Kara had been juggling so many duties over the last few days, it had really started to feel like she had a secret identity all over again. Her fingers had been a constant blur across her phone screen, so much that she’d jumped into several meetings without knowing what they were even about or – for that matter – that she had meant to have been leading them. She could have gotten away with that as Kara Danvers, but people tended to notice when Kara Zor-El got distracted - probably because it usually meant an Earth-wide threat was imminent.
She’d already had to reassure five separate co-workers that wasn’t the case, even going as far as cutting her final editorial meeting thirty minutes short so that everyone could start their Fridays early. Maybe that just made them more suspicious of her, but she was running out of time. Alex had already sent her three warning texts:
Car’s packed up, where are you?
Don’t make me call a DEO emergency just to get your butt out of there!
⌚👈🏻 ???
Kara rolled her eyes, catching her tongue between her teeth as she scanned the most recent notification. She sent a quick ‘OMW’ before slinging her bag across her shoulder.
She was halfway out the office door when a voice stopped her in her tracks.
“So, any plans this weekend?”
Kara froze.
Cat Grant usually spent her Friday afternoons lamenting all the charity dinners and extracurriculars she’d be forced to attend while Kara nodded along with a well-practiced sympathetic grimace locked in place. She’d long since accepted this as a one-sided expectation. After all, Cat didn’t really do small talk. Call it the journalistic disposition, but no question of hers ever came without intention.
She’d posed this particular question with an expectant air, her fingers loosely linked beneath her chin as she watched Kara with cat-like patience from behind her desk.
Kara took a shallow breath, knowing already what those piercing eyes were trying to gauge. “Actually,” she said, treading carefully, “I’m out of town this weekend. I’m visiting my adoptive mom with my sister.”
Cat’s lips twitched with something predatory. She lifted her chin, snatching up a pen from her desk so that she could play idly with the clicker. Every click was as intentional as her question, drilling deep into Kara’s skull. “Ah,” she said, nodding slowly, “and so I suppose one would assume that there won’t be much Supergirl activity to account for, then?”
Kara laughed, fiddling nervously with the collar of her blouse. “Even Supergirl needs a vacation every once in a while. You’ve seen the figures, crime is at an all-time low, National City can last a weekend without me.”
Cat watched Kara without expression, still clicking out a calculated rhythm. “I suppose,” she conceded lightly. “Especially with that new DEO division headed by your… friend, right? John?”
“J’onn,” Kara corrected.
“Yes, yes, that’s the one.” Cat bit her lip. “Wide shoulders.” Her eyes lost focus before she shrugged suddenly, setting down her pen with a prompt snap. “I wonder what he’ll be up to.”
“You know the DEO doesn’t give interviews,” Kara reminded her, trying and failing to hide the strain in her voice. “Not even to Supergirl.”
“Of course.” Cat pondered for a moment, cocking her head. “And the little green one works there too, doesn’t he?”
Kara sighed, the purposeful ignorance wasn’t lost on her, just as Cat had intended. She tipped her head back, resigning herself to the conversation. “What are you getting at, Ms Grant?”
Cat blinked, perfectly innocent. “Just counting heads. I only wonder if we’ll be seeing much of your Super Friends over the next few days… with you out of town, of course.”
Kara pursed her lips, drumming her fingers against the doorframe. “Well, they’re more than capable of managing themselves without me.”
“So, we will be seeing them?”
Kara spluttered. She’d really stepped into that one. “It’s a big city,” she recovered quickly, “I’m sure there’ll be out there somewhere.”
“Interesting,” Cat said, dragging the word out long enough to make Kara uncomfortable. She hummed to herself, running her index finger delicately over the items on her desk until she found her phone, snatching it up. “I need to make a few calls,” she decided, shooing Kara out of the room with her other hand. “Have fun with your—mother.”
Kara took that as her cue, making an awkward albeit flustered goodbye as she elbowed her way out the door. She didn’t try to listen in on the conversation once she was gone – she didn’t need to - Cat had seen through her as plainly as she had her old disguise.
Technically, what Kara had told her wasn’t exactly a lie. She would be seeing Eliza this weekend – after all, she’d been invited to Nia and Brainy’s wedding, too.
