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Chapter Text

            The man was frantic as he ran through the building, tremors shaking the large structure as the floors cracked and walls buckled, a sweltering heat bringing sweat to his red face as he cradled a small child against his chest, her cheeks flushed and her green eyes wide with fear as she desperately clung to him. Plaster cracked and windows shattered, heavy smoke making the view beyond the building hazy and indistinct, a grey smear as the whole city was consumed with raging fires. Millions were dead already, some over the previous years as famine swept through the world, the oceans drying up, the planet growing increasingly hotter as its resources were swallowed up, and some over the past few days as hurricanes tore cities apart, searing hot fires consumed buildings and large storms covered continents, with their battering winds, cracks of blue lightning and booming peals of thunder. It had been a long time coming, that much the man knew, but his pleas had fell on deaf ears. Those of him and his colleagues. He’d taken matters into his own hands instead.

            Running through the chrome and glass building, showers of powdered cement raining down on the shoulders of his white lab coat as the building was torn apart by the unparalleled storm raging outside, the world crumbling as it took out its anger on the greedy humans that inhabited it, the man ran up staircase after staircase. Lightning had struck the skyscraper next to the energy lab he owned, and he’d seen the billowing clouds of black smoke consume the building. It hadn’t been long before more fires had spread, earthquakes cracking open chasms in the streets below, swallowing people, cars and buildings as they widened, until entire blocks crumbled as the foundations buckled. He’d felt the first tremors as the structural integrity of his building had been compromised, large generators in the basements sparking a fire that had blossomed in the sub-levels, before exploding and taking out the bottom levels of the towering building. He’d raced for his living quarters on the top few levels; for his daughter.

            Now he ran for the top level, hoping that he hadn’t been too late, that the storm hadn’t ruined his one chance to save his daughter. The stairs shook beneath his feet, his knees jarring every time a particularly aggressive one wracked the crumbling building, and he held on tighter to the handrail, his teeth grit and shoulders hunched over in protective determination. His wife had died a few weeks prior, the sickeningly polluted air making her lungs fail, and the grief was etched into the lines of his face as he cradled all he had left of her. He’d promised to protect their daughter, no matter what. He’d keep his promise, if it was the last thing he did. He didn’t hold much faith that he would survive anything beyond that, his eyes widening as a red flash of lightning painted the smoky world beyond the spiderwebbed windows a dangerous orange.

            He didn’t hear the windows shatter over the sound of the cracks of thunder and the screaming wind, but pain lanced across the back of his shaved head as glass sliced into his skin, the force of the battering wind pushing him forward, until he stumbled and fell, trying to protect his daughter as his knees fell hard against the concrete steps. Not wasting any time, he lurched to his feet, hoisting the little girl up higher on his hip, feeling her tremble in his arms, and redoubled his efforts as he charged up the stairs. His stubborn determination had been one of his admirable qualities as a scientist, his intelligence even more so, but that hadn’t meant anything when he’d started demanding changes in the way people lived. His talks on climate change had been futile. The people had run earth into the ground anyway, so consumed by greed and their own entitlement that they’d dismissed his, and other scientist’s concerns as fearmongering. How wrong they’d been.

            Finally he burst staggered up the last few steps, his chest heaving painfully as he sucked in ragged lungfuls of dry air, bursting through the door to the top floor and lurching as his vision flickered. The damage wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d been expecting, the windows along one wall spiderwebbed with cracks, but mercifully still intact, and the floor still in one piece, although he had no idea how long it would last. Probably not long. The thick walls muffled the sounds of the storm slightly, and he wiped one sleeve across his forehead, gasping for air as he moved towards the pod situated in the middle of the room, a flickering light overhead intermittently illuminating it. The power was still struggling to remain on, most likely with the help of the massive wind powered generator on the roof, as there was certainly no shortage of winds strong enough to power it at the moment.

            Fumbling for the panel on the bonnet of the small, rocket shaped pod, he pressed his hand against it, the top, windowed section disengaging with a quiet hiss, opening up to reveal the dark leather seats and a panel of buttons and lights that winked on, one by one. Holding his daughter close for a few moments, he kissed her dark hair and set her down on the seat, reaching for the straps as he buckled her in securely, his eyes pricking with tears.

            “Papa,” she whimpered, her heavy brow puckering in a frown as she looked up at him with scared green eyes.

            “Hush now, Lena,” he softly murmured, giving her a gentle smile as he ran a hand over her hair. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

            He’d done his research. There was a planet revolving around a red sun, an inhabitable population of intelligent beings, if his information was correct. She’d be safe there. She wouldn’t be destroyed along with the rest of Earth. It was the only guarantee he had that she’d survive, that he could fulfil his promise to her mother and keep her safe. She was the future of them all. If he could get the backup pod to work, the prototype he’d been tirelessly working on so that he could accompany her and raise her himself, he would follow behind her soon, but the world’s core had given out quicker than he’d anticipated. The chances were that he was too late. This would be the last time he saw his daughter, and his heart ached as he looked at her huddled in the vast space inside the pod. She was barely four, still so young - too young to witness the destruction of a world - but she’d survive it.

            “Goodbye, my darling girl,” he said, his voice thick with emotion as he leant down to kiss her cheek, ignoring the girl’s pleas as she tried to reach for him, the buckles restraining her as she started to struggle and cry.

            Shutting the top of the pod, he trapped her within it and pushed a few buttons on a panel to the side. The pod maneuvered itself as the stand it rested on extended, pushing it upwards, while a large, circular section of the thick ceiling opened. Immediately, a forceful wind found its way into the room, bringing dust and debris with it, and Lionel swallowed a lump of fear as he watched the pod’s engines sputter to life, holding onto the stand with the panel as the wind buffeted him, threatening to toss him to the ground.

            He watched with wide, hopeful eyes as the orange glow of the engines grew brighter, until the centre was so hot that it was a blinding white, making his eyes water as he shielded his sight. Blinking back tears, he watched as the pod was launched through the hole with a barely audible whoosh , and his daughter was gone from him. Wasting no time lingering on the worry that consumed him, thinking of the pod battling its way through storm clouds, hurricanes and lightning, as the pressurised capsule kept his daughter in a slumber, the scientist fought against the strong winds, reaching for the pod help up on some jacks, the front panel open and spewing wriggling wires, waiting to be fixed. He was too afraid to close the hole in the rood, lest it get blocked, barring him from following after Lena, and he hunched over the nose of the pod, his fingers urgently reconnecting cables and tightening bolts with practiced ease, sweat dripping down his face as he worked as quickly as he could.

            It was still another hour before he’d done as much as he could, the planet crumbling into further chaos around him as he diligently worked. Pushing a button to lower the jack to the ground, his muscles strained as he heaved at the heavy piece of machinery and no small scientific masterpiece, the metal grating along the floor as he used a chain and a conveyor belt to drag the hulking mass over to the launch station. With a shaking hand, he disengaged the top part and climbed into the seat, strapping himself in and pushing a button on the dashboard, listening to the pod seal itself, locking him in. Immediately, it began to pressurise, the air feeling close and cold, his ears popping as he pushed at more buttons. The launch platform raised him up, the nose of the pod pointing upwards, towards the grey, wreathing mass of clouds visible through the hole, and he slammed a hand down on a button, his stomach lurching as he was shot out of the hole. The storm swallowed him up, flashes of lightning coming dangerously close, and slowly but surely, he found himself growing sluggish as he was put into cryosleep, his last glimpse of Earth being a mass of black clouds and veins of red lava as the planet split apart into fragments.  

---

            She woke at the jolt of passing through the atmosphere, her eyelids dragging open as a dull throb behind them made her want to keep them closed, fear washing over Lena as she whimpered for her dad. He wasn’t there, and she found herself sobbing as she sluggishly struggled against the restraints, her childish mind unable to comprehend what was happening. All she knew was that she was falling, fast, and it was cold and her ears felt funny inside the pod.

            Through the clear windows of the pod, she watched as a planet of white and orange grew closer and closer, until it was so close that she could see wisps of clouds, brown mountain ranges capped with snow, and ice floes in the ocean. The little girl was scared at the sight, unsure of what she was seeing, her loud cries only heard by herself, before she cut off a moment later as something rammed into the side of the pod.

            Stunned by the impact, cracking her head against the window to her right, Lena fell silent, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth as she accidentally bit her tongue. Blinking owlishly with round green eyes, she quietly watched in frozen fear as the mountains reached up for her, and moments later, she crashed into the side of one of them, snow sliding down to partially cover the windows. Trapped inside the pod, her view blocked by a blanket of fresh snow, the little girl passed out, fear and claustrophobia taking hold, until the darkness dragged her under.

            A scraping side woke her, and Lena sluggishly blinked as she watched a black shape wipe across the windscreen. The motion occurred again, and again, until enough of the snow was gone for Lena to realise that it was a gloved hand. A shadowed face loomed over her, the features indistinguishable against the backdrop of strange orange sunlight, giving everything a strange tint, and then the face pulled back. A pitiful whimper escaped from between trembling lips, and Lena sat strapped to her seat as she felt motion, and was jerked free of the patch of snow, and dragged along the rocky crags of the mountain, jerked about as the bottom of the pod scraped against the stone. Her eyes were sore from crying, her chest heaving, and the little girl too small to understand anything that was happening.

            The odd orange tint disappeared as she was swallowed by the black jaws of an elegantly shaped metal contraption, finding herself sliding up the ramp and coming to the stop in the bowels of the small ship. The clanging of metal signalled the closing of the ramp, and a dim red light suffused the interior of the sparsely decorated ship. The dark figure was back again, and a pair of goggles were pushed up to reveal the flushed cheeks and green triumphant eyes, as a black swathe of material was pulled down to uncover the mouth and nose. The woman smiled as she sank down to her knees beside the pod, removing one glove to press it up against the glass.

            “Lena.”

            Huddled in fear, Lena was silent, her teeth chattering slightly at the coldness inside the pod, and her body trembling due to the shock of it all, although she didn’t even know what it all was. She just wanted her father. Or her mother. She hadn’t seen her mother in a while, and she didn’t know why, but she wanted one of them to hold her like they usually did. Instead, she was inside the strange place, with a strange woman, who climbed to her feet a moment later and took a seat behind a dark dashboard, a wide tinted window looking out over the mountains, and holograms flickering to life as she turned the ship on.

            Helpless, there was nothing to do as the ship became airborne, angling its nose towards a glittering metropolis in the distance. The speed at which they flew was stomach lurching, the barren landscape speeding past them in hues of brown, orange and a blue so deep that it was nearly black. The planet was strange, mostly covered in ice and barren rock, lumbering animals visible upon occasion out in the far reaches away from civilisation, the glittering city in the distance coming into view. It was nestled on a flat plain, ringed by snow capped mountain ranges on three sides in the distance - one of them being the one they’d just come from - and a sparkling harbour of dark water on one front. Spaceships zipped around, and the buildings rose in imposing towers, made from a strange dark metal and another material that had an almost crystalline quality to it.

            They glided through the flow of traffic with practiced ease, the woman maneuvering through the narrow avenues between buildings, mindful of other pilots, as the whole city was bathed in an orange light, a burning red sun beating down on them from overhead. The dark buildings looked like they were wreathed in fire, and as they made their way deeper into the jungle of the inner city, Lena was lulled to sleep by the soothing motion. She didn’t see the other spaceships racing out to where she’d crashed, the robotic sentries gliding around, or the uniformed guards prowling the slums of Kandor City. She was taken straight to the top of one of the thousands of towering structures, the spaceship coming around in a wide circle, before making a careful entrance through the opening in the side of the glittering building.

            With a hissing, mechanical sound, the ramp lowered with a dull thud, and the woman rose from her seat, moving over to the pod, before she glanced out of the opening, her eyes landing on the young boy standing at the bottom, an expectant look on his face as he spoke in a strange language.

            “Is it her?”

            “Help me with it, Lex.”

            The boy ran up the gentle incline, a crisp, deep green tunic bearing a shield-like crest on his chest, almost looking like it has an ‘L’ inside it, and stared down at the sleeping child encased within the pod.

            “Be careful,” the woman warned, before she took one side and tried to push it down the ramp.

            They struggled in vain for a few minutes, puffing and sweating as they tried to get the pod to move, the mass of metal and machinery too heavy for them to move without any aid of machinery. Luckily, she’d had the rope and the crank to get it onto the aircraft, but the same couldn’t be done for the reverse. She couldn’t arouse suspicion by requesting help either, because sentries would be out looking for the thing that had crash landed up in the mountains. It was a miracle the woman had made it there before any of them, the secret atmospheric sensors she had luckily alerting them before the pod had crashed, giving her enough time to speed through the city and take the roundabout way back into Kandor, flying under the radar with signal blanketing equipment she’d designed.

            When it became apparent that they couldn’t move the pod, they both took a step back, and the woman looked down at her son, a troubled look on her face as she jerked her head down the ramp. “Go and fetch your father.”

            Lena was still sleeping inside the pod, having not moved so much as an inch to jolt her awake, exhausted after all the crying, and the woman crouched down beside her, staring down at the pale face of the little girl, dark eyelashes brushing high cheekbones and her lips slightly parted as she shallowly breathed inside the pressurised capsule. It wasn’t long before the quiet whirring reached her ears, and the woman rose to greet her husband.

            “Lillian,” Lionel hoarsely said, his face more lined from the passing years, his skin an ashen grey as he sat strapped into the wheelchair. It was all sleek, polished metal, digital screens and holograms available at the tap of a finger on the arm of the chair. It was still for the moment, and the man in it looked hopeful, although his face was still drawn with pain, giving him a haggard look. “Is it her?”

            “It is,” Lillian agreed, her shoulders slumping slightly with relief, knowing that it had weighed heavily on her husband to not know what had happened to his daughter. Ten years had passed since he’d crashed onto Krypton himself, with no sight of his daughter anywhere they looked. “I can’t move the pod. She’s safe inside while it’s pressurised, but if we get her out ...”

            Looking at his son, Lionel pressed a finger against the scanner on the arm of the wheelchair, urging it forward. “Here, son, take the X-Kryptonite.”

            Hurrying over to his father, Lex pushed up the sleeve of his father’s jacket and slid off a black metal bracelet glowing a vivid green from the vein of crystal embedded in it. Carrying it over to Lillian, the boy hung back in the shadowy interior of the ship, leaving his mother to approach the pod. Placing a hand on the panel at the nose of the pod, it scanned the handprint, recognising a human lifeform, and disengaged. With a gasp, the little girl came to life, the change in pressure hitting her like a tonne of bricks as she slumped in her seats, a choked sound getting caught in her throat.

            The too big bracelet was quickly slipped around a tiny wrist, and Lillian urgently pushed it all the way up her arm, trying to ensure that it didn’t fall off, and lifted the trembling girl from the pod. Quickly scrambling out of the aircraft, Lillian carried her over to Lionel, who let out a choked sob, wishing for nothing more than to make his broken arms work so that he could reach out for her and hold his daughter.

            Stirring in the strange woman’s arms, Lena whimpered, before her green eyes landed on Lionel, and her heart seized. “Papa!”

            “Lena,” Lionel sighed with relief, a smile splitting his wan face.

            Their happy reunion ended there as the little dark haired girl spasmed with pain. Gravity seemed to slam into her, a lot heavier than that of Earth, and the girl let out a sharp cry of pain as she gasped for air, her entire body feeling leaden as her human physiology was attacked by the different atmosphere on Krypton. Within minutes, she was screaming with pain as the weight of the gravity pressed down on her organs, beginning to fail, and her weak human bones cracked. Lillian didn’t dare to put her down, knowing that the weight of her body pressing down on her legs would cause them to splinter, her spine to compact, possibly disabling her, so she carried the screaming child into the massive apartment, the glowing bracelet on her arm doing what it could to stifle the painful effects of the planet to the strange lifeform thrust upon it.

            It wasn’t a planet for humans.

Chapter Text

            Doctor Lionel Kieran had landed on Krypton 69 Belyuth 9977, crashing into the frozen wasteland of the planet’s northern reaches. At the time, one of the most influential members of the Science Guild had gone on an expedition north, leaving the continent of Urrika behind, and the safety of her home in Xan City, to venture in the wild frozen wastelands in search of a substance called Kryptonite. Lillian Ter-Thor was the daughter of House Thor, a leading member of the Science Guild, and one of the greatest scientific minds on the planet. She’d been hoping to mine the colourful crystals hidden beneath Krypton’s icy exterior, and utilise it to make medical and military breakthroughs. She believed that the crystals could have many uses, if they figured out just how exactly it worked. So far, the tiny slivers found had been ineffective, and she’d travelled north in her aircraft to brave the the raging snowstorms in search of it.

            Instead, through a heavy snowstorm, as she huddled inside the warm aircraft, she witnessed a pod crashing into the bed of ice through the wide windscreen, the ripples of shock felt even inside the craft. If she hadn’t seen the dark figure cut through the blanket of whiteness, Lillian would’ve dismissed it as one of the planet’s tectonic plates shifting, causing an earthquake and fracturing the thick beds of ice. But she’d seen it, and in a rare moment of foolishness, the young woman had pulled down her goggles, zipped up her thick, padded coat, and lowered the ramp of the aircraft. Attaching herself to the length of rope, she shivered at the strong wind blowing snow inside with a flurry, and battled against it as she walked out into the dimness. Krypton’s first moon, Wegthor had already risen, and the faintest sliver of red bathed the frozen wasteland a fiery orange as the red sun disappeared over the horizon.

            Wading through snow and stepping over slick patched of black ice, Lillian made her way towards the rent in the ice, large pieces jutting up at odd angles, and clambered over the edge of the crater. Sliding down the uneven chunks of ice, feet skittering as they scrambled for purchase, her hands tightly grasping the rope life a lifeline, Lillian made her way down to the hulking mass sitting in the middle of the white ice. It had already accumulated a layer of snow, but it was definitely made of metal - none that she recognised - and was a lot smaller than one of the Kryptonian spaceships. Dropping to her knees, she drew in a burning cold breath, reaching out with a thick gloved hand to wipe away a layer of frost creeping across the glass, her breath catching as she took in the gloomy figure of a man inside the pod. He was unconscious, perhaps even dead, and she felt her heart pound in her chest. Unhooking the rope from her belt, Lillian hooked it onto the pod and scrambled back up the steep incline, using the rope to help, and jogged as quickly as she could back to the aircraft. Slipping on the slick metal ramp, she jabbed at a few buttons on the large dashboard, lights blinking and metal whirring, and had the crank turning as the aircraft started to heave the hulking mass back towards the ship.

            Waiting patiently, the dark figure looming closer through the encroaching darkness, barely a shadowy lump on the horizon, she fought back nervous excitement. It could’ve just been a foolish explorer, out in the wastelands for their own reasons, much like she was, or it could be something else. The thought of some alien having landed right in front of her was a golden opportunity. He looked like them, from what little she’d been able to see.

            It was a slow and steady progress, hauling the pod onboard the ship, and as soon as the metal thudded into place, Lillian brought the ramp back up, sealing them inside the warmth as snow melted into little puddles on the floor. Eagerly yanking at the top of the pod, she was met with disappointment as it didn’t budge, and quickly pulled out a tool kit, getting to work on it, while the man slumbered inside. By the time she figured out how to get it open, she’d worked up a sweat in her thermal clothing, her cheeks flushed as she let out a quiet sound of triumph, the top of the pod lifting with a small hiss as it re-pressurised.

            Only a few moments passed before she realised her mistake. The man was screaming and thrashing in the leather seat he was strapped too - the hide of some foreign animal - his face paling as a sheen of sweat covered on his forehead, wide green eyes locked onto Lillian’s as his face twisted with fear.

            “Lena,” he rasped.

            “I’m Lillian, of House Thor,” she politely informed him, in between his loud groans, teeth ground together so hard that she thought he might crack them.

            He broke off into a babble of unintelligible words, with one word repeating itself over and over again. Lena. She assumed it was a name of some sort, perhaps his, and soothingly murmured in Kryptonian as she tried to help him out of the pod. He weighed a tonne, and Lillian was red faced and frustrated by the time she got him out of the pod, his whole body collapsing beneath him as he hit the metal floor with a loud thud. Writhing around on the floor, struggling to breath, she realised that he definitely wasn’t from Krypton, and the planet didn’t want him there.

            Reversing her efforts, she settled him back in the pod and frantically pushed the top closed, sealing her subject inside it and listening to the small hiss with satisfaction as it re-pressurised itself. He seemed to relax slightly - not much, but a little - and she crouched in front of the clear glass, staring at him with interest. He had light brown hair, a strong nose and jaw, and a gold ring on his left hand. He wore a ragged white coat, the style unlike anything Kryptonian, and Lillian couldn’t help but feel like she’d just found something that had made her trip worthwhile. It wasn’t Kryptonite, but it was a chance for even further scientific study.

            She took him back to Xan City, packed up her things, and moved them to Kandor, putting a whole continent between them in case anyone raised any questions. With her connections, it wasn’t hard to falsify an identity to him. Lionel had a fake identity marking him as one of the Rankless, and with Lillian’s help, was elevated to a new standing. She knew about the other planets and universes, strange languages and stranger looking people - she’d even been to a couple herself - and it didn’t take long to figure out through their unintelligible conversations that he was a human, from Earth. As a member of the Science Guild, she’d never focused on languages or culture. Her calling had been chosen for her before she was even born, and foreign languages were lost on her.

            Slowly, she had to teach him Kryptonian, and he taught her English in return. Most of Lionel’s time was spent in his pod, at the top of one of the towering skyscrapers in Kandor, while Lillian tinkered away, trying to find a way to help him. The conclusions she’d come too, after being granted access to files about Earth, was that Krypton was bigger than his planet, the gravity much stronger and the atmosphere colder. His human physiology wasn’t made for Krypton, and every test she ran just showed more broken bones, lungs struggling to breathe, and his spine slowly compacting. Even the pod couldn’t save him from that.

            Pursuing her interests in Kryptonite, Lillian had accidentally stumbled upon a form of it that affected Lionel. It had taken a lot of effort to find enough Green Kryptonite to experiment with, but she worked tirelessly as she grew closer to the human she kept in her apartment. Eventually, she made a breakthrough. She called it X-Kryptonite, the glowing green substance somewhat strengthening his fragile bones and lungs, and made it into bracelets for him. He was paralysed, barely able to use his hands, but the effects of the crystal made it possible for him to sit in a wheelchair, instead of staying strapped into the seat in his pod.

            One sun cycle after he’d crashed on Krypton, Lionel was Ranked by the Voice of Rao, the High Priest of the sun god, at Lillian’s request. He was given a new name, one he willingly took, and started going by Lu-Thor, earning himself entrance into the Science Guild, alongside Lillian. Despite his sickly state, he worked beside her, lending his brilliant scientific mind as they tackled the Kryptonite together. They fell in love as they bonded over her work, surprising them both, as Lionel had started off as her lab subject. Standing on the Jewel of Truth and Honour, they were wed late in the month of Eorx, exchanging bracelets, with Lillian giving Lionel one of the ones she’d made him with the X-Kryptonite. A year later, they had their genetic material collected and taken to the Gestation Chamber, where a child was developed for them in the Birthing Matrix. Four loraxo later, on 54 Ogtal 9979, their son was born. They named him Lex-Thor, and his father loved him, but he never quite let go of his daughter.

            Ten sun cycles after Lionel had landed on Krypton, nearly fourteen Earth years, Lena’s pod crashed onto the planet. It was the sixth lorax of the amzet, on 36 Norzec 9987, when she landed and Lillian went to fetch her, and a lot had changed in that time. The father that she’d known was almost indistinguishable from any of the other Kryptonians, aside from his wheelchair and premature aging, with his new Kryptonian name and the sleek fashion choices they made. She was kept a secret at first, hidden away inside their private quarters atop one of the skyscrapers the Ranked lived in, cared for by the strange woman she didn’t know, while her father sat beside her. She was given a fake ID too, as a rankless who had been taken in by House Thor as an act of charity on the Nova Cycle celebration, a rebirth for the child. Instead of Lena Kieran, she was named Lena Lu-Thor, the youngest daughter of House Thor.

            Lillian was gentle as she cared for her new daughter, kneeling in a shallow pool of water for hours on end as the buoyancy of the liquid bore Lena's weight for her, freeing her body from some of the stress of Krypton’s gravity field. Lena stopped being scared of her very quickly, letting the woman attach monitors and green glowing devices to her as she floated in the clear waters, the only time she wasn’t screaming with pain. When it was bad, Lillian would murmur quiet things to her in a language the child didn’t understand, her fingers soft as she ran them through the silky tendrils fanning out in the warm water. With the scientific breakthroughs Lillian had made for her husband, Lena fared better than he had when he’d first landed on Krypton. Ten sun cycles had given them much time to figure out ways to help combat the different atmosphere of the planet, and Lena spent most of her time in the pool of water, yellow light beating down on her as her body absorbed the artificial radiation that would’ve been provided by Earth. Alongside the X-Kryptonite, it alleviated the symptoms a little, but not much. Still, she was never paralysed like her father, just chronically suffering from the weight of the planet beneath the red sun.

            Time passed by slowly, the Kryptonian months stretching on for longer than the Earth ones, although the years were shorter, and Lena adjusted quickly to her new life. Her father was there, and that was all her childish mind cared about. The rest of the time was a blur of pain and new things. She was spoken to in that bizarre language, until she started to pick it up, the woman who was constantly by her side taking the place of the mother she’d left behind. Her memories of Earth were hazy enough as they were, and with time, they grew even dimmer. With a new brother to tell her stories, she was fed on tales of this new planet, and all thoughts of her old life faded.

            She was raised as if she was Kryptonian, although her parents gently had to remind her frequently that she wasn’t. Too young to understand at first, Lena didn’t know why she couldn’t leave the apartment, or why she always had to sleep in a shallow pool of water, a flat, hard bench beneath the surface for her to lay on, or could barely leave the water regardless. When she was out of the water, she yearned to run around, as she had before in her father’s lab, but she didn’t know why her legs wouldn’t work anymore, each step nearly impossible to lift her foot, and her knees buckling beneath the pressure of her body weight when she stood. At times, it felt like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

            It was a harsh world too, and her parents wanted to protect her from it as much as possible. Krypton had once been a lush paradise, much like Earth, with so much green and plantlife, but war and time, as well as the planets cycles of large climate events, had left it mostly frozen with ice, or with rocky stretches of land surrounded by bitterly cold seas. The cities were few and far between, governed by the one nation, and Lena didn’t know how lucky she was to have found herself as one of the Ranked. She’d never met anyone else, locked away in her pressurised room with its dark, sterile walls and glistening pool of crystal clear water, medical machines that were far more advanced than anything on Earth, so she didn’t know how isolated the planet was. Or about the Class System. She’d never been taken down from their lofty perch amongst the rich and privileged, to walk amongst the poverty stricken Rankless District. The sheltered life was a blessing and a curse, and she fought it as she grew older.

            “But why can’t I go outside?” she’d ask Lillian, while her mother helped feed her the root vegetables the Labour Guild grew in large, underground warehouses. “I’m nearly eight sun cycles now, ieiu. I want to explore the world!”

            Lillian let out a small laugh of amusement, stroking Lena’s damp hair, her eyes sparkling slightly. They’d become a reserved group of people, with few displays of affection, but her mother was always gentle with her, and when Lena had been younger, she’d often climb into the pool to cradle her close and tell her stories. “Exploring, inah? And what happens when you make it onto the Gorv Ocean and a Pryllgu jumps up out of the water and snatches you in its mouth? Huh?”

            Lillian reached out to tweak Lena's chin as the child pouted, a frown puckering her forehead.

            “But I want to see birds!”

            “Birds?” the older woman laughed, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’d be luckier to see a Nightwing, inah.”

            As far as wildlife went, most things on Krypton would try to kill you, including the plants, and the only thing that didn’t was a shaggy haired beast called a Zuurt, that the Labour Guild reared on the barren plains for meat and its hide. She still pleaded with Lillian as often as she could manage though, sometimes finding herself too breathless and wracked with pain to do so, a small device covering her nose as fresh oxygen was forced into her lungs. Lena pleaded with her father too, although she usually had to settle for listening to him tell her stories about Earth from where he sat in his wheelchair, speaking in English as he told her about their own Gods, so different from Rao and the others the Religious Guild spoke of, but similar too. He told her of blue skies and a yellow sun, so many languages all crowded onto the tiny planet, foods she’d never get to taste, and giant monuments she’d never see.

            When her father died two sun cycles later, his body succumbing to the added stress the planet had put on it, Lena missed those stories more than she’d ever thought. They were the only things she had left to remember him by, as well as the golden ring he’d always worn, given to him by her birth mother. It was wrought in the shape of a woman’s face with snakes in place of hair. She wore it on a chain around her neck, and was prone to clenching it in a fist as she brooded. Sometimes not even Lex could break her out of one of her depressive episodes, bitterly confined to the water, or a wheelchair as she wistfully stared out of the windows, looking down at the dizzying drop to the slums below. It was beautiful when she looked out at the spires of dark, shiny skyscrapers, the hazy orangeness from the red sun making the building reflect it, giving the effect that they were all on fire. Lena would often wonder what it would be like to stand at the bottom, so small in comparison as she stared up at the colossal buildings.

            Instead, she spent her childhood indoors, Lillian tutoring her in all manner of subject, but mostly science, as she tinkered away at a new project. Most of them usually revolved around finding ways to ease Lena’s pain and discomfort, typically through modifying the X-Kryptonite, but also developing medications that kept her docile and numbed, or new equipment. Her mother gained notoriety from her new creations, earning herself a seat on the Science Council after being deemed one of the top ten scientist’s on the planet. It didn’t stop her from focusing all of her efforts on her family, and even Lex had joined the Science Guild and taken up helping her create new things. Lena had secret wishes to join too one day, and obediently learned from Lillian, or begged Lex to tell her what he’d learnt as he set up a board with little runestones, a near daily ritual between the two. Lena bested him nearly every time, her intelligence easily rivalling his, even if he was eight sun cycles older than her.

            He was patient, always, and one of the few spots of brightness in Lena’s otherwise dark life. But even Lex couldn’t fully take away her pain, and neither could Lillian, no matter how much she tried. Even with the enhanced effects of X-Kryptonite, her body cracked beneath its weight, and she spent hours lingering in uncomfortable pain, her face ashen from a lack of sunlight and drawn with pain. She was barely ten, and she’d suffered more than anyone had any right too. Even on a planet that had nearly managed to eradicate all diseases and illnesses, there was nothing to cure the fact that Lena didn’t belong there. She wasn’t a Kryptonian, and no matter how often she wore the sleek, plain clothes with the House of Thor symbol on it, or spoke Kryptonian and memorised passages from The Book of Rao, she never would be Kryptonian.

            Slowly but surely, the planet was driving her into an early grave, just like her father.

Chapter Text

            The years slipped by quickly, but nothing changed for Lena. Every day was much the same as the last. In the mornings, her mom would come in with the aid of one of their little robot assistants and help her from the pool of warm water. She’d be strapped into her wheelchair and taken to the bathroom to wash up, before being helped into dry clothes. It was one of the brief daily moments where Lena wasn’t soaking wet, and warm blankets had to be piled around her shoulders and on her laps to stave off the shivers from the naturally colder climate of Krypton. A red sun didn’t give off as much warmth as a yellow one, and the apartment was usually stuffy as hot air flowed out of the vents. Still, she never seemed to be warm.

            Afterwards, Lillian would help her eat, taking the fork from her when Lena’s arm grew too leaden to make it to her mouth, and she’d grimly sit there and let her mother feed her the mixture of grains and vegetables that was their main food staple. Then came copious amounts of pain medication, taking the edge off of the dull, throbbing pain that seemed to permeate her entire body whenever she was out of the water. Gravity had a way of clawing at her body, adding pressure to her fragile bones as it willed her to crumble to the floor. On good days, nothing broke, but on bad ones, her ribs would splinter, her legs would fracture, and her entire head would be consumed by a pounding headache that made her feel like her head was about to explode.

            Mornings were never fun for Lena. She’d sit in the chair, staring out the window at the smoggy orange view of a jungle of skyscrapers, small airships soaring between the spires of buildings or weaving between them with grace and speed. In the distance, she could see the mountains, their peaks wreathed in wisps of reddish clouds and cascades of snow covering their rocky sides. Every day, she’d sit there and imagine what her life would be like if she could go out there. Few people had ever seen her outside of her family - just the occasional scientist of friend of Lex’s, staring at her as if she was some oddity - and she knew that they would treat her as if she was diseased.

            Kryptonian’s had few illnesses, and everything from broken bones to scrapes, bruises and internal bleeding, were nothing but mild irritations. But there she was, bound to a wheelchair, if not the water, with occasional help of a small oxygen filter strapped to her face, her body frail and lean as she succumbed to the effects of the planet. The people she met never knew the real reason why she was so sick - it had been attributed to Thalonite Lung and a rare bone disease that Lu-Thor had reportedly suffered from too - and they were cautious as they stepped around her, as if they didn’t want to get too close, unless they caught what she had.

            She preferred it when it was just her mom and brother in their apartment. At least they knew the truth, and while they still treated her like she was a fragile doll, they never kept their distance from her. They were constantly there, if anything, sometimes to the point where it drove Lena mad. They would tinker away at one of their projects on the floor of Lena’s room, explaining the mechanics behind it while Lena completed her school work on the holographic projector imbedded in the wall so she could easily access it from the pool of water. Sometimes Lillian would let her help with hers, with Lena’s aptitude for science obvious from a very young age, and her mother would listen to her input, a proud smile on her face when Lena got something right. She should’ve been in the Science Guild - would’ve been, if things had been different.

            At night, she’d let the buoyancy of the water carry some of her weight, floating slightly while straps held her in place, her head firmly wedged between the curved edges of the headrest and a dozen monitors strapped to her, measuring different bodily functions. Lillian would read new scientific articles to her, or quietly watch the latest news updates on the transparent holographic screen, staying until Lena drifted off to a fitful sleep with the aid of some painkillers.

            Kryptonian’s were never an overly affectionate people, living mostly isolated lives, even within their cities, but Lillian tried for Lena’s sake. She was different from them, she’d grown up with adoration and love, and her father had never let the societal expectations of Krypton take that away from them, and since his death, Lillian tried to do that for her too. She was always there, smoothing back her hair in a tender gesture, sometimes making up a bed for Lena on their sofa, gently tucking her in, and occasionally sitting with her as she read over articles or blueprints, Lena’s head in her lap as she lightly dozed.

            Sometimes it was almost too much for her. In her bad moods, Lena didn’t want her mother to hold her and tell her that everything would be okay, she just wanted to be left alone. It was frustrating to constantly be dependant on someone else sometimes. She couldn’t just leave . She couldn’t walk away from an argument, or pull away from Lillian’s motherly attention, and as she grew, she found it even more maddening. More and more frequently, she found herself bickering with her mom, who tried her best to be calm and patient, and even at odds with her brother, who she’d always been so close too. Slowly but surely, she found her moods lasting longer and growing darker as the tiny flicker of hope burned even lower. Lena knew that she was going to die.

            “You have to eat your lunch, Lena.”

            “I’m not hungry.”

            Letting out a huff of frustration, Lillian let the spoon fall back into the watery broth, a disapproving look on her face as she stared at her daughter. Her light brown hair was swept up into a neatly swirled bun, her clothes neatly pressed from her quick trip to meet with another scientist at the Science Guild, the guild’s sigil emblazoned on the front of her tunic. She’d arrived back a little while ago and immediately checked on her, making sure that she was okay. Lena had been consumed by her secret research on different suns.

            “Lena, I’m trying to be patient, but it’s running out. Eat your soup! You can’t just starve yourself, it’ll only make you sicker.”

            “You’re making me sicker,” came Lena’s surly reply, a petulant look on her face as she pressed her lips together in a thin line, refusing to let Lillian spoon more soup in. “You’re smothering me. I don’t need you to look after me. I don’t need to be locked up in here!”

            “I’m doing this because I love you! I promised your father that I’d keep you safe. Always.”

            “You’re not keeping me safe!” Lena snapped, her pale cheeks flushed slightly as her anger bubbled up. “You’re killing me! I’m going to die, mom. Dad only got sixteen years here, so by that logic, I only have seven years left. I don’t want to spend them cooped up in here. It’s not a matter of if , but when.”

            Her eyes shone with unshed tears, her fact taut with pain and anger, and limp strands of wet hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead. Deep shadows ringed her eyes, and her sunken cheeks spoke of the toll the atmosphere was taking on her body. Lillian knew the symptoms. She’d gone through this with her husband, watching him slowly deteriorate as the planet killed him, little by little. Lena was faring better than him, having grown up under the effects of the red sun on Krypton, and her human body, as well as the medical and technological advancements Lillian had made over the years. But still, the strain was visible on the plains of her face. She tried to keep up a brave front, unwilling to bend her pride and let the pain get the better of her, but it was there, in the tightness at the corners of her eyes, and the permanent downturned corners of her mouth as she grit her teeth together.

            “Listen to me,” Lillian quietly but firmly told her, taking Lena’s flushed cheeks in her warm hands, a spark of determination in her eyes as she loomed over her. “You are not dying. Not anytime soon. I will find a way to help you, inah. I won’t stop until I do, but you must let me keep you safe until I do.”

            “But I don’t-”

            “You can’t leave, Lena! You can’t walk ,” Lillian impatiently replied, her lips pressed together in a thin line of grim resolution. “Your spine will compress, your legs will stop working, your lungs won’t work properly outside of the apartment, okay? Where are you going to go? Hm? You can barely feed yourself without your hands shaking. Your body is too fragile for you to go outside.”

            Blinking back tears, Lena angrily curled her hands into fists and lashed out at the water, splashing water everywhere, including over the front of her mother’s tunic. Lillian just sighed, clucking her tongue disapprovingly as she wiped at stray beads of water, a stern look on her face as she stared down at her daughter.

            “You’re acting very childish, Lena.”

            “Because you’re treating me like a child. If I was on Earth, I’d be eighteen! An adult. I want to join the Science Guild, like you! I want to walk below in the Rankless District. I want to collect Kryptonite samples with you on one of your trips. I want to see trees.”

            Expression softening slightly, Lillian gave her a pitiful look, full of sadness and regret, and reached out to brush tendrils of damp hair out of Lena’s pale, pleading face. “Enough of this, Lena. I’ll have no more talk of it. You might been an adult on Earth, but you’re on Krypton, and it’s not safe. I know it feels like a punishment, but it’s for your own protection. It’s not just your health either; you’re supposed to be thirteen , but your human body ages quicker than ours. If people find out that you’re human, they’ll want to experiment on you. They’ll lock you up, take you away from me and Lex. Maybe one day-”

            “I’m tired. I’d like to sleep,” Lena hoarsely replied, her voice thick with emotion as she avoided looking at her mom, her eyes filled with tears as she tried to fight them back.

            She’d heard all of these arguments before, and she didn’t want to hear the empty promises her mom made to try and make her feel better. Lena knew, deep down inside, that Lillian would never let her leave. She did it out of love, but that love was slowly killing Lena inside, just as much as the red sun was killing her body.

            Sighing, Lillian climbed to her feet, resigning herself to the fact that her daughter was too stubborn to listen to reason. Dimming the lights, she left Lena alone. As much as she hated it, it was peaceful in her pool of water. Laying on the dark stone bed carved out of the rock of the pool, her head resting against the padded headrest, her body felt weightless and the pain was only a dull throb. With the lights a dim blue glow, barely enough to outline the shadowy furniture of the room, Lena felt as if it was the middle of the night, the whole world quiet around her as she trailed her fingers through the warm water, ripples radiating out from the disturbances and cutting through the quiet humming of the medical machines.

            Despite the permanent exhaustion, just another toll of the planet on her body, Lena didn’t sleep. Instead, she stared up at the dark ceiling, imagining what the world was like beyond the hazy view from the apartment windows. She’d seen pictures, of course, but it wasn’t the same. She wanted to feel the heat of the Fire Falls on her skin, to watch the Blood Blooms flowering near the top of the cliffs. She wanted to be the one to find and explore the Valley of Juru, to walk through the twisted trunks of rare dark trees and see if magic was real. Go to the Jewel Mountains and take in the glassy mounds of ice that made it look like the whole mountain range was made of crystals. Instead, she was locked in her suffocating room, the walls seeming to press in ever so slightly every day.

            Still wallowing in self-pity, she was disturbed a few hours later by the sound of the door hissing open as it parted, revealing a shadowy figure. Touching a panel on the wall, Lex brightened the dim lights, bathing the room in a blue light as he smiled at her. He wore green and purple, the colours of the House of Thor, having clearly just come home from the his work with the Science Guild, and his green eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched her weakly push herself up ever so slightly. There were days when Lena hated the sight of him, when she was bitter and angry and would look at him and see everything that she could’ve been. They had the same eyes, from their father, yet her brother was strong and healthy, and her body was turning on her, weakening and breaking on her. If her father had left Earth when he’d realised they were doomed, she wouldn’t have been born yet. She could’ve been born on Krypton, to Lillian, and been able to do all the things she dreamed of doing.

            The crushing weight of her situation slammed back down on her as she tried to sit up, gravity fighting against her stubborn willfulness as she forced her body to fight against the leaden feeling in her torso. Tutting disapprovingly, Lex quickly crossed the room, his boots clicking on the polished stone floor as he walked over to the tub, kneeling beside the shallow pool and gently pushing her back down against the slightly sloped rock bed.

            “You mustn’t strain yourself, ie.”

            “I’m not,” Lena bristled slightly, her heavy brows furrowing into a deep frown, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she shallowly breathed. “I’m trying to sit up . Am I not allowed to do that anymore? Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life staring up at the ceiling? It’s not exactly an inspiring sight.”

            Lex glanced up at the neat finish of the grey stone ceiling and let out a quiet chuckle, before looking back down at his sister. Arms folded across her chest - she could manage that - Lena pursed her lips slightly as she pouted, angrily looking up at the ceiling as if proving her point.

            Sighing, Lex settled down on the floor, resting his arm on the edge of the giant tub as he gave her a pointed look. “Well I came here to show you something, I thought it might cheer you up, but if you’re just going to sulk …”

            Turning her head, Lena arched an eyebrow, a flicker of curiosity in her green eyes as she looked at him expectantly. “Well, what is it?” she begrudgingly asked, knowing that her curiosity was greater than her frustration. She so rarely got to experience anything new that even Lex’s inventions were a welcome moment of distraction for her.

            With a flourish, her brother produced a large white bloom from behind his back, a smile lighting up his face as he carefully placed the flower in the inky water, watching it bob slightly as Lena shifted. “It’s a Dar-Essa flower.”

            “It’s beautiful,” Lena murmured, her voice hushed in awe as she reached out to delicately touch one of the petals.

            The flower started spinning as she prodded it, twirling with the current of the water as she watched. A feeling of lightness swept through her as she looked at the flower, such a rarity on a planet with little arable land. Flowers were typically grown in labs, with the fertile manufactured soil that scientists had created, and rarely in the wild. Only the hardier specimens grew naturally, ones full of poison or danger, but this one was beautiful and harmless. It purely existed to be admired.

            “Where did you get it?”

            Flashing her a sly smile, her brother rose his eyebrows slightly, “I stole it.”

            “Lex-Thor! You did not .”

            Laughing, he shrugged, a careless gesture as a faint smile lingered on his lips. “Kandor has a new resident. Kara Zor-El.”

            “El?”

            “Mhm. Daughter of Alura and Zor-El. She’s supposedly quite bright. After everything with her family, she decided to leave Argo City and join our sector of the Science Guild. She brought a Dar-Essa plant with her, and happened to leave it unattended while I was walking past. I didn’t see the harm in taking one flower.”

            He gave her a brazen smile, reaching out to create ripples in the water, the flower bobbing precariously with the movements. Reaching out, Lena cupped it in her hands a brought the flower up to her face, breathing in the sweet smell of it. Her lips curled up into a slight smile, a rarity for her, and she seemed to relax as she let out a small sigh, placing the flower back down in the water.

            “I watched her family’s trial,” Lena eventually said, her words absent minded as she toyed with the flower, enraptured by it. “They just wanted to save the planet.”

            “Wha- don’t tell me you think they were right ,” Lex laughed incredulously.

            Scoffing, Lena gave him a reproachful look, “of course I don’t! They killed people. That program of theirs, Myriad, would’ve caused chaos. But still … my planet was destroyed because everyone ignored dad. Everyone here is ignoring it too.”

            “Krypton is fine,” Lex dismissively replied, “besides, that program wasn’t going to help, was it? That woman’s sister was in the Military Guild, and they only know how to do one thing. All of them, their whole house, were in on it. They knew what they were doing.”

            “Not their daughter.”

            “Well … no. She’s only got two sun cycles on you. Too young to be a part of their coup.”

            “It’s sad,” Lena murmured, “she must be so alone.”

            Snorting derisively, Lex pushed himself to his feet, casting Lena a look of faint amusement, “she should be grateful she wasn’t made Rankless and barred from the Science Guild.”

            Lena was silent, caught up in her own thoughts, and didn’t bother replying. Her brother knew nothing of loneliness. She dimly acknowledged his parting words about going to his lab, and Lena distractedly nodded, staring down at the pure white flower as she thought about the girl. Kara Zor-El. The House of El has always been one of the most prominent ones in society, possibly even more of a force than the House of Thor, given their generations of famed scientists. And now it was all next to worthless, both sons having gotten caught in the middle of a ploy to install a program that would take over the minds of all of Krypton’s citizens. Not even a month ago, they’d all been found guilty by the High Council and brought into Kandor, locked away in Fort Rozz, to never see the light of day again.

            She shivered at the thought of being locked into a tiny cell and left to rot. Even her room and the rest of the lavish apartments seemed like a luxury compared to that. But a prison was a prison, and Lena spent the rest of the day brooding over the state of the near-barren planet and her own situation. She couldn’t fix any of it.

Chapter Text

            By the time she reached twenty sun cycles, Lena had already outlived her father, missing him every day as she was left to linger a little while longer on the planet. Despite sixteen years on Krypton, she still hadn’t actually seen any of the planet, had no friends, no life outside of the careful routine of her daily life. The driving force in her life was her scientific work. Ever since she’d set her mind of trying to find a way to cure the effects of the planet on her body, she’d spent every possible waking moment working on her research. She kept it to herself mostly at the beginning, quietly doing her research while she told her mother and brother she wanted to rest, but slowly, she revealed her plans, to a certain extent, asking Lillian to get her the materials she needed, getting Lex to lend her some of his tools and share his workspace.

            It took her a year to complete her prototype gauntlets, absorption plates forming to her forearms and hands, compressing the bones and blood vessels and keeping them from fracturing under the pressure of gravity. She tinkered away at it with determination, making moulds and welding pieces the durable metal mined on Krypton, and by the time she was seventeen, she had matching greaves, a breastplate and pauldrons. It was the first thing she’d ever made, and she wore them at all times, not just because she was proud of them, but because it helped. The low-magnitude high-frequency vibrations the pieces of equipment emitted reduce the stress fractures, and promoted healing, meaning that Lena was in less pain. She spent less time in the water and more time in her chair, working on improving it. After seeing the initial results, Lillian helped her too, a proud gleam in her eyes as she helped Lena draw up better blueprints, made proper moulds and took precise measurements of Lena.

            The second results were better. Each piece was a snug fit, holding her body together, reducing the pressure on her organs so that it didn’t feel like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Lillian had the genius idea to lace each part with X-Kryptonite, the small dose of it irradiating her body, infusing her bones and muscles with strength and making her more invulnerable. It was thanks to that suit that she was still alive longer than anticipated, although it didn’t heal her.

            It wasn’t her only plan though, not her main one, and she kept that one to herself. She didn’t think Lillian would approve. Creating a blue star beneath a red sun wasn’t exactly easy. Years of research had led her to believe that exposure to a blue star would radiate her body and potentially reverse the effects of Krypton’s red sun. She just had to figure out how to do it. As far as Lena could tell, it was a photonucleic effect, from moving between the influence of different coloured stars. Synthesising a blue star would essentially be the complete opposite of what the radiation from a red star was doing to her body. Instead of the crippling gravitational pull, making her bone density increase to the point where she could barely lift her arms, could barely breathe with all the strain on her lungs, her muscles atrophying and her bones fracturing. Instead, she’d become harder, more durable as her body changed to better suit the environment.

            In her father’s old files she’d dug up, Lena had read his hypotheses about how the reverse effects would be had on a Kryptonian beneath the Earth’s yellow sun, and had come to her own conclusion that if he was right, then why couldn’t the same be done for a human under a blue star? It was twice as hot as a yellow star, had a strong absorption line of light, a higher mass and emitted intense ultraviolet light. For all intents and purposes, it was like a stronger sun. Lena believed that if she could synthesise it, the photonucleic effect of the star’s radiation would cause her body to develop an enhanced stability. The nucleus of her cells would form a temporary shell to shield it from external harm from the outside of her body to the inner most cells of all her organs. The effects would be something like a momentary comatose state, too brief to notice and over in less time than it would take her to draw a breath. Every electron in every molecule of her body would jump outward by one quantum level. From her advanced study of physics and biology, she’d expect to see the nucleus of all molecules unbind, the subatomic particles loosening, expanding the binding space between them, until the physical space of the molecules seemed to grow. There would be no actual growth, but the physical space that the solid parts of them took up would increase exponentially, without increasing her actual mass. She would look exactly the same, but her body would be different beyond imaginable.

            Of course, it was all hypothetical as she tinkered away at her project. Part of the reason why she pursued, no matter how many failed attempts or dead ends, was the tiny sliver of determination to prove that she was just as smart as the rest of her family, that stubborn streak instilled in her by Lillian that made her unwilling to give up on her dream of one day leaving the apartment, and the other part was sheer desperation. She was sick of this, and the armour she’d made herself had given her a slight reprieve, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more . And although she knew her mother and brother loved her, they would never help her with this one. If it went wrong, she could quicken her slow journey towards death, she could infuse her body with too much radiation, burning her to the point where her paper thin skin blistered and scarred, if it didn’t outright kill her. It could increase her risk of cancer if the dosage was too high, and the Kryptonians wouldn’t have a cure for such a human disease. The list of possible side effects were endless, a daunting list, full of pain and the promise of death, but Lena was already guaranteed that anyway, so what could it hurt?

            By twenty-three, she managed it. A tiny lamp of flickering blue energy. The moment she saw that flickering blue light, she almost wept with relief. Years of research, planning and experimentation had led her up to this. Hours of fiddling with tools in her leaden hands, heavy pressure behind her eyes making her vision blur and painful migraines shoot through her head as she concentrated on the tiny print of her blueprints, careful theft of supplies from her mother’s workshop … it had all led to that moment.

            A wave of exhaustion washed over her, on par with the intense feeling of joyful relief, and it was soon swept away as she freed the small ball of energy from the clamp. The moment she took it in her hand, nestling the band of silvery metal in her palm as blue light bathed over her, she felt her body change. It was sudden and intense, and Lena held up a hand, flexing her fingers at the strange surge of strength and durability that swept through her. For the first time she could remember, she didn’t hurt .

            An excited smile on her face, she navigated her wheelchair away from the desk, wrapping her fingers around the pulsing blue ball, and hesitantly moved one foot from the footrest on her wheelchair. There was no resistance, no leaden weight trying to pull her back down - in fact, it was the opposite, as if she was featherlight - and tears pricked Lena’s eyes as she let out a quiet gasp, her face splitting into a smile. Pushing herself to her feet in a swift movement, she found herself standing. She’d never stood on her own two feet before. Her spine would’ve crumpled like paper, compacting and potentially severing the nerves of her spinal column. Yet she was standing, unaided, cupping the flickering synthetic energy in her hands as it washed her wan face blue. A look of awe dawned on her face, and she breathed in deeply, letting out a breathless laugh at the easiness of it.

            A knock on the door snapped her out of it, and Lena quickly dropped back down onto her wheelchair, her feet finding the footrests, her hand darting out to cut the electrical currency powering the lamp, before the mechanical hissing sound signalled the doors parting and her mom stepped into the room. Exhaustion and pain slammed down on Lena with such intensity that her vision darkened for a moment, and she blinked back black spots as she let out a hiss of pain, doubling over as she gasped for air.

            “Lena?” Lillian’s anxious voice dimly rang in her ears, sounding distant and tinny. “Lena, what’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

            Shaking her head, Lena squeezed her eyes tightly shut, her skin prickling with a sheen of sweat as adrenaline coursed through her body, quickly trying to adapt to the sudden changes of the red sun atmosphere. For a moment it had been blissful triumph, and now she felt even worse than before.

            “Everywhere,” she choked out, fingers curling around the arms of the armchair as she ground her teeth together.

            The lamp lay abandoned on the desk, and she desperately wanted to reach out and turn it back on, to let it ease her pain, send the thrilling feeling of strength coursing back through her body, but she knew she couldn’t. Lillian would be scared of what it could do to her. She’d want to test it herself, make sure that it was safe, that it was a proper working solution, not the basic prototype that Lena had made from scraps. Her mom’s hands were warm against her forehead, and Lena looked up at her, face twisted with pain as she stared into green eyes, seeing her mother’s fear that she was dying. Reaching out, Lena feebly took hold of her hand and then promptly vomited into her lap.

            She blacked out after that, waking up in the wet warmth of the pool of water, wearing a deep purple tunic and all of the pieces of equipment she’d designed. The muggy feeling in her head let her know that her body was coursing with drugs, had no doubt kept her under for a long while - longer than she thought, by the feeling of the feeding tube up her nose - and she was bitterly relieved for it. The feeling of pain slamming into her after a moment of heaven had been nearly unbearable. Over the years, she’d acclimatised, up to a point, but having that much pain course through her body had been a shock to her system.

            “You’re awake. Good.”

            Head lolling to the side, Lena peered up at her brother, a faint smile curling her lips as her eyelids dragged closed. “Mm. It hurt.”

            “You’ve had mom worry sicked, ie. She thought you were dying.”

            “Mm, I saw it in her eyes,” Lena thickly replied, letting out a wispy sigh as her limp body further relaxed.

            He sighed, dropping to his knees beside the pool and reaching out to scoop her wet hand up from the water. Holding it tightly between his own, he looked at her with worry etched into the lines of his face, making Lena let out a shaky laugh. “I’m fine, Lex.”

            “No you’re not,” he murmured, a sad look softening his features, “it’s too much for you, isn’t it?”

            “It’s okay though,” Lena assured him, eyes shining with a film of tears as she extracted her hand and gave his a reassuring pat on the back. “I’ll fix it. I just need more time.”

            “Of course,” he lightheartedly agreed, although she could see it in the false brightness of his smile and by his tone that he didn’t believe her. “And mom … any day now, she’s going to have something that works. It won’t be long.”

            “Exactly.”

            He gave her another dose of pain medication after that, leaving her mind swimming in a peaceful haze while she lay submerged in the water, before slipping out of the dim room to fetch Lillian. Lena was all but oblivious to her mom’s presence, each attempt to keep her eyes open a struggle, and she drifted in and out of consciousness as she listened to the gentle murmuring of her Lillian’s voice as she spoke to her, removing the feeding tube and the IV cannula, checking the silent monitors and the data they’d collected. It was of little concern to Lena, and she was unconscious before her mom even left.

            She was lightly dozing, her chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, unaware of the woman sitting on the floor, head resting against the stone edge of the low pool as her shoulders hunched over in defeat. Lillian didn’t know how to save her anymore than she’d been able to save her husband. But she didn’t need to; Lena was going to save herself.

            A few weeks slipped by before she got to test out her lamp again, this time waiting until her mother and brother had both gone out for a meeting with the Science Guild, leaving one of their robotic servants to watch over Lena. It hovered a few feet off the ground, patiently waiting for instructions, and she swiftly unstrapped herself from the rock bed, gritting her teeth together as she dragged herself out of the water and fumbled for her wheelchair. It was a struggle, and in the end, she ordered the little robot to fetch the lamp for her. Half submerged in the water, soaking wet as water streamed from her dark locks of hair, she held the dull ring of metal in her hand, before summoning the holographic screen from the projector in the wall. With a few quick taps, she was holding a glowing ball of blue energy, her body coursing with unbridled strength and power.

            Nimbly climbing to her feet, Lena almost launched herself into the ceiling with the force of the movement. She was used to fighting against gravity, and had overestimated the energy needed to raise her limbs, grazing the rough hewn stone ceiling, before falling back down to the floor. Drops of water sprayed everywhere from the giant leap, and Lena crouched on the floor, hand braced against it as she clutched the lamp close in the other hand. She was strong, she could feel it, and her eyes lit up with a challenge at the thought of how strong she could be. She could be weightless, able to fly, strong enough to punch through walls with her durable skin, hot enough to possibly even channel the heat of the radiation. She just had to synthesise a bigger ball of energy first. If you wanted to light up a whole room, you didn’t use one tiny light, you used a massive one, or loads of little ones. Lena needed a bigger lamp.

            Leaving a wet path leading towards her mother’s lab, Lena pulled up the blueprints on a holographic screen and spent the next few hours tirelessly working on recreating the energy of miniature blue star. This time, she was doing it on a bigger scale - not by much, but she needed to see how far she could push this. It could be the thing that saved her.

            It took weeks before she finished the bigger model, stealing moments when her family wasn’t home so that she could feed off the energy from the small lamp she’d made, growing sicker when she had to turn it off and fight on without it. Her moods were dark and bitter in the midst of the pain, and she could see the shifting unease on her mother and brother’s face whenever they’d share a look, wondering how long she had left. Lionel had been dead far sooner than this, and they could see the beginnings of what he’d gone through in the sunken eyes, gaunt cheeks and pallid skin of Lena. She wasn’t quite there yet, but soon, she’d further sicken. The intense bouts of pain spoke clearly of that. They didn’t know that it was of her own doing, forcing her body to go through excruciating withdrawal from the blue star energy as it acclimated itself to Krypton again. Still, even she knew that kind of stress couldn’t be good for her body.

            Over the course of her experimentation, she turned twenty-four. There was unrest on the planet at that time, the Rankless rising up against the Ranked, Guilds fighting, a forgotten rebel organisation called Black Zero rearing its head again. Part of it was the aftermath of what the House of El had done, sowing seeds of discord and instilling fear in citizens, and Lena was occasionally grateful for the fact that she was far removed from the political strife and danger. From what Lex said, the Military Guild were even busier than usual these days, Kandor’s law enforcement, the Sagitari, finding themselves patrolling more often. Her brother’s work had taken a turn towards weapons of late, developing new blasters and high-grade military armour to outfit the soldiers with. Lena disapproved of it, but he was good at it, smart and creative, and it was the purpose that the Voice of Rao gave him. Even she couldn’t argue against that.

            Still, she couldn’t help but wish that there would be no need for weapons, or soldiers. If she could’ve helped, she would’ve. It crossed her mind that perhaps she should’ve focused more of her time on developing more fertile soil, cross-breeding their food sources, creating more renewable sources of energy. Things that could make a difference to Krypton. Instead, she fixed herself, and that in itself was the single most life-changing thing she could’ve done for the planet. Lena just didn’t know it at that time.

            In stolen moments, she ran tests on her blood, bringing her cells close to the synthesised blue star energy, peering through a microscope at the sturdy metal desk as she observed the changes done to her cells. It was just like she’d imagined from her inferred conclusions of her father’s rambling notes. Her cells hardened, growing more durable, taking on a different quality. It was fascinating to see, and Lena was almost sad at the fact that she had no one to share it with. All the stuff she had discovered had been carefully documented, but she wanted to proudly show it off, to let the planet know that she was smart, was a true genius and worthy of the House of Thor. The research she was working on was possibly some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs the Science Guild would ever have seen, maybe even better than her mom’s work, and instead of presenting it to them, she was hidden in their lofty apartment, tinkering away in the vast lab in secrecy.

            Until the day she finally set foot outside. It was a hazy day, the orange paling as a snowstorm was swept in from the barren Outlands, fierce winds screaming through the shiny skyscrapers, and Lena was relaxing in her pool of water, her mind distractedly going over her most recent blueprint for a bigger energy generator. She’d made a bigger lamp, and her calculations had been perfect, down to the number, but her cells hadn’t started to be damaged by it yet, which led her to believe that it could be slightly bigger and even more so successful. So far, the latest design allowed her to be infused with the photonucleic effect from up to twenty feet away, although distance weakened it. She was running through the newest calculations in her mind when the door hissed open and her brother walked in.

            He wore his Science Guild tunic, his dark hair neatly slicked back and an excited look on his face. Today was the day he was going to Argo City, with a few dozen other guild members, to present his latest blaster design to their sector of the Science Guild. It had been well received by the Sagitari, and if the Science Guild in Argo City could manufacture their own there, they could outfit their regiments of the Military Guild with them as well. It would help manage the few uprisings in their own districts too. Despite his excitement, he picked up Lena’s broodiness, and settled down on the floor, careful not to wrinkle his clothes as he arched an eyebrow.

            “What’s bothering you?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Liar,” Lex chuckled, gently tapping her on her forehead, “your thoughts are written right on your forehead, like a Thought-Beast, ie.”

            Giving him a thin smile, Lena rolled her eyes slightly, “it’s nothing, ue. I’m just … calculating things.”

            “Ah,” he murmured, before climbing to his feet and leaning over her, pressing a tender kiss to her cheek, “well don’t trouble yourself too much with it; you need to rest.”

            Nodding, she murmured her goodbye and watched him leave, wishing more than anything that she was going with him. The best she would be able to manage was waiting for him to come home and tell her everything. It was frustrating to say the least, especially now when she potentially had a way to help herself. She wasn’t sure if it would work as well outside, where the air hadn’t been pressurised slightly for her, like Lillian had done so in their apartment, but she had high hopes that it would.

            She was still brooding over the math and logistics of it when Lillian came to help feed her lunch a short while later, a watery soup steaming in the bowl as she sat down on the low stool beside the tub. A wide window gave them a spectacular view of the needle-like buildings rising up from the rockbed of the planet, snow-capped mountains looming in the distance, before giving way to the snowy wastelands beyond. Everything was painted orange, as usual, although the red sun was faint today, a flurry of dark snow and wispy clouds obscuring it. Lena obediently let her mom spoon the soup into her mouth as she wallowed in her own thoughts.

            “Look,” Lillian suddenly interrupted her, pointing towards the window, where a large, dark aircraft - bigger than the typical ones used by the citizens - drifted into sight a few blocks away, making towards the rocky mountain range as it intended to fly over them. “He’s on his way. I wonder what they’ll think of his blasters.”

            There was a hint of pride in her voice, and Lena’s heart sunk a little, knowing that no matter how much Lillian loved her, she’d never have cause to be that boastful about her. What had she done that was so wonderful? What had she done that she could tell her about?

            “He’ll be great,” Lena murmured.

            “Mhm. Now, you should rest. Do you want the window darkened?” Lillian asked, climbing to her feet and walking over towards the window, a panel beside it used to turn the window solid, as if it was a part of the natural wall of the apartment.

            It made the apartment seem dark and suffocating when it was shut for too long, but Lena knew that she wouldn’t sleep if it was open. She’d just spent hours daydreaming about what it was like outside.

            “Yes plea-”

            “Oh Rao,” Lillian suddenly exclaimed, the metal bowl clanging to the ground, a few flecks of soup splashing onto the stone floor as she pressed a hand against the window, almost as if she was trying to get through it.

            Struggling up slightly, Lena gave her a startled look, “what? What is it?”

            “The aircraft! It’s going down,” her mother choked out, turning to look at her with wide eyes, her face pale and stricken with horror.

            The only thought that crossed Lena’s mind was that her brother was on there. Her brother who told her tales about legendary Kryptonian heroes, looked over her blueprints when she was younger and told her she would most definitely make it into the Science Guild with them, stayed with her through hours of unimaginable pain. And he was going to die if it crashed.

            Mouth dry with fear, Lena struggled with the straps, frantically scrambling to undo them as Lillian turned her attention back to the window, one hand clapped over her mouth as she watched the dark shape skim lower and lower.

            “Mom! Help me. Help me out of this,” Lena urgently shouted.

            Turning to look at her, Lillian blinked rapidly, coming back to herself as she rushed over to her daughter, trying to ease her back down against the carved bed. “Lena, don’t. You have to stay still, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

            Grabbing hold of her arms, Lena gave her an earnest look, an almost maddening gleam in her eyes as she held fast. “Mom, I can save him. Please.”

            “Wha- you can’t walk , Lena.”

            “Get me a robot. Hello? Excuse me, Droid, I need the blue sun lamp.”

            “The blue what?” Lillian exclaimed.

            The little robot that was stationed in her room, just in case she ever needed anything, quickly came to life, opening up a cupboard in the panelling along one wall and pulling out a band of silvery metal. It whizzed over to Lena and handed it over to her, and she quickly tapped it to life - one of the upgrades she’d made - watched as electricity crackled and a blue light blossomed in the middle of the band. Watching with her mouth hanging open in surprise, her pale face bathed in an eerie blue light, Lillian speechlessly stood by as Lena easily tore the metal restraints off with her bare hands, climbing to her feet in a blur, the lamp clutched tightly in her hands, and blurred through the apartment.

            She barely waited for the air hanger door to open, waiting until it was parted just enough for her to squeeze through, before she took a deep breath, hoped that she was right in her flying abilities, and shot through the widening gap, leaving a shell-shocked mother behind. She was wearing a black tunic, the Thor sigil hidden by the bulky breastplate she was wearing, and a handful of people knew who she was and what she looked like, which meant that she was largely anonymous. Not for long though, as she shot through the sky, the weightlessness of it making her stomach plummet as wind tugged at her, caressing skin that hadn’t seen fresh air in decades. Her lungs sucked in grateful deep breaths of fresh air, the taste of fumes and snow on the air, and Lena pushed herself onwards, weaving in and out of sparkling buildings with uncoordinated movements. Control didn’t matter in that moment, only getting to the aircraft as quickly as possible.

            It was there, in the distance, which she was rapidly crossing in a blur, a blue light feeding her body with energy as she raced towards it. The aircraft spiralled towards the ground with a plume of black smoke drifting up from the engines, and Lena pulled up underneath it, gritting her teeth as she thrust her hands out, denting the metal with the force of her strength, blue energy crackling as she fought to keep a hold on the sun lamp and slow the descent of the aircraft.

            With some difficulty, she managed to safely guide it down to the pillowy piles of fresh snow in the foothills of one of the mountains ringing Kandor, letting it settle into the snow before she stepped back, not even winded by the effort of it, while a ramp lowered and pale, trembling figures stepped out into the biting cold, rattled by the near-death experience and confused at how they’d survived. And then they saw her, the lone, dark figure standing in the flurry of snow, a blowing blue light held in her hands as the wind tossed dark, frozen hair around her head. Only Lex knew who she was, his lips parted in surprise as he numbly stared at her, a look of bewilderment in his green eyes as he gave her a questioning look.

            Without any explanation, Lena shot off back into the sky, a smile splitting her face as she raced back towards the city, passing by skimmers flying towards her to rescue the would be victims. Filled with a sense of purpose and pride, she clumsily flew back towards the cluster of dark towers, eyes bright and cheeks flushed with a healthy glow, and for the time in her life, Lena felt truly alive.

Chapter Text

            She was hurtling towards the looming skyscrapers so fast that she was little more than an indistinguishable blur, barren brown earth and patches of white ice rapidly flashing by beneath her, adrenaline coursing through her body at what had just happened. Lena couldn’t keep the smile off her face. And then she was falling. At first, she didn’t know what was wrong, her flight faltering as she tried to maneuver her way between the glossy buildings, and then she slammed into the side of one of the buildings, cracking rock and the crystal windows with the force of her body crashing into it. The blue light of the sun lamp guttered in her hands, and she felt the blood drain from her face as she lurched forward, her body immune to the pain of the crash. Something was wrong.

            It was just a prototype, and she knew the risk of using it would be great. She could’ve fallen two hundred feet to the ground as soon as she’d stepped out of the apartment’s hangar, she could’ve died a dozen times as she raced towards saving her brother, but the risks had all been worth it. And now the thrill of it all, coursing through her body as she buzzed with triumph, turned to ice in her veins. The ground raced up to meet her, and then dipped away again as the blue light infused her with power, struggling to stay on as she raced towards her apartment building.

            Dipping again, she slammed into the roof of an aircraft, rolling along its surface as it shot past, and then plummeted twenty feet, before soaring again. Her mouth way dry with fear, her knuckles white as she clutched the device carefully in her hands, just tight enough not to snap the hard metal she’d built it with, yet needing the comfort that its presence could offer. It occurred to Lena that if the light went out, she’d fall, until she hit the ground, and when she collided with it, her body would be pulverised by the pressure of gravity combined with the steep drop. She’d be dead, without a doubt. But the apartment was still a mile away, rapidly approaching, but not fast enough. The sun lamp didn’t have that long. She was falling too quickly.

            And then another aircraft was coming straight towards her, completing a hairpin turn as a ramp descended, revealing the dark confines of the ship. Unable to stop herself, Lena went flying straight into the mouth of the aircraft, her feet scrambling on the slick metal deck as she tried to skid backwards, through the closing jaws of the aircraft. Her wide eyes flickered back and forth, looking for an escape route, before she was jolted back to reality by a familiar sharp voice.

            “Lena,” Lillian barked, swivelling the command chair around to give her daughter a thunderous look. “What in Rao’s name-”

            Weak with relief, Lena let out a choked laugh as the blue sun lamp fizzled in her hands and died out. With a dull thud, it clattered to the deck of the aircraft, and she stood for a few moments, the power of the radiation coursing through her body, her healthy body, before pain slammed into her. Her whole body buckled beneath it, a scream falling from her lips as her face twisted with pain, her legs snapping first as hairline fractures threaded their way up through the bones, her body compacting on itself.

            Knees slamming down hard on the metal, Lena went sprawling forwards, her wrists giving way beneath her weight as another scream got choked off by a sharp intake of breath. Her vision blurred, black spots visible as her eyelids fluttered, and her ears rang, the distant sound of her mother’s voice faintly registering in Lena’s mind. She couldn’t move, couldn’t make her voice work as she drew in ragged breaths, face down on the floor as she slid along with every movement of the aircraft.

