Updated chapter 18! Hope you enjoy!
"I did what with my fists?" –Kara asks, in utter disbelief.
The Avengers – minus Thor and Bruce, for obvious reasons – lounge in the common room, watching Tony and JARVIS break down the footage of the fight, as well as the subsequent training drills they went over. It's late in the afternoon, and everyone is various levels of exhausted, which makes the veritable banquet set up in their midst a godsend. There's something for everyone – from classic New York-style pizza to Korean barbeque, pot stickers, fried chicken, mexican tortas, mac & cheese, shawarma, and a whole-ass salad bar. Any casual observer could justifiably call the dinner a shameless display, but given most of the Avengers have much higher than average caloric requirements, Kara wouldn't be surprised if the buffet ended up picked clean.
"You punched the Hulk nearly five-hundred times in three seconds. A hundred and sixty times per second, more or less – which is about ten times the current human record of thirteen, mind you." –Tony says, shaking his head, bewildered. "Here, look."
He waves his hand and the clip fast-forwards, stopping at the moment Kara pinned down the Hulk against the limestone wall. It starts playing at normal speed – and the weirdest thing happens: Kara's arms become an absolute blur, barely visible as they slam over and over into his midsection, before finally slowing down into the punch that, however briefly, knocked the jade giant out.
"How the heck did I do that?" –she wonders, looking at her fists in a new light.
"Well, the theory goes that what hysterical strength does for us – a sudden burst of adrenaline that might, say, enable a panicked mother to lift a car to save her baby – makes Kryptonians move at insane speeds." –he surmises. "Tough to confirm without doing your bloodwork, of course, but since that's proven impossible so far, it's the best we've got."
Kara tilts her head, munching on her twenty-seventh pot sticker. "Is that why my arms feel so heavy?"
"Yeah, probably."
Romanoff snorts. "Congratulations, you just exercised for the first time."
"I find it hard to believe you've never experienced an adrenaline burst before." –Rogers notes. "Haven't you ever been scared?"
"Not enough, I guess. Not since I came here." –she says, thoughts of escaping her doomed homeworld flitting around her head. Indeed, the last time she felt something like the simmering burn in her muscles was as a child, on Krypton.
Romanoff hums into her beer. "I mean, it makes sense, right? It'd be hard for someone who's invincible to ever feel threatened."
Kara crosses her arms. "So then, what triggered it this time?"
"Must've been your subconscious." –Rogers muses. "You may not have felt personally feel threatened by the Hulk, but as soon as we thought about jumping in, you really lay into him. I think you were trying to end it as quickly as possible – which translated into your super-fast punches."
"So she went Mama Bear on Banner's ass?" –Barton concludes, raising an amused eyebrow.
Stark points his burrito at him in agreement. "Good thing, too. The Hulk was starting to ramp up."
"What do you mean?" –Kara asks.
"The Hulk has a sort of 'base strength' – it's how powerful he is immediately after transforming. Now, where your own powers are directly derived from collected solar energy interacting with your Kryptonian biology, the Hulk's power is entirely dependent on how angry he gets. The same adrenaline that gives you supersonic punching speed makes the Hulk exponentially stronger over time." Stark explains. "Which y'know, breaks all sorts of known universal laws, but that's par for the course these days."
The hologram reshapes itself into a series of ridiculously complex equations – the kind Kryptonians would consider basic math, not that she remembers enough to interpret them at a glance – culminating in a graph showing an exponential curve. "The model is far from complete – a single experiment, of course, does not yield nearly enough data for that – but you can see a rough comparative estimate for your strength levels. Here's Bruce's..." –he says. Sure enough, the Hulk's power is represented as an exponential curve that tends towards infinity – which means that, given enough time to 'ramp up', as Tony puts it, there is no limit to the Hulk's potential strength.
