Maggie is kidnapped by Cadmus, but instead of torturing her for information about Supergirl, they do something much worse: they make her watch them hurt Alex. Not based on a prompt, just based on my more difficult thoughts and conversations with thesameenshaw.
Heads up: this gets very bloody and torturey, but of course our girls will be just fine. Once again, I am not Jason Rothenberg.
She doesn't know how she got here, but she remembers falling asleep last night with Alex's legs wrapped around her body, with Alex's breath tickling her neck, with Alex's steady warmth seeping through her own skin.
Now, her skin is cold, and now, her skin is damp with her own blood, because now, she's strapped to a freezing metal table, still in the boxers and Alex's Stanford sweater that she fell asleep in last night.
Now, her eyes scan the high, concrete ceiling above her, and she swallows panic.
Now, she tests the limits of the cold hard straps digging into her wrists, her ankles, her forehead. Securing her, immobilizing her.
Now, she takes a shuddering breath and now, she realizes with a sickening swoop in her stomach that this must be Cadmus, because now, the ringing of stilettos on stone ground is echoing off the walls and off the trays of surgical equipment resting at the ready next to the table Maggie is strapped to, too close for comfort but not close enough for her to get at. Even if she could break through these damn straps before the sound of heels stops as a woman steps into her limited line of vision: a woman she recognizes as Lillian Luthor.
Maggie uses the length of the serenely smiling woman's forearm as a gauge, as a measuring stick, to take stock of the dimensions of the room, running estimates in her head, how many feet high the ceiling is, how many paces across the room might be, where the dim light is coming from, and dammit why do they always take you to a room with no windows? Can't they slip up on that detail just once?
"Finally awake, I see, Detective," Lillian croons, and Maggie glares, refusing to flinch away from Lillian's fingers as she reaches down to stroke Maggie's cheek with her fingernails. "You seemed quite… shall we say… affected by the strain of gas we used to ensure your cooperation in coming here this morning."
"The hell do you want, Luthor?" Maggie's voice shakes a lot less than the inside of her stomach is, and she takes grim satisfaction from it.
"Oh dear, you're right, where are my manners?" She gestures behind her somehow both theatrically and primly, sweeping the room with her hands. "Welcome to Cadmus, Detective Maggie Sawyer."
"I didn't ask where I was. I asked why I'm here."
"Because my attempts to reign in Supergirl have failed so far, you see. And you're going to tell me how to succeed."
Maggie blinks and Maggie tugs at her restraints.
"How the hell should I know?"
"Oh, because you know her, dear, don't you?"
Maggie says nothing as Lillian flashes photos of Maggie by Supergirl's side in the field, of the cockeyed grin Supergirl is giving her as she fills out some paperwork; of the way Maggie rolls her eyes affectionately as Supergirl takes off in an absurdly giddy, absurdly showy way.
Maggie says nothing because her throat is closing up, and she says nothing because Lillian's eyes are studying hers and she wants them to find absolutely nothing.
"I'm NCPD. NCPD works with Supergirl."
"But this doesn't look like a casual, detached, professional relationship to you, does it, Detective Sawyer? And that is your job, isn't it? Piecing together people's motives, studying them and discovering what hides underneath?"
Lillian drops the photos on Maggie's stomach, and Maggie hisses in discomfort, in a jolt of added fear, in a well-concealed but rapidly growing panic.
The director of Cadmus chuckles softly and strides across to the tray of surgical instruments next to the table, and Maggie swallows vomit and swivels her eyes to follow Lillian's hands, carefully and considerately selecting a gleaming scalpel and bringing it closer for examination. Maggie slams against her restraints again, and Lillian tuts.
"Now now, dear, that won't do. But we will get you to talk about Supergirl. Or, should I say, Kara Danvers?"
Maggie wishes for heat vision and Maggie wishes for super strength, because she's been angry before, she's been furious before, but she's never wanted to attack someone like this.
"I'm not giving her up," she tells her, even as Lillian steps closer to the table, even as Lillian is eyeing her like a piece of meat to carve before family dinner. Like she's already been murdered and won't feel the pain of the cuts. But she will, she will. She will.
