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There is a new villain in National City. She has managed to infiltrate secure government databases and access confidential information. With the power to release private data and completely disable any security system, she makes her first move.
To cause unnecessary but completely harmless ads to keep popping up on all government servers.
"Fuck!", Alex curses loudly. Just as she was about to submit a report of their latest case into the database, another advertisement blocks her cursor.
She swivels in her chair to shout at Winn, "Why hasn't this ad problem been solved yet, Schott?"
He does not look up from his computer, furiously typing away. "They have a really secure system set up. I think we might have to find the source and also disable it manually."
Alex lets out an exasperated sigh, "This has been going on for days, the amount of backlog on data entry alone is ridiculous!"
"What's ridiculous?" Kara asks as she steps into the room, dressed in her super suit.
Her sister waves tiredly at the screen next to her, "Some hacker infiltrated the system and is clearly trolling us by making ads pop up whenever we try to get anything done."
Kara hums in acknowledgement, "So, anything I can do to help?" She walks over to her sister's computer to take a look at the screen, narrowing her eyes when she notices the advertisement is for a local animal shelter.
Alex shakes her head, “Not unless you know how to disable her malware. But, you could get us some coffee. My head’s pounding after lookin-”
“Actually!” Winn interrupts, already shooting Alex an apologetic look. “I managed to trace the physical source that’s transmitting signals to the system.” He pulls up the map on the big screen, zooming in on an address. “You could check out this place and stop the power source? Maybe arrest the person who’s behind this too if they’re there.”
Kara nods, already turning to head out the way she came in when Alex shouts, “Be careful! Even if it’s just a troll.” She turns to shoot her sister a small smile, nodding again.
“Oh and bring back some coffee too anyway! God knows I need it.” Kara gives a final thumbs up before she’s gone.
…
Winn had been right. It was a rather normal looking computer hooked up to a power source that seemed to be running smoothly on its own, with no person in sight. Kara scans the wooden shed, small and barren, located in the outskirts of the city.
She taps onto her communicator, “Looks like it’s just a computer running on its own.”
Winn’s voice buzzes through, “Could you take a look at what’s on the screen?”
“Okay.” she replies and moves closer to the screen. She frowns at the numerous windows open, all a series of numbers moving up and down. “Uhm, there’s a lot of numbers moving?”
She tries to close the windows fruitlessly and one click on the button at the side, causes a new window to pop up.
‘Self-destruction system commencing…’ it read.
“Uh, it’s self-destructing?” she speaks, taken aback and unsure of what to do.
“Oh crap. Kara, get out of there! What if it blows up?” Winn yells through the communicator.
She moves quickly, rushing to the door before taking one last glance at the screen.
‘Lady L’ appears on the screen, in an intricate looking font with the screen’s background a deep red, for a few seconds. Before the computer makes a low humming noise and in the next second, explodes into pieces.
…
In the days following this incident, everything seems to have returned to normal.
Alex brushes off the problem, more relieved than anything that Kara had returned safely and that the server was running smoothly again. Winn makes jokes and jabs about the “mysterious Lady L” before he chuckles to himself. Kara tries to move past it as well, but her thoughts keep returning to the red screen.
“Why would a troll leave any sort of calling card, especially if they don’t want to be found?” She thinks to herself, walking into the room just as her sister curses audibly.
“Language.” she chides absently, mind still focused on recalling the font on that screen.
When Alex curses again, she finally turns her head to look at her sister’s computer screen. “Alex what is it-” she pauses, eyes widening slightly at the screen.
It flashes that same deep red, the font and lettering of ‘Lady L’ clearer than before now that she was looking at it up close.
Winn begins trying to decrypt it and before she knows it, Kara is sent off to disable another physical source, with Winn asking her to bring back the whole computer intact.
She goes in with a solid plan to not click anything and just unplug the device.
It blows up mere seconds after she unplugs it. Once again, the same red screen flashes before it explodes. Kara brushes off the broken pieces of metals and frowns at the smouldering mess.
