Author: Ashley
Title: Losing Your Inhibitions
Rating: M - Mature
Part: 15/16
Pairing: Mon-El and Kara Danvers (Zor-El)
Word Count (Chapter): 3,808
Summary: "'I'm not fighting it, Kara. Not in the slightest. I'm embracing it. I've never felt more like myself.' He continued to grin at her and it almost made her shiver and back away when his eyes glowed red, irises alight with the threatening colour. 'This is who I am.'" - Mon-El comes across an object that effects him in the same way that Red Kryptonite effects Kara. What kind of trouble can he get himself (and Kara) into?
Disclaimer: I don't own Supergirl, DC Comics or anything related to such things. The ideas, dialogue and plot points were inspired by the show, but they are my own. Plagiarism isn't nice. Please don't steal my ideas.
A/N: Happy Saturday readers!
Here we have the second-to-last chapter of this fic. I have to say that I think this is my favourite chapter. I really enjoy writing for these characters and getting into their heads, so despite the lack of smut, I enjoyed writing these conversations. I hope you all enjoy it just as much as I did writing it!
Chapter Fifteen: "This is the real me."
Wednesday
Mon-El lay on the floor of his containment cell, eyes looking up at the ceiling, hands intertwined and resting on his abdomen. Apparently not a care in the world as he lay there, dried blood visible on his jeans at his thigh. Kara assumed that's where Alex had shot him. She walked through the doorway, arms crossed, eyes downcast. Her head still felt sort of foggy and her limbs were weak, but she knew she had to confront him now. She needed to know why he did it.
She closed the door behind herself loudly and jumped at the echo it made. Once she'd laid eyes on him, she'd forgotten that she was supposed to be sneaking in here. His head turned as he heard the door close, his eyes meeting hers and a smirk forming on his face.
"Ahh, little Miss Perfect has returned," he sighed as he sat up. "You've recovered from all our fun, have you?"
Her eyes flicked to his as she moved toward him.
"Don't look at me like that. You're the one that's always afraid of having any real fun."
She didn't say anything. She just stared at him.
He sighed loudly as he sat down on the bench inside the cell. "So, you've come to lecture me, I assume. At a time when I can't run away from you."
She continued to move closer to him, stopping a foot away from the glass that separated them before she shook her head. She looked down at him.
"I'm not here to lecture you. I'm here to ask what's wrong with you. And why you did what you did. Why you did what you did to me."
"Nothing's wrong with me," he shrugged as he stood inside the chamber. "And I did what I did because you're more fun that way."
"More fun what way?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed at him.
"Under Red Kryptonite. You're so stuck up. You're way more interesting when it's pushing you," he grinned as he moved closer to the glass, nearly pressed up against it as he spoke to her.
"So you knew all along what you were doing? What you were doing to me?"
He nodded surely. "Of course I did. How else would I have known about finding the rock in the storage room?" He shrugged his shoulders at her.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you acting like this? I know this isn't you. What happened?"
"Nothing's wrong with me, Kara," he repeated. "This is the real me. The one you've been trying all this time to get rid of. This is who I was on Daxam. This is who I was taught to be. I've been spending all these months hiding behind you; being your sidekick, doing as you say, living by your rules. I'm tired, Kara. I want to be myself again."
She shook her head vehemently, "No, Mon-El, you're wrong. That's not what you were; that's not how I saw you."
"Well, it's how everyone else saw me," he shrugged. "Kara's little boy toy that put on a DEO suit and followed his girlfriend around while she saved the world."
"Mon-El, you're more than that to me. You're on your way to becoming a hero. It just…doesn't happen overnight."
"I don't know why you're surprised by this. This is me. Just accept it," he told her.
"I'm surprised because I know you don't want to be this person. Just because you were taught to be like this, doesn't mean that you have to be like this."
"I'm getting everything I want this way. Why wouldn't I keep acting like this?"
She shook her head. "You think you are, Mon-El, but you're not. You're going to start losing things, too. If you keep acting this way, you'll lose your friends; they already know something's wrong with you and they won't trust you anymore. You'll lose your job…at the DEO, at the bar, if you don't pick up your act." She paused as she watched him, his eyes staring directly into hers, no flinching at all as she spoke to him. "And you'll lose me."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't care."
Her eyes widened briefly before she composed herself. "You don't care about losing me?" She asked steely, but she felt the words in her chest.
"Nope," he shook his head. "Not if you're going to try to change me. This is who I want to be. I'm doing the things I want to do. You could be a part of that, Kara or you could just leave me the hell alone."
She took a step back. "When you get better…when we figure out what's wrong with you and fix this, you're going to be upset about the things you've said to me. About the things you did. About the things you made me do," she said.
He laughed loudly. "You mean losing your inhibitions, Kara? Because that's all I did. I just exposed you to the one thing that would lighten you up."
