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They don’t talk much that night. Sometimes successful missions just leave them feeling way more tired than in a celebratory mood, especially when Alex is so sore that her arm hurts a bit just reaching for her drink.
She glances across the table. Maggie is distracted peeling the label off her almost empty beer bottle. Not her first bottle, by the way. They may have gotten a little carried away, if only because each other’s company in a non-professional setting was still more enjoyable than just going home and getting ready to start everything again at work tomorrow.
Alex is allowing herself a moment to appreciate Maggie’s face when she looks up and their eyes meet. She’s not drunk enough to admit why she was staring, but she thinks she should probably tell Maggie someday that she’s really pretty. Like, all the time, and that Alex doesn’t think she could ever get enough of looking at her. Another time, though. Tonight, Alex just gives her a sheepish smile and takes a sip of her own beer.
Maggie finishes her bottle and pushes it to the center of the table. “I think I’m done.”
Alex nods. “Don’t wanna be too hungover tomorrow.”
Maggie laughs, and Alex keeps that mental note to tell her that she’s beautiful. Soon. She’s been thinking about it for a while. (“It” being Maggie’s existence in general.) About how she’s pretty sure that Maggie has been flirting with her since they met, and how she doesn’t mind it at all. How she enjoys it when they work together, but enjoys it even more when they don’t work together, like tonight, and they don’t get these opportunities a lot. And how she wants more, and doesn’t know exactly how to deal with that. She can’t just go up to her and say she wants to be the one that Maggie goes on dates with. (Well, she could, which would make things a lot easier, but she won’t.)
With those thoughts, Alex downs the rest of her beer too and they get up and go settle their tabs.
She walks slowly as they leave the bar, Maggie following after her. And then she’s grabbing Alex’s wrist.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
They stop in the alley right outside the bar, Maggie’s voice filled with genuine concern.
It was hard, knocking out the alien they were hunting. Alex got the worst of it, thrown across the small room against a bunch of boxes, but it wasn’t anything she’s not used to. Her shoulder just hurts a little, is all.
“I still think you should get checked out,” Maggie adds. Must be the third time she’s said this all night. “You look like shit.”
Alex turns around, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “Thanks, that’s so nice of you to say.” Maggie chuckles. “I’m sure I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep and maybe painkillers.”
Maggie smirks in a way she always does around Alex. “Call me tomorrow if it still hurts and I’ll give you a massage.”
She’s totally kidding. Or maybe she’s doing that thing where people suggest something as a joke but they’d really be willing to do it if the other person wanted to. Either way, Alex’s breath catches in her throat. In any other circumstances she would’ve probably rolled her eyes, but right now, the two of them alone in a dark alley after a tiring day and some alcohol, the last thing she needed to imagine was the touch of Maggie’s gentle hands on her skin.
Suddenly she’s very aware that Maggie is still holding her wrist for some reason, and right then she remembers to let go of it. Alex looks down, thankful that she doesn’t blush easily. Is it that obvious to Maggie what she’s thinking about? Shit.
Maggie breaks the silence. “Kidding, I suck at massages.”
“I doubt it.”
Maggie does a double take. It’s not every day that Alex Danvers responds to her flirty remarks with anything other than reluctant smiles or fake annoyance. She bites her lower lip, clearly amused by the whole thing, and then shocked all over again when she realizes Alex is actually staring at her lips.
It’s hardly the first time Alex wants to kiss her. Those lips, for god’s sake. It’s the first time she lets herself stare for over a second, though, and she finds it hard to look away when she’s thinking so much about how she wants them pressed against her own.
And then it’s happening. Somehow she manages to close the distance between them, which wasn’t a lot to begin with because they seem to ignore the concept of personal space since they met anyway, and pulls Maggie into a kiss.
