"I don't think this was such a good ide-aaaaaahhhh!" Lena was cut off midsentence as the puppy at the end of the leash she was holding suddenly took off, sending her flying on after it. Even though it was a tiny little thing, small enough to fit into her hand, it was powerful enough to jerk her, a full-grown woman, clean off her feet. Kara watched the scene unfold with a roar of laughter.
"Ha ha ha ha! Oh, poor Lena!" she joked, clutching her sides as she continued to watch the Luthor get dragged around by a puppy that was small enough to fit into a purse. Soon, Kara even had to wipe away a few tears away because of how hard she was laughing. Lena was not amused.
"Quit your laughing and get over here and help me!" she pleaded, doing her best to remain upright. She had both of her hands tightly wrapped around the leash and her heels were digging deep into the grass, but the puppy was insistent and continued to drag her along with ease.
"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Kara managed to get it together long enough to run over to Lena's side. She made a big deal about rescuing Lena, making sure to show off by taking the leash from Lena using only one finger. The puppy was finally forced to come to a dead halt, unable to move a single inch forward now that Kara was the one in control.
"Show off," Lena muttered with a pout as Kara gave her a smug little grin, still holding the leash with only one finger. The puppy on the other end strained with all its might, but wasn't able to move an inch.
The puppy that was causing all of this trouble was Superman. He, thanks to a science experiment gone wrong, had been turned into a puppy. As had several other superheroes that he and Kara were friends with. Now, Kara, Lena and other DEO agents were all assigned the task of not only trying to reverse the process, but to also look after all the puppies until they could be changed back into humans. It was not nearly as fun as it sounded. At least for Lena. But Kara was having an absolute blast! Already, the other puppies were on leashes that were all tied around her waist. It was like seeing a very strange skirt made entirely up of rope, with living puppies at the ends. She had given Superman to Lena just because Superman seemed to have taken a special liking to her (the Luthors really did have a way of catching the eyes of Supers) but Superman quickly proved to be too strong and too much for the Luthor, even in dog form.
Kara willingly took him back from the poor, struggling Luthor.
"Come on, Superman, come here!" she sang to the puppy. When he heard her say his name, his tiny ears pricked up and he let out an adorable and high-pitched yelp, tail wagging furiously as if to say, "Yes! That's me! I'm Superman! And I'm a good boy!" which Kara was in total agreement about. As wonderful as Superman had been while human (Kryptonian) Kara was starting to favor his puppy side more.
"Come on over here, boy!" she continued to sing and Superman instantly came rushing back at her, jumping into her arms with another happy yelp.
"See, Lena? It's not that hard!" Kara teased as Superman showered her with kisses. "It's a walk in the park!"
"Hmph!" came the sharp reply as Lena crossed her arms and looked away in annoyance. The other dogs continued to yip and yelp, running around and tangling themselves up around Kara's waist. A normal person would've since collapsed under all the chaos, but Kara stood resilient, like a rock, unmoving as the puppies tumbled and turned and twisted all around her. She thought it was hysterical. Lena could only roll her eyes. It would take centuries to undo all those leashes.
"Come on, Lena, lighten up!" Kara pleaded, reaching out to tap her girlfriend playfully on the nose. The gesture was so unexpected that Lena blinked in surprise before blushing a little as Kara grinned merrily at her. Even though Lena spent most of her life asking how and why all of these crazy things kept on happening to her, the small portion of her life where she wasn't cursing her fate was spent either gushing over Kara or thinking about how very lucky she felt to have such a wonderful (albeit dorky and goofy) girlfriend. This was a mix of both of those times.
"Come on, you dork," Lena muttered at last, reaching out to take Kara's hand. Kara was more than happy to oblige, setting Superman back down on the ground before enthusiastically intertwining her fingers with Lena's. It was just a normal walk in the park on a normal summer day between two less-than-normal girlfriends and their less-than-normal dogs. But didn't that sum up their lives pretty well?
At last, the pair reached an emptier part of the large park and Kara dared to set the dogs free.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lena asked nervously as Kara unhooked the leashes one by one.
"They need to stretch their legs, Lena," Kara reminded gently as the puppies slowly spread out in all directions, eagerly sniffing everything in their paths as they explored this new area in their world.
