Chapter Text
Lena tells herself she’s only stopping by the Tower because she forgot to send Kara the updated schematics for the dampening interface. It’s a reasonable excuse. Responsible. Normal. The kind of thing friends do when their lives aren’t quietly orbiting each other like unstable celestial bodies.
She doesn’t expect to stay long.
The elevator ride up is quiet, humming softly beneath her boots. Lena reviews the talking points in her head. She will drop off the data. She will exchange pleasantries. She will leave before her brain can spiral into places it has no business going.
The doors open.
She hears it before she sees anything.
A deep, resonant thud reverberates through the level. Metal meeting force. Not explosive, not chaotic. Controlled. Repeated. Accompanied by a steady rhythm of breath that makes something low and unwelcome coil in her stomach.
Lena slows.
Another impact. Another exhale.
She follows the sound down the corridor, heels suddenly far too loud against the polished floor. The training room doors are open, light spilling out into the hall. She reaches them just as another blow lands, harder this time, and the reinforced steel wall visibly shudders.
Lena stops short.
Kara is mid-motion.
Not floating. Not posturing. Not performing for an audience. She’s grounded, feet planted wide, shoulders rolling as she pivots into the next strike. Her movements are fluid and devastating in equal measure, every muscle engaged without hesitation or apology.
There’s no restraint.
No careful calibration meant to protect the room or the people around her. No deliberate softening of posture to make herself smaller, safer, more palatable.
This is not Supergirl in a city street, pulling punches around fragile humans.
This is Kara alone, uncontained, letting her body do what it was built to do.
Lena’s breath catches.
She’s seen Supergirl fight more times than she can count. She’s watched her smile through impossible odds, watched her lift buildings and throw herself into danger with reckless compassion. She’s hugged Kara Danvers, felt her warmth, her gentleness, the careful way she holds herself around others.
She has never seen this.
Kara moves again, sweat darkening the fabric of her training shirt, clinging instead of hiding. Muscles flex and release beneath the material, not exaggerated, just… inevitable. Her shoulders roll with each strike, power traveling cleanly through her frame like gravity made visible.
And suddenly the line Lena has spent years maintaining collapses.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
It simply ceases to exist.
This body has always been hers.
Not borrowed. Not performed. Not divided between identities. The strength, the control, the sheer physical certainty of her is not something Kara puts on when the world needs saving. It is something she carries all the time, whether she allows it to show or not.
The realization lands hard enough to make Lena dizzy.
Her gaze betrays her.
She tracks the way Kara’s forearms tighten as she grips a weight meant for gods, veins standing out briefly before disappearing again beneath skin. Watches the way her back moves when she resets her stance, controlled and devastatingly beautiful, each motion precise without ever feeling restrained.
Lena realizes she’s holding her breath.
Heat curls low in her abdomen, sharp and unwelcome and achingly familiar. She has always been attracted to Supergirl. She isn’t delusional. Who wouldn’t be. That attraction was easy to compartmentalize. Abstract. Distant. A fantasy safely removed from the reality of loving Kara Danvers.
This is different.
This is Kara Danvers allowing herself to be fully present in her own strength.
And Lena is not handling it well.
Another strike lands. Kara exhales, rolls her neck, then stills.
She doesn’t startle when she turns. She never does.
Her eyes find Lena instantly, blue bright with exertion, hair pulled back and damp at the temples. She smiles, easy and familiar, like she hasn’t just dismantled Lena’s internal architecture with her bare hands.
“Hey,” Kara says. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
Lena swallows. Forces oxygen back into her lungs.
“Clearly,” she manages, her voice steady through sheer force of will. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not,” Kara says, wiping her forearm across her brow in a gesture that should be illegal. “I was just finishing up a set.”
She says it casually. Like she hasn’t been shaking the walls.
Kara sets the weights down with deliberate care and turns fully toward her, posture relaxed now but no less imposing for it. Lena becomes painfully aware of the distance between them. Or rather, how little of it there actually is.
“I’ve been training more,” Kara continues, rolling her shoulders again, stretching without a hint of self-consciousness. “Figured it was time to stop holding back so much.”
Lena’s pulse spikes.
“Oh,” she says, brilliantly articulate. “I see.”
Kara grins, something bright and pleased flickering across her face. “Feels good, actually.”
She stretches again, arms lifting, fabric pulling across her torso in a way that should not be allowed to exist unobserved. Lena’s gaze drops before she can stop it. She does not look away quickly enough.
Something in Kara’s expression shifts. Not surprise. Not embarrassment.
Awareness.
It’s subtle, but Lena catches it. A pause. A fractional tilt of Kara’s head. Her smile softens, edges sharpening with something unreadable.
“Did you need something?” Kara asks, gently.
Lena forces herself to remember why she came. She lifts the data drive in her hand like a shield. “Tech updates. I can… leave them with you and–”
“Stay,” Kara says lightly, already moving closer. “I could use company.”
The invitation is casual. Friendly. Completely devastating.
Lena opens her mouth to respond. To deflect. To be sensible.
“Yes,” she says instead.
She doesn’t remember deciding.
Kara’s smile widens, bright and unguarded, and she gestures toward the mat beside her. Lena steps forward on legs that feel strangely unsteady, her body buzzing with a dangerous, exhilarating clarity.
She thinks distantly, I am not surviving this.
And, horrifyingly, she doesn’t want to.