111. Chapter 111

Kara squeals and covers her face with her hands and furiously adjusts her glasses and turns bright red and flees the room when Alex comes into the DEO limping gingerly, chest painted with red marks, faint redness around her wrists, when Maggie takes the blame and Alex grins and blushes and J’onn groans and Alex threatens everyone to shut the hell up, and they do, because even if Maggie can apparently tie her down in bed, she’s still Alex Danvers, damnit.

So Kara squeals and covers her face with her hands and furiously adjusts her glasses and turns bright red and flees the room, but tonight is sisters’ night, and Kara is worried.

Because Alex is grinning and Alex seems happy, but Alex is apparently covered in even more bruises than she usually does, and Kara just can’t square it with how reverently Maggie seems to treat her outside the bedroom, and Kara just can’t square it without the feeling that someone is hurting her sister, and she needs to understand.

So she accepts Alex’s box of pizza and tears into the bag of potstickers more quietly than she usually does, because Alex’s limp has diminished throughout the day, but she still sits gingerly, she still hisses a little when Kara hugs her and apparently makes whatever marks are on her back sting.

“Alex, can we talk?” she ventures, and Alex freezes slightly, arches an eyebrow slightly, purses her lips slightly, but she nods mildly enough.

“Shoot,” she says, reaching for a piece of pizza and groaning when she realizes she forgot to grab a beer.

“No, let me get it, you’re um… you’ve been limping all day, Alex.”

“Is uh… is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Kara cracks open a beer and passes one – just the one – to her sister before collapsing next to her with one foot tucked under her.

“Kara,” Alex sighs and drinks deeply, eyes closed and wheels turning. “I… Just tell me. Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re scared of.”

Kara takes a deep breath and stares at her big sister for a moment, worrying her fingers on the blanket and grabbing a potsticker – then two, then three – to occupy her mouth while she thinks.

“I like Maggie. And I like that you’re together. You’re happier, you’re drinking less, you’re smiling more, you’re… hitting Winn in the head less.”

Alex chuckles. “That’s actually a downside.”

Kara grins and takes a bite of Alex’s pizza. “Hey! Grab your own.”

She does and she sighs again. “But you’ve also been having these… um…”

“Sex injuries?” Alex wheezes as she tries to manage an enormous gulp of her beer.

“Yeah.”

“And that scares you.”

“I’m not scared – ”

“Kara, I know you – ”

“And I know you. And you’re… you’re a badass, Alex, you don’t take anything from anyone, but you… you’re coming in with all these bruises, and cuts, and limping, Rao, and I know you seem happy about that, and that’s great, it really is, I’m not saying anything bad, or that you’re doing anything wrong, I’m just… I don’t understand. Would you… would you help me to understand?”

Alex sighs and Alex takes her one allotted potsticker and stares at her sister thoughtfully while she chews.

“It… You’re right. I am a badass.” She pauses and grins and takes another bite of pizza. “I don’t take crap from people. You’re right. But this…” She shifts on the couch and she puts her fingers to the top side of her wrist and smiles faintly, distantly, remembering. Loving. “This… remember that guy I dated for a few months in college? The one with the hair?”

Kara smiles, because yes, she remembers. “Remember he’d do things like… like try to hold my hand? Or like, hold the door for me? Or…” Alex’s eyes glaze slightly and she looks away from her sister’s attentive gaze. “Or he’d want to do things. With me. In bed. That I just… I never liked, I never…”

“You’re not limping because Maggie’s a woman, Alex.”

Alex grins and she nods and she gulps down some beer. “I was getting to that.” She taps a greasy finger to Kara’s nose and laughs as Kara squeals softly and grabs a napkin. “I was never comfortable with… well, with any kind of intimacy. You know, we’ve talked about it, we… and it was a lot of things, right, me being gay, mostly, but also, I… I never wanted to be out of control. I never am out of control. Not anymore. I never can be, because if I’m out of control, people… people die. You could die.”

Alex chokes on an unexpected wave of tears and Kara puts her pizza down, leans forward, and strokes Alex’s hair out of her face.

“And I like it. Being in control. Being… able to change things, being able to make a difference in the world. But it… it means I can never, I don’t know… let go. I can never let go, I can never break, except when I’m with you, but that’s different, it’s…” She looks away and she shakes her head and she presses her index fingers to the bottoms of her eyelids.

“When I’m with Maggie… When we’re together, it… she’s gentle with me, Kara, my god, she’s perfect, she’s always checking in, she’s always making sure I’m good, she… And sometimes, when we’re together, when we’re… having sex… I just… I want to let go, completely, like… of everything, of just… I don’t have to be in control of anything, I don’t have to be responsible for everything, I don’t have to make decisions or be on my game because she’s got it, she’s got everything, she’s got me. When I’m… submissive for her, I just… I’ve never been able to let go like that, to trust someone like that, with my body, with my heart, with just… all of me. God, I’m sorry, I’m probably making zero sense.”

She stops because she has to, because she’s crying, because fuck she loves Maggie and god it feels good to talk about, to have Kara’s warm eyes holding her, to have Kara’s cool hands on her face, to have Kara’s unconditional love wrapped around her.

“I just… I love her, Kara, and when I’m laying under her, I just… I feel it. How much she loves me. Because I’m bottoming, sure, okay, right, it looks like I’m out of control, like she’s hurting me, but all I have to do is open my palm, or say a single word, and everything will stop, so really, underneath it, she’s giving me all the control, but she’s letting me feel like she’s got it all, she’s letting me feel everything, she’s constantly figuring out how to touch me best, how to love me best, and I just… I love her so much, Kara, I… and I know it probably scares you, that I wind up with bruises and whatever, but she’s… she’s perfect, Kara. No one’s ever… no one’s ever loved me like she does.”

“You’re more loved than you think you are, Alex.”

Alex smiles and sniffles and rests her head on her sister’s shoulder.

“Am I loved enough to get that last potsticker?”

“Don’t push your luck. But I can be convinced to order more.”

“Kara?”

“Yeah Alex?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”