Chapter Text
“Ponytail!”
Kara pokes her head in the reporter’s den. “Yes, boss?”
“Got an assignment for you,” Snapper gruffs, as though he’s already exhausted by the excitement he knows is coming.
“Oh?” Kara grins and bounces once, unable to help herself. “Great, no problem. What is it?”
“I’ve got a source at that fancy subdivision just outside National City,” he explains, sliding a single sheet of paper across his desk. "He’s been sending reports about… something strange going on over there. Take that boyfriend of yours and if you can actually manage to get a worthwhile article out of this, I’ll consider moving you higher up the food chain.”
Boyfriend. Kara settles her glasses once, then again. It’s been nearly five months since the Daxamite invasion. She’d been fairly certain Snapper was aware of her dating-to-single status, since word spread quickly in Catco, but perhaps he’d forgotten. Or didn’t care, that was more likely. “Um, I don’t, I mean, we, uh… broke up.”
An honest-to-Rao expression crosses Snapper’s face and for a moment Kara thinks it might be sympathy, but then he smacks his lips and she figures it was just a bit of breakfast danish stuck in his teeth. “Right,” he drawls. “Okay, I’ll put someone else -”
“No, I mean, I’ll do it. But just me.”
“Danvers,” Snapper sighs, “I didn’t suggest you take your boyfriend so you could spend company time making lovey-dovey eyes at each other. Arcadum is a couples-only community.”
“Oh.”
“Right.”
Kara shrugs and gives him another grin. “I can still do it. I need to find someone to go with me, right? I mean, we don’t actually have to be dating?”
Snapper raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You think you can lie your way to the truth of this story?”
“I can be very sneaky.”
He snorts. “Whatever. Here’s the address and what I’ve gotten from my source so far.” He lowers his glasses from the top of his head. “Catco is renting the house on Petrie, fully-furnished, so show up first thing Saturday, that’s your move-in date. You have the house for a month but don’t take that long, got me? I want an update by Monday morning.”
Kara nods. “Sure thing.”
He stares at her. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I’m going!” She grabs the paper and hurries down the hall to her own office, sinking into the chair behind her desk.
She scans the information - there isn’t much, just a few lines from Snapper’s source about how creepy the residents were and one about the dangers of the darkness, which makes her sit up a little straighter in her seat but doesn’t give her any idea what she’s supposed to look for.
She plucks a pen from the cup on her desk, twirling it between her fingers idly.
Now she just has to figure out who would go with her.
Winn and James were out; given their past, she wouldn’t be comfortable asking them to fake a relationship.
She bites her lip. When she considers it, there’s a history with all of her male friends, as evidenced by the next name coming to mind being Adam, and she sighs.
Okay, so not a guy friend. Girl friend?
She taps the pen against her chin.
The first person that comes to mind is Lena, but she has to honestly assess if she can handle putting up a front with the woman. She’s known for a while that her feelings for the CEO have been venturing beyond the friendship line, sometimes dangerously so.
Even before she started dating Mon-El, she can admit, when she’s being honest with herself.
And during, which she only admits when she’s being hard on herself.
Mon-El is gone now… and Kara has gotten over the end of their relationship and is patently not dealing with the worry of how he’s doing, so she feels like she could be in a place to start again… but it isn’t as though Lena has shown any interest in being more than friends so Kara just leaves it be.
She buries the feelings mostly, because Lena is her best friend and she doesn’t want to chance losing her, and sometimes she maybe slips up with a too-long hug or adoring gaze. Nothing that Lena has commented on, so it must not be too obvious.
But if they were living together...
This is a job, Kara reminds herself. I can be professional about this.
So. How do you ask someone you'd be interested in dating to act like you're dating, without giving away that you'd actually like to be dating?
Kara sighs again. She has a feeling Alex is going to bruise something laughing at her.
*****
Alex had been entirely unhelpful. She'd been laughing too hard to speak and handed the phone to Maggie, continuing to cackle in the background.
When Kara explained her dilemma to Maggie, the woman tried, and failed, to smother her chuckle, and ultimately wished Kara good luck before quickly hanging up the phone.
Kara barely needs her super hearing to know both women are laughing uproariously across town.
She takes a deep breath.
She’s on her own, then.
*****
Jess says, “Good morning. She only has fifteen minutes,” and she waves Kara along.
Must be a busy Wednesday, Kara muses, opening the door and stepping inside.
Lena’s smile when Kara walks into her office is almost enough to turn her right back around. She’s clearly surprised but delighted at the impromptu visit and Kara can’t get over the way her green eyes light up when she’s happy.
Kara swallows hard. There’s no way she’s going to be able to pretend to date this woman.
“Kara, I'm so glad you stopped by.” Lena gestures to the couch and begins to stand. “Is this a social visit?”
