( Getting to Know ) Your Inner Child

by XavAcid

chapter 5 : it's a distraction, a fineart mastered by Alex Danvers

Kara arrived at the CatCo Plaza a little later than she would've liked, but it was something she couldn't help, she was not used to having to navigate the early morning traffic, and to have to wrangle a squirmy five year old who was just so fascinated with her new machine out the door. At least little Alex wasn't whiny. She was able to reason with her after a few minutes. After she promised to let Alex bring the things Winn printed out, which was a total of three things.

A frog, a dog, and a castle.

Winn begged off the breakfast when she was setting up to make some, he had to run home to shower and change. Showing up to work in his day old clothes and unshaven would not go over well with their boss. He did promise to come over in the evening again, to fiddle some more with the printer.

Kara felt a little bad when she arrived at work and found her usually early friend didn't get to work yet. Maybe she should've offer to fly him home, it'd only take a few minutes, Alex could handle a few minutes on her own?

"Winn's late?" Little Alex looked toward the desk nearby and asked as she walked calmly alongside her Kryptonian.

"Well, he had to run home to shower and change first." She gently herded little Alex to her own desk, Ms. Grant wasn't in yet and she still needed to get her latte. Quickly she took the hoodie off of the five year old, and paused, the hoodie was so small.

"I have to run out for a few minutes, ok?"

Little Alex nodded when she got herself situated, a notebook open, and tablet out. The little girl gently placed her castle print on the desk prominently.

"Would you like some chocolate shake?" Kara turned the chair around and kneeled in front of her.

"Yes, please." Little smile warmed her to her toes.

Yes, she knew that she shouldn't be giving little Alex too much sweet, but that smile… She just couldn't help herself. Besides, of all the other times that Alex gave her portions of her food, kept sweets in her bag, all the way back when they were teens, a little chocolate shakes here and there was nothing; even if it would make her bounce for the rest of the morning. Kara was more than happy to deal with it.

Well, and she would make sure that it was the least amount of sugar in her drink.

Just as she ran out Winn was just arriving. "Hey, Kara."

"Hey,Winn, gotta run."

From behind she could hear Alex calling Winn over.

Kara had the fright of her life when she came back.

Her desk was now occupied, not only by the five year old, but also by her very own boss, Cat Grant.

"Ms. Grant?"

Her boss turned to look at her, one hand out, Kara quickly placed the center of the sun hot latte in her hand. She didn't think she was away for the that long, but apparently she was. But it wasn't her fault there was a pile up on the highway. She'd done her best to get it sorted as quickly as she could. There was a couple of casualties, but only one critical.

"I heard you had a nice night last night." Cat rose from the chair smoothly. "Carter could barely go to sleep, what with all the pictures and text messages you two were exchanging." While her voice was biting, the Kryptonian could see the mirt in her green eyes. "He was quite tired this morning."

"Um… sorry about that. He was so excited and asked for some photos so I sent him some."

"Of course he was," Cat rolled her eyes, she only had to tell him to go to see three times, and even after that she was pretty sure that he hid his phone under the blanket and continued to text with sunny Danvers.

Her son was so happy to share all the photos with her over breakfast this morning. She also had a feeling that a request for the same exact machine was coming, if not soon, then it would definitely be for Christmas.

In the meantime little Alex was looking back and forth between the two of them with a frown. Winn was edging away from them quietly. She was chatting with Winn about what they could do next and he was showing her all the colors and type of filaments she could get, Alex was starting to make a list when Cat arrived.

Alex was so happy to show her what they made last night.

It took forever, but she was sure she could improve it, they could find a way to make it go faster. Definitely something she would talk to Winn about, he could help.

Then Cat came in and little Alex was thrill to show her everything she brought. She also asked a lot of questions about it, and Alex was more than happy to answer all of them.

Cat certainly expected to see the little brunette when she set foot onto her floor this morning, she was just a little surprised that Sunny Danvers was nowhere to be found. She'd consciously allowed for more time because she knew that morning routine needed time to establish with a child, even one as smart as little Alex obviously was.

And they were probably going to bed very late last night.