"They could do that in the DEO training room," Lena reminded.
"They need to be outside," Kara replied and Lena was forced to yield as Kara set the very last puppy loose. She had no qualms with letting the dogs run wild and free, she just didn't want any collateral damage to come out of what was supposed to be a simple, normal walk in the park. When people like Lena and Supergirl were involved in anything, especially when they were involved together, something always managed to go wrong or crazy. It wouldn't surprise Lena if, somehow, even something as mundane as a walk in the park went haywire in time.
"Don't worry, Lena, they'll be ok," Kara murmured with a sympathetic sigh, finally seeing just how nervous Lena really was.
"I just don't want the city to burn down because of this," Lena replied and Kara couldn't help but laugh.
"If it does," she said. "You know I have the ice breath to fix it."
"Very reassuring," Lena muttered, but then Kara gently placed a hand on Lena's back and pulled her in for a hug, kissing her cheek gently. Like magic, Lena's fears melted away and a smile spread across her face. It must've been another one of Supergirl's powers, to make Lena feel so weak and giddy so easily. One little kiss was all it ever took. Supergirl was her Kryptonite.
"Come on," Kara murmured softly, taking Lena's hand again. "Let's just enjoy this day together," and Lena decided that she could agree to that.
For about 20 minutes, things actually went fairly well, and Lena honestly felt as though she really was just enjoying a normal summer day going for a walk in the park. For a moment, she wasn't a Luthor and Kara wasn't Supergirl. They were just two normal girlfriends enjoying a nice little day off together. There was something so natural and so peaceful about all of it that Lena found herself grinning from ear to ear like an idiot for no reason at all. Kara was watching as Lena's smile grew and grew and it made her own do the same. In the distance, they could see Aquaman swimming in the lake towards the center of the park.
"Oooh, that's gonna be fun to dry off when we get back to the DEO," Lena cringed. The lake wasn't exactly the cleanest place in the city.
"Don't worry," Kara laughed. "He can still control the water. He can just make all of it fly off and out of his fur," then she cut off with a snorting laugh as Aquaman hopped back out of the lake with a line of ducks following after him.
"Oh my god," Lena snickered, covering her mouth as the little pup strutted around proudly, all of the ducks following him like he was their king.
"That has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life!" Kara snorted. In two seconds flat, her phone was out and on, recording as Aquaman continued to use his powers to communicate with the ducks and build himself a little army of new friends.
Lena laughed right along with Kara when she suddenly felt something soft nudging her leg. She looked down to see Superman. His wide eyes met hers and he wagged his tail eagerly as he dropped a stick at her feet.
"I think your cousin wants me to play fetch," Lena remarked as she bent over to pick up the stick.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Kara squealed, turning the phone around on Lena at once. "Throw it! Throw it! Throw it!" she pleaded, looking just like Superman as she, too, begged Lena to indulge in a round of fetch.
"Ok, ok, alright, alright," Lena laughed, raising her hands in surrender as both of the Supers pleaded with her with wide, adorable eyes. "Now, I can't guarantee that I can throw this very far..." she admitted as she wound up her arm. The stick had barely left her hand before Superman had lunged at it, leaping four feet up into the air and catching it immediately.
Lena looked aghast while Kara burst out laughing once again.
"Here," she said. "Let me try," then while she handed the still-recording phone to Lena, she took the stick from her cousin.
"Alright, come here boy, let me show you how it's done!" she bragged.
"Shut up," Lena grumbled, but she watched eagerly as Kara wound up as hard as she could. That stick was going to go sailing right into the sun...
So maybe the stick didn't get quite that far, but one second it was there, and the next it was gone. Faster even than a speeding bullet, the stick was gone. Then so was Superman, barking after it as he ran at an impossible speed before, once again, jumping right up into the air and flying away. Lena could only stare before she nearly collapsed with laughter. For some reason, watching a little puppy go flying away into the sky was the funniest, weirdest, most random thing she'd ever seen and all she could do was laugh. But that laughter was cut short when, 30 seconds later, Superman came flying back over. In his mouth, there was a decently sized tree. It was small, but for a dog his size, it looked massive.
