For the first time in a few days, things seemed normal for Kara Danvers. Of course, getting used to seeing the man she had broken was a tediously slow process, but it began to get unsurprising how he always seemed to be at the DEO, then at Lord Tech, then back at the base again. He hadn't crept up on her on the streets of the city or at CatCo yet, so to some extent the element of surprise was limited. The cerulean-eyed woman was currently chewing on her pencil as she tiredly drafted an email via the proclaimed "Queen of all media" when she looked up, her mouth gaping impulsively at what she saw, causing the pencil to fall out – well, it wasn't as though she had any dignity in front of him to begin with. Scolding herself for forgetting the inevitability of the moment that was occurring right before her eyes, she just about managed to prevent the pencil from falling off her desk and scrambled her hands over her desk. "Uh… Adam, hi!"
Dressed in normal clothes, he raised an eyebrow at the scene that had just unravelled before him, amused. He nodded. "Nice to see you again, Kara." The boy smiled, then walked through to Cat's office. And that was it. The blonde buried her face with her hands in embarrassment. Then, peering up from her pale fingers, she bit her lip and watched as Cat greeted her son with a tight-lipped smile, then began to speak. Kara watched hopelessly.
Winn passed her with photocopies in his hands, then chuckled, mumbling quietly for only her to hear: "You know you have super-hearing, right?"
Kara nibbled on her lip surreptitiously, contemplating if, with her new links to Adam, she should be so intrusive. She caved unsurprisingly and turned back to her laptop, pretending to type as she heard their exchange.
"So, I was wondering if you could get off work for a bit to have lunch. It would be great to catch up again." Adam leered.
Cat hesitated, then said matter-of-factly: "That would be lovely. I will make myself free."
"Okay then. Um, I'll come by at 1:30?"
"Okay." Cat mirrored. "See you then."
She heard footsteps getting closer and, sensing Adam was coming out of the office, managed to tune out of her super-hearing just as he stepped out of the glass walls and raised his hand to her. Resting her hands on her lower face nervously, the blonde woman took one palm away and quickly waved back with an awkward smile as he walked off. Kara, with her heightened senses, recognised that more was to come over her short exchanges with the man, or that there was another element; another pair of eyes watching. And she was not wrong. "Kiera!"
Hearing the screech of her boss' name for her, the woman in question rushed into Cat's office with a notepad and her pencil. "Yes, Miss Grant?"
At the mere sight of her assistant, the woman looked exasperated. She traipsed to her desk and sat down slowly. "I don't know how much security you think you have working here as my assistant, but in case you have forgotten, allow me the liberty of reminding you." She spoke monotonously, raising a perfectly manicured hand and putting ice cubes in her tea with tongs, then pausing to speak through gritted teeth. "Thin ice."
Kara raised an eyebrow. "Uh…"
"What exactly are your intentions with my son?"
Her confused look increased, this time contracting as her azure eyes brightened in shock. "Wh- no… no intentions, Miss Grant. None at all."
Cat's eyes widened manipulatively then peered down into her iced tea, finding the beverage more interesting than Kara as she continued. "Then why did it seemed to me that you are not at all surprised that he is back in National City, and that you must have already known about his being here?"
"Um… Miss Grant-"
The woman rolled her eyes, interrupting. "Kiera, I have made an active effort to keep my family life more private from you since the incident with my mother, yet somehow you can't keep your nose out of my family tree. I suppose I could take this as a compliment…" Cat wondered, raising her arms up from her desk slightly as if she was testing the air – then, she straightened up and put her utensil down, looking up again. "But I won't."
"I can explain, Miss Grant… Adam, actually… asked me out for coffee." At Cat's raised eyebrow, she clarified: "Platonically." Cat shrugged and continued to put ice cubes in her tea, showing she was suddenly disinterested. Kara took this as a way to increase the pace of her explanation. "He just wanted to talk to me to make sure there were no hard feelings. He didn't want things to be awkward."
