#nothing but respect for MY maggie sawyer | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

supergirlfics · 6 years ago

Note

You write some really good fics!! If you wouldn’t mind I’d love a fic where B! Danvers gets knocked unconscious and has a Wizard of Oz kind of fantasy and wakes up and is shocked to see her sisters by her side. (Just like Kara this is my favorite movie). Thank you in advance!!

The last thing you remembered, you’d been in your kitchen. But when you opened your eyes, you were somewhere completely different. You were in a small, empty town, with cobblestone roads and Victorian style buildings.

“I have a feeling … I’m not in National City anymore,” You said.

“That would be correct,” You jumped, spinning around to see Winn standing nearby.

“Winn? You asked. “When did you get back? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Back? Young lady, I’ve always been here. This is my town. Intellectville.”

“What?” You blinked several times. “What Earth am I on?”

“That,” Brainy said, appearing suddenly at Winn’s side. “Is for you to find out. You are the young Danvers, are you not?”

“Yes … Brainy. You know that. You know everything. Are you okay?”

“I am in tip top shape,” Brainy said, staring at you in confusion.

“We’ve been awaiting your arrival,” Winn said. “There is a very important task for you. You must follow that red brick road. It will lead you into National City, the capitol city of Krypton.”

“Krypton?” You asked. “Okay. Hold on. Kara told me about Krypton and it’s nothing like this. It doesn’t even have a National City.”

“To get there, however, you must pass through the Midvale forest,” Brainy said. “It will be full of dangers. But a Danvers can get through.”

“Why do I have to go to National City, anyway? What’s the point of all this?”

“National City is ruled by Kara and Alex Danvers,” Winn explained. “It was foretold of the coming of the youngest Danvers when great tragedy struck Krypton. Now, the sisters fight for their lives and freedom. National City has been overtaken by an evil wizard known as Lex Luthor. You must defeat Lex and bring National City and all of Krypton back to its former glory.”

“Yeah … Okay,” You said. “And how do I do that?”

“That,” Brainy said. “Is for you to figure out on your own.”

“Follow the red brick road,” Winn said, pushing you along it. “Follow the red brick road.”

You glanced behind you to see both men shooing you forward. And for some reason, you weren’t going to protest. But something about this felt oddly familiar.

It wasn’t long before you found yourself at the entrance of the forest. Standing there, blocking your path was a man in a suit of armor. “Who goes there?” He echoed.

“James?” You asked. “Is that you?”

“I am Guardian. Keeper of the forest. None shall pass without my authorization. Who are you?”

“Y/N Danvers,” You said. “I guess I’m supposed to save National City and whatnot.”

“Danvers,” Guardian said. “I will accompany you on your journey. You could use a Guardian.”

“That was a bad joke. But okay.”

“Perhaps, when we save Krypton, the Danvers sisters will grant me a heart. My friends have said I’m cold and distant. A heart would fix that.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“We’re off to National City! Just follow the red brick road.”

“I know. I’ve heard it a million times already.”

Out of the forest, you came to another small town. It was different than the last one. Quite a bit different. It was as if you’d walked straight into an old Western movie. You didn’t make it far into town before you were approached by -

“Maggie?” You asked.

“Maggie?” She raised her eyebrows. She spoke with a thick southern accent. “It’s Margaret. But to you, it’s Marshall Sawyer. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” You said. You may have been in an alternate universe, but Maggie - uh, Margaret - hadn’t changed.

“What’s your business in my town?”

“We’re off to National City,” Guardian said. “This here is the Danvers of the prophecy.”

“Y/N Danvers?” Marshall Sawyer asked.

“That’s me,” You said.

“You can save us. You can save my town.”

“Why can’t you save your town? I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

“I may be Marshall, but I lack the brains.” She stared at you for a moment, then her eyes lit up and she continued. “I hear the Danvers are kind, generous women. If I help you, do you think they would give me a brain? I would like to be smart enough to protect my town. On my own.”

“I’ll - uh - I’ll ask them,” You said. Again, you got the feeling that something about this place was extremely familiar. But you couldn’t figure out why.

“Then we’re off to National City!” Marshall Sawyer grabbed your hand. You grabbed Guardian’s, and the two of you were pulled, running, out of the town.

You came abruptly upon a chasm. It stretched on for miles. The only way across was a small rope bridge.

“That’s not sketchy …” You said.

“What’s that?” Guardian asked, pointing to something about halfway across the bridge.

“That would be a woman,” Marshall Sawyer said.

You squinted and could just make out a dark haired woman clinging to the bridge for dear life. ‘We should probably help her,” You said.

“I will go,” Guardian said. “I am the strongest. I can help her.”

“Hold on,” Marshall Sawyer said. “You can’t go in guns blazing. We don’t know how stable the bridge is. Let me make sure it’s secure first.”

As soon as Marshall Sawyer had finished, Guardian made his way quickly across the bridge. You could see him exchanging words with the woman, then he put an arm around her and walked with her to the other side. You went next. It was like being on a ropes course bridge, but much larger, and much scarier. It shook with each step. The planks bent under your weight. You were scared they would snap under you.

“I’m never doing that again,” You said as soon as you had stepped foot on solid ground. The woman Guardian had saved was Lena.

“How do you know my name?” She asked.

“So, you’re name is actually Lena?”

“Of course.” Lena furrowed her brow. “Who else would I be?” When you didn’t answer, she continued. “I must thank you all for saving me. I thought I had the courage to make it across, but I didn’t.”

“Where were you going?”

“To visit my mother in Intellectville.”

Checks out, you thought. Her mother may be evil, but she’s still a genius.

“We’re off to National City,” Marshall Sawyer explained. “And the Danvers are giving gifts to those who help. Come with us and I’m sure you can get courage.”

“Um, I never said anything for sure,” You said. “I said I’d ask them about it.” You didn’t want to get their hopes up.

“Nonsense,” Guardian said. “Of course you’ll be granted courage.”

“Then I’ll come to National City,” Lena said.

Just before reaching the gates, you reached a large field of flowers. “These are so pretty,” You said. You picked up a handful to smell.

“Wait, no -”

But it was too late. The scent wafted through your nose and you collapsed, unconscious.

You opened your eyes. It was bright. You were still in the field of flowers, but none of your friends were around. You wondered if they’d left you.

“You’re dreaming.”

You jumped at the voice, sitting up to see Nia behind you. “What?”

“I am Dreamer. You’re dreaming. This isn’t real. You smelled my flowers, and now you’re in my dream realm”

You blinked several times. “Yeah … okay.”

“This can’t be the strangest thing you’ve seen today.”

And it wasn’t. Thinking back, this entire day had been odd. And so, so familiar.

“You are going to save us all,” Dreamer said. “Good luck.”

“Wait,” You said. “But it’s Lex Luthor. He’s a genius. How do I defeat him?”

“Did you bring a water bottle?”

With that, Dreamer disappeared. You awoke, for real this time. Your friends hovered over you, looking concerned.

“We don’t stop to smell the flowers,” Marshall Sawyer said.

“No,” You disagreed. “We do. I think I figured it out.” You looked to your side, where your water bottle had dropped. You didn’t remember having it on most of your journey, but dismissed it as just being caught up in the crazy.

“National City used to be beautiful,” Marshall Sawyer said as you approached the gates. “It used to be bright and beautiful with blue and red and gold.”

“Now it’s this awful green,” Lena said.

“Kryptonite,” You whispered.

“What?” Marshall Sawyer asked.

“Uh - nothing. Let’s get inside this emerald city and save the planet.”

You received a lot of strange looks inside the city. People seemed nervous, jumpy. Nobody was relaxed in the slightest. This is what Lex had done.

The castle reminded you all to much of CatCo. In fact, Cat Grant was one of two guards who stood at the front door. The other being J’onn.

“State your business,” Cat said.

“We’re here to see the wizard,” You said. “Lex Luthor.”

“Do not speak the great man’s name,” J’onn said. But he glanced around in fear. You didn’t believe he actually thought of Lex as being great.

“Listen,” You lowered your voice. “We’re trying to help you. We can save Krypton.”

“You can save Krypton?” Cat asked. She exchanged a look with J’onn, who nodded. “Welcome to National City.”

The two of the stepped aside. The large double doors swung open. You gave them a curt nod before leading the group inside. The four of you piled into the elevator and without a second thought, you pressed the button leading you up to Cat’s floor.

Lex sat in the main office. He stood when he saw you. “Who let you in?”

“Nobody,” You said. “We thought you could use a nice, friendly visit.”

His eyes narrowed. He looked over you cautiously, but seemed to disregard you as a threat, because he relaxed. “My subjects have come to pay their respects.”

“Yes sir,” You said. “Come, sit down.”

When you reached the office, Kara and Alex were on the couch, both bound tightly. Kara’s face was etched in green lines. There was a large chunk of Kryptonite sitting on her lap. You hadn’t remembered seeing your sisters or the rock before. It was probably time to get your eyes checked, if you kept missing stuff like that.

Your friends all took a seat on the couches, but you remained standing. “I thought you may be thirsty, sir. So I brought you some water.”

Lex took it. You hoped he didn’t notice your gulp as he brought the drink to his lips. He took a long drink.

The bottle fell to the floor. Lex looked at his hands. They were beginning to look like a popsicle that had been left in the sun. “I’m melting.”

“Whoa,” You said. “Dreamer was right.”

“I’m - I’m melting!”

Nobody moved. Everybody just stared as Lex became smaller and smaller, until he was nothing more than a puddle on the carpeted floor.

The ropes and the Kryptonite disappeared. Your sisters arms were around you so suddenly and roughly you almost fell. “Thank you, Y/N,” Kara said.

“We’re so proud of you,” Alex said. “We knew you’d come.”

“I’m your sister. I’ll always come.” You pulled away from them and turned to the others. “These are my friends. They were hoping you could help them. Guardian here wants a heart. Marshall Sawyer needs a brain. And Lena’s looking for courage.”

“You don’t need any of those,” Kara said.

“Guardian,” Alex said. “you have a heart. A big heart. You rushed in to save a stranger. That takes heart. Marshall Sawyer, you say you need a brain. But you knew how to secure the bridge. And you knew about the flowers. You’re smarter than you think. And Lena, you may have been afraid, but you still came. You faced your fears of seeing your brother. You are incredibly brave.”

The three of them left, discussing what they had just been told.

“So,” You said. “Can we go home?”

“You are home,” Alex said. “You just need to wake up.”

“Wake up,” Kara said. “Come on, wake up.”

Your eyes fluttered open. You were on Kara’s couch. Your head pounded, and you reached a hand up to feel a bandage wrapped around your skull. “W-what happened? Where am I?”

“You’re home,” Kara said. “Alex and I found you. You were on the floor.”

“You have a head wound,” Alex explained. “It looks like you hit it on the counter. You probably have a concussion.”

You tried to sit up, but your sisters pushed you back down. “How did I get here? I was on Krypton.”

“You’ve never been to Krypton,” Kara said. “You’ve been here the entire time.”

Your eyes widened at the realization. “It was a crazy dream. And Lena was there, and Guardian, and you were there, too. And Alex, you were there.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “You can tell us about it later. You need to get some rest.”

69 notes · View notes

queercapwriting · 6 years ago

Note

Hey cap. So my story is alot like Maggie's (I promise I'm not making this storyup) my Crush's mother found some texts between me and my crush and she threaten to out me to my mom if I didn't stay away from my crush. That was the day before Valentine's day this year. I was hoping if you have time if you could write a fic about Maggie seeing Eliza wilky again and Alex comforts her when she yells at Mags for coming back to Nebraska, if you still write Sanvers but if you could that would be great💖

She went over it and over it and over it in her head for years and years.

Had she made it up in her head?

She would lay in bed at night - the crappy futon bed that her aunt let her sleep on that was always too cold and too hard and too lonely - and stare at the ceiling and wonder.

Hadn’t she seen Eliza’s eyes drift down to her lips, so many damn times?

When they stole Eliza’s older brother’s cigarettes together, hadn’t Eliza always been the one to suggest they shotgun the smoke, bringing their lips tantalizingly close, all but kissing without having to call it that?

Hadn’t Eliza been the one to run her hand under Maggie’s sweater, claiming her hands were cold, under their shared blankets all those nights, during all those horror movies that she knew Eliza hated, but always said she wanted to watch, because those were the kinds of movies that could best rationalize that kind of snuggling, that kind of protective closeness?

Hadn’t Eliza always insisted they share the bed, instead of letting Maggie sleep on the couch when she stayed over?

Maggie thought and she replayed and she thought and she replayed.

She came out of it swearing she’d been crazy.

Swearing she’d been making it all up.

That of course, the girl who went on to be homecoming queen and prom queen and cheerlead captain and Straight Girl Extraordinaire hadn’t actually wanted her. Hadn’t actually given her signs, hadn’t actually been trying to tell her since junior high that she wanted Maggie to lay her down underneath the bleachers and show her things all the boys used to brag about doing to their girlfriends.

Maggie was just crazy. Just projecting. Just manipulating the innocent love of her best friend, perverting it into something twisted and wrong and sick.

That’s what everyone said, anyway.

Everyone.

So much so that Maggie had started to believe that herself.

So when it gets to Maggie through the grapevine - all those years and years and years later - that their old chemistry teacher had died, it doesn’t occur to her to worry about seeing Eliza Wilkie at the funeral.

Because of course she’s going to the funeral.

Growing up in a town like that, it’d be the height of disrespect not to. Especially since he’d been the only teacher who ever really liked her.

He’d never said much to her. But he let her survive lunch periods in the chemistry classroom, alone with her dry sandwiches while he graded his papers. He let her listen to his old radio, to whatever station she wanted. He sometimes brought her an orange, from his wife.

They never really talked, not really. He didn’t ask her about her parents or her aunt or the vicious talk whipping around the school. It hadn’t been his way.

But his classroom had been safe for her.

Of course she was going to his funeral.

And of course she was bringing her fiancee.

“I’d love to see where you grew up, babe. And of course I want to be there for you at the funeral. But are you sure? That it’s not more trouble than it’s worth?”

