-Lena-
A sharp whirling sound sliced through the air.
Lena felt the sensation of a hand at the nape of her neck before her back was pressed up against the cold steel of the door, Supergirl's frame shielding her.
Supergirl grabbed something black out of the air and crush it in her hand, eyes blazing with a flash of orange.
Lena heard a muttered curse come from across the room as Supergirl stalked forward, hearing the woman apologize the hero paused, arms folded.
Standing a few inches shorter than the Kryptonian, the woman was covered head to toe in a matte black bat-suit; the red lipstick and red hair coordinated well with the red bat decorating her chest.
Tails of the woman's cape flicking over one of their legs, Lena noticed several security guards littered around the room.
Concerned, the young Luthor started toward them before Supergirl stopped her saying, "they're okay, heart rates stable, no internal bleeding." Lena was impressed and wondered how exactly the hero's vision worked. ~On a scale form 1 to Luthor, how sinister would it be to ask?~ she mused.
Palms facing out in front of her, the costumed red-headed rose from her crouch saying, "I didn't know she was with you."
"And I went to all of that effort coordinating our outfits tonight," Lena retorted sarcastically. ~God damn it. I feel like I'm at a comic-con.~
She side stepped Supergirl, leaving the heros to their pissing contest, intent on the central monitor so she could finish the mission she'd just risked her life for. It displayed an error message over the fields asking for a username a password. "Please tell me you haven't locked the system down." The young genius said with exasperation taking the vacated seat.
Batwoman grunted. A digitizer modifying her voice she said, "Not exactly my jazz. I lost contact with Oracle when I walked through that last corridor."
Lena had never actually met any of the Bat Family, but knew them by reputation. Rapidly typing, she threw over her shoulder, "Why are you here? Gotham not have enough psychopaths to keep you occupied?"
Supergirl looked indecisive, standing with her hands fisted at her hips she mirrored her question, "What are you doing here Batwoman?"
The cowled vigilante grinned and gave Lena an appreciative look and responded in a suggestive tone, "Well I wasn't really doing much of anything. Just sitting banging at this keyboard hopelessly out of my depth until Li- Lena Luthor, decked in wonderfully tight silver sparkle pants," she paused tilting her head in appreciation "came to my rescue."
Lena smirked at the exaggerated obviousness, recognizing the game. Something like a social parry and reposte. If I know that she knows that I know what she's doing, then she could lampshade sincerity under sarcasm.
Reminded of a play-style Lena had recently encountered and that slip on her name, a few things clicked into place. ~That arrogant manipulative shit.~ The Luthor intentionally stowed her irritation, deciding to deal it later.
Instead, she quirked an eyebrow at the woman in black and masked a smile when she noticed Supergirl's biceps flex as she turned her shoulder slightly, effectively separating the women. The blonde's expression was cold fire.
Batwoman coughed, then took a breath and explained in a more serious tone, "I caught wind a few months back of a group peddling gestation tubes for aliens to LuthorCorp. I didn't think it would be worth looking into until I came across a warehouse in the Gotham corporate district with a half-dozen pods filled with slime and indestructible mutant alien corpses."
The sound of keystrokes paused for a moment, Lena feeling a knot of dread settling in her chest. She asked with intensity, "Who? What else do you know?" and resumed her work while listening intently.
Batwoman answered, "Not a lot, Bats dug up a codename - Cadmus Project 13, and we had Oracle hack-" she paused glancing guilty at Lena "the LutherCorp mainframe. She couldn't find any description of the project, but this location was connected to development of the pods we found."
"Like you don't know it's L-Corp." Lena muttered under her breath then turned to Batwoman saying, "My brother is currently in a maximum-security prison where he belongs. But I will allow that does sound like the kind of horror-show he would be part of," her clear clipped words fading into a dark tone and trailing off.
Lena closed her eyes feeling her stomach turn over at the thought and continued, "There aren't any other Luthors left, I mean my mother, and she's no saint, but as far as a I know she hasn't lost her mind."
She turned back to the keyboard and pulled up documents she'd noticed in her initial search. They held several images of large tanks and a formula for a fluid she thought would serve to help maintain the development of a lifeform. Her eyes flicking between pages
Lena confirmed for her, "You're right about the connection though. Eight years ago the project was abandoned. LutherCorp cut losses after the FDA made approval contingent on clinical trials that they thought could take decades with the scarcity of the population."
Lena browsed though the specifics, finding out the tubes were originally developed by a LuthorCorp neonatal medical division to improve on survival rates for infants with neural tube defects.
