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lena-in-a-red-dress · 5 years

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QueenCorp, Pt 4b: Homelander’s Revenge

Homelander returns to find Lena unconscious in her chair and Lamplighter and Resurrectionist playing cards with an open bottle of tequila between them.

He sighs. "She done already?"

Lamplighter shrugs. "We'll see..."

"Taking a break," Rez supplies, slapping down a jack of spades. "If she doesn’t come round by the time we start again, yeah, she's probably done."

Homelander isn’t keen on that idea. “There's no point on continuing if she can't enjoy it." He grins. "I have something else in mind."

Lamplighter perks up. "Yeah?"

With a gloved hand, Homelander lifts a vial, filled with a tell-tale blue serum. "If Miss Luthor abhors us supes so much... I think we should give her a taste of what it's like to be one."

He tosses it to Lamplighter, who catches it deftly.

"It'll probably kill her,” Homelander warns, but isn’t at all concerned. “If it does, bring her back."

"You got it, boss."

---

Kasnia is a large country. One protected by the invisible barrier of international cold-war style bureaucracy. Maeve and Supergirl do not receive authorization to breach Kasnian airspace, let alone begin a thorough search for Lena.

They wait weeks for word to come down, their prayers hanging on a final hail mary, and share a glance when their liaison relays the negative outcome. They say nothing until they return to National City and the privacy of Lena's empty office.

"So we touch down in the Kesch Republic, and go in on foot. It'll take longer, but--"

"Too long."

"It's all we have."

And so they do. At least Kasnia is equal parts empty land and small towns. Believing Homelander wouldn't risk being spotted in a metropolitan area, they stick to the hinterlands, speeding between structures and hovering below radar level to scan the larger compounds and suspect topography for underground bunkers.

They find their target in the form of a military compound, remote but crawling with soldiers. Not exactly the kind of place they'd expect a bunch of supes to lay low. But there in an isolated corner of the base are three figures-- two standing, one seated and unmoving.

"Got 'em."

They speed to the room faster than human eyes can see. Lamplighter is dead before they stop moving, neck snapped and spine broken by Maeve's gauntlet. The Resurrectionist they keep alive, locked in the cage of Supergirls's steel embrace.

"Lena? Lena, can you hear me?"

Maeve cups Lena's drooping chin, caressing cheeks crusted with tears and sweat. Lena doesn't rouse for long moments, and when she does her eyes open for a bleary moment before she recoils, pulling ineffectually against her bonds.

"It's us," Maeve says quickly, quietly, her fingers stroking against tangled hair. "It's Maeve."

"...Maeve..."

"And Supergirl," Maeve supplies. "We've got you. We're going to get you home. You're safe now."

There's no relief in Lena, no recognition beyond Maeve's name on her lips. She pulls against her bonds even as Maeve snaps them, but the motion seems involuntary, spasming muscles that tighten and relax of their own volition.

Lena is weak enough that speeding away isn't an option-- weak enough that Supergirl maintains her grip on the Resurrectionist as they quietly make their way through the compound on foot. Just in case.

As they walk Lena's spasms become more frequent and more intense, until she's struggling not to cry out in pain. Neither Maeve nor Supergirl knows what's wrong, but in the end their slow speed and Lena's moans of exertion under her tremors alert the soldiers, and bodies converge on them fully armed.

"Go..." Lena mutters, stiffly worming out Maeve's arms. It's the most she's said since they found her, and the most lucid she's been. Her jaw tightens against an oncoming spasm, her fingers warping into claws in an effort to control it.

"Lena..."

"GO!"

There's a desperation in her voice that gives them pause, a plea that engages Maeve's instinct to obey. She doesn't get the chance to choose. Hands rip Lena away, and Maeve knows better than to kill humans here, where any loss of life could mean all-out war.

They drag Lena to the next room, but as they do the ground starts to shake. The air pressure increases slowly, painfully, and then Lena screams-- a ferocious, loud bellow that releases the tension like snapping a rubber band.

Before their eyes Maeve and Supergirl watch the soldiers tear apart, their molecules disassembling as Lena's contracts, her body contorting as theirs lose shape and then blow away as though they'd never been there in the first place.

When it's over, there's not a soldier left in the entire compound, and they find Lena unconscious in the next room. Maeve gathers her up, cradling her carefully against her chest.

"What did you do?" She glares accusingly at the Resurrectionist, who grins unapologetically.

"Ever hear of Compound V?"

---

When Lena next wakes, she's alone. Comfortable and clean in a cage of clear, reinforced walls, she knows instinctively that she's been rescued-- but she's not safe yet.

People come to visit her, but she can barely bring herself to look at the shadowy figures that lurk outside the plexiglass, their outlines fuzzy and indistinct.

Only their voices allow her to recognize them, and of the dozens who attempt to talk to her, she only identifies two of them.

"I'm sorry, Lena," Maeve says, her voice full of sorrow-- and guilt. "This is all my fault. But-- I won't let you go again."

"You're safe," Kara promises. The sound of her voice almost makes Lena cry. She doesn't. "They're still running tests..."

Who ‘they’ are, Lena doesn't know or particularly care. She sleeps more than she doesn't, and lets herself be poked and prodded by syringes on long poles inserted through holes in the plexiglass. No one enters.

