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Chapter Text

I have a theory, which contains Flash and Supergirl spoilers, you have been warned.

Alright so we all know that in all versions of the newspaper in The Flash (catch up if you don't know what I'm talking about), no matter if it's from 2049, 2046, whatever the fucking year, we know that red skies vanish and The Flash vanishes in a flash of bright light. And now, after Nora died, the year changed to 2019 as we saw in the season 5 finale. 

What if the red sky was something to do with Lex turning the sun red again to drain the Kryptonians of their powers since The Monitor revived him at the end of the Supergirl finale, but his motives are unclear...

Anyway

In some version of the comics, Barry runs so fast that he runs BACK in time to the night where he was made THE FLASH

He vanishes in a "flash of light" bACK IN TIME TO THE NIGHT WHERE THE PARTICLE ACCELERATOR EXPLODES AND HE STRIKES HIMSELF

so what if that actually happened this year? I dunno, I would die, how bout y'all?

bUT

that long-winded theory leads me to my prompt

So the heroes don't realize it yet, but crisis has already started, as we know. But when Oliver, Barry, and Kate know, they go to alert Supergirl and her crew on E-38, since they're the only ones not on E-1.

So Kara reveals herself to Lena right when Barry and Oliver come to their earth to recruit them into stopping the crisis. See that big ass theory above? thAT'S where this comes into play.

Barry 'dies' because of the lightning theory and everyone's mourning and Kara and many others are injured during that event. Lena's worried AF but is still pissed as she heals her.

Hope you enjoy <3

Chapter Text

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS EARLIER...

Lena stared at Kara from the other side of the living room. Kara could tell that from behind her eyes her walls were building back up again. She was truly broken. And it was all her fault.

The latter had her glasses in her hand and her button down was ripped open down the middle. Just before Lena came over, Kara just sent a simple We need to talk text. No context, no emojis, nothing. Very un-Kara-Danvers-like.

So Lena came after work to her apartment. She faked the smile, the concern, the worry, everything she said up to the point of her taking off her glasses and ripping her shirt open.

And Kara had no clue until now.

Lena just continued to stare at her hard, cold, and dangerously in the middle of the usually warm apartment that's suddenly gone chilly. The usual comfort that's there between the two, the natural ambiance of Kara Danvers' apartment: gone.

The two were silently deciding what to say or do, how to react. The Super, wondering whether to assure her that she didn't mean to hurt her, but knowing that whatever Lena's feeling, she's going to try and push her away. Meanwhile, the Luthor was considering whether to down the whole bottle of wine on the table and throw it at her—even when she would probably catch it—or to just leave and never speak to her again. Even if her mind was deliberating whether or not to do the last option, she knew in her heart that she could never leave her for many reasons.

Kara chooses to start, her voice cracking due to the dryness in her mouth. "You knew."

"That my best friend had been lying to me for over two years?" Her voice was empty, full of despair. "That she never told me every time she had to abruptly leave me? That she never trusted a Luthor with a Super's secret?" With every reason, her eyes became darker, filled with tears, fists clenching and unclenching at the hem of her pencil skirt.

"It wasn't like that, Lena—"

"Oh, really?" She shifted her weight and crossed her arms. "Because that's what it seems like to me."

"Lena, I only wanted to protect you!"

"Then why not tell me? The one person I could trust actually couldn't trust me! If I knew, this would've made things so much easier between us!"

"I couldn't tell you because everyone was against me telling you!" she whines. "I wanted to tell you because you were the only one left in the dark! And then with Alex—"

"Alex is your sister, of course she knows!"

"She got her memory erased and you didn't even notice it!" Kara yells. Lena's brow furrows and her mouth parts, her head tilting in confusion at the claim and the rise of her volume. "My sister sacrificed the memories of me being an alien for fifteen years to save me. If you had to do the same, I could never forgive myself."

The Luthor licked her lips, shaking her head gently. "So why didn't you tell me."

"Because I love you too much to see you get hurt from the ones who know my weaknesses."

Lena sucked her lips in and licked them, pursing them now. "Then how do you feel now, knowing that the person who hurt me today was yourself? Knowing that you inflicted the pain, the betrayal I feel. Knowing that you fucked up so badly." Her words hung in the air left to dry, Kara obviously hurt by her words as her mouth just gaped open, trying to form words. Lena didn't have any emotion in her gaze as she raised a single eyebrow in silent question to see if she has a retort. 

The sound of a cosmic whoosh behind Lena interrupted the heavy moment, gaining both of their attention as Lena turns around. "What the hell?" She heard another whoosh behind her and soon Kara was in front of her, clad in the Supergirl look, which she had to roll her eyes at considering the conversation they just had.

First came Barry, then Oliver, and Kate through the portal and closed it behind them. They looked around to make sure they were in the right spot. "This is certainly bright," Kate says, blinking her eyes sharply.

"Well, you do live in a cave," Oliver mutters.

She rolls her eyes and grins at the blonde. "Kara."

"Kate," she breathed. The only difference that Kara could tell between seeing them last time was that Oliver was now sporting a light goatee and Kate had red tips. Barry always looked the same. "Hey."

The two men furrowed their brows and their eyes flicked back and forth between the two heroes, the speedster stretching out the sentence, "Are we missing something?"

"Yeah, a gaydar," Kate snorts.

Oliver rolled his eyes and Lena narrowed hers at the grinning woman. "We need your help."

"Again," the young woman adds.

"And with everyone you've got," Barry adds to the two. "Speaking of..."

Kara looks back to Lena and sighs when she turns back to her friends. "This is Lena. Lena Luthor."

Kate's eyes widen as she grins. "Woah, seriously? The billionaire you were talking about last year?" 

Supergirl sighed again as she closed her eyes and placed her hands on her hips, her mouth in a straight line. "Yes, Kate."

"Oh, awesome, more billionaire friends to add to the list." Her eyes go up and down and her grin gets more devilishly as she eyes her loose blouse and her trousers. "And a lesbian, too. Even better." Lena defensively crosses her arms over her chest, raising a challenging eyebrow at her. 

Oliver cleared his throat and a stare from him made the redhead stop before he looked behind the blonde. "On our earth, your family is, well, nonexistent, for all we know."

Lena raised her other eyebrow. "Nonexistent?"

Barry scratched the nape of his neck. "Yeah, um, Lex Luthor was last seen three years ago—"

"Right when dear old cousin Brucey disappeared," Kate muttered.

"—and it's unknown if he has a sister, which, I'm guessing, is you."

Lena somewhat smiles. "On this earth, unfortunately, yes."

"Well, good," Kate says. "'Cause we need all the friends, billionaires, aliens, and firepower we can get."

Supergirl sighs. "Are you two... you? Just to make sure."

Oliver throws a knife from out of his pocket and went to stab Barry, but the speedster caught his wrist and disarmed him, tossing the knife in his hold, sparking a bit of yellow lightning. Within those three seconds, Lena blinked numerous times to make sure she saw what she just saw. "What in the hell?"

"We'll explain later," Kate tells her. "For now, let's round up the troops."

"You know your way around, Barry?" He nods. "Go find Alex, Brainy, Nia, everyone." He runs out the room with Oliver, leaving Kate behind to look around while the blonde turns back to her... she doesn't know at the moment what they are.

"I'm coming with you," Lena says definitively. 

"I wasn't going to argue with you on that."

"Yeah, well, it seems like there are plenty of other things to argue about right now." Supergirl looks around the apartment and exhales through her nose. "I'll meet you at the DEO." Lena brushes past her and glances at Kate before she's out the door with a loud slam.

"Girlfriend?"

Kara snorts, still looking up for a moment as she turned around to face the vigilante. "I wish."

"So let me guess, you told her your secret—"

"And it did not end well."

Kate smiled with a soft chuckle. "It's gonna be one hell of a ride with you two."

"Ya think?"

"Just speak your heart." She shrugs. "Do whatever you need to do that's against the rules. I did and I've never felt better about myself."

"What did you do, playgirl?"

"I'll tell you on the way, Supergirl."

"I honestly don't know when I'll be back." Alex nods into the phone. "Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Vasquez. I trust you." She ends the call, hitting her palm with one end of the phone and sighs as she turns around and sees Kelly placing another shirt in her duffle bag. "You sure you'll be okay?" she asks as she goes over to the bed to where a lot of clothes, medical equipment, and weapons laid spread out.

"I should be asking you that." Kelly grabbed the bandages and stitches that were in a ziplock and places them inside. "You're about to go to another world—"

"Done it a few times."

"—to face a danger you don't even know—"

"Wayyy too many times to count," the redhead chuckles.

"—and you don't know when you'll be back." Alex loses the humor and sighs, pulling the black t-shirt out of her hands to hold them in her own and pull her closer.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "These kinds of things... I sometimes use humor to help—"

"To show that you're not afraid." Kelly smiles softly at her furrowed brow. "Therapist, remember?"

Alex chuckles and swings their hands slightly. "Yeah," she mutters. "Look, I don't know what it is, but that's my job: to go into danger without knowing what it is sometimes. But we're gonna figure it out and stop whatever it is. And when we do—" Alex lifts one hand to her cheek to raise Kelly's head so she can kiss her gently "—then I'll be back here as fast as The Flash."

Her brow furrows at the name. "The who-now?"

She laughs softly and kisses her again. "I'll explain as much as I can now and tell you about all my war stories to different dimensions when I come back, I promise." Kelly smiles when she hugs her tight and closes her eyes as she tries to remember the touch of her hugs and her scent, just in case.

FORTY-SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS EARLIER...

First, the four main superheroes come through the breach, all in their gear and suits. Then Alex, Brainy, Winn, Dreamer, Lena, J'onn, and surprisingly, Maggie.

Alex shakes off the jump from worlds and smiles weakly at her ex with a nod. "Thanks for agreeing to come."

"A possible end-of-the-world crisis?" The captain of the Jump City Police Department grins. "Count me the hell in."

Supergirl looks around the hangar. "Well, at least we're in a familiar setting."

"Trust me," Felicity says, coming from where the computers are, "everyone's spread out right now. We just needed a rendezvous point."

"Is everyone here?" Oliver asks.

"Parts of Team Flash including Captain Joe West, DA Cecile Horton, Harry Wells from Earth-2, and yours truly, handsome—but taken—Cisco Ramon are broadcasting live from STAR Labs," he says in an announcer's voice from the computers he's displayed from. "Legends are incoming in three, two, one," Cisco counts down, pointing outside the doors where everyone turns to look and the Waverider comes out of the sky from another breach, landing on the tarmac outside the hangar.

Sara, Mick, Ava, Charlie, Zari, Constantine, Nate, Ray, and Gary came down the ramp. "Gideon told us a major time flux happened and we came as soon as we could," the captain informed.

"Good, everyone's here," Oliver notices with a nod as others from Teams Arrow and Flash come from different parts of the room, joining everyone in the center. "Kara, introduce us all formerly for those who don't know you?"

"My name is Kara Zor-El Danvers," she says, glancing at Lena, who's caught looking away from her when she said her full real name. "I am Supergirl."

"Director Alex Danvers of the Department of Extranormal Operations."

"I am Querl Dox, Brainiac-5, a Twelfth-Level Intellect from the Thirty-First century, part of The Legion and a part of the DEO, as well. But you may call me Brainy."

"I'm Nia Nal, but I'm known as Dreamer in the suit."

"My name is J'onn J'onzz. I am the last Green Martian Manhunter."

"Winn Schott, IT for the DEO."

"Captain Maggie Sawyer of Jump City Police Department," she says, flashing her badge.

"Lena Luthor, CEO of L-Corp."

Everyone a part of Teams Arrow and Flash other than the leaders look at each other. "Oh, grow up," Kate says, taking off her mask with a sigh of relief and Maggie's eyes widen and her as she blushes. "We all have last names and or parts of us that we're stuck with. In her case, it's the one that the crazy brother has. So what, her last name is Luthor? Get over it."

"I like this one," Lena says with a waggle of her finger in the bat's direction as she smirks over at her. "I could've handled it, but thanks." She nods and Oliver clears his throat to gain everyone's attention back.

"The only addition we have is Sherloque and Harry Wells," Barry says. Sherloque bows while Harry waves onscreen.

"And I'm Kate Kane or Batwoman," she says as she gestures to herself. "The big bat's little cousin."

"Alright," Sara says with a nod. "Nice to meet you all."

"So," Kara says with a clap, "where do we start?"

Chapter Text

FORTY-THREE HOURS EARLIER...

As Felicity said, everyone has spread out across their bases; STAR Labs, the Bunker, both CC and SC PD precincts, and Argus. Everyone did as much digging as they could and a little searching on the dark web did indeed prove that every Luthor on this earth hasn't been a threat for three years. Either they were in hiding or possibly presumed dead.

"Well, that's good," Kara somewhat sighs at what Felicity found while she was in the Bunker. "No other evil Luthors means that we won't have any double fire of them."

"Or any other traitors," Lena muttered. "Both assistants and family." She walks away and Kara bows her head, sucking on her lips as her foot slightly twitched in her boot.

So with that new information, Barry and Kara went on a search around the world to look under every rock, inside every nook and cranny to where Lex Luthor of both E-1 and 38 could be. Team Arrow had to deal with another reoccurring pop up of an anti-vigilante gang with extreme firepower; Batwoman went to go help them while Alex and Maggie were overseeing at the precinct, a few blocks down from the Bunker.

That left Lena, Winn, Felicity, and Curtis at the Bunker to tinker with sun grenades, Canary Cry grenades and necklaces, kryptonite shields, Speed Force dampeners, weapons, Supergirl's new suit, anti-meta grenades, a lot of deadly items and grenades included if you think about it. Sara and Nate were sparring on top of the platform as the others worked in silence, apart from the occasional grunt and land of a blow, as well as the talks of improvements and sounds of metal clinking.

"Alright, I've got the Speed Force dampeners down," Winn announces, grinning as he pushes back from the table in his chair. "I'll go drop some of these bad boys off at STAR Labs."

"Take a few sun grenades with you while I do the same at the Waverider," Curtis tells him as he hands over four.

"On it." Winn takes the extrapolator and opens a breach, disappearing inside before it closes. Curtis opens his own breach and he leaves the two women behind to tinker and tweak at Supergirl's suit, tapping on monitor keyboards and on tablets.

Felicity glances up from her tablet at the brunette as she tries to get Archer offline and not as impending as it can be in the future. "She told you, didn't she?"

Lena sighs as she opens the helmet and looks at the filtering system inside, tweaking at the ventilation as metal batons clatter. "And I was the only one who didn't know, huh?"

"You might have to specify what you don't know."

"Oh, I don't know, maybe that the most important person in my life is a superhero behind my back, who—also, is the cousin to my evil brother's arch-enemy. And she or nobody even bothered to tell me that there are multiple earths, confirming the multiverse theory that people have been theorizing for decades—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Felicity chuckles with a wavering hand out, even if the scientist didn't look up at her. "Lena, she trusts you—"

"Trusts me?" Lena slams down the helmet on the table, snapping it close in the progress, not even making Felicity flinch as she fought back her stare. "She has had so many opportunities just to tell me." Her mouth quivers as she tries to find words that can describe how she feels, her emotions that have been built up since day one of knowing her friend becoming too much, even with her little boxes method.

"I love her," she whispers. "And love is built on trust. How could I love her back then if I didn't see the truth or if she didn't tell me?"

Felicity smiles weakly at her. "That's the thing: you don't know who you're falling in love with until they show you their true selves. It's up to you whether to decide you'll still stay with them and still love them."

"What if the person who loves the other did it to protect them?"

The blonde shrugged. "The heroes do a lot of things for loved ones and others that you might not even see or know about. That's the thing; we may know the heroes and what they do, but if we don't know who they claim to be, we really don't know them then." Her eyebrows came together as she tilted her head, looking up. "Did that make sense?"

Lena nods side to side. "Yeah, it kinda did." The two smiled at each other, sharing a small moment of compatibility before a gust of wind blasted them both, Supergirl and Flash coming in without warning, both of them bracing themselves on the table. 

"Oh my God, Kara, Barry—"

"Evil lair," Supergirl hacks out in between coughs. "Kryptonite."

"Guns and kryptonite gas," Barry huffs as Felicity checks on him and he just waves her off. "I'm fine, just focus on her."

"Stand her up as best as you can and support her," Lena instructs as she closes the ventilation and helmet before taps the crest, making the suit go back into its disc as Barry and Felicity did as she instructed. Once she placed it on the crest of her normal suit, the Kryptosuit spread out its nanoparticles, coming to form around her, filtering the kryptonite out.

"That's a pretty cool suit," Flash murmurs.

Felicity nods in agreement. "Definitely."

Lena grabs a tablet to read her vitals. "Keep the helmet on for five minutes and you'll be alright." Her green eyes flicked over to the table. "Damn, they took them all. Sara, Nate, get me some sun lamps from the Waverider." They nod and the Bureau employer opens up a portal from his corrier and they're off. "Barry, are you sure nothing infected you, either?"

He scrunched up his face. "I'm not sure if there were any other chemicals all the way in China."

"Yeah, nope, I don't trust you," Felicity says, texting on her phone. "Go to Caitlin at STAR Labs and have her run some tests but not before you drop me off at SCPD because Oliver got a graze and Dinah needs her cry."

"Oh, Christ," he mutters before picking the new Canary's choker necklace off the desk and picked her up bridal style and zoomed her out of the room, leaving the Super and Luthor alone.

Lena pointed to the chair in front of her as she arched an eyebrow at her. "Sit. I still need to make sure everything's in check while the suit filters."

"The suit's fine, Len—"

"You are not the one who made this suit, therefore you do not know the little details I need to make sure are in working order, and I never said it included talking," she snapped. Supergirl sighed silently as she sat down and elevated her left arm on the table, her forearm facing up. Lena tapped the bottom of her palm three times and a USB port was raised. She took the cord attached to the tablet and plugged it in, going over the data that appeared onscreen.

Her brow furrowed as she worked on putting new information on the heroes of this earth so that the suit could run them through a database and come up with calculations and attacks they could do together. As she did that, she continued to say to herself, little boxes, over and over again in her head like a mantra. Yes, she knew that snapping at Kara was wrong and hurtful, but she also knew that she herself was hurt and they had to focus on what was important: the crisis in front of them, not their feelings. Even though that one other crisis they had were their feelings and they were in front of each other, that was to be handled later.

The screen lit up green in the success of adding simulations and calculations, as well as notifying her that the filtration was done. "There." Lena took out the plug and coiled it in her other hand, saying cold and harshly, "Everything's in order. Keep the suit on, or not, for all I care." She pushes the port back into the suit, making it look almost seamless once again, and turned to leave.

She was stopped when Kara grabbed her hand to pull her back, turning her so she could face the standing Kryptonian as the helmet came off and look her in the eye as her hair fell. Her curls bounced against her shoulders, her pink lips were parted slightly, her eyes were darker than usual... more empathetic, empty... Lena had no idea she was paying attention to all of her details as she was almost pressed chest-to-chest with her, their hands linked between them as the divider between them.

