Author Notes: I know this will be out of character for our favorite badass agent but cut Alex and me some slack, please. She's going soft with everything that's been going on and I wanted to try my hand at writing scene like this.
*runs to hide in a corner* (lol)
Happy reading.
The only consolation Alex can find in her current satiation was that Jamie and Rory had been spared.
It was a little victory, but it was enough to bring a ghost of a smile to her lips as she struggles yet again to catch her breath. The scent of some strong and no doubt alien liquor fills her noise whilst her dark-haired attacker leans in pressing the broken pool cue harder against the struggling agent's throat slowly choking off what she'd managed to regain of her air.
In truth, she didn't know her soon to be killer by name, but she did know her by sight. She'd been a regular in the times Alex and her then girlfriend and later fiancée had frequented the eerily deserted bar.
'Should have been our first clue.' Alex muses trying to fight against the coming darkness of suffocation enough to somehow shift the bulk of 'angry dark hair' again regretting her choice in not bringing her favored gun along that morning when she had been dragged out into the fresh air and early morning sunshine by her much stronger younger sister.
Alex can remember Maggie even joking with her over a game at the very table Alex was pinned to one time after catching Alex's soon to be murder watching them from across the then crowded bar as they played a game that Maggie would eventually win.
"Seems you have some competition, Danvers."
Maggie had joked a little buzzed at the time from all the shots of the pricier scotch that had been regularly dropped off for her while Alex pouted until her teasing detective had pinned her against the side of the table attacking the field agent's lips with her scotch tasting ones until Alex couldn't remember her own name much less their glaring audience.
"She trusted you. She loved you and you just tossed her aside for what? Some stupid ideas? That alone to me makes you not deserve to live DEO trash. I'd give you a longer list, but I don't think you're going to hear all of them." She smiled her knee pressing even harder against Alex's stomach on top of the surprisingly still intact pool table.
The one thing Alex was upset with as her eyes closed without her permission was that it wasn't her time with Maggie replaying behind her eyes as it had the last time, she'd been so close to her end.
It was a replay of her day before her unfair bar brawl in the middle of the afternoon as a muffled sound of a cannon blast finally manages to push 'angry drunk' off of her finally allowing her to catch a weak gasp of air before she falls into the darkness.
"What do you think ladies? One more block?"
Jamie groans out a grunted "Come on Cap." at the question. Rory lets out a more pleasing reply with an enthused bark at the idea. Linda grinned already nodding her consent to the added time. She had missed the warm feel of real sunlight on her skin. She could see why her chosen family seemed to prefer starting the days' activities in the early hours when the rest of the town wasn't awake, but the sun was warm and beckoning.
Alex, however, wasn't as keen as she accepted a sip from the water bottle Linda was offering. Chilled but not icy. One of the perks of having 'Artic breath' on her list of superpowers. Just how she liked it after a hard run. It wasn't that she was tired not by any means honestly, she felt like she could run every street in Nation City at least twice more before that happened with all the pent-up energy she'd been carrying since her now ex-girlfriend had her first real love stolen from her in the dead of night like some real-life horror movie.
They had already made it completely across town from Maggie making Alex increasingly uneasy about going any farther. She shouldn't have caved into Linda's pout so easily. If she'd just been stronger against it, she could be curled up with some dull report and holding Maggie's hand while she heals up.
It was Linda that draws Alex's eyes toward the sky with Rory quickly joining in whilst Jamie jogged over to a newly opened side shop dragging Kate with her on the hunt for a replacement plastic doggie dish after Linda accidentally crushed the one they'd originally bought along earlier in the day.
At first, Alex panicked her mind going to two possibilities. Either one; her other sister was on her way to either prevent or help calm some possible accident or Kara was catching up with them because something had happened to her tiny detecting sleeping beauty.
She knew it was too soon to lave Maggie alone.
"Mom and Dad wanted to be sure you really were taking your health seriously." Her sister explains by way of explaining why she was trailing them as she floats down to a more street level in all her super suited glory only to be pulled the rest of the way down by her laughing twin for a greeting hug.
"Adopted spacey parents or you know the blood-related ones?" Jamie questions around the cookie she was munching on with a joking smile that even has Kate cracking a smile as they rejoin the trio causing the Danvers sisters to roll their eyes in perfect unison.
"Come on Kara. What's the real reason you're tailing us?" the police chief presses handing over the newly bought and stronger made dog dish to Alex, yet her eyes never once drop from Kara's.
It's Linda that answers her. Visibly vibrating from the excitement almost causing Alex to overfill the bowl in her hand from the surprise at her response. "My Dude is waking…." she starts to say but stops short before she could finish her eyes unfocusing as all color seems to drain away. "Oh, Rao."
A stronger wave of panic washes over her overpowering the flash of knee-weakening relief that had just blossomed seconds before in Alex's chest.
"Go. Just go Kara. Go." Was all Alex asks as Linda and Kara listened so something no human could hope to catch. She takes off faster than Alex had seen in a long while leaving Linda to explain to the less superpowered hearing trio.
"A breakout…at the DEO."
"What?" Kate demands
"The holding cells...all of them...they've just been deactivated somehow..." Linda nodes listening harder.
