#and I find it difficult to believe that they would ALL go into either crimefighting or entertainment ...

[chocolatepot]

Me a couple of days ago: I don't love it when people do the "she should have murdered more people" thing, why can't we meow-meow-ify female characters like we do male ones and put them in h/c situations?

Me after watching Gen V: Kate should have killed more people actually

[oreoambitions]

Previous Draft // Ao3

The courthouse doors open with a bang, and the sound of conversation tumbles out of the atrium and onto the courthouse steps. Security flanks Lena on either side, two uniformed bodies ahead to break the crowd, two behind to keep it from closing in around her. Lena keeps her head up, confident in the knowledge that she will appear to take this all in stride. In truth, she crosses the atrium in a sort of daze.

There are moments in a person’s life when time sticks and stutters, moments that linger beyond their natural boundaries, that creep and haunt and niggle at the mind. As she steps out through the courthouse doors, she understands that this is one of them. Time hesitates for her even as she passes into the chaos of lights and cameras outside, towards the waiting crowd of journalists shouting over one another in a fashion not conducive to anyone’s questions ever actually getting answered.

For an instant she’s back on the witness stand: the defense is demanding Supergirl’s name, and the judge is not intervening; the words I plead the fifth are heavy on her lips. That moment has passed, and it hasn’t. There will be ripples. All Lena can do about it now is try to keep those ripples to a minimum, for Kara’s sake; she must say nothing to anyone until they’ve had a chance to talk alone.

“Ms. Luthor.” 

The officer at her side encourages her forward, not quite touching her back with one hovering hand. Lena realizes with a start that she’s paused halfway down the courthouse steps. At the bottom, Supergirl drops out of the sky in a dramatic, press pleasing fashion. That soft warm smile is another echo of the courtroom, and Lena is reminded that Kara intentionally slipped out of the courthouse another way and circled back for the cameras. Lena has, rather uncharacteristically, committed a critical error in a critical moment, and now Kara is covering for her with theatrics.

It’s working. The cameras turn on Kara as Lena makes it down the last few steps and into her waiting embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she begins, half stumbling as Kara pulls her close, closer than usual, one hand hot at the back of her neck.

Kara turns her shoulder to shield Lena from the bulk of the cameras. “Not here,” she murmurs, so low that Lena is almost not certain she’s heard it. And then Kara pulls back, not quite far enough, and Lena is acutely and self-consciously aware of the sound of camera shutters snapping all around them, the closeness of Kara’s body, the gut wrenching feeling that the eyes of the nation are on them and the stage lights are all lit up and she doesn’t know her lines.

The judge should have intervened. Her mind keeps catching on that point, on the heavy pause in the courtroom, Kara’s expressionless face, the pounding of her own heart, the irrelevance of the question. It feels as though if she stays in that moment long enough, pictures it clearly enough, the judge will step in and this story will play out another way.

Time, of course, does not work like that. It stutters and sticks only in her mind, while in the real world the press clamors and Kara’s cape flutters in the quickening wind. 

“I’m so proud of you,” Kara is saying, her voice pitched so that the waiting journalists might catch words that, God willing, sound hollow to Lena’s ears only. “You were amazing in there.”

Lena is thinking about what the headlines are going to say tomorrow. Luthor and Super: Partners in More Than Crimefighting. Or perhaps, Luthor Makes False Marriage Claim on Witness Stand, Investigation to Follow.

Kara cups Lena’s face with one hand, and she snaps back to reality. She has about half a breath to catch up with what’s happening before Kara is closing the distance between them, and she hates to be a walking cliche, but oh. This is not how she has imagined their first kiss might go - not that she’s ready to admit to anyone except maybe Sam that she’s imagined their first kiss at all - and for a sickening second she feels nothing but regret. But then Kara’s lips are on hers, softer than her imagination has ever accounted for, and Lena is melting into her, kissing her back just at the edge of what might be considered chaste.

It’s an act, of course. If Lena’s heart flutters where she knows perfectly well Kara can hear it, can feel it, that’s just the nerves of the whole situation. Kara is, after all, kissing her on the mouth right there in front of God and everybody, shutters clicking all around them, reporters laughing and cheering in the background. It’s not unreasonable to feel a little something; her secret is still safe.

