Chapter Text
Kara climbs out of the van in the back alley behind L-Corp headquarters, heart in her throat and face covered by a black ski mask, doubt riddling her body but desperation keeping her going.
L-Corp is one of the world’s leading science companies and the CEO, Lena Luthor, is among the richest people in the world to the point where she has an account for ransom money at her disposal at all times, making her the perfect target for a money grab.
Kara is not one to support excessive hoarding of wealth, not in the slightest, that’s probably how she’s managing to justify this whole thing to herself, excusing this one terribly illegal act to herself. Well, that and because she has another very good reason to put her own morals aside, a reason in the shape of a four-year-old girl that calls her Mama.
Her hesitation is noticed and she is pushed forward by another masked person, someone she doesn’t know the name nor face of, someone in the same boat as her, desperate and needy.
“Come on, we do this and then we can move on” is hissed at her, a hand digging into her back to push her forward, her black jacket, matching her black pants, gloves and sneakers, shielding her from the harsh poke of the person’s fingertips.
Entering through a back door thanks to someone on the inside that Kara doesn’t even want to know, she imagines herself in handcuffs, sitting in the back of a police car on her way to prison. This is the most dangerous and idiotic thing she’s ever done, but she doesn’t have a choice, this is the only way she can help her daughter so she’s going to do it.
Following the five or six other people, a mixture of both men and women based on their physiques, they head up a back stairwell to the top floor of the L-Corp building. It’s late, after midnight, so nobody else is here, but their person on the inside has already checked and their target, Lena Luthor, is still here.
The plan is for them to take her with as little aggression and injury as possible, tie her hands and take her back to an empty storage lot where someone with more knowledge on this kind of stuff will handle getting ransom money.
At that point, Ms Luthor will be dropped off up the road from a gas station, they will be able to get onto the freeway and into obscurity without being caught on cameras and she will be a short walk away from a place where she can call for help. It’s a win-win. They get the money that she obviously won’t miss and they get to pay off debts that will destroy their lives if they can’t get rid of them.
It takes them a long time to reach the top of the stairwell, climbing up floor after floor, unable to take the elevators in case they are being monitored and the air is filled by the sound of the entire group panting and wheezing by the time they are at the top, their legs aching and nerves frying.
They wait a minute in the stairwell though, catching their breaths and preparing themselves, getting themselves ready for the mental challenge of doing this just as much as the physical.
Right before they head out there, one of the other people stops them all, digging into his backpack and handing something to each of them, pressing it into each person’s hands. A gun.
Kara resists, that’s not what she signed up for, not in the slightest.
“You said we weren’t planning on hurting anyone.” She whispers, barely audible.
“It’s for show, now shut up.” The person shoots back at her, insistent and unsettlingly aggressive. Their voice is deep and raspy, like that of a cartoon villain and she doesn’t believe them for a second but what can she do now? She’s up here with five other people who now have guns, there’s no backing out, it’s too late for that.
Kara takes the gun, the weight foreign and unwelcome in her hand. Right then and there she makes a promise to herself, she’s going to stay at the back and she’s not pointing this stupid thing at anyone, she is doing the minimum possible because nothing about this is right, this could have been ok, this could have been something she could have excused if there were no guns. This is a slippery slope into something she can’t control.
The first couple of people push through the doors, guns held in both hands and pointed ahead, eyes whipping around to see where they need to go.
Kara follows behind the group, not able to go because the same person that gave her the gun is ushering her along, as well as one other person who seems to be just as hesitant as her. The doors are propped open gently, keeping them that way for ease of escape, giving them a straight shot down the stairs and back out to the van that’s left running in the alley, another person waiting behind the wheel for them.
Kara is nowhere near ready when they get to the doors of the office, her heart pounding and palms sweating. She steels her shoulders and takes a deep breath, watching as someone’s hand reaches out for the door handle and within seconds, the door is thrown open, everyone rushing to get inside.
They are in so much of a hurry, in fact, that they didn’t immediately hear it, the loud overwhelming noise of an alarm blaring as the door opened, loud enough to startle everyone into freezing halfway through the door. Every light turns on at once, blinding them momentarily to add insult to injury.
Kara was just about to follow them in but in her shock at the alarm, she takes a second too long to unfreeze herself, the others beating her to it and barrelling into her, knocking her to the floor to get out and back to the stairwell, diving down, taking two steps at a time.
She scrambles to her feet but as they are going, the door to the stairwell closes with a bang. Her hand wraps around the handle, the gun abandoned on the floor where she fell and the others already well on their way to the van. She knows that they will go without her if she isn’t quick enough, she has to catch up.
She tugs at the door. No dice.
It’s locked shut, sealed because of the security system, there’s no way out.
Rapidly pulling at the handle, falling short of opening it every time, the door well and truly sealed, trapping her on the top floor of the building, her anxiety rises. She can’t be trapped here, she has a little girl to get home to, this is bad, very bad, very very bad.
