A MIRROR MOST ARCANE

by luthessa, VirginiaBlack517

Chapter 2: "The Mystery Deepens" by luthessa

ar - cane

Adjective

     Understood by few; mysterious or secret

 

 

National City

 

This wasn’t the first time Lena had risked her life for negligible returns. 

It wasn’t even the first time in the last thirty minutes. It was, however, the first time she found herself bored by what was supposed to be a challenge.

As the last living Luthor not currently in prison, Lena was free to decorate the family mansion as she saw fit. Luthor Manor was the jewel of a massive estate owned for generations by her dead father’s family. For months, Lena had repurposed this wing as an enormous training hall. 

Each in a series of rooms tested Lena’s fitness, prowess and ingenuity.  If the structure suffered any damage in the execution - well, Lena put her portion of accumulated Luthor wealth to good use for the most part, and this hobby was a rare indulgence.

She’d succeeded at two challenges in order to get to this doorway. In the first, she’d escaped a panic room before poisonous gas was released. In another, she’d avoided detection as she crossed a pressure-plated floor, but these trials felt stale. They’d added to the stagnation Lena had felt of late, and she longed for something different. Something new.

Now, Lena stood near the double oak doors of an oblong room the size of a basketball court, though its furnishings were more tasteful library than indoor gym. Her objective, a document-sized shipping envelope, sat displayed on a podium of dark wood at the far end of the room. All she had to do was break the plane of the space above the podium to end the challenge.

Between here and there, however, stood a robot of Lena’s design. Two and a half meters tall, bipedal but with four arms, the automaton’s only purpose was to block Lena from achieving her goal. 

Lena’s last few drills had been…well, they’d been boring, truth be told, and she’d mentioned it to Jack. Her erstwhile boyfriend now operated in an administrative and technical support capacity as well as a bit of a jack-of-all-trades.

No pun intended. Well, perhaps a little intended.

Jack must have taken her suggestions to heart, though, because the moment Lena slipped inside the door, the robot caught her movement and the fight was on. Though she attempted to evade the machine, it kept up with her easily. When she tried to hide under tables, behind chairs, or beyond columns, the robot obliterated the blockage.

At one point, Lena managed to briefly trap the robot, climb on its back and deactivate two of its arms,  but its programming was designed to level up as Lena gained more of an advantage. 

It shook her free and blocked her passage again. For the first time in months, the robot got the upper hand and Lena found herself somersaulting across the room more than once to avoid the next attack.

When there was nothing left in the room to provide cover, Lena had to admit the robot was winning. 

Damn Jack for doing exactly what she’d asked him to do. She pressed her lips into a grim line, irritated that she had to fall back on her last resort so soon. She drew her two SIG Sauer P226s and aimed for the center of the robot’s head, hoping to destroy the camera feeds and the infrared sensors that isolated her location.

The recoil up her arms was satisfying as hell, and she couldn’t help but grin at the ease of execution…until she realized her bullets were doing no damage at all.

Jack had filled her clips with blanks. 

“Motherfu - “

The robot sank back for a split second before leaping over a half-broken table, and then it gained speed as it closed on Lena’s position. With the columns destroyed, and all the cover gone, she had the option to concede, but it would be a cold day in hell before she lost a battle in her own house.

She ignored the part where she wasn’t bored anymore, and stuck with being pissed.

Lena chose a full offensive, and after a running start, she slid between the robots legs, caught herself by grasping one of the ankles. She quickly rose and leapt once again on the robot’s back before it had a chance to correct its movement. 

She slammed the base of one of the SIGs into the processing module until one arm reached up to grab her. It lifted her high and then slammed her to the ground just hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

One of the robot hands, constructed entirely of programmed nanites, morphed into the shape of a small buzzsaw. The other arm held Lena in place, and no amount of squirming, kicking or slamming of her gun could loosen its hold.

The robotic arm froze above her face and the sawing attachment transformed into a smooth metallic hand. As Lena tried to catch her breath, the robot extended an index finger and tapped twice - surprisingly gently - on the end of her noise.

“Boop,” its robotic voice said before it retracted the arm and retreated to allow room for her to get up.

Lena was going to kill Jack. 

 

X - X - X - X - X

 

The floors near and in the manor’s private laboratory had been fortified during construction, and Lena’s boot soles were cushioned for silence, so it took a great deal of effort to yield a satisfying stomp.

She was nothing if not persistent. 

The toughened glass walls and door blocked the sound of her approach, but Lena could see legs beneath one of the system consoles. Jack himself was blocked by the many displays on his station, but he couldn’t escape her now. She couldn’t yet see if he was wearing that gloriously annoying self-satisfied smirk of his at his little game.

Lena swiped the thin identification band on her wrist near the access pad. The door clicked unlocked as the panel chirped the success of her authentication. She shoved the door open with vengeance on her mind.

“I said I was bored, Jack. I didn’t say to fucking kill me.”

And then Lena stopped so quickly, her silent boots actually squeaked on the floor. 

There was a stranger in her lab. There was a stranger in her highly secure, restricted access laboratory. Her highly secure, restricted access laboratory in her house.

A head with blonde hair - a female head with striking blonde hair and a perfectly framed  face - poked out to the side of one of the monitors. 

“Dr. Luthor!” The woman adjusted her tortoise shell glasses and stood so abruptly, her chair flew back several feet. 

“Who the hell are you?” Lena was ready to shoot this intruder until she remembered the blanks. 

Whoever this woman was, she didn’t appear to be armed. Lena had overpowered bigger people, but the intruder looked fit enough to pose a problem.

“I’m - I’m Kara?” The laboratory’s lighting was natural enough to emphasize the pale blue of her eyes. 

Who phrased their own name as a question? Lena stared at the woman, demanding more details without speaking.

“Um.” The woman stepped around the console and took a deep breath, the action drawing her to her full height. Broad shoulders revealed the seams of her baby blue dress shirt, smartly tucked into navy dress slacks that fell stylishly over sensible black boots. “Kara Danvers. I’m an old friend of Jack’s. He said you’d need me to cover for him.”

“Why? Where is he?” Lena didn’t need anyone. Jack’s nerve was as impressive as it was tiresome.

The woman - Danvers - frowned as she shifted her glasses again. “New Delhi? Tending to urgent family business? He said he’d told you all about it, but that you’d…” She closed her mouth with an audible click. She touched her glasses for a third time. 

Honestly, was it a twitch? No one’s glasses moved that much. 

“I’d what?” 

Danvers cleared her throat. “He said you’d probably forget.” 

Lena bit back a growl. The robot’s reconfiguration, Jack’s accurate assessment about her memory and this woman’s presence upset her usual cool calm. Not to mention the fact that she felt guilty about forgetting Jack’s crisis.

Danvers took a step forward, hands gesticulating as she spoke again. “Probably because you’re so busy! I mean, look at all the work you’re doing here, not to mention your speaking engagements and research projects and non-profit oversight - “

This Danvers had done her homework, to be sure. 

Lena held her ground when Danvers stepped closer.

“We’ve actually met before. At the art museum gala last year when you sponsored the Mehretu exhibit. I was one of the staff members in attendance and, well, I mean, you were introduced to all of us at once, so we didn’t actually meet, but…”

Lena droned out the incessant prattling and re-assessed the object of her irritation. Danvers had cornflower blue eyes and skin that looked tan even in the lab’s lighting. Half a head taller than Lena, her confident stance belied her apparent nerves.

Danvers had stopped talking and stood staring back at Lena. Her unnerving attention seemed to be cataloging Lena’s every movement, her eyes assessing Lena’s clothes, her face, her hair.

Well, Lena had had more than enough assessment and judgment in her life and needed no more from this - this person.

“Well, I need to talk to him. Whatever programming changes he made to the agility trainer - “

“Oh, I did that.” 

Lena had to wait a moment for the cloud of red in her vision to dissipate.

Danvers had the unmitigated audacity to look proud and seemed to take Lena’s flustered silence as encouragement to continue. “Jack said you wanted a bigger challenge, so I added a few new subroutines to the programming. Well, they weren’t new exactly - I mean, I borrowed them from some work I did on my artificial intelligence dissertation at Stanford after reviewing your training footage - that competition you did with the American Ninjas was outstanding, by the way, you kicked total ass - anyway, I thought it would be a great way to level up your game. Which frankly is already fantastic, but who am…I to…judge what…you want to…” 

Danvers tapered off as Lena’s mouth fell open, but then misinterpreted the look and started anew.

“I assure you, I validated and tested the code and we can backrev quickly, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Lena could only breathe in confusion. Jack trusted this woman - deeply, since he’d given her access to the manor - but Lena couldn’t ever remember him mentioning a Kara Danvers. And he hadn’t mentioned a replacement for himself at all - only that he’d be gone for a few weeks. 

Danvers cleared her throat and nodded as if to herself. “Um, Jack left very detailed instructions, so I’m up to speed on the daily protocols. I’ve completed all the items on today’s roster, and half of the things scheduled for tomorrow that weren’t time specific. The tune-up on the Vanquish is already done, even though it wasn’t due until Thursday, and I’ll probably get the Valkyrie detailed ahead of schedule as well. Oh - the parts on the Bugatti are back-ordered.”

Lena understood all the words - they were part and parcel of her daily dealings with Jack - but she had trouble adapting to the sound of them in this strange person’s voice.

Danvers continued. “Two of the servers are down for maintenance but will be back online by morning, your paper for the Journal of Engineering Design is ready for submission, and the Gulfstream awaits your final inspection at the hangar.”

She sounded more confident as she listed all the tasks she’d completed, but such self-assurance didn’t stamp out Lena’s discomfort.

“Which Gulfstream?” Lena found herself asking.

Danvers stared blankly for a moment as if dazed and then came to herself. “Oh, right. You have two! Um, the G550.”

