#but apparently that's led to him working with Lex Luthor and turning his back on the Super Friends and her specifically

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

#nightwing #dick grayson #batman #gotham knights #titans #dc comics

[owl-with-a-pen]

We didn’t get much insight on nias breakup with brainy, like how nia was feeling through the whole thing! It was pretty upsetting. So how about an almost rewrite of reality bytes where Yvette takes nia out to a party to loosen her up, she gets drunk, and brainy comes to the rescue? Like takes her home, stays with her when she gets sick and takes care of her kinda thing. Thanks!

- Okay the word count speaks for itself but this one really got away from me. But I had to throw in all the angst I possibly could. Thank you for the prompt! x

Working under the oppressive eye of Lex Luthor grew worse by the day.

Brainy had always been a master at multitasking, and so he had never assumed it would be exactly there that he would struggle the most.

And yet, here he was. Trying his hardest to focus on Lex’s latest tedious task to keep him in check. After all, Lex Luthor may have very well believed Brainy’s impassive charade, but that did not buy trust. Only time and a one hundred per cent success rate would accomplish that.

To achieve it, distractions had to be eradicated. He had already made his excuses time and time again for not attending one of Kara’s famed game nights, and despite Alex’s insistence, he had not given in to any other form of group activity, either – especially those involving Al’s Bar. He needed to maintain a clear head, to do as his doppelganger had instructed; to protect his friends and their future, he had to rid his mind of them. All of them. It was imperative to success.

And yet, the moment his phone buzzed with an incoming call, Brainy’s heart leapt into his throat.

It was Nia’s name that popped up on his screen. Nia’s face. So jovial, so care-free. In the photograph, her arm was wrapped around Brainy’s shoulders where she had pulled him in for a last-minute selfie. She’d kissed his cheek just seconds after it had been taken, insisting it’d be an awesome couple photo.

He had meant to change that. Why had he not…?

He swallowed hard, focusing instead on his computer screens, relaying information back and forth between them. It was without passion, meaningless data that could be shifted anywhere whilst maintaining the same result. But, it still served a purpose, keeping him from his intestinal inclination, that gut instinct to reach for his phone and answer without a moment’s hesitation.

When was the last time he had heard her voice?

He had been keeping his distance where he could, maintaining a professional formality with her whenever he caught her in the field as Dreamer. He knew it hurt her, every time it hurt her, but he could not avoid his duties in as much the same way she could not avoid hers.

They were in effect destined to bump into each other. The only way Brainy could lessen that hurt was by avoiding conversation as much as possible, throwing up every wall he could think of, even if he had to stumble over his words to do so.

When Nia’s face disappeared, Brainy released the breath he’d been holding, letting it dust across his screens.

Then, his phone buzzed twice more.

Voicemail.

Nia never left voicemails. Not since he had ended things with her so abruptly, walking out of her apartment, refusing to elaborate, to offer her any kind of closure.

It was a calculated hurt powerful enough for her to abstain from asking questions; a necessary evil, and one Brainy would never forgive himself for causing.

He shouldn’t be doing this, his mind warned, but his thoughts were racing, derailing from all twelve tracks at once.

His hand was already poised over his phone. Before he could think better of it, Brainy snatched it up, connecting to his most recent voice message. He pressed it to his ear, pursing his lips in anticipation.

“You suck, you know that?”

Brainy flinched, the phone nearly slipping right from his hand. Nia’s voice was harsh, anger tinged with upset, but it was her voice. It could have been filled with all the fury in the world and Brainy would have still listened just as eagerly, if only for the chance to hear her again.

As the voicemail continued to play, Brainy realised that Nia’s words were slightly obscured by the heavy beats of music playing in the background, not to mention the loud chatting and whooping of people he certainly did not recognise. Brainy frowned. She must have been at some kind of party. Although, none of the voices present sounded as though they were talking to her specifically.

A nightclub, perhaps?

Nia wasn’t usually one for clubbing. So, why would she-?

“And y’know what?” Nia’s voicemail continued out just as harshly, cutting off Brainy’s train of thought. “Yvette’s so right, I deserve better than some guy who’s gonna leave me hanging, who leaves with zero explanation, and I- oh crap, sorry-” There was a scuffle, one caused by Nia knocking into a fellow patron if her apology was anything to go by. The slur in her voice was very evident, which led Brainy to conclude that she had been drinking heavily that night, enough to pick up the courage to call him.

His stomach lurched when he heard another voice in the background.

“Girl, what are you doing?” It was Yvette. Of course Yvette would have been the mastermind behind this apparent night out, likely with the well-minded intent of assisting with Nia’s mood.

Yvette’s voice grew louder as she came closer. “What are you- wait, are you calling him? No, no, you get off the phone right now, that’s messy as hell!”

Brainy was inclined to agree. Nia, however, seemed to have other ideas.

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I-”

Before Brainy could hear anything more, the message cut off.

Brainy squeezed his eyes shut, clenching and unclenching his jaw methodically.

He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t be giving into gut instinct, not now, not-not ever. Not with so much at stake. He was supposed to be monitoring Lex’s movements, doing everything he could to keep a step ahead of whatever he was planning. So far, he had failed at that. And, if he continued to lose sight of his objective, he would only slip further still.

But, if there was one thing he could count on now more than ever, it was the Big Brain. Perhaps it was not that his skill at multitasking had been limited as of late, but more-so that he was not utilising it to its fullest extent. He could easily keep a thought track open for any updates on Lex’s data entry, could even continue development on the bug he was planning to slip into Lex’s private servers. For the moment, they were obstructed by a firewall even he was having difficulty breaching. But, with time…

Brainy’s fingers curled together, winding tightly around his phone. He had the room to deviate from his plans for one night. Besides, it would take mere seconds to get a lock on Nia’s GPS…

He had been trying so hard to keep out of her private business these last few weeks. The little he did know were only of her recent exploits as Dreamer that had been plastered all over the news. But, even knowing what she’d accomplished in such a short time, how capable she had become as a hero, it could not stop the worry that clogged so suddenly inside his throat.

He just had to know where she was, he rationalised. He just had to know that she was safe.

The moment her co-ordinates flashed in his mind, Brainy’s chest caught, lips parting. She was close-by, an estimated three minutes by flight from his current location.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

Brainy’s eyes scanned empty air, but beyond that he saw everything. The security for the club was rudimentary at best, and far too easy to hack. Nia’s most recent location had pointed her somewhere near to the club doors, which was only confirmed when Brainy linked up to the cameras out front, pinpointing her almost immediately.

Yvette was with her, holding up her weight as Nia slumped precariously into her side, nearly tripping down the club’s steps in an effort to remain upright. If it hadn’t been for Yvette’s guiding hand, she likely would have.

Brainy gritted his teeth. Just how much had she had to drink? He had never known Nia to drink so excessively, especially with how rigorously she had been training as of late. This was new behaviour for her, but not unpredictable. Brainy was more than aware of the many coping mechanisms one might find themselves adopting in times of emotional distress.

He had caused this.

He could fix this…

But he couldn’t, couldn’t - no matter how much his heart insisted otherwise, he could not give in. Nia wanted nothing to do with him, that much was clear from her message. And… Yvette was with her. Yvette would get her home safely.

But Yvette had clearly been drinking, also. What if something were to occur between the club and their apartment? Nia was disorientated, vulnerable, and with alcohol marring her judgement, her reaction timing would never match that of a clear-minded foe.

Brainy stood from his desk all at once, nearly toppling his chair in his haste. Fortunately, he was in a private office. Another upgrade from Lex. He swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth; at least he could use this particular gift to his advantage.

He needed to get to Nia undetected. Immediately.

Brainy’s calculations had been - as expected - totally correct. He reached the club in no less than three minutes, giving himself ample distance to land so that no drunk bystanders might notice his arrival. Not that their likelihood of remembering any of this come morning was very high, but it was best not to push those odds.

The moment he saw her, Brainy’s world stopped moving.

Nia and Yvette were sat together on the club’s steps. It appeared Yvette had not been successful getting Nia all the way down them. Now, she was stubbornly trying to encourage Nia to drink from a water bottle she’d had stashed in her bag. Nia only turned away from her with a grimace, pushing her face firmly into her hands. Her cheeks were rosy from alcohol consumption, her dark hair beginning to thicken and frizz from the humidity of the club. The dress she wore danced with row upon row of sequins, glinting in purple and pink tones beneath the streetlight.

She was so beautiful it nearly caused a physical ache inside of Brainy’s chest.

Never had he wanted to go to her so ardently, to scoop her into his arms, hold her close and never let go.

But, he couldn’t. He was bound by his decision and, what’s more, he was the very cause for this entire situation in the first place. Nia was only in this position because of what he had put her through, and he couldn’t take that back. So long as Leviathan was a threat, he could not give up this ruse, he could not tell her the truth.

Even if he did… the acidic tone in Nia’s voicemail told him all he needed to know. That he may have well lost her for good by doing this. And he could barely stand to think it.

Again, a distant part of his mind queried why he was even here? Was this not already traipsing on incredibly dangerous territory? If Lex found any reason to distrust him, this logical and distant image Brainy had been parading would’ve all been for naught, and his Earth would meet the same fate as his female doppelganger’s.

No, no. Regardless of his decisions, the side he had been forced to take, he was still himself. In which case, there was nothing wrong with helping those that required his assistance, even if they hadn’t exactly asked for it. In that way, he could at least be there for Nia. If she would even allow it at all.

He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but when Yvette recognised him from halfway across the club grounds, the look she gave him was practically poisonous.

“You,” Yvette sneered, wrapping an arm protectively around Nia’s shoulders. Nia only groaned, digging her fingers against her face. Yvette’s eyes narrowed distrustfully. “Voicemail didn’t cut it, hm? You know you broke her heart, right?”

“I’m… aware,” Brainy said tightly, trying his hardest to maintain the same collected calm he’d been offering the rest of his friends. Any slip-ups now could be the end of this ruse once and for all.

Nia had yet to lift her head, and so Brainy took that as his opportunity to remove his phone from his pocket, very clearly displaying the Uber app on his screen, making his intentions clear. “I can help get her home.”

Yvette snorted derisively, tightening her hold around Nia. “Uh-uh, there is no way I’m leaving Nia alone with your cheating ass.”

Brainy’s face fell. Cheating? Was that what Nia had told her? Or… or had that been Yvette’s own assumption of events? “I didn’t cheat on her,” he said, a little defensively.

“Please,” Yvette scoffed. “No one’s feelings magically change overnight unless there’s another woman involved.” She gave him a snide once-over. “She can do better than you.”

Brainy’s stomach sank, his eyes flickering to Nia, capturing every inch of her. “I… I have no doubt.”

It took some back and forth, but eventually, Yvette agreed to his help on the condition she came back to the apartment with them. Brainy understood that she hadn’t wanted to cut her own night short, but Nia’s health came first. At least on that, they could both agree.

Regardless, it was a very awkward Uber journey back to the apartment.

Nia didn’t speak the whole car ride, and Brainy began to wonder if she was lucid enough to understand her surroundings at all. She didn’t look up from her hands, and more than once Brainy considered that she might be doing it purposely, far too aware of who she was currently sharing a car with.

Although, the steadily worsening pallor of her skin pointed towards another, far likelier, possibility.

Which was confirmed the second they got into the apartment’s elevator.

The juddering motions of the small space was all it took for Nia to break her silence, cupping a hand desperately over her mouth.

“I feel sick,” she murmured into her palm.

“Hold off,” Yvette said gently, rubbing Nia’s shoulders. “We’ll be home any second.”

Brainy wished it could be him to offer Nia comfort like that, but he’d practically backed himself into the furthest corner of the elevator, acting as nothing more than a passive shadow to the night’s unfolding events. He dug his hands into his pockets, clenching them tightly to keep from reaching out to her, watching with worried eyes as Nia grabbed suddenly for the elevator’s rail with her free hand, swallowing thickly.

The moment the doors opened, Nia stumbled out, nearly tripping in her haste to exit. Brainy maintained his distance while Yvette helped Nia down the hallway, waiting awkwardly with his arms folded as she fumbled with the keys to the door. He hovered hesitantly outside the doorway when Nia broke from Yvette, rushing into the bathroom, although he noticed that Yvette was wary to follow her in.

When he caught her eye, Yvette grimaced, shaking her head. “I- I can’t, I’m a sympathetic vomiter,” she explained weakly. “If she hurls, I hurl.”

Brainy nodded his understanding, reviewing the door’s entrance as though it might swallow him whole. After a long moment, he ducked his head, stepping inside. “I can stay with her, if you would like,” he offered, quirking a brow. “After all, you are in need of rest as well.”

Yvette pulled a face, staring at him suspiciously. “You really don’t quit, do you?”

Brainy only shrugged.

“I’m keeping my eye on you,” Yvette said, which at first Brainy didn’t understand as an invitation. That was, until, she stepped aside, waving her hand in the direction of the apartment’s bathroom.

Brainy didn’t waste any time. He barely managed a breathy thank you before he headed the way Nia had disappeared.

Nia was curled around the toilet when Brainy pushed the door open, her hands pressed firmly against the rim. She hadn't appeared to have thrown up yet, but she was pale and shivering, her jaw clenched tight with discomfort.

The moment he was close enough, Brainy dropped to his knees, reaching out a hand hesitantly towards her, gauging her reaction. When none came, Brainy carefully rested the flat of his palm across her back. She didn’t try to move away from his touch; instead, with a shaky sigh, she relaxed against him, eyes fluttering shut.

And so, Brainy continued, boldly enough to massage his fingers gently and precisely around her spine, quickly finding a pattern that she seemed to appreciate. He rubbed her back in large, repetitive circles, filling the silence with the quiet crunch of sequins as they rolled lethargically beneath his palm.

It wasn’t long before Nia’s shoulders tensed up. Her chest convulsed and she groaned out, throwing her head over the toilet just in time before she vomited into the bowl. As expected, the contents of her stomach appeared to mostly be liquid, which certainly explained the dangerous level of her intoxication. Brainy remained exactly where he was, holding her back steady with one hand whilst studiously bunching Nia’s hair behind her shoulders with the other, tugging away loose strands that had caught across her lips. No sooner had he done so, Nia gagged again, squeezing her eyes shut as round two commenced.

Brainy continued to rub her back, murmuring soft comforts at her side, slipping between both English and Coluan. Nia had certainly picked up some of his native language in the months they had been together, but not enough for her to realise in that moment the weight of what he was telling her. Or, rather, what he wished he could be telling her - in a language she might recognise.

When Nia was reduced to dry heaving over the bowl, Brainy realised that her mascara had begun to run, bleeding black streaks down her face. The strain of vomiting could certainly cause such a reaction, but something in his heart told him that this was more than that.

He wished he could brush those tears away as tenderly as he once had, that he could reassure her that everything would be okay.

But how could he when he knew the probability of their relationship rekindling once the dust had cleared? How could he when said relationship was already in shambles, pushing them apart even while they were sat so closely together on the bathroom tile?

“Here.”

Brainy blinked out of his thoughts, turning his head to find Yvette stood in the doorway, trying very hard to keep her eyes away from Nia’s current condition. She held a glass of water outstretched towards him.

Brainy took it gratefully, lowering his head into a sincere bow. “Thank you.”

“You’re still so weird,” Yvette said, although for just a moment, he thought he caught a fondness in her tone. Then, she cleared her throat. “This doesn’t mean I like you,” she said quickly, heading back out into the hall. “Remember, I am one room over. You try anything, and I’ll-”

Her words were cut off by the slam of her door, but Brainy understood well enough the threat she had posed. He nearly smiled. If anything, he was glad Nia had a friend and roommate as protective as Yvette. She had been there for Nia in a way that Brainy had not been able to for far too long, offering her a shoulder to cry on, and a party to draw her mind away from the pain, if only for an evening.

Perhaps it hadn’t worked as Yvette had wanted, but Brainy hoped that even for a little while, Nia might have experienced something other than heartache that night.

When there was nothing but bile left in Nia’s stomach, Brainy took her shoulder, offering the water glass out to her. “Nia,” he said gently. “You must try to drink this. It’ll help-”

Before he could finish, Nia shot to life, slapping away his hand so hard that the glass’s contents sloshed down Brainy’s arm, drenching his sleeve.

“No!” Nia cried out weakly. “No, get off me, you jerk!”

Brainy let go of her immediately, shuffling away from her forlornly. He watched instead as Nia folded her arms angrily across the toilet bowl, pressing her forehead against the rim.

For a while, only her harsh breathing echoed around the small space. Then, Nia stopped, arms clenching as she squeezed her hands into fists. “Why’re you even here?” she croaked.

“You… called.”

Nia snorted. “That’s never stopped you from ignoring me before.”

Brainy’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. “You were in need of assistance,” he said instead, trying his hardest to keep his voice from crackling.

“What is this, Brainy?” Nia asked exhaustedly. She lifted her head, dark hair curtaining her face, but Brainy could see that her eyes were trained downwards, seeing nothing. “Why’re you doing this to me?”

“Nia—”

“No, no, you go radio silent on me for weeks. You don’t give me any explanation, you don’t talk to me, you act like I don’t exist. And you think you can just turn up now and- what? What do you want?”

Brainy’s eyes were beginning to burn. He blinked quickly, doubling down on the same toneless voice he’d perfected over the last few weeks. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Nia laughed, although it sounded more like a sob. She spat into the toilet, lips twisting sourly. “Well,” she muttered darkly. “I’m not. You broke my heart. And you can’t fix that.”

Brainy’s own heart felt as though it might shatter in his chest. He opened his mouth, only to close it again when he realised there was nothing he could say that might absolve him. He didn’t want to be absolved. Nia was right. No matter what he said, even if he folded and told her everything right that second, wouldn’t fix what he had already broken.

He didn’t try to touch her again. Instead, he simply knelt there, watching as she picked up the water he’d left out for her, drinking the half that hadn’t spilt over his sleeve.

When Nia didn’t appear to be in danger of vomiting again, Brainy walked her to the bedroom. He stayed a respectable distance from her the whole while, enough that he could steady her should she decide to fall. At the last few steps before her door, she did stumble slightly, and Brainy held his arm out to her on reflex. Begrudgingly, Nia took it, staggering the final distance down the hall.

Nia let go of him the moment her bed was in sight, practically falling against the mattress, uncaring of the uncomfortable and clearly not bedroom-appropriate attire she was still wearing. Instead, she curled up quickly beneath the comforter, hugging her knees close to her stomach.

Silently, Brainy set about placing a fresh glass of water on her nightstand, as well as retrieving a trash can from the bathroom, tucking it within easy reaching distance of the bed. When he was done, he stood there a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of Nia’s back, wondering briefly if she may have fallen asleep.

“You know the way out.”

Her voice was devoid of any care, and yet it was still sharp enough to cut a hole through his heart. She sounded so empty and drained, exhausted by the night’s events.

But, worse yet, she had been exhausted by him.

Brainy closed his eyes, a million and one apologies budding on his tongue, desperate to leave him in a fierce burst, to explain everything, to beg for her forgiveness in every language he knew.

But as always, logic won out. No matter how much he wished he could tell her, he couldn’t. Not unless he wanted to put his family’s lives in mortal danger.

And so, it was upon Nia’s instruction that he left her without another word.

It wasn’t until he was out the front door, halfway back towards the elevator, that Brainy’s chest hitched, his breathing jerking harshly outside of his control. He stumbled into the wall, baring his teeth as the first of his tears began to flow.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to nothing. To no one. After all, he knew in his heart that those words would never be enough; no words would ever be enough.

The longer he kept this up, the more he knew with one hundred per cent certainty that Nia would never forgive him.

And that hurt more profoundly than any words she left on his voicemail ever could.

#supergirl #brainia #dreamdox #nia nal #brainiac 5 #supergirl: yvette #brainy #querl dox #my prompts #my asks #anon #my writing #this really. REALLY. got away from me. #but i really wanted to go more in depth about how the two of them were feeling throughout season 5 #supergirl fanfiction #vomit tw

[knullanon]

GIVE US A P2 WITH KON AND READER ESCAPING AND AND YANDAD LEX FINDING EM

sorry that this is kinda short! 

That strange guy was following you, and you had no idea why. He looked like a highschool boy, and now you had to deal with the consequences of being too adventurous. Really, why would they leave some random kid with the power to absolutely wipe out an entire squad of guards alone? Then again, the scientist said he didn’t have the heart to kill the kid, which, understandable, apparently he was just a baby when the note was written, but he could’ve at least put him somewhere more secure than an abandoned lab, right?

Too late now, he was chasing you and you had no idea on where to go. The exit that you left had led out of the mansion, onto a small road. It looked to be for small shipments, and you assumed that's what the door was for. Anyway, you were currently running for your life from some teenager who wanted you dead. Well, you didn’t know for certain, but he was running really really fast to try and catch up to you. And you had no idea why.

You saw the end of the road, and started to sprint faster than before. Maybe there would be a car you could flag down and drive away, somewhere where none of them could find you.

