207. Chapter 207

Maggie notices her first.

She always seems to be on the edge of this week’s crime scenes, always seems to be there just before the NCPD Science Division rolls up. She notices, and she takes note.

But she doesn’t say anything, not yet. Not until one of the other guys on the team notices, and that’s when Maggie jumps into action.

Because when he notices, he assumes she’s had something to do with the spate of Cadmus attacks. Of course he assumes: the girl has gorgeous, natural hair, and perfect, dark brown skin under her denim jacket, her tall black boots. Of course he assumes she has something to do with the attacks.

Maggie grits her teeth, and Maggie tells him in no uncertain terms what she will do to him if he finishes the sentence accusing a young girl of being involved in brutal attacks just because she’s Black.

Because Maggie knows – she just knows, knows from the way this girl’s eyes flit carefully over the smoking streets, knows from the way the girl shields the eyes of a passing littler kid from seeing the bodies strewn on the street, knows from the way the girl watches the cops, counts the cars and notes their deployment, not for plotting, but for her protection – that the girl has nothing to do with the attacks.

“Hey kid,” Maggie calls, keeping her voice the way it sounds when she’s off duty as best as she can.

The girl stiffens and her legs twitch like she wants to bolt. Maggie holds up her hands in surrender. “Hey, it’s okay. My name’s Maggie.”

But the girl is staring at her badge.

“Yeah, I’m NCPD. But that’s not why I’m talking to you. I keep seeing you around this week. Always around the Cadmus attacks.” The girl says nothing, but she watches Maggie closely, and Maggie keeps her hands raised. Keeps her hands far away from her gun.

“They hurt someone you love, didn’t they? That why you keep coming around? Investigate yourself because who the hell can trust the cops to care, right?”

The girl narrows her eyes and Maggie smiles. “I’m off shift soon as I sign some paperwork – why don’t I take you to lunch and we can exchange what we know, see if we make any progress together?”

The girl looks for a moment like she might run, but maybe it’s something in Maggie’s eyes, or maybe it’s the way her hands are still raised in surrender, but the girl nods, and Maggie grins softly. “Wait right here.”

She doesn’t share any classified intel, but she gives what she can and she learns a lot. The girl’s best friend had disappeared in the Cadmus attack on the bus station last week, and she’d uncovered quite a few strands of evidence that Maggie’s colleagues had failed to turn up.

But that’s not all that Maggie learns. She learns that the girl’s name is Yve, that she’s eighteen. That she’s graduating high school in a few weeks, that she wants to be a bioengineer more than anything. That she’s got a quick sense of humor, and that she’s got a raging crush on one of the girls in her class. That she wants more than anything to put her skills to use to put down Cadmus, but she doesn’t want to be a cop, and she doesn’t know where else to try.

“Detective,” Yve interrupts herself halfway through the milkshake Maggie insisted on buying her. Her body is stiff, suddenly, and her eyes are fixed keenly on something over Maggie’s shoulder. “Get down.”

She says it calm and she says it low, and Maggie ducks just in time.

A laser that looks and sounds disturbingly like the one Cyberborg Superman shot her with explodes the old juke box behind their booth, and Maggie reaches under the table to grab Yve’s hands.

“You good?”

Yve nods. “You stay down here, you understand me? No heroics.”

Screams and the sounds of people running out fill the diner, and more shots land just above the table.

She shoots a text off to Alex – ping my phone NOW – and draws her gun.

“Stay put,” she whispers to Yve again, harshly, and she kneels back up on the booth, in an instant finding her targets and firing.

She hits one Cadmus lackey, and he hesitates but doesn’t fall. She fires again, again, again, ducks to reload, jumps over the booth and slams her elbow into the side of man’s head who thought he could surprise her from behind.

He curses and he sneers, and she gets two shots off, and they’re ineffective and she does the only thing she can – she keeps shooting, both her guns out, shooting one across the diner and one right in front of her, backing away from the booth she was just buying a kid a milkshake in, drawing Cadmus fire away from Yve.

The backs of her knees slam into a wall in a moment, and finally the Cadmus soldier at the far end of the restaurant can’t take any more bullets, and he falls.

The one right in front of her, though, with the pale skin and the blonde hair and the sneer? He’s closing his hands around her throat.

And then he’s collapsing and Maggie is gasping for breath and she’s looking across the room at her girlfriend, weapon drawn but eyebrows raised. She didn’t fire a shot. She hadn’t had to.

Because Yve is standing over the man who’d been hurting Maggie, her jaw set and her knuckles tight around a frying pan.

Maggie gapes at her, and she shrugs with a grin. “I work out. You okay?”

Maggie accepts Alex’s embrace as she rubs her own neck and tilts her head. “Hey Yve. Remember what you were saying about wanting to fight Cadmus, do the whole saving the world thing?” She glances at Alex, and she smiles.

“Let’s clean up and finish that lunch. My girlfriend and I can tell you all about a little organization called the DEO.”

“The hell is this place, Detective?”

It’s a week later and Maggie’s done her arguing with J’onn, and J’onn’s done his begrudging admiration of Alex’s girl’s judgment, and J’onn’s granted the necessary clearances.

“Told you it was like a James Bond spy hideout,” Maggie nudges Yve in the shoulder, and Alex snorts and beams at her girlfriend openly.

“Welcome to the DEO,” Alex spreads her hands back, spinning around as she walks the corridor as agents nod at Yve formally, respectfully.

“You’ll spend the next five months in training, twelve hours a day. Physical, mental, you name it. And on the side, you can work with me and with Agent Schott – and Detective Sawyer – to come up with a way to find your friend. And we will find him, Yve.”

Yve’s eyes are wide and her full lips are open and she’s staring all around. “Twelve hours a day, and work on the side?” She grins and flips up the collar of her denim jacket. “I can do that. But uh – what’s the training?”

“To see when you can beat me,” Alex deadpans, and J’onn catches Maggie’s eye behind Yve’s back and grins.

“Alright, Agent Danvers. Beat you? I took out that Cadmus ass with a flipping frying pan from a diner kitchen.”

“Yeah, after I loaded him through with bullets!”

“Still, Detective. Beating your girlfriend? Sorry, but uh… I’ll get there. When do we start?”

Alex grins and leads her to the green room.

“Right now.”