Supergirl and the Cop

Supergirl and the Cop
by Shadar
March, 2023

(Just a brief vignette that came to me after coming across this pict...)
 Batgirl was the target, but Kara was thankfully keeping an eye on her friend when the two men swung AK47’s up from beneath their long coats and opened fire on her in full auto. The first bullets were already out the barrels when Kara headed Barbara’s way, swishing sideways, hair and cape straight out to the side as she moved far faster than the bullets. Unlike Diana, who was famous for blocking bullets with her bracelets and armor, Kara used her entire body. Bullets bounced from her skintight costume and from bare skin, most of them the later given there wasn’t very much to her costume. She threw her chest in front of the first bullet and then blunted the rest of the long burst away using arms, legs, torso and even her head, blocking every round with expert moves without caring in the least where they hit her. One even bounced off her eyeball, which made her blink.   While her thoughts usually ran about as fast as a human, she had the ability to go into hyperdrive in microseconds, which made the bullets seem to move in slow motion as she flew into harm’s way to stop them all.Her friend Barbara ducked low and dove off the edge of the roof, but she was far too slow to have survived without Kara’s help. AK47’s fired very high velocity bullets. Floating there, she carefully blocked each one, focusing on making sure the ricochets when to safe places. Once the shooters were out and had to change mags, Kara ended the fight with backhand slaps that sent the men flying over the top of a nearby building to splat somewhere out of sight. Then she scrunched their AK’s into so much twisted junk before tossing them over the building after them. She’d recently begun taking a much harder line on how she handled anyone who shot into crowds and tried to kill innocents, and given this was her friend, Barbara, she was rougher than usual. Her cousin Kal didn’t like it one bit, but Kara knew she couldn’t always be there to blunt the bullets. So she’d made terrorizing the terrorists her new focus.She didn’t care that Kal claimed most of them already had a death wish and she was just making them martyrs. Her only goal was to make sure they didn’t kill any more innocents in the future, doing it the only way she knew was absolutely guaranteed. While she felt a great deal of compassion for most people, her grace didn’t extend to murderers.Tim McDowell watched it all go down from the relative safety of his patrol car, parked behind the shooters, He’d had some suspicions about them before they opened fire, but suspicions didn’t justify his opening fire on them first, which is a challenge all cops deal with. Preventing versus stopping versus punishing lethal crimes.He’d watched with eyes amazed as the bullets ricocheted from Supergirl’s body, and once the shooters were down, he hurried over to make sure she was Ok. Which of course she was. All cops were supposed to try and keep her on the scene until a Captain and a Detective showed up to debrief her, given she’d obviously used lethal force to keep anyone else from being shot. But given all the confusion as everyone on the street had panicked and were now freaking out over Supergirl having saved them, he took her gently by the elbow to lead her around a corner into an old coffee shop. The people cowering inside stared at her, eyes huge as coffee cups froze halfway to mouths as they went through the shop and out into the small park behind.“I’m supposed to keep you here if I can, but I figured you didn’t want to spend the next hour giving statements and standing in front of cameras. My Captain and a bunch of media are headed this way. My name is Tim McDowell, by the way.” He held out his hand.“Kara,” she said, taking his hand very firmly. “Appreciate that, but I was about to fly away anyhow. Paperwork and appearing on the News isn’t my thing.”“Yeah, gathered that. Can I ask you something?”“Sure.”“I couldn’t help but notice that the bullets seemed to ricochet very differently depending on where they hit you. How does that work?”She smiled. “You were watching that close, huh?”“It’s not everyday I see someone soaking up full auto fire from a couple of AK’s. But you do have some lead spots on you.”He took out a clean handkerchief and wiped the tiny lead smears from her forehead and abs, her arm too. He avoided the one on her boob and the one on her thigh, and instead handed her the hanky.