Chapter 21: Nerds Collide

-Kara-

Kara woke up at the lab in the penthouse, laying in the bed Lena had set up as a makeshift infirmary. She saw Alex and Lena in lab coats standing across the room looking at a monitor displaying a revolving double helix. Lena was wearing her glasses again which made Kara annoyed at her sister's presence despite the fact that Alex was probably the reason Kara could currently move all of her limbs.

Lena commented to Alex. "I got them from -Batwoman." Kara frowned not knowing they were hanging out. "They're what my mother used on that boy. These tablets seem to function by shutting off all but one active Kryptonian power. I've been hoping to figure out what genetic area it's deactivating."

"To help Kara get her powers back?" Her sister asked? Lena furrowed her brow, and glanced nervously as Kara. "That's a great idea." Alex enthused.

Kara perked up, intent. The girl bounced out of bed a few cords popping off her and winced in pain. Pain had become an obnoxious new friend of hers over the last few months, one that she was very interested in ditching with a power up.

Older sister and intimidating girlfriend both turned giving her a look. Kara shied back, laying down and pulling the covers up to her neck obediently. She commented cautiously, "It can't be that bad if you didn't make me stay at the DEO."

Alex came over to her, reattaching a blood pressure cuff. "You've been out for a few hours." Her sister said dryly. "Another cracked rib and a concussion. The DEO's sunlamps wouldn't really do you much good right now and I figured Lena would be good for the obvious prescription-" Alex gave her a villainous look "50mL of fresh squeezed kale juice every hour until you stop literally walking in front of steamrollers." Kara looked around worried, seeing no evidence of the second worst green substance she'd yet encountered.

Alex continued dryly, "You're luck that suit has the best armor defense I've ever seen."

Lena put in, "It would be even better if you didn't fight me in it when I tried to pull you to safety." Kara felt a stab of guilt when she saw her wonderful, beautiful suit, which looked like part of it might have melted at some point.

Alex walked over and ruffled Kara's hair. "Lucky for you. Your girlfriend is good with a soldering iron. Weirdly, she seems to find your attempts at showing off endearing and is willing to bust her ass to keep your brains on the inside."

Lena smiled smugly holding up a new suit. "Prototype number fourteen, now with reinforced concussive force dampening and thermal energy proofing up to three thousand degrees." "And," She added with a smirk outlining the crest with her finger which turned the suit black. "Stealth mode. The cloaking we used before can't withstand the damage you tend to put these things through, but I thought you might enjoy practicing your secrete agent skills in style." Kara's eyes widened in appreciation Ninja.

"So, Lena do you spend all your time now cleaning up my sister's messes?" Alex asked. "We should start a club."

"Honestly, I wish I could," The CEO commented regretfully. "As much as I fear working on these suits will wake my latent Luthor tendencies," Lena said teasing Alex with a wag of her eyebrows. "I'd take being in a lab over a boardroom any day."

Kara bounced up and down to get their attention and asked impatiently. "What about my powers?"

Lena looked hesitant. Alex responded. "Lena has the tabs Lillian was using on their -eh subjects."

"Kon." Kara interrupted correcting. "Kon El." Maybe Connor could be his alter ego she thought excited.

Lena frowned. "I'm not sure it's a good idea to give him a name. You know what they say about strays you can't keep."

"I can save him Lena. Teach him how to be a hero, we just have to get him away from your mother and whatever drugs she has him on." Kara said with confident conviction. "Kon was Kal's great-grandfather's name. If Kal refuses to acknowledge that he's family, then I'm going to."

"Anyway," Alex continued. "It's obvious at this point that what we're not just dealing with a regular flare."

Lena agreed. "It's most likely that some particular components of your genetic expression particular to your yellow-sun derived Kryptonian abilities may have been turned off in response to the environmental stress of my mother -well, being a fucking evil psychotic vindictive bitch."

"Lena," Kara said feeling like 'meanie' or even just the b-word probably would have gotten her point across just as well.

Alex smirked at Lena and she ignored her. "I've been focusing a bit more on isolating the genes associated with deactivation. The ones I've found are all consolidated around a particular sequence on your 18th chromosome that I believe could be effected by simple histone modification." Lena said excitedly, then glanced at Alex and the corners of her mouth turned down. "But to get your powers back, we might have more success focusing on the more disparate individual genetic markers for individual abilities."

Alex reached over and pulled a few hairs out of Kara's head, "Ouch!" The Kryptonian objected.

"Ha! I love when I can do that." Alex said wickedly. "I need DNA to help isolate the response pattern." She explained. "Can I play with your toys for a while then Lena? Maggie says I'm only allowed to have a couple of hours of centrifuge time."

Alex and Lena spent the next couple of hours bent over a table working on their project before Alex winced at a text message. "I have to head out," She frowned. "I really wish I could use the DEO's pharmaceutical equipment to finish up production. I know it's your team, but I hate outsourcing suspiciously Kryptonian products."

"I might be able to help out with that." Lena said hesitantly. She walked over to the wall of suits and took down a familiar silver streaked blue one.

"You would like me to disguise myself as a roller disco enthusiast?" Alex asked bemused.

