DP x DC Prompt
…
There are no more heroes.
Well, okay. Rewind a bit.
Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)
The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.
And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.
Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?
Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.
So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.
There are no more heroes.
Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.
Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.
Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)
In other words:
Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.
Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.
(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)
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The first time it happened, all agents took their weapons out the moment Lena entered the building like she owns it.
Alex considered firing everyone who let her past the guard post and then shoot her. In the leg. Maybe.
"Take it", Lena threw something at Brainy, who somehow was completely calm. It relaxed Alex too, since Brainy was an expert on calculating danger level of everyone.
And then Lena just turned around and exited the DEO, like she was dropping of their lunch or something. And she was still fighting with Kara!
"What the hell, Luthor!?" Alex shouted to her back, only to recieve resolute "Shut up!" in return.
Alex sputtered, because: excuse me, but you came to the secret underground goverment facility like to your own office! Brainy muttered something, tinkering with the thing Lena brought.
"It's anti-kriptonite suit", he said in wonder, already running some simulations on his tablet. "She shouldn't has figured this out for ahother five years".
"Brainy, test this thing in every way you can, and if it's safe, take it to Kara immediately", Alex grumbled, but her sister's safety was more important than Luthor's strange wims.
/ / / / / / / / / /
Next time everyone still grabbed their weapons, but wasn't ready to shoot just yet, as Lena angrily stormed into the building. Perhaps it was because despite her stare she complied with every security measure guards asked of her.
Which didn't stop her from slamming thick file into Alex's chest.
"What the hell, Luthor!?" Alex saw how Brainy grabbed Nia's hand to stop her from standing up.
"Shut up", Lena returned, as she went back without any explanation.
Alex was left with papers and strange sense of deja-vu.
Looking through evidence on their resent villain and drafts of some devices to counter his powers, Alex thought about how Lena always choose time when Kara was absent from the building.
/ / / / / / / / / /
When they reached fifth visit like that no one was surprised anymore. Because everytime they would be stuck, Lena will miraculously appear with what they need. But she still stubbornly refused to talk with anyone besides Brainy and only about science behind her inventions.
This time she confidentely walked into the building, but Brainy instantly stood up. Everyone around them tensed, powers and guns ready. Lena opened her mouth to protest but he forced her to sit under bewildered eyes of everyone in the room.
"She's injured", was the only thing Brainy said, as he pried another helpful thing from Lena's hands.
"Am not", Lena replied, and Alex noticed how she slurred her words a little. "Take this shit and let me go".
Nia was already out of the room, fetching medical supplies, when Alex moved Brainy to the side to check on her.
"Left side, one inch lower than her ribs", he told Alex. Nia, who put Alex's medical bag down, gently rubbed his back, even if it was almost invisible that he was worried.
Alex pressed her hand under Lena's jacket where he instructed, and her fingers returned covered in blood.
Lena was still swearing, when Alex cleared her wound - bullet hole - and dressed it.
"You need medical attention, Luthor", Alex said quietly. After everything she was still angry at the other woman but it didn't mean she wanted her dead.
"If I show it to someone, I'm as good as dead", Lena chuckled, cleary half-delirious from pain and pain-killers. How she managed to get there on the sole willpower was beyond understanding. "Even if you want it, I would like to live a little longer".
Alex didn't answer. Couldn't. Even if she knew it wasn't true, some part of her wanted Lena to believe it. To suffer.
It was a shameful, selfish thought.
/ / / / / / / / / /
"Lena?" Kara's weak voice sounded incredibly loud in the quiet of their usual exchange.
Lena stiffened and promtly turned to flee in the middle of her conversation with Brainy.
"Lena!" Kara could catch up to her in the blink of an eye, but somehow near Lena she always forgot she has powers.
Lena spent too much time talking over some sort of mathematical models and Kara wrapped up her mission early.
"Please, wait!"
"Leave me alone", Lena gritted through her teeth, but even Alex saw tears in her eyes, as she sped up.
"She's hurting", Brainy supplied from Alex's side, as they both watched this strange chase.
"She's injured again?" Alex asked with small pang of guilt.
"No, she's hurting emotionally. More than she shows."
He didn't add anything else. They watched door slamming into Kara's pitiful face.
/ / / / / / / / / /
"Why are you helping us?" Alex asked her about a month after Lena and Kara's dramatic meeting.
"Shut up", Lena answered, tired as hell after three all-nighters they pulled to rescue Kara from another dimension.
"It's getting old, Luthor. Spill the beans".
Perhaps it's exhaustion, perhaps it is somehow sisterly look in Alex's eyes, but Lena is silent suddenly, before almost pushing words out.
"You said you will turn over the world for your sister, didn't you? I had someone like that once. My big brother, who would be the only one to treat me like a person in the place that was supposed to be my home. Who protected me from everything he could. And whom I admired so much I wanted to be just like him".
Alex tensed, as always when talking about Lex. But Lena's voice was quiet, and her face already wet from tears she seemed to hold for so long, and Alex shut her mouth this time.
"When he did all that he did, I was disappointed. But I still loved my big brother. But when he first tried to kill me? I was heartbroken. The person who withstood father's beatings in my place tried to kill me", Lena chuckled through her sobs.
Alex never allowed herself to think about Lex past his atrocites. She couldn't afford any pity for the person who tormented her sister and her family. But right now there was another little girl beside her who lost her only family.
"You said you will turn over the world for your sister, didn't you?", Lena turned to her. "I killed my brother for her".
She didn't said anything after that. Just cried herself to sleep. And Alex was just sitting there, left alone with shocking news and even more shocking realizations. Lex was dead. Lena was the one who killed him. He told her Kara was Supergirl and she still killed him.
/ / / / / / / / / /
"Don't pity me, it makes my skin crawl", Lena said the next day, when she was given her own pass to the DEO. She threw it on the table right in front of Alex, and agent considered asking 'what the hell, Luthor' just for the fun.
"I'm not. But after what you did for my sister and what you continue to do, the least I can do is to give you free entrance".
Lena sat beside her, tired and feverish from overwork.
"Don't care about me either".
"When will you talk to Kara?" Lena scowled when Alex ignored her, but still took the pass.
"Never, perhaps. I look at her and see the dead body of my brother. It's not something a little talk can fix. And she will blame herself, burdening me with another endless boundle of her apologies".
"She will learn of his death eventually, and then she'll found out how he died. It will happen anyway. And yes, of course, nothing will be fixed just because you too will talk. But maybe you can relieve some of your burden, and maybe several small talks will help you both".
Lena didn't lift her head from the shiny surface of the table. But she nodded tiniest bit.
/ / / / / / / / / /
Lena kept coming to help. Kara kept trying to talk to her.
One day Lena conceded, and then she screamed at Kara for an hour in the empty conference room and stormed out.
They had reverse situation later, when Lena came injured once again. Kara screamed about her being reckless, and they eventually reached her past sorrows.
They screamed, then talked, then whispered. And slowly started to smile again. Later came tentative touches, lunches and game nights.
So when almost two years later Alex found them in the kitchen doing something she would prefer to erase from her mind, everything finally became as it should.
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