Santana opened the fridge, unabashedly pulling out the large slice of apple pie—it might be the last one but she fucking deserved it after apartment searching all day—and closes the door with her foot. She turns back to the couch and Charlie's spare laptop that seems to be overflowing with potential rat infested apartments.

How the hell did anyone ever do this?

She flopped back on Charlie's ridiculously comfortable couch and glares at the laptop for being the bane of her existence. She's been at this for hours and is bored out of her mind, the good ones were out of her budget and even though she got paid well—her credit score was shit. "What the hell." She muses to herself, glancing around just to confirm that Charlie's not watching over her shoulder.

Once upon a time she had been a private investigator, a job that felt like a life-time ago even though she had called it quits a few months ago. She sighs pushing that thought away immediately, she needed to remain positive and focus on the task at hand—despite the fact that Charlie told her in no uncertain terms to 'fuck off' and mind her own business. Now she needed to know who this Elaine Puckerman was. A nemesis? An old friend? A girlfriend? She had no context for Charlie's sudden refusal to talk about her. The office had become out of bounds to her.

Charlie's strong reaction could only mean one thing: there was a story behind it, and now Santana couldn't resist. The cards on the desk had looked like wedding invitations, but there hadn't been a date on them and as far as she knew, as far as the world knew Charlie had a new girl on her arm nearly every day. There had never been a story about any serious girlfriend and people were interested in Charlie's life. She was both infamous and famous depending on who you asked. The simplest way to start would be a quick google search. Then she'd cross-reference that information from what she knew about Charlie's life. Even though if she really thought about it and was honest with herself, after Charlie had decided to stay at the academy things were a blur. Quinn rarely mentioned her twin and Charlie's parents didn't really seem to be as involved. Maybe if she had kept in touch, maybe she would be in the loop.

"Dr. Elaine Puckerman—a Ph.D. in the Classics?" Santana snorted, that couldn't be the person that Charlie knew. Charlie was a scientist first and foremost, and she always seemed to be moving forward, creating new technology. It didn't make sense to be with someone or even deal with someone who was so stuck in the past. It seemed that person was a professor as well, Charlie as far as she knew dated supermodels, and actresses and the most beautiful people in the world not frumpy professors. She scrolls down her eyes landing on an obituary, it's from Kentucky. She glances at the pie, and then the fridge that had been stocked filled with ribs and chicken—it was possible that Charlie had been in Kentucky, or had stopped there.

'Dr. Puckerman loved the classics and will be missed by her students and the countless lives that she touched throughout the years. Taken from us too soon, she is survived by her parents, Raymond and Ruth Puckerman, and her siblings. In lieu of flowers—' Santana skimmed the rest of the article. There had been no mention of Charlie. She wasn't quite sure what that meant. Had Charlie had something to do with her death? Had they broken up before she died? Charlie's general surliness and the pain that had flashed through her eyes—and maybe a bit of guilt. It was possible that she felt responsible, maybe she had contracted some disease or there had been a lab accident.

She exits the tab, and leans back in the chair. It was rather sobering to realize that she knew nothing about someone who she had once claimed was a close friend. She didn't know what had happened. One moment they were playing in the dirt and playing house, then there powers had come in around puberty. Charlie had waited for her powers eagerly, but they had never come. Maybe it was around that time that they had started to leave her behind, but she still tried to keep up. She used to make these little devices out of basic household items which generally didn't go so well but it was cute if not embarrassing. She was happier back then. Then there had been some standardized test at school and all she could remember was that Charlie was taken away for testing. There had been talks about intelligence tests, and then finally the men in suits had come to talk to Charlie's parents. Charlie had gone to the academy and even though they had promised to remain friends forever things changed between the three of them.

