Crk didn't stir. Not as Superman, not even as a man—but somewhere in between. A soul ripped in two. The weight of her on his p was reassuring. Suffocating. Inescapable.

  Her head y back into the curve of his neck. Her breath, soft and warm. Her body curved into him as if she belonged there. And maybe she did.

  "You're thinking again," she whispered.

  He did not move. His hands stayed where they were. One was lodged into the small of her back like an unspoken secret. The other y on her thigh where the muscle flexed every time she shifted into him.

  Kara leaned her neck just close enough to whisper in his ear. "Stop. Thinking."

  He closed his eyes. "I don't know why this is happening, Kara. I—this is not supposed to be happening."

  "So why is it so?" she demanded, her tone free of anything even slightly flirtatious, no teasing at all. Only stark, pointed curiosity.

  He opened his mouth, but could say nothing.

  "We've already done it," she reminded him. You came. We did it. We lost track. You promised me I could have you. And I will.

  She moved into position on his p, her legs easily straddling him. His knees parted slightly under her movement, but he didn't flinch.

  "I won't be going anywhere," she whispered. "Is that what you expected? After all that?"

  "I thought you should," he confessed. "I thought you'd be disgusted by it."

  She smiled with that terrible, sacred kind of assurance. "I've never felt so alive. And you neither did you."

  He gripped her involuntarily, like holding on to driftwood while drowning. His mouth bzed with lust and remorse. "I wanted it. That night."

  "I know you did," she breathed, her breath tracing over lips. "And I want more. Each time you go to convince yourself this is bad, I'm going to remind you your body knows better."

  She leaned into him. Her body pressed ft against him. Her hands clutched at the bottom of his tank-top.

  "Your scared of how much you want this," she said to him.

  "Yes", he said. Honestly. Bitterly

  Her smile wasn't cruel anymore. Just firm. She rubbed her lips along his cheek. "Then be scared. But don't lie to me."

  Her head dropped, lips grazing the edge of his neck. "Because... you're still mine."

  He shook with fear. It was feeble. It was pitiful. It was heartfelt.

  Her fingertips brushed along underneath the fabric. Followed the curves of his abdomen, slow and respectful.

  He stared at her, helpless. Embarrassed. Aroused. And completely, irrevocably hers.

  Outside, the world went on turning. The neon logo of LexCorp bzed over the city. A helicopter thumped across the sky.

  Internally, Power Girl pushed into him once again. Her lips were at his ear.

  "Say it again," she insisted.

  He blinked.

  Say you're mine.

  "I—" he stuttered, then lost it. "You're mine."

  And?

  "I'm yours."

  She breathed it out like oxygen.

  "Good," she breathed, her hands gliding still further downward.

  Her touch was without apology. No acting, no flirting attempt to make him desire her more—she had already won. Crk's chest expanded like one drowning in still waters. Her hand encircled him through the thin fabric of his work pants, and he closed his eyes. His body betrayed him. Always did.

  "Kara, they'll find out," he whispered, with a tinge of shame.

  "Let them," she said. Her hold didn't rex. "What do you care about what Batman thinks? Diana? They are not real here. This—" she pressed a fraction of an inch tighter, her eyes seeing him stiffen "—this is real."

  "But I can't... I can't keep pretending," he whispered softly, hardly able to say it with fright.

  "Then stop," she growled. "Stop with the boy scout routine. You're no longer him."

  She pushed him back onto the sofa. Her thighs cmped tightly into pce about his waist. Her body overpowered him so easily—not by brute power, but by spirit. Will. She was fire and he was like wet rope, he dissolved into her fmes.

  She leaned forward, her mouth again near his ear. "You came back from the dead, Crk. And the first thing your body hungered for.... was me."

  She was correct.

  It was a noise. Metal. Sharp. From the wrist communicator on his kitchen counter. A League urgency beep. One note. Serious. Universal.

  Crk winced, but Kara didn't budge.

  She said it matter-of-factly, "You're needed."

  He looked at the communicator, then at her.

  She said to him, "You can leave, but you will come back to me. No matter what."

  Crk looked then nodded.

  He didn't have to alter. The clothes were reduced to ashes in an instant—heat vision reflecting off the kitchen light, burning polyester and cotton to nothingness. His symbol, retro and defiant, fshed onto his chest once again in all of its primary-colored nostalgia.

  She backed away to stare at him. "Now that's the man that I fucked."

  He blushed like an idiot. Smiling, she smirked.

  He bsted through the apartment ceiling like a fsh of red-blue, shooting through drywall and pster as if they were pieces of tissue paper. Kara merely lit up a cigarette and sat on the couch with her legs wide apart, as dust poured out of the rafters.

  The Watchtower's strategy grid glowed with visions of Earth: fire zones, hotspots, dispcements. And one thing repeating over again—white blur.

  "Martians," decred Batman. No buildup.

  "White ones," Fsh interrupted. "Didn't we already deal with this?"

  "Apparently not," replied Diana. "Or they have changed."

