Disclaimer: Supergirl still isn't mine. Alas.

A/N: Clearly, I'm obsessed with this episode, haha. But it's just so impressive how much character development they managed to cram into it! Anyhoo, this is a companion piece to Lighthouse, this time from Lena's point of view. It kind of ended up being mostly about her angst, especially with Lex, and...well, let's just say I'm not surprised Supercorp is my OTP, haha. Hope you enjoy, and again, reviews are awesome!

A/N the second: Oh, and everything I know about the Lore is from Smallville and Supergirl, so if this is inaccurate to the DC canon, well, you have your reason.

Antidote

Sometimes, Lena feels as if she's spent her entire life being lonely.

She doesn't remember her birth parents—hell, she was adopted when she was four. She barely remembers that. The orphanage is a dim phantasm, something that lurks in the corridors in her subconscious, not exactly a nightmare but slumbering like one, breaking out in unexpected spurts that have her waking in the pre-dawn gloom with her heart in her throat and none of the breath in her chest.

It is silent in her penthouse, and it was always silent in the Luthor mansion, back in Smallville. The rooms were too big, too drafty, and so terribly empty; two parents and two children just weren't enough to fill a house with that much space. She hates wasted space, even now; her lodgings are oddly cluttered. She hems herself in with bookcases and furniture and potted plants (and plumerias, because they are rare and pretty and because they belong at funerals and on people's graves and maybe, just maybe, it's homage to her parents somehow).

Lena has no pictures of them—her parents, that is. She has no recollections of them at all. She knows their names, but only because she's been told by strangers, because it's a matter of public record. It's not something she knows. It's a false memory, like a fact from a novel that describes a character but has no actual impact on her life.

It was a fire, or a car crash, or a plane crash, or some sort of accident. That detail blurs and distends for Lena, too. It's insignificant, in a way. It doesn't matter how her parents died; all that matters is that they died. And she went to the orphanage, and then the Luthors adopted her in the wake of some scandal (she found out much, much later) and wanted to look like right-minded citizens or some sort of appallingly disingenuous bullshit. Lena hates disingenuous bullshit almost as much as she hates being alone. It's close, but the latter still bothers her more.

Because it keeps happening.

Everyone Lena has ever loved has ruthlessly abandoned her: her birth parents died; her adoptive parents were never better than distant; and Lex, dear doting Lex, he rotted from the inside out until she could smell the blood on him, like he'd always had it on his hands. And Lena hates him for that most of all, because he was all she ever had. He was her hero, before there were heroes, before there was Superman. He was brilliant and sweet in a weird kind of way, and he tried to fill the big, empty house with an element of laughter.

Lena adored Lex, with her entire heart.

And then he turned around and betrayed her and wounded her, deep in her heart where no one else had ever gotten to live. It's the kind of wound that doesn't really ever heal, Lena knows. It's the kind that threatens to fester until one day it bubbles up in your throat and you suffocate from the overflow of viscous red. She fears that, more than most things. She fears turning out like, well, a Luthor. She fears that there may be something to guilt by association, and maybe there's something like corruption by association, too.

After all, she despises Lex now, right? And Lena has never hated before him, never truly hated. She doesn't like knowing that she's capable of such virulent revulsion. It whispers that she's capable of his madness, of his descent. It whispers that if she's not careful, she'll spiral out just like him, corkscrewing in on herself until she's so turned around that she can no longer tell right from wrong, until everything is dark and she's forgotten the soft caress of the sun.

So Lena moves to National City in a desperate attempt to convince herself that physical distance from Lex's odious betrayal and her own cold childhood will somehow be enough to save her. The storms and winters that plagued Metropolis never touch oceanside National City; the weather is always consistent and wonderful, and maybe she'll be consistent and wonderful in its presence. What better way to start anew than to go someplace beautiful?

To go someplace where, for a little while, no one will give her a second glance on the street, where whispers of Luthor, Luthor won't dog her for at least a week. Where maybe that physical distance will have tempered people's hearts as she longs for it to temper hers, and even once they find her out, they'll forgive her for her sin of existing.

Plus, Supergirl lives in National City. That's a reason. Lena won't deny it.

The young hero has fascinated Lena, and comforted her from afar—to live in the shadow of Superman, to struggle to come out from under the billows of his cape…that's a struggle Lena can sympathize with. And Lena longs to do good like Supergirl, wishes she had the anonymity to do so before realizing that perhaps anonymity isn't the answer. Perhaps she needs to own being a Luthor and change the definition of the family name.

