Chapter 1
Where am I?
It’s dark here. There’s nothing but darkness, nothingness everywhere. I can’t even feel the bond. There’s voices though, all around me it feels like. Mom and Skye. Bruce trying to comfort them. I can hear Nat and Darcy too, I just can’t feel them.
What is this?
What the hell…oh wait, I remember what happened now.
Let’s start from the beginning.
I have been living in the Tower for almost a year now with Nat, Darcy and the team and it has been great. Despite the chaos my sister brings with her every time she visits. I pleaded with JARVIS to revoke her clearance after she came in the day of the press conference and ended up staying the weekend. Apparently Nat sold it as some prize for best cosplayer. Pepper was a little ticked at Nat starting a contest without her approval. The guys actually thought it was a great idea. They even started a pool as to see who would win the now monthly drawing. In the end it proved to be a great PR move and a lot of fun for everyone involved.
I did not have fun though with Skye’s visit. Okay that’s not true, I did. I love her and loved that the team cared enough to offer her a spot here. Tony more than eager to offer her a state of the art computer lab as tech support for both SI and the Avengers. Skye was shocked and deeply touched, saying she’d have to discuss it with her mom and dad. Darcy and Skye got along just like I knew they would.
Translation: they are two long lost demonic friends. Taking great enjoyment in pranking all of us. They single handedly started the biggest Nerf war I have ever seen or been a part of. I couldn’t kill Darcy, Nat wouldn’t let me. But after the continuous surprise attacks from Uncle Clint, popping out of every vent no matter how secure she made them, hitting her in the back of the head with foam arrow after foam arrow, she was ready to chuck my sister in the incinerator.
JARVIS refused to keep Skyenet out of the Tower. If I didn’t know better I’d swear the AI has a thing for my sister, but I prefer to think he just likes having her around to make Tony’s life miserable at times. Payback for all he’s had to put up with from his creator I guess.
Turns out with Steve, Nat and Uncle Clint now full time Avengers instead of SHIELD agents, Fury decided to post Coulson and his team at the New York office. Only that Ward guy seemed to be unhappy about it, while Coulson and Melinda found it perfect. They bought a place in the city and are giving Skye a real sense of family now, making up for lost time. Skye acts like it’s embarrassing, but I can see how much it means to her. She even changed her name legally to Coulson-May, proving my point all the more. Both Coulson and May consider me and mom family and just like they can visit us at the Tower now, we are free to drop in on them anytime we want. Fury is family as well. I thought the whole reason behind his actions was because he thinks of us the same way. And he does now, but Nat also made the comment that he might be sentimental at times, in the end he never does anything without a reason. Guess we’re just going to have to wait to see what that is.
Despite there still being those out there uncomfortable with me being on earth, much less part of the Avengers, the public still supports me. I have my cosplayers still. I drop in on a few playgrounds when I’m patrolling the city, playing with the kids and showing off my powers to them. All in all the city is pretty accepting of Supergirl. Most of the tabloids have even ranked me as the most powerful Avenger. Considering I fight beside a giant green guy who gets stronger the angrier he gets and a genius that can actually build an atomic bomb in his basement, I have to say it is quite the ego boost.
Sadly it was short lived.
***
I came clean with the team about where Jor-El and the scout ship are located, the North Pole. I didn’t give the exact spot and so far Tony is keeping his eyes in the sky from looking for it. I told them he and the ship are the last pieces I have of Krypton and they respect and understand what that means to me. Jor-El in fact wanted to show his gratitude to the team and my family for all that they have done for me. So when I brought my Stark Smartphone to him one day, he augmented it a little. Installing a secure data link and communication line between it and him. Meaning now I can call him up from the Tower and he can link up with us on a secure secret server Skye installed for him with JARVIS’ help.
That’s not the only piece of home I have though it turns out.