When Kara breaks the kiss, Lena chases after her mouth, and not for show. There’s that soft smile again, lipstick a little smudged, and perhaps she’s imagining things but Kara’s eyes seem warmer than they did before. 

Kara drops a second kiss onto Lena’s forehead. “Can I take you home?” she asks, her voice still pitched for the journalists on the steps.

“Please,” Lena replies. 

She tucks herself back into Kara’s chest as strong arms close around her. If anyone asks, it’s for the cameras. There’s a car waiting for her, and a driver who will have to be well compensated for the waste of his time, but it’s better if the press sees that she and Supergirl are leaving together, isn’t it? And nothing could be more memorable, more pressworthy, than flight.

And, Lena thinks, it’s better because, selfishly, she wants to prolong this moment of closeness. She wants to soak it all in: Kara’s smell, the brush of her hair across Lena’s cheek, the preparatory breath before takeoff. This is the moment Lena wishes would slow down for her, just this last moment when she can imagine to herself that what happened in the courtroom was a bad dream of little consequence, and that nothing between her and Kara will ever have to change.

///

Kara does not take Lena home. They fly instead over the wide arc of National City’s suburbs and into the foothills, and from there a little further still until they’ve reached the mountains above the city. Kara deposits them in a valley on the leeward side of a low peak dotted half with shrubbery and half with scraggled conifers, the names of which Lena has to admit she does not know. She rubs feeling and warmth back into her arms and resists the urge to ask where they are while Kara paces, the agitation and anxiety in the lines of her body a clear departure from the soft warmth on display outside the courthouse. When she rounds on Lena, it feels like the inevitable fruition of Lena’s mistakes.

“You told them we were married? Lena!”

“Technically I didn’t use those words.”

“Oh okay, so between my wife and my priest, which role did you think the court was going to assume you were alluding to?”

“What was I supposed to say? They had me backed into a corner.”

“It wasn’t relevant to the case! This was about Lilian. It had nothing to do-”

“It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t relevant, because the judge wasn’t intervening. I just- I panicked. I had to say something. I wasn’t going to lie under oath, and even if I were willing, what could I have said? Should I have thrown out some other name, thrown someone else under the bus? And what then, when it became obvious to the nation that I’d lied-”

“Oh, and you thought this was better? What are you going to say when they want proof? There’s no documentation. There was no wedding to document. Supergirl doesn’t exist as a legal entity, you can’t just-”

“Kara, I-”

“It’s just not like you not to think things through.”

They stand there staring at one another, Kara’s jaw clenched, Lena’s arms crossed tight across her chest. The sun is going to go down soon; Lena is already shivering a little in the shadow of the mountain. This is a mess, and it’s a mess of her own making, and she doesn’t know how to unmake it out here in the gathering dark.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I could have - I should have refused to answer. But then they’d have held me in contempt and thrown me in prison. And I’m willing to go to prison for you, Kara, believe me, but then you’d have broken me out because you’re a beautiful idiot, and where would that leave us?”

Kara’s mouth twitches up a little at the corners, and then she laughs outright. “I would have,” she admits. “What a mess that would be.”

“I know I messed up,” Lena offers.

“You were trying to protect me.” Kara scuffs one boot in the dirt. “They’ll try to hit you with perjury charges; you know they will. You might wind up in prison at the end of this anyway.”

Lena nods. She does know this. Some part of her knew it the moment the words I plead the fifth left her mouth, and yet, everything she’s protested to Kara is true. Those words were the only road open to her so long as that judge remained silent.

“Well,” Lena says, “You don’t grow up in the Luthor household without learning a thing or two about the loopholes of the legal system. Burden of proof lies with the prosecution; it would be very difficult to prove that a wedding didn’t happen.”

Kara tsks and turns on her heel to stare out over the valley. “Supergirl isn’t a legal entity. They could challenge you on the grounds that you can’t be legally married to someone who doesn’t legally exist. And if they found a judge more sympathetic to Lex than to you….”

“Not a difficult thing to find,” Lena admits. She stands in the fear and the evening chill for a long moment “I meant what I said, Kara. If I go to prison over this, so be it. Anything to protect you.” Anything for the woman I love, she wants to say, but Kara isn’t ready for that. Might never be ready for that. And neither, truthfully, is Lena.

