Disclaimer: Supergirl still ain't mine. It kinda seems that way sometimes, though, haha.

A/N: Ah, another in-depth character study that nobody asked for! I need to stop being so philosophical; Kara and Lena need to stop being so damn interesting.

the heart of a hero

Lena's thoughts are a tangled mess. Kara Danvers seems to think Lillian Luthor is up to no good (although Lena has to admit that was tactfully done; the reporter should get a gold medal for skating around an issue; and as unexpected and uncomfortable as the meeting was, Lena was so glad to see Kara, too). Lillian Luthor herself assuages no suspicion—Lena's never exactly trusted her adoptive mother, not in a real bonding way. Lex was her golden boy, and Lena was just the girl with the wrong blood running in her veins.

But vague unease is just that: vague, and Lena cannot act on a hunch, wouldn't know how to begin with. She's already confronted her mother, and Lillian's already artfully dodged. There's nothing more to be done.

Lena has no answers, but it's not like she ever really had the questions.

All she can do is mull over thoughts she's already had until the concepts taste bloated and foreign, like words said too many times in a row. It's meaningless but consuming, and Lena stays late at her office, well past even the early dark of a dying November. She prefers being here than in her penthouse, anyway; she feels like she has a purpose here. In the penthouse (she still doesn't think of it as home), Lena just feels useless, excessive, as if the rooms would be better left empty, as if she's somehow an intruder in her own life.

Besides, there's plenty of people burning the midnight oil at L Corp, and it comforts Lena to think of all those hearts and mind working away on the floors below her. She has more work to do, anyway; it might be a holiday weekend, but she gave her assistant, Jess, the time off because the girl's parents are in town, and just because Lena can't mesh with her own family doesn't mean she can't extrapolate the importance—or maybe it means she can imagine it all the better, because she wants it so badly.

To belong somewhere. To feel safe, and warm, and loved. Just once.

(Or just once again, Lena corrects bitterly. To have that and not have it betrayed in the cruelest fashion. To have better than Lex's caustic affection.)

She almost had it. Well, she almost had something. Kara mentioned earlier in the week that she was having a "ragtag Thanksgiving", as she put it, a melting pot of family and friends, and would Lena like to come? Because I know you're new to National City, Kara said, and I know you and Lex aren't, um, exactly on…well, on speaking terms? And you're a friend. And you've already met my sister. So?

And Lena wanted to say yes. The confirmation was on the cusp, but claws crafted of oldest habit dragged the word off the tip of her tongue and, kicking and screaming, down her throat to lonely imprisonment behind her ribs. She was touched by the offer, and terrified at being moved by so simple a thing, and her heart tried to cringe and swell simultaneously and just left her in agony.

So she gathered her armor, which was a poor stand-in for strength (but it's all she has, some days), and she laughed off the invitation by making up excuses about international conference calls ("China doesn't care about Thanksgiving, you know.") and L Corp and how a CEO's work is never done. And Kara smiled and told her not to worry about it but maybe there'd be pie leftover (although she grinned wider and added that she made no promises) and maybe she'd bring Lena some after.

The condemned feelings tried to uncurl behind her ribs again, and Lena could only smile in response; she didn't trust her voice to speak. She probably would've croaked, on the brink of breaking, and that would have been a betrayal worse than Lex's. Well, no—nothing could be worse than that. But to be vulnerable, even with someone as warm and kind as Kara…

It makes Lena shiver. Her heart's been pummeled enough. Best to lick her wounds like the lone wolf she's clearly destined to be and forget every desire to hold onto someone else and never let go.

(Kara brings the promised leftovers during the interview, leaving them on the counter. There's even a slice of chocolate pecan pie, which causes Kara to joke—or lament, it's difficult to tell—about willpower. Lena eats the gifted meal after the reporter leaves, once her wary guard has settled back down, and even her mother's disconcerting visit can't completely ruin the taste.)

It causes her to smile, faint, even now.

But the moment of happiness (god, is this what happiness feels like?) is stolen from Lena, snatched out of her hands as the security alarm goes off. A window pops up on her computer, and an accompanying message chirps its panic on her phone.

