16: For now

"Lee," Kara starts a handful of nights later as you're reading up on quantum entanglement to try and distract yourself from the slow progress with the air cleaning nanites you're working on at the lab.

You're relieved that the airlocked suit you have recreated has been completed, mostly because it was your own personal design, created and built by you alone with no direct input from anyone on your staff, unlike a lot of the others. You've never begrudged the time you've spent as CEO of L-Corp as much as you do now. You'd tried to balance your time as much as possible between your duties running the company and living out your passion, experimenting and tinkering, building and creating in the labs. And for the most part, you think you'd done really well. You'd kept L-Corp profitable, your board and main shareholders satisfied with their profit margin, the charitable institutions you yourself had handpicked lacking for nothing, and still you'd had your passion projects, the renewable energy ones, not the ethically ambiguous ones with Kryptonite and Harun-el, and certainly not Non Nocere, and now your asshole of a brother is adding to the air pollution you haven't even solved yet with his weapons projects.

It grates on you, it really does. But Lex has stayed out of your way, and so you stay out of his, at least visibly anyway. You keep tabs on him, as you're sure he keeps tabs on you, and you take painstaking care to keep your Supergirl projects out of his reach, trying to see from his point of view what weaknesses he can focus on to hurt and bring Kara down.

"Yes, darling." You reply absentmidedly as you turn another page. You're doing both, reading without consciously thinking of the specific words as your mind flies to how else you can shield Kara from the synthetic Kryptonite you know your brother has now also figured out and been able to make.

"Lena..." She says with a slight whine.

"Kara," You reply biting back a smile. You don't need to look at her to know she's pouting.

She takes the book out of your hands, hiding it behind her and you finally look at her as you try and stifle a yawn. "What is it, darling?"

"Let's dance," She says, a brilliant smile on her face.

"To what?" You ask, rubbing her cheek with the pad of your thumb affectionately. "There's no -" but before you can even finish she's all but a blur and soft jazz starts playing and the room is bathed in mostly darkness with a smattering of lit candles giving the room a warm glow.

"My lady," says bowing before you, hand stretched out and waiting for yours.

You chuckle softly as you place your hand in hers and let her sweep you into her arms. She dips and twirls you for the first few songs, spinning you and making you laugh until you are breathless with mirth. You hold her tightly, head on her shoulder. You feel her sigh as she pulls you impossibly closer to her, her body tensing.

"Darling, what's wrong?" You ask, pulling away. She shakes her head, a small smile on her face, but the sadness in her eyes is palpable. "Tell me, Kara..."

"Do you think..." Her voice is soft, her gaze unwilling to meet yours. "Do you think maybe you'll trust me again? Maybe not soon... But maybe... soon?"

It's adorable, it really is, but your heart clenches painfully in your chest because you know she's hurting. "I do trust you."

"Yeah, I know... But I mean, like really trust me again? Not now, obviously. But maybe soon? Not too soon, but soon? Do you think that's possible?"

You hold her face, your fingers brushing at her cheeks, waiting for her to meet your eyes before you speak. "Kara, there's no one I trust more than I trust you." Your voice is calm, your tone firm, your gaze steady. "There's no need for soon. I trust you now. So please... Tell me what this is about."

"You don't talk about work with me." She tells you quietly.

"Work?" You're a little confused.

"Work." She responds. "You're always forgetting to eat because of work, always coming home late, leaving early, forgetting breakfast and lunch. And dinner. You're always in meetings and missing game nights and down in your labs."

"You mean I was...?" You ask, still confused because you haven't worked a single night past seven in the last couple of months and you've been having breakfast with Kara before work every single day as well.

"You were." She agrees, correcting herself. "And now he's taken over everything and you don't talk about work anymore."

She's quiet for a minute and you try and figure out what she's actually trying to say. There were times when it had nothing to do with hiding, with lack of trust, with lying. Kara isn't always as direct and easy to read. There are times wherein you've found yourself having to navigate that less than direct thought process and though it had used to fill you with nervousness and doubt, leaving you to second guess yourself, now all you feel is a need to understand and soothe. There have been enough secrets and misunderstandings to last you two several lifetimes and you don't want to waste any more time hiding from her and her having to hide from you.

You've spent years feigning confidence, refusing to let your mother, your competitors, your shareholders, see you shaken and unsure. Your mother had always warned you not to show the world your vulnerabilities, and as a child, a child starved for affection and positive regard, you had been buried under a mountain of doubts and uncertainties with the lack of familial support, vulnerable, blustering through the days with a facade of cool distance. But Kara's long since thawed the icy wall you've built around your heart, around your soul. And with the brilliance of her smile, the warmth of her affection, her belief in you so strong and unshakable and now you know unconditional, you feel more yourself than you ever have.

"Darling," You begin, laying a soft kiss on her lips before continuing, "I don't work as much as I used to. Not since Lex. I've been home with you almost every night since. You know that."

