Chapter Text
Thursday, February 8, 2018
The check-in pavilion at the Athlete’s Village, PyeongChang, South Korea…
A bespectacled blonde woman wearing a penguin sweater, a red puffy coat, and flannel lined black jeans stands in line at the front desk, waiting for her turn with the afternoon’s final queue attendant.
Nervous and excited and frazzled from travel, she toys with her freshly minted athlete ID, replete with holograms and shielded RF chips and other sundry anti-counterfeit measures. She keeps glancing down at it and smiling at the sight of her photo, goofy grin and all, superimposed over the American flag. The phrase so fucking cool ricochets inside her brain like a happy little pinball.
She’s not alone; everywhere she looks, people from around the world are smiling like lunatics, chatting animatedly to each other and to their loved ones via mobile phone. Many are live streaming their first look at the Village to their social media accounts, or FaceTiming, or trying in their own ways to share the singular mania of Olympic anticipation.
For so many, this moment, milling around a crowded lobby strung with scores of international flags, is the cusp of a dream become reality, a culmination of lifelong dedication to sport. It’s a bit like they’ve all been accepted to Hogwarts, she reflects, so strong is the sense of anticipation and wonderment.
“Next,” the attendant calls, jarring her from geeky contemplation.
She steps forward, still has enough energy to bounce a little on her toes. “Hi! Good Morning! I’m Kara Danvers.”
The young woman at the credentials kiosk doesn’t look up from her computer terminal, just nods and asks, “Nationality?”
“America, USA. Or, umm, United States?” Kara laughs at herself when the girl glances up, frowning. “Sorry. I never know which one to say.”
“United States,” the girl replies. She types hurriedly, aims a laser scanning gun at Kara’s ID lanyard, and hands over a keycard and a sheaf of papers. “Athlete’s Village rules and regulations, Village map, venue maps, your practice and event schedules, and your rooming assignment. Twenty-fifth floor, Suite 259.”
Kara shoves the papers into her duffle and examines the black plastic keycard, emblazoned with five Olympic rings and the PyeongChang Games motto: Passion. Connected. She smiles at the young woman and says “Hanadoen yeoljeong!”
The girl gives her a half-smile in return, appreciative of the effort. “Close enough. Good luck, America USA.”
Kara beams and shoulders her bags. “Thanks!”
She crams into the elevator car with several other athletes, all freshly checked in, all lugging bags stuffed with competition suits and equipment. It’s a tight fit, but everyone is smiling and patient as Kara wedges herself into the last bit of available space.
“Sorry,” she says, squeezing her boot bag between her feet and hugging her snowboard sleeve and duffel to her chest.
As the car climbs, several passengers disembark and Kara shuffles to the rear so she can lean against the wall and shut her eyes for a moment. Exhausted from the trip, she’s already fantasizing about falling into bed and napping in her clothes.
“Long flight, Supergirl?” someone asks.
Irked, but unfailingly polite, Kara blinks herself aware and locks eyes with a vaguely handsome man, thirty-ish, scantly bearded and smirky. She can’t read the name on his ID, but she recognizes the flag of Liechtenstein, a renowned tax haven. Between that and his general air of lazy repose, she assumes he’s yet another wealthy playboy ski bum.
“Yeah. Multiple layovers.” She yawns so widely that her jaw cracks. Something about the guy’s relaxed manner and casual use of her nickname seems familiar, but his face is so generic that Kara can’t call up a name. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”
“Maybe. I meet a lot of girls,” he says with a shrug. “I just recognized your logo, is all.” He nods toward her equipment bag, covered with cartoon graphics of Kara copping big air while wearing a red cape. “It’s cute.”
He’s doing the whole ‘I’m too cool to be impressed’ thing, but Kara is too tired to play games. She sighs and shuts her eyes again. “Thanks for the feedback.”
The elevator stops and brownbeard steps out of the car, turns, smirks again. “Mickey Gand. I’m in 183, if you need help waxing your board or anything.”
Kara presses the button to close the lift doors in his face. “Okay thanks bye bye.”
