87. Chapter 87

He’s noticed that she’s happier, and he’s noticed that she threatens him less. He’s noticed that she smiles more, sighs contentedly more. Checks her phone more.

And he’s noticed that she’s been seeing a lot more of her cop friend.

Which wouldn’t be totally unusual, maybe, if he’d ever known Alex Danvers to have friends. Aside from the Superfriends. But they kind of came from Kara, and this Maggie person? It it’s clear that she was all Alex’s.

He watches the way Alex blushes every time Maggie walks into the room, and he arches an eyebrow but says nothing.

He sees the way Alex bends Maggie over the pool table, allegedly to show her the proper way to hold her cue, sees the way their bodies connect, the way Maggie melts back into Alex’s thighs, into her stomach, into her arms.

He observes the way Kara watches them laugh together with a small smile on her lips and slightly narrowed eyes, like she’s assessing, like she’s making sure of something, like she’s evaluating.

He hears the breathless way Alex picks up her phone when the caller ID reads “Sawyer,” and he hears the way she screams Maggie’s name over the comm when she was shot in the leg; he hears the way Alex throws herself into the line of fire to get Maggie to safety; sees the way she hovers over her, caring for her, fingers gentle, eyes calm, eyes terrified, back in the DEO med bay; hears the softness in her voice as she stitches Maggie up, as she tells her what a great job she did in the field, and he knows the gentleness, the tenderness, he catches have little, or maybe even nothing, to do with the fact that Maggie got shot because she dove in front of Kara.

“Hey, Alex,” he calls to her as she’s heading out later that night, rushing, rushing as she’s never rushed to leave work before, because now, he thinks, she has someone to go home to.

“Yeah.”

“Anything you wanna tell me?”

“The hell are you talking about, Winn?”

“Alex. How’s Maggie?”

“Winn…”

He stands and he examines her face, assesses the probability of getting slammed up into a wall and threatened with her index finger again. He judges the situation safe, and he reaches out to hold her arms with his hands.

“Alex. She seems like a really great girl. She clearly likes you, she clearly has no problem protecting Kara, she… Alex, I’m gonna say it once and then we’re gonna forget I ever said anything, okay? I love you. I love you, and if you love Maggie, if you love girls, then the only thing that’s gonna change between us is I’m gonna make you come to me for dating advice.”

“Pfft, please, like you would have anything useful – “

“Alex.”

“I love you too. IT geek.”

“Bioengineering nerd. Ow!”

“Well, you said you didn’t want anything to change between us.”

“… touché Danvers. Touché.”