Not mine, don't own.
It hurt, the first time Maggie saw Alex with Supergirl. There was a closeness there that's evident even from a distance—how close together they stand, how they lean toward one another when they talk—and that didn't even count the way that Alex's face lights up when Supergirl is nearby. There was a mask of professionalism over their interaction, a very thin veneer through which shone the light of friendship, and something more.
Maybe, Maggie rationalized to herself as she watched the woman she'd just started dating, just admitted she cares for, Alex didn't even recognize it. After all, she'd been working with Supergirl since before she knew she was gay. It was entirely possible that Alex didn't know how she feels about the woman. It only reassured Maggie a little. If Alex was in that deep with someone, then the way she felt about Maggie… well, it probably didn't compare to what Maggie feels for her—and that, after what they went through to get to where they were, that hurt.
A week later, Maggie was spending more time at the DEO these days. The joint taskforce got a lot of work, mostly cleaning up the messes CADMUS left behind. Lillian Luthor was a brilliant woman; she'd left contingencies. Fortunately, her successors were not as bright, and the DEO, with the help of the NCPD, were slowly chipping away at the remnants of the organization.
Maggie was helping Alex lay out the plans for the next op with the other agents adding ideas. A small smile played at the corner of Maggie's mouth, despite the gravity of the situation. She loved seeing Alex at work. Agent Danvers was all confidence, a cool head, and a total badass. They were brainstorming possible approaches when Supergirl flew in.
The heroine didn't say anything, just met Alex's eyes with an expression that was unreadable to Maggie, but perfectly clear to Alex, since she excused herself and strode over to the Kryptonian. They hovered at the edge of the room, away from anyone else, with their voices low. Maggie watched.
She watched as their faces go from serious and worried, to laughing and smiling. Supergirl put a hand on Alex's shoulder as her head tilted back with laughter, a gesture so natural that it felt like a fist was squeezing Maggie's heart. Alex hugged the other woman and the fist squeezed tighter.
"They seem… close," Maggie couldn't help but note to the agent next to her, half-hoping to hear a denial of it, that Supergirl is like that with everyone, but she knows the odds of that. Probably about equal odds of Maggie beating Alex at pool.
The agent—Vasquez, Maggie thinks—looked up from the monitor and follows her gaze. She smiled. "Yeah. It's pretty adorable."
Maggie frowned a little harder. Alex gripped Supergirl on the arm for a moment and the honey-blond head dipped closer to listen to the agent's words.
"How long have they known each other?" Maggie asked in a voice just a little too high-pitched to be casual.
Vasquez looked at Maggie sharply, her mouth open slightly. Her surprise faded quickly to amusement, and something almost like glee. "A while," she replied drily.
Supergirl hugged Alex tightly and hurried over to Director Henshaw, while Alex headed back toward Maggie.
"I think that's a record," Vasquez muttered, almost too quietly for Maggie to hear.
Alex and Maggie had been dating, been together, for over a month now. So, what before was just irritation with Supergirl's relationship with her girlfriend had blown into full-fledged jealousy, which Maggie was at least adult enough to admit to herself, if not to Alex.
Walking into the DEO always inspired some jealousy, but mostly for the view of the city that is nicer than any government agency has a right to. This time, though, the green-eyed monster stopped Maggie dead in her tracks. Alex and Supergirl stood side-by-side, arms crossed, as they both pouted at Henshaw. Alex was actually pouting. Henshaw put his hands to his face.
"Uh-oh."
Maggie turned to face the speaker. It was the tech guy, Winn, who was, evidently a friend of Kara's, and Alex's by extension. "What?"
"They're pouting. He can't refuse them anything when they pout," Winn explained.
"Isn't he the boss?" Maggie asked. The DEO had a few strange dynamics, but she knew everyone respected Henshaw and followed his orders. She and Alex tried to keep work and their personal lives separate, so Maggie hadn't really asked many questions about her girlfriend's coworkers.