“Winn-” she sighs into the communicator.
…
The same pattern repeats over the next few days, computers flooded with ads asking for donations and Supergirl flying to a new source in an attempt to bring it back, only to have it literally blow up in her face, every time.
Alex thinks they should involve the police in their investigation and send a squad in to disable the computer so they can finally gather some intel but Kara resolves to try again, citing that it is too unpredictable and dangerous.
And as if whoever is behind this knows, the computer screen has a message set up especially for Supergirl the next time.
“Honoured that it’s you attempting to stop me, Supergirl.” it reads.
Kara rolls her eyes, making the mistake of trying to close the message, and the computer explodes, once again. She’s barely able to hold back her yell of frustration.
The malware starts to spread to the citizens of National City as well with companies scrambling to increase their security.
It puzzled Kara, why the attacker allowed their plans to be reliant on a manual source, one set up with a self-destruct function as well. She kept thinking and mulling it over and over until it clicked.
“They don’t actually want to hurt people!” she announces loudly.
Alex scoffs, “Kara, I know you wanna see the good in people but they’re clearly causing mischief.” At her frown, she continues, “Not to mention, they’re also quite happy that they’ve got your attention, Supergirl.”
Kara sighs, “I know that but so far they haven’t done anything really bad, it’s like you said, just mischief!”
Her sister shakes her head, “Fine. But you have to admit, they’re getting kind of annoying.”
The blonde superhero shrugs with a small smile, “It’s not that bad.”
…
It was bad. So very bad. They must be an absolute villain with evil, evil intentions.
Supergirl flies as fast as possible to the latest source that Winn has just located, recounting the day’s events in her mind.
It started normally enough; she woke up, jammed to NSYNC while making breakfast and got dressed for work. She sat down with her five plates of food and switched on the TV to find something mindless to watch. Only for the horror to begin.
The screen flashed a clip of Supergirl flying away from passing a hand-cuffed store thief to the police, following her as she flew away from the scene of the crime, past the highways as she did her daily patrol. Until she, from the point of view of whatever camera that caught this, flew right smack into a billboard.
If only the clip could have shown that she was very distracted by something Alex was relaying to her via her communicator and she had made a small misstep. Instead the clip constantly replayed Supergirl flying into the billboard, a looping edit of her mistake.
Switching off her TV, she turned to her phone, only to receive alerts of ‘Supergirl’s Biggest Fail: Catch it on TV right now!’, ‘Super’s Newest Villain: The Dreadful Billboard’ and other titles of the same nature.
Mortified, Kara frantically tapped on her communicator, already changed into her super suit. “Winn! Please, please , tell me this is the work of that hacker and you’ve found the source?”
The communicator buzzed, “Already on it! I’ll let you know a-s-a-p.”
Scrolling through her feed, past comments playfully mocking National City’s superhero and comments defending her behaviour, suggesting she was probably just tired. Kara groaned, while this was not particularly harmful, it was definitely embarrassing and she dreaded the next hang out at the bar, where her friends would poke fun at her for hours.
“Kara? You there? I found the source, it’s-” She was already out the window.
Which is how she ends up in the basement of a run-down house (still on sale, to no one’s surprise), eyes locked onto the flashing computer screen in the corner of the room.
Stepping closer, she can make out a message on the screen.
“Hello, Supergirl.
Hope you enjoyed today’s scheme. It certainly gave me a good laugh and I’m sure the citizens of National City would agree. Good luck trying to get this computer back to your base, be gentle with it, won’t you?
Till next time,
Lady L.”
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she approaches the computer. To her pleasant surprise, she managed to unplug the device and cradle it carefully in her arms, taking off towards the DEO headquarters.
"Yeah, I’ve got it with me now.” she relays to her sister. “Wait, hold on, why do I hear a beeping sound-”
Taking a glance at the computer, the screen flashed red, “Thought you had it this time, right? Good try.” in white letters before it begins to emit a low buzz and she hurriedly throws it in the air, watching as it explodes.
