Chapter 5
Alex had told her to wear something nice – it was L Corp’s fancy ass holiday party, after all – but damn, did Maggie follow through.
A sleeveless black number, ending just at mid-thigh, hair done up so no one could miss the delicate twitches of her muscular back slipping into view from the completely backless dress.
Winn had to nudge Alex in the ribs to get her to close her jaw and prevent her from drooling.
“You… clean up nice,” she choked out, reversing the first time that Maggie had assured her she wasn’t all business. Maggie beamed.
“So do you, with the hair and the shoes and the – ” She gestured up and down to Alex’s entire body – a one-shouldered blue dress that clung to every curve perfectly, that stopped just shy of indecently short – and trailed off. Instead of the embarrassment that Alex would normally feel at someone reminded her of how she’d stammered, at a loss for words, she instead felt light, happy, cared for, listened to: Maggie had remembered exactly what she’d said. She’d cared. She’d listened. She’d remembered. And judging by the look on her face – the pure holiday giddiness mixed with dangerous desire – she’d found it much more than endearing.
Maggie paused a step or two in front of Alex, not knowing if she’d want to kiss in front of her friends yet. She did, and Maggie’s pulse bounded as Alex brought her hand to her cheek and kissed her quickly, but with slightly parted lips that made Maggie’s heart race and stop all at the same time.
“Hi,” she whispered shyly when Alex pulled away, and Alex echoed the greeting back.
Maggie tore her eyes away from Alex – if she didn’t stop looking at her now, she never would, and if she didn’t stop looking, she wouldn’t stop touching her, and if she didn’t stop touching her, she’d have to arrest herself for public indecency – and glanced over at a widely grinning Winn and a politely eyes-averted James.
“Where’s Kara?”
Winn choked and James thumped him on the back. “She’s uh… pulling double duty tonight.”
Maggie pursed her lips and leaned in to whisper to the boys. “So Lena invited Supergirl, too, huh?”
They spluttered and Alex, not hearing, arched an eyebrow: Maggie just winked broadly before lacing her fingers through Alex’s and leading her into the fully decked out L Corp lobby.
The last time Maggie had led her into a high class party by the hand, Alex’s emotional register was thrown completely out of whack.
It was this time, too. But knowing why – knowing that that feeling in her stomach was arousal, the shortness of breath was exhilaration, that swelling in her chest was something that was very easily becoming love – knowing why made all the difference.
She squeezed Maggie’s hand tighter.
“All good, Danvers?”
They’d never gone to a formal function as a couple before, and she watched Alex’s face carefully.
Alex paused as a few older white men looked hassled at their hand holding. She pulled Maggie closer. “All good, Sawyer.”
“Agent Danvers!”
Alex spun as Lena Luthor extricated herself gracefully from a small crowd of L Corp investors.
“Lovely to see you again.”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
“Of course, of course. Any friend – or sister – of Kara’s is a friend of mine.”
“Lena, um – this is m – my girlfriend, Maggie.”
Lena raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise and took Maggie’s hand – which was rapidly melting, along with the rest of her body, at hearing Alex introduce her as her girlfriend – warmly between both of hers.
“I’ve seen you before; you were with Agent Danvers keeping watch over the renaming of L Corp.”
“Yes ma’am. NCPD Science Division.”
Lena bit her lip slightly and her eyes flew rapidly between Alex and Maggie. “Quite a perfect match, then.” Maggie beamed and Alex focused on regulating her heart rate somewhat: she couldn’t ever remember feeling this giddy, this proud, this… in love.
“You haven’t seen your sister, have you, Agent Danvers? I’m afraid I’ve been looking all night and she – ”
A slight rush of wind rustled behind Lena and Alex fought off a smirk.
“Hi Lena!”
Lena’s face positively glowed as she turned. “Kara, so good of you to come, I was worried you wouldn’t make it. You look… magnificent.”
And she did. She was wearing a teal dress that dipped in an elegant, low V both in front and in back, her hair done up just so to expose her muscled back and emphasize the slight after-flying glow on her face.
She looked away and adjusted her glasses. “Well, you know, job of a reporter’s never done, and um, you, you look amazing too! And hi Alex! Hi Maggie!”
Lena didn’t so much as turn around to re-integrate the other women into the conversation. Instead, she took two glasses of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and pressed one delicately into Kara’s hands.
“I’m sorry you had a long day: you must be hungry, have you eaten? I made sure the catering staff made plenty of potstickers; I seem to remember you having a proclivity for them…"
She led a wide-eyed, lottery-winning-looking Kara away and Alex chuckled. “Well she knows how to get in good with reporters named Kara Danvers.”
