Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Deep down you already know the truth. You just don’t want to admit it.

He’s not coming back.

You sent him away for his own protection. You had to make an executive decision, choosing the last remnant of your past to cling to or watch this world you’ve come to love be destroyed by a megalomaniac.

She drags herself out of bed with leaden feet, away from the faint pine scent mixed with his cologne. She shuffles into the shower, feeling cold despite turning the knobs to the extreme until the glass fogs up and the room turns into an unbearable ball of scorching heat.

It’s not enough.

It’s never enough.

“Kara Danvers sucks right now!” She bursts out to Alex, in full throttle rage.

“Supergirl is great. Supergirl saved the world.”

Having a dual personality takes a toll. She has to manage two vastly different lives. It’s tiring, having to deal with the aftermath and the pitying looks from her fellow colleagues. Even Snapper has peered at her through his beady little eyes, and told her quietly to take time off without any snark in his remark.

Supergirl saves lives. Being Supergirl is uncomplicated. If there is a crisis, she is the fixer to all problems. It’s simple and straightforward. Supergirl has no attachments, other than her cousin who’s in another city.

“So if I could choose to be her, why would I ever choose to be the sad girl whose boyfriend is gone?”

Alex comes closer, hands outstretched, reaching to pull her into a hug she so desperately wants. “I know it hurts, okay?”

She can’t give in.

It’s undeserving. It’s her fault.

Her hands flail and she turns ballistic, indescribable overwhelming amounts of pain flood into her lungs.

Kara can’t breathe. Alex is coming closer. And the walls feel like they’re closing in. She needs… space. Movement.

“No, no! You don’t know anything! You never had to make a decision like this!”

Alex being alex, soft and reassuring, speaks to her in a tone specially reserved for her when she first crash-landed on Earth. “Tell me what it feels like. Let me help you get over him.”

A blink. Kara stops. She’s a second too close to the ledge that she’s surprised her lips move at all, half-whispering, “Get over him?”

She sees the fleeting range of emotions flitting across Alex’s expression; can see her attempting to backpedal. She doesn’t give the older Danvers a chance.

“He didn’t dump me. I sent him away and for all I know he’s…”

You abandoned him. What if he gets sucked to the phantom zone where the nothingness exist? Just like Kal-El left you all alone. Kara Zor-El, you unwittingly played the same card he once did with you.

She freezes at the sudden thought, the inner Snapper snarking in her head, and recoils at the revelation. It’s a different situation, she argues vehemently back.

Her inner Cat Grant snark returns tenfold. Is it? You left him your pod and your mother’s necklace.

Her hands itch to touch her collarbone. She can’t… not with Alex bearing down on her. She’ll know. And if Alex, her favorite person who really knows and understands her, ever finds out she gave away her mother’s necklace, the one heirloom tying her to the past. She will never stop.

So she can’t know. Not now, not ever.

Her brain chases the last words that escaped her lips and reconnects.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Nothing matters anymore. What she’s done, she can never undo. Kara Danvers isn’t Barry Allen who can run back to the past and create a whole new timeline where everything is fucking perfect!

She focuses on the dirty dishes in the sink, turns around to grab the milk and tries to ignore the existential conversation unfolding.

She hears Alex’s concerns being voiced out and it takes infinitesimally too long to rein her temper in check. She rounds on Alex, “If it were Maggie, what would you be doing?” A beat. Kara answers for her. “You’d be at a bar every night. You’d be a wreck at work. You’d be broken.”

There is silence, sweet wrenching, heart-breaking quietness.

A small, tiny nod to her words. “I would. I would be. And it’s okay if you are…”

She hates this. Acceptance of admitting to the ugly truth. She needs Alex to go away. She cannot deal with this fallout. To readily accept that he’s gone.

It’s too soon.

He was the last, living remnant of Krypton and now she has orphaned and then exiled him to the vast stillness of space.

With an eerie calmness, Kara Zol-El sets her shoulders and delivers the final blow.

“I’m not. That’s what humans do.

I’m better than that.”

Being Kara Danvers was a mistake.

Supergirl has no attachments.

Supergirl is great.

Chapter Text

There is a defining change in the way Supergirl fights. She moves deliberately against her opponents, ducking and sidestepping out of the way until opportunity strikes for her to land a delivering blow. Maggie avoids commenting at the fluidity of Supergirl’s mechanical movements and attack strategies to Alex. There is no need to send her over-worried, protective fiance more evidence that her sister isn’t entirely herself.

When Kara Danvers slips on the Supergirl’s costume, her smiles are bright and brimming full of optimism. Her laughter is so infectious that it causes a slight twitch of the lips from the grumpiest colleague in the department. Her punches and rolls might be slow and clumsy, but she gives everything she’s got.

This stranger who lives in Little Danvers’ homely apartment, who flies to Catco’s rooftop in the day, Maggie doesn’t know what to do or how to handle this person who swaps pretty pink pastels clothing with dark, muted colors, or skips out on sisters’ nights.

Watching this Kara fight tonight reminds Maggie of that old incident with red kryptonite she’d heard about, back when she was still in Gotham chasing weirdos in Halloween costumes.

She doesn’t tell Alex. Keeps the information to herself and observes how Little Danvers simply drops to the ground, effectively stopping the truck skidding into the family car.

Watches the way Supergirl pries herself from the truck’s front, listens to the kid marveling in awe and gushing high praises to the heroine.

Supergirl simply takes off at full throttle.

Maggie puts away her side-arm, staring unbelievably into the night sky whilst tossing a side glance to Alex. “Doesn’t even stop for autographs anymore.”

That should have been the first clue.

They get their second clue when Kara begins skipping out of sisters’ nights and Alex heading down to the apartment with a determined stride, Maggie tagging along to make sure the Agent doesn’t go too far into cornering Little Danvers.

She knows the consequences of getting in too close into the victims’ personal spaces when trying to get the gruesome gritty details from those who have hurt and wronged them, in order to build a solid case. If they aren’t ready, all they can do is to be patient and coax.

Never ever corner a frightened prey.

Sometimes the backlash might too severe to take it all back.

They reach her apartment and Alex pulls out a set of keys, jamming the key into the lock. She flings the door open and flips the lights on impatiently. “Kara!”

Shouts of Little Danvers ricochet through the thin walls and empty space. There is a thin layer of dust covering the coffee table. Alex yanks the fridge door open and she hears the unmistakable hitch in Alex’s tone. “There’s nothing in her fridge. Just bottles of water.”

They stay over that night, taking over the couch. Alex calls and texts Kara fourteen times before giving up. They put in a movie, neither of them paying attention to the screen as they cuddle together, waiting.

The third clue drops into Maggie’s lap at the television screen of the newscaster remarking the crime rates dropping down drastically.

“She does know the cops are occasionally capable of doing their jobs, right?”

Maggie has been patient, giving Little Danvers space, tugging her fiance down and laying a comforting hand on her knee under the table during game nights. The Danvers sisters are inseparable, and Alex has never been the patient one. She’s a fixer and a doer.

But she can’t fix this one, and it’s driving Maggie nuts.

An intervention has to be staged, preferably before Alex wears out that nice carpet she’d bought in Ikea from all that pacing.

If only they could catch her unannounced.

If she hasn’t been home, where else could she be when she’s done saving lives?

Does she even sleep?