Can't Go It Alone
Chapter One
Detective Maggie Sawyer loves her work with National City's metahuman task force. The problem, she's got a case she can't handle alone and she doesn't trust the people she works with at NCPD. After making a phone call, looking for back-up specializing in what she's uncovered, leads her smack into her past, will her life ever be the same again?
This is my take on where the series could go when season two begins. Supergirl and the characters connected with it are in no way mine. I'm just playing with them for a little while.
This really couldn't be happening. What was the old movie line? 'Of all the places, in all the world, and there she was', ... or something like that.
Maggie Sawyer knew she was mucking up the quote from the old black and white movie her grandmother made her watch more times than she could count but the quote wasn't the important thing. What was important was that walking into the conference room, at this crazy secret base she had been driven to, were two federal agents, one of whom was an unexpected blast from the past. Alexandra Danvers with her beautiful eyes, her incredible body, hugged nicely in the suit she was wearing, and her more than perfect lips couldn't possibly be about to completely screw up Maggie's already less than perfect day, actually month.
No, Alexandra Danvers was a smart, sexy, albeit screwed up, genetic engineer, science, lover who, almost four years earlier, had made Maggie re-think everything she ever thought about nerds. Alexandra was all about Stanford and her science and after they met she had nearly changed the entire direction of Maggie's life. There was no way she was now a federal agent, let alone one Maggie was meeting to discuss a case she was working and yet, there Alexandra was, moving into the room, with a weapon not so subtly concealed behind her blazer.
As they locked eyes, Maggie saw three things, professionalism, respect, and a familiar longing. It was very difficult, even after all this time, not to let on she had noticed the last one.
For the past six months, Maggie Sawyer had worked hard and with great pride for the National City Police metahuman task force. She had solved more cases than some of the more run of the mill departments were clearing and was getting a reputation. Depending on where someone sat on the increase in Meta activity in National City, Maggie was either an incredibly skilled closer of impossible cases or a giant pain in the ass.
It wasn't as much the thoroughness of her work but in the empathy, she always remembered to carry with her on every case, where the negative feedback had started to stem. More often than not, her investigations found newly gifted criminals using their powers for horrible reasons but ever so often there was more to a Meta crime than uncontrollable greed or baseless revenge.
During the closing of a recent case, Maggie had nearly been shipped back to Gotham PD by a very angry assistant district attorney after fighting hard to get the circumstances of the crime on record at a sentencing hearing. In Maggie's worldview, killing was never a solution, except in the case of self-defense. So, when an underage Meta, who had spent five years being held against her will and repeatedly been the victim of physical and sexual abuse, used her newly developed power of mind control to slowly and methodically dismember her abuser, Maggie had worked overtime to see the teen end up committed to a specially equipped psychiatric facility instead of being dumped in a top secret cage or face the electric chair.
When an elderly Meta had found himself unable to control his powers and accidentally sent a grocery store full of shoppers into a frenzy, because they all thought they were being attack by flesh eating bugs, Maggie managed to help get him probation and a case worker who was also building up a quite a resume for helping Metas handle their new lot in life.
It was Maggie's commitment to justice that fit the crime's intent, which was causing the recognition and contempt. She was finding many on and connected to National City law enforcement community to be grateful for her skilled and measured approach but there were a handful who wanted dangerous metahumans to remain on the streets so the attention was off their departments low productivity numbers, others thought the Meta crime sprees would help line their pockets or be politically helpful to their careers, and some really bad apples wanted to see people who were beyond explanation be erased from existence.
One detective, she had no choice but to work with on a couple cases, was fond of peppering his version of Meta crime with language that on a good day was ignorant but on a bad day was hate speech. It didn't matter if he was speaking of an evil sociopath or a child who wasn't able to control their abilities when they accidentally set fire to the bleachers in their school gym after being bullied. To him they were all an equal blight and Maggie was cynical enough to know he wasn't alone in his way of thinking. Dealing with the public while investigating Meta cases, it was getting easy to see how the Salem witch trials became a thing.