Lena made a non-committal noise, still trying to find her footing with this new…situation. Did Jack pluck this woman out of a model catalog? Her Hollywood good looks were distracting.

Danvers smiled, revealing perfect even white teeth.  “So, what’s in the package?”

Lena had forgotten about it. Most of the time, Jack liked to tease her by making her target the most innocuous of items - invitations to yet another gala she wouldn’t attend, legal documents requiring her signature. The fun - usually - was the challenge of getting to the awaiting item, not the item itself.

She drew one of her balisongs, this one a sleek matte black that made barely a whisper as she twirled it over the back of her hand. She secretly took some satisfaction from - but didn’t acknowledge - the gasp of surprise from Danvers, and sliced through the seal at the end of the shipping envelope.

The contents spurred Lena’s heart rate. 

She held two sheets of paper in her trembling hand. The first was an invitation to an upcoming auction in London. The other was a piece of overly auspicious thick stock paper with the letterhead of a British law firm, and though it included an unnecessary summary of the invitation, it also contained a description of one of the items for bid.

Lena bit her lower lip in excitement, the only expression she allowed herself. The Antonian cryptex, an elusive legendary object she had pursued since she was old enough to manage her own affairs, had been released to the open market. 

The cryptex itself wasn’t the goal, but its contents would fulfill a lifelong dream.

Over two millennia prior, when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, he heard rumors of a mystical mirror crafted by a powerful druid. The location of the mirror had been eventually recorded on a map, but with the threat of Caesar’s conquest on the horizon, someone had smuggled that map to Mark Antony in the hopes that he would stand against Caesar. 

Mark Antony hid the map in a cryptex, and planned to eventually claim the mirror himself, but after Caesar’s assassination, his own challenges got in his way. Pursued by Octavian, he planned for his inevitable death and created a cipher for the cryptex. 

The cryptex was sent to a trusted colleague in Rome with no information about its contents. After Antony’s suicide, followed by that of his lover, Cleopatra, the cipher was buried with them in their tomb, the location of which was lost to history.

The cryptex, however, had been recently discovered in the private collection of a reclusive tech billionaire’s estate. With no heirs to claim them, the estate’s contents had been released to the open market. 

“Good news or bad news?” Danvers asked, and Lena nearly bit through her lip at the reminder that she wasn’t alone.

Lena ignored the question and slipped the papers back into the envelope. Jack would no doubt return soon, so there was no point in sharing all the details with a glorified temp. 

“Has the new shipment of ammunition arrived?” Lena asked instead, annoyed anew by the reason she’d come down here in the first place. “I need to replace the blank rounds Jack put in the SIGs.” That was too much information, but this Danvers had upset the balance of Lena’s world. She really was going to kill Jack.

Danvers cleared her throat - which only drew Lena’s eye to her elegant neck - and shrugged. Her expression matched the sheepish set to her shoulders. “That was - um, that was me, too. Jack said not to let you use live rounds.” 

Lena turned her back on the threat to her calm and left the lab. Once again, the lack of stomping made the swirling anger worse.

 

X - X - X - X - X

 

“Jesus Christ, Jack. Where did you find this woman?” Lena paced the length of the deck outside her bedroom, ignoring the view of the mountains and the first stars of the cool dusk. The intricate stonework usually captured her attention, but tonight, she gave it no mind. The area was long enough for her to get a couple dozen steps in before she had to turn around and resume. 

“Is that in a good way or a bad way?” Jack’s voice sounded tinny over the international connection.

Lena groaned in response to his jibe, but his familiar warmth was enough to settle some of her nerves. Jack had been the only one in her life who had ever bothered getting to know the real her, not the standoffish billionaire’s bastard daughter everyone else seemed to see.

Jack just laughed. “We met back when I was in grad school.” He paused as he always did when he mentioned the period of time after Lena had broken up with him. It wasn’t an old wound anymore - they’d hashed all that out with a great deal of scotch years ago - but he always offered a moment of pause for them both to remember what that time had been like.

“Was she as insufferable then as she is now?”

Jack cackled, and Lena got the impression it was more at her than in solidarity. 

“Only because she was so goddamned nice,” he said.

“Mm.” Lena prompted him to continue as she passed through the French doors to her room. Her bedroom would have merited the description of “presidential suite” in a hotel, with its bookshelves, multiple desks and seating areas, but she didn’t pay its size any attention as she stood before the fireplace. Her frantic pacing hadn’t generated enough warmth to combat the evening chill.

“One of the campaign members dropped out of our weekly D-and-D game, and our dungeon master invited Kara to join us.”

Lena could easily picture the earnest nerd in her lab downstairs using a fake voice to emulate some fantastical creature. 

“Truth be told,” Jack continued, “she drove me a bit nuts at first. I thought she was a persistent know-it-all - “

“Ha!”

“ - but it turned out she was just a really smart beast. We ended up working on a couple of research projects together before she finished her physics masters and then headed off to Cambridge.”

Lena raised her eyebrows at the mention of yet another auspicious institution. All those irritating good looks evidently hid a phenomenal brain.

“Wait - physics? I thought she studied Comp Sci? She implied she had a doctorate.” Lena found herself pissed all over again. If Danvers had lied to Lena about her credentials, Lena didn’t care what Jack said. She would fire that arrogant woman right now.

Jack made a rude noise. “Oh, she does. And another masters in mathematics. And a J.D. from Stanford Law.”

Lena strung together so many curses, Jack sounded like he was crying from laughing so hard.

“I’m sorry, Lena.” Jack sounded anything but. “You might have met your match in this one.”

Lena fought the urge to throw her phone into the fire.

 

 

London

 

The flight across the Atlantic was quiet with little turbulence, and peaceful since Lena was the only person on board. Bleeding edge autopilot and navigation technology, not to mention special flight dispensations as a result of several expensive contracts with a few governments - at significant financial loss - meant the plane flew itself. 

She arrived at her private field in one of London’s outer boroughs, and drove her black convertible Vantage to the auction house. 

Lena recognized a few of the patrons in attendance, but most of the people were proxies on behalf of those who wished to remain anonymous. The one face she didn’t want to see noticed her the moment she entered the room. 

Morgan Edge  played at business because it was his only path to his first love - power. “If it isn’t the last Luthor standing. Here to follow in family footsteps and misplace more family billions?”

Edge considered himself competition for the Luthor legacy of power. Lena’s brother, Lex, was currently serving four consecutive life sentences for mass murder and arms dealing. Her step-mother, Lillian, had been convicted and imprisoned on fourteen counts of securities fraud and money laundering. With them out of the picture, Edge had turned his attention on Lena. 

Lena was not interested in power games.

She ignored the dig at her family’s illegal activities. “You’re five thousand miles from home. Aren’t there some shell corporations somewhere that require your attention?” According to Lena’s sources, Edge would most likely end up in prison himself before too long.

“Oh, Lena,” Edge said, smarmy as usual. “There’s no place on Earth I’d rather be than right here, right now, and for the same reason you are. The Antonian cryptex.”

She hated that he was right, because it meant he was her only real competition. Like Lena, Edge wouldn’t back down easily.

The auction began. One at a time, items were displayed on a table by the auctioneer’s podium as well as on a nearby widescreen for clearer viewing. 

The cryptex was one of the last items to be announced.

It was smaller than she’d imagined - about eight inches in length and less than four in diameter. Wherever it had been hidden all these centuries must have been a pristine environment. There was no wear on the cylinders and all the etchings looked as if they’d been carved yesterday. 

Someone else made the opening bid, but after the first few salvos, only she and Edge competed for the prize.

Edge drove the bid so high, Lena spent two years’ worth of discretionary funding, but she didn’t care. Her persistence was deeper than Edge’s pockets and she made the highest bid. The cryptex was hers, and Edge’s silent fury at being outbid was palpable enough that no one came within speaking distance of him for the rest of the session.

Lena took no chances. After she claimed the secure case holding her prize, she snuck out a staff exit to a side street hoping to evade any pursuit from Edge or anyone like him. She would have to arrange for someone else to pick up the car, but for now, she performed a series of random maneuvers that would have given a spy whiplash. 

Back and forth across London she traversed, using several forms of transportation and even stopping twice to change her attire. By the time she made it back to the airfield, it was almost midnight, but no one had followed her.

Instead, someone was waiting for her.

“Dr. Luthor!” Danvers waved from across the hangar where she stood with two mechanics who appeared to have been working on another plane. She wore a periwinkle blue v-neck sweater over tan slacks, and an honest-to-god tweed blazer complete with leather elbow patches. She was so vehement in her greeting, she nearly dropped the tablet in her other hand.

What the hell was she doing here?

To Lena’s surprise, Danvers hugged both mechanics before she rushed in Lena’s direction. The two men appeared curious and watched for a moment before they took their leave.

The evening’s subterfuge made Lena cautious. “Who are your friends?”

Danvers glanced behind her but the men were gone. “Baggy and Poe?”

Those could not possibly be real names.

Danvers continued without waiting for acknowledgement. “Those guys are so great! I’ve known them for years. Back when I lived here, we spent a lot of time at another airfield across town when I was working on -“

“What are you doing here?” Lena couldn’t believe Danvers knew more about the people who worked for Lena than she did. Lena kept so much distance between herself and her employees that both men probably didn’t even know Lena owned the hangar. 

She was also envious that Kara - Danvers, damnit - could connect with other people so effortlessly.

It seemed to be a skill of Danvers’ to recover quickly. “I was tracking the software updates on the G650. Everything is performing within established parameters, but a few of the launch settings looked like they needed some tweaking. I didn’t want to do it remotely, even over VPN, so I caught a commercial flight and got here a few hours after you. I’m all done now, and everything looks perfect.”

Her enthusiasm could not be quashed, it seemed. She bounced once on her heels.

“Why did you fly commercial?” Lena asked instead of questioning the trip altogether. “You could have taken the other jet.”