Lillian tuts again. "Oh. Well, that is sweet, dear, but I am curious – we are a research facility, after all, and I understand you're a scientist yourself, won all the regional Intel competitions in Blue Springs, and even placed second and, was it third, in your junior year, at the state competition in high school, so I'm sure you'll share my scientist's curiosity – are you refusing to give up Supergirl for the sake of her alien self? Or for the sake of her very human sister?"
What's left of Maggie's stomach plummets as she sets her jaw and glares up into the eyes of the woman holding a scalpel dangerously close to her chest.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"Bless," Lillian coos. "Well, if you truly don't know her, then surely it won't bother you if she takes your place?"
Lillian bends quickly and releases the bottom legs of the cold, metal table Maggie's strapped to, so that she clangs down into a near standing position, her head pounding terribly from the slamming, from the ringing, from the pure and utter terror growing in her core.
Because now, she has a perfect view of the half-sedated woman Lillian's men are dragging none-too-gently into the room.
Her throat nearly bleeds when she yells. "Alex!"
"Oh, so you do know her. I thought as much. Good. Now the real experiment can begin."
"What the hell are you – let her go, let her go, I'll take her place, I'll – "
"Maggie?"
Alex's voice sounds like she hasn't used it in months, and for a moment, a small smile tugs at her bloody lips. Because for a moment, she thinks she's still in bed with the woman she loves, still wrapped up in everything safe and warm and perfect; thinks that the warmth coursing through her veins is love and hope and security, not drugs.
For a moment.
And then the cold of the hard, concrete ground sink into her consciousness. The grating pain of her arms twisted behind her back and chained together. The searing pain in the voice of the woman pleading for her life.
Alex's eyes open fully, and in an instant her adrenaline kicks in; in an instant, years of training overpowers the drugs that are slowly leaving her system; in an instant, she takes in how many Cadmus lackeys had brought her in, are front of her, beside her, behind her, how many pipes are running into the ceiling above her, how many scalpels, knives, and scissors are on the trays in front of her, in front of Maggie; in an instant, she takes in the sight of Lillian Luthor, smiling calm as a summer's day, standing over Maggie Sawyer – forehead, wrists, and ankles all strapped to the vertically-positioned metal biobed – with a gleaming surgical scalpel in her hand and calm, detached passion in her eyes.
"Agent Danvers. Good to see you're waking up. So sorry to take you out of bed; I know how much you must cherish your down time with Detective Sawyer here. There's precious little of that in our line of work, wouldn't you agree?"
Her heels echo on the stone ground as she saunters toward Alex, who has eyes only for Maggie, quiet now that Alex is awake except for shuddering breaths. She fights to rise to her knees, relief coursing through her that Lillian is walking away from Maggie and toward her.
It's because of that thin blanket of security that Alex responds to Lillian's question the only way she ever responds when she's in chains.
"Go to hell."
Lillian stops walking. She nods at one of the men who dragged Alex in, and Maggie shouts, Maggie begs, because she knows that nod.
Alex knows that nod, too, but Alex doesn't flinch. She just glares up at Lillian from her knees. She glares up at her, that is, until she sees stars, and not the kind she was seeing last night - just last night? how rapidly the entire world changes - because the butt of a Cadmus semi-auto slams into her jaw and, with her arms chained roughly behind her back, she has nothing to land on but an already cut shoulder and the cold, hard concrete.
"Alex," she hears, and it's a sob, and she raises her eyes to met Maggie's, and she shakes her head, slightly, slightly, her heart screaming even worse than her bleeding, broken face.
She drags her gaze away from Maggie, drags her gaze away from Maggie's wide eyes and futilely slamming heels and hands and head, away from the only woman who's going to get her out of this alive – because she will be in her arms again, dammit – and the woman who's going to be the reason she never leaves this room – because she will die in an instant if it means they'll let her go, they'll let her be safe.
Even if Maggie would never forgive her.
Alex fixes her hazy eyes up on Lillian Luthor, instead, and when they connect, Alex spits blood and what feels like it was probably a molar and seething hatred right onto her shoes.
Lillian doesn't flinch. Instead, her smile deepens as she glances down at her spoiled stiletto, at the spot where Alex's blood is seeping down her foot and into her tights, down her shoe and onto the ground.
