A Justice League Meeting

Unsurprisingly the room where the seven highest ranking members of the Justice League held their meetings inspired a certain amount of reverence from its members. While officially its name was the unassuming 'Conference Room A', hardly anyone on the Watchtower actually called it that, instead referring to it by other, more poetic names. Diana's personal favorite was 'the Founder's Table', though nowadays that was a misnomer: Martian Manhunter had ceded his seat to Cyborg so he could better focus on connecting with humanity, Barry Allen was dead and replaced by his successor, and while Hal Jordan was present for now his seat at the table tended to be filled by whichever Green Lantern happened to be stationed on Earth at the time. Even so, the name was more than just a source of pride for the Amazonian princess (though it definitely was that as well); it was a reminder of the early days of the Justice League, the legacy that had been built since, and the close friendships that she had forged along the way.

At least, that's how she used to see it. But now, Diana felt as if she was seated at a table occupied by her most dangerous enemies. All six men at the table, even Superman, were a threat to the freedom and safety of her beloved Charlie. While it hurt to think of her friends and fellow heroes like that, she knew that when push came to shove, she wouldn't hesitate to fight any and all of them to protect the man she loved.

Diana knew she should be at least a little concerned that she was thinking like this, not only because it went against everything she was taught growing up, but because she was now aware that the only reason she felt this way was because of her mind being altered by the pheromones that Charlie was giving off. But knowing the true source of those feelings didn't change the way her heart fluttered whenever she thought about Charlie, or the happiness that coursed through her when she saw he was happy, and especially not the overwhelming lust his body inspired in her. To her, Charlie was so far above any other man that he might as well be a god, and she intended to serve him like one, in any way he needed her to.

"Diana. Is everything okay?"

Diana turned to the Flash, who was looking at her with concern. Quickly thinking about a reason for her daydreaming, she said, "I'm fine. It's just that I feel so guilty about not realizing something was wrong with Kara sooner. I can't help but think back to all the little signs of something being wrong that I overlooked, or dismissed as just her being in love."

"Neither can I," Superman admitted, "But dwelling on it now isn't going to help her or Karen. We'll have plenty of time to beat ourselves up about it later."

"Speaking of Power Girl," Flash said, turning his focus away from Diana and toward Superman, "I haven't really had the chance to see her since we got her up here. Has she stopped... um, you know..."

"Endlessly masturbating?" Batman, to the point as always, finished for him, "In a sense. Once she was brought to the infirmary and isolated from any source of the pheromones, she calmed down enough to control herself while around others. But her body is still showing signs of drastically heightened arousal, and she's already been caught trying to touch herself multiple times when she thinks no one's watching."

"That's still an improvement from when we picked her up," Green Lantern pointed out, "If we keep her isolated long enough, maybe she'll go back to normal on her own."

"It's possible," Batman said, "Theoretically. But Kara has been separated by Charlie for hours at a time, both now and in the past, and her desire for him has not weakened on its own during any of those stretches. In fact from what we've seen, the longer she's been away from him, the stronger her desire to seek him out becomes."

"And from what little we've been able to get out of Luthor, the pheromone works in stages," Superman added, "The... heightened arousal... is the first stage. Karen calming down may not be the pheromone's effects weakening, but transitioning into a second stage. The last time I talked to her, she made it clear that she wanted to talk to Luthor herself."

"Which we cannot allow to happen under any circumstance," Diana said, casting her gaze around the table, "If this pheromone works the way we think it does, Power Girl is going to be far more suggestible to Luthor's will once she is in his presence again."

"And how do you intend to prevent her from seeking him out on her own?" Aquaman asked, tapping the end of his trident on the metal floor for emphasis, "She's strong enough to tear through this entire station with her bare hands, and if she has even half of Superman's tenacity, most of us are going to have a hard time slowing her down, much less stopping her."

"Cyborg and I have readied a temporary holding cell with a perimeter that's lined with channels of Kryptonite covered by lead shielding," Batman said, "If she gets too close to the front of the cell or starts trying to break out, the shielding will automatically retract and bathe the cell in Kryptonite radiation. That should weaken her while deterring her from making future escape attempts."