The ever-present knot of guilt and self-loathing ease a little, grateful for any team LuthorCorp supported that wasn't destroying the moon or building a death ray.
Batwoman paced behind them connecting what she knew, "So these things weren't profitable, but that doesn't mean they weren't useful. They must have been repurposed into some kind of alien breeding program."
"Well, that's something," Lena said with some hope. Not able to take the prospect of another Luthor family plot. "I can't imagine any Luthor promoting the propagation of new alien species. Lex has been trying to castrate Superman for years."
Supergirl winced at that. "We can't really rule anything out at this point," Batwoman said trying to peer over the broad shoulders of the girl-of-steel who stood sentinel, hands fisted at her hips, between Lena and the masked superhero. "Can you find anything else? We need another lead to follow," Batwoman said dropping down from her toes and giving the hero an annoyed look.
"Maybe we'll find something in the vault." She turned to the hero in silver. "Supergirl, I've disabled all of the security linked to this network. There are a couple of suspiciously empty corridors that were silent, but those are down in the basement next to the lab and it looks like the only security personnel here were the ones we passed. Could you gather up all the guards and put them somewhere safe outside until we're done here?"
"Consider it done," Supergirl said with a salute before she felt a gust of air and heard the door snap closed.
Batwoman turned to Lena obviously wanting her own explanation for their presence, "She's…intense. So now that blondie's not here to stare daggers at me, why don't we talk about why the two of you decided on this whole Montague-Capulet team up?"
"I don't know how that's any of your business Kate, until you explain to me whether or not those projects you proposed where legitimate. I figured you were just flirting going in for that hug, didn't realize I should have had my security do a cavity search for hacking equipment." Lena said coolly facial expression foreboding.
Kate Kane removed her cowl grimacing and acknowledged, "I'm sorry about that. I mean, not that I didn't appreciate the fringe benefits, but I'll fess to it being shady." She looked at her with sincerity. "I swear everything I said was true. I do think you're different and I did ask Bruce about the partnership. The other part was," she said running fingers through her hair in frustration, before replacing her cowl. "It was just part of the hero gig. Batwoman can't exactly ask old high school friends for favors."
"We'll see Kane. I might be different, but double-crossing a Luthor is never good for one's health," Lena threatened holding the vigilante's gaze.
Supergirl returned, again positioning herself with her arms folded in front of Lena. "Kane, like the weapons manufacturer. Are you here for weapons?" Supergirl asked looking smug but displeased, "Super-hearing." she explained in response to the Kate's startled expression. "Also, you really should be more careful about taking them down with head trauma, I had to run one out to a hospital," she reprimanded.
"No, just the tubes. I didn't know anything else was here." "Fuuuck." Kate swore whining, "Bats is going to be pissed that I got outed twice on the same night."
"Hey! Unnecessary." Supergirl looked personally offended by everything about the woman in black.
Turning to Lena and pointedly excluding the dark-clade vigilante in her posture, the young hero said, "Everyone's been evacuated. We should head down to the vault."
Lena looked at Kane and then considered Supergirl a frown of concern creasing her brow. "We should bring her with us."
"You really are a genius," Kane interjected with a smirk.
"We need someone with fast reflexes to check for Kryptonite," Lena said with a shrug, clearly indicating a better-her-than-me attitude. "Like those dogs they use for landmines in Argentina."
As Kate stalked out in front of them grumbling, Lena whispered aloud almost imperceptibly, "You need to bring her after we're done here," and saw Supergirl nod in understanding.
The three women jogged through the hallways down to the basement, no longer worried about detection in the section Lena was able to deactivate.
Lena halted abruptly recognizing the dead space on the active security network.
Supergirl looked into her eyes. "I've got this." The hero said with a confident smile.
It made sense. Impervious Kryptonian in a kryptonite proof suit.
If there was a play to be made in an unknown situation it was her. The Luthor walked over to Supergirl and felt a rile of nerves electrify her as she placed a decryption drive into her hands, trusting the program to get her through any basic security measures.
She stepped in closer taking the girl's hand. She was very aware of the Kate's eyes on them and the dryness in her throat so she didn't bother explaining what she was doing as she manually pulled out the hidden glove extensions and went to her back to release the helmet effectively encasing the hero in lead.
-Sweet Jesus, I hope this works.- Lena thought nervously.
The HUD video display on the suit wouldn't be functional, but the film of lead on the visor should be thin enough for her to make out a fuzzy impression of the world around her. She wasn't sure how much her hearing would be effected.
