A/N- warning: mentions/ light descriptions of past abuse. Lena Luthor needs a fucking hug. She gets one. Title from Teenagers by My Chemical Romance
...
Kara blushed a deep red as Alex handed a small photo to Lena. It was a wallet sized print, weathered and well loved, the ink rubbed away around the edges, "That was Kara in eighth grade, the first year that she was with us." Alex said fondly, "She had wanted that terrible haircut with the blunt bangs, god only knows why."
"Did your mom stick a bowl on her head to cut those?" Maggie joked, enjoying any opportunity she got to tease Kara.
The women laughed, Lena cooing over how cute her girlfriend had looked, "It's not that bad." She tried weakly to defend.
Kara chuckled, "That's sweet, but it's pretty dang bad."
"Trust me it could have been worse." Lena took a sip of her wine, placing the glass carefully back on the coaster on Kara's coffee table, "When I was in second grade I had a pixie cut, that was awful."
The Danvers sisters joined Lena in her laughter, "Why did you have a pixie cut? Your hair is so beautiful." Kara ran her fingers through said hair and Alex and Maggie exchanged amused looks at how cheesy the superhero was.
"Well I had this doll," Lena began to explain, "I loved her dearly and one day Lex was playing some science experiment game and he was using her as his subject. He ended up getting glue all in her hair and in all my eight year old wisdom I thought I could just give her a haircut and everything would be fine."
The other women laughed along with the smile playing at Lena's lips, and the brunette cherished this. This levity with which she was able to say her bother's name now, the syllable having become all the sweeter knowing how long it took for her to get here, "Well my mother saw the doll and she was furious. Said I needed to learn to take better care of my things as they were a reflection on myself and what sort of girl has a ratty doll with all hacked at hair. She was so mad she pulled all my hair up in a ponytail and chopped it clean off."
Lena chuckled, but the other three were exchanging loaded looks. The CEO swallowed nervously and continued, "Lex took me to a hairdresser the next day and she said the only thing she could do to fix it was cut it more. When I left my hair was even shorter than Lex's. The kids at school teased me for two years till it had grown out to my shoulders again, though their mean nicknames were lacking in sophistication."
Lena fell silent as she noticed that the others were all looking at her with peculiar expressions on their faces. Alex was the first to speak, ever the gentle older sister, "You know that's not okay. What Lillian did to you."
"She was just disciplining me." Lena said, the words to defend her mother rolled easily off her tongue but for the first time she was beginning to question them.
"But punishing a small child by cutting off their hair, that's sort of extreme." Maggie chimed in.
Kara stayed oddly quiet through the exchange. She knew that Lena didn't exactly have a happy childhood and that her relationship with Lillian wasn't exactly great, but she would have never guessed that the Luthor matriarch would have done something like this.
…
Kara and Lena were bustling about the kitchen, weaving between each other in a well practiced dance they had developed over the last few months living together. Lena tended the chicken on the stove while Kara busied herself with chopping vegetables for the salad the brunette had conned her into making. Maggie was in the living room, flicking through Netflix, looking for a movie that would elicit the least amount of complaining from the group. Alex was playing bartender, mixing margaritas in the blender even though Kara had already pointed out 'they so don't go with the rest of the meal'.
"Kara, can you put some rice on to cook?" Lena asked, waving her spatula vaguely in the direction of the pantry.
"Mhm." Kara hummed. She spun, setting out the rice cooker and crossing to the pantry. She grabbed the container of white grains and promptly slipped turning back. The rice slid from her fingers and not even her super speed could help her to catch it again before it hit the tiled floor and burst open. The lid flew from the plastic container and rice grains scattered everywhere.
"Smooth, super." Maggie teased from the front room.
"Oh balls." Kara muttered, "Don't worry, I'll clean it up. I think we've got some brown rice too."
The superhero was busy sprinting from the kitchen to grab the broom and dust pan, it was nearly a full minute before she noticed that Lena hadn't moved. The brunette was frozen at the stove, the spatula dangling limply from her fingers, her eyes glassy as they stared at the fallen rice.
"Lee?" Kara prompted gently, placing her hand on the shorter woman's elbow.
The contact seemed to snap the brunette out of her trance and she gave Kara a painfully fake smile, "Sorry, I'm fine."
"No, it's okay. What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Lena lied unconvincingly.
Kara wanted to press, she wanted to question the older woman until she cracked and finally told her all of the secrets Kara knew were hiding behind her practiced impassive mask. But she knew better.
Alex didn't, "Kara why don't you and Maggie go down to the corner store and grab more white rice? Brown won't go well with the margaritas."
