509. Chapter 509

Kara isn’t the first to notice the brunette jogging with the retriever. But she’s the first to notice that Alex is staring.

Because hell.

Alex never notices when she’s staring.

Kara nudges her in the ribs slightly, a small grin on her face.

“You like going for runs, too,” she singsongs, and Alex splutters.

“What are you – “

“You could ask her, you know. If she wants to go running with your dogs together.” Kara giggles. “It’d be like a double date. You and the girl. Gertrude and the retriever.”

Alex glances at the woman one last time – guiltily, now that her sister’s called her out, because true to form, she hadn’t even realized she’d been staring, open-mouthed, at the woman in a tank top and biking shorts, glancing down at her retriever every few steps and egging her on, a grin on her face and sweat running down her toned arms… Alex gives her head a swift shake – and forces herself to meet Kara’s gaze.

“Gertrude and I don’t mind being single. We have each other. And we have you. Isn’t that right, Gertrude?” Alex squats down to take her husky’s face into her hands, rubbing her nose onto Gertrude’s until the pup squirms away.

Kara laughs, and she relents.

For now.

Because Alex hadn’t noticed – Alex might be the best secret agent Kara’s ever met, but damn, does she fail to notice a lot when it comes to women – that the jogging brunette had nearly tripped over herself when she and her dog turned down the path facing Alex. When her eyes had fallen on Alex.

So Kara just grins, and makes a mental note to ensure that Alex will come back to the park with Gertrude at the same time tomorrow.

And she does, because she may put up a solid fight, but when Kara, J’onn, James, and Winn all join forces to tell her that she needs to take more breaks, she needs to spend more time taking care of herself – when they bring Gertrude into the DEO as both proof and incentive – Alex relents.

And she finds herself in the same park, along the water front, watching while Gertrude plays off leash, while she dashes across the grass, ebullient and powerful and frenetic and purposeful – part Kara, part Alex, through and through.

She takes her eyes away from her husky when a chewed up tennis ball lands by her feet. When a retriever comes bounding up, all energy and spirit and focus, to grab it.

A retriever that Alex recognizes from the day before.

Her stomach backflips as she offers the dog the ball, as her ears take in the sexiest voice she’s ever, ever heard.

“Aww, come on, Spotty, let the pretty lady enjoy her day, huh?”

Alex tries to remind herself that she can talk to women. That she’s good at talking to women. That women like her, that women find her attractive, that women…

She looks up, and she’s lost.

Because the woman from yesterday, the woman jogging up to her, with sparkling eyes and the hints of dimples playing on her face and her hair pulled back in low ponytail and a sleeveless flannel shirt that Alex immediately wants to unbutton and jeans that Alex immediately wants to take off?

It’s going to be harder to talk to this woman than it would be to take down all of Cadmus single-handedly.

But she said she’s pretty, she said she’s pretty, she said she’s pretty.

Which makes it even harder.

“I… she’s not… bothering… she doesn’t have any spots.”

The woman stops and chuckles as her pup nearly barrels her over, eager to show her that she’d found the ball, eager for her praise.

Hell, Alex can’t blame her. She’d like this woman’s praise, too.

The woman tilts her head and squints slightly.

“Come again?” she asks, and some thought forms in Alex’s foggy head about making this woman come as many times as she wants, but the English language – or Russian, or Kryptonian, or any of the others Alex can normally pull up so easily – is simply refusing to translate through her lips right now.

The woman’s probably not a lesbian, anyway.

And even if she is, or even if she’s bi, she’s probably got someone.

There’s no way she’s into girls and single.

No way.

And, single or not, Alex had better stammer out some words before she loses patience, before she loses that curious gleam in her eye.

“Your dog. She doesn’t have any spots. But you… you called her Spotty. Spot. Right? But she doesn’t have any spots.”

Good god. She sounds like Kara around Cat Grant. Like Kara around Lena Luthor.

It must run in the family.