Maybe the first sign of the fracture of their friendship was the first time that Charlie had come home on a school break. Back when she was still happy, she had come back with rolls of the material to help her with her powers. Back then her parents were spending a fortune buying her new clothes because of how often they caught on fire. She had been a walking fire hazard especially since back then her fuse had been shorter. But Charlie had come back with the breathable material and talking about polymers and molecules and how amazing her school was because she wasn't bored anymore. They let her build and create things under supervision with a lab, and they gave her so many books to read, and she had the best teachers. They were no longer on the same level, and Charlie struggled to keep things simple so that people could understand her. She seemed to have mastered the skill but it had clearly taken time and effort, none of which they were willing to help her with. It was probably why Charlie's relationship with Quinn devolved till the point that Charlie had chosen to simply remain at the academy and learn.

And then, all of the sudden, it was like Charlie was just gone. How had she just let that happen? She hated that she still didn't know. She sighs and tries to think of another search term when a little box pops up in the top right hand corner of the computer.

"Get over here, now." Kurt barks at her suddenly.

She's not sure if she's more startled to see his pale-ass face on the screen or that she might have been caught looking into something that Charlie insisted wasn't any of her business. "Why?"

"Why?" Kurt rolls his eyes. "Because you have a job—" There's a crash that comes from somewhere outside, but Kurt doesn't even look toward it. "There's some idiot super here and your boss needs her bodyguard, or glorified secretary or whatever you are, to take him out."

"Take him out—?" Santana rubs her eyes tiredly. "I don't have my suit—"

"One, I don't need excuses. I need you to get your big ass over here and do your job."

"Listen here, Cupcake. I don't have my mask, I can't—"

Another crash makes Kurt's camera shake and he leans forward toward it. "You think everyone here cares about your 'secret identity'. We all know. Everyone who is anyone has signed a million confidentiality agreements and the entire building signed one about your secret identity. It's why it hasn't been leaked in the entire time you've worked for Prometheus. Charlie's an ass, but she protected it and it's now it's time you get off your fat ass and pay her back for her kindness, instead of moping around like a wounded animal."

It catches her by surprise, and she hadn't really given it much thought, she hadn't expected Charlie to keep her identity hidden. Not like this, as far as she knew the normal people generally gave her a wide berth except for the guys she worked with in the lab, they seemed to enjoy working with her and asking her questions about her abilities. "She really did that?"

Kurt sighs and looks away from the screen for a moment, the frown on his face growing deeper. "Look, real talk? Your relationship might be complicated with Charlie but what I do know is that Charlie truly cares about every last one of her employees at Prometheus. You might think she's cavalier about certain things, but safety is important to her. So yes, she protected your secret identity. And now you need to keep her safe from not only some super but from herself. She may be the smartest person in the world, but she's about to do something stupid and asinine. I think to make a point. She's already evacuated most of the building and the surrounding ones, unfortunately the top level floors haven't managed to evacuate yet. I've dispatched a helicopter for you so get to the roof—"

"Charlie went toe to toe with me what about the—"

There's another crash and screaming is heard as well as the sound of people running. A wave of dust blows past "It's a prototype and we only have the one and are currently in negotiation with the State Department and the President about it. She doesn't currently have access to it. The ETA is two minutes for the helicopter. It takes Charlie ten minutes to get to work from her apartment whenever she takes the helicopter. So charge up or do whatever it is you do—"

'Kurt. I told you to leave. You need to get out of here now.'

It's Charlie's voice in the background and Kurt turns probably to bitch at her when the screen suddenly cuts out. "Kurt?" Santana asks shaking the device for a moment. She swears loudly and glances down at herself. She was a mess but there wasn't time to think about that now. She brushes the crumbs off her shirt and immediately gets up, this was what she lived for, and more importantly she finally got to punch someone, something that she had wanted to do for the past two weeks.

~O~

She arrives no less than ten minutes later and gapes at the destruction around her. The tall modern building that housed Prometheus had a gaping hole in the side like someone had taken a bite out of it. Shards of glass went flying as more dust whipped around the area. There were already news helicopters and vans in the street trying to be the ones to break the story. This was a disaster.

