it's probably not ideal to start a fic with lex's quote, but for once, he's right. also, I HAD TO FIX IT AFTER THAT DISASTROUS 100TH EPISODE HOLY SHIT

You came from love, and if the rest of this family stands steadily in the darkness, you will always fall into the light. – Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor, Supergirl

This was probably one of the most oxymoronic day that Lena had ever experienced. It was summer, but it had poured for hours on end in the morning, letting up only half an hour ago. It was summer, but instead of the humidity that Lena had expected after a rainy day like that, the air was chilly and unnaturally comfortable. It was summer, but she had pulled on her most expensive but coziest jacket just in case.

She had never just experienced a day like that. Too much in her mind. Too much in her heart. Too much to do. Too much to avoid. Not enough time to deal with all that and still spare some to just look up at the sky and breathe.

But this was…a rare day, she supposed. A rare day that was cold, where she could take out the coat she'd just bought in Italy few days ago and put it to good use. She didn't mind the drizzling drops that really wasn't doing much damage. She certainly didn't mind the quietness on the sidewalks or the lack of a near-constant blue and red presence in the sky. Even superheroes had to succumb to a natural calling.

This was a rare day, and she was going to enjoy it. She waved a dismissive hand at her driver, telling him to just head back to his children, because she'd quite like to walk home. He stared at her for a moment, a little like gaping, but he was a smart man and not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he just nodded gratefully and drove away.

She lifted her head and inhaled a lungful of the chilly air before heading down the sidewalk, casually strolling and appreciating. She rid her mind of her brother and the chilling words of her ex-best friend and just listened to the pitter patter of the rain and the rare birds chirping. She rid her heart of the clinging adoration that could never leave even after being broken and just smiled at the mother-daughter duo hurrying down in the opposite direction, clinging to one another.

And then…her heel caught in a drain cover, eliciting a disgraceful yelp from her. When she tried to pull it out, the heel just popped off, leaving her unbalanced and almost falling onto her ass if not for a strong hand catching onto her elbow and another keeping her balanced around her waist.

She didn't have to look to know who it was, because only one person in the world felt and smelled like this. Felt like safety and security and comfort. Smelled like the sky and ocean and defiance. She'd been held in these arms one too many times, and she hated herself for enjoying it each time.

Quickly, once stable, she stepped back, not forgetting to take off her stilettos and standing bare feet on the wet sidewalk, avoiding the gaze of the woman who had betrayed her the worst. Thankfully enough, Kara didn't force her either. Instead, there was only silence, awkwardly broken by the persistent drizzle and hurrying footsteps of others unfortunate enough to be caught in the summer rain.

"Here, let me fix that for you," Kara mumbled, reaching out to grab Lena's broken stiletto and heading into the alley, fully expecting Lena to follow…which she did.

"How exactly are you qualified to –" Lena started to question, not going to back down just like that.

Just as quickly, focused on the stiletto rather than the businesswoman, the blonde replied, "Who said anything about being qualified?"

Before Lena could say anything, Kara had whipped off her glasses, looked unwittingly at Lena and allowing the raven-haired woman a glimpse into her disarmingly blue eyes, and heat visioned at her stiletto. At that point, Lena couldn't fight her gasp at the sight, wincing at the low noise that Kara was emitting and the state of her stiletto.

When the blonde was finally done, she handed back the re-attached footwear to Lena, seemingly unfazed by what she'd just done. Lena gingerly took it back, eyes widening inch by inch as she looked at the melted joint of her stiletto, forever tainted – a whimper escaped her throat at the sight; truly, she thought she might cry.

She looked back up, refueled by a new wave of fury, and shook the stiletto in Kara's face. "This is a limited edition!" she almost shrieked, still shaking the stiletto.

Kara's eyes widened, surprised by Lena's outburst. She stammered for a moment before shoving the stiletto away from her face and huffed. "At least you have something to wear to walk home! Why'd you choose to walk on limited editions in the rain anyway?"

Lena gaped at the blonde, and then she huffed as well and put on the stiletto. She did not speak a word of how stable it felt to be back on balance. Instead, she scrunched her nose at Kara and whipped around, stalking away without saying another word, but she didn't miss the way Kara made an affronted noise and cursed in Kryptonian.

It'd been another late night, another depleted stack of documents that would surely refill tomorrow morning, another day of keeping her back to her balcony. After her fallout with Kara, she'd been staying later and later at the office, finally deciding to let her driver go home at 6pm everyday and she'd drive herself home. No point in torturing her employees just because she didn't know how to love herself.

