Hello Supercorp fam!

So, my wife gets all fussy when I stare at her while she's reading this, so I don't get to figure out why she's giggling. My brain really REALLY likes knowing.

So if YOU were to tell me your giggle, smirk or aww moments in the comments, I'd be extra happy.

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-Kara-

Kara's powers blown; the sweetly attentive CEO had insisted on giving her a ride home for once. On the way to the loft, Lena made several noises at Kara when the hero had suddenly jumped out of the car (it was only moving a little bit) and ran up to an alleyway to stop a mugging.

Normally, she would have been back before Lena could finish the first curse word Kara had cringed at as she rolled onto the pavement. Without her powers though, the bad guys got a couple of lucky thwaps in before the depleted Kryptonian took them down. Kara had refused to go back to the DEO to get checked out again. She had enough of sunlamps and doctors the last couple of days. Instead Lena offered to check her out at her penthouse.

That sounded kinda fun. Like the kind they had before Alex had gotten in the way the other day. This time though, when Kara took off her shirt Lena sucked in air between her teeth and was all business. She muttered to herself cataloging injuries on a clipboard and Kara was frustrated that she couldn't make out the rest without her super hearing when she caught the words "reckless" and "nonsense" but Lena was nice so the Kryptonian was sure it was something about the bad guys.

Kara flinched back reflexively, and Lena winced, when the raven-haired scientist had placed her cold hands on the large new purple bruise spreading its way down Kara's side. Telling her she had a badly bruised rib, she then ordered Kara to bed without even giving her a cuddle.

The next day Kara woke up feeling sore but grinned when she saw the small mound of snacks Lena must have left for her last night. Starting in on the treats, the Kryptonian thought about the raven-haired CEO and wondered how long it would take for Kara to stop being such a spaz around her. She had caught herself almost saying the L word a few times yesterday and she was pretty sure Alex had told her rules about that in relationships.

She'd never been in love with anyone and she didn't exactly understand the idea of love on Earth. It just meant so many different things here and she felt weird using it. On Krypton there was shovuh, which was love for stuff like donuts and ukiem, love for people you considered your family, and then there was a separate love that was just for your match.

Even matches didn't always have that kind of special romantic love and it wasn't weird for Kryptonians to only talk about having family love with the person they were married to. The matches were more about perfect partnerships and romantic attraction wasn't always part of that. With the birthing matrix, Kara guessed that Kryptonians had evolved away from it. But that was until she met Lena.

Everything about being with Lena was great. Well, except for her brother that kept trying to kill her cousin or her mother that had tortured her for a bit. She wasn't a very nice lady. But everything about Lena was great.

Lena was so smart that Kara could really talk with her about things without her dramatically rolling around on the ground in agony. And she was so pretty and so nice. And she wasn't very good at having fun, so Kara got to feel like she was extra fun when she got to show Lena how.

…Those were all things that she loved about Lena. Was that the same thing, or was it about a feeling, and if it was, what was the feeling supposed to be like exactly?

Even before all the kissing stuff, Kara felt different around Lena. Standing next to her was like being out on the beach in the middle of the day. Sometimes she felt like she was floating or vibrating even without her powers. Her head swam, her fingertips tingled, and she missed her as soon as she left the room.

But zhao?

Her parents hadn't had it. The only Kryptonians Kara knew who had zhao had been her uncle and aunt. That's why they'd given birth to Kal without using the matrix which all of their neighbors thought was bizarre. It couldn't have been that common if everyone was always talking about them like that. For once, Kara felt like she didn't understand her people well enough. Being the last real Kryptonian left, she just didn't know how she could find out.

It could be possible though, right? Kara's head swam with unanswerable questions. There was no algorithm she could apply or metric to use.

Shaking her head clear she decided it didn't matter right now. Kara might not know what exactly all of it meant, but she did know how she felt, and she decided that was enough with a nod.

Having made her way through all of the snacks, the Kryptonian looked around for somewhere to toss the several dozen wrappers and headed to the kitchen.

She was very surprised to find Lena, blowing at the stream of what Kara was sure was not the CEO's first cup of coffee, sitting demurely on a stool in front of the oven, reading something on her tablet. Kara noticed how graceful Lena's legs looked crossed were she sat, and also noticed an amazing smell that made her mouth water.