What snapped her out from looking all over her facial features was the sudden different texture she was feeling. She looked down and saw that Kara put her hand on the House of El crest, laying it flat on the symbol as her own gloved hand covered hers.

Lena's brow slightly came together when she looked back up at her, their breaths mixing as both of their mouths were parted now in confusion yet somewhat clarity, too. Kara noticed and put her mouth in a straight line with a small frown as both of them were confused, but not at the same time. Both of their eyes were stormy as they were darker than their brighter shades, showing their emotions were really impactful on them.

Kara opened her mouth again as she inhaled shakily to say something but the opening of a breach on the raised platform made them both turn their head. The entrance of Alex made Lena pull her hand away from under Kara's sharply to grab her tablet and walk away from the two as Alex was going to start worrying and fussing over her little sister.

Lena didn't look back, but Kara had a faraway look in her eyes as she looked where she disappeared beyond a corner before Alex was in front of her, concerned. "What's wrong?"

The blonde shook her head, brushing past her. "I'm fine. I've gotta go look for him."

"Kara, you were just hit with kryptonite out of nowhere!"

"And I have on Lena's suit if something like that happens again, I'll be fine." Kara has to stop walking towards the tunnel entrance when Alex grabs her arm and is forced to look back at her.

"Please be careful," she whispers. "I'm not losing my sister today."

Kara smiles weakly and hugs her tightly. "We're not losing anyone today." She flies out the entrance, past Lena who was flat against the wall, sighing a breath of relief when she remained unseen to her.

"Why'd you hide?" She pursed her lips and turned around from the corner and saw Alex with her hands on her hips.

"There was an addition I made to Oliver's bike."

"Oliver is at the precinct."

"Your point?"

"Did she tell you or not?"

"I'm not discussing this with you." Lena shuts down, moving to the platform to only have Alex follow her.

"Lena, come on."

"There's nothing relevant right now to me unless it includes Lex or you have something for me to work on, Director," she tells her fiercely, turning around to meet her confused gaze with a hard one. "The time when I will be concerned is when one of us is hurt."

"What if you're the one already hurt, Lena?"

"I have no idea what you could be referring to, Director," she lies as she takes a seat, going over the information Laurel sent in about everything she could find on this earth's Lex Luthor, which wasn't much.

"Cut the Director bullshit, we're friends Lena. She told you," Alex stated. "And you don't know what to do."

"Of course not, it's not every day when your best friend tells you that she's the city's hero," Lena scoffed.

"And it's not every day where the big sister loses her memory and I see my little sister die in front of me." Lena pulls in her lips as she closes her eyes and sighs silently, hesitating before she turned in the chair to look at Alex across the floor, leaning against the perpendicular desk.

"She died?"

"Going against Red Daughter," she confirmed with a nod as she looked at her boots with a grave expression. "RD had some... upgrades. She knocked her out cold before she killed her." Alex looked back up with a solid gaze, trying not to get into tears as she recalled what happened.

"She literally siphoned the sunlight from the plants and grass in the forest," she stressed. "I saw my sister die and come back to life all within five minutes of me getting back my memories and breaking down on top of my sister's dead body." She worked her jaw, biting on the inside of her lip. "And she would've died without either of you getting a pair to tell each other how you feel," she said through gritted teeth, not backing down from what she had to say. "I get that you were lied to, we all were at some point, but she did what she had to do to keep both of us safe, you even longer than the agonizing months both of us went through. 

"She loves us both, that's without a doubt. So if you just open your eyes and stop being angry and upset with and at her, you'll see why she did it. And something good other than escaping this hell that we're in might come out of it."

With every reason Alex listed, her eyes softened from the brown eyes' intense, firey, emotionally strong gaze. Lena processed, dropping her head to look down at her lap and sigh when she felt the hairs of her high ponytail drop in front of her shoulders. When she looked back up, Alex had a single eyebrow quirked and her lips were pursed up as she wordlessly asked her what she was going to do.

As soon as Lena opened her mouth, the elevator dinged and Oliver led the way in with his head down as he flipped his bow in his hand, the rest of Team Arrow plus Barry following him. "There's something you all need to know."

Chapter Text

FORTY-ONE HOURS EARLIER...

"So you made a deal with The Monitor and you didn't bother to tell us?" Barry almost sighed in his exasperated voice. He and Oliver were in the middle of the hangar, everyone on all teams surrounding them as Kara and Kate stood off near them in case someone broke out.

"Look, it was better for you all to not know—"

"Ollie, we could've tried something else to work!"

"There is no other way, Barry, I'm going to die," Oliver stresses. "Eobard said I lived to be eighty-six like three, four years ago? Well, guess what, he's wrong because The Monitor saw my future after last year and he said it was inexorable and unavoidable as he saw me die."

"All that we know is that I vanish in a bright light and there are red skies that eventually disappear and now that we know that you're supposed to die?" Barry scoffs tiredly. "There's gotta be some way we can avoid that."

"Barry, that newspaper is going to be written in less than a day from now we can't change anything."

"How would you know? You don't understand that timelines are malleable!" he shouts.

"I understand that completely fine because you've fucked with them too many times to count! But now Clark saw it in the Book of Destiny, your wife Iris West-Allen writes a newspaper article about it in Central City Citizen, and I'm the one that made the deal with The Monitor, who knows what's going to happen!" Oliver yells back. "I made sure that both you and Kara lived because people need you!"

"But we need you, too, Oliver!"

"Kara, you stand for truth, justice, the American way, hope, help, and compassion for all," he says with his eyes closed and hands on his hips as he turns in her direction and sees her worrying her bottom lip. "We need more people like you in this world, and you inspire hope. I don't. You and Barry do."

"So we're just supposed to let you die?" She scoffs, shifting her weight and crossing her arms as her hair swings back from her movement. "I don't think so."

"Well, there's nothing you two can do about it," he says, turning so he can see both of them. "This is one thing you can't change in the malleable timeline. This crisis that we're all here to stop," he says to everyone, raising his voice, "can't be stopped unless we stop it together. And that means making sacrifices that we may know what will already happen and what won't happen. But we do it because we are heroes, even if some of us don't wear a cape, or a mask, or a costume. We are Kryptonians, engineers, archers, Canaries, speedsters, hackers, metahumans, journalists, parents, siblings, scientists, lawyers, sorcerers, vigilantes, cops, shapeshifters—"

"Did you get everyone?" Kate murmurs.

"No matter who we are," he continued, ignoring her, "we are Legends. A family. And that means we go down in history together, no matter what happens." The Emerald Archer turns to his longtime speedster friend, lowering his voice. "None of you may like it, but some of us may die, making the ultimate sacrifice. But we can't stop it. But what we can do is make sure the threat is stopped together. Understood?"

Murmurs of agreement go around and Barry walks up to him. "You're not leaving me without another hug."

"I despise hugs," he grumbles, yet hugging him first anyway, gripping him tight as he pats his back strongly. "Don't ever stop running."

"Don't miss."

"I never miss," Oliver chuckles, pulling back and patting the back of his head affectionately. He claps his hands together and yells, "Alright! Let's get to work and track down these monsters!"

THIRTY-SIX HOURS EARLIER...

Supergirl speedingly stumbled into STAR Labs, holding her hand over her left eye towards a desk. "Holy shit, Kara." Both Dreamer and Maggie went over to help her from leaning on the desk railing. "What happened?"

"Where's Lena and Caitlin?" she groaned as blood trickled down from her gloved hand. "I need sun lamps and Killer Frost right now."

Brainy tapped on the computer to alert everyone in the building. "Lena, Caitlin, get down here now. Supergirl needs assistance. Preferably with the chilly counterpart."

Lena and Killer Frost came from one of the medical bay sections, the raven-haired woman with a sun lamp. "What the hell did you do now?" the metahuman asked. Kara removed her hand and everyone but the meta and cop gasped at the bloody cat-scratch-like cut from the start of her eyebrow, over her eyelid and down to her mid-cheek.

She blinks a couple times, trying to get the blood out of her eye, wincing. "I'm fine, I'm fine, just turn on the sun lamp and hit me with a blast at the same time."

Lena nods. "On three."

"Three." Frost used a finger to spray ice on the cut while Lena turned on the sun lamp and held it above her eye. The wound closed and had a light ice layer over it to help it heal, the blood slightly drying around it.

"It's going to leave a badass scar," Frost said with a small nod.

"Chicks dig scars," Maggie said with a grin and a waggle of her eyebrows at the Luthor. Lena rolled her eyes and shut off the lamp, Caitlin taking back control over her body.

The now-brunette blinked a few times. "How'd you get the cut?"

"The gang Oliver and his team were dealing with in Star City? Linked to Lex." Supergirl sighed and the Luthor in the room shook her head. "They had kryptonite swords, katanas, the whole nine. It was like the devices from our earth just came here."

Both Brainy and Lena looked up and at each other and said, "What if they did?"

Maggie's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Yeah, Lex disappeared on our earth," Dreamer said. "And we couldn't find him. Lockwood went to prison, Haley took over as the Secretary of Alien Affairs, and that was that."

Lena sucked in her lips, closed her eyes and sighed. "No, he didn't."

Supergirl turned to her, confused. "He disappeared when I fought him."

"The prison? His tunnels with the computers?" The blonde's face went into slightly more confusion and sadness as Lena looked right at her, dead center. "He teleported there and I took the Harun-El out of his system. And then I shot him. And right before he died, that bastard decided to go out with a bang and break me in the most dickish move ever by revealing my best friend for me when she had multiple opportunities to do so!" Lena was now almost yelling and everyone but the cop and Kryptonian were backing up as the Super and Luthor were staring at each other.

"Guys, c'mon," Maggie urged, nodding her head towards the exit. "Let's see what Cisco has in his lab regarding Nia's new toys." The Supergirl team went off towards the lab, Caitlin going to her own lab, leaving the two in silence.

"You killed your brother."

"It's not like our own hasn't killed another in a family, is it?" Supergirl places her hands on her hips and looks around the room. "Yeah, but if I didn't, he would've come after me, after you, us, everyone in our lives!" Lena scoffs as she shakes her head, putting down the sunlamp and shining it in the Super's direction. "But this would've still happened if I didn't do it, anyway."

"This is not your fault, Lena," Kara says, hesitating to take a step towards her to comfort her. But knowing the grounds they were on as friends, she decided against it, retreating her advancements instead. 

"Maybe if I just didn't deny what was in front of me this entire time, then it wouldn't have been my fault."

Kara looked around the room as she licked her lips. "So you knew before?"

"I had my suspicions," Lena said with a nod. "But when you got "sick," I put that theory to bed. But now..."

The blonde nodded. "That was J'onn when I was trapped in my own head after Reign." She scrunched her lips up as the scientist just stared at her. "You just plan on giving me the silent treatment from now on?"

Lena shook her head with a small frown. "I just don't know what to do with you right now." 

Kara furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to say something but before a single sound could come out, she was thrown across the room by a yellow blur and crashed back against a monitor and brought them down with her as she groaned.

"KARA!" Lena tried to run over to the groaning hero but was forced to come to a stop when the blur sped in front of her, his red eyes menacing as he stared into her frightened greens, his whole body vibrating at high speeds, red lightning flickering around him.

"Don't you dare touch her, Eobard," Supergirl coughed, trying to sit up on her elbows as the helmet goes on and over her face.

"I'll do exactly as I please," he says in his dismantled voice. A flash of blue came in front of him and he was knocked to the ground, his vibrations and lighting flickering.

Lena furrowed her brow, baffled at the now groaning evil speedster. "What the hell?"

Dreamer's astral projection comes into view in front of her and soon instead of being a hologram, her whole body is there. She grins down at her new gloves on her hands as she turns them over. "Cisco, you're amazing."

"Yep, that's what they all say," he says quickly over the speaker from his lab before yelling, "Now light him up!"

From the doors of Caitlin's lab, cold condensed air billows out from the floor and Killer Frost smirks as she ices the floor around the man in yellow, coming closer and circling him as she cases him in ice, then building it up and around him, creating a makeshift prison.

Dreamer helped Supergirl up as Brainy came in with Maggie and a gun in her hand, aiming at the giant ice cube. As soon as she was able to stand on her feet, the Super went over and in front of Lena, protecting her with her body and an arm extended out.

"So protective," Lena mumbles.

"I told him not to touch you, and I won't let him," she said quietly in a harsh whisper back, telling her that this wasn't a discussion nor argument. Her head turned back towards the problem when she heard small cracks, looking closer to see tiny cracks in the ice.

"You heard him," Maggie said, nodding to Dreamer. "Light 'em up."

"Give me your hand," Lena whispers to the blonde and she turns back with a deeply furrowed brow as the Naltorian charges up.

"What?"

"Just do it!" She holds her hand out behind her for her to take and Lena takes her forearm to touch the knuckles at her hand with her fingers and reach over the Kryptonian's fingers, enabling a blaster that charged up in her palm.

"What the Rao?"

"It's a charged blaster in your hand that shoots out a harmful light ray that's taken from solar and fluorescent lights now just—" The loud shatter of the ice breaking made Kara shield her body as ice spewed everywhere, everyone covering themselves and others.

Supergirl's helmet came back on as she charged up the blaster and shot at where the ice prison was, but Reverse-Flash was too fast. He ran away, red lightning chasing him as he ran around her in a circle, making her confused at where he could be, even with the calculations in the suit.

The Reverse-Flash eventually shoulder-checked her, knocking her back again with his force from gained of speed. She was too discombobulated to see that someone was missing, but she was able to focus on Lena's screams that were getting farther and farther away.

"LENA!" She sped out of the main room and flew out to the parking lot, letting the helmet dissipate to try and look for them, but seeing him or the brunette nowhere.

Flash came to a stop next to her, putting down Batwoman at his side. "Cisco called us while we were at the Cave, something about Eobard and to get here quickly."

"What just happened?"

Supergirl placed her hands on her hips and gnawed at her bottom lip as she looked down at her boots. "Eobard just took Lena."

Chapter Text

THIRTY-TWO HOURS EARLIER...

"These dampeners aren't working, Cisco!" Supergirl yelled over the comms as she was chasing Reverse-Flash through DC. After searching and searching, they found reports of Eobard being in Downtown DC, making his way North, thanks to some media posters reporting about a red and yellow blur. That didn't tell her where Lena was, though, and that was her main concern right now.

"Because I forgot to change the frequency to negative Speed Force but Winn and I are working on it now—"

"Done!" Winn threw the dampener bomb to Cisco who slightly fumbled with it as he caught it.

"Kara, location!"

"The Monument!"

Flash opened a breach and took the grenade from the former meta. "Ready when you are, Supergirl."

The red and yellow streak ran a few times around all flags before going up the building. "NOW!" Flash jumped through and he was soon falling through the air, side by side to The Pencil. He pulled the pin and threw it in front of the evil speedster's path, exploding on the impact of the building.

"Woo!" Winn and Cisco screamed, high fiving, the former pumping his fist. "That's what I'm talkin' about!"

Eobard started falling and Supergirl caught him, Flash blowing mini tornadoes to slow his fall and landed not-so-gracefully on the ground. He sighed with a grin when he saw his mother's killer knocked out in her arms. "Go find her. I'll get him to the—" a gust of wind and the man in yellow was at his feet "—lab." The speedster pursed his lips and nodded to himself. "Must be how people feel when I leave."

Supergirl flew back to this earth's prison, Iron Heights, where she initially found Eobard in his old cell. A trap. She did see Lena, but it was a hologram of her. She now tried to hone in on her heartbeat; surrounded by lead or not, she had to find her.

"—ara." She blasted off high in the sky, slowly going North just to make sure she was going in the right direction. "I want you to— no that's not it. I need you to hear me right now." At her voice and her pleads, she went faster, putting her fists in front of her to gain speed.

"Please," Lena softly sobbed, sniffling as she shook her head. "I don't need Supergirl right now, I need Kara Zor-El."

With those words, Supergirl crashed in through the balcony window of an abandoned club in Metropolis, shattering the glass all over the floor and the desk. It was like an office on top of the club. The only thing that illuminated light in the room was the full moon, shining right on Lena's face, her tears glistening in the night. Her helmet came off as she ran over to tied-up Lena. "Lena—"

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, her head dropping in the hands that were holding her face as Kara bent down to look at her.

"Hey, hey, look at me, it's not your fault."

"No, Kara, that's not it."

"She was talking about what she did for me." The blonde's jaw clenched and her teeth ground before she stood up, turning around and faced the smug Lex Luthor from their earth, leaning back against the desk, a glass of scotch in his hand.

"What did you do," she growled through her teeth.

"Oh, nothing too bad, honestly." Lex sipped on his scotch, placing it on the desk behind him, gripping the edge. "Just gave me back what was taken from me, that's all." He tightened his grip on the desk, making the metal bend under his hold just so easily.

"You have something else planned, don't you?"

"The exact same question my dearest sister asked me. Wow, you two are so in sync."

"We may be blood-related but you are no brother of mine," Lena apathetically spat.

"Ouch," Lex says with a hand to his chest. "That hurt. Just like that shot to the chest." Lena's eyes flare with anger, fists clenched with a need to punch him. "Harsh. But yes, the Kryptonian is right. Lena dear, do you remember what I did eight years ago?"

Lena's face paled and her brow furrowed in anger when Kara looked back at her in concern, but she ignored her look, staring right at the madman as she struggled against her restraints. "You evil, maniacal, son of a bitch!"

"The list could go on and on, couldn't it?"

"If you hurt her—"

"Oh, I intend on doing so."

"Lex, she has done nothing to you! She doesn't deserve this!"

"Yes, you're right, sis, she doesn't." Lena's mouth stays agape as she looks pleadingly at the bald man with sad eyes. "I'm only doing this out of my enjoyment to see you crash and burn, seeing the woman you love being tortured to her death. And to, well, you know," Lex says with a shrug and soon grinned, "to take over the world. Starting with the States and taking out the retched Kryptonians."

The last words of his speech were slightly unheard by the two women as Supergirl turned her head to look at the brunette at the word the maniacal man accented. "Lena?"

She looked at her helplessly. "I had to otherwise he would kill Alex and Nia."

"Oh! Another thing!" Both turned their attention back to the grinning madman. "I know something that you don't," he said in a sing-song tune.

Supergirl's eyes hummed purple as she sped over to him in a simple blur, bending him over backward on the desk and holding him back across his chest with an arm. Lex just laughs maniacally. "I see that you've inherited my Kaznian Dutch's purple eyes."

"Yeah, that's not the only thing," she growls, raising up her fist as it glowed purple, lighting the dark room with its hue.

"Yeah," Lex grunts as he grins, bearing his teeth. "I have my own surprises, too." A shadow from outside came over the two enemies and the blonde barely has enough time to look up before she's thrown off him and onto the wall on the other side of the room before falling on the floor with a groan.

Lena frantically looks back at the groaning Super and looks back at the black, caped villain who lands from hovering in the air. "Sam?"

