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Chapter Text

Bruce had no way of knowing where he was, the space was arid and sandswept like the rest of the sordid nightmarish landscape, as foreign as it was familiar. The only thing he did know, was that he was here, wherever that may have been, for a reason. He’d woken mid flight as soon as he’d been snatched off of the threadbare bedroll he’d been lucky enough to scrounge before it got baked by the sun. The flash of a tattered red cape in his peripheral while sailing through the night sky had been enough to narrow his scope of suspects, beyond the already dwindled pool of those still left alive with the ability to fly.

Given the fact that he’d been given the privilege to wake up, for the most part unharmed, not having been hurled into space in righteous fury, Bruce deduced there was only one culprit behind his mysterious kidnapping.

“Took you longer than I thought.” A voice cut in, oozing charm that contrasted the sinister gleam of glowing eyes cutting through the dark. The other Kryptonian, the one from another Earth. Power Girl.

Watching as Karen Starr slipped free from the veil of shadows into a sparse patch of bleached moonlight bleeding in from a hole in the dilapidated building’s roof, Bruce felt his heart squeeze behind his ribs with unbidden fondness; by the fascinated crinkle of her nose, she could see it too. Likely peering beneath his skin unabashedly with all the reservation of a middle schooler poking at a dissected frog.

“Nice crowd you’re running with.” She teased, and Bruce couldn’t exactly disagree, aside from Barry and Victor, Mera was still an unknown quantity blinded by her grief, and Slade was only made tolerable in comparison when having to endure the Joker’s presence endlessly.

“They wouldn’t have been my first choice.” Bruce admitted sourly, returning the undisguised rake of his eyes over her, noting the way she looked nearly exactly as he remembered. Wearing the same skintight Kryptonian fibre weave that Superman did, albeit hers was primarily an icy silver, bordering on white, with metallic navy accents in the forearms and boots. The same velvety red cape spilling over her shoulders, the same cape that struck fear in the eyes of all that was left of the world. Yet one thing hadn’t changed in the tyranny that had befallen Earth under Superman’s reign, there in the center of her chest, was emptiness...a window of skin where their family crest should’ve been, but never was. A part of Bruce held onto that hope, for whatever it was worth.

“I don’t even think they would’ve been your last,” Karen remarked with a coy curl of her lips as she stepped closer, cape billowing intriguingly behind her, like a trail of blood at her back. Bruce couldn’t argue, mostly because he knew she was right, he’d been backed so far into a corner that he’d had to make compromises; costly ones.

“You’ve made me desperate.” He admitted in a resigned growl, warbled through the cowl’s voice modulator.

A silence befell them as Karen leered up at him, arms folded beneath the cut-out in her suit, a warm crease of skin appearing distractingly before his eyes.

“You have to stop this, Bruce…” Karen said with a sigh, voice firm though even she couldn’t keep the warmth from seeping into the inflection of his name on her tongue.

“This insane gamble running around with lunatics and mercenaries to fix the world-”

“-To save it,” Bruce corrected, voice low and staticy, “Something we were supposed to do... together .”

“To save it from him. ” Bruce persisted, because as much as they’d all like to cling to the hope that Clark Kent still resided in some deep recess of the shell their Kryptonian overlord had become, there was no denying that Kal-El was doing the planet no favors. But before his very eyes he saw potential, a glimmer of hope from the girl that had none, no House of L sigil displayed proudly on her chest…

“Kara…” Bruce rasped, her Kryptonian name only pulling a stiff sound from her chest.

“Karen.” She corrected pointedly, and he clutched onto that distinction, because for as much as she claimed to love her cousin - she didn’t want to be like him. There was nothing super about her, Karen Starr radiated power on her own merits, and like Atlas before her, he was asking her to hold up this little blue planet of theirs before it too blinked out of existence.

She shook her head, mussed blonde bob swaying like she was trying to rid his voice from her mind.

“Enough, I didn’t bring you here for a debate.” She exclaimed, abandoning the stern fold of her arms to stalk back over to him.

Her nose was nearly touching the cover of his cowl when he asked, “What did you bring me here for, Karen?”

