Chapter 2: Going Public

Disclaimer: All things Superman/Supergirl belong to DC Comics, no infrigment is intended.

Perry White was the kind of reporter whose picture could have been put in the dictionary right next to the word. He was tenacious, had a sixth sense for good stories, and was almost impossible to dissuade once he had sunk his metaphorical teeth into a scoop. He had been a mainstay at the Daily Planet, Metropolis' major newspaper, for as long as anyone could remember and most people considered it a given that he would become the next editor in chief the moment he got tired of running after stories himself and asked for the job.

Which was why it was somewhat of a surprise to see him at a mere publicity event such as this. The launch of an experimental new high-altitude passenger plane was exciting, sure, but it was not the kind of story Perry White usually pursued. Standing around on an airfield, watching a plane take off, listening to PR people talk about the advances in technology, this was usually the kind of stuff given to junior reporters to get their feet wet. But here he was, Perry White himself.

Truth be told Perry was here for two reasons. Number one, he was bored. His desk was currently devoid of any substantial leads to anything he might consider a worthy story. Which brought him straight to number 2, he had a hunch. It was nothing he could put on paper, nothing that would hold up to any scrutiny, but he had a hunch. He had read about the impending launch and something in his gut had said that he needed to be there.

Of course he had done his homework and looked into the launch. The new plane was the first of its kind outfitted with a new kind of navigational control. The tech jargon was far beyond him, but basically it meant that the new tech could do a better job at half the size and a quarter the cost. He had traced back the development records to a small new start-up company called K-Solutions, which seemed to specialize in developing new technologies and proofs of concept before selling the ideas to bigger companies.

Again, there was nothing there that screamed "story!" at him, but his gut said otherwise, so here he was, standing amidst a crowd of spectators and other reporters, watching as a futuristic-looking plane rolled down the runway to prepare for take-off.

The start went off without a hitch and the plane circled around for a fly bye as it began to climb. Perry was almost at the point where he was ready to give it up and go home for the day, figuring that his hunch had been wrong, when it happened. A thunderous boom caused everyone to look up. One of the engines of the plane had just blown up in a big ball of fire.

The plane tilted to the side, trailing smoke, debris fell down to Earth. The plane had been over the bay when the explosion occurred, but Perry quickly realized that it would not stay there. The aircraft had been in the middle of a turn, its nose was now pointing directly at the landing field. With growing horror Perry White saw tomorrow's headline forming in his mind:

EXPERIMENTAL PLANE CRASHES INTO THE CITY, HUNDREDS DEAD!

The fact that his own name would be part of the obituary was on his mind as well. At its current heading the plane would plow straight through the observation platform they were all standing on, and then into the city behind them. He briefly considered running, but he was right in the middle of a panicking crowd. The plane was coming closer at frightening speed. There was no way to escape. He was dead.

No matter how much he thought about it later on, he would not be able to tell what it was that made him take his eyes off the approaching plane and look at the young woman standing to his left. Perry had an eye for people, he had taken notice of her when he arrived. She was in her early 20s, if that. Long blonde hair, tall, looking like she could easily work as a model if she wanted. She wore casual clothes, Jeans and a light jacket over a blouse, nothing extraordinary. She did not look like a reporter, so he had taken her for a mere spectator and not paid any further mind to her. The days when pretty young women held his attention for longer than a few seconds were behind him. So why was he looking at her now? What was different about her?

It was her face, he realized a moment later. Unlike everyone else around them, she did not look scared. Which was highly unusual, given that a burning airplane was about 10 seconds away from crashing down on top of them. Her eyes darted every which way, as if looking for a way to escape, but again, not in fear or panic. A moment later a look of resignation came over her. And then she took off.

Perry White blinked, briefly entertaining the notion that the plane had already hit and his dying brain was firing off some last-second hallucinations to ease his passing. Human beings did not "take off"! They ran, they jumped, they fell, but they did not just shoot upwards into the sky like a rocket. No way, no how! Without any conscious input from his mind, his eyes followed her. She was heading directly towards the approaching plane.

