Chapter Five

Washington D.C.

United States

09:12 – Eastern Standard Time

March 11, 2007

The morning had come early for Kara, just as Diana had said it would. Now just over three hours later, the two were in flight, patrolling over the United States capital, not as Diana and Kara, but as Wonder Woman and Argo.

Apart from stopping a mugging and breaking up a fight, nothing of note had happened so far, which suited Kara just fine. She had been enjoying the odd conversation with the Amazon, something she had never really had the opportunity to do, back before she had gone to the future. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to, again, it as because the opportunity other than brief conversations had never materialised.

In truth, she had actually been a little jealous at first. Wonder Woman had essentially appeared from nowhere and helped form the Justice League while Clark essentially had banned her from being Supergirl all because she had nearly died by his own hand after his mind had been warped by Granny Goodness and Darkseid. She had felt replaced and it took a while to get over that.

During the patrol that morning Diana had talked mostly about life on Themyscira. What she said almost sounded like fantasy. Kara had known the basics. That it was an island of immortal women and that it supposedly sat above the gates of Tartarus. But to hear it first hand, plus some was almost surreal.

Honestly, Kara couldn't really fathom such a place. Her first reaction was to think of it as a true paradise. Upon further introspection, however, it became clear to her that it wasn't. Nor was it somewhere she would want to spend eternity if she had it.

The island was essentially trapped in time. Never changing, never moving forward. Even before going to the future, she'd had a hard time acclimating to the technology on this primitive world. She couldn't imagine a place that hadn't moved past 500 B.C.

Diana looked over to Kara, changing the subject from herself and home, onto the life of her patrol partner. "Leave anyone behind in the future?" the Amazon asked her.

Argo turned to her with a confused expression. "What do you mean?"

"Anyone special?" she amended.

Kara's response was a little obtuse. "They were all special."

"But no one in particular?"

"Not like that, no," Kara admitted. "There was when I first arrived, but it didn't work out. What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you and Batman."

"There is nothing between us, even though I wish there were."

"I guess he just can't open up enough to let anyone in."

"If not before, he certainly can't now," Diana mused.

Her response intrigued her. "Why, what happened?"

"Nobody's really sure. It involved Robin, though."

"I'll have to ask Batgirl," Argo said.

"Batgirl quit."

That surprised her. "Really?" No, it more than surprised her. It shocked her.

"And Robin is no longer a cape," Wonder Woman added. "Batman is the only 'Bat' in Gotham now."

"Something bad must have happened," Kara thought out loud.

"Yes, but nobody is entirely sure what."

"He hasn't told you?"

Wonder woman didn't reply. Instead, her attention was drawn elsewhere, as she stopped, and flew backwards several paces.

"What is it?" Kara asked.

"I see something," Wonder Woman said, pointing.

Kara flew over to her and cast her gaze down to where she was gesturing. Down in an alleyway was a group of three men stood next to a large American muscle car. That in itself wasn't suspicious. The balaclavas over their heads, on the other hand, was.

"Looks like they're up to no good," Kara observed. "Want to let them know we're watching?"

"No," the Amazon said. "They'll just go do their crime elsewhere. We wait and see what they're up to first."

It didn't take long for them to find out. While one got back in the car, the other two hurried out of the alleyway, and around the corner. It was obvious to the two heroes what they were up to when they ran into a convenience store.

"Time to move," Wonder Woman said to her. "But don't enter the store yet. We observe from outside. The moment they break the law, that's when we move in and ruin their day."

The two landed across the street, both looking across into the store, their view partially obscured by the traffic. Kara used her superior vision to get a good look at the two, as one of them pulled out a 9mm pistol, and pointed it at the clerk.

"They've just broken the law," Argo said.

"I know, I can see them, they're not that far away," Diana retorted. "It's time to move."

The two flew over the street and landed at the store entrance. Wonder Woman gestured for Argo to go first. She stepped forward, and pushed the doors open and entered, followed closely by the black-haired Amazon.

