i told you i'm not bulletproof

The signs, the glaring, obvious signs, line up so easily in hindsight. Of course, Kara is an alien. Lena personally catalogued all the evidence into a spreadsheet.

Kara’s stronger than she looks— stronger than she has any right to be. Impossibly fast. She eats an unholy amount of food each day. Her hearing— well, that one very well might just be secretarial nosiness, but she’s still turned it into an art form. The lack of any physical proof of her existence before the age of 13 is so obvious, it galls Lena that she hadn’t dug further into it, rather than chalking it all up to grief that Kara clammed up like she was in witness protection every time her life before the Danvers was mentioned. For Christ's sake, she’s friends with an alien. Worse than being gullible, worse than being a damned fool, Lena is left with the truth: the ugly, shameful reality, that she had known. She’d just been too much of a coward to accept what was in front of her.

Kara Danvers is an alien.

And she hadn’t trusted Lena to know. 

And why would she? What possible reason would Kara have to trust her? Maybe because Lena had risked her own life trying to keep Kara from getting herself shot during an ill-advised break-in to a crime lord’s office? Or maybe because Lena arranged the rescue of Kara’s alien friend? Or maybe even because they’ve worked 60 hour weeks together for more than two years and Kara is the only friend she has and has Lena really still not earned the basic courtesy of honesty?

But no, none of that matters— none of that could ever have mattered against the sheer, insurmountable fact that no alien with any sense would announce themselves to someone with Lena’s last name.  What had Kara come looking for, Lena wonders, throat burning with another sip. What Luthor secrets had she decided were important enough to get in bed with the devil?

In the morning, head pounding, Lena storms into the office. Kara’s desk is empty. A couple reports sit by her computer, abandoned where she’d left them last night. Lena marches straight to the computer, dropping gracelessly into the creaking chair with its floral pink coverlet, and types in the password Kara still keeps on a post-it in the third drawer down despite Lena’s repeated reminders to destroy it. It’s a randomly generated passcode Lena had written down for her after another of the mandatory resets every two months. Kara has outlined Lena’s sharp, angular numbers with doodles of little stars and flowers. Lena drops the note in the shredder.

She combs through emails, file access histories, the backlogs of the company printer: anything and everything that Kara might have used to sell or smuggle company data. She finds nothing. Lena looks further, digging into Kara’s image files, looking through old saved voicemails. She scours her office for taps Kara could have left on the phones or hidden cameras. She finds nothing. The most incriminating thing Kara keeps on her office computer is a long term, if sparse, chat with Clark Kent that doesn’t contain a single slipped L-Corp detail, but does contain a brief exchange dated to a few days after the Venture interview. Kara wishes him a smooth flight back to Metropolis and says it was nice to see him again, and Clark Kent responds with the inexplicably ominous reply “I hope you know what you’re doing.” The response becomes more comprehensible as Lena scrolls backward and finds several pages worth of arguments. Clark Kent is interminably polite even as he all but suggests Lena is an evil witch who drinks human blood. What a brood the pair of them are. If they’re even related at all.

Why bother? Lena thinks, sitting back in the chair. If Kara were here for the files, she’d been granted full access years ago. She could have sold off what she wanted and waited a few extra months to avoid suspicion and still be gone by now. Why keep up the act? Why stick around? She hasn’t even tried to access Lena’s designs for the alien detection device, and Lena’s certain she could have seized those if she tried.

Lena lowers her throbbing head into her hands. This is all worthless— baseless speculation, guesses at motive, trying to read the thoughts of a stranger. She’d never really known Kara. She’d realized that the day Clark Kent walked into her office demanding answers about the Venture disaster. She thinks about the pressed plumeria in Kara’s apartment, the excited gleam in her eye as she loaded Lena’s mug with marshmallows. She thinks about the bombing and Kara slamming her to the ground with what she’d known even then was inhuman force. Why? Why protect her? Why be her friend?

She thinks about Kara’s answer, when she’d asked her why Clark Kent’s cousin would work for a Luthor.

You are going to change the world, and I’m going to be here helping you do it. 

Would Lena have hired her, if she’d known? Certainly not, if Kara had walked in and set off the door sensor. But if she’d been honest? If Kara had told her?

No, Lena thinks. No, she would not have. Lena wouldn’t have been willing to take the risk.

In the absence of anger, an unbearable wave of exhaustion strikes. Rage would be easier than this. Hatred, betrayal, could drive her steps forward. Instead, familiar, paralyzing doubt creeps around her ankles, securing her firmly to the scrap covered floor.

The look on Kara’s face. Like she was suddenly discovering who Lena is, and she didn’t like what she’d found.

There’s an incinerator in the third floor lab. Her device crackles as it melts. Bits of the door handle spit sparks alongside her other prototypes. The destruction of her designs is less dramatic. A few keystrokes wipe them from the L-Corp servers, leaving only the copy Lena had been editing on her personal computer. She murmurs a quiet apology, and leaves that one where it is. She cannot afford to throw away all her tools. Not now. Even if they turn out to be weapons. Especially then.

She calls Alice, after. The office needs to be cleaned.

The car pulls silently into the familiar alley outside Kara’s building. Lena has always wondered why Kara lives in such a terrible neighborhood. With the salary she pays, Kara could afford a penthouse downtown. When asked why she would instead choose to live in a neighborhood with one of the highest crime rates in town, Kara had always said she just really liked her apartment. Spacious though that apartment might be, as Lena looks around the lot, she comes to a second possibility for Kara’s reasoning. It’s a perfectly lovely place for someone who wants a landlord who asks no questions, who wants neighbors who’d never call the police except as a last resort, or who needs to reserve money for a food budget the size of a small army. Under the streetlamps, it looks far less ominous than it had that first night, when they’d returned from Roulette’s club, but dread still slows Lena’s steps as she approaches the lobby. The elevator is an ancient, rickety thing, complete with iron gate. Its slow, jerky rise to the fourth floor gives Lena plenty of time to think of what she’s going to say, and yet when her feet come to a halting stop outside 4A, Lena finds that all her thoughts have seeped out the bottom of her shoes and dripped to the bottom of the shaft. There’s no excuse to offer, no reasons greater than what she’d said last night. Only the truth. What good will the truth be to her now?

The lights are on in Kara’s apartment. Lena hovers in the doorway, hand outstretched, willing herself to think of something, anything.

The TV blares in an apartment down the hall.

A cat yowls.

Lena finds her nerve.

She delivers three sharp knocks. The echo in the silent hallway. There’s no sound from inside, only the light still shining under the door to tell her Kara is home.

“It’s me,” Lena says, her voice unexpectedly hoarse. “I just want to talk.”

The door stays shut. There are no approaching footsteps, no rebuke to send her from the apartment. Kara does not answer.

And why would she, a sneering voice whispers in Lena’s mind. What would she ever want to do with you? The voice sounds like Lex. Lena buries it.

She addresses her words to the peeling white paint. “You don’t need to worry,” Lena says. “I destroyed it. I understand if that doesn’t change how you feel, but I thought you should know.” Lena hesitates. “I’m sorry, Kara. I know that it isn’t worth anything, but I’m sorry.”

As she walks slowly back to the elevator, a childish part of Lena waits for the door to spring open behind her, for Kara to step out, resigned and angry but willing to listen. The hallway is silent and dark as Lena closes the iron gate of the elevator. She spares a single glance behind as her driver opens the passenger door. Kara’s curtains are open. She’s bought a new flower— a large, red tropical thing. Light dances across it: the TV must be on. Lena wonders if she muted it before or after Lena knocked. The voice that sounds like Lex laughs.

Lena’s apartment is cold. Her doorman nods curtly to her as he sends her up, the door unlocking at a touch of the handle. A thumbprint scan, not a DNA test, but Lena’s stomach turns regardless. She’s never much liked it here— never spent much time here— but it does have one thing.

Lena drops her purse by the door and makes a beeline for the kitchen, to the tall glass-fronted shelf next to an antique china cabinet she had neither requested nor ever used and pulls out a bottle at random. She snags a multi-tool, sets herself back down on the world’s least comfortable couch, and glances to see what she’s acquired. It’s wine, an expensive red she’d been given at some function or other by a woman she had not really known except that she was the founder of an up-and-coming but dubious tech company and hoped to curry favor. Lena thinks she might have had dark hair. She pops the cork and takes a long draft. It’s sweet— cloying. Her mouth puckers at the taste even as she keeps swallowing. She sets it down roughly on the coffee table, ignoring the way the flavor coats her tongue and throat. The glass top of the table cracks under the bottle, and wine sputters out of its mouth, splattering her couch in dark crimson. Lena stares at it for a moment, watching the stain spread and set, and then she laughs. She laughs until her ribs ache and her throat is worn and the sound that leaves her mouth isn’t a laugh at all but a strangled, out-of-breath sob. She curls forward onto the couch and cries until her cheeks are dry and burning.

She leaves the stain when she goes to bed. She takes the bottle. 

The next day, Lena is late for work for the first time since Lex’s trial. She keeps her sunglasses high on her nose against the headsplitting office LEDs, makes a cursory nod to Matt and Greg at the front desk, and enters the elevator wishing she hadn’t already consumed her daily allotment of tylenol. The doors open to a fresh hell of blinding hallway lights, and Lena walks quickly past Kara, typing away at her desk, tugs off her coat, and—

Lena freezes.

She turns.

Kara is sitting at her desk. She gives Lena a tight-lipped nod before returning to her emails. Lena opens her mouth, shuts it, and steps into her office without a word. Papers are neatly stacked on her desk. Her schedule, complete with helpful if sterile annotations, sits by her pen stand. The documents she requested yesterday regarding the dissolution of one of the Metropolis labs sit a few inches to the left, sorted and labeled. Slowly, Lena looks over at Kara, disguising the movement behind her sunglasses. The door still sits open, caught on its usual prop. Despite the quick repair of the spot where Lena had carved into the wall to access the wiring, her crew hasn’t gotten around to replacing the door handle yet. Kara, as always, senses Lena’s intent, meeting her gaze through the reflective lens.