The car jolts upward again and her lone fellow rider, a short and muscular guy with the tree trunk thighs of a speed skater, snickers.
“If you need help waxing your board…” he says, mimicking Gand and stroking an imaginary beard. “Wow. So sexy.”
Despite herself, Kara giggles. “I know, right?”
“And your little logo is cute, I guess, if you’re into things that are awesome…”
The funny guy - Winnslow Schott, according to his ID lanyard - lifts his duffel and proudly displays the KD Supergirl logo embroidered on the side. Kara laughs in earnest and gives him a thumbs up. It’s becoming a more common thing, seeing boys and men using her branded gear, and it always makes her happy.
Dakine, her primary gear sponsor, crafted the iconic graphic from an image taken during her gold medal-winning Superpipe run in the 2016 X-Games. The photo captured Kara in the middle of a perfect cab 1080 double cork, her body rigidly horizontal, one arm straight ahead, fist closed. A commentator picked up on the visual reference and started shouting “Supergirl! Supergirl!”
That spirited outburst paired with a fortuitous press conference afterward, where Kara staunchly defended a problematic teammate, Leslie “Livewire” Willis, who had recently failed a drug test.
“She doesn’t need drugs,” Kara had said. “When meth wants to get high, it smokes Leslie.”
The violation turned out to be a lab error. Kara got major props for defending the innocent, advocating fair play, and advising slow judgment rather than presumption of guilt. She and Leslie weren’t friends (still aren’t), but Kara chafes at the notion of any innocent person getting railroaded, bullied, slandered.
Chafes is perhaps too mild a word. She really fucking hates it.
Within six months, the “Supergirl” branding snowballed from t-shirts to gear to homologated pro tour equipment. Kara’s not rich, but if things keep going this well, it’s a distinct possibility.
“I have your new board on order at the ski shop back home in Vermont,” says Winnslow Schott. “The deck with the iridescent spectrum, looks like the Bifrost?”
Kara raises her brows. “You mean the sparkly rainbow one?”
Winn pulls a confused face. “Sparkly rainbow? Wait, so it’s not the Bifrost? It’s like…like a gay rainbow?”
Kara, who’s been out since high school and lovingly crafted the pride-themed board in question, replies: “Hella gay.”
Winn breathes a sigh of relief and delicately touches his chest. “Oh, thank god. I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong impression.”
Suckered and glad of it, Kara rolls her eyes and extends her hand for a chummy little ‘ya got me!’ fist bump. The car stops on the twenty-fifth floor and they both get out.
“I’m in 252, if you want to hang out sometime.” He flashes his ID. “Winn Schott, skater boy. But visualize it spelled like Avril’s song, okay?”
“With an 8 and an o-i?”
“Exactly.”
“Wow. Nerd.”
“Exactly,” he says, smiling warmly. “Really cool meeting you. If we don’t cross paths again, have a great games, Supergirl.”
Kara suspects she truly would enjoy crossing paths with this fella again. “Same to you. But if we’re gonna hang out, you’ve gotta call me Kara. I’m in 259. If you stop by, do a really gay knock so I know you’re not Mickey Gand.”
Winn looks surprised and delighted. He doffs his knit cap, bowing. “As you wish!”
Kara responds with a graceful curtsy and flounces off toward her suite, where it takes several swipes of the keycard to activate the lock… which feels slightly sticky, almost like someone spilled soda on it. She can’t tell if it’s faulty, or if she’s just so punchy that she can’t even manage a simple card swipe.
Either way, she wipes her hand on her jeans and tumbles into her suite room, which she’s relieved to find is empty, save for a pile of baggage heaped on one of the room’s two full-size beds.
She frowns. Her absent roommate has evidently called dibs on the bed by the window, a really nice eastern exposure that promises tons of early morning light, which would be perfect for her dawn yoga routine. Kara sheds her coat and drops her baggage, then takes a photo of the window with her roomie’s stuff strewn across the claimed bed. She checks the time - 4 pm, which makes it about 11 pm back home - and sends the pic to her sister. Alex responds within seconds.
Alex: Ha! Scooped! Beaten to the punch! For shame.