"Charming," she says, and she walks away briskly, nodding again as she does so. Her soldier kicks Alex in the rib cage, and she refuses to shout, refuses to yell, as she feels something bruise, as she feels something burst, as she feels the desperate need to draw Lillian's attention back to her, just her, to focus on hurting her, because Maggie, god, Maggie, no.
"What is it you want, Luthor? To coerce another scientist into working for you? That never ends well for the captors in the movies, you know, and it's not gonna work for you. Unless – "
Lillian turns and Alex senses hope and Maggie tries to shake her head, tries to tell her don't you dare, tries to tell you I know I haven't said it yet, but I love you, godammit, let me take this for you, but Alex is distinctly ignoring her.
"Unless?" Lillian prompts, still holding the scalpel between dainty fingers.
"Let her go. Let her go, and we can talk terms."
Lillian actually laughs at that, a full laugh that echoes off the walls and cuts into Alex's bleeding mouth.
"Oh no, dear, you misunderstand. Your father is more than enough of a coerced scientist for us – "
Alex growls and tries to stand again, but she takes a kick to the back of the knees and crumples.
"Ally." Maggie's voice is choked and her face is stained with tears, but Alex refuses to look at her. Alex only has eyes for the woman she swears she'll kill at first opportunity.
"No, Agent Danvers, we don't need you to work for us. Because, you see, you already are. You would never give up your sister, of course, and Detective Sawyer is apparently made of tougher stuff than most local law enforcement I've disposed of in the past."
Maggie slams against her restraints, because this woman is hurting Alex, because this woman slaughtered her friends in the bar, because this woman is going to be dead by day's end if Maggie has anything to do with it.
"What's your point, Luthor?" Alex spits, struggling to get back onto her knees, slipping off balance a few times in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood.
"My point, dear, as I was explaining to Detective Sawyer here, is that Cadmus is about testing boundaries, about pushing limits. About experiments, you see, and this one has several testable outcomes. How much pain will a human endure to protect an alien? To protect another human?"
"Pain doesn't scare me," Alex snarls, because Alex probably has a concussion and Alex is losing a lot of blood and Alex is highly trained but she doesn't quite understand what Lillian is getting at.
Maggie does, and Maggie rattles against her restraints again. Desperately. She pays no mind to the fact that blood is starting to stream out of her chafed skin. She only has mind enough for Alex.
"Oh, I know that, dear. I'm not talking about your pain."
"Don't you dare touch her." Alex rams an elbow into the crotch of one of the soldiers standing over her, bowls over another with the sheer force of her toppling bodyweight, flips so the chains around her ankles pull against his neck.
Lillian laughs calmly as a third soldier draws a gun clean against Alex's head, laughs calmly as Maggie fills the entire room with her screams, with her struggles against the restraints, her right hand starting to come loose, her right wrist sending blood dripping onto the floor below her.
Alex freezes and growls and lets the man slip out of her grasp, but not before tugging an almighty bruise onto his throat.
"I have no intention of touching Detective Sawyer, Agent Danvers, if you could just control that temper of yours long enough to listen. Pain doesn't have to be physical, you know, dear."
She nods as Alex's eyes widen, as Alex shakes her head, as the soldier whose crotch Alex slammed into cocks his gun and in a single, unstoppable moment, shoots Alex in the thigh.
She doesn't scream, but Maggie does; her throat doesn't tear with pain, but Maggie's does; Alex doesn't curse at Lillian and swear she'll kill her, but Maggie does.
"Let me take her place, please, please, just stop, please, just let me take her place, please."
Lillian turns to regard Maggie like she's her star student who just answered a particularly difficult question perfectly.
"You see, Agent Danvers?" She squats down next to Alex, who's seeing double, who's fighting somehow to keep a straight face, to keep a calm face, to keep her face clean of the pure agony she's in, because Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, and Lillian runs the scalpel lightly over Alex's tensed tricep, drawing a thin line of blood, a thin line of blood that becomes two, that becomes three, that becomes four; four lines that connect at their points; four lines that, together, form the letter "M."
Alex grits her teeth and Alex hisses and Alex tries not to yell out but god she wants to because god she's never known pain until this day, this moment, this place.
