Chapter Text
"I don't feel good." Kara's voice is barely a whisper.
It slips out tentatively and uncertain, she catches another breath and Alex snaps around from her microscope just in time to watch the woman of steel, her sister, buckle beneath her own knees like a paper crane.
"Okay, it's okay, just slow down,” Alex worries, gritting against how heavy her sister is as she scoops her up off the floor of the lab. "What's going on? Talk to me?"
"I... I don't know. I feel different,” she swallows and winces at the burning in her belly and it was an indescribable pain really, like trying to put colours into words or explain the way sometimes sounds have tastes. "Alex... what's happening to me?" she asks her sister, nervous and clutching her stomach. It hurts. It feels like ghosts are writhing around in her veins and her inhibitions are slipping away like a shrouded veil, and she can see the world so much clearer for it.
There are new smells too, her sense of smell was always superior like the rest of her abilities but it's different, like she was colour-blind before but now she can see red and blue and green and orange for the first time. Lena smelled different. That's what frightened her and made her flee in the first place. She smelled of the beach and dirt after rain and before Kara knew it she was fighting back the urge to do dirty things.
"I think it's finally happening,” Alex slips the back of her hand over Kara's forehead. "You're coming into your first heat, it's not going to be pretty, but at least we know your biology is the same now…" she trails off and slips an arm beneath her sister. "Come on. Let's get you up."
Kara catches the scent of her sister as she's hauled up from the ground and gags on it. Retching and spluttering, she scuttles backwards like she's Kryptonite.
"What the hell has gotten into you?"
"Why do you smell like that? You smell awful!" Kara gags on her own saliva.
Alex hesitates, astounded and saddened. "You can smell me?" she frowns.
She stands there and shakes her head for a second, looking off to the ceiling. Of course this would happen. Of course it would just have to go this way. She'd imagined this day for most of her life. What it would be like when Kara would finally present her biology... she just always imagined it differently.
"Can't everyone smell that?"
"No... just Alphas coming into their rut."
"Wait. No. No, that isn't," Kara clenches on the truth, sighing and biting her cheek and waiting for this joke to be revealed. "That isn't possible. I'm not an Alpha."
"What your smelling is Maggie's claim. It stops you desiring mated Omegas during your rut." Alex explains tersely, boiling in her embarrassment.
"Alex..." her heart breaks in two at the thought of it. "I can't be..." she whispers and shakes her head at the mere idea.
"It's okay." Alex assures her sister with a small nod, tucking a piece of dark hair behind her ear. "I promise it's going to be okay. Have I ever broken a promise before?" she lowers her brow at her sister.
Kara shakes her head.
"Well, I'd say you're in pretty safe hands then."
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with being an Alpha. It just wasn't what she'd been prepared for. It wasn't the news anyone wanted. She was a god, she was stronger and faster and just... more than. And the only thing that made that acceptable, the only reason she wasn't chased off the face of this planet, was the self-reservation and control she exerted in every waking moment of her life.
"What if I can't control myself?" Kara whispers. "What if I..." she trails off and her eyes pearl from held-back tears.
"Don't even say it." Alex snaps. "You would never force yourself on someone."
"It happens."
"You're above that." Alex demands it of her, arms crossed over her chest.
Kara nods timidly, she does it for her sister's benefit more than anything.
"We're going to do some bloodworks and get you home and it's going to be okay." Alex repeats these things, dragging the little metal cart over and tapping around her pockets for her phone. "Maggie will know what to do." she confirms.
"Okay." Kara says weakly, dragging herself up from the floor. She keeps a safe distance from her sister and the awful scent that clings to her. It smells like nothing she's smelled before. It smells like danger and fear and frightens her until the knot in her stomach is twice as big for it.
Alex busies herself around the lab in search of the Kryptonite hypodermic needles, they were the only thing capable of breaking Kara's skin to take a blood sample. It was an arduous search, though she tried to move as quickly as possible, opening cabinets and dragging her fingers through drawers until she finally found the box she was looking for.
"Alex what's that smell?" Kara groans, her voice tapering into a little inhaling huff.
"I can try to give you a hormone shot so I don't smell as awful but I doubt it would work against your genetic mapping." she explains, fiddling around with the kit. "If I can just... there!" Alex grins and wipes her brow, freeing the lid off the small container of liquid Kryptonite.
