Chapter Six
Kara's breathing was ragged, her chest heaving as she slowly lowered her arm.
The golden glow in her eyes faded, dimming back to their natural blue. The rage that had consumed her moments before was already retreating, leaving behind something cold and hollow in its wake.
A thought flickered in the back of her mind, quiet but insistent:
What the hell was that thing?
And how did it get on board?
She turned, taking in the destruction around her, the cratered deck, the twisted metal, the smoke still rising from ruptured systems. Her gaze swept across the damage, cataloging it with the detached precision of someone trying very hard not to think about what she'd just done.
Movement caught her eye.
The red-haired woman, Natasha, her mind supplied again, was rounding the corner. Her eyes were wide, mouth slightly open, expression caught somewhere between shock and... was that awe?
Kara watched as Natasha's hand moved to her ear, fingers pressing against some kind of communication device.
"Tell Director Fury," Natasha said, voice steady despite everything, "that the Hulk issue is taken care of."
Hulk, Kara thought. So that's what it was called.
She stopped paying attention to the conversation, her focus shifting as a new sensation registered in her awareness. The floor beneath her feet felt... wrong. Tilted. And not just tilted, moving. Sliding sideways and down, the angle growing steeper with each passing second.
Oh.
Oh no.
The ship was falling.
Natasha was suddenly running toward her, boots clanging against the damaged deck as she closed the distance.
"Can you help straighten the ship?" Natasha asked, urgency sharp in her voice.
Kara's eyes widened. Her throat went dry.
"Um," she said, the word coming out small and uncertain. "I'll try. I've never lifted anything this heavy before."
Before Kara could process what was happening, Natasha had produced a small device, another earpiece, sleek and black, and was pressing it into her hand.
"When you want to talk," Natasha said quickly, "just hold the button on the side."
Kara stared at the device for half a heartbeat, then fumbled it into her ear. Her fingers found the button. She pressed it.
Testing. Just testing.
"HI!" she said brightly into the comm. "HI, EVERYBODY!"
She tried to sound cheerful. Confident. Like someone who definitely knew what she was doing and wasn't currently terrified.
The response she got scared her silly.
"MOTHERFUCKER, THIS AIN'T NO GOD DAMN CHEER CONVENTION!"
Fury's voice exploded through the earpiece like a thunderclap, so loud and so angry that Kara physically flinched.
"LIFT... THE... MOTHERFUCKING SHIP!"
"AHHHH!" Kara screamed—
—roared into action, she told herself. She roared into action. That was definitely a roar of determination and not a shriek of absolute terror.
She shot through the Hulk shaped damaged hull, passing through the hole of twisted metal and shattered bulkheads made her way around until she was beneath the Helicarrier's massive frame. Her X-ray vision flared to life, layers of steel and machinery becoming transparent as she scanned the ship's internal structure.
There.
The main support beam—a colossal spine of reinforced metal running the entire length of the vessel, from bow to stern. Every major system connected to it. Every structural element branched from it.
It was the ship's skeleton.
Kara positioned herself beneath it, hands reaching up, palms pressing flat against cold steel.
She pushed.
And immediately understood what heavy truly meant.
This wasn't like catching falling debris. This wasn't like lifting a pod or even a Large Tree. This was thousands of tons of aircraft carrier, filled with people and weapons and systems and life, all of it pressing down on her with the weight of the world itself.
But it wasn't just the weight.
It was the consequence.
If she failed—if her strength gave out, if her grip slipped, if she couldn't hold it—every single person on this ship would die.
That thought hit her harder than the Hulk's punch ever could.
The weight became irrelevant.
Kara's jaw set. Her eyes blazed gold. Strength flooded through her limbs—not new strength, but something that had always been there, sleeping, waiting. Muscles that had never known their own limits suddenly remembered.
The ship slowed.
Inch by inch, the descent halted. The groaning of stressed metal began to quiet. The angle of the deck started to level out.
Then—impossible, miraculous—the Helicarrier began to rise.
Kara felt it happening in real-time. The ship grew lighter in her hands. Not physically lighter—it weighed the same—but easier. As though her body had simply decided that this was normal, that holding up a flying aircraft carrier was just another thing Kryptonian girls did in there afternoons.
It was the strangest feeling.
Like discovering a muscle she'd never known existed and finding it was the strongest one she had.
Tony Stark's voice crackled through the comm, warm with approval and dripping with amusement:
"Nice job, Lil Bit."
Kara's face split into a grin so wide it hurt.
Then Tony continued, and she could hear the smirk in his voice:
"Hey, Cap? The kid just carried the whole damn ship, and you had a hard time flipping a switch. Hahahaha—do you even lift, bro?"
There was a pause.
Then Captain Rogers' voice, dry and long-suffering: "Stark, I swear to God—"
"What? I'm just saying! She's like, what, five-foot-nothing? And she's bench-pressing a Helicarrier. Meanwhile you're over here struggling with—"
"I was being shoot at, Tony."
"Uh-huh. Sure. we believe you Capsicle"
"I hate you."
"Love you too, Cap."
Kara laughed, actually laughed, the sound bubbling up from her chest as she held the Helicarrier aloft. Her arms didn't shake. Her strength didn't waver.
For the first time since arriving on Earth, she felt like maybe, just maybe, she could do this.
Maybe she could be a hero.
Even if people kept calling her small.
"Um," Kara said into the comm, pressing the button carefully. "Where exactly should I... put it? The ship, I mean. Should I just...hold it here? Or..."
"Kid," Fury's voice cut in, calmer now but still edged with command, "just keep us level until engineering gets the turbines back online. You're doing fine."
"Oh. Okay. I can do that."
She could hear clicking sounds in the background of the comm chatter, technical readouts, damage reports, crew members coordinating repairs.
And beneath it all, barely audible, she heard Thor's voice:
"That is my sister," he said, pride radiating through every syllable. "Did I not tell thee she was mighty?"
Kara's grin somehow grew wider.
She floated there beneath the Helicarrier, arms raised, holding up the ship and everyone on it.
And for the first time in a very long time, Kara Zor-El felt strong.