"Superman sent his sister," Luthor muttered, and asked her question louder. "Anyway, why are you here? Asking a couple of questions, like I assumed, or anything substantial?"
"Oh, no, I'm not here on Kal-El's assignment, no," Kara chuckled, looked into Lena Luthor's wary eyes, and shrugged. "A little bit of this, a little bit of that."
"All right. Then I'll start, I told you I have a couple of questions, " Lena's voice became harder and deeper, as if she had thrown off that fleeting stupor that the Super in front of her caused. The stupor almost all, even non-hostile, intelligences suffered while meeting Kryptonians. "I've been following the National City news, Luthor Corp has an office in that city, so I have to be somewhat aware..."
"Your subsidiary," Kara said. "Research and technology development, plus NC got more aliens than Metropolis. I bet your brother used this quality to its fullest."
"So," Lena grimaced at Kara's interruption and gave an irritated twitch of her neck, almost unnoticeable to anyone who doesn't have the same perception as a Super, "I'm following the news because I'm interested in the city I'm probably going to move my head office to. Bad press by the Daily Planet, constant suspicions from Superman, the Metropolis PD and every other person around… It feels like quite an uncomfortable atmosphere for running a successful business."
"And the board of directors are bastards," Supergirl nodded, a permanent grin on her face since the second she understood that she caused Lena Luthor to slip out of her frozen shell by irritating her. So she continued to do so. "And Mommy doesn't support anyone but Lex, the crazy murderer. Well, I'd probably understand if he'd only specialized on evil aliens, it actually makes some sense, because he doesn't have the luxury of being almost indestructible, so you need to protect yourself…"
"Stop it!" Luthor raised her voice, but that flush on her face didn't last long, and she was quite surprised by her own audacity. Surprised so much that the next thing she said was astoundingly calm and measured. "Don't talk about my family. Especially not like this. I'm not seeking for confrontation, Zor-El."
"Oh, you used my name!" Kara blurted out, her grin widening even more. "So, you've seen on the news that aliens are attacking and all that, so there's less to explain. So you'd be able to help me faster than you could've."
"Help?"
Luthor recoiled and raised one eyebrow, an expression that somehow reminded Kara of those irritating and at the same time extremely attractive moments of Cat Grant's dominant superiority over others.
"You remind me of Cat Grant right now," Kara couldn't help herself, and the unusual thoughts spilled out of her mouth, neither asking permission nor considering the location of where that was happening. - "For all that she's a narrow-minded bitch in some moods of hers, not everyone are capable of making the opponent feel like they're stupid."
"Narrow-minded bitch?"
Lena Luthor's eyebrows are weapons of mass destruction, Kara thought, as Lena herself continued to define the details of what she knew about the Super and Cat relationship. "She seems to be on Supergirl's side, like the Daily Planet is on the side…"
"The public got what they needed to get," Kara interrupted Luthor and waved her hand in front of her face in denial. "Cat Grant mostly doesn't think of me as a person, I'm just a valuable resource to her. Not that it's unexpected, but…"
"I can't comprehend, honestly, what all these facts have to do with you here, in my apartment, asking for help, but in such a twisted way, so it seems as if you came here to insult me."
Lena has made the most suitable and easiest thing she could in the situation she found herself in, she legitimately bristled, probably would have scowled if not for the upbringing that didn't allow her to lose posture even in a dangerous situation.
It was quite obvious to Kara that in Lena Luthor's eyes, any situation in which any Super was even present at the same time as any Luthor would be dangerous by definition.
"Oh, yes, asking for help," Kara said, her tone still mocking, even scornful, and continued her previous train of thought. "I have two problems. You see, in order to understand the essence of what I need of you, I'll have to start a little bit from afar. Kryptonians, who were imprisoned in the Phantom Zone under the rule of still existing Krypton, decided to get out of hiding. On Krypton they went against the current government and were, to simplify it, eco-terrorists. One of them, General Astra, is my mother's twin sister. If she were still alive, we could've made peace, but here's the problem."
Kara ground her teeth with the sound even Lena could hear.
