Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s cold when she opens her eyes.

Not just cold—inhumanely cold.

Her breath puffs out in small clouds that shimmer for a second before vanishing. She blinks against the air, her lashes stiff with frost. Her body won’t move. She can’t feel it.

Her blue uniform is stiff with ice, frosted along its ridges like vines reclaiming a ruin. The fabric feels wrong, foreign, and frozen around her like a shell she can’t shed. A trap.

It’s dark.

The stars above twinkle with cruel indifference, scattered across the sky like shattered glass. They gleam and flicker as if to say: We’re free. You’re not.

Kara doesn’t know how long she’s been here; hours? Days? Weeks? Time has frozen along with her.

All she knows is that she’s alone.

Somewhere in the dead-white tundra, hundreds of miles from anything living.

She grits her teeth and tries to move. A mistake.

Pain bursts through her arm as she tries to push herself up — not soreness, not bruising, but something deep. Icy knives jammed into her joints. Her shoulders rebel. Her elbows shake. Her knees crumple as she tries to stand, nearly sending her crashing back down into the snow.

The wind picks up. It howls around her like something alive. Something angry. It claws at her face, slices through her hair, and snaps against the ice-encrusted glyph stretched across her chest.

She looks around.

Nothing. Just white, blue, black. The ghostly outlines of mountains in the far distance.

She blinks. Ice cracks on her lashes. Her breath hitches.

Her mind is foggy, thick, and heavy. But something cuts through. A flash.

A scream.

Her own.

Torn from her throat like a piece of her soul.

A blinding, scorching green light.

So bright it burned behind her eyes.

Then… nothing.

No, falling.

Endless unstoppable falling.

The memory slams into her chest like the beam itself. Kryptonite. Controlled. Targeted. A weapon designed to kill her.

She gasps, scratching against her dried throat. The wind steals the sound from her mouth. Her knees buckle again, and for a terrifying moment, she thinks she won’t be able to stand.

But she does.

Barely.

Each step is a battle. Her legs tremble. Her breath shakes. Her powers are gone. Or buried. Or stolen. She doesn't know.

All she knows is forward. One foot. Then the next.

No plan. No destination. Just away from here.

The stars shift above her, their frozen light uncaring. The snow groans under her steps like it wants to swallow her whole.

And then

Something flickers.

A glint of orange. Not fire, not sky light. Artificial. Distant. Tiny. Barely there. A dot in the cold.

She squints through frozen lashes. Was it real? Or-

Another flicker. Then steady. A small red point, pulsing in the dark like a heartbeat.

Kara staggers toward it.

Because it’s something.

And right now, something is everything.

Chapter Text

Before: 

Kara didn’t know how she’d ended up here. She hadn’t expected this, never would have predicted it. Two weeks ago, she woke up in a world where Lex Luthor had everyone wrapped around his nimble little fingers. In just days, he had rewritten the truth, twisting it into something unrecognizable and leaving her stranded in a reality that no longer made sense. Supergirl used to stand for hope. Now she was painted as a threat: an alien danger, a name people whispered in fear.

She sat small and silent, curled into the furthest corner of her apartment, as though physical distance from the TV could also put space between herself and the lies being blatantly displayed all over the world. The only light in the room came from the harsh flickering screen, casting shifting shadows that danced across the walls in battle. Her body was tense, hunched in on itself; she wanted to make herself vanish, hide away from this new reality. The sound of the broadcast filled the space, clinical and clear, each word delivered with the precision of someone who understood the power of repetition.

Her thumb moved mechanically, pressing the channel button over and over, each station offering more of the same false narrative. Her face, her suit, her symbol, all twisted into something unrecognizable. The footage played over and over on every channel–on loop: the image of Supergirl flying overhead, the sky behind her streaked with fire, buildings collapsing, people running, screaming. Her heat vision, uncontrolled. The image of her hovering above a crowd like that of a god with too much power. The voice of a child crying out her name, not with awe, but in terror.

