The Return of...Supergirl?

Early evening. The air is cool, but the city is getting warmer. Spring has sprung, and everything is green. The Brinks truck traveling along the road, inching through rush-hour traffic, but the driver is alert and aware. His two compatriots in the back are watching, as well, but not as much. The truck is a 20-ton tank on tires, and it is designed to protect its contents.

As the last few moments before the mayhem begins, it's a serene sight.

Linda is a pretty girl with brown hair. She stands 5' 5" tall and weighs 125#. She has dark blue eyes whch often have a somewhat haunted expression. She typically is dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, looking much like the artist she is. Linda is out for a walk, she has just come from the Gallery where her latest works are on display. Prices here are higher than in Leesburg, so keeping her studio open costs a lot. She did her taxes already, unlike some of those she sees queued up trying to get into tax places. To her, it is stupid to wait to do taxes; get it over with as soon as possible, especially if you expect a return.

She sees the Brinks truck pull by but pays little attention. Some of the money on may be hers, or may someday be hers...well assuming it is money. Those trucks sometimes haul other valuables instead.

Well. Not her business, what sounds good for dinner tonight? She is no cook...food not being the kind of material she performs artistry with.

The driver looks forward to check the traffic light... And his blood suddenly turns to ice. A man is standing in the window beyond the light, and aiming something at him. The driver, Donny Israel, has been to Iraq and Afghanistan. And he suddenly makes the choice that saves his life. He yanks the wheek to the left and guns the engine.

The RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade shrieks toward the target. It was supposed to hit the window, incinerate the driver, disable the vehicle. But the driver saw or sensed SOMETHING and turned the truck to the left, and the projectile hits the truck broadside. It is still enough to knock the truck on its side, but the driver only suffers a bad attack of tinnitus instead of being instantly turned into ground round.

The truck is on its side for only a few moments before the van drives up alongside on the curb, disgorging two very large men packing serious heat--one of them a minigun, the other a heavy recoilless rifle. The other two men headed for the back door of the truck as minigun fire spat into the air and triggered the flight reflex of almost everyone within a mile radius.

Linda takes cover, along with most everyone who is not running away at full speed. Often times it is better to stay put under cover than to risk being trampled. Not that Linda has anything to worry about when it comes to things running HER over...well perhaps a loaded freight train or something.

She does note the action...not like she can miss it. She ponders, from her hiding place, whether she should do something. Right now, it seems to be mostly property in danger. The men move quickly, the rear door fitted with some kind of rig, which begins carving up the rear lock. All the regular people are running away, and no one is bothering them. For the next few seconds.

"Almost through. We'll be farting through silk in..." THWIPP!!! A sudden high-velocity glob of gluey webbing hits the device, freezing the gears that rotate the laser, and it stops, heat swiftly rising as energy is converted into heat. Too much heat. The four men turn to see someone crouched on a nearby car, a clown in red and blue.

"Hey...can you guys validate my parking?" Spider-Man asks the crew.

One reason to do nothing, for Linda, is that there are 327 known superheroes resident in the greater New York City metropolitin area. That does not count visitors, of which there are often a few. Hopefully Spider-man can handle this.

However, there is a reason some police officers hate super heroes...as she knows from her father...the chances of someone dying or being seriously hurt quadruple if heroes show up. She actually becomes more alert than before...this could be good or very bad.

At least she is not one of those who think Spider-man is as much a menace as those he fights.

The big man with the minigun grins as he hefts the weapon, the barrels beginning to turn. "Spider-SALSA, boys!" And then Spider-Man fires two balls of highly-compressed webbing at the gun, the balls hitting and blowing up into web nests that freeze the barrels. "That has to TURN, meathe-" he begins, and then the other three raises their weapons and start firing. Spidey dives behind the car he was perched on, listening to the gunfire behind and above him. "That's right, you idiots, waste your ammo on me and not the guards inside..."

So far so good, but she is a bit worried. It is actually hard to set a gas tank on fire with bullets, and they are firing high enough it is not likely to happen. Right now, everyone still around is under cover.