"She was killed by an agent of the department I work with, so as not to be considered an outlaw. And the most stupid thing is that conceptually the Kryptonians were generally right, only their methods and paths of diplomacy have failed. Krypton died of an internal catastrophe, and almost nobody knew about this catastrophe until it was too late to decide anything, to change... That's why I love the press of this world, but what they do to you personally, making up sins that don't quite exist, I don't like it. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yeah" Luthor's voice faltered a little, but she coughed, visibly collected herself, and repeated it louder. "Yes, I understand. In return for your help, you could improve my reputation and reduce my expenses. But I still don't understand what the help might include? That... The department was able to kill a Kryptonian, so you clearly don't need any hypothetical Lex's gadgets to neutralize the likes of them, and Lex's diaries have been confiscated…"
"Well, your rebranding is a great idea, as is moving out of Superman's City, so you won't save much of your expenses on me," Supergirl chuckled once more. "There's no other way, really, for any of us to separate the technologies created by you from those created under your brother's command. He wasn't making toys, and lots of his warehouses are definitely not expropriated by either the Feds or others... departments. Otherwise, they would have done something worse than that Red Tornado, " Kara grimaced, thinking of that infamous government fiasco.
Lena Luthor's soft laugh jerked her out of her memories.
"Be happy that thing didn't have Lex Luthor as its main developer. His biggest mistake was getting into the suit himself, you know that, right?"
"How do you even know that? A rhetorical question, sure, but really, miss Luthor, it was a closed government project, not a stream on a new toy on YouTube. And I think Lex's main mistake was going up against Superman at the height of his popularity, " Kara shrugged, finally losing her grin while Lena, on the other hand, acquried it. "Even if he had won, I would have kicked his ass in a few minutes when he wouldn't have expected it. Just on chance and luck, I'm capable of doing that sometimes."
"You underestimate his plans, I think," Lena Luthor breathed out, and clasped her hands in her lap, asking once again. "So what is your request for help exactly? If you don't need me to deal with Kryptonians…"
"That's how we go from the first problem - a bunch of Kryptonians with dangerous intentions, just out of prison - to the second. Someone in National City has access to a substance, probably a synthetic version of kryptonite, that affects Kryptonians' perception of reality."
"How did you..." Lena Luthor coughed again, as if her throat went dry, which made Kara follow her own thoughts even without fully realizing them and bring a glass of water from the filter tap in several moments. She wanted Luthor to be functional enough to make informed decisions, after all. "Thank you, Supergirl."
Kara smiled at Luthor without any mockery and looked down into her unusual and beautiful eyes. She seemed to be familiarly enjoying the sincerity of gratitude and the pleasant feeling of caring.
She could hear the effect of showing the superpowers in the quickening of Lena's heartbeat, not quite fluttering as if in fear, but just growing stronger, as if the manifestation of superpowers in a positive way had aroused Lena Luthor. But there was no telltale smell of excitement, which was not surprising, but the very thought of the possibility of such an outcome made Kara's own heart beat a little faster.
The human woman was attractive, Kara didn't have to chew down all her thoughts to make them seem less thought through, Lena didn't try to humiliate Kara or deceive her with a smile on her face and supposedly good intentions. And it wasn't really that Supergirl was particularly concerned about the ideas of acceptable sexual orientation that Kara Danvers had instilled in order to better fit into a society that seemed now a hundred thousand years below her own.
Kryptonians were hung on alliances between equals that would improve the situation of each spouse's Houses and families. Theoretically, the Birth Matrix had the ability to make children to anyone from anyone, although of course preference was given to traditional couples because on Krypton romantic love and family love were separated from each other by clear lines of duty to the House and the union between the two Houses. Sex was not a necessity for reproduction, so there was no question of homophobia, but there were certain expectations. Although, if she thought about it, any form of reproduction for Kara Danvers seemed very vague as a concept. Matrix-free reproduction happened to be possible in the case of Kal-El's mother only because of Jor-El's work with genetics and Council's approval. The rest of the Kryptonians have long relied on the Matrix alone.
"Clark has everything I don't have." Kara thought, but she squeezed her eyes shut and let go of the thought that was suddenly so infuriating.
"Everything for a possible business partner," Supergirl said and leaned a little closer to Lena Luthor, who was still holding her posture and barely showing any internal emotional outbursts. "Don't be afraid of me. You've already figured out how I know about the impact on the perception of Kryptonians."
"Your own experience," Lena said after a moment, and Supergirl's smile widened.
"I really like the speed of how you grasp everything. I hope I'm not the only one who got tired of this broken record "Super vs Luthor" when we could have co-existed and helped each other. If I had the technology of Krypton, and you were available for me to make this kind of offer, I would propose a marital union!" Supergirl grinned and said it almost as ecstatically as the old Kara would talk about cute little animals or food.
