Super Luthor
Screeching tires.
Metal scraping and screeching against metal.
Yelling.
Blood.
SO much blood.
Then, a smattering of blue and red, pretty emerald eyes staring out from behind a curtain of jet black hair that tickles her cheek as she is gently lifted into strong arms.
She is lifted from the burning wreck with an ease that feels inhuman, the crumpled car left behind on the ground and drifting further and further away. Her gaze is blurry, but she catches a glimpse of fluffy looking clouds against a backdrop of light blue, the buildings she’d been driving between suddenly miles beneath her and no more than gray-ish ants that litter the sidewalks.
That’s all Kara sees before the whole world seems to waver and she blacks out.
She’s lying on her back, her head throbbing and her mouth dryer than the Sahara. There’s a warm hand holding onto hers and Kara gives it a little squeeze, startling whoever it is. Kara can hear them talking to her, but she can’t quite make out who the voice belongs to.
It feels like she’s stuck in a deep fog, her senses struggling to break through.
“Kara!” Lena’s voice cuts through and Kara groggily forces her eyes open. Lena is staring down at her, her brows furrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line. “Oh thank Rao you’re awake, we were so worried,” Lena states, sighing with relief.
Kara frowns, looking around at the room.
Kelly’s on the bed next to hers and attempting to get out of it, but being firmly warned by Alex to stay exactly where she is. Kara’s relieved to see that Kelly doesn’t seem too badly injured, just a few minor scrapes and bruises. It doesn’t stop guilt from gnawing deep into her gut, though, Kara’s heart painfully pinching as she catches sight of a fleeting grimace on her sister-in-law’s features.
“We crashed?” Kara asks.
“Some maniac cut you guys off at an intersection, he was too busy texting to notice you guys,” Lena replies before Kelly can even speak. She shoots Kara a stern look, “you need to rest. “You’ve got a pretty bad concussion, but you’re gonna be fine. Kelly is fine, too. Just a few bumps and scrapes.”
Kara blows out a sigh of relief and leans further back into bed, but she frowns.
There’s still a few things that don’t make sense.
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I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one
I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.
So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!
I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.
When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.
The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!
And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.
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Something, some instinct, told Lena that she wasn’t alone. She wanted to blame it on the whisky, but it was better to check. She grabbed the gun from its hiding place beneath a pillow, where she kept it in case of an intruder.
She wasn’t sure why she did that now; she was, in theory, safe from her greatest enemy. After all, Lena had murdered him in cold blood. She’d killed her own brother for a monstrous lie, and while there was little to mourn -the man he was died years ago by his own hand- it hurt. It hurt so much that the pain squeezed out of every pore, until she awoke in the depths of the night thinking the hot stains on her cheeks might have been from crying blood.
The one person she had truly trusted, respected, revered-
(desired)
-was a lie, an illusion. At least Lex had, at one point, been real.
Lena scouted her apartment. It didn’t occur her to check the balcony until she was about to go to bed. She was on the thirty-sixth floor. No one could get up here.
Kara was outside.
She hasn’t landed; she was hanging in the air with her cape lazily swirling against her legs as she hung in the nighttime breeze. She was far enough away that Lena couldn’t get a read on her.
“What do you want?”
She drifted closer, in that unnerving way she had.
“Hi.”
Lena sighed, and waved a dismissive hand.
“Go away, Supergirl. I’m not in the mood for another speech.”
Lena turned back inside, but stopped when she felt the soft gust of wind. Kara was a few feet away from the balcony now, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
She hated how things had changed when Kara told her. She no longer saw Supergirl, just Kara in a costume. It was impossible not to see her, and yet for three long years she’d done just that. Blinded herself. Refused to see the bitter truth. All she’d ever wanted was a real friend
(lover)
who respected and admired
(and loved and cherished)
her and with whom she could share those feelings, and she’d really thought Kara was it. She was the best friend
(the one)
that Andrea and Jack could never have been. She believed that so deeply.
(she doesn’t want me the way I want her)
“I’m not here to give you a speech.”
Lena looked up sharply.
“Then what? Here to stop me? Foil my evil plans? I’m a villain now, remember.”
Kara’s face turned hard. “Don’t lie to me.”
Lena barked out a bitter laugh, feeling that need rise inside her, that anger. She had lost everything. The love of her mother, the protection of her brother. No matter how wealthy she was, she could never have those back. There was no price for what Lena wanted.
“How dare you say those words to me,” Lena hissed. “You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met. Everything you’ve ever said to me is a lie.’
“That’s not true.”
“You told me you’d always protect me. Who’ll protect me from you?”
Kara looked away, shuddering as she breathed, or silently sobbing. Lena smiled a thin smile, glad to twist the knife.
(stop it stop it stop it stop hurting her)
“Something happened to me tonight.”
“I don’t care.”
“A fifth-dimensional being came to me and offered to let me change the past. I could change whatever I wanted.”
“I don’t see any changes,” said Lena.
Kara shook her head. “His gifts were all poison. Every time I tried to fix what happened, it turned out wrong. I tried and tried and tried until I realized what was happening.”
“Which is?”
“I was supposed to learn that I can’t just push past my mistakes. I have to own them and accept the consequences. There’s no magic wand that can fix us.”
“There is no us, Kara. We weren’t meant to be.”
“How can you say that?”
Kara drifted closer, sank down so they were face to face with the balcony railing between them.
“How can you say that?”
“It’s obvious. Whatever this was, it wasn’t meant to be. We’re just too different.”
Kara shook her head.
