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I should have known that something would go wrong the day of my wedding. Nothing has gone smoothly in my life since Lex hit me with his Porsche. It's pretty much what happens when you're an alien, almost last of my kind, except for my cousin and, well, my clone Conner, and that's all kinds of awkward. Besides, I'm a magnet for everything evil in the universe-evil alien robots, dictators, disembodied criminals from intergalactic prisons, even pretty much the root of all evil. That was the latest problem in my life, that nebulous evil called Darkseid that was stretching out and infecting what seemed like everyone around me. I can't even tell you how many people I saw at just The Daily Planetwho were corrupted by it.

In retrospect, I might have been smarter to put off the big day until I'd actually gotten rid of Darkseid and his prophets. I can admit it; I had been pretty much tunnel-visioned for a couple years now. Yeah, I was patrolling the streets as The Blur , but I hadn't really been a very good person. I guess most of that comes later. Last year, I have no idea what I was thinking. I was really upset about how Jimmy died and it was all my fault for trusting Davis. I tried to cut off most of my human side and feelings. I shoved my friends away, start abusing my powers, even burned down buildings with my heat vision. The VRA called that an act of terrorism in its propaganda, and, really, I have no defense. That's pretty much what happened.

I tried this year to be better. I was at least not burning things down or physically assaulting people. I was patrolling, but I still feel I was pretty caught up in my own romantic life and, frankly, in the future.

I don't mean like dreams of the future either. I actually mean that I saw it. A superhero of sorts from the future came to me and showed me everything I was supposed to become, who I was supposed to be with, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker because it was easiest to slip into that role. Everything was guaranteed and, really, I was going to become pretty damn awesome it looked like, even get that flying thing down.

Except it wasn't the future I got.

I feel like everything's fallen apart, and I truly have fuck all clue how to fix it. Five days ago, I was going to get married to who I thought was the love of my life. Five days ago I had powers that hardly anyone else could come close to duplicating. Five days ago, Darkseid and Oliver Queen (brainwashed at the time) tricked me and took my powers away forever.

No, really forever. Apparently the gold meteor rocks strip me permanently. Oliver was in charge of getting the rings from the jeweler they day before the ceremony, and he did, sort of. He was controlled by Darkseid's prophet, Granny Goodness, into making rings from the gold K that looked pretty much exactly what we'd picked out. I hadn't noticed the damn difference. Microscopic and X-ray vision, at least back then, and I had been too happy to even notice something wasn't right.

Chloe had.

She's very perceptive like that.

She'd tried to rush forward and knock the ring out of Lois's hand. At the time, it hadn't looked too good, as if after all this time, she'd decided to stage her objections to our marriage. It seemed petty and Oliver had pulled her back all with the crowd gasping and Lois glaring at her, probably wishing that she had heat vision at the moment. We regrouped, even if it had been embarrassing, and I looked back just once to Chloe, being held still by Ollie but not fighting him anymore. She had tears running down her face and was still begging me not to do it.

I really thought she was just jealous.

She's been jealous before, although we were really just kids then.

So I slipped the ring on despite the warnings and everything changed. I knew immediately something had happened. It didn't hurt like the green K or give me a rush like the red. It just felt like I was suddenly exhausted. Before I could do anything else, I just sagged to the floor, barely able to move. Lois was shaking me, asking what was wrong, and Chloe, freed by Oliver, was trying to pull the ring off. She was able too, but unlike the blue type, once it was done, it was done. No taking it off to get my abilities back, no getting distance from it.

It was what it was.

I didn't realize it then. I was hoping it was just hours.

Oliver attacked me then and people fled. He came pretty damn close to killing me too, using shards of glass he'd broken loose from one of the stained glass windows. Lois had saved me. She's a black belt, third degree, and actually really good at kick boxing apparently, even in a dress that confining.

Chloe, who had connections I hadn't dreamed of, had J'onn and two other people on the case. A woman-and Chloe swears she's a goddess-named Diana and a guy who literally dresses like a giant bat. (And I think I'm weird.) The woman, Diana, and J'onn are about like me. She took care of the planet heading to Earth. He fought Darkseid, and Oliver, talked out of his possession by Chloe telling him how much she loved him, took care of the prophets.

I probably should have cared more that he had to shoot all of them through the heart to do that. I really didn't. They'd sold out to evil long ago and abused so many people, murdered scores in De Saad's case. So the day was saved and I didn't have to do anything. It was very odd. Even Chloe was running Watchtower, her own skills put to their best use, and I just stood around dazed.

