Chapter Text
Alex grunts when the door finally gave way under her shoulder. She half stumbled into the apartment, squinting in the almost darkness, as she reached for the light switch.
It said something about her life that she didn’t even know where her apartment lights were yet. She’d moved in six months ago.
Whatever.
Dropping her keys in the little glass bowl, she decided that she earned a drink. There had been a successful mission. A mission she had planned, managed, and executed. Henshaw had only supervised from the base, his voice in her ear only to give necessary updates from HQ.
She deserved a drink because Hank Henshaw, the perpetually scowling, absolutely humorless Director, had stopped her on the way out of the DEO. Had caught her with a hand on her shoulder, bringing them to a stop in the middle of the hallway. He locked their eyes, stared at her for a beat, and squeezed.
And then he walked away.
That, Alex knew, was his version of good work.
She was still glowing a little from the interaction. Even if she was also aching.
That was the other reason for the drink.
Whiskey in hand, Alex took a slow, long sip. Relishing the burn. Letting it simmer. Then sighed.
Time to-
Her phone rang.
With an eyeroll, she answered, tucking the phone between her shoulder and ear as she maneuvered towards the bathroom. “Hey Kar – what’s up?”
“What do you mean ‘what’s up’? How’d it go!?”
“How did what go?” She took another sip, pushing open her bathroom door and placing her glass on the counter.
“The date! How did it go? What’s his name? Is there going to be a second date?? It’s late – but I didn’t hear anyone walk you upstairs, so it can’t have-”
Alex paused, mid-reach for the first aid kit under her sink. “Did you seriously snoop on all my neighbors waiting for me to get home?”
“No.” a beat, where Alex raised her eyebrow at no one. “Fine. Yes. But only a little! And only because I knew you wouldn’t call me when you got back.”
Alex supposed she should be grateful that Kara hadn’t listened to her entire ‘date’. It would be hard to explain why she was out in the warehouse district, killing two aliens and arresting a third instead of at the nice Italian restaurant Alex had lied about to postpone Sister’s night.
“Kar.”
“I know, I know! I’m sorry. But come ooooon! This is the first date you’ve been on in ages! Just tell me how it went. Please?”
Alex could hear the pout.
With a sigh, she yanked the box of medical supplies out and rested her phone next to her drink, putting it on speaker. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, for starters, what was his name?”
A beat, Alex squinting at herself in the mirror. She’d need to clean the cut over her eye. Makeup might be necessary if she has to see Kara in the next few days as well.
“Alex?”
“Sorry,” she shook her head, shifting to yank her shirt over her head and started to pick at the bandage wrapped around her waist. Just to buy herself a moment. “His name is Jason.”
Jason. As in Jason Marteli – the alien they’d arrested three hours ago. He tried to bite her when she put the cuffs on. And he would not shut up on the ride back to base.
Honestly, still one of the better dates she’d been on, if it counted.
“Ooookay, and what’s he like?” Alex groaned, low in the back of her throat. Lying to Kara had gotten easier, over the last few years. But since she moved into National City, taking her old apartment, it had grown… more difficult. “Alex! Come on! Is he at least nice?”
Biting aside. Oh, and the whole weapons dealer thing. “He’s fine.”
Kara sighed, low and longsuffering. “Alex.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Kar,” she poked at the edge of the cut Hamilton hadn’t had a chance to look at (because Alex left base without getting checked). It was pretty straight but slid from her navel to her ribs. And was still seeping blood. A couple of stitches would do. “He was fine.”
“You shouldn’t date someone unless they are great Alex!”
“Then I guess I won’t date,” she joked, taking a swing of her drink before reaching for a needle. Kara’s unhappy noise echoed in the bathroom as she sat on the closed toilet seat, sterilizing her equipment.
“I just want you to be happy Alex.”
“And you think some guy will make me happy?”
“I think you’re really bad at making friends-”
She paused, needle poised to break skin, and looked up at her phone, disgruntled. “Hey!”
“What? It’s true! You never go out except on lame dates that you never enjoy,” Alex winced at that, ever familiar guilt finding home in her chest. She hadn’t been on a date since college. But it was the one excuse that got her out of Sisters Night when the DEO demanded her attention. “You don’t talk about any friends. I never hear about your job, so I assume you’re like, the only person in your lab. Or you just hate your coworkers.”
