Bitter Memories
-Lena-
It was noon when Lena woke up.
She'd slept poorly. Initially because she had a hard time quieting down her body, then waking when the Kryptonian sat bolt upright in bed.
She started apologizing profusely to Lena for waking her and then for prematurely falling asleep. Lena who had just dozed off was in no mood for conversation. Groggily, she sat up, noticing absently that she was still fully dressed, and placed her palm against the hero's sternum to push her back down to lay on the bed.
The tired CEO then settled her head, using the hero's shoulder for a pillow, and grumbling when it shook from the blonde's giggling.
She'd woken again a few hours later to the Kryptonian, now decked in her blue and red suit, touching Lena's shoulder to tell her she was getting a call for a rescue mission. She had left a chocolate croissant with a side of fruit and some now cold coffee at Lena's bedside table and promised to be back tonight to talk.
Walking across her bedroom the disheveled CEO saw her reflection in the mirror and sat down in front of it to brush out her hair.
The pull of the brush across her scalp brought back a memory of last night. She sat going over the events of last night in her mind, grinning and blushing in turns as different moments filled her mind. Her thoughts drifting to earlier in the night, and a light crease in her brow formed when she remembered how it had almost not happened.
What was it that she needed to tell me? Lena wondered to herself. She looked almost pained, guilty. It might have had something to do with my family. Like the girl had something to do with Superman catching her brother or suspecting her mother of something nefarious. The selfless superhero was always trying to save her from everything all the time.
Or maybe it's about some ridiculous noble fear of her enemies going after me if we get involved. I mean I guess it's not ridiculous exactly, Lena admitted silently.
It's the same reason Lena herself had avoided getting involved with anyone, even friends. It was just safer for everyone to be at a distance from her she reasoned, and then frowned again and corrected herself, Except Kara.
That little blonde reporter had barely given her a choice in the matter though. She had flown into her life like a whirlwind with that megawatt smile and seemed to pick up on every detail about her so quickly, instantly becoming the perfect friend.
She'd shown up right after a particularly trying board meeting with surprise coffee, black, extra hot with half a sugar and these amazing donuts she never would have been allowed to have when she was a kid. It made her feel a little more Lena and a little less Luthor right when she needed to.
Lena felt a familiar gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach again.
It was ridiculous to feel guilty about being with someone available that she found very attractive just because she had a crush on her best friend.
What am I just going to never be involved with anyone again because I like to have dreams about having babies with Kara Danvers? Lena thought shaking her head and remembering why Luthors shouldn't have feelings.
Putting down the brush Lena glanced at her vanity table and saw with a smile that photo she had rescued from her office.
She and Kara had only known each other a couple of months then and Lena already felt more comfortable around the girl than she had around any of her socialite friends. Hell, probably more than she had with most of her girlfriends.
They had all wanted Lena for something. Money, influence, sex, just different currency. Kara, wonderful girl, the most she had ever asked from Lena was help finding one of her friends who could have gotten murdered in some alien dog-fighting ring.
Kara had looked apologetic for even asking, always so careful to make sure the Luthor understood she didn't think she would be involved with something like that.
Lena sighed appreciatively and looked closely into the frame.
Frowning, she used a corner of her sleeve to wipe at the glass, but the little spot of darkness was still there. Lena's mind flashed to the memory of a scar highlighted by a concerned brow. She felt the bottom drop out from her stomach.
No!
Lena scrambled to her phone ripping it off the charger which hit the wall next to her.
Pulling up her photos, she went to the gallery of selfies she'd taken with Kara.
Looking at every one of them so closely the images pixilated, she saw the spot again and again in any photo that caught Kara at an angle or that upset the placement of her glasses.
Digging through her closet Lena found the bag she had kept Kara's sweatshirt in, that the blonde had left at her place weeks ago.
Opening the plastic bag, she almost immediately identified the scent. It was the same one that Lena could smell on her own body, that still clung to her sheets, that she'd noticed in the air every time Supergirl had sped off away from her.
Her brain stopped working. No thoughts came to her as she listened to the harsh terrible thudding of her own heart.
*Clash*
Lena startled hearing the crashing rattle of someone knocking against the elevator entrance.
"Ms. Luthor, NCPD. We are coming in. Come out with your hands up."
Turning blankly Lena saw a dark-skinned woman, uniform reading Detective Sawyer, come through the gate of her elevator, flanked by two other officers, all with their tasers trained on Lena.
She swallowed, mouth gone dry and voice no longer operating.
"Are you here alone?" The detective asked.
Lena nodded, heart crushing and mind distracted with the terrible appropriateness of that statement.
Sawyer signaled to a man on her left who pulled out handcuffs. She started "You are under arrest for the theft of kryptonite and for conspiring and aiding a wanted murderer and terrorist. You have the right to remain silent…"
The woman continued speaking and Lena noticed dimly that her mind tried to grab onto the words that the detective was saying. The only thing that had truly struck home for her was the word alone which repeated on a loop in her mind. Again and again.
She didn't remember anything about the ride to the police station. It was as if she had woken up in the process of being booked. She'd wished fervently that she would have remained checked out during the new and humiliating experience.
