SuperCorp Oneshots

Elevator Meet Cute

Kara missed the balcony that had once expanded from Cat Grant's balcony.. Now, she couldn't fly up to the top floor and step into work that way. Her coworkers had begun to question her ability to climb the stairs so quickly since she had begun to (very carefully) fly up and down them. Kara hated the idea of them questioning her unwillingness to use the elevator, though she always had at Cat Grant's behest. Kara had pretty much been willing to do anything for Ms.Grant.

"Hold! Hold the elevator for me, please!" Kara called as she rushed through the CatCo Worldwide Media. A tall woman with piercing blue-green eyes and raven black hair was the one Kara spoke to. She seemed to be rather aloof and almost cold as Kara joined her. She was definitely beautiful in a rather intimidating manner. For being a Girl of Steel, this newcomer shook Kara to her core when those eyes met Kara's bright blue ones.

"Ah, thank you. I was trying so hard to get the coffee line moving ahead of me through sheer force of willpower. I used to go to a lesser known and slightly less expensive place, but Miss. Grant always made me come to this specific place extremely out of my way and now it's just a part of my programming, I guess." Kara spoke, unaware of the speed of her words and the rambling nature of her speech. The other woman only raised one perfectly arched brow at her as the elevator began to rise. Kara felt as though her stomach were left behind towards the bottom floor somehow.

"I'm Kara Danvers. I don't think I've seen you around before." she moved the tray of coffees to her left-hand and held her right out to shake.

"My name is Lena, Lena Luthor. I'm something of a newcomer." the smile was wry and did not reach Lena's eyes as she waited for a reaction from Kara that didn't come. The elevator jerked, shuddered and shook to a halt as the two women shook hands.

Kara held the coffee tray steady in a display of dexterity that she had never allowed to shine through in the same breath that she made a grab for Lena and kept the other woman on her feet. Lena was surprised by the sturdiness of the arm and the immediate sense of readiness that she could sense on the woman beside her. She had initially taken Kara for an assistant or a baby journalist, she saw something hardened and wary in her dark blue eyes now. Lena made a mental note of this woman for later and gave her another look over.

Kara had released Lena now that the elevator was steady and unmoving. She was scanning the elevator's button and fidgeting with her black-rimmed glasses. The buttons had all gone dark except for the emergency button, indicating a loss of power. Kara pressed it and picked up the attached phone receiver. She did not appear to appreciate whatever the person on the other side said.

This tall, strong blonde woman's eyes were sharp behind her glasses and Lena saw a flash of danger and panic in them. Muscles in her shoulders tensed and rolled dangerously. Lena noticed that the slope of her shoulders betrayed more strength than she had felt when Kara caught her. She held out her hand to Kara. "May I?" Lena spoke in the voice of one who was accustomed to being obeyed. Kara told them she was handing them off and passed to phone to Lena.

"Listen, fella." Lena cut the other person off when they immediately began to word vomit harshly into her hear. "You have no idea of who I might be or the situation I am in. You have no right to speak to me this way. Before this hour is up you are going to have the two of us freed from this elevator or there will be hell to pay. Would you like to know to whom you are speaking now since you didn't have to decency to ask before?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kara overheard, despite her attempts to suppress her super-hearing. If she still weren't so panicked she would have snorted a laugh. She also detected a subtle accent in Lena's voice that even she couldn't put her finger on.

Kara shrank back as Lena finished her phone conversation, dropping her own name as though it carried some significant amount of weight to it. She couldn't bring herself to think about it or care as Kara began to become possessed with the smallness of this space and her mental comparison to her time within the pod, floating endlessly throughout space. Time had not passed as she revolved in that pod, hardly aware of her surroundings, but completely sure that it was not where she was meant to be. Now, in this elevator, her breaths began to come more quickly and her pupils shrank to the pinpoints of micro-vision. Panic set into her for real, then.

Lena hung up the phone and crouched down in front of Kara, a respectful foot of distance between them. "Kara, are you alright? It seems like you're panicking a bit there?" Kara became hyper-fixated on the skillful way Lena managed to crouch down while balanced on those heels without truly sitting down.