Sure, most of the city was appreciative of good people like, say, Supergirl but not everyone was convinced she was good for the world. Her activities over the past year hadn't gone unnoticed thanks in large part to CatCo Media's obsession with the woman in blue. The news agency was often her biggest cheerleader and, once or twice, her harshest critic but, even when being critical, it had always been constructive. On the other side there were talking heads, like Maxwell Lord, that when given airtime were prone to throwing gasoline on fires. Granted, the eccentric billionaire tech giant had presented a public change of heart when it came to Supergirl but his earlier whispers of danger and fear had already seeped into the fabric of the conversation, especially with those people who already hated anything different.
People with hate in their heart weren't new to Maggie. Growing up, she often felt it directed at her because of her heritage. The adults that took issue with her were never brave enough to say anything to her face. Her peers that bullied with playground taunts found themselves at the receiving end of playground fights that Maggie often won. By the time her teens and early twenties rolled around she had learned to ignore people who were taking issue with her background just in time for the fact she was gay, and proud of it, to become the problem. Eventually she grew thick enough skin to ignore that hate. It was then her stubborn pride and ability to barrel forward, that caused the woman, now sitting across from her, to exit her life.
On the positive side it was those same qualities that caused her to jump at the chance to leave Gotham and move to National City to take the job. Her gift as an investigator married with her life experience made her the best person for a job with Meta crime and she found herself drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Focusing on unexplained impossibilities was a challenge she couldn't pass up and it allowed her to distance herself from her most recent disastrous break up.
Maggie Sawyer was always great with work but relationships never seemed to pan out. So she traded a decent position with Gotham PD's homicide division and an emotionally distant, frustrating, vigilante in a batsuit that occasionally shared her bed for a more challenging job she was now succeeding in past even her own expectations. It seemed a good trade even with what she was currently facing and even if it meant accidentally pulling Alexandra Danvers back into her life.
If Maggie's instincts were correct, and they often were, her latest case not only was way too big to handle alone it was also putting a really big target on her back. She couldn't go it alone. She needed backup.
"Detective Sawyer," Alexandra managed to say without a hint of shock in her voice, but why should she be shocked, she had the heads up. They had probably run every background check in the book before agreeing to the meeting. "I'm agent Alex Danvers and this is my superior officer, Hank Henshaw."
Maggie fought off a smile and a memory that involved great music and lots of Tequila. "It's nice to meet you, both," she said punctuating the lie just enough for it to be noticed. "Thank you for taking the time to see me."
Henshaw took a step forward and gestured to one of the empty chairs. "It's us who should be thanking you. We appreciate that you reached out."
Maggie removed her leather jacket and hung it on the back of the chair and then placed her shoulder bag on the table before taking a seat. She then removed a stack of folders and binders from the bag. "Before we begin I want your assurance that I'm not going to hand this over and have it taken away. We work together or I walk."
"We can't guarantee anything until we know what you're bringing us," Alexandra coldly explained.
Maggie stood and began to pack up. "I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time."
Henshaw slowly gestured back to the chair. "What Agent Danvers meant to say was we have every intention of working with you but you need to be aware that there are procedures in place that need to be followed before I can give you one hundred percent assurance. I can only promise you that I have no reason to remove you from the case and firmly believe your proficiency closing cases for Meta crimes will be a great asset."
Call it instinct but Maggie believed him and at the end of the day justice mattered more than her need to be involved in seeing the guilty parties go away. She placed the folders back on the table and returned to her seat. "I hope you continue to find that to be the case."
"So what has your investigation uncovered," Alexandra asked.
"I have reason to believe we have a humanist militant group that has formed in National City with a goal of both discrediting and doing violent harm to Metas, aliens, and their supporters."
"What drew you to this conclusion?" Henshaw asked after a very subtle, but noticeable, look at Alexandra.
"Certain evidence has come to light while in the midst of a 6 week investigation that started with a string of unsolvable robberies and has now resulted in the violent, I believe, hate crime motivated, murder of a seventeen year old boy from the inner city."
It was Alexandra's turn to glance at her superior. "Did the teen have a gift?"
"Yes and he was using it to be his community's Robin Hood."
Alexandra jotted something into the tablet in her hand. "How so?"
"After a lot of leg work I was able to tie him to these string of robberies."