Kara takes a seat in one of the chairs across from her. “Um, it's… I need a favor.”
Lena sits back behind her desk and gives Kara her full attention. “Name it.”
“Well,” Kara looks at the notebook on her lap for guidance, though it’s closed, “Snapper gave me a lead and it actually sounds pretty interesting this time.”
“That's great.” Lena is familiar with Kara’s frustration at the scraps Catco’s senior editor has been throwing the junior reporter, so getting a legitimate assignment is a big deal. “How can I help?”
“Yeah…” She takes a breath to calm her nerves. “Have you heard anything about Arcadum?”
Lena shakes her head. “No, I'm afraid I haven't.”
“Okay, well, it's this new housing development at the edge of National City.” Kara tugs at the metal wire, coiled to hold her notebook together. She glances at Lena but can’t seem to hold her gaze. “Snapper seems to think there's something going on, something worthy of a story, and he wants me to spend a week or so out there and check it out.”
“And the favor you need…?”
Kara bites her lip. “I'm single.” No, damn it, that wasn't what she wanted to say. “I mean, I have to be dating someone to live in Arcadum.” One end of the wire unhooks from the punched holes in the notebook. Kara stops fiddling with it before she unwinds the pages entirely and adjusts her glasses, eyes darting to the balcony as she briefly considers leaping from it. “Will you, I mean, it would be, you know, just for the story, but maybe, we could, sort of...”
Lena holds up a hand to stop Kara’s ramblings. “Are you asking me to be your significant other, as part of your cover story?” She tries not to let her excitement show. Even if it’s a temporary agreement with boundaries and a deadline, Lena already knows she’ll accept.
“Um, yes?” Kara meets her eyes now. “You totally don't have to. It's, I mean, purely professional, right? I don't want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Purely professional,” Lena echoes with a practiced smile. “Of course I’ll help you out.”
Kara’s face radiates surprise. “Really?”
Lena chuckles. “Honest. However, I'm going to need some details and background.” She glances at her tablet. “I have a meeting shortly, can we get together tonight and discuss this some more? When do you need to be in Arcadum?”
“Saturday morning, so we’ve got a few days. Um, I’ll text you?”
“Sounds good.”
Kara slips out the door and Lena resists the urge to rest her forehead on the desk.
She imagines this purely professional favor will end up being absolute torture… exquisite torture, but, nonetheless.
*****
Lena stands outside Kara’s apartment door for more than ten minutes, working up the courage to knock and announce her presence. It’s late, past seven; Lena’s time at the office had kept her longer than she’d expected but Kara insisted the hour didn’t matter.
She’s agreed to help Kara.
That’s not in question.
She simply has no idea how to approach a hypothetical romantic relationship with the reporter.
Just imagine you’re actually dating, her mind encourages, not for the first time. It’ll be easy.
Lena doubts that, but knocks anyway.
Kara answers within seconds, smiling and beckoning her inside. She’d heard Lena’s heartbeat as she stood in the hall and was worried the woman had changed her mind, that she would ultimately be unable to convince herself that even a fake relationship was something she could manage. “Thanks for coming.”
“Sorry I’m late.”
Kara shakes her head and closes the door. “No, it’s fine, really.” She plays with a thread from the hem of her t-shirt before shoving both hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Can I get you something to drink? I still have that wine you brought before.”
Lena smiles. Thank god. “That would be great, thank you.” She puts her purse on the floor and hangs her light jacket on an empty coat hook.
Kara takes a wineglass from the cupboard and fills it half full.
“We could sit on the couch?” Kara offers.
She takes the glass when Kara hands it over and follows the blonde to the living room. She sits on the sofa and slips her heels off with a contented sigh.
“So, um…” Kara settles beside her, fingers tapping, “about this weekend.”
“Mmhmm.” Lena takes a sip of her wine. “Do you have any idea what’s happening there that warrants a story?”
Kara shrugs. “Nope. Snapper didn’t have many details. We’ll have to see how it goes.”
“I did some googling before I left the office… it looks like a beautiful community.” Lena remembers the article she’d read, published just over eighteen months before, when the houses were still just wooden frames. “Family oriented, given the couples focus, and it sounds like it’s always catered to that demographic since inception. There’s a pool and a small clubhouse and a little park of sorts.”
“The pictures are really nice,” Kara agrees, relieved that, so far at least, Lena doesn’t seem like she’s hating the idea.
“I’m assuming we have a home already chosen, or do we need to go house hunting?”
“Oh, yeah, Catco is covering it. It’ll probably only be like a week? But Snapper said we have up to a month, if necessary.”
Lena hums. “I’m afraid I can’t stay away from L-Corp for that long.”
