Still unbeta'd. Read at your own risk.

Also clarify that anything tech related that you are about to read has like a 5% of real scientific basis. Everything else is pure and wild imagination.


It happens two days before the doctors finally discharge her.

It's ironic, really, that after almost three weeks of having everyone breathing down her neck, and being forbidden of getting involved into anything considered slightly dangerous, she ends up being in the middle of a bank robbery, surrounded by scared hostages, with four armed men pointing at them, and with no gun or bulletproof vest to help her.

And no Supergirl either, because Kara is at the other side of the globe helping Superman with the aftermath of an earthquake, and there's no way she'll be back in time.

Alex studies the situation and the possible outcomes. The hostages are starting to get anxious, and she knows that she needs to call the DEO for help, but talking right now would alert the thieves and she can't assume that risk with so many people there.

There's a young woman at the other side of the room, with a little girl not older than three or four years in her arms. The child is starting to get restless and she's trying to calm her down, but they have already attracted the attention of one of the thieves that was already losing his temper. They've probably wanted this to be a fast job, but it was taking too long, there was already a lot of police gathered outside the bank, and a crying kid isn't exactly helping.

When the guy points his weapon at the woman and starts shouting at them, Alex instinct kicks in. She taps her communicator, gives a quick message to whoever is listening back at the DEO, and starts running towards the guy.

There's no way she'll reach them in time, but she has to try.

Something happens, something that she doesn't understand, because it's not humanly possible to be fast enough to jump between the woman and the bullet. But she does, and Alex feels the impact of the projectile against her ribs.

This time, she thinks, there's no getting out of it alive.

Time stands still and the world seems to be frozen, there's no other explanation, because there's no pain, no blood, nothing except the smoke coming out of the gun's barrel, and it doesn't make sense.

I should be dead.

Alex logical mind tells her that, at that distance, without a bulletproof vest, and given the point of impact, the bullet should have easily pierced her left lung, and she should be on the floor, drowning on her own blood by now. But she's not. She's standing in front of a dumbfounded man that is still pointing his gun at the hostages. She's still outnumbered by armed men, in a room full of innocent people, with still no backup, when she should be already dead.

After what seemed like an eternity, she moves her hand to touch the place where the bullet struck her, and then is when she notices. The fog that has clouded her mind during those never-ending seconds is clearing, and Alex finally understands what is happening.

I'm going to kill Winn.

Because what she's touching is not the fabric of the shirt she was wearing. What she's touching is a strange, black material that she doesn't recognize, something that definitely wasn't there five minutes ago.

Alex doesn't have time to analyze whatever she's wearing, though, because there's a sudden burst of air and the next thing she knows, all four thieves are senseless on the floor and a perplexed green martian is staring at her.

"Something to share, agent Danvers?"


"WINSLOW SCHOTT JUNIOR!"

Every single head at the DEO's control room turns to the balcony at hearing the voice of a very, very angry Alex Danvers, fearing for the life of their fellow agent. But who they found coming from the glass door is their director, with an amused little smirk on his lips that they don't usually see, walking behind a woman clad in some kind of black armor and wearing such an enraged expression that they even can see it behind the mask that it's covering her face.

"Oh my God! It worked!" They watch as agent Schott gets up from his chair and goes running excited towards de woman with agent Danvers' voice. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees the angry eyes, though.

"Explain. Now."

"O-kay, okay, don't get mad," he says raising his arms in surrender, "Remember when I told you that-that you weren't going t-to get hurt again?"

"I knew you had done something else to the watch!" She barked while pointing at him, "What the hell is this thing?"

While Winn is hesitating to answer, the balcony door is opening again to let Supergirl inside the building. Kara walks down the stars and everyone in the room stays in silence.

"Hey guys," She greets. She's about to ask why there's stranger in a suit at the DEO, but then Kara realizes that the one under the mask is actually her sister, "Alex?"

Alex just grunts, grabs Winn by the collar of his shirt, and drags him away from the control room, followed by J'onn and Kara. She's not going to discuss whatever it's happening with everyone else there.

When they reach the training room, J'onn closes the door behind them, and waits for Alex to speak.

"Okay," She takes a deep breath, "First I need to know how to get out of this thing."

"You just need to…," Winn tries to reach Alex's arm, but she almost growls at him, "…just touch your wrist. Where the watch should be."

She's almost touching the spot where she usually wears her watch when Kara jumps in front of her, taking her hand to stop her.

