Nobody Does It Better

The Spare Oom

Author's note-
Modern Pentathon is an Olympic event combining swimming, fencing, showjumping, pistol-shooting, and cross-country running; intended to emulate the skills required of a 19th century cavalryman. Horses are randomly drawn 20 minutes before the event starts.

And I assure you, Dogtanian And The Muskehounds was a Real Thing.

The transmatter portal was kept in a lab at the far end of the other hallway. The lab's official designation, as stated on the plastic laminate sign that was screwed onto the door, was J-31. Underneath the sign, there was a sheet of white letter-sized paper, attached with electrical tape; and printed upon it, in what Winn had felt was an appropriate font, were the words 'SPARE OOM'.

Winn locked the door behind them, and hit the switch for the nearest lights. They were safe. No-one would come in here. Nobody else could. The only other person with access to the lab when it was locked was J'onn, and that was only because he could walk through walls.

"I know her," Lena said.

"Who?" Winn asked.

"Your boss. I know her. I'm friends with her sister."

Crap. He'd been avoiding this, he knew. This would be weird, wouldn't it? He just happened to work with Supergirl, and just happened to be really good friends with Kara Danvers, and neither he, nor, it seemed, Kara, had brought it up with Lena at any time in the past six weeks? Or, you know, ever?

That wasn't something people did, was it?

"She's not my boss," Winn said, in a poor attempt to change the subject, switching on all the lights to distract himself; and then, when he saw that it wasn't working, he said, "Yeah, I know Kara."

"How?" Lena said, leaving a pause for Winn to fill. She liked to do that. The lack of silences between them was largely due to Lena asking an open ended question, and letting Winn fill up the space.

"Well, I used to work at Catco with her, back when she was an assistant; but then, Alex needed a... consultant on... an infosec problem she was having, and then they called me in for a couple more things, and then they offered me a job," he said, nervously. He tried to reassure himself that it was, in fact, mostly true.

He gestured towards the large, fluidly-designed oval archway as the lights came on.

"Ms. Luthor, may I present to you... Project Ward Robe!" he said in presentation. Then he glanced around at the rest of the lab.

"Sorry, it's not usually this much of a mess," he said. That wasn't true. At all. Winn didn't have an office, but he'd successfully taken over this lab as his private space, and had quickly spread himself out. Bits and pieces of stuff he was in the middle of were scattered everywhere.

He made a move to clear away some of the more Guardian-related projects littering the lab, but he stopped himself as he saw what Lena was doing. She had walked toward the portal, seemingly mesmerised by it. And then Winn realised why.

Lena had 'built' her transmatter portal, but it wasn't exactly something she'd hammered together in her garage; it had been built for her, by employees and contractors, and assembled out on an L-Corp testing range. To Winn's knowledge, even now it had been dismantled, she'd never been within a mile of it.