#; life doesn't give us purpose. we give life purpose. / alex & barry

[danviers]

@bledsoul asked: while we’re trying not to die, we still need to live. ( or this one from barry lol )

There was no denying that Barry's point held some real, tangible weight. To put everything on pause out of the fear that she'd stumble again, hurt again — that she might put herself back out there, in the shadow of defending her little sister's precious, trauma - tainted life from the worst that the universe could throw at her, only to open an old wound she'd spent so long forcing to heal — was far from feasible.

Far from reasonable.

And yet taking a such a leap ranked so much higher in her internal scale of trepidation than jumping from any sky - scraping building.

Raising her glance from her work, Alex offered a look only marginally tinted with surprise — and vastly overshadowed by a shade of unguarded admission.

" That's easier said than done. "

[danviers]

@bledsoul asked: have you been practicing? or did you just suddenly get super human reflexes? ( from barry ! )

With less striking immediacy than the speed with which she'd worked her arm around the speedster's neck, a move that'd rendered the man who'd materialised in the middle of her sister's living room violently immobile just long enough for Kara's eyebrows to shoot up in warning, Alex loosened the headlock she'd put him in. The him, she'd realised, all too late — was none other than Barry Allen.

" I didn't — " she floundered, her surprise unmatched, even when pitted against her own wide - eyed, wordless admission of too - hasty judgment. Acting fast was a necessity, always; but her gut, without any verbalisation of justification from their unannounced visitor ( nothing but a breathless retort, garbled by the arm around his neck, was enough to tell her she'd perhaps overstepped. " —— I'll just let you go now. "

[danviers]

@runbarry asked: are you hungry, by any chance?

" Well, I haven't really set foot off this floor in eight hours, " Alex yielded, the centrifuge that'd arrested the brunt of her concentration momentarily forsaken, forgotten in favour of the armful of plastic bags Barry had walked in with, each one stamped with an unmistakable logo. Her research, in between thursday combat training and surveillance in the command center had hardly allowed for it.

Had the ache beginning to worm its way into her left temple not been enough to completely sever her steeled focus, the smell alone — Big Belly Burger, and an unsurprising abundance of it, at that — certainly was. " If you and Kara aren't planning on just decimating everything there, I will take two. "

[danviers]

dusty toybox.

@byzcntine​ asked:    you’re being followed.

Drawing the heft of her scrutiny from the touch screen cradled in the crook of her arm,  a scrupulous postscript to the last twelve hours or so, expended in relentless surveillance of almost every remaining off the books, deserted black site Cadmus had left behind,  Alex spared Kara’s other - earthly visitor little more than a sidelong glance, bright with fully realised suspicion, with hair - bristling vexation;  One that might’ve retained some unflappability, if not for the magnitude of the potential consequences of being so thoroughly pursued in her superhuman little sister’s close orbit.

“ Well, that’s nothing new, ”  she breathed out, tight - shouldered, the heft of that admission leaden with the weight of her own failure to recognise what should have been obvious before it was too late.  The underlying, barely tangible discomfort of being observed from a distance.   The gut - deep dissonance in any perception she had of her own self - assured safety, cinched by the presence of a switchblade in the drawer of her bedside cabinet and a gun stowed under the countertop of her kitchen island.

“ Look — I just want to know exactly who we’re dealing with.  Because it’s not me that I’m worried about.  It’s Kara. ”  Her secret, her life;  both of which had been set squarely on the brink of ruin more than once before.   

“ And considering the recording device I found inside my gym bag just now,  our mystery stalker isn’t exactly subtle. ”

[danviers]

‘ BORN BLUE. ’

@flashborn​​ asked:   ‘ shouldn’t you be in a hospital or something? ’

" I should be helping, ” Alex offered in earnest, the resolution in her voice unhindered by the pain radiating through her wounded thigh as she grappled for her sidearm, by the ache ebbing through the entirety of her right side. 

DEO protocol alone suggested she stay behind, follow her physician’s orders, hang back in med bay and support the effort to return the city’s streets to a state of calm from the relative safety of the control room, like any other agent wounded in the line of duty.  But with Supergirl out there --- with J’onn and Barry and a clutch of other heroes out there, too, facing more danger than her entire strike team had been able to handle without suffering multiple casualties ---, she couldn’t sit still.  Not while she could still shoot.  

[danviers]

‘ BORN BLUE. ’

@flashborn​ asked:   ‘ someone could really hurt you. ’

Insomuch as everything in Alex wanted to deny Barry’s assertion, that her willpower alone ( her vehement, volatile, blustering desperation to stop pacing the room and grab a tac vest and pair of guns from the DEO’s mobile munitions dump and just go, no questions asked ) wasn’t enough to get her through the firestorm that’d begun to break out everywhere she looked, in her heart of hearts she knew someone could.  

One wrong move, one single misplaced step, and she could be reduced to nothing more than a drifting cloud of pink mist and blood --- and Supergirl wouldn’t stand a chance.  One misfire, and their kryptonite wielding enemies would have won. 

And Alex would have failed her.

“ You don’t understand this helplessness, ” she shot back, every knifelike syllable thick with raw and untapped fear, with a heart-stopping, roiling kind of panic that not even the fury in her tear-stricken eyes, the almost painful clench of her jaw nor the sharp, reproachful jab of her finger could eradicate.  Unlike Barry, Kal El, J’onn, her strength had nothing to do with extra-normal power.  But if she did nothing --- Kara could die, and no amount of artificial sunlight would get her through.  “ And I am not losing my sister. ”

[danviers]

‘ BORN BLUE. ’

@supcrfriends​ asked:   ‘ you act like you don’t care if you live or die, sometimes. but i care. ’ Barry ( *wipes a tear* i love it, brother Barry )

She’d always been tough.  Headstrong.  Dad had stated as much more times than she’d ever cared to count.  

But Kara had called it recklessness.  Fearlessness.  Badassery.  The kind of thing that had made her an asset to the DEO, that’d gotten her promoted faster than any other agent her age and secured her a feeling of permanence in a position that relied on her exemplary skill as a soldier, medic and bioengineer.  When J’onn had recruited her through the cell bars of a drunk tank, she knew without uncertainty that he’d saved her life.  Given her hope.  But even then, once she’d finally clawed herself back onto her feet, once she’d embarked on a mission that ensured she could still protect her sister outside the confines of their lonesome family home back in Midvale, she'd never quite been able to shake the feeling that there was more to it than that.  That none of it was enough.  

That she still had something to prove, and always would.

“ You know...  leaping from buildings and... and running into live gunfire to stop the bad guys ------ that’s who I am, ” Alex offered, her concession almost guilty, unhindered by the breath that hitched in her throat, by her utter failure to hold Barry’s gaze for longer than a rueful heartbeat or two.  “ And... I know what I signed up for when when J’onn brought me in.  I know the risks we all take.  But that’s my job.  And there is no reality where I wouldn’t lay down my life for my sister. ”