They don't get 24 hours. The next morning when it's barely past five and Lena is so exhausted she wants to cry, her phone, new device, new number, new everything, lights up with an incoming text from Lex in his stupid fucking cypher and she hasn't yet finished to decrypt it that she already knows this time has to be the last. Whatever the outcome.
Kara is still asleep next to her, but not for long, and Lena has to kickstart her brain at the speed of light which proves difficult considering she fell asleep about three hours ago and Kara didn't bother removing her boxer harness, the o-ring digging distractingly into her side. She looks at her for a moment, takes in the softness of her face, terribly handsome even now as she's snoring and drooling over her pillow. She can't let her die. She can't let her die, but there is a chance Kara will be in more danger if she keeps this from her and that can't happen either. They'll be stronger if they ride into battle together and if they both die well it'll be a tale for the ages ; fucked up for sure, but romantic.
Lena grabs the paper pad she keeps on her bedside table and a pen and scribbles something on it before leaning over to kiss Kara awake. She lays her lips on her forehead, her nose, her mouth, and when she feels her smile into the kiss, draws back and shoves the paper in her face. Uncooperative, blissfully unaware of the emergency, Kara pushes it away sleepily.
"G'morning."
Lena wiggles the paper in front of her eyes. Act normal.
Kara's eyes widen, and Lena can see in the fear that flickers in them that for a few seconds, she forgot. "S'early," she says, over-slurring her words.
"It is," Lena says softly just as she writes down. How sure are we that the apartment isn't bugged ?
Kara shrugs, already looking more awake and alert than Lena feels. Perks of being a cyborg she supposes. She straightens up, blanket pooling around her naked waist, and yawns exaggeratingly before grabbing the paper and scribbling a message of her own. What's going on ?
Lena sighs, hesitates for a long second, then flicks her phone's screen towards Kara. From the look on her face, she can easily guess Kara doesn't need her help to decrypt the message ; a string of letters and coordinates that translate to nine words and an address.
Your only way out is through me. Come alone.
Lex is at the hospital and Lena's probably horribly accurate guess is that Lillian is with him ; whether she's on his side or collateral damage, she doesn't really want to think about.
"You're not going alone," Kara says aloud. She's out of the bed in a flash, too fast for Lena to follow, and shoves over her head the first t-shirt she manages to find, soft, grey, of the kind Lena likes to wear under her blouse when she knows she's going to have a bad day. "I'm calling Alex."
Lena rushes out of bed too, trips over a rainbow dildo and slams straight into Kara's arms. She should probably pick that up or Krypto is going to eat it, but Kara half dragging her with her on her way out is evidently more urgent.
"Stop," she whispers, looking around feverishly, "stop."
How she knows Lex's got the place bugged, she can't explain, but she can feel it in her bones, his invisible invasive presence crawling under her skin.
"Please. Listen to me. I'm not going alone. Just give me a minute." Her voice is low and urgent but she knows Kara would pick mere whispers from miles away. Post-it notes are clearly not going to be enough and they need a safe place to speak. The roof is crowded with DEO agents and the balcony is an ideal target. Grabbing a silk robe on her way out and already mourning the loss of all the work she's repatriated here, she makes for her office, Kara hot on her tail.
The room remained untouched since she last was in, meaning it's still crowded with cardboard boxes full of hard drives and prototypes. She sighs, exasperated, as she dives under her desk for a reinforced metal briefcase. The list of what Lex owes her is getting longer by the minute. She finds what she's looking for quickly enough that Kara doesn't question what she's doing ; at least until she emerges from under the table with an EMP and a fully loaded gun at which point she takes a step back and raises her hands in fretful appeasement.
"Hey. Hey ! Lena. The fuck ?"
On any other day, Lena would pause and explain, but they don't exactly have the luxury of time and so she activates the EMP, drops it on the ground and asks for forgiveness instead for the fright she's about to give her- her whatever Kara and her are now.
There's a loud pop, followed by complete silence, and one by one, her computers and hard drives power down, the disappearance of the bright indicators leaving the room strangely empty. Lena releases a long sigh, almost collapsing from relief when Kara doesn't.
"Glad that worked," she mumbles to herself, gathering her hair up in a ponytail in one swift motion after she's tucked the gun in the delicate embroidered belt of her robe.
"Glad that what !?" Kara shrieks. "You weren't sure that whatever it is you're doing would work ?"
