Chapter Text
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Lena Luthor looks out across the National City skyline. She’s swivelled her chair around from her desk to look at it. She’s working late. Again. It’s all she does recently. Since ‘it’ happened.
She closes her eyes to try and temper the emotions ‘it’ brings. Still not diminished an iota although it’s been weeks. The anger she feels cascades around her brain, it shoots through her entire being, she can feel it tingling in every orifice. She takes a deep breath. She finds herself doing this a lot recently. Trying not to let her anger spiral.
She refocuses on the skyline. It’s objectively beautiful. The numerous lights against the night sky. But Lena can’t muster any enthusiasm for it. She’s not sure if she has any other feelings anymore. The only ones she seems capable of at the moment are anger, rage, hatred, irritation, resentment. She’s sure there’s a thousand other words for it, but it all boils back down to the same thing. Kara Danvers is Supergirl. Supergirl is Kara Danvers.
Lena’s best friend has been lying to her for the best part of four years. Every day. For four years. As if Lena hasn’t spent most of her life being gaslit and lied to by mostly everyone she’s ever crossed paths with. Lionel, Lilian, Lex. God she’d been in a relationship with James for goodness sake, and he’d had no problems lying to her either, to protect Kara’s secret. Alex, Kelly, Winn, Nia, Brainy, J’onn. All people she felt were friends at best, and colleagues at worst, all of them had lied to her for years.
And Lena is heartbroken. But then she scolds herself for being weak, and the anger returns. She’s starting to ask herself just why she’s quite as heartbroken as she is. It’s been a sober experience realising that her feelings for Kara are slightly more complicated than perhaps she had realised. It makes her feel sick that the person she’d loved and trusted most in the world could ever betray her the way Kara did. Then she feels worse when she contemplates that ‘loved’ might actually translate to ‘in love with’.
It's been a vicious cycle of realisation, heartbreak and anger these last few weeks. If it hadn’t been for Sam and Jack; her two actual best friends in the whole world it turns out; she’s almost certain she would have lapsed into insanity. Some of the thoughts she’s had over these last few weeks have scared her. She’s found herself sympathising with Lex’s way of thinking. Maybe these aliens really shouldn’t be trusted. Every time she’s had a similar thought she’s had to shake it out of her head. She can’t fall into using her heartache as an excuse to try and do something ridiculous like seeking revenge, or trying to fix people. Or god forbid, to try and rid the world of aliens.
She sighs loudly and takes a swig from her glass of whisky. She’s been nursing it for an hour or so whilst trying to get some work done. Her thoughts have wandered, as is often the case on these late nights.
He attention is taken by the silhouette of Supergirl in the skyline. Theres that rage again. She feels her grip tighten around her glass. Her first instinct is to lob it at the window, but she’s working on her anger management, so she’s pleased with herself when she refrains. Progress.
Instead she whips her head away from the window and concentrates on the waste paper basket at the side of her desk. She’s really focusing on it, and trying to get her anger under control at the same time. Imagine her surprise when it bursts into flames. She stares at it, perplexed for a moment before she springs into action and grabs the fire extinguisher from the nearby closet. She makes light work of putting out the small bin fire, and then just stares at the remnants of the burnt paper and foam. “What the fuck?”
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It’s the following day and Lena is once again in her office. It’s around 6pm, so a more reasonable time for her to still be here. Sam Arias, her best friend and CFO of L-Corp strides in and drops down into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. She looks tired. It’s been a long week.
She lets herself relax into the chair slightly, before she gives Lena her full attention. “My mom is having Ruby. Let’s go out for dinner.”
Lena immediately feels dread fill her stomach. “Sam, I’m really far too…”
She’s about to say busy when Sam holds a hand up gesturing for her to stop. “Bullshit Lena. Even if L-Corp was run off its feet, which it isn’t by the way. You’ve been working non-stop for almost 4 weeks. You can’t keep this up. It’s not healthy.”
Lena pins her with a look. But she doesn’t speak. What would she even say. Sam’s right.
Sam takes the lack of verbal response as a good sign. “Just dinner Lena. Jack is going to meet us there, we eat, maybe even have a conversation. And when it’s over I’ll even drop you back here if you want. Although my personal advice would be that you go home and chill the fuck out for the evening.”
Lena shakes her head. “You know I can’t do that Sam.”
Sam does know, because if Lena is left with her thoughts for too long she starts to spiral, into an endless abyss of rage. It’s not healthy. “Shouldn’t it be getting better by now Lena?”
Lena’s grinds her teeth, it probably should. But her recent realisations about her real feelings for Kara offer an explanation for why the feelings aren’t subsiding perhaps as quickly as they should be. But she hasn’t told Sam about her epiphany. “Probably.”
Sam studies her friend. “Maybe a therapist will help?”
A therapist will just tell her what she already knows. “I’ve realised a few things recently about my relationship with…”
It’s still painful to say her name. it tastes funny in her mouth. She stutters around it. Sam takes pity on her. Her eyes full of remorse and understanding. “You’ve finally realised you’re in love with her huh?”
Lena’s head snaps up. Sam doesn’t look away. Of course Sam knows, which means Jack does too. She wonders if anyone else knows, which of her old friends? She assumes that Alex and Kelly probably did. Luckily there’s no chance Kara could have known, that girl is so oblivious when it comes to things like this. Lena just nods to the affirmative and then dissolves into tears.