The Kryptonian was careful to keep at a human pace opening the sally port door.
As the door closed Lena felt an uncomfortable sense of apprehension and loss as the hero's departure. Part of her was surprised to find she didn't think of the girl as the useful Kryptonian shield she had been prepared to use her as. Despite decades of training, the girl was more than just a piece for her to move.
Seconds felt agonizingly long. Kate stood next to her toying with her utility belt then caught her eye.
The vigilante smirked sauntering over to whisper in Lena's ear. She smiled at Lena and walked over to whisper in her ear.
"You know Little Luthor. I think I might dream about you playing hero in that piece tonight."
She rolled her eyes and ignored her body's reaction to the woman's breath on her ear.
*crash*
A hole blasted through the wall in front of them, barely missing the tops of their heads.
"Jesus." Kate yelled, "Over-react much Super Skirt?"
Then Lena saw what the beam had hit behind them. Two machines that appeared to be weaponized now hung off of the walls sparking and unable to move.
Lena opened the door to thank the hero and saw that the visor of the helmet she'd placed lay on the floor next to her twin holes blasted through the material.
The room filled with on ominous green glow.
"Fuck." Kate said sprinting toward the Kryptonian.
Before she reached her, a dozen green bullets slammed into the girl's chest. Lena felt a wash of cold then shook herself realizing they were bouncing off her suit.
That did not stop the poison from affecting her though. Lena stood glued in the doorway gaping as she took in the effects of kryptonite for the first time.
The irises of Supergirl's normally sky-blue eyes were corrupted by violent rings of green and the same glowing color crawled up her neck in spider patterns.
Supergirl heaved, her body turned to vomit on the floor then started spasming.
Batwoman flipped over the Krptonian's body ad bullets fired out at them from above. The cowled woman knelt to shield herself and the Kryptonian from the emerald barrage under her black cape.
~There's enough kryptonite in this room to kill her.~ She thought.
Settling on her next three moves she responded to the situation with cool efficiency. First manually engaging her own suit's protection and removing several small vials from her pocket.
She threw them like darts into the small alcoves in the wall that held the kryptonite and a foamy grey substance quickly smothered the ambient glow. Then grabbed another, striking the bezzle of the gun which was quickly encapsulated in the same material that she had used to trap the kidnapper in the park.
The Luthor side-stepped the vigilante's black cape and reached for the Kryptonian to check for a pulse at her neck.
She heard an explosion behind her and saw a jagged metal disk attached to a black cord wrap around both of them at the hip before her body was lifted backward with a jerk.
Lena lay on her side, wrapped at odd angle against Supergirl's pelvis. She felt at Supergirl's suit, hopeful after finding no ripped material. Searching Supergirl's face, she was relieved to find the green glow under her skin had dulled. Lena felt the hero's body shutter in pain.
She noticed the ever-present embers of rage she felt for her brother flare to life, as she saw her body try to shy away from Lena to protect the fragile human from the strength of her trashing.
Feeling a sharp sudden pang in her chest for this selfless woman, Lena shifted their weight and wrapped her arms around Supergirl's shoulders tightly.
Unsure what do, the Luthor pulled forward the same memory she always went back to for comfort and murmured soothing words in soft lilting Irish until she felt the woman ease against her before losing consciousness.
She heard an appreciate hum behind her and blushed furiously at Kate's deliberately slow approach unable to adjust her intimate position against the girl. With a mocking smile, Kate finally reached down to tap the bat-shaped disk causing their constraints to loosen.
"This place is a laugh riot," Kane groused helping Lena disentangle herself from Supergirl and the cord around them.
"It's a little garish I think," Lena said, taking comfort in sarcasm and not meeting the woman's eyes. "Lex never did have any appreciation for minimalism."
"I'd have thought old Lex would have just set off a Kryptonite-laced bomb or something, take out everything and anyone in a blast radius if he caught a Super in his net."
"My brother would have been expecting Superman, the quintessential personification of hubris. " Lena quoted. "I don't think it ever would have crossed Lex's mind that a Kryptonian would be wearing a Kevlar suit. You see the flimsy leotards they walk around in," she said gesturing to Supergirl prone form.
"Lucky he didn't go for the head I guess," Kane commented morbidly.
"He'd want a trophy," Lena supplied with a shrug. Knowing for a fact that her brother would definitely keep a Kryptonian body on ice. If nothing else just to stare at and reassure himself that the god he had made Superman out to be could actually die.