Lena’s never found Kara a particularly hard person to read. Kara wears her passion on her face, even when she lies. Today, Lena meets Kara’s eye and has no idea what she sees. It isn’t a lack of expression that blinds her. Rather, Kara’s face shifts from one emotion to the next, an overwhelming maelstrom of displeasure that only ends when Kara looks away, pushing her glasses up her nose and staring pointedly down at her own work. Whatever Kara’s motive in returning, Lena’s not naive enough to mistake that for forgiveness.

But then what is this? Had Kara been listening last night? Had she decided to give Lena another chance? If that was the case, why not say anything? Was she waiting to see what Lena would do? Was this some kind of test?  If it is, Lena will not allow herself to fail.

Lena’s fragile hope begins  to crack as the day wears on. Kara performs her duties. She announces Lena’s guests, takes notes, sends memos, schedules conference calls, and doesn’t speak one word Lena that isn’t strictly necessary all the while. She sets her unusually spartan notes next to Lena after meetings, neatly organized into bullet-points— recommendations and questions about Lena’s plans for future action— and flees the room. The rest of her communication comes through emails and memos, and Lena matches in kind. It burns a little, the way the world keeps turning. The way L-Corp doesn’t burst into a column of flame with the loss. In truth, Lena never needed Kara to personally deliver each and every memo to her desk or to have lengthy discussions about minor meetings with advertisers. Kara doesn’t hover by Lena’s desk when she drops off her coffee or ask idle about her day, and Lena doesn’t ask her questions about projects they both know damn well she already knows the answers to. Sometimes, when Lena glances up at her across the hall, Kara hardly seems present. She stares unblinkingly at her blank computer, hands bunched into fists on her desk.

It won’t last. The stillness, the silence. This unnatural peace will only stretch so far. Lex and Lionel were hardly similar, he’d always taken after Lillian, but they’d shared one thing: They were calm until they weren’t. Lena sits in her silent office and waits for the other shoe to drop.

It becomes clear by lunch that Kara will not be the one to initiate conversation. She marches into Lena’s office at the end of a marketing meeting and informs her that she’s putting in a lunch order at Dai Ho. Lena has hardly confirmed her usual order before Kara is scurrying back to her desk and calling in the order for pickup. Lena picks at her cold noodles and considers her predicament. The food itself is not an inspiring sign. It’s one of Kara’s favorite places, one she usually suggests during the exhausting late nights planning L-Corp’s yearly conference or after Lena’s mother calls.

A piece of cucumber meets Lena’s tongue and turns bitter. It all feels so superficial now. These tiny habits and idiosyncrasies that Lena cultivated and hunted and guarded like some precious treasure. Fritters and decoration against a gaping dark hole of ignorance. Had Kara eaten dumplings like that with her family? Did she even have the same nutritional requirements as a human? Were they just for flavor?

Lena clicks on the news. Anything to cut the silence and sounds of chewing. She shuts it off immediately as a report of Supergirl’s latest skirmish fills the screen. An attack on a power plant, witness reports of flying, humanoid aliens, unknown number of combatants, possible casualties. Acid rises in the back of Lena’s mouth. Fort Rozz, it has to be.

She looks back at Kara. Her pot-stickers sit open and untouched on her desk.

They have to talk about it. From a purely professional standpoint, this note-based system isn’t going to last, and from a personal one…

Does Lena tell Kara that she knows? It feels strange— wrong— to go about their lives as normal, as though nothing has changed. Things won’t be like they used to be, God knows that ship has sailed, but that doesn’t mean they can’t build something new, maybe even something better. Now that Lena knows the truth, there don’t have to be secrets anymore. Kara can be honest with her. There is so much Lena wants to know— where is she from? What was her planet like? What did they eat? Where did they live? L-Corp’s technology must look like the stone ages to her. What does Earth look like through Kara’s eyes?

But…

But if Kara leans that Lena used her device to pull out Kara’s deepest secret, however unintentionally… Lena swallows and sets down her chopsticks. No, they can’t keep ignoring this. It was a beautiful dream. And dreams end.

Lena knocks quietly on the doorframe as she approaches. Kara doesn’t seem to notice. She’s staring at nothing again.

“Kara,” Lena begins, “about last night…”

Kara doesn’t react. Her knuckles are clenched into white fists. She hardly seems to breathe.

“Kara?” Lena asks. She sets a hand on her shoulder—

Kara flinches.

The panic with which she whips around is one thing, but it’s the way her blouse bunches away from her shoulders that catches Lena’s heart in her throat.

“What— What happened?” Lena asks, as Kara snatches up her collar to cover the ring of bruises on her chest.

“It’s nothing, Ms. Luthor, really,” Kara says, and God she’s always been a terrible liar. Her eyes dart around the room as she continues, “I just— umm. Knocked over a bookshelf! Yes. In my apartment. Clumsy ol’ me!” The laugh she gives is painfully fake, and Kara cringes, scratching absentmindedly at the shoulder Lena knows is mottled green with half-faded bruises— half-faded but deep. An injury like that should have sent her to the hospital, and Lena says as much.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Kara insists, a vice grip on her collar, “I bruise easy, you know that!”

Lena knows no such thing. Haymakers to the nose aside, Kara has always been unusually durable. Lena had always figured it was the natural consequence of being the least coordinated person on Earth. A few months ago she’d gotten distracted by some papers and walked into a wall— and left a dent in the drywall the shape of her face. For the love of God, how had Lena never realized—

“Winn,” Lena says, forcing herself back to focus, “you said he was upset, when you refused him.”  

Kara’s brow quirks and she hesitates for a moment under Lena’s pointed stare before her eyes widen. “Winn would never!” She says, aghast, “He’s not— He’s— How could you even think that?”

“Then who?” Lena asks. “When did this happen?

“I told you, I just—”

“Kara, you have told me some truly impressive lies in the time you’ve worked for me, and that one still might be the worst.”

Kara flounders. Her eyes are wide with panic, her shoulders hunched. Lena’s stomach twists.

She starts again, more gently, “Did it happen before or after I visited your apartment last night?”

“You came to my apartment?”

Lena’s head cocks. That… sounded like genuine confusion.

“Around nine,” Lena says. Kara’s face wrinkles in concentration and then flickers. An emotion buried too quickly for Lena to read, and unusually for Kara, buried well. “The lights were on,” Lena continues, watching her carefully. “I knocked. I assumed you didn’t want to talk.”

“Oh,” Kara says, her face unreadable.

“Were you… out?”

“No, I was there. I just— I was sleeping.”

And there it is again, that flicker. That bundle of emotion Kara is putting all her effort into obscuring.

“Sleeping?” Lena asks. There’s something off about Kara’s words. An unnatural hesitation.

Kara nods. It’s somehow both hasty and uncertain.

“Kara,” Lena asks slowly, “did this happen in your apartment?”

“No,” Kara says immediately. It’s the least convincing lie she’s ever told.

Horror slicks Lena’s thoughts. Knocking, talking to a silent door, the light pooling beneath it, proving Kara was home. She’d been right there. She could have tried the door. She could have shouted. She could have— if she’d known— she’d been right there.

“You need to move,” Lena says.

“Lena!”

Lena shakes her head, brushing away Kara’s disbelief. “You need to move! Why do you still live there? It’s not even nearby. And it’s so unsafe—”

“We have a security guard!”

Lena stares at her. “The 80 year old chain smoker who slept through us entering the building during a power outage?”

“He’s quicker than you’d think!”

“And your neighbor who keeps trying to sell you drugs because you ‘look down’?”

“Lucas has agreed to stop making meth in the complex!”

“He was cooking in the apartment?!”

“Well it wasn’t Lucas who did this, was it!”

Kara’s chest heaves. The eyes that meet Lena’s are watery but determined. The confirmation hangs in the air between them.

“Ever since the move,” Lena says, watching Kara’s hands fidget on the desk, “you’ve been missing work. You disappear all the time. You forget meetings. You’re late everyday. Even when you’re here, you’re distracted.” Her eyes follow Kara’s hands up to her face as Kara adjusts her glasses. “Has this happened before?”

“No,” Kara says quickly. Lena opens her mouth, but then Kara adds, “nothing like this.”

The second admission drops onto Lena’s shoulders like a physical weight. Trying to keep her voice level, Lena asks, “Are the two related?”

Kara brushes a lock of hair out of her face and takes a breath before looking up. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” she says, offering a soft smile. Back to this, then. Back to masks. “Everything is okay, Lena, really.” It’s such an obvious attempt to soothe and deflect her concern it’s almost insulting, but so practiced a fresh wave of dread coils Lena’s insides.

“Whatever this is… Kara, you aren’t alone,” Lena says, reaching out a hand. Kara shifts back as her hand approaches, and Lena pulls away. “I can help you,” Lena pleads.

Kara laughs. It slips out of her in a cruel bark she muzzles instantly. “No, you can’t.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean? “I might surprise you!” Lena argues. “If you would just tell me what’s going on— I know you’re angry with me, but please—.”

“I don’t want your help. I don’t need it.” Kara insists, pushing herself to her feet. There’s a strange sort of desperation that colors her voice as she continues, “what I want is for you to stay out of it!”

“I will leave it alone if you can tell me someone else is watching out,” Lena says hotly, “someone who knows you’ve decided to come into work this morning. Why—” Lena shakes her head in disbelief,“—Why are you here? Did you even see a doctor?” Kara opens her mouth with the familiar retort and Lena says, “and don’t tell me your sister looked it over and just let you walk away. If she’s sworn any oath at all and seen that, you’d been sitting in an emergency room right now.”

“I’m fine!” Kara insists, voice cracking. “I don’t need a doctor! I can handle it on my own! I don’t— It’s all taken care of. Nothing to worry about.”

“Why?” Lena demands. “How can you know—”

“Because my uncle’s not here anymore!”

