226. Chapter 226

Maggie knows exactly who’s banging on her door, and she knows exactly why.

“I’m so sorry, Ade, Kara’s just running a bit late, we were gonna meet you there – “

But the rest of her sentence is cut off by the blur of limbs that surround her suddenly, and tears sting Maggie’s eyes, because Adrian hasn’t hugged her this hard since election night, because she knows he’s crying and she wants to destroy the entire world to take away his pain.

Because he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve it at all.

“Ade,” she hears Alex whisper behind her back, and she hears James, J’onn, and Winn grow quiet deeper in the living room.

“Sorry for assaulting your girlfriend, Alex,” Adrian chokes over Maggie’s shoulder, and the three of them let out a strangled laugh as Adrian pulls back from Maggie’s arms and falls more limply into Alex’s firm embrace.

“You smell like gunpowder,” he croaks after a moment, and she laughs, more genuinely this time, as she pulls back from him and lets him step into the apartment.

“Shooting range. Maggie’s go-to when she’s angry is the heavy bag. Mine’s shooting stuff.”

Adrian’s eyes flood with a fresh layer of tears.

“You were that angry… for my sake?”

Alex stares down at him like she’s never seen him before. “Adrian, I… of course. How could I not be… homicidally angry about all… this?”

He takes his full bottom lip into his mouth and turns to Maggie. “Your girl’s a keeper, Detective Sawyer.”

Maggie grimaces at him. “Yeah, you should’ve seen her after he did the Muslim ban. I’d hate to be those targets.”

Adrian steps past both of them toward where James, Winn, and J’onn are standing, eyes all downcast, like they’re afraid to intrude on the three of their moments together.

He pulls up short right before he hugs James, because James’s shirt makes his heart nearly beat out of his chest.

“Trans Lives Matter?” he croaks, and James pulls him in for that hug.

“If some white kid wore it, it’d be irritating and appropriating, but I figure I can get away with it, huh?” James says softly into Adrian’s hair.

“Yeah, I’m stuck with the less cool shirt,” Winn smiles as Adrian turns his attention to him, tugging out his t-shirt, which reads, simply, This is What a Feminist Looks Like.

“Nah, feminism’s always a good shirt, man,” Adrian fist bumps him approvingly as Maggie leans into Alex’s side and Alex’s kisses the top of her head.

“J’onn,” Adrian greets respectfully, always slightly intimidated by the stoic man, but J’onn puts a soft hand on Adrian’s shoulder.

“I know it doesn’t mean much, but you always have a restroom and a shower in the DEO, young man.”

“It means a lot, sir. Thank you.”

J’onn smiles and looks beyond Adrian to Alex.

“Where is your sister, Ale – “

A rush of papers fluttering everywhere chills the room slightly as a blonde blur speeds through the open window.

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m sorry Adrian, I know we’re late, I just had to make sure we had an entire team of reporters on it, not just me – “

Adrian doesn’t hear the rest of her explanation, because he’s hugging her so hard it nearly knocks the wind out of even her.

“Ready for this, kid?” Maggie asks with her eyes tense on on her watch.

Adrian pulls back from Kara and nods grimly, unzipping his running jacket to reveal a homemade black t-shirt that reads, I Am Not a Threat in big white letters, with smaller print blocked under it, reading, I mean, I am – I threaten your cissexist white supremacy proudly – but I am targeted in your bathrooms, not the other way around.

It’s not a long walk to National City’s queer Center, and Adrian’s eyes are steady as they all walk together, Alex and Maggie with their fingers interlaced, Kara constantly whooshing here and there as Supergirl, as Kara Danvers, as Supergirl, as Kara Danvers, James snapping photographs, Winn and J’onn keeping a careful eye out for trouble.

Because the crowd is big, the protest is impressive, and Adrian is vulnerable.

Vulnerable because, no matter what his shirt says, Maggie’s colleagues may well be ordered to act otherwise.

But when Val and Yve and Jordan and Mateo and Sam disentangle themselves from the chanting and the sign-waving to bring Adrian into their arms, Maggie knows he’ll be okay. Because there’s no way his family will permit otherwise.

The crowd goes quiet when Alex helps boost him into the overturned bucket someone had brought out for speakers, and Adrian holds Maggie’s eyes and trembling fists at his side, staring out at a sea of his people surrounded by a sea of people who will now be ordered to keep him out of his own bathrooms, and his voice shakes when he starts speaking, but only for a moment.

“My name is Adrian Rodriguez, and I am a man. I am a man, but that’s not the wildest or most exciting thing about me. The wildest thing, the most exciting thing? You ready for this?”

There are one or two yesses, and he pauses, he grins, he takes strength from the steely pride in Maggie’s eyes.

“Nah, come on, yall ready for this?”

More whoops, now, more cheers, more encouragement, sweeps the whole crowd, and he nods, and he continues.

“The wildest, most exciting thing about me? Sometimes – at least a few times a day, more when I’m keeping hydrated, you know, which I need to do more often – sometimes, I have to pee!”

There’s raucous screaming and raucous laughter tinted with rage.

“The fact of the matter is, that just like the ban that demonizes our Muslim siblings; just like the plans to strip health care from the people who need it most; just like the plans to continue the genocide of Native Peoples for the sake of the same companies that bring you the warmest February day on record – this new order is about nothing but wielding power over those who have least, about spreading hatred and blame onto people who deserve it least. Because when I walk into the men’s room, I am no threat. But I am threatened. And when my sisters – especially my sisters of color – roll and walk into women’s restrooms, girls’ restrooms, they are no threat. But they are threatened, and they are beaten, and worse. And when my nonbinary and gender nonconforming siblings – can I get an amen, Sammy?! – are faced with the agonizing choice of where will be safer, where they are least likely to be assaulted, least likely to have the cops called on them, they are not the threat. Policies like this are the threat. Systems like this are the threat. Hatred like this is the threat. So what do we do?”

“Move up, fight back!” Val supplies, and Adrian grins down at her as he hops down from the bucket into Maggie’s arms, as his chant, her chant, their chant, sweeps across the crowd, into flesh and into bones and into the night.

“Thank you,” he yells to be heard into Maggie’s ear, and she shakes her head with shining, proud eyes at him.

“You, Adrian. You, you, you.”