"Margaritas won't go well with any of this."
Alex gave her sister a long practiced look that left no room for debate. Kara grabbed her coat and purse, "Let's go Sawyer."
The detective smirked, "As you say, kid."
Once the door clicked shut behind the pair, Alex waited a full five seconds before turning on the young CEO. All it took was a look before Lena sighed, her shoulders slumping in on herself, and her eyes dropping to the chicken on the stove.
In that moment she looked so incredibly young. Alex wanted to wrap her in a hug and tell her that nothing would ever hurt her again.
"When I was young, if I misbehaved, or rather I suppose I should say, if Lillian saw fit to punish me, there was this corner in the kitchen. She would sprinkle rice on the ground and have me kneel on it for hours. Nobody ever noticed because kids are supposed to have scabby knees."
Alex's heart clenched, "Lena-"
"No, I know it was screwed up, and I should have gotten over it years ago, but this is just so stupid." She laughed derisively, "So stupid, I break down at the sight of rice grains on the floor."
"It's not stupid, Lena, and it's not something you just get over."
Alex rounded the counter to stand beside Lena, she was still getting used to how the brunette needed to be comforted, afraid to cross a hidden barrier, but wanting to support the CEO. She had been reluctant to trust the youngest Luthor to begin with, but once she came around, she had been fiercely protective of the woman.
To her surprise, Lena dropped her spatula and took a step into Alex's personal space, "Can I-?" She trailed off uncertainly. The agent took her cue, opening her arms to fold the shorter woman in a hug.
She wrapped an arm around Lena's shoulders, the other running through her hair in a move that always comforted Kara when she was younger. Lena clung to her like a lifeline, her face nestled in the crook of Alex's neck, hating letting herself being vulnerable like this.
…
Years had passed, and Lena was healing. She and Kara had been together for five years, living together for three and a half, married for two, and were (if Kara got her way) about to adopt a puppy.
Alex and Maggie were married as well, and they had a Sunday ritiual- brunch and TV in alternating apartments. Today is The Great British Baking Show at Kara and Lena's. The Danvers sisters are sitting on the couch, heckling the contestants on the screen (they had been banned from ever being alone in the kitchen together after the pancake fire incident of June 2017) while Lena and Maggie are cooking.
"Isn't it weird how British people say 'lift' instead of 'elevator'?" Kara asks out of the blue.
"And how they say biscuit instead of cookie." Alex chimes in.
"Yeah, and how my mother says 'you're a disappointment' instead of 'I love you'." Lena adds under her breath.
Maggie is the only one who seems to hear, though by the way Kara's spine suddenly straightened, the superhero heard as well. The detective steps in though, "My mom preferred 'disgrace'." She whispered back.
Lena and Maggie share a knowing look. The detective reached over, placing a hand on Lena's where she was holding a whisk. She squeezed and gave her a gentle smile.
Kara and Alex had dissolved into bickering over something to do with the show, and life resumed.
…
One evening Alex visited Lena at work. Jess was gone, Lena probably having sent the secretary home hours ago, but the light was still on. The agent wandered into the office, expecting to find Lena with her nose buried in paperwork despite the late hour, but her desk was conspicuously empty. Alex looked all around the office, Lena wasn't anywhere to be seen and she suddenly had the entertaining image of the woman falling asleep on the ground beneath her desk after pulling a late night in the office.
When she was about to give up and leave, Alex caught sight of the open door leading to the balcony.
She found the CEO leaning against the railing, her hair and makeup still perfectly put together, a cigarette between her lips, and her cellphone in hand. Alex just stood and watched for a moment, Lena seemed lost in thought, staring at the phone, the cigarette burning down while dangling loosely from her mouth in a pose that was far too comfortable for this to be Lena's first time, though this was the first time Alex found out about the habit.
She finally made her presence known, coming to lean against the younger woman on the railing. Lena jumped slightly in surprise, nearly dropping her phone off the balcony as she simultaneously tried to put it away and take the cigarette out of her mouth. Alex raised an amused eyebrow at the move.
Lena stared back- deer in the headlights- until Alex smirked and the CEO blew out a lungful of smoke with an embarrassed chuckle.
"I don't normally smoke." Her voice was rougher around the edges, she sounded like tires on gravel.
"I'm not judging."
Lena blushed and gave up attempting to look innocent, rather she brought the cigarette back to her lips and took another drag. She let the smoke sit in her mouth a moment before inhaling it to her lungs and Alex couldn't help but think that Lena Luthor smoking on her balcony, backlit by the night lights of the city was a sight to behold.
