[LN] Don't Mess With the 'S'

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon was excited. As soon as Mikey said Manny had given the word that a woman wearing an S on their chest had showed up, he'd been psyched.

"I wonder if it's Linda. I haven't seen her in ages; she retired from superheroing a while back and dropped off the radar. Or it might be my cousin Kara. There's been a couple Supergirls."

He brought the sleigh down towards the location Manny had given, Aurora, Nevada, an abandoned ghost town. The rickety buildings that were still standing looked like they were made of driftwood, dry and lifeless.

Comments

[superwoman]

"Hrrrrk!" Was the first thing that Lucy was able to say when Kon body-slammed her.

She tried to turn and twist. Errant blasts of heat vision went every which way.

"Because you were a thing! You are a thing! You and your pet turtle!" No offense to Michelangelo, but when you're going to insult someone, use everything that you possibly can, right?

"Don't worry, though. We'll fix tha-ernk!" She didn't finish her sentence, being slammed into the ground and all that.

The town was suddenly short a rickety old structure.

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon pulled her up by her uniform and and punched her through a wall.

"The only reason you're still breathing right now is this thing died saving the world!" He marched towards her. "Because they made me lie about being Match - even to you. Despite all I did for you - despite what I did for everyone - you monsters made me suffer every day! You made me kill people! You took away my freedom! You took away my dignity! You even took away my name! But you didn't break me. You weren't even the first to try."

Lex had. Granny Goodness had. Spence had, before she tried it again at Project: Gladiator. Knockout had.

He'd spent his whole life fighting, rolling with all the punches, and he'd always survived. He'd never let it change him - and he wasn't about to start. Now that he was free he was free to be who he wanted to be again:

Someone that deserved the 'S'.

He floated into the air above her, looking down at her in disgust.

"I know who I am."

He still wasn't sure he deserved the 'S' anymore. The guilt and self-hatred weighed on his shoulders like Starboy had left one of his gravimetric fields there to carry around with him. But looking down at one of his tormentors, he knew what he was, knew who he was. Maybe he'd have to work to deserve it again but the name was still his to reclaim. They'd never really taken it away, not deep down inside.

"I'm Superboy."

[superwoman]

This. This. This is part of why Lucy has always hated Kon's kind. The self-aggrandizing. The holier-than-thou. The goddamn posturing.

They weren't better than her. They weren't more superior than her. Humanity didn't need them. Humanity didn't want them. They could do all of this without them. Humans had survived for aeons before aliens had crashed from space or Amazons had left their isolated islands to lend a mystically well-manicured hand.

She pushed rock and rubble off of her and dusted herself off. She hurt, but she was still in one piece. Lucy glared up at Kon, the hatred for him all too evident in her eyes.

"Good for you," she said darkly, absolutely ignoring the fact that everything she thought she'd known about him had been wrong. Yes, she'd been lied to. No, she wasn't going to think about that right now.

"I'm Superwoman. I still outrank you, little boy, so stand the hell down."

[matchmadeinhell]

This was why he couldn't stand her type. People that thought rank meant anything. People that were consumed with so much self importance with their little "missions" that they thought that meant anything at all when what mattered was what you did.

"You didn't earn the 'S,'" he said. "You can't just slap on a costume and say you're a hero and your rank means nothing."

He wasn't wearing the symbol right now, partly because of what she had done. What she and Spence and General Lane had done, but seeing it on her chest made him realize that maybe he still deserved to have it on his own. Or at least maybe he really could earn back the right to wear it again.

"You wanna know why I'm better than you? Because that's what this is about, right? About you people thinking people like me are looording it over people like you. Because of all your insecurity and fragile little egos."

He remembered something Kal told him, when he'd asked him about his fight with Prime after his death. Kal had told him what he'd said to Prime during that fight. Prime had wanted to be wanted. Needed. For him, it hadn't been about actually doing the right thing, actually helping people.

Kal said he'd found the words partly by thinking of him, of his sacrifice, what he'd given up in saving the world, the choices he'd made.

"It's not about where or how you were born. Or what powers you have. Or what you wear on your chest. It's about what you do. It's about action." He pointed at her chest. "You can wear that symbol all you like, you can pull any rank you like, but it still doesn't change that the whole time you've worn that symbol, the actions you've taken have been doing things like torturing me and killing people or dragging innocent aliens in to get experimented on. And the whole time I wore it, I saved people. Billions. Because they deserved saving. Because it was right. Because I could."

