112. Chapter 112

Maggie’s lacing up her sneakers when Alex’s alarm goes off.

“Babe? Why’re you up?”

Maggie shrugs and leans up to the bed to press a kiss to Alex’s lips. “Couldn’t fall back to sleep. Thought I could go on your run with you, if that’s okay?”

Alex blinks out sleep and arches an eyebrow, but she says nothing beyond her nod, her small smile. She knows that look – that look Maggie gets when she’s prepped for a fight, when she’s scared, when she’s excited and when she’s focused and when she’s over-energetic, all at the same time.

She usually gets that look only when she’s going out on a dangerous mission.

Today, she’d switched shifts so she didn’t have to work. I’m not trying to suppress the protests I need to be part of, she’d said casually, she’d said with a blaze deep in her eyes, with a somewhat sad grin quirked on her lips.

So today, the only dangerous mission is going to be the March.

Alex swishes around mouthwash and tosses frozen water on her face and spits and throws on her favorite running shorts, her favorite running jacket. She stares at Maggie, sitting on the bed with her elbows resting on her knees, her phone in her hands.

“You know they took down the civil rights, LGBT, and climate change sections of the White House site already?” Maggie says without looking up, because she’s a detective, and she detects, so she knows when her girlfriend is looking at her.

“Yeah, I read it last night. You sure you wanna go today, babe?”

“I need to go today, Al. Just gonna burn off some energy first. Come on – wanna get in a 5k before we spend all day on our feet?”

Alex chuckles and pulls the phone gently out of Maggie’s hand and pulls her to her feet and kisses her soundly, softly, tenderly, trying to put every ounce of love she feels for her into their touch.

“I’ve got you, babe,” Alex reminds her, because her girlfriend grew up non-white and non-straight in Blue Springs, Nebraska, and she knows that Maggie remembers what this dread of a deadly storm feels like. Maggie melts into her touch, because no one has ever offered her protection before, and god, she knows it’ll be the only thing that gets her through.

Kara’s commandeered the apartment with an odd explosion of posterboards and markers and donuts and coffee by the time Maggie and Alex trudge back up the stairs, the bottom layer of Alex’s hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and Maggie’s wet tank top slung over her shoulder.

“Check it out, guys!” Kara squeals when they walk in, as James tosses both of them a bottle of water and Winn waves through a mouthful of donut, through wiping powdered sugar off his grey t-shirt reading, simply, “feminist.”

“Nice one, Little Danvers,” Maggie high fives her as Alex chokes on her water, because Kara’s sign reads “Hey Donald – don’t try to grab my pussy. It’s made of steel.”

“You don’t think that might um… give away your secret?” Alex splutters, red-faced, and Maggie presses up against her, a wicked grin on her face.

“Aww, babe, don’t worry, Kara will wear her glasses and no one will be any the wiser that her big sister’s all embarrassed to see a sign talking about her sister’s pussy. But I happen to know that you’re not so shy in – “

“Maggie!”

“Gonna shower. Come with?”

“Yes.”

“Kara, you might wanna turn off your super hearing.”

“Shut it, Schott!”

The mood is somewhat more grim when Alex and Maggie slip back out of the bathroom, Alex donning a red bandana in her hair and one of Maggie’s Black Lives Matter t-shirts fitting snugly over her chest, and Maggie decked out in cut-offs, a grey beanie, and a Fuck Xenophobia tee.

James doesn’t speak, he just pulls Alex into a hug and presses a kiss to her forehead, and J’onn, who’s just slipped through the door – because someone needs to make sure they get there on time – crosses his arms across his chest and nods at her through a thin layer of tears, M’gann’s head on his shoulder.

Winn touches Maggie’s forearm and she grimaces at him. “You good?” he asks, and she takes a deep, slow breath.

“With you guys all around me? Yeah. Yeah.”

The Plaza is so crowded with people, children on their parents’ shoulders – with posters shouting everything from “Consent is Sexy” to “America is Black, speaks Spanish, wears a hijab, is a woman” to “Supporting My Sisters, not just my Cis-ters” – that it takes a full hour to even get into the flow of the march, a full hour of Alex and Maggie’s hands never, ever leaving each other, of M’gann falling into the embraces of so many bar patrons who learned of the march from the posters she and Maggie had put up around the place, of James having a crouched conversation with a little boy asking if he could be big and strong like him one day, of Kara beaming at the constant comments and compliments on her poster, of Winn earning looks of renewed respect from J’onn for his sign, which reads “Our white masculinity kills people I love: can we cut it out, please?”.

The Plaza is so crowded with people that even the news choppers above them can’t quite capture a photo of the entire crowd, but James does an excellent job with his own camera, climbing on lampposts and balancing, with Alex spotting him, on construction pillars to get the best shots, to get the best angles, to get the photos that are going to reach people’s hearts, that are going to remind people what hope is, that are going to fight hardest.

He photographs Alex with her arm out in front of Maggie protectively in front of a line of cops in riot gear. He photographs the searing kiss Maggie pulls her down for, a crowd cheering around them, the way Alex’s body curves into Maggie’s warmly, protectively, lovingly.

He photographs Winn lifting a little girl onto his shoulders after the girl asked, after her grandparents told him to go ahead, because she wanted to see better, she wanted to chant louder, she wanted to fly higher.

He photographs Kara beaming defiantly with her poster, Kara pressing a kiss to J’onn’s forehead, J’onn wrapping his arm around M’gann’s shoulders, M’gann leading chants and Kara following her lead.

He photographs crowds of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people surging together to say no to forces, to systems, to people, that would soon see him dead, soon see him erased.

And when he hops down off the lamppost to rejoin his friends – his family – their fierce love and open embraces gives him hope that maybe, just maybe, together they can prevent the worst.