***CONNER***

If I were to turn around and look into the mirrored glass behind me, I'd see myself paler than I've ever been in my life. Even J'onn, in his standard human guise as a black man, almost reverts to an approximation of his normal Martian color when Kara describes the botxat. Donna, paler herself, looks down at her hand, as if expecting to see her ice cream cone still sitting there. I wouldn't blame her if she wanted to keep on eating, just to hold her stress back a bit. And me, I'm already feeling the need to get music back in my ears. An itch I currently can't scratch, as is often the case when I'm most in need of doing so.

Welcome to my head. Again. Not a fun place to be at the best of times.

Thanks a million, Luthors. Try as I might, I'll never get over a lifetime's worth of mistreatment. Up to now, of course. Not my entire lifetime, not even close. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I can start by helping find the botxat, but how? I don't know a lot, if anything, about where the Luthors keep shit on this Earth. They could easily have properties in the same places they have them on the Earth from whence I came, but knowing the subtle differences I've seen between the two Earths, it's unlikely.

Can't help but try, though.

"You know where they could be taking it?" I ask.

Kara's is the first head to slowly swivel my way. "No," she says slowly. "Do you? Please tell me you-"

"On my Earth," I say carefully, not sure how much Donna needs to hear about me and my past just yet, "the Luthors had this warehouse in the desert-"

"Is it the one about ten miles outside of National City?" Kara asks.

"It used to be a DEO place," J'onn says. "Relax," he adds when Kara raises her eyebrows at him. "It's declassified now that we don't work there anymore."

"That was a quick turnaround on that classification," Kara says. "What, only six months?"

Donna leans back in her seat, projecting a casual air at odds with the gentle twitching of her hands in her lap. Shit, Conner, stop looking there, you're just going to make yourself- "I should've known," Donna says with a soft laugh, "I'd be stepping into a pool deeper than any the government can afford."

"Which government?" I ask.

"All but Themysciran or Wakandan."

"Shh!" J'onn looks around the well-sealed room wildly. "No one's supposed to know about Wakanda's wealth."

"You're the one who told us all about it to begin with," Kara reminds him.

"Not me," I say.

"And how does Donna know?" Kara asks, ignoring me.

"Diana's told me."

"Of course she did," J'onn says in an undertone. After rattling off a string of what I'm sure are the names of Martian deities, he adds, "I love Diana as much as the next guy, but it's a very good thing she doesn't deal in this line of work."

"She keeps secrets for a living too, doesn't she?" I ask. "I thought she was a spy or something."

"Ambassador, officially," says Kara. "And I wanna have a word with her if she's letting her sister observe her official duties so closely."

Donna's blush makes me feel a similar bloom of heat all over my own face. "You've broken my unabashed record! Wait till she finds out about that!"

I snap my fingers on both hands like we're in a coffeehouse and someone just finished their poetry slam. "She truly is a super-talented Supergirl."

"I don't need you buttering me up," Kara says, but the light shove she gives me tells me she appreciates it all the same. Back to business, though. "The old warehouse is declassified, so who's to say the Luthors haven't gotten their hands on it by now?"

"Yeah, someone around here's gotta know," I say.

"Let me check." J'onn sends off a text. "So have you actually been to Wakanda?" he asks Donna.

"I came there with my sister once, yeah," Donna says. "'Cause Themyscira was the first country to open diplomatic relations with Wakanda, so..."

J'onn sighs through his nose. "Call this Green Martian green with envy." His phone buzzes, and he consults the screen. "That was Winn," he says. "The old warehouse doesn't currently belong to the Luthors."

"'Currently?'" I repeat. "Did they own it before?"

"Until about..." J'onn runs through some calculations in his head. "Six weeks ago."

"Then who owns it now?" I ask.

"Probably still the Luthors," Kara says.

Donna nods and chimes in, "Yeah, they'd be the type to keep ownership as long as they can. They'd just put it through a shell company."

Another text comes in from Winn on J'onn's phone. "Gold star to the young lady from Themyscira," he says. "Winn just confirmed it's a Corto Maltese shell company."

"Great." I clap my hands. "Which of you knows how to say 'Show me the money' in Maltese? 'Cause I sure as hell don't."

"Wrong Maltese," Donna says with a soft laugh.

Kara leans over and whispers, "I think there's some actual Maltese people in Corto Maltese, though. They speak several languages there."

"Can you teach me any of them?" I ask. "Because the more I can blend in, the better."

"Who says we're going to Corto Maltese?" Kara laughs.

I scoff. "Still. Knowing foreign languages is a super useful skill. One the Luthors denied me."

"Come potrebbero?" Donna asks. When I stare at her blankly, she translates. "Italian for 'how could they?'"

I do suck at foreign languages, but I know enough expressions in English to turn to Kara and say, "I rest my case."

Ten minutes later, we're on top of the building, preparing to catch a helicopter to the airport. J'onn has his phone open to a line between Winn and our pilot, who's a little reluctant to fly us all out to Luthor property. "Dude, Mendoza, it's not like we're going out to the Bermuda Triangle!" Winn cries.

"You're not going anywhere," Mendoza points out.

"Yeah, why are we not bringing Winn with us?" I ask. "Unless he's supposed to be, like, staying here as..." My voice trails off when I see Kara and Donna staring out over the edge of the roof. And not at an incoming helicopter, but at what looks like a pair of drones. When I recover my voice, I ask, "Do we normally get drones up here?"

"There's always amateur paparazzi trying to get our pics," Kara says. "I'm pretty sure Cat operates at least twenty percent of the drones personally."

"Cat Grant?" Donna shakes her head and snickers. "Controlling a drone?"

"She plays games with her son all the time," Kara says. "Trust me, she can run a drone if she wants to."

I focus my vision and get a close-up look at the nearer drone. There's no logo on it, but it's a very strange shape. All circular, with the mini-copter blades contained in a pink hoop and a small, whiny engine painted many colors like someone threw Lena Luthor's bath bombs at it.

"Should we do something about this?" I ask.

"Like what?" Kara asks. Like me, she's talking out of the corner of her mouth.

Donna reaches into her pockets and pulls out a small pair of knives. They look pickle-sized at first, but soon expand to about nine inches each when she presses a button on the side of each knife's handle.

"Holy shit," I whisper at the sight.

"Is that Themysciran military grade?" J'onn asks.

"Something like that." Donna presses the button again and each expanded knife splits in half, creating four new blades in total. "Conner? Wanna help me do the honors?"

I gasp, then walk up to her, my feet a little wobbly. "Dual wielding with you? Fucking awesome!" I avert my eyes, that blush creeping all over my cheeks again. "Pardon my French."

"Why the fuck does swearing have to be French? Romanians have the best curses anyway."

Mirroring Donna's infectious smile, I come up to her side and take the two blades she hands me. "Teach me?"

"After we take out some strange drones," Donna says.

"Which I'm pretty sure come from the Luthors."

"Don't miss," Kara says. "I don't wanna have to use my heat vision. What if that misses too?"

"No worries!" Donna makes her throw first, and a split second later, I follow.

The drones explode in a rain of fire and rainbow plastic and metal, but then, two seconds later, they start to reassemble themselves.

The helicopter's still on its way - I hear it rumbling through the air - but there's no way we're going to let it land here without getting rid of these drones once and for all.

"Kara?" I call out. "I think we might need that heat vision after all!"

"Or maybe freeze breath?"

"What the hell, why not both!"