Chapter 33
Lucy grinned, her smile wide and full of teeth, and walked up to embrace her blonde friend/ex-girlfriend. “I didn’t expect to see you here, but I guess I should have known you would’ve started working for CatCo.”
Kara released the shorter woman and punched her lightly on the arm. “You would’ve known sooner if you hadn’t spent the last two years on some secret mission cut off from basically everything,” the blonde said, pouting. “I’ve tried to call you, but your phone was disconnected, not cool Luce, only a text saying you’re dropping off the grid for a while, not cool.”
The brunette grabbed Kara’s face between her hands and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Sorry darling, I didn’t know I was leaving until a few minutes before I had to ship out, only long enough to pack some underwear, my toothbrush, and send you a text.”
“Well, I’m glad I made the list of necessities,” Kara pouted before grabbing the girl to her again in a hug.
A throat clearing had the two women breaking away from each other to look at the man behind them. “What is going on here?” James asked, “Looking between the two of them.”
“Why are you here Lucy?” Kara questioned.
“Ah, well, James and I are old friends, so I decided to stop by CatCo to say hi while I was in town, and then I found you here, so that just makes it better.” The shorter woman squeezed Kara’s arm, smiling brightly at the blonde, “I’m really glad to see you Kara.”
“Um…” James stated again, drawing their attention.
“Oh, right, well, Kara and I went to highschool together,” Lucy told him. “We dated my entire senior year, Kara is the one that got away.” She let out a wistful sigh, her hand drifting up to play with the straightened strands of blonde hair. Kara would have been concerned about Lucy’s intentions if she didn’t catch the mischievous twinkle in the other woman’s eyes. “Kara darling, why don’t we go catch up for a bit, unless you’re needed here of course?”
Kara fought to keep the blush off her face and nodded, “Sure, I mean, Ms. Grant knows that I’m just a phone call away.”
“Great! Noonan’s is still your favorite coffee place right?” Lucy asked as she tugged the blonde out of James’s office. Kara jogged back to her desk to grab her first before meeting up with Lucy at the elevator and heading down to the lobby floor.
“So what was up with that back there?” Kara asked after they sat down and placed their orders with the waitress.
“What do you mean?”
The younger woman rolled her eyes, “Don’t play dumb Lucy, it’s not cute, what was up with that stuff with James? I’m not the one that got away, it was a mutual break up, we’ve been friends for longer than we dated so…”
“Well I never did get to see you naked and in my bed writhing, so you are the one that got away in that sense,” Lucy sighed wistfully. “I missed my chance to sleep with National City’s darling superhero.” A squeak left Kara’s mouth and a full blush flooded her cheeks, causing a wide smirk to cross Lucy’s face and a peal of laughter to leave her throat. “I’m kidding Kara, I’m kidding,” she sighed out between her bursts of laughter. “Well, mostly.”
“I see you’re still a huge flirt,” Kara rolled her eyes. She sipped at the cup of hot cocoa when it was placed in front of her, and bit into one of the sticky buns.
Lucy grinned into her own cup of coffee, “Of course, have to keep things interesting, and you always made me blush so it’s only fair.”
Kara waved her hand around, “So what was the deal with James?”
“You mean that show that we put on for him?” Lucy asked, “Well, we were friends when I was going to school and working in Metropolis before I was… deployed. He wanted to date, and we did for like two seconds before I realized he wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Really? I mean, he’s attractive and seems nice so…”
“He’s basically perfect except for he has a bit of Superman’s self-righteousness,” Lucy sighed. “Like, he has this vision in his head about the ideal way the world should work, how heroes should be, and it’s not realistic.” She took a sip of her coffee before she continued, “Besides, I feel like he wanted to date me so that he could be included in Superman’s family, and that wasn’t something I was interested in. Since he knows who you are now, you might want to watch out as well.”
“Thanks for the warning Luce, but it won’t be a problem.”
Lucy quirked her eyebrow and gave Kara an assessing look. “Oh really,” she said, “And why not, think yourself immune to the Olsen charm?”
“Er, ah, well, um… Imkindofsortofmarried…”
The brunette blinked, leaning forward on her elbows, “What?”
Kara sighed, “James won’t get a chance to try and date me because I’m technically already married.”