"We should be safe from prying ears now," Lena says quickly. "I tweaked your code to protect you from technological attacks. I found a new way to update you via your arm so that I don't have to open your neck every time it's needed so I did that at the DEO the other day. Was just not sure it'd work against an EMP."
Kara blinks, a deep crinkle forming between her eyes. Her hair is doing that funny thing it does in the morning, standing up in spikes to the side and it makes her look like a nonplussed teenager. Lena begins to reach out to smooth it down, thinks better of it and retreats.
"Are you mad ?" she asks, rather naively she'll admit.
"I'm not mad," Kara says through gritted teeth.
Lena exhales.
"I'm fucking furious," Kara corrects.
Oh well, Lena should have predicted that.
"First of all," Kara continues, voice levelled, measured, and absolutely enraged, "hello, bodily autonomy ? And two, that could have gone very poorly ! What if you'd accidentally powered me down ? Who would have taken Lex down then ?"
Lena takes a deep breath, squares her shoulder and forces herself to look at Kara straight in the eyes. "Me."
Kara's reaction is immediate and again predictable. "Out of question."
"Listen," Lena says, "please, listen." She feels exhausted already, and they haven't even really begun. All she wants, all she truly wants, is for this to be over, no matter how it goes. "I have a plan. Or the beginning of one at least, we can workshop it together but we don't have much time. I chipped myself-"
"You what ?!"
"I chipped myself," Lena repeats. "At the DEO. I implanted myself with a tracker. Unjammable. And only Brainy knows how to access my location."
"Okay," Kara says, "okay. So I did hear that properly. Good. Perfect."
She plops down on the couch, one of the cushions popping open under her weight. For a long and strange moment, both her and Lena stare in silence at the single white feather that escaped from its fabric prison. It floats about in the room, following unseen air currents, until it lands close to Lena's feet. She takes a step back, startled by the sudden and baseless thought that if she touches this feather, everything will go astray.
"I'm going to go meet Lex at the hospital," she says, slowly, calmly, even if her heart is thundering in her chest, threatening to break through her ribcage and Kara can hear it, "he'll think I'm alone but I won't be. There's a stealth mode on your new suit that should allow you to approach undetected and either get everyone out or take him out. Depending on what's most urgent."
Kara purses her lips, the pout making it hard for Lena to decipher her expression ; her eyes twinkle with approval, but the lower part of her face is unimpressed. "We'll still need back up," is all she says.
"And we'll have it. As soon as I activate my tracker, Brainy will know something is up and you can stay in touch with the DEO right until you enter stealth mode."
Kara shakes her head. She wrings her hands nervously on her lap, her fidgeting more intense and noticeable than Lena's own frantic twisting of the ring on her finger. "I don't like that," she says, "I don't like that at all."
"I can't come marching in with a small army. I don't know what he's planning. He could blow up the hospital. He will blow up the hospital."
"And I can't lose you," Kara counters, voice cracking right in the middle of her sentence so that Lena only hears the last few words because she already knows what Kara is going to say. She's up and crossing the room in an instant, slower than her top speed but still much faster than humanly possible. She steps right on the feather at Lena's feet and gathers her face in her hands. "Please. I can't lose you."
Lena averts her eyes to the floor, can't bear to witness the desperation in Kara's. She understands. This is new for Kara, she's never had to stand on the sidelines like she did, watching the love of her life die, knowing that if she'd done more, if she'd had so much as one more minute, she could have found a way to save her.
"I promise I'll do everything I can to come out the other end alive," she says, gripping Kara's hands and pressing them harder against her skin. "But I have to go. Trust me, please. And trust yourself."
Kara yanks her hands from her grasp, leaving Lena reeling and her face cold ; she drops to her knees, mouth hanging open in a silent plea.
"Don't," Lena whispers, "please don't. If you ask now, I won't say yes."
Kara's face hardens, her expression slipping into a mask of harsh blankness, and she backs away, crawling on her knees. Lena would swear she can hear her hastily patched heart breaking again.
"Okay," Kara says, getting back on her feet. "Okay." She shakes her head, smiles sadly to herself. "Where's my suit ?"
Lena takes a couple of steps back until she bumps against her desk. Without looking, keeping her eyes trailed on Kara, tall silhouette highlighted by the soft glow of the moonlight, she fumbles on it until her fingers meet the thin rectangular box and she can wrap them around it. With her free hand, she beckons Kara forward, and when she's close enough, presses the box on her chest.
