Warning, we have time jumps ahead

Mysteries of Life
The Mystery of Kara Danvers

YESTERDAY

Carter closed his locker with a little more force than needed, just to end up wincing himself at the sound of it. He had trained himself to block out the excessive noise, filtering it into the background and only focus on the sounds closest to him. He had finally narrowed it down to each hallway, the rest merging into white noise, leaving him with an aversion to music. Another strange factor among his peers, it didn't matter that most of the music in 440 hertz gave him a headache, considering that all music was in such frequency. It was sad that a pleasure he once took was now a hindrance and not pleasant at all.

What he listening to, was something he couldn't condone. It was the reason why he closed his locker so strongly, his need for things to be right was something that had only increased in the past months. Even now, with Supergirl winning back the City, he still couldn't forgive her. But now, there was another bully he needed to put in his place. He entered the boy's gym locker.

"Hey, why don't you try to solve your own issues before taking them out on him?" He asked of the biggest bully, the illegitimate son (aka, bastard) of Steve Lombard and thus, the biggest bully at school. "You know, if your dad can't accept you, move on."

"What would you know," the boy snarled, rounding up on him.

"I know that you want a football scholarship to get his attention," Carter replied with a shrug, "and if you keep on pumping your body full of steroids, it won't be long before you're caught."

"Bastard," he snarled, going at the young boy with an intent to kill; why was a twelve year old at high school, any way? "Whatever it is you think you know, you don't!"

"I don't think I know, I know," he countered, blue eyes turning to steel and his body, unmovable before the intense presence that the older, buffer boy provided. "If you think yourself an unstoppable force well, I am the real, unmovable object on your path, and we both know you're not unstoppable. Do you want to figure out how unmovable I am?" He asked in a whisper, tone daring; he wasn't one to look for a fight, but no one could hurt him, not physically, anyway.

He didn't. This, huge, excuse for a human and more neanderthal than sapiens, had a rather well developed, primitive lizard brain, the one he was in touch with the most (not that he knew what that was, or that he was — but he was) screamed at him to run. Fight or flight response, which usually triggered into fight, had skipped the usual process and simply, gone into flight.

"Let's go guys," the (actual) bastard — and Carter didn't think of it in an offensive way, he had no father himself — said, not turning around and only stopping at the door, "you know this idiot won't always be there, don't you?"

Once they were gone, the boy he had "saved" gave him an odd look.

"Do —"

"Why?"

"Excuse me?" Carter frowned a bit. "I hope you realize I'm not an actual mind reader." He had given it a try from time to time.

"Why did you help me?" He was covering his chest, even if he didn't actually have breasts.

The boy in question frowned. "I don't want to just stand as the biggest bully targets a boy who feels as though she's in the wrong body."

"You realize he's only going to pick on me worse now?" She demanded, tears in her dark brown eyes. "Don't you?!"

"Crystal —"

"No, leave."

"Wait, this is unfair!" Carter cried, not understanding. "Why haven't you asked for a locker transfer? I hope you realize that all the girls on your PE class would be happy to have you there, don't you?"

Christian, who went by Crystal, stared. "How would you know?"

"You're kidding right?" He asked in a hiss, now pouting. "Their gossiping is so loud, I can hardly not listen." He scoffed with a roll of eyes. He was feeling brazen, stronger, with more confidence, but this also unnerved him and made him feel as a stranger to himself.

Crystal looked to the side, blushing, and the boy sighed in exasperation. He didn't pretend for others to fully understand him, on his best days he thought himself alien, on the worst, an aberration of humanity. Really, he had already given up on having friends (Kara and Winn excluded), but he could at least make things easier for the other kids, and his sense of justice really couldn't let him just stand by and watch the injustices.

"I was also going to offer sticking with you during lunch and such," he supplied, trying his best to make the other kid as comfortable as possible. "Go put your training bra on, I'll walk you to the director's office."

He turned around, ready to leave when he heard a breathed 'wait', and waited. He suspected the 'girl' in question hadn't expected for him to listen.

"Do you mean it?"

"I'm a kid of twelve," Carter opted to point out, still not turning, but knowing fully well what the sped up heart meant; it was the same thing that happened between his mom and Kara, no matter how much they loved to ignore the signs, "I don't think hormones have kicked in yet, so I got no idea of my own sexual orientation."

"But, you don't mind that I identify myself as a girl?" Crystal asked, her heart calming a bit.

