Chapter Text
Lucy Lane woke up to the smell of something burning coming from the kitchen. She threw open her eyes in panic and crossed her messy room with two steps and make her way to the kitchen dressed only in her underwear and bra.
“What the fuck Alex!” the woman holding a fire extinguisher in her hand turned around to see one very pissed off Lucy Lane. “Unless you had an amnesia, I will kindly remind you again. You. Are. Banned. From. Cooking.”
The red head put the fire extinguisher back where she took it from. “I still think you guys are exaggerating. Plus you weren’t awake and I needed to eat.” Lucy’s eyes flew open in disbelief. “Exaggerating?! One time, you started a fire in the kitchen when you tried to make cereal!” Alex smiled sheepishly and raised her hands in mock surrender. “Sorry? But seriously I am very hungry, so get to work.” She said pointing to the fridge.
Lucy sighed and put her hands on her hips, a move that rubbed off on her from Kara. That woman had the ability to influence and inspire anyone, even at her lowest… No one could deny that she was a natural leader.
Thinking about her second housemate, Lucy asked Alex “Kara still didn’t come?” Alex didn’t even look back at Lucy from where she was cleaning the mess she made at the kitchen “She promised to be here for the first day of Metropolis High but I have no idea when she will make it or how she will make it.”
Metropolis High… The school which J'onn J'onzz, the man who unofficially adopted the three of them when they had lost themselves to their demons for the last two years, head of DEO the organization which governed The mixed zone back in the south side. He had forced them to take the acceptance test of Metropolis High and made them attend by saying ‘go and don’t come back without a god-damned diploma’. If not for him, none of them would be seen as anything other than just another savage southerner. Alex smiled at that thought. None of them were nothing close to ‘just another savage southerner’ those high class northerners couldn’t see past the end of their noses when it came to judging anyone who wasn’t from the north side or human.
Anyone who met them knew that Alex was an excellent strategist and a doctor. Lucy was a great leader with a calm yet strong aura around her who also had a natural talent with negotiating and persuading people. But Kara… Kara was an entirely different thing, because of the role she was born into, she had been trained by the brightest minds in Krypton since birth. (Thus the entire world with Krypton being the most advanced society… was most advanced) She had once loved to learn, to meet with new people, to write, to experiment and create. Now that everything had happened… It was as if she was doing everything possible to run away from the person she once was.
Lucy and Alex both knew of Kara’s nighttime activities. All the drinking, partying, fighting and fucking. They had seen all the times she came home bloodied and bruised or with her clothes missing, that is if she even made it home at the first place. Although Lucy had only known Kara after she lost everything and practically had been abandoned by the last of her bloodline, Alex has known her before all this shit had happened to her. So it was only natural for her to be more concerned about Kara, plus being the mom of the house, only God knew how much she could worry herself about her before she exploded.
Speaking of which…
The door threw open to reveal a very sweaty Kara shutting the door behind her with inhuman speed and leaning against it, her chest heaving by the fast shallow breaths she was taking. “H-Hey guys! Hope I am not late for breakfast.” She said after flashing them with her smile bright enough to challenge the Sun itself.
“God damn it Kara, what did you do now?” Alex said throwing her hand up in anger and standing next to Lucy.
“Nothing just a little jogging before breakfast you know?” She smiled as she pushed away from the door slowly as if she was waiting for it to explode.
“Kara at this point you should have figured it out that lying doesn’t work on us.” The red head said with a stern tone. “Not that it works on anyone with ears…” Lucy muttered, Kara furrowed her eyebrows at her picking up on it with her remarkable hearing. “Ok fine, the boyfriend was an athlete a very… large athlete, who was home way earlier then someone said he would be.“ She said casually. That’s when they both realized what Kara was wearing, or to be exact what she wasn’t wearing. She only had her worn out leather jacket zipped up on her bare chest with her low fitting ripped black jeans, exposing the bottom of her abs as well as her v-line which was covered with red scratches from last night activities. “Jesus Kara! Did you have sex with a tiger or something?” Lucy exclaimed, moving to touch the angry red lines running down Kara’s skin. “Oh that!” Kara looked down on her stomach as if she had no idea they were even there, “Well, she did have a huge tiger tattoo… or was it the guy at the party?” she said looking back at Lucy, purposely avoiding the woman boiling with anger.