"There," she whispers.
The suit unfurls on her body with a low hum, covering her plains and moulding itself to the swell of her muscles. Sorrow radiates from Kara in all consuming waves and being close to her shakes Lena to her very core but she still rises on her tiptoes to press a kiss on her mouth, short, soft ; they don't have time for more.
"See you on the flip side."
The words are so ludicrous in Lena's mouth that Kara lets out a short hysterical laugh. Lena follows soon after, hers a little longer, more desperate. Fear churns low in her stomach, but if she doesn't have time for a kiss, she certainly doesn't have time to be afraid. She pushes tenderly on Kara's shoulder until she gets the hint and takes a step back, then presses two light fingers on the inside of her right wrist.
"Press here twice for stealth mode. Tell Alex to stand by, and tell them all I- Just tell them to stand by."
She walks past Kara and out of the room, resists the urge to glance over her shoulder. It would be no use, Kara slipped into hero mode the moment she put on the suit, and she's already gone. Lena marches right to her bedroom, bypassing Krypto, dutifully waiting for her in front of her office, and selects her most pristine suit, slipping the gun in the waistband of deep burgundy trousers. She borrows one of Kara's tie, takes her time to knot it properly, and before exiting the room, puts all chances on her side by counting her things, all meticulously aligned on the dresser by Kara. Her old teddy bear, the charred picture of her birth mother, Ruby's cracked snow globe, her busted Pez dispenser, her first edition copy of Harry Potter, a chess trophy, and that bear shaped rock she once found on a beach in Ireland. She knows doing this won't keep her safe from Lex, but she's only human. Human and terrified.
Eliza is still asleep by the time she leaves the apartment ; most of the city is asleep. And none of them know that by the time they wake up for work, at least one Luthor will be dead. Lena hopes it's not her, but she wouldn't bet on it.
She walks to the hospital. It's not that far, and she needs to think. The streets are eerily quiet, her only companions the sound of her shoes on the pavement and the occasional car driving by. It's cold, but not too cold, National City levels of cold, and mid-December by the feel of it ; Lex stole so much time from her. The closer she gets to the hospital, the more at peace she feels. It doesn't mean she's not afraid, but it's a quiet sort of fear, resolute, because she knows what she has to do, and she knows if she survives, the aftermath will be devastating. Her heart beats in her throat, her palms are sweaty, and the gun is heavy in her waistband ; she is going to kill her brother.
A streak of blue flashes in the sky and disappears behind the tall white building of the hospital. Kara must have gone to the DEO already and Lena hopes her friends listen, and she hopes she'll get to see them again. She wishes she could hear them now, that she could wear her comms and hear Alex's reassuring voice in her ears. She tries to picture it, but comes up empty, her brain too focused on the task at hand, on her brother's imminent death, to take the time to remember her sister's voice. The automatic doors part in front of her, and her plan immediately goes to shit.
She steps directly in a pool of blood, thick and slippery, squeaky under shoes. The nurses, the doctors, all the staff Lena is used to seeing milling around is not there, and the few people that are, don't look well. White skin, glassy eyes ; Lena assumes they're not asleep. In fact, there is only one other alert person in the room apart from her, and that person is betraying backstabbing bitch extraordinaire Eve Teschmacher.
"You," Lena spits, immediately berating herself for letting this single syllable slip away from her.
Eve smiles, her expression somehow even cheerfuller and creepier than usual. "Good morning Miss Luthor."
"But you're in jail," Lena whispers, wondering exactly why she felt the need to say that when Eve is very clearly standing in front of her.
"I am," Eve replies, nodding enthusiastically, "and I am also here. I am enhanced."
Lena scoffs. "You look rather standard to me."
Eve snarls. Her teeth look wrong ; too white, too pointy. A shiver runs down Lena's spine. Eve procures a gun from behind her back, an old fashioned colt with a revolving cylinder and space for six bullets. She holds it steadily in front of her, and Lena does not look forward to finding out if it's loaded.
Eve jerks the gun towards the elevators. "Right this way Miss Luthor."
Lena doesn't have much choice but to follow. If she lunges at her now and tries to disarm her, she risks slipping in the blood and pitifully incapacitating herself. She should have worn a bulletproof jacket. Why the fuck is she not wearing a bulletproof jacket ?
