Chapter Text
Kara Danvers was one of those kids who was always almost dying.
Eliza had told her so a hundred times: one day, Kara, you're gonna stick your head where it don't belong and lose it . She climbs trees to rescue old ladies' cats; she solves a playground fight with a swift punch to the nose; she gets a lowdown membership at a boxing ring; she gets a PI license and chases down the lowest of the low.
But the closest Kara ever comes to death, truly, is when Lena Luthor pushes open her office door without a knock, in a black dress and with a face people start wars over. The next four closest times Kara comes to death are all because of that face.
And what a face, really. Like a sculpture. Like an old conquering hero had a lover and had her immortalized. Lena Luthor’s skin was alabaster pale, jaw like marble, eyebrows a vivid dark on the paper of her face. And the rest of her was perfect as pie, perfect like heaven, curves like a mountain road too dangerous to go over thirty on. And Kara Danvers was always one of those women who was always almost dying:
“I need your help, Detective Danvers,” Lena Luthor said, that fateful day two years ago, and Kara Danvers had sat up like a marionette in her chair and smiled real big.
“Anything you need, Miss…”
“Luthor. Lena Luthor.”
--
Two years later…
Kara hits the deck hard. No one really expects to be running through the Boardwalk only to get clocked in the face with a toy gun, but her nose takes the brunt of it, and then she’s on her back looking up at the dusky purple sky of National City.
“Aw, jeez,” Kara spits out, rolling over just to see her perp in the wind, sprinting down the Boardwalk limbs akimbo. “Why’d you hit me, kid?”
When she rolls back over, the game worker gives a shrug, hoisting the plastic gun onto his shoulder. He can’t be more than fourteen, the damned ankle-biter, but he looks a little less carefree about it when Kara sits up and starts wiping blood from her face.
“You’re a lady,” he says, looking around like he’s gone and murdered her. Feels about the same; her nose is still healing off an incident with a perp’s fist.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kara says, hopping up onto her feet. “I know, it’s a lady in a suit, what in the good lord’s name, so on, so forth, I get it. You seen that guy before?”
“You a dick?” the kid asks, looking moon-eyed about this whole thing. Kara’s about done with it, to be quite honest.
“A private one. You gonna answer any of my questions or are you gonna stare about it a little longer?”
“I like the suit,” the kid says. He stands up a bit taller, puts the plastic rifle down on the little bar between him and her. “You look nice in it.”
“Thanks,” Kara says, after a pause. It’s one of those things, like a dame at a club calling her handsome, that makes her feel tall. Kids these days. “You seen that guy?”
“Yeah,” the kid says. “He’s one of our mechanics. I think you could get a turtle to do a better job, actually, he broke the Ferris wheel last week. Mr. Edge was on him about it for hours, right in front of God and everyone. He hire you to track him down?"
Kara can’t help but scoff, reaching for her hat off the ground and dusting it off.
“Kid, I’m not in the business of telling people what to do, but Morgan Edge is some of the lowest scum in this whole scummy town,” Kara says. Just saying it brings her back to that pipe coming down hard on the back of her skull, the dull ringing in her ears for days, the brutal feeling of her whole face pounding in time with her heartbeat. “If he writes your checks, you better hope it ain’t for too long.”
The kid looks shocked by the harshness of the whole thing, but Kara can’t be bothered. Her perp’s off and away, and she’s standing forty feet above the damn ocean on Morgan Edge’s pride and joy Boardwalk Promenade.
“Which way to the hot dog stand?” she asks. She’s still got some counterfeits off some other perp a few days ago; maybe Morgan Edge will like them in his bank.
-
When she finally gets back to the office late, the sunset dipped away and gone, her lights are on, visible from the street. That’s a little odd.
Brainy and Winn are already off and gone, surely, probably drinking beers at their tiny little apartment down the street. Alex is at work, most definitely, doing the good kind of copping, chasing down murderers and such. That little reporter gal Nia has been in and out of Kara’s office all week about some sort of fabric shipment gone missing - Kara isn’t really in the fashion game, but she’s been poking around at it a little on the side, but no way she’d break in without invitation. Kara’s brain works hard and harder to try to arrive at who, exactly, it could be up there in her office.
There’s half an impulse of fear that Morgan Edge heard her chew that kid out at the Boardwalk and has finally sent a goon to finish her off. But Kara Danvers isn’t one for fear, and she ain’t one to back down from a fight.
She’s walking up the stairs slow, avoiding the creaky spots, when she realizes who it is. It’s one of those things that’s supernatural, like when she knows a crook just as soon as she spots them. She hits the landing of the second floor and knows with veracity that Lena Luthor is waiting for her in her office.
Kara Danvers isn’t one for fear, sure, but she’s got sense.
Morgan Edge had gone about as far on her as a person could without just dismembering them because of that woman up there, his wife. Sure, the two despise each other and live on two separate ends of the city, Morgan holed up with a harem of women on the south end and Lena in her massive penthouse at the National City Grand. But Lena Luthor as a wife was a commodity as much as money or the real estate Edge gobbled up like a noxious pig; the Luthor name carried weight in National City. Hell, it carried weight across the country even. Lex Luthor ran the electrical and the radio and he assisted the poor and he loved his sister more than anyone on the goddamn Earth.
