’s made sure of it. She gives her the same speech that Lionel gave her, once upon a time. Albeit on her seventh birthday, instead of her tenth. But Myka listens carefully and nods along, going silent and thoughtful once Lena is done.

“What is it?” Lena asks.

“So…” she presses her palms together like she’s nervous, and Kara frowns from where she’d been listening, quietly filling the dishwasher. Lena waits Myka out, hoping she’s not picking up on some microscopic thing that Lena is projecting, causing her worry. “Does that mean then…” finally she just huffs, frustrated at her inability to get her words out. “Am I like a Luthor, then?” she asks, all in one breath. Lena freezes, and Myka plows on, her words jumbling together as she jumps up from the couch and starts pacing in front of Lena, rather than looking at her. Lena doesn’t register a single thing that she says afterwards. Something about wealth, and deeds, and passing down Lionel’s speech. Lena honestly has no idea, possibly, she is having a stroke right now. Kara is certainly looking down at her like she is about to lift her up and fly her to the nearest hospital any minute.

Myka notices.

“Crap,” she mumbles. “Never mind. I didn’t mean—”

“Yes,” Lena says quickly. “If you want.” Then she panics and shoots a look over at Kara, worried that despite everything, somehow, she might have overstepped. This is not something that they’ve talked about. Not in anything other than pointed silences and weighted looks. They’re doing well, but, they’re still just figuring out how to do this relationship thing as they go along.

Kara beams back at her, her hands sudsy and her bun falling out, a bit. Myka sucks in a sharp breath, whipping her head around from Lena’s to Kara’s, studying both their expressions intensely.

“What… really?” she asks, quiet and shaky.

“You did say that you hate Matthews,” Kara supplies, her face still splitting with the grin, her eyes so warm directed at Lena, that she feels a little bit like she might combust. Technically, Kara is capable of doing that.

It would be extremely painful though. This doesn’t feel painful, this feels amazing.

“But,” Myka looks between them, biting on her lower lip. “What about Kara?”

It’s Lena’s turn to whip her head at someone in surprise. Of course, the idea has occurred to her over the last few months, and it’s something that she has admirably pressed as far down into a box marked: Problems for Later, as she can possibly manage. When she gathers enough courage to meet Kara’s eye, her grin has, if possible, grown exponentially.

“If anyone ever figured out my secret identity after, they’d know that a Super was a Luthor,” she laughs. Then her eyes go impossibly wide, like she’s only just realized what she said, and possibly jumped to a conclusion that Lena wasn’t heading towards. But Lena melts at the implication, and then the face-splitting grin is right back, directed at Lena as Kara bounces on her toes a little. “That, would be very funny and ironic, as far as things go,” she adds, a little shyly.

“My mother would have a coronary,” Lena agrees, beaming back at Kara. “She’s going to, either way,” she laughs, turning back to Myka. “It will be amusing.” Lillian has been sporadically in her life in the last four months since the invasion. Popping in when it’s convenient, doing her level best not to be horrible and mostly failing, but occasionally, there’s a moment of sincerity between them, and she’s making an effort.

Not a big one, but it’s more than Lena has ever seen her try before, so.

It’s something.

Myka rocks back and forth in her spot, from her heels to her toes, a smile slowly growing on her face as she looks back and forth between Kara and Lena. “So… really?” she asks, again.

Lena nods after Kara moves closer. “It won’t… there’s a lot of paperwork. Legal hoops to jump through,” she explains quickly. “Possibly even more with the legality of alien refugees, now. We’ll have to double check with Lucy… but…” she smiles, unable to help herself at the look on Myka’s face. “It could take months,” she warns. “Maybe even more than a year, but—”

Myka slams into her. “I love you,” she says, gripping Lena as tightly as she can without hurting. She knows that balance without even thinking about it now. She hasn’t given anyone so much as a bruise in months. Hasn’t broken anything in weeks. She’s an impossibly clever and compassionate little girl, and she’s theirs. “Both of you,” she hollers behind her, turning her head to grin at Kara.

Kara says, “Me too,” thrilled as she watches Lena hug Myka back tightly, her eyes locked with Kara’s.

“I love you too,” Lena says softly, to both of them. Kara giggles and skips in place, almost. Still giddy every time that Lena manages to say the words out loud. It happens more and more lately—Kara’s reactions are addictive—but it’s Myka’s that make the words easier to come out each time. She’s in awe of them whenever they are directed her way, by anyone, but she’s happiest when they come from Kara or Lena. Happier still when they’re unexpected.

She laughs, bright and loud in Lena’s ear, and squeezes her tighter. Then, Kara jumps on top of them both, flicking bits of dish suds onto their faces, in their hair, until Lena is using Myka as a shield, and Myka is squealing with laughter. Fergus comes running out of the living room at the commotion, slipping through the kitchen and knocking into the wall. Lena claps a hand over her mouth as she doubles over with laughter, Kara grabbing the nozzle from the sink and spraying Myka with water, turning it into a full-fledged fight.

“Lena!” Myka screams, sliding across the floor and reaching out to hide behind her. “Help!”

“I thought you would protect me!” Lena yells, feigning hurt, remembering the fierce little way that she had grabbed some eggs, over a year and a half ago now, hidden underneath Kara’s kitchen table in the middle of a Danvers Sisters brownie batter fight. Myka’s eyes flash, and Lena knows that she is picturing the same thing. She whirls around with determination and plants herself in front of Lena, grabbing a head of lettuce and chucking it at Kara with a wild war cry. Kara laughs, catching it. She abandons the nozzle, grinning wickedly at Myka.

“You better run, birthday girl,” she warns, and Myka screams, taking off with Fergus scampering behind her. Kara pauses in front of Lena, grinning, their faces inches from each other. “You on my team?” she asks.

“Obviously,” Lena smirks. “I’m the captain.”

Kara crushes the lettuce down on top of Lena’s head, then bends forward and kisses her. “Co-captains,” she declares, then wisely runs as Lena grabs a bag of baby carrots and starts pelting them at Kara’s retreating form. The sound of her laughter mixing together with Myka’s, filling Lena up until her heart is so full, she can’t stand it.