“I do hate most people,” she tried, gritting her teeth as she pushed the needle through her skin. One down, seven to go.
“Alex! If you won’t make friends, then you at least need to date someone who you actually like.”
Alex closed her eyes.
Somehow, this conversation was more painful than the needle currently skewering her flesh.
What’s worse is that she couldn’t even reach for her drink while doing this. She just had to… fucking talk.
“Kar, it’s not that I’m not trying to date people I like.”
“Then what is it?” A long silence, stretching between them. Alex pressed the needle through again, desperate for the distraction. “Alex?”
“I don’t know,” another stitch, biting pain enough of a distraction that she couldn’t feel her wrist throb.
Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“You don’t know or you don’t want to talk about it?” Kara asked, voice sinking into something sadder. Softer. A little sister desperate to help, to connect, but utterly unable to do so.
Fuck.
“Kar,” she closed her eyes, staring down at her wound. The swelling around her ribs was easing, but the bruising was getting worse. The painted blue and green was horrific. But it hurt less than, “nothing ever fits.”
“Fits? You mean like, with guys?”
“Yeah,” whispered, eyes tracing the lines of her injuries. She could still feel Jason’s fist collide with her side. Could still hear the wet crack of his nose breaking under her forehead. “I just… I’ve tried, ya know? Dating. Maybe it’s not for me.”
“Alex…”
“It’s fine,” it was, she assured herself, pushing through for a final stitch. She exhaled with the pain, covering up anything else that Kara might hear. “Maybe I’ll just be one of those people who waits for their Soulmate.” Maybe that’s why nothing is ever right.
“Alex, no! People date and find happiness without their numbers all the time.”
Alex swallowed around the knot in her throat, forcing a smile into her voice. “I know that dummy,” because Kara had no number. Nothing to count down to. No guaranteed happiness at the end of a set of sinking numbers. “I just mean that maybe I’m… ya know… not. Suited? To dating.”
“Alex, even you are not that grumpy,” stated with such seriousness, that Alex had to laugh. Snorting hard enough that she almost fucked up the tie off at the end of her otherwise perfect stitches. Hamilton would be proud (after she stopped yelling at her for leaving without a checkup). “You deserve to have happiness – I don’t see why you should wait before you get to… I don’t know. Hold hands with a nice guy who makes you smile.”
Alex had never, not once, held hands with a nice guy who made her smile.
Not in the way that Kara was suggesting.
Which was kind of the whole point.
“Maybe you’re right,” she indulged, reaching for her drink. “I’ll give the next guy a chance, promise.”
“I know you will,” she could hear the hope in her sister’s voice. She drowned it out with the burn on her tongue. “Do you want to do Sister’s Night on Friday, after you're back from your trip? Ms. Grant is going to be in Metropolis, so I should have the night off and I recorded that new CW show, and we can have a proper debrief about Jason! You can tell me all the annoying things you hated about him, and I will smile and nod even though I think you’re being very grumpy.”
Alex huffed a laugh, tilting her body in the light to get an angle on how bruised her ribs were. Four days was probably pushing it to heal enough for Kara-Level-Affection, but it would have to do.
“Sounds good, Kar. And I’ll swing by with coffee before my flight tomorrow, if you’re free,” something to make up for the lies. Something to soften the guilt festering in her chest.
“Only if you bring sticky buns!”
“Like I would forget.”
Alex was still smiling when Kara hung up, her squeal lingering in the air of her stale bathroom.
Silence enveloped the space. And all Alex had was her empty glass and a mirror.
Maybe something is just wrong with her.
She’d blown off Sisters Night to fight an alien, and lied about a date that hadn’t happened in three years to do it.
Pathetic.
She unstrapped her watch and tipped her wrist over without looking away from her reflection. And, for a moment, she just watched the numbers. Slipping down, slipping away. A countdown she couldn’t stop.
She said she might wait for her Soulmate because she didn’t think she could find anyone on her own. But what the fuck kind of thinking is that? She wasn’t good enough for regular people, but at least her Soulmate had to choose her?
Fuck that.
Fuck all of this.
What would he think of her? If this is all she has to offer?
Alex decided another drink was more important than the shower. She needed to wash away the questions, and a flight to Geneva the next day that she couldn’t miss.