Kara stared at Alex and the gun. She felt split into two entities. One part of her was able to think and analyze. That Kara knew the gun couldn't harm her and was mentally calculating the speed and angle needed to seize the weapon before Alex could pull the trigger. The other part of Kara felt her eyes heat.
Heat was bad. No matter how angry or hurt Kara was, she couldn't risk unleashing her heat vision. Unlike the rest of her powers, Kara still struggled to control this one.
A boot scuffed the pavement. Kara snapped her head around, the entire alley now awash in a white-hot haze. An agent crept toward her with a pair of cuffs, glowing the same green as the darts.
The anger rose even more. This was all Alex's fault. Wrenching her attention back to the cause of her current situation (and the root of years of heartache), Kara prayed to Rao for one more minute of self-control. Molten tears slid down her cheeks. "What happened to you? What did I ever do to make you hate me this much?" she asked in a whisper. "You are o kátochos tis psychís mou. Alex of the House of El."
Alex's finger tightened on the trigger – and Kara's control slipped. She leapt into the sky before she turned the gun (and Alex) into ash. A scream wrenched from her throat a millisecond ahead of the sonic boom of her rapid ascent.
Kara didn't stop her wild flight until she was so far into the atmosphere that ice crystals formed on her face and arms. The crystals melted with sharp hisses from the heat soldering beneath Kara's skin. Panting steam, Kara finally released her pain in wild bursts of white-hot blasts.
"Hey, I'm Alex."
Kara stared at the other girl, puzzling out the meaning of her words. She'd been working with Kal-El (Clark, his name was Clark now) on her English, but it was still sometimes difficult for her. "I am Kara Zor-El." She wanted to say more. Today was a momentous occasion. Kara had dreamed of this day, the most important day in her lifetime. "I am…" What was the right word?
She glanced at Clark, but he was huddled with Lord and Lady Dan-vers. Perhaps finalizing the terms of the betrothal. "I am happy to be yours," she finally said.
Alex smiled, and Kara smiled back. "Happy to be my sister? You'll probably change your mind, but welcome to the family, Kara."
The cold, which Kara rarely felt, leeched into her bones after a while. She flew home slowly. Not even returning the excited waves of people on the streets dislodged the weight in her heart. Her boots scraped the railing as she landed on her balcony.
All the lights were still on inside. Her small table had disappeared beneath all her favorites from Mr. Woo's. Mounds of potstickers and egg rolls. Three plates filled with General Tso's chicken.
"Welcome back, mikrós ílios." Diana had shed her jacket and boots. Her bare feet did nothing to lessen her presence in Kara's home. "When you did not return quickly, I thought perhaps take out was the better option. Zhang Guoli wishes you great health and thanks you and your family for being such great patrons."
Mr. Zhang's belief that Kara ordered for a family and not herself alone usually drew a laugh. Kara couldn't manage even a chuckle now.
She felt Diana observing her as she pressed the new earrings to retract all but the bodysuit. The outfit she'd been so happy to have now constricted her movement until Kara fought to breathe. Kara dragged down the zipper at the back of her neck and yanked the fabric off her arms.
Ignoring her friend and mentor, Kara continued to strip off the suit on her way to the bedroom. She couldn't remove it fast enough. It littered the carpet as Kara stepped free. She donned shapeless sweatpants and a hoodie in its place. Something Kara could huddle into.
She turned away from the closet and stopped.
Alex brandished her gun at Kara.
Her gun. At Kara.
Alex was never going to be what Kara had dreamed of since childhood.
The brown Bonding Day robe slipped easily off the hanger and landed on the floor. Kara stood over it.
"It's perfect," Kara told the vendor. "It's for my bond mate. A gift for our bonding day celebration."
The older woman smiled. "She's an incredibly lucky woman. May Athena grant you both happiness, mikrós ílios."
Neither Athena nor Rao believed Kara deserved happiness. Her eyes heated. Kara didn't run from her heat vision a second time. The robe burst into flames, the scent filling her nose and lining the back of her throat.
"Kara!" Diana pushed her out of the way and stamped on the smoldering cloth and burning fibers of the carpet beneath. "What has gotten into you?"
With a silent shrug, Kara slunk passed Diana – until a hand wrapped around her arm. "Kara. What is wrong, paidí? I know what the robe meant to you."
Refusing to answer, Kara stood stiff and silent.
Diana didn't press for a response. Instead, she pulled Kara into a rib-crushing hug.
