Maggie honestly thought the freaken' massive Supergirl insignia was a little much. But then, so was Lena's crush on the alter ego, so who was she to split hairs?
The whole waterfront was packed, and honestly, it was a surveillance nightmare. Even the DEO hijacking the security cameras was insufficient. Thus, Lucy had asked the NCPD to provide extra eyes. Which, at the very least, gave her a nice walk along the pier.
Lena had given them a heads up on her timeline for the unveiling of the Supergirl statute that the city (and Lena) had commissioned in her honor. Something that made the actual Girl of Steel stutter and blush and adjust her glasses at when she found out. The Danvers sisters, my lord. But at least that gave her an idea of how much time she had to kill, even as she kept her eyes sharp.
"Enjoying the view out there, Sawyer?"
"Be better if you were here, Lane," she shot back, smiling as she found an open area near the railing.
"Gross, guys!" Kara's voice seemed to contain a smile, but Maggie couldn't be sure. "Get off the coms!"
Lucy's laugh came through, sending her girlfriends stomach swooping pleasantly and pulling a smile onto her face. "No, but seriously Mags. You got anything down there?"
Maggie scanned the crowd, but it looked pretty clean. "Are you even sure what I'm meant to be looking for?"
"Something suspicious?" Kara answered… kinda.
"I'll keep you posted," rolling her eyes, Maggie looked back at the stage, just as she heard a loud bark.
"Whoa, hey!" turning on a heel, the cop resisted the urge to back the fuck up, as a huge German Shepard approached at high speed. "Gert! Gert stop!"
Gert did not stop. In fact, all at once there was a dog bouncing off its front paws, planting them on her shoulders – grinning maw inches from her face.
Maggie did react then, even through her shock. Carefully, she lifted the legs off her and stepped back, so the animal dropped back to four legs. It did not, however, lose interest. Instead it circles her, sniffing at the ground around her feet, tail going a mile a minute.
"I am so sorry!" the voice from before apparently belonged to a teenager, who was only now skidding to a stop by the dog. Reaching for 'Gert's' collar, she tried to pull her away, but to no avail. "I don't know what's gotten into her!"
The dog did budge, but just enough to sit itself right in front of the still shell-shocked Maggie, wagging its tail and looking up hopefully. She barked once, and it honest to god looked like she was smiling.
"Making friends out there, Sawyer?" The laughing voice of Lucy interrupted.
"Shhhhh – she's so cute!" Kara squealed, obviously enjoying the show from above.
"Do not break formation to pat a dog Supergirl, I swear to god," but there was a smile in Lucy's voice.
"Gert, come on," the girls focus was still on tugging the dog away, seeming genuinely surprised by her behavior. "Are you o-" looking up when the dog showed literally zero interest in obeying, the words died in her mouth. "Oh."
The kid's eyes were wide. For a second Maggie thought might be that she was in her windbreaker, so visibly a cop. But the girl seemed interested in her face, not her status. "You okay, kid?"
"Um… yeah, course." She released the collar and straightened up, fixing her oversized leather jacket awkwardly. "Yeah. Totally okay – nothing weird here."
Okay, weird, but Maggie dealt with all kinds when she was on the beat. Plus, teenagers were always kinda off around cops. The girl looked normal enough, jaw length, barely maintained dark hair, brown skin, browner eyes. The oddest thing about her look was that she was in all black in the middle of California – Black pants, black henley, military style boots (which looked pretty beaten) and black leather jacket, rolled at the sleeves.
"Might want to leash her," Maggie nodded at the still heeling dog. "A lot of people around, might get lost."
Another too long pause before she started, seeming to realize Maggie spoke. "Right! Yes, of course. Leash my very normal dog. Right. I'll, ah, get on that." Finally seeming to obey, the dog gave Maggie a final (happy?) bark and followed the girl, who quickly retreated into the crowd.
"Teenagers are odd," Lucy muttered into the coms, and Maggie was inclined to agree.
"Aw, she was cute! Be nice!" Kara called, and Maggie caught a glimpse of her lingering by a rooftop watching.
Thankfully, Lena appeared on stage. Giving Kara something else to ogle.
"Ladies and gentlemen of National City, please welcome the chairwoman and CEO of LCorp, Lena Luthor!" The crowd clapped, and Maggie found herself genuinely happy for her grinning friend.
"Now, I know you all didn't come here to see me. So, I'll start with the good stuff, and then I'll say just a few very brief words. My fellow citizens of National City, the Girl of Steel!" And the curtain fell. Maggie actually felt pride swell in her chest for her super-powered sister.
"I am so honored to be able to present this statue of our hometown hero. Some of you must be thinking, I know. It's a cold day in hell, a Luthor praising a Kryptonian. But ever since I came here, she has been an inspiration to me. She's been a mentor, and most importantly, she's been a friend."
"Oh, is that all?" Lucy added, forcing Maggie to cough to cover her laughter. That certainly wasn't the speech of the average Supergirl fangirl.
And then, just as Maggie was about to suggest Kara join the crowd, everything went to hell.
The entire waterfront seemed to shudder – the ground shaking so hard that glass shattered. Immediate chaos ensued, the screaming crowd scattering in every direction.
