Maggie had only met Superman a handful of times.
And that was all the detective felt was warranted.
She was never the girl to have the posters of him on the wall.
Even in her younger days, when Superman, or the idea of him anyway, was rapidly becoming the new thing.
Because even then, she'd learned to never trust someone based on what they portrayed themselves to be.
Countless first hand experiences had nailed that into her.
A sobering fact ground into her at childhood, reinforced in Gotham's police department, and served as a stark reminder every day in National City.
No one is that happy, that altruistic, that sane, without having baggage.
Because there is almost always more.
But when she really meets him, for the first time, not as Superman, but as Clark Kent, he is still polite, still altruistic, still painfully kind.
Like Kara.
And like Kara, he wields that otherworldly power in his demeanor.
Like Kara, he is strong, youthful, and selfless.
But unlike Kara, he doesn't have that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.
But even so, something puts her off about all of that that, although his actions are entirely too sincere.
And maybe it had been the way Alex had been stiff as a board during all of their interactions.
Even when Kara had been ecstatic. Even when Winn had been practically drooling.
And she learned then that Alex and Clark weren't, aren't, have never really been on the best of terms.
At least not visibly.
And nothing has changed in the present.
Alex freezes next to her, won't let herself be guided anymore.
Maggie holds her at arm's length and sees the fight rising up inside.
How Alex can't quite lift her eyes yet, but her chin is up and her back is straightening.
And the detective thinks fleetingly, that maybe this situation can be defused before it goes inevitably sideways
But the fight is in Clark as well.
There's undeniable power behind his stance.
An undeniable stiffness in his words.
The detective is tense. J'onn is rigid. Eliza, still gathering her wits.
But any chance of the situation being defused is crushed when Clark immediately follows up with,
"Why didn't you call me sooner?"
And it's not really meant as an accusation, Maggie can hear the desperation behind his words, but no one is focused on the underlying tones.
Not in this tension.
And it sounds damn near close enough to one with all the force and authority Clark puts behind it.
Alex only sees red.
Steps forward with fire in her eyes.
"Why didn't I call you sooner? Clark, you NEVER come when Kara is hurt!"
Her voice shakes.
It's not tearful now, but is still damp and stuffy with the pain from earlier.
And the words are daggers.
The detective can tell he didn't expect it.
Can tell it throws him off.
Because he ramps up his volume.
"Because if you're doing your job, she never stays hurt! You have sunlamps and doctors and scientists!"
The entire DEO is still.
A pin could drop as the agents watch the family-not-so-family fight.
"That's not an excuse, Clark! You can't just forfeit the family role and come back when you see fit!"
Clark's hands ball into fists.
And the detective instinctively twitches forward.
But he won't do it, he can't do it, he's mad but he'll never be that mad-
"Don't talk about family when you told her that she was-"
"ALEX. CLARK."
Eliza.
Raising her voice in a way only a mother could.
Alex recoils as if she's been slapped.
Clark deflates instantly.
And his shoulders curl inwards.
And Maggie sees both of them for what they are.
Scared.
J'onn steps forward. Finally.
His tired eyes, not darting between Clark and Alex , but somehow fixed firmly on both.
He wants to say something, needs to say something, but it's Eliza who beats him to it.
Finds the action that do more than words ever could.
Crosses the short space envelops Alex in her arms.
Her girlfriend is stiff at first. Almost refusing the sincerity behind it.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Alex mutters over and over into the crook of Eliza's neck.
And her mother doesn't say anything, but she doesn't let go either.
So when Alex finally relaxes into her mother's grip, Maggie steps away, steps to the side.
Steps towards J'onn who knows it isn't his place to interrupt this moment. .
Towards Clark, who won't look away from the floor.
And the DEO is painfully quiet.
It's never been this quiet before.
… … … …
'This is her clinical work?"
Eliza asks, wizened eyes skimming over the lab work, pages upon pages, that'd been handed to her.
The silver-haired blonde's mouth is downturned, hand clenched white, but she speaks without a stutter.
Though her incredulousness, her disbelief, doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
And Alex is in front of her, doe eyes wide and watery, vigorously nodding because she can't trust herself to speak.
