2003

"Remind me why we're doing this again?" Ted Kord demanded, as he hiked along the fields.

"Fame, Ted."Michael Carter replied. "Fame and fortune and the future of Kord Industries!"

"Right." Ted replied, blowing a strand of hair out of his face. He tapped on the device that he had spliced together from remnants of Michael's future tech and his own experiment, tracking the alien ship that seemed to have crash-landed. "Well, we better get there before anyone else if we want it. Double time."

"It's an escape pod." Michael pointed out, as they approached, putting a little extra speed on. "I think there's someone inside!"

"Michael, wait!" Ted called, running after the irritating time-traveller. "You don't know what could be in…"

Booster Gold was never one for ignoring impulse, and before Ted could reach him he was reaching into the pod and pulling out...a girl. Ted stopped stock still, staring at the sight. "Well," He said with a sigh. "Guess that's one way to get around the legalities of adopting when you're partner's from the twenty-fifth century."

2011

"Kara, are you sure you want to work at Queen Consolidated?" Michael demanded. "You studied at Stanhope and VUHC. You should be working in the lab with your dad, instead of being in the secretarial pool."

Kara Zor-El, or as she was known on Earth, Kara Carter-Kord, pushed her glasses out of her eyes with a sigh. "Yes, I'm sure, Dad." She frowned at him. "That's the third time you've asked."

"Yeah, well, you don't have to deal with your dad sulking. I'm supposed to be the fun dad, and now I'm stuck with a checklist. A checklist, Starshine. Ted actually made a checklist." Michael said, still sounding poleaxed, pulling on a piece of her hair. "He hasn't been this bad since you moved out and got this apartment."

"I'll bring doughnuts over after work." Kara promised. "It won't be forever. Just to get some more experience on my resume."

"You got your comm, in case you need something?" Michael checked.

Kara held up her necklace of a gold beetle, which could double as a communicator. "Check."

"Glasses working well?"

"Check." Kara replied, with a grin, tapping the glasses that helped prevent sensory overload.

"Phone?"

Kara held up her phone. "Check."

"Other phone?"

"Check." Kara replied, with an eyeroll. "I'll be fine, Dad. Walter Steele isn't Carapax."

"Okay then." Michael said with a firm nod. "Go out there and make your money, Kara, and if you bring any leads home for your dear old dads on some good investments, well, we won't complain."

Kara gave him a grin. "I'm going to be some assistant to an assistant, but who knows."

2012

The six men saw the helicopter pad as their means of escape, their means of getting away from him, and getting away from the consequences of their theft. Oliver couldn't permit that. Marcus Redmond had defrauded the weakest and most vulnerable in Starling City, in his city, for his own greed.

Oliver took a deep breath, centered himself, and knew exactly what he had to do. He had to make him give that money back. And he would, because this was his city, and he was going to take it back.

One name at a time.

Women who had been cheated on knew the signs of cheating. Kara, who had been raised by the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, knew all the signs of a vigilante superhero. Even if they had moved to Star City to go legit, sometimes her dads couldn't resist running off to Hub City or Blüdhaven, she had even heard rumors about Gotham. If anyone was an expert in superheroes it was her. She was 96% sure that the long-lost Queen heir was actually the mysterious man in the hood who had grabbed headlines. She had met Oliver Queen once before his accident, at some mixer when she had been home from Stanhope. Back then he had just been another irritating playboy and she was beyond his notice except as rich, blonde, and pretty. Now though, something was different.

She just wasn't sure how to help, and part of her wanted to help. It was the same part of her that secreted her dads' prototypes and toys and wished that they would take her crime fighting when they went. She never asked, though. She didn't want to get in the way. She listened, though, from the balcony of her teenage bedroom, legs dangling between the bars. If she focused she could hear every snik of the bowstring. It was one secret she kept which did not belong to her in any sort of way, and she guarded it close.

"Hey, Starshine, what are you doing here?" Michael Carter asked, coming to kneel beside Kara on the balcony.

"How'd you know I was here?" Kara asked instead, letting her mind whirl, without moving her eyes, as if she was watching something fascinating.

"You triggered the alarms on the balcony, Kara." Michael chuckled. "You really thought you knew where all your dad's tricks are?"

