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Kara’s lounging on her couch when her phone rings. It’s Barbara. She’s calling from her civilian line, so Kara answers, “Hey, Barbara!”
“Hey, Sunshine.” The warmth in Barbara’s voice slides down Kara’s spine. “Do you have about an hour? I’ve got a problem I think only you can help with.”
“Sure!” Kara sticks the phone in-between her cheek and ear. “Let me grab the suit.”
“Actually,” Barbara says, “I need Kara Zor-El for this one. Not Supergirl.”
That brings Kara up short. She settles back onto the couch. “What?”
“So, after one of your gallery did… whatever they did to half the code bases in National City, a good chunk of the city still runs on Kryptonian-language stuff. So, I need you to help me read some things.”
“Oh!” Kara gets out her laptop. “Okay, let’s do it.”
An hour later of Barbara struggling with the coding and Kara trying to simplify things she learned as soon as she could read, the bug has been fixed.
“Wow. That was rough. Okay, I’m sending over your consulting fee.”
Kara has learned not to argue with Barbara says something warrants a consulting fee. Barbara takes paying people very seriously.
When the alert comes in on her phone, Kara’s eyes widen.
“Um, Babs, I think there’s a typo on this,” she says, keeping her finger far away from the ‘accept’ button.
“What?” The clicking of keys comes over the line. “No, there isn’t. That’s standard for an expert’s fee.”
“I’m not an expert,” Kara says immediately.
There’s a long, ominous silence on the other end of the line. Kara does not like the feeling of it.
“Kara, do you realize that the children’s hospital is running about 10% Kryptonian code base right now? It’s improved efficiency by 30% so we’re all leaving it alone, but you are the only person on the planet who could help if there’s a bug.” Barbara says. Oh no. She’s picking up speed. “National City University would pay you twice that to have you on retainer if they knew you were fluent in Kryptonian. Do you know anything about coding?”
Kara laughs nervously. The correct answer is going to get her in trouble. She can feel it. “A little?”
“Define a little.” Barbara is on to her.
“I… may have done my doctorate in it back on Krypton?”
The phone explodes into sound.
Twenty minutes later, Alex knocks on the door. Kara lets her in with a sheepish smile.
“What… is that Barbara Gordon?”
Kara does not ask why Alex knows Barbara’s ranting voice. She just nods.
“Give me that.”
Kara hands over the phone. Alex unmutes it and puts it up to her ear. “Gordon, why are you yelling at my sister?”
Super-hearing lets Kara hear every single word of the explanation.
Alex sighs. She switches Kara’s phone to speaker. She puts it on the living room table.
“Kara, I love you, and you are a moron. You are going to let Gordon pay you ridiculous amounts of money to consult with the children’s hospital, and if you still haven’t figured out what you want to do with your life by the end of that, you’re going to do the same thing with NCU. Okay?”
Kara quickly nods.
“Okay. Jesus, how are all you super-geniuses so bad at being people.”
Barbara’s silent on her end. That’s good, because Kara can and will make fun of her if she dares to say anything about her own ability to people.
“Anyway,” Kara smiles, trying to get herself out of trouble that she’s not even sure how she got into, “all taken care of! I’m gonna go… think about my options!”
She escapes that day by a narrow margin.