The air in Lena’s lungs turns to ice. Lena freezes, mouth still half open with another retort, staring at Kara, at the horror in her eyes and the hand she has clamped over her mouth.

Lena lets out a breath—

“Coffee!” Kara calls as she steps into the office. Lena puts her pen down with no small amount of relief, sweeping away her notes and laptop in one motion. If she had to spend one more minute annotating expense reports… Well, whatever she did she’d make sure Lex suffered the brunt of it. It’s truly incredible how many shell corporations a man can make during a single psychopathic spiral.

The coffee reaches her nose. Lena smiles and looks up— For God’s sake, Kara.

“Are you limping?”

Kara sets down the coffee with a wince. “My sister and I joined a kickboxing class,” she says, offering Lena a chagrined smile, “but I think I took more of the kicks than Alex.”

Lena stares at her. Why would she be kicked in a kickboxing class? Are they— Is Kara legitimately suggesting that she and her sister have begun MMA fighting each other for fun? Do they have a cage fighting gym? Is that a thing? The image of Kara, in a tank top, sweaty and throwing a punch floats unbidden to the front of Lena’s brain. She should stop asking questions.

Kara sets a short list of reminders next to Lena’s coffee and refills her glass of water. Her fingers graze over Lena’s shoulder as she pulls away, and Lena tries not to tense too noticeably under her touch.

Kara pauses at the door. “Lena, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” Lena says, still fighting to purge her mind of the sweat glistening off Kara’s biceps.

“Do you think you could’ve gotten through to Lex?”

Lena stiffens. Her nails dig into the flesh of her palms painfully as a thousand responses rise eagerly to her lips— the practice of a thousand hateful questions from a thousand hateful mouths… but never Kara’s. Kara stares at her, unblinking and unbreathing. Does she know the icy blade she’s lodged between Lena’s ribs?

“No,” Lena says.

It doesn’t seem to be the answer Kara is hoping for. Her eyes drop from Lena’s as she nods and steps quietly from the office, letting the door shut silently behind her.

Lena looks down at her expense reports. A sudden violent urge grips her. She snatches up the coffee and holds it aloft. A single scalding drop slips over the brim and onto her fingers. Lena hovers there, the heat from the cup slowly stinging her skin. Even now, she sits nestled in the hollow of his shadow, chasing his madness, hoping for motive. Even now, he tows her faithfully along— never having to so much as glance back in concern. What’s the lesson today, Lena wonders. Appropriate filing? The futility of charitable donations without an ulterior motive? Of course, there was only ever one lesson Lex had truly desired to teach her, in as many masks as there were bodies he’d buried: whatever Lex did, wherever he went, Lena would always be following.

The drop reaches the end of her skin and drips, cooled and harmless, onto the margin of her notes. It soaks into the page, leaving a cream colored circle in the paper. Lena sets the cup back down. She blots the stain with a Kleenex, and she goes to work.

Lena had meant what she said to Roulette when called Lex’s bombing of her speech a warning shot. Lex had left his payments to Corben obvious intentionally. He’d wanted Lena to know who was killing her and why. On the contrary, if the account Roulette is paying is his, he’s hid it well. That doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t his or even that he never intended Lena to find it. He’s usually a bit more subtle with his messages than paying an assassin out of Lena’s own company funds. Lena has found a few L-Corp projects funneling money through the account. They’re filed under L-Corp’s charity outreach departments, the only additional information he’d cared to leave behind, a small note reading “medical research”. Lena supposes it would be too easy to simply call down and ask for clarification, and, indeed, not a single member of her medical charities team has any idea what the donations could be, nor do any of her accountants— the few who have remained in their positions since Lex’s arrest. That is the problem with your CEO deciding to become a supervillain, between the murders, mass-arrests, and subsequent mass-quits, institutional memory goes out the window.

Aside from the fact that no one seems to have ever heard of them, the payments carry none of the usual subterfuge that accompanies Lex’s typical laundering schemes …Except that the board member who co-signed with Lex was Leonard Hiccox, and even if Lena had been unaware of the Roulette connection, that name would have given her pause.

Hiccox was a useful idiot: rich and pedigreed enough to be granted a seat at the table, but never at its head. He’d been removed two months before Lex went mad, after he’d gotten drunk enough at a local golf course, the owner had him hauled away by police— itself a result of some unpleasant comments regarding the owner’s brother and some incident involving a waitress, golf cart, and three pink golf balls. Lena’s been assured the color of the balls is relevant, but she’s never been given enough of the tale to know why. Nor had she really wanted to. Regardless, it had been an unlikely lucky break for Hiccox. Lena doubts he would have survived the events of Lex’s attack on Metropolis— his successor hadn’t— and even if he had, his only reward would have been a matching prison sentence.

Lex had used him as a rubber stamp. He was always too hungover to actually read anything Lex handed him and apathetic enough not to ask questions. Lena doubts he has any in-depth knowledge about the payments, but he might’ve picked up a detail over the years— one of the so many Lex had kept away from Lena’s ears. She glances down the hall, Kara should have Hiccox’s contact somewhere. As always, Kara seems to sense Lena’s need. Her head pops up to meet Lena’s gaze. They’ve been leaving the office door open, lately, just since the club.

Hiccox’s response comes at a speed that only just qualifies as overeager, and contains an invitation to lunch at the Ogilvin Hotel. Evidently, he’s rented out the entire skyline bar. Lena tries not to resent his generosity as she ascends the glass elevator and watches the city sprawl out beneath her. The doors split and open to the restaurant— a garden of sleek black tables and tile flooring. A low fireplace burns across the right wall, boxy modern crystal lights glint above her, and Leonard Hiccox looks up from his table.

“Lena!” Leonard calls to her. His ruddy face splits with a beaming smile. He stands hurriedly, a slightly ungainly stumble that he plays off easily, pulling out her chair and saying, “please, sit.”

Sweat beads at the edge of his carefully combed hair. He’s doing well so far: his hands don’t tremble on the back of her chair.

“It’s good to see you, Leonard,” Lena says, taking the offered chair. “It’s been too long.”

“Absolutely too long,” Leonard agrees. “I haven’t seen you in-person since… damn, when was it?”

“Albert Marl’s Christmas party,” Lena supplies. They both know he’d seen her at the trial. Lena’s glad enough to avoid the mention of it. He’d been in the audience during Lex’s first trial. Lena had spotted him before she was called to the stand. He hadn’t been at the second. Not many people had. No one wanted to risk it.

“That was a good night,” Hiccox says, settling back into his chair. “Bert knew how to have fun. And he always had those little cherries, you remember? His wife brandied them herself.”

“I remember grabbing one before the waiters barred me from the back table.”

Leonard’s face curls in confusion, and then his eyes widen and he laughs with such force he shakes the table. “That’s right! Oh, I’d forgotten about that! You were celebrating.” Lena had recently graduated from her Ph.D. The second half of her research with Jack had passed peer review and been published a few days earlier.

“And Lex decided to arrange a game,” Lena says.

“He told the waiters you were underage,” Hiccox chortles. Lena had technically still been a few months short of her 21st birthday. Lex had threatened the waitstaff with legal action if she was served. His way of spicing up the evening. They both knew slight inebriation was the only way to survive those endless parties.

“As I recall,” Hiccox continues, with a twinkle in his eye, “I found you climbing through a kitchen window with a Negroni in one hand.”

“And as I recall, you agreed not to call the waiters if I smuggled you the bottle of Macallan 40 after you were cut off by the bar.”

“And I regret nothing! Bert was always too stingy around the holidays,” Hiccox says, waving his hand. Bert didn’t want Hiccox drinking through all his best liquor like it was water. “If only Lionel were there,” Hiccox continues. “Your father knew how to enjoy Christmas. Did I ever tell you about our fishing trip up near Niagra in ’92?” He had told her— at least four times— but Lena doesn’t mind the repeat. There are few enough people to share stories of her adoptive father. Most of the people who knew him well are dead, in prison, or refuse to associate with his family name. Or are named Lillian.

“If Lionel had caught the waiters refusing to serve you…” Hiccox breaks off his story with a hiccuping laugh, “I remember when he would bring you around the office when you were little. We were in a board meeting this one time and Richard kept interrupting with some idiotic idea about selling off the laser-cutter patent, wouldn’t shut up. And Lionel turned around—” Hiccox’s voice cracks with laughter. “—and asked you what you thought, since he was pretty sure you could think up a more cost-effective solution. Only it turned out you’d been paying attention. You had all these notes in crayon, and you started presenting your solution then and there.” Tears form in Hiccox’s eyes as his shoulders shake. “Wasn’t even a that bad of an idea, once you ironed it out a bit. And the look on Richard’s face…” Hiccox wipes his eyes. “He always doted on you. Sometimes I wish… No.” Hiccox’s face darkens. “Better the way it happened. He died asleep, with a strong business and successful children. May we all be given that peace.”   Lena sips her drink and meets Leonard’s toast. She wouldn’t disagree. Lillian met her son’s madness with the usual resolve. Lena would say she hardened, but there hadn’t been much of her that was soft to begin with. Still, whatever there had been, it had always been reserved for her son. Once, when Lex caught a bad flu after a trip abroad in highschool, Lena found Lillian standing over him, watching him as he slept, her hand outstretched as though she’d moved to stroke his hair and thought better of it. In her face, Lena had found something unexpected.

Love.

Unconditional, unashamed, unhidden.

For a moment, Lillian Luthor had been just another mother, staring down at her little boy. Until she saw Lena peeking, of course.

Even now, Lena has never heard Lillian place an ounce of blame on Lex’s shoulders. It was a mix-up. A misunderstanding. Then, a conspiracy. It was that alien, he drove him mad. Lex was just confused. Lex didn’t know what he was doing. It’s not Lex. Never Lex.

Lionel was a good man. He’d been cold with Lex, especially during his last few years, but he had loved him. Lena had always thought that was just Lionel teaching Lex to be the kind of leader he had been: self-reliant, internal. But maybe… Maybe Lionel had sensed what Lex was growing into. Lena had never seen her father weep. He was a strong man— hard as steel. She does not want to imagine his face the day they told him his only son was a mass murderer.

