The Elevator Trope Who: Asami and Lena Where: A high rise somewhere in the OC When: Backdated to Mid-November, on a Sunday What: A faulty elevator that ships Lena/Asami works its magic Warnings: Feels Status: Complete
All in all, it had been a good weekend for Asami. Besides the reveals of her own company, she’d managed to poach several recruits for her R&D division and a promising young woman for her PR team. It kept her mind off of her dreams (they were the kind of good that was kind of bad right now) and more importantly off of Lena.
And keeping her mind off of Lena was harder than she’d ever anticipated. Ever since their little slip up, her loneliness had only made her ache more and more.
Still, she should have expected to see Lena at this trade show. It was really more of a trade conference, but it was a little of both. Yet she didn’t even realize who she had walked up next to until she’d turned to make a comment on what they were looking at. “It’s an interesting design but it’s a few years...Oh. Hi, Lena.”
In the past few weeks since she’d returned to the OC, Lena had done just about everything she could to avoid any and all aspects of her life that weren’t related to her company. The friends she’d made in her time at Stark Industries, the tinkering with side projects in her apartment that were fun, but not much else, the intramural Risk: Revised Edition League that used to be her favorite two to four hours of the week - all went to the wayside with the creation of L-Corp.
Really, it all came down to a realization that she’d had as she was standing beside her mother, watching her father get lowered into the ground: The world’s greatest philosophy was, by far, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Because, really. What was the universe telling her here? All she’d been doing since the dreams had started was resist what they said about her, and her life, and her family. But what had happened since then? She’d given in and used her money to build a company that she thought could do good, and found herself naming it ‘L-Corp,’ two days before she dreamt about her dream self renaming her family’s company the very same thing. She’d decided that romantic love and relationships weren’t for her, just as her dream self had when she’d been forced to break up with Jack. And then her father had died. How many more clues did she need before she accepted who she was really meant to be in life?
And so, in that vein, she’d started to take cues from her dreams, instead of trying to ignore their very existence. It was just smarter this way. And hey, maybe she’d actually be able to accomplish some good with the blood, sweat, and tears she’d put into her new life’s work. That would make it all worth it, wouldn’t it?
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the calling of her name, and was both startled and thoroughly unsurprised to find Asami looking back at her. She’d known when she’d agreed to come to this conference that Asami would be attending as well. She’d had her assistant get her the guest list. But L-Corp was new, and small, and couldn’t afford to miss an opportunity like this one. The networking alone could make or break their first year. So she’d resolved to be alert, be watchful, and avoid this very situation at all costs.
Of course, she hadn’t taken into account this new habit she’d picked up of completely disengaging from reality and losing herself in her thoughts at inconvenient times. Her brother said it was “A sure sign of a stunted grieving process, and the first signs of what could possibly become clinical depression.” She called him “Full of shit and in need of a better pastime than reading old psychology textbooks and pissing people off with his blatant pseudoscience.”
And there she went again.
“Hi, Asami.” She said finally, polite smile accompanying her mild tone. She considered actually trying to talk to her - on a professional level, of course - but flashbacks of the last time they’d seen each other flashed through her head without warning, stilling her tongue.
Glancing up at the clock, she nodded. 11:30. Now was as good a time as any to take a break. She could go to her office, eat a protein bar, check on things, and be back in time for the next lecture.
Turning back to Asami, she smiled again, “If you’ll excuse me,” before turning and heading toward the elevators.
It was a pain Asami understood well. Her mother had died while she was young, and her father might as well be dead. That forgiveness in her dreams didn't extend to this life, and it wouldn't until Hiroshi Sato expressed the same kind of remorse he had there. He simply hadn't earned it and as lonely as Asami was, she didn't trust him.
She could also emphasize on the company point. FI hadn't always been FI, not until she'd dreamed. It was the one good thing from her dreams that had actually crossed over, her turning her company into something good, pulling it out of disaster. If she couldn't have Team Avatar, it was the next best thing. Certainly better than having Korra only to lose her when her dreams were just heating up.
Of course, she hadn't expected to be dismissed so quickly, but then what had she expected? "Lena?"
Now, a normal person would have let Lena go. But Asami was stubborn, and in a mood, so she followed Lena. She caught her in the elevator, "Wait."
Of course, as the doors closed, Asami was suddenly unsure of what she'd actually meant to say.
Lena didn’t know why she’d expected anything other than Asami following her. That would have been too easy, and her life just was not easy as of late. Still, she held out the hope that if she just quickened her pace a bit, kept her eyes forward, and hit the ‘door close’ button enough times, she might actually be able to get out of this particular awkward encounter relatively unscathed.
She just sighed in mild disappointment as Asami slipped into the elevator, making it just before the doors closed completely. Again: What had she expected? Still, this didn’t mean she had to engage. They were on the 35th floor, but it was a Sunday, and everyone that was in the building was at the conference. It’d take, at most, a minute to make it to the ground floor. She could hold out for that long.
This was also more awkward than she'd anticipated and Asami wondered what diety she'd pissed off to find herself in this circumstance, a refrain of 'its your fault Asami Sato' playing in her head not-withstanding.
