Spider-Man and Power Girl

Chapter 12: Work Life

-1 Months Later-

'Damn it, damn it, damn it,' Power Girl swore to herself as she flew as fast as she could in the city. The downside to super speed was that she could only go so fast or else she would shatter all the glass in the buildings around her. Which was the reason for her cursing because she was already twenty minutes late for work, for the second time this week.

It wasn't her fault; she had been on her way to work when she caught sight of a building on fire. She helped to put it out and save some people trapped inside. She let the fire department handle the aftermath but by then she was late, she also smelled of smoke and water.

No time to shower it off she had to hurry, finding a tall building she quickly changed with the small backpack with her civilian clothing and left her hero costume in it high enough that no one would find it without flying themselves and quickly landed behind the work building. She rushed to the front, through the front door and into the elevator.

While not out of breath she just had to make it to her desk without being seen. She got off on her floor and into the Stark R&D offices. They were technically three floors, each one different. Karen was currently working in the software department. Mainly her job as the new person was to look over lines and lines of code and debug any issues. It was the job given to the new people until they could prove they were good enough to move on. Also, if anyone had any kind of software problem, they came to them.

Looking around she saw the large glass wall to her department but didn't see the section head, good.

Slipping inside she just walked like everything was normal and got to her little cubicle and sighed.

"You're cutting it close new girl," A voice of the person next to her spot spoke up as a woman with long dark hair stood up. "You know if she catches you coming in late again it's your ass Karen."

"I know, I missed the train," He figured that was a good enough lie since it was believable. The woman was Kate, since they worked next to each other they talked a lot. Karen had to admit she liked Kate, she had been working here for over a year now and was looking to advance herself to a new position come the next employee evaluations.

"You're never going to get out of this place if you don't put in the work," Kate told her.

"I know but I just started so I'm not looking for advancement just yet," Karen logged in as she saw the workload. Thankfully what she could do with super speed was go through the code like a super computer, so even if she was late from time to time her workload was always done and sometimes then some by the end of the day.

"Starr!" The voice made Karen winced.

"Yes, Miss Dover?" Karen looked over to see her boss looking down at her. She was in her early 40s and Karen could tell she was coving up the grey hairs with dye, she could literally smell it on her with her nose. She also looked like she had a perpetual frown on her face and liked to keep a tight reign on the people that worked here. Her slightly overweight appearance was why people here called her Dover the Bulldozer, also because she could run you down like one if you got on her bad side or out of line.

"Where have you been? And why do you smell of smoke?" Miss Dover asked.

'Crap, forgot about that,' Kara mentally cursed. "I uh, stepped out for smoke."

Dover raised an eyebrow at that, "You smoke?"

"I'm trying to quit," Karen figured that would do. Having had a secret identity for years gave a person time to master the art of bullshit excuses. You either got better with time or you just did horrible, and people found out who you were. Well, there was also being careless too, it was why she was careful to change, no more young boys would be taking pictures of her changing out of her uniform again.

Dover looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I expect your workload to be done before the end of the day Starr."

"Yes, ma'am," Karen nodded as the woman left.

As soon as she was out of ear shot Kate looked up and over at her. "Man, she really doesn't like you."

"Does she like anyone?" Karen asked seeing the tickets in for certain programs not working correctly or bug fix requests.

"No but she really doesn't like you." Kate said before sitting down.

Karen sighed as she got to work, the only reason Dover hadn't fired her or put in an HR complaint was because Karen could get her work done without issue. Although she was certain that Dover was giving her extra work, that still didn't matter for someone with genius level IQ and super speed. The only issue she had was that the work could be a bit dull but mainly that her computer couldn't keep up with her. She could write an entire code out and she would have to stop when the computer's buffer was filled and then she had to wait for it to catch up.

So, she started her workday looking through lines of code. She would catch what was the issue, take a snapshot of the code and highlight it, fix it, capture it again highlighting the changes and sent it all back to the person who submitted the ticket. She didn't have to, but it showed where the issue was and how it was fixed. She preferred to do her work like since if they didn't know what exactly the issue was, they could make the same mistake and this way they would have an idea of what not to do again.

At least she hoped so, she got a few replies back thanking for the extra work and for showing the problem but most of the time she never got a reply back. While it wasn't the most exciting job it did allow her time to use her head to figure out problems that didn't involve lives on the line or customed crazy people. She was starting to feel like her life was slowly getting back to a sense of normalcy.

That didn't mean she didn't miss her old life. She missed running her company, her friends in the JLA, Terra, her friends from work, her cat.

Closing her eyes she pushed those thoughts and feelings back, she didn't need this at work. She could lament on her off hours.