The cashier who was shovelling bills into a bag cast his eyes towards the two heroes and paused for a moment. The gunman pushed his gun forward. "Keep it going!" he ordered, casting a glance towards the other balaclava-clad man.

"Give up," Kara ordered.

The gunman gestured in their direction, and the other man nodded, putting himself between the two women and his accomplice.

"Be cautious," Diana warned clearly expecting something.

Kara simply nodded. She had a feeling that the man had some trick up his sleeve. Not many convenience store thieves would try their chances against Wonder Woman, let alone when she had some back-up.

The man held up his hands. "You'll be going now," he said, before pushing his arms forward.

The two heroes were thrown back, clear through the doors, shattering the glass, and even tearing one clean off of its hinges. They landed hard and slid along the pavement, coming to a halt a mere two feet from the curb.

"That was unexpected," Kara groaned.

"Yes, but now he has lost the element of surprise," Wonder Woman said back.

"Unless he has more tricks to show us," Kara said.

"We'l be ready."

The heroes got back to their feet, as the two stickup men rushed out. Before they had a chance to rush them, the one who had thrown them clear out of the store, gave them a second blast, knocking them across the street, narrowly missing the traffic as they spiralled over the road.

Wonder Woman came to a stop as she hit a building. Argo did the same, albeit not until she had sailed through a lamppost, shearing it in half as it tore out of the ground.

Kara recovered quickly and flew up so that she could get a good view of the two criminals, rushing to their getaway car. Having time to think, she got herself into position and used her heat-vision to burst the front and rear tyre on one side. It swurved into a dumpster where it came to a stop. The gunman responded by firing a few shots at her, which all missed. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, bullets had a tendency to just bounce off.

Argo followed Wonder Woman as she flew down towards the alley, where the now disabled getaway car lay. The three crooks began to flee on foot, but not before more shots were fired, which the Amazon easily deflected with her bracelets.

The man with the force power followed his friend's attack with one of his own. He struck Diana hard with a concussive blast, sending her hurtling back through the air.

Kara quickly caught her. "We have to deal with him first," the Argoan said.

"Yes," Wonder Woman agreed. "Let's see if he can target two people at once. You take the front, and I'll come in from behind."

"Got it," Argo said in affirmation as she flew off and got into position.

Diana dived down, and Argo followed from the front. The driver saw her and dived behind a dumpster, while the gunman opened fire. The metahuman used his powers on her, knocking her back. Wonder Woman reached him unmolested and grabbed him from behind. With him restrained, she tied his hands together with her lasso.

Kara landed in front of the gunman, who simply gave up. He threw the pistol aside and raised his hands. Argo looked towards the dumpster to see the driver cowering behind it.

"Get up," she said to him. "You're going to jail."

"Damnit!" the driver whimpered.

Wonder Woman nodded to Argo. "We take them back to the store. The cops should be there by now."

"Understood," Kara acknowledged. She gripped the gunman's arm and walked him over to the cowering driver. She gripped his arm and dragged him to his feet.

The Meta tried to blast Diana, but he couldn't get a good shot with his hands tied by the lasso, and his arms restrained by the Amazon.

"Stop that, or you're going to jail unconscious," Wonder Woman warned him.

He didn't listen and tried to hit her with his power again, sending a few trash cans flying down the alleyway. The Amazon responded with a quick strike to the jaw, knocking him out cold.

"Warned you," she said to the unconscious man, as she threw him over her shoulder. "Let's go," she said to Argo.

The two took the three criminals back the way they had come, one unconscious, and the other two Kara had by the arm.

It didn't take them long to get back. Two patrol cars were waiting outside, and the two heroes gave the criminals up and told them where to find the discarded gun.

Due to the fact that one of them had abilities, they were forced to call in a containment unit to secure him. The two waited until the special van arrived.

With the still unconscious Metahuman secured, the two continue on with their patrol.

Daily Planet

Metropolis

United States

11:57 – Eastern Standard Time

March 11, 2007

Clark Kent sat at his desk typing up his article. It wasn't anything spectacular, just on the surprising fact that LexCorp was taking active steps at reducing emissions, and thus their carbon footprint.

