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Walking onto set was like stepping into the funnel of a hurricane, which Lexa was used to... just not on the first day. Usually it took a few days or weeks for the storm to brew. This time, though, it was already at least a category 4, and still building momentum."There you are," her assistant said, hurrying over and gripping her by the arm hard enough that Lexa would have to check later to see if Anya had left a mark. "Everyone's been looking for you."Lexa glanced at her phone, which was clutched in one hand, a paper cup of tea with the tea bag still in it in the other. "I'm early," she said. "I'm early even by 'early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable' standards." "I know," Anya said. "It's just..." She sighed and shook her head. "You haven't checked your phone?"Lexa looked at the screen again and realized she'd never taken it out of airplane mode. She frowned, trying to figure out whether she could manage to do so without sloshing tea on it, which was complicated by the fact that Anya was still hustling her along. "What's going on?" she asked, giving up on the task as hopeless. "Inside," Anya said, practically shoving her up the steps and into the trailer with her name on the door, and her character name underneath it. Lexa couldn't help the thrill that ran through her seeing it. It wasn't her first time playing the part; she'd been a minor character in several of the other films set in the hero-verse, but this was the first time she would be the star. More importantly (and terrifyingly), she would be the star of the first female-led solo film in the franchise. Lexa set down her tea and started to tap in her security code, but Anya pulled her phone from her hands and set it on the counter, screen-down. "Never mind," she said. "It's probably better if you hear it from me." "Hear what?" Lexa asked. "You're starting to freak me out."Anya leaned her hip against the counter, shoving her fingers through the tangle of her hair. It was clearly not the first time she'd done so, and Lexa wondered how long she'd been dealing with this... whatever it was. "You know the actor they cast as your costar? The up-and-coming, fresh new face in Hollywood? The one whose big break this was going to be?""Clarke," Lexa said, a smile spreading across her face just saying her name. She had been one of the first people Lexa had read with during the casting process (from a list of prospects that had already been narrowed down significantly) and they'd clicked from the start. The lines had just flowed, the interaction completely natural and spontaneous, even though they were reading from a page. It had reminded Lexa why she loved this job so much. Everyone else they brought in after her had paled in comparison, and even though the studio had been hesitant to take a chance on a relative unknown, they hadn't been able to deny their chemistry, and at Lexa's urging had offered her the role. "Not happening," Anya said flatly. "She's out."Lexa felt like she'd been punched in the chest (a feeling she was quite familiar with, after an unfortunate incident with an overzealous stuntman last film, and he hadn't stopped apologizing for weeks afterward). "What?" she asked, the word coming out a wheeze. "What—is she all right? Did something happen?"Anya looked at her, and Lexa saw something soften behind her eyes. "Physically, she's fine," she said. "She wasn't in an accident or anything. She's not hurt." Lexa sagged with relief, picking up her tea again and sinking onto the couch, cradling it between her hands. "Another project?" she asked. She couldn't imagine what someone could have offered Clarke that would have tempted her away from what was arguably the biggest movie franchise in the world right now, but it wasn't always about money, or even fame. Sometimes projects came up that paid peanuts and wouldn't ever see wide distribution, but you believed in the value of what the filmmaker was doing, so you did it anyway. "No," Anya said. "The studio is revoking her contract." "Why?" Lexa demanded. Why was Anya being so cagey? It wasn't her style. At all. That was part of the reason Lexa had practically begged her to be her assistant, way back when she was just striking out on her own, rather than being managed by a whole slew of adults responsible for wrangling her. Anya told her what was what. She didn't pull punches and she didn't put up with bullshit. So why the song and dance now? "Just tell me, An. Seriously." Anya's eyes closed for a second, and her shoulders slumped. "Some pictures got leaked," she said. "And the studio doesn't want her sullying their squeaky-clean image." She rolled her eyes, because they both knew that things behind the scenes weren't nearly as sanitized as they wanted the outside world to believe them to be. It wasn't as bad as some places Lexa had worked, but it sure as hell wasn't perfect. "What kind of pictures?" Lexa asked. "How bad?""Not that bad," Anya said. "Topless. Nothing below the waist, and certainly not anything pornographic.""You've seen them?" Anya nodded. "I'm sure as soon as you turn your phone on, you will too," she said. She sat down next to Lexa, reaching out to squeeze her arm. "They're going to try to make sure it doesn't impact the schedule. They're shuffling things around now to start off with scenes that don't involve her character, buying time to go back through the list, see who's still available to take her place. It'll be okay. It's just... a little chaotic." Usually Lexa appreciated Anya's ability to