No, what worries her is the recoilless rifle. That is a serious danger if it comes into play.

Spider-Man smiles to himself as the gunfire tapers off. "That's right..." Then he heard two quick beeps, and then something hits the ground under the car. He suddenly smells something, a chemical smell he has smelled before, and his eyes widen. He's suddenly using a bomb for cover. He springs forward a split-second before the C4 detonates, turning the car into shrapnel. Spider-Man works as hard as he can to dodge most of it, but two shards hit him, one in the right leg, one in his left side. He yells in pain as he tumbles, airborne for twenty feet before hitting a city bus and dropping behind another car. "He's toast. Let's get the money." Two of them turn, but the third says, "Guys..."

God, a little help, please? Please? Kara's saving the world, and there are three guys in there that are going to die unless I do something? Spider-Man got up.
 * It's not how hard you hit...*
 * it's how hard you can GET hit...*
 * ...and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.*

There is no question, to Linda, that Spider-man is a hero. He is also in trouble, his uniform shows a lot more red than usual, that explosion tore into him. He is going to get killed if SOMEONE does not do something. She can not just stand by and watch a hero die.

Linda's eyes seem to become a lighter blue as she moves her head to see what is happening. She can do this without being seem possibly. She looks at the guns and sends them flying up into the air...is they manage to hold on they will be hanging by the guns in a second and not able to aim at anything...

The man holding the recoilless rifle is aiming at Spider-Man, waiting for the chance to spread him out over fifty feet of asphalt, when the rifle shoots up, nearly clocking him in the ear as it goes up. The others are looking similarly confounded as their assault rifles head upward, and then the big one is flattened by a punch that nearly dislocates his jaw. The other two release their rifles and pull out pistols. One aims but there is a sudden cocoon where his gun hand was, and then he is punched in the gut. The last one gets off a shot with his pistol, the bullet going through Spider-Man's arm even as the booted foot rings the guy's bell. He is sent back into the back of the Brinks truck, hitting his head on the metal handle, turning out all the lights in his head for a little while. Spider-Man staggers back, not sure what happened, but thankful anyway.

Donny climbs down from the top of the truck, looking at the four men, then at Spider-Man. "Judas Priest, Spider-Man, you all right?" Spidey looks up at him, smiles foolishly under the mask. "I'm tip...top..." he says glibly. Then the top falls over and he drops to sit on the pavement as his leg goes out from under him.

The guns land lightly on the pavement, and Linda frowns in concentration. She can not heal others any more, but perhaps she can stop the bleeding...darn. Not a good enough view from this distance.

Linda wishes fleetingly that she had studied medicine insteads of art...or at least first aid. She decides on an innocent role, she steps out from behhind the car and says, "Is there anything I can to to help? Spider-man is hurt, does anyone know First Aid?"

There are things she could do, like fly him to a hospital...but she has a feeling there is someone else to look out for. Like possibly someone in a getaway vehicle.

Spider-Man looks up. Holy cats, there was someone else? Jeez... He smiles. "Thank God you're okay..." He takes a deep breath. "I'll...mend, I think. I just...need someone to get me to the subway. I don't...think I can websling outta here...not yet..."

Linda says, "You probably should not be moving yet, let alone webslinging. You metabolism may be fast, but you are not Deadpool to just walk away after wounds like that. You need something to stop the bleeding so the wounds can heel, and if the bullets of shrapnel are still in the wounds it needs to come out first." OK, so she is no nurse, but she knows that much from TV shows and from her time working as Supergirl. She decides, to do something more, "Let me look at the wounds..."

Spider-Man lays back, then pulls something from his backpack. It is a white box wih a red cross on it, so it's obviously a medical kit. It's when he opens it that it stops looking like the kind of kit you take on a fishing trip. Auto-injectors, heavy-duty bandages, a medical stapler, antiseptic, topical antibiotics. Israel goes to see to his comrades while Spider-Man sighs. "Okay...first the shrapnel in the side. You pull it out, I'll dose it with medi-gel and staple it closed."