Kara’s fingers have found the edge of her cape, and now she’s worrying at it in the fading light. She doesn’t look back at Lena for what feels like a long time, and when she does her expression is guarded. “I want you to promise me you’re going to hear me out before you say anything.”

“Okay….” Lena says. She tries to wrestle down her questions, her curiosities, her reservations. Anything for Kara, after all.

Kara takes a deep breath, looking for all the world like she’s readying herself to make a national address. “I have a terrible idea.”

[makaylajadewrites]

Union

Summary: From their moment together in the hotel room, things seemed to settle down quite a bit. The tension between Spencer and Derek was almost nonexistent, and the rest of the team was quick to jump on this realization too. They teased the two, asking if they had ‘kissed and made up’ but in actuality, it was so much more than that.

Potential tws: Smut

-

From their moment together in the hotel room, things seemed to settle down quite a bit. The tension between Spencer and Derek was almost nonexistent, and the rest of the team was quick to jump on this realization too. They teased the two, asking if they had ‘kissed and made up’ but in actuality, it was so much more than that. They decided that to have a publicly disclosed relationship in their field was somewhat dangerous and an extremely bad idea. If they were ever discovered, they would risk being split up or even fired, and neither wanted that. After all, waking up alongside each other was an amazing feeling, and he didn’t want them to have to go separate ways in the mornings like most couples did. It was so utterly, perfectly domestic between the two of them. Sometimes they stayed at Spencer’s apartment, other times at Derek’s house, and Derek had started going to almost all of Spencer’s shows to support him. Not only that, but it was a good view for Derek.

But he had told Spencer that he found both sides of him beautiful, and Spencer had to trust that since Derek had seen him in and out of drag and kissed him and showered him in compliments both ways. The first time they had sex, Spencer had no form of makeup on whatsoever. Hell, the closest thing to makeup on his face was the sweet smell of his cinnamon aftershave, and that didn’t deter Derek at all.

So far, they had been together for about two weeks. He had told his friends at work that he and Jayden hadn’t worked out, which they consoled him over even though he wasn’t as sad as he probably should have been. He knew that Jayden had been heartbroken, but no matter how many times he tried to apologize or explain the situation, he paid him no mind. He had even offered to meet up with him and talk about it in person, but Jayden had responded with, “The last thing I want to do is see your face again,” and from that point on, he broke all connection with Jayden. It was what he wanted, and Spencer figured it would be best to leave it that way.

Time couldn’t have gone by any slower, although Spencer knew that he was just imagining things because time intervals were never faster or slower than those that came before. They were always the same amount of time, but god damn this day was just crawling along. He stood up from his desk rather suddenly, Prentiss looking up at him from her desk right in front of his with wide eyes, only for Spencer to mutter a quiet apology and scurry off towards the break room. The door fell shut behind him, and he leaned forward with his hands against the edge of the counter, sighing softly before standing straight to refill his mug more coffee - which he probably didn't need, considering it was noon. He didn’t even hear the door open, and gasped aloud and flinched quite dramatically when a hand slid around his waist. He knew who it was instantly, and he looked back at Morgan with a little pout on his lips.

“Derek, stop,” he said warningly, having an incredible amount of anxiety regarding their relationship at work already, and Derek’s constant PDA was getting to be a bit difficult to deal with. He just didn’t want either of them to face the possible consequences or get split up because of their own inability to keep their relationship a secret. To be split up from Derek or the BAU would be torturous for Reid, and he knew he would most likely quit if it came to that point. He had job offers coming in almost every other day, so it wouldn’t be hard to find a position elsewhere or possibly within another department or government agency entirely.

“Can’t I give my man a bit of lovin’ at work?” Derek questioned, his head bowing down to let his nose nuzzle in the crease of his neck, drawing another gasp from Reid before he turned and pushed the other man away entirely, looking surprised at himself before acknowledging the confused and hurt expression on Derek’s face with one of guilt.

“I’m sorry… You know we can’t though. What if someone were to see us?” He asked quietly, reaching for the sugar and beginning to dump copious amounts into his mug. Derek just sighed, resting his hand over the counter and nodding slowly.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just missed you,” Derek said quietly, to which Reid just laughed aloud, surprising Morgan.