Yet, Bruce knew the answer, he’d known from the moment he’d seen her, could read her intentions in those eyes that burned a blue unseen in their hellish reality. Her fingers fanned out against the weathered bat symbol that spanned the width of his chest, digits tracing the subtle downward point that ended just beneath his ribs with familiarity. Despite the layers of kevlar and protective padding buffering her touch from him, there was an inherent warmth that bled through down to his very bones, a kind so distinct from the desert heat.

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?” Karen asked with a slight tilt of her head, flaxen blonde bangs falling jaggedly in her eyes. Her words uttered out against his lips gently, her breath sweeter than summer rain on his skin. Bruce swallowed hard, throat working as tightly coiled desire unspooled hotly in his stomach.

When her tongue peeked out, pink and wet to tease his lips, he lurched against her, body stiff and in need of all she offered. Bruce Wayne was a relic, he realized, a part of a world that no longer existed, this world, their world had no room for him. It needed the bat, or at the very least what was left of him. But he found solace in her arms, each a piece of a world that had gone extinct. 

Even beneath that, clutched closely to his blackened heart was his affection for her… he had missed her.

A gloved hand roughly grabbed a fistful of her hair, dragging her mouth to his, swallowing the sound of her excitement where it filled his mouth. Her fingers dug into him in return, tangling in the fabric of his scarf, tugging on it like pulling a dog on a leash, as he reached for her. His gloved palms filling out over the width of her hips, hitching a padded knee between her legs, growling a throaty sound when she snarled hungrily against his cheek. Her teeth hissing over his stubble, tongue flicking over the cleft in his chin before demanding entry back into his mouth which he obliged.

Bruce grunted when they impacted with a wall, her desperation making the building sway precariously as she straddled his thighs, her frayed cape and the dusty tails of his coat billowing down around them where they settled on the floor. She took his face in her hands, rough lips and harsh teeth as he claimed her mouth in return.

She replaced the taste of ash and regret in his mouth, and what a taste it was, to be drunk on her again after so long. Karen writhed in his lap, bearing down between his thighs with a grimace of pleasure. Her fingers nearly knocked his goggles away where she clutched at the back of his cowl, desperate to keep his mouth on hers.

He dragged his lips lower, the column of her neck arched in offering for him to ravish. Her skin was unbearably soft, not a trace of sand or grime to be found beneath his teeth and tongue. Like the harsh elements that had gnawed away at them all didn’t phase her, like they simply couldn’t.

There was a rush of vindication so unrivaled in it’s potency at the reality of having her sprawled against him, a God. Perhaps once this was all over, when things were right and he could hang up the cowl, he’d kneel down in worship at her feet. It was Prometheus, a god who had defied his own to free humanity, enlightening them from their darkness with a gift of fire. And that was what Bruce needed from her: fire .

Until then, he’d warm his tired bones with the heat she provided.

Clawing a hungry hand at her chest, he swallowed her sound of predatory hunger where it flowed from her chest like a wellspring of want. His gloved fingers dipping into the cut-out in her skintight Kryptonian mail, palming at the warmth of her flesh. Head tipped up towards her golden visage in reverence as he freed the resounding weight of one breast through the opening. He let the warmth of her rest against his lips,  not yet accepting the bounty on his tongue, but savoring her, fragrant and familiar like freshly baked bread.

A sharp grind of her hips urged the smooth fabric of her suit down against the strain of his erection, chafing against the coarse material of his khaki tactical pants.

“Bruce.” She exhaled his name, the sound carrying the same warmth of the sun on his skin. Finally accepting her breast between his lips with a grateful sigh, tongue hungrily lapping at her skin, tightening the curl of his lips around the pert bud of her nipple until she cried out a dulcet sound.

Her open palm collided harshly with the wall beside his head, the tremor reverberating through the Earth like the plodding of a giant, yet he did nothing but moan appreciatively as she arched to press more flesh between his waiting mouth.

Karen tilted her head back with a moan, sinew rippling up her shoulders with unadulterated power beneath the nearly painted on silver of her suit. One deceptively dainty hand clutching his head to her chest, curled against the scuffed titanium of his cowl, possibly even toying with one of the pointed ears.

