#im either gonna write more supercorp jess/alex or finally try to write james and lena bff fic

[nadiineross]

title: mutual friends: five, probably

pairing: kara/lena, lena/having actual real life friends

note:  no mon-el and maggie. alex is out and secure in terms of her sexuality. complete-ish; its just fluff. (read my tags if u want something extra lmao)

summary: Lena’s a little nervous, to be honest. Sure, she’s made friends, but if you really think about it, she can still only count that number with one hand. (To be fair, four of those friends work for a secret government agency, so it’s not that bad.)

It starts with Jess.

She’s beautiful and sharp, both mind and tongue. And the first thing she says to Lena after she’s hired is, “This will be the most unprofessional thing I will ever say to you, count on that, Ms. Luthor, but I won’t sleep with you.”

And that’s that.

Loyal as ever, Jess moves to National City with her, wordlessly stocking up her collection of alcohol at the end of the first week as she did back in Metropolis and forging a strange, mostly silent bond with Lena.

Jess is her first friend in a long, long while.

The next comes wrapped in pastel sweaters and plain button ups.

Kara Danvers, hair as golden as her heart, is a puppy.

Lena’s smart, though. She managed to survive the Luthor household, after all. Kara didn’t befriend her out of the kindness of her heart – Lena doesn’t doubt it’s there, no, she did is because she’s a Luthor.

It’s fine. She just has to prove them all wrong. Easy.

Okay. So it’s not that easy.

Literally the same month, she gets shot at in a helicopter (god, she knew flying was a mistake) and has her building attacked.

Still, it gets her a friend in Supergirl. Supergirl!

Who would’ve thought?

“You should be careful.”

Lena reaches for her glass, water, because she feels like she’s bordering on alcoholism, and regards Jess over the rim of it.

“Kara Danvers,” Jess clarifies, “The reporter.”

“What about her?” Lena asks, eyebrows raised.

Jess is thoroughly unimpressed. Under ‘Education’ on Lena’s Wikipedia page is a list of Russel Group universities. She doesn’t appreciate Lena’s attempt at playing dumb. “You’re a Luthor and she works at CatCo – Supergirl’s biggest fan club.”

“I’m a Luthor,” Lena says, almost amused. “And I haven’t done anything wrong. I have nothing to hide, Jess.”

“I’m not talking PR-wise.”

“Whatever happened to professionalism?”

Jess rolls her eyes.

Lena almost grins. Almost. She hides it behind her water, covered by her hand. “I can’t believe I pay you.”

“I can’t believe you’re letting Ms. Danvers manipulate you into friendship just so she can write stories about you,” Jess retorts.

Lena narrows her eyes. “You don’t know her.”

“Neither do you.”

“And how am I supposed to if I don’t give her a chance?”

Jess, mouth pressed into a line, turns around and opens the door. “Be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?” Lena smiles, wryly. She picks her pen back up after transferring the water into her other hand – try as she might, she is not ambidextrous – and finishes signing off a contract.

The door closes as Jess snorts. Outside, Supergirl flies by, a grin on her face.

The air is colder up here, on her balcony, she notes as she pours water out of a half empty plastic bottle, the ones she left around for drop in meetings, into the one potted plant she has out here.

Jess had went home earlier, but not after insisting Lena left at most fifteen minutes later. That was an hour ago. She makes another note to herself to restrict Jess’s access to security footage so she won’t nag Lena about it tomorrow.

“It’s late, Ms. Luthor.”

“Supergirl.” Kara. Lena’s not stupid. It’s almost an insult, honestly. They’ve been friends for just short of half a year now.

Kara drops herself onto the balcony and offers her a tiny smile. “Why are you here so late?”

“Unfinished work,” Lena replies, dismissive. She crumples up the bottle before twisting the cap on and quirks both her eyebrows. “This brings back memories.”

Kara nods, straight faced. “I’m sorry you, well… Almost… Died.”

Lena laughs and steps back into her office, tossing the bottle into the bin by her desk. “I’m sorry you had to skip coffee with Kara to save me from plummeting thirty floors.”

Kara follows her in, closing the balcony door, and rounds the desk just as Lena takes a seat. “Any time.”

“My hero,” Lena says, almost teasingly, turning on her laptop. “Not to be rude, Supergirl, but why are you here?”

“Oh.” Kara blinks. “Just checking up on you. Because we’re friends.”

That’s another thing, Lena’s jaw tics, because of the three friends she has in National City, two of them are the same person. The other, is her secretary. She sighs to herself.

Lena glances over at Kara and sees her peering over at a pile of CatCo magazines on her coffee table, all of which has at least one article she’s written. Well, at least she tries to hide it. “I’m fine,” Lena says, amused when Kara jerks around. “But thanks, Kara.”