“Well.” Danvers’ blush was apparent even in the limited light. “We hadn’t talked about that and I didn’t want to assume - “

Lena rolled her eyes. 

“Consider the jets at your disposal,” she said. “For professional use only. They’re not available should you want to traipse off to Vegas with friends. I expect your focus to be on…our work.” 

She’d almost said the focus should be on her. That wasn’t what she’d meant.

Danvers stared as she often did while she found words. Each time, Lena felt as if she were being inspected.

“Thank you, Dr. Luthor,” Danvers said with a nod.  “But believe me when I say that nothing and no one else have my attention.” 

She couldn’t possibly mean that the way it sounded, even though the words sent a vibration through Lena’s midsection.

“Let’s get going, then. I’m sure the skies are clear for take-off at this hour.” Lena wanted to get the cryptex back to her labs as soon as possible.

“Actually?”

What now? And why did this woman always phrase things as questions?

Lena prompted her with a glare when more words weren’t forthcoming.

Danvers shrugged, apologetic. “There’s a storm moving in off the Atlantic. A bad one. NATS has grounded most flights until morning.”

Perfect. 

“Now that I think of it,” Danvers said. “I probably should have grabbed a bunk with the boys.” She reached into a pocket of her blazer. “I hadn’t planned on staying, but…let me just call Baggy and - “

“Nonsense. I’ve got a flat in Westminster. We can stay there tonight.”

The words fell from her mouth without thought, and it was too late to take them back.

Danvers, of course, spouted more enthusiasm in thanks than the absent-minded invitation warranted.

It was less a flat and more a permanent three-bedroom suite in a hotel with a limited and discriminating clientele. After showing Danvers the amenities and insisting she order from the twenty-four-hour kitchen, Lena retired to her room for the night.

While Danvers slept in the next room, Lena photographed the cryptex from as many angles as she could manage. Once that was done, she categorized the images and prepared files for her translators. She wasn’t going to take any chances on the information getting into the wrong hands - Edge’s people were everywhere - but she had a few people she trusted.

When dawn broke, she was exhausted, but she finally felt like she was on the right track. Soon, she would solve the mystery that had always fascinated her.

“What’s in the case?” Danvers asked from the doorway. 

Lena jumped and ignored Danvers’ apology for surprising her. 

She thought about keeping the cryptex to herself, but Danvers would no doubt be involved in supporting any associated communication until Jack’s return. 

“A new addition to my personal collection.” She opened the case and stepped back so Danvers could see it more clearly.

The scent of sandalwood soap wafted through the air as Danvers approached the table. Lena had transferred the cryptex from the auction house’s security case to one of her own design that would only open with her biometric data.

While Danvers looked at the cryptex, Lena looked at Danvers. She’d yet to put her hair back in her customary ponytail and it fell in soft waves over her shoulders and down her back. Today she wore another dress shirt, but instead of hiding her build, it accentuated her shoulders and arms.

Danvers gasped and it snapped Lena out of her leering. Really, she needed to get some sleep. 

“Wow. Wow, Dr. Luthor. That’s…wait, is that Gaelic - or - Old Irish, maybe? And are those hieroglyphs interspersed within the Latin?”

Lena had to admit Danvers was astute to have picked out all those distinctions with only a glance, but she didn’t want too much information revealed at this point. Not until she understood what she was dealing with.

She closed the case and locked it. 

“I’ve several translators on file. Please see to it that each section’s images goes to the expert most adept at the required language.”

“I’d be happy to translate them for you,” Danvers said, eager as a puppy and just as persistent. “I assure you I’m qualified to - 

“That won’t be necessary, Ms. Danvers.”

“Kara.” 

Lena froze at the interjection.

Danvers was closer than she’d noticed. They stood only a few inches apart, faces close enough that Lena could smell the toothpaste on Danvers’ breath, could see captivating flecks of color in the blue of her irises.

“What?” Lena asked.

“You should call me Kara.”

Lena couldn’t remember why that would be a bad idea. 

“Kara, then.” She didn’t extend the same courtesy.

“Good.” Kara stared at Lena for another moment before abruptly taking her leave.

Lena wasn’t certain, but for a split second, she could have sworn Danvers - Kara - had been staring at her lips.

 

National City, Revisited

 

One week later, Lena cursed herself for letting her emotions get in the way of getting the job done.

It started with a simple pop-up message on her phone. She’d gone to Gotham City to clear up some issues with one of the family holdings. Mid-flight on the way back, her primary artificial intelligence system notified her of some decreased performance. After three days of old men yammering at her while wearing expensive suits she was no doubt indirectly paying for, Lena was tired of travel and ready to relax, but the notification hinted at trouble. 

Lena had several different AIs dedicated to various tasks, but one central system that collated their data feeds. Lena hadn’t touched their configurations since the last round of diagnostics the previous quarter, but Jack might have. She opened her ruggedized laptop to take a closer look, but by the time the plane began its descent into National City, she’d found no answers.

In the time it took Lena to get from the landing field back to Luthor Manor, she received four more notifications. Relaxation was now far from her mind.

Lena tossed her travel duffel on the king-sized bed in her quarters and pulled her phone from her pocket. She unzipped her bag with her other hand while she called Jack.

“Didn’t you trim the old subroutines out of the internal AI?” Lena asked as she tossed a compact toiletry bag on the bed.

Jack sighed in exasperation. “Hello to you, too, love.”

“It’s just that something is eating up resources, but I can’t track it down in the main code blocks. The web crawlers are the usual culprits, but all my diagnostics show them running at peak efficiency.”

“What did Kara say?”

Lena stopped unpacking. “Why would I ask her?”

“Because that’s why she’s there!”

Lena rolled her eyes and resumed separating items into piles - never worn, house laundry, dry cleaning. “It’s easier to ask you. She’s not going to be here for much longer.”

The duffel was empty when Lena noticed the thick silence on the other end of the line.

“Jack?”

“I thought this conversation might wait, but…”

She turned her back on the mess on the bed and propped one hand on her waist. “Out with it.”

Jack’s sigh was long and deep. “I think it’s time for me to move on, love.” The affection and worry in his voice made it worse. “Mum is getting better, thank the gods of both eastern and western medicine, but I think Spheer Industries could use my full attention.”

Jack’s namesake company had played second fiddle to his job with Lena for years, but he’d always said he’d devote himself to it someday. Someday had come.

Lena couldn’t see his face but perhaps it was better that way. Her vision briefly blurred but she blinked the tears away. If he was saying this now, he’d been thinking it a long, long time. Which meant that it was far past time for him to go - even if she didn’t want him to.

Even if he was the only one left, but Lena Luthor did not beg.

“I see,” she said, when she couldn’t think of anything else. 

He didn’t apologize, for which she was grateful, because that would have suggested pity and she couldn’t stand for that.

She begged off the call soon after, claiming she needed to find out what was going on with the AI, but it was no longer urgent. 

Alone, exhausted, bereft, Lena took a long shower, skipped dinner and went straight to bed. Through sheer force of will, she did not cry herself to sleep.

When Lena awoke, she found seventeen more notifications. Breakfast would have to wait.

Danvers - Kara - wasn’t in the lab. She wasn’t responding to text messages and Lena couldn’t find her anywhere in the damned manor, but the access log said she was still on the property. 

Finally, when Lena didn’t find her in the kitchen Kara periodically raided, she happened to look out a window to the parking lot behind the service entrance and saw something that didn’t belong.

Evidently, Kara Danvers lived in a trailer behind Luthor Manor.

When Lena opened the service entrance, echoes of instrumental industrial music bounced around the parking lot framed by the back of the manor. The side door of the trailer was open as were all the windows, and the music volume increased as Lena approached.

Lena knocked harder on the door frame than might be considered polite until the music stopped. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see much inside the trailer, but a mounted worktable was visible, and covered with small mechanical robots and a few breadboards full of assembled circuits. 

Kara appeared in the open doorway and smiled at Lena in surprise.

“Dr. Luthor! What brings you to my door this fine morning?”

Lena forgot why she was there for a moment. Dressed in workout gear - little more than a sports bra and a pair of performance shorts, Kara wasn’t wearing her glasses. Flushed with some recent exertion, she had a gym towel wrapped around her neck and blotted at her forehead with one end.

Lena had yet to see one unattractive angle to this woman. It was becoming absurd.

“Luthor Manor has eighty-three rooms, Danvers. Why can’t you live in the house?”

The smile grew to a grin. “I like it out here, and I didn’t want to presume. And didn’t we agree that you’d call me Kara?”

Lena hadn’t agreed to anything and ignored the chastisement. 

“What did you do to the central AI?” She held up her phone to demonstrate, though she didn’t actually give it to Kara for her to read. “I’ve received a few dozen notifications from the system about peak usage.”

Kara winced. “Yikes. Sorry about that. I needed to run some translation simulations from the cryptex source files and my systems couldn’t take the load.”

Translations? Why on earth was she bothering with what Lena had already paid for?

“Well, kill them. Your simulations are eating up my processing time, and the translations are being handled by someone suited to the task.” Several of her usual sources, though, had claimed to be unavailable. She suspected Edge was involved, and she’d been reduced to one translator who was working on all three sections.

Kara actually harrumphed, and Lena didn’t know whether to scream or laugh.

“Look, your translator is all over the place,” Kara said.  “You’ve got three different languages in play - at least, if you ignore the possibility that the Druidic sections could be in multiple dialects. His Latin is passable, but he’s completely misinterpreted half the hieroglyphs and is disregarding the context of the other sections.”

She crossed her muscular arms over her chest, and Lena tried not to notice the play of the sunlight on her skin. She failed.

“If you want to stick with his translations,” Kara spoke again and drew Lena’s eyes back to her face, “that’s your choice. It’s your money, but let me at least show you what I found.” 

