Chapter 3 : The Girl Who Could Fly
December 2015 — CatCo Worldwide Media — Night
The screens changed.
One moment I was debugging a server issue, alone in the bullpen because everyone else had gone home. The next, every monitor in the office flickered to the same image: shaky helicopter footage of something impossible.
A woman. Flying. Arms outstretched beneath a commercial airliner that should not have been airborne at that angle. She caught it. Caught a plane full of passengers and guided it down toward the river.
My coffee mug slipped from nerveless fingers. I caught it with vector manipulation without thinking—three months of training making the response automatic—and set it gently on the desk.
She did it. She actually did it.
The footage played on loop. News anchors scrambling for information. Witnesses interviewed on the street, half of them in tears, all of them saying the same thing: a woman flew out of the sky and saved Flight 237.
Cat Grant burst through the office doors, heels clicking like gunshots on the marble floor.
"Winn! Tell me our servers are recording this. Tell me we have every frame of that footage backed up in triplicate."
"Already done, Ms. Grant."
"Good." She stared at the screens, and for once her mask slipped. Wonder in her eyes. Genuine, unfiltered wonder. "A woman. It's a woman this time."
She said it like a prayer. Like a promise.
By midnight, the whole office was buzzing. Cat drafted editorial after editorial, each one more triumphant than the last. James Olsen worked the phones, talking to contacts in Metropolis—I heard him mention Superman's name twice. And me?
I sat at my desk and waited.
My phone rang at 1:47 AM.
"Kara."
"Winn." Her voice shook. I could hear wind in the background—she was on a rooftop somewhere, probably her building. "I did something crazy."
I closed my eyes. Here it was. The moment everything changed.
"I know."
"You... wait, what?"
"I saw the footage. Everyone saw the footage. Kara, you caught a plane."
"I..." She laughed, high and nervous and a little hysterical. "I don't know what came over me. Alex was on that flight, and I just—I couldn't let it crash. I couldn't—"
"Hey." I kept my voice steady. Warm. Everything she needed to hear. "You did something incredible tonight. You saved hundreds of people, including your sister. That's not crazy. That's heroic."
Silence on the other end. Then, softer: "You're not freaked out?"
Of course not. I've been waiting for this.
"Kara, you're my best friend. Finding out you can fly doesn't change that. It just means I need to update your contact photo to something more dramatic."
She laughed again. Real this time. Some of the tension bleeding away.
"You're such a dork."
"Guilty as charged. Now tell me everything. From the beginning."
She did. The childhood on Krypton. The pod that brought her to Earth. The powers she'd hidden for over a decade because her adoptive parents told her to blend in, stay safe, never stand out. All of it pouring out in a rush, like she'd been holding her breath for years and could finally exhale.
I listened. Asked questions. Reacted with appropriate surprise at revelations I'd already known.
This is who she is, I thought. This is who she's always been.
"The cape looked good, by the way," I said when she finished. "Red's definitely your color."
"Oh god, don't remind me. I had like fifteen minutes to find something to wear. It's literally a blanket from my pod."
"A very stylish blanket."
"I'm hanging up now."
"Get some sleep, Kara. Tomorrow's going to be insane."
"Yeah." A pause. "Thanks, Winn. For... for not being weird about this."
"Never."
She hung up. I stared at my phone for a long moment.
Then I stood up and walked to my training area.
Winn's Apartment — 3:00 AM
The books flew faster than usual. I deflected them with sharp gestures, each redirect cleaner than the last. My vector field had expanded—I could feel objects approaching within eight inches now, a slight pressure against my awareness.
Not enough.
I threw harder. Deflected harder. A paperback novel sailed toward my head; I caught it mid-air and reversed its momentum, sending it back into the pile with a satisfying thump.
Kara had revealed herself. The news would explode tomorrow. And soon—very soon—the DEO would make contact. Fort Rozz escapees would start appearing. Vartox. Astra. Non. An army of Kryptonian criminals with decades of rage and nowhere to point it except Earth.
Phase 1 wasn't going to cut it.
I reached for the lamp, let electricity flow into my hand. The charge built—twenty thousand volts, maybe more—and then I pushed it outward. A short arc leaped from my fingers to a metal shelf, leaving a scorch mark on the paint.
Not enough.
But it was a start.
The training continued until my nose bled and my hands shook too badly to catch anything. I collapsed onto the couch, aspirin bottle in hand, and stared at the ceiling.
She's counting on me. Whether she knows it or not.
The original Winn had been support staff. Comic relief. The guy who built gadgets and pined from the sidelines while real heroes saved the day.
This version of me was going to be different.
I had powers. Knowledge. A second chance at life in a world where second chances actually mattered.
I'm going to be ready, I promised the empty room. Whatever comes next, I'm going to be ready.
The first rays of dawn crept through the blinds.
Somewhere across the city, Kara was probably still awake, still processing the enormity of what she'd done.
Tomorrow, the world would know Supergirl existed.
And I intended to be right there beside her when they found out.
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