su·per·in·fec·tion
(so͞o′pər-ĭn-fĕk′shən)
noun
MEDICINE

(Pathology) an infection that occurs after, or in addition to, an earlier infection.

Author's Notes: This was written to be part of "The Things We Do", but ended up being long enough that I decided to turn it into a multi-chapter, stand-alone fic. Yes, multiple sick fics have already been done, but it was requested of me, so here ya go!

Prompts:

1. Kara doesn't get sick, so she sometimes struggles to empathize with a sick and grumpy Alex, but chicken noodle soup is the only thing she can make because it's the only thing that really works for Alex. - BreezyR on AO3

2. Can you do one with Kara being really sick from a power blow out and being stubborn and arguing with Alex on stuff like eating and taking her temperature and Alex being all over protective? — Tumblr anon

I didn't do completely everything that was asked for in the prompts, but they were certainly what prompted me to write this! Heh, heh.

Chapter One: Stubborn

"What's going on, Hank? What's the emergency?" Kara asked as she trotted up the steps onto the raised platform of the DEO control room and over to J'onn J'onzz's side. He looked at her. "Another Fort Rozz escapee?"

Instead of actually answering, he pointed past her. She turned to see what he was motioning at and a split second later, she understood. Sitting in the lab off of the control room was Alex. Nothing unusual about that except for the pale skin, red nose, watery eyes, and overall glum expression. Kara could practically hear her sister's labored breathing without even using her super hearing.

Kara sighed and looked back at J'onn. "How long?" she asked.

"Since she arrived this morning," he replied. "I've been trying to get her to go home ever since. Even threatened to lock her in one of the isolation rooms, but it was to no avail."

"She's stubborn."

"Like a mule," he agreed with a shake of his head. "I figured you'd have better luck convincing her."

Kara snorted. "Not likely."

J'onn shrugged. "Perhaps not, but you still possess something I do not."

"And what's that?"

"The ability to pick her up and physically drag her home if she still doesn't listen." She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged again. "You're her sister. She can't put a report in with HR about inappropriate handling if you do it."

Kara considered it and gave a conceding nod.

"She's also less likely to shoot you," he added, the barest hint of a smirk at the corners of his mouth.

"I see your point," Kara said. She took a steeling breath (because she knew convincing a sick Alex to do anything was always a struggle) and nodded again, heading back down the steps and toward the lab.

The door was closed, the Alex Danvers sign for 'Beat it, I want to be alone'. Kara ignored the silent warning of grumpiness it also signified and pushed it open, saying, "Knock, knock," instead of actually knocking.

Alex turned, stared at Kara for a lethargic, but still-calculating beat, then narrowed her eyes, turning the irritated look out the glass room toward J'onn who met it with a challenging raise of an eyebrow. The two stared each other down for a few long seconds before Alex finally deflated and turned to look at Kara again. "I take it Hank called you?"

"We may have spoken briefly, yes," Kara replied, moving slowly closer.

"I'm fine."

"Have you actually looked at yourself?"

"I don't need—"

"You look like death," Kara cut in, knowing that sometimes with Alex, telling it like it was was the only way to reach her. "So much so that I'm pretty sure you're scaring everyone here."

Alex rolled her eyes. "I am not."

"Have you not noticed the wide berth everyone is giving you? Even when they walk past the lab, they move to the opposite side of the hall from you."

"Kara, that is not—" Alex started to protest, but before she could even finished the sentence, they both watched as Agents Adler and Benanti made a wide arc past the lab door before moving back to the middle of the corridor once they were past it. Alex squinted her eyes.

Kara bit back the 'I told you so' smile that was desperately fighting its way toward the surface and instead offered Alex a very solemn, "Let's get you home."

"But—"

"Alex, the DEO can survive a day without you here," Kara said, countering the protest before it could even be made, "They cannot, however, survive if you give everyone here the plague. Let's go."

Alex huffed. "Fine," she grumbled, climbing to her feet. "Just let me change." When she disappeared out the door to go to the locker room, Kara met J'onn's eyes through the glass and gave him a thumbs up. He looked decidedly relieved.

