688. Chapter 688

“Maggie, you can’t even stand,” Kara pleads with her.

Well, Supergirl pleads with her.

Because Kara Danvers is a mild-mannered reporter who fidgets with her glasses and stammers around pretty girls.

The woman hovering above Maggie right now is Kara Danvers, certainly, but she is also letting bullets flatten as they drop off her body, shielding Maggie, shielding her sister, shielding James – well, Guardian – from the second barrage of bullets from the latest wave of National City weapons dealers Cadmus has brought in.

The first barrage of bullets caught Maggie in the calf.

“I don’t need to be able to stand,” she grunts through gritted teeth, her bloodied hands slipping on her gun as she focuses, as she aims. “I just need to be able to shoot.”

“Maggie, Alex will kill me if – “

They both flinch slightly as an explosion shakes the garage. Maggie instinctively checks around her to make sure Alex is alright.

She is. She’s facing the other way. She doesn’t know yet. She doesn’t know how much blood Maggie is spilling onto the concrete –

“I’ve got this, Supergirl. You go do your job.”

She’s shouting, now, both to channel the pain and to be heard over the commotion of guns and yelps and orders and explosions.

“My job is to protect – “

“Everyone, not just me! They’re aiming to take down the building’s structural integrity. Go. Be Supergirl, not – “ She pauses, then opts to whisper, knowing Kara will hear it when no one else in the vicinity will. “Not my sister-in-law.”

Kara gives her a worried glance even as Winn’s voice echoes into both of their ears.

“Supergirl, they’re striking at the foundations of the building – “

“I already figured that out, Schott. Supergirl’s on it,” Maggie calls before giving Kara a chance to respond.

“Guardian!” Kara shouts after fixing Maggie with a desperately worried glare. She gestures to Maggie before speeding off to fix the larger problem, the larger attack.

He fights his way to her without question, without hesitation. He fights his way to her, because she’s his sister-in-law, too.

“Maggie, we need to get you a medivac!” he yells when he’s close enough for her to hear him.

“I’m fine, Olsen. We get medics in here, they get shot, no one wins.”

“Your wife happens to be – “

They both cringe slightly as someone throws an alien grenade their way. James bats it away with his shield.

“Aww, I could’ve kept it,” Maggie chokes, and James is too focused to roll his eyes. “And I know who my wife is, but she’s – “

“Right here, Mags,” warm hands are suddenly on her body, and the fear, the pain, that Maggie’s been refusing to acknowledge starts flooding into her veins at how safe, how vulnerable, those hands allow her to feel.

“Danvers, you were on the other side of the – the safer side of the – “

“Hush,” Alex commands, and Maggie tries not to listen, but Alex just rips part of her own shirt off to tie around Maggie’s calf. “You’ll be alright, clean entry and exit,” Alex tells her, trying to keep her battlefield medic composure, but her voice trembles.

“I’m alright, Danvers,” Maggie tells her, her eyes soft and pained and then, suddenly, focused and sharp.

Alex doesn’t have time to react before Maggie aims her gun over Alex’s shoulder and squeezes the trigger. A Cadmus lackey collapses to the ground, his gun clacking to the side, his kneecap riddled with a well-aimed bullet.

Maggie sighs in relief as Alex just stares down at the utter badass that somehow married her.

Maggie clicks into the group coms and grimaces out a smile. “Told you I didn’t need to be able to stand, Supergirl,” she gloats grimly, and Alex doesn’t need x-ray vision to be able to picture the way Kara, even in the midst of battle, rolls her eyes with the kind of irritation that only can come with deep, deep love.