"Walk us through it," Henshaw instructed.
"Every victim was an employer of minimum wage employees who lived in the same projects my victim also lived in. Also, all of the individuals robbed had questionable, allegedly illegal, business practices that no one could bring to light. Two of the six robbery victims had recently been cleared on unrelated crimes by the grand jury when, in both cases, the key witnesses disappeared. Each robbery coincided with a windfall for employees of said employers."
Henshaw seemed to smile. "Go on."
"In some cases, it was cash that recipients weren't exactly subtle about spending. In some cases, necessary goods like groceries or clothing or desperately needed medications were handed out," Maggie tried her best to keep the emotion out of her voice. "Two weeks following the final robbery, and in the midst of me trying to convince the thief to turn himself in, he was murdered."
"And this led you to conclude a hate group?" Alexandra asked, her tone challenging.
Taking a folder from the pile before her, Maggie opened it and tossed it across the table. "No, this did."
The full color photo was brutal. Maggie had committed every detail of it to memory including the message staked into the teen's chest with a nine-inch blade. "Die Freak."
The horror on Alexandra's face was evident from the moment her eyes looked down at the photo. "Jesus."
Henshaw said nothing while pulling the photo closer to him for a better look. Maggie thought she saw the color of his eyes change but she chalked it up to her own anger over events and her lack of sleep.
"He was prepared to work with me to help unmask the illegal activity of these criminal employers. In exchange, I had nearly gotten him to agree to turn himself in for the robberies with a promise that I would work with the DA's office to get a reduced sentence that would include him working with someone who specialized in helping Metas."
Henshaw hadn't taken his eyes off the photo as if he was willing it to tell him something. "What was his gift?"
Maggie normally had to work up slowly to the big reveal. No matter how many times people had seen footage from Cat Grant of Supergirl flying, they couldn't wrap their heads around the kind of things she was dealing with on a day to day basis. These two could handle it. "When he wanted he could phase in and out of any location. It was as if he could make himself a ghost; which was what his neighbors had started calling him."
"And yet someone managed to do that to him?" Alexandra asked as she pulled the folder away from Henshaw and closed it.
"Can't explain it, maybe he was caught off guard and couldn't just instantly phase his way out, but yes. I saw him with my own two eyes phase out of handcuffs and then run thru a brick building the first time I apprehended him. His skills were the real deal."
Alexandra made another note in her tablet as Henshaw continued asking questions. "How did you go from him running from you to him agreeing to work with you?"
"He was living with his aunt. She and I had a talk. Eventually he found me and said if I could help him stop these business owners from taking advantage of his friends and neighbors he would agree to turn himself in. He was a good kid. Saw this thing that happened him as a way to help people he loved."
"Seems a big leap to hate crime? Could be these owners got wind. I still don't see the connection," Alexandra interjected.
Maggie pulled four other folders from the stack and tossed them on the table. "These are your connections."
Henshaw reached over and took each folder, he opened them, absorbed the images that Maggie knew all too well and then handed each one to Alexandra who looked at them. She then closed them and made another stack.
"Five dead bodies in six months on the job. Those four have no connections to the robbery victims. No connection between the murder victims except they all had abilities. The only other common denominator is the same message and same kind of blade staked into each body and according to autopsy that occurred while they were still alive. And of course none of this made the press because empathy for people like them doesn't sell papers."
"And why do you suspect a hate group?" Henshaw asked.
"The Internet is filled with all kinds of things if you know where to look," Maggie said as she slid across the table the thick black binder she had put together. "That is filled with ideology, media blips that could be tied to the group, possible leads I managed to track down, a very rudimentary chain of command, unfortunately with only online aliases, and some potential intended targets. You'll also notice in the highlighted portions enough evidence to at least place some of the anonymous handles to the top of the suspect list when it comes to three of the five cases in those folders, including the ghost case."
Henshaw got up from his chair. "May I get this to our analysts?"
"I've got another copy locked up in a safe place. Be my guest. These copies are all yours."
Henshaw moved to the door, opened it, and handed the binder and the case files to the guard standing outside the room. "Get these to Vasquez and tell her its top priority."