It wasn’t her. It had never been her.

But no one seemed to care.

Only one thought came into her mind…

Lena’s Non Nocere, once a neural device created to prevent acts of violence, to stop hurt, good sweet Lena, who dedicated herself to a creation to stop the very thing that had caused herself harm over and over, had been twisted by Lex into something darker. He didn’t just use it to control; he used it to manipulate perception. Something to elevate himself, to make him the hero everyone wants to look for. According to all the reports, the tech had failed while attempting to regulate Kara’s supposed alien impulses. The “malfunction” revealed her true nature. He said she had been holding back, hiding what she really was, that she was never here to help. That she was simply waiting.

And people listened.

The story had spread faster than she could contain it. Lex had carefully selected the footage and edited it to show destruction without context, chaos without cause. Her battles taken out of sequence, stitched together so carefully and precisely to tell a new lie. She had become the villain of his story, and the world had fallen for it.

Kara pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them tightly. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, even as the images blurred. The headlines were all the same. Warnings about the alien threat. Promises of safety through surveillance. Interviews with shaken citizens who once admired her and now said they felt deceived. She could feel herself disappearing beneath it all, being buried beneath the weight of their fear.

She had spent years building trust and saving lives, holding out hope for everyone, even when she was breaking inside. And now, it had taken only days for all of it to unravel. Her legacy was being rewritten in real time, reduced to soundbites and scare tactics. It didn’t matter what she’d done, how many times she had stood between this world and the end. None of that survived the headlines screaming the complete opposite, erasing everything.

She had become the danger they needed to believe in.

The silence between broadcasts was worse. It echoed around her, thick and hollow, and in that quiet, doubt crept in like smoke. Maybe she had failed. Maybe she should have seen this coming. Maybe trusting too much, hoping too hard, was what led them all here. But none of those thoughts brought comfort. They only added to the ache pressing against her chest, destroying her from the inside.

The world had chosen its truth, and it didn’t include her.

//

The blaring image of herself behind a wanted poster was all that seemed to be projected across National City, her fate already sealed in the minds of millions. Her face glared back at her from every billboard and news feed, twisted into something dangerous, unrecognizable. The same people who used to cheer her name now flinched at the mere sight of her, convinced she had been a monster all along. That alone hurt more than any wound she had taken in battle. Lex Luthor had made the announcement of her capture with that familiar arrogance carved into every silky word. A promise to rid the world of its so-called greatest threat.

The silence in her apartment cracked. A rush of wind and breaking glass erupted as the windows exploded inward. Shards rained down like falling stars. She shielded her face, heart racing in a desperate rhythm. The air vibrated with a deep mechanical hum she dreaded more than anything. Green light filled the room. Kryptonite.

Lex stepped through the shattered frame as if he owned the very space she stood in. His Lexosuit gleamed, armor polished to perfection, joints pulsing with that poisonous green glow. He looked at her the way a hunter looks at something finally cornered after a long pursuit.

“National City thanks me,” Lex declared, his voice sharp and smug through the external speakers of his Lexosuit. “And today, darling, you will fall.”

The rooftop trembled beneath his landing. Kryptonite radiated from the suit’s core, a pulsating green glare that crawled against her skin and made every breath tighten in her chest. The poison moved fast, weakening her muscles and fogging her focus, as though it were trying to tear the sunlight out of her veins. She staggered backward, the skyline spinning and the stars above blurring into streaks of white and gold.

“Lex…” She forced his name out through clenched teeth. “This isn’t justice. It’s obsession.”

He laughed, and the cold mechanical crackle of it echoed across the rooftop. He took slow steps forward, savoring every inch she retreated. “It is order,” he corrected, shoulders rolling back with delight. “And you are the chaos I will finally silence.”

She pushed upright again. Her legs trembled violently, but she refused to let them buckle. Her heart hammered in fury, not fear. “You may have the world fooled,” she breathed, each word costing her, “but I’m not done fighting.”