Supergirl beams. “No problem, Lena.” A beat. “Ms. Luthor. Wait. Wait, what?”

After a fair amount of panic and two days of flat out avoidance on Kara’s part, she comes back with apologies spilling out of her mouth and bag after bag of take out.

For the next week, Kara tries to bribe Jess into liking her, because even though Kara’s proven to be a good friend, Jess still doesn’t like her.

Eventually though, Kara manages to find the secret, which is just twelve shots of coffee every morning and a quota of ten words per person spoken to her before eight.

And after that, Lena gets it. The invitation to what Kara makes out to be the most prestigious weekly happening in the entire city, if not country.

Game night.

There, she’s met with two not-quite-glares and two grinning idiots to make up for it. There’s Alex, Kara’s Rottweiler guard dog of a sister, and then there’s James Olsen. The other two are obviously Kara herself and Winn, the guy she’d met at her own gala.

She arrives five minutes late due to another IT disaster, despite wanting to show up at least five minutes early, and is disastrously overdressed.

Kara lends her a pair of jeans and a loose sweater to go over her dress shirt.

When she comes back out, James and Winn are still arguing over which game to start with and Alex is pouring herself more wine into a Mickey Mouse mug with her phone in hand. (Lena groans quietly out of the back of her throat, because, honestly, mood.)

They end up settling it when Kara declares that since it’s Lena’s first game night and it’s her choice, which implies there will be more game nights in which Lena doesn’t get first choice, making Lena want to bounce a little like Kara would. She doesn’t, instead, she gingerly sits herself down next to Kara and the arm of the sofa, and picks out Trivial Pursuit.

Kara wilts a little at the choice, but Lena’s in it to win it, so she just pats Kara’s arm – she’s not touching her leg, no way – and promises Kara that they can team up.

They split into two teams, Kara and Lena, and the other three. About four seconds in, it’s made clear to Lena that it’s really actually Lena playing and Kara’s still stewing over which president haunted the white house.

Still, Lena reckons she put up a good fight. She loses. Still.

Kara apologizes sheepishly when she realizes they’ve lost and she’s still deciding whether it was Washington or Jefferson – it’s neither, Abraham Lincoln’s ghost was supposedly sighted.

It’s only after Lena’s completely obliterated at Go Fish and they take a short break does one of the others finally talk to her.

“I love Kara,” Alex says as she sidles up to Lena in the kitchen, “But you shouldn’t have paired up with an alien for a game that was going to quiz you on human and pop culture.”

Lena, twisting the end of her borrowed sweater, smiles, softly, looking over at Kara who’s currently trying to throw chips into Winn’s mouth while James films the entire thing. “Who else was going to pair up with me?”

Alex snorts and mutters something with the word fuck. “I’ll do it next time. If you can even say no to Kara’s face.”

Lena grimaces and meets her eyes, stepping back a little at the slight hint of accusation there. “I–”

To her immense relief, Kara starts clapping her hands and hailing them back over before Alex can interrogate her more.

“We’re playing Monopoly now,” she announces, pulling Lena down next to her, except putting her in the middle, next to James, this time.

Winn immediately starts dishing out money and it doesn’t escape Lena’s attention when he slips both Kara and himself an extra hundred. Neither, apparently, does it escape Alex’s, judging by her indignant snort when Kara tries to hide it.

They don’t say anything.

James goes first, rolling the highest and scoring himself another roll, and buys out every property he lands on, screwing Winn over.

Unsurprisingly, Winn goes bankrupt first and spends the rest of the game trying to distract James as revenge.

Alex soon gets bored and runs herself into the ground on purpose, only to foster a renewed interest and starts helping Kara with strategies, leaving Lena as the last person who’s playing normally.

And with Alex’s help, Kara’s actually winning, so Lena, who’s already figured out they’re trying to get James out of the game with Winn, decides to help.

In the end, two hours of arguing and one noise complaint in total, Kara’s pouting into Alex’s shoulder as she tosses her last buck into James’s grinning face. He gives Lena a high five when she bows out and lets him have his victory and for once, she feels like she belongs.

“Thanks, guys,” Kara says after they’ve finally settled down and cleaned up (there was a lot of cleaning up, no thanks to Kara’s bad aim, or as she insists, Winn’s habit of moving every time she throws a chip to scam her).

She hugs everyone goodbye, first Winn, then James, and then it’s Lena, who she grapples around the waist and buries her face into. Lena doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to this.

Alex sticks around, giving Lena an awkward nod over Kara’s shoulder before turning back to the TV.

Outside, James and Winn wait for her, which is just… Well. Lena doesn’t want to say weird, because it’s sweet of them, really, but it’s weird.

