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shipmvns · 7 years

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Going Down With The New Kid: Planets, Parties, And Other Things You Can’t Miss

what a long ass title lmao. but anyways here’s the highschool au chapter 3

Pairing: Lena/Kara Alex/Maggie Words: 3,550 Summary: It's hard to be a teenager when there's a gnawing in the back of your head telling you that you should be more, but at least Kara's got the whole "no one understands me" thing down pretty well. And not sleeping- not sleeping is working out pretty well for Kara, if she says so herself. Meanwhile, Spirit Week is an experience in itself- people sure are hung up on experiences nowadays, huh?

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Despite two in the morning creeping through to the present, and the inky darkness of the sky, and the fact that it's a Tuesday morning, and so Kara really should be in bed- despite all of that- messy hair, barefoot, she pads down a street that's been closed for a couple years now, because what else can she do when her eyes won't seem to close and she can't help but start to think, once again, that there has never been a place quite so unbearably loud and terribly lonely all at once as Earth?

Kara sighs, then shakes her hands at her sides, as if, perhaps, that will help her any. She can't shake the feeling that she is both entirely ungrateful and completely purposeless all at once. She should be in bed, but she feels lost regardless of location, so why not make it half-literal, while she's at it?

She just needs sleep, really- it's Tuesday, by now, and she doesn't want the sun to come up yet, but she just really needs sleep, and then she'll be able to breathe easy again, but the sudden bout of insomnia she seems to be suddenly stricken with is not a friend of hers.

She breathes- that's all there really is left to do- breathes in, exhales, looks around. The street is empty, going to stay empty, it's been marked as a dead end miles ahead of her, where the incline starts. It's a curving, narrow street that leads around something like a cliff, with a precarious mountain to her right, a loose rocks clinging by mere luck to the steep slope. It's closed for a reason, and so Kara really shouldn't be here, but she shouldn't really be anywhere at all, now, right? So she figures she's getting ahead anyways.

In a moment of tired vulnerability, Kara's extraordinary hearing becomes too much, leaving way to the buzzing summer sound of bicycle spokes whirring, coming from somewhere up ahead. Looking up from her steady trail on the road and readjusting her glasses, Kara sees that, predictably, her hearing has not failed her. There's a boy a little ways off, riding his bike. Kara has just enough time to wonder why he's on this road at all before, in the blink of an eye, she hears a cracking sound, sees a rock dislodging from the slope, and realizes it's going to barrel directly into the kid on the bike. Her bones tense and panic courses through her, looking at the size of the boulder, and it's where it’s heading. Fight or flight, fight or flight. Sparing much further though, Kara darts ahead, shooting into the air for what must be the first time in months and months, and, God, it feels nice. She grabs the rock and tosses it off of the road, lowering herself to the ground, panting slightly, more from adrenaline than physical exertion.

She exhales, feeling far better than she had a few minutes ago, a sense of accomplishment flooding her tired body.

"You- just- you just! But- but you're- what? What the hell! You can't- that's!" Sputters the new source of the sinking feeling in the pit of Kara's stomach.

"Um!" She chirps, choking on her breath.

"You flew," states the boy in front of her- he's skinny, scrawny, probably her age, she thinks.

"N..no. That. Wasn't me. And that wasn't flying. And this is also a dream. A dream about someone who's not me, not flying," Kara coughs.

"I saw you, that- that was flying. You just flew, and then through a boulder. Like Superman, or something. You saved my life. And flew. I- I mean- thank you. Thank you. My name is Winn. Schott. Winn Schott," He approaches Kara, holding out his hand.

Kara takes a step back, breathing heavy. "No- no, no. You don't know me, this isn't real, you never saw me," She mutters.

"I know you, you're in my English Lit class, you're Kara Danvers, you're The New Girl- but, uh, you clearly don't want me to know this, and you can toss boulders off of cliffs, so I- I don't know you, you're right, Kara Danvers? Don't know her..." Winn clears his throat and laughs nervously.

Kara grimaces. She doesn't want people to be afraid of her, she doesn't want any of this, that's exactly the point, and now it can only get worse, nobody is supposed to know this, that's why they moved, that's why she's supposed to go unnoticed, dammit.

Kara mumbles out an incoherent excuse and stumbles away, taking off running around the bend, all the way back to her bedroom window, praying she'll wake up and remember this all as a dream.

So it wasn't a dream. That becomes perfectly apparent when, by English Lit, the boy in the corner- Winn- won't stop staring at her. He looks tired- she doesn't blame him, why was he riding his bike around at two in the morning, anyways?- but he also looks intrigued.

So when the teacher announces that everyone has to pick a partner to discuss Darwinism in Of Mice And Men, and Winn darts towards her, her heart kind of catches in her throat.

