He regrets the question almost as soon as the words have left his mouth when he feels more than sees her stiffen at his side.
"A what?" she stammers her hand dropping out of his own after she'd nearly tugged his arm out of place pulling him to a stop.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no it's nothing like that." Winn promised his hands raised in defense reading the unspoken fear in those open book blue eyes he was once again falling hard for. "It's well it's like a…" he began to explain but going by the start of tears in her eyes he wasn't going a proper job of it. "Like a…"
"Oh, there you two are."
Winn at least breathed a quick sigh of relief at the cheery tone while Eliza and Jeremiah Danvers seemed to melt out of the crowed hand in hand while Winn continued to scramble with an explanation.
"Lin? Linda Sweetheart what's wr-" but Eliza didn't get to finish her question before Linda's arms locked around her middle knocking the air out of the mother's lungs at the speed of it with her head nuzzled against Eliza's shoulder as she mumbles out an answer that the trio around her suspect not even her equally superpowered sister could understand.
"Start talking." Jeremiah demanded rounding on the guilty-looking young man standing beside them his tone more worried than angry as he rests a hand against Red Daughter's back while Eliza's hand soothes down her hair as Linda sniffs out a few more quiet sobs against her shoulder.
Winn drops his head with a regretful sigh before he meets the Danvers's father's eyes. "I asked if she wanted to try an elephant ear because she said she was getting hungry. It was the first thing that came to mind you know since we're at a carnival and all and I knew she hasn't tried one for herself yet. I wasn't thinking."
The parents share a look between them while Winn goes back to memorizing his shoes. With an agreeing node between them Jeremiah claps Winn on his shoulder with a suggestive "Let's go see what culinary delights they offer here shall we?" whilst Eliza gently prods Linda into following her over to the small collection of tables set up not that far from the collection of food stands.
It hadn't been Eliza nor Jeremiah's intent to crash their newest daughter's date night when they'd chosen to head over to the National City boardwalk for some time away but after spotting the pair walking close enough to be holding hands as they wondered the various stands and games the boardwalk offered it had just felt normal to start shadowing them. Just to be sure Linda wouldn't become overwhelmed with the bright lights and loud noises of the carnival atmosphere.
Both of them remembered all too clearly the tearful phone call they received the first time Kara had tried to tag along when Alex had gone to the street fair only for her newly awakened powers to quickly overwhelmed the young Kryptonian.
"See sweetheart it isn't really an Elephant's ear that's just what they call it because it fries up so big when it's finished." Eliza explains pulling up a few pictures on her phone for proof. Carefully Linda takes the phone meticulously studying each picture before her red-rimmed eyes meet Eliza's understanding gaze. "Okay."
"Who's this cutie?" Eliza asks noticing the way her daughter had been absenting petting the head of a plush tiger sitting in her lap as she scrolled the pictures of the different fair foods. "Mikhail," Linda says without looking up from the phone her hands still smoothing down the plush animal's fur between its ears. "Winn won him for me at a ball throw game." She elaborates bringing a fond smile to the elder woman's lips.
"Mikhail." Eliza repeated remembering the time she'd heard Kara using that name "wasn't that the name of the little boy you met in Kaznia?"
Linda flinches when the question also brought back her more painful memories of what had happened to her young friend as she slides Eliza's phone back across the table with a whispered "Da." in confirmation as she hugs the tiger a little closer against her chest shielding it in a way she hadn't been able to do with the real Mikhail.
"You know that Siberia is home to the world's largest wild cat in the world?" Eliza says conversationally in hopes of getting the heartbroken look from her daughter's face. Just like how a quick talk about otters had always brightened up a pouty faced Alex when she was younger.
