Chapter Text
“I feel useless.” They’ve gathered inside the DEO’s tactical room. Lena’s been sitting at the circular table in the middle of the space for what feels like forever, head clutched in her hands. Alex, who’s pacing circles around them all, hand on the butt of the pistol at her hip, looks in even worse shape than she feels.
On the table’s touch-reactive surface, unbothered by their nerves, the stream of data keeps on flowing. Lena stopped looking a while back, knowing full well what she’d see.
Kara’s vitals, front and center. Elevated heart rate and blood pressure, composition of her blood poisoned by the Kryptonite the doctors are even now fighting to flush from her system. Whatever Kryptonite her mother got her hands on, she managed to modify it. It’s way more aggressive on Kara’s cells than anything Lena’s ever seen.
“I got something.” Brainy’s words are like a discharge of electricity coursing through the entire room. Lena and Alex exchange a look, then dash to his side with Nia not far behind. J’onn hangs back with Kelly, still poring over the surveillance footage from their neighborhood, hoping to spot the drone Lillian used to shoot Kara in the neck with.
“A lead?”
“What kind of something?”
Alex and Lena speak over each other, and Brainy’s eyes move between the two of them trying to determine who he should reply to first. The air, thick and heavy with stressed alpha pheromones, doesn’t help in making a decision.
Besides, everyone’s been stepping very lightly around Lena since they got here; as aware as she is of the kind of aggressive scent she’s giving off — ozone and hot coals — she’s powerless to stop it. They might be wary for another reason, too — Alex is finding her way back into Kara’s good graces, but even though nobody said it, it’s clear they think Lena’s forgiveness will be far harder to win.
She studies Alex’s face, making careful note of the dark circles under her eyes. Her face looks like a cave in, worry eating at her from the inside out. Lena’s pretty sure she looks the same way.
She raises her shoulders in a tired shrug and nods to the Danvers alpha, acknowledging her official rank.
“What kind of lead?” Alex repeats, seemingly relieved they’re not going to butt heads — at least on this.
“Money.” Brainy’s fingers move so fast over the keyboard they’re a blur. He pulls up accounts, transaction stubs, dates and times and account numbers. “Notice anything?”
“The same account IDs,” Lena fires back, almost immediately. “Over and over. This one is an old family account I thought had been closed years ago.”
“Apparently not.” Alex’s brows furrow. “And it’s been making steady payments to—”
“Don’t know yet,” Brainy sighs and rubs his eyes. “But I’ll find out.”
“How does this help us?” Alex pulls back, disappointment flitting through her face. The glow coming from the screen washes her face in ghastly hues, and her eyes look without bottom. “It doesn’t tell us where Lillian is.”
“On the contrary.” Lena’s lips curl back into a snarl. Her mother thought she was so clever, so untouchable she didn’t bother to hide her tracks. “That specific account needs the holders present at the bank to be operated.”
“And?” Alex fails to keep a note of irritation from her voice. “Banks have thousands of branches all over the world.”
“Yes, but—” Lena types a series of commands into the terminal, and a small window opens, showing an address. “Here, UBS branch in Place de Cornavin, Geneve.”
“How did you—” Brainy stares at the monitor wide-eyed, then up at her. He seems caught within a moral conundrum. “Did you just hack them ?”
“A valuable skill when you’re a teenager and your stepmother’s just cut off your monthly allowance because the nuns at school caught you smoking joints and giving oral to an omega or two, wouldn’t you say?” A chorus of gasps follows the small revelation, but Lena’s attention is only partially on the rest of the room. She’s messaging with Jess, having her look into booking the first private flight that she can find. She can do nothing here but be an hindrance to the doctors. In Geneva, she can track down her mother and make her pay.
“Luthor, stop.” Alex pries her phone away, but her hands are gentle. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m finding Lillian.” Lena snatches her hand out, eyes narrowed. “Hand me my phone back, please.”
“You don’t think she’s still there, do you? The last transaction is—”
“Yesterday.” Brainy pipes in. He’s still transfixed by the screen, as though stuck on disbelief. “The last transfer was yesterday.”
“See?” Alex puts the phone back in Lena’s hands, and her face is soft. Gentle. “She could be anywhere by now.”
“I know my mother, and I’m telling you she isn't. She’s going to hang around to gloat until—” Lena turns to Kara’s vitals projected on the table. The child’s. Both still look the same. “Until it’s over.” She whispers, tears constricting her throat.
One way or the other.
***
In the end, they hitch a ride on a military transport headed for one of the many US bases scattered around Europe. It’s loud, and Lena feels like she’s sitting inside a blender, but it’s faster than anything Jess could whip up on such short notice. And, since the flight is operated by the military, nobody blinks twice when it turns out Alex has packed enough firepower to outfit a small army.