He knew someone was under there, knew she had the tiniest bit of humanity. There were times she'd hesitated during certain things. Times she'd almost kind of been nice, like she forgot he wasn't supposed to be a person. He could've kept fighting, kept being angry, but he'd spent so much time consumed with pain and rage that he didn't want let it roil inside him forever.

He opted for being human. Or at least human in the sense of being a person rather than a symbol, rather than some idea she could fight against.

So when the tears came, this time he didn't stop them, like all the other times he'd had to. He was safe enough now that he could just hurt, just be. Nothing she could do could ever hurt him as much as he'd already been hurt. And sometimes the strongest thing you could do was just let yourself be what you were and feel what you felt.

"I just wanted to help people. That's all I've ever wanted to do," he said, voice quavering, tears pouring down his face, his voice suddenly making the short years of his life abundantly clear. He sounded almost like a child begging someone to explain why he'd been punished. "So tell me why I deserved that! Tell me, when I've been around all of about five years and I've spent all five of 'em helping people, what I did to deserve getting vivisected! What I deserved to get beaten by Spence nearly every damn day! Tell me! What was it I did wrong? Was it saving the world from Prime? All the people I saved in Hawaii? In Metropolis?"

He screamed, his voice anguished, "Because that never made me think I was better than anyone else! All it did was make me think I didn't deserve what you people did to me! All did it was make me think I deserved to be treated like a person instead of a thing!"

[superwoman]

Ugh, god. The tears were too much. Lucy shot straight up into the sky until she was level with him and gave him a savage backhand. "Shut it," she said darkly. "From Phantom Lady and Liberty Belle all the way down to that new blonde Batgirl, people have slapped on costumes and said that they're heroes. For the most part, people bought it and accepted it, even when they shouldn't have. There was a reason the original Justice Society retired, after all." To say nothing of the horrible Justice Experience experiment that should never have happened. People in masks, people with powers, ultimately, they messed things up. They always messed things up.

If it hadn't been for the Kryptonians literally pouring out of the bottled city of Kandor, Lucy herself wouldn't have turned into one of them. She'd still be human. She'd still be in the army. Sam Lane would still respect her. Still love her.

"I was a hero. I was a soldier. I fought wars and I won. I was on the ground floor, protecting my country, protecting my people, spending every minute in extreme and utter danger. What? You crawl out of test tubes or you land in rocketships or you get pulled in by Zeta beams and you think you're heroes? You're just glorified uber-celebrities. Take away those powers and what do you have? No training. No allegiance. Nothing to fight for. Me? I was trying to protect my home from invasion when I put this on. Without people like you, there would be no invasion - no red skies, no multiple earths, no hyperactive timelines. Don't you get it? You people - you creatures - you created this. This. Everything we suffered, it's because of you. Even death has stopped meaning anything since you people appeared in our skies." Because she had been dead. She'd had respite. She could have rested in peace. But these powers, the stupid containment suit - some insane convergence - had brought her back.

Brought her back and made her one of them. The thing she'd come to hate most in the world.

She reached out and grabbed Kon by his shirt and shook him, shook him violently. "You were nothing but a science experiment, and you deserved every second of what we put you through, because you should never have existed in the first place. Sure, you did what you were created for, but beyond that, you had no right to anything. For all intents and purposes, your genetic donor is an illegal alien. What the hell makes you think you have any rights?"

[matchmadeinhell]

He let himself get slapped, let her go on her tirade, glaring at her, eyes still welling with tears.

"Because even with what you put me through, even though you're a total piece of scum, I didn't regret dying. I didn't regret saving everyone even when it meant saving people like you."

He shook his head.

"Because I think even people like you deserve to live even though you hurt me, even though a part of me wants to tap dance on your spleen. Because if you really think you're that good, even though you're wrong, it means you want to be, and that means maybe someday you can be."

Because he was like Kal. He could see that now. He could see that just about anyone could have good inside them. Not everyone was like Lex Luthor and even Lex could if he wanted to. Evil was a choice.

