Chapter Text
Her stomach lurched with such suddenness that Lena barely had time to double over the trash can full of scrap metal before she vomited up what little food she’d managed to cram in somewhere between midnight and dawn. Shoulders heaving, she dropped to the cold floor of her lab and clutched the edge of the bin in a white-knuckled grip, gasping as the bile burned its way up her throat and made her eyes sting with tears.
“Miss Luthor?”
“I’m fine, Hope,” Lena muttered, face flushed and clammy as she staggered to her feet and gripped the edge of the workbench for balance, hunched over as nausea swept through her once more. “Must be a case of bad sushi.”
Straightening up, Lena drew in a deep, shuddering breath, the taste of bile sour in her mouth as it coated her tongue. A headache pulsed behind her eyes and she felt leaden with exhaustion, muscles aching and limbs heavy and clumsy.
“Miss Luthor, I would suggest rest and hydration. Symptoms should abate in one to two days.”
“It’s already passed,” Lena muttered, bloodless lips pressed together in a grim line as she ran a trembling hand over her sweaty forehead.
The truth was she’d been feeling awful for weeks now, as if she’d come down with some sort of stomach bug or flu that just wouldn’t leave. Ashen-faced and hollow-eyed, Lena had worn herself down in her efforts to build Hope and avoid facing the one person she ached to see more than anything. A part of her wondered if it was possible to show physical symptoms of heartbreak, to feel sick to her stomach at being betrayed, made a fool of. Surely if that were true, her heart would’ve stopped, ripped to shreds by the devastating blow that the truth had dealt her.
No, this was nothing. Just a strain of the common cold that her vaccine hadn’t managed to fight off. Or perhaps it was the sushi she had some time over the past two days, the rice off or the chicken raw in the middle. Either way, it would pass. She was too busy to let it get in the way of her progress.
Still, the day wore on and any signs of her sickness abating were nowhere near in sight. Lena was starting to think that perhaps she’d contracted some sort of bug, almost laughable considering she spent most of her time in isolation in her lab. She was rarely ill, and when she was it rarely ran her down to such extents. It occurred to her that it could be early symptoms of something serious, some side effects of her work with alien substances, despite her precautions, and Lena found the thought nagging at the back of her mind.
In the end, she settled on a routine blood test to ensure that it wasn’t anything serious, just to be safe. While she didn’t feel any unnatural side effects, she thought it best to dissuade any worrying thoughts from arising, knowing she’d be able to push through it if it was nothing more than a common virus. She was far too stubborn to succumb to something so ordinary.
With precision, she tied a tourniquet around her arm, disinfected the crook of her left elbow and tore open a sterile needle. A test tube was attached and collected the trickle of vivid red blood that sprang from her vein, a little thick because she’d forgotten to hydrate in pursuit of her new invention, but otherwise looking as healthy as it should.
Sliding the needle out, she taped a cotton ball to the tiny hole as it beaded with a drop of dark blood, and screwed a cap onto the vial. Setting it in the small centrifuge on a counter, she let it spin around in the machine for fifteen minutes, the blood separating, before moving it to the analyser.
“Hope, run blood analysis.”
“Of course, Miss Luthor. Running blood analysis now.”
Feeling agitated as she waited, Lena slowly ambled back and forth before her workbench, unable to concentrate on the task she’d been working on for days, until the whirring, mechanical sound of the machine quieted.
“Results?” she cautiously asked the small disk with the holographic hourglass particles, her eyes averted as she looked at the machine containing her vial of blood.
Arms crossed over her chest, she brooded in silence as she waited, time dragging on for just a moment too long for her liking. Eventually, the AI device spoke, and she tensed with anticipation of the findings, hoping it was nothing but expecting the worst.
“Miss Luthor, your test results show elevated hCG levels.”
Freezing, Lena glanced over at the circular, pulsing device with prickling unease, her brow furrowing with confusion. Her mouth was dry as she splayed her fingers on the cold countertop, mind quickly running through the possible scenarios she would have high hCG levels.
“Run it again.”
“There is no error in my analysis.”
Muscles clenching in her jaw, Lena swallowed the thick lump that lodged itself in her dry throat, constricting her airway and felt her face flush with irritation. “Run analysis again.”
“Yes, Miss Luthor. Running blood analysis.”
