Chapter Text
Sometimes, everything was just so damn loud. The world was too loud, and Kara would forget all those years she’d spent honing her senses to ignore it.
Perhaps not ignore, but focus. Focus herself on the smallest sounds and sights in front of her. She didn’t need to hear the baby crying exactly 16 miles to her left, or the screeching of brakes from cars stopping short on the poorly marked 4 way stop across town.
It was beyond overwhelming, her ears picking up every whisper in a 5 miles radius, and every scream from 30. People slurping the last of their drinks, eating chips mindlessly, small talk at the office, car horns blaring back and forth as a distracted and impatient driver cuts off 3 people in 2 lanes at once.
Kara had just been at lunch with Lena, when she’d completely lost her control over her hearing. Try as she might, she wasn’t getting any closer to having it under control again. If she could bleed, she’s sure her ears would’ve already started gushing by now.
They’d been on a lunch date, an actual date, because Lena had bucked up where neither Kara nor Supergirl could, and finally put an end to both their misery by asking Kara out a few weeks back. It was also how Kara had learned that Lena had worked it out herself about who Kara was, and she hadn’t been upset, not like Kara had thought she’d be. They’d had a few conversations about it of course, but Lena understood, smiling sweetly as Kara stumbled and awkwardly gestured through numerous apology-filled explanations.
And now, here she was, hand firmly embedded into the brick wall that was the back of the restaurant, dealing with the worst sensory overload – is this what brain freeze feels like? She’s never had one, Alex always looks so pained when she experienced it though – she’d had since the first 2 years she was on Earth.
Her glasses had fallen off of her face, and even if she had the presence of mind to be worried about her sad excuse of a disguise, the fact that she’d had newly molded brick in both hands now would’ve surely given her super-powered, alien-likeness away.
Opening her eyes – when had she closed them? – she looked up and, oh Rao Kara could see through every building in front of her for 3 blocks, and wow, okay, not helping – x-ray vision is a bitch sometimes but really now of all times? With each blink Kara now teetered between seeing through everything and seeing every spot and every indent in the bricks on the wall.
Kara fell to her knees, also an easy giveaway if anyone saw her, the knee caps of human don’t have the strength to create small craters in the ground, cement or not. It didn’t even register in her mind – not that hurt, Kara hardly ever experienced physical pain, not as Kara Danvers. Not against human, human creations.
She didn’t know why this was happening here, or now, hell, she didn’t know why this was happening at all.
What had she encountered recently to set her off this way? Was this another new form of Kryptonite? She’d already seen 2 besides the deadly green that burned her from the inside out if she was exposed to too much. It wasn’t a far stretch, alien technology had been weaponized before in so many ways, this could easily be another.
It was painful. Expanding her powers on purpose for long periods of time could be irritating for Kara. Even allowing her senses to extend to massive areas at once, even focusing for something specific, could cause Kara some discomfort. But now, with her sight going haywire, and her ears now far too sensitive to the entire city and then some, Kara was suffocating under the weight of it all.
Even her own blood was pumping too loud, and Kara could swear she could feel the pulsing of her brain in her skull, desperately trying to keep up with the sensations presenting themselves to the kryptonian by the hundred in every 1 thousandth of a second.
Her head felt like it could melt at any moment. The sounds coming from 4 miles to her right were nauseating for an entirely different reason now. It was bad enough she was bombarded with everyone and their mother’s exhales. She certainly did Not need to hear how ehem, excited, some people were in the middle of the day, I mean seriously, it’s 1:34 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, surely people had things to be doing other than each–
“Kara!”
The sound of her name broke through her thoughts, and for a split second, the haze of her break down.
In the next second, Kara felt something on her face. When her vision finally evened out, Kara realized her glasses were now resting on her nose, and Lena had her hands on either side of Kara’s face.
Lena was saying something, Kara could tell because her lips were moving. But everything was so distorted, even with her eyes under control, Kara wasn’t able to focus enough to hear Lena.
She must’ve realized Kara wasn’t hearing her, because Lena pulled at one of Kara’s hands until she was holding it. With her fingers, Lena was pressing into the pulse in her wrist, still pulling Kara’s hand. The pressure on her wrist allowed Kara enough control to let Lena control the movement of her arm, and the next thing she knew, Kara felt another beat on her palm.
Except this time, it wasn’t Lena’s fingers. Kara’s palm was resting on Lena’s heart, Lena must’ve guided it there, and now Kara could feel it, even if she wasn’t hearing it.
For a few moments, all Kara did was stare at her hand that was covering Lena’s heart. Desperately trying to focus on the pulse she could feel. She started counting it, like Jeremiah had taught her, and how Alex had helped her before. By 14, she could faintly register the soft thump of Lena’s heartbeat. In other 10 beats, she’d honed in on it, and now she could hear something else.
Slowly, the sound of Lena’s melodic voice filled the air.
Kara looked up then. Green eyes greeted her, filled with concern, and something else Kara couldn’t place at the moment. Lena was still speaking, softer now, as it was clear Kara could hear her now.