"Having a good conference?" Asami asked, right around the 33rd floor. "Making connections?"
They could at least be polite to each other. That was the thought she had before the elevator suddenly lurched and fell. For several seconds, Asami knew what it felt like to be weightless. Then the emergency brakes kicked in and she hit the floor hard.
All in all, she’d been doing well. She’d kept her gaze straight ahead, made a noncommittal ‘mmhmm’ to answer Asami’s question, and hadn’t even had the urge to even really acknowledge the other person in the elevator. This would be fine.
Then, of course, the universe saw fit to remind her that she had bigger fears than talking to Asami Sato. Falling, for instance.
She hit the ceiling as the elevator screeched to a halt, and she saw stars momentarily before landing on her back, the breath knocked out of her as her brain processed what had just happened. Slowly, she sat up, scooting backwards to rest against the elevator wall and felt her lungs expand once again.
She’d gotten in two good breaths when the panic set in.
Her vision began to blacken around the edges as she started to to hyperventilate, her brain replaying the last few seconds over for her, in case she’d missed it. She heard the sound of the air rushing past the elevator car; her own quiet squeak as she was lifted into the air. She felt her stomach lurch, ultimately lodging itself in her throat as she fell; the sensation of her feet arching, grasping for solid ground and only finding air. Only, in her head, it didn’t stop - the car just continued to fall, with no sign of stopping.
"God," Asami breathed. Her ribs ached with every breath, and her head was spinning. But they'd stopped moving. She could hear the strain of the metal, but it wasn't that alarming sort of sound yet. Her mind was already trying to figure out what happened and what the root cause of an elevator failure was. It wasn't very common and part of Asami wondered if there was some sort of sabotage involved.
Pushing the 'what caused it' thoughts away, she turned her focus to making sure Lena was okay, and then herself, in that order.
And Lena did not look okay. Ignoring the pain in her side, she crawled over to Lena, trying to project calmness into her voice, "Lena! Breathe slowly. In, and out, in and out. We're safe. Just find something to focus on with your eyes, and breathe."
The sound of Asami’s voice - muddled and warped as it was - stopped the playback in her head, causing her to blink rapidly and clear her vision of the tears that had gathered in her eyes. The feeling of her chest caving in wasn’t going away, though, and she did her best to follow the instructions she was given, with her brain beginning to add in its own. In, out. In, out. Focus on… the door close button. It’s not moving. It’s still. Just like you. You’re still.
After a few minutes, breathing didn’t feel so hard, and she could almost hear clearly again. Asami was still speaking, and Lena’s heart clenched at the realization of what had pulled her out of her panic attack.
Taking in another deep breath, this one shakier than the last, Lena closed her eyes, letting her head rest on the wall behind her. “Thank you,” she said softly, affection she’d thought she’d successfully buried bubbling up to remind her of the person Asami was beyond her recent actions.
Asami had kept up a gentle chatter. It was mostly nonsense about the good things she'd seen that day and this delicious salad she'd had the other day for lunch, but like many things in her life focusing on someone else's needs had helped keep herself calm.
She leaned back against the wall next to Lena, arm wrapped around her chest. "No problem..."
Not knowing if the panic had been over the fall, the tight space or a combination of both, Asami tried to lighten the mood, "I officially believe the universe has it in for both of us."
Lena huffed a laugh, wincing as her back protested adjusting her position. Obviously she wholeheartedly agreed. After all, hadn’t she just been thinking that very thing? “What took you so long to come to that conclusion?”
Finally calm, she took a look around the small space they were in, attempting to see if she could see anything that would give them a clue as to what happened for approximately thirty seconds before giving up out of pure exhaustion, God, couldn’t this have happened when she’d had more than three hours of sleep total for the past two nights?
“At least the lights are still on,” she mused quietly before letting her eyes drift closed again. She just needed a minute.
"I think its been trying to kill me more often than usual lately." Asami flashed back to the localized blizzard and other recent events. She deliberately left out any mention of Korra, having made the conscious decision to move on from her. Making out with her in her dreams didn't help, but she was trying. When she closed her eyes and thought about people she wanted to kiss, Lena kept coming up.
It wasn't actually much better.
None of the buttons appeared to be lit up. Asami had a bad feeling about the phone, but she wouldn't know until she tried it.
But that was suddenly the last thing on her mind. She gently touched Lena's thigh. "Hey...hey. Maybe you should try to stay awake. You might have a concussion."
Opening her eyes with a groan, she considered that. Sure, she was a little dizzy and her head hurt, but she’d assumed at least one of those things was from the panic attack. She was probably fine.
(And if she had the fleeting thought that, even if she did have a concussion and went to sleep and fell into a coma, it wouldn’t be so bad because at least she’d finally get some fucking rest, well. She knew better than to mention it to Asami.)