Unfortunately, that plan had to be cancelled since the guy had already grabbed you. He lifted you up by your sweater and gave you a little shake. He didn’t say anything besides giving you a small concerned look. You tried to wriggle your way out of your sweater but it didn’t work. You looked at him, watching as he gently put you down and put his arms to his sides, waiting for you to do something. Maybe. You didn’t know what he wanted.

You both stood there for a few minutes, before he just looked around, and just grabbed you by your forearm and started dragging you towards the road you were heading to. You rolled your eyes and tried to get out of grip, and he just yanked on your arm harder. You eventually gave up when you were already a few meters on the road. You walked like this for a while at least, and you tried to ask him things. “Where are you from?” No answer. “Where are you taking me?” No answer. “What do you want from me?” No answer. You eventually got bored and stopped asking him questions. It was obvious he didn’t care. You eventually reached a fork in the road, one place going left, and the other right. You didn’t want to keep on going, you were getting tired, especially since it was almost midnight by now. Your feet hurt. You didn’t know who this kid was. And you wanted to sleep. 

“My name is Kon.”

The first thing he said was his name apparently. “My name is _______.” you responded, not wanting to piss him off. 

He turned to you while he started to drag you towards the right side of the roads. “Why did you find me?”

“I didn’t mean to. I saw a secret door and decided to see what it was.”

“How did you find this secret door?”

“I was walking through the mansion when I found it. Someone had opened it by a bookshelf.”

“Why did you decide to go in?”

“Because I wanted to see if there was an exit I could use to escape.”

He gave you a look. “Lex Luthor was keeping you there?”

“Yes. He makes sure that all escape routes are gone. Anywhere I go. Well, except this time apparently.”

He was about to say something, when he stopped. He turned around, looking for something.

“What is it?”

“I should’ve really closed up that bookshelf, I see.”

Your escape plan had been ruined not by one, but two assholes, one your “dad” and the other some random guy named Kon.

This night was really going shitty, huh?

Lex was standing at the end of the road, along with many other guards. You didn’t see many, but you were sure more were coming.

“Did you really think you could take her with you?” He was now talking to Kon. “Next time, I have to make sure that these assholes actually kill you.”

Kon seemed angry at that note, and he was about to attack them, when he got shot in the neck with something. You gasped and stumbled away as he fell to the ground.

“Oh, calm down, he's only been stunned.” Lex came up behind you and took your hand. “He should be fine by the morning. If he chooses to be compliant.”

He started to drag you towards a limo that was already there. Looking back to see Kon being wheeled into a different truck, you felt almost sad. 

“It’s almost midnight: let's go home.”

#yandere lex luthor #yandere kon #yandere conner kent #yandere dc #yandere dc comics #yandere young justice

[c-optimistic]

ally

She was led into an office and left alone with a cup of lukewarm coffee for nearly fifteen minutes before the door opened to reveal Maggie Sawyer.

Lena couldn’t exactly help her eye-roll.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, detective, but I was under the impression your job involved investigating aliens in National City, not just Luthors.”

“Brr,” Maggie said, grinning as she sat down in the seat next to Lena. “You know, I’ve heard of the world famous icy Luthor charm, but damn if those descriptions don’t do you justice.” She leaned back in her seat, arms crossing over her chest, still grinning—much to Lena’s annoyance.

“What are you doing here?”

“You may find this hard to believe, but I’m here for you.”

“Funny, I do find that hard to believe,” Lena said, leaning back as well. “Can you tell me what’s going on at least?”

To Maggie’s credit, she looked conflicted for a moment, like she was actually debating on telling Lena the truth.

“I can tell you that I really want to be here to see the look on your face,” she finally said, shrugging a little. “And also because I promised my friend who works for social services that I wouldn’t leave her alone with you.”

“Social services? Why would—”

She was interrupted when the door opened again, a small woman with short hair entering the office with a vaguely worried expression on her face. It was obvious she was the friend Maggie had mentioned, if the tiny smile Maggie gave her was any indication. Lena watched her settle into the only empty seat left—across the table from Lena and Maggie—and clasped her hands together, sitting up straight and meeting Lena in the eye.

“Ms. Luthor,” she began, her voice gruffer than Lena expected. “My name is Sarah Wilkins. I work with Child Protective Services. I’m here to speak with you about Ally.”

Lena blinked, not following at all.

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Alexandra Peters, your niece.”

The laugh that escaped her wasn’t her fault at all, though judging by the look on Maggie’s face, the wince and then frown, it likely wasn’t appropriate. Thoughts of this being one grand joke were immediately replaced by the nagging suspicion that her life would be upturned once again by something Lex had done.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I don’t have a niece. You see, my brother is in maximum security, and his chances of having a child are, well, low.”

Maggie and Sarah exchanged a long look and Lena shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“Ally is six months away from her second birthday, Ms. Luthor. She was born before your brother was put away.” Or, Sarah didn’t say, Lex had plenty of time to have a child. Rather than speak, Lena continued to stare at Sarah, waiting for her to get to the point. “About a month ago, Ally’s mother, a Gwen Peters, died in a car accident—”

“Was it…?” Lena trailed off, unable to even finish the thought. To her shock, Sarah seemed to understand, her eyes even softening.

“It seems to have been just an accident. A tragic one, of course, but an accident all the same.” She stressed it enough that Lena found herself believing her. “Ally was placed in the care of her maternal grandparents, but CPS has recently discovered…well, to put it bluntly, the Peters are not fit to raise a young child. Which is where you come in.” She blinked, pausing long enough to needlessly straighten her blazer and to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “In Ms. Peters’ Will, in the event that her parents are unable to care for her daughter, she names you as Ally’s guardian.”

“I don’t even know Gwen Peters,” Lena protested immediately, shaking her head.

“That’s not actually true,” Maggie interrupted, placing a hand on Lena’s shoulder briefly. “You might not remember her, but she apparently worked with you in R&D at LuthorCorp for nearly two years before you began taking over your brother’s responsibilities after your father passed away.”

“And more to the point, Ms. Peters was quite adamant that Ally remained with family in the event of her death. And Ms. Luthor, you’re all the family Ally has left.”

Lena gaped at the two woman—at Sarah’s calm expression and Maggie’s suddenly concerned one—and shook her head again.

“I’m—no. How do we even know she’s actually Lex’s daughter? And why would—was the woman mad, wanting a Luthor raising her child?”

Sarah and Maggie exchanged another look and this time Lena could read the sadness in Maggie’s eyes, the reluctance in Sarah’s.

“Let me put it this way, Ms. Luthor. Without you, Ally will find herself in foster care. Is that something you want for your niece?”

(She thought about her own upbringing, raised amongst a father who paid her very little attention, a mother who hated her, and a brother who eventually left her. She thought about her loneliness, her ineptitude with anything relating to emotions, and the fact that everything she touched slowly wasted away.

But most of all, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Kara’s, she thought about how she could never leave family behind—even a niece she hadn’t known about fifteen minutes ago, a niece she hadn’t even imagined could exist.)

“No,” she said, voice not shaking despite the trembling of her hands. “So? What do I have to sign?”

x

“You know, I looked her up,” Lena called out, childproofing the last of her cabinets, smiling slightly at her finished work.

“Looked who up?” Kara asked from where she sat on the ground, surrounded by all sorts of screws and pieces of furniture, an adorable crease between her brows as she studied the instructions for the crib. “By the way, Lena, I’m ninety percent positive that there’s at least three pieces missing.”

“Gwen Peters,” Lena said shortly, walking over to Kara and studying the crib. “I’m ninety percent sure you attached the head to the wrong piece.”

“Oh for the love of—” Kara cut herself off, unscrewing all her hard work and resigning herself to starting from the beginning. “So? What did you learn about Gwen Peters?”

“She was smart. It’s no wonder Lex liked her enough to…” She trailed off, not quite sure what she was trying to say. Kara kept fiddling with the two pieces she had in her hands until she realized that Lena had gone silent, looking up worriedly. Whatever she saw on Lena’s face spurred her into action; in one quick movement, she’d abandoned the crib entirely and was on her feet, approaching Lena slowly (as if she didn’t want to spook her).

“You did the right thing, Lena,” Kara said softly, and Lena nearly laughed, wondering how on Earth Kara had understood what she was actually trying to say (how Kara had heard the I can’t raise a kid, don’t you think Ally deserves better, what am I doing? in between the admiration she felt for Gwen Peters and the reignited anger she felt for Lex). “And it’s not as if you’re going to be doing any of this alone.”

“Sorry?”

“What? You thought I’d let you deal with something this big by yourself?” Kara rolled her eyes and reached out to squeeze Lena’s hand before turning on her heel and crouching back down next to the mangled remains of the crib. “Maggie claims she’s great with kids, and Alex is a doctor, and James can soothe any baby it’s practically magic I’ve seen it, and not to brag but Winn and I are greatbabysitters, we only lost Carter for an hour tops—”

“—you lost a child?” Lena tried to interrupt, but Kara was on a roll and didn’t seem to be listening at all.

“—so really, between all of us, Ally won’t even have time to feel lonely.”

(She talked as if they’d all be around when Ally was much older, when she knew enough about her family—her father—to feel sad.

Kara talked as if she and her sister and her friends were accepting responsibility for Lena’s niece as well, and it was overwhelming.)

“Kara…you can’t—I don’t know how much Maggie or your sister would appreciate being dragged into this mess,” Lena said, staring at Kara’s back, clenching her hands into fists in order to hide their shakiness.

Kara waved her off without even turning to look at her.

“Well, you’re my friend,” she said easily, picking up one of the pieces of wood and studying it before dropping it back down. “And by extension, my friends are your friends. And friends help out.” She turned her head, gracing Lena with a small smile. “I’ve said ‘friend’ too many times, but the point is you’re not in this alone, Lena. And if I have to spend all night figuring this crib out for you to accept it, then I’ll do just that.”

Lena laughed, recognizing a lost cause when she saw one, and crossed over to sit down next to Kara, hands finally unclenching.

“You know, I gave you the easy job.”

“The easy job, says the engineer,” Kara huffed in mock annoyance. “Fine then, show me how it’s done.”

x

“She sort of looks like him,” Lena said, head tilted to the side as she studied the slumbering Ally. They’d brought her home—and that phrase in and of itself boggled Lena’s mind, she brought her niece to her home, two words she never thought she’d think in relation to herself—earlier that morning, all the paperwork finished, Maggie’s friend Sarah long gone. “Doesn’t she?”

“I was going to say she looks like you,” Maggie called from the kitchen, busy digging through Lena’s fridge, searching for something to eat. Lena wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the familiarity Maggie presumed, but she didn’t comment on it. Even if it was unnerving, it was nice. “The dark hair, the pretty eyes. She’ll end up with that strong Luthor jaw too, just you wait.”

“You think I have pretty eyes, Sawyer?” Lena asked, focusing on only a single part of Maggie’s comment, blinking and turning to look at the detective. Someone snorted indignantly in the living room, where Kara and Alex were arguing in whispers over how to use a camera James had given Lena earlier in the week (calling it a peace offering, an apology, a gift he’d thought she could use what with having a child in her life), and Lena found herself smiling.

“I’m right here, Maggie,” Alex deadpanned, though judging from the way she was looking at Kara, she hadn’t been the one to snort. “And everyone knows you have pretty eyes,” Alex continued, not looking away from her sister. “Wasn’t there an article about it in the last issue of CatCo Magazine? Kara?” she prompted when Kara seemed much more interested in the camera than in the conversations around her.

“Who knows really? Maybe. Laurie might have pitched it. She might have spent over a day looking at photos of Lena, asking for everyone’s opinion for which picture showed off her eyes the most. I might have accidentally—” Kara stopped suddenly, clearing her throat and looking up, eyes flitting over Lena’s face briefly before throwing Alex and Maggie a dirty look—one that Lena hadn’t really known Kara was capable of making. “I mean, I was on assignment. Reporting the news. Doing my job. You know…writing.”

“Are you having a stroke, Kara?” Maggie asked casually, abandoning her search for food.

“She doesn’t look like him,” Alex informed Lena, ignoring her sister and girlfriend entirely. Sparing her sister an odd glance, as if silently promising a future (and private) conversation, Alex focused her attention on Lena. “She just looks like a kid. Because that’s what she is, Lena.”

(And Lena knew what Alex was actually trying to say, even if she didn’t know the elder Danvers as well as Kara, even if she was sometimes slightly intimidated by Alex. She knew that she was telling her not to worry, telling her to forget the nature versus nurture debate, telling her to remember that Ally was just a child who needed a loving family, that the sins of the father did not extend to Ally.

She was telling Lena to relax, that she could do this, and Lena marveled at the fact that Alex could say so much in so few words. She thought it might have been a sibling thing—or maybe just an Alex thing.)

“You’re right,” Lena whispered, eyes falling to Ally again, still slumbering peacefully in the crib Lena had suggested they leave out in the open where she could always see it, at least for a while (a part of her still thinking this was just a dream and she’d wake up and find she’d imagined the whole thing). “She’s just a kid.”

She reached down to gently smooth back some of Ally’s dark, curly hair, and without thought, warning, or preparation, Lena Luthor promptly fell in love with her niece.

x

She wasn’t going to call Kara, she told herself determinedly, huffing a breath and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she took in her niece’s red face. This was okay, this was manageable, she did notneed Kara. The fact that Ally had finally stopped crying gave a little bit more credence to her argument, but her soaked clothes and disaster zone of a bathroom spoke otherwise. But Lena did not need Kara.

At least, she didn’t think so.

“Come on, Ally,” she practically begged, dropping to her knees next to the bathtub and looking at her niece carefully. “You need a bath.”

Ally, standing shakily next to the bathtub, glared—yes, glared—at Lena, her blue eyes a little bit too fiery for Lena’s comfort.

“No,” she said resolutely, accentuating her point with a firm shake of her head.

It was undeniably frustrating and inconveniently endearing.

(In the past week, Lena had learned a great deal about her niece, first and foremost being that she inherited her parents’ intelligence, something Lena wasn’t sure she was entirely glad for yet. For example, though Ally didn’t speak more than a dozen or so words, it was always quite clear she understood everything that was said and done around her. She couldn’t confront Lena, tell her she knew that Lena wasn’t her mother—that she wasn’t even familiar—but she managed to convey those feelings by refusing simple tasks, like bath time, glaring at her food suspiciously, refusing to sleep until she literally passed out from sheer exhaustion.

In fact, most times it was only Kara who could coax Ally into doing anything—changing, bathing, sleeping, eating, it didn’t matter. Kara claimed it was because she just had ‘one of those faces’ but Lena wondered if her niece felt the same thing she had felt the day she first met Kara: an inexplicable pull, an undeniable trust.

Most obvious, however, was that Ally was full to the brim with what Maggie liked to call ‘the charming Luthor stubbornness’ something Lena found less and less charming every day.)

“Ally, please.”

“No,” her niece repeated, eyes actually narrowing.

(She’d been reading extensively about children and development and all the ins and outs of raising a child that wasn’t even yet two. She knew she had to be firm, knew that children took advantage of leniency, knew that she had to set boundaries as the adult. And yet…

She remembered her own harsh upbringing, the cold glances from nannies, the disinterest from Lionel, the outright aggression at times from Lillian. She remembered not feeling wanted or liked or even tolerated, and though she knew she had to be harder on Ally—put her foot down, so to speak—she just didn’t have the heart, even if she knew it wouldn’t be the same, that she’d never go too far.

She didn’t want to be a Luthor with her, even accidentally—even just out of habit. She didn’t want her to have the same childhood Lena suffered through.)

“What if I told you a story?”

(It was a last ditch effort, she didn’t think Ally would go for it.

Lena resigned herself to calling Kara yet again.)

Just as Lena made to get up, reaching for her phone, Ally held up her arms, finally acquiescing to her bath, allowing Lena to pick her up and place her in the tub. And Lena, woefully ill prepared for an impromptu story-time, cleared her throat and began to talk about the one thing she knew Ally would love—a tale about Supergirl.

By the end of bath-time, as Lena was drying off her niece, she earned the one thing only Kara had managed to coax out of Ally thus far: a smile.

x

She was in a meeting when it happened, arguing with some arrogant, narrow-minded old man who believed he knew what was best for her company. She was in a meeting, one she told Jess not to interrupt under any circumstances (wanting to put the old man in his place, needing the time and the privacy to do so), one she hadn’t expected to drag on quite as long as it did.

She was in a meeting when Ally was rushed to the hospital.

(Later, after she waved away all the apologies from the woman who ran the ridiculously expensive daycare, after she assured Jess she was right to contact Kara, after the doctor had smiled at Lena and swore up and down that Ally was fine—“She’s a child, Ms. Luthor, this sort of comes with the territory of being a parent”—and Alex and given Lena a sympathetic look, Lena collapsed in one of the uncomfortable hospital room chairs, head in her hands, body trembling.

She was in a meeting, she was rolling her eyes at the words of an insignificant man while her niece was struggling to breathe—because Lena hadn’t known Ally was allergic to peanuts.)

“How’re you holding up?” It was Kara, Lena could tell by the sensible shoes that were suddenly in her line of sight, and judging from the smell of coffee that wafted towards her, Kara had been successful in her quest for what she called a ‘pick me up.’ After several seconds of silence, Kara let out a soft sigh and knelt down, placing the coffee cup on the ground and then using the tips of her fingers to gently coax Lena to look at her. “Lena, it’s okay.”

“Is it?” she snapped, regret flooding through her immediately when Kara’s eyes flashed with hurt for an instant before she managed to mask it. “Do you know what could have—” Lena began, tone considerably softer, “—she could’ve…Kara, she could’ve—”

“—she’s fine,” Kara said gently, taking Lena’s hands into her own, squeezing a little, as if to ground Lena to the moment. “She’s been laughing at Maggie’s faces.”

It was Kara’s soft voice, the sturdiness of her presence, the fact that she could still somewhat hear Ally’s giggles as Maggie continued to make faces, Alex watching the whole thing clearly torn between amusement and fondness, that Lena found herself confessing everything to Kara.

“She deserves better than me,” Lena said, voice cracking, the truth of her words sending a stab of pain through her chest. Because it was true but oh she didn’t want it to be. “She deserves a family like yours. Something normal Maggie or Alex could give her. With me—with me she’ll always be a Luthor.” Lena thought about nights waiting up for her father to return home, of falling asleep in her father’s study, tucked in his leather chair and breathing in the smell of tobacco. She thought about afternoons meant to be spent with Lillian that she just spent alone, the days she waited for Lex to call when he went off to college and left her behind. She thought about how she’d learned—barely even a teenager—that the best way to gain her father’s attention was to drag herself to LuthorCorp every afternoon after school and watch him work, eventually wandering off to R&D when Lionel barely acknowledged her presence. “She’ll end up like me, Kara. How could I do that to her? How could I let her become like me?”

Kara leaned up, pressing a lingering kiss to Lena’s forehead.

“Ally could do a lot worse than become like you,” Kara whispered against her skin, not moving away, the heat of her hands finally—finally—beginning to warm Lena’s.

“Kara,” Lena chastised, not really in the mood for false platitudes, but she came off sounding less peeved and more amused, because Kara chuckled and pressed another kiss to Lena’s forehead.

“Fine, I’ll admit it. You’re right,” Kara began slowly. “We don’t want her like you. We don’t want her to grow up kind or generous, funny or intelligent. I especially don’t want her to be health conscious like you, for her to care about others, for her to be so willing to love—to be so good, in spite of everything terrible that’s happened.” Kara pulled back a little, just enough that Lena could meet her blue, blue eyes, a smile on her lips.

“She would be better off with a real family,” Lena argued.

“I will always be grateful for the Danvers, Lena,” Kara said, releasing Lena’s hands and cupping her cheeks instead. “I love them for taking me in, for giving me so much love, for being my family—for accepting me despite everything I put them through. But,” Kara’s smile turned sad, her thumbs wiping gently under Lena’s eyes, erasing the evidence of Lena’s tears, “I will always be heartbroken and will never understand why my own family—all I had left—sent me away.” The comment was loaded, heavy with untold truths, and though Lena burned to ask—knew that Kara would tell her anything in that moment—she just swallowed, attempting and failing to shake her head. “Don’t give up on her, Lena,” Kara whispered, sounding a little faraway, lost in her own thoughts for a moment, “she needs you, and she’s too young to know it yet, but she’ll want you, too.”

“And you?”

(Two words, that was all Lena was capable of saying. Two words, and yet Kara understood anyway.)

“She’ll always have me. And so will you.” She wiped at Lena’s cheeks once more with the pads of her thumbs then smoothly stood up, smiling down at Lena with her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. “Your coffee got cold,” she informed Lena simply, gesturing to the cup that was left forgotten on the ground. “It’s probably a good thing, Alex said it was really bad.” She held out a hand. “Come on, I know a great café not even five minutes away from here. We can even get Maggie a bagel.”

