Chapter Text
July
Lana sat on the couch, curled in on herself, staring at nothing.
“Hey,” Lois said, putting a hand on Lana’s knee. “Feel like going to work today?”
Lana shook her head.
Lois squeezed Lana’s knee. “Feel like going anywhere?”
“I can't,” Lana said quietly. “I can't deal with. . .” she trailed off. Slowly she fixed her emerald gaze on Lois. “We should tell people.”
“We can't, Lana.”
“Why? What does it matter now?”
“It matters for Kara, for Lena, for Jonathan and Martha. For your parents. Clark kept his secret to keep you all safe.”
“Dammit, Lois, at least you get to admit he's dead! Everyone has to keep telling me how sure they are Clark is okay, and they'll find him, and I have to pretend to hold on to hope when I know there's none!”
Lois hugged Lana tight as she cried, letting her own tears flow.
Clark had been the glue holding them together. Without him, Lois and Lana still loved each other, but this. . . this was becoming an issue.
And Lois didn't know how to fix it.
In the meeting room in the Hall of Justice, Bruce scowled at the screens, then turned to his fellows. “Alright. These four Superman imposters. What do we know?”
“The Man of Steel is the only one not claiming to be Superman in some way,” Barry said. “Says he just wants to honor Clark’s legacy. I like him.”
Bruce nodded. “The Last Son?”
“He identifies as Kal-El,” J'onn said. “But I can't believe that. Kal would never be so brutal.”
“Did you get anything else from him?” Bruce asked.
“Not much,” J'onn said. “Strictly regimented thoughts, perfectly ordered. But they made no sense to me, I could ‘see’ them but not understand them. They were. . . alien.”
Barry shrugged. “Well, Kal was an alien.”
J'onn shook his head. “This was different. Something I've never encountered before.”
“Alright,” Bruce said. “The Man of Tomorrow?”
“He's been busy,” Hal said. “Wherever Intergang popped up, he was there to knock them down. Usually first, or not far behind.”
Diana nodded hesitantly. “Many are endorsing him as the true reborn Superman.”
Hal nodded. “He says he lost most of his memories when he was. . . remade. But he mentioned remembering a farm, a girl with red hair. Purple eyes.” Everyone nodded, thinking of Lana Lang and Lois Lane. “Makes me wonder if it really is him.”
“It's not,” Bruce said with certainty. “Keira wouldn't bring him back like that.”
“Not even to preserve her last blood relative, the last other member of her people?” Diana asked.
Bruce clenched his jaw.
“He arrived just after the Last Son at Mannheim's office,” J'onn said. “He likewise refused to permit the Last Son to kill Mannheim.”
“He was late to Intergang's main factory,” Lori said. “Superboy had it all wrapped up before the Cyborg got there. And before you ask, no, I couldn't get anything off him. His mind was. . . it's like it was just blank.”
Bruce pursed his lips. “I don't like the sound of that. But speaking of,” he said. “The Metropolis Kid?”
Lori shivered. “He's a creepy little perv,” she said. “And a clone.”
“You're sure?” Bruce asked.
“He said as much,” Diana said.
“And I scanned his mind,” Lori said. “A fully-developed fifteen-year-old brain, but only a month of actual memories, tops.”
Barry blinked. “How does that work?”
“I don't know!” Lori growled. “Ask whoever made him!”
“We will,” Bruce said darkly. “But right now, we need to keep this from getting any more out of hand. J'onn, Barry, babysit the Metropolis Kid. Keep him out of trouble, mentor him, be a good influence.” They nodded. “Hal, Lori, keep tabs on the Cyborg.”
Diana smiled at Bruce. “That leaves the brutal one with the visor to us?”
“You do have a type,” Bruce replied. “But no. We're getting Lena Luthor here to crack those wormholes. It's time we talked to Superwoman.”
Lena, more than fed up with not hearing from Kara, was more than happy to take a shot at jailbreaking the Kryptonian wormhole technology.
For anyone else, it would have been an impossible task.
For Lena Luthor, the impossible took three hours, fifty-two minutes, twenty-six seconds.
