A/N This is a sequel to my Young Justice story, Maiden of Might. To understand some things, I'd suggest reading that first.
Disclaimer; Nope, still don't own 'em. Both Young Justice and any character seen within this work of fiction belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros.
Metropolis
Team Year One
February 14, 12:32 EST
In the city of Metropolis, if someone were to say the name 'Supergirl' a number of images would likely conjure in their minds.
The Girl of Steel, for one, cousin to the legendary Superman, a member of the prestigious Justice League, the indestructible young woman named Kara Zor-El. That last part was much less public.
In her private life, her name was Linda Lang, niece to Daily Planet reporter Lana Lang, student at Metropolis University, best friend to Siobhan Smythe, and art prodigy.
And then there was her team, or rather, her former team. For just less than one year ago, she and three other 'sidekicks', a title they still disliked, broke into a genetics lab in Washington D.C. There, she, Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash had discovered that Cadmus labs had cloned Superman, and created Superboy, later named Connor Kent.
After saving the clone, and convincing the League to form a covert ops team of their own, they met M'gann M'orzz, Miss Martian. For the next six months, they slowly unraveled a evil plan to destroy the Justice League headed by Vandal Savage and his group known as The Light.
They had made new friends, like Artemis Crock, Zatanna Zatara, and Raquel Ervin, or Rocket, and alongside their friend Red Arrow, a clone in his own right, Supergirl joined the Justice League, and helped save the world from Vandal Savage's plot.
However, even after that entire ordeal, Kara had unfortunately found herself sitting on the roof edge of Metropolis' Lex Corp HQ tower, bored out of her genius Kryptonian mind. Today was apparently a holiday known as Valentine's Day, and one that everybody had neglected to explain was a holiday to celebrate love and relationships.
A short internet search had revealed that, despite it being a globally known event, somehow humans had misinterpreted the meaning of their own holiday. Saint Valentine's story is one of martyrdom, and how that translated into love was beyond Kara, but nonetheless, she shrugged it off.
Or she would have, had all her friends and family not made plans on the day without telling her. A trip to Mount Justice, the Team's secret base, had revealed that Connor and M'gann had taken advantage of their last week on holiday, and gone on a 'date'. As had Kid Flash (Wally West) with Artemis, Robin had gone out with Zatanna, even Aqualad AKA Kaldur and Raquel were out.
Seeing no other option, Kara returned to Metropolis instead, only to find out that Siobhan was also on a date, and even Lana was busy.
Kara even went to the Watchtower, the League's orbiting space-station base, where all but Martian Manhunter were, surprise, on dates! She would've helped the Martian with monitor duty, but that seemed a little, rather a lot, dull.
And now, here she was, atop one of Metropolis' tallest towers, using her scarcely activated microscopic vision to watch T.V in an apartment three blocks away. There wasn't any sound, but Cat Grant was stood beside a 'love heart' shaped screen displaying candid photos of various Leaguers.
Using the combined powers of common sense, process of elimination, and basic knowledge of the day's importance, Kara could only guess it was some sort of a 'who are the world's heroes with on the day of love?' Segment. And then her own picture came up on the screen, showing her standing in the middle of the park, as she had been earlier, with some... Man, sprinting up behind her, holding a bouquet of roses. She didn't know what exactly it meant, but she wasn't so impressed.
This could be a... problem. No matter how someone interpreted the picture, it was bad. Either she looked like a woman who ignored her fans/admirers, or she looked like she was genuinely with the man, but she was honestly leaning towards the former.
Hoping for more information on the story, Kara dropped off the Lex Corp tower, and fell to the ground. From there, she could take the short walk back to her apartment, and enter via the often neglected roof.
She dropped to the ground, making sure to slow her fall so as to not leave a crater in the middle of the sidewalk, and set off for her apartment.
Along the way, she began to notice people giving her strange looks. Women shook their heads ever-so-slightly, men looked away as if she would fry them just for thinking about her, and children who would normally look up at the girl in awe were pushed behind their mother's backs surreptitiously.
She was starting to feel annoyed, but also worried at what the looks could mean. She had ideas, and they were cemented when she overheard two women speaking as if she couldn't hear. Well, normally she wouldn't, but she was Kryptonian after all.
"Well, look at that."
"What is it?"
"It's that Supergirl woman, the one who thinks she's oh so better than us mortals."
"Tsk, what a waste of such a pretty young woman, such a shame."
"Mm, yes well, I always knew those hero types were too big for their boots."