“Thanks for letting me win,” James says with a wide grin, hand coming up to rub at his neck.

“My name’s Winn and you still let me lose,” Winn says as they wait for the elevator.  

Lena laughs and tucks her fingers into her sweater (Kara’s not getting it back). “I didn’t know you’d be that bad at Monopoly.”

“I resent that. Really. I do.” Winn pauses, leaving the atmosphere in the elevator silent and awkward and Lena shifts her weight onto her other foot. “Anyway, tell me about photonic crystals and the hot solar absorber you’re developing.”

Lena tenses. Her little IT problem that made her late. “Did you have anything to do with a cyber-attack?”

Winn’s eyes widen. “Uh. I mean, no. Technically, yes.”

James transitions from absolute bewilderment to a frown and smacks Winn over the head. “We talked about this.”

God, Kara and her friends are going to be trouble.

After that, she forms a bond with Winn over what is quite frankly, nerd-stuff.

She counts him as her third friend she makes in the city. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

Alex is fourth when, the following Friday night, they team up together as promised for Trivial Pursuit and wipe the floor.

She’s still frosty at times, especially when she catches Lena smiling to herself at Kara doing something either really cute or stupid or both, but other than that she’s a formidable opponent in Monopoly and has a sense of humour Lena could appreciate.

James is last and it takes her three more game nights for her to finally understand why.

“Literally only Kara doesn’t know,” Alex says.

Lena gestures to her shelf of alcoholic drinks. “Help yourself, Agent Danvers.”

Alex happily pours herself a glass of whiskey and sits herself down on the couch. “Nice office.”

“Thanks,” Lena says. “Literally only Kara doesn’t know what?”

Alex gives her a look. Her entire body goes rigid until she relaxes when Jess steps in with a tablet. “Ms. Luthor, I have this month’s – oh. Hello.”

“Thank you, Jess,” says Lena as she nods for her to hand the tablet over.

“Both James and Winn know, Lena,” Alex says whilst Jess taps away at a second tablet, waiting for Lena to finish scanning over the reports. “About you.”

“Hm,” Lena hums, distracted.

Annoyed, Alex clinks her glass loudly. “And Kara.”

Ah. Her eyes moves rapidly from Alex to Jess and back to her tablet, she almost misses Jess’s scoff.

“Oh yeah,” Jess mutters under her breath, even if it’s obvious they’ve both heard it.

Alex smirks.

“I don’t know what either of you are talking about.” Lena returns the tablet back to Jess and pointedly looks over at the door.

“Of course, Ms. Luthor.”

Jess is a little shit.

When the door closes, Lena swivels around in her chair to face Alex. “Could you not embarrass me in front of my assistant?”

“She probably has more embarrassing stories about you than I do,” Alex replies. It’s true. Part of the reason why Lena’s stopped drinking after work is because she says some really stupid things without a filter. “Beside the point, Lena, everyone knows.”

“And what is your point?”

“That there are already three other people I know who are ready to kill you if you hurt her. Four, if you count Cat Grant,” Alex says, nonchalantly. “Also, just ask her out.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. She really expected more. “And you’re encouraging this, why?”

Alex gives her a funny look. “I want my sister to be happy, not a nun.”

Lena laughs.

“And by the way, even James agrees.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.” Lena stares at her. “They used to date?”

That– Lena stares at her some more. That actually makes a lot of sense. As far as she can tell, Kara and James both have the urge to help and, well, there’s something between them. Something a little too stiff for people who’ve been close friends as long as they have.

Alex mutters a Jesus Christ and gets up. “You’re both blind.”

And that’s that.

Winn’s off to some nerd convention for the next game night, so they can finally play two-on-two. Kara attempts to be fairer; she sticks their names on a random generator she gets off Google and picks teams every time they play a new game.

It takes off perfectly, starting off with Pictionary and a strange team played game of Battleships (specially lined with lead, she’s no cheater) with Kara, followed by more single player games they’ve turned into twos, like Chess with Alex (apparently, Kara’s misplaced Trivial Pursuit), and then Clue with Kara, again (making up ludicrous murder scenarios much to all of their amusement).

And then it’s James. She’s paired with James four times in a row. Really, what kind of random generator puts her up with the ex-boyfriend of her current crush? And pits them against the Danvers sisters? A higher power is out to get her, truly.

“Uh. Hippo? No! Elephant!”

“Yes!”

“Alligator? Crocodile.”

“Yes! Did we win?”

Alex chortles and wraps Kara up in a fierce hug. “As if those losers could beat us. We’re the reigning charades champs, Kara.”

Kara mimes wiping dust off her hands and takes a seat, grinning smugly at Lena and James.