"No. Alex you don't understand…" Kara's voice trails and she groans again. "I feel like I have too…"
Alex looks up from the box of syringes, her stomach slips like footing on icy shale. The new recruit was walking down the steel corridor, pretty girl too, not much older than twenty-three and clearly without a bite on her neck. Panicking and aware of the inevitable, Alex tries to wave the Omega back down the hall away from her rutting sister.
"Kara stay there!" she snaps at her sister and gasps at the state of her.
Her pupils are already blown and the fine hair on her body stands on end like a predator ready to hunt. She huffs, inhales air like there isn't enough oxygen to feed her lungs. Shuddering and fighting against the flex of her joints, Alex watches and feels the panic swell inside of herself. Kara suddenly seems too big for her uniform.
"Kara…" she ignores the call of her name, chin tucked into her neck. "This isn't you… you don't have to give in to this." Alex whispers and takes another step towards the door, desperate to reach the lockdown button without making any sudden movements.
Kara's head snaps up and she stares at Alex, wordless and incapable of holding back the natural disaster taking over her body, shuddering against it like foundations in a hurricane.
"Can I get you anything Agent Danvers?" the young bright-eyed Omega opens the door with a naive smile.
Alex tries to push the girl away, tries to body-block her with the scent of her own claim, but Kara is too quick. The Woman of Steel snatches at the girl like a lion pouncing on its hindquarters and presses her into the cement wall at the far end of the lab.
"Kara!" Alex hisses and moves slowly towards them. "Let her go!"
The girl smells like vanilla and honey-blossom, it's sweet and fragrant and Kara buries her flexing nose into a shoulder to inhale a gasp of it. It's not as nice as the way Lena smelled, not as unavoidable or cataclysmic, perhaps it's for that reason only that she registers the way the girl tenses and freezes in her grasps.
"Kara listen to me." Alex takes a step closer and slips a Kryptonite shot off the steel surface, talking slowly the whole time. "This isn't you." she reconfirms it and takes another step. The girl is terrified, wide-eyed and frozen, trapped between the wall and Kara's powerful hands. "It's okay, she won't hurt you" she promises the girl and prays this won't be the first she'll break.
Kara blinks, hears the words, feels the tension in the girl's body, listens to her heart thump the cage of her chest like a wardrum. It stirs her from where she lurks beneath the surface of her rut and gives her enough self-control to see these things for what they are.
"I'm so sorry!" she gasps and pulls herself away from the girl, tossing her towards Alex as she does. "I'm so so sorry." she mouths and hates herself. "I… I didn't mean… I didn't want to hurt anyone." her eyes pearl into confused blistering orbs.
"It's okay. She's okay." Alex confirms and quickly appraises the girl with a glance, she was a little shaken but fine otherwise. "Go find Henshaw and have a cell cleared." she whispers and knows full well her sister hears every word.
"Alex…" Kara pleads sheepishly. "You're not… you're not going to lock me up?"
Alex steps closer and takes her sister into a hug, guilty and biting her mouth. "Do you trust me?" she asks and feels Kara nod against her shoulder. "I'm doing this to protect you. No one else, Kara, always and only you. Okay?" she tells her and pushes the hypodermic needle in her arm.
There's a split second before the Kryptonite hits her blood and Alex wonders whether it will be her last. Kara's Alpha flexes and growls, but somehow, barely and not quite enough, Kara keeps it in check and sinks to the floor — weakened by the shot.
"I don't want to hurt like this." Kara whispers and clutches her gut where the fire burns inside of her. "Will it hurt like this always?" she asks her sister weakly, blinking off the inevitable sleep.
Alex sits and strokes her head and bites back her guilt. "No Honey." she assures her with a little smile. "You'll meet a nice girl and you'll have what Maggie and I have."
"That sounds nice."
"It does, doesn't it?"
"Don't let me hurt anyone." Kara whispers as sleep finally pulls her under. "Promise me, Alex?"
"I promise you." Alex smooths her hair and wants to cry, but she doesn't.
…
It's late in the evening when Maggie gets home. She takes off the layers of the day one by one and breezes through the apartment as she does, the jacket is thrown over the back of the sofa, her shoes are kicked off by the breakfast bar, the scarf is tossed on the kitchen counter and the natural disaster that is Maggie Sawyer finally dissipates at the fridge where they keep the beers. Alex tidies up after her, putting things in their rightful place with a little shake of her head.
"Is it really so impossible for you to hang your coat on the rack?" she eyeballs her Alpha.