Cat looked taken aback at the chastity of what happened – as a journalist, she always delved for something more interesting, but this seemed to be a story that just didn't satisfy. She shrugged again. "Well, then I guess I am proud of my son for being so mature. Maybe you should take a page out of his book before you "um" "ah" your way out of this building." Kara tensed at the comment as Cat raised the glass cup to her mouth, then sighed, waving her hand half-heartedly. "Be gone, Kiera. Those emails won't re-draft themselves."
It was safe to say that day had exhausted her – even if Adam had kept her boss occupied for a couple of hours, Cat came back from lunch with a vengeance, despairing that nothing had been done in her absence and threatened to fire separate people on multiple occasions. Kara was just thanking the heavens that one of them wasn't her. She had only just tossed her keys on the counter when a call from Alex rung through her apartment from her pocket, causing the blonde to huff, then pick up reluctantly. "What's up?"
The concerned voice of her sister responded. "Are you off work?"
"Yeah, just came home, why?"
"It's just… Adam found out some stuff about Maxwell Lord today. You might wanna be here for the briefing." Just from her voice, it was palpable the woman was cringing as she spoke of Kara's ex. She could sense it must have been uncomfortable for her sister.
"Sure, I'm on my way." Kara breathed. Within seconds she was flying out in her suit.
Supergirl rested her hands on the smooth surface of the circular table within the grounds and watched as more agents gathered around, including Hank, who explained that Agent Foster had found new inside information about Maxwell. Some officials brought tablets, ready to note down details – Kara just listened and watched Adam hopelessly.
He began his briefing. "Every day at around noon Mr. Lord activates a room of Lord Tech which was last occupied when he was working on Bizarro. No witnesses as to what he was doing, but he has said it's something to do with Supergirl." Kara gulped as Adam continued. "I managed to hack into the Intel and also saw that he had previously used his helicopter to go to a private location. The only CCTV monitors in Maxwell's private room are on his laptop and we've had no luck hacking into that so far, so I'll need to figure out his password and sneak into his room in order to find the resources." Adam explained. "Are there any questions?"
"Is there anything I can do at the moment?" Kara spoke up, looking at the table, then up at the man before her.
Adam hesitated, then matched her contact, looking at her azure eyes. "I'm not sure, Supergirl. But once we have an idea of what Maxwell Lord's intentions with you are, we can determine how to tackle the issue. Since you're the target, perhaps we should attempt approaching Lord Tech as DEO agents only first to prevent any risks."
The caped woman sighed. "He is always asking me for some sort of favour and now he's blackmailing me with God knows what. There's always something more to that guy."
Hank dismissed everyone, leaving Kara to walk by herself, accompanied by overhanging dread; Alex jogged up to walk with her as they made their way through the grounds, sensing her discomfort. Adam caught up to them too as Alex began to speak, addressing the elephant in the room: "I have a bad feeling about this."
"So do I." Kara spoke without hesitation. "The last time he was doing something in that secret room of his he was making an evil clone of me. What if he's trying to make another Bizarro?"
"No, that can't be it." Alex dismissed. "And you sent the Fort Rozz prisoners back, so not an alien we have on our database."
Adam spoke next, offering any information he had. "Well, the way he's spoken about it at the lab has all been very miscellaneous, but I guess there is reason to believe it is something… someone…"
Kara bit her lip apprehensively, hard enough to bleed if it wasn't for her superhuman abilities. "Oh God… what if it's to do with-"
Alex cut her off to silence what she herself feared. "No, we can't assume anything about that yet. We know so little."
Adam furrowed his brows. "What?"
Kara turned to him. "Project Cadmus."
Before he could question further, Vasquez was shouting over to the trio from the monitors and screens. "Supergirl, there's a fire on 12th Avenue."
Kara raised her eyebrows. "I guess that's my queue." She said – with that, she was running and flying out, leaving Alex and Adam behind to bask in the breeze she created as she departed.