"Alex works for the DEO," she whispered. "She was there. At the fire." All of a sudden, Kara connected those facts. Kara turned and buried her face in Diana's shoulder. "Holy Rao, Diana. The fire could have been a trap. She knew I'd be there!"
Lips pressed against her hair, and Diana rocked them from side to side. "Surely, your mni̱stí̱ would not dishonor you that much, Kara."
A harsh, broken laugh tore from her. "She had a squad of agents with her. They tried to shoot me out of the sky with green darts."
Diana stiffened. "Green darts?" She stepped away and peered closely at Kara. "Did they hurt you? Even a scratch, Kara?" Urgency crackled like electricity in her questions.
"No!" Kara shook her head. "They bounced off my suit. Why? What are they?"
"Something that I hoped you would never have to experience." Diana's accent thickened. "Years ago, when Bruce and I worked with Superman to form the Justice League, Bruce discovered that a mineral from Krypton could be used to strip the powers granted by Earth's sun. Superman called it Kryptonite."
Kara wrenched away from Diana and was out the window before the other woman could stop her. She landed in the alley where she'd met Alex's DEO troops. The agents were long gone; not that Kara cared. She wasn't here for Alex.
She was here for the darts.
The DEO were thorough, though. Kara didn't find a single dart. She searched for long minutes, overturning filthy pallets and moving dumpsters. Finally, Kara spotted a hint of a green glow. Carefully lifting away debris, she uncovered broken glass. The edges glowed a sullen green.
Keeping Diana's words in mind, Kara used some discarded newspaper to pick up the shards. She wrapped them up in another sheet and stuffed it into the pocket of her hoodie. The trip back was slower. Maybe she'd overdone it with all the flying and laser blasts earlier. Kara felt completely enervated, and her body…ached?
She lost altitude, skimming the rooftop garden of the Pegasus Building. Kara strained to fly higher. She succeeded; however, the short flight home seemed to take days. She was soaked with sweat as she lurched over the balcony railing and tumbled into her bedroom.
Diana waited for her. She nimbly kept Kara from ending her flight on the floor. "Kara."
The tight clip of the syllables was a warning. Kara had pushed Diana about as far as possible before the friend and mentor turned into a stern princess and commander. It was enough to get Kara onto her feet, back straight. A warrior reporting to her superior. "I went back for the darts so Bruce could test them to see if it was Kryptonite."
She wasn't expecting Diana to lunge forward. "Where is it? Kara! Tell me you didn't touch it!"
"I didn't." She fumbled in her pocket. "I wrapped it up." She thrust the wad of dirty newspaper and glass shards at Diana.
Diana seized the material and strode out of the bedroom. "Stay here. You should not be near this until Bruce has assured us you are safe." Kara heard her press the buttons on her cellphone.
The call wasn't necessary. The exhaustion and pain she'd experienced on the flight back faded the minute Diana left the room. That meant…Alex had ambushed her, and she'd intended to use Kryptonite to take away Kara's powers.
Kara walked into the living room, ignoring Diana's signal to leave. This was Kara's home. Damn Alex and some tiny piece of her dead home world.
"I'm sure it is Kryptonite, Bruce. However, I will send a courier to Wayne Enterprises with a sample tonight." Diana frowned as she listened to Bruce's reply. One Kara could hear, too, thanks to her enhanced senses.
"Lucius and I made the suit to withstand anything less than a Kryptonite missile, Diana." He sounded wide awake even though it was late in Gotham. "The DEO…They're as much a thorn in our sides as that new anti-alien group: Cadmus."
A new anti-alien group? Kara hadn't heard anything about that.
"This is personal." Diana glanced at Kara. "They are targeting our paidí."
Bruce sighed. "We should have expected that. I've been following their activities ever since Clark went head to head with them." There was a pause. The rustle of papers. He was probably still at the office. When Bruce spoke again, his voice was lower. "Does she know? About the Danvers girl?"
Diana walked away as Kara grappled with that piece of information. Bruce had known about Alex? Had Diana? "Why didn't you tell me?" Apparently not. A little of the knot in Kara's chest unwound. At least one person in her life wasn't keeping secrets or trying to hurt her. "The girl was with the DEO agents who attacked Kara tonight."
A slew of curses had Diana pulling the phone from her ear and striding to the window.
Kara watched without listening anymore. She'd heard enough. Bruce and Diana had intimate knowledge of the DEO and their missions. Bruce had kept Alex's role with the DEO a secret, and everyone except Kara knew about the effects of Kryptonite.
