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James looked at the photograph he had in front of him and couldn’t help the feeling of déjà vu creeping up on him. They both looked so happy together, in this stolen moment, printed on a piece of paper. A moment that tomorrow morning was going to be plastered on every front page in the city, on every tablet, phone and news broadcast. By tomorrow afternoon, everyone would know the Luthor heir was pregnant.
He’d been still for the past moments, staring at the photograph. The flashback was inevitable.
James looked at the hard copy of the photo on his desk. The moment one of Catco’s photographers brought it to him, he knew it meant trouble.
The man approached him reluctantly but also excited, he knew he had hopefully scooped up something that could elevate his career. He left the folder slowly on James’s desk without looking him in the eye and stepped back, trying to contain his nervousness. He knew that this could hopefully skyrocket his career, but he also knew that it could smash it back down at the bottom of the journalist world, of even totally kick him out of it.
James stared him in the eyes, and followed through his rambling. His eyes left the photographer and went back on the folder he was opening. He pulled out a USB stick and a single, printed, photograph.
When he actually focused on the photograph, he froze in his place. The photographer, whose eyes hadn’t left James’s face, held his breath and stopped moving as soon as he realized his boss had stopped moving as well.
James then looked back at the photographer with a stoic look on his face.
He asked him with a low and gentle voice if there were any more copies of these and, if there were, he should be the only one who had them. The photographer assured his boss that there were no more left, but he informed him that he wasn’t the only one who took that shot, other outlets had a similar one as well. James then told him that his job was secure as long as he stayed faithful at CatCo and didn’t share with anyone the information he had obtained. If anyone found out about it without James’s permission he would watch his career being wrecked by every media outlet out there. He was calm and stoic, his voice low and gentle, almost kind, but the kind that made the hair on the back of your neck go wild, the voice that showed he was beyond serious.
The photographer gulped visibly through his boss’s “warnings” and he eagerly assured him that he was entirely and utterly faithful to the company. He wasn’t willing to become the next Siobhan Smythe.
After a while, the running CEO was left alone staring at the photograph. The only copy of it, except whatever was in the the USB stick, he hoped.
Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers looked truly happy. They looked carefree, elevated, secure and safe. Happy. Happy with each other.
They were sitting on a bench in a small park, cups of coffee in their hands, Kara leaning in Lena, her right hand snaking around Lena’s waist and resting on her side, Lena with her left arm around Kara’s shoulders. Kara leaning on Lena, Lena kissing her neck, smiling, Kara with one of the most honest and glad smiles you could see on a real person’s face.
It was undeniable that they were in a relationship; it was undeniable that they had been for a while. James knew that already, but that didn’t mean the rest of the world knew.
Nobody knew that the Luthor heir was dating the reporter Kara Danvers.
Nobody knew the still-not-convincingly-enough-proven-different-from-the-rest-of-her-family Last Luthor, was in love with the passionate, all about truth, justice and equality, kind and gentle, freshly proven, reported of CatCo media, Kara Danvers. The Kara Danvers who was also close to Supergirl, close to one of the main reasons of Luthors’ bad reputation, of Luthors’ history and fallout.
Nobody knew that, and nobody had to know. They were happy with each other and their friends, their families. It didn’t matter what everybody else would say. This was enough.
Until he realized that people would know anyways. They would find out no matter what he decided tonight. First thing on the next day’s morning news would be that stolen moment. Plastered on newspaper, tablet, phone and news broadcast. Because people hadn’t yet put to sleep everything that had happened with the Luthors, with Lillian’s escape, between the last, adopted, Luthor and Supergirl. The Luthors were still a hot topic. And this would turn it into a fire.
He called the couple and had a long discussion with them, about how this could escalate and if they were prepared for it, for how asphyxiating it could be. Lena was used to it, was used to being dragged through the mud, was used to being in every conversation around her, being the receiver of the filth people would spit from their mouths. Kara on the other hand, wasn’t, but she was willing to take it. She didn’t care, because she was with the person she loved, everything else didn’t matter. James knew that Kara would falter on that later, but he knew she wouldn’t give up on what they had because of the public’s opinion on them.
And so he published the photo. CatCo and two other big magazines had picked it up. The photographer who brought him the photo, actually saw his career taking a spin for better. James kept him close and started giving him bigger assignments.
Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers become the main trend and discussion for a long time.
The public’s opinion was divided between those who still didn’t trust the Luthor heir and feared of her becoming the next Lex and totally “destroying Supergirl and that poor girl”, and those who believed into the young CEO and hoped the young couple would make a difference in spite everyone and everything that kept happening.
The couple struggled at first to deal with all the attention, and all the conflict and opinions about them. They battled to keep living their lives while being watched everywhere, they had trouble facing the whispers and the staring, the reporters and the paparazzi. The lack of privacy, the constant caution and the amount of effort they had to make just for a few stolen moments away from the lights of publicity, started weighing on them.
Kara might be a reporter, might be Supergirl, but having her personal life under a microscope wasn’t something she was used to. She had a great difficulty dealing with it, given she grew up with harboring secrets but always managing to go undetected, to blend in. This sudden attention and separation from the mass brought Kara to her limits.
