Chapter Text
Alex cries for two days. It’s all she’ll allow herself, even though Kara faithfully appears each day with ice cream and strong, sympathetic arms and supersonic hearing that’s focused entirely on her troubles. It’s the closest they’ve been in years, maybe ever. But talking hurts. Just being hurts and so she does what she always does and pushes Kara away. She doesn’t want to process, doesn’t want to feel like this anymore, just wants it all to stop. So she’s been throwing herself into work to the point that J’onn has threatened to cut her access to the building if he catches her doing another hour of overtime. Normally she’d just work the streets instead, go looking for some action, but she’s not ready to run into Maggie and she knows the universe has just the kind of sense of humour that means she’d end up seeing her everywhere.
She looks at her phone. There are thirteen unread text messages from Maggie and four voicemails she hasn’t listened to. She’s rejected eleven calls and five days later, it seems like Maggie has finally stopped trying.
She misses her.
She puts her phone down and pours herself a drink and tries to banish Maggie from her mind. It’s an exercise in futility and after the second drink, she finally caves and listens to one of the voicemails. It’s not much, just a simple hey, how are you Danvers? She listens to the others and they’re all similar: casual, but with an edge of concern. The last one confirms her suspicion: the ball’s in her court now and Maggie won’t call again.
The whole time she’s listening, she’s picturing Maggie, picturing the slight frown that would be creasing her brow and dark, watchful eyes and her smile, not full and open right now, but never far away. It hurts. It hurts and she can’t sit still any longer, locked up in her misery. She needs to lose herself, get outside of her head for a little while, at least.
She heads out, across town, to a bar she’s sure Maggie won’t show up at.
She knows how this goes, knows all the steps, even though it’s been a long time between drinks. Shots at the bar. Dance up on some guy; a stockbroker or a frat boy or whoever’s handsome enough and buying drinks. Except this time, it’s not a guy. This time it’s a tall blonde with cheekbones that could cut ice and blue eyes that look like they’ve been carved out of the same. She’s wearing a dress that’s probably a felony in more than a few states and what she’s about to do to Alex in an alley next to the bar is definitely a felony.
It feels right in a way that none of the guys ever had. There’s a rightness and a realness and a truthfulness in the way her body responds, in the gasp she can’t quite choke back when a hand skims under her shirt and settles in the small of her back, pulling her closer. She’s gay. It’s not a phase, not a momentary aberration, not a brief confusion born of loneliness. She’s a scientist and the proof is steadily building up. Building up with each touch, each kiss until she doesn’t even remember the research question anymore.
It feels right, but there’s none of the shininess Maggie had promised, none of the brightness that had been there in those few brief moments with Maggie. In a moment of sober clarity Alex realises she’s picked someone as unlike Maggie as possible and it throws her. She catches hold of the woman’s hand – Sarah? Jessie? she doesn’t remember; it hadn’t seemed important – catches hold of her hand just as it’s about to slip beneath the waistband of her jeans.
“I’m sorry. I have an early start at work tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?” There’s breath hot against her ear, and no, she’s not. She’s not sure and so she hesitates and it’s enough.
*****
She regrets her decision the next morning when she’s rushing to get to the DEO on time from a strange apartment on the wrong side of the city after barely any sleep. She regrets it even more later that day when she’s caught unawares during a mission and ends up in the medical bay with a concussion and a broken arm.
She’s still regretting it when Kara shows up and starts lecturing her. She closes her eyes, because she’s pretty sure she’s going to throw up if she watches Kara pace back and forth any longer. Her head is pounding and everything hurts and she can’t really focus on what Kara’s saying. It’s not all bad, though; she can’t focus on much of anything except cuts and bruises and fractured bone, and physical pain makes a nice change from the other kind.
The heavy stomp of Kara’s boots stops and Alex dares to crack an eyelid, only to find Kara staring at her, hands on hips, with an intensity that would strike fear into the heart of National City’s evillest-doers.
She sighs and opens her eyes properly.
“You’re not supposed to go to sleep with a concussion,” Kara says. “Everyone knows that.”
Alex rolls her eyes and regrets it a moment later because it makes her head pound that much harder. “Went to med school, remember? And I wasn’t sleeping, just resting my eyes. You’re making me dizzy with all this pacing.”
“Sorry.” Kara runs her hands through her hair and Alex can hear the exasperation and worry in her voice when she says, “You almost got yourself killed today, Alex. What happened?”
Alex shrugs. “Alien got the jump on me. It happens sometimes in our line of work.”
Kara studies her, worry etched all over her face, and Alex is grateful that for all her powers, mind-reading isn’t one of them. “Was this about Maggie?” There’s a moment of hesitation before Kara asks, “Were you trying to get hurt, on purpose?”
She shakes her head, wincing at the pain that motion provokes. “No.” It’s kind of a lie; the last few days she’s been throwing herself into things with a kind of reckless intensity, not really caring about the consequences. There’s an alien in the holding cells with a few extra bruises who can attest to that. But today, today she was just tired and slow and stupid.