"Samantha Arias is no more," she says in a low voice as she takes a few steps towards her, towering over the Luthor. "Only Reign."

Lena furrows her brow and shakes her head in confusion at her. "H-How?"

"Quite simple, actually." Her eyes cut over to Lex as he brushes glass and dust off his suit. "Though it might be a little too complicated for you, dear sister." Green eyes go back to the Kryptonian in black and she actually sees brown, not red as previous encounters with Reign. Her brow furrows again and mouth parts in even further bewilderment.

And she goes into ultimate confusion when Reign grins one way and winks at her. Lena scoffs and shakes her head as she still stared at her in massive confusion while she directed to the man, "You're insane, Lex."

"Trust me, I know by now." His attention turns back to the woman in blue when she stands back up. "But how bad can I be? Reign, do me a favor and take care of her. I need to talk to my sister. One-on-one Luthor chat." Reign smirks and speeds over to her former enemy and throws her out the window, flying out after her.

Supergirl stops herself from falling on the ground quickly, enabling the helmet once more before she flips mid-air and blasts back up to chase after the evil Kryptonian high in the sky. As she catches up, Reign stops in midair and turns around, giving the heroine the opportunity to pull back her fist as she comes closer, ready to hit the so-easy target.

Except Reign holds her at her shoulder and catches her right fist with her other hand. "Hey, hey, easy! It's me!"

Supergirl's brow is furrowed when her helmet dissolves back. "Sam?"

"Who else, dipshit?"

"Who was Lena staring at when we had the Christmas party at my apartment?"

"James, but we know that she was secretly in love with you while I was staring at your sister, do you believe me now?"

"You remember?" she asks in Kryptonese.

"For Rao's sake, Zor-El, I remember everything!" The blonde sighs gratefully and drops her fist.

"Sorry. It's kinda hard who to trust and who not to."

"Yeah, I know. Lex kidnapped me and Ruby and told me if I submitted then she wouldn't be harmed. Little did he know that when he injected me with the Harun-El that it only gave me my powers back."

"Is Ruby okay?"

"Yeah, I have her at a friend's right now on our earth."

"I'd feel better if she were here."

"Oh, what, closer to the danger?"

"Well, her Kryptonian mother is currently off-world with no one to protect her, so what odds do you want to take?"

"Supergirl, do you copy?" 

She taps in on her comms. "Barry, I'm here."

"Did you find Lena?" Dreamer asked.

"Yep, and backup." She nodded at Reign. "Go to STAR Labs, get a breach and bring her to the hangar, that's the safest place we have." Her brow furrows as she looks over her outfit. "And get a paint job."

The brunette makes a sound that's between a scoff and a chuckle. "Yes, ma'am. Let's get your girl, though." They both go back to the abandoned place, seeing Lena abandoned and still tied in her chair. "Lena—"

"Samantha Arias, I hate you with every fiber in my being."

She makes that sound again with a shake of her head as Supergirl breaks her zip ties. "Missed you, too."

The blonde looks her over once and then with an x-ray. "Kara." She snaps out of it and looks at her star-crossed lover, who's weakly smiling. "I'm okay."

"Can never be too careful right now." Lena nods with a sigh. "We gotta get back and debrief everyone."

Supergirl flew in the main part of STAR Labs and put Lena down from her bridal carry. "Thank God you two are okay," Alex sighs, hugging her sister, then Lena, looking her over. "Cisco, toss Lena a water when you get a moment. Barry called, said I should come down as soon as I could from the station, switching places with Mags." Cisco, Dreamer, Harry, Brainy, and Alex were the only ones at the Lab at the moment with the two new arrivals.

"The police are forming shelters in case something unpredictable happens to the civilian's homes," Brainy informs, Cisco coming back in the room with more than plenty of water for Lena and Kara, who gratefully accepted them and started drinking. "More metahumans have been popping up, going on rampages and wrecking more violence. Flash, Killer Frost, the Black Canaries, and Elongated Man are taking care of that long process now."

"Good," Supergirl says with a nod, looking at Lena. "We have information from when Lena was captured."

"Good, bad, or useful?" Alex inquires, taking a slight step with her hands on her hips.

Her sister shrugs. "Bit of all of them."

"Alright, let's get to—" She stopped when she saw Dreamer charged up and turned around. She looked over to where she was staring and raised her gun that was quickly in her hand at the entrance where a dark caped figure stood. "What are you doing here? How are you here?"

"I have my ways," Reign said. "You can always bring back what was to rei—" Her cape ruffled behind her and the woman sighed, looking behind her and dropping the act, her voice becoming softer. "Honestly, come on. I was trying to have some fun at her."

"Too late." A teen-sized girl ran out from behind her mother's cape and over to the director with a big grin. "Aunt Alex!"

"Ruby!??" Alex grinned and put her gun back as she knelt down to hug her fiercely, closing her eyes as she hugged her tight, slightly lifting her off the ground. "God, I've missed you."

"I missed you, too."

Alex grinned up at Reign as she came into the light. "How are you here? How do you have Reign's powers?"

Sam sighed, lifting her mask onto the top of her head. "Long story short, Lex kidnapped us, injected me with Harun-El, thinking it would give him Reign but I only got my powers back."

"And you slammed Kara into a wall!" Lena says loudly, swatting her arm.

Sam shrugged with a goofy grin. "Had to play the part."

"Not that I don't love this happy family reunion," Cisco says warmly with a smile before raising his voice to a yell, "but can we get back to the part where Lena was kidnapped, please?!"

Ruby and her mom chuckle a bit and the blonde clears her throat as she gestures to the Luthor heiress, getting them to shut up. "Lena, what did he have you do?"

Lena sighed, fidgeting with the top of her water bottle. "Eight years ago, before Supergirl existed and it was just Superman and the Luthors in Metropolis on our earth, he was— is obsessed with Kryptonians and annihilating them. He kidnapped me and forced me to watch as he destroyed sites around the world. The main thing that he did was turn the sun red, which slowly diminished Superman's powers." She pursed her lips and turned to Kara, pointing a bouncing finger at her. "Clark Kent."

Her eyes went wide and she looked to Alex for help, who just shrugged as she was holding Ruby in front of her by the shoulders. Supergirl dropped her head. "Yeah."

"Knew it. Anyway, Lex had me give him the equations for making red sun rays since after I testified, I destroyed that information so it could never be used again. I couldn't remember the exact equations, but once I told him what I knew, he filled the rest of it out."

"Did he have a motive as to why he kidnapped you and forced you to tell him?" Harry spoke in his deep voice. Everyone kinda forgot he was there, he kinda blended into the wall as he was silent.

When Alex asked that, both Supergirl and Lena grimaced with a sigh. It was Lena who spoke. "He was going to kill you and Nia."

Dreamer's brow furrowed as she looked over at Alex and the director sighed. "Well, that's lovely."

Kara saw Lena messing with her hands, smoothing over her knuckles over and over again to each hand. "Lena." Her eyes snapped up at her and stopped in self-awareness. "What else did he tell you." She didn't have to ask; with the fidgeting that she did, she knew there was something else that was bothering her.

Lena's eyes went to Dreamer and she sighed. "Nia, honey..." She trailed off, shaking her head slightly as her mouth remained open in the words she was trying to find, stuttering a couple of syllables. "I—"

"I'm from the future." "Nia Nal is from the future." "She's from the future." Nia, Brainy, and Harry look at each other in question and Kara, Lena, and Alex look at Brainy the same way.

"You knew?" all women asked, making the twelfth-level-intellect jump slightly at their sudden voices.

"Do you guys not know the rules of time travel?" Cisco butts in before anyone could answer their question. "Whoever comes from the future comes with a reason and if they tell you that they're from the future then that could endanger the whole freakin' timeline!" He's now yelling, letting his arms fall to his sides with loud slaps. "God, it's like you've never time traveled before."

"Not true," Kara says.

"Not the point." Alex looks back at Nia, who takes her mask off. "Why are you here then?"

"Well, mainly to help with the crisis. If I didn't come back, then my moms would never get together and I wouldn't exist."

The director's eyebrows went up and repeated what stood out to her most. "Moms."

Nia nodded. "Pretty self-explanatory now."

Alex slowly looked over at Kara and Lena, eyes going back and forth between them for five seconds before going back to the Naltorian, who nods. "Holy fuck."

"Yep."

"They—"

"Uh huh."

"And you—"

"Yes, but not how you think."

Alex leans back against one of the monitors, hand going over her hair. "Holy shit."

"I'm right here," Ruby mutters.

She ruffles her hair as she stares at nothing. "Sorry, kid."

Kara's blinking multiple times as Lena's lips stay pursed in thought. "So you're saying you came back here so that one of your moms doesn't die, is what you're saying."

Nia nodded. "But the crisis happened earlier than expected, due to a lot of things that happened on this earth—"

"Sure, just blame us for everything," Cisco mumbles.

"—so I didn't know until, well, I got my powers."

Lena tilts her head at her. "And you didn't have them before you came here?"

Nia shook her head. "Before, I just had the tech both you and Alex gave me."

Alex came out of her stupor and both brown, green, and blue eyes are back on her. Lena blinks, clenching and unclenching her fists. "Me and Alex?"

The youngest woman smiled weakly, her eyes slightly glistening with tears. "Yeah."

Their eyes widened as the CEO and Director looked at each other. "You're top shelf, but—"

"I have a girlfriend, dumbass."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Alex has a significant other in the future that is not you, Lena."

"Oh, thank God," Alex breathes.

"So if it's not you, then—"

"Oh, my God," Sam and Cisco groan, Harry just dropping his head to his chest.

"You guys are so slow, it's Kara and Lena!" the techie shouts. "They do whatever future shit—"

"I'm adopted."

Cisco nods and corrects himself. "They sort out their will-they-won't-they bullshit sometime between the next few years and eventually adopt the awesome, badass, transgender hero icon she is now!"

"Thank you."

"Anything for you, you're cool." Cisco holds up his first and Nia holds hers up and both of their fists go forward in the air and they mime an explosion as their fists didn't even collide.

Lena and Kara are staring at each other while that conversation happens. Both of them knew that they had feelings for each other, yet haven't looked that far into the future that concerned them, considering they've both been avoiding how they've felt since day one. And now with this crisis, they had to avoid it even more.

"We'll, uh—" Alex clears her throat, nodding her head towards the exit "—give you a minute." Everyone slowly files out, leaving the two alone.

"So now apparently time travel exists." Lena chuckles tiredly, fidgeting with her fingers once more, letting them slide over each other. "Another thing to cross off the theory list."

Kara understands her humor yet doesn't respond to it. "You and I..."

She smiles weakly up at her. "It was inevitable, wasn't it?"

The Kryptonian reciprocates her smile the same. "In a way, yes. What are we going to do about us, though?"

"That is not what I'm concerned about right now," Lena says with a small shake of her head. "Don't-don't get me wrong, I love you like crazy. But right now, we just need to focus on the crisis and how to stop it, okay?"

Kara believed her. How could she not? The small stutter in both her words and heartbeat proved it right. The blonde walks over in front of her to grab her hand and put it on her crest once more, hearing Lena's breathing stop as her mouth parts and eyes are staring deeply into hers until her forehead knocks against hers and Lena's eyes flutter close at the action. "You... You're always here with me, Supergirl or not."

"Kara," Lena says with a shuddering breath as she shakes her head, tears starting to form under her eyelids. "We can't."

"Because I'm a Super and you're a Luthor?"

She shakes her head once more. "No," she says, shaking her head as she pulled back and opened her eyes to look at the confused ocean blue ones. "Because you're going to have to live to get what you want."

"And if I die before that?"

"Then I guess we both leave this earth without what we need, but you are not dying," Lena growls, poking her crest now, forceful enough to push her back a bit, even if Kara did it on reflex. "Understood?"

Kara nods with a movement of her jaw. "Yes, ma'am." They stand there, the air around them lighter, more at ease and comfortable.

Until red lights start flashing and alarms go off, which soon has everyone racing back in. "Cisco, what is it?"

"Lex Luthor, Reverse-Flash, Malcolm Merlyn, and some lovely demons from Hell just set off our satellites in the parking lot of an unfinished construction site in the middle of San Fran." He stops and mumbles to himself, "Why is it always an abandoned, empty place?"

"Alright, get Constantine, Barry, Oliver, hell, everyone if we have to," Alex instructs, charging up her gun and nodding at Reign. "Let's go."

Reign bends down and kisses Ruby's forehead, gripping her by the shoulders. "Stay. Here."

"Kick ass," the teen says as Alex ruffles her hair and gets swooped up as she leaves the room by the dark Kryptonian. Lena grabs Kara's arm before she can leave.

"Your new powers."

"Yeah, what about them?" Lena pulls up a holographic screen from her arm and Supergirl gapes at it. "Holy shrap, that's cool."

"I'm reconfiguring it so that it can take that Harun-El in your system and use it as a source for the beams." She types in the formula of Harun-El and it lights up green and she nods. "Try it."

Supergirl charges up her hand and her palm lights up purple and grins. "You're a genius."

Lena smirks. "I know. Now go save the world." Supergirl picked up Dreamer and flew out with Brainiac by her side and the two tech gurus look at each other.

"Are you guys constantly eye-fucking?" Cisco comments. "'Cause it seems like there's a bunch of sexual tension around here."

"Shut up, Cisco, there's a child present."

"I'm sixteen."

"Still a child, young padawan," Cisco says, bringing her over to the mainframe. "Let's watch your mom and our friends' backs. They're gonna need it."

Chapter Text

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS EARLIER...

Flash sped in with Green Arrow and Spartan, putting them down by his sides at the hangar, Spartan running off to go vomit in the corner.

Winn grimaced, going back to his tablet. "Where are the rest?" The rest of the STAR Labs team were at said lab, staying behind in case. 

"They're coming." Barry points to a breach that opens behind him and Supergirl, Reign, Killer Frost, Batwoman, Dreamer, Alex, and Dinah-Black Canary came through, the two Kryptonians stumbling a bit and holding onto a couple of women's shoulders for support.

"Jeez, what happened?" Winn asked, rushing over to them in concern.

"Did you not see the sun?" Supergirl asked, leaning against her sister.

Winn looks up to the window. "Yeah, it's setting— Oh, my God, that's not your average sunset." He tapped his tablet outside to open the doors, giving the entire opening of the hangar an orange-red hue. He and Oliver jogged outside the hangar doors and were blinded by the red sun shining upon them while Barry meets them there with a run.

"He didn't," Winn whispered, holding his hand up to shield his eyes. "Not again."

"What is this?" Oliver asked.

"Years ago, Lex Luthor turned the sun red to deprive Kryptonians of their powers and he's doing it again," Winn explains as he runs back in, seeing more heroes and tech gurus come in from different breaches. "I need every sun lamp we have on and around our Kryptonians, stat." 

Lena comes in through her own portal, going over to Kara. "I thought it wasn't true." She hugged her, gripping her close.

Kara groans in her hold. "Tight."

"Sorry, sorry." She pulls back and holds her by her shoulders to look her over. She notices her weak eyes first, drained of life and color. Even with that one facial feature going darker, she looked older.

Lena frowns at her state. "Put on the helmet and say 'activate sun lamps.'"

Kara gives her a look but the helmet goes over her face and she says, "Activate sun lamps."

"Gladly, Kara Zor-El." The voice that was said to the Kryptonian and her only made her freeze as the sun lamp generators in her suit turn on, making her feel stronger slowly.

She licked her lips, feeling her voice wavering as she said, "M-Mom?"

"What can I do for you?"

"Can you lighten my outside view?" The dark exterior of the helmet goes transparent so Lena can see the blonde was tearing up and weakly smiling at her. "Is that what you were working on?"

Lena smiled with a nod. "Yeah."

Kara grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Thank you."

"Always." 

"Mom!" Ruby runs over from the back of the hangar, meeting her mother halfway. "You're okay." Sam takes off her mask as she bends down to catch her in a hug.

"Of course I am, baby." She grunts a bit at her squeeze, getting Ruby to pull back and be skeptical, then her gaze goes out the hangar doors. 

"Mom?"

"I'm fine, babes. I promise." She stands up and looks over at Lena and Kara. "What's the plan?"

"Well first," Sara says, rolling in a cart of sun lamps, "we turn these bad boys on." She flips a switch on the cart and they turn on, facing the Kryptonians and they sigh in relief. "That's one."

"Two," Winn says, rolling in a taller sun lamp with Curtis, "we need to figure out how to reverse the sun's solar ray colors."

"How did you do it last time, Lena?" Alex asks as Green Arrow, Flash, and Team Supergirl all gather in the middle of the circle of the lamps.

"I wouldn't know," she says as she shakes her head. "Clark did it."

"And he's on Argo on our earth," Kara sighs, letting her helmet come off so that the sun lamps helped more. "Well, wouldn't the process of turning the sun red just include changing the wavelengths? Since colors are just on a wavelength spectrum and red is the longest one."

Lena's eyebrows furrow and her eyes narrow slightly at her explanation. "Since when did you—"

"I had to lower my intelligence ever since I landed because Krypton was more advanced than Earth at the time," she explains quickly, not being able to hide the small blush on her cheeks as she crossed her arms and changed her stance. "Also because Alex was jealous."

"Was not!"

"Whatever." Both of them had small grins on their faces before the blonde turned back to the young scientist. "So all you'd have to do is reverse the wavelength or destroy whatever machine there is that's creating the wavelengths."

"So Winn, Felicity, Curtis, and I can look out for wavelengths that project red wavelengths onto the sun," Lena decides with a nod. "If it's tech, we can find it. Shouldn't take that long."

"Okay." Kara meets her sister's eyes. "One more thing. Remember Red Daughter's suit?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"You have it in the archives back at home?"

Alex's mouth goes into an 'o' as she looks over at the other Kryptonian and nods. "I can go get it."

"Thank you," she whispers. Alex pats her shoulder as she walks past her to open a breach and back to their world. "Nice makeover."

Sam looks down at her now-purple and black suit with gold highlight seams. "Yeah, Cisco's not bad."

"You're welcome!" he says from the monitors.

"I'm guessing as soon as the sun is still red and when we leave this hangar, our powers are going to be gone, aren't they?" Sam asks.

Kara's lips go into a straight line, the corners in a small frown. "Unfortunately, yes. We're benched right now."

"Well, if we moved the lamps to a compact room, we could recharge better."

"You've forgotten that I'm claustrophobic, haven't you?" Sam grimaced and it made Kara chuckle. "It's fine. I have sun rays in my suit right now, you can go with Ruby." Sam nods and Ruby rolls the cart of sun lamps to another room with her mom. Everyone else spattered out to different parts of the hanger, leaving Lena and Kara standing there together.

Lena slowly stepped towards the blonde. "So when I asked you about quantum theory—"

"I have to act like the dumb, blonde reporter known as Kara Danvers." Kara sighed. "Been doing it since I was thirteen, I didn't want you to get suspicious on our, what, third brunch date?"

"So that was a date?" Kara's mouth hung open dry, trying to search for an answer as they stared at each other, wondering the same thing.

