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thoughtsfromaclutteredbrain · 7 years ago

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Thinking With His Heart [Karamel Fanfiction]

I started writing this fic a couple weeks ago, and I promised myself that I would post it before the new year, so I'm pretty proud of myself for actually meeting that goal lol. Warning, angst ahead cuz I just can't help myself. Tagging everyone who shared their interest in the teaser (this is a lot of people I'm sorry): @emarasmoak @theleticiathings-blog @facepalming-since-chernobyl @ms-jane-darcy @whovianlunatic @busysciencegeek @jedelmanss @lostin-the-desert @cant-forget-karamel @notsomildmanerred @imtiredof-waiting

Thank you for your enthusiasm.

SUMMARY: "Mon El thought he knew what fear felt like... But in that moment, as he walked into the DEO med bay, he realized that he was wrong. Mon El had never really, truly felt fear until the moment he saw Kara on the table, fighting for her life while Alex tried desperately to save her."

[Picks up from the end of 3x09 and includes speculation for 3x10, told from Mon El's POV]

WORD COUNT: 3,263 words

NOTE: So my thoughts have been spinning since the midseason finale, and since the trailer for 3x10. Not only did we get our first peek of the Legion rings on the members, and our first glimpse of Brainiac 5, the end of the trailer seemed to have Kara in one of the stasis tanks on the Legion ship! This fic is pure speculation on what may happen for Kara to end up there. This fic also follows the theories that the marriage is fake and that the Legion's objective is to save Kara from Reign. With that said, enjoy!

Now available on AO3!

[Feedback is welcome. Hate will be blocked. Thank you!]

Mon El thought he knew what fear felt like.

His life had been marked by that emotion. He felt it first when his planet died, and he was shoved into that little pod and shot out into the vastness of space. Then, when he landed on a strange planet, not knowing anyone, and finding out that he was the sole survivor of Daxam. His encounter with Parasite, being captured by CADMUS, getting shot, almost dying from Medusa. Gaining the courage to kiss Kara for the first time, and then having to admit his feelings to her, and then falling in love with her. Finding out his parents weren't really dead, losing Kara, traveling to another Earth to save her from Music Meister's spell. Almost going back to Daxam, getting locked up by his parents, the Daxamite invasion. Each moment had been scarier than the last, and none of it was more terrifying than almost dying when the lead was released into the atmosphere, and having to leave Kara again.

When he crashed into the 31st century, he was met with an almost calm acceptance. The feeling of crashing onto a strange planet was somehow familiar. His life was constantly filled with new beginnings, with pain, with fear. He knew the feelings well.

But in that moment, as he walked into the DEO med bay, Mon El realized that he was wrong. Mon El had never really, truly felt fear until the moment he saw Kara on the table, fighting for her life while Alex tried desperately to save her.

He felt panic rise up in his chest, and he was sure that his heart would collapse under the weight of it. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Kara, and he knew that the image of her would be burned into his retinas for a long time.

Her skin was paler than usual, and it had a thin layer of sweat. She had blood dripping down the side of her head and into her hair, staining her locks a dark, rusty color. She had tubes all over her, monitoring her vitals, and she even had one sticking out of her mouth.

Mon El had to remind himself to breathe. It wasn't right. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable, so human.

He couldn't even hear himself think over the sounds of the machines. They were beeping over and over again, reminding him and everyone else that something was very, very wrong.

His frantic thoughts were interrupted by a weird feeling in his mind. It felt almost as if someone was caressing his thoughts, turning them from shouts to whispers.

Imra. She was using her powers on him, trying her best to soothe his fear and calm him down. This was one of the reasons he had recruited her for this mission in the first place. Not only was she dedicated to the cause, but her unique power served as a safety net for whenever he strayed from the objective. She was there to give his mind a gentle nudge and make sure he stayed focused on the task at hand.

"She'll be okay," Imra told him aloud, squeezing his hand slightly as she spoke, while continuing to soothe his thoughts as best as she could. His eyes flickered down to hers briefly. He could tell that she wasn't worried. In the back of his mind, he knew that there really was no reason to be. They had seen this all play out in the history books, and Imra was right. Kara was going to be okay.

But it didn't matter. No amount of mind control could take away his worry for the woman he loved.

He was taken away from his thoughts by Alex's voice. "Stay with me, Kara," she muttered to her sister, her voice shaking slightly as she spoke. Her terror was evident in her eyes as she looked at her. "Stay with me."

As she spoke, one of the machines started beeping again, indicating that what Alex and the other medics were doing wasn't working. All he could do was watch in silent shock.

This wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to die. She can't die.

"We need to get her under a yellow sun lamp," one of the medics told Alex, but the agent was already shaking her head.

"No..." Alex replied, not taking her eyes off of Kara as she spoke. "We need to stabilize her before we can do that. The sun lamps will only help her if she's stable. Otherwise they won't heal her fast enough and..." She trailed off her words, not having the strength to finish her sentence.

He could tell that Alex was starting to lose her patience, seeming to get more frustrated with each beep of the machines.

He knew that the other medics were speaking, but he couldn't hear them over his own thoughts. They played in his head like a mantra.

No, no, no, no, no...

"This should be working," Alex exclaimed. He could hear her unshed tears in her voice, and her frustration was evident.

Mon El was no doctor, but the look on Alex's face scared him. It was one full of uncertainty, of fear, of worry. It told him that she didn't know what else she could do to save Kara's life.

It was Alex's look that shocked him into action. Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind, and before he even had a chance to think about it, he voiced it aloud.

"Put her in cryosleep."

The room fell silent with his words; the only sound was the noise of the machines. Alex didn't look up from her work, but the expression on her face showed him that she was open to suggestions at this point. From the corner of his eye, he saw Imra snap her head towards him, but he ignored her.

"What are you talking about?" J'onn asked. He had been standing next to Mon El in silence, watching Alex with worry evident on his face. Now, he looked at Mon El with skepticism.

Before Mon El could respond, he felt Imra in his brain, harshly tugging at his mind. This went against their entire plan, but he didn't care. Kara's life was more important, and he couldn't just stand there and do nothing. He focused all his energy on ignoring the pull in his mind before he spoke.

"The stasis tanks on our ship. If you put her in cryosleep, the ship will repair the damage to her body and stabilize her. It should work as long as you can get her there."

Mon El made eye contact with Winn as he spoke. Terror was plastered on his face, and he ran his hands through his hair, trying to calm himself down. He was too scared to speak, but Mon El didn't miss the small glimmer of hope that appeared in Winn's eyes, mixing with his panic and worry. He could tell that Winn was on board with the idea.

J'onn thought about it for a moment before directing his attention to the agent. "Alex. Your call."

She chewed on her lip, weighing her options as she looked down at her sister. One look at the machine, however, and her mind was made up. "Okay." She whispered.

Mon El was about to turn around and leave the medbay when he felt Imra in his head, stopping him dead in his tracks. She had a vice grip on his mind, holding him in place.

"Mon El," she hissed, just quiet enough so only he could hear.

He looked over at her, pleading with his eyes. He knew that she disagreed with helping Kara right now, but surely she wouldn't stop him, right?

Please, Imra, he pleaded in his mind, hoping that she would listen to him. He knew there was no mistaking the desperation in his thoughts. Please.

As Mon El thought the words, he saw her eyes soften, and he knew she had caved. She let go of his mind with a sigh. Once he had regained control of himself, he snapped into action.

"Let's go," he ordered, turning around and leaving the medbay, the squeaking of Kara's stretcher echoing behind him.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Mon El stood silently in front of one of the stasis tanks on the ship; the one that he had just helped Alex, Winn and J'onn put Kara into. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, but even that couldn't prevent them from shaking.

There she was— her eyes closed, her skin pale and her hair floating around her head in a golden halo. She had a white band secured to her forehead to help them to track her vitals while she healed. Kara. His Kara.

He couldn't take his eyes off of her. He had to be there for her when she woke up, and he worried that he would miss that moment if he looked away.

That's why Mon El was surprised when someone came up to him, grabbing his left bicep and spinning him around to face them. Once his eyes settled and he registered the face, he let out a sigh. He knew this was coming.

Imra.

He had a lot of explaining to do; that much was for sure. He was supposed to be the leader of the Legion. He wasn't supposed to be the one messing up their mission.

He was about to try to fumble his way through an apology when she interrupted him.

"What the hell, Mon El?"

He almost wanted to chuckle at her words. He had missed this Imra in recent days. Now that Alex, Winn and J'onn were immersed in their own conversations, Imra could finally drop the "sweet and docile wife" act. He had to admire her commitment to the job, because the Imra he knew was anything but docile.

It was only now that they were alone that he saw the Imra that he had known in the 31st century. She was fierce and she was determined and she was empathetic and she was passionate.

And she was pissed at him.

Her eyes were ablaze with anger, and in that moment, Mon El was thankful that she didn't have heat vision.

"Imra, I'm sorry," he started, his voice sounding exasperated already. He knew this conversation was coming, but that doesn't mean he was ready for it.

Imra just scoffed at him before continuing. "You should be sorry." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You're putting everything we've worked for at risk."

"I know," he muttered.

"We've been planning this for months... for years! You've been planning it!" She threw her arms up over her head. pacing back and forth as he talked. She stopped moving and dropped her arms to her side. "I... I just don't get it, Mon El. Explain it to me. Please."

Mon El opened his mouth, ready to answer, but nothing came out. He didn't know how to explain his reasons to her, because truthfully, the answer was quite simple. He did it because it was Kara, and he couldn't stand to see her like that. He had to do something.

She sighed when he said nothing. "We're lucky that we didn't mess anything up when she found you on the ship, and we're already trying to do this job while we have men still asleep. We've analyzed every point of this, and found the exact point to interfere where we have the greatest chance for success. History says that Supergirl fights the first battle with Reign, and yes, she gets injured but she lives. I just don't get why you would interfere now..."

"We've already interfered!" Mon El interrupted, unable to hold back anymore. She looked at him with a shocked look on her face, but stayed silent, so he continued. "Every day we're at the DEO we're interfering. And we've already messed things up. Kara was supposed to get injured, not beaten within an inch of her life. I couldn't let her die."

"She wouldn't have died." Imra retorted. "You know we would have known immediately if anything had changed that much."

He ignored her words, not wanting to admit to himself that they were true. "We already changed things. She was off her game in her fight with Reign because of us."

"You don't know that," Imra stated, starting to sound frustrated with him. "We didn't know how injured she got in the first fight. All we knew was that she survived."

Mon El stayed quiet. Imra was right, but that didn't mean he had to be okay with that.

Imra's eyes softened, and her voice was quieter when she continued. "Why can't you just admit it was a personal decision? That you did it because you were worried about her?"

Mon El was about to say something before he stopped. He wasn't expecting that question. He wondered briefly if she had read his mind. She had a habit of doing it unconsciously, but he shook the thought away, still trying to find an answer to her question.

She smirked a little, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "You know, you're lucky I'm the one that woke up. I've been in your mind. I've seen firsthand how much you care about her, and I understand. If it was Brainiac who woke up, he'd be trying you for treason right now."

Mon El wanted to chuckle, but he felt a sickening feeling sink into the pit of his stomach, because Imra was exactly right. Brainiac had an unparalleled intelligence, but it made him see things as black and white, with no area for gray. As a leader, that was what he should have been doing, but he had let his fear guide his decision instead.

