514. Chapter 514

It’s her father’s birthday.

It’s her father’s birthday and on his last birthday they spent together – the one before she was outed, the one when he still loved her, liked her, wanted to be around her, could stand to look at her – he let her sit in the front seat of his pickup truck, in his lap, driving around and around, faster and faster (he was controlling the gas pedals) and faster.

She could handle the horses and the tractors and the plows.

But his pickup had always been her real goal.

Her real dream.

And that day, he’d let her.

And now, all these years later, she doesn’t want to miss him.

Doesn’t want to miss his laughter or the way he would put his big calloused hand on her head when he was proud of her.

She doesn’t want to miss the way he’d brag about her to everyone at church, his little scientist, his future college graduate.

She doesn’t want to miss any of it.

But god, jesus, fuck, she does.

Kara finds her before Alex does.

She drags a bar stool next to her and tilts her head slightly when Maggie just grunts a greeting, just downs another shot.

She thought they’d gotten closer, since the tank.

Maggie’s usually so warm with her, now.

She furrows her brow and she adjusts her glasses.

“Maggie?” she asks, and her voice is reserved. Tentative. Polite. Overly so. Like she was at the beginning. Before she really trusted her.

“Maggie, is something wrong? Should I call Alex?”

“Wrong? Why would anything be wrong, Little Danvers?”

Maggie answers without looking at her. She downs another shot, and Kara – relieved by the way she called her Little Danvers, her special Maggie-only nickname, so at least it doesn’t seem like she’s angry with her – shakes her head at Darla even as Maggie gestures for two more.

“Water,” she mouths, and Darla arches an eyebrow and cuts her losses by bringing both Maggie’s shots and Kara’s demanded water.

“You’re drinking like it’s going out of style, Maggie,” she answers carefully, doing her best to keep any judgment far, far, far from her voice.

Maggie pffts, a habit she must have gotten from Kara’s sister. “Don’t be ridiculous, Little Danvers. If it was going out of style, I wouldn’t be d– well, no, that’s not true.”

She turns to look at Kara for the first time, now, and her eyes are red and swollen. “Apparently I do things that are so out of style people kick you out of their house for it and tell you you’re dead to them, even though I can’t help it, you know? Like, how could I not like girls? Have you seen girls, Kara?”

Kara’s about to open her mouth, half-bemused and half-pained, but Maggie downs another shot as she waves her silent. Kara presses the water glass into her hand.

“What am I saying, of course you’ve seen girls, you’re all up Luthor’s ass. No, I just mean… he loved me, you know? And then it was like he just… didn’t. Because that was the choice he gave me. Did you know he gave me a choice? Go away to one of those camps or never step foot in his house again? Did you know that, Kara?”

Kara fights not to cry, and she fights not to pull Maggie into her.

She fights not to fly all the way to Nebraska and punch a certain Mr. Sawyer out of this solar system.

“You made a brave choice, Maggie. A really brave choice. And it wasn’t fair that he gave it to you.”

Maggie shrugs and goes for her next shot. Kara stops her hand gently.

“Please drink the water, Maggie?” she asks, and Maggie shrugs again and chugs the water like it were whiskey. Kara smiles sadly, watching her while she gestures for another water.

“Alex says you weren’t like your cousin. You didn’t leave as a baby. You grew up there. On Krypton. I’m sorry,” Maggie tells her, seemingly out of nowhere, but Kara’s heart lurches, and she understands exactly where it came from.

“Sometimes I hate that I survived. That I got out when almost no one else did.” Kara considers ordering her own drink, but Maggie’s looking a little unsteady on her stool, even though her eyes are completely focused on her. “But I have Alex. You know? I… for a long time, I idolized them. My family. And then I learned that they did… terrible things. My mother, she…”

“Prosecutor extraordinaire, right?” Maggie supplies, sounding infinitely more sober than she had been when talking about herself, and Kara accepts the hand Maggie puts out on hers.

“Yeah. She locked people away for… she could have saved our planet, but instead she sentenced so many people to never see their families again, and she called it justice, she… I’m sorry. You’re a cop, you – “

“I’m a cop because I hate the system we have, Kara,” Maggie admits softly, and Kara takes a slow, long breath.

“And my father, he… I was training, you know. To be able to wear our family’s crest. He wanted me to focus on my science, my studies, but my mother thought it was more important that I train… but he was… he was using science to make genocidal weapons, he…” Kara’s eyes water, but as Maggie swipes her thumb over the back of her hand, she steadies. She focuses.

“We are more than the sum of our parents, Maggie. We have to be. And I… I don’t know if my mother would have been proud of who I am today, or if… if she would have locked me away like she did to my aunt. But I… we have to be proud of ourselves when our parents aren’t.”

“And you have parents who love you, you know,” Maggie nods, a small smile on her face. “J’onn and Eliza, and even Jeremiah, in his way.”

Kara turns her hand to squeeze Maggie’s. “And so do you, Maggie. So do you. I don’t know how we ever functioned without you. Our little family.”

Maggie smiles full-on at that, and they both sniffle, both looking away from each other’s vulnerability, both holding the other’s vulnerability.

“I know we haven’t always had the easiest relationship, Maggie, and I know a lot of that is my fault, but I love you, you know. You’re family. You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

Maggie bites her trembling lip and she returns Kara’s squeeze.

“Neither are you, Little Danvers. Neither are you.”