She pulled her coat tighter around her and exited the elevator that had reached the parking lot. Her car was the only one there, save for the night shift security guard's vehicle – she tried hard not to think about how lonely her life had become after a trip to the Fortress of Solitude. She unlocked her car and was about to climb in when she heard an odd shuffle a few feet away.

Freezing, her hand reached into her purse to take hold of her taser. And because she had no sense of self-preservation, she approached the place where the sound came from, behind a large pole, holding her breath and pretty much waiting to die at this point. She refused to think about how she'd immediately relax when she saw the red cape and the boots, fingers loosening around the taser.

When she'd rounded the pole, there Supergirl was, lying against a wall with her face pinched – a clear look of pain. Lena blinked, unsure of what to do, found herself caught in a spotlight when the blonde slowly opened her eyes and turned her head a little to look at the businesswoman. Lena frowned, forcing herself to stand upright and not react too much to the scene before her.

"What happened to you?" she murmured, sure that Kara would hear her.

Kara exhaled a mirthless chuckle, shrugging and hissing in pain at the action. "You don't wanna know."

Lena hummed. She did want to know, but she figured she wasn't in the position to demand, really, just like how she had pushed Kara away and put her in a position to no longer know anything in her life.

"What are you doing here?"

The Kryptonian looked away from her and gulped, quiet for a moment. Then she whispered, "I don't know."

But maybe she did. Maybe they did. Maybe they just weren't ready to face the truth, probably would never be.

After all, the bad blood between them didn't seem like it would be wiped off any time soon. There was no facing the very deep end through which their relationship extended when they couldn't even touch the surface of it.

Their eyes met again, but there were no more words between them. They weren't exactly speaking wordlessly, but it was – there was something going on, something that an emotionally snubbed Lena would never be able to grasp. She crossed her arms, resisting the urge to brush away Kara's hair, and cleared her throat before walking away, ignoring the way Kara sighed behind her.

Once she'd climbed into her car, she whipped out her phone and texted Alex about Kara's location. And then…she stayed there. The two of them, only several feet apart, but feeling like they were planets away from each other – Lena could hardly bear the distance.

She was sure that Kara's well aware that she was there, sitting in her car and being all too pathetic. She was sure because she saw the way the blonde's hand extended past the pole into Lena's vision, palm open and facing up. Lena hated herself for wanting to hold the hand, but she only drove away after making brief eye contact with Alex.

If she had three hands, Lena would still lose count of the number of times she'd been attacked at her press conferences. But it's kind of weird now, given how much she'd remember of life before Crisis, because Lena was no longer being attacked for being assumed to be anti-alien. No, this time around, she was constantly being attacked because her brother was pompous, power-greedy psychopath who enjoyed public attention far too much.

Everything always came back to Lex.

And it was probably time that she avoided press conferences, but the fact remained that she was still very bad at self-preservation, despite how she was supposed to have a loving family with a brother and mother who doted on her – and all that because of one thing: she remembered.

Sometimes, she wished Lex hadn't made that deal with the Monitor. She would love to forget. She would love to only remember a loving family who didn't hate her for being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. She would love to have a clean slate and didn't know about the real identity of the one woman who'd convinced Lena that she was good for years.

"I just don't know what to do with you," Supergirl whispered in exasperation once she'd let go of Lena on the LuthorCorp balcony.

Lena huffed, stepping back immediately to distance herself from the blonde. "You're not supposed to."

Kara huffed, hands on her hips, as she tiredly looked at Lena. "I'm just –"

"Remember when you said I'm a villain?"

Immediately, the blonde whipped a finger, which should be comical if not for the stern look on her face, affronted and eager to correct. "I never said that."

"Didn't you?"

"I said I would if you'd continued to work with your brother, because you would be one," Kara hissed, sounding almost pained at the thought. "I know you too well to know –"

Lena scoffed in interruption. She was calm enough today, even she'd nearly died again earlier, to not scream and cry like she had back at the Fortress of Solitude. She'd lost composure then, and it was an outlier. She was calm and collected. She was a Luthor, as Kara had found herself fond of reminding her of.

"You don't know a damn thing about me."

"I know you better than anyone," Kara refuted with deep-seeded vehemence, quick and sure with her statement, emphasized by the fire in her eyes and the violent jerk of her body. "You may hate me right now. You may hate me forever. But I know you."