He couldn't admit it was a personal decision. This wasn't the time for him to be thinking with his heart. If he was letting his emotions guide him, then he shouldn't be leading them on this mission.

But Mon El couldn't think of anything worse than sitting back and leaving Kara's fate in someone else's hands.

Instead, Mon El clamped down hard on his thoughts before speaking. "I had to make sure there was a Kara to save in the future. If I hadn't saved her now, the entire mission could have been ruined by her dying early. I intervened because I thought it was right."

The look Imra gave him let him know that she didn't believe him, but she didn't question it. "I'm going to go," she told him instead, and he didn't miss the weariness in her voice. "I'm going to make sure nothing changed too much from this."

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He feared that if he spoke, he would spill all the words that he was trying to hold back. He knew that Imra knew how he was feeling anyway, even if he didn't want her to.

Before she turned to walk away, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to save her, Mon El. I know it. This isn't your burden to bear alone."

Yes it is, he thought before he could stop himself, and he knew that Imra had heard him by the look of pity she gave him. She looked like she was going to say something else, but then thought against it.

Imra started to walk away, but Mon El called out to her before she could. "Hey Imra," he started, and she turned back around, looking a bit surprised. "You could have stopped me back in the medbay, but you didn't. Why not?"

Her face was unreadable, her eyes hardening as she responded. "I may not agree with you, but that doesn't mean I would stop you. I'm not that kind of person."

Mon El couldn't help but think that he had insulted her with his question. As a telepath, many people expected her to be cold-hearted and manipulative, and he knew that she struggled with that perception. However, he knew that she was anything but. If anything, her power made her more empathetic, and her response made perfect sense to him. Despite not agreeing with his choice, and knowing that he could be endangering their objective with it, Imra still wouldn't use her power to forcefully take his free will away. She would only control him if he asked because that was the type of person she was, and even then, it had been a struggle to convince her to control him when he was around Kara.

She turned on her heel and walked away without another word, and even though Mon El knew that he should probably stop her to apologize, he let her go. He thought it would be better to let her have her space first.

And even if he had wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to move. He wanted to stay by Kara's side until she woke up. She needed to wake up.

"Hey, Kara," he muttered. He relished in the feeling of being able to talk to her freely, without all the baggage surrounding them right now. He knew that all of the tension between them was his fault; it was because of all of the lies he was telling in the name of saving her life. Even though he knew he was doing it for the right reasons, he still couldn't stop his stomach from churning with each lie he told.

Her pain. Her heartache. Her sadness. It was all because of him.

"I know you can't hear me," he continued, walking closer and pressing his hand against the glass of the tank. He wished that he was able to grab her hand, to touch her, to look into her eyes, but he couldn't. Instead, he pressed his head against the glass as well, squeezing his eyes shut. "But I need you to wake up. I need you."

He felt tears coming, and he tried his best to hold them back. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself before continuing.

"And when you wake up, I'm going to be here for you, even though you hate me right now. And I promise, I will do everything I can to protect you. To save you. And, once it's all said and done, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I will love you again, with everything that I have."

He felt a tear escape him, silently sliding down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly, cursing himself for not being strong. "So please," he said, his voice hoarse from the tears left unshed and all of the things that he wanted to say but couldn't. "Just wake up."

He sighed, backing away slowly from the stasis tank, fixing his eyes onto her face once again. Imra was right. He wasn't thinking clearly. He couldn't think clearly when it came to Kara.

One good thing had come from his conversation with Imra. He had realized that this wasn't going to work. They wouldn't be able to complete the Legion's mission in their current state, with only him and Imra awake. He was too close to Kara, despite his better judgment. And Imra, she was too good of a person to keep him in line. He needed someone calloused, someone with a one track mind, someone who wouldn't be afraid to keep him in line, even though he was their leader.

He needed to wake another Legion member, and he knew just the one.

Brainiac.

[NOTE: Imra may seem to be a bit ooc from what we've seen on the show, but that was done on purpose. I think Imra is playing the wife role right now, and I'm hoping to see her drop the act and show Imra, the soldier, a bit more in the future.Despite that, I do think she actually is a good person at heart, and I do like her character a lot (and she was fun to write.)]

[Feedback is welcome. Hate will be blocked. Thank you!]

#Karamel fanfic #Supergirl #wake up #legion of superheroes #imra ardeen #3x09 #Supergirl 3x09 #Karamel fanfiction #Karamel #Kara x Mon El #speculation fanfiction #Mon El #Mon El pov #thinking with his heart #ao3 #Karamel fam #Karamel club soda #Mon El fanfic

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captainswanoncerlife · 7 years ago

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Supergirl 3x09 Thoughts

That was a really good mid-season finale. I love the fact that Kara inspired Mon-El to found the Legion and that he founded it. Although he considers the 31st century home and is married to Imra, it’s pretty clear that he still loves Kara. This is evident when Imra tells Kara that it took years for Mon-El to move on and by how concerned he was when Kara was rushed into the DEO after her fight with Reign and that Imra told him she would be okay. I think that Mon-El and Imra really care about each other, but I don’t think they are as in love with each other as it seems they are. Kara is still very much in love with Mon-El and seeing him with Imra is worse than the worse thing she could have imagined. Kara has been hurting since the end of last season, I think it’s time she gets a break. I’m not worried about Karamel getting back together and I’m really liking Imra so far, but it’s difficult seeing her and Mon-El together.

I am very excited about Reign being the villain since it raises the stakes by a lot. I think it was wise of the writers to have Kara lose her first fight with Reign badly to show how high those stakes are. Kara’s lost fights before (or maybe she hasn’t, I don’t really remember), but none as badly as this one. She was completely bruised and battered when Reign dropped from the top of that building and the last we saw of her, her pulse was at 40 and she was being intubated. She is obviously going to make it out of this, though.

The Christmas party was pretty great. I enjoyed the bits with J’onn’s father discovering he prefers the other “brown water” and J’onn’s favorite christmas song. I also really liked Kara and Samantha telling Lena that there’s chemistry between her and James. The show has been hinting at a Lena/James romance since the first episode of the season, so when they kissed I wasn’t surprised. But truthfully, I didn’t really feel much since there hasn’t been pining/angst/slow burn.

#supergirl spoilers #karamel #kara danvers #mon-el #imra ardeen #reign #world killer #lena luthor #james olsen #supergirl 3x09 #episode thoughts

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snarkymonel · 7 years ago

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(i'm a karamel supporter) 2 questions: 1. what makes you believe that it's not just bad writing that has mon-el showing more love towards Kara and none to imra? and 2. supergirl is going on a 9 week break after the first 4 episodes after the winter break air. do you think they'll toss out karamel due to the overly loud haters? apparently andrew kreisberg was the main karamel supporter or something...

1. Actually I don’t discard the idea of bad writing, I said so myself at the end of my other post: “And if it turns out to be legit, it means the show is in serious need of hiring better writers (not that it isn’t already)”. It just baffles me how so many fanfic writers are a lot more consistent in their writing and are so much more worried about plot holes in their stories than actual professional writers. I mean, there are lot of ways of writing twists into a story without making your characters look OOC. But, obviously, it could be something else entirely, and the twist could turn out to be so well crafted that no one saw it coming, but considering their track record I find it really hard to believe this… But I would genuinely love if they ended up proving me wrong.

2. No, they won’t toss out Karamel. Haters may be loud on social media, but they’re not the majority of the audience. The regular viewers love Karamel and hate prolonged angst, so whatever changes the show makes I believe it will be for the best. As for Kreisberg being “the main Karamel supporter”, I don’t see it that way. The writers’ room is not Tumblr, and Karamel is not “just another ship”. Karamel is the main canon relationship, the ship they wrote into the story, and AK didn’t write it alone. Jessica Queller and Robert Rovner are writers too and they always supported Karamel, and now they’re showrunners. Karamel is safe, don’t worry.

#asks #anon

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lastloveklaroline · 8 years ago

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Supergirl 2x17

Just when you think these two can’t get more INCREDIBLE!

Mon-El trying to be the perfect romantic boyfriend to make everything up to Kara, by filling her life with joy, awe.

Talking about his parents ship still up in the sky over them... "Is that what they mean by helicopter parenting?" AHAHAHAHA

Kara excited over her hologram bounty message, ahahaha.

Mon-El's parents put a bounty on her head because they didn't successfully break them up I bet.

As her boyfriend he chimes in that he thinks she should lay low, and because he didn't want to lose her again like he just almost did in The Flash, also..."I COOK NOW!" LMAO

Daddy J'onzz telling Mon El to keep an eye on her, omgggggggg.

But first he has to have a chat with the rents.

How did clueless HERCULES team up with evil LOIS LANE because clearly she's the one wearing the shady pants in this relationship. Clingy baby Mon-El story though, awe man. "We wish no harm on your friend." I actually like his dad, but like I said, his mom is shadyyyyyyy.

Alex has such a good heart and is always saying the right thing, aweeeeeeeeee.

Game night with her friends going stir crazy and about to leave just as Mon-El shows up, Jimmy actually telling him to stand between her and her super suit, wow I can't believe he said that nicely.

Huffy-arms-crossed Kara asking him where he was and he straight up tells her he was questioning his parents as suspects, yessssss.

Mind-controlled Mon-El attacking Kara right out the window, and she's gonna have to fight him back, ahhhhhhhh.

I bet shady lois lane mama mon-el made this hunter attack him specifically to throw him off their trail.

Def heard some bones crack when she hit him in the chest, ouch, also I love that she's trying to work with him on how to control it, and trying to fight it omg.

She punched him in the face after he was let go of it, lmao.

Anyone else see Mon-El's smirk behind Alex when she said "Get me a wrench." He's all for letting big-sis torture the powerful telepath. But here comes another strong telepath, J'onzz. Who reveals it was Mon-El's mama.

Mon-El wants to run away with her and she spoils the ending of Romeo and Juliet for him, rude. But that "one of the more annoying things about you...thank you...you're welcome" is one of the cutest things ever. And Kara saying how Mon-El changed and believing that his mother will be happy for him.

This is killing him that they're trying to hurt her to get him back. But he agrees they'll try and talk to her.

And that's how they meet in the fortress and Kara's going on about how he's happy on earth and they have a connection, and of course shady mama is having none of it and attacks her with kryptonite scythes, BITCH.

MON-EL SURRENDING TO HIS MOTHER SO SHE'LL STOP HURTING KARA!

I'M CRYINGGGGGGGGGG! Kara telling him not to go so needs to be giffed with Mon-El telling her to stay with him in the musical episode, especially after his earlier line about not wanting to lose her again.

3 KARAMEL EPISODES FULL OF ANGST IN A ROW. I FEEL LIKE I'M IN A YOYO WITH THIS SHIP OMG!

Daddy Hercules didn't know about Shady Mama, I KNEW IT!

And of course Kara can't go after the ship because the president has told J'onzz they can't.

"Please, J'onn. I can't lose him."

Hercules it's nice that you assure him Kara will be safe but you need to shut you wifes shit down omg.

Mon-El telling his dad that he wants to make their planet better than before. Trying to convince him to rebuild it with him and Shady Mama slaps him and throws him in a cell, seriously what are you doing with her Hercules. I think he's starting to see it though, and hopefully stops this.