"I didn't want to do those things!" she suddenly shouted, angry that she wasn't getting through to him.
"What things? Sex on a motorcycle? Coming that hard inside a public changing room? Having sex while wearing crotchless panties?" he laughed as he spoke to her. "I may not be acting like myself according to you, Kara, but I can see what you desire. I can tell what you truly want."
"Not that stuff…" she said quietly. "I mean…stealing? Skipping out on work? You think I wanted to do those things?"
"Of course you did," he laughed again. "Deep inside of you, you wanted to do all that. Kara, I just made it easier for you to let yourself do it."
Kara shook her head. "No, Mon-El. You took away my choices. I could choose what I want to do when I have a clear head. When I'm under the Red K-"
"You just listen to what I tell you is a good idea? Kara, for one," he smirked. "I always know what a good idea is. And two, I didn't force you into making any decisions. I always let you choose what you wanted."
"No, it makes my brain fuzzy. It-it changes the way I think. It-"
"Just accept it, Kara. As much as it scares you, you loved it," he grinned.
She stepped up to the glass, her hand pressing against it, palm toward him. "Mon-El, I know that when you're under the influence of something like this, it's hard to fight it. And I'm sure you've tried-"
"I'm not fighting it, Kara. Not in the slightest. I'm embracing it. I've never felt more like myself." He continued to grin at her and it almost made her shiver and back away when his eyes glowed red, irises alight with the threatening colour. "This is who I am."
Kara shook her head as tears started to form in her eyes. She started to back up, eyes staying connected to his as she moved toward the exit. "It's not. You'll see. When we fix you, you'll see. I want that man back."
"He's not coming back, Kara," Mon-El scoffed. "That man is gone. Good riddance to him, anyway. All he ever did was listen to you and do everything you said. He lived to please you in every which way. Now, I want to make myself happy," he shrugged, "but I can make you happy, too. You just have to relax."
"I loved that man. You're still him," she shook her head. "I know you are."
"This is the man you love now," he grinned.
Kara turned and left the room, her back hitting the wall outside after the door closed behind her. Her chest was getting tight and her head was spinning. Her knees felt wobbly and she couldn't stand anymore. She slid down the wall to the floor, landing on her behind hard against the linoleum as she fell.
"Kara?" a concerned voice above her asked. She blinked up through her tears and saw Alex standing there.
"Alex-" she tried, her voice cracking.
"Kara, I told you to rest. You're too weak right now to talk to him." Her hands lifted her sister from the floor as she held onto her waist.
"We have to help him, Alex."
Alex nodded as she guided her sister back to the med bay. "I know. Winn is working on the antidote right now…as we speak, Kara. You just need to heal. It wasn't a big piece, but Kara, you were exposed to that Red K for hours. Directly exposed. You need to let your body heal from something like that."
The girls made it back to the med bay and Alex helped Kara get back into bed, once again tucking the blankets in around her before angling the yellow sun lamps to her body. "Sleep, please. And we'll have him fixed before you wake up," she smiled encouragingly.
Kara nodded, her eyelids feeling heavy already. "Thank you, Alex," she breathed.
Alex sat in the lab as she watched Winn put the final touches on the antidote, giving it one last once over before turning around to face her.
"Okay, I think I got it," he grinned, holding out a vial toward her.
"What do we do with it?" she asked as she looked down at the pale red liquid inside.
"You're going to have to inject him with it. You'll probably need to get him under a red sun lamp, but he'll probably still be a little weak from the bullet. It should pierce his skin just fine. Then, I guess you'll just have to convince him to let you poke him with it," he shrugged nonchalantly.
"Oh," she nodded. "Of course. Easy."
Winn turned around and grabbed a syringe from the back table. "Here ya go," he nodded as he handed it to Alex. "Good luck."
"Oh, nu uh," she shook her head as she pulled the cap off the needle and filled it with the liquid from the vial. "You're doing this with me."
"Me? But I figured out the antidote!"
"And we've been a team this whole time, Winn. I need your help."
He sighed heavily as he stood from his chair. "Okay," he agreed. "But we better get some other agents. I don't know if I'll be able to hold him down while you do it."
"Alright," she clapped him on the back. "Let's get this done."
"Ahh, welcome back, team," Mon-El laughed as he watched Alex and Winn walk into the containment room with a group of agents following closely behind them. Alex silently walked up to the door of his cell as Winn followed behind, flicking on a small electric red sun lamp. Mon-El winced briefly as the light shone in his face. "What's going on?" he asked confusedly.
Alex pressed a button, opening the door to the containment cell only slightly. "We're moving you," she said simply, the lie easily coming off her lips. "Put your hands out of the cell," she said, pulling the Nth metal cuffs from her belt loop. He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes as he stuck his hands out and did as she said.
