𝐏𝐀𝐖𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝟓

—♟—

"𝐊𝐀𝐑𝐀!" 𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐃 eagerly as she walked into the chemistry classroom. "You're back!"

"Hi, Ned," she chuckled tiredly as she took her usual seat between him and Peter.

Kara was beyond exhausted. As soon as she had gotten home from the Mansion, she immediately continued to work on her school work and hadn't gotten a wink of sleep ever since then. It had gotten difficult to stay awake on Sunday, but the five cups of coffee she had drunk really helped. Also, she might've had three separate mini heart attacks, but whatever.

She turned to the boy on her right. "Hey, Parker. What's up?"

"Not much." Peter shrugged, nervously running his hand through his hair. "I started the project, by the way, it's on Amadeo Avagadro. I'll add you to the Google Doc now."

He fished his phone out of his pocket and did just as he said, giving her a small nod and smile once he had finished.

"Thanks." She grinned, feeling her phone buzz with the notification in her pocket. "Ned, who are you with?"

"Sam." Ned beamed, pointing to the boy who was sitting a few seats away with his eyebrows furrowed as he hurriedly scribbled down some answers for the homework. The two of them were quite good friends, and Sam was who Ned usually turned to for projects, knowing that Peter would always want to go with Kara.

"Did you manage to finish everything?" Peter asked worriedly as Kara looked back towards him. "And study?"

She nodded. "Everything's go—" She was cut off by a yawn, using her hand to cover her mouth as she did so. God, was she tired. "—od. Good."

Peter then narrowed his eyes. "Did you sleep last night?"

Damn, he knew her well.

She was about to answer yes before having to stifle another yawn, and instead just gave him a timid nod. Maybe if she didn't look at him, then he wouldn't be able to tell.

He narrowed his eyes further. "Did you . . . sleep ever since you came back?"

Damn, he knew her too well.

She blinked. ". . . Yes?"

"Kara, I told you I could help you," he groaned, letting his head fall back. "I could've come over and given you the answers or something."

"It's fine," she dismissed, waving a hand in the air as she shrugged. "I got it all done anyway. And I'm ready for the test tomorrow."

Not that she really needed to study for it.

"Yeah, except now you're going to be tired all day," Ned pointed out, his eyebrows raised.

Kara scoffed, "Oh, please, I'm not tir—" Another yawn. "Okay, fine, yes, I'm a little sleepy. But who isn't, it's eight in the morning!"

"Then again, everyone else has actually slept!" Peter threw his hand out, gesturing to 'everyone else' with an expectant look on his face.

"You don't know that," Kara mused, raising her eyebrows and folding her arms to try proving the point she was failing at making.

Peter huffed. "I—"

Mr. Cobbwell walked into the room before Peter could continue, hushing the class from the loud chatter. He soon began the lesson, and Kara pretended not to notice the worried glances Peter continuously made toward her while she copied down the notes into her book.

The glances didn't stop when they went to their English class, nor did they stop during their biology class. Peter would occasionally whisper something to Ned, who would whisper something back while staring at Kara with narrowed eyes. They did it every other minute, and it seemed as though they had forgotten that she could see them.

"All right, that's it." Kara plopped her lunch bag on the cafeteria table before folding her arms and staring down at the two boys. "What are you two saying?"

"Whaaaat?" Ned said in a particularly high-pitched voice as he glanced nervously at everywhere else but Kara. "We're not—we're not talking! What even is talking?"

"Ned."

"Okay, okay, fine, we were talking," Ned sighed, giving in with a small pout on his face.

"We're just worried about you," Peter said softly, sending her a tiny frown. "You know we're your friends, right? We'll help you if you need help."

"It's not that I needed help," Kara sighed, shaking her head and swinging her leg over the bench to sit down at the table. "I just didn't have that much time."

"Why not? I would've thought that you'd have had plenty of time at your hotel or whatever." Peter furrowed his eyebrows. "And I'm pretty sure you told me at one point that you just stayed there all day."

Kara froze. Dammit, why did she tell him that? She set herself up!

