Chapter Text
M’gann has a ghastly scream.
Like the sound effects for a B-film, the only thing those movies really pull all the stops out for. And they were right about aliens.
M’gann’s scream was ghastly.
Just awful, and for a second she wonders if it was because of the psychic link they all … That they did all have. Maybe it was bouncing in her head on loop because of —
That. Scream!
“Artemis.”
Her joints lock up in surprise, the agony in her left leg shaking and shifting through her at speeds she hadn’t felt in awhile. Fingers scrambling at the smooth wall, Artemis tries to stay upright, but it’s too much and she hits the floor with a thud.
“Artemis.” Robin says again, stepping closer.
“No,” She hisses between aching breaths, “No. Don’t.”
Out of her periphery, she can see him squatting, then going to his knees and resting there. And after a few more seconds he starts shuffling quietly forward.
“I said stop!”
“Yeah,” Robin draws his vowels out, “but I can just feel that your leg is about to burst, so let me take a look.”
Looking over, confused, Artemis is even more lost at the strained smile he was giving her, holding a pair of small scissors in a gauze roll and holding out a small flask of what she’s sure was stronger pain medicine than she should be taking.
How can he?! He shouldn’t?! I didn’t – I wasn’t watching my – I don’t deserve your kindness!
“I can’t take that.” Spills out in a tiny whisper.
“Can’t or won’t.”
Glaring back, Artemis twists herself to get leverage on her right leg and pushes up, not looking away so she could see Robin’s look of surprise.
But it doesn’t happen.
The pain spasmed up with furious intensity, telling her all too easily that several blood vessels were broken and possibly her muscles had swelled. But when she falls, she doesn’t hit the stone tile like she deserves.
She tries to push away from Robin, but he holds her and pulls her into a hug and —
Soon her screams are what are echoing in the museum, a litany of apologies to the one person that will never be able to hear them.
Clark couldn’t look away from that spot, had barely noticed when Artemis fell from his grip, a cut-off scream building in her throat while Miss Martian let loose a wail that shook him to his bones.
She rushes Faust in a fury that he’s only seen J’onn act on once, slamming the sorcerer through glass cases and into the wall behind him. Some of her human features slouch off of her as she pales to a sickly green, white in other places, slamming the man into the wall again with another piercing wail. Then Clark can hear the feedback static of minds meeting loudly, louder than he’s ever heard.
“Miss Martian! Stand down!” Aqualad bellows, going to her but smartly stopping just before her.
She turns her neck fully, like he could but rarely did, and they all see a partially concave face, tears streaming down and catching in the dips of her almost Martian facade.
“Miss Martian.” Aqualad says lowly, but she cuts him off, mouth opening but no words forming.
But they still hear it.
“He’s gone Kaldur! Gone! He’s practically dead!” Echoes and reverbs everywhere.
Then red wet pupils from where Clark expected an expanse of solemn dullness is a punch he wasn’t expecting.
“And it’s because of you!” She roars, dropping Faust to point a half snarl finger at him, “You’re supposed to – You should’ve – WHY!” Dropping to her knees as she completes her change, a large teenage white Martian in their midst, “… He’s gone.” She cries softly, wrapping her arms around herself.
“M’gann.” Aqualad drops to his knees, the buzz of feedback again before she shifts back to how she looked before, throwing herself into his arms, crying loudly, and is joined by another voice further down the hall.
Clark can’t keep looking at them, but as soon as he looks away his eyes shift back to that spot where the statue lays cracked and splayed. Where Superboy stood. Where he had pushed him out of the way – Where he had saved him! – and only grey and silver scorch marks remained.
“Superman.”
And his vision is filled with nighttime before he simply looks through it. But the hand to his shoulder draws him back.
Just barely.
Bruce is, as always, an unmovable mountain and already moving onto the next thing, “We need to contain this and detain Faust. Can you handle talking to the police?”
He goes to say something, anything, but he can’t. And his gaze goes back to the spot, children crying filling his ears and —
“Where’s Kid Flash?” His voice hoarser than he expected, the lack of talking and blurring yellow suddenly grabbing his attention.
