Endless Legacy (DC Comics)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story.

Timeskip time! If no one else is gonna do something, then it'll have to be Kara!

-x-X-x-

"Ms. Danvers?"

Kara perks up from the couch she's sitting on, looking to see a woman in a pencil skirt and blouse looking around the room.

"Yes! Right here! I'm Kara Danvers!"

As she hops to her feet, the woman's eyes swivel to her and seem to look her up and down for a long moment. They're wearing similar attire of course; however Kara has her hair down and she can tell that loses her a few points with the older woman.

"Right this way then."

As she follows the other woman out of the waiting room, Kara steels herself for the trials ahead. She couldn't back down now… no matter what.

It had been just under a year since Brainiac's invasion and the clone Lex Luthor had announced his intention to run for President. Voting Day had been a month ago and Kara wishes she could say it was close… but it wasn't. He'd done it. Alexander Luthor had become the President of the United States.

It still didn't feel real even now. Not least of which because of Kal's inaction! He'd refused to speak out and denounce Luthor's bid for the presidency. Nor had he been willing to endorse any of the opposition candidates either. If he had, Kara is confident that things would have been different.

Everyone had been waiting for Superman to say something… anything really. This was his archnemesis after all. But Kal hadn't felt comfortable putting his hand on the scale like that, even if it would have only taken the tip of a single finger for him to influence things in the right direction.

Kara had tried, of course. When asked as Supergirl, she'd flat out said she didn't think Lex Luthor would make a very good President. But her words didn't have the same weight as Kal's would have. Maybe some of the youth vote had been swayed by her opinion, but most people hadn't taken her seriously.

Especially in the face of her cousin's silence. Kal hadn't wanted to influence things so he'd refused to say anything one way or another. But what he didn't seem to understand was the simple act of staying quiet about Lex Luthor of all people was itself seen as a message.

… No use crying over spilt milk though. The election was over and Alexander Luthor was President. So far he'd given a lot of feel-good speeches and was pushing forward with all of the initiatives he'd talked about on the campaign trail. The news was gushing with praise about how he might very well be the first President to ever keep the promises he made as a candidate.

Kara didn't trust it. Even if it was a clone, he was still Lex Luthor. And Luthor would always be Luthor.

Which brought her to today. If nobody else was willing to do anything about this, then it fell to Kara to dig up the dirt necessary to PROVE that President Alexander Luthor was just as corrupt and evil as the original Lex Luthor. And the easiest way to do THAT was to find evidence that he hadn't actually divested himself from his company like he'd promised he would.

The first and most obvious sign that something stunk to high heavens was just who Luthor had appointed to replace him as CEO. Lucien Luthor was practically a nobody as far as LexCorp was concerned. The biggest feat he could lay claim to was that he'd run a nonprofit clinic in Gotham City for a little while under the company's charity division.

That he'd been promoted to CEO just a few months into Alexander Luthor's campaign while the clone stepped down to focus on running for President SHOULD have been the warning sign to end all warning signs, but nobody seemed willing to take it as seriously as Kara was.

Even Barbara, aka Batgirl, aka Oracle, aka one of Kara's closest friends on Earth, couldn't be convinced that Lucien was up to something with his father's clone. She insisted that Lucien wasn't a bad person and even if Alexander Luthor had some dastardly plan, Barbara was convinced that Lucien wouldn't know about it.

Kara, needless to say, wasn't so easily convinced. Unfortunately, between Barbara not agreeing with her and Kal and the rest of the Justice League not sanctioning this little mission… Kara was basically flying solo here. Still, someone had to do something. Someone had to find out exactly what was going on here at LexCorp!

"Here we are. This will be your desk, Ms. Danvers."

Pulled from her thoughts, Kara looks to where the other woman is gesturing and plasters a big sunny smile on her face.

"Thanks!"