“Alex,” she sighs, “Yes, uh huh, it did.”
She groans, running a hand down her face as she stays floating in midair, “Yeah, you’re right. Whoever is behind this, is so annoying.”
…
The next few cyber attacks began to follow the same design, all targeting Supergirl. From clips of her flying into a flock of pigeons and emerging with feathers caught in her hair, plastered over every network on National City, to pictures of her face caught in funny expressions at the top of every person’s instagram feed.
Kara knows it is not the worst press that she could receive, yet she still worried it would affect Supergirl’s reputation. Conversely, the general public seemed to adore the new side of Supergirl being shown. James told her it made her seem more human and relatable to them.
Kara herself was quite upset with her “newest adversary”. As the news had reported after Lady L hacked servers once again to display a message directed towards her for all of the city to see.
“Seriously, what is their problem!” she grumbles, flying into the DEO.
Alex gave her a sympathetic look. “I don’t know, but,” she turns to face Winn and a few other agents typing, “they might be one step ahead of whoever’s behind this, this time.”
“Really?” Kara exclaims, walking towards them.
“Yup, we might be able to catch them in the act of setting up this time!” Winn turns in his chair to grin at her, proud of what they managed to find.
She grabs him by the shoulders with enthusiasm, “That’s great! I can’t wait to catch this smug villain off guard.” she returned his grin.
“Villain? Really?” Alex questions, raising a brow.
Kara steps away from Winn, facing her sister once again, she replied with a shrug, “Well, clearly that’s what they want to be.”
“And they’re definitely smug.” she adds with a grumble.
Before Alex could reply, one of the agents shouts, “Supergirl! We’ve located a new source!”
With the coordinates clear in her mind, she immediately took off. Eager to finally meet the elusive ‘Lady L’ for the first time.
…
She reaches a warehouse that is significantly bigger than the rest of the previous locations.
Alex’s voice comes through her communicator, “Supergirl, see anything yet?”
“No,” she replies as she tries to use her x-ray vision. “The walls are lined with lead.”
“We’re picking up a heat signature in the basement. Proceed with caution.”
“Got it.”
Pushing open the creaking door of the warehouse, it seemed mostly empty except for the clear steel handle sticking out in the middle of the floor. Giving it a pull, the metal door opened and a series of steps led downwards.
“This is suspiciously easy.” she thought to herself.
Descending down the stairs, Kara comes face to face with two large metal doors. She almost scoffed, “All their mockery and pride and just this as their security?”
Scanning the vicinity with her eyes once again, she spots nothing out of place, just a metal lock on the door.
“Alex, is there anything else you guys can track in the basement?”
“Nothing besides a heat signature and the same signal all the hacker’s sources usually emit.”
She nods, “Okay, I’m going to storm in and put a stop to this, once and for all.”
Eyeing the lock, she easily broke it off with her bare hands. She gave the door a swift kick to send it flying open and off its hinges.
Kara marches through the entrance, one hand on her hip, the other darting forward to point directly at her newest adversary.
"HA! IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?" she shouts, sporting an almost cocky grin.
The woman, dressed in a dark number, turns and her eyes are red with tears. Her voice is thick when she speaks, "Uh, yeah."
She sniffles and rubs at her eyes, a lone tear slipping down her cheek.
"I'm," she pauses, another sniffle, "I'm actually trying really hard here."
The grin drops.
"Oh."
Gone was the grandeur of discovering the secret lair of the elusive hacker, it was replaced with an air of awkwardness.
“Uh, I was talking about the security of your, uhm, lair. By the way.” Kara clarifies, hand recoiled to rub the back of her neck. “Not your cyber attacks.”
The woman rubs at her eyes once again, swallowing a hiccup, “Really?” she asks.