“No,” she insisted. “He would’ve wanted me there. And if he would’ve wanted me there, he would’ve wanted the woman I love there. He wouldn’t have cared. And if he wouldn’t, everyone else can deal.”

Her old teacher’s wife was the only one to welcome Maggie, to hug Alex, to congratulate them on the upcoming wedding.

Everyone else - her parents included, her aunt included, her cousins and her old classmates and her old teachers and the guy who owned the grocery store who told her she couldn’t work there, bagging customers produce, after her parents kicked her out and the rumors started - everyone else gave her a distant handshake or nothing at all.

Mostly, nothing at all.

Just whispers and horrid stares and tsks and muttered curses.

She held Alex’s hand and she set her jaw and she paid her respects, and she focused on getting the very next flight out, showing Alex the sights be damned.

But Eliza Wilkie had other plans.

“Maggie Sawyer,” she called out from behind, and Maggie jumped, recognizing the lilt after all those years. She’d had her eye out for Eliza, the whole time, but hadn’t seen her. Hearing her, now, turned her stomach around.

Alex knew, immediately. Alex squeezed her hand, immediately.

“Wilkes,” Maggie turned around, forcing a half smile onto her face, because Eliza hadn’t had to call after her like that, and maybe enough time had passed, and maybe she’d grown, and maybe -

“What the hell are you doing back here? And with your - with - how? How could you -”

She shot Alex a look and grabbed Maggie’s arm, tugging her away. Alex’s spine stiffened, but Maggie shook her head. It was fine, it was fine, she could take care of herself, it was fine, but god, please don’t go far.

“You realize that they were all just rumors, when we were kids? But now, you’re parading this… woman around, and you’re just confirming every vicious thing this town every thought?”

“Hello to you too, ‘Liza. Good to see you too, ‘Liza. I’ve been fine, how about -”

“Cut the crap, Maggie. You realize that you confirming all those rumors are just going to make them think the same about me, don’t you? How could you do this to me, how could you-”

“Okay, wait, no no no. My marriage to the most gorgeous, kindest, smartest woman I’ve ever known? Surprisingly, has nothing to do with you. And I’m pretty sure our old chem teacher dying also had nothing to do with you, but I’m a detective now, so if there’s anything you wanna fess up to, I’m all ears.”

“Christ, is everything still a joke to you?”

“You never were.” It was the most honest thing Maggie had ever said in that town. The most raw, the most vulnerable, since she was fourteen years old. “You were never a joke to me. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve stayed stuck in a place where you can’t be happy for someone else’s happiness. Someone you used to love. We grew up together, god, Eliza. And you can’t be happy that I’m happy. And that’s fine. I don’t need your happiness. But I hope you find your own, I really do.”

Steam was practically coming out of Eliza’s ears, but Maggie couldn’t fix it. She never could have, and now, she realized after so many years, finally? It wasn’t her job to.

“But look, unless something really fundamental has changed about etiquette here, funerals aren’t the best places to pick public fights. Or maybe they’ve always been exactly the best places for that. But that’s all I came here for. Okay? I mourned, you mourned. We paid respects. I’m going now. I’m not going to stand here and let you make me fourteen again. Alright? Goodbye, Eliza.”

She turned away before her first best friend and her first broken heart had the chance to say anything. She turned away while she still had the strength to move.

She caught hold of Alex’s hand and she took the keys to the car they’d rented and she took the long, long, long way ‘round back to their motel.

She didn’t cry until they got there, until they locked the door behind them.

She didn’t weep until she was in Alex’s arms.

But as soon as she was, she let herself sob.

“I heard what you said to her, you know,” Alex murmured after a long while of kissing Maggie’s face, her knuckles, her hair, her tears. “I’m so proud of you, babe. I’m so proud of you, and I love you so damn much.”

She didn’t say anything else because she didn’t have to. Because nothing else mattered.

Nothing else mattered, and nothing else ever would.

#sanvers #sanvers hurt/comfort #maggie sawyer #maggie sawyer backstory #sanvers fic #sanvers minific

51 notes · View notes

sureroger · 6 years ago

Text

hey hey guys !! it’s ava again with her second character who’s on the dl the opposite but also the same as her first ?? read on !!

jon bernthal + cis man + he/him + phobia-initiated ability manifestation.┊ ❛ ━ hey, is it just me or do you hear 1921 by the who playing in the distance ? oh, that’s just roger baron, a forty-one year old psychiatrist. according to my sources, i heard he can be neutral evil and is strategic, but also sadistic. that’s probably why they remind everyone of unserved justice, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and scribbles - or maybe it’s handwriting! - so much ! anyway, whether or not they’re against the supers, crystalline city is keeping a close eye on them !

triggers: murder, gaslighting, (mental?) torture

backstory:

roger was born to a pair of supers who absolutely prayed he would develop powers of his own, as they were vehemently against the human race. they saw themselves as superior in every way, shape, and form and hoped to establish a new order someday in the future.

“in the future” being the phrase. at the time, they were consumed with roger and had little time to take over the world, you know?

however, that didn’t mean a little murder on the side was completely out of the question. his mother used her wiles to charm a judge into coming back home with her; when he got there, she and roger’s father killed the judge who’d put one of their friends in jail.

for a good reason.

what they weren’t counting on was roger seeing the whole ordeal. from his mother taking the judge to the bedroom to his father brutally massacring him. when they saw roger had been watching through a crack in the door the entire time, they realized they had to cover their tracks.

they insisted he never speak a word of it, told him to pretend he never heard or saw it. they weren’t well-known criminals yet, they’d managed to keep themselves under wraps, and he had the power to destroy that.

but their coaxing worked. it worked so well, he went mute.

due to this, he had a rather friendless childhood. school counselors suggested to his parents that he go to therapy, as there was only so much they could do, but god knows they would never let that happen.

from the age of 8-14, he said maybe all of ten sentences. however, as his power began to develop, he began feeling a certain bond with his parents, horrible as they’d been to him, and started speaking to them regularly.

he’d learned of his power when a boy he was associated with in a minor way made a passing comment having to do with a fear of his. not yet able to control it, he made the other boy’s terror appear and was like... “sick! i’m not gonna be killed by my parents!”

by the age of 16, he’d learned how to control his powers and began speaking regularly again. other than his parents, he told no one who’d known him during his selective mute ‘phase’ why it came on and how he rid himself of it.

his parents were a bit tempted to ask him if he’d like to help them kill someone, but ultimately decided against it. what good parenting skills.

when he was 18, he was accepted into yale and earned an undergrad degree for psychology. he proceeded to attend grad school for psychiatry in specific. then he had to complete three years of residency, which he chose to do in chrystalline city. then he earned his license. then he got board certified. oh my god.

doing the math, boyfriend was DEDICATED.

when he was 29, he was fully equipped to become a psychiatrist. he had also fallen in love – so romantic! – and proposed a few months after finding work in order to begin providing a stable life.

she said yes!

i may send in a wc for her, but, for context, her tentative name is maggie!

the two of them had a child together, a little girl they named sawyer. they were really living the american dream. he had a stable and well-paying job. they had a child and a golden retriever. they probably had a picket fence, let’s be real.

but that all started to change when he came up with a certain method.

before spilling this method, we’ll preface by saying that he had read of a murder very similar to the murder his parents had committed when he was 8. really, he hadn’t thought much about his parents in years, but that jogged old memories and new feelings. his wife, his colleagues, his daughter – they all wound up changing the way he saw his parents.

so he stopped by for a visit. it started out as a nice dinner, just the three of them. they said they wanted to meet his wife, he told them ‘later.’ they said they wanted to meet their grandchild, he told them ‘later.’ when they completed their meal, roger used his powers for the first time since he was a teenager. while they were distracted by visions of having to kill a young roger for having no powers, he did the best he could to replicate the way his father killed their victims without the power used.

leaving the power vague so it doesn’t seem like i’m claiming more than one ksksksks but apparently it’s gruesome y’all.

he slept peacefully.

and that night, his brain hatched an idea! he began using his powers on his clients whose disorders seemed to stem more from deep-seated fears than they did brain chemistry. it was exposure therapy, so he claimed, and they surprisingly didn’t report him for malpractice?

up until they did. they never filed an official report, but word began spreading. a lot of it was seen as rumor, what given that he’d become a respectable name in the community, but it reached maggie...

maggie was the only person he would actually tell the truth to. suffice it to say, she was horrified. she threatened leaving him with sawyer if he continued this method.

he told her he’d quit... but he’d gotten such rave reviews from some of his clients...

it all went to hell when sawyer began fearing ‘the boogeyman.’ obviously roger didn’t know what the boogeyman looked like to her, and obviously both maggie and himself had tried the whole ‘checking under the bed’ charade first... but when it all fell through, roger used his power on his five-year-old daughter.

you know, she’s five, so it was more traumatic than it was ‘healing.’

that completely tore it. maggie left that night with her daughter after telling him off, saying he was sick and twisted, that it was the cruelest thing a parent could do to their child, etc.

well... most of it went right over roger’s head after she proclaimed he was ‘sick’... perhaps ‘powers’ actually stemmed from illness, hm?

after that experience, he came to the conclusion that the only way he could live a normal life – his wife and child back – was to rid himself of the power he’d once held so dear... furthermore, to rid the entire mutant race of their powers. everyone was sick.

he started performing experiments on himself, thinking to the root causes of being a ‘mutant’ – did it stem solely from genetics, or could it be developed through trauma? did he get them because both of his parents carried the gene? or did he get it because the power was so similar to the trauma they caused him?

thus far, none of his experiments have been very successful. some have muted his powers, but, judging by patient reactions, they were still very much there. he also began taking any mutant who seemed even slightly open to the idea and experimenting on them, recognizing that all of their experiences – the age the powers developed, how the powers related to their lives, etc. – were completely different and trying to find a common thread that went beyond genetics.

the side effects were much worse than the results – again, none of which were completely effective. when he attempted to increase the amount of the serum he injected into himself that’d resulted in his powers being dulled down, it did nothing but send him to the hospital after a grand-mal seizure.

still, he’s determined to find something. he’s determined to ‘cure’ the mutant race, to get his life back to the way it was, and he won’t stop until it’s all tied up in a nice bow.

personality:

the kind of person who would blame every single one of his faults on his parents.

to be fair, he did grow up under the reign of neutral – or true – evils and was heavily influenced by the way they acted around him. so guess who gradually developed into a neutral evil himself?

THIS GUYYYYY.

so so so so so so obsessed. the pressure of finding a cure is all he really thinks of nowadays. completely convinced there is one, he will not stop experimenting on himself and others.

speaking of which, there have been a few people he’s had to bump off after experimenting on them. due to the side effects, or due to something he did (e.g. project a fear of theirs), it wasn’t uncommon for volunteers to threaten telling the police that he was performing inhumane experiments on people without giving them proper disclosure.

he tries so very hard to not use his powers to aid him in it...

in the $ad boiz klub.

i’m bad at personality sections!!

wanted connections:

ya girl got a little page up here! more will probs be added later on but!

ok !! like this or hmu if you’d like to plot !!

#gloryhqs.intro #murder tw #gaslighting tw #torture tw #currently not creative enough for a wc page but like lila it's comin!!#roger having the same trigger warnings as lila? it's more likely than u may think w/ my so very creative mind.

11 notes · View notes

sapphicscholar · 6 years ago

Link

Chapter Preview:

Alex spent three weeks living in near-silence. She shooed Kara out of the apartment and insisted they host sister night at her place and only ever at her place. She watched Netflix on her laptop with headphones. She barely used the oven to prevent additional smoke alarm incidents. After a week or so, she began taking solace in the quiet of her balcony, feeling slightly less claustrophobic when she had city blocks to look out over instead of four solid walls—one of which she refused to even look at.

Maggie’s apartment remained quiet too. Only once did Alex hear low voices, but that was followed soon afterward by a door closing. Alex wondered idly whether Maggie had started spending most of her free time at Jenna’s place.

They ran into each other somewhat regularly at crime scenes, trading information in clipped tones with gazes averted. Otherwise they kept their distance. The one time they’d bumped into each other in the lobby, Maggie had murmured out some excuse about needing to go downstairs first. Alex wondered if she had done it out of politeness, not wanting to trudge up four flights of stairs together while making stilted conversation.

At the end of week three, Alex heard a door slam next door. Muffled yelling rose and rose in volume, punctuated by a much quieter voice. The sounds got closer and closer to the shared wall until Alex could hear shushing noises from the voice she now knew was Maggie’s.

“Are you kidding me? You’re more concerned with some fucking neighbor maybe possibly hearing us argue than you are about losing this relationship? God, this is all proof of how little you care, Maggie.”

Alex excused herself, settling in on the balcony where the noise couldn’t quite reach her. She liked to think Maggie would have done the same for her. Not that Alex believed a word of what Jenna was saying. She knew Maggie better than that, knew she cared—cared deeply—and nothing some woman said could ever convince her otherwise.

After that night, quiet noises began filtering back through the wall. Muted strands of music. A particularly loud scene in a movie. The oven timer. The dull roar of a vacuum cleaner and the intermittent thump as it bumped into the baseboards.

Alex, in turn, eased her vow of silence, daring to watch television without headphones, inviting Kara back over, making popcorn, risking the oven. The vibrator stayed tucked away on the top shelf of her closet, though; there was only so much humiliation she could take.

A few days after the breakup, Alex found she couldn’t sleep in, so she took her coffee out onto the balcony to watch the sun rise, bathing the sky in yellows and oranges and light pink hues. As she stood outside, her mug resting against the railing, a soft voice surprised her.

“Didn’t think anyone else was up this early.”

The softness of the tone didn’t keep Alex from startling, leaping into a defensive pose as her coffee mug tumbled through the air, falling to the blessedly empty street below with a loud crash.

They both peered over the railing, staring at the shattered ceramic lying in bits among the splattered coffee stain.

It started out as a little huff of laughter, but then it was growing and morphing into full-blown hysterics before either of them could try to stop it. And it wasn’t funny—certainly not that funny—but Alex could feel her whole body shaking with the force of her laughter, and Maggie was wiping away tears from the corner of her eyes as she tried to gain control of her breathing once more, and for the first time since the truth came out the lingering awkwardness appeared to have dissipated.