Kara: Four layovers! Not my fault! Why am I being punished??
Alex: Maybe she’ll trade beds. Ask nicely. Downhillers are mostly chill.
Kara: How can you tell her events? Her stuff isn’t even unpacked.
Alex sends back the pic Kara just sent, now with a circle drawn around a stray ski pole poking out of a partially zipped gear bag. Kara looks over at the item Alex deemed a clue, and sees the pole sports a curved hand guard, which slalom skiers use to knock aside gates as they hurtle down the slope. Leave it to her sister to pick up on such a small yet telling detail.
Kara: ur so fn smart
Alex: I’m a detective; I detect. Nuff about me — you’re at the MOTHERFUCKING OLYMPICS!!!! How are you not freaking out???? AHHHH!!!!
Kara: Who says I’m not? I’m totally freaking out!
She flings herself onto the bed and hollers into the pillow, then notices something wildly cool and sends another picture to her sister. The comforter atop the bed is covered in the PyeongChang Games logo, and it’s the most magical thing Kara has seen since her Britney Spears pillowcase from middle school.
Kara: Al omg!! Lookit my Olympic Games comforter!
Alex: OMG I love it pls steal it for me
Kara: I totally will. When are you getting here? I miss you!
Alex: I’ll be there in time for halfpipe qualifiers. Rest up and enjoy the opening ceremony. Send me lots of pics!
Kara: Tons, I promise
Alex:Love ya, sis!
Kara: Love to Maggie!
Alex: Love to your roomie! Hope she’s hot!
Kara: Hope she’s not! (ur an asshole)
Alex sends a line of kiss emojis and Kara feels warm, feels like she’s actually sharing this moment with her sister, who suffered through years of practices and injuries and travel right alongside Kara. Alex should be here, as an Olympian and not merely a spectator, and probably would be… if not for Kara, the adopted sibling who stole her thunder.
While Alex was a natural athlete who swam like a fish, ran like a greyhound, and carved through snow like a hot blade, her abilities were overshadowed by Kara’s almost superhuman facility for snowboarding. After Jeremiah Danvers died suddenly during Kara’s senior year of high school, family finances tightened up and Alex quit all of her sporting pursuits to focus on graduating college early and getting into the forensics unit of the Denver Police Department.
Between Alex and Eliza, the Danvers women scraped together enough money to keep Kara outfitted in top-notch gear, fly her to competitions, and cover the various costs of training. It’s because of them that Kara was able to stick with her sport until that X-Games breakthrough, where she made a name for herself and the sponsorship dollars finally started rolling in.
By the end of 2017, Kara’s prize money had paid off Eliza’s house, and her endorsements paid off Alex’s student loans, still leaving Kara enough to live comfortably. Her agent is already talking with Oculus and HTC about a VR snowboarding game, (which, Kara can’t even imagine how it would work, but whatever) and he says that if Kara makes a good showing here at the games, Red Bull will come calling.
There’s a lot riding on her performance here, and she thinks that’s the case for almost every athlete in the games. For some, a medal could dramatically improve their family’s standard of living. For some, a medal will catapult them into stardom. For some, a medal will be a mere shiny trinket to set on the mantel and show their grandkids someday.
Not all Olympians have the option to earn a good living at their sport. Kara knows she is one of the lucky ones, and she doesn’t plan to squander this opportunity. She rolls onto her side and runs her fingers over the games logo, touches each of the five rings and murmurs the Olympic motto, the hendiatris.
“Citius. Altius. Fortius.” She sighs and lays her arms across her face. “Don’t. Fuck. Up.”
“I don’t think that’s what it means, but okay,” says a voice, weak and muffled, from across the room.
Kara whips upright, heart racing. She never heard the door open. The door didn’t open. Which means her roommate - if that’s who the voice belongs to - has been in the suite with her all along.
“Hello?” she hesitantly calls out. “Where are you?”
The voice takes a few seconds to respond. “Umm…on the floor, I think.”
Kara clutches her phone tight and creeps around the end of the other bed. Sure enough, there’s a woman lying facedown on the carpet.