"But hopefully it won't come to that," Superman said, "I asked J'onn to try and undo the effects of the pheromone with his telepathy."

"You mean telekinesis," Green Lantern said.

Batman glared at him, "No. He doesn't."

"Do you think that will work?" Diana asked. She tried to sound hopeful, even if in actuality her blood was running cold at the thought of the pheromone's effects being so easy to undo.

"I'm not sure," Superman responded, "But since the pheromone is affecting her mind, I figured it wouldn't hurt to let him take a crack at it. We might get lucky."

"In the meantime, what about Charlie?" Batman asked, "Even if he isn't as much of a danger as Luthor, it would be foolish to not take precautions against him trying to escape as well."

It took a lot for Diana to not declare Charlie's total innocence and insist on his immediate release, but doing so right now would likely ruin everything. Still, she couldn't help herself from saying, "We're already keeping him separated from both Power Girl and Supergirl in one on the airtight cells, and so far Kara has been far more cooperative with us. What more can we do?"

"I'm working on that," Batman said, "Cyborg, what have you found so far?"

Cyborg, who up to this point had been spending most of the meeting focused on a holographic screen he was projecting from his cybernetic eye, answered, "I've been digging for almost an hour now, but all of Charlie's social media is clean. No odd posts, no crazy Twitter rants, no friends or followers we wouldn't expect from him... his history's a little sparse compared to other millennials maybe, and pretty much all activity stopped after the Metallo incident, but other than that it all checks out."

"And him disappearing on social media is probably due to him losing his phone at some point in the attack," Superman said.

"Yeah, that'd explain it," Cyborg said, "I already tried seeing if I could track it down, or at least access it remotely, but I haven't had any luck with either so far."

"Well we didn't find anything like that at the warehouse, so it likely fell out of his pocket while Starfire was carrying him," Batman said, "Which means it could be anywhere in the city."

"And unless that thing's military grade, it's not going to survive a drop from that high up," Green Lantern added, "You probably can't find it because the damn thing's been shattered into fifty pieces."

It's at this point that the door to the conference room opened. Everyone at the table turned to face the green-skinned man entering the room. His solid red eyes scanned across the room and met each of their gazes briefly, and as he looked towards Diana she did her best to only think about what she heard about Karen's situation. She knew the Martian Manhunter wasn't one to pry into people's minds on a whim, at least not without permission, but it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to a telepath.

"Sorry to interrupt," the Martian said, focusing on Superman at the head of the table. Even without any wind in the room to move it, his blue cape seemed to billow slightly along the edges. Diana couldn't help but wonder whether that was intentional on his part or not.

"No apologies necessary, J'onn," Superman said to him, "I'm glad you're here. Were you able to make any progress with Karen?"

"I wish I had better news for you," Martian Manhunter replied, to the visual disappointment of everyone (though in Diana's case, the disappointed look on her face perfectly masked the joy and relief she felt inside). Seeing the others were waiting for him to elaborate, the Martian continued, "My attempts to undo the changes caused by this pheromone have been resisted. I have not been able to return her to normal, at least not permanently."

"What do you mean 'not permanently'?" Diana asked.

"I can quell her feelings of lust and obsession towards Luthor, as long as I am focusing entirely on directing her thoughts away from them. But within minutes of me pulling back even a little, her mind naturally slips back into that state."

"So you're able to **** her back into her old self momentarily, but it doesn't stick," Batman said.

"Exactly," Martian Manhunter said, "And it gets worse."

"Of course it does," Aquaman groaned.

"Every time I have done it, the window between me releasing her mind and her slipping back into her obsessive state has grown smaller. After my first few attempts, it dropped to under a minute. Now she can barely keep it together for fifteen seconds. And that's after I called M'gann up to help me. At this point I'm worried that if we keep trying to **** it like this, we could end up causing permanent damage."

So Miss Martian's on the Watchtower now too? Diana thought. The Martian's niece being up here would be... very helpful. For the Justice League, of course.

Then she had another thought, one slightly more troubling.

"What about Kara?" Diana asked, "Have you tried this with her yet?"

If they had been rooting around Kara's mind, it's possible they might have found something... bad. Would he have said it aloud in front of her if he did though?