Silently (and begrudgingly) giving in to Asami’s urge for her to stay awake, she crossed her legs, settling in to be rescued like the damsel she most certainly was not. With a chuckle, she turned her head to take in the woman beside her, a thought having occurred to her. “So what do you think the chances are that one of those dozens of engineers up there have more than just a simple working knowledge of elevators?”
Her smirk at the thought faded,though, as she took in Asami. She looked somewhat disheveled, which wasn’t really a surprise, considering what they’d both just gone through. Still, it unnerved her somewhat. Asami was beautiful no matter what - that would likely never change - but to see her less than entirely put together outside of her bedroom just reminded Lena that she had a reason to be worried about her.
“I’m so sorry - I never asked you: Are you okay?”
"Pretty good." They had to have heard it, right? Were there alarms? She didn't hear any alarms. Finally, she looked at the floor readout. They'd dropped ten floors, yet it had felt like three times that many. "And if not, I'm sure we could think our way out of this one."
She pushed her hair out of her face, wincing. There was probably going to be some bruises too. But they were both alive, so that counted for something. And Lena somehow looked amazing despite it all. "I don't think anything is broken. My side hurts."
On the scale of 1 to her fight with Ganondorf, this was a solid 4 or 5. Asami didn't like to think about that one. Besides blowing up her glove, she'd nearly died.
Asami wasn’t wrong. If ever there were two better minds to be trapped in an elevator together, forced to science their way out, she didn’t know of them (and that included her brother and Mr. Stark, though she’d never tell either of them as much). Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, though. Her head hurt.
Lena furrowed her brows, wishing suddenly that she knew more about medical things than she did. Even though they were both probably fine, she was a person that liked to be sure.
Twisting so that she fully faced Asami, she ignored the pinch in her back as she flitted her eyes over the other woman. “So, a rib, maybe? I’ve heard they can hurt quite a bit, even if they’re just bruised.”
Asami actually enjoyed there being three big brains in OC. The challenge and competition between their three companies was good for them and for society as a whole. Still, sometimes she wished for more cooperation than competition. Asami always preferred working together, even with supposed enemies.
"I think that's it. Doesn't hurt as much as if it was broken." She turned her head and smiled at Lena, expression unguarded. "I'll be fine." Her dizziness had faded, and she hadn't felt any bumps on her head before.
Lena wanted to accept Asami’s word for it and move on from talk of physical injuries, but the way Asami’d phrased her response made her nervous and curious. “Do I want to know how you know how a broken rib feels?”
"Back when I was first realizing my father was on the wrong side of the law, I did some investigating on my own. I tracked some of the money movements and went to a warehouse," Asami replied, eyes dropping to the floor.
"His... business partner... wasn't human. I don't know what he was, but he had some kind of magic and the more he used it the less human he looked. I barely got away with my life."
She never knew what happened to that man. He'd disappeared. Like Korra and many others over the years. Most moved away, but some just seemed to get lost.
There was a cold, painful anger that flared up in Lena at this news, and she couldn’t help but scoot closer to Asami as she heard it. She knew that her reaction was ridiculous - it had been years ago, clearly, and Asami spoke of the incident with the sort of matter-of-factness that came with telling stories of old pain - but that didn’t stop her from picturing it, from hearing it, and from wanting a sort of justice for it.
She knew that she still cared deeply for Asami, no matter how much she liked to ignore that fact, and in this situation, she just couldn’t find the energy to hide it. “He was your father’s business partner? Please tell me that he - your father couldn’t have just let that stand.” That kind of betrayal just felt too wrong to her. Sure, in her dreams, her brother had made it clear that he wanted her dead when she spoke against his vengeful, homicidal tactics, but that was different than actually acting on it, or even from just letting it happen. It bothered her that someone that meant so much to Asami might actually look away in an incident such as that.
Lena's reaction was unexpected, if touching and a little confusing. Asami hesitated, then leaned her shoulder against Lena's. It was the little, subtle things. Almost like an olive branch, only she didn’t want to look desperate.
"I never told him," Asami admitted. "He didn't know what he was deal.. he knew he was dealing with criminals, but he didn't know this particular criminal was a literal monster, I mean. He's never dreamed, he's in the dark about the less normal side of the county. I almost wish he wasn't. It might...he might actually show some remorse if he dreamed. Eventually."
A smile crossed her face, "You should have seen it when I overloaded the electrical grid with my glove, though." Ganon had actually looked impressed.
“A lot of the time I don’t really get to fight. Oh there are henchmen and mooks, but the big fights are for people with actual powers.” Her smile soured. “Maybe that’s for the best. If an elevator can bruise my ribs…what can I do against a giant lizard?”
