Spider-Man and Power Girl

Chapter 22: Advice

"So why are we out here?" Johnny asked as they were sitting on top of the Baxter building. Spider-Man was sitting next to him as they were on the ledge looking out over the city. He had just shown up today and asked to see Johnny on the roof.

"Why are any of us out here really?" Peter joked.

"Seriously dude I was in the middle of binging this new Netflix series and it was really getting good so this better be something important or I'm going back inside."

"Okay-okay," he held up his hands. "I just wanted a private talk is all, see…there's this girl…"

"Ah, now I get it," Johnny grinned. "Finally getting back onto the dating scene, what's it been a year?"

"Dude, like just over six months," Peter defended himself.

"Long enough," Johnny nodded and then made a hand gesture. "So, what is it? Old flame?"

"No, it's someone new, well I've known her for awhile now but recently things have been…I'm not sure how to put it." He sighed rubbing the back of his head. "See there is something going on, at least I think so."

"You hope so," Johnny interrupted. "Because man nothing is worse than going up to a girl you like, asking them out and they turn you down."

Peter glared at him from under the mask as that's exactly what he was afraid of. "Thanks."

"No problem," he clapped him on the shoulder. "But you're feeling there's some vibes between you two and want to make a move?"

"Basically," he nodded. "I mean she's great, I'd be lucky to have in her in my life I just want to make sure she's up for it."

"Up for it?" Johnny questioned. "Who are we talking about?"

"Power Girl," he replied.

"Nope, don't do it."

Peter whipped his head quickly around to look at him. "What? Why!?"

"Cause while she's single, I still got a chance," Johnny shrugged.

"You're a jerk you know that?"

Johnny looked at him and even with the full-on body costume Spider-Man wore he could tell this was actually eating the other man up from his posture. "You're serious about this?"

"Yeah," Peter thought about it. "I mean we've been spending a lot of time together and the more I spend with her the more I realized I like being around her. I know there is something there but I don't exactly have the best luck with my love life."

"What and you think I do?" Johnny sat down next to him on the ledge. "Let's see, there was Crystal who left me for Quicksilver of all people."

"Yeah big 'oof' on that one," Peter nodded. "They're not even together anymore."

"Tell me about it," Johnny sighed. "Although honestly with the whole Inhuman political scene maybe it was for the best we never got married.

"Didn't you and Medusa kind of had a fling?" He pointed out that he had been with Medusa who was Crystal's sister.

"Yeah, back when she and Black Bolt weren't together, I think he still glares at me whenever we're in the same room together." Johnny scratched the back of his head as having the leader of the Inhumans and one of the most powerful people in the solar system wasn't something he took lightly.

"Hey as long as the guy doesn't say anything," Peter joked with a shrug.

"Funny," Johnny said deadpanned given that Black Bolt could destroy mountains with a whisper. "Let's see, Nova died saving the world."

Peter felt a familiar ache in his chest remembering Gwen, he didn't know much about Frankie Raye but he could hear the old pain in Johnny's voice saying her name.

"And my most complicated was with Lyja and she started it off by pretending to be Alicia Master." Pretending to be their blind friend who had once been Ben's girlfriend had been really awkward between the two men given that was someone Ben had always had feelings for, even after their breakup. Of course when Ben's 'ex' turned out to be a Skrull agent, well that was a whole other can of worms.

Sufficed to say there were a lot of complicated emotions wrapped up around Lyja, especially that one time she pretended to be this other woman after their breakup to try and get him back into the dating scene. Like seriously, what went through that woman's head? He wasn't sure if it was some kind of Skrull cultural thing or just her being her.

"So, when you say that you got a bad dating life, you're not the only one," Johnny told him. "If there's one thing I do know, is that you have to enjoy life to the fullest. If you pass up on a chance, then you'll just be beating yourself up over the road not taken for your entire life."

