Hey! Hello. Don't kill me! Please!
It has been a while hasn't it? I finally decided that one of my many many multi chapter abandoned fics actually deserved an update.
I picked up my metaphorical pen to write a smallville fanfic, because that's the show I've been watching and then scrolling through my works I decided to reread what I had written all those years back, and I found myself bereft at the cliffhanger I had left my readers and now myself at.
So I wrote down a follow up. Get ready for some real intense and real deep Alex and Lena bonding.
Btw I haven't watched Supergirl since I wrote this fic all those years back so the time line might be effed. I'm pretty sure I've got the characters right but the details might be off somewhere, for that forgive me because as much as I love Supercorp those last few seasons are not worth a rewatch for me so this is what we have. Enjoy.
Lena observed Alex as she moved about comfortably around the lab space that had been set up for her in the DEO headquarters. She had always admired the older girl for her confidence and poise in the duty of a law enforcement officer, but it was obvious that Alex was also an accomplished and capable scientist and Lena rarely got to see this side to Alex, a side that so mirrored her own.
Alex was clearly more at home in her lab than she was as a cop, covert and secretive organisation based cop but cop nonetheless. Just like Lena was more at home inherlab than in her office being a CEO.
Lena realised that while both of them rose to the role they were being called upon to play, at the heart of it both Lena and Alex were scientists first and foremost and if her observations were anything to go by, Alex Danvers was a formidable scientist as well as a formidable cop.
"I can feel people's feelings and hear people's thoughts in my head." She said as Alex taped a sensor of sort around her wrist. She saw Alex pause and look at her inquiringly. "I've turned it off because it's a huge invasion of privacy. I only use it when I need to."
Alex smiled but shook her head. "Turn it back on if it doesn't hurt you," she suggested. "Considering the only secret I have really kept from you, you already know I'm okay with being a completely open book to you Lena. I have nothing to hide from you," Lena could tell she actually meant that. "Besides we need to observe you actively using these powers to see if they are causing you harm."
Lena looked at Alex curiously, "Are you sure, it's pretty invasive, I can pick up surface level musings and fleeting thoughts as well, things that people don't actually mean but think to themselves before their morality gets the chance to shape their thoughts and feelings into better, more acceptable thoughts and feelings."
Alex didn't hesitate. "I'm an open book, Lena," she repeated confidently. "I'm not a perfect person, I have fucked up thoughts all the time, but I also trust you Lena to understand when I mean those thoughts and when I don't. We need to make sure you're alright. This has nothing to do with your position as the DEOs benefactor or being Kara's friend, this has to do with me being concerned about someone I care about who has been using powers that are causing her to be hospitalised. I'm concerned about you Lena and you can check to confirm that. I think you'll find that to be true." Alex took Lena's hand in hers and tried to convey her genuine emotions to Lena.
"I don't need my powers to know you're telling the truth, but if you think it's okay, I'll relax my hold on it. For now I'm just going to limit the net to this room."
Alex nodded quickly tapping some information into her digital clipboard as she Lena let go of her hold on her powers. She was suddenly flooded with feelings of over protectiveness, platonic love and exasperation.
'Seriously between Lena and Kara I'm going to have grey hairs soon...' The anger she expected to come with such thoughts weren't there, instead she felt a fond sort of exasperated patience from the older woman.
'When will they get their act together...?' she heard Alex ask herself as she roamed around tapping on equipment and checking her clipboard. 'Vital signs normal... I wonder what Kelly has for dinner tonight... I really hope Kara stays away for now, hopefully no one tells Kara that Lena is in the DEO being tested... She would fly down from Midvale so fast...'
She detected mild amusement coming from Alex then.
" What are you feeling Lena?" Alex asked her turning to show that she was actually speaking to her.
"It doesn't hurt," she replied shrugging. "I feel fine.'
Alex raised an eyebrow.'Right.'she said to herself while Lena heard her say it. "What was I thinking?" she asked the younger woman.
