It all went south so fast.
One minute, Alex and her squad were ready to start firing at the CADMUS soldiers running around the site, flanked by Supergirl herself, who'd taken point and was being shot at herself.
The next thing she remembers is her back hitting the ground – where did the sky go? – and feeling an intense pain in her chest. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think.
She vaguely heard somebody shouting her name, but it was too far away to identify. After a few moments of agonizing gasps and chest pain, she felt herself slip away.
She was out before she even knew it.
"Danvers… Hey, Alex. Open your eyes, come on. Please."
She recognized the voice. She could recognize it anywhere. Without opening her eyes, she tried to lean forward toward the sound.
"Maggie…"
Two gentle hands pushed her back by the shoulders. "Careful. Don't move too much."
"B-Bullet?" Alex winced, finally opening her eyes. It was very dark, and she couldn't tell where she was. Maggie looked unharmed, but pale and sweaty. It was obvious she was scared, and Alex realized with a jolt that the concern might have been for her.
The detective nodded quickly. "Right in the vest."
Alex traced her own fingers down to her chest, where she felt a hard piece of metal stuck into the fabric of her vest. Thank god for that thing.
"Help me… Up…" She grunted, trying to sit upright. Maggie didn't look convinced at all, but supported her lower back and brought her to a sitting position, leaning on something solid that felt like a wall. Alex finally got a good look around, and saw that she didn't recognize her surroundings at all.
"Where…" She wheezed. Maggie stared at her, her forehead still creased with concern. "We're still at CADMUS. I saw you go down after you took the hit, so I dragged you out of the crossfire. I don't know where we are, but we can't move."
"Why not?"
Maggie took a second to answer. "Cameras. It looks like this is a blind spot, but I don't want to risk it…" She sighed. "We lost, Alex. J'onn pulled the entire squad back after realizing it was pointless, their guns are far more advanced. They have armor piercing rounds, you're lucky it didn't go straight through." Her voice wavered on the last sentence, and it didn't go unnoticed.
Alex took a shaky breath, trying to test if her ribs could take it, and found that though extremely uncomfortable, it didn't hurt as much as it'd done before.
Until she realized what she'd been forgetting. She shot up again, Maggie's eyes widening as she jolted forward to help her instinctively. Alex winced at her protesting ribs, but looked her girlfriend in the eyes. "Kara. What… Is she-"
"I…" Maggie's hesitation made her stomach drop. When the brunette realized what conclusions Alex was jumping to, she shook her head quickly. "She took a few hits, but it wasn't anything serious. I'm sure it's all okay. You know her, she may act like a puppy most of the time but she's one tough bitch."
Alex' brow furrowed. "What?"
"You know…" Maggie grunted. "Dog metaphors. You know what? Never mind."
"So, what? We're stuck here? In a… What is this, a broom closet?"
"I think more of a storage room. There are shelves." Maggie pointed over her shoulder. Alex leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
"Hey, babe, stay with me." Maggie pressed again, moving her hand to rest on the other woman's cheek. "You can't leave me here."
"I won't." Alex smiled softly at the touch. "I love you."
Maggie laughed. "Dork."
She slowly got up, pulling her gun. Alex frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Checking to see if there's a way out of here. I don't know if anyone knows where I took you. I'm sure the DEO is looking for us, but so is CADMUS, probably."
"Be careful."
Maggie grinned lopsidedly, flashing her dimples. "Always am, Danvers."
With her footsteps fading out, she disappeared from Alex' vision. The agent leaned back again, and tried to remember what had happened before, when it all went bad. But except for hitting the deck hard and blacking out, there was nothing.
Not even a minute later, Maggie was back by her side, kneeling down beside her. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay." Alex said, quickly trying to get to her feet. Maggie bit her lip, unsure how to react. "Are you sure? I mean, you took a bad fall…"
"Mags. It nothing I haven't had before. I'm-…"
Before she could elaborate, they both heard footsteps. Maggie wrapped an arm around her, forcing Alex to get on her knees again and stay low. She grabbed her gun from her holster again, and waited breathlessly at the corner of one of the nearby shelves.
There was a CADMUS soldier walking along the shelves in a steady, rhythmic pace. Neither of the two women dared to breathe, though Alex could feel her lungs protesting the lack of air. She'd have a bruise the size of Jupiter on her chest, that much was sure. Maybe even a cracked or broken rib along the way.
