Chapter Text
Clock strikes upon the hour
And the sun begins to fade
Still enough time to figure out
How to chase my blues away
I’ve done alright up ‘til now
It’s the light of day that shows me how
And when the night falls
Loneliness calls.
Bootstraps – I wanna dance with somebody.
Lena sighed as Jess closed the door behind her.
It was the end of the day and beside Marcus the security guard stationed at the front desk and Joe the janitor somewhere in the building; Lena was alone. L.Corp always felt heavier at this time of day when there was no one around for her to maintain the CEO persona she had by now perfected. It was so much easier to pretend when they were people around.
She was familiar with the waltz of phone calls and meetings, paperwork and press conferences. It was easy not to crumble under the weight of the Luthor name when she had people coming in and out of her office, reports to check, prototypes to validate, endless paper to sign. It made it easier to forget how much she felt like a fraud in her own skin.
Lena was tired. There was still so much to do. The company had lost an investor today. They hadn’t shared her vision. Stuck in the old ways of Luthor Corp, they refused Lena’s change of policy. They both wanted to produce defensive technologies but Lena had wanted to orient her research toward protection: defensive type shields, armors for the government that could withstand alien’s attacks. Anything that could give the humans a chance of survival against the brute force they were witnessing more and more each day. While Lex’s old partners were still aiming for an offensive type of technology, believing that the best defense was to attack first. Lena knew she was toeing a fine line. The alien detection device was a fine example of that want for protection and aggressive transgression of people’s right. Her hands were bounds; Lena had been forced to compromise. In spite of being CEO, changing the name of the company and moving cities; Lena was very much at the mercy of those old sharks that still hold an influence over the funding of the company. They were waiting for her to make a mistake, scheming behind her back to get the company back under her brother’s vision. Lena knew she had to get rid of those vultures if she truly wanted to change things around.
What they didn’t know was that Lena was a patient woman. She knew how to pick her fights; she never revealed her hand before making a move and by the time they realized something had changed, it would be too late. Lena had already put everything in motion, leaving them behind to catch up. She was good at playing these types of games and even though her mother and Lex might never acknowledge it; Lena knew she made a damn good Luthor. All these years under the Luthor’s household had taught her to be cunning, relentless, cut-throat and proud. If anything, Lex’s attempts on her life were the best acknowledgements she could hope for. She was now a worthy opponent, a threat big enough for him to ignore or brush aside. Like he often did when they were kids, she was always the one chasing him, begging him to include her in his games and she always was so happy when he would nod, giving her pieces of Lego for them to build planes and castles.
It had pained her to realize that he had not loved her as much as she had loved him. The memories they shared and that she still cherished was not enough to deter him from his destructive path. She had tried so hard to help him, steer him back to her, to the genius, hopeful boy he used to be. She had been burned by his intensity, the madness she could read in his eyes when he couldn’t bent something to his will. She witnessed, first hand, the long hours he spent in his lab trying to recreate Superman’s abilities in pieces of technology. And when he couldn’t, she had, in a misguided sense of loyalty, turned blind eyes on his experimentations, his weapons laced with a green substance that could bring a Super down. His obsession with Superman was too great to be reasoned with, his quest for power too consuming to hear the pleas of his sister. Lena had watched helplessly the first person who had made her feel loved and less alone descends into a kind of feverish madness but she had refused to fall with him. Lena left and severed all ties with Lex. Lena understood now, that she couldn’t change anyone. Sometimes people are just bad. The only thing she could do was to protect herself.
Lena Luthor was a force to be reckoned with. A Luthor never gives up. A Luthor never falter. To be a Luthor is to be a weapon made sharp, cold steel and deadly aim. They fought with all they had, their blood singing with rage in the sunlight, challenging the world until their last breath. The power, the shame, the ambition and loneliness were always more bearable in the light of day when she had everything to prove, when everything had to be build back up from scratch.
Lena turned toward her window and watched the last sunlight slowly fade away from National City, taking away all of her strength, all of the heat. Lena dreaded the darkness of the night and the cold she could feel settle deeply inside her bones.
Past midnight, Lena could no longer justify staying in her office. Everything was in order for the next day, reports signed, numbers checked and sent away to the finance department. She left, waving a quick goodnight to Marcus and asked her chauffeur to drive to her apartment. The silence was oppressing. It made her nervous, Lena look at her phone debating if it was too late to call a certain reporter.