Linda pulls aside the clothing and dabs the wound with a bangage from the kit. Strangely, it seems like the blood all transfers to the bandage while the wound does not bleed more. She can hold the blood back as long as she can see the wound...pulling the shrapnel out is simple enough...the hard part is figuring out what angle to pull it at so as to avoid doing more damage. She pulls the sharpnel out with her fingers, while applying pressure telekineticly to keep the blood flow stopped. Spider-man will undoubtedly feel something funny, but the general pain may distract him. She also removers the shreds of cloth fron his costume that she sees from the wound. Unfortunately she can only work in what she sees and can not knit tissues back together.

She says, "I can stitch well enough, if you have medical thread in here...it is bound to be neater than staples. I can probably put the gel places you can't reach too."

Spider-Man chuckles. "Well...far be it from me to dissuade you. But can you be fast? I'm bleeding in two other places."

Linda looks in the kit and finds some medical cloves and disinfectant, she quickly locates the gel, thread, and needle. She puts the gel in place and then holds the wound closed with on hand (and telekinesis) while stitching with the other with small but swift stitches. She then puts the bandage on tightly and says, "Probably as good as I can get."

She did...HURRY...a bit, but did not do it all in seconds like she could...not while being watched.

Spidey chuckles, but it is a pained chuckle. "I'm the Evel Knievel of superheroes, Miss...Jeez, I'm sorry, I don't even know your name. Hi?" He holds up a hand. "Spider-Man."

"Florence Nightingale," Linda snaps, a bit peevishly. "We can talk after we get you put back together." She has enough to do just now without the small talk, thank you very much.

"Sheesh...tough room. Sure, sure, but that is some hellacious bedside manner." Spider-Man peels back the costume on his arm, wincing slightly. "Ouch. Yeah, better get this one next, it's leaking more than the other one." He looks up at her face and is struck by those blue eyes. "You have blue eyes," he says, if just realizing the fact.

She works quickly on the arm, remembering the first day she realized her eyes were blue, when she stepped out of the shower the day Matrix saved her life. Before then, her eyes were brown. Since then, they are blue. That was the day she became Supergirl. She murmers softly, "Now...". Of course, this area is a bit harder to work on, since it is wounded on both sides. She applies a tourniquet to slow the bleeding while she works, she has to probe the wound for bullet fragments and keep him from bleeding...all without exerting any more pressure than humanly possible, then clean the entry and exit wounds, add the gel, and stitch the wound on both sided before applying the bandage. It is a task for two or three people with a lot more experience than her...but she can effectively multi-task by finely controlling her telekinesis and thinking with super speed. Part of the reason she does not want tto talk is that if she did, it would come out as a speed blurr most people could not understand.

She was working fast, that's for sure. If he wasn't dealing with pain and blood loss, he'd be more watchful. Right now, he's just thankful. "YEEEEeeeesh..." he hisses. "Wow...you're really something, Flo." He sighs in relief as the pain lessens slightly. "Now...the leg. Not as bad, but did a number on the muscle tissue. Might limp for a bit..." Linda switches her attention to the leg, the shrapnel there is not embedded as deep, but his moving round on the leg has probably damaged the tissue more. She will have to remove the shrapnel, then stitch the muscle before stitching the skin. She comments, "Considering the damage, you are lucky to be walking at all."

She immobilizes the leg, holding it between her own because he is many times stronger than normal. She removes the shrapnel with as little damage as she can, then cleans, gels, stitches, and bandages quickly...so that it will not hurt anly longer than required.

Spider-Man shivers a little, but only a little. Then the Spider-Endorphins do their magic and he relaxes as she bandages the leg. He looks up at Linda as he hears sirens. "Wow...you did all that in..." He frowns thoughtfully. "...three minutes, tops. How were you..." He then stops. He takes a deep breath, as if he was pushing into something that might not be good to push into. "Gimme a minute. Even if the cops are here. I'll just...show them my Avenger card." He purses his lips. "I didn't forget my card, did I...?"