The woman just laughs, and it’s a sound Alex wants to hear over and over and over again.

“I know. I uh… I was into irony as a teenager.”

Alex grins. “My sister says my punk rock phase was very – oh hey honey!” She drops to one knee as Gertrude comes barreling back over, alternating between her arms and wanting to sniff the newcomers.

“Can she – “

“Hey, Spot, you wanna try to make a new friend? Sure, yeah, go ahead.”

They watch as they circle each other, as they sniff each other, as Spot drops the tennis ball from her mouth and nudges it toward Gertrude.

They watch their pups bond, and then they watch each other.

Both of their breaths hitch when their eyes lock, Alex still on one knee.

“So uh… so you’ve had her since you were a kid,” she clears her throat, hoping the woman can’t tell why her heart is beating so damn fast and then reminding herself sternly that she’s probably not, in fact, Kryptonian.

She blinks as she stands, as she takes the opportunity to take in Maggie’s entire body. As she notices the detective shield on her hip. She points to it casually. “NCPD’s finest.”

The woman shrugs. “Sometimes. Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division.” She reaches her hand out, and when Alex takes it, her world inverts. Maggie’s hand is calloused but smooth, her grip firm but not overcompensating for anything.

Her handshake is perfect, and god, so are her eyes.

“Alex Danvers, FBI.”

Maggie’s eyebrow shoots up. “Patrolling the park, Danvers?” she grins, and Alex fights to act casual, because their hands are still connected.

But Maggie isn’t moving away, and dammit, neither is she.

“Boss-enforced lunch break. Something about working too hard.”

Maggie grins, and Alex thinks she feels her thumb stroking the back of her hand briefly, gently, before they finally release each other from their grip.

Alex’s entire body keens at the loss.

“Same,” Maggie says, and Alex needs her touch again.

“Science Division, huh? And a detective. You must be good.”

Words. Words coming out of her mouth in coherent sentences.

Kara will be so proud. Lucy will be even more so.

Maggie shrugs, and Alex decides that she likes Maggie’s balance of self-deprecation and knowledge that she is, in fact, good at what she does.

“Quantico’s only supposed to take the best. And seems like they only let you guys have the cutest puppies, too. May I?”

Alex glances down at Gertrude as Maggie sinks into a squat, and Gertrude seems eager to get to know this new woman.

There’ll definitely be an extra treat for her tonight.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, and she watches with a slowly melting heart as Maggie lets Gertrude sniff her before touching her, and when she does touch her, starting on her back, starting slow, before bringing her hands to the more intimate space of her face.

“You grew up around animals,” Alex observes, squatting down, too, and wondering what it would be like if this was… family.

Maggie stiffens, and Alex apologizes.

“I’m sorry. FBI training. The way you are with Gertrude. That’s all, I didn’t do background on you or anything – “

“Sorry, yeah, no no, I… yeah, I did. Blue Springs, Nebraska. Left when I was seventeen and never looked back, but uh… I do miss the creatures.”

“Took Spot with you though, huh?”

Maggie turns to her friend and kisses the top of her head. “She drove the getaway bike,” she grins, and Alex watches an expression that reminds her of the one Kara gets sometimes when she talks about Krypton flit over Maggie’s face.

“Can I take you to dinner? Or coffee? Or – it doesn’t have to be coffee, it – but cops love coffee. Is that a stereotype? Coffee and stakeouts, and – I’m sorry, I’m rambling, you’re probably not even – “

“Not even what?” Maggie asks, her voice soft and her hands still and her eyes fire.

Gay.

Single.

Interested.

“Available,” Alex stammers, and Maggie knows.

“To a woman like you? With a pup like this? I’m as available as you want me to be, Danvers,” she says, and Alex decides that when Maggie finally says her first name, it’ll be her favorite sound in the world, judging by how her body reacts, how her heart leaps, just from the sound of her last name on this woman’s lips.

God, is Kara going to be proud.