"Well, yeah," Winn admitted, tilting his head. "But not with them. I mean, technically, K- Supergirl doesn't work here. And anyway, he's got a soft-spot for those two. He'd do anything for them."
Maggie frowned absently as she looked back at her girlfriend. They must have gotten the boss to concede, because Alex was grinning, and Supergirl was—de veras—bouncing.
Winn made a smothered noise of some sort, which he turned into a suspicious sounding cough, which made Maggie think he was laughing.
Supergirl looked over, then said something to Alex.
Alex turned, her face lighting up when she saw Maggie, and she hurried over.
Supergirl waved at Maggie before taking flight. Maggie had to stop herself from scowling. Whatever Maggie suspected was going on between them, Supergirl was unfailingly friendly, but distant. Her smiles for Maggie had true warmth to them, but she stayed away. When they were in the same room, the hero was all but silent, and found reasons to stand on the opposite side of the room as the detective. It was all just… weird.
But then Alex was there, and nothing else mattered for a little while as they got to work.
A few days later, Maggie decided she didn't care.
They were tracking a group that had been terrorizing aliens and humans alike. From what they'd found, it was one of the last remaining branches of CADMUS, aided by some group called Shadowspire. It was a big operation; most of the active DEO agents were there, as well as a sizeable chunk of NCPD, and, of course, Supergirl. But the group was large, well-organized, and well-armed. No one going into that fight thought it would be easy, and they were right. From the moment their trucks entered the compound, they were under fire.
Maggie and Alex led the team to enter the main building and secure the alien tech. Their whole team was good. They sheltered behind the armored vehicles and laid down enough cover fire for the extraction team to reach the building.
The warehouse was dimly lit. Maggie blinked rapidly to adjust from the bright sunlight to the flickering fluorescents at the far end of the room. High shelves stacked with crates blocked even more of the light, as well as any signs of the enemy. Alex directed agents with hand-signs to spread out and search. Maggie paired with her girlfriend as they crept amongst the boxes and barrels.
The middle of the warehouse was clear of shelves. Maggie and Alex eased themselves warily into the open space. There was no enemy to be seen, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Particularly not when the tech they were looking for was piled in the middle of the clear space.
"It might be a trap," Maggie said quietly.
Alex sent her an exasperated look. "Of course it's a trap. But the bait is what we came for."
Maggie rolled her eyes. "At least wait for some backup."
Alex nodded. She spoke into her com and their team assembled at their backs.
And they were right. It was a trap.
Gunfire broke out as soon as the whole squad neared the open, overflowing crates of weapons in the middle of the clear space. The team split evenly and instantly, following their plan, taking cover where they can, and picking off the enemy shooters.
Alex and Maggie sheltered behind the weapons they were there to collect.
"Oh, shit…" Maggie whispered. Their exit was blocked by someone decidedly not human anymore.
The bionic parts of the man were freaky, but the blue and purple tendrils that spread from his chest up his neck and down his arm were worse, somehow.
Alex looked over her shoulder to see what caught Maggie's attention.
"Supergirl, we need you," the agent said, calm and confident that the hero would appear.
To be fair, she did. With a bang, the red-and-blue decked superhero blasted through the ceiling, landing between the threat and the agents.
The rate of gunfire was slowly dropping off, and Maggie felt safe enough to watch the fight between Supergirl and the mutated man.
Alex, when the gunfire ceased, collected her agents and started them removing the stolen tech, casting worried glances over her shoulder at the fight raging behind her.
The man was strong, and as resistant to Supergirl's laser eyes as he was to Maggie's bullets. But, while Supergirl wasn't winning in a hurry, she wasn't losing, either.
Maggie turned to Alex, ready to ask if there was anything they could do to help. Alex shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as she watched the fight. Maggie swept the room again, things had a habit of going sideways at the last minute, she'd learned in Gotham. Her mouth went dry when she saw that things were going very, very wrong.