“Well,” Lena says, apologetically, “I’m not much of an actress.”

James smiles, warmly. “I’ve heard otherwise. Medusa had us all fooled.”

“Do you want to act first or should I?” Lena asks, a little stilted.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “Theme?”

“TV shows!” Kara shouts, even though she’s an arm’s length away.                                                                                

He does as told and turns to face Lena as she takes out her phone to open the app. “Ready?”

“As ever.” She doesn’t really have the time to watch TV, but she’s hoping for classics and shows that are so mainstream even she couldn’t avoid them.

James, always, always smiling, guesses to the best of his ability, even when she flounder a little on some of them. Unsurprisingly they lose, but by the time they’ve played four rounds, they’re only behind by a couple points.

They take a break before they launch themselves into legitimate single player games. Kara sprawls all over Lena’s lap as James makes conversation with Alex. “Are you having fun?”

Lena laughs, absentmindedly sticking a hand in Kara’s hair and working out the knots. “Yeah, of course.”

Kara hums. “Oh. Well… good.”

“Good,” Lena repeats.

“Okay. And you’re going to keep on having fun?” Lena furrows her eyebrows. “Because we’re playing Go Fish next.”

Ah. Lena bites back a laugh and fakes a huff. “I’m leaving now.”

“Lena.”

After that, James walks her to her car since it’s on the way to his.

“Have a good night,” he bids, waving as she tosses her bag into the passenger seat.

“You too,” she replies.

L-Corp’s finally announcing the new solar cells and she gives CatCo an exclusive.

Kara spends the majority of the interview gushing over a cat picture and mulling over the casual game of chess they usually play whenever she stops by the office. Jess drops in every now and then, leaving behind a snide comment before she leaves.

Then, she goes for a photoshoot with James (who insists on being the photographer).

She’s a professional and she’s had shoots before, whether it be with her family or for L-Corp, so the shoot flies by.

Lena lets a stuttering college student wipe the makeup off her face and smiles kindly when he murmurs a bye.

“Just a second!” James calls before she can walk out of the studio. “Don’t you want to look at the pictures?”

“I’m sure they turned out excellently,” Lena replies, turning a little. “I trust your abilities in photography.”

James jogs up to her, his camera in hand. “Yeah, but you’re not even a little bit curious?”

Lena bites her lip before sighing and inching closer to peer over at the camera. “Okay, fine.”

She was right. She looks like she can stab a man with a stiletto and still look meticulous. That’s not the image she really wants for herself, but it’s one that she must have to run her company. Besides, it fits with the sleek, modern thing L-Corp’s going for.

“I look… great,” Lena says, slowly, as he flips through more photos.

“Are you complimenting me or yourself?” James jokes.

“Me, of course.” He comes to a stop on the last one, where she’s her hand’s half way to her mouth and she’s laughing her guts out – probably when Kara dropped in and did something endearing. It looks… nice. Softer. “Oh.”

James grins and turns his camera off before she can comment on it further. “Hey, I get off work in five. Wanna go for drinks?”

Lena, taken aback, only blinks.

“Hello?” James waves a hand in her face. “You in there, buddy?”

“You want to go for drinks with me?”

James tilts his head. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” He frowns. “Or do you not drink alcohol?”

“No, I do,” Lena says, hurriedly. “Yeah. Drinks. Sounds good.”

James chuckles. “All right, then. I’m going to put all this back in my office. I’ll meet you at the front?”

“Sure,” Lena says.

She almost texts Kara or Alex, or even Jess, to come be a buffer, but decides against it when she sees Supergirl zooming past overhead (she hopes it’s a cat stuck in a tree) and knows Jess would be a nightmare to put up with.

James comes out soon enough, tie loosened and customary grin in place.

He leads them to a bar walking distance away, so they don’t have to worry about transportation (she doesn’t really have to, because she’s technically still on the clock and has chauffeurs) and opens the door for her.

“Bar or booth?”

“Booth, please.”

James gestures to the one in the corner. “I’ll get us drinks. What do you want?”

“Oh, no, I can get my own,” Lena says. “I can afford it.”

“It’s fine,” James says, nudging her. “Come on, before a group of underage NCU students take it. You can buy the next round.”

Lena begrudgingly splits up with him after giving him her drink order, sliding into the booth and shooting a text off to Jess, telling her to head off early since she’s most likely not coming back to the office tonight.

Jess blue ticks her as usual.

“So,” James starts when he sets her glass down and settles down opposite her. “How’s business?”

She raises her eyebrows after taking a sip. “Friends talk about this in a post-work bar hang out?”

“Touché,” he replies through a laugh, and that’s how she makes her fifth friend, six months into living in National City.