Kara hurriedly nods, feeling the strange urge to reassure her. “Yeah! I’m just underwhelmed by your security here. I expected it to be as tough as the security for your sources!”
Lady L(?) looks almost hopeful, “They were tough?”
She nods again, “Well I would say so since I couldn’t bring back a single computer for analysis!”
The woman lets a small smile spread, “Oh.”
Kara absently thinks, “She’s pretty." Before pushing the thought away.
“You’re quite a decent villain!” She says aloud, watching as the woman’s eyes light up slightly and her smile spread further.
Spurred on by her response, she adds, “You did good.”
Immediately, the woman’s features sour. “I did good?”
Kara frowns, stumped for a brief second before she realises what she implied. She rushes to correct herself, “No! No, I mean, bad! You did bad!”
If possible, she seems to withdraw and look even sadder than before. “I did bad?”
“Oh gosh, no!” Kara scrambles to clarify, “You- you did good… at being bad.”
Relief washes over the woman’s features and she returns Kara’s outburst with a smile. “Oh. Thank you.”
“No problem?” she replies, raising her hand in a tentative thumbs up. She briefly wonders if this is a new mind trick that villains use, making her feel incredibly awkward to break her defences.
She also can not help but feel that she has seen this woman before. Her features seem familiar. Unable to place it, she moves on and asks, “So, uh, you’re Lady L, right?”
That seems to snap her out of her thoughts and she suddenly straightens, “Right. Indeed I am, Supergirl.”
Kara opens her mouth to reply, to say something about how she’s here to put an end to her nefarious schemes or to arrest her. Except, it feels impossible to say any of that with what just transpired between the two of them.
Instead she says, “Okay. Usually I’d tell you to surrender or to stop and you’d pull out some kind of gun and try to shoot me,” at Lady L’s stricken look at the mention of shooting her, she sighs, “but clearly, that’s not your prerogative here.”
“So why don’t you tell me why you’ve done all of this, and we can work through it. Together?” she asks, giving her a gentle smile.
Lady L visibly relaxes at this and she reaches down, while Kara braces herself for some kind of attack, she sits on the floor in front of her.
Looking up and spotting Supergirl’s confused look, she gestures for her to sit down as well. And so, Kara does.
Lady L rubs at her temples with her fingers, letting out a breath. “My name is Lena Luthor.”
Kara tenses at this, realisation dawning. Her clearly conflicted foe(?) is the sister of her cousin’s most notorious nemesis. However, she begins to recall reading news articles and interviews about Lena Luthor; her acts of philanthropy and her drive towards promoting sustainable practices for the sake of the environment. This only serves to further confuse her.
When she meets Lena’s eyes, she finds the woman was already staring at her face.
“I know, suddenly everything makes sense right? I’m just a Luthor who wants to hurt you, a Super.”
Kara does not respond, still processing the revelation.
"Except I’m not. Despite what you might think, I don’t want to hurt you, Supergirl.” her brows furrow as she continues, anger evident, “And I sure as hell don’t share my brother’s sentiments towards you and your cousin.”
“So why? Why did you launch those cyber attacks on National City?” she asks, still puzzled.
Lena breaks their eye contact, looking down at her own lap.
“My,” she takes a deep breath, “my mother. She expects me to live up to my brother’s standards and hers. To be a villain, to be a Luthor.”
Kara shakes her head in disbelief, wondering what kind of parent wants their child to commit criminal acts. “Well, you sure did good.” she quips, trying to ease a bit of the tension.
To her surprise, Lena looks back up at her with her eyes beginning to water.
“No one’s ever told me I did good before.”
Kara’s heart breaks, just a little, for this woman in front of her. Who sounds so broken and is in such desperate need for reassurance. Whose only validation is something said as a joke by a superhero originally here to thwart her plans. She now feels a lick of rage, wanting to reprimand the people who failed to give their daughter proper support.
“Okay,” she says, with an air of finality, “Where are your parents, I just want to talk.”
