Once Upon National City
A/N: I'm back! ^^ I had planned to post this around the Elseworlds episodes (back in December), but then I got hit with massive writer's block. Better late than never! Here's my take on what could have been the Elseworlds Supergirl Episode.
POST DRABBLE REVIEWS
Jennifer Baratta – Thanks for the comment! I'm glad you enjoyed it. ^^
Guest – Thanks for the comment! Batwoman Alex is the best! It should totally be a thing. XD
Disclaimer: The characters and the worlds I write in do not belong to me. The stories that I write are intended for entertainment purposes. I do not make any money from them.
Summary: "I thought masks were only big in that other city," a voice said behind her. Rising to her feet, Alex minutely turned her head to the side to acknowledge her current company. "You gonna tell me who you are?" Alex & Kara. Elseworlds AU.
*** ~ Black and Blue ~ ***
Perched at the corner of Catco's rooftop, Alex scanned the various streets of National City below, her cape fluttering soundlessly in the gentle wind behind her. Most citizens were hustling home at this point, night having fallen, the day almost over. As much as Alex wished to do the same, crime never slept, Alex herself having already thwarted three muggings, stopped a child from getting run over in the streets, and saved a cat or two from trees. And that wasn't even why she was here in the first place!
National City was supposed to be one of the safest cities in the world. Nothing like Gotham, where the streets practically oozed criminals from every dark, dank alleyway possible. All in part because of the city's hero. Yet here Alex was, saving people instead. Where the city's savior was, she could only guess. For someone who could fly, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and could snap a city bus into two like it was nothing, their presence was certainly lacking right about now.
The thud of boots on concrete.
Speak of the devil.
"I thought masks were only big in that other city," a voice said behind her.
Rising to her feet, Alex minutely turned her head to the side to acknowledge her current company.
"You gonna tell me who you are?"
Glancing down at the streets below again, Alex slowly spun around to face her guest. Or would it be the other way around?
"Well, well," she said, the modulating tech integrated into her cowl masking her true voice. "If it isn't National City's resident Super. And here I thought only Metropolis had such a thing."
Evidently not liking how her tone, Supergirl frowned at her, the Kryptonian crossing her arms over her family crest.
"A bit far from Gotham, aren't you?" the alien said, looking all stern.
"Territorial much, Supergirl?" Alex replied, watching in amusement as the super hero huffed in annoyance. "Or perhaps you're feeling a bit threatened?"
"I'm not afraid of you," the blonde said without hesitation.
"Territorial then," Alex reiterated. "Must be a family thing. Will you also be changing from blue to black in the near future?"
Supergirl's posture went from curious and annoyed to tense and defensive in an instant.
Touched a nerve I see.
"What are you doing here?" the alien demanded, her blue eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched.
Evidently, Superman's recent change of heart was also a sore point for his cousin. To date, no one knew what caused the Man of Steel's sudden change in demeanour, only that no one, not even his own kin, had been able to knock some sense into him. The fight between Superman and Supergirl after his change had been vicious, the damage in the aftermath, devastating. With Superman threatening to kill everyone who defied him on his grounds, family or not, Supergirl was forced to withdraw, to prevent further casualties. And that's were things were currently, Supergirl keeping her distance from Metropolis, and others, such as Alex, left looking for other alternatives.
Taking in the blonde's angry stare, Alex silently wondered if she would see those laser eyes in action tonight, namely on her. Yet while that was one possible outcome, Alex knew she wasn't in any real danger. Something was familiar about the alien, something close to home almost, Alex not quite understanding the reasoning behind it. The dark abyss which had enveloped her heart long ago no longer choked her as much in the presence of this Super, and Alex had no idea why.
"Can't a girl enjoy the sights every now and a then?" she eventually said with a chuckle.
Getting her wits about her, Alex fell back on her training and did a quick scan of the immediate surroundings. Now was not the time to think about such trivial things. Maybe later, when the world wasn't being threatened by an AWOL Kryptonian.
"That's not what I meant," Supergirl almost growled out, interrupting Alex's thoughts again. "And you know it."
Turning her attention back to her present company, Alex tilted her head to the side in thought.
"Do I?" she asked all innocent, tempting fate.
Gods! What the hell was going on with her today?! First she does this Super's work and now she's allowing herself get distracted by the same Super! Why was this happening? Now of all times! If Bruce saw her now, he'd never let her hear the end of it!
Internally shaking herself, Alex broke eye contact to look down at the street again to avoid temptation. It was, after all, so easy to tease the other girl. And Alex really did love teasing the blonde for some reason. If she really thought about it, it was almost like they were family or something.
"Maybe you need to be a little bit more specific," she quipped, Alex only realizing what she said after the fact. She was hopeless.