It didn’t matter, Kara rationalised as she hurried into the elevator, Cat could call on every source she had available to her and she still wouldn’t be getting this scoop. No one would. Kara had been incredibly thorough about that, using fake names when it came to bookings, throwing out red herrings to rival news outlets, all to ensure that the media didn’t get even one whiff of what was going down. No one was getting a camera into the service on her watch – well, except the photographer, and Kara had already run a series of extensive background checks on her.
As for general media speculation – well, she’d already warned the bride and groom to be that there really wasn’t much she could do about that. Every magazine in the country was currently building up the clicks with Superhero news and, right now, Dreamer and Brainiac-5 were trending across all channels. Cat certainly hadn’t helped with that; she’d sunk her claws into the story the second Dreamer had first been spotted out toting a Legion ring of her own. To avoid public knowledge of future events, the Legion was something of a forbidden topic when it came to interviews and so, for anyone outside of the loop, Dreamer suddenly wearing a ring matching Brainy’s was certainly turning heads.
Engagement had been thrown around hundreds of times, with other outlets outright claiming that she and Brainy had been married in secret. Nothing had been confirmed or denied by either party, but Kara had to admit it– you only needed eyes to see the chemistry between those two. They fought as one entity, complimenting each other’s stances, supporting each other in the field so that they always fell into step with each other. Just last week, Brainy had swept Dreamer into his arms amidst an explosion they’d narrowly escaped and the shot had been headlining every newspaper not twelve hours later. They were anything but discreet and, honestly, Kara had a hunch they were starting to enjoy all the attention. It certainly made her job as Maid of Honour that much harder.
Hiding this wedding was probably shaving years off her life.
At least it would be worth it when she got to see Nia go down that aisle.
When her phone pinged again with a fourth text from Alex, Kara groaned out loud.
You just lost shotgun privilege.
She just had to get there first.
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Byler Week, Day 5: Secret Identities
This is outsider POV, i have invented a daughter and she's now My daughter (even though she's 15 in 2013 which means she'd be My Age). Also, based on This post I made a trillion, billion years ago—in November lol.
Emma is avoiding her homework.
She’s got a mountain of an essay due on Monday, but writing has never come easy to her (not like Dad, amazing writer that he is, or her younger foster sister Alex, who is most definitely going to be a singer-songwriter). Both her foster dads are pretty cool about helping with stuff their children don’t understand. But Pops is the only one home with her right now, and he’s in his studio painting a commission. Even though she knows he wouldn’t care, she doesn’t want to bother him when he’s in the zone. She’ll ask Dad for help once he and her sisters are back from the store.
For now, she turns on the Xbox to play Mass Effect 2.
In the middle of recruiting Archangel, she gets a ping on her computer. Her friend Corgi has messaged her. It’s a row of question marks and a link to an article.
Identities of Award-Winning Artist-Author YA duo, Bloomfield and Blackmore, revealed in Tell-All Leak by reliable anonymous source.
gengaratemycorgi Emmy, isn’t this your foster dads?
Shit.
“Pops!” Emma calls.
There’s a distant clatter and splash, and then Will runs into the room. He’s got red paint splattered down the front of his shirt, making him look a little bit like he’s been stabbed. “What’s wrong Emmy? Are you okay?”
Normally she would tease him about the paint spill. Instead, she silently shows him the article and watches his face drop. He plops down beside her.
“Well, shit,” he says, reaching up to brush his hair from his face and inadvertently getting paint in it.
She's too worried about him to even giggle over it. “Are you and Dad gonna be okay?”
Will huffs a tired laugh. “We’ll be fine. The Lab’s NDA has expired. I’m honestly surprised we lasted this long under the radar.”
Emma can’t help but agree—her dads having so many different pseudonyms was bound to bite them in the butt someday.
“I’m gonna go call Mike, and then see about sorting this mess out.”
She’s not entirely certain if he’s referring to the mess of the leak, or the mess of paint all over him.