So yeah, once upon a time, Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor had been friendly-like. The woman was smart as a whip, tougher than one, and on occasion, Kara had got helped out on a case by the bored heiress. And it had been something like a fairy tale, sometimes, taking the turns down the coast too-fast, Lena’s voice in her ear, talking over the details of a case, her head a mile a minute while Kara’s was as calm as a lonely night on the Pacific. But it wasn’t so lonely, being with Lena.
“Are you going to stand down there forever?” Lena asks. Kara is leant up in the corner of the stairwell, breathing deep, in the middle of a muck, but she hears that voice - that deep voice, amused, tinted with the little bit of Irish Lena got from her mother, and it’s like God whispering. She looks up before she can stop herself.
Lena is leant against the doorway to Kara’s office, wearing a deep red dress and red lipstick and hair coiffed like a pin-up. Kara’s seen pretty girls, has seen them all kinds of ways, but Lena Luthor is the pinnacle of them, just standing there with one eyebrow raised.
“I was thinkin’ about it,” Kara says. She stays in her corner of the stairwell, eyes trained on Lena as she steps free of the doorway and comes closer, her hands catching the dim light and forearms resting on the railing looking down over the stairwell. Kara Danvers is a liar; she’s got fear pounding out her heart so bad it might as well be a radio blasting.
“I need your help,” Lena says. This is the first time they’ve talked since two years ago; since Kara broke her arm on a rusty pipe; since she got her leg burned up with a hot iron; since Morgan Edge put her in a dingy basement and hit her with a phone and told her to stay the hell away from my wife. And Kara had crawled over to Lena’s like a dumb child, and Lena had looked Kara in the bruised face and told her that their very certain accord was over, and then she had kissed Kara on the corner of her busted lip and told her to get the hell out of her apartment.
Two years, and Lena’s asking for her help.
Goddamn her, but Kara takes a step up the stairs, and not down.
-
Lena looks a little less confident about this whole thing when the door is closed and Kara’s making them coffee out of her little kitchenette. She sits there on the office couch and looks around the room like it’s a foreign land; Kara’s seen her sprawled out asleep on that couch more than a few times. Kara’s seen her in the bed in the next room too, ensconced in Kara’s sheets while Kara tries to get her own sleep on that awful couch.
They don’t talk. Kara makes the coffee and she drags a chair over to the couch. She doesn’t hand Lena the mug; she sets it on the coffee table made up of milk crates and she looks at Lena. She’s always been one of Kara’s favorite things to look at, and seeing her now, a whole two years after that fuzzy vision, is dreamlike in its own way. She’s dumb as a doornail.
“Whaddya need?” Kara asks, finally, after at least six to seven minutes of damnable silence. Lena’s just managing to get her coffee cup into her hand, her short and clean nails picking at the chip along the rim. Kara hates herself, really, because she can’t help but ask: “You okay?”
“I had a prototype go missing this week,” Lena says, finally. She looks grave as a mausoleum. She’s prone to the dramatics, sometimes, but she looks dead serious when she glances her dark eyes up to Kara’s. “I’m...somewhat worried about its applications in less than scrupulous hands. And I suspect Morgan stole it from me.”
It makes Kara’s head freeze up, return to bleeding out on the floor of one of Edge’s basement properties, struggling upstairs and collapsing onto the first pedestrian she could find. Poor guy’d damn near had a heart attack. It’s one of those things with her; her breath catches in her chest and it takes a few moments to kick her lungs back into action.
“Okay,” Kara says, reaching up to her head and pulling her hat off before she tosses it somewhere over to her desk chair. She’s wishing she had put whiskey in her coffee, or that she wasn’t trying to kick smoking to the curb. Sitting in arm’s reach of Lena again is making her grind her damn teeth. “What’s all that got to do with me?”
Kara gets up then, abandoning her shit coffee and heading for her desk. It takes some seconds to jimmy open the sticky drawer, but she manages to get her hands on a few butterscotch candies that Winn had bought from the corner store. She’s barely got them unwrapped before one’s in her mouth. It eases that itchy feeling, and she leans up against her window sill, where Lena used to sit and read files over her shoulder, her heels clipped on the arm of Kara’s chair.
“Kara,” Lena starts, standing as if to follow. Kara feels the edge of the window sill dig hard into the base of her spine she backs up so fast.
“I don’t go after mobsters,” Kara says.
“Morgan’s hardly a mobster,” Lena says, rolling her eyes. Kara feels like shaking the woman, she’s so oblique about this whole thing.
“If he stole something from you, ask him for it back. He’s your damned husband,” Kara says. She wonders if she could track down where Winn and Brainy have stashed her cigarettes. Maybe she’s still got a cigar somewhere as a gift from a client; her eyes are flicking around everywhere but Lena.
“You know as well as I do that we’re not nearly that congenial,” Lena says. “Or else he wouldn’t have stolen something from me.”
“Yeah, well, you know as well as I do he busted my brains in,” Kara says. “And to be honest, I’m just not in a place where I feel like giving him a chance to finish what he started.”