"Jeez!" Lena muttered as the large shadow of the tree suddenly fell over her and Kara.
"Good boy, Superman!" Kara squealed as she looked up at her furry little cousin.
"And you aren't worried about this attracting attention?" Lena couldn't help but shake her head again.
"It'll be fine," Kara replied cheerfully. "This city has seen weirder stuff in its day!"
"But you aren't worried about it being traced back to us?" Lena prompted again incredulously. She knew how protective Kara was of her secret.
"Well, if anyone asks, I'll just blame it on you," Kara teased. "They are far more liekly to believe that a Luthor is responsible for mutant puppies than a low-down humble reporter such as myself!"
"Ah, yes, I'm sure the press would just love to hear that," Lena winced a little, but Kara only continued to smile cheekily. Even though she was the bigger celebrity, since she only presented herself as Lena's girlfriend when she was in her civilian identity, their relationship made it seem like Lena was the more important and (in)famous one of the relationship (the tabloids had had a field day when they learned that the infamous little sister of Lex Luthor, and the one and only Luthor to still be out of jail and (mostly) good, had gotten herself a girlfriend).
All the while, Superman continued to hover over the two women, tree still clamped firmly in his little mouth.
"Alright, Superman, come on! You can drop it!" Kara called up to him happily.
"Wait. What?! NO!" Lena lunged to the side as Superman happily opened his mouth with a yip, sending the tree down onto Kara and Lena's heads. But while Lena jumped away in panic, Kara only snickered before raising one hand up in the air and catching the tree as easily as if it had only been a stick. Oh right. Lena blushed, mortified. How and why did she keep forgetting that her girlfriend could catch falling trees with ease? (Well, there was a thought Lena never thought she would have!)
"Did you forget that I've stopped falling planes before?" Kara pretended to yawn in boredom as she casually threw the tree back into the sky. Superman, with another happy bark, when zooming up after it. Lena could only stare upward in silent awe. This time, when Superman came back with the tree, she tried not to flinch as he happily dropped it down to her and Kara once again.
After a while, Kara grew tired of throwing the tree around for Superman (and Lena did insist that Kara ought to show at least a little bit more restraint than she already was just so the entire city didn't ask why there was a dog continuously flying after a tree in the park) so she sent Superman back to play with his other "puppified" friends.
"They're so cute!" Kara sighed dreamily as she watched Superman and Batman wrestle one another across the grass. Superman kept on using his laser vision and burning some of the grass into cinders and ashes, but Batman wasn't afraid to bite and bark back just as ferociously. In the distance, Flash was literally running around the trees, capable of pawing his way straight up to the top and then back down again, bouncing on all the other branches along the way. He, too, was leaving a few tiny fires in his wake. Green Arrow, meanwhile, was just basking in the sun.
"I didn't realize Oliver had such a soft side," Kara mused softly as she sneakily captured a few photos of him, belly up and paws splayed to the sun.
In the distance, Cyborg was playing tug-of-war with the Green Lantern puppies. They were using one of the leashes that had held them on the walk over to the park. Cyborg was winning, hardly even trying as the other two Green Lantern puppies tugged as hard as they could, but they couldn't budge Cyborg an inch. Instead, he finally gave one fierce jerk of his own head and sent the two Green Lantern puppies flying. If they were upset about losing, they didn't show it. Instead, they only began to roll around on the grass with one another and, not long after, Cyborg joined in.
Aquaman was back in the water, the ducks still following faithfully after him. This time, though, he was conversing with the small fish that inhabited the lake, dipping under the water ever few seconds and disappearing for a while before coming back up. It honestly made Lena a bit nervous to watch, just because it went against her nature to watch a dog continually disappear under water and not jump in after it to help.
"He'll be fine," Kara grinned, knowing what had caused Lena to look so worried.
"I know," Lena replied, and she forced herself to relax. Behind them, Wonder Woman and Batwoman had since started following a little girl around and licking her playfully. A few milliseconds later, Flash appeared, looking pleased at meeting a tiny human who wanted to play.
But just as Lena had worried about earlier, of course something had to go wrong. It wasn't the dogs, though. Instead, it sounded like several shady figures had been spotted at the edge of the city engaging in what looked like an illegal arms deal. The DEO wanted Supergirl to take a look. As soon as Kara received that call from Alex, she ran behind a clump of bushes. Half a second later, she reemerged in full Supergirl attire.