She was only going to see what little Alex was up to when she got in and saw her sitting at her Sunshine of an assistant's desk, with Winnifred. They seemed to be planning something. But then the five year old presented her with a little frog.

Needless to say, she was pulled into a wild tale of how they were putting a machine together.

How did she make it sound so interesting, she didn't know. She chalked it up to little Alex being so excited about it. The little girl certainly resemble Alexandra, even in her manners. Listening to her go on and on about something that clearly interested her was a joy, to say the least. Cat wondered if these things were genetic, if so the Danvers would make excellent teachers.

And so, they had a little show and tell while Sunny Danvers was out presumably getting her a latte, and probably something sugary for herself and hopefully something with less sugar for her young charge here.

Cat smiled and asked appropriate questions when the rhythm allowed, little Alex was telling her how they calibrated the printer and she was the one picking out the model. The Queen of All Media was impressed, the girl certainly sounded like she understood what needed to be done before the model could be created.

Cat was pretty sure that the sweater hobbit was the one doing the 'slicing' and starting of the print. Whatever 'slicing' meant.

"It took 8 hours for this." Little hands held up the castle for Cat to inspect. "It is pre-sliced, though."

"I'm sure you can do better." Cat praised.

"Yup." The confident nod was so adorable that she just wanted to grab her up and squeeze her.

"Ms. Grant?"

Ah, there's her Sunshine personified assistant, with the lifesaver drink in hand.

"I heard you had a nice night last night?" She reached out to accept the drink and rose from the chair, then considering ordering some new chairs, they were not all that comfortable. Then she commented on how tired her son was this morning. Carter was tired, but he was much too excited to be cranky, a fact she was thankful for. She was also glad that he seemed to find something that interested him. She'd noticed that he seemed bored with his study and his science club lately.

For a smart boy like him, being bored with his schooling was not a good thing. But he hadn't said anything to her, not yet.

She waited a few more minutes, with the pretense of looking through the schedule for the day while Sunny D. gave a small -thank goodness - chocolate shake to the little girl.

"Would you like to come tell me more about the frog?"

Little brunette finally looked away from her temporary guardian to her. It took her a few more seconds to look between them and finally got a nod from Sunny Danvers and gathered up her things. Cat took a few things for her and led her away.

"You can rearrange my meetings better, Keira." She tossed over her shoulder before entering her own office.

"You found it!" Kara nearly shot out of her chair.

She was going through the layout from the art department for Ms. Grant when the call came in. It was a quiet morning, so far, and there was enough work to keep her occupied and her mind busy.

Until a call came in from the D.E.O.

She expected some development, something to help return Alex back to her adult body, or timeline, or anything really. What she didn't expect was this particular information.

They found the lair.

And her little outburst had everyone on the floor looking at her, including Ms. Grant, and the little brunette. Kara quickly straighten up and lower her voice. Her boss looked like she was about to come out and check what was going on.

'Yes, the beta team is on its way.' Vasquez voice sounded a little far away, a little out of breath.

"Where?"

'Supergirl…'

"I'm going, give me the address."

'Ma'am-'

"I am going." She put as much authority into her voice as possible without raising it. A trick she'd learned from Alex, and she felt a small pang, she wasn't as good as the older Danvers, but she would be. Alex would teach her more.

'I'll send you the coordination.' Was the reply after a long pause.

Kara shot out of her seat with a stack of paper - something she just grabbed without looking - her mind searched for an excuse. "I'm gonna go make some copies," was what she tossed over her shoulder to whoever was looking and listening.

And she ran out, before her boss could come out and question her action, she left Winn to pick up the fallen notes and stationery in her wake.

Alex frowned when she saw Kara fled from her desk.

"Copy room run."

Little head turned back to Cat Grant, the woman was giving her a reassuring smile when she explained to Alex that Kara sometimes had to run to the copy room for some printouts and other paperworks.

Alex didn't think so, especially when she saw how Winn was looking at her wide eyed. She decided that Cat didn't need to know that. She'd been keeping an eye out for Kara, and kept Cat occupied for most of the day. It honestly wasn't very hard, she was very cute, after all.