Kara hears Lena suck in a deep breath at that one. It’s the truth, plain, laid out on the floor between them. Kara and Lena spent months and months pretending that things were normal; that falling asleep in separate rooms and reading each other’s minds and staking out in Kara’s shit car and going to clubs together was normal. The thing about deception is that the worst of it is what you do to yourself; Kara let herself sit in a pile of lava and let herself think it was a spa. It took a few knocks to the face with a telephone to get her to feel the burn.
She wonders, right now, if Lena’s still sittin’ in the lava thinking she’s going in for a manicure after this.
“I wouldn’t have come to you if I didn’t feel like it was important,” Lena finally says, her voice uneven and hushed and tense. “I wouldn’t put you in danger if I didn’t think it was necessary. You’re the best investigator in the city, you’re not under Morgan’s thumb, and I trust you.”
“Three factors that end with me dead in a ditch, I assure you,” Kara says. “Jeez, Lena, you think you can walk in here and ask for my help tracking down God knows what from your damned husband after not saying one kind word to me in two years?”
“That was to keep you safe, Kara,” Lena says. “Morgan told me if I ever saw you again, he’d kill you. And I couldn’t - ”
“I ain’t your monkey, Lena,” Kara says. “Maybe I was once, but I ain’t now - ”
“That night. You told me you loved me,” Lena says. Kara sucks so hard on the butterscotch that her teeth clack. “Do you still?”
Kara has to breathe around it. The thing about ladies like Lena Luthor is that you don’t forget them, Kara’s learnt that in her years in this business. There’s always guys chasing girls they knew once, years ago, saw her on a train or in the street and couldn’t stop thinking about her. There’s guys with four kids and a house in the hills shacking up in the valley with their college sweetheart they couldn’t knock from their heads; there’s guys who end up dead because they fall in love with their hooker; there’s girls in clubs Kara meets who sit in the bar stool next to Kara and look right through her. Love is hell on Earth, and dangerous as.
Gumshoes like her see ladies all day long. Ladies looking distraught, eyes wrung with tears, lookin’ like they never experienced happiness all their lives. And the PI’s, they fall for it. It’s a dime a dozen.
Kara’s seen those ladies in her office twice a week for two years, and the thing of it all is, the sad thing that rattles her bones every morning, is that none of them are the woman standing in front of her.
Kara’s the same as any old fool. She set eyes on Lena Luthor, and didn’t forget her for a second. Even when it was best she did.
“No,” Kara says, as long as she can make it without sounding like she’s dragging it from her mouth like how clowns pull cloth up their throat. The butterscotch on her tongue feels acrid.
It takes Lena a few seconds to respond, but she does, and it’s almost too funny, really. Kara thinks she could laugh for a few years.
“Good,” Lena says. “So we shouldn’t have any problems if we stay smart.”
Kara Danvers is like any other person in love. A damnable idiot.
“Yeah,” Kara agrees. “Okay.”
-
“The prototype I was designing is a small-scale air purifier,” Lena says. She’s got about thirty blueprints laid out on Kara’s milk crates, her heels still on. Kara is nursing her coffee again, this time with a healthy dash of whiskey. Lena had asked for a splash as well. “Well, at the moment, it’s small-scale, but ideally, it could clear whole buildings or city blocks.”
“So you’re calling me in on a marital grudge match over whose is whose?” Kara asks. Lena sighs, taps her heeled toes on the ground.
“The design works via air exchange,” Lena says. “Conceivably, it could be used as a weapon by changing the chemical compounds involved in the exchange.”
“And you think your lunkhead husband is smart enough to figure that out?” Kara asks. She’s feeling a mean spirit sitting on her sholder right now, hard to shake around the vision of Lena sitting in her office all over again.
“I’d rather not take the chance,” Lena says. Her jaw clenches tight. “Like I said. I wouldn’t involve you if I didn’t think it was important.”
“Alright,” Kara says, leant back in her chair and watching as Lena flips through her fancy blueprints. Her hands are pale against the blue color of the paper, fingers long. Kara takes a big gulp of her whiskey with a side of coffee. “How do ya know Edge stole it?”
“He sent one of his cronies to check the security on my penthouse,” Lena says, shrugging. “And when I got back in, it was gone.”
“And you can rule out your doorman, your security people, you misplacing it, so on,” Kara says. Lena looks affronted at the suggestion. “I hate the guy as much as anyone does, but I ain’t gonna go after him if it slipped your mind and it’s under your bed this whole time.”
“The prototype weighs forty pounds and hasn’t left my workbench since I started building it. My doorman saw the man enter with a briefcase and leave with the same briefcase, and my security people say that he wanted to investigate the penthouse alone,” Lena says.
“Anything else missing?” Kara asks. It’s nighttime now, the sun gone and went, moonlight starting to filter through the blinds and into the office. The only light in the room is the one Kara had reluctantly switched on behind Lena’s head. It’s got a halo effect that makes Kara want to laugh.
“Nothing,” Lena says. “I had jewelry out, other prototypes. I checked everything.”
Kara’s inclined to trust Lena on that; the girl’s smart as anyone Kara’s ever met, with a memory like a picture. She’d know if even a dust mite was out of place. Doesn’t help the haze in Kara’s head, though.
