Chapter Text
The news broadcasts, the phone, the landline... It was all too much.
With the way her panicked thoughts were mimicking a perfect storm, Kara found herself believing that her head might literally explode at any moment. (Considering the fact that a very real headache had started pounding away inside her skull, it didn't seem like an exaggeration.)
-Calm down-, the small part of her brain that was still capable of functioning normally tried to tell her. -You need to calm down so you can figure a way out of this. Freaking out isn't going to help.-
Easier said than done, she somehow managed to mentally fire back with no small amount of bitterness. Everything everyone in her life had ever done to keep her existence a secret... Everything they had sacrificed to keep her safe... Everything she herself had done and sacrificed to stay hidden from the world... It had all been rendered worthless with a single impulsive act.
Guilt and regret began to chip away at the shock consuming her, further worsening the state of her already chaotic mind.
She needed to get away – to find somewhere that she could actually think. She needed some peace. She needed to feel safe.
There was only one place in the whole universe where she could get all that.
With lightning speed, the television was switched off, the phone was put on silent and the landline was unplugged.
Then she closed her eyes, leaned back and began reciting her meditation chant.
Mon-El couldn't quite decide which one was the bigger shock to his system: the impact of a familiar body slamming into his back that was so great it had expelled the air from his lungs or the sudden flood of pure panic into his head courtesy of a very abruptly established mental connection.
“Agh.” His miniature recreation of the Delliah's Dance monument on the planet Tineleon shattered along with his focus. “What-”
The hands gripping his from behind tightened their hold, making it that much more difficult for him to turn and face his 'attacker'. Meanwhile, the golden light filling his head seemed as if it was both trying to escape and burrow into his soul at the same time. “I screwed up.” He could barely make out the words, what with the way Kara had buried her face in his shirt. “I screwed up so badly, Mon-El. I didn't mean to, I swear, but I did and now everyone knows-”
“Kara.” Careful to use just enough strength to achieve his goal, he pried her hands free and loosened the grip her arms had on his body so that he could turn around. “Kara. Hey. Hey,” he murmured soothingly as he gently cupped her face and curled his thoughts comfortingly around hers. He was only half-successful; her brilliant blue eyes were wild and unfocused, causing him to wonder if she was actually seeing him or seeing right through him. “Kara? Kara, look at me and breathe. Just look at me and breathe. That's all. Can you do that for me? Please?”
The wild look in her eyes persisted and the golden light was still trying to shake his thoughts off it but then she closed her mouth, swallowed thickly and nodded ever so slightly. “...Okay.”
He gave her a warm smile and sent another wave of comforting energy her way as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “Thank you.”
For a short eternity, they did nothing more than stand there with their foreheads pressed together, eyes closed and breaths slowly synchronising. Her hands had loosened their death grip on his shirt in favour of clinging to his arms while he had shifted his so that his fingers were combing through her hair.
“Better?” he murmured once he was fairly sure she had calmed down enough. At her admittedly hesitant nod, he pulled away just enough to drop another kiss on her forehead. “That's good. When you think you're ready, tell me what happened from the beginning.”
She nodded again and let out a shaky exhale, but it still took a while before she actually started speaking. “Alex cancelled again because of work so I decided to move forward that midnight trip.”
'Midnight trip' being code for her secret vigilante work, his first thought was that something had gone horribly wrong during her most recent mission. “Did you get caught?” he asked worriedly. “I thought you said- No, it was wrong to assume-”
“No, it's not that,” Kara cut him off quickly as she squeezed his arms. Apparently it was her turn to calm him down. “There weren't any complications there.”
Despite his best efforts, Mon-El found his own concern starting to grow and only barely managed to keep it from flowing back to her. “...Then what is it?”
There was a spike of panic as the golden light shuddered but she didn't show it outwardly. “I... When I was on my way back, I heard an explosion in the sky. It was a plane with one of its engines in flames. I-I...” She began shaking, causing him to restart his efforts to calm her down. “All I could think about was how the people on the plane were going to die and I... I couldn't... I couldn't let that happen. Not again. Never again.”
“...So you... caught the plane,” he hazarded a guess and couldn't decide how to feel when she nodded in response. To buy himself some time, he pulled her into a tight hug which she was all too willing to reciprocate. “Okay. That's... You did good, okay? You saved lives. That's what counts.”
“But I revealed myself to the world!” Her anguished cry, muffled though it might be, broke his heart. “The Danvers, Kal-El, Bruce... Everyone worked so hard to keep me safe and just like that- I didn't think about what they'd sacrificed when I made that decision. All I could think about was- I was being so selfish-”
“Whoa, whoa, hey.” In a heartbeat, he pulled away to cup her face in his hands once again so that he could coax her to meet his gaze. “Hey. Kara? Kara, look at me. You saw people in trouble and you saved them. That is the least selfish thing in the world anyone could ever choose to do, okay? You did the right thing like you always do. That's what matters. That's all that matters.”