It caused the water, Lena had just decided to drink, to spray out of her mouth, Supergirl not being missed. Luthor might even have snorted it in - that tidbit Kara noticed with a hint of concern and almost palpable amusement. "She looks like a guinea pig when she puffs out her cheeks like that, trying not to asphyxiate."
"You look like a Guinea pig," her mouth worked faster than it should've. "That's what I'm talking about. I am more cynical than usual, " Supergirl decided to play down the scale of what was happening. "I'm always angry and doing first - thinking after. It's hard to control it."
"About marriage…" Lena seemed not to know what to say, so she just opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before Kara took pity on her and explained.
"On Krypton, in order to end the conflict between the Houses, marital unions were formed, the purpose of which was a child belonging to both houses, combining their knowledge and genetic material. There were no divorces on Krypton since marriage was a matter of the House, not the heart. So if we had the Birth Matrix technology now, as the daughter of Krypton, I could offer you such an alliance. It was done so that the conflict would less likely to flare up again. Of course, on Earth, this kind of marriage is just nonsense, I understand it mentally, but my condition made me blurt out too much."
"So the real Kryptonians didn't marry for love?" Lena Luthor was a little taken aback by this information, her heartbeat telling so, but not her face. "It's intriguing that such an advanced sentient species has taken such a... path."
"Lena, the concept of love in the understanding of earthlings is not quite connected to marriage," Supergirl rolled her eyes. "In general, it was believed that the Matrix chooses the ideal candidate who would complement and improve the union. The duty of spouses was to support each other and the child. There were families where there was no romantic love, and it was not considered as something insufficient, because its absence was normal and even mutual. On Krypton, they believed that the Matrix didn't make mistakes. Yeah, I haven't seen much of it... that explosive version of love, the one people tend to suffer through here on Earth, but I can't say that my memories are an indicator of what actually happened. We were generally extremely closed off and formal. The Earth has changed me much."
"Is that substance of yours talking?" Lena Luthor's eyebrows rose and she began to look like the condescending copycat of Cat Grant once again.
"I'm usually more of a… Sunshine" Supergirl blurted out, surprised by her outburst. "Rao, I hate Maxwell Lord."
"Maxwell Lord?" the familiar name got Lena's attention and she abruptly took on a much more serious look. "Now, Zor-El. More details and order."
"The food is getting cold," Kara noticed, pointing at the forgotten bag of goodies that's been cooling off. "I don't have work today, I took the day off at my own expense. According to your schedule, you still have a lot of things to do, both important and not so important, so I advise you to cancel them in advance. It will be a long story."
"Do I need to know how exactly you know my schedule, Supergirl?" Lena Luthor's voice seemed sharp and acquired freezing to death capabilities in mere seconds. "And should my best assistant lose her title of 'best' along with her job?"
"Super. Speed."
Lena Luthor, her facial expression looking pretty emboldened, picked up her laptop and put it on the coffee table. The tone she spoke to Supergirl next was anything but respectful.
"The first thing I ask of you, darling Super Speed, put the food next to me so that I won't have to reach far, and then, yeah. Tell me everything."
Kara Zor-El essentially knew that Lena Luthor adored research and challenging tasks, this tidbit was hard not to understand from all the scraps of LuthorCorp employees' opinions that she'd heard while making her assessment.
Kara had no idea that Lena Luthor loved this kind of tasks so much that she would cancel all her appointments for the rest of the day, including even her boyfriend. He sounded not quite happy with the sudden and vague change of plans, but Supergirl didn't give a damn.
Maxwell Lord need to finally feel frightened of the consequences of his actions - after all the Luthor was on it. But proving his involvement would feel much more secure for Supergirl - she could show it to Alex and stop them from overreacting.
The superhero didn't want to get back to her old self. That version would've never admitted to herself the thoughts she's now directly expressing. She would never have gone for help to the bearer of the Luthor surname without any previous events that would have brought them closer together.
For the new Kara, everything was extremely simple. She was in Metropolis, and the people who would want to arrest her or report uncharacteristic behavior in order to arrest her were in National City. And the sister she wanted to crush, especially after Aunt Astra, was there, too. Before the DEO knew it, the problem would be solved by a new ally, one they would all have to put up with, not use against, like what happened with Winn. And the fact that Lena Luthor would become, if not already become, an indispensable ally - is an indisputable fact.
The only thing Kara didn't understand was what exactly Lena Luthor meant by bad press. It always seemed to Supergirl that Clark was proud of the newspaper he worked for, precisely for its substantial sources and following the truth...