“Alright,” Kara says, finally. “You got a description of the guy?”
“Yes. Lucky for us, he’s got quite the identifiable face,” Lena says. She drops a picture of a guy standing stern, Air Force uniform tight on broad shoulders. He’s built like a Redwood, the monstrosity. And Kara recognizes him.
“Corben,” Kara says. He’s got a big old gash down his face and into his chin. No wonder no one had trouble describing the guy. Kara gets up out of her chair again and shuffles to her desk, rifling through the stacks on top of it. She knocks over an old cup of coffee and a precarious set of books, but she manages to nab the file she’s been working between actually interesting cases. “John Corben, Air Force mechanic.”
“Yes,” Lena says, her voice a little breathy. Kara runs her hand through her hair, flips open the file. There’s not too much, really, but enough to get her feet on the ground and nail him fast. She almost had him on the Boardwalk, even. “You’ve already been on him?”
“His wife thinks his behavior’s been real erratic ever since he went up north camping with his work buddies,” Kara says. She comes back to the coffee table and drops the file on top of Lena’s blueprints. “The missus thinks he’s cheating, but I’ve mostly just gathered the impression he’s a numbskull. I was chasing him around earlier today, even, but this kid bashed my nose in for running on the Boardwalk.”
“That explains the bruising,” Lena says, her eyes soft as they trace Kara’s face. There used to be times Lena’d look at her like that and Kara’d feel it like her hand, running circles around Kara’s bruises until they healed up right as rain. They hadn’t ever really touched much, and it was for the best. It made Kara crazy when it happened.
“I was gonna pop in to visit him tomorrow night,” Kara says. “He’s got a bout scheduled at the Roxy’s underground. Big money guy, I guess. Brainy’s been hittin’ up bookies all over town to track him down.”
“Brainy’s still around?” Lena asks. She still sounds soft, distracted from the file in her hands, the grinning Corben peering up at her. Kara’s got a feeling like she drank a bottle of rancid milk.
“Sure,” Kara says. “Some people, this is their life.”
She doesn’t mean for it to sound cruel, but it does, and she knows it especially well when Lena’s face winces.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” Lena says. “I didn’t know Morgan would come after you, and I’m sorry I - I’m sorry I couldn’t keep working with you.”
Kara has to breathe deep, wishes again for a cigarette, takes a heavy gulp of her coffee and whiskey. Lena’s looking like any girl on the verge of tears, pretty, intense, eyes bouncing all over Kara’s face.
“I knew Edge would come after me eventually,” Kara says. And it’s true; she knew enough before she ever met Lena Luthor that he was one of those guys who thought that people could be his property; that the guys he hired and the ladies he kept around were his little toys and that he wasn’t keen on other people touching them. Kara had endeavored to treat his wife like a person, had loved her like he never could without putting a damned finger on her, and she had known without equivocation that he wouldn’t let her get away with that for too long. It had been a matter of the shoe dropping. “I was - stupid. I should have told you to get lost. Like you told me.”
“I didn’t want to tell you that,” Lena says. “You have to know that. I wanted you around. You were my best friend.”
Kara, in the end, isn’t interested in hearing Lena capitulate. Women are always throwing doe eyes her way and she hasn’t been in the business of falling for it after Lena. In towns like National City, you get one mistake and then you get a bullet.
“It’s done,” Kara says, waves her hand, shutting down the quiet watery eyes so fast it was like they were never there. It’s all the same. “I’ll go find him tomorrow, and I’ll get your prototype back, and we can go back to the way things ought to be.”
One of Kara’s very favorite things about Lena was how ice cold she was to the world, and how hot she ran with Kara. She’d go from talking a mile a minute sitting in the front seat of Kara’s car to sitting prim and pretty for a goon they’d be chasing. She was a lot of things all at once; a jawbreaker that Kara had the pleasure to slice all the way through.
To tell the truth, though, it hurts to see the mask settle into place when Lena sits straight as a board and nods slowly, like she’s heard Kara loud and clear.
-
“You look like shit,” is how Winn greets Kara. He’s holding a cup of coffee up over her head, has just shook her awake. There’s sun streaming in through her bedroom window. She’s got clothes strewn everywhere, but things are especially haphazard today - because she took four shots of whiskey last night and threw darts at her city map for fun before she passed out. Her mattress seems as though it’s about to shiver its way free from her bedframe.
“Indeed,” Brainy adds. “You should wake up soon, Miss Danvers, as your sister is coming by momentarily.”
“She can come meet me in here,” Kara mutters, running her hand on her face to wipe away drool that’s accumulated there. “Christ. What time is it?”
“Around ten,” Winn says. “You have a bad night?”
“Bad life, feels like,” Kara huffs. “Lena came by.”
There’s a pause. A long one that has Kara pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Lena Lutessa Luthor, genius and millionaire, former colleague of this office?” Brainy asks. He’s got his tie tied so far up his neck he looks like he’s choking himself. Winn is in a loose bowtie, the both of them looking down at her like they’re starting to piece together why she looks like she shrivelled up and died last night.
“Very same,” Kara says. “Why’d neither of you tell me I didn’t have pants on?”
