Supergirl Drabbles

Overloaded

It had started out as any other day had. You’d woken up, went to work at Catco, resisted rolling your eyes at Snapper when he threw your latest article back in your face, again; you’d rewritten it three times before he finally (begrudgingly) accepted it. You’d slipped out just before lunch when Alex called about some weird two-headed alien terrorizing a cake shop by arguing with itself over which flavor was better, which escalated quickly into some weird self punching match that destroyed half the shop. You’d spent lunch with Cat in her office, talking about the time she’d spent away and about Carter and his newest science project, and stealing kisses when no one was looking. You’d run around chasing a story in the afternoon, interviewed Lena Luthor on her latest technological goal, and stopped at the DEO desert bunker to get some missing details from Lucy Lane and Agen Vasquez.

    It had been a normal day for you, until after work, in the evening, when the sun started to go down.

    The sun went down, but the noise seemed to go up, and now your head is pounding something awful.

    You’re still out, as Supergirl again, patrolling around National City and trying to listen for any trouble. But your head hurts, the city is too loud, your suit hurts on your skin, everything just feels…. too much.

    You think about just going home, curling up in the relative silence with ear muffs on and your fuzzy pjs. You think about going to Cat’s and doing the same, with her sitting nearby to finish paperwork because you know she’ll be home since Carter is. You think about going to Alex’s and curling up on her couch like you’ve done so many times before while she reads a book with the lights low.

    But you don’t do any of that, because you have a job to do, you are this city’s hero, and she needs you. Like over on the north side, you focus your sight on a building even as your eyes start to hurt, and there’s a fire. An apartment building is blazing hot, and as you fly closer, you can hear a woman crying out for her son that’s still trapped inside. So instead of finding solitude, you fly over as fast as you can and scan the building with your x-ray vision, locating the boy on the fourth floor. The firefighters on the scene are combatting the flames with such concentration, and there’s no way for them to get to him, so you contemplate your options.

    The building is stable, for now, though that’s not going to last long. Fire doesn’t hurt you, although you’re not 100% sure that your suit will survive. The boy is unconscious and flames are starting to lick at the door of the room he’s in, and that makes your decision for you. You fly low first, finding the fire chief. “There’s a kid on the fourth floor, I’m going in to get him!” She nods, so you head inside.

    The roar of the flames is loud, the screams of the mother outside pierces your ears, the crowd that had gathered is so noisy. The fire is also really really bright and you squint against it, holding an arm up to try and put them in shadow. Your skin feels like it’s trying to crawl, or something is crawling on it, and it hurts. Your nose burns with the smell of burning everything. But you still push onward, reaching back to take your cape off. It’s for sure fireproof, and you plan on using it to protect the boy.

    You reach the door without a problem and manage to get it open. You wrap the boy in your cape and hold him close as you look around for the safest exit. There’s a window, there, but it’s stuck, so you break it with one hand and dart out, flying the boy down to paramedics waiting below with his mother. You hand him off, putting your cape back on, and turn back around. You take a deep breath and blow, watching to make sure the flames don’t travel as you use your freeze breath to help subdue the inferno.

    The crowd erupts in cheers and you smile, though it’s probably more like a grimace because now it all hurts too much and you need to get out of there before you explode. It’s too much, and you can hear everything, see everything, smell everything, feel everything, and you think maybe dunking yourself in the ocean might help, except there’s currents and fish and you’d still feel everything!

    You take off into the air with no goal except to get away, and you almost collapse back on the ground because even the air hurts.

    You don’t notice you’ve gone to Cat’s until you’re on her balcony and she’s kneeling beside you, her hands hovering but not touching. “Kara? Are you alright?”

    You don’t mean to seem rude, but even as her voice sends relief washing through your nerves, it’s still too much, so you clamp your hands over your ears and squeeze your eyes shut. You shake your head, and there’s a dog barking on the street below, and you want it shut up, but there’s a group of college kids laughing loudly three blocks away, there’s a room full of middle school girls giggling at a slumber party in the next neighborhood, there’s cars and trucks and motorcycles and even with your hands over your ears you still hear it all-

    She pulls your hands away from your head, and you let out a whimper, wincing at the loudness that is the city, until it’s muffled through the ear muffs she’d gotten you. You slump down and look up at her, and you notice the lights in her penthouse apartment are all off, save for Carter’s lamp at his desk. She’s holding her hand out, but not moving to touch you, and you reach out and take it. She pulls you up and inside to the bedroom, hands you a pair of the softest, fuzziest pants and the softest cotton t-shirt she owns, and you undress and redress quickly, sighing when the pajamas whisper softly on your skin instead of scratching at it. Then she’s tucking you into bed, pulling only the sheet up, and sitting softly next to you. She doesn’t lie down, so you pull her down, curling into her side. She puts her arm around you, but doesn’t move it, and you hold onto her and sigh again, moving one side of the earmuffs so you can hear her heart beat.

    You fall asleep to the symphony of her heart, to the natural smell that’s all Cat, and you sleep soundly.

    The next day is your day off at Catco, so you stay in bed for as long as you can. When you finally show up at the DEO, Alex and Maggie are both asking if you’re okay and “Cat texted us, explained, so if you feel like it’s too much again, let us know and we’ll take you back home.”

    You smile and hug your sister and her girlfriend. “Thanks guys.” You don’t say you’re sorry, because you’ve been working on the whole apologizing for everything thing, and they both beam at you and hug you gently, and even though your senses aren’t overloaded anymore, you’re thankful for the tender way they treat you.