Usually one for witty comebacks and having the last word, Lena found herself wordless in the face of determination confronting her. She'd rarely seen Kara in this form – confident and unwavering – then again, she'd always seen Kara as…well, Kara.

And there was no witty comeback in this situation, because, as much as she hated it, Kara was right. There could be her mother, her father, Lex, hell, even Jess, but she had never let anyone delve so deep inside her to understand the fabrication of Lena Luthor like she did Kara. God, the number of times she'd drank herself to sleep at the thought of her worst traitor knowing so much about her – it was nauseating.

She broke eye contact with Kara, because she kept it up, it'd be a toss-up between pushing Kara over the balcony and kissing her right in the face. She retreated, turned around, and entered her office, making a point by closing the door behind her.

"Thank you, Supergirl," she said.

Beeping and chemical and droids – before Lena opened her eyes, she'd know where she'd woken up in, and she hated it. She didn't know how she knew; it wasn't like she'd been here a lot, but she supposed that every time she'd been here, there was something urgent happening and she'd always clocked in on her surroundings when her heartbeat increased.

Once upon a time, she would have loved to be somewhat included in the operations of this place, though she hated the basis of it. At least she would like to be included into the team, considered half a hero for all that she'd done. But of course, a small reservation of Kryptonite would dash all that apart. She supposed she'd already known quite early one that trust was a very, very fragile thing, but she also supposed she'd allowed herself to have some hope in the – if she remembered her brother telling her correctly – Paragon of Hope.

Well, since she's awake now, might as well get the hell out of dodge before anyone noticed. She didn't want to talk to the people who'd lumped in with Kara and lied to her face again and again before. She wasn't sure she wouldn't punch Alex in the face for it.

Except, Kara was standing right there in her Supergirl regalia, arms crossed and face set in a knowing look, unimpressed.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Go away."

The blonde rolled her own eyes in return, scoffing. "No, not until I know you're okay," she replied. "I can't believe –"

"What, that I'd be so determined to pursue my goal that I'd allow a pair of augmented reality contact lenses push my brain into overdrive?" Lena snapped. Look, she'd understood what had gone on the moment she woke up; she wasn't exactly stupid. She narrowed her eyes at Kara. "If you know me so well, you'd know exactly the extent of my stubbornness."

Kara looked like she wanted to argue, but she also knew Lena was right, this time. She relented by frowning down at her boots, pouting, of all things.

"I hope it was worth it," she said, scrunching her nose pettily.

Lena thought about the trap that she'd been cooking up since the moment she woke up in a whole new reality with fresh heroes and a living breathing Lex Luthor. She thought about this organization with the shady missions but also the capabilities to protect this city, sometimes even the goddamn earth, and how there was definitely no risking them getting involved in her plans until the very end. She thought about the stress she'd put her head under, most likely frying off parts of her brain permanently and shaving a few years off her life.

This world needed heroes – as much as she had fallen out with Kara right now, there was no doubt she was the biggest hero on this earth. This world didn't need Lena. It was worth it, though they were both thinking two different things. There was a sting in her chest at the reminder that Kara still didn't trust her, even though she'd said all those things and apologized all those times.

"It is," Lena replied simply.

She shot Kara a humourless smile and swung her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the pounding ache in her head and the irregularities of her heartbeat – okay, so maybe the side effects of an overdrive due to an augmented reality contact lenses might be a little more severe than she thought.

Gritting her teeth through the discomfort, her feet found grounding on the floor and pushed her upright with all might mustered. She weakly slapped away the hand that reached around her shoulders and shuffled over to the bathroom, where she knew they'd be keeping her clothes. If not, she'd just head out in this sorry excuse of a pyjama set. She just wasn't going to stay here any longer.

Thankfully enough, Kara understood the situation and didn't follow her, only waiting for her outside the bathroom. After Lena's changed and stole a couple of ibuprofens from the mirror cabinet, she got out and sidestepped Kara.

"I really hope that you're happy. Sincerely," Kara added, stopping Lena in her tracks. "Do you know what's not worth it? Me lying to you for years and destroying our friendship in the process. That was most worthless thing I've ever done in my life," she said, her voice shaky. "I found you passed out in your apartment because I was listening to your heartbeat; because I always listen to your heartbeat; because I'll always wanna keep you safe."

"Save it –"

"Whatever you're doing, I hope it's worth it. I hope it's worth possibly dying over and making everyone – who's still concerned about you, by the way – worry about you. But I don't care about them; I care about you. You are a good person, Lena, and I will believe that even if you end up killing me. I just –" Kara sucked in a shaky breath and sniffled. "I just really hope you're happy. Truly."

