Chapitre 1019: 14
Notes:
Yo! Hope you're all well!
Chapter Text
Daisy was seated on her kitchen island, using cheap chopsticks to eat straight from the carton of takeout. The intell projected against the long white wall in her apartment. "So, Wibur doesn't matter, Lucy can have him, but his computer systems are interesting."
"You found a money trail?" Kara asked.
Daisy reached over to her laptop and pulled up the relevant information. "Not that fortunate, but I found a place to look, his main job for the DEO has been looking into the illegal alien technology trade. This is useful for us, and very useful if you're an amoral asshole wanting to turn alien weapons against aliens. The useful for our purposes part is here."
"Business expenses…he was charging the DEO for lunch meetings? You can do that?" Kara sounded slightly insulted at the very idea, but she was clearly more interested in the reports. "These are Cadmus agents?"
She hummed as she scrolled pulled up one in particular and pointed at the projection with her chopsticks. "Not all, but this name came up a lot, and the idiot used real names in his paperwork. Probably because the DEO and Cadmus are sister organizations."
"Colonel John Franklin," Daisy pulled up the man's personal file. "He's currently assigned to DC working on Capitol Hill. And he's the kind of political track officer who would be really useful in advocating for say, a horror-filled government program of evil."
Kara had a set to her jaw. "So we investigate John?"
"Yes, but also I have a list of people to look into for supporting Cadmus." Daisy set aside her carton of orange chicken and picked up her laptop pulling up what she had. "Cadmus coming for you was a big swing. So I looked into what I could of the Defense Department's spending. Which, limited access, I'll need more to know for sure, but I'm not seeing the kind of funding needed for Cadmus. Traces of black money for the DEO, a couple of dozen classified military projects, sure, my guess is Cadmus is one of those classified military projects. But not enough to be a program large enough to imagine it could contain or kill you or your cousin. There are big swings, and then there's stupidity."
And Kara looked grim. "They're getting funding from other sources than the government." Her eyes narrowed, "That's why you wanted to know about the richest people in the country."
She nodded, "And we have to admit there's a probable answer to who has the means, and motive to support Cadmus."
"Lex, but he's in jail?" Kara had gone very still.
Daisy looked at her friend, it was a crime the DEO had clearly been keeping her as far out of the intelligence-gathering aspect of their job as possible. "Do you really think that matters?"
"I want to say yes, but it wouldn't be true, would it?" Kara's shoulders rolled back. "He hasn't attacked my cousin or me since his arrest, it's at least slowing him down."
Daisy clicked into the Lex Luthor file she had started, it wasn't a lot. "I need more access to know, but if I had to guess, he's regrouping. Which means, how do you feel about a cross-country flight and some espionage?"
"We're breaking into LuthorCorp?" Kara's eyes widened as she realized.
She nodded, "Into their Metropolis server room. Quick in out, no combat suits." Daisy hesitated, "If what we find is what I think we are, I'm going to kill Lex."
"You're that convinced we'll find he's still ruining lives?" Kara didn't shrink from it.
Daisy'd agreed to be honest about it. "He's a psychopath who wants to commit genocide, if jail is containing him it's not an issue. But I doubt it."
"Ok," Kara held her eye, "But we make sure."
She reached out and squeezed Kara's arm. "So, want to do some spy shit tonight?"
"Wait, now?" Kara sat up straighter.
Daisy grinned, "No time like the present, and I think you're going to like the face veil. Also, I'd appreciate you doing the flying, jumping across the country sounds terrible."
"What's a face veil?"
////
Kara if she'd ever imagined it, would have expected spy stuff to be…cooler? Not that flying them both to Metropolis hadn't been fun, flying was always fun, and Daisy thought it was as awesome as she did. But now she was standing, in the middle of the night, staring at what Daisy had apparently ordered delivered to a crummy motel room. "Why fire extinguishers?"
"Because if anyone asks, it's a new safety policy that the server room has new ones and we're delivering them now because the order was marked urgent." Daisy tossed her a clipboard with actual paperwork neatly laid out with signatures that had to be fake.
