Trigger warnings for Schizophrenia, brief mentions of violence and general mental health issues
“Hey babe! How was your day today?” Alex asks with a smile as she opens the door to her apartment for you.
“It wasn’t too bad, but if I have to redo one more layout because Jimmy doesn’t like it I’m gonna push him out a window,” you joke and Alex just rolls her eyes.
“You know you love him, he’s your best friend,” she argues.
“Oh, I never said I didn’t love him. I’d die for the man. But he’s literally the worst person to work with,” you say with a laugh, setting the take out you bought on the counter and pulling Alex into my arms. “Enough about my unfortunate choice in best friends, how was your day?”
“It was fine. Same old thing as always. Today was pretty boring,” Alex says and you smile. You love how brave she is and you admire her desire to help people, but her job still scares the hell out of you and you’re always happy to hear she had a boring day. A boring day meant a safe day.
“Good,” you tease and she rolls her eyes again before leading you to the couch to watch Netflix as you eat.
You absentmindedly start dumping your fingers against your leg, trying to ground yourself a bit. Alex glances at your hand and sighs quietly. This has been happening more and more recently. You seem distraught and she can’t seem to figure out why.
“Love,” she calls softly and your head snaps up to meet her eyes, “are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” you say quickly, harsher than you intend it to be, but rather than apologizing you just cross your arms to keep your hands still and turn your head towards the TV. You breathe deeply, trying to get your emotions in check and Alex can hear it. She decides it best to just give you the time you need to sort it out yourself.
“Do you hear that?” you ask after a while, walking towards the front door.
“Hear what?” Alex says, confused as you look through the peephole, seeing an empty hallway.
“Huh. Nothing I guess. I thought I heard people in the hallway,” you shrug it off and Alex seems to accept that. You know somethings wrong, because even though you know there’s nobody out there, you can still hear them.
xxxxx
“Hey Alex!” you hear Kara’s excited voice as you and Alex enter the bar. She sends you a smile but quickly begins rambling off to Alex. Alex sends you an apologetic look but you just smile, pressing a quick kiss to the side of her head and giving the sisters time to catch up.
“Damn your girl got stolen quick,” Sam says as you walk over to their table and you shrug.
“Kara missed her I guess. It won’t kill me to be away from her for a minute. She’s happy,” you glance over, grinning at the smile Alex has on her face.
“Whipped,” Lena says through a fake cough and you roll your eyes.
“Don’t think I don’t see the heart eyes you’re shooting Kara, Luthor,” you say and she raises her hands in defeat.
“I’m going to go get Alex and I something to drink, anyone want anything?” you ask but they all shake their heads. You walk over to the bar and wait for the bartender to be available. You’re glancing at your phone when you hear someone yell your name. You jump and your head whips around the room. All your friends are engaged in conversations and the only reaction you see is the people near you giving you odd looks. You shake your head and try to tune the voices out. You hear your name a few more times as your waiting but subtle glances tell you that nobody is actually calling you. As you are handed your drinks the sound of your name is getting louder on repeat. You force yourself to tune it out until you feel a hand on your arm. You spin around so fast Alex has to take a step back.
“Woah, I didn’t mean to scare you. I called your name a few times,” she says and you smile casually.
“I guess I couldn’t hear you over the music,” you play it off and she furrows her brow even more.
“Love, there isn’t any music,” she says and a look of confusion flashes across your face before you school your features, realizing the rock music playing is only in your head.
“I know that. I’m just teasing. Here, I got you a drink,” you hand her one of the beers in your hand. She gives you a questioning look as the two of you start to walk back to your friends.
“Babe, are you feeling alright?” she asks slowly, clearly worried about what kind of reaction her words may pull from you. You just smile and throw your arm around her to pull her closer.
“I’m perfectly okay,” you promise and she nods to herself, dropping the subject as you two sit down. You down your entire beer in one go, hoping it’ll help you calm down.
“She knows you’re crazy” your head shoots up at the words and Kara notices from her seat across the table.
“You alright, y/n?” Kara asks.
“She knows too. You need to stop her before she tells everyone.”
“No!” you yell, slamming your fist down onto the table and now everyone’s staring at you.
“You’re not alright?” Kara clarifies gently and you can feel anger bubbling up in you. They all share nervous glances. You’re staring at the table and miss the way they all look to Alex for help, but she looks just as lost as they feel.
