I was originally going to post this chapter and the next as a single unit, but I ultimately felt better separating them. The tone between them is really different, y'know?

Also, trigger warning for (past) internalized homophobia, and some mental health issues.


This was getting ridiculous.

"This is getting ridiculous." -Alex noted, leaning on the corner of the hallway leading up to the door to Lena's room, in front of which Kara had been standing for over fifteen minutes.

Kara winced. Alex rolled her eyes fondly. "I doubt she'll bite, Kara. Unless you want her to, that is."

The blonde blushed. "Not helping!" -she hissed, floating over to her sister.

Alex raised her hands. "Alright, I won't tease you. Just remember, your team's waiting for you."

"What do you mean? There isn't a team." -she said, managing a cheeky smirk. "We just happen to be a small group of mostly superpowered concerned citizens."

"Ha-ha. Don't worry, smart-ass." -she retorted. "I know you guys are onto something, so I'll try to keep S.H.I.E.L.D. off your back. I doubt Sitwell's team is gonna get anything done before you, anyway."

Kara frowned. "Sitwell? I saw him earlier, but I just figured he was helping with the setup...what's he doing leading the Centipede investigation?"

"Hell if I know." -Alex admitted. "He's never really been more than an excellent information analyst. I'll try to look into that, too."

"Something about this feels wrong." -Kara said.

Alex put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You mean besides the fact that Fury is stepping all over you guys? Don't worry about that. Just get some results and he'll have to come around."

"Yeah, well. He better. He owes me, after having the sword made."

The brunette nodded, expressionless. "Agreed. Now, go on, get your talk on."

Kara nodded resolute, then floated back to the door. After a moment's hesitation, she knocked, as lightly as possible. Alex gave her a final, affectionate roll of her eyes, then left as the door slid open.

"Oh, Kara." -Lena said, clearly surprised. She was dressed in gym-appropriate clothing, clad in a black sports bra and matching running shorts. Kara wasn't sure why; obviously, she hadn't been outside her room for a while. "I didn't think you'd be visiting. Come in."

The kryptonian offered a small, blushing smile, then walked inside. The room was spartan, devoid of any decoration. Her own had come prefilled with her stuff, courtesy of Tony; it seemed odd that Lena hadn't done anything with her room in a week. The blonde sat on Lena's bed, which seemed untouched. Kara took a moment to really examine the new features on Lena's body as the brunette turned to grab a water bottle from the nearby dresser. Along the sides of her arms and legs were large, permanent needle scars, courtesy of the medical exoskeleton she'd worn. The alien device that'd held the Centipede serum clung to her spine, its amber colored contents still glowing slightly.

"How're you doing?" -Lena asked, opening the bottle of water, downing half of it in a couple of gulps.

Kara coughed a bit. "Fine, I guess."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Really? You were in a coma this morning, Kara."

Kara shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, I just...don't really feel any different. It's weird, having a new scar, but that's about it." -she said, her hand ghosting over her abdomen.

Luthor didn't say anything for a moment, instead opting to finish the bottle. "I suppose I'm glad, then. I…I thought we'd lost you for a second, there." -she said. "Turns out we were fretting over nothing. Well, mostly."

"I guess I wasn't exactly around to deal with the fallout, huh?" -Kara said. "I can only imagine what the past week was like. I'm sorry you had to go through it."

"Don't be." -Lena said. "Nobody forced me to sit by your bedside."

Kara nodded. "I know. Alex told me. Thank you, Lena. It means a lot to me."

Lena shrugged. "It's you, Kara. Of course I stayed."

Her stomach lurched a bit. "Are we...actually talking about this, then?"

"Is that not what you're here for?" -she wondered, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yes. Kind of?" -Kara said, nervous. "It was the ulterior motive, I think."

Lena blinked. "O-kay...well, what did you want to talk about, then?"

"I do wanna talk about that, I promise." -she reassured her. "I originally came to invite you to a bit of a group excursion - Centipede related, hopefully - but I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend fifteen minutes outside your door, mulling over what to say. About us."

This seemed to shock Lena a little. "Oh. Well...let's hear it then." -Lena said, sitting beside her.

Kara pursed her lips. "Gosh, just like that, huh?"

Lena chuckled, a bit uncharacteristically nervous. "I find that it's best to just rip off the band-aid with these things. Not that you've ever used one, of course…"

Kara smirked. "Ah, but I've seen them get used." -she said, then took a deep breath. "Alright. Heart to heart, then, Lena. I feel... confused. Frustrated, a bit. Maybe a little hopeful?"

The brunette cocked her head, but didn't interrupt her. "When we met back up at OsCorp, and I lobbed all those accusations at you...well, part of me wanted them to be true. I know that's an awful thing to say, but it's true. It'd make sense, y'know?"

"It'd match the Lena you remembered." -Lena said quietly. "I get it."

"Maybe not so much match you as I could simply...see you going down such a dark path. Don't get me wrong; I was extremely glad to see that I was completely wrong about you, but the part of me that always wondered what I'd done so wrong that you'd reject me the way you did was a little vindictively satisfied."