The CEO was stripped down in a windowless room and women in blue gloves searched every surface and accessible crevasse of her body, before taking all of her belongings and allowing her privacy to change into the orange jump suit for her mug shot.
Her attorney had reached the station before Lena. Once she was garbed in rough orange cotton, he explained to her what charges had actually been filed.
The Luthor had apparently been framed for the theft of kryptonite loaned to L-Corp for experimentation, and then was supposedly caught on camera delivering that kryptonite to man people called Metallo, who had been terrorizing the city and trying to kill Supergirl this last week.
They had a surprisingly well doctored of video her on physical tape personally committing the theft. Without access to her equipment she wasn't able to determine what methods were used to map and recut the images so seamlessly.
She was frustrated needing to ask L-Corp's IT team to do the work for her.
Normally, she would call Supergirl on something this big to help gather information from the street.
But even sitting a tiny jail cell with her back pressed against the rough concrete, Lena's mind would not let her consider the idea.
She felt trapped in a spiral of self-loathing she hadn't experienced quite so completely since she was a teenager coming to grips with her mother's hatred and her brother's increasing indifference toward her.
Oh God, how could I not have put it together. Some genius, she thought scornfully, everyone must have been lying to me my entire life. Like her, she thought blinking back tears as the image of Supergirl's face swam into her vision
No wait, she thought, and it was replaced by Kara's smiling face for a flash and then back and forth between the two until she felt dizzy and nauseous.
Kara tackling her and giggling
Supergirl jumping in front of bullets.
Kara with ice-cream on her nose.
Supergirl talking about Krypton.
She felt the memories, some of the happiest of her life, crashing into her like a blow.
Hugging her knees to her chest, Lena's breathing was tight and harsh until a sob finally escaped her and then her body racked with them. She buried her face feeling the pain of betrayal compound with the shame of admitting how much it made her hurt.
This is why I have always lived the way I do. I should have never of let her into my life, either of them, she thought and then forced down bile again, maliciously bitter about having to remind herself that the two people she trusted the most in her life were actually one person which was the one reason she would never be able to trust her…or anyone else, ever again.
In the back of her mind she felt that ever-present dark corner chime in with a thousand plans to make that stain on her pride disappear from her life, her memories, disappear from the world. The lighter part of her mind doubted vaguely, but the darker part fought back harder, vowing that she would make Supergirl pay for this.
Lena grabbed both sides of her head, willing the evil Luthor machinations to stop. That was not her; it was them. She had always taken pride in using the mind the Luthors had given her to work against them, to be good.
Why? she thought sardonically to herself, why bother with all this goodness? Everyone will always see me as a Luthor. That's why I'm here, isn't it? Framed for aiding a terrorist in the murder of innocent alien civilians. It fit. How can you be around so much evil for so long without it tainting you?
That must be why she didn't tell me. She was afraid of me. She thought that if she told me I would snap and set National City on fire or something. Join my mother, turn my family business back to the family business again. Lena felt sick.
Uncurling from her ball, she desperately wished for the comfort of her well-stocked liquor cabinet. Her fingers itched to feel the glass in her hand, and the back of her throat convulsed around air where she imagined the feeling of smooth dark liquid burning a trail down her throat and searing the edges off the sharpness of her mind.
She saw Supergirl's expression one night she had come to fly her home, worried about how often the hero had found Lena drinking that week. Looking back at the memory, she so clearly saw Kara's caring eyes shining with concern.
Her heart did a feeble flop inside of her chest at the bittersweet memory, the caring that before made her feel so warm now just made her feel -hallow. She could not would not think about last night. She was so stupid, but so happy…
The desperate CEO felt tempted to try her luck with one of the guards. She was a billionaire, there must be someone in here she could bribe for a drink. After all, it was in everyone's best interest. They might even win a reward for patriotism, she thought with self-loathing, All hail the mighty hero for single-handedly shutting down the greatest threat to mankind, the mind of a Luthor.
Lena woke with a start, hearing the sounds of a battlefield coming off the adjacent hallway. Bullets fired and there was the distinctive hum of charging electromagnetic energy before the sound of a cannon and thuds of bodies hitting the wall.
Her sleep-addled, lovesick brain first leapt at the thought that Supergirl had come to rescue her again. The last few months the hero had appeared miraculously almost any time the sound of gunfire was around her.
But the rational part of her mind cringed away from the very idea that the sounds of pain emanating from the other room could come from the actions of the girl who spent half her day rescuing kittens.
Instead of a cape and winsome smile when the door burst open, Lena was met with the grizzled features of a light-skinned man with obvious cyborg enhancements including a robotic hand and an orb visibly glowing green under his shirt.
He pulled off one of the bars of her cell with his hands and yanked Lena through the opening before stabbing her in the neck with a needle.
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Notes:
Hey guys, I think this is the first cliff hanger I've left you with. I'll post again soon.
Things are going to be dark for a little bit, but I promise not to make Lena go nuts for 17 episodes before she gets back to her girl.
Also if you want to double up on the feels, watch this SuperCorp clip: /rBacNxjJmVM
Questions, comments, concerns? Still working from home, so human interaction of any kind always appreciated :D