Feeling strangely hollow, Lena felt shaky and hot, her clothes sticking to her damp skin as she slowly breathed in and out. Squeezing her eyes shut, she listened to the dull tempo of her heartbeat echoing in her ears and curled her hands into fists, swaying slightly as she impatiently waited for the scan to complete.
“Analysis complete. Results show elevated hCG levels.”
“No, no, no,” Lena mumbled, icy fear sliding down her spine and coiling in her stomach as a jolt of panic ran through her. “That can’t be correct. It must be a contaminated sample.”
Scrambling for a sealed test tube waiting on a rack, Lena opened a metal drawer and rummaged through the neatly arranged medical supplies to pull out another packaged needle. Making a tourniquet around her left arm, Lena sat down on a stool and eyed the pale skin at the crook of her elbow, threaded through with bluish-green veins, and tore the needle open with her teeth.
“Miss Luthor, the sample is not contaminated. Results show increased blood volume, and physical symptoms of your illness coincide with early gestational symptoms of pregnancy. By my calculations, you should be six-”
“I’m not pregnant,” Lena snapped, her voice breaking as she shot to her feet, needle clutched in her hand and tourniquet slowing the blood supply to her left arm. “It’s- it’s indicative of a uterine infection, or a- a tumour. Ovarian cancer. But I am not pregnant. It would have to be a miracle, and I am not quite so sinless as Mary to deserve that.”
She let out a strained laugh, dismissive and cold, before pulling up the results on a tablet. Staring down at the figures neatly charted, she felt her stomach plummet and dread permeate her entire body.
Now that she thought about it, she’d been fatigued and nauseous for a couple of weeks now, her moods heightened, which she’d attributed to Kara, but could potentially be fuelled by an influx of hormones, and a splitting headache had been near-constant for days. Not to mention the fact that she’d had to adjust the thermostat down ten degrees, feeling hot and bloated as she perspired over her projects in the cool air-conditioned lab.
And then, with sinking realisation, Lena realised that her period was at least three weeks late. Doing the math in her head, she slowly lowered the tablet to the workbench and numbly mouthed along with her calculations. She’d been distracted and stressed, that much was obvious, but she hadn’t even entertained the idea because there was no way she could’ve possibly been pregnant. And yet the results were almost certain. Of course, Lena’s technology wasn’t infallible, but the chances of Hope being wrong in the analysis were slim.
With an apprehensive look on her peaky face, Lena reached for the tablet again, as if the results would’ve changed. As if she had read them wrong, to begin with, yet it was there in plain writing. She almost wished it was a tumour, something she could cut out of her without the confounding circumstances of how it had managed to grow inside her. But a baby was another thing entirely. It was inconceivable in every way that Lena had been impregnated, and she ghostly pale and quiet in her dazed shock as she stood before her microscope and disassembled technology, racking her brain for some scientific explanation for how it could’ve happened.
“An ultrasound,” Lena whispered to herself, quickly abandoning her work as she rushed towards the medical equipment she had on hand for research purposes with volunteer test subjects.
Forgoing the padded vinyl bed situated in the middle of the containment facility, Lena shed her shirt and squirted cold gel onto her stomach, frowning down at the expanse of flat, pale skin, before reaching for the transducer wand and switching the machine on. Her skin felt flushed and sensitive, rippling with goosebumps as she stared at the monochrome screen as it fluctuated.
Moving the wand around, Lena watched the screen closely, before stiffening at the faint echoing sound of a heartbeat, as if hearing it from underwater. The hairs on her body stood up on end and she felt her stomach lurch and heart stutter for a moment, before the transducer wand slipped from limp fingers. Instinctively, a hand went to Lena’s stomach, smearing gel all over her palm, and she was left staring at a blank, staticky screen for a few minutes.
“Miss Luthor?”
Jerking herself out of it, she blinked back the dry aching feeling in her eyes and opened and closed her mouth, speechless as she stared at the monitor. Swallowing thickly, she hoarsely cleared her throat and reached out for the transducer dangling by a wire, cleaning the end of it and switching the machine off.
Stiff and jerky, she bent down to pick up her abandoned shirt and slipped it on, doing up one button and letting the expensive silk stick to the gel, soaking into the thing material as she raked a hand through her hair. She hadn’t been home in days, avoiding any chance that Kara would show up there, or at her office upstairs at L-Corp, but now seemed like a good time.