So Lena makes a play for LuthorCorp's once-coveted, now-vacant and shunned position of chief executive; she steps in Lex's former role and claims his former chair, almost as if to test her resolve. Can she live in his place and yet resist his destiny? She is almost completely positive she can (the whispers are never quite silent, but most days, she's so busy she can't hear them above the bustle).

Lex is traded for Lena, Metropolis for National City, Superman for Supergirl, and LuthorCorp becomes L Corp.

That's different enough, right? Doesn't a butterfly's flight change the course of a future storm? It'll be different for her, right?

Lena hopes so. Desperately. But one thing hasn't changed: she's still alone.

The penthouse is uncomfortably spacious, and the plumerias reek of death. (She keeps them anyway, because it's habit now, and habits are so hard to break. She does worry, though, that their sweet perfume might disguise the stench of her own corruption until it's too late to stem, but…what's life without risks, anyhow. Or regrets. What, indeed, would life be without them.)

But her plans go awry, and the Venture launch is a catastrophe, and Lena knows that will bite the soon-to-be L Corp in the ass. It doesn't matter that the company isn't public; the stock market and economy and consumers will still find a way to punish her for this apparent failure of her engineering. And she's furious about that, because the oscillator should've been perfect. Hell, she supervised the schematics herself. It never should've buckled under the pressure.

Buckling under pressure. Lena exhales a bitter, bitter laugh between her teeth.

Now that's familiar.

Speaking of familiar, as if to haunt her, Clark Kent shows up asking questions, and Lena has to swallow the fury that rises reflexively in her throat. She's not Lex; she doesn't deserve to be interrogated like this. And she knows who Clark is—Lex wasn't half as secretive as Superman might've liked him to be, and more than half as knowledgeable likewise—and it wounds her further to know that Superman is investigating her, angling for another kill.

Metaphorically, anyway. These Kryptonians seem, happily, adverse to executions, even when Lex arguably deserves it (thirty-two life sentences is just bloated overkill, as far as Lena's concerned. It's kind of obnoxious.).

And there's Kara Danvers. Lena can't say the girl makes much of a first impression. She's pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of way (if the girl next door were a librarian, Lena judges archly), but then she's also awkward, nervous, and dressed like someone who stopped paying attention to fashion in the 1950s. And she's, what, some sort of intern? From CatCo? The premise bewilders Lena, but she doesn't care enough to ask. She focuses on Clark.

"Wow, there's some steel underneath that Kansas wheat," she needles. It's the least subtle thing in the universe, and from the way Clark's bland smile doesn't reach his eyes, she knows he got the message.

I know who you are, it whispers. And then, even more daring, Don't fuck with me.

And that's that. The meeting is over; she's more or less taken the high road; and she genuinely hopes Clark figures out what the hell is going on. She'd really like to know what happened to that goddamn oscillator, the stupid thing should've been perfect.

Kara skitters out, graceless, in Clark's wake. Lena watches her go, a touch more thoughtful, a shade less judgmental than earlier. She hadn't expected an agreement when she had spoken of her desire to buck her family's dark influence; she especially hadn't expected such a genuine one.

Kara had spoken up like breathing that Yeah was necessary with every particle of her being. Like agreeing—and not just agreeing, but confessing such aloud—were fundamentally impossible to deny.

It had given Lena a second of pause. Something passed between them: a sort of sympathy, a solidarity, and even though this maybe-intern doesn't matter, for a moment, Lena doesn't feel utterly alone.

Someone understands. It's a new feeling.

Lena's eyes are still on Kara, but only because she's walking behind Superman's alter-ego, and she doesn't trust him enough not to try something. He probably already did—X-ray vision or super-speed or some unfathomable alien ability that accelerated his investigations.

Not that she doesn't trust Superman, per se, and not that she has anything to hide, but she hates being made to feel like a criminal. Guilt by association again.

The solidarity falters and fades, too weak to withstand the crush of Lena's burdens. She vaguely misses it when it's gone.

Lena hates irony, and so when she laments the dangers of flying only to be attacked by machine-gun laden drones, of all ridiculous things, she spares a second beneath the thrum of adrenaline and fear to be annoyed at the situation. But then the guns focus in, and Lena is paralyzed in that moment, the only thought in her head, But I haven't done anything yet! I'll die a Luthor, and it'll still be a cursed word!

In a flash of red, though, a pair of superheroes arrive to save the day, and some part of Lena is surprised they bothered. But most of her watches the stand-off with her every muscle still tensed past stiff, and then Superman flies off, hunting another pair of drones. Supergirl stays behind. Lena's eyes flicker to her.

