Shooting stars | Mon-El

•Twenty One•

Pushing further

Bang. Sweat dripped down past her eyebrows. Bang. Dark strands of hair clung to her cheeks. Bang. Blood spotted against her knuckles, splitting with each impact.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

The punching bag collapsed upon the floor, tearing in half from the sheer force.

Astrid screamed in frustration, glaring down to the broken heap of fabric left balled up by her feet. With both hands raised she drove her focus further. The bag raised slowly, trembling underneath its invisible grip. Her vision blurred as black dots began to swirl in her line of sight. She didn't care. She needed to push herself further.

With a harsh grunt, Astrid sent the bag flying across the room. It slammed against the concrete walls, obliterating into sand and torn material. Nothing was left, nothing that was salvageable at least. Just a pile of dust crumpled to the side of the training room.

"Hey Astrid." A soft voice slipped into the air almost unnoticed, concern laced with each word.

"What?" She shot back as she teared off the bloodied tape from her hands, ignoring the sudden attention drawn to her raw skin.

"I was coming to ask a favour. But also to tell you to go home." Kara hummed, tone mixed with both affection and authority.

Supergirl had taken on the responsibility of parenting her two new alien partners, looking over them with ease as they constantly looked after one another. But over the past week something had changed, one would always run when the other arrived to train. Hoping to hide in the midst of chaos and ignore the petty anger bubbling inside.

"Im fine, Kara. you guys wanted me to train, I train and you tell me to go home. Make up your mind." Astrid muttered, turning her attention to the next bit of kit she could destroy.

Over the past three hours she had gone through 17 pieces of equipment, all left dismembered in a shoddy pile beside a cracked wall. ignoring what was said, Kara crept further in to the room, aware another supe was teetering at the edge of the doorway.

"Look, Lena Luther is having a party this Friday to celebrate her launch. I promised her both kara and supergirl will be there-"

"well, that was stupid."

"-and I need you to come and distract her in-between costume changes."

As the blonde supe trailed off, a new glare plastered on her features from Astrids sly comment, her brunette counterpart couldn't help but let her mind drift. She glanced at her hands, only then realising the sharp cuts and forming bruises that littered her skin.

What happened to supers not getting hurt? She thought bitterly as she splayed out her fingers, wincing from its new ache.

"Alright I haven't been pestering you about why Mon'el has been camping out in the DEO for the past week, Rao knows I dying to. But I'm not. So the least you can do is listen to me and help me out with this!" Kara's aggravated sigh snapped her back to reality, brown eyes quickly finding blue as she matched her gaze.

A moment of silence flooded the room as both awaited Astrids next words. She had to choose them carefully, show no interest into what Kara had said as to not bait any further questions. Maybe she was overthinking it, but like hell was she going to start a gossip session with national city's main superhero.

"Fine. I'll go to Lenas party, but don't expect me to do anything super." With her finite words, Astrid marched out of the training room, away from the questioning stare left trailing behind her.

She shoved past the door, barely noticing the man awkwardly loitering beside it. Before he reached his arm out to stop her, Astrid raised her middle finger and carried on marching down the corridor. She was still pissed. Mon'el had hoped their fight would have slipped away without any need to retaliate. Boy was he wrong.

"I don't know what that means!" He shouted out to her, pointing towards her gesture in a huff of frustration. Astrid spun on her feet, still stumbling backward, and raised her other middle finger up towards him.

•••

I can't believe it's almost 2021