"You could never love humanity like Superman does. Like I do. Because you can't even see someone who's done good as human because of where my DNA comes from. And I still see you as someone worth saving. And protecting. Even after you tormented me."

And to his surprise...he did. As furious as he was with her, he did. He wasn't going to leave her out here for the fearlings. He was going to take her back to the Pole anyway.

"How's it go? Turn the other cheek, right?"

He wasn't the most religious. Oh, he was religious in the sense he knew there was a heaven and a hell (he'd been to the latter and possibly the former?), and hey, the Spectre was supposed to literally be God's vengeance, right? But he wasn't religious in the sense that he enjoyed the church thing. He only really went because Ma liked the company of her family when going.

Still, he knew the basics.

He tilted his head so that the cheek she hadn't slapped was facing her, wide open, inviting her to slap him.

He added blithely, "And also technically I'm a US citizen. My other donor was human. I'm more human than you at this point."

[superwoman]

Any other arguments she could have had - any other arguments that Lucy could have made - died at those eight words.

I'm more human than you at this point.

They echoed in her mind.

I'm more human than you at this point.

What? What did that even mean? How could he be more human than her? She was born - she came from a human mother. A human father.

He smashed his way out of a test tube.

My other donor was human. I'm more human than you at this point.

A nonsensical, strangled scream erupted from Lucy, mixed in with the iciest frost breath she could muster, as twin beams of heat vision erupted from her eyes.

Any tears that may have been forming were burned away instantly as she turned her gaze on Kon.

He couldn't be more human than her. He couldn't be. The only option was for him to die.

That would make her more human than him, wouldn't it?

[matchmadeinhell]

The blast caught him full in the chest but he dove out of the way, chest still smoking and got behind her, getting her in a chokehold.

"Why do you think Luthor took such a personal interest in me?" he said in her ear. "Your president. The man who gives you your precious orders. The man you salute and practically lick the boots of. Do you really think he'd waste his time personally visiting someone who's nothing to him? How many times did he visit me in that dank little room and turn all the surveillance off?"

He tried to keep her heatvision directed away from the ground so that it didn't hit Mikey down there.

"Not only am I half human, you've been beating on a member of the first family this whole time."

All of them in the project practically worshipped Luthor. He wasn't ashamed of where his DNA came from anymore. She needed to know what it all was, what it had all really been for.

"Because the entire project? It's not to empower humanity. Lex doesn't actually care about anyone else. He told me his endgame. The entire project, the billions of tax dollars? It's not control a living weapon so the army can use it however they want. It's all to control me so that he can use me against Superman. To force Superman to kill me or to kill me in front of him. To break his heart. All of you were just pawns to help his obsessive little vendetta along."

[superwoman]

Kon's grip on her was strong, firm. She tried to jerk her head back to head-butt him, but he'd since moved out of the way. Instead, she just...struggled.

"N-no," Lucy hissed. "Lex wouldn't sully his DNA by mixing it with the Kryptonian's. That's...no. He wouldn't. He wouldn't." There was no way this self-righteous little snit could be part Lex. Lex Luthor was brilliant. A hero. An inspiration. He'd done more for Metropolis - more for the world - than Superman could. Sure, Superman was faster. But given the time, Lex was better.

At the back of her mind was a little nagging voice, though. If her father could force her to fake superpowers, why couldn't Lex mix his DNA with Superman's? Why couldn't...

Lucy slackened in Kon's grip. She wanted to fight. She did.

But she didn't know anymore.

She didn't know.

Everything had become topsy turvy since she'd first put on the containment suit that granted her powers.

She didn't want him to be right. She didn't want him to be right.

But if he was, that meant that everything she'd worked so hard for - everything she'd worked so hard towards - all of it was for nothing. It meant that she was the one who was wrong.

Not wrong. Wronged. I was wronged. Yet another betrayal. Yet another lie. Yet another part of Lucy Lane's life that wasn't as it should have been.

She shuddered as anger gave way to grief. "Look at that," she said, her voice dull, hoarse. "One more thing you people have managed to take away from me. First my sister. Then my humanity. My father's love. And now. Now...this." Everything she had ever believed in. "Are you satisfied? Are you happy? The upper hand is yours." She couldn't break him, but he'd torn asunder her entire life. "Aren't you just going yay?"

