786. Chapter 786

Alex kicked her feet back and forth lazily as she sat on a bicycle rack outside Adrian’s high school.

An extra motorcycle helmet dangled from her hands; Adrian’s parents had finally said yes, he was old enough for Alex to take on a bike ride. She planned to take him through National City and way, way up along the coast before swinging back around for dinner at Maggie’s, just the three of them.

So Alex waited for him to get out of school; but Adrian was almost never on time, so she contented herself with waiting and passively surveying the territory.

It wasn’t something she could turn off, her DEO training.

So she noticed it right away.

The kid slowly stepping down the bottom of the entrance steps, phone to their ear and crestfallen face, trying to be brave as if the person on the other line would give them credit for their wobbly attempts at a smile.

“Yeah, that sounds great, Dad. Thanks Dad. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I love you too. Yeah. Okay. Bye.”

The kid almost threw their phone to the ground after they hung up, and Alex recognized that look well. Her defenses flared and, without even knowing any more information, she wanted to scream at the kid’s father.

But Maggie - and her therapist - were working with her on control.

She settled for hopping off the bike rack and tilting her head at the kid.

“Tough conversation?” she asked, careful to keep judgment out of her voice.

The kid shrugged, barely making eye contact, tugging their denim jacket tighter around their body as they re-pocketed their phone.

“My wife has that habit, when she has a rough talk with someone. Cuddling herself into her jacket.”

“Your wife,” the kid repeats, and Alex nods like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

The kid shrugs again, looking like they might walk away.

It’s then - of course it’s then - that Adrian leaps off the six stairs leading up to his school.

“Let’s ride!” he yelps to Alex, practically barreling over the kid in his eagerness.

“Whoa, hey, sorry. Didn’t see you. Wait, have you two met? Kai, this is Alex. Alex, this is Kai. They’re only a sophomore but they’re already on the senior robotics team.”

“They are?” Alex repeats without missing a beat. “Well damn, Kai, you had me over here thinking you were just a regular smart kid, but Adrian’s telling me you’re some type of genius kid?”

Kai grins and blushed and shoves Adrian lightly with their shoulder. They’re a lot less wilted, now, Alex notices, and suddenly she thinks she understands their failed phone call a lot better.

As though catching on to Alex’s thought process, Kai tosses up their hands. They gesture toward their phone to catch Adrian up.

“My dad’s really cool, you know? Sweet and he loves me so much, he’s always telling me that. And he was just telling me how he’s gonna pick up my favorite Chinese food for dinner tonight, just because I did well on a Spanish test, you know? So he loves me, he really does.”

“But he won’t stop misgendering you and he won’t call you Kai and he makes you feel crazy and ungrateful that you’re upset about that,” Adrian lists expertly, and Kai fake glares.

“Yeah,” they murmur, and Adrian makes a silent decision with Alex.

“Well hey, Kai,” Alex grins gently, “Adrian and I are gonna head out on my motorcycle now - because I’m cool and have a motorcycle -”

“And I’m cool and get to ride it with her!”

“But he was gonna come to my and my wife’s place for dinner Friday night. Do you wanna come with?”

They nod, and Friday couldn’t come fast enough.

Alex is trying to make dinner when they get there with Adrian. Maggie is throwing open all the windows and Alex is ripping the fire alarm off the wall, and it is the most peacefully chaotic domestic bliss Kai’s ever seen.

“Wild, right?” Adrian grins as he guides them inside.

“I’m a good cook!” Alex insists.

“You think there’s not a reason Maggie only ever tasks you with making her black coffee and dry toast?” Adrian asks, eyes wide and innocent.

“Because she couldn’t handle anything else, poor thing,” Maggie grins, holding out her hand to Kai, whose phone rings just then.

They step back apologetically and answer.

Alex and Maggie exchange a glance as Kai’s voice goes higher than they’ve used it with Alex or Adrian. As they keep tightening their fist with no signs of stopping.

Maggie asks with her eyes if she can touch their hand, and when she gets permission, she eases their fist open, putting her own fingers over Kai’s nails. Because she knows they’ll hurt themself before they’ll hurt anyone else.

When they hang up, it’s with words of love and a face full of frustrated tears. They yell wordlessly, then step all the way back and apologize for yelling. They start rocking and nearly sobbing.

Adrian puts his arm around their shoulders, and Maggie kneels in front of them (Alex is still trying to get the fire alarm to turn off).

“He loves me, I’m just being ungrateful.”

“Hey, that’s not true. He can love you but not love you well. He can try to love you but not love who you really are. He can love you but not like that you’re you, rather than who he imagined you’d be. And all of that is on him. None of it’s on you. Parents are supposed to love their kids. You don’t have to feel grateful because he’s giving you a baseline. You’re allowed to want more.”

Alex finally fixes (destroys?) the damn fire alarm and shifts over to put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder. Because she wishes every day that someone would have told her wife these things when her wife was a teenager.

“You can be grateful and you can love him and you don’t have to accept that he’s refusing to see you for who you are and you don’t have to accept that he’s not respecting you and you can be pissed as all hell that he acts like nothing’s happening when really, what’s happening is that he’s hurting the hell out of his kid. I promise. Okay?”

Kai hangs onto the words like Alex knows Maggie would have, once, and she makes a note to give Maggie the same speech next time she winds up on the phone with her own father.

“Okay,” they whisper eventually, a small smile starting to tug at their lips because the apartment is still full of smoke. “So um. Are we ordering pizza, or…?”

“Definitely pizza.”

“Yeah, my wife can do many things, but she can’t cook.”

“She should be banned from cooking.”

“I hate all of you.”

“You really don’t.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.”