"Really?" her more childlike Kara asked her eyes sparking in wonder as she carefully places the toy tiger on the table her eyes only on Eliza now. The mother smiles as she pockets her phone. Works every time. "Oh yes." She assures "11 feet length if I remember correctly and that's just its body the tail is an added 3 feet in length." Eliza rattles off remembering a younger Alex repeating the facts to her after a trip to the zoo with her father. "Actually, I think I still have one of Alex's animal books Jeremiah picked back at home if you…"
"Yes please." Linda nodes "All the books -" she started but stopped her eyes closing tightly but not before Eliza spotted the first licks of fire in her youngest daughter's ocean colored eyes before she started over eyes still tightly closed. Her shaking hand going back to therapeutically petting the soft fur of the plush toy as she forces the words out. "He would only send books to shape me into a weapon. Ones on the American economy, politics, war, teaching me English while making me hate as well." She pauses her expression softening as her fingers continue tenderly caressing the toy cat nestled against her lap. "Sometimes he sent others like Gatsby,"
Eliza smiles despite herself at just how much her daughter seemed to enjoy the gruesome romance of that literary classic before Linda's gaze hardened a second time in under a full minute to the point her watching adopting mother once again worried she would burn a hole into the tabletop as she speaks up "but then he said it was only to teach about how American capitalism corrupts and weakens men." Linda opens up making Eliza fight to keep her anger from her expression at the confession when Linda's eyes meet her own.
"I do not want to be a weapon, Mama." Red Daughter whispers her tone defeated.
"Oh, honey." Eliza's hands covered her own making Linda's weakened sniffles closer to full-on sobs when the calming words came out in Kryptonian rather than in English or her more native Russian. "You're not a weapon sweetheart. You're my daughter just as much as Alex and Kara are." Eliza promises saying it with such confidence that Linda couldn't help but believe it while her human mother finished coming around to the other side of the table in order to pull the now hiccupping Kaznian in for a hug.
"None of my girls are in any way weapons no matter how many superpowers or hours of military, shadow ninja or police academy combat training you might have. In the end, you are still one of my daughters." She promises rocking the blonde-haired girl in her arms back and forth as she spoke.
The young hero was about to speak up when Jeremiah and the boy she was having feelings for return carrying several trays of different sweet-scented treats.
"What did you buy everyone out?" Eliza jokes after noting just how many options they'd brought back.
"We didn't know what she liked so we picked up a bit of everything." Her adoptive father shrugs a pleased smile on his lips at Linda's wide-eyed expression at the spread just as Eliza was.
"Mic keeping an eye on you alright Snowie?" Winn asks licking the mixed dusting of cinnamon and powder sugar from his fingers before he gives the tiger cub at Linda's elbow an affectionate pat on the head.
The parents sharded another assessing glance between them when Linda blushes as she nodes despite trying to hide the color in her cheeks behind her hair whilst she tries to whip away the tear tracks under her eyes as the two men claim their seats at the table.
Winn's on her other side when it was clear Eliza wasn't going to move any time soon with Jeremiah taking the yet to be claimed space across from all three of them.
"Don't be shy, Snowie, we did get most of this for you, but half is for us to enjoy too." Jeremiah encourages gesturing toward the number of options covering the table.
Nervous eyes glance toward Winn but he nodes his head as well. "It's alright, Lin." He promises choosing not to comment when he feels Linda's hand slipping back into his own under the table.
"Is this the—" Red Daughter begins to ask poking a finger of her free hand at one of the deep-fried options.
The guilty look returns making Lind carefully squeeze the hand she was secretly holding in sympathy as the dark-haired man nodes his head. "That's the elephant ear."
Linda nods but instead chooses to tug a different plate closer after carefully passing off the fluffier version of Mikhail to her mother for safekeeping while they ate.
"Lin honey. Smile for the camera." Jeremiah coaxes holding up his phone to catch a more chipmunked cheeked grin once Linda had found the plate holding the deep-fried Oreos.
"But if you were a ." Maggie says her chin resting against Alex's shoulder as she reads "then how would you hug me with your tiny little arms?"
Without thinking Alex lets her fingers trace up the inside of Maggie's arm bringing a soft sigh and a pause to the murmured story being whispered against her ear. She pays careful attention to the healing scars of scalpels and needle marks as well as the yet to fade bruising left around her wrists from the restrains those so-called doctors used on her. this care is more for her than for Maggie. A way to burn each new reason to hate Cadmus or whatever it was they called themselves now.
"You're distracting me again." Maggie sighed letting the child's book Linda had entrusted to her fall against her side while the cute agent sitting in her lap shrugs a shoulder then goes back to her tracing of invisible patterns against the inside of Maggie's forearm.
She should push the tender touch away. It wasn't Alex's touch, or maybe it was but either way she shouldn't be enjoying it as much as she was until she was sure what was real and what was just some really clever trick left over from her time as Kelly's plaything.
