576. Chapter 576

Maggie’s worried that Alex will pace a hole into the floor and Kara’s worried that Alex will stress eat all the donuts before she gets a chance to.

And Alex is just… Alex is just worried.

Because they’ve been through this before. Over and over again, first with Kara, then with Maggie.

Of course Adrian will be fine with it. How could he not be fine with it?

But they’re Alex Danvers, and Alex Danvers somehow both overthinks everything and lives on pure instinct, so of course they’re pacing a hole into the floor and stress eating all the donuts in the apartment.

“Babe, you gonna leave some for your sister?” Maggie asks softly, holding her hands out toward Alex’s waist, but waiting before she touches them. Waiting for Alex’s needy nod, at which point Maggie melts forward into them, pressing her stomach flush against Alex’s back, holding them just the way they like, just the way they asked for with their nod.

“Sorry,” they murmur, absently trying to wipe powdered sugar off their shirt.

Maggie chuckles softly. “It’s fine, babe, I just don’t want to be stuck in an apartment with a Danvers sib with a raging stomachache, a Danvers sister with a raging hunger for more donuts, and a teenage boy who’s almost as likely as Kara to burn the place down if he doesn’t get his pre-dinner donuts.”

“I will get a stomachache, won’t I?” Alex sighs, ceding the rest of their powdered sugar morsel to Kara, who snatches it with eager hands but a sober face.

“Alex, Adrian loves you. He’s gonna be proud of you, just like I am,” she tells her sibling, and Alex’s eyes flood with tears.

“Okay, sure, but what if he’s… what if… I mean I’m not all that masculine, right, and I don’t know all the… all the ways of doing things yet… hell, I still get my own pronouns wrong sometimes, so what if he thinks I’m not…”

Kara tilts her head – a habit she’s picked up from her sister-in-law – and hesitates with reaching fingers before Alex nods their consent. Kara brushes some powdered sugar off their nose, licks her fingers absently, and asks, her voice soft and loving and knowing, “Thinks you’re not what?”

Maggie and Kara make brief eye contact over Alex’s shoulder as they wait for them to answer. Kara’s eyes are swimming with tears, and Maggie’s are on their way, too. She holds Alex closer, rubbing her hands softly, gently, up and down their bare arms.

“Real,” Alex finally whispers, shoulders slumped in defeat, and Kara sandwiches Alex between herself and Maggie almost before the word finishes leaving their lips.

“Oh, Al,” Kara murmurs, a tear nearly slipping down her cheek. “Can I join the hug?”

“Actually, if Alex wants, this might be a good time for a sibling only hug,” Maggie kisses Alex’s cheek questioningly. Alex reaches to squeeze Maggie’s hands in gratitude – for the insight, for the word choice – before leaning forward into their sister.

Maggie steps back and watches with a bowed head and a small smile growing on her lips.

The Danvers siblings.

Stronger together.

“We’ll be right here with you, Alex,” Kara is assuring them. “And I’m so proud of you. I… Alex, I’ve watched you take down a human-sized insect with your bare hands, and I’ve never been more proud of you than I am right now.”

“You always go back to that damn fight,” Alex murmurs, and all three of them laugh.

“It was a good training session,” Kara shrugs, and they’re both still laughing, still holding onto each other, when the musical knocking that always signals Adrian’s arrival raps out crisply into the apartment.

Alex stiffens. Kara holds their hand and smooths their hair out of their face.

“I am so. Proud. Of you,” she tells them one last time, with as much feeling as she can muster.

“So am I, babe,” Maggie offers a kiss before heading to open the door for Adrian. Alex leans into it gratefully, and Kara blushes a smile.

“Maggie! Alex! Stop traumatizing Kara with your making out and open the door, it’s steaming hot in your hallway!”

Alex and Maggie startle apart as Kara laughs and skips to the door.

“My hero,” she tugs it open, and tilts her head with a question, her arms spread out. “In the mood for a hug?”

“Always, as long as you don’t crush my ribs!”

“It was that one time!”

“Come here.”

They hug long and hard, until Kara frowns and pulls back.

“Hold on – how did you know they were kissing? Have you developed x-ray vision lately, Mr. Rodriguez?” Kara tilts her glasses so she’s studying him over the rims, and he nearly doubles over with laughter at her antics.

“A lucky guess,” he grins, stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him.

“And how are my favorite lesbians?” he opens his arms for Alex and Maggie, and Alex jolts unintended pain through Maggie’s hand with the force of how hard they grip it suddenly.

They weren’t going to tell him right away.

They were going to ease into it.

Kara and Maggie would use their pronouns, and Adrian would probably pick up on it. He might ask. He might not. Either way, having him hear it naturally in conversation first was Alex’s plan.

But Alex Danvers is nothing if not determined, and they don’t want to sit with this pit in their stomach. Not with their family.

“Hey, Ade. Um, listen,” they start as they sink into his arms, wondering if he’ll feel that they’re wearing a binder. “I’m still a lesbian.” They pull back from the hug and nudge Maggie playing with their shoulder, who grins and nods and nudges them back, holding their hand while looking up at them like they’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to her.

Because, aside from Adrian, they are.

Alex is silent for a moment as they glance at Kara, whose eyes are wide and affirmative and absolutely perfect.

Uncharacteristically, Adrian doesn’t make a snarky aside. He just waits, his head slightly tilted, his eyes reminding them of Maggie’s a little bit.

Alex forces themself to press on.

“But uh, the thing is, I want you to know… I’m… I’m more like you than previously expected.” They laugh nervously at the garbled way this is coming out of their mouth. “I uh… I mean, I’m not a guy like you, that’s not what I meant, god, I had this all practiced out…”

They look at Kara, then at Maggie, then at Adrian.

They look for irritation or skepticism or impatience.

They only find unbridled admiration.

“Sorry, what I mean to say is… the reason I um… I’ve been feeling so myself lately… I’m uh – I’m nonbinary. I didn’t know the words before, but Kara’s been researching stuff with me, and I… it just… it fits, you know? Being an enby lesbian, it… so um… I’m using they pronouns now, and you can use them with anyone other than my mom because I haven’t told her yet, but why would you talk to my mom anyway? Um, point is… yeah. Yeah. This is the part where you can say something.”

Adrian nods slowly and his lips quiver slightly. “Are you still using Alex, or do you want me to call you something else?”

They’re too close to crying to say anything about how they’re experimenting with Al as a nickname for Alex as a full name, so they just nod. Alex. Yeah. Alex.

“Okay. And uh, listen, you can totally say no to this, especially since you must be having a lot of feelings, but um… Alex – I’d love to hug you right now. May I?”

Alex answers by launching forward, and tears leak down Maggie’s cheeks as she watches the two people closest to her in the world hug like they’ll never get another chance while the third closest person to her in the world steps around them and offers to take her hand.

She accepts.

“I’m so proud of you,” she hears Adrian whisper to Alex, and she tries to hold in a sob when she notices the tears streaming down both of their faces.

“Congratulations, Alex,” Adrian says after none of them know how long, his face gleaming with tears and with an enormous smile as he and Alex untangle from their hug. “When am I taking you out to celebrate?”

And while that is something they’ll have to check in with their DEO schedule about, the celebration the four of them have together that night is absolutely perfect.