Expression tightening, Bruce looks to Zatara and tells him he will need to speak to the police, that Clark can hear drawing nearer, as he needed to get the Team back to Mount Justice.
On impulse, Clark starts to ask if he needed help, but locks his jaw when Bruce turns a side-eye to him.
“Flash has caught up to Kid Flash in the Himalayas. He’s in shock. I’m going to collect the Team and you are going to go home,” Then turning to look at him full on, “You can’t help anyone here now.” The finality ringing as Bruce leaves the chamber for the hall, Aqualad picking up Miss Martian and following after.
He doesn’t, not immediately. It’s not until the police are making their way to the room that Clark shakes him, exhaling a shallow breath that burns, and leaves.
And Clark doesn’t know where he is as he floats listlessly in the mesosphere, the faint prickle of the vacuum chill on his skin, because even as he looks down at the Earth all he sees is the spot where Superboy was, and now, was no more.
If being the cause of Superboy’s death wasn’t telling her she wasn’t cut out for this, Artemis was getting a second look at how badly she couldn’t predict the others.
“Please don’t leave.”
M’gann’s sudden appearance has her dropping her quiver, spinning and notching an arrow, and letting it loose at the other girl.
Thank goodness for intangibility.
“I could have shot you!”
“Technically you did,” She says, lips twisting into a pursed smile, “You’re a good shot.”
Squinting at her, Artemis turns away from the fake praise, gathering up the arrows so she could return them. Or maybe keep them and go back to handling things on the streets. The whole time as she gathers her stuff from the arsenal room M’gann stays and follows behind.
“What do you want?” Dropping the two duffels and turning back to the other girl.
Grasping her arm she looks down, worrying her pale lips.
And that had been a huge change, her white Martian form. She still looked the same but was now the color of snow, really adding to her haunting specter mood that had been lingering around the mountain for the past two weeks. Artemis got a front row seat to it as she healed up in the infirmary, stuck with Robin trying to keep her company and tell her in multiple obtuse ways that this wasn’t her fault. If it wasn’t he should’ve been able to come out and just say it. But he can’t because it’s not true. And M’gann, well apparently it was a secret that she was white, but after everyone else saw it, it wasn’t important anymore? It didn’t matter, Artemis couldn’t care less. And she couldn’t care because it made everything worse.
But she still did.
She was still too weak, just like Jade and Dad said.
Artemis closes her eyes tight, shoving the shouts and hissed words of her childhood away, and picks up the bags again, only for M’gann to lay a hand on top of hers.
“I’m not in —”
“Please stay.”
Head snapping up, Artemis stares back in horror, shaking her head as M’gann starts to cry.
“Please stay. Don’t leave. I don’t think I could handle losing another friend.” She sobs.
“Am I really a great friend if I let someone die?”
That draws her up short and gives Artemis the answer she needs.
But she barely gets up and M’gann is hugging her.
“What – M’gann! Get off!” She snaps, dropping her duffels again to try and pry the other off her, but the redhead just squeezes her tighter.
“You didn’t kill anyone. It was Faust that did this. Just him. We… There are casualties in this line of work and it’s important to remember we didn’t cause this, it’s those that acted without care that did.”
The laughter that crawls out of her throat surprises them both, but it gets M’gann to step back.
“Did your uncle hammer that into your head? It’s a good line,” She sneers, almost proud at the shy look it gets from M’gann, “But we were both there and if I had been quicker or…… If I wasn’t there he still might be here.” And it was the truest fact.
If she hadn’t tried to be a hero when she clearly wasn’t than she wouldn’t have gotten an actual hero killed.
“You are a real hero.”
Anger lances through her and she pushes at the Martian, snarling for her to stay out of her head, but it just gets Artemis an armful of M’gann.
“You are! I mean it. You’re a hero. I’m not lying.”
“Heroes don’t run.” Trying to break away from the inhuman strength, but is stopped at,
“They do if they’re scared,” And looking down, M’gann looks up with painfully knowing eyes, “When we’re scared, we run. We try to be someone else. I did too. From Mars. And now I’m here. I didn’t look deep, but you did the same thing,” Her wet eyes a lit with hope then and Artemis wish she had the strength to stamp it out, to tell her they weren’t the same at all, “You didn’t or don’t have a happy home life, but you want to help others that could have it worse, just so they aren’t like you. You want to help.”