The waiter takes their silence for an invitation, and they give their orders. Lena refills Hiccox’s glass, and says, “It’s a good thing he wasn’t at Bert’s party. I seem to remember you ending that night in the pool with your legs tied with garlands.”

Hiccox’s shoulders relax fractionally, and he laughs, seemingly more out of relief than anything else. “He would have been in the pool with me!” He says. “Oh, you should have seen him when he was younger. I remember once…”

Hiccox regales Lena with increasingly tall and worryingly illegal tales of youthful escapades as the waiter returns with their meals.

“But you know I don’t get up to as much anymore,” he says. “I suppose the wisdom of age finally caught up with me.” Lena chooses not to remind him he’d had grown children at the time of that last story. “I’m reformed, now.” He announces, with a wink.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lena says, filling his third glass, “since it’s actually business that brings me here.”

Hiccox’s gaze grows sharp, hunger directing his focus even as he begins to sweat from the alcohol. “I thought you might not be calling just for the pleasure of my company.”

“Only a bonus, I’m afraid,” Lena says. Hiccox presses a hand to his heart in mock betrayal, and Lena continues, “The move to National City has been… complicated. You know I took over so recently. Every time I look away from the stack of papers I need to sign, it grows another inch.”

“Don’t remind me,” Hiccox says, rubbing his hand. “You’re not looking for a spare wrist, are you? I’m afraid mine are all used up.”

“Just your eyes,” Lena says with a smile, “and your experience.”

Hiccox preens. Lena pulls out a thumb-thick blue folder— annotated printouts of L-Corp’s expense reports, as well as a few memos from surrounding dates: all the possible evidence she could unearth about the payments.

“With the move, I’ve had to go back over all our holdings in Metropolis, and there are a few payments I haven’t been able to work out.” Lena opens the folder and Hiccox eyes the pages with surprising clarity. “You know how Lex was,” she continues, “even I couldn’t follow his thoughts half the time, and the closer he got to— to the end, the more chaotic his filing system became. I was hoping you might remember some of the projects he was working on at the time, or even identify some of these accounts?”

Batting her eyelashes might be a bit much, but Hiccox basks in the attention, pulling the file closer and dropping his gaze to the first payment marked with a tab.

“Let’s see here,” he says, holding the paper up, stretching his arm to hold it out closer and further from his face. “October.” He squints. “We were working on a major project with Farmers of America at the time. It might be a donation… or, no. The conference!” He says suddenly, dropping the paper back to the table in victory. “These are for the Innovations in the Heartland conference in Metropolis. This here,” he points, “is the travel fund— plane tickets and hotels and the like, and this one here is the venue rental. We booked at the same time, got a great deal. Normally, we wouldn’t have been so hands on, but Lex wanted to show our commitment. We even stayed in the same hotel. The looks on those old hillbillies faces! We took them out to Blondeau after— the number of farms we signed onto the LCM initiative that night… Could have retired then and there.”

“Well, for my sake I’m glad you didn’t,” Lena says. Her relief is genuine. She’d known the source of that purchase, but she’d wanted to ensure his memory hadn’t slipped over the last two years. Given the state he’d been in when he stepped down from the board, it’s nigh on miraculous Hiccox remembered to put on a tie this morning. Though, she had assumed the memos she’d included about the payments would have been the larger clue. Lena hadn’t realized it was such a memorable conference. “And this one?” She asks.

Hiccox focuses back, scanning through the files for a few moments, before announcing, with growing excitement that the payments were made to the Emily Carter Cancer Center.

“You know it by the date,” he explains to Lena’s barely restrained surprise. “June 15th 2012, we’d just had that issue with Janet Murphy— or Janey? Whatever her name was—” Lena’s jaw tightens.

Her name was Janice Murray, and she’d been a whistleblower in the first case to suggest there was something sour going on in Lex’s labs. She hadn’t reported anything major, at least, not in the context of what would come later, just safety protocols not being fully observed and a few lapses in inspections. Small stuff. But the kind that results in your lab techs developing a set of nasty cancers when allowed to build up. Lex had dismissed her as a bitter ex-employee, and Lena, alongside most of the country, had believed him. If anyone had actually bothered following up on her claims, they would have found more than some forgotten gloves. Janice died in a car accident three weeks after her blog post. No one investigated.

“Part of the PR package,” Hiccox continues, oblivious to the vice grip Lena has developed on her fork, “was a set of donations to major cancer centers— and the promise to investigate internally, obviously,” he says, waving a hand. “The ECCC was the only center we split our donation to. It’s the only half listed here— just the two mil. The other half went to a partner hospital. They wanted to expand the kids’ ward there. We ended up buying them out by the end of the year.”  

Lena can only bring herself to nod. The hospital they’d bought out was renamed now: The Luthor Family Children’s Hospital in National City. One of the rare good things Lex ever spent his money on. Does it still count as charity when you’re using it to buy goodwill after a murder?

“What about this one?” Lena asks, shuffling the pages to the relevant files. “They’re repeated every few months for more than five years, but Lex never bothered to label them as anything other than ‘medical research’.”

Hiccox looks casually down at the next sheet. He looks back up after a moment with a light laugh. “Is this a joke?”

“Sorry?” Lena asks.”

Hiccox laughs harder this time, scanning the list. “Medical research— cocky bastard.”

“You know it?” Lena asks lightly, trying to keep the hunger out of her voice. She redirects it into sawing at the remains of her steak.

“Oh come on, Lena. Don’t tell me you lost the filing number for Cadmus.” Hiccox says. Lena settles back into her chair as Hiccox continues, “‘Lex didn’t label it’ that is a good one.” There’s a slight strain to his voice, an edge that belies his laughter. His eyes flicker from the folder to Lena, panic widening them with every beat of her silence.

“Lenny, what is Cadmus?”

Sweat drips down Hiccox forehead and cheeks, but he doesn’t dab it away. He swallows, holding his gaze on Lena’s. “You. You of all people. How is that possible? How can you not know? You— You—” He begins to splutter. His eyes dart around the room as though waiting for someone to jump out and say “Gotcha!”.

Hiccox stands roughly. “It was nice seeing you again, Lena,” he says, signaling the waiter. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Leonard, wait!” Lena says, standing. “What is Cadmus?” She hisses. “What was Lex paying for?”

Hiccox laughs again, and this time there’s nothing friendly about it. “I’m sorry, Lena. You know, I just can’t quite remember.”

The waiter passes over his coat, and Hiccox makes for the door. Lena gets there first, catching his arm.

“Others are paying that account. Dangerous people. People L-Corp should not be associated with. Lex almost destroyed this company— Lionel’s company. Are you going to stand aside and watch him drag the rest of it down from his cell?”

Hiccox rounds on her, and Lena takes a hasty step back. “Lionel’s legacy is not worth my life,” he spits. “I don’t know what kind of family spat you all have going on right now, but I am not getting involved, do you hear?”

And then he yanks his arm from her grip and pushes past her out the door. 

The scene replays itself in Lena’s mind over the next few days. A research team presents their findings, something about non-invasive genetic testing, and Lena finds their words floating distantly over her ears. The blue lines of her notes warp and blur, until all she can see is the fear in Hiccox’s eyes, and their sudden, unexpected sharpness. An oversight. She had been careless, unobservant, hasty, and about a half dozen other stupid things. Her father had been proof that just because a man drank, it didn’t make him a fool— even if it could be exploited. Alcohol was as dangerous a lubricant as oil. It was a beautifully effective thing, until you met someone smart enough to bring a match.

The nib of Lena’s pen flexes and distorts against her notes. Those are Lex’s words. Lex’s lesson.

“Um. Excuse me, Ms. Luthor?” An unsteady man’s voice calls. Lena’s chair jostles, and she blinks.

Kara retracts her foot from where she’s just kicked Lena’s chair under the table, and Lena looks up to see the research team staring at her expectantly.

She clears her throat. “Thank you, Patrick. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Patrick continues staring at her uneasily.

“You’ll get 80 percent,” Lena continues, “I’ll grant the full budget if you can get me proof of concept.”

Patrick opens his mouth to protest, thinks better of it, and instead says, “Thank you, Ms. Luthor. We’ll have it ready in a month.”  One of the other researchers coughs. “Two months,” Patrick says.

Lena offers a tight smile. When the team doesn’t leave, Kara steps over and shepherds them from the room, soothing them with promises to schedule the next check in and Sabina, how has your mom been? Did she get her car fixed?

Lena shakes her head. She shouldn’t have allocated half as much as they asked for, without even a prototype to prove it was possible. It will be Lena next month explaining to the investors why she’d simply trusted the research notes of her team on a concept as fanciful as at-home skin tests for genetic disease.

Kara returns after a moment. She buzzes around the table, stacking water glasses to take to the breakroom to clean and chatting idly about the project.

“The prison testing was a bit much, but the personality matrix sounds very promising. Did you hear what he said about the variance on that last survey? With the data pool the app will bring, they should be able to apply a few new factors to any personality research they start— and that’s not even starting on what they’ll get for cancer factors. All those diseases— do you really think they’ll be able to prove that new genetic link for ALS?”

“By the end of the quarter? Maybe,” Lena says, rubbing her temples. “If they want to release as a broad-spectrum tester, it’s going to take more time.” If they can do it at all, Lena thinks. She should have encouraged them to start smaller. The skin-test itself was already going to be revolutionary. Even if all it did was check for the known Alzheimer’s markers and BRCA-1, they’d still make a fortune. Trying to launch with such a significant cohort of new disease markers was an easy track to overspending and disappointing their investors. It’s not as though L-Corp is flush with capitol at the moment. And the talk today about this personality matrix— petitioning prisons for research subjects to check for genetic links in personality…

It’s ambitious, she’ll give them that.

Kara’s hand lands gently on Lena’s shoulder, and Lena looks up from her notes.