“At what cost?!” she demanded to know, her eyes shining with unshed tears as the golden light continued to radiate a mixture of terror, self-loathing and guilt. “I've put everyone I care about in danger with just this one act!” Then the golden light stilled unnaturally as a look of dawning horror swept across her face. “Oh Rao. The DEO.”
The mere mention of that abominable group was almost enough to cause him to give in to the same fear consuming her but he managed to stop himself just in time. The last thing she needed was for him to make her feel even worse than she already did. No, he had to be strong for her. His own panic attack could wait until later when she wasn't around. “Don't think about them right now, okay? We'll deal with that later.”
“But-” she began to protest.
“Kara, answer one question for me,” he cut her off firmly before she could really get started. “Do you regret it?”
Caught off guard, she could only stare at him blankly. “...What?”
“If you could go back in time, would you choose to keep your secret safe and let that plane crash instead?” he clarified calmly.
Her confusion immediately turned into a mixture of incredulity and horror. “Mon-El, there were people on that plane! Alex was on that plane! My secret isn't worth their lives!”
That part surprised him, but it worked in his favour. “So no regrets then?”
It actually took her a moment to realise what he'd done, and the golden light emitted an annoyed pulse as she shot him a weak glare. “...That's playing dirty,” she complained.
“You really should have expected no less from a Daxamite,” he pointed out with a touch of humour and a hint of a cheeky grin. Then he let the moment of levity pass and got serious again. “No more dwelling on it, okay? You did a good thing – the right thing – and you should never have to second-guess yourself over it. Especially not you.”
A heavy sigh escaped her and the golden light dimmed as she hung her head. “I know. I won't. Thank you. But...” Her shoulders sagged as if the weight of the entire universe had been placed on top of them. “It doesn't change the fact that everyone knows I exist now. And the DEO...” she trailed off with a shudder.
The way she leaned into him as if she was trying to hide from the world fed the maelstrom of emotions in his heart he was trying so hard to keep locked away from her. At a loss for the moment as to how he could help, he did the only thing he could think of and wrapped his arms around her again. “It's going to be okay,” he tried to reassure her even though he was painfully aware that he didn't sound convincing even to his own ears. “You're going to be okay. This... If it comes down to it, I want you to run, do you hear me? Gotham or Metropolis; I don't care which one. The first sign they're coming for you, I want you to fly straight to Bruce or even your cousin as fast as you can. Don't hesitate and don't stop. Do you understand?”
She nodded and clung to him a little tighter but otherwise remained silent. In his head, the golden light was thankfully no longer in a frenzy but remained similarly tense. It was, however, the most he could have hoped for much to his regret; the reality of the situation was that her future had never been more uncertain than it was now and there was very little either of them could do about it.
Once again, Mon-El found himself cursing his helplessness. All he could do for Kara was offer her words of comfort that had little to no substance to them; if anything happened to her out there in the real world, the best he could do was share her pain. He couldn't protect her, he couldn't save her, he couldn't even hold her... What good was he?
All of a sudden, she jerked in his arms and the golden light flared with panic. Before he could even ask what was wrong, she pulled away and looked off to the side with an expression of pure terror. “Someone's knocking at the door.”
His blood ran cold in his veins. “Kara, look at me.” The commanding tone in his voice broke through the fear clouding her mind and made her comply without question. When her eyes were focused on him again, he cradled her head in his hands and pushed as much comfort and reassurance that he could muster through their connection. “Promise me. Promise me that you're going to run at the first sign – the absolute first sign – of danger. You fly away as fast as you possibly can and you don't stop until you're somewhere completely safe. Understand? Completely, unquestionably safe. Promise me. Please.”
She nodded jerkily. “I-I promise.”
Then she was gone.
Mon-El freely admitted that he was not a devout man and had mostly just gone through the motions when his participation in the prayers and religious celebrations back on Daxam was required. There was also the fact that even if the gods were listening at that very moment, he wasn't entirely sure that they would be all that concerned about safeguarding the life of someone not from Daxam – a member of the race his people considered their mortal enemies, no less.
In conclusion, he had absolutely no guarantee that praying to them and asking for them to protect Kara would work.
But there was nothing else he could do.
So he prayed.
The first thing Kara did when she jerked awake was use her X-ray vision to see who was on the other side of her front door.
When she did, her fear was immediately replaced by overwhelming relief and she nearly destroyed more than one piece of furniture in her haste to wrench the door open. Having been in the path of narrowly avoided annihilation, St'rki yowled angrily as he barely escaped and scampered off to hide in the bedroom, momentarily forgotten by his mistress.
“Oh thank god!” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around Alex and pulled her adoptive sister into an almost literal bone-crushing hug.