Lena stiffened at the feeling of Asami leaning against her, but reacted quickly, forcing herself to relax into it. It felt a little stupid to acknowledge, even to herself, but Lena had become rather touch sensitive in the past few months; hyper-aware of and somewhat averse to any and all physical contact. It was a byproduct of the dreams, she knew. She’d never had the problem growing up, but her dream self - little orphan girl with no friends and only a brother that was willing to hug her - had figured it out pretty quickly in college. It’d only really kicked up in the real world after she and Asami had broken up, and it required her to develop a few techniques to keep herself from over-reacting. It was a major pain in the ass, usually, but in this case, it was nice that her body had drawn her attention to it. This way, it wouldn’t escalate. She wouldn’t pull back, though. They were barely touching. If she didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
“I won’t pretend to be the poster child for handling emotionally fraught situations well,” she could probably be the poster child for the opposite, actually, “but I don’t know, Asami. It seems like something he should have known. Or, know, even. It may be too late to open his eyes to what he was getting himself into, but maybe it would benefit you both for him to know how widespread the consequences of his actions were. If he truly loves you, then maybe that’s just the kick he needs to begin to feel some remorse.”
After a beat, Lena winced, realizing what she’d just done. “I’m sorry; I spoke out of turn. Giving my opinion on familial strife is the last thing I should be doing in any given situation, but with you-” She swallowed, scooting away from Asami a fraction of an inch, just enough for it to be noticeable. “It wasn’t my place.”
Asami barely registered anything once Lena stiffened, and she felt herself react in turn, though once Lena relaxed, she relaxed as well. It made her curious, and concerned, but that wasn't her place.
"I wish I could truely show you what happened with him in my dreams. What he was like before and what he turned into." She frowned, hugging herself slightly. "I should have seen it, there should have been a sign. I don't know how I was so blind."
She shook her head, putting her hand on Lena's knee before the other woman could scootch away any further. She felt too raw to have the contact broken just yet. "It's okay, it really is. The thing is, you're right. My dreams color it a little bit, both in making it easier to condemn him here, and easier to want to give him a chance."
It was a little eerie how much Asami’s relationship with her father mirrored Lena’s relationship with Lex in her dreams. She remembers thinking just that - that she should have known, should have stepped in sooner - and personally felt how much her dream self beat herself up nearly every day about what had happened. It was like a never ending, vicious cycle in a situation like that one - agonize, rinse, repeat.
“Cognitive dissonance theory.” Lena said, after a moment. It had occurred to her one morning, after she’d woken up from a dream where she’d been particularly self-flagellating about the Lex situation. Odd, maybe, but knowing the reason behind things sometimes helped her process them better. Maybe it was the same for Asami. “It’s the theory that humans have a visceral need for everything in their life to be consistent. To make sense. So, if something happens that goes against a particular belief or value, instead of accepting it as is, our minds just… adjust what we’re seeing.
“Lex - I’ve told you about my brother before, right? He’s always been the most stabilizing influence in my life. In any reality. He’s always been the first person to tell me when I’m wrong, but only because he’s going to help me figure out what I need to change to make it right. In my dreams, he was… The only family I had. Dad was there, sometimes, but when it came to the important things, it was really just Lex.
“And then, when I was a week away from turning twenty-two, he killed nineteen people in an effort to smoke out a superhero that he hated. An alien. A month before that, he’d instated a rule that required DNA tests for all potential employees to ensure that they were 100% human before hire. I yelled at him for ten minutes, bought him a copy of The Butter Battle Book, and let it go. Two weeks before, he showed me the schematics for a suit he’d almost finished that would later play a direct role in his massacre. At the time, he claimed that it would ‘reduce our dependence on aliens.’ Do you know what I did?” She swallowed and looked at Asami dully, her chest heavy. “I showed him a method that would increase the efficiency of the suit’s life support systems, and extend battery life. And then two weeks later I take a break from writing my thesis, turn on the TV, and have the gall to be surprised to see my brother in his war suit, in front of the smoking ruins of a train station that he’d just bombed.”
She knew it wasn’t really her. She knew it wasn’t her Lex. But that didn’t stop the weight of another world’s mistakes from weighing on her. Returning her gaze to the wall in front of her, she continued, “I believed that Lex wasn’t capable of murder. You believed your father was a good man. All evidence to the contrary was rejected by our minds to fit what we thought we already knew. We adjusted.” Now at the end of her long-winded story, she was beginning to wonder why she thought this would make Asami feel better. It may have helped before, but she certainly wasn’t feeling better now. “Maybe you were blind. Maybe we both were. But we’re human. Sometimes humans just are.”
This time, her not moving to remove Asami’s touch had nothing to do with not wanting to make things worse. It didn’t make her uncomfortable. Her thoughts had that job pretty well handled all on their own.
"I'm sorry." Asami said it with the weight of someone who felt guilty for the crimes of a family member. How many people had her father hurt? How many had died when the Equalists had attacked the city? How many had her father personally been responsible for, either directly, or indirectly with his inventions. To Asami, that was the same thing.
She squeezed her hand, fighting the urge to put an arm around Lena. She could blame the raw emotions, or even just their injuries, but it was a difficult urge to battle.
Lena blinked a few times in rapid succession, honestly confused. She hadn’t told that story in an effort to garner sympathy, and she couldn’t say she had expected any. Sure, she supposed that, objectively, it was a sad situation, but Asami had gone through something similar with her father, and hadn’t been nearly as willfully blind as Lena had been. If nothing else, she’d thought that Asami would feel better by comparison. Not to mention that Asami’s loss was actively affecting her. The dreams may have been realistic to the point of causing emotional instability, but they were still just dreams. In this world, she still had her brother. Asami had had to lose her father twice. There really was no reason for her to have sympathy for Lena.