“It’s been two days since we’ve last spent time together,” Spencer teased, nudging the other man’s arm and heading towards the door to get back to work.

“I know, but still…” Derek whined, following him out where they were greeted by JJ walking back to seemingly collect them all, and she looked at them with a grim expression on her face before passing by and heading towards the conference room with a quick word to Emily on the way.  The three regrouped on their way to the roundtable room and entered immediately, sitting down in their usual seats, which was somewhat awkward for Derek and Spencer since they were three seats apart, directly across from each other. But they could at least see each other.

They had already been pretty good at reading each other’s facial expressions, but over these past few months of built up tension and their eventual succumb to love, they had gotten even better. Derek was a bit grumpy, mainly because this case ruined any chance of them spending time together, but Spencer was neutral. Derek had learned that even in a relationship, Reid was still difficult to read, and times like now proved that since his expression was pretty much blank. Garcia was quick to gather their attention when she clicked her way up to the front of the room, the small remote for the tv in her hand while she looked over her tablet with the other. She turned on the tv and began the introduction:

“Alright crimefighters, local law enforcement in Modesto, California have requested our help in an apparent double homicide. They believe it is the work of a serial killer who committed an eerily similar event just a week prior…”

After the first day, they had limited down their suspect pool considerably to just one major company in the area, which three of the four victims worked for. But other than that, they had little to go off of since the employee count was still well in the thousands. All they knew was that, when eight o’clock rolled around, they decided to call it a night and return in the morning with fresh eyes. Spencer couldn’t be more pleased to learn that he and Morgan were sharing a room together, most likely done purposely by JJ who just seemed to acknowledge them with a smile. When they split up into their double rooms, as soon as Spencer closed the door behind them, Morgan had him pinned up against it, kissing him ferociously with little mercy, reminding him between kisses to keep his voice down.

Spencer gasped out his lover’s name as Derek’s lips attached his jugular, sucking lightly and nipping his pale skin. Dark hands were quick to cup his ass through the fabric of his corduroys, squeezing and hoisting him up, using the door as support. Spencer’s long legs quickly twined around the other’s waist, his palms roughly pushing up underneath of Derek’s shirt to feel the hot skin beneath.

“I missed you,” Derek murmured into his neck, accentuating his point with a soft, much gentler kiss to the underside of his jaw.

“It was only two days…” Spencer said again, breathless, although a smile curled his lips upwards as he turned his head to press his chest against Derek’s head.

“Too long in my book,” Derek responded cheekily, bringing Spencer away from the door and instead moving to throw him on the nearest bed. He climbed overtop of him and they continued where they left off, lips fitting together and hands wandering over the growing expanse of skin between them as clothes were discarded. Once they were both finally in nothing but undergarments, Spencer gently pushed Derek back, gazing up with those pretty eyes that Derek swooned for every time.

“We can’t have sex here,” he said softly, to which Morgan just chuckled and nodded his head in agreement, leaning down to peck his sweet lips before speaking.

“I know. That doesn’t mean we can’t do other things,” he teased, and Spencer blushed from his cheeks to his chest, and Derek just laughed. He kissed downwards over his clavicles, his tongue running over the sharp ridges before he slid down just a bit until God yes… Spencer muffled his moan with the back of his hand as Derek’s lips darted back and forth to suckle on his nipples, his hand resting over the patch of skin directly above the waistband of his boxers. The further south he went, the more excited Spencer grew, and he bit his lip as Derek passed just over his boxers, looking up at him, dark eyes sparkling with such intensity that Spencer thought he might pass out. His boxers were slipped down over the slender curve of his sharp hips, pushed down to his ankles.

Derek rested his cheek against Spencer’s hip, maintaining eye contact with Spencer while his hand rose to gentle stroke his lover’s member to complete hardness. A sharp hiss against his teeth and eyes squeezed shut, and Spencer was aware of his hypersensitivity again. The first time Morgan had done this, he came within the first five minutes, but even as embarrassed as he was, Derek assured him that it was fine, because when Spencer did it for Derek the first time, the same situation occurred. Perhaps it was just proof of how badly they desired each other intimately.

