564. Chapter 564

Winn mentions it without realizing that Maggie didn’t already know; that in the chaos of… well… the world almost ending, Alex didn’t tell her about meeting Kara outside.

Via the balcony.

He mentions it at the bar a few weeks later, when they’re just starting to be able to joke again, just starting to be able to laugh again. When Alex has finally gotten Kara to leave the apartment again.

So now, Kara’s leaning into Alex, her hand still on James’s thigh from the first belly laugh they’d all shared in weeks. Since… since.

But when Winn gestures at Alex with his beer bottle, saying something about “and none of us knew if you were being a badass or completely out of your mind, Alex, swan diving off the balcony in the middle of a warzone like that, like really, do you two practice that kind of thing?”, James kicks Winn lightly under the table.

Both of the Danvers’ girls go wide as they turn their gaze turns to Maggie, who’s frozen with her beer bottle halfway to her lips.

She blinks once, twice. Turns to Alex. Alex gulps.

“You did what off the balcony in the middle of the war zone?” she asks, and her voice is almost deathly quiet.

Winn pales immediately, apologizes immediately.

He, James, and Kara exchange a tense glance. Maggie’s been having an especially hard time letting Alex out of her sight since… since. And it only got worse after the invasion.

So hearing about… this?

Kara worries at her bottom lip and Alex reaches for Maggie’s hands.

Maggie pulls back.

“I couldn’t get out of the DEO through the front, and I knew the best way to save everyone in the building and out of it was to get out myself so I could assess, so I could plan a counterstrike. So the only way I figured was – “

“I caught her, Maggie, we used to do it when we were kids. Loads of times. She’s fine. She doesn’t weigh a thing, and I – “

“You jumped off the DEO balcony. During an interplanetary fire fight.”

“I caught her, Maggie – “ Kara’s voice was small, and Alex’s posture, even smaller.

“Obviously you caught her, Kara, she’s not in the morgue now is she? And it wouldn’t have mattered if you caught her if she’d gotten shot; do none of you remember how many Daxamite ships were – “

“We were all there, Maggie,” James tries, his voice soft, his hand on her arm softer.

“Great, okay, so then you’ll all understand why I – Alex, you could have died. Again! Do you think I’d be able to… to fight, to function, if anything… Danvers, I – you know what, I… I gotta go.”

She slaps a twenty on the table and is gone before any of the superheroes at the table can even react.

“Maggie,” Alex calls, half-standing, but it’s Kara that rises first.

“I’ll go. It… let me try?”

“I’m sorry,” Winn puts his hand on Alex’s, tears in his eyes.

“Not your fault I forgot to tell her, Schott, I… she’s so angry at me, I – “

“I don’t think she’s angry at you, Alex. I think she’s scared. Let Kara go after her. Give her a minute. She loves you so much, and she’s… she’s almost lost you. A lot. It’ll be okay, Alex. She loves you.”

She lets James’s voice soothe her, lets herself nod at Kara so her little sister can run after Maggie.

She winds up having to run very far.

Because Maggie’s already halfway out of the city on her Triumph, already speeding well past the limit and fogging her helmet slightly with tears.

“Maggie,” Kara calls, checking the abandoned highway before settling into what for her is a moderate flying pace next to Maggie’s bike.

Maggie glances at her and revs her engine, kicking up to over a hundred miles an hour. Kara sighs.

“Maggie, you know I can break the sound barrier, right?” Kara tries again, and her Kryptonian hearing gives her a front row seat to Maggie’s groan and string of muttered curses as she relents, slowing her engine and pulling off to the side of the road.

She tugs off her helmet and Kara gulps at the fire in her eyes.

“What if you’d been late? What if you’d missed her, by just a second? Or caught her the wrong way and dislocated something, or – I can’t lose her, Kara, and she can’t… she’s not you, okay? You maybe still think you can leap before you look because you can fly, but Alex can’t! She’s human, Kara, and she might pretend otherwise, but she breaks like the rest of us! You of all people should know that, how could you – “

“Maggie. I hear you. I do.” Kara’s hands are up around her waist in calm, tearful surrender. “I know Alex is human. And you’re right, I know it better than anyone. I know exactly how many of her broken bones are my fault: all of them. All of them, and she’s the second in command of a clandestine military organization. I know, Maggie. But at the time, it was the safest thing. It… it would be like you riding your motorcycle with… with a mouse in your front pocket, or something.”

“A mouse.”

