"Hey, least the worst you'd have to deal with was your girl quietly pinning for you till one of you knuckleheads finally made a move." Lena's grumbled slur has Eliza pausing on her way from yet another check on Alex and Kara. "Mine wouldn't even give me the time of day once she knew the family I came from."
"We're talking about the same Kara here, right?" Maggie asks over the pouring of another glass of scotch.
"My Kara not this one." Lena argues as Eliza tiptoes closer "Pretty sure even if I was more around her age range Alex won't let me near her let alone date her once she knew my family."
"Adoptive." Maggie reminds. "Family ain't just blood, Len"
"Still a Luthor," Lena says sadly and Eliza can tell just from the scrap of her glass that the Luthor woman was taking another measured pull from her liquor glass. "And you know as well as me how protective Alex was especially once they started really becoming sisters like they are now."
Another stab of guilt shot through the listening mother. Such a heavy burden she'd thrust onto her elder daughter. She could see it so clearly now.
"Before she turned teen Alex said even after we broke up Eliza still kept vegan milk for me on the chance that I would stop by for a visit," Maggie says as if in explanation over the closing of the kitchen refrigerator drawing Eliza back to the not-so-sober conversation going on at her dining room table. "Now stop hogging the cookies. You're worse than baby Danvers."
"Told you she liked you better," Lena says with an honest pout now over the scrapping of what Eliza guesses to be a plate being pushed across the table.
"I ever say thanks for letting me crash at your place the month after she and I called it off last time?" Maggie asks, her mouth full of at least one of the dwindling offerings of baked goods. Eliza makes a mental note about making more just in case her girls need an extra touch of sweetness when they are both a little more sober.
"Every time we get buzzed together." Lena agrees with a giggle.
"Not my fault though. You know your scotch." Maggie says "Also you know what it's like pinning after a Danvers, so you get it. You get me."
"Heck yes." Lena hums over the surprisingly soft clinging of glasses. "but I have wondered." And going by the soft scraping Eliza guesses Lena was now batting her liquor glass like a cat with a mouse.
"Yeah?" Maggie asks around for another bite of a cookie so it sounds like "Wah"
"Would you and I have been something if the four of us had known one another at their current age?"
"What like you and me?" Maggie asks
"It would take away the sting of not being with the ones we truly want to be with." Lena points out.
"So not really a relationship." Maggie attempts to grasp given her buzzed state. "But not just a friendship either. Something else?"
"In a way." Lena agrees. "and come on, Sawyer it's not like you and I wouldn't be just a little attracted to one another."
"Take the firth." Maggie says around another swallow of scotch "Why can't we just list off all the things we like about our girls like normal?"
"Cause Mama Danvers is still up and could hear us." Lena reminds over the slushed pouring of another half a glass of liquor. "also at the moment our respective girlfriends are teenagers right now remember?"
"Oh yeah." Maggie hiccups. "Wouldn't want baby D getting super ego hearing about…"
"Just Kara?" Lena laughs cutting her off. "You do know I have several not-so-wanted details about times you've used Alex's praise kink against her right?"
"Anyways." the slurring cop rushes on. "besides. not like she'd be interested in me either. If I was her age again that is." Maggie amends Eliza's guess because of the scoffed 'Really?' the Luthor gives.
"Really, Lena. Come on even you have to see that the Alex upstairs is…" she pauses struggling for the right words before coming up with "An adorably nerdy, Bambi gay still surfing her way towards the door to the gay closet?" Maggie offers earning a low giggle from Eliza.
"Interesting association." The buzzed Luthor chuckles, her words starting to roll together now. "But even without Alex I still can't see Kara giving me time of day if I were as she is now."
The broken note in the woman's voice as Eliza strode into the room startled both women with her sudden appearance but she ignored it in favor of wrapping her arms around the tearful Luthor woman huddled at the far side of her kitchen table.
"Sshh. No talking. Just hugging." Eliza says when much like Maggie had upstairs Lena's hands fist against the back of her shirt as the dark-haired woman muffles a grateful sob against her stomach with Eliza's fingers carding in attempted comfort through Lena's hair.
The not-so-distant conversation replies with painful clarity as Eliza watches the growing pain crossing each of her daughter's expressions on catching another of a now teenaged Maggie as well as Lena's giggled laughs.
"The least she could do is give me back my dog," Alex grumbles her jealousy palpable when she, like Eliza, notes just how closely Maggie was cradling the toy dog against her lap as she and Lena (Her girlfriend according to Alex) passed another few minutes in a much more adult Lena's designated lab.
What the two were doing was unclear even for Eliza to work out.
As if she'd somehow heard Alex's grumbling Maggie's hand shifts to rub with therapeutic slowness against Gertrude's ear before she brings the stuffed dog up for a soft kiss to the fake furred head mostly in an attempt to hide a blush.
"Gertrude? What about Streaky?" Kara huffs from the still spinning chair she'd been seated in since following her elder sister into their mother's offered lab. "can't we I don't know arrest her for plushy cat napping. Is that even a thing?"
"I keep telling you Kar. You have super speed just go get him." Alex growled dropping her eyes back to the absent scrubbing she'd been doing at the corner of a once crumpled-up notebook page.
At first, she'd attempted to sketch out Maggie's dizzily dimpled smile, but it was never quite good enough, so she just ended up shading in one corner of the crumpled page until it was as black as Maggie's hair before moving off to another layer. Not like she wanted to go run her fingers through it or anything cause that would be weird even if it was true.
"And you have legs go get Gertrude already." Kara snaps back as Eliza makes another note to the more adult Lena's half-finished calculations. The wadded-up pen-darkened paper ball misaimed by a distracted Alex bounced harmless enough against the side of Eliza's bowed head as the working mother changed out one slide for another under the microscope.
"Mom I'm so sorr….."
"If you're going to start throwing things at one another please do so outside, girls." Eliza says noticing the watchful giggling to action made from the adjacent lab.
Honestly, if her girls only knew just how obvious it was neither Lena nor Maggie were interested in one another with how watchful they were whenever Kara or Alex would drop her guard since coming back to the DEO.
Kara gives a cheerful "Okay" as Alex stammers in an attempted apology. It's only after a confirming glance in picking up on Kara's much more cheerful expression that Eliza sees Lena and Maggie also on the move towards the lab door still chatting to one another like two girls coming out of an AP class.
It's Lena scrapping together her courage with an offered "Erm, so Mags and I were going to try to sneak over to that Noon's place Winn was talking about earlier. Wanna come with us?"
"Phones on please, girls." Eliza reminded startling Lena who hadn't seemed to notice anyone other than an equally blushing Kara fidgeting guiltily with her glasses as the other teenager attempted conversation.
The echoed "Yes Mom" threatens to warm and break her heart all at once as Alex and Kar both hurry out into the corridor on a collision course with their already girlfriends.
"Rao help." She pleads making Kara's head turn when it's whispered in hushed Kryptonian.