Lena's jogging out of her office before she's even dismissed the message, and it's only once she's reached the elevator bank that she wonders what she's doing. It's a security breach! She should be hunkering below her desk (or…somewhere better protected than that. It's an artistic statement, her desk, but not exactly suited for shielding), not running into the line of fire!

But she's in charge of L Corp, and she knows what that means: her employees have been placed in her charge—under her care. And if violent invaders or whoever want to harm anybody, it's going to be Lena Luthor. She might as well take the fight to them and ensure there's no collateral damage.

Besides, inadvertently, she learned a lot about lying from Lex. She can be a pretty smooth talker if she needs to be, so this might not come to blows at all.

When she arrives in the atrium, though, she discovers that it's already come to blows, and far more drastic ones than she would have ever guessed. Supergirl's here (and unconsciously, Lena's heart jumps), and the hero's a blur of fists and elbows, of swirling cape and hair. The man she's fighting—Lena can't tell easily, as it's so dark, but—but it almost looks like half his face is metal…? And he's meeting the Kryptonian blow for blow, so whatever he is, he's not human.

At least, not anymore.

And then he's throwing Supergirl into the concrete L Corp sign, and Lena's heart hitches for a staggering second of hang-time before it falls, falls just the same as the hero. And just like the hero, it fails to rise again.

Lena's whole body jerks in an indecisive motion. Panic is shrieking shrill in her ears (and why won't Supergirl get up? Why does she always have to be smashed down to earth in front of Lena, like an angel torn from heaven), and she wants to help, but how can she help?

She's…just Lena Luthor, and whatever else that might mean, it's never meant hero. Even her fundraiser-turned-trap wasn't—it wasn't heroic. No, Lena won't give herself such laurels. She was helpful, nothing more. The chasm of her debt (or her family's debt, but for all she doesn't have their blood, she can still pay, perhaps, in blood, for what is blood but the liquid of life, and she's determined to devote hers to justice)…the chasm of her debt yawns wide, and it's far too deep to fill. She can still glimpse light from the depths, though.

So she stagnates, everything behind her ribs constricted and silently screaming for Supergirl to get up, to be okay, please dear god just let her be okay—and then the hero lifts her head, cranes her neck. She peers past the wild golden waterfall of her hair, and for a moment, their eyes meet. Recognition flashes in Supergirl's, swiftly tailed by worry, and Lena's so distraught that she can't fathom why Supergirl is worried about her.

But then the metal-faced invader hefts the gigantic L from the broken sign, and Lena remembers all too late that she's not bulletproof. She's not strong. And her armor…oh, her armor is paper-thin and just as prone to crumpling.

She came down here, reckless and stupid because, what, she thought she could be the hero? She thought she could save the day? Instead she's just going to die, crushed by the weight of her own ideals, symbolized so ironically now in killing concrete.

Lena braces. She cringes. But her bones never break.

There's the strangest crumbling sound, like the crunching of ice-crusted snow cranked to the volume of jet engines, and all Lena feels is a scattering of finest chips and a cloud of dust. She straightens, off-balance in more ways than one, and stares at Supergirl swaying sideways, just as off-balance from bodily blocking the blow.

It still doesn't make sense. Lena glances down at herself, striving to come to terms with her unblemished body when she's still expecting to be overwhelmed with agonizing pain, to see her insufficient blood spread all over the tiles (and then, at last, will she have paid the Luthors' debt? Or would it not count, since it's not truly Luthor blood?).

Her gaze tracks back up, slow-quick, and Supergirl's sparing her a glance. "Get out of here," the hero commands, breathless but unfazed and unscathed as well.

Lena responds instantly to the authority in that tone, and her survival instincts are probably wresting control of her limbs as well, and she scrambles to obey, to flee. Once she gets behind the reassuring bulk of the elevator block, though, she pauses, and lingers, and waits. She hears the SWAT team arrive, listens to the deafening rapport of gunfire, strains even so to somehow pick Supergirl out of the chaos.