“I worry about you, Alex.” Kara sits down on the bed next to her and leans against her good side for a moment.
“You don’t need to. I know how to take care of myself.”
“Maybe. But tonight, at least, I’m taking care of you. Doctor’s orders.”
Alex doesn’t even bother arguing, because Kara’s got that look about her right now. That girl-of-steel unmovable object kind of look, and Alex doesn’t have the energy to fight against that tonight.
*****
She’s on desk duty until her arm heals. She’d argued with J’onn, argued that she still had one good arm and could still hold a gun, but he was the personification of a brick wall and her head still hurt far too much to keep butting up against it. He’d made her take a few days medical leave, but home is too quiet and so she’s back at the DEO three days early, much to J’onn’s disgust.
Having only one good arm is frustrating; paperwork is slow, most lab work is impossible, and she’s itching to be doing, because sitting still gives her too much time to think. Instead, she’s stomping around the lab and the command centre, barking orders at anyone who makes the mistake of looking in her direction.
After a few hours of that, Winn grabs her by her good arm and steers her out of the lab. “Let’s get some lunch. You’re scaring the nerds which isn’t the best idea when they’re working with stuff that could blow us all into tiny little pieces.”
She grumbles a bit but lets him lead her out of the building. They sit down at a restaurant and he watches as she viciously stabs her salad.
Finally, he asks, “Is this about Maggie?”
“Kara told you?” She looks at him sharply. She’s going to have words with Kara about keeping other people’s secrets, even if she’s pretty careless with her own.
He shakes his head. “She told me to look out for you at work when she’s not here. Keep an eye on you. She didn’t tell me why, but I kind of put two and two together. I mean, the other week, you told me three times how terrible Maggie is at pool and I figure we were probably one conversation away from you telling me the name of her childhood dog. And then suddenly you’re not talking about her at all and you look like you’re ready to tear the building and everyone in it apart with your bare hands. So… two plus two.”
Alex groans. “Was I that obvious?”
“No. No, definitely not.” Winn rushes to reassure her. “I just… I notice things.” He looks down at his plate and his voice is soft as he says, “And I’ve been where you are.”
She’s taken aback for a moment, because as much as Winn kind of pings her gaydar a little (although to date, it’s hardly proven reliable), she’s pretty sure he’s hopelessly in love with her sister.
He looks back up and his eyes widen. “Not the gay thing… go you, by the way… uhh, the whole unrequited feelings thing.”
“Kara?”
“Yeah.” He pulls apart a french fry until it’s nothing but a few scattered pieces on his plate. “I’m doing better now, though.”
“How?” She leans in, listening avidly, because if there’s a secret to not feeling like this, she needs to know it.
“You know what they say. The best way to get over someone is to date a terrifying creature from Irish folklore who wants to kill your best friend.” Winn smiles as he says this, but she can see right through the forced cheerfulness.
“Pretty sure that’s not how the saying goes,” she says.
“Maybe not. It works, though. Guaranteed to put you off dating for life.”
“I was kind of already at the put-off-dating-for-life stage.” She smiles humourlessly. “But then I met Maggie.”
Winn’s eyes are sympathetic. “I don’t have any easy answers, but I realised being her friend was more important to me than the alternative, which was being nothing at all.”
Friends. She doesn’t have friends. She has Kara, she has Kara’s friends, but none of her own. She has a sister and a job and sometimes they feel like one and the same. But friends? She doesn’t have those, has never quite found room in her life. And maybe that’s part of the problem. There was a moment when it seemed like maybe Maggie could fill that gap in her life, but that had quickly been overtaken by other feelings.
*****
Alex is used to disappointment. She’s used to putting on a brave face and pushing her feelings so deep it’s like they never existed. And it works, more or less, even this time, when her nerves are so raw and exposed and everything feels so heightened.
She knows Maggie thinks it’s all about awakenings and being drawn to the first gay woman who crosses her path. That she’d feel like this about anyone with a bike and a leather jacket and an attitude to match and dimples that make her stomach do backflips. But she knows it’s not, because she thinks maybe she could have gone a whole lifetime without finding her truth if she hadn’t met Maggie. There’d been a sense of recognition there, almost from the start, a kinship that Alex can’t quite name and she misses that. Misses easy banter over pool tables and dead bodies and the feeling that somebody in the world just got her. She wants that back and she’s going to try and get it. She just hopes that Maggie meant what she said about being there as a friend, and that she hasn’t blown that as well with a couple of weeks of radio silence.
J’onn frowns disapprovingly when she decides to tag along with a couple of agents to a crime scene she’s pretty sure Maggie’s going to be at.
“You haven’t been cleared for active duty, Agent Danvers.”
She sighs. “Relax. I promise I’ll stick to looking and talking. And in the unlikely event that things turn ugly, I’ll stay well out of the way.”
He starts to respond but she interrupts. “I’m going crazy in here.”
J’onn rolls his eyes. “Fine, Agent Danvers. But absolutely no fighting.”
