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“Freeze!”
The shout rings out through the dark alley, the figure clad in black stilling in the shadows.
Maggie’s whole body buzzes with excitement, this is the closest anyone has come to catching the thief that’s been plaguing National City for the last six months. She’s been robbing banks, museums and anything else holding valuable items, running the police in circles trying to catch her.
She never leaves evidence, is never at the scene when the police arrive, and whatever she’s stolen is never seen again. Some of the officers are still skeptical that she’s a woman, the only evidence they’ve managed to find on her is one grainy photo from CCTV but Maggie could tell from the shape of the suit she was wearing it was a woman.
Crime has been on the rise for the past year and she wants to catch this woman so police resources can be put to better use.
“Put your hands up!”
The thief slowly turns, hands rising as she does and Maggie’s surprised by how high tech the suit looks, even in the dark alley.
“If I try to run, will you shoot me?”
It’s not just the question that throws Maggie off, but how calm the woman sounds, how confident she sounds, how smooth her voice is.
“Run and find out.”
The woman laughs, throwing Maggie off guard again. She’s clearly smart, given how well she’s been getting away with theft the last six months, how complicated some of her plans appear to be, but she’s not scared right now, not worried she’s about to be arrested and is going to jail for a long time.
Unless, she knows something Maggie doesn’t.
Maggie has the thought too late, a sound ringing out from down the alley, drawing Maggie’s attention without conscious thought. The moment she turns her head, she knows her mistake. She turns her head back quickly to where the woman had been standing but she already knows it’s pointless, the alley feels empty as her eyes land on the spot the thief had stood not moments before.
Maggie’s eyes flash up and down the alley, looking for clues as to where the woman may have gone, but it’s useless, she finds nothing.
She was this close to catching her and she’d ruined it.
Next time , Maggie vows, next time I’ll get her.
---
The next time Maggie did not get her, it was a whole day before anyone realised anything had even been stolen.
---
“Detective Sawyer.”
“Hello detective.”
The voice tugs at some memory but Maggie can’t place it. “Can I help you with something?” she asks when the woman on the phone offers nothing more.
“I’d like to report a robbery.”
That’s weird, she doesn’t usually get people her calling her directly like this, not people she doesn’t know. “I can transfer you to an officer who can take the deals for you if you want.”
“Actually, I was looking for you specifically.”
Maggie frowns. “Do I know you?”
“No.” This conversation is making less and less sense. “But I thought I’d give you a heads up this time, since you’re having so much trouble catching me. I’ll be robbing a bank in twenty minutes, if you can figure out which one, I’ll see you there.”
The phone cuts out before Maggie can respond.
The captain gives her as many officers as he can spare, which isn’t many, crime is definitely getting worse around the city and it’s not a pretty sight. The only reason she’s on this case in the first place is because the mayor wants this problem dealt with as soon as possible.
With no clues as to what bank the woman may have been talking about, she sends officers across the city, but it’s not enough, and by the time the alarm is raised from the bank the woman has targeted, it’s too late.
They try to trace the call she’d received at the precinct but to no avail.
Better luck next time.
She can tell who the text is from as soon as she receives it, and it sort of makes her furious but it also sort of intrigues her. Who is this woman?
Maggie doesn’t tell her captain about the text. She figures they couldn’t trace the call, so they won’t be able to trace the text either. Or that’s what she tells herself anyway.
It’s not until two days later and she hears about an escape from a prison transport van at the same time as the robbery and she wonders if maybe the robbery was just a diversion.
That only confuses her more.
---
Maggie figured that would be it, she wouldn’t be contacted again by the mysterious woman who’s running around her city.
Except she was wrong, and the next message she receives is definitely not what she’d expected.
The Parnell case? You’ve got the wrong guy, he’s being set up.
Maggie debates just ignoring the text, the case isn’t even hers, and why should she trust this stranger whose name she doesn’t even know?
Curiosity gets the better of her though so she looks into the case, goes through all the evidence, looking for anything that may be amiss. And a day later she finds it, evidence that doesn’t quite make sense. So she digs deeper, finds planted evidence, gets the guy that had been arrested released and the lead detective arrested instead.
She can’t tell her captain why she decided to look into the case in the first place, she just tells him she had a feeling.
Now there’s dozens of cases they need to look into but if anyone innocent has gone to prison, she’s going to find out and get them released.
Maggie considers her options for the rest of the day but once she’s at home, a beer in hand, she decides to text the unknown number that’s been sitting on her phone for weeks.
Thank you.
