Work Text:
The Daily Planet is buzzing around him, most of their eyes glued to the various screens set up around the office, some already viciously typing up their reports on the fight to be the first paper to get the new scoop on this mysterious figure causing millions in property damage to their city.
Mike Wheeler, Journalist and Senior Reporter, is among them, gazing up at the screens as he watches with rapt attention as this red blur swoops across the sky almost faster than the eye can see. None of the cameras on the scene have been able to capture a clear look at this mystery force fighting off the giant Kaiju that had made home in their city streets, stomping down buildings and swiping cars away with its tail.
“The red blur!” Someone calls out, workshopping a name, and Mike rolls his eyes at how ridiculous it sounds. It’s more than a blur, it’s not a creature, it must be something more, something a lot more human. Mike has no basis on this theory, there has never been an incident like this before, not on this grand of a scale, but he has an inkling this is not two creatures fighting each other.
Lucas Sinclair, photographer for the Daily Planet and his right hand man slides next to him, knocking their shoulders together. “They’re getting pretty close to the planet, aren’t they?”
And he’s right, the fight is moving progressively closer and closer to the street where the Daily Planet stands tall and proud, overlooking the city scape around them. Mike spares a glance outside the tall arched windows, where he can in fact see the fight going on from outside of them.
He looks around at all his coworkers, all digging for the best scoop and the greatest story, ready to have it on Newby’s desk by the end of this whole debacle so they can get their front page story. But they’re all inside, they’re all watching other people report it live, they know what everyone else already knows.
Mike needs something more. These are his coworkers, yes, but they’re also his competition. Every time a story drops it’s a hustle to be the first one to finish their piece, to get picked for that cover story and not shoved to the back pages with a guide to vitamins. Mike is used to being on the front page, or at least the first few, he’s a good writer and he knows it, but he always wants to be better, always wants to blow the rest of these cowards out of the park.
“Lucas,” Mike taps his shoulder, already trailing a hand down his arm to grab his wrist, “do you want to get a front page photo?”
“You know I do, man,” Lucas has only gotten on the front page a few times, always being beat out by Max Mayfield, or as he calls her, his arch nemesis.
“Then follow me,” Mike grabs a pen and his notepad from his desk and practically drags Lucas to the elevator and all the way down.
This is a stupid idea, it’s not just risky, it’s life threatening. The news is already calling for evacuations on the entirety of Metropolis, and here is Mike Wheeler, running right into the fire while everyone else runs away from it.
The street is overly crowded with cars, honking horns and trying to all get away as quickly as possible, him and Lucas bend and weave through all the traffic as the rain pours down upon them, forceful winds blowing them back. Mike’s button up is already wet to his skin and the wind has thrown his hair back, it forces them to hold on the closer they get to the scene, they turn the bend to see the horrific scene in front of them.
It’s a monster, bigger than Mike had ever expected it to be, but it’s skin isn’t scaly like had been reported, no, it’s flesh toned and pulled tight over it’s protruding bones, the thing isn’t as massive as Mike had once thought, just taller than the Daily Planet. Its head was shaped like a flower, and whenever that flower boomed it spewed hundreds of razor sharp fangs or what looked like some sort of acid.
Through the rain and the destruction around them Mike searched for the red blur, and found it in the sky, circling the air before shooting down and striking the creature in its back. The creature fell to its knees and howled, Mike’s whole body shaking with the force of it. He could barely hear the telltale signs of Lucas’ camera clicking behind him as he forced himself closer to the scene, as watched on in horror as the creature brought a humungous clawed hand down upon the streets, right over a car filled with people.
The blur was back, and then the car was gone, before Mike could even blink, dropped right in front of them. The doors seemed to pop upon on their own and the family hastily escaped with screams torn from their throats. Then the red blur wasn’t a blur anymore, it was a person.
The red blur was a Girl, a girl who stopped in front of them for just a moment and shouted, “take cover!” Before she burst back into the sky, the force sending Mike a few steps back as he stared up in awe and something like horror as the girl slammed a punch into the creatures jaw.
