This is the first chapter in what will be a slow burn Alex & Maggie fic. It's unbetaed and I'm English so I apologise for any spelling differences I haven't caught.

Chapter 1

"You really know all the cool places to hang out, Danvers."

Alex looked up from the scope of her assault rifle as Maggie Sawyer edged around the side of the dumpster Alex had been using for cover and dropped into a crouch at her side.

"I thought you were on a date?" Alex asked, trying to keep her tone light. She had been surprised how much it bothered her seeing Maggie kiss the tall blonde outside the precinct a few hours ago, and it wasn't a feeling Alex planned on examining too closely any time soon. No, the plan had been to go home, watch a sappy movie, and eat her weight in Cheetos, but plans changed quickly in her line of work and Alex had barely thrown her keys on the kitchen counter before the emergency call came in. Now here she was, at the entrance to a dingy alley behind what had been, before tonight, one of her favourite takeout places. She didn't even want to think about how many health code violations she had already spotted. Kara was not going to be happy about this when she told her, that was for sure.

"Gross," Maggie muttered, and Alex couldn't help but smile as she watched the smaller woman use the toe of her boot to shove away a mouldy pizza box, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "Yeah well, you know how it goes," Maggie shrugged, the smile not quite reaching her eyes as she rechecked the clip in her gun and turned, poking her head out above Alex's to assess the situation. "They call and tell me that there's an alien running around downtown shooting lightning out of his butt, I come running."

Alex laughed, but dropped her head back to her weapon to keep the alien in her sights while Maggie broke cover. "Hate to break it to you, Sawyer, but it only shoots from his hands...not his butt."

"Either way, it's pretty cool," Maggie grinned, turning again to slip back down to relative safety once she had gotten a good look at the layout of the deserted Plaza they had it confined to. "So, we gotta plan for twinkle fingers over there or what?"

Alex couldn't stop her lips from twitching up at the cute nickname Maggie had given the 7ft tall, red veined alien, that could probably charge the city's power for the next few months with one blast of his elongated fingers. Smiling was something Alex seemed to do a lot of around the NCPD detective she had started to notice.

"Keep the perimeter, wait for Supergirl." Alex recited Hank's orders as she readjusted her grip to keep her fingers from cramping up.

Maggie rolled her eyes and let her head drop back against the metal dumpster with a dull thud. "Oh good, we're babysitting," she groaned.

"Pretty much," Alex agreed with a sympathetic glance at the smaller woman, "but since the Kastugan already took out six of our men, I think I'll take babysitting over 50,000 volts, if that's alright with you?" Sitting on the sidelines would never fully sit right with her, but Alex trusted Winn when he told her that he had a plan to knock out the Kastugan's power if they could just get Kara in close enough. She trusted Hank to co-ordinate their tactics to give Kara the shot she needed. Most of all, she trusted Kara to get it done, no matter what.

"Yeah, I think I'll stick with 'Twinkle fingers," Maggie tilted her head back and made a show of checking the skies. "Where is the caped wonder anyway? I kinda figured she'd be here by now."

Alex frowned, hearing the slight shift in Maggie's tone when she mentioned Kara. It wasn't the first time she had heard some kind of tension color the way the detective spoke about Supergirl. It was almost as if Maggie had taken an instant distrust to her sister and it just didn't seem like the detective to make such a snap judgement on someone she barely knew. Not to mention the fact that it was Kara, for God's sake, she usually had everyone she met wrapped around her little finger within minutes. It was something that would become more and more of a problem if they we're going to continue working together the way they had been lately. It was also something Alex knew they should revisit when they didn't have an angry, supercharged extraterrestrial to deal with. "She's getting an upgrade to her suit to minimise the effects of whatever it is he's firing, and hopefully something that can shut him down," she said evenly, nodding towards the Kastugan, who had started taking pot shots at a news chopper that had gotten a little too close to the action trying to get that exclusive. "We've got him contained for now."

"An upgrade?" Maggie scoffed, one eyebrow raised, "you telling me she's not perfect already?"

Alex sighed, lowering the gun from her shoulder. Maybe they would be talking about it now after all. "Maggie..."

Alex didn't get a chance to finish what she was going to say as the alien gave a loud roar of frustration. Alex leaned to the side to catch a view of the giant Kastugan charging forwards, trying in vain to find a new target now that the news chopper had wisely backed off to a safer distance.