“When I think of all the things that had to happen in order for me to be here right now, it boggles my mind,” said Kara. “Two species from two different galaxies evolved so close together. Just the chances of that happening are incredibly small, and…
“And then my people had to find this world, and Kal-El’s parents had to choose it for their son. This world, this world specifically, and then I had to get stuck in the phantom zone on my way here. All of those things and a billion others all had to happen in perfect, crystalline order just for me to walk into that office and see you.”
Lena has gone still, listening. Kara looked at her so intently, so reverently, that Lena felt something strain inside her, stretch against itself to the point of breaking. It took all her many years of carefully honed composure to keep herself still.
“Every moment I had with you was a gift. Every single one. There are times when… there are times when I think that if I could somehow have saved Krypton, I don’t know if I could, because it would mean losing you. I don’t know if that’s a choice I could make and I don’t know what that means.”
“That’s lovely,” Lena said, trying and brutally failing to keep her voice from cracking, “but it doesn’t change anything.”
Kara let out a soft, choked sound.
“I know that. I know I ruined everything and I can’t fix it. I just needed to say this because it needed to be said. I’m not here to ask you to forgive me. I’m here to ask you to forgive yourself.”
“Oh, please.”
“I can’t stop you.”
Lena blinked. “What?”
“I can’t stop you. I can’t fight you. I know that now. It doesn’t matter what you do, I won’t ever hurt you again. I don’t want to confront what that means.”
“That’s rich, considering that the last time we had one of these chats, your sister pointed an orbital fusion canon at my head.”
“If she’d fired that thing,” said Kara, “there would be no more satellite, and no more DEO. I would shatter the foundations and pull down the walls. I would rain destruction on whoever hurt you. I’ve seen what happens to me when something happens to you. I never want to see it again.”
Lena leaned on the railing. “Go away.”
“What you have planned, you need to stop. I can’t stop you, and if I can’t, no one can. Please, Lena. I’m begging you, don’t do this. Don’t become someone you’ll hate just to hurt me. I’m not worth it.”
“Not everything is about you, Supergirl.”
“Please. Don’t take away everyone’s choice. I know what that’s like.”
“Oh?”
Kara nodded, and in the moonlight, her tears sparkled on her skin. “On Krypton, we were assigned to guilds as children. We had arranged marriages. Everything about our lives was planned from birth. Here, people have so much choice. Yes, they make mistakes, but people choose life and art and love. You can’t take that away over me.”
“It’s too late,” Lena said, her voice cracking, finally. “I’m doing it and if you won’t stand in my way, it’ll be done.”
Kara took a deep breath.
“Okay. I guess I should go.”
Lena rocked back.
“What? No. I’m going through with the plan.”
“I know. I won’t fight you.”
Kara turned, about to rocket off into the sky.
“You can’t just leave!” Lena screamed, her voice ragged from liquor and tears.
Kara stopped.
“You’re supposed to fight me. You’re supposed to yell at me and tell me the truth, that you knew I was a monster all along, that you were just staying close to me to watch me, to get to Lex. You’re supposed to fight me! You’re supposed to fight me!”
“No.”
Lena let out an incoherent scream and balled her hands into fists, meaning to slam them on the balcony, but they struck the implacable flesh of Kara’s chest. Powerful arms gathered around Lena, sheltering her from the nighttime chill and the voiceless judgment of distant stars.
“I won’t ever hurt you again,” Kara murmured. “I promise. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you for what I’ve done.”
“Why?” Lena whimpered. “Why won’t you just fight back?”
“Because you’re just like me. We’ve both lost so much. We both don’t want to see anyone else die.”
Lena should have shoved her away, demanded to be set free, screamed, protested, shoved. Instead her arms wound around Kara, drawn as if by gravity, and Kara’s gentle fingers began to stroke through her hair, her warm breath on the crown of Lena’s head.
“Come back to our life, Lena. To our friends. Come home.”
“I killed my big brother.”
“I know. I failed you both. I’m Supergirl. I’m supposed to find another way, a perfect solution.”
“I had to. He’d never have let you live if he knew how I f…”
Lena caught herself as the last moment.
It was Kara who sobbed now, her entire body shuddering. So much power with so much tenderness, her vast crushing strength kept at bay as she held Lena like one of the most precious of treasures.
“In one of the timelines that Mxy showed me, you… you told me how you felt as you were dying. I saw you die so many times, I can’t do it again.”
Lena tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry.
“I didn’t get to tell you before you died. I was scared. I never thought you’d want me like I want you.”
Lena went stock still, feeling Kara’s shuddering breath against her as she held her own. She couldn’t look up, afraid that if she did, this would be a cruel nightmare and she’d jolt awake in an empty bed and a penthouse full of bitter memories.
“Kara,” Lena began, finally. “Kara, what are you saying? What do you mean?”
“It’s so hard to say,” Kara sighed, and then, almost to herself, “even if I don’t have much left to lose.”
“Say it.”
“I love you.”
Lena’s heart soared, and a harsh sob exploded out of her. She’d dreamed of those words, longed for them, needed to hear them. So many times, Lena had almost let herself believe it.
“I want this to be real,” said Lena. “I just don’t know if I can forgive you, Kara. It hurt so much.”
“Can we try?” said Kara. “Can we give it a chance? Can you give me a chance?”
Lena finally looked up, and when she saw those tear-stained blue eyes filled in equal measure with terror and hope, she knew.
“Yes,” she said, simply.
Lena looked behind her, and was suddenly full of revulsion and regret. She hated this place.
“Can you take me back to your loft?”
Kara lifted her easily into a bridal carry and into the sky.
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