Bruce groaned, swallowing at the warm flood of saliva pooling in his mouth with the taste of her skin saturating his tongue, sucking feverishly at the pink peak of her nipple. Her hand pounded against the stone wall again, as her hips pressed down more firmly he could feel the sear of her sex through their clothes, her blue eyes glittering with pleasure.

“ Rao , I missed you.” She hummed, plump lower lip quivering as he pulled back slowly to lathe her breast with the dextrous tip of his tongue. His dark eyes holding her gaze where she loomed above him, beautiful and terrifying, like all things beyond human control. Bruce felt a shiver claw down his spine at the admission, head swimming at the thought of being missed by her. He latched on harder, only vaguely concerned that the building could come down around them if she continued pounding away at the wall, sucking as he battled to free her other breast from the confines of her suit as well.

“I can’t wait any longer,” She hissed, pushing off of his lap to tear through the air with enough force to make his eyes water. Bruce blinked, throat hot and cock throbbing painfully without the weight of her in his lap, when she suddenly reappeared with a powerful gust of wind at her back. She hovered before him once more in all of her divinity, bare body bathed in anemic moonlight. Somehow appearing all the more awe inspiring without her suit as she drifted down back to him, robust thighs spreading over him just as she had before.

 Reaching for the seam of his cowl, Bruce stilled as her fingers caught his wrist, superhuman strength nearly bending the pointed blades of his gauntlets in momentary carelessness.

“Don’t,” She said breathlessly, dipping down to press her mouth to his, tongue briefly curling against the roof of his mouth, “Keep it on for me.” Karen hummed, lips pressing a final reassuring kiss to his lips as he slumped back against the cool stone wall with a lazy grin. Laying still as she cleverly worked her fingers beneath the pliant leather of his belt to undo his zipper with startling speed and pull free his weighty erection.

His arousal frothing tempestuously, feeding his desire like oxygen to a fire, making his hunger all the more apparent with her palm curled around him. Searing skin on skin. Having wrestled him free, Karen gave him a pleased smirk, giving his imposing length a long stroke.

A plea burning low in his throat at the glide of his stiff cock against her skin, so soft she might as well have been bathing in buttermilk. She was quick to silence the sound of his supplication with a warm kiss, drinking it in without hesitation. Then with a careful twist of her hips, he was poised against her slippery gash before she sank down onto his length with a sigh of praise.

Bruce hissed, head thumping back against the wall as her sex molded around his member, slick and tight and torturously hot. A growl working it’s way up his throat when she finally deigned to move, cunt flexing as she rose up before gliding back down, thick cock spreading her open. Each time they met with a resounding clap of impact, a small grunt pushed between their hungry mouths.

Spreading his legs wider, feeling her palm clasp against the underside of his jaw exposed from the cowl, her grip tilting his head and subsequently his gaze up to her. Moonlight dripped over the stern line of her broad shoulders, breasts bouncing with each dizzying descent of her hot sex over him. He’d never seen anything so celestial.

The air stuck to his skin like steam where sweat gathered beneath his layers of clothing as he rutted up into her, body boiling with desperation. The clasp of her hand reminiscent of a collar around his throat.

“We could do this forever,” Karen huffed, face twisted with bliss as she bounced in his lap, cock swallowed up by the velvety warmth of her body. His head tingled, eyelids heavy and mouth dry at the enticing thought.

“I could steal you away,” She hissed, head tossed back with a moan as her pace quickened, the grip of her hand tightening around his jaw, not to the point of pain yet, merely straddling that precipice of pleasure; and Bruce writhed deliriously in that uncertainty.

“Fuck,” She growled, hips rocking harder as she sank down wetly, the wall giving a tremble behind them, “It’s a big enough planet, Kal can keep his half, I just want a corner,” Another moan whistled through her startlingly white teeth, “I’d take you somewhere nice and quiet-” Her breath stuttered and eyes flickered beneath her eyelids as she fucked him, cunt claiming his thick cock, elastic walls flexing around it like she was owed that part of him.

Bruce shuddered, allowing her to maintain her hold around his throat while angling to fit his mouth around a tit. Pulling a nipple between his lips needily, her grip tightened, palm and pussy, making his vision swim with stars as her breath fluttered out in an appreciative moan.