"Perish the thought." Kara chuckled. She sighed, slightly, not knowing how to start. "The guy in the hood is out there, right now, making a difference, stopping corruption. He, you, dad...all of you do these things and you're all just...human."

"Hey, hey, hey, don't you go impugning my honor, calling your old man just anything, young lady."Michael joked, budging her shoulder with his. "We know you wanna get out there, Kara. We've just been waiting for you to decide." He huffed. "And we're retired."

"Dad would lose it." Kara argued, rolling her eyes at the retired remark, but otherwise ignoring it. They tried, often, until they got the next idea. "You know he would."

"I'm not saying Ted won't load you down with every gadget and gizmo he can fashion." Michael chuckled. "But he'll accept it, even if he wishes you would just live a normal life. You're not exactly subtle with those wistful sighs when we leave."

"You know I can't be normal." Kara said, softly. "People start looking too closely if I'm too good at things."

"You could research with your dad at Kord…" Michael started.

"Research what?" Kara asked. "I nearly outed myself at Vandermeer because the science I learned before I came here is too advanced. "If anything I researched caught military attention…"

Michael Carter had sought fame and fortune, a legacy, a place in history, for a very long time. He had never considered just how much Kara had to hide in that light before. "Well, there's the business side, you're learning that, and you can settle down and have a family someday - not that I'm ready to be a granddad yet."

"I can't do that either." Kara negated again. "I had a boyfriend at Stanhope, once. He was sweet and I let myself get caught up in it. Philosophical talks over coffee, date nights…"

"Not sure I want to be hearing about this." Michael warned her.

"We made out." Kara admitted, ignoring his squirming. "It might have gone further, but I lost it. I lost control for just a second, and broke his shoulder blade." She gave one of those aforementioned yearning sighs. "I can't lose control, not for a minute. I can't...I can't be with a human. I can't risk it."

Michael returned one of her sighs with one of his own. "Come on, Starshine, I have something to show you."

Grumbling to herself, Kara followed him into the house, and then into the secret lair. Or, as she had always called it, the Blue and Gold Club. They walked through the training room, to one of the gadget closets. Michael stopped, looked back at her, and sighed. "Your dad is going to kill me for showing you this, but I think it's time."

"Time for what?" Kara demanded.

"This!" Michael flung the cabinet open, and there, was a suit.

Kara gasped and before she could help herself, was reaching out to touch it. It was blue and gold, the body of the suit made of the same kind of futuristic armor as her dads. Blue, like Blue Beetle's suit, but with the gold triangle and shoulders of Booster's suit with the House of El Crest, in blue, proudly replacing the blue star. Her fingers traced the symbol reverently, a part of Krypton and herself, on display. Her fingers ran over the material, quantum, no doubt, until she hit metal.

"Your aunt would have wanted you to have it." Michael murmured. "We based it on her old Goldstar uniform, with plenty of improvements, but the belt is yours now."

Kara swallowed hard, tears pricking her eyelids as she looked down at the gold boots. "This is…"

"I know." Michael replied, slinging an arm over her shoulders. "I'll have Skeets pack it up for you. For now, we're going to train. Get into your sweats, we're going into the sun room."

Ted Kord never knew what to expect when he got home. Sometimes it was futuristic strays, sometimes it was random loot on his floor, sometimes it was his husband asleep over the dining table in fuzzy bunny slippers. This was the first time he came home to find his husband and their daughter beating the crap out of each other, in the room he had designed to dampen Kara's solar-powered abilities through red sun lamps.

"Did you eat the last potsticker again, Booster?" Ted snarked at them. "You know how territorial Kara is over her potstickers."

"Nah, Ted." Michael chuckled, evading a kick by dancing away. "Kara had a bad day, needed to get some frustration out."

Ted sighed, watching for a few minutes. "If you're going to teach her to spar, at least teach her not to play Western Union." He humphed, taking the invisible cue to jump in and teach better form.

"And you're not even in your fighting trousers." Michael gasped, in false amazement. "And that move is definitely not in the Queensbury rules."

Oliver was struggling with the switch back to real life more than he had anticipated. He had plans that had originally included Queen Consolidated, but if he was honest, he struggled with seeing Walter. He hadn't anticipated the relationship between the CFO and his mother. He had spent so long focused on his father, and living up to all that Robert Queen had asked of him that his mother's marriage felt like a deeper betrayal.

