Chapter 3
Kara is coming out of the grocery store when Alex calls and Kara lifts her phone to her ear, has to switch all her bags to one hand and, after a man turns his lips down and lifts his eyebrows and looks very impressed, she lets her shoulder sag a little under the weight and pretends it’s heavy.
“Groceries? Which store?”
“The one opposite the music store,” Kara tells her. She stops on the corner of the street and, with an extremely subtle glance around, disappears into the alley to her left. “It’s a-okay, I haven’t been here for a week.”
“Mhm, okay, hold on.” Alex talks to her as she clicks through her phone. “Groceries, groceries, groceries—store opposite music shop, got it. Okay so you can’t go there again for, like, a week.”
“I know, Alex. I’m being careful,” she says, and floats over the fence that blocks the middle of the alley.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m just reminding you. Anyway, listen to what happened at the lab today. You should’ve been there, I honestly needed super strength to hold me back from straight up slamming this idiots head against the table. He nearly poisoned everyone in there!” she defends herself when Kara tsks.
It’s a nice long stroll down a pretty busy street to get back to her neighbourhood, and one long alley takes her right through to their building. There’s just one last short alleyway that takes Kara around to the front of the apartment block and Kara barely has to think about it all.
The weeks before coming to National City she spent pouring over Google maps and street guides—memorising the layout of the grids and the street names and a few diners and stores that Alex had mentioned in passing—and she had taken a few days before classes had started to explore properly, mostly around her apartment and Alex’s. She did it mostly for Eliza’s sake, and her own to get her to calm down. But she likes her new city a lot.
It smells more than she remembers Argo City ever smelling, but that probably has a lot to do with her powered senses. It’s not as sleek as Argo was either, but the differences are so stark that Kara doesn’t think like that for long—she knows it’s not like she’s visiting a different city, that she can go back to Argo after her day trip is over, she knows that Earth is her home now, but sometimes it’s nice to fool herself. Catalogue the differences like she can take them home to her parents.
Alex listens to things like that, likes to hear about it. About how the buildings here look squat. Heavy. Feel squat and heavy. That the metals on Argo were different in every way—lighter, delicately worked. The way of building made them thin, delicate, and strong. How the floors were made of stones cut into beautiful designs, even in the newest buildings, and Kara can’t remember if that was tradition or culture or for some other reason. She wish she knew.
There are sprawling parks and roof gardens, but Kara doesn’t tell Alex about those. They’re usually private, and accessed through…less than human means. And there are food stands everywhere—some of them know Kara by name, which she also doesn’t tell Alex, and she works her way diligently through everything they have to offer, in all their dozens of combinations, and part of her says it’s just because it’s delicious, but another part of her knows that she’ll never stop looking for the familiar, even in a city as vast and different as this.
When she does find home, it’s always far too short-lived, and always hurts. Like her heart is re-arranging itself in her chest, re-aligning. The sightings are few and far between. Kara hopes it’s because everything here is new and not because she’s forgetting.
But there’s, there’s this one alley. All red brick. Old. And at exactly four fifty-seven in the afternoon a week and a half ago, Kara had entered it with an ice-cream in one hand and a cooler bag of frozen pizzas in the other, and had walked into oranges and reds she thought she’d lost.
She had come up with some dumb excuse—they were out of her favourite pastries at the bakery, something like that—to tell Cat to explain why she’d been crying. Cat had rolled her eyes, maybe not even heard her in the first place. Kara hadn’t bothered to explain anything much since then.
Not that it had happened again, even though Kara had returned to that alley several more times. It’s just an alley now, like the rest. A lot of them are filled with garbage, many more are not quite as full of garbage. Some have actual bloodstains. Kara stares down at one for a short moment, humming along with whatever Alex is telling her, and she can’t help but think back to that night. There might have been a stain like this one if she had been a fraction later to help Lucy.
How long should she wait before…before doing that again? She unlocks the door to the building, starts up the stairs. Will she ever do that again?
Her stomach turns over—she’s thinking about it while she’s on the phone with Alex and still her hands feel like they’re buzzing with excitement. The air is crisper, tastes sweeter—dear Rao, except when she’s walking past 2D—when she just thinks about flying, and she has to make an effort not to stamp footprints into the steps.
What if she finds another person who needs help? She shakes the thought away when Alex’s voice turns strained and angry in her ear, frightened for all of half a second that somehow her sister knows.
“Lord, that asshole. You know what he’s been talking about, right, this amazing advancement,” she sneers, “with whatever he’s been tinkering with. He’s probably already perfected it, just dragging it out so he can present it along with, like, twelve other bullshit experiments and he’s gonna single handedly save the human race and everyone is gonna love him and there goes my scholarship, which, y’know, that’s the important thing here.”
“Right,” Kara laughs.
“What a smarmy bastard.”
She’d have to help them, wouldn’t she? If she found someone in trouble? It’s not like she could just ignore someone in danger. Especially since she can’t get hurt—would it be selfish? For her to ignore them? Not that there necessarily will be someone in danger, but would it be better not to practise just so she’s not in danger of hearing someone, or should she practise in case she does and so she can help better?
Kara slips her phone into the pocket in her hoodie so she can unlock the front door. She can still hear Alex clearly and tunes one ear to her, hooks a finger around the arm of her glasses so she can check the apartment. It’s empty—Cat is at some newspaper thing until late, she’s pretty sure, but sometimes she has guests.
“It’s so unfair, you know?” Alex sighs, and Kara lifts her groceries onto the bench and fishes the phone from her pocket, lays it gently on the side. She taps it onto speaker and begins putting everything away. “How the hell am I supposed to compete against a literal genius? I hate this system,” she groans. There’s a rapid pop of gunfire and Kara flinches.
“What—oh, gaming. What are you playing?”
“Halo.”
“Bad mood game.” She glances through the mail Cat tucks into the bread basket. Nothing for her.
“What can I say? The Flood remind me of Shitwell Lord.” Alex climbs into a cutscene, tosses her hands to the side as she waits for the game to continue—Kara hears the trigger click when it lands on a couch cushion—and sighs for a long time. “I don’t get it. Why can’t they offer more than one scholarship? Better yet, why can’t Lord fuck right off?”
“It’s definitely upsetting.”
“Say it with me. It’s totally shitty.”
“It’s totally shitty,” Kara laughs, and Alex sighs but sounds marginally less depressed, which means Kara is doing her job right.
