Screaming through the Cracks
Shocked and angry eyes pierced into her across a smokey table. One pair, surrounded by lovely brown skin then sharped in a judgemental way that makes something ugly, defensive and a screaming roar in her chest. The other shifts to sticky, awful confusion as perfect brows pinch in thought. Both drift off somewhat, clearly focused on and putting together memories, like hounds chasing after a scent.
She doesn’t want to face whatever awful conclusion they dredge up.
She hates and loves both sets of eyes so much her hands clench viciously. Her palms slice open on nails she forgot were quite so sharp now. After all, she is normally so used to filing them down to the quick every other week. It’s only been for the last few weeks that she’s been living so openly as an alien.
Two blocks away a car honks its horn, grabbing her attention. Screams of profanity echo through the street. Her ears hone in, picking up lungs, heaving in exhaustion along with the steady slap of sneakers running on asphalt. A young voice, probably no more than 13 whispers in panic about getting a thrashing if they aren’t home by midnight. Some part of her resolves to keep an ear out. After all it might just be exaggerated worry about a firm scolding for staying out too late.
(She’s pretty sure it’s not)
A sharp, pungent scent billows over from across the bar, coming from the bathroom. A breathy sigh and squelchy sound follow. A second later her brain, unpracticed at processing her newly heightened level of smell (fucking hormone implant) resolves the pheromone cloud into one of lust and drunken desperation. Then she hears the sharp sound of a wrapper tearing, followed by sticky plastic being unrolled down a pulsing fluid filled tube.
Her eyes fly forward into the distance, desperate for distraction.
(It doesn’t help, and a filthy feeling of guilty mortification drips into her bones)
In a room five buildings away her eyes land on a woman who has her hands raised in anger. A bruised and exhausted man curls into the corner, shying away from her. A toddler huddles behind him, holding on to his pant leg desperately. Her ears only manage to focus on the room when the ensuing slap has already landed. Then they catch the resultant stream of vitriol on the supposed uselessness of the man for being laid off from his job.
(She viciously stops herself from flinching as the glare turns from the man to the child a second later.)
A coppery tangy scent in a park a block away catches her attention. This time, it’s much easier to tune in to what’s happening. Some slowly shriveling part of her soul sighs despondently. After all, seeing a badge wearing officer club some poor homeless man over the head for loitering on a park bench is an everyday thing for her at this point. Sometimes life makes her just despair over the future of this planet and species. She’s stubborn though, oh so stubborn, and distantly memorizes the cops badge number to start documentation for a formal complaint.
(Much good it’ll do when the police ethics office is beholden to the department for funding and thus utterly toothless.)
Closer, so much closer another pheromone cloud hits her like a brick to the face. Worry, concern, affection and fear, so much fear fill her nose. She blinks dumbly, too lost in the sights, sounds and stories of the city around them to pay attention.
A warm hand lands on her shoulder. She almost jumps in her seat, but luckily, so luckily, uses her iron control to freeze in place as much as she is able. After all, if she moves too fast, without paying attention, even for a second, someone she loves will probably pay the price.
“Kara. Come on, come back to us. You’re okay, take a deep breath for me sweetheart.” A familiar, honeyed voice whispers in her ear. It’s barely audible over the cacophony of the city around them. However, her brain knows it can trust this voice. Knows it’s important.
Shakily, her attention slowly focuses back down into the moment. Her gaze resolves to see Maggie, sweet, conscientious, driven Maggie reaching out to ground her. Warm, concerned eyes stare at her, but this time, they are shockingly free of judgement. Maggie nods, as if in understanding and solidarity with all the unstated little implications. Without a word being spoken the latina woman opens her arms and gently pulls Kara into a very loose embrace.