            She wasn’t sure how long it was, although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, before the gentle jolting feeling of the aircraft touching down made itself dimly aware through the haze of pain that overwhelmed Lena. Her whole body hurt. Each breath was a struggle, her head throbbed, pressure building behind her eyes, she could barely see or here, let alone move. A crumpled pile near the rear of the ship, she lingered on the threshold of consciousness, feeling the vibrations of hurried footsteps, before gentle hands carefully ran over her. Feeble cries of pain fell from her lips at the probing touches of her mother’s skilled hands, a cold sweat covering her body as she drew in painful breaths, eyes screwed tightly shut as Lillian felt out cracked ribs, innumerous black bruises.

            Stubbornly holding onto consciousness, she waited as she listened to her mother bark frantic orders to their robots, medical equipment sped through the apartment, before Lena was rolled over. A garbled groan rose at the back of her throat as bright white light swam into dizzying focus above, indistinguishable smudges moving around above her, and she felt the pinching and prodding of equipment being strapped to her. A strong feeling of nausea welled up inside her as she was gently laid on her back, restraints holding her in place so that she didn’t damage her spinal column, and Lena let out a quiet whimper as hot tears fell from the corners of her eyes, tracing their way down her temples. Body arching as much as it could, she convulsed, vomiting all over her chest, hearing a cry of panic, before something soft mopped at her mouth, chin and neck. Her lips tasted the coppery telltale signs of blood, and she felt something warm trickle from her nose. Everything faded to black after that, the last thing she saw being the oxygen mask closing over her mouth and nose, the tickling feeling of the gas worming its way through her bloodless lips and up her nose.

            The next time she woke, she was back in her pool of water, the lights off, the window concealed, and the temperature of the water cranked up so hot that wisps of steam curled up from the surface of it. Lena’s mouth was dry, her throat aching as she let out a feeble cough, and her head felt heavy as she blinked slowly. The stale taste of bile and blood coated her tongue, and she grimaced in distaste. She couldn’t feel much of the rest of her body, and she was dimly aware that it was probably for the best. She didn’t know what condition she was in. The last thing that Lena remembered was the blue light winking out of existence and her whole body crumpling beneath her. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

            “Thank Rao, you’re awake,” Lillian’s relieved voice broke the silence, the words holding a hard edge to them as she appeared beside the pool, her face drawn with weariness and her eyes swimming with fear.

            Blinking slowly, Lena let out a hum of agreement, trying to clear the foggy thoughts from her mind as she shallowly breathed. Her limbs felt even heavier than usual when she tried to move her hand, in vain, and she found that she couldn’t even turn her head to the side, a stiff neck brace holding her in place, as well as the rest of the restraints. She had the sense that she’d been out for a while.

            “How long.”

            “Five days,” Lillian stonily replied, before falling silent.

            “Lex …”

            “Is fine - thanks to you.”

            The silence washed over them, and Lena found herself wishing that her mother would get her lecture over and done with. It would fall upon deaf ears anyway - Lena didn’t regret her decision one bit. If that fleeting moment of freedom was all she would get, then she would cherish it forever. The feeling of wind biting her cheeks, grabbing at her hair and clothes, the smell of fumes and fresh air mingling with the smells of the city, the weightless feeling of soaring between buildings … it was all worth it. Most of all, saving Lex.

            “Well?” Lena mumbled, her voice a hoarse rasp from disuse.

            Spluttering, Lillian made a sound of disapproval at the back of her throat. “Well? Well? Is that all you have to say for yourself, Lena Lu-Thor?”

            Shaking with a quick laugh, Lena let her eyelids flutter slightly, the effort of keeping them open too much to bear at that moment. “I have a lot to say, ieiu. I just don’t think you want to hear it.”

            “What could possibly have been going through your head when you decided to use that- that thing ? Hm?”

            “I know you’re mad-”

            “Mad? Mad? I’m furious! I’ve spent so long trying to keep you safe, trying to keep you alive, and this whole time you’ve secretly been building that energy generator so that you could throw yourself into danger. I’m furious, Lena. I’m furious because as a mother, it’s my job to be smarter than you and keep my children safe, and this time … you were better than me on both accounts. I’ve never seen the likes of that thing . I don’t know how you did it, but it’s a rare day when even I’m surprised.”

            Choking on a laugh, Lena’s bloodless lips curled up into a smug smile, her ashen cheeks dimpling as she glowed with pride. “It was brilliant, wasn’t it?”

            Gentle hands brushed her hair back, and her mother carefully kissed her on her forehead. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again, okay? You are brilliant; you didn’t need to risk your life for me to know that.”

            “But-”

            “You have thirty-six broken bones, Lena. You could’ve paralysed yourself. I’ve spent days trying to undo all of the damage you did. I was so sure that this time I wouldn’t- I was scared. I thought I was going to lose both of my children in the same day.”

            “But I saved Lex.”

            Letting out a heavy sigh, Lillian reached out to tenderly stroke a sallow cheek, and Lena tried her best to catch a glimpse of her mother’s face. From what she could see, she looked troubled. “I know you did, ukiem, but I wouldn’t want you to trade your life for your brother’s.”

            “I wouldn’t be giving up much,” Lena mumbled, a bitter feeling welling up inside as self-pity washed over her.

            “Hey now, I know it’s hard for you. I know how hard it can be, I watched your father go through all of this too, but I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to find a way to help you.”

            Gritting her teeth in frustration, Lena made a low sound of annoyance. “I found a way, mom. I did it myself. It works .”

            “You almost killed yourself,” Lillian flatly replied, “whatever it is, yes, it works, but it’s not reliable.”

            “It’s a blue sun. I synthesised the energy of a blue sun . I took dad’s notes and I figured out the solution by myself . I’m smart, every bit as smart as you, and I know that it works. I know it does. I’ve spent years on this.”

            Letting out a humourless laugh, Lillian shook her head. “All those times you were worse, I thought you were just getting sicker. That it was all too much. Instead, you were experimenting on yourself with this blue sun, weren’t you?” She took Lena’s silence as confirmation, tutting disapprovingly. “You don’t know what this could do to your body. I’m talking long-term. That much radiation could-”

            “It could what?” Lena sharply asked, “kill me? I’m already dying, mother. At least if I die this way, it’ll be on my own terms. Free. For those few minutes, I was free . And if I’d died because of it, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I still would’ve risked it. Look at my blueprints. Try it out. You’ll see that it works.”

            “You fried it on your little adventure, and your blueprints are encrypted. I tried to fix it to use it on you. I thought it might help heal you quicker, but I couldn’t figure out how you did it.”

            Feeling somewhat proud of the fact that Lillian hadn’t cracked her password. “It’s the chemical formula for Kryptonite,” she confessed, “go through the files. You’ll see that it works. I’m right.”

            “You’re always right,” Lillian quietly laughed, reaching out to touch one of the circular disks stuck to Lena’s temple. A rush of calm swept through her body, and it took her slow mind a moment to realise that Lillian had triggered one of the pain medication ports. Before she could even protest, sleep was creeping up on her, her vision blurring as her reply died on her lips. “But you need to rest.”

            She slept then, for what felt like a long while. The next time she woke up, it was to dim blue lights and the feeling of strength running through her veins. Blue sun lamps. It took Lena a few moments to realise that her mom had made them, or her brother. They’d read her blueprints and used the plans to engineer their own version of her creation, the blue rectangles of light replacing the old yellow sun lamps that Lillian had crafted for her. The effects of those ones pales in comparison to the blue ones. Lena could feel it. The aches and pains, which had become constant companions over the years, were nonexistent, her broken bones had been mended, and when Lena raised her arms, accidentally tearing the newly replaced metal restraints due to her unfamiliar strength, her pale exposed forearms with free from and bruises. The skin was flawless and impenetrable, harder than any metal found on Krypton, the ashy grey pallor having been replaced with a healthier glow.

            Sitting upright, the screeching sound of metal tearing splitting the silence as she broke free of the rest of her restraints, Lena smiled to herself, holding her hands up in amazement. She felt better than ever. It must’ve been at least a day or more since she’d been exposed to the radiation, her body brimming with newfound power. She’d never been under its influence for longer than a couple of hours at a time, and coming down from that high had always been a staggering blow. Lena couldn’t help but wonder how bad it would be this time. But for now, she told herself to enjoy it. The unbridled feeling of power was intoxicating, and Lena eagerly clambered out of the tub, moving so quickly that it was still a shock to her.

            She didn’t go flying into the ceiling this time, but she felt weightless as she lightly landed on the stone floor. Water streamed off her, creating a puddle beneath her as it ran down her skin in rivulets, her sodden clothes clinging to her. Stripping them off, she walked over to the towel folded on the low stool beside the pool of steaming water, wrapping it around herself and walking over to one of the panels in the wall. Clean clothes were hanging up, and she fetched a deep green tunic, a pair of fitted black leggings and shiny black boots. Dark, wet hair tumbled around her shoulders, clinging to her skin in places, and she rubbed it dry with the towel, walking towards the door and throwing it open.

            Walking through the apartment, she felt the effects dim slightly, although it didn’t slow her at all, her footsteps firm as she entered the living area. Lex was sitting on the black sofa, a wrench in hand as he assembled a laser core for one of his blasters, a pair of goggles protecting his eyes as the news played on a large projected screen on the wall across from him.

            “The suspected nightwing hasn’t been seen since saving all passengers aboard the aircraft, ” the voice concluded.

            “Nightwing?” Lena hoarsely asked.

            With a clatter of metal crashing to the floor, Lex jumped to his feet, cursing as he held a hand against his chest, green eyes wide with surprise. “Rao, Lena, don’t do that.”

            She gave him a smile, strolling across the room with her arms folded over her chest. He paused for a moment, a wary look on his face as he gave her a once over, giving way to awe as he took in the fact that she was standing on her own two feet. She’d never so much as stood before, let alone walked. She’d barely been allowed to sit up in her wheelchair. It was a shocking sight for her brother, but probably not quite as shocking as seeing her standing in the middle of the snowstorm, glowing blue as the fierce wind tossed her hair about.

            “It works ,” Lex finally whispered, his voice full of awe as he slowly let the wrench fall to the ground, slowly moving towards her with a burning look of curiosity in his eyes. “I mean, mom said, but … you did this?”

            “Jealous you didn’t think of it yourself?” Lena asked, raising her eyebrows as a cocky smile curled her lips.

            “A little,” Lex admitted.

            Stopping in front of her, his eyebrows drew together in a look of concentration, reaching out to pick up her hand in his own, his fingers finding her steady pulse - beating stronger than it ever had before - before he gave her a gentle push. She didn’t move so much as an inch. He tried again, and Lena caught his wrist in her hand before he could lay a finger on her, a cool look on her face as she gave him a smirk.

            “Well … I guess that’s one way to cure yourself.”

            “And to save you.”

            He laughed, wrapping her in a tight hug - the kind of hug that her body had never been able to bear before - and Lena froze for a moment, before letting herself relax into his embrace. She hugged him back, squeezing him a little too tight as he made a choked sound in complaint.

            “Thank you,” he whispered, giving her another squeeze as he rested his chin on top of her head. “You’re a hero. You saved all those people on board.”

            Pulling back, she smiled up at him, arching an eyebrow questioningly. “Oh? So it wasn’t a nightwing then?”

            Letting out a derisive snort, Lex shook his head, walking back over to the sofa and dropping down onto it with a dramatic sigh. “For such an advanced species, some of us are quite thick. Of course , the only plausible reason why the aircraft didn’t crash is because some ancient mythological flying beast saved us. Honestly, you’d think that someone would’ve caught more than a blurred image of you. It’s almost insulting. All that risk, and no one even knows it was you.”

            “Don’t encourage her,” Lillian chided her son as she walked into the room, a disapproving look on her face as she looked at Lena. “Lena, sit down. Those lamps work, but I don’t trust them. I don’t want it failing again and you ending up unconscious for a week. Or worse.”

            Rolling her eyes at her brother, who gave her an amused look, she walked over to the sofa, nudging him out of the way and sitting down next to him, legs stretching out to rest on the edge of the crystal coffee table. “Don’t worry, I’ll get working on them soon. If I want to make sure it doesn’t die while I’m mid-flight, I’ll need to find out where I went wrong last time.”

            Spluttering, Lillian gave her a look of outrage. “Absolutely not!”

            Frowning, Lena pursed her lips, giving her a sulky look. “But I saved all those people! You heard Lex - I’m a hero , mom.”

            “You’re sick, is what you are,” Lillian curtly replied, “medicating with the radiation of a sun doesn’t change the fact that without it, you’re still sick. You can’t risk your life saving other people when you’re own life is at risk. You have a good heart, Lena, but you need to look after yourself first. No more flying. No more heroics. Please, promise me.”

            “Then what am I supposed to do?” Lena snapped, “I can leave now. I won’t be a prisoner here any longer.”

            “You’re supposed to be in a wheelchair.”

            “Then I’ll sit in a chair! I don’t care. I just want to live . I don’t want to spend every day shut up in here. Look at me! I can walk. I could bring this building down if I wanted to. I’m far from dying right now. You’ve looked at my blood results, right? You’ve seen what the blue sun radiation does to my cells? As long as I keep a lamp with me, I’m practically indestructible! Think of the people I could save, of what the Science Guild-”

            “You want to join the Science Guild? Fine. I’ll get you a place there. But you are not to go flying around like some silly hero from one of those tales your brother filled your head with.”

            A look of surprise flitted across Lena’s face, and a look of hope dawned in her eyes as she smiled up at Lillian. “You’ll get me into the Science Guild? Really? You mean it?”

            Sighing, Lillian considered it for a moment, before nodding. “If it’s what you really want.”

            Flying to her feet, Lena moved in a blur, throwing her arms around her mom and holding her tightly, her cheek pressed against her shoulder as she smiled brightly. “Thank you, thank you! I’ll make you proud, I promise I will.”

            Shaking with laughter, Lillian fondly patted her on the head, mildly surprised by the display of affection, and softly returned the hug, as if her daughter was still fragile and easily breakable. She’d spent so many years devoting her time to looking after her, fulfilling her promise to her late husband and ensuring that the little girl she’d taken in as her own lived to see another sunrise, and now she felt almost useless. Lena didn’t need her anymore. It put Lillian in a strange predicament, yet she was filled with an overwhelming sense of relief, comfort and joy. Her daughter was safe now.

            “You always have.”

Chapter Text

            True to her word, not a week later, Lillian had secured Lena a place in the Science Guild. When her mom came home and told her, she could’ve cried, filled with a sense of purpose and excitement for the second time in her life. The first had been the day she’d saved her brother, and her briefly lived stint as a hero, but seeing as she’d been banned from further heroics, the Science Guild was a dream come true. For as long as she could remember, Lena had wanted to join, to be just like her father and mother, and then her brother as he’d grown up and been admitted to the Guild. She’d always held onto the fantasy that she’d be allowed to join, not realising that being confined to her pool of water, with brief respites in a chair, were all her future held for her. She’d been ten when she’d realised that her mother never encouraged her wishes to join the same way she did Lex, because Lillian was above lying to her children, but couldn’t bring herself to dash Lena’s hopes at such a young age. She’d figured it out herself though, because she wasn’t getting better.

            But things were different now. Her own research had led her to a way to give herself moments of freedom from the crippling pain, and if she could find a way to sustain it, she’d be allowed to leave the apartment. Lena could go to the Science Guild, spend her days working at a lab as she tinkered away at projects, shaping the future of Krypton with her work, just like her mother had. It was everything she’d spent years thinking she’d never have, and now it was within reach. But first, Lillian had sternly explained that she’d have to undergo testing. First, she’d have to let her mother help her stabilise the blue sun lamps, so that they wouldn’t fail, and she wouldn’t be left stranded in her chair in the middle of a city she’d never been out in. She’d have to invest hours in training, so that she wouldn’t accidentally shoot across the room when she reached out for something, or pulverise tools into lumps of twisted metal with her bare hands, instead of delicately trying to put a device together. The strength and power were unfamiliar still, and if she wanted to blend in, she had to master them.

            With stubborn determination, Lena threw herself into it. She allowed Lillian to poke and prod her with needles, finding that when she was irradiated, her skin was impervious to everything they could think of, unmarred and with a remarkable healing factor. Her strength was tested, so strong that she had been able to squash the hardest metal Lillian had on hand with very little effort, so strong that she’d kill someone with one wrong movement, or crush their bones if she lost control. Her hearing was so sharp that she able to pick out her brother’s voice from within the Science Guild, miles away from their apartment, her eyesight so keen that she was able to see the herds of Zuurt’s roaming around on the barren plains outside the city limits.

            Then there were the actual sun lamps. After much deliberation, sparking numerous debates and arguments about whose calculations were more accurate, they’d come to the conclusion that a larger sun lamp developed a more unstable core. That was why it had died when she’d been flying back from rescuing Lex. To combat that, they made multiple miniature versions, so small that they were scarcely larger than Lena’s thumbnail. They’d be easier to hide too, especially if she was wheelchair bound outside of the apartment, and would be less likely to malfunction from overheating or overuse.

            Her entire room radiated blue light, and she slowly adjusted to her newfound physiological changes, and she could see the jolt that ran through her mother and brother whenever they came into her room, as the blue star radiation washed over them even more intensely. Although they never even broached the subject with her, Lena knew that they were also wondering what her discovery could do for Kryptonians. People would be invincible, able to fly wherever they wanted to, complete physical work with ease. But there was an unspoken risk, which Lena was only risking because the thought of staying trapped in pain until she finally died was even more unbearable. Her mother and brother wouldn’t risk their health for what the sun lamps could give them though, so they devoted their time to helping her instead.

            Still, it was weeks of fine tuning the blueprints, math and science behind the devices, before they came to a result that worked best. Small devices, emitting high doses, but more stable overall for the smaller scale. Quantity had been deemed a better fit here, rather than one massive core, and if one broke, at least Lena would be able to continue as normal with the others. Part of Lillian’s tests had included the smallest level of radiation her body could run off of without the crushing pain swooping back in, and when her mother was finally sure, she begrudgingly admitted that Lena was ready.

            The morning that she was finally allowed to leave the apartment, journey to the Science Guild and meet the greatest minds on the planet, work on her projects in the vast labs, browse the endless files available in their great digital library, Lena could hardly contain her excitement. She was beaming all through breakfast, feeding herself oats as quickly as possible while Lillian tutted and rolled her eyes, even as her lips twitched with a slight smile at seeing her daughter’s unbridled happiness for once.

            After breakfast and showering, Lena changed into a thin fitted jumpsuit, the fabric flexible and durable, clinging to her body in a way that would compress her bones and muscles, keeping them in place with pressure if the sun lamps should fail. Lena had helped Lillian create it, with little ports for the lamps to slot into place. There were three on her chest, just below her shoulders and on her sternum, two above her hip bones, on her shoulder blades, the base of her spine, her wrists, ankles and other places. Out of sight places, where they wouldn’t be seen, and wouldn’t accidentally be bumped. The tiny holes cut into the jumpsuit allowed direct skin contact with the radiation, the sun lamps backed with a heavy duty metal so that no one would see the blue light. And then came the newly redesigned armour Lena had manufactured for herself years ago. It had been slimmed down, as thin as possible while maintaining its durability, hugging her forearms and calves like a second skin, the breastplate and pauldrons all but unnoticeable as it was strapped into place. Lastly, she changed into black pants and a deep plum coloured tunic, hiding it all from sight, the high collar and long sleeves a good disguise for what lay underneath.

            Allowing herself to be strapped into her wheelchair, under the pretense that she still needed it due to a rare genetic condition that Lu-Thor had also suffered from - although it was completely unrelated, because she was adopted, as far as anyone else was aware - Lena fidgeted, waiting for everything to be double checked, before her mother was sure that everything was okay. Lillian had been fretting around her all morning, anxiously worrying over Lena’s first day, going over the back up plans, making sure her communications system was working and that Lena had both X-Kryptonite bracelets on as a precaution. Eventually they couldn’t put it off any longer, and the three of them left together, Lena shifting excitedly in her wheelchair, fighting the urge to break free of the straps and run to the elevator, barely able to control herself as her patience wore thin.

            They’d decided to go together - Lillian so she could ensure that Lena got there safely, and Lex so that he could see Lena’s face the first time she entered the Guild - and as the elevator smoothly dropped, lowering them towards the floor of the city, Lena couldn’t stop the nervous, excitable chatter that fell from her lips. She asked a dozen questions about the place, although she’d heard all the stories over the years, and seen hundreds of photos of it, and her mother patiently answered them all, while Lex shared secret smiles with her, a glimmer of eagerness in his own eyes.

            Coming to a stop on the ground floor, Lena wheeled herself out of the elevator with the touchpad on the right arm of the chair, her mother close behind, giving her a quiet warning not to get too far ahead. Lena was barely paying attention, a look of awe dawning on her face as she craned her neck, looking up at the towering peaks of the dark buildings. She’d stared out at the view for years from her room and various points in the apartment, and even flown between the spires of the skyscrapers on her one-time trip outside, but that far below, grounded in the shadows of Kandor City, it was a whole other world. People hurried past, dressed in the finery and colours of their houses if they were Ranked, in Guild uniforms of their respective professions, or if they were Rankless, muted colours of blacks and greys, the clothes worn and ragged from use. She frowned at that, watching as the citizens mingled, winding their way through the maze of streets unfamiliar to Lena. Armed Sagitari soldiers patrolled in pairs, a man dressed in a tunic with the Lawmaker’s Guild sigil on its chest hurried past, and a mother in a yellow dress with the sigil of House Ur on her chest ushered a small child along with her.

            Staring around in wonder, Lena couldn’t help but smile, taking in everything through the faint orange tint from the hidden red sun. The air was polluted further down, the smell of the factories and bars, homes and stores, and the general smell of thousands of people living together all mingling, and she let her chair wheel its way after her brother as she looked at everything with interest, drinking it all in. Lillian stayed close to her side, a look of indifference on her face as she went to work, and Lena couldn’t help but wonder what it felt like to consider everything around them so normal, so boring. The further they passed away from the clean streets near their building, the more crowded the streets became, stalls set up selling communication devices, expensive bolts of cloth on display outside a seamstresses, children running through the streets laughing, foods roasting as vendors clamoured for the attention of Kryptonians going about their daily life. And above them, hovercrafts, skimmers and spaceships all flew past, some of them so fast they were little more than a tiny blur passing high overhead, and Lena had the tingling sensation of flying, fighting the urge to launch herself up there and join them like one of those birds her father told her they’d had on Earth.

            Everything was new and fascinating, and Lena wanted to stop and stare at everything, wanted to give in to the beckoning and calls from the vendors and shopkeepers, trying to prey on her as they hawked their wares. They had a purpose though, and Lena was just as excited to set foot inside the Science Guild as she was about seeing the city from below, and eagerly trailed after her brother as she navigated her way between people wandering about on two legs. She drew numerous strange looks, the concept of illness an all but forgotten thing to Kryptonians. Thalanite lung and a few other rare diseases plagued them, but cases were so few and far between that to see Lena in a wheelchair was an oddity that people couldn’t help but stare. Trying not to let it get to her, although she became very self-conscious of her own appearance for the first time in her life, having never been around so many people, or felt the crowds pressing in as she tried to worm her way through gaps in the steady stream of people, and she was glad for Lillian’s hand resting on her shoulder, ensuring that she didn’t lose track of her as they passed through a large square. It was a lot to process, and Lena could understand why her mom had been so insistent on keeping her safe in their home. If she got stranded out in the city, without her powers and wracked with pain, she’d be at a loss.

            Eventually the crowds thinned out as they neared the large platforms where hulking buildings were crafted out of metal and crystal, shining in the orange daylight. Ordinarily, they’d rarely go down to the bottom-most level of the city, where the Rankless lived, and would stick to the slick metal bridges that criss-crossed between the gleaming towers, elevating the Ranked and the Guild members as they went about their business in the upper levels of Kandor, but Lena had wanted to fully experience everything on her way to the Science Guild. As she wheeled up the slope towards the hulking mass with the crystal domed roof that made up the Science Guild, she saw in stark contrast how different things were at that level. The light was brighter, not having to filter down past so many bridges, the shadowy criss-crossing making everything dimmer, and the streets were carefully paved, kept clean and in perfect condition, intricate patterns carved into the stone. She knew from aerial photos that they were the sigils of all the Guilds, and she let her gaze wander over all of the colossal buildings.

            Making their way towards the one with the Science Guild’s logo carved above the yawning jaws of the massive, open doorway, Lena felt her excitement rekindle, speeding up slightly in anticipation of going inside. Guild members hurried across the large, open square elevated in the midst of the city, colourful robes denoting their Guild or House, and she joined in with the gentle flow making their way towards the domed building. Lex turned to give her a wide smile as they entered the shadow cast by the building, and Lena gave him a slightly nervous one in return, taking a deep breath to steady herself as she continued.

            Passing through the tall doors, taking in the carved symbols, runes and numbers on the towering metal doors, Lena looked around in awe as she slowed just inside the doorstep. The domed roof towered high above, made completely of crystal as it let in orange sunlight, stone floors stretched out in every direction, hallways branching off the central chamber, and curved, sweeping staircases wound their way up to the second, third and fourth floors, everything shrouded in mystery and hidden secrets as she looked around. The middle of the foyer was dominated by a towering metal statue of a man, Telle, the God of wisdom, and Lena looked up at the stern, knowledgeable look on the statues face. This place held all of the answers she’d dreamt of, so many things waiting to be discovered, new information to be read, and she couldn’t wait. Letting out a slightly breathless laugh, she smiled at her mother and brother as they gave her a knowing look. She wondered if this place had been as breathtaking to them when they’d first stepped inside.

            “Now, you’re free to work on anything you want to,” Lillian reminded her, “any project. So if you need tools and equipment, you can check it out at the labs. You’ll be charged for anything that you need, but only if you sell one of your creations. There’s the digital library, if you need resources, and some of those files can only be accessed in that room on the projectors. The cafeteria is on this floor, and remember to be there by midday for lunch, okay? You too, Lex.”

            “Yes, yes,” Lena sighed, having already gone over this three times this morning, “I’ll be there for lunch.”

            Giving her a stern look, Lillian pressed her lips together in a thin line, a faint flicker of worry in her eyes as she stared down at her daughter. “If anything, anything , happens, anything goes wrong, or just- anything , you call me, okay? My comms are on, I’ll come right away, just tell me where you are.”

            A smile softened her face, and Lena nodded, “I will.”

            “Okay, well, give me a kiss.”

            “Mom! People are going to stare,” Lena muttered, ducking her head as Lillian tried to kiss her on the cheek, a rare display of maternal affection, even for her mother. Tutting, Lillian briefly stroked her hair and gave her a stern look.

            “Behave. Don’t make me regret this.”

            “I’m not a child anymore.”

            Rolling her eyes, Lillian made a shooing motion. “Go on, off with you then.”

            Without another word, she turned around and strode off, nodding at familiar faces as she went towards one of her own projects she was working on. Lena watched her leave, finding it odd that so many people were deferential and respectful to her, almost treating Lillian reverently as she swept by in her black robes. Turning to give her brother an expectant look, Lena beamed up at him.

            “I’m meeting a friend to work on a mod for my blasters. I’ll see you at lunch?”

            She’d been expecting him to stay with her, or at least show her around first, and a brief flicker of surprise ran across her face, before she composed herself. “Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. See you at lunch.”

            Giving her shoulder a squeeze of encouragement, Lex gave her a bright smile and walked off, his boots loud against the stone floor as it echoed off the high ceiling. People cast her furtive glances as she looked around, rolling herself forward, their hushed whispers unintelligible but audible in the echoey room, but she found that she didn’t mind it so much. The House of Thor was a renowned family in the scientific world, and of course people would show an interest in the reclusive youngest daughter finally coming out to join society. It was the natural curiosity instilled in all of them, and Lena gave people quick smiles as she passed them by, meeting their stares with her own.

            Unsure what to do, she set off exploring. Wide, arched hallways led away from the foyer, so she picked one at random and set off down it. First, she found the forges, the smell of fire and metal assaulting her sensitive nose as the scanner accepted her registered handprint and the doors parts. Guild members were busy working at the furnaces, the din of hammers ringing off metal echoing in the long room as shapes formed beneath their heavy blows. The sizzling of water cut through the rhythmic hammering as someone occasionally put their metal into one of the metal vats of cold water. Their faces were hidden by masks and hands covered with thick gloves so that they wouldn’t injure themselves, and Lena wondered if the heat would have any effect on her. Their research led her to believe not.

            Continuing onwards, she came to a room where a group of people were welding and using blow torches or lasers as they worked on metal. The next hall had a smattering of members working with crystal, blowing little clear orbs to life, perfect for light bulbs and Gods knew what else. She poked her head into all manner of rooms, finding chambers where a senior Guild member was giving a seminar on physics to young students who were yet to fully join the Guild, people were hunched over microscopes, the light dimmed, or one where a young girl was dangling from the ceiling, wearing a pair of anti-gravity boots. There were so many wonders that Lena wanted to see them all.

            She found the digital library, rows and rows of data stored in heavy machinery, with clusters of desks or seats and benches spread throughout the cavernous room. It was deathly quiet in there, and Lena was free to roam the aisles as she took in the towers covered in ports. All she’d have to do was find the topic she wanted and scan the band on her wrist, downloading everything the library had on the topic, and browse it as she pleased on a projected screen. Taking the liberty of downloading a few things on various subjects to peruse later at her pleasure, she carried on her way.

            A lot of the rooms were locked, she found as she wheeled her way through the warren of rooms. It turned out that certain labs or conference rooms had to be booked out, vast rooms with private furnaces or equipment offering privacy to those who didn’t want to share in the communal areas, and she was ushered out of a few rooms that she managed to get into, and completely barred from others that wouldn’t open beneath her touch.

            That was how she accidentally stumbled upon a room with a solitary figure with a plant on the table in front of her. The doors parted when Lena touched her hand to the scanner, and the young blonde woman jumped slightly at the quiet hiss, turning as she pushed a pair of goggles up onto her head and blinked owlishly at Lena, who lingered awkwardly just outside the doorway.

            “Oh, sorry to disturb you, I didn’t realise there was anyone in here,” Lena said.

            Pausing for a moment, the other girl gave her an uncertain smile. “It’s no problem. People rarely come to the botanical labs, so it was a fair bet.”

            “Botanical labs, huh?” Lena mused, looking around the space. There was a wall of tools that Lena had read were for cultivating land and plants, little pruning shears, trowels and hoes.

            “You’re new?”

            Shaking herself out of her curious inspection of the room, Lena gave the woman a sheepish smile. “It’s my first day.”

            “Would you like to come in and look around?”

            “I don’t want to bother you.”

            “It’s no bother.”

            Hesitating for a moment, Lena nodded and wheeled herself in, aware of the woman’s eyes on the chair, watching her as she let herself in. The door hissed shut behind her. Truth be told, Lena had little interest in botany, although she adored flowers, and was eyeing up the specimen on the table with interest, noticing that it was like the one Lex had stolen a flower from for her, but this woman was the first person to actually have a conversation with her since arriving, and Lena was starting to feel a little lonely. She’d expected someone to talk to her, even if it was only to ask her what she was doing there. She might as well make the most of the girl with the flowers while someone was being kind to her.

            “You like flowers?”

            Face lighting up with a smile, Lena nodded, nearing the desk, but hanging back slightly, not wanting to infringe on the woman’s careful work. “Most people think they’re pointless if they don’t have a use, but they’re so beautiful to look at.”

            “I agree,” the young woman quietly laughed, her blue eyes crinkling slightly at the corners.

            Returning the smile, Lena glanced down at the deep blue tunic she was wearing, taking note of the sigil emblazoned on her chest.

            “Oh! El,” Lena said, her voice coloured with surprise, “you- you’re Kara Zor-El.”

            The blonde woman’s smile died slightly, her face tightening as she pressed her lips together, the corners still curled up just a little at the corners. She picked up a pair of pruning scissors and cut a leaf from the plant, pulling a small microscope closer as she placed the leaf on a tray and pinned it in place. “Yes.”

            “I think I owe you an apology,” Lena said with amusement, the woman giving her a wary look as she looked down at her from the stool she was perched on. “My brother stole a flower from your plant, you see. He knew that I liked pretty plants, and, well, I don’t get out much, so … he wanted to give me a gift. Sorry.”

            Despite the cautious look in her eyes, Kara let out a laugh of surprise, her lips curling back up into a proper smile as she tilted her head to the side, looking down at Lena with confused curiosity. Her eyes darted down to the sigil on Lena’s chest, recognition dawning in her eyes.

            “Thor. You must be of some relation to Lillian Lu-Thor then.”

            “I’m her daughter,” Lena said, giving her a warm smile as she extended a hand, “Lena.”

            Blonde eyebrows rising slightly, Kara took a thin gardening glove off and reached out to take her hand, giving it a quick shake before withdrawing it, almost as if she was unused to such friendly, casual contact, afraid that Lena would bite. She couldn’t have known that Lena was as unused to the casual contact herself, that her mother and brother had to be so gentle whenever they touched her, because there were days when even the touch of clothing had felt like sandpaper against her fragile skin. She didn’t know that it was thrilling for Lena to be able to shake a hand, to talk to someone outside of her family.

            “I didn’t know she had a daughter,” Kara finally said, breaking the stretch of silence. “I’ve met her son, clearly, but …”

            “Ah, yes, well, I’ve been unwell,” Lena said, patting the arm on the wheelchair, giving Kara a lopsided smile as her cheek dimpled. “It’s been … a bit of a pain. Quite literally.”

            Giving her a grim smile, Kara nodded, “I hope someone finds a way to help you.”

            “Oh,” Lena scoffed, waving her hand dismissively, “don’t worry, I’m going to do it myself.”

            Kara’s laugh echoed off the walls as she stared down at Lena, her eyebrows rising momentarily, “you’re very ambitious. You should be upstairs with the elite. They’re all revolutionists who’re going to change the fate of this planet.”

            “And you’re not?”

            “With flowers? No, I don’t think so.”

            “My father believed that Krypton was in more danger than we thought. Burning through natural resources too quickly, ignoring the worsening weather. I mean, who knows, maybe one day you’ll create a more fertile soil before we use up all of our food sources and starve.”

            Kara fixed her with a blank look for a moment, before her face hardened and she abruptly turned away, her jaw muscles working as she hunched over her microscope. “If you think you’re being funny, I don’t find it amusing.”

            Spluttering, Lena’s eyes widened with surprise and her forehead creased slightly as she frowned. “Sorry, did I say something to offend you?”

            “You clearly know who my family is. What they did. What they believe.”

            “And I can’t entirely say they were wrong,” Lena shrugged, “but that’s beside the point. I judge people based on their own merits. Or I would if …”

            “If what?”

            Lena’s cheeks reddened slightly with embarrassment as she stared down at her lap, “well, it’s not exactly as if I have people knocking down my door to be friends, is it? This is the first time I’ve been well enough to- to go outside. But, I mean, look at me. I’m the weird girl who has a rare disease, and everyone’s been staring at me all day. In fact, you’re the only person who’s talked to me all day. So yeah, I get it. People judge you when they don’t know you.”

            Looking slightly ashamed, Kara gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry. I just- well, you’re the first person who’s talked to me too, since I got here. Talked to me nicely , at any rate. My family’s not exactly well liked anymore, and most people think I shouldn’t even be allowed to wear our crest.”

            Lena felt a tiny bit guilty as she thought about Lex saying the exact same thing, and she gave Kara a half-hearted smile. “Well, then you just have to prove them all wrong. Make a name for yourself in the Science Guild, rebrand your family name. They’ll all feel stupid then.”

            Letting out a weak laugh, Kara shrugged, reaching out to touch one of the blooming flowers on the growing plant. “I’m not sure that pretty flowers will do the trick.”

            “You never know,” Lena said, her lips curling into a smile as she looked up at her, “maybe one day you’ll cultivate a flower so beautiful that they’ll all be so enraptured by it that they’ll forget they’re supposed to hate you.”

            With a snort of laughter, Kara shook her head, before giving Lena an almost suspicious look. “And what about you?”

            “I don’t need the flowers for that.”

            Smiling, Kara picked up the pair of shears and snipped a white flower from the plant, before sliding off her stool and crossing the few steps separating them both. Pausing for a moment, biting her bottom lip, she extended the flower, a dimpled smile on her face as she shrugged slightly. “A bit of bribery never hurt anyone,” she stage whispered, a faint note of amusement in her voice as she gave Lena a conspiratorial wink.

            Taking the fragile flower off her, Lena smiled, holding it closely to her chest as she bit her bottom lip, trying not to smile as she ducked her head down, the sweet smell enveloping her as she stroked the thin petals.

            “Thank you,” Lena shyly murmured, a warm feeling spreading throughout her at the small act of kindness. It meant more to her than Kara would ever know. Just then, her comms started to beep, a reminder about lunch, and she gave Kara a smile.  “I, uh, I should leave you to your work then.”

            “I hope it’s not the last time we meet,” Kara said, a hopeful look in her eyes, “I don't know if you’re not much of a botanist, but, you know, if you ever feel like learning a little bit more, or just come and see some beautifully pointless flowers … I’m always here.”

            “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, before wheeling herself backwards and spinning the chair around.

            The doors parted for her and she paused outside, smiling as Kara gave her a small wave as she climbed back onto the stool, and started retracing herself through the warren of hallways. It was nearly twenty minutes later when she finally found the cafeteria, spotting her mother sitting alone at a table, no one bold enough to try and sit with her, and Lena smiled as she navigated her way towards her, an almost smug look on her face as she met her mom’s expectant gaze. Climbing to her feet, Lillian helped settle her at the side of the table with no seats, a tray of food already waiting for her, before she sat back down.

            “Well? How is it?” her mother anxiously asked, a nervous look in her eyes as she gave her a searching look.

            Smiling brightly, Lena twirled the white flower. “I made a friend.”

Chapter Text

            A few weeks passed by in a blur, with Lena spending most days at the Science Guild, taking up research of her own, tucked away in a forgotten corner of the massive building. She’d been reluctant to intrude upon Kara again after the first day, knowing that she was busy with her own work with plants, but at the end of her first week, she’d been making her way towards her usual lab she hid herself in when they bumped into each other in the hallways. Kara had brightened at the sight of her, and Lena likewise felt a warmth spread through her at the sight of a friendly face. She’d accompanied Kara to her lab, both of them catching up with each other, and Kara had invited her inside, pulling out a tray of soil and setting up her work station.

            Lingering longer than she’d intended to, Lena left with a smile and with a promise that she’d see her again soon. It seemed like Kara was just as grateful for the company as she was, and Lena realised that it wasn’t an intrusion for her, it was a welcome distraction from her loneliness. After that, she saw her nearly every day, sometimes the two of them walking towards their labs as they arrived at the same time, and others, Lena would sit in Kara’s lab and study the latest flowers, seeds or soil samples she was working on. They talked about science mostly, but they got to know each other too over the following weeks. It was almost shocking how easily they became friends, and Lena always left Kara with a rosy glow about her.

            She told Lillian and Lex about her, unable to lie to them even if she wanted to, because she couldn’t keep the smile off her face whenever she met them for lunch, or met her mother at the end of the day. As far as they knew, Kara was just a woman working with plants, and not a member of the House of El, and neither of them asked her to elaborate further. It wasn’t like Lena was lying, but she just thought it would make things easier if they didn’t know the truth just yet. She had every intention of telling them, she just wanted to keep Kara to herself for a while.

            It was easy to do so, considering the fact that once Kara entered her lab, she didn’t leave it again until she was leaving, as far as Lena was aware. When Kara beat her to work in the mornings, Lena would pass by the door with the red occupied light lit above it, and when she left to meet her mother at the end of the day, it was usually still lit. She never left it for lunch, and Lena frequently had to excuse herself when the beeping reminder came through that it was time to make her way to the cafeteria. Lillian had insisted on keeping up the tradition of them all eating lunch together, although Lex complained about it, and even Lena regretted it at times when she had to drag herself away from her conversation with Kara.

            She was in the vaulted lab with her again on the fifth day of the week, taking a break from the delicate work of designing blueprints for her latest project, her head starting to ache from straining her eyes after hours of staring at the projected plans, when Lena’s comms device beeped, interrupting her conversation with Kara once again.

            “Lunch time?” Kara asked, accustomed to Lena’s disappearances to meet with her family.

            With a grim smile, Lena nodded, and Kara gave her a warm smile in return. “Okay, well, enjoy. Maybe if you’re not busy, I’ll catch you later?”

            Laughing, Lena gave her an exasperated look. “You’re staying here again? Don’t you ever have lunch? All of this research isn’t good for you, you need a break.”

            “Of course I have lunch! I just … I take it in here. You know, out of sight, out of mind, and all of that. People seem to forget that I exist if they can’t actually see me.”

            Face darkening with a frown, Lena gave her a concerned look. “Are people bothering you?”

            With a tight smile, Kara gave her a pointed look, “people don’t easily forget something as big as what my parents did.”

            “Who is it? Maybe I can help. I can- I can talk to them.”

            Laughing, Kara gave her an amused look, a muddy trowel clutched in her hand as the soil sample sat abandoned on the counter. “Talk? I was always told to fight my battles with words instead of violence. So far talking hasn’t worked.”

            “Well your mom wasn’t wrong,” Lena hedged, giving her a slight shrug.

            “Ah, no, that was actually my adoptive mother that taught me that. She’s also a lawmaker, but stuck to the law and rules, as opposed to trying to brainwash everyone and inciting riots.” Her lips curled up into a wry smile, a slight look of bitterness running across her features, before they softened again. “Her name’s Eliza. House Vers.”

            Nodding, Lena gave her a small smile, “a noble house.”

            “A small house,” Kara laughed, “where an outcast can be ignored, for the most part. And when they didn’t ignore me, my sister would ignore her mother’s lesson and beat them up for me. There was a bit of a fuss when she joined the Military Guild. Fighting is for words, not fists, Eliza always used to say, whenever one of us would come home with cuts and bruises. And my sister would always argue back that sometimes the fists hurt more.”

            “I have to agree, I’ve always thought that actions spoke louder than words. Physical pain can teach more lessons that one expects,” Lena murmured in agreement. “Although I’m not really in a position to kick the asses of whoever’s bothering you.”

            Letting out a soft sigh, Kara shook her head, turning back to her work as she carefully tilled the sample of soil contained in the shallow box. “It’s my fight, and besides, I’m content with my lot. It could’ve gone a lot worse for me.”

            Sitting silently in her chair for a few moments, watching Kara work at the soil, typing quick notes up on the projected screen, taking tiny samples to observe under a microscope, dropping a few drops of water onto it and watching the effects. The silence stretched out between them, and Lena shifted slightly in her chair, a perturbed look on her face as she watched the other woman work.

            “Have lunch with me,” Lena eventually blurted out, feeling her cheeks redden slightly as Kara turned to give her an accusing look of surprise.

            “Excuse me?”

            A sheepish smile on her face, Lena shrugged. “I mean, my mom will be there, and so will my brother, but you could ... join us for lunch. Maybe. If you wanted to. No one would bother you with all of us there. Especially because … you know, my mom, and all of that. And I’ve told her all about you, so she wouldn’t mind at all.”

            That last part was partially a lie. Lena had told Lillian about her friend, and Lex too, but she’d conveniently forgot to mention her name or her family. Not that her family would outright demonise Kara, especially not to her face, but Lena knew that her mother would have a few choice words of caution, especially given Lena’s circumstances, and she didn’t want to hear them. Kara was the only person that had been nice to her. What harm had that done? It had done the opposite, if anything. Lena laughed more, a near-permanent smile on her face whenever she dropped by Kara’s labs. She was plied with flowers, different colours and sizes, depending on what Kara was working on that day, and Lena’s mind had the freedom to stretch its legs, racing to keep up with Kara’s quips or her scientific talk. She felt challenged and happy for the first time in forever. If she could impart a little bit of that onto Kara, then she would.

            “I don’t want to impose.”

            Scoffing, Lena brushed her concerns aside, giving her a wide grin. “You’re not. My mom’s just a bit overprotective and makes me have lunch with her every day that I’m here. Honestly, it’ll be nice to have someone else there.”

            Biting her bottom lip, and apprehensive look on her face, Kara gave her a hesitant look. Smile widening, Lena gave her a hopeful look, green eyes wide with pleading look as she tried to coerce her into leaving the lab. After a few moments, Kara sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat, and gave Lena a small smile.

            “Okay. If you’re really sure.”

            “Of course,” Lena beamed at her, jerking her head towards the door. “Come on, before the Zuurt burritos are all gone.”

            Smiling, Kara set down all of her tools and pulled her goggles off the top of her head, shedding gardening gloves and a thick brown apron. Carefully stowing her samples, she neatened herself up as much as she could and then followed Lena towards the door. Wheeling herself out into the hallway, Lena waited as Kara locked the door, the room still booked out for her use, and then they set off down the hallway.

            It was different being out in the wide hallways with Kara, keeping pace with Lena’s wheelchair as they passed closed doors, a few other guild members passing by, giving them curious sidelong glances as they swept past. Feeling a little bit shy, Lena was quiet as she made her way down the familiar hallways, heading towards the cafeteria with a somewhat wary Kara in tow. Seeming a little nervous, Kara was brimming with energy, looking fidgety as she played with the cuffs of her tunic, until she started to babble.

            “So I was thinking about crossing a strain of beets with one of the roots we have to try and create a new food source. They’re both hardy foods, and the starch will help them keep longer, and it would be great to grow out on the fields because they don’t need much nutrients in the soil to help them grow. And they can survive the cold really well. I was going to start splicing the DNA from them both next week and working to combine them. I’ve tried integration before, where I plant them together and let them fuse, but I was thinking that if I could combine the genetic sequences of the plants into one of the seeds, then it might have different results. The last ones were a little sour and I’m not sure where I went wrong, but hopefully it works with the new strains I’m using.”

            Looking up at her with amusement, Lena listened to her ramble, watching the way her eyes darted around her, looking out for people to avoid as she anxiously scanned the hallways, and she gestured broadly with her hands as she spoke. Smiling slightly to herself, Lena watched her with rapt attention, taking in the steady stream of conversation as she made sense of it. Despite her nervous ramblings, it was clear that Kara was excited about it, her face lighting up as she continued her tirade, and Lena drank in the sight.

            “Sounds exciting,” Lena commented.

            Trailing off, Kara looked down at her and blinked in surprise, almost as if she’d forgotten that Lena was there, before a nervous smile flitted across her face. Shrugging nonchalantly, Kara buried her hands in her pockets and looked back up at the hallway. “I know it’s not the most interesting-”

            “It’s very interesting.”

            Laughing, Kara ducked her head down, smiling as she shook her head slightly. “It’s boring . It’s not … what did you say you were trying to develop?”

            “Nanites.”

            “It’s not that . But I mean, we need food.”

            “So it’s far more important.”

            Letting out a derisive snort, Kara gave her an exasperated look, “the only things people think are important are things that haven’t been created yet. More food? I may as well resign for the Science Guild and take up farming in the Labour Guild, as far as most people here are concerned. I’m wasting my time.”

            “Well they’re wrong.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah. So, will you be incubating them in here with your new soil until they grow big enough to transfer outside?”

            Face brightening, Kara launched back into her explanation, and Lena felt warm inside as she watched her talk. Their conversation trailed off as the doors of the cafeteria loomed before them, and Lena gave her an encouraging smile, before steeling herself to brave the wary glances thrown her way. With her wheeling herself in, they might not even pay Kara any attention, and a wry smile curled Lena’s lips as she entered the long room. It wasn’t like they hadn’t all seen her before, but it was still a rare sight to see a Kryptonian with a sickness, let alone confined to a wheelchair, and the novelty of it hadn’t worn off yet for the other guild members, much to Lena’s irritation.

            Making for the usual table her mother had an unofficial claim on, Lena jutted her chin forward, navigating her way between the tables as the flow of chatter washed over her, and the smell of food mingled with the ever-present smell of sulphur, metal, soot and grease from all of the inventors and creators wedged into one space. Lillian looked up at her approach, a tender smile lighting up her face as she dismissively waved at the projector screen she’d been poring over as she waited. Lex was late again, but there was a tray waiting for Lena, laden with Zuurt burritos and a mix of lentils and grains. She smiled at her mother as she wheeled herself into her usual spot at the chairless end of the table, and Kara hovered nervously behind her.

            “Ieiu! This is my friend, Kara,” Lena happily announced, turning to smile up at Kara. “I invited her to have lunch with us.”

            “Oh,” Lillian softly exclaimed, her eyes lingering the El crest on Kara’s tunic, before she gave her a slight smile, “it’s lovely to meet you. Lena’s told me so much about you.”

            “It’s lovely to meet you too,” Kara greeted her, her voice quiet and surprisingly shy to Lena.

            Pausing for a moment, Lena smiled at Lillian, “I’m going to go with Kara and get her lunch. We’ll be right back.”

            Her mother nodded, and Lena backed herself away from the table, before she smiled up at Kara and jerked her head towards the short queue waiting to buy lunch off the cooks. Moving away from the table, Lena wound her way through the room with Kara quickly following at her heels, almost seeming relieved to be away from Lillian. As they joined the end of the queue, Lena looked up at her and raised her eyebrows at the accusing look in Kara’s eyes. It wasn’t angry, but it wasn’t entirely too pleased either.

            “You didn’t tell her who I was, did you?”

            Scoffing, Lena rolled her eyes, “of course I told her about you. She just said I’ve told her all about you.”

            “Yes, but you didn’t tell her who I was,” Kara replied, stressing the who part as she gave Lena a pointed look. A sheepish smile grew on Lena’s face as she gave Kara an apologetic look. “Lena!” Kara grumbled, a frown puckering her brow as she pressed her lips together in a thin line.

            Laughing, Lena looked up at her with amusement. “What? I told you, I like to judge people based on who they are themselves, not their House or their family or anything else. So I told my mom and my brother all about you, and they’re happy I have such a nice friend, and that’s not going to change because they just found out your family name is El.”

            Silently picking up a metal tray as they neared the stack, Kara was silent, standing in front of Lena as she waited for her turn. Cocking her head to the side, Lena looked up at her with worried green eyes, biting her lip as she tried to read the expression on the blonde’s face.

            “Are you mad at me?” she eventually asked.

            Blinking in surprise, Kara laughed, looking down at her as her eyes crinkled at the corners. Wrinkling her nose, she shook her head, her eyes sparkling with humour. “No, of course I’m not. I just … what if they don’t like me?”

            “I do, and you’re my friend, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

            “Lena, your mother is one of the most powerful people on the entire planet. It matters a little bit.”

            Shrugging, Lena gave her a half-hearted smile, “yeah but she’s not like that as a person. She tells me bedtime stories and helps me get dressed in the morning. She spends all of her free time working on things to help me. She’s not just a Councilwoman. Besides, what’s there not to like?”

            Spluttering, Kara gave her an incredulous look, “uh, I don’t know, maybe my massively criminal family that are all rotting away in this very city.”

            “You were a child , Kara. And that wasn’t you . Why should you be blamed for what they did?”

            Shrugging, Kara silently shuffled along with the line, helping herself to a meagre lunch as she dropped the subject. Lena felt frustration well up inside at the fact that she couldn’t make Kara understand, but then it occurred to her that perhaps she was the one who didn’t understand. Her interactions with Kara had been limited to the confines of the lab she was working in, passing through on her way to conduct her own research and experiments. She’d never witnessed any of the bad things that came from Kara being an El, and she felt pity wash over her as she watched Kara collect her food. Perhaps Lena was being too flippant about the whole thing, assuming that the long stretch of time that passed had diminished the hatred towards her parents. They’d used their resources and powerful influence to try and stage a coup, and that wasn’t easily forgotten. Not to people with long lifespans.

            When Kara looked down at her, giving her a warm smile, Lena returned it, if not a little more subdued, wishing that she could help in some way. They made their way back to the table, and Lena took in the sight of her brother sitting at the table, leaning towards their mother as they talked in hushed tones. Lena tried to block out all of the noise in the cafeteria to listen in on what they were saying, but Lillian cut off as she noticed them returning. Straightening up, Lex arranged his face into a polite smile as Kara trailed behind her, holding her tray in her hands. Reclaiming her spot at the end of the table, Lena gave her brother a strained smile, her eyes holding a warning. Rolling his eyes, Lex turned his attention to Kara as she sat down across the table from him and Lillian, with Lena sitting between them on the edge of the table.

            “Kara, is it?” Lex greeted her, extending a hand across the table, “a pleasure to meet you. Lena’s told me a lot about your work with botany.”

            “I think she’s the only one who finds it interesting,” Kara weakly joked, a hesitant smile on her lips as her eyes flitted over to Lena.

            “Nonsense,” Lillian scoffed, “I read all of your father’s papers on genetic engineering of our edible food sources. My late husband was a very rabid believer in the sustainable future of Krypton. Famine was one of his biggest concerns, and I spent hours joining him in his research. Your father was one of the foremost thinkers in that area. It was, ah, very illuminating.”

            Shifting uncomfortably, Kara gave her the faintest hint of a smile, “I’m afraid mine’s a bit more disappointing. My research has strayed off towards flowers. They’re not going to help a famine, but they’re nice to look at.”

            Letting out a loud laugh, Lex arched an eyebrow slightly, “well now I see why you and Lena get on so well. She’s always been fascinated by pretty things.”

            Fighting back a blush, Lena gave him a droll look, before the conversation flowed onto other scientific topics. Lena listened for the most part, keeping a watchful eye on Kara as she fretted about her mother of brother putting their foot in it and making things uncomfortable. Neither of them did though, her brother surprisingly on his best behaviour as he kept his usual flippant comments to himself, while Lillian was as professional as always. Her mother even deigned to share a few snippets of her own research with Kara, giving hints about how her latest project was going. By the time Lillian excused herself, they’d all been having a lovely conversation about one of Lillian’s reports on kryptonite, which Kara had much praise for, and Lena felt herself relax slightly as lunch came to a close without incident.

            Lillian parted with a stern order for Lena to finish her food before leaving, and a polite farewell to Kara, before she left. Lex was quick to follow her lead and disappear, called away to his own research with his friends, leaving Kara and Lena alone in the cafeteria. Obediently eating the rest of her lunch, Lena watched as Kara picked at her own, keeping her head down and shoulders hunched as she tried to stay invisible. It wasn’t long before a few of the younger members of the Science Guild closed in, nasty looking smiles on their faces as they dropped down onto the vacant seats around the table, lounging comfortably at ease.

            “Now why would the Councilwoman want to have lunch with a traitor?” one of the men asked, a contemptuous smile curling his mouth as he stared at Kara.

            “Because I invited her,” Lena quietly replied, calmly cutting up her food as their attention flickered to her.

            With a snort of laughter, the guy angled his body towards her, propping his elbow up on the table and his chin in hand as he gave her an almost incredulous look. The sigil on his chest was for House Ur. Looking up, Lena met his brown eyes and arched an eyebrow as she carried on eating, Kara seeming to shrink further down in her seat.

            “Ah, the cripple. You know, I see why she kept you locked away in your house for all these years. It’s an embarrassment. All the scientific advances she made, and she got stuck with you .”

            Letting out a snort of laughter, Lena’s eyes hardened, and she carefully placed her knife and fork down, giving him a tight smile, before she struck out, knocking his arm out from under his chin and gently assisting gravity as his face whacked the edge of the table with a sickening crack. It was a casual gesture, taking no effort at all on Lena’s part, and she took some satisfaction out of the fact that she might be confined to the chair to keep up pretenses, but she could just as easily knock the Kryptonians about if it came to it. Staggering backwards off the stool, the young man gave her a shocked look, red blood spurting from his nose as he clamped a hand over it, making a garbled sound of surprise.

            “You- you can’t hit me,” he spluttered, spraying drops of blood on the tabletop as his expression darkened. “I’ll tell the Council about this.”

            “What? That a cripple hit you?” Lena coolly replied, her face hardening, “go ahead. Let’s see who it embarrasses more.”

            Giving her a scathing look, to which she gave him a smile in return, he turned around and stalked off, head tipped back as he pinched his nose between his fingers, his friends reluctantly trailing after him as they left the table. Returning to her food, Lena took another bite and met Kara’s wary gaze, shrugging as she smiled.

            “You shouldn’t have done that,” Kara said in a low voice, a frown furrowing her brows as she stared at her.

            Snorting with laughter, Lena gave her a bright smile, looking almost smug, “it’s not like I’ll get in trouble with the Council. My mom’s on it. It’s her I’m worried about. She won’t be very pleased about it, but oh well. It's done now.”

            Sighing, Kara shook her head, “what happened to words?”

            “I told you, actions speaks louder. Hopefully they’ll leave you alone now.”

            “And you? That word they called you-”

            Carelessly shrugging, Lena gave her a grim smile, “it’s nothing I haven’t heard already since coming here. They think they’re being subtle with their whispers, but this place actually echos quite a bit. Did you know that the youngest member of House Vex designed a bomb that could destroy the core of the planet? The Guild took her designs and scrapped them, and put her on probation. I heard two Councilmembers talking about it the other day. You’d think they’d be a bit more secretive, but apparently not.”

            “Really?” Kara asked, drawn in by the secret information.

            Nodding, Lena set her cutlery down and put her tray in her lap, wheeling herself away from the table. Dropping her tray off at the station where robots were clearing food scraps and sorting cutlery and trays into stacks, Lena started to wheel herself back out of the cafeteria, Kara following behind her as all thoughts of the fight were forgotten. They made their way through the warren of hallways, back to Kara’s lab, and Lena let herself be distracted by the samples Kara had, listening to her rattle off a string of facts about them, and even being gifted with a rare red blossoming flower, the slightly spicy smell of the flower enveloping her in its heady scent.

            They were laughing over a funny comment Kara had made when the door hissed open to reveal an imposing figure standing in the doorway, hands on her hips and a hard look of anger on her face. Lena’s laughter died on her lips and she gave Lillian a sheepish smile, guilt welling up inside, even as she felt herself foolishly grown emboldened by her actions. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t deserved it.

            “Ieiu,” Lena warmly greeted her, trying to downplay the fact that she was in trouble. She held up the red blossom with a mild look of delight on her face, “look at this flower that Kara’s growing. She thinks that the anther can be dried to be used as spices, and the leaves brewed-”

            “Get your things and follow me,” Lillian tersely interrupted.

            Quietly sighing, Lena gave Kara an exasperated look, rolling her eyes, and watched the blonde woman’s eyes widen slightly as she looked away, her lips pressed together in a thin line to stop herself from smiling. Lena smiled despite herself, until she turned to face her mother again, and quickly hastened to look apologetic and chastened. “My things are at the lab I was working in.”

            “Then why aren’t you there working?” Lillian asked, a pointed look on her face. Beckoning, she stepped out of the room, “quickly now. I don’t have time for this.”

            Shoulders slumping, Lena muttered under her breath as she made her way over to the door, stepping outside and moving out of the sensor so the door could slide down into place. Bracing herself for her mother’s angry words, Lena set her shoulders and started making her way down the hallway. She’d picked one of the larger labs, a furnace, anvil, scarred work tables and a variety of tools hanging on the walls, and they made the trip there in silence, with Lena growing tenser with each passing moment that her mother didn’t berate her. Lillian rarely got cross with her, but she could feel the disappointment radiating from her as she kept pace with Lena. No sooner had the door to Lena’s lab slid down behind them did Lillian break her silence, much to Lena’s displeasure.

            “I left you alone for a moment and you were fighting .”

            A wry smile curling her lips, Lena gave her mom a droll look. “I’d hardly call it fighting, ieiu, all I did was tap him.”

            “If you’d tapped him too hard, you could’ve shattered all of the bones in his arm,” Lillian snapped. “I agreed to secure you a place here under the agreement that you would be discrete . That you wouldn’t start trouble or draw attention to yourself. And in one day, you bring the daughter of House El to lunch and leave Guild member with a broken nose. That, I would say, is the opposite of discrete.”

            Temper flaring up, Lena jutted her chin forward, a stubborn look on her face as she frowned. “He was saying cruel things. About me, and Kara and you. ”

            “I don’t care what he was saying,” Lillian hotly replied, “you rise above it.”

            Silently grinding her teeth together, Lena stared down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers as she avoided looking at her mom. Sighing, Lillian walked over to her, dropping to her knees in front of Lena and reaching out to touch the back of her hand. Looking up, Lena found the anger fading from her mom’s eyes, the hard lines of her face softening as she gave her a grim, knowing look.

            “Inah, I know what they say about me. And you. And your friend too. I wed a man who couldn’t feed himself by the end of it, and I have a daughter who they think is exactly the same. The things they say are new to you, but I’ve spent a long time listening to the whispers, and your friend, Kara, probably has too. You mustn’t rise to them. I know it’s hard to swallow your pride, but you have to let it roll off your back. Focus on your work. Prove yourself better than them where it truly counts.” She curled her hand around one of Lena’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If you resort to fighting everyone who says a bad thing about someone you care about, you’ll be fighting for the rest of your life.”

            “And what if that’s what I want?” Lena asked, a slight challenge in her voice, “what if I want to protect the people I care about? Fight against all the bad people in this city. I could do it, you know. No one would be able to stop me.”

            “No,” Lillian sharply told her, a flicker of fear in her eyes as she tightened her grip on Lena’s hand. “Don’t give anyone cause to try and hurt you. All it would take was your sun lamps to be broken, and you’d never get back up again. I’ll have no more talk of this. No more heroics, okay? Big or small. Now, come on, get your things, inah.”

            Giving her a puzzled look, Lena frowned. “My things?”

            Rising to her feet, towering over her as she fixed her with a hard stare, suitable for a Council member, and making Lena feel like a berated child, Lillian crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve convinced the Science Council to let me take care of this, as a small favour, so your punishment is left up to me. You’re suspended for a week, which means you’re barred from entering the building and using its facilities.”

            “But-” Lena spluttered, a wounded look flitting across her face as she tried to argue.

            “No, Lena, you have to learn that there are consequences for your actions. You’ve spent most of your life away from society, but there are rules and they’re there for a reason. You have to understand how these things work. If you break the law, you accept the punishment. I’ll walk you home.”

            Fighting back the frustration that welled up, making her want to argue and vent her anger, she clamped her teeth together and carefully gathered all of her things up, safely stowing them in the bag she’d brought with her. Her mother waited patiently, and when she was ready, Lena rolled towards the door, silently fuming as she was escorted through the buildings and out into the orange sunlight.

            She didn’t speak the entire walk home, taking the route above the Rankless District for the sake of speed so that Lillian could get back to her work, and she wallowed in her self-pity as they crossed bridges, making their way through the towering buildings of the inner city. She didn’t even slow to admire the different architectural designs differentiating buildings belonging to different guilds, as she usually did on her walks home, trying to prolong the time she got to spend outside.

            When they made it back to their building, she went straight upstairs, seen safely inside by Lillian, before unbuckling herself from the wheelchair and stalking off to her room on her own two feet, her mom calling after her. Ignoring her, Lena locked herself into the dim blue confines of her room and listened to the sound of Lillian leaving a few minutes later. Crossing over to the blank stone wall, she pressed a button to reveal the window, and spent the rest of the afternoon sulking as she stared out at the sight, sitting in a chair and working on her calculations as she watched skimmers and jets shoot past and the bustling city below.

            It was late when Lillian came home, looking exhausted as she ran a hand through her dark hair, her robes billowing out around her. Lena wasn’t mad at her, not really , but she didn’t think it was fair that she was being punished for being provoked by a bully, and it was her mother who was punishing her, so she studiously ignored her as the two of them ate dinner together - Lex had gone out with friends - no matter how many times Lillian tried to start a conversation with her. Eventually her mom gave up, and Lena felt guilt creep up on her as she took in the frustration in her mother’s eyes. She had always tried her best when it came to Lena. Hours of researching and inventing spent trying to relieve her pain, years spent loving and raising her as her own, always protecting her and making sure that she was looked after properly.

            Feeling ashamed, Lena kept her head ducked down as she mumbled an apology. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

            One of their robots cleared their dirty plates from the table, and Lillian climbed to her feet, rounding it and pausing behind Lena to rest a hand on her shoulder for a moment. Feeling the frustration and tension seep out of her taut muscles, Lena slumped slightly, somehow feeling even worse by her mother’s easy acceptance of the apology.

            “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

            Climbing to her feet, Lena followed Lillian through their apartment and into one of the workshops, gears, wrenches and offcuts of metal strewn throughout the room as various half-finished projects were propped up on stands. Moving over to one of the tables, Lillian brought up her latest blueprints for the blue sun lamps, having made some more changes to it. This time, she was considering different settings, so that Lena could essentially walk around at nearly the same strength and speed as a Kryptonian, just staving off the effects of the planet’s atmosphere, right up to her being irradiated with the blue star’s power, on the off chance that she would need to protect herself at full capacity. Lena begrudgingly admitted how impressive they were, and Lillian ventured the offer to let her help her with them.

            They spent a couple of hours working on adjusting the miniature lamps she already had, and Lena was feeling better by the time they called it a night. There was nothing better than the feeling of building something with her own two hands, in her opinion, except flying. Fingers covered in grease, delicate springs and screws all carefully secured into place, and the fiddly little gears and levers were all combined to create the casing of the lamps, and she couldn’t help but smile as she tested it, cycling through the different strengths and feeling the energy course through her, gradually dimming until it made her uneasy to feel so close to weakness. Feeling satisfied with a job well done, she went to wash up for the night, and was getting ready for bed when she heard her mother approaching, her footsteps audible to Lena’s sensitive ears, even through the closed door. She would’ve heard her anyway when the door hissed open.

            Waiting for her mother to talk, she set about removing the pieces of armour, one by one, carefully arranging them on the mannequin, and ensured that all of her sun lamps were attached to her, and the ones lighting up her room were sufficiently strong enough on the off chance that some of them failed during the night. She no longer slept in the pool of water, although it was still there, glistening blue from the lights and making the room smell slightly damp.

            “Something’s bothering you,” Lena observed, pulling back the blankets and perching on the edge of her bed, while Lillian hovered in the doorway.

            With a quiet chuckle, her mother stepped into the bedroom, vastly different with the addition of a proper bed, a desk and a few other useful items that Lena could actually use herself now. Perching on the edge of the bed beside her daughter, Lillian let out a quiet sigh.

            “It’s nothing, really. I just wish you’d told me your friend was Kara Zor-El.”

            “Why?” Lena challenged her, “would you have told me I wasn’t allowed to see her anymore?”

            Giving her an exasperated look, Lillian reached up to brush Lena’s hair out of her face, a loving look in her eyes as she fixed her with a pointed look. “No. You have a good heart, and that makes me so proud, but it’s never going to be easy for you. There’s already all of the judgement of you being seen as sick, and the expectations of you being a part of House Thor, and I just … that girl-”

            “Kara.”

            “Yes, Kara , is lovely, and so very sweet. There was talk of her for years before she joined the Science Guild, how she was a prodigy, destined for great things. And she’s working on flowers , Lena. She doesn’t want to do great things anymore, because she’s been bullied into silence by people who would’ve just as happily seen her dead. And I’m not saying she’s a bad person, but she’s not good for our house’s reputation. She’s an outcast and-”

            “So am I,” Lena sharply replied. “I’m an outsider as a human, and no one knows that, no, but I’m just as much an outsider because I’m sick. Because unless I’m irradiated, I can’t get out of bed, or lift a finger. And they don’t know any of that, or what’s wrong with me, because they just see the chair and they don’t want to talk to me because it frightens them. A Kryptonian being sick? That’s a good enough cause to reject me just as much as if I was the daughter of known criminals.”

            Sighing, Lillian gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, “I know it’s frustrating for you. The real world is far more different than you’d imagined it, and people are cruel, but you are smart and brilliant, and they’ll forget about the chair when you show them your work on whatever it is you decide to do.”

            With a grim smile, Lena met her mother’s eyes, “nanites. I’m working on nanites. They’ll reduce pollution, clear the air, get rid of the airborne viruses and diseases killing plants and animals. The air’ll be toxin free. And that’s just the beginning.”

            “That’s a wonderful idea,” Lillian quietly encouraged her, a glimmer of pride in her eyes as she squeezed Lena’s shoulder again. “And you should focus your attentions on that.”

            “Instead of making friends? Actually talking to someone outside of this family for once, because Rao knows no one else will talk to me, unless they’re brave enough to come up and ask what’s wrong with me or what you’re working on so they can steal your research.”

            Letting out a withering sigh, Lillian fixed her with a steady look, one eyebrow raised slightly. “But she’s pretty.”

            Fighting back a blush, Lena stubbornly jutted her chin forward. “And?”

            “Just don’t go making any trips to the Jewel of Truth and Honour, or the Genesis Chamber just yet,” Lillian laughed, stroking her daughter’s hair and pressing a kiss to her temple. Jostling the mattress as she climbed to her feet, Lillian walked over to the door, pausing to look over at Lena, a grim smile on her face. “You can’t be honest, Lena, and it’s not fair to lie to her. Just think on that, okay? And get some rest.”

            “Goodnight, ieiu,” Lena murmured, shifting to slip beneath the covers, pulling the blankets up to her chin as she burrowed into their warmth.

            The door hissed shut as her mother left, leaving her staring up at the dim blue lights as she let her mind run free. More often than not, her thoughts were about Kara, and she felt troubled as she ran over her mother’s words. Her and Kara had become close friends already, and yes, Lena was keeping a secret from her, but it didn’t affect their friendship in any way. It changed nothing. Yet she couldn’t help but think about it as she stared up at the ceiling, finding sleep hard to come by as her troubled mind kept swirling with thoughts and ideas. It was a long time coming, and she almost thought she could see a hint of orange outside of her window when her leaden eyelids finally drifted closed, her mind shutting down as her breathing slowed.

            For all her brooding that night, she still hadn’t managed to solve any of the problems that plagued her, and was even less sure of where she stood with Kara after her mother’s cautious words. Still, the red blossom she’d been gifted was bobbing in the pool of dark water, amidst a dozen other flower cuttings, adding to the sweet aroma of the room as Lena fell soundly asleep.

Chapter Text

            True to her word, Lillian wouldn’t let Lena accompany her to the Science Guild the next day, no matter how much Lena begged and earnestly assured her that she’d learnt her lesson. Even Lex’s attempts to persuade their mother were unsuccessful, and Lena locked herself in one of the labs, scowling as she tinkered away at an old project, ignoring her mother and brother getting ready to leave. Resigning herself to a quiet day, without the novelty of a walk through the teeming city, Lena let herself get absorbed into her work, calling out orders to the droid that shadowed her as she drilled, screwed and programmed the tiny device. She had a pair of telescopic goggles on, staring down at the tiny, intricate gears, cogs and springs inside, when her comms device beeped.