"Please tell me Maggie's protected. And Eliza what about Lena and Winn? God is J'onn going to be alright. Is he even awake yet either?" Jamie lists panicking.
"Why are we still standing here?" Kate questions her eyes on Linda as she wraps her arms around Alex's waist keeping her on her feet as she struggles to catch her breath.
A breakout. There was a breakout at the DEO just when the first woman she'd ever truly, deeply cared for the one who finally managed to get Alex to accept who she really was wakes up from being trapped in a literal hell of her own mind by those demon 'Cadmus' agents.
How could the day get any worse?
"Alex, I need you to breathe with me alright? Can you do that for me?" The tenderness in Kate's voice stuns her while Alex continues clinging onto Linda's arms.
Jamie slowly counts to ten while Kate directs her in a breathing exercise after Alex gives a weak little node. Rory whimpers gently resting her head against Alex's back when Linda guides her to her knees on the sun-warmed pavement of the sidewalk without lowering her arms which Alex was more than grateful for as her mind continued to spiral with the possible 'what ifs'.
She knows they should be rushing back that they should be helping as best they can. She was the dammed Director after all. Her agents needed her. Her family needed her. Maggie needed her. Yet even with all of that she just couldn't make herself move out of her sister's steel strong arms.
"Again," Linda demands in a soft purr when her sister's heart rate wasn't as calm as she liked. After an agreeing node from Kate and a little coxing for Alex after assuring her that Rory wasn't going to leave her nor were any of them, Jamie started counting a second time.
"What do you need right now Danvers?" Kate asks in a low voice watching Alex bury her face in Rory's scruff. "'aggie." Alex mumbles in answer her face still pressed against Rory's neck. She feels more than sees Linda shaking her head at that. Of course, she'd think that taking Alex in her current state to a building in currently locking in an all-out mini-war was a bad idea. Even Alex herself knew it was but she couldn't help it.
The DEO was where Maggie was.
Her Maggie who had woken from one version of hell into another with the alarms, the scrambling agents, and the no doubt sounds of fighting in the hallways.
"Compromise." Jamie offers. "We take you to that cool bar Mags would tell us about. 'Dollywood' was it? It's close to the DEO, right? Like a block or so yeah?" Linda nodes for her letting Alex continue to snuggle into Rory's soothing warmth. "Okay then." Alex peeks over long enough to see Jamie node "You, me, and Ror bear hang out there until you feel up to re-kicking some alien butts. Lin and Cap." Again, Alex peeks over at her this time to see her gesturing toward Kate. "can go on ahead and make sure that not all the good fights end before you can supervise the dumbbells being tossed back into their cells where they belong."
Alex nodes grudgingly loosening her iron hold on Linda as she untangles from Rory as well and climbs back to her feet. "A drink sounds nice." She reasons hating how small and childlike her voice sounded.
Maggie was going to have a field day with the easing when she finds out how soft she'd become.
"Hey."
Jamie's arm replaces Linda's around Alex's waist as the other two take off toward the other side of town.
"She'll be okay."
Alex nodes in quiet answer resting her head against the other woman's shoulder as they started back down the sidewalk with Rory padding beside them alert and uneasy.
"It's okay to be soft something. We're human." Rory gave a little bark at that "What? Jamie asks earning a shy smile from Alex as both sets of eyes find the duel colored ones of the dog at their side while they are forced to wait for a crosswalk sign to change. "Oh, come on you know what I mean Ror." Rory huffed by way of answering nudging her head against Alex's leg.
"I know. Such a softie. Don't let your Mama know okay?"
Rory gave her a happy smile licking at her hand while she scratched behind the pup's ear.
It was Jamie that slows her steps once they'd made the final turn into the side street that would take them to what had once been Alex and Maggie favored hang out. Even Rory looked uneasy as she pads along beside them.
"You okay?"
Jamie hesitates her eyes scanning the alleyway twice before she answers. "Just…reminds me a little too much of my own home turf." She shrugs her hand resting at her hip as if reaching for a weapon she wasn't carrying.
"Yeah, but unlike your turf, our resident hero can be called in the daytime." Alex tries to joke "You know when she isn't already saving the day." She adds wincing at the not so happy images of what could be going on.
Rory's soft whine of a bark shakes her out of her head as the pup jogs ahead of them still tense but curious as she starts sniffing around the door.
"They allow dogs here, right?" Jamie asks only to pause seeming to be fighting down a laugh for some reason after the pup finished marking her clam on the side of the bar door. "Told you, so didn't I? You shouldn't have so much water you goofball." She jokes as she tugs Alex along as she taps on the door.
Alex shifted as soon as the metal slide groaned out of place mustering up her voice to say the password she'd first heard from the lips of the woman that changed her life but almost as soon as her eyes meet the ones on the other side of the door it opened.
"What do you think Ror? Water, some club soda and a shot or two of scotch for our badass…. Um, Al? Are you sure this is the right bar?"
Alex was thinking the same as the door slams closed on the ghost town of a normally packed off-world bar.
They are on them a heartbeat later with the speed of two deadly coiled snakes.