“Oh, Rao, I’d play with you every hour of every day,” She gasped, back arched as she offered more flesh into his waiting mouth, his brilliant mind reduced to nothingness where her words poured like acid into his ears, eroding away any rational thought. He couldn’t think of anything better than being able to finally let go of his tightly leashed control - of being at someone else’s mercy, of being at her mercy…

“And there wouldn’t be a damn thing anyone could do to stop me, not your new friends, not Kal, not even you.” Karen cried out, hands braced against the wall on either side of his head, cunt milking his swollen member for all he was worth as she chased her completion. Bruce stilled with a groan, the sound muffled by the supple flesh of her breast pulled taut between his lips. His body going stiff like he had rigor mortis, decaying with all her warmth wrapped around him as he emptied himself inside of her molten core. His vision dimmed beneath the potency of his orgasm, it had been so long, so long since he’d felt anything resembling pleasure that came unraveled under it.

The gentle rasp of her fingers against the stubble on his cheek urged Bruce’s eyes back open as Karen slumped against him with a sated sigh, just in time to glimpse the big goofy grin on her face where her forehead met the permanently furrowed brow of his cowl.

It was during moments like these, still humming with the afterglow of a hard orgasm that Karen looked most her age, a kid just barely out of her twenties splayed in lap with his cum leaking out of her.

Bruce hummed a distorted sound through the cowl’s modulator, a low pleased rumble that made her flutter around him. And Bruce couldn’t help but smile in return, a firm hand clasping at the back of her neck as she settled against him. She could talk a big game about all the things she would do, holding him hostage as some pet, though he knew she never would. Contrary to the tyrannical Kryptonian that had befallen their planet like a plague, Karen Starr didn’t have a bad bone in her body.

Even as Bruce watched her rocket into the sky, punching through the sound barrier as she went, he held on to hope. Because as long as there were two red capes in the sky, he still had some. She could be their Prometheus, she could be their Rao, their goddess of the sun - it didn’t matter, regardless of where she went, Karen Starr carried with her a light in their time of darkness, and as long as Bruce was alive, he wouldn’t let that hope burn out.

Chapter Text

The sound of her tearing through the sky still lingered in the air, like a clap of thunder after a flash of lightning, as Karen impacted down against the ground in a smooth motion. The force of her boots hitting the sand sent a small beige tidal wave billowing out around her.

The twinge of happiness she had felt since being with Bruce dimmed when every mindless foot soldier surrounding the rust-bitten compound saluted her. Karen had never asked for them to do that, nor had the soldiers done it out of some semblance of genuine respect for her, but rather in an effort to appease their true ruler.

Kal, Son of El.

You’re my family , he had told her, when every soldier mindlessly groped at their golden visage in the sky, side by side, I want them to treat you the way they treat me .

At the time she had seen it as Kal trying to protect her, in a way she supposed he was, in his warped mind, but now she could see it for what it truly was. Control.

Karen tried to hide her grimace as she approached the doors of the para-military compound her cousin had taken as a bastion, the very heart of his planet-wide kingdom. The idea of whisking away her human lover to some quiet corner where they couldn’t be found became more and more enticing as she paused before the doors.

She held her chin up, spine stiff where she spotted the hulking form of her cousin Kal, splayed out on some makeshift throne through the heavy metal walls. By the subtle quirk of his lips and coy squint of his eyes, she knew was looking back through the walls - back at her. A hard shiver tore down her spine despite the heat of their current climate.

A pair of soldiers dutifully heaved the doors open for her, each bearing their house symbol on their sleeve. She watched sunlight spill into the tin box that had become their home. Their very own Olympus.

Standing guard like a centurion beside the makeshift throne was a woman Karen had admired greatly, and consequently, one she could hardly recognize. Diana of Themyscira. The Amazonian princess, like most in this hellish wasteland, was a shell of her former self, embodying nothing but an iron fist through which Kal could maintain his rule.

It was under Darkseid’s siege that Karen’s cousin, swallowed up in his grief, had cemented a bond with his teammate. The smoldering ashes of Lois dusted from his palms as Diana’s ichor stained the limb strewn battlefield…

The prospect of losing anyone else had driven what remained of the virtuous Clark Kent to sweep the dying goddess into his arms, dark cape streaked through the sky like a smear of charcoal. And Clark had gotten his wish...he had saved her, her fading glow rejuvenated by the healing waters of Themyscira. Born from the rubble was a woman loyal to a new type of god.