"Once by myself, and once with M'gann's help," Martian Manhunter replied, "However, it takes far more effort to even attempt it, and all of our progress is undone within seconds of us letting go of her mind. What's more, with her being under the effects of the pheromones for so long, Supergirl's actual psyche has adapted to the point where just removing the pheromone's influence isn't enough to repair the damage caused."

Flash furrowed his brow under his mask, "So what, Kara's at the point where she's just... accepted it?"

"It would be more accurate to say that she is no longer able to tell the difference between her own thoughts and those that the pheromone has implanted in her," J'onn answered, "In the case of Power Girl, the effect of Luthor's pheromone was immediate and drastic, so once the feelings induced by it are removed she is able to think like her old self again, at least until those feelings reassert themselves. But the gradual way in which this Charlie's pheromones worked on Supergirl, and the length of time she has been living without any knowledge that she's been affected by them, has made it so that getting her back to normal would require us to go far deeper into her mind and repair it piece by piece."

"Well could you do that?" Superman asked.

Martian Manhunter frowned, "Theoretically it's possible. But with the state she's currently in, it could take days, possibly weeks of work to undo everything. And without a way to neutralize the pheromone's current effects on her mind, any work we do is likely to be undone within moments of us pulling back out. Not to mention that if Charlie's natural pheromones are like Luthor's, subsequent attempts will be even harder to accomplish as the mind adapts to our meddling, which in turn leads to the same problem of causing psychological damage that we have with Power Girl."

"So if we want your method to have a viable chance at working with either of them, we need to find a more permanent way to neutralize the pheromone's effects first," Batman said, "And if we screw this up, we could make it worse."

"If psychic pressure alone isn't enough to fix them, there might be some modification to the brain itself going on," Flash suggested, "I know it sounds crazy, but maybe the changes aren't sticking because their brains have somehow become physically hardwired to act that way. Once nothing is there to **** them to think against it, their own brain makes their thoughts start slipping back into this obsessive state."

"Good thinking," Batman said, "We should put both Supergirl and Power Girl through a brain scan and see if we can spot any abnormalities that could be responsible for that. If we can fix those, then the Martians might have a better shot at getting the two back to normal."

"Would Power Girl even sit still long enough for one of those?" Diana asked, "From what I've heard, she's getting more agitated and hostile the longer we keep her separated from Luthor."

"I may not be able to get her mind back to normal yet, but I can still put her in a trance if needed," Martian Manhunter said, "Though would doing so while she's being scanned interfere with the results?"

"Possibly, but we can have restraints ready to hold her in place long enough to complete the scan," Batman said.

"And Wonder Woman and I can hold her down if and when those fail," Superman added, glancing over at Diana briefly. Not sure what else she could do, Diana gave him a nod back.

"Very well," Martian Manhunter said, "Just let me know when you need my assistance in transporting her. Until then, I should return to M'gann and help her with escorting the girls to their cells."

"Thanks for your help, J'onn," Superman said. As the Martian turned and left the room however, the Man of Steel rubbed his forehead with his fingers and repeated, "'Escorting the girls to their cells'... just hearing him say that about my own family..."

"We're doing everything we can to help them, Clark," Batman said softly, "But right now, this is the safest course of action for everyone."

Seeing an opportunity, Diana glared at Batman and said, "Is it really though, Bruce? I could understand wanting to keep Power Girl away from Luthor, but Kara has been nothing but cooperative with us so far. Not to mention she's shown far more self-control than her cousin as well. Continuing to treat her like a criminal might end up souring her against us."

Granted, the only reason Kara has been docile so far was due to Diana promising her that playing along for now would be the best way to help Charlie, and even then she wasn't entirely sure how long the hot-headed girl's patience would last. But the rest of the League definitely didn't need to know that.

Batman met her gaze with a steely one of his own, "She's still under the control of Charlie. He may not be Luthor, but given that he is still an unknown to us..."

"Maybe to you," Flash said, leaning back in his chair, "But I've been keeping an eye on him for months now, and he doesn't really scream 'prospective supervillain' to me. He's just a regular guy... a bit of a bonehead maybe, but he's got a good heart."