“I really needed that,” Maggie finally managed.

“Yeah…yeah, I think I did too.”

“Sorry ’bout the mug.”

Alex shrugged. “Eh, I could probably do with fewer mugs.”

“Then I guess I’m more sorry about the coffee in it.”

“Now that’s a real reason to apologize.”

The corners of Maggie’s mouth turned up into a smile. “Mine should be ready in a minute. Can I make it up to you with a fresh cup?”

“That’s a compelling offer, Sawyer…”

“If you break my mug, though, you owe me a new one.”

“I make no promises.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Shaking her head, Maggie strode back into her apartment, emerging a few minutes later in a worn NCPD sweatshirt with two mugs of coffee in her hands. “Here.” She stretched as far as she could, just managing to get it to Alex across the gap.

“Thanks.”

Maggie hummed into her coffee, her gaze somewhere far away.

“I…uh, how are you doing?”

Maggie grimaced. “Guess you heard, huh?”

“I left pretty soon after it started, but…sort of.”

“Yeah, well…I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do it. I’m the one that’s hard-headed and stubborn and obsessed with work and borderline sociopathic.”

“Hey, that’s not true, Maggie. You have to know none of that’s true.”

“It’s a little true.” She slowly turned the mug around in her hands. “I wasn’t—I could have spent more nights at home with her, called in one of the other detectives to work some of the cases.”

Alex leaned on the railing, shaking her head at Maggie. “That doesn’t make you a bad partner. It just makes you…passionate about your work, passionate about seeing justice done. It’s what makes you the woman I’ve fa—I’ve gotten to know and come to respect.”

“I could have fought for justice during the daytime hours.” Maggie looked down at the concrete of the balcony, toeing at it with a socked foot. “But instead I went running every time I heard there was something that might, maybe, be related to Cadmus. I went running every time”—she took a deep breath—“every time I thought you might be there.”

Alex didn’t think it was possible to trip while standing still, but that was exactly what it felt like.

“Don’t drop my mug.”

“I’m not,” Alex grumbled, pulling it back from the railing for good measure.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“I—I think it does.”

“It doesn’t.”

And Alex wanted to argue, to press Maggie, to figure out what it meant that she had been part of the equation. But when Maggie looked up, all Alex could see was a scared, exhausted woman. So she bit her tongue and took another sip of the coffee.

Read the rest on AO3!

#sanvers #slow burn #next door neighbor au #alex danvers #maggie sawyer #m'gann m'orzz #supergirl #fanfic #ao3feed #noise complaint

32 notes · View notes

ravenclaw-genius · 6 years ago

Text

Sanvers: An Introspective Review

Let me begin by firmly and irrevocably declaring that I respect all shippers. And I mean that, truly. That part is important, and that’s why it’s all the way up here, at the very top of my first, real Tumblr post.

Write magnificently, draw spectacularly, create hilarious/beautiful/heartbreaking gifs; observe, enjoy, read, tag, reblog, review, absorb and appreciate all things related to your preferred couple, trio, or aesthetic - be it homosexual, heterosexual, polyamorous, asexual or anything in between or outside of those parameters. Do whatever you need to do in order to feel happy in your fandom, and don’t let anyone, especially me, deprive you of that joy. It is sacred and precious.

That being said, I have some thoughts, and right now, I’m really struggling to fathom the diehard nature of many of the Sanvers shippers - and believe me, I’ve genuinely tried. Because, hey, a real, emotionally-invested, committed lesbian relationship that TV producers are willing to make canon? Hell yes. Sign me the fuck up. I support that wholeheartedly on principle.

What I can’t understand is this: why are the Sanvers shippers so surprised and appalled that the relationship doesn’t work out?

Let me explain.

Firstly, Alex Danvers is a lovably badass, overprotective, sweet emotional disaster. She is a beautiful baby gay, and a favorite character of many, many Supergirl fans, myself included. We, as a fandom, adore her. We want Alex to be happy, want her to find a healthy relationship that she can feel comfortable being a part of. HOWEVER, Alex’s relationship with Maggie Sawyer is her very first gay experience.

Don’t get me wrong, their relationship is important. I’m not trying to reduce its significance, that’s not what this post is about. Alex and Maggie’s relationship is gorgeous, enlightening, briefly perfect, and certainly educational... but how many first gay experiences have YOU had that last a lifetime? I’m sure it can happen - in fact, I’m sure that it has - but I don’t think it’s likely.

Sure, I’ve met people and have had friends who say things like, “I’ve never dated another girl, but I don’t need to try, because this one- THIS one is THE one.” And from what I’ve gathered, that’s actually pretty common. Hell, I said it myself, with my first girlfriend, but that relationship crashed and burned, as many firsts do. Now, I’ve got two serious ex-girlfriends, an essential step-daughter, two puppies, and a MAN who I love fiercely and fully intend to marry, someday soon. (Don’t worry, I still only ship lesbians.... What does that say about me, I wonder?)

My point is, you can fall in love with a girl, you can fall in love with a boy, you can fall in love with a freaking bar of soap, for all I care - the fact remains the same. The word ‘first’ inherently implies that there will be also be a second, or that there is more to follow. It’s not probable that a first ANYTHING is going to last forever. After all, you wouldn’t say, “This is my first drink,” if you don’t intend to have a second, right? You wouldn’t say, “This is the first time I’ve won the lottery!” - because you wouldn’t expect to win it twice.

And on that note, allow me to move on to my next source of confusion. The uproar of Sanvers shippers when the beloved couple breaks up seems to focus a lot on how out of character it is for Alex to want a child so badly, and frankly, I disagree. I don’t think it’s out of character for Alex at all.

Alex Danvers has spent half of her life protecting Kara, looking after her alien baby sister and ensuring her safety. She might have been reluctant in the beginning, as most teenagers would be, but Alex has spent years upon years helping Kara to adapt and grow into the world that she became a part of. Alex practically RAISED her, took on that responsibility and made it part of her identity.

Now that Kara has become more comfortable in her own skin and requires less of Alex’s guardianship, I don’t think it’s all that much of a leap to consider that Alex might want an actual child of her own to raise, love, and protect in a similar fashion. And why would anyone fault her for that?

It’s good for Alex to know what she wants from her future, and I think it is nothing short of wonderful that she isn’t willing to settle for less than what she knows she needs. Most of us promote honest communication in a relationship (or, at least, I hope we do), so why is it wrong of Alex to stop sacrificing her own desires, for once in her life, and be truthful with Maggie? Why is it so terrible that she’s standing up for herself, that she’s making a choice and deciding that she won’t be happy in a relationship if there’s no hope for the future that she someday wants to have?

I don’t feel like that’s wrong or terrible of her at all.

My last point - this one’s a doozy, I think, and sort of complicated, so bear with me - is that Alex and Maggie are almost TOO similar, to me. Granted, their life experiences have differed, but I feel like they are sort of the same person, brought up under different circumstances.

Imagine this: Alex Danvers, raised in a religious and homophobic household, instead of the loving, scientific one that Eliza and Jeremiah provided for her. If homophobia had been a more active and present ideal for Alex, do you really think that it would have taken her so long to consider the way that she thinks of other women? Like Maggie, Alex is brave, independent, intelligent, and attentive to her surroundings. With someone as strong-willed as Alex, do you really think that she wouldn’t have realized her gayness? Do you think she’d have done anything differently than Maggie did, in the same circumstances?

They’re both extremely guarded, both cagey, both willing to sacrifice everything for the people that they care about. Hank gave Alex the opportunity to join the DEO, but Maggie and Alex both ended up in law enforcement, both fighting selflessly to protect others. They’re sweet together, and yes, they both learned a lot from each other and their relationship together, but narcissism is frowned upon for a reason.

With Alex’s uncompromising nature combined with Maggie’s, how long would it have been before something else tore them apart, anyway? How long before something political, or something Supergirl-related, or something job-related would have separated them?

As I said before, I respect the Sanvers ship (as with all others) and I like to think that I appreciate it for what it was - a lovely, beautiful first - but I still don’t understand how anyone can be surprised by the fact that it didn’t work out.

What do you think?

#supergirl #sanvers #anti-sanvers #antisanvers #sort of?#not really.#confusion #i need perspective #first post #lesbian #am i wrong

28 notes · View notes

cyclone-rachel · 6 years ago

Text

Solidarity

a Supergirl fanfic

On AO3 here

There’s someone new in the bar, that night, when Maggie visits.

She hasn’t been in there for a while, since she left to go traveling, but she figured nine months was enough for a vacation, and she had to get back to work at some point.

So she was returning to the alien dive bar that night, and though it was probably expected, she saw someone who, she thought, she’d never seen before.

It’s a man, at first appearing with dark hair and brown skin, and Maggie normally wouldn’t have paid attention to him.

Except he looks around, with caution, before lightly pressing his forehead, and suddenly his hair becomes white, his skin blue, and there’s what looks like lightbulbs on his face, three of them, in a sort of upside down triangle. She can honestly say she’s never seen that before.

Though she orders her usual, and sits back down at her table to drink it, she can’t keep from looking at the new man while she’s doing so. He doesn’t seem to want anything- he’s only keeping a cautious eye on everyone there, as though he expects them to notice him at any second, and take action.

Maggie doesn’t know what to do about him. He’s not doing anything illegal- rather; he’s practically waiting for someone to do something illegal to him. He’s just… strange. But she figures, whatever he’s doing there, the bartenders will take notice, and take action if he ends up hurting people.

He moves around, after a while, taking slow, cautious steps. When he reaches the bar itself, he sits on a stool that he quickly turns away from it, discouraging any attempt at conversation.

Then, when Maggie orders her second drink of the night, and he hears the bartender speak her name, he speaks up.

“I apologize.” He says, holding one hand up in a halting gesture. Maggie stares at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since he’d arrived. “Forgive me for the intrusion, but…your name is Maggie?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty common name.” Maggie answers, placing the glass on the counter. “What about it?”

“I… my boss, as you would probably say- her ex-girlfriend has the same name.”

Maggie doesn’t stop staring. There’s no way. She’s sure it must be a coincidence… but then again, in a town like this, coincidences aren’t too common. So she decides to ask.

“Is your boss, by any chance, named Alex?”

“Yes!” says the blue man, almost hopping off the stool, looking at her in surprise. “Director Alex Danvers. Of the- never mind. I am likely not supposed to reveal that information.”

“It’s okay, I already know where she works.” Maggie says, reassuring. He has his hands behind his back, and she can tell that he’s tense, still guarded. But at least he’s making eye contact with her. “But, she’s a director now, huh?”

“Yes. Just before Director J’onzz left, he appointed Alex the new director. And since I was responsible for Agent Schott leaving, he believed I was the best candidate to replace him, as a field agent and as mission control.”

Maggie can only let out a low whistle at first, and absorb the information, still curious about everything that’s happened since she left. She’s heard things, on the news, but they’re all about the aftermath. There’s nothing describing how things started, or anything going on at the DEO since she last visited it.

“And your name is…?”

“Right! I never mentioned that. Agent Querl Dox. From Colu. Pleased to meet you.”

“Maggie Sawyer.” She says, quickly shaking his hand. “Detective. From Earth. And, same.”

“Thank you.” He answers, looking down at the floor. “Most people are not that kind, when they first come into contact with me.”

She gives him a sympathetic expression, as they sit down together. She’s not quite sure how it happened- again, she’d never do this in a normal situation- but he knows Alex. And the way he looks at people… she recognizes it.

After all, she knows she did the same thing once. She still does, sometimes.

“I’m sorry.” She says, genuinely. “Can I ask why?”

“My family.” He answers. “In all of their history with Earth, they have never treated it with anything but hostility. Naturally, such a history reflects negatively on their one descendant who intends to do good in the universe, and atone for their deeds.”

“And that’d be you, right?”

Querl nods. “You may have heard of Brainiac?”

Maggie stares at him. “You mean the evil living computer, who tried to take Metropolis a while back?”

“The very same.” Querl answers. “I am directly descended from him- as well as Indigo, otherwise known as Brainiac 8, who attempted to set off a nuclear bomb over this city two years ago.”

“Right.” Maggie says. She never saw Indigo’s face, but she knows about what she did- and that someone related to her really wouldn’t have an easy time getting along with other aliens in this city.

“As for me, my title is Brainiac 5.” Querl says. “Though, my friends- well, your former friends- Alex included- usually refer to me as “Brainy”.”

“Okay then.” She answers. “So, Brainy, what exactly brings you here?”

“To National City?”

“Well, yeah. What else?”

“I suppose I should have also told you that I am from the thirty-first century.”

That, honestly, Maggie wasn’t expecting.

“Really?”

“Yes. Though, I was forced to stay in this time, several months ago, when an artificial plague created by my ancestor began to wipe out my species. Mon-El and Agent Schott- Winn, probably, to you- along with one of my other teammates, Imra Ardeen- were sent to the future in order to put an end to this threat.”

“You’re a refugee.” Maggie says, nodding. “I respect that.”

“Right.” Brainy answers. He’s more relaxed now, especially after talking to her, but still uneasy. “And they decided to heroically sacrifice their lives- potentially, of course- for my own good.”

Maggie studies him, his face especially, and the tenseness in his posture.

“You’re really worried about your friends.” She says.

“I am.” Brainy confirms. “They knew what they were getting into, and I trust that they will be able to carry out their mission with success… but nothing is certain. And I do regret not being able to tell Winslow how I truly feel about him. I admire him, I know that, and he knows as well- yet, my feelings for him also run deeper.”

She doesn’t bother translating that particular thought, as much as he’s said about it- she already knows what he means.

“You know, Brainy, I think we’re gonna get along.” She says. “And why are you here at this bar?”

“Truth be told, I was only attempting to find the personal residence of Kara Danvers.” He answers. “I was staying in her loft, and I had to work late- so, she assumed I would be able to go from the DEO to her apartment, with no problem. She, on this occasion, was incorrect.”

“I’m not exactly a GPS, Brainy…” Maggie starts. “But I definitely know where Kara’s place is. Come on. I’ll take you there, and on the way we can talk more. Sound good?”

Brainy smiles, more relaxed than ever. “Definitely.”