Kara moved her bare feet on the cold floor, making a move to cross the living room without facing her sister. “No you are not going to anywhere.” Alex said sternly, putting a hand on her chest to stop her. “Where are your shoes?” Lucy said, eyes fixed on Kara’s bare and very dirty feet. Kara started to explain in a carefree matter, “Oh, I threw them into the bushes in the garden when I was-“ “Enough! Kara do you have any idea how worried I was? You go out every day and comeback looking like you had an orgy or come out of a war. And I know why you do the things you do-“ “Stop!” Kara took a step back and swatted her sister’s hand away “Don’t pretend to understand what it feels like Alex, I don’t need to be pitied and if we are going to talk about my ‘activities’ let’s talk about yours too!”
Lucy knew that when the Danvers sisters started to bicker like they always do, usually the best thing to do was to step away and watch out for anything thrown in the air out of anger. However, she could probably write a book about the two and knew exactly when to interfere and this was a perfect example on when a heated argument between them would turn into a fist fight.
“Hey Kara, that’s enough.” She stepped between the two, left looking like a small bunny trying to break up a fight between two lions as a consequence of them both towering over her. So she put her hands on their chests and tried her hardest to push them away, which had ultimately failed since they were more muscular then her too. ‘How are you both built like a tank when we all eat the same thing’ Lucy thought to herself in between her efforts to separate the arguing sisters.
“You drink like a sponge, even take alcohol for payment sometimes in your job. Just admit it you are an alcoholic!” Alex’s palm came down hard on Kara’s cheek which only made her angrier. “You motherfu-“ “You dare say that, you lil brat!”
“Guys fucking stop!” Lucy shouted as she shoved them both away from each other. “I am going to make breakfast while the two of you get ready for the first day of the high school forced down on us ok?” She stared them down causing them to break their staring contest.
“Whatever…” Kara muttered as she made her way to shower.
Alex walked to the entrance of the hallway where she came to stop, “Hey Luce” Lucy turned to the woman with a neutral expression on her face and wondered what she would say to her after breaking up such a tense argument with her sister. “Hmm?” “Before making breakfast, please go put on some clothing. I have seen enough of your weird taste in underwear for a day.” She said with a grin. “Fuck off red.” Lucy replied, trying to keep her mouth from curling into a smile when her voice betrays her and the whole insult sounds more like ‘Love you’.
She gives up trying to control her facial expression and breaks into a wide smile when she sees Alex walking away grinning at her tone of voice. She really does love her newfound family.
“Since none of you even bothered to look up at where the school was located, I will be leading. So please Kara for the love of everything you believe in do not pass me.” Alex said as she put her matte dark red helmet on.
Kara zipped the leather jacket she saved from her one night stand’s house and put on her lightly dented and scratched matte black helmet. “No promises.” She said in a joking manner.
“We will be late if you guys get in another fight. Alex, Control that temper of yours.” Lucy said in a singsong style as she put her matte dark purple helmet on as well.
“Alex, I know I got on your nerves too much today. So I won’t pass you.” Kara started her engine “That is if you can catch me!” she shouted back as she left the garage and speed towards the street.
“You little- you don’t even know the way!” Alex started her engine as well and took off in matter of seconds. “Why is it me every day who closes this the god damn door?” Lucy muttered to herself as she push the button of the controller and speed towards the motorcycled pair before the garage door could come down.
Lena adjusted her hold on her leather designer backpack. The only kind she was allowed to wear if she wanted to carry around a backpack at all, ‘Something worthy of the Luthor name.’ Lillian said after pushing all those clothes and accessory she had made Lena wear. All to polish the Luthor name by using their adoptive daughter’s influence and beauty.
Lena’s beauty was nothing that went unnoticed by anyone. 18 years of her life and she managed to turn the heads of almost everyone in everywhere she went. She was used to it all. From the shy glances thrown in her way to the lustful stares that managed to rise the hairs at the back of her neck… She had truly seen it all which made her an expert when it came down to see through people’s actions, she even categorized them. People usually orbited around Lena for three things, first the share of money she got from her family’s multi-billion dollar company Luthor Corp. Second, for her smooth pale skin, emerald green eyes and her jet black hair which had grown long enough for it to touch down to her shoulder blades. A lot of the times she thought that the only reason why she was even adopted by the Luthors was her ability to gather attention from the possible investors just by flashing a grand smile. Third reason was, her rising popularity in the city’s most prestige high school, Metropolis High, where the only way you could get in was either by passing the unfairly difficult exam with the lowest acceptable score of 60% correct answers or by paying the hefty tuition fee.