Lena bit her lip, feeling awkward. "You mentioned something about Kara and I needing to get our act together, you said my vitals were all normal, you wondered what Kelly will have for dinner tonight and you wished for Kara to stay away from the DEO and the city for now."
Alex smiled. "All accurate and as far as I can tell, no stress put on your body or mind."
"Now what can you tell me about the day you passed out?" she said coming in closer and looking her dead in the eyes.
Lena sighed, getting ready to divulge more than she ever had about herself and her thoughts and feelings. She felt that she owed Alex the same level of honesty that she was showing Lena.
"I called Kara to arrange a lunch but it was a test," she felt Alex's emotions twinge between concern for her and protectiveness over Kara. "I had previously been plotting my revenge, as you know. I was hurt by the deceit. But after the power transfer I heard nothing but concern and support from you when you were with me when I woke up that first time in Kara's bedroom.
"I was confused and overwhelmed but I knew that somehow you at least had not kept Kara's secret from me because I was an untrustworthy Luthor."
Lena felt tears gather in her eyes. "You kissed me on the forehead and I felt so much concern and care from your feelings. I've never felt something like that in my life. In the face of empirical evidence I had to face the fact that my initial conclusion that the Superfriends were colluding against me, and manipulating me for my resources was incorrect. At least as far as you were concerned. I had to know about Kara, though."
Lena implored Alex with her eyes. "I needed to know that my conclusions were wrong about Kara, there was nothing else I could do with the abilities I had been gifted because no matter what she 'said' to me, my heart was too broken to be moved by words."
Alex reached out and gently clasped on of Lena's hands in her own in support and Lena let a few tears fall. "Alex did you know that Kara carries within her a deep pain and grief that I have never felt from anyone else in this city since I gained these powers?" she asked the redhead.
Alex was startled, her emotions ramped up immediately, concent for Kara, protectiveness and pain in her heart at this revelation.'Grief? Pain? Kara...?'
"I felt Kara's sunny persona approach and enter my building, it's not an act by the way," she made sure to note, less to Alex and more to herself. Even at her worst she had never thought that Sunny Kara Danvers was an act, more so she had felt herself not good enough for Sunny Kara Danvers and the deceit only confirmed her own fears that if someone as good as Kara couldn't bring herself to love her then she must be the villain they all said she was.
Shaking off those dark thoughts, she continued on with her reason for collapsing. "She greeted the doorman by name, enquired about his wellbeing and walked over to our private elevator..."
"And you're tracking her movements via camera feed?" asked Alex interrupting the narrative, she tried to sound reproachful but considering she put a tracker on Kara herself half the time, she felt like a hypocrite calling Lena out on surveiling her sister.
"Not initially. I can cast a net large enough to encompass my entire building, It allows me to read the surface thoughts and emotions of everyone inside the net," she admitted. "I don't abuse it though. I would rather not know who was sneaking off with whom to supply closets as long as their work remained exemplary."
Alex smirked and Lena scrunched her nose at the salacous thoughts inside the Agents head.
She cleared her throat. "Anyways I could hear Kara in the thoughts of my employees and how each and every one of them felt a sense of happiness and elation as Kara passed them by, calling all of them by name and asking after their wellbeing."
The fond exasperation was back in Alex's thoughts. "That's my sister alright, you should have seen the DEO before she started working here. A total ghost town with zero levity or comfort. A week with Sunny Kara Danvers working here and people began socialising like never before!"
Alex and Lena shared soft chuckles at that, but Lena had more to say. "I saw how genuine Kara was in her concern for others, but I also felt some deep seated grief and pain around her. I thought it was someone walking next to her initially. I had to go to a funeral a day after I got my powers and the pain and grief I felt from the entire congregation at the cemetary and the wake combined was less than what I felt when seeking out Kara's emotions. I thought someone next to her had lost someone or had been through some very terrible ordeal very recently.