Feeling the overwhelming urge to lay down and let herself slip into unconsciousness, Lena buttoned a coat over her dishevelled outfit, grabbed her purse and slipped out of the lab, leaving her mess scattered throughout the room. For perhaps the first time in her life, Lena set her work aside and went home.
Mind reeling and the hollow, sick feeling of numbing shock making her feel lightheaded, Lena made her way out of the building and hailed down the first empty cab she came across, unable to even wait for her driver to be summoned for her. Climbing into the back seat, she cracked the window to let in the smoggy city air and drew in a long, rattling breath, her chest heaving as she felt her heart stagger off-tempo.
By the time she arrived at her apartment, her breaths were shallow and panicked, and she barely managed to extract a wad of bills from her purse, pushing them into the man’s hand and climbing out without waiting for change, before she climbed out of the stuffy car and vomited into the gutter. Weakly running the back of her hand over her trembling lips, Lena slammed the car door shut and rushed towards the lobby of her building.
Head pounding, mouth tasting bitter and unpleasant and her eyes stinging with the beginning of tears, Lena found the fragile strands that had kept her together on the ride home fraying and snapping, one by one. Hand shaking too much to get the key into the lock, it took her three attempts, and the moment she stepped inside, she fell back against the door and let out a choked sound of disbelief.
She didn’t cry, despite the burning urge in her eyes. Instead, Lena felt cold all over, a detached aloofness separating her from the moment as she went through the motions of shedding her clothes throughout her apartment and tumbling into bed in her underwear, burrowing beneath the blankets and emptying her mind of troubling thoughts. Sleep was quick to snatch her away from her reality, her body yearning for the limp stillness of it, yet she felt restless, her dreams eluding her but nagging at the back of her mind, speaking of shadows and her body being devoured bit by bit.
Lena slept seventeen hours in the end, jolting awake by the twisting feeling of nausea in her stomach, and she scrambled out of bed and barely managed to stagger to the ensuite before her stomach clenched and she heaved. Left gasping and spent, she lay down on the cold tiled floor and pressed her flushed cheek to the ground, feeling the soothing iciness seep into her skin and cool her body. She felt disjointed and clumsy, her stomach gnawing with hunger even as it turned at the thought of breakfast.
Staggering to her feet, she briskly brushed her teeth and then took a long, cold shower, spending most of it huddled on the floor, shivering as her body temperature lowered and her skin was frigid to the touch, fingernails purpling. Refreshed and shivering, she climbed out and wrapped herself in a fluffy robe, before making her way into the kitchen. The only thing in the fridge that didn’t make her feel queasy was a bundle of kale, which she steamed and forced down, her mouth grimacing with distaste for the blandness of it.
It was in the early hours of the morning, the sky black beyond the windows, distant sirens and neon lights permeating the naturalness of the night, and she walked over to the windows and pressed a hand against the glass, her forehead resting against it as she closed her eyes. Feeling confused, Lena detached herself from her feelings, unwilling to allow herself to make a decision fueled by emotions, and then went back to bed.
Damp hair soaking into the pillowcases, she tossed and turned until the sun came up, and then rose to dress for work. She’d already wasted too much time and refused to dwell on the problem when the only way she would get answers was through science. Everything she would need to uncover the truth was already in her lab, and she would be more useful than a hospital at any rate. However she’d managed to get impregnated, it wasn’t through any natural means.
Driving herself to L-Corp, she slipped into her lab unnoticed, too irritable to withstand so much as a brief interaction with anyone else. Lights blossomed into a harsh glow, illuminating the expanse of her lab, upon her arrival, and she watched as the small white disk pulsed and formed the shifting hourglass as Hope activated herself.
“Good morning, Miss Luthor.”
“Morning, Hope,” Lena brusquely replied, setting her bag down and exchanging her coat for a lab coat.
“Will we begin with a simulation this morning?”
“No. Project Non Nocere has been shelved. Prep systems to scan a fetal biopsy.”
“Yes, Miss Luthor.”
Lena moved around the office with ease, disinfecting numerous tools, covering the bed in the containment facility with a sterile length of cloth and situating screens for her to view as she completed the procedure on herself. Shedding her lab coat and shirt, Lena draped herself with a cloth, leaving her stomach exposed as she lay half-propped up on the angled bed. Rubbing the site with yellowish antiseptic fluid, she applied the cold gel and pressed the transducer against her abdomen, using the grainy sonogram picture to guide her.
“Okay, Hope, beginning procedure.”