But it's J'onn who confirms it.
"Our team has done everything we could think of short of placing her back under the sunlamps, because doing so only seemed to exasperate the symptoms."
And Eliza nods.
Nods, but Maggie sees the way her hands clench tighter.
For a moment there's nothing more, but strained silence.
They've moved to a more private area, to stave off all the spotlight of being spectacles.
But the tension is still very much there, whether anyone will verbally admit to it or not.
"The Fortress of Solitude didn't have much on Timborzati. It never touched Krypton."
Clark states gruffly.
His arms crossed, his face perpetually downcast.
"Wouldn't have expected it too anyway, considering how new the damn thing is."
And that's regrettably true.
Synthetic things, even parasites, purposely manipulated for heightened use, tended to look vastly different from the original form.
Taking into account the differing atmospheres from galaxies upon galaxies away and the potential evolution.
It's sobering information to take in.
Information no one really wants to hear.
"You said you had an address?"
Eliza asks, not looking up, from the file.
Moving closer to Winn, who's sitting at his laptop, working on something she can't quite see from the otherside of the room.
"He gave us an address of the corner of fifth and third avenue."
Alex says.
The corner of fifth and third is gang territory.
Maggie knows as much from the narcotics unit.
"It sounds like a trap."
Mon-el says incredulously.
And it did.
Even then, when the man, she won't say his name, won't ever say his name, confessed it under the duress of Alex's fury.
But even if it is a trap, so be it, because it's the only thing they've got going for this right now.
And Alex voices as much, but the Daxamite is already firing back.
"Nothing's ever that easy."
Mon-el protests in retaliation.
And to quell what ever will happen next, the detective finds herself speaking before she really thinks it through.
"I'll go."
Maggie suggests.
Anxious for something, anything to do.
Tired of being the only one incapable of providing any distinct help.
And all of sudden their faces are on her, so fast that the detective feels like she has to justify it.
"I know his face. I can-"
Alex interrupts before she can finish.
"Maggie, no. You have a concussion and your ribs… no."
And Eliza's shaking her head too.
The detective wants to protest. To say something more, but she's cut off.
"I can go."
Clark asserts.
Standing tall again, leaning away from the wall.
"No."
Alex fires back, just as vehemently.
And Clark snaps to her.
Subtle surprise coloring his features.
"No. N-No. The parasite… It's affecting her this bad because she's- she's Kryptonian. And… And I'm not letting anyone else get hurt. I'll go."
"No!"
Maggie, Clark, and Eliza say simultaneously.
Vehemently.
And J'onn interrupts them before the argument can continue.
"Detective Sawyer , you're injured. You are going nowhere."
He states firmly giving no room for argument.
"Agent Danvers, Superman, you are family. And you both will stay with your family. I will send a team. And I will go and supervise the extraction of the other accomplice."
Dark eyes flitting towards the others, conveying the same exact orders.
And though his words are strong and filled with authority, there's a distinct ring of solemnness.
Maggie feels that that solemnness doesn't just stem from this situation.
It is then, the detective remembers that he once had a family.
Once had a whole world.
And had lost it.
Due to war or famine or disease, she couldn't remember the specifics.
But cause didn't really matter when there is nothing but ashes left.
Nothing but empty graves that would never be given proper funerals.
And maybe that's why Kara and J'onn were able to get along so well.
Because they had been firsthand witnesses the cruelty of beings and no one else could truly understand what it felt like to have everything get ripped away from them.
No one else.
J'onn's dark eyes sweep over them one last time.
"Dr. Danvers. I'll see to it that you get any materials and supplies you might need."
And when he leaves… he doesn't look back.
… … … …
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
Maggie tries not to stare at him.
Tries to give him some peace of mind.
Tries.
Clark is on the observation deck with the her, Mon-el, and the few straggling scientists who haven't left in the recent shift change.
Sitting, shoulder's hunched, at the table pressed up against the double-plated Plexiglas window that stares into the makeshift hospital enclosure.
Alex is in there. With Eliza, J'onn, and the last she checked Winn.
But Maggie won't go back in.
Won't even look through the window.
Because this is honestly…
She just….
