argyle-s:

dhaskoi:

When it
happens it happens fast.  The story about Lena’s illegal activities leaks
online first – a blog run by a disenfranchised L-corp employee who was shocked
to discover the company she works for is spending a fortune to develop
technology seemingly designed to kill the superhero who once saved her
life.  Lena did the science on her own, but the amount of money she
spent making the kryptonite couldn’t stay hidden forever.  Lena and James
are in full damage control mode.  Kara is panicking and conflicted by the
tone of the coverage – people are laying into Lena in defence of *her*,
supergirl, furious at what they perceive as another Luthor up to the same old
tricks, threatening their hero.

‘Lena’s
my friend’ she wants to say.  ‘She’s not a bad person.‘  Except Lena
did do all the things they’re angry about and their reasons for being angry
seem valid.  Kara’s left with an uneasy feeling that she’s missing
something.

Cat sees
the stories within an hour of the original leak.  Her response is immediate. 
After a long conversation with Olivia and a hasty search for a replacement Cat
hands in her resignation and takes a private flight back to National City,
networking all the way.  By the time her flight lands there’s an emergency
board meeting scheduled for the next day, one that James and Lena don’t know
anything about.  They’re surprised to see her, then furious.  The
terms under which Lena was allowed to purchase a controlling interest in a
multi billion dollar company so cheaply are quite clear – provided Cat has the
money and isn’t in public service she can claim them back any time she likes –
but that doesn’t prevent Lena from trying to stop the buy back.  The
meeting gets ugly, but Cat doesn’t give her a choice and the board is on side. 
They don’t all love her, but they like Cat (and the power of her brand, not
exactly weakened by a stint as the WHPS) a lot better than a young and untried
CEO who seems to treat the company as a hobby.
Especially when that CEO is being investigated by the FBI.

Because
the feds weren’t just sitting around while all this is happening.  Lena Luthor has possibly broken a bunch of
federal laws and the DEO has apparently dropped the ball on investigating
her.  The FBI are already opening a case
file.

Lena
doesn’t seem to know how to handle someone who simply refuses to let her
browbeat or guilt trip them into submission.  Is that why she signed the
contract, Cat wonders?  Did she think she could get her own way just by
complaining?  Lena claims prejudice against Luthors.  Cat points out
that it’s not prejudicial to be investigated for breaking the law when there’s
quite a lot of evidence that you did, in fact, break the law. When the meeting
gets out Kara is there, wide eyed and pale faced and Cat wishes, badly, that
she had time to stop and explain, but she doesn’t.  There’s a lot that
needs to be done and it needs to be done fast.

Her next
meeting is with James.  Olsen is all pride and self-importance, clearly
thinking this is an opportunity to badger her about the short sharp way she’s
just dealt with Lena.  She expected so much better from him than this.

“You’re
fired,” Cat tells him.

There’s
yelling, all the usual words men call women who have power over them.

Cat has
some things to say about people who run media conglomerates not reporting major
stories.  Such as, for example, a powerful billionaire having secretly and
illegally made their own stockpile of kryptonite with misappropriated funds and
having lied during a criminal investigation.  There are also the illegal,
unethical, unauthorised medical experiments (with no actual doctor involved)
said not-so-hypothetical billionaire was running.  And James knew about it
and didn’t report it.

It didn’t
even occur to him that he should report it, Cat observes.  He’s so far
gone there wasn’t even an ethical struggle.  Is it because Lena was his
boss or his girlfriend?  She doesn’t accuse him of thinking with his
dick.  She doesn’t have to.

She has a
few observations to make about the amount of time he spends being Guardian when
he’s supposed to be running her company, too.

James
wonders why Kara gets special privileges.  She knew too, he says. 
She’s hardly ever in the building because she’s being Supergirl.

Save the
world a few times Cat tells him, then we’ll talk.  There’s a difference
between having power come to you and feeling you have to put it to good use and
chasing the thrill when you already have a job and power that you could use to
change lives, Cat says.  And Kara is one
very junior reporter (whose identity James just outed, by the way).  James
is – was – responsible for setting the editorial tone for the whole damn
company.  He has to be better because his choices affect everyone, affect
CatCo’s entire output and determine what kind of information CatCo’s readers
are getting.