Kara’s eyes widen. “No, Lena, I don’t want you to take time off work. I know that’s difficult for you and I don’t expect you to be gone for a week or more. You can still go into the office.”
She chuckles. “Isn’t this supposed to be a cover? I can’t exactly be the CEO of L-Corp and pretend to be someone besides Lena Luthor. You aren’t going to tell everyone you’re a reporter with Catco, right?”
Kara blinks and gives her a look that says the blonde has thought through exactly zero percent of their cover story. To be fair, most of Kara’s focus has been lost to daydreams since Lena agreed to the arrangement and she hasn't really had a chance to think about the logistics of a cover.
Lena hides her amusement with a long swallow of wine.
“Right, I mean, no, of course not. I’m, um, I’m going to be a writer.”
“Everyone is going to want to know what you write.”
“... Books.”
Lena can’t hold back her laughter this time. “What genre? What’s your penname? People are going to want to know if they have a famous author in their neighborhood.”
“Oh.” Kara frowns. “I’m working on my first novel.”
“Well, I’ll be doing computer programming from home, that should be enough to support us.” Lena considers another angle. She’d gone over most of the details in her head as Martin was driving her from work, determined to do her best to provide whatever Kara needed for the article - it wasn't often Kara asked for a favor and Lena didn't want to let her down. “Do we need to be married or is dating okay?”
Kara blushes, hard. “Um, dating is good.”
“So we’ll each need to come up with a different last name.” She crosses her ankles and takes a breath, sinking further into the comfort of the couch cushions. “Do we need to actually move in Saturday morning? Do we have to find some furniture and a truck?”
“Snapper said the house is fully furnished so we just have to bring, like, a box of clothes and whatever we’ll need for the week.”
Lena purses her lips. “You seem pretty certain you can wrap this up in a week.”
Kara shrugs one shoulder. “That was kind of the soft deadline Snapper gave me.”
She sighs, unsurprised. “We’ll see how it goes, okay? It might take longer.” Hopefully. She drains the last of her wine. “We should come up with a backstory for our relationship so we’re on the same page when people ask.”
Kara shoves her glasses up her nose, blinking when the lenses brush against her eyelashes. “Yeah, we should.” She begins to tug at the hem of her shirt. What was that one daydream? Oh, right. “Maybe… we’ve been dating for a year and decided to move in together.”
Lena nods. “That would work.”
“And, um, we met when my sister introduced us.”
“Sure.” Lena chuckles softly to herself, imagining Alex Danvers trying to set them up together. “I’d say we knew each other for a while before we started dating, so perhaps we met about two years ago?”
“Yeah,” Kara smiles, “that’s good.”
Lena clears her throat. “What about affection?”
Rao, help me. Kara hopes her gulp isn’t audible but suspects it was drowned out by the beating of her heart. “Um, the, the what?”
Lena gives her a fondly exasperated look. “Affection… it would look awfully strange if we were dating and moving in together but never so much as held hands.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Kara swallows. “I, um, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
I don’t think that’s possible. “I know, Kara. I feel the same way. That’s why we should talk about this, okay?”
Kara licks her lips. “Yeah. Okay.” She gnaws on her bottom lip. How do I say out loud the touches I’ve only imagined sharing with you? “We hug now, you know, already, so we could just sort of… keep our arms around each other, and, also, hold hands.” This sounds like some ridiculously tame idea of romance but if I try to describe anything further, I’ll probably blurt something about having dreamt of holding you close, of kissing you, and we definitely don’t need to get into a discussion about my dreams.
Of you.
Yep, stopping that train right there.
Lena takes a breath, agreeing, “Yes, that’s fine. We’ll probably… it would be suspicious if we never kissed, I think. Would you be alright with that?” She shifts her wineglass and when she remembers it’s empty, she uses that as a fantastic excuse to walk to the kitchen and refill it, giving her a chance to hide her blush and avoid Kara’s gaze if the answer is ‘no’.
“That’s, yeah, I could do that.” Gladly. A million times.
Lena considers teasing her, something along the lines of, “Well don’t sound so excited”, but she’s just proud of herself for walking back to the couch without dropping her glass. “At least when we’re within view of the neighbors,” she adds, giving Kara an out.
“Right.” Professional, remember? This won’t be real. “Of course.”
They spend the next thirty minutes finalizing their cover and ensuring they have the details down.
When Lena finishes her second glass of wine, she puts her heels back on and grabs her purse from its place near the door. “I’ll meet you here Saturday morning,” she reminds Kara, who places the empty wine glass on the kitchen counter.
“Yep, seven o’clock.” She places her hand on the doorknob, but before pulling the door open for Lena, she tugs her into a one-armed hug. “Thank you for doing this.”
Lena returns the embrace. If only you knew. “You’re very welcome.” She squeezes her gently and steps back. “Good night, Kara.”