There was a sudden surge of feeling at that knowledge; that familiar affection mixing with a desperate need for something that she couldn’t quite articulate. Certainty, maybe. Assurance that she hadn’t been wrong all those months ago. That it wasn’t just her. How she went from a basic show of sympathy to wading through emotions that she’d thought she’d let go months ago, she didn’t know. No matter the reason, a part of her wanted them shut down; buried deep and unreachable inside her mind where they belonged. Most of her, though? Most of her was just tired of fighting them.
She was silent for a long time, averting her gaze to the useless doors in front of her as she warred with herself; unable to decide which action she planned to take next. Asami may have said something during that time; she honestly wasn’t sure. Eventually, though, she stopped thinking. She just spoke.
“I don’t feel like I’m done with you,” she said, soft yet weighted and firm in that way that made others call her intimidating. “I wanted to be. I was determined to be, in fact. But I’m just… not.
“It’s why I’ve been so diligent in avoiding contact with you. I knew that this conversation would happen if we were alone too soon; before I could rebuild my resolve to move on. If I had managed to not care as I’d hoped, it wouldn’t matter. But it does, because I do. I care.”
She swallowed, a long blink preceding a turn of her head that had her looking at Asami once again. She hoped that what she was feeling wasn’t evident in her expression, but she honestly didn’t know that this point. “I don’t love you. We didn’t have time to get there; it was too… It was just too soon. But it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten by- by far, and I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve been an afterthought most of my life. Not quite enough. And I honestly don’t know if I can do it again. Not with you. Not like this.” She let the side of her head fall against the wall of the elevator, suddenly exhausted, but unwilling to break Asami’s gaze. She’d said her peace. There was no reason to hide, anymore.
In an effort to distract from the conflicting emotions surging through her (and clearly storming in Lena's usually impassive face), Asami had started to comment on what they could do to get out of the elevator. But Lena didn't appear to be listening and Asami trailed of when she spoke.
All of that was fair. The needing to move on, the put things in the past. Asami had tried to keep away to give Lena that chance to regroup. Maybe that would have worked, eventually, no matter how much it had hurt to have Lena closed off from her. She met Lena's eyes and didn't look away as she listened.
Her response wasn't immediate - she needed a moment to try to keep her voice steady. "It felt like... that was inevitable. Where it was going, the natural conclusion."
It hadn't been easy, not just the breaking Lena's heart, but it hadn't been easy to make that choice for herself. Asami didn't know how to put that to words that made sense, and her eyes water. "It was so easy with you. Instinctive."
Part of her wanted to lean over. Hug Lena. Even kiss her. She didn't move, except to squeeze her hand on Lena's leg again. She wanted, basically, to make everything better, and she knew she couldn't. Or that if she tried, it would be ... dangerous.
It stung. It shouldn’t have, and she almost didn’t want to admit it, but it did. It stung to know that Asami had seen an expiration date on their relationship before it had even really gotten the chance to ripen. Sure, once Korra had come into the picture, Lena had seen the writing on the wall - she could hardly compete with someone that had been in Asami’s head for years - but before that, she’d hoped. Not a lot; she wasn’t naive. But she’d hoped enough for it to hurt when she’d found out that she’d been wrong. Enough for it to hurt now, knowing that she’d been unwittingly running the race with a handicap she’d had no chance of overcoming from the beginning.
“It was like breathing.” Lena agreed, nodding, fighting the urge to look away from Asami. No more running. “No thinking, no trying necessary. It just happened.” And it had. Idle flirtations aside, she hadn’t thought she was built for a relationship. Especially for one that got so intense so quickly. She’d have never gone and looked for it.
Shrugging one shoulder, she lifted her lips into a mirthless half smile, eyes dry but heart full. “Was that so bad?”
That wasn't even what Asami had meant. She'd meant that falling for Lena was the inevitable conclusion if nothing else had gotten in the way. And choosing Korra hadn't been simple, and hadn't been easy.
"So bad?" Asami asked, her hand sliding down to Lena's knee and her face furrowing. "It was wonderful. I'd never felt a connection so quickly before, never fallen into that kind of intensity."
Korra had been something slow, a friendship that had evolved into something more. Also a natural conclusion. "It took... it took years to really feel that way with Korra. With you it was just ... " She waved her other hand helplessly and sniffled. "It's like being flung off into space."
She didn’t make it sound like a bad thing.
Lena really should have her particular brand of self-loathing patented, because for all that her hope and vision for the world around her was limitless, she always assumed the worst when it came to herself. That was an inevitable conclusion.
Thankfully, though, she was also a genius. It didn’t take her long to conclude that she had been reading some part of what Asami said wrong when she’d expressed her absolute agreement that what they’d had was wonderful.
Mimicking Asami, she furrowed her brow she she begun to realize that she hadn’t been alone in feeling as she did. Honestly, she’d spent so much time questioning and doubting, it was almost hard for her to believe.