When lunch came those that didn't eat at their desk or went out usually sent to the large open cafeteria lunch. Stark certainly didn't shy away from employee moral she mused as she looked around the place. The far wall was all glass letting in a lot of natural light from at least the second story. The large area with tables, couches and plants had a very relaxing sensation.

Next was the area set up with a coffee place, as well as stations people preparing sandwiches, one for burgers, another for more health-oriented people with a juice bar, a few other choices as well. She took a few notes on this, if she ever made her own company again, she was going to steal some of these ideas. Happy employees were good employees after all.

Grabbing her own food she sat down with Kate as another person soon joined them. This was a shorter woman with a ponytail and squared glasses. Her red hair was almost orange as she slumped down next to Kate.

"Touch day today, Sam?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Samantha or just 'Sam' to her friends, which unfortunately was few. She was a bit of an introvert from Karen's observations, in fact the only way she met the woman was through Kate who apparently the two were old college dorm room mates.

"Got the workload shoved onto you again?" Karen said taking a bite of her burger.

"Yeah," Sam moaned. "I got it done but Camila again took all the credit."

"You really need to stand up to her," Kate shook her head. "I'm still offering to help out."

Sam was almost on the fence about that, she was thankful to have met Kate, she was sure college life wouldn't have been possible without her. But she also knew that Kate could get very vindictive, and it might cost Kate her job is she went too far. She didn't want to lose her best friend at work, so she took it all in stride.

"Honestly, that woman has issues," Karen saw the woman in question on the opposite side of the room. Camila was a mixed Latin decent with long flowing dark hair. She also liked to dress up to show off her figure and beauty. It was also no secret that the woman was a shark and would use anything to get ahead. There were the usual rumors about her, she slept to the top, she could take credit for other people's work but then blame others if things went wrong. That last one Karen knew for a fact with her interactions with Sam.

"She's an egomaniac with a superiority complex," Sam muttered.

"I told you that you should have taken psychology as a major instead of that intro course to fill in a slot," Kate commented.

"I can't talk to people about their problems if I can't deal with my own," Sam explained.

Karen didn't comment since no one knew she was currently going through sessions herself. Plus, if she did explain that people would ask why, and she couldn't say the truth. Honestly, she didn't want others to know. That life and this life were separate, and she was keeping them that way.

"I don't know how you can eat stuff like that every day and keep that figure," Kate commented seeing Karen finish off her meal.

"What?"

"You know what I have to do to keep my figure? I hit the gym four days a week, watch what I eat and you can just eat anything and seem not to gain a pound," Kate explained. For the month that she had known Karen the woman didn't seem to watch what she ate. Sure, she had healthier options like a side salad, but Kate's lunch had been a simple chicken salad and a health drink from the juice bar. She had just watched the blonde across from her polish off a full cheeseburger with bacon and toppings, fries and a soda without a care in the world.

"I do exercises after work," Karen shrugged.

"Well, I want in on the secret," Kate leaned forward. "I bet if you removed those glasses and let your hair down."

Kate went to remove her glasses which caused Karen to pull back, the lenses were just glass anyone looking through them would notice. "Whoa, sorry but I can't see anything without them, and I tried contacts, they hurt my eyes."

"Ah, I get that too," Sam nodded.

"Still, I bet you'd catch a lot more looks if you dressed up a bit." Kate commented.

Karen was all aware of that, she purposely picked clothing that was slightly larger to help hide her full figure a bit. It was something she picked up from Clark how he wore slightly larder clothing and slumped his shoulders while working at Clark Kent.

"Oh look, a news report," Sam nodded to one of the TV monitors in the area. Mainly they were on the usual 24 News stations, but it seemed an emergency report was going on. There was a caption that Karen was reading since the sound was low, not that it bothered her with her hearing.

"Another battle downtown?" Sam sighed. "Great, looks like I'll have to change trains after work."

Karen was fighting the urge to make an excuse and leave the table. She was already thinking of slipping away, just use the fire exit she caught the smokers use and get out of sight and she could change and get there. She looked at the report as strange creatures were appearing out of some portal, but it looked like a bunch of heroes were already on the scene.

She saw they were Avengers so most likely they had this handled. She would keep a close eye on things though. If it looked like they would need help well then, she'll deal with the consequences at work after the fact. This was why she missed her old job as the owner of a company, in moments like this she could just take off and no one would hold her accountable for her leaving work.

She already got in trouble earlier this week for 'leaving early'. Sure, she had her work finished for the day, but she still left. The earful she got after that hadn't been pleasant. It was a delicate balance between having a life and being a hero.