"Be my partner?" He offers, wide eyes and an innocent half smile.

And how can Kara have the heart to turn him away?

So he sits down besides her, pulls out his paper, and then disregards it completely. "So about last night-"

Kara stiffens. "I don't know what you're talking about," She forces out.

"Kara- come on. I mean- come on. I won't tell anybody. Really. But, what, are you like... a superhero? Do you save people like that all the time? Are you invincible? Just like Superman? Is that why you left your last school? You're an undercover vigilante woman of the night who fights bad guys and saves people, but someone saw you, so you had to move here?" He starts talking too fast, and Kara panics slightly.

"It.. wasn't me," Kara tries again weakly. She glances up at doubtful eyes. "Okay!" She huffs. "You can't say a word! Not a word! I can fling you into space, you know," Kara hisses threateningly, but she doesn't mean it, and she gets the notion he knows it.

"Promise. Honest to God." He holds up his hands.

"That was a one-time thing. A one-time thing! So you can't tell anyone! Do you know how much trouble I'd be in if anyone knew? I saved your life, you can't tell anyone about any of that," she tells him.

"I know, I know. So.. are you, like.. an alien?" He lowers his voice even more. Kara sighs, then nods.

"Holy shit, the new kid is an alien," Winn breathes.

"Shut up," Kara hisses. "Please."

"Sorry, sorry!" Winn mutters. "So, you have all these powers and stuff, just like Superman, but you don't use any of 'em? Not to save anyone, or anything?" He asks curiously.

Kara feels her face flush. "I'm not supposed to get caught, I can't just go around saving people! If anyone found out, and freaked out, and told people.." Kara tries to defend herself, though she is not being accused of anything, in reality.

"Superman doesn't get caught," Winn points out innocently.

"I-" Kara sputters helplessly, as if this is new knowledge, as if this isn’t anything that’s been running around in her head since she got here, like she doesn’t know this already.

Oh, but, saved by the bell- or, saved by the English teacher, more like.

"Talking about the book, I hope?" Patronizing, but she walks away fast enough. The teenagers go silent, hoping she heard very little.

"Listen, meet me on the roof of the school, I wanna hear more about this," Winn says, pulling out his copy of the book, then switching subjects quickly enough. Kara takes this as some kind of promise. She’s not crazy on this new boy’s stream of questions she can barely answer for herself, but some added company won’t kill her, either.

"Spirit Week, Danvers," Maggie chimes as her and Alex walk side by side in the hallways, passing people with faces painted sky blue and dark green, the official school colors. "Terrible and corny with lots of obnoxious yelling, but the football game is an event not to be missed. You goin'?" She asks, glancing up at the taller girl.

"Ah, I don't know, I-" Alex starts, but she's quickly cut off.

"That was a rhetorical question, I was asking to be polite. You're going, and you're going with me," Maggie tells her.

"What even happens at your football games?" Alex asks with a raise of her eyebrows.

"Everybody threatens the freshmen and then gets drunk. Lots of sex. Terrible, loud sex, occupying every bathroom stall. Drugs. A lot of drugs. And socializing. But also football. People yelling. Hot chocolate that burns your mouth. You know," Maggie shrugs.

"That sounds awful," Alex points out.

"Just trust me," Maggie reassures her.

And so, Alex does.

Lena's not a babysitter, okay? She's not going to pick up after some pretty blonde freshman every day, like when she comes in late to class, or doesn't know where to go, or times like now, when she's cradling her head in her hands, consciousness out of the question, drooling onto her paper, ignoring the teacher's question. She's not some kind of babysitter!

Except.. her mind flashes back to Kara comforting her after she basically set her hand on fire, and walking with her, spending the night at her house.. Kara's sort of her friend. Right? Lena sighs, nudging the girl next to her with her elbow. "Fallopian tube," she murmurs as Kara blinks her eyes open, shoving her glasses further up her face.

"Fallopian tube?" Kara murmurs.

"Fallopian tube! That's right, Miss Danvers," the health teacher affirms with an easy grin. Kara rubs at her eyes helplessly.

"Oh- oh, okay," she mumbles, blinking.

"Late night, hmm?" Lena glances at Kara out of the corner of her eyes.

"Something like that, yeah," Kara shrugs. The afternoon is weighing in on her, warm air full of fuzzy light surrounding her heavy eyes. After she'd gotten home, she didn't fall asleep for a couple more hours. Kara would say if she'd managed over three hours, that was luck. She clears her throat, trying to straighten up and stay relatively awake.

"Wild party?" Lena quirks an eyebrow.

Kara scoffs. "Hardly. Also, it's Tuesday."

