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thatonebirdwrites · 3 days

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Cheating Death Part 2

Part 1 here.

Only seconds after Lena vanished in the portal, the Kryptonite cage melted into the floor. A yellow light pulsed so brightly, Kara had to close her eyes. Light infused her cells and pushed the pain of the Kryptonite away.

Lena's words echoed in Kara's head. How she'd stomped and shouted, the tears on her face, the desperation in her voice. How heartbroken she'd been when she'd said, "No, no you don't get to tell me who I am anymore."

She didn't know what to do. Lena had been hurting and grieving this entire time, and what had she and her friends done? Celebrated her brother's death, ignored Lena's increasingly isolating behaviors, and pretended everything was fine.

It wasn't fine.

Yet, the yellow light. Why had that activated? Was it Lena or the Fortress?

Kara ran through the Fortress to the control panel. She dug into the log and swiftly found Lena's code. It had been programmed to create the cage if Kara asked about Myriad, but then the yellow light was also programmed to heal Kara after Lena escaped. A note was annotated on that section of the code, and Kara's breath caught in her throat.

"I wish I could stop loving you. This hurts worse than death."

Tears dampened her cheeks and she wiped them away. What would she tell Alex? How can she explain any of this?

She didn't want her friends to turn on Lena, and Alex definitely would go after Lena if she knew about the cage. It'd been temporary, and Lena had programed a healing sun-bed equivalent burst for after. That alone gave her hope that she could still reach Lena.

Because even in her heartbreak, Lena did not want Kara dead.

She grabbed the weapon she needed, the same one Lena had used to stop Leviathan from killing Kara, and re-calibrated security. Her tears froze on her cheeks by the time she finished.

Kara flew out of the Fortress and high into the stratosphere. She listened for Lena's heartbeat, but heard nothing at first. Fear clenched her heart. Either Lena hid behind lead, or something terrible had gone wrong since she'd left. She hoped it was the former.

With a heavy heart, she flew to the DEO. Alex waited on a balcony.

"Kara?" Alex said, alarmed. "What the hell happened? Where's Lena?"

Kara held out the weapon. "It works as hoped. Sustained blast will keep Rama Khan down, and then attach the power dampeners."

Alex took the weapon with a frown. "Kara, what happened to Lena? Where is she?"

Kara shook her head. She couldn't voice it. She refused to believe Lena was lost to them. There had to be a way to save her, to bring her back, to repair what Kara had fucked up.

She pressed her hands against her face and flinched when Alex tried to touch her shoulder. "I got to find her," she whispered. "I got to make things right. I got to."

"Kara, I can't help if you don't tell me." Alex's voice held kindness, but Kara knew how quickly Alex could turn to anger. When it came to Kara's safety, Alex might cross a line she'd regret. Kara had done it for Alex a few times.

But with Lena? Kara had no boundaries. Lena held her heart in a way no one else did. She'd talked herself into settling for Mon-el, but it'd never been who she needed.

She needed Lena.

"Kara?" Alex tried again. "Kara, talk to me."

"She's the one who shot Lex." The words felt unreal.

Alex's brow wrinkled. "I thought he died when he fell."

Kara shook her head. "We never found a body or even parts from his suit, remember? If he had a portal watch, he could have gone anywhere."

Alex sucked in a breath. "And Lena was waiting for him?"

Kara nodded. "She shot him to protect us. She's been grieving and hurting all this time, and what have we done? Ignored her grief! Where were we for her pain?" She paced the balcony as fury at herself and everyone around her built up in her sternum. "I hurt her! I hurt her with my lies, and I have to fix this."

"Kara," Alex hefted the weapon. "Maybe let Lena have her space. We still have to deal with--"

"Alex, you didn't hear her!" Her pacing quickened and a groove appeared in the concrete from her superspeed.

Kara should tell Alex, and yet she couldn't. She needed to save Lena from Myriad herself, but to do that, she needed to find Lena. And she still couldn't hear her heartbeat.

She let out a shout of rage, her fist colliding with the wall and shattering the concrete. "I hurt the person I love! I have to fix this. I have to bring her back."

Her rage petered into sobs, and she fell to her knees.

Her, the strongest and fastest on the planet, brought to her knees by a Luthor.

She thinks of all the times she could have told Lena, and how she'd chickened out, afraid of losing her. Afraid of living a life without Lena's presence. Now a Lena-shaped hole had been carved in her chest, and she hurt.

It felt like Kryptonite all over again.

Was this how Lena had felt the past few months? This agony?

And yet, Lena had still helped. She'd still saved Kara's life. Still built devices that helped others. Why Myriad? Why use that monstrous device? Kara couldn't make sense of it. The months of pretending to be Kara's friend.

