788. Chapter 788

She tried to make it a rule not to hate other kids.

She didn’t know what they had going on at home, or even just in their own heads.

She tried - though it didn’t always work - not to hate the other kids at school.

But teachers were a different story.

She didn’t have any problem hating them.

Because yeah, sure, they also had home lives and things going on in their heads, but how could you have all that power over all those lives and only use it to be cruel to flipping children or let some children be cruel to other children?

And Kara may be in all advanced classes, and she may have seen her entire planet destroyed, but Maggie would be damned if she let their stupid teacher not protect Kara the same as he should any child.

(Maybe it was because Maggie vaguely recognized that she was a child. And no adults protected her. At least, none did until Alex’s mom did. Except, that was bittersweet and often enraging because sometimes Eliza protected Maggie better than she protected her eldest.)

Regardless.

Kara wasn’t even doing anything ‘weird.’ Not that it would have been okay to be cruel to her if she wasn’t conforming her body and her expressions to meet the norm.

Fuck the norm.

Maggie should get a patch that said that and sew it onto her backpack.

Fuck the norm.

But still. It made it even more infuriating that Kara was just existing, and that damn Max Lord kid was just laying into her.

And because he was a white boy with a rich daddy, the teachers all just… let him.

Alex wasn’t in this class with them, and Lena, Sara, Oliver, all the rest of the crew… they also weren’t in this class with them.

This was the class where The Lesbian and The Weird New Girl were in it alone.

And Maxwell Lord, that damn coward, definitely knew that.

He chose his opportunities, his targets, well enough.

Maggie watched Kara’s hands clench, and she knew she was hurting herself to keep herself restrained. She knew the kid could destroy this entire building if she wanted to, but Kara was a better person than Maggie.

Kara would rather absorb all that energy, all that pain, and keep it in so she didn’t scare or hurt anyone else.

No matter how much this jackass was hurting her.

But Maggie couldn’t. Not anymore.

She stood and she ignored the passive asshole who wasn’t telling Lord to shut up but was telling her to sit down.

She stood and she tugged Lord out of his desk and she punched him clean across the face.

She strode calmly to the desk - or, as calm as she could appear from the outside, because somewhere inside her, she was on top of the kid, still pummeling his face with her fists, not stopping, never stopping, despite her rule to not hate other kids, because really, he didn’t shape himself, did he? - and made level eye contact with the man who called himself a teacher.

“I’ll take my detention slip now, please.”

Some kids - girls, mostly, girls of color and queer girls and girls who, like Kara, couldn’t always figure out the right words to say at the right times - cheered briefly, until they quieted at their teacher’s look.

Victory clashed with rage in Maggie’s fists.

She’d thought punching him would let it out.

Her rage.

It didn’t.

It only made it worse.

It made everything worse.

Because the bruises on her knuckles reminded her how close she could get to being just like him, and the silence that now followed her in the hallway reminded her that she’d allowed people in, she’d allowed people to see her emotions, her insides, her soul.

Sure, it had been for Kara’s sake, and sure, she’d do it again.

But she knew Kara.

And she knew that Kara was a better person than her, that Kara would never want anyone punched for her sake, even if he was being a complete tool.

It only made her rage grow.

At everyone. The world. Herself. Mostly, herself.

She was grateful that she got home before Eliza, and she was grateful Alex had track practice that afternoon.

Though she probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Alex’s key scraped the lock, track practice be damned, while Maggie was screaming into, punching, and kicking every soft surface she could find.

She didn’t want to be beating the crap out of soft things. She wanted to be beating the crap out of herself.

But she was already too much of a burden on all the Danvers women. They’d gone through enough already, this year. Losing Jeremiah. Taking Maggie in when they definitely didn’t have to. Eliza having to negotiate Alex living with her girlfriend.

She’d already caused enough harm.

Getting herself sent to the ER would just be even more of a disappointment, more of a burden, more of an inconvenience.

She didn’t realize Alex was home until a firm palm wrapped around both of her fists; until Alex’s warm front wrapped flush around Maggie’s back, holding her steady, holding her back.

Because even punching pillows was a way of trying to hurt herself. To punish herself.

“Hey, I got you. I got you.”

Maggie stilled immediately, all the fight gone from her body.

If she kept the fight in her body, she’d accidentally hurt Alex.

She would never hurt Alex.

Defeated.

Even her rage was ineffective.

Alex turned her around gently and brought her right hand up for inspection, for gentle knuckle kisses that Alex took very seriously, very reverently.

“You heard?” Maggie asked, her voice hoarser than she’d thought it would be. She must have been doing a lot more screaming than she’d thought.

Alex just nodded, not finished with her gentle kisses brushing along Maggie’s knuckles.

“Is she so angry at me?” Maggie asked, of Kara.

But it wasn’t Alex who answered.

It was Kara, looking small but sure in the doorway.

“Of course I’m not mad at you. Worried, but not mad.”

Tears flooded Maggie’s face again at the sight of her, and she opened one arm to her. Kara flew - literally - into it.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine, I didn’t mean to lose it on him like that. I know you hate attention being drawn, I know, and I made it about me, but I just couldn’t -”

“I would have done the same if he was doing that to you or Alex.”

“Or Lena,” Alex teased, and Kara blushed.

“Kara,” Maggie shook her head. “Alex. I’m sorry.”

“Hey. It’s not your fault that jackass wasn’t doing anything about it.”

Maggie grunted noncommittally, but Alex took her girlfriend’s face into her hands earnestly.

“You have to be more careful, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel less, okay? We’re here. We’re both here.”

“I’m not crazy? For being this angry?”

“What? God no. If I so much as smell Lord’s presence in the next ten years, I’ll deck him into the sun.”

Kara laughed and Maggie kissed Alex and felt, maybe, like it would be okay.

Like she loved deeply, not like she was broken.

Like she loved deeply, not like she was full of hate.

Like she loved deeply, and maybe, was loved deeply in return.