An empty warehouse

As it turns out, I wasn't carried off very far. After escaping the boardwalk, I was taken down to the docks, where eventually we approached a sketchy-looking warehouse. The presumably locked door was no match for the man, who with a single shoulder bash knocked it right off its hinges. He finally stopped running when we got to the main storage area, which still had some metal shipping crates laying around the area.

"Shouldn't be long now," the man said to himself.

Still gripped with terror, I said, "P-Please, just let me go! I don't know what's going on, but-"

"Oh, quit your whining!" he snapped, the hand on the back of my head squeezing tighter, "...Actually, on second thought, keep it up. It might get Supergirl to hurry the fuck up."

"Wh-What are you going to do when- if she does?" I asked him.

"Depends on if she's willing to cooperate or not," he said, the robotic sounding voice heightening the coldness of his statement, "If she does what I say, you'll get to go home tonight. If not, her face will be the last thing you ever see."

My heart was pounding in my chest. I had never been so terrified in my life, even when I was inside that bus being thrown at Superman. Falling from the sky was one thing: the steely hand digging into my skull was a deliberate threat on my life specifically. A life that at any moment could be snuffed out by... by...

Wait, who was the supervillain threatening my life?

"METALLO!"

Supergirl flew through the door he had left open, in full costume and looking absolutely furious. Even so, her presence alone was enough to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. I opened my mouth to shout 'Kara!', but thankfully I was interrupted before I could potentially reveal her identity by mistake.

"About time you got here!" Metallo said, roughly positioning me between himself and Supergirl, "I take it you're here alone, like I asked."

"Let him go!" she shouted.

"Answer the question," he said, hugging me against his own chest.

"Yes, I'm alone," she replied, hovering above us, "Now let him go."

The villain's grip on me didn't loosen, "In a minute. I want to talk first."

"You don't need him to do that," Supergirl said, "He's just an innocent."

"Oh, I think he's more than that," he said, yanking my head back to look up at her, "Least to you, anyway. Word is that Supergirl's got a boytoy."

"Where'd you hear that?" she asked. She tried to hide it, but I knew her well enough to see she was starting to get nervous.

"You would not believe how much the Legion loves their gossip," Metallo said, "Truth is, half of it's complete bunk, but this one's got a bit more truth to it than the others, doesn't it?"

"Really?" Supergirl scoffed, "You kidnapped this guy based on gossip?"

"Well, not just that," Metallo said smugly, "There's also the pictures I got of you flying him around everywhere."

Supergirl's face went bone white, "T-The what...?"

"There's the reaction I was looking for," Metallo said, "You know, even with your mind blown, you still look cuter without the glasses and mom jeans."

"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Supergirl said, somewhat regaining her composure.

"Y-Yeah, that wasn't Supergirl!" I said, doing my best to play along, "That was my girlfriend!"

Metallo let out a low chuckle, "Aww, how cute. You've trained him to cover for you. Nice try kid, but I hit her hard enough to kill a normal person on impact. I'll admit her disguise was clever, but I had my suspicions when I saw her standing next to both you and Starfire."

Starfire! With everything going on, I had almost forgotten about her and Dick! Even with Metallo's threat to kill me, one of them could be on their way here too! I silently hoped that the three of them already have a plan to get me out of this.

"Hmm... you know, if Supergirl has a human disguise, I'm betting Superman does too."

Supergirl furrowed her brow for a moment, clearly thinking something over, before saying, "He does. And I'll tell you what it is, if you let him go."

I wish I could say I was brave enough to shout, "Don't tell him anything!" at this moment, like any decent hostage should, but sadly I'm not that selfless. All I ended up doing was staring up at Supergirl with what I could only guess were puppy-dog eyes.

"Interesting offer..." Metallo said, before pressing his arm down on my chest painfully, "But I'm not stupid. I know you'll just give me some fake name to make me let him go."

"Then what do you want?" Supergirl asked.

"To get you out of my way, once and for all. And we all know there's only one way to do that with you hero types."

Supergirl sighed, "Okay, fine, so you lured me here to kill me. Well I'm here, so let him go and we can finish this. It's not like you'll be able to kill me while holding him like that."

I could practically hear Metallo smirking as he spoke, "Yeah, you got a point there. Fetch."

Suddenly I was spun around and hurled at high speed towards one of the large metal shipping containers. With how hard I was thrown, I was pretty sure I was about to become either a bloody splat or a crumple of broken bones. I closed my eyes, prepping myself for a world of hurt followed by the oblivion of ****.

I felt a pair of familiar slender arms protectively embrace me in midair, my head now resting on a soft pair of breasts. This lovely sensation was followed by a sudden jerking motion and the very horrific sound of steel being torn apart, which repeated itself a half-second later. Each impact slowed us down, though we didn't come to a complete stop until we crashed something that sounded like stone as opposed to metal. It was a definitely a rough landing, but on the upside at least I was still alive.

Opening my eyes, I was greeted with the iconic red and yellow 'S', and right above it was the very panicked face of my girlfriend, framed by the crater her indestructible body had made in the concrete wall behind her.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I told her.

"Good," she said, "Charlie, listen to me. I need you to-"

The two of us were bathed in a bright green light. I felt nothing, but Kara let out a scream of pain and let go of me, crumpling to the ground. Turning around, I saw Metallo stepping out from the hole Supergirl made in the shipping container when she caught me. The clothes and 'skin' of his chest had been torn apart by what looked like a telescopic camera lens bursting out of it. The lens was clear enough that I could see the source of the light sitting in a compartment behind it: a large glowing green rock held in place by several wires. I may be an idiot when it came to figuring out this superhero stuff, but even I knew Kryptonite when I saw it.