Kara distracting Shady Mama in a fight while Winn comes to rescue Mon-El, and the Star Wars thing ahahaha. And it's J'onzz not Kara fighting Shady Mama, doesn't stop Kara from storming in last minute.

Hercules fighting Martian Manhunter. Nice. J'ONZZ FIGHTING TO KEEP HIS FAMILY TOGETHER, MON-EL IS THEIR FAMILYYYYYYYYYYY.

I know you were just trying to save Kara but, Mon El did you actually think before you blew a whole in the ship lol, at least he held onto Winn. "I can see now that this is your family." HERCULES HERCULES HERCULES! THANK YOU! HE GOT IN THE MIDDLE AND CALLED EVERYONE OFF AND SEES THAT HIS SON MADE HIS CHOICE! "I can see now that this is your family." YESSSSSSSS!

"You came for me...Everytime." OMG THIS SHIP! I REALLY DIDN'T THINK WHEN I STARTED THIS SHOW FOR CHRIS THAT I WOULD GET ANOTHER ENDGAME SHIP LIKE THIS OKAY!

Shady Mama complaining that Krytpon has taken everything including her son from her, I dont feel the least bit bad, your tears aren't fooling me sistah.

Mon-El once again proving his incredible, just as Kara said, telling his parents he's glad their alive but they won't ever see him again.

Alex helping her girlfriend get closure, she's so good.

THEIR ON THE COUCH AGAIN! YOU KNOW IT'S GONNA BE GOOD WHEN THEY'RE ON THE COUCH!

AND IT WAS!

Him telling her how she makes being brave look so easy but it's hard and he admires her so much and she says she won't forget how he sacrificed himself for her.

"We saved each other today."

NOT JUST LIKE ROMEO AND JULIET THOUGH, LOL, FINISH THE PLAY MON-EL, LOL.

They're so cute though.

Unlike his parents, and Shady Mama killing Hercules because she just can't let go, kinda saw that coming.

Next Week! RAVI IS A VERY BAD MAN, AND BOYFRIEND TO LENA APPARENTLY.

#Supergirl #Karamel #Teri Hatcher #Hercules

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gldngrl7 · 8 years ago

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Karamel Fic: Permission to Flourish (4/11)

Title: Permission to Flourish

Author: gldngrl7

Date Started: February 12, 2017

Rating: T for Teen (I know! I can’t believe it either!)

Author’s Notes:

· This story is the sequel to Bulletproof. Please read that one-shot before diving into this one.

· There is angst in this story but I promise a happy ending.

· There’s a few original characters in this story. I hope you like them. I hope you love them.

· Comments are welcomed, flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Everything that's broke

Leave it to the breeze

Let the ashes fall

Forget about me

Come on, let it go

Just let it be

Why don't you be you?

And I'll be me

James Bay – ‘Let It Go’

Chapter 4/11

Superhuman or not, when the mind is in a state of panic one cannot move fast enough, think logically enough, or see clearly enough to accomplish even the simplest of tasks.

Mike had been through this a thousand times before, but never with someone for whom he had truly cared on a personal level. He had ferried countless injured passengers to the nearest hospital for medical treatment, looked into the eyes of equally innumerable parents and loved ones who didn’t hesitate to beg him to save the lives so precious to them.

But looking into Kara’s eyes as he laid Amelia’s form into her arms, for the first time he knew what those people had felt. The desperation—the brush of smoky wings from black demons coming to steal something you love from you.

His hands shook as he attempted to slot the shaking key into the ignition of his 10-year-old Honda Civic. The administration office was contacting her mother who would meet him there as soon as could arrive. Luckily, she worked as a nurse at the same hospital and would already be there. Amelia’s father had taken off when she was just a toddler, explaining why she had attached herself so strongly to Mike, as the only available father figure currently in her life.

Trembling hands unable to get the key into the ignition of his car, Mike sat back against the seat and took a long, deep breath, clasping his hands together in an effort to cease the shaking. “You’re not in control,” he said aloud.

It was a mantra he began several years ago. When training with Clark there had been times when superpowers hadn’t been enough to save lives and Clark had explained that, if he truly wanted this life, he had to find a way to remind himself that sometimes he was just as human as everyone else. That there were no such things as infallibility or imperviousness, not really. “You are not in control. You are powerless. There is nothing you can do now. She’s in the doctor’s hands.”

Amelia’s backpack was tucked next to him in the passenger seat and he reached for it, withdrawing the tuxedoed bunny rabbit with floppy ears. Squeezing it tightly, he held it against his forehead, drawing on every ounce of strength he had to regain some measure of control. “She’s going to be okay,” he said, hoping there was one benevolent god in this whole universe that might hear his prayer. “Please let her be okay.”

Despite of the hard lump of emotion choking his throat, Mike refused to cry. Crying would be a white flag of surrender and he was not giving up on her until he knew there was nothing more to be done. And if the worst happened, the unimaginable, he would have to be strong for her mother and for the other kids in his class, who would have trouble understanding what happened or why. Though no one could ever understand why such things happened—not even the grown-ups.

With one hand he gripped the steering wheel so hard he left imprints of his fingers on the polyurethane grip. “Damn it!” he shouted. He’d left National City six years ago because he wanted to make himself bulletproof, to lock away the parts of himself that could feel anything like this again. But he’d had this calling and gotten this job, and each and every one of his students had gotten past his carefully constructed shields. And he’d let them. He had let them in. How could he be the best teacher he could be if he didn’t? And none had burrowed deeper than his rainbow-bright Amelia.

Having gathered himself enough to try again, Mike slid his key into the ignition of his car and cranked the engine and pulled out of his parking spot.

Just a few miles from the hospital it should have been a five minute drive, but as if the cosmos was torturing him, every light turned red just before he reached it, and road construction a mile from the medical center filtered all the vehicles down to one slow moving lane, until he was ready to scream his lungs out. He could have flown and arrived in seconds, but how would he have explained leaving his car in the teacher’s lot?

He parked in the lot outside of the Emergency Room entrance and grabbed Amelia’s backpack and bunny. At the desk he wasted no time on pleasantries. “Amelia Connors?” he asked. “She was just brought in,” he babbled.

Directed to the third floor surgical waiting room, Mike found a devastated Belinda Connors dressed in pink scrubs, slumped in couch, and her face in his hands. From the broken expression on her face, he can’t help but imagine that the worst has come to pass. “Belinda?” he worried.

Her head snapped up, tears streaming down her face and in the space of a breath she rocketed into his waiting arms. Mike held her close, stroking her back with one hand as she tucked her head into his neck. He gathered the courage to speak, uncertain if he truly wanted the answer. “Is she…?”

“In surgery,” Belinda supplied, pulling away from him, but leaving her hands on his shoulders. “The doctors said a few more minutes and my baby would have been past the point of no return.”

Mike walked her back over to the couch and guided her into a sitting position—mostly because if he didn’t sit soon, his knees were going to collapse beneath the weight of his relief. Amelia was still alive and for now, that was enough.

****

She sat unnoticed in the corner of the surgical waiting room, flipping nervously through an outdated magazine before Mon-El rushed in. She moved to stand, to greet him, but then the woman was in his arms and he was soothing her like she was all he could see in the world. He was so caught up in her that he hadn’t even sensed her presence in the room.

There were multiple operating theaters on this floor and so the surgical lobby was large, and there were seven other people waiting to hear news of their loved ones. But he didn’t seem to notice any of them, least of all her.

She didn’t turn up her hearing to listen to what they were saying, mostly because she was afraid to know. Kara watched as he ushered the woman gently back to her seat, and then reached for her hand, their heads hovering close to one another. What remained of Kara’s heart withered inside of her. When she’d taken the little girl into her arms, the desperate plea in his eyes had struck her like a spike to the chest. She was special to him, and now that she’d seen Mon-El with the child’s mother, Kara suspected that she knew why.

Clearly…she was too late.

Grabbing her purse, she stood quietly from her chair and slipped stealthily out of the room.

****

It was immediately clear to anyone that saw mother and daughter together where Amelia got her effervescent personality. Though unlike her daughter, Belinda’s hair and eyes were dark, Amelia had clearly inherited her mother’s tiny stature and bubbly nature. In the few months since meeting her at parent-teacher night, Mike could tell that Belinda was the kind of woman who never let anything get her down for long. “Supergirl brought her,” Belinda told him and then dramatically rolled her mahogany brown eyes. “Of course you would know that, you must have been there. But…Supergirl? What was she even doing here in Philadelphia?”

“A little out of her jurisdiction,” he agreed, with a raspy chuckle, hoping to elicit a smile.

“Why her and not Valor?” Belinda wondered.

“Maybe he’s on vacation,” Mike posited, reaching to take her hand in his. She clasped his hand back with all of her strength. “Or maybe she is. Supergirl…come to see our fair city. Maybe she got tired of the temperate climate and constant sunshine of National City and wanted to experience the seasons.” When Belinda side-eyed him, he defended his idea, “Hey, superheroes must need vacations too!”

Belinda snorted, a dimple on her cheek making a brief appearance. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m just glad she was there.”

“So am I,” Mike echoed, realizing for the first time it was the truth. He was glad to have Amelia’s well-being taken out of his hands, because holding that precious life was a pressure he wasn’t sure he could have done justice.

“I wish she’s stayed around long enough for me to thank her.”

Interesting, Mike thought. Kara was here just when he needed her the most, and then disappeared like a wraith. That didn’t make any sense. “She’s gone?” he asked, disturbed by the sound of his own disappointment. ‘He was not disappointed!’ he lied to himself.

“They said she flew in, told them that my baby had a…bleed in her brain and that there wasn’t much time. She stayed long enough to make sure Amelia was receiving prompt care, and then she slipped away. They said one second she was there, and the next she was just…gone. They say she doesn’t like to stick around for the gratitude.”

“Who says that?” he asked, confused. That didn’t sound like the Kara he knew—the one that relished the spotlight.

“Everyone,” Belinda replied. “Don’t you read the news?”

“Only when I have to,” he answered truthfully. For the past few years, Mike had intentionally avoided news having anything to do with National City and its favorite adoptive daughter. He learned long ago that subjecting himself to that torture did nothing to help him move forward with his life. “I teach 24 second graders,” he joked, “who’s got time for news? I barely have time for sleep.”

“Amelia loves Valor but I want her to learn about Supergirl, too. I want her to see that a woman can be just as strong as a man, stronger even. You see?”

“Of course.”

“Her father left us when she was so young…I was so young—only twenty-three. I worked my way through school and got my nursing degree. I was proud of how strong and independent I was, but Amelia doesn’t understand any of that, at least not yet. But stopping a runaway train…that she understands.”

“Well, Supergirl is definitely strong,” Mike agreed, remembering Amelia’s drawing from that morning. “And she certainly doesn’t need anyone. That’s for sure.”

“Amelia’s going to be so mad when she wakes up and realizes that Supergirl saved her life, but she missed the whole thing.” Belinda caught sight of the backpack in Mike’s other hand. “Oh, you brought her things!”

“I thought she might need Mr. Snuggles when she wakes up.” Mike held the backpack aloft, withdrawing the tuxedoed bunny.

“You know about Mr. Snuggles, huh?”