"No, I just- When my mother's, -Kon," Lena corrected herself with a glance at Kara. "When he took you down I was scared you might have-" She said glancing nervously at Alex's abdomen. "Since the Danvers sisters seem to inexplicably share some epigenetic drive to jump unnecessarily into suicidal missions, I thought you might be a little safer if you had an option to finish some of them more covertly." Lena showed her the controls.

Wow, Kara thought. I've never seen Lena trust anyone else like that. Maybe it's because she knows. No. Kara rejected the idea. It couldn't have been on purpose; she would have said something. She played idly with the necklace Lena had given her.

I can't believe Lena would ever think of herself as just a Luthor. She thought. Kara didn't know of any other Luthors that would give a pregnant woman a 10 million dollar suit for no other reason than to keep her safe. She would make an awesome mom.

When Alex left, Lena went back to one of her projects. Kara busied herself tinkering the her g-force box she had been working on. Her mind intent on preventing the taco-goop travesty of 2015. That had happened after she had picked up some food in Mexico for her and Alex and responding the the beast's demands, she had flown the bag of food back to Alex's place at top speed resulting in a goopy pile of plantains with pulverized burrito, lettuce bits and taste cinnamon pastries. She'd still eaten it obviously, but Alex stared at her the whole time with her judgey face.

Besides, she thought rationally, Kon is going to need as much food as I do and its my mentoring duty to show him all the awesome stuff that mean lady probably isn't letting him have.

Kara had been having fun with Lena the last few months, learning more about how to apply her calculations to engineering materials and design.

She had always been so bored learning Earth science before. The young Kryptonian couldn't talk with most people here who knew about real science because there were ways that Kryptonian physicists looked at things, like taking the multiverse and hyperspace travel and time warps for granted, that would make Earth scientists suspicious.

Of the people who knew, Eliza and Alex mostly just liked medicine and Alex groaned whenever Kara slipped into talking about 'space magic.' Winn loved that kind of thing, but he was so boring whenever he tried to explain his process and would always just get over-excited about how his new gadget looked like something out of some nerd show and what he was going to name it.

Lena seemed to really enjoy teaching and talking about her work. Her eyes always lit up when she got to shift between discussing and connecting different fields of science. And she was always patient when Kara got lost, hunting for a middle ground in their knowledge and working out from there until Kara got it. The consistent new intellectual stimulation made the Kryptonian feel like her brain was getting jacked.

After collaborating on a few things, Kara had started working on some of her own projects occasionally in Lena's secret lab. A couple of them had come in handy on her last big mission.

She'd also been considering ways to deprogram Kon, but there was no way to test her hypotheses. She didn't know how he was wired in, so an EMP blast might cook his brains. She wasn't great with medicine or physiology or whatever, but physics she knew and no two objects could simultaneously occupy the same space, you know in this dimension. If I could just increase the pressure in his brain enough without making his head explode. She huffed, maybe I'll try out some of this stuff on myself when I get my powers back. "

Not sure how to get any further with that train of thought right now, she focused back on her project.

Currently Kara was stuck on the critical design conceptualization. If I maintain the vacuum, then that would keep the contents stable but also aerate whatever I put inside of it. Like a marshmallow in those infomercials. She thought frowning, frustrated but also a little hungry now. But if I utilize more stabilizing materials, then the force experienced by the contents would still be relative to my speed. It might compensate for a few Gs of force, but nothing like I'd need it to. The Kryptonian wunderkind wrote out calculations for potential modification on her science board until her brain felt fuzzy.

"Leeenaaa," Kara projected across the lab in a sing-song voice, "I need that big attractive brain of yours to help me save the world from annihilation again." And you know tacos, she added mentally not thinking that argument would work very well for Lena.

Kara loved her girlfriend and admitted that the salads that formed 90% of the woman's cells had done a really good job at the whole forming thing, but the Kryptonian could not let her box of joy get tainted by sad vegetables parties no matter how much her very confused girlfriend thought she loved them. Eliza was always talking at her about setting boundaries.

"One minute, Kara. I think I figured it out." Lena said as she moved between her machines rapidly typing onto several different keyboards which apparently controlled the machinery around her as each component responded in turn to her commands.

Kara sat and watched, enjoying seeing Lena like this. After a few minutes, the young Luthor walked to the end of the station smiling in satisfaction as she took something small off of a metal cooling plate.

Seeing she was done Kara felt impatient with excitement. "Okay, you got to have your brain for a whole hour, it's my turn to play."

"Darling, if you'd like to play," Lena said taking off her glasses moving the tip of the frames to her lips. She continued in a lower tone, "You don't need to ask." Her green eyes looked at Kara through thick lashes making the Kryptonian feel conflicted.

The poor hero's gaze flickered from Lena's eyes to her body. She felt her hand move on it's own, inching toward the hem of Lena's lab coat. Hey stop that, she thought grabbing that hand with her other one. This is super important. I have to figure it out to help Kon.

Kara felt like the noble self-sacrifice she made just then was an appropriate start in her journey as a mentor to the would-be young hero, valiantly guiding him toward his destiny.