Clicking her tongue, hating the truth in it, she looks away, “And look what that got us.”
“I hope it got us a friendship.” Said so honestly, so hopeful it hurts as much as a bat to the ribs.
“M’gann —”
“Please stay. I know it hurts. I – I know it won’t go away, but please stay. I don’t want to lose you too.”
Sagging against her, Artemis just doesn’t have the fight anymore. She’ll have to wait again. But she’s good at that, waiting it out.
“You wouldn’t have noticed.”
“But I did, didn’t I.”
She can’t deny that, but she’d be bleeding out before she ever admitted it.
Kaldur had stood the tides of his very divisive life, meeting the swells head on and surfacing with force and readying himself for the next one.
But in this instance he doesn’t know how to be ready for what he knows will be a next one.
This life they had chosen was always going to be perilous and he knew not everyone would make it to a retirement, but he hadn’t…
The funeral was small, a comfortable size that he knew even Superboy would protest was too much.
The Team was there in stealth suits, as there was never a thought of dressing up in something that Superboy would have rolled his eyes at. Wally stood apart from them while M’gann and Robin held Artemis’ hands as she wept silently, a guilt as deep as the Trench craving into her and only just remedied by them staying by her side. The Genomophs had somehow known and came by, asking for entrance that Kaldur would never deny them. They had known Superboy since his conception and deserved their chance to mourn a fallen brother all the same. Batman and Black Canary were also here, Black Canary doing most of the service while Batman stood at her back. And not a shock, but a pleasant surprise was Wally’s family, Mrs. West sharing a very kind story about Superboy’s first days in the world and his willingness to help around her home.
They had all shared stories, fleeting, as Superboy’s personality made for a quiet or quick moments, but they were no less memorable. It was a solemn time of happy memories, silly happenstances, and gentle times that they would never get to experience again.
Kaldur was beyond drained as he swims home, hoping to simply rest away from the world, but as he comes up to his home he sees the lights were one, meaning his parents were home and not out working late or socializing.
They had asked if he wanted them there for the funeral as support, but something that Kaldur hates to put into words was a fear that he would break down. It stopped him from expecting their kind and loving offer. It was contradictory in the highest order as he had his King to see that compassion and being emotional was well-received with a good and fair leader, but it felt wrong to not hold himself to a higher standard with their young team. To shun his pain when they very much needed someone to stand strong and hold them together was what was needed.
He knows the moment he goes in he will be subject to this as well and does not wish it, but also cannot find the energy to move away from a place he finds comfort in.
Inhaling a lungfull of cool sea, Kaldur approaches his home and is surprised to find not just his parents, but Tula and Garth, and Their Majesties all sitting in the living room making small talk!
He is like a guppy in the sights of an eel, unable to move and only able to float as he stares at the strangeness before him.
“Ah, Kaldur.” King Orin calls out to him, smiling just so even if it doesn’t reach his eyes, “How are you?”
“My King,” He says faintly, staring back before his rudeness catches up to him, turning to nod his head in reverence to Queen Mira, “My Queen! I – I must confess I am surprised to see you all here.” Looking to everyone in the room, to everyone he cared the most about.
They all look to each other with varying worried glances before turning back to him, something in him cracking at the sympathy and pity he sees reflected back at him. His Mother stands, but it’s Tula that gets to him first, pushing off her seat.
She takes a hold of his limp hands and pulls him into his home and over to where the rest are, her expression so full of sadness, and yet determination.
“Kaldur,” Tula calls to him softly, drawing him into a hug, “Do not fight this storm alone.”
He wants to tell her he is fine, that their worry was understandable but not needed. But as Tula hugs him tighter, his Mother joining in after, whispering ‘It will be okay’, he can’t hold his pain and tears back, they all flooding out and all he can do is move with the waves, anchored by his family and friends as it rolls over him stronger than anything had before.