“Ow!”
Alex's pained exclamation as well as the barely discernible sound of bones actually cracking caused Kara to hastily loosen her arms and step back. “Oh god, I'm so sorry. That was... That was too hard.”
“It's fine,” Alex tried to wave it off although her wince and the way she was checking her ribs with her free hand made her reassurance less than convincing. Before Kara could start apologising again, however, the older Danvers sister stepped further into the apartment and closed the door behind her. “Are you okay?” she asked as she scanned Kara from head to toe.
For a moment, all Kara could do was stare dumbstruck at her adoptive sister. “Me? Am I okay? Are you okay? You were on that plane! Did you get hurt?! I mean, I tried to soften the landing as much as I could but it's not like I have a lot of experience doing stuff like this-”
“Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking,” Alex cut Kara off with an almost irritated tone.
Unfortunately, it completely went unnoticed by Kara. “Were you scared? I mean, I was scared too, but you... You had to be terrified. Especially because you probably thought- I mean, I didn't even know you were on that plane until I saw you and you had no idea anyone would be coming to save you, much less think that I was the one who would be coming to save you-”
“What the hell were you thinking?!” Alex bellowed, the volume and anger in her voice shocking Kara silent.
Rendered speechless for the second time in such a short period, Kara took even longer this round to regain her ability to speak. “What...”
Alex, however, did not seem to be in the mood to let her try and defend herself. “You exposed yourself. To the world.” She gestured wildly in the direction of the apartment's windows. “You're out there now, Kara. Everyone knows about you and you can't take that back.”
Shock transformed into hurt which in turn slowly but surely tapped into the fires of rage that blazed eternal deep inside her. “You think I don't know that?” Kara replied harshly as her hands curled into fists at her sides. “I know, okay? Why do you think I flew away the moment the news helicopters arrived? But people were going to die if I hadn't done something! You would have died if I hadn't done something!”
“Maybe you should have just let us die then!” Alex snarled back. “At least your secret would've still been safe! You would've still been safe!”
Kara stared, emotionally trapped somewhere between angry and aghast. “How... How could you even... My secret isn't worth all those lives! Especially when your life is one of them!”
Instead of calming her down, Kara's words only seemed to infuriate Alex even more. “Your secret has already cost lives! Or have you forgotten my father?”
Dead silence.
The world beyond the apartment's walls ceased to exist and the two people inside it didn't so much as twitch.
Through the unbearable hurt, Kara looked at the stranger standing in front of her who so closely resembled the adoptive sister she loved so much and wondered if she knew her at all.
Before either of them could say anything else they might regret in the morning, however, the sharp sound of Alex's phone ringing shattered the silence. To Kara's confusion, a myriad of emotions flashed across her adoptive sister's face too quickly for her to identify before Alex's features settled into an expression of pained resignation. With deliberate slowness, the older Danvers sister reached into her pocket, pulled out the still ringing device and answered it. “Sir.”
Sir? “...Alex,” Kara started cautiously as something suspiciously like dread began to settle in her stomach, “who's that on the phone?”
Alex ignored her. “Yes, I'm with her. No, she's- Sir, there's no need- I can handle-” With every aborted sentence, she became more and more agitated until she stopped talking altogether. Nevertheless, her expression continued to darken as the person on the other end of the line kept talking until that too stopped. Then she pulled the phone away from her ear and held it out towards Kara. “He wants to speak to you.”
Every instinct screamed at Kara to flee – screamed at her that whoever this 'he' was, she was better off not having any kind of contact with him. However, it was as if someone else had taken command of her body, and thus it was with a strange kind of detachment that she saw her own hand rise up to take the phone from Alex and press it against her ear.
“I'm sure I don't have to tell you why we're having this conversation, Kryptonian.”
She forgot to breathe and her suddenly nerveless hand nearly dropped the phone.
That voice.
If not for the fact that she returned to the dream world every single time she fell asleep, she was sure that she would have had more than a few nightmares that featured that voice and its owner prominently.
It can't be.
“Don't make me repeat myself.”
But it was.
“Y-Yes,” she barely managed to gasp out as her entire body began shaking uncontrollably. “I-I-I... I-I know.”
“Good. That saves me a lot of time.” If Henshaw had noticed the way her voice had trembled, he didn't acknowledge it. “You've caused everyone a lot of trouble and we're going to have to figure out how we can fix that.”
“P-Please.” Her vision started to blur with tears. Nothing except the phone in her hand and the voice coming out of it registered in her mind. She had even forgotten that Alex was in the apartment and it was her sister's phone she was using. “I-I promise I won't do it again-”
“I would certainly hope so considering that would involve more planes falling out of the sky,” he cut her off with an unreadable tone. (If not for the gravity of the situation and the person saying it, she would have called that an attempt at dry humour.) “Regardless, your promise is worth very little especially in the long term.”