"That was before he found out he was more than just Supergirl's boyfriend," Batman pointed out, "Now that he knows that she is incapable of saying no to his requests, how long until he lets that power go to his head? Regular people have a way of being corrupted by power when it is suddenly thrust upon them."

"Barry wasn't," Flash said, counting off on his hand as he listed more names, "Neither was Vic, or Hal..."

"Hey, I had training, and an entire Lantern Corps to guide me down the right path," Green Lantern said, jabbing his finger onto the table in protest, "Plus mind control is a whole different can of worms than anything we have. Well, except the Martians. And maybe Arthur, if you count his whole 'talking to fish' thing as mind control."

Aquaman let out a derisive snort at this, "Calling it that is not entirely untrue, but I don't permanently enslave other creatures to my will. And we all use telepathy, which requires a conscious effort unlike these pheromones. I'm not sure if any of us could properly mentor him in how to ethically use his power over Kryptonians, if there even is one."

"I'd still trust him with it over Luthor," Diana said, "Besides, Charlie's intimidated by us. He was so nervous he was barely able to talk to me when I interrogated him. I doubt he's going to try anything."

"For now, but how long will that last?" Batman asked.

"Likely longer than you think if we didn't keep him locked up for something he can't control and treating him like a criminal for it," Diana answered, "Power can corrupt people, yes, but so can prolonged unjust treatment."

Batman's eyes narrowed at her, "You're not suggesting we let him do whatever he wants with Supergirl, are you?"

"No, of course not," Diana said. At least not yet. "But his power only affects female Kryptonians, and we have the only two on the Watchtower already. Why continue detaining him here when letting him go home keeps him even further away from them?"

"She has a point," Superman said, "As long as we keep Kara and Karen up here with us, his power is harmless on Earth. We could let him go back to his life, possibly with someone like Wally or me to keep an eye on him, and if we need him again we can always bring him back up here."

"Except right now we still don't fully know how his pheromones even work," Batman pointed out, "And with Luthor not telling us anything about how to recreate his artificial pheromone, Charlie is currently our only readily available source of them for testing, and by extension our best shot at learning more about both of them. There might be other effects we don't know about yet."

"Didn't we recover any data from Luthor's computers on it?" Diana asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from any talk about 'other effects', "Surely we can create some synthetic version of the pheromone from that."

"There was some of his preliminary analysis on the pheromone itself, as well as a few projected simulations of how it interacts with Kryptonians," Cyborg said, bringing up the data on his projected screen, "But he didn't have any data on how he recreated it stored on his servers. And I checked all of them."

"He probably didn't want to write it down anywhere in case we caught him, or another villain tried stealing his research," Batman said, "And Luthor has an eidetic memory, so he likely has already memorized the process. We should assume that given access to the right resources, he could easily make more even without a recipe sheet in front of him."

"And that's assuming he didn't plan on being caught," Superman said, "He was prepared for Kara and Karen when they showed up, and even had a second grenade for me on his person."

"And Charlie mentioned to me that he was kept sedated until Luthor had his prototype ready," Diana added, "If he was aware of how it would affect Power Girl and that she would become more agitated the longer they were kept separated, he might be counting on her eventually breaking him out."

"Hence why we have the Kryptonite cell," Batman said.

"We can't keep her in there forever," Superman protested, "Long-term exposure to Kryptonite radiation like that could cause irreversible physical damage."

"The way we have it set up, she'll only have constant exposure if she doesn't stop trying to escape."

Superman slammed his fist on the table, "And you don't think she'll reach that point? It's hard enough having to keep her locked up, if she ends up permanently crippled or worse because of that damn cell..."

"Like Batman said, it's only temporary," Cyborg said as he turned off his eye projector, "We're already working with S.T.A.R. Labs to build a more permanent cell, one that will keep both her and Kara contained using a red sun radiation generator. The current design is too big for the Watchtower though, so we'll likely have to put it under the Hall of Justice."

"Oh, like that's supposed to make me feel better," Superman grumbled.

"Well given that Kryptonians are adapted to live under a red sun, it won't hurt them at least," Cyborg said with a shrug, "That's the best news I can give you."

"How long until it's complete?" Diana asked.