The ride up in the elevator is maddeningly slow and the lighthearted music is exasperating. Lena wouldn't be surprised if Lex had deliberately tampered with the machinery just to piss her off. They exit into the cancer wing, trading a confined sanitised space for another. It's deserted and there's no blood but a Christmas tree has been knocked aside and somehow, it feels worse. Unconsciously, she must have slown down because Eve presses the gun on her back and keeps it there, insistent and threatening, until she's led her through a door at the very end of the corridor, its threshold framed by two corpses, one of which is Doctor Hale's and the other someone so disfigured Lena doesn't recognise them. Lex is not the first person she sees, though her eyes seeks him immediately, and it's not Lillian either. No, it's Eve that welcomes her inside, her former assistant both behind her and in front of her, cheerful, bright, rosy cheeked ; fucking creepy.
"Thank you Miss Teschmacher," Lex says calmly, clearly not disturbed at all by the situation, "you may return to yourself."
Frozen in horror, Lena watches as the Eve in front of her bubbles while the Eve behind her turns liquid and gets around her so they can melt into one overly happy assistant. Bile rises in her throat ; she struggles not to vomit.
"What did you do to her ?"
Lex rises from his armchair. He trimmed his beard, put on his best pinstripe suit, but the effect is ruined by the way the neon lights reflect on his shiny bald head. He walks up to Eve, puts a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezes. "Hello Lena."
"What did you do to her ?" Lena asks again.
She crosses her arms behind her back, feels for the gun safely tucked there and hidden by her jacket. Its presence is not as reassuring as she would like it to be.
"You didn't seem to like her in her previous state," Lex says, now slowly and disturbingly running his fingers on the underside of Eve's jaw, "so I made her better." He grabs her chin roughly, turns her head and stares in her eyes for a second. Lena feels like she should do something about it, but doesn't manage to move. "It's incredible what vermin will give you when you have them by the balls. I drained that alien of its blood, infused plain boring Miss Teschmacher with it, et voilà. The copies are fragile though so the one your friends have in custody is probably brain dead by now."
"You're a monster !"
Lena didn't expect to scream and Lex didn't expect her to either. He startles, averts his eyes for a second and Lena uses that brief respite to free the gun from her trousers and aim it at his chest. Her hands are a little unsteady ; she hopes he doesn't notice.
"I'm not a monster," he says, left eye twitching in concealed anger, "I'm simply willing to get the job done for the betterment of humanity." He lets go of Eve's chin, roughly grabs at her hair instead and yanks. She keeps on smiling, hands him the gun, and doesn't so much as blink when he presses it to her temple. "Like with poor old Mother."
If she was alert enough to protest, Lillian certainly wouldn't like being referred to as poor and old, but when Lena lets her eyes drift away from her brother, she finds her mother unconscious and handcuffed to an armchair, tubes full of dark liquid going in and out of her body. A fine china cup and a handgun lay on a table not far from her, both untouched.
"All these freaks that your pet Kryptonian dislodged needed shelter," Lex says, "and I gave it to them. For a small price. I suppose you'll be happy to know not all of them are dead."
Lena should shoot him now. Shoot him now and be done with it. The gun trembles in her hands, feels heavier by the second.
"To be frank with you," Lex continues, "I thought it would bring me more joy. But compared to Supergirl's insides, everything is so meek and boring." He pauses and sighs. "I thought she would be with you."
"You told me to come alone."
"Forgive me for thinking you'd disregard my instructions Lena." Lex sighs again, seems genuinely annoyed for a moment then smiles, thin lips twisting in a paltry simulacrum of kindness. "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get to her later. Dissection should be much easier this time around, now that I know what to expect."
Lena squeezes the trigger. The bang is deafening, and so is the sound the bullet makes when it ricochets off Lex's suit. Lena lowers the gun, dumbfounded, and raises it again immediately, this time aiming for his head.
"Oh don't make that face," Lex says, "of course I figured it out. I told you I was willing to get the job done. Took a few tries, ran short on willing participants, and then I had an epiphany." He smooths his hand down his jacket, the nanites rippling in its wake. "Do you know what gets me going Lena ? What really gets me going ?"
"Hatred and insanity ?" Lena suggests, her tone much smugger than it outs to be when she's in fact fairly close to peeing her pants.
Lex laughs. "That's right. Well done Lena ! I hate aliens. But I am willing to admit this has led me astray at times, blinded me."
"That doesn't explain anything."
Lex sighs, angrily this time. "I programmed half the nanites to hate the other, they're too busy fighting among themselves to get to me. Clever right ?"