“You spoil me too much,” Spencer murmured with a smile, and Derek just chuckled deeply in his chest, stroking him for a little while longer. Soon enough though, his mouth replaced his hand, and Spencer was struggling to keep himself quiet as the pleasure flooded through him. Derek must have known the power he had over him, because seconds before Spencer was ready to come, he pulled back with an audible pop and squeezed him around the base to prevent him from climaxing. Fucking Christ he knew how to get Spencer riled up.

“Damn you, Derek Morgan,” Spencer breathed out, his chest heaving as a smile remained on his pretty face. Derek leaned up and kissed him warmly, pulling away to press their foreheads together, and neither looked away as Derek’s hand pressed their cocks together and began to stroke, their combined precum slicking up the sensitive skin and making the experience all the more pleasurable. They were both panting heavily, moaning and groaning quietly together while their hot breath mingled between their parted lips which connected every now and then.

“I’m close, baby,” Derek grunted above him, and Spencer leaned up to kiss him, moaning into his mouth as if in agreement. Within the next few minutes, they both reached their end, their coalesced releases splattering over Spencer’s belly in warm spurts. Panting and so caught up in one another, they kissed once more and Derek collapsed on the bed beside him, drawing his lithe body in with strong arms. They tucked together in a warm embrace and Spencer smiled at his lover, cupping his cheek with his hand and brushing his thumb over his cheekbone, admiring his handsome features.

“I missed you too,” he finally admitted, and Derek chuckled yet again and leaned down to kiss his nose cutely.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, and Spencer just rolled his head, his eyes lowering for a few seconds before he spoke up again, his voice remaining soft.

“I love you, Derek,” he confessed shyly, and Derek leaned down to kiss him deeply, his arms squeezing around him.

“I love you too, Pretty Boy,” he said without hesitation. He had seen Spencer’s darkest nights and his brightest days, and Derek wanted Spencer to know that he would be there forever, loving him in dusk.

<-Part 4: Only You | Part 6: The Performance->

[howtohero]

Monitor Duty

Being a superhero isn’t all about high speed boat chases and dueling six-armed gladiators on top of dams. That’s a good chunk of it sure, but if you’re going to be a superhero, you should know that it’s not going to be all action, all the time. There are also times when you’re going to have to just wait around for action to happen. Yes, there are definitely crimes going on around the world all the time, and yes, if you wanted you could probably spend every waking minute foiling them. But that’s not the best use of your time, and you don’t want to step on another hero’s toes. Not to mention the fact that you’re probably not the best hero for each and every super-crime scenario. Superhero organizations need to be able to keep tabs on all these super-crimes, so that they can make sure each one of them is handled by the hero best suited to handle them. Which means somebody needs to be keeping an eye on all the satellites and police scanners and the superhero tip-lines. Usually this will be on a fixed rotation schedule, so that every superhero has to spend some time pitching in and keeping an eye on the world. And sometimes, that superhero is going to have to be you.

If you get nailed with monitor duty your best course of action would be to pawn it off onto somebody else. That gig is soooo boring. It’s like watching tv except usually nothing cool is happening. Oh some guy is robbing a bank while dressed like a crocodile? Snooze, he’s clearly not a pro and is probably going to end up tripping on his own tail and taking himself out anyway. A bird is mugging a young couple? Tragic but there’s literally nothing anybody could do about that anyway. Like, it’s a bird, if it can manage to mug two people doesn’t it kind of deserve to get away with it? So you’re just stuck cooped up in a control room somewhere in a chair that is either too ergonomic or not ergonomic enough and half-heartedly assigning superheroes to various hotspots around the world. (Or, taking a nap and letting your monkey sidekick assign heroes for a bit. Coby’s got good judgement, he has an MBA, what’s the worst that could happen?) But don’t worry, finding some chump to take the job off your hands shouldn’t be too difficult. Most superhero teams have actually begun signing certain “heroes” specifically with this in mind. Now, obviously they won’t say that this is why they’re hiring these heroes. Nobody’s going to join a superhero team that doesn’t value them for their crimefighting ability. But these are the people who clearly have no business being on a superhero team. Their powers are lame or non-existent, they have the lowest score in the training simulators, and they keep suspiciously disappearing every time they’re sent to deal with a supervillain, which means they’re either the villain, or they’re hiding somewhere because they’re super-cowards. If you can identify the superzero in your team, then you can basically always get out of monitor duty. (Oh my gosh this was a terrible idea. Coby’s keen business mind is apparently now well-suited to assigning superheroes to appropriate supervillains. There are now twenty three superheroes fighting one poacher in Africa and forty seven heroes searching for Monkey Slim, an evil monkey who wears a cowboy hat and who once humiliated Coby in front of the girl he liked in monkey high school.) 