The two of them walk out of the bar side by side. Brainy has his image inducer turned off, and Maggie stares down passersby, daring them to say or do anything to the person she now knows as her new friend.

“Kara!” Maggie says, a very nervous-looking Brainy at her side as she stands in front of Kara’s apartment, greeting her. “I heard you lost someone?”

Kara stares at the two of them- first, at Maggie, because after she and Alex broke up it seemed like she’d cut them all out of her life completely, and then at Brainy, who she hadn’t seen since before she left the DEO for the day. And that was hours ago.

“I apologize.” Brainy says, before Kara can ask about where he’s been. “I intended to be at your apartment, so that we could eat dinner together…but I was lost. In my own thoughts, which ended up making me lost in a directional sense.”

“We met at the alien bar.” Maggie says, in explanation. “He ended up in there, somehow. But he didn’t even eat anything.”

“Oh, excuse me if I was too nervous to even consider eating!”

Note to self, definitely taking him there at some point. Kara thinks. And this time, I’m making sure he eats something. For his own sake.

“It’s okay.” Maggie answers, gently patting him on the back. “And you’re gonna be okay, too.”

“I will be.” Brainy agrees. “Thank you, Detective Sawyer.”

She first nods at Brainy, in appreciation, then turns to Kara. “But seriously, he’s all yours now. Take good care of him.”

Kara smiles, as Brainy steps forward, now standing by Kara’s side.

“I will.” Kara says. “Really, though, thanks for this. I got worried about him, but I’m glad to hear that he was in good hands.”

“Right. He’s really lucky that he met me. Aren’t you?”

Brainy nods, completely unable to disagree. He hadn’t expected to make any friends, when he went out alone, but it was amazing that he had met her- a good person in her own right, who would’ve helped him anyway, and not only that but a friend of the Danvers sisters, who’d been especially close to Alex.

“And tell your sister I said hello.” Maggie continues. “Maybe…maybe she and I could text, sometime. Catch up on what we’ve been up to lately- as friends.”

“Yeah.” Kara says, smiling. “I think she’d like that.”

Then, Maggie closes the door, and she’s left with Brainy- finally- and even more questions than before she’d gotten there.

#papa don't look #supergirl #maggie sawyer #kara danvers #querl dox #fanfics #minifics #sg 3.5 #karadox #iiiish?#like they're living together #but they're probably not dating yet #but definitely past sanvers #and maybe future sanvers-becoming-friends-again?#but anyway #brainy also definitely Feels Things for winn #and also this is the first time i've ever written maggie!#i hope it was okay

10 notes · View notes

myfeelingshavefeelings · 7 years ago

Text

Please offer feedback!

For my English class, we had to write a 'diagnostic essay' about a topic we're passionate about and wouldn't need to do research for, so I chose LGBT+ representation in the media. I was hoping to get some feedback from people perhaps more knowledgeable than I, like @thefingerfuckingfemalefury . Anyway, here it is:

LGBT+ Representation in Visual Media is Very Flawed

As a member of the LGBT+ community, I know that LGBT+ representation in the media is priceless, for everyone, regardless of whether they identify as LGBT+ or not. Obviously, improvements have been made in LGBT+ representation in the media, especially in YA literature, with well-known series, such as Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan, and standalone novels, like Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, featuring more and more characters-both main and background-who identify as LGBT+. However, the media still has a long way to go, as these representations are not without their flaws. This is most obvious in visual media-movies, TV shows, etc.

For example, LGBT+ characters have a history of being treated badly by show-writers. One gross example of this is a gay character being brainwashed into being ‘straight again’ on Shameless UK. And much of the time, LGBT+ romances end in tragedy, which is ironic considering the original meaning of the word ‘gay’. This has actually led to coinage of the term ‘gayngst’, as well as many jokes about how much straight people love their ‘tragic gays’. Whether it was killing one or both halves of the couple, such as the killing off of Lexa in The 100, leading to controversy over the infamous “Bury Your Gays” trope, or having them break-up for whatever reason (cheating, social pressure, etc.) it can feel like they never get a happy ending. A recent example of this was when the CW’s show Supergirl broke up fan beloved couple Maggie Sawyer and Alex Danvers, after it was discovered Maggie had been cheating. Even if it’s just throwing in unnecessary drama, like Ian developing BPD and Mickey being forced to marry Svetlana in Shameless US, rarely is it all sunshine and rainbows for non-cishet couples.

Another issue is that these relationships frequently feature substantial age gaps. Well-known examples include Call Me By Your Name, wherein Elio is 17 and Oliver is 24; and Blue is the Warmest Color, where Adèle is 15 and Emma is a grad student. By American laws, their scenes of intimacy are statutory rape. Unsurprisingly, neither couple gets a happy ending-Oliver leaves Elio and marries a woman less than a year later to please his conservative parents; Adèle cheats on Emma, and they break up.

Plus, many toxic LGBT+ relationships are all but glorified because there’s little else available. Big example-Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich from Shameless US. Through physical and verbal abuse, multiple breakups, Ian’s BPD, Ian kidnapping Mickey’s son, Mickey’s violently homophobic father discovering the relationship and forcing him to marry a female prostitute, and Mickey going to jail for murder, fans still desperately want to see them end up together, which isn’t healthy. They’ve literally gotten into fistfights over the smallest disagreements, but because they make out afterwards, clearly it’s true love, according to the fanbase. Similar arguments for-or should I say against-Alex and Piper’s relationship from Orange is the New Black. Alex is a drug dealer, Piper is a manipulative narcissist, and it’s just one tumultuous mess of toxic codependency. And the world has enough problems with straight couples staying in abusive relationships because they believe the other person loves them-I’m looking at you, 50 Shades trilogy. The last thing we need is members of the LGBT+ community, who are already at risk of violence against themselves for who they choose to be or love, settling for abusive partners because they think that’s as good as it gets.

One more issue with LGBT+ representation is that there is an imbalance between how much showtime is given to straight couples versus LGBT+ couples. Take Freeform’s Shadowhunters: when it comes to promotional materials, there is more devoted to Clary and Jace’s relationship than Magnus and Alec’s. Morally dubious relationships like Izzy and Raphael, Izzy and Aldertree, Simon and Camille, etc. that add next to nothing to the plot are given somewhat substantial runtime and scenes with explicit sexual undertones. Viewers spend an awkward minute watching Jace and Maia make-out against a brick wall in an alley, during which time she licks his abs, before they have a one-night stand. Contrast with, Magnus and Alec, who originally would’ve only gotten a suggestive fade to black had there not been major outcry from fans of the show, and they’re one of the most healthy, naturally-developed relationships on TV right now.

There’s also a lack of diversity within LGBT+ representation-many LGBT+ couples are between two white people: Lukas and Philip from Eyewitness, Alex and Piper from Orange is the New Black, etc., the list goes on. And, in my experience, they’re not often interracial. In addition, more ‘obscure’ sexual orientations (e.g. demisexual, pansexual, etc.) and gender identities (e.g. nonbinary, genderfluid, etc.) are often difficult, if not impossible, to find.

The icing on the cake is, of course, that TV shows featuring LGBT+ couples/characters are often cancelled, like Sense8, or constantly at risk of cancellation, like Wynonna Earp, sometimes in spite of fan support, which is a shame. These shows are so important, especially to people who feel like they don’t belong because of their sexuality or their gender.

Representation is so important, especially for young people, and we desperately need more of it. Diversity in media helps people figure out who they are, and learn to accept and respect those who are different from themselves. Also, inaccurate representation hurts this minority group, and is part of the larger problem of the generalized homophobia/transphobia in America.

(Sorry if the formatting is messed up, I'm on Tumblr mobile)

Please don't repost/steal-I worked really hard on this

107 notes · View notes

argyle-s · 7 years ago

Text

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME CHAPTER 11/38

Rating: Mature

Read at Ao3

Start at the Beginning

Supergirl gets some hero time in preparation for her interview with Cat. Kara, Alex and J'onn work out their issues, and Susan gets a new job.

Thanks to @ifourmindbeso for her great work as a beta. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

Chapter 11 - Shining Light, Show and Tell

“You look like hell,” Cat said as Kara sat her Sushi tray down on the coffee table.

“Thank you, Ms. Grant,” Kara said. “It didn’t really sink in when the fifty people before you told me the same thing.” Kara leaned over, picking up the edited copy for the afternoon update of the Tribune website.

“My, aren’t we just little miss sassy-pants today.”

Kara sighed. “Sorry,” she said. “I had a bad allergy attack last night and I’m still trying to shake it.”

“I didn’t realize you had allergies,” Cat said, and Kara was surprised at the level of concern in her voice.

“I didn’t either until fairly recently,” she said.

“It’s nothing here at CatCo, is it?” Cat asked.

“No. It’s this stuff they use where my sister works,” Kara said, trying to wave off Cat’s concern. She looked down at the copy and smiled. “Supergirl’s Super Week?”

“Yes,” Cat said. “I thought it was rather catchy. For someone new at the Superhero thing, she’s doing an excellent job.”

Kara scanned the rest of the article and smiled when she found a number of small critiques. “Not cutting her any slack, are you?”

“Well, why should I? No one else will. She’s going to have to be better than Superman, just to keep up.”

“Work twice as hard, to be thought of as half as good,” Kara said. “Just like any other woman.”

Cat smiled. “Good to see you’ve been listening to me, Keira.”

“Always, Ms. Grant,” Kara said with a smile.

“So, how goes the quest for the interview with our Maid of Might?”

“Oh,” Kara said. “About that…”

“Get a little too big for our britches, did we?”

Kara laughed. “No. It’s just… Well, I did talk to her, and she has a list of conditions. It’s short, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable, but she won’t do the interview unless you agree.”

Cat nodded as she sat aside the proof she’d been editing and picked up her lunch tray, walking over to her desk. “Alright then, let’s hear them.”

“No questions about her day job. How she pays her bills. Where she lives. No questions about her secret identity, or anything that could lead back to people who are close to her when she’s not wearing the suit. Any questions regarding any relationship she might have with the government will be answered with a firm ‘no comment’. You agree not to publish her secret identity if anything in the interview gives you a clue to who she is.”

“She wants me to agree not to publish her secret identity if I find it?” Cat asked as she took out her collection of chopsticks and went about selecting a pair.

Kara nodded. “She was very clear that the restriction would only be in force if information in the interview revealed who she was. She didn’t expect you to hold back if you found the information through an outside source, though she did ask if you could give her some warning if you do ever decide to go public with that so she could get certain people to safety.”

“Those seem reasonable,” Cat said. “I do hope she understands that I will be reporting facts, not writing some little puff piece.”

Kara laughed. “Ms. Grant, I think she would be disappointed if you did anything else.”

Cat narrowed her eyes. “You seem to know an awful lot about her, Keira.”

“She was excited,” Kara said. “I think she admires you, Ms. Grant. I think she looks up to you.”

Kara wasn’t quite sure what to make of the look on Cat’s face, and she didn’t get very long to analyze it, before it was replaced with Cat’s usual mask.

“Well, of course she does,” Cat said. “I’m me.”

“Yes,” Kara said, not able to keep the smile off her face. “Yes, you are. So, how does Thursday evening sound?”

“Hmm… That will work. Headlines to carry us through the weekend, and a big article for Monday. Any idea where she wants to do the interview?”

“She said she’d come to you.”

Cat smiled. “Well, then, I’ll look forward to it.”

Winn didn’t really like to think of himself as a small person. Metaphorically small. Because physically, yeah, he was tiny, but that was beside the point. He didn’t like to think of himself as the jealous type. He knew he could be. He knew, when he loved something, he was terrified of having it taken away, because so much in his life had been. His mother. His father.

He also knew he had a terrible crush on Kara. It was hopeless, because Kara told him she was gay the first time they’d really talked. It was so casual, that he might have even missed it, if he hadn’t been so enamored of her that he was hanging on every word, but she’d mentioned the toughest part of adjusting wasn’t the new apartment or new job, it was that she’d just lost her girlfriend. In a way, it was kind of a relief because he knew there was no chance, so he didn’t feel pressure to perform. They were better friends because he could be more relaxed, more himself. The crush was still sort of there, but it was dull, muted. The kind of thing you never, ever act on. And he’d never been jealous of Kara’s relationship with anyone.

Okay, maybe he’d been a little bit jealous when he found out she’d told Maggie about the Supergirl thing too, but that had been fleeting and momentary, because Maggie Sawyer was freaking awesome, and aside from a little ribbing over some of his costume designs, they’d actually become fast friends. A lot of that was because Maggie had taken one look at the Alien Conspiracy Website he contributed to and dove in head first. He’d listened to her rant for hours about all the details that were wrong, and learned more about the weird shit that happened in National City in one night than he had in all the years he’d live there.

But James Olsen was not Maggie Sawyer and Winn did not like the way he looked at Kara. Not one little bit. Because James Olsen looked at Kara like she belonged to him. Which is why, when he found James standing in the alley where he was supposed to be meeting Kara, he had to bite his tongue to avoid saying something he’d probably regret.

“Hey,” James said, “what’s up?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Winn said, casting around for some reason he’d be in the alley. “I… like to come out here to smoke. Which I like to do in private.”

“Actually, I’m meeting someone out here, so…”

“Yeah, you can meet them inside the building.”

“No, uh, my friend likes to make an entrance.”

“So does his,” a voice said from behind them. Winn smiled as he turned around to find Maggie walking down the alley towards them. “Also, you’re outvoted.” She lifted her hand, gesturing back towards the entrance to the alley with her thumb. “So, do us a favor, and take a walk.”

James looked back and forth between them, slightly panicked, and Winn couldn’t help feeling a little smug, right up until he heard the tell-tale swoosh of the cape. He looked up, just in time to see Kara turn and drop down for a landing.

Winn looked over at James, expecting to see surprise, but he moment he saw the look on James’s face he knew, and he turned back to Kara.

“You told him?” Winn asked.

“You told them?” James asked at the exact same time.

“My cousin told James,” Kara said, “and we’ve had some words about that.” Then she looked at James. “I told them, because they’re my friends and they deserve to know what that means. They’re here because they’ve already proven themselves.”

