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Kara first hears the door open and thinks that she’s going to hear her name called out. She doesn’t intend to answer, of course, but she’s been in here for more than a few minutes now and the disappearance of Supergirl never goes unnoticed for long.
Mon-El doesn’t mean her any harm. She knows that. This is entirely her own problem, but sue her if she just needs to hide in the corner of a dark training room for fifteen minutes because she just needs to breathe. The joy and relief she’d felt when she’d laid eyes on him on that ship for the first time in seven months had been unparalleled to anything else she’d ever felt in her entire life, but alas, that hadn’t lasted for long. And she can’t hate Imra, either, no matter how much she wants to or how many reasons she has to. They, at least, seem like a good match for each other, and Mon-El, at least, seems content with her.
He asks to grab a drink with her, “after all the Winn stuff is handled.” Kara can hardly refuse, even though a part of her wants to. A moments hesitation and she agrees, perhaps slightly overenthusiastic, and the nonchalant, sickeningly platonic way she says ”See you later, buddy,” and the way he repeats it back to her leaves an acrid, sour, bloody taste in her mouth. She breathes deep breaths as Mon-El exits the conference room, but her lungs still feel only half full and her shoulders are still ever so heavy, and she retreats to the training room downstairs instead. It’s dark, and it’s quiet, and she doesn’t have to people, and for the first time in a while she feels like she can hear herself think again. She isn’t sure how much time passes with her squeezed into the dark corner behind the piece of wall that juts out several feet into the room, hidden from view with her knees drawn up to her chest, but it feels suspiciously long without anybody coming to find her.
So, when she hears the door open and footsteps on the concrete floor, she figures her time-out is up and she inhales sharply to prepare herself to re-enter society again.
No hesitant “Kara?” is called out, though. She stays quiet. There’s two sets of footsteps, now, and she hears the door creak and swing shut heavily behind them. She’s missed her chance.
She shouldn’t be here.
“I just wanted to see your face, Winn, I wanted to hear your voice, I- I wanted my son back.”
She recognises Mary’s voice. Kara really shouldn’t be here. And yet, she doesn’t move. She can’t. She stays hidden, squeezed into the corner, praying they don’t come round and catch her. She holds her breath. Nobody moves.
“I have spent twenty years imagining this moment, and now I… Leaving you, it gutted me,” Mary says. “I have carried that with me, every day of my life, but I had to- Winn, because your father-”
Winn cuts her off, his voice all but dripping with cynicism. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. Let me guess. He threatened your life?” He sounds almost bored.
“No, Winn. He threatened yours.”
Kara can’t breathe. This conversation is very much not meant for her, but now it feels too late to announce herself. Winn has gone quiet. She can only imagine the look on his face. He’d be mortified if she revealed herself now.
“He told me that if I went near you, ever, then he would kill you. And when he died, I thought it was safe, but I was wrong. You’re still in danger!”
“I don’t believe you.” Winn says, blankly.
“You saw what your father did at his own funeral-”
“I saw the last grasping prank of a lunatic. And now what I’m hearing is an excuse, twenty years in the making. Hey, I had twenty years to think, too!” He says scornfully. Kara can hear the hurt in the back of his throat, but mostly, he sounds numb to the tragedies of his past, and angry. That’s justified, she supposes. Winn has never talked about his mother, and up until a few hours ago Kara had simply assumed she was dead. This is so much worse. It’s far too late to leave, now. She waits with baited breath and trembling hands for his next words.
“You want to know what I think about the most?” He continues, voice carefully lowered. Controlled. Almost a whisper. If she didn’t have extraordinary hearing, she thinks she’d have to strain to hear him. “Let me set the scene for you. It’s the night dad finally snapped. And I’m sitting in the police station, freezing cold, ‘cause I’m in my pyjamas- when the police came and picked me up from home, I was asleep, remember? In bed? Alone? The nice officer, he drapes the coat over my shoulders, I feel a little better. So I’m sitting there, and my cold little feet are dangling in the air, and I’m waiting. I’m waiting for my mum, to pick me up.” Kara feels sick. She’s frozen in place, welded to the floor by her own morbid curiosity and her own cowardice. Winn’s voice is trembling now with the effort it’s taking him not to cry. “Cause they said that they’d- they’d called you, yeah, yeah, they said it was just going to be like an hour, and then they’d explain everything, and then it was two hours, and then it was the next morning.”
There’s a pause. Kara can hear his laboured breathing, she can hear how fast his heart is beating, can almost hear the anger simmering underneath his skin, boiling his blood.
“When I lie in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep, I’m not wondering why dad finally, suddenly snapped. No, that doesn’t haunt me. What haunts me is you. You, who left me, when I needed you the most. With no explanation! No goodbye!” His voice has pitched up an octave with the effort it’s taking to will back the tears. Kara blinks, and realises her face is wet. She dares not move to wipe it away.
“I’m so sorry…” Mary begins.
“I don’t care anymore.” Winn says bitterly. This is a lie, given how he’s filled the room with his heartache and put tears in Kara’s eyes with just how much he cares. She hears him storm back over to the door, and she’s on high alert again. This could be her chance. What little sympathy she had felt for Mary to begin with has been incinerated, shredded, and tossed out the window. Just hearing the pain and the anguish in Winn’s voice, without even seeing his face, has Kara’s heart ripping itself to shreds for the pain that her best friend has had to endure. Mary tries again, but he cuts her off. “I don’t need your excuses. You want to keep me safe, great. You know what you should do?” Winn rips the door open fiercely, and cold light spills into the room. ”Leave again!”
Without a second thought, Kara bolts from her hiding space and rushes out the door.
Nobody notices.