"What the hell was that?" Oliver asked out loud, as a flying...someone...saved the plane, eyes wide. "Did people start flying while I was away?"
"Oh good, you saw that too. I was beginning to think there was something in my drink." Tommy said, sounding just as awed. "And...no, that's a new one, but hey, at least your assistant's dads will be okay."
"Kara…" Oliver said, slowly, grasping onto the excuse and grabbing his jacket. "Come on, we should go make sure she's okay."
"Oliver Queen, worrying for someone he barely knows?" Tommy laughed. "Man, what happened to you on that island?"
"A lot." Oliver replied. "Come on." If he was honest, his concern wasn't really for Kara. The idea that someone had strange powers in his town, abilities he couldn't account for; that put him on edge. He had to know what was going on, and Kara, well, if he could make her feel better while doing his job, it was more than he had managed with his family thus far.
Kara knew she should go home and wait. She knew the people were safe. She knew her dads were safe - at least in her head. Her heart, however, struggled with that. She had come to this planet to try and raise her cousin, but she had arrived late, and for all her powers and the resources of Kord Industries, she had never found him. Aside from one adopted half-brother who was from the future and spent more time bouncing around time than anywhere else, her dads were all she had. If she lost them, well...it's not like she could move in with her brother. Until she touched them, she wouldn't be able to stop worrying.
Super-speed left her hair dry, if dirty, and let her change back. A purposeful fall in the alley covered for that and ruined one of her favorite blouses, but in short minutes, she was in the crowd, pushing the police tape with the other families.
Before long, the passengers were being fished out by boats. Kara was so focused on watching each person, that the hand on her shoulder actually startled her. "Is everyone okay?" Oliver asked, looking down at her.
"I don't know." Kara admitted. "They're not saying anything yet...but it's better than it could have been."She smiled a watery smile at him and Tommy. "You boys didn't have to follow me here."
"Hey, it was nothing." Tommy replied, nodding to her outfit. "Though we should have offered you a ride. Would have, if you hadn't rushed out."
"Tripped in the alley." Kara joked. "Might need a tetanus shot. Don't really know what's wrong with me." She chuckled nervously.
"You were upset." Oliver said with a nod. "I know what this is like. I...wanted to make sure you're okay." He gave her a grin. "And even if I never let a pretty girl run out on me before, I don't know what I'd do in the morning if you didn't bring me those sticky buns."
Kara laughed, but a flash in her peripheral vision had her turning. "Oh, thank Rao." She murmured under her breath, relaxing. Sure enough, Ted Kord and Michael Carter were in one of the boats, apparently with someone on a stretcher. "They're okay." She said louder, feeling like she could breathe again. "I couldn't do that again."
"Do what?" Tommy asked, frowning.
"My dads adopted me...after I was the only one to survive the fire where my family died." Kara choked out. It wasn't the truth, obviously, but it was close. Krypton had burned while she watched, until the shockwave rattled the pod and knocked her into the Phantom Zone.
"I'm sorry for prying." Tommy said, awkwardly.
"It's fine." Kara dismissed, taking a deep breath, realizing that unconsciously she had started leaning against Oliver. "This whole thing's been a bit of a flashback." The adrenaline of the rescue had worn off, and the engine that had flown at her as it disconnected from the plane had resurfaced in her head, the air turbulence and the feeling of the flames against her body. "I'm fine."
Oliver nodded, his voice calm and modulated in her ear, matching his overly slow and steady heartbeat. Unknowingly she had matched her breathing to it. "You are and so are they."
"Thank you." Kara managed, looking at two of the richest scions of Star City. "Both of you. For being here, when you didn't have to be."
"Anything to help a damsel in distress." Tommy replied, with a self-deprecating smile.
Kara broke away from the steadying warmth behind her to hug him. "You're a good man, Tommy Merlyn."
"Do me a favor and tell everyone that, okay?" Tommy said, hugging her back.
"You got it." Kara replied, smiling. She pulled away and turned to Oliver. "Oliver, I…"
Before she could say anything though, the moment was interrupted.
"Yes, yes, we're fine. Now let us go see our daughter and go offer your medical help to someone who actually needs it." Ted Kord grumped.
Oliver was saved from the awkward moment by the arrival of Kara's fathers. She squealed and threw herself at them, somehow managing to wrangle the two men into a single hug.
"Oof, watch it, Starshine." Michael Carter joked. "You're not thirteen anymore."
"I was so worried." Kara admitted. "If I hadn't seen the plane on the TV of the bar…" She trailed off, swallowing hard.
"We're never flying public again, I'll tell you that." Michael muttered.
Ted took over the hug, and squeezed his Kryptonian daughter tight. "I knew it." He snarked. "We head off to Gotham for a business trip and suddenly you're out bar-hopping. I've heard you sing All That Jazz on karaoke nights." He was doing it mostly to distract her from what might have happened if Supergirl hadn't been there to save the day.
Kara laughed nervously, flushing in embarrassment, and suitably distracted. "You know me. I put the Kara in karaoke, but it was just a drink after work."
"Likely story." Michael put in, giving the two men behind her a steel-eyed glare he had perfected on the likes of The 1,000. "And your friends?"
"Dad." Kara hissed at him, flushing again. "You've met them before."