calm her down and reassure her that things weren't as bad as they seemed. Today, though, it was like needles under her skin. Not that it was Anya's fault; the whole situation just sucked. She pushed herself up and grabbed her phone from the counter, keeping out of Anya's reach so she couldn't stop her again, and switched it out of airplane mode. Sure enough, as soon as she did so it exploded with notifications. Missed calls, text messages, push notifications... you name it and it was there, and it only took a second for the offending photos to appear on her screen. She scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled, looking for more, because what she was seeing couldn't possibly be what all this fuss was about. Sure, Clarke was topless, leaving nothing about what was usually hidden underneath those Henley shirts she was so fond of to the imagination, but... that was it. There was nothing even particularly sexual about the images. If they were in a gallery instead of plastered all over the internet, people would be calling them art. But because someone had posted them for anyone and everyone to see, free of charge and almost certainly without permission, Clarke was going to lose her job, and probably any prospect of a career. Lexa could feel Anya's eyes on her, and finally she put the phone down, drawing in a breath and letting out slowly. "This isn't happening," she said. "Not on my watch."Anya was many things, but stupid was not one of them, and neither was slow. A fact that Lexa should have remembered and positioned herself closer to the door before announcing her intention to put a stop to this nonsense. Unfortunately, there was just enough room, and just enough time, for Anya to launch herself off the couch and wedge herself between Lexa and the door. "What are you going to do?" Anya asked. "I'm going to tell them that they're not firing her," Lexa said. "Just like that?" Anya asked, one eyebrow arching. "Why not?" Lexa asked. "I'll tell them that they're making a mountain out of a molehill and that if they just ignore it, it will all go blow over in a few days when someone more famous does something even stupider." She flinched inwardly, realizing that the way she'd said it made it sound like Clarke had done something stupid, like this was somehow her fault, and it wasn't. "And if they don't agree?" Anya asked. "What then?""Then I tell them I won't do the movie without her," Lexa said. Anya started to roll her eyes, but then she realized Lexa was serious. "Lex. You can't do that." "I can," Lexa said. "Watch me." She tried to reach past Anya to open the door, but Anya remained firmly in place, and unless Lexa was going to turn this into a brawl, she wasn't going anywhere. "Damn it, Anya! Whose side are you on?"Anya huffed out a breath. "Yours," she said, "as always. Which is why I'm not letting you out of this trailer until you've thought this through." Lexa crossed her arms, her weight to one side, hip cocked, and waited for her to continue. "You can't just walk in and tell them that you refuse to do the movie without her," Anya said. "You have a contract.""So does she!" Lexa said. "It's not the same thing," Anya said. "They are choosing to terminate her contract. You would be in breach of yours." "I don't care," Lexa said. "Without me, they don't have a movie, and they know it." Up went the eyebrow again, and Lexa wanted to tear it out, because she knew it meant Anya was unimpressed with her logic, or thought she was acting childish, or both. Hell, maybe she was, a little, but this was wrong, and how the hell could she portray a superhero on screen and not stand up for what she believed in off it? It would make her the worst kind of hypocrite, and she would never forgive herself. "They can't recast me," Lexa said. "Not without it causing even more of a shitstorm than they're dealing with now." "That's true," Anya said. "But they can just write you out of the franchise. They can make excuses about needing to push back filming or the release of this movie a couple times, and then let it slowly fall off the radar. You know that they already feel like they're taking a chance, going out on a limb, by making it in the first place." Anya wasn't wrong. Lexa knew that the studio had dragged its feet about making a movie with a female lead for years. Over a decade, even. But their main competition – the other superhero franchise on the block – had put out a female-led film last Christmas and it had made them millions. So they knew it could succeed, if they played their cards right...And they also knew that if they didn't, if this movie didn't happen, it was going to look bad. Really bad. It was going to look like they were behind the times and didn't care about their female fanbase (which was, if not a full 50% of their audience, still substantial). With the right social media spin, people might even start to think they hated women."What are you thinking?" Anya asked, her eyes narrowing. "I can see the wheels turning, and that smirk you get when you start to slip into evil genius mode. But I'm not moving until I know why." "They think things look bad for them now?" Lexa said. "A few emails, a couple of DMs to the right people, and it could get much, much worse."Lexa sat in her trailer, staring at the screen of her phone. Anya had gone to arrange a meeting with the producers to discuss her 'concerns' about the current situation, leaving Lexa with a knot in her stomach and Clarke's phone number in her hand. Because Lexa had realized that while she was ready to burn bridges over this, she