Taylor knows they forsake their right to a normal life long before they were even born. Still, they wish their reunion with their girlfriend could have been a little bit less public. Or at least that it hadn't involved being dragged to the DEO at an hour regular people go to bed to be scrutinised by a multitude of family members including their Yeyu and the very prominent lipstick mark on her neck. Why they always all insist on being here is a mystery to them. And why Alex is always the one performing medical exams when they have a perfectly competent doctor at their disposal is also a prominent question in their mind.
After her rough landing, Max has reluctantly agreed to being probed and examined and she's dwarfing the bed she's sitting on, clad in the sweats that pass as hospital wear at the DEO. She doesn't look angry, nor does she look particularly tired or weary. No, her face is the picture perfect of blankness which considering she usually wears her heart on her sleeve can only mean she's biding her time before she absolutely destroys them all for their poor handling of the situation. Not that it would be completely unwarranted.
With all the eyes that aren't fixed aren't Max glued to them, Taylor feels under surveillance, and they tighten around their shoulders the pearl coloured cape they stole from her rucksack the moment they had access to her stuff. From a superhero point of view, the cape is a tactical nonsense, flowy and light and of a colour that catches absolutely every stain. It's more ceremonial really, a piece of the home Max doesn't intend to return to that she still drags everywhere with her like a security blanket. And right now, it's Taylor's own thin buffer between them and the growing tension in the room.
Someone's bound to say something soon, they can't simply all stand there in silence for the rest of the night ; can they ? Kelly is already half asleep on her chair, Lena has been yawning nonstop for the past fifteen minutes and Nia has adopted Brainy's shoulder as her pillow, they won't be up for much longer and someone ought to break the silence. They just hope it won't be Max, that they read her face improperly, no matter how doubtful that is, and that she's absolutely thrilled to be here, still as happy as she was when she found them at the bar and lifted them off the ground to the sound of crass wolf-whistles.
Rao however, unlike all of them, is probably already fast asleep and therefore not keeping an eye on Taylor because Max is the first to open her mouth.
"So," she drawls, and shit, that's her angry voice, "would anyone care to explain what this clusterfuck is ?" She vaguely gestures around, probably trying to give shape to said clusterfuck, a word that sounds odd enough in her mouth that Taylor has no doubt she's been hanging around Aunt Alex a lot lately, but no one dares to provide her with an answer.
Kara does take a step forward, mouth in the process of opening to deliver some kind of information but Maxima levels her with a glare that stops her dead in her tracks. Taylor can't really fault her, Max is on the taller side of really tall and being scared shitless is an appropriate reaction to her anger.
She pivots to look at them and Taylor squirms under her gaze. Being on the receiving end of her furry when all they want is another hug does not feel good. "I thought you were dead," Max says, her voice cracking imperceptibly to all but Taylor. "Dead. Your mothers have been out of their mind. We've put out posters. Involved the intergalactic forces. And all this time you were just chilling in another decade ?"
"Well I was not exactly 'chilling'," they start before deciding that this is definitely not a smart thing to say. "I can explain," they say instead.
"Oh you better be able to explain because I'm about to cry and you know how much I hate crying in front of people," Max says, voice shaking through her clenched teeth. "I saw my father die," she continues, "I escaped an arranged marriage and a fascist regime. I almost bled out on two separate occasions in the past five years and yet I've never been more scared in my entire life than when your mothers told me you hadn't made it home so you better fucking be able to explain yourself."
"I was attacked," Taylor says a bit too quietly.
Max blinks and the rest of the room fades into the background as Taylor focuses all their attention on her. Announcing their intent with slow deliberate gestures, they get up from their chair and move to sit next to her on the bed, leaning against her to wrap part of the cape around her shoulders. Only once they are both cocooned in the warm material do they resume talking, their voice levelled and calm.
"It happened right as I was exiting the portal," they say, "I had no time to see it coming. They had Kryptonite, my hull got breached and I couldn't breathe. Kelex attempted an emergency procedure, we hyper-jumped but there was a wormhole ahead, and I ended up here."