Lena on the other hand, didn’t care if she was being vilified or disgraced. She didn’t care if she had to be extra careful with the paparazzi, she always was. Or she never gave a crap about them, depending on the situation. But she did care about how her girlfriend struggled with all of this. How Kara was battling on the inside, because she loved her and she was willing to go through anything for her, but on the same time it brought her on the verge of panic every single time a paparazzi infiltrated their private moments. She worried how it could hurt her girlfriend, how it made Kara battle to maintain a calm exterior when being interrogated about their relationship, her feelings about the CEO, or being insulted straight to her face, or listening to people tarnishing her lover’s name and character.
Although, there were good moments as well. There were people, who believed in change, who believed in kindness, in trying to do the right thing, believed in the good in other people. There were also young queer people, who looked up to them, who saw two young gay women defying society, giving them strength and hope for themselves.
There were men, women, of various ages, that were inspired by them, by their contradiction, by the fact that they fell in love and they were together in spite everything. They were inspired by the fact that their names, their social positions, their biological gender, their careers or the society’s reaction, didn’t stop them from doing what felt right for them. Those were the moments both of them were grateful for everything, they didn’t care if their private life would be sacrificed, if it was to see these smiles on these faces, the liberation and the relief these people felt in situations like this one.
With some bumps in the road, they got over the extreme attention. They managed through it, and when it finally started dying out, they had already found their mechanisms to deal with it, to keep it out of their actual mood, out of their relationship.
James suddenly shook his head, trying to get out of his trance. That was four years ago. Lena and Kara had been together since then, growing stronger and stronger, facing every challenge along the way together. They had moved in together, they had adopted a dog, and they had gotten married. All these, alongside their beloved, not-so-little group, of friends.
And they had decided seven months ago, they wanted to expand their little family. They looked into adoption programs because it felt right at the time, for both of them, but they eventually ended up deciding to have their own child, and soon enough, with the help of the DEO, Lena was carrying a half Kryptonian-half human, sweet little creature in her belly.
James couldn’t actually comprehend the extent of the surrealism that had poured itself into the situation at hand. The photo of the couple was brought to him by the same photographer as it had been four years ago. They were sitting on the same bench in the same park (yeah, exactly the same one) they were sitting on four years ago. They were sitting in a very similar position as back then, only now the cups of coffee were in a cup holder next to Kara, her left hand on her wife’s stomach and Lena’s right hand on top of it. Kara was again leaning in Lena, this time looking at her belly with a huge grin lighting up her face, and Lena was watching her wife closely, with a huge smile on her face and a look on her eyes like the person in front of her had hung the moon in the sky.
Lena was now four months pregnant, and in this specific photo, as if it wasn’t already obvious by how the couple was seated, it showed.
James straightened his back. He had to publish the photo. Once again, the CatCo photographer wasn’t the only one who had managed a similar shot. So for one more time, the Luthor couple would be in the center of the news cycle by the next morning at best.
Although, this time, it didn’t matter, James realized. Because Kara and Lena had already been through that dance, at least twice. They had been under the public’s microscope when it firstly got out they were dating, and after that, when Kara started signing her articles with “Kara Danvers-Luthor”, letting everyone realize they had gotten married.
Although it had been a while, people gradually stopped being so judgmental, started actually believing in them, or stopped fearing or caring enough to throw dirt towards the Luthor direction.
The attention wasn’t that extreme the second time, and it had slowly faded out, leaving only people they actually inspired.
It also didn’t matter because they were happy. They’d built their lives, their home, their jobs, their little family, their relationships with friends and they were happy. Lena was doing an amazing work with L-Corp, creating and distributing projects, devices and technologies that really helped people, Kara was trying to be truthful in her job, to inspire and affect people for the better. They worked both with the DEO, and despite the difficulties, the hurt and the angst, they were trying their best to contribute in making the world a better place.
It didn’t matter because they both had come a long way and neither of them was afraid anymore of a paparazzi lingering in the corner, or a bunch of people whispering and staring in the restaurant, or a spiteful remark from a random passing stranger.
James smiled to himself and reached for his phone. He dialed Kara’s and Lena’s home number and waited.
Lena picked it up after six ringings and the background noise almost deafened him. Maggie and Alex could be heard in the background, playing with the dog and teasing Kara who was playfully shouting back at them.
James laughed silently in the madness coming from the device and informed Lena that he had something to tell them.
Lena turned briefly back to the chaos in the room and spoke with the three other women, and then informed him he was on speaker and that he could say anything he wanted in front of her sister-in-law and her fiancée as well.
James listened as the noise from the room slowly died out, and then he spoke and told them everything.
This time the phone call was brief. It was more about how good the photo was and if he could send it to them before it went viral, or about if the photographer who captured it would take a raise, especially after James mentioning who he actually was.
The four women weren’t affected at all by the photograph, they didn’t care. They only hoped it could do some good as well, alongside the buzz it would be created because of it. Maybe it could help share with the rest of the world a glimpse of all the things they had found inside their little group. Maybe it could help people feel a little lighter, have a little more faith, realize that some things don’t exist only inside a bubble in their head. Realize that life might be difficult but it can also be worth living.