The kryptonian supposes that’s a fair enough trade. Sure it hurt when she ripped out the emotional scabs for them. After all, the little tidbits she’d dropped without thinking properly had been hidden for so long. Of course it would hurt, they’d been pushed to somewhere deep in the back of Kara’s brain. Just one more thing in the ever expanding box of memories that must be packaged away, far from sight and mind. Opening up the box, even just a little, even to trusted, wonderful friends like Lena and Maggie just...filled Kara with an incredible sense of dread and instinctive fear. She’d only ever started to do this recently, with Sara and Nyssa, just a month or two ago.
At least Maggie cares enough to try and make it better. Just like Alex would if she were around. If she knew. The thought makes her chest warm briefly. After all, Kara can just see the stubborn set on Alex’s face as the agent would no doubt be swiping up a gun by now. After all, fools who hurt her baby sister do not get off scot free.
(Don’t think about Alex, a voice, boiling just barely under the surface of Kara’s mind hissed venomously)
“Kara, I’m not...I’m not sure what you must be feeling but just know we care. We understand. If you want to talk more we’ll listen. We don’t have to though.” Another lovely voice, Lena this time said softly.
Cold acid burns through her. She wants to accept the offer. She wants to run screaming from the restaurant. To hide in some deep dark corner somewhere and never come out to see the light of day. That way, she’ll never see the inevitable looks of disappointment and frustration on their faces. She can’t...she just can’t handle that one more damn time.
(It’s better this way Kara. Even with all the progress you made...I just don’t think it’s safe for you to be living with me. If someone came for you... well, it wouldn’t be pretty for anyone involved. The Danver’s will take care of you, you’ll love it. I’m sorry, I love you.)
No. She’s not going to be the weak, stupid, desperate little girl anymore. She’s going to own up to her mistakes. She’s not going to let things fester and hide away for years at a time. Kara needs to start making it a practice to have difficult conversations with the people she loves again. She’s already seen the fallout of that particular weakness of hers many times over. Lena’s unexpected appearance tonight is more than proof for her that actually talking helps. Nyssa would be so smug if she knew Kara was taking her advice, learned through necessary hard years of arguments and therapy with Sara.
(Merciful Rao, she doesn’t want to be alone again. Please don’t go- please don’t go- I’ll do anything! Please just don’t leave me alo-)
Kara clears her too dry throat and takes a deep wheezing breath. A soft, sad whirr whistles in her throat. It takes every ounce of focus and determination she has not to let herself hare off into the stories and world around her. Her fingers tap on the table in a steady 1,2,3 beat to keep herself grounded. It’s not enough, so she starts bouncing her leg to time with the offbeats. It helps, just enough to look Lena in the eyes and actually explain.
...like she should have so long ago. If she wasn’t such a fucking stupid coward.
“No. I’m okay. I should just get it all out now. You deserve it after all.” Kara eventually replied, waving away the dubious looks both women sent her.
There were certain things, she knew were more important than her own comfort and happiness. That had been a fundamental truth of her life as Supergirl. It’s her own fault that she never applied that standard to certain personal topics before.
(She ignored the pathetic whine in her throat, contradicting her steady tone. She was goddamn Supergirl. She could do this!)
“It, um, training with Kal was not nearly as bad as I think you’re thinking. Really it only lasted a couple of months after I landed on Earth. All we did was maybe show a bunch of flashcards and I’d try to not to tell Clark what was on the card.” Kara eventually said, humming absentmindedly as she tapped her fingers away on the table.
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
In a flash, Lena’s expression sharpened into something frightfully focused and sharklike.
“What was Clark doing during these little...training sessions?” The CEO hissed pointedly.
Kara winced and tapped her fingers on the table just a bit faster. Still, she’d made up her mind to face hard conversations now. She wasn’t going to stop there.
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
“Well, um, he’d been working with Batman for years already and had picked up a few tricks of the trade. He um, tried a few basic interrogation techniques that I had to resist.” The Kryptonian replied, feeling an uncomfortable churn somewhere low in her gut.
(The yelling, so loud! Why do her ears hurt so much! Every cell of blood, every tensing muscle fiber, she hears it all move. Constantly shifting and snapping in a cacophony of anger and barely controlled violence. Each spoken word resounds through the echoing space like the experimental railguns her ukr used to test for the military.)