"We haven't finished designing it, but it's already looking like construction will take a few months minimum," Cyborg admitted, "At least not without some super help."

He looked to Superman, who just sighed and said, "Even if I did help construct it and speed things up, do we even have that kind of time? At the rate this pheromone's effects are progressing, Karen could be completely out of control in a matter of hours."

"If we put Kara in the same cell, perhaps we can convince her to help with keeping Karen contained and buy us additional time," Diana suggested, "If we tell her that Power Girl getting to Luthor would put Charlie in danger, I'm sure she'd cooperate."

"At the moment, keeping them together is too risky," Batman said, "They could either conspire with one another to escape, or tear each other apart in a crazed frenzy fighting over which of their 'true loves' is better."

Drat, he's already considered them escaping together, Diana thought.

Green Lantern furrowed his brow as he realized something, "Wait a second, why is Kara still obsessed with Charlie and not Luthor? They were both exposed to the gas, right? So why was she completely unaffected by it?"

Batman leaned forward, chin resting on his hands in thought, "The only difference between the two other than age is that Kara was already exposed to Charlie's pheromones beforehand. It's possible that his pheromones might have immunized her to the effects of Luthor's."

Diana had already thought about this herself, and came to a conclusion that she almost said aloud right then and there. But even now she held her tongue, worried that if she were to suggest the possibility herself it might look too suspicious. Luckily, it seemed that Wally had the same thought she did, and none of the reservations about voicing it.

"Hey, you think it's possible that Charlie's pheromones might be more powerful than Luthor's?" the speedster asked, "If his imitation version is weaker than the original, maybe it can be overwritten."

Pouncing on the statement, Diana asked, "Are you saying we might be able to use Charlie's pheromones to undo the effects of Luthor's?"

"Maybe?" Flash said with a shrug, "I dunno. It's a long shot, but it would be a convenient way to keep her away from Luthor permanently."

"Charlie's pheromones might also be harder to cure," Batman pointed out, "While it benefits us in the short term to replace Luthor's pheromones with Charlie's, it could end up making Power Girl harder to cure."

"Batman has a point," Superman said, "J'onn said that he was already having more trouble with fixing Kara."

"Yeah, but that could also just be because she's been under their effects longer," Flash countered, "Besides, right now we're no closer to fixing either of them, and if Power Girl breaks out of that cell somehow what's our plan B?"

"She won't break out," Cyborg said confidently.

"But Luthor might," Diana said, "If he gets out, he might find Power Girl's cell and break her out himself."

"I wouldn't put it past him," Superman admitted, "Especially if him getting captured was part of his plan the whole time. Plus, it isn't like I haven't been in a similar situation. If Karen gets **** enough, she might figure out a way to escape you haven't thought of."

"Her? Outthink Batman?" Aquaman scoffed, "Is that even possible?"

"I doubt it," Green Lantern said, "Luthor on the other hand..."

"You think I would underestimate Lex Luthor?" Batman asked incredulously, "We frisked him before we put him in his cell. He has no weapons, no hidden devices... we even checked for any implants he might have gotten without our knowledge. He's completely clean."

"Would lacking any of those stop you?" Superman asked.

Batman stared him dead in the eye. "...I'm Batman."

"And he's Lex Luthor. No offense Bruce, but this is my villain, not yours. I know him, and he's always got some trick up his sleeve, even if we can't see it yet."

"So you want to just let Charlie get a second Kryptonian under his control because you're afraid of Luthor?"

"I'm not afraid of Luthor," Superman said, "I'm afraid of what he would make Karen do."

"What's the difference?" Aquaman asked, "Either way you're taking power from an enemy we know and giving it to one we don't."

"Charlie's not our enemy," Diana said, the words slipping out of her mouth a little too easily.

"And Sinestro wasn't an enemy of the Green Lantern Corps until he decided that his power was better used to oppress people than protect them," Green Lantern said, "Even if he hasn't done anything yet, now that he knows about his power we have no idea how the kid's going to react if we actually leave him alone in a room with Kara."

"For that matter, we don't even know what Power Girl would do if we put them in the same room," Batman said, "For all we know, his pheromones might not work on her at all, and she'll use the chance to take him as a hostage."