“Just breath, darling. Breath with me, in,” Lena paused as she held the air in her lungs, watching as Kara now followed her instructions. Two seconds passed before Lena let them breath out, and she herself sighed in relief at the drop of Kara’s shoulders. The tension that had been coiled around Kara’s being had cooled dramatically.
“Kara, hey,” Lena was looking so softly at Kara, she could cry. Clearly, she was a mess, breaking her surroundings with her hands and knees, tousled hair from clawing at her head and ears, face red with the exertion of it all.
“Darling, look at me, you’re okay. It’s okay.” Lena had starting wiping away Kara’s big, hot tears, as she pulled the two of them closer, wrapping her other hand around the back of Kara’s neck to steady her.
Kara hadn’t even realized she’d actually started crying. They were slow tears, and she wasn’t overcome by them, but it surprised her nonetheless. Blinking away the wetness from her eyes, she focused on Lena again, giving her a small, watery smile.
“Lena,” the Kryptonian’s voice was scratchy – has she been talking too? “I thought Jess called you back, what are you still doing here?” Kara remembered now, lunch had been lovely, but cut short, as L-Corp urgently needed its CEO.
When Lena looked at her, Kara’s heart warmed at the fondness in her expression before answering, “You never left. You’ve always flown back to work; I didn’t see you blur by in the sky like you usually do.”
She paused, caressing Kara’s face before pushing some loose strands of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ear. Lena leaned forward then, lightly kissing Kara’s forehead, and then her cheek, before moving her hands again to hold Kara’s face.
“I found you when you’d fallen to the ground, and slightly through it. The noise drew me here, to you. What’s going on? Just how over worked are you?” Lena was still holding Kara’s face, drawing small, comforting circles on her cheeks with her thumbs, as Kara sighed into her further.
“I didn’t think I was, I don’t– I don’t know, I thought, something I was exposed to? I haven’t– this hasn’t– happened. In so long. My ears, I could hear it all, I could see everything, I didn’t have control, Lena”
A fresh round of tears spilled over, dotting her glasses on the way down, before Lena caught them with her thumbs, again. Lena didn’t say anything, didn’t shush her. Instead, she brought Kara’s head to her shoulder, and moved to hold her neck and rub small circles in the space between her shoulder blades.
Kara cried softly, and Lena let her. Lena kept Kara close to her, even as her tears soaked the very nice blouse she was wearing, in the middle of a workday. Lena held Kara as they knelt on the ground in a dusty alleyway, that now had a rather large cracks in the ground, and hand sized holes in one of the walls.
Kara would guess that they’d stayed that way for hours, if she didn’t know it was actually only 7 minutes.
Finally, when it Kara’s tears slowed, Lena spoke, “Kara, when’s the last time you had a break?”
Pulling back, Kara frowned, the crinkle between her eye brows on full display, “I have the weekends off, you know that?” Lena raised an eyebrow, and flicked her gaze at the sky, before looking back to Kara, who sighed, and looked away.
“Supergirl needs a break too, Kara. You’re always saving this city; you’re always defending all us. You, Kara Danvers, deserve to rest. Or this is going to happen again, and I don’t like the idea of it happening somewhere, sometime that you won’t be safe when it does.”
Lena was so calm as she spoke, and Kara could hear how much she cared in her voice. It was comforting, everything about Lena put Kara at ease, made her feel safe in a way she shouldn’t need, because she was invulnerable. And yet, Lena was everything Kara wanted, everything she needed in that moment, and every moment since they became friends, long before they’d started going on dates.
Kara agreed, she’d been going on so many Supergirl patrols, she can’t remember the last time she slept longer than 5 hours. She had so much to protect now, everything she ever wanted was in the palm of her hand, and she was so terrified of losing it, she couldn’t relax long enough to really rest.
“I can’t relax, Lena. I can’t let Alex get hurt, I can’t let anything happen to Winn, or to James, or Maggie. Rao, if anything happened to you! I don’t know what I would do, and I know you’re right but I can’t calm down enough to let myself re-charge.” Kara looked at Lena with sad, pleading eyes, hoping she understands what she won’t say. That Lena is so important to Kara that it hurts, and now she’s in even more danger, just by knowing all of Kara the way she does, and loving her for regardless.
“Okay. Then let me take you home. Let me help you, Kara, let me take care of you, how you take care of everyone else, of me. Please.” Lena never asks, she just does. Not in a malicious way, never with Kara. But she does now, because she knows that Kara doesn’t always let people help her when she needs it, but because Lena’s asking, pleading, she might.
And Kara nods, and lets Lena guide her up and out of the alleyway, towards Lena’s car. Lena keeps her arm around Kara, steadying her, keeping her close, because Lena cares too. She cares so much for the Kryptonian, and she’s grateful, to be trusted enough to see Kara like this. Without her confidence, or even her bubbly awkwardness.
They lean on each other in the car, and Kara can finally feel herself relaxing again. Relaxing into Lena, letting her take control, Kara feels safe. That’s all she’s wanted in so long, to feel safe.