“Leaves these to Fate.” The entity – The murderer really! – bellows as it holds out it’s hand and lifts the sorcerers up.
Wally wants to scream, can feel himself vibrating with rage as sound clips like a bad connection, angry that that stupid helmet thought it could just toss people away like they were nothing! It had toss away a true hero and then capture another one – Zatanna’s crying clipping out behind him – all for it’s twist version of balance with no thought for the people it was hurting!
“Wait!”
Surprisingly, it does stop, looking down to M’gann as they all turn to her too. She floats up to meet the entity halfway, but before she got to high Wally had seen the desperation on her face.
“You’re – You’re powerful now?” She asks, voice shaking, “Right? You’re powerful enough now.”
Fate stares back for what feels like an eternity before floating closer, “Why do you ask alien?”
“Faust – Superboy!” She shouts, stuttering over her words, but Wally understands immediately and hopes to any higher power, especially Fate, that it works, “Faust did something to Superboy. Can you tell me what?”
Wally blinks, confused to why because didn’t she say he was killed, but Wally could care less now with the chance they could get Superboy back!
“I wondered what you meant by ‘practically’.” Kaldur says behind him as Wally whips around to him.
“Practically!?” Not aware there had been a loophole to whatever happened to Superboy, that there was something they could have done!
“You had ran away,” Kaldur tells him calmly and Wally can’t blame anyone but himself for that. He couldn’t handle being there and seeing the scorch mark where his friend had been, “In that time M’gann attacked Faust and said Superboy was ‘practically dead’.”
Looking to her, M’gann lets her head drop, nodding, “I check his mind, and it showed me that the curse wasn’t going to kill him but would break him down slowly.” Holding herself as she starts to shake, her voice hiccupping.
Fate nods and floats down, M’gann following, stumbling as she moves closer, but Wally moves before thinking and grabs her shoulder, keeping her a safe distance from the golden plated monster. Thankfully she doesn’t fight him.
Holding it’s hand out to the group of sorcerers again, Faust in particular glowing gold, shouting out but staying unconscious. After a few agonizing seconds of watching a man be torture in front of them Fate lets it’s hold go, turning to them and Wally is moving to stand in front of M’gann.
“It would send him to his greatest desire,” It intones, “And something in excess can devour the soul.”
Staggering into him, Wally just keeping his own legs under himself at the news, she cries, “So he’s…”
“Watch and listen.” It commands, a smaller ankh appearing between the distance morphing into a tv size glowing circle.
Despite everything he can’t help moving closer like a moth to a flame, Kaldur and Artemis doing the same to either side of him and M’gann. The circle glows and moves like plasma, flashing just a bit brighter before a picturesque country farm with a white farmhouse and a red barn are focused on even though its in the distance, waving grasses between them and the buildings —
They all jolt back as someone comes crashing down into the field before them, it zooming out to show the plaid dressed person, a teenager, as he picks himself up and glares up.
“Superboy!” They all cry out, hope burning bright in his chest and smothering the rage that had been there.
“Come on Conner!” A voice taunts, and the view pans further out, showing a smirking blonde in overall shorts floating a couple feet above him, “You can do better than that. How’re you going to catch me if you don’t.”
Staring at the beautiful girl, the fact she can fly doesn’t click until Superman comes in, dressed in civilian clothes and floating down beside her, looking fond but tired with her actions.
“Kara, that’s not —”
“Shush! Shush!” Waving him away with a grin, “It’s tough love.”
“Teasing more like it.” He huffs, smiling a bit as he sticks his hands in his jean pockets.
“I can hear you.” Superboy grumbles as he picks himself up and dust himself off.
Shaking his head, Superman floats down and helps Superboy and Superboy lets him! Which didn’t make any sense because Superman had always ignored Superboy and didn’t even have the decency to come to his funeral!
Then it clicks and Wally knows now this is an alternate universe, the change too sharp to be anything else, but it still doesn’t sit right to see the kindness he knows Superman has for everyone but Superboy being used on his friend now after everything Superman did to act like he didn’t exist.
“One more time okay,” He tells Superboy gently, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Then we’ll rest till tomorrow.”
