#wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

suzukiblu · 2 months

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‘The middle of starting over’ by Sabrina carpenter kind of reminds me of Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up for this

“Do you understand what I mean by that?” Kara asks, suspecting she should dread the answer but knowing she needs to be clear here. “That you belong to our house?”

“Our genetic material is Kal-El’s. Not our own,” Match replies, neutral and by rote. Thirteen’s mouth goes even tighter.

“We’re not stupid,” he snaps at her, his fists clenching by his sides.

Kara considers committing a war crime against a backwater planet. Just one war crime.

“The insult of our continued existence will be tolerated as long as we prove useful to the House of El,” Match says, just as toneless and just as practiced as before. Like it’s something he’s said a thousand times, when he hasn’t even been alive long enough to say a thousand things. Something he just knows to be a foundational fact of life.

. . . maybe two war crimes, Kara thinks, carefully packing up her seething fury before she can start shouting at the two people in this situation who deserve it the least. There’s two of Thirteen and Match, so that’s fair, isn’t it? Justifiable?

“No,” she says very, very evenly. “It means you’re part of our family.”

Thirteen flinches, and looks very briefly hurt before his jaw clenches. Then he just looks angry. Match’s expression is the most perfectly blank it’s been so far and doesn’t change at all.

They’re very different, for how alike they look. She shouldn’t be surprised by that, but it’s . . . disorienting, a little.

Mostly because they’re both so different from Kal, she thinks. Neither of them is a thing like him at all. Even at their “age”, he was nothing like either of them. She can’t even imagine how hard a time he must be having understanding them, when they’re both so wildly different from him in such different ways.

But at Thirteen and Match’s “age”–at both of their ages, both the literal and physiological ones–Kal was an adored only child with a bright future and brilliant prospects and all of Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara’s morals and love instilled in him, not a pair of lab-built “weapons” who must’ve heard their existence called an “insult” somewhere. Who must’ve been told they were stupid time and time again; must’ve been told they weren’t worth anything more than being carriers of the DNA that’d been stolen to make them time and again. Must’ve been told they were possessions and things and at best slaves to–

Kara exhales, very slowly, and pulls the rice out of her pantry.

“I’m making milk rice,” she informs them shortly. Milk rice sounds like something Earthling children’s palates should appreciate. Mostly children eat it here too, so it makes sense. “What kind do you want?”

“Milk . . . what?” Thirteen wrinkles his nose in confusion. Has Kal even given these kids dessert before, Kara thinks, trying not to lose her mind. Was there any real information about food or fashion or culture in that “gesture of goodwill” information packet that he presented the Earthling governments with? Because judging by how they’re dressed and the dialects they’re using and the fact that they don’t even know milk rice . . .

“Milk rice,” she repeats. “It’s a dessert. Milk and rice are involved. Usually it’s made with either bly fruit or katso sauce. Or spygin, but that’s mostly an Argo City thing.”

Thirteen and Match both stare blankly at her for a moment before their eyes slide to each other instead. Thirteen’s jaw visibly tightens. Match’s eyes just barely narrow.

“We don’t know what that is,” Thirteen says, glancing back to her warily. “The . . . ‘buh-lye fruit’ and ‘kasso sauce’. Or . . . ‘spy-geen’?”

Right, Kara thinks, and doesn’t let herself sigh again. They’re going to get the wrong idea if she keeps doing that.

“Bly fruit is sweet and katso sauce is savory,” she says, carefully enunciating the words without making it completely obvious that she’s correcting Thirteen’s pronunciation. “Spygin’s a spice. Kind of . . . sharp and smoky, I guess, but a little sweet too. It’s hard to describe. Goes good with milk-based things.”

“. . . you’re asking us what flavor we want?” Match asks incredulously, like the idea’s somehow just occurred to him.

Maybe three war crimes, Kara thinks. Lantern-level war crimes with a side of unfathomable solar superpowers. No one could blame her for just three, at this point.