Lucy blinked, “What?! You got married and you didn’t tell me? Who is he, or she? Most of your serious relationships were with women, so I’m betting you snagged yourself a woman, knowing your type a fierce brunette with dark eyes-”
“I don’t…” Kara started before giving up, “Look, it wasn’t something planned. It was right before you deployed, I didn’t get a chance to tell you before you left. I blew out my powers, then Lena and Kate decided to do a weekend in Vegas and splurge a bunch of money on gambling and fancy hotel rooms. I got drunk, met an attractive woman, and apparently in the process of meeting her, sharing a few drinks, sleeping together, and then waking up alone, I got married.”
“Okay back up,” Lucy said, raising her hand. “You’re going to have to run that by me again in more detail.” Kara sighed and gave Lucy a minute by minute account of what led her to getting married, and what has happened since then, finding out who Alex was, her dating Maggie, and then Alex and Kara becoming friends. When she was finished, Lucy sat back in her chair, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she muttered, taking in what the blonde said. It was… laughter started building in her chest before she could finish her thought and it erupted out of her in waves, drawing the attention of everyone in Noonan’s.
Kara blushed slightly at the attention from the other people in the restaurant, and just turned her annoyance onto her brunette friend. “Are you finished? She asked, her tone dry and her eyes narrowed.
Lucy waved her hand around a bit as she tried to catch her breath. “I’m sorry,” she wheezed, “I’m sorry, but it was too funny I couldn’t help it. Your life is ridiculous my friend, I hope you know that.”
“I’ve been made aware,” Kara sighed, running her fingers through her hair. Whenever she wanted to wear it down, she straightened it so that it didn’t resemble the floaty mess she had as Supergirl. The mask did a good job at hiding her identity, and she didn’t want her hair to give her away.
“So what are you going to do?” Lucy asked, “You have to tell her.”
“I know, I know, but I… I’m afraid…” Kara’s voice trailed off, her eyes distant. She shook her head and returned her gaze to her friend, “Enough about me, what about you? I know you can’t tell me about where you were, but you can tell me something right? Are you in National City for vacation?”
“Mhm, well, I sort of was, that was the plan, but I was called in for a special project, which concerns you actually, so I’m glad that I ran into you,” she said, lacing her fingers together and leaning against the table. “I was promoted to Major recently after… well, just after, anyway, I’ve been returned to the JAG unit because of my law degree though I was assigned to a special assignment here.”
Kara let out a low whistle, “Major Lucy Lane, that’s pretty impressive, but what does your assignment have to do with me?”
“Ah, well, not you you, your alter-ego you.”
The blonde sat back in her seat, “Ah, her, right, well, what does that have to do with you?”
Lucy glanced around at the other occupants of the restaurant, frowning at how crowded it was becoming before realizing that the lunch rush was trickling in. “Not here,” she said, dropping a few bills on the table. “Take a walk with me?”
Kara quickly finished her food and drink before following her friend out of Noonan’s and a few blocks away to one of the local parks. They quickly lost themselves within the trees and the blonde glanced over at her friend, “Alright spill, what’s going on?”
“When I put in for vacation time, my father intercepted the paperwork,” the woman said, “He wants me here as a lawyer to oversee the facilitation of a weapons test.” She paused her movement to look at the blonde woman, “How familiar are you with the DEO?”
“During my first encounter with them, they tried to shoot me down with Kryptonite darts, had a few run ins since then, but the director and I have made peace. Why?”
“Are you working with them, or for them?”
Kara shook her head, “No, my mom’s warned me about trusting shady government types, no offense. Lena and my friend Winn have been helping me, both of them are much more capable than a government agency.”
“Lena Thorul? Well I guess Luthor now, she has a lot more resources than any government agency, I bet she designed your fancy suit as well,” Lucy grinned, winking at her friend. “Anyway, General Lane has decided that he wants Supergirl to go up against his new weapon to test its field ability. He is going to be using the DEO to make that happen, and has a court order from the president to force the DEO to use their asset, Supergirl, to test the machine.”
“What?” Kara gasped, “Can they do that?”
“That’s the murky part,” Lucy hummed, “You’ve told me that you’re not working with or for the DEO so General Lane has no grounds to force you to comply with the presidential order. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much since that will just make my father mad and he will attempt to get you to comply in a different way, probably by seeking a different presidential order.”
“Will the president really issue an order against a private citizen?”
Lucy shrugged, “I’m not saying she will, but I know that’s what my father will be going after if he can’t get you to do what he wants.”
Kara rubbed at her face in frustration, “What is this machine he wants me to fight and what is with his obsession?”
