Alex trusts her. That has to be the worst part of this.
The feel of a relationship slipping away is familiar enough – hell she practically makes a sport of it, or would if it didn't suck – but usually, they both know what's going on. Nausea isn't usually part of the package. Well, it is, but only after the breakup binge.
Maggie would really prefer it if it was clean, clinical, a quick blackbagging in an alleyway somewhere far away from her, utterly unconected to Maggie Sawyer, girlfriend. Alex would fight, because Alex doesn't know how not to fight, but there wouldn't be feelings involved. It wouldn't be messy.
Instead, she gets to see Alex bloom. She gets to see her happy. Maggie likes seeing her happy. Likes making her happy, likes seeing her coming undone under her hands, likes that baby deer in headlights expression she gets every time she realises just how gay she is.
None of that stops her firing off a text to Alex, telling her to meet her outside one of the warehouses near the port.
She arrives on her bike. Of course she does. If Maggie wasn't on a schedule ...
It's too late for regrets now. There's no more time for her to delay. That doesn't stop her continuing to lead Alex inside, despite the twinge of guilt her blush elicits when Maggie wraps the blindfold over her eyes.
Alex trusts Maggie. She hasn't been given a reason not to, but ... Alex is so slow to trust. Why would she pick Maggie, of all people to be the exception?
Alex lets herself be led. It's a novel sensation, but one she's becoming more used to, is letting herself become used to, with Maggie. She hears the soft thuds of their footsteps, hers uncertain, Maggie's the steady tread of someone who can see where's they're going. The creak of a door is followed by a sensation of wind in her hair. Can't smell anything other than dust, damp, and salt, the slightest hint of the sea in the air. Not a candlelit dinner than. She feels the cold metal of the chair she's backed into through her jacket, the warmth of Maggie's hand as it disappears from her arm, Maggie's pleased hum when she stays still, the gentle tug as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before moving away.
Alex waits in the dark.
Maggie watches her from the doorway. Alex is seated right where she left her. Such a good girl. Such a good, good, stupid girl. Maggie had tried to tell her she couldn't be trusted, tried to push her away, but Alex Danvers can be a force of nature when she wants to be. Also fragile, delicate, like fractured glass waiting to be knocked off the nearest shelf just to get it over with.
Henshaw stands beside the chair, silent and emotive as a rock. She ignores him to keep watching Alex. She isn't still - her lips are moving, fingers tapping, scrawling invisible diagrams onto the fabric of her jeans. She's still working on that equation. Nerd.
The infinite moment – like an oodleplex, but more bittersweet -is broken when Luthor speaks up beside her. Maggie's never hated her more than in that instant, and she's seen what she does to kittens.
"I really thought it would be harder to surprise the agent who killed a Kryptonian General."
Alex flinches at the reminder of Astra, of Kara's aunt, of 'you're telling me you've never had a crush on someone you've worked with Danvers?' She doesn't freeze when the voice registers. Violent response to threats is far too hardwired in her system and Maggie's here. Somewhere. It's been what, five minutes? A lot can happen in that time. Far too much can happen. She can't lose - if they've hurt Maggie –
She explodes out of the chair, one hand whipping round to rip away the blind fold –
And slams into concrete wall.
Her arm isn't quite broken, and it's possible that she may end up with less impressive bruises than what promises to develop, but there's no time for to think her way out as the grip throws her back into the chair. It doesn't move. Some of her ribs might. Brings her legs up to kick her opponent away. They don't move. Impact reverberates all the way up her spine. In response, she's picked up – definitely nonhuman strength, if she didn't know better she'd say Kryptonian- and tossed to the floor. Nope, onto a knee. Then the ground.
Maggie has no doubt Alex could and would - and has, knowing her - straight up fight a Kryptonian barehanded, but she is both blind and blindsided, and Maggie knows purely human flesh and bone has a lot more give than whatever metal alloy Henshaw is made of.
Even so, subduing her drags on far longer than it really ought to, and she is battered and bloody long before she is pinned. Too exhausted to continue, but all too willing to do so all the same.
If she keeps fighting, Henshaw will kill her. And Alex will fight. Maggie can't let that happen. Opening her mouth still feels like the worst sort of betrayal, no matter how much she tells herself it's to keep Alex alive. And as long as she's alive – she's alive. That's what matters.
"I thought you wanted her alive."
Alex perks up at the sound of her voice, straining up until her ribs are introduced to a metal kneecap. (And - honestly, the man is so artificial she's surprised he doesn't power down when he isn't needed to play terminator.)
She can see the moment the implications of her words register. Alex collapses in on herself. There's no other way to put it. She's never seen her so limp and lifeless. Maggie never wanted to see Alex with the fight beaten out of her. Worst part of the whole thing is that she's at fault. She's the one who couldn't be the good person Alex thought she was.
And Alex is going to know that for the rest of her life.