Perry did not remember reaching for the camera he had taken with him on his hunch, did not remember hitting the button over and over again as he watched the most incredible thing he had ever seen in his entire life. A flying woman, he repeated inside his mind. It was impossible, but there she was. And not just flying. She darted upwards, came around, and positioned herself directly underneath the falling airplane. And then she lifted.

Perry White knew what was possible and what was not. There was simply no way a young woman, even if she was somehow able to fly, could lift an airplane that probably weighed hundreds of tons. It was completely and utterly impossible that she would somehow stop its descent and bring it in for a relatively soft landing on the airstrip. This was the stuff of children's comic books and bad pulp stories. It was simply ridiculous to think that something like this could happen in real life.

But it was happening. He was watching it. He was taking pictures of it. And even as he gaped on in utter disbelief, a very different headline for tomorrow's edition was forming in his mind.

FLYING SUPERWOMAN SAVES AIRPLANE

Martha Kent was standing in her kitchen, putting away the groceries, when her grand-nephew came running in, looking more excited than she had ever seen him. Which was saying something, given how excitable he was.

"Aunt Martha! Aunt Martha! Come look, quickly!"

"What is it, Clark?" she asked, smiling. "Did you and Lana find another treasure?"

It had become something of a favorite pastime for Clark and his best friend Lana Lang. They would run around the fields and inevitably find something exciting, such as old coins, pieces of equipment, and once even a rather expensive wrist watch that someone had lost. Martha was rather sure that Clark was slowly starting to gain the same enhanced senses as Karen, she didn't know how else he would always manage to find something on their outings.

"No, nothing like that! Come quickly! It's mom, she's on TV!"

Martha froze upon hearing those words. Calm down, she told herself. There could be any number of reasons why Clark would see Karen on TV. She had flown to Metroplis for the launch of that plane her company had helped build, Martha remembered. Maybe the cameras had taken pictures of the crowd and Clark had spotted her. Or maybe someone had figured out who the genius behind the new company K-Solutions was and was doing an exposé.

Somehow, though, she knew that it was not any of that. Allowing Clark to drag her into the living room, she froze before the TV.

"If you are just tuning in, something truly extraordinary has happened today in Metropolis. A potential catastrophe that could have cost hundreds of lives was averted at the very last second by, as incredible as it sounds, a flying woman."

Martha watched as the footage ran. TV cameras had filmed the launch of the plane, as well as the explosion that occured just moments later. She watched as the crippled plane fell towards the city, saw the crowds of spectators that were directly in its path. She watched as suddenly a shape shot upwards from the crowd and flew to the rescue.

The camera zoomed in as best as it could. It was too far away to get a good look at the savior's face, but there was no denying that this was a woman. A woman flying without any visible means of propulsion. A woman somehow stabilizing a giant airplane on her shoulders and somehow bringing it in for a landing. It was all there on TV, millions of people were seeing it right at this very moment.

"Sadly we do not have a better picture of the flying woman than this," the reporter said, even as a frozen image of Karen was shown. Someone not familiar with her would only be able to tell that she was blonde, Caucasian, and female, nothing more. But to her family, there was no doubt.

"See? That's mom," Clark yelled, sounding incredibly excited and proud. "She saved that plane and all those people!"

"Yeah, she did, Clark," Martha said, putting her hands on Clark's shoulders. "Your mommy saved all those people." And everyone saw her doing it, she added in her mind.

Karen, her sweet little Karen. To the world at large she was her niece, but to Martha she was her daughter in all but blood. No matter that the girl had already been a teenager when she had arrived here, Martha had taken her as her own almost from the get-go. Little Clark, too, of course. But whereas Clark was a pretty normal kid (for now, at least), Karen had been special right from the start, and not just because she had started developing astounding powers the moment she set foot on Earth.

Sweet little Karen. So strong, yet so deeply wounded. Martha could not even imagine how much strength it took to even get up in the morning after having seen one's entire world die. Clark did not remember, but she did. She remembered losing everyone and everything she had ever known and held dear and she had to deal with the inevitable guilt of surviving while everyone else died.