"...and this is you." –he tells Kara, who gasps as the second line appears. While her potential strength is not quite infinite, it's immediately clear that Kara severely outclasses the Hulk, even well enough into his rage mode. There's a moment where the lines cross, and the Hulk would thus overpower Kara, but it's...well, it's up there. "This is a conservative estimate of Kara's numbers under the effects of our little yellow star, mind you, based on S.H.I.E.L.D. data and combined with today's measurements. JARVIS tried to account for everything, make the data as realistic as possible, but...even then, there's no question. Even reining in the numbers, pound for pound, you're the most powerful person on Earth."
The comfortable silence turns sobering – at face value, this is great news; it means Kara should be strong enough to face most any challenge, protect anyone given enough time and practice. On the other hand, however, is the fact that, should Kara be somehow compromised – forced to switch allegiances, or somehow compelled to do evil, for example – the Avengers would be hard pressed to stop her.
"So, can you contain him?" –Banner asks, sleepily shambling into view behind them. Bruce's eyes are half-lidded, a little bruised even, like he's missed out on whole days of sleep. He wears a bright purple robe – he seriously likes that color – and giant, fuzzy white slippers, no doubt courtesy of Stark's humor. The brilliant scientist holds a piping hot cup of what must be tea, from the fragrant scent.
Stark raises an eyebrow at his exhausted gait. "Assuming the fight doesn't last a whole lot longer than half an hour? Sure! Well, plausibly. We'd need a lot of bells and whistles, but if these numbers hold up, the vibranium isotope I've synthesized should serve as a durable enough base for the Hulkbuster armor to take on your alter ego."
Rogers perks up, putting aside his twelfth pizza slice. "Vibranium? You can just make that now? Howard said the world's entire supply was used up in making my shield."
The billionaire gives him a sarcastic look. "Vibranium isotope, Rogers. Dad figured out some stuff between the forties and the nineties, but even he couldn't pull the real thing out of his ass. While it's true that the ninety-ninth percentile of Earth's vibranium went into the adamantium alloy that makes up your shield, he theorized that a reasonable facsimile could be synthesized. Mix his research with my own desperate need to save myself from death by palladium poisoning, and voilà." –he says, jarringly amused, tapping the glowing circle embedded into his chest. "Synthetic vibranium isotope. The metal plates I've derived from it are only about seventy-five percent as durable as actual vibranium, and don't carry the energy absorption effect nearly as well – and they're far from indestructible, unlike your spangly Frisbee – but they're light years ahead of every other alloy humanity has conceived. Doesn't ice up at high altitudes either, which is always nice." –he jokes, though only Romanoff and Rhodey seem to get it, smirking a little.
"So the Hulkbuster is clearly gonna be a thing, but what about her?" –Barton asks, pointing the arrow he's been toying with at Kara.
"What about her?" –Stark asks, raising an eyebrow. "You think the alien cinnamon bun is turning on us anytime soon, Barton?"
"I'm not saying she is, I'm asking what we're doing if she does. I'm more of a trigonometry buff, myself, but we all know what the graph means, Stark. 'Most powerful person on Earth', remember?"
Romanoff places a soothing hand on his shoulder. "It's a little early to question anyone's loyalties here, Clint. Even for us."
Barton scoffs. "Is it? We know mind control is legit, guys. Or did you already forget a fucking Norse god shoved a staff in my chest and co-opted me for a couple weeks of fun and murder?"
"Loki's scepter was secured after the battle." –Rogers tries to reassure him. "Agent Hill confirmed its arrival at the Triskelion for analysis."
"Captain, I'm not gonna hold it against you because you're the newbie, but S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't just ooo and awww at the tech before sending it to the Fridge; the eggheads reverse-engineer, improve, and reproduce. Fury has done a lot for me over the years, but his obsession with repurposing captured tech has blown up in our face one too many times." –he says, begrudging. "You ask me, Thor should've taken the fucking thing back to Asgard. Melted it down in the heart of a dying star, or wherever his magic hammer was made."