“Hey,” Alex starts in a tone that makes Kara’s trouble metre start pinging, “you don’t want to help out your favourite sister with her amazing plan, do you?” A negative, but framed cajolingly. Alex wants something. Kara narrows her eyes at the phone, the contact photo of her sister shoving a hamburger into her mouth.
“Amazing plan?” she asks, hoping this is something Alex is going to elaborate on and not something she’s already told her.
“Yeah, the plan where I— wait, have you heard a word I said?”
“Yes, of course.” It’s stretching it a little—Alex clearly means ‘were you listening to me’ but really, phrases can be so broadly interpreted and, Kara feels guilt flash hot all over her and she scrunches her nose. “No, I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I was thinking about—“ and she can’t tell Alex what she’s really thinking about, because if Alex is in a bad mood now, hearing that Kara has been using her superpowers, unguided, untested, against all instructions, that’s bound to make her apoplectic. “my article.”
In the background, Alex’s game pauses and then she’s standing, moving around her apartment.
“Right. That’s cool.” Her tone is a little cool and Kara frowns with her whole body, closes her eyes, closes her shoulders inwards.
“I’m sorry.”
She hates this divide—hates how guilty she feels about this whole thing—and how it’s distracting her from Alex, which isn’t what she wanted at all. She clicks the phone off speaker, cradles it to her cheek. “Hey,” she says again, “I’m sorry. It’s coming back to me. Maxwell made something and you think he’s going to win the scholarship, I remember, I do, I was listening. How can I help?” Alex is silent for a while and Kara leans forward onto the counter, turns her face further into her phone. “Alex, come on. How can I help?”
Alex’s fridge door opens. The sound of her fighting with it makes Kara smile—it’s brand new and the seal is stronger than the one on her last fridge so there’s always this three second brawl—and she listens to some bottles clinking before, relief of reliefs, Alex opens something that fizzes and pours herself a small measure. Fridge closes, Alex grumbles, “You know your alien ears have saved your alien butt for the last time, right?” And then, “Ah fuck,” before she fights the fridge again to put the bottle back.
“I know.” Kara runs a hand down her face, about eighty per cent certain she’s mimicking Alex’s stance from halfway across the city. “So?”
Alex clicks her tongue. Drinks. “I don’t know. It would be cool if I could pin down your cell regeneration, maybe make an immune booster that we could pair with these patches Rising Tech is making. For easy vaccination and stuff. Lord would be left in the dust if we did something like that,” she crows. “Oh, and speaking of Lord, can you not call him Maxwell? He’s my nemesis, okay, you know I hate humanising him.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Kara laughs. “It’s what he told me to call him.”
That was the wrong thing to say, absolutely the wrong thing, and Alex is quiet for a whole two minutes. She finishes her drink, places the glass in the sink with a flat clunk, and returns to the couch. She sits. Then, “When was that?”
“Um. A week ago. He was making coffee while I was eating the lunch.”
“Eating lunch.”
“Yeah. Oh, yes, while I was eating lunch.” Kara bites at her lip. “He was nice.”
“Jesus, Kara, of course he was nice. He’s a slimy toad who knows he’s my nemesis and he’s trying to convert you.”
“That would never happen, you’re my sister.” Alex grumbles, sounding very pleased at that. She continues her game. “And second, he has to be slimy and tricky. He might be smart but he’s not as smart as you are.”
“Damn right.”
“Maybe prettier thought,” Kara teases, and it shocks a laugh out of her sister. Kara grins, presses her phone closer to her cheek again. It’s not the same as leaning against Alex, but it has to be enough.
“He might be pretty—”
“I knew you thought it!”
“—but, and this is a big but, he is a smart, slimy toad with a ego the size of the moon and a mistrustful streak a mile long. Not a good mix. He gives me a real bad feeling, just something about him…”
“Could it be,” Kara suggests, finally unpacking her groceries and hauling the colds into the fridge at double speed, “the fact that he is your nemesis?”
“Oh ha ha, very funny. I’m being serious here, he gives me a bad feeling. Just stay away from him, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”
“And also that I help you with your project so you can trash him.”
“Yeah, but you’d do that anyway.” Alex pauses her game again. “You’ll stay away from him?”
“Yes.” Kara feels the urgency in her sister’s words, and nods even if Alex can’t see her. “Yes, of course. I promise.” It’s not a hard promise to make—Alex has been telling her forever about Lord, and Kara would readily agree even from their short, superficial conversation about bagels, that he can’t be trusted as far as a considerably weaker human could throw him. “Alex?”
“Mhm.”
“This bad feeling you get about him—is it… Does it feel like he’s always staring at you?” She jumps up onto the kitchen counter and, knowing she has a habit of absent-minded destruction, crosses her legs underneath her. “Does it feel…”
“Kara?” Alex prompts her when she’s been quiet for a while.
“Does he give you an itch all across your shoulders and your throat when he’s looking at you? And everything he says feels like…” Kara frowns, opens her hand wide to invite the word to her. “Like cardboard sets.”
“How’d you mean?” Alex’s voice is gentle and Kara imagines her curled into her couch, controller limp in her hands, and smiles, knowing she has Alex’s full attention. There’s that brief dip of guilt again and she shakes herself free from it.
“Like, those sets on television. They look like they’re real but then they’re not.”
They sit quietly together for a little time, Alex turning the thought over in her head and Kara waiting for her to sort it out. After some time, Alex hums.
“Empty, you mean.” Kara agrees half-heartedly. “Like, they should be real and you feel kind of let down that they’re not?”
“A promise not kept,” she agrees, but she can tell that Alex knows the word don’t fit the feeling exactly. Kara likes to think she could explain it in Kryptonian, but those feelings that go beyond words exist in every language, to her limited knowledge.
“Yeah, I guess the word I like to use is slimy. He oozes around and leaves his stink everywhere. He says something and you think you got the better deal but then it turns out that he’s slunk himself over the finish line just ahead of you, the slime bag.” She knows she shouldn’t laugh but Alex is furious again and she can’t resist. “Sure, laugh it up little sister but it sounds to me like you’ve got a Max Lord of your own. Who is it?” Couch springs creak as Alex shifts. A little sigh tells Kara she’s comfortably settled again and more questions are imminent.
She cuts her off before she can begin. “You know what? It’s nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Well it is,” Kara says very decisively. Of course, Alex doesn’t listen.
“Sounds suspicious.”
“Everything sounds suspicious to you.”
“Weird, it’s like you said something suspicious and now you’re trying to change the subject to my perfectly rational paranoia.”
“Paranoia isn’t rational—“
“Kara Danvers, you tell me right now who is freaking you out,” Alex half-laughs, half-demands, and Kara scowls across the room. She props her elbow against one knee and drops her chin into her hand.