Linda sighs, she does NOT want to talk to the cops about this. She had put on a surgical mask while she was working, and does not think the driver got a good look at her. She walks over to the truck and says, "Hang on in there. She then turns the truck upright with one hand so it is resting on its wheels and says to the Driver, "Don't mention me to the police or the reporters, OK."

Linda quickly...not quite eyeblink speed but probably blur city, cleans up the area, then picks up Spiderman in her arms and flies him down into the subway. No way she is going to hide being super, bbut possibly she can still generally hide who she is.

Spider-Man has ridden this rollercoaster before. And there is something familiar about those blue eyes. The endorphins are receding, and his head is clearing, even with the pain. Maybe because of it. He looks to her as he finds himself on a bench, waiting for the next train to come in. He looks to Linda, his eyes focused on hers. Kara wouldn't act like this, like a stranger. She'd have been out of her mind with worry. But the signs of TK are showing up in his clearing memory, and Kara didn't have that kind of power. Then again, she didn't really need it. "Do I know you...?" he asks suddenly. "I feel like I should..."

Linda has heard rumors, and his being an Avenger suggests he can be trusted, "We have not met before, but you know someone who is a lot like someone I used to be, and even more like someone I taught. I am not sure what Kara knows about me, but once they used to call me Supergirl."

She adds, "Where can I leave you off?"

Oh, she can practically hear those gears turning in his head. The name of Kara cleared his head completely. Of course. She had looked like Kara, probably even more so with blonde hair. He is about to let Stupid Mouth off the chain when Better Reasoning reins him in, and his mouth closes again. Okay. Maybe she has a reason not to jump into the fray like Kara would. "You know her...?" His voice is quiet, and it does not carry in the rush of people heading home. Time for him to trust her. "Tallest building on 35th Street. I can get home from there, and I have a cache of stuff for keeping body and soul together." He pauses. "Do you want to see her?"

Linda has tears in her eyes, "Know YOUR Kara, no. Her cousin knows me." She has met Clark...and his parents. The Kara she knows is dead, technically BEFORE she met her. She has not met the new Supergirl, though she seems very like the Kara that Linda once trained.

Linda flies down to 35th street and leaves Spider-man at the top of the tallest building there.

Spidey looks to her, seeing the tears in her eyes. There is a supreme sadness there, and he can't bear to see anyone hurting. "Listen, Florence...look. Do you want to talk? I'm a heckuva listener. And I'm long past judging anyone..."

Linda sits down for a moment, "I am not sure I can explain really. I mean, I REALLY do not understand either time travel or hyperdimensional physics. Say back perhaps 5 years ago in linear time, I was a normal girl living in Virgina. Then this demon took it into his head to try to corrupt me...before sacrificing me to free a different demon. I died that day...but I was saved by Supergirl...not Kara, but one who was sometimes called Matrix. She would have failed to save me, if a literal angel had not intervened. All three of us merged together into one being, with Supergirl as the dominent persona." She glances atSpiderman to see how he is taking things so far.

Spider-Man shows no sign of extreme reaction. Then again, he goes to church like a good Irish Catholic. He believes in good and evil, angels and demons, God and Satan. "Okay...So you only look like a Kryptonian. Now, I saw some telekinesis...or felt it. Kara doesn't have mind powers. So that's the Matrix part of you." He looks thoughtful. "And...about three years or so ago, that was when the Event happened."

Linda continues, "For over a year, I was Supergirl...though after a while I got split off from Matrix and the Angel...that was literally an Ungodly mess." She wonders what other people even remember of that time, when the Presence let Carnivore take over heaven to save the three Earthborn Angels.

Linda reflects a moment, "I went looking for Matrix...and finally found her. I had a chance to bond with her again, as I lay dying a second time, but chose to let another who needed her more do it. The Angel healed me, and restored my telekinetic powers that I had lost. Shortly after that, a spaceship landed near where I was, it was carrying a girl named Kara In-Ze...a girl from Krypton who died in the FIRST Crisis. I trained her, and when informed she had to go back in time...and die. I could not take her death, and took her place...or tried to. It did not work...I spawned off a different timeline, where I married Superman and had a daughter...but without Kara there to fight and die at the right time the universe...all Universes in fact...was doomed/ Were doomed? Well whichever, I had to go save Kara from the one who brought her to my future, then send her back into the past to die. The only thing I could save from the other universe was my daughter, who I know still exists, but I do not know where or when."

Linda is openly crying now, "I had to sacrifice my life with my husband and daughter...kill someone who could not be stopped any other way,and beftray a friend, all in the same day...all in the name of saving the universe. Is it any wonder I gave up being Supergirl?"

Spider-Man reaches out to grasp Linda's hand gently. He doesn't say anything. He has had his own scars. His own costs to pay. Lives lost because of him. Except he didn't have anything noble to fall back on. Ben died because he was selfish. Gwen died because he was careless. But he can't tell her these things. It would sound like he was competing with her in the worst game possible--Whose Life Is Worse. There is something he can say. "I'm...sorry, Flo. I know something about that kind of pain. Not to the extent you've gone through...but I'm not completely ignorant." He stood up, pain be damned, and hugged Linda gently.

Kara Zor-El lands on the roof. "Spidey! Oracle told me that there was some sort of trouble and ... what happened to you?"

Linda looks up and says, "Kara..." then dissolves into tears again. Kara looks much like the Kara she knew would have...and much like Linda herself did when she was one with Matrix. Now she is six inches shorter and twenty pounds lighter than she was then. Seeing Kara in the Supergirl costume opens the floodgates to Linda's grief.

Kara Zor-El has a blank look of confusion. "Um... sorry, do I know you?" She looks over at Spidey, confused. "What's happening?" She heads over. "Hey... don't cry, what did I do?" she asks Spidey. "And why are you looking like you were in a war? What's going on?"

Spidey suddenly finds himself providing support in more ways than one, sliding an arm around her waist to support her. He has seen this kind of grief and it can drive a person to their knees. "Kara, I've been shot at, blown up, perforated and having to deal with a heist crew, and I STILL think this lady is having it worse than I am. Meet Florence...although I suspect that is not her real name. And i think I don't have to introduce Kara to you, Flo..."

Linda slowly straightens up, though still wracked with sobs, "N...no, it is not b...bad, I th...think it helped." She has finally been able to face her grief, rather than hiding from it.

She gets herself under some control, "We have never met, but ask your cousin about the Supergirl before you, the one who wore a white shirt...assuming he did not already tell you."

Kara Zor-El tilts her head, looking at the woman. "Wait... you're Linda?" she asks, thinking to herself. "Yeah Kal did tell me about you. He said you... um.... suffered some sort of loss and needed to leave, and you didn't want him to look for you."

Linda. Not Flo. Of course, it wouldn't be TOO weird for a super-powered Florence Nightingale to show up in New York. Wow, when Kara's your girlfriend, it SERIOUSLY recalibrates the Weirdness Meter. Kara doesn't know everything, and the impulse to blurt it all out rose unbidden. At which point his Common Sense squashed the thought. It was Linda's story, so it wasn't his responsibility to tell her.

Linda glances at Spider-Man and says, "Linda Danvers...well mostly. Part of me is still Matrix. I remember Superman's human parents, from the point of view of the girl they called Mae." She acknowleges the name to show Kara she really is Linda, not an imposter.

"Your friend here was taking on a group of heavily armed robbers by himself. I gave him a bit of a hand, though I am not a doctor or anything and you might want to fix anything I did not get right," Linda adds.

If Linda envies Kara anything it is her super senses and super brain. It would be nice to be able to see what is wrong and know how to fix it.

