295. Chapter 295

Kara knows something’s wrong the moment she enters the building.

Maggie’s heartbeat is steady, but elevated, hard, and while she’s generally learned to avoid walking into Alex or Maggie’s places – or her own bedroom during game night – when their heartbeats are quick and rapid, Maggie is alone.

She’s alone and loud hip hop that Kara can’t identify is pounding along with a rhythmic thudding.

Kara sighs.

Maggie’s working on her heavy bag.

Normally, Kara wouldn’t give it a second thought – Maggie loves that thing – but she’d had breakfast with James this morning and he’d regaled her with tales of how hard Maggie had just pushed him – and herself – in the gym.

So this probably isn’t her regular workout.

She gives up on the door after it becomes clear that Maggie’s not going to hear it, so she jets around the building and raps, instead, on the living room window.

Maggie’s face – sweat-streaked with focused, furious, intense eyes and messy hair swept off her neck in a high bun – doesn’t change when she sees Kara, and she doesn’t stop bouncing on the balls of her feet.

But she does tug at her gloves with her teeth, and she sheds one to yank the window open for her girlfriend’s little sister.

“Need something, Little Danvers?” she yells over her music, glad she doesn’t have to turn it down because of Kara’s superhearing. Without waiting for an answer, she replaces her glove and goes back to slamming combinations into the bag, working on her breathing and hip rotation with singular focus.

Kara watches her for a long moment.

“How do you do that? Alex says I always drop my left shoulder before I throw a punch, that it gives me away.”

Maggie sighs and gestures Kara in front of her, still weaving up and down on the balls of her feet.

“You shouldn’t have to drop your shoulder because it shouldn’t be up like that to begin with. Keep the tension in your core, not your shoulders.”

She reaches around Kara’s body and hesitates before touching her. Kara nods, suddenly breathless, suddenly shy, and Maggie is somehow both gentle and firm as she shows Kara with a splayed hand on her stomach, how to brace her abs, with gently tapping fingers on her shoulder, prompting her to relax it.

“Good, Little Danvers. Now when you punch, try not to send my bag through the wall, okay?”

Kara grins and pulls her punches, and Maggie surveys her with sharp eyes.

“You seemed pretty in danger of putting it through the wall yourself, Maggie.”

She catches the question in Kara’s voice, and she grunts and shifts Kara by the hips to the side so she can go at the bag again.

“It’s nothing, it’s whatever. Just a workout.”

“I heard you already had an exhausting one this morning.” There’s no judgment in Kara’s voice, just concern, but Maggie launches a rough roundhouse kick at the bag anyway.

“Our line of work, you can’t train too hard.”

“Actually, you – ”

“I’m fine, Kara. What did you need, anyway?”

Kara slips her phone out of her pocket and texts Alex as Maggie launches a new assault on the bag.

“Winn and I are in the mood for pool, and we wondered if you wanted to come.”

“No phone?” Maggie asks without looking at her, and Kara’s heart threatens to break, because she knows her sister’s girlfriend is breaking, but she doesn’t know why.

And her worst nightmare – both of their worst nightmares, she imagines – is not knowing how to help.

“You weren’t answering.” Kara finally reaches over and turns down the music, because her own senses are starting to overload. Maggie opens her mouth to object, but glances at Kara’s face and nods immediately, silently, like she understands without needing an explanation. Because she does.

Kara finds herself hoping that her sister marries this woman.

Maggie keeps her gaze on Kara’s face and her eyes soften somewhat. She stills for the first time since Kara flew in and rips off her gloves with a sigh.

“You ever just… for no reason, everything feels like the world’s ending? Except it’s not actually?”

Kara nods softly, slowly. “This one of those days?”

Maggie just stares at her face for a long moment, like she’s evaluating how much she wants to risk, and before she can decide, Alex’s key scrapes the lock.

One look at Maggie’s somehow both guarded and open face, the sweat pouring down her body, the slow swiveling of the heavy bag, and the concern in Kara’s eyes tells her everything she needs to know.

“Oh sweetie. I got this.” She strides over to Kara, squeezing her hands and kissing her cheek gratefully. “You wanna go get us some takeout?”