“But—”

“Alex and Maggie are hovering, Ally’s perfectly safe. Come on,” she repeated. “let’s go for a walk.”

And to Lena’s ultimate surprise, she found herself taking Kara’s hand, accepting the tacit offer of help.    

x

“So, Luthor,” Alex said cheerfully, licking her fingers clean of chocolate icing, “when did you and my sister start dating?”

Lena very nearly dropped the eggs in her hand, resulting in a moment of stupid juggling that had Ally pausing her search for grapes in her fruit salad long enough to giggle.

“I’m—what—we’re not dating,” Lena said, putting the eggs aside and helping Ally out by swapping her fruit salad with a small bowl of grapes. She seemed terribly pleased by the turn of events, clapping her hands together and shouting wape—what Lena assumed was Ally’s attempt at saying grape.

“Yeah, that’s what Kara said too. But with more stuttering. And blushing.” Alex grinned widely. “And head ducking, which means she’s hiding something.” She pulled the chocolate icing towards herself, clearly intending to get another taste, but Lena’s face must’ve showed her disgust more clearly than she thought, because Alex sighed and wiped her hands on a towel in defeat, abandoning the icing entirely. “Fine,” she said, choosing embarrassing Lena over sampling everything in sight. “So you’re not dating. Do you want to be?”

“Why are you here, Alex?”

“Seriously? I offer to help bake Ally’s birthday cake and that’s how you treat me? I’m hurt,” she said, going as far as to place her hand over her heart in mock-distress.

Before Lena could bother to point out that Alex hadn’t helped at all, Ally threw her now empty bowl of grapes towards Lena.

“More wapes!” she demanded, making Alex laugh.

“No more grapes for you,” Lena said, knowing her stern voice was off because Alex just laughed again. She turned around to check the oven—still rather unfamiliar with baking despite practicing as much as she could over the last few months—unsurprised to see Ally snacking on more fruit the second she turned back. “Seriously?” she asked Alex, raising an eyebrow.

“In her defense, she said wapes, which could mean anything, really.”

“You’re spoiling her,” Lena said flatly, though she couldn’t help her smile as Ally happily searched through her grapes, picking out the biggest ones and popping them into her mouth. “I’ll blame you if she becomes an intolerable teenager.”

“Brr,” Alex said, mimicking Maggie’s teasing—something that had, unfortunately for Lena, caught on in the past several months—and grinning. “Isn’t that right, Ally?” Alex said cheerfully, stealing one of Ally’s grapes, something that had Ally’s mouth dropping open in shock.  

“No!” Ally said, eyebrows rising and hands flying, reminding Lena so much of Lex in that moment that she thought her heart would stop. For a moment—a brief second—Lena was almost sure her older brother would pop his head out of the guest room, gesticulating wildly as he excitedly told Lena about his latest experiments, begging her to shut off her music for just a moment so that he could concentrate. She was so busy feeling overwhelmed by Lex’s sudden non-physical presence that she nearly missed Ally turning to her, looking a little bit betrayed. “Mommy, say no!”

“Did she—?” Alex started.

“No, no she can’t have,” Lena finished, eyes wide. She was barely aware of Alex calling Kara—telling her to put out the fire as quickly as she could—and only blinked blankly when Ally repeated the word that put Lena in this state in the first place.

“Mommy!” Ally said, trying to get Lena’s attention. “Mommy!”

x

Ally’s birthday party—something Maggie had rolled her eyes at, wondering what the point of throwing a two year old a party even was—had devolved into an impromptu comfort session, James putting his ability to soothe any child to good use while Lena sat on the ground, back against the wall and legs stretched out in front of her. Someone, likely Winn, had brought her cake earlier, but it sat forgotten as the minutes turned into hours of silence.

“You want to talk about it?” Kara asked, speaking for the first time since she arrived—still covered in soot from her fire rescue—and slid down the wall to sit next to Lena, cape and boots looking rather out of place in Lena’s apartment. She was being so patient, so good, and to be perfectly frank, Lena couldn’t deal with it.

“No,” she snapped. “I’m not her mother,” she immediately added.

“I know that.”

“Why would—why are—how are you so calm?” Lena suddenly felt the inexplicable need to cry. And Luthors…Luthors did not cry.

“She didn’t call me her mom,” Kara pointed out unhelpfully, chuckling when Lena could do nothing but groan.

“This is serious, Kara. Why would she think I’m her mother?”

As one, their eyes shifted towards the living room, where James was sitting with Ally in his lap, the two of them seemingly completely entranced with whatever was playing on the television. Winn was on his phone, sneaking not-so-subtle glances at James and Ally every few seconds, not-so-subtly taking photos. Not for the first time, Lena marveled at how normal it all felt, having friends at her apartment—having her niece giggle and play with James Olsen’s camera, James bravely hiding his anxiety as a two year old manhandled expensive equipment—talking, laughing, eating, generally enjoying each other’s company.

Six months she had this, the support, the friendship, the knowledge that she had people she could count on—that Ally could count on, years down the line—and it was only now, with Kara’s shoulder brushing her own and Alex and Maggie arguing over proper tackling procedures (which Lena hadn’t been aware existed), that she finally, finally, believed she wasn’t in this alone.

As soon as that thought registered, she felt calmer.

This would be okay. She’d get through this—with everyone at her side.

“For the last six months,” Kara began slowly, making Lena turn to her in surprise, unsure how to feel about the careful way she was measuring her words as she spoke, “you’ve been everything to Ally. It’s natural that she’d become attached to you. I became attached to Eliza.”

“Did you ever call her mom?”

“Well, no. But I was also much older.” She bit her lip, dragging her gaze away from James and Ally and looking and Lena instead, eyes full of a sadness that had only ever been hinted at before. She smiled, but it only served to make her seem more broken. “I was…I was really hard on Eliza and Jeremiah,” she explained softly. “I felt guilty that I was able to be happy with them. That they could make me smile and feel as if I was home. I worried—I still worry, sometimes,” she amended, laughing mirthlessly. “I worry that if I’m not careful I’ll forget about Krypton, that the love I feel for Eliza will replace what I feel for my own mother.” She knocked her shoulder gently against Lena’s, ducking her head as if she was trying to hide the extent of what she was feeling. “I lashed out at Eliza. Especially in high school, when she had to give me those talks usually reserved for your own mother. But even though I’ve never called her my mother, she’s been my mom in more ways than one.”

“But letting Ally think I’m her mother—she’ll find out the truth eventually. Should I lie until then? Should I try to tell her the truth?”

Kara laughed in response, taking Lena’s hand in her own.

“She’s too young to worry about all that anyway. That’s a problem for future us,” she said with a grin. “Right now we just need to worry about potty training. I called Eliza about it, she mostly just laughed, so I assume it’s not fun.”

Lena stared at Kara fondly for a moment, thinking of her use of the words us and we, the fact that she reached out to her adoptive mother for help, and she thought her heart might stutter right out of her chest.

“I think, when she’s old enough, I’ll ask her if she wants to be a Luthor. Alexandra Peters Luthor, it’s a good name.”

“The best,” Kara agreed immediately, smiling when Lena dropped her head onto her shoulder, leaning heavily against Kara’s soot covered suit. “I think I smell like smoke,” she added when Lena breathed her in, took in her warmth.

Lena closed her eyes and buried her face in the crook of Kara’s neck.  

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, voice slightly muffled. “I think you’re perfect.”

It wasn’t much of a surprise that Kara just laughed, hearing Lena’s tacit confession. And it wasn’t much of a surprise when she squeezed Lena’s hand reassuringly in response, wordlessly letting her know she felt the same way.

#fanfic #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #old

[alkhale]

Lost and Found (Jason Todd x Reader) Ko-fi Request

JASON TODD x new fledging superhero female OC plssssss

I wanted to try to make this one as open as possible because I wanted to give more free reign over the imagination of the hero’s occupation as a hero, but hopefully these work for you! Always love writing for this beautiful, beautiful boy :’)

THE BACKGROUND:

- You have a very interesting choice for occupation as a so-called “hero”

- Within the scope of that title, many brave men and women under that profession might not exactly consider you to be on their… level, per say. Several very, very big names have become only a bit or vaguely aware of your new, bustling presence in Bludhaven, apparently making quick time and moving all the way to Star City or popping up in Metropolis in a single night.

- Villains don’t really know what to do with you. They most leave you alone, to be honest, because they have a feeling dealing with you is just a headache. The only villains that really have any beef with you are big time thieves, and Cat Woman is not happy about your new rising popularity but she’s still staying off your radars for now. (You’re working on her)

- Most heroes advise you to stay home, they’re the ones giving you the most trouble. Small run-ins have them instructing you to go ahead and give up this line of work and perhaps join a local law enforcement or help-group, they think it’s much better for you.

- You, however, are determined, and you’re rather set on doing what you feel is truly your happiest calling.

Jason Todd, currently donning the sleek, reinforced metal of Red Hood’s mask, gave the drug dealer one last good kick to the ribs, listening for the satisfying crack of a few that promised he wasn’t getting up or going anywhere anytime soon.

Goons littered the hallways, their blood spilling over across the walls. The acrid smell of cigars snubbed out by their own fluids flooded the deserted motel hallways. Car lights were punched out in the front of the parking lot of the cheap, off-the-highway motel they’d been hiding out at like a pack of rats. It hadn’t been hard for him to find them, to be honest, a much easier job tonight more than anything. Jason was just a bit pissed off so he let off more steam than usual.

Jason tapped one gun against the side of his mask, a light little thump thump as he set his hand on his hip, surveying his work. He’d dump the cash in a fucking river. It was blood money and he had better things to do then get his hands on it. He’d rather just break another ATM. Fuck, I’m still pissed off. I should get Thai tonight.

Normally, Jason had a very nice, selective choice of arsenal on his person. Guns he’d tuned up and had tricked out. Nice, pretty things that never failed him. Classic knives, the works, he liked having options. 

Jason let out an aggravated sigh, muffled through his mask. He scowled, kicking another limp body for emphasis and turning, wiping some blood off the corner of his jacket. 

His fucking problem was that one of his pretty, nice little guns was missing. Gone. Lost. He was one hundred-fucking-percent sure it was his last job in Bludhaven after tangling up with Dickie Bird and having to scram before he received any kind of dark tongue lashing from Bats or the Demon Spawn pulled some sick shit like pulling Alfred up on speaker again to discuss his misdemeanors. Like the little shit can talk. Jason had come scrounging back, searching through the dockyard left and right for his gun and found nothing. Nada. 

He really liked that gun too.

Have to put in an order for a new one. Jason rubbed the top of his mask, hooking his fingers to prepare taking it off. What a pain. Thai it is. I’m starving—

“Hi! Excuse me, but is this your gun?”

Jason stopped.

It took him a second to process what he was seeing. Only a second, because he sensed no blood thirst or killing intent—he still cocked his gun and pointed it at the newcomer without a single hesitation though because what the hell, right?—and he needed that good second because even quick footed, always adaptable, always moving Jason needed that fat second to understand what the fuck was in front of him.

Halfway through what appeared to be some kind of… portal? It was the weirdest fucking portal he’d ever seen and he’d seen some weird fucking portals. A bright yellow, piss yellow, stretching in a warped, warbling kind of flame in the middle of the air, as though cutting straight through dimensions. Jason could get a peek of something behind. A city? He sniffed the air. A dock?

In the middle of the portal, with one, combat booted foot out, was a slender leg covered in black tights. Black tights led to a black fitted top that was clad by a… a construction vest? A neon green construction vest. Over her face—he assumed her because of the body and hair, but who the hell was he to know, right?—was a weird mask of a man, like some kind of religious figure, covering her entire face. Her hair was pulled back into two buns on either side of her head.

In one bare hand, held out to him by this new person in the middle of a piss yellow portal, was his gun.

Jason stared.

“Sorry, I know, this must look strange, right?” you quickly apologized, stepping fully out of the portal. It disappeared and you now stood before him, mask and stupid construction vest and his gun. “Here! This should be yours unless…”

You trailed off, mask looking pointedly at the bodies scattered around them. “Oh, unless it’s one of these guys’s. Sorry about that.”

“What the fuck?” Jason said, rough through his mask. He still had the gun pointed at you.

You beamed behind your own. “I come in peace! Just trying to return this. Found it in the dock by… Fifth? It was glowing, so that meant someone was looking for it—”

“Hold on,” Jason waved his gun at you for emphasis. You nodded at it, waving his gun back. Jason almost laughed. Who the fuck is this clown? “I’ll ask you two questions. Just two. Depending how you answer, I’m going to shoot you, got it?”

“Oh,” you said, sounding a bit sullen. You glanced at your watch. “Will this take long? I have two more deliveries.”

“No,” Jason said. “Depending on how you answer.”

“...okay, shoot,” you said. You paused, quickly holding a hand when Jason raised his gun. “Sorry, I meant figuratively, please. Ask the questions.”

Jason cocked his masked head to the side. “Who the fuck are you. Why the fuck do you have my gun.”

“I feel like those weren’t phrased as questions—”

Jason shot at your feet. You yelped, jumping up. “Jeez! Is this what I get for doing a good deed? Saint Anthony! I’m Saint Anthony!”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “And I’m Jesus fucking Christ.”

Jason prepared to shoot your kneecap out and you squawked, tossing the gun his way. Jason quickly caught it, inspecting it for any damage before narrowing his eyes at you behind his mask. You wiped your hands off your pants like brushing off germs. 

“That’s my alias,” you said, tapping your mask, a pious man’s face printed over it. “Saint Anthony! You know, the patron saint of lost things? The guy you pray to when you lose shit?”

“Do I look like I pray?” Jason said, pointing his gun to the drug dealer whose brains he’d blasted out. You made a small noise, as though just noticing.

“Well, you never know. Met some strange folks who pray and still do some very questionable things—let’s not get hasty!” Jason put his gun down. “That’s my codename! Have to be careful with this hero business, you know. I felt like it fits because of my power.”

You pointed to his gun and it began to glow a soft piss yellow. Jason dropped it in disgust, pulling his other gun back up and getting ready to shoot you. “I can see what items are lost! If an item belongs to someone and they’re looking for it, it’ll glow and I can see it like that. Then I pick it up and it teleports me to whoever it belongs to.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” Jason said. “You’re a human lost and found?”

“Yes! But much more effective,” you reached into a sack you had strapped to your back, opening it up for him to see where several more objects were glowing a piss yellow. “I decided I should put my talents to use, so I go around returning lost objects. Everybody loses something once in a while, you know? The other day I found this strange looking little USB and it turned out it belonged to Lex Luthor’s secretary and oh, boy, that was a sticky situation when Mr. Superman came and—”

Jason shot at your feet again. You jumped, clutching the sack protectively to your chest. “What the hell was that for?”

“I just felt like it,” Jason said. He tucked his gun back into his strap and picked up his now found weapon, inspecting it curiously. “Weird fucking power, sweetheart.”

You shrugged in a what-can-you-do manner.

“You said you were a hero?”

“Oh, more of a good samaritan,” you said, waving a hand. “I’ve just been working with the police lately on stolen goods. Sometimes burglars are real clumsy and drop items, you know? Apparently night vision goggles are very expensive so they’re always looking for those.”

You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck. Jason watched you in idle interest, having a bit of fun with this interaction. Been a while since he met anyone so fucking weird. He kind of liked it.

“Anthony, huh?”

“Yes!” you slung your sack back over your shoulder, sticking out a hand to him. “It’s very nice to meet you…?”

Jason tapped his gun against your palm in greeting. He tucked it back into its holster, giving you a long look behind his mask. You stopped, cocking your head at him. “What?”

“No, it’s just…” you rubbed the back of your neck. “Ah, nothing really. If we’re all squared away here, you mind if I take off? I’ve still got this pair of chain cutters and this funny looking stone to deliver.”

“You ever worry you’re delivering it to some weird place?” Jason said. “Or to someone who, I dunno, might kill you?”

“Oh, all the time,” you said cheerfully. “But usually I can take care of myself.” Jason quirked a brow behind his mask. “But thank you for your concern! I’ll be off then, Mr. Red. Thanks for your cooperation!”

You grabbed the funny shaped rock from the bag, a piss yellow portal appearing in front of you. Jason watched wordlessly as you stepped halfway through before turning back to him, raising a small hand in a little wave.

“Live a good life, Mr. Red!” you waved harder. “If you ever lose anything again, I’ll be sure to look out for it!”

Jason offered a lazy wave back, kicking a goon in the head who’d started to rouse.

You curled your fingers into your palm. The portal began to swallow you whole and you watched behind your mask as Jason turned, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

You figured for this particular customer, perhaps it was better not to say he was glowing a very beautiful, very somber shade of yellow.

Looks like whoever lost you is looking very hard for you, Mr. Red.

#jason todd x reader #ko-fi request #jason todd #reader insert #batman reader insert #this was very fun to write

[multiverseforger]

Slade Wilson (Deathstroke) meets a Cambodian woman named Lillian Wilson (born: Lillian Worth) on a search-and-rescue mission a few years after his divorce from Adeline Kane. His mission is to make sure that she escapes war-torn Cambodia safely. After an intermittent love affair with Wilson, Worth gives birth to a daughter whom she names Rose. Believing it to be in the child's best interest, Worth keeps Rose a secret from Wilson. Worth eventually settles down at a brothel in New York City, and, during a time when Deathstroke is injured and a fugitive from the law, Worth takes him in and nurses his wounds. Wintergreen (Deathstroke's butler) discovers 14-year-old Rose and suspects that she is Deathstroke's daughter.

When Ravager (Wade DeFarge – Deathstroke's half-brother) kills Deathstroke's friends and family, Ravager discovers Rose, captures her, and tells her that Deathstroke is her father. Wintergreen and Worth launch a rescue attempt, but Worth is presumed dead after she drives a Jeep off a cliff while trying to run over DeFarge. Wintergreen successfully rescues Rose and escapes.

Rose tries to reach out to her father, but he turns her away. He fears for her safety because he believes himself to be responsible for the deaths of two of his sons. Deathstroke leaves her in the care of the Teen Titans superhero team. During a training exercise, Rose is injured and taken to the hospital, and her precognitive powers emerge for the first time when she has a lengthy vision of Deathstroke's future. She awakens before she can test her powers further. She leaves the Titans shortly after and does not see them again until the Technis Imperative conflict, where she allies herself with the Titans to save fellow Titan Cyborg. During this incident, she vocally challenges the New God Big Barda, as the Titans and the Justice League had come to blows. Barda seems more amused than concerned over Rose and their potential fight is neutralized by other forces.

New RavagerEdit

The Madison family in Chicago adopt Rose, but DeFarge kills her new family. The Ravager claims to have been offered $100,000 for her death by an anonymous source, but neither of them know that Deathstroke hired DeFarge in an attempt to bring Rose closer to him.

Deathstroke anonymously alerts the Titans that Rose's life is in danger, and they fight to defend her. All of the fighters are rendered unconscious by an explosion of halothane gas, and Rose awakens in Deathstroke's lair. He apologizes to Rose for abandoning her and says that she is the only family he has left. Deathstroke suggests that she become his apprentice, offering DeFarge as her first kill. Rose accepts and takes the name “Ravager” for herself. Deathstroke secretly injects Rose with the same serum that gave him his abilities, and it causes her to suffer from psychosis.

Deathstroke doubts Rose's readiness to work with him and plans to disown her after she hesitates and is unable to kill Deathstroke's son Jericho (when he possesses Beast Boy's body). To prove her loyalty, she gouges out an eye to match his missing eye.



Batgirl vs Ravager. Cover to Batgirl #64 (2005). Art by Alé Garza.

After Rose suffers a defeat at the hands of Batgirl, Deathstroke places her under the tutelage of Nightwing after Slade is led to believe he has given up being a hero. Nightwing agrees to train Rose, while surreptitiously teaching her the values of heroism. Although Rose develops a crush on Nightwing as the training progresses, the attraction seemed entirely one-sided. In order to test Grayson's loyalty, Deathstroke replaces Rose's missing eye with one carved from Kryptonite and pits her and Nightwing against Superman. Rose attempts to kill Superman, but Nightwing uses Superman's concern for the safety of not only the civilian bystanders, but Rose herself as her final lesson on altruism. Nightwing agrees to stay away from Rose on the condition that Blüdhaven remained off-limits to the latest incarnation of The Society, of which Deathstroke is a charter member. Following the bombing of Blüdhaven on Deathstroke's orders in Infinite Crisis, Nightwing returns and informs Rose that the Kryptonite Deathstroke had implanted in her eye-socket is not just a danger to Kryptonians, but it is also carcinogenic and is indeed lethal to humans under extended periods of prolonged exposure. Enraged and heartbroken that her father would endanger her life so dismissively, and emboldened by Nightwing's tutelage, Rose breaks all ties with her father and runs away.

One year after the events depicted in the Infinite Crisis crossover, Rose once again joins the Teen Titans. She wears the same costume and wields two katana-style swords. With Deathstroke and his serum's influence gone, Rose appears more balanced than previously depicted. Robin admits Rose to the team as a favor to the team founder and ex-leader, her former mentor Nightwing.

