Danette fidgeted on her seat, her face going through a myriad of expressions as the taxi inexorably drove towards Jay Garrick's home. Her body language grew more anxious the closer they came to their destination.
For a while now, Kara, who sat next to the human-shaped ball of nerves, had wanted to help the woman, she just… didn't know how.
Really, being raised on Krypton hadn’t exactly prepared her to deal with her own emotions, much less those of someone else, and her previous life's memories, distant as they were, didn't really help in this particular situation.
Rao, how she wished Kori was here with them. Feeling really uncomfortable, Kara thought about what the princess would do and hesitantly put a hand on top of the gynoid's, squeezing it to give comfort.
It seems to have worked because Danette squeezed back. Kara released a breath of relief.
"Thanks," the brunette said with an amused smile. "Gosh, you're really bad at this aren't you?"
"I… don't exactly have much experience acting as emotional support, no," Kara actually thought about it and sighed. "It's usually the other way around, really."
"What do you think he's gonna do?" Danette asked, trying to get over her nervousness.
"Probably invite us in and try to figure things out," Kara shrugged. "Don't worry. Coming back from the dead isn't as surprising as it used to be."
Taking a second to check her phone, Kara commemorated with a discrete fist pump at her side when the scouting drone she’d sent ahead registered Garrick inside his house at the moment.
The truth was, even without getting involved with superhero work, with The Light, or anything to do with her company, Kara had kept herself so busy with work that she had forgotten about her promise to Danette until an hour before their meeting.
As a result, she hadn't actually asked anyone about Garrick's address, finding it on the internet via her search bots crawling the dark web instead, which meant she wasn't sure he'd even be home.
Still, retired or not, he was still a Flash, it wasn't like he couldn't get home in a few minutes from anywhere in the city, or the state for that matter, and Kara had already seen that his wife was home.
Finally, the taxi stopped in front of a modest-as-they-come house with an honest to goodness white picket fence. Kara paid the cabbie before stepping out into the suburban street with Danette.
The woman stared at the house for a second and then seemed to shake herself, regaining her confidence.
Together, they walked up to the house and Kara let Danette press the doorbell, giving her hand one last squeeze before the door opened, revealing an older man. He still had mostly brown hair and was remarkably well built. “Hello, can I help you two?”
“Hello Jay, long time no see,” Danette said, smiling at the man.
“I’m sorry, I…” Garrick started to say, then leaned forward and looked at Danette closer. Kara saw his muscles tensing, his arms getting ready to punch out and his legs getting ready to run inside as he recognized her, but didn’t act. “Miss Reilly, I… well, long time no see,” using super-speed, he quickly glanced inside the house before stepping further out of the door. “You’ll understand if I don’t invite you in immediately.”
“I- yes, I guess it is suspicious to just… show up like this,” Danette tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with one hand while the other squeezed tightly into a fist, small flames forming around it for a second before she dispersed it. “I’m told this kind of thing isn’t odd nowadays, but I can hardly believe it.”
“Joan! I’ll be out in the yard for a few minutes, can you prepare some tea?” Jay yelled inside the house before stepping out, closing the door behind him and turning back to them. “Yes, in our generation, death tended to stick, but nowadays, kids keep coming back for some reason. I mean, I’m glad for it, but it’s still very odd.”
“Sorry for coming without calling ahead, I didn’t think Danette wanted to reveal herself yet,” Kara said, with her increased hearing, she couldn’t help hearing Joan calling the Flash from inside the house and flinched. Guess she should have expected that after just showing up out of the blue. “Ah, can you… not call the Flash yet?”
Jay narrowed his eyes at her, his body still tense. “And how do you know that, Miss?”
“Nevermind, it’s kind of too late now. Anyway, my cousin should have talked about me, but I guess you wouldn’t recognize me. Kara Zor-El, nice to meet you,” Kara extended a hand, which Jay didn’t take, but he did relax a little.
“Hmm, sorry for being rude, but I prefer not to be literally in someone’s grasp until I know for sure what’s happening,” Shaking his head, the older man motioned for a bench on the porch. “I mean, God, am I glad to meet you Firebrand, but it IS a little hard to believe out of the blue.”
“I understand,” Danette gave a bitter smile and sat down. “You’re looking good Jay.”
The man snorted, lifting an eyebrow as he leaned against a support beam. “Me? I’m an old man now, you on the other hand... What’s going on Reilly? Time travel? Alternate version?”