            Setting down a thin screwdriver, Lena raised the goggles, blinking as her eyes adjusted. Pulling off a skin tight glove, she brushed her thumb against the pale skin of her wrist, bringing forth a holographic screen with an alert. She had a message. Her sour mood lifted slightly when she saw that it was off Kara, and she eagerly opened up the message, her eyes scanning the text.

            Didn’t see you this morning. If you’re around, I have a flower you might like to see.

            Biting her lip as she smiled, Lena quickly typed out a reply, explaining the situation to Kara as regret washed over her. She’d grown accustomed to frequenting Kara’s lab, and on the days she stayed home, to undergo checkups and rest, so that she didn’t overexert herself, she missed her more than she’d expected. No matter how much she focused on her research, her mind would always wander off to her, and Lena would eagerly anticipate their meeting the following day. It was more annoying to have brought it upon herself though, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to regret diverting those people’s attention from Kara, and onto herself. She could manage another day without seeing her. Another beep caught her attention, and she shook herself out of her thoughts, eagerly opening up the new message. A slow smile spread across her face as she rolled the stool away from the bench, nearly tripping over her feet in her haste as she rushed towards the door, slipping her device into her pocket. It looked like she didn’t have to wait long after all.

            Changing into a clean black tunic and a pair of matching leggings, slipping them on over the flexible body armound, knee high boots and an emerald green robe went over the top, and Lena strapped herself into her wheelchair. Although she knew she should stay put, Lillian had only told her she couldn’t go to the Science Guild, which meant that the rest of the city wasn’t off limits, and neither was meeting Kara for lunch, as she’d suggested. It was a lame justification, because Lena knew that Lillian had warned her off venturing out alone, on more than one occasion - she wouldn’t even let her make the familiar trip to the Science Guild alone - but she countered the part of her mind that reasonably protested with the fact that she wouldn’t be alone. She was going to be with Kara.

            Thanks to her speed, she was ready at a minute’s notice, riding the elevator down through the soaring building, and out into the cool city air. Considering the fact that she didn’t know where to go to meet Kara, she lingered outside her building, waiting for Kara to meet her there, as arranged, watching other citizens hurry past. She’d gone down to the lower city level, where the Rankless District started, and although it was technically still one of the wealthier areas, the differences between the people down below, compared to above, were glaringly obvious.

            Not only were the people thinner, their faces looking just a little more gaunt and ashen, but their clothes were of a cheaper quality, worn in places and cut in older styles. They were the people who had no house, and no guild, doing menial tasks to scrape enough together to eat, to live, and Lena saw the glances cast her way as she patiently waited. Not all of them were scathing, some of them were full of pity and disdain, and she realised that they wouldn’t want to be her, not for all her wealth and house and position. Yet, despite their judgement, she pitied them in return. It struck her as wrong that people should be poor and starving below their feet, while she walked sparkling crystal streets and had anything she wanted at her fingertips. As smart as she was, Lena found that she was very ignorant to most of what went on in the city. The Guilds guarded their secrets well, and what happened in the Rankless District was of little importance, as long at the Military Guild were keeping them in line.

            Even as she watched, Lena saw a couple of armed Sagitari stroll past, hands on their blasters, back straight and faces his by dark helmets. One of them turned to look at her, but they didn’t so much as acknowledge her beyond that, continuing through the maze of buildings as they made the rounds. Some of the well dressed people, a few with House of Guild sigils embroidered onto their clothes, went in and out of buildings, while some of the more ragged looking citizens lingered around, as if hoping that a miracle would occur. As if someone would take notice of them and offer to wed them into a higher Class. Lena was brooding over the Class system when a flicker of movement caught her attention, and she turned to find Kara moving closer to her. She was wearing a blue robe over her plain work clothes beneath, a bright smile on her face, and a scarlet flower held limply between two fingers.

            “Hi,” she warmly greeted Lena, twirling the flower between two fingers, before presenting it to Lena with a flourish, “this is for you.”

            Reaching out to take it, Lena gave her a small smile, their fingers grazing as she took hold of the stem and took it from her, raising it to her nose to breathe in the heady perfume of the flower. “It’s beautiful, thank you.”

            “It’s from the Scarlet Jungle,” Kara informed her, resting a hand on Lena’s shoulder as she pointed off to her left, and they started to make their way between the hulking buildings. “I mean, originally. I grew it from some seeds that I bought, and they just started to bloom. It’s my first time growing them and I wasn’t sure how long they’d last - you know some species only flower for a day? Or just the night? - and I thought you might like to see them, but then you weren’t there so …”

            “Yeah, my mom wasn’t too happy about yesterday. I’ve been suspended for a week.”

            “A week?” Kara exclaimed, grimacing as she gave Lena a sympathetic look, “that’s rough. Did you tell her what he called you?”

            Letting out a humourless snort of laughter, Lena gave Kara a mournful look, “yes, and apparently I have to rise above it, and all of that.”

            Letting out a lighthearted laugh, Kara gave her a wide smile, “I guess next time I’ll have to step in for you, unless your partner wants to deal with them.”

            Blinking in surprise, Lena gave Kara a look of unbridled surprise, her eyebrows rising as she craned her neck to look up at her. “My partner?”

            With a soft smile, Kara gave her a confused look, her forehead wrinkling slightly, “you’re married, aren’t you? You have a bracelet-”

            She drifted off at the loud laugh that fell from Lena’s lips. Shaking with laughter, Lena gave her a look of amusement, green eyes shining as she tried to bite back a smile, without much success. Every time she looked back up at Kara, taking in the increasingly bewildered look on her face, she’d let out another snort of laughter, feeling her stomach ache slightly as they maneuvered their way through the throngs of people, heading towards a more populated area.

            Eventually, Lena smiled slightly to herself, eyes focused ahead as Kara stuck close to her side. “No. No, I’m not married,” Lena quietly told her, feeling a little bit crestfallen at the fact. “The only person I’ve had more than one conversation with, outside of my family, is you . And a few weeks of back and forth the Science Guild is about as much as I’ve gotten out and about in years . Marriage is a long, long , almost impossibly far away, way off.”

            “But your bracelet,” Kara pressed.

            Shaking back the voluminous sleeve of her robe, Lena pulled up the sleeve of her tunic a little too, to expose the black band with the luminous green line of X-Kryptonite threaded through it, a wry smile on her lips as she stared down at it, holding her arm up slightly so Kara could get a better look at it. “It acts like something of a painkiller for me. One of my mom’s creations. There were days when I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, and could barely even bring myself to scream, and this was the only thing that could make it even the slightest bit easier. I’m … better now, most of the time, but just in case … well, I keep it on, just in case. So no, no husband or wife.”

            “A painkiller?” Kara eagerly asked, slowly reaching out to take Lena’s hand in her own, her eyes lit up with curiosity as she bent over it, examining the bracelet closely, her fingers running over the cool metal as she frowned. “It’s transdermal, is it not? The contact with your skin delivers the dose and it’s absorbed into the bloodstream. But what is it? The green … it’s like green kryptonite, but that has no medical properties. How did she do it?”

            Hesitating for a moment, Lena softly smiled as she watched Kara babble about the engineering and medical function of the bracelet, clearly educated on the topics, despite her devotion to botany, and the smile faltered slightly as Lillian’s warning the night before came back to her. How much was it safe to tell Kara? Not that she was human, or irradiated with the energy of a blue star, but could she tell her that X-Kryptonite worked with her physiology, easing the symptoms of her condition? That was surely harmless.

            “Oh, well, you know, my mom’s been working with the stuff for years. I’m not sure what’s in this,” she shook her wrist, still gently held in Kara’s hands, and gave her a small smile, “but it does the trick.”

            “You don’t know? This is incredible, Lena! How could you not ask?”

            Shrugging, Lena gave her a sheepish look, a flicker of guilt welling up at the lie. “I don’t know, I’m more interested in engineering than medicine. My mom’s work focuses more on medicine and bioengineering, and it’s very interesting, of course, but that’s not my area of expertise.”

            Kara held onto her for a few moments longer, her slender fingers cool against her skin, before her blue eyes met Lena’s watchful ones, and she straightened up, a quick smile curling her lips, before she pulled her hands back and kept on walking. Seeming a little more pleased, for some reason, Kara led them through the streams of people, managing to part the crowd before they noticed Lena, and she stopped in front of a dimly lit restaurant. The smell of roasting food wafted out of the open door, and Kara smiled over her shoulder as she slipped inside. Following after her, Lena blinked as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she took in the sight of a few customers clustered around tables. Plates sizzled as they were brought out from the kitchen, and Kara made her way to a corner table with enough space for Lena to wheel herself into place.

            Going up to the bar, Kara ordered for both of them, assuring her that she had it covered, before she returned and took a seat across from Lena. In the dimly lit room, Lena felt shy as she fiddled with the flower in her lap, self-consciousness creeping up on her as she imagined everyone looking at them - at her. Seeming unbothered, or perhaps having gotten so used to people whispering about her that she didn’t even stop to consider that they might be, Kara relaxed into her seat, a warm smile on her face as she looked at Lena.

            “You okay?”

            Shifting slightly in her chair, Lena gave her a tentative smile. “This is the first time I’ve eaten out at a restaurant. It’s a bit … unnerving.”

            Nose wrinkling slightly as she smiled, Kara tilted her head to the side, giving her a searching look. “You eat in the cafeteria every day at the Science Guild.”

            Feeling her cheeks flush, Lena ducked her head and shrugged, letting out an airy laugh, “I know it’s silly, and probably more than a little pathetic, but, um, I just- this is the first time I’ve been anywhere without my mom, so …”

            “Oh! Oh, no, that’s not- I mean, that’s sweet.”

            Scoffing, Lena felt her face flood with heat, turning redder, and she embarrassedly rubbed the back of her neck as she stared down at the shiny tabletop. Reaching out, Kara rested her hand flat on the table, just in front of Lena, forcing her to look up, a wary look in her eyes as she met Kara’s soft expression.

            “No, really. I’m not making fun of you, I- well, I never had that with my mom. Not even before … and I know that we’re not really an openly affectionate people, but it’s nice that you’re so close to your mom.”

            “Do you miss yours?” Lena blurted out before she could help herself, immediately wincing as she pressed her lips together in a tight line. A flicker of pain ran across Kara’s face as she hesitated, her mouth opening, even though no sound came out. Reaching out to place her hand on top of Kara’s, Lena gave her a panicked look. “Sorry, that was completely inappropriate. I shouldn’t have asked-”

            “Yes. I do. Of course I do,” Kara quietly replied, a frown crumpling her face as a brooding look clouded her usual sunny expression. “And I know she wasn’t a good person, but it’s okay for me to miss her, and it’s not a- a forbidden topic. Sometimes I wish people would ask me about her, you know? About her , not what she did.”

            Cocking her head to the side, Lena gently ran her fingers over the back of Kara’s cool hand, a curious look in her eyes as she stared at her. “What was she like?”

            “Smart, and very firm, but fair - if I ever misbehaved, I’d be punished, but she was always fair - she could talk her way out of anything, and she was proud of me. I was … something of a prodigy when I was younger. She loved to parade me around for her friends, her coworkers, and I know that she loved me. Very much. She didn’t always show it easily, but I know that she did. Sometimes I like to imagine that she died, and my dad too. That they died as the people I knew, and not as the ones that everyone else knows. It used to make it easier.”

            She didn’t look at Lena as she spoke, keeping her eyes trained on the their hands as she turned hers over, letting it rest on the table, palm to palm with Lena’s, as she spoke about her parents in a hushed voice, sounding small and unassuming as she talked about her childhood. Although her voice was steady, her shoulders were weighed down with sadness, and pity welled up inside Lena as she scrambled for a way to comfort her. She had no experience with it, but she knew that she wanted to make Kara’s dark mood go away, to help her in some way, and it frustrated Lena to not know what to say or do. Now more than ever, she was frustrated about her isolated childhood, because she felt so many things inside as she listened to Kara talk, but she had no idea how to act upon them. She could build a lamp that harnessed the energy of a star , but she had no clue what she was supposed to do as her only friend poured her heart out about her villainous family.

            Before she could even scramble for something to say, a man arrived with two crystal glasses, a blue drink softly glowing within, and set them down on the table with a jug of the same liquid. Pulling her hand out from beneath Lena’s, Kara leant back, her shoulders squared and stiff as she wrapped a hand around her glass. Lena pulled hers closer, holding the drink up to inspect the glowing contents, a look of interest on her face, before she looked back at Kara.

            “I’m sorry,” Lena murmured, a pathetic attempt at trying to comfort her, and Kara waved the words aside.

            “It’s not like they didn’t deserve to be locked up.”

            “I’m not sorry for them. I’m sorry for you.”

            Kara’s eyebrows rose subtly, and she gave Lena a mild look of surprise, taking a sip of her drink, before setting it back down and idly running a finger around the rim of it. A perturbed look darkened her face as she got lost in her thoughts, and Lena was content to let her wallow in them for as long as she needed to. But then Kara’s eyes rose to meet hers again, and her face softened.

            “You know, I haven’t talked about them in so long. It feels like a weight off my shoulders to get it all out.”

            Nodding, Lena gave her a small smile, her lips twitching slightly at the corners, and raised her own glass, taking a small sip. The blue drink tasted like one of the few dried fruits that were available to them, and she was pleasantly surprised, taking another sip, before carefully placing it down.

            “You can talk to me about anything. You know that, right? I know some people don’t understand, but I can- I can try. I know who you are, Kara, and I won’t hold anything you say about them against you.”

            The barest hint of a smile ghosted Kara’s lips as she nodded, a grim look of gratitude softening her features, and her eyes flickered over to the man bringing two sizzling plates of food over to them as she leant back. Realising that she’d instinctively been leaning forward, as much as the wheelchair straps allowed, Lena moved back slightly too, clearing her throat as the waiter set the food down in front of her. Quietly thanking him, she stared down at the thin slivers of meat sizzling in a reddish sauce, the boiled roots and tubers, and a mixture of grains and lentils. It was a different fare than she was used to, and she eyed the food with interest. At home, and the Science Guild, she ate the finest food the city had to offer, but this concoction was different. It seemed to be the cheaper food of the Rankless District, the grains coarser, and the meat the offcuts that weren’t suitable for the richer citizens of Kandor.

            “This restaurant, it’s owned by a man who comes from Argo City, where I grew up. He makes local dishes from there. I like to come here whenever I can; it reminds me of home, of my childhood,” Kara explained as she picked up a fork.

            Feeling somewhat touched that Kara had shared the place with her, Lena eagerly dug into the food, assuring her that it was great, and feeling a warmth spread through her as Kara’s face lit up slightly. They ate in relative silence, only speaking a few times as they cleared their plates. Lena was still hungry afterwards, the side effects of the cost of her radiation powers being a high metabolism, but she silently accepted the fact that she’d have to wait until she got back home to eat her fill, and was content to wait until she parted ways with Kara.

            They left the dingy restaurant not too long afterwards, going for a walk through the winding, shadowy paths between the towering skyscrapers, and Lena breathed in the bracing fresh air, tasting the pollution from the industrial city as she drank in the sights around her. Much like that first day Lillian had walked her to the Science Guild, she eagerly looked at everything, cherishing the sites of rickety stalls and savoury street food, the open air market, the shopfronts open to the twisting alleyways as people ran about. Sagitari patrolled the rougher areas more frequently, and Lena felt uneasiness prickle her spine as they stumbled upon a thick crowd, the sounds of loud voices making her feel slightly disoriented as it overwhelmed her senses.

            Feeling flushed, her skin prickling with sweat, she drew in a shallow breath, feeling the people press in around her. Blinking back the darkness that crept into her sight, Lena looked up to find Kara, and found that she was surrounded by unfamiliar faces, some of them dressed raggedly as they shouted angry words towards the centre of the crowd. Panic settled in, and Lena could feel the restless energy of the crowd, growing more so as the seconds ticked by. With a sharp cry, the crowd erupted into a heaving mass of angry bodies, and Lena quickly unstrapped herself, abandoning her red flower onto her seat as she threw off her emerald green robe. Dressed in all black, she fished the tiny device she’d been working on out of her pocket and stuck it to her right temple, wincing as a dull pain spread throughout her head.

            Her face prickled with numbness, and she ducked through the crowd, heading away from the direction everyone was clamouring to get to, quickly pushing through the mob of people until she broke free of the crowd and sucked in a lungful of cool air. Breathing deeply for a few moments, hands braced on her knees as relief washed over her, she felt her panic fade away. Straightening up, she turned to face the crowd, curious as to what was going on, and with a brief moment of hesitation, she stripped off her tunic and leggings, standing in her thin armour, and twisted the dials on all of the blue sun lamps. The crowd was growing more restless, and Kara was in there, and Lena was worried for her. She wasn’t exactly loved by Kryptonians. Strength surged through her as she curled her hands into fists, and with a quick push, she soared up into the sky, feeling weightless as the ground dropped away from beneath her feet.

            Dark hair ruffled by the wind, she hung suspended for a moment, seemingly appearing out of thin air, before people started to notice her. As she stared down, taking in the sight of red laser beams from blasters tearing through the volatile crowd as Sagitari tried to subdue it, people looked up, pointing up at her as a hum of excitement ran through the assembled group. Innocent bystanders who were trying to get away from the mob even paused, looks of shock on their faces as they stared up at the dark figure floating above them. The last time, it had been attributed to a presumably extinct flying beast, a Nightwing, who had saved all those people on the aircraft, but now she was there, exposing herself for everyone to see. And then she saw Kara in the midst of the crowd, surrounded by people as she stared up with unabashed awe.

            With a deep breath, she rushed down to the centre of the crowd, slamming down into the ground with enough force to split the ground, cracks radiating out from her feet as the stone warped, bumps forming from the compacted ground. A sudden stillness fell over the crowd, Kryptonians quieting and shrinking back from her, and Lena brazenly faced them, confident in the image disruptor she was working on. So far, it made her face an indistinct blur, and her voice distorted, and the prickling feeling in her face let her know that it was working. She just wasn’t sure for how long. Some of her boldness faded as she took in the fear on the awestruck faces though, the people’s arguments long forgotten as they scrambled away from her, her slow rotation as she took in all the faces making people scurry backwards when her fuzzy face stared at them.

            And then a cohort of Sagitari were breaking through the front lines of the crowd encircling her, forming a tight circle around her, all blasters trained on her, and she felt a ripple of shock run through her. They saw her as a threat, and the fact was surprising to Lena. She’d never been much of a threat to anyone except herself, and far from violent, until yesterday, yet they were scared of her. Mouth opening and closing as she was left speechless, Lena took in the frightened faces of the crowd and the shiny black visors of the Sagitari’s helmets, her eyes wide with surprise.

            “Stand down,” one of them barked in a low voice, aiming their blaster directly at her, hands steady as they issued their warning. “Do as I say, and no one needs to get hurt.”

            Choking on a laugh, Lena cocked her head to the side, forehead furrowing in confusion. “Hurt? I want to help ,” Lena earnestly told the soldier, waving a hand around at the people, her eyes landing on the woman cradling her wrist, or the man sitting on the floor, his leg stretched out at an odd angle. “Look around you, see how many innocents have already been hurt in this crowd. Violence only breeds more violence. I want no part in your fight.”

            “Don’t move .”

            Letting out a derisive snort, Lena slowly raised her hands, her lips curling up into a smile as she faced the soldier. “By oppressing them, you only make them angrier,” Lena softly replied, “these people are angry. You should spend your time figuring out why, and how to rectify it, instead of silencing them.”

            “We don’t take orders from alien scum,” one of them snarled, taking a threatening step forward, before they were sharply commanded back into the tightly held circle around Lena.

            She was sure that if the man had his helmet up, he would’ve spat at her, and it was even more so surprising to hear the contempt they held for outsiders. It was no secret that Krypton had closed its atmosphere off to outside visitors in recent years, jealously guarding their secrets of the universe, rather than sharing them like they’d used to. When Lena had first crashed onto the planet, there had been a steady flow of resources entering and leaving, neighbouring planets engaged in trade and travel, until Krypton’s own resources had started drying up. They couldn’t afford to trade their own wares, or let others come and consume them, so they’d barred others from entering Krypton’s atmosphere, and had deported any aliens they’d found on their planet. And there was Lena, clearly not a Kryptonian, on accounts of her ability to fly, standing amongst them as if she belonged, when it was painfully obvious she didn’t.

            “What’re you doing here?” the leader brusquely asked.

            “I want to-”

            She trailed off as Kara broke through the front of the crowd, held back by a Sagitari who was maintaining the circle, and Lena lost all trail of thought as she turned at the sound of her strong heartbeat and took in the sight of her. Her blue eyes were wide and full of awe, her lips slightly parted, looking slightly rumpled from the shoving and pushing of the crowd, but no worse for wear, and Lena felt relief wash over her. She’d seen her below in the crowd, and known that she had been safe, but seeing her up close made her feel even more relieved.

            And then she stumbled slightly as something struck her in the side, quickly correcting her balance before she could trip over the uneven ground radiating from where she’d hit the rockbed of the city. Pressing a hand against the spot where she’d been hit, she frowned, looking down and pulling her hand aside. There was no mark, no blood, not so much as a scuff mark on her thin breastplate, and she looked up to scowl at the Sagitari who had shot at her. Their hands trembled as they levelled their blaster at her, and Lena fought back a flicker of irritation, understanding that they were frightened. They’d probably accidentally hit the trigger in their fear, and she wasn’t injured anyway, and she knew that if she reacted, it would only end up worse for her.

           "I said don't move!"

            “I’m here to help .”

            “On your knees, now. ”

            Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lena shook her head, “no.”

            “It wasn’t a request.”

            “And I don’t take orders,” Lena coolly shot back.

            “On your-”

            She pushed off before the soldier could finish their angry words, her stomach dropping as she soared higher and higher, her heart leaping with the thrill of the way she slipped through the air with ease. The current was nothing more than a gentle caress of her skin, ruffling her hair as she breathlessly laughed. Everyone below was left staring at the empty space she’d occupied, and trying to track her as she flew through the orange sky, passing skimmers and jets, flashing past the glossy windows of the colossal skyscrapers. More than once, she passed a drone, and she winced at the thought of the news spreading, photos and videos of her circulating. Lillian would know about it before she even left the Science Guild.

            Some of the adrenaline wore off at the thought of her mother, and Lena slowly started to descend, her excitement waning until she was overcome with anxious thoughts and paranoia. There was still the task of getting back to her abandoned clothes and wheelchair without being seen, and Lena wasn’t too confident in her ability to do so in the warren of unfamiliar streets. She had to come to a stop nearly right on top of where she’d taken off from, moving as a blur of grey metal and black as she raced for her clothes, managing to slip into them and remove the image disruptor from her temple without being seen. Most people were already inside the large square where the riot had started, and it was nothing at all to slip back in, pushing through the crowd with relative ease, careful not to break bones or bruise people with her hard elbows, until she seemed satisfied that she was relatively near her wheelchair.

            As people started to leave, the crowd dispersing under the orders of the Sagitari, it was nothing for Lena to collapse to the ground, her legs stretched out limply as she braced herself on her forearms, dark hair spilling around her as people flowed around her, as if she was a rock jutting up in a stream, the current passing around her without pause. No one gave her a passing look, no one offered to help, and she felt her face flush with heat as anger prickled her skin. If she’d actually needed help, she wouldn’t have found it off them.

            The crowd had thinned enough for her to be able to see, even from where she lay on the ground, and she watched as a dozen men and women were cuffed, forced onto their knees by the Sagitari, and amidst the scene was Kara, worriedly looking around, standing near Lena’s wheelchair just a few metres away, the emerald green robe held in one fist. And then her eyes landed on Lena, her face going slack with relief, even if she did look a little pale, and Kara quickly pushed her way through the crowd, falling to her hands and knees beside Lena as she winced.

            “Lena! Oh Rao, are you okay? I thought you were right behind me and then the next thing I knew- and then I found your chair afterwards, and you weren’t in it. Gods, I thought you’d been trampled by the crowd. Did you see that? That- that thing? I mean, I never believed the rumours that it was a Nightwing, but they were flying!”

            Kara anxiously babbled as she gently helped turn Lena over, confident that she didn’t have any spinal injuries, and Lena was careful to make sure that her legs were limp as Kara helped straighten them out, her face drawn with worry as she ran her eyes over her, one hand propping Lena up as the other one nervously fluttered over her body, the robe abandoned on the rocky ground.

            “Are you okay?” she finally asked again, her voice small and full of concern.

            “I’m fine,” Lena quietly assured her, giving her a wan smile, “just got knocked out of my chair and swallowed up by the crowd. But I’m fine.”

            Hand reaching out to cup her face in a gentle hand, Kara frowned, a flicker of panic stirring in her eyes as she stared down at Lena, “Gods, you’re burning up. I’ve never felt a fever so hot. Oh Rao, your mom is going to kill you, and me too. We should never have been so reckless.”

            Mentally kicking herself for forgetting to turn down the sun lamp emitters, which had radiated her to full strength, meaning that her body temperature had skyrocketed, Lena gave her a soft smile, reaching up to briefly touch the back of her hand still cupping her cheek. “I feel fine, Kara. And as long as I beat her home, my mom will never have to know about this.” Lena silently added that the same couldn’t be said for her little jaunt through the sky.

            Assuring her that she’d be back in a moment, Kara scrambled to her feet and jogged over to the wheelchair, quickly weaving her way through the stragglers who hadn’t yet disappeared from the square, and she reappeared back at Lena’s side, dropping back down to her knees again. Hauling one of Lena’s arms around her neck, Kara struggled to lift her, and Lena slyly fought back against gravity, making herself just light enough for Kara to think that she was lifting her by herself. Half collapsing back onto her wheelchair, Lena dragged her legs into position on the footrests, keeping up the pretense of having no feeling in her legs, and let Kara help her into her robe, before she presented her with the red flower, plucked from the street and looking a little worse for wear as a few petals clung to the flower for dear life. Looking crestfallen at the trampled flower, Lena carefully cradled it in her hands, and Kara gave her a soft smile.

            “I’ll have to get you another one,” she quietly concluded.

            They left quickly after that, or at least they tried to, making it to the edge of the courtyard, before a loud shout called out behind them, and both women turned to look over their shoulders.  

            “Kara!” one of the Sagitari barked, stalking towards her with a blaster held in hand as the dark helmet disengaged and was taken off. A pair of angry dark eyes trained onto the blonde, reddish brown hair cut severely above her shoulders, and an air of command around her as she came to a stop before them. She towered over Lena, who sat rigidly in her wheelchair, while Kara seemed unfazed by the woman’s sharp tone. “I told you to stay out of the Rankless District.”

            “I was just getting lunch, Alex,” Kara sighed.

            “Shouldn’t you be at the Science Guild?”

            “Yes, but-”

            “Then you should go back-”

            Huffing, Kara clenched her hands as the muscles in her jaw worked, “I know you’re trying to protect me, but-”

            Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, the brunette guided her away from the remaining people, and Lena slowly trailed after them, trying to remain unnoticed by the Sagitari woman as she silently wheeled herself in their shadow. Her hearing was sharp enough with the low doses of radiation to make out their hushed conversation. Feeling only a tiny bit guilty, she listened in with interest.

            “You know that Black Zero are trying to incite rebellions using your family’s name. It’s stupid of you to come down here, and reckless too. If you won’t take my House’s name, then you need to keep a low profile, or you’ll be the new poster girl for their cause, okay?”

            “But I don’t believe what my parents were doing, Alex. How can they use me for a cause I don’t believe in?”

            “It’s your name they want,” Alex grumbled, her voice anxious as she shouldered her way past people who weren’t quick enough to move, towing Kara after her. “They’re getting more violent too. If you come down here, and they get to you, and you turn them down … there’ll be riots. People will get hurt. It’s better to stay up above with our own kind.”

            Scoffing, Kara shook her head, an angry set to her shoulders as Lena fixated her gaze on her straight back. “They ignore me up there. I might as well be invisible.”

            Giving her shoulder a quick squeeze, Alex gave her a grim smile. “Better to be invisible than caught up in a plot against the Council and the Voice of Rao. Please, stay away from here.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Kara offhandedly replied, surrendering without argument, although it didn’t sound all too convincing to Lena.

            She shrugged her sister’s hand off her shoulder and carried on walking, and Lena felt a flicker of pity for Alex, understanding that she was just trying to help. In a way, it was much like Lillian’s overprotectiveness, and Lena felt the familiar, unwelcome feeling of guilt creep up on her, making her feel all wrong inside as she thought about her mother’s reaction.

            “I’ll see you tonight,” Kara assured her sister, giving her a lopsided smile that the other woman couldn’t help but roll her eyes at, before she walked off, seeming less angry than she’d been after catching her sister there. Turning her attention to Lena, Kara gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry, that’s Alex, my sister. She gets a bit … well, I think she’s paranoid, but she says it’s for my own protection. I love her to bits, but she’s completely insufferable, and as irritating as it’s possible for a person to be. You know how the Military Guild are with their self-righteousness.”

            Nodding as if she understood, Lena started after Kara as they took off through the city again. She had little experience with the Military Guild, beyond her recent encounter, and she wasn’t in a hurry to bump into them again, and could see the truth in Kara’s words. There was something about people who were willing to keep everything hushed up and stamped down, rather than fixing the problem, that rubbed Lena the wrong way. In the Science Guild, if a machine was malfunctioning, you didn’t just cover up the damage, make it look nice from the outside, and carry on as if everything was fine. You fixed the problem, from the inside out, until it was working smoothly, otherwise people might get hurt from the negligence. Apparently that sentiment didn’t extend to Krypton’s society and the other Guilds.

            Brooding in silence, Lena followed Kara the whole way back to her apartment, too distracted by her own thoughts to even pay attention to the sights around her. Before, she’d been completely enamoured by everything, from the most trivial, commonplace sights, to the intricate architecture of the old buildings, and the large statues of Gods and famous Kryptonians of old. Now, she barely saw a thing, letting the sight of her in a wheelchair force people into giving her a wide berth, twirling the trampled flower between her fingers as she contemplated things. Kara was likewise occupied with her own thoughts, and the silence was comfortable as they walked through the brisk air of the cold city, the orange sky turning cloudy above as the threat of a storm crept in.

            Outside Lena’s building, they paused, and she gave Kara a shy smile, feeling her cheeks warm just the slightest bit, and hoping she could brush it off as the fever Kara thought had taken her, and she cleared her throat as she ducked her head down, her eyes following the pattern of the petals growing from the centre of the flower she held.

            “Thank you for today.”

            “I’m sorry it all went wrong,” Kara sincerely apologised, and when Lena’s head snapped up, a look of surprise on her flushed face, she found Kara’s eyes swimming with guilt.

            Smiling, Lena gave her a bewildered look, “it didn’t go wrong at all. I’ve never had so much fun in my life. It was … and exciting experience.”

            “One I hope you’re not in a hurry to experience again.”

            Giving her a coy look, Lena shrugged. “Who knows.”

            Rolling her eyes, Kara gave her an amused look, before she sobered up slightly. “We should get you back inside. It’s about to get a lot colder, and I don’t want you getting sick.”

            “I’ll see you next week then.”

            “What, am I not allowed in?” Kara boldly asked, arching an eyebrow.

            Pausing for a moment, Lena’s mind processed the question, and she gave Kara a mild look of surprise. “Oh, you- oh, I mean, yes, of course you can, I just-”

            “I want to make sure you get in safely, and, you know, that you’re okay. You look … very pink. That fever … well I’d just feel better if I made sure you were alright. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

            Mind quickly running over the immediate contents of the apartment, trying to remember if there was any damning equipment or technology that could expose Lena’s true nature, Lena felt certain that it would be fine. She’d stay for five minutes at the most, and then she’d be gone. There was no harm in it. “Of course,” she warmly agreed, passing her wrist over the door scanner and smiling over her shoulder at Kara as it separated to let her in.

            Walking down the short corridor, she summoned the elevator with the chip in her wrist and wheeled herself in, while Kara climbed in beside her. Pressing the button for the top floor, her stomach dropped as they rushed upwards at an alarming speed, slowing a moment later as they reached an impossible height, signalling the arrival at the living quarters of House Thor. The doors parted to reveal the tidy, sparse apartment, and Kara tried not to look too curious as she followed Lena inside.

            “Can I get you something to eat or drink?” Lena asked, nervously remembering what she knew of having guests over. Whenever Lillian had a coworker over, she always offered them refreshments first.

            Waving aside the offer with a look of amusement, Kara gave her a smile, “no thank you. But you really should get yourself something for that fever.”

            “Right. Of course. I’ll get right on it,” Lena assured her, fighting back a smile as she gave her a solemn look of sincerity, placating her for the meantime.

            They made small talk for a few minutes, while Lena wheeled herself around the open living area of the apartment, taking in the few details of her family’s work - the gears and screws strewn across the low coffee table, the wrench left on the dinner table, and a bottle of motor oil left in the kitchen - and watched as Kara likewise took in the details. She didn’t linger long, just long enough for Lena to pretend to rummage through the kitchen counters for a small medical patch, and Kara gave her a small smile, before she was escorted back towards the elevator and left with a stern warning for her to rest, and a shy goodbye off Lena.

            As soon as the doors slid shut, Lena stood up from the wheelchair, sending it rolling backwards, and into a stop as it reached the sofa, and scrambled for the button to bring the massive wall projector to life. Flicking her hand in front of it, she found the nearest news channel and loudly swore as she took in the sight of the blurry face of the figure hovering above the crowd. It was on every news channel she flicked to, and she cringed harder each time, knowing that she was going to be in serious trouble when her mom came home. The absurd thought that she should leave crossed her mind, under the assumption that Lillian might be more relieved to see her than mad if she went missing for a few days, but Lena knew that, ultimately, that wouldn’t help her case. She’d just have to weather the storm now.

            Yet as soon as she heard the doors part, not an hour later, her whole body tensed like a could spring, and she flinched beneath the burning stare she knew was aimed at her back. “Lena Lu-Thor, what have you done?”

Chapter Text

            “I know it looks bad,” she sheepishly replied, meeting her mother’s thunderous stare with her own pleading one, silently urging her to understand, and she couldn’t help but feel like a chastened child, just by the reproachful look on her mother’s face. “But I didn’t mean to.”

            Spluttering, Lillian gave her a stern look, “so you just so happened to get out of your wheelchair, change out of your clothes, use some sort of image distorter and they fly … by accident.”

            “Well … no,” Lena hedged.

            Walking over to her, Lillian stopped before her and started tugging off her tunic, which Lena exasperatedly let her do, slipping her arms out as her mother pulled it over her head, and the thin body armour beneath was revealed. Pushing her down onto the low sofa, the news still playing on the projected screen, Lillian started removing all of the miniature sun lamps, one by one, as Lena felt herself weaken, to the point where being in the presence of them was the only thing keeping her from succumbing to an unbearable pain and the relief of unconsciousness. Examining them all, satisfied that they hadn’t been damaged, Lillian slipped them all back into place, twisting each one once they’d been slotted back into place, until Lena was as weak as bearable.

            Giving her a hard look, Lillian dusted her hands off and climbed to her feet, the muscles in her jaw clenching as she slowly started to pace back and forth in front of her. “How could you be so foolish, inah? Eh? What if you’d been caught? What if you’d been hurt? ”

            “Their weapons are useless against me,” Lena gleefully replied, her smug smile quickly fading at the sharp look shot her way.

            Ducking her head down, she played with her hands in her lap, trying her best to look humbled. Lillian huffed, stopping in front of her, and Lena kept her eyes down as guilt crept up on her, knowing that her mother had dedicated nearly half of her life to ensuring that Lena was safe and protected. She’d thrown it all away for a few cheap thrills, showing off for the Kryptonians as she tried to quash the small riot. It had been reckless, and she’d known it, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Suddenly finding her voice, she looked up, jutting her chin forward as she gave Lillian a proud look, her lips pursed in a slight pout.

            “I was helping people, ieiu. Those Rankless … they’re treated awful. They’re starving, their clothes are old and worn, they’re poor . And up here … we have more than we could ever need. How is that fair?”

            Sighing, Lillian sat down on the low table in front of the sofa, giving her a tender look as she reached out for her daughter’s hand. Reaching out, Lena let her mother give her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’re right, but there are other ways. You could develop more food, the kind that we can grow in barren earth and in the cold months, so that there is more left to sell to them, at an affordable price. Plants that can be cheaply harvested for cheap material, so that they can easily afford better clothes.”

            “I can’t stand by and let innocent people be trodden on by those in power,” Lena stubbornly replied.

            “You’ll get yourself arrested.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “They hate you, Lena! You don’t know how much they hate aliens, outsiders, people who are different! I’ve sheltered you from that, but they hate your kind! If they catch you, or identify you, they’ll test on you and use you up, until there’s nothing useful left. And then, if you’re lucky, they’ll kill you. I’ve seen it. I kept your father safe from that fate, and I promised I’d do the same. Are you ready to face the consequences of doing this?”

            Gritting her teeth, Lena snatched her hand back, curling it into a fist as she shot to her feet. Anger slowly burning, she prowled into the kitchen, body brimming with tension, pouring an orange drink into a glass and draining it in one mouthful, the fruity taste making her lips tingle as she braced herself against the counters. Sighing, she tipped her head back, running a hand through her dark hair, before turning around, meeting her mother’s gaze from across the room. All she saw was concern and love in those green eyes, and Lena loved her in return for it, but she was her own person, and to idly sit by wasn’t in her nature. She’d done that for too long, and she’d had a taste of freedom now. How could she let others suffer in their own prisons society made for them, just because they weren’t one of the Ranked?

            “I know you mean well, but you’re wrong. You sheltered me from many things, but they already hate me for my wheelchair. Either way, they see me as an outsider, even though I am just as smart, just as capable. Even more so when I’m allowed to reveal my true strength. They’re wary of me anyway, but the differences I can make as … this other person, are far greater than I can make at the Science Guild.”

            “I vouched for you on my behalf to get you in there, when you should already have been many sun cycles into your studies, because you begged me to let you join. And now you reject your place there? The good that you can do?”

            “I don’t reject it. I love it there! You know that I do, but why can’t I have both? Why can’t I help people in both ways?”

            Closing her eyes, Lillian let out a soft sigh, before she climbed to her feet and walked over to the kitchen, staring at her daughter from across the countertops that separated them. Bracing her hands against the metal tops, she drummed her fingers against it, a tinny sound produced by her nails, and gave Lena an apprehensive look. They stood in silence for a few moments, Lena with a crestfallen look on her face, and Lillian with a pensive on her own. Unsure of the outcome, Lena had to swallow her begging words, knowing that she didn’t need her mother’s permission, but she at least owed Lillian the respect of giving her opinion. It would be a poor repayment for the devotion her mother had shown her to snub her thoughts on the matter, but Lena had felt the wrongness inside as she watched the clamouring of the Rankless below, and knew that really, all she was asking for was Lillian’s blessing.

            “Tell me why you must do it?”

            Pausing for a moment, Lena scrambled for the words to put her thoughts into coherent reasons, and she opened and closed her mouth for a moment, before giving her a grim smile. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

            “No,” Lillian slowly said, frowning slightly, “you’re a woman of science, Lena. That’s not a good enough reason. It’s a weak argument. Who are you to say what’s right and what isn’t?”

            Huffing, Lena fidgeted as she got lost in her thoughts, trying to come up with a good enough answer. She knew she had her reasons, but she didn’t know how to voice them in a way that would make Lillian understand. Her mother didn’t want her to go through with it, put herself in danger and risk hurting herself, and there wasn’t a good enough excuse to make her understand why.

            “I just- I don’t know, mom. It’s inside me. I just know I have to. To not help these people, with the powers that I have … it’d be like asking you not to create new things. You couldn’t not conduct your research and experiments, and I can’t not help them. And it’s not just about the fact that I can … do things - anyone could take the lamps and use them - it’s more than that. It’s … it’s like it’s in my blood. It feels like some innate human nature that I was born with. I don’t know, I can’t explain it.”

            With a curt nod, Lillian jerked her head towards one of her smaller labs, no more than an office, really, and gave Lena a grim look of resignation. “Come. There’s something you should know first.”

            Curiosity piqued, Lena followed after her mother, trailing her to the door and stepping into the small room. The walls were lined with metal boxes, holding all of the data and files their family had, and a metal desk was wedged in the middle, a chair on either side. Sitting across from her mom, she reached out for one of the crystals of Kryptonite lined up in a colourful row, turning it over in her fingers as Lillian settled down on her own chair. The room had a metallic smell, the air cool and clean, and Lena felt as if she was about to be scolded again for some reason. The close banks of computer monitors made the room almost suffocating, and she shifted uncomfortably as claustrophobia crept up on her.

            “Lena,” Lillian started, before faltering. Taking a deep breath, she gave her a grim smile, “your father- it’s just- you’re different, and I’m not just talking about you being a human, but you’re different to humans. Your father never told you, and I agreed that it was for the best too, but … your mother … she- she was-”

            “My mother?” Lena echoed, her forehead crumpling as she frowned.

            She’d never asked about her birth mother, not from her father when he was alive, or Lillian since he’d passed, although she was sure her mother had asked about her. Lena had never had a reason to want to know. In her mind, it made no difference. She was dead, and Lillian had raised her. Those four years on earth were incoherent snatches of memories to Lena, a flicker of green, the faint memory of choking smoke, her father’s laugh. Nowhere in there was her mother. She couldn’t even remember her name. Of course she’d wondered, comparing her appearance to her father’s and wondering how much of her was her mother’s. But since she was little, Lena had known that she was dead, and she wasn’t coming back, and she didn’t need another mother. Lillian had never so much as let Lena believe that she was loved any less than Lex, and often, was possibly loved more, with her mother showing her more affection that she reserved for her son, out of respect for Lena’s human need for more physical comfort. She’d done everything a mother should’ve, and Lena had never thought of her otherwise.

            “She was … a Goddess.”

            Letting out a loud laugh, Lena gave her mom an amused look of bewilderment, thinking it funny and wondering why Lillian looked so serious. Her mom wasn’t one for many jokes, especially about such a weighty topic as Lena’s birth mother, and Lena’s smile faltered slightly at the solemn look on Lillian’s face. She hadn’t moved an inch, or so much as smiled as her daughter laughed.

            “Oh … you’re serious?”

            “Lena … you remember all the stories your father told you? About the Gods?”

            “Yes, but they were just stories. There were lots of them. Celtic, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse. So many that I doubt all of them were real. It would be like believing that there was another sun God, not just Rao. Why would a God want to share their power with another?”

            Letting out a soft sigh, Lillian gave her a patient look of understanding. Apparently she’d had her reservations too. “Yes, but nevertheless, it’s true . Now, I don’t- there’s a lot I don’t really know about, and you know the stories as well as I do … but her name was Athena.”

            Sitting in silence, Lena pursed her lips slightly, a stony look on her face. “Athena? The Greek Goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. She was my mother?”

            “Yes.”

            “No.”

            “I know it’s hard to- to believe - it was a shock for me too - but-”

            “No. I refuse to believe this. What proof do you have?”

            A hard look on her face, Lillian fixed her with an unwavering stare, sitting rigidly in her chair as she looked at her daughter with something akin to fear. “You should be dead,” she flatly told her. “You’re not some outlier, a miracle, or a product of adaptation to Krypton’s atmosphere because you were young when you go here. You’re alive because of your DNA. You might be fragile and weak beneath our sun, but your father … he was paralysed. By the end, he was bedridden and couldn’t move at all. It wasn’t my scientific breakthroughs that did that. It was you .”

            Sitting in stunned silence, Lena didn’t even know where to begin. Of course she’d known she should’ve been dead by then, and that her father had been a lot worse off than her, but being the daughter of a Goddess was by no means a logical way to explain why her body had held out so long. At least the power her sun lamps gave her were easily explained through science. But a Goddess was an entirely different matter.

            While not overly religious, Lena had read the Book of Rao multiple times, and observed all of the holidays, as did everyone else, but she didn’t put much faith in omniscient beings in the sky. She was far too cynical and scientific for that, perhaps more so than her mother even, having heard all of her father’s stories about the hundreds of Gods on Earth. There had been no proof then, and Lena had seen no proof of Gods on Krypton. The old manuscripts even recorded the earliest Kryptonians worshipping their red sun as Rao, so how was she supposed to believe that the ball of gas was actually a God? That would make every star a God. Yet Lillian was perfectly serious as she continued, an earnest look on her face as she stared at Lena, calmly explaining her existence to her.

            “She was the smartest being to ever exist in your world. Thousands of years old, she held all of the world’s knowledge, and no one to pass it onto. Your father said she predicted what was going to happen, and knew that humanity would fail. So she took the essence of him and melded it with her mind, used his thoughts and hers to think you into existence. He was the smartest man on Earth, but he was still human. But you … you’re as smart as any Kryptonian. Smarter than most, actually, and that’s not something that can be taught. Not to a human mind. She gave your father the means to make a pod to keep you safe, to send you off as the last living memory of Earth and humanity.”

            “So what, I’m a- a demigod?”

            The crystal of Kryptonite was clutched tightly in her hand as she sat on the chair, whole body tense with unease, unsure if the whole thing was some elaborate prank, trying to deter her from fighting for what was right by some insane lie. But that wasn’t her mother’s approach to things. Lillian had always been blunt and straightforward, communicating everything clearly so that there was no mistake. She’d told Lena no, and Lena hadn’t listened, and now she was spinning some complicated story about her being the daughter of a Goddess.

            All Lena could think was that she’d always had a fascination with Athena, whenever her father told her stories, and she realised that a lot of them had been about her. He’d show her the gold ring on his finger, the one crafted in the shape of a Gorgon’s head, with writhing snakes for hair, and tell her stories about how Athena blessed the woman with the ability to protect herself from men, or competed against a woman who claimed to be the best weaver, turning her into a spider when she lost, to teach the woman a lesson for claiming to be better than a God. Not all of the tales had been nice, or appropriate for children, but Lena had listened to them all with rapt attention. That memory alone made her pause for a moment, a feeling of uneasiness coiling in her stomach, making her almost afraid of the answer.

            “Yes.”

            Lillian said it so matter-of-factly that Lena didn’t even know how to reply. She stated it as if it was a fact, with as much conviction as Lena had ever heard her utter before, and she was at a loss for words for a few moments, uncurling her clenched fingers to reveal a fine powdery mess in her right hand, from where she’d crushed the Kryptonite with her steel grip.

            “You seem certain.”

            Clearing her throat, Lillian gave her a small smile, “your father left files for you, for me to pass on when I thought you were ready. He said that your mother-”

            “She’s not my mother,” Lena quickly corrected her, her voice sharp as a troubled look crossed her face.

            For some reason, it didn’t sit right with her, that this Goddess had used her father to create a means to an end. From what Lena knew, she’d been one of the few virginal Goddesses, yet she’d used Lionel to ensure that some small shred of humanity lived on in Lena’s DNA. It wasn’t a loving gesture, but a way to preserve, and it made her feel cold to have been so callously used for a purpose.

            “Well nevertheless, she was certain that her, ah, qualities would manifest in you. Some of them came early, like the intelligence and creativity. I mean, you’ve already created so many things, so that’s obvious, but the battle strategy, the need to fight … I guess that’s coming into effect, now that you’ve been exposed to the struggle between the Classes. So it’s time for you to read the files. Your father showed them to me himself; they’re quite convincing.”

            “How do you mean?”

            “Your blood samples … they’re different to his. On a genetic level, there’s a lot of differences, and of course you would never have noticed when experimenting on yourself, with nothing to compare it too, but the differences are very noticeable. If it weren’t for Krypton’s atmosphere, you’d be strong and fast. As it is, you’re more suited to the red sun than a full blooded human.”

            “More suited?” Lena spluttered, looking aghast, “I’m assaulted by crippling pain if I don’t have glowing blue lights stuck to me! How is that suited to this climate?”

            Softly sighing, Lillian gave her a sympathetic look, “that was a bad choice of words, but … well, if you look at your father’s research, you’ll see. I know it all sounds fantastical, but it’s the truth, Lena. You even have that ring that your m- that she gave your father.”

            “And what am I supposed to do with this knowledge?” Lena indignantly asked.

            Reaching across the desk, Lillian opened her hand, resting it on the table as she gave Lena a tender look, full of affection and a small amount of pity for the confusion her daughter was currently experiencing. Letting a fine stream of powder slip from her hand, piling on the desk, Lena wiped her hand off on her leggings, before placing her fragile hand in her mother’s warm grip. Strong fingers wrapped around hers, and she drew comfort and warmth from the simple gesture, her body slumping slightly as she blew all of the air out of her lungs, a sudden weariness washing over her.

            “It’s yours to do with what you will. I’ve tried to shelter you from the part of yourself that needs to fight, to solve problems, to protect you from getting hurt … but I understand that it is a part of you, and it should be your decision to make. I’ll support you, of course, and worry, because that’s what mother’s do, but it is your decision, Lena. You have to understand that there’ll be consequences for doing this though, if you want to. You could get hurt, more than I’d be able to fix you, you could die, you could be captured, hunted down and experimented on. There’s so many ways that exposing yourself, and what you can do, could go badly. But you were born with the potential to be a warrior, to be smart and tactical, strategic and logical. These things are in your blood. You could no more deny the need for oxygen, than the need to be these things. So … it’s up to you.”

            The freedom to make such a hefty decision lay heavily on Lena’s shoulders, and she realised with startling clarity that she’d never had this responsibility thrust upon her before. Every other important decision had been made with Lillian’s approval and help. She’d helped Lena get into the Science Guild when she’d agreed that she was ready, she’d made the decision to keep her daughter safe at home, where the harsh coldness of the planet couldn’t get to her frail immune system, or strange foods couldn’t poison her body. Everything in Lena’s life had depended upon Lillian guiding her in the right direction, but this time, she was content to simply sit by and let Lena decide whether she’d risk her life for others, or be satisfied with a life confined strictly to her work at the Science Guild.

            Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lena nodded, feeling faintly nauseous at the thought of making a decision. It was easier when she was told not to do something that she desperately wanted to do, because her stubbornness made her want to do it even more, but it was a risky decision to make if she decided to do it, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face the consequences. She’d put herself out there in a rush of adrenaline, without thinking the consequences through properly, and now the whole planet knew of her existence. It wasn’t something that would just go away. She’d been confronted by the Sagitari, which meant that they’d be looking for her now. Hiding wouldn’t make it all go away.

            Pausing for a moment, Lena swallowed the lump in her throat and gave Lillian a hesitant smile. “I can’t do it alone, you know.”

            Her mom smiled, climbing to her feet and gesturing for her to follow after her. Walking through the apartment, they made their way towards Lillian’s private lab - one that Lena or Lex had never been allowed into - and she felt excitement kindle inside at the thrill of seeing inside for the first time. It was where her mom worked on her most private and dangerous creations, and throughout Lena’s childhood, the lab had been shrouded in an air of mystery and secrets, with new inventions passing through the doors upon occasion, to win Lillian more fame for their ingenious design.

            The door flew up with a quiet hiss, and cool air washed over them as Lena slowly stepped foot inside, a look of interest lighting up her face as she drank in the sights. It was much like all of the other labs in their maze of an apartment, littered with spare parts, half finished projects and the smell of grease, oil and metal. White lights bleached everything in brightness, and Lena approached the nearest workbench with a curious look in her eyes, staring down at the gears and springs that were spilling out of the sphere.

            “Here,” Lillian called her, tearing her away from the device, and Lena turned to follow after her.

            It was at the back of the room where Lillian stopped, staring at the panels of plain metal covering the walls, and held out a hand, pressing it flat against the coolness of it and watching as a piece slid up to reveal a small space behind it. A light came on and Lena sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. It was a suit. It wasn’t like the one she’d created for herself, with its flexible pieces holding her body together, in case of a malfunction with the lamps, it was better . And it was clearly manufactured for one reason, and one reason only. It was armour.

            The style of it nagged at the back of Lena’s mind, looking oddly familiar, although she knew for a fact that she’d never seen the like of it before. It was crafted from black metal, a dull sheen to it as the light caught the shape of it, and Lena took in the sculpted muscles of the cuirass. A dark helmet stared back at her, the eyes two pieces of tinted glass, a thin strip coming down to cover her nose, and the two sides, where they covered her cheeks, not quite reaching, leaving her mouth bare. A plume of deep purple bristles ran down the length of the domed helm. There were matching greaves and vambraces, carved similarly, and Lena reached out to reverently slide a finger over the metal, her eyes wide as she took it in.

            “It’s based on the designs your father drew up,” Lillian interrupted Lena’s thoughts, “in the style of the Ancient Greeks. The cuirass was their style of body armour, and the helmet is in the style of a people called the Trojans.”

            “You made this for me?”

            With a grim smile, Lillian gave her an almost mournful look. “I hoped this day would never come, but I knew it might. You didn’t travel two thousand light years to be nursed to death. It’s my duty as a mother to protect you, and I wanted to make sure that I was ready. Try it on.”

            Holding back for a moment, Lena couldn’t quite manage to keep her excitement at bay as she quickly started stripping off the armour and clothes she was wearing, a weakness making her sag slightly as she removed the sun lamps. One by one, she put on the items her mother handed to her. There was a jumpsuit in a green so dark it was almost black, then came the breastplate, which locked into place with a firm click, skin tight and practically weightless. Lillian helped strap the vambraces to her forearms, and Lena slipped on the supple black boots, snuggly hugging her calves and coming to a stop below her knees, and the greaves fitted around them. A thin pair of black leather fingerless gloves covered her hands, and she flexed her fingers as she twisted slightly in the armour, relishing the way it moved with her, moulding to her muscles and giving her full range of motion.

            Stilling as Lillian pulled out a folded piece of fabric, Lena curiously eyed it, taking in the thick, durable polymer of the material, a shade of purple just a step away from black, and watched as it unfurled into a sweeping cape, settling around her shoulders as Lillian hooked it into place.

            “Here,” her mom murmured, handing her the helmet, and Lena gave her an excited smile, before slipping it on.

            She’d half expected to feel suffocated and off balance with the helmet on, but she blinked as the lenses covering the eye holes fed a stream of data and information to her. Letting out a laugh of delight, she looked around, a target latching onto her mom and giving her a profile on her, a series of bars and numbers telling her about her own body statistics, and various other information. Lena was surprised by the lengths of which Lillian had gone to create her something that she’d never wanted her to have.

            “And there’s also this,” Lillian’s voice sounded right in Lena’s ears, making her jump slightly at how clear it was, fed to her through tiny speakers inside the helmet.

            Her mother pressed a hand against the middle of the breastplate, right over Lena’s breast bone, and Lena looked down to see an electric blue light that had come to life as soon as she’d put the suit on, filling her with a sudden strength. There were blue star radiators built into the suit, and Lena felt herself straighten as pure, unbridled strength ran through her. Lines of it ran through the contours of the breastplate, through the jumpsuit, vambraces and greaves, almost looking like veins connecting the whole suit. And there, on her chest, was a symbol.

            “Do you have a mirror?” Lena asked, her voice distorted when she spoke.

            Biting back a smile at how perfect the design was, she let herself be steered towards a reflective surface in the room. Her reflection was startling, with two piercing blue eye holes staring back at her, and she could barely even recognise herself in it. If she hadn’t known what she was wearing, she never would’ve guessed that it was her. And then she looked down at the symbol, and her expression darkened with a scowl as she took in the snarling face of a gorgon.

            “Why is this on here?” she asked, her voice low as she tapped her chest.

            “You need a symbol,” Lillian reasonably told her, “one that’s foreign to Krypton. Her name was Medusa, and she frightened her enemies. It’s as good a symbol as any, even if it was a sign of Athena. You can give it a new meaning.”

            Nodding, Lena resigned herself to the fact that her mother was right. She’d quite suddenly found herself harbouring a grudge against a dead God, feeling used as a means to an end, but it was stupid to bear such feelings towards her after all of these years. Lena didn’t even know her, so what difference did it make?

            “And there’s the colours of House Thor in there too,” Lillian proudly told her, “in the green and purple. It’s too dark to be easily noticed, but at least you’ll be carrying a piece of your family with you too.”

            “Thank you.”

            Tears prickled her eyes suddenly, and Lena stepped towards her mom, wrapping her in a tight hug, easing up when Lillian made a choked sound and her back cracked slightly. Sheepishly pulling back, Lena gave her a smile, and Lillian reached up to rest a hand against the metal of the helmet, right where her cheek was, before pulling back. Pulling out something else, she hesitated briefly, before presenting it to Lena. It was a slightly flattened cylinder of the same dark metal as her armour, and Lena cocked her head to the side as she eyed it with wary curiosity.

            Reaching out, Lillian took her left arm in her own and gently brushed her finger against a scanner at the base of the vambrace. Jumping slightly, Lena watched with wonder as a round shield sprung forth from the metal, slotting into place, piece by piece, and she angled her arm to stare down at the gorgon protruding from the shield, the snarling snakes jutting out from the metal. In her right hand, at her touch, a blade shot forth from the piece of metal she held, and Lena felt a rush of adrenaline course through her as she clutched it tightly, a feeling of rightness coursing through her.

            When she met her mother’s gaze, she gave her a nervous smile, taking in the apprehensive look on Lillian’s face. “How do I look?”

            “Like a God.”

Chapter Text

            Despite the fact that she’d managed to coerce her mother into helping her with her powers, Lena still couldn’t bring her round to the idea of letting her go back to work at the Science Guild and ignore the matter with the bullies, and she knew better than to complain. Lillian was strict, but fair, and Lena resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to stay home, and wouldn’t dare risk another adventure out in her wheelchair. She was already on thin ice, having proved to Lillian that she was ready to help people, but also having pissed her off prior to her agreement to help, and Lena didn’t want to push her too much. Still, the next day, when the thrill of wearing the armour had worn off and the adrenaline had died down, and she was lounging on the sofa reading through the files on her that her father had left behind, she couldn’t help but miss Kara.

            She’d received a message off her that morning, checking in on her health, still under the assumption that Lena had a burning fever, and she hadn’t had the heart to reply. Lying didn’t come naturally to her; she’d never had a reason to lie before. Lying to Kara, her only friend and the only person outside of her family that cared about Lena, felt wrong, and Lena spent most of the morning brooding in sullen silence as she read over her father’s accounts of her DNA and the endless files he seemed to have on Ancient Greece.

            At lunchtime, she made herself a quick meal and then went back into her mother’s lab, going towards the back panel and revealing the shiny blackness of the armour. It looked exactly like the armour in the photos she’d been looking at in the files, and she pulled out the cylinder, which grew into a leaf bladed sword beneath her touch. The crossguard was a thick rectangle etched with Greek patterns, giving way to a polished hilt and a pommel with the gorgon’s face engraved in it.

            Moving into an empty space, Lena held the sword out before her, taking in the way the light reflected off the liquidy blackness of the sharply honed blade, and testing its balance in her hand. She knew nothing about swords, and they were an archaic thing on Krypton, so old that she wasn’t sure there were any relics or records of them that existed anymore. They were from a time when the planet wasn’t as advanced or civilised, from millennia ago, compared to the more recent centuries on Earth, and she marvelled at her mother’s skill to have worked such a creation into existence, based on nothing more than photos and her knowledge of smithing. She’d never so much as held a sword, or any kind of weapon, nor had the means to given the fact that she’d hardly been able to feed herself at times, but the simple act of holding it felt so right that Lena was slightly uneasy about it.

            Clenching her fingers around the hilt, her knuckles turning white, she slowly swung it in an arc, listening to the quiet whisper of it cutting through the air, sending adrenaline coursing through her body. This was familiar, like second nature, and she wondered at how natural it felt to her. Some intrinsic part of her knew how to do this, how to fight, how to hold a weapon and swing it. A bitterness welled up as she let the sword dangle from her fingers, the point aimed at the floor, realising that it would be some leftover gift given to her by her mother’s DNA. Goddess of warfare and battle strategy indeed, Lena resentfully thought to herself, watching as the sword collapsed back into the small cylinder. Setting it back upon its shelf, she stared at the rest of the armour, all neatly stowed away, waiting for her to put it to use.

            It didn’t matter why she’d been born, that she was merely a tool in the eyes of the woman who’d given her life. It mattered what she did with the gifts she’d been given. She could help people, right the wrongs done to the Rankless citizens, make the planet a fairer place. Someone had to do it, and if no one else would, then she’d be the one to instigate change. But the fact that, to them, she’d always be an alien, an unwanted presence, feeding off their scarce resources and stirring up trouble with the Class systems, would mean unwanted attention from people who would want to stop her. The Sagitari would be at the top of that list, although their blasters were essentially useless against her in her full powered state, and she wasn’t sure how many other unseen enemies stepping out in her armour would bring.

            And then there was the fact that she didn’t want to hurt people. She’d defend those she needed to, but Lena was a logical being, preferring to use her words before her fists, unless words failed. With her superhuman strength and the keen edge of her sword, she could inflict some real damage on any Kryptonian who got in her way, and she found a feeling of worry creeping up on her at that. What if she accidentally killed someone because she didn’t know her own strength? People wouldn’t understand that she wanted to help; of course they’d attack her, think her trying to take over their home, cause dissent and problems within the ruling government of the planet. She’d have to learn restraint before she’d be ready to face down anyone and remain in control.

            Spending a quiet day tinkering away at her own projects, and finishing off the evening reading a few more of her father’s files, it was pitch black outside by the time her mother came in. Lillian immediately checked up on her, making sure that her sun lamps were fine, she’d eaten something and wasn’t feeling too drained, before she settled down and they ate dinner together. Lena quizzed her about her day, a note of longing in her voice as she asked about the activities at the Science Guild, and if Lillian picked up on the fact that she was hoping to hear something of Kara, her mother didn’t indulge her. Even if she’d seen Kara, clearly it was nothing worth commenting on. Feeling a little disheartened, Lena was relatively quiet for the rest of the night, thinking that the week couldn’t be over quick enough for her liking. She’d spent too many years shut away inside the apartment, and she knew that it had been for her own safety, but now, after being given a taste of freedom beyond the top floor of the soaring building, she found herself restless and irritable at having to stay locked up there as punishment for hurting someone. More than that though, she was upset that she didn’t get to see Kara.

            Sleep was hard to come by that night, tossing and turning as she grumbled to herself, blue lights visible behind closed eyelids as her body hummed with unused energy, and she ended up pacing back and forth for hours, trying to wear herself out so that she could get some rest. The next morning, she was grouchy at breakfast, ignoring Lex’s jibes as he tried to get her to smile, dark circles under her eyes as she poked at the thin oatmeal, finding herself not very hungry at the moment.

            Her brother left first, gently squeezing her shoulder on the way out, a bright smile on his face as he looked forward to a full day of work, and Lillian was quick to follow, lingering behind a little longer to cast furtive glances at Lena while she pretended to clean up. Eventually, she had to leave too, dropping a kiss onto the top of Lena’s head and leaving her to her own thoughts. A droid floated closer to her, making a curious beeping noise, and Lena shooed it away, not requiring anything for the time being as she wallowed in the quiet solitude of the place.

            By midafternoon, she found herself beneath the hovercraft parked in their garage, her durable work clothes covered in grease and oil as she took the engine apart and cleaned all the pieces, a lengthy job that required some hands-on work. One of the droids played music while it handed her the tools she requested, and she was twisting a bolt into place when the main door to the hangar hissed open and footsteps made their way inside. Frowning to herself, Lena put the wrench down and wheeled herself out from beneath the jet on the little board she was laying down on, finding her mom standing there.

            “You’re home early. It’s barely past midday.”

            Giving her a quick smile, Lillian gestured for her to get up, “quiet day. Besides, I thought you could use the company. Come, leave the jet. You can finish it off tomorrow.”

            Curiosity piqued, Lena wiped her blackened hands on the front of her grimy tunic, running her arm over her face, knowing that it was probably covered in grease too, and followed after her mother’s retreating figure. Wondering if she should suggest bathing and changing first, but quickly dismissing that thought - her mother had seen the state of her, and hadn’t suggested it herself - she followed Lillian through the warren of rooms, and they made their way to the lab that Lena’s armour was stowed in.

            The door hissed open beneath her mother’s touch, and Lena blinked in surprise at the emptiness of the lab. She’d been in there yesterday, swinging her sword around amongst the other half-finished projects, but now the room was bare of anything. Frowning in confusion, Lena looked at Lillian, waiting for her to explain, but her mother was just standing there, wandering around the bare room, as if waiting for something to happen.

            It turned out she was waiting for someone , because a few minutes later, the elevator doors chimed and Lena picked up her brother’s heartbeat as he walked through the apartment, the lab door parting to reveal his lithe figure. Stepping inside, Lex gave them both a smile, and Lillian moved back over to them.

            “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Lena asked.

            “You want to be a hero? Then you need training,” Lillian replied, “Lex is going to help.”

            Turning to give her brother a sceptical look, Lena arched an eyebrow at her mother. “How?”

            Much to her surprise, her brother picked her up, with Lena not expecting it, getting her in a headlock as she kicked her feet. Scowling, she hunched her shoulders and flipped him over, slamming him down onto the hard floor as his grip around her neck broke. Wheezing, her looked up at her, holding his stomach as his mouth opened and closed.

            “Lena!” Lillian sharply barked, “you need to be gentle!”

            Softly swearing, Lex rolled over and pushed himself up onto all fours, groaning as he climbed back to his feet, a hesitant smile on his lips as he tried to brush it off. “I’m fine, mother. Nothing but winded.”

            Making a disapproving sound at the back of her throat, Lillian still gave Lena a stern look. “You might only have winded him, but you don’t know your own strength. We ran a few tests at the start, when you created this … thing, yes, but there’s a lot of factors we still don’t know. You can’t afford to make mistakes if you’re seriously going to do this. And you can’t afford to get hurt. There’ll be people trying to stop you, trained people, so you need to be trained as well.”

            “Like … in combat?”

            “Yes,” Lillian begrudgingly replied, a troubled look on her face, “you’ll need to know your limits, how to move, how to fight in your armour. But first, you’ll need to learn the basics. And you’ll need to learn what it’s like to be powerless.”

            Before Lena could protest, Lillian moved towards her and unbuttoned one side of the grey tunic, revealing one of the lamps on her chest, reducing the settings down to the bare threshold, before moving onto the next one. By the time they were all set to the lowest they could be, while still ensuring that Lena wasn’t in pain, Lena was feeling heavier, her shoulders slumped slightly and a human weariness to her body as she stretched out her weak muscles. It was very rarely that she experienced that low level of radiation these days, and it always made her uncomfortable, thinking about all the times she’d been left screaming and writhing on the floor in pain.

            “It’s better to not give your brother the same strength as you - we still don’t know the full side effects of the radiation - so the best we can do is make you weaker to even the playing field.”

            “Why can’t I just learn at full strength?”

            Giving her a pointed look, Lillian backed away into a corner, “because you won’t learn anything. You’ll rely on your speed and strength, instead of learning skills.”

            Bristling slightly at the insinuation that she wouldn’t put the effort in, Lena stubbornly set her shoulders and grit her teeth as she gave her brother a determined look. Backing into the open space of the room, she gave him a small smile, “okay, brother, let’s see who’s better.”

            Letting out a quiet laugh, Lex let out an exasperated sigh, rolling up the sleeves of his tunic and slowly walking over to her. “Don’t get too cocky, Lena. You might be demigod, but I know my way around a scrap. And there’s one rule …”

            Arching an eyebrow, Lena fought back a smile of amusement as her brother slowly rolled up his sleeves, taking his sweet time. “Which is?”

            Looking up at her, he smiled, before resuming his task. “Well, you see,” he conversationally said, before he lunged forward and grabbed her arm, spinning her around and twisting it behind and up, so that she was doubled over and a dull pain flared to life in her shoulder. Letting out a hiss of pain, and her smugness feeling slightly cowed because of her slow reflexes, she looked down and stamped on her brother’s foot, earning a restrained sound of pain. “Always strike first. Don’t stand around talking, just hit them.”

            “No!” Lillian spluttered, “do not hit them first! She’s trying to protect people, Lex. This isn’t one of your silly bar fights.”

            “Well maybe she needs to them first to protect- argh!”

            Taking advantage of her brother’s distracted nature, Lena leapt at him, tackling him around the waist and bringing them both down to the floor in a heavy pile, knocking the wind out of them both. Pushing herself up, she grinned down at her brother, looking slightly smug, and earned herself a kick to the stomach in return, sprawling backwards as she struggled to find the air to breathe. Still, she staggered to her feet, a scowl on her face as they slowly circled each other. Feinting to the left, Lex went right and grabbed her arm, hauling her over his shoulder and then moving towards one of the walls and slamming her into it, hard. Lena let out a quiet grunt of pain, feeling two of the sun lamps at the base of her spine grind against the wall.

            “Lex!” Lillian barked.

            Wrapping an arm around her brother’s throat, Lena choked him slightly, until he stumbled forward and she could slide down from where she was wedged against the wall, kicking his knees out from beneath him and forcefully driving him down into the floor.

            “Lena!”

            She swore as her brother punched her squarely across the face, not hard enough to cause any marks, but enough to make it smart and turn red as she gingerly touched the sore spot. Giving him a dark look, Lena felt something inside her fizzle to life, some burning energy unlocked by the frustration and pain, and she watched as her brother blanched a few feet away from her, holding his hands up defensively. Lena felt slightly funny, hot all over, and her eyes burning slightly as she blinked, and she stood there shaking her head, trying to rid herself of the feeling as her brother gave her a wide eyed look of fear.

            “Lena,” Lillian quietly murmured, having rounded the fight to come up behind her daughter, and gently touched her on the shoulder.

            Jumping with fright, Lena turned around as something hot seared an awry line in the walls of the room, and she blinked in surprise as she found herself facing the smoking, melted metal wall, her mother crouched on the floor with her arms over her head. Blinking rapidly, Lena tried to understand what had happened, turning back to her brother, following the wonky line burnt into the wall. With horror, she realised that she’d burnt it into the walls, the line following the path her eyes had taken as she’d whirled around to face Lillian. With trepidation, she reached up to touch her eye sockets, the skin there as smooth as ever, and she found herself speechless, mouth dry with fear as she stumbled backwards.

            Staggering over to the corner of the room, she braced herself against the wall and vomited on the floor, shock making her body tremble as a weakness swept through her. Her body was covered in a cold sweat, and her spine prickled with unease as her stomach knotted itself with fear. She could’ve hurt her mother, and her brother, and Lena found herself on the verge of tears as she wordlessly opened and closed her mouth, a lump forming in her throat.