By then, the dread in her stomach had turned from a yawning hole into a bottomless abyss slowly consuming her from the inside out. Her mouth fell open but no sound came out. What could she even say? Would it even have any effect? Was her fate sealed no matter what?
A tired sigh from the other end of the line dragged her out of her turbulent thoughts. “This is going nowhere. Perhaps it would be more productive if we had this conversation in person.”
“W-What?” No. Talking to him was bad enough; if she had to actually face him... “W-Wait, please-”
“Pass the phone back to Agent Danvers.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Cowed into submission, Kara snapped her mouth shut and wordlessly obeyed.
The look on Alex's face as she took back her phone was unreadable, and whatever little she managed to say did little to assuage Kara's fears. “Sir? ...What- No, wait- But sir-” She closed her eyes, a look of resignation on her face. “...Understood.”
When Alex ended the call with an audible 'click', Kara thought she could be forgiven for thinking it sounded like a death knell. “...Alex?”
“Come on.” Alex didn't even wait for Kara as she headed for the front door. “The longer we put this off, the worse it's going to be.”
Maybe it was the certainty in that statement or maybe it was the sense of inevitability about her fate. Whichever it was, Kara found herself robotically following her adoptive sister out of her apartment, down the stairs and into the car.
Then they were off to Rao knew where.
Throughout the entire journey, her mind sluggishly tried to make sense of everything that had just transpired.
One by one, the pieces began falling into place... and the picture they formed was far from pretty.
“The job you wouldn't tell me anything about,” she croaked, unable to look at Alex as she spoke. “The boss you hate so much... All this while... You were working for the DEO. For him.”
Alex kept her eyes on the road. “...Yes.”
“Why?” Kara asked tremulously even though she was afraid of the answer. “Why you? Was... Was the reason you were recruited... me?”
“They recruited me because my background in bio-engineering made it easy for me to become an expert on alien physiology.” A pause followed. “But you were a contributing factor, yes.”
Kara closed her eyes but a tear slipped out nevertheless. She had done it again. She had ruined the life of someone she loved just by being close to them – another member of the Danvers family, no less. If she hadn't come into their lives, they would still be one happy family. Jeremiah would still be alive and Alex would be pursuing a career she was actually passionate about instead of risking her life hunting aliens. If she had just stayed in the Phantom Zone forever and never landed on Earth...
If only...
Mentally and emotionally exhausted, she needed very little encouragement to let the darkness claim her.
The relief that washed over Mon-El upon Kara's return to the dream world was almost immediately replaced by alarm when he noticed her rather lifeless state. “Kara?!” Panicked, he ran over and cupped her face in his hands both to initiate their mental connection and to get her to meet his gaze. “Kara, are you okay?! Talk to me!”
To his immense worry, the golden light was dim and inanimate while she herself seemed to struggle to actually focus on him. In fact, it looked like she was barely holding tears back. “Mon-El...”
His mind began conjuring all the absolute worst case scenarios it could think of, each one more horrific than the last. “Kara, please... Tell me what happened. Are you hurt? Did they capture you? Where are you right now?”
“I...” Her voice trembled with the sound of a suppressed sob and the golden light began to radiate a chaotic mix of emotions, grief being the most prominent one. “I'm with Alex. She's taking me to meet him.”
The seemingly nonsensical answer threw him for a loop to such an extent that he had trouble figuring out where to even begin asking for clarification. “Alex? What does Alex have to do with your situation? And who are you meeting?”
This time, the sob managed to escape. “Mon-El... It's the DEO. Alex works for the DEO. She works for Henshaw.”
“No.” His denial was instantaneous even though he knew Kara would never lie to him – especially not about something this serious. “I- But why? Why would she-”
“Because of me!” If not for the way her voice had cracked under the strain of all her turbulent emotions, he was fairly sure he would have been deafened by now. As if the confession had sapped her of all her strength, her shoulders sagged and she bowed her head, breaking eye contact with him in the process. “Because of me, she... Just like Jeremiah... Why did it have to happen again? Why couldn't I have just stayed in the Phantom Zone?”
“Kara. Hey.” He gently but firmly tilted her head back up so that he could look into her eyes again. “Stop. We've been over this. You can't blame yourself for things beyond your control.”
Unfortunately, she was far from convinced. “But if I hadn't come into their lives-”
“You don't know what would have happened,” he pointed out. “They could've still recruited Jeremiah and Alex. We will never know. There's no point in beating yourself up over what could have been. And besides, think about what would have happened if you hadn't landed on Earth. Kenny's killer would have gotten away with his crimes. Eve would have been kidnapped and killed by her stalker. Edge would have destroyed that shelter. And all those other crimes you stopped... All those people you saved directly or indirectly in some way...” He offered her a soft smile as he let all the awe and affection he felt for her flow into her mind. “Kara, the world is a better place with you in it. No matter what.”