“There’s this girl, okay.”
“Hold on,” Alex says, sounding like she wants to laugh a little. “This isn’t a crush, is it? You’re feeling weird over a girl?”
“No. I know what a crush feels like, Alex. This doesn’t feel good weird.”
Alex is still laughing a little but she hums her acceptance of that. “Do you think… Maybe she’s like you?”
Kara considers that for a moment before dismissing it. She’s never once met another alien, other than her cousin, while she’s been on Earth. Well. Not that she knows of, anyway. She’s in hiding too so it’s not like aliens are popping out of the ground to come up to her and introduce themselves.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, whatever it is, trust your instincts. Stay away from here and, while we’re on the topic, definitely stay away from Lord.”
“I’ve got that, Alex,” Kara has to laugh. “Oh shoot, hold on let me put you on speaker.” She does and jumps from the counter top, floats down to the ground so she doesn’t put two foot-shaped holes into floorboards that mean more to Cat than Kara does. “I have that Skype date with Kal in,” she touches her phone lightly to bring up the time, “three minutes.” And she has twenty sandwiches to make. “So what did you want me to do for your beat-Lord-at-his-own-game experiment thing? I know I heard something about regenerative cells.”
“Nah, forget about it. As sweet as beating Lord would be, as much as I dream about it in every waking moment and when I go to sleep…” She drifts off, wistful, and Kara has to clear her throat to get her attention again. “Right. As great as that would be, keeping you safe comes first.”
Kara’s stomach swoops to its lowest point yet and the knife in her hand squeals under the pressure of her closed fist.
“Kara? You there?”
“Huh? Yeah—yes,” she clears her throat. “Yes, sorry, I’m here. I was just thinking about Lord’s face if you did something like that.”
“The one and only time I would think him beautiful,” comes the dreamy reply. “One day. When I have my own lab. We’re gonna save the world together. You and me.”
“Yeah.” All over again, clear as the moment it happened, Kara sees the man in front of her and Lucy and the guilt remains, tugging her stomach right down into her boots, but stronger still and keeping her from blurting out everything to her sister is the knowledge that she saved someone. That Lucy might have been hurt if she hadn’t done something. “But you’d let me know if I could help you, right?”
“Duh, of course. What else are little sister for except to exploit for personal gain?”
“Alex.”
“I’m kidding.” She doesn’t even try to hide her mumbled sort of and laughs when Kara reminds her that she can hear her. “Alright, kid, it’s almost four. Cousin date?”
“Just finishing my snacks.” Nudging the fridge closed, Kara picks up the plate with her stack of sandwiches and carries it and her phone to her bedroom—and oops, she has to go back for her book bag because she can just imagine the weird looks she would get from Cat if she saw the subjects she’d picked up from the library.
“Great. Okay, well, say hi to Clark for me.”
“Of course. And hey,” Kara adds before Alex can hang up. Alex’s tone worries her, but she can’t place exactly what it is. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” Kara relaxes when the easiness returns to Alex’s breathing. Obviously that was the right thing to say. And she can’t imagine why she might have needed it but if she did then Kara was going to say it as many times a day as she could. “But seriously,” she continues, and the weirdness is totally gone in favour of a familiar teasing sharpness, “call him or he might fly out here to catch up with you. He’s been bugging me,” she groans. “I’m gonna invest in a swatter.”
Kara dumps her plate on her desk and frowns. “He has? About what?”
“You, life, your first weeks at uni. The usual shit.”
“He has?” Kara traces her finger over the back of her desk chair. Cat had given it to her—as much as a disgusted ‘it was a gift, take it, I hate it and you’re giving me a back ache when I see you crouched next to the coffee table’ can be assumed to be a gifting. “He hasn’t texted me at all.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, I guess he wanted you to settle in.”
“Right, that makes sense.” Kara throws her shoulders back and nods. That did make sense.
“Tell him to leave me alone though, I need to sleep.”
“So…you want me to say hello and also to leave you alone.”
“Got it in one. You can add a few choice names if you want. Dead meat. Pain in my ass. Man who should say I love you to his wife because if he annoys me enough I’m going to show him what a particularly dedicated human being can do to a super powered nerd. Appendix.”
“Appendix?”
“You know. It’s there, but ultimately useless.”
“Ouch.”
Alex laughs, obviously very pleased with herself, and Kara snorts. “Anyway, you get the idea. Piss off, love you.”
“Love you too.” Kara puts as much of herself into those words as she can and she knows Alex notices, and appreciates it, because she laughs a little before she hangs up and it’s a very happy sound.
She hears the faint buzz of her phone where she tosses it onto her bed but before she can look at it, she has to prepare herself. All her pillows and her food in arms reach and… yes. Yeah, she thinks she’s ready and she flings herself into her bed and bundles her duvet around her shoulders and checks her messages.
—ARE YOU READY FOR OUR SKYPE DATE????????
and
—also let that sad sack know that if he wakes me up at 3am again i don't care how strong he is i will k i c k his a s s ok
She doesn’t bother responding to Kal, just signs into her computer and waits. She’s part way through her reply to Alex when the familiar ding interrupts.
“Hey, baby cousin!” Her text is finished with a buzz of speed and she drops her phone down next to her knee and curls happily into herself, grinning down at the screen.
“Funny,” he scowls, and breaks half a second later into a laugh. “You seriously need to find something new to call me.”
“I’ll call you baby cousin if I want to, baby cousin,” Kara says back, and it occurs to her that being so annoying is really something that she’s picked up from her sister. Speaking of… “It’s better than Alex’s suggestion, though,” she says, with a sly little smile that Kal picks up on with a shudder.
“Oh geez Louise. What did she say?”
“The first one was sad sack and it didn’t get any nicer than that. She also said that you’ve been calling her a lot?” Kara ducks her head, adjusts the folds of her duvet so her arms are fully cushioned when she hugs them to herself and pretends she’s not watching Kal’s enormously expressive face from the corner of her eye.
He knows, of course, and holds his hands up in surrender. “I can explain,” he hurries to say. “I know how big this is. I mean, getting out of Kansas was…” He shakes his head. “It was hard. Coming to Metropolis was a big change. I thought you would want a little time to just figure out everything but I still wanted to make sure that you were okay and Alex told me you were and,”
“You could have texted me,” she says, very softly, and he gives her that look again, that look that makes her ache inside. All guilt and hesitance and the tiniest edge of disappointment, like he’s waiting for her to realise that he’s doing right by her in the long run. She knows that—she’s been told that ever since he dropped her off at the Danvers—but is it so wrong that she hurts sometimes? Is she not allowed to hurt? Or is her heart supposed to be invulnerable too?
