218. Chapter 218
“Wow, Danvers, your sister really outdid herself!”
Maggie’s grinning as she glances around the bar and slides her arms around Alex’s waist from behind, and Alex looks over her shoulder and grins.
“Yeah, she really did, huh?”
The bar is decked out in streamers and remnants from classical musical eras on at least seven different planets – it turns out that karaoke is popular on many of them – and Kara is on the makeshift stage, beaming up a storm.
“You gonna sing, Danvers?” Maggie teases, but it’s mostly just thinly-veiled begging, because god does she love Alex’s voice.
“If you make it worth my while,” Alex flirts back in low tones, turning in Maggie’s arms so she can kiss her, so she can take her bottom lip gently between her teeth and –
“You know it was bad enough when it was just screaming out of your mind, Alex, but now I have to see it live and in person, too?” J’onn is interrupting, and Maggie starts to tense, but one look at J’onn’s big smile and soft eyes soothes her.
“It’s okay, Maggie,” he says as he covers her shoulder with a gentle hand. “I was just teasing. I love how much you care for her. I love seeing her this happy.”
Alex squirms and she beams and she kisses J’onn on the cheek, and Maggie’s heart swells and a look that can only be described as family sweeps over J’onn’s pleasantly surprised face.
But then all three of them are jumping, because there’s a loud, high-pitched boom and squeak screeching through the bar, and when they turn they see a very sheepish Kara at the microphone.
“Winn, is it – yes! Okay, it’s on! Welcome to karaoke night, everyone! I um – well, I really wanted to start us off, if that’s okay.”
James whoops as he comes to stand by Alex and Maggie and J’onn, and Kara adjusts her glasses happily.
“With my friend Winn! He and I um… well, my sister’s girlfriend – hi Maggie! – ”
Maggie blushes and gives a little wave as Alex furrows her brow with a confused smile.
“My sister’s girlfriend wanted us to do a special song for her and Alex. Because someone – ” Kara stares pointedly down at Alex. “Hasn’t been known to dance – like, really dance, not just stand there hugging someone! – since her college days.”
“Oh, come on, the DEO kinda kicks that out of you!” Alex calls, and J’onn shakes his head and laughs.
“So, Winn, come on!”
Winn nearly knocks over a speaker as he scrambles on stage. Maggie catches him, steadies him, and thanks him in advance with a wink.
He grins at her and gives a little wave as he grabs a mic and kicks off the song Maggie asked them to sing.
As the first bars ring out, Winn and Kara stare at each other in the way only fantastic singers do as the sync up, and J’onn nods, impressed against his will, as Winn starts the song.
“Oh don’t you dare look back,
Just keep your eyes on me,
I said you’re holding back,
She said – ”
Kara cuts in flawlessly and James and Maggie cheer.
“Shut up and dance with me.
This woman is my destiny,
She said, ooh, shut up and dance with me!”
Winn and Kara both point down to Alex and Maggie, and Maggie is holding her hands out with a smile and tilted head and questioning eyes, and Alex is shaking her head and yelling, “Oh hell no! Traitor, Kara!”
But her shining eyes and her smile give her away, and she takes Maggie’s open hands and lets herself start to move as she laughs, as Kara and Winn whoop before starting to sing again, their voices flowing over and under each other perfectly.
“We were victims of the nightThe chemical, physical, kryptonite”
Kara breaks out laughing and Winn twirls her around as J’onn and James watch laughingly an Alex learn to move again, with only pure happiness, pure affection, running through her veins.
Maggie leans into the song, mouthing along with Winn and Kara, making sure Alex doesn’t dare look back, making sure Alex keeps her eyes on her as she moves, and moves perfectly, moves happily, moves without restraint, moves with only Alex on her brain, on her body.
“I said you’re holding back,
She said,” Maggie mouths, hoping against hope that Alex will pick it up, that she isn’t irritated with her for making such a dorky, such a public display, for enlisting her sister and best friend for help, and Alex? Alex doesn’t only mouth the words right back, Alex sings them.
“Shut up and dance with me.”
She pulls Maggie close and her smile has never been brighter.
“This woman is my destiny,” she sings straight into Maggie’s eyes, and Maggie’s heart leaps, because that, that, that line there, that line there is why she loves this song so much for Alex, and Alex is going right in, and Alex is singing it right to her, dancing it right with her, Alex is… feeling it, too.
“My discotheque Juliet teenage dream,I felt it in my chest as she looked at me.I knew we were bound to be together,”
they half-mouth, half-sing together as their bodies move, and they forget that they’re in the bar, they forget that Winn and Kara are singing on the stage above them, forget that James is cheering them on and J’onn is watching with arms folded across his chest and a broad smile, forget everything else, everyone else, because this woman she’s dancing with, this woman whose eyes are sparkling and locked into her own, this woman is her destiny, absolutely and forever.