“I have my ways.” Mike shrugged in a self-deprecating manner that won him another dimple, which disappeared almost immediately as she crumbled into tears.

“She tries so hard to keep him secret,” Belinda sniffed, but held herself together. “She wants so badly to be strong.”

“Someone once told me that true strength is knowing when to accept help,” he smiled, hoping his words soothed her. “Even if that help comes from a stuffed bunny,” he sighed, handing the bunny over to her. Mike reached for her hand again, this time to offer her some of his strength. “She’s plenty strong, Belinda, and she’s going to be okay. You have to believe that.”

Belinda nodded her head fervently before reaching to pull her into her arms. “She really loves you, you know,” Belinda whispered against his shirt. “Every day…you’re all she talks about if she’s not talking about Valor or Supergirl or Mr. Snuggles. You make her excited to go to school every day.”

Mike felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment as he shook his head. “I think she’d be excited about school no matter who her teacher was. She’s just that kind of kid.”

Belinda disagreed. “This is probably inappropriate to say but…she wishes you were her dad. She doesn’t remember her father and you’re the most important man in her life right now. Stable,” she qualified. “Caring. She’d do anything for your approval…or attention.”

Is that what she was doing on that jungle gym? Trying to get his attention? Mike felt his guilt kick up another ten notches. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he confessed. “I mean…there were so many kids on the playground and I had stopped to talk to Erica…Mrs. Doland, for a moment. She was climbing the rocket where I couldn’t see.”

“I’m not blaming you, Mike,” she hastened to say. “I can barely keep my eyes on the kid I have, I can’t imagine having to keep track of twenty-four of the little monsters. It’s a miracle this doesn’t happened more often.”

“I am so…so sorry.” His apology tumbled out and he swiftly covered his mouth before it could become too effusive, too much for either of them to bear.

“She’s fearless when it comes to taking risks with her body. She’s not afraid of pain, and never has been,” Belinda said. “And she would have wanted you to know that. And she’s wily. There’s no way she would have risked you stopping her from climbing that jungle gym, before she was good and ready for you to know. The truth is…I’m the one who raised her to be like that. She sees all the bad things happening in the world, the things that superheroes stop and the things that they can’t…I just didn’t want her to live in fear, that’s all. I’ve always tried to teach her not to be afraid.” She straightened the tuxedo jacket on Mr. Snuggles’ suit and shrugged. “It’s a work in progress, I guess.”

“A really great work in progress,” he confirmed. “Who could use a little more confidence when it comes to math.”

“I’m sure with you teaching her she’ll figure it out.”

“Look, Belinda…this could take a while. I’m going to head to down to the cafeteria and get a coffee. Would you like one?”

“That would be great. I’d go myself but—“

“You should stay right where you are. I’ll take care it. How do you take it?”

“Cream and two sugars,” she replied, hugging Mr. Snuggles tightly to her chest.

“Coming right up,” he promised.

“Thanks, Mike.”

He shook his head. “It’s the least I can do.”

Mike strolled away from her, headed to the cafeteria on the first floor. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone and began typing a message to Erica.

‘Here with Amelia’s mom. She’s in surgery now. More later.’ He followed the message with several fingers-crossed emojis before hitting send and tucking the phone back into his pocket.

TBC

#karamel #karamel fic #bulletproof verse

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inspirierendefrisuren · 6 years ago

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18 kurze Frisuren für Frauen über 50

Daten-Bpp-Pinlink = „https://ift.tt/2NUMBHe; Daten-Bpp-Pincorner = „Nordost“ Daten-Bpp-Pinhover = „true“ Daten-Bpp-Lang = „En“ Daten-Bpp-Count = „none“ Daten-Bpp-NULL-Count = „true“-Bpp-Datengröße = „28“ Daten-Bpp-Farbe = „rot“ Daten-Bpp-Mobile = „1“ >

mit zunehmendem Alter tendenziell mehr Frauen kurze Haare haben. So kommt es denn langes Haar erfordert mehr Zeit und hohe Wartungskosten um die perfekte Form zu erhalten. Nicht müssen als eine Frau über 50, Sie jedoch Herz denken kurze Haare eine blasse Version verlieren. In der Tat werden Sie betäubt, um zu erfahren, dass kurze Haare auf verschiedene Weise gestaltet werden kann, die noch vielseitiger als die Haare lang oder mittlerer Länge sind.

also, in einem Versuch, Ihnen die breite Palette von kurzen Frisur-Ideen für Frauen über 50 und ihre magische Wirkung auf ihre Persönlichkeit vorstellen, hier wir haben eingetragen 18 Optionen mit Bildern zu machen, mehr visuelle.

lassen Sie uns eintauchen in

1-kurze Frisur für Frauen über 50

dieser Karamell braun Pixie Cut ist leicht zu tragen und bietet einen Komfort in der Lage, aber charmanten Look. Die lose verstreut Pony geben Sie ihm eine stattliche Glamour, so Sie nie die Größe der eigenen Persönlichkeit im Laufe des Tages verlieren.

2-Casual Pixie

dieser blonde Pixie Cut ist ideal für lässig Ausflüge. Sie können es mit jeder Art von Outfits und Ornamente koppeln. Ein keine Nörgler!

3-Cute-Bob mit Pony

wenn Sie wie ich sind und Angst vor Pony durch dünnes Haar haben, dieses niedliche Bob mit Pony wird ein Lebensretter. Nicht zu lange auf Ihr Kinn berühren, ist das Ohrläppchen berührten Bob viel zu erstaunlich.

4-Layered moderne Bob Schnitt

wenn Sie, berühren Sie Gnade zusammen mit einem unbeschwerten Frisur möchten, moderne geschichteten Bob Schnitt wäre Ihre perfekte sho t.

5-Orgien Pixie

mit weniger Zeit, Ihre Mähne in den 50er Jahren behandeln diesen chaotisch Haarschnitt ist alles, was, die wir für eine anspruchsvolle Optik empfehlen. Diese NULL Wartung Stil passt auch das feine graue Haar.

6-braune kurze Haare

Hier ist eine Anregung für die dicken Bäume. Die braune Farbe gibt es eine entzückende sowie eine energetische Funktion während machen Sie cool aussehen!

7-grau feine Haare

nicht zu scharf, diese Frisur ist verpflichtet, die Köpfe drehen, wohin Sie zu besuchen. Es gibt eine Art von weichen Blick, der eine Schlichtheit über Ihre Kontur inspiriert!

8 – Platin Highlights mit Pony

„Sie können nicht begeistern Begeisterung unter den Jugendlichen in den 50er Jahren“ – dieses sensationelle Optik entstanden in der Geschichte der Frisuren, die Aussage zu widerlegen. Probieren Sie und überzeugen sie sich selbst!

9 – neueste abgehackt Haar

verschiedene ohne zuschlagen Ihre Eleganz ist alles über diese neuesten abgehackt Haare. Asymmetrisch geschnitten Sie, der shabby-Look bedeutet sehr viel für die Trend-Liebende Frauen im alten in diesen Tagen.

10 – dapper Frisur für ältere Frauen

im Mittelpunkt der Aufmerksamkeit kommen. Sie haben Zeit um Dinge geschehen zu verbringen. Und zum Glück diese dapper Frisur kann Ihnen den gewünschten Charme mit wenig Aufwand. Um ganz zu schweigen von seiner voller und dicker aussehen zu erreichen, können Sie viel Schwung und Bewegung Ihrer Schlösser für eine ansprechendere Optik genießen.

11 – schneidigen Frisur

dieser schneidigen Frisur sorgt ganzjährig für einen verspielten Look.

12-Platinum Inverted Bob

13-Roxan Haare grau Blondine 50

14-Light Kupfer-Haar

15-Jamie Lee

16-Schulter Länge Bob

17-Snappy graue Haare

18-Silber Haare für Frauen über 50

Der Post %% POSTLINK %% erschien zuerst auf %% BLOGLINK %%.

source https://www.inspirierendefrisuren.com/18-kurze-frisuren-fuer-frauen-ueber-50.jsp

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darklygophilia · 7 years ago

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I was thinking. If you look at all the couples through the arrow-verse, O/F, Mon el and kara, westallen. I think the writers threw a lot of angst and obstacles in olicity's way, they are throwing angst and separation in Karamel's way but they seem to be very easy with westallen. What do you think about the treatment of these couples.

1st, I want to disclose that I’m not an avid viewer of the other DCTV shows (“Flash” “Supergirl” & “Legends”). I checked them out during their respective 1st seasons, but initially their tone was not my cup of tea. I’m prefer the darker Christopher-Nolan-esque Superhero shows. My fave Superhero shows are “Daredevil” “Jessica Jones” & “Punisher.” That’s not to say a prefer MARVEL over DC (though I do think the majority of MARVEL film/TV adaptations are better written than DC’s). I like various adaptations of both. IMO, MARVEL is better with their female characters. As for my other favored shows, in general I watch those with a darker tone, like “Penny Dreadful.” Or shows with serious subject matters like “West Wing” “Newsroom” & “SVU.”

2nd, I’m not at all invested in the Westallen & Karmel ships, simply b/c I don’t watch their shows. I do typically tune in for the crossovers, or if a specific character from “Arrow” happens to guest star on one of the other DCTV shows then I also tune in.

With that said, I’ll try to answer your question to the best of my ability with what I do know & what I’ve gathered from other fans of these other respective ships.

I think when you’re dealing with interconnecting shows like DCTV, there’s a sort of learning curve. There’s a few specific things the writers/EPs of “Arrow” clearly wanted to do differently with the other shows; certain mistakes they tried to learn from. Example 1: the negative backlash “Arrow” got after Sara’s unnecessarily fridging death inspired the writers/EPs to branch out & create “Legends” & do what they could to bring Sara back. Example 2: the different ways “Arrow brought back the Lance sisters; Sara was beloved so when they brought her back, they didn’t change much about her. She was still tortured from her history with the League & the bloodlust that she now had to deal with from being in the Lazarus Pit. They gradually evolved her character on “Legends.” This reflects in Laurel when she’s brought back as Black Siren (Donna Nance). Laurel was not a found character due to her inconsistent writing & poor character development, so they put KC in a role that suited her better. A villain’s role, which reflects her work on “Supernatural” “Gossip Girl” & “Melrose Place.” (IMO, the fact that they had to change Laurel’s character so drastically by making her a villain & a doppelganger from another Earth, an entirely new character, says a lot about the Earth-1 Laurel.) It’s changes like that, that seem to show how the writers try (though don’t always succeed) in learning from past mistakes.

In terms of the couples, & how the writers/EPs have learned from certain (not all) mistakes & how they handle said couples, has a lot to do with realizing what does & doesn’t work. Lauriver, for the majority of viewers & fans, did NOT work. We saw, pretty early on in “Arrow” that the writers/EPs wanted to get as far away from Lauriver as they could. They brought Felicity onto Team Arrow very early on in the show, & she learned Oliver’s secret identity long before Laurel did. Plus, Lauriver’s reunion was shadowed with regret, secrets & underpinned with betrayal; all strong foreshadowing that it was never gonna work out. Regret being that Oliver was driven to be with Laurel not out of any real love or affection, but out of his own guilt that he didn’t treat her right the 1st time around. Secrets being that, even as Oliver goes to Laurel to confess his feelings for her, he never actually says he “loves” her & he still keeps the Hood part of him a secret! Lastly, the fact that Lauriver are betraying Tommy in the process, all while Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” plays in the background - these are all things that show just how toxic & overall unhealthy Lauriver is. Lauriver is promptly ended in that moment.

