From an anon over on tumblr:

"Prompt for your Friday fic posting: Alex's journey working towards being able to say the words "I'm gay" out loud. Maybe like a few times she tries and then the time she actually does?"

"I'm Gay," Five Ways

Alex Danvers wasn't terribly comfortable with words.

She was comfortable with threats; they sometimes involved words, but they also involved what was underneath the words - the muscle, the glare, the institutional backing behind an otherwise empty phrase; the body language, the implication, the gun to the head - so she was alright with threats.

And she was very alright with action. Action was great. An elbow to the stomach, grabbing for his gun; the way watching someone's eyes while they're trying to fight you lets you into their soul, into their brain, enough to see their weak points, to anticipate their next move, and to move, to strike, accordingly.

Firing up a space pod that hadn't been used in years to launch herself into space and save her sister, while her head - and the heads of everyone on the entire planet - was literally about to explode? Far easier than trying to convey to Kara just how much she loved her, with words, on the comm link.

So when Maggie all but asked her if she was into girls - when Maggie all but assumed that she was - you know - she couldn't get the words out. Specifically, the word.

Gay.

Couldn't do it, because she'd always believed that actions were more important than words; that actions trumped them. She could tell Kara she loved her, tell Kara she wasn't jealous, didn't resent her; but unless she devoted her life to proving it, her words meant nothing.

But here, now? This word? Gay?

This word was an action. This word was an action, a verb, something that would stick to her skin like Maggie's kiss - and she could have sworn Maggie kissed her back.

This word was a doing all its own, and Alex Danvers never backed down, but she couldn't help but repeatedly run from this word.

And that needed to change.

She'd tried. With Maggie. To use the word.

"I never thought it might be because..." I'm gay.

"of the... other..." The other option. The other thing, the thing no one wants to talk about, the thing that isn't perfect, the thing that a society that doesn't consider anything other than cis heterosexuality to be wrong, to be deviant, to be violating, to be... well... other.

She'd tried. And Maggie, bless her perfect heart, had let her come out the way she wanted to, with whatever words she needed at the moment.

She'd tried with Kara, too. But Kara had said it for her, asking straight up - bad pun - if Maggie were gay. If Alex is telling her she's gay, too.

Yes, Kara. Yes, I'm coming out to you, because I - because I'm -

Fuck.

The next time - the next try - had been with Winn. For all her slamming of Winn into walls and mocking him for looking like crap, she'd begun to develop a sort of brotherly feeling toward him, a sort of protectiveness, a sort of friendship and equal partnership, whereas before he had just been, specifically, Kara's (somewhat puppy-ish) friend.

"Hey Winn."

"Mmm." He'd been working on something - he was always working on something - in the lab, and if she concentrated she could deduce what it was from the materials he was fusing together, but she needed all her concentration on herself, right now.

"Remember what you said about Maggie?"

Winn furrowed his brow but didn't lift his eyes from the chemicals in front of him.

"Your cop friend. Um, that it was nice finally meeting her?"

Alex grinned nervously and shifted toward him, looking over his shoulder at the polymers he was synthesizing. Winn gave her a slightly scandalized sidelong glance.

"Danvers, respect the space - we don't want to singe your hair, Kara would kill me. Or you would, one of six ways with your index finger."

"And don't you forget it."

They shared a chuckle and lapsed into an amiable silence.

"So, what did I say about Maggie?"

Alex jumped. "Oh, um, you know - that I - that it was different, me and her versus you and Kara, because I don't have... feelings for Maggie?"

If Winn was surprised by the direction the conversation seemed to be taking, he didn't show it. He just glanced at her and nodded. "Mmhmm."

"What if I told you..." She fidgeted, and Winn kept his eyes on his work for Alex's sake, but stopped moving his fingers. "What if I told you I did. Like her. Have feelings for her. Those kinds of feelings."

Already she felt her resolve depleting, already she was retreating into the words she'd used when coming out to Kara.

Winn's eyebrows raised slightly, but when he turned to meet Alex's eyes, his face was soft, a small, almost undetectable smile playing on his lips.

"Then I'd say that if her body language the other night is any indication, she's got it bad for you, too, Alex. And who could blame her? Isn't it everyone's dream to date someone who could kill you six ways with their index finger?"

He'd put his hand on the crook of her elbow, and she'd wondered if he'd always been that sweet, that mature, and if so, why she'd never quite noticed before.

So, coming out to Winn was a success; but she still hadn't used the word.

Gay.

It haunted her.