Stark nods. "You found the fascist cosplays in Fury's closet yourself, Cap. Barton's right; S.H.I.E.L.D.'s way too shady to be trusted with that kind of power."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has made many mistakes with repurposed technologies before, but there are too many benefits not to do it." –Romanoff argues. "It's the only way we could keep up with Enhanced individuals before this team existed, and believe me, we needed the tech."
"You guys are kinda missing the point of all this." –Bruce mutters into his tea. "The Hulk is, latest developments aside, kind of a loose cannon. I specifically requested the Hulkbuster be created to compensate for this. As far as we know, Supergirl has no such issues – and even if she did, we haven't even let Kara speak."
Everyone turns to the blonde, who's been silently watching the discussion like a tennis match, digging into her latest platter – a third serving of shawarma. "What?" –she asks, deer-caught-in-the-headlights style.
"Bruce has a point." –Stark admits. "We're sitting here, discussing the anti-Supergirl doomsday plot, and you haven't said a word."
Kara shifts, uncomfortable with the topic. "I mean, I kinda did. I said I'd like to be stopped if I were turned, didn't I? I don't know how you'd do it, but I agree with agent Barton." –she says. Hawkeye gives her an appraising look. "I don't really wanna think about what I'd be like as a villain, but there's too much at stake for us to just...turn a blind eye to the possibility."
They all go quiet at the admission. "So what, you want me to make another armor for you? Like, a Superbuster?" –Stark asks, frowning.
Kara snorts. "Not with that name, no."
Rogers crosses his arms. "Let's table this discussion for now; like it or not, the same principle could be applied to any one of us, and discussing ways to defeat each other isn't something we're even remotely ready for, as a team. This 'Hulkbuster' concept may be a priority, but I want it to be clear that it's Doctor Banner's. Our priority is, and must continue to be, the protection of those who cannot protect themselves. There's enough going on with this 'Project Centipede' business to think about fighting ourselves."
"Speaking of which, I have a bone to pick with you, Danvers." –Stark says, pointing an accusatory chicken club sandwich at Kara. "Cute flirting with disaster aside, what the hell are you thinking, making plans with Luthor without telling us about it?"
Cap raises an eyebrow as Kara blushes down to the roots of her hair. "Plans?" –he asks.
Romanoff snorts. "Flirting?"
Kara crosses her arms, defensively. "I was gonna tell you guys, eventually." –she mutters. "Lena asked me to visit OsCorp tonight. She thinks she's found something related to Centipede, so I figured I'd swing by and investigate."
"...and invite the sticky, teenaged vigilante, but not your teammates, huh?" –Stark teases her.
"Are you seriously reading my DMs, Stark?"
"Technically, it's the Avengers' DMs. And no, JARVIS looked for me." –he shrugs. "Which, by the way, is yet another reason not to plan things out via social media. Jay is a hell of a codebreaker, but it honestly wouldn't take much for an interested party to snoop in and figure out your agenda."
Kara frowns. "I thought you said the phone was secure."
"Sure. But I haven't bought Twitter, let alone rewritten its shitty direct messaging function. Nobody can access the data on that phone, but the account is another thing entirely."
She curses under her breath. "Damn it. I didn't think about that."
The genius inventor makes a dismissive gesture. "It's fine. Probably. Just...try to keep us in the loop before you go through these things."
"I will. I just...thought I could handle this all by myself."
Rogers offers a sympathetic smile. "I have no doubt that you could, Kara. But we're a team, and that means you don't have to. We all have your back, just as we know you have ours."
"Right."
Steven gives her a rather uncharacteristically cheeky grin. "So, then, in the interest of transparency...mind telling us about your date?"
As always, thank you for your attention! Make sure to comment or message me if you have any questions about this story. Look me up on Twitter as Darthkvzn or Tumblr as darthkvznblogs if you'd like - and on Ko-fi, as Darthkvzn, if you like what I do and have a buck to spare.
Until next time!