Once bitten, twice shy, she supposed.
Glancing down at the hand that still hadn’t managed to make her feel uncomfortable (but that had managed to instill feelings that were quite the opposite), Lena fought the urge to cover it with her own. Not yet.
“The thing about being flung into space without warning,” Lena said, feeling facetious but managing to still hold some air of seriousness, “is that it’s amazing, but you can only really do it once.” She paused, hoping that Asami got her point. “Where does this leave us?”
Being wary was understandable. While Asami didn't typically have Lena's self-loathing streak, she did have a nice and handy self-esteem issue due to her dating problems. (and yet she kept trying...)
"You do kind of need to be tethered to something, or someone," Asami acknowledged. She glanced at their hands, then back to Lena's face. "I don't know. I don't feel like I deserve a second chance after hurting you."
There were a dozen things that Lena wanted to say in that moment. The version of herself that still held that deep-seeded hurt wanted to agree with Asami, say that she absolutely did not deserve another chance. The part of her that didn’t know how to do anything but her best to make others feel comfortable wanted to disagree vehemently; assure Asami that she did, that all was well, that Lena understood. Other parts wanted to give in but hold the grudge; others still just wanted to push all the feelings to the wayside and focus on getting out of the elevator. Honestly, she was having a hard time figuring out what it was she really wanted.
Throughout all of this, though, her father’s voice kept ringing in her ears. She couldn’t think of what it meant to deserve something without thinking of him, after all. Most of the conversations she’d ever had with him ended up in a rant about all the things he’d deserved and never gotten, or life lessons about how she should never accept less than she deserved. You’ve got to put yourself first, Lena, he’d always said, waiting to continue until she nodded along, because if you don’t, no one else will.
She couldn’t say it was a lesson she’d ever taken to heart. The idea just never sat well with her. Her father - the most brilliant man she’d ever known - spent most of his adult life bitter and poor, forced to support his family on a paycheck to paycheck basis because he couldn’t let go of the breaks he’d never gotten, but had always thought that he’d deserved. Lex - the version that lived in her dreams - had let madness take him rather than accept anything less than the complete, uncorrupted worship of the world’s population that he’d been so sure he deserved over Superman. And, really - did either of them deserve those things? She honestly wasn’t sure.
No one got what they really deserved. Not completely. And she refused to live like that - keeping score, making sure that she got hers regardless of anyone else. Especially when the end result would be turning her into her father: Bitter and unhappy, but unwilling to yield because of some meaningless notion that they deserved better.
“Maybe you don’t.” She said, finally. “But I just… I just don’t care.” She made eye contact with Asami then, hoping that her intention was clear. They had more to say to each other, she knew, but they needed to be on the same page, first.
All Asami really wanted was two things. The truth, and what made Lena happy. Above all other things she wanted her friends and loved ones to be happy, even if she had almost none of the above. This usually led to her putting others feelings first, which was probably part of the reason why her love life had backfired so horribly. She might have thought she was putting Lena's feelings first, in an attempt to spare hurting her further, but here she was, as alone as she had started and scrambling to try to save something of what had been something good.
So she hadn't expected to hear Lena say that, and her throat bobbed as she tried to read Lena's intent without assuming too much. "You deserve to be happy, Lena. Honestly, we both do."
Asami hesitated, then lifted a her other hand to brush some of Lena's hair aside. "And... and I want to see if we can do that together. Regardless of the eggshells I know I'll be walking on for awhile."
Lena’s eyes fluttered shut when Asami’s hand hovered close to her face. She had known what her response would be to Asami’s unspoken question when she’d started this conversation, and she found that she was less sure of what Asami’s response would be than she had been previously.
She’d never dreamed that they’d come to a moment where a reunion was on the table. Partly because her deep determination not to have this conversation, but mostly because she’d been sure Asami and Korra were destined for a happily ever after. It had helped, thinking of it that way, on the nights when she allowed herself to dwell on the break up and ask herself if it was inevitable, because assuming the two were destined to always be with each other meant that it absolutely was. Asami informing her that Korra was gone had thrown her, because it meant that maybe…
Maybe.
So, as they stood on this precipice, baring their feelings and communicating better than they ever had, Lena found that she had to know. Because what she’d said earlier had been true: She didn’t feel done with Asami. But she also couldn’t put herself in a position to be rejected so handedly once again.
Grabbing the hand that Asami had just used to push a stray lock of hair from Lena’s face, she tangled their fingers together before resting their joined hands between them. She opened her eyes, then, looking at Asami openly and honestly. “If we do this - if we try again - and Korra walks back into your life, will you still choose me?”
Asami had asked herself that question since Korra had left. What she'd do, how she'd react if Korra once again showed her face. And she'd come to a conclusion. Her dreams were one life, another life, one that couldn't be repeated in this one no matter how much she'd tried. And she had tried.
But this wasn't that life, and while part of her would always love the Korra of her dreams, she wasn't certain she could open herself back up to Korra in this world. And Lena was right here, and she couldn’t forget how quickly and easily they had attracted each other, physically and mentally. Was it wrong to want that magnetism?
