13

Cat Grant was going to develop a migraine that not even the strongest opioids on earth would be able to put a dent in. Not even having Kiera back at her desk and managing her emails with something approaching competence was going to help. Lexapro was not going to help. Caffeine and a Big Belly Burger were not going to help. No, nothing was going to make up for the fact that her Superhero's shiny image was being polluted by a two-bit, good-for-nothing, supervillain.

She was just short of grinding her teeth as she stared down at the photos laid out across her desk of the fight the night before. It was dynamic, James had done wonderful work with his camera, and the millennial instinct to record everything on their smartphones meant the entire thing was all over YouTube and every news site and a hundred other places.

The whole thing was dramatic, action-packed, and worse, public. It should have been yet another successful outing of her hero, Supergirl. Another step on the way to winning back the public's faith. And it was ruined, all of it, because standing there beside Supergirl, was Quake.

Once was a misfortune, twice was predictable but also an enemy action. And that enemy was Quake.

Quake was proving to be a villain that had a real threat to her. It was one thing to see a masked supervillain who could fly, disrupt lightning somehow, and was willing to shoot people down without blinking or hesitation. It was another to realize that as the videos could attest, clearly knew exactly what she was doing in a fight, had superstrength, and something like precognition or eyes in the back of her head or something or other. She hadn't broken a sweat reducing the awful-looking grey and multi-armed alien to a broken wreck. Hadn't even been taking the fight seriously. An opponent who had gotten in several solid hits against Supergirl.

That wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.

But what was worse, and the cause of Cat's impending migraine from hell, was the fact that Quake was flirting with Supergirl. And it was not, not working. Which was a problem.

There were two photos that stood out to Cat. Two photos that left her conflicted about sticking them on her site, in her papers, but had done so. Her hands were tied on the matter. Damn, James for being so good at his job.

The first one was a shot that could sell a narrative of what Quake so clearly was. There she was, her hands dropping a collapsing goliath she'd taken down, red blood that was not her own dripping down the front of her mask. She looked untouchable and terrifying. A monster with power in her hands. The way the light framed her, the motion and power of it striking.

If Cat had wished to sell a monster above all others for her hero to slay, a rival worthy to stand to be defeated by Supergirl, this singular photo would have done it. She would have plastered it across covers and sold the villain for Supergirl to overcome. But then there was the second photo, the one that haunted her. Cat viciously hoped it haunted James as much as it did her, even if it was for different reasons.

Because there in full color was Quake unmistakably flirting, stepping into Supergirl's space. And Supergirl, the golden hero and untouchable symbol Cat had made her, stepped back. But not just stepping back, oh no, doing so while looking horribly human. The flushed cheeks, her expression all 'woman off balance' and unsure of what to do.

The narrative of monster and hero couldn't be sold, because Supergirl apparently was blatantly confused by but not opposed to the monster flirting with her. There was no good narrative that kept Supergirl as the symbol she needed to be. Cat's jaw clenched. This could be survived. But she had a terrible feeling Supergirl would not do what needed to be done. Which left her with only one choice. Threaten Supergirl for tolerating a monster near her.

"Supergirl; Ally To Evil Or Fooled By It?"

Tough love it was, Supergirl needed to distance herself from Quake, and she needed to do it yesterday. There could be no waiting for Quake to cross that line that made her fall inevitable. Her existence could tarnish Supergirl's image worse than whatever nonsense had had the Hero acting like a monster for a day. Turning evil for a day had not punctured the mystic, the myth of the Super. Being tongue-tied, flustered and human would.

////

Kara was going to throw Daisy out of a window for this, she really, really was. It was a disaster, Ms. Grant was on a warpath, and every blog, news page, and website were losing their minds. If Daisy had wanted to explode every type of media in the city, she'd done it. It was chaos. Like a nightmare, also, sure Daisy was trying to come off as a villain for stupid reasons, but did she have to flirt while having actual blood on her stupid creepy mask?

"KIERA!" Ms. Grant yelled with more irritation/rage than usual.

She blanched and rushed at 'normal' non-super speed speeds into the office. The covert thumbs-up of misery from Winn was not helpful. She raised her notepad as a defense. "Yes, Ms. Grant?"

"Tell me Kiera, what is your job?" There was a dangerous tick to Ms. Grant's eye.