Kara's brow crinkled as she set the clipboard aside, "What do we do if someone talks to us?"
"I do the talking." Daisy touched her arm, her face kind. "Lying in the way we'll need to is a skill, it's not one you're trained in. That's fine, just follow my lead. It's going to be fine. I promise this is going to be easier than figuring out Homedepot." She smiled slightly, "I got you."
She looked at the delivery worker uniforms. "Don't we need badges or something?"
"Nope, they'll let us in the door and if we need a badge I'll snag one." Daisy grabbed a thin, flat box from inside the duffle she'd grabbed on their way out the door. "This though, is why even if they realize what we did and check their cameras, it's not a big deal."
Kara wasn't sure what it was, it looked like thin clear plastic inside, only she could see the thousands of tiny electronic pieces, though she wasn't sure a human could. "What is that?"
"It's called a face veil, and you have the recognizable face, so you get it and I get makeup." Daisy glanced at the clock, "And we should probably be arriving at LuthorCorp in thirty minutes if we want to be in and out and have you back in National City in time to get your boss her latte."
Kara nodded, "What do I do?"
"Sit on the bed, let's get the veil on you. You can pick a face while I get into uniform since you have superspeed to avoid that delay."
She sat on the end of the bed and held still, as Daisy carefully laid the veil across her face. It molded against her face with a strange tickling sensation. Kara blinked as Daisy's hands dropped. "What now?"
"Magazine in the bag, find someone not too hot or distinct looking you won't mind sharing a face with for a half hour." Daisy grabbed her stack of delivery uniform clothing and ducked into the bathroom.
Kara pulled out the home decorating magazine. This was slightly more spy-like.
Kara took back any belief that Spycraft was actually dramatic or cool. She was standing there, in the lobby of LuthorCorp, holding the handle of a dolly loaded up with boxes of fire extinguishers, watching as Daisy happily talked about traffic and how terrible managers were with the security guard and front desk lady. Unease about walking into LuthorCorp had vanished into disbelief. It couldn't be this easy?
"Thanks for signing off, need us to take a service elevator?" Daisy made a gesture toward the elevators.
The security guard signed off on the clipboard. "You're good to go, just take the main elevator on up."
Daisy smiled at the man, "Thanks, can't keep the boss waiting, right?"
He chuckled handing back over the clipboard. "Don't I know it."
Daisy casually waved, before turning on her heel and heading to the elevator.
Kara adjusted the dolly and followed after, she mostly felt kind of awkward, and also…they'd just been let in? That easy?
Daisy hit the button for the elevator and flashed an amused look at her, winking, before looking away again.
The elevator ride to the third floor was awkward, Kara's skin crawled with the feeling of 'what if someone realized they shouldn't be here?' Nobody did, they just breezed past workers on their way. And Daisy clearly knew exactly where they were going. She took them straight through the halls before reaching a door, she slid a badge through the security pad on the door. When had she gotten a badge? It easily lit up, and into a room full of servers.
Daisy looked over at her. "Unload those over by the desk." She slid into the aisles between the servers.
Kara had two boxes of fire extinguishers unloaded by the time Daisy came back, she looked at her, "That was fast?"
"Yup, not a big deal." Daisy grabbed the last box of extinguishers and set them on the floor. "Let's get out of here, I could use some coffee."
And it really was, that simple. They just walked out. Daisy even waved at the receptionist and lobby security officer on their way out. As the fancy doors of the huge skyscraper closed behind them, Kara breathed out, a wild buzzing energy jittering inside of her. They'd gotten away with it!
"So, coffee?" Daisy grinned, the smug amusement was too genuine for Kara to even be mad.
She laughed, "I can do coffee."
Kara was extra careful as she peeled the veil off of her face. She opened and shut her mouth, stretching her face. "That feels so weird!"
"Yeah, but no one will ever know Supergirl walked right into LuthorCorp's server room." Daisy left the door open as she turned the water on, and started washing her face off. She'd done something to her face with makeup that hadn't looked like a lot of makeup, but it'd made the angle of her face look different.