"Right, right. Preppy freshman girl like you, partying on a Monday night? How ridiculous of me," Lena laughs. "And anyways, Friday's the party night. Plenty of house parties going on after the game. I've never been one for sports, but the parties are always interesting. Like stepping into a teenage zoo," Lena muses with a laugh. "Are you going to one?" She turns to Kara.

"I don't know anyone," Kara squeaks slightly.

"You know me. Come with me," Lena hears herself say. Kara adjusts her glasses once more, a little surprised. "It's an experience," Lena shrugs. "You shouldn't miss it."

Kara finds herself agreeing to let Lena Luthor take her to a party.

An hour later, she finds herself on the roof of her school. New experiences, huh?

Winn's been up there for God knows how long, with his backpack, some books, and a telescope Kara assumes he's been keeping there. She doesn’t know why he’s just allowed to stay up here, and frankly, she thinks some things are better kept in the dark, anyways.

"Kara! Hi! You came. So, okay, can I ask you some questions? This is really cool," He says excitedly.

"Uhm," she mutters, and then he begins.

"Are you from the same place as Superman?" Winn asks.

"Uh... Krypton. Yeah," Kara admits with hesitation. What can he really do with this information, though, anyways?

"Are you related?" He presses with bright eyes.

Kara inhales. "He's, uh, yeah, he's my cousin."

"Wasn't he just a baby when he came here, though? And then his planet got destroyed. But, he's an adult, and you're just a kid," Winn points out.

"I- it's really a long story. I was born first- like, thirteen years first- but, uh, there were some complications with my- my pod, and now he's an adult and I'm not," Kara explains, pulling on her sleeve.

"So, you can do everything he can do?"

"Yeah," Kara says, looking towards the sky.

"Then why don't you go off and be a hero, like him? You totally could! And, hey, I could help you. I'm great with computers and stuff, all heroes need tech guys, I could help you out," Winn grins.

"I- I kind of have to go, Winn, my sister's going to wonder where I am," Kara admits. "But you can text me, though?" She offers, and Winn smiles.

"Kara? Kara." Alex says, and Kara snaps to attention, picking at the fabric on her backpack strap as the two walk side by side.

"Huh?"

"You're being sort of weird, Kara. What's up?" Alex looks at the younger girl.

"Nothing," Kara mumbles absentmindedly.

"Liar. Spill," Alex nudges her.

"Uh- someone found out," Kara flinches. It's like ripping a band-aid off.

"What?!" Alex stops dead in her tracks.

"It wasn't my fault! He was gonna, like, die, and what could I do?!" Kara defends.

"When was this?" Alex's voice loses any sense of serenity.

"Last night. Well, this morning. Like, two am?" Kara clears her throat. "There was this rock- but it's okay! He's in one of my classes! He's nice!" Kara says quickly.

"What were you doing out at two in the morning, Kara?" Alex sighs.

"I couldn't sleep," Kara explains quietly.

"Oh, Kara," Alex rubs at her temples.

"Really, it's fine. He promised he wouldn't say anything to anyone. I think he's just scared enough of me to keep his mouth shut, even though I didn't really want him to be scared. But, I think it's fine. Really. It's not a big deal," Kara assures her.

"One thing goes wrong, Kara," Alex shakes her head. "Please. Please be careful. You're my little sister, you need to be safe," Alex tells her.

"I know. I know, it was only once. I'll be careful."

"Don't go out at two in the morning anymore," Alex tells her.

"I couldn't sleep," Kara repeats.

"Are you having nightmares again?" Alex looks over at Kara, concern lacing through her features.

"No, no," Kara swallows.

"You'd tell me, though?" Alex asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd tell you."

And that's almost the end of it.

"Except- well, Alex, I've been thinking," Kara bites her lip, looks up. (Oh, and it was almost the end of it.)

Alex raises an eyebrow, looks over absentmindedly. "Do tell."

"Well, is it really necessary that I never use my powers? I mean- don't give me that look! I mean- I've been thinking about it, okay? A lot, actually! For a long time. Especially this morning, alright? And then Winn got me thinking about my cousin earlier, and everything else, and I- Alex, I just think, I can do all of this stuff, I could do so much, so I just, I don't see why- I mean, I could help people," Kara stammers her way through her proclamation, warding off near interruptions from her older sisters, shrinking under a hard stare.

"Help people in the expense of your own safety,” Alex shakes her head. “Kara, you know that can't happen- you slip up once, someone finds out, like I told you, like I said, someone finds out, and it's not like you could possibly keep that up, you-"

"My cousin does!" Kara defends, wounded tone to her voice. A cold rush washes over her, a flimsy defeat. "My cousin does."

