Four words.
After all those years of ridiculous Kryptonite weapons and red sun lamps, all it takes is four words, and the strength is sapped out of me. All the gravity that I've ignored for so long crushes down on me, and the chill that I'd kept deep in my gut washes over me entirely, leaving me numb all over.
Dinah puts her hand on my shoulder, trying in some way to console me, but I barely notice. We've both been on the other side before, but Kara...? She's still so young, she...
was.
I stumble through the Hall of Justice, drifting, tuning out the world. Please, God, let me wake up. Let me know this is all some terrible dream.
Let me...
...let me...
"...let me see her."
Without saying a word, Dinah takes my hand and leads me to the room. Even when the world around her grows darker and darker, she still finds strength. How does she do it? I've lifted mountains over my head, gone toe-to-toe with gods and devils...yet the door to her room fills me with more dread than even Doomsday ever managed.
The door opens, and I close my eyes, trying one more time to wake up...
...and there she is.
Kara...no...
Her body is battered and broken, a telling gash across her throat. Her face, that used to light up the gloomiest day, is bloodied and bruised. Her eyes, which glittered like nothing I've ever seen...were closed for good. What hurts most of all is what I can't see anymore with my extra senses. All of that radiant life energy that used to absolutely burst from within her. The aura, the soul...my little cousin....is gone.
"It was Slade," Dinah says almost matter-of-factly. I can hear her trying to keep her anger at bay. "Slade and Doctor Light. They killed her and Cyborg, and what they've done to Mia...there's more to this than what we can tell. This is..."
She keeps talking, but I don't hear a word of it. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Lois is gone, Kara is dead...and I didn't do a thing to help either of them.
I turn and walk away, and I don't stop when I reach the main hall. The rest of the League is being briefed on the situation, the details that they'll handle...I pass right by them without even saying a word. I walk out of the Hall of Justice, and take off into the cold Arctic sky.
*****
A moment later, I'm in the only place on Earth where Superman can go to hide himself from the world: Clark's apartment.
Here, in my study which has been collecting dust ever since Lois vanished, I begin to put on my costume, the glasses and suit that have kept my secrets for years. I make the mistake of glancing over towards our mantle, at the picture of Lois and I at our wedding...
...and I slump down into the nearest chair.
I don't want the League to see me now, when they need to be strong. I put on the glasses to hide something that nobody should ever need to know...
The Man of Steel is broken.
"It was my deer; and he that wounded her
Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead:
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ'd with a wilderness of sea;
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him."
-William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
.....*awkward*