            “We’re done for today,” Lillian murmured to Lex, pushing him out of the room, before she walked over to Lena, lingering back a few feet as she gave her daughter’s back a wary look.

            Eyes screwed tightly shut, Lena hunched her shoulders, a burning shame colouring her cheeks red as she let out a pitiful choked sound, a trembling hand clapped over her mouth. Softly sighing, Lillian closed the gap between them and reached out to touch her shoulder again, body tensed to duck in case Lena’s eyes decided to shoot lasers again, and she slowly drew her daughter away from the rank smelling corner, feeling the tense muscles beneath her tunic as Lena’s body coiled in anticipation.

            She slumped slightly as she was folded into her mother’s warm embrace, head securely tucked beneath Lillian’s chin as a gentle hand stroked her dark hair, and Lena choked on another sob. Her face was ashen, her lips trembling as she buried her face in the front of Lillian’s Science Guild robes, and she could feel her own heart thundering in her chest at how close she’d been to hurting someone she loved. Her mother wasn’t joking when she said that she needed to learn self control, test her limits and find out everything that she could do. That was just at the lowest threshold of her abilities too, when she was almost at the same strength as a Kryptonian, and she’d nearly turned her mother to ash on the spot, by complete accident.

            “It’s okay,” Lillian murmured.

            Flinching, Lena grabbed fistfuls of her mother’s tunic, letting out a shuddering breath as she tried to slow her heart rate. “I didn’t- I didn’t know- I didn’t mean-”

            “I know, I know. It’s okay. You’ll learn to control it. No one got hurt, it’s fine.”

            She slowly breathed in, feel the tension fade from her body as she pulled back, her eyes roaming her mother’s body, looking for any sign of injury, for a hair out of place, a wisp of smoke from a hole seared through the fabric of her clothes. But Lillian was fine. A little pallid, her face pinched with worry, but other than that, she was fine, as she’d said. Her worry wasn’t for her own safety, it was for Lena, and she looked up at her mother with a pleading look.

            “I’m sorry,” she hoarsely apologised.

            Tutting, Lillian smoothed her hair and gave her chin an affectionate jerk, “go and get cleaned up. That’s enough for today.”

            Silently nodding, Lena swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue. The words that would inform her mother that this had been enough for a lifetime. It had scared Lena too much, and she realised for the first time that her powers weren’t some silly little novelty trick, a gimmick that let her take joy rides through the sky on a whim, or let her bench press an entire jet with one hand. It wasn’t just a thing that took away her pain; she could really hurt people. People she loved.

            Leaving the empty room, she made her way back to her room and fetched a pair of clean clothes, before making her way to the bathroom. Stripping off the grease stained clothes, she dropped them to the floor and stepped into the steam, hot water hitting her cool skin. Washing sweat and oil from her skin, she felt her muscles unwind beneath the hot water, and sank down to the tiled floor, drawing her knees up to her chest as her hair was plastered to her face.

            Eventually she emerged from the steamy room, dressed in clean clothes, her dark hair tangling around her face, and made directly for her room, the red sun a fiery ball low on the horizon as she caught a glimpse outside the window. Flopping down onto her bed, she stared up at the ceiling and let her mind go blank, an old Kryptonian mantra helping her regain some of her composure as she quietly meditated.

            No one bothered her for hours, until it was time for dinner, but she didn’t stir. Laying on her bed, she ignored her mother’s calls and didn’t touch the tray one of the droids brought in and set at the foot of her bed, even though her stomach was rumbling and there was a hollow weariness inside her. After a restless sleep the night before, she slipped into unconsciousness with ease, her body grateful from the reprieve.

            The next morning she was aching everywhere, in a way that she hadn’t since creating her sun lamps, and she knew that turning up the strength on the lamps would’ve fixed her aches and pains, but after yesterday, she didn’t trust herself to keep herself under control under a higher level of radiation. She didn’t even know how the heat vision worked, how it was activated, or how to make it stop. Yesterday had been a complete accident, and she couldn’t risk another one.

            Her mother and brother went off to work again, after Lillian had poked her head in and taken in Lena’s limp figure, pretending to sleep, unbeknownst to her mother, and she spent the day moping around the apartment, wallowing in self-pity. Tinkering away at the jet to keep herself busy and do something productive, she put the engine back together and washed up, taking some satisfaction in a job well done. Afterwards, she read over another message that Kara had sent her, which had gone unreplied to, and felt guilt stir within her. She should’ve replied, it would’ve been the decent thing to do, but she spiralled into a black pit of despair, thinking about how Kara could be one of the ones she hurt if she wasn’t careful. Lena thought that perhaps a little distance was good. It was safe.

            Her mother wasn’t too concerned with her own safety apparently though, breezing in from a day at the Guild and stepping into Lena’s room, sternly motioning for her to get up. “Up,” she flatly ordered her.

            Spluttering, Lena gave her an aghast look, sitting up from where she was rereading Kara’s message for the hundredth time. “What?!”

            “Up. You’re going to try again. And you’ll do it again after that, over and over again, until you can control yourself.”

            Lips pressed together in a hard line, Lena shook her head as she outright refused. “No.”

            Huffing, Lillian gave her a reproving look, “Lena, I know that you didn’t expect what happened yesterday - none of us did - but you just- you’re still learning, and that’s okay. And if you want to help people, then you’ll need to control yourself, and if you want to control yourself, you’ll need to train. So you are going to get up and get back in that room, and we’ll try it again until you can defend yourself without hurting other people. Okay?”

            Biting her bottom lip, Lena gave her mother an apprehensive look, slightly alarmed at her outburst, before she firmly nodded and climbed to her feet. She wanted to help people. She’d been telling the truth when she said that the need to fix the problems on Krypton was some intrinsic need, that she had to stand up and fight, use her intelligence to find solutions to all of the issues the planet had. Her mother hadn’t raised a quitter, and she wasn’t going to let Lena back out of it now, not after she’d been brought around to the idea of her daughter being a superhero. So Lena squared her shoulder and walked out of the bedroom.

            Inside the empty lab, Lillian paused as she turned to face Lena, pursing her lips for a moment. “Just one thing before we start.”

            “Yes?”

            “Try not to bring the apartment down this time.”

Chapter Text

            Holed up inside the apartment, Lena waited out the rest of her punishment, spending all of her waking hours practicing her newfound powers and shunning the rest of her work. Two days after she was supposed to return to the Science Guild, she was still at home, swinging her new sword around and trying to control her strength. In a huff of frustration four days ago, she’d nearly frozen her mother’s feet to the floor with a gust of cold air escaping her lips, and thus, discovered a new skill of hers. Two days ago, after a good day of practice the day before, Lena went to the empty lab with a determined look on her face and had clapped her hands as she readied herself for more practice, only to create an ear-splitting cracking noise that had created fine spider web cracks in the walls of the room. It had taken some getting used to, how easy it was for her to destroy, and she was nowhere near in full control of herself, but at least she knew what she could do, and she knew that at least she wouldn’t accidentally kill someone she cared about.

            Still, as much satisfaction as it brought her to realise her full potential, to use her powers for something more than just being able to sit upright without being in pain, she missed Kara sorely over the week she wasn’t at the Guild. Yet even though she missed her, Lena couldn’t bring herself to reply to any of Kara’s messages. She received a new one every day, asking if she was okay, when she’d be coming back, if she’d like to get dinner, or if she’d done something to offend Lena. They made her wince slightly each time, especially when Kara started to doubt herself. It wasn’t by any fault of her own; it was Lena’s own wishes to keep her safe, because no matter how much control she reclaimed for herself, there would always be the risk that Lena could hurt her. How easy it would be to get angry and carve her body up with her heat vision, or run out of patience and let out a huff of cold air that could freeze her instantly if she wasn’t careful. Not to mention the physical strength. For the meantime, it was better to keep her distance from Kara, to cut off all ties and hope that her friend wouldn’t hold a grudge.

            Lena’s hopes were dashed though as she finished a training session, with Lillian’s approval still ringing in her ears as she turned the dials on the sun lamps back up to nearly full strength. She felt the strength course through her body, a burning heat giving her pallid cheeks a rosy hue as sweat prickled her skin from the exertion at low power. Her body was quickly adjusting, her breathing evening out and her heart rate slowing, when there was a beeping sound from the monitor beside the door. Lena watched as Lillian walked over to the door and peered at the screen, before glancing over to Lena.

            “It’s Kara Zor-El. Did you invite her here?”

            “What?!” Lena exclaimed, scrambling to her mother’s side and looking at the clear image of Kara. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lena shook her head. “No, I had no idea she was coming.”

            With an exasperated look on her face, Lillian gently nudged Lena - more so that she wouldn’t bruise herself, rather than worried about her daughter’s safety - and jerked her head towards Lena’s bedroom. “Go to your room. I’ll take care of it.”

            Nodding, Lena moved in a blur, the door closing behind her with a small hiss as she pressed her ear up against it, listening as her mother buzzed Kara up. Within a minute, the front door was sliding upwards to admit the blonde, and Lena felt her stomach lurch at the sound of Kara’s voice, politely greeting her mother. Lena could hear the nervousness in her voice, the slight tremble, and the pounding heart, and she realised just how much courage it had taken Kara to come to her home to see her, coming face to face with arguably one of the most powerful women on the planet, who wasn’t particularly fond of the House of El. Yet she’d come anyway, and Lena’s expression softened as her worries were soothed slightly, even though she should’ve felt the opposite. Kara caring enough to come straight to Lena’s apartment after being ignored shouldn’t have made her feel warm inside - it should’ve been a problem.

            “I’m sorry, I just- is Lena okay? I know that she got into trouble because of what she did at the Guild, but … she should’ve been back by now. It’s not like her to stay away. I just wanted to check-”

            “She’s ill,” Lillian interrupted, her tone not unkind, although there was a firm edge to it, a quiet warning not to push her. “She’s come down with a fever. Nothing that won’t pass in a few days.”

            “Oh … may I please see her?”

            Lena held her breath, her hands flat against the metal as she waited for her mother’s answer. Part of her was desperate to see Kara, but she was scared that it would make things harder for her in the end. But still, when Lillian quietly murmured her permission, Lena’s heart leapt, and she couldn’t stop the smile that lit up her face. Footsteps started down the hallway towards her room, and her eyes widened for a moment as she looked down at herself, wearing the sweaty clothes she’d been training in, standing on her own two feet, and look anything but sick. Quietly cursing, Lena was in bed in an instant, burrowing beneath the covers as she quickly turned down her sun lamps, her whole body sagging with exhaustion as it slammed into her, taking her breath away and making her grimace with discomfort as aching muscles and weakness came to her attention. Her body was still warm from the radiation though, her forehead prickling with sweat, and she didn’t have to hide the tired smile as the door opened to reveal a wary looking Kara.

            Making her voice raspy, Lena weakly pushed herself up onto her elbows, not entirely all pretend, and she tilted her head to the side as she looked up at her friend. “Kara. What’re you doing here?”

            Eyes darting to Lillian, Lena gave her a subtle nod as Kara moved over to the side of her bed, and her mother quietly slipped out of the room to give them some privacy. Standing beside the bed, Kara looked down at her with wide blue eyes, a look of worry stirring deep within them as Lena saw herself reflected in them. She didn’t look good, that was for sure, and it was plausible to think that perhaps she had been sick for the past few days. It was nothing a quick bout of radiation couldn’t fix, filling her with the rush of strength as it fixed her damaged cells, repaired damaged muscle tissue and banished the mottled bruises that would’ve covered her ivory skin if it wasn’t for the blue star’s energy.

            “I came to see you,” Kara slowly said, looking slightly stunned. It was a rare thing for a Kryptonian to get sick, yet given the fact that everyone already knew Lena was ill, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to say it was a side effect of her illness. But still, it was shocking for Kara to see it up close, taking in the waxy look of her sweaty face, the flushed cheeks and air of exhaustion about her as Lena kept herself propped up, even though her entire body wanted to sag against the soft mattress. “You’re sick.”

            Letting out a shaky laugh, Lena fell back against the pillows, a soft sigh escaping her lips as her eyelids fluttered closed. “It’s nothing.”

            “I was worried about you, you know,” Kara murmured, the mattress jostling slightly, making Lena’s eyelids fly open as she watched the Kryptonian settle down on the edge of the bed. “You weren’t answering any of my messages.”

            Gesturing vaguely at her body, Lena gave her a wry smile, “sorry, I just- I haven’t been feeling too good. I didn’t mean to ignore you-”

            “It’s fine, you don’t need to explain,” Kara hurried to cut her apologies off, and Lena winced internally at how easily Kara trusted her.

            She wasn’t someone who trusted easily, yet she believed Lena, and guilt crept up on Lena as she lied to her. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, sitting wrongly in her stomach, and she felt her heart ache slightly for the other woman. She would’ve believed any lie, as long as she had a friend who was kind to her, and Lena felt a lump rise in her throat. Sudden tears pricked her eyes, and Lena turned her head to the side as she swallowed thickly.

            “Are you okay?” Kara asked, an anxious note in her voice as she reached out to touch her arm, “oh, Lena, you’re burning up. Are you in pain? Should I get your mother?”

            As Kara turned away from her, bracing herself to climb to her feet, Lena reached out and grabbed her hand in a tight grip, her fingers burning hot against Kara’s cool skin, and she quickly forced herself to let go, a flicker of regret welling up inside. “No. No, don’t. I just- I’m fine. Just tired, is all.”

            “Then I should let you sleep.”

            “Don’t go.”

            The words were barely a whisper, a gentle sigh as Lena looked up at her with a yearning look in her eyes. She had few people in her life, and to lose one would be a massive blow. Perhaps it was selfish to keep Kara on the outskirts of her life, without allowing her to leave or truly enter it, but Lena couldn’t let her go. She didn’t have anyone else except her family. Kara meant more to her than she could describe, in more ways than one, and she gave her a trembling smile as she gently coaxed her back onto the bed.

            “Stay a moment.”

            Anxious expression softening at the words, Kara tilted her head to the side, staring down at her with worried eyes, yet she stayed anyway. Reaching out, she brushed damp strands of hair off Lena’s forehead, and beneath the blankets, Lena reached for one of the dials stuck to her body, giving it a surreptitious twist beneath the covers and feeling some strength leak into her, giving her the energy to sustain the conversation for a while longer. She’d missed Kara in the week away from the Science Guild, and although Lena knew that she could’ve messaged her back, it wasn’t the same as being there with her. It was like a balm to her worries that words wouldn’t have been able to ease, and she basked in the comforting presence of her friend as she lay on the bed, her tired body sinking into the mattress as her body tried to regain some equilibrium after the on and off again effects of the radiation. It was taxing, Lena knew that, which was why Lillian hated her using it, yet the painless relief the solar energy gave her was addictive. Her mother couldn’t understand. And Lena didn’t want to miss any of the precious few minutes she had with Kara, spending them fighting off the haziness of sleep that her body craved, or shifting uncomfortably with the aching pains of her body.

            “I brought you something,” Kara eventually said, reaching into the folds of the navy cloak she was wearing to produce a flower.

            Dirt still clung to the roots, white snaking tendrils with lumps of damp earth beneath the emerald stem of the flower. The blooming flower atop the leafy stem was massive, easily the size of both of Lena’s hands, the petals a pale jade green, leaf-bladed in shape, and velvety soft as Lena reached out to touch it, her fingers delicately sliding over the furry, paper thin petals. As Kara slipped it into her hand, Lena noticed that the centre of the flower was an inky black, and she tipped it towards her face, breathing in the surprisingly sweet aroma as her eyes fluttered closed.

            “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

            Swapping the flower to her other hand, Lena reached out to slide her pale hand into Kara’s strong grip, her skin a healthy golden tan, the fingers dotted with small nicks and scars from her work, refreshingly cool against Lena’s hot, slender fingers as they curled protectively around them. Giving her hand a gentle squeeze, Lena smiled up at her, and Kara’s cheeks turned slightly pink in the dimness of the unlit bedroom.

            “I made it for you.”

            Surprise made Lena’s eyebrows rise slightly, a warmth pooling in her stomach at the words. “Y-you did?”

            Snorting softly, Kara hunched her shoulders, shrugging self-consciously as she held Lena’s hand in her lap, her fingertips gently gliding over the translucent skin, following the snaking green veins visible beneath the pale skin. “They grow very quickly, this type of flower. I’ve been trying to get the colour right all week. Green, like your eyes. But a soft green, with an almost bluish quality to them. It’s a hard colour to get right, but I think I did. Finally. I wanted to show it to you before it wilted.”

            “It’s beautiful.”

            “I'm going to call it the Divil flower.”

            Light, Lena realised, the light flower. A moment of panic seized her as she realised that the origin of her name on Earth meant light, and that Kara might have been dropping a hint that she knew Lena’s secret. Fear taking hold in her heart, fear about what that would mean for Lena, and for Kara’s safety, and she looked up at Kara with an ashen face.

            “Light?” Lena hoarsely asked.

            Smiling down at her lap, Kara gave her hand a quick squeeze, “you make me feel light. Most people see me as this dark person, just waiting for me to turn evil and follow after my parents, but you always see the best in me. You see me in the light and- are you okay? What’s wrong?”

            Lena felt some of the colour return to her as her tense body went slack with relief. It was nothing more than a coincidence, a touching one, and her heart softened at the explanation. It was hard to imagine anyone thinking that Kara could go evil; she spent all of her time in her lab, growing flowers and trying to solve the food shortage problem on Krypton. That was as far from evil as Lena could imagine, and pity welled up inside at the thought of Kara having to put up with everyone else’s judgement. Why shouldn’t she just be judged on the basis of her own actions? She’d been a child when her family had tried to wreak havoc on Krypton, and while Kryptonians were unbelievably smart, that didn’t mean she knew what they were doing, or should’ve been held accountable for what they did. Lena gave her a sad look as she squeezed her hand.

            “Nothing’s wrong,” Lena murmured, “I just- I wish that everyone saw you the way I do. I wish that they were kind to you.”

            “You’re kind to me, and you the best in me. That’s all I need.”

            “But you deserve more.”

            Quietly laughing, Kara grimaced as she looked down at Lena, slowly shaking her head. “Well, that’s not how the world works. Now, I should let you rest.”

            Lips quirking up into a thin smile, Lena nodded, her eyelids fluttering slightly as Kara climbed to her feet, gently jostling the mattress. She peered up at her through half-lidded eyes, the flower carefully clutched in her hand, and her smile grew slightly as Kara’s face hovered over her.

            “I’ll see you soon,” Lena promised.

            “Get well,” Kara whispered, “I miss seeing you everyday.”

            She left after that, and Lena strained her hearing to listen to her mother escort Kara to the door, politely seeing her off, before coming to poke her head into Lena’s room. With the assurance that she was fine, and just wanted to rest, Lillian left her alone, and after carefully setting the flower down on the nightstand, Lena turned up her sun lamps and drifted off into an easy sleep, her body feeling almost weightless as it slowly mended itself from the taxing efforts of her training.

            When she woke the next morning, it was with the startling surprise that she was in fact weightless, floating three feet off the mattress, cocooned in her blankets, and she slammed back down onto it with creaking springs and a startled yelp. Feeling refreshed after a full night’s sleep, her strength returned to her through the process of irradiating her body, she climbed out of bed and walked out into the living area of the apartment. Soft orange sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, bathing everything in a warm, fiery light as the sun rose, and Lena got herself something to drink, standing by one of the windows as she looked out at the quiet city, the first few skimmers slipping in between the buildings, while Rao’s light reflected off the shiny dark windows of the towers.

            Eventually, her mother and brother rose, and she joined them for breakfast, happily stating that she’d be returning to the Science Guild that morning. Having served out her punishment, Lillian was all too willing to let her return, with strict instructions for her to try and act as ill as possible, lest Kara get suspicious. Quickly promising that she’d remain inconspicuous, Lena went to shower, dressing in a rich purple tunic and letting her dark hair spill around her shoulders. She added an emerald green robe to the outfit, under the guise of her body being wracked with sudden chills in between feverous bouts, hoping that it would give her false sickness some validity.

            By the time that they were ready to leave, she was brimming with excitement at the thought of seeing Kara, and getting back into her real work, not the idle projects she’d tinkered at to take her mind off of the fact that she was banned from her real work. With Lex on one side, she eagerly discussed her blueprints for her nanites with him, a passionate air about her that had been missing over the past few days, and Lillian listened on in silence, keeping her thoughts to herself as she let Lena puzzle through her own work. She was smart enough to engineer her own creations with her mother’s help, and Lillian glowed with pride inside as she listened to the brilliant plans her daughter painted with her words. Lena was so sure that if she could create nanites, it would change the way things were run on Krypton. They could drain the pollution from the smoggy skies, construct buildings with nothing more than programmed instructions, and even cure what very few diseases were left on Krypton. It could be revolutionary, and she was determined to create her own success outside of her mother’s shadow. Not that Lillian didn’t deserve her dazzling reputation as a scientific genius, but Lena didn’t want that to be the only thing she was known for. Her mother and her wheelchair.

            Then there was the option of making a name for herself as a hero. Everyone on the planet already knew of her existence, with the footage broadcast across all the continents, but they didn’t know her yet. They didn’t know that she wanted to help them, that she wanted to fight to make Krypton a better place, and she was determined to earn herself a reputation there two. She had two sides, and she wanted to succeed with both of them. Lillian had raised her to believe in herself completely, and with that unwavering faith in herself, Lena was sure that she could do it. She could shape the future technology of the planet and save it from itself at the same time. She was a member of House Thor; it wasn’t in her to fail.

            As they arrived at the domed building rising colossally from the upper levels of the city, Lena parted ways from her family upon spotting Kara dutifully making her way towards her lab. Hurrying to wheel herself up to her side, a bright smile on her face, Lena called out to her, watching as the blonde woman turned, a smile slowly lighting up her face as she took in the healthy look about Lena.

            “Lena. You look better.”

            “I’m on the mend,” Lena assured her, waving aside her concerns, “off to the lab?”

            Eyes crinkling at the corners, Kara sheepishly shrugged, hefting a bag of soil in her arms, a faint earthy scent clinging to her as she walked towards the mouth of the hallway with Lena in tow. “Of course. You?”

            “The library first,” Lena smiled up at her, “I need to find some more resources on structural engineering. I’m still trying to work out some kinks with the theoretical programming of herd mentality. They need to be able to work together or else the nanites will be useless.”

            “Sounds like a challenge.”

            “You’re more than welcome to join me, if you’d like,” Lena offered, not wanting to belittle Kara’s botany work, but knowing that she was capable of more than creating new strains flowers for the pure purpose of looking pretty and smelling nice. “I could always use another opinion.”

            Giving her a warm smile, Kara reached out with her free hand and gave Lena’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Maybe another time. I’ve got to get this soil to the lab.”

            Nodding, Lena accompanied her the rest of the way through the wide hallways, passing by other members of the Guild, who didn’t so much as spare them a second glance. Lena bombarded Kara with questions about what she’d been up to in her absence. Kara was all too willing to indulge her, jumping into an explanation about the different soil samples she’d been examining, cross-referencing the nutrients found in each of them, and planting grain seeds in each of them to see which would grow better crops. Listening with rabid interest, Lena slowly wheeled herself along, keeping pace with Kara’s leisurely stroll as they prolonged the moment. It was until they reached the right doorway that they wrapped up the conversation, and Kara made the tentative suggestion that they could eat lunch together, which Lena wholeheartedly agreed with.

            Leaving to go her own way, Lena made her way towards the library, wheeling herself amidst the towering shelves of data, find the data banks of the resources she’d looked up on one of the projectors. She was in the midst of looking for one of them, finding herself wheeling across the middle common area, with its desks and projectors, when the power went out. All at once there was an electrical surge that made the hairs on the back of her arms stand up, her hands going to the dials on the sun lamps, her vision sharpening at the rush of strength, making it easy for her to see through the dimness of the cavernous room. And then the lights flickered back to life, all projectors glowing an eerie blue as static filled the room with an annoying hum. Watching from her chair, Lena’s eyes went wide as black masked individuals came on the screen, and the one in the centre started to talk, the voice masked by the same sound distorting technology she used for herself.

            “People of Kandor City, we are Black Zero. Long have we lived in the shadows, working hard to restore this planet to its former glory. Krypton was once a plentiful planet, but for too long we’ve sat by and watched society crumble around us. The Ranked have hoarded food sources, leaving the Rankless to starve in the Districts, our resources are dwindling, there’s unrest amongst the people, and the Voice of Rao would have you all place your faith in religion rather than fixing the state of our planet.”

            Lena’s mouth went dry with fear as she listened, her eyes trained on the holographic screens as if she was hypnotised.

            “For too long, we’ve sat back and watched, but no more. Today, we step into the light. Today, Black Zero will bring Krypton back from the brink of destruction. For too long, those in power have shunned the mere notion that we are far from the perfect utopia the Ranked seem to think us, yet they’re wrong. Krypton is on the verge of collapse, and like a Flamebird, we must be destroyed, to rise again from the ashes, stronger than before.”

            Slowly wheeling herself towards the nearest projector, staring up at the flat stare behind the mask, the blue eyes through the eye holes nagging at Lena’s mind, seeming hauntingly familiar, yet not quite. Staring up, she felt dread pool in her stomach, an uneasiness filling her with a wariness as she awaited the rest of the message.

            “Today, we free those whose only crimes were to help the people. We, Black Zero, release our Commander and her army of loyal subjects. Alura In-Ze has suffered for the people she fought so strongly to help, as has Zor-El and Jor-El, and Lara Lor-Van. We release them from their imprisonment, and pardon them of their crimes, and bid them to lead the revolution against the Ranked scum who seek to keep the downtrodden down in the mud. Black Zero urge you all today to heed our warning; we will not stand for any opposition. No longer will citizens of this free planet be downtrodden. Today, we all rise. We fight for a future, to save our planet and its people. Now, we fight back.”

            Staring at the screen, she watched as the masked figures all disappeared from sight, offering a split second view of a building in the background of their broadcast, realising that she recognised it. It was a familiar sight, visible from multiple different areas within the city, but this viewpoint offered one from outside the city limits, giving the building the backdrop of spears of gleaming glass rising behind it. It was Fort Rozz, Krypton’s most secure prison, and Lena’s heart seized for a moment as she stared at it.

            A moment later the feed went dead, plunging the room into a heavy silence. It was followed by the faint booming sound of an explosion, the faint trembling of the ground beneath her, heard and felt from even that great a distance, and Lena knew that it came from the prison. With her lips pressed together in a hard line, her eyes flat and determined, she looked around to find the library empty, and climbed to her feet. She was gone in a flash, leaving behind an empty wheelchair in her stead.

Chapter Text

            Little more than a blur, Lena dashed through the city, until she was a safe enough distance from the Science Guild for anyone to suspect that she’d come from there. Her clothes had been abandoned near her wheelchair, and she wore the thin body armour that went beneath the heavier, durable metal pieces her mother had made for her. Using the distraction of the explosion, the acrid smoke visible as a mushroom cloud on the outskirts of the city, filling the air with its choking smell, Lena launched herself into the sky, suspended for a moment as she took in the burning prison. Off in a flash, she sped towards her home, high enough that it was possible that no one would see her landing on the rooftop of the building, miles and miles above the city floor. If they looked up - which she doubted they would, given the fact that there was something far more interesting going on at the moment - they might think her a skimmer, or perhaps they’d be stupid enough to still think her a rare Nightwing. Either way, she was in a hurry, and being found out was the last of her worries as she darted over to the service shaft and slipped into the building.

            Inside her apartment, she hurried to the empty lab, opening the wall panel to reveal the glossy black armour, and a thrill shot through her as she eyed it, adrenaline pumping at the thought of wearing it for the first time, of the thought of fighting in it and putting her skills to use. Turning up the dials on all of her miniature sun lamps, she let the power course through her, her skin taking on an eerie bluish tint from the radiation, and she quickly slipping into the armour. Breastplate locked into place, thin webs of blue light racing through it as it came to life, the vambraces and greaves snuggly fitting her forearms and shins, and she secured the dark cloak to her shoulders, before jamming on her helmet and grabbing the sword. Feeling the power thrum through her, almost as if it was borrowed from the armour, and not some innate thing inside her, she walked through the apartment, her footsteps heaving and her cloak swishing impressively around her ankles. She didn’t know much about her home planet, having been only four when she was sent away, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the Greeks had felt this same strength when they donned their own armour.

            As soon as she reached the rooftop, she threw herself off it without hesitation, cloak flapping in the wind, the computer software in her helmet scanning everything and making calculations that she read off the eye lenses as she swooped between spires of gleaming metal and crystal. It had only been a few minutes since the bomb had gone off, and the cloud of black smoke was getting worse, a beacon beckoning her towards it as she listened to the screams of chaos and madness in the city below. On her wrist, her comms device vibrated, and she felt guilty as she ignored it, knowing that it would be Lillian, bearing either a warning or a plea for her not to get involved. Pushing thoughts of her mother aside, she raced towards the prison, descending quickly and coming to a skidding halt as she landed, quickly scanning the area. People were running in every direction, and it took her a few moments to spot the black masked people amongst them all.

            Her sword unfolded with a metallic rasp, and she swung it, testing the balance as the shield on her arm fanned out into a circle, the Medusa on it a horrid sight to see as she stormed towards the members of Black Zero. They saw her coming, her short stature striking a surprisingly imposing figure, and a few of them shrank back, breathless exclamations and curses as they realised who she was, or perhaps wondered what she was, and her lips curled into a slow smile. Raising their blasters, they took fire, and Lena snorted as she raised her shield, running as she braced herself, their laser beams useless against the metal, and useless against her. As she neared them, she barrelled into the first figure, sending the sprawling backwards into another Black Zero member, the two of them crashing to the ground in a tangle.

            As she came to a stop, crouched in the middle of a circle of masked strangers, all of them holding their blasters directed straight at her, she cocked her head to the side, eyeing them over the rim of her shield as she adjusted her grip on the sword. “You have one chance to surrender.”

            A blast of laser energy washed over her back, the sensation feeling strangely numb to her impervious armour and skin, not even making her stumble slightly off balance, and she turned to look at the person who’d shot her. A quiet snarl started at the back of her throat, and she leapt towards the person, smashing them in the face with her shield, while another leapt forward and yanked her cloak. The fighting became a mess of bodies, the terrorist members trying to pull her off balance, getting her wrapped up in her cloak while she left shallow cuts on their skin, her sword smashing into temples as she dropped them, cutting shallow grazes across biceps and stomachs. They didn’t stand a chance, if she was being honest. Not against her almost limitless strength, her impervious skin and carefully crafted armour, her innate knowledge on warfare and tactics, and one by one, she left that laying on the cold ground. Alive, not dead, but out for the count, and no risk to anyone else.

            But then there were more, and Lena turned on them with ferocity, cutting them out of her path as they clawed at her helmet, her cloak, her shield. She was an unstoppable force though, on her brute strength alone, let alone the powers she held at bay, and she finally understood the need for the lessons that Lillian was putting her through. It was hard to control herself, to resist the urge to give over to some primal human part of her as she bared her teeth and stopped herself from snapping arms, from plunging the tip of her sword through gaps between ribs, opening throats in a bloody smile, and she felt a sickening feeling in her stomach as the thoughts crossed her mind. She never acted on those thoughts, never hurt them beyond knocking them out and giving them shallow wounds and bruises, but the thoughts were still there, and it frightened her just how easy it would be to give in to them.

            Although the fighting wasn’t strenuous work, even if the laser beams and attempts to drag her down with annoyingly inconvenient, Lena soon found herself breathing heavily, a scowl on her face as she looked around at the ground littered with Black Zero members and a few others in prison clothes, obviously having been freed for some usefulness to the cause. She didn’t see any signs of the El’s though, and a part of her was relieved that she wouldn’t have to be the one to beat Kara’s family to a bloody pulp in front of the cameras that were recording this on the drones, or the civilians that bordered the edge of the city, watching the display going on outside the prison. But she was also seething with irritation and disappointment at the fact that she’d let them get away. Who knew what they’d do to the city, to the planet, now that they were free, and the new figureheads of the terrorist organisation.

            Yet, even as she thought she’d lost any hope of stopping the cause, she turned in a slow circle and froze at the sight of a masked figure standing back. Everyone else had attacked or run, yet this one was standing still, arms casually folded across a burly chest, watching as she dealt with the masked members with ease, as if intrigued by what she could do, as if waiting for their own time. Making sure her helmet was still strapped into place, Lena watched as the lenses sight’s locked onto the figure, reading the heartbeat, muscle mass, approximating strength and success rates of Lena’s attacks, and she slowly stalked towards him.

            Although a mask hid the person’s face - a man, she assumed, from the scans that revealed the height and bulkiness of their muscle - she could almost sense his smile. He unfolded his arms and walked towards her, meeting her halfway as they stopped a few feet away from each other. This close, Lena could see the piercing blue eyes, like Earth’s oceans, and she realised it was the man from the video. It was the man who had sent the message out to Krypton, speaking of freedom and saving the planet. Despite the violence display he’d wrought at the prison, Lena found that she couldn’t quite label him as an evil person. There were many valid points he’d made, points she’d made herself, and ones her father had tried to raise all those years ago, and a troubled look darkened her face as she stared at the masked man, trying to figure out how to talk him down from the warpath.

            “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Lena asked in a low voice.

            Spreading his arms out wide, as if showing off the billowing clouds of smoke drifting from the wreckage of the prison behind him, he laughed, a deep chuckle that seemed to rumble in his chest. “I’ve kickstarted the change this planet need. I’ve bought us the freedom we deserve.”

            “You’ve killed people. There are people in that prison!” Lena snapped, “people that are burning, dying, and for what? So a couple of terrorists can raze this planet in the name of saving everyone? This isn’t the way to do it.”

            He shrugged, a careless gesture, and another chuckle fell from his mouth as he gave her a sweeping gesture towards the prison. “By all means, help yourself to the task of saving the rest of the prisoners. We’ve freed all the useful ones. All that’s left is alien scum and the dregs of the Rankless.”

            Lena’s fist clenched on the hilt of her sword and she moved forward in a blur, striking him fully across the face, his head snapping to the side with so much force that she thought she’d snapped his neck or caved his face in for a moment. But he just went sprawling across the ground, shaking with delighted laughter, as if amazed by what she was, what she could do, and gingerly pushed himself back up. As he reached his feet, she saw that his mask was cracked, and she watched him reach up with a gloved hand to pull it away.

            Black hair dusted the collar of his black jacket, a neatly trimmed beard covered his jaw, and those blue eyes stared back at her with perfect clarity, as Lena understood why she’d found them so familiar. She knew this man. He was Kal-El, Kara’s cousin, and his eyes were nearly exactly the same as Kara’s. Lex had spoken of him before, and she’d seen him talking on her hologram, giving passionate speeches as part of the Law Guild. His parents had been implicated in the same coup and terror plans as Kara’s parents, but he’d always condemned them for it, even as they were sent to Fort Rozz too, and Lena realised that he’d just freed them. He must’ve been biding his time, all these years, waiting until the planet was ready to descend into chaos, burning up all its natural resources, food sources growing scarce, and discord sewn amongst the Rankless, waiting for the the right moment to strike a weakening blow to society and build it back up with the help of those who’d been downtrodden for years. It was smart, and Lena felt bitterness well up inside at the fact that no one had seen this coming. For one of the most intelligent lifeforms in all the universes they were aware of, the Kryptonians had been remarkably short sighted, in this and other things.

            “Touchy, are you?” Kal-El asked, a smile curling his lips as he tossed his mask aside.

            “I know who you are,” Lena levelly replied, “I won’t let you help your family tear this country apart.”

            He snarled as his eyes blazed with anger, lunging towards her and wrapping a hand around her neck. He only managed to do so because Lena let him, looking up at his towering form, intrigued by what he’d do next. There was no way he could hurt her. Not unless he had some secret power up his sleeve that would be strong enough to combat hers. Almost as if sensing something off about her, he scowled, pulling back a little, his grip lessening around her neck as she stared down at her, eyes travelling over her breastplate, over her shoulders and arms, as if searching for something. Grabbing her sword hand in his other hand, he gave her a hard look, the lines of his face stiff as his eyes blazed an icy blue.

            “I’m not trying to tear it apart. I’m trying to save it.”

            Breathing in, he tightened his grip, and Lena found that it hurt ever so slightly, and she frowned beneath her helmet at the strangeness of the pain. A slow smile spread across Kal-El’s face, and he squeezed her throat as he tugged at her vambrace, and Lena pulled her arm back, feeling the piece come loose, paying it no mind as she pushed forward and pierced the softness of his side, hearing his loud cry of pain as he gripped her forearm. Doubling over in pain, her clutched at her arm, and Lena wrenched it back as his fingers scrabbled against one of the sun lamps fixed into place against her skin. It came free and she felt some of the strength inside her wilt as the radiation lessened, and she raised her hand to strike him again as he quickly darted backwards, staring down at the glowing blue light nestled in his palm with a look of interest and wonder on his face.

            “Now!” he bellowed as she dove forward.

            As fast as she was, she was caught off guard as the ground beneath her trembled, a deep rooted feeling beneath her feet, causing her to pause as she looked down, watching the thing cracks radiate out across the barren rock on the outskirts of the city. Cocking her head to the side, she listened as her helmet scanned the ground, pointing out critical weaknesses in the foundation of the ground. There were old tunnels beneath Kandor, Lena knew that, and realisation that Black Zero must’ve buried bombs in them dawned on her as the rockbed split with a deafening sound.

            Lurching off balance, catching herself with her flight, she watched as rock and dust exploded up from the ground, while other sections caved in, bodies sliding down into the damp darkness that opened in a yawning pit, and she watched as the prison shifted and started to sink into the ground. With a wordless cry, Lena cast Kal-El a livid look, biting back curses and irritation as she knew that she could capture him and the sun lamp, or save the hundreds of people in the prison, and the civilians at peril as the widening gaps raced towards them. Swearing under her breath, she darted towards the prison and dove straight into the rockbed, bursting through it with ease as she shook off shards of rock and raced down the warren of tunnels. A sagging part of the tunnel roof was visible, and Lena rushed towards it, coming to a skidding halt beneath it and pushing it back up.

            Straining, every muscle in her body taut, she pushed up, feeling the rock lift, the prison above it rising with it as she bore the weight on her back, feeling like the old Earth titan, Atlas, holding up the world. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to hold it, with the tunnels crumbling around her, and she looked around for any way to keep it up. Large boulders littering the tunnels, larger pieces breaking off from the ceiling, and she had the idea to shore them up, like the old mining tunnels that had been blocked off with debris to stop the tunnels from collapsing after they’d been emptied of minerals and ore. Quick as lightning, she darted for the nearest boulder and carried it back, catching the ceiling as it bowed again, and heaved it back up, taking a deep breath and repeating the process. Bit by bit, she managed to fill the tunnel beneath the sagging point, until the pile of rock supported the weight.

            Shooting back out into red sunshine, she found another entrance and repeated the process, blocking tunnels with debris, supporting the weight of the prison as plumes of smoke wafted up from the tunnels the bombs had gone off it. She choked on smoke, the acrid smell filling her helmet, and a cold sweat covered her body as her supple muscles worked hard for the first time in her life. She wasn’t sure how long it took. It must’ve been hours, and the sounds of other people arriving in helicarriers and skimmers reached her ears, the sounds of machinery coming to life as they worked to keep this section of the outer city limits from collapsing and upsetting the foundations of the rockbed. People in special masks and eyewear came and went, scurrying through the tunnels as they helped patch it back up, while other put out the smoldering remains of fires burning within the prison. Lena hoped they were helping those locked up inside too.

            Eventually, she knew there was nothing else she could do. The prison was stable, aide had come, and there were hundreds, if not thousands, milling around outside, all of the easy work completed. It would take a few days before they secured the tunnels properly, possibly air lifted the prison and set it down somewhere else, and Lena felt drained as she gently jumped up out of the last tunnel and lightly settled on the dusty rock floor. Smoke still curled up from the ground, the city obscured in a haze, and she walked through the rubble and destruction as her dirty cloak fluttered behind her. Stopping to pick up her vambrace where Kal-El had tossed it aside, feeling bitterness well up inside, Lena slipped it on.

            Looking up at the sound of movement, she took in the fuzzy shapes of people creeping closer, looks of wide eyed wonder, mild fear, and no small amount of awe, dawning on their faces as they looked at the masked and armoured woman with the snarling snake-haired lady on her chest. Her shield had folded back up, and her sword was a cylinder strapped to her belt, and she stood before them as some alien creature who had just lifted a prison to safety single handedly. They warily approached her, and a woman stopped in front of her, her eyes round as she gaped at the sign on her chest.

            “You’re them. The Nightwing. The person that’s been flying around the city.”

            “You should get out of here. It’s not safe,” Lena gently told her, her voice distorted by the helmet as it came out.

            She soared off without another word, casting a backwards glance at the web of cracks radiating out from the hulking metal mass in the middle - Fort Rozz - and she turned towards the city. Shooting off towards the foggy spires of the towering buildings, she used the blanket of smoke to make her way back to her building with ease, lithely landing on the rooftop and darting inside before anyone could follow her through the skies.

            Riding the elevator down to her floor in her armour, she found herself sagging beneath it, even though it was thin and light, so tired that it felt like she was still carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’d pushed herself too far today, she knew that, using up too much radiation, pushing her body to the extremes of her capabilities, and she could barely bring herself to drag her feet into the apartment, pulling off the stuffy helmet and dreading the thought of making her way back to the Science Guild to fetch her wheelchair, when she stopped in her tracks at the sight of her wheelchair in the middle of the room, a hand tightly gripping the back of it as a pair of accusing blue eyes stared straight at her.

Chapter Text

            “Kara,” she numbly blurted out, staring at the blonde woman, who was stood a safe distance away from Lillian and Lex, looking as if they’d been have an intense conversation before she showed up. No doubt Kara had brought the wheelchair back with her in a panic, demanding answers about where Lena was. It wasn’t like she would’ve expected her friend to have gotten far, given the fact that as far as Kara knew, Lena couldn’t walk.

            Opening and closing her mouth, staring straight back at Lena, face ghostly pale with shock, and wide eyes roaming over the extravagant armour that was unlike anything found on Krypton, Kara couldn’t even form a reply. Eventually, after a few moments of tense silence, she met Lena’s pleading stare and pressed her lips into a firm line, betrayal clear on her face. “I should go.”

            She turned and walked towards Lena, brushing past her as she made for the elevator, and Lena felt panic wrench her stomach, making her feel sick. Kara was her only friend; she couldn’t let her only friend walk out of here thinking that she’d lied, that she wasn’t who she was. Moving in a blur, Lena breezed past her and blocked the elevator doors, forcing Kara to pull up short, a wary look of fear in her eyes at the quickness of Lena’s movement.

            Holding a hand out to stop her, Lena gave her a begging look. “Please. Let me explain.”

            Spluttering, Kara gave her an incredulous look, the lines of her face hard and her whole body rigid as she stood stiffly in front of Lena, every muscle coiled to spring in case she made a sudden movement to try and hurt Kara. It hurt Lena to know that her friend was scared of her - she could hear Kara’s fragile heart hammering away inside her chest, hear the rapid breathing and see the quick rising and falling of her chest - that she trusted her so little, after months of friendship. That one thing would change Kara’s entire perspective of her.

            “How?” Kara asked, her voice cracking.

            Shoulders slumping beneath the bulky mass of her armour, Lena gave her a hurt look, her green eyes sad as she reached out for her again, only for Kara to pull away and her hand to fall limply back down at her side. Eyes darting over to Lillian, who was looking pissed, and Lex, who looked worried, Lena swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced back to Kara.

            “Just … let me talk. Give me a few minutes to explain it all.”

            Hesitantly nodding, a wary look on her face as if she thought she was making a mistake, Kara stepped back, further into the apartment, and Lena gave her mom a nod, before she started walking towards her bedroom. Lillian wouldn’t be very happy about how carless she’d been, and how she’d slipped up, but her mom would wait until Kara had gone before making a fuss about it and scolding her daughter, for which Lena was grateful for. It would give her a few minutes of privacy to talk to Kara and beg her to see it from her point of view.

            Lena hadn’t been keeping a secret from her ; she’d been protecting herself from everyone , and protecting those she cared about in the process. That included Kara. Although, with her family being the main source of trouble in Lena’s life since she’d decided to use her powers to help, it seemed like Kara wouldn’t be in any mortal danger from them. What kind of parents would kill their own daughter? But that also meant she’d be a greater target for recruitment. They’d want her to join them on their crusade, which meant that Lena needed to protect her even more. She couldn’t do that if Kara wouldn’t let her be around her.

            Walking down the hallway, her heavy boots thudding on the floor as she marched herself to what very well could be the death of the only friendship she’d ever had, Lena tensed her shoulders expectantly and set her jaw. The door to her bedroom parted with a quiet hiss, and she stepped into the gloomy interior, walking into the open space in the middle of the room, and turning to face Kara, who followed her inside. Standing face to face, a few feet separating them, Lena found herself speechless. All of her excuses died on the tip of her tongue as her mouth went dry, and she couldn’t even meet Kara’s accusing blue eyes. She felt too ashamed.

            “I’m sorry.”

            “That’s not an explanation,” Kara coolly replied, folding her arms over her chest.

            Nodding, Lena swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m not from this planet. I’m from Earth. My father sent me here as it was falling apart, to save me.”

            “So you’re an alien? Those people out there adopted you?”

            Shaking her head, Lena hunched her shoulders, “my dad followed after me. I-I got lost in space for a while, knocked off course when Earth exploded. He got here first and he married my mom.  She found him and brought him home in secret. They'd already had my brother by the time I crashed here.”

            “Your dad was in a wheelchair too,” Kara said, easily constructing the story in her mind, trying to piece the facts together, “what, was that the most convenient lie so that you could both pretend that you didn’t have superpowers? To be paralysed by some unknown genetic disease?” She scoffed as she said the words, her voice cold and so unfamiliar to the usual warmth and tenderness she spoke to Lena with. It hurt, to say the least, but given the circumstances, Lena couldn’t fault her.

            Still, it rankled Lena’s pride slightly to be blamed for something that she couldn’t help. She didn’t have superpowers, she just had something that helped her walk, something that helped her live each day without the crippling pain she’d endured for so long. Kara didn’t know any of that. She didn’t know that there hadn’t been that help for Lionel when he’d crashed here, that he’d died earlier than he should’ve because of how much stress his body was under. That Lena had expected to go the same way, that as far as she was concerned, she was living on borrowed time. Every day that she was still alive was thanks to her own intelligence, her own invention, and her mother’s dedication to keeping her alive. It wasn’t any stroke of luck. Lena had helped herself.

            “I don’t have superpowers,” she frustratingly replied.

            “You can fly!” Kara exclaimed, giving her a disbelieving look, “you’re that- that thing . The Nightwing, the alien, whatever people have thought they’ve been seeing. You’ve been flying around the city. I’ve seen you. Rao, I was right in front of you when I thought I’d lost you in that protest. I was worried that you were hurt, that you were getting trampled, and you were there in front of me that whole time.”

            Anger rearing its head, Lena closed her eyes and slowly breathed in, trying not to lose her temper as Kara tried to twist things into something that they weren’t. “Yes, I can fly. Sometimes. And yes, I was there, but-”

            “But what?!”

            “You don’t understand!” Lena exploded, snapping as her irritation got the better of her, “you think you know everything, but you don’t! And I’m trying to explain, but you just- you keep twisting it to make it seem worse than it is! You haven’t seen what I’m really like. You’ve only seen the healthy me.”

            “Then show me.”

            “Show you?” Lena laughed, her lips curling up at the corners as she fixed Kara with a hard stare. “You want me to show you what it’s like to be just me? Fine. I’ll show you.”

            She tossed her helmet down at the floor, the clanging sound loud to her sensitive ears as it rolled around on the ground, until it came to a stop. Undoing the vambraces, she tossed them over to it as well, and then bent down to undo the greaves, kicking off her boots. Kara was silent as she watched her shed her armour, confused as to what point Lena was making, but the dark haired woman just continued. The breastplate was unbuckled, clanging loudly as it fell to the floor in a pile, and then she undid the belt, tossing it and the cylindrical sword attached to it off to the side. The room was scattered with the items, and still, she didn’t stop.

            Beneath it all, she had her fitted body armour, the one made with the sturdy, flexible material Lillian had helped her create, keeping her muscles and bones compressed, and she unzipped it, freeing herself from the skin tight confines of the fabric. Peeling it off, she revealed the sickly pale skin beneath, so white that it was alarming, and the thinness of her that her clothes hid. And then there were the sun lamp ports stuck to her skin, all bar one holding a small circular device, and in her frustration, Lena pulled one out, holding it up for Kara to see.

            “This? This is my superpower. I have to poison myself with radiation every day, just to get out of bed. To be able to sit upright in a wheelchair. To be able to feed myself and not need my mother to give me a bath.”

            She tossed it aside, pulling another one out and tossing it aside, feeling her body weaken with each missing piece. Kara watched her with mortification, taking in the shadows and bumps of her ribcage, the slenderness of her body that could only be attributed to sickness, no matter how much the radiation helped heal her, and the increasingly sagging look about Lena as she freed all of the little lamps and tossed them aside, one by one.

            “You think I lied to you? You think I’m lying about not being able to walk?” she asked through gritted teeth, reaching behind her for the ports stuck to the gaps between her knobbly spine.

            Weariness washed over her, bringing her to the threshold of where exhaustion and pain met, and Lena staggered to her knees, her skin breaking out in a cold sweat as her body tried to compensate for the loss of the radiation. Her face twisting with pain, she knelt on the cold floor, feeling her body grow heavier with each passing moment, forcing her down, down, down, each bone feeling like it was going to crack as she scrabbled for the sun lamps, tearing them out of their slots, starving her body of the only thing that kept her together. Kara watched on with increasing agitation, her hands balled into fists as she resisted the urge to tell Lena to stop. Her distress was clear though, and Lena kept going, showing her just what she was without her creation.

            Propped up on her elbows, shoulders hunched, face screwed up into a grimace of pain, and legs limply hanging out behind her as she fumbled for the last lamp, Lena was looking very grey. Her forehead was damp with sweat, dark strands of hair curling around her face, and she was gasping for breath as she looked up at Kara, her eyes burning with intensity.

            “Y-you see what … what I am? This is- this is what being a human here means. I can't ... breathe properly. I c-can't walk. My bones ... I can feel them- it all hurts. Every ... everything. I didn’t … lie. It-” she broke off as her body was wracked with pain, biting back a groan as she pressed her lips into a thin line, eyes screwed shut, waiting for the spasm to pass.

            “Lena,” Kara hoarsely murmured, dropping down to her knees and scrambling towards her, reaching out to touch her burning skin. “Ah,” she hissed, pulling her hand back, “you’re burning up.”

            Making a choked sound, Lena drew in a ragged breath, her eyelids fluttering as darkness encroached on her vision. A pressure was building in her head, behind her eyes, and she collapsed on the floor completely, cheek pressing against the cold floor as a whimper slid past her lips. Unable to bring herself to move, to even be able to find the effort to prop herself up any longer, she breathed unevenly, feeling her heart flutter inside her chest with alarming speed.

            “I didn’t … lie,” she managed to spit out through clenched teeth, her voice strained and feeble.

            She watched from between half-lidded eyes as Kara leapt to her feet and dashed over to the door, slamming the button to open it and shouting for Lillian. Lena couldn’t make out what she was saying, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears, and her heart beating a very fast tempo, but she was aware of her body being lifted off the floor, every part of her giving into gravity as she let out a strangled shout of pain. It was her brother who carried her, she thought, and Lex placed her down in the pool of water she’d used to live in, the water cool against her burning skin, as it took the stress off of her.

            The sounds of raised voices washed over her, but Lena was too far gone to understand them. The pain in her head blinded her to anything else going on around her, and she just floated, lost in a sea of darkness while the water caressed her hurt body. At some point, a rush of coldness flooded her body, and the pain started to recede a little, a numbing nothingness taking its place, and a wispy sigh fell from her lips as her taut muscles relaxed from the medication.

            When she finally came round, it was dark inside her room, the damp smell of water and a strange sweet smell filling her nose as she opened her eyes to the blackness. It was soft beneath her, and she was dry, and Lena realised that she was back in her own bed. The covers were pulled up over her, wrapping her in a soft, warm cocoon, and she couldn’t even bring herself to push herself up. The sun lamps had obviously been put back where they belonged, a spare one no doubt occupying the place where the one Kal-El had stolen, but they were turned down as low as possible for her to be comfortable without being saturated with radiation. As good as the sun lamps were for taking away her pain and healing her body, it wasn’t good for her body at the same time, and she knew Lillian worried about the long-term side effects of using the sun lamps. Whenever she used them to utilise the powers it gave her, turning them up to full strength, it always took its toll on Lena’s body, and even though she could sense that she’d been out for a long time, perhaps even days, she was too drained to even move.

            “Lights,” she commanded to the room, her voice cracking with disuse, and her sensitive eyes streaming as a sudden brightness flooded the place.

            Blinking back the dark spots that danced across her vision, she let her head loll to the side, her eyes landing on the soft lilac petals of a flower on the nightstand. Beside it was a deep violet one with curved petals, and beside that, a pale blue one with pointed petals and thorns attached to the stem, and there, over on the workbench in Lena’s room, a dozen more cuttings of flowers, and as she pushed herself upright, gingerly and with much effort, she could see the pool of water was crowded with them. Ones with a hundred petals crammed around the pistal, flat ones that seemed to unfurl on the water, and ones with waving stamens, or rounded petals. There were more types of flowers than Lena had ever seen in her life, the beauty such a scarcity that she couldn’t help but wonder how many Kara had created, cross-breeding them for the simple pleasure of looking at something nice, even if it had no value to society.

            Her eyes stung with tears as she looked around at them, realising that was the source of the strange sweet smell in her room, and wondering how many trips Kara had made back and forth the apartment. Lena was surprised that her mother had let her in, usually strict with her rule that Lena needed to rest, unbothered, whenever she was having a bad spell. She could imagine Kara looking so sweet and innocent with an armful of flowers though that even Lillian wouldn’t have been able to say no to her. Wishing that she’d been awake to see her, Lena flopped back down onto her pillows and stared up at the seeing, guilt and frustration washing over her as she kicked herself for being so stupid. It had been foolish to remove all of the sun lamps and risk seriously hurting herself, just so that she could show Kara that she wasn’t a liar, and it was her fault for hurting Kara by not trusting her enough to keep her secret, and she only had herself to blame for the mess she’d made of things at the prison.

            Because she’d let herself be too cocky, too reliant on her strength and her moral high ground, unwilling to fatally wound the man, to even consider the fact that he could one-up her. Now, Kal-El had one of her sun lamps, and a limited amount of power, which, if he was smart enough, or someone else was, they could replicate in time. And he’d brought down the prison, knowing that Lena wouldn’t let so many people die, and a part of the city collapse, just to capture one man. He’d played her perfectly, and she could only blame herself for being too confidence in her newfound abilities. Just because the blasters didn’t work on her, it didn’t mean she was invulnerable. Her pride and her high opinions of her genius intellect had gotten her in trouble, and she’d been too overconfident to even consider the fact that she could be bested by a mere Kryptonian, or that anyone would be smart enough to put the dots together. She hadn’t been betting on Kara caring enough to rush down to the library, where Lena had told her she’d be, to make sure she was okay.

            Dwelling on her mistakes, berating herself and letting her anger at her foolishness stew inside her, she stayed in bed, surrounded by the flowers and the knowledge that things would never be the same with Kara again, and waited for her mother to come and check on her. She couldn’t bring herself to get up, and it wasn’t long before the door hissed open and Lillian bustled in anyway, looking surprised and overwhelmingly relieved when she saw that Lena was awake.

            Quietly letting her mother check her vitals, she stared up at the ceiling, feeling her pale skin flush slightly with embarrassment as Lillian silently checked her pulse, shone a light in her eyes and injected some more medication into the cannula stuck to her hand. Satisfied, the wires were all unclipped from Lena’s body, and Lillian turned the sun lamps up just a smidge, the mottled bruises that covered Lena’s thin body slowly fading as the radiation healed them quicker than normal. Once Lillian was content that she was relatively okay, she left and returned with a thin broth and a glowing blue drinks to refuel Lena’s electrolytes. Letting out a withering sigh, Lena let Lillian puff up the pillows and ease her up into a sitting position, before handing her the bowl and a spoon.

            “How’re you feeling?” Lillian gently asked, her tone softer than Lena had been expecting.

            Tears sprang to her eyes and she choked on a sob, her hands trembling as she held the bowl, trying not to spill the broth. Shrugging slightly, Lena sniffed and wiped at her face. “I’m sorry,” she hoarsely said.

            Reaching out to brush her dark hair out of her face, Lillian tutted and gently tilted Lena’s drooped head up, forcing her to meet her eyes. “You did good, inah. You did the best that you could. Just rest now. You have bigger problems to face.” Her words sounded ominous, but her mother’s lips twitched up into a small smile, “that El girl has been round her every day with flowers for you. I think perhaps there’s more than friendship for you to think about.”

            “I can’t let her get hurt,” Lena said, her voice cracking as she looked up at her mother with big, sad eyes, “it’s her family, ieiu. How can I protect her from that? She’ll resent me for it. She still loves them.”

            “Of course she does,” Lillian said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re good for her. She knows they’re not. She’s smart. But she was here looking after you for that whole first night. Even when I tried to kick her out. I think she’s nearly as stubborn as you, and not quite nearly as meek as she seems to be. There’s steel beneath all that softness, and a protectiveness of you. Don’t worry so much about her hating you; I don’t think she could even if she tried.”

            “But I lied to her. That’s what she thinks.”

            “Oh, ukiem, you didn’t lie. You were protecting yourself. She saw it for herself, how much pain you would go through without your blue suns. If there is a single shred of empathy in her, which I know there is more than that, then she understands, and she forgives you. Now, rest. I told Kara that she couldn’t visit until you were well, and if you’re as anxious to see her as she is to see you, then you should listen to your mother.

            “Eat. Drink. Sleep,” Lillian brusquely ordered her, rising to her feet and jostling the mattress slightly, before bending down to kiss Lena on the top of her head, cupping her sallow cheek in her hand for just a moment, before drawing back. As affectionate as she was, it was still a strange custom for Lillian, and it was never prolonged. “I’ll be just outside if you need anything.”

            Nodding, Lena obediently took a sip of the broth, and gave Lillian a wan smile. “Thank you, ieiu.”

            Leaving her to rest and recover, Lillian left the room, and Lena lay propped up against the pillows as she ate as much broth as she could stomach, lacking an appetite even though she’d burned through so much energy that she should’ve been ravenous. After draining the glass of blue drink, she set it on the nightstand beside a flower, and delicately traced the veiny pattern of the powdery feeling petal, a soft smile curling her lips as she pulled her hand back. Her comms device was still on her wrist, and she waved a hand to activate it, her whole body slumped with weariness, but her heart warm, and pulled up the messaging interface. Finding Kara’s name, she quickly typed out a message thanking her for the flowers, before going to sleep, her face slack with soft contentedness as she dreamt of the flowers that filled her room, and the blonde woman who’d brought them for her.

Chapter Text

            For three days, Lena was forced to stay at home, quietly working away at her projects, face a little sallow and cheeks coloured with a gentle flush, while Lillian stayed home with her, hovering protectively while she watched Lena work. The sun lamps were turned down as low as possible, keeping Lena free from pain, and with enough radiation to make sure her body was constantly healing itself, but without the ability to do more than hover a few feet or accidentally leave dents in the shape of her hands and fingers if she gripped something too tightly.

            After three days or resting and trying to distract herself with little trifling trinkets, Lillian reluctantly agreed that she was healthy enough to go back to her work at the Science Guild, and with the urgent need to see Kara making her agitated and impatient, she found herself rolling along the wide streets of the Upper Levels of the city as soon as the sun started to rise, painting the day a watery red. The need to explain herself properly, before she passed out this time, burned strongly within Lena, and she skipped breakfast and eagerly made her way towards the domed building, hoping to be their when Kara arrived.

            It was still early, with only the most motivated Guild members making their way towards their offices and meetings, too busy to waste even a moment, and Lena neared the end of the city blocks, still in the shadows of the towering buildings as she came upon the open courtyard that stretched nearly half a mile to the feet of the marble steps leading up the crystal dome. A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention as she made to continue across the courtyard, and Lena paused at the sight of the familiar blonde woman in the royal blue of her house. A small smile curled her lips and she started to raise a hand to wave and catch Kara’s attention, her name ready to fall from her lips in a shout, when a tall, dark figure stepped out of the darkness off to the far left, halfway down the row of buildings ringing the courtyard.

            Kara’s name died on Lena’s lips and she wheeled herself back into the shadows, positioning herself so that she could just peer around the side of the chrome building, watching as the dark figure made straight for Kara. As the hooded and cloaked figure neared her, Kara reached out and tugged on the dark fabric, drawing them into the shadows and casting a furtive glance around, a frown puckering her brow. Quickly reaching for the sensor on the arm of her wheelchair, she typed in a configuration on the keyboard to digitally alter the levels of radiation she was receiving, and felt the trickle of heat pouring into her increase, making her warm around the neck of her robes as she tugged at it, straining her eyes and ears as she spied on Kara. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Kara, or that she suspected her of being up to anything worthy of being suspicious about, but Kara looked anxious and jumpy, which made Lena worried about her. If it was some unfriendly enemy of House El, then Lena would step in and help solve the matter, although it seemed liked Kara knew and perhaps trusted the person, even just a little. Straining her ears, Lena tuned into the conversation happening a few dozen feet away from her.

            “You shouldn’t have come,” Kara angrily told the figure.

            A deep chuckle made the hair on Lena’s body stand up, and she cocked her head to the side, brow drawing into a deep frown as she listened to the sound. “I told you I would,” a man replied in a low voice, and recognition shot through Lena as her eyes widened. “Relax, cousin. I’m not a wanted criminal, I just need your help with something.”

            Scoffing, Kara crossed her arms over her chest and let her gaze wander. Lena ducked back behind the safety of the wall just in case. “I told you, I don’t want to help. Just leave it alone, Kal. You’ll implicate yourself in this if you’re not careful.”

            “I’m more careful than you know.”

            “Hurting people isn’t careful,” Kara hotly replied, her face flushing red with anger. “You’re lucky there were no drones about to catch you. You’re lucky that … thing didn’t rip you apart with its superpowers.”

            With a light chuckle of amusement, the hooded figure dug into the folds of his cloak and pulled something out, a large, gloved hand obscuring it in his palm. “You mean this?”

            His fingers unfurled to reveal a glowing blue light, and Lena’s stomach lurched as she took in the bearded face washed and eerie blue by it, recognising it for what it was. The sun lamp he’d torn from her arm as they thought. A huge oversight by her, to underestimate him because he was Kryptonian, and an even bigger mistake than she’d realised to see him standing there with it in his hand. Clearly he’d figured out what the device was, or what it did, at least.

            “This is how that thing has been getting its powers.”

            Spluttering, Kara gave him a condescending smile, “this? Kal … this is a light.”

            “No, no,” Kal-El urgently protested, grabbing her hand even as she tried to pull it back. “Look, hold it. Feel it.”

            Kara unwillingly let him force the sun lamp into her hand, her mouth a grim line as she tried to pretend that she didn’t feel the effects coursing through her body. She couldn’t deny it though, and let out a soft sigh. “Where did you get this?”

            Sounding proud, Kal-El gave her a wide smile. “I tore it off that thing’s arm.”

            Pushing it back towards him, Kara clenched her jaw, avoiding her cousin’s eye. “What do you want with it?”

            “I want you to find out what it can do. Please, Kara. I can feel its power. It makes me stronger, lighter, more … sensitive. I want to know what it is. Maybe it can help our parents finish saving this planet.”

            “Where are our parents?” Kara stiffly asked, going rigid at the mention of them.

            Hesitating, it seemed like Kal-El decided that being honest would be better than denying that he’d helped whisk them away. Kara knew he’d been at the prison, knew that he’d helped Black Zero, or was maybe even leading them, and he wouldn’t be able to lie to her when she already knew the truth. Lena held her breath as she peered around the corner, waiting to see the rest of their conversation unfold.

            “They’re somewhere safe.”

            “They were safe in prison.”

            “They’re not the criminals everyone thinks they are,” Kal-El defensively replied, a frown crumpling his face as he gave her a wounded look. “They just want to help. Don’t you want that? For the planet to be saved? To have your parents back? They miss you. They want to see you.”

            Letting out a weary sigh, Kara’s shoulders slumped and she ran a hand through her blonde curls. Giving her cousin a sad look, a small smile curled her lips. “Of course I want them back, Kal. I miss them too. Every day. But … they’re not my parents anymore. They haven’t been for a long time. I don’t believe that they mean well, and you’re going to get yourself in trouble. You should stop this, now.”

            Turning away from him, Kara made to leave, but he grabbed her arm, quickly darting around her and blocking her path as he held a hand up to stop her. His reflexes and movements were subtly quicker, and Lena fought back a flicker of anger at how stupid she was to have let her technology fall into the hands of someone else. He seemed like a desperate person, who just wanted his family back, and it wasn’t him she was afraid of, but the rest of his family. If he passed on the technology, and they found a way to replicate it, they would be unstoppable. The radiation would work better on Kryptonian DNA, she’d found that out in her research, and she would be no match for one of them, let alone the whole of Black Zero if they were all outfitted with her tech.

            “Wait, just hang on a second. I just need one favour. Do this one thing for me, and I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

            “What?” Kara asked, a sigh of resignation slipping from her lips as she looked up and gave the bearded man an expectant look.

            He held the sun lamp out for her to take. “Just find out what it does and how it’s made.”

            “What’re you going to do with it?” Kara warily asked, eyeing the glowing blue sphere.

            “Nothing,” Kal-El gently assured her, “not unless it helps. Just think about something like this could do. I’m sure you can figure that out. Please.”

            Pausing for a moment, teeth worrying at her bottom lip, Kara let out a heavy sigh and reached up, plucking the sun lamp from Kal-El’s palm and tucking it away in the deep folds of her robe, casting a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching them. Her cousin gave her a bright smile, looking weak with relief and full of gratitude. He swept her up in a bear hug, and Kara returned it, a grim look on her face as he set her back down. Reaching out to give his arm a quick squeeze, she frowned slightly up at him.

            “Stay out of trouble, Kal. You’re all I have left of our House.”

            Ducking down to kiss her on the top of her head, his long, dark hair slipping out from beneath his hood, he gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Not for much longer, cousin. House El will return to its former glory again.”

            He left without another word, shoulders hunched and face hidden in the shadows of his hood as he hurried back across the courtyard, dark cloak swishing around his heels as he left Kara standing there. She slumped against the side of the building she stood in the shadow of, breathing slowly as she calmed herself down. Lena stayed hidden until Kara finally made her way towards the Science Guild, watching the figure in blue grow smaller as she approached the hulking mass of marble and crystal, until she disappeared through the towering double doors.

            Taking her time, Lena slowly joined the increasing flow of other Guild members starting to flock towards the building as the sun lightened the day, catching sight of her mother standing tall amongst them a short ways ahead of her. Hanging back so as not to arouse suspicion as to why she wasn’t already inside, she slipped inside after Lillian had already disappeared through the doorway, and quickly made her way towards the lab that she knew Kara always occupied. Waiting outside the door for a few moments, she used the chip in her left arm to grant her access to the locked room, the door sliding up to reveal the room.

            “You’re back!” Kara exclaimed, a look of surprise on her face as she set down a trowel, swivelling on her stool as she turned to face Lena. Sliding off the seat, she stood warily near her workbench, tugging off dirt stained gardening gloves. “How- how are you feeling? I mean, I guess you’re okay if you’re here, but … you never replied to any of my messages.”

            Giving her a wan smile, looking a little sheepish as guilt crept up on her for not replying to any of Kara’s messages, except a thank you for the flowers, Lena lingered just inside the doorway, the heavy sheet of metal hissing back into place and sealing them both inside. The lights were dimmed, and Kara’s face was ghostly in the shadows, yet wrought with concern as her brow puckered slightly. Clearing her throat, Lena pressed her lips into a grim line.

            “Sorry, I, uh, yes, I’m feeling better. I just … I thought we could talk. Can I buy you breakfast? Somewhere nice. You can pick. I don’t know the city that well.”

            Pausing, Kara ducked her head down, toying with the strings of the thick, dirty apron she was wearing. Lena’s teeth worried at her bottom lip as she feared that Kara would reject the offer. They hadn’t seen each other face to face since Lena had pulled out all of her sun lamps and collapsed to the floor in a spectacular display of honesty, and she wasn’t sure what Kara’s actual reaction had been to that, spiralling too far into pain and all-consuming blackness to remain conscious long enough to finish their talk. It didn’t seem like Kara hated her, but perhaps she was still harbouring some sort of resentment towards Lena for keeping her identity a secret. She might not want to discuss it any further.

            With a sigh, Kara tugged at the strings of the apron and slowly pulled it off, revealing the plain blue Science Guild tunic that she was wearing underneath. A slow smile grew on her face, just faintly, and she walked over to the far wall lined with cupboards, pulling out a robe. “Okay. Have you ever had dusyl wraps at the Kem Tavern?”

            Shaking her head, Lena watched as Kara slipped the robe on over her head, her voice muffled as she continued to talk, blonde curls pushing out of the neck hole. “They’re really good, plus the place is always so packed that no one will be able to overhear us.”

            “Great,” Lena softly murmured, wheeling herself forward, and then bringing herself back around to face the door.

            They exited into the wide hallway, passing by the influx of early morning scholars and engineers making their way to their respective rooms in the massive, domed building. Silently moving through the halls, through the lobby, and out into the smoggy city, weak, red sunlight washing over them from behind a thin haze of smoke, they made their way down to the Rankless District. Wheeling herself down paved streets, she followed after Kara, who was striding a few steps ahead, shoulders hunched as she hurried along.

            Stopping outside a dingy, grey tavern, Kara pushed open the dark door, revealing the dim interior, and held it open for Lena as she turned and gave her a small smile. Heading inside, Lena slowly wheeled herself in, on edge as she looked around the place, taking in the groups of people clustered around tables, or lining the bar. The smell of spices perfumed the air, with an undercurrent of alcohol, and there were more than a few dirty looks thrown their way at the crests on the two women's robes. The bartender greeted Kara warmly though, and she walked up to the bar and ordered for them both, before leading Lena to a table in a dark corner.