She's never seen the hero in person before. Even from behind, when all Lena can really see is tousled sun-streaked hair and the signature cape and the back angle of her profile, she still thinks—unbidden, certainly, in the direness of the moment—that this savior from beyond the stars is beautiful.

When the missile explodes in Supergirl's chest, shattering in shrapnel and flame on the famous shield logo as if it were a real shield, Lena is dazzled by the brightness and noise of the conflagration. The helicopter rocks from the shockwave, and with one hand bracing anew on the cockpit's frame, Lena blinks the iridescent afterimages from her eyes and sees nothing but a drone.

It only takes her a moment to think to look down, but it's a long moment, measured by the pounding of her heart as it gallops high enough in her chest to drown out everything else. When she does look, concern wells up beneath the fear like the annoyance at irony did earlier—except this is more severe, and she worries for the hero's condition. Surely Supergirl could suffer such a blow and be fine? But to bodily intercept a goddamn Sidewinder…

But the drone's attacking again, and the ratta-ratta-ratta of machine gun fire jerks Lena's attention up, and then the sudden listing of the helicopter drags it backwards. The tail rotor bursts into smoke and flame, and the craft begins to spin about heedlessly. To make matters worse, one of the bullets caught the pilot in the chest, and Lena panics, and doesn't know what to do—should she help the pilot or try to land the chopper and how is she supposed to fight that thing and why does she have to fight that thing—but suddenly, silence, and steadiness.

The drone is gone, and the helicopter is connecting with the buckled concrete pad with a jarring bump. Lena is at a loss until the door wrenches open and Supergirl is there, unmarked by the missile and flawless in a way that has nothing to do with wounds.

"You're safe now," the hero says, already pressing a hand to the pilot's chest to stem the bleeding.

And despite the chaos and the terror that hasn't had a chance to fade, Lena can't help but believe her.

It's Lex, Lena knows. Lex wants her dead. Lex hired assassins to murder her, manipulating puppet strings from prison like some horrible cursed ghost reaching from beyond the grave to torment the living. As soon as Supergirl confirms the obvious fact that someone wants Lena dead, she knows it's Lex.

She doesn't know why. She has no evidence. But her instincts are never wrong, and this is Lex's doing.

When she gets back to her office (Supergirl whisks the pilot away to the nearest hospital and offers the same to Lena, but she dismisses the kindness, even as she appreciates it, because her head is already screaming about the hideous, now so very personal betrayal of her brother, and she has to be alone, she has always been alone), Lena chokes on sobs and clenches her teeth until her jaw aches and her eyes burn and she hates Lex, oh, she hates what he has become.

This is a dagger to the heart, plunged into that wound that hasn't had a chance to even scab over, and she grieves his loss all over again. She cries until she can't anymore, until she hates the tears that streak her skin as much as she hates her brother's current self (for the worst part is, she still loves the boy he was, the one who played with her on rainy days and made that big house seem less empty).

Lena is busy wondering how to discretely request more Kleenex when there's a tap on her window, timid like a bird pecking its reflection. Uncomprehending (because this is the fortieth floor, and she doesn't expect a person on her private balcony), Lena doesn't even wipe her eyes before she swivels in her chair.

Supergirl is standing there, looking profoundly concerned, on the other side of the glass.

Lena gapes at her, turns away, half turns back, and scrubs the worst off her face before she gets up and pulls the door open. She doesn't manage to find her voice; it's still lost with the rest of her, deep inside the empty darkness of her chest.

Supergirl doesn't take the open door as an invitation; she stays outside, respectfully so. "I wanted to make sure you were okay," she explains, all honest blue eyes and rumpled brow. "You probably should go to a hospital, just to be certain. You were knocked around a lot."

"Not as much as you," Lena replies, hoarsely, and she's not sure why those are the first words out of her mouth. The second ones are better: "Thank you. For—thank you. Is the pilot going to be alright?"

Supergirl seems surprised at the inquiry, at the selflessness of it, but she nods all the same. "The doctors said it impacted above his heart and lungs, so he'll make a complete recovery." She pauses and then adds, as if she knows it's something Lena needs to hear, "Nobody died today."

Lena ducks her head. It's almost a nod. It's enough of one. She closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, Supergirl is gone. Lena's not surprised. But she is a little sad. For just a moment, the second moment that day, she hadn't felt so lonely. She thinks, with bitter mocking, that she could get used to that.

That night, Lena revisits the drone battle in her dreams. But when the missile hits Supergirl, the hero doesn't get back up. She flies, and falls, and bleeds out, as broken as the concrete crater she lies in, and it's all Lena's fault. She never meant to kill the hero like her brother meant with Superman, but she's responsible for her death all the same.