hadn't asked the most important variable in this equation how she felt about it. Maybe Clarke didn't want any part of the project anymore. Maybe she just wanted to lay low, let it blow over, and come back swinging on some other project at some indeterminate future date. Maybe...The only way to find out was to ask her. She had already had enough of her agency taken away from her in all of this; Lexa wasn't going to add any more fuel to that fire. If Clarke said to let it go, she would. She would hate it, but she would do it. This all assumed, of course, that Clarke would answer her phone. The odds of which seemed depressingly slim. If it was Lexa she would probably have her phone turned off, if not sunk to the bottom of the Pacific. But she had to try.She tapped out a text, figuring that was the safer, less invasive route, and hit send. Lexa: Clarke, it's Lexa. From Skyfire. I'm sorry all of this is happening, and I want to help. Can we talk?A second passed, then another, then a full minute, then five. Lexa barely dared look away from her screen, afraid she would miss something. Finally, three dots appeared, indicating Clarke was typing. A moment later they disappeared, and Lexa's heart sank... then skipped a beat when her phone started buzzing in her hands. She swiped her finger across the screen and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?""Hey." Clarke's voice was soft, thick with tears and edged, Lexa thought, with barely suppressed rage. "It's—""I know," Lexa said, her own voice dropping. "Thank you for calling me."Clarke laughed, a bitter burst of sound, and Lexa imagined her shaking her head. "Thank you for calling me," she said. "I won't ask how you got my number. I don't care. It's... good to hear a friendly voice."Lexa scrubbed at the sudden stinging of her eyes. "It's bullshit," she said. "It's all bullshit. And I got your number from my assistant, but it's better if neither of us ask how she got it. Plausible deniability."Clarke laughed again, and this time it sounded a little more relaxed, more genuine. "I hope it involved knocking some smug asshole over the head and stealing his ID to get into some secret office somewhere," she said. Now Lexa was the one laughing. "That sounds like a scene from the movie," she said."Pretty sure it was," Clarke said. "Not ours, but—" She stopped, and Lexa could practically hear her deflate. "Yours, now. I'm sorry—""No," Lexa said. "You don't apologize for this. You weren't the one who posted the pictures online. Even if you did—""How stupid do you think I am?" Clarke asked. "Obviously pretty stupid, to have taken them in the first place, but—""It's your body!" Lexa said. "You can take pictures of yourself if you want to! It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't be a thing.""But it is," Clarke said. "Now it's the only thing. Now every time anyone hears the name Clarke Griffin, the first thing they'll think is, 'I saw her boobs on the internet.' Fucking Finn." "Finn?" Lexa asked. She could guess, but didn't want to jump to conclusions."Ex-boyfriend," Clarke said. "Wannabe Hollywood playboy who couldn't handle the fact that my career was taking off while his plateaued at High School Football Player Number Three."Lexa pressed her lips together, fighting back a smile. It wasn't funny. Nothing about this was funny... except the way Clarke described it kind of was. "He's the one who leaked the photos?""Had to be," Clarke said. "He was the only other person who had them." She sighed. "I never should have sent them to him. I should have known he couldn't be trusted. He didn't even ask for them... I was just away on a shoot and he was lonely and whiny and I wanted to cheer him up. Or shut him up. It was years ago. I'd honestly almost forgotten they existed. Now I'll never be allowed to.""They're not even—" Lexa started, then stopped herself. "You saw them." Clarke sighed. It wasn't really a question. "Of course you saw them.""I'm sorry," Lexa said. "Someone sent me a link, and then... I went looking for more. I thought there was no way such a big deal was being made about something so little, and—""I'm pretty sure that's the first time anyone has used the word 'little' in relation to my breasts since I was, oh, eleven," Clarke said dryly. "But thank you. I think.""I don't want to let this happen," Lexa said. "I don't want to let him – them – any of them get away with this. It's up to you whether you try to do anything about Finn, obviously, but I'm willing to fight for you to keep this job, if you still want it.""Of course I want it!" Clarke said. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Not just getting my foot in the door, but the role itself is amazing, and getting to work with you—" Clarke stopped. "I was really looking forward to it."Lexa could feel herself blushing, but her voice was steady. "Don't give up yet," she said. "Anya's getting me a meeting. We're not going down without a fight.""Don't—don't do anything you might regret later," Clarke said. "Not on my account.""I won't," Lexa said. Because even if she lost this job, even if she burned it all to the ground, she wouldn't regret it, but she would make sure that the studio did. "I'll talk to you soon.""Explain it to me again," Lexa said. "Because I still don't understand.""We just can't afford for there to be even a hint of scandal attached to this project," one of the producers said. "As I'm sure you're aware, there's a lot riding on this film. With you as the lead, we're expecting it to draw a much..." He frowned. "There will be young women in the