Lena doesn't answer.
"Clever," Lex repeats, "right ?"
Lena shrugs. "Not really. And it won't hold, I already tried."
Lex howls. Honest to God howls, lets out a cry so animalistic that for a moment Lena thinks he's injected himself with something too and is about to shape-shift into a nightmarish creature. He lets go of Eve, throws himself at Lena and shoves his gun onto her temple, not caring one bit that hers is pressed into his chest.
"See that's the problem with you, sister," he snarls, "you never appreciated me like I deserve. I gave you everything. I welcomed you into my home, into my family, and all I wanted in return was a bit of respect, and a bit of love. I loved you so much Lena, why did you have to go and waste it all ?"
Lena's skin crawls from the proximity, her stomach churns, she feels sick, unclean. "You didn't want me to love you," she coughs, "you wanted me to worship you. And I did. I gave you all I had and you did nothing but terrible things with it."
He crowds her, backs her up against the wall, his body seeming much larger than it is. "I'm sick of you," he spits, "you're pathetic."
"Kill me then," Lena says, pressing her head against the gun. "Go on. Kill me."
Lex smiles, presses the full weight of his body against hers. Lena wants to die. Instead, she headbutts him, attempts to break out of his hold by fracturing her skull against his. He appears to see her move coming from a mile away, takes a step back to avoid her then grabs her face, clogging her airways with his sweaty palm, and slams her head hard against the wall, once, twice, then brutally lets her go and takes her legs out from under her with a swift and precise kick.
Pain, white and hot, bursts from everywhere at once. She can't see a thing, can't see him approaching until he's right next to her again, lifting her head from the floor by her hair to whisper in her ear, voice sickeningly soft. "I don't want to kill you Lena, I want to break you. Now, call your Kryptonian pet will you ? Or I'm blowing up the hospital."
Lena doesn't have the time to consider calling for Kara and she doesn't have a second to start begging for her to stay away either. Supergirl crashes through a wall, rips Lex from over her and slams him on the opposite side of the room, encrusting his body in the plaster.
Lena blacks out for a second. Fuck.
When she opens her eyes again, Kara and Lex or no longer in the room. There's a hole in the ceiling, rubble on the floor, and a deeply nauseating stench of burnt chemicals. Her head is throbbing, her ears ringing, and bile and blood coat the inside of her mouth. The back of her head is wet and dusty, and her fingers come back red and sticky from touching it. If she gets out of this one alive, it'll be through sheer luck only and she thinks she's been a little too lucky up until now for things to work in her favour one more time.
Eve is standing over her with an unshakable grin, gun outstretched toward her ; and before Lena can talk herself out of it and accept her fate, or realise it's a bad idea really, she grabs her ankle and yanks. Eve collapses on top of her like a half empty potato sack and fuck, she's heavier than Lena thought she would be. She gets out from under her as quickly as she can, grabs the gun from her and knocks it on the side of her head, hard enough to draw blood. She feels guilty about it for a brief second, then remembers Eve held her at gun point multiple times over the course of their relationship and punches her in the face for good measure.
Getting back to her feet is another story entirely, her body vibrates with pain, she's almost certain some of her organs have been displaced, and she entertains the thought of laying on the ground, possibly bleeding out, until someone finds her there. Now that Kara and Lex are fighting out in the open and it's clear Lena's half baked plan has gone to complete shit, the DEO is bound to be on its way anyway. In fact, if she closes her eyes, she can hear boots rhythmically beating the ground ; though it could also be her brain trying to claw its way out of her skull. God, everything hurts.
She struggles up, legs unsteady, body wobbling like an earthquake-proof building. She doesn't feel anything-proof right now. She goes to wipe her face, hoping things will appear clearer if she doesn't feel so gross ; but her hands are bloody and dusty too and she's split her knuckles open on Eve's face so the whole endeavour is not particularly successful. She makes her way around Eve's unconscious body, careful of where she's putting her feet, and stumbles her way to her mother.
Lillian is unconscious too, but in a much worse state. Her face is ashen, her limbs limp, and well, Lena is not that kind of doctor. She has no idea what Lex put in her, didn't really have the foresight to ask when he tried to merge her with a wall, but it can't be anything good, and when she tries to dial the device down, her mother starts spasming violently, blood so dark it's almost black trickling out of her nose and mouth. Suddenly, Lena's own array of injuries doesn't seem so bad. She should have gone to med school. Why the fuck didn't she go to med school ?