Rose forms a friendship with Kid Devil, using his flame breath to light her cigarettes. When Kid Devil is injured during a mission, Rose defends him, and on multiple occasions threatens those she deemed a threat to him. She later admits to Kid Devil that she is afraid of being kicked out, should the old members return to the team.

Over the lost year, the Teen Titans came to the conclusion that they needed more members. After discovering that Raven believes there was a traitor on the team during the previous year, the team agrees to begin with her. The team travels the world in search of Raven apparently on the run from the traitor. They also meet several other former Titans, such as Red Star, Zatara, and Bombshell. During a meeting with Bombshell, Rose is accused of being the latest traitor, working for Deathstroke instead. She denies the accusation, supported by not only Kid Devil, but also Wonder Girl, who believes Rose would never go back to her father. Robin and Cyborg agree that Ravager would return to the Tower. Furious, Rose prepares to quit the team altogether until the team's caretakers Wendy and Marvin reveal to her that the traitor had stolen one particular object: the computer disk containing Jericho's essence.

Realizing why Raven is truly on the run, Ravager quickly returns to the Titans' aid, just as the traitor is revealed to be Bombshell. Ravager manages to save Raven, just as the empathic Titan uses the same spell which resurrected her to resurrect Rose's dead and previously insane half-brother Jericho. Upon the resurrection of her elder brother, Joseph and Rose begin fraternizing, unaware that Bombshell's betrayal was orchestrated by Deathstroke, and that their teammates have been subdued by his associates.

Later, Rose and Joseph fly to New York to have lunch with Nightwing, after which they go to the original Titans Island and discover that someone has built a demented version of the original tower there. Upon entering, they find that their father has kidnapped their teammates, all in order to gain control of them again. Rose and Joey then rescue Robin from Slade and Batgirl, during which Rose finally has her rematch with Cassandra Cain. Rose and Joey both attempt to stop their father, but they are defeated and left at his mercy until Nightwing, Donna Troy, Raven, Cyborg, Duela Dent, Beast Boy, and Bart Allen arrive.

Following the death of her former-teammate Bart Allen, Rose attends his funeral in Countdown #43 along with the rest of the Teen Titans.

In Teen Titans #50, Rose is present for Bart's wake, although she slips off after a while, bored with the somber, reminiscent atmosphere, and invites Kid Devil to join her in skinny-dipping in the Titans' swimming pool.

In Teen Titans vol. 3 #51, the Titans Tomorrow—a possible future version of the current Titans team—arrive in the present to aid the Teen Titans against Starro-controlled villains. Ravager's future-self is absent from the group and it is revealed that she betrays the team (primarily Bart Allen and Kid Devil) at some point. Kid Devil, his adult version Red Devil, and Rose are then sent to battle against Rampage & Livewire. Red Devil tries to convince Eddie to let Rose die during the fight, so that she does not manage to betray them in the future. Initially, it appears that Eddie intends to do so, before betraying his older self in order to aid Rose. Later, the trio return to the Titans Lair (home of the original Teen Titans), where they meet with Blue Beetle. There, Red Devil attacks Blue Beetle, claiming that he too cannot be trusted.

Eddie, Rose, and Jaime find themselves surrounded by an army of Titans led by Lex Luthor before they all battle against an invading army of Starros. Thanks in large part to Blue Beetle's powers and Robin and Wonder Girl managing to supposedly alter Robin's future (and thus alter the future of the Titans as a whole), the army of Titans is apparently defeated.

In Teen Titans #57, Rose is attacked by Persuader, Copperhead, and Dreadbolt of the Terror Titans, who had managed to infiltrate Titans Tower. During the battle, they goad Rose about the fate of Kid Devil, whom they had earlier captured. Despite overwhelming numbers, they are unable to take down Rose. Rose ruptures a gas line with her energy swords, blowing up a section of the tower. Rose is revealed to have survived the explosion by crossing the swords, creating a forcefield. She then follows the Terror Titans back to their base, saving Wonder Girl from Disruptor and Persuader. She then battles Clock King, her own precognitive powers matching him. Clock King offers Rose a place on his team, but she refuses. Clock King then ejects the Titans from his base. Back at the tower, Rose overhears Robin and Wonder Girl talking about her almost killing Persuader during battle, and deciding there will be "repercussions". Rose decides to leave the Titans, using one of Clock King's teleportation devices to do it.

In Terror Titans #1, Ravager is seen talking with Clock King, negotiating her role within his group. She agrees to take part in one of The Dark Side Club's arena battles, fighting against Fever. Rose defeats Fever, but when given the order to finish her, refuses, prompting Clock King to have Fever shot in the head. Although appalled by Fever's death, Rose stays, hoping to find out what Clock King's plan is. Continuing to fight in the tournament, Rose faces off against Static, and is almost killed.[1] Rose eventually discover that Clock King intends to use the mind-controlled teen heroes as his own "Martyr Militia" to destroy Los Angeles, entirely for his own amusement. Attempting to get help, Rose is attacked by the Terror Titans, who overwhelm her.[2] Help comes in the form of Miss Martian, who had been posing as one of the brainwashed teens, and had managed to use her telepathy to free them. Ravager follows the retreating villains back to their base, where she confronts Clock King. Despite their equal precognitive abilities, Ravager is able to defeat him, although she was unable to prevent his escape.[3]

Ravager returns during the Teen Titans/Titans/Vigilante crossover "Deathtrap", seeking to save Jericho, who had been targeted by Vigilante. However, the unbalanced Jericho refuses her offer of help, continuing in his plot to kill the Titans, forcing Rose to team up with the heroes to stop him.[4] It is also apparent that she has become addicted to the adrenaline given to her by the Clock King.

Following the "Deathtrap" storyline, Rose briefly tries her hand at being a part of the Titans, but finds that she does not belong with them. After an altercation with Bombshell, staged to ensure her loyalty to the team, Rose leaves to find her own way in life.[5] From Teen Titans #72 onwards, Ravager is featured in a 10-page, 9 part co-feature, Ravager: Fresh Hell, written by Sean McKeever and drawn by Yildiray Cinar.

In the Teen Titans tie-in to the Blackest Night crossover, Rose tracks Deathstroke down to his old mentor Wintergreen's house and attacks him. During the fight, the two are attacked by their deceased relatives Grant, Wade and Adeline, who, along with Wintergreen, have all been reanimated as Black Lanterns. When Grant attacks Deathstroke, intending to burn him in a fireplace, Rose reluctantly intervenes, saving her hated father. She then attempts to incinerate Wade, but is surprised when Jericho jumps out of his body.[6] Jericho, whose eyes had grown back since Vigilante's attack, uses his powers to make the Black Lanterns destroy themselves. After the battle, Rose refuses to reconcile with Deathstroke, despite acknowledging her daughterly love for him. She also realises that her mother may still be alive, as she was not among the attacking Black Lanterns.[7]

Following an adventure in another dimension, Static, Miss Martian, Bombshell, and Aquagirl leave the Titans, and Rose is invited to rejoin the team in order to help build it back up. While staying in the Tower, Rose hacks into the team computer and begins searching for information on her mother.[8] During her time with the group, Rose begins flirting with Superboy, and befriends Damian Wayne, the new Robin. She remains with the team up until the final battle with Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Doom, where she teams with Speedy to take down Persuader, one of her former teammates on the Terror Titans. She and Damian also help turn the tide of the battle by using a piece of Kryptonite to destroy several evil clones of Superboy.[9]

The New 52Edit

Following the events of "Flashpoint", the DC Universe was relaunched. In the New 52, Rose now has both eyes intact and does not go by the name Ravager, though she still appears to have her martial arts training and trademark swords. She is a teenaged mercenary hired by the shadowy organization N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to act as a handler for Superboy after he destroyed the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. lab used to create him in self-defense. Rose has a rivalry with Caitlin Fairchild, a young N.O.W.H.E.R.E. researcher who cares for Superboy.[10] Her origin is altered so that she is now the daughter of Slade Wilson and his wife Adeline Kane, removing her Asian heritage in the process.

After last seen by the side of her father Deathstroke, following the events that happened in The Ravagers, she reappears in a possible future 20 years distant. In this timeline she is along her husband Garfield Logan, now labeled as Beast Man, living together in the Justice League Watchtower as Beast Man is the only Justice Leaguer alive. The two also have a daughter named Red who is being mentored by them along other superpowered teenagers in order for them to become a team. After an encounter with three members of the Teen Titans from the present Red Robin, Wonder Girl and Superboy, Rose and Gar put in action a plan to swap Superboy (Kon-El) with the man of whom he is a clone (Jon Lane Kent, son of Superman and Lois Lane), who is responsible for the tragedy that happened in that future, in order to prevent those events from happening again. The plan is a success as Raven's soul-self departs with the Titans from the present and the unconscious Jon Lane, not Conner. Once alone, Rose asks Gar if they really did the right thing, which Gar responds: "I damn well hope so Rose. I damn well hope so".[11]

DC RebirthEdit

Learn more

This article needs to be updated.

Rose later reappears after the DC Rebirth relaunch, with her original Cambodian origin and mixed-race heritage now restored.[12] She is seen working as a strip club bouncer who moonlights as a teenage mercenary, and reunites with her father after someone puts a hit on her. Her past in the New 52 continuity also appears to be retconned, as she makes no mention of N.O.W.H.E.R.E., and claims to have been trained by Nightwing, much to Slade's annoyance

[superman86to99]

Superman #82 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! The climax of this 19-part storyline, the entire "Death and Return of Superman" saga, and seven years of long-ass plotlines. And it only took this blog a mere six years and six months to get here! PREVIOUSLY: After Superman’s death, five different Supermen popped up to reclaim the mantle, some more convincingly than others. The front-runner, the Cyborg Superman, kinda ruled himself out of the competition when he nuked out a whole city and replaced it with a giant engine. Now the other would-be Supermen converge in that place...

The Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator finally arrives on Engine City, having set off from the Fortress of Solitude two weeks ago. We noted back then that he suddenly looked like an old man, but he's back to Superman's age now. If this storyline had gone on any longer, he would ended up Benjamin Buttoning himself into a grumpy, ultra-violent baby.

Superboy also flies in from Metropolis. It's the fourth time he makes the Metropolis-Coast City trip in a few days (not counting the time he got a ride on a missile), so he's gotta be pretty bored of it by now.

Steel, last seen getting crushed by some giant cogs, emerges from the bowels of Engine City with his armor in tatters but his body intact. Dude’s a tough nut to crack.

Supergirl and the powerless Man in Black continue making their way through Engine City. Supergirl's like "Wanna step out and let those of us with powers handle this one, chief?" but the Man in Black ain't having it. Wow, that's pretty heroic. Maybe... maybe he's actually the real Superman?! Nah, that's crazy.

And Green Lantern Hal Jordan is also there, because this whole issue takes place on top of the ashes of his old city and childhood memories and all. We see the end of his fight with Mongul from Green Lantern #46.

The Cyborg watches as the Super-People invade his fortress from his control room, but he's a glass half full kind of guy, so he's choosing to focus on the fact that he (apparently) gets to kill Superman again.

After the Eradicator joins the party and the Cyborg reveals his true identity, the Man in Black finds himself in the awkward position of having to team up with one of Superman’s worst villains (the one who wanted to turn Earth into Krypton) to fight a good guy driven crazy by space travel (and who once looked like Johnny-5). It's only after the Eradicator goes on a two-page exposition dump about how he brought Superman back to life that the Man in Black goes "alright, guess you're cool".

The Man in Black and the Eradicator follow the Cyborg to the center of Engine City, where a giant chunk of kryptonite powers the entire fortress. The combined powers of the Eradicator's Eradicator-ness and the Man in Black's punching (OK, mostly the first thing) seem to be winning -- but then, in a desperate move, the Cyborg shoots a blast of concentrated kryptonite at the Man in Black. The Eradicator, however, heroically jumps in front of the blast...

...which has the unexpected side effect of restoring the Man in Black's Superman powers, allowing him to dispatch the Cyborg with a swift "broosh". What's a "broosh"? You know, a "broosh":

After Supergirl uses her convenient clothes-shifting powers on the Man in Black's costume, it only takes one second of him in the classic red and blue tights to convince everyone that HOLY CRAP HE'S THE REAL SUPERMAN AND HE'S BACK FROM THE DEAD! (Side note: I like how Green Lantern goes "We'll mop up here! Not like I have anything better to do, what with all my friends being dead and stuff. Haha. I-I’m okay, seriously.")

It's him! It really is him. I knew it all along. Never doubted it.

Character-Watch:

The Eradicator is this issue's real MVP. His whole arc has been about slowly turning him from an emotionless robot into a sentient being through his interactions with people (Lois, Steel, even Loose Cannon and Guy Gardner), and it pays off when he jumps in front of that kryptonite blast yelling "I WON'T LET YOU DIE [AGAIN]!".

Also, when he tells Superman "We have always been linked, you and I", that's true. While their psychic connection influenced Superman negatively for a while (the Day of the Krypton Man saga), it looks like it also worked in the other direction and some of Superman's goodness rubbed off on him. By the way, it might be a stretch but the climactic shot of the kryptonite blast always reminded me of the Day of the Krypton Man's climactic shot, with Superman finally overcoming the Eradicator’s influence with Pa Kent's help.

Anyway, sorry, Superboy and Steel. The Eradicator had the best sacrifice scene in this storyline, hands down. Of course, they eventually brought him back again and turned him into a lapdog for the Cyborg and then Zod, but let's enjoy his dignified retirement while it lasts.

Plotline-Watch:

I'm not kidding when I say that this issue represents the convergence of seven freaking years of storylines. Let's recap (strap on, this is gonna be long):

John Byrne's Man of Steel #1 (1986) introduced Superman's birth matrix, the flying artificial womb that took him from Krypton to Earth. When young Clark sees the matrix for the first time he feels weak, because there's some kryptonite lodged into it. In Superman #1, a few months later, we find out that a crazy scientist stole the matrix and used it to build Metallo, so Superman decides to leave it suspended in orbit to prevent it from being used against him again. Three years later, the distraught mind of a disembodied astronaut called Hank Henshaw jumped into the matrix, and he made himself a tiny little spaceship from its technology, then sped off into deep space. Eventually, he went mad, hooked up with Mongul, and used the DNA information he got from the birth matrix to make himself a half-Kryptonian body. Hence: the Cyborg Superman. (As for that kryptonite rock, it ended up in Lex Luthor's hands... soon to be "hand".)

Also during Byrne's run, Superman briefly visited a "pocket" universe inhabited by a Silver Age-type Superboy, who died by the end of that storyline. Months later, the pocket Earth had turned into a hellhole thanks to three Kryptonian criminals. They too died by the end of that storyline... by Superman's hand. Feeling guilty over killing those killers, Superman exiled himself in space, was captured by Mongul's Warworld, and found an ancient egg-shaped relic created by his ancestors: the Eradicator. Superman brought the Eradicator back to Earth and it built him a nice Fortress of Solitude, but it also took over his mind and turned him into the emotionless Krypton Man -- who became an entity of its own after Superman overcame it. After Superman's death, the Fortress' robots rebooted the Eradicator so he could follow his “preserve Kryptonian life” directive and restore Superman back to life, but he got a little confused and thought HE was Superman. Hence: the Last Son of Krypton.

Another concept introduced by Byrne was the idea that Kryptonian DNA is too complex to be duplicated by Earth scientists, which led to the creation of Bizarro. Byrne's World of Krypton miniseries also established that Kryptonians used clones as spare parts to extend their lifetimes, and the conflict over clone rights literally tore the planet apart. So when Superman learned of a cloning facility near Metropolis called Project Cadmus, he immediately felt uneasy about it. After his death, Cadmus got hold of his body so they could create a replacement, but, again, you can't clone a Kryptonian... so they simply created an approximation of Superman's powers and features using human DNA. Hence: Superboy.

As for Steel, he's just Steel. Hence: Steel. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why his armor has been reduced to just some metal shorts by the end of the issue, here’s the answer. Pretty self-explanatory.

The only major plotline left dangling after this issue (aside from Dr. Stratos, of course) is Lex's own death/return/cloning misadventure, but the Super-Squad will deal with that in a big way pretty soon. Oh, and then there's the mess they left for Green Lantern, but that's another creative team's problem. (SHAMELESS PLUG: Follow my new Green Lantern '94 to '04 blog to see how that mess turned out.)

Believe it or not, there's even MORE stuff to talk about in this issue, so don’t miss the great Don Sparrow's section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

In the first place I have to say that this issue is an all-time favourite of mine, probably in my top three of this era of comics we’ve been so dutifully covering.  The excitement at my local comic shop for this issue was incredible, and already being the Superman fan that I was, I felt like I was on the ground floor. [Max: I also remember the excitement when I first saw this issue in my cousin’s hands after he showed it to me the day he bought it... then didn’t let me touch it, so I read it years later.]

We start with the cover, and I got the deluxe edition, with the chromium cover.  Back when this issue came out, I had a love/hate relationship with Image comics.  I wasn’t interested in the dark & gritty characters like Spawn and the like, and generally thought the Image books favoured flash over substance and storytelling.  BUT, man, did the colouring and paper they used at Image ever look cool!  So I was a bit torn about DC using a “gimmicky” feature like this—it looked amazing, but I also felt it was leaning a little far in the direction of sizzle over steak.  But I didn’t mind that much, since this had been such a great story to this point.  Aside from the metallic 3D look of the cover, the drawing is great, too.  It was the first look at the returned Superman in the full suit, and also with the long hair present.  DC must have thought that the long hair was a gamble on some level (even though we’d seen it for months in the actual issues) because they hid it from the covers for so long. [Max: This was also the cover they used in both the Spanish and Mexican editions I have, so that’s what I went with for the top of this post. The “normal” cover looks like a historic oddity to me.]

Inside the issue, we jump in with another splash page—there are a lot of these, and it really calls back Superman #75, as most of the pages have one main image, with a few small panels laid overtop.   This one features another interpretation of the Eradicator, with short, non-spiky hair—it’s interesting to see these characters reinterpreted week to week.  This opening page also commits the unpardonable sin of demanding that we stop reading the issue until AFTER we read Green Lantern #46.  Being a naïve 13 year old when I read this issue, I of course complied with the demands of DC editorial, and read Green Lantern first, not realizing it has a near identical plot (albeit from a different point of view), right down to the “broosh” at the end, very much spoiling what is about to come in Superman #82.  I remember being pretty steamed that my first glimpse of a returned Superman didn’t come in a Superman book.  While I appreciate the coordination, I do find the caption misleading.

Also similar to Superman #75—it’s very hard for me not to talk about every panel or page, because this whole book is just gorgeous.  The badassery from the last issue continues into this one, as Superman with his tough-guy attitude and giant gun is pretty cool.  One quibble I have with this team is that when they bury Superman’s eye’s in shadow, it can have a sinister or tired look, which I don’t think is the intention.  Some panels it’s more prominent than others, but in one panel on page 6 where it makes Superman look pretty rough, and a lot less handsome.  We get more big gun Superman later when he starts taking it to Engine City in general, knowing it is connected to the Cyborg.

The Cyborg taking different shapes is done pretty effectively here, particularly when he forms himself out of what must be a lead-like metal to accuse Superman of a bunch of nutty stuff. The reveal of the Kryptonite heart of engine city is very well done, in part because of Eradicator’s bulging red eyes.  It is a bit weird to imagine a lipless robot saying “mmm, hmm” though.

We get another great full-page splash as the Eradicator goes all-out in his effort to defeat the Cyborg.  The captions here always confused me though, where it says “(The Eradicator)  was built to kill…the other (the rocket that brought Superman to Earth, which the Cyborg used to create his new body) to bear new life.  The victor would be obvious.”  But to me, it’s not obvious.  I would think that in a Superman comic, a vessel of LIFE would be the big winner over ancient weaponry, but I think the caption intends the inverse. I guess it’s saying a gun would beat a baby crib? It’s one of those passages that sounds cool, until you think about it.  Or think about it excessively, as I clearly have. [Max: To be fair, a gun WOULD beat a baby crib. It would kick that baby crib’s ass.]

Superman’s haymaker knocking off the Cyborg’s jaw is an incredible visual, and there’s a subtle set-up for the great cape visual call-back that comes later.

The entire sequence of the Eradicator taking the blast of Kryptonite is well done, in particular the panel when we see Superman through the vanishing Eradicator.  I’m a bit confused as to just how the Kryptonite suction thing works here—the Kryptonite meteor is shrinking and shrinking, but nothing is attached to it except for that one hose.  

Jurgens and Breeding do a great job of showing the physical cost of Green Lantern going toe to toe with Mongul.  It also sets up for my all-time favourite Superboy quote, one I think might be seen on this site from time to time in meme form, “Check it out! The Lantern looks so totaled it makes me want to hurl!”.  This entire saga has been worth it, to get to that line.  Just magnificent. [Max: I think Hal went evil because of that one comment.]