“I kinda wanted to see how long it’d take you to notice,” Winn says, stepping back as Kara leverages herself out of the bed. “So Lena came by, and now you’re pantsless and you look like shit?”
“Seems it would be so,” Kara mumbles, shuffling around trying to find her pants without her glasses on. They appear in front of her face, held up by Brainy. “Why’s Alex coming?”
“Didn’t say,” Winn says. “Gonna assume you didn’t end up pantsless in the good way with Lena.”
“You’d assume correct,” Kara says, buckling her pants and shuffling over to her hanging rack of clothes to dig around for a fresh shirt. “She wanted help with a case, and I got cooked. Hey, where in the hell did you hide my cigarettes?”
“I flushed ‘em all,” Winn says. “You can thank me later.”
“I won’t,” Kara mutters, buttoning up the shirt she’s managed to find buried in the mess of clothes. “Brainy, can you do me a favor and find out who’s puttin’ on the fight at the Roxy underground tonight? And if you can, ask your bookie friend who’s betting big on that Corben guy.”
“I will reach out to my contact,” Brainy says, and then disappears to the front of the office as quick as can be. Winn lingers, still holding coffee and looking at Kara like he knows her head.
“Are you helping Lena with her case?” Winn asks, as Kara starts fitting her holster on and grabs her glasses where they’ve managed to land near her pile of ties. She doesn’t answer immediately, blinking as her world shifts into focus. “Kara. Edge almost took you out for getting anywhere near her - ”
“I know,” Kara huffs, reaching for a random tie before she thinks better of it and tosses it back into the pile. Who cares if Alex sees her without a tie on? She’d probably just view it as an easier way to choke Kara after Winn goes ahead and spills the beans.
“He busted your arm, burnt your leg, and nearly bashed your brains through your skull,” Winn says. “Why in the hell would you even let her in here?”
“She broke in,” Kara mutters, grabbing finally for the precious cup of coffee in Winn’s hand. It rolls Kara’s stomach over and burns the hell out of her throat, but she nearly downs half the mug.
“And you didn’t kick her right the hell back out?” Winn asks. He looks as though he might take her out before Alex ever gets hands on her. “She’s bad news, Kara.”
“She ain’t bad news,” Kara croaks, mindlessly defending against the same thought she’d had the second she’d laid eyes on Lena just last night. “Her husband’s bad news.”
“Her brother’s bad news, too,” Winn says. “The guys we know in the energy commision keep saying he’s runnin’ a racket. Shortages every other night in the poor areas, keeps upcharging tenants until they get run out. And then Edge walks in and buys ‘em up.”
“Lena ain’t bad news,” Kara insists, slipping her brass knuckles into her pocket and holstering her knife.
“She’s reckless, then,” Winn says. “If she walked in here and asked for your help, she put you on the line. You really wanna go out and hang for a girl like that?”
“Can I just have one cigarette?” Kara asks, huffing and trying to tuck her shirttails in while she drinks her coffee at the same time. Winn looks at her like he’s lookin’ at a cat hit by a car lying in the street.
“It’s never just one,” Winn says. And then he walks out just as their buzzer sounds.
-
“You look like shit,” Alex says, first thing, as she strolls into Kara’s office. She’s got her whole shebang on, uniform cinched tight and buttons gleaming. Her baton and gun are strapped to her waist. Her sergeant had told her that she didn’t need to wear the uniform, being that she was a detective and all that, but Alex liked wearing it when making house calls.
“Sure,” Kara says, adjusting her hat so that it cuts out some of the glare from the window. Alex snorts, slumping into the chair opposite Kara’s desk, dropping her hat on the hardwood.
“We got an anonymous tip that a PI shot a guy uptown, on Cordova and Mullard,” Alex says. Kara hums, sipping her now-second cup of coffee. Winn had dumped extra sugar cubes in this one, thankfully.
“He have a good reason?” Kara asks, blinking down at the open file of Corben’s in front of her. Alex sighs, shuffling in her seat until Kara looks up at her. She looks more than a little drawn in. “No?”
“The tip said it was a lady gumshoe,” Alex says, and then she tosses a photograph out onto Kara’s desk. “Said she came careening into the alley and blew a whole revolver in the guy.”
The photograph is familiar, and Kara feels her fingertips go a little numb.
“I know this guy,” Kara says, her mouth dropping open. “This guy’s wife called me a week ago asking for help tracking him down.”
“And he’s dead,” Alex says, and then she drops another photograph on Kara’s desk. The guy’s littered with bullets along his chest, blood seeping into his white shirt. “Look, Kara - ”
“I didn’t shoot the guy,” Kara says. “You know I don’t shoot people, Alex, that’s - I haven’t even worked his case yet, thought I’d wait him out a few days to see if he’d show up - ”
“He was a security guard at the Grand,” Alex says.
“The Grand?” Kara asks, rubbing her aching head and trying to piece together what, exactly, Alex is trying to tell her. Just like last night, though, it hits her like a sack of bricks. “The Grand. What the hell are you asking me, Alex?”
“Were you at the National City Grand a week ago?” Alex asks. “Can you provide your revolver to evidence?”