That truth burned brighter than the poison.

Her fist ignited with a weak flicker of heat vision against her palm. The energy barely glowed, but it was enough to remind her that she still had some spark left. She launched herself upward with a burst of desperate flight. The wind slammed against her as she shot into the sky, her cape ripping behind her like a torn flag, a fallen hero.

Lex followed immediately.

He soared after her with predatory precision. Thrusters roared as he accelerated, the green glow from his suit illuminating the clouds sickeningly. Blasts of kryptonite-fueled energy sizzled past her shoulder, close enough to sear her suit and leave the air tasting like iron and dread. Her vision swayed. Her lungs tightened. She jerked sideways, dodging rooftops and neon signs that all smeared into one streaked blur below.

A more powerful blast struck her square across the ribs.

Her scream tore loose as she tumbled toward the monorail tracks. Sparks flew as she scraped along the metal, barely catching herself before plunging into the street below. Exhausted eyes lifted to see citizens staring up not with hope or relief, but with terror. That sight alone stung deeper than any wound.

“STOP RUNNING!” Lex’s amplified voice boomed over the city.

Kara gritted her teeth. She couldn’t look back.

She pushed higher again, wings of wind curling around her in painful resistance. She aimed herself toward the outskirts where the lights of the city dimmed and the hills loomed darker. She forced herself forward. One more mile. One more second. One more breath. The old DEO bunker came into view, abandoned, forgotten, and silent.

A sanctuary that had once been the start of her new life.

Now it was her only chance to slip away before she collapsed entirely.

She smashed through the cracked skylight. Concrete burst beneath her landing as she rolled across the floor. Pain flooded through every nerve. The air tasted stale and metallic. Her arms shook just trying to push herself upright. She glanced around, remembering this place, remembering safety and battle plans and long nights spent believing in humanity, training with Alex.

Lex crashed through the opening after her, a heartbeat later. The entire structure shuddered.

She could not fight anymore. She could barely stand upright.

“You are finished,” he growled, voice rich with victory. He advanced with unhurried steps, stretching out the moment like a celebration. “They will thank me, you know,” he mocked, smug and gleeful. “They will rebuild without fear. Without you.”

She wouldn’t waste her breath responding. Not anymore.

She ran.

Her body screamed at her to stop. Every movement felt like dragging fire through her own veins. But she forced herself down the corridor, heading for the only room she remembered having a failsafe. A disaster transport. A place that had been built when the stakes were never simple.

Her hand slammed into the door control.

The portal chamber inside flickered with tired old lights struggling to wake. The circular platform was cracked and rusted, but humming faintly with dormant energy. The room smelled of dust and bitter cold air.

A blast from behind caught her across the back. She collapsed, gasping loudly, but she clawed forward again. Her palm hit the interior seal. The door slammed shut just as Lex reached it. His roar of frustration exploded on the other side, metal fists pounding against reinforced metal.

The temperature in the room began dropping. Frost crawled like vines from the corners of the chamber. The power surged louder. The platform beneath her feet pulsed with unstable light. She had not realized what this chamber truly was until now.

A portal. A dimensional ejection system. A last resort.

Not meant to save her.

Meant to remove her from the battlefield permanently.

Lex’s voice seeped through the thick door, faint but triumphant. “It’s over, Supergirl. When they find what is left of this place, they will know I won.”

He wanted the world to believe in her death. He wanted to erase her entirely.

And they would believe him.

Her fingers pressed into the freezing platform. She lifted her head, choking on the cold breath that scraped at her throat. She trembled, kryptonite still burning inside, but her heart refused to break.

She would not let this be her end.

The chamber ignited in a blinding white. The cold sharpened until it stole the air from her lungs. Her body began to dissolve into light.

And Kara Zor-El vanished.

Supergirl. No more.

At least, that was what the world would believe.