Peter winced under his mask, that hit a lot more to home for him than he was comfortable with. He always felt like he was asking 'what if' way too often. What if he stopped that thief, what if he had been able to save Gwen, what if he had made things with MJ work, what if, what if, what if.

Then he thought about Kara, she was beautiful, smart and could shrug off things that would hurt him easily so it's not like he had to worry about her safety. Spending time with her was also fun, they just kind of clicked and honestly, he wanted more than just friendship with her if he was honest with himself.

Was he just afraid to lose something else? That was another question floating around in his mind, every time he thought he was finding some kind of happiness it seemed life had a way of just taking it away. He knew Kara also knew how that felt, one of the things that they kind of bonded over as they got to know each other.

"I mean nothing ventured nothing gained right?" Johnny asked him.

"You know, I think that's the smartest thing I ever heard you say," Spider-Man jokingly told him, well half joked.

"Hey, I got my moments Web-head."

"You sure do Matchstick," He smiled under his mask standing up. "But I think I instead of sitting here I'm better off actually doing something about it."

"Tell me if she dumps you," Johnny waved him off with a cocky smile on his face as Peter left jumping off the building and swinging away.

-Elsewhere-

Karen was currently in a nice little café with two other women she had been able to get a hold of. All three were out of costume as they were enjoying the brunch together. There was Jen in her human form looking like your average city worker, Jessica Drew was there in plain clothing, just jeans and a red blouse.

"So not that I mind, but what's with the invite out of the blue today?" Jen asked trying out her coffee.

"I needed some advice and you two were the only ones that picked up," Karen stated as she was in her Karen Starr look.

"Yeah, half the team is off in space and the rest are doing their own thing," Jessica put some extra honey in her coffee. "Although from the looks of you this isn't just a social call so I'm guessing this is some serious advice then."

Karen leaned forward. "Lately there's been this guy…"

"Ohhhh getting good already," Jessica smirked as Jen smiled slyly at the blonde.

"This guy in the 'business'?" Jen asked.

Karen nodded, "Yeah and he knows who I am, and I know who they are under the mask."

"Oh, that's pretty close," Jessica was a bit surprised by how far the relationship was already. Jen didn't really have to worry about that as her identity was public knowledge, it's just that most people didn't know what Jennifer Walters looked like when she wasn't over six feet tall and green. Jessica however while her identity wasn't public knowledge, most of the hero community knew who she was.

"So, what's the problem?" Jen asked tilting her head. "You like the guy, right?"

Karen had been thinking this over for awhile now, it hadn't really crystallized until that Black Cat incident made her realize that she actually had started to care about Peter. She still wasn't sure if this was some Florence Nightengale kind of scenario where because of all the help he had been giving her she was feeling close to him, or it was because of all that help she saw him for the great guy that he was.

In the end she had decided that the only way to figure that question out was to see if they could actually work, there was just one issue.

"I don't exactly have a stellar dating life," Karen sighed.

"With your looks?" Jessica asked.

Karen rolled her eyes. "Kind of part of the problem, a lot of guys tend to look down before they look me in the eyes and those that didn't, well things just never worked out, also I got so busy that I didn't have time to date, that or I was dealing with some major personal issues."

She didn't want to go into how every time she thought she learned about her true past she had to try and come to terms with it. Like that time, she was made to think she had been some lost member of Atlantis but then nope, that wasn't her origin after all. It was like the universe couldn't agree on her past or something and it just kept messing with her mentally.

Granted her own current mental state wasn't exactly stable, sure she was a lot better than the emotional and mental wreck she had been when she found out she couldn't go home again.

"I can see that," Jessica leaned back. "Dealing with your past can really take time."

Jessica had a childhood friend who grew up to be the villain The Puppet Master, then there was getting radiation sickness and had been experimented on by her parents to save her life, not to mention being put in a device after that by the High Evolutionary, being picked up my Hydra at her lowest point. She was glad she refused Hydra's orders when she found out how twisted the organization really was. Then there was losing her powers, getting them back, being kidnapped and waking up in a Skrull ship to learn someone had been impersonating her for a few years, years she lost.