She offers her hand to shake, but the other woman sniffs haughtily and just walks away, leaving Kara hanging. It doesn't matter though. Ms. Grumpy doesn't matter. Kara is already in, after all. She's already done the interviews; she's already slipped right past all of their little nets. She's now employed as a member of the secretarial pool here at LexCorp. Exactly where she wants to be.

There had been one minor, teensy, tiny problem with Kara's plan to go undercover at LexCorp of course. Namely, the fact that she'd literally already gone undercover as a businesswoman at Lucien's side just under a year ago when they'd came here together to find out what Lex Luthor's clone was up to in the first place.

… But that just meant Kara had to get clever with her disguise this time around. In a lot of ways, Kara Danvers was both more complex and simpler than the 'Karen' disguise had been. And despite both being women in business, the two personas couldn't possibly be more different.

It helped that 'Karen' had been a bit of a rush job. All Kara had really done there was put on a matching suit jacket and pencil skirt, with the suit jacket having rather big shoulders to make her seem more 'manly' and imposing than her normal stature made her. Her hair had also been done up in a professional ponytail and her makeup had been designed to make her seem older than she really was.

By comparison, Kara Danvers was young, vivacious, and just full of energy. She didn't bother with square-shouldered suit jackets, and she didn't put her hair up either. The glasses that she'd worn as 'Karen' had also been a nondescript and largely professional looking on account of Kara needing to rush a little bit. The ones she wore now were red and slightly more feminine, designed to accentuate her youth just like her makeup was.

The difference was night and day. Karen was a no-nonsense businesswoman whose entire identity was paper-thin and would have never stood up to more than five minutes of scrutiny. Kara Danvers was a bright and sunny recently graduated coed who was eager to please and just starting her life on the corporate ladder.

Kara Danvers was also far more real than Karen had been because… well, Kara Danvers was based on the very real secret identity that Kal had helped her establish years ago when she'd first shown up on Earth. Yes, technically… Kara Danvers was as much who she was as Kara Zor-El was.

Was it a little dangerous to be using her real civilian identity to infiltrate LexCorp? Maybe, but it wasn't like she'd been left with any other real options! Barbara might have been able to help, but she was obviously compromised. And while normally Kara would be all for her best friend knocking the rust off and getting with a guy, but with a Luthor?! Ugh… clearly the years in the wheelchair had left Barbara's taste in the gutter. Not that Kara would ever say something like that out loud.

Still, just because she was flying solo didn't mean things were all bad. Here she was, after all. She'd slipped right under the radar and now… now she could do some actual snooping. First though, she'd probably have to prove herself for a bit. Get the lay of the land. Show she was a competent worker and all that.

Kara wasn't looking forward to it, but there was nothing to be done. Part of going undercover was maintaining and building on that cover, after all. She would just have to prove herself until she found an opportunity to dig deeper and uncover the true rot she knew existed at LexCorp's core.

Smiling happily, Kara logs into her work terminal, checks over her daily tasks, and then sets about making sure they all get done with efficiency and poise. No one is going to be able to label Kara Danvers a slacker, that's for sure. By the end of the month, she's going to be the best damn secretary LexCorp has ever seen!

Sure, it might seem ridiculous that someone like her could sneak into a place like this undetected, but Kara wasn't surprised it was working as well as it was. After all, Kal El had done it as Clark Kent all these years over at the Daily Planet. Humans really were easy to trick sometimes…

-x-X-x-

"It's definitely her. I don't know how she thought she'd get away with it, but the scans make it obvious she's not human. Kara Danvers is Supergirl."

Sitting behind his desk in his office at the top of LexCorp Tower, Lucien lets out a sigh even as he considers the report that Mercy and Blackfire have brought him. The two have been working hand in hand as his co-chiefs of security since he became CEO. Though perhaps it would be more accurate to say Mercy was showing Blackfire the ropes and the former princess was proving herself to be quite the quick learner.