"You might find wanting to go through a change, you might decide to simply date boys while in a boy's body," he shrugged, "all I care about, is for you not to have to go through that because some fool thinks that your choices are wrong, that he's right, when he isn't.

"I do think you're too young to fully realize the implications, but I am not one to judge another," Carter sighed, his shoulders sagging, "if you're ready, we can go to the director's office."

"Why are you doing this?" She whispered, not knowing what to make of it all. "You realize that they might say we're dating?"

"Because I'll walk you home?" He turned and winked at her, grinning, knowing full well she was dressed already and in a skirt that really, looked awkward on her boyish frame but for some reason, it worked and made her look charming. "Well, if he does, I'll just let him know he has nothing to be jealous about, I'll walk him home as well. Just so he feels safe."

Crystal laughed at that, giving Carter a peck to the cheek, blushing when the boy just grinned some more and took his offered arm.

"Why, thank you, you're quite the gentleman."

He laughed at that. "What did you expect? I'm Cat Grant's son, after all," he remarked, going with her to the principal's office without sparing the three boys a glance. "I do mean that Crystal, with my mom being who she is, everyone thinks she's a cold, heartless woman, but she had been undermined by men her entire life. I want to be the kind of man she can be proud to show off."

"Carter Grant, you might never love me back, but I swear, you'll always be my first love," she muttered beneath her breath with a sigh.

He blushed at that, waited until she had spoken with the school's director, and came out with a skip. She stopped when the three bullies greeted her, only for the boy to suddenly appear besides her.

"Sorry it took long, picking your things from your locker."

"Carter, you're such a gentleman," she teased, smiling softly at him.

As she had expected, the confrontation took place at the parking lot. Yet, Carter said nothing.

"What, not going to say anything?" The big boy remarked, huffing and puffing his chest out. "So you're going to date our local trans?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Stephen," Crystal decided to speak up, "you wanted him for yourself?"

"What?!" He ragged.

"Mad because I snatched him first?" She added with a pout. "You don't have to worry, I'm willing to share," she winked.

"You little —"

"Hey, your fight is with me," Carter remarked, stepping in front of the girl and getting in between the bully and his prey. "If you're so eager for blood, try and take mine."

The boy snarled and went at him with a quick jab. Carter did nothing but evade every single punch, until the principal and his science teacher stepped out. He then allowed himself to get hit in the gut, stumbling back and falling, making a show out of having to get his breath back. Before the older boy could follow and try to hit him worse, not that he could and he would only end up exposing his stronger constitution, he was stopped by the PE teacher.

"I told you, another fight —"

"He baited me!"

But, the rest of the St. Edmund finally got behind Carter. He was surprised. He had no idea that Crystal was the school's sweetheart, a boy so tender and soft, everyone wanted and rooted for him. Afterwards, other victims of the bullies, went to him for help, and he was helpless. After all, how could he save them all? With Crystal's help though, they managed to establish a peer system to keep everyone protected, and if any of them needed help, they would just call for Carter. He said he would always be there to protect them when they called.

There were several groups that still looked at him with disdain. The prodigal son, the boy so intellectually superior from the rest, that no IQ test had been able to match his and thus, made all data gathered irrelevant, leaving him with no scores. The one who could, with little to no effort, avoid all the punches from a boy who had been in boxing lessons all his life, making him look like a fool when at first, he had so much trouble coordinating having a foot in front of the other. Carter Grant, who already had several college degrees and was working on a Ph.D., who wasted his time without any real reason, on St. Edmund Hall. Who was already disrupting the balance. Who was being sought after for his athletic abilities that left the jocks in shame.

He, would have to pay.

TODAY

Carter had no idea what was going on. He had been having a rough day, rougher than normal. For once, he had always counted on his brains, and it had been the past few months, coincidentally, right when Supergirl came out, that he began having more trouble. He made his decision to start high school the year he would turn twelve, so his mother picked St. Edmund Hall. He had been proud of her choice, loving the way their choices were always the same and how he was intellectually matched by her, even if he knew much more than she did. The day she had predicted finally came, the day in which most of his peers had finally accepted him, now that he was displaying a proficiency at sports. Not that he was particularly bad in the first place, it was just that it now came to him naturally, whereas he had to try hard to even manage a particularly good hand-eye coordination for his video games.