With that understanding of Lauriver, I think the writers/EPs did learn from this particular mistake in terms of Westallen. In comparison, Westallen are a lot healthier than Lauriver namely b/c their backstories are so different. Lauriver’s backstory is filled with Ollie cheating on Laurel constantly & Laurel enabling his behavior or just outright ignoring it. On top of that Lauriver wanted different things at different times. Ollie wasn’t ready to settle down, to the point that he was so freaked by committing to Laurel permanently that he runs off with her sister! Meanwhile, Laurel seems to live in her own head, fantasizing the day she’ll become Mrs. Queen & living happily ever after with a version of Ollie that she’s built up inside her head.

In comparison, Westallen grew up as best friends, in the same loving & supportive household. The root of their relationship, like Olicity, is friendship. So, I do think doing in to the “Flash” the writers/EPs did everything they absolutely could to essentially make Westallen that exact opposite of Lauriver, to the point where they essentially mirror many aspects of Olicity. They did the same with Iris as an individual character in “Flash” S1, where they seemed to model her after Felicity in terms of character development rather than Laurel’s lack of character development. And with all the negative backlash with how the Olicity break-up was handled, the “Flash” did seem to try to approach Westallen’s temporary break-up differently as to avoid making the same mistake.

The lack of angst between Westallen vs. Olicity, IMO, is another lesson learned. One thing I heard people complaining about in regards to the angst that’s constantly thrown at Olicity (especially S4 Baby-Mama-Drama) is: Why can’t a couple be happy & still be epic? Olicity doesn’t need angst to drive them as a couple as S4A proved. IMO, the “Flash” writers have taken this into account & have evolved Westallen without petty angst & drama as a typical plot device. And we’re also starting to see less angst between Olicity, which is great.

However, as you said, the writers/EPs do seem to go easy on Westallen & most especially Barry. This is something I dislike in terms of Barry b/c there’s a clear difference between how the writers treat Barry when he does something wrong vs. how they treat Oliver. Whenever, if ever, Oliver messes up, he’s dragged over proverbial hot coals! Nothing is ever easy for him! Whereas Barry is often forgiven for something he messed up n in an ep. or two. And there’s almost never a consequence that Barry has to face for his actions that isn’t almost always quickly forgiven or immediately understood by other characters. Wile Oliver is forever judged & crucified for his wrongdoings! It lends an air of unfairness between these two characters.

As for Karmel, it feels more like purposeful angst which could simply hint that Karmel is not endgame. Especially considering that Karmel is more along the lines of Lauriver rather than Westallen & Olicity. Its not as toxic as Lauriver, but it is just as unhealthy given that Mon El too often dictates to Kara unnecessarily. Karmel is also made to look more unhealthy when lined up in comparison to Jimmy/Kara & Lena/Kara ship possibilities. Personally I think DCTV needs more inter-racial & LGBTQ couples, so I’m all for either of these over Karmel any day of the week.

In conclusion, the lessons these writers/EPs do NOT seem capable of learning is the equality of characters. These are mostly white male writers & they write their female, LGBTQ, & POC characters under a white male gaze! Its an injustice to the DCTV universe on a whole. The constantly silencing of Jewish & female characters like Felicity, the fridging of Sara, the lacking presence of Thea. The injustice of Nyssa losing her beloved & her League Legacy to a white male abuser like Malcolm Merlyn; Kara being dictated to by Mon El & Iris essentially being regulated to Mrs. Flash. Not to mention the complete lack of development for Laurel from the get go! These are all things that need to be fixed in the DCTV universe! These writers are misogynists, so while they may surprise us with some insightful growth, there’s so much more they need to do.

#Anonymous #I over think everything #anti-Laurel Lance #Just to Be Safe #anti-Donna Nanca #anti-Black Siren #Mini-Meta #anti-Arrow Writers #Learning Curve #Women in Writing #I'm not anti-Laurel Lance b/c I dislike KC; I'm anti-Laurel Lance b/c of the way the character was written.

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gldngrl7 · 8 years ago

Text

Karamel Fic: Permission to Flourish (1/11)

Title: Permission to Flourish

Author: gldngrl7

Date Started: February 12, 2017

Rating: T for Teen (I know! I can’t believe it either!)

Author’s Notes:

This story is the sequel to Bulletproof. Please read that one-shot before diving into this one.

I swear – sometimes I have no idea where some stories come from – and this is one of those stories that’s a complete mystery to me. It just came to me not long after writing Bulletproof of the vocation where Mon-El would find his calling after leaving National City and I just couldn’t NOT write it.

There is angst in this story but I promise a happy ending.

There’s a few original characters in this story. I hope you like them. I hope you love them.

Comments are welcomed, flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Chapter 1/11

I've been around for you

I've been up and down for you

But I just can't get any relief

I've swallowed my pride for you

I've lived and I’ve lied for you

But you still make me feel like a thief

You got me stealing your love away

'Cause you never give it

Peeling the years away and we can't relive it

I make you laugh

And you make me cry

I believe it's time for me to fly

--REO Speedwagon - “Time for Me to Fly”

Six years after leaving National City:

Mike Matthews’ day job was stressful and noisy and, not infrequently, leaked into his nighttime, despite his ability to work efficiently and occasionally at super speed when not observed by others. So when he had time alone in the peace and quiet of his secluded garage apartment, he liked to veg in front of the television – at least during weeknights. He flipped on the television to watch a favorite sci-fi program – the one indulgence he seemed to be allowed during his busy week. But just as he got comfortable, his hand tucked behind his head on the couch, his show cut away and a news crawl immediately appeared on the screen.

A nationally recognized news anchor appeared on the screen, her face stricken and pale. Mike knew immediately something was horribly awry somewhere and straightened up, sitting at the edge of his seat.

“Breaking news from National City this evening. Reports are pouring in, confirming that…what appears to be alien spaceships have arrived on the outskirts of the city near the Port. We are hearing reports that these aliens are hostile – I repeat…they are hostile. Forces are gathering in the city to repel the aliens at this time, with Supergirl being at the forefront of this fight…..”

The news report droned on but Mike heard none of it, his attention diverted by the buzzing of his cell phone on the coffee table. Sensing who was on the other end of the call, he answered it in a flash. “I’m watching,” he announced, before the caller could even ask. “Am I ready for this? I don’t see how I have a choice.” Mike whisked out of the room and returned with a duffel bag, dropping it on the floor at his feet. “I’m already getting my things. Just going to lock up before I leave. See you there?” Mike hung up the phone and dropped it into his bag.

It took less than a handful of seconds to lock the deadbolts on his door, hoist the duffel over his shoulder and take to the sky like he’d never known anything else.

*****

Dominators! He should have known. After Kara fought the Dominators years ago on Earth Prime, it seemed only a matter of time before they’d show up here on Earth-38. Arriving just in the nick of time to join the fight, as Supergirl, Superman and Martian Manhunter, along with a throng of heroes he’d never seen before, struggled to bring down a horde of berserkers, Valor wasted no time jumping into the fray. And ‘fray’ it was, to be sure. It appeared Supergirl and her team had invited others to their fight, including heroes he could only assume were her allies from another Earth. Mike caught sight of Guardian fending off a Dominator with his shield, as well as Alex using her powered exoskeleton to toss one of the aliens into the waiting blast of fire from a man he can only assume was Heatwave.

He hovered over the Dominator shuttle plying it with his heat vision until is sputtered and then exploded. Gathered Dominators stopped for a moment, realizing that their ride back to the mothership just bit the dust, which allowed Valor to invite himself to the party. Landing on the ground, he puts his weight behind a single punch that sent one careening back into the ship’s fire.

“One down,” he told himself.

“Behind you,” someone shouted. An orange streak flashed before his eyes and the apparent Dominator behind him disappeared to…he didn’t know where.

A second later, the orange flash materialized into a person beside him. “I’m Barry,” the man in the blood red suit announced, an open grin on his masked face.

“Ah!” Mike immediately recognized the name as the speedster from Earth Prime who befriended Kara long before Mike’s arrival on this planet. “Barry Allen…nice to meet you finally. I’m Mike…uh…Valor,” he indicated his suit. “Is there a plan here?”

Barry tossed him a small bag. “Put one of these behind the ear of each Dominator you come across. Other than that, knock them around until the tech geniuses get their stuff set up. Then get clear when we get the signal.”

“And the signal is…?”

“You have super hearing?” the speedster asked.

“Yes.”

“Then keep your ears tuned to the comms. You’ll hear the signal when it comes,” he answered cryptically.

So they went to hand-to-hand, taking out the horde and trying to stay alive. Dominators were extremely strong, their strength rivaling that of Superman, Supergirl and Valor, so as they fought, it was best to avoid physical contact whatsoever. He concentrated on using his speed to place the tiny transmitters. At one point he looked around, but Supergirl was nowhere to be found.

An ally went down and Mike went after her, pulling her from the melee of attacking aliens. He dragged her from beneath the body of a Dominator and removed her from the fight. She looked up at him and smiled behind her red mask. “I’m Speedy and you can fly.”

“Valor,” he provided his codename for her. “And…yes I can.”

“Cool.”

“Are you okay?” he shouted over the noise.

“I’ve had worse,” she pluckily replied, rubbing at an injured shoulder. She came off as much more petite than she actually was, and she wore an outfit made of thick red leather. Whipping an arrow out of her quiver attached to her back, Speedy notched it into her bow. “Thanks for the assist, but there’s no rest for the wicked,” she said with a roguish smile, before diving back into the fight.

Valor flew up for an overhead view, taking out a few Dominators with his heat vision and by diving down upon them with his super speed and a punch combination. It went on and on, a seemingly endless supply of attacking Dominators, until finally the signal was given and Mike soared above the crowd to watch as high pitched whine pass over the city in a giant wave, taking out all of the remaining Dominators. The creatures grabbed for their “ears” and screeched in pain before crumpling to the ground, dead.

When it was over, he dropped like a stone, slamming feet first into the pavement, his knees bending to absorb the impact, his royal blue cape fluttering dramatically around him. Clark was the first to approach him, their matching grins telling the tale of a long-held friendship.

“Clark,” he greeted, joyfully. Clark’s impossibly strong arms wrapped him in a welcome embrace, his hands slapping Mike powerfully on the back. Mike returned the embrace with equal back-slapping fervor, as men do.

“What kept you?” Clark joked.

“Can’t believe you started the party without me?” Mike shook his head.

“Well, if you hadn’t decided you needed to make a dramatic and well-timed entrance….”

“I’m on the other side of the country,” Mike reminded his friend and mentor. “Philadelphia isn’t exactly a stone’s throw. Besides, it looks like you had everything handled.”

“Come and meet the rest,” Clark grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the milling crowd. He took them through each of their names, assuming that the others had already experienced their introductions. He had already met Barry and Speedy, but there was also Vibe, Black Canary, Mr. Terrific, Wild Dog, Jesse Quick, as well as the team of time travelers that included Heatwave, Vixen, White Canary and Firestorm.