"You're almost never in your office anymore." She says, brows furrowed. And you remember the times she'd visit you both as Kara and as Supergirl, the days of tentative friendship and then adorably the earnest ones, and then the heartrending ones of days and weeks of the both of you drowning in the darkness of both your betrayals. You remember the times she'd hover outside your balcony, checking up on you late into the night even when there were no threats and no evident reason to, watching, hoping, waiting for you to acknowledge and reach out for her.

"I'm not." You agree. "Lex wanted me to be CFO and I refused. He can't rewrite reality and take my company, dissolve my projects and expect me to run the company for him. I've mostly vacated that office." You were loathe to but only because of the memories it held of the time you and Kara spent there building your friendship.

"You don't let me pick you up at work." Kara replies pulling away and wringing her hands. "You don't want me coming over and having lunch with you. You don't even want me dropping anything off for you."

"I don't." You agree again, keeping your voice firm and steady as you watch her get even more worked up. "I know Lex knows about us. He can't not, darling. I've barely been back at my apartment in over two months. But I'm not about to parade you in front of him. That would be antagonizing the beast."

"Are you ashamed of me?"

"Of you?" You laugh darkly. "No, love, I could never be ashamed of you. I'm ashamed of my homicidal psychopath of a brother who's not only tried to kill your cousin more times than I can count but you as well."

"I'm not afraid of him." She replies hotly.

"It's not about being afraid." Your voice has risen, a slight panic bubbling inside you. "It's about caution and thinking steps ahead."

"Tell me I'm not losing you."

And there it is, the pain. It's searing really, the pain she feels claws it's way to you and you fight not to buckle under it.

"You will never lose me, Kara." You promise. You promise because you know it's true. "I'm yours. Just yours. I've been yours even before you knew it, even before I could tell you. I was yours then and I'm yours now. And nothing is going to change that."

"I'm not afraid, Lena. Not of him." She whispers again, pulling you into her arms. "The only thing I'm afraid of is losing you."

"And I'm not afraid of HIM, Kara. But he's my brother. I know him and it's one thing for him to guess, for him to know, but to dangle you in front of him..." You breathe in deeply. "I haven't figured out how to counter Kryptonite yet, and we both know that's not the only way he can hurt you."

Your hands clutch at her waist as you look deeply into her eyes. "So for now, we dance, darling. We dance and play and pretend he's outside and that we don't know he's looking in. And we get ready and we plan and we work. And darling, we live, and we love. But for now we have to dance, we have to play. I need to stay close and be smart so when he strikes it's his only chance and we take him down."

"I love you, Lena."

"And I love you." You wrap your arms around her neck, lifting yourself up to your toes to kiss her. "I promise I'm yours. For now and for always. But when he realizes that, he'll come for you. Lex has never liked sharing."

"I like sharing." Kara tells you, warm breath ghosting at your lips, her voice rough. "Just not you. You, Lena... I want all to myself."

She catches you when your knees buckle at her words, her eyes dark. She hoists you up against her, her hands on your thighs and you moan as you wrap your legs around her.

"Take me to bed, Kara." You all but whimper against her.

She does.

Steelwing, I will absolutely keep it in mind for a title! If you ever get any other ideas I'd love to hear them! They are adorkable aren't they? My current goal is to infuse the story with a bit more fluff to help lift all of our spirits but I must admit I've been feeling very dramatic and decidedly unfluffy lately so it may take some doing to get to the right mindframe.

A/N: So as I write this note I've just spent the past 2 days reading perhaps the funniest Supercorp fic I've ever read, it's entitled blockuster (it's the movie au ok), and yeah I gave it a shot even though I'm honestly not one for very AU fics, but the summary was very reminiscent of perhaps my absolute favorite fic ever (If you're a faberry/achele fan you've got to know which story I mean, it's grails levels, that's how absolutely amazing that story is)and I couldn't resist giving it a go . So I've been all levels of charmed and giddy the past two days and having finished that story just moments ago and of course I check on the author's other works, the author is unnecessary_databass btw, for those that are interested and have time to read, and I see their work entitled To Rehabilitate a Villain and of course it catches my eye because I've been hunting around for season 5 fics trying to fix my soul that's still smarting from what the CW has done. So anyway, this seemed perfect for it and now I'm all sorts of heartbroken, like soul shattered levels. It's really very good and makes sense on a lot of levels and takes the dark route of Lena living out the betrayal she feels that the CW seems to be leading us to. And it's tight and organic and makes sense. It isn't at all rushed and that's why it's so painful and heart-rending. And I'm here talking about it because 1. I actually quite enjoy talking about these things 2. Fic recs are always always awesome especially when the stories are actually well written 3. Because it's a dark, BRAVE, very very brave take, on what Lena's done and is still actually doing on the show. And THIS work of mine, my lovelies, compared to that amazing piece, is sheer unadulterated fluff. And i've been kind of beating myself up for the lack of fluff in this story cos they keep talking about and taking care of serious things, chip-chip-chipping away at issues, but gaaaah, the Kara and Lena in my story has been together in almost every single chapter, slowly working everything out, but TOGETHER. And lemme tell you guys, read about them apart... I don't know if it doesn't break your heart as horribly as it did mine. =(

It's on AO3 if you're interested and brave and please note, I've warned you about how I'm still in pain from reading it.