Chapter 47

Lena chuckles as she approaches the target, finally seeing what Winn hit. The bolt is sticking out of a straw training dummy a few feet to the left of the target. She gestures for the other to come over.

"I totally meant to hit that." Winn says.

Alex pats him on the back. "Sure you did. Come on, Lena. It's your turn next."

"Me?" Lena questions, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

"Yeah you." Alex replies. "You're the one that found it, plus it was used by an assassin who was sent to kill you."

"That's fair," Maggie shrugs.

"Then Kara can go next, since she was shot at with it. Then Maggie, then me." Alex continues.

"Why are you last?" Maggie asks curiously.

"Because I'm more patient than you." Alex deadpans and grins when Maggie raises her eyebrows at her. "I'm kidding, neither of us are patient. Because I can't resist your dimples, babe."

"You're just whipped," Winn quips. Alex shakes her fist at him and he yelps. "No more noogies!"

After Lena pulls the bolt out of the training dummy, they head back to the line she drew to shoot from.

"He's not wrong, Danvers." Maggie teases, nudging her girlfriend.

"If I'm whipped, so are you Sawyer."

"At least I can admit it." Maggie says, joining their hands together.

Winn, Kara, and Lena pretend they don't hear their banter.

Lena focuses on the crossbow, raising it to point at the target. She rests the butt against her shoulder and flicks off what she assumes is the safety. She closes her left eye and aims. Lena lets out a breath and pulls the trigger.

The bolt hits the target with a thunk. They all move forward and Winn gapes at it.

"You hit it. Dead center. On your first try."

"I am a very good archer." Lena shrugs, a little pleased smile on her face.

Alex pulls out the bolt in order to take off the cover. "Huh. It didn't really penetrate very deep." She remarks. "I wonder how this compares to a bow. Or a gun."

"We can test that after everyone has their turn." Lena suggests.

Alex hums in response. "Alright."

They continue shooting. Kara, only having shot a regular bow a couple times for fun, is the worst shot (aside from Winn). She actually hits the target. Maggie nearly hits the bullseye, to her disappointment. She hasn't shot a bow in a while, but she's okay at it. Alex hits the bullseye but in the upper right part, not the center like Lena.

"Overachiever," Maggie remarks, kissing her girlfriend's cheek.

After being subjected to Winn's puppy eyes (something Alex swears he picked up from Kara), they let him shoot again. This time, he hits the target. Barely. The bolt is embedded in the lower left corner, nearly hanging out of the target. If it were another centimeter or two to the left, it would've hit the training dummy's leg.

Winn's just happy that he hit it. As he rejoins them after grabbing the bolt, he hears Maggie snickering.

"What's so funny?" Alex asks curiously.

"Schott's a bad shot." Maggie laughs.

Alex smiles and shakes her head fondly at her girlfriend. Only she would think of a dorky rhyme about this and find it hilarious.

After Maggie finally stops laughing, Lena and Alex turn to Kara.

"Kara, can you get my gun and holster? You know where it is." Alex asks.

"Sure."

"Can you get my bow as well please?"

"Since you said please, of course." Kara presses a kiss to Lena's nose, making her blush and then runs off using superspeed.

Kara's back quickly and hands the weapons to her sister and her girlfriend. By then, Alex has taken the cover off of the gel. Which she makes a mental note to name sometime. Alex and Lena thank her for grabbing the weapons.

"Okay," Alex says, strapping the holster to her thigh (she knows how much Maggie loves it). "I'll shoot my gun first since it's harder to predict exactly where it'll go. Lena since you're the best at archery, you shoot the bow and the crossbow."

Lena blinks in surprise. It's logical, but she still wasn't expecting to be recognized for her talent. She's not used to that yet.

Alex checks the barrel, making sure it's already loaded and has gunpowder. She never keeps it unloaded, which probably isn't the safest thing, but she could need it someday and not have the time to load it.

"You may want to cover your ears or something." Alex warns as she turns to face the target. "This thing is really loud. Especially you, Kara. Oh! Lena, sometime we should try to make noise canceling ear plugs or something."