"Wait!"

"Now what?" Alex's asks. She can feel her patience slipping away, but Kara doesn't care. She's still holding her sister's hand and staring at something on her chest.

"Winn? Is this why you asked me if I would care about Alex wearing my family's crest?" She asks while taking a closer look at the suit.

There, over her sister's heart, barely noticeable, and drawn in beautiful, dark, silver lines, rests a little House of El's crest. Mesmerized, Kara lets go of Alex, and raises her hand to trace the silhouette of the S with her fingers.

"I can't think of a better person to wear it." She finally raises her eyes to look at her sister and smiles.

"The symbol actually works as an activation command for the New Moon mode." Interrupts Winn.

"The what?" Both sisters ask at the same time.

"You know…, the stealth mode, like the new moon phase… when you can't see the moon? I think is pretty clever."

"Agent Schott," J'onn clears his voice and the three of them turn to look at him, "I think it would be better for everyone if you start explaining everything from the beginning."

"Yes! Yes, of course! Kara, could you go grab my tablet? It's on my…," But Kara is too eager to wait for him to finish the sentence, and she's gone and back before they can blink, giving Winn the device and urging him to continue, "…desk. Thanks. And Alex, you can deactivate the suit, now."

"Finally," She lets go an exasperated sigh and brings the index and middle finger of her left hand to touch the place where her watch should be.

There's a quick flash of light, blinding everyone except Alex for a second. When they open their eyes again, she's in front of them with normal clothes on and a frowned face.

"Woah! That was intense," Winn says while he rubs his eyes, "I really I need to work on that deactivation protocol."

"What you need to do is explain why, in the middle of a bank robbery, I've suddenly found myself wearing a bulletproof suit that I didn't even know it existed until some douchebag shot me from six feet away and I didn't die instantly!"

"Alex," Kara puts a hand on her sister arm to calm her down, "Breathe. Let him explain, okay?"

"Well, first of all, what happened today is exactly the reason why I build Artemis for you," Alex sends him a murderous look, "Jumping in front of bullets is a really bad habit of yours, you know?"

"Well, he's got a point," Agrees Kara.

Alex crosses her arms, but loosens the angry face and seems to relax a little before making a gesture for Winn to keep talking.

"Okay… Uhm… I've actually been working on this for quite some time," He starts, his voice shaking a little while he types a few commands on his tablet, "But then you had to go all hero on me and almost die so… I sped things up."

Winn then passes the device to Alex.

"I present you Project Artemis." He says proudly.

"Like the Greek goddess?"

"Yeah, hunter, protector of young girls, and Apollo's," He clarifies pointing at Kara, "God of the sun, sister."

Alex nods. She may have been angry at Winn and the way he carried on with this project without telling anyone, she's even angrier about finding out the way she did, but Alex can't help to be impressed with his work. What she's seeing on that display isn't like anything they've seen before, and being that they work daily with alien technology, that is saying a lot. There are a lot of numbers on the speed, strength, and resistance of the suit, a lot of notes on material and colors, and a virtual model of how it should look once it's deployed. But what really catches Alex attention is another folder where everything else refers to.

"What does "bionbot" means?" She asks while she opens the file.

"Biological Nano Robot. Those little buddies are what make Artemis possible."

"You created an armor with nanobots?" The surprise in J'onn's voice is evident.

"Well, I actually needed Lena's help to develop the bots and some of the more complex processes, but yes," He answers, "Alex, could you take off the watch and put it on the floor?" She raises an eyebrow, but follows Winn instructions. Before she can stand, he speaks again, "Now touch the sphere and say iahzrhi."

Kara snorts and everyone turns to stare at her.

"Sorry, it's just… It's funny," Then she clarifies, "You know? Using the kryptonian word for start to actually start the suit."

"Using anything in English would have been too risky." He clarifies.

"So, I just say that word while touching the sphere?" Reiterates Alex.

At Winn's confirmation, she gives the tablet back to him and kneels closer to the watch, touches slightly the glass, and tries to pronounce the word exactly as he said it. The response is immediate.

Before their eyes, the watch disintegrates into a million of tiny pieces that soon start multiplying, raising from the floor and, delicately, end up sculpting the shape of a human body. The whole process takes no more than four seconds and, by the time it ends, everyone's jaw except Winn's is on the floor.