The soldier turned a corner. He was now close to them. Too close. Maggie glanced back at Alex, and they had a second of eye-contact, before they both knew what was coming.
As soon as the soldier was near Maggie's shelf, she jumped him, and grabbed him by the neck, forcing him down. He struggled, and ran backwards into the wall, where Maggie's back hit the concrete, earning a yelp. Alex got up and went to help her, but Maggie jumped back from the hit quickly, and went back for his neck. After a few punches and kicks from the both of them, she finally managed to crack his head against the wall. He slid down like a ragdoll, hitting the floor.
Alex stared at her in amazement, though it quickly morphed into concern. "Maggie! Are you okay?!"
The detective dabbed the backside of her hand against her face, blood dripping from her nose. "Peachy."
Alex grabbed her by the wrists and forced her to look her in the eyes as she used her sleeve to gently wipe the blood away. It didn't stop Maggie from wincing, and pulling away from her, turning to the wall so that her back was facing her girlfriend.
Alex only had a second to feel hurt at the rejection, before Maggie spoke again. "A-Al?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"W-we have a p-problem."
It was the second time Maggie had slurred her words, and for a second, an infinite amount of possibilities and scenarios raced through Alex' mind. Had Maggie hit her head against the wall? Did she have a concussion? Brain damage? An aneurysm?!
Alex took an instinctive step forward into the direction of her girlfriend, grabbing her forearm, before Maggie spun around, and all but collapsed into her girlfriend's arms. Alex gasped, as her senses and emotions completely overtook her years of training and professionalism. Her girlfriend just collapsed.
"Maggie?!" Alex kept one hand on Maggie's wrist to take her pulse, the other on her cheek. When the brunette didn't immediately respond, Alex tapped her cheek gently. "Maggie, can you hear me? Hey… Baby, talk to me."
"S-sugar." Maggie mumbled incoherently. "Sugar…"
Alex frowned at the request. Was she that out of it? Delirious?
Slowly, and without any grip whatsoever, Maggie grabbed the hand that was taking her pulse. "A-Alex. Sugar."
"I don't understand. Sugar? What do you mean?"
"I-I'm… Diabetic." Maggie finally managed to stammer. Alex's stomach jumped at the confession. She'd never noticed. And she'd eaten with her girlfriend plenty of times before, hell, she'd spent days on end with her! Why had she never seen it?!
Maggie must have seen the confusion on her face, because she smirked weakly. "I'm… Embarrassed. Wanted to k-keep it h-hidden from you."
Alex took Maggie's hand in hers, and tried really hard not to notice how pale and shaky the other woman had become. "Maggie, listen to me. You never, never ever get embarrassed about something as serious as this! Why didn't you tell me?! I could have kept an eye on you! I made you eat a huge piece of cake at Winn's birthday, why didn't you stop me?!"
"S' okay, Danvers." Maggie mumbled. "S'alright…"
Alex realized what the slurring meant. "Hey, no, Maggie, stay with me… Baby!" She tried, but the brunette's eyes rolled backwards and she went limp in her arms.
"Shit…" Alex looked around at the shelves, but it was too dark in the room to see anything in detail. She checked if everything was still on her belt and found, much to her relief, that her phone was still in her pocket. She must have lost her gun during the shootout, though.
She fished her phone out of her pocket and stared at it for a second, planning her next move.
Did CADMUS have some sort of tracking device? Would they be alarmed instantly as soon as she made a call?
One look at the now ashen complexion of her girlfriend made her throw all the caution in the world out the window. Maggie needed medical care, she needed a hospital as soon as possible.
She had to risk it. She quick-dialed J'onn, but the line went dead immediately. Shocked, she pulled the phone back from her ear, and realized to her own distress that there was no signal, wherever they were. "No, no…" She tried again, and again, but none of the calls could connect. "Fuck… Fuck, Maggie, I don't know what to do…"
No. She was Alex Danvers, for god's sake. What was she doing sitting here and crying?! She needed to find a solution, and fast. She grabbed Maggie's gun from her holster, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and crawled to the body of the guard, swiping his keycard and credentials.
Every step she took was a fight with her own body telling her to stay down and rest. Her ribs were screaming again, but she ignored the pain. Now, she had something bigger to worry about.
She rounded a corner, and spotted the camera. If she could make her way over to one certain spot in the corridor she could stay undetected. Jesus, why didn't Maggie just say she was diabetic?