“You realize you’re spearheading the end of disease in this country,” Kara says, beaming.

That’s… hopeful, but Lena smiles back at her anyway. Kara sets her notes down next to Lena’s so they can begin the post-meeting briefing. Sometimes, it’s useful to discuss these things with Kara. A layman’s perspective always makes it easier for Lena to decide how to explain the more complex topics to the board. Or, at least, it’s usually helpful to talk to Kara.  

“Someone has a hobby,” Lena says, as Kara makes her third unusually prescient note, this time on missed epigenetic factors. She’s surprisingly familiar with the field of genetic testing, if only the theory. She is also, Lena notes with some alarm, wont to tip a little too close to the realms of pseudoscience and eugenics. She needs to see what magazines Kara is reading. And burn them.

“Not a hobby,” Kara says, fiddling with her glasses. “It’s just… something I read about when I was a kid.”

“Should I thank Eliza Danvers for the insightful commentary?”

“My dad, actually,” Kara says. Lena’s hands still on her notes. Kara always refers to Jeremiah Danvers as her adoptive father. She has never said more than a sentence about her birth father. “He used to argue with my uncle about it. My uncle was a— a kind of back to the land type? They were both scientists but my uncle was a lot more…” Kara seems to feel the pressure of Lena’s attention all at once, and she folds inward. “I don’t know.”

“What did he study?” Lena asks.

Kara looks at the ground. “Radiation.” She smiles. “He used to bring me to the lab with him. Show me all the experiments he was running. My mom got so mad at us once when he was helping me with a school project. It was supposed to be about pollution purification systems but we messed up the flow and when we went to show her, we accidentally blew this huge cloud of dust and junk all over the living room. It smelled so bad. I think she was laughing underneath but we totally messed up dinner with my aunt’s husband and—” Kara breaks off. “It doesn’t really matter. It was a long time ago.”

Curiosity burns in Lena’s chest, but Kara fidgets uncomfortably over her notes, her eyes somewhere far distant. Gently, Lena asks, “How did a radiation expert inspire your interest in genetics?”

Relief soothes Kara’s twitchy fingers, and she says, “I wasn’t really interested. Not until— not until I got older. Eliza had an uncle who got dementia. She said it ‘runs in the family’” Kara frowns at that as though it’s an utterly bizarre thing to say. “So, I started looking into it, and then I started reading up on cancer—” Kara fixes her with an intense look. “Did you know that a third of Americans get cancer. A third! Because you smoke or you eat too many pickled foods or for no reason at all. One day your body just decides to start replicating. Like— Like a starfish. Who came up with that? What kind of species evolves with that? So I starting reading more— risk factors, you know— My sister drinks way too much but she keeps telling me she’s a doctor and I should leave her alone about it but she also is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. So, I’m not sure she’s got the best mindset about it. I mean, I was thinking about it the other day. One in eight women get breast cancer in this country.” Kara stares at Lena with deadly seriousness. “Any day now your boobs could just decide to kill you.”

Lena’s mouth quirks.

“I didn’t realize you’d given them so much thought.”

“Cancers? Why wouldn’t I—” Kara meets Lena’s eye and swallows. “Oh, golly—I didn’t mean— I haven’t! I mean, I don’t spend time thinking about your— that would be— I think about all of them. Everybody’s. I’m an equal opportunity thinker. I— Cancer is bad.”

Despite all her efforts, Lena cannot help the snort that escapes her. Kara flounders for a moment more before declaring, “You’re teasing me.”

“Only because you make it so easy,” Lena says.  

Kara grumbles under her breath, something about seeking revenge one of these days, and Lena coughs desperately as she tries and fails to rein in her laughter. Through it all, Kara’s hand never leaves Lena’s shoulder. She’s been …freer… with Lena’s personal space since the club. Not that that’s a bad thing. Obviously. It’s nice. It’s just…

Kara’s thumb strokes over Lena’s collarbone.

Very Distracting.

Lena clears her throat, meeting Kara’s eye. She’s being stupid. Teasing her like this and then collapsing over a brush of her fingers. She told herself she wouldn’t risk this. And that’s exactly what she’s doing. Poking fun like nothing’s changed. Shooting cannons from her glass house. But then her eyes reach Kara’s and there’s something… searching in her eyes. Like she’s waiting to see what Lena will do.

God. Lena really is a fool.

Desperately searching for any other topic, Lena asks, “So, how’s J’onn?”

Kara’s thumb ceases its ministrations. Lena feels the loss like a cold draft.

“Good,” Kara says. “Fine. He’s healing at home.” She smiles.

It’s fake.

The knowledge comes to Lena quickly, and before the understanding of how she knows it. Kara has flashed that smile a hundred times— at the front desk downstairs on her way up each morning, at Winn, sometimes, at Lena, every other day, and yet, all at once, Lena sees the cracks, the incompleteness of it. Kara’s smile stretches her whole face, past the polite, pretty confines of the office. Kara’s smile, the one Lena had been granted as Kara flipped pancakes in the middle of the night in her apartment, is nothing so restrained.

This smile, the one currently holding Kara’s face at unnatural tension, has become unfamiliar with disuse. Lena wracks her brain to think of the last time Kara smiled at her like this. It’s not the overly wide, false friendly look Kara gets when she’s trying to pass off a particularly egregious lie— not the near panicked teeth-showing grimace she had used when Lena caught her digging through the office trash— and yet… not so far removed from the hesitating, purse-lipped smile she’d offered when telling Lena that the bus popped a tire a few days ago.

Are you lying to me now? Lena wonders.

Kara clears her throat and pulls her hand from Lena’s shoulder. The cool draft of her still fingers solidifies to ice where her touch is absent. “You have three hours until the call with the New York branch. Do you want me to put in a lunch order?”

A faint grumble sounds from Lena’s stomach. Did she eat this morning? “Yes, thank you, Kara.”

Kara nods and hurries out. Lena watches her go, the gulf between them widening with each step. She’d asked for trust. Lena will give it. And she’ll just have to hope that Kara will repay her in kind.

Between bites of her quinoa salad, Lena frowns at her computer. She has scoured every database, every black corner of the internet, and the only organizations by the name of Cadmus she can find are an archeology institute based out of Bogota and a pesticide company— neither of which, she suspects, are to whom Lex was supplying funds. ‘Medical research’. That had meant something to Hiccox. Lena thinks about the aliens Roulette was trading— and the corpses. A lab of some kind? One interested in alien biology? Lena’s theory of J’onn J’onzz involvement grows weaker by the day. Even if he is involved in something untoward— and Lena is sure there are plenty of demons knocking on that man’s door— she simply can’t believe that an alien would work for an organization that was purchasing and performing research on murdered alien corpses. A fight club is one thing, but dissections…

God, what had Lex been doing? The payments date back years, almost the entire period of Lex’s tenure as CEO, long before his mind started to slip. Or, at least, long before Lena thought it had. She’d known Lex must’ve begun his plans well before he started raving about Gods among Men and blowing up helicopters, but if these documents were true, if he’d known what Cadmus was— where they sourced their materials, then he’d been funding murder when Lena was still in boarding school. All those visits, bringing her snack from home, pulling her away to the mountain cabin on weekends… She pictures him then, his clean suits and thinning hair and easy smile, and tries to imagine it. Tries to imagine him stepping out into the hall of the girl’s dorm and transferring $320,000 to the local alien corpse collector. She can’t do it. I never knew you at all, did I? Lena thinks. There was no spiral, no sudden madness. There was only ever you.

Lena pushes the rest of her salad away. The rubbery pearls of quinoa feel suddenly like the last remnants of vomit against her tongue. She looks up to call Kara— this can be cleared away— and hesitates. Kara sits, frozen and silent at her desk, staring at her computer with a look of open mouthed horror. Lena rises from her desk quietly, crossing quickly to the door.

“Everything alight?” She asks.

Kara just turns her monitor. Lena inhales sharply.

It’s the news.

WINSLOW SCHOTT SR., BOMBER KNOWN AS TOYMAN, ESCAPES STRYKER’S ISLAND FEDERAL PENITENTIARY

Kara staggers to her feet. “I need to— His dad—”

“Go,” Lena says.

Kara bolts for the stairs.

Lena dials the company lawyers. She has a nasty suspicion she’s going to need them.

By the time Lena makes it down to the lab personally, she passes FBI investigators in the hall on their way out. They’ve mobilized quickly. No doubt there had been a gag order on the media until they’d secured Winn. Kara stands a few inches from him. Her hands twitch toward him but don’t make contact. His shoulders are hunched, but he meets Lena’s eye for once, regarding her with a steady, resolute sort of glare. The other lab techs scurry around them, murmuring and pointing without any attempt at subtlety. Lena fixes them with a single glare, and they disperse, leaving the three of them alone, sans Arnold Merchant, the lab director, who stands off to one side, watching the three of them warily.

“The company lawyers will be contacting you shortly,” Lena says. “They’re there to access L-Corp liability. Follow their advice, unless it contradicts your own legal team. Regardless, do not lie to them. Should you require a personal representative, we can arrange for that. I assume you don’t need a reminder of your rights?”

“No, Ms. Luthor.” His posture relaxes a fraction of an inch. Oh. Did he think she was going to fire him?

“Take the day if you want it,” Lena says. His eyes fill with panic. “—Or stay and work, but choose one. I won’t have faulty product or a lab accident because your hands and your mind were in different places.”

He nods. And makes a halting gesture that looks almost like a salute before he seems to think better of himself and pulls his hand back down. Lena pauses at the door on her way out, and says, just loud enough for him to hear, “Be steadfast, Mr. Schott.”

She leaves without looking back. She has no desire to see the familiar agony in his tired eyes.

Kara reappears in the office an hour or two later, Winn having finally shaken her off, no doubt. She wipes her eyes on the back of her hand, and Lena pretends not to notice, unscrewing and rescrewing the fresh nib of her pen. Kara is refilling Lena’s coffee when she asks, “Did you know? About Winn’s dad?”