"Please, stop it, let me take her place, please, I'll tell you anything, I'll do anything, just please, let her go, let me take her place, please, just let her go," Maggie is pleading, panting, sobbing, and Lillian stops her scalpel abruptly.
Alex lets her eyes squeeze shut, forces sound out of her throat. "Don't you dare listen to her. I'm who you want, Lillian. She's just a local cop, she doesn't know what I do, she doesn't – "
Another kick to her ribcage knocks the wind out of her, and Lillian gives a different nod to two of her men, who cross the room to Maggie's table, and it's Alex's turn to scream.
"Don't you dare hurt her, Luthor. I swear on everything I have ever known, if you lay a finger on her, I – "
"Alex, will you shut up and let someone protect you for once in your life?" Maggie spits as the soldiers undo her straps in a single, rough motion, and she collapses onto the ground, twisting her ankle and skinning her knees and her hands, but not caring because Alex, Alex, Alex, so she's up and she doesn't care if they shoot her on the way, because Alex is bleeding and Alex is in pain and for some reason that she doesn't care about right now, the blows never come and Alex is in her arms and she's tearing at the bottom of her tank top and she's stemming the flow of blood out of Alex's thigh and her hands are soaked in her girlfriend's warm blood and she's kissing her face and she's promising her that everything's going to be alright and she's slipping something metal into Alex's chained hands and she's flying backwards suddenly and landing on her back a few feet away, and Alex's yells are filling her ears but they're focused on her, now, not Alex, so it's fine, it's fine, it'll be fine.
"My working hypothesis at the moment is that pain is most effective after temporary relief." Lillian stands over Maggie as two of her soldiers fix the barrels of their guns on either of Maggie's temples. "So you had your moment of relief with your beloved, and now, my dear, now, if you'd like to spare Agent Danvers the pain you just experienced watching her suffer – if you'd like her to get medical treatment for those dreadful wounds – you're going to tell me what I need to know about Supergirl, about the DEO. And you're going to do it soon, because the next bullet will go somewhere much less recoverable than one of your girlfriend's thighs."
"You really don't get it, do you?"
Maggie's voice is shaking, and her lip is bleeding from biting it so hard, and her hands are soaked in Alex's blood. Her head, her entire body, aches from thrashing around, her wrists and ankles and forehead oozing blood from where she'd strained at her straps.
"You're doing this because you think it's going to break me into telling you what you wanna know. Because you think I love her."
She looks past the barrels of the guns and she looks past Lillian Luthor's keen gaze, and she locks her eyes in Alex's terrified ones.
Maggie swallows. Tears streak tracks through the blood on her face, even without her blinking.
"And that's where you're right. I do love her."
Alex sobs and Alex tries to crawl forward. "Maggie," her voice breaks.
Lillian ignores her, staring down at Maggie like she hasn't seen a proper meal in days and Maggie is the main course.
"I'm glad you're coming to your senses, dear."
"No, see, here's the thing. You're right that I love her, but you're wrong about how much. See, I love her so much that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Alex Danvers is braver than you. That Alex Danvers is a more incredible woman than anything you possibly could have accounted for in your stupid experiment parameters. And because I love her – because I love her more than I have ever loved anyone – I know her. And I know, because she's braver than you, because she's more incredible than you knew how to account for, that she would rather endure anything you can do to her than have me give up her sister to make you stop. And that? That's the worst thing in the world for me, far worse than these guns. So congratulations. You've manufactured my perfect hell. But I won't abandon her. Because I love her. I love her."
She looks straight into Alex's streaming eyes, and she holds them with her own.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
And then she nods, and then all hell breaks loose.
Because the piece of metal she'd slipped into Alex's hand was a key that she'd grabbed off one of the soldiers as she fell from her own restraints, and the nod was a signal that both of them understood: that they would die for each other, that they might do so in the next thirty seconds, but god they would never have any regrets because I love you I love you I love you.
