648. Chapter 648
He doesn’t approach her because he has a massive crush on her little sister.
He doesn’t approach her because he wants anything from her.
He approaches her because he sees the light in her eyes when she’s alone and says hi to him, and he sees how dead they get when she’s with Josie and company. How cold. How different.
Different than when her father was alive.
Different than they were when she was inseparable from Vicki Donahue. Vicki from her calculus class. Vicki that he’d thought maybe, just maybe, she’d get together with, and then maybe, just maybe, he’d be brave enough to tell them that he’s bi, and maybe, just maybe, they’d have something other than Kara and general love of science to bond over.
Because he’s seriously lacking bonds with people at this school, and he sees what she’s like when she’s alone. She’s nicer. She’s lighter. She’s… kinder.
But she’s also always studying, always stressing. Always knowing the answer, always feeling the pressure of the next exam, the next project.
His parents don’t pressure him – they support him, yes, bought him his telescope, yes, but they don’t pressure him like he suspects Alex might be under pressure since Kara came, since her father died – but he wonders if she’s keeping her failure a secret because she can’t handle that pressure.
And if he knows anything about pressure, it’s that pressure forced into a small space tends to… well, explode.
“Alex,” he finds her at her locker one afternoon when she is, mercifully, alone.
“Kenny,” she smiles, and it’s almost like it was before her father died. When they sat together in chemistry class and high-fived over right answers and advanced formulas.
And suddenly he stammers, because he didn’t think through how, exactly, he was going to tell her.
“So um, listen. You know I don’t really have friends here except for your sister.”
She bites the inside of her cheek and nods slowly. “Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s… it’s stupid. You’re a good guy,” she taps her fist to his arm lightly, and he smiles.
“But look, I uh… because I’m not exactly drowning in friends, I notice things. And I uh… I noticed you seem to be having trouble in calc. And I thought, if you wanted, I could tutor you.”
He holds up his hands before she opens her mouth, before she can get defensive.
“Look look, I know, okay, I know you don’t want anyone to know, otherwise you’d be going to extra help and stuff, alright? There’s a spot, in the woods, okay? That I like to go look at the stars. It’s quiet, private.”
She raises her eyes, and he flaps his hands around like he’s trying to dissipate a layer of smoke.
“No, no, not that way, I’m not… no! Just… if you wanted help. Okay?”
And she sighs, and she looks around to make sure they haven’t been overheard, and she smiles.
Ten years later, she lays in Maggie’s arms, laughing about tutoring Adrian in physics, in calculus, how much Maggie loves how she looks in her glasses and her Princeton sweater, sprawled on the floor surrounded by equations and an air of pure, unabashed nerdiness.
“I wasn’t always good at calculus. I almost failed it, in high school, you know.”
Maggie gasps teasingly. “Alex Danvers, almost failing a class? What is this alternate universe?”
Alex nudges her with her shoulder, and Maggie nudges back before they both instinctively snuggle closer together.
“It was after we thought my dad died. After Vicki and I had our falling out. She was in my calculus class, that’s how we got close – “
“Tale as old as time, Danvers.”
“Oh hush. And when we – huh, that’s funny, I almost said broke up – when we had our falling out, I just… I couldn’t do it. And once I did poorly on that first test, I panicked, and it spiraled, and I just… you remember Kenny, from the engagement party?”
“The guy you said you and Kara had a little crime-stopping spree with? The one who had a huge crush on Danvers the Younger?”
Alex laughs and nods. “Yeah. That all got started, partially, because he tutored me in calc, on the sly. He never told a soul. Even today – notice he didn’t mention it at the engagement party.”
“Aww, that wonderful man, keeping my sweetie’s deep dark secret all these years.”
Alex laughs again, and they kiss, slow and sweet and smiling.
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. And his boyfriend seems nice, right, you think?”
Maggie nods. “I mean the man gifted us with a line of unbreakable smoke detectors, so he’s definitely a keeper.”
“I still don’t know why Kara insists on telling everyone that story.”
“That story? You say like there’s only one? Danvers, if your sister’s kryptonite is… well… kryptonite… yours is a working smoke detector.”
“I can cook!”
“Okay, sweetie. I know. Come here,” Maggie teases, pulling Alex’s head into her chest as Alex giggles and squirms.
“Ooh, I like you there, actually.”
Alex promptly stops giggling.
“I can stay here,” she says, and her voice is at least an octave lower than it was a moment ago.
“Please do,” Maggie smirks, “And remind me to invite Kenny over for dinner. I wanna know what other teenage stories he knows about my beautiful fiancee.”