495. Chapter 495
Maxwell Lord is furious.
Which makes sense. He’s always furious about something.
Last year, it was that sophomore Alex Danvers had the nerve to say no to him – a junior – when he asked her to the junior prom.
Whatever, he’d figured. People think of her as a hopeless nerd anyway, he’d figured. Especially with her new tag-along little sister, he’d figured. She’ll just be like all the other sophomores and have to wait for their own junior prom, he’d figured.
He’d figured wrong.
As it turned out, he hadn’t been the only junior with an eye for the almost unfairly brilliant sophomore girl.
Because Alex had turned him down, and had gone to the junior prom with Maggie Sawyer.
That had been bad enough. But this year? This year, things were even worse.
This year, Maggie was a senior, Alex was a junior, and they were unmistakably that couple.
The couple that all the younger queer kids – especially that freshman boy with the oversized collared shirts and silver stud earring – followed around and genuinely befriended.
The couple that most of the straight cis couples were jealous of, because how could a high school relationship – or any relationship, for that matter – possible by that healthy? That happy?
Not that the girls didn’t have their problems.
He’d heard rumors that Sawyer’s parents had kicked her out for being gay, and even though they definitely weren’t friends, Max had to admit that the rumor made his blood boil.
He’d heard that Danvers had almost gotten suspended for breaking that Malverne kid’s nose after he kept following them around, taunting them about what team Maggie had convinced Alex to play for. He’d smirked when he heard that Danvers had broken the kid’s nose and then high-fived that Schott boy.
But those hardships?
Only seemed to make Maggie Sawyer and Alex Danvers even more legendary at Midvale High.
And that was all fine.
But this latest development?
This latest development was simply unacceptable.
“How could I not be on the A Team, Ms. M’orzz? Is there anyone in this school – except maybe Luthor and Schott, if they’re having a good day and I’m having a bad day – who can handle the building events as well as I can?”
Ms. M’orzz regards Max evenly, somewhat resignedly, over her glasses, over pressed-together fingertips and slightly raised eyebrows.
“Max, Science Olympiad isn’t only about technical mastery and scientific smarts. Which you undeniably have. Science Olympiad is about teamwork and generosity of spirit. Which you’re still working to develop. I have no doubt that you’ll bring home medals for us. On the B Team.”
“But Ms. M’orzz, everyone knows that the A Team is for smarter students – “
“No, Mr. Lord. It isn’t. Both teams represent our school at the competition, and both teams – “
“So Sawyer gets to work with Danvers on both Forensics and Astronomy?”
Ms. M’orzz smiles slightly through pursed lips. “They’ve proven throughout our in-house events to make a really great team, Mr. Lord. I have every confidence that you will shine on the B Team, just as they’ll shine on the A Team. Perhaps think of this as a leadership opportunity.”
He does shine on the B Team during the competition. He brings home silver medals in events from Boomilever to Electric Vehicle to Helicopters, and he isn’t bested by any other schools; just by Winn and Lena from his own school.
But Alex and Maggie?
They make sure the silver medalists from other high schools don’t even come close to touching their event scores.
They work seamlessly in the lab during the Forensics event.
Other teams come in with a plan to divide the work between them: who will analyze the polymers, who will dust and identify the fingerprints, who will analyze the fake blood spatters and who will take charge of the entomology component.
But Alex and Maggie come in with a deeply organic understanding of how the other thinks, what the other knows, what stresses the other out.
So Maggie reads their simulated case while Alex matches whorl patterns; Maggie takes the striker out of a frustrated Alex’s hand with a kiss to the back of her neck that pushes her goggles into her face, sending them both into a soft spate of giggling before Maggie successfully lights the Bunsen burner; and they murmur together over the polymer samples, the photographs of footprints, the descriptions of fake larvae at their false crime scene.
Together, they do what no other Sci Oly team has done – they complete the Forensics event, the entire exam, even though it is always designed to take too much work, to be too difficult, to possibly complete within the hour they’re given.
They have no time to do anything but kiss briefly, excitedly, adrenaline coursing through their veins and their brains buzzing, as they strip off their gloves, lab coats, and goggles, hastily and efficiently – their hands always seeming to anticipate where the others’ want to go – packing up their forensics kit and passing it off to Winn, waiting in the hall, fresh out of his Circuits Lab event.
“How’d you do?” he asks as he takes their kit from Maggie’s hand.
“How’d you think?” Alex grins, and Winn whoops.
“Awesome, yes! Okay, I don’t have another event until twelve: I’ll take this back to the room. Astronomy’s on the third floor, room – “
“334, I remember! Thanks, Schott!” Maggie smiles over her shoulder as she and Alex dash for the stairwell, hand in hand, for their Astronomy event, starting promptly in five minutes.
Alex knocks out the calculations while Maggie jots down all the definitions. They whisper together, in a classroom full of other astronomy nerds from across the region, all adorned in t-shirts designed by and for their different schools.
They whisper about the most effective methods of exoplanet detection and whether the question on quasars was supposed to already include knowledge of gravitational lensing or if they should scribble a brief explanation for that phenomenon in their answer, as well. (They do: never can be too thorough.)
They make a point to kiss in front of everyone at the award ceremony, when their medals are clanking together on their chests and their entire team is cheering, chanting, because they won, they won, they won, and their school gets to go to States.
They make a point of it because we should kiss the girls we wanna kiss, and they’re flush with victory and adrenaline, and god, god, do they wanna kiss each other.
They both hand the picture Winn snaps with his phone on the inside of their lockers when they get back to school on Monday.
Because if they can’t help but being amazing nerds?
Might as well be amazing nerds together: even Max Lord’s got to admit it.