Once you’ve identified your mark approach them and ask them if they’d like to take on the monumental task of monitoring the alien invasion early-warning system. Most of the time they’ll gleefully agree and give you their dangerous mission assignment and you can be on your way. If they seem hesitant though, you might need to work a little harder to convince them. Tell them that you’ve noticed all of the hard work they’ve been doing and believe that they deserve a break from field work and that you’d gladly take over their assignment for them, as a show of thanks and respect. If they’re too self-aware to believe that load of garbage you’ll have to change tacts quickly. Tell them that the supervillain they’ve been assigned to stop is an old nemesis of yours. Make up a dramatic history between the two of you. Say that the 15-foot landshark and you were old kindergarten classmates, where a dispute over apple juice boxes marked you as enemies for life. Claim that the incorporeal smoke-spirit that’s haunting the gas station convenience store and you used to be best friends and business partners until he stabbed you in the back and made millions off of your idea. If you come up with a good enough lie, the chump will no doubt be forced to give in and take your monitor duty so that you can put your longtime nemesis where they belong. Prison. Or civil claims court. Or the off-yellow abyss whence they came.

If all of that fails though, you’ll need to settle in for the long haul and just watch those monitors. Once you begin your shift you’re not really allowed to leave, because if the monitors are unattended it could literally mean the end of the human race. The hero on monitor duty will be the first person to detect an incoming invasion, an enormous planet-eating monster planet, or any number of other space-faring threats. The hero on monitor duty is responsible for coordinating dozens of active superheroes, and making sure that every super-crime or paranormal crisis is contained and handled quickly and efficiently. The hero on monitor duty is responsible for making sure heroes in the field are prepared for whatever threat they’ve been called in to manage. Which means you’ll have to brief them over comms about the abilities, personalities, and modus operandi or various criminals and find nearby empty spaces the heroes can shift the fight to in order to avoid excessive collateral damage. All of which means you need to be on the ball for potentially hours on end. So make sure you have plenty of snacks, some good music and maybe wear a diaper. Unless you have the superhuman ability to control your bladder. If you’re lucky there will be more than one of you on monitor duty at any given time in order to avoid this sort of thing, but if you’re part of a small team, you might be on your own.

So, obviously, it’s of the utmost importance that you stay alert and engaged while on monitor duty. This is why I recommend having a box of fake, adhesive mustaches with you. This way, whenever someone’s face appears on the viewscreen, you can paste a hilarious mustache on their face and then give them your full attention while you try to hold back your snickers. If you can’t get a box of adhesive mustaches on short-notice, just get a marker, and draw the mustaches. Sure, this will result in the screen being filled with crudely drawn mustaches of various sizes and styles, but the world will also be a safer place, so it’s worth it. Especially if you leave before anyone notices and can’t be made to clean it up. Then it’s almost doubly worth it. 

Another fun thing you can do is purposely team up heroes who hate each other. Obviously you need to make sure that the heroes are equipped to deal with the threat you’re sending them off to fight, and that the team-up makes sense on paper. But you know these people, you know about their rivalries and their petty spats and squabbles and who just grinds each others gears. Bonus points if one of the people you do this to is the guy who refused to take over monitor duty from you. Then you can grab some popcorn and listen to them bicker and snipe at each other as they try to capture the Rambunctious-Red-Light-Runner. Or you can spend your time playing match-maker and try to set up heroes that you think would make a good couple. You’ve got a lot of power in the monitor room, and you’d be a fool not to make the most of it. 

Monitor duty might seem tedious but it’s really an awesome responsibility. There are times when you’ll have the fate of the world in your hands. You’re the first and last defense against otherworldly threats. You need to be able to see the big picture to protect the world and also use your understanding of the little picture to torment your teammates. Everyone’s got to do it at some point, so don’t waste the opportunity to do something good, and to do something fun.