Winn felt himself stand up just a little taller at that. Something about the idea that someone like Kara respected him made him feel better about himself and a little less frightened of the shadow looming over him.

James held up his hands, a little defensively.

“Sorry,” he said.

Kara nodded. “Okay, this thing is off to a good start. The plane, the bank robbery, the fire, but right now, it’s important that I be seen out there, helping people.”

“Is this about your interview with Cat?” James asked.

Winn looked at James, then back at Kara. “You’re giving Ms. Grant an interview?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kara said.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Maggie asked. Which Winn was happy about because it meant he didn’t have to.

“I know it seems a bit weird but right now, Supergirl needs as much public exposure and as much positive press exposure as she can get. So yes, in a way, this is about my interview with Cat, but it’s also about convincing Astra that there are better ways to help this planet that what she’s planning.”

“Who’s Astra?” James asked, and Winn felt that smug feeling come back, because here was something he knew, something Kara had trusted him and Maggie with, that James didn’t know.

“Long story,” Kara said. “I’ll fill you in later. The point is, right now, I need to be out there, helping people, and to do that, I need your help.”

“I’m in,” all three of them said at once.

“Next time, can you stop a robbery at a salad bar,” Maggie said as she grabbed another slice of pizza and dropped down onto the couch. “If I keep eating like this, I’m going to have to get bigger pants.”

Kara laughed as she put her feet up on the coffee table. “Maggie, we both know you’re too butch not to have at least one pair of pants at home with some extra room in them.”

“Okay, I would like to say that I am not comfortable with the direction this conversation is heading,” Winn said. He shifted a little closer to the table as he worked on unhooking the laptop from the police scanner. “It’s a little too close to hearing things like that about my sister.”

“And I feel like I’m missing something,” James said.

Kara looked over her shoulder to here James was leaning against the counter, a bottle of water in his hand. The last two days had been good. It had taken a little time, but Maggie and Winn had both eventually warmed up to him, and Kara had started to settle into a relationship with him that didn’t revolve around pining or guilt.

She turned back to Maggie. “You explain it,” she said.

“Oh, no, Danvers. You told the joke, you gotta explain it.”

Kara thought about it for a moment, and decided right then and there she’d rather fight Darkseid, Doomsday and a dozen White Martians at once, than explain packing to James Olsen.

“Sorry, James,” she said. “You’re gonna have to figure that one out on your own, or get Winn to explain it.”

“That will happen right around the heat death of the universe,” Winn said. “Sorry, James, you’ll have to figure out the mysteries of lesbian humor on your own.”

“Lesbian... Oh,” James said.

Kara turned around again, and saw a look of shock on James’ face. A small part of her wanted to jump up and do a victory dance, but there was another part that wanted to make sure to drive the point home.

“He didn’t know,” she said, turning back to Maggie. “Maybe I should have gone with a flannel suit and a rainbow cape.”

Maggie snorted, choking a little on a bite of pizza before she managed to swallow it. “I’d suggest a tattoo, but trust me, guys will completely ignore it.”

“Noted,” Kara said. “Seriously, though, I want to thank you guys. The last couple of days have been amazing, and I think the city is really starting to believe in Supergirl.”

“That’s all you,” Maggie said.

“She’s right,” James said. “You’ve been amazing out there.”

“Especially with Fluffy,” Winn said.

Kara turned around and glared at him. “It was a snake, Winn.”

Whatever Winn’s reply would have been was lost to the knock on the door. Kara looked through the door, and saw Alex standing there, looking like a kicked puppy. The only thing about it that surprised her was that it had taken this long.

“Maggie, would you get the door?”

“Why me?” Maggie asked, suspicion dripping from her voice. “James and Winn are closer. And you might want to change first.”

Kara smiled, “Because I’ve been waiting for this for months, and I’m pretty sure my sister knows I’m from Krypton.”

“You know, your obsession with pimping me out to your straight sister is a little disturbing.”

The knock came again, and James stood up. “I’ll get it,” he said.

“I will melt your face if you open that door,” Kara said. She gave Maggie a small push. “Go.”

“Kara, I know you’re in there!” Alex shouted through the door.”

Maggie stood up. “Fine,” she grumbled. “But if she’s not hot, I’m kicking your ass.”

Kara watched as Maggie walked across the room, and it was all she could do to keep from bouncing excitedly on the couch, when Maggie unlocked the door and swung it open. Alex looked up and stopped dead for just a moment, before her jaw dropped. Kara wasn’t entirely sure she would have needed her super hearing to hear the small pop of Alex’s jaw when it happened.

“Um…” was all Alex could seem to get out, and Kara had to fight not to squeal at the look on her face.

“You must be Kara’s sister,” Maggie said. “I’m Maggie.”

“Oh,” Alex said. “Uh… Hi.”

The sound of Winn and Kara both bursting into laughter seemed to break the spell, and Alex looked past Maggie, into the apartment, and the vaguely punch-drunk expression shifted into pure, annoyed big sister the second Alex spotted Kara in the Supergirl uniform.

Maggie turned around, following Alex’s line of sight to care, and laughed. “Oh, somebody’s in trouble.”

Ten minutes later, Winn, James and Maggie were gone, and Kara was in civvies, pouring both of them a cup of tea.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to tell your friends who you are?” Alex asked.

“You know what,” Kara said, “after that stunt at the DEO two nights ago, I don’t think you get to question how *I* am handling this.” She reached over and grabbed the sugar bowl, taking out three cubes and dropping them into her tea.

Alex winced. “Okay, sorry. I didn’t come here to fight. I came to apologize. What happened at the DEO was a mistake.”

Kara nodded. “Mine,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you about Jeremiah or I should have trusted you and J’onn with everything. Fuck if I know what I’m doing.”

Alex flinched at the sound of Kara swearing. “Why didn’t you?”

Kara sighed and looked down at her tea. “I couldn’t,” she said. “There are so many moving parts, so many dangers and threats and I absolutely could not take certain risks. When we were setting this up, the entire plan, the entire strategy centered on preventing Myriad from ever being deployed. In order to do that, I have to convince Astra to give it up. The thing is, I didn’t know where Astra would be up until a week ago, and in order to preserve that knowledge, I had to make sure everything, or as much of it as possible, played out the exact same way as in the original timeline.”

“Original timeline?” Alex asked. “Kara, are you saying you’re from the future? Because that’s what it sounded like you were saying at the DEO and that’s what it sounds like you’re saying now.”

Kara took a drink of her tea, then looked up at Alex. “Sort of,” she said. “It’s complicated, and I’m not a Time Master, so…” she shrugged.

“Time Master?” Alex asked.

Kara reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m too sober to have this conversation,” she said. “Where’s J’onn?”

“Back at the DEO,” Alex said. “He’s… Vasquez quit. The moment you cleared the base’s radar envelope, she stormed into the training room and ripped into him. Her girlfriend tried to defend him, and Susan told her, ‘You can pack your shit and get your ungrateful ass out of my apartment.’ Then she threw her badge in Hank’s face and just stormed out.”

“/.,rao, i dovrrosh/” Kara said, and reached into her pocket, digging out her phone. “Konex.”

“Yes, Lady Kara,” the robot replied as it decloaked.

“Hack the DEO’s computer and pull the personnel record for Susan Vasquez, then add her to my phone as a contact.”

“Kara! You can’t-“ Alex started.

“Done, Lady Kara,” Konex said, cutting Alex off.

“Thank you,” Kara replied, tapping the contacts icon on her screen and calling Susan.

“Hello,” Susan said.

“Hey, Susan, this is Kara.”

“Um… Hello, ma’am,” Susan said.

“Anyone who quits their job for me gets to call me Kara,” she said, “especially if they toss their girlfriend out in the process.”

“You heard about that?” Susan asked.

“Just now,” Kara said, “or I would have called sooner.”

“I appreciate that. Um… Don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you get my number?”

“Probably not a conversation for an unsecure line, but I want to ask you a favor.”

There was an annoyed sigh on the other end of the line. “What would that be, ma’am?”

“Go back to work,” Kara said. “I’m going to go back eventually, once my sister and Hank have finished removing their heads from their asses and finished apologizing and maybe done a bit of groveling. I could really use someone there I trust.”

“I… I appreciate the compliment, Kara, but I’m not really sure I’d be welcome back and honestly, I’m not sure I want to go back.”

Kara nodded. “Okay. I suppose that’s fair. Tell you what. I live in Hammersmith Tower, apartment 4-A. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah,” Susan said. “I used to drop your sister off on nights when she was too beat up from training to drive herself home. I only live about ten minutes away.”

“Cool. Tell you what, I will phone in a pizza order at Antony’s. You know it?”

“You have to ask?”

“Not really, but I wanted to be polite. I’ll pay for it. Swing by, listen to what I have to say. If you don’t want to go back to your old job once I’m done, I’ll make a few calls. I might not be able to find you anything in National City, but I know people in Gotham and in Gateway city who will let you name your price.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Susan said, but Kara could hear the gratitude in her voice.

“I feel like I do,” Kara said. “And once I’ve explained why, you might too. Antony’s will probably take their usual thirty minutes. I’ll expect you in forty-five. Fair warning though, Hank and my sister will be here.”

There was a moment of silence on the line, before Susan asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Kara?”

“No,” Kara said. “But honestly, I don’t trust my judgement on a lot of things right now, which is why it’s necessary. I just want you here because clearly, the three of us need some fucking adult supervision.” The sound of bright, happy laughter came through the phone, and Kara couldn’t help but smile.

“See you soon,” Susan said, before the line went dead.

Kara looked over at Alex. “Call J’onn. Tell him I said to get his green ass over here. I’m going to order pizza.”

“I’d ask how you know my favorite kind of pizza,” J’onn said, looking down at the pie in front of him, “but I’d probably just get some cryptic bullshit and I’m not in the mood.”

“No more cryptic answers,” Kara said as she sat a bottle of root beer on the table for him. “I think all of us have had enough secrets to last a lifetime.” She sat handed Susan a bottle of coke. “Sorry I don’t have the sugar sweetened kind but I wasn’t really expecting you.”

“That’s okay,” Susan said. “I drink this stuff at work, anyway.”

Kara dropped into her chair next to Alex. All four of them were sitting around Kara’s dinner table. Alex looked nervous. J’onn looked angry. Susan looked nervous, angry, and a little like she felt out of place.

“So, here’s the deal. I suck at keeping secrets. Not as much as I used to, but I hate them. I’ve only been keeping the secrets I have because there are lives at stake. Not a few lives, or a few dozen, or even a few million. When I say lives are at stake, I mean there are literally hundreds of trillions of lives hanging in the balance, across dozens of universes.”

She watched both Alex and Susan flinch at that, but J’onn leaned back, looking at her and there was a considering look on his face.

“Susan, before I go any further, you deserve to be on the same footing here as Alex and… Hank.”

Susan gave a small nod. “Okay.”

“I have knowledge of how a number of future events are going to play out, because I’ve already lived through the next eleven years. I’m making an attempt to change the outcome of those events in order to prevent a series of disastrous outcomes for Earth and millions of other worlds. Honestly, Susan, I hadn’t intended to read anyone other than Alex and Hank in on this, because I didn’t want to put the weight of this on anyone else’s shoulders. The thing is, I honestly think after what happened the other night, we need someone who’s going to be a *lot* more objective than any of the three of us will ever be capable of to yank the choke chain when we get out of line. Since you are the person I trust the most at the DEO after Alex and Hank and since you’re apparently perfectly willing to call any of us when we have our heads up our asses, I think you should have the job. But if you don’t want it or don’t think you can handle it, tell me now, and I will make those calls about alternate employment.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Hey, Susan, do you want a job babysitting the immature brats who are responsible for saving the universe? You don’t have to take it, but if you don’t, they might be too busy having a hissy fit to stop the apocalypse. No fucking pressure.” She picked up her coke and twisted the top off, taking a swig before setting it back down. “Please tell me you have rum to go in this?”

Kara shook her head. “I can’t get drunk, so the only thing I keep in the house is Alex’s Scotch and some beer and tequila for Maggie.”

“Think Maggie would mind if I stole one of her beers?” Susan asked.

Kara got up and walked over to the fridge, fishing out one of the Blue Moons from the back. She carried it over to Susan, and used her thumb to pop the bottle cap off. Susan took it and took a long pull from it before she sat the bottle on the table in front of her.

“I’m in,” she said. “I may hate myself in the morning but I didn’t take the job at the DEO for the pay.”

Kara smiled, and turned to J’onn.

“I’ve been calling the tune for the better part of thirteen months, but I don’t want to dictate terms anymore. No more spilling each other’s secrets. If we do this, I need you to make the decision. I need you to be all in.”

“Okay,” he said. He slid back a bit, then stood up, looking down at Susan. “Are you armed?”

Susan shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t have a civilian carry permit.”

“Well, at least I won’t get shot,” he said. Then he shifted, gaining height, turning green. “I am J’onn J’onzz.”

Kara rolled her eyes and muttered, “/:zhaolium zw rroskilahres :dhiviao/”

Susan picked up her beer and downed the rest of the bottle.

J’onn shifted back into his human form and sat back down.

“I feel like I forgot to do a presentation for class,” Alex said.

Kara laughed.

“So,” Susan said, looking at J’onn, “I take it you’re not from around here?”

“Mars,” J’onn said. “I’m the last of my people. We were slaughtered by the White Martians. Monsters from the planet’s core.”

“Yeah,” Kara said. “About that…”

J’onn looked over at her. “What?”

“This all starts about twenty thousand years ago,” she said. “The history is long, and I’m not going to go through all of it because most of it’s not terribly relevant, but twenty thousand years ago, Krypton, Mars and Tamaran were allies. Together, the three worlds held dominion over a sphere of space almost fifty thousand light years across, and we were expanding. At the time, Kryptonians had powers even under the light of a red sun. Then the Guardians and their Green Lanterns came. They broke the alliance, smashed our civilizations, and drove all three of us, Krypton, Mars and Tamaran back to pre-space flight technology. They infected Kryptonians and Tamarans with a plague. Kryptonians were left unable to fully process the less energetic light of Red Stars, while Tamarans were left unable to process anything less than ultraviolet light to fuel their powers. Martians though, didn’t use light to power their abilities, so the Guardians split the race, dividing them into Green Martians, which were as they were before, and White Martians.”