"Take care of the puppies," she told Lena with earnest eyes.
"I will," Lena promised. "But you stay safe, ok? And take care of the baddies."
"I will," Supergirl smiled, then she zoomed over to Lena's side one last time to receive a good luck kiss from her (it had become tradition ever since Kara had cheekily asked Lena for a good luck kiss around the time they first started dating. It had been a joke back then, but had since become tradition over the course of their relationship). Once Kara received her little kiss, she gave Lena a wink before vanishing again, leaving Lena alone with a handful of superpowered dogs. Oh, joy of joys...
Kara landed a few feet away from the cite that Winn had directed her to. Spying from the shadows, she managed to catch a peek at the shady figures, all armed to the teeth, shoving several giant bags into a nearby truck. Yup. This was definitely an illegal arms d-
"Told you it would work!" in a very rare event, someone managed to catch the Girl of Steel off guard, and he was very proud of himself for it.
"Oh, shut up, whatever!" one of his buddies grunted. "Just let me see her!" Kara suddenly found herself wriggling under a very large, very heavy, very tight net. She took a look up into the eyes of her attackers and although she didn't recognize them, she recognized their uniforms.
"Cadmus!" she gasped.
"Awwww, you recognize us! We're flattered!" a third member of the little gang said as she, too, approached the trapped Supergirl.
"Lillian?" Kara hissed, eyes narrowing.
"No, but I am flattered that you think that," the woman replied. "Lillian, as you know, is still in jail. But we've taken over for her."
"Well, you'll turn out more like your predecessor than you think," Supergirl spat back threateningly. This only earned her a laugh from the three Cadmus members closing in on her. Kara wasn't scared though. She knew that she had lost temporarily, but she had gone up against Cadmus enough times before that she was certain that this moment was only a bump in the road. Even if she wasn't able to escape right now, a chance would probably present itself to her eventually. And if she didn't, she had the entire DEO agency tracking her.
"Alright, c'mon, let's bring her back to HQ," the first man said, then he and his buddies all began to lift Kara up slowly. Naturally, she lashed out at them, thrashing violently against them as they tried to shove her into the van along with whatever other anti-alien tech it was that they had been storing inside in the first place. But of course, the Cadmus agents weren't stupid. They had known that Supergirl would try to resist, so the net held against all of Supergirl's best efforts. So, it looked like she was going to have to wait for DEO intervention. She gave a frustrated sigh. She wasn't even scared, she was just annoyed, and she mentally counted down the seconds to when she'd be able to make her next move. It came much sooner than she might've expected...
"WHAT THE?!" although Kara was in the back of the van, she heard a terrified shout coming from the front. Then the van came to a violent stop and Kara was thrown forward. She smashed into the wall separating her from the drivers in the front.
"Ouch," she grunted, struggling to sit up. She focused in on her super-hearing, trying to figure out what had stopped the van. Had Alex and J'onn managed to find her already? That must've been a record for them! But then she heard what sounded like a giant metal robot, gearing up to fire a laser at the truck. Oh, that wasn't Alex or J'onn! That was Lena in her Lexosuit! Kara couldn't stop a smile. Good old Lena!
Once the van had been blasted open, Kara smiled upward as the sunlight flooded over her face again.
"Hi Lena!" she waved through the net.
"You complete and utter mess," Lena snickered down at her. Even though her face was concealed by the Lexosuit mask, Kara could still hear the amusement in her voice. Now it was her turn to dramatically save Kara, making a big show out of lifting the net up for her.
"Is this payback for the leashes?" Kara demanded with a good-natured grunt as she stood up again.
"Maybe," Lena laughed teasingly as she spun the net around her giant, metal pointer finger playfully.
A sudden groan alerted the two women to their enemies. All three of them had been badly injured when Lena blasted their van open. Not killed, but certainly in no state to fight. Well. That had been easy! But then Kara heard it first. Something whistling from up above. She turned around in time to see what looked like several small jets or drones zooming in after them.