He looked for her. Surreptitiously, unwillingly, his eyes darting away from each face, hoping to find hers somewhere in the crowd, but to no avail. He felt his heart sink, though he hadn’t been wholly unaware of the hope he’d been carrying within. Even through the supersonic flight to National City, he hadn’t really taken the time to truly consider seeing her again. He’d been more concerned about an alien attack and what it might mean. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to examine the possibility too closely.

“She’s with J’onn and Bruce,” Clark told him.

“I wasn’t—“

“You were,” Clark insisted firmly. Mike’s shoulders slumped with defeat, finally admitting to himself that his heart had been searching for her in the crowd. “It’s okay,” Clark said, his hand grasping Mike’s shoulders in comfort. “She’s returned to the DEO. They managed to capture a Dominator and they wanted to secure it before interrogating it. Kara’s there to keep Bruce from killing it.”

“I see.”

“Do you want to join them?” Clark asked, expecting his friend to jump at the chance to see Kara again.

“No,” Mike replied, shaking his head and taking a step back. “Probably not a good idea.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Clark exclaimed. “You’re going to come all this way and not even see her? After six years?”

“Just a coward, I guess,” he shrugged, a kernel of truth hiding beneath the sarcasm.

“She doesn’t think that about you, Mike.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Mike said, placing his hands on his hips. “It’s been six years. Maybe it’s best if we just…forget.”

‘Then why haven’t you done that already?” Clark needled him. “You think I haven’t noticed that there hasn’t been anyone in your life?”

‘There has—“

“Anyone real, I meant. Sure, there have been dates here and there, but no one you’ve considered committing to long-term.”

“You know as well as I do, it’s not that easy. Not every woman is like Lois,” Mike pointed out. He hadn’t seen Lois in over nine months, not since Samuel was born, and though they emailed on a weekly basis he still missed her. She was the big sister he’d never had.

“You’ll never find your Lois if you don’t try,” Clark argued.

“How do you--?”

“I know you,” Clark cut him off. “I know you – maybe even better than you know yourself. Maybe you’re not looking because you know you’ve already found her.”

“C’mon, Clark,” Mike begged, studying the tips of his blue boots.

“I know it’s hard,” Clark placed a hand on Mike’s shoulder. “The first step is the hardest.”

Mike considered Clark’s position a moment before shaking his head. “I can’t,” he decided. “I just…can’t. I’m sorry if that disappoints you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” Clark promised, a sad smile on his face. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. I’ll tell her.”

“Damn it, Clark!”

“She asks about you,” Clark confessed. “When you were training, I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t talk about what we were doing or how you were progressing. And I’ve kept that promise, even though it made her angry. But those days are gone and all she wants is to know how you are.”

“Really?” Mike asked. Why would she possibly want to know about his life? He left after coming to the realization that she would never feel about him the way he felt about her. He wanted to respect and honor that, so he removed himself from her sphere in hopes of easing her awkward discomfort. “Why?”

“She cares about you, Mike,” Clark replied. “Maybe your leaving made her realize just how much….”

“No,” Mike shook his head. “She was very clear. She did not have those kinds of feelings for me.”

“We have a saying here on Earth about absence making the heart grow fonder.”

“I don’t want ‘fond’,” Mike answered, sadly. “I never did.”

Clark tilted his head to one side for a second and listened to something outside of the human range of hearing. Mike attempted to tune in, but without knowing where to focus, Clark could be listening to a football game on a television set three miles away for all he knew.

“Apparently defending the Earth against alien invaders makes the humans hungry. Big Belly Burger?”

“Nah,” he answered, nonchalantly. “I’m not—“

“You don’t need to rush back,” Clark said, ramping up a pitch to convince him to stay, that Mike already knew was going to succeed. Mike rarely denied Clark anything. Logically, he knew that Clark was simply playing for time, in an effort to get Mike to stick around for a while longer. Time he would use to try to convince him to see Kara, or worse, orchestrate an ‘accidental’ meeting. But he’d rarely been able to withstand a full on Clark Kent Mid-western charm offensive. “Stay for one meal. Meet the rest of the gang. Get to know them for five minutes. I know they have a lot of questions about you.” Clark chuckled, indicating that Mike was going to be in for an intense but friendly interrogation, before adding, “You just flew three thousand miles across country at hypersonic speeds and then fought a cadre of Dominators. You need to eat. I insist. I’ll even pay.” Clark used his mentor voice, which made staying for dinner non-negotiable, but then lightened the conversational tone by grinning, “And I’m sure Bruce would love to see you.”

“Great,” Mike sighed, his voice notably lacking in enthusiasm. He had a complicated relationship with Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. The Dark Knight. They were allies and, with Philadelphia being closer to Gotham than Metropolis, had proved over time that they would always have each other’s back when in a tight spot.

But Bruce wasn’t his friend, so much as he was Clark’s and it was a dynamic not unlike befriending the best friend of one’s older sibling. While anyone who gave Mike a hard time would feel Clark’s wrath, Bruce was given carte blanche in this arena and took a nearly sadistic pleasure in running roughshod over Mike at every opportunity.

“Clark, please tell me you haven’t told Bruce about what happened with me and Kara six years ago,” Mike’s stormy grey eyes begged. Between the three of them, Kara hadn’t been a forbidden subject, after all, she was Clark’s beloved cousin. But Mike had always steered clear of divulging the specifics of the night that drove him away from National City. Away from her. Instead, Mike had always chosen to speak of Kara’s positive qualities whenever the subject came up in Bruce’s presence. To that day, Clark and Lois were the only ones that knew the full extent of Mike’s heartbreak.

Clark’s grimace was all the answer that Mike needed to his query, but he compounded the already sinking feeling in Mike’s gut by adding, “How could I predict that a situation like this would bring us all together?”

“How could you not? This,” Mike indicated the field of battle, strewn with Dominator corpses, “was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Clark looked around and nodded. “Point taken.”

“All you did was give him ammunition.”

“You know he’s just baiting you. You should try standing up to him.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s just baiting me.”

After a moment a wide grin spread across Clark’s face, and he sighed in a somewhat melodramatic fashion, a hand over his heart. “The student has become the master. I couldn’t be more proud. I’ll tell him he can knock it off now.”

Mike did a double-take, his eyes widening to a nearly impossible size. “Are you kidding me?” he asked, stupefied. “This is all been some sort of an elaborate test?”

Clark’s laugh was hardy and unrepentant, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “In the beginning it was just supposed to be a joke, but then it just became a kind of tradition. We wanted to see what it would take to break you…but we never could.”

“Good to know I make an excellent verbal punching bag.”

“Hey,” Clark defended. “It wasn’t without purpose. You’ve seen how it can be, people wanting to tear you down even though all you want to do is help them. Sometimes it’s hard not to lash out, not to get angry—sometimes it’s hard not to say, ‘I quit. These people can save themselves.’ Bruce and I just wanted to thicken your skin a bit, especially in light of the reason you came to me in the first place.”

“My skin wasn’t the problem,” Mike pointed out. “It was my heart.”

“Well, you know what I think. You’ve made your heart so bulletproof nothing’s getting through, and that’s no way to live. You need something to remind you of why you keeping fighting.”

“I have something,” Mike reminded his friend. “I have twenty-four somethings, which is why I need to get back to Philly sooner rather than later.”

“Let’s get changed and we can meet the others at Big Belly. It’s just a few blocks down.” Clark threw an arm over Mike’s shoulder and led him from the field of battle, leaving the agents of the DEO to clean up the mess.

TBC

#karamel #karamel fic #bulletproof verse

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gldngrl7 · 8 years ago

Text

Karamel Fic: Bulletproof (1/1)

Author: gldngrl7

Started: February 7, 2017

Rated: G

Author’s Notes:

Oops! I drabbled

This is unbetaed

There’s probably lots of mistakes.

This is how I react to really, really delicious angst

This isn’t the happy ending you’re looking for

But at least no one dies

Sorry, not sorry

Synopsis: Mon-El takes charge of his own life.

It happened during his third lunch date with Eve. She was giggling about something—some piece of pop culture for which he had no frame of reference—when it struck him all of the sudden. She scrolled through the screen of her phone only occasionally bothering to look up and meet his eyes.

This wasn’t working.

None of it.

He wasn’t going to forget Kara; not because some cute blond took the shards she left behind and managed to make him feel good about himself for a few minutes every day. He was just kidding himself. Kara had wedged herself in deep, though she would clearly like to think otherwise, and no amount of lunch dates with bubbly blondes was going to change that.

He needed something else entirely.

“Look, Eve…I’m sorry. I just remembered something I forgot to do.”

Her smile melted from her face. “Oh…okay.”

He reached in his wallet and placed a few bills on the table, hoping it’s enough to cover the lunch for both of them. “I’m really sorry. Goodbye, Eve.”

Sensing the finality in his farewell, she sobered completely. “Goodbye, Mike.”

Moments later, he’s standing in the conference room of the top floor of the DEO, facing J’onn Jonzz. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” he asked. His hands are shoved deeply into the pockets of his jeans as though trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

“What’s the favor?” J’onn wondered, only a single raised eyebrow betraying his piqued interest.

“Can you get me in touch with Superman?”

“Superman?” J’onn’s eyebrow inched up a notch further. If the whispers were true, J’onn and Superman weren’t on the best of terms, but Mon-El had no one else to turn to. “Why do you want to contact Superman?”

“If it’s okay…I’d like to keep that between him and me…for now. Call it a Krypton/Daxam thing.”

“Why not just talk to Kara?”

“That’s not really…look, can you do it?”

Sensing that Mon-El wasn’t prepared to divulge more information, J’onn nodded his head slowly. “Give me few hours. Don’t go far – he doesn’t always have a lot of time to talk, as you might imagine.”

“I’ll wait here,” Mon-El said, pulling out a chair from the conference room table.

“It could be awhile…”

“I’ll wait here,” he repeated.

He must have dozed off in the chair, because when he opened his eyes the clock on the wall reads two hours later, and J’onn was poking his head in the door.

“Your call is on line 1,” the Martian said.

Mon-El stared as the phone and the multiple blinking lights as if it was snake about to strike.

“Pick up the phone, hit the blinking button that says 1.”

“Got it,” Mon-El said, doing as instructed. “Hello?”

“Kent, speaking.”

“Mr. Kent…my name is Mon-El.” On Daxam, lessons on diplomacy had been a part of his curriculum from childhood, and the first lesson was to always begin with respect. “I don’t know if your cousin has told you about me.”

“Of course, Mon-El,” Clark replied. His voice was warm and friendly, and Mon-El released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I was glad to hear that you recovered from your stasis without any negative effects from the Kryptonite. I was there when you were unconscious and I was sorry I wasn’t able to be there when you woke up.” His words sounded genuine, without the tinge of Kryptonian arrogance that Kara’s tone sometimes wielded.

“So you know I’m not from Krypton, then? Because they thought I might be at first because of the pod I was in.”

“Daxam, she said. I’ve been updated.” There doesn’t seem to be even a hint of prejudice in his tone. “J’onn said you wanted to speak with me. What can I help you with?”

“I don’t think…I was wondering if…” two hours he spent napping in the chair when he should have been mapping out this conversation. “Things aren’t exactly working out for me here,” he explained. “I was wondering if you might…maybe…be interested in being my mentor. Training me…I mean.”