“No!” Superboy shouts, but Superman doesn’t react, “I can do it!”
“Know you can Conner,” Smiling encouraging down at him, “but it doesn’t have to be today. You have all the time in the world. We’ll keep trying.”
Superboy – No, Conner – nods, a small smile on his lips as he takes a deep breath, swallowing as he looks up to the blonde. Then with the same grim determination that Wally was just starting to forget, Conner jumps.
It’s not as powerful, but he gets higher than Kara and stays there!
“Conner!”
“You did it!”
Turning awkward in the air he meets their cries of joy with the brightest smile Wally has ever seen on his face. Its immediately hidden as they both crash into him for what can only be described as a superhug.
“Yeah! You’ve joined Team Fly!” The blonde squeals, hugging Conner tighter.
“Who’s that?” Wally flinching at the venom and turns back to see the sneer on M’gann’s pale face.
“That is Kara Zor-El,” Fate tells them, muting the image, but it continues to move as she draws him up higher into the perfect sky, “Jor-El’s younger brother emigrated to Argos, Krypton’s sister world and bonded to an Argoan, Kala In-Ze. She is the last of her world.”
“Superman’s cousin.” Kaldur breathes out, shocked as the rest of them because the chances of that were astronomical.
Well maybe not since Jor-El thought it was a good idea to make a rocket for his son, so the fact his brother did — Any thoughts about the practicality of the El family’s doom-prepping were muted like the scene before him; watching Conner fly around, seeing Superman ruffle his hair, and Kara catching him when he falls, and all of them laughing to some degree. All of them just being … happy.
“He is loved and understood there,” Kaldur whispers, “He is happy there.” And the anger reignites.
Spinning to his left, Wally shouts, “Well he could have been happy with us!”
“In some fates, yes,” Fate interrupts, “But not this one.”
“And that’s supposed to comforting!” He yells at the unfeeling helmet as Kaldur asks calmly,
“What do you mean?”
“If they acted quicker to find me a host, I would have been able to pull him back,” Fate tells them, Wally’s stomach swooping at hearing that. That it was that easy and he had the answer the whole time! “This universe is weaker to my power, but it has been too long. The forces that sent him there are tangled and have reworked its futures. He cannot be reclaimed to here.”
But they didn’t know! He didn’t know! He could have, he could have saved Superboy and he would have been quick enough!
“We didn’t get the chance! We —”
“They gave him a name.”
Freezing, Wally turns to his right, M’gann still staring sadly and hurt at the circle, but Artemis looks relived.
“They gave him a new future. And he’s with other Kryptonians,” She continues, gesturing to the circle where they were all walking back to the house, “He didn’t have that here. Like Aqualad said, Superboy – Conner – is seen as a super boy. Not just The Superboy… And he has Supergirl and Superman now, that want him,” She smiles, strained, but happier than she had been in weeks, “He didn’t have that here. He had us, yeah. We cared about him, but sometimes…… Sometimes it’s not good enough.” Shoulders falling as her voice breaks and turning away as Fate waves it’s hand, smearing the circle and making it disappear!
Its so sudden – Again it hadn’t even asked and now M’gann is crying again!
And the agony of that day comes crashing into Wally all over again and he wants to run away, but he can’t get his feet to move, like they’re encased in cement.
But what hurt the most was that Artemis was right. They just weren’t good enough, no matter what they try. They wanted to make something incredible, be more than sidekicks, but they’re all just holding on at the edges, worse at this then Wally could have ever thought.
“He’s alive.”
Clark tenses, unsure who they were talking about, but he knew it must be important if Bruce wanted him to stay after the meeting. The state of the world was in limbo in terms of nothing happening in the aftermath of the spell Clarion tried to pull, but there was a tension something would snap the tranquilly soon. But they hadn’t lost anyone like that during the spell, Zatara technically still alive, so he was confused of who it could be. They hadn’t lost anyone in a long time.
“Who?”
The cowl tightens around Bruce’s eyes as he stares at him, almost as if he was deciding whether or not —
“Superboy.”
His heart seizes up as a tangle of emotions wrap around and pull him in every direction.
