Work Text:
Alex groans as she opens her eyes; it’s like she’s staring directly at the sun itself. Yet, somehow, not as painful as that usually is. It’s almost nice. No, it is nice, it’s just so bright that it’s hard to see anything else, it’s like there is nothing but light.
Where is she?
She can’t remember. Last she remembers she was out on a mission, with Astra. They were investigating something, some unknown device that had shown up on their radar as an anomaly. What was it? They didn’t know.
No, Astra knew. Astra thought she knew. She approached, and Alex tried to stop her, because they have protocols for this, one doesn’t simply pick up a foreign object, didn’t they have protocols on Krypton? She’d tried to pull her back, and then a blast.
And then nothing.
Until now, that is. Is this what death is like? Is that why it’s so bright? Had the device been an explosive that Astra triggered?
A dull ache in her chest pulls her attention. No, she can’t be dead, the afterlife wouldn’t have aches… would it? No, it shouldn’t have aches, there’s no aches if there’s no body to have aches in, and she definitely has a body to have an ache in. The blast must have hit her in the chest, or something, and the light, it looks awfully familiar…
Sun lamps.
Alex is in a sun bed, it’s unmistakable. It doesn’t make much sense, this is for Kryptonians to heal in, not humans, but nonetheless she is in a sunbed. Carefully, she reaches out a hand to the outside, making sure not to touch the lamps when she lifts the lid.
It raises without effort. Had these always been so light?
“Oh good, you’re finally awake.”
Her head snaps towards the origin of the voice – Alex’s voice, her own voice – so quickly she nearly gives herself a whiplash. Eyes bulge when she sees, in fact, her own body beside her, getting up from a chair. “What the—“
She stops talking promptly: that’s not her voice.
This has to be a dream, Alex decides. With that (temporary) peace of mind she indulges her curiosity; if she isn’t in her own body, whose body is she in? And when she looks down she is met with a body that looks surprisingly similar to her own, but feels just a little bit off. Longer. Bigger bump on her chest. Slightly wider set hips. More muscular.
Definitely not a bad body.
She’s wearing a black body suit – one that’s less comfortable than she’d anticipated, considering how form-fitting it looks – and when her eyes fall onto a patch on the right side of her chest, her suspicions are confirmed.
It’s Astra’s body. And that had definitely been Astra’s voice coming from her mouth.
Alex looks back at the person inhabiting her body, shock still written on her face, whereas the other person has schooled her face in a way she isn’t used to seeing on her own face. Which could only mean… “Astra?”
Her body – Astra nods. “It would appear I was wrong about our mystery device.”
Anger bubbles up in her throat – it feels hotter than it usually does, more intense – and she growls, “You don’t say. I told you not to touch it!”
Hands raise in surrender, calmingly. It shouldn’t calm her, and yet some primal part of her is appeased. “Yes. You can yell at me about that all you want. Later. Right now we have bigger concerns.”
Alex crosses her arms with a huff, “Like what?” Astra just stares at her with her own eyes, exasperated. “Right. The body thing. The thing that happened because you didn’t listen to me—“
“Save it,” she snaps. “You want to pick a fight with me, go ahead, but not here where anyone could hear us. We need a solution, not an argument.”
She hates how Astra is right; her jaw clenches and unclenches as she reigns herself in. “So what then? Do we even know what caused this?” It’s gotta have something to do with that device, but Alex doesn’t know if they are in possession of the thing or not. “How did we even get back?”
“I drove us here once I regained consciousness. I would have flown, but…”
Astra looks away for a moment, slumped, and appears embarrassed? It’s only then that she notices a bruise blooming on her cheek – Alex’s, her own cheek. “Oh hell no, you actually tried, didn’t you? And fell flat on my face.”
“No.” That’s what she says, but the tips of her ears get rid in the exact way she is used from her body.
Alex hops down from the bed to get in front of Astra with a threatening finger, which... technically, she does. Except she severely misjudges just about everything of the motion. The metal where she pushed off is now dented. The bed crashed into the wall from the same motion. She moved forwards too much quickly, could barely keep herself from crashing into her own human body, and at once she understands Astra’s obsessive concern about how fragile they are. She feels powerful, but in a concerning way.
It was too fast for Astra to perceive, and it’s the first time she’s seen her flinch. Well, technically she still hasn’t, she only saw herself flinch, but it’s close enough.
She drops the finger, too shook to keep up the intimidation. “Liar,” Alex mutters instead, eyes diverting to the injury. She feels the need to reach out, offer comfort of sorts, heal it if she could, which… are not feelings she should be feeling when looking at herself. Still, she doesn’t squash the feeling, and does reach out very slowly, gently trailing her fingers across the skin. When Astra contorts her face she pulls back as if burned, stumbling to back up a bit – was that too hard already? “Sorry.”