I knew I could trust you.
Maggie’s not exactly sure how she’s earned the trust of this thief, or why she’d even thought to text her in the first place, but she’ll use it to her advantage to catch her.
---
Don’t go in there.
Maggie receives the text right before they’re about to raid a warehouse and she hesitates.
Is it a trick, the woman inside wanting a chance to get away? Or is there some other reason the thief doesn’t want them to go into the building?
She has a dozen cops to think about, but also the future citizens of the city that may get robbed or hurt because she’s potentially letting the thief escape.
Or she may not even be in the building to begin with.
After a moment’s hesitation, Maggie follows her gut and tells her team to hold.
She knows she’s made the right decision when not a minute later, a series of explosions ring out from inside the building.
The fire department arrive and put the remaining fire out not long later. They’d had the building surrounded the whole time and no one had come out but they’re informed, to Maggie’s relief, that no one had been inside at the time of the explosion. They’d lost evidence, the explosives set to destroy anything inside, but they had lost no lives and that’s the important thing.
That night, she texts the thief.
Was it you?
No.
Then how did you know?
I can’t give away all my secrets, detective.
Maggie hesitates for a moment.
Thank you.
This woman just gets more and more intriguing, she’s not only robbing banks, but she’s helping innocent people stay out of jail, she’s maybe helping others escape from jail, and now she’s protecting the police. Maggie has no idea who she is or why she’s doing all of this but Maggie is really starting to like this woman.
---
She hears the call over the radio, that a robbery is in progress. By the time she gets there, the thief is long gone, and Maggie feels herself relieved that she got away.
She pushes the feeling away, that’s not something she should feel about a criminal.
---
There’s three more robberies with no leads and no evidence before she hears from the woman again.
I need your help.
Maggie only hesitates for a moment before she replies, at least curious as to what the thief has to say. The woman saved her officers, she can at least hear her out.
What do you need?
My sister is sick, she needs medicine.
Maggie’s not sure why the woman is contacting her, a doctor would be more fitting.
She texts her back anyway.
How can I help?
Meet me at the park on 5 th at 3pm and I’ll tell you.
It sounds like a trap, it definitely sounds like a trap, but something in Maggie’s chest tells her it’s not.
How will I recognise you?
I’ll find you.
---
At 2:57pm Maggie finds herself sitting on a park bench, eyeing her surroundings carefully. She may semi-trust this woman, even if she is a criminal, but she’s not stupid enough to let her guard down.
A man sits down next to her a few minutes later and she knows with one look at his nervous expression that he’s here for her.
She’s suddenly on edge.
“Alex sent me, she wanted to make sure you didn’t bring back up before I take you to her.”
Alex, is that the woman she’s looking for?
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Winn,” he says and now that’s two names she’s gotten. Are they real names? “Can I scan you? To make sure you’re not wearing a wire.”
Maggie sees a small black object in his hand and nods. She’s doing this, may as well show them she trusts them. She’s not sure what she’s going to get out of this, whether she’s even looking for evidence that could bring down this woman now. Her sister is sick, and Maggie has seen first hand how desperate people can be when it comes to sick family members and medical bills. Is that why this woman is a thief?
The man hovers the device down the length of her body and looks satisfied when it turns green.
“Follow me.”
Maggie follows without hesitation.
He leads her two blocks over, closer than she’s expecting, before they enter a surprisingly nice apartment building. She’s not sure what she’d been expecting, something more dilapidated maybe, but not this.
They stop outside a door with ‘4a’ written on it and Maggie finds herself inexplicably nervous, but not because there could be danger on the other side (or she could get fired for consorting with a known criminal) but because she’s about to meet the woman she’s been chasing for months, and she’s kind of excited about it.
Winn unlocks the door and she follows him inside, struck again by how ordinary everything looks. This doesn’t look like the home of a criminal mastermind.
“How is she doing?” Winn asks, addressing some who enters the room from what looks like a bedroom across the apartment.
Maggie’s breath catches. She’s not sure how but she knows this is the thief, can tell just by looking at her.
What she can also tell is that she’s absolutely gorgeous.
Like stunningly gorgeous.
Like possibly the most beautiful woman Maggie has ever seen gorgeous.
She’s too gay for this, why did the thief have to be hot?
But now isn’t the right time for those sort of thoughts, so she pushes them all to the back of her mind.
“She’s getting worse.” The woman walks over to her, hand outstretched. “Detective Sawyer, Alex Danvers. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Your sister?” That’s the more important thing, she’s here to help.
Alex nods.
“Where is she?”
Alex leads her through to the bedroom she’d just come from, and she can tell immediately the woman on the bed is not well. She’s pale, deathly pale, her skin looks clammy and her breaths are shallow. There’s a woman with dark her sitting on the bed beside her who looks vaguely familiar, clutching the sick woman’s hand.
Maggie’s not sure how she can help. “She needs to go to a hospital, now.”
“A hospital can’t fix what’s wrong with her.” There’s something that Maggie’s missing, something in the looks exchanged by the other occupants of the room, she’s just not sure what. “She’s an alien.”
Oh.
“I don’t know what I can do to help then.”
“I need a partner, someone quick, someone strong, someone smart. I’ve seen you in action detective and you fit the bill.”
“What about…?” Maggie gestures Winn and the woman sitting on the bed, who’s she’s pretty certain is now Lena Luthor.
“We’re good with tech, but will be no help with this I’m afraid.” Lena says. “I can pay you, if that helps convince you to help.”
Maggie shakes her head, she’s seen enough. She can tell these three care for the sick woman, would do anything for her. They don’t look evil, they look desperate, so she agrees to help. “What do you need me to do?”
There’s a building, they have to break in and steal some experimental toxin that’ll apparently cure Alex’s sister, Kara, easy as that. Maggie doesn’t like the idea of stealing a toxin but bizarrely trusts Alex, can see the honesty in her eyes when she talks about Kara.
Alex doesn’t seem to have an evil bone in her body.
“How do you know what we’re looking for?”
“I used to work here,” Alex says as the sit outside the building, waiting for the news from Winn that he’s hacked security and they can go in. “But when the army took over I got fired, they didn’t like my ideas of helping aliens. Since then I’ve tried to do what I can, tried to help. Everything I’ve been stealing, I’ve been using to help people, using to help poor family’s and aliens who have no access to food, shelter or medicine. It’s not a lot, but it’s all I can do.”
Everything she hears, just confirms why her gut had been telling her to trust Alex, and everything she hears just makes her like Alex more. She knew she trusted her for a reason, Maggie’s sure she’d do something similar if she was in the same position. They’re both just trying to help people, even if they’re on different sides of the law.
“Kara was helping me yesterday with a family, we didn’t know they were sick but I found them all dead this morning. It must be an alien disease because she caught it. Lena identified it in her lab, but she can’t make the antidote without the toxin we need to steal.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because you’re a good person, I’ve seen the work you do, how many people you’ve helped and you should know what’s going on in your city.”
Maggie knew it was bad, just not this bad.
Winn’s voice comes through their ear pieces. “I’m in, you’re clear to go.”
They get in and out with surprising ease. There’s a few close calls, the hardest part actually getting into the room where the toxin is stored, it’s clear at that point why she was needed too. But they get what they came for, get it back to Lena at her lab (she’s definitely Lena Luthor) and within the hour Kara had the antidote administered to her and she’s already looking less pale, her breathing already much more steady.
Maggie breaths out a sigh of relief, glad she could help.
“Thanks Sawyer, I owe you one.”
“You’re welcome Danvers,” Maggie returns, Alex smiling at the name.
“You going to arrest me now? I mean technically you didn’t catch me but I owe you, for saving my sister. It’ll make you look good to your captain.”
Maggie can tell Alex is being serious, she’d let her take her now if that’s what Maggie wanted. But she’s not going to do that, not after she’s seen the sort of person she is, not after she’s heard why Alex is stealing in the first place.
Maggie shrugs, a smile on her face. “As far as I’m aware, you’re just some woman I met whose sister needed help, I’ve seen no evidence of any illegal activity going on here.”
“Except the breaking and entering we just did?”
Maggie laughs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
This time Alex laughs, Maggie getting caught on the sound. She’d heard it the first night they’d met, and it sounds exactly the same, but it’s different seeing it too, seeing how Alex’s eyes crinkle, seeing how relaxed she looks after helping her sister, how the smile settles warm on her face afterwards.
She knows it’s going to get her into trouble but she likes her even more.
“Thank you, really, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” Alex glances back towards the room where Kara, Lena and Winn are. “She means everything to me.”
“I know.” Maggie smiles. “If you ever need anything, let me know?”
Alex smiles, genuine, happy, and beautiful. “You too, you have my number.”
Maggie grins this time. “I do.”
---
Maggie feels her heart skip in her chest the next time she receives a text from Alex, a grin back on her face.
Up for a little adventure?
Life’s about to get a lot more interesting.