“Cross my heart.”
Sure enough, Maggie’s already there when they arrive. Alex hangs back for a moment, watching her work. It’s been three weeks since she’s seen her, and when the bitter taste of humiliation and loss threatens to well up and fill her, she chokes it back down. Pushes it back down and plasters a smile on her face. She walks over to where Maggie is crouching, trying to look far more confident than she feels.
“Sawyer. What have we got?” She tries for casual and hopes she’s succeeded.
“Danvers?” There’s surprise in her voice, and maybe something else. Maggie straightens up and turns to her, a frown crinkling her forehead.
“Hey. Thought maybe NCPD’s finest could use some help from the experts.”
Maggie shakes her head. She’s all business as she says, “This one’s pretty straightforward. Now that I’ve had a chance to check out the scene properly, I don’t think we’re looking at alien involvement. You shouldn’t have been called, but one of the new guys on the squad got over-eager. Sorry you wasted your time.” Maggie glances down at her arm, still in its cast. Her voice softens. “Alex, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She smiles, doing her best to deflect, because it feels like Maggie’s asking about more than her arm and she’s not sure she’s ready for that conversation yet. “Thought I’d make sure you had a fighting chance next time we play pool.”
The frown is still there, as if Maggie’s not sure what to make of her, but it’s slowly being overtaken with a smile. “Is that right, Danvers? Better watch out. I’ve been practising.”
“Yeah?” Alex raises her eyebrows and smirks. “I still wouldn’t bet on you beating me, even with one arm out of action.” It almost feels easy, almost feels natural to slip straight back into their old dynamic. Almost. But there’s the matter of a kiss and heartbreak and humiliation hanging between them and as much as she tries, Alex can’t quite forget that. She tries to push those thoughts off to the side and almost succeeds, tries to focus on the here and now and patching things up, or more to the point, sweeping things under the rug.
Maggie’s smile widens until her dimples are showing and Alex’s stomach does that flip-flop thing it always seems to do when Maggie’s around. This is going to be hard, but Alex is already beginning to think it’ll be worth it.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty confident that I could take you right now. I might just take you up on that bet.”
“Tonight, maybe?”
Maggie shakes her head. “Sorry. Prior engagement.”
“Hot date?” Alex forces herself to ask, forces herself to inject a teasing note into her voice, even though she feels slightly sick at the thought.
“I wish.” Maggie smiles tightly, before continuing, “My ex is coming over to pick up some stuff. It promises to be a super fun evening.”
Alex winces. She feels like an asshole, because in the midst of her own personal crisis, she’d all but forgotten about Maggie’s breakup. “I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it.
Maggie shrugs. “It is what it is.”
“If you need to talk…”
Alex doesn’t get a chance to finish her offer, because there’s a whoosh of air overhead and the ground shakes as Supergirl makes an entrance.
“Wow. Half of the DEO, Supergirl. Talk about overkill. You know if anyone else is planning to make an appearance at my crime scene today? FBI? CIA? Maybe we could create a multi-agency taskforce for what’s looking an awful lot like a robbery gone wrong.”
Alex is just as surprised as Maggie is. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Supergirl to show up, either.”
Maggie is looking past her, a frown on her face. “Has Supergirl been dosed with Red Kryptonite, or something?”
“What?”
“Only, it kind of looks like she’s glaring at me and I’m wondering if I’m a couple of seconds away from being fried.”
Alex looks over at Kara and tries to surreptitiously signal for her to stand down. It takes a moment, but Kara seems to get the message.
“Uh… I think she was just doing her X-ray vision thing on that building over there.” Alex picks a building at random and points at it.
Maggie looks sceptical, but shrugs. “Okay. If you say so.”
“Listen, I should probably let you finish up here and get the rest of the team out of your way.” It’s the last thing she wants to do, but she figures her excuse for being here is starting to wear kind of thin. And she should probably talk to Kara before she does accidentally incinerate Maggie.
“Okay. See you ‘round Danvers.” Maggie pauses for a moment, and then, “And if you feel like paying up on that bet, I might be at our usual table after my shift tomorrow.”
Alex smiles. “Maybe I’ll see you there, Sawyer.”
She turns and walks over to where Supergirl is standing, forcing herself not to look back at Maggie, as much as she wants to.
“What are you doing here?” Alex hisses.
Kara looks a little sheepish as she says, “J’onn said you were out on field duty…”
“And you thought you’d come and check up on me,” Alex finishes her sentence for her and she can’t help the exasperation that creeps into her voice. “I’m a big girl, you know, and I was doing this long before Supergirl showed up on the scene. I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“I know that.” Kara looks like she’s going to say something else, but she sighs and changes the subject. “So, I noticed Maggie’s here…”
“Yeah. She thought you were going to hit her with your heat vision. Could you be any less subtle?”
“Sorry.” Kara really does look sheepish now. “Are you okay?”
Alex looks back over to where Maggie is talking to a crime scene tech. “I will be.”