He could tell that she was desperate yet oh so afraid to believe him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because you are the kindest, strongest, most amazing person I have ever known,” he answered simply and with complete sincerity. “I'm sure that regardless of how things turned out and what the future holds, Jeremiah, Eliza and Alex have never once regretted welcoming you into their family and they never will. The same goes for everyone else who knows you – Bruce, Selina, Alfred, Eve, Tae, Sui... even those who don't know your true identity like Winn and Mrs Needleberg. It is a joy and an honour to be part of your life, Kara Zor-El, and I daresay no one believes that more than me.”
The golden light shrank away from his thoughts a little as embarrassment became the dominant emotion coming from it and a barely detectable blush coloured her cheeks. “I'm already in love with you,” she mumbled in a clumsy attempt at a deflection of his effusive praise. “You don't have to compliment me like that.”
Her easy use of the word 'love' caused him to freeze. She said it rarely – why bother when their connection allowed both of them to share their feelings in their purest forms? – but when she did, it was with such natural ease that it always took his breath away. In contrast, he was painfully aware that he had yet to actually say it himself. He didn't even really know why it was so hard to do especially when he had no doubts about how he felt about her.
...No. This was absolutely the wrong time to think about this. Hoping he had caught himself in time, he gave her a small teasing grin. “Is that a request for me to stop?”
A flicker of annoyance came through their connection – a small victory in his opinion. “You know that's not what I meant...” Before he could continue teasing her, however, the golden light dimmed again and she dropped her gaze. “Do you... Do you think she hates me?”
There was no need to ask who 'she' was supposed to be, and Mon-El let his grin fade as he chose his next words carefully. Out of everyone on Earth, Alex ranked somewhere at the very top of the list of people that Kara loved with all her heart. Even the mere thought of losing that sisterly bond was obviously tearing her apart from the inside out. “That... That's something you have to ask her. But I don't think she does, for what it's worth,” he was quick to add. “She made her choice to join the DEO to protect you – at least, that's my understanding of the situation – and she wouldn't have done that if she didn't love you.”
“...I guess,” she whispered but it was obvious that she didn't quite believe it. There was something else she wasn't saying, he was certain, but he got the sense that it was more about the pain of recounting whatever had happened instead of a desire to hide it from him. If he had to guess, the part about Jeremiah was not something her own mind had brought up without outside prompting.
But he would deal with that another time. Right now, there was a more pressing issue they had to discuss.
“How much time do you have left before you arrive where you're going?” he asked as tactfully as he could manage.
Just as he expected, she stiffened and the golden light emitted a pulse of fear. “I-I... I don't know. I don't even know where we're going.”
“Then I'll be brief.” He waited until he had her undivided attention before he continued. “This is going to sound unrealistically optimistic but I think this may work out in the end. Henshaw didn't send a team to capture you; instead, he sent Alex – alone – so we can at least believe for the moment that he's sincere about wanting to talk things out. If you're careful and put that genius brain of yours to it, I think you might be able to get yourself out of this. At the very least, you can trust Alex to be on your side and I don't think she'll let any harm come to you. So... be strong, be vigilant and most of all be smart. You're going to find a solution. I have faith in you.”
It took a while, but eventually the fire in her eyes he knew so well returned – perhaps not as bright as it usually was but it was there nonetheless. Similarly, the golden light's glow began to regain some of its strength. “I know. Thank you. I will.” Then both dimmed just a little as her fear from before made its unwelcome return. “...And if it doesn't work out?”
“You have powers.” He left it at that, knowing she would understand.
She did and acknowledged it with an admittedly shaky nod.
Then she was gone again... and once again, there was nothing he could do but pray.
Kara woke up just as the car came to a halt.
“We're here,” Alex announced as she shut off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt.
'Here' apparently being... literally the middle of nowhere.
Were they in the desert on the outskirts of National City? Kara looked around as she exited the vehicle along with Alex but couldn't be sure. Maybe she should have reconsidered that short visit to the dream world during the journey... although considering the circumstances, she had needed it.
Especially when even looking at the man standing in front of her still made her want to flee to the other side of Earth.
“So.” Everything about Henshaw from his tone to his posture made clear his zero-tolerance attitude towards her. The same could be said of the two DEO agents flanking him who were holding guns that she was almost sure had Kryptonite in them instead of regular bullets. “We have a problem.”
“Sir-” Alex started, an undercurrent of anxiousness Kara could barely detect in her voice.
“Your input, Agent Danvers,” he cut her off smoothly as he turned his gaze in her direction, “is unneeded.”
Alex snapped her mouth shut with an audible 'click' although her expression made it clear she was more than a little unhappy about it.