“Train you? I though Kara was taking care of that.”

“Oh, she was—is—but I just think that…you know, she has a lot going on here. She needs to be spending her time focusing on her new career and on being Supergirl. I think I’m just a being more of a burden to her than a help.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” Mon-El asked, because even over the phone Clark Kent’s voice sounded sage and perceptive.

“I believe I do.”

“It’s just that…as long as I’m here…I’m always going to choose her.” Mon-El took a deep shuddering breath and swallowed the lump that seemed to have taken up residence in his throat the last few days. “And that’s not what she wants.”

“Are you sure? Kara can sometimes be—“

“I’m sure,” Mon-El cut Clark off. Beneath his glasses, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, attempting to erase the visual memories of the other night in the bar. She had already rejected him once in her apartment a few nights before, but just in case that didn’t stick, she came to his place of employment to twist the knife in even deeper. A final unnecessary coup de grace to his heart – a killing blow. “She made herself crystal clear,” he finished.

“Hold on just a moment, Mon-El,” Clark said. Mon-El heard a shuffling sound and the back and forth of muffled voices. His super hearing skills did nothing to help discern the discussion happening on the other side of the line. At last, Clark’s voice came back on the line. “We have a spare bedroom,” the man said, and Mon-El felt the weight the entire world lift from his shoulders.

“Thank you, Mr. Kent! You don’t know how much this means.”

“You can call me, Clark, Mon-El.”

“Clark,” he repeated, as though trying if on for size and finding it a decent fit.

“I’m going to work you pretty hard. Put you through your paces,” Clark said, Superman’s voice bleeding through just a bit.

“I’m ready,” he promised. “I won’t try to show you up or anything like that. And when you say I’m ready, I’ll find my own place. I hear that Starling City doesn’t have a hero and could really use one.”

“We’ll worry about all that later. When do you think you can get here?” Clark inquired, as though mentally cleaning out the spare bedroom for his future guest.

“I can’t fly like you and Kara,” he pointed out.

“Get a bus ticket,” Clark suggested. “It will take you three days to get here, but it’s cheaper than flying commercial, and it will give you time to think and prepare. Because when you get here, the work begins.”

“I’ll do that…I’ll ask Winn how to do that,” Mon-El corrected.

“Do you have and Earth name?”

“Yes, it’s Mike Matthews.”

“Okay, you’ll use that name from now on, including with me…until it becomes second nature. Until you answer to it without thinking. Travel under that name.” Clark rattled off an email address and a private cell phone number, which Mon-El sped to write down on the back of a memo that was sitting on the table. “In case you need to get in touch with me. What’s your number?”

Mon-El hesitated, feeling a bit foolish. “I don’t have one of those communication devices that people are always looking at instead of talking to each other.”

Clark chuckled at Mon-El’s description. “You’ll need to get one. Doesn’t have to be expensive, just something to keep in contact. Text me with the number when you have it.”

“I will…ask Winn how to do that as well.”

“It will probably take you a few days to wrap everything up there, so text me with your travel itinerary, and I will be there to meet you at the bus station. If I can’t be there, then Lois will.”

“Thanks again, Clark.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mike. See you in a few days.”

“See you in a few days,” Mon-El echoed, before hanging up the phone.

A long meeting with J’onn turned into an argument which finally became reluctant capitulation on the Martian’s part. As instructed, Mon-El went to a local cell phone store and bought a refurbished phone with prepaid data that he could top up when funds became available. He would have to worry about finding a job when he got to Metropolis, and with M’gann returned to Mars he no longer had anyone to provide bartending references.

Contrary to Clark’s expectation, it took Mon-El a whole three hours to ‘wrap up’ his life in National City. Winn showed him how to set up his own personal email address and then showed him how to access it on an app on his new phone. After that, the rest was fairly easy to figure out. He came from a planet that mastered intergalactic travel, after all.

Placing his new phone in his jacket pocket, he asked, “Now, can you tell me how to get a bus ticket? Do I just go to the bus station and buy it there?”

“Oh, a Metro Card? You can move faster than any bus. Why would you need that?

Mon-El had heard of the Metro Card. Eve used hers every day to get to and from work. “Not a Metro Card,” he specified. “A bus ticket…for out of town.”

Winn tilted his head in confusion, but the smile on his face slipped not a single bit. He spoke through gritted teeth as though not wanting to be heard. “Where are you going? And are you allowed to leave town?”

“First of all, I have approval from J’onn, and second – not to worry, I’ll be under the watchful eye of Superman.”

“You’re going to Metropolis?” Winn asked rhetorically. “Why…why are you going to Metropolis?”

“For training,” Mon-El replied but offered no details.

“Okay. Well I can buy you a ticket online.” Winn spins around in his chair, his fingers clattering over the keyboard before it comes to a stop. “This must be exciting,” he grins. “Training with Superman! I mean, Kara’s one thing…but she’s still new at this. Superman’s been doing his hero thing for like 15 years.”

“Yeah, that’s what I hear.”

Winn pulls up a website for the National City Port Authority and starts clicking on boxes. “National City to Metropolis,” he mumbles. “When do you want to leave?”

“Are there any buses for tonight?”

Winn turned his head and studied Mon-El’s face. “Tonight? Why the rush?”

“I want to be on the road before Superman changes his mind,” Mon-El supplied.

“Oh, okay,” Winn answered, seeming to accept this as a believable answer. “There’s a bus that leaves from the Port Authority at 10 p.m., arrives in three days in Metropolis at 1 in the afternoon.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Return date?”

Mon-El grimaced. “Undetermined. I could be gone a while. Lots to learn and all.”

Winn’s fingers came to a dead stop on the keyboard, but he didn’t look up from his task. “One way…then?”

“Yes, that sounds right.”

“Okay, it’s going to be $128.65. It needs to be put on a credit card.”

“I have approval from J’onn to charge it to the DEO, as a business travel expense.” After explaining his reason for wanting to leave painful detail to J’onn, the Martian agreed to let him go with his best wishes. Having just suffered a rather painful, but perhaps less brutal, rejection of his own recently, J’onn even offered to smooth over the cost of his travel with the government powers-that-be.

“You’re sure I’m not going to get into trouble for this?” Winn asked, his eyes squinting suspiciously. The skepticism on the younger man’s face was just another reminder of all the reasons Mon-El needed a fresh start on this world.

“Positive,” Mon-El nodded.

Winn typed a series of numbers into the computer and clicked his mouse a few times. “Ticket’s coming off the printer now. It’s barcoded, so when you get there just go to your bus. The driver will scan it when you board.”

“I understand. Thanks for all your help.”

“Oh it was no problem.”

“Well, the bus leaves in two hours. I better get my things together and head over there.”

“Take snacks!” Winn advised as Mon-El walked away.

Even at normal human speed, it took Mon-El less than five minutes to pack his entire life into a duffel bag. He remembered a life once when he had more than he knew what to do with, and appreciated none of it. Now his entire life fits into a single bag and every article clothing, every shoe, every single thing he’s collected in the last few months since arriving on this planet is precious to him.

Under his pillow is the guide to National City that Kara gave him soon after his arrival. It had been a weird sort of welcome gift and its pages were worn and tattered, many of them dog-eared. The dog-eared ones were places that interested him that he never got around to visiting. He stuffs it into his bag and then thinks better of it and pulls it out.

It will serve no purpose in Metropolis, other than to remind him of her smile, her comet-like eyes, the ridiculously adorable way she straightens her glasses and the extreme discomfort on her face whenever she was now forced to be in his presence. He drops the guide back onto the mattress and hoists the duffel onto his shoulder.

“You’re not coming back? Are you?” Winn’s voice asked from the doorway. He’s standing there, shoulders slumping carrying a black briefcase of some kind.

“I’m not planning to…no.”

“Why?”

“National City is covered, Winn. It’s got Supergirl, the Martian Manhunter and now…Guardian. That’s a wealth of superheroes. I’m not needed here. I’m just a burden on Kara’s time. She should be focusing on building her career, not training a newbie like me.”

‘Where will you go?”

“Like I said…Metropolis to train with ‘Earth’s greatest hero’,” he said, clapping Winn on the shoulder. “After that…I’m not sure. The Oliver Queen of Earth-38 never returned to Starling City so that’s a possibility. Or maybe Central City,” he suggested. “Kara said that Superman stopped their Particle Accelerator from exploding so our Barry Allen never became a speedster.”

“That’s so…far away.”

“You have my email address, and when you use it, I will have yours. I’m told that’s how it works.” He didn’t tell Winn about the phone, knowing that Winn would provide the number to Kara the instant she asked. The last thing Mon-El wanted was a half-hearted call from her, asking him to return because she thought that’s what he wanted to hear.

This isn’t a temper tantrum. He’s giving her the space that his arrival on this planet stole from her. And he’s actively attempting to take charge of his own life, instead of putting those choices in the hands of others. He’s forging his own path – as any person should.

Being near her was awkward enough after he confessed his feelings for her, but after she came to him in the bar and twisted the knife further, just because she could, being near her became untenable. Sure, he could continue to smile and joke and hide his feelings, he’s a master at that, but when this idea presented itself to him, it seemed like a sign. Something meant to happen.

“Does Kara know about this?” Winn interrogated.

Unseen to Winn, Mon-El flinched. It was the one question he had hoped no one would ask, if only so he wouldn’t have to lie to their faces and simply confirm what they’ve thought of him all along. “Whose idea do you think it was?” A question with a question. Technically not a lie.

“Why would she do that?”

“You know, with Livewire still on loose, things might get hot around here real quick, and between her work and being Supergirl, there’s really no time for her to mentor me.”

“Oh,” that seemed to make sense to Winn. “And the not coming back?”

“Like I said…you guys have it covered. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even go to another country. I’ve seen some of your news programs; it seems like there’s a lot of anger and hatred out there. Good people that need saving. Maybe the alien superheroes should spread themselves out a bit, yeah?” Mon-El swallowed around the lump in his throat that didn’t seem to want to go away.

“I guess.”

“Hey, what’s that you’ve got there?”

Winn placed the case on Mon-El’s cot and snaps open the lid. “I was told to design your suit. I figured if you’re going to be working with Superman, you would probably need it…eventually.”

He flipped open the lid and withdrew a suit, not unlike Superman’s except the color scheme seemed to be reversed. The cape was royal blue and the body of suit was the color of a Daxam sunrise, with a yellow belt at the waist. At the right shoulder, just above where his heart would be is a small glyph for the House of El. Appropriate, in an excruciatingly painful kind of way but in other ways, no less than what he deserved. “Thank you, Winn,” Mon-El said with genuine gratitude.

“It’s bulletproof, by the way.”

“Bulletproof,” Mon-El confirmed, with a sad smile. “Exactly what I need to be.”

“Yeah, because of the lead.”

Mon-El carefully placed the suit back in the case and snapped the lid close. Before picking up the case and turned to his first friend on this planet, holding out his hand to shake his hand. “I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me,” he said, as he pumped the other man’s hand. “Even when I didn’t deserve it. I wish you all the luck in the world, Winn. Be careful out there.”

“Hey…you too,” Winn responded. “Tell Superman I said ‘hi’.”