-
When everyone is back, she and her sisters sit in the living room—watching Mike and Will walk around, on the phone with their agents and the publicists of their book series’. Emmy feels a little bit useless, leaning her head on Rachel’s shoulder. Beside them, Alex has her earphones in and is journaling—conflict makes her anxious.
Eventually, her dads get off the phone and instead sit at the table on their laptops, typing out statements for the press and their social medias’. (And with all their names, there’s a lot of social medias to go through.)
Still feeling useless, and for lack of anything else to do, Emmy opens tumblr and scrolls to the new post made by her Dads’ official account.
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BloomfieldAndBlackmore When we originally created ‘Elliot and the Other World’, we were required (legally) to publish under pen names. Thus, Bloomfield and Blackmore were born. We weren’t expecting Elliot and his friends to be as well loved as they’ve ended up being, though we are forever grateful for that. It’s thanks to fans like all of you that Elliot and the Other World is still going strong today!
Then, four years later, when we wanted to publish ‘Smalltown Boys’, we knew that our publisher would never allow us to publish a Gay romance under the same names as E&tOW, especially not back then. But Smalltown was too close to our hearts to set aside, so we created Lewis and Xavier Wakeham. (We flipped a coin on who got to be Xavier, and Mike is still the tiniest bit bitter that I won.). It was still a struggle to get it published, but we’re forever grateful that we were able to.
Around that same time, we were beginning to foster. Our youngest at the time suffered from terrible nightmares (a plight we know well), so Mike and I would tell stories to help him back to sleep. Our oldest thought they were good enough stories to be published. We could have probably published those under Bloomfield and Blackmore, but that would have meant editing out that Prince Adam has two dads, and neither of our children would have ever forgiven us for that. So Oak and Rose joined the scene, publishing stories for kids like our foster children. It’s something that’s brought a lot of joy to our family.
Things began to get complicated after a colleague and friend, Ed Munson, wanted our input on a Dungeons and Dragons anthology he was creating. While he likely would have been fine with us using our pen names (as Elliot and the Other World is largely based on D&D), that would have required him to keep secrets about his own project. So out of respect for him, we used our own names.
We don’t know if that’s what led to this leak. The investigation into who tipped our names to the press is still on-going. To whoever it was, we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.
To our fans, we send our love. -Will and Mike
-
She scrolls through the reblogs.
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BananananaAmanda “Required legally???????? Sirs ????? Were you in some kind of witness protection??????
DNDNotebook Amanda don’t be stupid, they probably had some kind of job that would have fired them for writing DnD books--it was like the 80s and people thought DnD was demonic.
BloomfieldAndBlackmore Well, actually, you’re both a little bit correct (though Amanda is slightly more correct, please don’t call them stupid). - Mike
BananananaAmanda My favorite author used the correct pronoun for me and also defended my honor im in tears rn.Also though, my witness protection theory has weight what????? Were parts of E&tOW Real??? ?????
BloomfieldAndBlackmore ..¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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AllBimy5elf ‘we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.’ pffffft. Honestly iconic.
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Lovepeace23 are we ignoring the fact that they’re gay ?? and yet they’re writing children’s books?? Keep that shit away from kids pervs
DNDNotebook hey asshat, the 80s called, they want their bigotry back
tydieandying i’m thinking about the fac that since they’re gay, maybe my headcanon that Elliot is gay for Dave is true
Dendy7ever even if they -are- gay (which isn’t confirmed) doesn’t mean you have to push that agenda on to their characters. Dave is in love with Elliot’s twin sister Wendy. And Elliot is just growing slower than the rest of the Club because of his trauma. You’ll see when book ten comes out.
AllBimy5elf ‘isn’t confirmed’ after they talked about fostering?? They’re literally dads together?? Now who’s pushing sexuality onto people?
DNDNotebook lmao also the ‘in love’. bro goes out of his way to hold his bestie’s hand, but doesn’t like holding hands w Em when they kiss? Fishy.
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BananananaAmanda ok but,,, since the main reasons Elliot & Other Worlds has never gotten a tv show is because the series was still on going, and the creators weren’t in the public eye…show?? Maybe???