“Good grief, it’s so odd that those are common enough now that they’re the first thing you think about,” Danette shook her head, but had to concede that the truth was just as odd. “I guess you can say it’s a case of robot infiltrator.”
“Ah, those. Always a classic,” Jay nodded in understanding. “So, do you have all her memories or…”
“Jay, I have always been a robot,” Danette sighed at his misunderstanding. “I guess you could technically call me Red Inferno, Red Tornado is my younger brother.”
Suddenly, Kara saw the red blur running up the street towards them, the current Flash was far faster than her, but the speed he was moving wasn’t completely beyond her.
Moving fast, Kara got up from her sitting position and stood in front of Danette, just in case The Flash decided to act in haste. She couldn’t help but smile when she saw both generations widen their eyes at her speed and immediately become wary, even if they were still faster than her.
Sliding to a stop in front of the house, The Flash looked towards the three of them and lifted an eyebrow. “Everything alright here old man?”
“It seems so, thanks for the backup,” Jay said and motioned for the red costumed man to approach them. “Come on, let me introduce you. This is Danette Reilly, she took a bullet for me back in ‘45.”
Flash’s eyes took the both of them in as he approached. “Well, nice to meet you. I have to say, you’re looking incredibly good for a 70 year old, are you aging in reverse?”
“Flash, do I have to remind you, you have a wife?” Jay joked, causing the Flash to lift his hands in denial.
“What? No, it’s a genuine question! Come on, I knew a guy who did that for a while!” He complained, causing Danette to actually laugh and relax a little.
Shaking his head, Jay refocused. “So, how exactly did this happen?”
“I was investigating Professor Morrow for reasons I won’t go into for now, but ultimately I got suspicious about her,” Kara lied, but the story was close enough to the truth it wouldn’t really matter all that much. “Her grave wasn’t exactly a secret, so I just flew over it and, when I saw the body hadn’t deteriorated at all I had a pretty good guess as to what was going on. Basically, I retrieved and reactivated her. It’s been weeks now, but I didn’t want to mention her to anybody until she could decide things herself.”
Jay and Flash traded a glance and Kara saw The Flash give the older man a small nod. “Well, sorry for being so careful before. I’m really glad to see you again Danny,” Extending a hand, Jay pulled Danette into a hug causing the woman to blush and, slowly, squeeze him back. “Come on inside, Joan had always wanted to meet you.”
Running to the porch, The Flash stopped at Kara’s side and smiled. “So, you’re Big Blue’s cousin huh? Nice to meet you… Say, any embarrassing stories about the big guy?”
Kara thought about it, she did have some baby photos the Fortress had been able to recover from her ship’s computers, and there were the naughty librarian hologram photos she had managed to get from his disguise device. She smiled, “I may have some.”
Entering the house, Kara saw an older woman hugging Danette tightly. “Thank you, thank you for saving my Jay.”
Not knowing what to do, Danette gave Kara a pleading look and the Kryptonian decided to interfere before the woman’s programming crashed from embarrassment. One would think that, having been a hero, Danette would have gotten used to people thanking her.
“Ah, didn’t you say there was coffee?” She asked, looking around the modest home.
“Ah, yes, sorry about that,” Joan finally released the younger woman and smiled. “I wasn’t really sure there wouldn’t be a fight in the yard, so I didn’t prepare the table, but I did make some coffee and tea if you want?”
Walking ahead of them, Flash quickly squeezed the woman’s shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry about that, I got it.”
Kara almost offered to help too but, really, being a second or two faster wouldn't make that much of a difference.
A blue of red later and Flash was in the kitchen and, before everyone had even made it into the living room, the table was set and Flash was on the phone. "Sorry, just making sure nobody raised the alarm on the League," releasing his phone on the table, here sat down and smiled.
Pouring herself some coffee, Kara grabbed a tea biscuit while Jay helped his wife sit down. Usually, she wouldn't be eating but, since her eye had started healing, Kara had gotten a better appetite.
"So, what's this about you being Tornado's sister?" Jay finally asked and they started talking.
The rest of the morning was spent comfortably. With Jay there, Danette quickly started getting out of her shell, showing that she was actually a very headstrong woman, and a little short tempered.
Kara enjoyed hearing about the All Stars Squadron and the JSA as Jay told the gynoid about her former teammates, speaking about their adventurers and their current situation.