"I still felt the grief and pain in the elevator and I knew only Kara and I were authorised to use that elevator, so I tapped into the camera feed inside the elevator car trying to see who had gotten inside the elevator with Kara. That much pain and grief coming up straight to me, I thought someone was aggrieved with me for some recent loss and was planning on taking revenge on me," Alex was surprised at that thought but Lena knew Alex understood that something like that had happened before.
"Anyways, All I saw in the feed was Kara. I even went infrared fearing some sort of meta human was coming at me with some grievance or other but no. It was just Kara in there humming to Justin Timberlake, Big Belly Burger bag in her hand, satchel clutched in the other, swaying to the music playing in her head. And the pain and grief just amplified the closer she got to me."
Alex let go of Lena's hand and began pacing. She felt erratic thoughts and emotions from the redhead. Theories, feelings, emotions all flitted into one wriggling ball of mental anguish that Lena couldn't even fathom or untangle, but once again it didn't even come close to the pain she had felt from Kara Danvers.
"The elevator door opened and the intensity of Kara's emotions intensified a hundred fold and I tried to shut it off but it didn't work. I collapsed telling her to something about her feelings... I don't really remember the last bits it was hazy. There was so much pain.
"You told her to 'stop feeling that way'," Alex said finally locking eyes back with Lena, she reigned in her abilities not really wanting to hear what Alex was thinking about her last comments before she collapsed. But Alex of course just voiced her thoughts, open book indeed.
"She thought you meant something different, the last twelve hours she spent with you passed out, all she would say is that of course you wouldn't feel the same and that friendship was more than enough and that she had already known that and that it was fine."
Lena fidgeted not knowing what to say but Alex pushed on. "I got tired of it and sent her packing telling her I would call."
There was a moment of silence as a lot of unspoken things passed between the two women despite Lena controlling her powers.
"The pain, Alex," she asked the older woman her eyes filling with tears despite her mixed feelings for the Super. "Why?" the word coming out hesitant and wary as she remembered the feeling of experiencing Kara Danvers' emotions. "What happened to her for her to be so... so grief stricken?" She laughed at herself humorlessly. "I'm supposed to hate her right now. A part of me still does..."
She again felt Alex's emotions split into concern for her and protectiveness for her sister but again the hate, anger and repulsion she expected from Alex over a Luthor expressing hatred for a Super never came. Instead Alex closed in and slowly engulfed Lena in her hug. And oh god but she fell into the hug.
The last time she had been hugged was before she found out and she had missed the effect the closeness of another human being who care about her could bring about. Tears falling she sobbed out her sorrows on the white labcoat clad shoulder of Alex Danvers.
"H-how can I hate her when she's hurting like that? E-even I'm not that evil..." Lena hiccuped. She hated being this weak but Kara's pain was something she could not get over and even her cold dead
heart, deadened by the very girl she was weeping over.
"Shh," Alex said running a hand up and down her back in a soothing manner. "You're not evil at all. I wouldn't trust my sister with just anyone, you know?"
Lena smiled inspite of herself, relishing in the embrace. But her questions lingered.
"What has hurt Kara so much Alex?" She finally managed to ask, getting a handle on her emotions.
Alex sighed as she pulled away from Lena and turned around to stare at the screen showing Lena's vitals, all normal.
"What hasn't, Lena?"
Lena felt her heart clench at the broken voice in which Alex answered her. Alex was one of the strongest people she knew. A rock. If she was so affected then she dreaded finding out what had hurt her Super so much. She dared not reach out with her powers fully believing that right now Alex's emotions could possibly be overwhelming for her, not Kara's level sure but she didn't dare test it.
"Kara is the strongest person I know, and it has nothing to do with her Kryptonian powers. It has everything to do with who she is and where she is from."
Lena listened with bated breath as Alex told her the Supers story.
"Lena can you tell me how you would feel when at the age of thirteen your whole planet was at the brink of destruction? A colony of near 20 billion people on the precipice of extinction? Your whole world for over a decade, decades that are way longer than our decades, is over and you and your tiny baby cousin are the only two to survive?