There is another cloud of dust that rushes out of the building causing her to cover her eyes for a moment. She couldn't hear anything over the chopper blades, but if there was one thing that she knew it was that she needed to get down there quickly before the entire building collapsed. Whichever hero had thought this was a good idea was an idiot. Public opinion had still been on their side in Charlie's war, it was waning but they were still beloved by others. This could be the straw that broke the camel's back. The people who worked at Prometheus weren't masterminds they were innocent people doing their god damn jobs. And if Charlie survived this, she was smart and charismatic enough to turn the tide in her favor.

"I got this," Santana yells towards the pilot, she waits until he turns to look at her before flashing him a thumbs up. He nods and she unbuckles her seatbelt and moves towards the opening in the helicopter before diving off, waiting for a moment till she gets clear of the helicopter before using her powers to soak in the energy from the sun. She feels it coursing through her, charging her up as she glides toward the mayhem. She lands on one of the floors scrambling quickly to get away from the edge, and in the process nearly trips over a body. She recognizes the uniform as one of Charlie's many security guards. Rent-a-cops. She had no idea what they were doing but they still didn't deserve this.

She grits her teeth tightly and storms toward the source of the destruction. The first thing was first she needed to find Charlie. Then after that they needed to, well she didn't know but Charlie would. She looks around. Charlie's office was up on the fifty-second floor but judging from all the swanky offices and locked cabinets, she was probably on one of the legal department floors. A company as big as Prometheus had an entire in-house law-firm working just for them. Judging from the state of the art locked cabinets, this was probably the patent law floor. Which meant that there may be some of Charlie's toys laying around. The only problem was that she didn't know any of the codes required, and even if she did, that didn't mean that she knew how to use the devices that Charlie cooked up.

"I can't believe it but Ray was right," Charlie grumbled, wincing as she dragged left leg up and over to one of the cabinets as quickly as she could. "A gun would be handy right now. So where the hell did I put the damn thing." Bullets wouldn't work, but she had in her boredom designed a sound wave gun, something non-lethal, and if she couldn't find that—well there was always the portable laser rifle which she had helped design with some MIT graduates. "Mental note, build another aegis. I'll call it Aegis Mach 2 that sounds cool. It needs to be cool."

"Charlie?" Santana asks skidding to a halt.

Charlie glances at Santana for a moment before going back to opening cabinets. "Did you find an apartment yet?"

"You're bleeding—"

"Because your week is over tomorrow."

"Can we focus on the bad guy destroying your company right now?"

Charlie rolls her eyes. "Fine. Whatever." It's a testament to the blood dripping down her leg that she doesn't push the issue. "Found it!" Charlie smirks grabbing the oversized weapon and hoisting it onto her shoulder. She stumbles forward and grimaces, as she catches herself.

"How about you let me do it?" Santana offers. Charlie's clearly not in any shape to be battling a super.

"And let you destroy a multi-million dollar prototype?" Charlie scoffs. "I don't think so." She tries to stumble toward the door only to trip as her injured leg hits some debris and falls hard to the ground. The portable laser rifle thankfully takes most of the damage, shattering against the tile floor.

Santana snorts. "What was that, again?"

"Shut up and help me—" Charlie doesn't get a chance to finish her demand and Santana groans when the super steps into the storage room.

"Charlie Fabray. It's time someone brought you to justice."

"Finn?" Santana cringes, pinching the bridge of her nose at the sight of him standing in the doorway in what she was sure was supposed to be an intimidating stance. It was embarrassing. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Santana?" Finn pulls up his mask as if that will give him a better view, forgetting about the cameras that were following him. "What are you doing here? I called this one."

"Do you have any idea of how stupid this is? How many people you put in danger?" Santana can't believe he would be this idiotic. "You don't even have proof that Charlie's done anything wrong."

