Work Text:
The first time Lena sees Kryptonian letters, she’s in Lex’s lab, watching as he hunches over a screen, eyes bloodshot, furious at the alien language that refuses to yield its secrets to him.
“We must learn the enemy to be able to defeat it, Lena,” he tells her without even bothering to look up. “Every last bit of them.”
It’s not until weeks after he’s dragged from LuthorCorp in chains that Lena manages to crack the Kryptonian alphabet. It takes another month for her to translate the first sentence, one of the thousand fragments Lex’s obtained. She reads slowly, stumbling over the words until the startling moment that they finally form a whole: This vessel carries Kara Zor-El of Krypton.
–
She learns Kryptonian bit by bit.
It’s a Sisyphean task: there’s no teacher, no textbook, no helping hand as Lena tries to untangle tenses and word orders and conjugations, grappling with the unknown world of a dead planet in every syllable. Even with all the material Lex amassed, some parts of Kryptonian are beyond her understanding, beyond any concept of human culture and technology.
But Lena Luthor isn’t one to balk from a challenge.
It’s a project like any other, only this time, the post-it notes all over her desk and the walls are covered with angular Kryptonian letters. She digs and digs through Lex’s archives until she finds a recording, a solemn, dispassionate voice, enough to get an idea of the pronunciation. She creates a program to help with translation, starts compiling a dictionary, and recites its words to empty rooms, stuttering over the foreign sounds until she gets it right.
It’s not an obsession , she’d refuse that, not an attempt at conquest like Lex’s, but something with a mightier drive: the researcher’s curiosity, the thirst for that immeasurable wealth of knowledge at her fingertips.
(She wouldn’t want to admit that beneath her lofty goals, there’s something else: the quiet hope that I am not your enemy and I want to be your friend might ring truer to Supergirl’s ears in Kryptonian.)
–
The first time Lena actually speaks Kryptonian doesn’t go as she imagined.
She wishes they were on her home terrain – the L-Corp office, her penthouse, anywhere she could feel safe and in control. That Supergirl would be smiling like she always does, the wind blowing her hair–
Instead, Supergirl scoops her spinning helicopter out of the air and into safety after brother dearest’s henchman tries his best, and pinned into her seat and trembling, all Lena can wish for is that she didn’t look like a rag doll that’s been put through the wringer.
But Supergirl doesn’t even look at her when she rips the door open: her first concern is the pilot, passed out on impact. A gift of a second for Lena to try and collect herself.
“Supergirl.” She sounds breathless and shaky, far from the icy Luthor calm, but it’s enough to get the hero’s attention. Her eyes snap up, so blue and bright, like the summer sky , and inexplicably, Lena’s heart starts beating faster. She almost forgets her own mother tongue, let alone the handful of Kryptonian words she wants to say, painstakingly keeping to the formal you as she stutters: “ You saved my life . Thank you .”
It’s met with utter silence.
Supergirl only stares at her, eyes widened (in shock? ire? Lena cannot tell), and for a moment, Lena thinks she might have just committed the worst faux pas , torpedoed any relationship she could’ve hoped for.
Then Supergirl smiles and the world turns a little brighter.
“All part of the job, Miss Luthor.” Her voice is warm and gentle and just a little deeper in real life than Lena expected. She doesn’t realize she’s holding her breath. “Sorry about the bumpy ride.”
It’s all surreal, a fever dream: Supergirl only an arm’s length away, all proper and gallant, cracking jokes as if no shadow of murderous megalomaniac brothers stood between them. She wouldn’t even have dared to dream of such a thing. She wants to tell it all to her, wants to let Supergirl know that she could cry from hearing her say Luthor so simply, not spitting it out as if it were venom. But then the pilot groans, Supergirl shoots her an apologetic look, and in a blink of an eye, they’re both gone, up, up, and away .
(A minute later, when her security comes sprinting over the helipad, they find Lena still strapped into her seat, hands pressed to her chest, inexplicably smiling.)