Diana was his fury, his archangel, his justice embodied, she was whatever Kal needed. A symbol, a warrior, a lover.

Should she falter, which she rarely did, Kal could always convince her to see reason.

We’re fighting for world peace, Diana, he would say, fighting for a world under one rule - our rule. With that, she was snarling for his cause once more, cutting down a humble crop of humans who refused to fly his colors all in the name of world peace. She’d return with a large, bloody grin, and he’d reward her for it.

And at the center of it all, their new Helios, the center which their new world revolved around was the man himself...Kal. Her cousin laid in his throne, oozing autocratic power, herculean chin supported beneath his large fist. There was a dreaded emptiness in his blue eyes where he stared back at her.

“ Kara …” Kal called gently, voice deceptively warm in a way that she wanted desperately to believe. She loathed the sound of her Kryptonian name on any tongue, worst of all his. Each syllable felt like walls separating her from the very population she had vowed to protect. One unforgiving utterance of her name and she was an alien once more, a being separate from the rest of the world, separate from all except him .

“Kal,” She greeted quietly, a tight smile lifting on her lips, yet not reaching her eyes as she stared at her cousin. Karen waited a few perilous seconds, before itching to move to her room, realistically it provided no more protection from her cousin’s pointed stare, yet it offered a peace of mind that was in short supply.

“Where have you been?” Kal asked conversationally, but Karen had grown used to this tyrant wearing her cousin’s face to know bait when she heard it.

“Out,” She said simply, feeling the prickle of Diana’s dark stare shifting her way, “It gets musty in here, I just needed some air.” She added, hoping her attempt at levity would appease him.

Yet at the bark of his laughter, icy and bitter, Karen knew she hadn’t. Dread settled thickly in her stomach as his shallow laughter echoed through the air. A gasp remained caged in her throat at the sudden trickle of warmth between her thighs, the damning wetness of Bruce’s cum dripping down from her thoroughly used sex, inspiring fear to join the dread in her belly.

Oh Rao ...

Kal’s gaze seemed to darken, “Air?” He echoed, brows lifted interestedly. His sharp smile widening at the curt nod Karen gave in return, trying desperately to avoid earning his ire.

“Yeah…” She added lamely, itching to bolt to her room, above all else aching to run back to Bruce. Uninspired by Kal’s little pensive sound, nodding his head like he understood her.

“Well, that’s not the only thing you needed, was it?” Kal asked knowingly, the venomous words dripped from his lips, his mouth curled in disgust as he leered at her. Karen couldn’t quite fight her surprised gasp this time around, feeling pitiful and small beneath his volatile stare.

“I-” She began, voice dying at the realization that a lie would only anger him further. Despite all her gifts, she hadn’t been quick enough, anything other than supplication was taken as a slight. Suddenly one of Kal’s hands was curled around her throat with murderous intent, applying a horrifying pressure that made her head throb.

“Do you think that I can’t smell him on you?” He snarled, seizing her up so they were nearly nose to nose. The heat of his thunderous breathing spilled like radiation over her chin. Blue eyes corrupted by molten heat, power slithering beneath his eyelids glowing like veins of magma. Shame burned her cheeks as he held her, another torturous dribble of seed spilling between her thighs, staining the form-fitting mail of her suit. It was no secret that Kal fixated much of his rage on the stubborn human that refused to accept his reign over the world, yet his anger felt fueled beyond his hatred for Bruce.

“I-I’m sorry…” Karen murmured, humiliated tears prickling in her eyes as he glowered down at her.

In her peripheral Karen could see Diana tense, the hard sculpted muscles of her powerful body drawn taut like a part of her was tugging at the proverbial leash they both called loyalty.

“Kal…” The Amazon said stiffly, just barely pulling her cousin’s attention, molten light leaching from his eyes, leaving a startlingly cold blue in its wake.

Carefully lowering Karen to her feet, Kal straightened his spine, towering well above the younger Kryptonian as he dismissed Diana with a flick of his wrist.