"So what, you're on her side now?" Finn's eyes narrow and he snaps the mask back into place. "I don't have to have proof. She's a villain. Everybody knows it. I'm going to bring her to justice."

"Justice? You killed my security," Charlie hisses. She knew who this lunatic was, now that she saw his face. The man who had broken Quinn's back. She hadn't been sure whether she wanted to send him an edible arrangement or have him taken out. She had chosen to leave it alone, she should have had him taken out. "The men and women who work here at my building for what? It's not as if I haven't been arrested before."

"That's on you," Finn snaps at her reaching for her. He was going to end this now, the Fabray family had been the bane of his existence. They had cost him everything the love of his life, and then Charlie was appearing on the news demanding that they stopped being heroes to make it easier to change the world. As far as he was concerned the police couldn't keep Charlie locked up, and if that was the case they needed to throw her in with the other super-powered villains. "You're under arrest."

"I'm an unpowered civilian, this entire building had unpowered people working on it, doing their jobs and you burst in here like you owned the place for what? So you could arrest me? The police have done it before and no one has died." Charlie snaps at him. The police weren't perfect but this was a clusterfuck. She didn't resist when he grabbed her arm, she didn't even flinch under the pressure, he didn't know how to control his strength and she knew that if they took an X-ray later there would be fractures.

Santana reaches for Charlie's arm to pull her back only for Charlie to hold her hand up. There wasn't a look of smugness on her face that signified that she had won, she just looked irritated. She had proven her point in a devastating way. They needed to be put on a leash. Finn was too stupid to realize but he had just put a target on all their backs. "Santana don't there's been enough destruction today."

Finn narrows his eyes at Charlie and crosses his arms over his chest. "Don't tell her what to do."

"Finn, shut up. I'm perfectly capable of talking to Charlie myself." Santana scolds him. The last thing supers need is Finn making some idiotic comment that cements their future. She can already hear choppers on their way and knows that news crews aren't far behind. She knows this entire floor is equipped with camera and audio surveillance to protect the patents stored there and isn't willing to let him risk it. "She's my boss so back the hell down."

"Your boss?" Finn scoffs. "She's not better than us, she's just another pathetic human that needs us to save her. What's worse is that she's a villain Santana. They're the bad guys."

Santana can't take it anymore. She's sure those sound-bites are going to be the final nail in their proverbial coffin. "Look around, Finn. Did Charlie kill all these people? Did Charlie put their lives in danger? No. You did. For your childish ego."

"They're collateral damage. It happens." Finn made a face at this statement tilting his head a bit at the sound of footsteps that sounded like marching. "I didn't believe people when they said that you had joined the dark side but I'll tell the containment unit to take you in as well. Maybe she's brainwashed you or something—" Finn nods that had to be it.

"Or perhaps she decided to work for me because you broke her wife's back and she needed the money." Charlie interrupted, her voice strained, his grip was tight and she made a mental note to never leave home without a version of the aegis. Also she couldn't help poking at the powder keg that was this situation.

Santana turned to Finn, Charlie was right—this idiot had put his hands on her wife. He had crippled her, if it hadn't been for him she wouldn't be here right now. "I'm going to kill you." Santana hisses at him.

Finn immediately lets Charlie go, shoving her hard into one of the cabinets as he turned to Santana. "She was fucking my wife."

Santana sneered her fist clenching tightly, "Then you should have fucking told me. I didn't break your ex-wife's back did I? I didn't put her in the fucking hospital despite the fact that I wanted to." She wanted to wrap her hands around Rachel's neck and squeeze but she didn't want to give into those base desires. More importantly she was scared at who Quinn would choose to protect.

