Chapter 30: COMPLICATED FOCUS
[DEO Headquarters — November 2016, Three Days Later]
The metahuman was fast.
Not Kryptonian fast, but fast enough to be a problem—enhanced reflexes, some kind of kinetic absorption power that let him shrug off direct hits and redirect the energy. We'd been chasing him through National City's industrial sector for fifteen minutes, and coordination was... off.
I moved left when Kara expected right. She fired heat vision at a position I was vacating. The metahuman exploited the gap, gained distance, ducked into another warehouse.
"Where was your head?" Kara's voice crackled through the comm.
Everywhere but on the fight, honestly. Three days since the rooftop conversation. Three days of stolen glances and interrupted moments and the electric awareness of unfinished business hanging between us.
"Sorry. Misjudged his speed."
"You've tracked faster targets without issue. What's going on?"
I didn't have a good answer. At least not one I could share over open comms.
We cornered the metahuman in a shipping container yard, the maze of stacked metal boxes providing cover for both sides. Alex's tactical team sealed the perimeter while Kara and I closed in from opposite directions.
The takedown should have been clean. It wasn't.
I anticipated a feint that didn't come, leaving myself exposed. The metahuman hit me with redirected kinetic force—energy I'd provided during an earlier exchange—and I went through a container wall. Kara had to adjust her approach to cover my mistake, which gave the target another opening.
We got him eventually. Team effort, overwhelming force, inevitable conclusion. But the sloppy execution was obvious to everyone.
---
Post-mission, Alex found me in the equipment room, cataloging damaged gear.
"A word?"
I set down the dented chest plate. "Sure."
"Whatever's happening between you and Kara—" she started.
"There's nothing—"
"Don't." Her voice was sharp. "I've known her longer than you've been on this planet. I can see the way you two look at each other. I'm not stupid."
I stayed silent.
"Figure it out," Alex said. "Whatever this is, whatever you're both dancing around—handle it. Before it gets someone hurt." She stepped closer. "Today was sloppy. You're both too skilled for that kind of performance. The only explanation is distraction."
"It won't happen again."
"It better not." She started to leave, then paused. "For what it's worth? I'm not opposed to... whatever this might become. She deserves someone who makes her happy. Just don't let it compromise the mission."
She left. I stood alone in the equipment room, processing her words.
Alex wasn't wrong. The unresolved tension was affecting our coordination. We needed to address it—one way or another—before it created a problem we couldn't recover from.
---
I found Kara on the DEO balcony, the same overlook where she'd watched me during my early training. The city spread below, late afternoon light gilding the buildings.
"We need to talk about the other night," I said.
She stiffened. Didn't turn around. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Kara."
"It was a moment. Moments pass. We have more important things to focus on."
"That's not what you said on the rooftop."
She finally turned. Her expression was guarded, but beneath it I could see the conflict—the same tension I'd been wrestling with for days.
"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "That I've been distracted too? That I couldn't sleep after we got interrupted? That I've been replaying our conversation instead of reviewing mission protocols?"
"I want you to say what you're actually feeling. No deflection. No professional distance."
"That's the problem." Her voice cracked slightly. "I don't do this. I don't let people in like this. Every time I have, it's ended badly. They leave, or they die, or they turn out to be something other than what I thought."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You can't promise that. You're mortal. Vulnerable. Lead can kill you. Enough force can kill you. Every mission we run together could be the one that—"
"Then what?" I stepped closer. "We both pretend we don't feel anything? We maintain professional distance and die having never taken the risk?"
"At least that way one of us doesn't have to grieve."
The words hit harder than any physical blow. I understood, suddenly, the depth of what she was afraid of. Not just intimacy—loss. The survivor's terror of losing anyone else.
"I lost my entire world," I said quietly. "Everyone I knew, everything I understood. And yes, it destroyed me for a while. But I'm still here. Still trying. Still reaching for connection even though I know how much losing it can hurt."
"How? How do you keep reaching when you know the pain that's waiting?"
"Because the alternative is worse. Being alone, being safe, never letting anyone matter—that's not living. That's just surviving." I held her gaze. "I spent years on Daxam just surviving. Existing without purpose, without connection, without anything that made the days feel real. I don't want to do that again. Even if it means risking everything."
Kara's eyes were bright. Not tears exactly, but the shimmer of emotion too strong to fully contain.
"Fine," she said. "Then let's not talk."
She kissed me.
It wasn't gentle or tentative. It was months of building tension finally releasing, all the interrupted moments and charged silences collapsing into a single point of contact. Her hands gripped my arms, pulling me closer. My TK field responded instinctively, wrapping around us both.
Somewhere in the DEO, a medical sensor flagged an anomalous heart rate reading from the balcony location. Winn checked the alert, identified the source, and very quietly deleted the notification without logging it.
The kiss ended. We stood together, foreheads touching, breathing the same air.
"That was unexpected," I managed.
"I'm tired of being expected." Kara pulled back slightly, though she didn't release her grip on my arms. "I'm tired of being careful and controlled and professional. You make me want to be reckless."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know yet." She smiled—nervous, hopeful, terrified. "We should probably talk about what this means."
"Probably."
"About what we are now. What we're doing."
"Definitely."
Neither of us moved to leave. The city hummed below us, oblivious to the shift that had just occurred. The balcony felt suspended outside of time, a bubble where the rules didn't apply.
"Tomorrow," Kara said finally. "We'll figure everything out tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to—" She stopped, uncertain.
"What?"
"I don't know. Something normal. Something that isn't mission-related or world-ending or complicated by our histories." She laughed softly. "Is that even possible for us?"
"Dinner," I suggested. "Real dinner, not DEO cafeteria food. There's a place near the bar that makes amazing pasta. Human food, nothing fancy, but genuinely good."
"Pasta."
"It's a date."
The word hung in the air—loaded, significant, intentional.
"A date," Kara repeated. Testing the concept. "I haven't been on a date in... I don't even remember how long."
"Then it's overdue." I reached for her hand, interlaced our fingers the way we had on the rooftop. "Tomorrow night. 7 PM. I'll pick you up. We'll pretend to be normal people for a few hours."
"We're not normal people."
"No. But we can pretend." I smiled. "That's the fun part."
She leaned in, kissed me again—softer this time, more certain. Like she was making sure the first one hadn't been a fluke.
"Tomorrow night," she agreed. "Don't be late."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
She flew away eventually—duty called, always duty—but the warmth of her lingered. I stood on the balcony, watching the city transition from afternoon to evening, processing the enormity of what had just happened.
First kiss. Initiated by her. A date scheduled.
The prince I'd been born as would never have believed this was possible. That someone like Kara could see past the titles and the lies to the person underneath. That connection could be built from the ruins of betrayal.
But I wasn't that prince anymore.
I was someone new. Someone still being defined. And whoever that person was, they had a date with Supergirl tomorrow night.
One pattern at a time.
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