“How! Where!” Making it around the table in a blink, Bruce’s cape snapping back with the wind.
“A parallel universe and he’s stuck there.” He says shortly, as he always did when he was trying to make a point with the least amount of words.
“Is he okay?” And Clark is shocked at the level of desperation in his own tone, and if Bruce is too he doesn’t show it.
“There’s a Superman and a Supergirl. Your cousin,”
The familiar unease of knowing another version of himself is out there screeches to a halt at hearing ‘Supergirl’, at hearing there was another survivor that was also family. The chance that could be true here were slim, but maybe —
“They took him in.”
An ugly feeling, on par with kryptonite poisoning, rolls over him and won’t stop.
“Oh.”
“He’s been named Conner Kent.”
And sick doesn’t even feel like the right description for what curdles in his chest.
They had – The other Superman had given Superboy a home, a name, when they hadn’t – Well he was supposed to and he hadn’t. He had fobbed off excuses to not to, feeling unnerved and ill at the clone’s existence. It wasn’t his fault he existed, but Clark couldn’t – It wasn’t a reason for —
Clenching his hands, Clark breathes in deep, holding the intangible weight in his chest, even if the hurt and urgency of needing to breathe was never there. He lets his hearing expand, listening to every heartbeat still in the Watchtower, matching his own to the steadiest one, giving Bruce a jerky nod.
“I’m… I… It’s good that someone could.” He swallows.
“You had your chance Clark.” Not said unkindly, but there was no sympathy either.
“I know…… I know,” Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, “But clearly I wasn’t meant to be.” Sinking into a chair and resting his elbows against the table.
When he finally drops his hands he’s surprised that Bruce hadn’t left him yet, just staring down, and something about the passive judgement there makes everything spill out.
“You were right,” Feeling ill for another reason, “I was giving myself excuses, I couldn’t…… I was afraid of what he could mean and I never gave him a chance,” Letting his eyes fall to the table, the guilt sudden and too much, “You and the Team. Canary. You all did what I couldn’t because I was hurting.”
And the silence was more than an answer, it was a punishment.
Clark knew, if he asked, that Bruce would have gone with him. Any of the League would have as moral support if he had asked, but he couldn’t – didn’t want to burden them with that. And yet, Superboy still worked well with – Or at least around him – Clark even when he went out of his way — Oh God!
That last thing he ever said was criticism and a brush off at the De Vries Bridge!
The table catches him as he leans heavily against it, but Clark wishes it’d just let him fall, sinking into space eternally.
“He shouldn’t have saved me,” Clark unable to meet Bruce’s eyes, “He shouldn’t have. I never made things easy for him. I did everything to ignore him. I shouted at him Bruce. A kid! And not even that. He shouldn’t’ve saved my life,” A terribly wet laugh escaping him as Clark sinks to the floor, covering his face, “He… He was more of a Superman than I’ve ever been.”
In the continuing silence he comes to terms with what he had truly done and hadn’t. How he could he trained someone like himself, showing Superboy how to be ready for the world, like he could have if he had been braver.
“Is he happy?” He finds himself asking.
The silence continues and Clark is sure that Bruce was never going to answer —
“They both are.” Figuring out what Clark couldn’t articulate.
"He’s going to be great,” Finally looking up, meeting Bruce’s confused lifted eyebrow, “He going to be the Superman he always wanted. That I wouldn’t give him… It’s better this way. I … I wasted that opportunity. To not be alone…” He explains only for that statement to strike him. That now Clark truly has no one to share this all with, the only one that would really know was Superboy – Conner – and he was gone. He was off living how he always wanted and will make leaps and bounds in that world surrounded by people that wanted him, a family, and the last few that would know.
“I’m the last,” Crawls out with low pathetic croon, “I’m the very last and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Like I deserve.”
Looking back up, Bruce’s lips are twisted into a pitying frown, no advice or words that could change the pain that Clark was now experiencing.
“But at least he’s not alone,” Clark tells him with a crooked twist of a smile, the regret stabbing at his heart, now overfilled when it was frozen before, “He deserves the world I couldn’t give him. He deserves to be happy.”