“It took thousands of years of being trapped on our world, but Kryptonians eventually began to branch out, and spread through the galaxy again. This time, not as conquerors or as empire builders, but as diplomats, scholars, and when necessary, as enforcers of the law. This was fine, except the Guardians noticed that Kryptonian physiology, already highly adaptive, was starting to overcome the plague. Another four or five generations, and my people’s power would have been restored.”

“The Guardians wouldn’t allow that to happen. Almost a century back, they contacted the Coluans of the Brainiac clan who Krypton had been employing for centuries as cybernetic administrators. They are beings who can exist within the cybernetic realm and mold it to their will, and who can also take physical form which is very nearly a match for a Kryptonian in yellow sunlight. The Guardians hired them to murder Krypton, and to make it look like a suicide.”

“Minor changes here and there to mining plans, the introduction of slightly corrupted mining technology. The core chain reaction was carefully planned and calculated. My world was Murdered.

“At the same time, knowing that Earth was progressing rapidly and would likely reintroduce interstellar travel to Mars within a couple of centuries or so, the Guardians provoked the White Martians into a genocide of the Green Martians.

“The Tamarans, the least powerful of the three allies, have been kept tied up for centuries in never-ending civil wars, many provoked by the Guardians’ agents.

“The Guardians knew there might be a handful of survivors, but what they failed to take into account was how desperate some of us would be to save our planet and they certainly didn’t count on my Aunt Astra discovering a portion of the Anti-Life equation.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, “the what?”

“The Anti-Life equation is a mathematical formula which robs all sentient life of the seven primal emotions. Rage, greed, fear, will, hope, compassion and love. Myriad is the anti-hope function. Hope is a wellspring. You cannot have will without hope. Deprive a being of hope, and they become a mindless slave, devoid of any drive. The Anti-Hope function is at the core of the Anti-life equation. But Myriad can be broken, because it is just one of the seven functions. If someone were to possess all seven, then they would have absolute control over all sentient life in the universe.”

“Your aunt has this?” Susan asked.

“Only part of it and without the other six functions, the Anti-Hope function is easily defeated. Especially since it has to be constantly repeated into the minds of the victims to keep it fixed there. Block the signal transmitting it, and you defeat Myriad, make people feel hope and you burn away Myriad’s ability to affect them.”

“The only way to protect against the full Anti-Life equation is to have its opposite, the life equation, permanently imprinted on your mind.”

“In the timeline that I’m from, J’onn died to protect my and Superman’s minds. He used his telepathic abilities to imprint us, but the strain of the effort killed him. Fortunately, I still carry that protection, and I’ve since found a way to imprint Superman without requiring a Martian to do so.”

“Well, that’s certainly good news,” J’onn said.

“You have no idea,” Kara said. “Thirteen years ago, I went on a blind date. The guy ditched me after about fifteen minutes, but I heard that a flight to Geneva, the flight Alex was on, was having engine trouble. I left the bar and barely managed to catch the plane. It was sloppy. Otto Bender bridge was damaged and had to be closed for nearly three weeks while it was resurfaced and recertified for traffic. An engine fell off and the debris crashed through the roof of a store, causing a fire that burned a strip mall to the ground, and it took them nearly a month to fish the plane out of the middle of National City Bay. Two days later, the DEO shot me out of the sky, and I woke up locked in Kryptonite handcuffs, and found out Alex was a member of the DEO and met ‘Hank Henshaw’ for the first time.”

“I made mistakes,” Kara said, closing her eyes. “So many mistakes.” She started talking, telling them everything, from her first fight with Vartox, through the moment she woke up after carrying Fort Rozz into space. Somewhere around the Black Mercy, she felt Alex take her hand, squeezing it gently as the tears flowed down Kara’s face as she described the life slipping from Astra’s body. Then there was Red Kryptonite, and Cadmus, and Non deploying Myriad, and her carrying Fort Rozz into space. She’d barely covered a year of the future, and she could see the exhaustion on everyone’s face.

“Cadmus was bad,” she said, “but it was almost a distraction. We spent all that time fighting it, fighting to protect the alien refugees, not knowing Fort Rozz was still the real danger.”

“What about dad?” Alex asked.

Kara shook her head. “I… I killed him.” She ignored the soft gasp from Alex. “Cadmus has done things to him, turned him into a cyborg, twisted his mind. He showed up with a lump of Kryptonite embedded in his chest, and destroyed the CatCo building. He killed James and Cat. Winn survived because he was working at the DEO as an agent by that point. I tried Alex, I tried everything, but after he killed Eliza… I knew he wouldn’t want to live like that, and when he started for you, I ended it.”

She took her hand out of Alex’s and picked up a napkin, wiping the tears off her face. “I don’t think you ever forgave me,” she said. “I know you tried, but I think it was just too much, and there wasn’t time. We’d barely finished burying the dead when the Guardians arrived.” She shook her head. “They got here while we were literally still putting out the fires from Cadmus. We didn’t know they were here at first, but then the Third Army appeared, and everything just went straight to hell.”

“They decided that humans would be the basis for the Third Army. It was like an infection. One of them would touch a human, and the conversion would take seconds. By the time it was over, nearly two thirds of the population was just gone. India was empty, most of China, huge swaths of the rest of the world. When we broke the power source of the Third Army, everyone who’d been converted just crumbled to dust.”

“That’s when Darkseid hit us,” she said. “He’d been sitting out there, waiting at the edge of the Solar system. The fights were fast, hard, brutal. Alex and Maggie took down Granny Goodness, which… Be impressed. She’s the one who killed Superman.” Kara turned and looked at Alex. “You didn’t make it though. Either of you.”

She turned to Susan. “You held the DEO longer than anyone thought possible. They had to send Kalibak himself to break down the doors.”

“In the end, we lost. Darkseid had found Fort Rozz and Myriad. That had given him everything he needed to finish deriving the Anti-Life equation. Sara, Barry, and I, along with a dozen others, spent the next nine years doing everything we could to stop them, but in the end, we knew the only way to stop the war was to prevent the war from ever happening, and the only way to do that, was to prevent Myriad from ever being deployed.”

“Sara was the captain of a Time Ship called the Waverider. The original Captain had died in the war. We had a White Martian on our side. It was enough. They brought me back to last September, the night I moved into this apartment. The Martian used a telepathic booster to allow her to tear my consciousness from my future self’s body and force it to merge with my younger self.”

“That’s… quite a story, Ms. Danvers,” J’onn said.

“You don’t believe it,” Kara said.

“You have to admit, it’s a lot to swallow,” J’onn said.

“It’s the part about the White Martian, isn’t it?” Kara asked.

“That and the part about the Guardians of the Universe.”

Kara nodded.

“What if I could provide you with proof?” Kara asked.

“That would be a good start,” J’onn said.

“Konex,” Kara said.

“Yes, Lady Kara,” the robot said as it decloaked.

“Contact Kolex. I need the caskets.”

“Yes, Lady Kara.”

A moment later, there was a bright glow in the empty corner where Konex usually hovered when in stealth mode, and the robot drifted over and picked up a large featureless white case off the floor, and carried it over to the table, setting it down in the middle. Kara reached up and pressed her hand to the top, and the surface glowed briefly where she touched it, then the top split lengthwise down the case, and the upper half of the case folded down, half on each side of the bottom, revealing three smaller cases. Each of them was hexagonal, with solid end caps connected by a translucent center section. Inside each was what looked like an old-style lantern, and an ornately-carved signet ring. One of them was a deep, angry red, another was the bright, brilliant blue of the sky on a new day, and the last was a soft, warm violet that felt like safety and home.

J’onn, one moment, was sitting at the table, and the next he was standing five feet back from his chair, eyes fixed on the red case as if it might explode at any moment.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked.

Kara looked up at him. “My best to never take it out of the case,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have it on this planet,” he said.

“I agree,” Kara said, “but we’ve both done things we aren’t proud of J’onn. That’s one of mine.”

“Um…" Susan said, “either of you care to fill in the unenlightened?”

Kara nodded. “Sit down, J’onn.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he returned to his seat.

“The Green Lantern Corps is one of nine different factions that have similar abilities,” Kara said. “Eight of those factions use rings as the focus for their powers. The ninth uses a staff. These are power rings and their power batteries.”

“The violet one is one of the Star Sapphire rings, created by the Zamarons and bears no connection to the Guardians of the Universe. The Blue Lantern Rings were created by Ganthet and Sayd, who had broken away from the Guardians and lack the back doors and other traps built into the Green Lantern Rings. The Red Rings were created by the demon Atrocitus, forged from pure rage and christened in blood.”

Kara took a deep breath, tearing her eyes away from the red case. “There are seven base emotions common to all sentient life. Anger, desire, fear, will, hope, compassion and love. Each emotion is connected with a color. Red for anger and rage, orange for desire or avarice, yellow for fear, green for willpower, blue for hope, indigo for compassion, and violet for love. Hope is the strongest of them all, but impossible to wield without will. Red rage, and the violet light of love are the extreme ends of the spectrum. The further you move from the center, from green, the more the rings can influence the person who wields them.”

“I have these, because I can wield them. Red, Blue, Violet.” She looked up, right at J’onn. “If I put on one of these rings and I use the telepathic link to show you what I’ve seen, will you believe me?”

“And if I say no?”

Kara looks over at Alex. “If I open the violet case, that ring will not even hesitate,” she says, before turning back to J’onn. “That would be on your head.”

“Wait,” Alex said, “what do you mean?”

“The rings,” Kara said. “They chose the person who best embodies the emotion they channel. If I open that violet case, that ring will go straight for you.”

“Me?” Alex said.

Kara nodded. “I have seen you on the edge of destruction, seen you fighting as you were literally torn apart and in all that, the one thing that never faltered was your love.” She reached up, putting her hands on the violet cask. “But I wouldn’t wish that on you.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

“The further you get from the center of the spectrum, the greater the influence the ring can have on you. Love is a powerful emotion. It can overwhelm you, consume you just as easily as rage, if you let it.”

“You’ve worn one?” Alex asked.

“A violet ring? Yes.” Kara said. “It was no more pleasant than the red ring. Not for me.”

“No,” J’onn said. “No. If you wear the ring, Kara, that’s enough.”

“Now wait a minute,” Alex said. “If that thing hurts her-“

Kara reached over and put her hand on Alex’s. “I’m not going to wear the violet ring,” she said. Alex relaxed, and Kara reached up, touching the Blue Lantern Emblem on the blue case. The top slid off, and the blue ring lifted up out of the case, hovering for a moment until Kara reached up and took it gently, sliding it on her finger.

“Kara Zor-El Danvers of Krypton and Earth,” a loud voice echoed through the room, “you have the ability to instill great hope.”

Blue light poured out of the ring, quickly covering Kara from the neck down. The outfit was not so different from her regular Supergirl costume. The parts of the suit that were normally red were replaced with white, the yellow trim on the El coat of arms was black, the blue was brighter, more vivid, and the Blue Lantern emblem sat above and to the right of the El coat of arms.

Kara pointed the ring at the Blue Power Battery.

“In fearful day. In raging night. With strong hearts full, our souls ignite. When all seems lost in the war of light, look to the stars, for hope burns bright.”

It was close to 2 AM by the time the rings and their power batteries were safely back at Sanctuary and Alex and Susan left. J’onn lingered, still sitting at her table, holding a mug of coffee and staring into the black liquid as if it held the answers to all his questions. Kara walked from the door back over to the cupboard, and dug out a pack of Chocos from behind a box of vanilla wafers.

“You going to sit there all night?” she asked as she sat the cookies on the table and slid them over to him.

He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she replied.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I... I’ve gotten so used to mistrusting people, to having to hide who and what I am. I hurt you after I promised Jeremiah-“

“J’onn,” Kara said, “it’s okay.” She reached out and covered his wrist with her hand. “You and Alex… Look, I loved my father. Zor-El was wonderful, he really was, and Jeremiah was too, but in the time I knew you in that other timeline, you were more of a father to me than either of them. Watching you die sent me to some really dark places. Before that, I’d only killed six people. None of them gave me a choice. After you died, I walked into the armory and I put on that fucking ring and I let my rage out. I lost it. I tore through entire divisions of Apokoliptians and Parademons and I didn’t leave anyone alive. I did things, horrible, horrible things. It was like the Red Kryptonite all over again, only I was stronger, more powerful, and I was able to direct my rage at the people I *wanted* to hurt.”

“I did it because it was easier to hold on to the rage than to live through the grief of losing another father. I did it because I was afraid that if I let myself feel *that*, I would never come back from it. Alex, before she died, she talked me into taking off the ring. Talked me into letting one of the Blue Lanterns cleanse me of its power. But even the blue ring couldn’t take away my anger, my fear, and my grief.”

“You have known Alex for two years. You’re closer to her than you want to admit. You already care about her like she’s your daughter. But me, I deliberately held you at arm’s distance, refused to tell you things that could have helped. I did this. I gave you reason not to trust me. I thought it was for the best, but I was wrong.”

“The thing I’m having a hard time with, is you knew about the bomb,” he said.

“I did, and I was scared. What if I’d done enough to make them decide to use a larger bomb, to make them not care if it looked like an accident? I was terrified. But everything hinged on being able to make contact with Astra, with convincing her not to deploy Myriad. And I knew I’d been able to catch the plane before. It was a risk, but I honestly believed it was less of a risk than sending Alex out into the field on any given mission. And Supergirl is important. That she’s out there helping, doing good. If Myriad does get deployed, Supergirl and the hope she will inspire are the surest ways to protect this world.”

J’onn sat his coffee down, and tore open the pack of Choco’s, eating one of the cookies slowly. “I really got to live out in the open?”

“As much as you wanted too,” Kara said. “Honestly, you mostly stuck to your human form, but you were out there with me, J’onn J’onzz, flying through the skies of National City helping people.” Kara smiled as she reached over and took one of the cookies. “They called you ‘The Martian Manhunter’.”

J’onn smiled. “I like that,” he said.

“I know. I swear I never told Cat that though.”