Most people would have been broken by this, but not her. Martha knew that Karen had fixated on Clark and her mission to keep him safe, it had been her lifeline to keep going. But her life did not revolve solely around the boy that the world believed to be her son. He was her number one priority, no doubt, but she was doing more than just keeping him safe. She was using those amazing powers of hers to protect others. She was using her smarts to improve the lives of people by inventing new technologies (based on Kryptonian tech for the most part, but fully realized using local materials and concepts). And she was doing all of it in complete secret.

Martha had lost count of the number of disasters that were mysteriously averted, of accidents that miraculously harmed no one, of people speaking of an invisible guardian angel keeping them safe. For nearly a year now Karen had been on the move almost every day, working to make the world a better place without anyone ever knowing it was her.

Until today.

"Martha?" a familiar voice asked from the door. Karen was standing there, long blonde hair windswept and tussled, face and clothes covered in soot, and looking a bit shell-shocked.

"Oh sweetheart," Martha said, moving towards her.

"I think I messed up, Martha," Karen said, gratefully sinking into her embrace.

"There simply was no way to do it and not be seen," Karen said some time later as the two women sat side by side on the bench outside the farm. Karen had showered and changed her clothes and relaxed a bit on top of the barn, soaking up sunlight. That always helped her calm down. "I couldn't just let all those people die."

"I know, sweetheart," Martha said, one of Karen's hands clutched in her own. "You couldn't have done anything different."

They fell back into comfortable silence. Jonathan was inside the house, entertaining Clark, doing his best to convince the young boy to keep quiet about his mom's heroic deeds. The Kents had long ago divided responsibilities for their two alien children between them. Jonathan knew how to handle a young boy, as it seemed boys would be boys anywhere in the universe. And Martha's responsibility was to be there when Karen needed someone to be strong for her for a change. Which was just fine, because Martha was her mom, pure and simple, no matter what blood or documents said.

"This won't go away," Martha said after some time. "You know that, right?"

"Of course," Karen answered, eyes staring out into the distance. "People miraculously escaping a flash flood? Forgotten a few days later. A flying woman carrying an airplane to safety? That's going to stick in the news cycle a bit longer."

"What will you do?"

Karen didn't speak for quite some time, but Martha could practically hear her thinking. Karen was a genius, it was as simple as that. Not just because she had grown up in a society hundreds of years more advanced than Earth's, though that helped, of course. Her true genius was in how she would always find a way to make things work, no matter what. Kryptonian technology was so different from Earth that meshing the two should have been impossible, but she had found a way. Remaining unseen for over a year while saving thousands of lives should have been impossible, but she had found a way. Martha knew she would find a way to handle this situation, too.

"I won't stop protecting people," she finally said. "I can't. I promised."

Martha nodded knowingly. She had held Karen more than once as she emerged from a nightmare, reliving the final moments of Krypton and screaming her promise to keep Kal safe, no matter what. And keeping Kal safe meant, for her, to keep the world Kal now lived on safe, too. If there was one thing that defined Karen more than anything, it was that she always kept her promises.

"If doing it in secret is out," she continued, "I guess I'll have to find a way to do it in the open."

She looked over at her aunt / mother / mentor / friend and smiled. "You wouldn't happen to remember where we stashed the bodysuit I wore when I arrived here?"

Perry White was standing on the balcony of his apartment, cigar in hand, and looked out at the city below. The city looked the same as ever, but somehow everything was different. The world had changed; he felt it in his bones. It was a whole new ballgame from just yesterday. Yesterday everyone had known without a doubt that there was no such thing as flying people. Everyone had known that there was no way to catch a crashing plane in mid-flight and lower it safely to the Earth. Everyone had known that there was no such things as superheroes outside the comic books.

That had been yesterday. And the only thing older than yesterday's news was yesterday's certainties.

The special edition of the Daily Planet was lying on the small table beside him, the headline he had already seen in his mind yesterday now printed for all the world to see, his name directly underneath it. He could not quite suppress a smug grin that the name he had created had stuck. Everyone was calling the flying lady Superwoman now. Simple, yet so very fitting.

