( Getting to Know ) Your Inner Child
by XavAcid
chapter 6 : we're moving in the right direction, at a glacier pace...
"Hey Kara!"
"Oh hi Claire, Carter." Kara smiled up at one Mr. Grant and his babysitter brightly even as she wondered if they were supposed to be at the office. She glanced down at her watch, didn't Carter have some kind of after school thing today?
Normally, Kara wasn't the one to keep the young Carter's schedule, not unless it had something directly to do with Ms. Grant while she was at the office, like PTA meeting that was scheduled in the late afternoon instead of evening, or if Claire was off due to some illness, like the last time. Although, lately the boy found a reason to stop by once a week or so, Kara had a sneaking suspicion that while he stopped by to see his mom, he was also hoping to see Alex.
"Hi Alex," Carter greeted the little brunette brightly.
"Hi." Alex looked up from the tablet and smiled.
Little Alex was currently sitting at her desk, only because Ms. Grant was on the phone with a board member and was doing something with some app that Winn installed for her. Kara wasn't sure what that was, since she was a little busy at the moment. She was sure she would hear all about it later, though.
After they came back from lunch, Alex had been in and out of her boss's office, and fell asleep on her pristine white couch at one point. She did have a long night the previous night, and a pretty busy morning.
"Kara told me you finished building the printer last night?" Carter didn't waste anytime. He wanted to come to his mom's office to talk to Kara and little Alex, it took some effort on his part to get Claire to bring him. And he knew that his babysitter only relent because it was his mother's office. Had it been anywhere else he would be sitting at home by now. But now he was pulling out one of the empty chairs to sit with the little brunette, he didn't pay much mind when Claire told him that she would be waiting out front, where the couches were for visitors.
"Winn helped."
Kara grinned down and rubbed her back, Alex was so humble. Sometimes she really wanted Alex to brag about all her accomplishments. She let them chat while she took care of the work in front of her.
She'd noticed that little Alex's burst of awareness came a little more frequently, she could tell from the differences in her tone and words. Kara doubted anyone else would be able to tell, though, no one else knew Alex as well, and as intimately as she did.
These little bursts gave her a tiny bit of hope.
She also needed to talk to the doctor to see what their opinions were. If it was really a positive sign that she took it as. Maybe she could also offered her help to Dr. Well in researching later. She'd heard, mostly from Vas that Dr. Well and Agent Bering came to them by the way of another secret organization. She'd never heard of them, but Alex pointed out that before she came out as Supergirl, she didn't even know the D.E.O existed, so it was not a stretch that there were others she'd never knew about.
Kara asked if Alex knew of them, her agent said that she did. Of course she did.
She also wanted to know more, from what little that she heard, it was interesting. What kind of organization called Warehouse, and there was number followed, apparently there were more than one? Were they all still around? Defunct? And how would they know when to start a new warehouse? So many questions she wanted to ask, but they all had to wait until she could get Alex back to herself. Her adult self.
"Kara?"
"Huh?" Apparently she'd been so lost in her tasks and thoughts that she didn't hear Carter called her name for several seconds. "What is it?"
"Can we get some snacks?" Little Alex was looking at her with puppy dog eye, and this version was just as lethal as the one she'd perfected since her teen year. And Carter, he was also looking at her with his own version as well.
"Um, yeah. Let me see." Then she felt it. The look from her boss all the way from her office. Really, if she didn't know any better she could've sworn that the woman had some sort of super hearing. Now she would have to make sure that the snack she pick for them were healthy, or at least the one for Carter was.
With a discreet sigh, Kara realized that nothing in her drawer of snacks would pass Ms. Grant inspection, they all were designed to give her a bit of a boost until she could get to her next meal, which meant that they were all very high in calories. They were what Alex deemed appropriate to tie her over for a time.
With all the things she was dealing with she completely forgot to grab some candybar that was Ms. Grant approved, and she usually kept some in case of Carter's visit.
"Hey," and came the rescue from her best friend, well.. Second best friend, her absolute best friend was Alex, but Winn was a very close second. "Here, I got something they can have." He handed her a couple of king size snicker bars. Kara glared at him, it was not really any better than what she had in her stash, and now the children saw them she couldn't not give them.
No, he was not her second best friend anymore, she was going to give that title to someone else. Maybe Agent Vasquez, yeah.
She could feel the glare from her boss even more acutely when she had to hand over two of the candy bars to eager hands.
Alex who noticed the look from inside of the glass bowl office, looked up at Kara, and gave her a grin.
"Alex?"
"Maybe Cat wants some." She said, and before Kara, or Carter could stop her she hopped down from her seat and raced into the office.
"Cat!" She wasn't exactly shouting, but her voice was loud enough that the entire cubicles winced.
"Oh no," Carter's jaw dropped.