They stood quietly for a while, Lena smoking, Alex sneaking sidelong glances at her. When Lena's cigarette had burned down to the filter, she lifted her foot and snubbed it out against the bottom of her heel. She tossed the butt into a nearby plant pot. Alex counted eight others.
Devoid of the cigarette, Lena's fingers drummed uncertainly against the railing. They seemed to itch for action. They threaded together, then broke apart, tapping out a quick and unsteady rhythm. Then as if suddenly making a decision, Lena pulled a red and white cardboard pack from the pocket of her suit jacket, tapped it against her palm, brought it to her mouth, catching a new cigarette between her teeth and pulling it out while producing a lighter. She lit the cigarette in an easy move, and God, Alex thought. It was women like Lena fucking Luthor doing things like that which should have made her realize she was gay long before she actually did. But she rolled her eyes internally, Lena and Kara had been married for three years (she and Maggie for four) and when she watched Lena's eyes close in relief after inhaling, she wanted to chastise the younger woman and lecture her on lung cancer. She didn't.
She didn't push Lena to talk, and after two drags, she was rewarded.
"Once, when I was sixteen and full of teenage angst over summer vacation, I took apart a disposable razor and drew lines across my ankles. I put on these high calf socks I stole from Lex and they rubbed and opened the cuts and I bled through them. Mother saw, made me take off the socks, and when she realized what I had done, she slapped me across the face." Lena said, calmly and deliberately.
She took another inhale, letting smoke slowly escape her mouth, "She had never struck me like that before."
Alex took a half step closer, laying a hand on Lena's elbow. The brunette smiled weakly, "That was when I learned that if I wanted to act out it would have to be in ways that didn't leave marks. I got a college boy I hooked up with to buy me cigarettes and for the whole summer I smoked like a chimney. I kicked it when I went back to boarding school, but sometimes when I get stressed, I relapse." She gestured unnecessarily at the burning stick between her fingers, "I smoked a pack nearly every finals period in college."
Alex wished, not for the first time to be able to go back. To rewind time and hold a young Lena Luthor in her arms, protect her, and tell her that one day, everything would work out.
But she couldn't, all she could do was try and comfort this Lena. The powerful CEO in a sharp skirt suit and designer heels (with cigarette ash on the bottom), the wife of her sister, god mother to her two dogs, one of the strongest people Alex had ever met.
"Kara, bless her, pretends not to notice, but I know she must." Lena added under her breath.
Alex nodded, she took the opportunity to shift to the heart of what she suspected was bothering the younger woman, "Kara told me the meeting went well."
Lena took a long inhale, not letting the smoke cool in her mouth before pulling it straight into her lungs, grimacing at the burn in her throat, "Yeah." She confirmed, blowing a thin stream of smoke at her feet, "It went really well. We had the first visit with um with her. All the background checks and that are done, the paperwork is being processed, but if everything runs smooth, it will be under a month."
"Which makes you feel?"
"Excited, obviously. It's what Kara and I have been waiting for for ages. It's amazing that it's finally happening." Lena's lips pulled into a thin line that Alex assumed was supposed to be a smile.
"Which is why you're chain smoking on your office balcony at ten at night." The detective said dryly.
Lena took in another breath of smoke as an excuse to think for a moment before replying, "Kara's been talking about adopting a kid and growing our family for the last three years, I'd do anything for her."
"That's not an answer."
Lena glared, but it held no real anger, "Honestly, I'm afraid." she whispered, "It's not like I've exactly had good parental role models and I'm just scared I'm going to screw this up. I don't know the first thing about being a mother."
"How did you feel?" Alex had gotten a whole run down of the visit with the adoption agency from her sister, though it was miles away from how this discussion was going, "When you held Spencer."
"Terrified." Lena's eyes were so vulnerable, "She was just so small and perfect."
Alex smiled softly, "Lena, you have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. You are going to love that baby dearly and that's all that matters. All parents mess up, but you and Kara together, are going to give that little girl the world. You are nothing like Lillian was." Tears were beginning to escape the corners of Lena's eyes at Alex's words, "You're going to be a great mother, Lena."
She pulled the shorter woman into a hug, holding her tight. They broke apart a few long moments later, and Alex clapped her gently on the shoulder.
"Now put out that cigarette, you smell like an ashtray, and go home to your wife."
The corner of Lena's lips pinched up in a small crooked smile. She snubbed the cigarette on the bottom of her heel and tossed it in the plant pot.
...
A/N- This started as something serious and turned into overly describing Lena smoking. I have no regrets.