Lena lets out a watery laugh, “One’s long gone and the other is in a maximum security prison.”
“Right.” There go her plans to drop them off on a boat in the middle of the ocean. "We'll put a pin on that for now then."
Lena chuckles in acknowledgement and rubs away her tears with the heels of her palms and says, "Look, I'm really sorry about the trouble I've caused."
She levels her gaze with Kara's as she continues, "When my mom was detained two months ago, she gave me such a terrible look of utter disappointment. And I caved."
"I started thinking of how to come off as a villain, without causing any harm or long-term disruptions." She wrings her hands together. "Eventually, I settled on this. Harmless ads that promote a good cause to catch the attention of Supergirl and the public. A source that can be easily disabled, so it wouldn't be traced back to me."
"And one that would prevent any actual problems from happening, it was just to grab attention." Kara interjected.
Lena carried on talking, choosing to ignore her statement. "When I realised you were the one personally coming after the sources, I couldn't help but tease you a little. After all," she fixes Kara with a playful smirk, "You always seem so composed."
She let out a chuckle as she rolled her eyes, "That's when you found that footage of me flying into the billboard."
Lena's smirk remains as she nods, "It was so amusing, I couldn't not share it with the public."
Kara scoffs, "The video wasn't up for very long anyway, since we traced your signal so easily because for some reason, you always use the same sig-" she pauses, another realisation dawning on her.
"You always use the same signal. Oh my god, you wanted us to find your sources to shut them down as soon as possible!" Kara exclaims at her.
Lena, at least, has the decency to look sheepish. "Well deduced, Supergirl."
Kara shakes her head in disbelief. "Wow, you're a terrible villain."
Looking directly at Lena, who seems to be slightly hurt after that statement, she smiles. "That is a good thing, by the way."
She reaches out and places her hand over Lena's. "You're trying so hard to be a bad person. But you're a good person deep down, Lena." She backpedals, “Can I call you Lena? I realised I didn’t ask-”
The brunette's eyes begin to water, "I am?"
Supergirl nods, hand tightening over hers. "What were you doing before I got here?" She asks.
"I," Lena takes a shuddering breath, "I was preparing to shut this whole thing down. But I kept thinking about my family and then you came quicker than I expected."
"See? You were going to put an end to this. And I've heard about all the good things you've done too, the donations, the help you've given, the good you've done."
Lena lets a few tears slip free as she nods, "Yes."
She shakes her head, "Oh my god. I shouldn't have done any of this." Pulling her hands away from Kara's gentle grip, she stands abruptly.
"Hey-" Kara stands up with her, reaching out once again. "You know what you did wrong, and you're doing the right thing now. And you'll keep doing the right thing. I'm sure."
"But I- I caused all those disruptions!" She laments.
"Yeah you did but, those were shut down fast! And also the past few were just funny photos of me." Kara replies, grinning.
Lena brightens a bit at that, shrugging. “Those photos of you were rather adorable, after all. I couldn’t help but share it with the public again.”
Kara flushes slightly. “Y-yeah. And I think you’ve actually bolstered my reputation!”
“I have?” Lena questions, the hopeful look returning to her face. It’s a good look on her, Kara decides.
Supergirl nods, “Definitely! My friend works in the media and he thinks you’ve made me look more approachable than I already am!”
Lena smiles at that, “That’s good to hear.”
A silence settles between them, with the former “villain” clearly lost in her thoughts and the hero contemplating what to say next.
It’s Lena who breaks the silence first, turning around as she walks to face the multitude of computer screens set up. “I’m going to shut my whole system down.” She begins to type on the keyboard, flicking off switches and even pulling out a few plugs.
Kara watches as one by one screens start to power down.
She turns to face Supergirl again. “Once I’m done here, you can arrest me.”
Kara balks, “Wait- arrest you?”
Lena nods, giving her a firm look. “I’m a citizen who has committed crimes. Just give me a few more seconds to delete the malware too.”
