Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Naruto Or Supergirl
Naruto found himself alone, running through the halls of one of Metropolis' cloud reaching apartment buildings. People brushed past him on either side, too concerned with their own well being to see him or anyone that wasn't immediately related to them. Young, old, male, female, human, alien— and many more, all running for their lives. All filled with the same soul freezing terror. Naruto pushed himself in the opposite direction of the exits. The building beneath his feet shook.
Keep moving, he thought. Keep moving...I have to get there.
He shoved another alien aside with ease and pushed further down the hallway. Closer to the apartment he lived in, the air was hotter. Naruto felt the heat building and covered his face with his arms. He kept his eyes shielded and pushed further. But his feet barely took two steps before he was sent back. The back half of the hallway had crumbled away. Naruto was being dragged by the collar of his shirt.
Suddenly, the hand on his collar loosened. Looking up, Naruto just caught sight of a stray brick smacking into his would-be saviors head. Blood splashed across the walls, and the elderly man fell.
Naruto left him on the floor and ran.
But now the further he pushed down the hall, the closer the edge came. Metal and brick fell like a waterfall down the side of the building. Naruto felt a huge gust of air that knocked him on his ass. He closed his eyes, lids burning, and felt glass cut into his face.
Ignoring the pain, Naruto opened his eyes and saw it. A solid red door leading into a warm home.
Pushing through, Naruto saw the door was one of the few things left standing. Most of the apartment was blown clean off. Its walls were splintered, and its windows shattered. All the tables and chairs were burned and smelled of smoke. Toward the back sat a woman, her simple clothes the only thing not covered in a layer of ash.
"A boy's isn't a boy that doesn't ruin his clothes..." Naruto heard his mother say.
"I know," He replied, reaching to straighten his tie. But he no longer wore his school uniform. Instead, he found himself burdened by matte-black impact plating.
"You always hated uniforms." She looked up at him—with the same eyes Naruto had— and she smiled.
As Naruto smiled back, the woman waved and pointed to the hallway outside the apartment. Naruto turned and saw a man, seemingly larger than life, wearing a colorful costume, cape swaying behind his knees.
"You're in the way," Superman said, eyes glowing red.
"Wait," Naruto begged, reaching to grab the alien.
He groaned and dropped to a knee. His armor had become unbearably heavy. He planted his gloved hands on the ash-covered floor to keep himself from collapsing. Through narrowed eyes, he saw boot prints: the frantic footwork of agents working to surround a target.
Superman frowned. "I can't be distracted." He lifted into the air, flying out of the crumbling building. He casually slammed into another across the street, as if not noticing something was obstructing his flight path.
The shockwave of his departure sent the woman stumbling to the edge of the apartment.
"Careful, mom!" Naruto shouted. "It's not safe!" He tried to leap forward and grab her hand.
But his legs were leaden—rooted to the floor. Naruto heard the sounds of Superman's heat vision, saw its shadow ripple across the apartment.
"Relax," Naruto's mother said to him. "You'll be safe.
Naruto groaned and tried to crawl. His armor had become unbearably heavy. He planted his gloved hands on the ash-covered floor to keep himself from collapsing.
His mother repeated herself. But this time, her voice seemed to come from somewhere else—an echo from beyond the restaurant, but somehow very close to Naruto's ear.
"Relax. You'll be alright..."
Naruto did, and he was. The potent pharmaceuticals that had kept him unconscious since his fight aboard the freighter drained from his veins like water from a bath. He felt the tug of an imagined drain and let himself settle to the bottom. When his eyes finally opened, they seemed to do so at quarter-speed.
"There you are," Lucy Lane said, standing close beside his bed. "Welcome back."
Naruto knew he had been dreaming, but he was still surprised to see her.
"How long have I been out?" He croaked, taking in his surroundings: a small room with cream-colored walls, monitoring equipment, and an IV stand—its tubing running to a needle in the top of his right hand. Naruto smelled antiseptic and aggressively bleached linens.
A hospital, he thought, a suspicion quickly confirmed as Lucy lifted a pitcher of ice water from a wheeled cart and filled a glass etched with the words Metropolis General.
"Almost two days," she said, handing Naruto the glass. "You had a fractured skull."