"No matter what I do I can't break the love I know she still carries for you." Maggie remembers James's sister whispering to her while one of the lab doctors tightened the straps around Maggie's wrists and ankles. "She still calls for you in her sleep." At the time she was sure her captor hadn't meant for her to overhear the whispered words while the one she'd only find out later to be James Olsen's sister looms over her
"I didn't want it to come to this Maggie. Really I didn't but you forced my hand worming your way back into her life," Kelly murmurs dipping her fingers into the green liquid that serves as the trapped cop's torture cage to twist a few wet strains of Maggie's hair around her fingers whilst a supposed to have been unconscious Maggie watched her out of the corner of her half-closed eyes. "Alex is mine Sawyer and now thanks to Cadmus I won't need to worry about you stealing her away from me again."
Soft hands rather than rough wet ones caress her cheek then pulling a now tearful Maggie back into the world outside her own mind. The woman once rather contently sprawled out over the dazed cop's front was now kneeling between Maggie's legs with those beautiful hazel eyes full of concern mixed with some small sparks of hope trained on her face.
"Just taking an unexpected trip down fractured memory lane." Maggie tells her reading the yet to be typed out questions she guessed were just dancing on the tip of the red head's tongue as the agent's hand careful cups her chin.
Alex's eyes narrowed as she slowly moves her hand from Maggie's jaw to twisting a lock of her hair back behind her ear.
The move so like the one she remembered Kelly doing should have had her recoiling in disgust, but Maggie found herself leaning into the touch. Craving more as she felt her heart quietly breaking at the pained pout now crossing the agent's features when the door to their hide away slides open.
"I know dear one." The Kryptonian mother nodes while 'cute agent' drops back into her original sprawled out position like an angered cat about to have its favorite toy stolen away even going so far as to snuggle back against the curve of Maggie's body with a teenager worthy huff of displeasure as Alura crossed over to the detainment cell's control panel.
"Don't make this harder please." Alura sighs the paused her expression now one of concern as she looks over the two occupants of the cell where she had been told had once held three.
"Katie took her for a walk a little while ago." Maggie calms before Alex could do more than pull her tablet back into her lap. "They both needed time away."
Alura gives an understanding node as she keys in the unlock code her eyes moving from Maggie to Alex, "I understand your frustrations Firestar, but she's asking to see you again and the good news is J'onn has said Maggie is to be moved back into her room now she poses no threat."
Maggie winces at the comment no matter how true it was given why she'd been locked away in the first place. Kara's mother rests a hand against her ankle as she folds herself down at the end of the bed. "Maggie it's alright." She assures.
Alex's hand slips back into Maggie's giving it a reassuring squeeze as her ex's arms snake around her waist hugging her closer. "But Maggie hasn't finished the story yet," Alex's borrowed voice says
"Oh? And what story would that be?" Alura chuckles leaning in to run an affectionate hand in the pouting agent's hair.
Maggie holds up the book for the mother's inspection "The Runaway Dinosaur. Lin read it to me a time or two before Kara found us."
Alura leans in interested as she looks over the front cover. "Dinosaurs and thwarted love affairs. Firestar remind me to have a talk with Lin about her reading habits."
There was something about the scratchy laughter from the woman in her arms that has Maggie dimly remembering a softer time where another woman gave the same scratchy laugh before whispering those four that still had Maggie's heart-melting. "I love you, Maggie Sawyer."
A loud rap of knuckles against the door puts an end to the remembered moment as Maggie as well as the agent and Alura glance over a guilty-looking Susan Vasquez "Sorry boss but she's really making a fuss about wanting to see you."
The scratchy curse wasn't one Maggie recognized but it seemed Alura seemed to if the narrowed eye look, she sends the red-haired woman shifting in Maggie's arms was anything to go by. "Be back soon." The grumpy DEO agent says as striking hazel eyes find saddened chocolate brown.
Alura and Vaz shared a surprising glance when Maggie's hand caught Alex's wrist tugging her back around once the latter had grudgingly gotten to her feet.
"I'll finish the story when you come back okay?" Alex nodes her free hand moving to twist the chain of her necklace around her fingers as Maggie flashes a subdued half-smile. "It's a date."