"Well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks…"
"Yep. Maybe it's time to send the old dog to the big farm in the sky." Alex smirks and peers over the coat rack.
"Ouch, Danvers." Maggie chuckles and opens two beers. "I think you need one of these more than I do." she places it on the counter.
"You have no idea." Alex agreed with a sulk and slipped over the laminate towards the open bottle. "Kara presented today."
"No way! Puppy Danvers?! Super-Pupper got her heat?!" Maggie balked loudly and set a hand on her hip. "I don't have to put the hurt on any overeager Alphas do I?" she settled into a furrowed brow.
"Trust me, the only overeager Alpha I dealt with today was Kara."
"Wait." Maggie puzzled.
"Yep." Alex beat her to it and watched the clogs turn in her mate's eyes. "Kara is an Alpha." she whispered and sighed.
"Nope. No way. Kara is packing heat?"
"I don't want to think about it."
"Well she's gonna need a longer skirt." Maggie mused.
"Quit it!" Alex almost gagged on the thought and shoved her Alpha in the arm. "I was going to stay at the DEO tonight. We had to put her in a cell until we figure this thing out. I didn't want to leave her but… she was just... there. So tiny and helpless, curled up asleep like a kid again. I couldn't bare to look at her in that cage." Alex admitted guiltily. "Do you think it makes me a bad person putting her there?" she asked quietly.
"Baby, no." Maggie let her surprise known, shocked Alex could even think like that. "I spent my first rut locked in my room for four days. It sucked and it hurt and all I wanted to do was tear the bricks out of the wall but that was way better than the alternative. Until she can control herself you're doing her a favour."
"It's not the same, Maggie, she's Supergirl. I don't know if the city can survive four days without her." Alex complained and sort out Maggie's body for reassurance, her arms slipping along the small of her waist, nose nuzzling into the spot on her neck that smelled like home.
"We'll be just fine. She'll be just fine." Maggie promises and kisses her Omega's forehead. "The city wouldn't survive four days of her if she was loose on her first rut."
"You're right." Alex whispered and hated her a little for it.
Maggie held her close and pressed a kiss to the bite mark on her neck. Somehow, it made it easier to exist. No matter the problem or the awfulness of the day, the tiny puckered bite on her neck that dimpled the skin just slightly always reminded her there was someone to lean on. Always and forever, because that was the deal.
Effortlessly Alex quickly found herself picked up in Maggie arms, she felt guilty for chuckling but she couldn't stop the happy little noise, arms slipping around her Alpha's neck whilst they moved towards the bed.
Maggie released her with a small little grunt and flopped her down on the mattress, setting down their beers on the side table before she joined at her side. "I know it's not easy but I can help. I'll talk to Kara and answer any questions she's got."
"Do you think that would be kind of weird?" Alex huffed, tucking her head into Maggie's shoulder. "You're like her big sister too."
"A big sister who knows what it's like to pop a knot once a month. Which, by the way, is as painful as it sounds."
"Really?" Alex mused and met her eyes with a little teasing glance. "You never seem to complain."
"That's because I have an amazing, beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous, perfect, fantastic," she punctuated each word with a kiss up her neck, "beautiful girl who knows just how to calm me down."
"You said beautiful twice." Alex hummed.
"I know."
"Is this you being romantic?" Alex raised a brow and tossed a hip over Maggie's gut. "Because it's really working for me."
Their rut cycle was still a few days away. They would get their designated four days off from work, Maggie would complain for a few hours whilst her rut came in, they would make hot dirty love all day with Alex on all fours until her knees gave out. Alex would try to get out of bed, Maggie would growl possessively and keep her knotted until she was satiated, and round and round they would go, every month, until the little pregnancy test tucked away in the bathroom cabinet finally told them what they wanted to hear.
But Alex felt her arousal simmer in her gut like an early summer. It was a symptom of pregnancy, the scientist in her recognised it, but the grief in her refused too. Not after the last time. Not until there was a bump and a crib and a useless adorable perfect Alpha growling and stomping around protectively.
"Are you okay?" Maggie kissed her jaw.
"Yeah," Alex blinked and forced a smile, slipping her leg off and earning a little whining noise from her Alpha in the process. "I'm going to take a bath, will you join me?"
"Is that a request or a demand?"
"A plea." Alex purred, kissing her mate's mouth softly. "Tomorrow is going to be terrible and I want to enjoy every second of you whilst I can."