It’s at that point that she realises that her thoughts are getting a little too dramatic. He was giving her space and time and being thoughtful and she’s blowing it out of proportion. She knows that, duh, and so she dutifully drags herself back into the moment with Kal looking at her like she’s so young, like she still needs to be cared for, and she smiles.
“You’re not mad with me then?” he asks.
Kara shakes her head. It would have been nice to get a call from him, or a good luck text before she started, but his reasoning makes sense so she shakes her head again. “No. Of course not. Alex wanted me to say that if you wake her up at three again, you’re dead. So, there’s that to consider.” He throws his head back and laughs and Kara smiles down at her hands.
She could bring it up again, tell him actually, a text, a call, would have been nice, but she doesn’t know when he’s going to be pulled away and it’s not really worth starting an argument. Instead, she scratches at the side of her nose and glances sideways out the window and leans in toward the screen like she’s sharing a secret.
“National City is loud,” she says, low and quick like she’s sharing a secret and she likes the way he relaxes into his chair and grins a broad grin and nods. “And there are so many people and—Rao, the smells!”
“Oh God,” he agrees, and Kara bites down hard on her tongue. “The smells were the worst part. It must be worse for you though—I grew up with cows and pigs so I was used to blocking all that out.”
She’s visited his parents exactly once and she knows exactly what he’s talking about.
Farms are…not Kara’s happy place.
“Gross.”
“It’s an acquired smell.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” she shoots back, and just the memory of it makes her stick her tongue out and try to scrape the overwhelming smell from her tongue. “Yuck.”
“You know what will make you feel better?”
“Nothing in the universe?” It is only with great effort that she can banish that particular memory.
“Food. Like a Delicious Danny’s milkshake.”
“I would give anything for one of those,” Kara groans, and she groans again, feeling actually physically pained when Kal pulls one into view. “Stop.” He sticks a straw into the drink and sucks in a mouthful, hums happily. “I hate you.” He’s full on groaning now and Kara covers her face with her hands.
“That’s not a normal reaction to Skype sex,” a voice calls from her doorway and Kara flushes bright red when she sees an incredibly well dressed Cat leaning in her doorway. She’s dressed in tight everything and Kara can’t look past red, red lips except maybe if Cat were to lean forward a little and then, well, Kara wouldn’t be able to not see her, well, everything—but Cat, fortunately or unfortunately, Kara isn’t sure yet, doesn’t lean forward and instead she just stays there grinning. “Need any tips?”
“I—“ Kara stutters a little, because she’s insinuating that about her cousin but also because this might be—is, definitely is—the very first time Cat has spoken to her in a manner that could be construed as pleasant and she doesn’t know how to deal with this. All her words leave her brain in a fog and she struggles to pin any down, let alone the right ones. “No, we’re, this isn’t—“
“Who is it, little cousin?” Kal emphasises. It’s in an effort to rescue her, Kara knows that, but with one look at Cat and her growing grin, she also knows that it was exactly the wrong thing to say.
“When you introduced yourself as family oriented, I had no idea it was to this degree.”
Kara gapes at her—Kal, with the screen turned just enough that he too can see the girl in the doorway, gapes too—and their identical horror seems to be working for Cat. Like. A lot. It’s probably just her imagination but Cat’s teeth seem sharper and whiter than usual, her eyes light up with an evil, evil glint. And when she licks over the sharp line of her teeth, Kara can think only of a lioness after a kill—and how unfairly attractive her flatmate is.
“I’m going out.” Kara hadn’t heard her come in. Mistake. Big mistake. “Don’t bother waiting up, I’m staying somewhere else.” She waits and, when Kara just nods, blushing a furious red, Cat adds, “In someone else’s bed. Where we’re having sex. Should I feel guilty about that?” she asks. “I’m so sorry for interrupting the two of you.”
“We—no,” is all Kara can say, and Cat pushes lazily away from the door frame and Kara’s eyes can’t help but run all down that curve to where her hip pops just to the side.
“If you say so,” she says, with a fake contrite expression, and she leaves with a little wiggle of her fingers that might be a wave. But if it is, then it’s the most dismissive wave Kara has ever seen and it leaves her a little bit breathless.
Once the front door closes behind her, Kara leans forward until she’s laying flat on her bed and pulls her duvet over her head.
“So that’s the roommate, huh,” Kal comments, shaky. “Alex told me she was evil but I didn’t expect that.”
“Could you see her?”
“Yep.”
“She’s beautiful. It’s so unfair.”
“Hey. You’re beautiful too,” Kal tells her, gentle and sweet, and though Kara never wants to face the world again, she absolutely has to prop herself up and roll her eyes at him. “You are.”
“Thanks, Kal. Do me a gift, though. Throw out that milkshake.”
“Favour. And done.” He makes sure the lid is on properly and she watches him throw it into his sink, listens to it hit the metal and splash. “Nothing but net! Hey, tell her she’s ruined an American pastime. Delicious Danny’s will never be the same.”
“I’m not telling Cat anything. Ever. I’m never looking her in the eyes again. I’m never speaking to her ever again.”
“That’s probably safe. You should probably change your identity and move countries to be absolutely safe, though.”
“Right,” Kara laughs. “You’re right.”
“Always. Anyway, here is something that will make you feel better. Or,” he pauses thoughtfully. “Maybe worse? Have a look.” He shifts his camera so she can see the feast he has spread out over his dining table. “Better or worse?”
“Worse,” she says. “I have twenty-three identical peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and you’re actively teasing me. Definitely worse.” She pouts—she can make out several pizzas and a whole plate of potstickers and she feels like crying. Just a little. She sucks in a breath and shakes her head instead. “Race you?”
Kal grins, mouth half full of a sandwich already. “You’re behind already, little cousin.”
//
They’re lazy and full and warm when they’re done and Kara yawns up to her ceiling. Her eyes scan the familiar constellations of glow stars tacked onto her ceiling—not real constellations, she could only remember a few and not in any accurate detail, but they’re in vaguely familiar shapes that she had stared up at her ceiling on Krypton, the projector humming by her head.
“Kal?”
He stops in the middle of talking about his recent article—it’s interesting, probably, something about fraud, but Kara had drifted off ages ago—and immediately gives her his full attention.
“Yeah?”
“Can I… Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he says. “Absolutely. About anything.”