"At least it's not close to my neighborhood," Kate commented. "Last time that happened I was worried my apartment would have been wrecked, that happened once to my cousin. His whole place was destroyed by The Masters of Evil in a battle against the Avengers."

"What happened to him?" Karen asked.

"Moved out to Florida, said he had less to worry about with just natural disasters and non-super powered crazy people." Kate explained.

"At least New York has a good insurance program for things like this," Sam counted. "Well, most of the time."

To prevent people from leaving the city, the state of New York had an insurance program in place. People did complain about it of course, tax dollars and all that, but in the end if the program and others weren't around New York city would have been unlivable. It took a lot of expenses to fix the city up when battles got out of control. Not to mention without help from companies like Stark whose advancements helped to rebuild in record time made sure the city never looked like a disaster zone for long.

After years of this, it just became the norm for New Yorkers, some still left fearing for their safety but there were others that came in because of said danger and excitement.

"Oh right, what happened with your mom." Kate thought back a few years to what had happened.

"What happened with her mom?" Karen was worried something horrible had happened to Sam's mother with the way they were acting.

"One of those mutant hunting robots, the Sentinels, stepped on a part of her house." Sam said. "Apparently my mom's neighbor had a kid with an x-gene. Thank God she was in the other side of the house at the time or else she would have been killed. It was horrible and after everything when my mom tried to get the government to pay for the damages they said 'it was from a government operation for the security of the nation' so they weren't responsible for any damages."

"Which is total bullshit," Kate darkly said. "Kid didn't even know they were a mutant, and they go all stormtrooper on the family for it."

"So, what happened to the kid and to that family?" Karen had read up on Sentinels and the whole thing made her sick to her stomach. To oppress a people because of a genetic gene difference was appalling. Sure, back on her world some people had issues with Metahumans but how whole groups were formed around their hatred towards Mutants and the things they had done, well it really worried her at times just what kind of Earth she landed on.

"No one knows what happened to them," Sam softly spoke up as she had met that family and they had seemed like good people. "My mom sued, and it took years, but the government finally gave her a sum to just go away."

"Your mom got lucky her court case was picked up on by the news when the whole Sentinel program was being cast in a bad light with all the public damage they were doing. I heard one of those stupid things once broke into a crowded mall and nearly killed dozens of people because it detected a mutant in there." Kate didn't care for the whole Sentinel thing. Honestly with things like Ultron running around, having giant death robots was just asking for trouble.

"Can't imaging it's any better for mutants," Karen sighed. "Honestly so what if someone has an extra gene, there are already people running around with powers and abilities without it, but no one makes giant killer robots for them."

"Not unless you count Ultron," Kate shrugged. "He's an equal opportunity killer robot from what we hear."

"At least we have people like Vision to balance it out," Sam offered. She always had an interest in AI work, it was one of the departments she wanted to get transferred to since to her machines could be a lot more dependable than humans, well most humans.

Karen stays silent and just nodded along, even with all her studying there were still large gaps in her knowledge of this world. She had read up a little on Ultron but only the cliff notes version. Whenever she hits a knowledge gap she just nods along or make some non-committal comment and let the conversation go on without her. Although if she ever ran into those giant robots, she was taking them down, they were too dangerous and were only killing machines. She didn't care if they were come kind of government program, wrong was wrong and they were wrong.

"Oh, nice shot of Captain America," Kate grinned. "Can't believe he's from the 40s, but you got to admit he cuts a figure."

"Technically he was born in the 20s," Sam commented. "I thought you were into that other captain though?"

"Captain Marvel?" Kate asked. "Oh yeah she's hot, I do love strong blondes."

Karen tried not to choke on her drink when she had said that. It didn't take her long working here to find out that Kate swung both ways, not that she had anything against that. Krypton's view on sexuality would be considered liberal by Earth's standard, well maybe nearly non-existent was a better way of putting it. There were still arranged marriages, but no one was forced into it and some just went with it just because they didn't actively search for a partner.

Karen liked her freedom of choice, so it wasn't all bad being on Earth.

"I mean being between that Captain Sandwich I could die happy," Kate laughed. "Although I have been following that new hero, Power Girl."

That did get Karen as Kate noticed. "Oh, I thought you were straight as an arrow, was I wrong?" Kate thought that Karen had a thing for Power Girl as well, she could not be more wrong.

"It's not that, just surprised," Karen was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with her work friend saying she was into her hero persona. Was this what Clark felt like when someone kept saying things like this about Superman? How had he lasted for years without telling Lois when she most likely had been going on and on about Superman in front of him?