She has no choice but to turn the device back on, watch as the strange thick substance starts moving in and out of her mother again and the heart monitor calms down. She checks her eyes, the pupils are responsive which is good, she thinks, though in this moment she can't remember why. She needs to think fast, find a solution ten minutes ago but she feels dizzy, finds it hard to concentrate with the clashes of metal and the roaring sounds over her head. And her brain keeps on flashing back to Kara, her body and mind paralysed by worry when she should be dedicating all she has to the task at hand. She needs to save Lillian so they can have more time together, so they can finally get to know each other, mother and daughter.
"Lena !"
She whirls around, trips on the edge of Lillian's medicalised chair and falls forward. She doesn't think it's going to hurt ; her pain receptors are already at max capacity. Her sister catches her before she can finish falling and when Lena looks up to meet Alex's kind concerned eyes, she dares to hope maybe this is going to turn out okay.
"Lena !"
She frames her face with her gloved hands, the leather digging in her skin, checks her pupils, wipes at something on her brow, an open gash Lena supposes, much like the one Alex is sporting in the middle of her forehead.
"When we get out of here, I'm going to be so mad at you," Alex says, "right now, I don't have the time. Where is Kara ? Where is Lex ?"
Lena opens her mouth, words fail her and she points to the ceiling instead. What little remained of it chooses this exact moment to cave in on them, Lex carving out a decent portion of it when he comes in back first, Kara in tow. None of them move for a moment, notmore than a few seconds probably but to Lena it feels like an eternity.
Sam comes running in, wearing the armour Lena made for her forever ago, the part where Brainiac stabbed her carefully patched. Kelly is clinging to her arm, head to toe in borrowed DEO gear and for some reason carrying a busted car door punctured by bullets. Andrea shadows into the room a breath later, covered in a tight leather outfit that Lena might say belongs more in the bedroom than on a battlefield if she had any strength to speak at all.
"Does anyone mind telling me," Andrea begins, out of breath and clearly annoyed, "why I had to fight seven Eve Teschmacher on the way in ?"
Sam lets out a choked sound, halfway between a sigh and a nervous laugh.
"Actually," Kelly says, lowering her improvised shield, "I would like to know too."
Lena clears her throat. "It's complicated," she murmurs hoarsely, her words comically out of place.
On the floor Kara grunts, and the rest of the room falls silent as she rises to her feet, dusts her hands on her thighs and breathes out. "Well," she says, squinting as she looks around the room, "that went better than I expected."
Lex grabs the back of her cape, and slams her back down. In the short bout of silence that follows, Lena hears something snap, and she isn't entirely sure it's the floor. Lex is wearing her suit, the one she built with his android. He's repainted it in this atrocious mix of purple and green to make it his own, but the shape of it is unmistakable ; there's too much room on the chest for his sad man boobs.
"Enjoying the show ?" he snarls, gripping Kara by the back of her throat to hoist the both of them to their feet.
Kara struggles in his grasp, clawing at his armoured hand to get herself free. She's got an open gash on the side of her head, slowly bleeding, another just above her lips, and her right cheek is strangely caved in, like Lex hit her hard enough to dent the metal underneath.
"You did a good job Lena," he continues, sickly sweet. "It pains me to admit it, but your suit is better than mine. I do hope you'll appreciate the little adjustments I made."
He raises his arm, deliberately slowly because he thinks he's got the upper hand, and sets his gauntlet against Kara's temple. It glows a sharp emerald green, it's light reverberating on Kara's pale face. She smiles, locks eyes with Lena and mumbles a few words, her mouth shaped like a Kryptonian prayer. Time to see if Lena did a good enough job she supposes.
"Don't worry," Lex sighs with a grin of his own, not disturbed one bit by the guns trained on him. Alex doesn't have a good enough angle on him to fire without hitting Kara, and Kelly's bullets won't do anything to him. "I'll leave big enough pieces for you to bury."
"Like hell you will !"
Against all odds, and possibly out of desperation, Alex fires anyway. Her shot catches Kara on the shoulder and she lets herself go with it, falling back onto Lex. Lena gets a second to breathe, then the room explodes into chaos.
Lex rights himself but his brief moment of unbalance and disgraceful flailing means his fully charged Kryptonite gauntlet is not aimed at Kara anymore when it fires. It's aimed at Sam, and Sam does not have a built in anti-Kryptonite shield.