She should be angry at Lena. Furious at the betrayal, but she felt only grief. She'd started this with her lies, with leaving Lena in the dark. Lena could have helped so much more if she'd been in on it from the start. Then this never would have happened.

Kara sat there, silent, head-bowed long enough for Alex to leave and return with a cup of herbal tea. Rooibos since most other teas were too intense thanks to Kara's supertaste. Her fingers curled around the warm cup.

"I tasked Brainy and J'onn with the weapons. We'll deal with Leviathan." Alex smiled and squeezed Kara's shoulder. "You do what you need to do, Kara. I'm with you, okay?"

Kara nodded numbly. She sipped the tea and slowly became aware of a high-pitched beeping. "Wait, that's the signal watch," she murmured. She put down the cup and listened. It came from downtown. "Lena," she whispered.

Before Alex could respond, Kara blasted into the sky and broke the sound barrier. The crack whipped across the city and shook windows. She landed on Lena's balcony at L-Corp, ripped open the door, and dashed into a dark room. The beeping came from the stairwell.

Horror twisted her gut. She supersped down the stairs, all forty-three flights, until she reached the stairs just below ground level near the door to security.

She threw open the door and the thick scent of iron assaulted her nose.

Eve lay in a pool of blood, no heartbeat. Someone dressed in black lay crumbled near Eve, again no heartbeat. Blood coated the stairs from where Lena must have crawled.

Lena, her Lena, lay motionless, one hand on the top step. For a horrifyingly long second, Kara couldn't hear a heartbeat. She dropped next to Lena and pressed her fingers against Lena's pulse point.

No, there it was.

A faint badum-badum, the most precious sound in the universe.

She could do nothing for the others, but she still had a chance to save Lena. A scan of her body revealed the bullet in her side, how it pierced a lung.

Kara gathered Lena into her arms, and ran through the security sector, hitting each door with her shoulder to wrench it open, until she finally made her way outside.

Lena's blood soaked into her suit, her head rolling in Kara's arms. She held her close and flew as fast as she dared toward the DEO. "Lena, please," she whispered, "please hold on. Don't you dare die on me. Not now. Not like this."

When her feet touched down, she heard Alex's voice shouting about a Rama Khan sighting. Agents poured into vehicles, and the team prepared to leave.

Kara ignored them. She walked through the bustle, and people parted for her.

Alex turned from where she studied Brainy's screens. Her eyes widened. "What the hell...?"

"Please. Help her." Tears clouded her vision.

"Medical now. Brainy J'onn's in charge." Alex grasped Kara's arm and maneuvered her through the mess of the control center. Technicians worked on last minute fine-tuning of weapons, and others manned screens plotting possible vectors. Activity that meant nothing to Kara, not if Lena died.

Not if she couldn't speak her last truth to Lena.

She laid Lena on the medical bed, and Alex ordered her nurses to get an IV in immediately. Kara began to pace, the blood drying on her suit. Alex cut away Lena's shirt and examined the wound.

"She needs surgery now."

"What do I do?" she asked Alex, anguished. "What do I do?"

Alex shook her head. "You can't help with this. Go help J'onn, and wear Lena's anti-kryptonite suit. I'm not sure how long I'll be in surgery."

"Can you save her?"

"I will try my best," Alex said. She refused to look at Kara, and that told her far too much.

Alex didn't think Lena would make it.

"Promise?" the words came out small, plaintive.

"Promise. Now get out of my way." Alex hooked the IV bag to the pole on one end of the bed, and rolled it toward an interior suite. Two nurses followed along with a second doctor.

Kara closed her eyes and listened to the most beautiful heartbeat in the universe -- it faintly hung on, slower and slower with each passing minute.

She couldn't stay and watch the medical team open up Lena. She couldn't.

Instead, she grabbed the anti-kryptonite suit. As it flowed over her, she almost wept again. It felt like Lena hugged her, the suit entirely her design and her nanites.

She flew outside and listened for J'onn. The fight was to the southeast by the docks.

Hadn't Leviathan been targeting Lena? She'd saved her once from them already. Maybe twice if she counted the break-in that had knocked Lena unconscious.

Now Lena was dying, and Kara didn't just want justice for Lena.

She wanted to tear apart whoever ordered that assassin.

The windows shook at the sonic boom, and the ground cratered when she landed.

Rama Khan and another Leviathan member battled J'onn and Dreamer, who had the weapon from the Fortress. Agents, with adjusted weaponry to match the power-disrupting frequency, scattered around the docks.

Kara didn't care about the risk. She didn't care about the Kryptonite weapons the assholes carried.

She crashed into Rama Khan and threw him into a dock building. The wall crumpled. "Did you hire Lena Luthor's killer?" she growled.