None of them could do anything about a small body shot forward and into Cat Grant's office now, well, Kara probably could, but she would oust herself as an Alien immediately. Man, little Alex sure was quick!
She came to a stop in front of the Queen of All Media, who was trying to not glare at the little girl, but at the same time conveying to her employees outside of the glass wall of her irk.
"Want half?" Little Alex broke the candy in half before she open the wrap to offer it to Cat. "It's too big and Kara said I shouldn't eat too much of it."
Winn who was trying to make himself smaller and rethinking his desk position, since his boss could see him clearly from her office felt the chill running down her spine, he knew she was glaring, oh he knew. With the tips of his shoes, he slowly inched his chair out of her line of sight.
Cat turned her sight down to a smiling child, and adjusting her expression to a smile. She eyed the candy bar in small hand with apprehension. As a rule she did not eat any candy, her only indulgent would be a handful of M&M on a very very bad day, but the giant candybar? No, never. However, at the risk of little Alex's smile, she couldn't very well decline her generosity.
Little Alex presented the most innocent look she could muster and held the candy bar aloft. She could see the reluctant in Cat's eye, so she smiled bigger, sweeter.
With a stiffening spine Cat Grant took the candy, she broke it in half and gave one half back to the little girl, making note in her mind to make sure that there would be no more candy bar in sweater hobbit desk drawer anymore.
"Thank you," she said with a smile down at a bright little face.
"You're welcome." Little Alex grinned big, and ran out of the office, candy bar still held aloft in her hand.
Kara watched the whole thing with something akin to growing horror in her belly. She thought that this was one of those burst of big Alex came though, it was that mischievous glint in her eyes. Man, Alex was a genius. But now Winn was going to lose his stash for sure. Hopefully, she wouldn't lose hers as well.
Carter sat stock still, and watched with fascination, he had never seen his mom eat a snicker bar before. She wouldn't even drink whole milk!
"Alex?" Kara asked when the little brunette climbed back into her seat with her half candy bar. She was looking just a bit smug. Just a bit. What she got back was a grin. It somehow looked as fitting and out of place on her sweet little face.
The grin, however, would certainly be fitting on adult Alex's face that it took Kara's breath away.
"Aren't you going to eat it?"
Cat Grant nearly jumped out of her seat when she turn around to see Carter standing with little Alex, the later looked curiously at the still half bar of candy then up at her. She'd been so studiously ignoring the candy sitting mockingly on her desk.
"Well, I… I'll."
"You're not gonna eat it?" Large, dark eyes started to go watery and trembling of the lower lip came.
And she thought that if she ignored it long enough, hopefully she could dispose of it without anyone being the wiser. And with the children chatting outside she didn't think anyone would be paying attention. She thought she could just drop it out of sight and later, into the trash can. Not happening now.
"Yes, I will, but I am very busy." Cat said quickly. "So I haven't got the chance yet."
"Ok," Alex nodded with a smile.
Cat breathed a sigh of relief.
"And what are you two up to?" She quickly asked, looking at her son.
"Kara is going to Noonan to get your coffee, she's taking Alex, and I wanna go with them."
Cat eyed her son for a few seconds, he already had snacks, she'd seen the children stuffing their faces with candy bars and cheeseballs or whatever the sweater hobbit had in his drawer, they did not need anymore sweets. She didn't know about little Alex, but she was sure she didn't want Carter to be bouncing off the wall for the rest of the evening. The memory of the evening after their trip to aquarium came to her mind, and she mentally shuddered.
"I'm not getting anything I just wanna go with them." Carter said quickly, knowing his mother well enough to know why she was hesitating.
Cat opened her mouth, then snapped it shut when a pair of very large, very much pleading eyes looked up at her. "Alright," she finally gritted out.
From beyond the glass door, Kara hid her smirk as she heard and saw all the micro expression on her boss's face as she tried and rearranged her face so that she didn't show the disapproval on her face to the children. No one could resist Alex's puppy dog eye, no one.
Carter was happy.
He woke up this morning to a bunch of photos and texts from Kara, he did sneak a look after his mom sent him to bed, but fell asleep before he could see the finished printer. He was thinking that he could probably talked Claire into taking him to his mom's office. And perhaps he could talk to little Alex for a bit, maybe asked Winn a few questions.
Winn was cool, he was the one that set up all those TVs in his mom office so that they could play video games on them. And he could see the guy putting the machine together from the photos Kara sent him last night.
He knew that by now his mother could tell what he wanted for his birthday already- he was hoping for Christmas, but that would be too soon, he needed to set his goal - he would need to convince her, and to do that he was going to have to know more about the machine to be able to make a clear game plan and timeline. His mom liked it better if he could give a good convincing arguments.
He didn't expect to learn a lot from little Alex, though.