Several things happen consecutively, so fast that Lena is a little unsure of how she catches them all. Kelly screams, jumps in front of Sam in an incredibly stupid move, and raises her improvised shield to redirect the ray. It ricochets off the car door, off the ceiling, and makes for Lena. But before she can wish for a swift and painless death, Andrea shadows in front of her and transports her to the other side of the room, right behind Lex and right in time for Lena to see Kara shattering Lex's cannon with the flat of her hand. The metal creaks and shatters, leaving his arm exposed and bent at an angle Lena wishes she didn't have to see, the bone broken and picking out of the skin. Far from stopping him however, this seems to fuel Lex's rage. He blasts Kara in the chest with his other cannon, attempts to headbutt her when she doesn't move an inch then whirls around in search of another target when he fails at that too. Kara grabs him harshly by his broken arm and to his credit, Lex doesn't scream. He initiate the charging of his gauntlet again, attempts to aim it at her face but it seems Kara is done with his shit, and she slams him on the floor, sets a foot of his remaining arm, and presses. This time, he does scream, a cry bubbling out when the metal snaps and pierces his flesh, preceding by half a second Kara's foot cleanly separating his limb from the rest of his body.
Silence befalls them, a long moment during which no one dares to move or speak, not even Lex. From where Lena has taken cover behind Andrea, she takes a second to observe Kara, takes in the pure rage on her face, so different from what both Brainiac and Lex have tried to instil in her and yet just as destructive.
A few feet away, Eve starts to regain consciousness, the shuffling of her hands on the floor as she tries to push herself upright the only sound in the room until Lex coughs.
"Come on," he sputters, "come on Supergirl ! Come on ! Prove me right ! Kill me."
Kara steps away from him, takes a few step back and shudders, violently, but only once. She threads a hand in her hair, tugs on the uneven strands, her features twisting in desperate anguish. She knows Lex has to die, they all know that ; it's only down to whoever is going to fire first.
"How could you do that to her ?"
"She tainted the Luthor name," Lex spits.
"You tainted the Luthor name," Kara murmurs, fists shaking at her sides. "Do you have any idea of how much she loved you ? How many hours she spent crying wishing her brother would come back ?!" Kara's voice rises exponentially, from a whisper to a full on shout. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE ?!"
"I'm here," Lex says, smiling crookedly. He twists on the ground, bending and pulling his body until he can look at Lena dead in the eye. "I'm here Lena. Your brother is here."
Quite suddenly, Lena finds herself crouching at his side ; she doesn't remember wanting to do that. Disregarding the fact that she's about to shred the skin of her hand, she wiggles it under the metal plating on his chest, reaching for where the core of the android was and tugs. The suit powers down, its pieces slowly sliding off Lex's skin and stripping him of his strength and technological invulnerability. "Everything I build has a failsafe fucker."
He smiles at her still, she presses a finger to his mouth, just like he used to do when they were only children and they had to be quiet and hide from their father.
"You know what's funny ?" she continues, stubbornly ignoring the tears sliding down her face, "I would have done anything for you. I loved you so much Lex, you were my hero. So I have to thank you now, for everything you did, because if you hadn't scared me shitless with your insanity, I would have became like you. A monster."
"I'm going to haunt you," Lex snarls.
Lena chuckles. It's not a happy laugh, but it feels strangely good. "I know."
She motions for someone to hand her a gun, dismisses Alex when she tries to intervene. "You know he's never going to stop," she says, "and you know it's got to be me."
She waits, hand steady, until the grip rests heavily in her palm, and she takes aim ; she'll put the bullet right between his eyes. The two shots ring before she's had any time to pull the trigger. She doesn't turn around, she can't, not when she knows who fired.
"Tell me," Lex gurgles, "tell me Lena. Did I at least manage to break you ? Are you tamed now ?"
Behind her, Kara closes the distance, rests a comforting hand on her shoulder. "No," Lena says, shaking her head slowly, "no you didn't."
She forces herself to look, tells herself it's because she needs to see him draw his last breath and be sure he's gone for good but really, she might just be frozen in shock. She doesn't even move when Eve performs a peculiar crawl-jump and lands on him, ripping his portal watch from his broken arm and making a swift exit. And she still doesn't turn around when Lillian's heart monitor starts beeping loud enough to raise the dead. Before her, Kelly finally discards her car door, and kneels next to Lex. She wipes the blood from his forehead, closes his eyes. This way, he almost looks like her brother.