#ff: supersxn

[maidenxfmight]

@supersxn​

Kara wasn’t sure what it was that had her standing in the back of the small auditorium. Perhaps it was the angry faces, or the whispers passing between huddled couples as they walked down the sidewalk. It could have been the crumpled, damp flyer on the ground with the symbol of Rao on it, black permanent marker scribbled over the top with “we don’t need your God” covering the meeting times. One moment she was walking down the rainy sidewalk with Jon at her side, and the next she was following the snippets of conversation in the auditorium, her stomach sinking to the concrete at her feet.

The room itself was mildly crowded. A podium sat on an otherwise empty stage in front of them, spotlights almost unnoticeable in the still-lit room. There was a tension in the room created purely by the people around them: anxious glances cast occasionally at the stage, the murmuring never quite lifting above a soft buzz. A line of young men with downturned lips stood in front of the stage, one of which holding onto the tight leash of German Shepherd.

Something was about to happen, and the crumpled flyer still balled into Kara’s hand told her it wasn’t going to be good. She looked to Jon, pulling in a breath. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

[maidenxfmight]

we’re not their heroes

Tagging: @kxnel, @supersxn, & Kara Zor-El When: August 1st, 2020 Where: Jon and Kon’s Apartment What: The Superfam falls apart at the seams; Kara needs her head checked. Warnings: None? Word Count: 4,217

KARA: Their apartment was always so full of life. The windows were lit a bright yellow, and the sound of an indignant 'hey!' followed by laughter could easily be heard from Kara's position outside. They sounded untouched, like maybe they were stealing a moment to just be brother's in the chaos that had become New York City. (Didn't they know the world was ending? Didn't they know she was losing it? And she can't stop it, she can't, she can't–)

Brothers. They both held the last name Kent, and something about it ground uncomfortably in her chest. So human, when all Kara wanted was Krypton. They were suppose to be El's, they wore her family crest, but they kept Clark's new last name. For a moment, she toyed with flying away. It's not like she needed them, right?

There was something else, something that shouldn't be there anymore. A small part that was screaming, of course she needed them. Of course they were family. Of course she loved them, and was proud of them, and–

It won, just a little. It gained ground where other thoughts had failed, and she found herself standing in their living room in an instant. Long gone was her suit of red and blue, replaced with a dark black, her crest but a shadow of red just above her heart. "Hey, boys. Having fun?"

KON: The night, for once, actually felt kind of normal. No work, no robberies, no multi-dimensional baddies and, surprisingly, no Cassie pulling the two brothers away from each other. He had missed it.

(Not that Kon didn’t love the nights the three of them spent together, a movie of Jon’s choice playing while the two lovebirds cuddled on the couch, much to Jon’s dismay.)

But with Cassie moving in Conner felt like he needed a day just to be with his brother and so he had wrangled him into helping rearrange and repaint his bedroom as a surprise for his girlfriend with the promise of burgers, pizza, and the alien ale that tasted like pomegranates he usually had stocked in the fridge. The day had been good. Great, even, and Kon threw his head back in a full bellied laugh as he watched Jon try and fit the abomination he called a ‘pizza ball’ into his mouth. 

“Get that away from me,” he chided, pushing at his brother as his head shook. “you’re disgus-Kara?” 

He sat up straight, his brows furrowed in confusion as he slapped at the back of Jon’s head to get him to look at the woman standing in their living room.

“I guess, Jon’s gone and ruined a perfectly good meat-lovers. What’s, ah- with the suit?  You doing some secret spy stuff without us?”

JON: There had been a few hiccups with the new living situation, naturally, but all and all it wasn't bad. He knew what he was getting into when he had moved in with Kon to begin with. They made it work and Jon was grateful for his brother actually making an effort to hang out with him outside of his the time the three of them spent together. There was always that lingering sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Jon had come to this universe and knew no one, had no one who knew him. He had to build his life from the ground up and it wasn't the same. It'd never be the same, but it had become a new normal. One he had become content with.

The new normal included trying to annoy Conner as much as possible, pushing his attempt of several slices of pizza smooshed into a ball at his brother. "Try it!" He said through a mouthful and swallowed, laughing at the disgusted look on the older man's face. He went to grab some napkins, letting out a noise of annoyance when his head was hit. "Quit it!" He shoved back at Conner, looking over and faltering when he saw Kara. Something just felt...off. He didn't like it. "Hey, Kara." There was an attempt at keeping the wariness out of his tone, but Jon wasn't sure he was doing such a good job at it.