Rama Khan laughed and stood with hardly a mark on him and his ridiculous earth-toned suit. "Those who cross Leviathan do not live to tell the tale. Let you now join her, Supergirl." He extended his hand and the ground shook violently.

A blast from Dreamer's gun sent Rama Khan sprawling. Kara sped over and grabbed him by the throat. Her feet she stomped on his arms. "No one hurts Lena and survives," she growled. Her eyes glowed, and she let out a scream of grief and fury.

She blasted him and punched him again and again. Blood gushed from his face, but then he melted into the earth and stumbled into being a few feet away.

Only for Dreamer to blast him again. Kara pummeled him with the rage of a thousand suns. Her vision red, and the land ripped and shredded in their fight. Part of the pier demolished when Kara threw Rama Khan's accomplice into it. Another building fell when Rama blasted Kara into its walls.

Rama Khan slowed, each blast from the gun scrambled his powers long enough for Kara to rip into him until he bled from multiple places. She lost track of the others, so intent on eliminating the one who ordered Lena's hit.

"Kara!" J'onn clamped the power dampeners on the alien. "Kara, we got him."

Kara clenched Rama's neck and looked down to see the cuffs clasped to his wrists.

How much loss could a heart handle? Why did the universe seek to torture her so? Her entire planet, nearly all her friends, and now the woman she loves most -- loss melted through her crevices, filled her with a blinding fury.

She'd fought to keep everyone alive. It's why she needed to be in control, but that obsession of controlling everything, to make sure she never lost, had poisoned her. She couldn't control everything.

She couldn't even save Lena. The thought of Lena dying in surgery, of never hearing her voice again -- even Lena shouting in anger?

Her fingers crunched bone. Rama Khan tumbled from her grasp and hit the ground with a thump, motionless.

Dreamer and J'onn looked at her, but she didn't respond to their words or looks. Agents swarmed around them to secure the site, while Brainy set up the containment unit for Rama Khan and his accomplices. The ruckus roared like the sea in her ears.

She turned without a word and shot into the sky. She flew as high as she could, to where little to no oxygen existed. The fury burned in her, and she wanted to rip herself apart. She deactivated her helmet, turned off its life support systems, and let the lack of air suffocate her and her emotions.

She'd live. She'd always live, wouldn't she? While all she loved died.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall. Air whooshed around her body, screamed in her ears as she hit terminal velocity. For those brief moments, she heard nothing but the shrill wind, the rest of the Earth drowned out in her fall. A moment of release from the endless soundscape.

Halfway to the ground, she righted herself and flew to the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Again she let herself fall. For a third time, she soared high and fell.

Each time she let herself get closer and closer to hitting the ocean. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't outpace her fury at her own actions. At her failure.

This time she hit the water. She sunk into its depths.

Sea life swam around her, the distant calls of whales rippled through the water. What should delight her brought her sorrow.

No, she couldn't die. Her wretched powers, her curse, kept her alive. Kept her isolated from those she loved. Her careful, practiced control meant even in moments of extreme emotion, she still had to make sure not to hug too tightly. And kissing? How many noses had she broken?

All she wanted was Lena. Even if she could never be with Lena, she needed Lena to be alive. To be healthy and happy. Kara could live with just being on the sidelines, right? As long as Lena was alive.

She burst out of the ocean in a shower of sea water. She hung in the air and watched the waves below her. Her ears tuned to her favorite heartbeat, and there it was, faint, far too faint, but still pulsing.

A slither of hope wove into Kara's wretched spirit. She flew back to the DEO, the wind drying the moisture from the sea.

When she landed, Nia met her at the balcony's doors. "Kara," she breathed out as if she'd been running. "Been looking everywhere."

Kara crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you want?"

"It's Lena. Alex said to let you know the surgery is ongoing and Lena's handling it like a pro." Nia met her gaze, but worry painted across her face. "Don't lose hope yet. She may still live."

Kara said nothing. She heard the rebuke in Nia's words, but she didn't regret her actions. For Lena, there was no boundaries. She'd destroy a thousand Rama Khans if it meant saving Lena.

She followed Nia down the hall, through two intersections, and into the medical bay. Most of the beds were occupied by injured agents from the Leviathan battle. It was the surgery room that occupied all of Kara's attention.

Lena's heart beat still in those glass walls.

Kara walked up to them and pressed a hand against the cool glass. Lena looked so pale. So fragile.

The tears returned. Her chest constricted with a Lena-shaped hole that ached with each beat of her heart.

She didn't move from that spot for the rest of the surgery. Kara held vigil in silence, unmoving. She'd given Lena revenge on those who tried to kill her, and now Kara waited.

Waited for hope to dawn once more.

/end part 2