Karen groaned into her apartment's expensive carpet and tried taking deep calming breaths.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
It didn't help.
Her Kryptonian sense of smell merely reminded her smugly that apparently she truly sucked at housekeeping.
Maybe I need to invest in hardwood flooring.
Or a maid.
Or just a whole new apartment.
Karen sighed and rolled over onto her back, covering her face with her arms so she didn't give in to the sudden irrational desire to take out her frustration with a few searing blasts of heat vision. Or she really would be getting a new apartment. And just the thought of the insane hassle of trying to move right now on top of everything else going epically wrong in her life made her suddenly grit her teeth hard enough to send a spiking lance of pain through her jaw and make her wince. She hurriedly forced herself to ease up before she added an emergency dental trip to the Watchtower to the fun.
Helena had sent her a DEFCON Level One text earlier.
Batman was scheduled to be on monitor duty tonight. With Flash. And Green Lantern. As in Guy Gardner, Green Lantern.
Karen shivered all over again at the full on apocalyptic movie that combination just promised in spades.
Who the hell's idea had that been? Darkseid?
She made a mental note to give Helena something really nice for the warning. Like an all expenses paid year in the Bahamas. Her BFF might be seriously INTJ, but obviously she cared. And knew that Karen wasn't doing so well lately.
Because Batman and Power Girl didn't get along at the best of times. And these definitely weren't the best of times.
Had she gone up there tonight as she had originally planned, it would have been the Armageddon cherry on top of the apocalyptic movie dessert. Because that's just how the Multiverse rolled for her these days. Fortunately, Helena was more than a little aware of how Karen's life was going. Hell, she all too often found herself unwillingly co-starring in the insanity. But of all the things that could be said of Huntress, disloyalty wasn't one of them. And though the text had included one of those smartassed emoticons, Helena had true to form opted for the old Save-the-Idiot-Damsel-In-Soon-To-Be-Distress Plan rather than the admittedly far more amusing one of Start-a-Betting-Pool-and-Make-a-Fortune.
There were benefits to not having a villainess for a bestie.
Because the absolute last thing Karen needed right now was to get kicked out of the Justice League for doing something as stupid as losing it on one of the Trinity.
Or for destroying the Watchtower.
Karen pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes hard enough that she could see weird colored spots and resolved firmly to choose a body bag over leaving her apartment for the rest of the night.
Because, honestly, given how her life was going that was exactly the way this run was going to end.
Not the body bag. The kicked out part. Or the destroying something part.
Karen thought about it.
Well, okay, maybe the body bag part, too.
She sighed again and pulled her hands away from her eyes and stared up at her apartment's white ceiling. A ceiling with actual damn cobwebs in the corners. Really?
Fine, a maid it is.
She contemplated the body bag thought some more. Grim much? She wrinkled her nose at herself. And remembered today's mortifying fiasco with some pathetic D-List villain over the city.
What had his name been?
She grimaced. She couldn't even remember his name. Unfortunately, she could remember the laughter of the smart phone recording crowds below catching every lovely moment of her humiliation.
Hah! It wouldn't be a body bag. Oh, no. It would be something way worse.
Like having to sit next to Booster Gold in a dark theater worse.
Like waking up next to Plastic Man worse.
Wait, no, no, more like being trapped in an alternate dimension with Vartox and Harley Quinn. And a jacuzzi with peanut butter worse.
Karen's blue eyes widened in something very akin to terror and she sat bolt upright and threw an almost panicked x-ray scan of everything within a mile of her apartment, her pulse pounding suddenly in her ears and her skin prickling cold with gooseflesh fear.
Nothing.
She laughed weakly at herself and rubbed her arms briskly.
Okay, it's official, I have got to stop watching horror movies.
She threw a second scan.
Still nothing.
Yeah, Disney movies sound good.
Karen grimaced as her gut churned.
Uh, maybe C-Span?
Her gut kicked it up a notch and then she snorted at herself, shaking her blond head.