She’d be lying if she said she fully knows what the hell she’s doing, but what she can confirm is that it feels amazing regardless. It’s weird in the moment Maggie is caught by surprise but in no time she’s kissing back and her hands fly to Alex’s waist. Not that Alex ever had serious doubts whether Maggie would be a good kisser, but wow. To say that she makes Alex regret not kissing women in so many years is an understatement. They should do this more often, as in as often as possible. It’s like the feeling clears Alex’s mind of every other thought, leaving only the absolute certainty that she doesn’t want this to be a one time thing.
That is, until those hands that were just holding Alex close suddenly push her away instead. Alex jumps back like she’s being electrocuted. The wonderful haze of their much-awaited first kiss is too quickly replaced by the crushing reality that is so not how Alex ever expected this to end. Did she really misread everything?
“I’m so sorry,” she blurts out, already burying her face in her hands, unable to look Maggie in the eyes. The last time she felt this embarrassed was probably in high school.
“Don’t,” is what Maggie says, grabbing Alex’s shoulders as if what she means is don’t run away.
“No, seriously, I shouldn’t have-”
“Stop. Alex, just look at me.”
Her voice… There’s no kind of confusion in it, or awkwardness, or even anger. So Alex obeys and looks at her, and it turns out she just looks… sad.
“You have no idea how much I want this.”
“What? Then why-”
“Not like this,” Maggie blurts. Loud and clear.
She caresses Alex’s arms up to her shoulder and back down slowly, in what she hopes is a reassuring way. She wants to cup Alex’s cheek but this might not be the best time for such intimacy in light of what she’s saying.
“I want it when I’m sure that you do too, and not that maybe you just had one too many beers.”
The sinking feeling in the pit of Alex’s stomach gets a little worse somehow. She doesn’t even feel relieved that Maggie isn’t rejecting her, she’s too busy worrying that she might have just screwed this up epically. It hurts to see in Maggie’s eyes how much she cares, and she couldn’t be more right that she deserves better than a drunken kiss. They deserve better. Now Alex just needs to sober up and find the courage to show Maggie what “better” looks like.
Alex straightens up and nods, wiping the pitiful look off her face in her best attempt to demonstrate she understands and appreciates what Maggie is saying, and the smile Maggie gives her right then might just be the prettiest one she’s seen.
“Then let’s go home, shall we?”
—
The cab ride is silent. They stop first at Alex’s place to drop her off, and she thanks the driver and turns to Maggie to say goodnight.
Maggie leans closer and says, “Sleep well, Alex.”
Standing on the sidewalk watching for a moment as the cab drives away to Maggie’s home, she realizes Maggie never called her “Alex” before.
—
Later that night, staring at her ceiling and replaying the events of the day in her mind, Maggie fins herself torn between optimistic thoughts and a sad realization. Up until now, she really had no idea just how heartbreaking it will be if it turns out that she and Alex want very different things. God, what if Alex just wanted to hook up like no big deal and Maggie went and threw a bunch of feelings at her and it scared her off? Not that she’d change a thing about the way she reacted, but she hopes it didn’t mean game over. She can’t bear the possibility that Alex will wake up tomorrow and file away what happened as no more than a bad memory, maybe even change the way she acts around her and — oh fuck — push her away. No, this has to be more than a shitty new version of all those times back at her hometown when girls didn’t want to be her friend anymore as soon as the gossip found them.
After overthinking that for a little while, though, Maggie decides there’s no point in focusing on the worst when her gut is telling her that she won’t have to go through it this time. If she’d ever so much as suspected that Alex was uncomfortable with her attention she would’ve stopped long ago. She always felt there was a real chance for their partnership to grow into something even better. Whatever, maybe she is being too hopeful, but the truth is she feels much more like tonight was just a… shaky beginning for them. That happier thought makes her heart flutter a little bit and even encourages her to take one step further.
Grabbing her cell phone from the night stand, she opens her conversation with Alex and starts typing a dozen versions of the same text before deciding on a short and simple one, and then sends it quickly so she won’t have time to give up. Alex is most likely asleep but just in case she isn’t, Maggie puts the phone away immediately and forces herself to go to sleep.
Whatever the reply is, if anything at all, she can find out in the morning.
“ready when you are.” ✓ 02:03