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BREAKING NEWS
Supergirl Sighted!
Clark Kent, Daily Planet
The citizens of Metropolis were surprised today by the sudden re-appearance of National City's favored hero, Supergirl. The nation has waited with bated breath over the last four weeks since the unexplained disappearance of Supergirl. Last sighted leaving National City Children's Hospital annual fundraiser after a record breaking night, Supergirl has not been seen since.
Until tonight.
Appearing with Superman to combat a five alarm dock side fire, the Maiden of Might paused just long enough for this reporter to confirm the sighting before she flew off, presumably toward National City. Superman was not available for comment.
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"Agent Danvers, what's your 20?"
Agent Alex Danvers grimaced and leaned slightly lower over her motorcycle, seeking to make herself ever so slightly more aerodynamic as she threaded through the rush hour traffic. She grunted as the large red delivery truck from the grocery store swerved far too close for comfort. "Coming up past the 110-15 interchange. Expect me in five."
"We've sighted a bogey coming in fast over your heading. Eyes and ears."
"Copy. Any intel?"
On the other end of the comm, Agent Susan Vasquez glared at their screen, willing the information they needed to display. "Negative. Bogey is unknown, clocking at 500-" Vasquez stopped, then blinked. "Danvers, 10-23."
"Copy." Alex raised her head, sitting up slightly as the road opened before her. A solid half mile stretched ahead with open spaces between cars. Her foot shifted and she dropped gears, the engine revving and allowing her to dart forward. As she was about to slide between two mid sized sedans, one sporting a Supergirl bumper sticker, her comm crackled back to life.
"Confirm, Agent Danvers, bogey headed your way has the same speed signature as American Way."
Alex's heart thudded in her chest at the news.
It had been four fucking weeks since Kara's little disappearing act and every time one of the calls came up, the traitorous heart that beat within Alex's chest continued to jump at the possibility that...that Kara had come back. The infuriating alien had gone fully radio silent with her. What made it more infuriating was that the radio silence only extended to Alex. Kara had made quick irregularly timed calls to the landline at the Danvers house in Midvale to reassure Eliza that she was fine and just working through some things. She'd called in her banked time off at CatCo and the D.E.O., citing a "personal emergency". Her time hanging out with Little Lane had been awful for her skills. As questions starting forming to be asked why Kara was taking the time, Kara sweetly reminded that as California was an at-will state and she wasn't required to return. Before they could even begin to scramble a response, much less a team to respond during those calls, Kara would be gone.
She always was.
And naturally, Clark had been less than helpful, refusing to assist her to even find the Fortress of Solitude, not that Kara would have been there if she were to show up. The farmboy had been just as infuriating in the recent weeks. Not even calling in the big guns in the form of tapping Martha Kent had done shit to get Alex the answers she needed. Clark had remained stoically stubborn in the face of Alex's determination and glare that sent her recruits cowering.
Goddamned infuriating aliens.
"Copy, same signature as American Way. Watch my six."
Alex swung her motorcycle out and over to the off ramp, weaving and sliding through the traffic with an adroitness born of years of practice. As she pulled up to the abandoned warehouse, her brakes screeched to a solid halt, the bike stopping precisely where she wanted it. A scant moment later, her bike secured, Alex rushed toward the door, her eyes taking in the lay of the land. Two sniper nests on the surrounding buildings, and a low hum from behind her-
Alex spun on her heel, her weapon coming to bear solidly within the middle of the garishly large S emblazoned across the chest of the woman that had been haunting her every moment for the last four weeks. She dropped her weapon immediately. "What the fuck!"
"You're fine, they're secured." Kara gave her usual sunny smile. Alex didn't buy it for a second. Despite a natural inclination toward positivity, and need to keep secrets as part of her everyday life, Kara had a worse poker face than Winn. The furrow between her brows, the way her lower lip quivered slightly, even the way her eyes kept darting around as though she were vigilant against an encroaching threat - which Alex knew to be a blatant lie as the threat had apparently just been secured.
"Agent Danvers, copy. Report is accurate."
Alex did not holster her weapon, continuing to glare at the woman before her. Kara shifted slightly from foot to foot. "Copy. Expect my after-action to come over the wire. Danvers, over and out."
She ripped her comm from her ear and unclipped the microphone from her neck, stepping forward. Kara half stepped backward, her eyes darting toward Alex's motorcycle. "You, uh, rode here?"