“Monitoring stats. Readings are normal for patient and fetus.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, feeling the odd sensation of the numbing agent she’d injected herself with, she picked up the large needle for the biopsy and let out a shuddering breath.
“First sample … fetal membrane.”
Steeling herself, Lena eyed the image on the sonogram, listening to the echoic sounds of the rapid heartbeat as she clutched the transducer wand in her left hand, and steadily moved the biopsy needle in her right towards the turmeric coloured skin of her exposed stomach. She forced herself not to look away, her skin dimpling beneath the pressure of the point as her face twisted with a pinched look of revulsion, unused to being the patient beneath her capable hands.
It was an uneasy sensation, but she grit her teeth and forced herself to push the needle through her yellowed skin and through the muscle of her abdomen. And then she felt a resistance, different to the moment of tension before muscle gave way before the insistent sharpness of a needle or scalpel, and she pushed a little harder, feeling the needle slip sideways as if skittering off a solid surface, the tip turned away.
Pausing, Lena felt a trickle of cold sweat slide down her neck, the fabric she lay on sticking to her damp back, and she drew in a shuddering breath, before trying to force the needle through the membrane so she could take the biopsy. The first of four samples she intended to collect and test.
But still, it wouldn’t give way. Brow furrowing with bewildered frustration, Lena tried to pull the needle back out and nearly emptied her stomach of her meagre breakfast as she watched the skin of her abdomen rise with the retreating needle. It almost looked like a half-bent fish hook had caught her, and Lena felt bile rise at the back of her throat as she looked at the taut skin caught on the bent end of the needle. The hard membrane surrounding the fetus hadn’t just turned aside the point, it had quite literally bent it.
Hurriedly twisting the needle and working it free, Lena felt a jolt of fear as she sat up straight, staring down at her stomach with wide eyes and a hard look on her face. Whatever was inside her was definitely not human. Without a biopsy, she had no idea what it could be, no way to analyse the DNA of the sample, and she felt her mouth go dry as she let the needle drop onto the wheeled tray of utensils beside her with a clatter.
Swinging her legs off the bed, Lena cleaned herself up and put everything away, tension making her movements stiff and almost robotic as she found a sense of normalcy in tidying up. The entire time, she couldn’t stop her mind from running through scenarios of how this could’ve been possible, each one seemingly more ludicrous than the rest, although she ruled nothing out.
She’d been in contact with aliens before, even befriended a couple, and while they’d looked human - or could appear so - that didn’t mean that they subscribed to human physiology. There was J’onn with his ability to shapeshift into any form he wanted to and his psychic waves, Nia with her half-alien psychic dreams. And then despite herself, Lena’s thoughts turned to her source of pain and heartbreak. Kara.
Kara, who was Supergirl, The Girl of Steel, with her ability to fly and her impenetrable skin. Her skin that could deflect bullets and resist fire. That could withstand explosions and blasts from plasma rays. And then, realisation dawned on Lena’s face. Her stomach lurched as the thought grew in her mind, with overwhelming fear and the gut-wrenching acceptance of what she undoubtedly knew was the truth.
Kara’s face, bruised and bleeding from her attempts to help take down Lex.
The ice-cold fear that gripped Lena, seized her heart as panic slammed into her. How her heart spasmed at the sight of the vivid red blood smeared on her face before she could wipe it off. So fragile, so human.
The way her lips gave way beneath Lena’s as she crushed her mouth to Kara’s. Pillowy soft and yielding with surprise.
The coppery taste of blood in her mouth as she pulled back and pressed her lips together, taking in Kara’s dilated pupils and lips parted with surprise. Feeling her heart leap in her chest as her stomach felt the weightless thrill of taking a leap of faith.
And then the confrontation with her brother. The acrid smell of gunpowder on her hand from a fired gun. The videos of Kara playing behind his dead body, of her slipping off her glasses to set incriminating photos alight, catching bullets in her hands and breathing gusts of ice-cold air from those lips Lena had kissed such a short while ago.
Devastating betrayal. Foolish embarrassment. A stone weighing heavily in Lena’s stomach. Another lie.
The kiss. Lena couldn’t say how she knew it, but with certainty, she knew that was the source of all this trouble. Kara always seemed to be at the centre of them. And this time it was a shocking twist, so unbelievable that the thought that something like that could happen had never even occurred to her. Yet here she was.