"Stealth mode?" Jon attempted to joke, his grin more of a grimace. He wasn't sure what it was that was rubbing him wrong about this, but it was insistent. "You know we love to be included. What's goin' on?"

"Mm, no, not really." Kara stepped further into the apartment, angling herself to face the two of them, now up with their attention on her. Kon looked confused, and Jon looked wary. He always had been smart, for all his jokes and memes. They both were. She'd know just how smart before the night was over.

"I'm not all that interested in stealth right now. In fact, I'm not all that interested in hiding at all." She picked at a loose string on their couch (they really needed a new one), and shrugged a shoulder; if she looked uninterested, it was an act. "Clark was the first one to wear our primary colors, to plaster our family crest on his chest for the world to idolize and hate all at the same time.

"We've been hiding behind it ever since, and I'm tired of it." She looked up. 'Our,' she said. They looked so much like Clark. And Kon, there was more Luthor in him than he knew. The curve of his nose, the angle of his eyebrows. She had to find the El, she had to. "I talked with Magneto tonight. He had a...proposition, one I'd like to extend to the both of you."

KON: She seemed.. off, he guessed would be the most succinct way to put it. Almost cold, certainly less of her usual sunshine and more thunderclouds. Ominous with a hint of something darker flickering just behind her cool demeanor that Kon didn't like. Suddenly, as his eyes narrowed, following Kara's fluid movements through their apartment, Kon felt like he was standing on the edge of a precipice. The feeling of unease crackling in the air around them.

It reminded him far too much of the silence that permeated the air just before Superboy Prime had thrown him through a skyscraper and the through had him reaching an arm across the table, absent-mindedly tensing as he spared a glance at Jon.

"Yeah, we're hiding all right. All dressed in primary colors and whizzing through the goddamn sky." He rolled his eyes. He wasn't really sure what Kara was getting at. Sure, the crest was commercialized to the point that sometimes even he felt queasy just looking at it but that was the price you paid when you offered the world a symbol. It wasn't really theirs anymore.

Maybe that was the problem.

Maybe that choice should have fallen on Kara to make rather than Clark. She was the only one who looked at it and saw anything other than the laundry list of accomplishments that the four supers had racked up, after all, but this... this seemed to be more than just an offhand complaint.

"Magneto?" He snapped, his head tilting as he racked his mind for anything that would make this make sense and coming up empty. "Kara, what the fuck is going on? What is all of this about?"

JON: There was a certain sense of foreboding that overtook Jon. There was an arm reaching in front of him and he exchanged a look with his brother. It was obvious that he felt the same inkling of dread as he did. "That's the chance we take, right?" He spoke up, the words feeling hard to force out all the same. It felt like a wrong step in the opposite direction, enough tension in the air it could just snap, but he already said it. There wasn't really much backing out of it now. "We're only—" human. Except they're not. Conner and Jon may be half human unlike Kara who was full Kryptonian, but they all were just as flawed as the human race. Try as they may, even they couldn't be perfect. "...we're not always going to make the right choice, but we don't hide behind that. Behind the symbol. It humanizes us to them, does it not? I think that gives them more reason to love than hate."

Jon hoped at least.

Kara wasn't...she wasn't making sense. There had to be a reason, anything. Something, but he came up empty. "We're colluding with terrorists now?" The words were harsh and biting, but he couldn't help it. "What could he possibly have to offer that would make sense for us to join in on the slightest? The death of the human race? That's not us." He felt sick, stomach churning and heart dropping to his feet.

KARA: Her eyes darted to Jon, hands clenching in the fabric of their couch quick enough to tear, but she didn't notice. They were tense, but she just didn't notice.

"What have we ever gained from appearing human to them?" She forced herself to relax, stepping back with her arms crossed, chin lifting. She wasn't human, she had never been human. Jeremiah could shove glasses on her face and she could stumble through her day to day, but that could never erase who she was.

"They only care as long as we're helping them. And when we're not? They're yelling on street corners, demanding our signatures, or conscripting us into service." Her fingers clenched against her arms, breath pulling in fast. "And do you know what happens when they figure out who we are beneath the symbol? They come after the people we love."

Kara thought of Alex, in a tank. Bloody smiles and blackmail.

"They only love us insofar as we can serve them. We're always hiding, don't you get it?" Somewhere, she remembered maybe she didn't mind so much. Maybe she did these things because for all the world took, it also gave. It gave her a sister, and friends, and the two boys in front of her she loved so much.

