#source: bizarrogirl

[shittymurderparty]

busted

Redacted: —Okay, which one of you dumplings tracked water into my office? Very uncool, guys! Detective Chambers: That was probably my fault. Redacted: Chambers? Why are you sitting in my office? In the dark? Redacted: I need to talk to you, Brad. (Source: Lana Lang and Catherine Grant, Bizarrogirl)

[fandomsarefamily1966]

Steven: Do you think self-punishment ever ends, Luz?

Luz: It might never end, Steven. We can be sorry for what we've done, be sorry for hurting others, but it's what we do afterwards that really matters. But if it does end, it will be because you look into a mirror... and realize you've already punished yourself enough.

[whythinktoomuch]

(pt. i)

Research is a long, arduous process. It’s demanding because Lex prefers to be thorough, and difficult because she wants to be useful.  

The goal is to learn everything there is to be learned about her, as Lex likes to mention as often as possible. She doesn’t mind the redundancy of such a reminder though. It makes her feel important. It makes her feel of value for once in her life.

Supergirl must feel like this all the time. 

-

The first round of testing is to determine how her abilities measure up against Supergirl’s. Her invulnerability, super-strength, and flight speeds seem to please him, which in turn pleases her. But what fascinates him the most is how she can breathe fire and freeze the air with just a look.

“Your powers are diametrically opposed to Supergirl’s, which makes you the perfect mirror image,” Lex says, and she smiles even though the epithet rings paradoxical to her ears. “Do you know what that means?”

He pauses, waiting for her response—something he still does despite already having her loyalty at his disposal. Participation is important to him.

When she shakes her head, Lex casually reaches into his pocket. “It means that this can’t hurt you,” he says, opening his hand to reveal a tiny slab of the most vibrant green.

A muffled hum crawls into her head, the sound solidifying into a fever that ripples throughout her body. In her panic-stricken haste to escape the feeling, she flies backwards and hits the wall hard enough to warp the metal into a crude semblance of her form. “No.”

“It’s just kryptonite,” Lex says, head tilted in clear amusement. “Like I said, it can’t hurt you.” But he wasn’t there when it happened. She’s never known what to call the green light, but her only encounter with it had left consequences that still live in her skin.

“Yes, hurt,” she huffs out, emphatic. “Yes, change!”

Lex’s amusement quickly crosses over into curiosity, and he begins his careful approach. “It changes you? How?” She tries to retreat farther into the wall, further into the darkness, but Lex’s tone is ever so gentle, “Can you show me…?”

She doesn’t want to, but Lex wants her to, and he’s still asking instead of taking, so she meets him halfway in slow, lumbering steps and holds out her hand.

The delicate rock has barely grazed her palm when her skin starts to deteriorate around it. Her entire hand drains of what little color it had left, the surface splintering at the seams like a particularly unruly stretch of earth. She allows the decay to travel up to her wrist before letting go.

Lex spares not one glance for the kryptonite clattering onto the floor, instead taking her hand in both of his for a closer look. “Incredible…” he says, his fingertips brushing over the hardened cracks in her palm. “Did that hurt you? Are you in any pain?”

Her grasp of spoken language, as slippery as it is, often falls short of the intangible. The kryptonite left a rupture that thumps in her chest, echoed only in places she can’t see for herself. But her hand’s fine; it will work the way it’s meant to. “… No.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

She struggles and struggles, and comes up with, “Ugly.”

“And how is that a bad thing?” Lex asks, because though it seems obvious, he requires precision, no matter how poorly articulated by her unpracticed tongue.

“They… leave.”

“Well, I haven’t left, and if this—” Lex squeezes her hand like it doesn’t disgust him—“keeps people away, that’s a good thing. Because that means they can’t hurt you. Do you understand?”

Oh, yes. That much, she does understand.

Two of his men show up at the door, signaling that it’s time for Lex to get back to prison, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from her. “What you’re feeling right now isn’t pain,” he continues to explain, and her mind dilates accordingly to accommodate this new understanding. “This is strength. An advantage. It’s what makes you better than Supergirl.”

“Better than Supergirl…” she agrees with a hesitant nod.

Lex’s smile is broad as he slowly shakes his head in wonder. “Max Lord is a goddamn fool for letting you go,” he insists, releasing her hand with care. “And I may be a lot of things, but I’m no fool.”

He takes his leave then, but the promise sewn into his parting words is a veritable balm for the sting of his absence. He’ll return to her because he’s always returned to her. What’s a few hours—or days, or a week—of solitude when weighed against that certainty?

This is strength, she reminds herself, settling back in her bed with only a nameless man standing guard at the door for company. Strength feels like this.

//

“You like her,” Lex says one day, and it chafes her sensibilities because he’s not usually wrong about things.

She drops her tablet, with one of the many loaded videos still playing out on screen. But the topic, apparently, isn’t to be dropped quite as easily because Lex simply picks it right back up.

“Ah, the TED Talk on molecular nanotech…” he muses with a soft chuckle. “You know, this is from almost ten years ago, and she’s already refuted nearly half of what she’s proposing here.”

“Lena, smart?”

“Oh, very smart. That’s what makes her smart, actually: being able to admit when she’s wrong.” Lex sets the tablet back in her hands, and she clutches onto her only source of Lena with an eagerness verging on greed. “But even the smartest people can have moments of willful ignorance, you know?”

… Should she know?  

Lex checks his watch, and sure enough, his men are at the door, ready to steal him away again. But he holds them back with one raised finger before turning back to her. “I have to go now, but I do have a task for you to complete while I’m gone.”

“Task?” Immediately, she draws herself up, purpose straightening out her spine, diluting her need for little else. “What task?”

“I’d like you to learn something about Lena.”

An inevitable frown dawns on her face. She touches her hand to the tablet in question, but Lex shakes his head.

“No, I want you to go see her,” he says, inspiring something prickly and fast-paced to rush through her veins. “Find her, follow her around, watch what she does, and the next time we meet, you can show me what you’ve learned.”

“Learn, what?”

Lex shrugs as he gathers up his materials. “It doesn’t matter. This is more for your sake than mine, and as long as you’re not seen by anyone, the sky’s the limit.” He pauses at the door, turns around to look her right in the eye. “You can do this, Bizarrogirl. Just trust your gut.”

Then Lex leaves, and she’s left with a remarkable feeling—strength, flowering in her chest in a way that could never be mistaken for pain—because it’s the first time he’s ever referred to her by such a name, and maybe he’s right.

It is better than Supergirl.

(next part here)