Maggie arched an eyebrow and watched as Lena’s hand hovered behind Kara’s back, close yet so far away to touching her skin. Maggie wondered idly if Lena had ensured there was some mistletoe hanging along with all the sparkling white lights and tinsel-lined Christmas trees.
“Maggie.” Alex’s tentative voice pulled Maggie out of her thoughts and into her girlfriend’s eyes. “Never mind.”
Maggie took both Alex’s hands into hers and swung a little bit. “No, babe, don’t do that. What?”
Gazing down into those perfect brown eyes, so patient, so warm, Alex bit her lip and tried again. She nodded over Maggie’s shoulder to where some of the guests had started to dance.
“Do you, um… would you…”
Maggie’s smile lit up the room brighter than all the Christmas candles and tree decorations ever could. “Alex Danvers, are you asking me to dance with you?”
“Pfft, n – I – yes.”
Maggie said nothing. She didn’t need to. She just bowed slightly and gestured Alex ahead of her to the dance floor, licking her lips and taking a deep, steadying breath as she watched the way Alex’s dress moved with her ass.
When Alex turned, her eyes were wide, nervous. Maggie, never taking her eyes of Alex’s, took one hand in hers and put Alex’s other hand around her waist before bringing her own up to Alex’s shoulder. She started to move slightly and gulped at the way Alex took a sharp intake of breath at feeling Maggie’s waist move under her.
“All good?” Maggie asked.
“You are so beautiful,” Alex breathed in response, and it was Maggie’s turn to breathe in deep.
Her sudden shyness emboldened Alex, and she pulled Maggie even closer to her, so they were moving, dancing, with barely any space between their bodies.
Neither of them knew how many songs they stayed like that, swaying slightly, moving just enough to be considered dancing instead of hugging, but suddenly the band was picking up a more explicitly Christmas-y tempo, and Alex looked up to see Kara giving a thumbs up to the lead singer.
She laughed slightly as she and Maggie both froze, unsure how to transition out of the spell that had been each other’s eyes, each other’s warmth, each other’s mere proximity.
As if finding the answer, Alex grinned and, on a whim and with a prayer, spun her arm around above Maggie’s head. Maggie caught on without hesitation, spinning her body out away from Alex with a soft laugh and spinning back into her body in time with the ridiculous, but ridiculously infectious, tune of “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.”
And that was their mistake.
Because when Maggie spun back into Alex, she let Alex catch her body with her back to her, the exposed skin of her back pressed against Alex’s front, her ass pressed just in the right spot to turn Alex’s laugh into a near growl, Alex’s arms wrapped around Maggie’s front, holding her close to her. Daring, Maggie continued dancing, casting her head to the side so she could see Alex’s eyes flutter closed and her mouth slip open at the feeling of Maggie’s body against hers like that.
“Maggie,” Alex warned.
“Did you want me to stop, Danvers?”
Warmth and affection mingled with a deep-seated, single-minded need to touch Maggie’s skin, to slip her out of her clothes, had been simmering in Alex since she saw Maggie in that dress, in those shoes, with that hair.
Now, with her flush against her body like that, moving against her body like that?
“Bathroom, now.”
She disentangled herself from Maggie’s body and walked off the dance floor with a calm, warm smile that screamed of her ability to pass a lie detector test. Maggie gulped and followed, maintaining a similar facade of holiday party innocence.
“Maggie, hey, you enjoying the – ”
“Sorry, Winn, gotta – be back soon, okay?”
Winn mumbled something incoherent as Maggie patted him on the shoulder and passed him by, and Maggie almost stopped to give him a more proper apology: almost, because the thought of Alex’s legs in that dress, the way her collarbone was just begging to be kissed, licked, nipped at as it stood out from the one-shouldered strap Alex was wearing, drew her forward after her girlfriend.
Their hands met on the threshold of the bathroom and Alex wasted no time pushing Maggie into an empty stall, elegant stone floors ringing with the clicks of their heels.
“Alex, I – ”
Alex pulled back immediately, wide-eyed fear on her face. “I’m sorry, you probably don’t want – did I hurt you, I – ”
“Jesus, Alex, no, no, I just – in the… very swanky… bathroom of the L Corp holiday party? You sure you want to – ”
“Maggie, next time maybe ask that question before you grind your ass into me like that, okay?”
Maggie groaned at Alex’s swearing, at the raw desire in her voice, and melted into her open-mouthed kiss, letting Alex push her back against a stall and tug her dress up to her hips.
“Thank god you’re not wearing tights,” Alex rasped, and Maggie hissed as her cool fingers shoved aside her underwear.