Which
brings her back to how his ass is fired.  Security are already waiting.

CatCo’s
coverage of the scandal is unrelenting.  Cat has brought a new protege
back from Washington with her, a woman named Nia Nal who ends up taking the
lead on the story after an investigative piece that examines how Lex Luthor
used Lexcorp resources in his campaign against Superman and questions to what
degree those operations were repurposed by Lena.  What did she find out after she took over the
company and how much did she keep to herself instead of reporting to the
authorities?  Nia is sharp and incisive in her writing, more Lois Lane
than Cat Grant in the way she reports but definitely Cat’s student in the way
she dresses and acts and charms.  Kara is
a little intimidated honestly – Nia is a year or two younger than her but feels
ten years ahead in experience and confidence.
And maybe a little jealous of her connection to Cat.  The timeline
she assembles of Lena’s activities is damning.  So is the article she
writes about the dangers involved in artificially synthesising Krytponite,
happily unaware of Kara’s personal experience with both of the major incidents
related to it.

When Lena
is marched out of L-Corp in handcuffs, by FBI agents who are actually FBI
agents, Kara watches from CatCo.  She
doesn’t trust herself not to do something stupid if she was there in person and
they are actual law enforcement officers doing their jobs.  Her conscience says to protect her
friend.  Her conscience also says to
respect the law.  It feels like being
ripped in two.  It turns out that having
private manufacturing capability for Kryptonite is a much bigger deal than Kara
even realised – she’s surprised by how many laws Lena actually broke to make
it.  It seems like half the government is
involved.  The FBI of course and the IRS
aren’t that surprising.  There was
apparently some tricky bookkeeping involved in hiding the expense.  But OSHA?
The EPA?  She doesn’t realise she
spoke the thought aloud until Nia answers.

Well
yeah, says Nia, Kyrptonite is an unstable radioactive element that doesn’t
occur naturally and which scientists hardly know anything about.  There’s even some evidence that it might be
dangerous to humans as well as Kryptonians. Experiments with it often go
wrong.  Lena was working with the stuff
in a building with thousands of occupants who had no clue it was there, with no
oversight and only the safety regulations she felt like following.  Not to mention all the ways it could be
abused.  What if criminals got hold of it
and detonated a dirty kryptonite bomb in Metropolis or National City?  What if terrorists threatened Superman or
Supergirl – beloved national icons – for leverage?  The role Supergirl and her cousin play in
society makes an unregistered, unknown supply of Kryptonite a national security
issue, Nia points out, although she adds that she has mixed feelings about
letting the government have a monopoly on the stuff either.  Kara is reeling. She’s not used to thinking
about herself in those terms, but she realises Nia has a point.  And it occurs to her, with a sinking feeling,
that Lena can’t have been blind to all of this.

The trial
is a nightmare.  Kara feels torn in every
direction at once.  Alex is furious on
her behalf and fights to stay calm because she knows Kara is heartbroken and
her anger isn’t helping.  James turns
state’s evidence to avoid charges of being an accessory after the fact.

Through
it all Cat is her rock, even as the media rips Lena apart.  CatCo’s coverage is uncompromising, but Cat
gives strict orders that they aren’t going to sink to the hysterical conspiracy
theories about the Luthor family that every other rag in town is spouting.  All the while Cat counsels Kara, even when
Kara lashes out, screams at her for the things CatCo is printing about
Lena.  It’s true, Cat tells her, soft and
sad and just hurting for Kara.
Everything we’ve said is true.
She did break the law.  She broke
a lot of laws.  And lied about it in the
course of a criminal investigation. CatCo will be fair.  If Lena is damned, she’ll be damned only with
the facts, not with rumour or suspicion.  When she’s calmer Kara works up the nerve to
ask her why she’s so understanding of Kara’s mixed feelings towards Lena,
especially when she knows that Cat is furious about the conflict of interest
Lena created by taking a position at CatCo in the first place (Kara’s heard
more than one staffer speculate about Lena’s motivations for buying the media
outlet with the close relationship to Supergirl in light of everything).