Of course her mother was prepared to pay the twice of the tuition fee just to get Lena in this school, for the good reputation it would make for the Luthor name when she insisted to, no, begged her to let her take the test. Even though Lillian knew that Lena was smarter than most of the, if not all the teenagers in her age, risking such thing seemed too risky to her. That’s when Lena used her Dear Brother card and secretly took the exams. Which she got the highest score in the school’s history by a solid 90%.
That was one of her best accomplishments. Not the 90% part, the part where she defied her mother and ended up as the winner part. Although now looking at her accomplishments so far she would say that her greatest achievement was finding someone to keep her sanity in check in this school full of spoiled, fake and fame thirsty people. Her best friend’s name was Maggie. She had found her two years ago, her second year at the Metropolis High. She was one of the only people who had gotten accepted to the school by taking the test, which she scored 70% in.
Maggie had a gift for catching details, noticing the small things that people do which sometimes spoke louder than their words. She was smarter than lot of people pegged her for and she never felt the need to prove herself to others just to get their attention, unlike everyone else who got accepted by passing the exam, which was the main reason why she caught the eye of the Queen of the Metropolis High (she always hated that name). They have been hanging out almost every day for the last three years and the bond between them grew strong enough for them to consider each other as sisters.
Today, to the first day of the last year of Metropolis High, they walked side by side talking and joking about what the last year of High school might be like and if there would be any new senior students attending the school this year.
“I heard there is a rumor that few southerners got accepted for this year.” Maggie said with a purple straw in-between her lips, taking small sips from the chocolate milkshake they picked up on the way.
“There are multiple points in that sentence which are quite impossible, Maggie. I thought you knew not to believe rumors, or in this case fairytales.” She said rolling her eyes, one hand holding her vanilla milkshake and the other scrolling through her phone.
“I thought the same first but the amount of people who claimed that they saw southerners in the acceptance exam made me think otherwise.” She said as she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and unzipped her black leather jacket all the way down, exposing her loose while tank top.
“Maybe it’s a collaborative prank? Or they are all delusional and thought that they saw southerners” Lena said as she mirrored Maggie and unzipped her designer black jacket, trying to cool down after walking all the way from the café to the school.
“Nah I don’t think so…” Maggie said as she stopped right in front of the entrance of Metropolis High.
Lena felt an arm quickly shove itself against her chest, preventing her from taking another step towards the entrance when the sudden roar of engines was heard and a strong breeze created by the motor cyclers passing them by with an incredible speed threw her hair around wildly. Just as both the girls were about to make a scene about the rude and careless drivers they turned towards the school parking lots to see three unfamiliar motor cyclers dismount their rides and take off their helmets.
“What the hell?!” Maggie angrily stomped off towards the group, throwing her hands up in the air and leaving Lena with no chance but follow.
In that moment Lena’s mind was flooded by one question from the second she laid eyes upon the odd group which looked more like a gang. ‘Were they the new southerner students?’
“Were you trying to run over us?” Maggie said loudly with voice full of anger. The biker with the red helmet was the first one to answer as she protectively got in front of the group and stood face to face with Maggie. “Were you trying to get run over by standing right in the middle of the road?”
“The road?! You cannot go that fast here even if I was standing in the middle of the road, which I wasn’t.” Maggie said her voice getting harsher with each word. “I can report you for this.”
“What are you a cop? Do you report all petty crimes you see? Such a law-abiding little c-“ Alex’s mockery was intruded by two arms pulling her backwards, Luce and Kara… “Alex, I think you said enough here…” Kara said with a warm smile toward the two very beautiful woman that they just met.
“Sorry we had an awful start, I am Kara, this is Lucy and the hothead back there is my sister, Alex.” Kara said as she offered her hand to Maggie with a charming smile that Lena swears she saw the whitest teeth she has ever seen on anyone.