“Kara!” Lena shouted angrily as they entered the Fortress.
“Lena?” Kara said, alarmed, rushing down one of the crystal staircases. “What– how– I locked the wormhole–”
“And I cracked it! Where have you been? What have you been doing?” She shoved at Kara's chest, tears bursting forth from her flaming green eyes to stream down her cheeks. “I needed you! I've been all alone, and I've been trying to hold everything together, and I needed you!”
Kara gently took hold of Lena’s hands. “I'm sorry. But I couldn't leave Kal.”
“He's dead, Kara! I know what he meant to you, but he's dead!”
Kara’s lips compressed into a line. “Come with me,” she said.
She led them up the stairs, through the upper levels of the Fortress, to the peak. The corridor that led to the solarium, a room that drew in, stored, and concentrated Earth's yellow sunlight. A place where the Kryptonians could more quickly recharge the solar energy that gave them their fantastic abilities.
“I have to dim the monitor,” Kara said. “Okay.” She activated it, showing a view of the inside of the solarium.
On a bed, bathed in brilliant light, wearing a black bodysuit with a silver S-shield, was Clark.
“The black transfers the solar energy most efficiently,” Kara said.
“But why?” Lena asked.
Kara made an adjustment to the monitor. A steady, flat line appeared at the bottom of the image. “Wait for it.”
They waited.
“What are we waiting for?” Bruce asked.
“Just wait,” Kara said.
They waited more.
“Kara,” Diana began.
“Just wait!” Kara snapped.
They waited.
Seconds became minutes.
Minutes stretched longer and longer.
Then, finally, there was a faint whump! and the line jumped slightly in a jagged peak before resuming flatness.
“What was that?” Bruce asked, alarmed.
“A heartbeat,” Kara declared triumphantly. “Kal’s heartbeat. He's not dead!”
Dr. Paul Westfield cowered in the vault where Cadmus kept their most valuable specimens. Well, specimen. The White Martians had all disintegrated, eaten away to nothing useful by the hostile environment of Earth; Doomsday had been the only extraterrestrial decedent they'd successfully claimed.
Not that it had done them any good. Non-intrusive examinations yielded no useful data, and intrusive methods were impossible. No tools, no matter how advanced or expensive, were able to penetrate the creature's skin. They could obtain no tissue samples for analysis. Doomsday was as inscrutable in death as it had been in life.
And now, it appeared the Man of Tomorrow was dead-set on taking it away from them.
He walked through their security like it wasn't even there. Electronically locked doors opened at his approach, computerized active defenses refused to engage, security personnel were subdued by nonlethal weapons before they could bring their own to bear.
Finally, the vault door unlocked and swung open before the Cyborg Superman.
“I am here to retrieve the corpse of the creature known as Doomsday,” Cyborg Superman said.
“No,” Westfield said.
“He is too dangerous to be left on Earth. He must be disposed of.”
“Back off!” Westfield said, brandishing his phone. “One push of a button, and I'm connected to the President!”
The Man of Tomorrow folded his arms over his chest. “By all means,” he said.
Westfield's thumb stabbed down on the call button. The President answered on the second ring. “Ma’am? The Man of Tomorrow is here, trying to claim Doomsday's corpse.”
In the White House, the Cyborg Superman's face appeared on the monitors. “Madam President, apologies. I hacked Dr. Westfield's connection, I felt we should discuss this without intermediaries. You must understand that Doomsday is far too dangerous to be kept locked in the proverbial basement.”
“And what do you propose?” the President asked.
“I'll carry Doomsday beyond Earth's atmosphere. Secure him to a small asteroid. Send him on a course out of the solar system. If he truly is dead, the eternal void will be his grave. If he can recover, as I did, then. . . well, at least he'll be someone else's problem.”
“Would it not be wise to learn all we can about it? Build better responses if there is a next time?”
“Under normal circumstances, I would agree. But these are far from normal. Trust me, Madam President. This is for the best.”
The President sucked her cheek. Tapped her chin. Nodded. “Alright. Dr. Westfield, Doomsday's body is now property of the Man of Tomorrow.”
“Ma’am, I–”
“Was I in any way unclear, Doctor?”