Astra looks at her again, expression unreadable. She’s about to say something when the door opens, J’onn stepping into the room.
“Good, you’re both here and on your feet,” he says, serious as he usually is when it comes to work. “The device has proven to be stable and otherwise harmless. It is waiting for you in the lab, Agent Danvers.”
Oh, good, Astra also remembered to bring the device with them, that’s good. Hopefully she actually stuck to protocol in retrieving it after things went wrong – at least they didn’t get injured further. She nods, and she’s about to respond to him, when a prod against her arm interrupts her. Whipping her head around, she immediately understands it’s Astra reminding her they are currently switched. Alex is supposed to respond to Astra, not her own name.
“Thank you, Director J’onzz. I’ll get to it.” The formality sounded odd, coming from her. Still, if Astra felt awkward in Alex’s place she didn’t show it, and she seemed intent on getting to the lab as quickly as possible.
She wouldn’t even look at Alex as she left, leaving her alone with J’onn in Astra’s body. Just like that. And she was just supposed to trust Astra wasn’t going to do something stupid again, like touching the damn device again without taking the necessary precautions humans need to take.
Hell no. She needs to stay close to Astra and make sure she doesn’t kill herself on accident. Or purpose. She’s still on probation for a reason.
Alex is about to follow, when she hears her name spoken from a distance; it’s her own voice. “Alex, I’ll work on finding a solution to our problem. Don’t worry, just—“
“As for you,” J’onn continues, inadvertently interjecting, voice sounding awfully loud when she’d been focusing on Astra, “your niece is waiting for you outside. I’ve sent her to fly some laps around Earth to keep her occupied.”
Niece. That’s gonna need some getting used to. Still, she can’t help but smile, “Kara worries too much. Thanks, J’o- Director J’onzz.”
“Don’t keep her waiting.”
With a nod Alex heads out immediately; she’s sure Astra can handle working in a lab while she reassures Kara she is still alive. Astra, that is. She probably knows Alex is alive, physically speaking. Does Kara know they switched? Should she tell her? No, she should wait until she can talk to Astra about that, if she knows she knows, but otherwise…
Well, it’ll be a good opportunity to try out her powers, she’s sure Kara has plenty anxious energy left for a training session. What could possibly go wrong?
Alex storms back into the DEO barely an hour later, after having crashed into various things, mainly the ground, multiple times (which hurt more than she’d anticipated, despite a lack of injuries) in her rush to make it back. “I lost Kara!”
They’d been enjoying themselves, flying through the clouds, going fast. Kara didn’t know it wasn’t Astra she was flying with, and Alex had been able to play off any loss of control as loops and barrel-rolls that were entirely on purpose, thank you very much. It’s during one of those instances that she’d accidentally shot up, high above the clouds, had gotten distracted momentarily, and then could no longer find Kara even with her enhanced vision.
“We found her,” Astra responds grimly, looking ahead at the big screen in the control center. A quick glance reveals the distorted video fragments typical of Cadmus; that is not good. Astra looks at her then, “It’s good to see you safe.”
There’s a vulnerability in her eyes that shakes Alex; it’s the same look she got whenever it concerned Kara’s safety. The amount of care…
Of course, she realizes. This is just about her body, of course Astra would want her body to be safe, and Cadmus does have the ability to harm it. It’s not about her. Right?
“Right, yeah. Good to see you… didn’t blow up the lab,” Alex returns awkwardly, wanting to face-palm in lieu of it. “Did you get anywhere?”
A shake of her head. “Not far.”
Great. So they’ll be stuck like this for a while, because like hell are they going to focus on anything but saving Kara right now. She looks back at the screen, just catching the end of the video, Cadmus’ avatar saying, “You have 48 hours.”
“What do they want?” Alex asks.
“The DEO’s alien prisoners, in exchange for Supergirl.”
“All of them?” That’s insanity, even coming from Cadmus. “They can’t seriously expect us to go along with that.”
Astra looks back at the screen. “I agree.” Her brows are furrowed, eyes blazing in a way she imagines she could normally activate heat vision with. Still, she looks every bit the pensive general Alex knows her to be… But seeing it on her own face? It’s strange.
This is no time to be distracted by the oddities of their situation though, least of all any feelings that are provoked by seeing such a sight. Even when those feelings are very strong and distracting in a way that make her question her sanity; she doesn’t consider herself narcissistic, but, if she had to put a name on it, these feelings are awfully similar to attraction.