And then it's quiet, and Lena's ears are ringing, and she peers around the corner. The strange invader is gone, and the police will find her soon, and all the way across the atrium, Supergirl's hefting an injured officer into her arms and jetting away.

Lena closes her mouth; it's open, presumably to call out to the hero, and how instinctive that reaction! How natural to want Supergirl's attention, to disregard actual priorities and carve out a moment for just the two of them.

Quietly retreating, Lena slips into an elevator and leans against the rear wall. Her legs are shaking, and her hands are, too, as she pulls out her phone. She's opened the archive of messages between herself and Kara Danvers before, like her futile mouth, she closes that as well. Her gratitude can wait.

Supergirl's done more than enough for her tonight.

Lena doesn't deserve anymore.

Kara delivers her report (and a wounded Maggie Sawyer into Alex's anxious-but-determined-to-hide-it care), and she can't help this thrill of vindication. Her sister and Winn were so doubtful of Lena's innocence, and now to have her own faith soundly supported! The real Hank Henshaw would've killed Lena, in a horrifically brutal way, too, and that's not the action of a subordinate. That's not even the action of a reluctant ally!

"Full-blown enemy territory, right there," Kara says under her breath with a firm nod of her head. Yes, if Lena and Lillian were working together, such an attack never would've happened. Hank would've just asked Lena for the isotope; he wouldn't have tried to steal it.

She tries to explain this to her own allies, but they're still reluctant. Would you stake Mon-El's life on it? they ask, dogged and doubting.

Yes, Kara thinks instantly. She trusts Lena, absolutely. And even if she didn't, it was just proved in front of her eyes, and she's got pretty good eyes—ask anyone. She doesn't want Mon-El to die, of course, but because…and inwardly, she cringes, inherited guilt blackening her tongue, and she wonders with fresh empathy if this is how Lena feels all the time.

Because her father engineered this virus, because Zor-El crafted this perfect hell. Because if the Daxamite dies, it's Krypton's fault, and everything he's said about the prejudice of Kara's people will be rendered as starkest truth from which there can be no absolution.

And Zor-El will be no better than Cadmus, and all the alien blood from Medusa's wrath will be on Kara's hands—it already is. It doesn't matter if she can't see it. She feels the stain all the same.

Even if Lena were evil, in this instance, Kara would still be far more guilty.

But J'onn is looking at her expectantly, and Kara realizes she hasn't answered.

Would you stake Mon-El's life on that?

And Kara never really answers, but she promises to talk to Lena, even so. She doesn't want to—not that she wouldn't want to see Lena, because the other woman sparks a strange sort of warmth in Kara's chest, like the spaces between her ribs are filled with molten metal, and it should hurt and it nearly does except…except it doesn't.

But Lena's been through enough tonight, and Kara hardly wants to bring her mother's crimes to unforgiving light. The humans are often wrong, Kara's found, but the phrase ignorance is bliss is one of their wisest truths. Kara wishes she could still cling to her childhood (ha, childhood—try this morning's) impression of her father, and strained though Lena's relationship with Lillian may be, Kara does not want to be the one tearing it asunder.

Kara's a hero—she protects, she doesn't harm! To have to inflict pain, and on Lena, of all people…

Her stomach wrenches, but she takes to the air, anyway. Better to end this now, when Lena only has to suffer from her brother's associative guilt; better to spare her the greater misery of a genocide. That's Kara's burden.

She's never thrown up during flight before, and she doesn't now, but it's a near thing. She doesn't know how she bites back the acid that rises with the vengeance of a dozen alien ghosts; all she knows is that they'll never rest quietly.

They'll haunt her forever, standing in the same silent judgement as the whole of Krypton. It's all her parents' fault, so now it's hers. That's the true legacy of the House of El, no matter what J'onn says.

Kara zeroes in on Lena's L Corp balcony and indulges in one last bitter thought:

The House of El—the family of the sun. Implicitly, of Rao. So how is it her family brings nothing but darkness? J'onn and Alex and the rest are worried about Lena's destiny, but maybe they should be more concerned with Kara's.

If you're not a god, after all, you're a devil.