"Yes." The word was ground out between her clenched jaws.
Kara's shoulders slumped, her eyes dropping to the ground. "I'm-"
"I am not having this conversation here." Alex swung her leg over her bike, kicking it on under an apprehensive blue gaze. "Your place. Ten minutes."
Alex barely heard Kara's protest of "But its a twenty minute drive!" as she revved the engine and spun the bike, releasing the deep roll of the engine. She knew herself well enough to recognize she was both too infuriated to say a word, and to recognize that she had to trust that Kara wouldn't take off the same way she had. If she did, it was highly unlikely that any trust would remain between them, not without an extremely good story.
Like being kidnapped by someone looking specifically for Kryptonian captives. Or having her mother suddenly reappear. Or suddenly being ripped into an alternate dimension.
Alex's fists clenched tightly around the handlebars of her bike.
Somehow, she had a feeling that this wasn't a case of having a good excuse.
She'd give Kara the chance to explain before tearing into her. Maybe Kara would have something better to come up with than the febrile fantasies that had filled Alex's mind over the previous weeks, fueled by too little sleep and food. All she could think of and work toward was finding Kara and bringing her home. Even knowing that Kara was fine, according to the calls to her mother, did nothing to assuage the worry that had gnawed at Alex's insides. The tension had decided to take up residence in a nice bundle just behind her ribcage, thrumming in time with the blood that roared in her ears.
With that impetus, the drive did not take Kara's predicted twenty minutes, but neither did it take Alex's expected ten.
It took precisely twelve and a half minutes before Alex halted her bike in its customary spot, paid for as part of Kara's lease.
She strode through the building, her heavy boots resounding solidly against the carpeted flooring as she made her way to apartment #4A. Each solid thunk of each progressive step on the floor served a drumbeat to the thoughts that lurked within Alex's mind. The smile that Kara had given her, the last time they'd seen one another, with that hint of worry, and how it had looked like it had started to fall as she'd turned away. The way that Kara's hug had been too tight, too strong, as they'd said goodnight.
By the time she'd made it to the door that she'd previously called home, Alex was no less infuriated.
Anger was easier than trying to parse through the rest of what she was feeling.
Sliding her key in the lock, she didn't dare to truly hold any hope that Kara would actually be inside. It was a surprise then, to be met with the sight of Kara, clad in the loose pajamas that Alex knew to be her "breakup" pajamas.
The sight of them caused her step to falter before she continued into the apartment. The short strides between the door and the end of the raised breakfast bar countertop drained her of the bulk of her anger, leaving a cold hollowness in its wake, a universe of emptiness that resided behind her ribs. Leaning her arm against the manufactured granite look-alike, she quietly spoke the only question that mattered.
"What happened, Kara."
Kara's finger rubbed over a bit of well polished metal. Crafted from of the scraps left behind by Fort Rozz, the near indestructible metal had served well as a form of worry stone, allowing Kara to focus her thoughts with a soothing action.
"When I was sixteen and you were home from college, I kissed you."
Alex's mind stuttered and swirled as the memory surfaced, the sweet and soft press of Kara's body against her own, arms that were slightly too strong wrapping around her, lips that were slightly too eager pressing against her, throwing everything of who she was and what she knew to be true in a tailspin.
"We agreed to never bring that up again." Alex's hand clenched, resting against the countertop. "We agreed we wouldn't talk about it."
"No, Alex. You said that." Kara didn't raise her gaze, her cheek resting against the side of her knee as her eyes continued to watch her finger rub over the worry stone.
"You agreed, Kara!" Alex dashed a hand through her hair, feeling the freshly shorn follicles that she'd hoped she'd be able to sport to the bar this week as a way to try and attract a new distraction, preferably not another blonde.
"I agreed we shouldn't talk about it then. I agreed that it was too soon, that we didn't know who we were or what we wanted, Alex." Her finger rubbed in a slow concentric motion, nearly hypnotic as the tip of Kara's finger whitened against the stone from the force she used to press against it. "And you went back to college, and I grew up. I went to college, I dated, and had my heart broken, and came here."
Alex's jaw clenched and she refused to stop staring, the motion of Kara's fingers enough to remind her of the numerous small touches over the years. How it felt to have Kara's fingers threading through her hair during a movie night, how the soft press of Kara's lips against her forehead soothed her.