AllBimy5elf ok yes I 1000000% want an Other Worlds show, but Smalltown Boys movie when???? I want to see my gay childhood friends to lovers happy ending On Screen
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DNDNotebook said
Can we ask about your foster kids? You must really care about them if you wrote them childrens books. How are they doing in all this?
BloomfieldAndBlackmore Thank you for asking. Our two boys are grown now, but we’ve called them and they’re doing fine--no one has harassed them about it, if they’ve even made the connection. Our three foster daughters are doing as well as can be in the circumstances. Our middle daughter was the one who alerted us to the article (Hey Pumpkin, we love you!!). We’ll continue to try and keep them out of the public eye—they didn’t ask for any of this hubbub. -Will
LostimtheOtherWorld hey is your daughter @/DemigodEmmi98?
A jolt of anxiety has her shutting her laptop. She looks up to where her dads are still working and considers saying something. She gnaws at her nails.
“You okay, Em?” Rachel murmurs, shutting her phone and throwing an arm around Emmy’s shoulder.
Emma leans into the hug. “I’m being stupid.”
“I doubt it, this whole this is fucking scary. Plus you’re like a baby. I’m eighteen and I’m terrified.”
Emmy scowls. “I’m fifteen, not a baby. And you won’t be eighteen ‘til March.”
Rachel laughs, which makes Emma feel a little less anxious.
She looks to Alex, who has moved on from journaling to just listening to music and staring out the window.
“I think Alex needs your worry more than I do, she’s barely ten.” She’s probably freaking out right now.
Rachel gives her one more squeeze. “You’re a good big sister, Em.” Rachel moves over to quietly talk with their sister. Leaving Emmy alone on the couch.
She sighs and forces herself to open her computer back up, and scroll through her notifications. As she suspected, her followers have somehow made the connection of her talking about her author and artist foster dads, and somehow it’s escaped containment to Other Worlds fandom. She’s got a hundred and eighty-six asks and two hundred new followers.
Most of the messages are nice ones, asking if she’s okay, or ones congratulating her on her cool dads; but there are a few—maybe from the same person—that say that they’ll pray for her immortal soul for having two dads? What? It’s 2013, not the Middle Ages!
She deletes those, and the ones asking for inside scoops on future books, then debates attempting to answer the ones left.
The thought makes her exhausted so instead she makes her own post.
-
DemigodEmmi98 regarding the influx of asks from anons and followers wondering if Mike and Will are the foster dads I’ve been talking about… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
tydieandying Emmy is that a yes??
gengaratemycorgi lmaooo
-
Unfortunately that seems to immediately feed the fire, as she gets three more asks in the span of a minute. She opens up the message box from earlier today.
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Emmy: haha Immediate Regret(:
Corgi: u gonna be ok?
Emmy: ye, just. tired of tumblr right now lol, gonna jump offline for the next couple days til this all dies down. i’ll message u on snap.
-
“Sorry about all this, Pumpkin,” Mike murmurs, when she tells him what’s happened. Emmy burrows into his hug. He’s been good at hugs as long as she’s known him—he and Pops make her feel so safe.
“‘S not your fault, Dad.” She pulls back to grin at him. “Plus, missing school on Monday means I don’t have to turn in that bullshit essay I haven’t done yet.”
Mike snorts, scrubs his knuckles over her hair. “You are your fathers’ daughter.”
“Well, we all got doxxed, so I figure it’s our prerogative, right?”
Mike grimaced. “Maybe we should call your aunts in for a bit.”
“El and everyone are already on their way,” Will reports, entering the room again. He stoops to press a kiss to each other his daughters heads, before pressing one to Mike’s mouth. Then they’re both silent for a long moment. But it’s not a bad, scary silent.
They do this sometimes, Mike and Will--this thing where it seems like they’re speaking to each other with their minds. It could simply be that thing In-Love parents seem to be able to do, where they just know each other's minds (something her birth parents weren’t capable of). But, considering what she knows about their fucked-up childhood in Hawkins, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were powers. She could ask them, and they’d likely tell her the truth.
But Emmy thinks they’ve had enough secrets revealed for today, so she keeps her mouth shut and continues leaning against her parents.
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