Hey guys! It's uh...been a while. Between a hellish writer's block, my second to last semester of college, and the introduction of a new story to this MCUniverse (go read Changing of the Guard! It's a fun Ben 10 crossover and may or may not mesh with this story in the near future), I just couldn't finish this chapter. I'm sorry it took this long, but also glad I could finally do it.
Think of this one as a re-centering of sorts. For Kara, and for me.
"It's...weird, not feeling the cold." -Lena noted, leaning back at the pilot's seat of the Quinjet headed towards the Fridge. JARVIS was the actual pilot, but they'd found the cargo hold a little drab to spend the two hours of supersonic flight in.
Kara turned away from the vast expanse of ice and snow below them. They'd entered the Arctic circle some twenty minutes prior. "Another side effect of the serum?"
Lena hummed in confirmation. "My metabolism is too efficient now, apparently." -she said. Indeed, she was only wearing a thin, olive-colored jacket, whereas Kara had decided on a polar jacket and a Stark Industries-branded beanie she'd stolen from the Tower, on top of the Supergirl suit. She idly thought it couldn't hurt to suggest to Tony that the Avengers could use some cold weather gear. Even if only two of them were somewhat regular, non-power armored humans - and she wasn't even sure about Romanoff - and thus needed them, they'd probably look pretty cool in a matching set.
"You get used to it." -she said. "I didn't always scarf down food like I'm training for an eating competition."
"Don't worry, I'm very impressed." -Lena teased.
"You should see me do chicken wings, sometime." -Kara said. "I've perfected the one bite method."
Lena chuckled. "Let me guess: you eat them whole, bones and all?"
Kara blushed. "I plead the Fifth."
The intercom came to life then. "S.H.I.E.L.D vessel Q-34, you are entering restricted airspace. State the purpose of your visit."
"We're dropping off an alien rock." -Kara stated bluntly. "Director Fury sends his regards...and his uh, clearance codes."
It took a moment - during which Kara wondered if her Game of Thrones joke would get them shot out of the sky - but the speaker crackled again soon enough. "Codes confirmed. Vectors sent, do not deviate from the assigned course. Welcome to the Fridge, ma'am."
"Course plotted." -JARVIS chirped. "I'd advise you to brace for descent, but I imagine that will be unnecessary."
Kara and Lena shared a look, and strapped in anyway. They were in the midst of a fairly heavy blizzard, and even though the Quinjet was much more stable and robust than any normal jet or helicopter, they could still feel the aircraft battling against the wild, frigid winds.
The kryptonian tried to make out the facility, but there was nothing to be seen; instead, a set of massive, white metal panels opened under a layer of snow, guidance lights flashing to guide them in. JARVIS easily maneuvered the Quinjet into the tunnel, which descended about fifty feet into a small hangar. There were two other Quinjets inside, and a full squadron of S.H.I.E.L.D. soldiers marching up to greet them.
"They don't seem too happy to see us." -Lena noted.
Kara hummed. "They rarely are."
The brunette raised an eyebrow. "Been here before?"
"Nope. Just generalizing." -Kara said. "Fury wouldn't allow me access to this place before. Kinda wondering why he did now."
"Maybe you're getting in his good graces."
Kara snorted. "That man only has room in his heart for his eyepatch and his cat." -she said. And Coulson, she thought, but he's gone.
They rose, and walked towards the opening ramp. The soldiers greeted them at gunpoint, which made Lena tense up, but Kara was used to it. Standard welcoming party, fingers off their triggers, only meant to pressure possible infiltrators into stressing out, making mistakes. She confidently walked up to the team leader and held up the small box with the kryptonite chunk.
"Where do we put this?"- she asked, nonchalant.
The ranking office narrowed his eyes. He was a stern-looking dark skinned man with graying hair and a long, diagonal scar across his left cheek. "Director Fury has granted you permission to enter and use Vault E-38. You will not attempt to enter any other Vault. You will not disturb the base's personnel. You will follow proper protocol in adding to, and removing Vault-38's contents. Should you fail to comply with any of these rules, or otherwise behave in a manner unbecoming of the Director's trust, you and your partner will be treated as hostile elements, and swiftly neutralized."
