Chapter Text
When she was thirteen, Lena Luthor spent Christmas with Roulette away in boarding school, clutching the new chemistry set Lex had sent her like it would disappear if she put it down, wondering in vain if her mother would deign to call her this year.
When she was thirteen, Kara Zor-El Danvers spent Christmas cuddled on the couch between Eliza and Jeremiah, eating Chinese food and watching a black and white film about a man who didn’t think his life was worth anything until he realized that it was.
When she was thirteen, Alex Danvers spent Christmas at Vicky Donahue’s house after being assured by Eliza and Jeremiah that yes, don’t worry, it’s not being a bad Jew to wear a Santa hat and exchange Christmas gifts with your Christian friends, because aren’t the holidays about family and joy anyway?
When she was thirteen, Maggie Sawyer spent Christmas laughing with her father and cooking with her mother, climbing alongside the mantle to help her little cousins reach their stockings before leading the charge out the door, Superman beanie and thick snow boots galore, to take all her cousins sledding on The Hill before trooping back, wet and exhausted and frozen, to slurp up her father’s famous hot chocolate, each with four marshmallows on top.
It’s been over a decade for all of them, and everything has changed.
Because now, Lena doesn’t just hire people to decorate trees that she never had the chance to decorate with family.
And now, Kara doesn’t have to wonder if her life is worth anything, because she already knows it is.
And now, Alex has a fiancee, not an unacknowledged crush, to snuggle up with under mistletoe that makes her feel excited, not terrified of being herself.
And now, Maggie has only the family she’s created for herself.
And she couldn’t be happier.
Because her family is doing an apartment crawl like so many people do bar crawls.
They’re trudging from one apartment to the other, bedazzling them all with lights and with pine and with candy canes and with already-wrapped gifts that prove that every single one of J’onn’s Earth children is a bit of an overachiever.
They agree to decorate Winn and Kara and Alex’s places first, since Chanukah falls well before Christmas this year.
Maggie, James, and Lena have their places next.
“You know when I was a kid,” Maggie says as she and James coordinate to tinsel the hell out of Lena’s enormous tree. Alex freezes and her eyes sober, and Maggie kisses her and shakes her head softly. “No, it’s okay. It’s… it’s a good memory. I would tug on my Santa hat and lock myself in my bedroom, every year on Christmas Eve.”
“And you would have a raging party with all the other elves?” James arches an eyebrow, and Maggie mock glares up at him.
“Are you calling me short?”
“Santa’s not necessarily short, and he’s an elf! And you said you were wearing a Santa hat! Kinda like you are now,” he defends himself, tossing the white ball at the bottom of Maggie’s hat up gently.
“Yeah, whatever. You’re lucky this city needs Guardian, Olsen. Anyway. I would lock myself in my room and blast Christmas music, and I’d put this sign on my door that would always say something like ‘Santa’s workshop, keep out,” or ‘Elves at work’ – “
“Told you – “
“Shut it, Olsen. And I’d wrap everyone’s presents. It was the only time my parents didn’t make me turn the volume down on my music.”
“To be fair, Christmas songs usually have a bit of a different vibe than Placebo,” Winn chimes, and Lena shakes her head as she laughs and as Alex awwws.
“Aww, baby, do you want to do that again this year?”
“What?”
“Turn our room into Santa’s workshop? You can, you know, I wouldn’t mind.”
And suddenly James has to take over the tinseling, because Maggie has tears in her eyes and Alex is wrapping her arms around her and she’s bringing her lips down to kiss her all over her face.
“I love you, Danvers,” Maggie whispers, and Kara leans into her own girlfriend warmly.
“I love you too, Sawyer. Forever,” Alex rasps back, and neither of them notice James step back from Lena’s tree to snap a photo that he’ll frame and gift for them later.
As a wedding or holiday gift, though, he has plenty of time to decide.