The girl fought hard and she fought fast, she came at it from every angle, sending punches to every available spot, going too quick for the creature to even have a chance at catching up, but Mike could see her, he could see everything.
The red blur rose in the sky, and Mike heard the rapid fire flashing of the camera behind him as she held her hand up toward the creature, it was too far away to see what she was doing, but Mikey could see her body forced into tremors.
The creature seemed unable to move, shaking slowly in her grasp, and just when the scene couldn’t get any crazier, the sun crested through the clouds, bathing them in a stream of warm gold light. Then she scrunched her hand into a fist, and the monsters bones began to snap, legs first, then arms and finally its neck, and it began to fall, but the girl was faster, stopping it from causing anymore damage as she gently lowered it into the carnage they had caused.
The wind seemed to calm around them, but the rain continued to pour as the girl gently lowered herself to the ground. Mike tried to jot down everything he had seen her do so far, flight and super strength no doubt, probably increased stamina, assumed telekinesis and some sort of other psychic abilities.
The girl in front of them was helping people, she was flinging the rubble away from them, but it wasn’t careless, it was calculated and thoughtful. She pulled them up and checked on them, hands on their faces as her long brown hair stuck to her face in ringlets.
When she was done making sure everyone in the general vicinity was okay, she turned to them, eyes set, and Mike finally had a chance to look at what had caused her to be called the red blur for the last hour. She had a flowing red cape that seemed to be actually floating behind her as she hovered just a foot above ground, in a red pleated skirt trimmed with yellow.
A matching yellow crest of some sort sat on her chest, proudly displaying a bold ‘S’ shaped design, hovering just a few inches above his face. Her sleeves were a long blue fabric, the edges coated with yellow, her hair was a light brown with honey colored highlights throughout, her eyes big and bold, dark pools of brown staring into his as she gently lowered herself to the ground using only her mind and stared at the pair.
“That was incredibly stupid,” She huffed when her feet hit the ground, and as angry as her words were, she didn’t sound angry, she sounded concerned, her voice was light and airy with a tight edge. Her lips were wet and pink, her whole face dripping with water.
“We… needed the shot,” Lucas said, a little dazed as he stares at her. “Can I snap a couple pics of that monster thing—“
“The Demogorgon?” She asks, and Mike blanks. He needs to write this down, but as he looks down at his hands he sees his memo pad has almost entirely melted from the rain, chunks of paper and cardboard left sticking to his hand.
“Yeah… yeah the demo-whatever,” Lucas says, and he begins to traverse the rubble to get closer. Lucas doesn’t have to remember the names of things, Mike does it for him.
“That was still very stupid, brave, but stupid,” The girl says softly, but she’s staring at Lucas, who’s bending at all sorts of weird angles to get a different view of the monster for the camera, with a sort of fondness on her face.
“I know. Anything for a good story,” he says with a forced laugh, his throat seems to close up whenever he tries to speak to her, like all the words he wants to say are the wrong ones.
“You’re a reporter?” She asks. She crosses her arms over her crest, and Mike takes a second to get a good look at all of her, her red boots trimmed with yellow and that she on fingerless red and yellow gloves. She has no bruises or blemishes on her, just dirt from the fight and what looks like the same dark black blood that’s oozing from the monsters broken bones. Mike can add invincibility to her list of powers.
“Yeah,” he murmurs awkwardly, and sticks his hand out, “Mike Wheeler, reporter for the Daily Planet.”
The girl shakes it gingerly, giving him a small, reserved small, “Jan-El, from Krypton.”
Stupidly, the first words out of his mouth are, “you’re an alien?”
Jan-El doesn’t seem to take it to heart, giving him a small chuckle as she drops his hand, and his hangs awkwardly in the air between them.
“Yes. I’m from a different planet. I came here to protect earth,” she explains, but it feels rehearsed, like a script. Mike should be concerned that she’s here for an ulterior motive, but Mike knows that tone, knows that nervous edge because he has it whenever he makes a presentation.
“Your planet doesn’t need protecting?” He asks with a grin. His older sister Nancy would say it was charming, but it just makes Jan-El frown.