"That's disgusting." Supergirl croaked sitting up next to her. Then turning away, she spat a wad of blood and bile onto the floor. "Please don't tell me what he would do with it."
"We should get you out of here," Lena said looking with a worried expression at the young hero.
"Don't worry about me," Supergirl said leaning against the wall to pull herself to her feet. "It was only a couple of minutes of exposure, and I think the lead in the suit might have helped a little. I should be fine in a jiffy," she finished weakly. Pulling her bones weakly into her signature posture, the injured hero waved them forward and awkwardly led the way down the corridor.
Lena smiled despite herself at the hero's obviously false bravado.
Finally, they reached the machine consistent with the schematics that had brought them here. The young Luthor placed her hand on the scanner, the other hand feeling for the bump of her necklace under the suit. After a few moments of whistles and whirls, while the machine apparently went through the process of replicating and testing her DNA, she heard a confirmatory trilling sound and saw the large steel vault door in front of her click and open with a creak.
"Stay here," Batwoman said looking into Supergirl's eyes, her tone was full of steal, but her expression held a hint of pleading. Sky-blue eyes flicked to Lena looking indecisive, but after squinting toward the room her shoulders fell and she nodded.
"I need one of those vials," Kane said right before passing beside Lena and covertly pilfering a glass tube jutting out of the young Luthor's pocket. Sauntering forward into the chamber holding the vial in one hand and a bat-shaped disc in the other.
Lena followed a few paces behind with cowled vigilante, who made a sharp stopping motion with her hands. Pausing to look at the woman momentarily her eyebrow quirked, Lena walked past the woman-in-black waiving another vial in font of her cowl. She threw over her shoulder in a sing-song tone, "Be careful from whom you steal toys. Gas from the vial in your hand would knock you out for at least the next couple of days."
Batwoman caught up with her briskly and they searched the lab together, finding a dozen pieces of Kryptonite in balls, rods, chunks and shards scattered on work tables around the lab, inside of grizzly looking weapons and packaged carefully in foamed lined boxes in a supply cupboard.
The two women worked quickly, gathering all the chucks of green stone into a containment receptacle at the center of the room. Lena found one piece of Kryptonite shaped like a letter L attached to a long metal pole which she assumed to be a brand, disgusted she whacked the thing against the floor tiles.
With a grim smile, she swept the mess of stones into the bin with the rest of the kryptonite they'd found and cracked open her second vial pouring it into the container and watching the black colloid lead solution mix with the blue foaming agent then rapidly expand, eventually overflowing the container.
Feeling a knot ease in the stomach, Lena whispered that Supergirl could come in, knowing that the hero would be straining her super ears to hear everything they were doing in here.
Before she had finished the sentence, Lena felt the rush of superspeed and saw Supergirl's face, brilliant smile turned up to 10, peering back at her expectantly.
"I found a room with snacks!" the blonde hero said enthusiastically holding out a fistful of Twizzlers to Lena. Lena shook her head, happy to see the hero was looking more herself than she had a few minutes ago.
"Think this is what the playroom would look like if they had a daycare on the Deathstar?" Supergirl actually bounced when she saw Lena snicker at that, and explained, "Yes! You watch Star Wars? That's going to be so much fun." Lena confused by when she was talking about, looked like she was going to say something before Supergirl started flying around the room, picking up armloads of tech before running out the door.
Lena examined the computer in the corner thinking she might hack it but decided it would be better to just bring everything back with them, directing her Kryptonian valet to transport the system.
In a few minutes, Supergirl had finished a couple dozen trips, stripping out nearly everything from the room except the nails on the walls. When Lena saw her pull an air-filtering unit that was bolted into the wall, she called out they probably had enough.
Dropping the unit with a crunch, Supergirl smiled and lifted the dark-haired woman. This time Lena closed her eyes, shivering lightly when she felt Supergirl's hand bury itself into her hair. When she felt herself stop moving, she was momentarily disappointed to find she was sitting alone in the pilot's seat, cinnamon and flowers still in the air. Standing to look at the cargo Lena heard a whirl announced her return. Lena grinned and laughed into her hand.
The hero held up a disgruntled Batwoman. The woman looked very much like a petulant goth toddler, trying to twist out of the blonde girl's immovable grip.
When Kane noticed Lena she made a quip about Supergirl ruining her game to which Supergirl made a sound of annoyance. The hero poked her side in retaliation before placing the woman's feet on the floor. The maiden-of-might looked to have her rigor renewed, vibrating with excitement. Her playful manor made Lena picture a bouncing golden retriever.