Alex felt like a horrible girlfriend for not noticing something was seriously wrong with her. Then again, if Maggie wanted something hidden from the world, she'd get away with it. It probably wasn't the only skeleton in her closet.
She checked her phone again. Still nothing. Would Kara be healed enough to come get them? Was Kara as okay as Maggie made it seem, or did she diminish Kara's injuries to calm her down?
A thousand questions raced through her mind as she shuffled one step at a time, getting closer to escaping and help, but also further away from Maggie.
Her heart leapt at the thought of Lillian Luthor walking into the storage room and finding an unconscious Maggie along with a beat-up soldier. The things she'd do to her… It made the hair at the back of Alex' neck stand up with fear.
A noise behind her made her spin around quickly, raising the gun. Her eyes widened when she saw the shape stumbling out of the door and into the corridor.
"Hey, no, Maggie, stay there-!" She tried to warn, but it was too late. She'd walked right into the camera's field of view, and within seconds, an alarm started blaring through the building.
"Fuck." Alex cursed. Now that she couldn't care less about the cameras, she sprinted back towards where Maggie was barely keeping herself upright, to hold her in her arms.
"I didn't… know where you were." The brunette managed to look her in the eyes weakly. "I thought you'd been…"
She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't need to either. Alex understood how scared she must have been. "Get back in the room. Go."
When Maggie's legs didn't cooperate, Alex eased her into her arms, and carried her back into the room bridal style. She felt Maggie's head loll back and forth against her neck and the fear and doubt returned, making her head cloud with worry.
She couldn't think with the blaring alarm in her ears, though she realized that they didn't have a lot of time before something, or someone, would find them.
"Maggie, I love you, okay? Whatever happens." She wrapped her arms around her girlfriend and kissed her on the lips intensely. Although she didn't want Maggie to worry too much in her state – if she was even aware of what was going on at all – it still felt too much like a goodbye.
She didn't hear Maggie's mumbled response, but she didn't need to. She was sure Maggie would feel the same way and make the same decisions had the roles been reversed. She raised the gun, and waited for a shootout.
She'd gladly bargain with Lillian to spare Maggie from her experiments and captivity. She'd trade everything she owned and had to get her girlfriend the medical help she needed. Hell, at this point, she'd die for-
Food. Sugar. That was what Maggie needed, right? She leapt up. One eye trained on the door in case somebody came through, the rest of her body focused completely on checking the shelves for anything remotely sugary.
The most part of the storage was for old metal parts, chemicals and other junk she was sure CADMUS used for their foul experiments, but nothing there would help. But she couldn't give up. She would never forgive herself.
She went back to the guard, still lying unconscious near the wall, and checked his pockets.
The sight of a candy bar had never before brought the relief she'd felt that instant. She yanked it out of his pants, opened the wrapper and fell onto her knees next to Maggie. "Hey, baby, look what I found…"
Maggie didn't respond. Alex frowned, and shook her shoulder gently. "Maggie, I found candy. Come on, open your eyes, you need to bite it."
It took one second of numbness and unresponsiveness for Alex to start panicking. She put the candy bar down and checked Maggie's pulse. It was weak, but there. Her breathing was too slow. Maggie was sinking down into an abyss Alex never wanted to even think about.
Footsteps behind her. At that point, Alex couldn't even care if it was Lillian Luthor herself coming to finish her off. She'd kill them. She'd kill all of them if Maggie wouldn't wake up again to flash those adorable dimples of hers.
She reached for her gun and turned around, but instead of being met with a barrel pointed at her face, she saw a red and blue figure in front of her.
Supergirl.
"Oh, thank God…" Alex was sobbing freely now. "Kara, you need to help me…"
Kara saw Maggie's body, and paled visibly. "Oh, Rao…"
"She's hurt. She won't wake up, and her blood sugar is too low. You need to fly her to a hospital."
Kara nodded, and reached forward to pick Maggie up, and look Alex in the eyes one more time. "I'm coming back for you. Stay here, don't move. There might be more of them on this floor."
Alex honestly didn't care. She watched as Kara took off into the corridor, and the only thing on her mind was that Maggie was safe, hopefully.
And the talk they both needed to have after she woke up. Because if their current situation was any indication, they needed to be much more open and transparent with each other, so Alex could have prevented this.
She made a mental note to carry something sugary on her from now on, and to make sure that her cheat day drawer was always well-stocked. And to never let Maggie get embarrassed by something so stupid ever again.