“Coward,” she smiled. He shrugged as he grinned back. “Everyone has cameras. A pict of me rubbing your boob or messing around under that tiny skirt would make my life way more complicated.”“I suppose. Wouldn’t have bothered me though. This girl’s made of steel, don’t you know.”“Yeah, but while some bullets zinged off as if that was actually true, others just kind of thumped and blunted.”Despite his personal questions, Kara found to her surprise that she was enjoying his company. Tim was in his early thirties and a great-looking guy. Not many men know how to talk to a girl who can fly and who was rocking Superman’s symbol on her chest. Least of all for looking like a teenager.“Well, it kind of works like this, Tim. Hitting bone or a tensed muscle results in a very energetic ricochet, the bullet often fragmenting badly. My tensed muscles are way harder than even armor-grade steel.”“But what about…?” he started to ask.“My abs? Legs? Depends if I’m tensed. When relaxed, my abs will absorb some of the energy resulting in a lower-velocity rebound.”“Actually, I was thinking of… higher up,” he said, daringly. “Ah… the thing every guy wonders about and most are thankfully afraid to ask. Bullets and boobs.”“Sorry. But I mean, they do bounce around a bit when getting shot.”“Ok, I’ll play,” she smiled. “Basically, the bullets dimple deeply for a fraction of a second, with my boob absorbing almost all the energy, which sends out that wave that makes them bounce, and then the bullet just kind of stops when the dimple reaches my pectorals, Then my boob rebounds to blunt them into the ground in front of me, being perky and all. But the bullet can’t hurt anyone by then.”“Does that, you know, bother you?”She shrugged. “It’s a little personal when that’s where they’re aiming, but Kal says that most shooters aim at his “S” too.”“Kal?”“Superman? My cousin?”“Didn’t know his real name,” Tim smiled. “Anyway, it doesn’t bother me as much as it does Kal when someone tries to shoot his balls off. Secretly, he gets off on it, but he doesn’t want to let on, so he gets pissed instead.”Tim just stared at her, mouth hanging open. This wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. And now it was something he couldn’t unhear, much as he wanted to. Blasting Superman’s jewels was an actual thing?“But in my case,” she continued as he looked confused, “my chest is by far the safest place to shoot me, from the perspective of bystanders. Bullets feel kind of thumpy and mostly nice there, although hitting a nipple sure sends a zing through me. That can be a distraction.”“So, what if someone just shot you there? I mean, like no other place. Like lots and lots of times. Full auto or whatever.”She paused for a moment before answering. “You ever know a girl who could get off with just some nipple play?”“Actually, yes,” Tim smiled. “Back in high school. My first girlfriend. Unfortunately, a few other guys knew about that as well. We didn’t last.”“Well, then you can understand.”“So, given you probably can’t, you know, have regular sex — superstrength and all — I guess that’s one way to share some passion?”She chuckled. He was definitely not shy.“Yeah, well maybe if the shooter is also getting off on it and its someone I like. But no love lost with erstwhile mass murderers. Then it just pisses me off.”“But, then what about…?” he started to ask further, only to have her stop him with a shake her blonde head.“This is getting really personal, Tim.”“Oh, sorry, Kara. Given the way you started answering my questions… I thought. Sorry again. Clearly, I’ve overstepped my space. I’ll shut up.”“It’s just that I don’t want you to get in trouble. But don’t ever apologize for being curious. If I didn’t want to talk to you, I would have flown off. But given I probably look as young as that girl you remember fondly from high school, if someone else overheard you, they might accuse you of a having a sexually improper discussion with a minor, or whatever it’s legally called. Might be worse than getting caught rubbing lead off my boob.”“I, ah, I didn’t think you were as young as you looked. Or acted. Slower aging. Whatever.”“Are you trying to ask if I’m jailbait?”“Well, not exactly… but…”“The answer depends on where we are on the planet,” she quickly replied. “I don’t exactly have a birth certificate to prove anything, so safer to go on my looks.”“You don’t have an ID?”“Of course. In the Federal database and all. All official and real, signed, sealed and delivered. According to it, I’m 21.”