Content Warning: It is very lightly implied but there’s part of this that may be upsetting.
Kara bolted awake to the sound of a scream, and when she bolted awake, she bolted. Her forehead thumped the ceiling and someone in the loft above hers yelled for her to stop that fucking racket, but it didn’t matter. The blood curdling, gurgling shriek of terror was still ringing in her ear and she had but a single thought: Lena.
She threw up the sash of her window so hard the wood chipped and leaped into space, alien power folding the air behind her so hard that the entire building shuddered, and she had to stop herself from going hypersonic and breaking every window on the block.
It was Lena. Her voice cut through the constant barrage of human and mechanical and animal noises around her. It sliced through a wall of arguing spouses and sighing lovers and wailing sirens, through the secret language of cats and the grinding of the tectonic plates beneath all their feet. It was not a mere scream but a shriek, a wail of agony and terror that made her blood freeze even as she rocketed through the city in a blur, dozens of pedestrians looking up as she blasted overhead.
Lena’s place was across town, an hour on foot- for a human. Kara made it at the speed of thought, arriving so fast that Lena was still screaming as she landed and wrenched open the balcony door and stormed through the penthouse.
When she brushed open the bedroom door she found a cowering Lena curled in the corner in a pile of bedsheets, staring at nothing, shaking violently and shrieking.
Kara jabbed the comm bead in her ear.
“Alex!”
“What?” Alex said, groggily. “Kara? What time is it? Why… who’s that screaming?”
“It’s Lena. I need help. It’s like she’s still asleep but she’s screaming and her eyes are open. She’s not reacting to me.”
“What the hell is she doing at your apartment at three in the morning?”
“I’m at her place. I heard her screaming and flew.”
Alex let out a pained sigh. “Please tell me you remembered the suit.”
Kara looked down at her threadbare pajamas and frowned.
“Yep, sure did. What do I do?”
“Get off me!” Lena choked out, “get off me!”
Her eyes wide wide with horror, but worse, her heart was beating incredibly fast, her pupils tiny points. She began swiping at nothing with hooked fingers, tangling herself in the sheets, which only drove her into a deeper frenzy. L
“Alex! What do I do?”
“Try to get her back into bed. Gently. Speak slowly and calmly.”
Kara nodded. “Lena?”
She was met with another round of screams.
“Lena, it’s me, it’s Kara. I’m hear to help you.”
“Kara?” Lena choked out. “No, you have to go, you can’t, they’ll hurt you too.”
“No, they wont,” Kara said, soft but firm, kneeling in front of her. “No one can hurt you when you’re with me. I’ll protect you.”
Kara gently placed her hands on Lena’s shoulders. Her skin was fever hot and a vein stood out on her forehead, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
Very slowly, Kara began to shift her towards the bed, finally giving up and lifting her entirely. Lena clung to her in a full body arms-and-legs hug.
Alex crackled in her ear.
“Stay there. I’ll have J’onn do a sweep of the area just to be sure.”
“Don’t go,” Lena murmured, “Kara please, don’t go please.”
“I’m right here and I’m not leaving,” Kara said, lowering her to the bed.
It was… awkward. Kara had no choice but to climb in with her. She grabbed an armful of silk sheets and down comforter and sheltered them both within it, packing herself up into a tight roll with Lena, arms locked around her.
Lena’s screaming had stopped but she still seemed unaware, her focus entirely on Kara as she sobbed lightly into her chest.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you, it’s okay,” Kara repeated, like a mantra, lightly running her fingers over Lena’s scalp.
“You’re safe, I promise.”
Lena buried her face in Kara’s throat and sobbed. Kara continued to stroke her hair, and almost without realizing it, started singing.
“Kara,” Alex said in her ear, “the channel is still open. Kara, you’re singing a Kryptonian lullaby!”
She didn’t care. She jabbed her ear to silence the little voice and continued to sing, the same song her father used when she had nightmares in the groundquakes when their world was shaking itself apart.
Lena’s breathing finally slowed. The tension slid out of her and her breathing and pulse eased. She fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Kara could leave now, if she wanted. Skip away and let Lena think it was all a dream, though she might wonder what happened to the lock on her balcony door.
She could, but a promise was a promise.
Eventually, her own lullaby lulled her to sleep, and she drifted off into a dreamless rest of her own.
When the sun draped a warm touch across her skin and Kara opened her eyes, she found herself oddly well rested for someone who’d woken up at three in the morning and flown across town. Lena dozed lightly in her arms, tucked against and under Kara so naturally it was as if they were made to slot together this way. Kara lay turned and curled around Lena, a fortress of living walls around her smaller frame, even as she clung to Kara’s waist.
She still had time to leave, to let the night be a mystery… but something stopped her. She wasn’t sure if it was the soft, sweet scent of Lena’s hair or the way Lena’s breath tickled her throat or the soft weight of her or the delightful sensation of her breasts pressed against Kara’s own but she needed this, she wanted this.
Lena was looking at her.
“Are you real?” she whispered.
“It’s me, Lee.”
“Why are you here?”
Kara licked her lips and sorted through fifty lame excuses. What would it be this time? Lena butt dialed her in the middle of a night terror? She forgot her hairbrush?
No.
“I heard you screaming and I flew here to protect you.”
Lena blinked, clearly groggy, her brows pinched in consternation as she worked it out. Kara waited.
“Oh,” Lena said, finally.