Kara showed Lena what her problem was and the brilliant scientist-in-sexy-glasses connected the engineering issue she was having with one that was more familiar to Kara's background in physics in relations to ionic chemical structure and how it could be altered by compounding materials. That would let her solve the stabilization factor that was holding up her math. Her super nice smart girlfriend also went over how to realize that pragmatically with design changes in circuitry.

Appreciating Lena's insights Kara wondered momentarily if her match on Krypton would have been like Lena. Could there have been a Kryptonian Lena? Kara wondered, If the system was so perfect, then there must have been. The girl felt a fresh pang at the loss of Krypton and that young woman she never got to meet.

The next morning Kara sat on the balcony watching for her sister. When she spotted her on the street, Kara jumped up and down waving.

Alex ducked her head, shielding her eyes with her hand to ineffectually pretend she did not know and definitely was not associated with the bouncing blonde woman waving and yelling in the millionaires' sector of National City.

The Kryptonian then ran over to the elevator door and tapping her foot as she watched the numbers climb. As soon as the harried agent had reached the floor Kara burst out, "Please tell me you're done. You're done right? Is it ready?" Lena had come out of her room at the noise looking amused.

Alex rolled her eyes and walked up to her sister holding the package just out of the reach of the girl's outstretched grasping hands. "Stomach acid would neutralist this, so let it dissolve under your tongue." Kara snatched the packet quickly from her sister and did as instructed, closing her eyes and willing the tablet to dissolve faster.

Both scientists stared at the Kryptonian like she was a kettle that would start steaming.

"Alllleeeexxxx," Kara complained after a few minutes. "You did it wrong. Didn't Lena share her smart person notes with you."

"Mary mother of saints, you two are never going to grow up." Lena commented watching the two grown women stick their tongues out at each other. "Before we go back to the drawing board, there's one thing we could try."

The CEO continued dryly, "Since I made your suit to harness and repurpose solar power, I should be able to use it for this by reversing the output directionality to give you a quick surge of sunshine and hyper-saturate your cells.

Lena made some motions tapping over her tablet and Kara's suit flew to them. "But we'll need -ah, as much surface area as possible exposed to the inside of the suit." Lena said suggestively. Kara moved to start changing and gave both Lena and Alex a look. Alex her back and Lena stayed arms crossed smirking at Kara. Kara gave her a playful look and unbuttoned her shirt. Alex blindly grabbed at Lena's arm and turned the CEO to face the wall with her. "Gross." She heard the agent mumble.

Kara cleared her throat and Lena continued tapping on her tablet distractedly. After a moment Kara's helmet snapped up and she quickly closed her eyes against the brilliant light. She felt warm and her muscles tensed and then she felt her skin tingle like it used to. When the light faded, the hopeful Kryptonian looked down at her hand frowning for a moment. Then she saw the tremor and a wash of energy coursed through her body.

Kara wooted and jumped flying in circles around Lena. Hanging upside down in the air, she positioned her body to give Lena a kiss like she'd seen other superheroes do in the comics. Alex made a retching sound even though her back was still turned around.

After seeing her blonde curls curtain over Lena's face as she kissed her, the Kryptonian pulled out one of the strands impulsively. Lena's science brain is going to explode. Kara thought and looked at the CEO excited, "I've been wanting to show you this for weeks."

Kara thought for a minute considering what the best way to demonstrate it would be. Deciding, she sped over to the kitchen grabbing a block of cheese. Returning in a gust she handed the cheese and the strand of hair to Lena expectedly.

"You have been waiting to get your god-powers back for months and the first thing you want to do with them is have me play with your hair? And, eh- demonstrate your superior abilities in- I'm going to say, digestion of lactose?" Lena asked dryly the corner of her mouth twitching.

Alex sighed and took the items from Lena. She put on her tactical gloves and wrapped the hair around her fingers like floss. "No, she wanted to show you this." Alex said shaking her head in mock-disgust. "Clark has one of his hairs holding up an anvil in some museum in Metropolis, but this little weirdo always thought she was showing off when she'd do this at dinner." The agent held the hair against the cheese, applying a little pressure, the hard cheddar cleanly separated.

"Impressive," Lena said dryly. She laughed seeing Kara's crestfallen expression at her reaction and kissed the Kryptonian full on the mouth. Kara blushed seeing Alex grimace.

On her way to the door Alex yelled back stepping onto the elevator. "Happy to re-alienafy you sis. Don't forget to call Mom. She wants us to go to Midvale again before she has to go on that trip." Once the elevator was several floors below them she heard her sister mumble. "I know you can hear me and still -eww." Which made Kara grin.

Kara turned to Lena eyes looking determined. "You know? Playing with my hair wasn't exactly the first thing I wanted to do with my powers…"

Notes:

So... I did feel a little bit bad leaving you hanging on that last line.
'If I wanted to have the shot fade up to the bedpost, why would I be reading fanfiction?' Right?
I actually did have a NSFW scene there, -and then another one, and well, it was getting a little long. I've been toying the the idea of making the next post be pure fan service for kicks, but I'm almost done with the next real chapter, so we'll see which one pops out of my mind first.