The only way Lena can describe how she feels when Supergirl slips through her balcony door is joy. Nothing lifts her higher than the mere sight of the hero; nothing gives her such hope and happiness. Nothing else now, and nothing else then, and probably nothing else ever again.

Supergirl is unique in that aspect.

(Well, not wholly unique, Lena corrects, but drawing distinctions between the hero and Kara Danvers is a pointless exercise, since they're two sides of the same coin, and that coin is a person, but…well, that's a story for another day. Suffice to say, Lena's perceptive and Kara's not as subtle as she flatters herself to be.)

Regardless of current persona, Kara's a hero, and she's standing in front of Lena less than half an hour after rescuing her in finest fashion, and Lena can't stop the words now. They bubble up, jarring and shoving and tumbling out avalanche-quick, and Lena only notices Supergirl's oddly walled-off expression when her verbal hemorrhage finally trickles dry.

Something stirs in the back of Lena's mind, or maybe it's a dissociative feeling; it almost feels like it could be at the base of her spine, something foreboding that rises up from the bones.

And then Supergirl asks about Lillian. Kara asked about Lillian, yesterday.

Lena falters into incomprehension, but her bones know, oh, her bones know. But that's where blood is born, isn't it, so the poisonous prescience seeps into her veins until it's infused with the air in her lungs and sparking dark and denial in her head and then—

And then the poison eats into an old wound, an ancient wound, one that's never healed and that Lena has simply patched and tried to ignore. If Supergirl's—if Kara's—if she's suspecting Lillian of evil, of following in Lex's harrowing wake, then it must be because of the Luthor connection. Kara might have denied rendering judgement based upon mere familial association, but that doesn't have to mean anything! She could be lying!

So Lena accuses her of just that. "You're lying."

It's easier that way. Somehow, it's easier to cast Supergirl as the villain than her own mother, but cognitive dissonance is a tricky thing, and Lena simply doesn't have room in her head or heart for another betrayal.

Until Supergirl confesses that she was abducted, and the poison starts to taste like horror. Lena can't imagine her mother actually abducting someone, but—well, she could never believe it of Lex, either, and his madness ran deep, all the way to the core, deeper than the earthquake that he drove into the planet's crust like he was striking a mortal wound to the world itself.

If Lillian's anything like Lex, then god, what did she do to Kara? If Kara experienced any kind of trauma at the hands of a Luthor, any Luthor, then…then…

No. No. Lena can't believe it. She won't believe it. It's too terrible.

As she spits her denial, her tone all razor-edged and on the verge of shattering from the strain, her worst fear crops up, accidental and instinctive. It's finally come to this, she says, though not in so many words. You've branded me a Luthor, and you're here to betray me, too, and take away all your light and all your warmth, and I'll be hollow, Kara, I'll be hollow without you.

You're the only reason my ribs haven't caved in.

With the sincerest resolve, though, Kara dismisses that as the ugliest lie. She reaches out instead of shoving away, all compassion and concern and the most beautiful faith.

"Be your own hero," she insists, pleads, prays.

Lena stares at her, overcome. It's too much; it's not enough; and something cracks in her chest. Or maybe that's her armor. Maybe someone's finally broken through, and leave it to Supergirl to punch a hole in that otherwise impenetrable shell. A wisp leaks in, like fresh air after winter, and makes itself a home in her heart.

It purges the poison with every beat.

Lena swallows, hard, choking down half-formed words. They're not even words; they're visceral—gut reactions more than thoughts. But she condemns them to the growing knot of discarded sentiments behind her ribs all the same.

Because this is her problem—hers, Lena's, a Luthor's. Supergirl shouldn't be involved in these dark family dynamics; she shouldn't be subjected to this grief. God, Lena thinks, Kara was abducted, and Lena can't let that happen again. She won't.

She'll take that advice to heart, and be her own hero.

"You can leave the same way you came in," Lena declares, and her voice isn't steady, but she tries to mask it, anyway. Gathers up her tablet, does nothing more than tap aimlessly at the lock screen—anything to keep her eyes from Kara's face.