Kara Danvers had been a recent development she never saw coming. They weren’t friends. Lena didn’t like to blur the lines; she made a point to be professional with everyone in her workspace and especially reporters, however cute they may be. Their numerous encounters and interviews always felt charged. There was a sense of danger, a thrill thrumming in her veins every time Lena saw her. It felt like a dance. The pushing and the pulling. Kara Danvers came into her building exuding so much warmth, Lena felt drawn like a moth to a flame.
Lena was no fool. She knew that as soon as the night falls, she would cave in. She craved Kara’s warmth too much to delude herself into thinking she had any other choice but to surrender.
“Goodnight, Miss Luthor,” said her chauffeur as he opened the car door for her, offering his hand to help her step out of the car. Lena was so lost in her thoughts; she hadn’t realized they were already in front of her building. Luke had been her chauffeur as long as she could remember; he was from the military, coming back from duty looking for a job. It was Lionel Luthor that had assigned him to her when she was twelve and went away to boarding school. He’d been her chauffeur/bodyguard ever since. Lena took his hand gratefully, squeezing it fondly. “Thank you, Luke. Goodnight.”
Lena dialed Kara’s number as soon as she reached her floor, waiting anxiously for the reporter to answer. They never defined their relationship. As much as she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care, Lena always feared that Kara would stop answering her call. Lena didn’t call often. Maybe once every two weeks when she could no longer ignore the cold gripping her heart and was desperate for the light and warmth Kara seemed to exude in quantity. She just wanted to bask in it. Kara had yet to refuse her call.
Lena opened the door of her apartment. It was dark and too big for one person. The harsh and gripping cold closed around her throat. “Lena?” The air around her suddenly got warmer as Kara’s voice rushed over her.
Lena smiled. “Hi,” she exhaled softly like a confession. A white flag. Lena knew she didn’t have to say anything else. Kara would understand her terms of surrender. Lena was no longer a weapon; she was just Lena, a being full of want, need and longing.
“I’ll be here in ten,” Kara said quickly. Lena heard the rustling of fabric before the reporter hang up. Lena chuckled, quickly disposing of her bag and heels. She shrugged her coat carelessly on the couch; walking toward her bedroom she put away her rings, necklace and earrings with efficiency. She dashed quickly to the bathroom to remove her make-up and pulled at the hair band that maintained her perfect and polished ponytail.
True to her words, Lena heard a faint knock at her door. Lena knew Kara couldn’t possibly cross the city to her apartment in ten minutes. It was humanly impossible. Fear was a powerful thing. Lena wasn’t afraid of who Kara might really be. She had watched enough videos of Supergirl trying to guess the components of her suit not to remark the striking resemblance between the superhero and the reporter. Not that Kara wasn’t good at hiding her identity; no one would have thought that the bubbly, clumsy reporter and confident, larger than life superhero were one and the same. Admittedly, Lena had a few additional hints like the time Kara had bent the metal headboard of her bed with one hand during a particularly intense orgasm or how Kara could undress the both of them in a blink of an eye when Lena didn’t call for awhile. It was relatively easy to put two and two together when the reporter wasn’t even trying to hide her abilities while they were together under the cover of darkness. Lena was afraid that if she shined a light on it, then everything would change. Lena would lose everything. She had to convince herself that having Kara like this was enough.
Lena quickly opened the door revealing a smiling reporter in a hoodie and sweatpants, soft and warm. Seeing Kara like this always brought a feeling of safety and comfort, Lena could already feel the anxiety slowly quiet down, pushed back to the far end of her mind.
“Hi,” Kara whispered, letting herself in, prying the door handle from Lena’s frozen fingers and closed the door. Lena breathed deeply, her body slowly becoming loose in Kara’s light. Lena smiled in relief as Kara quickly put her shoes away and walked into her space, a hand on her jaw another to her waist, Kara slowly reduced the distance to nonexistent and Lena wouldn’t have it any other way. Lena pressed her forehead against Kara’s, her arms coming up to Kara’s neck as her hands tangled in her gold hair. The stress of the day started to melt away. Kara was the sun and Lena chased after her lips desperately.