But those thoughts barely took purchase, the slope ever steeper. "I'm done. I'm done trying to find a home among a people who don't want me here. I'm done pretending to be something I'm not. I'm done shoving Krypton under a rug. Magneto has offered his help, in exchange for a little help from me."

She was done, she was done, she was done, "I'm going to be destroying some landmarks tomorrow, starting with the bridges into the city. If the humans want to be afraid of us, they should really have an honest reason."

She softened, just around the edges. "I'm going to make us a home again. I'd like you there with me."

KON: His jaw tensed at her words, his teeth grinding together as he took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself, the obvious and biting but we are human dying in his throat. He had never seen Kara like this and the longer she lingered in their apartment the more confused Kon got. 

Had something happened? Had the two Superboys missed something world-changing while they had enjoyed the little bubble the apartment provided?

He opened his mouth to retort, to defend humanity from whatever this was. Her words were benign but the thinly veiled contempt sat strangely with him but before he could she was off again and Kon's mouth snapped shut.

"Serve them? Is that how you feel?" He laughed, breathless, and in disbelief at her words. He understood how callous people could be. How fruitless a constant battle for justice could get when all you were was a streak in the sky and a smile on a 'Congrats, Grad!' card but that was nothing, nothing in comparison to the knowledge that his planet, his family, his home was safe and that he did his part to keep it that way. 

"So what? You want to pull a Parker and go public or something? Join a terror cell and, what, teach kindergarteners Kryptonian? Listen to yourself right now, Kara, you're talking like a fanatic."

But maybe she had a bit of a point. It wasn't like he had exactly gone out of his way to learn about Krypton. Even the few simple phrases Kara had taught him were only vaguely remembered and rarely practiced in favor of the few curses he knew, which, yeah, probably wasn't the most respectful thing but that could be solved with like, a TedTalk or something, not by doing Magneto favors. What was the endgame?

And then the other shoe dropped. Kon shook his head, the very thought of what Kara was saying causing him to shake.

"You can't. Y-you wouldn't." But, would she? There didn't seem to be any hesitation in her voice. The sentence rolling off her tongue as calmly and as nonchalant as if she had given them her coffee order.

"Any home built on bloodied soil is one I'd spit on gleefully." He spat, his hand grabbing onto the back of Jon's shirt collar in a blur and pushing him back into his seat. "I don't know if he- if he did something to you or-or-or if this is some unresolved angsty bullshit that you're going through right now but, c'mon, Kara. This isn't- you can't actually believe this is right, can you?"

JON: It was like watching a train wreck right before you and you couldn't do anything to stop it. They were human as much as they were Kryptonian. Was that something Kara despised about them? It was enough to make his stomach churn. Half-breed. That's what they were. What he had been called by the eradicator on his earth. It felt like Kara was slipping further and further away from their grasp, spouting out stuff that just didn't make sense. What had happened to her? What did they miss?

"We're not some—some servants for them, Kara." Jon forced out, looking bewildered and starting to tip towards angry. "We do it because we want to, we have an obligation to help. It's the right thing to do. Maybe you're right in the sense that they...they don't thank us enough, but what else am I supposed to do? Sit around with all this ability to help and do nothing?" From a young age his father had tried to steer him away from the hero life, tried to shelter him, but it was his mother who shook him from this false idea that Jon could somehow ignore his powers, the responsibility that would come with them.

Watching the pair go back and forth was enough to get power rippling under Jon's skin, teeth gritting and grinding together. He tried not to get too emotional, let his anxiety and confusion get the best of him. His solar flare wasn't something he could control, had almost killed people before when he was younger. He bit his tongue to keep it under control—as best he could. Maybe Jon could've done better, could've tried to learn more from his dad and from Kara. Had she always felt so alienated from this planet? From them?

Jon's blood went cold. The tension and dread in the air snapped in the moment, charging it with something else entirely. He opened his mouth and was shoved back into his seat before he could. He let out a grunt and glared. Kon was trying to protect him, he knew this, but he wasn't a child. Not anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. "You can't think it's a good idea, can you? Honestly, tell me what you plan to get out of this other than the blood of thousands of people on your hands, Kara. Not Magneto. That's all you." Maybe it was harsh, but he had to break through. Somehow, anyway he could. "All because of what, Kara? Everything can't possibly be bad? Have pushed you to this? There's all these people who do appreciate and try to make this a home for you. We're not Krypton, we never will be, and I'm sorry. I really am. You deserved a true home, but even Krypton would have it faults. Just like Earth does." Standing from his seat, Jon's eyes turned red as he looked at his cousin...his family, the threat of his heat vision there but not acted on yet. He didn't want to hurt her, never his family. "I'm not letting you put our family in the Raft because you won't give humanity a chance. Because that'd what they'd do, Kara. They'd target us if you do that. I know you don't want to do this, you can't want to do this." He wasn't entirely sure if this pushing was a good idea, but something had to make her see she was acting completely out of character—how bad an idea this was.