Alex hopped through the portal and landed in a DEO hallway. She looked out to where it leads out to the mainframe and looked behind her, grinning, knowing that it was the right hall. She jogged down the hall to the archive door and typed in the passcode, providing her thumb and retinal ID. 

The screen on the wall glowed green and the door unlocked. She swung it open and it closed behind her. Alex moved through the shelves, looking for the small compartment that was identical to Kara's in the 'R' section.

"Red Daughter, Red Daughter, where are— Gotcha!" She grabs the disc and pockets it in her belt. Mission accomplished.

Alex looks around the room and sighs. "Too small for a breach." She heads back to the exit, closing the door softly behind her. She dug back out the extrapolator and clicked to open the breach in front of her, taking a step to put a foot in the portal.

"She didn't come back today?" She froze. She knew that voice. She knew the worried tone, knowing that she would probably be picking at her finger nails and cuticles out of anxiety.

"No, Ms. Olsen, but I promise, you will be the first to know upon her immediate arrival." Alex turned around and ran down the hallway and to the center of the room where Kelly was nodding gratefully at the current director in charge.

"Kelly." The brunette looked up at her voice and the director chuckled before she ran over to her, meeting her halfway in a back-breaking hug.

"You're back."

"It's not over." Alex pulled back and held her face in her hands, seeing the distress in Kelly's eyes as they scanned the small scrapes and bruises before going back to her tired eyes, noticing the more prominent eye bags. 

"Then why are you here? You should be going to kick ass."

"I will, I will, I just had to get something for the team." Kelly nodded and was pulled back in Alex's hold for another hug. "Kel, when I come back, the first place I'm going is home. And home is you." She pulled her back so that she could look right at her through a watery gaze. "I'm coming back to you. I promise."

"I know you will."

"I love you, Kelly," Alex whispers. She connects their lips together firmly, tasting the salt that's dripped down from their eyes and on their lips, still tasting it when she pulled back to rest their foreheads together.

"I love you too, Alex," she says back, opening her eyes to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes. 

"I'll be back—"

"In a flash," they say together, making each other chuckle and smile bittersweetly.

Alex kisses her softly again, brushing back her hair. "I have to go," she whispers.

Kelly nods. "I know. And it's okay." Alex nodded as she took a couple of steps back, knowing that if she didn't leave, she would stay forever. When backing up further, she just noticed the few agents watching them with soft eyes. 

She sniffs and wipes under her nose. "Listen to Deputy-Director Vasquez while I'm gone," she tells them all, getting nods and "Yes, Ma'am's" from her agents. She nods at Vasquez and mouths, "I love you" to Kelly as she takes two more steps backward, waving small at her girlfriend when she smiled at her before she turned around and jogged into the portal, hopping through the other side, back on Earth-1.

The director wipes at her eyes as she walks down the hall and to the mainframe where the computers and tablets were. She grabs a tablet and plugs in the disc with a USB to the device, going over the intelligence on there.

A few minutes later, Alex enters a room where sun lamps were shining on Sam as she talked to Ruby. "Hey." She didn't mean for her voice to sound so shaky when she greeted them, thinking her emotional state was over.

Sam immediately noticed her voice and her eyes went into concern. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing, I'm fine," Alex says not-so-convincingly, shaking her head as she dug in her pocket for the disk. "I've got something for you. Stand up."

Sam did as she said with a skeptical eyebrow and did as she was told. The redhead stepped closer to her and put the disc on her symbol and pressed the center. Just like Kara's, the suit spread out and over her body, the House of El replacing the World Killer crest.

"I added some touches to it," Alex says with a small grin as Sam looked down at herself, seeing gold and purple highlights but most importantly, the gold around the crest.

She looks back up at her, practically speechless. "Alex..."

She waves it off with a small smile. "It was nothing. There's also an AI system in your helmet called Gem."

The girl gapes at her, then her mom, then back to the director. "Shut up."

"Kara has Alura, you have Ruby. Keepin' your loved ones with you in the battle."

"You look awesome, Mom."

Sam grins down at her as she musses her hair a bit. "Thanks, babe." Alex smiles small and leaves the room silently, not aware of the superhero following her.

"You really think you can get by me without telling me what's wrong?" Alex stops at her voice and sighs as she looks up to the ceiling and turns around on her heel to face her friend.

"I just had to leave the woman I love not once, but twice in a matter of days when all I want to do is stay home and just be with her." Alex scoffs as she looks away from her, licking her dry lips. She could still taste the salt on them from her and Kelly's tears. "And this is my job. But I could die at any given moment." She bowed her head as she dug in her back pocket and pulled out a folded envelope, pulling in her lips as she looked down at it in her hands.

"It's a, uh, farewell note," she entails as she hits it in her opposite palm. "Usually, service members write them and since I'm the director, I don't have to put myself in that much danger, but since this is all happening..." Alex stopped herself and shook her head, her body shaking as she exhaled. 

"I never want her to read this." Alex looked back up at her friend through watery eyes, noticing that she was at a shorter distance from her. "I don't, Sam, I don't."

"And she won't," Sam says, gripping her shoulders. "You're Director Alex Danvers, you've gone through hell and back for so many years at so many close-to-death moments. If you can get through that, you can get through this."

"And what if I don't?"

"We're not going down that path, Alex, we can't." Sam frowns at her sad gaze. "We're both going back home alive. You because of your girlfriend and me because of my own girlfriend and daughter. Look at me, Alex." 

Alex takes in another shaky breath and looks up at her, tears threatening to fall but were held back strongly. That tough director act was always on with her and right now, even though she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, she still had it up like a brick wall.

Sam took the envelope out of her hands and held it up. "You're not going to give this to Kelly because you're going back home to her. We're going to go back home. Safe," she stressed. "And we can't do that unless we have our head in the game and knowing that we're going to get back them. Can you do that for me?"

Alex sniffled and nodded, taking in a deep breath and exhaling shakily one last time. "Since when do you have one of your own?"

Sam blushed and let her go. "Since maybe two months ago."

"Mind telling me her name?"

"Don't kill her or me."

"It's Lucy Lane, isn't it?"

"Hey, women of service are hot, you would know." Alex makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle shaking her head with a small grin at her friend.

"Thank you."

Sam nods at her. "Any time." The two share a smile, glad to have comforted each other. That moment was soon ruined when alarms blared and red lights went off, making them look up even though there was nothing to look at. Alex jutted her head back towards to the mainframe, telling her to come with her and jogged ahead off in front of her, leaving her behind. 

Sam looked back at the note in her hand and sighed before she blazed it with her heat vision, dropping it as it burned to ashes. She let it burn in totality before she flew over to where Supergirl, Lena, Alex, and Brainy were circled around Dreamer. "What's going on?"

Dreamer took off her glove and showed her hand. "That." Nia's hand was turning from white to transparent to solid, going back and forth between all three states. 

"Lex Luthor and Eobard Thawne showed up literally at Oceanside, California," Cisco informed.

She looked up at Supergirl, worried. "Whatever happens, you can't go."

"I have to."

"Kara, if you die, then Nia is erased from the timeline!" Brainy exclaims. "I understand your duty as a hero—"

"Then if you understand, you'll let me go and you'll help me so I won't die."

Brainy sighs. "If you, Dreamer, Batwoman, Flash, Reign, Director Danvers, and myself go and fight them, there is a 70.92 percent chance that you will die."

"And if I don't?"

"An..." He furrows his brow in confusion at the odds. "83.87 percent chance you will."

"I'll take the odds that are in my favor." Supergirl nods at Cisco. "Get a breach, call Kate and Barry to meet us there."

"On it." A breach opens and Team Supergirl hops through, landing in the sand where the sun was setting over the ocean, making it appear a purple sunset as the two arch-nemeses stand on the shore facing them.

"Ah!" Lex claps his hands together. "The gang has arrived."

Supergirl could already feel weaker, but she looked over at Alex and she nodded, confirming what she thought. "And where's yours?"

"Oh." He and Eobard grin the same evil grin together. "Right here." They both turn into speedy blurs and Lex starts sputtering green lightning around him, Eobard red, as they both create an army of speed mirages.

Supergirl and Reign inhale sharply and their veins start turning green underneath their skin. "Kryptonite Speed Force?"

The Flash appears next to her and Batwoman is put down by her left side. "How is that even possible?" the Bat asks.

"With those two criminals?" Flash shakes his head. "Who knows what else they have planned?"

"Flash, Flash, Flash, right on time!" Reverse-Flash and his copies say together, an infinite echo. "You know, I could go back and time and kill your mother again, just like old times! Or, even better, your wife."

"You're not going to hurt anyone," he says through gritted teeth as he takes a step forward, lightning crackling around him.

"Oh, so you think."

Lex's eyes start to glow green as he bares his teeth. "Catch us if you can." The two originals speed out across the ocean and the army starts running towards the superheroes.

"Alex!" The director throws a grenade in the air and it explodes with artificial sunlight, charging Supergirl and Reign up before the former goes in the air and flies after Lex while the latter creates a floor of ice on the shore with her freeze breath, making the Lex Luthors and Eobards fall, slipping on their asses. Flash chases after Eobard and goes right while Lex and Supergirl go left.

The evil copies of the speedsters get back up just as Dreamer had a vision of what was about to happen. She forms an astro-projection, big enough to make a shield around herself, Brainy, Batwoman, and Alex. Batwoman uses this opportunity to throw and electric batarang outside the shield, multiple copies running right into it.

The force of the multiple impacts on the shield make Nia grimace and she's forced to take a step back, her power draining as her hands change density. "I can't hold it for much longer!" 

Supergirl's helmet is on and information is flooding her as the sun rays are still shining on the inside. "Mom, what did he do?"

"It seems like Lex Luthor inhibited the Negative Speed Force and was able to configure kryptonite in his system." Eobard whizzes past her and then Barry follows, fast enough to rattle her a bit.

"Strange."

"Incoming call from Lena Luthor." Her image shows up in the corner of Kara's view and she feels a warmth in her chest.

"Accept." A small beep in acknowledgment of letting her know she was on the line. "Lena."

"If I'm not wrong—"

"Yeah, Alura confirmed that it was Kryptonite in his system."

"Lex gave himself cancer, then removed it with the Harun-El, but then the Harun-El was removed out of his system."

"So what you're saying is—"

"That he still has cancer. And to humans, with enough radioactive exposure—"

"He'll die."

"And the more he uses the combination of the Negative Speed Force and kryptonite, it's going to kill him at a faster rate," Cisco adds. 

"What if I try to blast him?"

"He'll die, but then you'll also be dispersing Harun-El in the sea," Lena tells her. "And we don't need another problem on our hands, much less on a different earth." Kara sees Eobard and Flash run past them again and notices a flicker of red closer to the green speedster each time.

"Barry, is Eobard passing some of his negative energy to Lex?"

"I'll see." When Flash is about to pass the hero and villain, he slows down and goes into Flash Time when his and his friend's arch-nemeses are within arm's distance.

And they were indeed passing off energy from one evil speedster to another.

He gets out of Flash Time, going back to chase after Eobard. "You're right. Eobard's passing on his energy to Lex, he's getting slower."

"I have an idea."

"Kara, look out!" She stops at Reign's cry and turns in the air fast enough to see green lightning come towards her just as the other flying hero flies up in front of her to take the shot. The suit glows green and smokes, blowing up and sending her flying back in the air and Reign falling fast into the ocean with a forceful splash.

"Woah!" The rift in the ocean disrupts Flash's running and he falls in, too, sputtering up water and gasping for air as he comes up. 

"Sam!" Supergirl dives down in the ocean, the suit already looking for her body, locking in on her falling figure. She swim-flies down to catch her and blasts back up to the surface level, hovering above the ocean.

Reign coughs in her arms, conscious. "Hey, that worked," she said with a lopsided grin.

"You idiot!"

"Hey, I ran the calculations and threw the suit up in the air, went in front of you just in case it hit you and I got a small hit that knocked me out for ten seconds. Couldn't have Lena's suit and girl destroyed." Reign's grin stayed in place. "Nailed it."

"Uh, guys?" They both looked down and saw Flash floating, waving an arm in the air. "I'm here, too."

When they arrived back onshore, the rest of the team is huffing from the battle they just put on. With the whole chaos of Reign protecting Supergirl with the big explosion, the two villains ran off, the copies disappating into thin air.

Supergirl put Flash down and supported Reign by holding her by the waist. "They're all gone." 

Flash dries off super quickly with vibrations and Reign glaring at him as she mutters, "Metahumans..."

"Cisco's looking for a collection of Negative Speed Force energy to see if we can find them," Alex huffs as she stands up from being bent over on her knees. "Are you guys okay?"

"Sam got some kryptonite exposure, but we're okay." Supergirl looks over at Dreamer. "Are you?"

She takes off her glove and her hand is more solid than transparent. "Apparently so, but I still have a risk from fading."

"A now 60.43 percent chance, if you will," Brainy corrects.

"Babe, you're not helping," she mutters to him.

Alex frowns at the small glow of green she sees from under Sam's skin from her hands and face. "We should get back to the hangar, have you two recharged after the fight you just put on." Supergirl nodded and the redhead opened a breach, bringing them all back to the hangar. "Sam, go to the sunroom with Rubes, we'll call if we need you." Sam nods and waves Kara off from helping her, making her way back.

"They got away," Supergirl told Lena as she, Winn, Cisco, and Felicity came up to them. "Cisco, any luck?"

"Nothing, it's like they went underground."

"Underground," Kara muttered, getting a look from her sister and Lena. "His cell, that led to a room somewhere underneath Stryker's Island."

"But that's back on our earth." Lena shook her head. "There's no way they can be hopping between worlds that quickly."

"Not if you're an evil speedster," Cisco informs. "If they travel fast enough, they can hop between worlds, but as far as I know, they can only go as far as here, E-2, E-38, and E-90."

"Yeah, so what I'm saying is," Kara says, bringing the attention back to her theory, "what if there's something similar to it."

"No no no, that can't be possible," Cisco mutters. "Iron Heights is monitored 24/7, they'd know if Eobard was up to something."

"Yeah, but for all we know, he's from the future," Felicity says. "He's from the same time Nora was, 2049, so he's not in prison at this time, he's technically dead."

"Okay, so he has his powers—"

"Power dampeners are in the cell."

Kara huffs out in frustration, shaking her head. "Can you just trust me on this?" Her eyes went to everyone around her, from Super Friends to Team Arrow.

"I trust my sister," Alex says with a set nod. "Where she goes, I go."

"She's my mentor," Dreamer says with a shrug. "Gotta listen to her."

"As someone from the thirty-first century, Supergirl is my idol," Brainy says, bringing his hands together. "So, without a doubt, I do indeed put my trust in her."

"Considering you're all alien, human, and organic technology life force, your powers will stay," Felicity informs. "Cisco can call up Lyla and she'll let us in."

Kara smiles at them gratefully and looks over at Lena, her smile turning into a small hopeful one. Knowing of their past events in the recent days, hours even, trust was a heavy word with heavy meaning to them. "Lena?"

Lena looked at her, moving her jaw around. Kara knew she was hesitating, maybe even contemplating. She licks her lips, looking down at her tablet for a moment before back up. "I'll get some sun grenades just in case." Kara nods in a silent thank you as she walks away, smiling small to herself. 

Dreamer grips her arm and shakes her a bit, smiling with her. "That's not a no."

"I've seen that look many times," Kara says quietly with the same small smile. "It means that Lena trusts me." Nia gives her a side hug, giving her a pat on her shoulder.

A breach opens in the middle of the hall, everyone arming up and aiming at it. "Hey, hey!" A strong voice yells, which is soon followed by Oliver running in. "Stand down." Everyone follows his command and soon Dinah and William hop through, the meta patting the boy's back in reassurance.

"Dad!"

"William." The archer sets his bow down and hugs him tight when he runs into him. "Hey, it's okay, I'm okay." Dinah nods her head to the heroes and they all move closer towards the computers, letting them have their moment.

"Dad, I'm scared, I don't want you to go."

"I know, buddy, I don't either. But hey, listen to me." Oliver bends down to his knees, holding his hands. "No matter what, I love you. With every day I'm not with you."

"What's going to happen?"

"I-I don't know, William—"

"Stop lying to me," Will says through his teeth, his eyes threatening to spill tears. "Aunt Dinah told me that something bad was happening and only you could explain."

Oliver sighs, bowing his head down. "Aunt Dinah and I will have a talk later about secrecy," he mutters to himself before looking back up at his son. "You want the truth?" Will nods, biting his lower lip. 

He nods repeatedly. "Okay," the man says quietly. "If I'm being honest, I made a deal to save Barry and Kara—Flash and Supergirl—lives, and in return, I'd have to sacrifice my own life."

"Dad, no!"

"I'm sorry, William," Oliver says, pulling him in for a hug, his eyes watering. "I'm so sorry, son."

"Why do you make such dumb decisions?" Oliver chuckles at that.

"It's all so that you can live the life you're meant to," he tells the boy, pulling him back by his shoulders to wipe away his tears. "And to grow up into the successful man I know you're going to be.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for most of your life and I won't be. But you're going to be okay, William," Oliver tells him, gripping his head affectionately. "I am so proud of you."

"I love you, Dad," William tells him, hugging him again.

"I love you too, William."

The father and son stay there for a while, hugging and crying silently, wishing they had more time together. Truth be told, everyone in that hangar did.

It was all just too soon.

Chapter Text

TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS EARLIER...

Lena glided from desk to desk at STAR Labs, trying to triangulate the mass wavelengths around the globe. It was different since different yet similar tech, but she was getting through it.

As she wrote down calculations, she couldn't stop thinking about Kara. Her bubbly, dorky best friend. The best friend who loved potstickers to the end of the galaxy, the best friend whose nose would scrunch up when she laughed so hard. The best friend who would have the Crinkle™ when thinking hard on a case or just struggling on a game night.

The more and more she thought about the blonde, the more and more she noticed that she realized that she was falling. Falling hard for her.

But then she thought about the secret that she kept from her for three years. The fact that she was Supergirl for the past six years. That she didn't trust her.

And the fact that her evil, lying, son of a bitch brother told her—

"Lena?" The soft voice made her snap out of her thoughts and look up at Iris, who was standing in front of her across the desk. 

Iris gave her a small smile. "You're... kind of killing your pen."

Lena looked down at her hand and indeed saw that she was gripping the pen so tightly that even more color was deprived of her hand.

She frowned, letting the pen drop. "Yeah. Happens."

"This situation doesn't happen that often for you to be gripping your pen that hard." The Luthor sighed, looking down at her notes to avoid the other woman who tilted her head at her. "I know we haven't known each other for that long, but I do know what love looks like. Especially when you're hurting while loving." 

"It's a pain in the ass loving superheroes sometimes, huh?" 

