Disappearances and fic
Um. So. I've been gone for three and a half months.
Sorry?
There are various and sundry reasons why I suddenly dropped off the face of the internet, none of which are particularly relevant at this moment, except that (with any luck at all, grr, argh) I ought to be back for the foreseeable future.
As something of a peace offering, I come bearing fic!
Title: Unto Dust
Series: House of El
Fandom: DC comics
Pairing/Characters: gen; Kara, Lois
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: DoS
Summary: Doomsday.
Disclaimer: DC owns them, I’m just playing in their sandbox.
Author's Notes: This is the first of a bunch of stories I’m writing in this ‘verse around the Death of Superman storyline, so . . . we’ll see how that goes.
Word Count: 884
Superwoman flew through the air with the greatest of ease. Light as a feather-
-at least, to the creature who threw her bloody body. Kara screamed as her left side crumpled against the ground, vision red, and blacked out.
*
"- ound her! Over here! Somebody get S.T.A.R. labs on the line, we need a xenobiologist!"
A face, eyes wide and scared and yet relieved, blurry as she swam out of the darkness for a moment.
"Don’t you leave us, Superwoman. Your boy’s gonna need some help when you can get up again."
Superwoman moaned, then fell back into unconsciousness.
*
Kryptonite!
She tried to scream though the pain in her body as the too-familiar sluggish feeling of Kryptonite poisoning dragged her from the black. Her jaw wouldn’t obey, her arms and legs didn’t respond-
". . . good, good, direct the radiation here . . . there! Got an IV in her."
"What about the blood-?"
"Can’t. The only possible blood donor on the planet is Superman."
"Damn. So, fluids-can we set the arm?"
"If we’re careful. Make sure that Kryptonite is covered when we’re not using it-no need to expose her to too much, or give ourselves cancer. Bring it here so I can put her arm back together."
She felt the poisoning again, and then they opened her arm. She gratefully passed out.
*
"-why she hasn’t healed yet, but-"
"Idiots!"
No one could make multiple-PHD scientists wince like misbehaving children but Lois Lane.
". . . Kryptonian! She needs sunlight!"
Sound of rings on metal, yellow behind her eyelids, on her skin.
"They’re solar-powered, you know that. Come on, we can’t lose her. Not with-" uncomfortable pause, or maybe she passed out and woke again. Reality was fuzzy-edged. "Supergirl can’t handle Metropolis alone, and the League’s going to need the next best thing. The world needs what they can’t have, and she’ll-God, does she know?"
"She hasn’t woken since Doomsday knocked her out."
Warmth, yellow light filling her skin, soothing her broken body.
*
Kara awoke to the orange glow of late afternoon sunlight on her skin and a deep ache in her body. Her sheets were scratchy, and the bed itself was thinner than her own. The silence was that of many people sleeping off exhaustion.
Her eyes opened to one of the makeshift hospital rooms at S.T.A.R. labs. Lois Lane dozed in a chair in the corner.
She opened her mouth and croaked. What happened, had they stopped that monster, why was Lois in her room?
The sound was enough to wake the other woman, and blue eyes blinked, staring at Kara for a moment before she came over. Lois handed her a glass of water and helped her sit up enough to drink it. "Glad to see you awake, Superwoman. The doctors weren’t sure when-" or if "-you’d wake up."
Swallowing, Kara asked, "Is it stopped?"
"Doomsday? Yes."
Relaxing back into her pillows, Kara closed her eyes and tried to remember everything she’d heard in her fits of consciousness. "How long ago?"
"A few days. Superwoman . . . Kara," Lois whispered. Kara’s eyes flashed open.
Lois wouldn’t look at her, head turned down and away.
"What is it?"
"Superman . . . Clark . . . stopped Doomsday. Here in Metropolis. He-" she took a deep breath, and Kara saw tears run down her cheeks. "His funeral was yesterday."
"Your boy’s gonna need some help . . .""
"Can’t. Only possible blood donor on the planet is Superman."
". . . we can’t lose her. Not with- Supergirl can’t handle Metropolis alone, and the League’s going to need the next best thing.
"What."
Lois sank down into a chair next to her bed. "He died stopping Doomsday. Lex Luthor, Jr., Supergirl and the League gave him a hero’s funeral yesterday. Th-the Kents flew in last night as well, and-well." Lois took a deep breath and turned back toward Kara. "They came to see you, but you’re . . . so they’ve been staying with me. I’m-God, Superwoman. I don’t have anything useful to say."
Mind in a whirl, Kara slowly sat up again. Her left arm was in a sling, and she’d broken ribs when Doomsday hurled her to the ground, but they was knitting with every moment she spent in the sun, gathering energy. Sitting straight, she took another drink of water, and then-
"Kal. Kal-El, come to me. Kal-Kal, cousin, last son of my House-where are you?"
Lois looked startled at the unfamiliar syllables, the sound of Kryptonian from her best friend’s cousin.
He should-even with an emergency, he should be here by now, entering through the window in a warm wind. "Kal," she demanded. Her voice grew louder, though she knew her volume didn’t matter-not when he could hear a whisper from the other side of the world-she floated, too hurt to move and too terrified to sit still- "KAL!"
"Superwoman!" Black leather jacket, black boots, and short-cropped black hair darted into the room. Black Canary pushed aside Lois without looking at her, grabbing onto the floating Kara’s arm. "Superwoman, please, come down, God, he’s-Kara, please . . ." she murmured.
Kara landed heavily on the bed, shaken and stunned, to find herself enveloped in Black Canary’s arms. "Kal’s dead," she whispered in her ear, this girl she’d watched grow up at her cousin’s side, at her best friend’s knee. "He’s gone, Aunt Kara. Come home."
Kara collapsed into Dinah’s arms as the doctors came into the room.