“He hates aliens, nothing much else to say other than that, but he especially hates superpowered aliens, he thinks they’re dangerous. I mean, they kind of are, but no more than any regular soldier in the military. We go through specialized training learning how to kill and destroy, and if one of us snaps, we could definitely cause a lot of damage, like they have done in the past.” Lucy shook her head, “Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what this weapon is he wants you to test, I haven’t been given the full file yet, but it seems like some kind of robot or android designed for combat.”
“Why do I… why does Supergirl have to fight it?” Kara asked.
“I don’t know, a lot of stuff is being kept top secret, I’m just the lawyer overseeing the exercise and making sure that everything complies within the boundaries of the constitution, which applies to everyone, not just humans, despite what xenophobes believe,” Lucy rolled her eyes. “You deserved to have a heads up though, and I had to see if you would be willing to comply with the test.”
Kara leaned back on her heels and folded her arms across her chest, humming a bit as she thought. “Fine, I’ll fight the stupid robot, you’ll just have to let me know when and where. You say you called out to me and arranged the exercise as a way to cover the fact that you know how to reach Supergirl. The director of the DEO might know how to get ahold of me too, I’m not sure.”
Lucy looped her arm through Kara’s and twisted back in the direction of CatCo. “I knew I could count on you Kara,” she said. “Though now since we got all of the shop talk out of the way, you have to tell me more about how you’re going to seduce that wife of yours.”
“Lucy!”
Kara was staring at her tablet intently, focused on the article she was proofreading for her mother when a bright, glaring message appeared across the screen from the security desk in the lobby. Her heart stopped and she could feel her face pale when she read the words ‘Code Paisley’ rolling across her screen in all caps. She had created the code system a few months after she started working at CatCo and made sure that security knew how to use it. It was designed mainly for people that Cat didn’t want to see with varying levels based on the older blonde’s least favorite colors or color schemes. Code Paisley was the worst and reserved for one person, and one person only, Katherine Grant.
She scrambled out of her seat and rushed into her mother’s office. “Ah, Ms. Grant,” she said, drawing the woman’s attention. “Um, your mother is on her way up…”
Cat froze at Kara’s words before her eyes narrowed. “Alright, battle stations then, the dragon is already here, can’t do much about that, but make sure that we have a priest ready, I feel like I’m going to need to exorcise the whole building after she leaves.”
“What if she recognizes me?” Kara hissed, keeping her voice quiet. “She hasn’t been around since I started working here…”
“She hasn’t been around at all Kara, it’ll be fine,” Cat replied softly, squeezing her hand before releasing it and staring out at the office. Kara turned and saw the woman that was technically her grandmother strutting out of Cat’s private elevator and parting the office staff milling about like Moses parting the sea. It was more like their danger senses were fine tuned from working for Cat, and knew to avoid the woman as she sashayed her way into Cat’s office.
“Kitty, how are you?” Katherine greeted, air-kissing the blonde woman. Her eyes glanced over to Kara, barely a look before she was waving her away. “Bring me some gin girl, make it quick.” Kara glanced hesitantly towards Cat and saw her give a slight nod before walking over to the wet bar. “She’s a bit slow Cat, where did you find her?”
Breathing deeply through her nose, Kara turned around and walked back to the woman. “Your drink Mrs. Grant,” she bit out, her smile wide but teeth clenched.
“That’s gin,” the woman said, glancing down at the glass disdainfully.
“That’s what you asked for Mrs. Grant.”
“Well I obviously meant bourbon you stupid-”
“Keira,” Cat interrupted, “Why don’t you go make a reservation for lunch for my mother and I.” She took the drink out of Kara’s hands and silently willed her to leave the office.
“Oh, I can’t stay for lunch Kitty, I’m in town promoting my new book, and I’m having lunch with my agent to discuss the book signings,” Katherine said, standing up from the couch.
“Dinner then?” The older blonde questioned.
“We’ll have to see, I have a very busy schedule.”
“What did you come here for then mother?” Cat asked, crossing her arms.
Katherine rolled her eyes and swung her purse over her shoulder. “Well I came to see if I could spend time with my grandson, and also I was curious if you still had that grubby little orphan you took in, Kaitlyn something or other…”
Cat grit her teeth as she stared at her mother, her eyes narrowed and hard. “What’s it to you Mother? You’ve made it clear in the past that you don’t care about my daughter, which is one of the reasons that I cut you out of our lives.”