Alex did a quick sweep of the plaza, making sure that all of her teams were holding cover and safe. She reached up to the Comm switch on her headgear, intent on getting an update on Kara's ETA, but before she could tap the mike Maggie hopped up from her side and made a break from behind the dumpster, out of the alley and into the nearest doorway.

"Sawyer!" Alex called roughly as she lifted her weapon and broke cover to chase after her. "What the hell?" Alex whispered harshly as she caught up with Maggie, gripping her upper arm and spinning her around.

Maggie slowly pulled her arm away with a raised eyebrow and Alex felt her face flush. Her hand tingled.

Alex cleared her throat. "What are you doing?"

"I have an idea."

Alex stared at her.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "He's distracted, I'm going to circle around and see if we get the jump on him."

"That's not an idea, that's crazy!" Alex laughed in disbelief. "First of all he's one very pissed off alien. There is no getting the jump on him, believe me, we've tried. And second of all, in case you haven't noticed, we're running an operation here. There are rules...we have orders."

Maggie shrugged. "Not my orders.

Alex tensed, taking a step closer to the detective and making full use of her height advantage. "We have full jurisdiction."

Maggie tilted her head to the side and smirked. "You say that a lot, did you know that?"

"Well, maybe I wouldn't have to keep saying it if you started listening to me..." Once again Alex didn't get any further before Maggie had turned on her heel and made a run for an overturned car. "Sawyer! Damn it! Hank is going to kill me for this," Alex tapped off the Comm unit in her ear, swung her rifle around her back and trailed after her.

"I knew you'd come round to my way of thinking, Danvers?" Maggie grinned as Alex caught up to her.

Alex just shook her head. "If we don't get killed...you owe me a beer or six."

"Deal," Maggie agreed, before her brow furrowed. "You hear that?"

Alex tilted her head. "Hear what? I don't hear anything."

Beside her Maggie grimaced. "Exactly."

She had barely finished the word before the car they were sheltering behind lifted up and was thrown against the nearest building.

Alex turned quickly on her knees, her hands already reaching for her weapon. But she wasn't fast enough. The Kastugan held out his hands and sent a blast of electricity straight into them.

Alex had been in her share of fights, and been on the wrong end of enough of them to know pain. And this was pain. The kind where you can feel every nerve ending in your body...and some you didn't even know you had. It was over as quick as it came, but it left Alex on her knees, sweaty, breathless and unable to move. Her whole body was paralysed. Alex could tell from her peripheral vision that Maggie was in exactly the same position on the other side of the Kastugan.

Kara landed in Alex's line of sight, her cape billowing out behind her into the night. Alex usually loved how cool it looked when her sister did the superhero landing, not that she would ever admit that to Kara, she would rather willingly submit to a thousand thanksgiving interrogations from Eliza than give out that little piece of information. She could just imagine the smug little grin Kara would get every time she landed in front of Alex if she knew.

True to his word, Winn had fully outfitted Kara's suit. Her normally bare hands were encased in what looked like a titanium mesh, with a small white light glowing in the centre of her palm. She looked a little like a diet Iron Man and Alex wanted nothing more than to be able to tease her about it, but she still couldn't speak. Or move.

The alien shot an arc of power from his hands straight at Kara, who braced herself, waiting to see how the adaptations to her suit would fare. The material of Kara's super suit rippled with light but it seemed to have no other effect on her. Kara gave a little grin and rolled her shoulders back, a move Alex had come to recognise as meaning she was getting ready to kick some ass. Kara planted her feet and shot a beam of heat vision straight at the Kastugan's chest. The alien tipped his head back and roared in pain as he brought both hands down onto the back of Alex and Maggie's heads. The more of Kara's heat vision he absorbed the more the red veins that covered his body pulsed with light. Like a battery that was being charged up.

Alex knew the exact second that Kara realised what was happening, saw the understanding flicker across her face as she blinked and stopped the beam projecting from her eyes.

But it was too late.

The hand on the back of her neck tightened and Alex tensed, waiting for another round of searing pain as electricity coursed through her veins, but it didn't come. All she felt was a series of vibrations at the base of her skull, as if she had laid her head back on one of those massage chairs at the mall.

The vibrations got stronger and stronger, jolting Alex around the floor like a rag doll. She could no longer see Maggie out of the corner of her eye, but she had to believe that she was receiving the same fate. The last thing Alex saw before the blackness descended was the panic on Kara's face as she ran towards her, arm outstretched.

TBC