"The process is almost instantaneous while you wear it," Winn explains, "This is actually the suit in test mode. That's why it's showing the helmet and not just the mask, as you were wearing it. I thought you'd be more comfortable with that than with your whole head covered. The only time you'll really need to wear the helmet is while the suit is on New Moon mode, for obvious reasons." He points out.

Alex takes a step closer, and with cautious fingers, reaches to touch the same spot where the bullet hit her. With the first contact, she notices that what at first sight seems like a plain, smooth surface, is actually the result of very little black scales weaving together a very thin, but very tough material that, in her experience, is able to stop bullets at close range. It fascinates Alex how, when the light hits the unique pattern of the scales, the suit seems to absorb it, making them shine and look darker at the same time. Besides the House of El's crest on the chest, there's another dark silver line following the shape of the suit's waist, and she wonders if that one has also a hidden use besides making the whole thing more aesthetic.

"How does it works?" She finally asks, still engrossed with the suit.

Winn smiles delighted, because that means that he really got Alex to be more curious and less mad about his creation, and if she's interested it means that there's still a possibility that she'll wear it in the future. The only reason why he didn't tell Alex about the suit was because he was sure that she wouldn't had accepted it. She would had probably given him some excuse like how unfair it would be with the other agents, and how she wasn't more important than any of them. And then Winn would have had to argue with her and remind Alex that no other agent would jump in the line of fire to save someone as often as her. It's exhausting just to think about it.

"Artemis is made exclusively for you," He starts, "The bots are coded from the start with your DNA and heartbeat pattern, so only you can activate it. It can be deployed manually, as you just saw, or it can activate itself in case of extreme danger. The watch reads your vital signs constantly, so when your body reacts to a dangerous situation, the bots activate the safety protocol."

"That's what happened at the bank?"

"Yes. And I'm so glad it worked."

"Yeah, me too," Alex says, "I barely felt that bullet. In fact, I barely felt the change at all. I didn't notice until I realized that I wasn't bleeding."

"How could you not notice that you were wearing the suit?" Asks a puzzled Kara.

"I don't know. At first I guess it was the adrenaline of the moment, but after that, when we came back here, it still was like I wasn't wearing anything."

"Adaptable, skin-tight, and almost weightless material, thanks to the unique construction of the bots and a sample of Kara's cape, which, I must say, wasn't easy to obtain," Winn answers, "Our little friends are folded into hundreds of layers while they are in waiting mode. Once you activate the suit, the layers expand and they start to replicate themselves until they reach the desired configuration. They adapt to anything you may be wearing; clothes, shoes, weapons… In fact, the suit is even capable of recharging your favorite gun."

"How do you power the nanobots?" J'onn has been silent all this time, but his been wondering about that important part since he saw the suit deactivating, "The whole process must take a lot of energy."

"Ah, you're right, it does," Winn smiles at the big question, "But we're not talking about a single element. We have millions of little pieces, each with its own solar powered battery, coming together to create a whole."

"The scales work as tiny solar panels?" Alex asks.

"Exactly. Once you deactivate the suit, the replicated bots are destroyed, leaving only the original ones, and the excess of energy is what causes the blinding light that you saw before. That's something Lena and I are still working on, along with some other… features."

"Like?"

"Well, right now Artemis can make you faster, stronger, and almost invulnerable. It can even heal some flesh wounds, due to the bots being able to replicate human tissue. But my real goal is to make you fly."

After hearing that, Kara stares at them wide eyed and excited. Alex, completely silent, can't wrap her mind around everything that Winn just explained, and isn't sure how to feel about it. At the bank, she had been faster, she had felt stronger, and the suit really saved her life, but Alex doesn't want to get excited about the possibility of something that may not happen.

She also doesn't want to seem eager to learn more about the suit. That would give Winn too much satisfaction.

Alex sees as Kara is about to say something when her phone starts ringing. She takes it out of her pocket and finds Maggie's name on the screen.

"Hey," She answers quickly, gesturing to the others that it won't take long.

"Hey," Maggie replies, "How was your morning?"

"Stressful."

"I can imagine. Didn't you said you were going to the bank today?"

"Yes…"

"The same bank that just got out of a hostage situation not more than an hour ago?"

"Yeah…" At that moment Alex knows exactly what her girlfriend is hinting at.

"So," Maggie makes a pause and Alex swears that she can feel her smirking at the other side of the line, "Aren't you going to explain why there's a picture of my girlfriend's fine body, cladded in a black, tight suit, in every single newsfeed on the city?"

"How did you…?"

"Babe, I'd know that ass anywhere."