Kara’s smile never faltered as Maggie kept glaring to the rest of them without paying any notice to Kara’s extended hand. Just as Kara was about to pull her hand back Lena’s hand shot forward and grabbed it with surprising precision.
“Welcome to Metropolis High, Kara. I am Lena Luthor.” She said, her words followed by a well-practiced smile she saved for investors and her mother’s friends had something warmer to it than usual.
One of the reasons why Lena was great at seeing the real intentions of people who came to her uttering lies was that she could see the meaning behind the twinge of emotion in someone’s eyes meant. Which is why Lena didn’t miss the way Kara’s eyes shined with recognition followed by mischief just before she turned their joined hands and left a gentle kiss on top of Lena’s without breaking eye contact.
“Pleasure to meet you Lena, but I am afraid to say that if we stay much longer your friend here will likely combust in anger. So to prevent our first meeting from getting ugly, we will take our leave.” “…I-“ She was interrupted by the loud ring of the school bell. Lena’s eyes were stuck on the woman, her mind jumping from another thought to another so fast that all she could think of right now was just nothing. Kara didn’t let go of her hand until the very second she turned around to leave with the rest of her group.
Lena stayed still, watching the blond head disappear into the crowd. She could still feel her hand burn from Kara’s touch until another hand roughly grasped her own and tugged her forward towards the building.
“C’mon our first lesson is with Mr. Sirel and you know how he feels about being late.”
By some miracle they made it to class and on their respective seats right on time. The classroom was wide and held in total of 20 students. The left side of the class room had large windows with a beautiful view. Maybe little bit too beautiful, Lena thought as she remembered all the times she was caught gazing at the large oak tree with its branches reaching out to the window of the classroom and few PE students struggling to keep up with Ms. Vasquez’s rigorous training and ultimately end up in the dirt. Those were the reasons why Lena’s teachers made a decision to ban her from sitting next to any windows throughout her high school education. That and her sadistic giggling ringing around the classroom when a student tripped and fell to the dirt in PE lessons.
That’s one of the reasons why she choose to sit next to the empty seat at the window side at the very back of the class. The other reason was that in front of the empty seat, sat Alex and at her right sat Lucy from this morning. Although Maggie had tried to pull her to the furthest corner of the class as soon as she saw the group in the same class as theirs she, for some fucked up reason, gravitated towards them… Maybe it was because of her assumption that she would get to see the blond responsible of her heating up with something as small as a touch.
Don’t get her wrong, her desire to see the blond again was completely for scientific reasons. She had to analyze all their future interactions and come up with a hypothesis why her body reacted to her the way that it did. Luthors don’t just crumble under a mere touch of an incredibly sexy blonde.
“I can’t believe you made us sit anywhere near them…” Maggie muttered to Lena leaning close to her for some privacy from the awed eyes of other student’s eyes to their way. Although this time, Maggie wasn’t sure if they were the center of their attention like they always were. She wasn’t complaining though, she always got irked by the people watching their every move it made her feel like an alien. At least for her it stopped when she left school, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what Lena went through everyday…
“Stop making it sound like I made you go out in valentines day…” Lena rolled her eyes at Maggie, just as their conversation was cut short when a loud voice demanded all the attention in the class.
“Alright, students of the ‘greatest school ever’, I am unfortunately your Math teacher, Mr. Sirel and according to this…” he waved the class’s student list above his head “…there are three new students who are from the National City!” he emphasized on the ‘National City’ which was the capital of the mixed side of the south side, basically yelling ‘Look people, there are southerners in our school, Attack!”
“They are, Alex Danvers, Kara Danvers and Lucy Lane” Just as Lena was about to make another comment on how much she hated him to Maggie, the unexpected last names of the girls had Lena freeze up. Danvers and Lane where did she remember those names from?
“Can we see you guys, raise hands or something…?” he said with the usual tone he used when he talked to people, irritated and bored.
Lucy lifted her arm up, her elbow still resting on the table with the other hand supporting her head, looking as equally bored as Mr. Sirel, “Lane”.
Lucy’s hand was followed by Alex’s, staring dead in the eye of the rude man with her hand raised, somehow equally threatening as her voice sounded “Alex”.
When the third hand expected to raise by the rest of the class, more than everyone by Lena, didn’t come Mr. Sirel’s eyes shined with anger and unbelief as he straightened up, “Where is Kara Danvers?” he said with a booming voice.