"Shouldn't you be running the free world or something?" Kara asked, covertly ditching the evidence of her candy feast, not wanting Lena to think she didn't also want everything that was making the tasty smells.

"I'm not that kind of president Kara." Lena said with a smirk. "I'm working from home today and you," the intimidating CEO said shooting Kara a look accented by her meticulously shaped eyebrows, "are staying with me."

Lena had gone back to reading her tablet, obviously ignoring Kara's sounds of protest. The young reporter pointed out reasonably, "Snapper is going to fire me eventually if I just never show up to work again."

"Then I will buy the company," Lena said with an off-handed shrug not looking up.

She's probably kidding right? Kara thought nervously. "Leeennnaaaa, I've already been inside since forever. I have to be out in case the city needs me."

Lena put her things on the kitchen island and stood up, her heels clicking as she walked over to the young Kryptonian. The raven-haired woman took Kara's hands between hers, look at her, green eyes wide andpouted.

Kara didn't know what to do. She felt trapped. Rooted on the spot. She couldn't look away from the pout, and she was desperate, desperate to do anything to make it stop. Continuing to be consumed by the power of the pout she noticed her heart crawl up her throat, threatening to leave her body to be with Lena.

"O-Okay. I mean of course I'll stay here with you." Kara said her voice cracking with relief when Lena smiled back at her. "That's super nice of you to take the day off and everything Lena."

She shrugged, "I hired a new CFO to handle some of my day to day particulars, need to see whether or not they are up to managing things without me. Never know when my mother is going to decide to hold me hostage again," Lena winced glancing guiltily at Kara for a moment then rushed on. "Also, I wanted to personally make sure that you don't do anything that's going to cause lasting dam-" Lena broke off to smack Kara's hand away from the oven.

As Lena was talking Kara had inched past her and opened the oven door to see what she was making. "Hence my position in front of this door. You do remember when fire used to burn you, right?" Lena asked then finished muttering. "should put her in a promethium bubble."

A timer went off behind her. Lena, wearing oven mitts, took out several muffin tins and set them on the counter before spinning the dial of the timer again.

Kara had solar flared before, she did it intentionally when she was younger to do things like learn how to ride a bike or paint. For some reason if she did things when she didn't have her powers her body remembered better how to coordinate her movements without crushing things.

But she hated needing to wait for things like perfectly good food to cool. Distracting herself from the steaming trays she pulled Lena into the living room and asked, "So what do you want to do today?"

"Well darling, I can't image I would have much luck getting you to stay in bed without encouragement that might too vigorous in your current state," Lena said eyeing Kara with a look. "I thought maybe you might want to go to the new planetarium with me," she said looking hopeful.

Then her eyes widened. "Not that you would necessarily be interested in that kind of thing because you're an alien or anything." Lena rushed on, "It's just they have a particularly impressive telescope, and the star chart room is one of the projects I donated research funds to this year. I mean I've been meaning to speak with some of the engineering team behind it."

Kara cocked her head to the side. "That was almost a me-ramble." The Kryptonian said smiling delightedly. "The planetarium actually sounds really fun. I went to the last one on a school trip, but they didn't let kids touch the equipment."

Frowning she continued, "Lena, of course I like space because I'm an alien. I don't usually think of myself as one most of the time." Kara admitted looking down at her own hand. "It's just kind of like I'm from a different place. That's what it was like for people from off-world on Krypton anyway. There were Kryptonians and there were just other races of people that we sometimes went to see or came to see us."

Eyes suddenly enthusiastic she said, "I wonder whether or not the star charts they have there are more accurate than the one's at the DEO. The ones Winn shows me are always a little off and make the constellations look funny. Oo, they might have some images of the more nearby planets I used to visit when I was little!"

She heard a buzzing sound and sprinted back into the kitchen.

Chewing on a muffin, three more cradled in her arm, she walked back to Lena sheepishly holding one out for her, then immediately went back to grab some more. Lena laughed taking the muffin and followed Kara into the kitchen.

The day was bonkers amazing. At first they did the normal tour of the planetarium and Lena whispered to Kara more specific theorems involved in developing the telescope and issues the engineers had run into over the last couple of decades that the tour guide had skipped over.