"I did you a favor," Finn snaps back holding his hands up before pointing at Charlie who was forcing herself back to her feet. "Their entire family is rotten. Rotten to the core and—"

Santana didn't hesitate darting down low for a moment before slamming her fist upward into his jaw sending Finn flying back. "Shut-up! Shut-up! Shut—you don't get to talk to her like that. You're a fucking moron Finn do you know what you've done?" Santana moved quickly pushing herself onto Finn, tackling the giant to the ground and began to pummel him with her fists, each punch landing as she rained down blows onto his face. This had been all on him, maybe if he had been a better husband, smarter better he could have kept Rachel's paws off Quinn. This asshole had hurt her wife, had killed innocent people in the name of justice and she wasn't going to fucking take it anymore. Everything shitty that had happened in her life as of late was his fault and she was going to—

Charlie stumbles forward and wraps her arms around Santana's chest and neck and immediately attempts to pull her off. "Santana, enough. You're going to kill him and make a mess. And I'm sick and tired of cleaning up after your messes and you breaking my shit and stealing my shit. There's been more than enough bloodshed today."

Charlie's words are enough to cause her to turn, "I don't steal your shit."

"Yes. You do. I know you took the last piece of pie. He's done so enough. Enough." Charlie repeats again. She glances up at the swarm of the cities super-powered detainment team, "Finally. Glad to see my tax dollars at work." Charlie sneered falling back onto her back her body finally giving out as the adrenaline evaporated from her body.

Santana glanced up at all the guns that were pointed at her and Finn and she quickly realized that Finn's actions had fucked her too. They would be hauling her in, which meant that she'd be put into a specialized prison with criminals that she helped put away—and worst of all she'd be without the sun to charge her up. But she immediately puts her hands behind her head like they ask and switches off her powers. This really wasn't looking good for her.

"Secure the area, get a medical Evac in here, but I want this one to be under surveillance until we can sort this snafu out," someone barked kicking Charlie's leg gently to make sure she was still alive. Santana snorted when Charlie flipped him off.

~O~

She'd been expecting to spend the night in general lockup while they sorted out this entire mess, so she's pleasantly surprised when they immediately lead her toward a private cell close to the booking area. Normally, she's pretty sure they use this spot as the drunk tank but it's been apparently cleaned out and secured for her own use. Not that she'd complain about that. She'd been anticipating at least a few uncomfortable reunions with some of the scum she'd help put away. They probably wouldn't get to her until morning, so she settles in on the dirty cot in the corner and lays down to try to pass the time.

"Up and at 'em, you've been bailed out."

Santana gapes at the cop who unlocks the cell door and holds it open for her. She knows Quinn doesn't have the money to come bail her out and probably wouldn't have done it anyway. "Seriously?"

"Unfortunately." Kurt scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest disapprovingly. "Prometheus protects its own. Our PR department and legal team when on a huge joint campaign immediately to get you out. We want to make it clear that we're not against all Super's just against the lack of regulation."

"How's Charlie?"

"The same bitch she's always been." Kurt shrugs, but Santana can see the small tug up at the corner of his lips that belies his relief. "She's going to be fine but she wanted me to tell you that you get to stay at her place for the next few weeks. She won't be using it and she doesn't want any idiot supers trying to retaliate while she recuperates. But she also told me to warn you not to break anything else."

He doesn't say that Charlie's grateful for her efforts. "So what now? Do I go in front of a judge or—"

"What you need Santana is to choose a side, but that can come later. Things will start happening quickly now. These things do, and right now the world is furious with all supers. You might get caught in some crossfire so we're taking every precaution to make sure that doesn't happen. So no more sitting on your ass all day and eating everything that isn't nailed down."

"How did you—"

"Charlie bitched about it," Kurt interrupted her.

Santana shrugs her shoulder a bit, before nodding. Of course she knew, there was probably that escaped Charlie's notice. "There is one thing that I need to do—um maybe the Prometheus lawyers can help me with something?"

"What is that?"

All the time in holding had made her think about Finn about her life and what she needed to do to move on. "I want a divorce Kurt—I think I might need a lawyer for that."

Kurt nods not seeming surprised at all by this turn of events. "I'll schedule a meeting with someone that the top brass have used." Kurt responded quickly.