#anonymous #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this #long post

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suzukiblu · 4 months

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i think i'm in love w KryptonLives!Kara now 😍

. . . I appreciated you saying that and then I got carried away, lol. 😆

“Alright,” she repeats. “Then I’ll show you your room and get you fed, and we’ll see if we can’t get the tailor in this afternoon.”

“The . . . tailor?” Thirteen wrinkles his nose, looking puzzled. “We’ve got clothes.”

“Do they all look like that?” Kara says, pointing at his current outfit instead of addressing just how empty both their bags look.

“Yeah?” He looks still more puzzled.

“Then no, you don’t have clothes,” she says. “You can’t go around dressed like that. Especially not you,” she adds, eyeing the crest on Match’s chest. “Whose family crest is that and why did Kal leave it on you?”

“It’s not a family crest,” Match says, clearly mystified by the assumption. “It’s branding.”

“. . . ‘branding’,” Kara echoes very, very slowly.

“We, uh, came from different labs,” Thirteen says, touching the El crest on his chest self-consciously. “Cadmus put, um, the S-shield on my suit, but the Agenda put their own logo on Match’s.”

“Logo?!” Kara demands in horror, because she cannot even approach the thing where Thirteen just called the El crest an “S-shield”, whatever weird nonsense that phrase means. Match just stares blankly at her in a way that distinctly reminds her of every subordinate she’s ever had transfer in from under an abusive bastard of a commander.

Right. Okay. If she can’t get a tailor in this afternoon, she’s going to go steal clothes out of Kal’s own damn closet for these two. That’s just what’s going to have to happen.

“You can’t wear that here,” she tells Match, forcing her voice to stay calm. “The council will think we haven’t accepted you into the House of El, if you’re wearing another–crest.”

“I’m always wearing it,” Match says, perfectly blank and perfectly neutral. “It doesn’t matter if it’s on my clothes or not.”

“. . . what does that mean,” Kara asks with fresh dread, and then has to deal with a physiological teenager unfastening the back of his already-indecent clothing and pulling the top of his bodysuit down to expose his chest, which, thank fuck she’s Warrior Guild or she’d have to have a conniption about that.

Which she doesn’t have time to do, because there’s a tattoo on Match’s chest, and that’s a much more important conniption to be having right now.

A tattoo of the Rao-damned logo, to be specific.

“Aethyr’s ass,” she says, staring at it in horror for a moment before she snaps out of it enough to cover her eyes. They’re “family”, yes, and Match is technically a child, but his body and mind are developed far past his chronological age and she just really doesn’t want him getting the idea that it’s acceptable to go around taking his clothes off this easily either way. The clothes are bad enough as they are. “Cover yourself, that’s not–you can’t just take your clothes off like that!”

“It was just my chest,” Match says with an audible frown in his voice, though at least she hears fabric rustle, and hopefully that means–yes, he’s fixing his bodysuit. Thank fuck.

“Your chest is not just,” Kara says, then vaguely remembers Kal mentioning something about how risqué most of the Earthling fashion he saw was and tries not to grimace. Just–gods, this whole experience is going to involve so much culture shock, isn’t it. “Your sex characteristics are inseminator-based, not carrier. You can’t just show people your chest.”

Match keeps staring blankly at her, the obvious desire to ask a question concealed in the back of his eyes, then just barely slants a look towards Thirteen, who glances back at him before frowning at her in confusion.

“Uh,” he says, still frowning. “Why not? He doesn’t have ti–breasts or anything. So why’s it matter?”

. . . Earth is very different from Krypton, Kara realizes.

“The only reason you should ever bare your chest in front of anyone not a sexually-inclined lover or a physician who’s directly examining you is if you’re feeding an infant,” she tells them. “Which most of us don’t even do, for the record, the birthing matrix generally means lactation isn’t triggered in carriers. Only the extreme throwback communities actually do carry anymore.”