She mopped her forehead with the gym towel as she leapt from the trailer, brushing past Lena as she headed for the manor.

“You don’t have to come right now if you want to…” Lena’s brain misfired when she considered suggesting Kara shower first.

“Nonsense. No time like the present.”

Lena had to scurry to keep up with Kara’s longer legs, all while trying to look like she was in the lead. By the time they reached the lab, her annoyance had risen to record levels.

Inside the lab, Kara tossed the gym towel over one shoulder and danced her fingers across one of the keyboards on her working console. Four different displays came to life, and in less than a minute, she pulled up all her work.

“These are side-by-side comparisons of what your translator sent and what I did myself. As you can see, his work is utter garbage and makes no sense, while mine actually results in complete sentences.”

Lena could have screamed. She’d lost two weeks waiting for incorrect translations when Kara seemed to have knocked the whole challenge out in a weekend. All because she’d been hesitant to engage with Kara more. Because Kara made her feel…uneasy in a way she couldn’t quite define.

“Here,” Kara said as she offered Lena the chair. “Take a look for yourself, and then crosscheck the results against what I found in the archive.”

It took another twenty minutes, but Lena finally nodded at Kara. She was right - the translator had given her nothing useful, while Kara had delivered the real goods.

 Kara leaned into Lena’s personal space to rapidly enter more parameters into the keyboard. For a moment, Lena was distracted by the scent of her. Kara didn’t smell like a sweaty gym rat - she smelled like, like something delicious and earthy and…right.

“Okay,” Kara said, oblivious to the lust cloud looming over Lena. “Now take a gander at what the ‘net has to say about those results.”

Lena forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

They read in silence for a few minutes, Lena reviewing the search output on two displays while Kara looked at a less reputable site with more questionable results.

Kara made a noise of concern, and when Lena glanced at her, Kara’s eyes were wide.

“There are legends about this cryptex…it leads to an object that will grant supernatural power to whoever holds it.” 

She looked worried, as if the mystical ramblings of ancients with no understanding of science held more sway than reality. 

“Of course it does.” Lena’s tone was wry. 

Kara frowned. “There may be something here, though, that we should take seriously.”

“Oh, so you believe in magic?” Incredulous, Lena allowed herself to openly stare. 

Kara uncrossed her arms and stared back, unflinching.  After a moment, she looked Lena up and down and then offered a sly smile. “Absolutely.”

Lena got the impression Kara wasn’t talking about the artifact anymore. The flirting appraisal unsettled her, and she lashed out. “Find a room in the manor. And answer your text messages. I shouldn’t have to go searching for you on foot.” 

Blushing at the non sequitur wasn’t an option, so she suppressed the urge.

Kara’s smile faded, but not by much. “Of course, Dr. Luthor.”

Lena nodded as she stood.  She hadn’t gained enough of an advantage to be satisfied, but opted to leave while she was ahead.

 

X - X - X - X - X

 

On a Saturday night, the manor should have been empty. Lena hired minimal staff, mostly for cleaning and maintenance since she chose to cater to her own needs.

The scent of something…delicious…was therefore out of place. 

Lena followed the scent to something equally unexpected.

Kara had moved into the manor as requested, but out of all the quarters available, she had chosen to move into a large empty store room across the hall from the kitchen, where she’d made herself at home.

Which was what Lena had asked her to do, but somehow, Lena still found it maddening. 

Kara didn’t seem intimidated by the commercial size of the cooking area. She hummed to herself while she prepared mysterious ingredients and Lena observed silently until Kara noticed her presence.

“Hi, Dr. Luthor! I was just about to track you down. I hope you’re hungry.”

Lena was famished, but… “No, thank you.” Breaking bread would only lead to more of Kara’s inquisitive persistence.

“Oh, come on. You gotta eat.” Kara had the temerity to wink.

“I’m afraid I don’t have time.” Lena stretched her imagination for something that might serve as an excuse. “Several equipment deliveries came in yesterday that I need to catalog.” 

Normally that would fall to Jack - er, Kara - but most likely she wouldn’t have had time yet to - 

“Already done.” 

Irritated, Lena tried to think of something else. “Well, that means I now have time to begin the quarterly diagnostics.”

“Those are already started. I kicked off the scripts this afternoon, so the datasets should be ready for your review by morning.” Kara stood facing the stove, but turned her head to look at Lena with a wry grin. “Are you telling me that you aren’t the least bit interested in spaghetti bolognese from scratch? It’s been simmering for hours. I’ve got freshly grated reggiano I ordered from this place in Sicily I found years ago. You’ve got to try it.”

Kara was talking about food, but the tone of her voice suggested delights that might almost be sexual, and the low burr of her voice vibrated through Lena’s guts.

“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” she said.

Lena was being unreasonable, but she was accustomed to meeting her own needs and the hum of attraction was…distracting. Also, Kara’s competence was aggravating, and it almost seemed like she took some pleasure in anticipating Lena’s requests.

Despite Lena’s protests, Kara prattled on inconsequentially and energetically as she set two places at the corner of one of the counters. Lena hadn’t eaten in this kitchen since she’d been a child, and it was here that she felt the most pronounced difference between Kara's presence and Jack's.

Lena never cooked and neither had Jack. Most of their meals had consisted of take-out consumed in the lab. It had always seemed to Lena as if Jack had been a compatriot alongside her, that together they had endured the coldness of the manor. Kara, on the other hand, offered no such ease of company and the chill stood no chance against her exuberant warmth. Nowhere was that more apparent than in this kitchen.

Soon, though, Kara’s upbeat demeanor changed to something else.

“What’s wrong?” Lena couldn’t help but ask. It was uncharacteristic for Kara to look so ill at ease. 

The frown deepened, but Kara didn’t look away from the pan in front of her. “I finished the translation of the final sector.”

Lena’s heart rate sped up and she forced herself not to interrupt.

With adept hands, Kara lifted the pan from the burner and tossed the contents while turning down the heat with her other hand. “Turns out the puzzle is incomplete. There’s a missing key required to solve it - a cipher - and the hieroglyphs suggest a location where it might be stored.”

She moved around the kitchen while she spoke, pulling garlic bread from one of the ovens and a tray of sizzling broccoli rabe from a broiler. Some innate sense told Lena to withhold her questions, to let Kara reveal details in her own time. 

Kara’s preternatural competence evidently extended to the kitchen. Lena tried to hide how much she enjoyed the food, which was of course fantastic, and halfway through the entree that Kara insisted she eat, Lena was rewarded for her patience.

“I think I’ve figured out where the tomb is,” Kara said between bites.

A centuries-old puzzle, a tomb lost to history for nearly two millennia, and Kara mentioned it over a spaghetti dinner as if she’d found a pair of lost socks.

 Lena couldn’t eat another bite and suffered through Kara’s pauses when she continued to eat her dinner while explaining what she’d discovered. By the time Kara cleared the table, Lena had already mentally packed for a trip to Cairo - and then on to Alexandria. 

Kara  leaned against the counter, more serious than Lena had ever seen her. “I’m worried, though, that you won’t pay attention to the warnings.” 

That was presumptuous. “First of all, those warnings are superstitious and ridiculous, and second…” Lena lifted her napkin from her lap and set it on the counter with finality. “It’s not your place to guide my attention.”

Eyes dark, Kara’s expression was otherwise inscrutable. 

Lena wasn’t sure what to do about this strain between them, but she knew what she had to do next about the cryptex. She ran upstairs to her quarters to quickly pack, but then realized that despite Kara’s audacity, Lena did owe thanks for the meal.

Dressed for travel and duffel in tow, Lena returned to the kitchen. 

Kara hadn’t moved. She still leaned against the counter drinking a glass of Barolo from the bottle she’d opened earlier.

Lena cleared her throat, then wished she hadn’t. It revealed her nerves. 

“Thank you for dinner. It was delicious,” she said, but she couldn’t leave it at that. “Please don’t think I expect this to be part of your duties here.”

Well, that was a terrible way to put it. Still, she’d said what she wanted to say. 

Kara stared back for a long moment, but then nodded as if making a decision. “I should come with you.”

“Not necessary,” Lena said, though Kara frowned. “I’ve got to assume that Edge will have secured some of the auction house’s photos of the cryptex.” Not to mention the possibility that he’d hijacked her other translators. “He’s not bright, but he’s persistent and I don’t think I’ve got much lead time.”

Kara leaned toward her. “I know you don’t believe in those legends, but…you shouldn’t go alone, Lena.”

Lena slapped her passport case on the counter, the sound nowhere near loud enough to quell the swirling uncertainty in her guts. 

“You’re in no position to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Lena couldn’t stand the hurt in Kara’s eyes and left as quickly as she could. 

 

 

Alexandria, Egypt

 

By the time Lena arrived in Cairo a day and a half later, word had spread quickly.

Morgan Edge had already found the lost tomb of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. 

It seemed his  team of translators had finally discovered what Kara had untangled alone. Lena seethed, but she was more concerned with the bigger prize. Let Edge take the fame. She wanted the mirror.

Edge showed his hand far too soon in the game, so Lena still had a chance to beat him to the cipher. He’d yet to investigate the tomb because he wanted everyone to see his triumph and arranged for a party with all the right people and the press in attendance - all so the world could see him claim credit for the discovery.

In grand fashion, Edge planned to enter the tomb when the moon rose.

Until then, record high temperatures kept most of the party attendees inside a huge expansive tent. Edge had hired a well-armed security team, and Lena was on the list of people to block from entering. She could see past the guard in the tent’s entryway and across the room to where several news outlets interviewed Edge. 

Forced to choose between accosting Lena or claiming his fame, Edge settled for glaring briefly before he turned his slimy smile to the cameras. 

Lena would have to find another way into the tomb.

She tried twice more to get to the tomb’s entrance, but the guards blocked her way. Finally, she slipped into a gap between the tent and a sandstone wall, but froze when she heard footsteps approaching.