They skip game night next week, because there’s an arson somewhere downtown and Kara and James have to rescue people as Alex and Winn work with the DEO. She feels a pang of incompetence in her chest when she sees all her exhausted friends the next day when Winn insists on a movie marathon to compensate, but she quickly pushes it away.

Winn’s apartment is as nerdy as she envisioned, and they mostly just leave the other three to geek over all his random gadgets he’s got scattered around.

Later, Kara flies everyone home individually.

It’s not the first time, the second actually, but it is the first time when Lena’s actually not dying.

Kara drops her off last, because Alex basically fell asleep two seconds into High School Musical 2 and Lena insisted that James go next, because Lena’s still trying to figure out how Winn got an entire airplane engine into his bathroom.

She hates flying, but she’ll take any chance to cling onto Kara. She’s desperate, so what.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks as Lena shifts in her arms to tuck her head into the hollow under her chin. “I can go slower.”

“No, it’s fine,” says Lena, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” she replies, brightly, before hesitating. “I, uh, don’t know where you live.”

Oh. Lena reminds herself to invite them over for dinner or something, and then mutters out her address as Kara changes direction sharply.

“My bad. Sorry.”

Lena tightens her hold on Kara, patting her muscled bicep lightly. “It’s okay.”

When Kara lets her down on her balcony, she takes a moment to adjust, murmuring her thanks when Kara quickly scoops her purse out of the air when she drops it.

“Uh,” Lena finally says, “Kara.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have keys to my balcony.”

Kara blinks. “Oh. Right. That’s all right. Just give me your keys and I’ll fly down to let you in, this way you won’t have to fly again.”

Lena smiles a little, stepping up closer to dig into the purse Kara’s still holding and pressing it into her palm. “My hero.”

Kara looks almost dazed as she flops over the balcony with the keys.

It takes longer than expected. Kara apologizes when she finally barges into Lena’s apartment and twists the lock open. “The doorman wanted a signature.”

“It’s okay, Kara.” Lena whips off her cardigan, tosses it on her couch, and kicks her heels off. It takes her about two entire minutes for her to realize Kara is staring curiously at her walls. “Not what you expected?”

“Well, no. But it’s nice.” Lena gives her an amused look, padding to her kitchen for a tub of ice cream she’s not going to eat, seeing as she bought it for Kara ages ago from a brief trip to Europe but never found the time to give to her. “No, really, it’s nice,” Kara says, earnestly.

Lena takes a spoon from a drawer and turns, juddering back into the fridge when she finds Kara right there.

“Sorry! Sorry.”

Lena laughs and thrusts the ice cream into Kara’s hands. “Eat up, Supergirl.”

Kara takes one look at the label and is a goner. Lena can tell. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Says the superhero to a Luthor,” Lena says, dryly, shuffling around Kara to hoist herself up onto the island.

“You know I don’t see you as a Luthor, right?” Kara asks, frowning and holding the half-finished carton aside. “Sure, you’re Lena Luthor, that’s your name, but you’re not… You know. A Luthor.”

“It was a joke.” It was. Kind of. “Seriously, Kara, enjoy the ice cream and your out of this world metabolism.”

Kara giggles, appreciating the pun, and scoops a literal quarter of the carton on her spoon, stuffing it in her face. Lena shakes her head and turns to grab a roll of napkins.

“Come over here,” she says, one hand coming up to Kara’s neck once she’s close enough and the other with a napkin dabbing at her bulging cheeks. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Thanks,” Kara says around a mouthful of ice cream. A glob lands on her suit, just over the crest, and Lena quickly swipes that up before Kara can move her head more.

After that, Kara takes it slower, taking tinier spoons as Lena scrunches up yet another used up napkin.

It’s warm and quiet in here, surrounded by framed CatCo articles written by Kara, pictures from various game nights, and even one of her and Jess a gossip site had gotten when she’d first moved here. (She forgets to think about the one she has of Lex at her high school graduation hanging proudly by the door.)

When Kara finishes the carton and sets it next to the pile of napkins, she leans into Lena, sandwiched by her thighs. “Are you going to work tomorrow?”

“I always go,” Lena replies, eyes flicking from Kara’s still hopelessly sticky jaw to her eyes.

Kara’s hand rises up to cover Lena’s, still on her neck. “You work too much.”

Lena almost laughs in her face. “You have a day job and a night job.”

Her hand tightens on Lena’s. “Yeah, and I’m an alien who doesn’t need as much rest as you.”

“Your night job is beating the ever living shit out of criminals and charging into exploding buildings. We’re even.”

“Lena Luthor.”

“Kara Danvers,” Lena retorts, swiping her finger lazily over Kara’s pulse point. She wonders if Kara’s heart beat is just really slow or her skin is too dense for her to feel for it. “Thanks for worrying about me.”

