349. Chapter 349
“Okay, okay, yes, Lyra and I were there last night, but her brother’s safe and sound now, so no art thievery, I swear, we just – ”
“Whoa Winn, slow down. I don’t know where you and Lyra were after your Guardian stint last night and I really don’t want to. That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. But I do have donuts for you, if you… I kind of… I need to talk to you… alone… I mean, I’m sorry, you and Lyra probably have plans – ”
“Name the time and place, my favorite pool shark, and I’ll be there.”
“You gotta stop calling me that.”
“You love it.”
“Do we wanna go back to the public undecency you and Lyra apparently got up to last night?”
“Time and place, Maggie. Uh, Detective Sawyer.”
“8 o'clock. The bar okay for you?”
“Only if we can shoot some pool, my favorite… um… girlfriend of Alex’s…”
“Sure, Winn. Sure.”
She hangs up and she glances at Alex and James and Kara.
“Still not sure why you guys wanted me to be the one to call him.”
“You’re new, Maggie. If you say you want to see him without his girlfriend, he’ll come. He likes you and he doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with you.”
“Because he’s scared of me?”
“Yes, babe. You’re terrifying.”
James and Kara snort, and Alex and Maggie glare teasingly.
“You’re sure Brian’s information’s accurate?” Kara asks one more time.
One more time because Winn is happy, and Winn is giddy, and she doesn’t want to take that from him.
Or, worse, have him turn away from all of them because he’s offended by their intervention.
“Winn might be more scared of your sister than he is of me, but I’ve got fear down to Brian’s boots. He might be a little… odd. But his intel’s never failed me before.”
James sighs and rubs his hand over his face.
“It’s not hard to believe, Kara. I mean, I wish it were, but… you should have seen Lyra go after that boy at the liquor store. He was just a kid, you know, and it was like she had no empathy.”
Maggie sighs and Alex twitches. Maggie takes her hand, because she knows that Alex, of all people, understands Lyra’s tendency to go overboard. To cause pain, and to enjoy it. And they’re working on it together. Slowly. Excrutiatingly.
They’re pretty quiet until 8 o'clock rolls around and Winn strolls into the bar.
His brow furrows immediately, and he points to each of his friends in turn.
“Is this an ambush, Sawyer? I thought it was gonna be just you and me, mano a mano, shooting shots and shooting pool and – ”
“Stop talking and sit, Schott,” Alex cuts him off, and Kara leans over to tone Alex down.
He obeys, silently, staring at James.
“What’s this about, man?”
James clears his throat and folds his hands on the table. He adjusts in his seat and he glances at Kara and he looks back at Winn and he takes a deep breath.
“Winn, man, listen. I haven’t felt… I haven’t felt like I’ve had a brother since Clark. But you, Winn? You’re my brother. And I love that you’re happy, and you deserve that, man, you deserve it so much. But Winn, you’re such a nice guy that it… it can be easy for people to take advantage of you.”
“Like Kara. With Mon-el,” Maggie supplies gently, and Kara nods while holding Alex’s hand across the table.
“But we had an intervention for Kara about Mon-el, it… wait…” Winn looks around and almost stands back up, but James takes one shoulder and Maggie takes another, and they gently, very gently, push him back down to sit. “Is this an… intervention? About Lyra? Because I talked to her, James, and I told you, if you don’t want her on team Guardian, she won’t be, I talked to her – ”
“Yeah, and she apparently broke a glass and did a lot of screaming and accusing you of calling her crazy, Winn,” Kara says, her eyes soft, her voice almost softer.
Winn looks at each of them in turn, stammering.
“She’s… she’s passionate, okay? She just wants to help, and she felt like I was calling her crazy and telling her she wasn’t worth it – ”
“But that’s not what you were telling her, man. And even if you were – to break a glass like that? To yell at you like that?”
“Dude, my sister has superpowers. If she broke every glass she came across when she’d be angry, we… Winn, she’s gotta have more control than that. It’s abusive, dude, she can’t – ”
“Oh, right, Alex, and you can talk about control, and abuse, Miss Get Me a Wrench.”
Alex almost stands, the shadows behind her eyes bursting into flame. Kara and Maggie still her with their hands, their whispers, and James stills Winn with his own.
“Alright, alright! I’m sorry, Alex, that was out of line, I didn’t… I’m sorry, I just… got defensive, I… I’m sorry, Alex.”
“You’re not wrong,” she mutters, like she’d rather admit anything else in the world. “But it just makes me get it even more, Winn. It wouldn’t be acceptable if I carried that… rage… into my relationship with Maggie. Hell, it’s apparently not even acceptable when I carry it into the DEO. So dude, I get it. I sympathize with Lyra, I do. But Winn, she can’t treat you like that. She can’t. It’s not okay.”
His eyes bore into Alex’s for a long, long, long moment. Maggie and Kara exchange a tense glance, and James keeps his eyes focused on his brother.
“But I think I might love her.”
Kara stands and crosses to Winn’s side of the table, kneeling next to him and pulling him into a soft hug. “I know. And I’m so sorry, Winn. But that’s the thing. About you. And, I guess, about me. We love so hard and forgive so easily that it’s almost impossible to see when we’re being treated badly. And you don’t deserve it, Winn. You don’t.”
“You’re all not… mad at me?”
“No!”
“Absolutely not!”
“No.”
“Dude, why would we be mad at you?”
“Because I’m stupid, apparently, I’m just… stupid.”
“You’re not. You’re not stupid, Winn. Your kindness is… it’s beautiful, man. But you gotta look out for yourself. And sometimes you forget to, or don’t know you deserve to, so…”
“So you have your family to help get you there.”
“Family, huh, Kara?” he looks down at her, his lips twisting into a soft smile.
“Family,” she confirms, and Winn doesn’t remember ever feeling this loved. This cared for. This… home.