The unidentified prone female is already dressed in her Team USA-issued Ralph Lauren gear (which Kara has yet to unpack), including suede mountaineering boots with red laces, slim cut jeans, a leather belt, and a patriotic knit sweater. The red-white-and-blue parka (with a built-in heater!) is under her tummy, perhaps as an ersatz pillow.
“Are you okay?” Kara asks, keeping her voice low. She suspects this woman has a hangover. Some people are afraid to fly and they drink a lot on planes. That paired with international flight can result in wicked disorientation and painful jet lag. Kara’s seen it happen and it can get pretty gnarly until they sober up and their bodies adjust.
The woman grumbles something that sounds like foreign cursing, and rolls onto her right side. Her long black hair is gathered up in a punishingly tight ponytail, giving Kara a clear look at her left profile: high cheekbones, strong brows, sterling jawline, jade eyes.
She’s also got a body like an 80s music video goddess, all hazardous curves and coiled muscle. That much is obvious at a glance, even with the Polo camouflage, and Kara is unaccountably mad at her sister.
Well, she’s hot. Goddamn it, Alex.
“Hand up, pal?” the woman croaks, and lifts her arm slightly.
Kara leans down, gets a firm grip on her forearm and helps the woman to her feet. She readies her best smile, because first impressions matter, but ends up gasping and blanching when she sees the woman’s face, the right side of which is streaked with dried blood.
“Sweet Christmas! What happened to you?”
The woman follows Kara’s eye line and raises a hand to her scalp, seemingly unsurprised when her fingers contact a fresh, wet wound.
“Oh, this, sorry,” she says, waving off Kara’s concern, utterly nonchalant. “It’s nothing. Some idiot bashed me in the stairwell.”
“On purpose?” Kara can’t conceal her dismay. Physical violence is not really a part of her world, and seeing evidence of it in person is unsettling. “Like, they assaulted you?”
She regards Kara with bemused patience, as if she fears she might be slow. “A man rushed down the stairs toward me, smashed a wrench against my skull, and fled. It is my interpretation of events that, yes, I was assaulted. On purpose.”
Kara is stunned silent, mouth open, watching on mute as the woman rounds the bed and heads into the ensuite. How someone could remain not only sanguine but fiercely lucid after taking a whack to the dome, she cannot fathom.
She hears the sink run for a few seconds, then the shower turns on, and Kara finally jolts into motion. Getting in the shower is probably not safe for someone with a head injury.
“Hey, you need a doctor. And some cops. So…I’m gonna call for a doctor and some cops, okay?” she rambles, hovering at the ensuite doorway.
The woman is seated on the toilet. She’s already cleaned most of the dried blood from her face, unlaced her boots, toed them off, and shimmied out of those slim-cut jeans. Now, she’s trying to shuck her sweater without brushing the collar against her bloody scalp.
“Help me with this, would you?” she says. “I don’t think there’s time to get it dry cleaned before the Parade of Nations tomorrow night.”
Kara just blinks at first, certain the woman is in shock. But then she waves her semi-trapped arms, sweater sleeves flopping impotently, pokes out her lips and pouts so fetchingly that Kara, weak fool that she is, can’t not help her.
Carefully, they inch the sweater over her head without staining it, and Kara pulls it the rest of the way off, leaving the woman in a sleeveless black tee and pink cheeky briefs festooned with penguins.
“We match,” Kara says, as she neatly rolls the sweater KonMari style.
The woman’s ample brows furrow. “Sorry?”
Kara points at her own black and white sweater, then the woman’s cute undies. “Penguins.”
It takes a moment or two of glancing back and forth, but then she smiles and its nothing short of dazzling. She laughs once - just once, a baby hiccup of a laugh - before her smile crumples and the tears start to roll.
“Hey. No. Hey, you’re okay,” Kara says, immediately opening her arms and easing them together in a gentle, comforting embrace. “You’re okay. We’re gonna get you a doctor and call the police and we’ll catch whoever did this. You’re going to be safe and well and totally good in no time flat. I promise. I promise.”
