Hi Supergang!
A/N: This chapter is about the KKK. For anyone who doesn't already know, they are still very much around, throwing celebratory rallies for Donald Trump and beating the shit out of anyone who isn't white and straight. The title of this two-chapter arc comes from the original Superman radio show in 1946. This is a really cool piece of real American history. In 1946, a young human rights activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to infiltrate the KKK and expose them. But when he took his intel to the cops, they were either indifferent or sympathetic to white supremacy, and wouldn't do anything.
So Kennedy got the amazeballs idea to bring his intel to the Superman producers instead. Because media is powerful. He told them, hey, I have all this great inside info on the Klan. How about you do a story arc where Superman fights the KKK? And the producers were totally into it. The timing was perfect, they said, because all through WWII, they'd had Superman fighting the Nazis; and now that they were defeated, Superman needed a new real-life villain to fight, something that threatened "truth, justice and the American way." And so the 16-episode arc, Clan of the Fiery Cross, was born. And it worked! After Superman fought the KKK on the radio show, membership in the actual, real-life KKK dropped dramatically. Because media matters. So that's pretty bitchin'.
Enjoy :)
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I'd Carry a Plane for You
Chapter 20: Clan of the Fiery Cross (Part 1)
…...
It was a bright and sunny day in National City; so bright that the young father driving his kids to preschool almost didn't see the toddler walking into the road in front of his car. The little one had wandered off from his inattentive babysitter, who was arguing with her boyfriend on her phone. The sudden sight of a two-year-old in the middle of the road wiped the man's mind momentarily blank of all awareness except for one thing: don't hit the baby.
Simultaneously slamming on the brakes and swerving hard to the left, the car spun out into the oncoming lane; and the rest of the world came flooding back into the driver's head, the sound of his own kids screaming in the back seat, the front grill of the pickup truck now headed straight towards them. It was an endless moment; he knew there was nothing he could do to change what was about to happen. His last thought before he closed his eyes was a prayer that his kids would live, and his wife would forgive him. And then...
Instead of the violent crash he'd been expecting, the young dad just felt a jolt rattling through the car's frame, like a two-second earthquake...but no impact. When he opened his eyes, he gasped, looking out the window at the world now dozens of feet below. The car was flying...the car was flying?
When Kara floated gently back down to earth, she had the car held above her head in one hand, and the baby in the other. Traffic had come to a full stop; all the drivers, pedestrians, even the traffic cop on the corner, were all just staring at her as she gently set the car back down on the side of the road. She looked at the driver and smiled; but he didn't smile back. He looked just as terrified as he had when his car was rushing towards oncoming traffic. Kara's smile faded. The teenage babysitter came running up to her, sobbing hysterically, calling out the two-year-old's name.
"He's okay, he's fine," Kara said gently, attempting another smile at the young girl as she passed over the baby.
"Don't touch him!" the teenager screamed, backing up hastily onto the sidewalk with the baby held protectively in her arms, as if he were still in danger. The baby started to wail, alarmed by his babysitter's tears and shrieks. Kara looked around slowly at all the people around her; they all looked scared. Parents clutched their children protectively. Kara's heart sank. She was still on leave from the DEO pending a psych eval after the Red K incident; but that just meant no bad-guy hunting. There was no "leave of absence" from being Supergirl. What was she supposed to do, just let a car run over a baby right in front of her?
The blonde superhero opened her mouth, trying to find something to say to reassure the terrified people around her that she wasn't going to hurt them, that she was good again; but nothing came. If watching her rescue a car in one hand and a baby in the other didn't reassure people, what good would empty words do? Her red cape rippled against her back in the breeze, and her heart sank with shame. She shot off into the sky and out of sight without saying anything at all.
…...
When she arrived at CatCo, Kara was very surprised to be greeted by an extra-perky Ms. Grant, who waved her inside the big glass office eagerly.
"Kara, good, I need you. We need to craft the perfect tweet for you to compliment the article I'm writing on Supergirl's return. It'll be tomorrow's lead story in the Tribune," Ms. Grant smiled brightly. "Thank God for camera phones, because no one could have planned ahead and sent a photographer for this." She turned her computer screen around, showing a photo of Kara floating back to earth holding the car and the baby, the sun shining through her blonde hair as she smiled brightly; not yet aware that the people on the ground below were not relieved, but afraid, at the sight of her.
"Oh..." Kara sighed dejectedly, wilting a little as she looked at the picture. "Ms. Grant, I...I don't think we should run the story. That picture, it's a bit misleading."
"Misleading?" Cat Grant raised one blonde eyebrow in her quintessential just try to prove me wrong expression. "Did you not save a car and a baby from a horrible crash just now?"