Kara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Those rifles didn't even look like they'd tickle. "Sure thing." -she said. "Lead the way."
It hit her, then. "Wait, removing? I'm taking something out of this place?"
"That's up to you, ma'am." -the nameless man said. "I strongly advise against it - this place safeguards the world from the worst and most dangerous of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s discoveries, after all - but if the Director allows it...we will comply."
None of the soldiers looked happy about it - and one of them even looked her in the eye with a sadly familiar, downright hateful glare - but they all parted way to allow the two of them access to the elevator. Lena looked quizzically at her, and Kara offered a reassuring nod.
The man led the way, and flashed his ID badge at the wall beside the metal doors, which parted for them. The rest of the team stayed behind, forming a perimeter around the Quinjet. The elevator pinged, after which the man spoke. "Vault E-38."
"Confirmed." -a monotone female voice replied. Kara idly wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken a cue from Stark, considering the voiced automated security was new to her.
The elevator swiftly descended - five levels, which Kara guessed was what the 'E' stood for, and then smoothly switched to a horizontal track. It took about half a minute, even at what Kara could tell was considerable speed, but the doors eventually opened to an empty room, at the back of which stood an enormous, reinforced vault door with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo and the number '38', embedded into the concrete beside it.
The soldier stood just outside the elevator, only nodding at Kara to go. The couple walked up to the vault door, which promptly began to open - an arduous, minute-long procedure filled with metallic groans, massive gear sounds, and obnoxiously loud clanging.
Kara gasped as she took in the vault's contents. Suddenly, she was twelve again, running from a hail of blasterfire, urgently pulled by her terrified mother.
"Is...is that your pod?" -Lena wondered.
It was; just as she remembered it. Gray, carbon-scored kryptonian smartmetal and dull, cracked, off-white plastoid. Kara approached gently, almost reverently, Lena not far behind. She ran a hand over the roughly comet-shaped vessel, and felt her palm tingle - no doubt ever so slightly weakened by the traces of kryptonian atmosphere left impregnated upon its pock-marked hull.
She realized she was crying when she laughed, and it came out watery. "That bastard, he really did it."
Lena raised an eyebrow. "Which bastard? You've met a few, lately."
"Doom." -Kara said, then pointed at a blast mark near the engines. It'd left an odd, geometric pattern, markedly different from the rest of the damage - blackened burns and warped metal from her violent, in-atmosphere exit from the Phantom Zone, small, melted craters from plasma bolts, and huge, jagged scars from the rock fragments that would eventually become the kryptonite sword. "He changed the pod's intended course as I entered hypersleep. Sent me to a whole new universe and I was none the wiser."
Lena gently took her hand and held it. For all that Kara was now - this nigh-invincible alien protector she was incredibly lucky to love, and be loved by - the pod before them was a stark reminder of the terrified, young refugee she'd once been. Von Doom may have had his part in Kara's eventual rise to heroism, but, at the end of the day, he'd taken a scared little girl away from her own reality, away from the only family she had left, and into a world that was just as likely to accept or reject her. She'd gotten lucky, getting found by S.H.I.E.L.D. What if she'd landed in Russia, or North Korea? What if Centipede, or whatever other pretentiously named evil conglomerate had gotten to her first? Lena already loathed the man for nearly killing the woman she loved; this made her want to shove a plasma grenade down his goddamn windpipe.
"It's not all bad." -Kara said, snapping her out of her murderous reverie. "If he can travel between realities, then maybe we can learn how to do it, too." -she reasoned, then blushed. "Plus...you're in this universe."
Lena shook her head, smiling. "Maybe I was in your original one too, you flirt."
Kara shrugged. "Yeah...but I'm dating you, not her. And I wouldn't trade you for any other Lena."
"You're killing me, Kara." -Lena gasped, hands around her neck in mock-asphyxiation. "I'm drowning in the sap."
The blonde laughed. "Maybe I should breathe some life into you, then."