But still, she had to test it. An idea made her straighten up, a spark of purpose in her eyes as she squared her shoulders with determination. Nothing quite made Lena come alive like a challenge, a problem to work out or a mystery to uncover. Right now, she had the greatest mystery of her life on her hands and growing in her stomach.
Rounding the end of the workbench, she made her way towards a steel rack of shelves and reached for a sealed black box. Gingerly carrying it over to a table, Lena set it down and unclasped it, raising the lid a mere inch and feeling a wave of weakness wash over her with the sickly green neon glow of kryptonite.
Knees buckling, Lena felt a thousand tiny pinpricks dig into her skin, like fire creeping over her body, and braced herself against the table as she slammed the box shut, containing the sample and feeling the effects fade. Running a shaky hand over her grey face, she stayed hunched over, dark hair spilling in her face, and realised her conclusion had been right. But that still didn’t answer the question of how a simple, brief kiss could impregnate her.
“Hope, bring up my brother’s files on Kryptonian physiology.”
“Okay, here are two-hundred and thirty-six of Lex Luthor’s files on Kryptonian physiology. Subtopics include genetic sequences, anatomy and enhanced abilities.”
“Anatomy.”
A large screen full of the opened files, documents and photos took up most of one wall and the lights in the lab dimmed at Hope’s intervention, anticipating Lena’s needs. She watched as at least two-thirds of the documents closed, before a large scan of Superman’s anatomy appeared on the right side of the screen, the left showing assorted snippets of calculations, inferences and carefully researched observations taken from Lex’s private journals and the servers Lena had acquired when she’d become CEO.
“Research shows that typical Kryptonian adults have a bone count of three-hundred and twenty-five bones. Comparative differences to humans are visible in the number of ribs, bones in the hands and feet, and the skull. Bone mineral density in an adult male is calculated at fifteen standard deviations than the human average, attributing to a heavier body mass. Despite bone density and mass, scans show that Kryptonian’s bones are hollow, much like birds. It can be inferred that this assists them in their flight abilities beneath a yellow sun.”
Lena let the AI’s voice wash over her with an influx of information as she took in the scan of Superman on the screen. Taking in the visual evidence of the small, extra ribs over the lower abdomen, the heart on the right side of the body, strange membranes covering the sac in the middle of the abdomen that held the organs suspended, instead of weighing down on the diaphragm. An abundance of muscles and ligaments and tendons that Lena didn’t recognise and couldn’t name covered the bones, allowing for greater flexibility, a better range of motion, greater strength, even without the effects of sunlight. She marvelled at the mass of veins and arteries, carrying so much oxygen and blood around the body that she could understand their ability to seemingly never tire. It was fascinating, yet made her feel like Kara was even more of a stranger to her than she’d realised.
“A cross-section of Kryptonian muscle analysis shows a greater number of fast and slow-twitch-”
“Is there anything about reproduction?”
“Scanning files for results of Kryptonian reproduction.”
Chewing anxiously on her lip, Lena leant against the counter and stared at the screen with wide, fearful eyes.
“Kryptonians were isogamous and were known to mate and give birth, as humans do, before genetic engineering allowed the fusion of DNA with a viable gamete in a facility known as the Genesis Chamber. Without the rigid societal norms of humans-”
“Fusion of DNA?” Lena sceptically interrupted, “you’re saying I’m pregnant because Kara’s DNA- her saliva or her- her blood fused with mine?”
“Your brother’s notes on the topic are sparse, Miss Luthor. By my deduction, I would liken it to Ancient Greek mythology. The ichor of gods and titans held fertilising properties. It would not be unfounded to believe Kara Danvers’ blood could have the same function. I would assume there are hormonal changes akin to menstruation that would make Kryptonians viable to fuse their DNA. If your body ingested and absorbed such a sample of Kryptonian blood into your bloodstream, it would not be impossible for the dominant genetics of the alien species to seek viable gametes to form an embryo.”
Spluttering speechlessly, Lena found herself reeling from the shock that something so simple as kissing someone with their face beaten to a pulp, something so innocent and tender, could lead to her becoming pregnant. And not just pregnant, but pregnant with the half-alien fetus belonging to the person she loved most in the world. The person who hurt her the most.