–
They don’t meet for weeks after that.
Perhaps it’s for the better. Supergirl’s busy being super and Lena’s drowning in the demands of keeping the newly-born L-Corp above water, warring daily with board members, investors, and a public unwilling to accept that any Luthor might turn out for the better. There’s no time.
(There’s intrepid cub reporter Kara Danvers, though, embodying everything that should irk Lena to death with her sunny disposition and pastel cardigans and unwavering gentleness. Instead, Lena finds herself unreasonably charmed – enough to make her smile when Kara smiles, to move heaven and earth when Kara asks for only a small favour, to open doors that would be sealed shut to anyone else. There is, she later finds out, a word in Kryptonian for such incomprehensible acts of madness, one loaded with the disdain of an orderly, logical society for an emotional drive. One might crudely attempt to translate it as lovesick .)
–
When Supergirl does finally drop down on her balcony, it’s late at night, a day after they stop the gang at Lena’s fundraiser. (She’s still basking in the glory of it – not the glowing headlines and the guests’ applause, but the proud look in Supergirl’s eyes. The fifteen hearts that follow Kara’s holy wow, you were amazing!!!! text.)
It’s all picture-perfect this time: that heroic figure, the gentle smile, the fluttering cape; so dreamy that Lena takes a quick sip of her whiskey just to steady herself before she could smile and say Hello .
“You’re full of surprises, Miss Luthor,” Supergirl says in lieu of a greeting, regarding her with such an intensely curious look that Lena feels like blushing. “I’ve never heard Kryptonian spoken with an Earth accent, you know. Irish?” When Lena responds with a jerky nod, Supergirl’s smile brightens. “Incredible.”
Lena does blush then, heart in her throat. “I thought you might be mad–”
“Mad?” Supergirl furrows her brows, confused. “No, of course not. Surprised, sure.” She falls silent for a moment, turning her head away: when she looks at Lena again, there’s a quiet, wistful look in her eyes. “But you’ve shown me that I can trust you, Miss Luthor. And I trust you to use it for good.”
“I will.” Lena doesn’t even think for a second to say it: it’s a bone-deep urge, wanting to prove herself to Supergirl, to earn the praise of being good. I want to, with you is all on the tip of her tongue, in clear, orderly Kryptonian, but now, without the excuse of an adrenaline rush, she feels strangely shy to speak them, like it would be audacious, an unearned intimacy. “I promise.”
The words still come out too intense, too earnest. Unseemly for a Luthor. Supergirl’s smile grows wider, a little mischievous. She holds out her hand with a “Shake on it, Miss Luthor?” , and her handshake is warm and firm yet oh so gentle, and Lena thinks dreams might come true, after all.
–
The first time Lena hears Kryptonian in real life is neither from the Supers, nor their enemies. It’s from sweet, ordinary Kara Danvers, huddling on Lena’s couch.
It’s such a fleeting moment that it might’ve escaped her attention otherwise. There’s a news report of some alien rampaging downtown, “detained last year, now escaped from DEO custody”. The whiteness of Kara’s knuckles as she grips her pen. And then, a low, harsh sound, so much like a sharp intake of breath that Lena doesn’t even process it as a word at first.
It takes a second for her to recognize it, the vague familiarity tugging at her brain. Then Kara is already on her feet, blushing and rambling apologies of they’ll need me back at CatCo, and Lena nods and smiles.
Five minutes later the news is already buzzing with Supergirl’s quick, brutal victory, and Lena’s curled up on the couch, holding a cardigan that’s been haphazardly dropped outside her office door, savouring the feeling of just having heard Kara Danvers say the Kryptonian equivalent of goshdarnit .
(Half an hour later, she scrubs every last second from the L-Corp security footage that shows Kara speeding out of her office.)
–
Things don’t change, in a way.