“Even sex?” she laughs, because she’s seen enough movies to know he’s supposed to squirm at that, and because apparently another trait she’s picked up from Alex is to make jokes to get away from potentially uncomfortable situations.
But Kal just nods. “Of course. The first thing to consider in any environment that may turn sexual is consent, which encompasses a lot more than the physical act of—“
“Kal, oh Rao, no, please stop. I was joking.” Kara drags her pillow over her head and laughs when he lets out a tiny, embarrassed oh.
“Well,” he clears his throat. “I just thought… It’s something we should talk about someday anyway. Whenever you’re ready. I think it’s probably different from what Alex can tell you. She doesn’t have super strength, after all, and”
“Kal.” Kara waits until she has his attention. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”
“Right. Yes.” He nods, folds his hands in front of him in an effort to look smart and serious. His forehead crinkles just a little. “What did you want to talk about?”
She twists at her necklace, winds it around her fingers, and allows it to untwist as she considers whether she should—and if she did, then how—talk to him about, well. The whole saving people thing. One person. Hopefully more.
“Kara.” His voice is soft and warm. “Whatever it is, you can ask me.”
“And,” she licks her lips, “it can stay between us? Just you and me?”
Kal leans forward in his chair. He frowns gently, eyebrows just pushing together, and he nods. “Of course,” and he sounds so much like her uncle, Kara closes her eyes and breathes for a moment. “Kara,”
“It’s about my powers,” she rushes to say, and bites her lip hard. His expression flickers between delight and worry and excitement and finally settles on some manufactured thoughtfulness she knows he’s using to hide behind. It’s just soothing enough to work, though. She twists her necklace again. “When did you know?”
“Know?” There’s another almost insufferable age before she can continue. He’s doing his best not to rush her, Kara knows that. She lets her breath out, untwists her necklace. “Do you want to talk to Lois?”
“No.” It’s not him that’s the problem—it’s the asking. It’s the question. It’s even thinking about it. She presses her tongue up against her teeth, twists her necklace. The words are piling up. Twisting up, twisting her up inside. She untwists the chain, runs her fingers down the little drop. She lets the words out and raises a prayer to Rao that will take a millennia to get there that this isn’t the wrong move to make. “When did you know?” she repeats. “That you wanted to use them? That you wanted to help?”
Kal frowns more deeply, not chiding but genuinely thoughtful this time. His words are slow and measured, like he weighs them before letting them out. “It wasn’t like that at all. It was the right time—I was there, and I could do something about it. When I saw that plane coming down, I just knew. It felt…”
“Like it wasn’t a choice at all,” Kara finishes for him, stares down at her fingers, at the necklace.
“Exactly.”
“Not the right thing,” she continues. The light fractures off the little jewel and Kara turns a little to catch the last of the sunlight as it falls behind the buildings. It’s like she’s welcomed in the outside and the voices start to rush past her, and over her, and her own voice sounds distant. Washed out, like she’s being drowned out. She can separate herself from this whole mess—with Lucy, with the warehouse, with the to and fro of powers and the powerlessness that injects itself into any choice—if she just gives in. Lets the world wash over her. She does, for a moment. Lets the voices, the cars driving and beeping and skidding and water rushing and planes burning a path through the sky, all of it submerge her. It’s overwhelming, the bigness of it all. She licks her lips, tastes the echo of salt, and she is recalled to the ocean, to having dark water ease up around her calves and sand-grit rocks at her back, and Alex with her staring into that still, calm expanse. She feels small now like she felt small then, and the words come thoughtlessly, like nothing she says can change the heft of this space. “It was the only thing to do.”
“Yes.”
Kara remembers that the world might fade for her but continues to spin, continues to lay itself out in sharp relief for those who know how to look.
And Kal is looking right at her.
She turns back to him, works for a minute to shut out the world again, and she knows she’s given too much away with that small sentence. To his credit, Kal doesn’t ask any questions about what she’s done so far.
“Do you want to ask me anything?”
“I…” If she does, it’s real. She’s serious about it. Because his advice is real advice, real stories, real tips on how to be a superhero. She's not sure that she's ready for that yet.
She shrugs.
“Okay, well, how about this? I have a friend in National City,” he tells her. “He knows about me, ran around with me a couple of times. I’m sure if I let him know you want to talk, he’d be happy to meet with you. Tell you what it was like, balancing work and villains at the same time. Social life and super duties.” Kara gives him an uneasy smile. “No pressure,” he says in that voice she knows from experience he uses with cattle. “How about I give you his number and you can call him if you want to. No pressure,” he says again, raising his hands, and Kara nods, her smile feeling less sick and more hopeful. “Super!”
“Kal.”
“It’s never not funny,” he argues. “But yeah, just tell him Kal El said it would be okay to talk about Superman, and he can answer your questions. Or you can ask me,”
“No!” Kara shakes her head, continues softer, pretends she can’t see his hurt. “No, it’s just, theoretical. Hypothetical.”
“If you need me,”
“The whole world needs you, Kal.”
“Right.” The corner of his mouth twitches, a poor imitation of his normal smile. “Right. Be careful. With your hypotheticals. And maybe, hypothetically, it’s something you should talk to Alex about.” She nods. “Alright. Here is his number.”
Not that she’s going to, not just yet. Because it’s hypothetical and she hasn’t made up her mind and it doesn’t mean anything yet.
Her phone buzzes and she looks down at the number and nods. “Thanks, Kal.”
“Of course. Any time. And hey, no matter what you choose to do,” he says, flinging their hypotheticals out the window, “we’re family. I will always be here for you.”
Kara lays her hand to her chest, closes her eyes against the hot press of tears when he does the same. “Family. I know.”
“Kara,” he cuts himself off, turns to look behind him when sirens start to blare. She hears them tinny through her speakers and she’s already nodding when he turns back to face her. “I have to go. I love you, Kara.”
“I love you too, Kal. Khaoshun.”
“Khaoshun.”
She stares at the number for a long time.
How is she supposed to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger? About this, no less. She doesn’t think she’s done that in her whole life—okay, twice this morning, but that was different because the first girl was so sweet and nice and Kara accidentally ran into her and her textbooks had gone everywhere and she’s studying medicine which is so impressive and amazing so of course Kara would talk to her, she had to apologise obviously. And the second person had a dog so what was she supposed to do? Ignore them? Clearly neither of those situations were like this one, which is…hard. And scary. And maybe will be the first step to figuring out all the stuff that is going on in her life.
She paces the length of her room for a long time, glad Cat had left.
