Chapter Text
Alex had been on her own for some time now, she was beginning to think that it was meant to be that way. She had her job and she had her sister, with friends around her. There was no love in her life, not anymore. She had tried the dating scene and it didn’t work for her. She just couldn’t do it.
All Alex did now, was support her sister, go to work and go home. And live with the biggest mistake she ever made every single day in the meantime. But she carried on, that’s all she could do. She came to the acceptance that her work put her parenthood on hold, when she lost her adoption over a year ago and when she felt that sudden relief, she knew a baby perhaps wasn’t meant to be. And the price she paid by cutting out the love of her life for it ate at her every day. But she carried on. That’s all she could do.
Being the Director of the DEO for sure took her mind off of things the majority of her days, sometimes she had no choice but to think of the DEO and the DEO only with everything that she encounters pretty much every single day, many days it took up most of her thoughts. There had been a wave of alien interference lately, but it wasn’t that which was keeping her busy exactly.
“Again?” Alex breathed with a short temper, dropping her hands to her hips as she looked to the screens at the front of her base. “How the hell are they getting there before we are? How do they know?”
She turned to Winn who remained at his computer. “You don’t have any other vigilantes you’ve been helping out, right?” Her tone was stern enough for Winn to know that she actually was not asking that with humor.
“What?” He scoffed with a frightened laugh in the back of his throat. “N-No. No. I do not, Guardian was a one-time thing.” He swallowed thickly when she raised a brow to him. He quickly held out his hand. “You know you can get the truth out of me within seconds. I don’t bother lying to you anymore.”
After a few more lingering stern stares, Alex finally looked away, she knew he wasn’t a part of this. It was just so damn frustrating as to not knowing who is. There had been someone new on the scene, who lately had been interfering with the nightlife of the city. They were doing a good job, Alex had to admit. By the time the DEO arrived the perp was more or less just left for them to collect like a sack of laundry. Kara even spoke to the NCPD and they were having the same issue. Alex isn’t as much in contact with the NCPD as she used to be. Alex doesn’t know how she could deal with trying to work with the woman who was her absolute world and be any kind of professional, it would simply torture her till she’d break. That’s what she told herself anyway and so she avoids it, just in case.
Alex turned when she heard the sound of her sister flying to enter the building, seeing Kara walk down the steps and sigh lightly. “Well. Yet again they’ve left no trace but we’ve had another martian doing shady deals under custody to be taken for questioning.”
“But how are they getting all the underground stuff?”
Kara shrugged. “They’ve been at it for two weeks now—" when stepping forward, she glanced to Winn. “You haven’t given out any vigilante tips lately have you?”
“Okay,” Winn held his hands up, getting from his seat. “That all went down nearly four years ago! You Danvers sisters need to cool off.”
“I feel like we’re playing cat and mouse,” Alex muttered, looking back to the screens. “If we’re so much on the side then why are they running when we catch up?” She sucked in a breath and looked over to Kara, speaking in a more uttering tone, “Have you...spoke to the science division at the NCPD?”
“The NCPD as a whole have no leads as to who it is that is getting all these aliens…” she shook her head and spoke quietly as if just for Alex’s ears only to hear, “I told you, I never see her.”
Alex soon pulled her eyes away and simply cleared her throat. She hated when Kara did that. The one thing Supergirl doesn’t have is telekinesis and yet somehow she still finds it possible to read Alex’s mind. Because Maggie was always on her mind, even when she didn’t realize it.
Every time Alex walked into Al’s she felt like she shouldn’t. After she and Maggie broke up she felt like it was no longer her place to come to, Maggie was the one who brought her here in the first place. This was her bar more than it ever was her. But it seemed that maggie stopped coming, maybe the memories were too much, Alex would never really know. But since her sister and friends still wanted to come here, it was almost like she had no choice.
There were times where she would glance to the door and ache for her to walk in, just to see her again, it was almost a curiosity as to what she would do. What would she say? What would she do? Would she go to her? Sometimes she would even envision Maggie coming through the door. But that would end in Alex grabbing her and kissing her, something told herself that that wouldn’t happen.