"What can I say? She pushes certain buttons, and I like it when a woman is comfortable in herself to show off her figure." Kate mentally thought of Power Girl in her white one piece, with the exposed legs and all.

"I see a few others in the battle," Sam commented wanting to also get off the topic because she knew once Kate got started she could continue on. "I see Thor is there too, oh and our boss."

Kate looked again and there was Iron Man in the battle. "You know, for some reason I keep forgetting we ultimately work for a hero and it's only moments like this where I go, oh right he has super tech armor and fights villains in it."

"It might be because while his name is on the building, we don't actually see him," Sam offered. "Oh…Spider-Man."

Karen looked at Sam with how she said that. "You have something against him?"

"She's got arachnophobia." Kate explained to her.

"You would too if you fell into a spider's nest as a kid," Sam defended herself, ever since that day she couldn't stand to be close to a spider. "Plus, I hear he's got like spiderlike face and stuff under that mask."

Karen had seen him with his mask pulled up to the nose, but he looked normal to her. "No, he doesn't."

She paused as she noticed them looking at her and she realized her screw up. "I mean, you've seen those images online with him and Power Girl at the café, right? He had his mask pulled up to drink."

"Oh right, that was all the rage awhile back," Kate did remember that. "Lucky guy, guess Power Girl is into bug people."

'Not exactly,' Karen mentally said to herself, he's just a nice guy that's been a huge help to me. Plus, I think he's kind of funny.

"But isn't he involved in a lot of disasters? The Bugle always says he's the cause of so much trouble in the city." Sam questioned.

"Don't believe that rag," Karen said sternly. "he's a good man."

"And…how do you know that?" Kate questioned with a lifted eyebrow.

Karen mentally sighed at yet another slip, she was really out of practice for this whole secret identity thing. But the best way to throw someone off was to mix in the truth with a lie, or better yet, just reframe what happened in way that others would get a different idea of what happened.

"Not long after I came to New York I was, well I was in a bad place and needed help. He helped me, you could say that he saved me that day and he was very kind throughout it all." Karen remembered her first day here and how lost and alone she felt. Stranded on a strange world with no one to go to. All her past traumas coming back at her in full force hadn't helped either.

"You actually got to meet a hero on your first day in town?" Kate looked flabbergasted. "That's so unfair. I've lived in this city all my life and the closest I got was when Hawkeye was herding a bunch of us to safety during a fight with Kang. Didn't really have time to stop and say hi, while running for my life in a crowd of people."

Before anyone could say anything, an alarm went off from Kate's phone. She pulled it off and turned off the alarm she set. "Well lunch is nearly over, better get back to work before The Bulldozer gets mad and you don't need to get any further on her list today, Karen."

"Yeah, you're right," Karen sighed she was finished her meal anyway as they said their goodbyes to Sam and went back to work. The news report by the looks of the battle was getting close to finished anyway. The Avengers were coming out on top so unless something major happened they had this. Still, she planned to have a small screen at her work desk open to the news just in case things took a turn.

The rest of the day went without incident, which was just fine with her. She didn't need anymore workplace drama. She finished up for the day, all her work done and off she went. It was a quick duck around to a side alley and up she went to where she left her uniform and a very quick change. She was going to have to figure out a better solution when winter showed up. Maybe pry off a panel on a building near by and stuff her change bag in it?

Well, something to work on before it got cold. Not that the cold bothered her too much she could fly around in space and that on average was -453.8 Fahrenheit (depending on how close she was to the sun that is). A New York winter was nothing compared to that, but it would prevent her bag with the clothing in it getting wet from rain or covered in snow.

First thing was dropping her stuff at the Baxter building as she floated above it looking over the city. "Okay, so first a few patrols to see what's going on then I can finally get on to my next big milestone…finding a decent place to live."

While she liked living at the Baxter building, she needed her own place for her own life to start. Given she had some income now, she can at least put in for a first month's deposit. She'd have to make do with some cheap furniture but she could rough it out as she got more settled in.

-Elsewhere-

Peter was having a hell of a day, he had to slip out of work when the Avengers were needed to fight some kind of threat from what seemed like the Negative Zone. A bunch of monsters came out of a portal, mostly the thought was maybe Annihilus had sent in some kind of invasion force. That guy had been quiet lately, so it was a surprised when creatures from the Negative Zone suddenly showed up.

After the battle, Tony said he was going to talk to Reed since he is the world's expert on the Negative Zone and has faced Annihilus plenty of times, if this was his doing, they were going to find out since this was most likely not going to be an isolated incident.