Kara pushed her glasses back up her nose. "To be useful to you and make your life easier, Ms. Grant."

"Then tell me, Kiara, why, while dealing with Supergirl having lost her mind, is my latte cold?" If Ms. Grant had laser vision Kara would be ash.

Kara hesitated faintly, "Lost her mind might be-" She cut herself off. "I'll get you a new latte, Ms. Grant."

"Too harsh? Is that what you were going to say? What else would you call that?" Ms. Grant's eyes really should have been able to catch on fire as she pointed dramatically at the screen currently showing footage of 'Quake' blatantly coming onto her while casually wiping the blood off of her mask. Kara could admit she hadn't known what to do. Knowing it was an act didn't make her any better at dealing with that sort of thing.

Kara winced, oh, this was so bad. "I mean, Quake didn't actually do anything wrong?"

"Tell me, do you think Quake hasn't killed people before?" Ms. Grant was staring her down.

It was the awful one that made it feel like she was seeing through your flesh to all the weak insecurities and ugliness inside. "I mean yes, but she hasn't-"

"And do you think she has benevolent intentions for Supergirl? Of course, she doesn't." Ms. Grant scoffed. "A day, and soon, she will cross the line and people will die because Supergirl's ego enjoyed being flirted with." She made a shooing motion with her hand. "Latte, chop chop."

Kara bit back her protests and scurried off to get a latte, it wasn't as if anyone else knew that Daisy was trying to make them think she was a bad guy. It wasn't comforting.

Kara slumped in a chair in the secret lair, if she was human she'd be a wreck from how much Ms. Grant had been running her around. A lot of layouts of possible horrible headlines and articles on the entire mess. The constant cutting remarks about how stupid Supergirl had to be for not seeing it were mean. Really mean. And unfair. She groaned.

"Is that a 'you need a fire' groan?" Winn asked, "Because unfortunately, the city is pretty quiet today."

Kara looked at her best friend, "Why is everyone panicking? Quake hasn't even done anything bad."

"You do have to admit it doesn't look good. She shot Siobhan and Leslie, and she beat the hell out of that alien last night, and she looks…really evil?" Winn winced, "Why are you so certain she's not a villain?"

Kara waved her hands in frustration. "She used tranquilizing bullets of some kind, which means she had those in her gun before she decided to help me. Leslie and Siobhan were barely even bruised from her stopping them. And if I hadn't told her no guns she wouldn't have beaten the Branx up so badly. It's not like I didn't knock out the one I was fighting, I just didn't headbutt anyone and break their nose with my forehead."

"I was there, she was intense and was enjoying making you uncomfortable." James' hands were on his hips.

She rolled the chair around to look at him, and she was just frustrated that no one would listen to her. "Just because she's very forward doesn't mean she's evil."

"Forward, she was sexually propositioning you in the middle of the street," James was all noble judgment and it was just…frustrating!

Kara glared, she was so done. "It might be terrible timing, but someone being interested in me isn't a sign of evil."

"She's not interested in you, she's making sexual innuendo at Supergirl," James said like that made his point.

She waved at herself, "I am Supergirl! She's me, we're the same person. And Quake hasn't done anything evil or bad. She just helped, maybe assuming she's evil because she dresses like a goth Terminator is silly?"

Winn snorted, biting back his humor at a look from James. He cleared his throat. "We just want you to be careful, Quake seems like bad news."

"Well, maybe you should trust me when I say I don't think she's as terrible as she seems?" Kara crossed her arms.

There was a beep from the computer, Winn's eyes going to the screen. "Um…guess we can find out if you're right or not, Quake is sitting on a billboard on Seventh and Washington?"

"Tell Ms. Grant I'm getting her kombucha if she asks!" Kara barely was out of her office clothing before she was out of the window at speed. Because something was wrong for Daisy just to be sitting in public as Quake. That sounded really weird, and weird meant a hero problem, hopefully.

Kara came to a swooping halt a few yards in front of a billboard for car insurance that Daisy was happily sitting on while wearing a new mask…it was worse than the last one somehow. She realized before she said something that, well…how was she supposed to interact with Daisy when she was Quake? "Is there an emergency?"

"Hello to you too," Daisy's voice wasn't altered, the smile audible in her voice. But oh, they were high enough up that no one could hear them.

