✩
For a second, Kara simply watched him. Not his stance—though she noticed the careful way he held himself, balanced like someone who expected the world to throw the first punch. Not the mask either, or the long coat that made him look as though he’d stepped out of one of those black-and-white detective films Clark was oddly fond of.
She listened. His heartbeat was steady. Human. Tired, but steady. Beneath it was something else she couldn’t quite name, a strange thread woven through his existence that reminded her of old magic and older stories. Not cosmic. Not alien. A survivor’s soul, wrapped in the shape of a spider. Kara’s smile was faint, more curious than amused. The wind tugged at the edge of her cape, carrying with it the scent of rain, old brick, and something metallic lingering in the streets below.
“A lost soul?” she echoed softly, as though she were testing the words. Her gaze drifted briefly toward the skyline, toward buildings that seemed to lean just a little too close together. “Maybe” the answer came easier than she expected “I was chasing something.” Her voice lowered, almost swallowed by the city around them. “A place between worlds tore open, and I followed it here. Things like that…” she paused, eyes unfocusing for the briefest instant “…don’t usually come through alone.”
When she looked back at him, there was an odd sort of honesty in her expression. No bravado. No threat. Just the quiet weariness of someone who had spent too long carrying impossible things “but trouble?” The corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. “I try very hard not to be.”