Lena looked at Kate, expression unreadable, and stated with a diplomatic tone, "I appreciate what you've done tonight. For that, I will promise to give you everything I find out about Cadmus or Project 13. Now give me everything you took from my brother's lab."
Kane hesitated, weighing her options. She sighed deeply, "Fair enough," she said clicking open a couple of compartments on her belt revealing a flash-drive and ball containing a nanotech swarm. Lena looked at Supergirl and sifted her eyes back to the vigilante.
Squinting for a couple of moments, Supergirl's expression turned intense. "There's a box in the compartment on her hip that I can't see into," the Kryptonian ground out, a ring of bright orange ringing around her blue irises for an instant.
-Damn it Kane.- Lena thought. She could understand the woman trying to pull one over on her, but the woman who could hear her heart rate, see through her pockets and throw her into space? -I should look over those contracts again. She might actually be an idiot.-
"Bats warned me you guys were intense about this stuff." Kate said not appearing to be particularly concerned about the Kryptonian's icy expression. "Superman almost killed him over the stash of Krytonite he kept in reserve."
She took out a small white box from her pocket. Supergirl took it from her in an agitated movement too fast for the eye. "We agreed to keep the kryptonite we had in a mutually accessible holding area. I just know there are a few things about it he wanted to study. It has more chemical properties than its poisoning effect on Kryptonians."
"You saw what just happened to me. I thought- I can't-. I need to be the only one controlling Kryptonite." Supergirl said thickly.
Batwoman interjected "I get that you're scare of it, but we just-"
Supergirl cut her off with a quiet monotone. "I don't know when I'm going to die. It could have been tonight or a three-hundred years for now, but I know how."
Muscles clenching, the hero's voice filled with dark intensity. "I know exactly how I'm going to die, how my cousin will die, how my parents and all of my people died, broken apart by pieces of our own planet!"
"Did you take anymore?" Lena asked softly, looking at the Kryptonian's form as she turned her back to them. Her clenched fists moved to her hips, as she stared out the cockpit window.
"I'll destroy it," Kate said quietly in response.
"I don't think so." Supergirl responded coldly still facing away from them. "She paused scanning the building. "I see it. I'll take it to the fortress for disposal. Kal deserves to know what Batman's team has been doing."
Supergirl picked up the lead-lined crate containing the kryptonite they'd gathered that night and held out her hand to Lena.
Lena looked into her eyes seeing a haunted look she'd never expected and her brow furrowed reevaluating. Silently she offered the small box which the hero took with a nod and flew away.
Lena let the jet stay on autopilot, feeling bone-tired, and tried to rest unsuccessfully until she touched down at her office helipad.
Supergirl was waiting there back in her signature blue. The hero gazed up at the stars which were starting to fade into the lightening sky of dawn.
Lena didn't know what to say, she just walked up to the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. She nodded at the question in her eyes.
The hero picked Lena up and flew upright, slowly drifting through the city toward Lena's penthouse.
The CEO was surprised that she wasn't losing her mind with terror hovering a hundred feet above the streets below, held by a woman that looked all too human. She thought about how they were moving and asked softly, "Is it harder this way? I mean, to fly slowly like this?"
Supergirl gazed forward with a far-away look taking a few moments to reply, "A little. Its like a physics problem. To make things smoother I have to predict changes in pressure before they happen so I can brace enough resistance against little pockets of turbulence. Figuring out the relative difference in drag without an aerodynamic posture, in relation to changes in wind pressure caused by the buildings around us, is calming in a way. It gives my brain somewhere else to be for a few seconds."
"It's harder to explain that it is for me to actually do. Kryptonian's approach calculations differently, so no one ever understands what I'm saying. Not like at home." She said wistfully, "Sometimes I just want to feel like I belong somewhere." A tear left her as she squinted looking up at the last remaining stars in the sky.
Softly landing on Lena's penthouse balcony, the hero carefully set the woman down on her feet. Lena recognized that enormous pain, the deep loneliness etched on the woman's features.
She reached up a hand to wipe away the glistening trail with her thumb and tilted up the hero's chin. Lena looked into those blue depths until the vacant distant came back to focus on hers here on Earth.
The young hero gave Lena a wavering smile before turning to fly off into the stars. Seeing her leave, the Luthor felt a familiar pang and admitted to the night air, "Me too."
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Notes: I thought it would be nice to show Kara's loneliness too. I want Lena to be able to really appreciate both of them.