She caught a glimpse of the hero's expression, and it was wounding to behold. It wasn't quite, but it was very nearly disappointed, and she can't stand another look.

But as soon as she hears the telltale gust of Supergirl's departure, Lena looks anyway, wanting a glimpse now all the same. Wants to correct any erroneous assumptions, wants to say, I just can't have you be hurt because of me. I'm sure, in some demented way, Mom's on this crusade because of Lex and me. She's a bear like that. And you shouldn't have to fight her.

For once, let me save you.

Despite her shaking fingers, Lena sews her broken armor up tight and goes to war.

Cyborg Superman is gone, and Lillian Luthor's almost gone (a detective is maneuvering her handcuffed form into the back of a squad car), but Lena's still here. Kara watches her from afar for an indecisive interval and can't quite believe what she's seeing, even now. She never truly believed Lena had abandoned her principles, not when she and J'onn arrived, not when Lena said bitterly that she was a Luthor (and that was a jab aimed at her, Kara knows, unless—unless it was some sort of inversion, like this is what Luthor will mean from now on, this is the legacy Lena will leave.

And maybe, if Kara labors long enough, the House of El will shine again, too, not unblemished but still bright, still too bright to see.)

Even when the rocket launched, Kara didn't unduly worry. She could catch a rocket—hell, this wasn't even an intercontinental ballistic missile. This was child's play. And she'd catch it, and if Lena needed to be set straight, Kara would talk to her until she saw reason and turned like a sunflower back to the light, and everything would be okay. No harm, no foul.

The horror only chilled her to the soul when the rocket exploded in her hands, because she couldn't stop it then, couldn't pull Lena back from the brink. She couldn't possibly dispel a cloud that size, and she's not certain that it wouldn't have killed her, anyway (not that such concerns would've stopped her from trying). The virus might have been engineered to kill Krypton's enemies, but Cadmus already tweaked it to kill humanity's enemies, instead, so there's no reason they wouldn't have made sure their greatest foes, the Supers, were felled as well.

But Lena—sly, clever, defiant Lena—had already saved the day and caused her mother to be caught red-handed in the bargain. National City's district attorney will probably kiss Lena for being handed the case of the decade, all wrapped up in a bow, but Kara's nose wrinkles at the thought. She'd rather he refrain.

And what of Cadmus? Kara doesn't know, but for the immediate future, she dares to believe that her alien neighbors in the city can breathe easy—literally and otherwise.

In fact, Kara doesn't really know what she's doing here at all. She's practically useless. It's a strange feeling.

But she gathers herself and approaches Lena, who's watching her mother get carted away with a distant, conflicted expression, all pinched brows and dim eyes. Folding her arms comfortably on her chest, Kara gently clears her throat; when Lena jerks from her thoughts and looks aside, she offers the smallest smile.

"I guess that now I'm the one who should be thanking you," Kara quips, heartfelt, and her smile widens until she's squinting, like James said she does when she's happy.

Lena's attention tracks away, still anchored to the now-retreating sirens, but then she exhales something like a laugh and dips her head. She's smiling, too; it's reflexive, pulling inexorable at the corners of her mouth. When she looks up, there's brightness in the depths of her eyes, reflecting off all the crystal facets like the fire in a diamond, and Kara feels something fumble in her chest.

That happens to her a lot, lately, and always around Lena. (Initially, she very quietly had Alex run some tests, because she thought she was coming down with something, although she's fairly certain you can't "come down" with tachycardia.)

It's not unpleasant, though. It's a good stumble, like tripping over your own feet because you're so excited and eager to run, like you've been paralyzed all your life and now, at last, you're free.

Like you can't keep up but that's okay, because you want this race to last a lifetime.

And Lena's smiling, and it's stunning, and she admits, "I couldn't have done it without you."

Kara laughs, a bubble of recognition bursting. "Wow, we've really had this conversation before," she chuckles, thinking back on the first time she and Lena—a Luthor and a Super—worked together. It's appropriate, too, that that was Lillian's first appearance, and this, now, was her last.

