Supergirl Returns #11 - previous stories in this series are
On Twisting the HellmouthOn Archive of Our Own This is the third of six short chapters - I should post them reasonably quickly, I hope. All characters belong to their respective creators, giant megacorporations of doom, etc. and there is no intent to infringe on copyright.
Five Dates Supergirl Didn’t Enjoy… And One She Did
3: Logan Echolls
Marcus L Rowland
There’s really no way that Linda can hide the fact that she looks like Supergirl. Coloured contacts and a quick change of hair style help a little, but her biggest defence is the appearance of having nothing to hide. When some of her college friends point out that there’s going to be a Supergirl look-alike contest at Malibu Beach, with a $5,000 prize, it seems a perfect opportunity to muddy the waters a little. She enters, comes in first in the beauty competition, second in the look-alike category, and drops out of the weight-lifting section at 28 kg. Overall that gets her third place, a glitzy trophy, and a $250 gift voucher, which she later donates to an animal shelter.
One of the judges is Logan Echolls. He’s reasonably attractive, the son of a movie star and moderately rich and famous. He seems to think that that gives him some special entitlement, which doesn’t really endear him to her, especially when she remembers seeing him wearing a “Kneel Before Zod” t-shirt at a party a few months earlier. In hindsight, Linda is never entirely sure why she agrees to go out with him after the competition, but he fast-talks her into going to a fashionable pizzeria on the beach front. After all, how bad can it be?
The answer, apparently, is “very.” It appears that Logan doesn’t believe in paying his parking tickets; midway through the meal he looks out of the window and notices that his car is being impounded by a couple of guys with a tow truck and a court order, storms out and starts arguing, and ends up being arrested for brawling and disturbing the peace. During the arrest the police find an open bottle of vodka in the car, another offence under Californian law.
For a while it looks like they’ll be arresting Linda too, but she manages to persuade them that she didn’t know about the booze, and the tow truck guys confirm she wasn’t involved in the fight. She’s left on the sidewalk when the police take Logan away, before he goes he jots a phone number on a paper napkin and asks her to “call Veronica, she’ll bail me out.” She goes back inside and pays the tab, gets a doggie bag for the remaining pizza, and dials the number.
“FBI, Agent Mars. How may I help you?”
There’s really only one way for Linda to play this; Full-out ditz mode. “Wow! FBI? Seriously? Are you kidding?”
“The FBI doesn’t kid.” The woman at the other end of the line sounds like she might be quoting someone.
“Okay… Well, Logan Echolls asked me to call someone called Veronica. Is she there?”
“This is Veronica Mars; what’s Logan done now?” She sounds annoyed. Linda belatedly remembers her name; Clark included her father’s account of the Kane murder in the books she read to get caught up on Earth events and popular culture.
“Fighting, and there was an open bottle in his car…” She gives Veronica the details.
“Okay… I guess he thinks I’ll bail him out.”
“Will you?”
“Eventually, but a few hours in the slammer won’t do him any harm, might teach him a lesson. Can you get home by yourself, or do you need a lift?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Okay then… look, Logan isn’t a bad person. He’s an asshole, but he’s not a bad person. He just has a few problems.”
“Too many for me, I think. Let me know if you need me to give evidence or anything.”
“It shouldn’t be necessary, but give me your number, just in case.”
The following morning cell phone photos of the brawl are on the celebrity pages in the LA papers, and blurry videos are on YouTube; Logan isn’t quite famous enough to be followed by paparazzi, but he’s recognizable. Amongst other things she learns that Veronica is his ex-wife; they married after college and divorced within months. Linda’s picture fortunately isn’t clear, and she’s named as “beauty contest competitor Linda Lane,” which will probably annoy Lois if she ever sees it, but suits her nicely. She puts the clipping on the wall next to the trophy.
A few weeks later Logan leaves a message on her voicemail; he’s trying for another date. She doesn’t bother returning the call.
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