It's hunger, idiot, not revulsion.
Obviously, her brain and her cup size really were inverse.
Karen abruptly winced and scowled angrily at herself. Dammit. Helena was right. She really had picked up a bad habit of slamming on herself.
Not that it was shocking really, given that she was one of the media's favorite superheroes to target.
Or the general public's.
Hell. Or even the League's.
Her proud shoulders sagged and she ran her fingers through her hair tiredly.
Sometimes having super hearing was overrated.
Karen stared down at her chest.
Great, now I can add depression to the crap I'm dealing with.
She'd put in a twelve hour day at her company—as had somehow become the norm over the months as she desperately tried to save her baby. Then she'd hurriedly changed out of her tailored suit and high priced pumps in her hidden safe room, taken the direct access to the roof of her building, and gone into Power Girl mode for another six. She'd come home so damn tired and frustrated with life in general and specific, that she'd just laid down on the carpet and face planted as she tried desperately to pretend that she wouldn't just have to do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. In finis.
Which meant that now eighteen hours later she was still in her uniform.
Which meant she could easily see the ample soft smooth skin that was the source of so much trouble in her life.
It was simple really. She knew all she had to do to stop the leers and contempt and get people, including supers, to take her seriously was to just close over that skin. That's it. Some extra fabric was all that stood between her and respect. Just some fabric.
And that was the whole problem.
Karen's fists clenched.
Because though it might be ridiculously silly, it felt like if she did she would be caving.
And she was Power Girl, damn it. And Power Girl did not cave.
On anything.
It had been all she had left.
Through all the lies she'd been made to innocently believe.
Through all the losses she'd had to brutally suffer.
Through all the destructive self-doubts she bitterly had borne.
It had been her one final reason not to give in to the black despair.
Karen took a long slightly shaky deep breath, getting herself back under control again. Slowly she forced her shoulders back and a sardonic sassy smile grew on her lips as she saw that the move only made her uniform's open bodice more in your face.
Helena was right. It was pride.
For after everything she had endured, because of everything now gone forever, and in spite all that she could still lose; Power Girl remained.
And she was proud of that. She'd earned it.
And her uniform would only change if she wanted to change it.
"So to hell with them all!" Karen declared in mocking brazen defiance to her empty apartment. Then she doubled over laughing at herself. When she could breath right again, she shook her blonde head.
Yeah, I'm way too tired.
But the smile on her mouth remained.
Time to eat at least once this week, right?
She dragged her weary but now somewhat cheered self off the carpet and headed for the kitchen.
Only Power Girl gives herself a kick in the ass pep talk and then makes a sandwich.
She wondered if she still had peanut butter.
Or bread.
Nope.
Damn it.
She sighed.
Fine, pizza it is.
And then something began knocking a beat out against her apartment door. To the tune of . . . weird. A sixties song? What the hell? Was that jerk two doors over high again?
Karen scowled and focused her super hearing. I swear if it's him again, I'm going to introduce him to high orbit.
An over-sugared feminine giggle. Followed by an overly male dramatic shushing. In the third person.
Oh, no. No. Way.
Karen closed her eyes tightly a moment, mentally willing it to be her evil cat, instead. Her huge, nasty, mean ass beast. Or Batman. With all his tall dark and insufferableness. After Flash and Guy. On caffeine.
Please, please, please!
"Boy, she's sure going to be excited to see us again!"
And knew it was the proverbial snowball moment instead. As always.
She sighed, gritted her teeth, sucked it up and used x-ray vision. Not because she really had to, but because she just couldn't believe it was possible even for her life for this to be happening.
Son of a— Unbelievable. It was just freaking unbelievable.
She threw her gloved hands up in sheer outraged disbelief at the Multiverse. "Oh, come on! AHHHH! What the Sam hell is my luck made out of—kryptonite?!"
Karen smacked her forehead in despair against her custom granite kitchen countertop. Which promptly broke in half. She groaned.
Couldn't she at least have gotten one of the fun colors?!