Now, due to his extensive knowledge on the human body and his new-found awareness of his own body and limitations — which didn't seem to exist at the moment — he was basically hyper-aware of himself, his own body, every single cell, every single mitochondria that now seemed to be capable of storing more than oxygen, and he could tell his constitution and metabolism were, in fact, changing as well. He was stronger, where as his senses had always been on point, due to his hyper-vigilance, he felt that it now went beyond that. Before, nothing seemed to soothe this awareness, except for his mother's touch of course, but ever since meeting Kara for a second time, she also became a soothing presence (and not even Clark could boast of that), the only women in his life which he loved without condition because they loved him without one.

With his new best friend, he found solace in her in a way that he had only sought on his surrogate father, Clark. But, Kara meant more to him than the man, as though he had been stepping in for her, which was weird. Ever since their second meeting, and Carter's first with Supergirl, the sun provided him with a calmness that made him hum deep within, making him seek the windows in class. Despite his aloof nature when exposed to the sunlight, for some reason, it made the classes easier to understand, and while he still had to take notes to help his process in understanding, now reading a science book while under the sun made him remember each single word. Photographic memory, if he knew right (and he did, for heaven's sake, he did) was something people were born with, not developed.

"Mom," he had no idea he was seeing her through a window, he honestly thought she was a few feet away from him, the wall having melted as well, "what's going on?"

"It's going to be alright baby," why was she crying? "You're being tested."

"For what?!" He began with panic, noticing the wall and the window for the first time, and his blue eyes went wide with fear. "Mom!"

The door opened and in walked his hero, Supergirl, and she was followed by her cousin, Superman. But Carter couldn't relax, and the commotion outside the room let him know his mother was coming to him. He immediately felt better, as though he was surrounded by family, which unsettled him, made him pull on the straps and getting off the table just as the door opened. He placed himself between the two women and the heroes, unsure and incredibly tense.

"Supergirl," it was his mother's lawyer, Lois' little sister.

"Lucy?" He asked, and she turned to him, surprised.

"Sadly, the one agent who could help us at the moment is on a mission," she informed the boy, who frowned, body still tense and turned to look at his mother. "Yet, we still need to perform some tests."

"The answers can wait, Lucy," the man stated, frown in place as he moved closer to the boy. "Right now, we know he is, in fact, kryptonian."

"And I won't allow my father to get to him," the lawyer stated firmly, stance firm and tone dry, "believe me, with Cat as his mother, General Lane is going to be in so much trouble if he even dares approach her with his conspiracy theory."

"Oh, I'll expose him if he tries to do something to my baby boy," Cat snarled, placing a hand on his back, and he was saddened at being unable to feel it.

"I still need answers, Kal," the young blonde said with a light frown, hands wriggling against each other, being rubbed in a way that left the skin red. "How can he be my child?"

"Cousin, for that, I don't hold the answers," he replied with a sigh, "but I know who does."

"I don't want to face the cold," she replied with a sigh of her own, but he laughed.

"No, not Kelex, but a friend who recently managed to get in contact with me," he replied with a smile. "This would go on better, if we are under the sun."

"Fine," she gave him a smile of her own, but it was only half of it.

But the boy froze further as he analyzed the two aliens. Who were speaking of him as though he was one himself. Which couldn't be, and something else that couldn't be, was who their hearts said they were.

"Wait, Kara, Clark?" Carter interrupted them, looking at each in turn, not quite believing what his ears told him.

"I guess we can't fully mask how our hearts beat," he stated with a frown, then went to the boy, "only Lois and Jimmy know, now her little sister, your mother and you know, along with Kara's real identity."

"I won't quote protocol, and I know Agent Vasquez won't say anything either," Lucy began, stepping away.

All the fire, the uncertainty and anger, vanished into nothingness. Kara, his best friend, had thrown his mother over the balcony railing, and yet they were on speaking terms? Because there was no way his mother wouldn't have known, wouldn't have noticed. She could catch the extraordinary, and he knew she had been working on that, secret identity angle. He was left baffled, sinking into his mother's embrace.

"Good, because I refuse my child and his mother to go through this," Kara remarked with a growl, going to the young man and kissing the boy's forehead, before giving Cat a peck to the lips to just turn and drag her amused cousin out to the sun. Once on their own, she frowned and demanded, "explain."

"My father, he integrated the Codex in a symbotic relation with me," at her confused expression, he smirked slightly, "symbotic, since the Codex isn't really living, though it is alive.