"Lena! Duck!" she commanded, jumping in front of the first drone as it continued on its path towards Lena. Lena only needed that one little warning before she readied her laser gun again, shooting down a couple of the other drones.
"Guess they came more prepared than we thought!" Lena grunted.
"Well, so did we," Kara replied dryly, using her laser vision to shoot down another drone.
But while the two women were distracted with the drones, one of the Cadmus agents managed to put in a distress call to other agents waiting nearby. They really had come prepared, trying to think up every possible way Supergirl might defeat them. If the van failed, there were drones, if the drones failed, there were extra soldiers, if the extra soldiers failed, they would bring in some heavy artillery and few more drones (the drones currently attacking Supergirl were not all the drones Cadmus had, they had enough to swarm the entire city). Although the desired goal was to take Supergirl alive, they would rather kill her and ruin that goal than let her escape again. Lena was just another casualty. They were going to kill her as soon as they could. The extra incoming agents would see to it. Then Supergirl would be next if the extra agents failed to recapture her.
Lena suddenly cried out as she felt something hard slam into the back of her Lexosuit.
"Lena!" Kara whipped around, then her eyes widened in horror as she caught sight of the backup Cadmus agents. They sped on down the highway, each in bulletproof vans. A few agents already had their heads sticking out the window, firing off all sorts of guns at the Luthor and the Super. But while Kara was turned, facing Lena and the incoming Cadmus agents, Lena was still busy trying to shoot down the drones.
"They've come too prepared! We won't be able to fight them off!" Kara muttered. She halfway considered just flying straight up into outer space and hanging out there for an hour or two until the Cadmus agents got tired of waiting for her, but she knew that such an easy escape plan wouldn't work as well as she might think. No doubt, Cadmus would have something in store for that too. Likely, she guessed, they would threaten to destroy the city if she dared step outside its limits. This forced her to stay inside National City, so they knew exactly where she would be at all times...
"How long until backup arrives?" Kara finally asked Lena.
"Well, we've still got a few minutes from the DEO," the Luthor admitted. "But I do have some help that we can use right now. I was going to try and keep them secret, but I guess that plan went out the window, eh?" she chuckled.
"What are you-?" Kara asked, genuinely mystified, then a pair of laser eyes suddenly shot down another two drones and Kara whipped around for a second time. She gasped again, but this time, it was not Cadmus agents that she saw, it was the Justice League. "Holy Rao!"
"Woof! Woof, woof, woof! WOOF!" and Superman was the one leading the charge... "Who let the dogs out?" indeed.
The next few minutes were perhaps the strangest and most entraining that the city had seen for quite a while. The Cadmus agents were struck dumb as a hoard of tiny puppies suddenly appeared on the horizon, each of them filled with superpowers and a desire to protect their mistresses. This had been one thing the anti-alien agency had not prepared for.
"What the-?!" one of the agents cried as a tiny puppy in a red shirt with a yellow lightning bolt on the back suddenly appeared. It barked at him for a few times before, with jaws terrifying strong, biting the nozzle clean off of his gun. Then before he could even blink, the puppy was gone again.
One puppy raced after some of the foot soldiers, his metal paws clanking on the ground as his one laser eye got ready to fire off. Overhead, there were two puppies in the air. One was flying all by himself, using his laser vision to continue attacking the drones, and the other was riding on the back of several large ducks. It was the strangest thing any of them had ever seen.
"You-?" Kara couldn't even formulate a question as she continued to look back and forth between Lena and the hoard of angry puppies.
"Yup," Lena pulled back the Lexosuit mask just long enough for Kara to see her cheeky grin. Kara could still only look back and forth between her girlfriend and her new army of furry little friends.
"But it wasn't entirely me," Lena admitted as she slid her mask back on. This action woke Kara up from her stupor and she was quick to jump back into battle alongside her girlfriend and her puppies.
"It was actually Superman," the Luthor continued. "He managed to hear your cries of pain when you were caught, and he was able to explain to me, through a lot of barking, that you were in trouble. It didn't take me much longer to get my Lexosuit and all the other dogs ready to come on over!"
"Wow," Kara could only shake her head. "Consider me thoroughly impressed."
"Well, someone's got to look after you," Lena teased. "You made me promise to look after the puppies, so here I am now."