Iris dryly chuckles. "Sometimes. But something I do know is that they never stop fighting. Not for the city, not for family, and definitely not for love." She leans forward on the railing of the desk, meeting eyes with Lena. "I saw the same hurt in Barry's eyes before we started dating. When I found out Barry was the Flash, I thought back to all the times I saw the uncertainty in his eyes around me. Also 'cause I was dating someone that wasn't him but that's unimportant." Lena raises an eyebrow at her and she ignores it. "But those looks? The longing gazes, the hurt behind the eyes but knowing there's love as well?" She smiles gently. "You just gotta work it out. Not only between the two of you, but with your inner battles as well."

Lena looked back down to her notes and smiled small, thinking about how Kara would put little smiley faces in the corners of her journals. "Who would've thought that when I come to help save the multiverse I get an emotional pep talk about love."

"Yeah, we all get unexpected talks during these kinds of events." Iris gave her another smile. "From what the others tell me, you're a damn good woman. And a smart one too. So put that brain to use and figure out your emotions to make sure you and Kara come out on top. I know her pretty well and the looks she give you are more than friendly." Lena ducks her head to hide her blush and she hears Iris chuckle lightly. "Call me over the intercoms if you need me, I'm gonna be downstairs."

Supergirl, Dreamer, Maggie, and Alex hop through a breach, landing inside of Iron Heights, right next to Lyla as it closes behind them.  "Thank you for letting us come."

Lyla nods at Supergirl and leads them down the hall. "Anything for Cisco's friends. Also, as far as I'm concerned, this could be the end of the multiverse." Supergirl cocks her head as she goes silent and Lyla has to look back at her with a smirk. "I know more than you think." She stops at a door and presses in a code, then a voice recognition. "Super, sonic, punch." The pad glows green and she pulls the door open. "Hope you find what you're looking for."

"Thank you," Alex says, everyone nodding at her as they go through.

"Just knock when you're done." The door shuts behind them, the automatic locks clicking back into place and they immediately look around. Red bar lights line the whole room where the ceiling and walls met, giving a small red hue to the light blue there already was from the lights, making it a slight purple. In the center of the room, there was a full-body suspension table with restraints on the ankles, torso, wrists, and neck. Extensive, but you could never be too careful. 

Maggie taps her hidden communications in her ear, just getting static. "Comms are down here, so we're gonna have to report back when we get out."

Alex turns to her supposed niece from the future. "Nia, can you see anything?" 

"It's been getting easier now that I'm becoming more... solidified in time." Dreamer closes her eyes, focusing on the room and setting. 

Her powers make her gasp awake in her grayish-blue dream. She looks around and sees that she's out in the hallway that they were just in. Lyla's in the hallway and she's communicating with someone through a phone.

"I've got them trapped," she says. "Initiate the red room." She nods. "Power dampeners, too."

She gasps awake and looks over at her mentor. "There are red lamps and power dampeners in here somewhere!" Supergirl tries to x-ray the room, but a refractive scatter-field blocks her and she shuts her eyes and shouts in pain. She feels herself getting weaker, more pain. 

"Kara." 

She groans as Alex comes to her side. "Scatter-field all over the room," she gasps. "I can't see where hidden exits could be." Supergirl looks up at the red bars and scowls at their darker light. "Red sun lamps. Fuck. Activate sunlamps." With the command, she feels the same strength that was gone a moment ago, back into her body. 

"Well if we don't do something, we won't have our powers and we'll be stuck here." Dreamer's eye catches the top corner of the cell and she nudges Maggie, pointing at it. A camera, or something similar. "Shoot that for me." Maggie tilts her head to the side and aims carefully, a loud gunshot going off in the small room.

"Power dampener?" Supergirl suggests.

"Maybe they're in the lightbulbs," Maggie says, pointing her gun at the lamps in the ceiling. "See anything suspicious, just shoot."

Supergirl moves aside, nodding at them as Dreamer charged up, Alex drawing her gun as well. "Okay, do it." 

"Shooting things, that I can do," Alex says with a grin. Maggie and Dreamer shoot at the lights in the cell while the director shoots at the red lights along the wall. With each light damaged, her sister felt stronger, more charged. 

"That should do—" Dreamer has whisked away to another dream and a green and red lighting storm is around her, a knocked out Maggie, a barely conscious Supergirl, and a randomly shooting Alex. Panic was on her face. Supergirl had a bloody nose, struggling to get back up and fight, as if she were being kicked repeatedly in the stomach, curling up into a ball. 

A shake on her arm brings her back into the real world and she turns to the confused captain. "We need to get out of here now."

"Mom!"

"What can I do fo—"

"Make a distress call to the hangar, now," Kara orders.

"Right away." Supergirl looks down at her arm and a screen pops up, showing their location with a big, glowing red dot. 

"I have no idea how long someone's going to get here."

"They better send Sam," Maggie mutters.

"In the meantime—" The Kryptonian charges up her hand, the energy pulses in her hand turn purple. "Let's see what I can really do." The women gather behind her wordlessly as she puts her helmet on and she blasts at the wall. When the dust clears, she sighs at the small crack that's enhanced from the inside view. "It's a start."

"Can't you vibrate through the walls and get us out from the outside?"

"I have no idea, but I'm not leaving you guys."

"Kara, do it before—" Alex's words get drowned out by the alarms going off, big annoying red ones coming out of the ceiling, turning the room red like it was before. Supergirl closes her eyes, muttering a Kryptonian curse.

Maggie raises a brow at her. "I think that means shoot them." 

Alex stares at her with a deadpan look and shoots at an alarm without breaking eye contact, the sound getting quieter and the room getting less red. "You don't want to know what she said." Dreamer and Maggie shoot at the rest and Alura reports to the Kryptonian.

"Reign's being identified as a target outside."

Supergirl sighs and her helmet comes off as she faces the women. "They're taking Sam as a target. Whoever impersonated Lyla has control of everything."

"Indeed." All of them look up for a source of the Lyla impersonator that's projected all around the room. She has an evil smile on her face. Something that Kara knew was familiar. "I know every code, every attack, every command. You couldn't get out if you tried."

The room rattles with a large boom from outside. Maggie nods her head once to the side. "That's our cue."

Supergirl charges up both her fists, turning purple. "Dreamer, Alex!" 

Alex grins as she charges up her gun to the highest setting. "Oh, I'm gonna love this."

Maggie takes a small grenade from the director's belt as Dreamer charges up. "No way I'm missing out on this fun."

Dreamer cups her hands, slowly building a large ball of energy, pulling it back to her hips. "Kamehameha!" she shouts, projecting it forward. Supergirl does the same and Maggie pulls the pin and throws the grenade at the wall, Alex sending a shot after it. With the amount of energy and power combined, the wall breaks and crumbles and Reign is floating outside of it.

"Damn!" she shouts.

"We need to go, now!" Supergirl picks up Dreamer and Alex, Reign getting Maggie and they fly out of there as fast as they could before two speedsters run in the cell, watching them as they fly off through the broken wall.

"They got away!" Lyla growls, the image inducer turning off and reveals Eobard Thawne.

"We'll get them," Lex says with a smile. "Soon. With everyone." His eyes flicker green and glow more, his evil genius brain holding a more dangerous and diabolical plan.

"Oliver." The archer looked up from the bowing of his head in thought and was soon looking up at the Monitor in his own pocket dimension. "My brother is coming."

"How much longer?"

"There is not much time left."

"Can you tell us where he'll be?"

The Monitor looks grave, his words piercing the silence. "He is coming to you."

Oliver snaps his head back up from the real world and presses down on the comms button in the hangar. "I would say suit up, but everyone's already in gear. I need every hero at the hangar right now. I don't care if you're at the SC or CCPD, the Bunker, STAR Labs, we need everyone. Our techies stay at a safe point, that's an order."

Felicity looks at him, brow furrowed as heroes start falling in. "What's going on?"

"Only the biggest fight of our lives." Oliver turns as multiple breaches open and every hero and meta file in.

Flash runs in, approaching his friend. "Lena, Gary, Sherloque, and Iris are safe at STAR Labs, away from whatever's about to happen."

"Good," Oliver says with a nod, pulling Barry back with a hand on his shoulder. "Take Felicity to them."

"What?" both he and the blonde exclaim, the latter more loudly than the small confused voice of the former's.

"Barry." One stone-cold look and word from him and he nods.

"I'll give you a minute." He goes over to Supergirl, assuring Lena's safety to her.

Oliver turns back to his wife and sighs. "You can't be here when this happens."

"What? Oliver, no, where you go, I go. I am not leaving you."

"Felicity—"

"There's gotta be something—"

"Felici—"

"I can't just let you go fulfill your death wish, Oliver, I need you!" The tech genius was close to tears as they already welled up in her eyes, her bottom lip quivering slightly in fear.

"Felicity, listen to me," Oliver says, grabbing her by her biceps. "I love you. So much. But I have to do this to make sure that you, Mia, and William can live on and be who you're going to be. I need you to be there for our daughter." He pulls her close and rests their foreheads together, both of them closing their eyes; Oliver to prevent himself from crying and Felicity to let her tears go. "I love you, Felicity Smoak."

"I love you, too." Felicity kisses him strongly, full of love and words they didn't have to say nor had the time to. She runs her hands over his hair and he smiles bittersweetly. "I'll find you again. I promise."

"I'll hold you to it." He kisses her again and nods at Barry and in a flash, she's gone and he's back.

Barry nods. "Safe at STAR Labs."

"Is everyone here?"

"You called," Sara says, her bo staff in her hand and behind her as she was leading her team, Supergirl in front of hers as she was in her iconic hands-on-hips pose, Team Flash next to them, and Oliver's team next to them with Dinah in front. The White Canary shrugged. "We answered."

Oliver looks around at all of them, the silence between them all answering their question, yet Dinah asked it anyway. "This is it, isn't it?"

He bows his head, somewhat nodding in the process as he affirms it before he raises it back up. "We've been fighting, training, becoming heroes for this moment: the biggest fight of our lives. Whether it was years or we just started out months ago. Our children, futuristic or not, they're depending on us. The future, the world, the multiverse, depends on us." 

Oliver looks around at all of them, pulling in his lips. "You guys... have been the best thing that's ever happened to me. Fighting alongside you, learning, befriending you all... it's been the best experience ever. Thank you, for the best eight years of my life."

"Alright, great heartfelt speech, Oliver," Cisco says, showing up on one of the big computer screens, displaying STAR Labs and everyone in it to the group of heroes and vigilantes. "Listen up, gang. We just got a hit of Negative Speed Force Energy coming your way. And they're bringing an army."

"Well lucky for us," Supegirl says, gesturing to everyone, "we've got an army of our own."

"Cisco, Felicity, and I found out where the wavelengths were coming from," Lena informs, typing on her tablet. "We should be able to reverse engineer the sun's color back to its yellow within ten minutes from the STAR Labs satellites so you and Sam will have your powers back."

"I also set up some sun towers around the hangar," Reign tells the Kryptonian, who nods. "Blind 'em when we see 'em and will charge us."

"I want all comm systems on for everyone," Oliver commands. "No one is left in the dark and everyone is on the same channel, we already made sure of that. We stay with at least one of our own and watch their backs, watch everyone's backs."

"You've got it, boss," Nate says with a salute.

"We figured out the calculations for the sun," Felicity informs. "We're reconfiguring the STAR Labs' satellites to emanate sun rays. Since the sun is about seven minutes ahead of Earth, we're activating our device now. Keep an eye on the sun." The leaders of the teams and Batwoman walk out of the hangar, their teams following them out. There was small chatter, but not that lively. Oliver was front and center, leading the pack away from the hangar. It was dark, and the only lights that were given off were from inside the hangar and the slow, red sunrise that would slowly turn to yellow.

"What do we do now?" 

Oliver doesn't glance at Barry when he asked his question and just stared out into the distance, holding his stance with his bow behind him. "We wait."

"You don't need to wait any longer." They turn and to the left of them is The Monitor, his look dark and grave. "They're already here."

A flash of lightning strikes down about a hundred yards away in front of them and the core five whip back and see who appeared. Anti-Monitor, Lex Luthor, Eobard Thawne, and Astra approach. Behind them, green and red armies of evil speedster copies are flickering their lightning, threatening them all with yells.

"Brother," Anti-Monitor booms. "You should get out of the way."

"There is no chance I will let you destroy the multiverse," he booms back. 

"I guess I'll have to do it the hard way, then." Anti-Monitor puts his palms up and portals open next to and behind him. Astra casts a spell and the ground opens up, fire emblazing around them. Several misshaped and disheveled demons crawl out, monsters along with them, too. Out of the Anti-Monitor's portals, gorillas from Gorilla City on E-2 come out, pounding their chests, growling at the heroes.

"Everyone," Oliver says, "masks and psychic gear on." 

"Everyone who has masks and helmets, we installed psychic blockers," Iris tells them. "Metas and everyone else who doesn't have any, press your belts, you'll be protected with the shield that we placed there." Everyone does as they say, gearing up, protected.

Reign looks towards the sun and sees it becoming more yellow. "It's working!"

"You'll have about fifty percent of your strength for your powers for now," Lena tells them. "It'll be a while before it's fully back, so hang tight."

"So give 'em hell."

"That's right."

Lex turns to see the sunrise and indeed sees the yellow overpowering the red. "No," he whispers to himself. He whips back to the group of heroes and yells, "How did you do it?!!?" 

"How do you think we did it?" Supergirl yells back. "We're legends."

Flash turns to Green Arrow when their masks are on. "You ready?"

"One last time, my friend." They grip arms in a warrior's clasp and nod, facing their enemies.

White Canary knocks her bo staff against the metal walkway on the ground, causing a ringing across the soon-to-be battlefield. The ringing cast an eery silence, the tension evermore thick.

Sara inhales and yells, "Legends!"

"Never die!" her team screams back.

Flash's lightning sputters all around him, the Speed Force coursing through his body, going through every muscle, vein, and his eyes, too. He digs his back foot into the ground, clenching his fists. "Legends!"

The teams start to catch on, all of them screaming back. "Never die!"

"El Mayarah!"

"Stronger together!" her team yells. 

Supergirl's helmet goes on as she raises her fists, slightly hovering off the ground. "Legends!!"

"Never die!!" everyone else yells back.

"You guys are fun, but I'm not doing this bull," Batwoman scoffs, flicking out batarangs, crouching into a pose. "Let's do this."

Green Arrow knocks an arrow and screams the loudest. "LEGENDS!!"

"NEVER DIE!!"

"One more thing," Monitor says. He points to a breach above his head and down comes Vibe, full in his gear, sticking the landing with a fist on the ground as he comes back up, fists clenched.

Flash scoffs and grins at him. "Epic entrance."

Vibe hits his shoulder playfully and yells, "LET'S KICK SOME ASS!" The heroes cry their own battle cries, starting to run, fly, race, and charge forward towards their enemies, ready to stop them at any means necessary.

"Kill them all!" Anti-Monitor ordered, pointing forward and the villains screamed and ran in the same direction, ready to take over the world.

"Mom, turn on the lights."

"On it." At Supergirl's request, the football stadium sunray lights turn on and catch the villains by surprise, giving Supergirl and Reign the extra supercharge they need to use their powers to the max. They fly higher, further, faster, stronger before coming down and colliding with the opposing army, creating an earthquake around them, sending the enemies flying. 

Arrows, bullets, Canary Cries, knives, and astral and energy blasts fly, heroes as well. Punches are thrown, hits are taken, blood is spattered. The universe is changing more and more with each passing minute, and they have to keep fighting to make sure their earth and future earths never get threatened again.

Chapter Text

NINETEEN HOURS EARLIER...

"Barry, you have to stop!" Supergirl yells over the strong Speed Force storm he's creating as he runs in circles around the Anti-Monitor. She's flying behind him, slowly getting farther away from him as Kid Flash, Jesse Quick, Flash from E-90, and Jay Garrick as they ran with him, tossing lightning bolts here and there to keep the villain down. They too were not able to keep up with Barry.

Dinah Drake, Director Danvers, and Citizen Steel keep down the Reverse Flash in metahuman cuffs, watching from afar as other heroes deal with demons from Hell, rampaging previously-emprisoned metahumans, an army of Lex Luthors and telepathic gorillas. They all fought them off like hell, knowing what was at stake.

The fight's been going on for hours and the sun has fully risen and fully yellow so now Supergirl and Reign had maximum powers. Heroes got hurt, some even close to death and when that happened, the Waverider picked them up so that those aboard would fix them up to the best of their abilities. Winn, Gary, and some Time Bureau members would also hydrate them so they'd be back into battle as soon as they could. If the injuries were too critical, they'd send them into stasis.

"Kara, you know I can't stop. Someone other than Ollie has to make the sacrifice." Somewhere across the battlefield earlier, The Monitor was slain by his evil brother. Both his body and Oliver himself vanished when he died. Nothing, not even his bow, was left behind. When that happened, Felicity's heart stopped for a moment and she passed out. Once she regained consciousness, she was determined to help everyone and not have anyone else die in this fight.

"Barry, there has to be some other way," Iris says from Star Labs. Lena, Felicity, Harry and Sherloque Wells were with her, standing at different stations to monitor vitals on different heroes, offer strategies, and moral support.

"Monsieur Allen iz running around ze Anti-Monitor to make le ultimate Speed Force storm, zeoretically zapping both of them out of existence if he iz in charge of a le storm and ze Anti-Monitor iz a victim of it," Sherloque explains in his thick French accent. "There iz no other way, Madame West-Allen."

"Sherloque, I can't believe that—"

"Iris..." She looks up from the main console at Harry in front of her. "You know there isn't."

"Just because the future newspaper that I write tomorrow doesn't mean—"

"IRIS!" Her bottom lip trembles in fear as her eyes fill with tears just waiting to fall. She's almost lost her husband many times in the span of six years. They lost their daughter just a few months ago. She couldn't lose him today. They couldn't lose him today. Not today.

Harry's tone softens from his previous yell, still in his grave voice. "There's no other way."

"Kara, your vitals are not doing good, you have to get out of the storm," Felicity tells the alien.

"I'm not leaving without him!"

"Kara Zor-El Danvers, we're not having everyone die today," Lena says.

"Kara, listen to me, if you stay in that storm, you could die, too, your body is not meant to handle the Speed Force, including its lightning!"

Supergirl only heard up to 'could die, too' from Felicity when she was thrown out of the sky by a black whirl and thrown to the ground, creating a mini earthquake as she created a crater. The black whirl, who she figured was Reign, was struck with green lightning instead of her. She crashed to the ground next to her in a heap of rubble, making another dent in the ground, another shake following her. 

Both Lena and Alex are in a panic as they both yell, "KARA!" Lena looks at her spiking heart rate onscreen as the director runs over to her side, hearing her coughs from the dust of asphalt around.

"Sam," Kara coughs as she sits up. "Where's Sam?"

Alex hears a groan to her right and sees Reign's dusty costume. "Shit shit shit!" She scrambles over to her, sitting her head upon her lap and her half-cracked mask falls off her face. "Hey, hey, you're okay." Alex scans her face for any other injuries, seeing her hand over her abdomen, blood trickling out from under it. The lightning. Even with the sun at one-hundred percent, the kryptonite in her system made her bleed.

