Old Long Since

by DKGWrites

When Lena doesn't show up to the DEO New Year's Eve party, Supergirl goes looking for her. Though Lena tries to brush Supergirl off, Supergirl stays, and they have a bit of a heated conversation with a promising ending.

With a muffled thud, Supergirl landed on the balcony to Lena's office at L-Corp. She stared down at her own boots, a muted red in the subdued evening light. Only the stars and waning crescent moon above, and the soft glow from the office within provided light. Offices all around were mostly dark given the day and the hour. A few of the bigger ones were lit up in patriotic colors or with lights that spelled out various messages. A few stories below, the lights of L-Corp displayed '2018' and were set to automatically switch over to '2019' at the stroke of midnight.

With a tinfoil covered plate in one hand, Supergirl adjusted her cape and ran a hand through her that cascaded over her shoulders before she tapped lightly on the glass. Inside, sitting at her desk, Lena stiffened. She took a deep breath before turning and studying the uniformed hero on the other side of the glass. Even as Supergirl smiled and waved, pointing to the slider as if for permission, Lena just narrowed her eyes and stared. It was several long, squirm-inducing seconds before the young CEO rose and slid the glass door half-open.

"Supergirl," Lena said coolly in the way of greeting.

"Hey." Supergirl's smile grew as she rocked back and forth from toe to heel. "You didn't show at the DEO New Year's party."

"I'm aware."

"Lena, you told Alex you were going to be there."

"No, I told Director Danvers I'd be there when my work was done. I run a multi-billion dollar international company. My work is never done."

Supergirl opened and closed her mouth several times, perhaps to argue or cajole, but instead smiled again and held her plate covered hand forward. "I brought you some food from the party."

"Oh, you didn't need to—"

"People insisted. Everyone misses you."

Softening slightly, Lena pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped back. "Won't you come in?"

"Thanks." Supergirl cleared the threshold and entered the office, taking in the sight of the lit up laptop and the piles of paper on Lena's desk. "Oh, you are busy at work."

Lena nodded, taking the proffered plate and returning to her seat as she peeled off the aluminum foil cover. "Of course, I am. What did you think I was doing here?"

"Honestly? I thought you were avoiding me."

Lena quipped an eyebrow as she pulled open a drawer and grabbed plasticware. "And your response to that was to come over here and confront me?"

"To bring you food." Supergirl smiled, leaning down slightly as she tried to catch Lena's gaze which was firmly affixed on the plate in her hand. "It's a peace offering."

"Peace?" Lena stabbed some homemade mac-n-cheese and hummed slightly with pleasure as she chewed.

"You know, out with the old and in with the new."

Finally, Lena looked up and met Supergirl's gaze. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

"It means I want to…" Supergirl cut herself off, eyes imploring but only meeting unyielding green in return. Looking away, Supergirl's face lit up. "Hey, champagne." She grabbed the bottle on Lena's desk by the neck, hoisting it into the air and holding it out. "You have champagne."

"Again, your powers of observation astound."

Supergirl chuckled, ignoring the shade thrown in her direction. "Were you planning on sitting here and drinking this all alone?"

"No, that was a gift from a potential investor. Jess left it on my desk. I was planning on working tonight. You know, bring in the new year the way you want to spend the rest of your year."

"Alone in a penthouse office… working?"

"Success comes at a cost, Supergirl. Surely you know that."

"I do, but sometimes that cost feels to steep to pay."

This time as Supergirl held Lena's gaze, something changed in the other woman's face. Lena's mouth relaxed, releasing the frown she'd had in place since Supergirl's arrival, and her eyes seemed to soften.

As the mood in the air shifted, Supergirl held out the bottle in her hand once again. "Hey, let's drink this. You know, toast in the new year."

"It's warm. Only college kids drink warm champagne, and they have to be already drunk to do so."

"That sounds like the voice of experience speaking."

"I had my first Doctorate at the age of nineteen. I spent my nights and weekends in the engineering lab, not at frat parties."

"Well, then, I guess it's time to change that." Supergirl released a blast of cold air onto the bottle, frosting it with ice. "Where do you keep your glasses?"

Lena hesitated before sighing. "At the bar. I don't have any proper champagne flutes here—"

"These will work." Supergirl was gone and back before Lena could finish that thought, two tumblers resting on her stretched-out hand.

Now seemingly resigned to company, Lena took the glasses from the hero and placed them down on the desktop.

"I'm really good at this, just watch," Supergirl said as she unwrapped and unwired the cork before popping it into the air with a casual flip of her thumb. As the bubbles began to erupt, she was quick to pour the champagne into the awaiting glasses, not spilling a drop.

"Very nicely done," Lena said as she took the glass Supergirl offered her. "Is your secret identity perhaps a sommelier?"

"A what?"

"I'll take that as a no." She stared at the bubbles running up the side of her glass. "To what should we toast?"

"New beginnings?" Supergirl suggested, holding out her glass.

