754. Chapter 754
She was close to him, before Kara came.
Before Kara came, he took her for flights over the ocean and above the mountains, and her parents allowed it because he was like family and he was dependable and would never drop her or bring her to any danger.
He was in control of his powers, so they were never something Alex feared.
Only something that made her giggle (when he jump-started their old oven with his eyes) or shriek with excitement (when he took her flying above the ocean and let her toes skim the surf) or giddy with pre-teen mischief (that one time he bench pressed Eliza’s car single-handedly, just to entertain her).
“Clark, put it down!” Eliza had hollered out the kitchen window, but there was absolutely no concern or conviction behind it: just barely-concealed joy, that her daughter was laughing that hard, that earnestly.
As Alex got older – “an official teenager,” she’d called it, alternately grim and proud about it – her time with Clark became, of her own choosing, more serious.
“Do you miss it? Your planet?” she’d ask, because even though she’d asked as a child, Eliza and Jeremiah had shushed her with warning looks and cookies; but now, sitting in the back of Clark’s pickup truck, looking up at the stars with her cousin-alien-superhero-friend-brother, she was old enough to hear the honesty behind the way he sighed.
“I don’t remember it, Al,” he’d told her honestly, and even though her heart ached for him, she got that old familiar thrill in her chest that rose up every time he called her that nickname that nobody else did.
He’d taken off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, and she wondered how anyone was stupid enough to not get that those were the same eyes, in stiff collared shirts or in a silly red cape.
“I was thinking, though. For your birthday, I could take you to the Fortress of Solitude. You’ll be an official teenager,” he’d smiled down at her, without the condescension of most adults she knew. “I don’t think your parents can make the ‘you’re too young’ argument anymore.”
“Well, yeah, plus I’ll be with Superman, so like,” she shrugged, barely suppressing a giggle-guffaw that made had them both laugh helplessly.
It was nights like that, that Alex missed most – aside from her nights with her parents, of course, because those were all torn asunder – when Kara arrived.
Because when Kara arrived, Alex suddenly wasn’t closer to being a grownup by choice, because she was proud of her thirteenth birthday, or of finally being a high schooler, of not being a freshman anymore.
No.
When Kara arrived, she was closer to being a grownup because suddenly, caring for a younger child who had lost everything while Alex had everything, was her new responsibility.
So when Clark started treating her more like a grownup, after Kara arrived, she wasn’t proud like she used to be.
She was bitter.
Bitter, because it was only in contrast to Kara.
The younger one, the needier one. Well, needier, and simultaneously needing nothing, because this Earth, really, was (literally) beneath her.
Just like it was beneath Clark.
Alex had never felt that way, though – beneath him – until Kara arrived.
They never talked about it – how close they’d been before Kara got to Earth.
How when he’d come to visit Eliza and Jeremiah, he’d always make sure to bring a new college sweatshirt for Alex – her collection was more than a little extensive – and souvenirs from all across the globe.
How he used to let her call him, even when it was way past her bedtime, so they could talk about middle school drama and her latest science fair project breakthrough.
How she was the first one he told when he got that promoted at that job at that weirdly named newspaper that he loved so much, because she was family, and family should always find out first.
They never talked about it, until Kara saw that look in Alex’s eyes when Kara had considered, even briefly, moving away from National City to be with him.
The coldness in Alex’s voice when she talked about Clark abandoning her.
Because yes, he had abandoned Kara with Eliza and Jeremiah, if one wanted to look at it that way. He had.
But he’d also abandoned Alex.
“You have to call him,” Kara told her sister, later that week, snuggled into each other, mid-spoon deep into their ice cream pints on Sisters’ Night.
And though they hadn’t mentioned Clark since they’d had it out and made it up, Alex knew who her sister was talking about immediately.
“Why?”
Kara took a massive spoonful of ice cream into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Alex rolled her eyes deliberately at the way Kryptonians never got brain freeze.
Another joke she’d used to have with Clark, during their ice cream eating contests. Her stomach churned.
“Because you weren’t just angry at me. You were angry at him, too. For swooping in here and leaving again. Like he left me with Eliza and Jeremiah and you. And, like he left you.”
Alex stiffened at that, but Kara stood her ground, even seated and tucked into her sister’s side.
“I know you two used to be closer. Before I came. And I don’t know. I think it would be nice. Healing, maybe. For you to talk to him.”
Alex tried to shrug it off. “I just saw him. Sometimes we go half a year without talking.”
“Exactly the problem,” her sister had booped her nose, and the shrieking and tickle fighting that ensued couldn’t wipe the thought from Alex’s mind.
She called her cousin the next day.
“Alex, hey. Is everything okay?”
She recognized his tone immediately: his I’m-Clark-Kent-Of-Course-I’m-Not-Superman-I’m-Just-Answering-A-Regular-Phone-Call-From-A-Regular-Person-Who-Most-Certainly-Doesn’t-Work-For-A-Clandestine-Alien-Fighting-Organization-That-I’ve-Spent-Years-Hating-And-Have-I-Mentioned-That-I’m-A-Clumsy-Nerd-And-Most-Definitely-Not-Superman?
She couldn’t help but smirk. Kara had the same type of voice when she was at CatCo.
“Yeah, no, everything’s great. You have a minute?”
She wasn’t the one with superhearing, but she imagined she could hear him shifting away from his desk; ever the polite farm boy, the family man with no family.
Except James and Lois.
Except, sometimes, Kara; and except, sometimes, her.
“Yeah, of course. What’s up? Kara okay?”
“Yeah, we’re all fine, I just… do you remember when I was a kid? And you’d take me out flying? Or bring me food from different cities, different countries? Kara does it, now, but you… you stopped. You ran away, really, when Kara came to Earth. From her, but also from me. I know it was painful, and it wasn’t something you expected or maybe even wanted. And I know how much you love her, now. I just… sometimes I remember when we used to have adventures together. Alex Danvers and Clark Kent, super secret investigators, remember? I was science and you were journalism. And I don’t know, you were just here, but it was like you weren’t really… here… and… sometimes I miss my cousin, Clark. And it… oh, whatever, I’m rambling. This is stupid, I’m sorry. Kara told me to call you, but I’m… I’m sorry, you’re busy, you have better things to – “
“Alex.”
“No, really, it’s – “
“Alex.”
“Clark – “
“Alex! Look out your window.”
She turned with a furrowed brow, and it only took a moment for a broad smile to take over her face.
Clark Kent was hovering outside her apartment.
Phone in hand.
Grinning.
Waiting.
“Wanna go for a flyby over the ocean?” he asked into the phone, and she saw his lips move very slightly out of sync with hearing it relayed through her phone.
She rolled her eyes – being a nerd must be genetic – and laughed as she hung up on him (he looked offended, which only made her laugh harder) and tossed open her window.
“If you drop me, I’ll kill you.”
“If I drop you, your sister will kill me first. After rescuing you.”
Alex considered this, nodded, and grinned. “Too true.”
“But Alex: I won’t drop you. Not again. Okay?”
She felt the rush in her blood that she always felt when she was about to step off the edge of solidity and let gravity take her into her sister’s arms, her cousin’s.
She hadn’t felt it with Clark in proximity in years.
Wind tossed her hair around as she nodded and stepped out her window into the safety of her cousin’s arms.
“Okay.”