Naruto rose onto an elbow, took the glass, and drained it with a long, slow sip. Sunday...That was when the DEO had gotten actionable intel on the bomb shops. Alpha and Bravo team had been briefed, armed, and on their way to Metropolis.
"What about the civilians?"
"Most lived. Had enough sense to keep running after they got out of the diner." Lucy put the pitcher back on the tray. "We lost the boy's father. You saved the boy. Switched him with one of the other agents. The others shielded him from the blast. He's got a few burns, but he'll live."
Naruto frowned. "I don't remember that."
"What do you remember?" the Major asked. Lucy seemed penned in by the room's narrow walls. "Take me through it. Step by step."
Naruto furrowed his brow.
"The room's secure. And you're the only patient in this wing," Lucy explained.
Naruto reached for a row of buttons embedded in his bed's side-rail. Motors whirred, and the bed lifted him to a sitting position. Placing his glass in a nest of sheets that filled his lap, Naruto settled into a familiar mode: cut-and-dried delivery of an after-action report to a superior.
But he only got a minute or so in—was just starting to describe the combat with the aliens—when Lucy shook her head.
"I saw that through your helmet cam. How did you move the boy?" She asked, wrapping her arms across her chest.
"Ma'am?"
Lucy had begun to sag. Her shoulders sinking as she stood at his bedside. "The President is here, Naruto. She wants to talk to you about your powers. The ones you kept secret. Why did you lie?"
"I didn't. I've never—"
"Naruto, now is the time to come clean," Lucy said. "I can help you, but this...this doesn't look good. For either of us."
Naruto was about to give a passionate argument about how he had no idea he could teleport things and how his powers must still be growing when the door to his room slid open. President Olivia Marsdin stood in the doorway.
"Major," She said. "If we might have a word."
"I'll handle this, Naruto." Lucy patted Naruto's leg through his sheets then headed for the door. "Focus on your recovery."
Naruto sat up as straight as he could, straining his IV. "Thank you, ma'am."
Lucy followed the President outside. Naruto raised his glass, tossed a few cubes of melting ice past his lips, and began to crunch. The movement of his jaw worsened an ache in the back of his skull. He reached around and felt a bumpy line—a cauterized incision through which the doctors must have made before they were stopped.
Naruto could hear Lucy's voice outside the door, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. At first, President Marsdin's responses were similarly muffled, but the exchange quickly increased in volume—crescendoed with a sharp order from the President and accepting mutterings from Lucy. Naruto heard departing footfalls, and a few moments later, Lucy slid back into the room alone.
He reached out and placed his empty glass on the cart. "How much of a problem did my failure cause her?"
Lucy crossed her arms behind her back and leaned against the wall beside the door. "None. This isn't about your mission."
The President had already been on her way to Metropolis when the DEO had obtained the intel needed to move on the bomb shops. But if Lucy was upset that she'd been left out of the loop, she didn't show it. Her expression was perfectly calm.
"Then why was she here?"
Lucy pushed away from the wall. "Myriad. A city full of citizens of the United States was under alien control. Supergirl might have stopped it, but the entire world saw what was happening. Maxwell Lord made sure of that." Lucy stepped to the foot of Naruto's bed. "President Marsdin is being pressured to act. Between Hank Henshaw's exposure as a Green Martian, Supergirl, and their failure to stop Myriad before it became active, the National City branch of the DEO needs reform."
Naruto remembered the videos he saw online and on the news. Thousands of people, humans, walking down the empty streets of National City, like lambs to a slaughter.
"She wants me, doesn't she? I'm just one guy."
"We both know that isn't true," Lucy said.
"So...what? Am I just supposed to pack up my life and go back? Because, why? The Henshaw and his second in command have got a thing for superheroes in skirts?"
Lucy wrapped her hands around the stainless steel bar that bracketed the bottom of Naruto's mattress. She squeezed, as if doubtful of the metal's strength. "I've spent time there. It's not as professional as it should be, but our National City branch gets the job done. But that just isn't enough. Not anymore."
Naruto heard the frustration in her voice: a flaw in her emotionless facade. He had an opportunity to say the right thing—to explain that he shared her frustration, and to ask her what they could do, together, to stave off his transfer. Instead, he let his anger get the better of him.