“. . . what?” Thirteen says, clearly baffled. “Like–you just don’t get pregnant? None of you?”

“It’s not necessary, and it’s more difficult to genetically optimize children in-utero than in a birthing matrix,” Kara says. “Match, just–don’t show anyone that tattoo. Or mention it to anyone. The crest issue is bad enough, but getting tattooed is just . . . not a thing we do in proper society.”

Admittedly, she’s known a few Warrior Guild members who got something small, but it was never anything like a logo or–

“I didn’t ‘get’ it,” Match says, frowning at her. “The Agenda put it on me to identify me as their product.”

. . . Kara wants to scream.

“Either way, don’t mention it,” she says instead of doing that, because she is a grown goddamn woman and a general. “Well–you can tell Kal, obviously, but no one else."

“. . . why is that ‘obvious’?” Match says, and the fact he has to ask really does not make Kara feel good about this situation.

“He’s your petitioner,” she says. “He might need to know, especially if the council intends to have you two examined by physicians. Also, he won’t be an ass about it, unlike a lot of other people probably would.”

She doesn’t think anyone in their family would, at least as long as they knew Match didn’t get tattooed willingly, but she’s sure there’s a goddamn nosy neighbor or bastard council member or local gossip who’d take the excuse to.

“Uh, so body mods are a no-go in general, then, or . . .” Thirteen trails off, tugging uncomfortably at his earring.

“The earring’s a bit out there as a fashion statement, yes,” Kara says. Thirteen looks even more uncomfortable. She wonders why he even has it, considering. And only one, too? Not even a matching set?

“The hole, uh, won’t close,” Thirteen says, tugging at it again and not quite looking at her. “They pierced it when I was in early development, so . . .”

“What?” Kara blinks at him in bemusement. What does he mean by “early development”? Not when he was an infant, right? Why would–“Who did?"

“Uh,” Thirteen says, staring at the floor. “Well, Match got tattooed, and I got . . . tagged.”

. . . Kara wants to bomb so much more than just a lab right now, but if she gets any more enraged, a Red Lantern ring is going to come find her, and she just doesn’t have the time for that right now. Just–no, she really doesn’t.

“I see,” she says very, very calmly, then just . . . gestures towards the hall. “Your room’s this way. I only have one guest suite, so you’re going to have to share, but I got a second bed put in yesterday and you’ll have your own bath to share too. It’s fully stocked, and I’ll show you how to run the cleaning systems and how the plumbing all works.”

She can’t imagine Kryptonian plumbing or cleaning systems being particularly similar to Earthling ones, so . . .

“Um, okay,” Thirteen says, shifting awkwardly. “Uh–thanks. Ma’am. Uh, when’s lights out?”

Kara is going to have a fucking time with these kids, isn’t she. And not in a good way.

Lorra’s left tit. She is definitely, definitely throwing Kal off that building. And then she’ll take his new wife to tea while he recovers in the healing chambers, the little bastard, and show her every embarrassing childhood holo she can find.

“I have absolutely no idea how much sleep you need, so we’ll be figuring that out together,” she replies frankly. “For now, just don’t leave the apartment without me. I don’t want you getting lost and the council won’t like you wandering around unchaperoned yet either.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both say in stiff, discordant unison, both looking tense.

Kara . . . exhales, slowly, and then leads the way down the hall.

“My suite and office are the whole top floor,” she says, pointing out doors as they go. “The kitchen is through here, that’s the guest bathroom, those are both storage, and that’s the living room. You can go anywhere in the house except for my suite and office, and if you need me while I’m in either of those, just chime.”

“‘Chime’?” Thirteen wrinkles his nose.

“Yes,” Kara says, then realizes he doesn’t know what she means. “Ah–you know? Chime?”

They both stare blankly at her. She sighs. She’s too damn old to chime, but . . .