She curled up with Kara and watched endless lesbian films.

She did copious amounts of research and unhealthy amounts of thinking.

She didn't do much sleeping.

She tried again, with J'onn.

"Sir, can I talk to you?"

He'd nodded curtly and followed her into one of the private conference rooms off the main floor. He'd waited patiently as she crossed and uncrossed her arms, as she worried her hands together and her face transformed from Alex Danvers, Badass DEO Agent to Alex Danvers, Badass DEO Agent with a Conundrum that Made her Want to Cry on Her Space Dad's Shoulder.

"What is it, Alex?" His voice was concerned, gentle, and when he took a step closer, she almost collapsed into his arms, almost let herself cry so hard that they both would have toppled over, his alien strength notwithstanding.

She had promised herself she wouldn't mention Maggie. Wouldn't use her feelings for her as a crutch for coming out. She was coming out for herself. Her words - actions - whatever - they needed to be about herself.

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"J'onn, I... lately I've been... I've been realizing something. About myself. I've been realizing something about myself and I want to share it with you because yes, my dad's still out there and we're gonna get him back, but you... you're also like my father, and I just... I need you to know..."

"Alex, are you ill?"

She laughed, then, at the way his eyes contorted with fear, the way his hands flew to her shoulders.

"No, no, no. Nothing's... nothing's wrong, I just... J'onn, I... I've been realizing that I - I don't like men."

J'onn blinked and Alex's insides slithered.

"I mean... god, I'm not good at this. I mean, I like - I have feelings for - I like women, J'onn. I like women. Romantically."

J'onn let out a deep exhale and swerved away from Alex slightly. Her entire body tensed in fear, but when he put his hands on his face and opened his mouth to speak, it wasn't with ridicule; "Oh, thank god."

It was Alex's turn to blink.

"I thought something was wrong, Alex." He sighed again. "Thank you. For telling me."

And then she'd collapsed into his chest - in relief, in gratitude - into his chest, and cried until she couldn't anymore.

He held her tightly the entire time.

But she still hadn't said the word.

Alex Danvers was used to rising to and defeating challenges the first time around. It'd been four times now; four times she'd tried to call herself gay out loud, and four times she'd chosen other words; chosen other actions.

But now she was alone, in the apartment she seldom was in except to sleep and grab breakfast on her way to the DEO; now she was alone, and she was pacing in the darkened room.

"I..." She slipped into her bathroom and gripped the edges of her sink tightly, so tightly that she feared falling if she let go.

She stared at her eyes in the mirror, at the woman staring back at her. Short hair, straight for the most part, but a little more wavy than usual these days - she grinned tearfully in memory of Kara's teasing that her hair was getting less and less straight, in tune with the rest of her - and brown eyes deep and ready, always ready, to light up at one of Kara's jokes or to narrow down into a death glare that might literally cost someone their life.

She's taken lives and she's saved them; she's watched the life leave people's eyes and she's watched the sweet ecstasy of relief sweep into them when loved ones reunited after she protected them.

She'd wept in Kara's arms when Maggie said she just wanted to be friends, and she'd chosen outfits for almost every single date, interview, and first day of school that Kara'd ever had.

She was a good sister and she was a good daughter; she was a good agent and she was a good friend (or, at least, she was learning how to be one, getting used to James and Winn and Lucy... and Maggie... being in her life, having people other than colleagues, people to socialize with).

She was a giant nerd and she was pretty damn sexy, if she did say so herself.

Alex Danvers was a lot of things.

Eliza's voice echoed in her ears, then; a memory of something her mom had told her so many years before, during her punk rock phase when she was angry at the world all the time. Or, at least, when she outwardly acknowledged that she was angry at the world all the time.

"One day, you're going to look at yourself in the mirror and you are going to absolutely, truly love the person staring back at you," Eliza had told her.

Alex breathed in. Alex breathed out. Alex gulped. Alex held her own eyes in the mirror.

"I'm gay," she said steadily to her own reflection. It felt strange, at first, uncomfortable, and it sent her into a cold sweat. But her lips couldn't help but smile, and she couldn't help but say it again. And again. And again.

"I'm gay. I'm gay. I'm gay."

She took a small leap of excitement that looked more characteristic of Kara than it did of her, and she ran out of the bathroom to where she'd discarded her phone on the arm of the couch earlier.

She hit a few buttons and waited breathlessly. Her heart leaped at hearing the other woman's voice on the line.

"Sawyer, it's Danvers. Want a game of pool tonight? I'm buying."