The glimpse of the burnt-out husk of the Eradicator is also incredibly well drawn—and painful looking—but even by the end of this story he seems a lot more recovered.

The scene of the returned-to-full-power Superman decking the Cyborg is a stand-up-and-cheer moment, and I love the detail that Superman is holding the cape for this whole scene. It’s interesting that as the Cyborg starts to get damaged in the fight, we see how little organic material there is. Metal seems to poke through the skin on his face, as if only a thin sheet were laid over the metal.  and when Superman punches right through him, there’s really no blood or anything, just a dry, cracked crater.  I had thought, up until this issue that the cybernetic parts were beside real skin and bones (as if to replace the damaged parts of Superman’s body from his fight with Doomsday), but this issue seems to posit that he’s all robot, with only a veneer of Kryptonian flesh overtop.  

The normally merciful Superman is pretty blood-thirsty here, vibrating his arm fully in the knowledge it might kill Henshaw (who helpfully reminds us, he’s survived before).  [Max: That moment kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and I think Jurgens himself felt uneasy with it too. One of the highlights of his recent “Rebirth” run was that Superman deliberately decides to jail Hank instead of killing him to at least give him a chance to be rehabilitated, which would be cool to see happen one day.] I love the little glimpse we get of the restored, and re-costumed Superman before the full reveal, and as a character moment, I love that he would think to show gratitude for the heroes who filled in when Superman was dead.

The next few pages are pure joy, as it’s such a treat to see our Superman soaring around in the sunshine, even with the new Tarzan haircut.  It’s such a show of restraint that they didn’t pack a reunion with Lois into this issue, instead allowing a different superteam to tell that story, which very much deserves its own issue.  Overall, though, I just remember feeling such a sense of joy, and relief that Superman was back, and back to full power. [Max: SPOILERS: And then some...]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I do love this era of comics before swearing (or even censored swearing) was a thing, because they have the weirdest phrases. John Byrne would always have characters saying “blast” instead of “damn” to an absolutely ridiculous degree.  In this issue, I don’t know for sure if “crud” is a stand-in for another word, but it does strike me as downright odd for Green Lantern to use it as a noun against Mongul.  The concept of “a crud” just amuses me, though I suppose it could be meant in the same vein as “scum” or something.

Is it me, or does Jeb look like Ricardo Montalbon here? [Max: Oh crud, I forgot Jeb was in this issue! Jeb was in this issue, everyone.]

I love they don’t even give the Cyborg a moment to be cool.  Just as he’s about to reveal his true identity in a villainous speech he gets clocked by Superboy, in one of my favourite moments with the character (but not my very favourite, as we’ve seen.)  I also like the low-level burn that Henshaw assumes that Superman must already know who he is, but Superman’s like, nope.

I do like that this issue goes to great lengths to explain that Superman can’t just keep returning from the dead, even going so far as to say it would never work again.  My pet theory is that the Eradicator’s Resurrection Matrix only worked because Pa Kent’s spiritual journey in Adventures of Superman #500 really did happen. [Max: I might be misremembering, but I think the upcoming issue of Action pretty much confirms that.]

I’m glad to see him recovered, but I kinda think Eradicator spoiled the moment a little with his observation about Green Lantern.

[Max: Blast it, Sparrow! You’ve done it again!]

#superman #dan jurgens #brett breeding #eradicator #superboy #coast city #green lantern #hal jordan #mongul #steel #supergirl #hank henshaw #jeb friedman #metal shorts #dc give me baby eradicator you cowards #reign of the supermen

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Cult of Luthor: No Place Like...

Lena leaves the next night with a heavy heart. Her thoughts are crowded with evidence Agent Jones had laid out in front of her the night before-- proof of abductions and ties to arms dealers and... murder.

None of it is actionable, and that missing connection tying it all back to Lex is Lena's lifeline as she rides in the back of the SUV to wherever the agents are taking her. It must be some kind of mistake-- it's the elders who have done this, working without Lex's knowledge.

It goes against everything LuthorCorp stood for.

Lex can't be involved.

He's not capable of it.

He can't be.

She's wearing the clothes she was taken in when the agents finally deliver her to the drop off. They give her nothing-- no wire, no panic button, no cell phone. Doing so would only put her in danger, as nothing would get past the inspectors without detection.

All she has with her when the SUV pulls away is a mission: find the missing connection.

To Lex, or whoever else was calling the shots.

At Lena's insistence, they drop her miles from the compound, leaving her to walk the rest of the way. It takes her most of the day, and in the summer heat she's sweating, hot, and limping with sore feet by the time she reaches the familiar walls of the compound.

A shout lifts at the sight of her, and before Lena knows it shadows are rushing towards her in the growing dark, and hands immediately hook under her arms to keep her upright, until strong arms lift her entirely, cradling her against a broad chest as though she were a babe.

Lawrence, she thinks, as her head rests gratefully against his shoulder.

Perhaps she's walked a little too far after all.

"We've got you," voices murmur around her, offering comfort. "Your brother is on his way. You're all right.

"You're home now."

----

The tears that pour down Lena's cheeks are very real, when Lex wraps her in his arms and holds her tight. The smell of him washes over her like a promise, and her shoulders relax for the first time in days.

The FBI is wrong, and everything is going to be okay.

A single pill rehydrates her, restoring the fluids lost to sweat, and a nutrition pellet pre-emptively resolves any potential malnourishment, even before she tucks into the tray Lex brings her for dinner.

While she eats, he recounts his anguish at her disappearance, how he waited weeks for some kind of demand. How when none came, he nearly believed the worst.

But she's home now, by some miracle, and she assures him she's fine.

She doesn't know who took her-- they wore masks, but treated her well. Let her eat, sleep, and wash, but gave no clue as to their identity or location. They asked no questions, which also led her to believe that it was a ransom.

She doesn't know why she was released.

For now, that's enough. Lex sits next to her the entire night, even after she drifts off to sleep. The next morning greets her with hands and smiles and hugs, gentle voices expressing their joy and relief for her safe return.

For a few days, her return is a relief-- familiar routines sink back into her bones, cherished smiles beam at her from missed faces, and the sounds and smells of home wash over her like a soothing balm.

But it's not long before she starts to notice that her home wasn't what she thought it was-- lab doors that lock them inside until their assigned work period expires, hunger that gnaws at a belly now accustomed to frequent, filling meals, guards and cameras at every corner.

Lena never tried to leave her lab before the period was up, she'd been so focused on her work. She'd never noticed how long they went between meals, or how often her vision blacked out when she stood, until she was suddenly no longer accustomed to it. She never noticed that while the caretakers treat the children with respect, there's little affection behind it, and tears are met with gentle but comfort-less affirmations to do better.

The displacement makes her ache for the Danvers' home, and for Kara, even while surrounded by her family. It affirms her initial decision to stay on the outside, and there's bitter satisfaction in knowing that she knew herself well enough to know she no longer fits in the compound.

It soon becomes apparent that her mission will be nigh impossible. Guards and cameras stand on every corner, and Lena's workstation on the local intranet accesses nothing incriminating, no matter how deep or how far she digs.

There's another system that must contain all of the operational details of the organization, she figures-- something Lex has secured in some hidden location, if it's located in the compound at all. From what the agents told her, LuthorCorp's network spans the globe, and who knows which arm of the web holds these precious details.

Her sole reprieve from her daunting task is Jack Spheer-- her best friend since birth. He is the one thing she couldn't have done without, of she'd been allowed to go to National City with Kara. Her plans to spirit him away to join her mean nothing now, and she finds herself reluctant to share anything with him, lest her betrayal endanger him as well.

Jack doesn't give her a chance when he sends their code in a sharp pattern of raps on the commissary table during evening meal.

*Our Spot*

She sneaks out of the dormitory that night and meets him by the furnaces that heat the washrooms. It's an isolated room that few visit, and with it doubling as a storage space for cleaning supplies, it allows them an excuse of cleaning duty if caught.

"Okay," he says by way of greeting when she arrives, "what really happened?"

"I don't know what--"

"You're different, Lena," he insists. "Not in a bad way, but... different. It's like... you're more than this place."

His eyes gleam with interest, lacking judgement or suspicion. He grins. "They let you out, didn't they? You were on the outside."

Lena can't lie to him. Her silence is all the confirmation he needs. He scoots closer.

"What's it like?"

Jack has never been devoted to the organization like she is. He also doesn't chafe like she sometimes did, leaving him comfortably going with the flow of whereever he is and whatever he does. LuthorCorp works for him now, but he would have joined her in the city if she asked, Lena knows.

So she shares everything-- the food and the music and the dancing and the clothes. How the elders were right about somethings-- the petty superficialism and the cruelty of some-- but also drastically wrong about others-- about the kindness and comfort and connections that existed by choice rather than proximity.

She tells him about Kara too, and when she does his eyes warm with a knowing smile. They are far past the point of needing to say the words-- that Lena is in love and that Jack can see it.

When confessing the ache of missing Kara brings tears to her eyes, Jack hugs her tight and lets her sob her anguish into his shirt.

"Why did you come back?" he asks when Lena finally pulls back, wiping her eyes. "You don't belong here anymore."

He says it like the sky is blue, without malice or judgement.

And that's when Lena shares the rest-- about the rot that's taken root in LuthorCorp, and the crimes attributed to Lex as the organization's beating heart.

"I know he didn't do it," Lena finishes, gripping Jack's hand tightly. "I just need to prove who did. But there's more security here than I ever realized. I'm not sure where to even start."

Jack leans back to rest his head agains the wall behind them. His handsome dark eyes unfocus in thought, before he shrugs with shoulders and eyebrows in unison.

"Lex needs to trust you," he says. "Whether he's responsible or not, he's at the center of this place-- he'll have the access."

"But... how?"

"I don't know. You've always ridden the edge of distraction, Lena. You were always asking the questions that wouldn't be answered, questioning the whys rather than the whats and hows. It passes for brilliance, but also makes them careful about how much to share."

Meeting her gaze, his fingers tighten on hers. "Show them you're in, all the way in, prove that your abduction has turned you away from the outside, and Lex might bring you in."

Doubt fills Lena's chest. For all his affection, Lex has never shown her any kind of special treatment for being blood. Any privilege she has always came from her work and her results, as a means to develop her potential. She has been punished like everyone else, rebuked and admonished, and she has accepted the corrections as everyone else has done.

Would Lex truly let her in?

"You are the only one who is able to keep up with him, Lena," Jack says. "Everyone sees it. They think he's been waiting to name a successor until you embraced LuthorCorp more, and he could sure you would uphold the mandates."

Jack nudges her when apprehension keeps her silent.

"He wants to trust you. You just need to prove to him that he can."

Continued: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Appendix A

#cult of luthor #jack spheer #lena luthor #supercorp #no place like.... #returning home #mild angst #with a familiar face #a blessing and a curse #lena is in a tough spot #poor bb just wants to be brilliant on her own terms #meanwhile no contact with kara or sam #buh huh huh #i miss jack so much #was not gonna pass up an opportunity to use him #are you kidding me #theyre besties

[thedcdunce]

Robin

“I'm not like Tim, or Jason, or even Dick. I'm light-years ahead of all the past Robins in skill and training. I'm either your partner in this or I'm not.” - Robin

Real Name: Damian Wayne

Aliases:

Batman

Damian al Ghul

Demon's Son

Garth

Gray Son of Gotham

Hafid al Ghul

Ibn al Xu'ffasch

Knute Broody Junior

Redbird

Gender: Male

Height: 4′ 6″

Weight: 84 lbs (38 kg)

Eyes: Green

Hair: Black

Abilities:

Archery

Artistry

Business Management

Disguise

Driving

Martial Arts

Genius Level Intellect

Investigation

Intimidation

Medical Science

Music

Peak Human Condition

Pedagogy

Stealth

Swordsmanship

Throwing

Weaknesses:

Arrogance 

Universe: Prime Earth

Base of Operations:

Gotham City

Mercy Hall, New York City

Titans Tower, San Francisco

Citizenship: American

Parents: 

Bruce Wayne; father

Talia al Ghul; mother

Marital Status: Single

Occupation:

Vigilante

Adventurer

Student

First Appearance: Batman and Robin Vol 2 #1 (November, 2011)

Abilities

Archery

Artistry: Damian is considered as skilled with a brush as he is with a sword.

Business Management: Trained by his mother and the League of Assassins in the way of controlling a company with an iron grip. Even as a young boy he knows that in business there are wars and even in war there are assassins. Damian is involved with the Wayne Enterprises' board members. He even intimidated the board members by tracking down financial irregularities within the Wayne Enterprises' accounts.

Disguise: Damian has disguised himself as an elderly bus driver and a substitute teacher.

Driving: He learned to drive at the age of five.

Martial Arts: Trained by the League of Assassins. Damian may not be physically tough but he knows how to control his weight and has stated that he knows, "one thousand ways to kill a man." Damian's training has made him a formidable hand-to-hand combatant able to defeat or hold his own against multiple opponents, armed opponents or skilled hand-to-hand combatants.

Genius Level Intellect: Damian has inherited a genius IQ from his father.

Investigation: Damian, having been trained under the "World's Greatest Detective", has been able to deduce people's actions as well as solve mysteries with few amounts of data.

Intimidation

Medical Science

Music

Peak Human Condition

Pedagogy

Stealth: Damian was able to sneak into Gotham City and furthermore into the Batcave virtually undetected until he felt necessary. Of all the Robins, Damian may be the one that is the most silent.

Swordsmanship: Although Damian no longer uses his sword he may be unmatched with one if armed correctly.

Throwing: Damian is trained by the League of Assassins in shuriken throwing and further trained by Batman in Batarang throwing.

Weaknesses

Arrogance: More often than not, Damian believes himself to be better than he is, this has allowed him to underestimate opponents as well as irritate his allies.

History

Damian Wayne is the son of Batman and Talia al Ghul. This makes him an heir to the world's greatest crime-fighter, and its greatest super-villain Ra's al Ghul. Damian became the fifth Robin, working alongside his father as Batman.

Origins

Damian Wayne is the son of Batman and Talia al Ghul. Raised by Talia and trained by the League of Assassins, Damian became a skilled assassin by an early age. Coupled by his innate talent for the art and his lineage, Damian became a respected member of the League. Eventually, when Damian finally met his father, Batman, Damian defected and joined his father's cause. Batman granted Damian the mantle of Robin,and Damian became his father's latest crime-fighting partner.

After Bruce's death in the Final Crisis, his first protégé Dick Grayson took over the mantle of Batman and Damian became his Robin. Alongside Grayson, Damian faced new threats such as Doctor Hurt, Professor Pyg and Flamingo.

Born to Kill

After his father's resurrection, Bruce and Damian began patrolling together as Batman and Robin. Bruce tried teaching Damian, still a cold-hearted assassin, about the sanctity of life, but had trouble relating with his son. Damian began showing restraint, which Bruce commended, although Alfred still criticized him for not being supportive enough. Bruce bought Damian a dog named Titus. They were both targeted by a super-villain named Nobody. They were kidnapped by Nobody, who tried to show Batman that his no-kill methods were ineffective. He encouraged Robin's darker side and tried to take him as an apprentice. Robin angrily left the Batcave to work with Nobody, who asked him to execute a criminal. Robin revealed that he was lying, and refused to betray his father. Nobody decided to torture Robin, continuing his personal vendetta against Batman. When Batman discovered their location, he beat Nobody mercilessly and came close to killing him, but stopped when he realized Damian was watching the fight. Nobody swore that he would return and kill their friends, so Damian killed him with a move Nobody had taught him. Though deeply shaken by the killing, Bruce reacted with compassion rather than anger. When Damian regained consciousness, they talked about how difficult it is for Damian to adjust from the life of an assassin. Despite their differences, they played ball with Titus and began to enjoy spending more time together as father and son.

Batman Incorporated

Batman and Robin began working together against Damian's mother Talia al Ghul, revealed as the head of Leviathan. During a fight in a meat factory, Damian converted to vegetarianism and adopted a pet cow who he named Bat-Cow. He was believed dead when he was shot in the head by an assassin named Goatboy. It was revealed that Talia had created another clone as his replacement, the obedient fully-grown Heretic. Robin was shown to have faked his death, and is confined to the Batcave at Batman's orders. To avoid the bounty Talia placed on his head, he began using the name Redbird and switched to a new costume. This allowed him to team up with Jason Todd, who was using the Wingman identity. They worked together with Batman Incorporated to take down the League of Assassins' top killers. However, Batman told Damian he had to quit crime-fighting altogether. Bruce revealed that he has seen Damian's future, as told through "Batman in Bethlehem". If Damian did not retire, his actions would lead to a plague that would force the President to nuke Gotham. Batman Incorporated fought Leviathan in the streets, while Damian was forced to stay inside. Alfred Pennyworth got him a cat to take care of, who he also named Alfred. Damian refused to stay home while his allies were dying, and Alfred allowed him to leave knowing he could not be stopped. He flew his exo-skeleton into the center of the battle, where Leviathan had taken over Wayne Tower. He neutralized the child soldiers, and teamed up with Dick Grayson to take down the remaining assassins. The Heretic flew Grayson aside, and challenged Damian to a sword-fight. Despite his bravery and refusal to give up, Damian was impaled through the chest and killed.

Resurrection

After various trials and tribulations involving his corpse, mainly revolving around Ra's al Ghul and Apokolips, Batman managed to rescue his son's body and, through using the Omega Sanction infused within a Chaos Crystal shard, brought Damian back to life within the Batcave.

Teen Titans

On his 13th birthday Damian was sent a package by his grandfather Ra's al Ghul, which contained a dead robin. After meeting with his mother Talia, he discovered that it was a warning from his cousin Mara al Ghul, who had chosen him as her prey as part of an initiation ritual she must undertake in order to properly join the League of Assassins. Mara had been made leader of a group known as the Demon's Fist, which was originally supposed to be led by Damian but became hers when he chose to leave the League. They too had chosen targets that they must hunt down in order to ascend to the League. Damian decided to collect the other Demon's Fist members' targets in order to form the new Teen Titans; comprised of Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven and Kid Flash.

In the Name of the Father

While searching for a tree for Christmas, Jonathan Samuel Kent accidentally torched some woodlands near a swamp in Hamilton. He was subsequently rescued by Maya Ducard, the daughter of the villain Nobody, and Damian's pet dragon-bat Goliath. Jon later awakened in the Batcave and found out that Robin had been keeping him under surveillance for a long time. The two initially did not get along, and the situation was further complicated when Batman and Superman arrived, blaming each other for the conflict.

The ensuing melee was abruptly averted when Jon used his Freeze Breath to separate the two sides and allow him to explain the situation to his father. While their fathers were discussing the lab tests that Damian had performed on Jon, the two boys went off to look at Damian's pets. However, due to Damian's snide remarks and goading, Jon lost his temper and another brawl broke out between them. This was also put down quickly as Batman and Superman looked down on them in furious silence.

In order to properly discipline their sons and teach them the value of working together, Superman and Batman had them undergo a series of challenges. However their lack of teamwork and animosity toward each other caused them to fail every challenge. The boys finally managed to put aside their differences and worked together in order to save their fathers from an apparent threat in the Batcave, but this later turns out to be a ruse. At this point, Alfred declared them to be the Super Sons.

Super Sons Vs. Kid Amazo

Jonathan was paid a visit by Robin, posing as both his school's bus driver and his substitute teacher. He was later unwillingly recruited by Damian to help him investigate a series of break-ins at LexCorp. This misadventure was further complicated with the appearance of Lex Luthor, who tried to capture them both. The two boys managed to escape Luthor and followed a lead to a home in Providence, Rhode Island, where they encountered a family who still retained their powers from the Amazo Virus. However, one member by the name of Reggie Meyer was driven insane by the excessive use of his powers and took the alias of Kid Amazo. He had also stolen the Amazo Armor from LexCorp and had planned to use it and the abilities of the Super Sons to lure the Justice League into a trap. Thanks to the arrival of Lex Luthor and aid from Reggie's super-powered sister Sara, Kid Amazo was taken down. Not wanting to explain themselves, Robin and Superboy quickly left the area and headed back to Hamilton. However, their absences from their respective homes did not go unnoticed as they encountered both Lois Lane and Alfred Pennyworth while trying to sneak into Jon's home.

The boys were subsequently punished by their respective parents. Batman forbade Robin to go crime-fighting for a week while Superboy was forced to do his chores without using his superpowers. With the prospect of moving to Metropolis on his mind, Jon eventually ran off and headed to Gotham to speak with Damian in the Batcave. This resulted in another argument and a short fight, before Alfred arrived. They were later joined by Batman and Superman, and worked out their differences. With Superman's and Batman's permission, the two boys would be allowed to go on their own, provided that they would do so together.