Yeah, she knew exactly how messed up life could get for you.

"Bruce always has to deal with so much," Jen sadly said looking down at her cup. "You know we grew up close, sometimes I think of him as more like an older brother instead of my cousin but all the things he's had to deal with. He's literally torn himself apart because of it all."

"Plus, there is just so much we all have to deal with as heroes," Jen thought of all the disasters that she had dealt with. Like when Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe and the chaos that caused, helping with 9/11, pulling bodies out of buildings isn't what she thought of originally when she first decided to wear spandex and fight crime, but it was part of the job. "Hell, I've died twice and while I've joked about it, it wasn't pleasant."

She remembered Thanos killing herself and Namor with some kind of mold that grew on them. She could still remember the feeling of it going up her nose and down her mouth, filling her lungs until she stopped breathing. She had nightmares for weeks after that.

Karen nodded her head at that. "Yeah, been there done that with dying, don't want to do that again any time soon," Now that she had memories of her Earth-2 days she remembered dying in the Crisis event which was bad enough when you had two different sets of memories of that time conflicting with each other.

"Well, this conversation took a turn for the morbid," Jessica sighed. "Let's get back to the topic at hand, so you want to date this guy and…?"

"It's just that, he's been a very close friend and given my track record I'm not sure it will last." Karen sighed.

"Trust me even if you got married it doesn't mean happily ever after, I'm divorced remember?" Jen reminded her of her marriage to John Jamerson.

Karen had to admit that even if things did work out there wasn't a guarantee it would end that way. "I'm just worried about that, that when things fall apart it might get ugly."

"Ah," both women nodded.

"Yeah, that is a risk," Jessica stated. "Break ups can't be easy, I mean sure if the relationship is young then it's not so bad but after like a year or more? That's when things can turn nasty, I've seen that happen to a few friends over the years."

"Well maybe it would help if we knew who this guy was?" Jennifer turned to face the blonde.

Karen bit her lip for a moment before answering. "Spider-Man."

Jessica raised an eyebrow, "Huh, so maybe all those stories from you being seen together has some truth after all."

Now it was Karen that sighed, she had seen all kinds of gossip online and in print. She had been seen with Spider-Man in a lot of settings. Getting coffee together, working together to take down criminals, someone even caught them having a quick lunch while on patrol on top of a building somehow. There were so many theory threads now that she stopped looking through them. Some of them got kind of…graphic.

"Wait you said you knew who each other were," Jen suddenly had her eyes widened. "You know who he is under that mask don't you?"

Karen had said that, so she nodded. Both women shared a surprised look with each other.

"I honestly don't know if anyone else knows who he is under that mask," Jessica stated although for a moment she felt something in the back of her mind. It was like she had a name on the tip of her tongue, but it was suddenly gone as fast as it happened.

"So, you and him," Jennifer leaned back with a smirk. "Honestly, I think you could do worse, so from a 1 to 10 what's he looks like under the mask?"

"Really?" Jessica asked her fellow Avenger.

"What? Are you saying you're not curious about one of the biggest mysteries in our line of work?"

"Well, I think he's handsome," Karen shrugged but she wasn't going to give more than that, this was Peter's privacy, but she didn't want to undersell him either. "I'm not saying he's going to be on the cover as sexiest man alive but he's good looking."

"I guess the real question is, do you want to be more than friends?" Jess asked her flat out. "I know it's a risk but at the end of the day you should do what makes you happy and does he make you happy?"

Kara really didn't have to think about it, the answer came to her instantly. "Yes, he does. Even before I started having feelings, he's just always been there for me."

She gave a soft smile remembering all the things he had done. Finding her, introducing her to the Fantastic Four, being her emotional support through the tougher times, them working together, just those nice moments of having coffee together or just sitting on her couch watching films. She found all those moments wrapped up in good memories that meant a lot to her.

