245. Chapter 245

She’s not used to being fussed over.

The first time she fell off her two-wheeler, her dad started to run after her to gather her in his arms, but when he saw her friend Tommy – six years old and already walking on the tips of his toes and swishing his hips – he stopped, grimaced, and let her cry it out on her own.

She’d stopped crying at flesh wounds after that.

When she went through the torture they put her through at the academy, she nursed her bruises privately, iced her pride in secret.

The first time she was hurt on the job – getting in the way of some white guy trying to beat on a queer brown kid – her girlfriend at the time had arched an eyebrow, had asked why she’d bothered anyway, and I guess you can’t take me to dinner then.

When she was kidnapped and Alex first patched her up – when she was still in awe of the James Bond spy lab this smoking girl who literally threw herself into fire to keep her safe, who’d insisted on treating her herself, whose fingers could break someone’s neck but were so gentle in the medical bay – she didn’t even bother telling the woman who dumped her soon thereafter about her kidnapping, about her injuries, because she didn’t want to be accused, again, of being obsessed with work, and when her ex had stripped her clothes off that night in a rush of fuck me so I know you’re still mine, she’d ignored the wince of pain she barely made, because I thought tonight was supposed to be about me and well it’s your precious job and you came out with me anyway, so it really can’t be that bad.

When she was shot by Cyborg-Superman and finally let herself pass out after telling Supergirl, Kara, Supergirl, to just get the bastard, she came to in Alex’s arms, Alex’s steely eyes angry, focused, rimmed with just a touch of terror, as her fingers worked to carve out the infection, to synthesize the right balance of chemicals to counteract the poisons his laser shot was laced with.

She hated needles, and she hated stitches, but she’d never felt so… cared for.

And now?

Now that she and Alex are officially dating?

She’s never been fussed over before, but Alex is making up for lost time like it’s going out of style.

Because one night she comes home limping, and Alex won’t even let her hobble to the chairs at the breakfast island. She carries her, bridal-style, to the couch, and she helps Maggie off with her jeans, and she mutters about incompetent easy bake local cop medics and does it hurt when I do that, babe and honestly who do I have to kill for hurting you like this and I’ll have Susan come by with some meds from the DEO, you’ll be pain-free and healed in no time.

And another night – one of those graveyard shifts for both of them – they’re in the field together and Maggie takes a blow to the ribs and Alex is on the guy before Maggie even knows she’s within range, and Alex’s hands are gentle as she tugs up Maggie’s shirt, as she checks for bruising, for breaks, and when she gets her home, her lips trace a hundred different pathways over Maggie’s purple torso, her lips make art of Maggie’s bruising, her lips forge a home in easing Maggie’s pain.

And when Maggie makes her work partner swear not to call Alex, because it’s the middle of the day, man, she has a very important job, you know and it’s fine, it’s barely a fracture, come on, I don’t want to worry her, he calls Alex anyway, and she’s there within ten, and within thirty she has Maggie laid up in bed with eight different pillows and a veggie burger and fries from her favorite burger joint and a two-liter bottle of seltzer and three books on Maggie’s to-read list and the TV remote with Netflix all cued up and ready to go.

“Babe, why do you always make such a fuss when I get hurt?” Maggie finally asks after Alex spends a full hour soothing her burnt back with aloe and absent-mindedly serenading her with that soft voice of hers.

Because even after all this time, she can’t quite understand. And she doesn’t quite believe it.

A look of pure confusion settles over Alex’s features. “Maggie, why wouldn’t I make a fuss? Hell, I don’t make enough of a fuss, I… you deserve to always be fussed over, whether you’re hurt or not. Don’t you… don’t you know that by now?”

It takes a long time for Maggie to swallow the lump in her throat down deep enough to answer the woman with the lethal, gentle fingers and the steely, soft eyes.

“Alex, you’re the one woman who can make me believe that. Thank you.”

“It’s called being loved, get used to it, Sawyer.”