"Yes," Lena agrees, humor lacing her grin before it fades—before they both fade. Suddenly, she's serious. "I'm sorry," she blurts, and her fingers are tight on her arms, her shoulders crunched up. "I didn't mean to deceive you—only my mother. I needed it to go this far, though, otherwise the most she could be charged with was conspiracy, and frankly, attempted genocide carries a bit sterner of a sentence." She pauses, but before Kara can get a word in edgewise, she concludes, "I wanted her to go away for a long time. I…I didn't want her to have the chance to hurt you again."

Kara lets her smile flex and settles a hand on Lena's tense shoulder. But the other woman flinches at the touch, and Kara's smile sharply inverts. "I—sorry? What's wrong? That wasn't too—I could've sworn I did that gently…"

"No, you're—you're fine," Lena dismisses, and she reaches up. Kara's hand is hanging in mid-air, a few inches from contact; Lena takes it in her own, guides it back to her shoulder, holds it there.

Kara's heart does something astonishing in her chest, and she's certain that sort of roller coaster isn't medically advisable, let alone possible. But Lena's speaking, so she tries to listen past the crazed pounding of her pulse in her ears.

"It's just…my mother told me about how she got the Medusa virus," Lena reveals, sharp with bitterness and thick with regret. Her grip tightens, and if Kara were human, she might've worried for the state of her bones. As it is, her brow just pinches, knowing where this story is going to end. "About how she made you…" But Lena can't even articulate it, and she shuts her eyes. There's a suggestion of tears strewn across her lashes, the faintest starlit glimmer.

"I'm okay," Kara says, soft. With greatest care, she tightens her grip, too, just enough to convey strength. "Getting your blood drawn doesn't really hurt," she adds as an afterthought. "It's just a bit dizzying."

But Lena gives her a haunted look that betrays the depth of her knowledge, and Kara winces inwardly. "She tortured you."

This time, the laugh is thin. "I wouldn't say that," Kara denies even so. "I was scared, I will admit, and I…" She trails off, lips pulling crooked. "Well, I'm not accustomed to feeling vulnerable. Not physically. So that—that was unsettling, but nothing I couldn't handle. Nothing I couldn't recover from." She laughs again, and it's the harshest bark. "It's not like watching your planet explode."

Lena regards her with the most sympathetic gaze, and she lowers her arm—but does not release Kara's hand. They remain joined, and it's somehow more intimate now, or maybe just more familiar. This is the usual level, after all, that people hold hands.

Oh, Kara thinks, properly distracted. We're holding hands.

"Well, in any case," Lena's saying when Kara scrapes away the layers of swelling something (happiness? Is this happiness?), "she can't hurt you anymore. That's all that really matters. That's all I wanted to do—" and she shakes her head— "to be my own hero. Right?"

Kara feels like she's on a ridiculously giddy hair-trigger, which is utterly inappropriate for the circumstances (the ones wherein all aliens almost died, and some sobriety should be reserved for the bullet closely dodged). "Right," she agrees, grinning sunshine-bright again. Rao, she can't stop smiling around Lena. That's really ridiculous.

"You did a bang-up job, too," Kara adds, thoughtful. Her grin takes on a mischievous quality. "Maybe you should get a cape."

Lena smirks right back. "Maybe I will," she teases. "Although I wouldn't wear it as well as you. I don't have shoulders for days."

Kara glances down, flushes. No one's ever complimented her shoulders before. It's oddly flattering. "Oh," she says, and she scratches the back of her neck with her free hand—because Lena's fingers are still laced with her other one, and wait, dear Rao, when did their fingers lace? But Kara doesn't wriggle them free; she just tucks them in a little closer, melding into the gaps between knuckles. "Well, if you don't want to have a cape contest, some sort of cool suit. It's the only way to do heroing these days."

Chuckling, Lena shakes her head. "I won't quit my day job," she assures. "L Corp keeps me far too busy to go off at night, stopping robberies. I'll leave that to the experts. Besides," she drawls with a sharpening smirk, "I'd hate to give up the heels."

Mock-solemnly, Kara agrees. "Hard to fight crime in four-inch heels."

"Easy to fight it, maybe," Lena points out, "but hard to run away."