"Your aunt taught you some Torquasm-Vo, right?" At her nod, he sighed in relief, then took the meditative stance, and she followed suit. "Just, don't be surprised?"

She arched a brow, but they still took hands and closed their eyes.

"Kara! My child!" It could be a man with a narrow waist, or a flat-chested woman, who was suddenly speaking to her in front of the setting sun. She looked around, but they were clearly in a different realm, dimension, or simply somewhere else entirely. "Well, technically you all were, except for Kal-El here but, you were always special to me.

"After all, from what I gather, you didn't take after either of your mothers."

"Mothers?!" Kara was surprised by this.

"Of course silly," a frown, then a pensive look from the a-gendered creature before her, "well, you were made for them, but for some reason the council wouldn't release a child but to a family, and two sister couldn't be married. When your — I guess I should call him your father, proposed to your mother, after your uncle had destroyed the marriage-computer — and here between us, thank Rao I finally manage to breed him, and I thought they would be great."

"Wait, so who were my mothers then?"

"Why, Alura and Astra," the creature's facial expression showed complete surprise. "You were the first of your kind, dear child, my prodigal daughter, created as a countermeasure to Krypton's destruction.

"Sadly, your mothers' plan didn't quite unfold as predicted, and you were conceived only after I learned how well they worked together."

"You meant to tell me you made them so they would be in love with each other?!" It felt like too much information.

"Oh dear Yuda, you believe all the sexual orientation that works on this planet?" The Codex sighed in disappointment. "Oh well, let me see if I can rectify that.

"But darling, no more interruptions until I'm done, okay?"

When the marriage computer had finally declared that Zor-El and Astra In-Ze were to be married, Jor-El made it crash and destroyed it. He also destroyed the only ties that forced the woman he loved, Lara Lor-Van, to marry another man. In its destruction, he finally proved how the thing was corrupted and corrupting their society, and any marriage it had suggested were declared void. Zor-El was grateful, because he felt it would do nothing but perverse the relation that existed between Alura and Astra.

"So, we do not have to marry?" Astra asked, breathing in relief at his negative. She then blushed, "I mean no offense, Zor-El, my heart simply belongs to someone else."

"Oh I know," he replied with a soft smile, his heart aching. At surprised twin looks, he grinned. "Ladies, you're the Codex's most wonderful creation.

"Do you know how hard it had been working towards creating perfect twins?" He asked in a conspiratorial whisper, earning a giggle from the youngest twin while the oldest one (by a second) frowned. He raised both eyebrows and arms in surrender. "I mean it! One to fully take on the warrior's side, a soldier bred for capturing, and the other a judge to bring our enemies to justice.

"Did you think you were made for another, but for each other?" He questioned, and at the blushing Alura and snarling Astra, he himself blushed. "No! I didn't mean it that way! I meant that your hearts, your hearts are made for each other, and that is honestly all I ever wanted for myself.

"I would be lucky to be included in any of your plans," he confessed, his dark eyes nothing but honest. "I truly do not think either of you should be separated."

"But, they were, despite my longing for them to remain close, they drifted apart," Codex frowned, sighing in disappointment. "I had you ready for them, but they weren't married, they couldn't be. It wasn't like I wanted them to, but labels in regards to orientation were nothing but silly interpretations for me.

"I, was seeking to breed a new race, one with more freedom to chose. To do that, of course, I had to free myself from the binds and sets of limitations that had been parameter-ed within me," it winked at her, cheeky smile in place, "and since the one who was working with me was your so-called father, he helped me do just that."

"Did you breed him with that purpose?" She questioned, and the laugh it gave her, was more strengthening than the sun.

"I made your father with the single scientific purpose of indulging himself into kryptonian physiology." Another cheeky smile. "As you can tell, you are all more plant-based than flesh-based."

"Okay, so what was to different about me?"

"You weren't bred the old-fashioned way like Kal here," the tease was evident, and it laughed when both kryptonians blushed. "Neither is that boy, by the way.

"No," it raised a hand to stop her from inquiring, "this is your story.

"Unless, you don't want to hear it?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then patience, child of mine!" The omniscient voice lost all impact with its following words. "You, unlike all others before you, were made for two women. Your eyes would be brighter, the shade I suspected your cousin would be born with.

"I'm still a sucker for family ties," it admitted, "and I truly thought, beyond your father and uncle, that the House of El would be better for you. But, you were bound to the House of Ze, because that was were my two beauties were."