"You look like a woman whose got it bad," Jennifer gave a warm smile. "I'm starting to think I missed out."

Jessica gave the lawyer a look. "Seriously?"

Jen shrugged, "You know how hard it can be to find a nice guy that's single and date them while being a hero? Plus, I turn over six feet tall, and I'd have furniture break under me in that form if I'm not careful. Most guys I've date were just for one night or didn't last long because they get intimidated."

Karen could get behind that, it was hard to date someone that was afraid she could literally tear a tank apart with her bare hands, what that kind of strength could do to a human body was even scarier. Granted she spent years controlling herself, but she could see the reason some would be afraid, deep inside she was always afraid of accidentally hurting someone.

She knew Clark was as well.

"At any rate it seems like you have your mind made up, what's the problem?" Jessica asked.

"It's just, am I really ready?" Karen played with her coffee using a stirring stick in it. "I'm still in therapy and I'm worried I might have some kind of episode or something. I'm also afraid that one day I'll wake up and everything will just be…gone, again."

Both women gave her sympathetic looks as Jen spoke up first.

"I can't begin to know how scary that can be," Jennifer told her. "Everyone I know seems to have suffered some kind of loss, but you lost your entire world, I don't think any of use can really know how painful that can be. What I do know is that you can't let it consume you, if you're always going to be worried about the future then what happens if that never happens? What if you're stuck here and one day you look back and see how you spent all that time worrying?"

Karen was silently thinking about it, yes, she was scared that her life would be torn apart again. It had happened so many times now that she was just terrified of the thought. She thought about all the memories of the life she missed, some of it bad but there was a lot of good memories too. Memories of her friends, memories of the good times. Memories were all she had left of the lives she had lost but those experiences were also what drove her.

If someone came up to her and said that they could take away all the pain by taking away those memories she wouldn't take the deal, she couldn't. So then what about the memories she had been building here in this world? Was she really ready to just build a wall around her to stop herself from getting hurt again and let the world pass her by?

That honestly didn't sound appealing to her, she had always been someone that went out in the world with her head held high.

"I suppose that is the question, do I take a chance or keep waiting for the other shoe to fall," Karen said out loud.

"Hey if all else fails I know of a few dating apps if things don't work out," Jen offered.

-Later-

Peter was at his apartment as he was currently cleaning, he had made up his mind on what do to the only problem now was how to go about it? This was the part he always hated, those awkward first moments, so he first did his laundry and while waiting for that was cleaning up. Mainly to give himself time to think but also, he didn't want his place to turn into a total mess again.

He gave a half-smile remembering that day he woke up to Kara having cleaned his place up. He didn't want her work to go to waste and honestly, he wanted to keep his place nicer in case he was going to get more company over. A knock at the door got him curious as he wasn't expecting anyone and it's not like a lot of people knew where he lived.

Opening the door, he saw Kara there in her civilian clothing.

"Uh..hey, can I come in?" She nervously ran a hand through the hair on the side of her face.

"Oh, yeah sure, come right in," He quickly said moving aside letting her in as he closed the door.

"Where you cleaning?" she noticed the broom and the smell of cleaner, she could hear the dryer in the small washer dryer combo in the closet.

"Yeah, didn't want the place to become a landfill pretty sure there are zoning laws against that," Peter joked. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Please," She wasn't sure if she was staying long or not, it depended on how the talk went.

Peter pulled out two beers and handed it to her, both of them pulled the caps off easily enough, while she didn't have to drink, she did appreciate the taste even if it couldn't affect her. There was this awkward pause between them.

"So," Both started to say at the same time but paused again. They locked eyes and there was a shared smile as Karen spoke up first.

"I came over because, well I think we need to have a talk about, well us."

"Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing, seems like you beat me to it."

"I've never been one to just wait around," she idly ran her thumb over the top of the glass bottle. "The fact is I get the sense there's this…thing between us lately."