They keep growing closer, falling into each other’s orbits the way they already have been – Kara, in and out of the suit, slowly, inevitably becoming a vital part of Lena’s life.
Looking back later, she can see the snapshots of it so clearly: the lunches (out of the suit) at the office, sitting at a respectable distance on the pristine white couch, then closer and closer until their thighs and shoulders are pressed together and Lena doesn’t even need to lean in when Kara offers up a piece of her potsticker. The late-night dinners at Kara’s place, the cozy warmth of it so fitting for her and so alien for Lena, the maddening sensation of Kara’s body tucked against her side, head resting on Lena’s shoulder. Kara (in the suit) at the L-Corp labs, examining the gadgets Lena shows her with such awe and pride that it makes Lena flushed. The hard-set jaw and the squared shoulders (in and out of the suit) when someone says Luthor in Kara’s presence just a bit too harshly or looks at Lena too coldly.
And slowly, inevitably, Lena falls.
(She’s still learning Kryptonian, discovering the occasional irregularities, those irrational parts of speech that one simply has to accept as they are. Like how a god on earth would hide as its most ordinary citizen. How Lena Luthor would manage to fall for her twice .)
–
She doesn’t know when it happens, only that along the way, learning Kryptonian turns into learning Kara .
She starts to recognize Kara’s slip-ups, all that Lena would’ve shrugged off before, starts to realize that whenever Kara’s tired or distracted and messes up a sentence or says something just a little off , the word order or a phrase coming out all wrong, there’s the clear, concise logic of Kryptonian beneath it, a truth she’s made great pains to hide.
It makes Lena’s heart ache.
She no longer cares about impressing a hero, or gaining knowledge that no other human could, doesn’t want fame or glory or absolution. She only wants to help, to ease the weight on Kara’s shoulders a little – to stand in front of her and tell her I know you, you don’t have to hide .
But she can’t.
It has to be Kara’s choice.
-
The first time they talk in Kryptonian, Lena already knows everything. She knows how to read, write, and speak the language fluently, how to comprehend even the most archaic texts, how to converse in the most formal and eloquent manner.
She knows she’s in love with Kara Danvers.
It goes simply. There’s Kara’s apartment, so quiet that she can hear every ragged breath Kara takes. There’s the pallor of Kara’s cheeks, the tremor of her hands as she unbuttons her shirt, there’s the pleading look in her eyes, the familiar red-gold of the El crest, and what Lena recognizes now as the Argonian accent:
“I wanted to tell you for so long.” A beat of silence. Lena’s heart is in her throat. “ My name is Kara Zor-El.”
For months before, Lena’s thought about what this would feel like, to have everything, almost everything she’s yearned for, freely offered; to fly close to the sun and touch it without getting burnt. She knows now – it leaves her breathless, tongue-tied, the I know, I love you that she’s longed to say frozen on her lips.
Kara takes her silence for something else. She drops to her knees, clutching at Lena’s hands, a feverish, desperate touch.
“Lena.” She pronounces the name with a Kryptonian lilt this time, a heavier L . A prayer. Lena’s heart beats a little faster. “Say something, please.”
Her hand is shaking, or maybe it’s Lena’s own, she cannot tell: she only knows Kara’s fervent gaze, the brightness of the crimson S in front of her. Hope, she thinks as Kara squeezes her hand, impatient, and Lena feels a familiar warmth bloom in her chest. It means hope.
“Thank you for trusting me.” It’s barely a whisper, but it’s enough: Kara’s face lights up with relief, then triumphant joy and she’s tugging at Lena’s hand, raising it to her lips for a kiss, tender, reverent. Lena melts. She slides from the couch to kneel in front of Kara, bodies pressed together, no space, no pretense left between them, Kara’s breath tickling against her lips as Lena murmurs: “ Nice to meet you, Kara Zor–El. ”
(When their lips finally part, Lena learns how an impassioned I love you sounds in Kryptonian.)