Okay, this was getting out of hand. Kara needed to quell these rumours, and there was only one place to do so. The Daily Planet.
The Daily Planet was the one of the biggest news companies in the world, still publishing it's weekly paper, but also branching interstate to places like Central City and Gotham, broadcasting it's own T.V station, and was even moving inti internet news. It was the centre of almost all American media.
The blonde flew up to the Planet's main floor, where the company's highest paid reporters (both newspaper and T.V program) were.
She moved to a window that looked out into the floor, and slipped in through an opening gap just wide enough for her to fit through.
Immediately, she was swamped with reporters that she had to carefully wade through in order to reach Cat Grant's office. Admittedly, the two didn't exactly like each other, but Grant had prided herself on only reporting the truth, and not published slanderous articles out of spite.
It was through this honesty that she had earned herself a private office besides that of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, an office she was currently inside.
The reporter looked over in surprise when the blue and red clad superhero slipped inside, and fixed her a glare.
"Supergirl" she greeted tensely "what brings you here?"
"Why don't you ask them?" Kara jerked her head to a window view of the city.
Grant was confused "what do you mean?"
"I mean, I'm here to speak with you about how the whole city, maybe even country, thinks I'm some kind of ungrateful jerk!"
"Wait, what?" Now Grant was confused and worried. An angry Supergirl was not something to take lightly.
"Your story, the one about the League and their, I don't know, dates or whatever, what was that all about!?"
"My... My story?"
"Yes, the one that makes me look bad!" Kara was done with her games
"Makes you look bad? My story was a sympathetic piece, I was applauding you."
"You... You were?" Now Kara was stunned.
"Here-" Grant pulled up the story on her computer, and played through to the Supergirl part "here, watch this."
Kara did "and on to one of the League's latest inductees, Supergirl.
"When we went looking for the Girl of Steel, we weren't disappointed, and found the young woman right here in Metropolis park.
"Supergirl was unfortunately busy at the time with the never-ending work of a hero, but that didn't deter one over-zealous fan with a little too much love on his mind.
"A statement received from the man afterwards revealed he may or may not have had a little liquid help in lowering his inhibitions.
"To Supergirl we say, happy Valentine's Day, and we hope you steer clear of any other eager fans with more that romance on the mind."
"You... You made me look like a... Victim?" Kara was stunned, Cat Grant actually played a story with no context to her favour.
"Look Supergirl, we aren't friends, I may even say we don't like each other, but I'm through with running smear campaigns, and I know you wouldn't treat your fans with such disrespect" she then waved a hand at the screen "besides, did you see that guy's face? He had crazy eyes up the wazoo."
Kara chuckled slightly, but then an unsettled look took over her face "but if you didn't run an article to make me look bad, who did?"
"I may have an idea" a voice replied from the doorway. Entering Grant's office were Lois Lane and Clark Kent, the latter was Superman's secret identity.
"Lois, Clark, back from your date already?" Grant raised an eyebrow.
"Actually, we were just coming to drop off some files I had lying around, when we noticed Supergirl was here" Clark explained.
"Naturally, we had to investigate-" Lois smirked "-and it sounds like you have a secret-enemy."
She then moved over to Grants computer and moved to a URL none of them had seen before.
On the front page was a older man in a chair sitting beside the very same photo Grant had in her story.
"This is G. Gordon Godfrey, he's a small time reporter for an indie site who usually runs anti-Justice League stories filled to the brim with slanderous lies-" the woman told them "-usually he doesn't get much notice, but 'Supergirl' is just the right mixture of 'major news' and 'unknown' to successfully run a piece like this" she then hit play.
"Supergirl, the Maiden of Might, or rather, Maiden of Malice.
"Welcome to Godfrey's Bonehead List. My name is G. Gordon Godfrey, your go-to source for news on the Justice League's true side.
"Today we will be looking at the arrogance and selfishness of a woman known to the world as Supergirl..."
The report went on to spin the picture in a way that painted Kara as a villain, so completely absorbed in her own power, that she disregards the what he implied she called 'mere mortals'.
"What!?" She yelled "and people are believing this stuff!?"
"Like I said" Lois held a hand up to calm her "the people don't know enough about you, and they'll believe whatever source they can get to.
"This is all Superman's fault" Kara decided.
"Woah, let's not play that game" Clark tried to stop her, but she wouldn't be deterred.
"No, it is. Well, not directly, but those people look up to him so much, they can't help but ignore what I do for them" she frowned.