Rage smoldered deep inside. Not the hot anger from earlier. This was cold. It allowed Kara to examine everything that had happened and everything she'd learned. As the pieces came together, Kara examined the picture it created.
She walked to the table and picked up the plates of food. Diana couldn't be part of whatever Kara decided to do next. One, it wasn't Diana's fight. It was Kara's. She'd put the DEO into motion, presumably by coming out as Supergirl. And two, Diana was sure to object to Kara firing the first shot in this war.
Pretending everything was normal, Kara put the food in the microwave. Diana still had her back to the living room and kitchen. Using super speed, she dashed to the paper-wrapped, Kryptonite-laced glass shards and stole one.
The Kryptonite hit Kara almost immediately, but she didn't think it affected her enough for Diana to notice her return to the kitchen. She dropped the glass shard into a baggie, zipped it closed, and hid it in a bag of rice in her pantry.
When the microwave dinged, Kara calmly retrieved the food and returned to the table. She ate a potsticker. Even drank some wine. Diana eventually sat across from her and picked up her own half-drunk glass. As Kara watched, she rolled her eyes fondly and said, "Yes, Bruce. I'll tell her. And I promise to get that courier to you tonight. I'll call them the minute I'm off with you."
It must have been the right thing for her to say. Seconds later, Diana uttered a quiet, "Goodnight."
"Bruce says he sends his love and that I am to hug you in his stead." Tilting her head, Diana watched Kara for a moment. "You look much better; although, I would wish that you were farther from the Kryptonite." Diana reached for one of Kara's hands. "We will deal with this threat together, paidí. Bruce already has Lucius testing upgrades to the suit. A stronger material to shield you as well as a filter should the DEO attempt to vaporize the Kryptonite."
Kara stared at their joined hands. It went against everything she'd learned on Themiscyra. There were no secrets between sisters. More than that, she owed Diana and the Queen for taking her in and making her part of the royal family.
Swallowing the truth and another potsticker, Kara forced a smile. "I'll be fine," she lied.
Diana raised a brow. "I know what today has cost you, little sister. You do not have to hide that from me. You will be fine. Of that, I have no doubt. Lean on me until your grief passes, as it must, with time."
Nothing could stop Kara's tears. "There is no hope left, i aderfí mou. I will always be alone. Alex has all but broken our promised bond."
"A bond that only you believed in, my darling." Diana squeezed Kara's hand more tightly. "She is human, and your cousin blundered into a Kryptonian tradition of which he knew nothing. I am sorry that it ended in this fashion. I thought surely that you would be able to at least mend your friendship."
Kara had believed for so long that Alex would come to her. Clark was a fool who was more human than Kryptonian. Alex, though, had been her friend. Her fiercest protector. Kara had believed that Alex was the one piece of her heritage to survive the destruction of Krypton.
"I don't think friends point guns at you and ask armed agents to put handcuffs on you." Kara's voice broke, and she swiped at the tears that simply would not stop. "It's OK. Or…it will be."
It would be. As soon as she put her plan in place.
Kara was at the office early the next morning. She checked in with the photographers and freelancers the Art Department had under contract. She summoned a staffer to run layouts to Cat and sent several photos back for rework.
Then she made her way down to the floor housing the warren of cubicles and workstations for Tribune reporters.
"Yeah?" Snapper Carr was as rude in person as he had sounded on the phone with Cat. "You get lost, Ponytail? The executives and their fancy glass offices are a few floors up."
Stepping into his tiny office and closing the door, Kara fingered the baggie with the glass shard in her purse. Sweat beaded her forehead, and nausea surged. "The fire last night? I tracked it on a police scanner and almost got a shot of Supergirl at the scene."
What was she doing? Kara's certainty in her plan wavered. "I couldn't get a photo, but I saw something. Something important. There were soldiers shooting weird green darts at Supergirl."
Now was the perfect time to give Snapper the Kryptonite laced glass. Yet Kara still hesitated.
Snapper frowned. "You didn't get a shot of it? 'Cause I can run with that."
"I was still driving. I couldn't get a good angle even with my phone."
"You think there's a story, though." He might look like a grumpy troll, but Snapper was all business now.
Kara nodded. "People shooting at Supergirl? That's a story." If she gave him the glass, there was no going back. She'd done her research. Snapper Carr ran the Tribune with an iron fist and an old school nose for scandal. He'd But…I caught a glimpse of one of the shooters. Someone I knew when I was younger. Agent Alex Danvers; she's with the FBI."