  Crk appeared behind them. No posing on nding, no dramatic entrance. He walked, squared shoulders, as if he'd belonged to the group for years.

  "You're te," said Bruce, without gncing at him.

  Crk clenched his jaw. "Had company."

  Diana raised an eyebrow. "I assume she was persausive."

  "She typically is," he said, voice firm.

  J'onn twirled, his expression grave. "We've got twelve confirmed White Martians. Subterra. Coordinated. Incinerating ndmarks, posing as victims. They are no longer hiding this time."

  "Then we don't give them the chance to scatter," said Crk. "We strike at them en masse. Quick, ruthless, on target."

  The room went silent. Not the proposal—it was the tone.

  Fsh whispered, "Somebody woke up with a little testosterone."

  Superman dismissed it. "They aren't going to haunt this world again."

  Bruce nodded reluctantly. "Alright. In we go, but stay mind-shielded. Supergirl is flying already."

  Diana moved closer, bringing her close to Crk. "You sure you're ready for this? That isn't nostalgia."

  "I'm certain," he answered. "I need this."

  And maybe he did. Maybe having lost it all, crossed every boundary he swore he never would, he needed to vent it out on someone. Someone who deserved it.

  It was fire and teeth upon arriving on earth.

  The Martians wore masks of disguise that failed to fool Crk. Their skulls filled with white noise. He was faster than Fsh on a rampage, shoulder-checked the first one into a mesh of metal tubing. Bones cracked under his grip like shattered pottery.

  One tried to change into Kara's form.

  He struck it squarely on the chest.

  "You're not her," he growled, teeth clenched.

  Heat vision sliced through two more. Fsh ran after him, barking out his usual commentary. Diana chopped at the ground with her sword, and Bruce's voice scratched over the comms with sharp commands.

  Crk did not stop moving. His eyes were beaming red. His fists looked bruised. Everything hurt him now.

  Pain. Anger. Shame. Need.

  But it was clean.

  It was refreshing to fight something that didn't moan his name.

  The Martian's bones snapped like kindling beneath his fists. Crk continued to punch until the shape-shifter ceased to writhe. His breathing came in sharp gulps. His body vibrated with a pain of almost-relief. Violence didn't question him. Violence didn't look at him as Kara did. Violence didn't csp its hands at the nape of his neck and whisper words he dared only dream to hear.

  This was clean. This was righteousness.

  A red and gold streak fshed past him, knocking one of the Martians off bance.

  Diana.

  She stood wordlessly, sword glinting with Martian green blood, her breath even but keen. She looked at him—and at the Martian at the base of her companion.

  "You're... intense today," she said, brushing hair from her cheek with the back of her hand.

  Crk blinked. "I've needed this."

  She nodded, advancing past him, setting one foot on the Martian's skull and holding it there. It hissed. She turned.

  "You need to talk, Crk."

  "Don't want to."

  "Tough," she replied.

  He looked at her. A little blood oozed from her shoulder—a scratch, no more. Still, it bothered him more than it should.

  She gred at him directly. "You're fighting like you don't fear dying. That's not the way our Superman fights."

  "I am not your Superman."

  She drew nearer. "No. You're not."

  Her tone was not condescending. Not censorious either. Something harder. Something harder to discern. Raw. She was gring at him as if she'd seen him steal prayers from the air.

  "You're fighting like you're fighting to earn your pce," she said to him.

  "Is that not what you wanted?"

  "I want honesty. Not martyrdom."

  He turned aside, the heat vision burning quietly behind his eyes. She tilted her head.

  "You slept with her, didn't you?" she said softly, cold as a knife.

  His breath caught.

  "Power Girl," she replied unnecesarily

  "I didn't—"

  "Yes, you did."

  He clenched teeth.

  "Crk, it's not the sex," she said to him. "It's the why."

  "I don't know why," he excimed more forcefully than he intended to. "I came back to a world that didn't belong to me, carrying a symbol that didn't belong to me, over an apartment paid for by someone else. She made me exist. Made me be alive. Not some. shadow in a cape."

  She edged closer again. Her hand brushed across the front of the shirt, over the S. Her touch never was soft.

  "This is no disguise," she said to him. "This is an image. You have worn it before. Remember that."

  He looked at her. At her mouth. Her eyes. Everything about her radiated control. Honesty. All he wished to sink into.

  "I'm doing the best I can," he growled. "She... she complicates things."

  "She brings you life."

  He nodded.

  Her hand rose up, curved at the nape of his neck.

  "Do you fear it?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  She smiled, albeit without warmth. "Good."

  Crk didn't step back. Unable to. Not strong enough.

  "You're not the first to lose people," she said to him. "You're not the first to have to rebuild. But you don't get to fuck your way out of grief and term it healing."

  "I didn't—"

  "You did," she whispered. "But you are not the only one guilty, though. Kara is never subtle. And you? You are cy to be shaped by anyone that touches you."

  That hurt more than the one to the gut that he had gotten previously.

