Chapter Text
“People are writing stories about me on the internet.” Lena Luthor exploded as she burst through the door of her best friend's apartment, holding a bottle of wine in one hand.
Kara barely had time to move aside in the entryway so the two women didn't collide. She slowly slid the door shut behind Ms Luthor. “Okay… good morning, I'm glad to see you, let's talk about it.”
Lena was comfortable in this apartment; she visited at least once a week, for game nights and movie nights and dinners. This was, however, the first time that she had pounded on the door and burst in at 6am. She set the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter and mumbled something about habits, then spun on her heel with both her hands in midair. “Where's your laptop?!” She demanded in an exasperated tone. “You have to see this. There are hundreds of them.”
“Um.” Kara glanced around the living space, covering a yawn with the back of one hand. “Here.” She gestured to the coffee table and Lena was immediately moving across the room, throwing herself onto the couch with urgency. The blonde took a seat beside her and reached out to open the computer.
They were an odd sight of opposites sitting side by side; Kara was disheveled in her two piece flannel pajamas covered in pastry-eating-puppies, her hair in a loose bun held together by chopsticks. Lena was dressed for work (or just life?) in a black pencil skirt with a pale blue camisole and two button blazer. Their contrast wasn't unfamiliar though, Kara was typically far more casual than her CEO friend, albeit not quite this much so. The one thing about them that did match were their focused expressions as they leaned toward the coffee table, staring intently at the open computer screen.
“Okay so, I was trying to find something. I googled ‘Lena Luthor and Supergirl’ and look at this.” Lena repeated the actions she was describing on the laptop, typing it in as she described, then gestured toward the screen, pointing at the search results wildly.
Kara squinted at the small text, reading aloud a link. “Lena Luthor slash Supergirl RPF. What's RPF?”
“You don't want to know. I wish that I didn't know. But I googled it and now there's no going back.”
The reporter scrunched her nose at this, but her mind instantly went to the familiar. “Are these blogs? Or some kinda underground news sites, publishing speculation about you? I could probably get those shut down!”
Lena scoffed loudly. “I wish! That would be easy to deal with!” Without trying to explain further, she leaned in and clicked the first link, then picked up the computer and handed it to her friend. “Here. Read a little.”
Kara pulled her legs up under her and set the computer on her lap. She scrolled and read, scanning through the website. Lena watched seriously, waiting for a sign that it had ‘clicked’ as it had for her just a few hours before.
“Oh… my.” Kara almost whispered, a flush building from her chest to her eyeballs, presumably. “This is…” she shook her head a few times, unable to find the words to finish.
“Right? It's unbelievable. It's unfathomable.” The brunette's voice began rising with a determined sort of anger.
Ms Danvers looked at it briefly, then shook her head again. “Who is doing this? And why?!”
“Well, the why part is easy to figure out. I've always been in the public spotlight. I'm used to speculation on my private life from tabloids, they make a quick dollar that way. But that's not what this is. This is someone-”
“Writing their own story about you. About you.” Kara scrolled to the end and looked for clues to who the individual might be. “Maybe we could request this webpage be shut down? This has to be illegal!”
Lena sighed dejectedly. “I checked with my lawyers before I even came over here. They said this ‘real person fiction’ stuff is all over the internet and acknowledging it would only draw attention to it. They said it's best to pretend it doesn't exist so no one else will go looking for it.”
“Sure, that makes sense, for PR.” The blonde gave the most reassuring look that she could manage, trying to ease the negativity of the situation. “So what are you going to do?”
The darker woman shrugged. “That's why I'm here. I thought you might have an idea that I couldn't think of.” Her eyes were filled with optimistic longing.
“Me? I don't, I don't know. I agree it sounds like bad press to try and attack this but…” Kara was lost in thought for a moment, still holding the computer in her lap, as if she had been frozen in place. Suddenly her eyebrows shot up. “Ooh! What if Supergirl had a boyfriend?! I could write some fluffy things about her and a mysterious boyfriend, planning romantic getaways, and people would see that she's not a… that you're not… that she's with someone. So she can't be with you.”
“First off, how would you convince Supergirl to let her make up a fake boyfriend and put that in print? Second, do you think that would make them stop writing about me?” Lena pointed accusingly at the computer. “They might stop writing about Supergirl but she's only one half of it. What about me?”