“Do I get a gun, too?” Lena asks, her eyes going from weapon to weapon until she settles on a sleek-looking Beretta.
Alex doesn’t answer, appearing lost in her own world. She’s staring out one of the small windows, even though there isn’t much to see. Only clouds, barely discernible in what’s left of dusk.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” James answers in her stead. He’s already in his Guardian suit, fingers drumming on the edge of his shield. “I mean, no offence, Lena, but do you even know—”
“How to use one?” Lena reaches for the pistol, and without tearing her eyes away from his, takes it apart and reassembles it with practiced motions.
“We had an estate in England. Our summer house , father called it. Lillian detested the place,” she tells him conversationally, slamming home a magazine and checking that the safety’s still on. “He loved hunting, and would go out in the nearby woods whenever we were staying there. I loved spending time with him. So.”
Alex is looking at her now, and if Lena didn’t know any better, she’d say the alpha looks a bit turned on .
“Just be careful, okay?” Eventually, Alex clears her throat, and tries to save face. “Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Oh, you mean more than I already did?” There’s more than a little venom in her remark, but Lena really cannot help it. She’s stretched thin as it is, and coming from Alex, those (probably well-meant) words rub salt on wounds that haven’t had the time to close.
It’s fascinating really, to see Alex realize her behavior hurt someone other than just her sister. Lena could have used a sounding board when her fears kept her from sleeping at night. Or even just another set of hands to assemble all the extra furniture. J’onn is nice, but Alex had been a friend, and when she’d reacted so violently about the idea of her and Kara having a baby, Lena had felt betrayed.
Again.
Alex glares at her with narrowed eyes at first, and her mouth twists, on the verge of sniping back. Then she pales, shoulders slumping forward, and guilt softens her scent.
“Guess I deserved that, uh?”
“Yeah, you kinda did.”
“Uh, I’m gonna go and— uh— check on our ETA with the pilots.” Sensing the charged atmosphere, James excuses himself, quickly making his way to the cockpit.
Once they’re alone, Alex switches seats, taking the empty one that’s next to hers.
“I never realized how badly I let you down until now.” The plane pitches sideways, engines screaming against the headwind, and her words are almost lost. “And I know we won’t be okay for a while, but—”
“I’m done holding grudges, Alex.” Lena puts the gun back with the rest. She won’t need it for hours yet. “Honestly, I’ve been more angry on Kara’s behalf than my own. I’m used to betrayal—” Alex winces, but doesn’t shy away from the truth, “ especially from family. But Kara? She was devastated.”
“I know. I know, and I’ll do better when—” When she wakes up. If she wakes up.
Lena sighs, and lets the matter go for the time being. They need to focus on the immediate, and right now the priority is apprehending Lillian before she can go on to do more harm.
Alex seems to be following the same thought process, because she pulls out a folder Lena hadn’t noticed among the rest of the equipment, and shows her aerial photos of the bank they’re headed to.
“So, James is gonna watch our backs in the Guardian suit from here—” she begins, pointing out a nearby building, “just in case your mother has more drones up her sleeve. We go in undercover, and squeeze the branch director for intel.” Now that she’s talking business, her voice is cool and collected. Entirely professional.
“That won’t be too hard.” Lena smiles, but it feels more like a sneer. “My name should get us in to see him no problem. No questions asked, either.”
Alex nods.
“When we find Lillian... well, there’s several international warrants on her head. Interpol is on standby with a squad, if we need more manpower, and technically, we have to hand her over to them once all is said and done, but—”
“But?” Lena isn’t sure she likes where this is going.
“But I’ve talked to some of my contacts there, and let’s just say if an accident were to happen, nobody would look too closely." Alex catches her eye, and when she’s sure Lena’s paying attention, she very deliberately tilts her chin toward the guns.
“I understand.” Lena’s hands are clammy with cold sweat at the implication. Tension starts like a tingling feeling at her fingertips, and as her hands curl into fists, it travels up her arms. “Guess one can part ways with the family, but not the methods, uh?”
For once, Alex looks like she doesn’t know what to say in return.
***
It turns out that Lena’s right on all accounts. Lillian’s still in Geneva, and not all that hard to trace back to the President Wilson Hotel in the heart of the city. Like she was sure Lena’d be too busy mourning to bother coming after her. Or too spineless.
She says that to Lena’s face when the small strike force led by Alex — a mix of DEO agents and Interpol officials — breaches into the royal suite, guns at the ready. James is still outside, prowling the rooftops to give them aerial coverage.