“L-Corp runs background checks on all new employees. Having a domestic terrorist for a father is a notable entry.” Lena takes a sip before adding, “That and they have the same name.”

Kara’s eyes tighten.

“You didn’t know?” Lena asks.

She shakes her head. “He told me his dad was in prison,” Kara says, “but not… all that.”

“I imagine he was happy to meet someone who didn’t recognize the name,” Lena says. “I thought everyone followed the Schott trial. Teddy Bear Bombs and accidental collateral— He might as well have been the new O.J. Simpson.” Kara’s lips purse. “You don’t know who that is either, do you?”

“I didn’t watch a lot of TV as a kid.”  Kara glares down at the coffee pot, familiar crinkle in full force.

Lena softens. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Kara says with a huff. “I don’t think so. Nobody’s just ‘okay’ after that. I think he felt a bit smothered,” she admits.

Lena can understand that. In the chaos of Lex’s trial, even the rare moment of compassion began to feel like just another set of eyes weighing on her back.

“Give that some time,” Lena says.

Kara fidgets with her glasses, but doesn’t respond immediately. “I just wish I knew how to help him,” she says after a moment. “The FBI guys all thought his dad was going to reach out— like Winn would be interested in that,” she spits. “You should have seen they way they were talking to him, like he was already a criminal!”

Lena winces. And that, Lena certainly understands.

“If they find his dad, he’ll be okay,” Kara continues, “but if they’re wasting all their time bothering Winn…” Kara lets out a breath, shaking her head. “It’s not fair. He’s spent ten years building a new life, moving on, and now his dad gets to just tear it all apart. I mean—” Kara looks down at her, “It’s all over. It ended. Why can’t any of them just leave it alone?”

That’s a unique way to phrase that. “Is everything okay?” Lena asks

Kara blinks and looks down at Lena. “Of course! Just worried about Winn.”

Lena nods, but the chill of unease doesn’t leave her as Kara bustles back out of the office, carrying Lena’s old cup.

It really was only a matter of time before Supergirl developed an evil clone. It’s just the way of things, Lena decides, as she watches said clone smash its way through downtown. A new superhero starts out, fighting crime and the occasional mad scientist, and then someone tries to crack what makes them so special and voila. Cloning. How many fake Batmans had there been by now? Lena wouldn’t be shocked if at least one of his little nestlings wasn’t a younger cloned version of him pulled out of some Arkham-escapee’s lab.

Lex must be rolling in his cell. He’d been trying to clone Superman for years— unsuccessfully, by the notes Lena has thus far recovered. She wonders who finally figured it out. None of the major cloning experts are located in National City, and none of them have any recent spats with the Supers. Besides, it can’t be Lex. He’d be much less subtle about it. Supergirl would be declaring him the President of Earth by now.

Bizarro, as the news has taken to calling her, takes a bolt of Kryptonite to the shoulder and—

Is she melting?

The commentators erupt in rapid discussion while the cameraman attempts to zoom his grainy view. The clone’s face warps, black cracks spreading over her cheeks. Some sort of dark ooze spills from her mouth as she rockets up and away, disappearing over the horizon. Just another nightmare to add to the city’s ever-growing roster. Lena should call Patrick’s team. Clone DNA might be nearly identical to the donor, but it could also be fragile— and evidently, hers was, if kryptonite could do that to her. Maybe she can adjust the prototype to differentiate the two, or any others its maker sends.

…And do what with it? Hand it to the local police and hope for the best?

You’re going to have to talk to her again eventually, a thoroughly unhelpful voice whispers at the back of her mind. Like her or not, this is about safety.

She calls Patrick.

Lena is just finishing up on the phone when Kara barrels into the office, not bothering to offer up an excuse and instead sliding into her desk to begin the mountainous backlog of calls she’s missed. She’s been even less punctual than usual of late, hunting for Winn’s father. She hasn’t admitted that’s what she’s doing, but she’s made no attempt to deny Lena’s accusation either. Her and Winn’s sojourns to the empty back office have picked up in frequency over the last week, and without the giddy, secretive excitement that usually preempted their… visits. When Lena glances over at Kara’s desk, she’s just as likely to find information about abandoned toy stores and police reports of sightings (don’t ask her where Kara is getting those) as she is the emails Kara is supposed to be answering.

Lena can’t bring herself to be upset. Concerned, yes. But Kara will do what she thinks is right. Isn’t that why Lena’s kept her around? So instead of calling her into the office for a pointless lecture, Lena slides relevant case files she “happens to come across” over to Kara’s desk, with the occasional oblique reminder that an entire FBI squadron or perhaps a superpowered friend could probably be more effective with that information than a pair of unarmed office workers. If nothing else, Winn seems to have the caution Kara lacks, and Lena hopes that alone will keep them from throwing themselves into active danger. And if she debates slipping a tracking device into Kara’s sweater while Kara is in the bathroom? Well, she didn’t do it. No harm, no foul. It becomes a sort of mantra. Trust. She’s practicing trust. If things get too serious, Kara knows she can reach out to Lena for help. Or to her shapeshifting friend. Or Supergirl, for God’s sake.

Though, she might be a little busy at the moment.

The Bizarro fight still spills across Lena’s large screen, reruns now, and Kara can’t seem to help glancing up with every blow that sounds down the hallway.

“National City always has something,” Lena muses. “But this is getting little overcrowded, even for us.”  

“It would be nice,” Kara says through gritted teeth as she deletes voicemails from spam callers, “if all the murderers could take their freaking turns.”

“What do you think will be next?” Lena asks. “My brother breaks out of prison or we meet General Zod’s more evil twin?”

Kara’s clicking of the delete key reaches a frightening pace. Lena turns off the TV and rubs the bridge of her nose. Maybe the move was a mistake. It had seemed the best move to get away from the insanity of Metropolis, but how was she supposed to know it would follow them here? 

Oh, right. She’s a Luthor. That’s how she should have known.

“I’m going to take some time to focus on the new Plastino deal,” Lena tells Kara, hand on the door, “see that I’m not disturbed.”

Kara shoots her a thumbs-up. “Gotcha.”

Lena glances back at her as she shuts the door. Kara has already refocused on her calls, dialing swiftly, a crease between her brows that seems to have become a permanent line.

Lena does have work she needs quiet and focus for, but it isn’t the Plastino deal. She finished the planning for that two days ago. All she needs to do there is give Kara the go-ahead to begin sending invitations to the discussion. No, rather, it’s the kind of work that she would really rather not have Kara be a knowing accomplice to.

In Lena’s defense, she has exhausted every other source. The last place available to get information about Cadmus is the bank itself. It’s not only the legality or the presumed difficulty of the task itself that gives her pause. Incursions into an account of this nature are likely to draw eyes. Of course, if this Cadmus had been the organization to give John Corben his Kryptonite heart, Lena would hazard a guess their eyes are something she already has. The timeline was simply too damning to ignore. John Corben, a paid assassin by her brother, is shot and killed. A few weeks later he reappears, paid now by an organization identified as “medical research” that collects alien bodies, and sporting an energy beam weapon out of his chest that could only have been achieved through the adaption of alien technology. It’s not that hard of a bridge to gap.

The bank security is solid, something she’d learned in her first, cursory glances at the code. Time will matter here. She can get in, she’s almost sure, but she doubts she’ll have very long to maneuver before someone notices her presence. Not a great scenario when she doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for.

What she does acquire, in a brief and heart-pounding smash and grab of financial data, is a mixed bag. The organization listed as the account owner is sure to be a fraud, and she doubts the name she finds as the primary account accessor will be fruitful. Indeed, she later finds the name and birthdate belong to a child who died of polio in 1953. Still, she records everything she comes across: payments into and out of the account, the date it was opened, the frequency with which it is accessed. She highlights the most common accounts—this account will be one of many. An organization like Cadmus would never keep all of its eggs in one basket. The most common accounts being paid from or to this one are likely to be other Cadmus accounts, spreading the money. That done, it leaves only the tedious task of tracking each individual payment. Cash seem to be the most common type of withdrawal— both a blessing and a curse. More cash reduces her workload, but it does so by being essentially untraceable with her current means--but there are a few direct checks and transfers. She finds some things she could have expected: medical equipment, nitrile gloves and alcohol disinfectant in bulk, plastic sheeting purchases, but also a few names. Some of them she doesn’t know. Brief glances through their personal lives leave an unsavory image. Young men from across the country, usually fresh out of military service, often with pending domestic violence or battery charges, almost all now missing or presumed dead. And then, another name— another young man, another ex-military name, but without criminal charges or recent death: a campaign manager for Miranda Crane, recently re-elected California Senator. A political donation.

Now that, Lena can work with. 

Miranda Crane’s office is a cozy but refined space. A warm cream carpet meets a gently carved olive-wood desk, and a pair of matching, lightly cushioned chairs slowly bleach under a sunlit window. A small side-table sits between them, complete with a steaming pot of tea and two mugs. It matches poorly with Crane’s public image —that of the respected but passionate firebrand for the anti-alien cause— but cleanly aligns with the more reserved woman who greets Lena at the door.

“Ms. Luthor, glad to see you could make it,” Crane says as Lena crosses the threshold, standing from her desk as though she’d half-forgotten Lena’s visit. Not quite enough to be dismissive, but a power play nonetheless, one Lena herself has often been guilty of. As she stands, Senator Crane straightens her already starched flat blazer— a pink understated enough to be non-threatening, with sharp shoulder-pads that keep her from falling into the background: The very picture of establishment politics, with a wolf’s tracking glare that she disguises well, but not well enough to fool someone accustomed to Luthor family dinners. “Please,” Crane says, “take a seat.” The wolf smiles and gestures to the chairs in the window.

Lena opts for the chair more sheltered in the shadow of the curtain. The full sun feels nothing of winter, or what passes for winter in National City, and Lena can already feel her skin prickling beneath it as she passes by. Crane takes the remaining seat, seemingly unaware of the oven she’s constructed in the corner of her office.