During a fight with a mad scientist who constructed his own 80’s looking robot army, I managed to rip the front open of one of them to expose its green rock like power core. Once exposed to the familiar looking meteor fragment I immediately got sick, feeling weak and nauseous the more I was around it. The others had to get me out of the fight and finish them off without me. Once that was done Tony did a scan on the rock and discovered some interesting and troublesome facts about it. Turns out that the meteor rocks are indeed fragments of Krypton that landed here on earth with me and my ship. Thus earning it the name Kryptonite. The radiation they give off is relatively harmless to humans and is capable of being used as a power source. But to me it is deadly. Minor exposure brings on nausea and loss of strength. Prolonged exposure could be fatal. Ingesting or being pierced by Kryptonite could kill me.
With the discovery, and learning that Kryptonite isn’t just found here in the states, Stark is pulling his resources, Natasha is calling in favors from contacts overseas. Even Coulson and Fury are working on it, without involving SHIELD too much in the search. Together they are having all samples and traces of Kryptonite brought to the Tower. Where it will be held safe and out of reach from those who would use it against me in a led vault. The only thing that seems to shield me from the deadly radiation. As you can imagine my family and bond aren’t taking the news that I am no longer as indestructible as I used to be. Though with Nat and the others watching my back in the field, and knowing the signs now of exposure and how to protect myself, I have nothing to worry about. Life goes on for us as usual. Well almost.
I may have finally said ‘I love you’ to both Nat and Darcy, separately and in different ways. I still am not quite comfortable taking things to the next level. It’s been a year together and still the thought that I could hurt either of them if we do get intimate festers in my mind. I know they keep saying they’re okay with things as they are and I believe them. There are times when I’m with one of them, kissing and making out, hands wandering under clothes or on bare skin, I get so wrapped up it in and the bond that I want to just give in to the moment and show them how much I love them. Then I flash back to that jock and what I did to him and it’s like being doused in cold water. I can see they really want to let go to, but they still have each other so for now they’re ok to leave things as they are.
***
To mark the anniversary of my coming out of the superhero closet, Fury is finally willing to hand over a piece of Kryptonian tech they discovered in the same area as the scout ship I…reclaimed.
Crystals.
Or to be more precise Crystal Technology, an ancient and still very powerful form of construction and information storage system used by the very first Kryptonians. According to Jor-El, a construction crystal could be used to build anything from a ship, a building or even an entire continent. Each structure would contain powerful technology, like more advanced computers and weapons. The storage crystals could contain vast amounts of information from the dawn of Kryptonian civilization, to the dawn of the universe itself. Information on other races, hospitable worlds. He even theorized, and secretly hoped, that it could also contain records of lost outposts and settlements of ancient Kryptonians. Which wouldn’t make me the only one in existence anymore. I was hopeful too. But also a little worried, given that if they came to earth they would develop powers just like mine thanks to our physiology mixed with the yellow sun. But I was not going to dwell on that until, or even if it becomes necessary.
Unfortunately the crystals were stolen from the SHIELD team that were going to deliver them to me at Avengers Tower. Natasha and Clint are questioning the agents that ‘miraculously’ survived the attack on their transport. The rest of the team looked in to the theft itself. Coulson and his team were even brought in to help, given that they had received Intel from Fury suggesting Justin Hammer might be behind it. The weapons mogul is skating on thin ice with SHIELD and the Avengers these days over his drone demonstration. His band of lawyers are just as cunning as Tony’s and got him out of that trouble. At least for now, we can’t touch him.
While the team worked their angles, I decided to head over and check in with Skye as she worked from their loft like apartment over a gym owned by an old friend of May’s. Figures she’d want a place she can rest, work out and train Skye from. Skye loves her bonding times with her mom. Saying she’s having just as much fun and learning a lot from her dad too.
~~~
“Clint and Nat are convinced those agents are lying and hiding something. Your mom and dad are going through their personnel files now. You having any luck finding a connection between them and Hammer?” I asked coming in and plopping down on the couch beside Skye as she typed franticly away on her laptop.
“Not yet, but I did find something a little weird. Remember those holes in the SHIELD firewalls I told you about. How Uncle Nick has tasked me with tracking down any other breaches in SHIELD’s systems and plugging them up.”