Tasked with travelling across galaxies. To strange land with strange people and you as someone who's not even an adult is asked to look after and watch over your baby cousin and raise him to be a protector of a land that you don't even know, a land that is never and can never be your home?
"And now when tasked with that impossible mission, you get on your space ship separate from your cousins, say goodbye to your loving parents and watch as the and the planet explodes right in front of your eyes?"
Tears were already silently falling from both of their eyes but Alex soldiered on like the soldier she was.
"And then even after all that tragedy and acceptance of the immense and unfair responsibility that has been placed on you, you are diverted off course from your path and get stuck in a place where time doesn't move forward for the next twenty four years and then finally you somehow make it to earth only to find out that the baby you were meant to protect and nurture is now older than you, knows nothing of his heritage and his history, and thinks of you as a burden to his calling?"
Lena's eyes widened at that revelation recalling Alex's dream of Superman leaving Kara with the Danvers, how lost little Kara looked, how hurt she was as Superman just left her with someone else. Those were actually events Alex had been dreaming about.
"Then you are told that the new family that your cousin has left you with will love you but your sister hates you for taking away her parents attention and your parents are scared because they don't know how to deal with a superpowered Alien who is also on the cusp of puberty?"
Alex finally faced her, her eyes red and her face wet with tears. "Would you deal with it well? Would you be willing to live on? To shine bright? To bring light and joy to everyone and everything around you?" Lena thought about it. She certainly had experience being brought into a family, being told that they would love you only to find out that your family didn't even know what Love was. But everything else on top of that? She shook her head, no she would not even be able to smile after all that much less be the bright, Sunny light of her life that Kara had been ever since she walked into her office that very first day on her job as CEO.
"I know I wouldn't have been either, but Kara? Kara is a giver. She gives to everyone what they want from her. She let's them take and take and take and expects nothing in return. I would know. I treated her horribly when we first met but the second I was feeling down or depressed about my stupid teen closeted lesbian problems, she was there, a shoulder to cry on, words of comfort that I knew I didn't deserve but I soaked up because Kara meant it all, she didn't even know why I thought I didn't deserve her comfort. I was her sister and she loved me, that's all that mattered to her."
Lena bowed her head, thinking of all the cruel things she had though about, plotted about doing to this literal angel on earth. How could Alex not think of her as evil, to be so angry and hurt that she would even think to retaliate against such a pure being.
"Her whole world had ended, her whole purpose, responsibility and mission, her reason for surviving the destruction of her planet was snatched away from her, her foster sister hated her, her foster parents were afraid of her and yet she thought that my dumb high-school relationship woes were the most important thing in the world."
Lena smiled tremulously, trying to shake off the self flaggelating thoughts. "That sounds exactly like Kara." And the two woman shared a knowing smile. Alex grabbed a box of tissues sharing it with Lena, they dabbled their faces dry as Alex took a seat next Lena's examination bed.
"Kara became Supergirl because she had to save my plane from crashing. But she had been wanting to do what Superman did all her life here on Earth. It was the only way she could believe that she was serving her purpose. I was so angry at her for revealing herself. Still to this day she thinks I was pissed because she put me and our family in danger by revealing herself, she couldn't be farther from the truth. The day Kara helped me get over my highschool boyfriend cheating on me, was the day Kara Danvers became the most important person in my life.
"Everyone from my mom to any other relationship that came after was second place. Kara was my world and Kara revealing herself to save me made me terrified for the pain, heartache and struggle she had set herself up for.
"I knew being Supergirl would provide her with the purpose she was craving but I also knew that being a superhero wasn't all roses either. The few times me and Clark...oh... uh..."
Lena smiled, "Relax Alex, the day I found out Kara was Supergirl was the day I found out Clark Kent was Superman."
Alex smiled ruefully to herself. She had never been this relieved that someone knew Kara's secret. She had hated lying to Lena knowing how special Lena was to Kara and how special she was becoming to the Superfriends as a whole.