It felt good. Kara’s kisses were scorching a path down Lena’s frozen skin, warming up her lips, her jaw, cheeks and throat. It was heavenly. It was everything Lena needed. Someone to chase the cold away. The heat of Kara’s embrace never failed to thaw at those Luthor’s bones; it made her loose and sluggish. It called to a part of her that lay dormant and forgotten, a deep, all-consuming desire to feel alive; Lena was burning with hunger and Kara was all too eager to satiate it.
Lena made quick work of Kara’s hoodie and bra and pinned her forcefully to the front door. She kissed every inch of skin uncovered, marking Kara’s skin with bruises that would disappear all too quickly, as if they were never there in the first place. But it didn’t stop her from trying and judging by the moans coming out of Kara’s throat; Kara wasn’t complaining either.
“Bed?” Lena heard Kara ask out of breath as Lena slowly kissed a path down her stomach.
“Too far,” Lena answered as she kissed along the hem of Kara’s pants. Tugging at it slowly, she looked at Kara for confirmation; Kara nodded threading her fingers slowly through Lena’s hair.
“They are so soft. I like it,” Kara whispered.
Lena smiled taking away Kara’s pants. “You are always welcome to use my conditioner after we are finished.” Kara nodded, looking a bit stunned as Lena bit Kara’s inner thigh playfully, soothing it quickly with kisses. Having Kara like this never failed to amaze Lena. It was intoxicating. Lena felt like she was burning with a Kara induced fever. It made her greedy. It made her chase for something she was always too afraid to have. A feeling she had yet to name, that made her bury herself into Kara’s heat, stealing Kara’s warmth and breath with her fingers, a hungry mouth, a flick of a tongue. Lena stored it deep inside her for the next night when the cold would creep back into her bones; for when her mask would be too heavy to carry.
It was easy to lose herself inside the inferno that was Kara’s body, her cries of pleasure, her undulating hips and grabbing hands as she pushed Lena’s head closer, deeper into her. It made Lena forget the hurt of the past, the weight of the Luthor legacy. It was like someone had heard and answered the call of her lonely heart. Lena couldn’t get enough of that. Suddenly, she felt Kara tense, her breath stopping for one, two, three seconds before her body collapsed on itself. Head thrown back, her throat widely exposed and heaving chest; Lena never saw something so beautiful.
Lena kissed her way back up to Kara’s lips, sucking greedily the remnants of energy: the giggles, the delirious happiness, the fevered heat that still lingered on her lover’s lips. Lena didn’t want to let go. If she had any say in this, Lena would never let her go. But tonight, she didn’t have to make that choice as she was suddenly thrown on her bed, a few doors down the hall, naked, a smirking Kara hovering over her. Kara smiled before capturing Lena’s exhale of surprise with a kiss. She felt Kara’s thigh in between her legs and Lena forgot all about letting go.
“We need to talk about this, Lena.” She heard Kara whisper into her skin, the words burying themselves into the back of her neck.
The night was ending; Lena could see it from her window. “Why?”
Lena felt Kara sighed into her hair, pressing Lena’s back firmly against her chest before she could put some distance between them. “Why did you call me? What happened?”
Lena stayed silent. But it was so hard to have Kara warming all of her body and having to stay cold and silent. Lena didn’t know how to share without cutting herself around the edges of her own walls. She felt Kara kiss the skin at the back of her ear and Lena slowly melt again. “We lost an investor,” Lena breathed quietly. “I am sure that two others will follow by the end of the week…” Lena turned in Kara’s arms and pressed her forehead against Kara’s. She hoped to steal a bit of that courage, that infallible hope the superhero was so willing to give to others. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can,” Kara whispered fiercely, caressing Lena’s jaw, chasing away the cold before it could settle in her body. “I believe in you.”
Lena looked into Kara’s eyes and only saw comfort, a quiet kind of determination that burned all the way down to her toes. Lena kissed Kara slowly, savoring the hope and confidence on her lips.
“Are we going to have that conversation now?” Kara asked between kisses. Lena swallowed Kara’s weak protest with kisses and wandering hands. She didn’t want to worry about it. Not now that the darkness of the sky was slowly fading into pinkish hues.
Lena was a Luthor after all. She might not share Lex’s madness and hunger for power but she does share his fascination for beautiful and vibrant beings. Kara was the brightest of them all. Lena very much feels like Icarus, as Kara settles on top of her, drunk and blind flying closer and closer toward the sun.