“Like this,” she says, and then vibrates her secondary vocal chords to produce the sweet little sound. She hasn’t chimed in . . . Rao, since before she left for the academy, probably. Still, they’re still children, so–

“We’re–allowed?” Thirteen asks, his expression looking . . . strange. “To do that?”

“Yes,” Kara says, thinking longingly of bombing Earthling Thinkers’ labs. What does he mean “allowed”? “It’s chiming. Who’d keep a kid from chiming?”

“It’s obnoxious,” Match says flatly, clearly repeating someone else's words. Kara stares at him. Once again, he’s found a way to say something even worse than the thing she already thought was the worst thing she was going to have to hear today. It's almost impressive, at this point.

“It’s how you’re going to get my attention,” she says. “So you’d better get used to doing it, or you’ll have to call me on my comm every time you need something from me.”

“Can’t we just . . . knock?” Thirteen says. Kara has absolutely no idea what that means. She can’t think of a single child-call that sounds like hitting something.

“Depends,” she says, tilting her head. “What’s a knock call sound like?”

“A–what?” Thirteen looks baffled. “No, like–it’s not a . . . ‘call’?”

“It’s a knock,” Match says.

“Like, you know,” Thirteen says, and then reaches out and raps his knuckles against the wall. Kara gives him a blank look.

“How would I even hear that?” she says. Chiming carries. That was just . . . hitting the wall. Not even hitting it hard.

“I mean–you do it against the door,” Thirteen says, looking a little flustered. “Like, of the room someone’s in.”

So she’d be encouraging teenagers to hit her doors on the regular. No, that’s not happening.

“Just chime,” she repeats firmly, folding her arms, and Thirteen and Match share a look. Thirteen looks anxious. Match looks blank. Kara . . . doesn’t even want to know how she looks, at this point.

#eleutheria-has-won #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this #long post

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suzukiblu · 13 days

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WIP excerpt from the one where Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up for this.

Only Kal would manage to get his DNA stolen on a planet called “Earth”, of all the godsdamned stupid places.

Might as well just be named “The Planet” or something, she swears.

“All three it is,” Kara says, waving open her wall storage and grabbing her rice pot out of it. She only has the one because she's never had to cook for anyone else in her life, much less anyone who was staying with her, but she'll make it work.

Somehow.

Can't be any worse than pulling off mission-critical military maneuvers in shit conditions with untried and under-trained new recruits, she figures.

. . . though she is admittedly more prepared for that situation than this one, if it comes to it.

Look, that’s just experience, alright? She’s been on a thousand maneuvers and missions she didn’t have the resources for, but Kal doesn’t get cloned every day.

Well, at least not when he’s not on incredibly uncreatively named alien planets, anyway.

Kara dumps three times the usual amount of rice into her rice pot while Thirteen hovers just outside the kitchen and Match stands very, very still beside him. Neither of them says anything else, though Thirteen looks like he might want to. He seems to be the talker, from what Kara can tell.

Or at least, he’s the one they’ve designated to be the talker. He asks more questions, and sometimes Match looks at him like he’s expecting him to ask a question. Even if they don’t necessarily get along, they seem to be cooperating at least that much.

Well, it makes sense. They’re the only other successful Kryptonian-human clones that anyone’s aware of existing, and they know cloning is illegal on Krypton, and Kal isn’t here right now. Who else are they going to rely on when meeting a total stranger?

Even a total stranger who is, technically, family.

Or at least arguably, anyway.

Her house communicator plays a familiar identifying little melody as she’s juggling her spheres of katso sauce and dried spygin in one arm while trying to dig out the last couple of bly fruit she <i>knows</i> she had shoved in the back of her cold storage, which admittedly is a bit cluttered with premade meals right now. Or . . . always, pretty much.

In her defense, she really doesn’t cook very much. Or very well. Or . . . at all, really, when she can avoid it.

She’s a grown woman and a decorated general, alright? She doesn’t need to cook if she doesn’t want to.