Not when the spasms return in fits and starts as the pressure in her builds again. She locks every muscle in her body against the release it seeks-- she can never hold onto it for long. It explodes from her in waves of violent force.

The plexiglass shudders with the force of it, but contains it within the confines of her cell. Lena loses consciousness after each one. Kara is always there when she wakes up, offering words of love and assurance.

Over time, Lena finds her voice, and Kara's continuous monologue becomes a dialogue. She still can't bring herself to look at the shifting, sickening shape that is her girlfriend.

"Can I ask you a question," Kara asks hesitantly, as they rest back to back against the plexiglass-- the nearest they can be without Kara entering the box. "You haven't met my gaze once, since..."

Lena doesn't respond.

"Why?"

Despair tightens Lena's chest, making her traitorous eyes burn as she squeezes them shut against the rising tears.

"Because I can't see you."

---

Her power is classified as telekinesis-- the most volatile, most devastating manifestation they've ever seen.

It renders Lena's world to its constituent molecules, and the disfigurement of her loved ones is her vision’s new acuity to their molecular vibrations. The blasts Lena generates severs the bonds between those molecules, dispersing them to the ether as though they never existed.

Scientists work around the clock to devise a means to help her control it, but nothing emerges.

"Don't fight it," Kara urges finally, unable to watch Lena writhe with the effort and pain of trying to contain it. "Let it go, Lena. Let go!"

Lena does.

The power releases in a rush, with the ease and relief of a powerful sneeze. When it passes, Lena is left panting and moaning-- but conscious.

The next time she feels the pressure building, she takes a deep breath, and releases it with her whole body. The pressure dissipates with it, shuddering the walls of her cell but this time Lena's tears come from relief, not pain.

Suddenly, Lena has agency again. She works to solve her own condition, and slowly starts to explore what she can do with it.

Can she rearrange the molecules?

Can she alter the speed of their vibration?

Can she reassemble them, reignite their bonds?

Yes, yes, and no. Lena learns they don't have the means to accurately quantify the reach or magnitude of her ability. She learns her powers have the ability to render her unconscious, but don't function while she's out.

She learns that her sneezes are now more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.

With Lena's help, they choose not to contain or negate her powers at all. Her safeguard is relatively simple by comparison: sensors worn at her wrists, capable of measuring upticks of her ability, and rendering her unconscious if it raises to a critical level.

Lena designs them so that to the unknowing eye, they look like little more than tasteful silver bracelets, banded cuffs that fit snugly against her skin. Once the bracelets click home around her wrists, Lena slowly starts to come out of her cell, for longer and longer periods, until she can go a full twelve hours or more without incident.

When Lena returns to work, the world greets her as a returning hero. She follows a script describing a brief abduction and a consequent period of prolonged protection, spent in an undisclosed safe house. She confirms that Homelander was behind her abduction, and that he remains a threat.

"If you see him, please contact this Hotline," she urges. "Do not approach, and do not engage."

Supergirl remains at her side, a silent protector. Maeve stands with her, a vocal supporter.

They don't mention Compound V.

Despite the threat it poses, the knowledge that a serum exists to bestow super abilities on grown humans would be far more dangerous.

Lena grows used to having Maeve and Supergirl both within reach at any given moment, and leans on them more than she should.

"I'm sorry, Lena," Maeve says one night, joining her on her office balcony. Lena turns to face her, her expressive gaze flat and distant.

If their lives hadn't reconnected, Homelander would never have set his sights on Lena. Maeve knows it, and she suspects Lena does as well when no response is forthcoming. But when Lena's eyes remain on her, just shy of actually making eye contact, Maeve doesn't feel any resentment from her former lover.

"I wish I could make it right," she finishes, leaving it unsaid that there is no way for her to do so. There's no undoing what's been done, and in the end, there may be no guarantee she can protect Lena from Homelander when the time comes.

"I always said," Lena says finally, after a long moment of silence, "that my life was better to have you in it."

She shrugs.

"That hasn't changed."

There's no chance of romance between them, but Maeve finds she doesn't need it. Just to have Lena again, next to her on the balcony, or on the other end of a phone line, or in the next room, is more than enough.

More than Maeve ever thought she'd have again.

"You too," Maeve returns quietly, letting their shoulders brush. "You too."

---

When Homelander finally makes his move, Supergirl is far away, dealing with the distraction he'd engineered to lure her from Lena’s side. Maeve fights with everything she has, and it's almost enough.

Almost.

When Homelander lands his final hit, Maeve goes flying, and lands heavily in an office three walls over. Coughing, she manages to push herself up just far enough to see through the holes her body made in the layers of drywall.

She watches helplessly as Homelander closes in on Lena, murder written in his stride.

"Now it's just you and me, Miss Luthor. No Supergirl. No Maeve. No Lamplighter. No Resurrectionist. I think it's about time we settle things between us. Don't you?"

If Homelander expects Lena to shrink away in fear, he must be shaken when Lena's lips curl into a predartory smirk instead.

"Let's."

The last thing Maeve sees before the world goes dark is the glint of silver bracelets dropping from Lena’s wrists.

#queencorp #supercorp #part 4b #homelander's revenge #angst #some soft moments #lena gets to do some puzzling #lena saves herself-- kinda #and kinda-- absolutely does #no content warning on this one #it's pretty time #just some vague non graphic loss of life #more supercorp next time

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