She knew so much, it was a pleasant surprise for him and he really liked talking with her. He wondered if everyone in her family was so smart like that. Like Alex, big Alex.
And now he was practically skipping down the sidewalk with little Alex's barely contained energy, Kara was right beside them both, with her long legs that easily kept up with their speed. There were so many things she was telling him and so many things he just didn't know or thought about.
He made mental notes to look all these things she was telling him as soon as he got the chance. A well research notes would also help convince his mom to perhaps get him one for his birthday.
On a different note, little Alex was fun!
He didn't have a lot of experience with little kids, mainly, he didn't really have the opportunity and was a little afraid to spend time with them. They were loud and chaotic, and he didn't much understand them, and their sticky hands, snotty noses... But little Alex was different, she wasn't loud, and she surprisingly knowledgeable on so many things. And she got his mom to eat snickers! He had never seen his mom eating candy, except occasional M&M.
"What are you making next?"
"I saw a model of jet engine, I wanna print that." She went on to explain it at length, of where she found the model and how many pieces that would make up the complete medel, too many he thought but it sounded really interesting.
Kara gently guided the youngsters through the crowd, while listening in on their conversation. Carter was more outgoing now than when they've first met, he was coming out of his shell. Which was why she indulged him last night, even though she knew that Cat wasn't going to be very happy when she found out that her assistant sent her son texts and photos well into the night.
They soon arrived at Noonan's.
Knowing that she could only get a small milkshake for Alex, while the big Alex could put away food like no one else, because of their routine workout and spar sessions, and she was also a very active agent, little Alex could not eat that much. Besides she already got some cookies and cheeseballs from Winn. No need to stuff her full again so close to dinner.
And she certainly could not get anything for Carter other than some small serving of lemonade. Anything else and Cat would definitely have her head.
They still needed to go to the base after to check on any progress the scientists were making, if they made any progress at all. At the very least she hoped that Dr. Well would find something on the database that she overheard her talked about to J'onn.
She hoped something could be done soon.
The update from the D.E.O was also rather sparse today, she couldn't wait until after work to get to the base. There were also a few things that she needed them to be aware of. As Dr. Hamilton told her the day before nothing was too small to overlook. That every development occurred she would need to let them know. And Kara thought that little Alex's more frequent bursts of awareness was important for them to know.
She hoped it meant something good.
"Oh no," Kara muttered, a slight panic creeping up her spine as a familiar sound of one particular ringtone she did not want to hear piercing through her super hearing. With little Alex in one arm and her tote bag in the other, the Kryptonian tried very hard to not break her door as she tried to open it.
The phone kept ringing. Alex's phone.
She didn't think to bring Alex's phone with her because just about everyone who would have any reason to contact Alex at all knew that she was unavailable, no one would call her. Well, everyone but one person that she really really did not want to hear from right now.
How was she going to tell Eliza that Alex was now a five year old.
Kara pushed the door close as gently as her nervousness would allow her. She couldn't make up her mind whether she want to answer that phone that was still ringing. Each rings gave her a feeling of doom right at the pit of her stomach. She didn't want to think about how disappointed Eliza would be if she knew what happened to Alex.
Dropping the totebag off, it was somewhat of a gymnastic act to be carrying all of the things she needed for little Alex from the car and also Alex herself. No matter how strong she was, she still only had two hands and they were pretty full.
They spent their entire afternoon at the D.E.O base, or rather Alex did. Supergirl was required after about an hour into the check up. A massive piled up on the highway took her awhile to help clear up. Supergirl was needed to bring some injured people from the accidental site to the closest hospital. It was a good thing no one died. And when she got back to the base the checkup was done. Dr. Well also made some significant finding in finally identified which piece of artifact that was responsible for Alex's condition.
At the same time Kara was reporting on big Alex came through in what situations. She could hear J'onn chuckled when she told Dr. Hamilton about the candybar incident. None of them ever thought of Agent Danvers as playful, or even mischievous. That was for Kara alone to witness, and one other person in the D.E.O to know.
Well, she hoped Alex wouldn't be mad later when she knew that her reputation for being a very serious senior agent was ruined to at least a couple of people later.
On the positive side, Carter seemed to have a really great time with little Alex plotting something. Kara wasn't even sure what they were plotting, she was too busy running around for Ms. Grant to hear everything. But she bet Winn would know. She also heard a word 'Ikea' at the tail end of their conversation. Now, what would they want to go to a furniture store for?
Kara gently put a sleeping child down on the couch, still reluctant to answer the phone, she moved at human speed, a slow human speed at that, to the kitchen island where she left the phone.
And the phone went blessedly silent.
Kara breathed a sigh of relief.
Until her own started ringing.
Shoot!
a/n : Little Alex is back, I hope someone missed her! Thank you for reading, comments and favs are very much welcome.