KARA: "Wouldn't give humanity a chance?"

Kara pivoted around until she faced the window. There was a whole city out there, lights lit behind a sea of windows like stars. "Oh, I've given humanity a chance." Her voice curled around the words, a low simmer bubbling behind them. "I've tried for years. I wore glasses and fumbled and made myself smaller and smaller. Then I did exactly like you said, Jon. All these powers and I've done nothing but help them. And how have they responded?"

She turned back towards them, hands clenched at her sides. "They waged war. They made papers and laws and nooses that just get tighter and tighter because we're not their heroes, we're their monsters. Not because we've ever tried to hurt them, but because we're different. That's all we've ever been, is different."

Rao, Kara was so tired of squeezing herself into a mold for which she was never meant.

"All I wanted was a place to call home." Her voice broke just around the edges. Cat Grant had always said to find the anger behind the anger, and Kara only had to question it for as long as it took her to remember she would never fit Earth's standard for normal. "A-and this planet just won't let me."

Her breath left in a shaky huff, and she had to remind herself to pull in another. She wanted to fly through the Earth, rip it layer from layer until it stopped hurting so much. "I shouldn't have expected you to understand. You don't have to pretend to be human. You grew up here. You know their language, their– all their references. You only know one God, you–

"You're so human." She met the glow in Jon's eyes head on, gaze shifting between him and his brother. Their actions colored them alien, but they weren't Kryptonian, either. "I'm doing this. You choose whether or not you'll be obstacles."

KON: "So they stumble, they fail and your next step is falling in league with a genocidal maniac?" The words were said in pure exasperation, his breath coming out in short puffs that might've been laughs in any other context. He watched her turn, watched her steel herself in her resolve as she looked out their window, though at what he couldn't say. 

Maybe she was searching for Rao in the night sky, maybe she was sneering at the city below, maybe she was looking at her own reflection and pondering what had led her there, maybe, perhaps, she wasn't looking at much of anything at all. 

Kon's jaw clenched, his throat tightened and he could feel a white hot prickle in the corner of his eyes as she continued to speak. He could hear the mix of anger and pain in her voice and while it broke his heart, while the very sound of it had him wanting to pull her and Jon, hell even Clark, into his arms to try and squeeze together the broken pieces into something that wasn't constantly on the verge of falling apart there was a larger part of him that was screaming that he needed to get away. 

She was dangerous, stronger than him and Jon even if they worked together and she seemed to be holding on by a thread that was slowly unraveling right in front of them both. 

"It's- it's not humanity's fault that you chose a lame alter-ego!" 

His mouth snapped shut once more, his eyes narrowing as he tried to control his breathing. The last thing he wanted was for Kara to know that, in all honesty, he was scared. Terrified, even. 

Because, at the end of the day, Kara was right. The registry was unconstitutional at best and the criminalization and demonization of anyone they thought as a threat. But that wasn't what most people wanted.

"Kara..." he tried, his tense posture softening enough for him to reach out toward her before her eyes landed back on them both. In an instant it seemed that the air had been sucked out of the room and he cursed Jon for his short-sightedness. He loved his brother but he was going to get them both killed.

"Sit." He ordered Jon, his tone making it clear that there would be no argument before he met Kara head on, his own eyes glowing in a hallow warning considering how dim the light pooling in his eyes looked in direct comparison to Kara's. 

He could feel the heat of them even from across the table and he swallowed shakily. 

"Don't you dare put the weight of your choices on our shoulders," he seethed.

He was tired, tired and heartbroken and worried sick by the blank look on Jon's face.

"You're family," he said, "and we love you. Please don't lead where we can't follow." 

He glanced back down at Jon before running a hand through his hair. "Get out." He finally said. He tried to hold her gaze but found that he couldn't, his eyes dropping to the table.