“And that’s fake?”“Between you and me? Definitely. But that’s not what really matters. You do know why those Age of Consent laws exist?”“To protect inexperienced girls from being taken advantage of by older, more experienced men. To give them a chance to grow up normally.”She nodded. “A good cop answer. I assume the same. But then there’s me. I’m actually older than Superman, and everyone thinks he looks like he’s about your age while he’s actually twice that.”“But what about all that time spent in suspended animation or whatever. You didn’t grow or gain experience or do anything but sleep all that time. I wouldn’t think that would count, and I remember hearing Superman introduce you as being 15 when he revealed you to the world. That wasn’t that long ago.”She shrugged again. “He wanted me to fit in and get experience with kids that looked my age. To learn about Earth culture by going to High School. But he was an idiot. Worst time of my life. Well, almost.”“What’ya mean?”“I’ve always been far more grounded than I look. I experienced my entire world ending, and then dreamed about it for decades while I slept. That changes a person. And by the time he introduced me to your world, I’d been secretly fighting bad guys as his backup, including some really dangerous aliens. I never was a fifteen year old, not in the usual ways. Or any other age in human terms.”“And now you’ve got another year or so behind you of being a heavy hitter, Kara. Being in the News all the time. Saving lives by the thousands. Not to mention working with designers in Paris at that fashion show a few months ago, modeling clothing for young women, by the way. All proceeds for the homeless. You were the star of the show.”“We Kryptonians tend to glow pretty brightly under the lights.”Tim laughed. “Haven’t heard it put that way, but it fits. Especially your bright eyes and all that blonde hair. And the floating down the runway at that show instead of walking was pretty impressive. And your choice of skimpy outfits.”“Unlike you, I don’t dress for protection or warmth.”“Girl of Steel. Got it.”“But the point I’m trying to make, Tim, is that if experience is the basis for judging maturity, then I’ve got more of it than most humans, including the most bad-ass SEAL or whatever. Hell, I duked it out with Doomsday after he nearly killed Kal. Maybe he was weakened by then, I don’t know, but I put him down and saved Kal’s life.”He could hear the pride in her voice. “Well, I’m just happy you haven’t flown off already. You are rather flighty, so to speak. Normally.”“Problem is I kind of like you, Tim, but I don’t want to get you in trouble.”He swallowed hard. There was only one way to interpret that. Which made him feel all the more intimidated. She could crush steel. Without effort. Presumably everywhere. And he’d just seen her get shot many dozens of times. From head to toe, most of the impacts against her bare skin, and all coming from powerful assault rifles. If anything, she’d gotten a bit turned on by it all.“I don’t understand… what trouble?”“I’m not saying we are going to do this, but if you took me out on a date, maybe with me wearing street clothes or whatever to fit in, just another cute young blonde, what would people think?”Tim swallowed hard as he tried to get his head around that, the realization slowly dawning on his face.“Yeah. Unless it was dinner and I was pretending to be your daughter or maybe a niece, it would make everyone around us very uncomfortable. And given you’re a decent man, it would really bother you that it was bothering them.”Tim nodded slowly. “You know me pretty well.”“Actually, I don’t know you at all, except that I think you’re a decent type. And in Paris during Fashion Week, where its kind of common to see some May/December dates underway, what with wealthy older men and young models, I tried that and it was kind of fun at first, but turned uncomfortable for both of us. Men of a certain age have funny ideas about models.”“Then you could always come to my place. Nobody there to look down their noses at us. I’m a really good cook too. I’ve got this place in the woods at the edge of a lake. Used to be my parents’ place. Nobody else around, especially in winter.”“Are you asking me out?”“I was thinking more of dinner and drinks and some talk. You do drink, don’t you?”“I thought you worried that I was underage?”