Dark Knights: Metal

Damian aided in fighting the Dark Knights upon their invasion, forming the Gotham Resistance with Green Arrow, Killer Croc, Nightwing and Harley Quinn. They lost Croc, the Teen Titans and the Suicide Squad, but they defeated Mister Freeze, Riddler and Damian's evil Earth -22 self and made the discovery that beings from the Dark Multiverse can be killed by Nth Metal.

Fun Facts

Damian has declared himself a vegetarian.

Damian has a strong love for animals. Pets he has owned include Goliath, Bat-Cow, Titus, and Alfred.

#robin #damian wayne #batman family #Teen Titans #super sons #Batman Inc #League of Assassins #Wayne Enterprises #court of owls #batman incorporated #Batman Inc. #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce #batman #damian al ghul #demon's son #demons son #garth #gray son of gotham #hafid al ghul #ibn al xu'ffasch #ibn al xuffasch #knute broody junior #redbird

[ruffiorocks]

Supergirl Rant on double standards (because I'm bored and went down a YouTube rabbit hole!)

I've been watching some Supergirl season one reviews on YouTube and one guy has made some valid points in season 1 I've never considered before.

1. In the Episode 'Human for a day' Jonn actually killed Gem (the alien) at the end of the Episode. So Supergirl has had it's characters Killing their enemies pretty much since the beginning, regardless of the whole non killing thing they like to portray.

2. In the (next episode?) Where the White Martian appeared Jonn is about to kill it when Kara gives him a hope speech about not betraying who he is/not going down that road etc. So..... That was a bit odd considering Jonn did kill someone just one episode ago. Did the writers forget that?

In later seasons we have Jonn going down his path of peace etc. But then he completely rejects all of that and out right kills Manchester Black after disarming him. Manchester couldn't do anything once he was disarmed. The writers had Kara ask where Manchester was and look horrified for all of 5 seconds before going to the next scene in the hospital and Kara telling Jonn it's all good and he can still be a man of peace 🤔.

When Jonn kills people it seems to be glossed over.

Jonn intends to kill the White Martian as revenge and no one cares, Lena goes to kill Edge who poisened children as framed her for it and it's like 'Holy sh*t! She's bad!!'

Now also in season one, we had some pretty laxed use of Kryptonite on Kara. The first ever episode she is shot out of the sky using Kryptonite darts. She even wakes up to Kryptonite cuffs on. Alex doesn't remove them until she wakes up. Later she discovers the DEO have a room with built in Kryptonite, which she's happy about? Why did the exist? Jonn even owns a Kryptonite knife he (and I quote) say's "I really liked that knife!" When he asks Kara, THE KRYPTONIAN if she managed to get it back??? Yes I'm sure when she was fighting her aunt and her troops she was thinking about finding that knife, carrying it back to the DEO with her? I mean come on Jonn!

I mean I understood the DEO having Kryptonite, that made sense, because you know you might have rogue Kryptonians. Oh right that happened! But in season one's use of it was pretty standard.

Come season 2 and we have Superman getting his spandex in a twist because the DEO owns Kryptonite. I mean it's not like rogue Kryptonians ever sho.....oh wait hang on THAT HAPPENED! It's also not like Kara has ever gone of the rails.... Oh no wait THAT HAPPENED! So to make the DEO and Hank look good the writers have Jonn give the stash to Superman. I mean it's not like that decision is ever going to come back and bite them in the ass. It's not like there are going to be Kryptonian world killers arriving. Oh no wait, that happened!

So Lena (who appears to be the only non dumb ass during the Reign situation) makes manufactured Kryptonite to hold the World Killing Alien who enjoys killing people and has done so and just happens to be basically holding Sam hostage. What do you know? Supergirl finds out that Lena used Kryptonite and she blows a gasket! She also blows a gasket when Lena gives her a stash to defeat the WORLD KILLER when she has no other way to defeat her! Kara who apparently had no issue whatsoever previously with the DEO she barely knew having Kryptonite. Kara who was OK with getting rid of the DEO stash even though the last big bad was a bunch of rogue Kryptonians. I mean it's not like that's going to happen again right? Right?! But her best friend who has never shown any intention of wanting to hurt Kryptonians has some manufactured Kryptonite to help keep Sam at bay WITH Sam's permission and all hell breaks loose? Kara suddenly says she has to be in control of all the Kryptonite on Earth, a notion she has never been arsed with before. This is just the same stance Superman took when be turned up, but Kara never seemed bothered. Never agreed with that part, Kara who has gone of the rails wants to be in control of ALL Kryptonite? What happens if she went all Red K Kara again or simply got bored of being be hero ? The DEO doesn't have Kryptonite to keep her at bay anymore. They didn't have any to deal with Red Daughter, Red Daughter is the one had it. Led could hurt Mon El but no one said anything about him being in control of all the Led in the world. Jonn is deadly afraid of fire, but he isn't in control of all the fire in the world. Also Lena made a good point when she told Kara that lots of things could her, but she isn't demanded control of all the guns in the world. It's only ever an issue if it concerns Kara. Don't even get me started in the stupidly of Jonn declaring the DEO would no longer use lethal weapons! That was one of the most ridiculous actions on the show.

It just seems like Kryptonite was only a problem when it was Lena who had it, Kara even went off on one because Lena had the audacity to make a forcefield Kara didn't have all access to. Yet the irony is that Lena was actually the ONLY one who never intended for it to hurt Supergirl in any way, not like the DEO did. The DEO got a free pass, but Lena? Nope! The double standard is truly annoying.

We're all probably supposed to forget the fact that Jonn just happened to have Kryptonite cuffs on him when Kara came to stop him killing the white Martian. Something Kara never questions, like why did he have them at all? Just so Kara couldn't stop him from murdering the white Martian? He leaves her in those cuffs the whole time she's giving him her hope speech and he KNOWS how much that's got to be hurting Kara. Kara never seemed to take issue with the fact the DEO used Kryptonite like a leash whenever they wanted to.

Now let's circle back to Jonn again, when he kills people it's glossed over and not made a big deal about, probably because he's one of the designated heroes and lots of bigger things are happening so people don't focus on it. But Lena? People have preconceived notions about her because her last name is Luthor, so people are looking for her to mess up, every move is scrutinized not only by the audience but also the characters. Lena shot Corbin to save Alex's life and not only did Lena haters condemn her for this but later James would bring it up as a reason Lena is bad when trying to convince Kara to give up on her. So the Lena haters were totally cool with Jonn and his killing of Gem to save Alex and the DEO, (probably still unnecessary though) but Lena shoots Corbin who was about to kill Alex (while Kara wasn't there) and that's apparently the worst thing ever and I'm still seeing it as a reason Lena is bad.

Lena in the last episode shot Lex and she is being condemned for it. Lex the guy who has already murdered lots of people, constantly tried to kill Superman, was responsible for deaths of many Innocent people, oh and constantly tries to have Lena assassinated, killed his guards, oh and was about to kill all the people in Argo City and it's 'Holy sh*t! Lena is evil!!!' BUT Jonn kills Manchester Black who although bad wasn't half as bad as Lex and could have simply been taken alive and this is acceptable?? Actually no, scratch that! It's not acceptable or unacceptable it's just IGNORED!

How about the time Alex beat the living crap out of Maxwell? Never commented on.

How about the time Kara killed Reign? (Pre time travel) The world killer that had actually killed lots of people? No one cared because Kara went back in time and reversed it. But that led to the creation of Red Daughter who would later kill lots of people. No one cares though because it's Kara the designated hero. Lena though? She does the same thing, but can't go back in time to fix it (I mean yes Lex is alive again but Lena and the other don't know that) and she's just bad??

Basically the designated heroes can do ANYTHING they like, even kill and use Kryptonite but Lena? Who has probably saved the world as much as the 'heroes' have does the same thing and she's judged bad not only by the viewers but also the other characters. It's makes no sense other than the fact her last name is Luthor and she simply tends to work alone.

I'm not saying everything Lena does is good, she makes mistakes, she's not perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect character, no matter how much they want to portray Kara as one. The whole Adam situation was a bad move for Lena, but it was consenual. It's forgotten though that Col Haley wanted her to do the exact same thing at the DEO and Lena refused.

Lena was pro gun, something that was not at all out of character. Lena is constantly a target and the fact is Supergirl can't ways be there. James was anti gun, but he wasn't ever a target, the only time he was wasn't even about him, it was about Lena being forced to speed up the Harun El. Lena is condemned for being pro gun though, yet Alex basically has a love affair with her alien gun and this is OK?

Lena is bad because she had a bad family, but Winn has a murderous crazy dad and he's OK? Kara had murderous family members and she's OK? Alex's father is the reason the alien registery got out and Alex is still OK? Brainy has a bad family and has even said he was on a dark path buts he's OK? Mon Els mother tried to conquer Earth but Mon El is OK? General Lane had it out for Supergirl but Lucy is OK? Jonn's bad brother has turned up but i bet Jonn will still be OK?

I wonder what people would think or Lena if her last name was wasn't Luthor? She's saved the alien population more than most of the Super friends have, she's saved Supergirls ass more than once, she saved James from dying, she helped to save Sam, she saved Argo City from extinction TWICE, she even rid the world of Lex Luthor. (She thinks).

The sad thing is that they will probably make Lena bad now, it'll be so cliche and it will portrayed as though this was always the inevitable and everything she did led up to it. Making her Lex 2.0 is just boring.

Anyway that's this week's rant 😅.

#supergirl #lena luthor #kara danvers #alex danvers #lex luthor #anti jonn jonzz #winn schott #sam arias #reign #manchester black #martian manhunter

[douxreviews]

Shazam! (2019) Review

"You more of a Supes guy? Yeah, me too."

By nature I love brevity: Easily the best film I've seen so far this year, and far better than the vast majority of the DCEU. A very funny film that surprises at many turns, entertains the whole time, and has something meaningful to say.

SPOILER WARNING: I'll keep it spoiler-free for the first part, then I'll get down to the details for the rest.

The part every Shazam! review is apparently required to have: Yes, this is a DC movie. No, your friend who keeps calling it Captain Marvel by mistake is not just out-of-touch with the culture; this character used to be called Captain Marvel back before Marvel played some dirty tricks and stole the name, and it makes no sense for him to be called Shazam. Yes, there also used to be another Marvel character other than the one from the movie who was called Captain Marvel. Yes, it's confusing as heck to the average moviegoer. Google is your friend.

Apparently IMDB isn't, though, so don't look up the movie before you see it. Way too much spoilery information on that page. You were warned.

Spoiler-Free:

This movie is a refreshing approach to the superhero film. Its comedic roots give it the distance and the self-awareness to mock the genre's most tired and useless trappings, but its definitive place within the genre itself also allows it to take what works and then use that for its own purposes. The film leans heavily on its humor, which is great and works, but it simultaneously works just as well as a superhero movie and an action movie.

The cast is wonderful. Zachary Levi carries the film as Captain Marvel Shazam himself, and you can see so clearly the fun he's having at the same time as he delivers a good performance. The emotional parts of Billy Batson's story, though, are given to Asher Angel. Angel is quite strong, and definitely pulled it off, though in a few places he struggled slightly. Still, for such a young actor, he has talent. Mark Strong's villainous performance is good, too, providing what I would venture to say is the best villain of the DCEU so far. But the true stealers of the movie are Billy's foster family, particularly Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, and Faithe Herman. Their characters ground the movie emotionally and thematically, and the reliance on them is deserved. They are also a large part of what kept the third act from slipping into the traditional superhero movie pitfalls.

One last thing I will say about Shazam! is the strength of its story and construction. Everywhere I expected it to zig, it zagged. Everywhere it could have given way to cliche and mindless slugfests, it didn't. The third act is one of the strongest I've seen from a superhero film in a long while, and I sat in the theater overjoyed at many of the fascinating and fun creative choices the film made. There were few places where they could have done something interesting and didn't, but without seeing what it would have become had they capitalized on that, I can't tell if it was a missed opportunity or a good avoidance of narrative clutter.

Final spoiler-free word on Shazam! is that you should absolutely go and see it. It is wildly entertaining and amusing, meaningful in a deep way, and a great time from beginning to end. Go enjoy the heck out of this one. Now, since in-depth analysis is the way I review things, I'll move on to discuss spoilers.

It's not an 'S.' It means 'Spoilers ahead.'

Many will call this film a sign of DC's return to the brighter side of things. But, though it is a less gloomy film than a Man of Steel or a Batman v. Superman, I would argue that Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Joss Whedon's parts of Justice League were the benchmarks of DC's return from the shadow of death. What this marks, more than anything else, is the best look at the joy and wonder of being a superhero since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Shazam! also provides us with the best example of a focused standalone superhero movie since that movie. So many films nowadays put their connections to other planned, produced, or released projects first, and their stories and characters second. Shazam! does not do this, just as Spider-Verse did not do it. This is not to say that either film leaves no potential for sequels and spinoffs. This film is full of easter eggs and references that could very easily play into any related projects, and indeed they probably will in the announced Shazam 2 and Black Adam. But the goal of the filmmakers in this movie was clearly to tell a good story, and to let the connections and references come later. This is why they pulled out all the stops in this one rather than save things for the sequel unnecessarily.

This, of course, resulted in the ENTIRE MARVEL FAMILY! I cannot tell you how excited I was in the theater to see that. As they led up to it, I said to myself, 'There's no way. They wouldn't.' And then they did. A film that was focused on keeping the audience excited for the sequels would have teased Freddie Marvel and Mary Marvel and never given it to us, but it was necessary for the story this film wanted to tell, and so they did it.

See, that's the thing that I find most interesting about the character of Captain Marvel Shazam. The fact that he's a kid is an intriguing idea, and it's enough to carry the first half to two thirds of the movie. But once you get past that, Captain Marvel Shazam is just a Superman rehash... that is, until you bring in the Marvel Family. As soon as he's a superhero who's part of a family of superheroes, suddenly everything becomes interesting again. That's something we don't often see, and that's what makes Captain Marvel Shazam interesting to watch.

The casting of the Marvel Family is spot on, especially given the kids they started with. All of them seem to share completely in Zachary Levi's joy, and for the most part they are able to maintain the characters of the children in their performances. Especial props to Adam Brody and Meagan Good.

There were, however, several parts of the film that I felt were not used to their full potential. The first of these was the portrayal of the Seven Deadly Sins. Granted, Greed was put to good use in the boardroom, and Envy in the final battle, but it's telling that a film featuring the embodiments of the Sins that also has several scenes set outside a strip club cannot find the time to say anything about Lust. The other thing is that, while I'm certain I could figure out which Sin was which if shown clear, still photographs of them, I had a very difficult time telling most of them apart for the majority of the movie.

The second thing that Shazam! failed to deliver on was the resolution of Mary's character arc. The relatively few scenes we got in which she pondered her future and the possibility of leaving her family in order to secure it made me extremely sympathetic to her and her situation, but the movie never returned to her story to give us a decision or a conclusion. I didn't notice until I was reflecting on it later, but I found myself wondering what happened to her and whether or not she decided to go to CalTech.

One last thing I want to say is that I have a hard time imagining a sequel that is successfully able to balance all of its inherited elements, introduce and develop its new ones effectively, and still be a good story. The thing about having all of those kids be a part of the Marvel family is that having that many superheroes with that much power, and the same powers, for that matter, would be difficult to juggle. Not to mention that the villain couldn't just be one guy, like Black Adam, without the cliched army of faceless soldiers. That's why I'm glad they're keeping Black Adam separate in his own film. Go ahead and let that be terrible on its own. Perhaps they will surprise me, and turn out something that is fun and meaningful in its own right. It is the same creative team, after all.

Pensees:

-The phrase 'Holy moly' is a classic line that Captain Marvel Shazam loves to use.

-Little Billy wanted the tiger from the balloon pop game, and in the end, he gave it to a kid to calm her down. In the comics, Billy has a friend that is a sentient tiger animated from a stuffed toy.

-The talking caterpillar that shows up at the beginning and at the end is called Mr. Mind, and he's a classic Captain Marvel Shazam villain. So are the Crocodile-Men seen playing cards through the door in the Rock of Eternity. Why yes, those comics do seem to feature a lot of talking animals. It's a thing. Both the Crocs and Mr. Mind were voiced by director David Sandberg.

-Djimon Hounsou has had a busy time lately with comic book movies. He was in Aquaman last December, then Captain Marvel in March, and now Shazam!

-John Glover has now played the dads of two bald DC villains. First it was Lex Luthor in Smallville, and now it's Sivana here.

-Effective use of the magic 8-ball. I'm impressed.

-The scene with Superman is probably funnier because Henry Cavill wasn't available to film it.

-Loved the gag where Sivana yelled villain dialogue from way too far away and was completely inaudible.

-I enjoyed all of Freddie's t-shirts, and the dig at Aquaman in the end was glorious.

5 out of 6 pleasant surprises.

CoramDeo is more of a Supes guy.

#Shazam #Captain Marvel #Billy Batson #Zachary Levi #DCEU #DC Comics #Doux Reviews #Movie Reviews

[pippytmi]

Lena/Veronica + Alice Cooper's Poison 👀 👀

i’ve never written for these two before but i’m down with this?? thank you for the prompt!!

Lena has tried, time and time again, to forget about Veronica Sinclair.

Life has a funny way of rewarding her for it. Lena has done her nights full of ice cream and terrible rom-coms, but all for naught, apparently; all it takes is a cold gun being pressed to her temple and all she can think is, fucking Veronica.

“Look,” Lena says, raising her hands to prove she’s not about to fight back, “I don’t know where you’re getting your information from nowadays, and I hate to break your bubble like this, but whoever you think I am? It’s not me.”

The masked gunman isn’t so easily convinced. “You’re coming with me,” he says, and his voice brokers no disagreement. He probably doesn’t even know who she is, really. Maybe he’s just hired muscle.

And Lena sighs, shoulders sagging in exhaustion because she’s ready to give up. She’s so tired of this game, of this back-and-forth between Veronica and everyone she’s managed to piss off this time. It always ends with Lena in the cross hairs, especially whenever Veronica comes back to town.

“Fine,” she says.  "If we have to do this the hard way, then why not.“

She steps away from the gate of the apartment complex and lets herself be led down the alleyway a few streets over, the grimy one that the streetlights never quite reach. The gun pokes at the back of her neck with every step, metal chilled from the cool night air; this gunman has likely been waiting outside for a while.

They get as far as halfway down before Lena finally jerks sideways, startling the gunman so much he nearly stumbles forward. Before he can even turn and point the gun at her again, she swiftly disarms him and levels his own weapon at him.

They stand in the darkness, the gunman’s ski mask only half-illuminated by the silver moonlight, and have a quiet stare-off. It’s hard to read someone by eyes alone, but Lena doesn’t have time to wonder if he’s afraid or not.

"For the record,” Lena tells him, “I’m not with Veronica anymore.” She puts the gun back on safety, not once lowering it, but he doesn’t even flinch. “So if you want to pass along the word to whoever she’s pissed off this time, that would be great.”

Still nothing. Lena takes a step backward, and even lowers the gun, but he doesn’t move after her. She takes another step.

“You’re Lena Luthor, aren’t you?” he suddenly says. His voice is low, deep, but young enough that she knows he can’t be much older than she is.

(Lena doesn’t get a chance to answer before he suddenly crumples.)

“Veronica,” she swears under her breath, dropping to her knees and rolling over the gunman’s body before he suffocates in the mud. She finds Veronica’s trademark, a poisoned dart, lodged right by his jaw; she yanks it out before it can make its way deeper.

It doesn’t take too long before she hears the tell-tale click of heels on slick pavement, each step slow and unhurried. She doesn’t turn until she absolutely has to, pressing her fingertips to the gunman’s neck and hoping this poison isn’t a lethal one.

But Veronica has always had a presence that has demanded to be known. “Miss me?” she says, voice as silky smooth as Lena’s always remembered it to be.

Lena looks at her and thinks that, for three months, Veronica sure has changed a lot. Her hair is shorter, choppy and just reaching her chin. Her tattoos are hidden under a sweatshirt and jeans, and she looks so ordinary, save for one thing: her lipstick, as dark red as the heels she wears, practically shines in the moonlight.

“You’re supposed to be in Greece,” Lena says, and she stands, fingers curling into a muddy fist.

“Can’t a girl come home every now and then?” Veronica says. Her eyes flicker to the man on the ground, and she tsks, shaking her head. “This reeks of Lord’s people. I’ll have to thank him personally for it.”

“Last I heard, Lord was going underground,” Lena says, and Veronica’s eyes snap back to Lena.

A slow, amused smile dawns on Veronica’s face. “Are you keeping tabs on me?”

“Not on you,” Lena corrects. “Just everyone trying to get to me. You know, since you ever-so-nicely left a trail that leads to me.”

Veronica’s smile dims. Just a bit. “I don’t regret it, Lena,” she says.

“Well, I do,” Lena says. “And if you’ll excuse me, Roulette, I have to get to work at eight tomorrow.” She drops the gun in the dirt and starts to walk away, burying her muddy hands into her pockets and furiously trying not to look back.

The click of Veronica’s heels follow. “You’ve never called me that,” she says, and her voice is soft, hurt, and Lena stops.