“Where did she go?”

It was Edge. Lena held her breath.

“No idea, sir.” A deeper voice. “Our orders were to deny her entry, not take her into custody.” One of the guards, then. 

“Luthors are stubborn. She won’t quit. If you find her, grab her. And if she’s alone…”

Lena willed herself not to make a sound.

“Kill her. No one will think to look for her here for awhile, which is a long time to make a body disappear.”

“Understood.”

After their footsteps moved away, it took a long time for her heart rate to return to something like normal. He was right - she wouldn’t quit, but she had to figure out another way inside the tomb. 

Lena decided to pull back to a flanking position - somewhere she could see the entire camp and reassess her plan.

The tent sat in a wide unnatural canyon. Lena circled around until she found a vantage point above and to the side of the canyon wall. 

She perched at the edge of the guard’s perimeter, stretched out on her stomach, and peered down at the entrance.

Someone slid through the sand next to her, and Lena quickly rolled to one side, reaching towards her holstered pistol until she saw who it was.

“Where did Edge find these guys?” Kara wriggled on her belly, elbowing her way alongside Lena. She wore head-to-toe khaki clothing, her skin golden where it was exposed. “They’ve got nothing on SEAL training, let me tell you.”

Lena shushed her, concerned Kara’s voice would echo into the canyon, and tried to ignore how good Kara looked in a tank top and aviators.

“What are you doing here?” Lena whispered, though it was a stupid and rhetorical question. “Keep quiet and don’t give away our position. Once the party hits full swing, I’m going to try to sneak into the tomb. I don’t want them to get to the inner corridor before I do.”

Kara shrugged, a tad too laissez-faire for Lena’s tastes. “It doesn’t matter if they do. They’re looking in the wrong place.” 

As always, Kara’s cool confidence grated on Lena’s nerves as much as it impressed her.

“What are you talking about?”

Kara pointed. “Edge’s goons are guarding the entrance there, but we want to access the corridor from there.” 

Now she pointed at a much smaller access point that sat a soccer field’s distance from the main entrance where Edge had all his people stationed.

“You’re sure?”

Kara arched an eyebrow, and Lena rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” Lena said. “As soon as the sun goes down.”

“You shouldn’t have ditched me.”

“We’ll talk about it later, Kara.”

“Yes, we will.”

Lena wasn’t going to get the last word this time, and conceded the point.

The party was in full-swing and Edge had claimed center stage. His voice boomed over loudspeakers as he regaled the crowd with tales of his masterful deduction as Lena and Kara snuck into the unprotected side entrance to the tomb.

The sand masked the sound of their passing, but the quiet didn’t last.

“Why is this whole thing so important to you?” Kara didn’t sound judgmental - only curious. “I don’t know you well, but you don’t seem like you’re all that interested in glory. Not like Edge.”

It bothered Lena to hear Kara claim not to know her. Kara, who anticipated almost every one of Lena’s actions, who gave Lena the things she wanted even if they weren’t the things Lena asked for. 

For these reasons, and perhaps more she wasn’t ready to admit,  Lena answered honestly.

“My mother was an archaeologist who specialized in Celtic ruins, and she told me the story of a mirror.” Lena couldn’t remember the actual events, but she had a dated video file of her mother sitting in a huge, old but seemingly comfortable arm chair, telling the story in animated detail. In the video, a four-year-old Lena sat transfixed in her lap.

“According to legend, a druid of exceptional power served a region of what is now County Kerry in Ireland. The druid grew so powerful, the Christian priests feared her and pursued her with the plan to kill her and claim her influence in the land.”

They reached the end of the small hall when it fed into a larger corridor, and Kara pointed in one direction. Lena passed her and led the way.

“She knew she was doomed, but she wanted to pass along her power to someone who would protect her people. Legend says she channeled all of her skill, all of her knowledge, all of her power into an ordinary object - a mirror - so that when someone worthy held it, that person would then inherit her power and be able to serve the people.”

Kara didn’t interrupt Lena’s tale as they navigated the halls of the tomb towards their goal.

“She succeeded in creating the mirror and hid it, but was later caught and killed. No one ever found it, but it’s legend reached the Romans, and a clue to its location is in this tomb.” 

Lena stopped talking when they came across what looked like the square frame of a shallow water fountain. Inside, however, was only a dark open space without a floor.

There was nowhere to go but down. Kara tied off a rope around one of the nearby columns, and after checking its safety, Lena climbed down into the darkness.

She drew her flashlight and arced it around the space. The corridor was more open than Lena had imagined - wider than the both of them side by side had they stretched out their arms, and taller than a two-story building. Kara shimmied down the rope as Lena covered a cough at the stale air. 

This was it. 

She wanted to revel. She wanted to stay here forever and take thousands of photographs and explore every corner, to find the heart of the tomb itself and see with her own eyes the final resting places of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, but she didn’t have time. 

Along both sides of the corridor, massive archways led to more rooms and tunnels, but none of them matched the description relayed in the cryptex’s cover.

“Dr. Luthor.” Kara’s urgent low voice echoed in the tomb. “Here.”

While the other archways were marked in Latin and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Kara stood before one decorated with neither. Instead, every few feet along the archway, a simple triquetra had been etched into the stone. 

If Kara hadn’t been there, Lena might have missed it. Then again, without Kara, Lena might not have made it this far.

When Kara lifted her flashlight and aimed it down the corridor, light splashed across a pink and purple jeweled inlay over a doorway at the end of a short hall. Another larger triple knot marked the center of the stone door.

Anticipation raced in Lena’s blood.

They approached the door without speaking and after sharing a confirming nod with Kara, Lena pushed at the top most cavity within the knot. With some resistance, the stone depressed into the door. Encouraged, Lena completed the sequence, pressing the center cavity last.

She felt the vibrating thud of the door’s locking mechanism, and with another glance at Kara, Lena pushed at the door. 

It barely moved. 

Without a word, Kara stashed her flashlight and added her weight. 

Together, after two attempts, they pushed past the ancient seal on the door. 

The chamber inside was much smaller than the size of the corridor and the security of the door implied. There was only space enough for the two of them. The walls were blank, and the only thing inside the room was a sandstone obelisk. 

Its square base was as wide as Lena’s arm from elbow to the end of her hand, and it stood as high as Lena’s shoulder. The sides sloped inward until they came to a point. Etched into each side were four large symbols. Two sides, opposite each other, contained Roman numerals. Large hieroglyphs were etched into the remaining two sides.

Kara brushed against Lena as she drew closer.

”We can’t exactly carry that out of here,” Kara said.

Lena hadn’t planned on it, but the thought of Edge solving the puzzle before them grated her to no end.

“I know.” Lena pulled a digital camera from her bag, while Kara pulled out her phone. In silence and in tandem, they rotated around the obelisk, taking turns holding the flashlight while they took as many images as possible from all angles. 

Finally, Lena was sure she’d captured more than enough.

“What if he finds it?” Kara asked.

Lena was torn. She didn’t want Edge to get to the mirror before her, but she couldn’t bear to destroy the relic. It would be sacrilegious to even consider it.

“We’ll have to hope he isn’t as smart as you are.” Lena pressed her lips together after the admission.

Kara made a disapproving noise but didn’t disagree.

Lena stared back at the cipher. This was the final clue. All they had to do was solve the enigma of the cryptex, and the location of the mirror would be hers.

A distant shout snapped Lena out of her daze.

“We should go,” Kara said, but Lena was already walking back through the door.

Lena didn’t want to bring it up, but Kara needed to know what kind of danger they were in. “Edge told his people to kill me if they found me alone.”

Kara picked up her pace as they raced back the way they’d come. “Good thing you’re not alone, then.”

 

X - X - X - X - X

 

Kara drove them back to Cairo that night in an outwardly decrepit but surprisingly fast decade-old Range Rover. The roaring wind through the open frame drowned the possibility of conversation, but Lena found she enjoyed the company - not that she’d say so. 

Somehow, she knew she’d always remember this drive through the warm Egyptian night beneath the full moon, and the woman doing the driving.

Back in Cairo, Kara returned the Rover to a man she called an old friend. Their friendly exchange complete with warm embraces in greeting and goodbye made Lena feel once again like the odd one out, and not simply because she didn’t speak Arabic as Kara did so fluently.

Kara seemed to have friends everywhere she went.

The man summoned a taxi to drive them to Lena’s hotel. When they arrived, Lena extended a fistful of cash towards the eager driver.

Kara pressed Lena’s arm away, offering her own payment for the transportation. The driver smiled wide at Kara’s bonus on the quoted fare and then disappeared into the late night - or perhaps now early morning - dark.

“You could have let me pay for it.” Lena didn’t know why she was arguing about something so inconsequential. 

Kara shrugged. “You pay for everything. I’d like to remind you that I have my own money.”

Earlier on in their working relationship, when Lena had researched Kara’s background, she’d discovered that Kara was well off in her own right. Kara’s innovative research had led to several patents, which she’d licensed to quite a few different companies. The resulting residuals ensured Kara really didn’t need to work for Lena. 

Yet here she was, following Lena again halfway around the world.

Kara chuckled as they boarded the elevator. “Well, I mean, I don’t have enough for my own jet. Wait, two jets.”

“Three,” Lena said before she could stop herself, then rushed to explain though she wasn’t sure why. “We - we each had our own.”

It was the first time she’d brought up her family. Kara’s understanding expression meant she knew exactly what Lena was talking about, and Lena realized something then.

Kara had never asked about the other Luthors. Not once. Despite weeks of living in Luthor Manor, countless hours working at Lena’s side, handling some of the communication with Lena’s assistant at LuthorCorp, Kara had never even mentioned Lena’s brother or step-mother.

Why was that?

As soon as the door to their suite closed, Lena turned to Kara.