Westfield held back a snarl. “No, ma’am.”
The Cyborg Superman took Doomsday's body, left Cadmus.
Flew into the air.
Beyond the air.
Out in the solar system, he located a suitable asteroid. Incredibly strong cables, generated from his cybernetic body, bound Doomsday to the rock. The Cyborg Superman manufactured a small but powerful long-range thruster, secured it to the asteroid.
The thruster fired, and the asteroid accelerated on a course that would carry it out of the solar system.
As he returned to Earth, if he'd had lips, the Cyborg Superman would have smiled.
Now, there really is nothing that can stop me.
“How frequent?” Bruce asked.
“One beat every ten minutes,” Kara said. “Rising, but slowly. When I first got him back to the Fortress, it was hours before the first heartbeat.”
Bruce sighed, knowing the math, knowing Kara knew it, too, but couldn't accept it. “Kara, if his heart is beating that slowly, then his brain–”
“Isn't like yours, Bruce. His Kryptonian physiology thrives on solar radiation. That reflex would have prioritized keeping his brain functioning. I know what you're thinking, but he's not in a coma, not brain-dead. He's. . . he's in some kind of regenerative suspended animation.”
“Is this a thing Kryptonians can normally do?” Diana asked.
“No,” Kara admitted. “But nothing Kal and I can do on Earth are things we can ‘normally’ do. Kal. Is not. Dead.”
“Why didn't you say anything?” Lena asked.
“Because. . . because I have no idea how long he'll be like this. How long before he wakes up, and if. . .” she sighed. “If he'll be. . . all he used to be. He spent so much fighting Doomsday, there might be. . . permanent effects.”
“What kind of permanent effects?” Bruce asked.
“I don't know,” Kara admitted. “But I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up. I didn't want to promise them Kal back, then it takes years for him to recover. I didn't want to face the constant concern, the slowly growing thought that I was just wishing he'd be okay. And. . . I couldn't stomach the thought of him waking up here, alone, after all he went through.”
Lena glared at Kara. “You were just going to stay here, cut off from everyone, no communication, for years?”
Bruce and Diana looked at each other, and slipped away to let Kara and Lena have their. . . discussion.
As they descended the stairs to the lower levels of the Fortress, Diana asked, “Do you think it's possible?”
“Anyone else, I'd say no. But Clark’s made a lifestyle out of doing the impossible.”
“True. But coming back from the dead?”
For the first time since Doomsday appeared, Bruce smiled. “Sounds like a job for Superman.”
Kara winced and shrank back from the hurt in Lena’s green eyes. That look hurt more than Doomsday’s punches. Hurt almost as much as seeing Kal’s broken body, as that interminable time when she’d thought he really was dead.
“I needed you,” Lena said quietly.
Kara winced again, sniffled. “I know,” she said. “But so does Kal, I. . . I just couldn’t leave him.”
“How could you cut me out like this? How could you. . . abandon me? How could you make me abandon you?”
“I’m sorry, Lena. But. . . but you can’t understand what it means. How important Kal is to me.”
“More important than me? Than us?”
Kara sighed. “The last thing my father ever said to me was ‘Look after Kal.’ Right before my ship closed and launched. Minutes later, I watched my whole planet shatter into nothingness. Everything, everyone, I ever knew, ever loved, gone. Completely annihilated. Kal was literally the only thing I had left in the entire universe. And all Kryptonian culture said it was my overriding duty to guard and protect him, to guide and teach and serve him. It should have been me, Lena. I should have been there, I should have been fighting with him, and. . . and I should have given my life for his, if it came to it, not the other way around. I love you, Lena, but, if you need me to answer. . . yes, Kal is more important.”
Lena winced and glared. Dammit. . . that nobility that makes me hate you right now is also why I love you so damn much. “I would have been here for you, if you’d let me.”
Kara nodded. “I know. I’m sorry, Lena. I. . . I really am sorry.”
Lena stepped forward, Kara shrunk back. Lena reached out, put her hands on Kara’s shoulders.
Drew her into a hug.
Kara relaxed in Lena’s arms, body shuddering as powerful emotions were released between the two women.