Satisfied, Henshaw's eyes once again focused on Kara, and she had to dig her nails into her palms to stop herself from flinching. “You're a danger, Kryptonian. You've been one since you first landed on this planet, bringing your people's prison Fort Rozz with you. All those alien convicts – the worst criminals in the galaxy – they all escaped thanks to you. Despite all that, we were willing to overlook your existence before this because we had assurances on several levels that you would do the sensible thing and stay hidden. After your first incident, we managed to reach an understanding with Jeremiah Danvers and continued to look the other way. But now you've revealed yourself to the world and we can't simply do that any longer.”
Be strong, Kara. Be smart about this. “I...” She swallowed and tried to keep the tremors out of her voice. “It was one incident and I saved lives – one of them being an agent under your employ, even. I'll go back to being regular Kara Danvers tomorrow and the news will eventually move on to another story. There's no need for any drastic decisions.”
“You underestimate the tenacity of the media – a surprise, I would say, considering you're currently working in one of the largest local corporations in the industry.” So they were still keeping loose tabs on her. Why was she not surprised? “People will ask questions. They will dig. Eventually, someone will find something that leads back to us. And that is the last thing we want, wouldn't you agree?”
His implied threat was hard to miss. “Then feed them a lie. That should be easy for a clandestine government organisation like yours-”
The rest of Kara's admittedly scathing suggestion died in her throat as her ears were suddenly assaulted by a high-pitched noise that caused her to double over and let out a sharp scream.
[“I'm communicating at 50,000 hertz,”] a male voice speaking fluent Kryptonian filled her ears through the painful din. [“If you can hear this, you were not born on this planet.”]
“Kara! Are you okay?!” Alex's panicked voice barely registered.
[“Painful, isn't it?”] the voice chuckled darkly. [“The humans of this pathetic city will suffer ten times this pain if you don't face me. I'll be waiting for you at the National City Power Plant... if you have the courage to come, that is. Or are you going to prove yourself a coward and let innocent people die in your place, daughter of Alura?”]
Then the noise stopped at long last and Kara slowly looked up to find Alex looming over her with a worried look on her face. Unsurprisingly, neither Henshaw nor his two agents had reacted to her strange behaviour. (It vaguely looked like he was just a little concerned about her as well but she had to be imagining that.)
“Kara, what just happened?” Alex asked as she checked Kara over as if she could find some kind of injury if she looked hard enough.
“I...” Still reeling from both the physical pain and the implications of the message that had quite literally been meant for her ears alone, Kara was forced to take a moment to collect herself before she could speak. “I think a Fort Rozz escapee just... contacted me.”
That definitely caught Henshaw's attention. “And what did this alien want?”
“...To kill me, most likely.” From the corner of her eye, Kara saw Alex stiffen in alarm. “He said if I don't meet him at the National City Power Plant, more people are going to get hurt or even die.”
“Thank you for the tip.” He turned and addressed the two agents with him. “Let's go. Hayashi, tell a strike team to meet us there.”
“W-Wait!” Before she could think it over, Kara found herself calling out to him. “He expects to see me and you don't even know what could be waiting for you there!”
Henshaw gave her a dismissive look. “We've been hunting beings like you for over a decade, Kryptonian – some of them wielding powers from your darkest nightmares. Your concern, if that is what it is, is very much misplaced. Whatever is there, we can handle it.”
“But you don't have to,” Kara replied as an admittedly very insane and reckless plan began to form in her head. “Let me go instead.”
“Kara, what the hell do you think you're doing?” Alex hissed, sounding somewhere between fearful and outraged.
Kara ignored her. “I can help you capture him. You and your agents won't have to risk your lives. At the very least, I can weaken him for you; that should make your job easier to some extent.”
If not for her invulnerability, Kara was sure that Alex would be shaking her so hard right now that she would be dizzy. “Kara, shut up! Just shut up!”
“And how exactly would you accomplish that?” Henshaw asked with a raised eyebrow. “As you yourself pointed out, none of us have any idea what's waiting for us there. You may have powers but you lack experience in using them in a fight and you certainly don't have any kind of combat training to your name.”
Oh, if only you knew. “That's my problem, not yours, isn't it?” Kara replied evenly. “After all, you don't care what happens to me. To you, I'm just another nameless alien for you to capture or kill.”
Henshaw might as well have been carved from granite with the way he was standing there looking at her. “...Very well. However, I think you'll understand if I don't trust your ability to accomplish the task at hand so we'll be going there together.”
Still pointedly ignoring Alex's attempts to hold her back in every possible way, Kara stood tall as she met his gaze unflinchingly. She had some control over the situation now, however little and tenuous, but that was all she needed for the moment. “No. I'll meet you there.”
Then she soared into the sky, taking only a moment to find the direction she should be heading before she flew towards her destination as fast as she could.