Clark always kept a very close eye on that particular corporation. Though, he had been pleasantly surprised; though still suspicious, at how Mercy Graves had been running the company since Lex had disappeared. She, of course, had been the CEO once before but had fallen back into line behind Luthor when he had claimed to have turned over a new leaf and built Lexor City.

The following events, though, had caused Luthor to be on the run, and Mercy had once again found herself as the CEO. On the surface, it seemed she was trying to do some good, but Clark suspected that there was some ulterior motive, something that he wasn't seeing.

None of his suspicions would go into the article, however. He would simply write what was proven factual. Though it seemed something being true wasn't a prerequisite in journalism these days. Sometimes he felt like he was one of the few left, that actually cared about whether what he wrote was factual or not.

If it wasn't for Perry being such an old-school journalist type, with old-school values, then Clark was sure some of his workmates would happily start typing garbage and turn the Daily Planet into a glorified gossip newspaper.

"Hey, Smallville. Haven't you finished with that yet?"

Clark stopped typing and looked around to see Lois approach his desk.

"No, but I'm not far off," was his response.

"Good, because me, Ron and Jimmy are heading out to grab lunch at that new Pizza place that just opened up down the street," she told him. "It's not just some takeaway joint either, it's a full restaurant too."

"I'll be finished in around ten minutes," Clark told her.

"We'll wait for eight. If you're not done by five-past, then we're heading off without you."

"Don't worry, I can type fast when I want to."

"I'm not worried. It's you who'll be missing out if you don't kick it into gear." She turned and headed off towards the elevator.

Clark turned his attention back to his computer screen and began to type as fast as he could, without it looking too unnatural, of course.

Within the next few minutes, he had finished. He saved his work, opting to give it a once over when he came back from lunch before he would forward it on to the editor.

With that done, he stood up and walked quickly to the elevator and called it with the touch of a button. His ride soon arrived, and he took it all the way down to the foyer. The doors slid open, and he stepped out, seeing Lois, Jimmy and Ron stood by the entrance. He picked up the pace and met up with them before all four of them headed off down the street.

It only took them around six minutes to get there. The place was built into the ground floor of a forty-storey building. There had been a burger place here years ago, but it had closed down, and the space had been vacant until the new business moved in.

Splitting the cost four ways, they ordered the special to have between them, with a large coke. It was a gigantic deep-pan pizza, that at first glance appeared to have a bit of everything on it. There was chicken, cheese, pepperoni, chopped tomatoes, as well as a whole assortment of things that one wouldn't necessarily think would go together.

With it split into equal slices, the four; who were sat by the window, began to eat.

Clark liked it. Ron found there to be too many flavours trying to compete. Jimmy just wolfed his piece down without commenting, while Lois ate half of hers, then put it down, agreeing with Ron.

He had nearly finished drinking that last of his drink when Clark's league communicator began to make a sound in his jacket pocket. It was too quiet for anyone else to hear, but he could make the sound clearly.

"I'm off to the restroom," he told the others, as he rose up. He made his way to the cashier and asked them where the lavatory was. She gestured over to where there were obvious signs pinned up above the doors. One male, the other female.

Clark quickly made his way over and went inside. He checked the room was empty, including doing a quick scan of the cubicles with his eyes. With the place empty, he pulled out his communicator and put it in his ear.

"Superman here," he said quietly.

"Hey," a familiar young female voice said. "I heard Supergirl was back. Is it true?"

"Who is this?" Clark asked, not able to put a name to the voice.

"It doesn't matter. I just want to know if Supergirl's back?"

"I won't ask again. Who is this?"

"It's Stargirl," the voice told him.

"Why are you on the channel?" Superman demanded. "I thought there was an emergency. This line isn't for idle gossip."

"I just wanted to know if it's true that Supergirl was back? I heard she had returned from the future."

"You'll have to keep wondering on that, now leave the channel."

