It’s not that Lena hates these stuffy, bougie galas. She enjoys the philanthropy she is able to provide through L-Corp (and honestly, any publicity is good publicity since Lex). What Lena doesn’t like is the mingling. She’d rather cut the check and run (but again: publicity) and despite her best efforts, Jess would not comply with her request to call with a (fabricated) emergency to get her out of the annual CatCo correspondents’ dinner.
“You can’t just throw money at it.” Jess had told her one late night in her office.
“Can’t I?” Lena retorted as she poured herself another shallow glass of scotch from her wet bar.
Jess narrowed her eyes, and then shrugged nonchalantly, “You can, just be prepared to be the next hit piece in a CatCo op-ed.”
Lena scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Cat knows better. Luthors can be very litigious. Plus,” she waved off Jess’s concern, “she would have some poor burgeoning reporter’s head on her desk before my lawyer could even draw up the paperwork.”
And okay, so what if it’s CatCo’s yearly gala and fundraiser? Lena and Cat are professionally cordial at least, so Lena isn’t too concerned about a so-called “hit piece.” What Lena doesn’t want is to rub shoulders with the National City and California elites that attend (she is also acutely aware of the irony of that, by the way, thank you). Plus she hates walking the red carpet, and yeah, maybe she partially dissociates when the paparazzi yell her name for photo ops. And yeah, she knows that’s probably not healthy, but it’s mostly because there are always follow up questions about Lex and Superman, which leads to the beginnings of a migraine just behind her eyes.
So who can blame her if she doesn’t want to deal with the whispers behind her back or the side glances, or how the crowd parts like the Red fucking Sea when all she is really trying to do is get a drink at the bar. Plus, all the afterimages of camera flashes leaves her talking blindly to whomever is brave enough to step into her proximity, and she does not need to be throwing money at just anyone (Elon will have to pry L-Corp from her cold dead hands before Lena sells to that human beluga of an asshole.)
So, that’s exactly why she has her driver take her down the alley to the side entrance of the building instead of waiting in the limousine line that wraps around the block. No red carpet. No flashing lights. No questions. Just the way she likes it.
Lena wrings her hands together and shifts anxiously in the car’s backseat. The partition lowers a few inches until she can see her driver’s eyes reflecting back at her in the rearview mirror.
“Would you like me to get the door, Miss Luthor?”
Lena shakes her head and looks down, absently tracing a finger along the palm of her hand, “In a moment.”
The driver gives a curt nod, “Of course.”
When Lena raises her head, she glances out the window, noticing some of the banquet staff taking their last smoke break by the dumpsters before the event begins. She absently wonders if she could bum a cigarette to calm her nerves when the idling staff crane their necks upwards toward the sky and suddenly scatter backwards as Supergirl touches down unexpectedly in front of them. She tugs at her very formal, and very tailored suit jacket, smoothing her hands down her front as she gives a quick greeting to the gawking staff around her.
And oh no, she is devastatingly handsome in a navy Oxford suit accented in deep crimson checkering. Her hair is down, flowing in loose curls over her shoulders and she lets out a bright laugh at something one of the banquet staff says and Lena’s anxious heart turns downright traitorous. She breathes out a mumbled ‘fuck’ and wills herself to focus on something, anything, in some desperate attempt to settle her nerves (focusing it turns out is just staring at the carpeted floor of her town car, stock-still like some moron).
She has only met Supergirl all of once, and that’s when she was pulling her out of a smoking helicopter. She isn’t sure how that evolved into a crush, but… well, here she is, pining after a literal goddess like the rest of National City. And maybe that’s because —from a strictly observational standpoint— it appeared that Supergirl’s once-over welfare check was simply benign, except to Lena (self described Queen of reading-much-into-any-pretty-girl-who-glances-in- her-direction ). The hero’s proximity was more dizzying than the quarterly assassination attempt and had promptly lodged herself beside Lena’s heart more than a bullet ever could.
“Are you okay?” Supergirl asked, frantic eyes moving up and down Lena’s body as her hands ran over her back and down her arms.
Lena cleared her throat, “Yeah. I-..uh, I’m good.” she mumbled half-heartedly and placed her hands on Supergirl’s shoulders as she pulled in a steadying breath, trying to center herself. Her mind raced; was it Lex? Her mother? Morgan Edge?
Supergirl stilled for a moment, an eyebrow slowly beginning to arch as cool eyes met Lena’s and a subtle smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, “I know that,” she said with conspiratorial mirth, “I’m asking if you’re hurt.”
Lena glanced down, taking a quick inventory of all of her extremities. Everything was intact, “Yeah, I think so,” she said, bringing her attention back to the hero in front of her.
Clear eyes never wavered, they only flickered across Lena’s face; eyes, nose and then settling on her lips. And whatever adrenaline had been pumping through Lena’s veins was suddenly replaced by something wholly unexpected; a yearning to have those quirked, half smiling lips pressed against her own.
Anyway, Lena’s brain went offline after that. Maybe because any words she had were left bouncing around in the empty real estate of her head because the hero saw her as ‘ good.’ Or maybe it was because Supergirl was sky bound before she had the chance to thank her. It wasn’t until she spoke to Sam later that evening that described the entire ordeal as “ tragically sexy .”
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