"Alex!" Maggie called in warning. The DEO agents had removed all the contraband and posted guards in a rough circle about the clearing. They'd missed, though, the man lying on a crate on the top shelf surrounding the space, scope to his eye, and his rifle pointing at Alex.
Alex turned, looking for the danger, at the same time Maggie heard the retort of the gun.
"Alex!" Another voice called, full of more despair than even Maggie could summon.
In the next moment, Maggie blinked at the figure wrapped around her girlfriend, shielding her, as Maggie tried to think past the ringing in her ears. There was a second bang, Maggie remembered, a deafening one—hence the ringing—but it took her a long moment, one filled with more gunfire, to realize that Supergirl broke the sound barrier in her haste to get to Alex, to shield her from the bullets, caused a sonic boom. And, as Alex stood there, unharmed, Maggie gives up any ill-will she held toward the girl of steel. If it protects Alex, she'd put up with a dozen attractive, heroic blondes making moves on her girl.
A week later, Maggie was still trying to figure out how to approach Alex about it. If Alex wanted relationships with both Maggie and Supergirl, Maggie was willing to try it, but she also knew that the key to any kind of open or polyamorous relationship was communication between the parties. Maggie had seen the trust and adoration in Alex's eyes, felt the passion and the warmth when they kissed, she knew she was important to Alex, loved, even. So she was willing to make it work. But they did have to talk about it.
Maggie was thinking hard about how she could bring it up in a way that wouldn't make Alex defensive as she trailed after her girlfriend, carrying bags of takeout back to Alex's apartment. So, when Alex stopped in front of her, Maggie ran into her back.
"Alex?" Maggie said, peering around the other woman. They were almost to Alex's door.
Alex held out a hand, stop, and her posture shifted to a balanced crouch, ready for a fight, and pulled her gun.
Maggie set the bags down slowly and unholstered her weapon, too. She edged forward so she was alongside Alex.
The door to Alex's apartment, which Maggie knew was always scrupulously locked, was cracked open. Even more disquieting, the doorknob and frame were smeared with blood. Maggie took a sharp breath. Alex looked at her and they both nodded. Alex pushed open the door quietly and stepped through with Maggie at her back.
Maggie scanned the room quickly, and found nothing obvious out of place. She looked at Alex, waiting for her cue to move to the next room. Alex wasn't looking about the room the way Maggie had. Her gun was lowered and she was scanning the floor, not the doorways or other hiding places.
Alex cried out suddenly and leapt over her coffee table and the arm of her couch, dropping her weapon in the process. Maggie was seconds later in seeing the faint streaks of blood across the floor, leading to a pair of red-booted feet sticking out from behind the couch.
Maggie's stomach dropped like she'd swallowed a bowling-ball. Every part of her body felt tight, anxious. She edged around the furniture to stand beside Alex.
Alex, who knelt beside the superhero, hands on the Kryptonian's shoulders, crying out to her to wake up, to be alright.
But it wasn't Supergirl she was pleading with.
Maggie's stomach dropped even further when she heard Alex crying out for Kara. For her sister. Everything fell into place.
Maggie wasn't sure how she had missed all the signs. It explained everything that Kara was Supergirl. She shook off her reverie and turned back to the matter at hand.
Kara was bleeding. A lot, Maggie noted. Bleeding from some kind of wound in her side, a cut across her temple, and trailing from her mouth. And Alex… Alex was distraught, nearly hysterical.
Maggie called Hank Henshaw.
He was there in less than five minutes, peeling Alex away from Kara and scooping up the superhero gently.
"You'll bring Alex," he asked in a way that didn't really sound like a question.
Maggie nodded.
The Martian nodded and took off through the window.
Maggie wrapped her arms around Alex. "She'll be okay. Let's get you cleaned up, and then we'll go see her."
Alex shuddered in her arms, pulling in a ragged breath before nodding.
"She's going to be okay," Maggie reiterated. "She's going to be okay."