Chapter 6
“Winn.”
He jumped nearly a mile high, and Alex bit down a smirk. “Alright there?”
“Whatever it is, it wasn’t me, I swear. Unless it’s a good thing, then sure, maybe I had something to do with it.”
This time, Alex did allow herself to smirk.
“Maggie’s sad,” she told him without preamble as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned her hips against his desk.
Winn tilted his head to look up at her. “She certainly seems happy enough whenever I see you two together,” he prompted, and was rewarded by that doe-eyed smile Alex wearing more and more often these days.
“Yeah, but I think… I think she misses home, you know? Like, whenever I say it’s cold, she kind of laughs and says this cold is nothing. I mean, it’s nice because she gives me her jacket – ”
“Awwwww.” He earned a smack in the head, but lighter than normal, and he waited for Alex to continue.
“But you know, I can tell she just… the weather, you know, it doesn’t feel like Christmas to her. Here. I think she wishes it were colder. She used to go ice skating with her dad every weekend, you know, and I think… I think she’d like it if it snowed.”
Winn scoffed. “Snow. In National City. Too warm even for typical fake snow. You’d need a full on atmospheric shell and an ice converter to – to – ”
Alex was grinning down at him, now, and he looked around them nervously. “Alex.”
“Winn.”
“You want me to steal equipment from the DEO just so your girlfriend can get her snowball fight on?”
Alex squinted at nothing in particular in the distance and leaned down closer to Winn. “I was thinking more like… borrow.”
She fixed him with the most innocent, isn’t-it-sweet-how-much-I-love-my-girlfriend face she could muster, and sure enough, within seconds he started stammering.
“I – it – I could – alright, alright. But you’re helping.”
“Of course I’m helping. Can’t let you have all the credit.”
“What are we getting credit for?”
Alex and Winn both jumped.
“Kara! Hey… we… you know what, nothing, nothing you need to worry about, you know, we were just… science-y stuff, computer stuff, boring, you know, it – it really – nothing exciting, nothing you need to really think about or get involved with or even, you know, be in the room for.”
“Oh my god, Winn, you’re as bad at this as she is.”
He held up his hands innocently and Kara put her hands on her hips, pouting. Alex sighed and resignedly drew her sister close and whispered the top secret, J’onn-can’t-know-or-he’ll-give-us-that-look-and-the-explaining-all-the-reasons-it’s-an-irresponsible-use-of-planet-altering-technology-speech plan.
Kara’s eyes lit with excitement, but she didn’t squeal or jump around as Alex had expected her to. Instead, she pulled back and pushed a stray lock of hair out of Alex’s face and behind her ear.
“You are an absolutely perfect girlfriend, Alex, you know that? Maggie’s the second luckiest woman in the entire galaxy.”
“Second?” Winn asked as Alex choked on a sudden onslaught of tears.
“Me. I’m the luckiest. Because you’re my sister.”
Winn smiled and looked down at his desk as Alex drew Kara in for a deep, long hug. He was already planning exactly how to pull this off.
It only took Winn and Alex a day to get the plan together. They’d stolen moments of their breaks and lunch hours to set up an atmospheric shell around two of the hills used for DEO training and nothing else. Winn had chosen the location, drawing himself up with pride when he explained to Alex that it was optimal for both snowball fights and for sledding.
By the next day – which was, mercifully, Sunday, and Maggie had a few shifts off – it was all ready to go.
Alex picked her up on the Ducati outside her apartment, nearly shivering with excitement.
“So where are we going, Danvers? You never said,” Maggie asked as she ran a finger down Alex’s spine, making her definitely shiver this time.
“You’ll see,” Alex bragged as Maggie slipped onto the bike behind her, Alex’s abdominal muscles tightening reflexively at Maggie’s touch.
Alex revved the engine like a teenager trying to impress her high school crush, and Maggie’s laugh vibrated through her body as Alex pulled away.
Alex hadn’t seen the sight yet – she’d just been assured by Winn, Kara, and James that it looked and felt perfect – and if Maggie was confused and awed when the Ducati pulled up alongside the grassy slopes that suddenly were awash with banks of pure, sparkling, undisturbed snow, Alex was breathless. She parked just outside the invisible shell Winn had set up to contain the snow burst – didn’t want her bike getting overly wet and cold – and took off her helmet as quickly as she could, wanting to watch Maggie’s face as she did the same.
“Danvers, what… how?”
“Winn and I set up an atmospheric shell so we could control the climate in just a specific part of town. We made it snow.”
“But… why?”
Maggie hadn’t taken her eyes off the glistening snow, her hands still holding her helmet by her chest. Tears and a faint smile that was more in her eyes than her lips held her face.
Alex stepped closer to her and took the helmet from her hands, securing it on the seat of the bike. She took Maggie’s hands into her own and put her forehead on hers.