Sam grimaces and the green in her veins glow greener as she shakes her head. "That felt like a bitch."

"I bet it did!" Eobard's yells made the director turn to where the other metas were holding him down as he tried to get up. "With one speedster from the future and a criminal mastermind from this time who knows how to deal with Kryptonians?" He laughs maniacally. "Yeah, that's an amazing combo."

"Alex." Behind her, Supergirl's leaning against the rubble and holding out her compressed suit, back in her skirt and suit. "Put it on her."

"What about you—"

"Alex, we cannot have Ruby lose her mother. If I die, then so be it." Lena's yells in their comms told her otherwise, but the director did as she asked and took the suit from her hand.

Alex reaches in her belt and pulls out two grenades and pulls the pins. "Sam, open your eyes." She does as she's told weakly as the director throws them in the air and the weapons explode, bringing on a flash of sunlight, charging and healing the Kryptonians.

She puts the disc on the World Killer symbol, pressing it down so it could go over her body. Surprisingly, it changes from its normal blue and red colors to black and gold, and with the House of El crest, too. 

Reign gasps with Supergirl at the recharge and her body physically arches upwards. Alex smiled, thankful that she's alive. "Can't go dyin' on me now, Sam."

"I had no plans to."

White Canary knocks back a demon with her bo staff and her hair is in the way of her seeing green lightning coming towards her and knocking her back when it lands right in front of her feet. She gets caught by a strong set of arms, green running past them. "Clones!"

"Really, babe?"

Sara grimaces up at her girlfriend. "Sorry."

"Dinah! Catch!" Alex throws a disc at her and she catches it above her head before looking down at it in her palm. "It's a forcefield, slam it on the ground and pull it around Eobard no one will get to him."

"On it." She slams it on the ground next to him and pulls the red shield over his body as he was on his knees, now incapable of escaping. "Don't even think about it, you bastard." She looks over at Citizen Steel. "Stay here with him."

"Why me—"

She's already running off as she yells over her shoulder, "You can LITERALLY turn into steel on command, shut up!" 

Reign and Supergirl fly up in the air, scanning the ground for the evil masterminds. "Where's Lex?"

"Where any madman would be." Supergirl nods to the top of the hangar, both of them seeing a single figure standing on top in the distance. "Watching over the chaos."

Flash starts yelling and groaning in pain at how fast he's running. He can barely see what's around him, who's even around him anymore. "Iris."

"Barry, hang in there, we're gonna find a way—"

"I'm getting tired."

"Barry, you have to keep running," Kid Flash tells him as he starts getting further and further behind him. "You're the fastest of all of us. You're The Flash."

"I couldn't have done it without any of you," he gasps. "Especially you, Iris. You made me who I am."

Iris has to choke back a sob as she clenches the desk railings."Barry—"

"I love you, Iris West-Allen."

"BARRY!"

He shuts off his comms and runs faster than he ever has in his life. He powers through, yanking off his cowl, his face and legs burning as well as his skin and muscles. "My name is Barry Allen!" he yells. "And I am the FASTEST man alive!!" 

"You tell 'em, man!" Kid Flash yells.

"Come on, kid, you can't give up now!" Jay Garrick screams.

"Run, Barry, run!!" all the speedsters yell at him and he screams as he moves his legs and arms faster than any speedster has before.

While that's going on, Reign floats down from above and in front of Lex, ruining his view. "Your clones attacked me."

He frowns. "Apologies. They can get a bit confused. Now, where is Supergirl? Has she quit for today?"

"Supergirl has not been terminated."

"Why not?"

Reign turns her hand so that her palm was facing her as she looked at her nails. "Because you didn't take into account if it was actually Reign or just lovely ol' Sam with superpowers." 

Lex looks closely, seeing that her eyes were a true brown hazel, the smirk on her face definitely not a Reign trait. "You betrayed me!"

"False: I never betrayed you."

"Well, how about this? I betray you." In a blink, a copy of Lex is on top of the building next to the original and is holding Ruby in front of him in a chokehold, holding up a vibrating hand.

Sam had to let the helmet down to make sure it was real. And the fear on her daughter's face told her it was and she reached out. "No!"

"Mom!" Ruby was starting to cry, struggling against Luthor's hold. "Don't let him!"

"You betrayed me, and now she gets it!" A simple low hum that could only be heard by the Kryptonian came behind from Lex and soon was released in a purple and blue blast into his back. The combined energy forces of the blasts was enough to go through and through, slightly setting his suit ablaze from the blast. 

He looked down where his heart is and hits him and his face goes into shock. "Well, shit." Lex's eyes fluttered close and he fell back and collapsed, revealing Supergirl and Dreamer that took him down.

Reign flies over quickly and gets Ruby out of the clone's clench, punching him down before hugging her tight. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay, I got you," she says quickly, a couple of tears dropping into her hair as Ruby holds her tight. Supergirl and Dreamer land on top of the building next to them, looking down at where all the clones were dropping, the green getting brighter and brighter all within a mile radius.

"Uh, guys?" Dreamer asks into her comms. "What's going on?"

"Oh no," Lena replies, worry in her voice. "His body's reaction with all of the kryptonite, Negative Speed Force, and Harun-El is overloading his body and his clones'." Supergirl looks back at the two bodies and sees them glowing purple and green, the bodies convulsing. "They're all going to blow, you have to get everyone out of there now."

"Everyone, get away from the Luthors, get them out the hangar and get in there, now!" Iris orders.

Supergirl looks over at Reign and her daughter and nods at her. "Get her to STAR Labs, fast."

"Hold on, babes." Reign holds her tight and takes off, Supergirl taking Dreamer back down and evacuating the dead clones out. Everyone around them was filing in, shooting guns and their rays back at the enemies to keep them at bay.

"GET IN HERE, NOW!" Sara yells as she slides in the hangar on her knees, knocking down demons as she comes in with Ava and Steel. Dinah lets out a loud Canary Cry at the hellspawn demons, letting the last of team Arrow and Batwoman come running in.

"Cisco, shut the doors!" Killer Frost creates a wall of ice to prevent the rest of the demons, monsters, and clones come in after them as he races to the computers, typing in frantically. Brainy flies in through the last moment as Frost finishes the ice wall, landing down next to Dreamer. 

The pounding on the ice creates cracks and crumbles down in small pieces. "Hurry up!" the icy meta yells.

"Done!" The walls close from the sides and Frost lets up on her wall, falling down to her knees at the extreme use of her powers. Spartan helps her up, holding her waist for support.

"Wait." Frost looks up at him. "Where are our speedsters?"

"Oh no, they're outside." Cisco taps frantically on the computer. "Eobard too. Speedsters, do you read me?" There's static on their end. "Flashes?" The bangs on the doors echo from the outside to the inside, making some of them shake and jump at the attempts to break in and take them by force. "ANYONE??"

In response, he gets two yells from the outside. The heroes look up towards the tall windows to see first a flash of white light and then clouds of green. Those two explosions make the room move from the force and proximity. The teammates hold onto each other, tables, and walls for balance. Those who could fly held onto a couple of their teammates, or letting them hold onto their ankles.

The Kryptonian in the room listened in for anything outside and got met with silence. "Lena?"

"Kara, you can't go out there, there's kryptonite in the air and Sam has your suit!"

"Au contraire." She sets Alex and Dreamer down and presses her crest and out comes the kryptonite shield Lena made for her a while ago. They approach the doors slowly, not knowing what to expect. "Cisco? Open up." The techie does as what is told and the doors hiss open and almost everyone gasps at the scene.

"Holy shit," Dinah says. "It was a nuclear explosion." All around them, the ground was burned to a crisp, the ice wall obviously melted. Everyone was walking on ashes, bones, burned clothes and gorilla hair. Melted arrows and bullet casings were all around them. The few craters on the ground were still obvious, but the explosion made it look like it was all just one giant meteore hole. Ashes and dust flew in the air, snowing on top of everyone's head. The sun was slightly peeking out from the grayed sky, but no one could really tell.

Iris swallows down hard and says shakily, "Ray, give me a visual."

"Turning on visuals and displaying them everywhere in Central and Starling City," Atom says. "Codenames only, guys."

Dinah looks up from looking at half of an arrow on the ground. "Does it even matter anymore?" When she doesn't get an answer, she stands up and presses on. "My boss, our friends, are dead. So what the hell do our identities mean anymore?"

"Oh I don't know, Dinah, maybe so that the world doesn't know a dead girl is alive again?" Sara questions sarcastically. "Or maybe so that newcomers don't die after ten minutes of being a hero?"

"You know what, Lance—"

"Hey!" Batwoman yells, getting between them and holding Dinah at her shoulder. "Enough. We've been through hell and back these past hours, so take it down." She glares at the Black Canary, which gets her to back off. "Thank you." 

Everyone at STAR Labs is in shock at the scene. All the smoke, the green residue from the Kryptonite in the air, and all the black and white ashes. A couple of small fires were around, making it truly look like the apocalypse just occurred.

Reign comes in view and floats down to her Kryptonian ally, looking around the scene. "Holy crap."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"Trade you." Reign holds out the disc and Supergirl trades the shield for it, putting it on and sighing in relief when the sun rays in the suit start working. She looks up at the destroyed stadium sun lights and frowns. "There goes a bunch of money."

"Guys!" Most if not all of the team turns to where Alex called them. "I found them!" Some jogged, some flew, others walked and ran over to where she was.

She turns when she hears them approaching and points East where the sun was trying to come through. "There." Supergirl activates her helmet so it enhances her vision and sees Kid Flash, Flash of E-90, Jay Garrick, and Jesse Quick walking in line together, supporting each other and looking very tired.

"Steel, Vibe, help me out." They nod and meet Supergirl to where they are with a breach and they're back to the group of heroes within fifteen seconds.

"Thank God you guys are okay," Zari says, hugging Wally as he takes his mask off.

He laughs weakly and wipes the sweat off his brow. "Anybody got three gallons of water and fifteen pizzas?"

Dinah looks over the rest of the speedsters and notices an evil one missing. "Where's Eobard?"

"Dead," Jay Garrick said. "We saw him burn up in the Luthor explosions after..." Atom glances at White Canary and she nods and he shuts down the broadcasting program right before he continues and says, "after Barry disappeared."

"Do we know what happened?" Alex asked with hands on her hips.

Jesse shook her head with a sigh as everyone took off their masks, tired of wearing them for once. They all left imprints on their faces, dirt and blood around where they were. "Barry was running faster than any other speedster has. He told us to run away but we weren't going to leave him. He ran into Anti Monitor and their collision created the flash of lightning."

"Then right after that, the Lex's exploded and we had to run," Barry of E-90 continued. "We started walking back when the cloud went up and here we are."

Supergirl sighs as she looks over everyone. They looked like hell. "We need to get healed. All of us. Sara, take your team and some of Oliver's to the Waverider. Everyone else, we'll go back to STAR Labs and the departments." Everyone nods and agrees, too tired and spent to argue.

"Great job, guys. See you soon." Iris turned off the comms in STAR Labs and leaned forward, closing her eyes to let her silent tears fall, regardless of who else was in the room and who was to come. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up to her right and saw Harry there. On the left in front of her, Sherloque put a hand on her shoulder. Felicity hugged her and Lena put her hand on her right one and she sighs at the contact, sniffling. "It's okay, guys. We'll—" she inhales sharply and lets it out slow "—take care of the others and each other."

"That's what friends are for," Felicity says in her shoulder, squeezing her tighter. A breach opens in the middle of the room and heroes start filing in. All of Team Flash comes back, as well as Nia, Alex, and Brainy, everyone exhausted and hurt.

Ruby stays by Lena's side before she sees Alex and runs over to her. The girl hugs her tight and the director bends down and hugs her back, groaning a bit. "Careful."

"Are you okay?"

Alex sighs, stroking her hair. "I'm okay. We're okay, Ruby." 

"Where's Mom?" she asked as Alex was trying to wipe some dirt off her tired face.

"Uhm, she's in the sunroom with Kara— Hey." Alex pulls her back by her arm when she tries to go through the portal. "You stay with Lena until you get to your mom, understood?" Ruby nods and Alex whispers assurances to her, kissing her forehead and standing back up to look at Lena. "Go. We'll be okay here." She's surprised at the sudden hug but takes it anyway, patting her back and telling her to go silently. 

The CEO hugs Brainy and Nia before going through the portal. They weave between the couple of heroes while heading straight for the sunroom with Ruby, letting her go through first. "Mom!"

"Ruby, baby." Sam grunts a bit at the force of impact but smiles in her neck, holding her tight. "We did it, it's okay."

"I'm glad you all are okay."

Sam looks up at Kara with a smile, who tiredly smiles back before closing her eyes. "Me too." Sam's eyes go to the door and see Lena there, who gives her a small smile. 

"Come on, let's go make sure Alex and the others are okay." She brings her out of the room, whispering her thanks to the scientist and going through the portal that they just came in from. 

Lena lingers at the door, watching the blonde rest her head back against the wall. She observes the little scratches of kryptonite in her skin are still open, yet done bleeding. How her blonde hair is darker than before the fights occurred. She noticed how the small bags under her eyes go away just because of the replication of the sun rays. It was like magic. She was magic.

She walks in and the click of her heels instantly give her away. The Kryptonian opens her eyes immediately, standing up when Lena closed the door and placed her tablet and medical supplies on the bench. "Lena—" She's cut off by the wrap of arms around her neck and instantly wraps her own arms around her torso, slightly lifting her off the ground. 

Lena's tears drop as she buries her head in her neck, surprised at how she still managed to smell like herself, even after a war. The hug said everything. 

I'm alive. 

We made it. 

Thank you.

I'm sorry. 

We did it.

I love you. 

As they pulled back to look at each other, Kara cupped her face to look at her through watery eyes. "I—"

"Shut up for now and let me get the kryptonite out of you, please," Lena whispers, blinking her tears away. Kara nods silently and sits down, the brunette opening her kit. 

"You're going to have to take it off," she says at the same volume. "Both of them so I can make sure." Kara nods and presses the crest and it slinks off her, going back into its red disc. She unfastens the cape and sets it aside and unzips the suit from the back, rolling it down a bit so she can get her arms and top of her chest out of the suit.

"Stay still," she whispers as she takes her chin in her hand and takes out a minuscule piece of green earth, the wound closing, placing it in a lead container on her lap.

"I'm sorry," Lena tells her quietly, getting a look in question. "I shouldn't have exploded at you so many times in the last three days."

"You had every right to," Kara tells her at the same volume. "You were mad, pissed, confused..." She was going to shake her head but the firm grip Lena had on her to pull kryptonite out of her jawline and neck. "Ow."

"Sorry."

"Hey." The blonde takes her hands into her own when she reaches for her face again and looks her straight in her eyes. "No more apologizing. We did what we felt was right and necessary, and that was everything that happened in the past three years."

Lena's eyes went all over her features, mainly the cuts. Her hand moves up to the large scar above and down her eye. "Gonna have to image induce that," she mutters.

"You'll figure it out later," Kara murmurs. "You always do."

"No," she says, shaking her head, running her thumb over the indent of the cut. "We do." She leans forward the slightest, hesitating for a moment, but tilted her head to connect their lips. Both of them inhaled sharply when they get what they've desired for the longest time.

Kara pulls her closer gently, holding her hand tight. The kiss was soft, longing, and spoke so many words that kept them longing for more.

"Iris." She turns from the center console and sees Jay Garrick behind her. Everyone was cleared out of the main room and was either sleeping one of the spare rooms, Joe's house, the bunker, or at home. They were all going to regroup in the morning.

"Jay." She stands taller even as she fidgets with her sweater. "What is it?"

He takes off his metal hat, turning it upside down, looking down at it. "Before the explosion, we were able to get this." He offers it out to her and she gasps when she sees inside of it, covering her mouth, afraid of more tears falling.

With a shaky hand, she reaches out and pulls out the symbol from her husband's suit. The fabric was tattered and burned and ripped, the emblazoned symbol slightly charred.

The tears were falling down her face faster and she inhaled shakily. "Jay—"

"Hey hey, it's okay." She falls in his arms with heavy sobs that shake her entire body and he holds her tight, rubbing her shoulders as she sobbed into his suit as she clenched the symbol tightly.

TWELVE HOURS EARLIER...

Kara stared up at the dark ceiling of the lounge room in STAR Labs, exhaling a deep breath as she repositioned one arm bent under her head. The small shift next to her made her glance down at Lena and sigh once more when she looked back up at the ceiling. 

"Can't sleep?" she muttered. The blonde shook her head and it was Lena's turn to sigh. "Yeah, me neither." The Kryptonian rubbed her side with the hand around her and the brunette held her tighter around her chest as they both sighed together, trying to find some comfort.

Alex sighed and sat up on the couch of Joe's. She looked across from her and saw Dinah holding Felicity, both of them asleep as both of their faces were stained with tears. 

She shook her head and got up, going through her belt that was thrown over the arm of the couch along with her combat suit. In the dark, she grabbed her phone and the extrapolator to open a breach and went through it, closing it behind her. 

She blinked her eyes at the brightness, confused to as why the lights were on in the apartment.

"Alex?" She turned around and saw Kelly wrapped in her gray hoodie at the counter of the kitchen, computer open, coffee pot next to it. "Please tell me I'm not sleep-deprived enough to start hallucinating."

Alex laughed and took the few hurried steps over to her to kiss her softly as she held her face, sighing in relief and resting her forehead against hers. She loved her bright smile on her face, bringing her to tears. "You look adorable in my hoodie."

Kelly blushed and looked down at the sweater. "I just... needed something of you around me."

"You say as you're in my apartment."

"Our apartment, you slacker," she teases, pulling her closer by her waistband to kiss her again and Alex groans a bit at the action. "You okay?" She looked at her, just now noticing the cuts and bruises and bandages on her arms. 

"Heavily bruised," she grunts, rubbing at her lower back. "Lots of fighting and being tossed around. It'll go away in, oh, a few weeks." She raises an eyebrow at the almost-empty coffee pot. "Could you not sleep?"

Kelly smiles halfway, this one not reaching her eyes when she saw her girlfriend suddenly. "'Cause you weren't home and I didn't know..."

"Hey." Alex brushes back her hair with her fingers and kisses her sweetly. "I'm here, baby," she whispers. "I, um, I couldn't sleep either, so I just came here for the night."

"What happened?"

She bit on the inside of her lip and shook her head. "I... I don't think right now is the.. ideal time. Can we just cuddle?"

"That sounds like the best idea I've heard in days." Alex chuckles at her enthusiasm and closes the computer, pulling her along to the bedroom. Both of them fell into a deep sleep now that they were finally with each other.

Chapter Text

SEVEN HOURS EARLIER...

A soothing alarm goes off in the apartment, getting Kelly to sigh as she heard Alex quickly turning it off before dropping back into the bed. Kelly groans, pulling her back towards her. "Babe—"

"I gotta go back," she whispers, kissing her forehead. "I'll be back later, I promise." She tries to get out of bed but Kelly tugs on her tank top to pull her back and kiss her gently. 