A spasm of pain ran across Lena’s face as her thoughts turned to the forbidden topic of Kara, the locked off part of her heart where all her hurt was buried, held at bay by a wall that was riddled with cracks, just waiting to let the flood of pain slam into her and incapacitate Lena. She didn’t want to think about her. She never wanted to see Kara again, even though her heart ached for her, for the urge to be wrapped in her warm embrace, which had always seemed feverishly hot yet comforting, to let down her armoured walls around her and just be Lena, instead of a Luthor.
All that comfort, the security, the warmth of friendship, had allowed her to be vulnerable with Kara. And in the end, it had all been a lie. The worst part was that Kara still hadn’t even told her the truth. Perhaps Lena should’ve confronted her, but the thought of standing face to face with her, looking into the kind gentleness of Kara’s blue eyes as her face lit up at the sight of Lena, made her feel sick to even think about. Kara should’ve wanted to tell her. She should’ve come to her a long time ago, nervous and flustered, and told her the truth. Lena wouldn’t have felt so hurt, so betrayed, if she’d told her sooner.
And of course, she understood why Kara hadn’t told her, at the beginning. But she’d let years slip by, had made Lena love her, had given her a home. Things she’d never had before. People who’d known her few a couple of weeks had been made privy to the information kept at bay from Lena’s knowledge and it hurt. It hurt to not be trusted, to be excluded after making it so clear how she felt about lies and secrets. After everything Lena had done to prove her intentions were only good, in the end, she only ever amounted to being just another Luthor.
“Miss Luthor, I should advise you that human physiology is too fragile to withstand the full gestational term necessary for the fetus to develop into a viable infant. Comparable differences between humans and Kryptonians could prove fatal to you, if you should seek to pursue the pregnancy.”
Mind running through the possibilities, Lena sank down onto a stool, burying her face in her hands as she propped her elbows on the table. Motherhood had never been a realistic factor in Lena’s life, never something she ever thought she’d yearn for. Growing up, watching children at school play with dolls, and then when she grew older, seeing couples with babies, it made her feel like she was lacking some maternal instinct.
But what she had on her hands was nothing short of a miracle. A chance to create a new species of life, to discover scientific wonders in how human and alien species’ DNA were compatible. She was a scientist above all else, after all, and the opportunity to uncover new knowledge was too good to pass up.
But she wasn’t sure if she was ready to raise a child, to nurture it and love it, as broken as she already was. A life without love, and nothing but the sharp sting of rejection, made Lena think that she was lacking in who she was as a person, and she wasn’t sure the person she was was someone who would be capable of giving a child everything they needed to thrive in this harsh world. Yet, she wanted to try.
Some part of her broken heart was still beating, still fighting for a better world where people weren’t as cruel, still clinging to the shreds of hope that someone out there would truly love her. And here was her opportunity. To raise someone good and kind, with what she’d thought were the best parts of Kara, before she found out it was a lie. Here was the chance to give someone the childhood she’d always craved for, the one she’d had for the briefest of moments with her birth mother, full of laughter and love, to never want for anything or feel abandoned and alone. To raise someone who would love her unconditionally, who would never betray her.
“Miss Luthor, should I prepare for a termination procedure?”
The question hung heavily in the air, and Lena pressed her lips together, shoulders taut beneath her shirt as she dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, stars bursting on the insides of her eyelids. It could go either way, eating away at her body like a parasite leaching the host of its strength to fuel its own greedy needs, until she withered away into nothing and succumbed to its hunger. Or, it could be a scientific breakthrough into a new species of metahumans, with impossible powers and a claim to humanity, the best of two races that could be manufactured with nothing more than a sample of blood. A single vial could generate thousands of them, give people the chance to raise their own heroes.
Not that she’d necessarily help corrupt governments create metahuman armies from birth, but the simple fact of finding out the extent of how human and Kryptonian DNA would fuse was too good of an opportunity for someone like her to pass up. She just couldn’t waste the chance. The chance for a scientific breakthrough, or the chance to raise someone who could give her the love she so desperately wanted. They would need her, and they would love her for it.
“No.”
“Miss Luthor, you are aware of the risks this pregnancy will bring.”
Climbing to her feet, Lena wearily sighed, shoulders slumping with resignation, and glanced at the screen once more. “Yes, Hope. I know what I’m doing. We have a new project.”
She paused for a moment, a spark of determination in her eyes, bringing back her former thirst for knowledge, and a faint smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “Project Semideus.”
“Project Demigod. An apt name. Where would you like to begin?”
“We’re going on a sabbatical.”