"No, I did, but..."
"Then it's not misleading." Ms. Grant swung the screen back towards herself, re-clicked on her open Word doc, and continued writing.
"But everyone was still scared of me. Once I was back on the ground, everyone was just staring at me like they were afraid to move. Like they were afraid of me. It wasn't...I wasn't..." The blonde girl shook her head hopelessly, trying to find the words to express what she was feeling. That an article celebrating her return to the public eye after the Red K incident wasn't the right thing to do, because the people weren't celebrating. The people were scared. That was the truth, that was what the article should say.
"Kara, you have tortured yourself about this long enough," Ms. Grant said briskly, in her most decisive voice. "We both know that what happened last month wasn't your fault; you were poisoned. And we both know the public will forgive you once they see you back among them, saving the day, just like before. And in order for that to happen, the public needs to actually see you saving the day. Isn't it lucky that we have a newspaper, a website, and an entire media empire right here waiting to show them?" The older woman smiled wryly.
"It feels manipulative..." Kara shook her head, unconsciously twirling her engagement ring around her finger. It was something her boss had noticed her doing lately whenever she felt worried or anxious.
"Did you save those people for the sake of getting media coverage?" The older woman asked simply.
"Of course not!" Kara exclaimed indignantly.
"Then it's not manipulative," Ms. Grant shrugged with a smile, and as if to declare the matter closed, she returned her eyes to her computer screen. "Draft some Supergirl tweets, all right? Then you can proof the article and give me your input...but I warn you, I will veto anything self-deprecating. We are celebrating the return of our beloved Superhero. That is the tone we are setting. People will rise, Kara...just wait. They will. I shouldn't have to tell you that; you're the one who usually has more faith in people than anyone I know." Ms. Grant looked up and gave her young protege a little half-smile. Kara finally smiled unwillingly back.
"Thank you, Ms. Grant," Kara said quietly, feeling a little better just from smiling. She hadn't been doing a lot of that recently.
"Mm-hmm," the older woman nodded, her voice reassuringly confident as always. Kara's smile got a little bigger as she turned and headed for her own desk to get to work.
While Kara was hard at work at CatCo, Alex was equally hard at work with Astra at the DEO—under a heavily armed guard with Kryptonite dart guns, of course—trying to find a way to stop Myriad. As Astra had warned them, so far it seemed scientifically impossible. If Kryptonian technology couldn't stop it, how on Earth was human technology supposed to get the job done? But every program could be deprogrammed. Every poison had an antidote. And Alex wasn't giving up until she unlocked the secret of the Kryptonian mind-control technology, period. Astra's information was valuable, but only to a point; she wasn't a scientist, she was a soldier. She didn't invent the thing. Still, her intel was the first solid lead they had on Myriad, there was no denying that. Along with all the pain and suffering Kara had gone through to get her aunt to help them...it couldn't be for nothing.
After a long, frustrating day behind the microscope, Alex had her DEO escort (since she still couldn't drive with her dominant arm in the sling) drop her off at Ms. Grant's house, where Kara was babysitting Carter for the evening. Ms. Grant was a single mom, in addition to all her more auspicious titles; and she did occasionally, between meetings with Bill Gates and the White House Press Secretary, go on actual dates.
It was Carter who opened the door when Alex rang the bell; and for a moment he looked disappointed when he saw her standing there. "Geez, don't get too excited," Alex said sarcastically, ruffling his hair with her good hand. Carter smiled sheepishly.
"Hi Alex," he said, hugging her gently. "Sorry, I just thought you were the pizza guy. But I am happy to see you! How's your arm? Does it hurt a lot?" He led her inside the house, fussing over her almost as much as Kara.
"Nah, it's fine. It's healing. I'll be back out in the field soon," Alex assured the kindhearted little boy with a smile. When she saw Kara sitting at the kitchen table with a board game and an extra-large package of Oreos, her smile got even bigger. "Hey, there's my girl."
"Hi Lexie," Kara beamed back at her, standing up and holding her fiancee's face in both hands for a quick, but very tender kiss. "Are you hungry?" She offered up an Oreo. "We have pizza on the way, but I couldn't wait."
"So I see," Alex grinned, glad to see her sweet girl acting more like her sunny self again, after the spell of depression she'd been going through recently with the Red K, and everything since. She took a playful bite of the cookie in Kara's hand. "Yum." Then the bell rang again, and Carter was up like a shot, yelling pizza! happily down the hallway as he raced to answer the door.
…...
It was several hours later, Carter already in bed, when Kara and Alex were distracted from the movie they were watching by the sound of shattering glass. They both jumped up from the couch with a start, Kara automatically whipping off her glasses so she could see through the house to find the source of the crash. Her jaw dropped in silent shock as she stared at something Alex couldn't see.