“Why haven’t you asked about them?” The direct question exploded from Lena when she couldn’t hold her inquisitiveness inside.  “My family, I mean. Everyone else does.”

Equally direct, Kara responded in kind. “Because I don’t care about them.” 

That couldn’t be true.

“I don’t.” Kara spoke with more fervor as if in response to Lena’s unspoken thoughts. “I care about you and you’re nothing like them. Did they repurpose an entire multi-national corporation in the span of two years and triple stock prices? Did they tackle the greatest threats to humanity with the largest non-profit endowment in history? Did they make sure restitution was paid to every one of their victims?”

Kara shook her head. “No, they did not. And nothing I’ve seen of you in all this time we’ve worked together seems the least bit like any of them.” 

Her voice softened. “You’re kind and generous - even if you don’t want anyone to know - and everything you do outweighs whatever they wanted to accomplish. You’re incredible.”

Lena wasn’t sure what to say about all that, though deep down, she wanted to believe it. 

As she always did, Lena turned to work. 

For the next few hours, they snacked on highly unhealthy room service while working on the solution to the cryptex. Exhausted, Kara fell asleep on the suite’s long couch, but Lena persisted. 

Mid-morning, she kicked one of Kara’s still booted feet.

“I’ve got it.”

Kara’s abrupt rise to a sitting position would have otherwise been comical.

With careful reverence, Lena rotated the cylinders on the cryptex into position until she heard a soft click.

Kara’s eyes were crinkled in the corners, so wide was her smile. 

Lena removed the end piece and peered inside.

“It’s - “ Her voice came out in a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “It’s the scroll.”

Kara rushed to clear the nearest table, moving computers and plates and cups until it was clear. She rushed into one of the bedrooms and returned seconds later with a sheet she quickly folded in half and lay across the table.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. Lena couldn’t wait for the proper conditions, and though the guilt made her shoulders itch, she had to know.

Slow, methodical movements, a pair of tweezers and hastily donned scarves over their noses and mouths - these were the tools they used to ease the scroll from the core of the cryptex. Lena’s wonder pushed the guilt aside, and Kara seemed equally moved. Neither of them said a word.

The scroll was a span of leather the width of Lena’s hand, stretched between two short bronze rods. She slowly unrolled it, pausing every few seconds to make sure she wasn’t doing any damage. One section of the leather - not much bigger than the tip of Lena’s smallest finger - disintegrated to dust, and Lena froze.

Kara slowly backed away, but reappeared in less than a minute with a digital camera. 

“Don’t touch it,” Lena whispered when Kara leaned in.

“Of course I’m not going to touch it,” Kara said just as quietly.

While Lena held the scroll open, Kara took countless pictures. Finally, Kara stepped back, and Lena rotated her head a bit, her shoulders aching from holding position so long. 

“Find something to cover it. I don’t want so much as a deep breath near it until we can get it into containment.”

A few phone calls later, the scroll and the cryptex were stored in secure containers for shipment and analysis, and they turned to the images they’d collected to work on the rest of the puzzle.

The druids hadn’t made it easy. The map itself was encoded.

A square labyrinth had been tooled into the leather, and in its heart lay an outline of what was now Ireland. Within the paths of the labyrinth, tooled symbols looked exactly like those on the Druidic sections of the cryptex.

With all three pieces of the greater puzzle - the cryptex, the cipher from the tomb, and the encoded information on the scroll - they worked late into the night and determined where the mirror must reside.

The only problem was that they didn’t agree on where that was. 

“My graduate thesis at MIT was on historical cryptography,” Lena snapped. “The chamber is somewhere within Carrauntoohil.”

Kara put her hands on her hips as she drew herself to her full height. “Well, my dissertation at Cambridge on linguistic variants in pre-Roman Anglo Saxon dialects disagrees. It’s in Cnoc na Peiste.”

Lena suspected that Kara’s summation was likely more accurate, but the arrogance was…

“You’re insufferable!” Lena said in a growl.

“You’re stubborn and won’t see reason!” Anger only made Kara more attractive, her power radiating the room.

A surge of heat fired through Lena’s body, immolating her where she stood. Kara’s gravity pulled at her, harder to resist the closer she stood, hinting at answers to questions Lena could never speak aloud.

Lena gave in.

Surprise and ardor flashed in Kara’s eyes in the second before Lena crashed against her. Lena closed her own eyes and sank into the kiss. 

Kara’s lips were impossibly soft and perfectly warm. If Lena never kissed anyone else ever again, she could live forever on the perfection of this one kiss. 

Kara’s hands were hot where they held Lena’s face, her pulse thundering against Lena’s jaw, overpowering the pounding of Lena’s own heartbeat. 

Not once did Lena consider stopping what she’d started.

The next time she could form thought, Kara’s taut nipples brushed against Lena’s sensitive skin as Kara pressed her thigh slick and hard between Lena’s legs. The swell of orgasm teased Lena’s nerve endings when Kara finally reached between them and stroked almost lazily. 

And then, in the span of a heartbeat, everything changed.

Kara slowed her kiss, deepened it, pulled away to kiss along the edge of Lena’s jaw.

“I’ve been mesmerized by you since the moment I first saw you, Lena.”

Lena was swept away by the power of her name on Kara’s lips.

“Ever since, I wanted to get to know you, but now that I do - now that I know how amazing you are, I can’t stay away.” She licked Lena’s lower lip before delivering another delicious kiss. “I can’t get enough of you, Lena.”

Lena clung tighter as Kara stroked inside her, the sensations almost too much to bear. All thought vanished.

Kara’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Nothing else matters. There’s only you, now.”

The words were too much, so Lena gave herself over to sensation, surrendering her body while trying to rein in her heart.

Much, much later, Lena came to her senses. She had peaked three times in Kara’s arms, driven Kara to come undone twice, until finally, Kara had dozed off, her breathing deep and even.

By the time the moon set, Lena had still not fallen asleep. She lay on her side, head resting on her folded arm. 

Kara rested in the sleep of the just, on her back with the bed linens pooled at her waist. One hand rested on her abdomen. Her other arm was tossed on the pillow above her head. Her hair, wild and tangled, called to Lena. She wanted to sink her fingers in it again, to wake Kara and pull her into another round of loving oblivion.

Resisting was easier now that Kara was asleep, her tranquility at once captivating Lena and also forcing her to recognize the truth.

Such peace was not for her.

At dawn, the air already hinted at another day of scorching heat. Lena crossed the tarmac of a small private airfield forty-five minutes from the hotel she’d left behind, and climbed the stairs leading to the side door of the jet. 

Light broke the horizon, but Lena turned her back on the sun.

 

 

Cairo —> Dublin

 

Lena battled the peculiar dichotomy of being exhausted from the lack of sleep and strangely invigorated by the shared depth of physical and emotional connection. She wondered how long it would take Kara to contact her, or if she would take a hint and go back to National City.

It didn’t take long at all. Lena had been in the air for just over an hour when her phone vibrated across the table in front of her seat.

Against her better judgment, Lena answered Kara’s request for a video chat.

“Lena, where are you? Please tell me you’re not on your way to Dublin.” Kara’s hair was still unbound and disheveled, and her eyes were red, but Lena couldn’t tell if it was from lack of sleep or…something else.

“Honestly, Kara,” Lena said, seizing the opportunity for misdirection. Lamenting Kara’s superstition was easier than confronting her own feelings. “Why you’re putting so much stake in legends of the supernatural is baffling. I don’t want to admit it, but I think you’ve studied the sciences more than I have.”

“‘There are more things than heaven or earth,’ Lena,” Kara quoted. “But never mind that. Why didn’t you wake me?”

Lena didn’t have an answer that would make sense. Saying she needed space was the most cliched response imaginable, but it was true. She needed distance - and time to figure out the eddies of emotion inside her.

She started to speak and stopped twice before something came to mind.

“Let’s not make it more than it was.” The words taste like chalk. 

For half the night, Kara’s expressive face had revealed pleasures she couldn’t speak. Now, her hurt was plain as day, and she stared at Lena over the connection long enough for Lena to fight the urge to squirm.

“You mean the best night of my life?” Kara’s eyes brightened with tears though they didn’t fall. “Too late.” 

“Well, it can’t happen again.”

“Why not?”

“Because you work for me.” Lena winced. They were far past that, even if she wanted to turn back. “I mean, we work together.”

“That’s not a good enough reason, Lena. Hell, I’m the one who authorizes my own paychecks.” Kara scoffed. “Besides, you don’t pay me nearly enough for that to be an issue.”

Taken aback, Lena struck hard. “Well, if you wanted a raise, you didn’t have to sleep with me to get one.”

Kara’s flush was visible over their grainy connection. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She looked away and then back into the camera. “You know how I feel about you, Lena.”

The desperate warmth ate at Lena’s resolve.

“This isn’t a good idea.” Lena forced herself to speak the lie. “It was just one of those things. We spend a lot of time together, and it can be easy to give in to distraction, but we shouldn’t let it stop us from being professional. Let’s put it behind us and - and focus on work.”

“Lena - “

“I’ve got another call,” Lena lied. “Safe travels, Kara,” she said, unable to squelch all sentiment even at the end. 

The pain was instantaneous, stabbing now where it had only ached before.

Kara’s name flashed across her phone screen again. She wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer, and Lena couldn’t continue to fight against her. She’d only give in, and that was a terrible idea.

Lena rejected the call and immediately pulled up Jack’s contact details.

Jack answered but was poorly lit on his end. He passed a hand over his face, and his normally perfectly-coifed hair stuck out in every direction imaginable.

“Lena, love, you’re a brilliant woman. Why don’t you understand time zones?” 

He was being ridiculous - it was early afternoon in New Delhi - but suddenly, Lena couldn’t speak. The effort of holding back her tears made it impossible to form words.

“What’s wrong?” Jack sounded completely awake now.

The dam burst.