“The Bat is closeby, bring him to me.” He ordered, the words making Karen’s throat tighten in ways unrelated to his unrelenting grip around her neck at the mention of Bruce. The esteemed princess hardly flinched, marching from the compound without so much as a second glance at the two.

Karen felt dizzy, horrified and shamed as her cousin reluctantly tore his hand from her neck, an ugly tenderness burning beneath her skin. Words felt stuck, balled up somewhere in her chest as she tried to make sense of all that unfolded. If she had ever questioned whether there was a shred of humanity that remained in her cousin, Karen was made unequivocally aware. There was no Clark Kent in the man above her, just a god, and a cruel one at that.

“You should get cleaned up.” Kal said, voice vaguely warm like his words were a suggestion and not a command. Nodding dumbly, Karen listened, eager for the excuse he’d given her to be anywhere but there.

Locked away in her room, there was a quiet comfort she took in having a barrier between herself and her cousin. Her head throbbing and pulse hammering as she hurriedly tugged away her suit, feeling more filthy than she ever had in this hellish reality. 

Abandoning the Kryptonian mail to the ground with a sigh, she bit down on a strangled cry at the evidence of her coupling with Bruce spilling between her thighs. Her skin screamed with the subtle scent of him. It was beautiful and tragic.

Sinking down against the sink in her room, one hand groping for the tap until she felt a gush of cool water run down her fingers. Their paltry Olympus had running water, which was a far cry from most of the world. She lived in apparent luxury, yet still suffered under her cousin’s rule just the same as everyone else. It was a unique torment.

Gathering some water in a metal basin, Karen quickly shut off the tap. A flash of her heat vision had curls of steam drifting up from the bowl. Dipping a rag into the water, she began rubbing harshly at her skin. Stifling tears as she scrubbed the scent of her lover from her body with prejudice.

Wincing as the damp cloth approached the rosy shape adorning her neck left by her cousin’s harsh grip. She could still picture the hateful gleam in his eyes, the sneer of his mouth when he stared down at her. She scrubbed harder.

Tossing the rag down into the basin with a small splash and a sniffle, Karen wound her arms around her body, hugging herself. She felt sanitized, yet unclean.

Creeping towards the window in her room, a pillar of sunlight cut through the darkness, and she basked in it. Allowing the warm glow caressing her bare skin to cleanse her, to heal her.

Soaking up that reinvigorating light, she felt lulled by it’s warmth, curling up in the bleached sunlight on her floor. She was exhausted, tired and aching. So, she slept, and she dreamt of a better world. She dreamt of a world where she hadn’t known the sting of defeat from Darkseid two times over, a world where that Anti-Life equation hadn’t warped the two most virtuous people she had ever known, a world where she could be happy with the man that she loved…

Bruce . He colored her dreams often, trussed up on some remote island or high mountain, for her to shower with affection until he too withered and turned to ash like the rest of this forsaken planet. Like something out of a fairytale, or a nightmare.

The hard crank of her bedroom door being opened, metal grating against the floor, stirred her from her sleep. Shakily rising to her feet, Karen’s breath stuck in her throat at the quiet swish of his cape against the ground and the subtle sound of each step as he drew nearer.

There was a long inhale, the sound of his lungs expanding inside his broad chest making her skin itch. Her gaze guiltily turning to the rag she had scrubbed herself raw with, water clouded with sand and semen. Yet, she couldn’t bear to face him, not like this, her arms coming up in some futile attempt to preserve a sense of modesty that she usually had no care for.

She craved to be covered then, lost underneath layers of clothes, protected from the unblinking burn of his gaze down her bare body.

He gave her the decency of walking instead of simply hovering, allowing her to anticipate his every move. Each step crept closer and closer.

Karen tensed, practically leaping out of her skin at the hot press of his open palm curling over her bare shoulder. It was a mundane touch, yet it left her trembling, bestowed with a low, long sigh of satisfaction. She tried not to shake in his hold, unsettled deep in her being at the way his hand smoothed up and down her arm, the motion a mimicry of something soothing and intimate.

A blood-curdling heat permeating her skin, a result of the stubborn friction from his hand. It became more difficult to breathe past the lump in her throat, vision blurred with the tears in her eyes at the curl of his remaining hand over her bare hip. Goosebumps igniting over her skin, something he likely thought highly of. As though his monstrous ego needed to grow any larger.