“Not by your ID. Which is official. We cops like official things. Or as you say, by experience.”She laughed. “Actually, as far as drinking, I love the stuff, but I can’t get a buzz, let alone get drunk, even after drinking gallons of 151 proof.”“What about weed?”She laughed again. “My, my… cops have changed recently. I think we can say with confidence that my apparent age isn’t bothering you a bit.”“I’ve aways assumed you are a lot older than you look. I’m a good judge of character based on behavior. Kind of an occupational requirement, and its obvious in the things you do. The way you think and talk. That’s way more important than how you look.”“So, you’re not inviting me to dinner just because I’m cute?”He grinned. “I didn’t say that. At all. When I saw you in a video about that Paris fashion show, I damn near melted.”“That’s what I like about older guys,” she laughed. “Appreciation. Imagine me on a date with a guy who actually is the age I look. We’d be like aliens from different worlds, with no idea how to talk to each other. I’m like an old soul.”“So… then how about sharing tomorrow evening with another old soul.”“It’s a date,” she said quickly. “Assuming the world is behaving itself and I don’t have any falling skyscrapers to stand back up right. Or whatever.”“Still can’t believe you did that, Kara. Or that it didn’t crumble.”“It was the latest earthquake resistant building in San Francisco. All made of a welded steel grid, although it did lose a lot of glass. Kal had to fly in fifty cement truck loads and pour them along the edges of the foundation to stabilize it while I held the building straight up. Structural engineers were pissed as his repair wasn’t done to code, but we just wanted the thing to keep standing. It was full of people at first. They can figure out how to make permanent repairs. I offered to help with that when they were ready.”“Well, it sure made for a good News story, Kara. You guys saving the day and then taking shit from the City and the building’s owners and engineers for screwing up the foundation.”“Which was already crap. Building was falling, remember? Saving lives is what we’re all about. Not property.”“I did some rough calculations for how much you had to lift to do that. The numbers got silly.”She clenched her fist and made a biceps, which balled up shockingly large given her slender arm, and was so defined he could see the split down the center. “There are lot of things about me that are silly that way, Tim.”“Wow! I’ve seen you in action, and looking wickedly defined, but that gun is off the chart.”“Because I’m using my full strength now, which I so rarely need to do when dealing with the usual problems.”“All I’ll say is that the family resemblance is pretty obvious.”“Except unlike me, Kal walks around flexing this or that muscle all the time to draw every eye. He’s really into being Superman, except when he’s not.”“So, he does have an alter-ego or whatever?” Tim said excitedly. “I mean, I always figured he must.”“Sorry. Shouldn’t have even said that much. But yeah, no surprise to most, I suppose.”“And you too?”“I’m definitely taking the Fifth on that one.”“Sorry. Not really trying to pry. It’s just that it’s so amazing to really talk to you.”“So if I’m coming for dinner, where’s your place?”“460 Kallispell Drive. Up in the hills that are part of Sanders Woods, just outside…”“I can find it. How about six?”“Great. Hope you’re good in the kitchen. Always fun to cook with someone new.”“I’m good everywhere,” she winked, and then leaped into the air to fly off. Tim craned his neck upward to see her going straight up, very aware of her short skirt from his unique perspective until a ring of mist formed around her hips as she went supersonic — and she was gone. A second later, the thunderous clap of her sonic boom flattened his clothing as it echoed between the buildings. Smiling as he realized she didn’t normally create sonic booms in the city, he knew that was just for him. And she’d kind of been the one coming on to him. And now she was coming to dinner. Either she was overcompensating for her age or she really was a lot more mature than she looked. He sure hoped it was the later.But as a cop, coming home every evening to a cold and lonely house, with his ex-wife long gone, he felt as if a door was opening to heaven. Nobody stared into that doorway without exploring inside.Turning away as he marched off to face his Captain, who he knew would be pissed that he hadn’t interviewed her about the shooting, he felt as if he was walking on air.