JON: watched the pair in varying levels of horror and uncertainty. He knew he could be impulse, shortsighted in what the end goal could be, but his nerves were getting the best of him. His dad always said that he let his impulsive nature get the best of him, but he wanted--needed to protect them all. Protect Kara from herself, from whatever bad decision she was making despite the fact his chest felt empty and hollow, sharp words ringing in his ears.

Biting his tongue, red eyes immediately snapped to the other Kent, "I'm not a--" baby. Despite always being made to feel like one. Maybe it was the natural urge between siblings to prove yourself that was rearing its ugly head but he felt an equal amount of rage flare up in his chest for the briefest second for Conner. It didn't matter, did it? Maybe he would be to them just as bad as Clark was in their eyes. He got it all, while they got nothing, the barest hints of scraps and finally Kara had enough of it, enough of giving and giving and getting nothing in return from the world.

All expression was wiped from Jon's face, eyes dimming back to their normal shade of blue and he sat heavily on the couch. His arms loosely crossed over his chest, eyes flickering back over to Kara, or the image of her that he didn't recognize. The image that could've been there all along, but they had chosen not to see. "After all, how can we bear the brunt of those decisions being half breeds?" The snide comment was out before Jon could stop it, hurt feelings bubbling to the surface and boiling over like an unwatched pot. "Are we family? We're so human. Did you mean any of what you would say? Did you--" He lets out a harsh breath and swallows hard, shaking his head. He didn't want to know.

"You heard him. Leave."

KARA: It was almost enough to make her stall. She thought again of a cliff, of her hands digging into loose gravel and failing, slipping, falling. Her family meant so much to her. How it felt to see her crest on a new generation was indescribable.

Magneto had told her she would be forging herself a new home, that he would help. And Kara had imagined she would do so with family. For all the anger curling and twisting under her skin, she'd wanted Jon and Kon to stand with her. She'd wanted them to understand. A victory could feel hollow and empty. She could stand joyless in the aftermath.

But they stood defiant and the thoughts slipped away. Something seemed to tear as they did. Whatever reservations held before shattered, the small voice screaming stop muted like a hand had been slapped over her mouth. Leave, leave, leave. Her breath caught and dragged and if she'd been trying before, she couldn't. Not anymore.

They didn't want the crest, they didn't deserve it. Her eyes dimmed to cool blue, but red snaked through her veins, a sharp, eery glow. "It's not your blood. It's your choice."

She took a step back, trying to breathe around something the turmoil in her mind wouldn't let her feel. "Just stay out of my way."

And just as quickly as she came, she left.

[maidenxfmight]

closed starter for @supersxn​

“What do you want, Jonathan?” Kara had heard his heartbeat as he approached. It pattered too rapid, keeping time with the heartbeats of the scattered humans around them. Too far away to notice the two supers tucked into the rubble, but always, always close enough to hear (everything on Earth was so loud). She could still picture him angry, eyes lit with Kon shoving him back into the couch.

The U.N. loomed above them, casting a dark shadow on the chaos below. She wondered if he’d come to try to talk her out of it, or if he’d seen the news and decided to fight it. (She wanted him to. She wanted someone to see it as wrong, drag her kicking and screaming back into the cold expanse of space, let her run out of air and remember herself).

She wanted him by her side.

“Surely someone has warned you away from me by now. Kon, maybe?”

[maidenxfmight]

@supersxn​

“I’ll understand, if he doesn’t want to come see me, just...let him know I’m here?”

The Smallville farm seemed set apart in time. It was always rolling golden fields, and a classic red barn. It smelled like hay and oats and dirt, and it was quiet. Quieter than most other places on Earth. Like somehow it managed to set itself apart. Kara had to focus to hear the chatter of the town, and just standing there it was only Lois and Jon. It should be comforting.

Should be. It was always Clark’s home. Kara’s visits had been few and far in between, mostly contained to spare holidays and special occasions. She’d been there for Jon’s high school graduation, and only one Thanksgiving she hadn’t spent with the Danvers. She’d wondered why that one holiday had felt off; she’d been more comfortable with Eliza and Alex in Midvale than she’d been sitting across from the Kents, though she’d been honored to be included.

Standing in the barn listening to Lois’ retreating footsteps and the rhythm of Jon’s heartbeat, Kara wasn’t sure the farm was comforting at all. She wanted to fly away and stay rooted all at once. She wanted him to agree to see her, to give him her crest and call him family, but she half-expected him to stay in the house.

The Smallville farm was Jon’s home. His turf, his terms. She was only ever a guest. Kara waited for Lois to return with a ‘he said leave.’