“How...how did you feel about that?” Maggie softly asked, waving off a fuming Lena. Without missing a beat the latina woman’s fingers curled into the flesh of Kara’s arm. Kara felt herself leaning into the touch and melting under the warmth.
Briefly, lost in the sensation, her mouth moves without really thinking it through.
(Fuck.)
“It was fine really. Nothing too bad. Mostly just a lot of good cop-bad cop sort of cheesy tropes. The yelling was pretty painful with my ears just adjusting to being on Earth, but he never really meant to hurt me or anything.” Kara replied, her voice slurring a bit in mounting drunken exhaustion.
It’s fine. Really. No big deal.
(Except that one time with the green rock.)
(Or that other evening a few months in when he got fed up with her never being able to hold out longer than 15 minutes.)
“What do you mean by ‘fed up’ Kara?” Lena growled angrily, startling the Kryptonian.
Did she say that out loud?
“Fuck.”
“Lena, down a notch. Not helping.” Maggie hissed as Kara flinched away. After a second, the ex-cop had put a gentle hand on Kara’s cheek to turn her head to face her. Warm, concerned, eyes filled her rapidly clouding vision.
“Kara darling, what Lena is trying to say, is that we are concerned and frustrated that it sounds like you were hurt in this way.” The ex-cop said, her voice carefully controlled to be as neutral as possible.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, we just want to know what happened so you have someone who can help you process. You’re not a burden, and your feelings are important. Believe me, dealing with the aftermath of these sorts of situations is literally part of my job now.” She continued, tone warm and heartfelt.
Guilt bubbled in Kara’s chest once again.
“But I did fuck it up. It was months and months of absolutely no progress because I’m an idiot. My stupid instincts just made it so hard to shut up.” Kara growled backed, sending a heated glare at a surprised Maggie. With a huff she turned to stare intently at the table in front of her, tap-tap-tapping her fingers anxiously into the wood.
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
Right. That didn’t actually explain anything. Also she should probably apologize since she’s being such a giant, heinous bitch to the nicest two women she’s ever met besides Alex.
“So, he, uh, decided to help with that a bit. On the data files we were given by our parents there was a...drug. It was designed as a last resort for grieving and depressed parents to...calm and regulate those instincts down until things weren’t quite so bad.” Kara slowly ground out, forcing herself not to punch her damn fingers through the table. Everything on this damn world was so fucking flimsy.
(She doesn’t mention how the drug had nasty side effects. Rather than just taking the edge off the bad feelings, they just suppress most complex emotions. How patients were left swimming through a veritable fog of drugged uncertainty. How every emotion just sort of got shunted away to some deep corner of their minds since it’s impossible to target negative emotions specifically. How it left patients only able to pull up the most intense things they feel, and even that was spotty. How it was never meant for long term use, only to give the extended community a few weeks to reach out and provide greater social support to the widow. How it was tightly controlled, even illegal to sell without a prescription.)
“He um, made an implant of it and shot in my arm one evening. Things went smoother after that. We did a couple of more intense training sessions where he got a bit physical. I was much better at keeping secrets at that point though, so we only did them once or twice and then he dropped me off at the Danvers.” Kara continued robotically, ignoring the curling scents of disgust and anger roiling off her two friends.
She already knows she’s a fuck-up. She doesn’t need to see it reflected yet again on their faces.
“And that was...it? Is this...implant still in use?” Lena asks, her tone just past some sort of strange combination of devastated, shocked and sad, so sad. It...surprised Kara. For some reason she was expecting bitter recrimination and disgust. She almost...assumed they’d just walk up and leave without ever talking to her again.
Having full access to her emotions again sucks. They keep ping-ponging around like a brain damaged cocker spaniel chasing a laser pointer. One moment she’s on the top of the world, so happy and glad to be finally making a real difference...the next she feels like she’s the lowest of the low. A worm beneath the boots of her betters.
Withdrawal is a bitch even if the worst of it is already over.