"It's been quite awhile." Oliver rescued, smiling his diplomatic smile. "Oliver Queen, sir."
"Tommy Merlyn." Tommy followed, holding a hand out to Ted, who seemed, of the pair, less aggressive. "We met at the last fundraiser for Star City General, I believe."
As the two pair of men shook hands, Kara resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but there was still something comforting about it. Maybe there was a kind of normalcy still possible.
Whatever Oliver felt about the possible dangers someone who could fly and carry a plane could wreak on Star City, he had to admit, that for now, while they were an unknown, that unknown seemed to not be an outright threat. He was concerned more by the more insidious threats carried out on his city, the cancer growing underneath the skin.
Like James Holder.
He was ready to excise this particular tumor when the man dropped dead in front of him.
He startled, turning and firing the way the bullet had come, dodging gunfire as best he could, but all too soon the familiar burst of fire in his bicep meant he was hit. His target was dead, and he was compromised. It was time to leave.
Getting the bullet out was simple enough, and it was far from the first time he had to stitch himself up, but the poison was an unexpected element. He ran for his herbs, feeling his heart pound harder as he grabbed for the pouch of herbs. He had to take it. Had to get the life-saving herbs into his system.
The relief when he did was almost palpable, and then he let go.
Kara didn't mean to listen to Oliver's heartbeat, per se. She learned the heartbeats of everyone she was spent a lot of time with, whether she liked it or not. Once she spent enough time with someone it became easy to pick out changes in that heartbeat. She had learned Oliver's faster than most, because it was so unusual. He had a trained heart, with a slow rhythm, that barely varied, like an endurance runner. It got up to a higher pace when he was off being a hero, but still well within norms.
That was why, when Kara heard it tonight, as she stealthily flew around the city, it startled her, because it shifted into a high gear she had never heard before. Worried the guy in the hood might need help, she followed it, and while the security on the basement slowed her slightly, she had enough gadgets to make short work of it.
When she found him, however, he was unconscious on the floor. A quick sweep told her that he had been shot, and there was an odor that would have been undetectable to anyone else, but it was too faint even to her senses. She didn't want to leave him on the floor, though…
Making a face, Kara tapped into her superspeed and returned a minute later, carrying a couch that her father had claimed to nick off of some king in the twenty-second century, and plopped it down in the cave. She shifted her unconscious boss from the floor onto the couch, and then zipped away again, returning with a brightly coloured quilt, which she placed over him.
Unsure of what else to do, she perched herself on one of the rafters to wait and worry. He and Tommy had been there for her. She would be there for him.
...And not stare at his muscles. That way led only to madness. So, she waited.
When his breathing seemed to be starting to return to normal, she flew for a glass of ice water, and left it by his hand, leaving before he could truly wake. He seemed like he'd be okay.
Oliver woke with a start and...fell onto the floor? He blinked at it for a moment, trying to place why he had been off of the floor. The last thing he remembered was discovering that the bullet was laced with poison, and the ensuing rush to save himself. Kicking his tangled legs, he realized it was a quilt, and scanning the room, he found the mysterious source of elevation. He had been on a couch.
But how? There was a glass of water, still chilled, sitting by his foot, and he inspected it for a moment, before putting it aside and grabbing another water bottle. It might be lukewarm, but it was sealed, and he knew where it came from.
The fact that someone had gotten into his base of operations worried him. He would have to increase security measures. The fact that whoever it was had not only not harmed him while he was vulnerable, but somehow managed to drag in furniture was both disturbing, disconcerting, and in an odd way, slightly comforting as well. He didn't like people coddling him, barely tolerated people caring for him, even now, but something about the situation added a warm tinge to all his many concerns.
The thirty-six hours or so since the appearance of the flying woman and her rescue of the plane meant that while the murder of James Holder made the front page, it made only half the page, with speculation on the woman dubbed Supergirl thanks to a trend on Twitter dwarfing it.
Kara couldn't help but feel excited by the press coverage, even if there were editorials claiming her to be some sort of government created robot. She hadn't travelled light years to be an assistant...and maybe, just maybe, if Kal-El was out there, if he was alive...maybe he would come to her? She didn't want to let herself hope, but she couldn't help it. She had failed her baby cousin, after promising she wouldn't. Even if he wasn't alive, though. She could still help people.
Right now, however, she needed to help her boss. "Morning, Oliver." She greeted, conscious of his poisoning, and so modulated her voice down from the usual chirp. "You don't have any appointments until eleven, and there are sticky buns on your desk."
"Thanks Kara." Oliver said, as he passed her desk. He had been dreading early morning appointments. "You're a lifesaver."
"You have no idea." Kara whispered, with a secret smile, that widened as his bodyguard came into the room, and wasn't that just hilarious. "Good morning, Mr. Diggle."
"Good morning, Miss Carter-Kord."
Kara made a face at him. "Just Kara's fine."
"Dig, then." The man responded, and Kara rewarded him with a beaming smile. "We're in the office for the day, Dig, except maybe for lunch, if you want to go."
Dig shook his head. "Not with the way that boy runs off. I gotta stick to him like glue."
Kara giggled, and shook her head, turning back to her assistant duties, which today included running a list of poisons. Just because.