By the time they made it to Kara's apartment, Alex was practically dragging and it actually took her a good thirty seconds after crossing over the threshold to realize they weren't, in fact, at her own apartment. She frowned. "Why are we here?" she asked, slurring slightly.

"You know why you're here," Kara replied as she ushered her pallid and unsteady sibling past the couch and to her bed. "Sit," she commanded, steering Alex by her shoulders around and then in reverse until the back of her knees were against the mattress. Alex slumped down.

Kara crouched and pulled off Alex's boots, the fact that her sister wasn't protesting the action a clear sign of just how ill she must have been feeling. "Despite the fact that you're the human, you never have any medicinal supplies at your apartment. I, however, am fully stocked."

"I'm fine," Alex groused unhappily. "I don't need medicine. Just a nap."

Kara smirked. When she'd first arrived on Earth, she'd found grumpy Alex to be a bit terrifying, but now she just found it adorable. "Fortunately for you, you will be getting both."

Alex flopped over sideways on the bed, burying her head in Kara's pillow. "No."

Kara put her hands on her hips. "Do I need to call your mother?"

With a gasp, Alex's eyes snapped back open. "No!" she exclaimed, turning her head so she could look at Kara straight on. Her chestnut eyes, though still sickly, were wide and utterly alarmed.

"If she caught a plane right away, she could be here in a few hours," Kara added just to draw out the torture a few seconds longer.

Alex seemed to catch on to what Kara was doing, caught the veiled threat in her teasing words —do as she said or deal with Mom— because she narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at her. "Fine," she muttered. "I will take medicine."

Kara smiled, saying, "Good girl." She chose to ignore the colorful comments Alex grumbled under her breath as Kara headed out the room.

In her bathroom, Kara fished through the cabinet to find the appropriate medication. She held up two different ones in her hands, reading the boxes before she paused, frowning. "Alex?" she called out the door.

"Whaaat?" came the groaned response.

"Is this a cold or the flu?"

"All of the above."

Kara rolled her eyes, amused. "I'm pretty sure those are two different viruses."

"It's called a superinfection, and yes, that is the technical term. I'm the scientist, remember? I know these things."

Kara decided it was safer not to point out that she hadn't planned to argue the point and continued with, "What are your symptoms?"

"Dying."

Kara snorted at her sister's dramatics. "Sore throat? Congestion? Headache?"

"Yes, yes, and yes."

"Chills? Fever?"

"Uh huh."

"To which one?"

"Both."

"Ah." Kara nodded to herself. "Nausea?"

"Yu— ...ugh!" Kara heard the choking gag-heave sound Alex was suddenly making and immediately tore out of the bathroom as fast as her Kryptonian-powered-legs could take her. She had the trashcan she'd snagged on her way out in front of her sister before Alex's hurling motion could even be completed.

Reaching forward, she pulled Alex's hair back out of her face and gave her a pitying look. "I guess that answers that question," she said lightly.

"None of that tone," Alex moaned dismally. "You aren't allowed to be amused at my misery."

Kara bit back a smirk. "I thought you were fine?"

"Shut u—" The gripe was finished and punctuated by another heave into the bucket.

Kara wanted to sympathize, empathize, she truly did, but she had no real reference as to how terrible it was to have something like the flu. She could only vaguely remember getting sick back on Krypton as a child and from what she could recall, it had never been quite as horrendous as all the illnesses humans could get. She supposed it had something to do with their different immune systems and her people's more advanced medicines.

"How did you even get sick?" Kara asked as she tucked Alex's hair behind her ears and then moved her hand down to rub soothing circles on her back.

"Your fault," Alex muttered, face still in the trashcan.

Kara frowned. She literally had no idea how it could have been her fault. It wasn't as if she could have passed a sickness on to her sister. "How?" she questioned, though when Alex turned her head and bore her bloodshot eyes into Kara, she sort of wished she hadn't asked.

"You made me see 'Kung Fu Panda Three' with you."

Kara blinked. "...Yes?"

"Instead of 'Deadpool'."

"Well, I said we could see 'Deadpool' next. And c'mon, even you agreed that 'Kung Fu Panda' was fun!"