" Well, yeah, the few times Clark and I talked without me being pissed at him, he told me that being Superman meant keeping people at arms length, not being able to have much of a life, keeping yourself bland, boring and forgotten. He told me how so many times he had to tried to connect with people both romantically and socially but everytime he had to abandon plans to go save someone, he lost a little of the trust he built with them. Eventually he chose to not socialise, be a guy who you saw one minute and forgot the next."
"It was a life I never wanted Kara to have to live."
Lena scoffed. "Alex, Kara can be many things, but boring, bland and forgotten she is not."
Alex laughed at the accurate description of her sunny, loving, exuberant and beautiful sister.
"I know that now, but even that was the point of my misdirected anger at her," Alex replied suddenly subdued. "She was terrible at keeping secrets, how was she going to maintain her identity? Being Kara Danvers was just as important to her as being Supergirl so the idea of her having to sacrifice Kara Danvers for Supergirl after she had lost so much already was something I couldn't bear. But as usual I blew up at her instead of explaining my fears. She as usual took the brunt of my attack, absorbed it and forgave me the first chance I had of asking her to do so.
"The same happened when I revealed that I was working with the DEO to contain and study aliens like her. She forgave me and we never talked about it.
"Same thing when she was infected by Red K, that was the first glimpse I ever got of exactly what Kara was repressing and after she got off the drug we promised to talk about the problems between us, but we both took the easy way out, never confronting our problems just burying it deep and using our love for each other as crutches to get through things."
Lena listened with rapt attention as Alex bared her soul. How could she ever think this woman and her friends didn't trust her. Lex had poisoned her mind sure, but this was her own failing as well, She understood what Alex was telling her, that the Danvers sisters had problems, things that they refused to deal with, confront or discuss. But Lena right now was finding out that she had problems as well and she had to make sure to take the lesson from Alex's bare all heart to heart and confront these problems. That was the only way to not only fix things between herself and the Superfriends but also be able to even think of a future afterwards.
Alex closed her eyes and looked to the side, Lena imagined that she was looking back to something that happened a while ago, she risked a peek for a second and saw the scene she had glimpsed in Alex's dream, she saw Alex drive a green blade into the back of a woman dressed in black.
Frowning she waited for an explanation.
"I killed her Aunt, Lena. An aunt that she loved, no matter that they were on opposing sides. To save J'onn I killed her and then J'onn took the blame. Kara didn't talk to him for weeks after that. And J'onn took it until I couldn't and came clean. She forgave me in seconds. I was ready for her to yell, to scream, to rip me limb from limb and I would have deserved it, but she didn't, she just hugged me and buried the hurt deep.
"And over and over again the same thing happened between use. Misunderstandings, miscommunication, secrets, hurt feelings, none of it got discussed because we didn't want to face the conflict.
"It took me days of sessions with Kelly to really understand that this was not a healthy way to resolve conflicts with loved ones. And these kinds of solutions, this pattern of avoidance and wilful ignorance always comes to a head.
"But for Kara? Kara just decides that it's okay that she's hurting, she's gotten used to it, she's gotten used to being considered last. She's so strong and capable and her cheery disposition that makes everybody think that everything is fine with her, but as strong as Kara is, her heart is just as fragile as the rest of us and it has been broken so many times by so many events and people, intentionally or not, she's adapted to it, Supergirl can't afford to be weak, Supergirl can't afford to be damaged, so Supergirl puts a smile on her face, asks what the rest of the world wants from her today and gives it freely."
Lena remembered how easily Kara would greet and exchanged niceties with everyone she met, remembering their names and every single bit of detail about their lives that she found out about in the moments that she interacted with them every day. It was a trait that was wholly Kara Danvers and it was something that both made her surprised at and be in awe of her.
Alex shook her head and began compiling her findings from the tests they had run. "Like I said Kara is a giver. She will give everything she has and more for everyone else in the world without demanding anything in return. But even Kryptonians have their limits and I dread to see the day when Kara has nothing else left to give to the world."
Lena smiled an empty smile, lost in her dark thoughts with memories of Kara being the only guiding light.
"I hope that day never comes."