"Where are we going?" he asked as she locked the cuffs around his wrists, tugging on them slightly to make sure they wouldn't budge. She didn't answer him and he grinned. "Ahh, a secret. How fun."
Alex opened the cell the rest of the way, her hand wrapping tightly around his elbow before all the agents suddenly advanced on him, knocking his feet out from under him as he fell to the floor beneath him.
"What the hell?!" he shouted loudly as they forced him to the ground, all sets of hands all holding him down.
Winn kept the lamp shining on him as he moved toward him, eyeing Alex as she moved her hand into his pocket to pull out the syringe Winn had given her.
"This isn't going to hurt," she said as she crouched to the floor. "It's going to finally fix you."
"Well," Winn jumped in with a shrug. "It might hurt. I don't really know for sure."
"Stop!" Mon-El cried out. "It could kill me!"
Alex rolled her eyes as she took the cap off the needle. "Relax, drama queen. It's not going to kill you." Her hand gripped his arm as he writhed about on the floor, holding him in place as she pushed the needle into his skin. Mon-El cried out loudly at the prick, but she wasn't sure if he was actually in any pain or just making a big fuss to be an ass about it.
His wrists suddenly stopped moving, his arms halting their straining against the Nth metal cuffs she'd strapped on him. His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing and forehead crinkling before he blinked a few times, his eyes fluttering back open. Winn and Alex looked down at him, their faces concerned, obviously worried about whether or not the antidote had actually done anything to him.
"Alex?" he asked, looking up at her before his eyes moved. "Winn?"
"Yeah, buddy," he smiled down at his friend. "How you feeling?" he asked, a hand gentle on his shoulder.
"Not good," he said quietly. "What's happening?" he asked confusedly as he blinked. "Where am I?"
"Look at me," Alex demanded, her hands moving to grip his cheeks, aligning his gaze with hers. She didn't see the red in his eyes anymore; the bloodshot colour having almost instantly drained from them, his irises returning to a soft gray. The surrounding agents backed up, releasing him from their hold. "You're at the DEO," Alex said as she helped him stand up and move toward the cot that had been rolled in earlier when they'd first brought him into containment. "Lie down and we'll take you to the med bay."
"I don't understand what's going on," he said quietly as he followed their urging to the cot.
"Memory loss?" Alex whispered to Winn behind Mon-El's back as they walked.
"I don't think so," he shook his head. "He's probably just confused. Needs to sleep it off or something…"
Mon-El moved onto the cot and Alex's hand chased after his forehead, running across his skin to check his temperature. "He's not feverish," she said to Winn as her hands moved to the base of the cot. "Let's just get him to the med bay and hook him up to some machines. Make sure he doesn't have a bad reaction."
A couple of agents moved around the cot, starting to push it out of the containment room and back toward the med bay. When the bed rolled into the room, Kara immediately perked up, her eyes landing on the moving cot.
"Mon-El?" she asked worriedly as she sat up straight.
"I think he's okay," Alex told Kara as she and Winn moved into the room. "Winn created the antidote and we've injected him with it. Guys," she looked at the agents. "Strap him back down and keep the red lamps on."
"Alex!" Kara scolded.
"Kara, we don't know for sure that it worked. I'm going to take some blood and Winn can analyze it…make sure the Red Lead is out of his system."
"Red Lead?" Kara asked confusedly. "You mean the same thing that happened to me-"
Alex nodded. "Happened to him. He'll sleep it off and we'll see what happens, but he should be okay. Kara, just please, stay in bed. You still look really tired," she said, taking in her sister's pale appearance and dark circles under her eyes. "Let your body heal and let him sleep, okay?"
Kara nodded as she watched the agents strapping Mon-El down to the cot and angling the red sun lamps at his body. Alex inserted a syringe in his skin, his blood easily flowing out into the vial attached to it. She handed it to Winn before smiling softly at Kara and leaving the room.
Kara's eyes slid up and down his body. He looked okay, but he didn't look to be sleeping peacefully; his eyebrows furrowed even while at rest. She slid down on her own mattress, her head hitting the pillow. Maybe if she just slept for a little while, he'd be awake when she woke up. She closed her eyes as she sighed heavily as she tried not to worry about him, sleep coming easily as she drifted off.
He was already cringing before his eyes opened. His head pounding; a feeling he wasn't aware that he would ever really feel again after coming to Earth. His eyes fluttered open hesitantly and he was met with the bright lights of yellow sun lamps around his bed. His mind quickly and easily flashed back to the past few days. His actions, words and decisions all playing through his mind like a movie; one that he'd experienced fully, but could barely feel like he took part in. He remembered that he was in the DEO med bay, his brain quickly recognizing the room around him. He heard movement beside him and his head turned slightly on the pillow.