Maggie dives to the ground so that when the soldiers shoot, they miss; when they shoot, they shoot each other in the legs, and Maggie scrambles up, and Maggie kicks them both unconscious, eyes blazing, eyes on Alex, who's grabbed the gun of the soldier nearest her and poured a round of bullets into him and into his comrade and into Lillian Luthor, whose fingers fumble through slick pools of blood for the fallen soldier's cell phone, mechanically dialing for J'onn, mechanically breathing, mechanically repeating we're alive, we're alive, we're alive, because no other thoughts matter, not yet.
Alex barely remembers getting J'onn on the phone and she barely remembers the body bags and the medical evac and she barely remembers Kara's enraged yell and Kara's terrified gasp and she barely remembers the words of comfort she'd tried to choke out before J'onn told her not to talk, before J'onn told her it would be okay, everyone was safe, everything would be alright.
She only remembers Maggie's hands on her body, Maggie reporting on every blow they'd given her so the med team could evaluate priorities on treating Alex's broken body. She only remembers Kara breaking in Maggie's arms, only remembers Maggie refusing to leave her side as she goes under for surgery, refusing to get treated herself until Alex is out of the woods, until Alex's blood loss is no longer life threatening, until Alex is alright, alright, alright.
"Bet you scared the shit out of the entire DEO med team," Alex rasps when she's conscious again, and she's greeted by the healing sound of J'onn, Winn, and James laughing in relief, of Kara biting down an ecstatic sob.
Maggie makes no sound. Maggie does not smile. Maggie just stares at Alex's face, just strokes Alex's cheek, just watches Alex like she'll disappear the moment Maggie blinks.
"You're safe," she croaks out eventually, and Alex's heart breaks and James squeezes Maggie's shoulder and Winn squeezes Kara's hand and J'onn squeezes his own sides to keep himself from shattering at the seams.
"Yeah," Alex confirms, knowing that Maggie isn't comforting her. "Yeah, babe, I'm safe. Thanks to you. You got us outta there, you got us safe."
"You killed those men. Lillian Luthor. They hurt you. I wanted to kill them."
Kara chokes on a sob and James keeps his hand on Maggie's shoulder and Alex fumbles a groggy hand up to try to wipe the tear streaks off Maggie's face.
"I'm safe, Maggie. I'm okay. Just a bit of rest, I'll be just fine. Thanks to you. Because of you, babe."
"They made me watch them hurt you."
Alex wishes she hadn't killed Lillian Luthor so she could kill her again. Slower.
"I'm okay now, babe. I'm okay, and I love you, Maggie Sawyer. I love you, and I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm not going away from you. I love you too much for that."
"And she's too damn stubborn, anyway," Winn chokes out, and Alex grins and the corner of Maggie's lips tilt slightly.
"Yeah, someone's gotta steal Winn's lunch every day," James chimes in softly as he keeps Alex's hand pressed to Maggie's cheek, because Alex doesn't have the strength to hold it that steady that long, but one of Maggie's hands is on Alex's face and the other is just above the bandage on her thigh, and both of them are leaning into his help.
Maggie coughs out a watery chuckle and she turns her face to kiss Alex's palm. "You steal Winn's lunches, babe?"
"Someone needs to keep him in line."
"I'm standing right here!"
"Maggie. I love you too. I love you too."
Alex's voice is full of gravel and Maggie's chest heaves with a tidal wave of impending sobs.
"Alex, I'm so sorry I couldn't – "
"Detective Sawyer – Maggie – you saved Alex's life. You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all. None of what happened was your fault. None of it."
"What J'onn said," Alex wheezes as Maggie leans back into James's torso and tries, tries, tries, to breathe.
"You're okay," Maggie says again, her fingers tracing the stitches on Alex's face, the swelling.
"I'm okay," Alex confirms, a small smile growing on her face as she sees her love and her relief and her need mirrored in Maggie's eyes. "And I'm under the distinct impression that ya like me. That's… that's what I'm getting from this whole thing."
Maggie fully laughs this time, fully smiles, and Alex doesn't care that her own face hurts when she beams in response, because she could never watch Maggie go into full-on dimple mode without smiling herself.
"Of course, you're not gonna go crazy on me, are you?"
"Probably."
Alex leans up and Maggie stands and leans down and they smile into each other's gentle kiss and breathe into each other's soft, watery, safe laughter, each other's protection, each other's love.