She knows what Alex would say about this—about both situations, actually. About Cat? ‘You’re too nice for your own good. You’re paying for the apartment, do whatever you want, don’t let her push you around okay?’ And about this mysterious contact given to her by her superpower cousin, to whom she is supposed to give a secret code so that she can then talk to them about superpower business? ‘Admittedly cool,’ she’s pretty sure Alex would say, though that could be wishful thinking. ‘But a bad idea. A really bad idea.’
But Alex isn’t here.
And Kara wants this.
She plugs the number Kal gave her into her phone and dials—only, when she presses call, JAMES OLSEN comes up on her screen and Kara stares down at it, confused.
“Hello? Hello?” A moment in which Kara thinks she’s going to get away with it and then, “Kara? I have caller ID, you know.”
Kara grimaces and clicks on the little red circle before she can think about it any longer. She breathes out a great gush of relief. It’s fine. She’ll see him tomorrow, laughingly explain that she must have ass called him after practicing how to say that in her mirror for most of the night, it’ll be fine—
“Oh no.”
He’s calling her back! Kara stares wide-eyed down at the phone on her bed. What should she do? Throw it? No—that’s dumb, don’t throw it. Dumb, Kara! Hang up? No—also dumb! He’ll know she declined. Answer?
“Hi,” she says, drawing out the word for an unnecessarily long time. “James, hey.”
“Hey,” he laughs. “What’s up?”
Does it matter if she knows the person Kal knows? Does that make it more or less awkward? More or less terrifying? At least she knows that James is nice and talented and—
“We need to talk,” she says, before she can panic herself out of it. “About Superman.” Was that the right phrase? She can’t remember anymore.
“Oh.” Does he sound upset? She said it wrong—he sounds upset. “You’re a fan of the big guy, huh, that’s cool. You can have a look through my photos tomorrow if you want but—”
“No, no, I want to talk about him.”
“Yeah, who doesn’t?” He coughs, shifts in what sounds like a cheap desk chair. It creaks when he leans back. “Look, Kara, you’re nice but I kind of came to NCU to get away from the whole ‘you’re friends with Superman’ thing and—“
“Kal!” Kara blurts out, remembering the phrase. And feeling like such a goof for forgetting because hello, who really knew Kal’s real name—Kryptonian name, she should say, because she knows how much Kal-Clark loves his parents and his home here—except for her and his best friend? “James?” she says quietly when he is silent for a long minute.
“What—ah—what did you say?”
“Umm.” Kara fidgets, sucks in a deep breath. “Kal, he said that you might know some stuff about Superman. That I might find helpful.”
“Kal said that?”
“Yeah! Is… Did I get the code phrase wrong again?” Kara sighs. “Look, we were just talking and he said I could talk to you about stuff because you know him and I was hoping I could ask you some…stuff,” she finishes, wincing, because to her it sounds like one glaring message that yes, she has super powers!
James must not think so though because he just says, “You were talking to him? Like, just now? On a Tuesday night? For fun?”
“Well…yeah.”
“Huh.” He clears his throat. “How come?”
Kara hesitates. Then, well, she’s up into her knees so why not go the whole way?
“He’s my cousin.”
“Like,”
“Yes. My cousin.”
“Oh my god,” James whispers into the phone, and from her end she can hear him walking quickly into another room and the snick of a lock. When he speaks again, his voice echoes the slightest bit and she thinks he might have hidden himself in the bathroom. “Like, his cousin? Like…”
“Yes.”
“Super cousin?”
“Yes.”
“You’re—oh my god. Do you want to meet right now?” He turns the bathroom taps to full power, drowning out his words to anyone else with him, Kara guesses. “I can tell you whatever you want to know! What do you want to know?”
“Thats, I was kind of thinking we could meet tomorrow, actually? And get coffee? Well,” she snorts, “not coffee, it makes me all jittery. But a drink? And talking. Proper talking.”
James lets out a slow breath and Kara can’t help but laugh because he sounds giddy. Giddy! Excited! Thrilled! She doesn’t think anyone has ever been thrilled about her being super powered before. Except maybe for Kal, of course, but even he worries first about the dangers.
“Tomorrow,” James agrees. “How’s ten?”
“Ten!” She nods enthusiastically, lays her hand on her stomach and shoves to try and dispel the fluttering of giant, giant butterflies. “Sounds great.”
“Awesome. And yeah, wow, I’ll answer any questions you have. You can’t get this from the big guy himself?”
“It’s different for him,” is all Kara can tell him, unsure how to even start explaining how hard it is to talk to him about being Superman, about Krypton, with the constant press of family making itself felt. With James, she’s hoping that will be easier to ignore.
//
“Hi James, how are you, long time no see—no, stupid, you saw him yesterday,” Kara grumbles, shakes her head. “Okay, hi James, hung out with any alie—nope. Bad idea.” She throws her hands up in the air, exasperated with herself. “You had talked fine to him yesterday, be a grown up. Walk in there and be normal,” she hisses to herself, and she spins on her heel.
Right into James.
She stumbles back a step and flushes. “Hi! Hi, hey, I was just,” she points behind him to the door and James grin, a lovely wide smile. He reaches out to take her hand, which she realises is still nervously pointing.
His hand is large, and warm, and he holds her still for a moment before squeezing her hand and letting it drop.
“Breathe, Kara. It’s just me. We met already, remember?”
Kara nods. “Of course. We see each other almost everyday, of course I remember.” He laughs and she realises that he’s teasing her. But he has to understand, so she adds, “It’s different now.”
“Why?” He reaches up, shrugs his camera bag more securely on his shoulder.
Kara darts a furtive look around, leans in. “Because now you know.”
James’s smile fades. He reaches out again, lays a hand on her shoulder this time and he eases her off the path and out of the way of a throng of students. Standing next to her, he darts his own furtive glances around. “Now I know,” he agrees, slowly, once the coast is supposedly clear. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he knocks his elbow into hers. “Look, we haven’t talked a lot and I can’t even imagine what you’ve lived through. Clark has told me some things, about him growing up. The cow incident,” Kara grins and James nudges her again. He doesn’t pull away this time, leaves their arms pressed together. “And I know it’s not all as funny as that but, well, I do know a little and,” he shrugs. “I want you to know that you can trust me.”
Kara looks down to their arms, lets herself feel the weight and warmth of him, and she smiles. “Clark trusts you and,” she nods, “I do too. You were nice to me when I was just Cat’s seven tenth gopher and you didn’t have to be.”
“And that’s enough?”
“It’s not a bad sign.”