“I’ll go to that organic place in Austin, okay?” she tells Maggie, who fights tears and shakes her head, struck silent by the way the Danvers girls just… want to care for her. For some reason she can’t fathom.

“You don’t have to, Little – ”

But Kara’s already kissed her cheek, smiled softly at her sister, and flown back out the window.

Silence rises in her wake, and Maggie goes to put her gloves back on.

“Whoa whoa, okay,” Alex reaches out with gentle hands to stop her. “You don’t have to talk, babe, but you need to be gentler with your body, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Maggie stares at the ground and Alex kisses her forehead.

Maggie backs up.

“I’m all sweaty and gross.”

“Sweaty, yes. Gross? No. Never.”

Maggie sighs and Alex waits until she knows Maggie’s ready for a tiny push.

“One of those days?”

Maggie nods, humiliation written everywhere on her body, and Alex’s heart shatters.

“Well, Kara will be back in a little under an hour. You know what that gives us enough time for?”

“I’m not really up for sex, Danvers.”

Alex pffts. “No! Here, you shower. It’ll help. I’ll warm the towels for you. And I’ll have a surprise waiting when you come out, okay?”

Maggie sighs skeptically, exhaustedly.

“Do you trust me, babe?”

Maggie nods, because if she’s not beating the life out of something, it’s about all she can do.

“Good. So go. Shower.”

She does. She does and she hates every moment of it, especially the parts that make her feel somewhat, somehow, better.

But her throat unsticks and when she steps out of the bathroom in the tank and boxers Alex had slipped in and left for her, she speaks, because she panics.

Because her studio isn’t all that big, yet she can’t see Alex.

Alex, who told her to trust her. And yet she couldn’t see her anywhere.

“Alex.”

“Down here, babe!”

Alex’s voice is muffled and the smile in it, the barely restrained, bursting enthusiasm, is so clear that Maggie’s lips start tilting upward of their own accord.

“Danvers, what – “

Because as she rounds the couch, she finds Alex buried in a fort made, it seems, of every single pillow and blanket Maggie owns.

“It’s the Bad Day Tunnel. Or hole. Or fort. Or burrow. I can’t decide what it should be called. Kara would always call it the Fortress of Sistertude, but I very much don’t want you to be my sister, so I figure we should come up with something else.”

In spite of herself, Maggie plops down in the fort next to Alex, who tosses a blanket over her shoulders and lets her lean into her body.

“What does one do in the Bad Day… thing?” she asks in a monotone, because she’s scared that if she allows any emotion into her voice – like the overwhelming feeling of being cared for, being heard, being seen, that Alex is giving her so perfectly – she’ll break.

“One has a bad day. It’s where you go when you’re extra sad. You can do anything you want in the fort. Drink scotch – don’t worry, the scotch is for you, I brought myself root beer – ” And sure enough, there are bottles and glasses in the center of the fort – “and when Kara gets back, eat food. There can be music and there can be crying and there can be yelling and there can be cuddling, and I brought tissues and your favorite stuffed animals and your phone in case you want to just zone out and scroll through Instagram or something.”

“So basically you made me a depression tent. Where I can be depressed and it’s okay.”

Alex’s eyes fly wide, thinking that Maggie hates it. Thinking that she’s messed up, thinking that she’s hurt her more, offended her, been insensitive to her, not heard her.

“Yes?” Her voice is small and her voice is terrified, but then Maggie’s soft lips are on hers, and it’s one of the softest kisses they’ve ever shared, because Maggie has the energy to beat a heavy bag senseless but she doesn’t have the energy to sustain a passionate kiss, so Alex lets it stay soft, stay gentle, stay tender, stay perfect.

“I love you, Alex,” Maggie whispers into her lips, and Alex swears she won’t cry.

“I love you too, Maggie. However you feel, whenever you feel it.”

They’re both asleep in the depression tent when Kara returns with three heaping bags of takeout, and she smiles and sets the bags down and crawls into the fort, the tent, the safety, with her sister and her future sister-in-law. Alex feels Kara’s warmth and hums happily, shifting in her sleep so Kara can slip onto Maggie’s other side and help Alex hold her safe, hold her steady, hold her loved.