As if summoned by her name, the door opened to reveal a smug looking blonde, taking confident steps towards the seat reserved for her, behind her sister at the window side corner of the class, with her eyes trained on the fuming man standing in front of the board staring daggers at her. “Sorry I was late, had to talk with the Principal.”
A loud call of her name stopped her midway to her seat, “Ms. Danvers!” she turned around looking expectantly at the man. “I have a rule in this class. If you are late, you have to solve a question of mine to stay in for the rest of it. If you cannot solve the question you will spend a week in detention.” He said, his voice mixed with anger and condescension.
“Little harsh if you ask me but… Alright, I accept your challenge” she said shoving her hands in her jeans pockets.
That comment seemed to make him angrier, even if that was possible Lena thought, as he harshly dropped the clip list on his desk and furiously began writing a question.
After a severally damaged board marker and 5 minutes full of sounds of furious writing and angry muttering, Mr. Sirel wrote the last number in the equation and took several steps back facing directly at Kara, “There, my graduation equation.” He extended a board marker at Kara, “You can just give up now Mr. Danvers, your punishment will only be three weeks in detention.” He’s belittling smirk was wiped from his face when a sudden laughter cut through the tense atmosphere in the room.
Lucy, the girl desperately trying to cover her mouth as she laughed hard, waved a not so apologetic hand in the air as she said “ I am sorry-“ Alex let out another laugh laughter as she wiped the tears falling from the corners of her eyes, “-we are sorry, but- agh… just- just continue, please…” she said, laughter still evident from her voice as she gestured back at the disheveled man and one smug looking blond.
Kara took the board marker with a swift gesture as she took two fast steps towards the equation on the board. Everyone in the class was as silent as the grave, all eyes on the exchange between their pain in the ass teacher and the new southerner. She raised her pen and stopped as she threw a final look towards the man without facing him, “If I solve this problem, do you agree on looking the other way when me and my friends are late to your class?” she said with a dead-serious face.
Mr. Sirel nodded with an angry yet thoughtful expression on his face, eyes stuck on the board in anticipation.
With that Kara turned towards the board and touched the board with the marker. And as Lena watched Kara’s hand blur in motion due to how incredibly fast she was working to solve the question, she realized that she got into more than she bargained for, she realized how easy it would be to fall into the orbit of this charismatic, confident, hot and (apparently) genius person Kara Danvers was.
Lena’s train of thoughts was lost when the sounds coming from the board came to halt.
The blond kept her eyes on the man with his eyes wide open, color drained from his face like he just had been humiliated in the worst way possible, as she took two slow steps towards him holding the pen like it’s something vexing. Of course only Lena, probably Maggie too, could notice that with how close she had been watching her every moment, Lena wondered if that was because it was Mr. Sirel’s pen or it had something to do with something else entirely.
Seeing that the man was still too shocked to move a muscle towards the pen, Kara neatly tucked it in his shirt pocket after catching his eye and leaning in to say, “I don’t care what you think of me sir and unlike everyone in this class, I don’t need to take your crap attitude you have towards your students for some childish reason. So that’s why I can and will freely express my thoughts on you and believe me when I say this, If you think you are humiliated right now you won’t be able to leave your house when I open my mouth.”
Maybe it was the blunt truth slapped across the face of the most problematic teacher they ever had, or maybe it was how eerie calm Kara’s voice sounded as she said those words that caused every student to have their eyes wide open while some of them even had their mouths hanging in shock.
Meanwhile Lena just smiled, she felt her chest tighten in joy, like she had this intense feeling radiating to every inch of her body, with her mouth stretched into a broad smile caused by the incredible feeling of finding the very thing that you have been searching for all your life.
Kara left by the pale man and moved towards her sister and bend down to whisper something to her ear. That’s when the bell rung to end the lesson and with the voices of students rushing out of their classes coming from the halls, the shocked students came back to their senses and started to pack up. By then Lena had stood up and managed to control her wide smile into something more like a grin. That’s when hers and Kara’s eyes met and the blond winked and flashed her pearl white teeth to Lena right after turning on her heel and moving towards the door with others.
Somehow a wider smile found its way on Lena’s lips and she was left smiling like an idiot for the rest of the day.