Diana hadn't thought of that. If they actually tried this and Charlie got hurt...

"Hey, I know she's getting ****, but she's still Power Girl," Flash said, "She wouldn't resort to that... would she?"

"It's possible," Superman said, "If I didn't arrive before she was done with Mercy, Kara might have killed Luthor to protect Charlie. If Karen decided she wanted to protect Luthor, and thought threatening Charlie would be the only way for her to do that..."

"Well if she does get too handsy with him, I could manually retract the shielding and give her a not-so-healthy dose of Kryptonite," Cyborg said, "Then we pull him out and try something else. I mean, we'd have someone there supervising it, right?"

"We could have one of the Martians there," Diana suggested, "J'onn said he could send her into a trance. If it looks like she's getting aggressive-"

"You're talking about this like we've already reached a decision," Aquaman said. Turning to Wonder Woman specifically, he added, "I'd think an Amazon would be more against subjugating a woman to a man's will."

Doing her best to keep cool despite being called out, Diana responded, "Karen is already subjugated to a man's will no matter what we do. While I would love to free her mind entirely, right now we have no way to do that, and every moment we spend talking about it is another moment that she spirals deeper into an obsession for Luthor, a man we know would use his power to **** her and others. It's not a matter of it being the right decision, it's one of choosing the lesser of two evils."

"Trading one set of chains for another doesn't solve the problem," Green Lantern countered, "And for all we know, it could make the problem worse. What if we do this, and then we find out Luthor's version of the pheromones is easier to cure? We risk shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this."

"And what if Power Girl or Luthor escape before we find a cure for either of them?" Flash asked, "If one of them escapes their cell, they'll probably free the other. At least this way we can make sure that won't happen."

"We can't keep Luthor locked up here forever anyway," Cyborg said, "Eventually his lawyers are going to start calling us and asking why we're still holding him on the Watchtower without due process or a trial. Our status will only get us so far in keeping a man like Luthor detained, and with the legal team at his disposal we could be **** to let him into the custody of someone less ready to hold him, or more likely out on bail. And if he still has a chance at getting his hands on Power Girl when that happens..."

"Wouldn't getting him off the Watchtower solve the problem of him breaking her out?" Aquaman asked, "That was Diana's argument for letting Charlie go."

"Charlie doesn't have a multibillion dollar corporation at his disposal," Batman answered, "Or a legion of supervillains that he's likely funding under the table. If he really did orchestrate the Paris attack-"

"That's enough!" Superman declared, standing up from his seat. Every other mouth at the table shut, and every eye turned to him, "We can sit here debating back and forth about this all day, but all we'll be doing is wasting valuable time we could be using to actually start fixing Kara and Karen!"

He sat back down in his seat, and sighed before saying, "Look, we all agree that Flash's plan isn't exactly the easiest to stomach, but right now it's all we've got. We've heard arguments both for and against, so I think the best thing to do would be to just put it to a vote. All in favor of attempting to use Charlie's pheromones to try and counter Luthor's-"

"I vote No," Batman snapped, glaring at everyone else at the table, "And anyone who votes in favor of this insane plan is a moron."

"Well, I guess that's my cue then," Flash said, raising his hand. Upon getting glared at by Batman, he said, "Look, I don't like it either, but at the end of the day I trust Charlie way more than I trust Luthor. He's had plenty of chances to have Kara do something bad or take advantage of her in their relationship, and as far as I can tell he hasn't. Hell, from what I've seen he's as horrified by his power as we are. I say we give him a chance to use it to help us out."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but for once I agree with Batman," Green Lantern said, "This plan is completely insane. We have no real clue what kind of person this kid is, and you think a few months of eating fast food with him tells you how he's going to handle this kind of power? I vote No too."

Diana stayed quiet for the moment. While the best possibility for Charlie would be if he got control of Power Girl as well, she was already starting to show more hints of her true motivations than she would have liked, and had even been called on it once already. Plus, she didn't like the idea of putting Charlie's safety at risk if the plan didn't end up working. It might be safer to vote 'No' and stay with the majority...