Flash didn't stay with them for long but Kara noticed a bug left under the table just in case after he had said goodbye to continue patrolling his city. She could have disabled the device, but they weren't really talking about anything dangerous, at least not for her.
The only secrets discussed were those of the JSA and, since it was the Flash hearing them, Kara didn't see the problem.
Eventually, the coffee grew cold, but Kara just blasted it with a controlled ray of heat vision and continued drinking.
As Danette and Jay retreated to the sofa and started going over old pictures of the JSA, Joan got up to take the plates off the table.
"Here, let me," Kara pushed herself up and gathered everything before taking it to the kitchen. "I'm not as effective as a Flash since I can't ignore air resistance, but I can wash a few plates."
Since the Flashes and her speed worked fundamentally different, Kara had to move much slower to avoid sending things flying around her, but she still managed to finish things in less than a minute.
"Thank you Miss Zor-El, and thank you for being here," the older woman said and it was Kara's turn to be embarrassed. "You don't know how much this means to us."
"It's nothing. In truth, I kinda felt responsible for Danette," driving her hands on a napkin, Kara looked towards the two old friends. "Hopefully, she'll start getting back to normal. Finding out she was a robot wasn't something she was ready for, not to mention being dead for half a century."
"You know, I always trusted him, but I was a little jealous of their time together in the JSA," Joan sighed and finished adjusting the cover on the table. "Made me feel terrible when she died saving him, especially since the first thing I could think about was 'thank God she did it.'"
They shared a short moment of quiet until Kara finally asked. "How did you do it? How did you keep loving him even when he risked his life every day like that for decades?"
"It wasn't easy I'll tell you," Joan looked at Jay in the other room with a fond smile. "Really, I'm a selfish woman. There wasn't a single time he was risking his life that I didn't wish he was home with me, but I love him and that’s who he is. How could I not do it?"
Kara looked at the smiling older woman and thought about Kal, Kon… Kori. "That easy huh? You just couldn't not do it?"
"Oh, God no," the old woman gave her an amused smirk while shaking her head. "Staying with Jay was probably the hardest thing I ever experienced in my life, and we fought, we fought like cats and dogs sometimes but, in the end, I always thought it was worth it."
From the other room, Danette and Jay burst into laughter as they looked at a picture of Wildcat tied up and hanging from the top of a building by the Lasso of Truth. Wonder Woman watching him with her arms on her waist.
"Anyways, is there anything we can do to thank you?"
"No, I...” suddenly, Kara paused and thought about the offer, getting a wicked smirk on her face.
Kori loved to talk about the Titans whenever they were together, from how they were training to how much they were improving every day, but there was one problem she still hasn't been able to solve, and it pissed Kara right off when he did it to her… girlfriend.
So, it seems like it was time to play dirty, to use the nuclear option, Kara was going to tattle. "Say, have you heard what Kid Flash has been calling M'gann and Koriand'r?"
Oh that's evil😂😂
I have long since wanted to change the name of the fic
Honestly, I think you should keep the title of the story as it is. It tells people what the story is about and it's simple.
Well, yeah, the title is very accurate, but I always felt like it was too... Low quality.
I mean, I have read a lot of good stories with titles like this but, when I look at it, the first thing that comes to mind are those low quality, mass produced or machine translated stories in WN.
@CapitaoCaverna I don't agree, like there are a bunch of novels, fanfics, anime, series, movies, etc... with simple names that are great, your tittle goes straight to the point. There are some that put a f*cking paragraph as the title which goes to the point but it makes it a nightmare to remember it for later searches and whatnot...
Reincarnated as Supergirl (YJ/DC), it is perfect in my oppinion, straight to the point, it tells me of a tale of a reincarnated individual living as Supergirl in an alternate universe of Young Justice from DC. The actual meatof the fanfic is extremely good which is a lot more important than the title so don't beat yourself over it.
from her ship’s computers, and there were the naughty librarian hologram photos she had
If Kara make pink Kryptonite and give it to superman. He will becomes real sexy librarian without using holographic device😏
Thanks for the chapter.
🍪
Thanks for another excellent and very enjoyable chapter
Thanks for the chapter. This'll be good.
How about, 'Being Supergirl Isn't All Fun and Games'.
Tftc 🍪🥛
SW = Star Wars? Would be great to see another fanfic of SW on SH.
A blue of red later
blue => blur