After taking over LexCorp, Lena had made the sensible choice to leave Metropolis entirely. The city's residents had too many opinions about the Luthor name. She rebuilt the company's base in National City, raising an L-Corp Tower as the tallest building on the skyline—a visible declaration of confidence in the company's future. By now L-Corp had genuinely emerged from the shadow of its old reputation and found its footing again.
Kara and Thea had been drinking since the afternoon, which had produced a rather meandering flight path. By the time she reached National City, the last of the sunset was behind her. She felt calm. She knew what she wanted to say.
She didn't go through the window. If Lena was really her friend—a real friend—then she deserved to know who Kara actually was. Heroes were everywhere these days. One more wouldn't change anything. And if hiding was something you did for strangers, what was the point of doing it for someone you trusted? She was going to walk in through the front door as Kara Danvers.
She stripped off the cape and the suit, changed into a plaid shirt and jeans, put on her big-framed glasses, checked that no one was watching, jogged through the lobby, into the elevator, straight to the top floor.
She'd been here enough times to know the way. She was just pushing the door open when she caught voices inside—muffled by the soundproofing. She couldn't make them out.
Kara pulled the door back shut and slipped off her glasses, focusing her hearing through the wall.
"I am not giving you another cent for those projects. What you're doing is criminal. You've made a joke out of everything I've worked to rebuild. I don't want to see you anymore. Get out." A young woman's voice—high and clear, every syllable carrying the particular weight of someone who means every word. Kara recognized it immediately. Lena.
"Be quiet." An older woman, voice sharp as a whip-crack. "The entirety of LexCorp is mine. You are nothing but an adopted daughter in the Luthor name—if Lex hadn't shielded you, what right would you have to speak to me like that?"
A cold laugh from Lena. "Adopted daughter. How generous of you, Mrs. Luthor. Tell me—would you go pick a child off the street and take them in? Do you really think I don't know? Lex and I are half-siblings by blood. Adopted daughter. You have the nerve to say that. My mother died without anyone knowing why, and you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it."
The older woman's voice cracked into a shout. "You ungrateful animal. Subdue her. Make her sign—transfer the funds to the project."
What followed sounded like a brief, desperate struggle—and brief it was, because Lena Luthor was an ordinary person up against trained muscle, and ordinary people lost that kind of fight quickly.
Fortunately, the goddess of luck had arranged for an extraordinary person to be standing just outside the door. A very slightly drunk extraordinary person.
Kara's foot hit the door like a battering ram. In the same motion, before anyone in the room had processed what was happening, she crossed the floor and knocked the woman cold—the one who'd been holding a gun on Lena. The evil stepmother herself, who was, up close, as rotten as advertised.
The second figure, however, was a problem. Kara swung at the tall man, and he hit her hard enough to send her across the room.
"You're —" Lena had barely started the sentence before she recognized the person who'd kicked in her door. Even without the cape, without the suit, the answer was obvious. The cavalry had arrived—and it was Supergirl.
Kara met her eyes and gave a quick, reassuring nod. Then she turned back to the fight.
"Another Kryptonian?" The man released Lena and studied Kara with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "How charming."
Thea would have recognized him immediately. He was a former Luthor asset—Metallo, who'd once fought the Red Tornado to a standstill. After the Doomsday War, he'd signed on with Lex's mother, and his ruthless efficiency paired with his armored chassis had made him one of the Cadmus Project's most reliable weapons ever since.
Kara didn't know his history. What she did know was that she was alarmingly weak—she'd assumed it was residual alcohol, but when Metallo tore open his shirt to reveal the green stone embedded in his chest, she had her answer.
"Lena—run. I'll hold him."
This was not the most convincing statement Kara had ever made, given that she was half-doubled over from the Kryptonite radiation.
Lena had her own kind of backbone. She didn't run. Instead she pulled open a desk drawer and leveled a handgun at Metallo.
Metallo laughed. He wasn't built for speed and couldn't realistically chase two targets at once—but now they'd conveniently gathered in the same place.
He went for Lena first. She was the objective. Put her down, then deal with the barely-functional Supergirl.
The gun went off. Lena had good aim—she put the shot dead center in Metallo's forehead. The bullet struck with a sharp metallic crack, then dropped to the floor. A small dent in the synthetic skin, nothing more.
"Synthetic skin? Is this thing a Terminator?" Face to face with the enormous figure bearing down on her, Lena's legs went unsteady.
At the critical moment, Kara threw herself forward and drove her foot into Metallo's side. The Kryptonite had stripped away everything but a fraction of her normal strength, but after months of being on the receiving end of sparring sessions with Alex and Cassandra, she had technique she didn't used to have. She read the force of his movement, redirected it, and sent him stumbling.
Metallo brushed himself off and stood back up without particular urgency. Metal skeleton. Kryptonite heart. Against ordinary people he was overwhelming; against a weakened Kryptonian, he was essentially at the ceiling.
He came at them again like a freight train.
Lena was tougher than the average civilian, but only somewhat. The work of defeating Metallo still fell to Supergirl.
Credit where it was due—it went to Thea. Back at the Star City base, she'd built a Red Sun training room specifically for Kara. After Alex had dragged her in there to spar repeatedly, Kara had made her peace with the feeling of stripped powers. The Kryptonite was weakening her, but it wasn't breaking her will.
She slipped Metallo's next punch, moved to his flank, and hit the elbow joint.
Even at a fraction of full power, a fraction of Kryptonian strength applied to an elbow joint still felt, on the receiving end, approximately like getting struck by a locomotive. A hairline fracture opened.
Kara's eyes lit up. She could actually win this.
Joint manipulation was a staple of modern combat, and no small number of female heroes had mastered it—Alex, Cassandra, and others. Kara had been on the losing end of enough training sessions to pick up the fundamentals. She started working them: elbows, knees, angles.
Metallo hit back without restraint, and Kara, operating well below capacity, caught a beating she'd remember. She was spitting blood within minutes. But the fight had lit something in her. No strength? Didn't matter. She was still a fighter.
Watching her friend refuse to quit, Lena felt her usual cold composure strain at the edges. She'd spent most of her adult life inside careful calculations. She hadn't frozen.
She worked through the problem. Police were out—she couldn't expose Kara's identity, and they'd be useless against Metallo regardless. Building security wasn't even in the running. Lex was unreachable on a good day, and even if she found him—she couldn't even bring herself to make that call. The Lex-Kryptonian feud could fill three days of conversation on its own. Asking him how to help a Kryptonian defeat his own creation? Simply not realistic.