744. Chapter 744

Alex’s first fathers’ day without him, Kara made her pancakes – only nearly burning down the kitchen – and Eliza, for the most part, stayed locked in her room. She didn’t cry, but she only snapped at Kara three times, and they both agreed that she was trying her best.

(The holiday didn’t hurt Kara nearly as much as it did Alex; she didn’t grow up with it, didn’t know it was even a thing until Alex started raging about it.)

Maggie’s first fathers’ day at her aunt’s, she disappeared: she just took her bicycle and rode and rode and rode, until she hit a rock in the middle of the path and flipped over her handlebars. The pain from her scraped up skin was a relief, compared to the kind that was welling inside her.

They both associated the day with rage, and pain, and complete disconnect.

Alex had Kara, and sometimes, Eliza.

Maggie sometimes had random women she met at bars, but more often, she had no one.

Until Alex first learned that James’ father, too, had died.

That Winn’s father had killed, and had insisted that Winn was just like him.

That first fathers’ day the four of them spent together – Kara with her two best friends, both in love with her, and both a little in love with each other, and Alex with her sister but also with no one, because she was part of the group, but only sort of, only partly – it was with video games and alcohol and raucous yelling at the Mario Kart characters that was actually meant at cruel worlds and crueler bouts of self-imposed guilt.

“We should get jackets,” Winn had wryly suggested in one of their quieter moments.

“Daddy Issues,” Alex had smirked bitterly, and they all drank to that.

It was only the next year that Alex brought J’onn something; after everything they went through together, with Kara coming out as Supergirl, and J’onn coming out as distinctly not Hank Henshaw… all the death, all the killing, all the pains and all the joys… it was only then that Alex slipped him something for father’s day.

It was just a new comms device she’d been working on in the lab. More efficiently suited to his Martian physiology, to his needs as someone who could hear chaotic thoughts as easily as spoken words.

She left it on his desk, in a small box, with a small label.

for J’onn, for fathers’ day. love, Alex.

He didn’t say anything – and nor did she – but he brought her in for a hug and kissed her temple the next time he saw her.

In her lab, of course. Not in front of anyone.

Because Alex Danvers and J’onn J’onzz like portraying that they’re made of tougher stuff.

Except the next year comes with even more death, even more grief, a whole new set of different pains and joys. It’s Alex’s year to come out, and it’s Alex’s year to find her father again… sort of.

Losing him again hurts more than it did the first time, because at least the first time was a plane crash, not genocide attempted in her name.

But this year, she has Maggie.

And this year, Maggie has lost her father again, too.

“Is it like Valentine’s Day, for you?” Alex asks, softly stroking Maggie’s hair, the Saturday night before the day itself.

She doesn’t need to say what she’s talking about.

They both know.

“Worse,” Maggie murmurs, sighing as she rolls over so she’s face-to-face, chest-to-chest, with the woman who, impossibly, held on.

“But it’s fine, you know, it’s whatever.” She kisses Alex’s chin, her nose, her lips, and Alex kisses her back, but gentle, distant; not letting Maggie do what she’s trying to do: change the subject.

“Mags,” she whispers softly, searching Maggie’s eyes with her own, carding her fingers through Maggie’s hair so she knows she’s safe, she’s wanted, she’s loved.

“Okay, fine, it’s not whatever,” Maggie rolls her eyes, but Alex can feel the gratitude rolling off her in waves. “He comes to my lesbian party for a lesbian wedding and then storms out because there was lesbianing, it’s… yeah, it’s not whatever.”

Alex is the one to kiss her, this time, and Maggie melts deeper into her arms.

“And what about you, babe? What’s tomorrow gonna be for you?”

Alex bites the inside of her cheek as she shifts, thinks. “Hard. I mean, it’s hard every day, but with everyone talking about it, about dads and expecting that we all have one, a good one, it… you know I punched a kid in my class once, because he was bragging about how he and his dad always go on some trip or other on fathers’ day weekend?”

“Sweetie,” Maggie half-chuckles, and half-cries, taking Alex’s hand and kissing her knuckles, even though the ghost of that punch is years gone.

“You know J’onn took me aside after my father left? He told me he’d be honored to walk me down the aisle, too. Like he’s doing with you. He said he could shuttle run back, or fly, or whatever.”

Alex smiles, not bothering to hide the tears in her eyes. “He asked me if it was okay if he offered. I didn’t want to bring it up until you were ready to talk about it.”

“I want him to,” Maggie nods, her voice starting to crack. “It feels good, you know? To have… someone who loves me like that, you know? Who doesn’t want to run me out of town for loving his daughter.”

“You’re his daughter, too, Mags,” Alex whispers, and it’s then that they get the idea.

They reach for their phones in unison, teary eyes now sparkling with excitement.

Alex dials James, knowing that Winn will be in bed next to him; and Maggie dials Lena, knowing that Kara will be in bed with her.

“Everything’s fine, no attacks,” they both assure their sleepy siblings. “But we need to have an emergency meeting at our place.”

Winn and James show up in matching pajama pants, Winn donning a Black Lives Matter tee and James wearing a Pacman shirt that looks suspiciously like Winn’s.

Lena’s in Kara’s National City University sweater and sweat pants, and Kara’s in Lena’s MIT sweater and Superman pajama pants.

Winn and James bring the coffee.

Kara and Lena bring the donuts.

The six of them work through the rest of the night.

And when, the next morning, J’onn slips into the DEO, it’s to find an explosion of colors.

Happy Fathers’ Day, Papa Bear! is strung up above Winn’s work console, and Vasquez has set the video they all made on a loop at the briefing station.

Phone footage of J’onn in the field with Alex; J’onn at the bar, helping Maggie show Winn how to play pool; J’onn and James strolling through CatCo, J’onn in his Kara disguise; J’onn kissing Kara’s forehead in her full Supergirl regalia; J’onn and Alex laughing with James, J’onn beaming like he’s never been prouder.

“We made this for you,” Alex tells him now, tears in her eyes and Maggie’s hand in hers. “All of us.”

He unfurls the Space Dad sweater they designed with tears in his eyes and a trembling smile on his face, and Maggie presses a greatest 90s hits cassette into his hands, for his car.

“No father could ever be prouder of his children,” he shakes his head as he brings his Earth daughters in for the first round of hugs. “All of you.”

“So you’ll wear the sweater instead of your DEO shirt today?” Winn asks hopefully, and J’onn tries (and only slightly fails) to look at him sternly.

“No, I won’t be doing that.”

“Aww, come on!”

“Absolutely not.”

But he does wear it when they take him to the bar that night; and it’s the best, most meaningful fathers’ day any of them has ever, ever had.