240. Chapter 240

Alex used to tease her about it – I hope you get fat, she joked as she passed her the last potsticker – and it didn’t feel bad when Alex did it. In fact, it was pretty funny, because it’s Alex.

It still feels funny when the woman at Noonan’s asks how she eats so many sticky buns and still looks like she does, because she answers that she’s an alien, and the woman thinks it’s a joke.

So it’s funny.

But it’s also not funny.

It’s also not funny because her muscles aren’t what her cousin’s are.

It’s also not funny because Mon-El just assumes he’ll be stronger than her because he’s a man, because he’s bigger than her, and she knows he never will be, but sometimes she’s not sure.

It’s also not funny because Alex is solidly human, and James is solidly human, and they can survive – they do survive – without any powers. Without any powers except their training and their wits and their very small, very human, very not-Kryptonian, strength.

They can do what Kara does, but they distinctly cannot fly and they distinctly cannot bench press an airplane.

And she doesn’t hate it. But she hates it.

Because if they’re that strong, and she has powers, but they can survive the same kind of work she does, how weak must she be? How much weakness, how much mediocrity – and Alex wasn’t the only one raised by parents who expected perfection – lives in her skin?

Skin that lasted when everyone else died.

A face that forces a smile when she doesn’t feel it at all.

Hands that all the social media feeds make jokes about what they can do, but really, she just wants to be able to touch someone full force, outside of the green room, without worrying about breaking them?

Because they might be better than her, tougher, more innately strong, more innately special, but she can still break them, completely by accident.

Because her body is not in her control. But it is. But it isn’t. But it is.

But it isn’t.

Mirrors remind her.

Remind her that she must really be nothing special, must really look like nothing special – must really be on just this side of ugly enough to ignore, to not even register, to be completely indifferent to – because they’re all fooled by glasses, because Leslie Willis wasn’t wrong about her awkwardness, her inability to know what to do with her hands, with her face, with her whole damn body.

Her whole damn body that can lift busses and deflect bullets, but that she can’t bring herself to love.

Leslie Willis – Livewire – saw right through her uniform, straight into her damn body.

And everyone else probably does, too.

So she changes in a rush, always.

She changes with Barry Allen-type speed. Always. Even when there’s no emergency.

No point dwelling on what no one’s ever going to notice anyway, unless the uniform catches their eye. No point dwelling on what no one’s ever going to want anyway, unless for the power trip of bedding a Super.

Except, no one sees her with her glasses, so that would never even be a thing.

She doesn’t think about Maggie.

Doesn’t think about how her sister’s girlfriend saw her.

She doesn’t think about how Cat saw her.

How James saw her (sure, he already knew. But still. Still.).

How sometimes, she sees flickers in Lena’s eyes that make her think she sees her, too.

She doesn’t think about these people, these people who see her, who would tell her without hesitation that she is worth seeing – that her body is worth seeing, worth lingering on, worth living in. Worth loving.

She hates how scattered her thoughts are. How contradictory.

How nonsensical.

How raging.

How real.

Alex notices first, that it’s getting worse lately. Kara’s hatred of her own body, of its contradictions, of its dual invisibility and hypervisibility, how everyone wants it and yet nobody notices it. How everyone wants her and yet nobody notices her.

Alex notices.

The way Kara skips quickly over the photos that include her when they’re scrolling through which pictures from game night to throw up on Instagram.

The way she jumps and squirms when Eliza is visiting and tells her how beautiful she looks.

The way she avoids mirrors like a vampire desperate to not be discovered.

“So you’ve seen it, too?” Maggie whispers to her one game night as she watches Alex squinting closely at the way Kara’s hand keeps running over her abs, like she’s trying to reassure herself of something, like she’s trying to wish herself into something, out of something.

Because apparently, Maggie notices, too.

Alex just nods, because she doesn’t bother being surprised with what close attention, with what close concern, Maggie watches over her little sister. She’ll reward her for it later. For now, she’s just scared.

Because Kara’s been particularly unsteady lately, and Kara is training harder than ever at the DEO, and she’s eating less potstickers than normal, and it’s a horrendous and scary combination.

By unspoken agreement, Alex and Maggie linger after game night. They linger after Winn and James give their hugs and leave together, still laughing about who would have won Jenga if a certain someone hadn’t faked a sneeze.

“Hey Kara, I just… I wanted to let you know that you’re gorgeous,” Maggie says casually as she washes dishes, and Kara nearly drops a plate.

“Hey, you’re dating my sister, I mean – “ She tries laughing it off, but the hue of her face and the strickennss of her eyes and the way she’s adjusting her glasses furiously give her away.

Alex smiles. “She is, and I’m standing right here, and you know what? I love that she loves you like she does. That she sees you. All of you, Kara. And she thinks what she sees is beautiful. Because it is. You are.”

Alex is talking casually, too, drying dishes and putting them away in the shelves Maggie can’t reach.

Alex might not have superhearing, but she hears her sister gulp, and she might not have mind-reading abilities, but she can all but hear the voices in Kara’s head telling her that her sister and her girlfriend are lying, they’re being nice because they feel bad for her, they’re exaggerating because they love her – for some reason she can’t possibly fathom – and more importantly, if she’s not feeling good about herself, she’ll be less effective as Supergirl, and…

Kara doesn’t know she’s started sniffling and crying until Alex’s arms are wrapped around her, until Maggie’s turned off the sink and is standing against the counter with her arms folded across her own chest, hugging herself as Alex hugs Kara, as Alex holds the body that feels worthless to Kara up from falling, up from figuring out how best to destroy itself, up from figuring out how best to dismantle itself in disguise as trying to make it better.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Alex is soothing her, and Kara tries to push her away, because she doesn’t deserve to be soothed, she didn’t mean to break, she didn’t mean to tell anyone, she didn’t mean to, but her body’s betrayed her again with its tears and its quaking, but Alex knows, and Alex has planted her feet, and Kara doesn’t put any real heart behind the push anyway, because Alex is kissing her forehead like she loves her and supporting her weight like it’s nothing and rubbing her back like it’s beautiful and whispering to her like she’ll never lose faith in her, even if Kara loses faith in herself.

“You’re perfect, Kara,” Maggie is whispering, then, because Alex is using all her energy holding her little sister up. “It’s okay if you can’t feel it now. Your sister and I will feel it enough, believe it enough, for you, until you can figure out a way to believe it yourself. Okay?”

She’s helpless in Alex’s arms and under the thrall of Maggie’s soft words, and she nods as she sniffles and sobs and sobs and sobs.

When she’s stopped shaking quite so much – when she feels like there’s no water left inside her, when she’s wept her way through her thoughts, through her deepest fears, through her stickiest shames, through her toughest contradictions – she just clings to Alex life the lifeline that she is.

She lets Alex carry her to bed and tuck her in like she used to when they were kids and she’d had another nightmare.

“Stay?” she grabs Alex’s hand after she kisses her forehead and starts to stand.

“Of course,” she says without hesitation, and Maggie leans in to kiss Alex’s cheek.

“See you in the morning, ba – ” she starts, but Kara cuts in.

“You too, Maggie?”

Maggie grins down at her girlfriend’s little sister and nods. “Anything you need, Little Danvers. Anything you need.”