“Are you serious?” Kara asks. Alex shrugs. “I haven’t been anywhere near the National City Grand in two whole years, Alex, you know that. And you know I haven’t shot a guy, either. You can look at my case files, even.”
“This guy was one of Lena’s security guards,” Alex says. “He’s dead, packed full of bullets the whole damn department knows you pack. There ain’t a cop in this town hasn’t been asked about what you’re doing around town by Edge’s guys, and you sure as hell know one of them’s gonna spill this tip - ”
“Are you here to arrest me?” Kara asks. Alex snorts, gathering up the photos and slipping them into her breast pocket.
“You think I wouldn’t give you a five hour head start if I was coming to arrest you?” Alex asks. “No, I’m just - letting you know. Someone’s playing games with your name. And if that don’t matter to you, they’re using Lena to do it.”
“Jeez,” Kara mutters, putting her face in her hands, pulling her hat low to rub at her eyes. They feel bruised, and it stings, but she presses hard anyway. “Does she know?”
“I was gonna go talk to her after you,” Alex says, looking soft. “Well, I was gonna let Mags talk to her and I was gonna just burn her up with my eyes while Mags talked.”
“She came here last night,” Kara admits, teeth grinding as she says it. Alex looks back at her like she’s gone and shot a man right in front of Alex, and then she looks like she might stand up and smack Kara with her baton.
“Did she say anything about this guy?” Alex asks, finally, after many seconds of thought. Kara shakes her head.
“She wants my help with a case,” Kara says. “Thankfully, it’s something that had already crossed my desk, so I’m just gonna wrap it up and send her out on her way - ”
“She came here after two years of no word, after you got your can kicked over her, and had it in her to ask for your help?” Alex asks incredulously. Then, with significantly more warning, “ Kara .”
“Listen, it’ll be fine, I’ll wrap it up tonight and it’ll be done - ” Kara says, but Alex is standing abruptly.
“You almost died because of her damned husband,” Alex whisper-yells. It’s the worst kind of thing that Alex does, all lecture, like Eliza when Kara came to live with them and she and Alex would start brawling in their shared room. “I’m sure she already knows about this guy gettin’ plugged in your name, and now she’s slinking around here again? You’ll be the next guy I’m sending to the morgue.”
“I ain’t going to any morgue,” Kara says. “I’m gonna go get this guy for her case, and I’m gonna tell her to get lost.”
Alex looks at her like she knows Kara’s chest is burning at the thought of telling Lena to get lost. She straightens up, puts on her cap, and looks all imperious down her nose at Kara.
“I need you to be careful, Kara,” Alex says, finally. “You’re my sister. If you get killed over her, I’ll drag you back to life myself just to kill you again.”
“I love you too,” Kara says, grinning. Alex returns it after a few seconds, sounding rough around the edges. She’s as careful as Kara knows how to be, really. Maybe that’s the problem.
-
“I got a call back from our betting friend,” Brainy says, just as he’s throwing his coat on over his shoulders. It’s late night, a lazy day at the office. Kara’s been pacing in circles, thinking over and over again about that guy all plugged with bullets, Alex’s grim face. If Alex had thought to come ask Kara to her face, maybe that meant there were people in the PD who thought she should be behind bars - and maybe they were under Edge’s thumb - and maybe Corben was just another little mouse for her to chase before she got her paw stuck in the trap.
“Yeah?” Kara asks. Her hands are rattling a little bit as she flips the lid of her flask and dumps whiskey in. Winn’s already gone off to James’s to get a couple photos developed for a case they’ve been working for a few weeks. Brainy is one of those guys who doesn’t comment on things until they’re at their worst, like when Kara came home after going to Lena’s years ago and laid on the floor and bled all over everything. I think, perhaps, you might need to see a doctor.
“Yes. He stated that the Roxy is owned by Morgan Edge, but that the fight is backed anonymously through a major donor. He said that the money is near split in his book,” Brainy says. “Though the bets on Corben’s opponent are higher bets.”
“Higher bets,” Kara hums. “Who’s he fighting?
“A man by the name of Hank Henshaw,” Brainy says. “Former Air Force captain, worked in Nevada at Groom Lake for a time and pursued boxing as a hobby in Las Vegas. From what I could gather from our sources there, he was a very good fighter. They were surprised his odds are so low.”
“And the odds?” Kara asks.
“Twelve to one. Corben’s odds are three to one. I’m not much of a gambling man, but even I’d consider placing some money on Henshaw,” Brainy says.
“Wonderful,” Kara huffs, reaching down to tighten up her boots and then tightening up her holster. “Seems like a damned powder keg. Anything else I should know?”
“Yes,” Brainy says. “Lena Luthor is waiting for you out by our desks.”
Kara nearly falls over as she’s pulling on her trench coat. Brainy’s mouth does not quirk, but there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes as she starts muttering under her breath. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying, just that she’s off-balance and riled up. She triple checks her pockets for cash, her nifty little badge, her brass knuckles, her knife, her other knife, her gun, tucked high in her armpit - and then she just stands there, staring from her bedroom to the cracked door leading to Winn and Brainy’s little enclave.
“Why?” Kara hisses.