James tilts his head, gives her that sweet, huge smile again, and he nods. “Great. Are you ready to go in, then? I ordered you a milkshake, since you said you don’t like coffee. Is that cool? I know your cousin likes them so,”
“It’s perfect.”
“Oh, and my girlfriend is going to come join us in about half an hour. Don’t worry,” he tells her quickly, and he jogs ahead a few steps to open the door for her. “I haven’t told her anything. She heard us talking last night and I told her you needed to talk to someone. I may have made you sound a little…stressed.” He grimaces apologetically and Kara laughs.
“That’s not wrong.”
James grins again. He points out the booth he claimed—right at the back—and she makes her way over while he collects their drinks. She slides into the booth, curls her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and when her knee starts jittery enough to make the cafe feel like its having a minor tremor, she sucks in a deep breath and holds it.
She wishes Alex were here. Everything is so much easier to tackle when she’s around.
But no. Kara moved here so she could grow up. So she could face the world like everyone else does. Go to university, get a job, be real. She’s not going to give up just because everything is getting busier and harder and more imminently scary.
“Hey, you alright?” James drops into the seat opposite her, pushes her milkshake across the table toward her. He’s got—she smells it—hot chocolate, one marshmallow melting in it, the other he’s already eaten if the powder on his lips means anything. “Nervous Kara, minor tremor,” he explains when she looks confused.
“Oh. Oh, yes.” She grins, but it feels a little weak. “I’m sorry, this is just new and I,”
“Hey.” He lays his hand over hers. “We’ll get it all figured out.”
Kara closes her eyes, tries not to lose herself in the rasp of his skin, in the fibres of her sweater against the pads of her fingers, in the hundreds of people-smells in this cafe, the scent of coffee ground into every surface.
“What do you want to know?”
Kara fiddles with her straw. “Everything,” she admits with a little shake of her head. “Do you know if he ever saved anyone before that plane?”
James leans back in his seat. Nods quickly. “When he was back in the sticks. There was the farm accident, with his dad. And some car accidents. And a bus thing. He didn’t go into a lot of detail, but there were a lot of near misses.”
It’s strange, but hearing about Kal’s mess ups is actually more reassuring than Kara had expected. He hadn’t been perfect. He hadn’t got it right straight away.
“He moved to Metropolis and the rumours died down. He was just this ordinary guy living a very ordinary life in the big city. Nothing special at all about him.”
“And that’s what he wanted?”
“Weird, right?” James rolls his eyes. “All these cool powers and he is so normal. You’d never think it looking at him. He’s the red blooded American. He has a grill, invites people over for steak dinners and college football, wears flannel like he’s a lumberjack and has the forearms to pull it off.” Kara snorts and James grins, a little sheepish. He scratches at the back of his neck. “I knew him at work, before he was, uh,” he glances around. “The big guy.”
Kara nods. She starts sipping at her drink—vanilla. Really good.
“I was the mailroom kid. Interning there. He was really nice. Not a lot of people gave me the time of day, but he did.”
“Why not?”
“Mailroom kid,” James shrugs like that means everything. His lips twist into an unhappy smile. “Plus, you know. I’m black.”
“Right.”
“All those progressive minds in one place,” he sighs, eyes twinkling a little like he’s telling a joke but it doesn’t sound very funny yet, “and I managed to avoid them all.” He winks and Kara realises that’s it, that’s the whole joke, and she has to think about it for a long minute before she realises that the discrimination is the joke and then her smile grows and he nods and she starts to laugh.
“That’s not funny.”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “Anyway, questions.” He nods to her. “Fire away, I’m ready.”
“His parents, what did they do when he became Superman?”
“I—“ James hesitates. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she shakes her head, focuses on the glass in front of her. “I was just wondering. I,” she presses a finger to the nose bridge of her glasses, pushes them up. “I have a sister. And a mom. I don’t know how…”
“To tell them?”
“To do this,” she whispers. “Because I want to. I really do.” She licks her lips, leans forward. He mimics her and when they’re only a very short distance apart, she whispers, “I tested out my powers the other night.”
James’s eyes widen. “How? Where? How was it, are they the same as his?”
“With a heap of nerves,” she jokes. It falls a little flat—she’s too nervous and he’s too interested in what really happened. She keeps going. “I was, I went to this warehouse. It’s abandoned and kinda creepy.” Kara pushes her straw into her milkshake, swirls it a little. She sucks the taste off her bottom lip, and focuses on that, and now, and here, instead of being tugged back into the still-sharp memory of that night. “I—I can fly,” she tells him, and his eyes light up. “I flew through a wall, a concrete wall, and I just got dusty. And I could hear everything,” she hesitates over what to say, whether to tell him about her, and the attacker, and walking her home, and she licks her lips again. “I punched a crater into the ground and I flew through the roof and the iron tore,” she whispers, and he nods quickly. “It’s, it’s like breathing for the first time. It’s like having weights tied to every part of you, no it’s like tying a weight to yourself every second all the time over and over and then I didn’t have to do that anymore,” she tells him, and her words are coming a little too fast but he’s nodding her on still. “And flying is just, it’s amazing, James, it’s wonderful, like nothing else I’ve ever felt before, and I never want to be on the ground again and I can’t wait, I want to fly in the sun properly without having to worry about it, I want that.” Kara lowers her head to the table, thunks it carefully down a few times. “I can’t screw this up,” she says down to the tabletop, which she thought was wood but she thinks might actually be plastic made to look like wood.
“It’s going to be okay, Kara,”
“No, I have my family, James. I can’t throw that—can’t throw them away just because I want to fly. This is going to put them in danger.”
“You don’t know that,”
“I do.”
“Well…then I would tell you that that’s what a secret identity is for.”
Kara lifts her head slowly. “Secret identity.”
“Yeah. What do you think about Super Woman?” Kara wrinkles her nose, shrugs. He lifts his hands in surrender. “Just a suggestion. We’ll think of something.”
“So you think I should do this then? Be a superhero like him?”
James frowns across at her. “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean,” he leans in again and his eyes are so bright and his grin so wide Kara can practically feel the energy burning inside him. “You’re a hero,” he insists. “You can do these amazing things, or you will be able to. That has to mean something.”
“Right.”
“You have to choose it, though.” He sits back, nods decisively. “That’s what Clark always said. You have to choose to do it. Not about you. About everyone. That’s what makes people heroes. Standing up and doing what you can.”
“But what if the right thing to do is nothing?”
James hesitates. Then, he shakes his head. “I haven’t known you very long, Kara, but I think if someone was hurting in front of you, there isn’t a lot you wouldn’t do for them.”