“I’m from Nebraska, this isn’t cold to – Alex!” Her breathy explanation became a scream and Alex reached down to hold up one of her legs by her waist as the fingers of her other hand slipped deep into Maggie’s body.
“You are sobeautiful,” Alex repeated for the second time that night, watching as Maggie’s eyes fluttered closed and her hips arched forward to accommodate more of Alex’s hand.
“Well. Fucking a gorgeous woman while Christmas carols drone in the background in a public bathroom at a holiday party for a famous rival of the Supers. Not exactly how I expected to find you, former Director Danvers. But I can’t say I’m entirely surprised.”
Alex’s back went ramrod straight as her stomach flipped with all kinds of movements at once; she let down Maggie’s leg gently but quickly, carefully but efficiently, wiping her fingers on her own forearm as she helped Maggie pull her dress back down. She cupped Maggie’s concerned face with her hands briefly, reassuring her that they weren’t in any kind of trouble, before turning around with a somehow confident drawl.
“Lucy Lane. Back to National City for… what? Lena Luthor’s Christmas party? Doesn’t your sister have something to say about that?”
“Well your sister apparently doesn’t. She’s out there chatting it up with Lena right now. And by the look in Lena’s eyes, you’d guess she’s thinking about doing exactly what you two just were.”
Maggie’s chest heaved as she struggled to stay standing, eyes flitting back and forth between this stranger, decked out in a full military dress uniform, and her girlfriend, who still had Maggie’s lipstick smudged on her neck and lips. The two just stood there, stiff, regarding each other for a few long, long moments. For a second, Maggie was concerned one was going to slug the other.
And then, as though it were coordinated, Alex and Lucy stepped forward at the same moment, arms open, for a brief, solider-like but deep, hug.
Alex grasped her by the shoulders when they parted. “It’s good to see you, Lucy.”
“And you, Alex. And um…” She looked over Alex’s shoulder to Maggie. “You must be the girlfriend. I mean, I hope you’re the girlfriend.”
Maggie laughed and pushed herself forward off the wall, hand extended. “Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division. And yes, I’m the girlfriend.” She beamed that this is what made Alex Danvers blush, not being walked in on knuckle deep inside someone.
“Major Lucy Lane, Judge Advocate General’s Corp. Directed the DEO for a spell there, too. Glad to see someone was finally able to bring Agent Danvers here out of her shell.”
Alex shuffled her feet and pffted, and Lucy looked baffled. “You even figured out a way to make her bashful and speechless? I like you, Detective Maggie Sawyer, NCPD Science Division.”
It was Maggie’s turn to blush, and Alex rolled her eyes. “Lucy, seriously, I thought you weren’t due back until New Years’.”
Lucy shrugged. “Lena extended an olive branch invitation to me, and Jimmy’d mentioned to me that Supergirl was close with her, so I figured you all would be here and… Christmas surprise!”
“Well, I’m glad you came.”
Lucy arched an eyebrow at Maggie. “And I’m sorry you didn’t. But I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time for that later, hm?” She winked lasciviously over her shoulder and dodged a swing from Alex as she led the dazed pair out of the bathroom and back into the wash of Christmas lights and music and dancing and –
“Oh my… is that… is that Kara? Dancing with Lena Luthor?”
Lucy’s eyes went wide – but not as wide as Alex’s – and she leaned in to mutter to Maggie, “There’s two in the family and they don’t even know it.” Maggie chuckled and nodded and watched, transfixed, as the room muttered and pointed, half at Kara’s hand on Lena’s waist, half at a blonde figure cutting her way through the crowd toward the dance floor.
Alex, Lucy, and Maggie inched closer, joining a slack-jawed Winn and James, standing right next to the dancing pair.
“Has someone been naughty at the Christmas party?” Winn murmured to Alex suggestively, and she smacked him in the back of the head.
“Stop the violence,” James sing-songed, and Lucy elbowed him in the ribs.
“Who asked who to dance?” Maggie asked the boys, partially out of burning curiosity and partially to save them from further damage.
“I have no idea,” James muttered back. “We just heard a hush over the room and saw that – wait, hold on – ”
Winn took a visible step back and an audible gulp as the blonde figure who’d been cutting through the crowd now emerged at the edge of the dance floor.
“Is that – ”
“Ms. Grant,” he and James said together, and both of their eyes flitted back and forth between Kara and Cat, Cat and Kara.
Kara hadn’t noticed her yet, but the entire room knew the moment she did.
“Ms. Grant!” she squealed, and had wrapped her in a steel-solid hug before anyone, including Lena, had even seen or felt her move.