But not all the police retreated with Lillian's arrest; many of them remained on the scene, documenting and gathering other evidence. A detective approaches; he's hung back until now, because Supergirl engenders respect, and it's clear she has priority with Lena. But justice's clock isn't so sympathetic, ever-ticking, and the detective coughs to announce himself.

"Er, Supergirl? I'm going to need to borrow Miss Luthor. Routine reports and questioning," he explains.

The two women trade a glance, and Kara squeezes Lena's hand before she reluctantly releases it. "No problem," the hero agrees breezily, and she settles her hands now on her hips. "Dot those I's and cross those T's. Gotta make this case airtight, yeah?"

The detective smiles halfway. "That is certainly the idea. This way, Miss Luthor," he adds, stepping back and extending a guiding arm.

Lena starts to follow but hesitates on the first step; she swivels back to Kara, who simply regards her with honest curiosity. Lena's brow furrows faintly, and her teeth sink into her lip, and then she's pulling Kara into an embrace. She doesn't move faster than a speeding bullet, but Kara's so astonished that she reacts belatedly, anyway. When her arms snap around, she has to remind herself not to hold too hard because while they're close, they're flush, it's still not close enough, and maybe holding tighter would fix that but maybe it would hurt Lena, too.

Kara has to settle for letting her knuckles turn white where her hands have fisted in Lena's coat. The fabric can weather the strain.

"I'm glad you're safe," Lena breathes into the crook of her neck, and she breathes it. Kara shivers as the air ripples across her skin, even though it's warm. Somehow, that makes it worse.

"I never thought I wouldn't be," Kara replies. "I believe in you, you know. I always have. I always will."

As soon as the sentiment escapes, Kara wishes she could claw it back; surely it's too much. But Lena must not agree, as some last lingering tension flees her frame, and Kara realizes, with something akin to wonderment, that she must feel safe here. She doesn't know why that surprises her—she's Supergirl, for Rao's sake; making people feel safe is her job—but it does, oh, it does.

This is personal. This is different, and intimate, and new.

The detective coughs again, and Kara feels a blush overtake her face, which she ducks her head to hide. Hastily, yet so slowly, she and Lena separate; there's reluctance in the way their fingers loosen but don't lift, in the way they trace down the length of arms instead of simply dropping off.

"I'll see you later, Supergirl," Lena offers. She's smiling again, and it's faint and soft and beautiful, and Kara feels like she's swallowed a star.

"Yep," she manages to croak. "Later. I'll—I'll see you later. Around. Whenever. You know."

Lena's eyes curve a little more—and that's happiness, isn't it, Kara thinks—before she turns away, the detective showing her the way to his car. Kara doesn't even realize she's just gazing wistfully after until J'onn strides over and declares, "Whenever you're ready, Supergirl, we should head back to the DEO."

Still half-caught in a reverie, Kara drags her attention around to the Martian. "What? Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, we should do that."

"I won't tell Alex," J'onn adds. "That should come from you."

Kara nearly chokes. "Wh-What should come from me…?"

He raises a hand. "Nothing. I think I might just be a little delirious from my transformation. Hallucinations, and all." But he winks at her.

Kara gapes at him, her mind dissolving into a paste. This isn't happening…whatever this is. It's just—it's not. No.

"Miss Luthor surprised me," J'onn remarks, almost off-handedly, except that he's never exactly off-handed. "I did not expect her deception, and I'm telepathic! Well, I expected deception," he admits, "but not the good kind. I'm pleasantly surprised."

Kara nods, because that's all she's really capable of at this point. But she thinks: All this time I've been trying to turn Mon-El into a hero, and Lena always was one.

Like her mother once said, though, it all comes down to the heart, and Lena has a hero's heart—well, she has two, Kara suddenly understands, with an inward laugh at her own blindness—because somewhere along the line, Kara gave hers away. She doesn't begrudge its absence at all, though, and it's not like her chest feels empty. In fact, she thinks she just might have received one in return.

A heart's a fragile, precious gift, but Kara's not worried. She'll keep it safe. She's always been good at keeping things safe.

It's a hero thing.