He then heard Shayera's voice over the intercom, but it sounded distant. "Stargirl! What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything," Stargirl replied. There was then the sound of a struggle."Hey, get off me!"

"Sorry,"Shayera apologised after a moment. "I had to go to the bathroom. Was gone for literally two minutes."

"It's fine," Clark reassured her. "It's her that's going to be in trouble."

"What did she call about?"

"Supergirl."

"Oh. Well, I'll let you continue on with your day. Sorry for the intrusion."

"Again, it's fine. Out." He ran his hand through his hair and caught his reflection in the mirror. His curl had come down over his forehead. He reached into his pocket and retrieved his comb, putting it right. With that done, he took the communicator back out of his ear and put it firmly into his pocket.

He knew that he could probably get away with it being in his ear, as it was very discreet. However, he worked with Lois and he often wondered if she had supervision herself. She was very observant. Enough, that she might notice the device in his ear, and notice the same one in Superman's.

Then again, she hadn't figured out that Clark Kent was Superman yet. Unless of course she had and was simply keeping it under wraps. Normally, the thought of someone finding out who he was scared him. In Lois' case, he secretly wanted her to figure it out.

Satisfied with his appearance, he washed his hands, despite not using the facilities and headed back out onto the restaurant floor.

"Done?" Lois asked him.

"Yes," he replied.

"Good, because we're heading back."

If she did know or suspect, then she was good at hiding it. The way she spoke to Clark was so different to the way she spoke to Superman, that he sometimes jokingly wondered if she was really two separate people, one nice; the one that he dealt with as Superman, and one not-so-nice; the one he dealt with as Clark. Not to say she was mean or nasty or anything like that, just that she had noticeably less respect for Clark. A lot less.

Years ago, he had just shrugged it off, found it amusing even. But the more he grew to like her, the more he wished she treated Clark the same way she treated Superman.

"Hey, Smallville? You coming, or are you just gonna stand there and stare into space?" Lois said to him, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I'm coming," he said, following the other three out.

Outskirts of Central City

United States

17:09 – Central Standard Time

March 11, 2007

The river sparkled under the clear blue sky. If there was better weather to have a picnic, Flash hadn't seen it and he'd seen a lot of beautiful days.

With him was his latest and possibly most dangerous 'girlfriend'. Not only did she tend to be on the wrong side of good, if his friends and comrades in the league found out that he was sort of dating Giganta then he would be in deep trouble.

Deep, Deep, trouble.

Dating a supervillain was pretty high up on the list of things a hero should never do. In fact, it was probably worthy of reproval, if not some kind of disciplinary action.

For some reason, though, he felt the risk was worth it. He really enjoyed her company, and she seemed to enjoy his. Though he knew that the day was fast approaching, where she would demand to know who he was under his mask. She had teased him a few times over it, but she hadn't outright demanded to know. Not yet at least.

The two of them had finished eating the food moments ago, which had consisted of cheese and ham sandwiches, sausage rolls, and some bottles sparkling flavoured mineral water. They were now just sat there enjoying the sun and the view of the river and wilderness around them.

"Y'know, Flash," Giganta began. "When you first suggested a picnic, I thought it was the cheesiest, most corniest suggestion ever. But, I'm enjoying myself."

"I knew ya would," he replied, beaming.

"So, any idea of what we should do next?" she asked, smiling.

"I thought we'd just sit and enjoy the view."

"Y'know, for the fastest man alive, you sure are boring."

"Hey!" he objected. "I'm not boring."

"Yes, you are."

"So what if I like to take it easy every now and then?"

"Relax, Flashy. I'm only teasing you."

"Oh," he said, feeling a bit stupid. "I knew that."

She stood up and patted down her jeans. "Hey, I've got an idea of what to do," she said, with a sly smile.

There was something about her smirk, that Flash felt a little unsettling. "What is it?" he asked cautiously.

"Have you ever seen a forty foot woman cannonball a river before?" she questioned, her smirk turning into a wide grin.

