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Alex is...unenthused with her current situation.
She doesn’t particularly have anywhere else to be on an early Saturday night, apart from sifting through paperwork at the DEO, but this is. Spectacularly worse than her previous evening plans.
She really needs to work on saying ‘no’ to Kara.
Because in all honesty, it’s that inability, and nothing else, that’s led Alex to standing in the corner of a middle school gym, nursing a bottle of Coke and watching over seventy plus thirteen year olds run around in flashing lights and cheap suits.
(Does she hate Kara? No. Is she mad at Kara? Unequivocally yes.)
.
.
.
“Alex, I need a favor.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked yet!”
“And I know that tone of voice. No.”
“Please just hear me out.”
Alex sighs, rubbing her temples and sending a wistful glance to her empty fridge. She’s yet to restock her cache of alcoholic beverages, but she has the distinct feeling she’ll be needing a cold beer by the end of this conversation.
Pressing the phone closer to her ear, Alex rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
“Okay so, Ms. Grant has that big awards ceremony coming up, you know, the Maria Moors C - “
“If it’s not the Pulitzers then no, I don’t know it.”
“Okay, right, so, uh, turns out that they had to reschedule a pre-ceremony interview with Ms. Grant, and she has to fly out earlier than expected, which means that - so she had this thing, on Saturday. This Saturday night. At Carter’s school, uh, she’d agreed to chaperone - “
“Please tell me this isn’t going where I think it’s going.”
“ - the big school dance, because - okay yes, it’s going exactly where you think it’s going. Anyway, Ms. Grant obviously couldn’t go anymore, but the school couldn’t fill her spot last minute, and she’d promised a friendly face for Carter or else he’d be too uncomfortable to go, and - “
“You volunteered.”
“ - and I volunteered, yeah.”
Alex pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, long and loud. Kara stays silent, likely fidgeting nervously on the other end. “So what does this have to do with me?” Alex finally asks, dreading the answer.
“Well it’s just, um. If I need to, you know, be somewhere. Else. I won’t be allowed to leave, it turns out. They’ve got to have at least four chaperones at all times, and, well, I thought. In case I needed to duck out. Maybe I could bring a...back-up chaperone.”
Alex really wishes she had a drink.
“Do I have a choice?”
She can almost hear Kara shrugging on the other end. “James is out of town and Lucy’s with her dad. So it’s either you or Winn, and Winn’s scared of preteens, so.”
“You need more friends.”
Kara’s voice is obnoxiously chipper when she responds, “I’ve already got the best ones in the world!”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Ish.”
“I’ll take it. So are you agreeing?”
Alex hangs her head in defeat, mentally curses her nonexistent resolve in the face of Kara’s persistent pleas, and groans, “Fine. But you owe me coffee for a month.”
.
.
.
And now she’s here. A chaperone. At a middle school dance.
“It’s not so bad.”
“It really, really is.” Alex glares at her far too chipper sister, who shrugs and turns away to wave at Carter, giving him a big smile and a thumbs-up. He’s admittedly adorable, dressed in a (likely very expensive) miniature tux, a little black bow tie at his collar, and Alex can at least understand Kara’s fondness for the kid. He’s certainly inoffensive compared to his peers, and his two friends, a girl with glasses and a boy with floppy hair, look decent enough too.
(He’s also one of Supergirl’s biggest fans. Alex can respect that.)
Kara refuses to encourage Alex’s complaining, keeping her eyes trained on the dance floor. Alex can visibly see the way Kara’s glance darts around, a constant sweep, and she chuckles.
“Scanning for illegal contraband?” Alex asks breezily.
Kara doesn’t hide her eyeroll as she faces Alex. “That’s...not really a concern I’d have for an eighth grade school dance.”
There’s silence for a moment, and though many students are still trickling in, obnoxious pop music is blasting through the gymnasium. (Many of these songs might also be an Alex’s mp3, but no one needs to know that.) A row of tables takes up a side wall, covered in chips, plates, and several bowls of punch, and a DJ looking fresh out of high school is up in the back, shutting her eyes and no doubt pretending she’s at a club scene. The students themselves are scattered around, many in groups clumped to the sides with a brave handful out dancing already. The other three chaperones consist of two PTA parents and a trying-too-hard teacher, and Alex is already praying she won’t have to talk to a single one.
In the end, her gaze drifts back to the drinks table. “Do you think they spiked the punch?”
Kara almost glares. “Alex, they’re middle schoolers.”
“Damn.”
“ Alex .”
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.
.
Alex is adding on another month’s worth of coffee to her payment, because Kara abandoned her. Sure, yes, massive car pile-up on S. Bell Avenue, but now Alex is stuck here. Alone . And the students are starting to notice.
She sees those eyes. She knows they’re talking. Kara’s a somewhat familiar face at this point, due to her occasional pick-ups of Carter, but Alex is entirely unknown, and dressed in nondescript black sleeves and pants to boot.
(Also, she's confident they can sense fear.)
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.
.
One of the chaperones approaches first.
Her smile is wide, her skin is white, and her teeth are whiter (so white, in fact, that Alex wonders what the glare might be like if she shone a flashlight on them). Her nails are long and sharp, her hair is bleached and styled like a 1940s housewife, and she vaguely reminds Alex of Livewire. Or a shark.
Alex nods along with barely disguised disinterest as the woman introduces herself as Linda before proceeding to interrogate Alex at a level frighteningly close to that of General Lane.
“Why haven’t I seen you around before? You’ve missed all the PTA meetings.”
“Aren’t you a little young to be a mother of a student here?”
“Where does your husband work?”