“I did not ask,” Brainy says. “She looked rather distraught, so I offered her a tea, and then I came back here to see you - ”
“Distraught? Why the hell’d you leave her out there?” Kara asks, adjusting the collar of her trench coat where it’s got all tangled with her shirt collar and shoving her feet into her shoes before trying to shove past Brainy. He waivers just the littlest bit. “Brains. You kidding me?”
“I’m somewhat concerned about Miss Luthor’s presence,” Brainy says.
“Not you too,” Kara says. Brainy still doesn’t move.
“I very much enjoyed Lena Luthor’s past work in our office. I believe she is the smartest person I have ever met, and my intellect is unmatched,” Brainy says. “But her presence is, on occasion, detrimental to you. And you are my friend.”
“Look, I appreciate that, Brainy,” Kara starts. She’s pretty unsure about how to finish, so she’s grateful when Brainy talks.
“I know you and Miss Luthor are entangled, somewhat,” Brainy says, looking queasy at the very idea of having to discuss this with Kara. “I understand your inability to step away. And normally I wouldn’t advocate for shutting away emotions, but I feel - ”
“I’m gonna go check on her,” Kara says, finally shoving past Brainy’s body and blustering her way to the door. She gives half a second to making sure her hat is properly on her head; then she’s stepping through the half-tinted glass door, and Lena is looking up at her, leant up against Winn’s empty desk. She’s wearing a long coat, her hair done up, lipstick on, heels perfect, eyes focused suddenly and intensely on Kara.
It’s almost like Lena’s not even expecting to see her, in her own office, because her eyes go wide as dinner plates. Even from the short distance across Winn and Brainy’s part of the office to Kara’s door, Kara can see Lena’s hand clench tight on her crossed arms. She isn’t sure what to make of it, really, doesn’t even get a chance.
“I’m coming with you to the fight,” Lena says, standing up straight and squaring up to face Kara in total. There’s a little tingle up Kara’s spine that she should have thought this would happen. Lena had always never known where to keep her nose to keep it safe. Kara sighs as Brainy brushes past her into the office.
“I believe that would be inadvisable, Miss Luthor,” Brainy says. He’s gathering up his coat and briefcase and his hat, looking from Kara to Lena and back again like he’s watching tennis.
“You ain’t going anywhere near any fight,” Kara says.
“How are you planning to get in?” Lena asks, her hands white at the knuckles where she digs into the meat of her biceps. Kara’s gettin’ the impression that if she unwound, the pressure’d cause an explosion of some scale. It’s hard to judge where exactly it’s coming from.
“I know people,” Kara says. “Brainy’s got me a contact with a book, for one. Pretty sure I know one of them cleaning ladies at the Roxy. What’s her name again?”
“Siobhan,” Brainy supplies. “She’s Irish.”
“Right, right,” Kara says, even though she has no recollection of any Irish ladies in maid’s outfits. “Siobhan?”
“She hit you with a lamp when you were trying to get into a room,” Brainy says. Kara gives him a less than subtle glare, though the memory of the lamp smashing into her head followed by Siobhan making her coffee in the basement of the Roxy followed by Siobhan climbing into her lap does ring a bell or two. Lena makes a sound not unlike a growl.
“Siobhan, who hit you with a lamp, is your way in when you have the owner of the hotel’s wife standing right here?” Lena asks in a tone of barely controlled frustration. Kara’s getting the impression that Lena’s gone and wound herself up like a toy and set her own damn self loose.
“I ain’t trading on your husband’s name,” Kara says, adjusting the collar of her jacket and flipping her hat onto her head. “For one, if he found out, he’d have my throat slit. For two, you ain’t going anywhere near anything - you’re gonna go sit at the Grand and wait until I bring you your damned air thing back - ”
“It’s a purifier,” Brainy and Lena say at the exact same time. Brainy’s voice is low and calm, Lena’s an angry bark.
“I know what it damn well is,” Kara says. “Go home, the both of you.”
“I am not going to let you walk into the lion’s den alone, Kara,” Lena says and though it’s clearly meant to be a statement, the edges of Lena’s tone sounds like a plea. Her arms finally unclasp and her hand presses suddenly into Kara’s bicep, fingers tight on the muscle there. Kara feels each finger like a separate touch, and nearly recoils away. But it ain’t polite; she shuffles sideways as slow as someone would around a wounded animal.
“I do a lot of things alone,” Kara says. “That’s how it is. If I need help, I’ll get Brainy or Winn or Alex or uh - what’s her name? The gal who runs around electrocuting people?”
“Miss Willis,” Brainy says. He gives a brief smile to Lena. “She’s never electrocuted Kara, if you were worried.”
Lena seems distracted by the anecdote for a second before refocusing, eyes blazing back into Kara’s.
“I can help you. You know that,” Lena says. Kara throws a look Brainy’s way as she feels anger come up her spine, hot and fast. She has an urge in her to shake Lena until she just listens, stops trying to throw herself into this after years of being away. Kara can’t handle that, can’t handle it if Lena just throws herself into this only to drift off again like she should. Brainy reads it well enough, hauling his things off and away. Kara waits until he’s gone before she bothers looking at Lena again.