            Kara moved a chair out of the way to make room for Lena’s wheelchair, before settling down across from her and removing her robe. It was warm inside the tavern and dim red lights cast a rosy glow over them, making it surprisingly comfortable. Despite the warmth of the place, Lena kept her robe on, the weak levels of radiation from her sun lamps not enough to combat the chill that seeped into her human body.

            It was a few minutes of tense silence, looking around the room and observing the other customers, while they waited for their drinks to come. It wasn’t long before two glasses of orange liquid, with thin slivers of the blue rind of a fruit floating in it, and Lena reached out to pull her glass closer with a heavy hand. She met Kara’s gaze and gave her a tentative smile.

            “Can you- is your body … okay drinking that?” Kara haltingly asked, her cheeks darkly flushing in the red lights. “I mean … your physiological functions are the same, but can your body handle it?”

            “So far,” Lena told her with a wry smile. “Although, my mother probably tested all my food to make sure I wouldn’t, well, you know … die. I was fine the last time we ate out together though.”

            “Barely,” Kara scoffed, “you looked pretty awful then.”

            Letting out a sharp laugh, Lena gave her a grim smile, “that would be the, ah, the things.”

            “The things?”

            “You know,” Lena said, tapping a spot on her arm where she could feel a warm pressure and small flicker of energy seeping into her skin.

            Kara quietly laughed, reaching into her robe and producing one of the sun lamps, a bitter smile twisting her lips. “You mean this?”

            A faint smile curled Lena’s lips and she took a sip of her drink, raising her eyebrows slightly with grim amusement. She’d watched Kal-El hand that over to Kara just a short while earlier, and she was surprised that Kara would show it to her so brazenly. But then it wasn’t a surprise either. Kara had always been bluntly honest with her, and it was Lena who had the doubts.

            “Now where would you have gotten that?”

            “I might’ve picked it up off the floor when you decided to, ah, strip,” Kara said, blushing slightly as she gave Lena a lopsided smile.

            Setting her glass down, Lena leant back in her wheelchair, a mild look of indifference on her face as she looked at Kara. “So that’s not the one your cousin gave you this morning?” she coolly asked.

            Letting out a snort of laughter, Kara gave her a reproving look. “Were you spying on me, Lena?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. Shaking her head, her blonde tresses bouncing slightly around her face, Kara reached into her robe and pulled something else out with her other hand, uncurling her fingers to reveal another glowing sun lamp. “This is the one that Kal-El gave me.”

            Blinking in surprise, Lena cocked her head to the side. “You stole one from me?”

            “Borrowed,” Kara quickly corrected her, giving Lena a sheepish smile.

            “And what did you borrow it for?” Lena asked, leaning forward and propping her chin up in her hand.

            “Research.”

            “Hm,” Lena murmured, a blank look on her face as she stared at Kara, trying to understand what it was she was thinking, what her motives were, what she knew. She knew that Kara was smart. Smarter than she let people know. And she knew that she was good too, and different to the rest of her family. What would she want with this technology? “And what did you find?”

            Holding up both of the tiny spheres of light, Kara gazed at them with a troubled look on her face, before wrapping her hands around them and hiding the light from view. Setting her hands down on the table, two fists that seemed slightly translucent with the faint blue tinge to her skin, Kara pressed her lips together in a thin line, eyes darting around in a paranoid manner as she looked at everyone else in the bar. With the gentle brush of her finger against the chip in her arm, Kara brought up the holographic comms system and quickly navigated through it, while Lena watched the flicker of blue light as Kara scrolled and tapped.

            Suddenly turning her arm in an angle, so that Lena could see, Kara looked at her with wide, blue eyes, a slight look of awe in them. “I found this. It’s solar radiation, from a blue star. More powerful than a yellow star, and far more powerful than a red one. And … I found that it could be used for far more than flying and super strength. It heals you, so imagine the healing it could do for Kryptonians. And it’s so powerful that it could generate energy for the whole city, the whole planet, if we made a bigger generator for the radiation. It could be used to grow crops with a better source of sunlight. Grow more, and better harvests, and solve the food shortages. It could make it easier for the Labour Guild to do menial tasks. Imagine giving them enhanced strength, speed, endurance and flight. Construction would be nothing. Entire projects could be finished in a day. This … it’s incredible.”

            Lena watched her with unease, listening to her talk about all of the things that it could do, and wondering for a moment if Kara was ambitious enough to take Lena’s technology and reveal it to Krypton. What if offered could make Kara be seen as a force for good, an opposing figure to her parents’ bad decisions and coups, and Lena wouldn’t be able to stop her without risking revealing her identity. She trusted Kara, but there was that tiny flicker of doubt. That what if. Because Kara was used to being at the bottom of the hierarchy, barely holding onto her House’s title, and perhaps she wanted more than she had, and she was holding something more valuable than anything else of the planet. She held the key to giving everyone superpowers, to solving more than one problem that was bringing Krypton to the brink of destruction.

            “But it’s killing you,” Kara eventually said, waving a hand to dismiss the hologram, a dark look on her face as she gave Lena a piercing look. “The levels of radiation it emits when it’s turned up to its maximum capacity … they’re lethal levels, over and extended period of time. I did the calculations, Lena. I know that humans can get cancer from a yellow sun. I hacked the Science Guild’s database and read up on your physiology. Prolonged exposure will hurt you.”

            Her blank mask cracked for a moment, Lena’s surprise showing through as she removed her chin from her hand and sat back, gripping the arms of the armchair as her shoulders pulled taut and she ground her teeth together. After a moment of tense silence, she let out a sharp laugh and looked up, giving Kara a wry smile. “I’m living on borrowed time anyway.”

            Spluttering, Kara opened her mouth, but Lena cut her off by gently raising her hand. “It’s true. If you’ve read up on my kind, then you’ve also calculated what Krypton’s environment does to me. You’ve seen it. So you know that it’s true, that I should be dead by now. I’m alive through the combined efforts of mine and my mother’s intellect, and by a small part of sheer dumb luck. I know what these things are doing to my body; I can feel it. It’s like … fire in my veins. It makes me think I’m strong, invulnerable, healthy. But then it burns me up from inside if I use it for too long. And then when I turn them off … when I turn them off, the atmosphere of this planet catches up with me. There’s a fine line for me, between dying from the weight of a red sun, or dying from the radiation of a blue sun. I’m living on borrowed time. I should’ve been dead long before we even met.”

            Shaking her head, Kara swallowed thickly, her throat bobbing as she swallowed a lump, before she hoarsely replied. “I don’t believe that. Or if you should’ve then you should’ve never made it to Krypton in the first place, and you should’ve died on Earth, or died when you crashed here. But you didn’t. And you’re still here now. By some grace of the Gods, you’re here.”

            Letting out a bark of laughter, Lena shook her head, her lips curling up into a bitter smile. “Ah, the Gods . Yes, well, I suppose you could say that’s true, of one God. There’s a Goddess where I’m from, supposedly the smartest being to ever exist, and supposedly dead for millennia. Except she wasn’t, and here I am now. And I inherited … gifts . So my high intelligence that makes me blend in here, is just genetics. And the need to fight, to protect, to plot and plan … that’s in my blood too. So I have to do it. I lost one planet, and I can’t lose another, and I have the means to save this one. I’m living on borrowed time, and I’m not going to waste a moment of that time letting this planet die as well.”

            “Don’t you care about what happens to you?” Kara asked, a horrified look on her face.

            “I’m not going to live forever, Kara,” Lena gently told her, reaching out to touch the back of her hand, feeling the energy radiating through her from the touch. “I’d rather make changes for good while I can, than watching time slip by without doing anything of consequence. I want to be something. I want to do something with my life.”

            Giving her a strained smile, Kara pulled her hands back, “not like me, with my flowers. Is that what you’re saying?”

            Scoffing, Lena gave her a look of irritation, “I won’t insult you by saying that your botany isn’t a difficult form of science in itself. It takes skill and dedication like anything. But look at all those ideas you have. Look at what you uncovered about my technology in just a few days, all the calculations and deductions you made. Tell me that you don’t want to do those things.”

            “Of course-” Kara hotly replied, before realising that she was nearly shouting, her cheeks flushed red as she quickly lowered her voice, “of course I do! I want to challenge myself, with more than cross-pollinating pretty flowers. But I can’t. I learned as soon as my parents were imprisoned that I couldn’t afford to make a spectacle out of myself. I have to get by with toying with soil samples and trying to change the DNA sequences of grains so that they’ll provide hardier crops. The moment I talk about giving people superpowers, creating new generators or solving the food shortage or- or the fact that Nth metal is a better conductor for solar power than the metal we produce on Krypton, they’ll be onto me. I’m already watched closely. The Voice of Rao is looking for any reason to finish off the rest of my House. I can’t afford to do what I please.”

            “I know, I know,” Lena softly replied, her cold fingers resting against the back of Kara’s hot hands. “You do what you have to. And I’m doing what I have to.”

            Letting out a derisive snort, Kara let the two sun lamps clatter onto the table and abruptly climbed to her feet, towering over Lena as she looked down at her with shining eyes, her bottom lip trembling slightly. “Fine. But when you get hurt again doing something stupid, don’t expect me to save you.”

            “I won’t,” Lena mumbled, no malice in her voice. It would be better if Kara was kept out of this anyway. Her being associated with Lena, if she ended up being exposed, would only lead to more bad things for Kara. She could be branded a traitor for helping harbour an alien. “But you should stay away from your cousin too. He’s not an evil person, but he’s not good, Kara. He's mixed up in this, and I don't want you to get hurt in the fallout.”

            “I don’t need you to look after me,” Kara thickly told her, “you should look after yourself first. After all, you’re running on borrowed time, and I’d hate to take up some of it when you have more important things to be doing.”

            She turned and stalked off a moment later, leaving Lena shouting after her, sitting stiffly in her wheelchair as the man behind the bar walked towards her table with two plates of steaming food. He set them both down as Lena quickly swept her sun lamps into a hand and tucked them away in a hidden pocket, and she was left staring at the lentil and root filled wraps as the blonde left her alone in the back of the tavern. Feeling guilty and angry with herself, tears stinging her eyes, Lena waved over the bartender when he cast her a pitying look a moment later, and she let him scan her chip to pay for the meal and drinks, before she wheeled herself back out into the smoggy lower levels of the city and started wheeling herself back home.

Chapter Text

            It hadn’t been Lena’s intention to chase after Kara. She was upset that she’d been abandoned at the tavern, having gone there with the intention of talking things through properly with Kara, hoping to explain everything and smooth over what had happened between Lena and Kal-El. Wheeling herself all the way back home, in a foul mood that wasn’t inclined to spend the day working on her nanites in a stuffy workshop, Lena tried to sooth her rankled pride, resolving that she wouldn’t be the one to seek the other out first. She hadn’t said anything to offend Kara, and she felt like the other woman’s reaction had been unwarranted. There was a concern there, yes, but it wasn’t Kara’s decision to make. She didn’t know what it was like to hurt every day, to suffer through the pain that came with being physically unsuited for the planet.

            Still, after a restless night, she woke early the next morning with a heavy heart. When she walked out of her room for breakfast, taking a seat across from her brother, wearing yesterday’s clothes, Lillian asked if she was going to the Science Guild that day. With a hollow feeling in her chest, she mumbled a vague excuse about not feeling well, ate her oatmeal and walked back to her room. Lex came in to say goodbye, giving her a quick squeeze on the shoulder, before he left, giving her the space she obviously wanted. Lillian had no such intention, and made herself comfortable on the edge of Lena’s bed shortly after Lex had left.

            Curled up on the mattress, a pillow wedged under her head as she stared at the wall, Lena brooded in sullen silence, waiting for her mother’s inevitable comforting words of wisdom - or that’s what they were intended to be. When a hand gently came down on her arm, Lena let her eyes close, drawing in a deep breath and slowly exhaling.

            “What’s the matter?” Lillian quietly asked.

            “Nothing.”

            Her mother sighed. “I have to leave in a moment to meet with a colleague. I don’t want to leave you home alone if something’s wrong, so is there something I ought to be worried about?”

            Huffing, Lena curled up tighter, her shoulders tense beneath the fabric of her tunic, and she felt her cheeks warm at the thought of talking about her and Kara’s conversation with her mother. “Kara and I had an argument.”

            “About what?”

            “My extracurricular activities. She doesn’t think it’s safe.”

            Lillian softly chuckled, and Lena quickly struggled upright, a scowl darkening her face as she met her mom’s grim smile. “It seems that Kara and I are in agreement.”

            “Yes, but you didn’t just … leave . You helped me. You still are. She won’t even listen to me, and she’s going to get herself hurt doing something stupid, because of course she will, and I’m going to be the bad guy for trying to help her.”

            Sighing, Lillian drew her towards her, wrapping an arm around Lena’s shoulders and brushing her hair out of her face. When she peered up at her, Lena took in the troubled look on her mother’s face as Lillian stared at the wall. Lena had never had anyone to argue with , not outside of her family, so she’d never had to come to Lillian for advice on relationships. It was unchartered territory for them both, and Lena felt a little uncomfortable as she watched her mom struggle to find the right thing to say.

            “Well … a big part of letting someone help you is recognising that you need help. Perhaps you should talk to her first. She might listen to your concerns, and if the offer’s on the table, she might come to you when she needs you most.”

            “She said she doesn’t need me to look after her. That she doesn’t want to take up any more of my time when I don’t have much of it left. I think I might’ve hurt her somehow, although I don’t see how. All I said was that I was doing what I had to, and I was going to die either way, so I might as well make the most of my powers to help people.”

            Giving her arm a quick squeeze, Lillian looked down at her with a pitying look in her eyes, a faint smile curling her lips. “Do you remember when your father died?”

            “Of course I do.”

            “You were upset. You cried for weeks.”

            “Yes.”

            “She doesn’t want to lose you like that.”

            Frowning, Lena glanced up at her mother, “but I’m not dying. I’m-”

            “Putting yourself in danger. With her family. Imagine how this feels for her. She doesn’t have anyone. She has her adoptive family, yes, but no friends. Except you. Now, she’s spent half of her life with her entire family in prison, she’s a walking pariah, no one wants to speak at her, she’s almost invisible. Everyone she ever loved was taken from her. And now she finds out her only friend in the world is poisoning herself with radiation to fight her family, which she undoubtedly still loves. That’s going to bring up all sorts of painful memories and feelings. She thinks that she’s going to lose you too.”

            “Then how do I make her see that she’s wrong?”

            Stroking her daughter’s hair, Lillian laughed and kissed her on her temple, before rising to her feet. “Well, a word of advice for you; whatever you do, don’t tell her she’s wrong! That’ll only make her angrier.”

            Scowling, Lena’s cheeks turned red, “this isn’t funny. She might not have any friends, but neither do I!”

            Giving her a sympathetic look, Lillian smiled softly, cupping her daughter’s chin in her hand and meeting her gaze. “Talk to her. In my opinion, actual communication is severely underrated and underutilised. A lot of arguments could be avoided if only more people talked.”

            “Talk? That’s your advice?” Lena scoffed, turning her head aside to stare at the dying flowers Kara had filled her room with.

            “It’s more helpful than you might think, inah.”

            She left without further comment, satisfied that her daughter was okay, leaving Lena feeling frustrated and agitated. The Science Guild wasn’t the sort of place she should be talking to Kara about her sun lamps, or her superpowers or anything to do with the El’s, so Lena stayed home all day and brooded. She held fragile flowers in her hands, dusting her skin with the powdery substance coating their petals, wondering what Kara was doing, and if she was thinking about Lena.

            The day seemed to drag by, the red sun slowly tracing its way across the smoggy sky, and Lena made the bold decision to look up Kara’s address while she waited for dusk to come. It came in an agonising crawl, before her mother or brother had returned, and donning her blue Science Guild robe, Lena wheeled herself out of the apartment before she could begin to regret her decision.

            Kara lived across the city from her, in one of the tall spires of black crystal that the Ranked lived in, albeit a shorter one than Lena’s own, and she pushed through the crowds of workers flooding home or heading out for dinner and a drink at various local hotspots amongst the wealthier citizens above the city floor. Crossing bridge after bridge, wheeling herself across wide plazas and through narrow archways, she followed the holographic map projecting from the wheelchair’s arm, following the route mapped out for her. It wasn’t hard to find, and the sky was still a fiery red when she came to a stop outside.

            Buzzed into the apartment building, with the high clearance of a Ranked person and Guild member, Lena made her way upstairs to the twelfth floor, following the address she’d scrounged up on her comms system. It was getting late, the red sun sinking low on the horizon, a scarlet tint to the darkening sky, and she felt nervous as the elevator doors opened to the grey hallway of the building. Afraid that she might be overstepping, she came to a stop outside the plain grey door and reached up to press the scanner set into the doorframe.

            It was a short while later that the door slid upwards with a quiet hiss to reveal a blonde woman. Not Kara. An older woman, but with such similar features that Lena would’ve sworn it was her mother if she didn’t know any better. There was a wary look in her blue eyes as she looked down at Lena from her height before she arranged her face into a polite smile.

            “I’m so sorry to intrude, Councilwoman,” Lena started, “I’m a … friend of Kara’s.”

            “You must be Lena Lu-Thor. Please, come in, come in,” Eliza said, stepping aside, her crimson robes of the Lawmaker’s Guild flapping around her feet.

            Pausing for a moment, at a loss of what to say, Lena gave her a hesitant smile and nodded. It was no surprise that she was so easily recognisable; there weren’t many wheelchair-bound Kryptonians, especially in Kandor. Wheeling herself in, she glanced around the open apartment, taking in the differences to her own home. Where her family’s penthouse was higher up and sprawled throughout the entire top floor of the soaring building, permanently filled with the faint odour of grease and engine oil, counters scattered with spanners and wrenches, gears and springs, the apartment of Kara’s family was rather modest and a lot neater. It was comfortably smaller, most surfaces empty, aside from a few with rare vellum bound books and tiny potted plants dotted around at specific points, and Lena found herself curious. The air smelled fresh and earthy, cut through with the spices of dinner wafting in from the kitchen.

            “Kara didn’t tell me she’d invited a friend over for dinner,” Eliza said as she pressed a button and sent the door back down into place. “How lovely.”

            She sounded genuinely pleased at the fact that Kara had a visitor, and stepped past Lena to walk further into her home. Lena guided herself forward behind her, suddenly feeling trapped, unable to find her voice to correct Eliza. Her intention had been to come and visit Kara for a few moments and then quietly leave again, being as unobtrusive as possible. Yet, she found herself incapable of correcting Eliza as the woman quickly set about setting another place at the table, calling out as she did so.

            “Kara! Your guest is here!”

            After a few moments of no response, Eliza sighed, giving Lena an apologetic look. Setting down a dish towel, Eliza excused herself.

            “Sorry, she must be in her greenhouse. I’ll fetch her.”

            Shoulders taut with tension, her stomach tying itself into knots as unease crept up on her, Lena fiddled with her hands in her lap. Unable to judge what sort of reception she’d receive from Kara, she found herself growing increasingly anxious as each moment she was left alone passed by. It wasn’t long before Eliza was returning with a confused looking Kara in tow, rubbing earth from her hands with a dirty cloth, an apron tied around her waist with a pair of leathery garden gloves flopping out of the pocket.

            As Kara’s gaze landed on Lena, realisation dawned on her, and whatever explanation Eliza had given her must’ve clicked into place. She didn’t smile at Lena, and a faint frown creased her brow, making Lena feel awkward as she stayed firmly seated in her wheelchair, keeping up pretences.

            “Hi,” Kara eventually said, slowly breaking herself out of her stupor and taking a small step towards her.

            “Dinner’s ready. I’ll fetch your sister,” Eliza said, excusing herself and leaving again.

            Parked not too far inside the apartment, Lena stared across the distance that separated her and Kara with a wounded look on her face, finding her friend radiating cold and contempt for her. It broke Lena’s heart to feel that kind of rejection coming from someone who’d been rejected by so many others herself, and it sent a spark of anger shooting through Lena.

            Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Eliza was out of earshot, Kara took a few urgent steps forward, a dark look on her face as she turned back around to face Lena. “What’re you doing here?” she brusquely asked, keeping her voice down.

            “I-” Lena started, finding herself speechless. It was a bad idea to come here in the evening, she realised that now, and she didn’t quite know how to explain herself. The thought of sitting through dinner with Kara upset with her made Lena feel slightly nauseous, but she didn’t know how to explain her reasons for showing up on her doorstep without further angering Kara. “I wanted to talk.”

            “I have nothing else to say-”

            “Not about that,” Lena cut her off, a note of impatience in her voice.

            Scowling, Kara crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant child. “You should’ve asked.”

            “You would’ve ignored me.”

            “Because I would’ve been eating dinner with my family.”

            “Which one?”

            Kara’s cheeks flushed red at the insinuation that she’d be willing to forsake all of her morals and crawl back to the parents that she’d sorely missed, while they’d sat rotting in prison. Lena knew how hard it was for Kara to bear the knowledge that her parents had been part of something so awful, and she was worried that Kara would let herself be caught in the middle. Despite how bad things had gotten for her, Kara still loved her parents, her cousin, her aunts and uncles, just like Lena knew she loved her family. It wasn’t that she doubted Kara’s ability to choose what was right, but if she was manipulated into helping her family through some form of guilt or false hope that they’d be redeemed, she might find herself in deep trouble. Lena just wanted to protect her, but she doubted that Kara would see it that way.

            “Look, I-” Lena started, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway.

            Eliza stepped back out into the open living area of the apartment with a dark-haired and dark-eyed woman in tow. Despite the fact that Kara was adopted, it was her sister who looked out of place amongst the blonde-haired blue-eyed women, and she gave Lena a once over, her eyes unabashedly curious as she eyed the wheelchair with obvious interest. Lena wondered whether Alex remembered her from that time her and Kara had gotten themselves caught in a protest in the Rankless District. She’d been preoccupied with scolding Kara at the time, and Lena had trailed after them like a stray animal, unnoticed and forgotten about. Of course, Alex would’ve known her the instant she’d donned her armour, having stood face to face with her once, but Lena masquerading as a Kryptonian was hardly anything exceptional to take notice of. In fact, Alex had only seemed to see her wheelchair as it was, and Lena felt self-conscious as she sat before the three women, feeling so out of place.

            Before she could apologise and withdraw, with the lie that she’d see Kara tomorrow at work, Eliza started to dish up their evening meals and had set Kara to work moving a chair away from the table so that Lena’s wheelchair could be steered into place. The table was high, and as Lena wheeled over to it at Kara’s beckoning, she felt her face flush with embarrassment. She couldn’t eat at the table when her head was barely above the tabletop, and she felt her mouth go dry.

            “Kara, why don’t you take Lena’s robe for her,” Eliza suggested as silence descended on the scene, with Alex quietly pouring drinks from a crystal jug, Kara shoving a chair aside and Eliza ladling stew into bowls.

            Hugging her blue robes to herself, Lena seemed to shrink back at the thought. “Oh, no. No, thank you. I, um, I’m quite cold sometimes.”

            “Oh,” Eliza mumbled, looking a little uncomfortable as if she’d said the wrong thing. “Would you like me to turn the heating up for you?”

            Giving her a strained smile, Lena shook her head, “no thank you, ma’am.”

            Without much fuss or ceremony, Lena found herself sitting at the table with the other three women, almost wishing that she could just slide down in her wheelchair and slip beneath the edge of the tabletop, seeing as she was barely a head above it anyway. She had to hold her bowl of stew in her hands, carefully spooning mouthfuls into her mouth as she tried not to feel embarrassed. Although none of them stared at her or commented on the fact that she was so low down, it was painfully obvious. They barely spoke at all, in fact, and it was in stark contrast to her own family dinners.

            At her apartment, dinner was a chance to discuss what they’d been researching that day, their latest projects, new grants approved, new ideas and information they’d discovered from browsing the archives. They all almost always had grease stains on their clothes and aching muscles from hours spent tightening bolts, hammering metal into shape and carrying out some odd task or two to test out their devices, and it always had a way of relaxing Lena.

            But Kara’s family barely said a word, and she wondered if perhaps it was because she was there, but then she realised that under normal circumstances, that would be more likely to instigate conversation around the dinner table. As far as she could tell, all three women, in three different Guilds, had nothing to talk about. They weren’t at liberty to share the secrets of their Guilds, to talk about science projects, new laws being discussed or prisoners that had been interrogated. While she knew that Kara got along with Alex, it didn’t seem like they were as close as Lena had come to think all siblings were. She wondered if her and Lex was a rare case, or if perhaps Kara’s adoption and family history had something to do with it.

            As it was, she ate in silence, trying to ignore her growing discomfort and hyper-aware of Kara sitting beside her, even if the blonde barely glanced at her once as they ate. After they finished eating, Lena thanked Eliza and offered to help clean up, but her offer was graciously rejected. Instead, Eliza suggested to Kara that she show Lena her greenhouse. As curious as she was about the plants that Kara was cultivating in her home, Lena knew that now wasn’t the time to spend fawning over flowers. But it was a good enough excuse for her to come here and do what she’d come here to do, and she wholeheartedly agreed.

            Staring at her blankly for a moment, Kara turned around and stalked off, shoulders tense as she hunched over slightly. Wheeling after her, Lena followed the stiff back of her friend down a short, plain hallway and in through a glass door at the end, where a forest of green sprouted beyond. As Kara admitted her, Lena blinked as she realised that she was suddenly outside. Still in view of the kitchen, and of the blonde and brunette washing up, Lena found herself inside the glass room, jutting out slightly from the side of the building. Glass walls and ceiling gave her a glimpse of red as the sun sank low on the horizon, and massive red lights shone down on the plants, offering them more sunlight as their natural source disappeared.

            The air was muggy inside the sealed greenhouse, the smell of earth rich and strong, mingling with the scented flowers and sweet aroma of fruits, and Lena looked around in amazement. She’d never seen anything like it. Flowers were rare enough as it was, as were most types of plants in Krypton - even fruit-bearing trees and plants were mostly kept underground and cultivated in artificial nurseries to maximise their harvest - and she was awestruck by the sheer amount of colour and green around her. But she couldn’t let herself get distracted; she’d come here for a reason.

            “I have to say, I have little experience in dining with other people, but that has to be the most excruciatingly painful dinner I’ve ever endured,” Lena slowly said, trying to diffuse some of the tension as she reached up to touch a broad-leafed plant. It was purple and had an intoxicating smell that drew her in.

            “Why are you here?” Kara asked, her back to the glass walls of the greenhouse so that her mother and sister couldn’t read her lips.

            Lena’s mouth flattened into a hard line and her shoulders were taut as she guided her wheelchair down the narrow paved path, between the reaching branches of struggling saplings with reddish peeling bark and the trailing vines of hanging plants with yellow dotted flowers and blue needling thorns. Putting some distance between them and the glass windows of the greenhouse, she slowly moved deeper into the vibrant jungle growing inside the apartment, Kara ducking around her to move vines and drooping plants out of her path before the wheels crushed them.

            Once they were sheltered by towering ferns and a low-hanging tree bearing orange fruits, Lena looked up at her and uncurled her fingers to reveal a sun lamp. “I came to give you this back.”

            Scoffing, almost sounding offended at the fact that Lena was trying to give it to her, Kara gave it a disdainful look, a haughtiness about her that made Lena feel uneasy. “I don’t want it,” Kara rejected the offer, not even reaching out to push her hand aside.

            “Your cousin’s going to ask for it back. He’ll ask you what you found out, and how it works, and then he’ll want it back to figure it out for himself. What’re you going to tell him when you can’t give it to him because you gave it back to the alien he stole it from?”

            Lena watched as a flicker of irritation ran across Kara’s face before fiery blue eyes met hers. “I’ll tell him that if he’s stupid enough to use it, it’s going to kill him. Maybe he’ll actually listen to me.”

            “Kara-”

            “I don’t want any part in this, Lena,” Kara flatly interrupted, “I’ve given you my opinion on the matter, and that’s that. I won’t lose more people to their big ambitions and foolish recklessness.”

            Gritting her teeth, Lena scowled, “that’s not what this is!”

            “You said it yourself; you’re running on borrowed time! I just don’t understand why you’re in such a hurry to dig yourself into an early grave. I understand that you need it to help your body manage the effects of the red sun, but you don’t need to use it to its full potential. You don’t need to be a hero.”

            “If not me then who? Who?” Lena snapped, her cheeks burning as anger simmered inside her.

            “Somebody else!” Kara said, her voice cracking as she gave her a wounded look, “someone I don’t care about. Just … not you. Not you.”

            “They can’t do what I can do.”

            Letting out a sharp, cold laugh, Kara gave her a bitter smile, “if you gave them this they could. But you won’t give up your secrets that easily. Not even if it costs you your life.”

            Closing her hand over the device, Lena swallowed thickly, her eyes shining slightly with tears. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it, but I have to, and I can’t explain it to you. You won’t even listen to my reasons.”

            “Oh no,” Kara laughed, the sound empty and sad, “I hear you just fine. I’ll just never agree with you on this. You’re not a God , Lena.”

            Softly laughing, her lips curled into an amused smile at just how close Kara was to touching onto the truth. Kara didn’t find it funny though, and her expression darkened as she took in the smile on Lena’s face. “Well, I’m as close as you can get,” Lena sighed, an air of resignation about her as her shoulders slumped in defeat.

            She wasn’t even being arrogant; it was just the truth. She was a demigod, and there were no Gods left walking the old planet at any rate. If she wasn’t a God, she was the closest thing Krypton had to it, and all she could do was put her genius to use. It wasn’t her strategic or battle skills that were her strengths - admittedly, she could use some more training in fighting, but was sorely lacking a teacher - but it was her intelligence. That much had always been there, since she was a little girl. To humans, Kryptonians were intelligent beyond belief, but even amongst Kryptonians she was something special.

            All of that intelligence that had been cultivated since she was a child, the hoarde of knowledge and aptitude for science, engineering and maths, was her greatest power. Beyond even the power that the radiation gave her. Perhaps Kara was right in the fact that she didn’t need to have superpowers to help people, but she knew that they would give her the edge she needed to fix the mess of Krypton’s society and environment. Her intelligence alone wouldn’t stand a chance against the loudest voices of Krypton’s Council. She could prattle on all day about how their crops were failing, citizens were starving and homeless in the ugly Rankless Districts, how they were polluting the skies and ruining the climate, but only physical action would make a change. Stopping the terrorists of Black Zero that were intent on sowing chaos and dissent amongst the Rankless District, trying to topple the governing powers, was the only way to stop an all-out planetary war from breaking out.

            If it resorted to Ranked against Rankless, it would only cause more problems, and none of them would fix the impending doom of Krypton breaking apart like Earth had done so. Lena needed to catch Kara’s parents, stop her family for good, and she knew that Kara wouldn’t want to be around for that. Perhaps she was worried that Lena would get hurt in the fallout, or perhaps it would hurt her to see Lena hurt the people she loved, but either way, Lena had to do it. She trusted that she was thinking logically about this, and wasn’t letting her bias cloud her judgement. Even if she was biased, she had to admit that she even agreed with some of the things that Zor-El and Alura had been fanatic about. They were two sides of the same coin; Lena just wanted to protect as many people in the process, where as Kara’s family were eager to break Krypton apart and rebuild from the ashes.

            “That’s an awfully high opinion of yourself,” Kara scathingly replied.

            With a sad smile, Lena blinked quickly, her eyes burning slightly and cleared her throat. “It’s not. It’s the truth.”

            Instead of replying, Kara turned her attention to a blue flowering plant, her fingertips delicately brushing fronds of another plant out of the way of the reaching blossoms, her touch gentle and caring as she tended to the plants. Lena felt a lump form in her throat and the urge to cry grow stronger as she watched Kara ignore her.

            “Right. Well. I guess that’s it then.”

            “Guess so.”

            Nodding, she pressed her mouth into a thin line, a faint, sickly feeling twisting her stomach. “Just promise you won’t do anything stupid.”

            Kara let out a loud laugh, the sound oddly muffled in the closed space, as if the plants and the glass swallowed it up instead of echoing it. The humid room was feeling more and more suffocating the longer that Lena stayed in there, and she felt sweat prickle the back of her neck, her palms clammy and an emptiness opening up inside her chest.

            “Well now that’s just hypocritical,” Kara said with bitter amusement, “and more than a little bit condescending.”

            Panic seized Lena’s heart for a moment, worrying that she was doing irreparable damage, and she reached out to grab Kara’s hand, gripping her fingers tightly in her own. “I know it’s hard for you to let people in. I know it’s hard for you to trust people, but please, trust me on this.”

            “You’re right, I don’t let people in. I don’t trust people. I’m not you. I’ve been hurt by the people I cared about before, and I’ve been abandoned by them too. I won’t let it happen again.”

            “I can’t promise you that I won’t leave, and I can’t promise you that I won’t get hurt. I can’t- I can’t give you flowers. All I can give you is this,” she hoarsely told her, uncurling the fingers of her other hand, which was still clenched around the sun lamp.

            She pressed it into Kara’s unwilling hand, curling her fingers around it and giving the fist a gentle squeeze, before bending her head over her hand and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it. Rearing her head, she met Kara’s stricken blue eyes, a wary look of surprise on her face, as if she was struggling to understand what Lena’s gestures and words meant.

            “Don’t do anything stupid,” Lena echoed, “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

            She wheeled herself back through the greenhouse, mindful of the snaking plants and dangling leaves, and let herself out. Looking over her shoulder, she softly called back inside. “Thank your mother for me, please.”

            Reversing the trip back through the apartment, finding it abandoned, each woman gone back to their own interests, left to their own devices for the evening, Lena let herself back out. The city was dark outside, and she felt slightly spooked being out in the night, wheelchair-bound and shivering in the slight chill swept in from the icy tundra of the surrounding wastelands. In the upper levels of the city, she was safe enough, and nobody disturbed her as she made her way across the crisscrossing bridges spanning the city blocks, returning home to her apartment and the lively conversation of her mother and brother as they washed up after their own dinner. It suddenly felt too invasive to Lena, and she quietly excused herself and went straight to bed, not in the mood to answer their usual curious questions and share stories about her day. They’d want to know where she’d been, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

Chapter Text

            Over the next few weeks, Lena didn’t speak to Kara at all, or even come face to face with her at all. Putting space between them to nurse her hurt feelings, Lena figured that it was for the best to let Kara get over her anger in her own time too, even though Lena missed her terribly. That was the problem with only having one friend; there was no one else to fill the gap left behind. Her mother tried, of course, and so did Lex, but Lena wasn’t in any kind of mood to be cheered up by them. Instead, she wallowed.

            She wallowed so much that Lillian eventually got frustrated, and the two of them fought, leaving things unusually tense between them. The Science Guild was pushed to the back of her mind, and Lena left her projects to collect dust. Instead, she locked herself up inside one of her personal workshops at home, tinkering away at her sun lamps, making enhancements to the armour that her mother had created for her.

            The only time she left the apartment was in that armour, her face hidden behind the helmet, her cape fluttering behind her as she circled overhead, looking at the city from high above, through a haze of fog and layers of crisscrossing bridges separating the different levels. She’d listen with her enhanced hearing, her sharp eyes picking out the forms of people walking far below, while ships zipped through the air at incredible speeds. From her height, she was all alone, unseen by those below as she hovered in mid-air or made lazy loops around the city, looking for trouble. More often than not, she found some.

            Feeling antsy and frustrated, Lena spent endless hours dispensing her justice in the city. Taking it upon herself to prove just how much of a hero she could be with her powers, perhaps just to spite Kara when the news got back to her, which it undoubtedly would, Lena quashed protests that turned violent, saved Ranked citizens from attacks, and dished out food she stole from the Voice of Rao’s personal stores to the poorer citizens of Kandor. Advocating for both sides, trying to find a peaceful middle ground, she did her best with what she had. Often, it involved beating a few people bloody with the grim determination of someone who wasn’t enjoying themselves, but knew it was necessary, but she always tried to diffuse the situation with words first. Her calm wisdom was usually spat on.

            The strain of using her powers so much put pressure on her body too. Up until Kara had all but ordered Lena to stop using the radiation on herself, Lena had been rather conservative about how high the lamps were turned on, usually keeping them at their lowest settings so she could pass as a normal Kryptonian and remain free from chronic pain. Only when she was really upset would her powers manifest under that setting, her eyes accidentally burning holes into walls and doors, as she learnt over the days following Kara’s rejection of her. But as she threw herself into single-handedly trying to solve the city’s problems, she found herself having to use her powers more, with a constant flow of increased levels of radiation from the miniature sun lamps poisoning her body.

            With that came the added pressure on her body. As much as Lena tried to ignore it, she could feel the effects of the radiation. She could feel it in the bone-deep exhaustion that gripped her at the end of every day, causing her to sleep away half of the day, and in the increased appetite as her metabolism burned through her body’s stored energy. Even with the mountainous meals she ate, her ribs became more prominent with each passing day. More than once, she came home to the apartment, shedding her armour in the bathroom and stepping into the steaming water pouring from the showerhead and was wracked with hacking coughs, dots of vivid red blood speckling the pristine white tiles as she braced herself against the wall.

            A feeling of dread crept up on her, even as she foolishly ignored what was happening to her body, and Lena was determined to prove that she could be a hero. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought; with the time she had left, she could make a difference. And who was to say that it was the radiation’s fault anyway? Perhaps this was just time catching up with her. Her body had always been under stress, with or without the radiation, and she knew that she only had so much time left before her body started to give out. Deeply in denial at the fact that she was aiding her body in killing her, she stuck to her course, slipping out at odd hours to help protect innocent people and stop the desperate few who turned to violence and crime to try and solve their problems.

            But then there were her nights. It wasn’t all fighting and saving people, or not for the whole night. After she’d called it a night, her body too drained for her to keep fighting, but her mind too awake for her to even consider sleeping, she’d glide through the smoggy night sky and delicately land on the glass roof of a greenhouse jutting from the side of a dark building. Most of its shining windows would be dark, but there was almost always dim red solar lights on in the greenhouse, and she’d sit on one of the thick beams joining the glass panels and listen in as Kara worked on her plants. With her back against the building, Lena would finally relax, listening to the steady heartbeat below and the soft voice making voice memos on different species of plants and soil samples being cultivated inside the greenhouse. Sometimes Kara would sing too, a quiet murmur to herself, and Lena would feel some of the tension bleed out of her as the lullaby drifted up towards her.

            Those moments, late at night when the city was starting to fall asleep, were some of the few moments of peace that Lena had. In those moments, coming down from the high of leaving people littered throughout the city for the Sagitari to come and collect, her body burning up with a radiation-induced fever, she felt in balance, her body lingering somewhere in between pain and power. Her heart was another matter, and no matter how peaceful those moments were, with the wind rushing past her at the incredible height, the city eerily quiet as people went about their own business inside their homes, or silently walked the streets searching for scraps, her heart would always twinge slightly as she listened to Kara moving about below, gently crooning to the plants as if they were some sort of small animal. She would stay there until the solar lamps were turned off and Kara went to bed, assuring herself that she was safe.

            But of course, she’d come back the next night. Lena came back every night, her mind troubled and an uneasy knot in her stomach at the thought of Kara coming to harm, afraid that her family would seek her out in the late hours of the night and take her by force when Kara didn’t come willingly. She had that much faith in her at least, that Kara would rebuke their offer to join their cause. Her family’s actions had hung around her neck for so long, like a pennant of shame, that Kara knew what it would bring her if she let herself be coerced into joining them. She couldn’t warn Kara though, given the fact that Kara seemed to take offence when Lena got involved with her family, so this was as close as she allowed herself to get. Protecting her from the shadows like a roosting Nightwing hatchling.

            Her late night activities were cause for some concern from Lillian though, and after a particularly late night, when she barely made it back home before the sky was lightening to a terracotta shade as the sun threatened to rise, she found herself sitting at the dining table with her family, barely able to keep her eyes open as she spooned oatmeal into her mouth with a gloved hand, her armour still clinging to her body.

            “Are you coming to the Science Guild today?” Lillian asked in a slightly clipped tone, laced with disapproval as she stared down at her own breakfast and scooped up a spoonful of oats.

            “Not today,” Lena hoarsely replied, her eyes itching with tiredness as she blinked rapidly a few times.

            Eyebrows rising slightly, Lillian let her spoon clatter against the edge of her now empty bowl, before wiping her mouth on a napkin and pushing her chair back with the screech of metal against tiles. Lena winced at the piercing sound, her sensitive ears objecting to it, and she ground her teeth together as she closed her eyes. Lex was silent as he browsed the latest news on his comms device, seemingly oblivious to the argument that was brewing.

            Walking into the kitchen, Lillian dumped her dishes in the sink, while a drone drifted over and a clawed hand reached down to grab them for cleaning. Bracing herself against the edge of the counters, Lillian finally fixed Lena with a disapproving stare. “You know, you have to actually contribute something of worth to the Guild if you want to stay a member of it.”

            Rolling her eyes, Lena bit back a sharp retort and finished the rest of her food, before wearily climbing to her feet. “I’ve already met my quota for the year,” Lena lightly assured her, a tight smile curling her lips, “besides, think of my excursions as an experiment.”

            “How so?”

            “I’m testing the physiological effects of solar radiation on a body.”

            Fixing her with a hard stare, Lillian’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Your planet already did that. I believe they came to the conclusion that it caused a disease. What was it your father called it; cancer? Kryptonians can’t develop it, so perhaps you should find a new experiment, hm?”

            “You said you were going to support me,” Lena said, her tone slightly wounded as she frowned at Lillian.

            Sighing, her mother ran a hand over her face, a look of worry in her green eyes as she rounded the kitchen counters and drifted closer to Lena. “I know I did, inah, but … this is too much. Look at you; you’re not taking care of yourself. I’m afraid for you.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “You’re being reckless.”

            “How? I haven’t been injured once.”

            “You need to rest, Lena. Please. Just … less radiation. Leave the city be for a day. It’ll manage without you.”

            Scoffing, Lena turned around, picking her helmet up from where she’d left it on the table, and ran a hand through her braided hair, come slightly undone over the course of the night. “Well, I guess that I won’t be going to the Guild after all then. Perhaps I’ll sleep today.”

            “Lena-”

            She brushed her mother’s warnings aside with a wave of her hand and walked through the apartment, to the empty workshop where her armour was stowed. Peeling off each piece, each layer, she grimaced as her muscles ached and her body slumped with a bone-deep weariness. Even a day of sleep wasn’t going to fix it, Lena thought to herself as she slipped back out into the apartment.

            Her mother and brother had left in the time it had taken her to get undressed, and she didn’t even bother with a shower as she stepped into her bedroom and all but collapsed onto her bed. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was gone. Giving into the relief that sleep brought, Lena let her body relax against the soft mattress and was asleep a heartbeat later, the radiation still coursing through her body as it fixed the damage done to itself, while it also sucked the life out of her at the same time.

            The sun was already setting when she woke again, the blankets twisted around her, sodden with sweat as her body temperature skyrocketed. Her clothes stuck to her skin and her hair was damp at her hairline, plastered to her skin in curling tendrils. Cheeks flushed and eyes feverishly bright, she ran a hand over her face, feeling how hot her skin was beneath her touch, and she slowly eased herself up off the mattress, walking over to the window and pressing her hand against the tinted glass. The sun was barely a sliver on the horizon, the sky crimson and scarlet with wispy orange clouds adding the final touches to the fiery scene outside. Darkness was just beginning to set in, the sky already black high above the city and Lena stood there for a moment, taking in the sight, before making the decision to go out again.

            First, she took a long, cold shower, soothing her burning skin, before she changing into clean, tight clothes and slipped her skintight jumpsuit on over the top. Forgoing her armour, for the time being, she raided the kitchen cupboards and wolfed down anything she didn’t have to cook, hoping to be gone before her mother and brother got home for dinner until the gnawing hole in her stomach was sated for the time being. She’d missed lunch, and with the radiation increasing her metabolism, she knew she should’ve eaten more, but there wasn’t any time.

            Suiting up as quickly as she could, she rode the elevator up to the rooftop and threw herself into the night, arms spread out as air rushed past her and welcomed her into its arms. Feeling weightless, she let herself fall until the thrill started to settle, her stomach finding its home again and her pulse slowing, and she twirled with the air currents, absentmindedly drifting on the breeze as she focused her hearing on the general cacophonous sounds below as everyone made their way back home or out to meet friends.

            After breaking into the Labour Guild and lifting a few sacks of grain from their stores, Lena slipped back out unnoticed, her “borrowing” escapades infrequent and unseen as of yet, and made her way down to the Rankless District, wrinkling her nose behind her helmet at the smell of so many people crammed in together in the alleyways, sleeping in alcoves or stretched out in the gutter, which ran brown with ditchwater, the poorer areas in the Rankless District boasting a large number of starving homeless citizens. They saw her, of course, as she cracked the stone floor with her landing, and a few of the better fed individuals, wearing ragged clothes but with less sallow cheeks and a spark of life in their eyes, rose to their feet, looks of awe on their face as they took in the sight of the thing that had been stirring the city up into a frenzy over the past few weeks.

            Walking through the streets, she soon had a ragtag bunch of people following her, and she led them all the way to one of the soup kitchens, where she tossed one of the bags onto the floor, giving the room of starving people a curt nod, before leaving. Repeating the process until she had run out of bags, she shot back into the sky and circled overhead, weaving between skyscrapers and letting her sharp eyes pick out shadowy forms lurking about in the night.

            It was a quiet night. There were a few scuffles, and Lena let them resolve it on their own, given the fact that they were nothing more than trivial matters, and she spotted prowling Sagitari making the rounds through the city, their black shiny armour like the carapace of some sort of beetle, their helmets flashing occasionally in the darkness as it reflected a light. They still made her uneasy, and she knew that the Warrior Guild and the Voice of Rao were anxious to find her, to find out who she was and how she was able to fly. If it wasn’t for the fact that Fort Rozz was barely holding it together, shored up just enough to stay standing, she suspected that they would lock her up if they caught her. But they hadn’t yet, and whenever she heard the heavy booted footfalls of a squadron rushing towards the spot that a drone had located her in, she was off again in a woosh of air, letting the mystery continue. She wasn’t stupid, despite her unwillingness to put her thoughts of being a hero to bed, and she knew that she wasn’t giving them much of a trail. Drones could only fly so high and see so far, and they would never be able to spot her landing on the rooftop of her home. She was all but a ghost to them.

            By the time the moon was a dull orange circle slowly tracing its way across the sky, a few hours off its zenith, Lena had bored of her aimless flying through the city, and she made her way towards Kara’s building, nothing but a dark blur hiding in the night, before she lithely dropped down onto the thick glass panels. Running across the beams, she made her way towards the walls of the building and settled down, her back against the cool surface while she peered down into the greenhouse diffusing a dull red light from its solar lamps. The sound of someone shifting around inside alerted her to Kara’s presence, as well as the thumping heart beat, and Lena closed her eyes, feeling hot inside the stuffy armour as she let her body go slack.

            Setting herself up for a few hours of mindless daydreaming, keeping watch on Kara, she let her mind wander as she listened to the footsteps below, the soft voice memos and occasional snip of gardening shears, or the sound of earth being tilled. So oblivious to everything else, she didn’t even hear the person approaching until there was a knock on the glass. Starting, Lena looked down through the glass, almost expecting to see a cross looking Kara staring up at the shadowy figure perched on her greenhouse roof, but the knock had come from the edge of the structure. On her feet in an instant, Lena’s whole body went tense. There was a squeak of hinges as one of the large windows overlooking the city was opened.

            “Kal?” Kara’s bewildered voice said.

            “Kara,” her cousin replied, his voice deep and wary. “Quick, let me in. I can’t- I don’t have enough power to maintain this.”

            His voice was strained with the effort, his breathing laboured, and Lena padded quietly across the windowed roof, keeping to the thick beams so that her shadow wouldn’t fall across Kara below. Peering over the edge, she saw Kal-El hovering in mid-air, shaking and wobbling about with obvious strain, and he reached out to grab the edge of the window frame as Kara stepped back. Hauling himself in, he let out a nervous laugh, clearly proud of himself but obviously relieved too as he closed the window.

            “What are you doing here?” Kara hissed.

            “I need your help,” he said, his voice a low rumble, and Lena sank down onto her hands and knees, peering over the edge of the beam she was on to take in the hulking shadow of him hidden amongst the trees and shrubbery. “The device-”

            “No,” Kara firmly said, “no, no, I told you I would only help you once.”

            “I know, but-”

            “I didn’t find anything, Kal! What do you want me to do?” she exasperatedly said, her frustration clear in her voice, even if Lena couldn’t see her face.

            Making a sound of impatience at the back of his throat, Kal-El took a step towards her, and Lena tensed, her whole body coiled to spring as she waited for him to make a threatening move towards Kara.

            “Come with me,” he urgently replied, “I can take you to your parents. You can join us. We have resources for you too; you can study the device further. Help us recreate it. Our parents have been locked up for too long, and I’m no scientist, cousin. But you … you’d be able to figure it out. I know you would. Your father hasn’t been successful with his duplicates yet, but with you helping him … just imagine. And not only the work, but we could all be a family again. A House.”

            “I said no , Kal,” Kara sharply replied, although her voice wavered, and Lena suspected that she doubted herself for a moment.

            If she was being honest, she doubted Kara for a moment too. He was good. Convincing. But much to her relief, Kara had rejected his offer again, and Lena let out a faint sigh as she listened to their exchange from above.

            And then just like she’d been half-expecting, he grabbed her, his hand tight around Kara’s bicep, and he roughly pulled her towards him, towards the window. “But we need-”

            He didn’t get to finish her desperate plea because a moment later, thick shards of glass were raining down on his head. Lena was quicker than the glass though, throwing her cape around Kara to protect her from the sharp shards, before she unceremoniously pushed her into the thick wall of foliage, effectively hiding her from the sight of her cousin.

            Lena caught the punch in her hand as she turned, twisting Kal’s hand in a painful manner before she raised a foot and kicked him squarely in the chest. The air rushed out of his lungs as he was winded, flying backwards and shattering through the window, falling out into the night with a cry of panic. He still only had the one sun lamp, and while that kind of solar energy was stronger for him than it was for Lena, it wasn’t enough to grant him the stable kind of power he needed to use them properly, and with a sour look on her face, Lena threw herself out of the window after him.

            Whatever she was, she wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer, and she couldn’t let him splatter himself across the cobblestones below because he wasn’t irradiated enough to fly. Within a heartbeat, she had him by the front of his black tunic, slowing their descent as the ground rushed up to meet them, and she let him crumple to the ground a moment before her feet found themselves safely on a solid surface once more.

            Standing over him, she scowled from behind her helmet, beads of sweat dripping down into her eyes as she burned up inside her armour, her whole body thrumming with radiation, and Kal-El scrambled backwards as he stared up at her with wide blue eyes. There was an undercurrent of hatred in those eyes, although he was too afraid at that moment to muster it to its full force, and a moment later he was on his feet, shifting uncertainly as he held his hands up in front of him in a fist.

            Dodging his swings with ease, Lena moved in a blur, feet dancing on the cobblestones as she whirled around. Even as she fought though, she found herself swaying slightly, her vision swimming slightly, darkening at the edges as she sweated beneath her layers. The powers granted to her by the sun lamps were superhuman, but her body was painfully human and fragile, and no matter how much radiation she poured into it, with the dials at their maximum settings for her night time explorations, there was only so much energy her body could conjure on its own. After weeks of running it down, she found herself feeling the full effects of what the radiation could do to her.

            Weaving and stumbling, she still managed to pack a punch with enough force to rival Kal-El’s enhanced strength, beating him bloody within a few minutes. Neither of them were trained fighters, and they both relied on brute strength rather than skill, but Lena knew that he was outmatched, even in her current state. But she felt like she was on fire, her whole body burning up as anger pulsated inside her.

            And then she exploded. More so literally than figuratively, with the lenses covering her eyes shattering as two laser beams of blue light cracked them and exploded from her eyes. She caught Kal-El in the chest, leaving a charred, smoking hole in the fabric of his clothes as he was knocked to the ground. He wasn’t badly hurt, but he wouldn’t be getting back up again to fight her. And Lena wouldn’t be getting back up either.

            Eyes still streaming blue light, she collapsed to the ground, her eyes unseeing as she writhed in pain, carving up everything within her sight with the laser beams as she grit her teeth. The radiation had been too much, and her body was rapidly trying to heal itself, even as it burned itself up, using all of the energy she had left to spare. Limbs leaden, body completely drained and head pounding with a headache, the likes of which she’d never experienced, Lena let out a hoarse shout as she squirmed on the ground.

            She was oblivious to the sound of boots pounding on the stone floor, an entire squadron of Sagitari entering the mouth of the street, one of them a familiar brunette, and oblivious to the blonde that rushed out of the front doors of the building Lena had thrown herself out of only minutes before.

            Blinded with pain, her natural instinct taking over as she burned jagged lines into anything in sight, she scrabbled at the cobblestones, leaving furrows in the rock, while blue light radiated from certain points on her body. It wasn’t just the radiation that she’d been poisoning herself with, but also the lamps themselves, having been overused in the past weeks and put to their breaking points. It seemed like they were about to give out at any moment.

            It was hard to miss Lena as she writhed on the floor, looking like a bomb that was about to detonate and take out anything within its vicinity, and after a brief moment of pause, aware of more people spilling out into the streets, Sagitari started to surround her in a wide circle as more forces were called in. Alex was the commander of the squadron and she gave out her orders with military precision, keeping citizens at bay as Lena threatened to bring down the buildings surrounding them. There was the slight problem of stopping her too.

            And then there was Kara, and after the initial shock of seeing Lena on the floor, flinching as memories of seeing a scene much like this only a few weeks ago, Kara threw herself forward. She scuffled with two Sagitari as they refused to let her pass, catching Alex’s attention. As her sister stormed over to them to berate her and the soldiers, Kara used the soldiers’ distracted attention to duck around them and run towards Lena. Her hoarse shouts of pain made Kara wince as she desperately threw herself towards her, dropping hard to her knees beside the crumpled figure without any concerns for her own safety.

            With shaking hands, Kara reached out and pinned her arched body to the floor by her shoulders. Lena was still strong though, even as her strength waned, and Kara struggled to pin her down, feeling heat radiating through the thin metal armour covering Lena’s torso, and she hissed with pain as she pulled back her hands, curling her fingers in over the burnt palms as she looked at her with worry. Beneath all that armour, Lena was burning with a raging fever too, and Kara was terrified that it would consume her.

            In a frenzied panic, Kara closed her eyes as she stared at Lena’s head, blinded by the blue beams of light sputtering on and off as the woman moved around and clamped her hands down hard on the helmet, before she yanked it off in a quick movement, trying to ignore the blistering heat of being so close to the lasers. The one coming from Lena’s right eye grazed her arm slightly and Kara let out a yelp of pain as her skin sizzled, before she tossed the Grecian helmet aside, the metal clanging dully against the stone.

            Her fingers worked fast as she stripped off pieces of armour as fast as she could, a hand that belonged to Alex trying to drag her backwards, which Kara shrugged off until she had Lena laid out practically bare on the cool stones. Her skin hissed slightly and steam curled from her pale, scrawny body, but Kara didn’t stop there, silently asking for Lena’s forgiveness as she ripped out all of the sun lamps that were visible to her.

            One by one, they clattered to the ground beside Kara, until the laser beams winked out of existence as Lena didn’t have any energy left to sustain them, even as she feebly moved and croaked with pain. There were still ones stuck to her back, but Kara was scared to move her. She could accidentally paralyse Lena, or worse, but she’d done what she could. Still, a feeling of dread crept up on Kara as she realised that she’d just essentially handed Lena over to the Sagitari, and she wiped sweat off her forehead with the smoking sleeve of her tunic as she stared down at the sight before her, tears pricking her eyes as she reached out to cup a sallow cheek in her palm.

            Lena’s eyes were closed, but her eyelashes fluttered slightly and a soft moan escaped her parted lips. “Lena,” Kara softly said, her voice breaking on her name, “I’m sorry.”

            The other woman was unresponsive, and Kara was roughly pulled back a moment later, feeling incredibly guilty as she blamed herself for this, watching Sagitari swarm over Lena, blasters aimed at her with deadly precision. A rough hand dragged her backwards, barely giving her the chance to get her feet under her, and Alex all but flung her out of the circle of soldiers with a cold look that let Kara know she would be in trouble later.

            Not as much trouble as Lena though, and Kara swallowed her dread as she watched them hoist a stretcher with the woman’s limp form laid out on it, carrying her onto a small skimmer, which had just landed in the wide street, while every scrap of Lena’s armour and technology was quickly rounded up. The crowd was forced to disperse by the remaining soldiers, and Kara quickly shook herself out of her daze and slipped down the nearest alleyway, suddenly gripped with fear for Lena. She had to get help.

            As fast as she could, she tore through the city, over bridges and down side streets, wearing her gardening clothes, an oilcloth apron covered in dirt still covering her front, and she ignored the stinging pain in her arm and hands as she ran. Cobblestones slapped beneath her booted feet and she was sweating and breathing hard by the time she came to skidding halt outside of the towering building. Scanning herself inside, she rode the elevator up to the penthouse and urgently scanned her left wrist in front of the device beside the door.

            It was taking too long, and she frustratedly banged on the metal door too, a dull thud ringing out with each pounding fist striking it before it flew upwards and she fell into the bleary-eyed figure dressed in nightclothes.

            Lillian caught her with a mild look of surprise on her face before it turned into a look of panic as she read whatever was written on Kara’s face. Clutching at Lillian’s arms that held her upright with shaking hands, Kara gave her a look of utter devastation, her eyes owlishly round and full of panic.

            “It’s Lena.”

Chapter Text

            Harsh red lights painted the inside of her eyelids scarlet, and Lena frowned as her head pounded with a headache, the likes of which she’d never experienced before. It felt like someone was trying to squeeze her head right off her shoulders and she grit her teeth as she lay there on the hard surface. She was aware of her body in the sense that she could feel how heavy she was, weighed down by leaden muscles and an unfamiliar weakness that had seeped into them. It had been weeks since she’d last felt so drained and frail, and only then because she’d torn her sun lamps out in a fit of frustration, trying to prove a point to Kara. Her sun lamps had been burning brightly since then - perhaps a little too bright - and she struggled to find the strength to move or so much as peel her eyelids open. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut even more tightly, praying for darkness to engulf the room so that the red light would stop sending lances of pain through her head from its brightness.

            “She’s awake,” a muffled voice sounded from what felt like miles away, as if her sensitive hearing was listening to someone from far away, perhaps even underwater. Her ears were ringing slightly.

            And then her body, which was already as relaxed as it could be, given the fact that Lena had no control over her limbs, went slack as something cold pumped through her veins. It quickly took the edge off of her pain, although it did very little to restore her strength. For the life of her, she couldn’t quite place where she was. It didn’t feel like her bedroom, and that feminine voice didn’t sound like her mother, but Lena couldn’t imagine having gone anywhere else. Perhaps she’d been at the Science Guild and been struck by a sudden fever and was lying on the floor while Guild members crowded over her. But no, she hadn’t been to the Guild in weeks either.

            Heavy footsteps made her head seem like it was pulsing with each step, setting her teeth on edge as her face contorted with pain. Her eyelids were peeled back and a light shone in each eye, while she hissed with pain and quickly screwed her eyes shut, hiding from the lights. There was a murmured conversation and a moment later the lights above her dimmed slightly. Still, she kept her eyes tightly squeezed shut.

            “Where am I?” Lena hoarsely asked, her throat parched and her eyes gritty. She could taste blood in her mouth and she grimaced as she swallowed thickly, in desperate need of a drink. Her eyes still streamed but she made the effort to try and open her eyes, eyelashes fluttering with the effort, and she could feel the cool touch of metal encircling her wrists.

            “The Warrior Guild,” a cold voice replied.

            It was vaguely familiar and Lena tried to turn her head, the effort taking all of her strength until she reached the point where gravity did the rest and her head lolled to the side. She found herself staring at a brunette with dark eyes and lips pressed into a flat line, wearing a black uniform and standing stiffly with her hands clasped behind her back. There was something very militaristic about the posture, a stark contrast to the silent woman she’d been dining with just a few weeks ago, although they’d barely exchanged a word throughout the dinner. There was something about Alex in her Sagitari uniform that made dread pool in Lena’s stomach as an icy feeling of fear made her skin prickle.

            “Alex.”

            “Commander,” the woman sharply corrected her, a muscle twitching in her jaw.

            “Why am I here?”

            The slow, heavy footsteps did nothing to make her feel calmer, and she swallowed the lump in her throat as she found herself staring at the utility belt wrapped around Alex’s waist as the woman neared the bed and loomed over her. “Why are you here? I think you already know the answer to that, don’t you, Nightwing.”

            A jolt ran through Lena, making her pulse spike and a cold sweat break out on her body. Still, she tried her best to mask her reaction, her body too heavy to even move a muscle. It was her face she had to fight hard to control, and she did her best to keep it a mask of indifference as she scrambled for a memory of something, anything, or at least a defence. The best she could do under the circumstances was feign ignorance.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lena said, her voice cracking as some panic seeped into her words.

            Reaching out, Alex cupped her head in her hands with surprising tenderness and tilted her head back up so that Lena was staring up at the ceiling again, dim red lights casting a crimson glow over everything. It made the room feel more sinister, the brunette’s skin bathed a bloody red and the shadows seeming deeper in the dimness of it. The lights were kinder to Lena’s sensitive eyes though as a headache thrummed dully behind them, making her eyes water as she squinted through the pain.

            “You do,” Alex said, her voice quiet and somewhat sad, although the words were stiff and held a note of anger too. “You dragged Kara into this too.”

            “Kara?”

            “And she was stupid enough to let you. She should’ve just left you there.”

            Frowning, Lena wracked her brain, trying to connect everything together. Whatever they’d given her while she’d been in the Warrior Guild’s possession was making her mind sluggish, and it made her uneasy that she wasn’t even sure what they’d given her. In their custody, they could’ve done anything to her. From what she could see, they hadn’t put her in a cell either, and that was another cause for concern. All of her mother’s fears about being tested on came rushing back to her and Lena was overcome with guilt for managing to end up exactly where Lillian had been afraid she’d end up. And the worst part was that she couldn’t even remember any of it. So far all she had were a few snatches of blinding pain and unbearable heat.

            “What happened?” Lena asked, her voice a thin sigh as she shut her eyes to the light above, feeling nauseous and feverish, the metal table beneath her not even cool enough to keep her body temperature down, although she was sure it was somewhat helping.

            “We picked you up off the streets. You tore up the whole block with those laser beams of yours. Impressive.”

            “Wha- I don’t remember that,” Lena croaked, frowning as she shook her head slightly, wracking her brain for any memories of that happening.

            There was nothing and she felt her panic grow as she poked at the gaping hole in her memory. What had happened? How had she let herself get caught? The last thing she remembered was Kara. She’d been in her greenhouse; Lena remembered the rich, earthy smell of the place, the sprouting ferns and dangling tree branches and trailing vines. And the man that had been there too. Kal-El. She wanted to ask about him, trying to remember if he’d done this to her and handed her over, but she didn’t want to admit that she was there. If she did, it would be all the evidence the Warrior Guild needed to put her before the Voice of Rao and the Council and have them pass judgement on her crimes.

            “Convenient.”

            Squeezing her eyes shut, Lena shook her head and let out a pent up breath, before blinking rapidly and trying to glance around the room to get her bearings. It had dark walls, a slight sheen to them like metal, and the air was mercifully cool on her skin, although not nearly as cold as she would’ve liked. Medical equipment with holographic diagrams and charts were surrounding the table she lay on, and a few metal cabinets held some medical paraphernalia to administer tests and drugs. It was almost like being in a sick bay, albeit a high-security one, possibly for dangerous and injured prisoners that couldn’t be put into a cell or hadn’t been processed to enter Fort Rozz yet. It did little to ease Lena’s worries.

            Her worrying made her think of her mother and brother. Lillian would be out of her mind with worry, and Lena was overcome with guilt as she thought about how her mother would feel. She’d ignored all warnings and leapt straight into trouble, and she had no one to blame but herself, but she knew that Lillian would blame herself too. Her mother had done nothing but try and support her and guide her, and Lena had felt so invincible that she hadn’t even dreamed of being caught. Especially not like this. And Lex, he was headstrong and protective, and she wondered what reckless decisions he’d be making to try and get her out. The love between their family was strong, and she knew that she wouldn’t be alone in this. As guilty as she was, her family would fight to prove her innocence, and with growing shame stinging her cheeks and making her eyes prickle with tears, Lena turned to face Alex again.

            “I’d like to see my mother.”

            “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Alex said, not unkindly, a stern look on her face, even though Lena could see the pity in her eyes. “You don’t have visitation privileges at the moment.”

            Pulling against the restraints, Lena squirmed slightly on the hard table, her joints aching and a faint feeling washing over her as she exerted what little strength she had, exhausting herself and leaving her pale and limp on the table. A slight sheen of sweat pricked her brow and her breathing was laboured.

            “You shouldn’t struggle, the cuffs will chafe,” Alex warned her.

            “Then take them off! I can’t even move,” Lena snapped, her voice growing thick with emotion as she finished, her eyes misting slightly, although she refused to cry.

            No matter how frustrated she grew, Lena was too proud to cry beneath the watchful eyes of a stranger. Her wrists ached and her body was stiff from being cuffed to the table for days on end, her body rigid and tingling with the need to move about. It had been a long time since she’d truly been confined to a bed, and even then she’d been submerged in tepid water with the freedom to move slightly and with the assistance of gravity to gently cradle her body. In the sterile, cold room, she was left on the metal bench, thick bands of metal strapping her down and keeping her immobile. Lena wasn’t even sure she’d be able to move if they removed them anyway, and they didn’t seem to be in any hurry to do so.

            A knock sounded at the door a moment later, while she seethed in silent anger, the thought of being stuck there forever, or worse, making her feel nauseous. She’d been fed, of course, and hydrated, but not at her own hands or of her own volition. Her mother had to feed her for years, and Lena saw no shame in accepting help when she needed it, but when they pumped it into her stomach through a black tube, it wasn’t out of a kindness because she was unable to raise a spoon to her mouth or swallow, but as a dehumanising tactic to keep her nearly paralysed by her restraints.

            While she stoked the burning embers of anger glowing inside her, a blonde had entered the room, and for a moment her heart fluttered with the hope that it was Kara before she caught sight of the woman. The blonde curls were too light in the redness of the room, the height was a few inches too short and the silhouette of the woman was all wrong. Her hopes plummeted even faster than they’d risen and she turned her eyes back up towards the humming red strip light, blinking back the burning feeling in her eyes as her throat closed up with a lump of emotion.

            “This is Eve,” Alex said, her voice intruding on Lena’s thoughts, although she didn’t so much as look at the Sagitari, “she’s going to be administering some tests. It’ll hurt a little.”

            Lena didn’t bother to reply, and there was no change in her demeanour as the blonde approached the table a few minutes later, checking the holographic monitors that tracked every single bodily function, from temperature to pulse, blood pressure to bone density and brain waves. There were a dozen tiny circular discs situated at critical spots on her body, similarly located in the empty spaces that her sun lamps had occupied up until recently. They monitored everything she did, and Lena wished she could pluck them all off, her skin crawling at the tiny charged feeling burrowing its way into her skin at her temples.

            She didn’t so much as react as the woman started to run her tests, remaining as still as ever as she was held in place by her bonds, letting her eyelids close as the insides were painted a deep burgundy in the dimness of the room’s lights. Eve spoke to her gently and Lena realised that she knew her from the Science Guild, just a passing face in the hallways, and figured that she must’ve been brought in purely to study her. The woman’s specialty must’ve been in biology or physiology, and the Warrior Guild would want to know what they were dealing with immediately. For her part, she ignored the woman, although she bore her no ill will.

            That didn’t mean she made it easy for Eve to do her work though. Her eyelids had to gingerly be peeled back so that the woman could test her pupils with a torch, and when she was asked to follow her finger back and forth, Lena kept her eyes firmly closed, for all intents and purposes, looking like she was asleep. She didn’t so much as flinch at the cold pressure against her chest as her lungs and heart were listened to, filling the room with the echoey sound of her breathing and heartbeat with the circular disk projecting it, and she let her arms and legs be poked and prodded with all manner of instruments, double-checking her body composition, muscle and fat ratio and her skin’s durability.

            “This might sting a little,” Eve softly said after a long while, speaking directly to Lena again, after giving up all hope of communication nearly as soon as the tests had started.

            Opening her eyes to narrow slits, Lena took in the sight of a thin, sharp needle being held in Eve’s hands and she tensed slightly, before closing her eyes again. She’d had thousands of needles over the years, her mother administering blood tests from their own apartment, running endless tests on Lena as she worked on her research to help her daughter. The sharp, sudden sting was nothing to her, and she ignored it as the needle was injected into the crook of her elbow. Her real concern was with what they were going to do with her blood. No doubt they’d run every test imaginable, and she wouldn’t be surprised to know that they’d already taken her blood while she was unconscious and done tests then. She wondered what the results had looked like with the lingering vestiges of radiation in her system.

            She felt cool fingers against her arm and a moment later the touch was gone, leaving her stretched out on the cold surface in the black underwear she’d been wearing beneath her suit. Her skin still felt warm, and she was grateful for the coolness of the metal, although it was warm beneath her from where she’d been restrained for hours on end, and she felt herself growing increasingly frustrated at her circumstances. If she could move, just a little, or go outside for some fresh, cold air blowing in from the icy outskirts of the city, she’d feel much better. Her headache was starting to return too.

            “I’m not sure what to tell you,” Eve’s voice softly broke through Lena’s brooding thoughts, and her eyes snapped open as she strained her hearing. “Her physiology … it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. None of the planets we have on record match her DNA.”

            “She’s not human?” Alex asked with confusion.

            “No. She’s not from Daxam either, or Saturn, Khundia, or any of the Earth colonies. She’s not a shapeshifter copying our form. I … I don’t know what to tell you, Commander. I’d think her DNA was like ours if it wasn’t for the genetic anomalies. It’s well known that Lillian Lu-Thor’s husband and adopted daughter both had genetic illnesses, which caused bone weakness and other problems. I think … I’m inclined to believe that it’s true.”

            Lena bit back a smile and squinted up at the dim red light above her as she listened to the spluttered sound that came from Alex. “But … that’s impossible! She was flying . I saw her.”

            “I don’t know what to tell you,” Eve helplessly replied, “perhaps she is Kryptonian. Maybe it’s not superpowers, but just … science.”