"Yes," Asami replied, quickly and simply, her expression a strange mixture of regret, relief, and realization.
A part of her had known that they’d end up here again. It was a strange realization to come to, given how unsurprised she’d been when Asami had ended things. She’d been so convinced that it was always going to end that way; sure that it was just more evidence that she was meant to be alone. It had seemed so clear, then.
But then again, what was it Asami had said about their relationship? That it was inevitable? This conversation had felt that way, too. Like an inevitability. And maybe she hadn’t known that Asami would choose her - even if she had felt with certainty that there was still something between them - but, no matter how much she’d tried to avoid it, she’d always felt that they’d be forced to resolve things between them, somehow. That their feelings wouldn’t be allowed to lay stagnant and fade away.
And maybe it had been some sliver of hope that she hadn’t successfully managed to squash, or her feelings interfering with her common sense, but even not knowing what Asami was feeling, she’d felt that this conversation - this inevitability - wouldn’t be the end of them. Normally this realization would have her calling herself a fool, but hey. She’d actually been right.
Despite herself, Lena smiled, nodding decisively. “Okay.” She knew that she was still being naive - they’d likely never truly know what Asami would do if Korra showed up until it happened - but that Asami was sure it was true? That was enough. At least for now.
“Okay,” she said again, this time refocusing her eyes on the dark panel in front of them. She needed something else to focus on before her emotions took over and decided to dictate her actions. They still had a lot to hash out, she knew, but not now. Now, they got to prove that they weren’t damsels. “I think I would like to get out of here, now.”
It was amazing how one word could convey so much emotion, could make Asami feel so light. That metaphorical weight lifted off of her chest. Okay. Maybe they would be, maybe they wouldn’t in the end, but she wasn’t going to sabotage the chance that they could be. She hadn’t even fully realized how keenly she’d missed Lena until getting stuck in an elevator with her. Sometimes the universe had a twisted sense of humor.
“No one seems to be coming.”She looked at the panel as well. “I don’t have my tools, but I do have my make-up kit and some hair pins. I think we can make do.”
Lena scoffed, surprised at the sudden re-emergence of the playful sense of competitiveness that she used to feel around Asami. It was a wonder what being on the same page could do for a friendship. Relationship? Friendlationship?
Shaking her head to refocus herself, Lena smirked, releasing Asami’s hand to stand and retrieve her half-spilled clutch from the other side of the elevator. Once she’d grabbed what she’d wanted from the small pile on the floor, she scooped the remaining items back into the bag, snapped it closed, stood, and turned to Asami with a look of triumph and a small rectangular device in hand.
“The first thing I designed out of grad school: The Electronic Multitool. Compact and unassuming, but twice as functional.” She pressed a finger to the small screen on the front of the device, eyes glinting as a phillip’s head screwdriver popped out of the top. “My professors had deemed it superfluous, but I am nothing if not stubborn. Do you think it could help us to ‘make do’?” She finished with a tilt of her head, widening smirk making it clear her thinking on the matter.
“I need one,” Asami quipped, fishing through her purse until she found a pair of tweezers and the hair pins. She got up as well, and cautiously moved across the elevator, a little nervous that too much movement might cause it to start falling again. “And it’ll definitely help.”
“I may be able to arrange that.” Lena said, smirk giving in to a grin as Asami joined her. She was beginning to feel more like herself, now, despite the very real possibility that their lives were still in danger. She’d never been particularly talented at self-preservation, especially if it distracted from her unquenchable thirst to fix problems with science.
Turning her attention to the section holding the buttons, she carefully unscrewed the corners, pulling the panel away and carefully letting it hang as she took in the collection of wires within. She shook her head as she assessed. “Nothing here controls the actual movement of the elevator; they just send the signal to the correct floor.” She expected as much, but one could hope. “I think the key may be restoring power to the panel. That should allow us to use the alarm button. “
Asami’s dreams had always had her in way over her head, but she’d always been there to the best of her abilities. She wouldn’t shy away from an elevator, that’s for sure. “That’s easier said that done. But maybe we could rerouted the emergency lighting? Or …”
She pulled out her phone. “Or we sacrifice our batteries.”
“That may do it.” Lena sighed, frowning. “Shame. I was hoping that it would be harder.” Sure, this was technically an urgent situation, but not that urgent. It would have been nice to have a challenge.
With one last glance at the panel to make sure no wires were pulling, she reached down to her clutch and pulled out her own phone. Once she’d removed the battery, she turned to Asami, holding out her hand. “Would you like to do the honors?”
“I’d be delighted,” Asami replied, sure that the charge she felt when their hands brushed wasn’t just the charge from the battery. Very carefully, she applied the charge. The battery sparked and started to smoke, but the panel came online.
Lena smiled, making quick work of screwing the panel back into place. Once she was satisfied that everything was where it should be, she pressed the now-bright alarm button, wincing at the loud screech of the bell. Now they just had to wait for the on-car phone to ring. Shaking her head, she took a seat once again, wincing as her headache flared up briefly. What a slow, unreliable process. She made a mental note to look into updating the emergency call system for elevators.