Lena nodded, tapping her glass to Supergirl's before taking a sip and mumbling, "And strange bedfellows."

Mid-sip, Supergirl choked, forcing the champagne down to keep from spewing it all over. Still, her eyes were red, and she coughed to fully clear her throat.

"Are you alright?"

Supergirl nodded and coughed again before smiling sheepishly over at Lena, "Yeah, it was just what you said."

"Strange bedfellows?"

Eyes wide, Supergirl nodded.

"Oh, well, it's just an expression."

"I know that. I know you didn't really mean…" Blushing, Supergirl turned her head away.

"Well, thank you for the food and chilled champagne," Lena said as she placed her glass on her desk, "but I should really get back to work."

"But the ball is going to drop soon." Supergirl grabbed the remote from Lena's desk, turning on the screen hanging from the wall which immediately brought them the goings on at Glenmorgan Square in Metropolis. "You don't want to miss that."

"Thank you," Lena said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Have a safe flight… wherever."

Dismissed, Supergirl walked back toward the balcony. She paused at the threshold, one set of booted toes sticking out into the night. With a decisive squaring of her shoulders, Supergirl closed the slider as she turned back into the room.

"I don't want this."

A single grape between thumb and forefinger, Lena looked up from her plate. "Excuse me?"

"I don't want to fight with you anymore."

"We haven't been fighting."

"It feels like it."

Lena popped the grape into her mouth, chewing as she stared down the Girl of Steel. "Trust me, Supergirl, if we ever fight, you'll know it. All of National City will know it." Taking in Supergirl's wide-eyed reaction, Lena rose with her arms outstretched, palms forward and hands waving slightly. "No, I… That's not what I meant. That wasn't a threat of Luthoresque proportions. I just meant I wouldn't be subtle."

"And this has been subtle? The shoulder you've been giving me is colder than the breath I blew on the champagne bottle."

With an eye roll, Lena took a seat on the edge of her desk again. Arms crossed, she thrust out her chin. "With good reason."

"Argh. Yes, I messed up. I made a mistake, one mistake with you, and you want to destroy our relationship over it."

"Don't be so dramatic. We've continued to work together for the good of this city, this planet. Nothing has changed."

"Everything has changed. You don't look at me the way that you used to."

Sitting on the edge of her desk, her weight shifted back on her hands, Lena said, "With hero worship through rose-colored glasses?"

"With caring, with respect, with… You used to want to be around me, and now it's like you can't wait to get me out of your sight. I want things back the way they used to be."

"You can't go backward."

"Fine, then let's move forward." Supergirl stepped forward into Lena's personal space. "Lena, don't let what happened ruin what we had, what we could have. Don't let your anger destroy us."

"I'm not angry."

"You could have fooled me."

"You'll know my anger if you ever meet it, Supergirl. What I am is hurt, disappointed, disillusioned."

"By me?"

"Yes."

"Because you found out I'm fallible?" When Lena hesitated, Supergirl added, "You've accused me of having a god complex, but I've only fallen in your eyes because you put me on a pedestal. I didn't fly up there on my own, Lena. I'm only—"

"Human?"

"In the ways that matter, yes. It's not fair to hold me to higher standards just because I'm not."

"I'm not holding you to higher standards," Lena retorted. "I'm holding you to the same standards of everyone in my life who only treated me like a friend or like family until I wasn't useful to them anymore. You turned your back on me and—"

"No! I have always believed in you, always protected you. It's unfair of you to react like this because I made one little mistake out of fear."

"Oh, the great Supergirl gets scared?"

"Of course, I get scared. I'm only… you know."

"Look, Supergirl, I get it. You've told me before how kryptonite makes you feel, and I've told you my opinion on that. Everyone in this world feels pain. You need to stop thinking your vulnerability makes you special."

"That's not it, Lena. It's not just the physical pain. Kryptonite it…" Supergirl walked back to the glass slider, staring out and up into the sky. "I want it."

"You want kryptonite?"

"Desperately," Supergirl replied with a heavy sigh. "It represents what I lost, a piece of my world and all the people that were destroyed. The only thing more painful than holding a piece of your ruined planet in your hand is not being able to do so. Do you have any idea what it's like to not even be able to be in the same room with the only bits of your home you have left?"

There was an extended silence, and then Lena whispered, "I do."

Supergirl turned, staring at Lena who seemed to have shrunk in on herself, the proud CEO, the last standing Luthor shed like long-worn clothes to reveal just Lena.

"I miss my brother every day, but even if I were to visit him in prison, he wouldn't be there. There would just be this shell, this taunting reminder of everything I loved spewing venom at me. I may not understand the loss you've experienced, but I understand what it means for the thing you miss most in this world to be your undoing."

Supergirl crossed the room to stand within easy touching distance of Lena. "I'm so sorry about your brother. That must be awful."

Lena reached up, wiping a tear from under Supergirl's eye with her thumb. "I'm so sorry about your world."

Ducking her head, Supergirl wiped at her eyes. When she looked up, though her eyes were still bleary, she had managed to smile. "Look at us, crying out the end of 2018."