“I just don’t understand why you did it Kitty, if you had wanted another child, you could’ve just arranged to have another baby. You would at least know where it came from, a teenaged orphan though…”
Only the discrete hand Kara placed on Cat’s wrist kept the woman from lashing out at her mother, her claws poised seeking blood. It wasn’t that Kara wasn’t angered by the older woman’s words, she was hurt and seething with rage, but years of training with Batwoman, Batman, and then the Amazons taught her that losing her temper doesn’t solve anything, it just ends up getting her into trouble. She placed her fingers over her mother’s wrist, subtly feeling her pulse and breathing deeply as a way to signal that she needed to calm down. Cat took a deep breath and silently released it before fixing her eyes back on her mother. “I will speak to Carter about possibly seeing you, he is wrapped up with school and sports at present, so I don’t know if he will have time.”
“No time to see his grandmother?”
“Well, you rarely have time to see your daughter, so what do you expect?” Cat snarked back. Katherine just humphed and strutted out the door back towards the elevator, people dodging out of her way and avoiding eye contact for fear of their souls being sucked out.
“Do you want me to try to schedule dinner while she’s here?” Kara asked, looking at her mother.
“You can attempt it, if she cancels, we can go and pretend we’re having a working dinner,” the woman mused. “Somewhere discreet with private tables, not a romantic setting though.”
“I’m on it,” Kara said but before she could head back to her desk, she caught sight of the time. “Um, but first I need to go to a… thing… With the um, the copier.”
Cat waved her hand and Kara jogged out of the office towards the stairwell, speeding up to the roof and changing into her suit on the way, her mask firmly fixed on her face. She flew out to the desert, her eyes zeroing in on the cluster of army vehicles, tents, and people. She impacted the ground with a loud thud, creating a cloud of dust and leaving a small crater behind in her wake.
Once she had straightened, Kara glanced around, instantly separating the DEO agents from the soldiers. General Samuel Lane, someone Kara has thankfully only had the displeasure of seeing from afar until now, was standing toe-to-toe with the director of the DEO Hank Henshaw, secretly J’onn J’onzz of Mars. It was one of the most absurd things she had ever seen, two powerful men posturing, chests puffed out like peacocks as they stared each other down. Glancing around, Kara found that Lucy was the only one who thought it was a ridiculous as she did, rolling her eyes at the men’s behavior.
The two men turned away from each other when they realized that the blonde heroine had touched down not too far away from them. General Lane turned to her with a sneer on his face, “Glad you could finally make it.”
“As I was trying to tell you two gentlemen before,” Lucy started, interrupting her father before he could continue with his xenophobic posturing. “The executive compliance order signed by the president to force DEO asset Supergirl into assisting with the military testing of this new weapon is void due to the misunderstanding that Supergirl was a DEO asset.” Kara thought that Lucy looked really cool in her dress uniform, the whole image giving off a badass vibe.
“How do you know this?” General Lane asked, narrowing his eyes at his daughter. He never could get over the fact that his oldest daughter cavorted with aliens and his youngest daughter was bisexual. Kara could see that his attitude hadn’t improven by one bit and her general assessment of the man was spot on.
“It’s simple,” the Major continued. “When I arrived in National City, I contacted her. It was fairly easy with her super hearing, and after announcing who I was, she showed herself and we discussed this experiment.” Lucy took the presidential order that was in her hands and ripped it in two, “The president cannot force private citizens to comply, despite what some people believe, but once I discussed everything with Supergirl, she agreed to play along with this demonstration.”
“Why?” General Lane turned a suspicious eye on the blonde and Kara resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Since I arrived on this planet, I’ve been taught by many different kinds of people, humans, vigilantes, heroes, goddesses, warriors, I’ve learned something from each one,” Kara said, her body and tone projecting strength. “And the experience has taught me not to turn down a chance to learn something new.”
The man just humphed and walked back to his tent, speaking to a skinny man next to him, someone he referred to as Dr. Morrow. “Thank you for agreeing to assist us Supergirl,” Lucy said, her eyes dancing.
“Why did you agree?” Alex’s voice came and the two turned to find the woman walking up to them. “You’re not an asset, you didn’t have to, so why did you?”
“It’s always smart to be aware of all of the players in the game,” Kara muttered, repeating a phrase her mother had often used.
Alex’s brow rose but before she could speak, the General returned with Dr. Morrow in tow and large, humanoid shaped robot. “This is Project RT, aka Red Tornado, an anti-insurgent android,” General Lane said, his face hard. “You are to battle him to test his combat readiness.”