He laughed. “She does like naming Superheroes, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Kara said. “I-“ she stopped when she felt a faint vibration in her pocket. She reached down, and pulled out the spy beacon.

“I’ve got to go,” she said.

J’onn nodded. “Kara…”

“Yes?”

“Be safe.”

Translated from the Kryptonian

,rao, i dovrrosh

Literal: Rao's Shadow

Semantic: Oh, hell

:zhaolium zw rroskilahres :dhiviao

Literal: Fucker who habitually seeks glory

Semantic: Fucking Drama Queen

#supergirl #supercat #supercanary #sanvers #fanfiction #the shape of things to come #kara danvers #alex danvers #cat grant #maggie sawyer #sara lance #j'onn j'onzz #susan vasquez #lois lane #clark kent #james olsen #winn schott jr.#future shock

22 notes · View notes

renaroo · 7 years ago

Note

This is so completely random, but you're very probably the only Batfam Stan that also loves the Superfam and knows the various members of both families. I was wondering, in your mind, which members of the Superfamily match up with which members of the Batfamily? Like for instance, I've always firmly believed that Linda-Mae matches up with Dick, while Karen goes with Helena. As far as Babs goes, they share her.

If I’m reading you correctly, you’re asking who roughly inhabits the same spots in the Superfam that the Batfam has, yes? It’s really a fascinating question because I think there are lots of comparisons to be made, but it’s also interesting because of the ways they don’t line up perfectly. Like there’s a big difference in their structure just by the fact that Lois is the clear matriarch of the family and almost none of the Superfam have been without a relationship with her. So getting comparisons for some positions does tend to get a little fuzzy. So, I’m just going to go through the family one by one, starting with the most obvious which is Clark and Bruce.

Clark Kent: Obviously as the central family patriarch and the one who basically inspires everyone else to come into their own while attempting to live up to his impossible image, Clark is the most Bruce-like in comparisons. Which of course, their similarities are as strong as their differences which has been the source of their mutual respect and friendship over the decades and just make them incredibly fascinating characters to play off of each other in almost any circumstance.

Lois Lane: In recent years Kate has kind of stepped up to be the momma of the Batfam in a sense, and to be Bruce’s equal which would be representative of Lois and Clark’s equal footing in their relationship, but Kate’s got much less of a background for this position and for obvious reasons her relationship with Bruce is nothing like Lois’. In that way I would put Lois much more as a Selina Kyle. They share a street smarts and sassiness, prefer to look out for themselves but can’t help but fall into the same circles as their romantic interests, and in most realities end up married. It’s not a perfect fit, but I would argue it on more than a few grounds.

Jimmy Olsen: Definitely the Dick Grayson of the Superfam. Not only is he Superman’s pal, but he’s sort of the emotional bond that keeps a lot of the Superfam connected. He’s not only trusted by both Clark and Lois and inspired by both of them, but he’s also a confidante and romantic interest for Kara, was a friend to Linda, and in general is someone who is just by definition associated with Superman. It’s an iconic duo in a lesser sense than Bruce and Dick.

Martha Kent: Originally I was going to say Pa is the Alfred, but honestly Martha Kent is most definitely the Alfred Pennyworth of the Superfamily. She is a supportive and endearing voice, full of wit, and is the first person Clark goes to when he needs advice or solace. She is beloved by all of the Superfam members and has ben denmother/actual mother to nearly all of them in one sense or another.

Jonathan Kent: The more I think about it, the more I find that Pa is really a lot like Leslie Thompkins in Clark’s life. He has a bit of a harsher vibe to him and his disappointment is something that Clark is more conscious and fearful of, but it all stems from firm morality and a fear and protectiveness of his son. He is the guiding light for Clark’s humanity and is the sort of man that Clark tries to live up to without ever feeling he can fully achieve it. And all that despite clearly having well defined flaws of his own.

Lana Lang: Hilariously enough, I would put Lana on the level of a far more important and far more relevant and updated Vicki Vale. Again this seems like a strained comparison (because it is) but she’s a former romantic interest and friend to Clark who loves him but also couldn’t deal as well with realizing that he is Superman or at least that he’s something beyond her comprehension. And there’s still some pining and nonsense there, fortunately Lana is with John Henry now and written much better. Speaking of which...

John Henry Irons: A less murdery and more accepted member of the Superfam than his Batfam equivalent, John Henry Irons is a lot like Helena Bertinelli in that they both were inspired by the “patriarchs” of the family, but did things in their own style and in their own ways. He relies on his background and heritage as much as Helena does and it has influenced him to where he is today.

Kara Zor-El: An apt comparison for Kara is actually Barbara Gordon. Not only were they good friends in the Bronze Age, but they were similarly motivated. Despite both of them having just as much heartbreak and tragedy in their lives as Batman or Superman, they make the choice to not be defined by that and instead to invent their superhero identities as a way of fulfilling an obligation they feel either to law and order or to the sense of not wanting to lose their adopted new home to the same forces that took their old one.

Natasha Irons: Is absolutely the Superfam’s Stephanie Brown for better or worse. Nat is selfmade, has a family history of criminal activity but chooses to follow her uncle and Superman’s influences instead to make herself a superhero. Despite all she achieves, for absolutely no reason that makes canonical sense to... anyone who’s read it, basically, John abruptly decides she’s undeserving of her suit and takes it from her? That causes her to make some mistakes and play into a trap by one of the family’s worst enemies and get held hostage and tortured. Fortunately she wasn’t needlessly killed like Steph, but she did come back in spectacular fashion.

Mae Kent: Mae is a completely different character from Linda Danvers. Mostly. Kind of. So I’m going to treat them as such on this list. Mae is actually Clark’s adopted sister in the preboot and was taken in and cared for by Ma and Pa Kent. She’s fairly independent, making a name for herself outside of Clark even if they continued to have a good relationship. When Clark dies for a year, she is one of the top contenders for taking his place and becoming a surrogate Superman herself. In this way she most reminds me of Kate Kane, self-made while deeply connected to the family patriarch and sharing a family bond.

Karen Starr: Completely depends on which version you’re going with but if you’re going with the most common, the preboot, I think Karen is the most like Harper Row. She’s a solid member of the family, but she’s also beyond the family, and it’s not in a bad sense. She’s still connected to everyone, and every inventive and set apart almost purely based on her industriousness (making her business empire!) but as much as she does team up with everyone and join frays, she’s mostly off on her own adventures these days and most of her drama comes from civilian life rather than just her time as Power Girl.

Kon-El: This is going to be so freaking controversial but here we are. If I was to pick any analogue in the Batfam for Kon it would not be his best bud Tim, but his fellow leap-before-thinking, bit of a bad boy, fellow leather jacket wearing Jason Todd. They both like coming back from the dead and having inexplicable genre jumps throughout their histories and their main angst comes from a conflict of ideals and perspectives with their parental figures. Kon also is constantly concerned with going over the edge and turning to a villain because of his “bad genes” which reminds me a lot of how Jason felt judged for growing up and being born into a situation outside of his control.

Linda Danvers: It’s a bit of a cheat since they’re my favorite heroes I grew up with at the time, but when I think of Linda I always think of Cassandra Cain. Linda was not born into an abusive home life, but she was part of an abusive relationship and made mistakes that eventually led to a death. Unlike Cass, however, Linda’s death was her own. That was the turning point in her origins and from that point on she was led to being Supergirl out of not just a weird combining with Mae but through discovering a deeper level of morality and humanity than she had once seen inside of herself. And that became such a strong light in her life, she was even able to inspire the redemption of the very demon that had been responsible for her murder.

Traci Thirteen: It might be a bit early to call this, but I think Duke Thomas is the most positioned in the Batfam with Traci. Traci initially was a pretty independent character who mostly worked under the “advisement” of Clark and came into her own with her own identity and style. They both have good families they lose to tragic circumstances and slowly find their place within the gaggle of other children in their families.

Maggie Sawyer: Like I’m not saying it’s a purely lesbian thing, but it’s kind of the lesbian friend detective in the force who goes above and beyond and may or may not be a hero in their own right thing that I compare Maggie Sawyer and Renee Montoya. It’s a thing. And it’s a thing that unites them because they both have banged Kate Kane. Which is the real dream.

Cir-El: My poor sweet daughter is of course far too similar and too unused much like my other dear sweet daughter, Helena Wayne. They are both daughters of the matriarch and patriarch of the family from alternate futures that may or may not ever happen. They hold their father’s values and their mother’s attitudes and they both have awful terrible first costumes.

Chris Kent: Even though their personalities are starkly different, there is definitely a common thread between Chris and Damian Wayne. They come from troubling childhoods and have difficulties with the concept of unconditional love. Their only aspirations are to live up to expectations and take the mantles of their respective fathers. And for as much trouble as it may cause them they stand up against the villains they fear most in the final hour even under threat of pain or death. They both have a “I choose my real family” moment with a parent that mistreats them, too.

Jon Kent: This may seem like an odd comparison for now, but I get a Tim Drake vibe from Jon. Hear me out, there’s a lot of superhero worship and naivety about what his new superhero identity is going to bring with it. And while he’s much younger and less detectively minded than Tim, Jon draws on his knowledge of his father’s legacy as well as what he observes from his friends and other superheroes around him to creatively get himself out of jams. Not to mention he loves giving those moralizing speeches.

Perry White: He’s Jim Gordon. Next.

Krypto the Superdog: THE ONE THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS. Ace doesn’t go out much into the field anymore so the most apt comparison here is actually Goliath the Bat Dragon. Aaaaand that’s what I’ve got.

I hope this all made sense I had fun writing it out lol

171 notes · View notes

supergirlfics · 6 years ago

Text

Reach for Me - Part 2

“Maggie, you are going to love this kid,” Alex said. She and Maggie walked toward the DEO after grabbing breakfast at Noonan’s.

Maggie sipped her coffee, raising her eyebrows as Alex continued speaking.

“She’s sweet and funny and smart. She is so strong. Oh, and when she smiles, she has one dimple, which is so cute.”

“Alex,” Maggie said. “I thought you wanted me to meet this kid so she could be placed in a good home. But it’s starting to sound like you think our home would be a good home.”

“Well . . . yeah. Maggie, she is the best, most deserving kid in the world. She needs a loving home. We could give that to her.”

“Danvers you know how I feel about children. I don’t want any. Why can’t you respect that?”

“Please, just meet her. She needs help.” Alex’s puppy dog eyes were irresistible.

“Fine. I’ll meet her, but don’t expect me to change my mind, Danvers. I’m very stubborn.”

“So am I,” Alex grinned.

You were asleep when Alex and Maggie arrived in the med bay. You didn’t do much besides sleep - it was the best way to keep the pain at bay, and the best way for your body to heal. You found you were constantly exhausted, even though you did nothing but lay in bed.

Alex placed a hand on your shoulder, shaking it gently. “Y/N, sweetheart. Wake up.”

You stirred, and with a little more prompting, your eyes fluttered open. “What’s going on?”

“I have someone I want you to meet. I’ve told you about her a few times. Do you remember me telling you about Maggie?”

You nodded, your eyes moving toward Maggie, who hadn’t moved far past the doorway. “That’s Maggie?”

“Yeah, that’s Maggie.” Alex motioned for Maggie to move closer. “She’s great.”

After a moment of hesitation, Maggie approached your bedside.

“Alex talks about you all the time.”

Maggie couldn’t help but blush. “All good things, I hope.”

“I wouldn’t dream of slandering your good name.”

Maggie noticed the way Alex looked at you - with such love and care. It was impossible not to notice. A piece of Maggie wanted to give in and take you like Alex so obviously wanted. But she had to stick to her guns. She couldn’t take the girl in. “We need to talk about your situation. Obviously, you will not be returning to Russel and Georgia. In fact, they will never foster another child. But you do need to be placed, and the sooner the better. As soon as -”

“No!” You yelled. “No, I can’t. I - I want to stay here. Nobody will want me. Nobody wants an alien. I can’t. I don’t want to. Please don’t send me away. I don’t want to go away.”

“Hey,” Alex said. “Hey, hey, hey. Shhhh.” She quickly sat down on the bed and pulled you into her arms. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” She rocked you back and forth, hands gently running through your hair. It took several minutes to calm you down, and even after your sobs had died down, Alex kept her arms around you. She wasn’t going to move.

Maggie watched in silent horror. She felt terrible for sending you into a panic attack. But Alex had come to your rescue - she’d jumped in just like a mother would. She knew exactly what to do, exactly what to say. It was admirable. And it softened Maggie’s heart, just a little. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean -”

“It’s okay,” Alex said. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be right back,” Alex assured before following Maggie from the med bay. “What was that, Sawyer?”

“I didn’t realize she would react that way. I feel awful.”

“She’s been abused. She’s insecure. She’s scared. Her entire life people have cast her aside. Come on, I spent days telling her how amazing you are. Can’t you at least try?”

“You were really good with her,” Maggie said. “i can tell she really likes you. Most victims of abuse tend to flinch away from any kind of touch, but even when she was scared, she didn’t flinch away from you. I think you mean a lot to this kid.”

“She means a lot to me,” Alex sighed.

“Okay. I will try again. I will get to know her. And . . .”

“And?”

Maggie sighed, she couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “If all goes well, I suppose we can think about fostering her.”

“Seriously?” Alex’s eyes lit up.. She bounced several times, threw her arms around Maggie, and kissed her. “I love you so much! Thank you!”

“Whoa, pull it back. I said we could think about it. I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

“You’re going to love her.”

#Supergirl #Supergirlfics #Supergirl Fics #Supergirl Imagine #Supergirlimagines #Supergirl Imagines #Alex Danvers #Agent Danvers #Director Danvers #Maggie Sawyer #Detective Sawyer

74 notes · View notes

queercapwriting · 6 years ago

Note

hey, sorry to bother! TW WARNING ive been having a rly hard time w/ anxiety and self harming lately. i havent been talking to anyone and breaking down a lot. if u could write one of sanvers feeling like this? if u cant thats always ok too, obvi. again sososo sorry to bother you. ur amazing and ur writing helps me always!

You are never a bother. I’ve been struggling a lot with this lately, too, so this ask was both close to home and beautiful. I’m sending you all my love and support: you deserve all the best things in the multiverse, dear sweet Anon. I’m so proud of you for being you: you’ve got this. I believe in you.