“Yeah.”
“Well turns out someone used one of these holes to access the plans he had of handing over the crystals to the Avengers. Then the original agents assigned to the detail got pulled and our new friends ended up taking their place,” Skye explained.
“I don’t like where you’re going with this,” I told her honestly.
“Neither do I,” Skye breathed anxiously, “Which is why I want you to give me something else to think about while I work on this.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Skye answered, the corner of her mouth rising in an evil half smirk, “Why don’t you tell me why you and Darcy aren’t getting busy.”
“What?” I asked, clearly not believing she just said what she said, little own knows about our lack of a sex life. “Why would you…how do you even…?”
“We text.”
“And share your weird cat videos, I know,” I groaned tossing my head back, “Seriously, that girl has no filter or off button. Can’t believe she told you about that.”
“She mentioned it once, quickly regretted it and swore me to never speak of it,” Skye said laughing.
“Then why are you speaking of it. You know this crosses some serious TMI boundaries between sisters, right?”
“True,” Skye agreed looking over at me with warm eyes, “But the reason I speak of it is because I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy. I love Darcy and Nat. You know I do,” I reminded her.
“I do. But I also know what’s keeping you from taking things to the next level with them. Cementing the bond between the three of you until you find your fourth,” Skye began, placing her laptop on the coffee table in front of us and patting her lap. Shaking my head at her but in the end accepting the offer, I laid my head down in her lap. Skye went right to work petting my head just like she used to when we were younger and I was having a rough day. “Kara you are amazing. You have come a long way from the country mouse I remember. I am so proud of you, embracing your power and using it to save people openly now. Instead of in the shadows or blurring around.”
I laughed softly and closed my eyes, feeling calm and safe as I listened to my sister. “What happened to that deserving asshole will not happen with Natasha or Darcy. They won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, you know that. They love you and want to be with you, just like you want to be with them. You just have to have a little faith in yourself. I know you and they know you. You would never do anything to hurt them. Trust in that and in them and…you know.”
“Let the sheets fall where they may,” I finished laughing.
“Good a way as any to end this discussion,” Skye replied knocking on my head before bending down to place a kiss to my cheek. “Love you nerdy country mouse.”
“Love you too city hacker rat.”
Even though I’m the big sister, Skye has looked after me more than I have had to for her. She’s just self-sufficient. A sad result of her time in the system and living on her own. She always knows just what to do and what to say to calm me down and help me out though, which is always appreciated.
Trust myself. Advice I probably, eventually, would have figured out on my own. But hearing the way Skye put it made me feel confident in it. Confident enough to maybe…probably…make the first move on Nat or Darcy to show them I’m finally ready. Or I could just slip out now, head to the Tower and pull Darcy up to my room to really break it in. If I did that though Skye would never let me live it down.
Those thoughts, along with our sisterly moment, came to an end when all power in the room went out. Skye looked at her dead laptop, then me, than both of us were on our feet checking our phones while moving to the window. Our phones were dead and I could hear people all over the neighborhood, in the street and beyond having the same problem. There was also some very dark clouds forming on the horizon, only making the situation seem more disturbing.
“Hammer,” Skye deduced.
“Has to be.”
“Another drone mishap?”
“Not a chance,” I assured her, “JARVIS has eyes in the sky. He’d see a drone or any potential threat moving in on the Tower and the city long before it got the chance to strike. No this is something else. Something worse.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? A cry for help? Get your caped ass in gear and go stop it,” Skye said crossing her arms and glaring at me, a look that would have made her parents proud.
“Whatever you say agent,” I replied, pulling off my shirt to reveal the S of my suit. A quick spin and I was soon standing there in my full suit. The material like a second skin, making it easy to conceal under my street clothes. The cape and boots are another story.
Skye stepped back after opening the window and I flew out faster than the eye could see and shot up in to the sky to get a better idea of just what the situation was we are dealing with here.
~~~