And if he was thinking about that betrayal, he didn't have to feel the weight his father had placed on him, and the betrayal he felt himself. Robert, for giving Oliver the job of fixing the city he had broken, and then for leaving him, and not just for leaving him, but for leaving him alone in hell.

"Queen Consolidated's success of late is a result of its targeted diversification. We have been making impressive inroads in cutting-edge fields like bio-tech and clean energy." Walter was saying, and Oliver tried to focus.

The problem was, his throat got clogged up with emotion and he felt the salt of the air again, despite himself.

Turning to the pretty blonde in the butter yellow cardigan, he smiled. "Excuse me? Can I get a sparkling water, or something cold, please?"

"Ah yes." Walter said, as the woman stood. "Oliver, I'd like you to meet Kara. She's going to be your personal assistant from now on." Walter smiled congenially. "Kara, this is Oliver."

"We've met before." Kara said with a smile, holding out her hand to Oliver. "But it was only once, and a lifetime ago. It's nice to meet you again, Mr. Queen."

Oliver blinked. He had no idea where he would have met this girl before, and wondered if she had been some nameless conquest before the Gambit. "I'm sorry, I don;'t remember you, Kara." He admitted. "And I'm not sure why I'd need an assistant."

"That's something Walter and I want to discuss with you, Oliver, come sit." Moira asked, placing a hand on her son's shoulder and ignoring Kara as she made her excuses to go get his drink.

The last thing Oliver wanted to do was sit. It felt like a vulnerability, and if there was one thing he could not afford to do in this room, it was to be vulnerable. He couldn't explain that to his mother, however. "Mom, it makes me nervous when you ask me to sit down."

Kara watched as Moira and Walter left the office, passing her and the perfectly chilled glass of club soda. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the office before Oliver could leave, holding it out to him. "I broke open my stash of the world's best club soda for you." She held it out to him. "You look like you need it."

Oliver, who had been running his hands through his hair and trying to make some sort of decision, startled, swallowed and took the glass. "Thanks, Kara."

"I get it." Kara said, sitting on her desk. "My dads want me to be working in a lab or behind a desk at the family business. They sulked for days when I announced I was going to work here, get some experience under my belt." She chuckled. "I think dad's paranoid someone will actually look at my resume and realize I should be in R&D and not be an assistant. We're not rivals, per se, but…" She shrugged.

Oliver watched her in a very still way, like a predator. "Family business?" He repeated.

"Kord Industries." Kara said, by way of explanation. She leaned back slightly. "I didn't feel comfortable just jumping in when I'd never worked in the business, just because I was the boss's daughter. We've both seen how companies can flounder like that. So, I came here. I started as an assistant to an assistant, worked my way up to secretary, then assistant in a department, then assistant to a junior executive." She smiled. "Now I'm supposed to be your assistant, but I get the feeling you don't want that."

"Nothing against you." Oliver assured her, taking a deep drink from the glass. "I don't know enough about running a business."

Kara pursed her lips in thought. "You could do what I've done. Start out low on the totem pole. No-one pays attention to the low and mid-level executives. You could learn the ropes on the job, let everyone go on as they do...and just watch. Learn the business from the inside without all the pressure of being a top executive. Cushy office, cushy chairs, maybe a window because you're family, but no real responsibility. Then when you're ready, you can push ahead." She grinned. "I know everyone."

She shook her head. "Or, you can go back to what you were, and have paparazzi, reporters, and gold diggers going through your trash and stalking you. The family pressure won't let up that way, though."

Oliver blinked at her. "How do you know…?"

Kara grinned at him. "No one wants to see cardigans, sundresses, club soda, and Mad Men marathons in the paper. They want Kardashians." She slid off the desk. "I may not be as rich as you, but Kord Industries is still a major business." She reached into her purse and scribbled her number on a post-it. "Here's my cell. Feel free to give me a call if you want to talk. Otherwise...maybe I'll see you around."

Oliver looked down at the neon yellow post-it. He had gotten a lot of girls' numbers before, in a lot of different ways, but this time...he actually thought she just wanted to give him an outlet. She had let him listen, not demanded he talk about the island or why he felt inadequate. She had given him a way to hide. It wasn't a come-on, or an invitation back to her place. It was something else. Friendship, maybe?