"Yes, but there were children at 'Kung Fu Panda'. Everywhere. Diseased children who infected me." She heaved into the bucket again. "There wouldn't have been diseased children at 'Deadpool'," she grumbled, spitting.

"Well, I don't know so much about that," Kara murmured. "There are some fairly questionable parents out there…"

Alex just groaned miserably, then placed the trashcan in Kara's hands and flopped back over. "Water?"

Kara grimaced slightly at the puke-filled container, but nodded in acquiescence at her sister's request. "Be right back." She cleaned out the bucket and got her sister both a bottle of water and a variety of meds to put on the side table for when could actually stomach them. She was fast, Supergirl fast, because she knew there was no telling when another vomit eruption might occur.

Despite the speed, Alex seemed to already be halfway to sleep by the time she actually returned. Kara cracked the seal on the bottle of water and crouched beside her poor, ailing sibling. "Here," she whispered, smiling softly when Alex cracked at eye and extended a hand for the water. Kara helped her take a few sips before she put it on the side table next to everything else.

"An hour," Alex murmured.

"Hmm?" Kara questioned as she pushed some limp strands of dark hair back off of Alex's forehead.

"An hour nap and then I have to go back to work."

Kara frowned. "Or, ya know, there's the option of not being a crazy person and actually resting," she countered.

"I am resting," Alex weakly argued. "For an hour. Set the alarm."

Kara sighed. Alex was always so stubborn, especially when she was sick. "You're going to make me have to bring out the big guns," Kara announced as she wandered momentarily out of the room.

"If you call Mom, I will never bring you donuts again," the dying one threatened, tone feeble and choked.

Kara just rolled her eyes and headed to the linen closet, searching for the secret weapon. It took her a few seconds, but then she spotted on the top shelf in the way back.

"Your mom said I would know when you needed it the most," she said as she came back into the room, holding the item behind her back.

"Need what?" Alex croaked.

Kara pulled it out and watched as her sister's eyes grew huge. "Pudge?" Alex gasped. "Where did you get that?"

It was a stuffed manatee of all things, a favorite toy of Alex's from when she was a girl. Apparently, as the tale went, the Danvers had taken a family trip to Crystal River in Florida, home of a great many real life manatees. Kara hadn't been there because she hadn't yet arrived on Earth, but she'd been told that little Alex had fallen so in love with the big grey blobs that she had made great plans to bring a baby one home to keep in the bathtub. She was going to feed it romaine lettuce, Eliza had told Kara, laughing, amused by the fact that tiny Alex had been so very specific about the type of lettuce it would eat. Sadly, when it came time to leave, they had to tell her that no real manatees could come back with them. The stuffed manatee had been bought as a way to console the heartbroken Alex. After that, it had always been her go-to toy for when she was upset or sick.

"Eliza had me hold on to it for you, after you decided to do that weird old life purge thing right before college," Kara informed her. "She thought you'd probably want it back again some day."

"Why'd she give it to you?"

"She knew I would keep it safe." After having lost everything when her planet exploded, Kara had grown especially attentive and careful with everything she considered special, including the things special to those she loved.

Alex made very insistent 'Gimme!' fingers at Kara, arms outstretched.

"Uh uh," Kara said, holding the stuffed animal farther away. "You only get Pudge if you agree to remain in bed until your body wakes you up. No alarm."

"Kara…"

"That's the deal."

Alex's eyes narrowed, darting from Kara's face to the manatee and then back again. Finally she growled and reached out again. "Fine."

Kara grinned, triumphant, and immediately surrendered the stuffed creature. She watched in satisfaction as her cranky sister clutched it tight to her chest and closed her eyes, instantly relaxing.

The manatee was not in the best shape, ragged with love. It's right eye had been sewn back in twice, it's grey fur had lost all it's sheen, and it's tail had a large red stain on it from—

"Popsicles," Alex murmured, already near asleep.

"Hmm?"

"I want popsicles," she said, cracking an eye open to look at Kara, "when I wake up."

Kara smirked. "Red?"

"Red."

"Okay." She already had them. She always had everything Alex needed on hand, just in case.

A/N's: Shhh, manatees are my favorite. Just go with it.

Also, TBC. This is chapter 1 of 3. The other two will be up in the next day or two!

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