In hindsight, maybe she shouldn't have changed out of her catsuit. A T-shirt and sweatpants did not seem like the most practical thing to be wearing when you were about to have a potentially lethal fight with a highly dangerous prison escapee determined to kill you.
Focus, Kara, she scolded herself. At her current speed, she would reach the National City Power Plant in no time and she needed every second she had between now and there to go through her plan: beat up whatever alien had contacted her and consequently show Henshaw and the DEO that she could be a useful tool. If she gave them a reason to see her as anything but a dangerous threat, she could potentially avoid whatever fate they had originally planned for her. A relatively free life under intense scrutiny was still better than one in whatever deep dark hole the humans would throw her in... or death after they'd had their fill of turning her into their guinea pig.
That, if everything went smoothly, would just be the beginning.
Fort Rozz had arrived on Earth because of her; it was therefore her responsibility to make sure the aliens who had escaped it and were now causing chaos on this planet were captured again. The downside was that they would be in the hands of the DEO who would do Rao knew what to them but the safety of the innocents they could harm came first. She would be able to help people in a manner similar if not identical to the way Kal-El was able to help Earth as Superman.
Then, when she had earned their trust, she would leverage it to gain access to what was rightfully hers which they had taken from her so many years ago: her pod. With that, she would be able to find out what the Coluan on Fort Rozz had done to it so that it resumed its journey to Earth, recreate it and have the final key to rescuing Mon-El from the Well of Stars.
It was a crazy, reckless and most likely stupid on some level plan and Mon-El was probably going to yell at her when she told him about it later but it was all she had to work with now.
And she had to make it work.
Everything – her life and Mon-El's as well – hung in the balance.
It took her only a few seconds after she landed at her destination and used her X-ray vision to figure out why her opponent had chosen this location for her intended execution.
“Clever,” she called out in Kryptonian as she put her other enhanced senses to use, “picking a spot lined with lead.” So he knew about her powers and their limitations. How? By studying Kal-El? Or had someone else privy to that information fed it to him? “But I can still hear your heartbeat.”
A sudden spike in said heartbeat and a whooshing sound somewhere behind her alerted her to the incoming attack, and she ducked and rolled away just in time to avoid being slammed into the ground. When she got back on her feet, she found herself looking at a very human-looking alien whose only external distinguishing feature was the ridges on his cranium – a Valeronian, perhaps? They didn't have any noteworthy abilities that she knew of aside from above-average physical strength and resilience but she couldn't be complacent. For all she knew, his species gained new powers courtesy of Earth's yellow sun just like hers so she had to be prepared for anything.
Judging by the expression on his face, he was less than pleased that she had managed to avoid his first strike. “On my planet, females bow before males.”
“Unfortunately for you, this isn't your planet,” she bit back, “and even if it was, I still wouldn't do it, Valeronian.”
His scowl deepened. “The name is Vartox, daughter of Alura. You should at least know the name of your executioner.” Then a cruel smile curled his lips. “It's good that you look like your mother. I can't kill her for judging and jailing me so killing you will have to do.”
Irked by his attitude, Kara couldn't help but taunt him. “I'd like to see you try.”
The sound of a helicopter approaching in the far distance caught her attention, and she spent a precious handful of seconds trying to deduce who it might be. A news crew? No, they hadn't caused a scene – yet, anyway – so there was no reason for them to be coming here. It had to be the DEO... which did not exactly work in her favour either. If they were watching, she would have to pretend that she was as inexperienced a fighter as they believed her to be so that they wouldn't get suspicious. That meant potentially letting Vartox hurt her – something she was not particularly keen on doing because she was also trying to avoid looking utterly incompetent and therefore useless.
Of course, there was also the fact that by letting him score a few hits, he could end up damaging her clothes – a thought which made her really uncomfortable. If she ended up half-naked or worse by the end of the fight, she might as well just die of embarrassment then and there. Plus, she lived on a pretty tight budget and that meant saving on clothes shopping whenever she could barring the occasional guilty pleasure. Sure, her current outfit wasn't exactly her favourite but that didn't mean she had to get it ripped up so she could buy replacements.
Grife. Why couldn't anything about tonight be easy?
Movement in front of her dragged her out of her thoughts and she managed to dodge the fist that had been aimed at her head. No more time to think; her best bet would be to fight defensively. Maybe she could just keep her distance, tire him out and then punch him unconscious when he'd been sapped of most his strength.
Naturally, she was the only one of them who was a fan of that strategy.
“STOP! DODGING!” Vartox roared as he threw punches and kicks that kept missing their intended target over and over.
“As if I'd do that! And you didn't even ask nicely!” Kara snapped as she kicked some dirt into his eyes before using the distraction to put even more distance between them.
Her actions only served to drive him even madder with rage. “ENOUGH!” Reaching behind him, he pulled free the axe that had been strapped to his back. “This ends now!”