Thank you , He purred against her nape in their native tongue, the acrid taste of bile burning at the back of her throat. Showering her with gratitude like the benevolent god he liked to pretend he was, bearing all this false warmth for heeding his orders like a feeble follower. Karen was suddenly seized by regret at ever having taught him the few bits of Kryptonian she had known upon arriving on this Earth. She had shared the knowledge with the hope it might bond them, bring them closer beyond the strangers they had once been. Now, it felt isolating. She never wanted to be this close to him.

His knuckles brushed down the dip of her spine, the faintest skim of his skin against hers that made her tremble, nearly shrinking from his touch in disgust.

Part of her burned with the potent desire to rail against every fleeting brush of contact between them, part of her wanted to beat his face into the ground, and he probably wanted her to, if only for the chance to humiliate her once more. Yet, she couldn’t give into that urge, not like this, not when Diana was still scouring the arid wasteland for Bruce, not when she couldn’t protect him, not now...

Karen bit down on her lower lip until she tasted the tang of her own blood, revolted at the hot curl of his fingers against her hip, the indulgent sound of his inhale over her skin, drinking her in.

“You’ll know peace when he’s dead, Kara ,” Kal whispered against her skin, lips dragging against the sinew of her shoulder, the words uttered in the same shallow fondness that his touch radiated. She winced, trying to escape the press of his skin despite herself. For all she struggled, his grip tightened, until he finally heaved her back against him in an unabashed show of his strength.

A broken whimper fell from her lips at the final act of degradation, the wordless exclamation of his control over the whole planet, and ultimately over her. She twitched at the press of that fucking symbol against her skin, the symbol she never had and never would wear. It hissed between her shoulder blades where his chest pressed to her back, burning into her flesh like a white-hot brand, like a stamp of ownership.

She didn’t want to be Kara Zor-L, she didn’t want to share air let alone blood with the man at her back. Rao , Bruce was right.

Karen trembled when the palm at her shoulder urged her towards him, face crumbled in anguish at the unflinching want she found in his blue eyes, an expression she wished she had never glimpsed through these walls when he laid with Diana. A festering, soul-sucking look she loathed to be pinned under.

She held her chin up, stubborn even as tears shimmered in her eyes, refusing to let them fall for Kal. Her cousin smiled in return, not the charming boyish smiles that she had come to associate with Clark Kent, but a sharp smile of vindication.

“Whatever you say, Kal.” Karen said stiffly, offering a wet smile that verged on breaking with her chin wobbling and nostrils flaring. It appeased him, for the moment, kept him content enough to not punish her further.

A shuddered breath escaped her, tears spilling freely when he finally deigned to leave, the threat of his hands still marking her skin, the heat of their house symbol, the symbol of hope scorched into her flesh. Sinking to the floor with a silent cry, her hands trembling as she hurriedly began to pull on her suit, skin aching to be hidden from his gaze.

Karen couldn’t remain still a moment longer, slipping free through her bedroom window, ripping like a missile through the macabre colorless sky.

Flying helped marginally, hiding the sound of her muffled cries up in the feathery clouds. Even with her vision blurred with tears, Karen sought out her pretty speck of black ink in the sea of beige.

A single source of comfort in this drab existence.

Then she saw him, her heart swelling resplendently in her chest at the sight of that distinct cowl, his face hidden behind the fabric of his scarf - but she’d know him anywhere, on any Earth, in any reality.

Sailing down through the sky, wind rushing past her, Karen dropped down before him, curls of sand swirling in her shadow where she hovered above the ground.

It would be so simple, she thought, to snatch him off his feet like she had before, take him somewhere dark and quiet, though this time it would be permanent. Her smile turned soft and sweet as she drifted over to him, navy boots scuffing on the bits of asphalt jutting out from beneath the sand.

She nearly swept him into her arms, eager for the hard press of his palms and warm worship of his mouth to erase the ugly stains marring her flesh. Karen blinked, barely aware of the trident poised at her throat.

Then she scoffed, she didn’t mean to sound so superior, except well...she was.