Peter was relieved to hear her bring it up, this was something he had been hoping she felt it too. At least he hoped it was mutual and not something that was weirding her out and she came over to try and stop it from getting too weird between them.

'Great, thanks for that thought brain.' He really hated that side of himself that only looked out for the worse that could happen. He was starting to think he was growing a complex of some kind of was becoming aware of one he already had. He was hoping for the first one or else he might just join Kara in therapy.

"So, you felt it too," he stated.

"Yeah, been noticing it a lot lately," She shyly looked away with a small smile on her face as Peter thought she looked damn cute right now.

"Same, so I guess I'll just come out and say it," He took a breath to steady his nerves. "I like you Kara, you're fun to be around and you're brilliant. I can talk theoretical physics with you and actually hold a conversation, I love the confidence you show off to the world and despite everything I admire the way you fond the way to carry on despite everything that's happened. You're also one of the most beautiful women I've known."

He scratched the back of his head on that last bit, he wasn't lying about that one. Kara was a full-on knockout as looks went.

Karen felt her face heating up slightly. "Oh wow, that's, wow I don't know what to say to all that, but I really appreciate it."

She walked closer to him, "Truth is some of that strength you talked about came because of you. You helped me at my lowest point because you care so much about others. I wouldn't be the person I am now without your help, and you've been there for me for so much that I can't help feel the way I do."

"I love your jokes you always try and make my day better and honestly there were days I really needed it. You've shown me that you care about me and that means so much more to me than you most likely realize."

For Kara it meant the world to her, for someone to see her not as just 'Power Girl' or 'Superman's cousin' or 'Supergirl' or any other title, just as her. Kara Zor-L, the lost alien woman that was struggling to find a place in her life.

"And I admit, you're pretty handsome too Peter," she was very close now, close enough for him to smell the light scent of her shampoo from that morning. She smelled really nice in that moment as he was trying to focus but looking into her expressive blue eyes, he felt himself drawn to them. They were filled with a mix of emotions, hardened from years of pain, a hint of loneliness but also hope for something, a longing for him.

She could hear his heart beating faster and soon hers started to match as his free hand gently caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes as she leaned into it, his hand was so gentle and warm, just like the rest of him.

Kara slowly opened her eyes to looked into his as she felt in this moment they were on the same wavelength, nothing needed to be said. It was exhilarating and kind of terrifying to feel a connection like this but also something she found herself wanting.

Neither could remember who started it, one moment they were locked in each other's eyes and the next, they were leaning in and found their lips pressing against each other's. It was gentle at first, testing the waters with small kisses that only turned more and more passionate until soon they were pressing up against each other, one hand holding onto their drinks as the other were pulling the other in close.

It had been a long time for both of them since they felt this kind of connection as they both wanted to enjoy the moment. Eventually both gently pulled back as they stared into each other's eyes.

"So…I guess that answers that?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, I think it does," She smiled at him.

"So, what now?"

Kara blinked she hadn't thought that far ahead. "Well, I suppose we start doing all the things normal couples do."

"Not sure either of us would be considered 'normal', since I'm a genetically altered human dating an alien."

Karen rolled her eyes but still had on her smile, "You know what I meant."

"Just wanted to point it out there," Peter grinned at her and then nodded to the couch. "Well how about we just sit in an enjoy the night?"

"I can get behind that," she told him.

With that they spent the night curled up on the couch together just watching whatever was on. Neither was really paying attention as they were just enjoying each other's company. Peter had his hand around her waist as she leaned her head against his shoulder. They spent the next few hours just casually talking, taking glances at each other, some light kissing and caressing but they didn't want to take things too far too fast.

They wanted to enjoy this night slowly and while both hated it when she had to leave because both of them had work in the morning, over all it had been a nice night, and both hoped it was the first of many such nights.

TBC…

Well, there you go it finally started up, now we'll see how they handle dating each other.