That feeling didn't go away and the next day, even after a good night's rest, I didn't recover. That was when I got really scared, went to see Emil, and had him confirm I'd been altered on a cellular level. Technically, I still have alien DNA (or as close as Kryptonians come), but my cells were pretty wrecked and could no longer process yellow sunlight the way they'd always had.

Powerless, permanently.

I'd like to say that the blows didn't keep coming. I'd like to say I had time to recover my senses and deal with everything. Really I would. Except that's not how it happened. Lex Luthor is back and rebuilding his company, and, even though he doesn't seem to remember me (and Chloe was able to determine some memory serum was missing from Cadmus), he's still dangerous. Tess Mercer, who had been a good friend and serving as Watchtower all year while Chloe was gone, had been killed, found in an alley. We're having her funeral tomorrow. I'm sad that she has no family to come. Her adoptive parents are dead and her family is all Luthors. Lex won't be coming since we suspect he did it, and Lionel and Pamela Jenkins are dead and have been for quite a while.

Her Justice League family will have to mourn her. I know I'm going to miss her and should have tried even harder to understand her earlier in our relationship. She was an amazing ally, and I don't think we appreciated her enough, especially when she was brave enough to weaken Lex and pay the ultimate price.

The worst blow, however, was that Lois is leaving me. She said as much this morning. I wish I could say I was completely surprised. I'm not, exactly. I could tell she was in love with the powers. I knew she was super attached to them when she had them for a day. I know she didn't really understand that I had been Jaime Reyes once, that kid everyone made fun of and who blended into the wallpaper. She definitely didn't understand I still felt like that or a freak like Conner still does and grapples with. Hell, even in the future, her other self was condescending to me in my casual wear and only really turned on after I saved her life, did something super.

However, my biggest clue was that when I prepared her this big dinner on the DP roof, I flat out asked her if I was enough, just as Clark Kent and she didn't have an answer. Oh, I mean she did after a while, but the pause was far too long, her silence deafening. We broke up shortly after and I really should have know that she was only picking back up with me when a kiss before I died (I do that sometimes) let her know I was The Blur .

I just have no luck with women. Lana wanted me to be the farmboy she'd always known, save when the powers came in handy in the bedroom. Lois was impressed with the powers and didn't really see the man behind him, the awkward, scared kid I sometimes still am because, for the longest time, I never fit anywhere.

I thought I almost fit with her.

Sucks to be wrong.

Sucks worse not to have a place to live. The lease is in her name, and she asked me to move out. I have no real place to go, or I didn't until Chloe said I could stay in the Watchtower. She still owns it, willed to her by Jimmy and no one yet has any idea how he afforded to buy such a huge place. So I stay there, in the place that Jimmy died, Davis proved he was a killer all along, and where I'd betrayed Chloe's trust. It hurts that so many of my failures are here, but I sold my farm and it's all I have, that small bedroom above the command center. I haven't even told my mom or Conner yet that I've lost everything.

They're coming in from DC on an early flight tomorrow for the funeral at two. Mom had business to finish with the senate, and Conner...I think he needed time to adjust on his own, to be alone in his grief. Tess had been like a mother to him and, more accurately, partially his sister.

I just...nothing's the same and I have no idea what to do now.

No destiny, no higher calling, no life beyond the DP's basement and being the nerd everyone, even Cat Grant with her unicorn fetish, looks down on. I'm just so tired, not even physically though I find myself being that too. I don't have a place anymore. All my friends are fighting the good fight and I'm pretty much a road block for them.

Hell, it's why J'onn and Diana are sticking around because Kara gone to who knows when and I'm permanently out for the count.

Sitting in Watchtower, staring at the screens and watching my life go by, isolated and alone, hurts. I wish I'd realized it last year. Offered Chloe any type of comfort. I didn't know or maybe I was so gone on Lois I didn't care.

I'm not proud of it.

So, at least I can try making some amends. She's staying with Oliver at the presidential suite of The Excelsior , and they'll be staying there for a while, through the funeral, and they both promise through my "adjustment period," like that doesn't drip with pity. Still, I have nothing better to do than visit them and to try and cope.

I didn't realize that being in the 'tower was so desolate. I need a break. So I gather up my jacket-I'm pretty glad I saved my favorite red one-and started walking the ten blocks to the hotel, missing my superspeed all the way there.