Tossing keys onto the table by the door, he manoeuvred through boxes tiredly. Moving to a completely new city via his job at Lord Tech and his course with the DEO, as well as seeing his mother and discovering all this new information about Kara – all these new realms of understanding – had finally caught up to him as he trudged to the kitchen, jimmying open the fridge and reaching for a bottle of beer, popping off the cap and raising it to his lips. He placed the bottle down on the counter, then picked up the remote sitting by it and flicked on the television – the news. A reporter narrated about a fire, and the man was reminded of the blaze Kara was jetting off to extinguish.
As if his thoughts and the screen had perfectly aligned and synced, footage displayed of the burning apartment complex as Supergirl herself swooped in, rushing to the aid of the victims and the relentless flames. In a blur of red and blue, the superhero rushed people outside the building and to a safe distance away, only finishing when she was sure there was no one remaining. Then, Kara used her freeze-breath to extinguish the flames – as the building dimmed at last, the city's heroine slowly came down from the sky, smiling as people applauded. The footage and commentary cut to scenes of Supergirl comforting civilians – the fluorescent blue and red hues of nearby police cars glowed and cast the perfect shadows on Kara's figure as she cradled a baby, playing with its tiny fingers, smiling down at it and cooing as the infant's mother cried next to her and mouthed her gratitude over and over. She smiled at the mother and slowly gave the infant back. Adam took another sip of his beer. The footage switched to the heroine hugging a little girl – perhaps only six years old – wiping soot off her face as she grinned relentlessly.
With that, Supergirl was waving goodbye and flying upwards and away from the area. Adam put his beer down and caught himself grinning like an idiot as the report ended – he attempted to mask his expression and reached for the fridge again to start making dinner.
Finally dragging herself out of her fifth shower since being at home, Kara sighed and lowered her nose to her skin. She groaned. The smell of smoke was still there, but less noticeable now. With any luck, she could mask over the remaining stench with perfume and avoid the crinkled-up nose she would usually get from Cat Grant. Towelling off her hair, she felt her stomach grumble relentlessly and her Kryptonian body aching to be fed. She patted her stomach over her pyjama top and reached for the fridge, pulling out a deep dish pizza – the first of many, even at 11pm – and peeling off the packaging around it. She was about to put it in the oven when her phone rang again – this time, it was Adam. Furrowing her brows, she accepted the call and pressed the phone to her ear. "Hey, is there something wrong? I just patrolled the city."
He stuttered, strangely surprised that she actually picked up. "No, nothing wrong… Just… I saw you on the news."
"Yeah, I'm kind of a regular appearance on there, huh?" The woman giggled, twisting a wet strand of blonde hair around her finger.
"Yeah… I guess I just wanted to say that it was cool what you did tonight." The man confessed as Kara picked up her pizza and put it in the oven with one hand. At this point in time, he was on his miniscule balcony, resting one hand on the fire escape and looking out into the city, admiring the swirling sounds and blinking lights that came with it.
Kara blushed, and thanked God he couldn't see it. "You think so?"
Adam nodded, then realised she couldn't see him. It seemed he wasn't good at this, and imagining the expression Kara wore with her words – whether it was a smile or a look of concern – did not aid him in any way. "Yeah, I mean… Superman saves people and all that, but I've got to say – you dealt with that fire with such compassion." He paused, then spoke again, shyly. "You didn't just save people, you comforted them. DEO agents can't do that, you can."
The girl grinned, giddily, blue eyes crinkling at the corners into crescent moons. "Thanks. I'm glad." She listened to the silence that followed, then sighed. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to eat five pizzas and try to get the soot out of my fingernails."
Adam raised his eyebrows. "Five pizzas?"
"Kryptonian's gotta eat." She smirked. "Bye, Adam."
He chuckled, then smiled out into the nightlife of National City. "Goodnight, Kara."
Oh man, this was so choppy – I'm sorry. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter nonetheless!
I don't know when I'll next be able to update, since I'm going to a festival on Thursday until Monday, then I'm back to school next Wednesday – with any luck I'll try to update before Thursday, but if that doesn't work out I'm sorry! I will try my best.
-Beth/jennoists xx