“I don’t need your help,” Kara says, finally, after she hears the front door thump open and closed and the building around them settles quiet. Down the hall, Kara can hear a radio playing soft, something romantic and slow that puts an urge in her head to wrap Lena up and forget about all this. That kind of thinking had almost got her killed though, is the thing. But that don’t stop it from floating in the back of her mind, like a threat. “Not only that, but I don’t need to have to track a guy and worry about you in that place either. So why don’t I just take you home - ”
“Alex came to see me today,” Lena interrupts. She’s standing too close, really, the space between them having shrunk over the course of the confrontation. Kara has to take a step away as she shakes her head.
“That’s -” Kara has trouble summoning the right word, but Lena charges through like a woman on a mission. Stubborn as all hell.
“And you know what it’s about,” Lena says, with a mix of accusation and concern that has Kara’s insides twisting up. There’s sudden clarity in Lena’s whole demeanor, but the realization just makes Kara’s head feel fuzzy.
“It’s nothing, Lena,” Kara says, leaning up against Brainy’s desk and checking out the ceiling.
“It is not nothing,” Lena says. “One of my security members was murdered, and someone wants it to look like it was you. You have to let me help you, to protect you.”
“How can you protect me?” Kara asks, and she feels her head go all steamy as she raises her hands and looks Lena in the eye. “It’s just a fight night, Lena, not a war zone, and I damn well have been through worse without you. I ain’t taking you anywhere but to your penthouse so you can sit pretty and wait. ”
Lena fidgets and Kara can sense there’s a card up her sleeve, almost leaves before Lena can pull it out. But Lena’s chin lifts and she looks Kara dead on as she tips the world further on its axis.
“I’ve been looking into how Clark died,” Lena says. It’s like some fool pulling in front of her high speed on the highway; Kara’s almost got whiplash she jumps back so fast.
“If you think I wanna talk about that right now with you, you’ve got another thing coming,” Kara says, and she can feel her shoulders shake, hands too. She shoves them into her coat pocket and feels them rattle the butterscotch candies she’s got stuffed in there. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming here and asking me to help you and then playing this card, you know that? You can’t just come back and pretend - ”
“It was Hank Henshaw,” Lena says, looking at Kara like she knows she’s clubbing her on the damn head. “I’ve had to do a lot of asking around, talking to banks. A lot of Morgan’s people know him. I have a file on the case, if you want to look at it.
“You have a file,” Kara says, thinking she might laugh.
“I wanted to - I want to help you, Kara.”
“Hank Henshaw,” Kara repeats, slouching, feeling the lapels of her coat come up to her ears. “He’s fighting Corben tonight.”
“I know,” Lena says, simply. “Look - ”
“Why are you telling me this?” Kara says, looking up at Lena, feeling her head like it’s underwater. Lena’s looking at her like she knows she’s gone and sunk.
“Because, I...I’ve been looking into this case for a few years. Ever since it happened. I know you said to leave it alone, but I care about you, Kara, and I didn’t stop caring about you when I had to send you away,” Lena says, shrugging like she’s not dropping a crate of bricks on Kara’s chest. “I’m tired of sitting around and letting Morgan ruin the things I care about.”
Kara can feel hope curdling inside her like milk gone bad, listening to Lena say all these things. There’s a part of her that had hoped to always hear them, had hoped that one day Lena would come back to her life and tell her that she loved Kara back, that she wanted Kara, that the things Kara had dreamt were things Lena dreamt too. This isn’t that, to be certain, but it’s as close to it as Kara thinks Lena could go without spilling her guts the same way Kara had years ago.
But at the same time, there’s the part of Kara whispering that Lena’s saying the things she wants to hear. That if Alex or Winn or even Brainy was here, she’d tell Lena to get lost, and they’d call Kara weak. Because she is.
“We can be a team again,” Lena says. “If we catch him, and put him away, he’ll never get a chance to touch you ever again.”
“The world don’t work like that,” Kara says. “You know that as well as I do.”
“I have to try,” Lena says, sounding like she knows she’s winning. “Look, I’m going to this fight whether I go with you or not. I need to see Hank Henshaw, I need to see Corben and talk to him. I can do that whether you take me there or not.”
“I could lock you in this office,” Kara mutters. Lena laughs, soft, and it feels like rain on Kara’s head. Warm and good.
“I’d get out,” Lena says, smug. Kara is pressing her eyes closed, trying to think around the roaring in her head. Wanting to know more about Lena’s investigation into Clark, wanting Lena, wanting to get Morgan Edge out of the way and clear of her life, wanting all the things Lena’s saying to be real and possible. The thing about it is that Kara’s answers to Lena’s questions have always been the same damn thing.
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Kara says, eyes still closed. She can feel Lena move closer and closer until she can smell her perfume. Something sweet and tangy that had always made Kara want to duck her head closer and press her nose to its source at Lena’s neck. Lena’s hands arrive on either side of Kara’s shoulders, smoothing the wild lapels of her trench coat. The saddest thing in the whole world is that Kara feels the buzz in her head go soft and then disappear with the warmth of Lena’s hands on her.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Lena says. All the same, Kara can feel the sword dangling over her head. The best she can think is that if she keeps her eyes closed, she might not see it coming.