185. Chapter 185
Maggie is a detective, and she detects.
She detects when Alex flinches – just slightly, just slightly, just in the skin behind her eyes – when she’s passing out weapons to the strike team and her hands ghost over a kryptonite sword.
She detects when the small of Alex’s back gets tense, when her fingers twitch ever so slightly as if aching for her glock, when Winn announces that he’s found a lead on Cadmus’s newest location.
She detects the darkening of Alex’s eyes when one of the agents mentions Myriad in passing, and while Maggie remembers that night with a clenched jaw and the ghosts of trauma from utter lack of control, she knows from Alex’s eyes, from the stiffening of Alex’s shoulders, from the way the agents fall silent when they realize she’s in earshot, that the night of the takeover was much, much worse for Alex than it was for, probably, anyone else.
She doesn’t ask.
She knows Alex doesn’t like to talk.
So she doesn’t ask.
But on the nights that end the days where Alex flinches, where her back tenses, where her fingers twitch and her eyes darken – those nights, Maggie makes sure to draw Alex aromatic baths and give her hot oil massages and kiss her slow, kiss her soft, kiss her tender, all over her body, all over her heart.
She doesn’t ask, but eventually, she doesn’t have to. Because eventually, Alex starts talking.
“She told me I’m nothing more than… than an abused child. Brainwashed into fighting for aliens, believing they’re good.”
Alex chuckles harshly and Maggie continues playing with her hair as Alex lays in her lap.
“Thing is, I wasn’t trained that way. Kara is good, Kara is worth fighting for, worth dying for. But other than that? I was trained the other way around.”
Alex chuckles again, and she turns her face to kiss Maggie’s stomach. “Ironic, isn’t it? That a Martian taught me to fear aliens, to kill them? It was you, really. You that made me think of something beyond… I dunno… duty. Something more like… empathy.”
Maggie says nothing. She just leans down to kiss Alex’s forehead, to continue stroking her hair.
“It’s funny, you know. Her talking to me about abuse. Because she’s spent the last decade doing god knows what to my father. And I told her. I told her, I’ve killed before. A Kryptonian.”
Maggie’s hand stills, just for a moment, and she cocks her head in confusion, in pain, in compassion, but she blinks away the surprise, the hurt on Alex’s behalf, and she wipes her face clean and continues stroking Alex’s hair.
“Kara’s aunt.” Alex swallows, and Maggie’s never seen her this close to crying about work, about missions, about the agonies of being a soldier. Of being herself.
“She was going to kill J’onn, she… Kara’s only remaining blood, or my… my father. Figure, anyway. I… I’m a soldier. Right? I’m a soldier. It shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t. And Kara… Kara was amazing, she… but I… I still dream about it. About the glow of the sword piercing through her body, the way she gasped. The way Kara cried over her body. I still dream about it. I shouldn’t. It’s stupid. It was war. I’m a soldier.”
She’s starting to spiral, and Maggie knows, so Maggie kisses her forehead again, runs her thumb over the tears streaking down the sides of Alex’s face, and Maggie speaks, softly, softly, softly.
“You’re more than a soldier, Ally. You’re a person underneath that armor, and I’m not just talking about your tactical gear, babe. A damn good person, too. You love hard, Alex. You love hard, so you hurt hard, and you’re allowed. You’re allowed to hurt. Hell, babe, you’re allowed to break. I won’t let you lose track of the pieces.”
Alex gulps, and her body seizes with the effort of holding herself together, and Maggie holds her closer.
“They have my dad, Maggie. It just… it doesn’t end. They torture Kara, they threaten J’onn, so I kill Kara’s aunt, Kara almost dies alone in space, but I rescue her in her pod so yay, we win, right, but no, no, because it doesn’t end, Maggie, they still have my dad and we lost all those people at the bar and Kara’s afraid she’s losing me, and sometimes I think she doesn’t really believe I’m her sister, not really, not really, because she said all these things when they infected her with Red-K, and I said all those things when they had me under Myriad, I almost killed my sister, Maggie, so if she still feels me slipping away, maybe all that will come to the surface again and I’ll lose her for real, and it’ll be my fault, and it – I – I’m a soldier, I shouldn’t be – “
“Babe, you’re not gonna lose Kara. You’re not, I promise. I’ve seen you two. She only worries about losing you because she loves you, Alex, just like you love her. But babe, she has to learn to live her own life, and so do you. She’s more than Supergirl, but you’re more than Agent Danvers. You can be happy, Al. We’re going to get your dad back – we are, I promise you – and you, doing this? Right now? This is you being brave, Ally, this is you being strong.”
“What, strength is getting snot all over your sweater?”
Maggie smiles and kisses her lips and wipes her nose with the hem of her sleeve. “Now you’re catching on, Danvers.”
“You love me, Maggie.”
It’s a statement, but it’s a question, but it’s a statement, and Maggie gulps because she hasn’t said it before, because she didn’t want to scare her, she didn’t want to rush her. But Alex’s eyes are wide and her voice is soft and her tears are crystals and her body is warm and her love is radiating.
“Of course, you’re not gonna go crazy on me, are you?”
Alex laughs, and it’s genuine, this time, not bitter, not full of self-hatred, not full of ghosts and screams and nightmares. This time, it’s full of something that sounds a lot like hope.
“I think I just did, Sawyer.”
“Fine by me, Danvers. Fine by me.”