Her arms, curled around Kara’s waist, tighten briefly. Then she lets go and steps back, leans against the sink, whispers a small word of thanks, her voice swamped by the warm susurrations of the shower. She looks embarrassed, as if she wolfed down her designated ration of comfort and is still starving. Kara’s instinct is to reach for her again.
But they’re essentially strangers. And this is a very weird, potentially volatile situation. Kara takes a step back, to give her space.
“No,” she says. “You’re very sweet, but no. No doctors, no police.”
“Are you sure? Whoever hurt you is still out there,” Kara protests. “What if they attack someone else?”
“It’s not like that. He was after me, specifically,” she says, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. “Another of Lex’s crackpot acolytes, trying to honor his memory by killing his apostate sister.”
Oh. Oh, shit.
Realization crashes over Kara with all the subtlety of an Ice Bucket Challenge. The wounded woman who was just crying in her arms is Lena Luthor, sister of Lex Luthor.
Lex Luthor, the billionaire scion, founder of the Singularity cult, multiple murderer, terrorist, and self-styled martyr. Convicted largely on testimony from his younger sister, Lena. Condemned and executed three years ago. Reviled by those he victimized, revered by those who believe he found a path to eternal life through technology.
Kara stiffens, and it’s perceptible. Lena casts her eyes down, takes a shaky breath.
“You didn’t know,” she says. “That I’m…me.”
“No. No? No, it’s just that you don’t look…” Kara fumbles and shrugs. “In all the news footage from the trial, you had your hair down and wore those big weird glasses. And in competition-”
“Goggles. Big weird goggles,” Lena says, nodding. “Okay, feasible glitch in your facial recognition software. But didn’t they give you an info packet downstairs? Roommate’s name is the first thing listed.”
“I didn’t read it.” Kara shrugs, again, and winces. “I’m sorry.”
“God. You poor thing. Look what you’ve stumbled into.” She makes a tut-tut sound and shakes her head. “Well. Not to worry. It’s early going, so you can still get reassigned to another suite. I’m sure they can find you a roomie with less drama.”
Kara opens her mouth to apologize again, but Lena just chuckles and flicks her fingers, as if it’s no big deal.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need a long, hot shower and a deep, restorative nap. Weed and red wine would be better, but a girl makes do.”
Kara has been politely dismissed, and relieved of the guaranteed massive distraction of rooming with a notorious personage. If she gathers her things, marches downstairs and asks for a different room, she could be unpacked, fed and asleep within a couple of hours.
Yet Kara finds herself reluctant to go, and so she sits down on the edge of her bed and gives the whole mess a bit of a think.
She feels certain that if she leaves - when she leaves, she has to leave - Lena Luthor will be all alone. Which, truth be told, would be nothing new.
Lena was alone during the trial, which had to be the most traumatic period of her life. Kara remembers that Lex’s little sister, the Fed’s star witness, walked into the courthouse everyday unaccompanied by family or friends, escorted only by two U.S. Marshals who apparently did a shit job of protecting her.
During the trial, Lena Luthor survived three attempts on her life.
Over her eight days of testimony, Lena showed up first with bruises visible on her throat and jaw, then with a cast on her left hand, and finally - on the last day of the trial - with a blood-speckled bandage on her forehead and a gauze-wrapped upper arm.
Some speculated that the Luthor heiress highlighted her injuries to garner public sympathy. Others suggested she chose not to cover them with makeup or clothing as a show of defiance toward Lex and his followers.
Either way, her resilience earned the grudging respect of her fellow athletes on the FIS Alpine Ski Tour, as well as a discerning sector of the general public. People started hash tagging Lena Luthor’s social media mentions with the letters HTK, meaning Hard To Kill.
Still applies, Kara thinks.
As far as Kara knows, Lena granted only one interview after the trial, and that resulted in a sometimes combative, sometimes revelatory 10,000 word tour-de-force written by media maven Cat Grant. In a nifty show of journalistic craftiness, Grant managed to wheedle more information out of Lena Luthor than most folks ever wanted to know, thereby slaking the world’s thirst for her blood, her secrets, her tears.