"Well, you know how to fix that?" Grant asked "you go out, and prove you're on their side."
Kara stopped, and looked away in thought "yeah, you're right-" she nodded "-I just need to go out and do something they'll really notice... But what?"
In lieu of a reply, Grant opened up a low drawer in her desk and pulled out a police radio "I bought this years ago, back when I was still running low level articles on bank robberies and muggings, it should help you find a major crime now."
She tuned the radio until a crackly voice filtered through "calling all officers, we have a 417, 10-79 with a 10-53, on Keyes avenue, copy!"
Quickly summoning her knowledge of police codes, Kara told them, "that's a person with a gun, a bomb threat, and a man down."
"Well, that's convenient" Grant smiled.
"I'll go deal with that, you just make it with your camera in time" Kara didn't give them time to react before she sped from the office.
Metropolis
February 14, 13:35 EST
The scene if the crime was, in honesty, grim. Three squad cars park out in front of an apartment block were riddled with bullet holes, and inside, a man with an assault rifle and a crazed look in his eyes periodically peeked out from cover to fire a few more.
A short scan with her X-ray vision revealed a large, complex bomb inside, and she could clearly see an officers with blood staining his lower-right abdomen lying in the road, behind a low wall.
Kara crept over to another officer who was crouched behind his car.
"S-Supergirl!?" He looked relieved "thank god you got here, maybe you can sort this psycho out."
She nodded "that's what I'm here for" she gave him a kind smile, and sped over to the wall where the injured officer lay. The gunman hadn't spotted her yet.
"S-Super-" he coughed "-Supergirl? What're-"
She stopped him with a hand "don't worry sir, I'm gonna get you away from here, I just need you grab me tight, and don't let go" he did so, and she slowly shifted him into her arms, bridal-style. One more zoom later, and she was back in the safety behind the cars, where some other officers could take care of his wounds.
She then turned back to the apartment block, and slowly stepped out from cover, and marched over to the lobby. On the way, the gunman spotted her, and fired. Unfortunately, her old martian-tech bio-suit was unsalvageable (she may have burnt the items after a mind-control chip had been planted, but before she realised a cure could be made) so her costume was sustaining slight damage to the sleeves and cape.
She stepped inside the apartment lobby, and came face to face with the gunman who was now pulling the trigger of his rifle to the sound of empty clicks. Realising his magazine was empty, the criminal began to fumble around for a new one.
"Listen to me sir, I'm asking you to stand down, so we can end this without anyone getting hurt" she said.
"No, screw that!" He shouted "Godfrey was right about youse hero types! Ya'll are just murderers waitin' to happen!" He finally reloaded the assault rifle successfully, and immediately emptied the new magazine with now effect into the girl "and when this here bomb goes off-" he continued, unperturbed "-the whole city's gonna blame you for-" he wasn't given time to finish when Kara punched him in the face, knocking the psycho out.
Moving over to the bomb, she took a close look with her infrared and X-ray visions. It was a fairly basic device. Nothing too hard to diffuse, but certainly more than what any normal nut-job could piece together. It was disturbing to say the least.
With only a few wires severed, none of the 'red or blue' stuff most movies used, she managed to deactivate the bomb, and to quote her friend Robin, she now felt significantly more 'turbed' than before.
Sparing one arm for each, the blonde hefted both the unconscious gunman, and the diffused bomb out into the street for the police to take care of. A short talk with the police later, she then moved to where Cat Grant was standing nearby, reporting on the sudden crime.
"-and once again, Supergirl saves our city from evil" she turned to the Kryptonian "speaking of, Supergirl, do you have any comments on the crime?"
"Well, there isn't much to say, just that I'm happy everyone got out alive, and that I'm a little upset that such an event would happen on a day like this. Happy Valentine's Day Metropolis, you've earned it" she flashed the camera a smile, and took off into the air, muttering out of any earshot about how much she hated Valentine's Day.
A/N And that was the debut of my second Young Justice story; Humanity (trust me, it works better than Legacy). I'm definitely going to be making events that will likely contradict the continuity of the source material, but all should be in order by the time we reach Invasion.
A bit of a short start, but I think a campy little piece that doesn't reflect my own views on Valentine's Day was both a steady introduction to the story, and a nice wind down from the drama in the end of it's predecessor, Maiden of Might.
P.S. Have you ever noticed how warm and fuzzy reviews feel? Because they do that, all of them. Even if I don't outright respond, I read all reviews and actually take into account what you readers are saying.