The Hero
Minute 28,087
Her days in confinement go by like clockwork. Breakfast in the morning, then if it is her shower day she is escorted to the showers by two armed guards and restrained by the K-Cuffs. After her shower, which is only 10 minutes long, it is back to her cell to be left alone with her thoughts. Then lunch. Yet another offering of flavored cardboard. Then more time with her thoughts and then dinner. Dinner. How they manage to keep their prisoners alive on this vile food is beyond her. She has had other earth dishes but she imagines prison food is most foul no matter what part of the galaxies she may be in.
If she is lucky, she will have a visitor. Sometimes it is Kara, who comes bearings gifts of the latest happenings of her workplace. The Feline Queen seems to have softened marginally. Perhaps the words she will have with her upon her release need not be so…harsh.
Other times she is visited by some nameless agent doing routine checks on the cell or the Kryptonite emitters. Those days are the worst. The test involves the emitters to be risen and lowered at rapid speeds. She is nauseous by the end. Then there are days where she is visited by the Martian in the hopes of getting information out of her in regards to some of the few soldiers that escaped the battle. She does not budge to him. She will not do his job for him. If she happens to let a comment slip in Kara’s presence or on the rare occasion of Agent Danvers’ visits, then a slip of the tongue is just that, a slip. Right?
And so goes her schedule. Day in and day out. Her nights are the worst. It seems that the nightmares have taken a firm hold on her mind. But now she is able to wake herself before the nightmares reach their climax. She congratulates herself on not waking half of the base with her screams. Even so there are nights where she will wake up to a cup resting on the floor just inside the door to her glass cage. Those nights are the bearable ones.
Tonight is not one of those nights. She’s brought out of her sleep by the sound of the alarms. They are loud and piercing and they hurt. They hurt so much. More than they should. That is when she realizes the room is no longer cast in a sickly shade of green and she can hear everything. She can hear the footsteps of all the people outside the door. She can hear the steady beat of her niece’s heart. She has her powers back. She taps on the door and it shatters under her fingers. She smiles wickedly. This is her chance.
She pulls apart the metal door and it feels so good. She feels the pull of the muscles in her back and in her chest. It feels exceptional to see triple reinforced steel crumble under her hands like paper.
She takes a deep breath. It feels good to smell the fear again. She almost laughs at the amount of human fear that permeates the air. She does not, however, expect the smell of coffee, gunpowder, and surprisingly, vanilla, to permeate her senses so thoroughly. Her other senses kick in. That’s when she registers the sounds of rapid gunfire and she has but a fraction of a second to lean back to dodge a green bullet whizzing past her head.
She sees another prisoner further down the hall fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He doesn’t move. She feels a rather human chill run up her spine; the humans are authorized to use lethal force. It may be a prison break but what do the humans have to gain by killing the very subjects they are trying to learn from? She did not take the humans, at least the ones in this organization, to be as barbaric. If they were, they would have slaughtered her the moment the battle ended 19 days ago.
“Use the tranqs, damn it! We need them alive!” Ah so it was a mistake. She relaxes slightly and she tells herself it is because of the tranquilizers and not because Agent Danvers is a sight to behold when she is in control. She certainly does not think about the fire in brown eyes and the subtle ripples of skin and muscle that travel from finger to shoulder with every shot she gets off. She definitely does not think of how easy her ears have tuned into her voice or her heart beat for that matter.
“Supergirl!” she whips her head to the side to see her niece being held to the ground by a rather heavy boot on her neck. Oh that will not stand.
She weaves in and out of humans and aliens alike. Even at speeds nearing supersonic she is still susceptible to stray kryptonite bullets and tranquilizer darts. It is a near miracle that she is not hit.
The Khund standing over her niece is no match for her rage. If you go against a woman who has lost almost everything and try to take the one thing remaining, you will lose…every time. She reaches him in seconds. She punches him through the next wall into some sort of records storing room. She lifts him by his neck and slams him to the ground. The look in her eyes is dangerous. It is rage and fury. It is cold and ruthless. It is murder.
This pathetic excuse of a life form saw fit to hurt her family. He will pay.
She holds him down against the cold dirt in the crater caused by their impact and squeezes her fingers tighter around his neck.
“You touch her again and I will snap your neck as if it were glass. Understood?” He nods fearfully. Her twisted smile is the last thing he sees before her fist connects with his face and he is laying unconscious.
She stands slowly and looks around the room. The humans are no match for this many aliens no matter how valiant some of them may be. She hangs her head and sighs. This is not what she had in mind when she finally broke out of her prison. She wanted to escape, to see the stars again.
She punches the alien closest to her and kicks another. She makes her way back to Kara’s side.
“Aunt Astra. What— “
“Now’s not the time Little One.” She ducks from a punch and delivers a powerful one to the opposing alien’s diaphragm. A Gordanian.
She spins around and kicks yet another Gordanian in the chest just as Kara does the same. It goes flying. They work around each other dropping hostile after hostile. Her eye catches a glimpse of an alien, Andromedan, she thinks standing directly behind her favorite Agent.
“Alex! Duck!” she curses herself at the slip-up. She flies right over her head in time to stop the Andromedan from throwing what could have been a lethal punch. At least to a human. He does not survive.
“Gener— “
“Not now.” She takes the gun from a stunned Alex and double taps an oncoming alien. It too goes down, only this one will survive to tell the tale. Then her world tilts on its axis. Her vision blurs and her hearing dims everything to a dull echo.
“Astra? Astra!” her body feels like lead.