"Yes, sir." The guard responded as Henshaw went back into the room and then shut the door. "What else have you got?"
Maggie slid across the table the final two pieces of evidence she had collected, each in a thin black binder. "From my research, I'm pretty certain I'm getting very close and time is of the essence."
Alexandra grabbed one while Hank grabbed the other. Maggie immediately wished she had held one of the two pieces back when she realized which one Alexandra was opening. It was too late now.
"The president's visit to honor Supergirl seems their next target and it seems I've been marked a traitor," Maggie said, trying to sound as unfazed as possible but knowing photos don't lie.
From the look on her face, Alexandra wasn't taking the vandalism done to Maggie's condo in stride. The damage done was extensive. The threats scrawled on the walls very clear. "This is your place, isn't it?"
"It was time to get some new furniture, and a new wardrobe, and who doesn't like the chance to change up the wall colors," Maggie responded, flippantly.
Alexandra looked up and met Maggie's eyes. She was angry. "Those are death threats scrawled on those walls."
"Yep and in blood, I figured out." Maggie tried to stop herself from speaking further but found she couldn't. "I think Die Dyke might be my favorite."
"This isn't a joke." Anger was changed to worry on Alexandra's face. "I'm assuming you reported this."
"Not until right now."
"Why not?" From Henshaw's tone, Maggie suspected that he knew the answer she was about to give. Something about the conversation with them was now beginning to feel like a test.
"From my research into the group, I'm pretty sure there are people at NCPD involved. So, I called in the only favor I had left with someone connected with the kinds of things I assume you two take care of and that phone call brought me here. I was assured your team could be trusted."
Alexandra was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Come in," Henshaw said without turning around.
As the door opened, Maggie couldn't help but feel a bit star struck. Without thinking, she even stood because in the doorway, in her blue suit and her red S, was Supergirl. Her arms at her side and a smile on her face, she seemed younger and smaller than Maggie imagined the hero to be.
"Detective Sawyer, I want to thank you for your efforts. When I got the phone call that you needed assistance I looked into you and was impressed by what I learned of your work and your commitment to not only justice but more importantly your sense of compassion. It's very commendable and sadly rare these days. They are two qualities I greatly admire."
"The feeling is mutual, Supergirl. You've done great things for this city."
The hero smiled. "It seems from what you've just presented we all have work to do." The inclusion in her comment didn't go unnoticed. "I look forward to working along side you on this case."
Hank Henshaw and Alexandra stood from their chairs. He extended his hand to Maggie. "I think that goes for all of us."
Maggie reached over and shook it while mentally kicking herself for not noticing the very tiny red lights blinking in the corner of the room. Of course they had cameras running during the interview. "Thank you for allowing me the chance to help see this to its conclusion."
Alexandra began collecting up the two remaining binders from the table and headed out. "I'll go give these to Vasquez and bring back our Intel so that Detective Sawyer can be brought up to speed."
"Can we offer you something to drink?" Henshaw asked.
"Coffee, if what you government types have around here is drinkable."
Henshaw smiled and also headed towards the door. "It is. I'll bring us all back a cup. It's going to be a long afternoon. Supergirl, we'll talk later."
Supergirl nodded and, as Henshaw left, gave a small laugh. It was a surprising but pleasant sound coming from a super hero. "Those two insist on great coffee. They bring it in themselves and hide it so they don't have to drink the stuff in the kitchen."
"I stop for the good stuff on my way into work for the same reason," Maggie confessed.
Supergirl moved closer to the table and extended her hand. "I've got to go meet with secret service about the President's visit but will be back later. It was nice meeting you, Detective Sawyer."
"Please, call me Maggie," she said as she shook hands with Supergirl.
"Maggie." She said with a little nod and then there was that smile again. It seemed to light up the room as the hero turned to leave. She then stopped and turned back. "Oh, and don't let Agent Danvers' professionalism read as rudeness. She's big on facts. Likes to make sure she covers all the bases."
Maggie smiled back and nodded but under her breath said, "I recall."
Supergirl seemed to chuckle as she left Maggie alone in the room. As the door closed, Maggie Sawyer realized that one of the many things Supergirl had in her power arsenal was super hearing.