It took far longer than Lena wanted for her to get herself under control. The tears wouldn’t stop, and when Kara tried to call again and was once again ignored, quiet sobs wracked Lena’s body. Part of her wanted Kara, but the rest of her knew that it could never be. Someone like Kara wasn’t meant for someone like Lena. That wasn’t how Lena’s world worked. In her world, the good things never lasted and the people she loved, she didn’t get to keep.

Through it all, Jack’s silence - the only comfort she might accept - kept her company.

When the sobbing ebbed and the tears slowed to a trickle, Lena searched for the words to explain her state, hoping to keep the true nature of her situation hidden from Jack. After everything they’d been through, he didn’t deserve to listen to her vent about her romantic entanglements.

“I slept with Kara,” she blurted instead.

To his credit, Jack didn’t speak right away. 

“Where are you?”

She sniffled and blotted her cheek with one sleeve, a rare vulnerability she wouldn’t have shared with anyone but Jack. “Somewhere over the Tyrrhenian Sea.”

“What?” His confusion reminded her that she’d woken him from a dead sleep. “I thought you were in London.”

“We - Kara translated the text on the cryptex. It led us to Cairo.” This topic was a welcome distraction. “Turns out the secret to solving it was a key buried in Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s tomb. Which we found.”

Jack’s jaw slacked. “No way.”

“Yeah.” Lena latched onto the subject like a lifeline and tried to regain her control. “Edge was there, but he doesn’t know about the key, though he’ll probably figure it out since we were there.”

The rude sound of a yawn prefaced Jack’s next words. “Well, you’ve always managed to stay ahead of him.”

“Mm. We broke the code and located the mirror. I’m on my way there now so I can - ”

“Hold on, love. I think we’re getting a bit off topic.” He arched an eyebrow in reproach, but his tone was gentle. “Why don’t you tell me what happened between you and Kara? And save the sordid bits for when I’m more awake to enjoy them.”

She frowned in irritation at the jibe, and wished he hadn’t asked about the whole situation at all, but she’d woken him up. She had to tell him something.

And so she did. She told him everything but the more intimate details, and she left out the most damaging part.

The way Kara made her feel.

“It was only one time, and it didn’t mean anything.” If she kept saying it, maybe she’d start to believe it. “It would never work anyway.”

“Why not?”

“It never does. Eventually, they give up or leave.”

“Oh, come on, Lena. That’s a tad dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Andrea. Veronica.” Jack most likely read between the lines about the rest of the list of the many people who had either left or let her down. Her mother, who had drowned when she was young. Her father, who had died without once saying he was proud of her. Her step-mother, who had withheld affection most of Lena’s life and abandoned her in the wake of her testimony. Her brother, who had once been her only ally in a home where she had always felt unwelcome.

The view of Jack’s face tilted for a moment while he changed position, threw his dimming curtains wide to the sun and propped himself in his bed. “Not everyone will leave you like that, Lena.”

“You did.” The words escaped before she could stop them. “It seems it was fairly easy for you. Was it because I never gave you what you wanted?” She regretted the dig the moment the words crossed her lips, but she couldn’t take them back.

Jack’s eyes widened, his lips parting in surprise. The long pause only intensified Lena’s regret.

“No.” He shook his head slowly, eyes sad and voice soft. “No, Lena. And that’s not fair.”

It wasn’t, but she wasn’t thinking clearly and the crying wasn’t helping.

“I loved you, but we weren’t right for each other.” Jack’s voice was smooth and warm as always, a balm to her even if her feelings for him were nowhere near romantic. “I didn’t see it at the time, but after awhile, I came to that conclusion sooner than I thought I might. This has nothing to do with that, and I think you know it.”

She had called him for an escape, a distraction, but this was somehow worse than the call with Kara had been.

“This is about how Kara is actually pretty perfect for you, isn’t she?”

Lena wouldn’t - couldn’t - acknowledge that. Kara was just a tryst, a temporary weakness. Nothing more. 

The lies were getting harder to tell.

Jack was persistent to a fault. “This is about how you’d rather be alone than trust anyone, but that loneliness is just going to eat you up from the inside.”

Direct hit. Lena scrubbed the tears from her cheek, embarrassed that she’d revealed so much weakness of sentiment. 

“Maybe it already is,” he said. 

Lena’s sigh was explosive. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She’ll be gone by the time I get back.”

He scoffed. “That doesn’t sound like Kara. That girl has done nothing but nag me about you for a year. She’s relentless to a fault.”

Some tiny part of Lena she was trying to ignore was pleased to know Kara’s story had been true, that perhaps Kara had meant all the things she’d said. Even if Lena hadn’t wanted to hear them.

“I made it clear that…nothing should have happened between us.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “She may surprise you.”

 

 

MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, Ireland

 

Lena couldn’t get rid of the thought that Morgan Edge was a lot closer than seemed logical. Perhaps it was paranoia, perhaps it was the deeper threat of how far he was willing to go to get what he wanted, but the urge to hurry, to get to the end of this quest, pummeled her and made her careless. 

When faced with the option of her conclusions or Kara’s, she ultimately chose the peak Kara had insisted was the correct one. Lena might not have been able to yield ground to Kara in person, but Kara’s knowledge and expertise were unmatched.

High in a jagged crook below the peak of Cnoc na Peiste, Lena found the mouth of the cavern shaped as described in the map’s puzzle. 

Once again, Kara had been right.

Instead of irritating her with another example of Kara’s excellence, Lena was somewhat comforted. It felt like Kara was with her. 

She wished Kara were here. In some ways, Kara deserved to end this quest more than she did, but it was too late to do anything about that now. 

Into the dark Lena crept, navigating the labyrinth of tunnels and caves as the map suggested, trusting in Kara’s translation every step of the way. Without a clear path, someone could get lost down here, wandering forever with no hope of escape. 

Her pack included food and water, a locator beacon, a handheld radio and several signal relay rods to post as she passed in case she needed to call for help. 

Whenever possible, she planted one of the signal relays, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t need them. If Edge got here before Lena left again, she was doomed anyway.

Kara’s wasn’t the only presence Lena felt with her. In Lena’s imagination, her mother’s ghost walked beside her though she didn’t believe in such things. Her mother would have loved this - the thrill of pursuit, the excitement of discovery. 

It was exciting…until Lena slipped and slid down a steep decline into a small pit. She splayed out one arm to break her fall and torqued her wrist the wrong way with a cry. The pain made her gasp until a glint of light caught her attention.

She swallowed the pain in surprise.

Nestled in the wall of the cavern sat a small mirror, an oval set in bronze no larger than the outline of Lena’s face. 

Lena shifted her wait and rose to her feet. She stumbled towards the mirror and stretched out her hand, but froze inches from it. 

She’d found it. The legend her mother had searched for but never found. The end of a path she’d pursued for so long, she couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t wanted it.

The mirror wouldn’t really grant her any powers, but that wasn’t what was important - no matter what people like Edge thought. 

She had done the thing her mother had not. Completing the quest should have invigorated Lena with a sense of the accomplishment, but after a few moments of standing in the cold dark, Lena was shocked to feel only a gaping loneliness. 

The puzzle was solved but she was still alone. 

Lena wiped tears that she realized had coated her face and reached for the mirror.

The moment her skin touched the unnaturally smooth surface, a powerful buzzing sounded in her ears. The next thing she knew, a concussive blast knocked her into the cavern wall. She cried out as the stone crags bit into her side and felt one ankle roll when she landed badly. She crumpled to the ground.

The mirror had landed in the dirt, and an ethereal green glow washed over it before tendrils of eerie light spilled over the ground, snaking their way towards Lena.

Kara had been right about everything, it seemed.

When the first tendril touched Lena’s skin, the rest thickened and rose, forming glowing shapes in the dark that filled the expanse of the pit.

Images - memories, really - swirled before Lena’s eyes, not figments of her imagination, but cloudy holograms in the space between her and the mirror, whispering to her. Lex, pointing at her and laughing. Lillian, sneering at her inferiority. Lionel, turning his back on her. Her mother, drowning, but this time crying for Lena to help her.

Kara, pleading with her in sorrow. 

The images swelled, grew larger, the voices still whispers but louder like a manic wind. The pain in her body intensified in her head until she clapped her hands over her ears, until she shouted, until she crushed her eyes closed against the onslaught that felt like it lasted for hours.

A new voice joined the cacophony, one familiar and surprisingly welcome. 

Lena opened her eyes.

Kara stood near the mirror, one arm outstretched into the cone of green light, another clasping a giant leather-bound tome. She read from the book in a full, powerful voice drawn from her diaphragm. It resonated in the cavern, echoing off its walls. 

She spoke in what sounded like Gaelic, or maybe it was Old Irish, but Lena couldn’t understand the words. 

The swirling images receded, losing their intensity as Kara chanted the same phrase repeatedly. The tendrils receded from Lena…and rushed toward Kara until they formed a swimming green cone of light from her feet to her head. They enveloped Kara in their midst, but she intensified her chanting. 

Kara pulled the green into herself. She yelled one last chant and then offered a new phrase she hadn’t spoken yet. 

“De réir mo ordaithe, glac an croí seo agus bí sásta.”

The green light soaked into Kara’s body, spidering in her veins before disappearing altogether. Kara dropped the book and fell to one knee, her hair a curtain around her face.

In the quiet of the cave, their labored breaths sounded thunderous.

Kara recovered first. “Are you okay?” Faint green light pulsed in her eyes.

Lena couldn’t contain the sob that escaped, but bit back the rest. “I - I don’t think so.”

There was so much to say, but she had no idea where to begin, what to explain first. 

“My mother was fascinated by the story of the mirror,” Lena said finally. “She didn’t believe in its magic, I don’t think, but she did believe that it existed and searched for it until her death.”

Kara didn’t ask, but Lena felt the question.