audience," he finally said. "Young girls, even. How would it look if they went home and Googled the names of the leads and the first thing that popped up was pornography?"Lexa blinked. "Pornography?" she asked. "Have you seen the pictures? They're hardly pornographic. As I recall, there was a sex scene in one of the previous films that showed as much, if not more, skin than what is in those pictures. So why are you suddenly squeamish now?" "There was a love scene," another one of the producers chimed in, because of course there were three of them and one of her, and they were all men. "And although it did show a portion of the woman's breast, it did not show..." he cleared his throat, his ears turning red, "... nipples.""Nipples?" Lexa said, throwing the word back in his face to see what color it would turn next. "This – all of this – is about nipples? Because we have seen the nipples of every single male character in the franchise on multiple occasions, on and off screen, and no one has said a word about it. So what's the difference?"They all looked at each other. None of them looked at her. They all knew the answer the question, but no one wanted to say it. "Right," Lexa said, after letting them squirm for a minute. "So you're admitting that there's a double standard. And that's not your fault, entirely. It's the ratings board and the studio and society and on and on. You can't just make it go away. But you can choose to stand up to it. You can choose to change the narrative. Instead of treating Clarke as if it's her fault this happened, as if she did something wrong for being comfortable enough in her body to show it off a little, you could place the blame on the asshole who leaked the photos, and the media who propagated them. You could use the studio's resources to minimize the damage not to your reputation, but to Clarke's. You could not only let her keep her job but center her in a story that's about fighting the dominant paradigm, and winning. Because that's what this movie is about, isn't it? That's what we're here to do? We're here to challenge the status quo, prove that women can do everything that men can, and be just as successful... right? I know that's what I thought I was signing on for when I signed my contract. If it's not, if instead we're going to kowtow to The Powers That Be at every turn, to try to please the lowest common denominator instead of rising above, striving for more, and better, well... I'm going to have to seriously consider whether I want to continue with this project."Silence. Seconds ticked by, and Lexa watched, as relaxed as she could make herself, the storm of emotions that crossed the men's faces. Anger, mostly, because what man wanted to be called out by a woman? Their egos were way too fragile. Finally one of them looked back at her. "You've made some good points," he said. "We'll need to discuss it further. In the meantime, we need you to be prepared for the possibility that the role may be recast.""Then you need to be prepared for the possibility that you may be recasting two roles," Lexa said. She stood up. "Thank you for your time." She turned on her heel and walked out... and straight into her manager. His bald head looked like a boiled tomato, and his hands were curved into claws, like he wanted to reach out and grab her, dig his fingers into her arm and drag her away, sit her down and give her a talking to like he had when she'd been half as old and twice as bratty (although she suspected he would disagree with the latter part of the statement right about now). But he didn't touch her. He knew better. He just gave her a Look, and she followed him back to her trailer. "What did you say?" Titus asked. "Why didn't you wait for me to—""Because I don't need you to do my talking for me anymore," Lexa said. "I'm perfectly capable of speaking for myself." And she outlined exactly what she'd said, watching the veins pop out in his temples and the sides of his neck more and more with every word."You can't do that," he said when he was finished. "You can't just—""Too late," Lexa said. "I already did.""Why?" Titus demanded. "You're willing to risk your entire career for this girl. Why?"Lexa hesitated, because it was a valid question. Why do this? Clarke wasn't the first person to be in a situation like this, and she probably wouldn't be the last, but if she could convince the studio to take a stand, maybe it would make the next vengeful ex think twice. It was the principle of the thing... but it was also just Clarke. "She's special."Titus' eyes closed, his jaw clenched as he sucked in a breath through his nose. "We're not doing this again," he said, his voice steady in the way that Lexa knew meant he was fighting not to lose it. "Do you remember what happened last time? Do you remember the damage control?" The words landed like a punch to the gut and a slap to the face, and she should have seen it coming but somehow she hadn't. Of course she remembered. How could she forget? She'd been young and naïve and she'd kissed one of her (female) costars, and she had kissed Lexa back, more than once, until they'd gotten caught and she had shoved Lexa away and acted like the whole thing had been unwanted. Titus had managed to smooth things over, but it was no surprise when her character was quietly written off the show in the break between seasons. "It's not like that," Lexa said. "I'm just doing what's right.""That's a matter of opinion," Titus said. "The best you can hope for now is that someone will agree with you. Or if they don't, that they won't take your idle threats seriously." He stalked out before she could tell him that her threats were far from idle. When Anya came in a few minutes later, she didn't ask, and Lexa was grateful. She listened as Anya rattled off a list of things that needed to happen, all the places she was expected to be, and Lexa nodded and was on her best behavior for the rest of the day. She'd made all the waves she needed to for the moment; now she just had to wait and see what ships returned to shore.Her phone chimed as she was getting ready for bed, signaling a text message. She slipped under the sheets and retrieved it from the nightstand, tapping on the screen. Clarke: I'll see you tomorrow. 