Flash shook his head, starting to feel uneasy. "No, and I don't want to either."

It was too late, she was gaining height at an alarming rate as she ran for the river. At the peak of her growth, she jumped, folding her legs up to her chest as she struck the water.

Flash had seen disaster movies, where giant asteroids had struck the ocean. This reminded him a lot of that, except he wasn't watching it at the movie theatre, he was seeing it with his own eyes. The displacement of water her forty-foot mass caused easily reached an alarming seventy, or eighty feet in height.

That wasn't the worrying part, though. It was the epic wave she had created. The wall of water moved out in all directions from the epicentre of where she had struck the water. Including towards him.

As fast as he could, he packed away the picnic and in a blur of red, and ran out of range. The wave crashed over the shoreline, swamping where he had been moments before in a mass of water, washing away part of the riverbank.

Flash just stood there on the dry raised area, his plastic picnic box in his hands, staring at the scene before him. What had once been dry grass, now looked like a water-logged swamp.

Then he heard laughter on the wind. He watched as the regular-sized Giganta crawled onto the shore, and climbed to her feet. She held her gut as she laughed almost hysterically. She walked through the muddy grass, then up the long incline to where Flash was standing, in the dry.

She lay on her back on the dry grass in the sun, her clothes absolutely saturated. "That was fun," she said breathlessly.

Flash didn't know whether it was the best cannonball he had ever seen or the scariest. Actually, he did, it was both at the same time. One thing he was certain of, was that he was glad his knee had now pretty much healed because right now, he was certain it would be paining him if it hadn't.

"Don't ever do that again," he said firmly, his usual humour having completely evaporated.

"Admit it, it was amazing," she said, grinning, her arms behind her head.

He relaxed, returning her smile. "Yeah, it was," he admitted. "But terrifying as well. I'm just glad no one was on the water nearby. You could have capsized a boat."

"Relax, no one was hurt," she told him, sitting up. "Besides, if you kept me entertained, I wouldn't have to do it myself."

"Well, what do you want to do?" he asked. "Tell me, and depending on whether it's legal, I'll oblige."

"I want to get to know more about you, Flash," she told him. "You're still such a mystery to me."

"I thought girls liked men of mystery?"

"It's the challenge of getting to understand and unravel the mystery that's appealing," she explained. "I'd like to unravel you out of that costume, and see what's lurking underneath."

"You'll get to know soon," he said, unsure whether he would ever be willing to reveal his identity to a villain, regardless of how much he liked her.

"I'll hold you to that," she said. "Once I've dried off you can run me back to that busted motel I'm staying at." She then winked at him. "Unless you want to invite me to your place?"

"Um, the motel's fine."

"Easy for you to say, you're not having to stay there. The place has roaches."

"Why not go somewhere better?"

"For starters, I don't have much cash. Secondly, I'm sort of a wanted felon. I can't go rent a room just anywhere."

"Oh right, of course. Maybe I could find you somewhere else?"

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure, babe, I'd do anything for you."

"Anything? Well, in that case, I'm staying at your place, while you search."

"Wait, you can't. I have a secret identity to keep."

"Then you'll just have to find me somewhere better to stay. Don't worry, I won't peek while you're sleeping."

"No, I don't think it's a good idea."

"So, you want me to go sleep in that run-down motel? Where evil and really nasty criminals might be staying as well? Who might find out who I am, and lure me back into the life of crime? Okay, if that's really what you really want for me."

Flash sighed. Things weren't going the way he had hoped. Giganta turned out to be quite forceful in what she wanted, and he anticipated her becoming quite the handful. Having to wear his costume inside his own apartment wasn't something he ever anticipated having to do.

"Fine," he relented. "Once you've dried off, I'll take you to my place to stay the night."

"I look forward to it, Flashy."

He mumbled under his breath. He hated it when she called him 'Flashy' and he hated how she had manipulated him into letting her stay at his place.

Regardless, he had agreed. He just had to figure out how to not let his identity slip while she was there.

Updated December 2017