Nostrils flaring, Supergirl pursed her lips together.
"What are you doing here in National City?" the Kryptonian gritted out, her tone bordering on demanding.
Still refusing to look at the super hero, Alex shrugged.
"Business," was all she would divulge, much to her companion's displeasure. Not that it was a lie or anything.
"Business with who?" the girl in blue asked, as inquisitive as ever.
Turning around to face the Super again, Alex took a step backwards until her heels lined up with the edge of the rooftop. If she didn't end this little pow wow now, nothing else was going to get done today.
A smirk.
"That's for me to know and for you to... well, you know," Alex said with a wink.
Before anything else could be said, Alex backed right over the edge of the building, the wind immediately howling in her ears. With reflexes honed over the years, her left hand flung to the side, her grappling gun shooting towards the nearest building, Gotham's second famous Bat swooping away into the night sky with a laugh.
And just like that Alex fled.
And for some reason, Supergirl let her.
How did she not realize this before!?
"Alex!"
When Kara first came across Batwoman on Catco's roof all that time ago, she had half a mind to use her X-ray vision to find out who the other woman was. With all of the stuff going on with Deegan and the worlds being twisted around, the last thing anyone needed was another vigilante messing things up. Yet while logically that should have been a thing she did, Kara hesitated. Not only was that a huge violation of privacy, but that was also quite perverted. She was Supergirl for crying out loud! And Supergirl was not a peeping Tom!
In the end thankfully, it didn't come to that. Batwoman proved to be the ally they needed in this fight, and because of the said vigilante, they had Deegan on the ropes. It was only a matter of time before they stopped him for good and returned all the worlds back to the way they were. But like all good villians, Deegan wasn't going down without a fight. And this is how Kara ended up here again, on Catco's rooftop, facing off against the last person she ever wanted to.
Her sister.
The cloaked figure in black glared at her viciously.
"How do you know my name?" Batwoman demanded, or rather, Alex did.
Resisting the urge to rush up to her sister and squeeze the life out of her (not literally), Kara opted to land just a few feet next to her, blinking back tears.
"I'm not from this Earth," she said, swallowing thickly. "And neither are you. And where we come from, you're my sister."
When she had woken up in this world, this twisted, horrible world, she was alone. Alex was nowhere in sight. Not even this alternate world's doppelganger. Realizing this, Kara searched everywhere for the elder Danvers, hers or otherwise, only to find nothing at all. The resulting hole in her heart was almost unbearable, but bear with it she did. Because if she fixed the world and stopped Deegan, that meant things would go back to the way they were before and Alex would be with her. Yet unbeknownst to her, Alex, her Alex, had been here all along.
Right next to her.
"You are as despicable as they come."
Snapping back to reality, Kara's heart sank at the sight of pure rage on her sister's face.
"Alex," she pleaded, hands up placatingly. "I know things look one way to you. That I look one way to you. But the way things are-"
"After all this time," Alex snarled, taking one menacing step towards her. "It was you all along! You killed him!"
"It's not real!" Kara exclaimed, her voice trembling. Tears pooled in the corner of her eyes at the immense pain radiating off of Alex's frame, pain she was responsible for, even if it was all a lie.
"Not really real," she forged on, her hands shaking. When she got her hands on Deegan, she was going to wring his little neck for making Alex suffer this much!
"If you just let me explain, I can tell you-"
"Enough!"
"Wait!" Kara protested, even as her sister reached for something from her utility belt. "Just let me- AH!"
Kara collapsed to her knees, hunching over as she slammed her hands over her ears at the sound of a high pitched shrill. It was pain wracking.
"Alex, please! Stop!"
"You are dangerous," Alex said, a darkness in her tone. Her eyes were covered in shadow. "And crazy. And I will put an end to it both."
Blearily making out her sister's slow approach, Kara caught sight of something in Alex's hand, something long, like a knife, sheathed in lead. Knowing there were only a handful of things sheathed in lead when it involved her, Kara choked out a breath and screamed.
"YUBI KIRI GENMAN USO TSUITARA!"
The screeching stopped. And for a moment, there was only silence.
"How do you know that?" came a shaky whisper after a few seconds.
Breathing heavily and slowly uncovering her ears, Kara shakily looked up from her knees.
"You taught it to me," she said, catching her breath.
Seeing as how Alex made no further move against her, Kara stood up on wobbly legs but still kept the distance between them.
"I told you, I'm not from this Earth."
A smile.
"You spent a summer in Nagano with Jeremiah and Eliza when you were six." Kara tucked a lock of hair around her ear, the ringing in her ears having finally stopped.
"You were homesick," she continued. "And a girl from the village helped you sneak down to one of the temples one night. You wrote a note, and put it in a crack in the wall, hoping it would come true."