“She had a gun!” Her head feels like it has been turned into that vile green gelatinous substance the humans perceive to be edible.
“She saved my life you idiot!” She stumbles forward. Her head leaves a dent in the concrete floor.
Her world goes black.
Minute 28,807
It is another 12 hours before she wakes up. It’s the warmth that brings her out of unconsciousness. The sun, oh the sun. She hasn’t felt its warmth in just over 20 days. She smiles lightly before she remembers her place. Her face is a mask if cool indifference once again. The smell of coffee, gunpowder and vanilla invades her nose.
“You survived.” Her voice is scratchy from disuse. Her eyes remain closed. She smirks internally at the almost silent gasp and spike in heart rate. She’s caught her off guard. She opens her eyes and sits up.
“You are full of surprises Agent. How you continue to survive in that fragile human body still escapes me.” She looks around the room and stiffens.
“Astra.” It is a warning.
She stands. Shoulders back, spine straight, muscles taught.
“Look, Kara insisted on you getting time under the lamps. Hank insisted on the armed guard.”
“Humans have a very strange way of showing gratitude.” She works the muscles in her jaw. The guard approaches her with the standard K-Cuffs. He doesn’t make it more than two steps before she is in front of him with her hand around his shirt.
“Do not approach me as if you have that right, human. You have done nothing to earn it.” She’s all teeth.
“Astra. Don’t make me shoot you. This isn’t his fault. He’s following orders. You above all people should know how that goes, General.” She turns her head and looks down the barrel of a black metal .45. She drops the man and turns fully to face her.
“Leave us, human.” She notices out of her periphery that he does not move. She raises her brow. “Agent Danvers, you and I must have words. Order this man to leave. I have no quarrel with him, lest he try to restrain me again.” The woman hesitates for a moment, no doubt analyzing every scenario. Her shoulders sag a fraction of an inch. Astra only catches the shift because of her superpowers.
“Jackson. Go grab a coffee.”
“Agent Danvers— “
“Coffee, Agent. Go.” He leaves. Her gun does not lower.
Astra squints. “Those bullets are not Kryptonite.”
“Not fully, no. But there is just enough for it to be very painful for you. Stand down, General.”
She raises her eyebrow. Hmm. A direct order. She finds herself in conflict. She wants to abide and stand down. She knows that she can not win this particular battle. Sure she can move faster than the bullet lodged in the chamber and snap this human in half, but she wont. Standing down would be in her best interest but she also wants to hear that voice again. For purposes she continues to tell herself are completely scientific. Know thy enemy.
“And if I don’t Agent Danvers?” She smirks and daringly takes a step forward. Her smirk grows wider when she catches a whiff of a smell that is universal; arousal. She hears the heart rate spike again and sees pupils blow wide. This attraction is definitely not one-sided. This is going to be fun.
“Stand. Down.” a finger twitches and the click of the drop of the hammer sounds like a clap of thunder. She moves faster than the blink of an eye and stands directly behind Alex.
“Or what?” her voice is low, her breath hot against human ears. Her finger traces a line from ear to collarbone. The smell in the room grows stronger. She can practically taste it. It is intoxicating, like the finest of what this planet would consider whiskey.
“Why did you save me?” Alex whispers. She doesn’t move.
She hesitates slightly. Attraction and affection are different creatures. “You are Kara’s sister. She would be destroyed if something happened to you. I will not let her be in pain if I can prevent it.” It is true. Half true she corrects herself. She saved this human for reasons she will not admit to herself just yet. Her body betrays her, again.
The younger woman makes a non-committal sound. It sounds very much like a “I don’t believe you, but for the sake of the situation, I will.”
“Thank you.”
Their pseudo-touching moment is broken when Astra hears the rapid footsteps coming down the hall. She is back in front of the .45 with her hands extended in front of her body palms up. Alex takes the opportunity to holster the gun and put the K-Cuffs on the exposed wrists.
The door opens and Kara comes in before stopping short.
“J-Jackson said you dismissed him. He said you were in danger?” She’s blushing.
“Kara. Please. I know how to handle a Kryptonian. You don’t give me enough credit.”
“Yes, Kara. Give the Agent some credit. She has the threat handled and contained.” She lifts her hands and makes a show of struggling against the cuffs. Alex does not miss the innuendo. Hopefully Kara does.
“You are not a threat, Aunt Astra. Not to us.” Kara makes a move to remove the cuffs. She’s stopped by Alex’s hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t Kara. We may trust her, but the rest of the base does not. She cannot be allowed to just walk free. It’s protocol.”
The word ‘we’ does not escape Astra’s notice.
“You guys let me walk free after 30 minutes in your custody. She saved your life Alex!” She takes another step forward and Astra takes one step back.
“Agent Danvers is correct, my dear Kara. I was the leader of the opposing army. I am still very much the enemy. I would be wary if these humans were so quick to trust me. One good deed does not erase my past actions, misguided as they may have been.”
“But Aunt Astra,”
“No Kara, this is simply military protocol. It is good to see that even this primitive planet follows that.”
“I’ll be speaking to Hank about this. I will fix this.” She wants to hug her niece in that moment. Her niece has always had a hero’s heart.
“Speak to the Martian if you wish, Little One. Until he says otherwise, I will be in my cell. Or a new one at least.”
Kara leaves after that, no doubt to talk to the Martian.
“I do have one request, Agent, before you take me back to my cell. I do not wish to wait another day for my designated time slot.”
Alex looks back to Astra. “And what is that?”
Her smile is wicked again. “A shower.”