Lena sighed. "I hate that I made you feel like my actions were your fault. After I...kicked you out, and realized what I'd done, all I allowed myself to hope for was that you'd move on - that you'd forget about me and find happiness elsewhere." -she said. "You didn't do anything wrong back then, Kara. I know it's too little, too late, but that was all on me. I couldn't deal with my own self-hatred, so...I guess I chose to hate you, instead, for just long enough to ruin everything."

"You...hate yourself?" -Kara asked, worried.

Lena hummed. "Less so now than then, but...yeah. You know what it's like, Kara; the weird accent, the dead parents, the strange abilities - your powers, my mind...People tend to hate what they don't understand. Sometimes, you internalize that hatred." -she explained. "When you came along, I started to forget myself a bit, y'know? You were just as weird as I was, just as much of an outcast. I felt safe being myself around you. But then...well, you revealed everything to me. And I wasn't even all that shocked that you were an alien from another world - I'd seen your eyes glow when you were angry, the way you jumped a little too high in joy, and how you totally overreacted whenever you had to fake being frail - but your feelings for me...those were another matter entirely. They forced me to confront my own."

Lena looked Kara in the eye. "I fell in love with you over those six months, Kara. Just as you fell in love with me. And somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew what that meant, what Jonah would think of me. I just…couldn't bring myself to accept it then. Accept myself, the way I am."

Kara felt oddly warm, like she was maybe burning up on reentry. "You...love me?"

"I did back then." -Lena said, cautiously. "And it's hard to say for sure, because we've only just met up again a couple of weeks ago but...I think I never stopped."

Kara couldn't seem to speak for what felt like an eternity. Lena looked a little downcast, but oddly resigned. "I shouldn't have allowed myself to get so...familiar with you, these past few days. I couldn't help but want to flirt with you, let you know how much I still care, even though I couldn't say it outright." -she said, her eyes watering. "I can't really promise I'll stop feeling this way, but for your sake, and the sake of this crazy superhero team idea, I'm willing to be professional about it."

Kara grabbed her shoulders. "What the heck are you even talking about, Lena?"

Lena frowned, wincing at Kara's strength. "I...your injury, you got hurt because you thought I'd been killed. And earlier, you only got blasted because you were too distracted worrying about me." -she said, confused. "I don't want you to feel obligated to drop everything for me just because of the way you used to feel about me, or the way I still feel about you."

"Lena, I still love you!" -Kara blurted out. "Rao, how could you even think I didn't? I thought I was being super obvious!"

Lena blinked for a good thirty seconds before her brain caught up to the news. "You what?" -she gasped. "Oh my god, Kara, I thought you were just indulging me! Like, for old times' sake!"

"Well I thought you were indulging me!" -she said, half outraged, half amused. "And I was so confused, because I'd see you check me out…"

"I did."

"...and you'd flirt with me…"

"Also guilty."

"And then Alex was all 'she's got it bad for you, sis'..."

"Your sister always was good at reading people, yes."

Kara groaned, covering her face. "Have we really just been in love this whole time?"

Lena smiled. "I think so, Kara." -she said, then turned forlorn. "This is all my fault. I fucked everything up, and I didn't even try to fix it."

"Don't do that to yourself." -Kara said, gingerly taking one of her hands. Serum or no, Kara was still several orders of magnitude stronger than her. "I didn't even know about your self-loathing. If I had, I would've stayed. I would've tried my best to help you see what a wonderful person you are." -Kara said.

Lena shook her head. "It wouldn't have helped, Kara. I wouldn't have listened."

Kara hummed. "Maybe not. But you wouldn't have had to be alone with your own thoughts."

The raven-haired young woman pursed her lips. "We can't change the past, in any case."

"You're right, we can't." -Kara acknowledged. "But...we can do something about the future."

It was Lena's turn to be flustered, apparently. "O-oh?"

"I think we can both agree that our past selves kinda suck at this, but now...well, we know better." -Kara said. "I want to give this - us - a shot."

Lena locked eyes with her. "Kara...are you sure? I...I don't ever want to hurt you again."

"You might." -Kara said simply. "And I might hurt you. Hopefully much less severely, of course, but...we're going to disagree sometimes, and that's ok. That's a natural part of a relationship; as long as we talk things out, we'll be ok."

Lena seemed a little dubious, but the hope in her eyes was undeniable. "I...can I kiss you?"

Kara didn't answer. Instead, she leaned forward, and let her lips find Lena's.

There were no fireworks, no sudden epiphanies about the universe. Lena's lips were a little chapped, Kara forgot to close her eyes until about halfway through the kiss, and clearly, neither of them had much experience to fall back on, but it did feel...right.

"Yes, Lena." -she said, after they surfaced for air. "You can kiss me. Whenever and wherever you want."


Well, yay! Lena and Kara are finally an item! It was interesting getting to this point. Romance isn't really the main element of this fic, after all, and this version of the characters don't really have the classic Luthor-Super baggage. Instead, the obstacles here were just a complete lack of communication, and several mental health issues on Lena's part.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everything will be rosy between them - relationships do have their ups and downs, after all.

Until next time!

EDIT: as a guest reviewer pointed out, there was a small mistake. Quoting here, because I love how it's phrased: "It should be 'coma' not 'comma', unless she was somehow inside a punctuation mark."

I also forgot to modify the text to reflect that Lena grabs a new bottle of water, hahaha.