They sit in silence for a time, finishing their drinks. James’s phone buzzes and he flips it over.
“Company inbound,” he tells Kara, and she sits up and tries to wipe the faint misery and confusion from her expression. “Talk about something else. How’s working at the paper going?”
Kara’s expression droops again.
“Oops.”
“Cat hates me,” she grumbles. “And birds, which is not something to make a cat joke about, in case you thought about doing that.”
That surprises a laugh out of him and his shoulders shake with it. “I heard you made an impassioned speech about…wading birds?” Kara nods. “She wasn’t impressed?” She shakes her head no. “Ah, it’s alright, she’ll come around,” he tells her sincerely, and Kara does feel a little lighter in the face of his positivity. “Try something different next time, maybe?”
“I don’t think it’s the subject matter so much as the writing. And the writer. And also the subject matter,” she admits, and it’s true but it makes James laugh and Kara laughs with him. She sucks up the last of her milkshake and promptly chokes on it, a familiar face appearing in the doorway of the cafe.
James stands, grabs a handful of napkins from a nearby table, and she focuses on mopping up every drop as she valiantly tries to not focus on the girl making her way through the cafe—who please, please, please Rao, please let her not be James’s girlfriend, please don’t do this—and James finally follows her glances over his shoulder and turns, face breaking out into a stunning smile. He jumps up out of his seat and heads right for her.
So, okay, it is her. But maybe she isn’t the her from that night—even if she has the same haircut, and jawline, and profile…and heartbeat. Which is less easy to brush away.
“Kara!” James slides into the booth again, and he waves a hand toward his girlfriend, sliding in with him. “This is Lucy. Lucy, this is my friend Kara.”
Kara can’t lift her eyes above Lucy’s collar, but she does offer her a smile and a nod. “Really nice to make you, meet you for the first time,” she says, stumbles over the words, and from the corner of her eye she sees a really lovely smile being sent her way.
“Hey, nice to meet you too. For the first time,” she adds, like Kara had, and smiles a lovely smile. It’s teasing, but not mean, and so pretty Kara stares for a minute.
The lamplight and the dark had done her no justice—Lucy is easily one of the prettiest girls Kara has ever seen, and she’s absolutely rocking a sharp business look that has Kara reaching for her milkshake, forgetting that she’d already finished it. It’s probably a good thing, really, because she feels a little bit sick.
Same voice, same eyes, same Lucy.
Lucy Lane is James Olsen’s girlfriend. James knows she’s powered. Lucy knows she’s using her powers. This can’t end well.
Or could it?
She considers the possibilities, adjusting the likelihood each time another outcome occurs to her and as the probability of this having a good or decent outcome dwindles, her heart sinks lower right into her stomach and the way her pulse starts to jackhammer inside her, pound in her temple, makes her feel queasy. The world deadens, becomes leaden around her.
She’s jolted out of it by a gentle touch to her wrist. James peers over at her, rubs his thumb over the back of her hand.
“You alright?”
“Yeah. I’m,” Kara forces a smile. “I didn’t sleep much last night. Loads of assignments already.”
“You know, there are deck chairs in the quad,” Lucy tells her, and Kara is surprised enough to look up and right at her. There is no moment, no second where everything clicks, and Kara can’t see any recognition in her eyes. “You can sleep there or sit in the sun. It’s really nice.”
Kara nods. That does sound really nice.
They sit in a faintly awkward silence for only a minute, but it’s strained and feels like several long minutes. A buzzing phone rescues them and they each go diving for their phones.
“Mine, it’s mine,” Kara tells them, and she checks the message quickly, eyes widening. “Oh no.”
“Kara?”
“It’s almost eleven,” she tells him, already pushing her way out from the booth. “I have to go, I have work, I’m sorry I really have to go,” she says, and he nods.
“That’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, right? At the newspaper?”
“Yes, yeah of course. Lucy, nice to see you,”
“Nonsense, I’ll walk you out,” Lucy offers. “James, would you get my coffee to go?”
“Of course. See you, Kara. You can call me anytime.”
She nods at that and walks to the door, glances a few more times than necessary from the floor to the girl walking next to her. They step out into the sun, and Kara takes a few steps in the direction of the labs.
“I’m that way,” she points, and Lucy nods.
“Kara,” she says, and it sounds a little different from how she said her name earlier. More…thoughtful. It makes Kara nervous. “So you’re Clark’s cousin,” she continues, in a very light, nonchalant way.
The blood drains from Kara’s face and she clutches tight at the straps of her backpack. “I’m, he…” She sucks in a breath, tries for ease. “Who?”
“Clark Kent?”
The strap rips—quietly, under so much strain the threads simply pop open—and her bag falls to the ground, scattering her notebooks and papers. Kara dives for them, mumbles half-sentences and then just apologies as she picks them up.
Lucy kneels with her. She hands over one notebook, a few pages.
Kara eyes them warily, like Lucy is tricking her somehow, but takes them.
“Thanks.”
“Does he know?” Lucy jerks her head sideways, toward the cafe. Kara licks her lips. “I’m guessing he knows that you’re Clark’s cousin. Does he know you saved me?”
Kara shakes her head very slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Really? Because James is coming this way and I can talk louder if-“
“No! No, okay,” she darts a nervous look toward James, and then back to Lucy. “Yes,” she hisses. “It was me, okay? Just… Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
Lucy presses the last of the pages into Kara’s hand, a drawing, a sketch of a cafe from a week ago. “You’re very talented,” she tells her with a sweet smile, glancing down very obviously toward the page. Kara nods slowly, hearing James step up beside them. Kara stands first, and after a split second, offers a hand down to Lucy to help her up. She flushes when Lucy grins—that’s what she had done that night too.
And maybe, a little, because Lucy has very soft hands and she smells really nice.
“Thank you,” she says, and it sounds a bit overzealous for the compliment. “That’s, um, I’m still learning,” she hurries to say. She hugs her bag with its now broken straps to her chest.
“I’d love to see more some time.”
“Um. Yes, yeah maybe. I have to leave,” she blurts out, and steps around Lucy to head toward the labs.
“I’ll text you!” James calls after her and Kara turns, nods, taking care to give him a thumbs up and not the middle finger—that’s the rude finger, Kara remembers.
“Can you give me her number?” Kara picks up Lucy asking. She groans, darts another look back over her shoulder, and Lucy catches her. She winks.
After all that, it’s a bad idea to do it but Kara is going to be late for work if she doesn’t so she gathers up her things tightly and steps into the nearest clear side street and sets off at a sprint. Her version of a sprint.