When she wakes, the silence is deafening, and the emptiness of the penthouse cannot be filled with the knowledge that the nightmare is a lie.

Guilt by association is real. Maybe villain by association is real, too. Maybe there's no way to be a different sort of Luthor. Maybe she's been doomed from the start.

Her eyes still hurt from earlier, but she cries again, anyway.

Supergirl doesn't show up this time.

The next day is a flurry of activity and determination. Lena has shed her weakness into the shadows, and she will not be cowed by them. She will not be silenced and made empty like everything the Luthors try to own—she knows that she herself counts amongst that tally. She was nothing more than a PR stunt so that Daddy Luthor wouldn't seem like quite as much of a heartless, greedy bastard as he truly was.

(That backfired in the end, didn't it, Lena thinks with a sneer. Lionel showed his true colors, but oh, they were pastel compared to Lex's. And her heart cracks, a little bit more.)

But then, pressing through the cattle-crowd of assistants and publicists and general hangers-on, that girl from yesterday threads to Lena's side. Davids, or Danvers? Kara Danvers, yes, Lena recalls with an inward nod but an outward raised eyebrow, because what the hell is Clark Kent's tagalong doing here?

Lena begins to ask just that, but Kara beats her to the punch.

"I heard about the attack yesterday," she blurts, breathless. Her blue eyes are wide and concerned behind her admittedly flattering frames, and for a moment, Lena feels there's something very familiar about them. "You can't possibly be going ahead with the ceremony!"

Lena is too focused and too busy spitting in the universe's eye to be touched by this left-field worry, but under better circumstances, she would've been astonished at receiving care from someone she barely knows, or anybody at all. She simply tosses her hair back after donning her long coat and briskly strides to the door, and that is answer enough.

Or it should've been. Kara is adamant. "Miss Luthor, you really should reconsider! Your life is in genuine danger, and making public appearances is only likely to draw out your attacker! Please, you can't make L Corp a force for good if you aren't around to lead it!"

Lena steps into the elevator, surrounded by aides and security, and casts Kara a final look before the doors close. "I appreciate the sentiment, Miss, er, Danvers, but that is not a compromise I'm willing to make."

And that should've been the end of it, but when the elevator doors slide back in the skyscraper's lobby, Kara's there on the other side, looking slightly more exasperated but inexplicably, not winded in the least.

Lena double takes. "Did you—what, did you run down the stairs?" she demands anyway, because nothing else makes sense.

"Please, Miss Luthor, reconsider," Kara says, so earnest it would've been acutely embarrassing had she been anyone else. But she's not anyone else, and now, Lena has the smallest space in her armor to feel a wisp of this proffered warmth.

It's a strange sensation. Lena has to suppress a shudder. But it's not an unwelcome one—in fact, she has craved this, for years and decades and a lifetime—and so she lets Kara fall into step beside her, lets her talk, even if Lena refuses to back down.

And she thinks: Kara is…different today. Passionate but somber-serious. There's more, well, steel in her unclouded blue eyes, more confidence and authority in the way she's walking. It's—well, it's—

Lena swallows, once or twice more than she strictly should have to. But it feels like something's creeping up her throat, and maybe that's nerves, and maybe that's why her palms feel a little clammy, too. She's glad when they reach the podium because her façade of composure is buckling and she can't afford to have it break, all the more so because she isn't entirely certain what sort of pieces it would break into.

She doesn't look at Kara when she addresses the crowd, but she can only accomplish that feat because she's hyperaware of the girl's location. But the words come easily, even in the wake of strange feelings and revived bitterness over Lex, and she feels a strength and confidence that she is sure projects to her audience (meager though it may be).

And then for the second time in as many days, fire and smoke rush out to swallow her whole.

Half-deafened by the explosion, Lena reacts on instinct and flees into the rapidly emptying plaza. She runs towards where she last saw Kara, and maybe that's some sort of instinct, too, but the maybe-reporter isn't there, and Lena whirls in a panic. Did something happen to her, or did she already run? What if a piece of debris—

Relief rushes through her as a police officer approaches; she can ask him to help her locate Kara. She doesn't stop to question why she needs to do this, and if she did, she would've explained it away as the return of a favor. Kara was only ever in danger because she sought to keep Lena out of it. Tit for tat, and all.