Kelly smiles sleepily, kissing her lips once more. "I love you."

Alex smiles back at her. "I love you. Go back to sleep." Being back in her own home, she took the opportunity to take a quick shower. Throughout the process, she was mindful of her ace bandages that covered the deeper cuts from stabs. She was gentle on the bruises but grateful to feel fresh again in what it felt like forever. She put on her pants, grabbed a new tank top and phone.

She looked back at Kelly longingly, who was fast asleep. She dropped her phone into her palm a couple times as she went back up towards the bed. She leaned down and kissed her forehead, brushing her hair out of her face.

She sighed and opened the breacher before going through the portal quietly.

Alex appeared back into Joe's house again, feeling eyes on her in the quiet house as the sun was creeping in. She wiped at her eyes before turning around to see Joe in the kitchen.

He leaned back on the counter with one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. Felicity was sitting on top of the counter behind him, cross-legged and mug in her hands. 

"You snuck out," the man stated with a movement of his mug towards her. Felicity waved from behind him.

She quirks her mouth up as she sets her things down before coming into the kitchen. "Couldn't sleep. And neither could my girlfriend back at home, apparently."

"Yeah, well, neither could Iris or I, so we might've gotten things for a funeral already. Felicity got up while we were planning and she had the idea of having a joint funeral."

Alex nods as she pours herself a mug of coffee. "Makes sense. Where is she?"

"Dining room," her voice came quietly. The three make their way over to her as she explains, "Felicity had the idea of us broadcasting it as well and Thea called us. We can broadcast and announce their deaths at the Central City Cemetery. Said we can hold the reception at Queen Mansion. Bury both of them there."

Alex nods. "Should we start telling the others?"

Felicity nods back. "In my college days, I thought black was pretty cool and I wore it every day, even when it was blistering hot," the blonde says grimly. "Now... it means something I'd never thought I'd be feeling in these past eight years; pain and loss."

FIVE HOURS EARLIER...

Everyone caught wind of what was happening in the span of two hours and thanks to some quick delivery with help of Wally and speedsters, a lot of money, CEOs, DAs, and two Kryptonians. Caterers were hired, flower arrangements were ordered, limo services were provided. Caskets were ordered as well, sizes were taken for tailors and soon, all the friends were dressed in black. This was a day they thought wouldn't come for years.

Supergirl lands on the balcony of the lounge room in STAR Labs, sighing. "The venue is cleared, Ray is setting up cameras and made sure they're being broadcasted everywhere."

Iris nods as she looks down at her ring on her finger, turning it round and round. "Good." She swallowed thickly as she looks back up. Her tiredness was showing, but thanks to her impeccable makeup, she looked fine. "People should know what happened and that they died heroes. As they've always been." 

Heels click at the entrance and they both see Felicity and Lena coming through, both in black dresses. The latter held a coat hanger with a bag over it, a shopping bag in the other hand. Lena's dress was hanging off one shoulder, slanted, obsidian earrings and necklace going well with it, as well as a dark lipstick shade, hair curled. Felicity had her hair up as she was in a simple, short black dress as she was also fidgeting with her ring on her finger.

"Iris, your brother can't make a decision on which cover."

She sighs and shakes her head as she follows Felicity. "He can never make up his mind." Lena stays by the door and taps the screen next to the doors and they close, leaving her and the Super in the room.

"I got your suit," she says, coming over to her, holding up the coat hangar. "Lucky enough, they have your favorite stylist on the same earth."

Kara smiles as the supersuit decompresses into its disc. She opens the bag, smiling halfway at her. "Thanks." She speeds it on and the disc sits on the bar.

The suit was custom-tailored to her size. All black, as the attire for a funeral is. Nothing fancy about it except for the dark blue lining on the inside of the jacket, and a vest over the inky shirt. While speedily getting ready, she pulled her hair into a bun with stray hairs falling down the front and sides of her face.

"You always managed to clean up nicely." Lena pulls out a box from the bag as they sit down on the couch, handing it over to her wordlessly. Kara tries to smile again but it only goes halfway once more as she opens the box, pulling on socks. "How are you feeling?"

Kara sighs, shaking her head. "Two of my friends are dead. The ones that pulled us together, inspired hope, got the job done..." She frowns as she pulls out the black wingtips, tying them up. "I'm not sure how exactly things are going to go from now on here."

"At least everyone here isn't alone," Lena says, pulling out a tie and pocket square, standing up with her to tuck it in her pocket fashionably as the blonde pulled the tie around her collar. She sighs again when the woman in front of her starts to tie it for her. "Anything else? You've got that look on your face."

Kara stays silent for a moment as she finishes tying the tie. When Lena tightens it, she finally says quietly, "It was always inevitable, wasn't it?" When the brunette looks up, Kara's looking right at her, thoughtfully as her irises were the darkest shade of blue she's ever seen them. And it wasn't lusting; it was glooming.

"You can be referring to a number of things, you're going to have to be more specific," she says as she tucks the tie under the vest, flattening it out.

"Everything that's led up to this point. Right now. Kelly and Alex, Barry and Oliver, Brainy and Nia, the teams, losing people... you and I."

Lena does something between a smile and a frown, reaching up and setting a hand on her cheek, rubbing lightly against her skin as the other hand stays on her chest. "Kara... I don't think right now is the best of times."

"I—"

"You're grieving, darling, we all are and we deal with it in very different ways that may not suit one another. And that's going to take time." She takes her other hand and pulls her face back when Kara tries to look away, making sure she has all of her attention with both of her hands. "We have time."

"That's the thing," Kara says lowly. "With our lives... Who knows how much time we have left?"

"You're right. But you, me, Alex, Kelly, everyone? We fight for our lives. And we won't give them up without a fight. And we won't let each other go without a fight. Never. So we make time and whatever time we have to take, we take it, and we'll come back to each other. Always. And when you're ready, I'm here for you whenever and whatever you need, if you still want me."

"I'll always want you. I love you," Kara says. Her voice stays in the same steady voice, the one that you could obviously tell she was hurting. "I always have..."

Lena shyly smiles back. "I know, darling." She reaches down into the bag one more time to pull out a glasses case. She smiles weakly at her as she pulls out her glasses, sliding them onto her nose. "Can't believe I didn't really notice it before," she tries to joke, getting a soft chuckle out of both of them. She pushes a hair out of her vision and behind her ear, smiling at her.

At the action, the delicacy, Kara takes her hand and brings it to her lips, pressing a lingering kiss there. They kept their gaze, both of them slightly comforted in this moment of silence.

A knock goes at the door and it unlocks to show Alex there, a blazer in her hand. “Time to go.”

Four cars were outside of STAR Labs; two long black limos and two black hearses. Everyone who was in the lab came outside, all in black, a little white from some guys' shirts under their suits and tuxes. Some couples held hands or arms were linked, others were standing around, trying to make mild conversation.

Iris nods at Sara when they come out with the three and she sighs. "Felicity, Caitlin and I will be in Barry's hearse. Dinah, Rene, and Laurel, you can go in Oliver's. Everyone else, we’ll see you there."

Everyone nods and murmurs as they sort themselves out, men holding doors open for the ladies and everyone else.

Lena pulls Kara back and kisses her cheek gently, squeezing her arm in reassurance. Kara smiles small at her, knowing what she meant and lets her go in after her sister, being the last one in the limo.

They soon arrive at the Central City Cemetery. The weather definitely acted like a gloomy day as the skies were grey, birds nowhere to be seen.

Nate, Rene, Diggle, and Ray lifted and carried Oliver's casket out of the hearse. It was a shiny, black casket with the Green Arrow arrow symbol on top in silver, shining from the overcast clouds in the sky. Cisco, HR, Mick, and Kara carried Barry's, his Flash symbol on top of his casket.

They carried the caskets to the elevated platform for the heroes and nation to see. People took their seats and Iris stood at the podium that was between the two caskets while Felicity and Joe sat in chairs behind her.

"Ray?"

"Ready when you are," he says with a nod to Iris as the rest of them sat down. 

Iris gripped the sides of the podium, taking a deep breath. She thinks of her late husband, wishing on how she’d wish he was still here, but knowing he would want her to carry on.

She nods at him. "Ready."

"Going live broadcast in three, two, one." He taps on his phone and the cameras in front, to the left and right of the podium lit up red, letting her know they were live and broadcasting all over the nation. There were even a couple drones above getting a bird's eye view shot.

Iris smiled bittersweetly at her friends and then at the camera in front of her, knowing that all screens and radios across the nation could hear and see her at the moment. At that moment, the whole world stopped, waiting to see what was happening.

”Hello everyone. This is Iris West-Allen from Central City Citizen coming live from the Central City Cemetery. Today, I'm here with friends— family as we honor those who fought for us.

"Early to midday yesterday, many heroes came together to fight the biggest threat they've ever faced. A being called the Anti-Monitor wanted to have complete control of our world, so our heroes did what they always did. They fought tooth and nail for us, to make sure we see more days to come. During that time, both The Green Arrow—who we've come to know as Oliver Queen—and The Flash sacrificed themselves for this world. More details will be released later, but for now, the eulogies will be announced. Due to The Flash's secrecy of his identity and no one knows who his family is, both myself and Captain Joe West will deliver eulogies and speeches. Felicity Smoak will deliver hers for her late husband.”

Lena glanced over at Kara, seeing her jaw was set and her fingers were moving slightly on one hand. Her knee was bouncing up and down, causing her entire hand and even body to tremble.

She could only imagine what was going through her mind. Losing two of her closest friends who she could relate with having special abilities and saving the world with? Knowing that they sacrificed themselves just so she and others could live on? Lena knew hell, but she didn’t have that kind of relationship with it.

Nevertheless, Lena gently placed her hand on top of hers.

Kara looked up at her and Lena stared back at her, giving her a small nod. 

“I got you,” her eyes said. She didn’t have to hear it from her to know; she just knew.

Kara nodded and tried to smile, grimacing when she failed. Instead, she turned her hand over to take her hand in hers as Iris continued on.

"The Flash. He was first known as The Streak when I first started my blog in 2014. Even if no one knew exactly who— what he was, they knew he was hopeful. Inspirational. And he made sure that we were kept safe, time and time again. From metahumans, aliens, robbers, criminals, anything our abnormal world can come up with, he and his super friends of heroes always came to our rescue.

"The Scarlette Speedster would always get up. He would always fight back. And he would never, ever stop running. And just because one of the city's greatest heroes is gone doesn't mean that we should stop running either.

"It means that we run faster," Iris says, her eyes brimmed with tears as she looked across her friends and then to the camera. "It means we run faster and never give up just like he did. If The Flash was— is a symbol of hope, then we hope that we get past each day and never forget him.

"The Flash was the fastest man alive. An accident from STAR Labs' explosion made him the impossible. He fought telepathic gorillas, giant sharks, stopped crime and found other metahumans like him. True, he may have been one of the fastest people here to stop them, but he wasn't the only one."

Tears were falling down Iris' face as she licked her lips inward and saying in a hoarse voice, "He was a friend... a mentor, brother, husband, son... He was something— someone else. So he became that. He was The Flash." She pauses, closing her eyes and bowing her head down, taking a moment for herself before whispering, “Thank you." She nods curtly at the cameras and steps down and Felicity soon takes her place after she hugs her. 

"Hi, everybody," she says with a fake smile. Everyone knew she was capable of doing so, and she did just that though no one called her out for it. "As Iris said, a lot of our heroes were fighting another big bad and, well... Flash and Oliver didn't make it.

"My husband made a deal last year. It was either have two other of our friends die or he sacrifices himself in the near future when this crisis was upon us. And that crisis was this week, and it led up to today.

"I loved that man. A lot. And you all did, too, in your own ways. And that's beautiful. We saw him grow from a— let's face it, a murderous man to, well, the Green Arrow. The leader of Team Arrow, a husband, brother... family.

"Oliver Queen was many things. I know if I go on forever, I'll ramble forever and cry non-stop, so I'll give you the sweet and short version:

"He was a protector," Felicity started, looking out wistfully. "Always making sure his friends were safe even if in the beginning, he didn't do everything with a team. He was independent, always was, but when he learned that he couldn't do it alone, we grew on him and became a part of him.

"What I'm saying is that a part of him lives on in us. No matter if it was heroism," she says, looking at Team Arrow in particular. "To independence..." William tries to smile at her so she does it for him and she looks at Laurel. "Changing of the heart. Every one of us has some of him in us and we have to continue that. No matter what, we must keep it alive. Because Legends never die," she says, looking strong at the camera. "And no matter what we face, we fight back, stronger and harder than before to carry on their legacies.

"Oliver Queen and The Flash may be gone, but they're not gone in any of us. They live on in us. So keep those flames alive. If not for me, then for them." Felicity nods as she steps down, hugging Joe and Iris. The captain goes up and makes his short announcement to the city before Ray shuts the cameras off. The ones who originally carried the caskets in lifted them back up and to the hearses, on the way to the old Queen Mansion. 

THREE HOURS EARLIER...

Everyone gets to the mansion at different times due to a bit of traffic and speedsters, but they get there.

Usually, when everyone's together, even in the midst of a crisis, they're upbeat and positive about the situation. Now? The whole day is gloomy.

Skies are gray, city streets are dull, only filled with street and car lights. From what everyone’s seen, there have been the occasional red and green balloons at corners for the fallen heroes. And when everyone gets to the final destination, it's the ultimate gloom party.

The carriers carry the caskets to the backyard and the Kryptonians place them in holes in the ground as it starts to drizzle rain from the sky. 

"Felicity? William? Iris?" They all look up at Diggle and he gestures to the open pits. "Would you like to say something?"

Iris nods at Felicity and she goes up to Oliver's grave, crouching down to whisper, "I'll take care of them. I promise."

William comes up next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry I was so hard and bitter on you, Dad. I should've stayed." Felicity looks up and sees water rolling down his cheeks. Whether it being water or tears, she doesn't know. "I love you." Both he and Felicity grab dirt from the pile next to the open grave and throw it in there on top of the casket, going back to their friends.

Iris steps forward and grabs a handful of dirt, saying, "They say 'Till death do we part' but it's more of a 'See you on the other side' type of thing." She smiles weakly, full of pain and hurt. "I love you, Barry Allen." She tosses the dirt in there, dusting her hands off before she stuffs them back in the pockets. 

Diggle says a few kind words about and for the two. Just as he finished, it starts to thunder everyone rushes inside before they get poured on. The Kryptonians quickly burry the graves, not getting a smudge of dirt on their suits.

Friends catch those who have been missing out on the action up in small quiet tones, giving the house a small chatter for the odd fifty-something people in there. Not too loud, not too quiet.

They were gone.

Just like how the days come and go.

And it felt too soon.

A people started to leave, going home. Whether that be another universe or across the country, they all felt devastated.

Chapter Text

TWENTY HOURS AGO...

Oliver knocked and released arrow after arrow at the enemies and clones running around him, his quiver never empty as The Monitor used his powers earlier to make it an endless quiver. Roy and Thea were nearby, shooting the rivals as well while everyone fought their own demons and villains.

"Monitor!!" he yells. "Kill your son of a bitch brother before I do it myself!"

Across the field, the embiggened two brothers were fighting to no end high above the fight in the clouds. They threw breach blasts at each other, minions, dirt, anything they could as they were fairly matched. 

Monitor gets close enough to grip the look-alike by his biceps, gritting his teeth in pain as he gripped back at his own, breaking his suit as they hovered around, fighting with their strength.

"This is not the way, Brother!" Monitor grunts. "Ruling isn't everything." 

"But only then can everything be under control and perfect rule," Anti-Monitor booms back. "And everything will be in perfect balance and ONLY THEN," he yells, "WILL THE UNIVERSE WILL BE NO MORE AND I WILL REIGN." 

"Hey, that's my line!" Before he can even turn his head, Reign and Supergirl slam into the evil brother, ramming him down to the ground, creating an earthquake, making everyone balance out as they found as the ground shook.

The dust cleared and the three fliers hovered back down to see a shrunken Anti-Monitor. He looked so small in the huge crater as he got up, wiping the blood away from his nose as he watches. "You really think you could defeat me that easily?"

"Can't do it alone," Monitor says with a shrug as he shrunk to his normal size before yelling, "NOW!" First red, then yellow, then two more yellows came from who-knows-where on earth, getting a running start before they all super-sonic punched Anti-Monitor, knocking him to his knees before they all started running around him, creating a mini-speed force storm. The Kryptonians flew above them, contributing to the violence as they heat visioned the villain while the speedsters threw lightning.

Monitor landed in front of his brother, watching him suffer. Anti-Monitor panted, falling on his knees, weakened from the attacks. He was able to lift his head, grin full of evil before he spat out blood. "See you soon, brother." Monitor narrowed his eyes at his brother that continued to scream in agony. As he was processing his words, a sharp shink sounded in his ears as he went still. His eyes went wide, mouth falling open in shock as he looks down at the sword in his chest. 

Blood spilled out of his mouth as the Monitor fell to his knees, created another mini-earthquake.

Oliver looked up and over at the scene, gritting his teeth at the culprit. "NO!" He tried to run over as fast as he could but a flash of lightning struck down from the sky out of nowhere, blinding all the heroes around, forcing them to shield their eyes so they wouldn't go blind.

When they looked back, smoke was rising from the ground and not one remain of the hero or Monitor was left behind. All that remained from the smokey ground was the murderer of the Monitor in an orange, grey, and blue armored suit, the same sword covered in blood in his hand. 

Dinah and Laurel looked over at each other in shock and the first Canary gulped. "It can't be."

"You son of a bitch!" The masked man looks up at Roy's yell toward him, unphased as he wiped the blood off on his pant leg.

"Hey, kid." His voice is deep and full of gravel, muffled by the mask that was half orange and half black. It was no one other than Deathstroke that was equipped with knives, a sword, guns, and ammo strapped to him like a madman. "How's it going?"

Roy charges with a cry, knocking and releasing arrows at him, but he deflects every one of them with his weapon. When Roy gets close enough, he chops the bow away and grabs him by the neck, lifting him off the ground.

The boy grabbed at his wrist and kicked in his hold and Deathstroke only chuckled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you he paid me to do that."

"Liar!" he grunts out and Slade shakes his head, clicking his tongue.

"Told you." He threw him aside and threw down something to the ground that erupted into smoke that Roy and some others have to shield their eyes from.

He was gone.

So was Oliver.

It didn't feel real.

Oliver gasps awake, immediately sitting up on the platform he laid on. He looked around and saw that once again, he was in the Monitor's pocket dimension. He still had all his gear but his comms were deactivated, as well as tracker, which he knew was going to happen. There was nothing he could do now.

"It worked," he sighed, closing his eyes.

"I held up my end of the deal." The archer opens his eyes and looks up at The Monitor. "Now to uphold yours."

Oliver nods, standing up with his bow in hand. "What's first?"