The Superfriends – and the entirety of Lena Luthor’s guest list – watched as Cat Grant’s icy expression from moments before melted into resigned relief as she leaned into Kara’s embrace, holding her tightly to her with her palms as her fingers gently traced the exposed skin on the back.
“Cat Grant,” Lena greeted as the two finally, slowly, pulled back from each other.
Cat stiffened immediately and fixed Lena with a smug look that sent old, nearly forgotten shivers down Winn’s spine.
“Lena Luthor. A lovely party you’re throwing tonight, though I really could have done without the tacky mistletoe.”
Maggie smirked to herself; she knew Lena’d put up mistletoe somewhere.
“Yes, well, we can’t all have the Queen of all Media’s taste level at all times, can we, Cat?”
Kara was looking wide-eyed and horrified between them, and Alex recognized the twitch in her fingers, like she wanted to fly out of there and come back as Supergirl to stop any potential fires.
“I trust you know, Lena, what a distinct honor it is to have been the subject of an early Kara Danvers interview.”
Kara’s lips twitched upward despite herself, and she straightened ever so slightly.
“I do, yes. She’s quite a treasure.”
James and Maggie met eyes and gulped.
“Indeed she is.”
Maggie shifted forward before anything else could be said. She’d never been one to be intimidated by people in power, and she had to admit, this whole situation – especially coming off the high she’d been on before Lucy walked in on them – was pretty adrenaline-producing.
“What the hell is she doing?”
“Your girlfriend’s bold, Danvers. Keep her.”
“I plan to.”
“Um, excuse me, ladies,” Maggie said warmly, softly, pitching her voice so only those closest could hear it, indirectly telling anyone who didn’t know the women involved personally to back off and get back to their eggnog and champagne. “Kara, I’m sorry, can I borrow you a sec?”
She took Kara’s arm gently, and Kara pouted.
“But Ms. Grant’s here – ”
“I’m not going anywhere, dear, I’ll be here when this charming young woman returns you.”
Maggie nodded at Cat, but Kara still protested slightly. “Maggie, I – ”
“Kara, please?”
They walked away together, toward the others, leaving the earshot of Cat and Lena, who were still exchanging barbs about who knew best how to care for Kara.
“What is it, Maggie?”
“Little Danvers, please, tell me you know.”
“Know…”
Maggie smirked and looked over Kara’s shoulder at Lucy, who nodded encouragingly. Maggie hung her head and sighed before looking back up at Kara.
“That these majorly powerful, accomplished, dignified boss ladies are currently fighting over you like kids in a high class schoolyard. Like, whoever survives the war of wits gets the girl type fighting.”
Kara looked wildly over at Alex, then at James, then at Winn, then at Lucy. She was met with pursed lips, averted eyes, a facepalm, and a broad smirk.
She looked back at Maggie, furiously adjusting her glasses. She smiled. She spluttered. “What? No. That’s… that’s ridiculous, Maggie, I mean – pfft.” She adjusted her glasses again and squinted over at Cat and Lena. She looked at them for a long moment between staring back at Maggie.
“You think so?”
“Yep.”
They stared at each other for a long moment and Maggie braced herself for a coming out speech from another Danvers sister.
“Maggie,” Kara started hesitantly. Maggie smiled slightly and nodded encouragingly, openly.
“Wasn’t your hair up when you came in? How come it’s all out and down now?”
A spray of champagne suddenly covered Maggie’s back and Kara’s face as Alex groaned and Lucy choked on laughter, on the champagne that she’d been drinking that had without warning and with a lot of pain – worth it pain – shot back out through her mouth and nose at Kara’s question.
James and Winn scrambled for napkins and mopped up a stunned Kara and Maggie, trying desperately to contain their laughter for fear of the look in Alex’s eyes.
“Not a holiday party without a little champagne through the nose, huh Lane?” Winn asked as Lucy blinked the tears of pain and laughter out of her eyes.
“Well, we’ve made our contribution to the evening,” Alex said with as much dignity as she could muster, grinning with feigned innocence as she grabbed Maggie’s hand. “Kara, good luck with your – ” she gestured vaguely in the direction of Cat and Lena. “ – thing. Lucy, let’s all do lunch or something tomorrow. You,” she said to Maggie. “Home. Now.”
Maggie followed willingly, grinning broadly at Winn’s whistle, James’s laugh, Kara’s groan, and Lucy’s whoop at their backs, knowing without hesitation that she was falling in love with this woman who would be so bashful and doe-eyed one moment and dragging her away from a Christmas party and into bed the next.