“Accept call,” she instructs briskly, and the communicator’s holoscreen materializes to her side. Thirteen startles slightly; Match doesn’t so much as twitch. Doesn’t so much as breathe either, though, so she’s pretty sure he was startled too. At least, that’s the impression she’s been getting from the way he’s reacted to things so far.

Avoided reacting to things, more like.

“Oh, look who’s finally calling,” she says, eyeing Kal’s image on her projected screen. He looks just barely harried and the slightest bit sheepish, and she can see a dark-haired woman who’s presumably his new wife sitting behind him in his home office wearing peculiar clothing that is definitely not Kryptonian, but also doesn’t look nearly as indecent as what Thirteen and Match both showed up wearing. She seems occupied with a reader, and keeps activating and deactivating it like she’s never seen anything like it before.

So probably the wife, yes. Lois Kal-El, née Sam-Lane, according to Kal’s previous calls. Though he also says that humans have slightly different naming schemes than Krypton does. And apparently more varied ones than Krypton does, too.

Why Kal apparently made sure his grown wife was more appropriately dressed than the children were is beyond her, though.

#wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 6 months

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alone, please, whimper

General Kara Zor-El's baby cousin went to a planet named Earth on a diplomatic outreach mission, found out Kryptonians have borderline unmatchable superpowers under the right environmental conditions, and got involuntarily cloned by some narcissistic asshole with a god complex.

Twice.

Also he got married to something called a "reporter" and didn't even invite any of the family to the wedding, the little brat. Uncle Jor and Aunt Lara were beside themselves. Of course Kal decided to wait until his thirties to have his rebellious phase.

And of course now General Kara Zor-El has two "teenage" boys that look exactly like Kal-El on her doorstep, and both of them look very unhappy to be here.

To be fair, if Kara had spent her entire incredibly short and incredibly unsafe life with very impressive superpowers and then gotten dumped on a planet where she didn't have access to most of them anymore, she'd also be less than thrilled. Apparently they're still a little telekinetic, but nowhere near as telekinetic as they'd be under a yellow sun.

The first one is Experiment Thirteen; the second one is Subject Match. Thirteen is a worse brat than Kal ever was and Match is somehow an even worse brat than that, which is quite a feat for a kid who explicitly thinks of himself as a weapon without free will. Thirteen, meanwhile, has too much free will and is determined to make it everyone else's problem.

And Kal, inexplicably, has decided to make them both Kara's problem while he argues with the Council about why they should be granted asylum and citizenship on Krypton. Apparently, the Earthlings who made them are not particularly fit guardians, and when hasn't Kal seen an injustice and thrown himself on it?

Which, speaking of injustices . . .

"Please tell me you two have actual names besides 'Thirteen' and 'Match'," she says with a sigh, eyeing the pair of them and the concerningly small bags they're both carrying. Kal had damn well better have shipped their actual luggage separate, if that's all they've got on them.

"No," Thirteen mutters stiffly, his jaw visibly tightening.

"We have project designations," Match informs her like he's delivering a mission report. "Names are unnecessary."

Kara wonders what superpowers she'd get if she went to this "Earth" to punch a few of the local Thinkers. Just as a mental exercise, that's all.

"Rao's sake," she says. "Kal didn't even give you any?"

Match looks irritated, and Thirteen's jaw goes very, very tight.

Dammit.

#kara zor el #kon el #conner kent #dc match #supergirl #superboy #superfamily #rinfic #anonymous #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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S'more krypton lives for wip wednesday please?

“You’re not of age,” Kara says, trying to crush down the fury at the idea that anyone would think otherwise. “You might as well be infants. Just because you look like you have life experience and educations doesn’t mean anyone would expect you to choose your guilds this soon.”

“Kal said the council would,” Thirteen says, looking uncomfortable. Kara bites back several very creative curses and grits her teeth.

“Kal cannot possibly have meant that as anything other than a comment on a problem he was going to deal with,” she says. She refuses to believe otherwise, even with the name and dialect and MRE issues. She refuses. “You’re children.”