“Not a problem,” Kara reassures, immediately and vehemently. “That’s what friends are for.”

Lena smiles and is so close to kissing her that she almost feels like crying when Kara jolts violently, head swiveling around.

Kara’s mouth is open, ready to say something, to apologize, but Lena hops off the counter and swipes twice at Kara’s shoulders. She pushes some hair away from Kara’s face and tugs her lower so she can kiss her forehead. “Go get ‘em, Supergirl.”

Kara gapes, then it morphs into a grin. “See you tomorrow, Lena.”

A moment after Kara’s jetting off, Lena falls back onto her counter, sagging. That was a disaster. A big gay disaster.

Lena sighs, takes the empty carton and spoon, and throws them into the bin and sink, respectively. She’s 100% certain the only reason she’s gotten so bold is because prolonged exposure to Kara and her friends have really boosted her confidence.

She’s not sure if she likes it.

“I heard through Winn who heard through Alex that you kissed Kara.”

“On the cheek,” Lena says, not missing a beat. She’s exhausted.

James hands her a whiskey, because that’s a thing now, they go for drinks every Monday and she finds that it’s an effective bonding experience and also an excellent time to bitch about businesspeople. He can really relate now that he’s been stand in chief at CatCo for half an entire year.

He’s somber, odd for him with his usual cheerfully charming disposition, but not in the slightest within this context. Lena sighs and hopes that this isn’t the end of their friendship. She doubts it, because James is genuine and accepting, and all-in-all the greatest guy she has ever known, and will ever know.

Lena’s sure of it. James pats her hand and Lena’s sure of it. “Now, usually, I wouldn’t help someone who’s head over heels for my ex by gossiping about said ex, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Lena Luthor.”

What’s with everyone and her full name? Christ.

Lena slumps lower in her seat. “And?”

“And the only reason why I know about this is because I heard through Winn who heard through Alex who heard through Kara talking about it for an entire hour and a half instead of choosing to eat the potstickers Alex brought for her.”

“Potstickers? Not, I don’t know, say, pizza?” Lena can’t hide the shock in her voice and she doesn’t really try to.

“Potstickers,” he confirms.

“Christ,” she whispers.

James nods in agreement. “Agreed. She’s in deep.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

For the first time that night, he laughs.

“You’re on your own on that one, buddy.”

Predictably, Alex stops by the next day just after Kara’s left (she tries her best to drop in every morning, firstly, so she can give Jess her morning coffee the way she likes it, and secondly, to bid Lena a good day). “I assume you’ve heard.”

“Hello to you too,” Lena says, sending off an email and returning to her inbox. “How did you get past the guard dog?”

An email from Jess pops up. In it, is a link to a shared company document and in that, is a long list of HR complaints, dated in chronological order starting from the conception of LuthorCorp. She’s pretty sure if she prints it out, staples the ends together, and throws it over the balcony, it would just reach the floor. Message received, loud and clear.

Lena closes the tab and starts up on an apology email.

“Jess loves me,” Alex says, they share a good natured laugh at Jess’s indignant scoff.

“Close the door, please,” Lena says, and after Alex kicks the door shut, continues, “I did hear. From James.”

Alex takes a seat opposite Lena and raises her eyebrow. “You should ask her out. Y’know, on a date. That’s how normal people do it.”

“She’s Supergirl and I’m a Luthor.”

“No, she’s Kara and you’re Lena,” Alex says, sharply. “Try again.”

Lena sends the email off to Jess and rubs her forehead. “She’s straight.”

“Didn’t you graduate from Stanford or something?”

“Only Met U for my bachelor’s and master’s and M.I.T. for my PhD, actually.” Lena props her chin up in her hand.

“All right, humble brag – actually, not even humble,” Alex says. “I did med school in NCU.”

“All right, humble brag – actually, not even humble.” Lena smiles as Alex rolls her eye at her. “And I knew that. Kara talks.”

Alex throws her head back and groans. “Don’t I know it, Luthor. She won’t stop talking about your cheek kiss. Just ask her out. Why are all you both so incompetent?”

Glancing around pointedly, Lena furrows her brows and forces herself to be stiff-lipped to stop herself from smirking. "I run a multi-million dollar company and your sister holds the safety of an entire city in her hands.”

“Exactly!” Alex points an accusing finger at Lena. “I expected more from you guys. Well, actually, not from Kara. It took her an entire year of pining over a taken man to get a boyfriend.”

Lena’s eyes widen. “A year? Taken? James was taken?”

At this, Alex positively cackles. “Oh, wait till you meet Lucy Lane.”

“What?”