Daisy lifted up a box of donuts that she'd had balancing on the metal frame the billboard was attached to. "I come in peace."

Kara dropped a few inches in the air, drifting forward slightly. "You got me donuts?"

"I saw the headlines, Cat really went for your jugular," Daisy wiggled the box.

She hesitated for a moment before swooping over and sitting next to her on the billboard, or with a couple of feet distance, she wasn't totally terrible at keeping a secret identity. "Did you know they were going to do that?"

"Eh, fifty/fifty shot." Daisy handed over the box. "And the local elementary school has a field trip planned to go see the history museum two blocks over in an hour. Their teacher told Facebook they were going to eat their lunch in the park down there first. Figured you could use the good press of a class of adorable third graders about to descend there in about fifteen minutes."

Kara couldn't help the way it felt like the weight of her entire morning just fell off her back. "How did you even find out about that?"

"I spent twenty minutes looking for an easy PR win for you," Daisy's head tilted. "Also, admittedly it helps my evil plans of humanizing you against the media's will. Which this is so weird, I avoided the limelight on my world for a reason. This is fun, but I can just tell it's going to get exhausting."

Kara stuffed a cream-filled donut into her mouth. She chewed gleefully, it was a relief. Finally, she swallowed and spoke up, her eyes squinting suspiciously. "Do I want to know what chaos your current public relations nightmare is going to be?"

"Do you?" Daisy asked, "Cause I can lay it out for you if you want? Also, watching Cat Grant suffering thinking her Superhero might get seduced by evil will amuse me. It's useful, even she can't suppress that story, but you know, it's personally hilarious too."

She buried her face in her hands. "She's going to be so upset."

"Think of it like putting toys in a zoo enclosure with the predators, it's enrichment for her rich big cat life." Daisy's voice was full of humor.

Kara rolled her eyes, pulling her face out of her hands. "You're going to give my boss an aneurysm. She's going to hunt you down, don't think she won't."

"Unfortunately for her, I'm not scared of her." Daisy was definitely smug about that. "What's she going to do, make me look like a villain?"

She blew out a long breath and started munching on another donut. "Where did you find a mask even clunkier and more evil robot-looking than the last one?" Kara was resigned to hearing something that was going to make her despair.

Daisy laughed, clearly hearing the resignation. "Did you know National City has more than one winter sports store? Which is wild, we're in southern California, yay rich people, I think?" She gave a half-hearted shrug. "Snowboarding masks are like a fashion thing. I got three of them, still working on modding them out to be actually useful, but since the eyeshield got cracked last night, didn't have much of a choice."

"You just had them already?" Kara stared at Daisy, donut half lowered from her mouth. "Do you know what taking it easy is?"

Daisy made a 'so-so' gesture. "Not particularly, and same-day delivery in city." Her body language perked up, "and, check this out!" She reached up, touching the mask, and it lit up. Or rather, some of it did.

Two half circles like cartoon eyes made out of purple LED lights. And the mouth cover had a matching lit-up smile. It was so much worse than the awful blank blackness with hard lines from the plastic. Kara was fairly sure it was worse than if she'd decided to actually wear a horror movie character's mask

"How is it worse?" Kara whined, "Do you know how evil you look?"

The smiling mask looked right back at her. "It's awesome right?"

Kara had been having a terrible day. She whacked Daisy off of the billboard.

Daisy made a yelping noise as she plummeted before catching herself a few feet above the sidewalk before letting her feet hit the pavement. Ignoring the terrified teenagers who'd been pretending not to be recording them, Daisy launched herself back up onto the billboard, landing in a crouch. "Mean."

"You're ridiculous, I hate your evil plans." Kara polished off another donut.

Daisy reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a neatly folded square of paper. It was like four or five sheers of paper folded over themselves until it was as compact as it was going to get. She held it out to Kara. "Give that to Director Lane, it'll help with the pressure from the DEO on the subject of 'Quake'."

"What is it?" Kara accepted it though, neatly folding it away and out of sight.

Daisy was facing her, focusing purely on Kara. "I found a lead on a Cadmus asset, spent all morning cleaning out his computer systems and setting them to wipe later today. But, since I agreed to no murder when not necessary, I thought feeding him to Lane was a nonlethal option. And, it'll give the DEO a motive to explain my actions. Enemy of the enemy is my friend and all that."