"I am not-!" Kara began with a pout.
"Oh yes you are," Lena interrupted with a snort. "Now come on, my other fur-babies need some help," then she said no more as she zoomed back into the fray, leaving an amused and exasperated Kara to fly right on after her.
Halfway during the battle, Kara really began to get into it.
"Awww, look at my fur-babies go!" she squealed as one of the pups disarmed a Cadmus agent with just one bite. "I'm such a proud mama!"
"Focus!" Lena shouted back to her, but Kara was too enraptured, busily pulling out her phone to record. She could feel bullets hitting her back, but because she was immune to that type of attack, she ignored it in favor of filming her precious little puppies as they fought in their first ever battle.
"I need to record this!" she muttered excitedly as she filmed her puppies. She continued to ignore the gunfire from her enemies.
"Supergirl!" Lena shouted again but Kara had suddenly gone deaf, cooing as her little babies went off to destroy people.
In the end, though, Supergirl managed to defeat Cadmus. But this time, it wasn't through her own strength or merit. It was from a very cunning and creative plan from the friendly neighborhood Luthor and a squadron of superhero puppies. Cyborg had managed to shut down all of their vehicles while Superman continued to take on the drones. Wonder Woman, Batman, Batwoman, Green Arrow and the Green Lanterns all went after the foot-soldiers. Aquaman helped both sides, using his duck army and his water generation powers to strike the drones and the foot-soldiers both. Never had the city seen a battle like that before and never had Cadmus been so completely and humiliatingly defeated.
"Well, that was a walk in the park," Lena sighed in satisfaction after the last Cadmus agent had been disarmed and captured.
"I'm about two seconds away from quoting a Scooby Doo line here," Kara whispered as the other Cadmus agents were all arrested. All around them, the Justice League stood, panting and wagging their tails happily. Meanwhile, Superman made sure to give one last hard nip to the man in charge of that particular squadron of Cadmus agents. Kara smiled proudly at him.
"Stupid dog!" the Cadmus agent grunted, but when Superman growled at him again, he quickly kept on walking.
An hour later, all was back to normal (sort of). All the puppies were safely back in their portion of the DEO, Kara and Lena with them. J'onn, Alex and Winn had also stopped by, marveling and laughing at the story Kara and Lena told them. Meanwhile, the scientist responsible for turning the justice League into puppies in the first place looked quite pleased with himself.
"I told you it would work! I told you I could make ferocious war machines out of them!" he bragged.
"You turned them into tiny dogs," Alex growled at him. "You didn't do anything. They did!" she pointed at Kara and Lena.
"And we still need to get them back to normal," Lena agreed. "So hop to it! I'll be along shortly to see how you've progressed..." and all of the scientist's self-grandiose turned into fear as he bowed to Alex and Lena before fleeing the room as fast as he could. Those two were really scary.
"Awww, do we really have to change them back?" Kara pouted. "They proved today that they can still fight crime, even as pups!"
"Kara," Lena needed only to give Kara a warning look before Kara sighed in defeat.
"Ok, ok," she conceded. "Just don't find a cure too fast, ok?" she pleaded, eyes wide and lip quivering. Now it was Lean's turn to sigh in defeat.
"Anyone ever told you how like a puppy you are, Danvers?" Lena asked tiredly.
"All the time," Kara replied with a huge smile, then she leaned over and hugged Lena sweetly and Lena could only roll her eyes before returning the hug. J'onn and Winn both smiled when Alex pretended to groan in disgust.
"Get a room!" she grunted at her little sister.
"That'll happen later tonight," Kara promised, face totally serious and Lena pretended to nod in agreement, just as serious as Kara.
"Ok, TMI," Alex winced, then she turned around and walked out of the room as fast as she could. The others watched her go with amused laughs.
Meanwhile, all around them, the Justice League (having since been renamed the "Pup-stice League" by a pun-happy Kara against the protests of everyone else at the DEO) continued to bark and play, satisfied that their first adventures as puppy superheroes had gone so well. They couldn't wait to go for a walk in the park again!
AN: Randomly got inspired to write this "mid-quel" Pupstice League fic because why not?
Shout out again to Snorlax891 for inspiring it!