"Uh . . ." She blinked, quickly trying to come up with something. "I was doing other things."

Smooth. They better not ask more questions about that.

"Like what?" Ned asked curiously.

Damn. They were good.

"Other . . . girl things," she clarified, nodding to make herself seem more convincing as she zipped her lunch bag open. "Which you wouldn't understand. Because you're not girls. And I am a girl. So, in conclusion, it makes sense."

Kara's heart began to beat quickly as Ned narrowed his eyes. He kept the look of disbelief on his face for a few moments before shrugging, making her insides slightly calm down. "Makes sense to me."

Peter, however, seemed to be feeling differently than Ned, although he didn't say anything, much to Kara's relief. Sure, homework was stressful, but nothing was more stressful than this major secret she had to keep.

Fortunately for her, Peter continued his silence on the topic throughout the rest of the day, although Kara could tell that he wanted to say something. She tried to think of excuses she could use, but there really was nothing she could come up with.

After the final bell had rung, Kara quickly said goodbye to the two boys before rushing to her bus, giving them—especially Peter—absolutely no chance of asking questions.

On the bus ride home, Kara pondered as she stared out aimlessly through the window, watching the various houses and cars as they passed by.

How long was she going to have to keep this act up? She was a terrible liar! Peter was already onto her! And as oblivious as Ned may be to some things, he would figure it out eventually!

Kara hadn't really had the chance to speak with Helen about getting rid of her powers, what with her being swamped in school work and all. She prayed that her mom had come up with a good, safe, solution.

As soon as Kara got home, she immediately put her bag down and closed her eyes, envisioning the office she had visited a million and one times.

She felt the strange feeling in her stomach that she was still not used to, and opened her eyes to see that she was actually in Helen's office. Thank goodness.

Helen was deeply concentrated on whatever work she was doing on the computer, and hadn't noticed Kara's sudden appearance as she typed furiously, her eyebrows furrowed in focus.

Kara approached slowly, trying to figure out a way that she could do this without scaring her mother—though that wasn't possible; when Helen was in the zone, nothing could get her out without at least a small jump in fright.

Kara sighed. "Hey, Mom!"

"Jesus!" Helen gave a shout of surprise, clutching her hand over her heart as her eyes zoomed around the room wildly. She gave a small sigh of relief once she saw who it was. "Kara, you—text me before you do that next time."

"Will do," Kara giggled, giving her a small nod in reassurance as she sat down on the other side of the desk. "Hey, Karl." She petted the top of the cactus before jerking her hand back, the sharp needles pricking her. "Ow. Still a cactus."

"So, what's up? How was school?" Helen looked at Kara with expectant eyebrows as she leaned back in her chair and twirled a piece of hair between her fingers.

"It was . . . okay." Kara shrugged.

"Anything . . . bad or weird happen at school?" She narrowed her eyes, obviously referring to Kara's powers.

"No, everything was fine in that sense," Kara reassured her, shaking her head.

Helen gave a sigh of relief before coming to a realization and straightening up.

"In that sense?" she repeated. "And in what sense were things not fine?"

"Well, I think Parker's pretty suspicious of me." Kara frowned, thinking back to how Peter was giving her the same worried look Helen was giving her now. "And it's probably because I said something suspicious."

"What did you say?" Helen asked in an accusatory tone as she folded her arms. She was quite used to Kara's terribly obvious lies.

"Well, they asked why I didn't do all my work the week I was 'staying at the hotel,'" Kara air-quoted, "and I told them it was because I was doing 'other girl things' and that they wouldn't get it because they were boys and I was a girl."

"Oh, honey," Helen sighed. "And you thought that would convince them?"

"I mean . . . it convinced Ned." Kara shrugged. "Anyway, I just wanted to ask . . . Did you find out if you could remove my powers?"

Helen gave another sigh as she leaned back in her chair, her hands folding in her lap. "I did."

"And?" Kara asked eagerly, her mood shifting to hopeful.

Sure, she liked having powers, and it was pretty cool that she was literally the smartest person ever, but it was far too stressful for her to keep this a secret. Especially from her friends. If it were just intelligence that she had, that would be fine, but explosive blasts of energy? No thank you.