            “Can your science do what that Nightwing thing has been doing? Have you developed that technology?”

            “No, but … well, we did brain scans while she was unconscious. Her brain is just as developed as any Kryptonians - another reason that suggests that she’s like us - but, if I’m being honest, there are significant markers and activity in certain areas of her brain that indicate that she’s highly intelligent. She’s a member of the Science Guild; perhaps she developed this technology herself.”

            There was tense silence for a few minutes, and Lena let her eyelids flutter closed again, just in case they were watching her. Everything that Eve had said was nothing new to Lena - her mother had run tests on her, and her father had collected files of information about the genetic differences between her and humans, highlighting how a demigod was different to a normal human, so she wasn’t surprised, but it was interesting to know that she wasn’t so dissimilar to a Kryptonian with the lingering vestiges of radiation making her body seem tougher than it actually was. She’d saturated her body with the energy emitted from the sun lamps, so it was no surprise that it was still lurking inside her, but she had expected the equipment they had her strapped to to reveal that more obviously. Apparently, it just made her body as hardy as a Kryptonians was. But not for long. Another day, perhaps two if she was lucky, and Lena would feel the breathless weight of gravity pressing down on her lungs, making her heart struggle to beat, making her bones crack with hairline fractures whenever she tried to move them.

            The thought of crippling pain seizing hold of her body in an unknown amount of time did little to help Lena relax. It was just another worrying thought to add to her current predicament, and she found herself more worried as she lay there, trying to conjure up a way to get her out of this problem. But there was no foreseeable way for her to solve this problem. If it was an equation or a fault machine, she would be able to suss out the problem and fix it with little effort, but trying to bluff her way through the Warrior Guild’s strict interrogation and the accumulating evidence they no doubt had against her was no small task. They would know if she lied, and they would be ruthless with their sentencing.

            There had been a time where the city had been sheltered inside a dome, when the climate outside the city limits had been even harsher, snow blowing all year round, ice as far as the eye could see, with no fields or herds of grazing Zuurt’s, and criminals and traitors were tossed out into the elements, with no hope of survival. Over the centuries, the climate had settled a little. Now, the snow and ice had receded to the foothills of the mountains and beyond, they had an ocean now, lapping at the nearby shore, and some land for crops and cattle. They didn’t banish people into the wilds anymore, which was a comforting thought but did little to calm Lena down as she thought about being inside Fort Rozz with hardened criminals.

            There was a hushed conversation she couldn’t quite hear before a pair of footsteps sounded across the room, and the quiet hiss of a door opening and closing reached her ears. Only one. She didn’t have to look to know who’d remained.

            “I know you’re still awake,” Alex quietly interrupted her thoughts.

            Peering through half-lidded eyes, Lena watched as the woman approached the bed, her dark hair even more reddish in the dim lights, and her shadow fell slightly across Lena’s face. She had a troubled look on her face, eyes dark and brooding and arms folded over her chest as she frowned slightly down at Lena. It didn’t look like she was angry at her, just confused. Opening her eyes, Lena blinked a few times and flexed her fingers and toes, arching slightly against the bench.

            “You know … I’m just doing my job,” Alex murmured, something akin to regret flickering across her face, “I don’t mean to be so hard. I’ll try and get them to move you to a cell soon. With a bed. And maybe some clothes.”

            “How thoughtful,” Lena whispered, her pale lips twitching slightly as she let her eyes slide closed again.

            “It is you, isn’t it?”

            Eyelashes fluttering open, Lena looked up at her properly and frowned slightly, hoping that her puzzlement was convincing. “No. No, it’s not.”

            Pausing for a moment, Alex gave her a stiff nod, before taking a step back. There was a guilty look on her face as she stared down at Lena as if she thought that perhaps she might be making a mistake, and Lena almost felt bad for lying to her, but she knew that she had to, for her own safety. For Kara’s safety too. She’d gotten her caught up in this as well, although she’d been out of sorts at the time and didn’t even remember her presence, and Lena knew that even though Kara and Alex weren’t as close as she and Lex were, Alex wanted to protect her sister in this too. Although, Lena couldn’t imagine her being for forgiving if Kara was found guilty in aiding her in this. Kryptonians weren’t known for their mercy towards lawbreakers, and Lena didn’t want to imagine what would happen to Kara if she was found out as an accomplice. What little reputation she already had was hanging by a thread as it was.

            “The devices we found. The armour.”

            “I don’t know what that those devices do. They were … given to me. I tested them, and I don’t- I don’t know what it did to me. I can’t remember anything-”

            “And the armour?”

            Shaking her head as much as she could, her vision blurring slightly as a dull pain throbbed behind her eyes, she swallowed thickly. “I don’t remember. I don’t- I can’t even walk. They must’ve just … left me there.”

            “You were in pain.”

            Anger flickered inside Lena and she ground her teeth together, her face ghostly pale and painted red in the light as a muscle twitched in her jaw. “I’m always in pain.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

            “Right. Well … I’ll have questions for you next time. And more tests,” the woman flatly replied, “get some rest.”

            Lena snorted and bit her tongue to stop the sharp retort from falling from her lips. She didn’t really have a choice but to rest. Where was she going to go? It wasn’t like she was going to move very far on her own. It was a surprise that she wasn’t in unbearable pain at the moment, and it’d be a miracle if she suddenly found herself walking around on her own two feet, even if they did unstrap her. Feeling so empty, so drained and utterly exhausted, she couldn’t even bring herself to register the dull pain that gripped her as she lay there, silently praying for sleep to come for her quickly.

            Alex shuffled around in the room for a few more minutes, before nearing Lena’s table again. She gingerly pushed a button on one of the holographic screens, and Lena felt liquid ice race through her veins, taking the edge off her pain as a wispy sigh of relief slipped through her parted lips. Her whole body relaxed again in much the same way as last time, feeling almost impossible for her muscles to go even more slack, considering the fact that she couldn’t even feel her body, for the most part. Still, it felt like she was floating, and she almost smiled at the thought of being back home in her apartment, drifting in a pool of tepid water and drifting in and out of sleep with the gentle sound of lapping water to lull her into a stupor.

            The room couldn’t have been further from her bedroom, although it was just as dark, and filled with similar medical equipment, but despite the differences, and the cold, clinical feeling of the place, and the danger that nagged at the back of her mind, Lena found her mind growing fuzzy as the drugs swept through her. She was out cold before Alex left her side.

Chapter Text

            Time seemed to slip by strangely inside the cold lab, the dim red lights and the windows leaving her in relative darkness, and Lena couldn’t be sure how long they’d left her in there, but she assumed it was a few days at least. As time slipped by, she felt the rest of the radiation fade from her body, the hum of it in her veins vanishing into nothingness as pain inched in, slowly consuming her as she lay strapped to a table. Warrior Guild members came and went, their voices washing over her as her vision blurred and her ears rung, sharp pains interrupted the monotonous, dull pounding of pain at random intervals, and Lena was left alone to dwell in a numbed haze, either due to the darkening pain or the drugs that occasionally swept through her body. The medicine never lingered though, and the pain always came back.

            In brief moments where the drugs deadened the pain, leaving her mind foggy and drifting, she found herself aimlessly wandering through snatches of memories, trying to make sense of things that made no sense to her drug-addled mind. Still, she was aware of Kara, her blue eyes swimming in and out of her mind, cooling her feverish body with the thought of clear water and the damp smell of her cold bedroom. Her thoughts were filled with flowers of all colours and species, of the rich earthy muggy greenhouse that made her skin sweat with the humidity, catching snatches of Kara in between plants as she chased after the thoughts. Lena wasn’t sure if they were dreams or vague memories half of the time, feeling disjointed and slow as she let her mother’s fierce words wash over her as Lex knocked her to her feet again and again, Lillian commanding her to do better, and then her voice turning soft as she bathed Lena’s burning brow with a damp cloth. She saw her father and had thoughts of a woman with snakes for hair, feeling herself growing hot and restless, while voices buzzed annoyingly in the distance.

            She judged it to be early the next time she woke, the place feeling eerily quiet as if she hadn’t been disturbed for a long while, and Lena stared up at the dim lights as she waited for someone to come to her. Her pain was manageable, barely a dull twinge beneath the surface, hinting at drugs, and she was restless, her body twitching slightly as she strained at the cuffs. Her eyes were heavy and her body leaden, and with nothing to do but wait, she let her mind drift off, recalling flashes of pain and a gentle voice, cool hands and earth.

            The door to the windowless room hissed open a while later, and Lena opened her eyes, breathing in the rush of cool air that swept in with a soldier with a Commander’s uniform, head encased in a black beetle helmet, and she blinked slowly. Her eyes itched with tiredness and she couldn’t even muster the energy to care as she prepared herself for whatever they were here to do. Still, she was relieved when the helmet was pulled off to reveal Alex. Not that she had any delusions about the other woman freeing her, but a familiar face was a luxury to her in the midst of all of the unknown, and Alex had been as cordial as she could be, under the circumstances.

            “Good morning.”

            “Morning,” Lena rasped, her voice gravelly with disuse. It took her a moment to clear her throat, her mouth dry and her tongue thick in her mouth. She let out a hesitant laugh. “Would you mind telling me what day it is?”

            “It’s thirty-seven Eorx. Hefralt starts tomorrow.”

            Lena jerked her head in a rough approximation of a nod before her face twisted in a grimace. Alex didn’t catch the spasm, her attention locked on the holograms at Lena’s bedside, reading her vitals off the ghostly bluish screens. Watching her closely, her vision blurring at the edges, Lena watched her pause slightly, her posture stiffening, before she turned her head slightly in Lena’s direction.

            “How’re you feeling?”

            “Fine,” Lena tensely replied.

            “Your vitals are higher than expected.”

            Pressing her lips into a flat line, Lena didn’t deign to reply, gritting her teeth in silence as a headache formed behind her eyes, pounding dully inside her head. She breathed in the faint metallic smell of the boxy room, feeling caged in and trapped, while the Sagitari ignored her for the most part. Alex tried not to look at her, but Lena caught her glancing over at her every so often while she did her job. Eventually, Alex cleared her throat to get her attention, and Lena lazily turned her head to the side, arching an eyebrow as she seemed to look straight through her.

            “You’re being transferred today. The Science Guild medics have deemed you fit enough to be moved to Fort Rozz.”

            “Fort Rozz,” Lena echoed, her voice hollow as fear shot through her, an icy feeling pooling in her stomach as she thought of the prison. “I haven’t had a trial.”

            Alex nodded, her expression solemn and stern as she stood in a soldier’s stance, feet shoulder width apart, arms clasped behind her back with her helmet clutched under her arm. There something akin to regret in that flat look though, her dark eyes flickering slightly as if she disagreed with her orders. Not that she’d ever voice them to Lena, or do anything to jeopardise her command post, but that defiant edge was there nonetheless.

            “No, you haven’t,” Alex replied in a clipped tone, “but you need to be securely held until you’re put on trial. The transport team will be here soon. I find that it’s best not to resist.”

            Lena spluttered, straining slightly against her bonds at the mere thought of being dragged from the bare cell by force. Yet how could she willingly let them take her to a prison full of criminals, to wait until her trial, knowing that there was no way for her to help herself on her own? She had a brilliant mind, but she was no lawyer, and she knew they had more than enough evidence to charge her with, whether her vigilante actions had been well-intentioned or not. More than ever, Lena desperately wanted her mother. Lillian had a habit of making everything feel okay, no matter how sick or upset she’d been, but now she was all alone.

            The silence in the room was deafening as they waited together, neither of them speaking or looking at each other, although Lena had to bite back a dozen questions about Kara. She had no idea if she was okay, or whether her family had gotten to her while Lena had been absent, or if she even missed her.

            It was almost a relief when the door opened and two soldiers walked in, and Lena caught sight of another two in the hallway outside. With a deferential nod towards Alex, one of the soldiers stepped towards Lena, dressed in a spotless uniform with a helmet under her arm. She was a tall woman, stern and pale, her eyes grey and hair platinum, and she gave Lena a frosty look as she thrust out charcoal coloured cloth.

            “Change,” the woman ordered her as Alex did something at Lena’s bedside which released the manacles around her wrists.

            “I can’t,” Lena stiffly replied, her lips barely moving as she lay flat against the table.

            Given the freedom to move didn’t mean that she could move, and she lay limply in the exact same position, her body unresponsive underneath the weight pressing down on her. She drew in shallow breaths as her ribs felt like they were about to give way under the force of gravity, and there was a moment of pause in the room as everyone looked at Lena, waiting for her to do as she was ordered.

            When it became clear that she wasn’t going to move, the defiant look blazing in Lena’s green eyes not helping the situation, the pale woman reached out and grabbed her by the arm, fingernails painfully digging into Lena’s skin, and yanked her off the table. It happened quickly, a quick jerk pulling Lena’s dead weight off the table and crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap.

            The room quickly erupted into action. Lena screamed as pain burst through her body at multiple places, making her see white as her mouth filled with blood as she bit her own tongue, a ragged sob catching in her throat as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her face was ground into the dirt and a heavy boot came down on her back before a jolt wracked her body, electricity buzzing through her body as it seized up. It all happened in a split second, before the distant sound of someone shouting vaguely registered in Lena’s mind as the pressure receded.

            Alex had the pale woman disarmed with her arm behind her back and her shoulder straining against the painful twist, barking orders to the other Sagitari, who flooded into the room, over-crowding it as Lena writhed on the floor. The blonde was escorted out by one of the soldiers, leaving the other three and Alex, who was tense with anger and looking a little grey as she watched Lena bite back screams of pain, her body thrashing on the cold floor just like the time she’d found her in the street.

            Lena was unawares of what was happening in the room, for the most part, but she knew the moment that she was injected with drugs. An icy feeling swept through her veins as her body went slack, taking the edge off her pain as the air rushed out of her lungs in a gentle stream. Her mind turned foggy and she sank gratefully into a numb stupor. She was still conscious, still aware of the pain lurking just beneath the surface, but it was all out of focus for the time being and she couldn’t bring herself to care.

            She was dimly aware of being carefully lifted back onto the table, of gentle hands dressing her in the baggy prison uniform with brusque movements, and then there were more painkillers being injected until she slipped off into unconsciousness.

            A medic from the Science Guild came while she was out cold, strapped to the table again as a precaution, in case she lashed out in her sleep, and multiple scans were run. Her wrist was fractured, broken beneath the weight of her body as she fell to the floor, her ribs cracked, particularly where the woman had ground the heel of her boot into her back, and dark bruises were already blooming on her pallid skin, as well as a circular burn mark on her lower-back from where she’d been tasered. They put thin casts on her, pressurising the breaks, and pumped her full of medication to help her heal quicker. Lena was just starting to stir again when they prepped her for transfer.

            Through half-lidded eyes, she stared up at the dim red lights, vision swimming slightly, as they moved her onto a gurney and wheeled her out of the gloomy room. Strip lights flashed by overhead as heavy boots thudded in unison on the hard floor, and she felt a breeze on her face a short while later, dimly aware of the fact that she was in a hangar. The Sagitari secured her in the small space inside the jet, belting themselves into seats lining the interior walls, and an engine hummed to life, lithely moving through the air as they flew towards the outskirts of the city.

            Fort Rozz was a hulking mass on the edge of Kandor, shored up since Kal-El had helped free his family from the prison, and guarded even tighter now, to ensure that no one else escaped. It had an ominous look about it, and the whole place was foreboding as they approached, making a gentle touchdown on the aircraft helipad on the rooftop. Growing more and more alert as the drugs quickly burned through her system, Lena breathed in the ice cold air blown in from the snow-capped mountains the prison sat in the shadow of, the frigid air burning its way down her hoarse throat, and she thought for a moment, through her drug-addled brain, that it could quite possibly be her last breath of fresh air.

            Whisked away inside before she could snatch another moment of relative freedom, she lay leaden and spent on the gurney as she was led down into the bowels of the building, her spine prickling with the eerie feeling of the place. She sobered up, fighting off the clinging haze of painkillers as she felt fear raise the hairs on her arms, sluggishly looking around, her owlish eyes darting nervously as she took in the bleak, foreign walls emanating misery.

            She was taken into an antechamber for a brief moment, staring up as a drone hovered above her and scanned her before one of the prison guards injected her with a monitoring device behind her ear. Letting out a quiet hiss of pain, she jerked her head roughly to the side as she glowered. It only took a few minutes to process her, and then she was being led back out of the room, an air of resignation about her as she let herself be wheeled further into the belly of the prison.

            And then she heard raised voices. As she was wheeled through winding hallways, past cell blocks and guard rooms, her escorts came upon the tall, haughty figure of her mother in her blue Science Guild robes, looking haggard and angry as she argued with the leader of the Warrior Guild. The rattling of the gurney’s wheels came to a clattering stop as the Sagitari paused for a moment, and Lillian’s eyes landed on them, locking onto the figure strapped to the bed before she rushed towards her daughter. Lena craned her neck slightly, her lips parting as a pitiful, wordless cry slipped past her swollen lips.

            “Mother,” Lena breathlessly gasped, her fingers reaching for Lillian, even as guards wheeled her down the wide, dark hallway.

            “Let me see her,” Lillian demanded, her voice shaky with panic, even though it held her usual commanding air. “I have a right to see her.”

            The guards just ignored her, wheels rattling on the metal grating on the floor, rattling her teeth in her head as a splitting headache made her see red. Lillian’s voice faded behind her, and cold radiated from the dank walls of the prison as she was transferred into a small cell. With more gentleness than she expected, the Sagitari transferred her from the gurney onto the metal cot. The door clanged shut, the dulcet tones of metal grinding into place echoing hollowly in the dank room, and Lena stared up at the ceiling, shivering as cold nth metal seeped through the thin fabric of her charcoal prison uniform. Despite the chill of the bare cell, her forehead burned with a fever, and with nothing else to do, she turned her head to the side and pressed a flushed pink cheek against the cot, closing her eyes with relief.

            She slept for a while and woke often, the sound of shouts echoing through the thick walls, cells banging open and shut, her body aching as the drugs eventually wore off for good. Growing restless, Lena flexed her fingers and stared up at the dark ceiling, the cell nothing but shadows, wishing that she could climb to her feet and pace back and forth. At least that would be something. Instead, she was trapped inside her head, wishing that she was in her room, in the pool of warm water, listening to her brother entertain her with the stories that their father had used to tell them, or explaining his latest project to her. She missed Lex. She missed her mother and Kara too.

            Time moved slowly inside the cell and Lena slept restlessly. The cot grew warm beneath her frail body, offering no comfort as a fever tore through her, and she grimaced with pain as she was left waiting in anticipation for what came next. Surely they couldn’t leave her there forever. But this was Krypton’s justice system, as harsh and unforgiving as it was, and Lena was too stubborn to plead for mercy when she wasn’t a criminal.

            The only time she was interrupted was when a guard brought food to her. It was unceremoniously slid in through a small flap at the bottom of her door before it was bolted shut again and she was left to eat in solitude. Except for the fact that she couldn’t move, and if she tried to push herself off the bed, her legs would snap beneath her before she could take so much as a step. When the guard came back for her empty bowl and tray, unlocking the door and stepping in with an electrified wand at the ready, two guards with laser guns standing outside as a precaution, he found it full. At Fort Rozz they didn’t pander to the prisoners, and if she wouldn’t - couldn’t - eat by herself, it would be fed to her. The broth was stone cold, but that didn’t stop the guard from pressing it to her lips, prying them apart when Lena clamped them shut, and forcing the greasy liquid into her mouth. It spilt down her chin and over her cheeks, and she choked on what little managed to get into her mouth before the guard forced water down her throat too.

            After what she judged to be three days, given the fact that she was fed nine times, the door to her cell was opened to reveal the dim light of the hallway outside, and a gurney was wheeled in. Grimy, covered in spilt food and her hair lank with grease, she was hauled off the cot with a hiss of pain, a quiet snarl curling her lip as she was dumped onto the bed, strapped into place and wheeled out. Four guards escorted her through the prison, the sound of activity behind closed doors following the trip down the hallways until she was led into a small room divided by a crystal wall. She would’ve thought it was a mirror reflecting the door she came in through if it wasn’t for the regal woman with dark hair standing on the other side of the glass, an anxious look on her face.

            Lillian surged forward and pressed her hand against the glass as Lena was wheeled up next to the wall of thick, hard crystal, one of the guards propping the top of the gurney up so she was sitting at a gentle incline before she was left alone with her mother. The sound of the lock grating in the door was loud behind her, and she was left strapped to the bed, but Lena was weak with relief at the fact that her mother was there. Tears pricked her eyes as she struggled against the bonds, wishing desperately that she could be wrapped in Lillian’s loving embrace, or even place her hand flat against the glassy wall, where her mother’s rested. Her lip trembled as she choked back a sob.

            “I’m sorry,” Lena said, hot tears spilling down her cheeks as her voice cracked.

            “Oh, my darling,” Lillian heavily sighed, her shoulders slumping as she looked at her daughter with glassy eyes, holding back her own tears, “are you okay? Have they been mistreating you?”

            Shrugging slightly, Lena closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. “They’ve left me alone for the most part.”

            “You look sick,” Lillian said, her voice fraught with panic as her eyes roamed Lena’s face. Her cheeks were sallow, her eyes sunken and there was a general air of uncleanliness about her as she lay in the same clothes she’d been changed into at the Warrior Guild.

            “I want to go home.”

            “I’m going to get you out.”

            Her mother’s voice was firm, a stubborn tilt to her chin, and a sob caught in Lena’s throat as guilt welled up inside her. Shaking her head, she sniffed, her lips twitching up into the ghost of a smile. “I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you. I was reckless and foolish. I thought myself invisible - a God.”

            “You’re half a God. Your hubris is your downfall,” Lillian told her with a wry smile.

            She pressed her hand up against the glass more firmly, an urgency gripping her voice as she gave Lena a determined look. “Look, Lena, we don’t have much time. I’m going to get you out of here, but you need to promise me you won’t do anything foolish. No more lamps and suits. No more powers. I need you to promise me.”

            “Wha- no! I have to help this planet,” Lena frowned.

            “Lena.”

            “Mother, I-”

            “Listen to me, inah, it’s the only way. They don’t know what you are yet, but they will soon find out. You can’t resist them forever, and the Guilds will not let you out if they think that you’re a risk.”

            Scoffing, Lena grit her teeth as she thumped her head back against the cushioned mattress of the gurney, anger burning slowly beneath the surface. “They won’t let me out at all,” she said with bitterness.

            “They will,” Lillian said softly, a sad look on her face as she smiled, “I must go now, inah. I love you.”

            “I love you too, ieiu,” Lena softly sighed, her heart weighing heavily in her chest as she looked to her mother once more.

            With a last lingering look, Lillian nodded before she turned around and rapped on the metal door, stepping out of the room and leaving the guards to fetch Lena in return.

            She was silent and brooding the whole way back to her cell - not that she ever said much anyway - and couldn’t even bring herself to wince as she was dropped back onto the cot unceremoniously, too consumed by her misery and self-pity to care about the physical pain that flared up. Her heart hurt more than a few new bruises.

            The day dragged on in its inching crawl, bringing another meal and a bucket of water doused over her as she spluttered and gasped on the metal bed, flopping around like a dying fish, leaving her damp and in a foul mood as she thought of her family. She wondered what strings her mother was pulling to try and order her release, knowing that for something as critical as this she’d have to go straight to the Voice of Rao, and she was sullen in her loneliness as she waited patiently, biding her time for when she’d bring true justice down on the planet. Their society was corrupt and rife with mistreatment, and Lena vowed to fix the system. There were a lot of things on Krypton that needed fixing. No matter what promises she made her mother, she would see all the wrongdoings put right, no matter how long she had to waste away in prison.

            As it was, Lena didn’t waste away for too long. Guards fetched her the next morning, ignoring her questions as she was wheeled back through the prison and turned over into the custody of a solemn-looking woman, who removed the device behind her ear with a quick procedure and briskly changed her into a pair of plain black clothes. With a spark of excitement and overwhelming relief, Lena came to the conclusion that she was being let out. She could hardly bite back her smile as a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over her and her tense muscles unwound for the first time in days.

            When they took her out to the lobby, she spotted her brother waiting for her with her wheelchair, and she couldn’t help but smile brightly at him as he came to her, wrapping her in a gentle hug and lifting her off the bed in one quick movement. Nestled on her wheelchair, covered with a soft blanket, Lena looked up at him with comfort shining in her eyes, giving his hand a feeble squeeze, taking in the purple circles beneath his eyes and the dishevelled appearance.

            “Where’s mother?” she asked, eagerly glancing around for Lillian, assuming that she was finalising her release.

            Lex gave her a grave look as he sank to a crouch in front of her, tenderly cradling her pale, thin hands in his own, his green eyes brimming with accusation and worry. “She turned herself in.”

Chapter Text

            Lena fought Lex the whole way back to their apartment, her brother’s face cold and hard as he pushed her wheelchair through the city, despite Lena’s best efforts to stop the chair from moving. She refused to leave her mother there. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was exhausted, in pain and unable to muster enough energy to climb from her wheelchair, she would’ve stayed at the prison and turned herself in. Instead, she was carted away by her brother, her cries of protest falling on deaf ears as she tried not to cry, her voice cracking embarrassingly as Lex ignored her.

            Back at their apartment, her brother wheeled her inside the door and let go, walking around her and moving towards the kitchen, where he poured himself a drink and downed it in one gulp, crystal firmly slamming down on the counter as he ran a hand over his shaved head. He wasn’t even looking at her, and Lena felt a hollowness inside as the urge to cry crept up on her.

            “What’s the plan?” she asked, her voice hoarse and thick with emotion.

            “You don’t do anything stupid,” Lex bluntly replied.

            Making a choked sound of surprise, blinking back the stinging feeling in her eyes at the stiff iciness of her brother’s voice, which was always so gentle and patient with her, Lena opened and closed her mouth, giving him a pleading, apologetic look. “How are we going to get her out?”

            Sighing, Lex closed his eyes for a moment, before he walked back towards her, grabbing hold of the arms of the wheelchair as he crouched slightly in front of her, bringing them nearly eye to eye. “There is no getting her out, Lena. She told you time and time again to be careful, and you got caught. Now she’s paying for your mistakes.”

            Spluttering, Lena blanched as she stared right back at him, her stomach dropping as nausea welled up inside. “No. No, no, you can’t just leave her there. We have to free her.”

            “There is no freeing her! Do you understand that? She turned herself in and said she tested on you, and you were her mindless puppet. She’s going to swear to that in front of the Voice of Rao and the Council. If we’re lucky , we’ll get to keep our House name and our Guild positions. And if she’s lucky … well, they’ll keep her in Fort Rozz.”

            “But-”

            “She did this for you, okay? Don’t do anything foolish to mess it up.”

            He straightened up and grabbed the back of her wheelchair, pushing her all the way to her bedroom, while she sat there slumped in defeat, her bottom lip trembling as she blinked back tears that always seemed to spill over anyway. Lex wasn’t being cruel, just honest, but it hurt Lena to be on the end of that cold indifference, to listen to how easily he was going to roll over and submit to Krypton’s law, while their mother rotted away in prison. Lillian was one of the brightest minds on the planet, too smart to waste away in a cell, and besides that, she was their mother, and she was innocent.

            With surprising gentleness, her brother lifted her from the chair and held her carefully in his arms, although it made little difference to Lena as she let out a quiet hiss of pain and her face contorted in a look of agony before he lowered her into the pool of water in her room. The smell of the water as if cradled her in its tepid arms felt so much like home that Lena burst into tears as her clothes soaked through and her dark hair fanned out around her in silky strands beneath the crystal water. Securing her in place with cool, deft fingers, Lex murmured soothing things in a quiet voice as he slipped needles into place, applied monitors and then injected her with enough drugs to knock her out within moments. It was strong stuff, stronger than they’d given her at the Warrior Guild, because Lillian had made it especially for her, and her head was swimming within moments, a wispy sigh of release slipping through her parted lips.

            It was dark and she was alone when she came to again, her body floating in the water as she stared up at the dark ceiling. Consumed with guilt, she felt a lump form in her throat and couldn’t stand to be awake. All she could think about was her mother and how it was her fault and how Lex had already given up before they’d even tried. She couldn’t feel her body, feeling disconnected and numb, but she could feel the pain in her heart, the tight feeling that made it hard to breathe as she drew in ragged breaths of damp air and forced herself to stay calm.

            She ended up calling for the droid in a rasping voice, sending it off through the apartment to find some liquor. It came back a few minutes later with a bottle of neon green liquid and crystal glass. Lena had never tried alcohol before, with Lillian unsure of how it would affect her body, but she was reckless and angry and she drank until the bottle was empty, barely able to bring her trembling hand to her mouth with each glassful the droid filled for her. It sloshed everywhere, spilling down her cheeks and chin, coughed back up as it burned her throat, but Lena forced down as much of it as she could, until her head was swimming and she was placidly floating in her pool, eyes glassy and body burning with a raging fire pooling in her stomach.

            It hurt to live with the guilt of her actions, so she drank herself into a stupor and came to three days later. That was three days her mother had lost to Fort Rozz, and as she blearily opened her puffy eyes, hissing at the blue lights overhead, she felt even worse for wasting her time getting drunk when she should’ve been trying to free Lillian. Blinking slowly as she came to, her body stiff and cold and a nauseous feeling making her stomach turn, she grimaced at the sour taste in her mouth and stared at the blurry shadow sitting beside the pool.

            “I don’t need a babysitter,” she tiredly slurred, her eyes listlessly closing again as she let out a faint sigh, a shiver running through her body as she found herself cold in the water.

            “Your brother thought otherwise,” a familiar voice murmured in reply.

            Struggling to open her eyes, a jolt ran through Lena and she craned her neck as far as she could in the restraining headrest, a small part of her feeling claustrophobic as she thought about how she’d been shackled at the Warrior Guild. But it was Kara’s voice and she pushed the momentary panic aside as she stared at the unfocused silhouette and tried to focus her swimming vision. Some of the tension in her chest eased slightly as she made out the telltale blonde curls and serious blue eyes of her friend, Kara’s posture stiff as if she’d been sitting there awhile. Lena couldn’t help but crack a smile, her eyes creasing at the corners as she flexed her fingers slightly, reaching helplessly as she rippled the water.

            “Kara.”

            “You’ve been unconscious for three days. Lex pumped your stomach but you were already drunk enough to not even realise. Your vitals are steady though, and your scrapes and bruises are healing nicely,” she replied in a methodical way, rattling off a list of her observations as she remained seated a few feet away. “How do you feel?”

            Tears sprang to Lena’s eyes and she turned her attention back to the ceiling, realising that her relief was one-sided. “Fine.”

            “Lena,” Kara sighed heavily.

            Closing her eyes, Lena swallowed thickly. “Where’s my brother?”

            “He’s gone to plead for you to keep all of this. Your home, House and Guild. I don’t think your mother’s crime is as bad as what my family did, and I was allowed to keep my House, and they still let me into the Science Guild, so you might even be able to keep all three.”

            “My crime,” Lena said, her voice cracking slightly.

            “You can’t blame yourself.”

            Lena grit her teeth as she tried to rein in her anger, her lips pressed into a hard line as she floated silently for a few moments, the water cold around her as she suppressed a shiver. Letting out a pent up breath, her eyes snapped open and she shook her head as she swallowed thickly. “This isn’t like you and your family. I did this. Me . And she’s trying to protect me-”

            Kara suddenly rose from the chair she rigidly sat on, on her feet in a fluid motion, before she swiftly crossed the space between them and dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor, her expression softening with sadness as she stared down at Lena, her arm resting on the edge of the pool. With a hesitant look, she slowly reached out and brushed wet strands of hair back off Lena’s forehead, her fingers warm and gentle. Lena’s bottom lip trembled with the cold and the urge to cry and her teeth quietly chattered as she looked up at Kara with wide, sad eyes.

            “Your mother loves you,” Kara softly told her, “she wants to protect you.”

            “But it’s my fault,” Lena said, her voice cracking as her eyes welled up with tears, “I shouldn’t have- I should’ve stayed away. I should’ve listened- I wasn’t thinking straight. The radiation …”

            “I know, I know. I tried to warn you too.”

            A spasm twisted her face and Lena had to avert her eyes, too ashamed to face Kara. “You said you wouldn’t be here when I got myself into trouble.”

            Kara let out a quiet laugh, “I know, but … it’s my fault. I took the lamps off you. I stood there and let them take you into custody. And then I ran all the way to your mother and told her that you were in trouble. And I helped her turn herself in.”

            Eyes snapping towards Kara, Lena gave her a wide-eyed look of betrayal, her lips parted as she felt a deep stab in her heart as Kara told her the truth with grim resignation, filling in the holes in Lena’s spotty memory from that night she’d been captured. It blindsided her, and she couldn’t do anything except gape wordlessly at the blonde woman, taking in the shame and guilt deep in those blue eyes, and knowing in her heart that Kara was telling her the truth. She’d helped hand both her and Lillian over to the Warrior Guild, and whether she meant it maliciously or not, Lena couldn’t help but feel like she’d been deceived. Kara had been her only friend, the only person outside of her family that she had, and she’d torn the sun lamps off of Lena’s skin and let her be taken in, only to make the agony even worse by letting her mother take her place.

            “Just wait a moment,” Kara pleaded as realisation dawned on Lena’s face and she made a strangled sound at the back of her throat, unable to quite make her voice heard, “let me explain-”

            “I want you … to go.”

            “Lena-”

            Shaking her head, Lena fought back tears as she felt her heart break. “No.”

            “I’m going to make it right,” Kara urgently insisted, her warm fingers plunging into the water to envelop Lena’s motionless hand in her own, giving it a gentle squeeze in what was supposed to be a reassuring manner. “I know that I made a mistake, but I … I did it to save you. You were- you were dying. I had to. I’m sorry. But … I’ll fix it, I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong; I’ll make them see that. I have a plan. You’ll see.”

            Her words had an ominous sound to them, and Lena found herself meeting Kara’s determined blue eyes as she rose to her feet, looming over the tub as she stood there in a blue tunic, her face grave and full of regret. Straining her weak body, Lena tried to push herself up slightly, worry making her skin crawl as her mind turned Kara’s words over and found nothing hopeful or inspiring in them, and she made a speechless croak in protest as Kara stepped away from the pool of water.

            “Kara, no, you-”

            “It’ll all be okay. I’m going to fix this.”

            Her mouth was a flat line, her shoulders set with purpose and Kara gave her a quick nod before she turned on her heel and strode out with a single-minded aim that left dread pooling in Lena’s stomach as she was left floundering uselessly in the water. Never had she wished to have her sun lamps more than at that moment. She could’ve stopped Kara from doing something stupid on her behalf, trying to fix what was ultimately Lena’s mistake, and she could’ve torn the prison apart with her bare hands and whisked her mother away from the clutches of the cold cell and careless guards. And she wouldn’t have been stuck in a pool of cold water, shivering and soaking wet, unable to move and covered in bruises and scrapes. But she was, and her body was so drained from how she’d pushed herself to her body’s limits, even enhanced with radiation, that she couldn’t even bring herself to muster the effort to call after Kara.

            Tired and sick, Lena fell limply still, her teeth chattering loudly in her skull as her skin rippled with goosebumps and she was left alone with the sound of lapping water and the quiet hum of machinery. Still feeling half drunk and full of drugs, it wasn’t long before she unwillingly drifted off to sleep again, feeling drained and irritated and completely helpless as she waited for someone to come to her. She hoped it would be Kara, safe from doing anything stupid, but she knew in her heart that it would be Lex.

            The next time she woke, it was too heavy blankets and a soft mattress, her body feeling heavy as she lay motionless and incapacitated, her breaths shallow as she felt the force of gravity press down on her chest. She was in her bed, tucked away in the corner amidst a pile of furs and quilts, feeling gratefully warm now that she was out of the cold water, and she relished the feeling of her soft, silky hair sprawled around her and her dry, clean clothes. Feeling more refreshed than she had in a long time, she looked around her room, taking in the sealed window, giving her no clue as to what time it was, the medical paraphernalia strewn around the place from where her brother had been taking care of her, making a lump form in Lena’s throat, and the single purple flower with wide petals and a sweet smell emanating from it, sitting on the nightstand just out of Lena’s reach. She didn’t have to ask to know who it was from.

            “Droid, alert Lex to my consciousness.”

            The little robot that had been on standby in the corner suddenly lit up as it was given orders, and Lena waited patiently for it to contact Lex via its communication device, and for her brother to arrive. It wasn’t long, and she was weak with relief at the sight of him, looking healthy aside from dark circles under his eyes from a sleepless night and a shadow of stubble covering his jaw, making him looked unkempt. He quickly crossed over to her bedside and jostled the mattress as he sat down on the edge.

            “You’re awake. Good,” he murmured, reaching out to touch her forehead with the back of an oil-stained hand. “Your temperature’s been all over the place. I had to put you in cold water to bring it down, and then I came home to find you halfway to hypothermic. Kara said she would stay with you, but she was nowhere to be found. Serves me right for trusting an El, I suppose.”

            He grumbled the entire time he reached for the drawer in the nightstand, withdrew a needle with a capsule attached, and gently pressed the sharp point against the back of her hand, sending a coolness seeping through her bloodstream. Lena subconsciously relaxed, her whole body seeming to deflate slightly. Her brother held her hand carefully in his own, his thumb tracing the curve of her wrist, just below the chaffed marks from the manacles. They were mere grazes now, and she realised he must’ve been applying a salve to all of her wounds to heal her quicker. She felt very undeserving of his care and she gave him a look of despair.

            “I’m sorry, Lex.”

            “Shh, it’ll all be okay. We have each other. I’ll take care of you now.”

            Shaking her head slowly, tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and Lena let out a shuddering breath. “But-”

            His look was annoyingly condescending as he patted the back of her hand, trying to placate her. Climbing to his feet, he gave her a bright smile. “Don’t worry yourself, sister. I made stew, or at least I tried. Let me fetch you a bowl to keep your strength up. They let you waste away in that place.”

            “Kara’s about to do something very stupid or very successful to fix this. Possibly both.”

            Having already taken a few steps towards the door, Lex came to a stop, his back going straight before he turned slowly to face her. There was a wary look in his green eyes, and he was quiet for a moment as they looked at each other, Lena feeling a little woozy and her brother looking appropriately worried, although Lena had the feeling that he was worried more for the blowback on them from anything Kara might do, rather than actually being worried about Kara.

            “What did she tell you?” he sharply asked.

            “Just that she was going to fix it.”

            “What does that-”

            There was a faint tremor and the sound of something exploding and both of them fell still and silent, eyes locked onto each other’s as they waited. And then Lex moved, bringing up the holographic screen on his comms device and quickly scrolling through different feeds and channels. It was Krypton, which meant that it would be mere moments before what had happened would be broadcast to the city, on large screens outside, on every news feed, on everyone’s lips, and Lena was tense in bed as her heart raced in her chest. She silently prayed to Rao and all the other Gods that Kara was safe, that she hadn’t just made the situation a thousand times worse, and she could barely bring herself to breathe as she watched her brother’s eyes flash back and forth across the tiny screen. And then the blood drained from his face, leaving him looking ghostly pale as he glanced up at her.

            “Someone broke into the prison again.”

            “Mom. No, Kara wouldn’t. She wouldn’t break into Fort Rozz to free her. She's not delusional, or a criminal. Kara wouldn't do something like that, not even for me.”

            She watched as the muscles in Lex’s jaw jumped as he looked back down at the screen, scanning for updates, his eyes blazing as he stared intently at the hologram. “No. No, it wasn’t her.”

            “How do you know?”

            Lena stared at the hologram her brother projected into the middle of the room, the figure of a woman wearing a guard uniform and holding a blaster filling the space between them, and she felt her mouth go dry as she took in the hard lines of the face, the familiar shaped eyes and curve of her lips of the woman that had been caught on camera exiting the prison.

            “Because it was her mother.”

Chapter Text

            It hadn’t taken as long as Kara had thought to orchestrate Lillian’s escape from prison. With the right word reaching her cousin, Kal-El had come to her, and from there, she’d convinced him to take her to see her parents. It was something she’d been dreading since word of their escape from Fort Rozz had reached her, but it was inevitable, in a sense, and there was no better reason to confront them than to help Lena.

            Still, Kara hadn’t quite been ready to see her parents face to face. Her cousin had taken her on a long, harrowing trip through the tunnels beneath the city, out to the reaches of the foothills where the cold seemed to burrow its way down into her bones, and she’d been numb and shivering as she laid eyes on her mother and father for the first time in over a decade. And then there had been her aunts and uncles on both sides, all of them a united front for what they deemed best for Krypton’s future, with their fanatical dreams and insane plans. Yet Kara kept her opinions to herself as she let herself be embraced, welcomed back into the folds of the family, everyone smiling with pride as they assumed that she had come to join their cause.

            And she’d let them think it too. After speaking with her parents, tears filling her eyes as her heart ached with a love for them that had never gone away, a small part of her wanting to give in and actually join them, she’d spoken at length about the device that Lena had made, spinning the story that Lillian had been the one to create the sun lamp instead. Kal-El still had his one, and he guarded it jealously while others worked hard to duplicate it with the scans they’d taken. It was all too easy to plant the seed for them to break Lillian out of Fort Rozz, to take her into the tunnels as a prisoner for the purpose of carrying out Kara’s plan. They’d all been proud of her cunningness, her ambition, and she’d be lying if she said it hadn’t felt good to have someone praise her for her intelligence. For too long she’d stamped it down, working with her plants, which she did enjoy, and find rewarding in its own way, but here were people who wanted her to release her full potential. With her family, she’d be able to restructure Krypton’s society.

            But they wanted to collapse it first, and Kara couldn’t be a part of that. So she played her game, for three days after they broke Lillian out of prison. She snuck into the tunnels, hacked their systems and spent the long hours of the night at her room in the Vers household tinkering away at secret projects, pretending that everything was fine when her adoptive family commented on the circles ringing her eyes and her slipping attendance at the Science Guild. She didn’t speak to Lena in that time - didn’t even dare to - and her heart ached for her like it had been for weeks, as Kara silently repeated her promise to herself. She’d free Lillian, and she’d make this right again.

            All it took was slipping into the tunnels and following the course she’d taken a few times already, her family’s trust so brazenly given as they were too arrogant to even think that their own blood would ever betray them.

            As she slipped down a narrow hallway, Kara tugged her hood down lower, her shoulders stopped to make her seem smaller as she walked through the dingy rocky hallways. It was cold, the air frigid, and her breath plumed before her in frantic bursts as her heart raced in her chest. Yet she was calm and walked at a casual pace, following the map she’d memorised. At a fork, she pulled out a cylinder that fit in her hand, wires twisting around the scraps of metal she’d hurriedly put together with nothing more than a bit of welding and a prayer to the Gods, and she pushed down on the pin at the top, closing her eyes and smiling as she heard the almost inaudible sounds of electricals frying. The EMP took out everything within a dozen feet, killing the cameras and the electronics on the doorway just around the corner of the left fork.

            With a little more confidence in her step, Kara pulled out a screwdriver as she neared the sealed door, and pried open the panel of the scanner set into the doorframe. With a manual override, she easily slid open the unpressurised door, carefully sliding the loose panels of metal back closed and turning to face the figure slumped in the metal chair. She winced as she took in the faint shadows on Lillian’s face, greenish bruises rising beneath her eyes and on her jaw. Looking a little tired and a bit battered and bruised, she was otherwise fine, and she raised her head to glare at Kara, her hatred quickly turning to recognition.

            Tossing her head back, dark, tangled hair straggling around her face, she fixed Kara with an unsettling stare. She almost looked sad and there was a bitter look of acceptance on her face as she came to the conclusion that Kara had been manipulating Lena the entire time.

            “You foolish child, what’ve you done?” Lillian asked, her voice hoarse and face stiff with anger.

            Her green eyes blazed with a stubborn light that Kara had come to associate with Lena, and it made her resolve waver for a second to see the disgust so clearly etched in the curl of the older woman’s lips. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Kara ducked her head down as two spots of colour appeared high on her cheekbones, shame washing over her for allowing herself to even appear to be on her family’s side, and anger at Lillian that she would so readily doubt the person who had saved her daughter for her. It might have been Kara’s fault that Lena had been arrested, but if she hadn’t torn out her sun lamps, Lena would’ve been consumed by the radiation, or shot dead by the Sagitari. Even though she’d sworn that she wouldn’t be there to help Lena when her precarious lifestyle came crashing down on her, Kara couldn’t help herself. She didn’t regret her actions at all, but it had by no means all gone smoothly or to plan.

            “My daughter believed in you,” Lillian continued through gritted teeth, “she trusted you against everyone else’s obviously better judgement. Well … I guess you’ve shown your true colours now, Kara Zor-El.”

            Scoffing, Kara pressed her lips into a thin line, her shoulders taut as she quickly crossed the bare cavern and dropped down to her knees beside the chair that Lillian was restrained in. “My true colours are grey, Councilwoman. I do what’s necessary for a better outcome. The way I saw it, you could rot in Fort Rozz, or I could ask a favour of my family in order to free you for a crime you didn’t commit.”

            “It’s not a favour if you have to pay for it, and I’m sure even your own family wouldn’t give you something for free. What was the price?”

            “I’m not the one paying it,” Kara curtly replied, a small screwdriver working at the screen in the arm of the chair.

            She popped it off to reveal a mass of wires, a look of intense concentration on her face as she rummaged through them with deft fingers, until she plucked a yellow one and a blue one, giving them both a quick snip with a pair of cutters she fished out of the folds of her cloak, and then attached a circular device to the glitching screen, which went black and then rebooted with a small whine. A flicker of white Kryptonian glyphs flickered across the screen before it beeped and the manacles all released.

            Eyes widening slightly in surprise, Lillian rubbed at her chafed wrists as she watched Kara peel off the magnetic circular device and clutch it tightly in her palm. “How did you manage that?”

            “I cut the wires for the fail-safe mechanical locking system in case of a power outage, and then rebooted the system with a password override. I programmed the code myself,” Kara brusquely replied. “Do you need help walking?”

            Stiffly pushing herself to her feet, Lillian quietly groaned and waved off Kara’s help as the blonde moved towards her. Producing a patched and frayed grey cloak, Kara tossed it around Lillian’s shoulders, watching the woman’s lip curl with distaste at the stains and the musty odour, but she pulled the hood up over her brown hair nonetheless, standing tall and regal in her rags, and looked to Kara for instruction.

            “We don’t have much time,” Kara softly warned her, a flicker of panic in the depths of her blue eyes, and she walked over to the chair, climbing up onto the worn leather seat and reaching up for the grate set up into the rocky ceiling.

            It was a vent installed to let in a stream of warm air, chasing away the chill the seeped from the damp stone, and she strained against the heavy metal, shifting it up and to the side with a loud grating sound. Looking down at Lillian’s ashen face, Kara gave her a grave look.

            “I stole the blueprints of the ventilation system and the tunnels from the comms of an ex-Labor Guild member that my parents enlisted. We should be able to make it as far as a scrap warehouse on the outskirts of the city. We’ll have to go the rest of the way through the city.”

            “We’ll be spotted the moment we go above the Rankless District. Possibly even down there. The place is crawling with drones and eyes.”

            Kara gave her a wry smile, “I know. I have a plan.”

            “A plan? Forgive me, but what does a glorified gardener know about evading law enforcement and hacking?”

            “I’m a glorified gardener to the public, Councilwoman. If the Science Guild got so much as a whiff of my real capabilities, I would’ve joined my parents in a cell a long time ago. Now, I can walk you through the entire process of creating an EMP and breaking and entering into my parents’ fortified prison, or we could get out of here before we’re caught. It’s entirely up to you, but I don’t imagine my family would take too lightly to being manipulated by one of their own, and I’d rather not have to break myself out of a prison too.”

            Without further comment, Kara awkwardly hauled herself up into the air shaft, warm air gusting through the stone tunnel as she struggled to find the upper body strength to pull herself all of the way up. And then suddenly her body weight was alleviated, and she glanced down as arms tightly encircled her legs and pushed her up. A pair of fiercely burning green eyes peered up at her from inside the depths of a grey hood, and Lillian gave her a stiff nod.

            “I’m not a Councilwoman anymore, you don’t have to call me that.”

            “No? Should I call you Fugitive Lu-Thor?”

            Snorting, Lillian pushed her the rest of the way up and Kara squirmed on her stomach, her legs slipping in through the square hole before she wriggled around in the tight space and peered down at the pale face looking up at her. Reaching a hand through the hole, Kara braced herself with the other and clasped hands with Lillian, muscles straining and sweat starting to dampen the back of her neck and lower back as she heaved. It was a lot of heaving and panting, quiet cursing and shifting around in the small space, before Lillian’s hooded head emerged into the stuffy vent, followed by the rest of her, and the two of them sat there for a moment, their breaths close in the confined space.

            With a wary look in her eyes, Lillian gave her a nod. “You may call me Lillian.”

            Giving her a rueful smile and nodded, before twisting around in the narrow space, shifting the heavy grate back into place and crawling along the tunnel on all fours. Her head brushed the ceiling and her bare hands rubbed against the rough stone. Lillian followed after her, her breathing ragged, and the two of them moved along in tense silence, waiting to hear a shout of alarm from behind them or a warning alarm to sound.

            With each turn in the ventilation system, Kara began to feel more confident, although her discomfort grew with the sweltering heat of being locked inside the air shaft, hot air blowing in her face as sweat beaded on her forehead. Her hands were scraped and bleeding, she’d worn the knees of her pants through already, and her muscles were bunched up and painfully tight as she crawled forward. Surprisingly, Lillian kept pace with her dogged crawl through the shafts, never complaining even though she was battered and bruised, to begin with, and Kara couldn’t help but respect her. She hoped the same opinion would be afforded to her once they were free.

            Eventually, she came to the vent she’d calculated as a safe spot to climb out of the cramped vent, and she dragged the grate off the square hole as quietly as she could, each rasp of metal setting her teeth on edge. Poking her head through the hole, she looked at the world upside down, blonde hair falling towards the floor, before quickly pulling herself back through, shifting until her feet were dangling through it, and dropped down to the floor. Her knees jarred painfully at the impact with the stone, and she winced as she loosened her stiff joints and aching muscles, watching as Lillian lithely dropped down and quietly cursed as she stumbled.

            Padding quietly through the roughly-hewn passageways, they listened for echoes of footsteps, faint voices drifting towards them, or other sounds, but it was eerily quiet. Water dripped down the walls, small animals scurried through the dark, and Kara blindly led them through the tunnels, her fingertips running along the wall as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. After the stuffy heat of the vents, the tunnels reaching out towards the frozen mountains were cold, and Kara huddled in her cloak to keep herself warm as she scurried through the labyrinth, trying to visualise the way out.

            In the past, the tunnels had originated beneath Kandor, used as the secret base for Black Zero, and since then, it had spread outwards, towards the foothills of the mountains, while the organisation had festered in the shadows and sewers of the city. Its name had stayed the same, but it's leader’s had changed, and pioneered by Alura Zor-El and her family, it had aimed to take control of Krypton, to turn everyone into mindless citizens, a uniform equality with no Ranks and systems, and Kara’s stomach lurched at the thought of how far her parents were willing to go to gain control of the planet’s government. They wouldn’t idly stand by and let their daughter ruin their plans for the sake of blood and family honour. But she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she let them take Lena’s mother, who had given herself up for the daughter that Kara had helped them take into custody. She felt that responsibility keenly fall onto her shoulders.

            “Why are you doing this?” Lillian quietly asked after what felt like miles of trudging through the damp cold, feet dragging as they walked through tunnel after tunnel, exhaustion slowing them down and fear making their spine prickle with unease as they heard ghostly footsteps and voices around every corner.

            “Let’s just say I have my own reasons.”

            She was roughly pulled back a moment later as Lillian grabbed a fistful of her grubby cloak, spinning her around and slamming her back into the rocky wall of the tunnel. Her head cracked painfully against the stone, making her teeth rattle in her head. Kara was tall, but Lillian was taller, standing a few inches over her and bearing down on her with a hard look on her wan face. In the dim light of the tunnel, Kara could see the fierceness in the other woman’s eyes, and she felt a flicker of fear.

            “If you’re playing some sick game to manipulate my daughter, I’d think very carefully about double-crossing me, Kara Zor-El,” Lillian warned her, her voice low and cold, making Kara’s insides freeze. “You might be smart, but make no mistake, I’m smarter. You might think that you can play this game with your grey colours and tricking your foolish family, but if you think that you can pull one over on me, I will drag you before the Voice of Rao myself, and rot beside you in a cell if it means protecting my daughter.”

            Lillian’s cold hand was wrapped around her neck, fingers biting painfully into her skin, and Kara had to remind herself that she wasn’t trusted here. As kind as Lillian could be, she would be ruthless for her daughter’s sake, and a lump formed in Kara’s throat as she realised that it was something she’d never have. Her mother had always put her fanatic crusade first, and Eliza had shown her as much love as she was able to give, but even that paled in comparison to Lillian’s utter devotion to Lena. Kara was glad for Lena’s sake, to have someone defend her so fiercely, but it cut deep to know that no one would ever put her wellbeing first like that. Caution whispered in her ear as she swallowed thickly against Lillian’s iron clasped fingers, and felt her stomach turn slightly.

            “Have I made myself clear?”

            “Yes,” Kara replied, her voice strangled. Lillian’s grip loosened, her stiff finger slowly prying themselves off her neck, and Kara let out a strangled laugh as she reached up to massage her bruised throat. “You needn’t be so worried; I’m more on your side than Lena’s.”

            Lillian shot her a suspicious look as they fell into step beside each other, resuming their winding journey once more. “And what, might I ask, is that supposed to mean?”

            “Lena’s intent on fighting her way into an early grave,” Kara said with some bitterness, “I’d like to stop that from happening, and I think you do too.”

            Softly laughing, Lillian sighed, “she thinks too much with her ability to fight sometimes. She forgets that she’s smarter than almost everyone else. Brains can be more useful than brawn.”

            “As I’ve so clearly shown.”

            “You’re not quite as passive as you appear,” Lillian said with grudging respect. “Your parents will be angry to have been made a fool by their own daughter. And sorry to have let you slip through their fingers.”

            “Not quite,” a deep voice said from the shadows, and a tall figure stepped out of a side tunnel.

            Fear shot through Kara, a knot coiling in her stomach, and recognition made her jolt slightly as she took in the face of the man. She wouldn’t have recognised his voice, not after so many years, but she knew his face, and she knew the fact of the woman who stepped out after the man. Astra was an almost identical copy of her mother, except for the white lock of hair, and she stood regally beside her husband, Non, as they barred Kara and Lillian’s path. Black Zero agents flooded out of the hallway too, lights coming to life and bathing the hallway red, and she soon found herself facing half a dozen blasters with no weapon of her own. That wasn’t entirely true though.

            Yanking Lillian back, Kara moved protectively in front of her, feeling like it was her duty to see the older woman to safety. It was the whole purpose of her rescue mission, betraying her family for it, and she stubbornly raised her chin as she faced down her family. If they were going to rain down their retribution for her actions, she would take the brunt of it.

            “Go,” she whispered to Lillian, moving her head slightly to the left so that her voice carried over her shoulder.

            “Don’t be a fool,” Lillian warned her from behind, panic lacing her tone.

            A crooked smile curled one side of Kara’s mouth as she fiddled with something in one of the pockets sewn into her ragged cloak. She’d brought a bag of tricks with her. Quick gadgets assembled with nothing more than sheer will and scraps, and she prayed that they would work. If not, she had one more thing. A fail-safe, as it were. If everything went to shit, she would use it, but not before then. Kara was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic as she assessed the situation and made a snap judgement that it could’ve been worse. They were outnumbered, even with Lillian behind her, but she wasn’t the daughter of two of the most scheming, slippery, brilliant minds on Krypton for no reason. If she couldn’t outwit her family, then no one else could. She’d spent years resenting them, doing her best to be better than them, while secretly honing the skills they’d passed on to her, and she smiled with relish at the thought of showing them just how much potential she really had. All that potential that they’d never have on their side.

            “Backtrack, turn right, go past two right turns, take the third, and then onwards until you hit a fork. Turn left and then right. I’ll meet you there,” she hurriedly ordered Lillian in a barely audible voice.

            Ignoring the spluttered protests behind her, she pulled out her EMP, pressed the button and watched as the electrics on the rebels fried, the beams of light on their guns flickering off and plunging the tunnel back into darkness. Behind her, she heard hurried footsteps, and Kara quickly darted across the tunnel and flattened herself against the wall, rummaging through her pockets until she found a smoke device. As red laser beams shot from the blasters, lighting up the tunnels for brief, intermittent moments, allowing them to spot her huddled near the base of the wall, she pulled a pin and rolled the can along the floor as blackness spilt out of it.

            With her dirty cloak pressed against her mouth and nose, she squeezed her eyes shut and shuffled crablike further down the hallway, sneaking behind the rebels and flat against the other wall again. Lunging out, she grabbed one of the Black Zero agents around the neck, hand clapping down over the man’s mouth, and pulled him backwards, his blaster clattering to the floor as he pulled at her hand, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the earthen floor. At the sound of the disturbance, a volley of laser beams shot towards her through the cloud of black smoke, one of them striking the man she used as a shield. Dropping his body as he screamed, his wound sizzling and filling the air with burning flesh, she looked down with wide blue eyes, and then back up as she watched Astra calmly emerge from the smoke.

            “Kara,” her aunt said, letting out a withering sigh, “your mother is going to be so disappointed. Helping the Ranked? Turning on your own blood? This isn’t how she raised you to be. You were supposed to be the next leader of Black Zero. You and Kal-El. The two of you together would’ve restored House El to its former glory. You would’ve been a hero to Krypton; the El who saved the world.”

            “Well, unfortunately, my mother wasn’t around to tell me all of this. And quite frankly, we don’t see eye to eye with our plans for the future of Krypton. Perhaps this is for the best,” Kara said, giving her a strained smile as she found herself mimicking Astra’s circling movements, taking a step to the right every time her aunt did.

            As she suddenly found herself on the opposite side of where she’d started, the smoke to her back, she realised her mistake the moment that strong arms shot out and wrapped themselves around her neck. Clawing at the skin, she made a choked sound of panic, although her face was impassive, blue eyes fiercely bright. With grim resolution, she considered the fact that perhaps it was time for her backup plan now. It would be quicker, easier, even though she hated the idea, and with a bitter look on her face, she slammed a hand against her chest.

            Blue light radiated from the centre of her, strength rushing through her body as power crashed into her, and she stiffened in her captor’s arms, before grabbing his hand in her own and crushing until bones snapped beneath her strength. He screamed in her ears, making her wince as the sudden sensitivity, and she whirled around, squinting through the darkness, making ghostly shapes out with ease.

            In a flurry of movements, she seemed to be nothing more than a blur, the movements of the rebels slow and clumsy as they sluggishly punched at her, their movements so slow that Kara almost laughed at how easy it was to catch their fist, jerk their arms to the side with a snap, dodge blasts of red light with ease and knock them all senseless within a few heartbeats. If it wasn’t for the fact that she knew poisonous radiation coursed through her veins, she would’ve marvelled at the device Lena had created, heralded it for its miraculous design. But she did know, and she’d watched Lena’s cheeks flush red with a fever, writhe on the floor in pain as it consumed her, and she wasn’t sure how it would affect a Kryptonian if that’s how it affected a human.

            Standing amidst a mass of bodies, Kara found that she wasn’t even breathing hard. It had been simple, and she finally understood why Lena thought that she could make a change with it. If one person had such seemingly unlimited power - although she imagined that she would grow tired eventually - then surely they could make a real change. Lillian was right in the fact that Lena thought with her ability to fight, but there was a grain of truth in Lena’s viewpoint that she had to make people listen to her, not just shout into the void and hope that Krypton listened. Showing them, with her strength and her abilities, was a more effective way, even if Kara hated how bad it was for her.

            Her aunt was still standing on the edge of the fray, her husband at her feet where Kara had tossed him, and Kara killed the sun lamp and felt fatigue wash over her. After the strength coursing over her, it nearly knocked her off her feet, making her knees buckle slightly, and the thrill wore off quickly.

            Stumbling towards her, Kara punched her squarely across the face, dropping Astra to the floor with a single punch, before she stood over her with a dark look on her face. “Give my parents my regards.”

            “So much wasted potential,” Astra spat, wiping her bleeding lip, “and for what? They will never respect you, Kara. You’re an El. You’re not like them.”

            “No,” Kara mumbled in agreement, “it’s why I have to be better than them.”

            Turning around, she started off down the hallway, scrambling for her mental map to meet back up with Lillian, and made it a few steps before a searing heat painfully tore through the left side of her abdomen. A cry of pain fell unbidden from Kara’s lips as she staggered forward a few paces, hand clamping down on her side as her eyebrows rose with surprise.

            As she turned, she saw Astra with a pistol in her hand, baring her teeth as she readied herself to fire another beam of heat towards her niece, finger on the trigger, when out of the cloud of darkness loomed a raggedly garbed figure. With a hard kick to the face, Lillian knocked Astra unconscious before turning her accusing eyes on Kara. Hood falling down as she strode towards Kara, she reached out, parting Kara’s dusty cloak, and felt the device clumsily strapped to Kara’s chest. Tearing it off with a look of outrage, Lillian held the dead sun lamp in her palm, the muscles in her jaw working. As angry as she looked, and as irritated Kara was that she hadn’t followed her instructions for their rendezvous point, she was overwhelmed with relief to see her.

            “Where did you get this?”

            With a wry smile, Kara shrugged halfheartedly, setting off down the hallway. “It was payment.”

            “You’re going to give this to your family?” Lillian asked, a look of outrage on her face.

            “No, I gave it to them. As payment to free you from prison. And then I stole it back. Because, like I said, it wasn’t my price to pay, and I wouldn’t give them Lena’s technology without her permission. This thing … it could tear this planet apart in the wrong hands.”

            Giving her a distrustful look, Lillian nodded, before hesitating. “Where did you get it?”

            “I stole it off Lena,” Kara curtly replied. “When I stopped her from carving the city apart and getting herself killed, I palmed one of the devices before the Warrior Guild came and took all of the evidence. I thought we might need it, for something at least.”

            “Oh … that’s- that was quite smart.”

            “My cousin still has one though. They’re trying to manufacture more of them. It’s how I convinced them to free you from Fort Rozz. I told them you could make more of them. You won’t, obviously, but I had to give them some incentive.”

            “Shades of grey, indeed.”

            Kara smiled to herself as they carried on walking, her face taut with pain as she clutched her side, a prickle of sweat starting to dot her brow. She didn’t complain once, both of them looking ragged and worse for wear, and they trudged along on silence, both of them aching for home and something to eat and some hot water to wash off the film of dust and sweat. With each step, Kara’s breathing become more laboured, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to continue, pain lancing through her side every time she jostled it, but she pushed on, letting her anger fuel her. Eventually, the coldness of the tunnels numbed her and she carried on in a daze.

            Hours passed by and they continued their steady march, trying to go as quick as they could, knowing that the alarm would’ve been sounded and that they could be pressed in in front and behind them if they weren’t quick enough to make it to the city and out of the tunnels before someone found them. The longer that they spent, stealing down narrow slipways, the walls so close that they had to go sideways and the rough stone grazed their cheeks, taking roundabout ways that convinced Lillian that they were lost on more than one occasion, the more certain Kara was that they were about to be caught. Around the next bend. At the next fork.

            But they weren’t, and eventually, they made it to one of the small tunnels on the outskirts of Kandor without further incident, where Kara’s information led her to believe that it was rarely used by Black Zero. She was reassured that her deductions were right when she stumbled into knee-high ditchwater, brown and freezing cold with a slimy layer of garbage floating on top, below the rusted metal rungs of the ladder leading up to the drain outside the scrap warehouse. Cursing, she waded through it, teeth chattering as her toes went numb in the icy water, her breath visible before her as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stem the tremors wracking her body. Lillian fared likewise, but they were both steadfast in their determination to make it out of the tunnels.

            Hauling themselves hand over hand up the rungs, leaving their hands stained red with flaky rust, they soon found themselves shivering in the frigid air in a derelict alleyway in the slums of the Rankless District. Dark needles soared up above them, the towering buildings of the Ranked, but they were plunged into shadows by the crisscrossing bridges and levels of the city, scurrying through the dark with the lowest of the low. Beggars huddled in doorways, a few stood around a barrel with a flickering orange light within, and no one looked twice at the sopping wet women dressed in rags.

            Through dingy tunnels where homeless huddled together for warmth, down gullies and lanes, they wound through the outskirts of the city, dragging their feet as they ached to just sit down in the gutter and pass out. Kara had been awake nearing three days by that point, and her eyes were prickling with tiredness, each blink and effort to reopen her eyes. All she wanted was something warm to fill her and a place to curl up and sleep. She would’ve liked fresh clothes and medicine too, but they had more pressing matters at the moment.

            It wasn’t until they reached a night market in a small arcade, bustling with derelicts and petty thieves, that she let out a sigh of relief. Nearly there. With their hoods pulled up, their eyes were little more than a dark shine in the dark, reflecting what little light there was in the marketplace as people talked in quiet murmurs or occasionally shouted when a thief stole something. Turning to face Lillian, Kara gave her a wan smile.

            “Stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”

            A hand shot out and snaked around her wrist as Kara turned away, pulling her back around, and she tiredly found herself facing Lillian again. “Do not think to betray me now; our fates are intertwined and I have no qualms about bringing you with me,” Lillian muttered, “and don’t draw any attention to yourself. They’ll be looking for us, and they’ll turn to the slums soon enough.”

            Nodding, Kara pulled her arm away and wound her way through the tables of ratty stalls, eyeing scraps and broken items. She had some small amount of cash on her, knowing that she couldn’t use her comms device down here without leaving a trail of money, and she sparingly used what little she had to haggle for watery stew that steamed in a large vat, not caring about what floated in it, as long as it was hot. She bought a bottle of hot, bitter coffee too, the metal flask hot as she hugged it to herself, even though she knew it’d be like drinking mud. Buying a few more things, she carried her wares back to where she’d left Lillian, who stood in the shadows of a lean-to, arms folded over her chest and her face in darkness, and she jerked her head for her to follow her.

            Kara had enough money to get them a place in a ramshackle maze of tents and roofs for the night, and she wound her way through the boarded-up doors of wooden shacks, the lengths of canvas pulled taut over a patch of earth for some shade, until she found the man running the shelter. Handing him a few notes, she followed him through the labyrinth until they came to a wooden shack, the ceiling bearing a few holes and the door halfway off its hinges, but safe and anonymous and a right sight better than sleeping on the streets. With a curt nod in thanks, Kara ducked into the small space, taking in the pile of rags on the floor and the lone stool with uneven legs. It smelled foul and dank, and she wrinkled her nose but was grateful for the solitude.

            “What’s here?” Lillian asked, ducking inside the door and standing with stooped shoulders as she made herself shorted, trying not to bang her head on the ceiling.

            She shut the broken door behind her, but the wind still whistled through the cracks in the building. Whispers and sounds of people moving about were close in the quietness of the pre-dawn. The sky had already started to lighten to a deep burgundy as they’d wound their way through the camp, and dawn wouldn’t be too far off.

            “Rest,” Kara murmured, easing herself down onto the muddy floor, a trembling hand pressed to her side as her face twisted with pain. She let out a breathless cry, her chest heaving, and set her wares down on the floor. “And food.”

            Crouching down beside her, Lillian tore the side of her cloak away from her and clucked her tongue as she took in the wet side of Kara’s abdomen. “You’re hurt.”

            “It’s a scratch,” Kara hoarsely insisted, pulling her cloak back around her.

            “You need medicine. This place is filthy, you’ll catch an infection. You should conclude your business quickly so we can get you help.”

            Pale and sweaty, Kara quietly laughed as she gave Lillian a sharp smile. “There’s no business here. We can’t go back to our homes; well, I can, but I couldn’t bring you with me. Which means that we need somewhere to rest until I can figure out the rest of my plan.”

            “What, we’re staying here?”

            “No one will be looking for you here.” With a shaky hand, Kara picked up the bottle of coffee and handed it off to Lillian. “Here. Drink. And then eat.”

            Collapsing down onto the pile of dirty blankets, Lillian drank in a daze, handing the thick coffee off to Kara with a grimace, before reaching for one of the containers of soup. Kara picked up her own after a mouthful of the bitter drink, cherishing the warmth that bloomed in her stomach, and she pulled the lid off with a puff of steam, feeling heat seep into her hands as she clutched the stew closely. It was thin and bland, but hot and gone too quick, and she tossed the container aside as she reached for a wrapped loaf of bread. Tearing it in half, she bit off a hunk of gritty bread, wolfing it down and then drinking more coffee, before she stretched out on the earthen floor and hugged her cloak to herself.

            Without a word, she shut her eyes and tried to let the sounds of the night market fade into the distance, ignoring the presence of the other woman and the pain in her side. But sleep was a long time coming, and she was aware of all of Lillian’s movements as she slowly savoured her food, taking her time as she slumped in the corner. Eventually, she turned in too, as narrow shafts of red sunlight started to seep through the seams of the shack. Kara started with surprise when she felt a blanket draped over her, but she didn’t open her eyes, not even when she a cold hand cupped the side of her head for a moment in an almost tender gesture and Lillian sighed pitifully.

            She slept after that, fitfully and tense, and with no real sense of satisfaction when she finally awoke to the last rays of sunlight seeping into the shack. There was a hollow feeling in her stomach and her body was stiff with pain, and she sat up slowly, taking in the figure sitting with her back against the wall. At the sound of her movements, Lillian’s eyes snapped open, and Kara was surprised to find that she’d stayed. Although she’d told her that they’d had to stay, Kara had been expecting to wake to find her gone, abandoning her to try and sneak back into her home and see Lena, and she blinked slowly in surprise as she met Lillian’s gaze.

            “We should go,” Lillian murmured, “I went to listen to the market today. There are whispers everywhere. It’s not safe.”

            “I’ll get you home,” Kara said, and she meant it too as she gingerly pushed herself to her feet, her vision blurring slightly and set her shoulders. “I made a promise to Lena.”

Chapter Text

            The door opened with a hiss and Lena didn’t move at all as she stared up at the ceiling, floating in her pool of water as she looked up at the dull lights above her. Lex had come and gone over the past few days, making sure she didn’t do anything stupid while she was left alone to suffer in her own mind, and disappearing to try and fix the mess that had ensued since her mother had been stolen from her prison cell. She assumed it was him again - there was no one else who would be here - and she didn’t acknowledge him as he shuffled in.