“Don’t you ever do anything like this to me again, Keira Elizabeth Kent,” Lena said.
Kara nodded against Lena’s shoulder.
Bruce and Diana looked up as Kara and Lena came down the stairs.
“All good?” Bruce asked.
Lena and Kara nodded.
Diana went to the two women, hugged them. They hugged her back.
“Okay,” Bruce said. “Kara, I have to ask. . . you are positive that’s Clark’s body?”
Kara nodded. “Absolutely.”
“He hasn’t left your sight?” Bruce asked.
“Not for one single second, until now.”
“Never?” Diana asked. “Not even for food, or sleep, or. . .”
Kara shook her head. “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the solarium with him. Sustaining myself just on solar energy.” She smiled ruefully, put a hand to her head. “Though I’ll admit, I am getting really tired.”
Bruce nodded. “Okay. So, we know for a fact Clark is here, which means we know for a fact the others are imposters.”
Kara blinked. “What others?”
“You haven’t been watching the news?” Bruce asked.
Kara’s eyes narrowed. “What. Others?”
Kara trembled with anger as she looked at the images of the four men – or three men and one boy – attempting to claim the mantle of her cousin.
Then she saw an image of the Last Son of Krypton, hands raised, yellow light playing about them.
“No,” she gasped. “Oh, Great Rao, no.”
“What?” Bruce asked.
Kara worked the Fortress console, and in seconds confirmed her worst fears. “It’s gone. The Eradicator is gone.”
“The what?” Bruce asked.
“The Eradicator,” Kara explained. “A Kryptonian weapon, an energy crystal encoded with an artificial intelligence, programmed to protect anything it recognized as true Kryptonian, and eradicate anything that didn’t fit that definition. Unfortunately, the definition of ‘true’ Kryptonian was overly narrow, it slaughtered thousands of Kryptonians before it was subdued and shot into space. It arrived here five years ago, Kal and I subdued it.” (AN: Yep, we’ve been building towards this since Chapter 19!)
“And you kept it?” Bruce asked.
“It’s an important piece of Krypton,” Lena said. “One of the very few left. And Kara and I have been working on fixing its programming.”
Kara nodded. “Ramping up the ‘protect’ protocols, toning down the ‘eradicate’ ones, and trying to alter the definitions of ‘true’ Kryptonian.” Kara was searching through the Fortress records, swore passionately. “This is not good.”
“What?” Diana asked.
“At the moment Kal seemed to die, the Eradicator blasted through the partitions I set up to safely analyze its code without corrupting the Fortress systems. It accessed the fabricators. . . no. No, this. . . this isn’t possible.”
“What?” Bruce asked.
“It triggered the fabricators. Built an organic body to house its energy crystal AI consciousness. But the fabricators can’t synthesize organic tissue, there are all kinds of safeties. The Eradicator cut right through them.” She swore again. “We were still tweaking the code and protocol priorities. ‘Protect Kryptonian life’ was set as high as it could go. It. . . it must have sensed Kal’s death, considered it a failure to protect. It. . .” she trailed off.
“Kara,” Bruce said slowly. “What exactly are we dealing with?”
Kara swallowed. “A weaponized artificial intelligence, bad programming still in the process of being repaired, driven insane by Kal’s death because it was a failure to fulfill its prime directive. Insane and clever enough to break every safety protocol and fabricate itself an organic body. . . based on Kal’s DNA.”
Bruce shivered in his Batsuit. “Right. That’s bad.”
Kara nodded, looked at the images of the other Supermen. “I have to go.” She looked at the monitor showing Kal resting in the solarium, her face pinched with pain.
Diana laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll stay with him. We’ll be here if he wakes up.”
Bruce nodded, putting a hand on Kara’s other shoulder.
Kara smiled at them. “Thank you.” She turned to Lena.
Bruce and Diana withdrew as Lena hugged Kara tight. “Be careful.”
“I will,” Kara said. “I love you.”
Lena kissed her, replying to Kara’s declaration of love with her own, in a way far more intense than words could ever say.
Superwoman flew out of the Fortress on a mission.