Lena was of half the mind to turn around and spill everything. She didn't, deciding that she would be happy once she was certain her brother was gone for good.

"Lena, I swear to –"

The raven-haired woman gaped at the blonde while the world – well, the augmented reality world – was blowing up behind her, courtesy of her brother throwing a tantrum that would kill anyone within this realm just because his sister was, once again, one step ahead of him and managed to trap him here.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lena shrieked.

Under normal circumstances, she would have kept her composure, even when the world was ending, because she'd always been prepared for her death. And she had been ready to die here, after she'd tweaked the reality that Lex would be projected into to make it so that whoever entered wouldn't be able to get out. She'd warned Andrea about it, telling her to tweak the brainwave cycle for the rest of the users so they wouldn't become collateral damage.

And then she'd entered this reality herself, ready to take her brother down once and for all, prepared for this to be the end of the short road she'd taken.

She'd left a note to Kara and a separate note for Alex. There was no apology in either of them, because she wasn't going to apologize for feeling and she wasn't going to feel sorry for them being guilty.

No, in Alex's note, she told her that she understood why Alex had hidden the truth from her in the beginning and appreciated the short period of friendship they had together; she told Alex about the mechanisms of the reality she'd augmented and she'd know how to shut it down and when to shut it down out in the real world. In Kara's note, she told her that she forgave her and laid out her entire plan so Kara would understand what was happening; she told Kara what she hoped for in her funeral – to be cremated and scattered over the Cliff of Moher.

But until the very end, Lena still wanted to keep her pride, so she omitted telling any of them that she loved them, though she did.

She kept her composure as she lured Lex with the contact lenses, telling him that it was a reimagination of a world without aliens and how right he had been – he took the bait hook, line, and sinker. She kept her composure when Lex found out and decided to just wreak havoc across the realm, promising to save her for last.

That was, until Kara showed up right in the middle of it.

"I found your stupid note, you stupid idiot!" Kara yelled at her.

"How the fuck –"

"I was listening to your heartbeat because that's what I fucking do now because you're a stupid idiot and I found out and the real world is in chaos and you're a terrible person for thinking you can leave me behind like that!"

Lena blinked at Kara's language, and she watched as Kara panted in both exertion and anger, sweeping left and right and back and forth to swipe away any debris swinging in Lena's way. And still, the blonde still found the energy to talk back to Lena.

"Goddammit, Kara, you should've left me behind when you had the chance," Lena chastised, running her fingers frantically through her hair as she tried to run through her code mentally again to find any leeway for Kara to get out.

Kara stopped her fighting to swoop right up to Lena, almost chest to chest, her cape whipped out as a way to protect the both of them from collision. Her eyes were deep blue and serious when she said, "I told you I'll always protect you."

"Oh, fuck you."

"When? Where?"

She could swear she stopped breathing at the half-demand. Her eyes widened and her muscles froze and she literally couldn't move, not even to breathe. In front of her though, instead of the expected spluttering Kara apologizing for her loose mouth, she was stern and certain, like she had never wanted anything else in her life.

At the look on Lena's face, Kara softened and crowded closer into Lena, daring to even wrap her cape around Lena to create a cocoon of bulletproof-ness. She moved one hand to bury Lena's head in the crook of her shoulder and the other hand firmly around her shoulders.

"I'm in love with you, you stupid idiot," Kara whispered, tenderly, drowning out the collapsing realm around them.

Lena wanted to fight. She wanted to push Kara away and continue their face-off. But the world was ending around them – the virtual world anyway – and she still couldn't think of a way to get Kara out of here. And god, she'd missed this.

She only dug her nose deeper into Kara's hair and inhaled the smell of the sky that had always permeated around them – honestly, there were so many things that could have pointed her to the truth before the whole thing imploded on them. Her arms relented and wrapped themselves around Kara as well, hugging the other woman with as much as strength as she had left.

They were going to die.

"That's not fair," she muttered.

Kara chuckled darkly. "It's not fair for you to just leave me a note and die alone here, but you did it anyway."

"I apologize for the interruption, but I would advise for us to depart as soon as possible before this whole realm really does collapse on us."

Of course, Brainy, the supercomputer in living, breathing form. Lena made a note to arrange the most extravagant date for him and Nia once they were out of here, as she drew back from Kara and held onto her hand like her life depended on it.