Does she look like that when she’s in thought too?
She hears familiar footsteps headed in their direction, which (mercifully) breaks her out of her thoughts. J’onn. He clears his throat once he’s behind them, making them both look at his stoic face.
Shit, can he read her thoughts?
Is that even possible now that she’s inside the body of a Kryptonian?
Can he read Astra’s thoughts now?
While wondering about this she’s been doing a terrible job at keeping control of her face, guilt practically written on her face. Astra, unsurprisingly, did manage to keep control of her face. The only problem with that is that it makes J’onn look at both of them suspiciously, pinning Alex with a look that feels like it can see right through her. “Is there anything you want to tell me, agent?”
Her first mistake is looking at Astra for answers, who looks at her with a more subtle version of the exact same look. Do we tell him?
The second is shaking her head, entirely unconvincingly with that guilt-ridden expression.
Still, J’onn now turns to Astra, who straightens Alex’s body unnaturally under the scrutiny. “Nothing either of you want to tell me?”
Astra, too, shakes her head. “No, sir.” Her performance should have convinced anyone – even Alex is impressed with how the inflection matches her own this time – yet for some reason J’onn only looks more suspicious.
Oh no. J’onn can definitely read Astra’s mind, can’t he? What on Earth is she thinking?
“Alright,” he says, though he does not look convinced, before looking back at Alex. “So there is no reason Cadmus claims you have lost your powers, In-Ze?”
Well, they weren’t completely wrong in that assessment, Astra is in fact without powers at the moment. Her body isn’t, though. So Alex tilts her head in that puzzled way Astra usually does – it’s kind of adorable, now that she thinks about it, how similar her body language can be to that of a puppy. “Do I look powerless to you?”
Alex pushes off the ground, intending to hover above the ground, nothing more, nothing less. That is, unfortunately, not what happens. She feels herself get launched straight up into the air, having severely misjudged her power (again), and she crashes into the ceiling with a loud thud. When she falls back down she barely manages to land on her feet, but she sticks the landing and stands up with a rigid composure. As if her face and neck don’t hurt.
“I meant to do that.”
She can feel Astra’s gaze burn at her side. J’onn hasn’t looked this exasperated since... Well, ever.
Mercifully, Astra changes the subject to more pressing matters. “We need to get Kara out of there. It’s likely to be a trap, but we can’t leave her with this Cadmus.”
J’onn nods. “I’ve already started to assemble a team. I imagine you will want to come along?”
“Yes, sir,” Astra says, simultaneous with Alex saying, “Absolutely.”
“And you’re certain you’re up for a mission of this magnitude?”
“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?” He gives Alex a look that makes her backtrack; he undoubtedly has a whole list of reasons, not least of all the fact that she just flew into the ceiling. “It’s Kara,” she says instead, prompting Astra to nod in solidarity.
It’s enough for J’onn to know there’s no talking them out of it. “Briefing room, 10 minutes.”
Turns out that when it’s about something important, Alex suddenly has a very good grasp of Astra’s powers. During the initial battle outside not only did Alex manage to shield Astra from the hail of bullets she ran into, she also expertly maneuvered herself in between enemy lines to catch Astra when she was stupid enough to jump off a building, thinking she could fly.
Alex might forget about their switched predicament during social interactions, but at the very least she doesn’t forget when it comes to the battlefield.
On the other hand, Astra had the bright idea to go look for any files Cadmus has on the compound in the device. Among the files was a schematic for an antidote; the moment Alex found out she felt like she could kiss her right there and then.
She didn’t, of course. That would be weird, right?
Kara had been fine when they found her – or as close to fine as she could be, considering the amount of kryptonite she was exposed to. When Alex walked into the room she was held the urge to throw up had nearly been too powerful to control, and the entirety of her skin was burning up.
According to Kara, that was normal. Same amount they used in the training room. Alex parked her into a sun bed anyway, and vowed to look into the development of red sun lamps in their stead later.
They’re in the lab creating the antidote while Kara is resting.
The files revealed the synthetic compound had been something they’d referred to as ‘khaki kryptonite’, something that was supposed to permanently take away the powers of a Kryptonian, much like golden kryptonite. They hadn’t managed to replicate it perfectly, couldn’t get it to radiate anything disturbing, however they had managed to instill the damaging effect into it as an electrical current of sorts. Alex must have intercepted the current when she’d put her hands on Astra.
“This should do it,” Astra says, stepping away from the microscope after examining what they had. Alex would have worked on it herself, but as she was inside the Kryptonian body this time around that had seemed to be a bad idea.