  He swallows. "Why do you care?"

  She trailed her hand to his cheek from her throat. "Because I know what it is to be so alone among so many gods."

  Her brow was cool. Calm. His was burning.

  "I'm not judging you, but I won't allow you to lose yourself to her either," she whispered.

  A Martian bellowed at her back. The sword was at Diana's side before the bellow ceased. She hurled it like lightning—it thudded home through the beast's skull with sodden finality.

  She again turned to him.

  "You're stronger than this," she said to him. "Or you were."

  He stared at the hands. Covered with blood. Bruises. Still shaking from Kara. Still tormented by her aroma. Still craving it.

  She gripped his chin. Lifted up his head.

  "If you wish to prove yourself," she told him, "remember that you are not some imperfect substitute. You are Superman."

  He looked at her, his eyes gssy.

  "And if you forget once again," she went on, tracing her thumb across his mouth, "I'll remind you."

  She was gone—flying to another shriek.

  And for the first time since he returned, Earth-One's Crk Kent didn't know who he wanted more:

  The dy who made him forget who he was—

  Or the one who made him remember.

  ###

  Her fragrance lingered on his uniform—sandalwood, and war. Her voice resonated in his head, slicing clean as truth only could. The fight still encompassed him from behind. He didn't listen. Not at this point. Her caress did something, something more primal than Kara's fire.

  This wasn't heat.

  It was hunger. Keen. Relentless

  He didn't run after her. Instead, he walked. Step by step, like one emerging from a confession, uncertain whether he'd been forgiven or damned.

  The Watchtower greeted him with antiseptic quietness. Chilled lights. The metal hiss of air coming through the vents. A building made by gods who demanded clean lines and measured silence.

  She was there already.

  She stood by the window—arms folded, legs bracingly pnted, her stance military and unyielding. Still holding her arms but without her sword. Her reflection rippled across the gss, as did Earth's curve beyond. A goddess superimposed over the world she protected.

  She didn't even gnce up at him. Did not move.

  He cleared his throat.

  "You're not subtle, Crk," she informed him.

  "I did not mean to follow you."

  "You always pursue women who challenge you?

  He shut the door softly. Slowly. "Just those who are able to see through me."

  She turned toward him. Her eyes fshed at him like daggers—not to harm, but to test the depth of his character.

  She told me, "You look tired."

  "I am."

  "But not from the fighting."

  He shook his head. "No."

  She stepped towards him. Her steps purposeful. Not hesitant. Not flirting. Just certain. She stopped an inch short, her gaze level with his.

  "You need something you're not getting," she told him.

  "I'm not familiar with what that is."

  "I do."

  He didn't respond. He unable to.

  She lifted her hand, swept it across the curve of his hair spilling onto his brow. He jerked back—not because he hurt, but because it didn't hurt. She smoothed it back, then trailed her hand along the pnes of the side of his jaw.

  "You don't know to ask for help," she said.

  "I've never needed to."

  "Now you do."

  Her hand did not move. She looked at him like one looks at an antiquity. Lost and found, but not quite read.

  "Kara got to you first," she said. "And that is okay."

  He winced.

  "She broke you in one way"

  Her voice softened, but it was commanding.

  "I'm going to break you in another.."

  Crk couldn't breathe. "Diana I---"

  Her fingertips brushed against his mouth. "Don't apologize,"

  She stepped closer to him. Her armor ptes nudged his chest. His hands stayed at his sides. He didn't move them.

  "I don't need you to be perfect," she said. "I need you to be real."

  She leaned over him. Her mouth brushed across the edge of his mouth. Not a kiss. A question. A taste.

  He never replied.

  So she did it again, but slower. And harder.

  He raised both hands, uncertain. One came to rest on her wrist. The other quivered, poised near her hips. Always so gentle. Always asking for permission from people who never granted it.

  "You want to be held," she panted, "but roughly."

  He nodded guilty-looking.

  Her hand trailed along the lines of his chest, going lower—stopping inches short of the belt line. His breath hitched. His gaze dropped to her hand, then up to her eyes again.

  She looked back. Severely. Nearly smiling.

  "I'll give you what you need," she replied. "But you don't get to disappear into it."

  "I don't wish to disappear."

  "Yes, you do," she replied. "And I forbid it."

  She undid the first of his belt straps by hand. Carefully. Her gaze never wavered from his.

  "You're going to remember the man you are, one bruise at a time," she whispered.

  Crk was unmoving. His body screamed for movement. His brain was filled with white noise. And he did nothing to stop her.

  And she didn't stop either.

  "Say it," she commanded.

  He blinked. "What?"

  "Say you want me to control you."

  He parted his lips, but nothing came out.

  She gripped his belt even tighter. "Say it, Kal."

  "I want you," he growled.

  "Not enough."

  He looked into her eyes. His shame leaked out with every sentence.

  "To control me."

  She smiled afterward. Not cruely. Not kindly. Inevitably.

  She answered, "Good."

  She then kissed him.