She'd expected to come back home to a quiet place, after having listened to the news just before leaving the office. Yes, after many years of work-a-holism, she'd finally built a habit of going home at a decent hour, but that certainly didn't mean her workload had reduced any less – she'd just learnt to manage her time better, now that she had an actual home.

And, of course, after finally having a home, she supposed she'd gotten used to the unexpected life and times of that, which was why she wasn't entirely surprised to have returned to a penthouse half-filled with smoke and smelling like burnt food. Chuckling lightly to herself, she wondered quietly as to why this kept happening and why the person instigating it just could never learn her lesson.

"Darling?" she called out.

Kara paused in blowing the smoke out of the balcony and swung around, almost tilting over if not catching herself on the couch. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was twisted into a wry smile, her fingers twisting randomly without pattern – all signs of guilt and nervousness. She gulped and lifted a hand in an awkward wave.

"Darling, you have to stop jeopardizing our kitchen," Lena admonished with not a single hint of animosity in her voice, as she hung her coat up on a rack by the door. She took out her phone and smirked at Kara. "So, pizza?"

"Yes, please," Kara said, slumping in relief. She waved a hand around with a one-shouldered shrug. "I'll deal with this. You go shower and change."

She ordered the pizza and did as she was told, washing off the grit of the day and changing into one of Kara's sweatshirts and a pair of jogging shorts. The pizza was already here as she came back out, all ten boxes of them, and Kara was queuing up Netflix on the couch.

Lena liked this, she decided as she sat down next to Kara and cuddled up to her, not forgetting a kiss. She liked the domesticity and the weird life they led together. She liked that, despite the concern and the fights caused, they were always there together, saving the world by defeating one villain at a time. She loved Kara – she'd stopped denying that a long time ago. There was a vision, them spending the rest of their lives together like this. It was a testament to everything they'd been through together.

Once Set It Up had finishing playing and they'd polished off all the pizza, Lena had also grown to notice how fidgety Kara had grown. She tried to ignore it throughout the movie, but when Kara dropped all the pizza boxes on the carpet, Lena just couldn't let it go anymore.

"Kara, what's going on?" she asked, starting grow worried as Kara started muttering to herself and failing to pick up the boxes, kneeling down. When Kara continued muttering, Lena sighed, "I don't have super-hearing, darling."

It was only then that Kara stopped, her hands hovering the pizza boxes. Under dim light of the moon and the television glow, Lena could see that her hands had started getting clammy – Kara never sweated. She stood up, preparing to kneel down and help her girlfriend out, only to be thrown into a state of speechlessness when the blonde swung around on her knees and presented her with a velvet box in the middle of the air.

"I –" Kara cut herself off, gulping and blinking rapidly.

"What is this?"

The Kryptonian huffed a breathless laugh, reaching up to adjust her glasses. "I was – I wanted to cook you a nice dinner for once, with the candlelight and all. I wanted to –"

She narrowed her eyes a little, staring into the air this time even though her eyes were directed at Lena. She returned to focus soon, determined this time.

"Lena Luthor, you are the love of my life. I love you, with everything in me. Heck, I even walked right into an augmented reality knowing that I wouldn't be able to get out because I promised that I'd save you, no matter what. And you – you have given me a purpose that I feel like I've been searching my whole life before I met you. You are my purpose. Everything I do, every life I save, everywhere I go, it's with the aim of coming home to you and making you proud. So, right now, even if I'm not a good cook and I'm a terribly clumsy person, I'm putting myself out here – just a Kryptonian, asking an extraordinary human to marry me." Kara panted at the end of her diatribe, blinking more rapidly and velvet box growing damper under her clammy palms.

Lena gaped at her, unable to form any coherent thoughts as she looked between the ring and the woman holding it towards her. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, her brain going at lightspeed a minute.

"Lena?" Kara prompted.

"Oh, fuck you."

Kara was stunned into silence for a minute, but it didn't take her long to figure out the context, and the nervous pinch to her lips extended into the widest smile that Lena had ever seen on this bright woman's face. Kara raised her brows and was obvious in resisting the urge to bite her lower lip.

"When? Where?"

Lena didn't even wait as she grabbed for the ring and put in on her finger, didn't even try to have a look at how beautiful it was. Right now, all she needed was her fiancée. She lowered to pull Kara up, throwing herself into the woman's arms and lacing her legs around Kara's hips.

"Right here, right now."

Kara, being the superhero that she was, obliged.

oh fuck you