"The time beacon," Max starts, and Taylor doesn't need to look at her to know that she's frowning.
"The landing was a bit rough. It broke on impact. By the time Lena, Mum, managed to fix it, we realised I'd been followed here. I brought an entire gang here that's after Yeyu, I can't," they stop, turn to look at Max, plead with their entire being that she will understand. "I can't exactly go home without fixing that."
"You could have called for help once the beacon was fixed," Max points out, all anger gone from her tone to leave ample place for heartbreaking exhaustion.
"I couldn't risk it."
"Couldn't risk what ?" Max asks, more weary than anything else.
"Everybody just barging in to my rescue. You know my mums would have put their own sanity in jeopardy just to recover me."
"What about me then ? You could have just called me."
"The beacon is primarily wired to call Yeyu, it's a side effect from it being a Super signal watch. Before the time cops, before the intergalactic forces, the message would have gone to her."
"That's not legal," Max points out with a hint of royal righteousness.
"I know," Taylor groans, "believe me, I know. But my Yeyu freaks out if I'm out of her hearing range."
"Your Yeyu needs therapy," Max grumbles, mostly to herself.
Outside of their bubble, Kara clears her throat uncomfortably and, with their cocoon breached by the inconsequential sound, the room and its occupants come back in focus.
"Please, tell me you understand," Taylor whispers, tugging on Maxima's arm until she looks at them with her undivided attention. "You have to understand."
Max sighs, but she gives in, and shifts to look at them, green eyes boring into their soul. "Why do you always put yourself in these situations ?"
Her question does not warrant an answer but Taylor still feels the need to defend themself, if only to lighten the mood. "Hey !" they shout, elbowing her gently. "It's the first time I accidentally time travel !"
A hint of a smile tugs at Max's lips, preceding a laugh that she represses with another long, deep sigh. "I do understand," she says after a pause. "I doesn't mean I'm not mad, but I do understand."
Taylor exhales slowly, feeling like they've been underwater since they stepped into the DEO and Max finally reached out to help them breach the surface, tugging them to safety.
"I'm really mad," Max whispers, but she still lifts her arm, leaving enough room for Taylor to huddle under it and against her side, the grounding weight settling like a blanket over their shoulders. A soft kiss is laid on top of their head, leaving behind a trail of honey tinged with the faint smell of fuel and charred metal. "I'm glad I found you."
"I'm glad you found me," Taylor murmurs in return.
Somewhere in the room, someone giggles. It's too low to be Nia, though she'd be the most obvious source, and too high to be Kara. Taylor stops their thought process dead on its track before allowing themself to even consider that it could be Lena ; their Mum never giggle.
A full minute passes after the incongruous sound and Taylor consciously tunes out all whispers. They prepare themself for a nice little nap here and there, but because there's no rest for the accidental time traveller, Max draws herself to her full seated height and says : "I want to know everything, I want in on each and every piece of data you've gathered, down to the most meaningless. We're putting a stop to this."
In comical synchronicity, both Alex and Brainy take a step forward, tablets already in hands.
"I'll go make some coffee," Ghim says, stepping out of the shadows that seem to house her most of the time. "Humans need energy to function."
An alarmed whisper runs around the room and Taylor knows they're not the only one going through every scenario leading to the maladapted Kryptonian setting fire to the cafeteria. Someone groans, then yawns, Kelly apparently because she's the one who trails after her out of the room, hair sticking out oddly on the side of her head which up until now, was resting against the back of her chair.
Sleep is apparently not in order for now, first, they have to save the past.