She pulled off the work uniform jacket, "What did you do? It was so fast."
"Plugged in a physical backdoor I can use to get into their systems." Daisy grabbed a towel wiping her face off. "We both have work today though, so might be a day or two before I have answers for you."
Kara was kind of horrified by that, "It's as easy as just plugging something in?"
"No," Daisy laughed as she stepped out of the crappy motel room bathroom, "I had to make the programs that will do the work. But hacking is like 50% preparation beforehand. Do you know how long it takes to write even a simple program? Let alone a self-cloning virus? That's days of work. I'll break down more if you want, but want to get out of here?" She chucked the towel onto the unslept in bed.
Kara couldn't help smiling, "Flying home?"
"Up, up and away or whatever," But Daisy's smile matched her own.
Kara was poking at her third sticky bun in the tucked away corner in Noonans, she looked up at Daisy and couldn't help the question. "Why did you bring me?"
"What do you mean?" Daisy paused, fork halfway to her mouth.
She looked down at the swirly contents of her latte. "You could have done all of that without me, I didn't do anything to help. Any time it saved having me fly you, you lost having to explain things to me and helping with the veil."
"I mean, you're underestimating how much I have not used my jumping to really fly. I should probably figure that out more, but sure, I could have done it without you. But we're doing this together right?" There was something in Daisy's tone that made Kara look up.
And Kara could see it, the sudden hesitance like she was worried she'd done something wrong. She reached out grabbing Daisy's hand, maybe slightly faster than a human could move. "Thank you."
////
Winn had a realization as he watched Kara crush her computer mouse at the sight of another negative headline about Supergirl plastered across the screens. When was the last time they'd spent time together outside of the Super lair? It'd been…well before Alex left, before red kryptonite, he actually wasn't sure when the last time was. Before he and Siobhan had started dating?
He grabbed the mouse off Rita's desk, he'd replace it before she got back from maternity leave. Scurrying over to Kara's desk he dropped down and started unplugging the broken mouse. "So what do you think of game night?"
"Wait, what?" Kara looked at him in confusion, and she was wound tight, but it wasn't with anxiety, more frustration.
He wasn't sure what to think of that, it was usually anxiety? "We haven't had one in a while, we should do one. It'd be fun." He smiled, hoping it came off as excited and not concerned.
She swept the broken mouse into her waste paper basket. "That would be fun, we could do it after work on Friday?"
"Yeah, I'll let James know. We could invite Lucy, have even numbers for teams?" Winn wasn't sure if that was a good idea, what with the whole James, Kara, and Lucy awkwardness. He wasn't even sure exactly where any of them stood with each other. But if it was just James, him, and Kara it'd end up just being Super talk. Winn was pretty sure they needed a night off of Super talk.
Kara breathed out, the frustrated edge easing, the tension in her shoulders softening. But then her brow crinkled, "We should invite Lucy, but we'll have odd numbers not even?"
"No," Winn held up his hand, counting on his fingers. "You, me, James, Lucy, that's four, even number."
She blinked, "Oh if we're doing a game night, I'm inviting Daisy." Kara's posture was more Supergirl than Kara Danvers then.
He softened, "You've been spending a lot of time with Daisy, haven't you?"
"Yes?" Kara pulled back, a certain defensiveness in her posture.
Winn winced, he probably deserved that. "Guess we'll have to figure out a game that doesn't involve teams."
"We could play Clue?" Kara actually looked excited, and it'd been a while since he'd seen her excited.
Oh god, he was one of those terrible friends who ignored their friends for a new relationship. That was…he hadn't meant to do that. Winn stood up from where he'd been adjusting the new mouse. "You'd cheat."
"I would never," The guilty grin said otherwise.
He shook his head, "We'll figure something out. And hey, maybe try not to break another mouse?"