Even over the wailing of the alarm she hears it, the click that her brain just knows is from the gun she dropped earlier. Her blood runs cold.
Kara turns, hands automatically raising in the air as she does so. Across the way, over where she was thrown to the ground, is the woman she came here for and yet someone she really doesn’t want to be seeing. Lena Luthor.
“Please don’t shoot,” Kara begs, hands still up and eyes pinned on the gun being aimed at her, a slightly dishevelled-looking woman holding it, black hair lying long and limp against her head and shirt untucked from her dress pants.
“Stay where you are!” Lena demands, hands shaky but finger firm on the trigger, leaving no doubt in Kara’s mind that this woman means business.
Kara presses her back to the door, her chest rising and falling with her sharp intakes of breath, unsure of what she can do other than hold her hands up, no way to prove that she doesn’t want to hurt anyone and looking as guilty as she actually is.
Lena stalks her way forward, just a few steps so she can take a better look at her assailant. “Take off your mask!”
Kara’s hands shake as she does so, the mask clinging to her face but coming away with a little bit f tunning, her blonde hair spilling out of its confines and showing off her rosy, red cheeks, warm from the woollen material of the ski mask. She drops it onto the floor and it lands with a soft thump.
Her appearance takes Lena back for a moment, surprise coating her features, clearly not expecting someone that looks like Kara to be the one beneath that mask.
It’s understandable though, Kara is a blue-eyed, blonde-haired woman nearing thirty with a kind face, not the epitome of evil and certainly no devil.
Lena steels her gaze quicker than Kara can react to the momentary confusion though. “Stay where you are and get on your knees.”
“Please, don’t shoot, I have a daughter.” Kara pleads, falling to her knees and holding her hands out in front of her, praying that this woman doesn’t hurt her. It’s one thing for her daughter to have a mother in jail, it’s another to have a mother in the ground. “Please, I’m begging, don’t hurt me, I’m not going to try anything, we can just wait for the cops.”
Lena’s frown deepens. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but this is the first time someone hasn’t immediately tried to negotiate their freedom, hasn’t begged to be let go and for the police to be left out of it, this woman is just accepting her fate and begging not to be shot, something Lena wouldn’t do unless she tried to attack her, she’s no heartless killer.
She lowers the gun by a fraction, aiming it at the floor just in front of the woman. “Stay where you are and don’t move, I won’t shoot as long as you do as I say.”
“Ok, ok.” Kara freezes, she wasn’t really moving before but now that she isn’t in imminent danger of L-Corp’s CEO shooting her, she would like it to stay that way.
The lights are harsh to them both, eyes tracking each other’s non-existent movements.
“What’s your daughter’s name?” Lena startles Kara with the question, her voice barely carrying over the sound of the alarms.
Kara flinches at the question. Why would she want her daughter’s name? This is a powerful woman and Kara is very much in her bad books, she can’t want her daughter’s name for anything good.
“Why do you need her name?” She squeaks.
“Tell me.” The gun raises a fraction, pointing it at her again.
Kara swallows harshly but doesn’t give in. “Please don’t hurt her, she’s innocent in this. You can do whatever you want to me, but please, leave her out of this, she’s only four.”
The gun is lowered right back down, Lena having not thought about what the other woman will have thought she wanted the name for. “I have no intentions of hurting your daughter, so tell me her name.”
It takes a second for her to decide on whether or not she should answer, but in the end, she does, the woman’s shock at her accusation convincing her that she’s telling the truth, that she really isn’t planning on doing anything to hurt her daughter. “Lori. Her name is Lori.”
The alarms go off, quietening down but both women can hear security on the lower floors sweeping the area for anyone left in the building, not knowing yet that the ones they are looking for have already left and the only one still in the building is at gunpoint already.
Lena hums at the name though, ignoring the sounds of the security guards a few floors below, getting closer and closer. “Cute name. Want to tell me what you’re doing here.”
Kara gulps. “ The plan was to take you for ransom money and then once we got it we were going to drop you off at a gas station, nobody was meant to get hurt, I didn’t even know until we got here that there would be guns, I don’t even know how to use one, I swear.”
Lena snickers condescendingly, “you came here to kidnap me and hold me for ransom but you don’t know how to use a gun?”
Kara nods in response. “I only did it for the money.”
“Obviously, that’s what everyone is after, isn’t it?”
Kara nods a second time, lips pinched together and eyebrows low, shame and anxiety coursing through her veins.
“I suppose it is.”
“And what would you have used this money for? I suppose you want to buy a fancy car? Or maybe a house? No, wait, let me guess…a vacation to Cancun, all-inclusive?”