Kara Zor-El looks over at Spidey to make sure he's okay, then back at Linda as she checks him out with her x-ray vision. She pauses. "Are YOU okay? The way Kal made it seem, he didn't expect to ever hear from you again. He wouldn't go into details about what happened. Just that you two were friends and you saved the world? No one would tell me anything so I figured they just... you know... didn't want me to know." She looks back at Spider-Man. "You okay P-...arrtner?"

Spidey smiles reassuringly under the mask, knowing Kara can see it. "Yeah. Thanks to Linda. She helped put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I'll be right as rain in a couple of days." He suppresses a twinge of pain. "See. Zero defects."

Linda sniffles, "I think I may be better than I have been in a long time. I am surprised you did not hear me explaining to your friend. It is a bit of a long story. Perhaps it is time to talk about it. Tell me, did you know the other Kara? Perhaps not, since she came from Argo City, not Krypton itself."

Kara Zor-El pauses. "I might have been a little lost in thought and wasn't paying attention to the stuff around me. There's a lot of stuff I'm hearing at the same time, pretty much always. I sometimes just block things out when I'm worrying." She listens to Linda. "Oh... yeah um... Kal told me the other Supergirl might have been a Supergirl from another reality, sort of like Power Girl is." She shakes her head. "I never actually met her though. I didn't even crash on Earth until a lot of years later. I was sort of... um... my ship was trapped in a Kryptonite meteor for 30 years or so and knocked off course."

Spidey steps back a bit. He does need to sit down, and Linda doesn't need him right now. Kara's here, and that's completely sub-zero by him. He settles down on the Barcalounger he snuck up here and keeps under a tarp. He takes a long, satisfying breath, easing back into the chair.

Linda says, "I suppose I should start in the order thngs happened for most people. About a year or so after...Kal...went public a ship came to Earth carrying a girl claiming to be his cousin, Kara In-Ze. She grew into a powerful hero called Supergirl and died saving the universe. A while after that, another Supergirl appeared, she was an artificial life form of alien manufacture, and could shange shapes, turn invisible, and was a powerful telekinetic. THAT Supergirl tried to save me from dying from my own stupidity, and the two of us and an Angel all got merged together. We became Supergirl, though we were sort of a continuation of the second Supergirl. After a demon took over Heaven and We and some frieds kicked him out, I got separated from Matrix and the Angel, leaving me with only my physical powers. Are you with me so far?"

Kara Zor-El sits in the air as Linda explains. In was her uncle on her mother's side, from the house of Ze. So far that all made sense. Apparently in some alternate reality, Kara was Kal's cousin via her mother, rather than her father. She never was told about Matrix though. A lot of heroes never talked about what happened in the immediate aftermath of the first Crisis. The one where that Supergirl died, and where Barry Allen had, at least temporarily, also died and had been erased from existence. They probably didn't want to upset Kara with all the 'mortality' talk. Kara Zor-El nods a little, listening. "I... think I understand so far?"

It was kinda eerie. Linda looked a little like Kara. They were not the same, but there were some little tells. The similar stance, the looks they wore when thinking about the past. The look Linda had before she started crying had been too close to Kara's when she spoke about her family...and her world. No kibitzing in this part of the conversation. He didn't think there was anything he could say that wouldn't sound patronizing. So shut up and listen.

Linda continues, "So at that point I was actually myself, and became the third Supergirl. I went looking for the Second Supergirl...and wound up mortally wounded along with two others. I had Matrix and the Angel merge with one of the others...someone who needed saving worse. The angel then healed me and the other person, and I found the telekinetic powers restored to me. Matrix declared that I was Supergirl and went off to do Angel things."

Linda pauses there and collects herself, "This is where things get complicated. A being from the future called Xenon had been...in his past, exiled outside of time be a Supergirl. He started reaching out from his prison to pull Supergirls to him, so he could destroy them before they became the one to imprison him. He pulled Kara In-Ze out of time, andshe landed near me. I became her teacher, showing her the ropes of how to be a hero."