… It's been almost a year since Brainiac's invasion. A lot has happened since then. Alexander Luthor has become President of the United States. Lucien has become CEO of LexCorp. Fortunately he'd had some time to ease into things, but he still couldn't help questioning at times whether he was the right man for the job or not.

This felt like one of those times. Barbara had vented to him at one point that Supergirl seemed to have taken umbrage with his decisions and developed a severe disliking and distrust for him and his actions. It was unfortunate, but Lucien still felt like he'd made the best decisions he could that day, even if they'd ultimately wound up alienating the blonde Kryptonian.

That said, Barbara hadn't mentioned anything about Supergirl actually acting on her distrust. It was possible that the red head didn't know… but it was also possible that she simply wasn't telling him everything. Which… fair. He wasn't telling her everything either.

Like for instance, that the reason that Harley and Poison Ivy had completely gone into retirement several months back had everything to do with him giving the villainesses the family they'd always wanted…

But he couldn't let himself get distracted thinking about all of that. He needed to focus. His heads of security are in agreement with that.

"What are we going to do about her, Lucien?"

"Can't just let her wander around all willy nilly, can we?"

Grimacing, Lucien leans back in his chair.

"… We don't have anything to hide, necessarily."

It even had the benefit of being mostly true. LexCorp was squeaky clean right now… had been ever since shortly before Lucien took over in fact. Hell, even before Brainiac's failed invasion, Alex had already taken it upon himself to start cleaning things up behind the scenes. He'd pulled funding for anything too illegal, most of which had been programs researching ways to permanently deal with Superman.

In the months after Brainiac's invasion and before Alex's bid for President had ramped up to the point that he was too busy to help, he and Lucien had worked together to continue cleaning up the company, bringing it to the place where it was today. By the time Lucien took over as CEO, LexCorp was honestly a company he was proud to lead, crazy as that might have sounded.

Of course, there was still one or two issues here and there…

"We still haven't clawed back every bit of the money that Lex put into certain projects Lucien. To say nothing of some of the researchers who went to ground."

That was unfortunately true. Not everyone had been willing to stop their work just because Alex told them to. Some had run off with whatever they were doing and disappeared from view. That was bad and given they could do significant damage to both the President and LexCorp if they ever showed back up again, Lucien had Blackfire and Mercy both working on hunting them down.

"Still, they're not exactly LexCorp Employees anymore. Supergirl shouldn't find anything about them from snooping around here."

Mercy and Blackfire share a look at that.

"… It sounds as though you're not just going to let us expose her and kick her out."

Lucien chuckles and shakes his head. He's tempted to, certainly. Calling Superman and asking him to come pick up his cousin is another serious temptation. Or maybe asking Barbara to do it on the downlow. But somehow, he doesn't think any of those options would satisfy Supergirl. The blonde wouldn't give up just because of a setback like that, it would only embolden her to try harder.

Keeping property damage to a minimum was probably one of his responsibilities as CEO in a world where individuals like Superman and Supergirl could destroy skyscrapers with their bare hands.

"So long as she's willing to play nice, I think we should let her. The moment we expose her; she takes off the kid gloves."

Blackfire snorts derisively at that.

"We can take her."

Grinning a little, Lucien inclines his head, knowing Blackfire is right. They COULD take Supergirl at this point… but that was neither here nor there.

"I'm not worried about us. I'm worried about the collateral damage."

Blackfire is forced to concede that point with a grunt and a begrudging nod. Mercy, meanwhile, steps forward.

"So then what's the plan? What are you going to do about Supergirl?"

Lucien hums in consideration for a long moment. On the one hand, there was that old adage about keeping your enemies close. On the other hand, maybe it would be best to just carefully sideline Kara and keep her out of the way as much as possible. After all, he had enough on his plate without having to deal with a snooping blonde Kryptonian…

-x-X-x-

[ ] Sideline Kara and keep her under watch so that he can deal with her later - 9%

[X] Let Kara ascend to become his personal secretary so he can keep a closer eye on her - 91%

-x-X-x-

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