Kara had read that article several times. It almost made her want to study writing, just so she could augment her painting hobby with artful words. She loves to paint and draw people, to encode her impressions via pencil and brush, imbuing each portrait of Alex or Eliza or Jeremiah, or their beloved Malamute, Krypto, with vibrant love.
Cat Grant’s article made Kara want to explore the nuances of stories people often overlook, those behaviors and choices that lead us toward darkness, or into the light. Grant made it clear that Lena Luthor had deliberately chosen her path, knowing full and well the terrible consequences she could suffer.
Two months after publication, Lex Luthor was executed with only his mother, Lillian, in attendance. By then, Lena had fled to the remote Lauberhorn in Switzerland to resume her World Cup training. Public appetite for Luthor gossip died down, and Kara assumed that people had moved on, were trying to heal and forgive, if not forget.
Apparently she was wrong. People still bear ill will toward the Luthor name, or toward Lena for delivering Lex to his just end. Someone out there is still angry enough to invade the safe zone of Olympic games, seeking vengeance. They rushed an unsuspecting young woman and tried to crack open her skull.
“For what?” Kara wonders aloud. “It’s not fair.” Her hands clench into fists. “It’s just not fair.”
She sits quietly, stewing in the injustice of it all, for an undetermined stretch of time. Eventually, the ensuite’s pocket door slides open and Lena emerges, wrapped in a towel.
She pauses, clearly surprised to find Kara still here, then turns away and starts unpacking clothes from a battered leather Hermes travel case.
“Are they arranging a new suite for you?” she asks.
Kara looks up and, unbidden, her eyes light on a rough band of scar tissue around Lena’s right bicep. It looks like a burn of some sort, and matches the location of one of the wounds she allegedly suffered during Lex’s trial.
Heat creeps up the back of Kara’s neck. She’s angry. Though she has virtually no right to be, she is. Angry that someone hurt Lena over things someone else did. Angry that people still want to hurt her.
“It’s not fair,” she mutters.
Without dislodging her towel, Lena slips on pair of fleece pants and a fresh black t-shirt. She turns and faces Kara. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“There’s no more rooms,” Kara says. “Though I’ve got an open offer to bunk with Mickey Gand.”
Lena’s green eyes widen. Her jaw flexes, then she essays a strained smile. “God, what a choice. Me or gonorrhea.”
Kara groans. “Hard pass. Guess you’re stuck with me.”
Lena merely nods. If she suspects Kara is lying, she’s apparently not going to say so. “Thank you, for earlier. You really are very sweet.”
“I didn’t really do anything,” Kara insists.
“Which is exactly what I asked you to do,” Lena points out. She sits on her bed, across from Kara, and regards her with a calm sincerity.
“My goal here is to qualify in four events, and I don’t even care if I win. I just want to compete. Skiing is maybe the only thing in my life that still makes me feel normal. On the course, I’m no one’s sister, no one’s daughter, no one’s betrayer…I’m just another suicidal dolt hurtling downhill, trying to beat the clock. It’s simple.”
“Pure,” Kara adds, nodding, understanding.
Lena smiles. “As the driven snow.” She claps her hands against her thighs, signaling that their sensitive chat is over. “So. You’re my roommate.”
“I am,” Kara confirms, without elaboration.
“Huh. Never had a roommate before.” Lena’s face scrunches in amusement. “I’m not sure what the protocols are.”
Kara realizes it’s not so strange that she didn’t recognize Lena. Her face in person is so animated, so expressive, that it bears little resemblance to the stoic mask she wore during the trial. Kara thinks it might be fun to put that face through its paces, to see how many times she can make it laugh or smile or squish into silliness.
“I don’t think there are protocols, per se. How ‘bout we make it up as we go along?” Kara suggests.
Lena seems to like this idea. Her eyes are practically twinkling. “So if, for instance, I asked you to help me glue my scalp back together in exchange for unlimited pizza tonight at the dining hall…”
Now Kara’s eyes are practically twinkling. “Not a soul could stop us.”
“Fantastic!” Lena bounds off the bed. “I’ll get the glue!”
TBC