Most of the pictures he had taken from the observation platform had been garbage, out of focus, way off the mark. He resolved never to make fun of photographers again, this was a lot harder than it looked. Thankfully two of the pictures had come out okay, now adorning the front page as well. One showed Superwoman in mid-flight, heading towards the plane. The other showed her lowering the plane onto the runway. Neither picture showed her face, but Perry did not need them to.

He had stood right next to her when she took off and he would never forget that face as long as he lived. From the moment he had finished the article he had dove into research, determined to find out more about this mysterious woman. And he had a pretty good working theory already that also happened to explain the look he had seen on her face.

For the last year or so there had been a veritable deluge of stories about averted disasters, mysterious last-minute saves, and people miraculously surviving accidents that should have killed them. There had always been stories like that, true, but not in those numbers. It was almost like there was some kind of guardian angel out there, doing its best to keep people safe. A guardian angel that preferred to remain invisible.

Until the day she couldn't, because hundreds of people would have died.

"That's a very filthy habit, you know?"

Perry started so bad he almost toppled over the balcony railing, which would have had him following his cigar down to the street. The voice had come out of nowhere, taking him completely by surprise. He twisted around, his heart hammering a mile a minute, and there was someone standing there at the other end of the balcony who had definitely not been there a second ago.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you quite so badly."

It was her, there was no doubt. The same face, the same blonde hair, the same statuesque physique. Instead of wearing casual street clothes, though, said physique was now covered by a nearly skin-tight blue suit that looked like spandex but shimmered like chain mail. Red boots and gloves added color to the assembly, as well as a red cape that hung around her shoulders. And right there on her (quite ample, he couldn't help but notice) chest was a diamond-shaped symbol with a big S inside of it.

"Lady, you just cost me five years of my life," he said, finally getting his heartbeat back to normal. "Then again, seeing as I would have no life left at all if not for you, I guess I can forgive you."

"You're all heart," she deadpanned, but with a smile on her lips. God, she looked beautiful when she smiled.

"So...," he began, the words he could so easily put on paper somehow escaping him at the moment. He still had trouble believing that this woman existed at all. Why she would have chosen to visit his balcony was far beyond his understanding.

"I hope I am not keeping you from anything, but I wanted to ask a favor of you," she said, taking the initiative.

"Well, you saved my life. I'd say you can ask me for just about anything this side of my firstborn."

She chuckled, leaning against the railing. "Nothing quite so bad. I just wanted to ask if you would be interested in doing an interview with me, so I can get my story out there."

He stared at her, not quite believing what he was hearing.

"Or is this a bad time?" she asked, mirth shining in her blue eyes.

"Are you kidding me? Every single reporter on this entire planet would pay big money to interview you. It's the Pulitzer prize right there." He paused, looking at her. "Why me?"

She shrugged, making even that casual gesture look majestic somehow. "You were there. You already wrote an article about me. I hear you are one of the best. And it seems the name you came up with is sticking anyway."

He chuckled. "Yeah, looks like that. I don't think you need to put a big S on your chest, though. You're flying around and bench-pressing airplanes. People will know you are Superwoman without you having to display it."

She looked down, chuckling as well. "Yeah, I know it looks like a big S. It is not, though. It's the crest of my family."

She looked him in the eye, smiling. "It stands for hope!"

So Perry White, cynical investigative journalist, who had long ago resolved that things were NEVER as good as they seemed, sat down with the flying woman who had saved his life and wrote down her story. All the while thinking that maybe, just maybe, this one time things might actually BE as good as they seemed.

End Chapter 2

Author's Note: I'm trying to remain somewhat consistent with the ages of various characters here. For the most part things will match up with Clark's age, meaning that people like Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lana Lang are still kids at this point in the story, while Perry White is an adult, but not yet in charge of the Daily Planet. As for the other superheroes, I'll go case by case. Wonder Woman is an ageless immortal in most continuities, but I'm not yet certain how I'll play people like Bruce Wayne or whichever version of Green Lantern I'll end up using. We'll see how it goes.

As for Superwoman's costume, imagine her new costume from the Supergirl TV series (season 5), just with gloves added.