Then they were free to walk around, and Lena reserved the star room for them where Kara spent hours spinning between different planets. She found a few that she'd been to and told Lena stories about how she'd gone to Ahch-To and her dad milked a thala, or when she fell off a cliff in Starhaven and they had healed her broken fibula by touching it with a humming crystal that they said accelerated the natural healing process.

Kara felt her stomach knot when she put in the coordinates for Krypton, and it dropped when she saw it. She walked up to the hologram and held out her hand.

The image was less clear than some of the other planets, but she could just make out the outlines of Candor's Crater and the Xeno River tracing them with wonder in her eyes.

"This must have been taken a few years ago." She whispered. "Krypton -was only 35 light-years from Earth, so if they captured an image now -well even the light reflected back here would be gone. She turned back to the young Luthor tears glistening in her eyes. "Thank you, Lena. I never thought I would see it again."

Lena smiled and joined Kara's side appreciating the hologram, then took the young Kryptonian's hand and bumped her shoulder into Kara's lightening the mood, "Here I thought I was robbing the cradle. How old are you?"

"I mean I'll look the same when I'm forty-eight, Kal does. But I didn't age while I was in the phantom zone." Lena looked at her quizzically. Kara shifted the start chart over and pointed to the image of a large black void several light-years away from Krypton. "I was in here for 24 years, but time doesn't pass there." She continued with a grimace, "It's where Krypton sent all of the worst prisoners. The time warp kept them from needing to replenish supplies."

"Pragmatic," Lena commented.

"Yeah, it's hard to know what the right answer is dealing with people like that. Kryptonians don't believe in killing anyone for any reason, but it's hard to say if never waking up, or waking up on a ship full of terrorists 100 years after everyone you know is gone, is any better. I don't want to stop bad guys from getting to live their lives." Kara said sighing. "I just don't want them to be able to hurt other people."

Kara spun the chart back to Krypton, and noticed a glint coming off of a unique landmass. The blue-eyed Kryptonian pointed at it bouncing, "Lena, Lena, look, it's Jrizynj Shahkh! Bah rrosh kav otem vot te ukr vo ahvrig ehflum."

[Translation: Lena look, it's Gold mountain! I used to go there with my dad to collect samples.]

Lena looked like she was going to say something, but Kara realizing her mouth was shaped to speak Kryptonian rushing on apologizing, "Sorry, Alex hates when I do that. But, it's Gold Mountain. Going there was the first time I knew I wanted to be a scientist. You know Krypton's mantel was made of molten gold instead of igneous magma like here? It was a really common building material for us. It's why I always got excited when I saw the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz." Kara said bubbling.

After Kara had pointed out several more things about Krypton they walked down to the gift shop and Kara got an out-of-this-world sundae. Lena was enjoying her sixth cup of coffee that day when she got a call from Jess. She apologized to Kara. She was needed at L-Corp to take care of a couple of things and offered to take the girl back to her penthouse. Kara hadn't seen Jess in forever and was down to do almost anything that wasn't lying in bed waiting for her powers to come back.

On their way up in the L-Corp elevator, Kara shuffled her feet and asked, "Was that like, a date?"

"I should hope so. But I didn't take you out to dinner so I can't really expect you to put out." Lena responded teasingly with an arch smile. Lightly brushing her fingers up the side of Kara's arm she said, "Maybe next time I'll show off a little more."

Kara blushed shivering at the feeling on her arm and didn't really know what to say. She had been distracted by thoughts about that when she felt Lena's breath on her ear whispering about what the developers were planning, or when she had taken them back to the engineers' lab. Lena had solved the issues they were having with energy conservation by replacing their conduction coil and Kara got to see Lena work on the machine with a power-tool in her hands.

The young Kryptonian had several thoughts about that.

Kara bit her lip considering. "You could maybe, um, show me your lab."

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Notes: Hey guys, working on some edits on the next one, but should be up soon. I've rewritten the lab scene a few times to get it just fun enough. FFN gets so fussy about spicy content. I guess you guys can rate it when I post it and I could go with one of my other drafts if people have strong opinions in one direction or another.