#anonymous #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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krypton lives for wip wednesday!

“Dunno what Kal even wants us for anyway,” Thirteen mutters, biting the corner of his thumbnail. “Match is right, we’re fucking useless here. At least back home we could do shit. We were still weapons, at least.”

Kara does not have time to become a Red Lantern. She really does not. Not at all.

How does their oath go again, though . . . ? Just–for no particular reason. With blood and rage of crimson red . . . ?

#anonymous #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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Ooh, I can finally send one in since I remembered while it’s still Wednesday, yay!

I love the krypton lives one and just adore Kara trying to figure it all out 💜

“Look, we don’t wanna be here either, lady, we only came ‘cuz the stupid US government made us,” Thirteen snaps defensively, his shoulders hunching. “Kal said Krypton would–‘cease diplomatic communications’ or whatever if they didn’t give us to him. We didn’t get a choice about it.”

“Diplomatic relations, idiot,” Match says, his lip curling in annoyance. Thirteen glowers at him.

“That’s what I said, asshole,” he snaps.

“According to who?” Match snorts.

“Wait. You didn’t want to come at all?” Kara asks in disbelief. She knew they weren’t thrilled about losing their powers, but how did Kal not mention that to her?

Maybe she should be more concerned about the guild thing after all. Kal’s just usually so much more compassionate and competent than this, though. She can’t imagine what he’s even thinking right now.

They definitely need to talk. They need to talk yesterday.

#meanderingstream #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this sounds so interesting!! i wanted to participate but i don't have enough wips yet (which is only more inspo to do so) but i wanted to send this!

She’s not going to kill Kal, Kara decides. She’s going to tell Aunt Lara on him.

“Alright,” she sighs, tabling her vengeance for the next weekly check-in from Aunt Lara. “I’m making rice and fish, then, and giving you milk to drink. We’re not getting fancy for your first foray into Kryptonian cuisine. I’d have to be able to cook for that to work out, for one thing.”

“You can’t cook?” Thirteen says.

“I went straight into the Warrior Guild the day I was of age,” Kara snorts. “They don’t really push cooking as a life skill in the army.”

“You didn’t have KP duty?” Match asks, looking skeptical.

“I don’t even know what that is, so no,” Kara replies frankly, pulling out the fish and rice. Hopefully Earthlings eat crystal fish, because that’s what she got the most of at the market. It was on sale and she still doesn’t know what kind of appetites to expect these two to have; sue her. She also bought flying eel and chainfish and even flash-finned shark, because she absolutely godsdamn panicked, but still, mostly it’s crystal fish.

She’s going to be eating a lot of crystal fish if Thirteen and Match don’t like it.

#mmonetsims #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 3 months

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WIP excerpt: Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up for this.

“You don’t belong to a damn lab,” Kara says, low and even and still holding out the cuff for Match. “You belong to the House of El.”

Thirteen’s mouth tightens, and then he scowls and looks away. Match takes the bracelet without a word and puts it on his wrist. It fits, if a little tighter than it does on her own.

Kara's parents gave her that bracelet when she was a little older than the age that Match and Thirteen look. It was a gift for her first nameday as a full citizen of Krypton, the first house signifier she received as an adult, and she'd accepted it with all due appreciation that such a gift afforded and has cherished it ever since. She wears it more often than not, when she's not on active duty.

It doesn't mean anything to Match, because why would it?

There's no reason it would.

She wonders if they even understand what it means when she says they belong to the House of El, or if they just think it’s the same thing as belonging to a lab full of the kind of bastards who’d call a couple of kids weapons.

She doesn’t know how to explain the difference to kids who don’t even understand they’re allowed to ask for things.

#wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 4 months

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Krypton lives for wip wednesday!