So he had finally decided to use his weapon. She backed away from him just a little more as she recalled everything she knew about Valeronian weaponry. Made out of Yeowaine metal which was native to the planet Valeron, each weapon was styled according to its owner's preferences. Their one shared characteristic was that all of them were powered by a self-generating atomic charge reaching temperatures up to 2500 degrees that increased the damage every strike caused.
In other words, it would be a really bad idea to get hit even more than before.
Perhaps she could blow it up with her heat vision? No, that would require her to be up close – like 'blade one inch away from her face' close – for a prolonged period of time and she didn't want to take that risk. Plus, her clothes would likely not survive the blast in that scenario and... yeah, that really wasn't an option.
He charged at her with his axe held high, and she used the scant few seconds before he got within range to come up with a new battle strategy. This time, instead of dodging for the sake of dodging, she carefully drew him in the direction of the power plant's batteries she had spotted just before she had landed. Come on, come on, she mentally chanted as she watched him get more furious and more reckless with every failed attempt to cleave her in two. She needed him to be too distracted by his anger to figure out what she was up to, and from the look on his face she was succeeding.
Her back hit a battery and Vartox's expression turned into one of cruel satisfaction.
“Stop!” Kara held her hands up to further sell the illusion that he had gained the upper hand at long last. “I give up. Please, I don't want to die.”
The sadistic grin on his face only grew as he held his axe high above his head. “Give your mother my regards.”
She waited until the last second before she ducked and used her superspeed to get away.
Just as she had anticipated, the force of his swing caused his axe to get buried deep in the battery, resulting in an explosion that bowled her over and sent him flying with an agonised scream.
Shaking her head in an attempt to get rid of the ringing, she staggered to her feet and carefully approached his prone form on the ground. Amazingly, he was still alive albeit badly burned... but the same could not be said for his axe which lay in shattered pieces around him. “It's over,” she told him from a safe distance, having learned from her years of training to never underestimate her opponent even when they appeared defeated.
A derisive laugh was his response. “You think I'm the threat?” he sneered. “You have no idea what's coming.”
Then he reached for a jagged and still heated shard of his destroyed axe.
By the time she realised what he intended to do, it was too late. “No! Stop!”
With one forceful thrust, he stabbed himself in the chest, fell back onto the ground and drew his last breath.
Stunned silent, she could only stare at his lifeless body. What had he meant by those ominous words? Why had he chosen to end his life the moment he had failed to kill her? How had he even known how to contact her in the first place?
There were so many questions... and her only source of answers had taken them to the grave with him.
Clapping snapped her out of her turbulent thoughts and she whirled around to find Henshaw standing there with a small team of DEO agents behind him. “Not bad, Kryptonian,” he congratulated her in a tone that lacked the corresponding emotion. “You actually managed to do it.”
Kara stiffened but held her head high. Puzzling over Vartox's cryptic words would have to wait. “I did. And now that I've proven myself, I'd like to make a deal with you.”
One of his eyebrows arched. “A deal?”
“Yes. I can help you capture the rest of the Fort Rozz escapees-” Provided they don't all kill themselves for reasons that elude me, she thought to herself. “-and in return, I want to be allowed to continue my life as Kara Danvers.”
“...That can be arranged,” he eventually replied much to her relief.
“One more thing,” she quickly added before she lost her nerve. She had this one chance and she couldn't afford to waste it.
Impossibly, the arched eyebrow became even more pronounced. “Making demands, are we?”
“It works in your favour too so hear me out.” When he made no attempt to dismiss her in any way, she took it as a good sign and continued. “As you said earlier, there's no taking back the fact that the world knows I exist now and people will ask questions. So let me take control of the narrative. Let me operate in National City the same way my cousin does in Metropolis. If I give them a story that satisfies their curiosity, they won't go looking for answers on their own and you can continue doing whatever it is you do out of the public eye.”
“Your cousin is known to be fond of causing the occasional incident of wanton destruction,” he pointed out. “The misplaced adoration of the citizens of Metropolis and the positive coverage he gets from the Daily Planet, however, make it difficult for us to hold him accountable. You, on the other hand, do not have those protections and I want assurances that we will not have a similar problem with you.”
In short, the moment she proved to be more trouble than she was worth, she was going to suffer for it. “I can't make any guarantees,” she replied through gritted teeth, “but you have my word that I'll do my utmost best to keep the collateral damage to a minimum.”
For a moment that stretched on for far too long, both of them stared silently at each other before he gave her a small nod. “I'll keep that in mind, Kryptonian... as should you.” Then he turned to his agents. “Begley, Mio, secure the alien's remains. Tahir, collect whatever is left of its weapon. Grant, Abner, inspect the place and give me a full damage report tomorrow.” He paused. “And Danvers... take your sister home.”
That was when Kara realised that her problems were far from over.