“My home planet is gone. I’ve lived on earth for all my life.”
Guilt shoots through him like an arrow, and he rubs his wet hands together, “I’m sorry. Thank you, for protecting Metropolis, we would’ve all been decimated without you.”
Jan-El looks around to the crowd forming around the scene, to the news vans that begin to pull up around the outskirts, and her frown deepens, pouty lips downturned, and Mike resists the urge to place a hand on her cherub cheek and poke her lips until they go upwards again, where they should be.
“I hope they see it that way,” she sounds defeated, like she already knows that her true purpose will already be twisted, that at least to some she will come out the bad guy, the one who caused all of this.
“I’ll make sure that from my story, they’ll see you as nothing but the hero you are,” Mike says softly.
“That is kind, Mike, but I want to tell my own story,” Jan-El tells him, the reporters are gathering around now, cameras getting turned on, and she looks down at him, now floating a foot above the ground.
“You’re not the reporter, Jan-El, I am.”
She grins at him, smile blinding him, she’s beautiful like this, and says, “I suppose you are right. See you around, Mike Wheeler.”
She bursts into the sky in a wave of wind that knocks everyone around on their asses, but Mike stays standing, staring up into the circle of clouds that have formed, the sun streaming through the space as she shot up into the sky, and Mike whispers, just to himself, a solitary promise, “see you around, Supergirl.”
It just sounds right, Supergirl on the tip of his tongue, it sounds like hope and freedom, and Mike smiles as the rain clouds begin to part, an Metropolis is once more bathed in the ever familiar rays of golden sunlight.
Lucas and Mike are in overdrive when they get back to the Daily Planet, Lucas developing and digitizing his photos as quickly as possible to edit them and make them look good, while Mike types rapidly on his keyboard, ignoring any mistakes so he can get everything down, he types like a madman, paragraphs upon paragraphs of his experience with the new superhero protecting their city.
And just two hours later, hot off the presses on Newby’s desk is their concept for a front page article titled, Supergirl, The Woman of Tomorrow, tagline reading, Up in the sky, it’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Supergirl!
They publish the digital that night and send the rest to print first thing tomorrow morning so everyone can hear the story of Jan-El from Krypton, so they can pour over what few words Mike had gotten out her, so they can see the stunning photo Lucas shot of her as she shot up into the sky, just slow enough for the camera to capture her smiling down at them.
In the rest of the paper will be the study of the monster that Dustin Henderson, the Daily Planet’s Jack of all trades spent all night working on, early analysis of DNA samples taken from the thing that prove it’s alien in nature. There will be quotes from citizens she saved and the people of Metropolis’s hopes for the future and the lingering fear that won’t waver.
And right on the front cover, in the news article that garners over a million reads in its first 24 hours and sold out papers hours after releasing, is Mike Wheeler’s name. The man who met Supergirl, and coined the name that will inspire hope across not just Metropolis, but the entire world at large.
Mike will come into work the next day on cloud nine, all of his coworkers complimenting him on a job well done, on the first article they’ve had in years to even get that many views let alone that quickly, praise for walking into danger for the scoop, for essentially creating the story of Supergirl.
And there will be one girl, not singing his praises, she’ll keep her head hung low as she trips over her own feet and spills coffee all over his nice sweater vest, and when Mike looks up from the stain he’ll see big brown doe eyes staring at him, hidden behind a pair of glasses, soft pink lips and cherub cheeks, long brown straight hair and a pencil skirt and sweater.
“I’m so sorry,” she’ll apologize, patting his chest awkwardly with a lump of paper towels he didn’t see her grab.
“It’s alright,” he’ll chuckle because he has an extra pair of clothes in the car. “I don’t think I’ve you seen around before.”
“I’m new,” she says quietly, “first day.”
“Well, what an exciting first day to join, I’m Mike Wheeler,” he extends a hand, and the girl looks down at it like she doesn’t quite know what to do with it.
She sticks her hand out, and when they touch his entire hand seems to pulse with electricity as she says, “Eleanor Hopper, pleasure to meet you.”