"Wait, so they'll think you're hunting Cadmus? Weren't we hiding that?" Kara could feel her brow crinkling, which was annoying, Alex would never let her live down being that easy to read.

Daisy made an 'eh?' sound. "Yes and no, the extent yes, but they'll need an explanation. So we give them one. Enjoy the donuts, hopefully the kids want your autograph or photos or something, and I'll have the data from our Cadmus asshole's computer broken down by the time you get home, hopefully. Depends on how much there is to sort."

"You could stay, you know?" Kara wasn't looking forward to her leaving.

Daisy shook her head slightly, "Not this time." She raised a hand in a casual wave, before shooting off into the air.

Kara sighed, somehow she just knew that the last few minutes were going to make her life so much harder. But at the same time, a real lead on Cadmus.

////

Lucy stared at the folded papers she'd been handed. "Quake gave these to you, for me?"

"She was very specific," Supergirl, or Kara replied, her posture and voice surprisingly serious. But then, she tended to be more naturally serious when she wore the cape. "She said 'Enemy of my enemy is my friend'."

That sounded incredibly dangerous. She unfolded the tightly compressed paper. It was a list of military files neatly typed and printed. If Lucy hadn't been military it'd have been meaningless gibberish. Whoever Quake was, she'd had access to an Army database, or had a contact who did. Neatly written out in clean, blocky letters that screamed not her actual handwriting was a name, 'Wilbur T Adams' and a military ID #. Lucy's jaw tightened, it was a neatly organized hay pile with the needle labeled and laid out on top.

"What is it?" Kara asked curiously from where she was now looming over Lucy's shoulder.

Lucy flipped to the second page, "A successful way to share intel between two parties that don't trust each other. These are the internal IDs of files to pull. She even gave us a name. So we know the who, when, and where."

Kara nudged her, "So Quake might not be evil?"

"She has an agenda." Lucy's eyes twitched as she saw the neatly blocky letters on the final page. 'Happy hunting'.

Lucy turned toward Kara, "Go, I'm sure your last break ended a while ago, and Ms. Grant is on a warpath."

"She's being so mean about Supergirl!" Kara was bleeding frustration.

Lucy was not trained in managing superheroes. "I'll call you if this intel leads to anything of value." She was positive it would. But in the DEO she had maybe five agents she trusted to not have conflicting loyalties, a couple dozen she was reasonably sure were dependable, and the rest she was still sorting. It didn't matter that she knew the majority were clean if she didn't know which ones weren't. Which left Kara as her only true ally here.

Kara nodded, "Ok, if you need me just call."

"That bad?" Lucy wasn't so tired as to miss the humor in Supergirl being trapped with Cat Grant on a warpath against Supergirl. "Go, or you won't have a day job much longer." Probably not actually true, Cat had a soft spot for Kara even if she insisted on torturing her to prove she didn't.

Lucy rubbed at her temples, the intelligence had been valid. Wilbur T Adams was a former army grunt, who got a degree in computer engineering after his time in the service and was then recruited into the DEO. And, had been serving directly under a Lieutenant under her father during his service. A Lieutenant who as of three weeks ago, she knew was Cadmus. The bank credentials had given her a look into Adams' accounts, and he was getting money from someone who wasn't the DEO.

She was good at putting pieces together, this would have been easy to a child. Lucy had just been handed a Cadmus mole in the DEO. If Quake was feeding her a Cadmus agent, that made a horrible amount of sense. Quake being on the hunt for Cadmus made the timing make perfect, morbid sense. She'd showed up just weeks after Cadmus made a big inter-departmental move in National City. And to anyone with eyes, indicated they were gunning for Supergirl.

It was such a neat trail for someone like Quake to follow. And if Cadmus was after Supergirl, by Supergirl's side was where Quake would want to be to likely kill any Cadmus agents she could get her hands on. Which made Quake dangerous in new, if more controlled ways. She probably wasn't an actual threat to the civilians of National City. Likely why she'd felt comfortable enough to announce her presence to Supergirl.

Hell, she probably assumed Supergirl would be sympathetic to a Cadmus murder quest. Lucy's jaw tightened, Quake might not be wrong about that.

Lucy hit the comm, she had action to take before she decided on the next move with Quake. "Agent Vasquez, to the Director's office." They had a mole to detain after all.