            She’d been trying to avoid him over the past few days, or rather, hoping that he would avoid her because she couldn’t bear to look into his eyes and see his accusations, even though he was trying not to blame her. He couldn’t blame her for the El’s breaking Lillian out of prison though; she was innocent of that. Still, he’d been prickly after the Lawmaker Guild and Warrior Guild had torn through their apartment, looking for any hint of Lillian, confiscating items they thought their mother might’ve created for dangerous purposes, It had taken hours and left Lena with a banging headache, and she’d been hoping that Lex would be too frustrated to want to see her. As always, her brother was unfailingly faithful, and he’d brought her dinner and carefully spoon-fed her. It was nearly lunchtime now, and she assumed that he was bringing her more food again.

            “Lena.”

            Her stomach lurched at the familiar voice, and her head whipped around so fast that it made her temples throb and her vision blur to blackness for a moment before she managed to squint through streaming eyes at the ragged figure limping towards her. A strangled cry worked its way up her throat at the sight of Lillian, looking pale and battered and bruised, but standing safely in the middle of Lena’s bedroom in tattered prison clothes and a filthy cloak.

            “Mother.”

            Hobbling over to her side, Lillian gave her a tired smile, full of relief and love, and she sank down to her knees, reaching out with a thin, trembling hand to stroke back wet strands of Lena’s hair. Swallowing a lump in her throat, tears pricked Lena’s eyes and she gave Lillian a tearful smile.

            “How’re you here?”

            “By luck, more than anything,” Lillian flippantly replied, “and by no small amount of genius, I’ll admit.”

            She reached into the folds of her cloak, bringing her hand back out with something clasped in her palm. Her knuckles bore scabs, her wrists were so from chafing and her cheeks were a little hollow and eyes ringed by dark circles, but she was home, and Lena was speechless at the fact. Her mother should be rotting in a cell, or being held by the El’s, but by some miracle, she was here instead. As overwhelmed with happiness and relief as she was, Lena couldn’t help but feel uneasy, her spine prickling slightly as she expected Sagitari to burst into the room at any moment and arrest them both. Lillian was in a lot of serious trouble, wanted by every law enforcement officer on the planet and lumped in with Black Zero, and Lena’s forehead creased with worry.

            Lillian was oblivious to her inner turmoil as she gave her a soft smile, holding her hand out and uncurling thin fingers to reveal a small circular object nestled in her dirty palm. The air rushed out of Lena’s lungs as her eyes widened, her heart picking up speed as a thrill ran through her, watching her mother reach out towards her. With the flick of aa switch, blue light flickered to life, and Lena breathed in as a small amount of strength flooded through her, just from close proximity to the sun lamp. She’d thought they had all been taken by the Warrior Guild, and she’d been unable to make a new one herself, given the fact that she was recovering from too much sun radiation, on top of a prison stint, and Lex had refused to do it for her, worried that she’d make herself sick again, or make matters worse with her recklessness.

            A dark look on her face, Lillian reached out and slipped her hand into the warm water, pressing the device into Lena’s hand with a grim look on her face. Giving her a look of surprise, Lena curled her fingers around the sun lamp, eyebrows rising slightly.

            “You’re giving it back to me?”

            “You need it right now,” Lillian murmured, “and … well, it’s only one lamp. It’ll only emit enough energy to let you stand without being crushed by gravity. It might be best if you stick to your wheelchair, so you don’t overexert yourself. Come, there’s someone you need to see.”

            Giving her a wan smile, Lena nodded, feeling strength returning to her already as she weakly pushed herself to her feet with a wave of water rocking back and forth in the tub. Lillian climbed to her feet and rushed off to fetch a towel as Lena stepped onto the floor, shivering slightly at the cool stone beneath her bare feet, and her teeth chattered as Lillian threw a towel around her shoulders and wrapped her in a warm hug. Her throat closed up with emotion as she buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, feeling a knot of tension unwind in her chest, her knees shaking beneath her as water dripped off her and seeped into her mother’s rags.

            “I’ve missed you, ieiu.”

            “And I you, inah,” Lillian softly replied, sagging with exhaustion as she ran a hand over Lena’s damp hair.

            Pulling back, Lena gave her a trembling smile, and Lillian ushered her over to the wheelchair sitting in the corner. Easing herself down with a slight wince, Lena hugged the towel around herself and huddled down in her chair as she navigated herself toward the door. Lillian limped along behind her, tiredness etched into the lines of her face, and she murmured to Lena to head towards one of the labs.

            Her mother left her outside the door, a gentle hand resting on her shoulder before she told her that she was going to rest and change, leaving Lena to open the door and wheel herself into the chaos inside.

            It took her a moment to realise what she was looking at as loud-voiced clamoured over each other, one cursing and one commanding, and she realised that Lex was pushing Kara down against a table, the blonde half-naked and ashen as she fought back against him. Feeling the blood rush from her face, Lena shakily rose to her feet and took a few stumbling steps forward, dread pooling in her stomach as she neared the workbench where Kara was stretched out and writhing against the cold metal.

            “Kara,” Lena breathed through numb lips.

            It wasn’t until she was almost at her side that Kara realised that she was there and stopped fighting back against Lex, who was firmly, yet gently trying to urge her to lay back against the table. At the sight of Lena, she froze, the fight draining out of her, and Kara was limply pushed down and held in place as her blue eyes widened and her lips parted.

            “Lena!”

            “What happened?” Lena frantically asked, stumbling towards the edge of the workbench and gripping the cold metal hard as she stared down at the mess of Kara’s side with an aghast look on her face.

            It was red and sore, skin charred at the edges and peeling away from the weeping muscle beneath, and Lena felt sick as she looked at the wound. She dragged her eyes up to Kara’s face, taking in the twisted look of pain and her sweaty brow, and reached out with a hand to cradle the side of her face, a look of panic in her eyes. Kara gave her a pained smile and let out a breathless laugh as she reached up to cover Lena’s hand with her own dirty one, half-moons of earth beneath her fingernails.

            “I told you that I’d make it right.”

            Choking on a sound of surprise, Lena opened and closed her mouth as she realised Kara had been the one to bring her mother back to her. She wasn’t sure how, or what her involvement had been, but Lillian was back, and Lena was left speechless as she took in the damage done to her friend, wondering what she’d been through to have gotten injured. It wasn’t the time to ask questions though, as Kara grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut as Lex pressed a hand against her abdomen, steadying her so that she could tend to her wound. Lena watched with rapt attention, reaching out to grip Kara’s hand tightly in her own, her face ghostly pale and a headache building behind her eyes.

            As Lex picked up a spray can and squirted a solution on the edge of the burn, the clear liquid rippling slightly, until a tiny spot of new, shiny skin appeared over the wound as it knitted itself back together. Kara’s eyes snapped open at the cool touch of liquid, a spasm of pain crossing her face before her eyebrows drew together in a frown.

            “What are you doing?!”

            “I’m fixing you,” Lex exasperatedly replied, straightening up from his hunched concentration over the wound, and he set the spray can down on the table with a thud as he gave Kara a withering look.

            “Fixing me? Even a fool knows that you shouldn’t spray skin rejuvenation serum over a dirty wound. It’ll seal in the bacteria and the wound will fester from within.”

            Lex bit back a sigh of impatience. “Yes, but it’s a burn from a laser beam. It’s a clean blast, and it’s partially cauterised itself.”

            Kara let out a bark of laughter, “yes, the laser beam was clean, but I’ve been crawling through sewers and tunnels, not to mention sleeping in the Night Market in the Rankless District, so, as I said, the wound needs to be cleaned first. Perhaps with a saline solution.”

            “Last time I checked, Kara Zor-El, you were a botanist, not a healer.”

            “Last time I checked, Lex-Thor, you were engineering the weapons that gave me this injury, not a healer.”

            “Then what do you suggest I do?” Lex testily replied.

            Letting out a quiet snort of laughter, Lena jerked her chin at her brother, a faint smile curling her lips as her eyes danced. “You go and tend to mother’s scrapes. I’ll see to her.”

            Her brother hesitated, taking in the way she swayed slightly on her feet, before nodding in agreement, knowing that his sister was too stubborn to argue with - especially on this. Besides, Lena wanted to be alone with Kara, to talk to her properly, and she’d spent years learning about medicine as well as engineering so that she could help herself. She was more of a healer than Lex, and he knew that. He peeled off a pair of thin gloves and removed clear goggles, giving Lena one last nod before he left.

            The door hissed shut behind him, and Lena slowly rounded the metal bench, picking up the goggles and slipping them on, before she fetched another pair of thin gloves and rummaged through the supplies in the room. Kara was silent behind her, but alert when Lena moved back over to her side, holding a needle pen in her hand.

            Giving her a grim look, she pulled the skin on Kara’s arm taut. “This will ease your pain.”

            Kara gave her a small nod, laying still on the table for her, and Lena pulled a wheeled stool over to the bench, gratefully sinking down onto it and lowering herself down to eye-level with Kara’s waist. Picking up a saline spray, Lena gingerly pressed a hand against Kara’s stomach, feeling her rapid breathing and the warmth radiating through the glove, and she gently sprayed the solution over the seeping burn. The skin was raw and Lena grit her teeth as she knew how much the solution burned on small cuts, let alone weeping burns that had peeled back layers of skin. Kara didn’t so much as make a sound though, and Lena hoped that the drugs were taking the edge off, and assuming that Lex had already partially numbed the wound site too. Still, Kara was grey and the lines of her face were hard, and Lena tried to be quick.

            Ignoring her headache, she worked with precision, cleaning the wound out with the spray, dabbing at it with small sponges and picking out pieces of dirt and charred skin. It still took a while, and by the time she was finished, placing a thin patch over the pink skin she’d sprayed over the wound, her shoulders were tense from hunching, and her fingers were stiff from gripping the fine pincers and carefully spraying.

            Setting everything down, she let out a soft sigh and peeled off the gloves, rubbing at her tired eyes. Kara was quiet, and Lena pushed herself to her feet, standing beside her head and watching as glazed eyes locked onto hers as Kara’s head lolled to the side.

            “How do you feel?”

            “So tired,” Kara said, her voice a wispy sigh.

            Softly laughing, Lena caressed the back of Kara’s hand, a small smile curling her mouth as Kara turned her hand beneath her touch and Lena slipped her hand into hers. Giving her thin fingers a gentle squeeze, Lena swallowed thickly.

            “Thank you, Kara.”

            “I was just making things right.”

            “I don’t know how you did it - I’m not sure I want to, to be honest - but I’m sorry for being angry at you. I shouldn’t have blamed you for my mistake. And I’m sorry that you got dragged into this-”

            Slowly shaking her head, Kara sighed as her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. “It’s not your fault. I asked my family for help, you know. Manipulated them into breaking your mother out of prison. I know that people don’t trust me-”

            “I do.”

            “But I did what I had to. I’m always going to do what I have to do to make things right, Lena. And I know that people doubt my intentions, but that’s because they expect the worst from an El. I don’t want to be like my family, but … I think I am, in some ways. And that’s not a bad thing, just as long as I’m not on their side.”

            Lena’s expression softened as she reached out to smooth back Kara’s blonde hair, trying not to shift uncomfortably in her damp clothes as she trembled slightly in the frigid air of the lab. “Whose side are you on?”

            “I’m on nobody's side,” Kara murmured, “because nobody is on my side.”

            “I am.”

            “Are you?”

            Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lena ducked her head down as she felt her heart twinge slightly with an ache. “Yes. I care about you. Perhaps more than you think. And perhaps more than I should, because there’s only one way this ends, and it’s not good.”

            Making a low sound of frustration at the back of her throat, Kara’s eyes snapped open and she gave Lena a hard look, her blue eyes bright with anger and pain. “It’s already over, Lena. Your family is compromised; there’s no way for you to win this fight.”

            “But I must try, nonetheless. And I would ask that you go,” she said, her voice turning hoarse, “you’ve risked too much already for me. Please, go back to the Dan-Vers. Do not get mixed up in this. I don’t want to hurt you, and you know that I don’t plan on seeing many more sun cycles.”

            “Don’t.”

            “It’s the truth,” Lena firmly said, not unkindly, “my time will come for me sooner than I would like. You already told me once that you wouldn’t be here to watch it, so please, go. I’ll be okay, Kara.”

            The blonde’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head, pushing herself up onto her elbows, the tendons in her neck straining as she grit her teeth, despite Lena’s quiet cries of protest as her hands nervously fluttered around Kara’s shoulders. Still, Kara pushed herself up into a sitting position, one hand flat against the bandage as she cradled her side, and she jerked her chin up in stubborn gesture, her cheeks pink but otherwise looking shameless as her eyes shone with tears.

            “I can’t.”

            Lena sighed, looking down at their entwined hands, feeling guilt and heartache well up inside her. “You must.”

            “I cannot bring myself to leave now. I was wrong. I care too much too, and I won’t let you destroy yourself.”

            Lena opened her mouth to argue, but Kara’s hand rushed out to firmly cup her face, and Lena was left rooted to the spot when Kara’s warm lips pressed against hers a moment later, taking her by surprise. Eyelashes fluttering, Lena’s eyes slowly closed and she melted into the kiss, one hand coming up to cup the back of Kara’s head. Both of them were frail and exhausted, barely able to sit up or stay on their feet, and their chests heaved from the exertion of a simple kiss, and the rush of it too, and when Lena pulled back, resting her head against Kara’s, she somehow felt even sadder. It was wrong for her to let things progress so far.

            “This isn’t something you can stop, Kara,” Lena murmured, brushing back her blonde hair as she cupped her face in her hands. “You’ll only hurt yourself more if you stay. I couldn’t bear it if I-”

            “It is my decision to make.”

            “Should I not have the right to decide for myself too?”

            Kara jerked her head back and gave her a wounded look, bristling slightly with anger too as her shoulders went taut. “Tell me you do not want me.”

            Stepping away from the workbench, Lena fiddled with her hands as she looked down at them, cheeks turning red as she was left struggling to find the words to dissuade Kara. If she admitted just how much she cared for Kara, it would make it harder to force her to go, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to turn her away with lies. It hurt whenever they argued, it hurt to be apart from her, and Lena just wanted to keep her safe. She didn’t know what Kara would do if she pushed her away for good. What she’d done for Lillian was just a taste of how far she was willing to go to do what she thought she had to.

            “I can’t,” Lena finally admitted, “if I am truly honest, you are all my heart wants. But it would be selfish for me-”

            Swinging her legs over the edge of the table, Kara slithered off it and winced as she stumbled forward a step. Lena reached out and caught her before she could fall, wrapping her arms around her and cradling her close, feeling warmth radiate from her as Kara’s strong arms wound around her.

            “I don’t care what’s selfish or not,” Kara whispered, her breath fanning across Lena’s cheek as she spoke in her ear. “I’ve denied myself things I want for too long, but I won’t give up this.”

            “I’m not Kryptonian. We can never be together, even if I live a thousand years.”

            “Who says?” Kara fiercely asked.

            Lena let out a breathless, choked laugh, her eyes prickling with tears, “we will never be permitted to make a trip to the Jewel of Truth and Honour. We’ll never exchange marriage bracelets, or enter the Genesis Chamber. Neither of us can give each other what we want. It is futile to try.”

            “It is only futile if you don’t mean to fight.”

            “You said it yourself; it is already ended. My House if falling apart, you are already a pariah in society, and I am nearly as much an outcast. There is no fight; we are already defeated.”

            Pushing herself back, away from Lena and up against the metal of the workbench, Kara gave her a look of irritation as she hotly replied. “You will fight for all of Krypton, even if it means your death, but you will not fight for us? You would put the happiness of strangers who would see you rot in prison, before your own happiness with me?”

            “Saving this planet is a fight I can win if I try. And maybe … if I can fix our society, even just ignite the spark of change, perhaps one day … you and I-”

            “You will be dead by then,” Kara snapped.

            “That’s why I want you to go,” Lena softly said, her shoulders slumping with defeat.

            Scoffing, Kara gave her a look of betrayal, “you’d pick a short life to save the ungrateful masses, over a long life with me? I could love you, I could make you happy.”

            Although she kept a distance between them, Lena could see how much it hurt Kara to not reach out for her as she pleaded for Lena to change her mind, although she’d never outright ask her to. Knowing that Kara would reject all attempts to comfort her, Lena stayed back, gripping her hands tightly before her as shame washed over her.

            “I would pick you before anything else if I knew we stood a chance at being happy together. But … we both know that it will hurt you more in the long run if we pretend that we can be together now. I’m sorry, Kara. I’m trying to protect you.”

            “Protecting someone means that you won’t see them hurt. You’re not protecting me.”

            “I am, in my honesty. It would hurt you, even more, to feed you lies and let you love me, knowing that I won’t be able to live a life with you for very long. I’m mortal , Kara. By all rights, I should be dead by now. My mother was a Goddess and my bones are not quite as brittle as a human, my organs not quite as fragile, but I’m dying. Whether I poison myself with radiation or lay drugged in a bath of water, I’m dying, and I would see you leave so you don’t have to watch it happen, one way or the other.”

            “And what? I’m supposed to just go back to my old life? I don’t have anyone else. My sister barely trusts me, my mother is barely home. I live with strangers. I spend my life wasting my potential on flowers because it’s safe, and maybe recreating new strains of grains so we don’t all starve to death is the only thing I’ll be remembered for. And that would be enough for me if I had you, because it would keep us both safe, but if you do this … what will I have left? I don’t have anybody else. I don’t want anyone else.”

            Turning around, Lena shakily started to clean up all of the tools she’d discarded on a wheeled trolley, discarding bloody pads and empty bottles of saline solution and antibacterial spray. Her eyes burned and her heart weighed heavily in her chest, but she couldn’t see a way out of this. Was it better to hurt Kara now or later? Was it better to break her heart when she was alive, or do it in death?

            She stiffened as a hand pressed against her shoulder blade, gentle and warm, before she exhaled sharply, the fight rushing out of her, leaving her feeling drained and sad. Still, she couldn’t look at Kara, not without feeling guilty when she saw the hurt in her blue eyes, and not without her resolve wavering. Closing her eyes and swallowing thickly, she braced herself against the trolley.

            “You should get some rest. I’ll show you to a guest room.”

            Kara made a small cry of protest but swallowed any arguments, and when Lena turned around to face her, briefly glancing at her face, she could tell by the lines of Kara’s body that she was angry. With reason, Lena admitted to herself, but she hated to be the one that her anger was turned to.

            Brushing past her, Lena walked towards the door and stepped out into the hallway, with Kara gingerly following behind her. Through the warren of corridors, Lena led her to a spare room, dim lights flaring to life as she stepped inside, the sky a warm orange outside the window as the red sun rose, and she gestured towards the large bed.

            “You can stay as long as you need to recover. You should contact your mother or sister though; they must be worried. There’s a bathroom in there, as well as spare clothes in the closet. Let me know if you need anything else.”

            Kara nodded and stepped through the door to the bathroom, which hissed shut with a final sound. Lena lingered just inside the doorway for a few moments, before realising that their conversation was over for now, so she left. Walking through the apartment, Lena made her way back to her bedroom, fetched a change of clothes and went to shower, feeling her muscles loosen beneath the hot water that sputtered from the showerhead.

            After her shower, and fresh clothes, she felt marginally better and went off in search of Lillian. Her mother was in the kitchen with Lex, both of them eating a soup that Lex had made, and she walked over to her mother and wrapped her in a hug, burying her face in Lillian’s shoulder as she stood there for a moment, before sitting down at a stool along the counters. Lex placed a steaming bowl of soup in front of her, and she devoured it quickly, relishing the act of feeding herself before she mumbled an excuse and went off to bed.

            It was going to be a quiet night in the Thor household, with everyone sick or tired, so she didn’t feel bad about seeking solitude. Despite her heavy thoughts, she fell asleep quickly, the mattress a featherlight relief beneath her aching muscles, and she slept through most of the day. It wasn’t until the sun was setting, the sky crimson and a sliver of the moon appearing high above, that she woke.

            It took Lena a moment to realise what had disturbed her, but her eyes focused on the shadowy figure stepping into her room and she realised the quiet hiss of the door had woken her. At first, she wasn’t sure who it was, the shape a tall, indistinct blur that could’ve been her mother, brother or Kara, but she realised it was the latter as she neared the bed. As Lena pushed herself up into a sitting position, resting against the pillows, Kara sat down on the edge of the bed, one hand cradling her healing wound, and her expression was unreadable in the dark.

            The tension hung heavily between them as they sat in silence for a moment, before Kara blindly reached out and wound her fingers through Lena’s, giving them a tight squeeze. “You can’t make me leave you if I don’t want you.”

            “I know,” Lena murmured, “but I want you to.”

            “No, you don’t. Not really.”

            “But it’s what’s best for you, in the long run.”

            Shifting closer to her, Kara cupped her cheek and gently ran the pad of her thumb over Lena’s cheekbone. “I’d rather have a small amount of time with you than nothing if that’s all I’ll ever have. Please, ask me to stay.”

            Closing her eyes, Lena leant into her touch, bringing her hand up to cover Kara’s with her own, her own heart heavy with sadness and yearning, and as much as she wanted to turn Kara away to spare her future pain, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Opening her eyes, she took Kara’s hand in her own, cradling it gently against her chest as she leant in and brushed her lips against Kara’s, feeling the quiet inhale of surprise.

            “Stay. I don’t want you to go. Stay with me.”

            “Until the end.”

Chapter Text

            “So what now?”

            In the watery orange sunlight of a new dawn, four people were gathered in the living room. Kara was stretched out on the sofa, pale and clammy as her body mended itself, Lena sitting at her feet, her shoulders taut and her nails bitten from nervousness, Lillian looking regal and stoic on a low armchair, and Lex was pacing on the other side of the coffee table. They all looked better after some sleep, food and a shower and a change of clothes had worked wonders for Lillian and Kara, making them look less haggard without their rags. Being quite tall, Kara had borrowed a deep purple tunic and a pair of leggings off Lillian, and Lena had been sneaking glances at her all morning, liking the colour of House Thor on her.

            Lena looked at her brother as he spoke, her brow creasing slightly. “What?”

            “What are we going to do?!”

            “About what?”

            Lex made a sound of frustration, gesturing to the three women sitting in front of him. “You’re sick and two seconds away from being hauled off to prison again. Mother should be in prison and is now one of the most wanted fugitives on the planet. And she,” he said, pointing at Kara, “is the reason we’re in this mess in the first place and can’t be trusted.”

            “Don’t blame her,” Lena snapped. “She’s the reason mother isn’t rotting away in Fort Rozz. She did more to help than you did.”

            “She has nothing to lose! She’s already as low as a Ranked person can get. We can’t trust her. I say we hand her over to the Warrior Guild and use her to clear our names.”

            Lena slammed her hand down on the metal coffee table, the small amount of strength emitted from the sun lamp giving her the strength to leave a groove in the shape of her hand, and she glared at her brother, her eyes blazing with anger as she curled her lip. Kara didn’t say a word, remaining stretched out on the sofa, one hand pressed to her side and the shiny new skin sprayed over her wound, looking unsurprised.

            “Lex-Thor!” Lillian exclaimed, a horrified look on her face as she pushed herself to her feet, a stern look on her face. “We are not handing her over to the Sagitari! She’s an innocent girl, and she will not be held accountable for her family’s crimes. Apologise for your rudeness.”

            Looking rightfully ashamed, his cheeks pink with embarrassment, the tension in Lex dissipated as his shoulders slackened. His prowling pacing stopped and he sank down onto the rug, meeting Kara’s gaze from across the coffee table, and pressed a hand to his chest.

            “I apologise for my behaviour. My mother’s right.”

            “I agree that she can’t stay here though,” Lillian continued, giving Kara a grim smile, “I’m sorry, shovuh, but it’s not safe for you or us. Go back home to your family; tell them you were busy working on a project. Make your usual appearances at the Science Guild, but be. Careful.”

            Kara gave her a solemn nod, and Lena made a speechless sound of protest, her mouth opening and closing as panic seized her. She was scared that if Kara left, something bad would happen to her. Her family would take the opportunity to take her, hurt her, manipulate her. Lena wasn’t willing to risk it, and she found that she was more afraid for Kara than she was for herself. With her sun lamp, she could look after herself, albeit barely, and she had the means to make more sun lamps in the process. But Kara was alone. She didn’t have anyone to fight for her, and Lena was worried. But she was also worried about her family, and she knew that if something happened, if they were caught out in another raid by Sagitari agents, if Lillian was taken again, Kara would be implicated this time. In a sense, it would be safer for her to go home, like Lillian proposed, and pray to the Gods that her family left her alone. Lena would personally see her protected, she’d skulk in the shadows at night and keep watch if she had to, and hope that Alex would defend her sister if she wasn’t there to see it done.

            “I’ll return to my home tonight,” Kara quietly agreed.

            “And what about you, ieiu?” Lena softly asked, her stomach filling with dread.

            Sighing, Lillian settled herself back down on the armchair and ran a hand over her weary face. “I think … it’s safer for me to leave Kandor.”

            “Wha-”

            “Just for the time being, inah. Your brother and I have already spoken about it at length. It’s safer for you both this way; you can look after each other.”

            Tears sprang to Lena’s eyes and the air rushed out of her lungs as her shoulders sagged. Sadness threatened to overwhelm her and she wiped at her eyes with frustration. “We just got you back! Where will you go? Who’s going to look after you?”

            Climbing back to her feet, Lillian walked over to Lena and knelt in front of her, smiling softly as she cupped Lena’s cheeks in her thin hands, wiping away her tears with a tender touch. Letting out a faint sigh, Lillian brushed her daughter’s dark hair out of her face and gave her an encouraging look, full of love and no small amount of sadness. She didn’t want to leave her children, but it was the only way she could protect them now.

            “I can look after myself, inah. I was a great adventurer before your father came along, you know. There were many moons I spent in the frozen wastelands, running my experiments and discovering new things. I’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter where I go; I’ll be safe. And it won’t be forever, just until things blow over.”

            “But how are we going to clear your name?” Lex angrily asked, “that’s one part of your plan you forgot to mention.”

            Clucking her tongue disapprovingly, Lillian climbed to her feet and went over to her son, gently patting his cheek as he bristled with annoyance. Quietly laughing, Lillian gave them all a grim smile, full of resignation.

            “We’ll find a way, I’m sure of it. There are three of the brightest minds on Krypton in this room. Surely if anyone can bring about a revolution and put an end to the corruption on this planet, it’s one of you.”

            “And just how is stopping corruption going to help clear your name?” Lex snapped, crossing his arms over his chest, “and what revolution?”

            “The people who care about a flying hero offering up freedom and equality are those who want to keep the poor downtrodden. If you bring down the platform the rulers sit upon, who’s left to challenge someone with powers? Surely not the people you’ve helped pick back up and instil hope in. That is the revolution, my son. It is foolish to sit about waiting for change; it must be seized with one hand, while the other squashes any threats from resisting figures.”

            Scoffing, Lex gave her a look of disbelief. “You want us to bring down the Voice of Rao? The Council? The Sagitari? How? Lena is not a one-woman army.”

            Nodding gravely, Lillian gave her daughter an anxious look as she eyed her. “No, she isn’t. But she’s a strategist. It’s a gift that’s a part of her DNA. This won’t just take muscle, it’ll take plotting and scheming. And you,” she said, her eyes sliding to Kara, “are surprisingly manipulative. I think between the three of you, you’ll be able to plan something big. Something spectacular.”

            A smile curled Lillian’s mouth up into a crooked smile, and she turned back to Lex, resting her hands on his shoulders and kissing his cheek. She was already wearing a black robe and it flapped around her feet as she strode towards Lena, tilting her head up with her gentle touch and gazing down at her daughter. Lena swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared up at her mother with glassy eyes. Giving her a loving smile, Lillian leant down and kissed her softly on her brow.

            “What if I need you?” Lena whispered, her eyes wide and pleading. She didn’t want her mother to go; she didn’t know what to do without her.

            “I’ll come,” Lillian quietly promised, sinking down to a crouch in front of her as she reached out and pressed a hand against her daughter’s heart, “but I’ll be in here with you the whole time. Stay safe, Lena. Please. I know you want to save everyone, but you need to save yourself first to do that.”

            Letting out a shuddering breath, Lena gave her a wounded look, and she wanted to beg her to stay, but she knew that they couldn’t hide their mother as a fugitive for long. It would be best to let her go now, find somewhere safe and bide her time until she could return. Lillian was right; the three of them could find a way out of this mess. They were smart, and if no one else could figure it out, then the three of them would do it together.

            But it still felt like a defeat. Losing her mother didn’t feel like they’d outsmarted Krypton’s government or Kara’s family. She’d been freed from two prisons and was being sent straight into a self-imposed exile. It didn’t seem fair, and Lena couldn’t help but feel like it was all her own fault. If she’d taken it slower, if she hadn’t pushed herself to her limits with the radiation, if she’d listened to even one of her mother’s warnings, she wouldn’t have burnt out in the middle of the street and been brought into the custody of the Warrior Guild. Lillian wouldn’t have felt compelled to take her place, Kara wouldn’t have had to manipulate her family into freeing her mother for her and then turning on them to return her, and Lex wouldn’t be so brooding and short-tempered with her, because it was all her fault.

            “I don’t want you to go,” Lena said, her voice cracking.

            “I know, shovuh, but we have to protect each other, and this is the best way to do it. Our family’s strong; we’ll come back from this. I’ll come back. Now, I should go.”

            “What, now?”

            “The skimmer is loaded with my supplies. Delaying won’t make it any easier, but it’ll increase the chance of me being caught. I’ll take my leave now. Be good, and remember, working together will only make things easier. Don’t waste time squabbling amongst yourselves; you’re not children, and Krypton needs all the help it can get.”

            They were all grave-faced and chastened as Lillian brusquely moved about the place, going to the kitchen and fetching a sharp knife, cutting out a fried tracking device and wrapping a cloth around her arm, fetching a few of her tools from several of her workshops, and packing up one of their droids. Eventually, she made for their hangar, with Lena and Lex following at her heels, listening to her final reminders and words of wisdom. It was all Lena could do to keep herself from crying, and she hung back until the last minute, before flinging herself into her mother’s arms and hugging her tightly.

            All too soon, Lillian was gone, off in one of their skimmers, a mangled mess of wires and metal that used to be the tracking device sitting on the metal floor of the bitterly cold room, and Lena stared forlornly out of the slowly closing doors as Lex stood beside a control panel embedded in the wall. Letting out a shaky sigh, Lena swallowed the lump in her throat and turned around, walking past her brother as she made for the door. Lex’s hand gently rested on her shoulder for a moment, and she reached up to give it a quick pat, before she carried on her way, back out to the living room, where Kara lay propped up on a pillow.

            “I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Kara murmured, a brooding look on her face as she twisted the edge of the blanket in her nervous hands, “I should’ve thought this through better before I got my family to-”

            Lena let out a choked laugh, kneeling beside her and covering Kara’s fidgety hands with her own. “It’s better like this. At least she’s not in prison. To be honest, I think my mother’s probably excited and relieved to have an excuse to leave and focus on her research. She hasn’t been able to go since … well, since my father landed here. She’s given up so much for us.”

            “She’s going to come back though,” Kara reassuringly told her, her lips quirking up into a convincing smile, full or warmth and surety.

            “And how do you suppose we make that happen?” Lex coolly asked as he strode back in, looking dour and stiff.

            They all looked at each other, waiting for someone to come up with a plan, while they rattled their brains for anything that could help them resolve their predicament. They couldn’t take on Krypton’s government and a horde of rebels with just the three of them, they couldn’t help the poor and unfortunate without reforming the government, and they couldn’t get the rebels to stop unless they’d already made things better for the citizens of Kandor, and let those changes ripple through the planet’s other cities. So many things were linked together, in a tangled web of connecting issues, and they didn’t even know where to start untangling it all. If they pulled the wrong thread, they would become caught up in the midst of more than one plot that they were trying to diffuse from the outside, and none of them had any clue how to diffuse it. Tensions were already running high, and the three of them felt useless as heavy silence blanketed them.

            Eventually, they gave up and Kara went home, promising Lena that she’d stay safe and contact her if anything happened. But even when they gave up for the day, the red sun not even at its highest point yet, Lena couldn’t stop thinking about their predicament for the rest of the day. She locked herself in her lab and spent hours absentmindedly building more blue sun lamps, while she was consumed with different scenarios that she knew, ultimately, would fail.

            The next day, she wheeled herself to the Science Guild with Lex, her eyes ringed with purple after a sleepless night, and they holed themselves into Kara’s favourite lab and watched her take plant clippings and test soil samples while they all grew snippy with each other as they exchanged ideas. Each time one of them ventured something, their flimsy plan had holes poked into it and was shot down, and by the time lunch came around, all three of them were tired and irritable, going their separate ways for some air and to brood over their food in solitude.

            They went through this cycle every day for two weeks, before Kara showed up on their doorstep one night, blonde hair frazzled, blue eyes wild and owlish as she stepped into the apartment in her wrinkled clothes and gave Lena a wide smile.

            “I’ve got it!”

            Giving her a wary look, Lena trailed after Kara, who walked further into the apartment, seeming agitated and a little erratic. Lena had the added bonus of a little radiation to take the edge off her tiredness - not as much as she’d been saturating herself with before - but Kara and Lex were running off barely any sleep and more than a few skipped meals, both of them looking haggard and thin, and she was more than a little concerned about them. Following after Kara, who had made herself right at home at the apartment, and spent more than a few hours getting into heated arguments with Lex, which Lena futilely tried to calm down, she felt dread creep up on her again. They’d already been through dozens of ideas and it had left her with a pounding headache more often than not, but that could’ve been the radiation that slowly pulsed into her body.

            “Lex!” Kara called out, her voice scratchy and loud as it echoed through the hallways.

            Lena sighed as she ran a hand through her tousled hair, darting ahead of Kara and turning left at an opening in the hallway, and stopping at the third door to the right. Scanning her arm over the sensor, the door flew upwards with a small hiss, and Lena stepped inside with Kara in tow. Lex was sitting at a long workbench, a visor covering his face as he welded pieces of metal together, the smell of grease and gas heavy in the air, and he quickly extinguished the small, blue flame at the intrusion.

            Pushing the visor up onto his head, he wiped the sleeve of his tunic over his sweaty forehead and gave them a dark look. “What is it?”

            “I’ve got a plan,” Kara triumphantly replied, haughtily raising her chin as she gave him a hard look, “and you’re not going to like it.”

            Slowly setting down the blowtorch and removing the visor, Lex peeled the tanned gloves off his hands and dropped them onto the workbench, before swivelling around on his stool, arms crossed over his chest as he gave Kara a frosty look, wariness radiating off him. “And why is that?”

            One side of her mouth rising into a smile, Kara arched an eyebrow, “how do you bring down a government?”

            “We haven’t figured that out yet,” Lex said, giving her a droll look.

            “With an army.”

            He let out a derisive snort, rolling his eyes as Lena sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she readied herself to break up another fight. More than ever, she wished that Lillian was there. She’d missed her mother terribly over the past couple of weeks, and although Lillian had instilled them with confidence and an appropriate level of humility to ensure that they stopped bickering, they’d all resorted back to being children, and Lena wished her mother was there to scold them.

            “Well, as we’ve already established, my sister isn’t an army.”

            “Right,” Kara quickly agreed, “which means we need to get one.”

            Scoffing, Lex shook his head, “and I suppose you just happen to have a lot of friends who want to tear down Krypton’s government?”

            “No, but my parents do,” Kara flatly replied.

            There was a stunned silence following her words, and Lena opened and closed her mouth as she tried to comprehend what Kara was saying. It took her a few moments, looking from Kara to Lex, her forehead wrinkling with uncertainty as she made a small sound of confusion, before she finally spoke, her voice coloured with doubt as an uneasy feeling crept up on her.

            “What do you mean?”

            “We need to take down the government, right? Well, that’s what my family want to do. So … we use them to do it for us.”

            “Don’t you think they would’ve by now if they could?” Lex said, letting out a withering sigh.

            Ignoring him, Kara gave Lena an earnest smile. “See, Black Zero want to reform the government to make things more equal on Krypton. So do we. But we don’t have the manpower, and we have no cause to get people to rally to us. Black Zero does. If we can get rumours circulating in the Rankless district that Black Zero is looking for recruits, then we can empty the lower levels of the city and send them into the tunnels, making it easier to occupy the Rankless District when it comes to a fight.”

            “How does giving our enemy more fighters help us exactly?” Lena slowly asked.

            “Right, well, that’s the thing; Black Zero can’t really afford to arm that kind of army. They don’t have the means or supplies. All of that food you were stealing for soup kitchens and homeless can be sent into the tunnels to feed their numbers. And then we just need to arm them. Which comes to you.”

            She looked at Lex, a hard look on her face as she waited for his protests. It didn’t take long for the realisation to dawn on him as he spluttered and gave her a horrified look. “Me? You want me to arm these terrorists?”

            “Well you’re already making weapons for one form of terrorists,” Kara shrugged.

            He made a small cry of disbelief before his expression darkened. “The Warrior Guild are not terrorists.”

            “Maybe not to you,” Kara shrugged, “they’re there to help you. To keep you safe, up here in your tower. But the poor, the homeless, the starving … they’re beaten and arrested, killed for stealing to feed themselves. Just because Krypton says that it’s lawful for them to use that kind of violence and intimidation, it doesn’t mean it’s right . They use their power to spread fear amongst the downtrodden, so the powerful can stay in power. The only way to bring them down is with force.”

            “And how do you suppose we stop Black Zero when they're done assassinating Kandor’s leaders?”

            “I’m not saying that we let an army of thousands of armed rebels loose on the Ranked families - I don’t want them to kill people - but … if we let them think that that can do that … we have ourselves a distraction.”

            “A distraction for what?” Lena hesitantly asked.

            “For us to cause enough chaos to take into custody the Voice of Rao, the Council and my family. With everyone fighting each other, they’ll be too busy to even consider us .”

            They were silent again for a few moments, and Lena was looking at Kara’s wide, manic eyes with an astonished look on her face. There was a part of her that thought she was mad, that she was so sleep-deprived that she’d completely lost it, but there was a small part of her that was impressed. It wasn’t a well thought out plan - yet - but it was better than anything else they’d come up with, and Lena thought that it could work. It would take weeks, if not months, of planning, but with enough time and preparation, they could use both of their enemies against each other, and at the right moment, swoop in and cut the heads off of both factions.

            The only problem that Lena could see would be the casualties. Too many civilians could be injured in this, and she disliked the idea of sending people to the slaughter so that they could carry out their own agenda. The Sagitari would expect to go up against ill-prepared and unarmed Rankless rabble, and the Rankless would be expecting a victory with their numbers.

            “We can’t just let half of the city decimate each other though,” she said with a grimace.

            Lex opened his mouth and then quickly shut it, a sheepish look crossing his face as he met her gaze. “Actually … it might not come to that. I’m not saying that I like this idea - far from it - but … well, it’s the best we have. It’s risky, but I don’t think we’ll come up with something that isn’t risky. I just- well, all the weapons I’ve been making for the Warrior Guild … I put a chip in them. A failsafe, as it were. In case the weapons ever landed in the wrong hands, like Black Zero, or a Sagitari went rogue, I could activate the chip, which would act as an EMP and take out the mechanisms of the blaster.”

            A slow smile spread across Lena’s face as she turned to look at Kara, whose eyes were burning triumphantly, a slightly smug look on her face, even as her shoulders slumped with relief and exhaustion.

            “So when the time comes for a confrontation …”

            “I can remotely activate the failsafe and they’ll have no weapons to kill each other with. Still, the Sagitari will be at an advantage with their military training, so it still won’t be a fair fight, but there’ll be fewer casualties,” Lex replied, before pausing, his eyebrows drawing low over his eyes as he ran a hand over his stubble. “I still don’t like it though. Black Zero … I mean, they’re not stupid. The El’s aren’t stupid. I can’t just hand over a thousand blasters without making them suspicious.”

            Kara hesitated for a moment, a grim look on her face as she gave Lex a bitter smile, “you could join them.”

            “Join Black Zero? Have you lost your mind?” he snapped, going rigid with anger.

            Stepping forward, putting herself slightly in front of Kara, Lena gave him a pleading look as she held a hand up, trying to placate him. “Lex, this is for mother. None of us here want to aid them, but we have to do it if we want to fix things.”

            “Well we wouldn’t have to fix anything if you’d used your brain, Lena,” he testily replied, “but no, instead you were foolish and reckless, getting roped in with an El and thinking that you’re a God, and now I have to fix your mess. Well, I won’t do it. I won’t join a rebel force and build weapons for them.”

            “Just for the government, right?” Lena laughed, a wounded look on her face, even though she tried not to let her brother’s words get to her. “You’ll just give them more weapons. The people who put your family in Fort Rozz.”

            Lex swivelled back around on his stool, picking up his tools and the small device he was working on. With his back to them, he ignored their presence, and Lena gave Kara an exasperated look, reaching out to gently touch her arm before she jerked her chin towards the door. Nodding in understanding, Kara gave her a small smile and silently left the room, leaving Lena alone with her brother.

            With a sigh, Lena sank down onto a stool and wheeled herself over to Lex, sliding around the workbench so that she was on the opposite side and right in his line of sight. He had no choice but to acknowledge her when she folded her arms on the edge of the workbench and rested her chin on top, looking up at him with mournful green eyes.

            “I know you don’t trust her,” Lena wearily started, her voice a soft sigh as her brow furrowed, “but she’s trying to help.”

            Letting out a derisive snort, Lex set down his device and gave her a look of irritation, “I know she is. I just- she’s had every opportunity to betray us. Every opportunity . She’s spent half of her life tormented and shunned, and she’s come out good . For all she’s been through, it’s made her kind, and I just … I don’t understand it. Half of me is expecting it to be an act. I mean, the first people she went to when mother was arrested was her family. And now, she wants to go to her family for help again. She wants me to go to them. What if you’re wrong about her, Lena.”

            Letting out a quiet laugh, Lena’s expression softened and she gave him a small smile. “I don’t think that I am, Lex. I think that I love her. I know that I do.”

            “You don’t know everything .”

            “I know this. She’s good, and kind, and … not evil. She’s not her family. And her idea is good.”

            He grunted in reply, a disgruntled look on his face that made Lena smile, knowing that he hated being outsmarted by someone he’d always been told was beneath him. “It’s the best we’ve got, at any rate, but it’s far from good. We’re all going to end up in Fort Rozz for this; I can feel it.”

            Hope flared to life inside her and she gave him an expectant look, her eyes full of delight and determination, “does that mean you’re in?”

            Giving her an exasperated look, his lips twitched in a wry smile. “I suppose it does.”

Chapter Text

            The unlikely trio threw themselves into their flimsy plan with a vengeance. Three months passed slowly, full of frustration, setbacks and more than one argument. Lena felt like she was hanging on by a thread, slowly coming apart at the seams as Lex and Kara leapt for each other’s throats whenever the opportunity arose, although they’d come to begrudgingly admire each other and respect their input in the plan. To say that it was hard would have been an understatement. Lena barely slept anymore, her body running off solar energy, until she’d flare out, week after week, and spend days passed out beneath the sickly blue glow of sun lamps, her cells hurriedly trying to repair themselves before she wore herself out again.

            Their first success came with Lena’s finished image inducer, her old design tweaked and polished until it was perfect. Before, she’d managed to incur nothing but blurred, featureless anonymity, offering nothing but an unfocused mask where facial features should’ve been. After long nights of tinkering at the previously abandoned device, she’d managed to create the results she’d been searching for in the first place. By activating the tiny device stuck to her temple, she could become anyone else. With nothing more than science and a bit of hard work, she’d created the ability to put on a mask and pretend that she was someone new. And with that ability, they managed to get Lex into Black Zero.

            With a few small changes, her brother became a scruffy brown-haired, brown-eyed Rankless mechanic named Xel, dressed in drab black clothes and slouching his shoulders as if he carried the weight of all the injustices done to his people. It wasn’t hard for him to infiltrate their ranks. The three of them had been working hard to spread rumours about Black Zero recruiting new members, and all Lex had to do was present himself as another starved Rankless man, down on his luck, and he was in, with a key that could take him straight to the top. It wasn’t long before he was making blasters for them.

            Once phase one of their plan had been put into motion, Lena rarely saw her brother. He spent his days at the Science Guild, keeping up appearances, and it was there that she saw the most of him, the three of them crowding into Kara’s lab to discuss their plans. At night, he crept through the dingy tunnels beneath the city and delivered piles of weapons he’s created right into the El’s arms.

            While Kara didn’t reveal what she was working on so intently, only ever stopping by for brief visits to reconvene and make sure they were on track, Lena was confident that she was working on some trick up her sleeve. Something to help them win. She’d already handed over one of the genetically altered strains of grain to help grow food for the Rankless District and Black Zero, with Lena venturing out in the dark of night to deposit sackfuls of grain at tunnel entrances and soup kitchens, hoping to keep the lower levels of the city placated before they instigated their own riots before they were ready to carry out theirs.

            As for her own part, Lena worked on duplicating her sun lamps, building herself some new armour, and trying to lay a trap for the El’s. She knew that she was smart, but she was trying to outsmart some of the most intelligent Kryptonians on the planet. It was hard to think of ways to get past their guard when they were already so prone to slyness and manipulation. By nature, Lena was neither of those things, and she spent endless nights pacing back and forth, fiddling with half-finished projects as she fretted over not being able to uphold her end of the plan.

            Her main threat was Kal-El, with his solitary sun lamp and slightly enhanced strength. She wasn’t sure if he’d been able to reproduce her efforts yet, and she prayed to Rao every night that his family wouldn’t figure out how she’d done it. It was the only thing that kept the playing field even. Kryptonians were thick-boned, denser than humans, and their bodies ran hotter to combat the colder climate of their planet and weak sun. With the energy of a blue sun, Kal-El would be even more invincible than Lena. He would be as a God to the Kryptonians, and she knew it in her heart that she wouldn’t be able to beat him. Not like that.

            She was pondering her predicament, fretting about things that were yet to happen and trying to plan for those eventualities in case they came to fruition when the door to her lab hissed open. Her chin was resting in her palm and her eyes were burning with tiredness, the nanotech she’d been working on strewn across the worktop and all but forgotten about as she’d let her thoughts consume her, and Lena slowly straightened up, stiff muscles protesting as she stretched, looking towards the door.

            It was Kara. A slow smile spread across Lena’s face as her shoulders dropped, eyelids drooping slightly too, and she felt the tension inside her unwind slightly as a warm feeling spread throughout her chest. It seemed like the only time Lena felt calm these days was when Kara was around. Otherwise, Lena was wracked with worry. Worry about Lillian, about Lex, about Kara. She spent hours at night perched on the greenhouse at Kara’s apartment, unbeknownst to her, keeping watch, making sure that her family didn’t come for her. Lena didn’t know what she’d do if they got to her too. Although in her heart she knew that Kara was loyal to their crusade of justice, family had the tendency of putting people in precarious situations, and she couldn’t plan for the fallout of Kara’s family somehow convincing her to join their cause.

            “Hi,” Lena wearily greeted her, hollow-eyed and drained and happy to be torn away from her brooding thoughts.

            Kara looked like how she felt on the inside though, shoulders slumped and feet dragging on the floor. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair tousled, and she blinked owlishly as if trying to keep herself awake. As she neared Lena’s workbench, she leant down and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, lips warm and soft and making Lena’s eyelashes flutter closed for a brief moment as she cherished the sweetness of it.

            “Hi.”

            She stepped back, arms folded across her chest and leant against the side of the workbench, a distractedness to her greeting as her eyes frantically darted about.

            “You look scared,” Lena murmured, her brow creasing with worry as she reached out to take Kara’s hand in her own.

            “I am,” Kara confessed after a moment, “I’m afraid for you, Lena. Of how far you’ll go to win this.”

            The corners of Lena’s mouth curled into the barest hint of a smile, and it didn’t reach her eyes, looking hollow and older than her years as she ran her thumb across Kara’s knuckles. Giving her hand a gentle squeeze, she swivelled in her chair.

            “I’ll go as far as I have to.”

            “That’s what I’m afraid of. That you’ll put this planet before yourself. That you’ll do something reckless and get hurt in the process, just to stop my family. And I’m scared that you’ll hurt yourself with this.” She made a sweeping gesture at the nanotech on the worktop, laying useless and abandoned as Lena’s attention was otherwise occupied. “I understand why you want to, really, I do, but … I wish you wouldn’t jump right into it. Be careful. Please.”

            Quietly laughing, Lena slowly drew Kara closer, smiling up at her with more conviction. “I will, I promise. But they’re just Kryptonians. Your family aren’t a threat to me.”

            Lips pressed into a hard, flat line, Kara stared at her with a troubled look flickering in her deep blue eyes. She didn’t look convinced. Lena’s thin smile wavered slightly and she rose to her feet, chair rolling backwards as she moved closer to Kara, so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off her, fighting back the chill that always lingered in Lena’s fingertips as she reached up to cup her face in her hand.

            “They’re not going to hurt me, I promise.”

            Jerking her head away from Lena’s hand, Kara made a sound of doubt at the back of her throat, a look of scepticism crossing her face. “You’re underestimating them. They’re my family. Mine. I know them better than anyone, and I’m telling you not to underestimate them. They’re much smarter than you know.”

            “And I’m smarter,” Lena boldly said, raising her chin as one side of her mouth curled up into a smirk.

            Sighing heavily, Kara clenched her jaw as she let her eyes wander, avoiding Lena’s searching gaze, her hand still cradled in Lena’s until her eyes finally came to rest on the workbench again. Slipping out of Lena’s grasp, she stepped towards the table and reached down to pick up one of the nanites. It was minuscule, a tiny particle, and she brought it up to inspect it, a dark look flitting across her face before she swallowed it in her closed fist and fixed Lena with a piercing stare.

            “Your hubris is commendable, but it’s not enough.”

            Bristling slightly, Lena jerked her chin forward in a stubborn gesture, her heavy brows pulling together, and she had to force herself not to grind her teeth together in irritation at Kara’s lack of faith in her. But it wasn’t a lack of faith, so much as a warning. One of them had to be cautious and rational, and it wasn’t Lena. She was filled with confidence in her abilities, in their inevitable victory, because she didn’t know what they were going to do if they lost. Lillian was still gone, with not so much as a whisper off her since she’d left, and Lex was growing antsy and more agitated by the day, sure that their plan had already been discovered and Black Zero were about to turn on them at any moment. The stakes were too high for them to lose now.

            “My arrogance isn’t going to win this fight for us,” Lena said, her tone holding a prickly edge to it as she held her hand out for her nanite, which Kara slowly set down on her palm, before pale, slender fingers wrapped around it. “I will.”

            “I know,” Kara quickly assured her, her voice softening as she gave Lena a mournful look, as if she already knew that she’d lost her. “I know you will. Even if it costs you everything; even if it costs you your life.”

            “And what a life it’s been,” Lena murmured, the fight draining out of her as her shoulders slumped. “Pain. Love. Knowledge. Perhaps now I’ll finally get to go on that adventure I always dreamed of.”

            She gave Kara a playful smile, finding nothing but worry brimming in the eyes of the stoic woman in front of her. As much as Lena tried to assuage her concerns, Kara looked at her with defeat, as if she’s come to accept the fact that Lena had no intention of coming back to her. That wasn’t true, of course, but if that was what it came to, Lena would meet her death with grim satisfaction, knowing that she hadn’t let a life of pain curb her from doing what was right.

            The alternative just didn’t sit well with her. Not only because she’d lived that pain for so many years, but because she didn’t have long left anyway. Her human body had put up a good fight, and she’d fight for a long as she could, until her last breath, and in the end, she’d be glad for all she’d done to better Krypton. Her only hope now was that there would be a better future for the planet she’d loved so fiercely.

            “And what about me?” Kara asked, her voice laced with bitterness. “What’s left for me after this? If you …”

            “A future. A better world.”

            “It’s not a better world without you,” Kara said, her voice cracking slightly. “Let me do it. Please. Give me your technology. I’ll be stronger than you. I can withstand it.”

            Lena swallowed the lump in her throat at the desperation of Kara’s words, the begging look in her eyes and the ashen look to her skin. She could hardly bring herself to meet her frantic, wide eyes, but she did. Looking her in the eye, she gave her a wan smile, reaching out to trace her fingers down her hand, before swivelling back around on her seat and setting the nanite back down with the rest of it.

            “I’ll be fine,” Lena brushed her concerns aside, her words full of confidence and reassurance as she picked up a tablet and scrolled through the coding she’d been typing up before Kara had appeared, trying to figure out where she was going wrong with her research. “It’ll be easy, you’ll see. They have nothing to use against me; nothing to make me weak.”

            Kara was silent, and Lena looked up at her expectantly, a searching look in her eyes as she waited for her to say something. Lips pressed together, Kara looked as if she was on the brink of saying something and was debating whether or not she should say it. Letting out a pent up breath, she seemed to deflate, giving Lena a wounded look as she ran her fingers through her hair.

            “You act as if you’re doing this alone.”

            “I’m alone in this. I don’t want you or my brother to get hurt in the crossfire. That part … I can handle.”

            “And if you get hurt?”

            “They’ll need a very big gun for that,” she said with a crooked smile.

            A flicker of annoyance in her eyes betrayed the blank look of indifference on Kara’s face, and a muscle twitched in her jaw as she looked away. Reaching into the folds of the robe she was wearing, she produced a delicate purple flower, the perfect shade of House Thor’s colours, with a deep green stem and velvety leaves, and set it down on the workbench, the precise way she set it down hinting at the anger simmering just below the surface. Kara hated the conversations with Lena where her fragile mortality was raised and quickly brushed aside, and Lena didn’t know how to tell her that she was just trying to prepare her for the worst. It was better if she expected Lena to fail. Better for everyone. To hope was foolish, despite Lena’s cocksure attitude and casual indifference.

            “Very well. If you’re so determined to prove that you can do this, so eager for a fight, then you should know … the nanites have to work together. There’s no leader. You need to program a hive mind. One moves … they all move. Not everyone can do everything by themselves.”

            She left without another word, and Lena blinked in surprise as she watched her go, mouth opened to call her back, but knowing deep down that Kara was upset and wouldn’t come back. Going after her would only spark a fight. Instead, Lena sat at her workbench, staring down at the nanites with the realisation that Kara was right. She’d been programming them to move one by one, in a sequential order, but they needed to move as one, like a hive of bees, each one moving in relation to the other, not stuck in the ordered position.

            Sleep evaded her for the rest of the night as she rewrote the code, running through test after test, slowly making progress as she worked out kinks. Nearly weak with relief, after months of trying in vain to finish her technology, or at least make progress, she wanted to call Kara on her comms and thank her. Lena wanted to hear her voice and know that everything would be okay. The most she settled for was cradling the flower between delicate fingers, breathing in the sweet smell of it and knowing that what she was doing she was doing for Kara. It might’ve felt callous and cruel, but she loved Kara, she could see that so plainly, and she would do anything to keep her safe. Even sacrifice herself.

            It took her three days of coding and trials and errors before she finished her design. She didn’t sleep the entire time, barely eating or drinking anything, and only when Lex or Kara put it down in front of her in their rare sightings. By the time she was done, she didn’t even have the energy to make it to her bedroom. Shoving aside scrap metal and gears on another workbench, she climbed on top of it and flopped down uselessly, body aching, limbs listless and splayed out, and she fell asleep with cool metal pressed against her cheek and her body sagging with relief as sleep rushed in and seized control of her mind and everything faded to black.

            Lena wasn’t sure how long she slept. It could’ve been a few hours or it could’ve been days, and she blearily blinked back sleep as she was roughly shaken awake, her sluggish mind jumping to alertness as she swiftly sat up, staring up at the pale face of her brother looming out of the darkness.

            “What is it?” she hoarsely asked, throat dry and stomach painfully hollow.

            “Black Zero are attacking tonight. Now. I just got the signal.”

            “Tonight?” Lena echoed, dread pooling in her stomach as her heart faltered for a moment. Icy fear prickled down her spine and made her shiver in nervous anticipation of the upcoming fight. This was everything they’d been hoping for.

            Lex gave her a grave nod, pushing a cup of bitterly dark coffee into one hand and setting down a bowl of lumpy oats. “Tonight. We have an hour. Eat. Get ready.”

            “Kara-”

            “I already messaged her.”

            Falling silent, Lena nodded, raising the cup of coffee to her lips and draining it down in two gulps, a warmth spreading throughout her as it shocked her awake. Spooning oats in her mouth, she hurried to the kitchen with dirty dishes in hand, dumping them in the sink and hurrying to her room.

            In a hidden closet she had a spare uniform, the tight-fitting jumpsuit on a mannequin, a pair of supple boots and a heavy cloak waiting to be put on. Her armour was still in possession of the Warrior Guild, used as evidence against her mother, but she had something better. Grabbing the clothes, she made her way to the bathroom, stepping underneath steaming water and letting the heat warm her cold body and soothe her aching muscles as she tried to remain calm.

            Braiding her damp hair back, she dressed in the tight-fitting suit, slipped on the boots and fingerless gloves, and bundled the deep purple cape up in her arms and walked out to the kitchen. Lex was likewise suited up in his own uniform, assembling guns and weapons at the table. Kara had arrived while Lena had showered, and she was anxiously pacing, dressed in a stolen Sagitari uniform. As Lena stepped into the room, she felt the tension slam into her, and she found her stomach fluttering nervously as she quickly crossed the room and caught Kara in a tight embrace, the two of them swaying slightly in each other’s arms. Lena memorised the way she fit perfectly, the smell of rich earth and sweet flowers clinging to her skin, the way the feathery hairs at her temple and the nape of her neck curled ever so slightly, and the way that her heart hammered, strong and lively. They were things she’d never forget, no matter what happened. It was like they were hammered into the very bones of her existence. She would know Kara in any world in any life; she would know her even in death.

            “Are you ready?” Kara shakily asked her as they pulled apart, her eyes shining with sadness and regret.

            “Yes.”

            It wasn’t even a lie. Lena was ready for this to all be over, and she was full of weary resignation, tired of the fight before it had even begun. There was so much riding on this fight. Terrorists being brought to justice and the government being torn down to see that justice was served properly. There would be a lot of work once the actual fighting was over and they’d won, with the Rankless rebels who had been manipulated into hiding in the tunnels being set free, the blame of their crimes falling on those higher up, and Lena hoped that Eliza would be one of the Lawmakers involved in rebuilding Krypton’s government and rectifying the wrongs that were deeply ingrained in their society. She’d only met her once, but Lena had the feeling that she was a strict and just person, with a leniency towards mercy. It was what they’d need when this was all over.

            “Are you?”

            “It’s time, whether I’m ready or not,” Kara murmured.

            Lena briefly cupped her cheek, giving her a sad smile, before she turned towards Lex, a flicker of hope crossing her face. “Mother?”

            “No word yet. I assume she’s waiting to hear word that it’s safe before contacting us. We never know who might be watching.”

            Nodding, Lena swallowed the lump in her throat and turned back to Kara. “Come. I have something for you.”

            She led her to her main lab, walking over to the small box she’d left on one of the benches, and cradled it gently in her hands as she turned, looking up at Kara with worry. Lena wasn’t afraid for herself, but she was scared for Kara. Despite the fact that Lena was human and dependent on her sun lamps, Kara was the one that seemed so fragile and breakable, and while she wouldn’t be fighting, Lena was worried for her safety anyway. She was a target as much as Lena was.

            Holding out the box, Lena swallowed thickly, “this is for you.”

            Snapping open the lid, Kara frowned down at the object inside it. Lena gave her a tender look as Kara’s eyes flickered up to meet hers, and she hesitantly cleared her throat as Kara delicately picked up the silver bracelet nestled on the bed of velvet. Taking a step forward, Lena gently took it from her, before she took Kara’s hand in her own and slipped the bracelet around a slender wrist.

            “Press your thumb here,” Lena murmured, gesturing towards the small triangular shaped sigil of the House of El. “And you’ll be protected.”

            Kara followed her instructions and watched as a wave of nanites flowed from inside the bracelet, creeping up her arm and spreading across her chest until her torso was covered in a flimsy layer of armour. It was midnight blue, so dark that it was almost black, but with a subtle nod towards Kara’s house, and stronger than any armour that the Warrior Guild could make, despite the deceiving thinness of it. A blast of laser energy wouldn’t be able to penetrate the armour, and it would keep Kara safe enough, while Lena was otherwise occupied.

            “It’s beautifully made,” Kara murmured.

            “It is,” Lena agreed, before she gently bit her lower lip, pausing for a moment, before plucking up the courage to continue. “And I- it’s not just to protect you.”

            Giving her a bewildered look, Kara was still as Lena reached out and pressed her thumb against the House of El crest, the nanites retreating back into the cuff in a fluid wave. Taking hold of Kara’s hand, Lena opened and closed her mouth, trying to find the words, before exhaling softly.

            “When this is all over … I want you to come with me to the Jewel of Truth and Honour. I want to bind myself to you in every way I can. I love you.”

            With a strained smile, Kara squeezed her hand gently, “are you saying that because you mean it, or because you might not get the chance again?”

            “Both,” Lena admitted, guilt creeping up on her.

            “You said that we’d never exchange marriage bracelets. That it was futile to try and give each other what we secretly wanted.”

            Letting out a quiet, choked laugh, Lena nodded. “I think I was right, but if there’s ever a time for me to be wrong, I hope it was then. You know how I feel, Kara. You know that I’ll fight to stay if there’s even a chance that I can. Fight for you, if you’ll be here waiting for me.”

            “You know that I will be,” Kara said with some bitterness. She stroked her fingers over the polished silver cuff, a troubled expression on her face before her lips twitched into the smallest of smiles. “I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to you.”

            Smiling, Lena reached out and brushed Kara’s hair out of her face, before cupping her cheek in her hand. “Then I hope there will be nothing that needs forgiving.”

            Quietly snorting with laughter, Kara leant forward and rested her head against Lena’s, eyes closing as they stayed that way for a few moments, cherishing the brief, stolen minute of privacy before everything exploded.

            “I swear to Rao,” Kara whispered, her voice trembling and fraught with panic, “if you-”

            “Just know that I won’t go down unless it’s the only option.”

            “No, even then-”

            “If it’s between me and you,” Lena said, her voice hoarse with thick emotion, “if your family do anything to hurt you … you can’t ask me to choose myself. Not over you.”

            “I am.”

            Leaning in, Lena gave her the softest kiss, her lips gentle as she lingered for a moment, taking Kara’s hands in her own, before she pulled back, stepping further away until they were holding onto each other by their fingertips. With a rueful smile, Lena let their hands drop, her eyes shining slightly with regret.

            “Then I’ll apologise to you now, and hope that maybe one day you will forgive me because I refuse. I’m sorry.”

            Betrayal bloomed in Kara’s eyes as her mouth fell open, a look of pale anger hardening the lines of her face before she turned around and stalked out of the room without another word. Sighing softly, but knowing that she couldn’t bring herself to make empty promises to Kara, Lena turned towards the neatly placed devices in another case, a bigger case, and pulled them out. Donning a pair of black gauntlets and greaves, as well as a utility belt, Lena pressed a hand to the buckle and stood solidly in the middle of the lab.

            As one, nanites swarmed from the devices, spreading over her body in a wave of shiny, black metal, firmly interlocking as pieces of plate armour locked into place with a dull, metallic click. Swinging a cloak of the deepest violet around her shoulders, she clipped it into place and straightened beneath the mantle. The armour was even better than what Lillian had created for her, but Lena had kept the design. Black as night, it was wrought in the design of the Ancient Greeks, with the Gorgon’s head etched into the breastplate, tiny emerald eyes shining wickedly out from the snarling face. Lena had worked tirelessly to get the nanites to align properly, to form the pieces of the armour, and she raised her chin proudly as she plucked the cylinder of black metal from the belt and watched as a sharply honed blade of inky blackness formed in a leaf-bladed shape.

            Swinging it loosely in a gloved hand, she slowly walked towards the door, reassured of the blade's balance, and walked back towards the kitchen to wait with the solemn duo sitting in gloomy silence. As she walked in in her new armour, radiating strength and power with the full effect of her sun lamps carefully imbued into every single nanite, she gave her brother a wan smile as he gave her a sceptical look.

            “That armour doesn’t look strong enough to withstand a stiff breeze. Are you sure it’ll hold?”

            Scoffing, Lena gave him a sardonic smile as she twirled the sword with a flourish and jammed it towards her stomach, causing her brother and Kara to leap to their feet in alarm. The blade screeched as it skidded across the smooth metal, turned aside and slipping past her waist without leaving so much as a trace on the metal.

            Raising his eyebrows slightly, Lex gave her a cynical look. “Well is the blade strong enough then?”

            In answer, Lena slammed it down through the thick metal table, far enough for the tip of the blade to punch through the surface and peek out from underneath by a few inches. With a slightly smug smile, Lena yanked it back out with little effort and sheathed it again.

            “Any other concerns, or should we go?”

            Lex gestured towards the door.

            The three of them left as one, spilling out into the dusk with little care or concern for being spotted. It was more important that they were successful than not being seen. They rushed through the winding streets of the Ranked District, crossing bridges and courtyards to the bewildered looks of Kryptonians milling about until Lena heard the first sounds of fighting.

            In a blur, she dashed off, leaving her brother and lover to follow after her at a slower rate, and took off towards the Courtyard of Cythonna, jumping off a dizzyingly high bridge and slamming down onto the stone floor three stories below, to where the fighting had commenced in the lower levels of the city. At its centre, a towering statue of the Kryptonian Goddess of ice and death loomed imposingly, and Lena thought it rather fitting that it was a statue of Cythonna that would watch over the events unfolding before her.

            Sagitari and Black Zero rebels were already opening fire on each other and she sent hurried thoughts towards her brother as she stepped into the middle of the fray and activated a small EMP that took out the electronics of those nearest to her, pausing the fighting for a moment. Glancing around, she looked for any signs of Kara’s family and found none, except her adoptive sister. Alex was angry and vicious in her crisp uniform, holding a thin man in a headlock, her blaster abandoned nearby on the floor as she barked orders at her soldiers.

            Spotting Lena, unmasked and unafraid in the middle of the fray, her mouth curled up into a snarl, her dark eyes darkening until they almost looked black. “You.”

            Crossing the distance towards her, Lena stopped nearby, watching as Alex tossed the rebel aside, all but forgotten about as she took an imposing step towards Lena, and drew a small dagger and lunged towards her. With an exasperated sigh, Lena’s hand darted out, grabbed her wrist in its iron will, and knocked the dagger aside with no more effort than swatting aside an annoying insect.

            “I need your soldiers to keep the rebels distracted,” Lena quietly asked her.

            “What?!”

            “This is a trap,” Lena admitted, a grave look on her face as she looked around at all the punches being thrown, electronics crackling back to life on nearby billboards and drones, “I need you to engage. Don’t kill, just keep them occupied. Please. Keep everyone away from the upper levels of the city.”

            “I’m a Commander of the Sagitari,” Alex stiffly replied, “I don’t take orders from traitors.”

            A moment later they were plunged into gloomy dusk, turning everyone into nothing more than grey shadows - except to Lena’s sharp eyes - as Lex activated the kill switch in the blasters and cut the power of the entire city. The blackout was unexpected but welcome, for a brief moment, before chaos ensued. With no weapons and nothing but fading orange sunlight to see by, the fighting became messy and the sounds of shouts and curses were eerie as they echoed through the streets.

            “Please,” Lena begged again, her voice soft and pleading, “this goes beyond us. I know you don’t trust me-”

            “Those are the first words out of your mouth that I believe.”

            “But I need your help. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t ask. I need you to keep Black Zero distracted while I find Alura Zor-El. And the rest of her family.”

            She felt Alex stiffen, and watched as surprise flickered in the depths of her dark eyes, a suspicious look on her face. “Does Kara know about this?”

            “Alex!”

            They both turned at the nearby shout, finding themselves looking at a breathless Kara garbed in a stolen Sagitari uniform and the thin layer of armour covering her chest, courtesy of Lena. Turning back to Alex, Lena gave her a sharp smile.

            “Whose idea do you think it was?”

            “I’ll have you arrested, you know,” Alex threatened, her words lacking conviction as she batted aside Lena’s grip and was let go, stumbling slightly with surprise.

            Kara stepped up beside Lena, standing tall and proud, looking far from the woman who’d been trodden down and ashamed for many years. Lena could imagine the formidable woman she would’ve been if she’d grown up with the cocksure attitude of her family, with the wealth and privilege and shiny prestige of an El, and smiled at the formidable woman she’d become anyway, without all of that. It was in her blood, the strength and sharp wit, and Kara knew how to manipulate her sister as surely as her family.

            “Alex, please,” Kara softly pleaded, “trust me. Trust me this once; I’m your sister.”

            Wariness dwelled in her eyes, but Lena watched as Alex’s resolve wavered slightly. “What is exactly is your plan?”

            “Don’t hurt anyone,” Kara urged her, “keep them distracted but don’t kill them. Contain everyone in the lower levels of the city.”

            “They’re terrorists .”

            “Rebels,” Kara corrected, “for the most part. They’re starving. They don’t want to fight, they just want to live. They want a just government; we’re going to give them that. Just buy us some time to cut the heads off the snakes,” she glanced to Lena, giving her a frightened smile, “you can’t tell me that Kandor isn’t failing, that Krypton isn’t running itself to its end. We can stop this before it’s irreversible. We’ll be watching a new dawn rise tomorrow, sister. A better one, I promise you.”

            “Can you promise me that you’re doing what’s right for Krypton, what’s right for its people?” Alex hesitantly asked.

            Kara sagged with relief as she gave her sister an encouraging smile, and Lena felt that relief echoed inside her. “I can.”

            Pausing for a moment, Alex nodded, looking around at the chaos around them. “I’ll do what I can.”

            She surged off into her troops, shouting commands, and Lena turned to face Kara, clapping her on the shoulder and giving her a stern nod, before she thrust herself up into the sky at a rocketing speed, before coming to a gentle stop midair, floating high above the dark city. Lena had never seen it so dark, not in all her years on the planet, or filled with so much noise as she listened to the distant screams and shouts below her, and she felt herself grow stiff with tension as she closed her eyes and listened. All she had to do was listen; she’d find out where they were. All of them. The Voice of Rao, the El’s, Kal-El. She had a nagging feeling about him, and she couldn’t shake it, hovering high above the masses below.