"Winn, did you see where that missile came from?" Supergirl asked, landing hard with J'onn a couple yards from Maggie as she helped the crowd disperse.
"We have no heat signature, okay, there's no atmospheric disruption, there's no electromagnetic trail," Winn's frantic voice responded.
"Maggie can you see anything?" Lucy asked. Maggie's mind picked up on her girlfriend switching into her Director persona, pushing away the fear that was probably gripping her.
"Negative visual contact. It came out of nowhere – I can't even see where it hit," she responded, dragging a fallen woman to her feet.
"Okay, you know what? We're pulling up every security feed within a two-mile radius. There's got to be an origin point!"
"J'onn, can you locate DuBois telepathically?" Lucy asked a clipped tone.
"I can't sense DuBois' mind!" Meanwhile, Supergirl landed hard next to Maggie, eyes searching.
"I don't get it. The cloaking device should not be able to cloak a missile," Winn voice dropped, likely talking away from the speaker to Lucy.
Suddenly, Kara's head snapped up, eyes fixed out to open ocean just beyond. "The pressure regulator wasn't meant for high altitude, it was meant for low altitude," she walked over to the railing. "They're under water."
And then another explosion hit, so hard it literally split the concrete underneath their feet. Windows in every building nearby shattered, the screaming intensified.
"I cannot track that explosion to the source, you guys. The radar is not picking up any underwater signals."
"I'll clear that building, Sawyer, stay on the waterfront!" J'onn called, disappearing into the air. "Supergirl, find that submarine," and Kara was off too.
Maggie looked around at the total mayhem, and for the first time notice that something was off. Every single person was screaming, running in opposing directions, just trying to get away. And in the middle of that chaos stood three people. Two, older, further back, who were helping strangers up and away – lifting fallen debris, even blocks of concrete, with ease.
And closer, barely five yards from Maggie, stood the girl from before, dog gone. Her eyes were locked in the sky, fixed on where Supergirl hovered. She stood stock still, no fear, no panic. Just watching.
And then Kara dove – streaking through the sky in that way that only supers could. The girl's eyes followed, and Maggie twisted around to watch her surrogate sisters' trajectory.
She hit the water about 100 yards ahead – vanishing into the open ocean instantly. Maggie grabbed the balcony, eyes still searching uselessly.
"She can't breathe underwater," the girl from before was next to her, eyes also fixed where Supergirl had just vanished. Maggie wasn't 100% sure about Kryptonian physiology, but she was inclined to agree.
Then, there was another explosion. But this one wasn't from impact with the pier. It detonated about 50 yards ahead, the water bursting upwards, bringing massive debris with it.
"Supergirl!" Lucy and Maggie's twin shouts were not answered, and both their hearts sunk. The panic even knocked the military out of the Director.
"Fuck," and suddenly the girl was stripping off her jacket.
Maggie turned, so absolutely shocked that she didn't even get a chance to reach out when she flung the layer away, taking a couple of steps back before making a running leap.
"What the-" the Detectives heart leapt straight into her throat, shock and horror swallowing any response. It's not every day that you watch a teenager dive headfirst into the ocean, during a missile fight, without hesitation. It also isn't every day that they do so at super speed, her body rocketing forward once she launched off the railing and into the water.
Meanwhile, Lucy and Winn had shifted gears. Pure fear driving them to break all kinds of protocols. Winn's whispered Kara, broken only by how Lucy desperate asked "Kara, please answer us!"
She knew it was dumb as she was doing it. Chasing down speeding missiles while underwater is the exact kind of thing that made Lucy threaten to write her up. She wasn't exactly sure what writing up a superhero looked like, but she was pretty sure that Lucy Lane could make anything happen. So, she generally tried to stay on her good side
But she did the stupid thing anyway, because civilians were on that pier. And also, if she was honest with herself, so was Maggie. Take care of each other, still echoed in her head every day.
And then the missile exploded, practically in her hands, and she blinked out of consciousness.
It felt like she had been knocked directly into a dream – her own dream. The one that had been repeating for over a year. Alex, that field on Krypton, the peace of it all. It was new though, because Alex was speaking. Shouting – furious.
"Wake up!"
Someone's hands were tangled in the clasps of her cape. Which didn't make any sense, because she was clearly still underwater. Blinking rapidly, she honestly thought the girl before her, actively dragging her body to the surface, was a hallucination. Then they broke the surface – both gasping for breath.
Coughing for a moment, still keeping one hand gripped on the supersuit, the girl used the other to drag the wet hair out of her face. "Are you alright?"
Which, really, is the question she asked. Then the water shifted.
"Shit," the girl looked towards where the ship approximately was, eyes wide. "I got the missile; you get the ship!" And then she dived – no time for discussion apparently.
Kara pushed away her shock, taking another breath and then dived – noting that the girl was already catching the speeding explosive.
Focusing on the assigned task, she dove under the submarine – pressing hard on its underbelly. Keeping careful balance on the giant machinery, she forced it up until it breached the water's surface. Lifting it high into the air, she only just caught a glimpse of another explosion just under the water's surface.