Linda pauses to cry a bit before continuing, "The Spectre...who is kind of the hand of God, came and told me that the past had to be dorrected or the universe would die. I took her place, going into the past and trying to do what she did...but I could not fool that Kal, who knew I was not Kryptonian. We fell in love and had a daughter Ariella, then the Spectre found me and told me I would fail and the Universe would die. I needed to return to the future and send the real Kara back to her death. I...well I blackmailed the Spectre into saving my daughter if I went along. I came back and saved Kara from Xenon, by killing him because there was no other way to stop him, then I had to betray Kara and send her to her death. In one day I lost a husband and daughter, hilled someon, and betrayed a friend...all to save the universe. I chose to give up being Supergirl then, it was too much to take. I did join in helping protect the Earth when the other heroes vanished...though I would not say I was a hero during that time..."

"As I once told Kon, the 'S' is something you earn every time you wear it, and I no longer felt worthy of bearing it," Linda concluded.

Kara Zor-El pauses. "So it gets complicated AFTER there's a... shapeshifting alien merging with you for you to become an angel." She nods a little. "Good, I was afraid this was going to be too simple." She listens some more as Linda starts talking about the Spectre, who according to Barbara was an INCREDIBLE jerk, and asks, "The real Kara being the ... alternate universe Kara who was in this universe for some reason." She nods a little. It was weird being told of someone else being the 'real' Kara, when she was the only Kara that was actually from THIS universe, rather than from some convoluted means to have others in this universe and not realize it.

Super-confusing. No pun intended.

She sighs a bit when she hears what Linda had to do, noticing her heartbeat elevating and other physiological signs of distress. It was clearly still eating her up inside. Then losing her family - Kara could definitely relate to that. So could Peter. But what happened with Linda somehow seemed.... even worse. Non-existence of that possible reality essentially, with the excption of her daughter... maybe?

"Um... okay well... I ... I don't know what to say about all that. Except... I don't think you had a choice and... that sucks. I'm really sorry."

Spider-Man looks at Linda, then finally finds something to say. "I'm glad you were there for me, Linda. I could have been in a world of hurt. But I do want to ask." He takes a deep breath. "What are you going to do now?"

Linda thinks about it, "I think, perhaps, it is time to come out of my shell. I have power most people can only dream about, how can I stand back and not use it? I may not be Supergirl, but there my be a place for me to again be a hero." Kara Zor-El nods a little, looking at Linda. "Are you going to let Kal know?"

Linda considers the question, "I am not sure I am ready to talk with Kal yet. You are hard enough, Kara, you look so much like the other Kara did, or would have when she grew up. Kal...well there is a reason I sent him a letter and did not speak to him." He is so exactly like he man she married...but is NOT her Superman.

Spider-Man looked to Kara, then back to Linda. "Do you have a place here in New York, or are you living in Metropolis?" He doesn't ask about her living in Gotham. She looks too healthy to live in Gotham.

Kara Zor-El pauses. "Because of his wife?" she asks curiously. Then looks at Spidey as he asks Linda about a place to live.

Linda answers both, "Because of my Husband. Yes I have a place, no need to say where." Her studio is both her place of work and her home. She does sales through a number of local galleries, few people are invited to the studio.

Kara Zor-El rubs her head a little. "Well... if you ever want to talk or... you know... hang out?" She shrugs a little. "I don't know. I just think we could hang out. Plus I owe you if you helped Spidey. And..." She tilts her head. "And saving the universe."

Keeping secrets? Well, Hell, she's entitled to them. "Well, then...I'm pretty sure you two can hash this out like family." And what a strange family it is. Home planets blowing up was apparently the tip of the iceberg. Spider-Man was kinda glad his few brushes with truly epic clashes are few and far between.

Linda replies, "I have a lot of thinking to do. Perhaps, we will be friends. I have a lot of thinking to do, about who I am now and who I am going to be." She puts back on the surgical mask...just in case someone sees her flying she does not want to be recognized as Linda. She waves and says, "Thanks for the kindly ear, Spider-Man. Sometimes Sympathy is the greatest of powers." She turns and flies away.