Alex takes her phone out and holds it up to her ear. “Oh, what’s that? A real life emergency? Sure thing.” She gives Lena a salute, excellent form, because of course. “Ask her out or I’ll sue you and use the money to pay Kara’s favourite potsticker place to stop selling to her!”

James tells her their whole story when she requests a pre-game-night visit at her office, since Alex has proven to be unreliable and whenever she’s around Winn, they end up arguing over robot ethics or something. (She’s also not about to say anything about it to Jess or Kara.)

Throughout the entire thing, his expressions flicker through pure adoration, frustration, contemplation, and sadness, bordering on wistfulness. Lena gets it, to some extent at least. She puts a hand on James’s arm and pushes his drink closer to him as he comes to an end.

He chuckles, mirth not quite reaching his eyes, and knocks it back.

“I’m sorry that it ended.” She means it, sincerely. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “I guess some things just don’t work out the way we want it to, no matter how much we want it to.”

“Still,” Lena says, this time she means to say I’m sorry for violating the bro code or whatever that stupid shit is.

They fall into companionable silence as Lena switches her laptop off and halfheartedly organizes her desk into piles of paper.

When they go to game night, she sits shot gun in James’s car, instead of going separately.

By the time they reach Kara’s apartment, they’re back to easy banter. Kara opens the door to Lena’s red face, holding back her laughter and failing disastrously as James greets her happily.

“Hey, guys,” she says, carefully, “Come in.”

They’re early, so Kara lets them pick their spots first and dig into chips.

“Hey, Lena?” Kara asks when Lena’s rifling through the giant pile of snack foods for the cool ranch Doritos. “Do you want to change out of your work clothes?”

Lena curses under her breath as she straightens up, remembering that she left her casual outfit in her own car. “I forgot to bring a change of clothes. Can I borrow something?”

“Of course,” Kara responds, instantly, and leads them to her room. “Do you want jeans or sweatpants? Shirt or are you fine with just a sweater?”

“Jeans and sweater. Thank you.” She’s seen Kara’s ducky sweatpants and she’s not going to be caught dead in those around Winn and Alex.

“Any time.” Kara hands her a pair of jeans and opens another drawer to pull out her sweater. “So, um…”

She adjusts her glasses nervously.

Lena smiles, patiently, hoping Kara doesn’t bring up the cheek kiss. She’s not ready. “You’re going to have to finish the thought, darling.”

Kara blushes fire engine red and glances down at her feet. Pet name slip, oops. “Right. So are you and James… a thing? Or…”

“I’m – Kara, I’m gay,” Lena says, mildly. She came out publicly at least two years ago. This explained quite a lot, actually.

“Oh, Rao!” Kara blinks in quick succession and stumbles a little more over her speech, some not even spoken in English, or in any human language, for that matter. “Sorry. For assuming. That’s great! Good. That’s good. For you, I mean.”

Lena laughs and her chin bobs as she nods slowly. “Thank you, Kara. I do enjoy lesbianism.”

“Right.” Kara pushes her glasses higher, despite the fact that they’re at a reasonable height on her face. “I’m just gonna – I’ll go and let you change.”

That could have gone a lot better. It also explains why Kara herself hasn’t asked her out yet. Because Lena kind of wants that, she does.

When she goes back out, Alex has arrived and Kara’s on the phone with Winn in another room. She stuffs her folded dress into her purse and takes a spot next to James, who’s found the cool ranch, bless him.

After Kara walks out of the apartment to help Winn carry something up, Lena clears her throat. “Kara didn’t know that I’m a lesbian.”

Alex chokes on her sour cream and James lets out a long, suffering sigh.

“That clears up so many things for me,” Alex says. “I should’ve known. She basically told me I didn’t find the right guy accidentally when I first came out. She’s kind of awkward and just generally unaware about people’s romantic lives. Unless it’s on Sitcoms.”

Lena blows out a puff of air.

James gives her a thumbs up, though. “Maybe she’ll ask you out like you want her to.”

Here’s hoping.

“I’m learning so much today.”

Once again, because Kara’s magically found it, Lena wins at Trivial Pursuit, this time with Winn. It’s clear that Kara’s been reading up, since she actually contributes more to her team’s efforts. (Or, more likely, Alex tells them, when Kara goes to the bathroom, that she’s memorized as many answers as she can – later, she stomps out the bathroom and very emphatically tells them that Alex is a lying traitor.)

They try charades again, with one person sitting out every round to assign topics. When it’s Lena’s turn to pick, she gives Kara a choice between movies and animals (and she thoroughly enjoys Kara’s medley of the Little Mermaid songs), and James a list of occupations to act out for Alex.