“She doesn’t weigh anything to me, Maggie, I…” Kara tosses up her arms and sighs, looking around the strip of highway, the mountains. The calm.

“I can show you,” she offers, and Maggie laughs bitterly.

“No thanks, I’m fine on the ground, kid.” Her voice is dry and her face, steady.

An impasse. Kara lets the silence, the breeze, grow between them like an enemy neither are sure what to call.

“You know it’s one of the first things we did together. As kids. When I first got here… I was so afraid to break any rules. I didn’t want Eliza and Jeremiah to abandon me, and I didn’t want anyone to be angry at me. But Alex… we flew together. She wanted to fly.”

Maggie’s head tilts as she listens, quiet and thoughtful, her eyes softening somewhat along with her heartbeat.

“It started by her asking me if I really could do it. Fly like my cousin. So I showed her. And then I picked her up. She was taller than me, then, but it didn’t… it was the first time I ever heard Alex laugh. Like, really laugh. The first time I touched her without accidentally hurting her. Eliza was always telling her to protect me, always yelling at her when something would go wrong, but when we were flying… her eyes just got so bright.”

“And I take it her eyes were bright when she dove off the balcony in a firefight right into your arms, huh?” Maggie’s words sting, but her tone is more yielding.

Kara sighs. Of course her sister would date someone with such a protective streak. Even when it comes to… her.

“She’s safe, Maggie. She’s safe, and – “

“Show me.”

“What?”

“You offered to show me. So. Show me.”

Maggie’s heartrate is increasing again, but Kara doesn’t comment. She just nods, silent. Reads Maggie’s body for an indication of how she’d want to be held. Blocks out the sound of Lucy’s sardonic comments about Maggie and Alex’s sex life. Scoops her up so Maggie’s hoisted securely on her back. Not bridal style, like she carries Lena, like she caught Cat.

Her heart quavers.

She focuses.

“Ready?” she asks, and she feels Maggie nod against her hair.

Maggie resists it, at first. The majesty of it all. The exhilaration.

The heady power of flying without wings, without restraint. With only trust.

Kind of like her motorcycle – no walls on either side, not like her old pickup truck or her police car. Only herself and the road and a piece of magic to hold her up.

When she rides, the magic is technological.

Now, it’s biological.

She clings to Kara tighter, but it’s not from the thrill of fear that she expected. It’s from just… the thrill.

“This is amazing!” she calls into Kara’s ear, and Kara smiles.

She’ll tell her later that those were Alex’s first words on her first flight, too.

Later, because now, she just soars.

Soars and listens to Maggie laugh, listens to Maggie’s breath, hears her questions and yells back to answer them. They get soaked going through a cloud, and Maggie shivers, but she asks to do it again.

And again, and again.

She promises to ride Maggie’s bike back into National City – “I rescued Alex from Cadmus on a motorcycle, Maggie, I promise I can handle your Triumph” – and she drops Maggie off right at Alex’s apartment.

More precisely, she drops her off right in Alex’s apartment, right into the open window.

“Maggie, what – “ Alex asks, home from her night with the boys after all these hours, nursing a bottle of beer and a terrified heart. “Are you okay? Why – why are you wet?”

Maggie shrugs as Kara sets her down with a small oomph.

“Your kid sister flew me through a cloud.”

“A cloud? I counted at least half a dozen.”

“Guys – “

“It wasn’t that many – “

“You loved it, Maggie, it was absolutely that many – “

“Guys!” Alex’s sister and her fiancee both freeze, looking for all the world like drenched, scolded first graders.

“You went flying together?” Alex is asking both of them, but right now, she has eyes only for Maggie.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Maggie’s eyes flood with tears as an answer, and Alex shakes her head, stepping forward to embrace her.

“No, no, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, that I scared you, I – “

“It’s okay, baby. You’re safe now, that’s all I care about.”

“And you’re soaked.”

“Clouds.”

They giggle softly, relieved, as they kiss, and Kara’s eyes flit up to the ceiling pointedly.

“Well, I’ll just be going – “

“Oh no you won’t,” Maggie pulls back from kissing Alex, though she keeps one hand on Alex’s elbow as she reaches for Kara’s arm. “You’re gonna dry off, put on some of Alex’s clothes, and watch SVU reruns with us until we all pass out,” Maggie invites, and Alex chokes back tears.

“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” Alex seals the deal, and Kara’s excited squeal and even more excited hug takes the breath out of both of them.