“Yeah,” said Kara. “I can go if you’re upset, or you need time,” her voice grew thick, “or if you’d rather not see me anymore.”
“No,” Lena snapped, almost angrily, then more softly, “please stay. I’d like you to stay, I… I need you to help me feel safe for a while.”
Kara nodded.
“I had a terrible dream. It was so real. I dreamed Lex sent people after me in my office, but they weren’t there to throw me off the balcony this time. I tried the gun I keep in my desk but it had no effect on them, and Jess didn’t hear me screaming and no one would help me.”
“It wasn’t real,” Kara murmured. “That will never happen. I will always be there when you need me.”
“What if you’re too far or you’re too busy?”
“I’m never too busy and I’ll never be too far. I’ll give you a signal watch.”
“A signal watch?”
Kara nodded. “Like my cousin gave James. If you use it I’ll be able to find you anywhere.”
“God, Kara in can still feel the hands on my throat. It was so real.”
“It wasn’t, I promise. I’m real. Can you feel me?”
Lena suddenly seemed a touch embarrassed, but didn’t pull away.
“I can definitely feel you.”
“Good. You’re safe. We don’t have to get up yet. Just lay here with me in the sun and you’ll be safe.”
There was a knock at Lena’s door and they both jumped.
Alex’s voice crackled in her ear.
“I’m at the door, Kara. Let me in.”
“Kara? What’s going on?” said Lena.
“Alex is at the door.”
Kara started to slip out of bed and Lena almost frantically followed her, pressing close behind. Kara looked through the door -a little relieved that Lena hadn’t lined it with lead- and saw Alex standing there in full agent gear. She opened the door.
Alex raised a brow. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” said Kara. “We were going back to sleep.”
Alex swept into the apartment.
“J’onn caught a guy. Two-bit mercenary hack, calls himself Doctor Destiny. Uses a drug to enhance latent psychic abilities- he’s a dreamer, messes with people’s heads while they sleep. J’onn gave him a taste of his own medicine.”
Lena tensed beside her, and Kara felt it.
“Alex, where is he now?”
“Back at headquarters in a holding cell. I made arrangements for him to be transported to Belle Reve, with a cape escort.”
Kara paused for a long moment.
“Alex, can you stay with Lena for a few minutes?”
Lena paled even further, the blood draining from her face.
“Kara?”
“I won’t be gone long, baby. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
“Baby?” said Alex.
“Shut up,” Kara snapped.
Lena gave her a slight nod of assent.
Kara decided to make this quick. She flew home first, changed, and landed on the DEO balcony all in less than five minutes. When she reached the holding cells, she told the guard on duty to get a coffee and let herself in.
He was an unassuming man, average height and build with scruffy hair and a five o’clock shadow. He looked more like a petty crook that got caught robbing a corner store, less like a supervillain.
“You’re ’Doctor Destiny’?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you do this on your own or were you hired?”
“Fuck off,” he said, with a shrug. “I’m going to the hole until Waller comes in to cut me a deal. You’re a Supe, you don’t scare me. Maybe send the Bat if you want to-“
Kara took two steps across the cell, seized his throat in a crushing grip that almost crushed his windpipe, and pinned him to the wall like a struggling insect beneath a sadistic child’s thumb.
“What the fuck?” he croaked out.
Kara turned her head slightly and hit the wall with a pop of heat vision that scorched the concrete and left a warm red spot.
“What the fuck?” he said again.
“I can see it,” Kara said, her voice as cold as ice. “I can see the little quirk in the back of your brain that gives you powers. One little blink and it’s gone.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“It’s too bad that there’s some important structures in the way, but you probably don’t need those language and motor skills.”
“You can’t!” he screamed.
Kara leaned in close, eyes smoldering so that he could feel the heat begin to sting his flesh.
“Wrong. I’m Supergirl. I can do anything.”
“Jesus fucking Christ! It was Edge! Morgan Edge! He paid me fifty grand!”
“Fifty g-“ Kara snarled, gritting her teeth. “Listen to me. They’re taking you to Belle Reve. I want you to tell everyone there. Everyone, do you hear me?”
“Tell them what?”
“If anything happens to Lena Luthor, I have no rules.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell everyone I promise! I swear!”
Kara let go and turned, ignoring his cries as his knees hit the concrete floor, and slammed the cell shut behind her.
When she landed on Lena’s balcony, Alex was sitting with her on the couch. The color had come back to Lena’s cheeks and she no longer looked small and frightened, her eyes no longer darting to corners and thresholds as if she expected something to pop out from behind them.
“Lena is going to pack a few bags and come stay with you for a few days,” said Alex. “I convinced her that crashing on Supergirl’s couch is a better security system than what she’s got, and while she’s out I’m going to have our tech team integrate her security into the DEO so we’ll know instantly if she’s in trouble.”
Lena nodded at all of this.
Kara knelt before Lena and gently took her chin by a curled finger and raised her gaze.
“You’re under my protection,” she said. “I swear it.”
Lena’s eyes sparkled and she gave Kara a soft smile, cupping Kara’s hand in her own.
“Okay, Brave Sir Kara, let’s take milady Luthor back to yonder castle.”
“Shut up,” Kara muttered.
The trip home seemed to calm Lena even more, as she laughed at the two sisters bantering with each other after Kara changed and climbed into Alex’s car, leaning forward from the back seat to poke her head between Lena and Alex and tease her sibling.
Lena ended up staying a full two weeks.
The “sleeping on the couch” concept didn’t even last the first night.