“My, my.” Lillian pours herself a glass of wine, thoroughly nonplussed. “You know, you could have knocked.”
“Shut up and put that down.” Alex growls. “Hands where we can see them.”
Surprising them all, Lillian complies. There’s no hidden henchmen, no last resort trap. She stands, and when two agents move in to restrain her, she puts up no resistance. Her eyes never leave Lena’s.
“You being here must mean she’s dead. She and that… ill-advised creature you tried to bring into this world.” Alex snarls another warning, but Lillian laughs it off, showing her teeth.
“Oh, please, Director Danvers. What are you going to do? Shoot me? In front of all these witnesses? I’d like to see that, and so will my—”
The sound of a gun cocking puts an end to Lillian’s bluster.
“Lawyers aren’t much use when you’re dead.” Lena is sad, but not surprised by how much she sounds like Lillian. She moves closer, gun aimed at her stepmother’s head until the muzzle is pressed between her eyes.
“You’ll never have the guts.” Even through her sneer, Lillian can’t conceal the unease flashing through her eyes. Lena allows herself a small, cold smile and thumbs the safety off. Everyone at her back is silent. Outside the ample windows, Geneva falls slowly asleep under rumbling clouds that promise one of those sudden summer showers that can turn roads to rivers within minutes.
“Go ahead then.” Lillian tries to jerk free of the hands keeping her back. Stands a little straighter. “Seeing you ruin your life is still a form of victory, even if it costs me everything else.”
“You’re right,” Lena states, lowering the gun. “As usual, for all the wrong reasons.” At the last second, just as a measure of scorn returns to Lillian’s eyes, Lena strikes her, pistol-whipping her across the mouth to split her lip. “By the way,” she tells her conversationally, watching blood run down her chin, “Kara and the baby are alive.”
Lillian doesn’t need to know in what condition.
***
The call comes in while they’re escorting Lillian out of the hotel. The sky opens up then, with a mere sizzle of lightning for warning before the lot of them is drenched from head to toe in seconds. Her mother is bleating on about lawyers and being manhandled to the Interpol officer in charge, while the woman pretends she cannot speak a word of english. But Lena’s attention is magnetized by Alex, who has stepped a bit aside, satellite phone pressed to her ear.
She waits until her mother’s secured inside the unmarked Interpol van parked in front of the hotel, then quickly walks to the other alpha, blinking rain from her eyes.
“Is it—?”
“Here.” Alex hands her the phone. Her tone is tight, her face blanched by tension. “It’s Eliza.”
“Oh, God.” Lena takes the phone in shaky hands. “Alex I can’t— Are they—”
Alex squeezes her forearm. “Just talk to Eliza, Lena.”
She nods, feeling numb all over. Hating herself for not having mated Kara. If they’d shared the mating bite, now she would know if— if she’s—
“Kara woke up.” Eliza’s matter-of-fact tone is like a balm on Lena’s worry. “She’s very much on the side of groggy, but she’ll be alright.”
“The baby?” A whistling noise has started up in Lena’s ears. She’s aware she’s grasped Alex’s arm and is holding onto her as though the other woman is all that’s left keeping her upright. She probably is.
“They had to do a C-section, and your daughter will have to be inside an incubator for a while. Preliminary tests show no Kryptonite made it into her system, and Dr. Pandey is optimistic.”
“My...daughter?”
“Yes.” As Eliza drops the clinical approach, her voice warms. “It’s a baby girl, Lena. You and Alex better head back so you can see for yourself.”
“Okay.” Lena can tell the wetness on her face isn’t entirely due to the rain anymore. “Okay.”
***
She scarcely remembers the drive back to the airport. The flight back goes by in a haze. Lena only regains some sense of time and place when she’s back at the DEO, inside the elevator taking her and Alex to the medical wing deep underground.
“And as you can see, both of their vitals have stabilized.” Dr. Pandey is showing her a chart, and while Lena does her best to listen, she’s having a hard time. She should be paying closer attention to what the physician is saying, but her mind is a hundred steps ahead of her body, already at Kara’s bedside.
“Where?” she blurts out the moment the elevator doors slide open, trying to keep her urgency in check.
“Last door down the hall.”
The words are barely out of Dr. Pandey’s mouth before Lena’s sprinting forward, Alex hard on her heels.
She barely heard a word the doctor said to her the entire time. Alex’s voice calling her name, telling her to slow down and catch her breath is distant, too. A nuisance, like the buzz of a mosquito around her head. She’s running without any thought beyond Kara’s name, echoing inside her with each thud of her own heart.
“Lena,” Kara calls from within the room Lena just entered, her name on the omega’s lips acting as a kill switch on the roaring in her ears. “Lena, you’re here.”