Their breakup was nothing but amicable but Alex soon feared not far off that maybe Maggie would hate her. Because she hated herself, most days for it.
“Alex.” She was pulled out of her thoughts by Lena who stood in front of her, Alex took a long blink and took in a breath with the shake of her head. “Sorry. What?”
“I said what’re you having? First-round is on me.”
“Oh,” Alex laughed breathlessly, putting her hand on Lena’s arm for a moment and clearing her throat, glancing to the bar. “Just a beer, thanks.”
As Lena made her way over to the bar with Winn and J’onn, Alex sat down at the table towards the back of the bar where Kara was along with Brainy and Nia. Nia looked to Alex as she sat down and read her face, which wasn’t hard that much for anyone to do. “You seem like you need a drink more than all of us.”
Alex just tightened the corner of her lips when looking at Nia as Kara commenting also on her sister's face. “She’s just irritated that she hasn’t caught this attempted little crime fighter.”
Alex sucked in a breath and she ran her fingers through her hair when leaning back in her chair, then pointing to the blonde. “It’s half your problem too.”
Brainy looked between the two of them and shrugged. “Director if you need me to return to the DEO to look into the matter further I will greatly do so.”
Alex folded her arms; she leaned down on the table. “Thanks, Brainy. But we’re off duty now and I doubt doing a night shift will change anything right now so we may as well just drink.”
Lena soon arrived over to the table and put a scotch instead of a beer in front of Alex. “And so you’re in need of this. Not a beer.”
Alex glanced up to the Luthor and muttered a thank you, cause deep down that was truly what she wanted and clearly, Lena read that like a book. As Lena and Winn sat down between the two Danvers’ sisters, Nia waved her hands. “Anyway enough work talk, tonight we are just going to have a drink like regular people.”
Alex remembers the way she used to delicately place the glass of scotch in her hand in their apartment. How she used to say the exact same thing. “Enough shop talk, babe. Just us now.”
Once again she just cleared her throat and picked up her glass, giving it a slight tip to the young hero as agreement to no more shop talk. But that wasn’t going to stop her from thinking about it, cause it was frustrating the hell out of her.
Winn then raised his own bottle. “Well, I’ll drink to no work tonight.”
They clinked all their glasses together and Alex soon tried to allow herself to forget the trouble in her head and just have herself enjoy the moment with her friends and with her sister. They were all she had, after all, she can’t waste the time that she has with them. Especially not in the job that she has and the life that leads. Which was the biggest thing that made her realize that a baby maybe wasn’t meant for her like she thought it would be.
When she envisioned a baby it was back when she was young, when she went to college she went to be a bio-engineer like her mother, and granted she still was one, but if she had gone down the regular path she would be working in a lab all day. A nice safe lab with the guarantee she would return home without any bruises, but life has taken her in a different direction. When she envisioned that stuff she also thought she would marry a man so it was evident how little she knew about herself.
One scotch went down and then on the next round, she just got down to half of her beer when her phone suddenly began to ring. It was Vasquez, who was currently doing a night shift at the DEO. Alex got up from her table and walked away, leaving everyone in there laughing and all-around jolly spirits. “Vasquez?”
“Director Danvers. I know it’s your night off but I figured you’d want to know, we’ve been tracking that Starhavenite y’know who was involved with the smuggling?"
“Yeah, go on.”
“And we got a tip that a deal is going to happen again tonight...with Black Kryptonite.”
Alex glanced over to Kara and then put her sole focus back on the phone call. “You know where this Starhavenite is?”
“Got the address.”
“Have a car ready outside the DEO. I’m on my way." Alex hung up the phone and put the phone back in her pocket as she turned back to the table and didn’t bother sitting back down. “Hey so I gotta go, Vasquez just called on a tip about that smuggler.”
Kara sat up straight as well as everyone else around her as she asked. “You want me to come?”