Sam is around the desk and pulling her into a hug within 3.2 milliseconds. She hates what Kara has done to her friend, but she can’t help but feel a little relief at the sadness pouring out of Lena. It makes a nice change from anger which is all she’s had for the last four weeks.
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Due to Lena’s emotional breakdown, she manages to convince Sam and Jack to come over to her apartment, rather than eating out. She and Sam had headed there as soon as Lena had freshened up, and was able to leave her office past her assistant Jess without looking like she’d just had a severe emotional breakdown. Jack had picked the food up and then headed over.
They’re all currently sitting around the dining table at the billionaire’s penthouse. Lena has been pushing her salad around her plate still lost in her own thoughts. Jack and Sam have been exchanging worried glances.
Sam speaks. “You really do need to eat Lena.”
“Lilian would say I need to lose the weight.” Lena almost absentmindedly responses.
Sam sighs. “Yes, well Lilian is a total bitch. And as someone that actually loves you, I’m telling you, you need to eat.”
Lena makes a show of shoving some chicken into her mouth, chewing it and the opening her mouth to show Sam that she has actually eaten it. “Don’t be a dick.” Is the only response she gets from her oldest friend.
Lena smirks, but does start to actually eat. Truth be told, she hadn’t even realised she wasn’t eating. “Hey, how did you manage to convince Ruby to stay with your mom?.” Lena enquires after Sam’s 12 year old daughter, who she knows is not the biggest fan of her Grandmother.
Sam is delighted that Lena appears to be willing to chat. “You know having my mom move here was a stroke of genius. And Ruby is a child who does as she’s told.”
Lena pins Sam with a look that immediately tells her she doesn’t believe that for a second. Ruby might be the most independent one of them all. Sam relents. “Okay, I told her I needed to spend time with you. She’s a smart kid, she knows there’s been something up recently.”
Lena swallows the emotion she feel, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She can’t. “I’m sure Ruby is delighted to be spending some quality time with her Grandmother anyway.”
Sam laughs. “She’s almost a teenager, so she’s not capable of any positive emotions right now.”
Jack butts in at this point. “Sounds like Lena. Except the teenager part.”
He and Sam dissolve into giggles. “Yeah Lena, aren’t you a little old for all this now.”
Lena shakes her head but takes it in the good nature it’s intended. “Anyway. I wanted to talk to you two about something weird.”
This perks Jack up. “Oooooh. You know I love weird. Hit us with it.”
“The other day.” She begins. “I was in my office…” She pauses as she doesn’t know how to begin to explain what she was actually doing.
Jack, intrigued enough to try and get the story moving decides to help. “Having an existential crisis about your feelings for Kara. Yes…” He gestures with his hands for her to get on with the story.
Apparently her feelings have been obvious to Jack as well as Sam. Sam just rubs her shoulder for comfort, but clearly they both want her to get on with it. “Yes. I got angry.”
“Shock, horror.” Jack over exaggeratedly exclaims.
She ignores Jack this time. “…and rather than throw my whiskey glass through my office window.”
“Our girl is growing up.” Jack interrupts again.
Lena shoots him with a glare this time. “Do you want to know what happened or not?”
He holds his hands up in mock surrender. Lena continues. “I sort of stared at the bin in my office whilst I was trying to get my anger under control, and it kind of burst into flames.”
She looks at them both, but they just look confused. Sam eventually speaks. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said. The paper in the basket burst into flames and I had to put the fire out.”
Jack this time. “Are you sure there wasn’t something flammable already in the bin?”
“Like what Jack?” She can feel the anger rising in her again at the thought that her two friends clearly don’t believe what she’s telling them. She gets up and starts to pace.
Sam can tell she’s angry, but at the same time she knows her friend does not have the ability to set fire to things with her eyes. “Maybe it was just a coincidence. You were just looking at it, when something else set it alight. Maybe there was a cigarette butt in there or something. Really it’s a good thing you were looking at it, the whole of L-Corp tower could have gone up in flames.”
Lena stops pacing for a second, her hands firmly on her hips. “A cigarette butt?” she shakes her head her anger continuing to rise. After everything she’s been through with Kara lying to her, do these two really think she would lie to them? She’s made the mistake of thinking about Kara, meaning the Kara level anger is currently coursing through her veins. She takes a breath and closes her eyes trying regain some composure. When she opens them she’s looking at the take out wrappers strew across the other end of the table. It’s almost like she can’t look away.
Sam and Jack watch her, and both exclaim and jump to their feet when Lena’s eyes change colour to almost a burnt orange, and within a couple of seconds, the cardboard containers and papers wrappers all burst into flames.
“Jesus Christ.” Jack runs towards the kitchen to get Lena’s fire blanket to put the flames out. Sam goes to Lena. She starts to rub a hand on her back. “Lena calm down. Breathe.”
Eventually Lena does calm down and takes in the scene before her. Jack frantically patting down on top of the blanket to make sure the fire underneath is out. “Shit. I’m sorry. But that’s exactly how it happened the other night. I let the anger consume me and, boom, flames. Or was that a coincidence too?”
Sam smirks at her friends little dig. “Definitely not a coincidence. Lena your eyes literally turned orange.”
Jack nods along eagerly. “It was really hot, in a terrifying kind of way.”
“Gross.” Is Lena’s only response to that.
Sam bites her lip. “How do you feel about an evening of research. Let’s try and get to the bottom of what’s got you glowing up like an arsonist.”
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