Tears well in Kara’s eyes, mostly from the spew of self-hate that’s attacking her brain right now, kicking herself for how dumb she was to do this. “No, I need it to pay for my sister’s hospital bills. If I pay them off then I will actually be able to afford to pay rent and my daughter will have a roof over her head, I could afford groceries and put Lori back in her dance classes she loves. She could have more than two presents on Christmas and ones that aren’t from Dollar Tree. I’m sorry, I really didn’t think anyone would get hurt, I’m so sorry.”
The first tears leave her eyes as she finishes up her explanation, but she hates herself for it, hates herself for being so stupid as to go through with this, to think that this would be victimless, for seeing Lena as less of a person because she has money, and for being disappointed that it didn’t work out, that even if she doesn’t go to jail, she’s still going to wake up with the same financial problems she has now.
The CEO steps closer still, probably from her growing confidence of hearing her security detail on the floor beneath them, almost upon them. “Ok then, so tell me, given the opportunity, would you do it again?”
Kara pauses, genuinely thinking it over. Something about this woman tells her that she doesn’t want the cop-out answer of no, never again, I swear it. Maybe it’s the eyebrows, they are as prominent as her voice is stern and the way her lips are turned down in the corners ever so slightly tells her that she doesn’t care for any answers that show she’s full of crap. She wants honesty.
Finding the words, she starts. “Perhaps. Obviously not with the group I was with, they left me behind. I would need people though, I don’t know how to do it myself. I only came because the opportunity presented itself, I wouldn’t seek it out myself, but if another opportunity fell in my lap the way this one did, the chance to better my daughter’s life, I don’t think I would have it in me to decline. I knew this was a bad choice and I did it anyway just for that tiny sliver of hope that it would give my daughter the chance in life she deserves, I would do anything for her.”
After her answer, given with a slight shake to her voice and tears running down her face, they both fall silent. It gives Kara chance to really acknowledge that she is up shit creek without a paddle. There’s no conceivable way for her to get herself out of this now, she’s just got to face the consequences and with the way she can hear the security guards heading up the stairwell, she’s about to face them real soon.
It gives Lena the chance to pity the woman kneeling before her, to recognise that this is a desperate mother at her feet that was pushed to do something terrible but has put herself in an absolutely terrible position and deserves the consequences for what she’s done.
But somehow, she doesn’t want her to face them. Lena has been known to be lenient before, sure, but to help this woman would be going beyond leniency and would be the move of a mad woman. She just admitted to planning to kidnap her and hold her for ransom but she’s crying and there are tears down her face and all she cares about is her daughter.
It tugs on her heartstrings. It reminds her of her own mother, how she used to cherish her and call her my little love every morning when she woke up, that’s one of her only memories of the woman, that and her kind blue eyes, eerily similar to the ones of the woman crying on the floor.
The guards are on their way up. It’s time.
Lena lowers the gun, her voice suddenly frantic. “Get your ass into my office now.”
“What?” Kara stutters out.
Lena marches over and grabs her by her upper arm, fingers gripping around her bicep. She drags her up off her knees and pushes her into her office right in time for the security detail to come up and unlock the doors.
They see her immediately and rush to check on her. “Ms Luthor, are you alright?”
“I’m alright, thank you. A group of people broke in, I had the alarm on my door set so when they barged in and it went off, they took off running. One of them dropped a gun, here, I don’t want it.” She hands the gun over to the nearest guard, hating the things.
“We will need to check your office to finish our sweep, please give us a moment, Ms Luthor.” The guard tries to pass her but she steps into his path, blocking the office door in the process.
He looks surprised for a moment and tries again but she doesn’t let up. “I’m sorry, I can’t allow that. My office is clear, I already checked and they all got out, there’s nothing in my office except a bunch of files that are highly confidential to the point where only my eyes can see them at this time, I’m sure you understand.”
“It’s protocol that-“
“I made that protocol and it also states that I am able to check the building myself, I checked this room, and it’s clear, though I appreciate your concern and I thank you for being so quick to get up here. You did a good job, now please, I need to get back to my work.”
The guard gives in, it seems as though he knows that this is a fight that he won’t win. He gives her a nod and smile then spins on his heel, stopping just short of the doors because he’s spotted something.
Bending down and picking it up, he holds it to the light to inspect it. “Ski mask. They were at least smart enough to cover their faces. We’ll have to see if we got any footage of them leaving on CCTV. If one of them isn’t wearing a mask, we might be able to ID them.”
Lena puts on a smile, panicked on the inside even though she should be handing this woman right over to them and telling them to call the cops. “Excellent, please get on that. I would quite like to see your report too when you’re done. Thank you.”
She doesn’t give him a chance to respond, cracking open the door to her office just enough to slip inside, shutting the door behind her firmly.
Lena almost trips over Kara, the blonde sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and back against the wall beside the door, head bent and eyes pinned on her phone, the screen open to a picture of an adorable little girl with bright blue eyes and brown mousy hair.
Lowering herself down, Lena sits beside her. “That’s Lori?”
Kara just nods.
“She’s adorable.”
“Yes, she is.”