“I’m glad you were willing to meet with me,” Lena says. “I know it was short notice. You’ll understand why I wanted discretion, especially in such early days.”

“I’ll admit, I was surprised to see an invitation from you,” Crane says, gesturing away an assistant who moves to pour her tea for her. At a second, sharper wave, he steps quickly from the room, shutting the door behind him. “I had heard you’d become a bit of a hardliner on alien affairs. Rumors always circle Luthors like flies, but lately they’re all buzzing about your partnership with Supergirl.”

Lena smiles. “I’m not my brother, Senator. I think we can both be glad of that.” Crane gives a huff of a laugh. “As for the Supers,” Lena continues, “I have their attention whether I want it or not. If we have a mutual concern, why not utilize all the resources at my disposal— at least they bother me less.”

Crane nods, pouring Lena a dark mug. “Understandable, I suppose. It’s a shame, what happened with Lex. His mind… he could have been instrumental in defending this planet from extraterrestrial threats, and instead…” Crane’s placid expression sours. “Instead, anyone discussing the threat we now face is branded by association with the madman who unleashed a horde of murderous robots on Metropolis and tried to starve the Earth. Two years later and the publicizing of donations to our campaigns is still corporate suicide.”

Lena sips her tea without responding, tongue curling as it makes contact. Over-steeped.

It isn’t as though Crane herself had been an innocent bystander in all of that. Crane and her party colleagues had helped pass half a dozen bills everyone with eyes could see had been authored by Lex —a number of which were later repealed on the grounds he’d used them to help launch his violent crusade against alien life, or, more importantly, the near extinction of Earth. Crane’s career had survived on the fact that she simply hadn’t been that important. A middling, forgotten senator, low in the hierarchy—until everyone above her retired in disgrace.

Crane holds out a cup of sugar cubes. Lena declines.

“Actually, the alien issue is what I hoped to speak to you about,” Lena says. “I came across a program LuthorCorp used to donate to. I thought you might be familiar.”

Crane smiles, not unkindly, but not without warning either. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know anything about old LuthorCorp projects. If you’d like to discuss possibilities for a new tech initiative,” she continues, sitting forward, “I know myself and Senator Crawford have been very interested in—”  

“It’s called Cadmus?”

Crane stiffens. She sets down her cup with a harsh clink. “Never heard of it,” she says brusquely. “I am quite busy this morning, Ms. Luthor, so if you’d like to—”

“Let’s be frank with each other,” Lena cuts her off. “I know you’re a regular at Roulette’s club. I know my brother has been making donations to your campaigns since before the attack on Metropolis, and I know those donations have continued since his arrest. And,” Lena leans forward, sliding a thumb-drive across the table. “I know what happened in that motel on April 19th, 2004. Would you like to find out what else I know?”

Crane doesn’t move. Her jaw works as she sits, fingers curled into claws on her lap.

“No?” Lena asks. “Then you’re going to tell me everything there is to know about Cadmus.”

The elevator doors open, and Lena staggers through to the L-Corp landing. She passes Kara’s blessedly empty desk and pulls her office door shut behind her, chest heaving. Crane’s words echo in her ears.

Earth is facing an alien invasion. Earth is losing.

Sweat drips down Lena’s back. Her knuckles scrape the lock as she tries to force the key into the door with numb fingers. It clicks, and Lena slides down the cold wood until her knees hit carpet.

“My brother has been making these claims against Superman for years,” Lena says, sitting back into her chair. “You’ll forgive me for finding them a bit tired.”

“I’m not talking about Superman,” Crane says, “Or Supergirl. They’re no immediate threat. Whatever Superman’s game, he isn’t planning an invasion in the short-term, and the other is an overconfident child playing in big brother’s boots. Neither of them are my concern.” Crane takes a long sip of her tea, grimacing at the pot as though wishing it were somehow stronger. “I don’t know if Lex was aware just how right and wrong his speeches were. Maybe he knew about all of this and just cared about his ego more than the planet. His attack on Metropolis was less of  a grand stand against the alien menace than the planet’s deadliest temper tantrum, but his warnings…” Crane trails off, then turns to meet Lena’s eye. “Earth was not and is not prepared for the possibility that our Kryptonian saviors turn on us, and now, we are paying the price.”

“If the Supers aren’t your concern,” Lena asks, “who exactly is?”

Eighteen Kryptonians. Eighteen military trained Kryptonians, backed by an army of alien criminals. They’re organized, efficient, and they could be anywhere— anyone. They’ve had almost fifteen years to meld into human society. Supergirl and Superman both look fairly human. They’ve got an aura about them, certainly, but how much of that is the myth and cape? The Fort Rozz escapees would look like anyone else. Lena— Lena might have met one. How would she know? What could she have done even if she had?

Lena’s palms begin to ache. The scratchy fibers of the carpet dig into her flesh. Aliens have tried to kill her before. Vengeance for Lex, or so she’d thought. But what if it wasn’t? What if—

“And you expect me to believe this conspiracy theory of yours? That Kryptonians— previously unknown, secret Kryptonians— have launched an invasion of Earth, and the only ones fighting it are the secret police and this ‘Cadmus’?”

“I’ve been inside the DEO headquarters,” Crane says, sternly. “I promise you, they are very real.”

“And you word is your bond, I’m sure.”

Irritation cracks Crane’s composure, and she gestures toward her computer as though to ask permission. Lena shrugs. Crane crosses the room and Lena follows, watching as she opens a small box on top of her desk and presses her thumb to the scanner beneath. Several new folders appear on Crane’s desktop. She opens one, and Lena strains to make sense of the image that fills the screen. Then she flinches back as she realizes she’s staring at a picture of a corpse.

Crane silently clicks through the folder’s contents. They look like crime scene photos: caution tape and numbered placards mark blood stains and broken glass. Black vested soldiers mill in the background. Bodies, destruction… battles.  The woman Lena had seen captured on TV only a week ago, obvious by the ludicrous white streak in her hair, meets Supergirl’s heat vision with her own. A man in a matching black jumpsuit, marked only by a printed crest alarmingly similar to the Super’s own, floats over a LordTech Laboratory. A bombed-out shell of a building that might have once been a warehouse.

“Two survivors,” Crane says, breaking the silence, “the two agents lucky enough to be standing next to Supergirl when the bomb went off. Twenty seven dead in total.”

Lena swallows, tilting her chin up and keeping her voice level. “Are there other files like this?” She asks.

Crane laughs. When Lena meets her gaze, there’s no humor in it. Instead, Crane says in a resigned voice, “That folder is just the last week.”

How many break-ins has Lena suffered over the last two years? Murders of her technicians, stolen prototypes. How many might’ve been Fort Rozz?

Lena has done her best to invest in the strongest security available. She knows what her brother is capable of, knows the kinds of enemies he’s made. She’s never made it easy for them.  

But this…

Once, Kara had hit a man with forearm length claws over the head with a lamp after he’d come to Lena’s office to kill her. They hadn’t known he was an alien until he sliced through his coat sleeves and took a swing at Lena’s head.

What if Fort Rozz decides one of L-Corp’s newest inventions is useful? What if they attack her office or her labs like they did LordTech? What if they find out Lena knows? What if they come to her office and decide to clear out witnesses?

What if none of that. What if it’s already too late?

What if the planet falls?

Lena’s dress has become impossibly tight. She pulls at the fabric, tugging futilely at her collar. Nausea rises and adds its burn to the pressure in her chest. She needs— maybe if she opened the balcony door— She just— She needs— She can’t breathe. The walls lean in towards her, sterile white and suffocating. She pushes forward on all fours, and—

Something glints in the harsh winter sunlight. From her position on the floor, Lena sees a silver glimmer: an abandoned mock-up delivered to her office that morning. As of yet, borderline non-functional but…

Lena takes a breath.

She is not a sniffling child. Whether Lillian thinks her worthy of it or the rest of the world spits on her for it, she is a Luthor, and she is not going to sit here and cower in the face of the end of the world.

Zod was Kryptonian, and he was defeated. Lex turned the sun red, and he was defeated. Earth has not fallen. As long as Lena is alive and thinking, she is not defenseless.

And neither is her planet. 

“Lena?” Kara calls, coughing her way on to the landing. “Are you …welding?”

Lena pulls off her goggles, “Not at the moment,” she says, batting smoke out of her eyes and ignoring the potentially blinding urge to rub them, “Not intentionally,” she amends. “But I’ve fixed it.”  

Kara pokes her head through the doorway. “Fixed what?”

“The security system!” Lena says. “The first update. I’ll start on the elevator next. I’ve been meaning to fix the fault in the wiring of the button lights for weeks, and if I’m doing that I can key in the alerts for the main security desk, plus a direct line to my phone. When that’s done I can set up the remote shut off and—”

“Are you alright?” Kara asks. She squints down at Lena through the hazy air. “Are those the same— Lena, have you been here since Wednesday?”

“I decided to finish the door system before I went home,” Lena says, waving her off. “We worked longer nights than this during the trial.”

“It’s already Seven. In the evening,” Kara says. “And Friday.”

Oh.

Oops.

Lena stands, brushing herself off. Her gloves leave as much dust behind as they remove.

“You’ve got some, umm…” Kara gestures to Lena’s face. “Everywhere.”

“Maybe the bathroom,” Lena says. Kara nods, with oddly pinched expression.

Lena steps delicately over the mess of wires in the doorway, and pulls the door shut behind them. The smell reduces slightly, but doesn’t completely abate. Lena’s early attempts to integrate her system into the existing wall wiring had been… unsuccessful. Apparently a few of her circuits had a sensitivity to heat.

Kara holds open the bathroom door for her, and Lena finally comes to understand the constipated expression on her face. Large pale circles outline the marks where Lena’s goggles had sat, and the rest of her skin— and hair— has fallen victim to a array of mishaps. Gray smears of ash from the welding crisscross her cheeks, there’s an oily mark that might be the lubricant she’d used on the door handle, and all of it is topped by a layer of white powdered drywall. At Lena’s realization, Kara finally loses her loose grip on her composure. She stuff an hand in her mouth to stifle her giggles as Lena pulls a loose piece of tape out of her hair.