"Kara? What is it?" Alex asked, putting a hand on the blonde girl's shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.
"It's..." Kara opened and closed her mouth a few times. No words came.
"Baby, you're scaring me," Alex said gently, putting a hand on Kara's cheek and forcing her to make eye contact. "What is it?"
"Look out the window," Kara said quietly, nodding towards the curtained windows across the living room. Alex went and opened the curtains, looking out onto the front lawn. Her jaw dropped too, but in outrage rather than plain shock.
"Oh hell no," the dark-haired girl growled, marching towards the front door.
"Lexie, stop!" Kara grabbed Alex's good arm. "What are you going to do? You don't even have a gun and your arm's in a sling."
"I'm not going to fight them, Kara. I'm going to tell them to go the fuck away before I call Supergirl to kick their asses."
"What's going on?" Carter asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes as he walked slowly downstairs in his pajamas. "I heard a crash or something..."
"Nothing, Carter. Go back to sleep," Kara said authoritatively, giving Alex a stern look. Supergirl couldn't come now, because Kara couldn't just disappear in front of Carter without explanation. The little boy crossed the room and looked out the window, despite Kara and Alex's protest. His blue eyes grew wide and alert, all traces of sleepiness disappearing from his face.
"Is that...the Ku Klux Klan?" Carter asked incredulously, staring out at the ring of white-hooded figures standing on his large front lawn, where a tall wooden cross burned brightly in the night air.
"Yes. Don't look," Kara shook her head, crossing the room to pull him back away from the window. "Lexie, go call the cops." Alex nodded, already taking out her phone. But as soon as Kara released him, Carter ran to the front door and threw it open, racing out onto the lawn in his pajamas and slippers.
"We're not scared of you!" He yelled at the group of hooded men, at least twenty of them, standing in a semicircle and watching the huge cross burn.
"Well you should be," one of the men jeered. His voice sounded cocky, confident. Smug. "Your mama's gone down a bad road, son. Disgraced our country. Made the wrong people mad. Sooner or later, someone's gonna teach her a lesson about who this world belongs to."
"It belongs to everyone!" Carter yelled, his hands clenching into fists. Kara ran out of the house after him, pulling him protectively behind her. How she longed to blow out that flaming cross with her freeze breath, right here, right now...but she couldn't. Not dressed as Kara Danvers. Not in front of Carter.
"The police are on their way," Kara yelled out, in a loud but calm voice across the wide expanse of Ms. Grant's front lawn. "If you know what's good for you, you'll be gone before they get here." She looked from the hooded figures standing in the firelight, to the neighbors looking out through their own windows, shock and fear in all their eyes. The KKK, burning a cross, here in National City...no one had seen this before. No one in National City had ever expected to see this; not in the 21st Century.
"You just tell the lady of the house we've got our eye on her," one of the men jeered, the same one who had spoken to Carter. "You tell her we'd hate to see this fine, brave boy grow up without a mama." Kara could feel Carter's body trembling with rage behind her, and she grabbed him just in time as he raced out from behind her again, intent on attacking the hooded Klansman who had threatened his mother head on.
"Carter, stop. Stop," Kara shook her head gently, picking him up around his waist and dragging him back toward the house as he screamed his head off.
"You stay away from my mom, or Supergirl will get you! Get off our property, you dirty racist pigs! I'll kill you!" The men laughed as Carter yelled and screamed, but then the sound of sirens in the distance made them stop. With a nod, they all began piling back into the three big trucks they had apparently arrived in, and took off into the night, hollering and laughing. The flaming cross remained. Alex ran to Kara's side, and between them they tried to calm the enraged little boy who was kicking and screaming in Kara's arms.
"Okay...okay," Carter panted at last, finally going limp as the adrenalin started to drain out of him. They all stared at the flaming cross together in silence for a moment, holding onto each other for comfort, for solidarity. "I never thought...I'd really see the KKK, in real life," the blonde boy said finally, after a short stretch of silence that seemed like forever.
"Me either," Alex whispered, shaking her head as she dropped her chin against Kara's shoulder, wrapping her good arm around Kara and Carter both as they all stared up at the blaze.
"Look what they wrote," Carter nodded to the front of his house, where giant, spray-painted letters said ALIEN-LOVER and RACE TRAITOR.
"Yeah," Kara nodded quietly. "Well I think I know what your mom would say to that." With a small smile, her boss's voice came sharply into focus in Kara's mind. "If you're pissing off the KKK...you know you're doing something right."
…...
To Be Continued!
