Hurts Like Heaven

Chapter 16 - The Wheels Fly And The Colors Spin

***CONNER***

If I were to turn around and look into the mirrored glass behind me, I'd see myself paler than I've ever been in my life. Even J'onn, in his standard human guise as a black man, almost reverts to an approximation of his normal Martian color when Kara describes the botxat. Donna, paler herself, looks down at her hand, as if expecting to see her ice cream cone still sitting there. I wouldn't blame her if she wanted to keep on eating, just to hold her stress back a bit. And me, I'm already feeling the need to get music back in my ears. An itch I currently can't scratch, as is often the case when I'm most in need of doing so.

Welcome to my head. Again. Not a fun place to be at the best of times.

Thanks a million, Luthors. Try as I might, I'll never get over a lifetime's worth of mistreatment. Up to now, of course. Not my entire lifetime, not even close. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I can start by helping find the botxat, but how? I don't know a lot, if anything, about where the Luthors keep shit on this Earth. They could easily have properties in the same places they have them on the Earth from whence I came, but knowing the subtle differences I've seen between the two Earths, it's unlikely.

Can't help but try, though.

"You know where they could be taking it?" I ask.

Kara's is the first head to slowly swivel my way. "No," she says slowly. "Do you? Please tell me you-"

"On my Earth," I say carefully, not sure how much Donna needs to hear about me and my past just yet, "the Luthors had this warehouse in the desert-"

"Is it the one about ten miles outside of National City?" Kara asks.

"It used to be a DEO place," J'onn says. "Relax," he adds when Kara raises her eyebrows at him. "It's declassified now that we don't work there anymore."

"That was a quick turnaround on that classification," Kara says. "What, only six months?"

Donna leans back in her seat, projecting a casual air at odds with the gentle twitching of her hands in her lap. Shit, Conner, stop looking there, you're just going to make yourself- "I should've known," Donna says with a soft laugh, "I'd be stepping into a pool deeper than any the government can afford."

"Which government?" I ask.

"All but Themysciran or Wakandan."

"Shh!" J'onn looks around the well-sealed room wildly. "No one's supposed to know about Wakanda's wealth."

"You're the one who told us all about it to begin with," Kara reminds him.

"Not me," I say.

"And how does Donna know?" Kara asks, ignoring me.

"Diana's told me."

"Of course she did," J'onn says in an undertone. After rattling off a string of what I'm sure are the names of Martian deities, he adds, "I love Diana as much as the next guy, but it's a very good thing she doesn't deal in this line of work."

"She keeps secrets for a living too, doesn't she?" I ask. "I thought she was a spy or something."

"Ambassador, officially," says Kara. "And I wanna have a word with her if she's letting her sister observe her official duties so closely."

Donna's blush makes me feel a similar bloom of heat all over my own face. "You've broken my unabashed record! Wait till she finds out about that!"

I snap my fingers on both hands like we're in a coffeehouse and someone just finished their poetry slam. "She truly is a super-talented Supergirl."