"Your cousin isn't a freshman in high school."

"Alex, I-" Kara tries.

"Kara," Alex's voice is apologetic but firm, and it stings to the ears as much as it does from the throat, double-edged sword of hurt blue eyes and the silent turn of a head.

Silence settles between the sisters that feels weary and uneven. "Kara, you know.. I mean-"

"Forget I said anything. It's okay," Kara mumbles tiredly. "Just forget I said anything."

Kara said forget it, and she probably would at least try to, except she still can't sleep- good thing she's not human, or else that'd probably be super unhealthy (it might be now, too, but that's besides the point)- and she has her phone in her hands and a yearning for something beyond her, so nobody can really blame her for sitting on her roofs with fidgeting hands, requesting the presence of someone who should know what she means. (He doesn't- not really- but nothing's ever enough, anyways, right?)

Clark lands on her roof in an easy glide. "I hope you weren't busy or anything. If you were busy, you shouldn't have come," Kara mutters, looking to the ground and curling her legs closer to her body. Her cousin sits down next to her.

"Nah. Slow night. Hi, little cousin," he says warmly, and it does a little to ease Kara's heart.

"I was born first," she mumbles, but it's wavering and halfhearted.

"That you were. What's troubling you, Kara?"

Kara pauses and cranes her neck back to the sky, letting cold night air pass over her. Everything feels so incredibly foreign, once again. She takes a deep breath. "What made you decide to become Superman?" Cracking clarity in the middle of more silence. (Perhaps it’s just a family thing.)

"I knew I could help people. I wanted to help people. It just made sense to me," Clark tells her. It's not exactly a heroic speech, but it's entirely sincere, which is almost better.

"I can do everything you can do. I want to help people. I have powers, except every time I want to help someone, everybody freaks out, and then we move and everybody thinks I'm a murderer and scrawny boys on bikes are scared of me and my sister hates me. I could be a hero, too. I could help people, too! But instead, everybody tells me to keep my head low when I could be doing something," Kara rambles into the dark blue haze.

"They just want you to be safe, Kara," Clark puts a hand on her shoulder and she swallows.

"So I have to be safe, but you don't?" Kara turns. She sounds petulant and bitter, so she figures she's fitting in as a typical American teenager, either way. But there's truth to what she said.

"I am safe. I keep my identities separate. Mild-mannered Clark Kent is a reporter," He says calmly.

"I could have a separate identity!" Kara huffs, crossing her arms.

"You're just a kid," He tells her. "You have school. You don't have time to play the hero, just because you can. I know you want to help people, Kara, I get it, but just wait until you're a little older, when you have more time. You won't be sloppy, you can keep yourself safe. Just be a kid, first, Kara," He says, standing up.

Kara does not move. "That's easy for you to say," She spits, biting down on her lip, closing her eyes.

"What?" Clark turns to look down at her with eyes that mirror her own- but, she's looking away. He wishes she wasn't looking away.

"Nothing," Kara mumbles tiredly. "Nothing."

"Get some sleep, Kara." He hugs her and she watches him fade away, blue and red on darker blue, and when there's no trace left of Superman left, she crawls back into her room and tries to sleep; she really tries.

"You know, I'm really starting to appreciate sleep more and more these days," Kara mumbles into her hands.

"Yeah, yeah, head up, blondie," Lena laughs affectionately, pushing Kara's head up with one finger as the Chemistry teacher walks by for attendance. "Restless nights, hm?"

"Yeah, that's about it," Kara shrugs. "I can't wait until the weekend," she moans.

"Rough week for Miss Danvers," Lena hums. "You've got a terrible party full of teenage alcoholism to look forward to?" She offers.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've given me a true reason to go on," Kara giggles behind her glasses.

"Well, I'll be your escort, after all, so that must count for something?" Lena smirks.

"Makes all the difference in the world," Kara mumbles, stretching out her back and then grabbing her pencil to write her name on the worksheet set in front of her at the beginning of class.

"Are you going to the dance?" Lena asks with a raised eyebrow.

"There's a dance?" Kara asks. "I didn't even know there was a dance. I've never even been to a dance," she shrugs.

"Never? Really? You should go, it's another one of those experiences you shouldn't miss," Lena tells her.

"But I don't-" Kara begins.

"You don't know anyone, I know, I know. I'll go with you, Kara. These helpless freshmen nowadays," Lena shakes her head, but her lilting voice betrays her, leaving it all in jest. Kara smiles lightly.

So maybe things are looking up.

#supergirl #sanvers #supercorp #kara danvers #alex danvers #lena luthor #maggie sawyer #supergirl fanfiction #supercorp fanfiction #sanvers fanfiction #gray writes

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