How much she had to drink to forget.
"I came here, to the city you'd made a home in, and found my own home here, found my own friends, my own purpose in life. And I was still alone, and still heart broken, and still! Still I remembered what you said, how I didn't know what I was doing, that I couldn't understand because I wasn't from here, that we had to be sisters."
Alex swallowed as the title she'd hidden behind for years was spat out with a venom she wasn't used to hearing from the preternaturally sunny woman that sat, curled up on herself on the same couch that had borne witness to all too many Danvers Sisters Nights. Nights spent cuddling together, stealing glances at each other when the other wasn't looking, sharing ice cream and pizza and sometimes, rarely, even potstickers.
Kara's fingertips were nearly fully white from the force she used to press against the worry stone trapped in her grip.
"Do you have any idea how much I hate that? Calling you that?" Kara laughed hollowly, the hand that wasn't wrapped around her worry stone wrapping around her own ankle with a loose grip. "But that's all we've ever been able to be. And I thought I could handle that. I thought it would be okay, because there was no way you could ever -"
The choked laugh sounded entirely too full of tears for Alex, and she took an abortive step forward before she clenched her fists at her side, standing like a fool a scant few feet away from the raw and vulnerable woman on the couch. Her jaw worked as her mind scrambled for something to say.
"You would never think of me that way. You made that clear, years ago. And I thought it was fine, because you weren't like that. You weren't interested in aliens, much less female aliens and then-" Kara's hand darted beneath her glasses and rubbed furiously at her eyes.
"They weren't you."
At Alex's rough declaration, Kara's head snapped up and she fixed a forcibly calm gaze on Alex, who stood with her jaw and fists clenched, her frame vibrating with an energy that was barely held back.
"When Dad died, I had to admit some harsh truths to myself. I admitted a lot of things to myself, including how much of a failure I was, and how I could never hope to be the kind of person he was." Alex held up a hand to stymie Kara's expected rebuttal. "And as the years have gone by, I've proven those thoughts right. I have to be my own person and try to do better. So the other thing I admitted to myself, night after night, halfway through another bottle of whiskey, was just how much what I have always felt for you hasn't been sisterly." Alex couldn't meet Kara's gaze, keeping her focus on the worry stone in Kara's hand. "And I had to admit to myself that I couldn't and wouldn't ever act on it because you needed me to be someone else. I had to be the sister you needed and not..."
"Anything else." Kara finished quietly.
Alex laughed softly. "Yes. Anything else." She cleared her throat. "Is this because I told you I was...?" She trailed off, uncertain how to summarize everything of what they had spoken of the last time they'd talked.
"It started when you told me you wanted to try and date women. How could I-" Kara cleared her throat. "How could I tell you not to? And then you actually were dating someone serious enough to tell me her name?"
Alex's mind flickered back to the woman that Kara referred to and couldn't stop the laugh that erupted from her, breathless and hysterical. "She-she broke up with me. Said I was too hung up on you." Alex rubbed her face, taking a few deep breaths to control the outburst. "All I could talk about was you. I couldn't make it past kissing her before I'd have to run off and try and figure out what was going on with you. She got sick of it." Alex dropped her hands from her face, finally looking directly at the side of Kara's face. "She broke it off that same night. I haven't dated anyone since."
"Why?" Soft, curious, Kara's voice wrapped around Alex and allowed her to voice her most recent truth.
"If its not you, its not worth it. Its you. Its always been you." Alex stepped forward, the distance between them reduced to a mere foot. "And if you tell me that we can't, or you don't want to, I will learn to live with that, because I need to be what you need from me."
Kara turned her head and met Alex's clear gaze with her own calm one. "And if I need you to be everything?"
"Then I will be."
Kara set her worry stone down on the coffee table, rising to her feet and reducing the distance between them to less than an arm's length. "And what do you need from me, Alex? You'd give me this, but what do you want?"
Alex's fingers twitched, the ache to brush them through Kara's hair near to overwhelming. "You. In any way I can get you."
Kara ducked her head before looking back up, smiling shyly as she leaned forward, her hands coming to rest on Alex's waist. "I didn't...ask, last time. May I kiss you, Alex?"
Her exhaled breath a sigh, Alex leaned forward. "Yes."