"Washington's playing politics," he snarled. "And you're not gonna do a damn thing about it?"
Naruto had been testing the boundaries of insubordination since Lucy reentered the room, but this was a clear step over the line. Lucy pulled her hands from the bar.
"I've been given a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief. An order in which I in—in no uncertain terms—am supposed to sign the transfer papers assigning you to the DEO's National City branch." Any weakness in her voice was gone. She locked Naruto's brazen stare. "What, Staff Seargeant, do you suggest I do?"
Major Lucy Lane's name had clout. But Naruto knew it would still take more than her word for him not to be transferred. If the President herself had made the order, he was going to National City. And Naruto knew, deep in his gut, there was nothing Lucy could do to stop it.
With a silent curse, he yanked out his IV, threw back his bed-sheets, and swung a foot onto the floor. His hospital gown was surprisingly short, and Lucy was at a particularly awkward angel. But her eyes remained fixed on his as he removed his freshly washed uniform from the middle shelf of the hospital cart, stepped into his black fatigue pants, and fastened them beneath his gown.
"What are you doing?"
"Returning to duty."
Naruto tore off his gown and tossed it on the bed. Now Lucy's eyes did flick up and down, registering the ugly contusions the recent fight had left on Naruto's broad chest and shoulders.
"I don't remember giving you permission to do that."
Naruto muscled into his black collared long sleeve shirt, dropped to a knee, and did up his boots. "I have my orders. Transfer to National F'ing City. And I intend to do just that."
Avery stood up and marched toward the door. Lucy sidestepped and barred his path. He was a head taller, much heavier, and much, much stronger. But looking down at her stoic face, Naruto honestly wondered who'd come out on top if he tried to push past, and she tried to stop him. In the end, all she needed was her voice.
"I didn't want this, Naruto." She paused. "I know what that city took from you."
"Ma'am."
Lucy stepped aside, and Naruto slid open the door. Stepping into the hall, he was surprised to see President Marsdin, sitting on a cushioned bench a few doors down, fingers busy on her cellphone's screen. She looked up as Avery approached.
"I was expecting worse." She smiled. "You look pretty good. All things considered."
"Madam President," Lucy said as she strode quickly past.
Naruto and the President watched Lucy head toward an elevator at the end of the hall. Her black boot's low heels clacked loudly on the polished white tile floor. Naruto waited until she was inside the elevator, and the door was closed before he asked.
"What the hell, Oliva? National City?"
"I didn't mean for this to happen." the President dropped her phone into the pocket of her suit. "But Lucy isn't at fault. You owe her an apology."
Naruto narrowed his eyes. "I don't need you to tell me that."
"She's following her orders." President Marsdin put her hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Just like I know, you will. Despite your feelings on the matter. That's why I need you in National City."
Naruto knew what the President was alluding to. He had mentioned it to Lucy in his room. Supergirl had too much pull at the DEO.
"I am sorry." the President said, leading Naruto toward the elevator. "I believe Supergirl has Earth's best interest in her heart, and I know she just wants to help, but the Supers...they don't see things the way humans do. They don't have to. I can't have her way of thinking infringe on the DEO. We can't afford that."
"You already gave the order, Olivia," Naruto said. "No need to explain."
"It was the only option I had without giving more power to the anti-alien politicians. My pardon for J'onn J'onzz has already put me under a microscope. And the Alien Amnesty Act isn't helping matters."
"I understand," Naruto said calmly. "I'll be on the first train to National City."
"Thank you." President Marsdin pressed the down arrow next to the elevator doors. "I've taken the liberty of finding you an apartment. It has everything you need. Close to the DEO, good school district and Maxwell Lord lived there before, so it's impervious to most known alien powers. It even has a nice view of the city."
"Free of charge?" the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Naruto stepped inside.
"Of course." President Marsdin reached out and stopped the doors from closing. "You could have fought this, Naruto. We both know how...thank you for not doing that."
"I'll see you in a few weeks Madam President," Naruto said as she moved her hand, and the doors slid shut.
Had this and chapter 2 already written and decided not to wait!
Huge thanks to the people already reviewing, following and favoriting the story!
And to adam199118: My take on the pairing is...open-minded...nothing is set in stone and most likely won't show up this season.
Thanks for reading!