280. Chapter 280

She would pfft and deny it if Kara asked her, and she’d come dangerously close to breaking his nose if Winn asked her.

But no one asks her, because she only does it on her phone, and only when she’s sure she’s alone.

“Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division,” she mutters to herself, irritated that the arrogant woman – it was her crime scene, dammit – won’t leave her mind.

Irritated that the arrogant woman… does things to the inside of her stomach.

Things that she’s not entirely sure are unpleasant.

She pours herself a glass of bourbon and opens Instagram on her phone.

Just because she wants to check this hard-headed cop out, of course.

Not that way. Just… check out what she gets up to off the job. See if she can figure out if she’s actually any good at her job.

She must be – she knew Infernians, Kryptonians, heat vision, could spot sloppy methods of bagging evidence from twenty yards away – but Alex finds herself needing to know more.

For no reason, really.

To feed her irritation, probably.

She drinks deeper and types her name into the search function.

She doesn’t have to scroll long before she finds that infuriating grin, that gorgeous hair, that…

She knows she shouldn’t, but she does it anyway.

She clicks and she scrolls – slowly, more slowly than she would ever admit to – through photos of the detective sitting at a table with her hand up, a confident but somehow still soft, but somehow still edged, somehow still unreadable, expression on her face, in something just off black and white; photos of the easy-bake local cop sporting a gym bag and a confident, head-tilted stare that captivates Alex for longer than she’d care to admit; photos of the hardcore, unshakeable detective shrieking with apparent laughter on the back of a tall boy with a silver earring and dapper shirt, banter that’s cuter than Alex would care to admit in the comments section between Sawyer and some kid with the username arodriguez_nottheballplayer.

She idly slips over to the boy’s instagram and finds that Maggie is all over his, too, at Pride parades and activist events, at college visits and a high school graduation, the boy beaming with his diploma and the detective on her tip-toes, kissing his slightly scruffy cheek, his skin darker than hers but his eyes just as bright.

Alex wonders how the apparently hard-ass detective wound up so full of smiles around this kid, and she wonders if maybe he’s Maggie’s Kara.

But no, Maggie can’t have a Kara.

Maggie can’t be a person to Alex.

Maggie’s just a local cop who got in the way of her investigation, who impeded on her territory, who stepped into her jurisdiction.

And is, apparently, refusing to leave.

“Hey M’gann, what’s the wifi this month?” Maggie wants to know, and M’gann smirks.

“Morn made it up this time – guess.” She grins as Maggie laughs into her beer and types in the quiet but ever-present alien’s name into her phone, and she goes immediately to Instagram.

“My lab is not an easy bake flipping oven,” Maggie mutters to herself as she searches the name of the overly self-assured, overly hot – that suit, my god, why would she do that to a person? – secret service agent who’d trampled onto her crime scene earlier today.

“Ooh, new hot date?” M’gann asks as she passes behind Maggie with a tray of north Bravakian ale. “She’s cute.”

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Come on, M’gann, you know I’m still with – ”

“Yeah, I know, and you know I don’t think you should be.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Maggie sighs and drinks deeply and squints as she scrolls through photos of Alex with pursed lips and smoldering eyes that set Maggie’s core on fire; older photos, it seems, of the secret service agent with shorter hair, a few with longer hair; a few of an apparent game night with two men with broad smiles and collared shirts, and a pretty blonde who makes Maggie’s stomach twinge with unwarranted and completely inexplicable jealousy; and even a couple in the field with Supergirl, their easy, intimate rapport clear even from the way they’re standing, from the ways they’re looking at each other.

“Interesting…” she murmurs.

“What’s interesting?” M’gann wants to know, and Maggie closes the app on her phone, knowing she shouldn’t be going down this rabbit hole, she shouldn’t be looking up photos of some – beautiful – woman just because something’s bugging her about her, just because she can’t get her out of her mind, just because…

“Nothing. Nothing. Just someone I met in the field today.”

M’gann arches an eyebrow; she doesn’t need her telepathy to know better, but she doesn’t push.

“Scotch? On the house?” she offers instead.

Maggie grins and pushes her empty beer bottle at her friend.

“Only if I can interest you in a game of pool when you get off shift.”

“You know you have no chance, Sawyer,” M’gann laughs.

Maggie thinks of that agent – Alex Danvers – her name feels better than she wants to admit on her tongue – and shrugs.

“I’ve got hope.”