The morning takes its time dragging closer. A significant amount of coffee and energy drinks are consumed, a fire is put out in the cafeteria and Ghim learns you have to put water in for the coffee machine to work ; Taylor wants to sleep for a thousand year. They do fall asleep at some point briefly, and wake up sprawled across Max's lap, the cape draped over their body and her hand playing in their hair. Above them, the conversation is still well ongoing and they choose to remain this way, truly content for the first time since their ship crashed in Lena's apartment. Their input is not really needed anyway, Kara and Alex doing a good job of relaying any significant information, or lack thereof, about the attackers and Supergirl's supposed crimes ; and they are more than happy to act as a weighted blanket to quell Max's simmering anxiety. She wasn't in a great mood to begin with, but she's been tense since the mention of the infamous Kryptonite space eye, the one they've yet to encounter again and Taylor can feel her thrumming with the need to punch something. She'll fit right in with the rest of them ; punching feelings out is the preferred method of coping of more than half of the people in this room. Not that they haven't always known that this would be the case.
"We need a better plan than that," Max says, her voice rising slightly over the previous volume of the conversation. "We can't just wait around for them to attack until," her tongue catches on the foreign language, she stumbles on her slight accent with so much frustration that her whole body quivers, "until someone inevitably gets hurt. Or dies."
"No one is going to die," Kara replies immediately with enough practised automatism that it sounds absolutely fake.
Max scoffs, she's not the only one. Reluctantly Taylor leaves their little nest on her lap and resurfaces amongst their slightly twitchy and over-caffeinated family.
"I'm sorry darling," Lena says cautiously, soothingly rubbing her thumb on top of Kara's hand, "I know you have good intentions, and that you're mostly trying to convince yourself, but I'm with Maxima on that one."
Kara sighs, her head dropping on the table with a loud thud. She lifts it again at superhuman speed, her face scrunched up like a kicked puppy.
"I had all our furniture changed to Nth metal," Alex supplies conversationally. "I was tired of filing paperwork for all the things you break."
"If only I knew what I'd done," Kara groans, levelling her sister with a death glare only short of heat vision, "I could fix it. But I have no idea what that is."
"What you will do," Max corrects offhandedly looking down at the notes she's apparently been taking this entire time. "That's what you meant, right ?" she adds when she's met with dead silence. "When Persuader, the axe dude you interrogated when you were haunted by an undead computer, said they double time travelled, that's what he meant ? Or have I interpreted all of that incorrectly ?"
"You're a genius," Taylor whispers.
"Well technically speaking I'm not but..."
"...but this flew completely over our heads," Kara interrupts with an air of utter disbelief. "How did it flew completely over our heads ?"
"In our defence," Alex says in the spirit of not appearing like a bunch of incompetent idiots, "there was a lot going on. What matters is what we can do now to be better prepared."
"Build a time tracker, look for anachronism and stop being sitting ducks."
Max's words are harsh, but they sound like no more than a simple comment ; she's doing nothing more than pointing at what seems obvious to her. Under the table, one of Taylor's hands comes to rest on her thigh, squeezing softly.
"This will only work if someone breaks the time barrier," Brainy says, already typing furiously on his tablet.
"That's precisely what I'm counting on. Royalty does have a way of hanging back, letting everyone else take the risks, but if we manage to lure her in, we should be able to at least know she's coming ahead of time. Then, I'm going to have a word with her, Royal Highness to Royal Highness."
The threat in her words hangs in the air for a weighted second, no one awake enough to dare add anything after that. Taylor surveys the room uncomfortably. Ghim and Kara are both still as statues, Lena is absorbed in her cup of tea, periodically blinking, Alex's eye is twitching and Kelly is fast asleep, head resting on her crossed arms on the table.
Taylor coughs, clearing their throat uncouthly to diffuse the tension. "Can commoners chime in too ?" they ask. "Because both my mothers almost died so I'd like to have a word."
"Don't be ridiculous," Max says, relaxing imperceptibly, enough for Taylor to notice but too little for her hold over the room to lessen. "Everybody's help is most welcome. But she attacked you, and in my book that makes it personal."
It's about five by the time Lena finally emerges from her deep slumber and pads in her living room. 5am, 5pm, she has no idea, and for today, time can be meaningless. She woke up alone, clutching what has become Kara's pillow and with a note covered in her scrawny handwriting bearer of her whereabouts in place of her warm body. She finds her in the kitchen, hunched over what is probably hot chocolate but from afar looks like a pile of marshmallows trying to escape a mug, and talking to no other than Maxima. At least she doesn't look scared of her anymore which is a significant progress.
