430. Chapter 430

Lucy’s closer to her.

Physically, anyway.

Maggie is on the other side of the table – though her body is stiff and she’s more than ready to step in.

But Lucy’s closer to her and J’onn will put her on probation if she breaks someone else’s nose, so instead of decking the frat boy with alcohol on his breath and sex on his mind, Alex tosses her arm around Lucy and tells the guy she’s taken.

Lucy catches on immediately, nodding and slipping her arm around Maggie’s waist.

The gesture looks too familiar, too intimate, and Maggie is bristling, now, for an entirely different reason than she was a moment ago.

She and Alex are just friends – hell, Alex and Lucy are just friends – but Maggie can’t take her eyes off the way their arms are wrapped around each other, the way Lucy looks protective, the way she stopped into the bar to meet them before changing out of the military uniform that is so much more intimidating-looking than the lowly detective shield on Maggie’s belt.

“Nah, you two are just friends, I didn’t see you doing any couple-y things bef – “

But then Maggie’s stomach is sinking and her brain is exploding, because Lucy is turning Alex’s face to hers, and she’s closing her eyes and she’s parting her lips and Alex is kissing her back and Maggie doesn’t know if she never wants to stop watching or if she wants to run out the door and never look back.

She settles for stepping around the table, putting her body between the gaping guy and the woman who’s supposed to be her best friend.

The woman who – she can’t deny it anymore, not now, not the way her stomach is churning and her eyes are burning to see her kiss another girl who’s just a friend, just a friend, just doing her a favor, just a friend, but god are they using tongue? – she can’t deny anymore than she’s solidly in love with.

She puts her body between Alex’s and the guy’s, and she stares coolly up into his face and she decides that if she has to take her anger out on someone, he’ll do just fine.

“Lady’s clearly not interested, man – move along.”

She fingers her badge and he practically snarls, but he obeys.

Maggie’s eyes close and she savors the moment before she has to turn around and watch the aftermath of… whatever just happened between Alex and Lucy.

“You defended me,” Alex’s voice jolts through her spine, and Maggie almost jumps.

“Lucy seemed to have it under control. I was just insurance,” Maggie shrugs, and she wavers, unable to decide whether to sit back down or to plead some excuse and leave to hit up the gym, to cry alone in her bed. To scream into her pillow and to bathe in her own pain.

Lucy and Alex exchange a glance, and Alex reaches for Maggie’s hand.

Maggie pulls back.

“Mags, you… are you okay? Did that guy hurt you? Did – “

“Well you wouldn’t know, would you, you were too busy making out with someone who’s just supposed to be your friend.”

“Maggie, what – “

“Sawyer, listen – “

“No, it’s whatever, Danvers, I didn’t mean… you know what, I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry, obviously you can kiss whoever the hell you want to, and you know I love you, Lucy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – “

“What did you mean then, Maggie?”

Alex is standing, now, hand still extended, still reaching for Maggie’s, and Lucy watches them with a small smile on her face.

“I’m gonna… go find my own date,” she murmurs, knowing full well that neither Alex nor Maggie fully registers her words, and not minding in the slightest.

“Maggie, what did you mean?” Alex wants to know, because Maggie is still just staring at her.

Staring at her like she’s wavering on a precipice, and Alex is the wind.

But Alex is also the parachute, the protection from the fall.

“I meant it should’ve been me, Danvers. Because I… I want to be the one you kiss, and not just because some guy’s hitting on you. I… I wanna kiss you, Alex. I wanna do so much more than kiss you.”

It takes Alex so long to respond that Maggie almost goes into her bag for an anti-anxiety pill.

It takes Alex so long to respond that Maggie can hear her own heart beating, her own blood pounding through her veins.

Her own fate being decided by this woman, this incredible fucking woman.

“Then kiss me,” is what Alex ends up whispering, and when Maggie does – god, god, when Maggie does – Lucy whoops loudly from across the bar, and tells anyone who will listen, and even the people who won’t, that those are her girls, her friends, she got them together, she did it, she gets all the credit, she knew it all along, and aren’t they just the cutest?