“Yeah. No! I’m fine! It’s just… I can’t…yeah, I’m fine. I just…I need a minute. I’ll be back,” you get up, quickly walking back to the bar, ordering a shot and downing it quickly. You stand there for a few minutes, calming your breathing before Alex appears again.
“What do you need?” she says gently and you glance at your friends who are all watching the interaction. She sees you starting to get more agitated and grabs your chin to turn you back to her. “Hey, just look at me. Tell me what you need.”
You fall into her arms, burying your face in her neck. She holds you tight, running her hand through your hair, “just make them stop staring at me.”
“Okay. Everything’s okay. I’ll talk to them. Just come back when you’re ready,” she tells you, waiting for you to be the first to pull away before walking to the table once again. You see her talking to them. James glances towards you again and you see her glare at him. You look away, waiting a few minutes and then rejoining the group silently.
Alex puts her arm around you, pulling you closer to her in the booth. You curl into her side as the others try to keep a conversation going. You listen here and there but everything is too loud. You soon tune them out completely, focussing only on the way Alex never lets you go.
“You’re crazy y/n,” a voice whispers and you tighten your hold around Alex’s waist.
“Hey, I’ve got you,” she whispers into your hair. She can feel you trembling and it breaks her heart. “Do you want to go home?”
At your nod she bids the others goodbye, making up some excuse about being tired. You send them a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes as she leads you out. When you reach her apartment the two of you silently make your way to the couch and she pulls you into her lap. You curl into her again, enjoying the silence for the first time that night. You’re not sure how long you’ve been sitting there before you hear a voice again.
“You could take her. Just finish her off. You could do it. Just hurt her,” the voice sneers and you throw yourself away from Alex, scrambling to the other end of the couch and holding your head in your hands.
“What’s going on?” she asks. You shake your head but before you can say anything she’s talking again. “Don’t even start that right now. You’ve been off for days now. I don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t have to tell me, but please don’t lie to me.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” you whisper and when you look up at her you have tears streaming down your face.
“No I won’t. Whatever is happening we can figure it out together. Just please talk to me,” she begs and you nod, trying to find the words.
“I keep hearing…things. Noises that aren’t really happening, voices that aren’t really there. I don’t want to tell anyone. They’d think I was crazy and I’m not crazy! I just…get confused. At the bar I kept hearing people talking to me. I can’t tell what was real and what isn’t,” you explain quietly as she takes your hand.
“What kind of voices, love? What are they saying?”
“At first it was just someone saying my name, or people talking in the hallway that weren’t really there. At the bar I was hearing music that wasn’t playing, and sometimes I’ll hear a knocking on my door that I know isn’t real. Then it got worse. The voices started telling me to hurt people. They…they told me to hurt you,” you finish with a broken whisper and Alex pulls you into her arms again.
“Have you ever told a doctor about this, love?” she asks and you shake your head. “This sounds like schizophrenia. I think it would help to talk to a doctor. There’s medicines and treatments that can help you.”
“They told me not to,” you whisper.
“Who told you not to?” Alex says, a shiver running down her spine as she tries to stay calm. She’s not scared of you, but the situation is unsettling.
“The voices. They say you’re trying to trick me but I don’t think you are. You’re not trying to hurt me, are you?” you ask, your eyes wide in obvious fear. She cups your cheek, looking into your eyes, you can see the love in hers as she speaks.
“No. I am not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you, my love. Do you trust me?” she asks and you nod, “then you know how much I love you. You know I would never hurt you. If somebody in the bar came up to you and told you I was dangerous, would you believe them?”
“No!” you say quickly and she smiles a bit.
“Exactly. These voices are just strangers to you. They don’t know us, they don’t know you. You do not need to listen to them, alright? We’ll get through this,” she promises and you nod. You’ll get through this.
Alex Danvers and J'onn J'onzz: age difference (17 years for the actors, a lot more for the characters), boss-employee relationship, different species, pseudo-family…
So even though Alex is quite possibly the hottest woman in the Supergirl universe (short haircut, guns, and competency) and J'onn as Hank looks like a majestic elf-king, all of those elements kept me in the no-shipping zone. Also, I try to resist pairings that I know will never become canon.
But in 1.17 we learn that:
they’ve only actually known each other two years.
J'onn isn’t her boss anymore.
Alex’s actual father is alive.
J'onn and Alex are GOING ON THE RUN together.