In the background, a loud chant counting down the seconds until 2019 began. "Ten, nine…"

"Well, crying was definitely a tradition in the Luthor household. Usually, it was the help crying after interacting with my mother."

"Do you always have to do that, make jokes about how awful things are?"

"My coping mechanism has always been a lovely combination of compartmentalization and avoidance. It was hardly therapist approved, but it got me through the day."

"Seven, six…"

"What about sharing and honesty?"

"Not a Luthor tradition… unless you count my mother sharing about what a disappointment I am."

Reaching out, Supergirl took Lena's hand in hers. "You're amazing, you know that, right?"

"I'll settle for not being a villain… another Luthor tradition."

"Four, three…"

"It's about to be 2019. Maybe you should start a new family tradition."

"Like what?"

Cupping Lena's face in her hands, Supergirl stepped closer. She paused, waiting for dissent, for Lena to pull away, but when the other woman just stared up with emerald eyes, Supergirl leaned in. Even as the ball dropped and the streets outside erupted into cheers, their lips pressed together. It lasted perhaps two or three seconds, a kiss neither long nor passionate, but it was memorable.

As she pulled back, Supergirl's eyes widened, and she stepped away. "I'm so sorry."

Lena placed her fingertips on her own lips.

"I shouldn't have. I don't know what I was… There's a siren… somewhere in the world. Crime. Bye!"

Within the blink of an eye, Supergirl was gone leaving a rather stunned Lena Luthor to gaze into the night's sky.

"I guess the party's over," Supergirl said as she landed in the mostly deserted DEO.

"Well, you missed the end of it," Alex replied, her eyes slightly glazed over and her words slurred. "Brainy out drunk everyone because he's a cheater pants, and James went home with Agent Takamoto."

"Oh, well then I guess he's over the breakup."

Alex shrugged. "He seems to be. Lena and James were kind of a weird couple anyway, don't you think?"

Supergirl didn't reply, just smiled and stared intently at her boots.

"What kept you so long? I thought you were going to drop off food with Lena and then come back before the ball dropped. Was there an emergency?"

"No, nothing like that. I stopped off at L-Corp, and Lena was locked away working like you'd expect. I tried to talk to her, and we sort of got into an argument."

Alex groaned. "About what?"

"At this point, I think we're just arguing about arguing. We may have made some headway though. We both opened up a bit, and then left things on an… interesting note."

"So is that good?"

"Maybe?" Supergirl sighed. "I was coming straight back here, but then something else happened, and I needed time to think. I flew around for a while before coming back here."

"Kara, I'm far too drunk for you to be this cryptic. What happened?"

"When I left L-Corp, Lena texted me."

A bit more alert, Alex asked, "Lena has your cell number?"

"No, not this me me, other me me. She didn't text me Supergirl me. It was me Kara me… that me."

"Stop it. You're making me dizzier than the booze did. What did Lena want?"

Kara unlocked her phone, a short text stream from that night lighting up the screen, and handed it over to her sister.

Lena: "Kara, Happy New Year."

Lena: "I hope 2019 brings you all the joy and happiness you deserve.

Kara: "Alex says you didn't show up at her office party."

Kara: "I hope u didn't spend New Year's Eve alone in ur office working."

Lena: "Close but not quite."

Lena: "Supergirl showed up, and we talked."

Lena: "Something happened, and it made me think of you."

Lena: "Maybe we could catch lunch tomorrow. I've been avoiding this for a while, and I need to talk to you."

Kara: "I'll check my schedule."

Brows furrowed, Alex handed back the phone. "So she wants to have lunch. You guys do that all the time. What's the big deal?"

"You know how I told you things between me and Lena ended on an interesting note?"

"Yeah."

"And you know how Lena said that something happened and it made her think of me?"

"Again, yes. I'm not that drunk."

"Well," Supergirl smiled, her hand squeezing the back of her neck, "you know that Earth custom of kissing someone on New Year's at the stroke of midnight?"

"Sure, how do you think James and Takamoto—" Alex stiffened, rubbing her hands over her face as she groaned. "Kara, you didn't."

"Only sort of."

"God, now I wish I had more to drink," Alex sighed. "How do you 'sort of' kiss someone?"

"Sort of with my lips?"

There were several seconds of silence before Alex said, "You know what, I hid a dozen doughnuts in the back of a bottom cabinet in the pantry. Why don't you grab those, and then fly me home so I can start a pot of coffee. We need to talk about this, and we can't do it with me this drunk and your stomach less than full."

"Thanks."

As Supergirl headed to the pantry, Alex said, "Supergirl, do you regret it?"

"Regret what?"

"The kiss."

"Yes," Supergirl replied immediately, "I regret not having done it a year ago."

Alex nodded, and when the other woman left the room, grabbed a mostly empty beer from the nearby table. She held it up as she looked at the remainders of people in Metropolis still celebrating. "Welcome, 2019. It looks like you're going to be an interesting year."