“Well, that’s a lot of the story. Sara’s team found and removed the implant during a post-mission medical check up recently. It was… well the first time I ever talked about it. With anyone. Even Alex. The withdrawal afterwards...has been fluffing me up pretty bad. It was a big reason to pull back from being Supergirl.” The kryptonian slowly replied. Without much conscious input she felt her voice going tight and the hum in her throat turning sour and dissonant.
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
(She doesn’t mention how the blonde had to be restrained by Nyssa to stop her from hunting down Clark in a fit of vengeance. Sara, despite being one of the best, most honorable people Kara knows, has a righteous mean streak a mile wide. Not helped of course by the lingering hints of the lazarus pits.)
Still, that’s not it of course. She promised to explain for Lena, why she was such a lying bitch for so many years.
Kara cleared her throat pointedly. She leant her head back to stare intently at a point in the ceiling to avoid looking at the expressions of her two friends. The sour combination of sadness and pity wafting over her nose was already bad enough. She didn’t need their faces burned into her near eidetic memory as well.
(Her even more devastatingly sensitive nose was the first thing to unsettle her after the implant was removed. Kryptonian’ social dynamics were based around complex pheromone exchanges after all. The only way to truly suppress those sorts of instincts involved also compromising their ability to scent them as well.)
“Nyssa, um, brought me to a meeting with her therapist a couple times since I’ve been in the city. In one of those sessions we, uh, were talking a bit about why I kept the secret so long for you Lena.” Kara began as neutrally as she could.
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
(A small part of her brain hears the kid she listened to earlier return home. Shouting ensues followed by two meaty smacks of skin on skin. Useless. She’s so useless.)
“The running theory is that afterwards my fucked up brain over-dependently latched onto Alex as my only perceived prime familial Oracle after that whole experience. A lot of the paranoid junk Clark told me about Earth society flatly contradicted the preparatory material my pod read me on my trip to Earth. Our...training made it hard for me to trust him after, so she became my yardstick for the truth of human society.” The kryptonian continued, pointedly ignoring the increasingly understanding hums of the other woman.
Why wasn’t Lena angry at her anymore? It just… it confused her so much. She was happy about it...but she didn’t feel like she really deserved it. Lena should hate her. Hell, everybody should. She always fucks shit up and gets people hurt after all.
(She tried not to think about what Nyssa would say about that particular line of thinking.)
1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. 1,2,3.
“On Krypton I would have had at least a few other Oracles that could disagree with her. Here though, I really only had the one, so if she put a line in the sand...I didn’t really feel like I could cross it. By the time you’d really won Alex over the point she might have allowed me to tell you...we’d been friends for years. I knew it would hurt you terribly and I just...I was just too afraid, and too much of a coward.” Kara finally spat out, trying not to let her hands tremble too much.
(She was unsuccessful.)
“Kara.” Lena whispered, snapping Kara’s attention and gaze back to the brunette woman.
“I...can’t say you didn’t hurt me, or that what happened was okay.” Lena began slowly.
Kara felt her heart tremble and stab with hot, oozing guilt. She shouldn’t complain, or feel sad. She has nobody to blame but herself after all.
Lena took a deep, calming breath, causing Kara to blink and keep paying attention to her best friend. A glance back and forth showed her and Maggie having some pointed silent conversation that Kara just had to wait through. After a second the CEO nodded solemnly and turned to face Kara again.
“I will say though, I understand and I’d like to still be your friend. To be clear, what happened with Clark was awful and not your fault. I’m very glad you’re getting some help now. If...you promise to keep working on yourself and not to keep a secret like that from me again I know I’ll forgive you.” The CEO whispered, voice falling off into a desperate, lonely whimper.
Warm, happy surprise bloomed in Kara. Her vision went spotty as hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Her head snapped up and down in a desperate series of nods.
Then the Kryptonian smiled at Lena. It may have been bittersweet and trembling, but it was honest and wide in a way that her usual broad plastered on grins never really could be. Even so, It felt better than any expression she’d made in months.