"You're getting sidetracked."

"And you're right about that!" It exclaimed happily. "Beyond House, you were made with no predisposition towards a guild, you were made to fit into every single one.

"Creation, be it paint, music, writing, it would be easy for you if you chose to join it.

"Science, to let your curiosity guide you into learning as much as possible, you would join it in their search for the unknown, finally rid your people of the xenophobia that plague them." It looked sad. "This was something I didn't want within any of you, but there are external factors and morphogenetic fields that seemed to get you all stuck. Not you, not my special child. I made you impervious to it all.

"Law, the field of your mother Alura, with a sense of justice and right and wrong that would never let you stray, because I needed someone to be a beacon, because no matter your free will, your ethics had to be impeccable, and you moral compass one that no one would be able to alter." Its white eyes gazed at her with something akin to fear. "Do you hate me for that?"

"Did you take away my free will?" At the frown, she elaborated. "If I decided to have a man stripped of all his rights, of all his liberties, because he could present himself to be a danger to me and the ones I loved, would you have condemned me?"

"Did you truly do such a thing?" The question was done with intrigue.

"I did," she confessed.

"And is he still held captive?"

"No, but I needed help arriving to that conclusion."

"But you did," white eyes flashed in amusement, "the House of El was definitely the right house for you. I am glad I allowed Zor-El to take you in, he would also speak to me about you, not that I could answer him mind you."

"Alura," Zor-El approached the brunette, smiling, "I have good news!"

"Zor-El!" She was genuinely surprised to find him.

"You and your sister now have a daughter!" He exclaimed in a conspiratorial whisper. "Surprise!"

But, unlike any reaction he expected, she looked stricken. "Oh Zor-El, my sister has been missing for a while now," she looked ready to cry, "and besides, the council would never agree on allowing us to raise this child."

"Then, why don't you marry me?" He suggested quietly, drying her tears as he held her close. "I promise, I do not want anything more, than to witness your bond, and the one you'll have between your daughter.

"I'll be her father in name only."

"Oh, I couldn't possibly —"

"Alura, I would treat her as my own, as I have treated all the children that have been born under my care," he replied with a gentle smile, "and even if I'm a scientist, I won't wear the green of it, but the blue of Law."

"Okay," she agreed, happy tears, "maybe now, I can have my sister back."

"Even if Astra wanted to be there for you, someone had already corrupted the Military guild;" the frown was much more pronounced. "Warriors are meant to wear red, yet they began wearing black. Someone knew the genetic coding that went into my warriors, spreading ideas within them like a disease.

"I could do nothing, the planet core was already destabilizing, I had been too late." It sighed, and she knew it was the same sigh that came to being a sole survivor of a planet long dead, being the only that still knew the customs and everything that encompassed all traditions. "You, you were perfection, the epitome of all possibilities, but I was too late. I needed you to be exposed to every single one of these, it was why your father encouraged your artistic abilities, even if you doubted them yourself.

"I needed you to grown and make decisions of your own, and my one regret is that I wasn't given to you.

"I was enriched with your father's tales of you, found myself glad that you had gone to his House, that he could love you the way I couldn't, because you were my prodigy, my first in this line of new kryptonians, and I'm beyond relief that I could at least survive and learn, along with Kal-El, what it means to be alive.

"Kara, he still learned about you, growing up, making your choices and your own decisions," its hand went to caress her cheek, and she felt as though a child, finally coming home to their parent, "I, was still learning about you, through him, and while through dreams I managed to get in contact, it was still a long time before I managed to acquire some sense of tangibility and now, finally, able to face you."

"Thank you," she replied as she took a deep breath, finally noticing the darkening sky.

"It seems like, I won't get a chance to explain to you how your son came into existence," it remarked with a sigh. "Please believe me when I say, when I had prepared for him, I had no idea you had remained twelve during your travel."

"I believe you," she whispered as it, with a sigh, disappeared. Kara opened her eyes, just to find them moist with tears.

At Kal-El's open arms, she went at the embrace and began crying on his shoulder. It was the loss of her family again, the loss of her planet, the loss of her aunt who was more like her mother. She lost it all again, but at least it remained within her cousin, her now strong, older, baby cousin, one she had talked to while he was on his mother's belly. The one she didn't witness grow into the man he was, into the super man he was. With him, it was more than the American way, it was Truth, Justice, and Peace.

Reviews are really welcome, I got no idea where I'm going with this.