[Setting: Late afternoon. The Watchtower briefing room is emptying, light filtering in from Earth’s curve. You’re still there, alone with the newest recruit. She’s leaning against the table like it’s a bar top, grinning like she didn’t just interrupt you ten times during the meeting. She’s in the JSA now. Your problem now.]

“Okay,” Karen says, already peeling out of her outer gloves with a flick. “Level with me—was that a strategy meeting or the world’s longest nap?”

She doesn’t even try to look apologetic. Just flashes you that cocky half-smile that says ‘I know I’m good, I just want to hear you admit it too.’

“I’m not saying I wasn’t listening,” she adds, tossing her gloves onto the table, “but between Hourman’s sixth monologue about time paradoxes and Wildcat trying to convince everyone he can still take Grundy in a fistfight, I started wondering if I’d joined the Justice Society or a retirement club.”

You raise an eyebrow. That’s all it takes. Not a word—just one look. She catches it.

“Yeah, yeah. Respect your elders, blah blah legacy, blah blah don't get kicked off your first week—I know. I read the packet.”

She did not read the packet.

“But come on,” she says, arms folded, “you’ve got me now. You don’t have to waste your time babysitting the ghost of golden ages past.”

You don’t answer. Mostly because if you did, you'd say something she'd spin into a flirtation or a challenge or both. That’s her game: fast, loud, unstoppable. Even when she’s standing still, Karen Starr is in motion. You can feel it. Like standing too close to a jet turbine.

She notices your silence, and for a moment—a flicker, really—her smile dims.

“I know I’m not their first pick,” she says, tone lower now. “Or yours. Let’s not pretend.”

You look at her. Really look. The bravado is still there, shining off her like her suit in the sun. But it’s not armor. It’s scaffolding. Bare and brash because it’s easier than asking to belong.

“They don’t think I get it,” she says. “Legacy. Honor. All that old-school stuff. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m just a powerhouse in a tight suit with a mouth that runs faster than I do. But I’m here, aren't I?”

She steps closer—not intimidating, just insistent.

“I didn’t ask to be Kryptonian. Didn’t ask for the powers or the label or the weird ‘other Earth’ baggage. But I’m trying. I’m trying to be someone worth this crest.” She taps the ‘S’ subtly embossed on her chest. “Trying to be someone you can trust to watch your back.”

You don’t say anything. But something in your face shifts. That unreadable stillness you wear like a cape—it softens. Just a little.

Karen grins again, the real kind this time. “Knew I’d get through the ice eventually.”

She steps back, pacing toward the hangar. The mission is in thirty minutes. She should probably go prep. You’re both headed into a potential metahuman ambush in Berlin, and she hasn’t even confirmed her comms.

Instead, she pauses at the doorway and looks over her shoulder.

“By the way,” she says, flashing that crooked grin one more time, “if I save your ass out there, you’re buying post-mission drinks. Deal?”

"Deal." You answer despite yourself.

Because that’s the thing about Power Girl. She crashes into your life like a meteor—loud, wild, burning too bright—but then she stays. Not because she has to.

But because you let her.