To Winn, she gives musicals, because while he can sing, he doesn’t know anything about it and she’s still bitter that he’s declared himself the winner of their robots ethics discussion. Alex gets TV and she thanks her profusely. James and Alex win that particular round, seeing as James runs a magazine, so he knows his pop culture and Alex spends every other night binging on Netflix with Kara. Also, Winn flops spectacularly.

Next, Winn rotates off, putting James with Kara and Lena with Alex.

He gives Lena impressions and accents. Needless to say, she loses the game for them.

Judging by the unstoppable force of her laughter, Alex doesn’t necessarily mind.

Lena grins, good natured, and joins James. She’s going to destroy Winn, later, when she tells him what the fuck else she’s brewing up in her labs, which are very carefully guarded on her unhackable servers, thank you very much.

They’re nearing the end of a game of poker (Kara is as bad as expected; Lena is as bad as unexpected) when Kara hears some trouble a couple blocks away. It’s a mugging that Supergirl can handle on her own and faster than the Guardian can, so she goes alone, telling them they can stay as long as they want.

Still, Lena ends up going home early because she still has responsibilities, and Jess will kill her if she cancels another early morning Saturday meeting. James drives her and only starts off down the road when the doorman closes the door behind Lena.

She’s already asleep when Kara flies past her window.

It only takes Kara about an entire month before it happens. It’s almost winter now and Kara’s been wearing more sweaters in an attempt to fit in.

Lena herself is decked out in coat after trench coat. (Jess mutters something that sounds like, “There’s no in between with you two,” but she’s apparently never saying anything unprofessional to Lena, so she’ll give Jess the benefit of the doubt.)

There’s about a hundred articles written on her love affair with Kara, so they’re not necessarily fazed when a random kid takes pictures of them out on various lunches (on the ongoing hunt for National City’s best restaurant, not that it exists), but it’s not something Lena’s happy about.

Kara avoids the camera, self-consciously nudging her glasses using the tips of her fingers, before flat out frowning at the guy until a waiter notices Lena Luthor’s accompanying glower and kicks him out.

“How’s your week been?” Kara asks.

“You saw me yesterday,” Lena says, affection warming her tone. Seriously, they had game night literally less than twenty-four hours ago.

Kara puts a single index finger on the tip of Lena’s glass of iced lemon water, and Lena knows there’s not a chance in hell she’ll be able to lift it without breaking the cup. “How’s your week been?”

Lena laughs and wraps a hand around Kara’s. “Now? It’s great. How about yours?”

“Glad you asked,” Kara says, “Do you have, by any chance, a jerk detector you need testing? I know a guy. Snapper.”

“I’m sure I can start development on one.” Lena gently pries at Kara’s hand until she gets the point and moves away from Lena’s cup so she can take a drink.

Pouting, Kara splays her fingers over her face and slots her chin into the concave in her palm. “I can’t wait till Ms. Grant comes back.”

“Do you know when that is?” She’s still holding Kara’s other hand

“Well, no.” Kara grips a tiny bit tighter. “But I have hope that it’s soon.”

Lena’s pretty sure that’s enough to bring Cat Grant back. That’s one of Supergirl’s strongest powers, after all. She isn’t aware she’s said it aloud until Kara’s blushing and just about ready to haul Lena right over the table. “You think so?”

“I know so,” Lena says, fiercely. She has an unwavering faith in Kara, that’s only trumped by Alex to the best of her knowledge.

Kara beams before she nibbles at the edge of her lip and uses her free hand to fiddle with the tablecloth. The abrupt change in demeanor makes Lena knit her brows together and take another sip from her water. Are they going to talk about the coming out this now?

“Lena?” She hums in acknowledgement. “Can this be our first date?”

Her water goes down the wrong pipe and she coughs into her hand, so no one sees it dribble down her chin. Kara, almost knocks over her own drink when she stands abruptly to help Lena wipe her face and pat her back.

“I – I’m sorry,” Kara says, panicked. “We can ignore that.”

“What?” Lena croaks out, shooing her away, so she can just take seat and let Lena process. “No.”

“No?” She’s got the kind of wince that makes her scrunch up one side of her face in a pained smile.

Once Lena’s sure she’s not going to spew more water all over the place, she clears her throat and straighten up in an attempt to gather her dignity. It’s shattered. Spilled all over the floor. “I mean, if you want to ignore it, then… But I don’t. Because I would love it. If it was our first date.”

Kara’s entire body shakes with nervous energy as she bobs into her nod. “Yes! Definitely. I would be honoured.”

There’s a brief pause.

Lena giggles and then, after a second passes, Kara follows.

“We’re a mess,” Lena says.

“Gosh, don’t tell Alex, she’ll never let me live it down.”

“She’ll never let me live it down. Or Winn.”

“Pact to never tell them?”

“Done.”