"Supergirl." The Director narrowed his eyes, he knew she was coming, knew even before he told Vasquez to let her know of the development. He knew she was coming, but that didn't mean he was happy about it. "And where is Alex?" He asked as soon as she landed close enough.

The team had been setting up, various agents were getting in position, all they needed was the order from their commander. No they weren't really wait for their resident Super, although the majority of them knew that she was coming to join them. If it was about Agent Danvers, there was no way their Superhero would not come along.

"With Ms. Grant."

J'onn did a double take, "is that a good idea?"

"She's fine, Ms. Grant loves her." There was a tiny pout there, and J'onn gave her a curious look, but he decided that it could wait and signaled for the agents to move in since Supergirl was here and everyone was in positions.

Like locust, the agents descended on the seemingly decrepit warehouse at the edge of the dock.

Supergirl was surprised that the place didn't just fall apart at a particular strong gust of wind, and she was very careful in her landing when she got inside.

To find that the inside was just as decrepit as the outside. And pretty much empty, with the exception of some crates and one lone criminal, who was most likely left to guarde whatever they stored at the place. He didn't even put up a fight - a very smart move on his part, since there was no conceivable way for him to get out of it alive. He even dropped to the ground as soon as he saw a flash of red.

And as the D.E.O agents removed the man out of the warehouse, the Kryptonian gave the whole place a sweep with her X-Ray vision. There was no bomb, no weapon that she could see or identify and she said as much.

J'onn ordered his team to take everything back to the D.E.O. They could process everything back where the roof would not come down around their ears.

"That was pretty underwhelming." Supergirl pouted. The other agents nearby tried very hard not to gawk, and when the Director shot a look their way, they dispersed quickly.

J'onn wanted to roll his eyes, but being the director, he thought it was inappropriate to do so in front of the other agents.

"I was expecting some fight." Yes, she did, she felt like she needed an excuse to smack them around a little, for what they did to Alex. She didn't expect to see only one man, and one that quick to surrender at that.

"Well, Supergirl-"

"I better go, before Ms. Grant starts looking for me." She quickly said, after looking at her wrist, as if she was wearing a watch. There was no watch. And she was gone in a flash.

J'onn pinched the bridge of his nose before calling for his agents to move faster. He really, really missed Alex.

"Winn." Kara jogged back to her desk with a stack of papers on her hands. "What did I miss?"

"Not much, Ms. Grant didn't even look for you." He motioned toward the glass office with his head, Kara just wanted to roll her eyes, Winn liked to think that he was discreet, but he really wasn't. "She didn't even step out to yell at anyone."

She looked in and saw Ms. Grant with her phone in one hand while still had her eyes on what little Alex was doing. It was kind of adorable, and that concentration in her little face - Kara just wanted to go in there and scoop her up.

Which she might have to do soon now that she noticed the time.

Oh shoot! Had she been gone that long?

Quickly, she settled behind her desk, intending to get as much done as she could before lunch time roll along. Undoubtedly she would have to race out to get something for Ms. Grant and then maybe she could take little Alex out for some cheeseburger or something. Then after that she was going to check in with the D.E.O and see if they found anything of use.

"Dr. Wells."

"Yes, Director?"

Dr. Helena Wells was pretty used to amount of weird stuffs that came across her desk, this time was no different, what different was that fact that she was dealing directly with the Director himself. Normally she would be dealing with one of the agents in command center, that or Dr. Danvers herself, although the last one was probably not feasible at the moment, seeing how she was in a bit of predicament.

An understatement.

This particular situation was something she'd expected while working at the warehouse. She didn't think she was going to encounter something like this again, and only deal with the strangeness of the outer space. Well, she was wrong.

The good thing was she was trusted to do her very best without anyone second guessing her, and that was probably because she was a big help - if she said so herself - while Supergirl was otherwise unavailable due to her diminutive size.

"How quickly can you and your team catalog everything we found?" He rubbed his temple tiredly, "I have no doubt that Supergirl would be in contact soon and wanting to know everything. I'd like to have some sort of update for her."