Cat takes
her out onto the balcony and talks to her about unhealthy relationships.  Sometimes we love people who are bad for us,
she says.  Sometimes we are loved by
people who are bad for us.  That doesn’t
mean the love isn’t real, only that it isn’t healthy.  Cat will never disrespect Kara’s emotions or
say she’s not entitled to them.  She will
encourage Kara to understand them and recognise what’s good and what isn’t, and
leave what isn’t behind, but she’ll never tell Kara she’s not entitled to
them.  No crying at work, Kara reminds
her.  We’re not allowed to be angry.  That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to feel
them, Cat replies.  Only that there’s a
time and a place to show them.  Then she
asks Kara how her new junior editorial position is working out – the position Cat
gently nudged her towards as soon as she found time after plotting CatCo’s
response to the first wave of LuthorGate (Cat purely hates that name, but
despite her best efforts it seems to have stuck).  Kara’s not sure if it’s for her yet, but in
some ways it comes more easily than reporting did.  For now it’s a good place to have a little
peace.

Then Lena
takes the stand.  It’s a disaster.  The evidence of her illegal activities is
incontrovertible, especially since she has outright declared much of what she
did.  When confronted over why she broke
the law, she insists that she was justified, that it was necessary, that she
had to do it and only she could do it.
Not once does she deny any of the crimes she’s accused of.  Instead she declares that she was right to
commit them or that she had everything under control so there was nothing to
worry about.  The prosecution press
her.  Why?  Why was it necessary?  Why did it have to be her?  Eventually she has something that isn’t exactly
a breakdown, it’s too calm and controlled for that, but a long declaration of
the threat posed by aliens, the necessity of being prepared, whatever that
takes, even if it means lethal force and dragging them lout of their homes.  They’re so dangerous, Lena says.  Earth has to be ready.  Just in case, she says.  Just in case.  Kara thinks about Alex when she was under the red kryptonite.  Thinks about how Alex would have killed her, if she had to, not in fear or anger but in love, because she knows Kara would want someone to stop her.  Lena is all fear and anger now.

It’s
horrendous to witness, partly because she’s so calm, so certain, even as she spouts
the language of fear and paranoia and hostility.  She’s speaking but those are Lillian’s words
coming out, Kara thinks, and Lena doesn’t even realise it.

Then the
defence call a surprise witness.  Cat
Grant.  Cat recounts several encounters she
had with Lillian when they were both a lot younger.  When Lena was a child.  She talks about how she saw Lillian treat
Lena, the coldness, the manipulation, the steady stream of prejudice Lena was
fed.  Cat is not the only witness to
these events and not the one who saw the most – a stream of household staff,
classmates of Lena’s and others are called.
But Cat has the biggest impact – the woman who supported Supergirl from
the start, who always had faith.  Kara
hears what no one else can in Cat’s words and knows that Cat sees parallels between
Lillian and Katherine. Being raised by Lillian Luthor was probably a lot like
being raised by Katherine Grant, multiplied by a 100 and with sustained
exposure to anti-alien bias thrown in.  

Eventually
Lena is sentenced to a minimum security prison with a lot of mandatory
therapy.  Kara’s not sure how she feels
about that.  Take your time, Cat tells
her.  You don’t have to figure it out
right now.  Kara reaches out and takes
Cat’s hand.  And just sits.  And lets herself be.

#supergirl #supercat #supercorp #kinda? #cat grant #kara danvers #kara zor-el #lena luthor #this just came pouring out of me in an hour flat #i’m a little salty #okay a lot salty #argyle-s #this is your fault #you kinda inspired this #james olsen #is also in this #i am not kind to him #and i am not sorry #some people will probably call this lena bashing #honestly i tried my hardest to be fair

I’ll absolutely take the blame for this.  Lena and James are both characters I really want to like, but they are both terrible friends to Kara.