“You talk like you miss it. The cold. The snow. So I… brought it to you.”
“Alex.” Maggie’s voice was ragged and now there were definitely tears in her eyes. “You did this for… me?”
“Yes, of course, why… why wouldn’t I?”
Alex caressed Maggie’s hair with her fingertips and watched her girlfriend swallow, hard.
“People don’t…” Maggie lost her words and decided she didn’t need them. “Not for me.”
Alex cupped her cheeks in her hands and kissed her soundly, kissed her softly, kissed her with every ounce of feeling she could muster. “Well, I do. For you.”
“Alex, I l – I love it. Thank you.”
Alex smiled so brightly Maggie feared it would melt the snow for a moment, and they did nothing but hold each other’s hands and stare for a long, long minute.
As if on cue, Winn, James, and Kara appeared, trudging over an embankment of snow that had Winn sinking up to his calves.
“You guys gonna stare at each other all day or you gonna come in and get defeated in a snowball fight?” Kara called happily, a lilt of Supergirl in her voice.
“Defeated?” Alex and Maggie scoffed in unison.
“You’re going down, Little Danvers,” Maggie yelped as she jumped from grass into snow. James laughed, shaking his head as he presented Maggie with the coat, gloves, and hat Alex had told him to bring for her.
She suited up, beaming at Alex the entire time, and the games began.
Maggie was apparently an excellent shot. She could launch a snowball barely looking, and nail Kara while she was flying, easy.
She and Alex rapidly developed a system: Alex packed the snowballs and left them in a line. Maggie chucked them. The snowballs exploded on Kara, and on a shrieking Winn. James built up their fort to protect Maggie and Alex while they built and tossed.
“Traitor!” Winn had screamed, and James had nearly collapsed with laughter.
“You have Supergirl on your team, Winn! And don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been planning!”
Winn scoffed and took a snowball to the shoulder before ducking back down behind the tree he’d claimed as his protector again.
“You know nothing, you traitorous… traitor, you!”
“You been taking lessons in giving insults from Kara, Winn?” Alex goaded, and Kara hesitated in the air.
“Hey – oof!” Maggie had taken advantage to launch three perfectly aimed snowballs at Kara.
“No fair! None of us grew up with snow!” she called, but she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Yeah, none of us can fly either, Little Danvers!”
Maggie was constantly laughing, even as her face screwed up in focus right before she threw, and Alex knew she was in love.
“Okay, Kara! Now!” Winn shouted suddenly.
James, Maggie, and Alex exchanged a concerned look. Kara sped away, down, to collect snowballs to launch – so far, she and Winn had been on the defensive rather than the offensive – and Winn emerged from behind the tree, his coat stripped off, leaving him in a black and silver jumpsuit.
“Oh, Winn, you didn’t,” James muttered.
“What? Make a terrible fashion choice?” Maggie asked.
“He made a suit. A snowball fighting suit. That little bastard.” Alex shouted the last part, and Winn just cackled.
“Come on, gimme your best shot now!”
Kara launched a stream of snowballs at the trio, and they all ducked behind James’s fort. The force of the Supergirl powered snowballs puckered nearly clean through the snow walls.
Alex dove under Maggie’s arm to launch two well-placed snowballs at Winn in his new suit. Instead of just exploding into poofs when they made contact, they bounced right off of his suit and careened at high speed and with deadly accuracy back toward Alex.
“What the – ” Maggie yanked her back behind the fort as Alex let loose a string of curses at Winn for being a cheating, conniving, no good cheater.
“Okay. Plan,” Alex said as James hastily reinforced their fort and Maggie laid down a volley at Kara, not bothering with Winn because it would just, apparently, bounce of his freaking suit. “Sawyer, stay with Olsen and lay down cover fire. I’ll go around and take down Schott from the south side. Olsen, you take the north side and lay your best volley on Supergirl.”
“Hey, why does James get to have all the adventures?” Maggie protested.
“Because she thinks you’re cuter than I am, Maggie, so she’d rather protect you from getting pulverized with supersnowballs than me.”
Maggie tugged at Alex’s arm. “Awww babe, is that true?”
“Yes, Mags, I find my girlfriend much cuter than my sister’s ex boyfriend. No offense, James.”
“None taken.”
Maggie straightened up, proud of herself, and got hit full in the face with a snowball from Winn.
“You’ll pay for that, Schott!” she called, swiping snow out of her eyes, but her smile was wide and Alex didn’t know whether her heart wanted to melt or murder Winn.
“Now can we do this?”
A smirk and a faux-serious nod met Alex, and she tensed, ready to draw Kara’s snowball fire away from Maggie and James. Ready to take down Winn and his stupid snowball suit.
As promised, Maggie laid down cover fire that would have done an army cavalryman proud.
Alex didn’t bother with snowballs at Winn – she knew they’d just bounce off his stupid suit – so she crept behind him, crawling on her stomach through the snow like she was in an old WWI movie.
