674. Chapter 674

The first time James called him his brother was one of the best days of Winn’s life.

Because he was stealth when they met.

But when he called him his brother?

Was the day Winn came out to him.

It’s late and they’re a little tipsy and it’s Game Night and Kara knows but he hasn’t gotten around to telling James or Alex or Maggie yet.

But they’re family.

They’re family, and this night is about family, and his being trans is just as much a part of him as his being bi, and James and Alex and Maggie hadn’t blinked about that, had they?

There’s the voice in his head that tells him that sexuality is different than gender. That sometimes, people who act fine with your sexuality get somehow threatened and angry about your gender journey.

There’s another voice in his head that tells the first voice to calm down, because this is his family.

It’s late and they’re a little tipsy and he accidentally wound up clicking his Mario Kart avatar to be Princess Peach and it’s making his palms sweat.

He’s long since been more than alright with things considered to be feminine in heteronormative society, but Peach has a long history with him.

A long history through the one foster home he stayed in that actually had gaming systems. He usually wasn’t allowed to play, but when he was, the older kids made him be Princess Peach, because they said he was such a princess.

They said it precisely because he kept trying to be anything but that.

So he accidentally selects her as his avatar and his palms start sweating and Kara hears his heart rate elevating and as the others argue loudly over which road to race on, Kara leans into him.

“Winn?” she asks.

He jumps, like he’s surprised to hear the name he gave himself.

The name that matches the man he grew up wanting to be, and the man that now, grown up, he never wants to be.

The man he’s always known he had the potential to be, both the good and the terrifying.

“We need to restart!” he yelps, and his voice cracks like it used to when he first started going on T.

“No way, Schott, just because you always get your ass whomped in Bowser’s Castle doesn’t mean – “

“No, Alex, seriously,” he says, and Kara beams at him without smiling as James immediately pauses the game and Alex turns to Winn with sudden concern in her eyes.

“Sorry, Schott, I didn’t know you meant it. What’s up?” Alex asks as Maggie tilts her head with soft, patient eyes.

James puts a tentative hand on his knee, both comforting and questioning.

Winn remembers when he had been afraid James wouldn’t do that anymore, after he found out he was bisexual.

Turns out, though, that they don’t have a straight friend in their group at all, so that… that had helped.

And he hopes it’ll help now.

He gulps, and his eyes flicker from Alex’s to James’s to Kara’s to Maggie’s, back to Kara’s, and then, to his own hands.

He is terrified, and he is panicking, and he is diving, ready or not.

“I’m trans,” he splutters, and Kara smiles into the silence.

Alex tilts her head and Maggie smiles softly and James nods slowly, not moving his hand from Winn’s knee.

“Okay,” James is the first to speak. “Do you want us to call you something else, or use different pronouns, or – “

“No,” Winn interrupts, feeling his face get red now. “No, I don’t mean I’m a trans girl or nonbinary or anything. I mean I… I mean, I was raised as a girl, and I started T the month I aged out of foster homes, and I never meant to not tell you guys, it’s not like it’s a secret or like I’m ashamed, I just don’t tend to tell people at work for maybe obvious reasons and then suddenly we were friends, and then family, and I never knew how to bring it up, and now… they used to make me play as Princess Peach, when I was a kid, and I don’t want to, even though, let’s be honest, I’d make a fabulous Princess Peach, but it just made me think… you guys are my family, and I want to be able to share all the parts of my life with you. So… yeah.”

“Oh, Winn,” Alex murmurs, because there are tears streaking down his face, and they’re in their socks on the floor in Kara’s living room and her cold steel DEO reputation has long-since been shattered in this room, with these people, so she drops her controller and she crawls forward on her knees, and she wraps her arms around him and kisses his forehead and wipes his tears.

“Look at you, making me hug you and have feelings,” she swallows a sob after a long moment, and they laugh shakily in each other’s arms.

“I’m proud of you, man,” Maggie tells him with light in her eyes that makes him feel like he can fly.

He wipes his eyes as he looks from Maggie’s beaming face, past the Danvers’ girls’ teary ones, to James.

“You were my brother yesterday, Winn, and you’re my brother today. You’re gonna be my brother forever, you hear me?” James grins, and when they pull each other in for a hug, the girls hold each other close, too, because family, family, family.

“Let’s restart this thing and make you Toad,” James smiles broadly when they finally disentangle from their embrace.

“Toad works for me!” Winn beams as Kara reaches for his hand and brings his knuckles to her lips.

“I love you,” she mouths at him.

And he has never felt it more.