Helen bit her lip, giving a pitying look to her daughter.

Oh no. That wasn't a good sign.

"It's . . . possible," she started slowly, licking her lips as she debated the best choice of words to answer the question.

"But?"

"But . . . whatever machine I would make would have to be one that would decrease your intelligence, and it could be pretty dangerous since it would have to affect your brain," Helen continued. "And it's possible that . . . it would just continue to decrease your intelligence until you have . . . none."

Kara's jaw dropped. "What?!"

Helen gave a slow nod. "I know. So, I'm sorry, honey, but there's no way I'm risking that. You're just going to have to keep your powers."

Kara let out a long sigh as she leaned back in her seat. "And there's no other option than that? You can't just make a machine that'll like . . . suck my powers out or something?"

Helen chuckled lightly. "No. You'll just have to learn to live with them. And at least you can control them right?"

Kara gave a small smile. "I guess so."

"And, also, no more holes in our walls." Helen wagged a finger at her. "It was hard enough to explain to the repairman the first time, I don't want to have to do it again."

She laughed. "I'll try my best."

—♟—

Although Kara had spent the rest of November and the beginning of December training at the Mansion after school and on weekends, she had decided that she was prepared enough to begin training at the Compound. With one sorrowful and overdramatic goodbye at the Mansion, she completed her final day and teleported back home to begin the next step.

She then began training with Steve and Nat, and occasionally Wanda and Sam. At the Mansion, she had covered the basics of her powers and controlling them, but at the Compound, they were more focused on the fighting faction.

They practiced many different attack applications, each one harder than the last. Kara was getting the hang of it quite quickly too, and often liked to harmlessly zap Sam with a little energy from time to time. He would always get annoyed and threaten her, but she would only respond with yet another zap that would make him click his tongue and walk away before he could murder her.

Today, there were a few life-size cutouts placed around the training room, being ones of Iron Man, Captain America, Wanda, and Nat, all in their suits. It was now a couple of days away from Christmas, and Steve had just put a Santa hat on the Captain America cutout to get into the festive mood for this training session.

"These are your targets." Tony slapped the cardboard cutout of Nat, who was in a running position, her fists raised as her eyes glared at Kara. Tony had decided to come over today to see how things were going, and also said that he had some sort of 'special surprise' he wanted to share with her.

Steve gave Kara a reassuring nod and smile. "Just remember what you've learned and use that against them."

"All right, but . . . why am I doing all this against cutouts of people I love?"

"Because the people you love are the hardest to kill," Tony said seriously.

Kara's eyes widened. "Are you saying that I might have to kill you guys one day?"

"You never know." Tony shrugged, a teasing smile on his face. "Maybe one day, evil spirits will invade the world and take control of our bodies, so you'll need to kill me and Steve and—"

"Tony, stop scaring the kid and let her practice." Steve pulled Tony away by the shoulder, allowing Kara the space that she needed to train.

Kara took a breath as she stared into Nat's cardboard eyes, unsure if she'd be able to do this. Sure, it was cardboard, but it looked so realistic.

She created an energy bolt in her hand, gripping it tightly and swallowing thickly. She raised the glowing blue bolt, squinting as she decided where to throw it. She threw it straight ahead of her, the bolt passing cleanly through Nat's chest, leaving only a hole that let her see the wall behind the cutouts.

"Good! You've killed the evil spirit." Tony nodded. "Next."

Kara moved over to the next cutout, which was Wanda. She sighed to herself, not even wanting to imagine having to hurt her.

She released an energy blast, which then separated into multiple fragments, all of which cut through the cardboard. This technique was called a 'scatter shot' apparently, and was not the most ideal one for enemies, since a few pieces of energy could go somewhere unwanted.

Next was the one of Iron Man, the printing looking so real that it looked as if the material were metal rather than flimsy cardboard. Kara created an energy spike in her hand, which was similar to a bolt, but just much, much sharper.

She flung the spike forward, which went right through where Iron Man's nose would've been. Tony stared at the cardboard, lifting his hand and tentatively touching his nose as his eyes widened.