By the end of a long string of questions and the resulting aura of disapproval radiating from the woman before her, Alex is convinced she’s never failed a test in her life worse than this one.
“Oh. I see,” Linda says, and Alex considers adding a third month to Kara’s payment.
In one very timely stroke of luck, Linda’s attention is caught by two students intertwined on the dance floor, and she sputters out a hasty “I have to go” before rushing off to preserve the chastity of the school function. The “save room for Jesus” is unspoken.
Alex would take on a second Helgrammite before another conversation with that woman.
,
,
,
Kara’s still not back. It’s been thirty minutes, and Alex is in hell.
A student asks her if he can go to the bathroom.
“Kid, just go.”
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.
.
One kid works up the nerve to ask who Alex is. She’s been lurking in the corner long enough, yearning for a Coke refill and watching the dance floor silently, that she supposes she’s become a point of interest. (Didn’t kids not want adults talking to them?)
“Sister of an employee who works for someone’s mom.”
The kid blinks owlishly. “Right, Carter’s mom. But like, who are you?”
Alex shrugs.
“You don’t look like a normal parent.”
“I’m not. I just said that.”
“So what do you do?”
If Kara’s going to take this long, Alex figures she might as well have some fun.
“I’m a spy.”
.
.
.
“Are you really a spy?” another student asks.
“Bounty hunter, actually.”
And from then on, it becomes a game, a silly diversion to pass the time. A student comes up, and Alex answers with increasingly outlandish answers:
“Ex-convict.”
“Professional bank robber.”
“Government agent.”
“Ninja.”
“Supergirl’s sister.”
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.
.
“Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
(Yes.)
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“Can I ask you for dating advice?”
“Hell no.”
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.
.
"Jason said you cussed."
"Heck no."
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When Carter finally approaches, asking with concern why Kara’s disappeared, Alex almost breathes a sigh of relief.
“She’s fine, don’t worry,” Alex reassures. “She forgot something from work, so she ran back to take care of that. You know how scatterbrained she can be.”
“True,” Carter admits reluctantly, brows still furrowed. He opens his mouth as if to say more, but stops. They stand awkwardly for a moment, a song blasting in the background that Alex is not a fan of, before Carter gives her a curious glance and asks, “Are you really a secret agent?”
Alex laughs. “Scientist, actually. Bio-engineer.”
Lighting up, Carter starts to rapidly fire a series of questions at Alex, and she smiles and answers all that she can, truly enjoying herself for the first time tonight. Kara wasn’t kidding when she’d said he was a smart kid, and as he waves his hands animatedly, she makes a note to have Kara pass on some of her old college notebooks. The kid seems like he’d be interested.
The music abruptly switches, from frustratingly catchy pop to overwhelmingly loud dubstep, and Carter grimaces.
“Don’t like the music?” she asks.
Carter shakes his head. “Not really. It’s too loud.”
Nodding, Alex offers, “Yeah, it’s a bit much. But hey, at least it’s not the Ketchup Song.”
“The...what?”
“Fuck I’m old.”
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.
.
She spots the behavior instantly across the gym. The slow forward movements, a group of kids pressing in on two individuals that Alex recognizes as Carter’s friends from earlier, the steps menacing and deliberate. Alex has seen this enough when Kara was in school, and there’s no way she’s standing for it here and now.
(Not on her watch.)
Stalking around the throng of still dancing students (and wishing she had a way to siphon off that endless energy), Alex cuts a path to the other side of the gym, shooting a glare at an unoccupied parent pretending not to see a thing.
The two students pushed against the wall are less scared than resigned, the girl pushing up her glasses and the boy sighing, and neither notice, nor do the kids pressing in, that Alex has silently stepped up behind them all.
A larger kid starts to speak, a snarl already twisting his lips, but Alex beats him to it.
“Strange dance formation,” Alex comments offhandedly, fighting a smirk as the leader jumps half a foot in the air and whirls around.
“You’re - you’re the - “ He falters as she gives him a wicked grin.
“The big bad secret agent, yeah. Hope you don’t mind me breaking up this little get-together. I get the distinct impression it's not mutual for all parties.” She jerks her head, and the two cornered kids shoot her grateful smiles before scurrying off. Hands on her hips, Alex surveys the lead boy and the three at his side.
“Listen, nothing was going to happen - “ he starts to say.
Alex tuts knowingly. “We both know that’s not true, kid.”
No one comes to the lead boy’s defense, and he seems to recognize that lies will buy him nothing, so he changes tactics. He gathers himself up to his tallest height, glares at Alex with all the wrath of an adolescent boy, and cockily says, “So what? You can’t do anything about it.”
Alex puts her hands on her hips, leans forward, and whispers her response in his ear.
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“How did you get banned from the school?” Kara’s voice holds notes of both incredulity and awe.
Alex shrugs, inordinately pleased with herself. “I have my methods. And now, you can’t drag me to something like this ever again.”
They’re standing outside the gym, Kara’s head in her hands and Alex leaning against the building’s wall. As the students exit, many of them raise their hands and call out good-byes and compliments to Alex on their way to the parking lot. Even without superhearing, Alex can hear how many of them chatter about her in hushed tones of respect, and she also doesn’t miss the concentrated looks of hatred from her fellow chaperones.
Kara stares.
“Alex, what did you do .”
“Nothing you can prove.”
“ Alex .”
“Also you owe me two months of coffee.”
“Yeah, I know - wait, what? Two?”
But Alex is already dancing out of her reach, cackling and flicking her Coke's bottle cap at Kara’s head before taking off at a sprint, knowing that Kara will catch her with ease but enjoying the spluttered indignation behind her nonetheless.
In the end, Alex supposes there are worse ways to spend a Saturday night.