“That’s what everyone else calls you,” Lena says, harsher than intended. “I’ve heard the stories.”

“I’ve heard all about you, too,” Veronica says, and she steps close, so close that Lena’s head reels. “You’re taking over Lex’s company.”

“It’s not like he’s around to do it,” Lena says. The thanks to you is left unsaid, and Veronica scoffs.

“He was trying to recruit you into his world,” she says. Then, quieter: “My world. I did what I had to do to keep you safe.”

“Except move on,” Lena says, and she turns around and keeps walking. She stands under the streetlight and shuts her eyes, briefly, to collect her thoughts. She tries not to over think the fact that Veronica is still following her.

“Have you seen him yet?” comes Veronica’s question, hesitant in a way Veronica usually never is.

“No,” Lena says, dully. “Don’t worry. Your secret mafia life is safe with me.”

Veronica shifts close enough that her arm brushes Lena’s, though she makes no real effort to touch her. Like this, with light, Lena can fully see Veronica and she realizes she isn’t as different after all; she still has that haughty rise of her chin, still has a smile that isn’t really as kind as it is cunning.

But she’s also softened around the edges, and she keeps darting her eyes searchingly over Lena’s face, as if looking for something she’ll never find.

“I’m thinking of coming back for good, if it means anything,” Veronica says, finally. When Lena doesn’t reply—because she’s strong, dammit—Veronica hedges, “Any chance I can crash on your couch?”

Lena hates to admit it, but that way Veronica’s looking at her—as cocky as she is, as insufferable as her forming smirk is—it’s enough to make her resolve weaken.

Still, “I think we both know how badly that turns out,” Lena says, because though she’s struggling, she’s got a good head on her shoulders; she really shouldn’t get involved with her criminal ex-girlfriend again, not when she’s trying so hard to get out of the shadow of her criminal brother’s name.

“You’d really leave me outside? At this time of night? It could be very dangerous,” Veronica says.

Lena rolls her eyes. “You’ll manage,” she says, and she starts her walk towards her apartment again. This time, Veronica doesn’t follow, and though every reasonable part of Lena is screaming to keep going, the stupider part of her stops her feet from going forward. And, “One night. That’s it.”

Veronica’s smirk comes out full-force. “One night,” she echoes. “You got it.”

(So much for forgetting.)

#and this song really fits wow its not my type of music but i love it!! angsty & fun sorta #thank you again!!! so much!!! @ other 2 anons: i got your prompts too so i'll hopefully post them tomorrow #lena x veronica #supergirl #do they have a ship name?? #i need a fic tag #anonymous

[avidreaderffn]

Unspoken rule

A little late to the party but here I am!

A million thanks to @bathtimefunduck for beta reading this.

You don’t mess with Lex Luthor’s group. That’s the rule. Everyone at Hogwarts knows that.

Everyone knows that they rule the school. They are powerful, smart, and liked by the teachers. Since most of them were in seventh year and had to study for their NEWTs, that meant a lot of students kept away from the library in fear of getting on their bad side. But that fear of Lex’s reputation didn’t seem to extend to his own family.

“Hey Lex, isn’t that your little sister?” Max asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey yeah, what is she doing with those freaks?” frowned Rick

Lex turned to look at the table they were pointing at and saw Lena sitting with five other kids of all houses.

That in itself wasn’t so unusual. The Luthor family believed in extending their reach as far as they could, and that was reflected in Lex’s own group of followers. After all, Max was in Ravenclaw, Rick in Hufflepuff, Leslie Willis and Siobhan Smythe were both on Gryffindor, and finally, Lex himself was in Slytherin, just like every Luthor had ever been, Lena included.

What was weird about Lena’s apparent group was that the kids seemed to be from different years, not just different houses, and the range seemed wide. Lex’s only follower who wasn’t in seventh year was Rick, who was in sixth, so Lena’s companions tickled his curiosity.

“Any idea who they are ladies?” he asked.

He knew that Gryffindor’s top bitches, and more importantly, ruthless gossips, Leslie and Siobhan would probably be able to tell him something about them. He wasn’t wrong; the two girls quickly started trying to one-up each other to see who could give him more information.

“That Ravenclaw boy is Winn Schott, he’s a pureblood but his father is in Azkaban for being a blood purist and attacking mudbloods. He’s also the only other second year there other than Lena,” Leslie said.

“The two older girls are in fourth year. The Hufflepuff is Maggie Sawyer, she’s a mudblood, and she’s dating the other Slytherin girl. Alex Danvers is a pureblood, her father was an Unspeakable for the Ministry, and her mother is a famous Potions Master. Alex herself is the most promising Slytherin since you, and she has the best marks in her year, although she’s closely followed by Sawyer,” added Siobhan.

“The two Gryffindors are firsties. Kara Danvers is a mudblood that was adopted by the Danvers recently. No one knows where she came from. I don’t know who the other kid is.”

“That kid is Adrian Rodriguez, mudblood too, and he knew Sawyer before Hogwarts. Something happened at the beginning of the year when he tried to follow Danvers Jr. up to the girls’ dorm rooms and the tower wouldn’t let him up, but I don’t really know the details. I do know he looks up to Sawyer and she considers him sort of a brother,” finished Leslie.

“Okay, anything else ladies? No? …what is it Rick?”

Rick suddenly looked excited, and he gave the two Gryffindors a smug look. “I know something you don’t!”

The girls glared at him, but Lex urged him to continue.

“Okay so, I used to live in the same town as the Danvers, and I was there when the little one showed up. And rumor has it, she’s related to Clark! You remember him right Lex? That older Gryffindor who was always getting in your way for everything till he graduated two years ago?”

“Yes, I remember him,” Lex said angrily, thinking back to his old rival. He turned back to his sister’s table and saw that the two fourth year girls seemed to be leaving in a rush. He turned his attention back to the little blonde girl. “So you’re saying she’s related to Kent? How so?”

“She’s his cousin, apparently.”

“Really now? How do you guys feel about going over there and introducing ourselves to my sister’s friends huh?”

They shared knowing looks and headed for the table with the four remaining kids.

Alex and Maggie hadn’t meant to be gone for long. In fact, they hadn’t even been gone for more than 20 minutes. They had seen Professor J’onzz leave the library and ran out to ask him to let them pair up for next week’s DADA teamwork exercise (“we don’t do well with partners, but I think we make a pretty good team”). On their way back to the library they had gotten a little sidetracked staring at each other, and that had led to some making out in an empty classroom. Eventually though, they started heading back to help their little siblings and their new friends with a transfiguration exercise that Kara and Adrian were having trouble with, and a charms essay that was baffling the second years.

Maggie opened the door to the library and nearly ran into Rick Malvern.

He shoved her aside and laughed “watch where you’re going mudblood! Hey there, Alex, if you’re ever in the mood for some better company than these freaks, you know where to find me.”

“Move Rick,” said Leslie.

Alex and Maggie shuffled to the side and watched Lex’s whole group leave the library.

“Bye ladies,” Max said, giving them a wink as he left.

Lex and the girls did not bother to look at them.

Once they were gone, Alex and Maggie let out the breaths they had been holding and were turning back towards the library when Maggie suddenly stopped short.

“Wait. Why did Rick say ‘freaks’ as in plural?”

The girls exchanged wide-eyed glances and turned as one to run inside. They went straight for their siblings’ table, but they stopped in their tracks when they saw that every single one of the kids was crying. Even Lena, who was trying to hide her tears to comfort Kara while Winn and Adrian hugged each other next to them. Maggie and Alex both started talking at the same time.

“Are you guys okay?”

“What happened?!”

“Was it Lex?”

“Are you hurt?”

“Why…”

A loud sniff cut them off, and they noticed that Winn was shrinking away from their loud voices. They exchanged another look and sat down.

Maggie hugged both Adrian and Winn and asked softly, “Are any of you hurt?”

They waited until all four of them shook their heads before Alex spoke from where she was wrapped around Kara and Lena. “Can you tell us what happened?”

The younger kids exchanged nervous looks, before Lena took a shaky breath and started explaining. “Lex and his friends, they, they came over and started asking questions. They said they just wanted to get to know my friends better but then they got really rude. They made fun of Winn, and they called Adrian names, and then Lex, he… he…”

“He what?” asked Maggie, trying to hold back her fury and indignation.

This time it was Kara’s small voice that answered, “He told me that I better stay out of his way if I know what’s good for me. And then he started insulting Clark, and then…”

“Kara, Kara calm down,” Alex said, stopping her sister before she could work herself and the others into even more of a panic.

Maggie nodded and said, “We get the picture. Come on, get up. We’re all going to the kitchens for a snack and then you can rest in my common room. You’ll be safe there, the rest of the ‘Puffs won’t let Rick near you, and none of the others ever goes there anyways. That all right with you?”

She received nods from Kara, Adrian and Winn, but Lena looked hesitant.

Alex, sitting right next to her, noticed and asked, “what is it Lena?”

Lena looked up at her with wide, scared eyes and whispered, “But it was my fault…”

Kara practically jumped up at that and said, “No it wasn’t! Lex came for me! If anything it’s my fault for bringing attention to the rest of you guys!”

“This was no one’s fault but Lex’s,” Alex interrupted firmly. “It was Lex and Max and Leslie and all of them, they are the problem.”

Maggie quickly nodded her agreement, but instead of commenting further, she got up and helped the boys stand.

“Come on, you’ll feel better after some hot chocolate. All of you will,” she said, looking warmly at Lena.

The group went to the kitchens, where the house elves loaded them with a mountain of snacks and a silver tray with never ending cups and hot chocolate. After that they headed for the Hufflepuff common room, where they went straight for the warmest, coziest corner, and settled on the couches. A few other ‘Puffs gave them curious looks, but a firm glare from Alex kept them away.

All of them except for James Olsen, a fifth year who was good friends with Maggie, and who approached the fourth years looking concerned. “What happened?”

“Lex and his gang happened,” answered Maggie.

“What did those idiots do this time?” asked a new voice behind James.

The three of them turned around and saw Lucy Lane, James’ sixth year Gryffindor girlfriend.

“Are they seriously picking on first and second years now? How low can they get?”

“Way too low apparently” Alex said darkly. She looked up and locked eyes with Maggie. She subtly pointed at James and Lucy with her head, and Maggie nodded slightly. Then she turned towards the older couple and asked “Hey guys, do you mind staying with the kids for a bit? We need to go back to the library for a minute. With everything that happened, Maggie and I didn’t have time to check out a book we need for our potions essay and we don’t want to leave them alone.”

“A book? Really?” asked James with an arched brow.

“Yup, a book. We really need it or Slughorn is gonna fail us,” Maggie jumped in to say.

“Seriously Sawyer? Danvers here is the kid of a potions master,” said Lucy, unconvinced.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. That only means that the teachers have higher expectations of me than they have of the rest of the class. If we do anything other than perfect he’s gonna fail us, or worse, my mom will find out!”

“You need to sort out your priorities.”

“You clearly don’t know my mom.”

“OKAY, let’s get back on track. Guys, we’re really just getting a book. Can you watch the kids or not?”

“Yeah, sure. Go. We won’t let anything else happen to them. You are really just getting a book right?” asked James, still unconvinced.

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“Fine. Don’t take too long!”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Thanks guys.”

Alex and Maggie left. Upon exiting the room, they turned to share a look.

“We are not going to get a book are we?”

“Of course not.”

“I just want to point out that they’re five seventh years and we’re just two fourth years.”

“Technically, Rick is a sixth year”

“You know what I mean”

“You don’t have to come with me you know?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re ride or die, Danvers.”

Finding Lex’s gang hadn’t been hard. Back when she was a first year, muggleborn Maggie had been captivated by everything at Hogwarts. She had always been polite and nice to the portraits, the ghosts, the suits of armor, the owls, and anything else that seemed even remotely sentient. (“They may seem different from us, but who am I to say that they’re too different? Is there even such a thing as too different?”) Because of that, she had a lot of unusual friends in the castle. Alex privately thought that the castle itself liked her (and how could it not? She was smart, tough, and so, so beautiful). It only took a few minutes of asking around to find out that Lex and his friends were in an empty classroom in the third floor. Luckily there was a portrait in the room that agreed to tell the girls where every older student was, and what they were doing. With that, the two girls made a plan and got ready to bust in and take as many of them out as they could.

“Last chance to back down Danvers. Are you sure?”

“Let’s do this. I’m okay if you are”

“Nobody touches my family”

“My thoughts exactly”

“On three?”

“One, two…”

At that exact moment, Mr. Filch was walking down another corridor in the same floor. When he heard a loud explosion, he brandished his broom like a weapon and ran towards the noise that was steadily growing louder. He saw smoke coming from a door at the end of the corridor, and in anticipation to catch a few students red-handed, he charged right in. what he saw in there was pure chaos. Spells and debris were flying everywhere, two girls were crouched down behind an upturned desk, shooting spells and hexes at two older boys and a girl that had taken cover on the other side of the room. Two more older students were sprawled on the floor not moving. As he watched, one of the young girls, a Hufflepuff based on her tie, started trading spells with the two other boys and turned her back on the older girl. The Gryffindor immediately sent a spell at her back.

However, just as Filch was starting to shake his broom and yell for them to “STOP THIS NONSENSE IMMEDIATELY…” the other young girl deflected the spell coming at her friend’s back and unintentionally redirected it at Filch.

The last thing he saw was a flash of red light before everything went black.

It didn’t take long for the story to make its way around Hogwarts rumor mill. By the next day, poor Kara was absolutely frantic, and she ran to find James hoping to get some answers.

“Madam Pomfrey won’t let me see Alex!”

“Kara, what are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you heard? Two fourth years attacked four seventh years and a sixth year, and all seven students plus Mr. Filch ended up on the hospital wing. Nearly-headless Nick says a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin were the most injured, and they’re still in the hospital!”

“Okay Kara, calm down…”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down! I need to see my sister!”

“Kara…”

“She was such a dummy! Why would she do something like that!”

“Kara…”

“And Maggie too, they could have gotten seriously hurt! They probably did get seriously hurt! and…”

“Geez little Danvers, nice to know you have such faith in our abilities”

“Not now Maggie. What if they had to be sent to St. Mungo’s and… hold on, MAGGIE?!”

Kara turned around to see both Alex and Maggie walk up to her. Covered in bandages and limping a little, but with huge smiles in their faces.

“What… how… but Nick said…”

“That a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin were still in the hospital wing? Yeah, we may or may not have gone a little hard on Rick and Lex.”

“But… they’re seventh years…”

“Yeah kid, but they messed with our family,” Maggie said.

The story spread like a fire. The fight was something everyone was talking about for days. The rumors kept getting crazier and crazier with every retelling. But one thing was clear:

You don’t mess with Alex and Maggie’s family. That’s the rule. Everyone at Hogwarts knows it.

#sanversweek #day 4 #hogwarts au #this got a bit longer than i expected #@queercapwriting #i borrowed adrian for a little bit #sorry he didn't have a great time #but at least he got some hot chocolate and a family that loves him #give adrian his own show #english is not my first language #so please ignore any mistakes #bm #my fics #sanvers #family

[jedifighterpilot2727]

Hey! I love your writing! So, I've never done this before, but I keep seen in my mind a supercorp scene. They fight for some stupid reason and Lena has all her complexes and thinks Kara wont come back, then she suffer an attack, but Kara get there almost too late, and when Lena wakes up, the water works are in full and she confesses she thought Kara wouldn't come back to save her. I know is angst af, but I can't get it out of my mind...

i stared at this all day so if it sucks im sorry

      She doesn’t even remember how it started.

It was something stupid to be sure.

She had been snappy from hardly getting any sleep and Kara had been frustrated because of Snapper’s harsh critique on her latest article.

“Maybe you should just leave.”

She hadn’t meant to say it.

Well she had, but she had meant that maybe they just needed some space.

Time to cool down and avoid saying something that neither of them meant because they were grumpy and overworked and underfed.

But apparently Kara had taken her words in a different tone, because she had said them two days ago and she hadn’t heard from Kara since. Not a visit, not a call, not so much as a text.

She had had every intention of going to see Kara for lunch yesterday, but one thing had led to another and she hadn’t had the chance.

Now, as time marched on; she felt herself getting upset all over again, because it wasn’t like Kara didn’t know how to get in touch with her. She was just as much at fault for their separation as Lena.

 Maybe she doesn’t care as much as you thought she did.

 Maybe she realized that a Luthor isn’t worth the trouble.

The thought settles  low in her gut like lead, weighing her down, until she feels like she’s drowning, suffocating in the thoughts that swirl in her over active brain.

A part of her argues that it’s their first real fight, that Kara will be back, that this is how things work with real people and real relationships. But that part of her is easily outnumbered by her insecurities and abandonment issues, and so she sits in her office, nausea threatening to overcome her.

She fiddles with her phone, tempted to text Kara.

They should talk, right?

That’s what people in loving, committed relationships do, they talk through their issues.  

Right?

She freezes.

Loving.

That was another thing, she’d never even gotten a chance to tell Kara she loved her.

It’s probably for the best, she doubts if Kara had ever felt the same. And if she had then Lena doubts she does any longer. A part of her brain screams at her, begs at her to listen to reason, to remember all the times Kara had looked at her with obvious love written in those blue eyes.

She shakes her head. She needs sleep, and a solid dinner. Then she’ll feel better in the morning and she’ll go to Kara and they’ll talk about this rationally like adults. And if Kara wants to break up with her then so be it, but she isn’t going to spend the evening worrying about it.

She tosses her phone in her purse and closes down her laptop. National City is dark outside her window - it’s well past midnight. She sighs, it was ridiculous to think that this would work -  she’s too busy trying to reclaim her family’s name and Kara is too busy saving the world.

It was nice, while it lasted.

She shakes her head again.

They make it work. Lunch dates, late night dinner dates, early morning rushed breakfast before they each head off to work dates.  They make it work.

Don’t they?

She doesn’t have time to answer her own question, because the sound of a gun cocking distracts her.

Her instincts scream at her to move but the cool metal of the gun pressed against her forehead stops her cold.

As discreetly as possible, she reaches for the green bracelet on her wrist, pressing in the hidden button on the side - the one designed to summon Supergirl at a moment’s notice. They may be fighting, but surely Kara will still come to her rescue.

“Now, now Ms. Luthor, don’t make this difficult. Lex didn’t tell me to kill you … this time. Not that I won’t if you cause me too much trouble. Between you and me, I don’t think he would mind too much if something happened to his little sister, might even promote me.” A male voice laughs harshly behind her and she forces her body to relax from where she had been poised to run.

“Very good, now put your hands on the table where I can see them.”

She does as he asks, eyes darting to the taser in her purse.

“Don’t get any funny ideas.” the voice warns and she looks up to see her own reflection shining at her in the window, a masked figure standing over her right shoulder.

“What do you want?” She demands, her voice surprisingly steady for how fast her heart is beating.

“What do I want?” He chuckles, “Well, it isn’t about what I want, it’s about what Lex wants isn’t it?”

“I’ll give you more money. Whatever he’s offering you I’ll pay you double.”

The man laughs again.

“Well, that’s a generous offer, considering you don’t even know what he wants.”

“Tell me then.”

“He want the plans for the new super suit you worked on.”

Lena feels the saliva stick to the back of her throat.

“What does he want those for?” she stalls, waiting for Kara to come bursting through her door and save the day.

“I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius? He wants the plans so he can find a weakness.”

“Surely he must know that I don’t have the plans on me.”

“It isn’t for me to say what Lex does or doesn’t know, I just need those plans; or you-“ He digs the barrel of his gun into her forehead. “Will be making a final stop at the morgue tonight.”

She laughs with more bravado than she feels.

“I can’t get them for you tonight, that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. Really, I thought my brother would have stopped hiring dumbasses by now.”

“Looks like the tabloids were right, you really are a bitch.”

The gun scrapes against her temple and the sinking feeling from earlier returns.

Kara isn’t coming.

Whatever they had between them … she had ruined it to the point where the hero no longer thought her worthy of saving.

She must truly be horrible then.

If Kara no longer believes in her.    

There’s no way out that she can see, no magical cure for the dire situation she’s found herself in. She’s already been through every option in front of her and none of them end without either her death or her betrayal of Supergirl - neither are excellent options, but the latter must never happen.

Ever.

Even if it means her own death.

She still loves Kara, even to the end.

She wishes she had told her.

Maybe then she would find some comfort in what she’s about to do.

Time seems to slow in the seconds between stillness and action. It’s the adrenaline, she knows, coursing through her veins- dilating her pupils, raising her blood pressure, increasing her heart rate until it’s pounding in her ears.

She turns, her forearm sweeping up to try and knock the gun a way, but a shot rings out and her world goes dark.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first thing she notices is the incessant beeping.

The second is that the incessant beeping signifies her heart rate.

The third is that she’s alive.

Which should be impossible.

Because she’s dead.

She opens her eyes to see Kara pacing at the end of her bed.