“I am.”
She is, the clothes she’s been wearing since Geneva rumpled for having dried on her, hair mussed and tangled, falling into her eyes as she rushes to the bed.
“I’m here.” The panic which had been her constant companion on the mission melts away into relief, and the change makes the room around her spin.
She reaches blindly for a chair, anything she can sit on, and one is pushed under her ass just as her legs decide they’ve had enough.
“Here.” Eliza pats her shoulder briefly, before pushing Alex back toward the hall. “You take all the time you need, Lena, and we’ll be right outside.”
“But—” Alex tries to protest over her mother’s shoulder, twisting her neck at a weird angle to try and catch a glimpse of her sister.
“ Outside , Alex.” Eliza whispers something else, but Lena fails to hear it.
Her eyes are glued to Kara’s face, every line of pain etched there sending a jolt right to her heart.
“You look like crap,” Kara croaks, struggling to raise a hand and cup her face. “Have you been sleeping at all? Eating?”
Lena gulps back tears.
“I should be the one asking how you feel, silly.”
She looks bad, eyes sunken and glazed by drugs, cheeks taut as though she’s been hollowed out. Like she’s shrunk a size or two.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Kara’s smile is like the leering from a skull. “Dr. Pandey says it’s much better than it seems.” She nods weakly to the ring of yellow sun lamps flooding the bed in butter colored light. “Those are helping. It’s just…” Her brow wrinkles as she ponders the right words. “It feels slower than usual.”
Lena takes in the rest of the room for the first time. There’s IVs on either side of the bed, one line for each of Kara’s arms, and a mess of color-coded cables snakes under the covers. More than likely connecting her to the cluster of machines beeping quietly in the corner.
Someone, Kara’s mother maybe, put flowers on her nightstand, but the spray of sunflowers can do little to brighten up the room’s overall gloom. The lack of windows doesn’t help matters, either, but considering how Kara ended up here in the first place, Lena thinks that’s for the best.
On the far side of the room, there’s more machines. They cluster like anxious metal midwives around an incubator. Lena can’t see the baby from where she’s sitting — only a tiny foot sticking out from underneath a nest of blankets.
“Mind if I—?”
“Go ahead.” Kara’s hand covers hers, fingers sliding across Lena’s knuckles. She’s running a little warmer than normal still, but Lena can feel some of her strength starting to return.
Their daughter is fast asleep, tiny fist pushed up against the pouty plushiness of her mouth. Lena does her best to ignore the tiny plastic tubes exiting her nose, and the IV line attached to her wrist, but her heart constricts regardless. For a moment, she regrets not shooting her mother in the head.
Then, hers and Kara’s child opens her eyes, and Lena forgets about everything else. It’s a brief, unfocused look at the world surrounding her, that she does not yet understand, but enough for Lena to tell her eyes will turn out green. Like hers.
She’s beautiful.
“She’s tiny ,” she breathes out, completely enamored. Aching to be able to hold her daughter to her chest. To feel her move in the circle of her arms. But that’s not possible — not yet.
“Yes.” Kara’s tired groan tugs her back to the bed, but when Lena peers into her eyes for a sign of discomfort, she reads only happiness within. “But I made sure the doctors counted. She’s got all her toes and everything.”
“Okay.” Lena leans in, kissing her forehead. “Have you settled on a name?”
“I wanted to wait for you,” Kara mumbles. She’s putting up a valiant effort to try and stay awake, but her eyes are dewy with sleep, and she can’t hold back a yawn. “But I’d like to call her Astrid, if you like it, too.”
“Astrid.” It’s a good name. “Yes.” Astrid Danvers-Luthor. “I’ll have it put down on the birth certificate,” Lena murmurs, resting their foreheads together.
The only answer is a soft snore, and she smiles, making sure Kara has enough blankets before calling the rest of her family — their family — back inside.
***
“You were right.” Alex is stretched out in bed, Kelly curled against her side. “I was projecting. God, I feel so stupid.”
“Eh.” Kelly pushes up on an elbow, leaning down to kiss her on the nose. “You’ve realized you were wrong, and that’s what matters.” Her hand traces idle circles above Alex’s heart, then she presses a little closer, lips grazing down her jaw. “You said they’re letting Kara and Astrid come home soon, right?”
“Hmm.” Alex steals a quick kiss before continuing. “Monday. And believe me, it won’t be soon enough. Kara’s a horrible patient. She’s asking when she can go home every ten minutes. Driving everyone insane.”