Lena wanted to groan, she really did, but her mouth was otherwise occupied.
The pair spent a good half hour in the Vault, in which Kara showed Lena what she remembered of how to operate the pod. It wasn't much, but Kara figured out how to boot up the pod's OS, and even brought up a few flickering, holographic images of her world, moments before its ultimate destruction.
Krypton shone again for but a moment, wounded but still living, burning cracks criss-crossing its extensive deserts and ragged mountain ranges, flash-melting through what remained of its polar ice caps, swallowing whole what she vaguely remembered to be entire cities. She pointed out the massive expanse of Argo City, brightly lit with the fires of a doomed war, and the shadow of Krypton's smaller sister, Daxam, just beyond the pod's rendering range.
It was oddly beautiful. This moment in time must've been taken mere seconds before the explosion - and released a sun god, if Doom were to be believed - and yet, Kara couldn't help but smile wistfully at the memory of her homeworld. She always thought it'd be painful, but...all she felt was a hollow melancholy.
"I feel like I should say something, but I don't know what." -Kara said. "Like, offer some words of remembrance, maybe. An epitaph to my homeworld."
"What's stopping you?" -Lena wondered.
"My memory." -Kara said. "I'm ashamed to admit it, but...I know more about Earth and humanity than I can remember about Krypton. Like...a lot more."
Lena hummed. "I don't think there's any shame in that." -she said. "I hardly remember anything about growing up an orphan in Ireland. I don't remember my birth parents at all. All I've really got is memories of life in the Jameson household."
"You were a little girl when Jonah adopted you, though." -Kara said. "I lived twelve whole years on Krypton. What's my excuse?"
Lena seemed unimpressed. "You mean besides experiencing the kryptonian apocalypse first-hand? Kara, it's ok not to remember everything."
"Lena, I'm the last kryptonian alive." -Kara gently reminded her. "If I don't remember, who will?"
"Your cousin, for one." -Lena said. "All the people who study galactic history back in your home dimension, too. And me, and whoever else you decide to tell about your world. Even if it's something as small as its name, as long as even one person knows about Krypton and its people, you're not alone in bearing this burden."
Kara stared at the ghost of her homeworld for a few moments. "I guess that's true. And I don't think my parents would want me to get so hung up about this."
"That's well within your rights, too. Mourning doesn't have an expiration date."
"But it should eventually lead to acceptance." -she noted.
"I think you're there." -Lena said. "Frankly, I think you were there the moment you jumped out of the Bugle. I think that marked the exact threshold of you truly considering Earth your home."
Kara smirked. "You think?"
"You punched a hole in my stepfather's office so you could help stop an alien invasion with zero regard to your anonymity, or what would happen to you afterwards. I think I know, Kara."
The kryptonian looked over the room. "You know what? I agree." -she said, then suddenly lifted the pod overhead, to Lena's wonder. It wasn't something she'd soon get used to. "But I'd really, really like to have my stuff back, anyway."
The soldiers nearly had several simultaneous aneurysms when they saw Kara carrying an alien vessel over her shoulder, and into the Quinjet. Lena closely followed and winked at them, every speck of data in that room in a cardboard box under her arm.
All that was left inside Vault E-38 was a tiny black box, with the remains of a dead planet inside.
In housekeeping news: as I mentioned at the top, there's new entries in this massive universe I've concocted. If you'd like to find out more, check out Changing of the Guard and Close Encounters of the Gem Kind (which bring several fandoms into this 'verse, including but not limited to: Ben 10, Trollhunters and the Tales of Arcadia series in general, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and Steven Universe). Changing of the Guard also introduces S.W.O.R.D. and sort of fills in the gaps a bit for Kree involvement with Earth. You may have caught the reference to Captain Marvel in this one.
I will also be porting this story over to my AO3 account in the coming weeks, to be updated simultaneously. I personally prefer reading fics on AO3, and there's a lot more freedom when it comes to categorizing over there, but don't worry, FF is still my primary workspace. If anything, you guys will likely get to see some improvements made to the earlier chapters, as I go over each and every single one during the transfer.
Yay.
Until next time!