“Kara?”

The superhero turns, her cape swirling around her.

“Oh thank, Rao!” Kara practically dives into the chair beside her bed and clutches her hand. “Alex said you were going to be fine, but you just passed out! With no warning! And I’ve never seen that happen before and I was so worried-“

“I passed out?”

Kara’s brow crinkles in confusion.

“Yeah, you turned on the guy - which was stupid, because I was on my way - if you would have waited ten seconds-“

“Wait.” She holds up her hand to stop the rush of words. “You came?”

“Of course I came! You pushed the distress signal!”

“But- we fought.” It sounds ridiculous when she says it out loud and the look on Kara’s face agrees.

“Yeah, we fought, about some stupid- I don’t even remember what started it - but it was a stupid fight. Did you really think I wouldn’t come?”

She feels the tears well in her eyes, threatening to spill over.

“You didn’t call me yesterday, or even text.”

Kara’s cheeks redden and she gives Lena a sheepish grin.

“I was over the ocean and the sun was rising and I tried to take a picture and my hand slipped and well, iPhones aren’t water proof. I got a new one, but I didn’t have your number so I was going to come see you but Jess said you had taken me off the list and I thought you still might need space. Then tonight I was in Ireland - “

“Ireland?”

“I know how much you love Irish breakfast so I was picking up some takeout for breakfast for dinner because Jess can’t stop me from seeing you if she isn’t there. And when I was on my way back I got your signal. So I rushed back to find you fighting the assassin - which was stupid by the way, did I say that? And then you just passed out, so I knocked the guy out and flew you here.”

“He wasn’t an assassin.” She whispers quietly, wiping at the tears running down her cheeks.

“What?”

"He wanted the plans for your new suit.”

“Lee.” Kara’s voice cracks.

“I wasn’t going to give them to him.”

Kara sighs and climbs onto the bed next to her, pulling her close. She lets herself relax into strong arms as she sobs into Kara’s chest.

“Have you eaten today?” Kara asks when the tears finally subside.

She thinks back.

“Not since yesterday.”

“I’m going to get Alex to bring you a Snickers bar.”

“A Snickers bar?”

“You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

Once the laugh starts, she cant stop it, and it bubbles up until it overtakes her, shaking her shoulders and taking her breath.

“I’m sorry.” She finally apologizes, nuzzling into Kara’s shoulder.

“For almost getting yourself killed or for not thinking I would come for you?”

“Both?” She sighs. “This was our first fight.”

“Yeah.” She feels Kara’s fingers in her hair. “It’s not going to be our last either. But you can’t think that just because we have a stupid fight that it’s over. You have to believe in us more than that.”

“I know. I do. I just got scared.”

They sit like that for a long moment before she speaks again.  

“We’re probably overdue for a long talk.”

“We could talk over dinner? It’s probably still hot.”

“You carried it all the way here?”

“Well, it’s at L-Corp. And it’s more like I forgot to drop it? When I heard your signal I kind of freaked out.”

Lena traces her fingers over the crest on Kara’s chest.

“We could go eat on the balcony? It’s supposed to be a nice night.”

“I think that’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

- - - - - - - -

Later, when the food is all gone and the the two of them are curled naked on Lena’ couch -Kara’s cape wrapped around them like a blanket as they watch the sun ascend over National City; three words itch at the back of her throat.

The perfectionist part of her brain begs her to wait, because they’ve just made up and surely this isn’t the time.

But the rest of her remembers what it felt like to know that she was about to take her last breath without Kara knowing how she feels.

So she counts the beats of Kara’s heart under her ear for a full minute before she speaks - voice soft and steady in the coolness of the morning air.

“I love you.”

Kara’s hand in her hair stills for a moment but she can hear the smile in the other woman’s voice when she finally speaks.

“I love you too.”

#supercorp #supergirl #lena luthor #kara danvers #eyes like kryptonite

[avengersassemble-fics]

You Again (Bruce Wayne x Reader)

Previous Chapter

Word Count (3,812)

AN: I can’t deal with them why am I so full of drama and WOW I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO END FICS WTFFFF

You had lost count of how many days you had been stuck in this little warehouse base. You were going stir crazy and everyone, and by everyone you mean Bruce (mostly) and Clark (partially), denying you the right to leave. It caused arguments and you gave up before it became a screaming match. You were told “it’s for your own protection”, and “we don’t know the threat level yet” and you felt as if you were dying.

You could not take another day like this.

The hushed conversations started one Tuesday evening when you entered the room, and Bruce made Diana stop in her tracks. You didn’t acknowledge them and instead grabbed a bottle of water and headed back to your room. As soon as you rounded the corner they began talking again and you grumbled to yourself, passing Clark in silence as he headed for the main room.

That night, you snuck out as quiet as possible to the main room, which is hard to do with Clark and his super hearing, but if you remembered right - he could be a heavy sleeper. You prayed tonight was one of those nights. You tip toed to the main computer and settled into the chair, the light flickering on and you cracked your fingers.

Hacking this sophisticated computer took a few minutes, but when it came to Bruce’s password, it was an easy guess. You wanted, and deserved, to know what was going on - and from what you could tell - there was a whole lot of shit going on.

Apparently, Lex Luthor escaped Arkham just two days ago - and there have been no leads and no trace of his whereabouts. You leaned back against the chair, clicking through more articles. The Joker had just recently broken Harley Quinn out of jail, and then the last tidbit you saw - Bruce and Diana were going to be attending an even tomorrow night. And it was hosted by the famous, newly elected Mayor Dent. In celebration of reduced crime in Gotham.

You weren’t dumb. You had overheard how Bruce and Diana were talking about how if anything were to go down, tomorrow would be the night. Now you understood why - Harvey Dent has a target on his back. A pretty large one as well. You exited out everything and stood, your mind running with ideas.

One: How to get out of here without Clark noticing

Two: How to get there

Three: How would you get in

All the way back to your room and until you shut your door did it finally dawn on you what you haven’t thought about: your job. You had to shut your phone off when you came here, and haven’t used it since. You pulled your bedside table drawer open and pushed the power button until the phone powered on. You grinned, waiting for it to load up and quickly got into your messages.

Bruce nor Diana came the next day, but it didn’t bother you. You lounged around and kept checking the clock. What you weren’t expecting was to see Clark walk past you on the couch, full on in a suit. You caught a glimpse of him, before doing a double take. He was leaving, and the suit hugged his muscles in all the right places. You gaped a bit as he straightened his collar, “Where are you going?”

“Something for work,” he answered before glancing back at you. You turned from gaping at him to frowning, and he suddenly felt a bit bad. You turned back to your book on your lap.

“Have fun.”

You were a bit cold to him, and he opened his mouth to speak but chose it was best to not. He pulled open the door and hesitated for a moment, glancing back at you, and then shut the door. You waited a few seconds before tossing the book onto the table and throwing the blanket off your body, revealing a tight black corset and matching lace garter. You checked the pocket you had sewn in and the USB was in there like you had wanted.

They may have their own agendas tonight, but so did you.

You walked to your room and pulled out a long red dress that had a slit on the right side that ran up the length of your leg, and as soon as the fabric gripped you in all the right places, your demeanor changed. For once, you were wearing something other then jeans, or sweats, and a t-shirt. You whipped your hair up into a intricate bun and took a few minutes to do your makeup. You felt sexy for once.

In all honesty, you couldn’t wait to see the look on everyone’s face.

You walked back towards the door and hesitated when you reached for the handle. Maybe this wasn’t the smartest idea. Maybe you should listen to them, and just stay here. If anything, everyone would be pissed with you. Was this the smartest decision? You pulled open the door and ascended the stairs, leaving all those thoughts behind you.

Clark stood beside another journalist and a photographer, glancing up as Bruce Wayne’s name was called. He had a woman on his arm that Clark himself didn’t recognize, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. Bruce and Clark’s eyes met for a second and an understanding passed between them. Bruce passed with the woman on his arm and into the building, and the next wave of people came and went. It was almost about time for everyone to head in when another car pulled up, and the door was pushed open. A long leg extended out of the car and their bare skin gleamed under the lights. No one was eager to capture a picture, but out of the corner of Clark’s eyes he recognized the face as it came into focus.

You walked in alone, and when your eyes met they had a look in them that threw Clark for a loop. He was taking everything in, your long sultry legs, how your dress hugged your body, and when he opened his mouth to speak, you were gone. Whatever you were up to, he had to warn Bruce. He snuck inside and a few minutes later he was in the main room. His eyes scanned the crowd before landing on Bruce and he walked over, clearing his throat, “Mr. Wayne,” he asked, gaining Bruce’s attention from the conversation he was having.

“Excuse me, one moment,” he told his friends, and Clark led him away, “what’s going on?”

“It’s (Y/N)-”

“Holy shit,” Bruce mumbled, his eyes staring wide past Clark, and Clark looked over his shoulder.

Bruce recognized your eyes from across the room, and he recognized your dress as well. He remembered you coming home, excited, and making him wait for you to try it on and get his opinion on it. As soon as you had emerged, the dress was off in a matter of minutes. He was surprised you kept it.

You looked fucking good.

As soon as the desire left his mind, Bruce got a bit angry - what the fuck were you even doing here? What were you up to?

You almost glided across the floor, a smile spreading over your lips as a woman greeted you and pulled you in for a quick hug. Bruce straightened his jacket and looked at Clark, “I’ll talk to her,” he said in an almost raspy voice, and pushed his way through the crowd towards you.

Your friend, Lauren, released you, “Mayor Dent, this is a friend of mine from Panther Buyers, (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

Harvey’s attention turned to you, smiling down at you and you offered a warm one back, and offered your hand, “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Dent,” you greeted and he took your hand in his and lifted it to his lips.

“The pleasure is all mine, Ms. (Y/L/N).” he said in a low voice. His eyes looked past you and he grinned, “Ah, Bruce! I’m glad you actually showed!”

You controlled your urge to roll your eyes as Bruce appeared by your side, and firmly shaking Harvey’s hand, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Harv.”

Bruce gave you a side eye, and you smiled, “Well, Mr. Dent, thank you for inviting me, but I should go find my boss.”

“Of course,” he replied and you turned to walk away. Harvey’s eyes watched you for a moment before turning back to Bruce, “so Bruce-”

“Excuse me, Harv.”

You lifted your dress partially to ascend the stairs in the far corner, trying to quickly slither around the corner. You knew one of them was following after you, but you ignored the feeling and continued onto the next flight of stairs, avoiding caterers in the process. Halfway up, some grabbed your arm and pinned you to the wall. In front of you stood Bruce.

“Fancy meeting you here,” you joked, earning a stern look from him.

“What are you doing here, (Y/N)?”

“Since everyone is leaving me out of the loop, I’m here on my own business,” you answered, glancing down at the hand he held on your arm.

“Don’t be vague,” he replied firmly, and you couldn’t help but smile wickedly. You pushed yourself against the wall, and Bruce’s eyes flickered to your lips and back to your eyes, “answer me.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me about Luthor? Or the Joker?”

Bruce released your arm, a look of surprise appearing on his face, “How did you-”

“Bruce I’m not just some dumb bimbo you fucked. We taught each other things when we were together,” you started to back him up, Bruce taking small steps until he was now pressed against the wall, “I remember a lot of things you taught me.”

The last part turned into a whisper, your body just inches from his and you could see how tight is jaw was locked. You reached up to his face, brushing your fingers against the bit of hair that flopped down, and Bruce’s eyes never left yours. He struggled to speak, “I know,” he replied.

His hand reached for your hip, and you let him drag his fingers across the fabric, pulling you to his body and closing the space. His breath mixed with yours and his lips neared you. So many thoughts ran through Bruce’s mind, and his grip on your waist tightened in anticipation. He had dreamed of feeling your lips against his for awhile now, and the thought of tasting you again was making him go crazy. Just as your lips were close to meeting, you stopped, “Remember when you taught me about deception?”

Your lips graced his as you spoke, and in a sudden realization he looked down at the hand that wasn’t gripping your waist, and the click of a cuff echoed in the stairwell, “Now it’s your turn to be tied up.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed as you removed yourself from his hold, “I’m going to get you for this,” he called and you climbed the rest of the stairs.

“Look forward to it, babe,” you replied and disappeared from his view.

Bruce sighed, pulling on the chain, when footsteps came up the stairs. Embarrassed, he tried to hide his wrist, but he sighed in relief when Clark came into view.

“What happened here?”

Clark had an almost smug look on his face, trying to suppress a laugh. He covered his mouth, and Bruce sighed, “She, uh.. Distracted me. Now can you get me out of here.”

Clark finally chuckled, patting Bruce on the shoulder and walking past him and up the stairs, “Kent I swear-”

“I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder and disappeared around the corner you had just a few minutes ago.

Your fingers typed furiously against the keys, a straw of hair falling into your face as you searched among Mayor Dent’s files for what you were here for. With Bruce out of the way, the only person you had to worry about now was Clark. You clicked through multiple folders before one needed a password, which made you hesitate for just a moment, “Bingo,” you mumbled. You pulled your dress up, removing the USB and plugging it into Dent’s tower. The Batcomputer began to decrypt all the security, and you were almost in the clear.

“I never knew you could be so manipulative.”

You glanced over your shoulder, Clark leaning against the door frame - watching you. You cleared your throat and spun the chair around, crossing one leg over the other, the slit spreading to show your skin.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clark shook his head, and moved forward, staring you down, “You know exactly what I’m talking about, (Y/N). I’m-”

“Disappointed?” You laughed, shaking your head before standing.

“You don’t get to have an opinion on my actions, Clark. Not after the shit you put me through.”

Your arms crossed in front of your chest and Clark sighed deeply, “I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am-”

“You’re right. You can’t,” you shook your head, your eyes finally going to the floor, “I loved you with every fiber in my being for years. Years, Clark. And you,” you looked back up at him, your breath catching, “you broke my heart. You destroyed me.”

Clark was silent, and you both just silently stared at each other. The computer binged, regaining your attention and your turned back to it - pulling the USB out and looking back at Clark. He watched you, and shook his head. You pulled your dress up near your hip, and slid the USB into a secret pocket you had sewn in. The mood was awkward, and when you walked past Clark, he suddenly grabbed your arm.

“I thought about you. Everyday. I just wanted to.. I wanted to find you and tell you. But I knew I burned our bridge.. I’m really, truly sorry. I won’t be able to make that up to you, but I mean it. I regretted it every single day.”

You pulled your arm from his grip softly, and shook your head, “So did I,” you whispered and walked out the room, leaving him alone. You made your way back to the stairs, slowly descending before Bruce popped up in your vision. You didn’t exchange any words with him as you placed the key into his restraints and released him. Your eyes were screaming ‘I’m sorry’ but you didn’t say a single word.

Just as Clark neared them, there was a sudden scream, followed by what sounded like a gunshot, and broken glass. Glances were shared, and quickly everyone descended the stairs, almost crashing into your friend Lauren and Harvey Dent, “Bruce! It’s-”

Another round of shots were fired down below, and you looked between everyone, “Bruce, get them out of here,” you told him and you walked down a couple more steps.

“Where-”

“Just listen to me for once,” you begged, and Clark nodded his approval.

“Don’t worry,” he told his friend who looked torn between helping his friend, Harvey, and following you. He watched Clark follow you down into the gun fire and glanced back at his friend and nodded up the stairs, “There’s a panic room, come on.”

Just as you and Clark re-entered the main room the party was being held in, there was a gun pointed in your direction, “Get in here, now!” the masked man shouted. Clark and you obliged, slowly walking deeper into the crowd, and suddenly you were very nervous. You glanced over at Clark when the door was forcefully pushed open - heavy footsteps entering as the room was deadly silent.

Clark and you both looked in the direction the sounds were coming from, and the footsteps treaded through the crowd, people moving out of the way. You couldn’t see what exactly what was happening, but Clark could. The infamous Joker had a devious smile on his face, and everyone had looks of disgust on theirs.

“Well.. Well.. Well.”

You recognized the voice almost immediately and clutched your fist into a ball. The Joker made your skin crawl, in ways that you couldn’t even describe. But as more of the party backed up out of his way, you tried to get a look at the grungy criminal.

“I heard I could find my friend here,” he said, pulling a drink out of a woman’s hand and downing it, almost like it didn’t bother him at all. When he was finished, he slammed the glass on the ground, pieces shattering in every direction. Clark, being an impulsive man, put a hand on your lower back and made you take a step back. Realizing his action, he removed his hand quickly, earning a raised brow from you.

“So,” The Joker continued, spinning around to get a glance at everybody’s face, “maybe all you lovely people could point me in the right direction. Where’s Harvey Dent?”

No body made a sound, because at this point people seemed to figure out that he was gone - he had escaped while they were all here probably going to suffer. The Joker’s smile somewhat faltered, when absolutely no one spoke.

“Nobody?” he questioned, and still, there was no movement, so he nodded, and waved a hang in the air.

Several of The Jokers men moved forward, grabbing several of the party guests and screams erupted. Clark nearly charged forward, and you grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks, “You know you can’t,” you mumbled - just low enough for him to hear. His eyes darted back at you, knowing that you were right.

The Joker walked around the now kneeling hostages, grabbing a small hand gun from an outstretched arm, and cocked the ammo. You pulled Clark back next to you and watched sadly at the scene in front of you.

“Now, is anyone going to give me answers? Or does this have to get nasty..”

Tears fell down people cheeks, and numerous heads were shaking. He made numerous tisk tisk tisk sounds, before aiming his gun at ones head and you could no longer hold it in.

“Are you too fucking dense to realize we have no clue where he is?”

The Joker stopped his movements, pulling his aimed handgun away from someone’s head and looking in the direction you were in. Clark looked at you in shock, as did everyone else around you - making it clear to The Joker who spoke. He waltzed over, and looked you up and down.

“What did you say?” he asked you, and you didn’t falter one bit.

“You heard me,” you replied, and all of a sudden, The Joker burst out laughing. Nervously, everyone exchanged glances, but your eyes never left The Joker, who was hunched over in laughter. He continued on like this for a few more moments, before suddenly laughing for you, one of his hands gripping your face.

This move made Clark try to jolt forward, but stopped in his tracks when he realized what he was about to do. You were pulled forward by the action, and The Joker looked you over, “I should’ve known.. Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend.. Who knew you had such a potty mouth?”

His fingers were squeezed into your cheek, and you grimaced when he tightened it, “Ex, actually,” you corrected him, and a smile appeared on his lips, before licking them.

“Sassy... I like it.”

Suddenly, a figure dropped down from above, taking out multiple men with guns, not without a couple shots to be fired. The Joker didn’t even hesitate, even when the sound of bodies hit the floor, his hand still was on your face. Your eyes glanced past him at Batman, and among the commotion, no one had realized the muscular journalist had slipped away.

“If it isn’t my old friend!”

“Let her go,” Batman said in a low husky voice, and The Joker glanced behind him, and moved to hold your hair, using you almost like a shield. He pulled your hair back, backing up as his gun ran across your skin.

“We were just having a little chat about her potty mouth,”

Batman also walked forward slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. The Joker didn’t notice, but he was pulling you farther and farther away. You wanted to cry out, but didn’t have the chance too - you were too petrified to even blink or lose Bruce’s gaze.

“I said, let. Her. Go.”

The Joker chuckled, the sound of crushed glass crunching under your feet. Sudden realization filled you, you hadn’t even noticed the broken window that some of the goons had come in through, but The Joker only smiled, “Poor choice of words, Bats.”

With a sudden shove, The Joker extended you over the edge, and pushed you out the window. In the heat of the moment, you weren’t even sure if a scream escaped your lungs, but in a split second everything disappeared, and only the sight of rushing windows flew past you. Wind blew past you, the icy cold feeling making it seem like almost torture, but you knew you were falling. Maybe even dying.

You could tell the end was near, or in this case the ground, and you started to feel as if your vision began to go out. You were losing consciousness, and suddenly the wind was no longer sending your hair flying up, but instead it felt as if you were flying. You forced your eyes open, feeling yourself pressed against a strong body and their arms wrapped around you. Your eyes met Clark’s, and for once, you were happy to see him.

Bruce had lunged forward, grabbing The Joker by the collar, who burst out laughing, “Oh Bats, you know you won’t hurt me.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes, and said in a dark tone, “Are you sure about that?”

The Jokers smile faltered for just a moment, before a cheer sounded from down below. Both of them glanced down, to see Superman safely placing you down on the ground, “Well look at that,” The Joker teased, before shoving Bruce off of him and spreading his arms out and falling out the window. Bruce looked over the edge, when the loud sound of propellors roared in front of him, causing a surge of wind to enter the room, and The Joker saluted him, and the helicopter edged away from the scene.

Bruce, glanced back down to the street, seeing you safely down on the ground, and turned his attention back to the remaining goons, who stood around unsure of what to do.

“I don’t even like this job,” one man mumbled, raising his arms in a surrender.

Bruce couldn’t wait to get back to you, and express how pissed he was about all this.

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5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/