            “I know you’re up there. I can see you,” a quiet voice pierced through the unintelligible sounds of fighting below.

            Eyes snapping open, a jolt ran through Lena as she recognised the voice. It was him. Chest heaving with anticipation she narrowed her eyes, glancing around below her as she tried to pinpoint where the voice had come from.

            “I have a gift for you, Nightwing ,” Kal-El said, his voice a deep, mocking rumble.

            There. At the Council Chambers. Lena’s eyes locked in on the steps, taking in the group of dark figures waiting patiently, and she felt anger burn fiercely in her chest as she let out a quiet snarl, darting down towards the source of her annoyance. He’d been a thorn in her side for months now, lurking about Kara, causing trouble with her family, and Lena was relishing the thought of a fight with him and a quiet voice cautioned her to be careful.

            Flying as fast as she could, she was swooping down on them in a moment, cloak flaring out and making her look every inch the mythical beast she’d been mistaken for as she landed with enough force to create a short furrow of broken stone along the top of the steps as she came to a skidding halt, green eyes flashing wildly with rage as she unsheathed her dark sword in a fluid motion.

            Her eyes darted around as a circular shield rippled out of the gauntlet of her left forearm, forming up in a dark guard with the imposing face of Medusa on it too, and she sank into a slight crouch, bracing herself. One by one, she took in the faces of the people in front of her. All of the El’s were there, save Kara’s mother, standing in a row in their dark uniforms. Zor-El, Jor-El, Alura and Astra, Lara and Non, and there was Kal-El, standing front and centre, radiating blue light with a sickly cast to his bearded face. At the foot of each of them knelt a robed Councilmember, and with a startling shock, Lena realised that they were the leaders of the Council, including the golden masked and draped Voice of Rao. The people she’d come here to depose. Yet at each of their neck’s a sharp-edged knife was held, and she barely had time to let out a hoarse shout before the throats of six of them were slit and blood sprayed like a fountain across the steps of the Council Chambers.

            All save the Voice of Rao, who cowered on his knees as lifeless bodies swayed for a moment before toppling forward into the puddles of blood forming, creeping towards the top step and staining the stone black. In a rush of anger, Lena narrowed her eyes at Kal-El and felt heat burn behind them, a moment before her heat vision sent a beam of blue light into his chest, pushing him backwards, away from the golden figure at his feet.

            “Stop!” a voice rang out as Kal-El scrambled for his balance and snarled, surging towards Lena before coming to a halt, like a trained dog.

            Turning her attention to the dark-haired figure stepping out of the Council Chambers, striding through the open double doors as if she commanded them, Lena immediately noticed Kara’s mother. Alura was beautiful and dark as she strode out onto the stone plateau, a regal air about her and danger radiating off her in waves, and Lena felt unease prickle her skin as her stomach clenched uncomfortably. A chain rattled in her hand, slithering eerily across the stone floor as Alura gave Lena a sharp smile, her blue eyes like ice.

            “Ah, our little Nightwing , how lovely of you to join us. I’ve brought you a gift.”

            With a sharp tug of the thick chain, she pulled something choking out of the shadows, and Lena’s eyes widened with horror as she watched her mother stagger out of the darkness of the Council Chambers. Her hair was matted with blood, her skin as white as bone and beaten to a bloody and bruised pulp, and a metal collar was fixed around her neck, attached to the chain in Alura’s hand. She stumbled on the stone, shivering and swaying, but standing proudly, unwilling to be broken, and she met Lena’s terrified eyes with her own calm stare.

            Yanking on the chain, Alura kicked Lillian’s knees out from under her, causing her to fall to her knees hard enough to bruise, eliciting a small grunt of pain and nothing more. Winding the chain in her hand, Alura smiled slyly, eyeing Lena, who was rooted to the spot with fear, before a small blade slid into the palm of her hand. Digging it into the cheek of the woman kneeling in front of her, Alura smiled.

            “Did you really think that you could outsmart me?” Alura said, laughing maniacally as she gave Lena an incredulous look, “me? It’s admirable, really, but foolish. Did you really think that I’d walk so easily into a trap? I should be offended.”

            She sighed heavily then, her grip on the knife slacking for a moment, before she dropped the theatrics and fixed Lena with a hard, unforgiving stare, the pressure returning to the knife, hard enough to pierce the skin of Lillian’s chin, a dark bead of blood rolling down the mess of her face.

            “It’s such a shame that your mother has to the pay the price of your lesson, Lena Lu-Thor,” Alura spat, her eyes dark with fury, “you can’t outsmart me; I’m always one step ahead of you.”

            Numb and so cold, Lena couldn’t do anything but stand there, eyes wide and glassy and full of fear, her bottom lip quivering as she knew that one wrong step could cause a quick end for her mother, one wrong word could spark Alura’s temper even further. But she couldn’t look away, watching the blood drop down Lillian’s pale, sallow cheek from where she’d been pricked, and she felt her heart in her throat, the aching urge to be heroic fighting back against her better judgement as she watched it roll down the bruised skin and drip off her jaw.

            Her mother’s eyes were bright, despite the pain dwelling in them, and as Lena stood there, scared and not knowing what to do for the first time in her life, her mother’s lips twitched into the briefest smile, and she watched as Lillian turned her head, teeth bared, and bit the hand that held a knife to her face. With shock and alarm, Lena watched as Alura let out a quiet snarl, fingers splaying as she lost the grip on the handle of the knife, and the knife itself clattered onto the stone. Spell broken, Lena moved in a blur, over dead bodies and puddles of blood, pushing past Kal-El and the rest of his family, knocking aside delayed lunges for her, as she raced towards Lillian.

            “Mother!”

Chapter Text

            Lena’s hoarse cry rang out loud in the still night, the sounds of fighting distant, far below and another world away from the quiet gathering outside the Council Chambers. She moved before she even had time to think about it, everything slowing down as she pushed past the El’s in a blur, watching the sluggish response of Alura. The snarl of outrage twisting her face as she flexed her bitten hand. The way Lillian fell back, scrambling away on her elbows, feet slipping on the smooth stone.

            In a heartbeat, Lena was there. In two, she’d tackled Alura around the waist and into the smothering darkness of the empty Council Chambers. They came to a skidding halt, Lena’s palms grinding shallow furrows in the marble floor, Alura sliding on her back and cracking her head painfully against a statue of Rao, shimmering gold in the darkness, and Lena came to a stop on top of the woman, staring down at her dazed expression with flat eyes.

            Pushing herself up off Alura, Lena stared down at her for a moment, taking in the slow-burning anger in her eyes, the barely restrained irritation and the air of smugness around her. And then something collided with her with the force of a battering ram. Knocked off her feet, Lena flew backwards, arms and legs pedaling as air rushed past her, twisting her cape around her as her sword was knocked out of her hand and clattered uselessly to the floor.

            The chamber was enormous, with a vaulted domed ceiling made of clear crystal, exposing the velvety blackness of night beyond it, and when Lena collided with an inner wall in the hall, stone bursting under the impact as she went straight through it, the sound echoed loudly around her. Staggering to her feet, she looked ghostly, covered in white dust from pulverised stone, and her eyes blazed with anger as she stepped through the hole she’d made and stared at the figure floating in midair.

            Blue light radiated from Kal-El. From the six sun lamps burning brightly from beneath the black robe he’d discarded. His face was painted a sickly colour, his eyes dark and usually slick hair ruffled as he hovered eerily in the middle of the chamber. A quiet snarl fell from Lena’s lips as she threw herself towards him, anger bubbling up as she reached out with one hand, clawing to take back the technology that he’d stolen from her.

            Barrelling into him, Lena grabbed a fistful of his tunic and the two grappled in midair, off-balance and dizzy as they spun around, Lena’s cape twisting around her as she bared her teeth with the effort of Kal-El’s unrestrained strength. She was strong with the radiation coursing through her, but her body had to fight off the red sun too. Kal-El had been born to this atmosphere, and a blue sun made him stronger, faster, invincible. But Lena hadn’t been born strong, or fast; she’d been born smart. It was in her very bones, in the fabric of her DNA, and as she was pummeled into the marble floor, cracks radiating out from the crater her body formed, she realised she couldn’t beat him with brute strength alone. She’d have to be smarter than him, than all of the El’s.

            As she lay there, blinking back spots of light, contemplating the circumstances she found herself under, a heavy booted foot slammed down in her stomach, grinding her into the dirt and rubble and forcing the breath from her lungs as she gasped in pain. Struggling to draw in a shallow breath, Lena looked up at the dark figure above her, black against the dark sky visible through the crystal dome, and watched as he grew bigger, leaning down to pluck her from underneath his shoe and hoist her into the air, a massive hand wrapped around her throat.

            Kal-El softly laughed, the sound sending a prickle of unease running down Lena’s spine, as if he knew that she was somehow already beat, and he carelessly tossed her aside. Head cracking against the floor, Lena slid across cool marble, spinning on the slippery surface until she came to a stop at the base of another statue of the Gods. Telle, the God of wisdom, staring sternly ahead, a large tome clasped to his chest in a stone fist, the lines of his face radiating intelligence, and Lena gasped as she staggered to her feet, gripping the solid base at Telle’s feet for balance.

            She turned in time for a fist to crack her across the jaw, blinding pain making her vision darken for a moment as she spat blood all over the floor they were quickly turning to ruin. Another punch was aimed at her but she ducked just in time, one hand pressed to her aching jaw as Kal-El’s fist collided with the stone statue, fragments shattering apart at the impact, and Lena darted behind him in a blur, jumping on his back and wrapping her arms around his neck as she ground her teeth together and squeezed tightly.

            If Kal-El thought she that would crumple beneath his strength then he was wrong. Lena knew pain. Crippling pain that left her unable to stand, unable to breathe properly or feed herself. So much pain that she spent days swimming in darkness to escape it. His pain couldn’t hold a candle to that kind of pain. Letting out her own quiet laugh, a manic feeling creeping up on her, Lena tightened her grip around Kal-El’s neck, knowing that there was nothing he could do to her that she couldn’t take. Even death. She would willingly accept it, but first, she would take him with her.

            They fought furiously, each one of his blows devastating and ruining as he beat her face to a bloody and bruised pulp, while she ran circles around him like an annoying creature, jabbing him in the tender spots, noticing his weaknesses and tripping him up on them. For each heavy punch he landed on her, she landed a weaker one on him, behind his knees, at his throat, in the soft flesh near his kidney. Lena fought dirty and ruthlessly, clawing and biting, running shallow slashes across his arms and legs when she managed to curl her fingers around the hilt of her sword at one point, smashing the heavy shield into him to throw him off balance. It went on and on, until she could barely stand and her skin grew hot from the sheer amount of radiation running through her, barely keeping her on her feet.

            At some point, they managed to make it back out into the chill night, after collapsing pillars and walls inside the Council Chambers and leaving the floor an uneven wreck, and they started to tear apart the expanse of stone at the top of the steps, flinging each other into unobstructed air, slamming each other back down to earth with enough force to bury each other in stone.

            On and on it went, until at last it came to a grinding halt as Alura’s voice rang out loudly, laced with impatience and satisfaction, and Lena’s head whipped around to take in the form standing below her. Alura was smiling softly, a knowing look in her eyes as she stared up at Lena, standing with an arm wrapped around Kara’s waist and a knife held to her throat. Lena’s stomach dropped and a small sound of panic died in her throat as Kal-El slammed her back down to earth.

            In the moment it took Lena to extract herself from the pile of rubble she lay in, she found herself surrounded. Alura stood to her right, with Kara at her mercy, Zor-El in front of her with with the Voice of Rao sagging in his grasp. And Lillian to left, held tightly in Kal-El’s strong grip as the hulking figure smiled. Alex and Lex were at a standoff with Jor-El and Astra behind her, and Lena slowly rotated to look, taking in the impasse they’d all come to. Except for her. She was free to make a decision. She could save Kara and lose her mother. Save Lillian and lose her lover.

            Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat, she looked to Lillian and to Kara in turn, both of them giving her slow nods, understanding her predicament and accepting the outcome if she chose the other. But she couldn’t choose. It wasn’t that simple, it wasn’t that easy, and Lena found everything slowing around her as she breathed slowly, her heart pounding in her chest. She had to choose who to take out first, and she knew that Alura was the head of this organisation, the mastermind. If she lived, it would rebuild in the shadows, only to reappear in a few years and try again. Black Zero would never die unless she died with it.

            “Remember who the real enemy is,” Alura softly warned her as Lena met her cool stare, the knife at Kara’s throat digging in deep enough to draw a thin line of blood.

            Lena wasn’t under the impression that Alura was bluffing. She could hear the steady beat of her heart, the sure grip on the handle as she held it to her daughter’s throat, not a tremor in sight, and she knew that if she moved so much as a muscle, Alura would take her own daughter with her. It wouldn’t serve a purpose, but it would be in spite, and she knew that. Somehow, Alura could see the love and devastation in Lena’s eyes, in the lines of her face and in the way she’d torn through Kara’s family to protect her. It was clear as day, even on a night as black as that. But Lena knew that she had to stop Alura.

            As she paused for a moment, mind racing as she stood in the middle, caught between her mother in the clutches of Kara’s cousin, Kara at the mercy of her mother, Lex and Alex standing off with Kara’s aunt and uncle, while the Voice of Rao sagged radiantly and bloodsoaked with a knife pressed to his spine by Kara’s father, Lena didn’t know what to do. It was one of the few times she’d been rendered helpless, and Lena felt her heart leap into her throat as she looked at Kara.

            She looked at Kara and watched as blue eyes filled with tears and bloody lips parted in a red smile, and she swallowed thickly. A single tear spilt down Kara’s cheek as she drew in a shuddering breath and nodded slightly. “I’m asking,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she raised her chin bravely.

            The two words hit Lena like a heavy blow, the air forced from her lungs as she stared at Kara with wide eyes. Fear struck her and dread pooled in her stomach as realisation dawned on her. Kara was asking Lena to save herself. Lena had told her she wouldn’t, couldn’t, ask that of her, but Kara was asking it of her anyway. In a way, it was like she understood Lena now. She understood that it was a cause worth dying for, to protect the city, to make it better , and Lena felt her heart break in her chest.

            “I’m sorry,” Lena said, her voice hitching and the words so soft that they were barely audible to her own ears.

            But she saw understanding dawn on Kara’s face and gave her a heartbreaking smile before her eyes turned blue as power crackled through her, a moment before she let her heat vision erupt. A cry fell from her lips as she curled her hands into fists, standing her ground while she drilled a hole through a face. Nobody so much as moved.

            And then the blood-soaked figure collapsed to their knees, golden mask melting and running in sizzling rivulets as the smell of burning skin filled the air and the Voice of Rao slumped forward, masked head ringing as it struck the stone floor at the feet of Zor-El.

            There was a moment of stunned silence, every still as the laser beams shooting from Lena’s eyes vanished and everyone realised what had happened. And then the tense stillness was broken by a sudden laugh, breathless and light and full of surprise, as Alura stared at Lena with amusement, her eyes sparkling with glee.

            “Oh, now that is how it’s done. Well done child-”

            “Lex,” Lena snarled, bristly defensively.

            Her brother tossed Lillian a small blaster, deftly caught out of the air and aimed at Alura, whose eyes widened with panic a moment before Lillian shot her. It caught her on the side of her face and as she fell, she traced a shallow line across Kara’s throat, while Kara shouted for Alex to toss her a blaster. As Lex tackled Jor-El, Alex tossed Kara the small handgun and turned to strike Astra squarely across the face with a heavy fist, bringing the woman down to her knees. With a blaster in hand, Kara stepped away from her mother’s fallen figure and steadily aimed the blaster at her cousin, Kal-El standing with his arm tightly wound around Lillian’s throat, having disarmed her.

            And Lena stood there.

            It all happened so fast that she didn’t know which way to turn as everyone started brawling. But then Kara was free, and her brother and Alex were fighting off their own enemies, and it was Lillian who was in trouble now, in the iron grip of a man ten times stronger than Lena. And it was Kara who bravely levelled the blaster at him and shot Kal-El in the face with a blast of laser energy.

            It did nothing to hurt him, but he stumbled backwards, roaring in anger at the inconvenience, and it gave Lillian a moment to twist out of his headlock. She only needed a moment, and then she was staggering forward, away from him, and Lena felt relief wash over her.

            And then it was just Kal-El. Everyone else was on their knees or out cold, strewn amongst the cold bodies of the Councilmembers who’d had their throats slit, pools of blood drying in dark puddles, glistening like black ink on the stone. And Lena wasn’t afraid as she took in the dark figure bathed in and eerie blue light, as her eyes darted around to her family, to the people she loved, and her lips twitched into a small smile as she reached up with her left hand and slammed it against the Medusa sigil on her chest.

            The eyes of the gorgon flickered blue for a moment as Lena drew in a deep breath and shot forward, right hand gripping her sword tightly while she reached out with her left hand, shield withdrawing as the nanites retreated back into the gauntlet. And then the eyes winked out and the radiation coursing through Lena’s body came to a halt, fatigue and weakness slamming into her so hard that her knees buckled slightly, but her legs carried her all the way into Kal-El as she grabbed hold of his tunic in her left hand and shuddered as the solar flare she’d engineered took out the sun lamps on both of their bodies.

            Letting out a quiet, choked laugh, Lena gave him a bloody smile as she held on tightly, feeling the weight of gravity slam into her with enough force to send fractures running through her shins at the sheer effort of standing up, her shoulders curling inwards as she held onto the towering man, watching as his eyes widened with realisation and his face paled slightly.

            Another laugh got stuck in her throat as she angled the short sword back towards her, her arm and the sword crooked as she stretched as far as she could, her cheek pressed up against the warm chest of the man she clung to to keep herself on her feet. Grinding her teeth together, she slowly pushed the sword towards her, using every bit of her strength to drive the sharp blade through the thick muscle, listening to the sharp inhale as Kal-El felt the blade slip past his spine, carving its way through soft tissue with ease.

            As she drove the blade back towards herself, Lena felt Kal-El sway slightly on his feet, taking a lurching step forward and taking her with him as she refused to let go, her legs dragging uselessly on the stone floor as the man looming over her sagged slightly. Still, Lena drove the sword in further, sweat beading on her forehead as her breathing turned ragged, pain driving into her like needles and her vision swaying as her eyes darkened at the edges.

            With a small cry of pain, Kal-El staggered and collapsed, falling forward and pinning Lena beneath him as the sword handle protruded from his back, the blade angled upwards through his lower back as he smothered Lena with his heavy weight. Her scream of pain got stuck in her throat as she felt her ribs snap beneath the pressure of the man on top of her, his limp body pressing down on her fragile human bones and suffocating her as she gasped for air with a crushed chest.

            It had all happened so fast, within the span of a few heartbeats, although it had seemed like forever to Lena, and it only took a moment longer for Kara to register what had happened, before she was running towards Lena and dropping down to her knees. Putting all her strength into it, she grit her teeth and heaved her cousin’s dying body off of Lena, realising her mistake the moment he flopped down onto the stone floor beside her.

            The blade had gone through him. The wickedly sharp point jutted out from beneath his ribcage on the right side of his abdomen, pushed all the way through as Lena jammed the sword in right up to its hilt, and when he’d collapsed on top of her, the few inches sticking out of his stomach had jammed down into Lena’s chest, an inch shy of her heart. When Kara pushed Kal-El off Lena, the sword sheared through muscle and skin and tore the deep wound open as Lena let out a whimper of pain, already blinded by the agony her body had suffered in her fighting.

            “Oh,” Kara breathed as she watched blood well up, spilling out of Lena’s chest and staining the scraps of armour that were held together by a few desperate nanites. “Oh, no. No, no, no,” she quietly cried, hands reaching out to press against the flow of blood, even as it spilt out around them, staining her fingers red as her face turned deathly pale at the sight. “Lena. Lena, it’s me, it’s Kara. Can you hear me?”

            A weak laugh fell from Lena’s pale lips, felt beneath Kara’s hands as it shuddered in her chest, and Lena’s eyelids fluttered as blood-flecked foam dribbled from the corners of her lips. “Kara,” she sighed, so faint that she could barely hear her.

            And then Lillian was dropping down onto her knees beside her daughter, gripping Lena’s chin in her trembling hand and fixing her with a hard stare. “You foolish child. What were you thinking?”

            “I stopped them, ieiu.”

            “Don’t speak,” Lillian frantically warned her, letting go of Lena’s chin as she turned her worried eyes to the gouts of blood spilling over Kara’s fingers and running down the black metal of Lena’s ruined armour.

            Hard green eyes met Kara’s, and she could see the urgent question in them and felt hope die in her chest as she looked back down at Lena, pale and listless, her body broken and battered, and she felt hot tears spring to her eyes as she slowly shook her head. No, it wasn’t good. A shuddering breath fell from Lillian’s lips, before she inhaled slowly and reached for the blaster she’d discarded nearby.

            Kara stared down at Lena’s face with worry in her blue eyes, even as she smiled softly down at the slow-blinking gaze of the woman she loved. Tears fell from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks and splashing down onto the wreckage of armour and torn, bloody fabric, and she held back a sob as her throat constricted. But even still, she couldn’t help but cast furtive glances towards the woman disassembling the blaster, her movements frantic but her face blank, watching and waiting to see what magic Lillian Lu-Thor would do to save her dying daughter.

            And then Lena inhaled sharply, the sound rattling in her broken chest, and Kara looked down at her with owlish blue eyes, her cheeks stained by tears and her face contorted with worry, and she watched as Lena’s mouth slowly split into a bright smile, hot tears leaking out of the corner of her eyes and running down into her raven hair, and she reached up with a shaky hand, taking every ounce of energy that she had.

            She was reaching for Kara’s cheek. Her pale, slender fingers, which had built so many things with their deft skill, stretching weakly to brush against the warm, smooth skin of Kara’s unmarred skin, while Lena’s bruised and swollen features were strained with the effort. And Kara couldn’t even reach out to take her hand in her own. If she moved her hands, Lena would bleed out, and Kara bit back a sob that wracked her body as she stared down at Lena, at the hand reaching up to her.

            It fell limply back to the ground before it ever touched her face, and a slow, rasping breath fell from Lena’s still lips as she blinked once, twice, and then froze. Staring down at her, Kara waited for her to blink again, for the shaky inhale or strangled cough, the grimace of pain to twist the wan face ruined with blue bruises and bloody cuts. But it didn’t come.

            “Lena,” she murmured.

            Her voice was low and hoarse, a wariness to it as she eyed the still body beneath her hands, unable to bring herself to admit that she was gone. That she’d felt the steady pulsing of the heart beating more and more blood out suddenly stop, the warm blood already cooling as it dried on her hands in the coldness of the night, with no more rushing over her hands as she tried to force it back inside.

            “Lena,” Kara said again with more urgency, hands still firmly pressed against her chest, unwilling to remove them, knowing that she’d truly be dead if she did. “Lena, it’s me. Open your eyes. Open your eyes, zhao. Come on, Lena,” Kara babbled, her breathing turning ragged as her eyes flitted over Lena’s face, waiting for a muscle to twitch, for her to come to life beneath her touch. “Breathe , my love. Please. ”

            “Out of the way,” Lillian interrupted her pleas, forcefully removing Kara’s red hands from her daughter’s chest and moving closer, her robes falling into the bloodstain that was slowly pooling beneath Lena’s body.

            Holding a mess of wires in the palm of her hand, linked to a small electronic motherboard inside the blaster that Lex had tossed her, and she delicately touched the naked ends together, eliciting a small spark, before gritting her teeth and jamming the touching wires against the metal of her daughter’s armour. Lena arched slightly at the voltage that shocked through her body, before limply collapsing back to the ground. Lillian muttered to herself as she tried it again, and again, until the suit’s mechanism flickered slightly, the sun lamps being jolted back to life after the solar flare. Slowly, they all dimly shuddered back to light, blue light blossoming in the tiny eyes of the Medusa’s shredded face on Lena’s broken chest, and Lillian paused as she felt the dim effects of the radiation in her own body, waiting for it to fix her daughter’s lifeless body.

            They waited, everything still and quiet, none of them even daring to so much as breathe while they watched the still form laying in a pool of blood with her chest splayed open. And nothing happened.

            “Come on,” Lillian murmured.

            Jamming the leads into the breastplate again, even though it was clear that the radiation was filtering through her body, Lillian silently prayed in vain. There just wasn’t enough radiation to fix the damage, not enough blood left to keep her heart beating. It was too extensive, and it was too late. But Lillian was desperate, and she scrambled for Kal-El’s greying corpse, blade still sticking out of his stomach and his back arched around the pommel beneath him. Kara fell back, shoulders sagging under the heavy grief that slammed into her, face white and bloodstained hands shaking as she swallowed painful sobs.

            She watched with unfocused eyes as Lillian tore as many sun lamps off of her cousins dead body as she could, prying them from their sockets and shocking their systems with enough energy to light the solar fuse inside, each of them blooming like poisonous flowers beneath her touch. And she watched on as Lillian breathed in, suffusing her body with radiation until it was completely saturated, until her defeated shoulders straightened and her battered face healed and a ghostly blue aura flickered around her. And she watched as Lillian’s face hardened and her eyes turned blue, before twin beams of heat vision streamed from her eyes and drilled into the marred breastplate.

            Lillian imbued her daughter’s body with as much radiation as she could until it left her panting and slumped, a grey pallor to her skin and a devastated look on her face as it went slack with disbelief. Unable to bring herself to move as she slowly accepted the fact that Lena had done what she’d always said she’d do - die for Krypton’s future - Kara watched as Lillian struggled with that fact. While Lex knelt nearby, eyes wide and brimming with tears, and Alex hung back in the fringes of the night, a dark shadow waiting to drag Kara away from the mess the Thor’s had gotten her into.

            “Lena, come back, inah. It’s ieiu; it’s me. Wake up. Wake up. I can fix you again. I’ll look after you,” Lillian stammered, hot tears finally falling down her cheeks as she shook Lena’s shoulder, the body unresponsive beneath her touch, before she grasped the stiff face in her hands and picked her head up off the floor, dark hair spilling around her face and eyes staring blankly up at her as Lillian shook her like a ragdoll. “ Wake up, you stubborn child.”

            “Ieiu!” Lex sharply said, his voice low and hoarse with the effort of holding back his tears, and he quickly reached out to touch his mother’s shoulders.

            Lillian deflated beneath the touch and she seemed to snap out of the sudden maddening effects of grief and stubborn refusal to admit the simple truth of the matter, gently laying Lena back down on the floor and scrambling backwards with a horrified look on her face. Kara had to look away. She couldn’t watch as Lillian’s bottom lip trembled, her mouth opening and closing speechlessly, as the woman found herself without the answer for once in her life. Arguably the smartest mind on the entire planet, and her daughter lay dead before her.

            They sat there for a long while, through the darkness of night, until the sky started to lighten ever so slightly. And then Lillian shifted. Stiffly climbing to her feet, she gazed down at her daughter’s cold body and turned to Lex, her eyes bloodshot and staring flatly out of hollow sockets, and let out a shaky breath.

            “Take her to the Religious Guild,” Lillian rasped, her son’s head jerking up from its fixation on Lena’s blank face to look at her with wide eyes, full of heartache and shock, and Lillian walked away.

            Almost as if the spell was broken, Kara moved, uncurling her stiff limbs from their frozen positions and climbing to her feet, shivering from the coldness that had seeped into her bones hours ago. Alex had gone off when it had become clear that the trio were going to keep vigil for hours yet to come, hoping for some miracle of the Gods, and she’d retreated without a word, to stop the fighting in the Rankless District and help restore some sense of order in the city with all of its leaders butchered up above.

            She wandered through the city, lost and blind, stumbling down alleyways and over bridges with no destination in mind, her mind reeling from shock as she shook. Kara didn’t cry, but she couldn’t stop the tremors, her teeth rattling as they chattered together, the unbelievable coldness that bore down to her bones, all of the warmth sucked out of her.

            It wasn’t until she bumped into Alex by accident - although perhaps not, seeing as her sister had a tracker in hand - that Kara blinked slowly and collapsed at her feet. She was carried home in her stoic sister’s arms, staring up at the mouth pressed into a hard line, at the severe lines of her face and the hardness in her brown eyes, wishing that she could be that hard. All her life, Kara had been a pariah, coming from the family that she did, but she’d never been able to completely turn herself cold. No matter how proud and stubborn she could be, how manipulative and calculating she was, she had always cared. And for the first time in her life, she wished that she didn’t.

            It wasn’t until she smelled the greenery, the faint smell of sweet and spicy flowers, of fresh plants and the muggy air of condensation, did she realise she was home. Home in the Dan-Vers apartment, her greenhouse within reach and the familiar comfort the plants brought her. Staggering out of Alex’s grip, ignoring the wary concern in her sister’s voice, Kara lurched towards her sanctuary, letting the leaves and vines and branches swallow her up until she fell to her knees in the mud and clawed at handfuls of rich soil as she was reduced to tears.

            She cried until her eyes were raw and bloodshot until there was nothing left inside her but emptiness, and her shoulders were bowed with sadness. And then the first flicker of red dawn filtered down through the panes of glass, and Kara looked up, watching as Rao bathed the word in its ugly orange glow. At that moment, she understood hatred, and anger and all of the ugly emotions that ever existed, because it was that sun, this atmosphere that had killed Lena. In the end, that’s what it came down to. A sick planet.

            In a flurry of anger, letting the rage bubble up and consume her, Kara tore through her greenhouse with a vengeance as she shouted herself hoarse, pulling vines from trees, uprooting plants and tearing flowers off their stems, until she’d run herself ragged and could barely breathe, dirt beneath her fingernails and her face streaked with sweat and mud. Hiccuping, Kara choked on the occasional sob as she stared down at her trembling hands, her palms covered in mud but still unable to hide the blood that had dried in a thick layer over her skin and the back of her fingers. Letting out a strangled sound, she rubbed at the back of her hands with desperation, trying to wipe away the traces of Lena’s death that clung to her, but it was in her, in the creases of her skin, on the immaculate breastplate that Lena had made her, on her thighs and in her. In her heart and soul, she was stained by her death, and no amount of scrubbing was going to erase that. Not even a goodbye.

            With a sudden urgency, Kara realised that the Religious Guild would be preparing her body for a send-off now, and she was gripped with the panicked realisation that that would be the only goodbye she’d ever get. And even if it wouldn’t fix anything, she had to go. It didn’t matter if Lena wouldn’t know, she would know, and she couldn’t bear the thought of not being there. Of not getting the chance to look at her one more time.

            With frantic hopelessness, Kara rummaged through the wreckage of her greenhouse with sudden urgency, tearing through leaves and dirt as she plucked every single flower and petal from the ground and bundled them in her arms. As many as she could carry. Until Alex was there too, kneeling beside her and helping her gently uncover them, her hands clean and steady, compared to Kara’s filthy, trembling ones. When they’d gathered up as many as they could, they stepped out of the heavy air inside the greenhouse, and Kara avoided her adoptive mother’s sad blue eyes and walked straight to the door.

            The air was bracing and cool on Kara’s flushed skin and she breathed in deeply, before letting out a shaky breath and stepping out into the street. She was a mess, covered in blood and dirt, her eyes puffy and hair tangled with leaves and dried blood, but she didn’t care as she hurried through the streets of Kandor. Alex silently kept pace beside her and they left a trail of broken petals behind them as they rushed towards the Religious Guild.

            And it wasn’t until they came upon the great golden doors that Kara hesitated. Standing outside, looking up at the welcoming jaws of the building, the smell of death and cloying incense wafting out of the cold hall, Kara was afraid. She was afraid to go in there, knowing that she’d walk back out having seen the last of Lena. This was it; this was goodbye. She wanted to scream and cry, but her throat was already burning from doing so, and she didn’t think she could muster another tear, not even if she tried. Closing her eyes, she breathed in slowly, filling herself with the faint smell of rot and oil, and swallowed any reservations she had, before stepping inside with her sister in tow.

            They were greeted by a silent servant wearing a golden mask and white robes, and Alex quietly spoke when Kara faltered, a lump wedging itself firmly in her throat and constricting painfully until it was all she could do to breathe past it. With Lena’s name mentioned, they were silently escorted through the wide, bare hallways, past closed doors and through circular chambers, until they were led into a spacious room, empty save for three figures, two standing and one stretched out on a slab.

            Dropping the flowers to the stone, Kara rushed forward with a small cry, startling Lillian and Lex, and brushed past them as she threw herself at the small figure. Lena looked so small. She’d been dressed in deep purple, the colour making her pale skin look even paler, so pale that she could have only been dead, and a long emerald green cloak fell from her shoulders and lay beneath her. Her skin had been washed, her cuts and bruises healed with the science of the Religious Guild’s servants, and her hair had been washed and neatly brushed away from her face. Stiff fingers were wrapped around the hilt of her sword and her circular shield lay on top with its monstrous face staring up at Kara. Her armour was missing, too ruined to be worn, even in death.

            Kara let out a hitching sob as she reached out to gently brush Lena’s hair back, staring at her closed eyes and wishing that they’d open. But even in her sadness, Kara couldn’t help but notice how peaceful Lena looked. No flush of feverish madness from the radiation, no twisting pain from the red sun. Just … nothing. Her features were blank, expressionless like they’d never been in life. The wrongness of it hit Kara hard as she straightened up and undid the bracelet, watching as nanites quickly rushed down her arm and back into it, before she removed it from her wrist.

            “I would’ve gone with you,” Kara whispered, blinking back stinging tears as she slipped the bracelet around Lena’s wrist and clicked it into place, pressing her thumb against the House of El sigil and watching as new armour flowed over Lena’s torso and shoulders. “I would’ve gone with you into the very heart of the mountain and given you a bracelet and my life.”

            Bending down, she placed a featherlight kiss to Lena’s smooth brow, before withdrawing, feeling something break inside her. As she stood there, a gentle hand came down on her shoulder, and she turned her head to the side to meet Lillian’s sad eyes.

            “It’s time.”

            Nodding, Kara turned, glancing back over her shoulder, and Alex walked forward with her armful of flowers, while Lex knelt down and picked up the ones Kara had dropped. Together, the two of them placed them around Lena’s head, weaving them into her dark hair, in the creases of her folded arms, in the empty spaces around her shield, until it looked like she was lying on a bed of crumpled flowers, wrapped in their sweet aroma.

            “I wish I could give her more,” Kara said, her voice cracking slightly.

            Giving her shoulder a squeeze, Lillian swallowed thickly. “You loved her, utterly and completely. That’s enough.”

            A silent servant entered the room then, face hidden behind a golden mask, and Lillian gave them a nod. At the silent command, the servant tapped at a control panel, and the five of them watched as Lena was encased in a metal pod, a window over her face to let them glimpse one last look of her, before the back wall of the room parted around them, letting in a rush of fresh air as they were opened up to the city spread out before them, standing outside suddenly.

            On a track, the stone table slowly turned, and the metal pod disengaged from the plinth and angled itself upwards, towards the red sun burning fiercely in the sky. At another nod to the servant from Lillian, the pod slowly altered its trajectory on the tracks, angling off into empty air, between two towering buildings and off into the nothingness of space. With a push of a button, a small engine purred to life and flickering flames erupted out of the bottom of the pod.

            With a last glimpse of raven hair and pale skin, Lena was gone. Her pod rocketed off its tracks and through the air with startling speed, and Kara swallowed thickly as she watched it go, taking a piece of her with it. Within moments, it was nothing more than a small ball of fire tracing its way through the red atmosphere of the planet.

            “Where are you sending her?” Kara asked, her voice hoarse and soft. Defeated. There was no life in it, no life in her , and she stood shoulder to shoulder with Lillian, staring up at a red sky, watching as the pod holding the body of her lover shot up into space in a haze of fire.

            “Home,” Lillian gravelly replied, her face stony with grief, green eyes hard as she forced herself to watch. “To a yellow sun. So she won’t be in pain anymore.”

Chapter Text

            She fell through space and time, her body cold and lifeless inside the confines of the pod as stiff hands held onto the pommel of the sword she’d been buried with. Not a single thing inside the pod stirred. Not a single hair was moved out of place, the folds of the velvety cloak were as neatly arranged around Lena’s dead body as the day she’d been changed into it on the cold slab at the Religious Guild. Of course, it hadn’t been cold to her dead body, white and stiff as her muscles locked up and the blood had stopped pumping through her. Lena had been none the wiser through the entire thing. She hadn’t heard her mother’s pleas, or Kara’s sobs, she didn’t know her body had been moved from the steps of the Council Chambers, where she’d impaled herself on her own sword, shoved through the chest of her enemy, and she didn’t feel the gentle caress of the Religious Guild acolytes as they bathed her pallid body and healed the blossoming bruises and gaping wounds she’d received.

            Lena was dead to the world as she streaked through the galaxy, eating up light years within minutes. The advanced technology that had led up to the impending destruction of Krypton was the same technology that sent her past foreign planets and stars, past black holes and meteor showers that pebbled the hardy pod with debris, denting it while its occupant lay like a statue of old. With her armour and sword, her raven hair cascading away from the pale beauty death had transformed her face into, Lena looked every inch the legendary hero from a Kryptonian legend.

            Nothing inside the pod stirred for the longest time. Until days had passed and there was a slow, desolate thump. And then nothing. Travelling unawares of the deep space that carried her back to Earth, reversing the trip she’d taken to get to Krypton all those years ago, Lena passed galaxies and strange planets, through solar systems with red suns and through patches of neverending blackness that would’ve terrified even the bravest souls, but not the dead.  

            And then the pod was racing through a new galaxy, a ball of blue gas burning brightly in the distance, and there was almost a sense of relief from the still body as if Lena was finally at rest. Finally free from the confines of the heavy weight of a red sun pressing down on her. But it was more than that. She’d exited her solar system months ago, and Rao’s light had faded to nothing behind her. This was something else. Her body almost seemed to levitate slightly, as if straining to keep itself firmly planted on the cold slab she’d been laid to rest upon.

            It wasn’t until the pod kept moving, encroaching in on this new solar system with a blue sun and away from the dark fringes of deep space, that there was undoubtedly a change. Her trajectory back to Earth would bring her dangerously close to the blue sun, close enough that solar radiation emanated from it in powerful waves. Waves strong enough to pierce the thick metal shell of the pod and make Lena’s body crackle with blue light.

            Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was some divine miracle, or perhaps she’d never really been dead, but her cold, stiff body, which had been suffused by her mother in a hopeless attempt to bring her back to life, was suddenly filled with static energy as if she’d been shocked. Except that shock came from the incomprehensible energy of a full-sized blue sun burning steadily to the left of the pod. It wasn’t a small artificial lamp like Lena had manufactured for herself to combat the radiation of a red sun, but the real thing. And Lena’s body wasn’t fighting any atmosphere to live, she wasn’t fighting against gravity; she was just floating in deep space, unconscious to the living world as blue light crackled and snapped across her body in lancing arcs of energy. It almost looked like she was bathed in flickering lightning.

            She finally woke to a yellow glow.

            Pressing her hand against the crystal pane, Lena tried to crane her neck, to find out what was causing the light. She had a strange feeling, a nagging sensation at the back of her mind, like a memory that she couldn’t quite grasp before it slipped away. It was almost like sunlight. Sunlight, but wrong.

            A long while later, the pod shifted, angling downwards so that Lena was left essentially standing at the bottom of the interior, staring out of the clear screen to take in the breathtaking view of blue and green. It was beautiful. Lush and lively, and colourful. Lena had never seen such a vibrant planet, and she marvelled at the wispy white clouds trailing over deep oceans. It was a paradise, and she was heading straight towards it.

            It took her a few moments to realise what was happening, and when she did, she braced her hands on either side of the pod, a wordless cry falling from her lips. She was going to crash. The pod was going to smash right into the foreign planet and crush her to pieces inside it. After so long spent aimlessly drifting through space, this was how it was going to end.

            In a panic, Lena pounded at the crystal window, her breathing growing frantic as her chest rapidly rose and fell. It wasn’t just the fear of death that worried her - she’d come to terms with her own mortality a long while ago - but the fear of crashing, of being crushed and burnt, lying trapped beneath shrapnel while she breathed in lungfuls of greasy smoke. She’d rather fall and let her heart give out with the fear of it.

            Pounding on the panel in front of her with desperation, she plummeted towards the foreign planet faster than she would’ve liked. But eventually cracks spiderwebbed across the crystal, and Lena ground her teeth together in determination as she persisted, anticipation building as she watched the cracks grow and grow. Until the atmosphere batted her back and forth and she plunged through foggy clouds and the top panel of the pod tore off under a heavy blow from her hand.

            Lena’s elated laugh was whisked away by a strong wind, moments before it caught her in its grip and yanked her out too. Tumbling head over heels, cape flapping around her as her hair tangled and preserved flowers rained down around her, Lena fell through the air, her sword clutched tightly in one fist as she closed her eyes. The cold air was sweet and chilling and she spread her arms wide open to embrace the fall. She wasn’t afraid of it; flying had taken it from her. And if this was how it ended, it was a sweet death, merciful and full of relief as she basked in the feeling of strength. There was no pain anymore.

            She fell and fell, her eyes squeezed shut as she tumbled through empty air, the weightlessness making her stomach drop as a thrill rushed through her, and she found herself laughing, so carefree and light that she couldn’t bring herself to worry about the impending crash.

            And after a while, she did crash. The shock of it was more jarring than the impact, which ought to have outright killed Lena, her fragile human body shattering like glass, but she didn’t. With a mouthful of dirty and a few aches, she clambered over the edge of the long furrow torn through the field of green, and blinking in the yellow sunlight, Lena climbed to her feet.

            Covered in mud but wild-eyed and jubilant at the fact that she was alive, Lena shielded her eyes from the harsh brightness and squinted as she looked around. Trees grew impossibly tall and bountiful, hanging heavy with ripe fruits and vivid flowers, hills rolled in every direction, giving way to snow-capped mountains or shimmery oceans. Animals with horns and stripes and feathers and fur roamed wildly, grazing on waving stalks of grass or hay or plants springing from the rich soil underfoot.

            Lena was mesmerised. She’d never seen such a lively place before, untouched by pollution and corruption and civilisations and she marvelled and how clean the air was as she breathed in deeply. And the sky was blue . Blue and covered with flocks of birds cawing and swooping low through trees or over fields. She couldn’t help but laugh.

            She couldn’t help but wish Kara was there to see it, to see the sheer number of flowers growing everywhere. It made the laugh die of Lena’s lips as a deep ache echoed in her chest. She had to get home. Somehow, impossibly, she needed to make it back to Krypton, back to her family and her lover.

            The only question was how, and she pondered it for a long while, sitting on the side of a gently sloping hill, the grass a spongy seat beneath her as she ran her fingers through it absentmindedly and calculated every single idea and possibility for getting off this paradise planet. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t even hear the quiet whoosh of air and the gentle sound of fabric shifting.

            “Lena.”

            She whirled around at the soft, lilting voice behind her, alarm making her heart leap in her chest, and even more so when she found herself looking at a fifteen-foot woman draped in white silk and dripping with gold. Wariness flickered in Lena’s green eyes, but she stood her ground, even as the woman stepped forward and dissolved into a flurry of feathers, before reforming a few feet away as a normal sized human, but still relatively tall for a woman. Lena realised that the feathers that drifted down to the field of green grass were from a bird. An owl, it suddenly struck her, although she couldn’t say how she knew it, or even remember what an owl looked like.

            Staring up at the unfamiliar woman, Lena took a slow step back as her stomach knotted with unease. Not because she was frightened of her, but because although Lena had no recollection of ever knowing the woman, she found that she was familiar. Familiar in the shape of her eyes, her dark hair, the heavy brows. They were Lena’s.

            “Athena,” Lena slowly replied, her voice hitching with uncertainty as if she couldn’t quite believe that the stories she’d been told were true.

            Yet how was the existence of a god, of a multiple of gods, any more unfathomable than her ability to fly under the effects of a blue sun? She’d heard stories from her father, of course, and read the file he’d compiled, but there had still been doubt. Lena was still on the fence about whether or not she was the product of science, or if her father had been telling the truth. No matter what her thoughts, she couldn’t have prepared herself for coming face-to-face with the woman who he’d claimed was her mother. And nothing had prepared Lena for the size of her. She was suddenly relieved that the dark-haired woman had shrunk.

            “You’ve grown.”

            Not knowing what to say, Lena stared at her with wide eyes, full of wariness and suspicion. “I thought you were dead.”

            Letting out an airy laugh, the woman shrugged, the folds of her silk toga rippling around her. “You can’t kill a God. Not in the sense that you might think. I had a human body once - it perished when I retreated to the astral plane.”

            “Oh.”

            “But I’m here now, as are you,” Athena smiled. “Finally. You’ll be able to rebuild now. There’s so much raw potential around, don’t you think? A blank canvas, like the Gods planned.”

            A frown darkened Lena’s expression as she watched the woman gesture around, and curiosity got the better of her. As she looked, Lena had to admit that it was beautiful. Strange, and colourful, but beautiful. Lena didn’t think she’d ever seen so much green before, so much teeming life and undisturbed nature. Yet there was something about Athena’s words that made her skin prickle with unease.

            “Planned?”

            “Humans destroyed this planet. So we abandoned them. Destroyed them, except for the chosen few. We rebuilt this new world for the deserving. You were to be one of them; my chosen pioneer to rebuild the world in a glorious fashion.”

            Lena made a choked sound as she shot her an accusing look. “You destroyed the planet? All those people …”

            “Mere stains on the creation of humanity. You should be glad - you’ll bring a new generation of people to life on this planet. Pass on the gift of life I gave to you, the gift of wisdom I bestowed upon you.”

            “Gift?” Lena sharply asked, a flicker of anger in her eyes. “Do you want to know what your gift of life bought me? Pain. So much of it. I should be dead.”

            “Demigods aren’t so easily killed. You endured it. It’s made you stronger.”

            Expression darkening, Lena clenched her jaw as she scowled at the woman, rankling slightly at her flippant words and dismissive tone. “You have no idea what I endured. You don’t even know me.”

            “You’re my daughter.”

            Hatred flickered in the depths of Lena’s eyes as she stood her ground, shoulders squared and hand curled around her sword, aware of the danger. “No, I’m not.”

            “Of course you are,” the towering woman scornfully replied, a stony look on her face. “You are the image of me. The best parts of my divine power. You even wear the face of my enemy on your chest. My crest.”

            “Medusa?” Lena scoffed, staring down at the twisted face staring out from her chest, where her armour melded into the twisted snakes and the snarling mouth.

            Reaching up Lena touched the bracelet on her wrist, where Kara had clicked it into place and watched as the face of the gorgon smoothed out into a flat chest plate before nanites swelled and swirled over the metal and she was left with the vague outline of a flying beast emblazoned on the armour.

            Eyes flashing dangerously, Lena clenched her fist around her sword and slowly started to rise. She had no sun lamps, no technology, and a yellow sun burned brightly overhead, painting everything in its golden glow, yet she was floating. She came to a stop half a dozen feet off the grass, chin stubborn raised as she looked down on the goddess.

            “My name is Lena Lu-Thor, of House Thor. I’m the daughter of Lillian Lu-Thor. My home is on Krypton. I’m Nightwing. I’m more than someone’s daughter; I’m one of the smartest people in the Science Guild.”

            “Where do you think you got your intelligence from, you foolish child?”

            “From me.”

            Blue light crackled over her armour and she could feel a slow burning in her eyes and knew that they’d be glowing with the beginnings of her heat vision. Trying to keep herself in control, Lena breathed deeply, the power coursing through her as she hovered midair. She relished the feeling, basking in the untested strength of her wiry muscles.

            “I created you for a purpose,” Athena seethed, “I can take back my gift just as easily.”

            “I’d like to see you try,” Lena softly replied, a slight smile curling her mouth.

            As she watched, the figure in front of her wavered and blurred, before a blinding golden light made her vision darken with black spots. When she blinked back the stinging tears, Lena saw that the woman was covered in gold armour. She held a spear taller than she was, the point glinting wickedly in the sunlight, and a circular spear with the same snarling face that had adorned Lena’s chest only minutes ago stared back at her.

            The woman stared at her through the slits in the helmet, grey eyes narrowed and sharp. Lena’s stomach churned at the thought of going up against her, yet she tightened her grip on her sword and hunched her shoulders, missing the comforting feeling of solid ground beneath her feet as she tried to prepare herself. Only, nothing happened. She waited and waited, but the woman just stood there like a statue, until Lena’s uneasiness grew almost unbearable.

            “Well?”

            “I can’t hurt you.”

            Lena let out a quiet snarl as her face twisted with anger. “Fight me! You coward.”

            She couldn’t see the woman’s face, but Lena had the vague sense that she was amused. It only rankled her pride and made her angrier, the power flickering over her body intensifying, saturating her completely until she felt like she was going to explode.

            In a burst of speed, Lena flew towards her, cape trailing behind her as she was nothing but a blur, crossing the distance within the split of a second. She rammed straight into the woman, and her eyes widened with surprise as she barrelled straight through her and went sprawling onto the field of grass. Spluttering through a mouthful of gritty dirt and shorn off blades of glass, Lena nimbly pushed herself to her feet in one fluid motion, air rippling around her body as she turned, floating inches above the grass as she stared at the towering goddess with shock.

            Landing heavily on the grass, Lena let the tip of her sword drop, the point sticking into the dirt as her shoulders slumped heavily with defeat. Closing her eyes, Lena softly exhaled. “You’re not real, are you?”

            “What’s real and not real?”

            “You’re nothing but my imagination.”

            “You’ve always been creative.”

            “Why you?”

            At the lighthearted laugh, Lena’s eyelids fluttered open and she took in the face that was almost hers. There were subtle differences again. Her eyes were brown now, her chin subtly different, the tip of her nose thinner than Lena’s. Yet it was still almost her. How she imagined her mother could’ve looked, perhaps. How she imagined a Greek Goddess of ancient times would look. But she was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

            “Because I’m a part of you. A part that you hate. A reminder of the life you could’ve had. All of your weaknesses and doubts.”

            “And?”

            “The life that you don’t want. Failure. You imagine me as the villain, to drive you back home. Back to the people you love. Back to your real purpose; you haven’t finished saving your home yet.” The armour faded away on the breeze, gold dust swirling and eddying. Until she stood in her white silk again, eyes shaded against the golden sunlight. “You can’t stay here, Lena. You have to finish what you started.”

            Frowning, Lena felt the air rush out of her lungs. “I don’t know how to leave.”

            The tall woman in the flowing toga finally moved, slowly walking towards her, not making a sound, until she was directly in front of her. And then Lena found that they were the same height, with the same scarred nick beneath the eyebrow, the same freckle on the neck. Identical. It was her; she was looking at herself.

            With a pale hand, the copy of her reached out and gently pressed a hand against the symbol on Lena’s chest plate. She couldn’t say whether she could feel the touch or not, but it was disconcerting to watch herself at the very least, and Lena wondered if she was going mad. Looking down, she watched as blue light danced over the fingers of the hand pressed against her chest.

            “You do. It’s all in here. You just need to break free.”

            Looking back up, Lena watched as the twin of her faded away into nothingness, as if she was nothing more than a ghost. And then she was all alone. Whirling in a circle, Lena found her heart racing in her chest, with nothing but greenery everywhere she looked.

            At a sharp sting in her chest, she let out a hiss of pain, looking down and touching a hand to her chest. Upon contact with the cool metal, arcs of blue light jumped across her hand, flickering in and out of sight and dancing over her, until she practically glowed blue. Her vision blurred slightly as dance spots swirled dizzyingly across her eyes, and as she blinked them away, she watched the sky darken.

            Darker and darker, until stars splattered across it, shining silvery bright, and the sunlight turned blue and searing hot. She could feel it boiling inside her, and Lena squeezed her eyes shut, a cold sweat prickling her skin, shaking her head back and forth as she tried to empty her mind. It was all just in her mind.

            Lena came to with a gasping breath, her eyes flying wide open as her back arched against the metal. Her breath fogged up the glass window of the burial pod, and Lena collapsed back against the cold slab beneath her, breathing rapidly as her whole body hummed with radiation. Staring wildly up at the glass, she was met with the sight of blinding blue light that made her eyes stream as she quickly shut them again, her breaths coming quickly as her heart slammed in her chest, jolted back to life by the surge of radiation.

            Trembling hands pressed against the crystal window above her as Lena squeezed her eyes shut, listening to her heart pound loudly in her ears, her sword forgotten in her lap as panic set in. Ever since she was a child, since she’d been stuffed into a cramped pod and sent off into space, awakening again in the confined prison, Lena had been terrified of small spaces. Her claustrophobia hadn’t been a problem before - she’d spent most of her life floating in a pool of water to worry about accidentally getting trapped anywhere small and confining - but now it was.

            Drawing in a shaky breath, she felt around inside the narrow space, her elbows bumping into the sides after only a few inches, and her breathing hitched as her stomach lurched. She didn’t know where she was, what had happened, or how to get out. The blue light outside was so blinding that Lena couldn’t even open her eyes to figure out where she was. The last thing she remembered was a dream. A strange dream of herself and a goddess and a planet full of blue and green and life. And now she was trapped in a box, with no prior memory of anything else.

            But then flashes of memories started assaulting her mind, and she tried her best to cobble together an explanation. All she could remember was her mother, chained and bleeding on the steps of the Council Chambers. Slit throats and dead bodies in pools of blood. Searing two beams of heat vision through the golden mask of the Voice of Rao, watching as the golden mask melted to the stone floor. And Kal-El. Kal-El tossing her around like a ragdoll. Kal-El slamming his fist into her over and over again while her family watched on. Lena’s sword in her hand and Kara’s ghostly face as she was held in her mother’s grasp.

            It was overwhelming, especially in the confines of the pod, and all Lena could wonder was what had happened to her to lead to her being sent into space. Panic seized her at the thought that perhaps she’d be stuck floating through it forever, with everyone moving on with their lives and her slowly dying in a ready-made coffin. That would be just her luck, to waste away into nothing right at the very moment she finally felt strong, healthy. She was determined to not let that happen. Not if she had anything to say about it.

            The blue sun blazed brightly overhead, visible through the crystal pane set above her face, and Lena kept her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to stay calm. She thought of her dream, of her escape and the free fall and the power. She could feel that power now, the strength in her muscles, the pain-free looseness of her body, and Lena’s mind ran through all of her options, her frustration growing.

            Without warning, she lashed out, slamming her hands against the top panel of the pod. Hairline fractures radiated out from the point of impact, and Lena blinked in surprise. With a wary look on her face and no thought for what came next, she struck again, blue light filling the inside of the pod as the blue sun loomed largely overhead.

            All at once, the pod burst apart by the sheer force of her strength, and Lena found herself floating in the vacuum of space. Scraps of metal and crystal and preserved flowers drifted around her, and Lena moved slowly, sluggishly, as if the fabric of space was clinging to her. Even as she slowly rotated, the atmosphere felt thick, like she was wading through it.

            But she had never felt stronger. Never felt so much unbridled power running through her veins, from the close proximity to so much radiation from a blue star, and Lena stopped breathing as she closed her eyes and listened to her heart beat strongly in her chest. She was in space, and she was alive. She was invulnerable.

            It took her a mere second to realise that whatever had happened to her was physiological. That it wasn't reliant on a lamp or being beneath the sun on a planet that was made for her human body. The very foundations of her cells had been saturated with so much radiation that they’d been transformed upon contact with the intense rays of the blue sun as she passed through the unfamiliar solar system. But she was floating, even more weightless and stronger than she’d ever felt on Krypton, and she marvelled at her newfound strength as she rotated in space.

            And then she flew. She flew faster than the speed of light, marvelling at how fast she was, how in control she was. It was if she warped time and space around her, gaining speed and traction as she blew past distant planets and faraway stars. She only had one destination in mind, and she didn’t pause to celebrate her newfound powers.

            On and on she flew, never tiring and never stopping, until she wasn’t sure how much time had passed; it all flowed so differently in space. She couldn’t even be sure that time was even real. Lena just kept pushing herself. She pushed and pushed until the surge of power faded as she left the blue sun behind her, until her power diminished, yet still left her strong and powerful. Until ever so slightly, she felt it fade some more, as a red dot appeared in the distance.

            It felt never-ending, but eventually, a spark of hope bloomed inside her chest as the red dot grew larger. It wasn’t that she lost her strength, but Lena could feel herself growing weaker - still powerful enough to fly and not even the slightest twinge of pain flickering at the edges of her mind - and she allowed herself a small smile. She was home. Or close enough to make her heart lurch in her chest. She had the feeling that she’d been gone for a long while.   

            And then she saw it. Krypton. Except she wasn’t quite sure it was Krypton. There was the red sun, and it looked like the right galaxy, and she knew enough about her solar system to know its coordinates within her galaxy, but the planet looked different. At first, she thought it was the distance. She was a long way away yet, and even with her sharp eyesight, Lena assumed she wasn’t seeing it clearly. The dark grey and red swirling pattern of the planet’s surface looked off. The smog that had once clouded the atmosphere was gone, the reds were more vivid, and the grey was lighter. Yet it was still Krypton - still home - and Lena was eager to get home.

            So eager that she pushed herself as hard as she could, as fast as she could, the atmosphere slamming into her as she rapidly crossed the distance. She was moving so fast that she overestimated her speed upon entering Krypton’s atmosphere. Moving through space, warping it around her as she moved faster than light, it was easy for her to forget just how fast she was moving. So fast that she wouldn’t have even been comprehensible to the vision of a normal person. So fast that as she drew in her first lungful of air in what seemed like forever, she shot towards the planet so fast that she couldn’t bring herself to a stop when she realised she was about to slam right into a snow-capped mountain range.

            And then she did.

            Slamming into solid rock and snow, much like she had all those years ago, Lena found her buried under a mountain of white in a deep crater. Snow sizzled and melted as it came into contact with her hot skin, and she struggled through slush as it soaked into her clothes and past her armour. Rubble rained down around her as she climbed to her feet and shook out her cloak, before glancing around with wonder.

            It was undoubtedly Krypton, and the skyline in the distance was unmistakably Kandor. But the gleaming spires of dark towers and arched bridges sparkled red in the sunlight, vividly clear, without any of the air pollutions that used to hide the highest peaks in a grey haze. And the slopes of red that spread out from the foot of the mountains were green. Not a lot, but there were fields of grains and sprouting trees. And on the towers too - Lena could see flowers.

            She let out a breathless laugh as she took in the new planet. It wasn’t quite the lush paradise she’d dreamed of, the fake Earth she imagined based on what she knew of her old home, but it was a start. Krypton was changing. She’d been gone a while, that much was apparent to her, and Lena softly smiled as a light feeling blossomed in her chest.

            Turning, she gazed up at the icy peak of the mountain and realised with surprise that it was Jewel Mountain. Her chest ached as she remembered clicking the bracelet on her wrist onto Kara’s, promising that she’d take her there one day, into the chamber inside and bind herself to her. Instead, she was wearing the bracelet. At some point, for whatever reason, Kara had taken it off. To Lena, it became glaringly obvious that it could only mean she’d broken her promise.

            Yet here she was, on the slopes of the mountain, and with her love for Kara still burning as strongly as ever. But she didn’t even know how to reach out to her. Lena was gripped with fear at the thought that she’d been gone for too long. What had happened to her family? Was Kara waiting for her? Or perhaps it had been so long that she’d finally moved on.

            Worried, yet clinging to the slivers of hope that Kara wouldn’t have forgotten her - no matter what happened she wouldn’t have forgotten - Lena gently rose into the air and floated her way up to the gaping mouth of the cavern. Stepping inside, her breath plumed, and she glanced around at the icy stalactites and stalagmites, at the cavern hewn out of the ice, making the whole place look like it had been wrought out of crystals or jewels - hence its name.

            The place was empty and Lena walked to the raised platform in the middle of the room. It was where couples came and stood to wed, and Lena took in the etchings around the hewn dais of ice, pacing around the circle as she waited. There was no way that her entrance into Krypton’s atmosphere hadn’t been seen. It wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, which meant that people would’ve seen it, she would be on the comms system. Kara would’ve heard.

            But she didn’t come, and the longer Lena waited, the more anxious she grew, and her doubt built until she was filled with crushing disappointment that threatened to overwhelm her. Sword skittering across the ice, Lena fisted handfuls of her dark hair as she fought back the urge to cry, to scream. Yet even as she felt her heart painfully ache in her chest, the quiet hum of a skimmer was faintly audible to her ears.

            Head whipping towards the mouth of the cavern, where red sunlight seeped in and refracted off the smoothly cut ice, Lena stopped breathing as a lump wedged itself in her throat. She listened as it landed nearby and the engine cut out, felt her heart leap in her chest at the sound of frantic footsteps racing up the treacherous slope towards the mouth, and the all too familiar thud of a heartbeat.

            Her lips curled up into a slight smile, and she turned. And there she was. Kara. Wearing a deep red robe, she stood illuminated by soft red sunlight just inside the entrance to the cavern. She didn’t move, she didn’t speak, and the silence stretched on as they stared at each other from across the distance separating them.

            “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Lena eventually said, breaking the deafening silence of the massive chamber.

            “Of course I would.”

            Lena nodded and they lapsed into silence again. Kara looked dazed, uncertain, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Lena was standing there, alive and well.

            “What happened to me?” Lena asked uncertainly when it was clear Kara wasn’t going to say anything else, a dark look of confusion clouding her face.

            Kara gave her a tight smile, her eyes shining with unshed tears in a rare moment of unabashed emotion. “You died.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            Choking on a sob, Kara let out a weak, shaky laugh, lingering just inside the gaping mouth of the cavern, almost as if she was afraid that Lena wasn’t real. As if she thought she’d disappear the moment she let herself get close enough to believe that she was actually there. Guilt rose up inside Lena, and she sagged slightly, her cloak scraping the floor as exhaustion washed over her and she realised she had no reason to fight, no reason to be wary and alert. All she wanted to do was collapse at Kara’s feet and cry. She’d been alone for so long that she felt out of sorts. Vulnerable, weak, and defeated, despite her newfound strength and power, despite the fact that she was healthier than she’d ever been.

            “You don’t have to apologise.”

            “I do,” Lena wearily replied, a heaviness in her chest. Reaching down, she grazed the House of El sigil engraved into the metal and watched as the armour retreated back into the bracelet, which she unclipped and held in her hands, staring down at it with a frown on her face. “You were right; I was reckless, I hurt myself with my own creation, I hurt you. You said you’d never forgive me for that.”

            Sniffing, Kara wiped at a tearstained cheek, her shoulders slumping as she tilted her head to the side and stared intently at Lena from across the room. “I do,” Kara breathlessly replied, taking a tentative step forward, an air of uncertainty still lingering about her. “Of course I do.”

            Lena’s expression softened as she gave Kara a yearning look. “I am … so sorry, Kara.”

            She heard Kara’s hitching breath, and the sob she swallowed as she gave her a trembling smile, before taking a step forward. It was only one step - before she took another, Lena had moved in a blur of motion towards her and scooped Kara up in her arms. Burying her face in Kara’s shoulder, Lena let out a shuddering breath as she felt solidly real arms wind around her neck, Kara’s chin resting on top of her head.

            “You’re here,” Kara sobbed, “you’re really here. It’s really you.”

            “It’s me, it’s me,” Lena said, voice cracking as she squeezed her eyes shut, love spreading throughout every inch of her as she held Kara in her arms, breathed in the smell of pollen and soil and the freshness of plants.

            After so long in space, it was a relief to have something solid and grounding to hold into. Lena thought she might drift away without something to anchor her, and she clutched to Kara with desperation. For her, it had been an immeasurable amount of time. It could’ve been a few days since she last saw her, or a hundred years, but all Lena knew was that she’d missed her. She’d missed Kara with every fibre of her being, and was loathe to let her go. And Kara didn’t want to let go either; she clung to Lena long after her feet had touched back down to the floor.

            “I thought you were gone.”

            A spasm of pain crossed Lena’s face as she stroked Kara’s blonde hair, feeling the warmth of her through her clothes, and sadness seized hold of her at the thought of how much pain she’d put Kara through. She could hear it in her voice. And Lena realized she’d probably put her mother through that too. All to save them.

            “How … how long have I-” Lena asked, her voice breaking before she trailed off, scared to even ask.

            “Three sols.”

            A jolt ran through Lena and she wordlessly opened and closed her mouth, before pressing her lips into a hard line as she tried to come to terms with that. Three whole years. Tightening her grip on Kara, she held her just that little bit closer as she blinked back stinging tears.

            “I came back as soon as I could.”

            “I didn’t … I thought you were- I didn’t expect you to come back. Not ever. I just … I watched you die. I saw you- you were so cold. But you’re so warm. You’re warm and you- you can stand? What happened to you?”

            A weak chuckle worked its way up Lena’s throat. “I don’t know. I just- I was dreaming. I must’ve been dreaming for a long time, and then I woke up. I woke up and I flew home.”

            “How? The burial pod ...“

            “I flew.”

            “Through space?”

            Letting her go, Lena took a small step back and held up her hands, turning them over and broodingly marvelling over them as she tried to find the words to explain. “I’m … different now. Part of me, anyway. I don’t need the lamps, I can just … do it.”

            Kara looked down at her in wonder, reaching out to tenderly brush the hair out of Lena’s face, before letting the knuckles of her hand tenderly trace the curve of Lena’s cheekbone. She took in the healthy flush to Lena’s pale skin, no longer feverishly rosy or grey with death, the bright spark of life in her eyes, not sickness, and the way she stood tall, without pain marring her facial expression or with the assistance of her sun lamps. This was a different Lena, but still her Lena.

            “I missed you.”

            Her voice was barely above a whisper, fanning warmly across Lena’s cheek, and it made her stomach clench and her body delicately flush with warmth. Reaching up, she laid her hand on Kara’s cheek, gently cupping it and stroking the pad of her thumb over her cheekbone, smiling slightly when Kara turned her head to kiss her palm. And then Lena leaned up and kissed her, softly and slowly, eyelashes fluttering as her eyes closed and her body went slack with relief.

            “I’m not going anywhere. Never again.”

            “No?”

            “There’s nothing left for me to do now,” Lena whispered, leaning into Kara’s touch as she cradled the side of her neck in her palm. “I just … want to go home. Home, with you.”

            Kara quietly laughed. “They’re waiting for you.”

            “They didn’t come.”

            “They didn’t want to be disappointed.”

            “And you?”

            “I couldn’t hurt any more than I already was.”

            Pulling her into a crushing hug, Lena squeezed her tightly, wary of her newfound strength and Kara’s relative frailty, before kissing her on the cheek and gently bumping her nose against Kara’s and kissed her softly.

            “I won’t let anything hurt you ever again.”

            “There’s no one left who can. You already made sure of that.”

            Lena flinched slightly, before slowly pulling back. She gently jerked Kara’s chin and gave her a sad smile. That much she remembered. All the blood, all the pain and violence. The sounds of screams and fighting. Ashen faces full of fear as she was bruised and battered and so helpless in Kal-El’s grasp that even she thought it was all over. But she’d stopped them and she sagged with relief in Kara’s arms as she realised it was all over. She didn’t want to fight anymore.

            “The planet …”

            “It’s changed now. Thanks to you.”

            “And you. I saw the flowers. The fields. The trees.”

            Kara’s expression brightened, a proud tilt to her chin as she squared her shoulders. She didn’t look so downtrodden anymore, as if she was carrying the weight of her family’s sins on her shoulders. As if she was trying to stay hidden, keeping herself locked away.

            “We rebuilt after … well, there were a lot of changes after that night. You’re looking at the third Science Guild Councilwoman of our new government. Your mother is one of the others. I’m in charge of agriculture. Growing food and planting things. It’s what I’m good at.”

            “I couldn’t think of anyone better suited for it.”

            “There could be a spot for you, you know. You became … something of a martyr when you were … gone. The Rankless rallied behind you; you were their unsung hero. We tore down that whole classist system, eventually, and that was thanks to you. You … you made Krypton better . You’re not from here, but you made it better. Every change that we made … it was because of you. Because you were willing to die for them, all of them, for a better future. The planet owes you for their very existence, and I-”

            She let out a shuddering breath, letting go of Lena as she dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, shoulders bowing as she sniffed. Exhaling forcefully, Kara dropped her hands and gave Lena a tearful smile.

            “And I owe you mine too. For what you did. For what my family-”

            Reaching out, Lena slowly took Kara’s hand in hers and cradled it to her chest, a sorrowful look in her green eyes as she stared up at her. “You don’t owe me a damn thing, Kara. I’d do it all over again - all of it. I’d do it a thousand times, for you, for me, for this planet. I would’ve died-”

            “You did.”

            Lena laughed, raising Kara’s hand to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles, before giving it a quick squeeze. “A technicality.”

            “I love you,” Kara suddenly proclaimed, a momentary look of panic in her wide eyes. “I do. I love you. I love you and you’re here and I just- I don’t know what to say.”

            Tearing the bracelet off her wrist, Lena held it up, her eyes sparkling slightly as she gave her a crooked smile that melted Kara’s worried expression. “Marry me. I swore I’d bring you here one day if I could. So marry me.”

            Choking on a laugh, Kara reached out for the bracelet and cradled it in her cupped hands, before she reached out for Lena’s hand and clipped it back around her wrist. Lena’s eyes widened with surprise and she let out a small sound of protest, a crestfallen look dawning on her face. Hurriedly, Kara cupped her face in her hands and gave her a chaste kiss.

            “I will. I’ll marry you. I’d marry you right this second, here and now. But you died,” she exclaimed, a stricken look on her face. “You died, and now you’re here, and your mother and brother … I’ll marry you, Lena, but for now, let’s go home.”

            “Home,” Lena murmured, her face softening.

            With a quiet laugh, Kara ducked her head down and gave her a smile that melted her heart, and gently brushed the hair out of Lena’s face. “I’ll marry you tomorrow.”

            Lena let out a loud laugh, the sound echoing off the chill airy walls of the cavern, and she scooped Kara up in her arms, holding her close to her chest. “Tomorrow then.”

            Making the few steps outside onto the side of the mountain, Lena basked in the red sunlight, a smile lighting up her face as she lifted her face towards it. She left her sword inside, abandoned on the icy floor, and felt a weight lift off her shoulders as she realised her fight was over. She’d fought hard through it to change the planet, and she’d sparked the blazing fire that tore down Krypton’s corrupt system to rebuild a better world. And now, as she stood outside, cradling the love of her life in her arms, Lena found that the weight of the red sun wasn’t so hard to bear.