[matchmadeinhell]

Ugh, just another reminder that every time they fought he was beating on a relative, even if she didn't know it. How did someone like Lois come from such a screwed up family?

Then again, someone might ask the same of him since his DNA had came from Luthor.

"Can't take away something you never had."

He let go of her, shoved her away to face her again. The front of his shirt had been burned away. His invulnerability wasn't as strong and it meant he went through clothes constantly whenever he fought.

"In case you haven't noticed? Your dad's a jerk. He treats you like dirt over something that isn't your fault - over something that happened because of a situation he put you in." He tilted his head at her. "Your father denigrates and uses you just like Lex does the same to me. That should tell you something - not something about you, something about him. Your dad's a psycho, Luthor's a psycho, and people like us, that want to help people? We get used. We get caught up in the middle of their insanity."

[superwoman]

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest, her cape coming to settle over her chest as well. Downcast eyes looked at Superboy's friend for a moment before coming back up to look at Superboy.

She cringed at what she saw in his eyes.

At what she heard in his voice.

Eyes flared red for the briefest of moments before that light died out.

"I don't want your pity," she half-snarled. "I don't need your pity. Just because you suddenly have some hu-" she choked on the word, "humanity in you doesn't make you better than me."

He was right. There was a part of Lucy that was all too aware of the fact that on some level, Kon was right. General Sam Lane had used Lucy, and what was worse? She had let herself be used. She'd been so desperate to be the favourite daughter - to one-up Lois - that she hadn't seen what was happening.

A shadow crossed over her face. If it was possible for a human to turn into an alien, surely it would be possible for an alien to turn human, no? It would require some experimentation, but there had to be a way to reverse things. She looked at Kon with new interest. He had humanity that he didn't deserve. He had the DNA of one of the greatest men alive.

He didn't deserve that DNA.

But she had no way to extract it from him.

Yet.

"I hate this."

[matchmadeinhell]

"You're not the only one."

He hated that this wasn't black and white. That she wasn't pure evil. That she was related.

As much as Lois and her had their adversarial thing, he was pretty sure Lois still loved her sister, at least somewhat.

"And it ain't pity. That'd mean I'd think you're pathetic for getting duped. I don't. Crazy thing, and I know you don't believe it, but there's little thing called empathy that even us aliens and half-aliens are capable of. All I think is that you never deserved that."

He added dryly, "You deserve me caving your face in for what you did to me, but you didn't deserve that. Especially when you decked yourself out in those duds because of Krypton. Which was a threat." Strange that he'd admit that. Wasn't he half-alien? "You government people are paranoid but this started with you wanting to protect people."

[superwoman]

Had Lucy known about the fact that they were related - really related, not just by virtue of being Kryptonian - would that have changed anything?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

If anything, learning about it now would just make her feel more betrayed.

"You agree that the Kryptonians were a threat?" Lucy's lips twitched. "Guess there is a little bit of Lex inside of you after all." That much, at least, was promising.

"Regardless," she added, "We're not paranoid. We're realistic. Paranoid is dressing up like a giant bat and patrolling the streets, thinking you can make a difference." Easy blow? Maybe. But it was, as far as Lucy was concerned, the truth. "Newsflash. You can't."

There was another heavy, heavy moment of silence. "So. What now?"

[matchmadeinhell]

"Don't have to be Luthor. Just have to live on Earth."

He rolled his eyes at her.

Of course he'd be against the Kryptonians and their threatening shenanigans. His home was Earth. He was one of the idiots that lived on it. His friends and family were there.

"As for what's next..." He drew in a deep breath and blew it out. "This part's the part I don't even know how to explain. So I'll start by saying this: you're not in Kansas anymore."

[superwoman]

"Sorry," Lucy said. "Not a Kansas girl." She'd been around a lot, of course. Being an army brat did that to a girl. But Kansas? Not one of the places that she identified with.

Lois loved it, of course, but then that's where Lois' in-laws were from.

"Try again."

[matchmadeinhell]

"We're in another universe and there's a threat here that's trying to break it's way in from outside the universe. If it breaks all the way in it'll destroy this world and then use it as a stepping stone to destroy all of existence. Every universe. Every world."

That was why he was going to have to tolerate her as long as she wasn't trying to kill or torture him or capture him again. She was a heavy hitter and they needed all the help they could get.