"Kara, you are having a panic attack right now." Lena looked into her eyes deeply. "Know right now that you are safe. You can breathe freely right now and that we are going to be okay. Would you mind if I held your hand right now? Do you think you could talk to me?"

Kara nodded almost desperately holding her hands out, palms up. Lena squeezed both tightly in her own. Kara noticed how soft they were, much like those of people who had never done a day of hard work, in their life. Kara's were much the same, due to being for the most part, invulnerable. Lena began to breathe deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth, obviously intending for Kara to mimic the technique.

"Can you name five things you know are real for me right now? Things you can see. Things you can feel." Lena encouraged her in a gentle and kind tone.

Kara gripped Lena's hands lightly, forcing herself to maintain control over herself and not crush her hands with the super-strength she hadn't always known the parameters of. "Your hands in mine. This stupid elevator. These glasses are never quite all the way clean. The coffee that will definitely be cold by the time they get where they belong. We might as well drink them now. I already said this stupid elevator, didn't I? Oh, and your shoes which I would very much like to own."

Lena chuckled lightly in response and seemed to give up on her semi-squat to just sit down completely in front of Kara. She grasped one coffee at random for herself and handed another to the blonde girl beside of her. Caffeine was always clearly the answer to all of the problems in the world. Including panic attacks. "I won't tell if you don't." Lena only momentarily checked the attached receipt before struggling and drinking. Kara was slightly shocked by the boldness but found that she enjoyed it. The sudden move shocked her a little out of her stupor.

"I'm sure that we will be rescued soon. I gave them a very serious deadly and I don't go back on my word. The longer the two of us are stuck in here, the worse it will be for everyone else when we're out." Lena said in a truly serious tone. Kara believed her. She also believed Lena when she said that they would be okay. Something in that lilting voice made her trust Lena when she said that they would be okay. It didn't hurt that she was definitely one of the most beautiful women Kara had ever met in her life. "People only very> rarely get hurt in elevator-related incidents. The statistics are amplified by media representations of those accidents."

Hearing it all laid out factually helped to calm Kara down. Lena sat back against the wall beside of Kara and pulled something up on her phone, typing rapidly, then passed it to Kara. "I thought this one looked kind of like your old boss, Cat Grant."

Lena passed Kara a phone bearing a picture of a golden chihuahua in a blonde wig. Giggles burst uncontrollably out of Cat's former assistant. Lena was right. The dog did bear a slight resemblance to her mentor. Lena scrolled to another picture of a dog in a wig and made another comparison. Kara continued to laugh, continually surprised by the other woman's wry and dry wit.

To Lena, it seemed as though Kara's panic attack had taken a lot of energy out of her. They had been trapped in the elevator for about twenty minutes at this point. Kara nodded off pretty quickly. Her head was tilted at a horribly awkward angle that hurt Lena just to look at. When she started to slide a bit, Lena allowed Kara to nap using her shoulder as a pillow.

A loud screech about fifteen minutes later jerked Kara awake. Lena noticed that the blonde immediately moved to put herself between the perceived threat and herself. She was beginning to find she really wanted to know more about this other woman. There was something special there, something she had never seen in anyone else. Lena stood up to take a place right behind Kara, right at her shoulder.

With another ear-splitting squeal of protest from the metal, the elevator doors opened to reveal three of the guys' Kara knew from the maintenance crew. They offered her a hand down and she acceptd, then helped to nearly completely lift Lena down, making sure she was steady on those ridiculously high-heels. Kara took the majority of Lena's weight on her own shoulders.

"Alright, Ms.Luthor. May I escort you somewhere in the building? I never asked you what you were meant to be doing here."

"Oh, I bought the company. I'm CEO now, and CatCo is a part of L-Corp." Lena said, finding her way onto her own feet once more. "It was nice getting to know you... Kara Danvers."

She walked away, leaving Kara standing there with her jaw dangling open. Both women were left completely bamboozled by one another.