His eyes landed on Kara, sitting up slightly in the bed a few feet away from his; her hair mussed, face slightly pale, eyes staring at her folded hands in her lap. There were cords hanging from machines and attached to her body; numbers and lines blinking across the screens around her bed. He must have groaned too loudly as he shifted against the mattress because her head spun and her eyes landed on him.
"Mon-El!" she said urgently, her legs swinging off the side of the bed. Her hands were pulling at the wires attached to her body, ripping them from her skin, the machines beeping loudly in protest.
She stood and after wobbling slightly, made it over to his bed, her weight obviously leaning on the cot as her hands moved to cup his face.
"You're awake," she said obviously, her thumbs stroking across his cheeks. "Are you okay? How do you feel?" she asked worriedly. "They checked your blood and they said you're okay, but does anything hurt?"
Just then, Alex and a couple of agents came rushing into the med bay, Alex stopped abruptly when she saw Kara standing at Mon-El's bedside. "It's okay, guys," she sighed as she held her hand up at the agents. "Don't worry about it." They left the room and Alex moved toward Kara who hadn't yet taken her eyes off Mon-El. "Kara," she said sternly as she moved to silence the machines. "You realize that when you take off these sensors, that beeping means that it's not reading your vitals anymore." Kara finally looked over at her sister, her hands sliding from Mon-El's cheeks to his shoulders. "And when you can't read someone's vitals, it usually means something bad…like they're dead. So can you please stay in bed where I put you?" She walked back over to Kara.
"Mon-El's awake," she said as she blinked at Alex.
"I see that," she nodded. "Bed, Kara."
A small pout formed on Kara's face before she kissed Mon-El's cheek and walked back toward her bed and climbed in. Alex followed her and attached the sensors back to her body, angling the yellow sun lamps toward her once more.
She moved back toward Mon-El and watched as he tried to sit up. Alex's eyes moved across the screens monitoring his vitals. "How are you feeling?" she asked and his sad eyes looked up at her, tears clearly beginning to form.
"Alex…" he started.
"Shhh," she shushed him. She could see in his eyes that he remembered everything that had happened; everything that he had said and done.
"But I-"
"Mon-El," she looked at him, her eyes wide. "Kara is still recovering from the exposure. And you, this is the first time you've opened your eyes since we healed you, so you need to rest. You've been exposed to a form of lead. Red Lead," she explained. "A modified form of lead tetroxide that had the same effect on you as Red Kryptonite does on Kryptonians." His eyes flicked over to Kara who was obviously listening and watching them intently. "Winn made an antidote for you and we gave it to you only a few hours ago. Your powers were drained temporarily by it, so you need to recover. I don't want you leaving this bed. And Kara," she said loudly, obviously intending for Kara to pay attention, "needs to stay in her bed until she's back at 100%."
Mon-El nodded silently.
"I need you to close your eyes and rest," she emphasized as she glared at him. "You two can talk about this tomorrow."
He nodded again and she turned around and moved closer to Kara.
"Your vitals are strong, but they've been stronger. Give it until tomorrow before you start wandering around. Mon-El's awake and he's fine. Supergirl isn't needed out there tonight, either. You can go home tomorrow so long as your butt stays in this bed under these lamps."
"Yes, ma'am," Kara nodded exaggeratedly. Alex glared at her. "Yes, Alex. I get it. I won't move."
"Thank you," she said. "Now it's getting late and Winn and I are going home as soon as we box up and store these awful minerals and rocks that you two are going to stay away from, forever," she warned. "The agents were instructed to keep me informed, so I don't want a frantic call about how you two took off in the middle of the night, okay." Kara nodded. "Okay, goodnight." She kissed her sister on the cheek as she hugged her tightly. "Goodnight, Mon-El," she said as she nodded at him once more.
"Goodnight, Alex," he croaked out, his voice still rough from sleep.
Kara turned onto her side, her eyes watching him from across the room. He squeezed his eyes shut as he let out a breath.
"I'm really glad you're okay," he heard her whisper at him. His head turned slightly as he looked over at her. He tried to smile, but he wasn't sure it reached his face.
"Kara," he tried quietly but she shook her head.
"Honey, you look so tired," she whispered as she fought the urge to get out of bed and hold him. "Don't talk," she instructed. "Please, just sleep."
He nodded as he sighed again, his head shifting on the pillow, his eyes meeting the ceiling. They fluttered closed as he tried to force himself to sleep quickly; to be able to forget if only for a while about the horrible things he'd done to the woman he loved.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave me some love here or on Twitter if you have the time.
I've been writing for this ship for exactly a year and a half now. The posting of this chapter puts me over the 250,000 words posted milestone. I can't even believe it! I appreciate all of you so much for your kind words since the beginning. Sending love out to you all!
Twitter: _ashleymaria_