“No, I can handle this. If we need you then you’ll know.” Alex preferred it at times where she could just get left to do the cases, to take the lead on things. She loved working with Kara, they were a great time. But she was the Director and there were times where she wanted to, well, direct cases herself.
And Kara most times picked up on that, which is why in this case, she didn’t push or insist. She knew how badly Alex wanted to get her hands on the new vigilante on the scene, to bring them in and question for herself. So she just nodded to her. “Alright. Be safe.”
“Yeah, always.”
Alex turned on her heel and soon made her way out of the bar, quicker than she probably anticipated.
Alex didn’t have time to get into her Director’s gear but right now that didn’t matter. She had her gun and her stun bites, that was all that she really needed to handle what she was about to handle.
“Supergirl?” Vasquez asked as Alex came over and opened the door. Alex then simply shook her head. “Is sitting this one out. If I need her I’ll call, but sometimes the big guns aren’t needed.”
Alex got in the black four-by-four with Vasquez and they were soon on route to the primary location of their new suspect. Vasquez pulled outside the apartment building across the street. “So what are your orders now, Director?”
“Now we wait.”
Vasquez sat back in her seat and couldn’t help but look almost excited when rubbing her palms together. “Good old-fashioned stakeout. Some Detective level shit.” And like a flash, a sudden memory came seeping into Alex’s mind as this all seemed all too familiar.
Alex stared out to the building as she chewed down on her slice of pizza, then heard Maggie sigh beside her. “I’m sorry, baby," Alex looked and Maggie and shrugged as though it was nothing, but Maggie shook her head. “I know this isn’t exactly how we planned our one-year anniversary.”
This was true, they did have reservations at one of the top restaurants in the city. But Maggie was ordered into work and she couldn’t get out of it no matter how hard she had tried. But Alex still wanted to spend their anniversary together and so she joined Maggie on the long stakeout.
Still, Maggie felt guilty, and Alex could tell; so it was her job to make her feel better, she ‘pfft’ a small raspberry in a light-hearted brush off, her voice going up a small semi-tone. “What? First of all, I happen to like stakeouts. Second of all, I got my pizza, I got my coffee and more importantly, I’ve got my gorgeous woman next to me. Sounds like a good anniversary date to me.”
Maggie cracked a smile when cocking a brow as she picked up the paper bag in between them with two fingers and hold it up. “Don’t forget donuts.”
Alex rolled her eyes with a small smirk lingering. “I am with a cop I always know donuts are a given.”
It was then Maggie who rolled her eyes at the stereotype and put the paper bag back down. She then sat back in her seat. “Seriously, you’re not even a little bit pissed?”
“You’d know if I was,” Alex cooed. Her hand slipped into the back of Maggie’s hair as a smile grew. “I promise you I’m not. Besides we have many more anniversaries to come that we will spend in a dumb restaurant.”
Alex leaned herself forward and captured a loving kiss, Maggie’s fingers curled her fingers under Alex’s chin, the diamond from her engagement ring pressed softly to Alex’s skin whilst the kiss lasted. They gazed at each other for a moment; Alex then leaned back in her seat as they both looked back to the building.
Though Maggie found herself taking another look at Alex and still having a smile on her lips, her head shook when her eyes went back out the window, muttering as she took the coffee to her lips. “I love you.”
She thought that a lot. How she promised Maggie more anniversaries, more years together. Their life together and how she just took it all away, how she ruined the entire thing for what was now a wasted dream. Alex was pulled out of her vivid memory and the pain it now brought as Vasquez suddenly snatched her attention back when sitting up in her seat. “Director. Starhavenite. They’re on the move.”
Alex’s head snapped over and saw their suspect for herself leave the apartment building and make its way down the street, to the alley. “You hang back.”
Vasquez looked at her. “Director?”
“Tell your fellow agents in the other car to hang back, I’ll go ahead. The less fanfare we cause the better so you don’t move until I say so.”
Vasquez took her orders as the good agent that she was. “Yes ma’am.” She watched as Alex exited the car and left her second in command to give out the orders that she was just given.