"I can't help it! Why does everyone have to talk about Supergirl like…like…some idiot floozy?" She waved sharply at the screen displaying the crummy iphone video footage of Supergirl and Quake on top of the billboard.
Winn would admit on pain of death, that the two of them did look kind of first datey up there. But the idea of Kara letting some evil villain seduce her was stupid. Sure, Quake might be intending to do that, but it was Kara. Just because she was too quick to give chances to people didn't mean she was stupid. And, he wasn't sure, but if Kara went for a girl, he had a strong feeling it would be someone a lot closer to home. Someone with a propensity to jump out of windows to save innocent PAs. "They'll get over it, hey have you seen the parkour videos that are starting to come out?"
"The what?" Kara asked.
He grinned, grabbing her mouse and clicking onto YouTube. "Oh yeah, apparently it's becoming a challenge to see if people can pull off the maneuver Daisy did when she saved you. Only like, closer to the ground and not forty stories up. It'll be a full trend by next week if this keeps up."
So maybe he'd been a bit of a crap friend, he could do better, and at least someone had been there for Kara when the rest of them probably should have. He didn't think he'd be able to dislike Daisy even if he wanted to for that. Not that he did.
////
Daisy was painting her nails a dark purple as she sat burled on one end of Kara's couch, it was a comfy couch, even if she was happy not to be sleeping on it anymore. She looked up as Kara walked in, the door shutting a bit too hard behind her. It rattled the apartment. Daisy raised a brow. "Ms. Grant that bad?"
"Did your plan have to involve everyone thinking Quake was seducing Supergirl?" Kara yanked her glasses off.
Her brow rose further up her face, "Oh, she's really not taking it well."
"She called it 'Canoodling with Evil'," Kara admitted, hands waving with angry frustration.
Daisy snorted, "That's too good!"
"It's terrible!" Kara grabbed a throw pillow and chucked it at her.
Her powers deflected it easily before it could hit her in the face instead of grabbing it, didn't want to mess up the nail polish. "Want me to make it go away, or want to bitch about terrible media trends?"
"I'd feel better if you repeated why you're creating this media nightmare again?" Kara dropped onto the other end of the couch, looking absolutely wrung out.
Daisy screwed the brush end of the nail polish back on. "Supergirl needs to be humanized because you're not going to be the perfect untouchable paragon they want you to be. And it's wild to have them think about you that way. Like, you should get a little mercy, even if you're a hero."
With a groan, Kara nodded, pulling the clip out of her hair, letting it spill down. "I hate it."
"I mean, I could stop flirting with you, put some distance between Supergirl and Quake? It'd be a little less effective, but we could make it work." Daisy offered, she'd need to play up the fact she was closer to human than alien by this world's standards sooner and harder, but it wouldn't be impossible.
Kara shook her head, "No, thank you for the offer though." She looked at her, "You do that, a lot."
"What?" Daisy tipped her head slightly.
"Listen, tell me what you're doing, involve me in deciding things, ask what I want." Kara offered, sounding tired.
Daisy leaned forward and touched Kara's knee, careful not to smudge polish on Kara's slacks. "I know how much it sucks to be out of the loop. And your world, yeah?"
Kara stared in faint disbelief. "You live here now too, it's not just my world."
"Guess it is," Daisy smiled softly, it didn't quite feel like home, not that she was entirely sure what that felt like. She'd never had it for long without it being ripped away. She was tired of chasing after the shreds of it long after she should have stopped. But maybe, for a while, this place could be a kind of home. "Which, want to help me put together some bookshelves after dinner? They got delivered while I was on my lunch today."
Kara beamed. "That sounds fun! Oh, we're doing game night on Friday?"
"Uh, guessing that involves more people than just us?" Daisy ran through the names she knew of in Kara's life, she could guess at who it meant.
Sure enough, Kara nodded, "Winn, James, Lucy, and us. It'll be fun!" She looked happy, "We haven't done one in over a month, so it'll be super great!"
And Daisy couldn't help softening at the just joy Kara felt at the idea of spending time with her friends. "So what kind of games are we going to play?"
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone