The Shape of Things to Come

7

Kara stared out into National City from the roof of her apartment building, listening to the sounds, letting it all wash over her. She didn't open herself too much, because if she did, she'd hear the cries for help , the pain, and the struggles. Noises she hadn't been entirely able to ignore for the last year. She had dozens of rescues under her belt, starting with the eight campers who'd died in the California wildfires a year earlier in the original timeline. Her super-speed, and a few tricks she'd learned from Barry, Oliver, and Bruce over the years had kept her from drawing too much attention. She suspected the NCPD and NCFD might be scratching their heads over some of the things she'd done. Muggers suddenly hanging from a street lamp by half a roll of duct tape. Fires that mysteriously went out before the fire department arrived. A mudslide that froze solid in the middle of the summer, fifteen feet from the road, giving them time to finish an evacuation before it thawed enough to be a hazard.

She couldn't help it. She'd been Supergirl for so long, even a war across dozens of different universes couldn't take the desire to help away from her and now that she was almost there, almost to the point where she could help out in the open again, every moment she wasn't helping weighed on her.

"You okay?" Maggie asked from behind her.

Kara nodded. "Yeah. I suppose it might not seem that way, but I am."

"That's good," Maggie said. "You wouldn't do anyone any good out there if your head wasn't in the game."

"I know," Kara said. "Experience was a bitter teacher on that point."

"Sounds like there's a story there."

"Not one I want to remember," Kara said, and it really wasn't. Barry had tried to talk her out of fighting that day after Alex had been killed, but Kara hadn't listened, and the results had been ugly.

"I keep thinking you're too young, you can't possibly know from experience, but something tells me you do."

"I am a ruined vessel of sorrow and regret. But I am free."

"Something from Krypton?"

"No. Mass Effect 2. Winn made me play the whole trilogy."

"I'm afraid to ask."

"You'd like it, it's a series of video games about a Lesbian Space Cop, her partner, who's a dinosaur rooster thing, and her hot blue archeologist girlfriend."

"Sounds like something the little troll would be into."

"Nah, he plays the male version of the main character, and hooks up with the gay shuttle pilot in the third game."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Winn's Bisexual. He's just... He's not perfect, there's a hell of a lot more baggage there than you'd think, but after I told him I was gay, he never once made so much as a suggestive comment."

"I think that outfit he tried to put you into counts."

Kara laughed. "Yeah, you should see some of the ones he's drawn my cousin in."

"Oh," Maggie said, right before she giggles. "Did he show them to you?" she asked, barely able to hide the mirth in her voice.

Kara frowned, not getting the joke. "Yes?"

"Oh, to be a fly on the wall when he makes the connection..."

Kara's jaw dropped, and after a second, they both exploded into a fit of laughter.

"Oh, God," Kara said, "I needed that."

"I don't doubt it," Maggie said. "You looked like you had the weight of the world on those unfairly muscular shoulders."