Is the show trying to MAKE me ship them? Help!
(By help I mean join me in the trash can.)
Welcome! I too tried to resist. Not because of the age difference or the boss/employee thing. But because of the pseudo-family thing. (The first two have literally never stopped me before so it wouldn’t start now.)
But yeah, between J’onn’s, “I can’t lose her” to James after James called him out on seeing Alex as more than one of his agents. James had known J’onn for maybe an hour and already saw it. And before that, before Alex even knew him as anything but Hank, we had Alex’s concern for him when he said he would stay and try to disarm the bomb. And then Alex got to be the first being he confessed his real identity to. She was the one he trusted the most with that. And as soon as she knew she defended him to Kara without spilling his secret.
And now, yes, we’ve had Alex TWICE now try to get J’onn to escape to save himself and him refusing to do so (the first time being with the White Martian disguised as the senator) and both times it was Alex he was willing to sacrifice himself for.
But these last two episodes. Both of them risking everything to save the other. The hands to the glass. Her having paid enough attention to know what his favorite cookies are. Them going on the run together. Like, this is classic shipping fodder. Even if it (most likely) won’t ever be canon, we’ve still already gotten more than some canon or almost-canon pairs get. The same can be said for their level of mutual trust and respect for one another.
And don’t get me started on how they’ve unintentionally been co-parenting Kara, both of them doing what they believe is best for her. And oh yeah, J’onn preferring Kara to hate him over Astra’s death than have Kara “lose” Alex as well.
Mostly reblogging this for the “YES, THAT MOMENT TOO” that I felt while reading your reply. The way they protect each other, and Kara! The respect! Their shared commitment to their work! THE HANDS AGAINST THE GLASS!
I resemble all of this. And I’m honestly curious to know whether the show genuinely doesn’t realize that every supposed father-daughter moment between Alex and Hank reads much more convincingly as a romantic one (because let’s face it, genre TV has a track record in not knowing how to portray male-female mentoring relationships in any way that doesn’t shade into sexual tension), or whether the writers are seriously considering the shipping thing but are gingerly testing the waters for it because of all the reasons why it’s a bad idea.
(Thinking back, there’s only ever been one genre show that managed to depict a male mentor and female trainee who genuinely liked each other and had a rewarding, nurturing relationship, and whom I could never possibly have imagined in a romantic relationship. That was The Middleman, which is not surprising because that series was and remains the gold standard for superhero shows.)
For years I have actively avoided all things super hero related for various reasons, but mostly because Marvel makes it all look like a bunch of white boys running around fighting which gets old. Thanks to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl, I have changed my mind. Not only do I ship Avalance and Dansen so hard (without those couples I’d have never given the shows a chance), but I love how both shows bring representation of so many to the forefront and I’m a sucker for how much they promote positive relationships in all forms; i.e. female friendships, close male friendships, strong support systems for friends/partners, sincere apologies when someone fraks up, but the others forgive and help them be better without guilt.
in all i liked 602, but they tilted the scales too far to the lex side, and kara got ripped off. i mean she was trapped in the phantom zone for years as a kid and now she’s back, she is reliving the reign nightmare on a loop, and she found out her was-supposed-to-be-dead father is ALIVE? we missed out on a great humanizing moment for supergirl, also though i’m not really sure how to word that.
also i’m a bit mad that alex told kelly about kara’s identity off-screen but i didn’t even notice until i read that here.
now we wait for lena to come save the day.
oh and for Christ’s sake, can they just get rid of lex already?
![narraboths:Chyler Leigh and Azie Tesfai on set for SupergirlPhoto credit: @ FrogPhoto [x] [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/5570023a6acb1206ad571bae5eb2a570/09ca742d5886609e-1d/s1280x1920/5095ad7baeef858c6ebacc46e87a9c16173b6dc5.jpg "narraboths:Chyler Leigh and Azie Tesfai on set for SupergirlPhoto credit: @ FrogPhoto [x] [x]")
![narraboths:Chyler Leigh and Azie Tesfai on set for SupergirlPhoto credit: @ FrogPhoto [x] [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/254f5c6cb98de7f5545733bd3314046d/09ca742d5886609e-a9/s1280x1920/35c9d0e88b2c7be8cddb19c60c1ba309d45b74ba.jpg "narraboths:Chyler Leigh and Azie Tesfai on set for SupergirlPhoto credit: @ FrogPhoto [x] [x]")