“I will,” Mon-El chuckled. He hoisted the duffel further up his shoulder and bent over to pick up the case. “Tell James I said ‘bye’. And tell him that…for what it’s worth, I think you two are doing a great job out there.”

“Thanks, man.”

“I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Roger that.”

Mon-El walked resolutely out of the room without looking back. He stopped by the CIC to shake hands with J’onn before leaving, promising to keep in touch. Despite knowing the ‘whys-and-wheres’, J’onn seemed genuinely surprised to see it happening quite so soon.

“Are you sure about this?” J’onn asked, offering the younger man one last out.

“It’s for the best,” Mon-El nodded, feeling another weight lift from his shoulders. “I appreciate you not making a big deal out of me leaving. I’d like to keep this quiet, J’onn. Exactly the opposite as the way I arrived.”

“Just remember…there’s always a place for you here if you change your mind, son.”

Mon-El appreciated the older man’s offer and the use of a common term of endearment on this planet. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

With one last nod, he departed the hustle and bustle of the CIC, stopping by the front lobby to return his ID badge and locker keys to the security guard at the front desk. He shook the man’s hand and signed out for the last time.

****

Livewire popped her head out of self-imposed exile for five minutes and everyone at the DEO scrambled to pull it together in hopes of bringing her down once and for all. Kara, out chasing a story on gangland beating of a slumlord, received a text calling her in ASAP. She flew into the top floor landing just moments later.

“I had her,” she can hear Winn lamenting. “I just had her and now she’s gone again. Off the grid”

“Call Mon-El,” she said. “We’ll do a sweep and see if we can’t get a bead on her.” It was just a simple recon, she thought, surely they can manage to do that without being awkward. It took her a moment to realize that Winn was staring at her as though she’d just grown a second head. “What?”

“Mon-El’s gone,” Winn said, as if reminding her something she should already know.

“Gone where?” she asked, confused.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Winn surmised. “Crap! He said you knew; said it was your idea.”

“Said I knew what? What was my idea?” Kara’s heart raced in her chest, panic slicing through her.

“He’s gone,” Winn repeated. “To Metropolis. Packed his things and left last night on the 10 p.m. bus. He said you needed to focus on your career and being Supergirl – that you were too busy mentor him.”

Her heart dropped into her stomach, her own words at the bar a few nights ago, some of the excuses as to why she could never date him, coming home to roost. Her awful, unintended and thoughtless words had sent him away.

“He said Superman agreed to mentor him. I gave him the suit I had built,” Winn said, his tone carrying a tiny amount of pout. “I’ll never even get to see him use it.”

“But…he’ll be back,” she said, refusing to accept the clues that were right in front of her face. Quite unable to accept that this feeling of loss burning in her chest was something she did to herself. “He’s just going to be gone a few days.”

“I don’t think so, Kara. He said that after Superman trains him, he’s going to choose another city. Something about spreading the alien superhero’s out. He said you and Guardian and J’onn are all this city needs. I think he felt he could more useful somewhere else. He mentioned Starling City or Central City as possibilities.”

But…she needs him here. She needs him to help save her city and occasionally challenge her when she’s being too headstrong. She needs him to recognize when she’s in over her head, because sometimes she doesn’t. She needs him to smile his stupid dimply smile with his beautiful gray eyes that sparkle silver when he laughs, and dull to a stormy gray when he’s sad. It’s been a lot of stormy gray since the night in her apartment when he confessed his feelings and she let him walk away.

Oh, Rao! The man lost his entire world and everyone he loved, but it took her thoughtless words to turn his eyes from silver to dull gray. Why was she such an idiot? And why did Winn know about his leaving when she didn’t?

“He didn’t say goodbye….” She realized, her heart tearing just a little more.

“He said you knew,” Winn mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty for being the one to deliver the blow.

Was she the last to know? “J’onn knew about this?”

“Sure,” Winn shrugged. “How do you think Mon-El got in touch with Superman? His DEO credit card paid for the bus ticket.”

She felt…betrayed. As though they had all conspired against her, which was simply par for course the way her life had been going lately. Everybody leaves eventually, don’t they? Moves on to something better or maybe just to someone who wasn’t going to treat you like a good-for-nothing because you just happened to be born on a rival planet.

“I helped him set up an email address.”

Winn’s word barely penetrated her brain before she was stalking up the stairs to J’onn’s office. She found Alex already inside, the two of them in what appeared to be a heated argument. Before Kara could even say anything, Alex forestalled her.

“I’m just hearing about this now.”

Well at least her own sister hadn’t betrayed her this time. That was a small mercy. “You!” she shouted at J’onn. “You bought him a bus ticket?”

“Yes, I did,” J’onn replied, squaring off to face her. She could practically smell the chemical change that happened whenever J’onn prepared to shift into the Manhunter, hanging in the air between them.

It was a wakeup call for Kara, and she felt some of the tension seep away. If J’onn was preparing to shift, that meant he felt threatened by her and that was a hard pill to swallow. The man was like a father to her.

“Why?” she asked, her throat closing with the depth of emotion flooding her system.

“I think you know why,” he answered softly, sagely.

Kara could see the truth reflected in his eyes. “He told you?”

“I was trying to convince him to stay,” J’onn explained. “He offered a convincing argument in favor of leaving. One I couldn’t rebut.”

“He can’t be more than a few hundred miles away,” the words rushed out of her mouth, her eyes brightening again. “I can track the bus and catch up with him. I can convince him to come back.”

“No!” Alex interjected, before her sister would blur out of the room. “You will NOT go after Mon-El, Kara. Do you understand me?”

Alex used the same tone Eliza had whenever Kara had stepped out of line as a youth. It brought Kara up short, just by the eerie familiarity to it.

“But—“

“Leave the man his choices, Kara,” J’onn blurted, a barely constrained anger in his tone. He sounded like a growling wounded animal on Mon-El’s behalf, and the breath caught in Kara’s chest at the broken misery of it. “You took his heart and when that wasn’t enough, you took what last bit of pride he had left.”

Kara’s hand went to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. J’onn had never spoken to her like this—as though he were so disappointed in her he would never be able to look at her with the same eyes. Is it possible she could lose Mon-El and J’onn in a single day?

J’onn continued, not quite done speaking Mon-El’s piece. “He made the choice he needed to make and he did it for himself. If there’s any part of you that saw a man when you looked at him, then you would do well to respect it, Kara. Just as he respected your choices. Thoughtless or not…you made the choice you made. Now own it.”

“But I can fix it,” she insisted. “I can apologize. I can make it right.”

“Only time is going to make this right for him,” J’onn contradicted.

“But I can,” she denied, tears raining down her cheeks. “I know I can.”

“He said to tell you one thing, if you tried to go after him,” Alex interjected. She looked at J’onn as though seeking permission to divulge what she had learned just moments before Kara entered the room. “He said there was one thing that would ensure you would never follow him.”

“What?” Kara asked. “What is it?”

“He said to tell you that he wasn’t a bodyguard to the Prince of Daxam,” Alex revealed.

“Duh!” Kara said, furiously wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “Anyone who ever saw him fight before he started training could figure that out, Alex. I mean, the guy could barely land a punch, even with super speed. He was just faking it to make himself sound more important so we wouldn’t kill him.”

“No, Kara,” Alex shook her head, fervently. “He was faking it to make himself sound less important, probably so we wouldn’t take him prisoner.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mon-El wasn’t the bodyguard to the Prince of Daxam. He was the Prince of Daxam.”

****

He shifted in his bus seat, which seemed to grow increasingly uncomfortable with each passing hour. It hardly mattered anymore though, since the bus was due to enter Metropolis in a matter of minutes.

His phone dinged again with an incoming email. He checked, in case it was Clark messaging to let him know if pick-up plans needed changing. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was another email from Kara. Like the two others she’d sent, he couldn’t quite bring himself to delete them and so he simply archived them, unread.

Perhaps one day, when he’d made his heart fully bulletproof, he’d read them and then let them go. But until that day came, communications from her would be filed away where they could do him no harm. She was, no doubt, angry at him for lying to her about his true identity and wanted to get the last word in. Hence the repeated emails. But secretly she must be relieved, on the inside, to no longer be forced to see him every day.

And that was okay for two reasons. One, because he wanted her to be happy, and his presence was clearly the antidote for that. And second, he too was secretly relieved not to have to see her gorgeous blue eyes every day.

He would be ready one day, perhaps, to face her again if he must; if a time came when it benefitted the world for them to work together. But until that day he needed to lick his wounds for a bit and figure out who the hell he was now that he was Mike Matthews of Earth instead of Lar Mon-El Gand, Crown Prince of Daxam.

The bus pulled into the station and rattled to a stop. The driver threw on the brake and disembarked practically before it had heaved its last sigh. Mike stayed rooted to his uncomfortable seat and watched as the other passengers gathered their things from the overhead compartment and departed the bus to claim the larger items stored beneath. Mike’s duffel was stored above as well, but the black case with its secret contents inside, he kept safely tucked away at this feet.

When the last of the passengers had departed, he stood from his seat and gathered his things. Descending from the bus steps he stood and looked around. From here he could see the Metropolis skyline, including the apparently famous spinning globe atop the Daily Planet building. At kiosk in the National City bus station, he had purchased a guide book to Metropolis and read it cover to cover during the trip. Dog-earing pages of things he wanted to see.

This was his new beginning, he realized with a smile. His fresh start. Where no one would judge him by the planet that birthed him, or look at him with suspicion as though one mistake could never be forgiven. He could make it work here, find a life, or at least the beginning of one. Metropolis had a superhero and didn’t need another, but the tiny kernel of hope that sprung to life when he first glanced at the skyline made him believe that his choice would lead him exactly where he was supposed to be.

When he tore his eyes from the skyline Mike caught sight of him right away, as though they were drawn to each other’s molecules. Atom created in the same solar system recognizing each other. He had felt it with Kara too, when the stasis panic had worn off. He dressed in a tidy bland button up, and pair of khaki slacks, and ensemble designed to not call attention to itself. He reached up to his face and resettled his glasses, exactly the way Kara did it.

He approached the man and held out his free hand. “Mr. Kent,” he said. “I’m Mike Matthews. It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You can call me, Clark, Mike. It’s a pleasure to meet you, too. I’m glad you’re here.” Clark reaches down to take the black case from Mike’s hand and points in the direction they will be walking.”

“I can’t thank you enough for having me,” he said, his nervous butterflies finally settling down a bit.

“Sure you can,” Clark replied, using every bit of his Midwestern charm. “Keep your room clean. Lois hates clutter.”

“I think I can do that. As you can see…I don’t have much clutter.”

“I’m just kidding, Mike. I’m the one who hates clutter. Lois comes alive in it.”

With a chuckle, Clark guides Mike through the bus station’s main lobby and out the front door, where he waves at a red pick-up truck in a line of waiting vehicles. A woman with long brown hair waves in response. “C’mon,” Clark said, clapping Mike on the back, “come meet my wife.”

He was going to be okay, he realized. It was going to be hard and there would be times that he would want to quit, maybe even crawl back National City for one more glimpse at her comet-blue blues. But for now…he hadn’t thought about Kara for almost a full two minutes.

Maybe tomorrow he could make it three.

The end

#karamel #karamel fic #karamel strong

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