Hearing a shift in her sister's breathing, Kara watched as coiled muscles unfurled and Alex relaxed.
"I was seven, not six," Alex corrected softly. "And that little girl in the village, she taught me that rhyme."
Brown eyes looked at Kara filled with so much emotion.
"It means-"
"Pinky swear," they both said at the same time.
The lead sheathed knife in Alex's hand clattered to the ground, forgotten.
"Kara..." Alex choked out, tears rolling down her cheeks from under her Batwoman mask.
In a split second, Kara enveloped her sister in the tightest hug she could without breaking her.
"I'm s-sorry!" Alex wept, hugging her back even more fiercely. "I'm so sorry!"
"Shhh," Kara said, rubbing her sister's back. Well, rubbing as best she could with this ginormous cloak Alex had on. It was truly impressive. They'd have to compare capes later. Kara was curious whose own was bigger.
"I r-remember," Alex stuttered into her shoulder, her sister's grip tightening again. "I remember everything. I can't... I can't believe..."
Cuddling against her sister more, Kara kissed Alex's cheek as the elder Danvers continued to sob.
"It's alright," Kara repeated. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't know."
"I don't understand," Alex said, pulling away after a while and brushing away her tears. "How were you able to remember everything? And from the start?"
Holding her sister's glove covered hands, Kara shrugged.
"No idea," she admitted. "Maybe what ever happened to the worlds, aliens weren't affected as much. Who knows. Does any of that really matter now though? We've found each other and that's all that matters."
Alex let out a soft laugh.
"You're right," the elder Danvers said with a nod, Alex squeezing Kara's hands gently. "Nothing matters more than us being back together."
A pause.
"Well..." her sister added after the fact. "It might be helpful to turn all the worlds back to normal at some point. Eventually. I'm actually digging this outfit way more than I should. Think I could keep it?"
With that said, Alex twirled around in her spot, her cape fluttering around her.
Smiling now that she had her sister back, Kara bumped shoulders with the vigilante, grinning.
"You know," she said. "You never did tell me what you wished for back then."
"Oh?" Alex commented. "Didn't I?"
"Alex," Kara whined, poking her sister in the shoulder with her finger.
Giving her an embarrassed smile, Alex laughed.
"It's silly," Alex said, a hint of pink in her cheeks just barely visible below the edge of her Batwoman mask.
"Not to me," Kara said, her eyes warm.
Glancing at her, Alex rolled her eyes.
"Curse you and your puppy dog eyes."
Beaming brightly in victory, Kara leaned towards her sister looking at her expectantly.
"Well...?" she prodded after a few seconds.
Alex sighed.
"Fine," Batwoman said in exasperation. No one could resist Kara's puppy eyes after all. "That night, I wished that I wouldn't be alone. Happy now?"
Smiling even more at that revelation, Kara wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulders and held her close.
"Looks like your wish came true then," she said. "Because I'm here with you now and nothing is ever going to split us apart again.
"Is that so?"
Alex's smile was unmistakable.
Kara smiled back.
"Pinky swear."
A/N: This drabble is still a bit rough around the edges in my opinion, but I hope you all enjoyed reading it nonetheless!
This drabble was inspired by Melissa Benoist's and Chyler Leigh's Q&A at the 2016 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2). There Chyler mentioned she wanted a superhero outfit, one that potentially included a cape with other neat stuff. Given the introduction of Batwoman through the Elseworlds crossover, I thought it would be a lot of fun to combine things a different way.
As you can see, there are few differences between the official Supergirl Elseworlds episode (Season 4, Episode 9) and my version of it in this drabble, namely: (1) Alex is Batwoman; (2) Alex is from the same world as Kara and not from an alternate world; (3) Deegan changed things in the world so that Jeremiah was killed by Supergirl (refer to the note below); (4) Deegan AKA black Superman is more of a rogue Superman rather than a heroic one; and (5) Alex was able to remember who she was with help from her sister.
Some of the lines were taken from and modified from the actual Supergirl Elseworlds episode (Episode 9, Season 4).
When Alex shouted "You killed him!" during her argument with Kara near the end, she's referring to Jeremiah. Her father and his disappearance, etc, has always been a sore spot for Alex in the series. So what better way to turn sister on sister than to have Alex believe Supergirl AKA Kara killed her father? XD Yes, Deegan is an a-hole. :P
The 'pinky swear' Japanese rhyme Kara and Alex talk about is known as the Yubikiri Song. It's translated below.
"Yubi kiri genman uso tsuitara"
If (you) tell a lie...
"Hari sen bon nomasu yubi kitta"
Drink 1000 needles (and) cut (my) finger.