He leaned over to Steve, muttering, "I don't like how easily she threw that one."

"I do." Steve nodded, putting his hands in his pocket and keeping a straight face as Tony gave him an offended look.

Finally, Kara stood in front of Captain America's Christmas cardboard cutout. She gave the cardboard an apologetic smile before sending an energy blast towards the cutout, her hair flowing lightly behind her as she did so.

The blast hit Captain America's shield and expanded over the rest of the cardboard, covering it with the glowing blue light. Once the whole cutout and the Santa hat were covered, she shot a normal blast at it, shattering it into a million pieces.

"Remind me to never get on her bad side," Tony murmured to Steve, who nodded quickly. He then walked to Kara, giving her a slap on the back. "Good job, kiddo!"

"Thanks, but, uh . . . how am I supposed to use these against people without killing them?" Kara furrowed her eyebrows, concerned.

"I mean, if you want, you can kill them—"

"Tony," Steve chided, his eyebrows raised.

"Okay, okay, you can only kill them if they really deserve it, like, if they really suck—"

"Tony."

"No murdering allowed!" Tony wagged his finger at Kara, giving her a sneaky wink that Steve definitely saw and rolled his eyes at.

"Okay, yeah, that's kinda what I was trying to follow," Kara laughed, rolling her eyes. She formed an energy bolt in her hand, holding it closer to him. "How do I not murder people with this though? I don't see any use other than stabbing."

He flinched as the glowing energy neared him. "Maybe just, um, don't use those against people. Blast people with some of that energy stuff, and leave those kinds of weapons and attacks for objects and aliens."

"All right." Kara began to twirl the bolt in between her fingers, not noticing that Tony was eyeing the object warily.

"Well, now that the cardboard people are all dead, I have something special for you."

He winked at her before disappearing into another room, throwing the clipboard that she now realized had blank paper on it as it fell to the ground.

He then rolled something in, the figure covered in a light grey tarp.

"I present to you . . . your super suit!"

He pulled the tarp off of the white mannequin dramatically, revealing the suit, and she gasped.

It was a tight, black bodysuit, which extended a bit onto the neck, with a v-shape. There was a small area on the chest that exposed the skin, the area being almost like a triangular heart shape, along with two triangular slits on the edge of the legs that did the same.

The suit was accented with a neon cyan that matched the colour of Kara's energy, which outlined the edges of the slits and small area of the chest, as well as the top of the neck. There was a strip of cyan that went down the middle of the torso and just below the thin belt, which had two pouches attached at the sides.

There were also strips of cyan that went around the arm, acting as armbands, as well as in the middle of each forearm, and around the back of the hand, where there were fingerless gloves. There was a cyan emblem of an eye that was attached just above the chest area, which represented her psionic ability.

There were black boots that went just above the knees, having low platform heels. The mannequin wore a black face mask which was outlined in the same cyan colour. The cyan that accented the suit was so bright that it gave the appearance of a gentle glow, which was similar to the energy that she could create.

"I created this suit with a special material that's able to withstand your energy, so there shouldn't be a problem if you accidentally blast yourself or something." Tony grinned. "What do you think?"

"This is . . . this is for me?" Kara stared at the suit in amazement, walking up to it with a shocked expression.

"You're gonna need a suit if you're gonna be an Avenger." Steve nodded as he walked up to the two, glancing over to the suit with an approving smile on his face.

Her eyes widened further at this. "I'm an Avenger?"

"Yes, of course," he laughed, ruffling her hair. "I now pronounce thee, Kara Cho, an official Avenger."

"And, as an Avenger, you'll need a name." Tony rested his elbow on his arm as he scratched his chin in thought, and Steve hummed in agreement.

"I do have a name." Kara shrugged. "Kara. Or more fittingly: Best Most Awesome Person In the Universe Ever."

Tony's face scrunched in disgust as Steve's face fell to disapproval.

"Really?" Steve asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I was thinking . . ." Tony interrupted, his eyes lighting up in excitement. "What about . . . Psionic?"