“This is disappointing.” She said, looking over at Asami. “Saving the day is supposed to result in instant gratification. That’s half the fun.”
“Do you want me to break it again? ‘Cause I can make it break. The alarm at least.” Asami winced. “But you’re my hero.”
She reached over and gave Lena’s bicep a squeeze. “Definitely a hero.”
So she had a thing for biceps, so what?
“No, thank you.” Lena said rubbing the back of her neck with her hand. “As much as I’d love a good ‘we saved our own lives with complex science’ story, at this point, I think what I need is a hot bath. And a few painkillers.”
Before Lena could form a coherent response to Asami’s calling her a hero, her eyes widened and shot to her arm at the brief pressure there. She felt a blush creep up her neck then, rubbing the spot Asami had touched when her hand withdrew.
It felt too soon. They’d just decided to… do something about the lingering feelings between them, and she wasn’t sure they were at the ‘casual touching’ stage. It was nice to know that the effortlessness that had characterized their relationship in the beginning was still there, but - and maybe it was her brand new touch aversion talking, here - that particular brand of vulnerability wasn’t something she was willing to express, just yet. It was a little contradictory, maybe, considering that they’d just been holding hands, and she hadn’t minded the hand on her knee, but this felt different, somehow.
(A part of her already knew that it was the hero thing. All joking aside, she held no delusions. She was far from a hero, and didn’t feel comfortable being called one.)
Clearing her throat, she turned back towards the buttons, deciding to just ignore it for now. They could talk about it when they talked about everything else. “Should I press it again?”
Asami dropped her hand to the side, feeling like she’d overstepped some kind of bounds. That would be pretty hard for her to deal with, she was a very touchy, affectionate person. But she could worry about that later and there was probably more talking they needed to do. She guessed heavy make-outs weren’t in the cards just yet.
“Might as well, someone has to be listening, right?”
Lena smiles tensely. “I certainly hope so.” She pressed the button again, making sure to hold it longer this time. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she turned to Asami. Holding in her real feelings had been a bad habit she’d had as a kid, but she’d grown into someone who had a very hard time not saying what needed to be said. “I want this. I do. It’s just going to take me some time to get back to that place with you. Is that okay?”
The silence barely had time to settle before the phone in the wall began to ring. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Of all the times…
The timing really was spectacularly bad, but Asami tried to catch Lena’s eyes and smiled at her, mouthing, ‘It’s okay’ and hoping that her eyes said enough. She was patient, and she could wait. She just hoped it was at least a smidge shorter than three years.
Asami was pretty sure that would kill her.
Letting out the breath she’d been holding at Asami’s reassurance, Lena picked up the phone, calmly greeting the person on the other line. Once she’d explained what had happened, how they’d jerry rigged a battery to restore power to the panel, as well as what they were seeing inside of the car, she was quiet, listening careful and nodding every once in awhile so Asami didn’t worry that what she was getting was bad news. It was the opposite, actually.
The call was over within five minutes, and Lena was eager to share with Asami what she’d learned. “The elevator repairmen are already here. Someone reported nearly an hour ago that the elevators weren’t working, so they’ve already started to assess the situation, but they were unaware that we were on board until we sounded the alarm. He estimates another twenty minutes at most.” When she was finished repeating what she’d been told, she smiled, genuine and wide. “The operator also wanted to ensure us that he was both impressed and horrified with the actions we took to help restore power. I imagine we have a lecture coming.”
“Twenty minutes,”Asami repeated, nodding her head. She felt a lot of relief that that part was almost over. She did want to see the actual damage and what had caused the fall. Call it morbid curiosity.
“I like to think he’s more impressed, than not.”
Lena laughed, nodding in agreement. “He should be. We’re pretty damn impressive.” She said, finishing with a wink. It was true, really. As a kid, she’d struggled with living in the shadow of her brother’s genius; always wondering if she should have been thinking more like him. Living across the country from him had done wonders from her confidence. Her skills in engineering were exceptional, even if they were the only exceptional thing about her.
And Asami’s? Asami’s were better. Even if what they’d done was simple, the operator still had every reason to be impressed.
With the immediate problem solved, and one of the hardest conversations of her life finished, Lena found that she was suddenly exhausted. She hoped they managed to fix things sooner than the twenty minutes they’d estimated, because she was notoriously bad at waiting on good days, and this, her pounding head and suddenly drooping eyes reminded her, was not a good day.
“Can I just-?” She said, not bothering to finish her thought as she scooted closer to Asami, sighing contentedly as she lay her head against her shoulder. “Thanks. I just needed this.”
"You never need to ask," Asami murmured. She rested her cheek on Lena's head and held her arm around her. She'd always been confident in her abilities, but she thought that Lena was exceptional too. She didn't know what this might mean for the rivalry between their companies and right now she didn't really care.
She thought about earlier, and squeezed. "Hey. You're breathing."