No. She won't go back in.
And Clark... he can't go in.
He hasn't had the same exposure as Kara to green kryptonite.
Has built up next to zero tolerance.
And the level that the room it's at right now… it will no doubt incapacitate him.
So he sits stiffly on the other side of the wall.
On the other side of the led encased wall that separates him from of his only remaining blood relative.
Using his pointer finger to carve ringlets of steel from the metal table.
Staring morosely at some point pass the window.
Eyes seeing, but mind obviously somewhere else.
And it's hard to look at him between faces.
Because even when she'd met him out of uniform, he'd always been happy, polite, and the slightest bit awkward.
Sullen had never been the word to describe anything.
Tortured had never been the word to describe anything.
But that's all the detective has seen, all she has experienced, as of late.
The heavy silence really only makes things worse.
Because even with the fluttering papers, the foot steps, the clicking of computer keys, the silence is undeniably present.
Still manages to be louder than everything else.
Maggie leans back on her own rolling chair.
Unconsciously moves a hand to fiddle with the butterfly stitches on her forehead.
Watches as the last of the scientists… and then Mon-el, who'd been antsy under the critical gaze of J'onn and wilted in the presence of Clark, make their excuses and leave.
Until it's just them…
Them and the dull ache of her ribs and the quiet.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Until...
"I… I was a sophomore in college, Maggie."
Her chair squeaks loudly in silence as she tilts her head, then by virtue her body, toward him.
Because for the first time that night, his voice audibly wavers.
For the first time his words aren't deliberately purposeful.
Just heavy and sullen and… despondent.
Like he's talking at her, instead of to her.
As if it had gotten too hard to hold up the hard persona
And she's heard Alex like this.
And Kara.
And it kills the detective seeing how similar the three of them are, even when they share no similar physical features.
Maggie curls her free hand, the one not fiddling with the bandages, nervously at her side.
Subtly, not so subtly, clenching it, twists it slightly into the fibers of her cotton shirt.
Because the detective knows she's been integrated into the Danvers Family more and more in the months her and Alex had been together.
But still, though warranted, horribly warranted, it still feels strange that it's Clark.
Because they had barely had more than twenty conversations together, even less alone.
So there isn't much she can say besides,
"I know."
But it doesn't seem to matter to Clark.
Clark who's already lost in the story he's trying to say.
"A-and Ma and Pa were still struggling with the farm. And I had the student loans and the side job at the Daily Planet and had started fucking around with this,"
He mutters.
Gestures down to the blue stitch of his uniform.
"Because when you have all of this power and hear all of this pain. You have to… not do nothing."
And Maggie nods slightly, even if he's not looking.
Because she gets it. She really does.
If there is the ability to protect and then there is the ability to serve.
It's one of the reasons, albeit among several, that she ended up joining the police department.
And it's the same perspective that had arguably instigated Kara's own path into superhero stardom.
Great power. Great responsibility.
She'd heard it over and over again.
Especially in the recent weeks leading up to… this.
When the blonde had garnered a nasty habit of going radio silent for days at a time.
Showing up in Laos and Nigeria and Columbia and places far far away from National City, but never letting anyone know.
Because everyone, everywhere needs help.
And who was Kara to hear and not help.
Even if it came as a detriment to everything else.
"And she was thirteen. Thirteen... I barely knew Kryptonian. I couldn't- I couldn't have ever taken care of-."
The steady scraping of steel ceases as Clark brings his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.
And his eyes are dark.
His eyes are troubled.
His eyes are far, far away.
"I couldn't have ever taken care of her the way she deserved."
The detective swallows hard.
Finally works up the courage to look down through the window of the observation deck at Kara laying on the cot.
At Alex's tight grip on her sister's hand.
At Eliza hovering on the other side, listening to Winn as he does his best to explain the horrifically rapid accumulation of events.
"I know."
…. …. …
Authors note:
I didn't want Clark to necessarily be the bad guy in this fic. In the show I get Alex's perspective, but Clark really couldn't have done much. But of course Clark has his faults too, so I wrote them as a bitter half sibling relationship instead.
Kara will make more of an appearance in the next chapter.