Kara eyed the android uneasily, scanning the machine with her x-ray vision, but finding patches of lead concealing the wiring and computer chips that powered the android. She could see some of the defenses and weapons imbedded within the android, heat and cold protection, superior strength, flight, lasers, it all made her wonder what the robot was really designed for? She wasn’t stupid, she could tell that the line about it being an anti-insurgent weapon was too well practiced, too well rehearsed to be a real answer.
Supergirl kicked off the ground a flew a few hundred yards away to get the android away from the people milling about, and Red Tornado followed. The movements of the robot were almost human in how it assessed her, and she wondered if it was self functioning or if their was someone behind the controls. As she continued to study the android, it pushed off the ground and flew straight at her. She reacted, quickly kicking it away, but maintaining an open, seemingly defenseless stance. Diana had taught her to study her enemies, to fully assess them before engaging in a plan of attack. She remembered the androids and robots from Krypton, scientists long ago had decided that artificial intelligence was too dangerous to mess with and outlawed the practice in regards to robots, and instead used them to create holograms to store memories.
The android diverted and swung back around landed on the ground, its arms sticking out in front of it as its hands started spinning, creating a small tornado of air. Realizing why the android was titled Red Tornado, Kara dodged out of the way, weaving back and forth as missiles launched from its arms. The missiles continued to follow her, so she lead them back to the android, dodging at the last minute so the machine took the brunt of the damage. It blew back from the impact, one of its arms breaking off from the explosion. The android twitched on the ground for a moment before taking off into the sky, instantly disappearing from view.
“You!” She heard General Lane bellow and she turned to find the man angrily striding towards her. “This is all your fault!”
“How is this my fault, I didn’t even touch it,” Kara retorted. Her patience with the man was running thin.
The General just growled and turned his attention to Dr. Morrow, “Where did it go?”
“Its self-preservation instincts kicked in and fled, going into stealth mode, 100% undetectable,” Morrow sighed. “There’s no way to track it.”
“This whole exercise has been a disaster, you didn’t deliver on your promise, the weapon didn’t do what it was supposed to, she is still standing.” He waved a wild hand towards her, his face turning purple with anger.
“So it wasn’t an anti-insurgent weapon,” Hank said, stepping into the conversation, “It was anti-Kryptonian.”
“Did you lie to me, to the president in order to test a weapon on Supergirl designed to kill her?” Lucy asked, her eyes hard.
“They have powers beyond anything that we can imagine, it would be foolish not to be prepared in case they go rogue, and the president agrees with me.”
“We’ll see about that,” the Major stated before turning to Dr. Morrow. “As for you, this experiment is over, I’m terminating the Red Tornado project.”
“What? You can’t do that!” The man cried, “This is my life’s work!”
“The project proposal stated that this was to be an anti-insurgent weapon, not anti-alien or anti-Kryptonian, which is a misleading factor, making this entire project not sanctionable and illegal as misappropriation of government funds,” Lucy continued, ignoring the man. “You will find that robot and will disengage it immediately.” She turned away from the two men, effectively dismissing them to speak with Hank. “I apologize for dragging your organization into this mess.”
“It’s not a problem Major Lane,” Hank replied, shaking the woman’s hand before turning to the blonde heroine. “I hope we’ll be able to work with you some more in the future Supergirl.”
Kara didn’t say anything, just shrugged half-heartedly and took off into the sky again, heading back to work. She could occasionally get away with being missing for a while, but anything over an hour got suspicious. Diving towards the roof of CatCo, she quickly changed back into her normal clothes and down the staircase to the office before anyone could see her. She glanced at the clock as she strode towards her desk and found that she had only been gone for a little over half an hour though it seemed much longer.
The blonde had just settled down into her seat when her phone vibrated with a text message. She fumbled around her desk a bit to find where she had left it while she was out, and quickly located it under a mountain of papers that had stacked up. Once Kara found the device, she opened it, finding a message from Maggie.
Hey Kara, checking to see if you’re free for dinner tonight with Alex and I? It’s one of the rare times that we both have the night off.
Shit, Kara thought, I had hoped she’d forgotten. She set her phone down and scratched at her scalp, she so wasn’t ready for this.
Her phone vibrated again, and Kara glanced down, seeing another message from the Latina. You can bring a friend if you want, or, you know, someone else ;)
Shit, shit, shit. Kara groaned before typing a response, I’d love to.
It only took a few moments for Maggie to respond. Great! Seven at McHenry’s downtown?
Sounds good, see you then! Kara replied before she could stop herself, why oh why did she do that.
See you then!
Shit…