Their previous interaction, in her tired state, was almost comical ; virtually indestructible Kara and abnormally tall Maxima sizing each other up and trying to determine who would win in a fight. By the look on Kara's face, she clearly didn't think it would be her. They look more at ease with each other now, talking conspiratorially and laughing periodically like they're the best of friends, and Maxima looks, well she looks less murderous, for lack of a better term.
Lena stays hidden for a moment, though she knows Kara will have no doubt picked up that she's awake. It's her time to size Maxima up, the need to protect her child taking over her with such fierceness that she isn't sure what to do with it. If it came to that, the gigantic alien would have no trouble breaking her body in two, Lena has no doubt of that, but she also looks soft, gentle, in a very peculiar way. She's gathered her mass of hair in a massive red bun, flyaway strand framing her face delicately, and the hoodie she's wearing transforms the protuberant muscles of her neck in nothing more than unthreatening flesh and skin. Her monumental hands, bigger than hers, bigger than Kara's, dwarf the cup they're holding, but when they launch into a dance, accompanying her words, they appear surprisingly gentle. Lena doesn't really listen to the conversation happening a few feet away from her but she still catches Taylor's name and when these two syllables waft into the air, Maxima blushes redder than her hair.
Satisfied with her observation, she steps out of her hidden place and immediately, in a motion that is even beyond second nature, Kara turns towards her, arms already open in invitation. In a few steps, she's back in her all encompassing warmth and before she can truly settle in the hug she finds herself lifted off the ground and seated on her lap, recipient of a loving and slightly overwhelming grin.
"Good evening," Kara whispers, chastely kissing her temple, "did you sleep well ?"
So it's 5pm. Good to know.
Lena hums lowly, keeping her answer simple before she decides to vocalise it. "I sleep well when you're here."
Kara kisses her again, on the cheek this time, living behind a sticky chocolate stain. "Good," she says, "me too."
"I apologise for keeping you up so late," Maxima says, the serious tone of her apology completely nullified by her hot chocolate mustachio. "And for crashing your date," she adds after a beat.
Lena shrugs. "The debrief was needed," she says. "And it's nothing but the second spaceship accident I'm involved in this year so, really, at this point I don't think I can blame you. Did you get any sleep ?"
"I did," Maxima replies, nodding curtly. "Thank you for allowing me into your home."
Lena waves away her concerns quickly in what she belatedly deems to be a bit of a careless gesture. "It's nothing," she says softly to counteract that. And then, absolutely horrified by what comes out of her mouth but unable to stop herself, she adds, "you're family, you're always welcome."
Her brain screeches to a halt and she dies a little. Kara is rubbing off on her and not in the sexy way, in the -I am becoming a well adjusted human being who can care about more than one person- way. And she doesn't hate it.
Kara beams at her, looking so proud that it hurts just a bit. She says so just a second later, barely over a whisper, just for the two of them, and the only thing Lena can muster in reply is a kiss, a simple, subdued, press of her lips on Kara's that she hopes says more than she can.
It's enough. For Kara it always is, and Lena can't help but marvel at the way she just gets her, at the way she understands what goes on in the deepest part of her brain and accepts it with no reserve.
Her short time of self-introspection is interrupted by Taylor strutting into the room, hair wet and towel slung over their shoulder. They hesitate, visibly faltering when they take stock of the little gathering. Their gaze flutters over to Maxima and Lena tenses in involuntary response.
"Are you still mad ?" they ask shyly, doing their best not to look at their feet.
"Yes," Maxima replies firmly before sighing deeply. "Come here."
Taylor steps into the offered embrace, their face disappearing in the crook of a muscular neck.
"Don't worry," Maxima says, in her clipped accent, "future you already gave me the rake talk."
It takes Lena a much too long moment to realise that one, Maxima is talking to her, not Kara, and two, she means "shovel talk." Before she can really catch, discombobulated by the implication that she is a good mother, a portal opens in the middle of her fucking living room.