"Restoring the multiverse. But first..." The Monitor formed a ball of energy in his hands and Oliver started hovering off the ground. The energy was pulsing towards him and went flying around him. He looks down in observation of the process of the energy going inside him and the immense surge of power made him arch his back in a bit of pain but also strength. The light that was projecting off him almost blinding.

The light faded and Oliver landed back on his feet. He clenched and unclenched his fists, not feeling any different now.

"I just gave you the same powers I have," Monitor explains. "Now, you'll help me restore the multiverse and all that's been lost."

He nods grimly, knowing the consequences of his actions. "Where do we start?"

Chapter Text

Now...

"We'll be back soon," Kara says, hugging Felicity, then Iris. "Take care of each other, please."

Iris gives her shoulder a squeeze as they nod and smile small. "Will do, Supergirl." Everyone else from their world hugs the two widows, whispering condolences and reassurances.

Kara goes back to standing next to Lena, offering her hand out to her. “Together?”

Lena takes her hand gently and nods. “Always.” Alex opened the breach, the magical blue portal swirling in front of them. "Ready?”

"Home." Everyone grabs what little they have of what they brought with them and walk through the portal one at a time.

Kara wishes she could stay with Iris and Felicity and the others to help them grieve and recover. Knowing the amount of pain she’s been through, it could help. But Earth-38 needs its protectors, too.

Can't say how the days will unfold

"We have no idea how this is going to go, is it?" Felicity asks as the portal in front of them closed into nothing.

Iris takes in a deep breath and lets it out shakily, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "No. We don't. But that's okay."

Can't change what the future may hold

"Guess we know by now," the blonde murmurs, getting an inquisitive gaze on her. "Can't really change the future."

"Sometimes we can't, other times we can in the present." Iris sighs, rubbing her shoulder. "This is one of the times where we couldn't."

But I want you in it

"You guys alright?" Alex asks when they all land in the middle of Kara's apartment.

"Truth be told..." Kara lets out an uneven breath. "No."

"Get some rest," she says, hugging her sister tight and kissing her cheek. "I'll text you in the morning." Alex turns to Maggie and nods at her. "Thank you for your help.”

"Thanks for calling." They both platonically hug and the redhead opens a breach for her way back home, closing it once she went through. The director opens a portal for Brainy and Nia and J'onn mutters his goodbyes to Kara, hugging Lena and Alex gently before he flies out the window with Winn. 

"I can fly us back." Sam hugs Alex gently and shoves her shoulder a bit. "Go get your girl."

She grins at her and hugs Ruby. "Sorry we pulled you into this, kid."

Ruby shrugged, grabbing her and her mom's bag. "It wasn't all that bad. Hope to see you soon. Later, guys." Sam picks her up and waves at the other two and soon are out the window.

"I'll be here in the morning," Alex reminds, opening her portal back to her apartment, leaving Kara and Lena at hers. She messed up the coordinates a little bit, so she ended up landing right outside the door.

Trying the door handle and smiling when she found it unlocked, she made her way through, dropping her duffel bag right at the door. Muffled soft music was in the apartment as she looked around, trying to spot any source of life.

"Kelly?" Noticing the light from the crack of the bathroom door, she jogged over and opened it, immediately hit with steam and the lofi music. 

Kelly jumped at the sudden opening of the door and her mouth dropped open. "Alex?"

"Hi, baby." She laughed and caught her when Kelly jumped into her arms and locked her legs around her waist. She held her close as she swung them around gently, taking in her scent. Lavender and coconut. The feel of her skin, the warmth from her, the sound of her laugh... Everything that she missed for the past few days. 

Every hour, every minute

"I told you I'd come back to you." The two shared a small kiss that grew within seconds as Alex put her girlfriend down on the bathroom counter. She curled her fingers against one cheek to caress her skin, the other hand going under her robe to massage at her thigh.

"God, I've missed you," Kelly sighs, keeping their foreheads together and wrapping her legs tight around her. "Does time pass differently when you're on different earths?"

"I’m not sure exactly. Kinda had to deal with a crisis so I didn’t keep track of time.” They both chuckle and the brunette sighs when Alex goes to her neck, kissing softly and nibbling occasionally.

"You know, you could just join me in the bath if you missed me that much and are extremely clingy," Kelly says, biting her lip to retract a moan but failing.

"Best idea I've heard this week," Alex mutters, going back up to her eyes with a devilish grin. "Give me a minute though."

This world can race by far too fast

Kara folded her arms behind her head on her pillows, sighing small. "What are we doing?" she as she watched Lena from behind pull on an oversized t-shirt.

Lena looked over her shoulder and sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed to take off her shoes. "You're grieving, Kara."

"But we both know that the time in the world can go just like that," Kara emphasizes with a light snap of her fingers. "And... knowing I'll outlive you...” The brunette stops at that, cursing on the inside. 

Hard to see while it's all flying past

She slowly gained back her senses and took off her socks, saying quietly, "We'll figure it out. We always do. But honestly?” Lena stands up to walk to the other side of the bed, sitting down gently beside her, cupping her face with her hand to look her in her eyes. She just adored her.

“Every moment I have with you, being with you, around you... it's enough for now." Kara sighs when she caresses her cheek gently, closing her eyes at the touch. "Just know that I love you, Kara Zor-El. And when you're ready, I'll be here if you still want that."

But it's clear now

When you're standing here now

"Whenever I'm with you," Kara mutters, opening her eyes, "I feel at home." Lena smiles fondly at her, knowing she felt the same. "And I don't want to give that up."

"I'm not going anywhere, Kara," her star-crossed lover whispers. "I promise."

I am meant to be wherever you are next to me

"So can I be with you forever?"

Lena has a wet smile as her eyes are brimmed with tears. "If that's what you want and it's somehow what I want as well..."

"Is it?" Just like in the sun room, the gaze that they hold, the weight-bearing silence around them defines and holds their future. And it can all be decided with one simple word. Heroes, villains, missions, everything that they had with them and what they had to do could be tied in together, and it all lied between them.

"Yes," Lena whispers. And it's enough to make her tears fall and kiss her softly. “I love you.”

”I love you too.”

All I want to do

Is come running home to you

"Night, Rubes," Sam says, kissing her forehead.

"Night, Mom." The Kryptonian closed the door quietly and is thrown off when she hears a familiar heartbeat at the door downstairs.

Flying down the stairs in a blur, she opens the door and is immediately met with arms flung around her neck. She laughs, hugging the small body tight. "Hi."

"I got news Reign was back flying over the city after six days of nothing from her, so I came here as soon as I heard." Sam loosened her hold so her partner’s feet could touch the ground as she quickly asked, "Are you two alright? What about everyone in National—" Lucy is stopped by the passionate kiss in which she sighs into. Sam pulls her inside as Lucy’s fingers ghosted over the taller ones' cheeks, moving them to tangle in her hair as the Kryptonian pushed her back to close and push her against the door, lifting her off the ground in the process.

"I missed you," Sam whispered, thumbs under her shirt and teasing her hips.

"Don't do anything stupid like try to stop an end-of-the-world crisis again."

"No promises."

Come running home to you

And all my life I promise to

Iris slowly walked through the apartment door with Caitlin behind her. The reporter knew the house felt different and never will be. The darkness and emptiness in the room even with a couple lights on just felt wrong to her. 

Her eyes drifted to the table next to the couch and she just stared at the picture of her and Barry before they started dating, maybe about a year or two before he became The Flash. God, she just wishes and wishes he was back and he wasn't such the stubborn yet heroic hero he had to be—

"I'll get the coffee started?" Caitlin's soft voice brought her back and away from the picture. She nodded at her, smiling small and gratefully at her, knowing tonight was going to be a long one. 

Iris turns back to the picture and lets out a shuddering sigh. A tear she didn't know that was welling up fell right on Barry's face on the glass frame. She sniffed and let out another sigh, placing it down gently and going to the couch, opening her computer as she wiped the rest of her tears away. "News isn't going to write itself."

Keep running home to you

Keep running home

To you

"I have to go."

"Nia, there has to be some way—"

"Brainy—"

"We— We can just try and make sure nothing horrific happens to us." Brainy was now pacing in Nia's living room as she watched him with an exasperated face. "We can m-move away to another country, maybe planet—"

"Querl Dox!" She stopped him with her hands on his shoulders, turning him to face her and she sees he has tears in his eyes. "You know there's nothing we can do. I dreamed it, you have differential calculous, it was bound to happen. We're both from the future, we have to go back to it sometime before we make it worse or that future doesn't exist.

"Winn is back in his time, that is where he belongs. If you and I stay here or mess anything up or do anything we're not supposed to, this timeline is as good as gone." Nia wipes his tears away that are rolling down his cheeks and presses their foreheads and noses together.

"I'll find you again," she whispers. "I promise." Brainy mimics where her hands are onto her cheeks and kisses her as sweetly and passionately as he can, letting more tears fall as she rests her hands on his.

"You're astazing, Nia Nal," he whispers, staring deeply into her eyes down to her soul. "And I love you."

Nia smiles bittersweetly at him. "I love you." They kiss again and the heroine has to pull away or she would stay forever and he wouldn't let go. 

The futuristic female takes out a watch from her belt, grabbing a small watch out from it and pressing a button, making a portal open behind her.

"Another day, Nia Nal."

Her smile is sad as she grabs her backpack from the floor that has her super suit in it, as well as a few items from the past as she spent the last year in 2019. Slinging it over one shoulder and hanging onto the strap, she smiles at him. "See you soon, Querl Dox." She slowly steps through the portal, disappearing behind the shimmer. Once it closes, Brainy falls down on the couch and almost onto the floor, silently crying his aching heart out.

"We're getting him back." Felicity's congested voice broke the silence in The Bunker, gaining everyone's eyes and attention at her sudden claim.

The blonde picked her head up from rubbing her thumb over her chin, a set look of determination on her face. "We're getting him back," she says, more sturdy this time.

"But how?" Thea asked. "We don't know what the hell happened."

"So that's why we're going to find out." The hacker looked around at everyone. "Guys, we are the last line of defense for this city, we are heroes. Oliver never gave up so why should we?"

"Okay, but think about it," Roy says. "Both him and The Monitor disappeared right when Slade killed Monitor. There are infinite places where both them and Barry are."

"There has to be something—"

"Felicity," Diggle said softly. "If there was something, we could find out where they went, but—" he shrugged "—we don't know if we can."

"Guys, you can't just give up on him when he never gave up on us. We’re a team."

"Felicity, look at us." She looked at each of them, all battered and bruised from all the fights, blood dried on every place skin was bare. Everyone was a little paler than they were before the battle, hair tousled and they were all... defeated.

Rene's words brought her back as he said, "This is never going to be the same without them. We have children who are depending on us to be the leaders of their future. How can we do that if we just spend the rest of our damn lives looking for a deadman?"

"Everyone thought Oliver and Sara were dead but Ollie was on the island and Sara with the League, if there's a sliver of hope, I can bring him back. You guys don’t—" Felicity’s words soon turned into sobs and she almost fell to the ground if it wasn't for Laurel, who caught her and injected a needle in her neck, making her go limp in her arms.

"Sedative," she murmurs, hoisting her up in a bridal carry. "I'll bring her back to the cottage."

"Stay safe," Dinah wishes her as she leaves.

Diggle sighs once she leaves, looking back at the others. "What do we do now?"

The silence mulls over everyone as they think, even if few already knew their answers. The future depended on them, but what future could they have if they weren't sure where they were going to go?

"I think this is where we part." The team looks up at Dinah and her shoulders go up and down as she sighs. "We've done what we can. Yeah, this city's gonna need its heroes, but I just think we're done. There will be more knowing who and what can happen."

Rene nodded. "Poll numbers are coming in soon. Probably best to hang up the mask."

"I've got a secret facility to run now that my wife's gone," Diggle sighs, looking over at Roy and Thea. "What are you two doing?"

The two look at each other and sigh, shaking their heads. "No idea," Roy says for them.

"You'll figure it out," Dinah whispers with a bittersweet smile. "We always do."

"I'll miss you guys," Thea says, wiping her tears. "Group hug?" 

The boys look at each other and laugh wetly, Diggle and Rene punching each other's shoulders. "C'mere, big guy." Dig wraps his arm around his shoulder and around Thea's, bringing everyone in. 

Everyone takes the moment to just be there with each other for the last time for who knows how long. It's peaceful, upsetting, but wholesome, and they didn't want to let go.

Dinah sniffles and pulls back from everyone, smiling softly at them. "Bye, guys."

"More like see ya later, D," Rene says with a goofy grin. "Not like you goin' anywhere, Captain Drake." She rolls her eyes and punches his shoulder playfully, walking off the platform to get her things as everyone goes off in their separate directions.

Once everyone leaves, the system automatically shuts everything down, the room turning into darkness. It made it seem just as empty as the small space that was missing in everyone's hearts.

Iris groans as she gets off the couch, staggering to the bathroom and somehow making it before she threw up in the toilet, nearly missing.

Killer Frost heard and ran in with a cup of water, setting it down on the counter and holding her hair back as she finished. "Come on, girl, get it out."

The reporter put her head on her forearm, gasping for air as Caitlin came back in control. "Iris?"

She sighed, sitting back against the wall and taking the glass of water gratefully, swigging it down as her friend flushed her remains for her. "Thanks," she muttered.

"How do you feel?" she asks quietly.

Iris shook her head, closing her eyes at the small pain of a headache coming on. "Not good."

"I'll make some tea. Take some ibuprofen while you're in here." She nods as her companion heads out, closing the door behind her and reaching under the sink to pull out a box, sighing at it.

Two minutes later when the stick cleared, she gasped and had to cover her mouth to keep an audible sob from escaping in case of waking up the whole complex. She closed her eyes, dropping it on top of the counter as she braced herself on it to try and stop herself from shaking as the tears poured from her eyes.

Iris was too caught up in herself and feelings and worldwind of emotions to hear the knock at first and then the door opening. She completely fell in Caitlin's arms when she hugged her from behind, clutching her shirt as she wept in her chest.

Caitlin thought it was Barry that she was crying over, but her mind told her otherwise. She looked around and when she saw the pregnancy test in the sink, her mouth fell open and she only held her friend tighter, reassuring her with small whispers of love.

Neither of them knew how they would be able to raise a metahuman kid without Barry.

2046

In the future...

Nia lands back in the living room, looking around as she placed her backpack down on the couch. "Mom? Jeju?" Silence.

She turns around and heads for the shelf, grabbing the picture she knew was missing someone before she left. She laughed to herself when it was back to normal. "Schway." She heard laughter coming down from the hallway and she jumped over the couch, running to the door and opening it wide to see her mothers there with her aunts and uncles.

"Moms!" The two were confused at the sudden hug their daughter pulled them into but laughed nonetheless.

"Nia, darling, are you alright?" her brunette mother asks, lifting her head up so she can inspect her. "Did you get hurt going out again?"

"No, Mom, I'm fine," she says with an eye-roll before standing back up straight, saying timidly, "I just missed you guys."

Alex awes from behind them. "Wow, I wish Sean was like that."

"He's like that time to time," Kelly says.

"Lies!" a boy yells from the stairs.

"Forty percent, Liza's more affectionate."

Alex shrugs with a playful frown. "Yeah, accurate."

"Nia, are you gonna let us inside the house?" her other mother chuckles. "Winn brought dinner and a friend of his."

"Sorry, Jeju." Kara kisses her temple when she moves aside, hugging her aunts. "Winn, who'd you bring?"

"Alright so I worked with him a lot in the past, or, well—"

"Winn, we talked about this," Lena reminds from the kitchen.

"Right, sorry. Anywhoo, he's a great friend, super smart, charming, you get the idea." Winn goes back outside to help the boys out with the rest of the food, coming in with a young, blonde Sean and a taller man that Nia immediately smiled at. And when he saw her, boy did he smile right back.

"Nia, this is Querl Dox, otherwise known as Brainy. Brainy, Nia Nal."

Brainy places down the take out bags on the table offering his hand out. "It's very nice to meet you, Nia Nal. Winn has told me great things about you."

"All good, I hope," she says, shaking back, not being able to keep the smile off her face.

"Trust me; astazing." They both grin at each other and there's a twinkle in their eyes, a rekindling of something old and new waiting for them.

2019

Back to the past...

Kara opens her eyes and inhales the fresh air from sitting down on the edge of the roof of her apartment building. A night's breeze blows through her hair as she watches the stars, the moon hiding behind some clouds as a couple of raindrops start to fall. It was a perfect night to her.

She keeps her head up even if she hears the door close quietly a few feet back and feet stop behind her. "What are you doing up here?"

The blonde shakes her head as she slightly shrugs. "I just find it peaceful. And if I'm not in the sky, then this is the next best thing other than from the top of CatCo or L-Corp." She hears a little scuffle and turns her head to see Lena sitting down next to her off the edge, looking down at the city's streets, watching some cars drive by and some people walk around the city.

"What would you do if I fall?"

"I'd catch you," she answered without hesitation, her eyes going right to her green ones when she looked at her. The brunette knew she was telling the truth, but she still probed on.

"Even without your powers?"

"Yes."

Lena's brow furrowed, looking back down at her feet as she shook her head. "Why? After everything I put you, us through—"

"Because I can't lose you." Those words made her look back up and saw Kara's pensive look on her face with her brow furrowed in an intense gaze. "Not again."

"Darling, you didn't lose me." Lena turned slightly so she could lay her hand on Kara's cheek, smiling small when she leaned into it. "Just... got me off the rails with a big surprise."

"And it won't happen again," the blonde whispers. "I promise."

Lena halfway smiles at her, finding her hand to hold. "You're with me, right?"

"Always." They both smile at each other and just take notice of the warmth in their eyes, even when they glisten with tears in them.

A small explosion sounds in Kara's ears and she furrows her brow with a slight squint as she hears those in pain and trouble. "Fire downtown." Both of them look towards the way of the city and see some smoke rising from behind a couple of skyscrapers.

"You have to go."

She nods in affirmation, looking back at her with a small smile. "I have to go."

Lena looks her over, chuckling to herself as she thumbs her cheek and taking her glasses off. "How could I not see it before?" Kara tries to duck her head down to hide her blush but the hand on her cheek pulled her back up so that she could lean over and kiss her softly. It was a tender kiss that let her know that she was loved and that things would be okay with time.

The Luthor pulls back slightly, both of them smiling small at each other before Kara stands up and presses her watch so that her suit formed over her clothes, the cape falling behind her perfectly.

"Be safe."

"You got it, Ms. Luthor." The woman stays sitting on the edge as she watches Supergirl hop off the roof and fly towards the danger to save those in peril, smiling to herself.

"I love you." Kara smiled when she heard her whisper, urging her to fly faster and getting those people back to safety when she heard those three words from the most important person in the galaxy. It gave her strength and hope, knowing it would take them places those who didn't believe it.

An archer and speedster died saving them. Everyone would be forever grateful, but it would hurt for a while, and maybe never stop.

Lovers were reunited, others were broken and lost, but never forgotten.

A Super and a Luthor survived a crisis and their friendship bloomed into something more.

Who would've thought?