😘Lexa's hands were shaking too badly for her to type a response. She just turned her head into her pillow and cried.Lexa pushed herself up off the couch in her trailer, aching from a morning of conditioning and stunt practice, wishing whoever was knocking would either go away or just come in already, depending on who it was. But only Anya had a key, and it might be important. It probably wasn't, but she couldn't just ignore it. She pushed open the door, ready to tell whoever it was to come back later – she was supposed to be on her lunch break – but stopped when she saw that it was Clarke. She took a step back to let her in, letting the door close behind them. For a second they just stood staring at each other, and then Clarke's arms were around her, and they were holding each other so tight Lexa felt her ribs creak. "Thank you," Clarke whispered, her breath tickling Lexa's ear. "Thank you for... for the flowers, but really for everything. You didn't have to—""Are they pretty?" Lexa asked. "I had to have Anya—""They're beautiful," Clarke said, loosening her grip and rocking back on her heels so they could look each other in the eye, even as their fingers stayed locked firmly on each other's elbows. "I heard what you did. What you said. Maybe not all of it, but some of it. You didn't have to—""I did," Lexa said. "I'm just glad it worked out.""Me too."Lexa had never worked so hard in her life. Not even on the other movies she'd done as Skyfire. But with Clarke by her side most of the time, it hardly felt like work at all, at least when they were on set. Off set was another story... that's where she was having to use every bit of acting skill she possessed. Because the more she got to know Clarke, the more she wanted to know her, and the harder it was to pretend that it wasn't, as she'd told Titus, 'like that'. The work put them in close physical proximity and demanded that they strip away their emotional armor, putting all of themselves into every take to get it right. Because it had to be right. It had to be perfect. They owed it to themselves and their audience... and maybe a little bit to the studio for being willing to take a chance. The resulting exhaustion made it harder and harder to put that armor back on at the end of the day, and Lexa found herself beginning to slide down that slippery slope that had landed her in trouble last time, reading too much into the way that Clarke's touch occasionally lingered when they gave each other a hand up, the way that sometimes Lexa thought she caught Clarke staring at her lips when in reality she had probably just zoned out for a second. The fact that even on their days off they were frequently side-by-side didn't mean anything...And then one day a stunt – they were trying to do as many of their own stunts as possible – got a little too real, the danger a little too close for comfort, and when Clarke grabbed onto Lexa like she was supposed to, there was genuine fear in her eyes. Her chest heaved and her lips parted, but her line – whatever it was supposed to be, Lexa couldn't remember, or her own that followed, or anything but how blue Clarke's eyes were and how warm her hands were, burning through the layers of her costume and straight through to her skin, but not in a bad way. "It's okay," Lexa whispered. "I'm okay." She wrapped her arms around Clarke and pulled her closer, which wasn't in the script, but she didn't care. They could call cut, reset, do another take... although she didn't relish the idea of being thrown into a wall a second time. Clarke nodded, her forehead rocking against Lexa's temple, and Lexa wasn't sure which of them moved first, whose head tipped and whose face tilted, only that one second Clarke's breath was brushing her cheek and the next their lips were meeting, and parting, and meeting again, and there was a part of her that was agonizingly aware of the fact that they were still shooting, that the cameras were still rolling and everyone was watching, but the rest of her knew only that this felt good, that Clarke in her arms felt right, so she let the kiss linger, let it play out until they were both ready for it to be over, and she brought her hand up to shield Clarke's face from the camera as she pulled away.Clarke looked at her, her forehead starting to furrow like she was worried she'd done something wrong, that she'd overstepped, but Lexa smoothed the lines between her brows with one fingertip, cursing the layer of leather between them, so she pressed her lips there instead, to reassure her that everything was all right. Clarke's lips quirked into something like a smile as she sagged against Lexa again, both of them just breathing. It was better than okay. It was perfect. At long last the director cut the scene, but no one hustled in to start resetting it. Into the silence, Lexa heard him say, "Call the writers. Tell them I'd like to suggest some edits."