"Sounds good. We can do that when we have the time." Lena replies.

"Oh no," Maggie whispers over-dramatically to Kara. "Our nerdy girlfriends have found each other. They'll increase each other's nerdiness."

"It's good for both of them." Kara says, watching as her sister and her girlfriend start to debate the best thing to use for the earplugs.

"It is," Maggie agrees. "What do you want to bet that the first time they work together they forget to eat and sleep?"

"I won't bet against that, I won't win. At least they have us to make sure they don't waste away."

Maggie hums her agreement and puts her hands over her ears when Alex raises the gun to aim at the target.

"Kara? Plug your ears now." Alex says, looking back at them.

Kara nods and presses her hands hard against her ears until her hearing is pretty much muted.

Alex focuses on the target and aims. She cocks the hammer back, causing it to make a familiar clicking noise. She closes one eye and aims for the center, knowing that the accuracy on this thing isn't great. She lets out a breath and pulls the trigger. The revolver jolts and she lets her hand and wrist move with the kickback. She learned that lesson the hard way after getting a very sore wrist. There's a thundering bang that Alex knows will make Kara flinch, even after covering her ears.

There's the sound of the bullet hitting the gel, but another noise comes right after, a cracking noise. Alex doesn't wait for the others to recover and jogs forward to see what happened. What she sees isn't something she expected.

"Damn," Alex breathes, tracing the hole at the top. "This gel is a foot thick."

"What happened?" Lena asks curiously, her arm around her girlfriend to calm her as they walk over.

"It went right through." Alex answers.

"What? Really?" She looks at the gel, noticing that there's no bullet in it. Plus there's an entrance and an exit hole. "Fascinating. Where did it go?"

Alex shrugs and looks behind the gel to see where it could've possibly hit in order to make that cracking noise. She squints and almost dismisses it, but decides to check it out anyway. A good couple of feet behind the gel is the gray stone wall that surrounds the castle.

She heads over and crouches in front of it. There's a dent near the bottom, a small but noticeable one if you get close enough. Some small pieces of stone and gray powder is in the grass and dirt in front of the wall.

Alex runs her finger along the outside of the dent and then traces the inside, not feeling the bullet. She sifts through the dirt and raises an eyebrow when she finds it. It's mangled and barely recognizable as a bullet.

She stands back up and brushes off her knees before rejoining the others at the gel.

"Found the bullet." Alex holds it up. "It hit the wall."

"The wall? Where?" Lena questions and Maggie exchanges a fond look with Kara, knowing they may get lost in their own nerdy world.

"Down near the bottom, there's a little dent." Alex points at it.

Lena nods and thinks over what could've happened. "It lost altitude pretty fast, it must not have had a lot of velocity left after going through the gel."

Alex nods. "The gel has a lot of friction, I'm not surprised."

"Hey nerds." Maggie says, putting her hands on Lena's and Alex's back. "Finish your test with the bow and crossbow. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can make out with your girlfriends." Maggie smiles, putting her dimples on display as she dorkily tries to wiggle her eyebrows.

Winn groans and Alex blushes, muttering something about wanting to try to make a replica of the crossbow with Lena.

"Alex," Lena says to get her attention. "You can do that while I'm gone with Kara and then we can tweak it together."

Alex nods, her eyes sparkling with excitement. They make their way back to the line and Lena aims the crossbow first since she's better at controlling where the bow shoots. She shoots it and takes note of where the bolt hits.

Kara takes the crossbow and gives Lena her bow and an arrow, earning a kiss in thanks. Lena pulls back the string of the bow and shoots. It doesn't hit near where the bolt or the bullet hit, which is what she was aiming for.

Next chapter, we get to see which goes deeper, the bolt or the arrow! And we get to see the nerds theorize about why. Some of you commented about how you loved Alex and Lena's interactions and nerdiness, which is great because I do too! I also love getting to call Alex and Lena nerds. Can you tell? Anyway! Thank you lovely people for reading and for your amazing comments! Stay awesome!