She waited until she heard Kara’s heat vision sear into Maggie’s snowballs above her, heard James and Maggie calling foul, heard them cursing and shouting that she couldn’t be allowed to fly and use her heat vision, heard Winn lose himself in a bout of belly laughter – and that was her opportunity.
She pounced, bringing him down at the knees, delighting in his shriek, in the way he flailed underneath her, in the way she tugged the cap of his suit back and soaked his hair through with a fistful of snow.
“Okay okay, uncle, uncle!” he squirmed, and Alex smirked, keeping one knee on his chest as she looked up to find James and Maggie both zeroing in on Kara’s flight path from below.
Suddenly a voice rang out over their playing field, and all five of them froze like small children with their hands in a cookie jar.
“Mr. Schott! What exactly have you done with our atmospheric shells?”
J’onn! Winn mouthed up at Alex in a panic, and before he could blink or yelp or grab her, Alex was off of him, a wicked grin on her face, running, sprinting through nearly knee deep snow to grab Maggie by the arm. She grabbed at a plastic circular sled that James must have brought to the top of the hill, shoved Maggie down in front of her, and kicked off. Kicked back.
Sent them spiraling at top speed down the hill.
Maggie screamed with laughter and Alex just laughed, reveling in the feeling of Maggie in her arms, her friends – when had Kara’s family become her friends, her family? – up on the hill above them, the exhilaration of near free fall at the steepness of the hill they were careening down…
Near the bottom, Maggie shifted to grab Alex from behind her, and they rolled down the rest of the hill, sled abandoned, just rolling side to side, on top of each other over and over and over, snow and speed and laughter obliterating the distance between their bodies.
Maggie landed on top, and before Alex could breathe a word, Maggie’s lips were on hers, her tongue slipping warmth into her mouth, her lips the only warm thing left on the planet, her mouth, her breath, a map of exactly how to survive, how to do more than survive: how to live.
Alex had created an entire winter paradise for her. She’d noticed, she’d done without being asked, she’d given without expecting to take anything. She’d… cared. And more, she cared enough to bring her into her circle, into the small, small group of people that Alex allowed herself to just be with. Because Maggie had told Alex that she didn’t care for many people, and that was true; but neither, it seemed, did Alex, and for her to just bring Maggie into her family like that, for her to trust Maggie with heat vision and supersnowballfighting suits, for her to manipulate the atmosphere to create a piece of home for her and ask for nothing, nothing, nothing in return…
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Alex Danvers,” Maggie whispered, and before Alex could cry, she pulled Maggie’s lips crashing down onto her own, showing her, showing her, showing her, that she was already in love with her, that she’d never stop being in love with her, that it was Christmas and she was in love for the first and last time, with the woman laying on top of her in the snow that she and her friends had made for so that she’d be happy, so that she’d be just a little bit closer to home.
“Agent Danvers!”
J’onn’s voice rang down from on top of the hill, and Alex groaned irritably into Maggie’s mouth. Maggie laughed into their kiss before pulling back, sitting up and tugging a weak-kneed Alex with her.
Above them, J’onn and Kara were flying down the hill with elegant nonchalance while James and Winn raced and whooped beneath them on their own tiny sleds. James came to a graceful stop while Winn rolled over himself at their feet.
“I hear this whole irresponsible scheme was your idea, Agent Danvers,” J’onn commented mildly as he and Kara came to ground in front of the others.
“Actually, sir, like I was trying to explain – ”
“It was mine.”
“No, it was me, all me, totally my idea.”
“Hell, I should jump in on it, too. Totally my plan, an NCPD experiment gone wrong.”
J’onn tried and failed to stifle a grin as everyone who worked for him, and even those who didn’t, ambled on about who was the mastermind.
“Next time you want to make your girlfriend smile, Alex, all you need to do is ask me.”
He touched Alex’s cheek softly, and Alex flushed with feeling as Kara grabbed at James’s arm.
“Yes, sir,” she smiled wetly.
“Now I believe we were in the midst of an epic snow battle,” J’onn said to the rest of them. A chorus of yeahs rang out and in an energetic second wind, everyone turned to trudge back up the hill to their forts and their stockpiles of snowballs.
Alex watched as the people she loved most laughed and tugged at each other, as Kara, Maggie, and Winn teased each other about who would win without flying and supersuits, as James and J’onn laughed about something Alex couldn’t quite hear.
“Winn,” she called, and he turned around and ambled back to her.
“Yeah?” He looked up at her, melting snow dripping from his sopping hair. She wiped a trickle of icy water off his cheek with her finger and pulled him into a deep hug.
“Thank you.”
He froze for a moment – but only a moment – before he returned her hug firmly.
“Merry Christmas, Alex Danvers.”
“Merry Christmas, Winn Schott.”