It doesn’t help that neither Thirteen nor Match is speaking Kryptonian correctly. They’re both using formal tonal pitches, Thirteen with a casual and friendly vocabulary and Match with a stiff and scientific one, and both of their accents are downright bizarre to listen to. Neither of them is using any kind of a familial dialect, which makes her wonder where the hell they even learned Kryptonian to begin with.

She has a vague sense of dread that the answer to that question might be “from an upload of the formal Kryptonian dictionary that Kal presented the Earth governments with as part of his initial show of goodwill, as applied by some random Thinker barely out of the academy”. Not, Rao forbid, from Kal on the trip here.

What did Kal even talk to them about on that trip, given that he apparently didn’t think to correct their dialects during it? Or to at least start teaching them any familial ones? Or, she doesn’t know, name them? The clothes are already a problem, especially Match wearing some other family’s crest; if the council heard them not even using familial dialect with the family and that they didn’t have names, they’d never accept Kal’s petition for sanctuary. They’d say he wasn’t sincere in it or that the boys weren’t willing to assimilate into Kryptonian society or the El family or something. Just–any excuse, she’s sure. She knows what the council is like, especially when it comes to aliens.

Even if technically they’re only half-aliens.

#anonymous #wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this

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suzukiblu · 1 month

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WIP excerpt from "Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up for this".

“Yes,” Kara says instead of anything about war crimes. She doesn't want to stress the kids out right now. Especially when they clearly don't have the context to understand what she's actually upset about, given what she knows of them so far.

“Why?” Match asks, still obviously incredulous. It might be the most expressiveness she's seen from him so far. That level of reservation is normal, coming from another Kryptonian that she’s just met. But Kal kept gushing excitedly about how emotive and expressive Earthlings are every time he called, so . . . is it actually that Match is reserved, or is it that he really just isn't feeling anything?

Or is he just that unwilling to show any trace of an actual personality?

There really isn’t a good option there, she’s pretty sure.

“Because I want you to like it,” Kara says. “So: sweet, savory, or spicy?”

“. . . uh,” Thirteen says as Match just stares at her like he thinks she’s sun-drunk. “Is the . . . ‘bai’ fruit the healthiest one, or . . . ?”

“It’s a dessert, kid,” Kara says. “None of them are ‘healthy’.”

Milk rice isn’t unhealthy, necessarily, but that’s not the point of a damn dessert, now is it.

“Uh,” Thirteen says, then looks . . . anxious, for a moment, before visibly drawing himself up and steeling himself to blurt: “Spicy.”

“Okay,” Kara says, envisioning backwater-planet war crimes before glancing to Match. “What about you, then? You like spicy?” Kal doesn’t, but Kal wasn’t built in a lab and raised on Earthling MRES.

Match just stares blankly at her, the corner of his jaw tightening.

Maybe she shouldn’t have phrased it as “like”, she thinks, and once again considers calling up Atrocitous with her ring size. No reason. Just because.

Two very specific reasons, actually, but also ten thousand reasons.

“There’s three of us,” Kara points out. “I can just make all three.”

“‘Dessert’ isn’t nutritionally useful,” Match says, his tone flat and expression bland. Thirteen half-eyes him, looking both restless and like he wants to say something. She’s still not sure how well they get along; still isn’t sure how to expect them to get along, especially once they’ve both settled in. Kal was not helpful on those grounds.

She’s also still not over how awkward both their dialects sound. Especially with the memory of Kal at their “age” so easy to revisit in her mind. He never looked or sounded a thing like either of them, even with the exact same face and voice. He definitely also didn’t have the muscle definition they do, which those bizarre tight outfits of theirs do absolutely nothing to conceal.

Kal could’ve at least gotten them an over-robe or two, for Rao’s sake. Fuck, five minutes off-planet and he loses all sense of decorum and rational thought. This is why no one wants his job! This! This is why!

. . . also the unsolicited cloning thing, she supposes. Also that.

Only Kal would manage to get his DNA stolen on a planet called “Earth”, of all the godsdamned places.

#wip: krypton lives and kara did not sign up for this #long post

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