But the officer raises a gun, and Lena is staggered in shock, until some woman appears out of nowhere and attacks her would-be assassin. Lena gapes at the battle, wondering if she should flee (not for her own safety, necessarily, but—she jerks her head around, and she still can't catch a glimpse of golden ponytail or navy jacket) when suddenly, circumstances change.

The assassin's gun skitters across the concrete until it's at Lena's feet.

She's handled a gun before. Back in Smallville, the Luthor mansion sat on hundreds of acres of property, a veritable estate. Lex had taken her hunting, and she had been good at it. She didn't like killing anything, but she was a dead-eye shot with a rifle, and with all the dangers that came with being a Luthor (when it was just ordinary, crime-of-opportunity danger, and not its horrible final form where half the world wanted to watch you burn), she had familiarized herself with small arms as well.

Sometimes, you had to protect yourself. Sometimes—

Sometimes, Supergirl shows up.

Lena can't smile before the situation in front of her devolves into a hostage scenario, her mysterious benefactor threatened with her own gun. With the muzzle pressed to the woman's temple, even Supergirl can't move fast enough.

She doesn't hear their conversation. She's still half-deaf. And she already knew that Lex was behind this.

Lena doesn't think about it, doesn't dither. She sees her shot and takes it.

Glancing up, she sees that Supergirl is staring at her. At first, Lena flinches, wounded by the perception of such unwavering attention. It must be abhorrence, or fear, or judgement—nothing she would want to evoke in the hero. But it's not, quite. It's almost…impressment. Almost admiration.

Almost gratitude.

It's brief, though, and Supergirl jets off to locate medics and then confer with her cousin, and Lena watches her go. It occurs to her, almost absently, to wonder where Kara is, if she's safe, but somehow, it's not a very pressing issue anymore.

Part of Lena, oddly, is convinced she doesn't have to worry.

Lena dreams that night, but not badly. Supergirl is there again, and Kara Danvers is, too, but it's confusing—they keep switching places, merging and blurring until all Lena can see is golden hair and eyes as bright and blue as the clearest summer sky.

The dream evolves in the rambling, abrupt, random way that dreams do, and…well. When Lena wakes up, she is mortified, but not nearly enough that she doesn't roll over and desperately try to find the dream again. Before some subconscious quirk had woken her, she and Kara (or Supergirl, or some strange mix of the two) had almost…there had been a moment, and they'd been too close, and Lena had wanted more than anything to close the distance and steal the warmth from the other girl's lips.

She'd almost done it. She'd almost had something. Someone.

Even though it's all in her head, the penthouse doesn't feel so empty.

It doesn't feel like it has to be.

Dreams fade, even the best ones, and Lena has her composure smoothed and unruffled when Clark Kent wanders back into her office with one Kara Danvers at his heels once more. And Lena sees that Kara is back to being meek, back to being awkward. In fact, she seems somewhat distracted, smiling when Clark is praised but not wholly invested in the conversation.

Lena wants to see her invested again. She wants to see yesterday's Kara, with that barely-restrained intensity that tormented her dreams, faint as the memory is now. She wants to see Kara rendered in shades of strength, all spine and stance, none of this self-effacing awkwardness and anxious fidgets with her glasses.

So Lena goads it out. She pokes at what might be a sore spot, wanting to rile a reaction. "I didn't see your name on the by-line."

Kara gapes at her, flustered and floundering, and stammers some meaningless garbage about not being a reporter.

Lena can't imagine her doing anything else. Not with that dogged tenacity and passion for justice she witnessed yesterday. Warmly now, nearly fondly, Lena teases, "You could've fooled me."

And Kara looks at her, like she's amazed, like Lena's the most striking thing she's ever seen. She's half-smiling with her lips and wholly smiling with her eyes, and they're bright and they're blue and they're so goddamned familiar, but the dots are yet too disparate to connect, and the picture remains incomplete and unrealized.

Lena retreats, confidence soaring at this little, all-important victory, and remarks in her most off-handed (yet still bleedingly sincere) tones, "I hope this isn't the last time we talk."

Glancing up from her desk, Lena sees Kara's smile widen. It's woundingly bright. It pours sunshine-warmth into the deepest cracks in Lena's heart, and it burns, but strangely, it doesn't hurt. It's soothing. It's healing. It's the best Lena can ever recall feeling.

And Kara is beautiful, beautiful and flattered and agreeing, "I hope not, either."

Lena lets her own smile stretch in reply, and she forgets utterly that Clark is here, that she invited him to come in the first place. She can't tear her eyes away from Kara, can't do anything but bask in the solidarity and compassion and strength that exudes from the girl's every cell.

And the darkness of the Luthors begins to bleed away.