milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Once Kara got out of the cells and only kind of bolted for the Door, she couldn't get back to the Bar for a few days. She was sort of surprised she missed it, but hey, here it is. Coolness.

First things first - she leaves a long overdue note with Bar.

I turned myself in and did cell time for the fight in the woods. You don't have to, because I worked that out with the girl who took me in, so I'm hoping that you're satisfied with that.

I know it probably won't matter to you, but I am sorry. I hope you're doing okay.

- Supergirl

After that, Kara heads outside to study for Claire's math quiz. One small, blonde, cross-legged levitating girl in an entirely seasonable crop top and shorts is hanging out by the lake as she pours over her mostly borrowed notes.

This, she reflects, would probably be easier if she'd ever taken a test she could remember before that didn't involve hitting things with cars or identifying the silhouettes of weaponry.

Distractions will bring her grade down, but she'll be grateful anyway.

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"What were you expecting instead?" He has to ask. He's not going to argue with unhappy floaty superhero-y chick! He's just going to ask.

"Well, not for me, because I didn't commit aggravated assault?" Kara says, smiling just a little, because seriously, what a ridiculous idea! "But for the other guy and a different offense. At least a month or so would make sense, but no."

"It seems to depend on the offense. Mine didn't get cell time."

"Really?" Kara perks up. "What did you - no, wait, I won't ask. Sorry."

"Well, my incident. I was not the aggressor." He shrugs. "Security didn't give him cell time at all, as I understand it. They merely took back what he'd stolen in the manner he'd taken it, and left it at that."

"...were you okay with that?" Kara asks, because that's really the important part.

Wesker goes for an unexpected moment of total honesty. His tone goes cold. "I wanted him dead."

Kara is still, for a moment, appraising Wesker carefully.

"He took something that important?" She asks, quietly.

Well, he's not, technically, a sociopath.

"Yes. And then there was the manner." He glances at her, wary, and then gives his head a slight shake. "Picture a sealed file that needs to be torn open where it is for the data to be extracted. Picture the data to be. . . grown into the file, in a sense.

"For the metaphor to be complete, I'd need to have the file stored within my ribcage somehow. I haven't come up with a comparison that I find accurately conveys what happened. I don't return to it very often."

And that would be the plastic tip of one of Kara's shoelaces briefly catching on fire before she flicks off her heat vision and blows it out. Awkward, that.

"Security," she says, calmly, flattening the ruined plastic between her fingers, "Are one of the biggest groups of bureaucratic, short sighted, inept and generally unfit idiots to ever put on shiny pretty badges and call themselves official. In my humble opinion."

Ew. Smell of melted plastic. "Well, what do you do in response to something like that? I found my solution appropriate, but my assailant is protected from me. The data stolen was removed from him in the same manner. I haven't seen him since."

"I'm going to bet he got around...oh, three or so days. For something like that where I'm from, if I'm understanding you right? You go to prison for years. It may not be good enough, but the sentencing system here is just flat out wrong."

She's ignoring the whole 'wanting to kill him' thing, because...she has no moral leg to stand on in the issue of not murdering people, really.

"No. He didn't. What was done to me was done to him. If Security's followed up on it past that, I'm not aware of it."

Celling him wouldn't have worked on Essex at all. Rachel took different measures.

Kara sighs, and twists off the now horribly deformed little plastic cap and throws it over the lake, onto the beach on the other side.

"Sorry. I suck at these kinds of conversations," she says, tiredly, "Still. That doesn't cover the intent to harm. An eye for an eye isn't actually as fair as people seem to think. But you know that, so...I'm sorry."

"I'm unable to act. As long as it doesn't happen again, I don't care. I've been working on finding ways to protect myself, in the meantime.

"Would you tell me a little about your abilities? I have to say, I'm curious."

"Good," Kara says, nodding. This Deitmar guy seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders.

"And, um...do you want the long or the short version of it? The first one has the mechanics of it, the other is just what I can do."

"Either way," he says, perfectly happy with either option. Curious scientists don't mind a little backstory with their exposition.

"Okay," Kara says, taking a deep breath, "I actually think you might understand the long version, so."

The next few minutes, if she's not stopped, consist of Kara explaining exactly how her body harnesses and uses solar energy, the position and structure of the specialized organs that do the job, and the general gist of her powers and their limits.

There is much listening.

Nope. He's not going to stop her. He can't use this, but it's just basically awesome. Yep! All ears.

"...and that is why I'm not sitting on a giant invisible rock," she concludes, beaming at him. He got through the whole explanation without looking confused! That's just all kinds of awesome.

"It sounds more comfortable." He tries to figure this out. "Do you think more quickly than other people, if you move that much more quickly? And can you hold separate trains of thought?"

"When I'm moving fast," she replies, "Um, my whole body speeds up? It might just look like I'm only superspeeding my hand or something, but my entire body just...goes faster. Especially my nervous system - that always matches my speed. I think normally, too. Relative to myself, I'm always at about the same speed, it's just relative to everything else I'm fast."

"Oh, so that's where," he explains where he guesses it loops back to one of the more complicated aspects of her physiology she described, "comes into play. How interesting."

"Exactly!" Kara bobs cheerfully in the air. "You're really smart, you know that? Most people can't figure that out and...well, that's why I have a short version."

"Thank you," he says, self-deprecatingly. "What's the short version? You say 'superpowers' and then nod several times?"