"We're doing it as quickly as we can, Director." There was some sort of a list, and hopefully she could figure out the name on the list to the actual piece of artifact. This was also on top of the things that she was looking at from Dr. Danvers' lab as well and hopefully the list would give her some sort of clue as to what caused the deaging of Dr. Danvers. She was also about to do another level of radiation detector, just to see if they could find something, anything that could be helpful.

Now she also needed to send someone to Dr. Danvers' lab and see if they could recreate the circumstance of the activation of the artifact. They weren't even sure which one caused it, there were several of them. There was so much she needed to get done.

"I understand, have you ever encounter an artifact that reduced the age of a person encountered it while you were at the other agency?"

"Not the ones that I personally encounter, no, Director." She paused, "but if nothing here pan out I could look into the archive of the warehouse?"

"Yes," he nodded minutely "do that."

"And Sir, can I borrow Agent Bering?" She spoke up when he started to leave. "She may be able to help with some of the search."

"Take whoever you need Dr. Well." He waved his hand and gave her his permission before continued on his way out.

"Thank you, sir." She said after his retreating back.

"So, what happened? Did you find something?" Winn took the opportunity to ask as soon as they got a moment of inactivity. "Anything?"

"Yeah, we found some… stuff." But Kara didn't elaborate.

"Well?" Really, she could just tell him without him having to prompt her.

"We don't know what yet, I mean there was one guy there, and a bunch of stuff. I didn't even get to punch anything." She pouted. "I really wanna punch something." Kara could only huff, she was frustrated, but this was neither the place nor the time.

This would normally be when she would make a call to Alex, because Alex made everything better. She would patiently listen to her whined and then offered some advice or encouragement, of course there were times that Alex could be little shit and just teased the hack out of her as well.

"Aw.. that sucks, I'm sorry." Winn offered in sympathy, then he quickly turned around back to his station.

"Wha.." Kara started to ask when she heard her boss.

"Keira!"

Like an energizer bunny, or something poked her in the butt, the Kryptonian hopped up and raced into the fish bowl her boss called an office. "Yes, Ms. Grant!"

"There you are.'' As if she didn't keep an ear out for Sunny Danvers' return. "It's about lunch time I believe.'' She tilted her head toward little Alex, who was looking at the both of them with a tiny frown.

"Oh, that is right.'' She looked at her watch. ''You must be hungry.''

"Salad.'' Cat said, ''make sure there's burger on top.''

"Right, burger on top," her sunny assistant murmured as she wrote her order down. "Alex?"

"I wanna go." The little brunette sounded very firm.

"Yes, ok." Kara said quickly, she didn't want to chance her boss saying anything, besides, she'd been running around all morning, and it felt like she'd neglected the little brunette.

Alex had spent the morning distracting Cat from noticing when Kara had to run out for whatever emergencies that needed her. Part was of her was enjoying sharing her activities, 3d printing was interesting, if slow, very, very slow. Well, it wasn't as if she didn't know that already, D.E.O had their own print farm for prototyping whatever tech or weapons that they needed, but she was only ever there to start, or pick up what pieces she needed. It was different when she was the one waiting personally for pieces to be done.

Those pieces were also purely functional, while this was for fun.

She vaguely recalled wanting one for her own personal use, and she thought she'd mentioned it to her Kryptonian a couple of times, she just didn't get the chance to actually order one for herself. Or maybe she was planning, things were hazy at times, and she couldn't really tell.

But before she could chase the thought down, Cat was ordering her lunch.

Lunch, yes, lunch sounded good.

And when Cat stopped her weird - burger on top of salad? What? Was that an actual item on the menu? - Kara was looking at her… Oh, lunch?

"I'm going with you." Yup, she was going. She wanted to see what was on the menu, and she needed to know if the D.E.O found anything that could be of use, if anyone was working on her problem. Couldn't talk about that with other people within earshot.

"Ok."

Little Alex could see Cat frowning, but she went and closed the tablet's cover, squaring some of her stuff on the coffee table away neatly. Kara was already by the door, with her hoodie in hand.

"We'll be back," she waved at Cat Grant and ran out the door.

a/n : Yes, yes, I know.. still small, but little!Alex is too cute to let go so soon, right?

Thank you guys for being patient with me, I appreciated all the comments and favs, comments are great, I tell ya.