432. Chapter 432

Maggie wants to hurt all the people who have ever hurt Alex.

Who have ever marked her body like this.

Even though Alex is proud of them. Of her scars. Of the way her history is mapped on her body, the way her ability to protect the people she loves – her ability to survive – has tattooed itself onto her skin.

Maggie still wants to hurt anyone who ever hurt Alex.

Her Alex.

And Alex watches her closely, watches her as she traces her scars, her bruises, with her lips.

Watches her as she discovers her life’s history through the age of her marks.

“That one was Kara, actually,” she whispers as Maggie’s lips linger tenderly on one on her forearm. “The first people she saved. There was an explosion, and I got treated to a compound fracture.”

Maggie nods and traces the scar with her tongue. Alex smiles and shivers.

“You don’t have to tell me about them,” she tells her, and Alex shakes her head.

“I want to tell you about them. If you wanna hear about them.”

“I wanna hear all about you, Alex Danvers,” Maggie says as she shifts her body so her lips can press against a jagged scar on her side.

“That one has a less… endearing story. One of my first missions out, I got my team out of the path of one of the most notorious Fort Rozz escapees, but I didn’t get out myself. I don’t remember much about what happened, I just know that J’onn rescued me, and that that particular escapee had a uh… a unique set of claws.”

Maggie shudders, but not from Alex, and Alex has never felt as loved – is this love? because that’s certainly what it feels like – as she does right now, like this, with Maggie’s lips worshiping her body, her history, her pain, her resilience.

“This one,” Alex points to one on her thigh, and Maggie crawls down so she can observe, so she can kiss it whole. Alex chuckles wryly. “I took a bullet for my bulletproof sister. She was so angry at me. And I mean, it was instinct, you know? My entire training was about protecting Kara, so when someone fired at her, I just… it was one of our earlier missions. I couldn’t tell if Kara or J’onn was more furious at me.”

“My gorgeous soldier,” Maggie whispers, shaking her head and offering Alex all the love she has to give.

Alex continues the stories throughout the night – bullet wounds and knife swipes and plasma burns and miracles of DEO medicine – and Maggie’s kill list grows, but so does her love for Alex, her love for this woman who wears her history like a flag, who wears her skin like a badge of all she’s survived, like a promise of all she will survive.