“Hold on,” she steps closer to the brunette. “Usually I’d be over the moon that the villain is so cooperative but you’re not a villain!” At Lena’s lack of response, she continues, “So, I’m not arresting you.” she smiles, satisfied with her own reasoning.
Lena flicks a few more switches before she faces Kara again. “Supergirl. You shouldn’t be lenient on me just because I shared my… troubles with you.” The corner of her lip moves upward slightly, “It’s not really like a superhero to show such blatant favourtism.”
Kara splutters, “W-Wha, it’s not favourtism! I just think the punishment should fit the crime. And arresting you seems kind of intense.”
“But that isn’t for us to decide, right?” Lena fixes her with a somewhat sad smile. “After speaking with you, I understand that I should own up to my mistakes.” She pushes on one final button before turning around fully, “I am ready to accept the consequences.”
Supergirl opens her mouth to retort yet she finds she cannot come up with anything to refute what Lena said. Resigned, she sighs.
“Okay… You’re right. It’s not up to me alone to decide how justice should be served.” She shoots Lena a firm look, “But I’m going to put in a good word for you.” Lena smiles at her, “That would be very much appreciated, thank you.”
Kara nods her head in acknowledgement before she shuffles uncomfortably. “Guess I’ll arrest you now?”
Lena rolls her eyes good naturedly, “Could you sound any more unsure?”
“Hey! I’ve never been in a situation like this, okay.” Kara protests.
Lena chuckles at this, “Alright, alright. I was just teasing.” Just as Kara moves towards her, she speaks up again, “Oh, but be careful with my wrists when you handcuff me, it’s been a while.”
Kara should have mentioned how she does not carry cuffs with her, instead she asks, “You’ve been arrested before?”
Lena smirks and nothing could have prepared Kara for the words that would slip past those red lips.
“No. But I’m familiar with being restrained by them.” she shrugs, eyebrow cocking upwards. “For fun.”
“How is that- ” Oh. The third realisation of the night dawns on her and this one causes a hearty blush to spread over her cheeks. “Uh, right. Okay. Bedroom, yeah.” she coughs once, suddenly finding it hard to take a breath. “Activities.” she finishes lamely.
Thankfully, Lena saves her from further embarrassment by saying nothing, just chuckling softly.
“Anyway,” Kara says, hoping to brush off what just occurred, “I don’t own handcuffs.”
Lena perks up at this, smirk plastered on her face once again. “Oh? I didn’t know Supergirl had such vanilla tastes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” she seems to ponder on her next words before she adds, “It’s cute, actually.”
“I- Wha- No!” Kara all but shouts, her whole face flushed red. How Lena even managed to be unsure of herself previously suddenly became a mystery as she was completely confident now, and teasing Kara no less.
Unable to coherently convey her thoughts, she yells, “I AM NOT VANILLA!”
Lena’s eyes widen slightly at the outburst before her expression shifts back into a teasing look. “Now I’m definitely intrigued. Pray tell, what are your interests?”
“This is not happening.” Supergirl states, hoping her blush would fade away soon enough. “Also, I take it back, you’re definitely a villain. Tormenting a superhero like this.”
Lena actually laughs, “Guess you’re certain about arresting me now, Supergirl”
Kara grumbles, although a smile has blossomed on her face from watching Lena laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Come here so I can fly you back to the organisation I work with.”
She easily lifts Lena up, supporting her back and the backs of her thighs. The brunette grins at her and Kara prepares herself for another cheeky remark.
“Well, if I had known all it takes to get into Supergirl’s arms was to become a villain, I would have done so ages ago.”
It’s Kara’s turn to roll her eyes good naturedly, “Rao, now I wish I brought something to cover your mouth with instead.”
“So that is what you’re into, huh?” Lena goes as far as to wink at her. “You and me both.”
Kara groans as she takes off, Lena’s laughter clear in her ear.