“I think I’m going to have to give Alice a bonus when she comes to clean tomorrow,” Lena says, pulling off her gloves. Her hands are mercifully less filthy, and she begins loading them with soap.

“Maybe a raise,” Kara says, pulling napkins from the holder and wetting them. “Do you remember that night after Lex’s arraignment when you decided it was a good idea to ‘fix’ the dishwasher in the Metropolis breakroom?” She asks, brushing powder out of Lena’s hair.

“It rattled. It was obnoxious.”

“Maria almost quit on the spot. I can still see the look on her face when she wandered in to mop…”

“Maria didn’t need to worry,” Lena says, dabbing politely at her nose. “I put it all back together. And it was more efficient.”

Kara laughs again, and begins wiping the edge of Lena’s cheek with her napkins. She’s too gentle to be making any real progress, but Lena doesn’t argue.

“I’m surprised you’re here tonight,” she says, “I saw they caught Winn’s father on the news. I would have thought you two would be off somewhere celebrating.” Or commiserating.

At the mention of Winn, Kara’s face falls. She picks at the edge of her napkin, and says, “I think he wanted some time for himself.”

Lena pauses applying lather to her face. “I suppose we all grieve in our own ways.” Kara nods, chin trembling. “…Unless there’s something else?

“It’s— It’s stupid,” Kara says, tossing the napkin into the trash. “I’m stupid. I can’t believe I—” She flushes, arms crossed, red-rimmed eyes determinedly avoiding Lena’s. She looks… small.

“What happened?” Lena asks softly.

Kara flops onto the bathroom counter, still not looking at Lena. Eyes resolutely aimed at her swinging feet, Kara says, “He kissed me.”

“Oh,” Lena says.

…And?   

Kara looks up at her with the face of someone who’s just run over a beloved cat. “I didn’t even know he liked me,” she moans. “He got so upset and he said he was in love with me and that he couldn’t keep bottling up his feelings anymore and now he won’t even talk to me…” Kara pauses, staring at Lena for a moment and then she drops her face into her hands. Between her fingers, she groans, “and now you’re looking at me the same way Alex did. Did everybody know but me?”

Yes.

“He wasn’t always subtle,” Lena says, gently, “but I think he was more worried about hiding his feelings from you than from the rest of us.”

Kara groans again and Lena hesitates, hunting for words. Does she give advice? Are they supposed to hug?

“Maybe it was my fault,” Kara says, wiping her eyes. “Maybe— Maybe I was sending the wrong message? I though— I mean, I told him I like someone. I don’t know why he would think— Maybe I should have just kissed him back. After everything with his dad—”  

“Hey!” Lena says sharply. “You don’t owe him anything. Especially not that. Life is ugly. What happened this week was awful, but that doesn’t give him the right to take it out on you. You aren’t interested. If he isn’t man enough to handle that, he doesn’t deserve your sympathy.”

Kara blinks in surprise at Lena’s tone, but when she finishes, Kara hesitates.

“He’s my friend,” she says.

“If he’s your friend, then he’ll beg your forgiveness, and you can decide what he deserves.”

Kara’s lips form a thin line. She doesn’t argue, but neither does she look convinced. She sniffs again and hastily wipes the tears that have escaped down her cheeks. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she says, “you were working and I interrupted with… this.” She gestures down at herself haplessly.

Lena makes a pointed swipe with her napkin. “I needed the interruption.”

Kara gives a watery smile. “You look like a raccoon.”

“I do not,” Lena sniffs. “Raccoons have black eye markings. My eyes are clean”

She gets a true laugh out of Kara with that one.

Kara brushes another cloud of dust off Lena’s dress. “Okay then, Wile E. Coyote, what were you doing in there?”

Lena hesitates as Kara grins at her. “Well, since you’re here,” she says. “I actually have something to show you.” Lena holds out a hand for Kara to hop down from the counter. Kara takes it with a look of interest that grows to wonder with Lena’s next sentence. “I was going to give it to you tomorrow morning.”  

“You— You made me a gift?” Kara asks, as Lena steps onto the office landing.  

She doesn’t need to sound so incredulous.

“It’s more of a tool.”

Kara darts past her, back to the office door. “You made me a gift!” she says.

“Yes. I did.”

Beaming, Kara holds open the door and makes a sweeping gesture, beckoning Lena past her. Lena’s phone chimes and she silences it without looking, instead slipping past Kara’s outstretched arm and teasing smile… and narrowly avoiding tripping face-first on the snag of wires. A slight flush of embarrassment fills her cheeks. Things had gotten a bit out of hand here.

She finds her gift nestled among a pile of scrapped prototypes on the desk. A small silver device, about the size of a computer mouse.

“I’ve been thinking about security,” Lena begins. “Your security.” Kara stops poking a pile of scrap with her foot and looks up. “Everything that happened with Roulette, my brother, and now…” Images from Crane’s files flit through her mind. A bloody corpse covered in bite marks. The explosion in the warehouse. The trail of bodies at LordTech. “I want you to take this home with you,” Lena continues, holding out the device. “It’s an alien detection device. This way, you know who you’re dealing with.”

Kara’s hand freezes halfway to the device.

“Sorry?” She asks.

“It’s a skin test,” Lena says, not looking at Kara. “I spoke to Patrick’s team about adapting their work for my designs. You just touch it, and…” The light flashes green under Lena’s thumb. “Obviously, it’s only a prototype. It’s nowhere near reading for market, but—”  “You’re putting that on the market?!”

Lena looks up. Kara has backed away. She stares at the device as though it might rear up and bite her.

“Yes,” Lena says. “This is a miniaturized version. For the most part, we will want to see it integrated into doors, gates, any major crossing points or points of entry.” Kara shakes her head as though she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Lena takes a steadying breath and charges on. “But I wanted to make sure you got one as soon as possible. Kara,” Lena’s voice hitches on her name, “I know you worry about aliens, but I need you to understand—”

“Understand what?” Kara snaps. Lena takes a step back. The anger in Kara’s eyes flickers and is subsumed by a desperate sort of smile, as she continues, “This is… I mean, come on Lena.” Kara laughs hollowly. “This is crazy. It’s— It’s— What about people’s rights?”

“There’s no right in the constitution about hiding that you’re an alien, Kara,” Lena says softly. There are several that relate to nonconsensual DNA collection, but with the kinds of lawyers Lena can afford and the current situation, she’s not that concerned.

“So you decided to doxx every alien on the planet?” Kara asks. The disbelief in her voice stings more than the anger.

“You saw what happened to the aliens at Roulette’s club. You know what life is like for the ones who can’t hide!”

“I saw,” Lena begins carefully, “people with abilities no human can match, tearing each other apart. Them being exploited doesn’t make them not dangerous.”

Kara has disagreed with her before. They’ve argued, sometimes loudly, once or twice over Lena’s designs.

Kara has never stared at her with such open revulsion.

“And the people this will hurt?” Kara asks in a deadly whisper. “The people who are hiding for a reason? The ones who will lose everything if your machine goes into offices and grocery stores?”

“I know it’s not ideal.”

“Not ideal? It’s unjust!”

“This isn’t about justice,” Lena argues. “It’s about common sense. We check people for guns at the door. I’d like to know if they can throw fireballs as well.”

“People will lose their jobs, their homes.”

“And I feel for them, but—”

“People will die, Lena!”

“People are already dying!” Lena snaps. She inhales sharply, willing herself to stay clearheaded. Kara’s the type to dig in her heels at strong-arming, not bend. Losing her temper will not gain her anything. “There are dangers you don’t know. This is so much bigger than you think it is.”

“Really?” Kara snarls. “Because I’m thinking you’re about to destroy thousands of lives!”

“And Fort Rozz is a threat to billions!”

Kara blinks. Confusion flickers across her face and, then… suspicion.

She already knew.

She already knew?

“Is this the secret project you’ve been working on?” Kara demands. “The file on your computer you close every time I walk into the room?”

File she closes? What— The fucking spreadsheet.

“No! Why would I bother keeping a project secret from you when you’re never here?” Lena clamps her jaw shut and then, gratingly, begins again. “I’m telling you now. Something had to be done—”

“Something is being done. By Supergirl and—”

“—and if this device is going to be made one way or another I would rather that L-Corp be the one to reap the profits. We’re a business, Kara. That device is going to earn a fortune. One we can use to do real good. Would you rather it go to lining the pockets of Maxwell Lord?” Lena asks.

Kara wrinkles her nose. “Don’t. Don’t hide behind that. You’re just scared like the rest of them.”

“Is that what you think?” Lena asks coldly.

Kara hesitates. Her eyes drop from Lena’s face to the device still clutched in Lena’s left hand.

“I made you a promise, the day I took this job,” Kara says. “I told you that if I ever saw you starting to go down Lex’s path, I’d tell you. This—” Kara swallows. And then her back straightens and she meets Lena’s eyes. “I don’t want any part of this.”

“Kara, please,” Lena says. Kara takes a stumbling step backwards. “Please, just take it—”

“I’ve set your appointments for tomorrow morning, Ms. Luthor,” Kara says. “It’s too late to do any callbacks, so I should be getting home.”

“Kara!”

“Excuse me.”

And Kara turns from her and storms from the office. The door slams behind her, hard enough to shake the frame. One of the welding marks on the new handle cracks.

Lena flinches from the noise as though it were a punch to the gut. Going down Lex’s path? This is not— Lena is doing what has to be done. No more, no less. Life isn’t black and white. If there’s one thing surviving Lex has taught her, it’s that sometimes ugly things are necessary. Kara will understand that. She will. She has to. Lena looks down at the device in her hands. She hurls it at the nearest wall.

The back casing explodes as it strikes, bits of wire and internal mechanism spilling out like so much viscera. Lena sinks to the floor next to her desk, refusing to look at her phone. At the notification she knows will be there.