“As if you’d be any different,” Kelly laughs, hands sneaking down Alex’s front to unfasten her belt. “You know you have nothing to envy Kara and Lena for, right?” When her hand dips inside her pants, stroking her softly, Alex feels herself start to harden. “At least you’d know if you’d cared to ask before going ballistic.” She cups Alex’s bulge, and rubs a little more insistently.
“You mean—?” She doesn’t know whether it’s Kelly’s hand squeezing her crotch or what she’s reading between the lines that’s leaving her so hoarse. “You mean—?!”
“I mean,” Kelly works her pants and boxers out of the way, enough for the erection to spring out. “I mean I wouldn’t be opposed to building a family with you, Director Danvers.” Her hand is pumping slowly now, and Alex can’t take her eyes off of it. Fuck, just the thought of seeing Kelly round with her child is enough to make the head redden and start to weep pearlescent drops of pre-come.
“It’ll take a while, obviously.” She doesn’t know when – or how – Kelly slid out of her panties without her noticing, but when the omega straddles her, swollen, dripping pussy ghosting along her cock, the technicalities of it become altogether unimportant.
“Because you’re on birth control, and—” Alex’s words end in a whine. Kelly’s started to lower herself, her hole stretching around the cockhead’s flare before she takes most of Alex in with one fluid downward thrust.
“Because I’m still on birth control,” Kelly agrees, hips rocking slowly back and forth as Alex jerks hers in an attempt to reach deeper. “So it’ll be a bit before I’m fertile after I go off of them. But that doesn’t mean we can’t practice.”
Kelly guides Alex’s hands to her hips, bending low until her lips are hovering just a breath from kissing her.
Alex could flip her over easily, plunging deep. Riled up by Kelly’s words, her alpha wants her to, but she holds back. She likes watching Kelly ride her, wearing nothing but one of her threadbare college shirts. It’s one size too big to fit her snugly, but there’s something absolutely arousing in seeing Kelly wear her clothes. In knowing she’s choosing to wear Alex’s scent over her skin. In the way her breasts sway under the thin fabric, nipples stiff and begging to be sucked. Alex does just that, pulling the shirt up and off of Kelly in seconds, before she captures one nipple in her mouth, whipping it stiffer with her tongue.
“We’re gonna have so many kids.” Her eyes track down the gentle slope of Kelly’s belly, lower where their bodies join in a tangle of coarse hair. There’s enough wetness gathered between them that Kelly slides up and down her girth with ease, taking her all the way in whenever she lets herself drop down.
“Let’s just start with one, yeah?” Kelly nips her lower lip, sucks Alex’s eager tongue into the damp heat of her mouth. Moans around it when Alex starts to thrust a little harder.
“Three,” Alex gasps out, rutting in the throes of their shared desire. “Four maybe.”
“Uh, uh.” Eyes glinting, Kelly indulges in her fantasy, grinding down against Alex’s rapidly inflating knot. “If you want that many, you better start coming inside me now, babe. Fill me all up.”
“Fuck.”
Rising to the intrinsic challenge of Kelly’s words, Alex’s alpha takes control. She grabs Kelly’s hips more firmly, hammering up even as she feels the omega’s inner muscles begin to seize around her in response.
She knows she’s being a knothead, letting her cock do all the thinking for her. There’s other stuff to consider before they really get down to starting a family of their own — her position at the DEO, and Kelly’s own career, and how to juggle both with a baby on the way — but Alex can’t stop the desperate need building inside her from growing. It swells like the tide, a spring coiled deep within her belly and spreading through the rest of her. A pressure that needs to be relieved, and she’s helplessly lost to it in seconds. So is Kelly, her breathy moans offsetting Alex’s grunts of effort.
The closer they come to release, the wilder their fucking becomes. At some point Alex caves and flips them over, Kelly’s thighs immediately rising to bracket her hips, her moans cutting off into open-mouthed gaping when Alex’s knot slots into place.
“Yes!” Alex pushes one of her hands between their straining bodies, searching for Kelly’s clit. “I’m gonna make you pregnant,” she grinds out as she rubs it in sloppy, frantic circles to get Kelly off before she comes. She needs to feel Kelly’s cunt shudder around her before she releases her seed. To feel the omega’s body milk her for every last drop.
“Take it,” she moans in Kelly’s mouth, the moment the omega finally comes undone beneath her. “Take it all!”
“Alex!”
They tumble over the edge together, and the resulting mess is worth buying new bedsheets.
A final throb has just coursed through her length, and she’s panting against Kelly’s neck, when the omega flips them around again, bodies still tied by the knot.
“Again?” Alex gasps, tone tinged in disbelief.
“Yep.” Kelly’s grin is a flash of white in the dark bedroom. “Practice makes perfect.”