Kara sighed rapidly as though she couldn't quite catch her breath. “Supergirl would probably want to protect her own privacy and reputation by discouraging this sort of thing, too. I bet she could be talked into it. And as far as I can see, all of these stories from different people focus around you being… romantic with Supergirl. Take her out of the equation, there's no more story to write.” At the mention of this romance, the blonde could feel herself once again starting to blush. She tried to fight it and hoped desperately that it didn't show.
“Okay, let's call that plan A, for now. It's indirect, doesn't draw attention to me, and might slow down these writers. Or maybe it would cause the readers to lose interest.”
As if triggered by that, the reporter clicked a few times on her mouse pad. She frowned. “There are a lot of readers. Some of these have thousands of hits.”
Lena groaned, flopping over against the back of the couch. “I know. I know. What is the appeal to them? How can so many people be into this idea about my life?!”
There was no response from Kara, only more clicking as she dug further into the website, trying to discover something useful.
“I've had all kinds of paparazzi experiences,” Lena continued wistfully, looking up at the ceiling, “my privacy is invaded on a frequent basis, I'd say. I've had depraved questions asked of me, especially about my brother. But I never thought anyone would… fantasize about who they want me to be with.”
“Oh fuck my life!” Kara suddenly, uncharacteristically screamed. Her hands jolted to fling the laptop onto the couch and immediately to cover her mouth in shock. Her eyes were wide as they stared at the offending screen, now sideways between the two women.
“What is it?!” Ms. Luthor grabbed at the computer to see for herself.
“No!” The blonde shouted, sticking her hands out in protest. “Don't look at it!”
Of course, Kara could have used her speed or her strength to bat away the laptop in a nanosecond of time, but that would have only destroyed it completely, and she still would have had to explain her reaction. Lena wasn't about to ignore that significant outburst; there was nothing to do except let her see it for herself, now.
Lena's eyes were trained on the open webpage, which had only a few paragraphs of text. She read for a long moment, and then seemed to start again and read it once more. “Oh.” Was all she said, in a near whisper. If it weren't for Kara's super hearing, it might not even have been audible to her at all.
Internally Kara was screaming at herself to think about something (anything) else to fight off the blush, but it was really no use. She gave up resisting and resigned to cover her face with her hands, groaning into them.
It was quiet, for several seconds, that felt like hours.
Lena cleared her throat. “It could be another female journalist.”
“Um. Sure.” Kara mumbled through her fingers. It was sarcastic, but then again, neither one of them were fooled about who the blonde journalist in the stories was referring to.
Another few long seconds passed. Lena set the laptop back on the coffee table and gently closed it, as if it were a sleeping beast that might attack them both; in this case, it sort of was.
“What's an OTP, do you suppose?” Ms Luthor asked genuinely, staring ahead at nothing in particular. Her cheeks were their usual tone, no signs of blushing like her best friend, but her embarrassment showed nonetheless in the way she was avoiding all potential for eye contact.
“I'm afraid to find out. Probably something humiliating.”
Lena seemed to regard this for a moment, before making a decision. “Siri,” she said into her watch, “define OTP, from fiction writing.”
The watch stated, in it's robotic voice: “OTP, or one true pairing, is used to describe the one couple that the writer believes is destined to be in a relationship, or meant to be together above all others.”
“Oh.” Lena whispered again. “I see.”
Kara didn't necessarily do it purposefully, but she found herself using her super hearing, and scanning outside her apartment for signs of something (anything) that could give her a reason to escape. It was always dead quiet in the early morning, especially for crime, but she desperately listened for even the most minor of emergencies. She also wished more than ever that she had shared her identity with Lena by now, so that she could claim there was an emergency, and jump right out the fucking window. Then she remembered, she did have an excuse, but it would make her feel like a huge insensitive jerk to use it.
“I should probably get ready for work.” The reporter mumbled, immediately regretting saying it.
“Yeah, of course.” Lena replied sans emotion, standing up from the couch rigidly. “Let's just talk later.”
“I'm sorry.”
“No, it's fine.” The brunette said with a hollow, unreadable tone. She was already halfway across the apartment. “We'll talk later. Thanks for your help.”
Kara lifted her head and turned toward the door, which her friend was already unlatching. “I'll help more later, I promise. I'm sorry.” She almost shouted that last apology, as Lena Luthor disappeared through the door and swung it shut.