"Hey, from what I've seen of his online presence, the guy isn't really a threat to anybody," Cyborg said, raising his hand, "Plus, the worst case scenario with him can be solved with the Kryptonite we already have. He has no resources or experience with being a bad guy, so if he lets the power get to his head we could smack him down much easier than we ever could Luthor. We're taking a risk either way, so I vote we take the one that keeps Power Girl out of Luthor's grasp for good."

"All of us have seen firsthand how much damage one Kryptonian can do," Aquaman stated, "And you're suggesting we give someone control over two of them? Even if we discount the fact that we're talking about the free will of others, that kind of power should not be wielded by someone with no sense of the kind of responsibility that power entails. I'm voting No as well."

"Hey Arthur, remind me again how old were you when you got that magic trident of yours and became the absolute monarch of Atlantis?" Flash asked sarcastically, "Because I doubt it was much older than Charlie is now."

"I earned both of those, Kid Flash," Aquaman growled, which immediately cause a sour look to appear on Flash's face. Gripping the handle of said golden trident tightly, the king of the seas continued, "And if you mean to compare me to that boy..."

"Both of you, stop it," Superman scolded, "Wally, Arthur has a point. Charlie has had this ability thrust on him all at once. There's a huge temptation there for ****, and it only makes sense to be wary about how he might use it going forward."

Okay, Diana thought, It seems clear Clark is going to vote No. At that point it won't matter what I vote, so if I just vote 'No' myself then-

"However."

A stillness fell over the room, one that set Diana on the edge of her seat. Is he really about to...

"From everything we know and seen of him so far, Charlie has never shown any intention of hurting Kara or exploiting her for his own gain. He's known that she was Supergirl since the beginning, and despite her devotion to him, and how **** she was with him, he has shown that he genuinely cared about her. For Pete's sake, he risked his life to try and protect her from Metallo, even though he likely knew it was futile. I think he's earned at least a little trust from us."

Batman had a look of utter disbelief on his face at hearing this, "Clark, think about what you're saying for a moment. This is your cousin we're talking about. You're willingly give her over to this person you only recently met?"

"I did think about it," Superman said, "And if Karen was currently under the control of almost anyone else, I likely wouldn't. But this is Lex Luthor we're talking about. If he manages to get his claws into her any deeper than he already has, it doesn't put just her at risk, but the entire world as well. Compared to that, I think even Karen herself would prefer to be under Charlie's influence. Besides, I'm not 'giving her over' to him. Once his pheromones do their job, we'll still be able to separate them afterwards like we're already doing with Kara."

Superman raised his hand, then looked around the table, "So that's three for Yes, and... Wonder Woman, I think you're our tiebreaker."

Everyone at the table turned to look at her, and instantly Diana felt the pressure on her. This was the worst possible scenario. She had waited too long, and now she was not only last to vote, but the tiebreaking vote as well. Unless someone changed their vote at the last second, which didn't appear likely, it was now all up to her whether they were going to let Charlie try to take control of Power Girl or not.

Obviously, that was what Diana wanted to vote for. Two devoted Kryptonians keeping him safe was better than one, and taking Power Girl away from Luthor, who would likely use her to attack Charlie again, was a nice bonus. Plus, she knew Charlie would appreciate having access to Power Girl's ample chest, which was even larger than her own, so she was a good one to pick up on that front as well.

However... she heavily suspected the original Wonder Woman, the one she was before she met Charlie, would vote against such a proposal. The very act of treating Power Girl like she was just some asset rather than a woman with her own thoughts and consciousness was too reminiscent of the Amazon's own history, as Aquaman had implied before. And while she might have been able to cover for her slip-ups so far, voting Yes on this proposal might rouse those suspicions once more, from both him and Batman. And even if her vote didn't come off that way to the others, there was no guarantee this plan would actually work. She would be putting Charlie into a cell with a crazed Kryptonian on a hunch, and even if every precaution was taken she wasn't sure if she was willing to risk him getting hurt.

Everyone was waiting for her to make a decision, and she had to do it now. It was already suspicious enough that she had waited until everyone else had voted, but now that suspicion would only heighten every second she continued to wait.

Going with her gut instinct, Diana opened her mouth and made her choice known.