“She drowned when I was four. My father claimed me soon after, and brought me back to Luthor Manor.”

Such a simple sentence that encompassed the complete upending of Lena’s world.

“I thought…finding it…for her…would make me feel…” Better. She thought it would make her feel better. But now… “Nothing’s changed.”

Kara scrambled closer, lifted Lena into a sitting position. “I don’t think that’s true.” The weird green had receded and her eyes looked normal, though the light from the flashlights blanched their rich blue. “I think you’re different now.”

How could she say that?

Lena started crying again. “I’m sorry for the way I -“ The way she’d treated Kara. 

“Don’t worry about that now. Let me look at your injuries.”

Lena shook her head. “You don’t have to -“

“Lena - Dr. Luthor,” Kara said. ‘I haven’t gone to medical school yet, but I am a certified EMT.”

Was there anything Kara didn’t know how to do?

Kara’s pack only contained a basic first aid kit. She secured the one large bandage to the long bleeding wound on Lena’s side, a shallow but painful cut. She then prioritized Lena’s ankle over her wrist and immobilized it with the only wrap bandage she had available. 

“We need to get you out of here.”

Kara retrieved the book and tucked it into her backpack. She helped Lena rise gingerly to her feet, but Lena groaned when her ankle twinged. She wouldn’t be able to walk out on her own.

“I’ve got you,” Kara said, and Lena believed her.

Kara shifted one of Lena’s arms over her shoulders and took Lena’s weight off her feet. When she turned towards the incline where Lena had fallen, Lena stopped her.

She pointed to the mirror.

“We can’t leave it here.” It seemed inert, but Lena didn’t want to take any chances.

Kara frowned, but nodded.

When Kara gingerly touched the mirror, nothing happened. It appeared to be an old relic, but Kara wrapped it in a scarf and tucked it into her backpack with the book.

Once again, Kara led Lena to the way out.

Lena tried to process all that had happened, but it was too much.

Instead, she asked for more data, as always. “What did you - what were you saying?” 

Kara looked confused but then caught up. “The spirits test for worthiness. Don’t feel bad for not passing the test, because it’s rigged. I had to basically berate them and then use some power words to get them in line. The last phrase means - get this - ‘by my command, take this heart and be content.”

The words bounced around inside Lena’s aching skull, but sense didn’t come.

“How did you know…?” Lena couldn’t form the words to ask about something so…so unfathomable.

Kara shrugged. “Well, there’s no official field of research.” She shifted the bag on her back to give Lena more freedom of movement. “But I’ve studied as much as I could find on the subject, and even though the volumes I’ve found - well, the sources are questionable, but…”

Despite her pain, Lena found the rambling soothing and almost…cute.

“Anyway,” Kara said. “I guess you could call me an amateur demonologist.”

Of course she was. Lena wanted to roll her eyes, but the proof was in Kara’s bag.

“I feel like…” It was just a gut feeling, and Lena didn’t like to count on hunches. Perhaps Kara would understand, even if Lena didn’t. “I think Edge is on his way here.”

“Oh, he’s here already.” Kara was matter of fact and didn’t seem concerned.

Lena, on the other hand, was alarmed enough to forget the pain for a moment. “He’s dangerous, Kara. We’ve got to stay out of his way.”

Kara snickered, completely out of place in their current situation. “Well, he’s also relying on idiots, so they’re over at Carrauntoohil. We’ve got time enough to get you out of here.”

“How did you get here so quickly?” Talking was better. It helped distract from the agony of her wounds as they staggered up the incline.

“I figured you’d come directly here, but Jack confirmed it. Once I got here, I could have followed the map, but the signal relays were faster.”

By the time they reached the first signal relay, Lena was exhausted from her ordeal and the pain of her in juries. They weren’t making much progress. 

“I feel…different,” Kara said.

The wild possibilities of all the legends they’d read made Lena wonder if Kara was about to become some sort of mad, power-hungry superhuman. 

Kara turned to face Lena. “In fact…” 

To Lena’s relieved surprise and personal horror, Kara lifted Lena in her arms and proceeded through the tunnels at a faster pace.

“This is ridiculous, Kara. Put me down.” Lena was more worried about Kara than embarrassed about her position. “You might be injured yourself.” Or possessed, or something equally outlandish but suddenly possible.

“I feel fine,” Kara said. “But I discovered on the way down that I can’t get through to my sister, Alex, via the relays. She will absolutely call the Marines if I don’t check in on schedule, so we’ve got to get out of here.”

Lena sank into Kara’s body with relief, though she tried to hide how good it felt. “We’re not exactly in their jurisdiction.”

Kara snickered. “You don’t know her. Alex won’t let a little thing like the Irish Defence Forces get in her way.”

Without complaint or any visible effort, Kara carried Lena back the way she’d come. Lena insisted they reclaim the relays as they went, hoping to mask their trail, not that Edge would find anything if followed their path.

Outside, far more time had passed than Lena had previously realized. The sun had just set and twilight fell over the mountains. Kara lifted Lena into a monstrosity of a helicopter that sat on a flat expanse of rock near the mouth of the cavern, and once Kara had secured herself as well, the awkwardness set in.

“I’d rather not go to the hospital, if you don’t mind. I’ve know a medic nearby who can…treat my wounds.” The pain made it hard to breathe, but Lena closed her eyes and tried to endure it.

“Of course, Dr. Luthor.”

Lena opened her eyes and glanced at Kara. The formal address had been delivered without sarcasm, though it was certainly justified. Lena observed yet another display of competence as Kara danced her capable hands across the console, performing all the pre-flight checks and readying the helicopter for take-off. 

Kara, who had followed her once again - this time into the darkness - and saved her life. 

Take this heart and be content.

Lena peered out the window to avoid any response to her next words. 

“I think we’re past that, don’t you?’

Kara didn’t say anything until Lena finally gave in and looked back at her face. Kara’s wide smile only made Lena blush.

“I sure hope so, Lena,” Kara said, joy alight in her eyes. 

Hope. 

Lena closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and though she didn’t say a word, she opened her heart to possibility.

 

EPILOGUE

 

Five months later

 

National City, Redux

 

Lena tossed the tablet on the lab table, disgusted. “You’ve broken your own personal best.” 

How they were ever going to get solid data for a baseline was beyond her. Though there had been no other side effects as a result of their ordeal, Kara’s strength and speed kept increasing, though slowly. Her hearing and vision were better than anything ever recorded, and her caloric intake was astounding.

It made their investigation problematic. None of Kara’s research had revealed what other powers might make an appearance, but they were scheduled to revisit Ireland to do more digging into the past.

Kara slowed her pace on the treadmill and stepped off it. A muted television mounted beyond her flashed a news update that briefly caught Lena’s attention. Edge had been arrested that morning on multiple counts of wire fraud. 

Kara kissed Lena’s temple as she passed. She hadn’t even broken a sweat. “We’ll try again when we get back, but right now, we’ve got hurry to catch our flight.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “When you own the self-piloting plane, you don’t have to rush.”

“Yes, yes,” Kara said as she headed for the door. “But I’ve got research to review while we’re in the air.”

Their adventures had inspired Kara to add a masters in Egyptology to her list of accomplishments.

“You don’t need another degree, you know. You already have the job.” Lena was teasing, but it secretly pleased her that Kara’s intelligence was as sharp as her own. 

“All I want to do is learn,” Kara said for what must have been the hundredth time. 

Not long after, Lena parked the Vanquish in the hangar near the G550. Kara beat her to the trunk and had lifted out all the bags save one by the time Lena joined her.

Lena clutched her attache in one hand and reached for the last bag. “I added a second server to the jet so you can work on your thesis.”

“Thanks, Lena. That’s very thoughtful,” Kara said, devoting her full attention to Lena.

Lena blushed, something that happened with frightening regularity of late, especially when Kara turned on the charm. Honestly, it was like Kara did it on purpose.

The sadist in question grinned. “Yet another reason why I love you.” 

The words were delivered in a matter-of-fact tone that conveyed their permanence, and Kara’s expression suggested she meant them in all their power.

Lena’s heart soared, but her brain hadn’t yet caught up. “You can’t possibly know me well enough to feel that way.” 

It was a flimsy counter-argument. They’d become inseparable over the last few months, rarely spending time apart. Kara probably knew Lena better than Jack did though they’d both known him longer than they’d known each other.

“One of these days, you’ll believe me.” Kara smiled sadly, but then she winked, and it turned into a grin. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Lena fought the urge to roll her eyes. It would have been a poor defense anyway against Kara’s earnest nature. Not to mention the fact that she was helplessly in love with Kara in return, though she lacked the courage to speak it.

At least so far.

They turned toward the jet. 

“After you, Dr. Luthor,” Kara said with a slight ridiculous bow.

“Thank you, Dr. Danvers,” Lena replied in kind, helpless in the face of Kara’s endless good humor.

If knowing Kara was right behind her helped put a spring in her step, she’d never admit it. By the time Kara stepped forward to walk alongside her, Lena managed a smile that she hoped might convey what she couldn’t yet say. 

And then Kara reached out and claimed the last bag. She looked like an overwrought porter in a classic film, waddling with four bags in tow.

Lena glared at the heavens but didn’t reclaim her bag. “I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own - “

Kara tossed the strap of the bag on her shoulder with the others and claimed Lena’s free hand with her own.

For once, Lena surrendered. She raised their clasped hands to her lips and pressed a kiss to Kara’s fingers.

“My life is never going to be boring with you around, is it?” Lena asked.

Kara laughed. 

 

- FIN - 

Notes:

Please forgive the modern Irish instead of Old Irish. I didn’t have the time or resources to track down *that* translation. Special thanks to @qclarksonwrites and ValkyrieNine. Additional nods of thanks to TOMB RAIDER (2001), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), THE LIBRARIAN: QUEST FOR THE SPEAR (2004), and IRON MAN (2008).