He also hoped Johnny stayed far away, the creature had once killed him and kept bringing him back through something called 'worm healers' for Johnny to open a portal to Earth. Thankfully that all worked out, but he bet dying several times left scars that he didn't want Johhny to open up again. Of course, Annihilus being a somewhat immortal being that just regenerated every time you killed him was a problem. Yeah, you could stop the guy, but he was like a giant cockroach, always coming back.

It also didn't help the guy was an insectoid with paranoia and a need to destroy anything that was a 'threat' to him. What was a threat in the insect's mind? Well, that was very broad determination.

Peter winced when he landed on a building, his arm was wrapped up in a makeshift sling made of webbing. Those creatures really didn't pull any punches, he could feel some pain from his arm, his ribs on the one side, and a few pulled muscles. It wasn't the worst he'd ever taken but he was out of action for the rest of the day at least.

He was so drained that he needed to sit down and catch a break, he wished he didn't live almost on the other side of the city, it was a long trip home from here. Well, it wasn't normally a long trip but he only had one good arm and couldn't go at top speed. He was tempted to just find a flat spot and lay down and rest up, but it would be better to get home, get an ice pack or two and then head to bed.

"You look like you've had a day."

Peter turned his head to see a familiar face floating down behind him.

"Hey there PG, yeah this has been a day and a half." He sighed.

She started to float around to face him. "I saw on the news, I kept thinking I should duck out of work and help but then-What happened to your arm!?"

She had finally gotten a chance to see his arm in the sling, from behind she couldn't see it like this but now. Now she was worried for him as she looked at it and used her x-ray vision on the arm.

"I've had worst, just need a good night's sleep." He lightly told her.

"You have a hairline fracture!" She gasped. "You need medical attention, and you have bruised ribs and I see a pulled muscle."

"Okay I hope you're keeping things decent," Peter quickly felt a bit exposed here.

"I didn't look at your face if you're worried about that…and below the waist only your legs." She added that last bit as she wanted to make sure she wasn't giving the impression she had seen all of him. She knew how to be responsible with her X-ray vision after all. Despite the fact she had seen that he was very fit. Sure the costume didn't exactly hide that fact but seeing the actual musculature she saw he was actually a lot more stronger than she gave him credit for.

Sure, he was still no where in her league, but she thought he could lift a few tons but from what she saw, she had to re-estimate it to twenty if not more. Still, she had more pressing matters than his strength.

"Seriously you need someone to take a look at that," Power Girl told him.

"I thought you just did?" He joked.

She crossed her arms and frowned, normally she would be all for his jokes but not at the moment.

Peter sighed as he got a bit more serious. "Okay I know what you mean but it's not like I can just go to a hospital. Also, I really do just need a good night's sleep, I've had much worse and I heal faster than normal. I've had broken bones heal up after a day or two so this just needs some Advil or something and off to bed."

Power Girl mulled it over she knew she healed fast when she could take an injury, so she got that part. She hadn't known he healed fast too but she couldn't help but be worried for him looking like this. His costume has some damage to it, and she could hear him having pained breath from the ribs.

"Please tell me at least you live close by." She asked him.

"Uh…define close," He rubbed the back of his head.

She did not like the sound of that, she owed him more than anyone else given all that he had done for her. So, seeing him in pain like this, she didn't like it. Placing her hands on her hips she gave him a stern look.

"I'm taking you straight home then," she told him.

Peter's eyes widened. "Hey Karen, it's cool. I can make it back."

"No, not this time." She floated down to him. "I know you don't trust me enough but please let me help you for once."

Peter could see the pleading in her eyes, and he was hard pressed to give in. As he thought about it, he had to admit that while she didn't know who he was under the mask she had respected him enough not to take a peek with those eyes of hers earlier or at any time. It might not be too bad to at least let her take him home, it wasn't like he had to unmask. Sure, if she wanted to, she could look up who lived in that apartment, but he didn't see her doing that.

The pain in his body was also another thing, he really didn't like the idea of swinging all the way home as he was. It also wasn't fair that he didn't trust her a little by this point. Hell he knew way more about her than she did about him. Maybe it was finally time to start trusting some people again.

"Alright, you win, it's on the other side of town though," Peter explained.

"No problem," She easily picked him up in her arms.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Spider-Man asked feeling a little embarrassed being carried 'bridal style' in her arms.

"Oh please, don't tell me you have an issue being carried like this. You're not swinging with those ribs like that, and this is the most effective way to carry you." She told him with a smirk. "Would you prefer me having you over my shoulder?"

"…This is fine." He said in a defeated tone. While his masculine pride could take the hit, he really hoped no one took a picture. The rumors about them from that time in that coffee shop finally died down, he didn't need another one started.

"Lead the way." She told him.

TBC…