It was the holidays, really, that did it.

Or, that’s what she said it was.

Really, she couldn’t figure out what the hell it was.

Because it wasn’t like there was anything actually wrong.

She had a girlfriend: like, a steady girlfriend, who loved her unconditionally, who didn’t judge her for her past mistakes, who didn’t pity her for her childhood. Who understood her job and respected her values and god, was incredibly, incredibly beautiful.

And, through said girlfriend, she had a family. For the first time in forever.

Nothing was wrong in Maggie Sawyer’s life.

Except... everything was wrong.

Everything.

She tried to think about work.

All that came to mind were cold cases she hadn’t been able to solve, and bodies in trunks and little mistakes here, big mistakes there.

Failures, all around.

She tried to think about her motorcycle.

It was on the cheaper end of things, but expensive to maintain, and did she really deserve to spend that kind of money on herself anyway, especially when she had access to cars through her job, so why was she being so selfish in treating herself to something like that?

She tried to think about Alex.

Who was just inevitably going to leave anyway.

No.

How could she think something like that about Alex? What a terrible girlfriend she was, thinking the worst of her amazing, dedicated, passionately-in-love-with-her girlfriend?

But the passion wouldn’t last.

She was Alex’s first, and Alex couldn’t be to blame when Maggie inevitably got boring, became stale, or just generally all around not enough.

She tried to think of the gym, of her early morning lifting dates with James or her late afternoon dates with a heavy bag at the gym across from the precinct.

She didn’t have the energy to even wrap her hands.

Worthless.

She tried to hide it, at first. When it first started.

Well, not started.

Began again.

Because she’d always been like this: had cycles. Cycles where she was alright (or thought she was alright, or could at least pass as alright), and then cycles where she was... decidedly not okay.

This was one of those decidedly-not-okay cycles.

She was self-harming again.

The worst part was the raging debates in her head -- yelling, really, screaming, but just in her chest, just enough to make her heart feel like it was going to implode -- about whether to tell Alex.

About whether she was just doing this for Alex’s attention anyway, and how selfish she was because Alex was always ready to give her attention, so why did she have to bring Alex pain to get it instead of just asking for it like a regular, healthy person?

She texted her girlfriend’s number with her cell in one hand and a razor in the other.

She heard her future sister-in-law break the sound barrier getting to her.

“Alex is on her way, Maggie. I couldn’t carry her that quickly, it wouldn’t be safe for her body. Can you open the door, please? Or, just knock on it so I know you’re okay in there?”

A long pause. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move her mouth. Didn’t want to open it.

There was no point, really.

Talking just made things worse.

Why had she even called Alex?

“Maggie?” Kara repeated, her voice somewhat Kara Danvers and somewhat Supergirl.

“You can literally hear my heartbeat, Kara. You know I’m alright in here.”

She heard Kara’s audible sigh of relief, and it sent a pool of unwanted relief through her own body.

She was ashamed how easy she was.

“Well, there’s more to being alright than just having your heart beating, Maggie,” Kara sighed, clearly leaning against the wall and sliding down, so they were back to back with only the bathroom door between them.

“I’ll just sit here until Alex gets here, okay?”

To her credit, Kara let the pause linger for a long time.

“Maggie?”

“Yeah. Okay, Supergirl.”

Sarcasm helped. Or, at least it used to. But she had no desire to hurt the woman on the other side of the door. So her words came out soft, and without any bite at all.

Despite herself, she knew Kara would understand.

They waited like that -- she still had her cell phone and razor in her hands -- until the front door opened with a muted bang.

She heard the sisters shuffling, heard Alex’s soft voice.

She didn’t know if she was grateful or irritated to not have superhearing at this moment.

She’d ruined both of their days.

She should have just ridden this out alone.

She should have just --

“Hey babe,” Alex’s voice came from where Kara’s had been a moment ago -- on the floor just outside of the bathroom -- and a chill went down Maggie’s spine, as though her body was reacting to Alex’s proximity.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, because it was the only thing that mattered.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Alex promised, and her voice so lacked any resentment, irritation, or impatience that Maggie... broke.

She threw the razor to the other side of the bathroom -- and her phone along with it, but that was a problem for her future self -- and reached up to unlock the door.

She didn’t have the strength to completely pull it open, but she curled herself against the cold tiles of the bathroom floor and shifted enough for Alex to be able to slip into the small room.

“I’m sorry,” she groaned, curling in on herself as Alex knelt over her, checking her body for the wounds she didn’t give herself; at least not on the outside.

“Shhhhh. I got you,” Alex murmured, and Maggie thought she heard the familiar patterns of Kara making pancakes in the kitchen.

She stayed on the bathroom floor for what felt like seconds and what felt like years.

It was like she was drunk at a college party.

It was like she was actually, this time, loved.

Alex didn’t get off the floor once while Maggie was curled up into herself.

She didn’t demand any explanations or tell Maggie how scared she was for her.

She just held her, and told her she loved her, and told her she was proud of her, and told her she was going to feel better than she was right now, and until she did, Alex would be there. She would always be there.

And, as the smell of pancakes and maple syrup filled their apartment, Maggie started to believe her.

#self harm #cutting tw #caps #sanvers #sanvers angst #sanvers hurt/comfort

60 notes · View notes

thegirlswewanttokiss · 7 years ago

Text

Life had dealt Maggie a shit hand. With her Mexican parents, Maggie stood just about no chance of making it in some nowhere town in Nebraska. Maggie could, at the very least, pass for Italian which wasn’t much better. But the worst part was that she had stupidly confessed her love to a girl when she was fourteen and her father had quite literally thrown Maggie out with nothing more than a bag of her clothes and a demand that she never, ever come back.

It had absolutely shattered her but she had desperately pushed past it all, determined to make a place for herself in the world. It hadn’t taken long to realize that being a teenage girl living on the streets was a very, very bad thing to be and after a terrifyingly close call with a handful of drunk men stumbling out of a bar, she had cut off all her hair and started dressing like a boy.

It was easier this way, picking pockets and pawning stolen items. As a girl, no one would have taken her seriously. As a boy, people involved in illegal activity saw potential. She ran weapons and drugs for a while, earning herself a place to live only a year after leaving home. It was hard to keep her sex a secret when she shared a room with four other teenage boys but she managed through raw determination, a blessedly small bust, and very loose shirts. Besides, no one ever expected that she might be a girl because that was positively absurd even if Maggie didn’t grow much if at all after age fifteen. She attributed it to a year of starving on the streets and she let them poke fun at her, knowing that it was easier that way.

Maggie, going by Sawyer, had worked her way up the ranks, taking charge whenever she saw an opening. She was ambitious enough to catch the boss’s eye and he appreciated her hard work and loyalty. Still, being a boy was… stifling. It was unpleasant, really, and when she got her own living space… she branched out.

Being Maggie felt liberating after five years of living as Sawyer. Her hair had grown out a bit and it was a little shorter than was normal for a woman but it wasn’t too noticeable. She wasn’t a huge fan of dresses but she felt far more like herself when she went out as Maggie. She was happier like this and she found a balance between being Maggie and being Sawyer, getting the most out of both versions of herself. Maggie felt more comfortable but being Sawyer was her livelihood.

And then there was the day that she ran into one of her associates while sneaking out of her apartment as Maggie. That had been an awkward conversation, trying desperately to find the best way to spin this. In the end, she lied about being her own sister, hoping to explain the fact that she and her supposed brother looked identical. The lie, though a little flimsy, held and suddenly Maggie mattered. Sure, she wasn’t given a job but the rest of the gang looked out for her, making sure that she was safe when walking home at night.

The only person who noticed that Maggie and Sawyer had never been in the same place at the same time was James. He had confronted her only a few months after Maggie started showing up. Maggie had been terrified that he would turn her over, humiliating her and sentencing her to any number of horrors because she had betrayed her family with such a heinous crime. Fortunately for her, though, James was a smart man. A smart, ambitious man. And he knew that Sawyer–Maggie–was headed to the top of the food chain. So he had offered her a deal: a promise of keeping her secret and helping her lie in exchange for a place at her side when she ended up taking over.

It had been a good move for both of them and it was only a few short years before Sawyer took control of things, first branching out into another part of National City before taking everything over completely. As promised, James was her right hand man and Maggie refused to treat him differently just because he wasn’t white even if it might bring to question the fact that Sawyer didn’t quite look white enough.

Things got easier once she took over and being in charge meant that she could let Sawyer hang back in the shadows and she could do things as Maggie. It meant that she could grow out her hair a bit and she could be both respected and underestimated by her crew. And, best of all, it was easier to find out who wanted what from her–well, Sawyer–well in advance. It was no secret that Maggie was the one who set up Sawyer’s meetings and arranged his schedule. She was, essentially, his secretary to everyone other than James and it also let her smell cops easier.

They always treated her like an idiot, trying to flirt their way past her defenses which was almost laughable because it was so damn obvious and also because they were barking up a very wrong tree. Maggie’s–Sawyer’s–reign was going strong, business expanding into Metropolis just a hair as she tested the waters. Nothing much yet, just a few teams moving weapons here and there, getting friendly with the locals and feeling it out. Of course, this meant that the heat had been turned up and it had taken Maggie far, far too long to find the rat.

The kid was a genius with alarms and locks and Maggie was upset that she had to off him. He had real potential and she had to admit that she had been impressed that he’d gone for a bumbling idiot who had fallen on hard times and needed cash. At least he had blended in well and it wasn’t until someone caught him with a cop that they knew what he was.

A hit was set up for tomorrow and Maggie, though a little frustrated that she had to lose someone so goddamn useful, didn’t give a second thought to it. It was just business, after all, and Maggie had been sixteen the first time she killed someone. Nearly twelve years later and one more body didn’t make much of a difference anymore.

It was foolish of her to be so brave but being Maggie made her feel free and open and, though Sawyer took home women from time to time, Maggie was lonely. She craved intimacy that was more than just a dark room and unzipped pants with a certain false appendage strapped to her. It felt good, yes, but she wanted more than that. She wanted fingers or lips or tongue between her legs, giving her exactly what she really needed.

There could be men, of course. Men who would probably be happy to give Sawyer’s sister a night of fun without demanding much in return from her. But the thought of a man touching her like that was more than enough to make her feel a little nauseous and she knew that there would never be a time that she was that desperate. No, she’d settle for never touching another woman again before sharing a bed with a man.

But Maggie wanted to pretend, for just a moment, that she could be what she wanted to be. It wasn’t a club for this sort of thing but Maggie just wanted to flirt uselessly with some pretty girl who would giggle as if they were playing a wonderfully delightful game. And so she had gone alone–stupidly–and she’d had too much to drink and she’d worn too high heels that made being tipsy even more difficult than usual. Which was exactly why she missed the sudden and suspicious silence by the time she snuck out the backdoor of the bar.

Maggie didn’t hear him until it was too late; Winn and several other tall, burly cops were hiding in the shadows. There was no mistaking what they wanted and Maggie felt panic bubble in her throat like cheap champagne. She was outnumbered and the only gun she had was strapped to her thigh and there was no way that she would be able to reach it on time.

She ran as fast as she could, tripping over the uneven ground in her thin heels and she wished that she had spent her teenage years learning to be graceful in these damn things instead of chopping her hair once a month and trying to decide whether or not to stuff her pants with a sock. It didn’t take long before she stumbled, finding herself yanked backwards by a strong hand that had snatched the material of Maggie’s dress, keeping her upright as the fabric was pulled too tightly.

“We have a message for your brother,” one of the cops said, looking disgustingly smug as he leered at her. “And you’re going to deliver it.”

Maggie spat in his face, a technique honed as a teenager in countless spitting contests, making his lip curl in disgust. “Fuck you,” she snapped as she flailed backwards in an attempt to knock the man behind her on his ass. But his free hand grabbed her arm roughly and she let out a helpless cry of pain, barely remembering to play her part as Sawyer’s weak, feminine sister through the anger burning in her chest.

“We’re going to bring him down,” the cop swore and Maggie could see a flicker of regret on Winn’s face, clearly feeling bad for participating in this. Maggie should have offed him sooner. The bastard deserved it for doing this.

The first punch to the gut was a surprise, knocking the breath from her lungs and swallowing her startled cry. The cop in charge had hit her hard and she stumbled despite the tight grip on her arm. “He’s going to pay for what he’s doing to my city,” he snarled and the next hit split her lip, the backhanded slap almost worse than the first blow simply because it felt more humiliating to be struck like a disobedient wife with a drunkard for a husband.

“Lord, come on–” Winn began, sounding genuinely upset but a sharp look cut him off immediately. Weak, Maggie thought viciously as she thrashed against the man holding her.

Lord grabbed Maggie’s chin to keep her still, the hatred clear as day in his expression. “We’ll bring him down piece by piece,” he growled. He grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down to the ground and she hit her elbows hard on the pavement. He kicked her next, hitting her hip with a surprising amount of force. She rolled, rising onto her hands and knees, realizing that no one was going to pick her up again. She let her hair obscure her face, let her shoulders shake with false tears, hiccuping fake sobs.

Fingers tangled roughly in her hair and her gaze was pulled up to look at Lord as he crouched next to her, looking smug as he brought his face too close and–

Maggie headbutted him so hard that she saw stars but the sharp crack of bone and the blood already pouring from Lord’s nose was wonderfully satisfying. And she was on her feet a heartbeat later, running for her life. She raced through the dark city that she knew like the back of her hand, kicking off her heels somewhere along the way. She could hear them behind her and she could hear them shouting from somewhere off to her left, clearly planning on cutting off her escape. She turned a corner and spotted one of them and immediately backtracked, trying to put as much distance between herself and the cops. Whatever they had planned for her, she didn’t want them to see it through.

But they were ahead of her again. And to her right now. In a panic, she bolted down a dark alley, wondering if she could just… hide it out. But, with six cops looking for her in a limited area, her chances were slim to none. She pressed herself against a door, her heart racing violently in her chest as she tried to figure out her next course of action.

@yourewearingmytshirt

#t; the boss #yourewearingmytshirt

41 notes · View notes