She approaches, and Astra puts her hands on her shoulders like she had done the first time around. “Here goes nothing.” With that, Alex touches the substance that is supposed to solve all their problems. She feels a current run up her arm – had Astra felt that too the first time around? And then…
Nothing.
No grand blast. No getting knocked unconscious. And, after clenching her hand in frustration, Alex can confirm from the crushed anti-kryptonite in her palm that she still has Astra’s powers.
Behind her, she feels Astra’s head hit her back with a groan. “Your interference must have made this impossible to reverse.”
Alex would feel guilty, but she’s already rifling through the files to see if there is anything they overlooked, Astra still leaning her forehead against her. “You’re sure you made it right?” She asks as she reads it all over, again.
A soft hum. “The molecular composition matched that of the schematics.”
Suddenly, Alex stops rifling, and reads a certain passage of the documentation closely. And again. And once more. And then groans, throwing it onto the desk with more force than it appreciates, papers flying everywhere.
Astra remains unmoved, and at this point she’s not sure if it’s dramatics or comfort that keeps her there. Knowing her, it could be either. “What?”
“It wasn’t the antidote, it was the most recent failed attempt at one. They’ve found no way to reverse it.”
A louder groan this time, and the force with which Astra is pressed into her increases. “So we’re stuck.”
“Looks it.” Alex sighs. “We’ll have to tell Kara.”
Finally, Astra lifts her head, and she spins Alex around to face her. “Tomorrow,” she tells her. “It’s been a long day, we’ll deal with this mess tomorrow.”
And Alex finds she doesn’t want to argue that. “Okay.”
Astra is inside by the time Alex manages to reach her apartment by flight. She’s looking through the open window, waiting for her with a warm beverage. Kara flew her home after her refusal to go with Alex, which turns out to have been a good call when her peace and quiet is interrupted.
THUD!
“You missed.”
An aggrieved Alex pulls herself inside from the side where she’d crashed, looking at Astra, who is calmly sipping her tea. “You don’t fucking say. Why is this so hard?”
Putting her cup back down on the saucer at the counter, Astra shrugs as she walks over to the window. “It’s not. Let me show you.”
“Wait, no, not again—“
But even with super reflexes is Alex unable to keep Astra from jumping out of the window. Swiftly, she jumps after her, accelerating to catch up with her falling figure in front of her; she’s not sure whether she’s grateful she lives more than 10 floors above the ground or not, but it does give her enough time to catch up. Pulling her into her arms, she turns them around, back into the air, back through the window.
Once back inside, she glares at the woman in her arms. She’s almost used to glaring at her own face at this point. “Will you stop doing that?! You’re gonna end up killing yourself.”
“Maybe it’ll get me back in my body instead,” she quips, amusement plainly written on her face.
Alex groans. “Oh yeah, because that makes it better. You’ll be killing me instead, is that what you’re trying to achieve?”
“No.” She doesn’t miss how Astra clings to her just a little bit harder when she says this, and certainly doesn’t miss how her own heart responds.
The aggravation makes way for warmer feelings, and her expression softens when she asks, “Why do you keep jumping from heights, Astra?”
“Does it matter?”
“You tell me.”
Her eyes narrow, but there’s that vulnerability again. “You sound like you already know.”
So Alex kisses her. She kisses this stupid Kryptonian who can tell an enemy she likes her, but can’t tell the person she’s attracted to that she’s attracted to her, instead jumping off buildings to have Alex catch her. That, at least, is her assumption. Judging by Astra’s response to her kiss, like she’s been waiting for this moment for decades, she can’t be far off.
Her head swims. In terms of kisses this is a very tame one, and yet she gets lost in the feeling of it; it feels so right. This must be what it’s like to have your soul ascend, she thinks briefly, before that thought fades into nothingness again and there is nothing but Astra.
When she opens her eyes again and pulls back, it’s no longer her own face she’s looking at.
Alex is looking at Astra’s face.
They stare at each other for a stunned moment, blinking.
And then go right back to kissing.
- Bonus drabble: 11 days later -
“Astra!”
Astra’s head pops out from the door opening, “Yes, my brave one?” A nickname; she knows that she’s in trouble.
“Mind explaining why I have a speeding ticket?”
She looks up for a moment, thoughtfully. “Because you drove too fast?”
Alex smiles dangerously, eyes flashing as she advances. The ticket is from the day they switched. “Oh yes, I drove too fast.”
Her eyes catch on Alex’s hand as she pulls a red sun emitter from her pocket. “Alex… Think about this,” Astra says, but then speeds out the window before Alex can reach her.
“Coward! Get back here!”