Her gun was resting in her holster, ready to go at any given minute if needed to actually use it. She quickly and swiftly made her way over to the alley, she peered her head around and saw the alien make his way down the street, and then as if just like clockwork, the hooded vigilante she had been dying to make an appearance came at the other end of the alley. Bingo.
They were petite, Alex would say around 5’2. Their figure was slim and delicate, they were a woman, Alex now had no doubt by the way their body was built that this was a woman. A quick and agile one at that.
The figure moved quickly, jumping up against the wall only to push off it and come down from the air in a harsh punch to land perfectly and then hitting the martian in its jaw to knock it immediately off balance. It was like watching a beautifully choreographed dance, the way they moved so effortlessly and swiftly. Alex almost hated to break it up. Almost.
Alex took out her stun bug which was the size of a quarter and threw it forward; it stuck to the martian’s neck and from the volts that shot through its body, it fell down onto the floor out cold. Suddenly the vigilante figure looked up, half their face covered with a bandana of some kind but their hood fell back to show the short mousey brown bob. Alex her thumb down on another one of her stun bites, ready to activate it but in the beginning held off.
“I think you and I need to talk,” Alex dryly quipped.
A small breath escaped from the girl as if amused. “I’m good.” She turned on her heel and made a quick run for it.
“Stop! God damn-” she put her voice down her coms as she started to run. “Martian subject in alley sided at the apartment building, get him-I am in pursuit of our little helper from the past few weeks. Small brunette I’d say around five-two, she’s fast-stand by.”
Alex kept up her speed and found herself edging closer and closer, perhaps she was faster than what she gave herself credit for, “Stop!” She lunged forward when closing the gap a tad more and caught the girl’s elbow.
The girl came to a sudden half and as quick as lightning she turned with her fist meeting Alex first, socking her right on the jaw in a heavy blow; it was a hit that knocked Alex down the ground without so much as a stumble from her taking complete surprise by the notion, Alex held her face and moved her jaw to grasp on the impact she had just received when she heard the young girl deadpan a matter of, “Oh shit.” As she stood over her.
“Director!” Vasquez ran towards them both, seeing her boss on the floor holding her jaw after being assaulted, she glazed over to the young girl who now seemed slightly stunned, and held up her gun to her. “Hands up!”
Alex looked up to her, watching her pull her bandana down to show her full face, and spoke more clearly. “It was an impulse! I didn’t mean to-I’m on your side!” sSe was young, younger than Alex initially thought. She was a teenager. Vasquez glanced back to Alex who still remained on the ground and scoffed when looking back. “Yeah really seems like it.” She made her way over to the girl and pulled her arms down behind her back as she cuffed her. “Director Danvers, you okay?”
The girl muttered again, to herself. “Oh, fuck, the Director, well fucking done.”
Alex just nodded when picking herself up, she was actually half impressed at the punch she stood before the girl and got a good look at her. “Jesus, how old are you?”
The girl didn’t answer, she just stared and so Alex just nodded to Vasquez behind her and had her taken away to be brought back to the DEO. Alex pressed the back of her hand against her lip and saw the blood, she really got a meaning hook in. So much so that now Alex was bleeding. Alex can hardly remember the last time someone made her bleed that easily. Either this girl was highly impressive or Alex is having a really off night.
Regardless, Alex was just glad that she could finally put a face to the several unconscious bodies that had been left for them to all pickup, Alex made her way out of the alley and watched as Vasquez put the young girl in the back of the van that her two other agents came in on.
As Alex walked over to the car, Vasquez looked at her. “You wanna keep her till morning?”
“The night is still young,” Alex over to the van and then back to Vasquez. “We can hold her under now federal assault charges...and something tells me it could take a while to get things out of her.”
Alex wasn’t going to let this go easy, she wanted the full story, of who this girl was and why she had been spending the past few weeks doing what she had been doing. How she was doing it. So it was safe to say they had things to discuss.