[DEO Headquarters, Private Lab — December 2016, 10:15 PM]
Winn looked up from his equipment calibration when I entered the lab. His expression shifted from focused to worried in the span of a heartbeat.
"You have that look," he said.
"What look?"
"The look that means you're about to ask me to do something I'm going to hate." He set down his tools. "What is it?"
"I need a lead exposure test." I closed the lab door behind me. "Maximum I can survive."
Winn's face went pale. "Mon-El—"
"If Medusa deploys, I'm going into that gas cloud. People will need help. Evacuation support. Someone who can function in the contaminated zone." I moved to the testing station we'd used before, the one with the sealed chamber and the lead introduction system. "I need to know my limits."
"Your limits are theoretical until you hit them. And hitting them means—"
"Dying. Yes. I'm aware."
He stared at me for a long moment. I could see the calculations running behind his eyes—the friendship we'd built, the risks I was asking him to enable, the alternatives he was trying to find.
"Kara doesn't know you're here," he said finally.
"No."
"She'd stop you."
"She'd try."
"And you came to me because...?"
"Because you understand numbers. You understand that if my resistance isn't high enough, I die regardless of whether we test it. At least this way, we know. We can plan around it."
Winn exhaled slowly. "I really hate that you're making sense."
"So you'll help?"
"I'll help." He moved to the testing station, started activating systems. "But we're doing this scientifically. Controlled increments. We're not just flooding you with lead and hoping for the best."
"Controlled increments. Understood."
The chamber hummed to life. I stepped inside, feeling the familiar weight of the sealed space, the knowledge of what was about to happen.
"Starting at Stage 2 levels," Winn announced through the intercom. "The concentration you handled in our last official test. I want to establish a baseline before we push further."
The lead entered the chamber as a fine mist. I felt it immediately—the itch in my cells, the warning signal that had become familiar over months of adaptation training. My body recognized the threat and began responding.
"Cellular recovery initiating," Winn reported, watching his monitors. "Faster than six weeks ago. Significantly faster. Stage 2 handling is solid."
"Push it."
"Jumping to Stage 3." The mist thickened. "This is where you started showing significant stress in previous tests."
The pain arrived. Not the mild discomfort of Stage 2, but actual pain—cells struggling, systems straining. I gritted my teeth, forced myself to breathe steadily.
"Recovery still active," Winn said. "Slower than Stage 2, but holding. You're maintaining."
"More."
"Mon-El—"
"More."
Stage 4. The pain intensified exponentially. I dropped to one knee, hands bracing against the chamber floor. My vision blurred. Something in my chest felt wrong, like my heart was beating through tar.
"You're at the edge of safe parameters," Winn warned. "Any higher and we're in uncharted territory."
"Medusa won't care about safe parameters." I forced myself upright. "What would atmospheric saturation look like?"
Silence from the intercom. Then: "Stage 6. Maybe Stage 7 if the concentration is what I'm projecting from the Cadmus schematics."
"Then we need to test Stage 5. At minimum."
"That could kill you."
"So could doing nothing."
More silence. Then the mist thickened again.
Stage 5 hit like a wall.
I collapsed. The chamber floor was cold against my cheek—tile and metal, utterly indifferent to my suffering. Every cell in my body screamed. My lungs burned. My heart stuttered.
"Cutting exposure!" Winn's voice was panicked. "Recovery systems engaging—Mon-El, talk to me!"
I couldn't talk. Couldn't move. Could only lie there, feeling my body fight for survival.
The adaptation kicked in. Slowly at first, then faster. Cells regenerating. Systems stabilizing. The pain receding from overwhelming to merely excruciating.
Ten minutes later, I opened my eyes.
"You're an idiot," Winn said through the intercom. "An absolute, complete, suicidal idiot."
"But I'm alive."
"Barely. Your recovery took almost three times as long as Stage 4. And you were showing organ stress that—" He stopped, composed himself. "You can't do that again. Not without risking permanent damage."
"What about Stage 6? Stage 7?"
"Based on these numbers?" Winn pulled up his analysis. "Short exposure, maybe. A few minutes. Any longer and your adaptation won't be able to keep pace with the damage accumulation. You'd be trading hours of agony for..." He trailed off.
"For death."
"For very probable death. Yes."
I sat up slowly, leaning against the chamber wall. Everything hurt. The kind of deep, cellular hurt that no amount of Daxamite healing could fully address immediately.
"So if Medusa deploys, I have a few minutes. Maybe."
"Maybe. And that's assuming the viral component doesn't complicate things." Winn's voice was strained. "The lead is only half the weapon. We have no idea how your body will respond to the Medusa pathogen itself."
"Kara's immune."
"Kara's Kryptonian. The virus was designed to spare her species specifically. You're Daxamite. Similar physiology, but not identical. The virus might kill you before the lead even matters."
I processed this information. The mathematics of my survival had always been uncertain, but now I had concrete data. A few minutes of functional time in maximum exposure. After that, collapse. After that, death.
"What if exposure during the crisis accelerates the adaptation?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"My adaptation responds to stress. Each time I've been exposed to lead, my resistance has improved. What if a massive exposure—Medusa-level exposure—triggers a breakthrough? Forces my cells to adapt faster than they would under controlled conditions?"
Winn was quiet for a moment. "It's... theoretically possible. High-stress evolution is documented in some species. Near-death experiences triggering dormant capabilities." He paused. "It's also theoretically possible that it just kills you faster. We have no way to predict which outcome is more likely."
"So it's a coin flip."
"More like a dice roll. With weighted dice. That might be loaded. And the house always wins." He sighed. "Mon-El, I can't tell you what to do. But I can tell you that the numbers don't support survival if you go into that cloud."
"And if I don't go in? If I stay safe while everyone else burns?"
The question answered itself.
I stood—slowly, painfully, but standing. Walked to the chamber door. Winn released the seal, and I stepped out into the lab, feeling the clean air fill my lungs like a gift.
"Thank you," I said. "For helping."
"Don't thank me." Winn's expression was grim. "If you die, I'll never forgive myself for enabling this."
"If I die, it'll be my choice. My decision." I gripped his shoulder. "Some things are worth the risk."
He didn't look convinced. I wasn't sure I was either.
But when the crisis came, I knew what I would do. What I had to do.
One way or another, I would face Medusa.
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