“ Mera… ” Bruce rumbled lowly in warning, gloved hand reaching down to push up his goggles and tug down his scarf. The Atlantean didn’t budge though, the pronged head of her weapon still held up threateningly. Though Karen didn’t bother telling the other woman that, that little fork of hers would sooner break before it actually broke her skin.

“She’s Kryptonian...she’s like him .” The other woman snarled, teeth bared, and Karen felt her stomach churn in discomfort at the mere mention of her cousin. Damn it, she didn’t have time to debate allegiances, she’d only come here for Bruce.

“Put it down,” Bruce growled, voice darkened through the cowl’s modulator, “or I put you down.”

There was a ripple of tension through the air that Karen sensed Bruce’s little ragtag group couldn’t afford. Eventually Mera relented, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on her weapon as she lowered it.

With that barrier gone, Karen didn’t waste a moment before hurling herself in her lover’s arms, too desperate for him to care about the watching eyes of his sorry excuse of a team.

“Karen,” Bruce hissed against her mouth, voice laden with want even through the staticky rumble of the cowl, with his rifle awkwardly pinned between them as she took his face between her hands.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked, sounding nearly lightheaded where he anchored her to him, a gloved hand filling out over the width of her hip. Her skin seemed to burn with guilt, squirming as his touch replaced the unwelcome ones that still dirtied her skin.

“There’s still time for us,” Karen murmured, tears shimmering wetly in her eyes, “we can still get away from here.” She whispered hopefully, body splayed against the width of his chest, fingers spanned out against the dark shape of a bat there.

She winced at Bruce’s look of disappointment, recoiling from the warm press of her lips.

“Karen, you know I can’t do that-”

“But, I can’t stay,” She blurted out in exasperation, unbidden tears brimming in her eyes, “I can’t stay here with him , I can’t…” Her voice died in her throat, shrinking in on herself with a shake of her head. Rao , she sounded like a child, and she hated that.

She wanted to tear out his grip, wanted to pull back, to curl up in the sun once more and return to that better world she had dreamt of. Stumbling back, she whimpered a sound at the unrelenting curl of his hands steadying her. Karen knew that she could easily wrench free of his hold, and Bruce would never force her to stay, yet, she didn’t want to. She’d sooner die in his arms than leave them.

She grimaced at the firm line Bruce’s mouth scrunched into, the hard tick of a muscle in his jaw as his imploring dark eyes picked her apart. His knowing dark eyes hardened when she wilted, letting him look further, letting him see how powerless his beloved Power Girl had been.

“I can’t do this without you,” Bruce admitted warmly, heavy gloved fingers curling beneath her chin, coaxing her in a way only he could. Karen nodded her head, tears brimming in her eyes as she stared back at him.

Hanging her head, gaze staring at the window of flesh where the family crest should’ve been…

Maybe he’d been right, maybe this world needed Power Girl, needed this lost hope to guide them into the light.

There was a harsh collision in the sand, splitting the blackened sky like a streak of lightning. A shower of sparks spitting through the sandswept air at the harsh clang of metal on metal. Standing in the crater left in the sand, at its epicenter sharpening her bloodstained blade against the rounded edge of her shield was a grinning goddess.

“Diana…” Victor and Barry sputtered in unison, all gazes turned to the glowing figure marching in their direction. Though the Amazonian princess bore no fondness for her former teammates, blade pointed in Bruce’s direction.

“Get behind me.” Karen said firmly, urging Bruce’s broad form back with a slight shove. He could be mad at her later, when he wasn’t dead.

“I’ve known gods like you before, child ,  the kind that betray their own flesh and blood…” Diana seethed, “I told Kal that you couldn’t be trusted.” She spat fiercely.

Karen steeled herself, teeth gritted for what was to come. Closing her eyes briefly as she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin, Rao smiled down on her even in these dark times.

The wail of Diana’s battlecry was muted by the thunderous sound of the sky cracking open, the fabric of reality torn asunder, with an inky shadow blotting out the warmth of the sun above her.

Kal’s grand presence hovering in the sky above them, the picture of hellish divinity. A surge of hope passed through her as Bruce’s hand clasped with hers. If Kal was a god, she’d happily die with the devil.

This truly was a living knightmare...