"Like my new accessory, Supergirl?" the cyborg taunted with a wicked grin on his fake face, "It helps to focus the Kryptonite radiation on you like a spotlight."

With a slight whirring sound, the lens rotated and the light around us got brighter, "I'm betting you can already feel the difference, can't ya?"

Supergirl tried to stand back up, but her legs gave out and she collapsed onto her hands and knees. Struggling just to look up at me, she groaned, "Ngggh... get... out of here..."

"Better listen to her, kid," Metallo said as he slowly advanced on us, the heavy metallic thunk of his footsteps echoing in the warehouse.

For a brief moment, I was very tempted to listen and run for my life. But I had never seen Kara in any amount of pain, let alone the anguish she was currently in. I positioned myself in front of her, doing my best to cover as much of her body in my shadow as possible.

"Seriously?" Metallo asked, "Unless you're made of lead that ain't going to do much for her, especially at this intensity. But if you're trying to get yourself killed, be my guest. I'll just shove my arm right through you and-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a window shattering, and a second later a bolt of green energy hit Metallo in the side of the face, causing him to stumble to the side. I looked towards where it came from to see Starfire streaking through the air, leaving a trail of fire behind her as she fired two more energy bolts towards the supervillain. He let out a scream of rage, but before I could see anything else a plume of black smoke enveloped Supergirl and I, which also had the effect of blocking out the Kryptonite light. As I began coughing from the thick smoke, a muscular arm firmly wrapped itself around my waist, and a moment later I was rocketing upwards above the cloud. Soon my foot found somewhat steady ground on a catwalk high above the chaos, and I was let go.

Looking to my side, I saw that my savior was none other than Nightwing, now dressed in full black and blue costume. I was about to thank him for the rescue, but he gave me a cocky grin and said, "Hold that thought. I'll be right back." He then dived over the railing of the catwalk with a grapple line in his hand, descending back into the cloud of smoke.

Peering down, I could see Starfire flying circles around Metallo and pelting him with more energy bolts, keeping his attention away from what Nightwing was doing and forcing him to retract the telescopic lens to protect it from getting damaged. Each blast of energy that hit the villain burned away more of his false skin, exposing the robotic skeleton underneath. At this point pretty much all of his face was gone, and the skin and clothes on his upper torso was in complete tatters, which made him look much more like the Terminator-esque robot I was familiar with seeing on the news. He was firing green energy blasts of his own from his arms, but Starfire was agile enough in the air to avoid getting hit.

I heard the line retracting, and Nightwing emerged from the smoke cloud carrying Supergirl in his free arm. Once they were back on the catwalk, he set her down gently, leaving her kneeling on the grate to recover.

"Sorry we took so long," he said, "But that's what happens when you charge ahead of us before we even finish planning."

"Yeah yeah, I know, stupid," Supergirl groaned, "Thanks for the save."

"No prob," he said, before looking over at me, "How're you holding up, Charlie?"

"A... A bit sore, but I think I'll be fine," I said truthfully. I then went over to Supergirl and crouched down, "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine," she said, looking up at me with a pained smile, "Just... give me a minute and I'll get you out of here."

I reached over to place my hand on her shoulder, but just as I was about to touch her she suddenly flinched in pain and pulled back from me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I... I think you've still got some Kryptonite radiation lingering on you..." she said with a frown, "I... need you to get back, please..."

I took a few steps back, "Sorry..."

"It's not your fault," she said, "And it was brave of you to try and protect me like that. If you didn't, it probably would've stuck to me too."

"I had to do something," I said. Suddenly worried about possibly never being able to touch her again, I asked, "This... this won't be permanent, will it?"

"Nah, you'll be fine," Nightwing said, "Even from a beam that focused, the lingering radiation should dissipate in about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Though it does mean Supergirl's not going to be able to get you out of here."

Nightwing put two fingers to his ear and spoke into what I presumed was a comm device, "Star, Supergirl's not gonna be able to evacuate Charlie, so we need to go to Plan C. Disengage Metallo as soon as possible and get Charlie out of here."

Turning to me, he said, "Get to the edge of the catwalk and be ready for a fly-by pickup. Starfire won't have time to slow down much, so it might be a bit rough."

"Okay," I said, before looking back at Supergirl one more time, "Be careful."

"Don't worry about me," Kara said, "Once I know you're safe, nothing's gonna stop me from kicking his ass."

I turned around to tell Nightwing I was ready to go, but he had disappeared while my back was to him. Nervously, I walked over to the edge of the catwalk and waited. It didn't take long for Starfire to see me, and she flew in a wide arc to create space between her and Metallo as she made her approach. When she got to where I was standing she hooked her arms around my waist and scooped me up into the air.

"Hello Charlie," she said, "I told you everything was going to be alright, did I not?"

"That you did," I said, "So how are we getting out of here?"

"The same way I got in," Starfire responded, "You might want to tuck your legs."

Looking ahead, I saw we were flying towards a window that had been broken wide open. I followed Starfire's advice and pulled my legs up, then looked down at what was going on below. Metallo had apparently seen what happened, but rather than try to shoot Starfire and I down, he was now aiming the telescopic lens at the still recovering Supergirl. Just as it looked like he was about to turn it on again, Nightwing dropped down on him from some hiding place up above holding two sticks with glowing blue tips, which he jammed into the cyborg's neck joints. Metallo yelled something out as electricity arced across his body, and tried to grab Nightwing's leg, but the hero was too quick, back-flipping off of him and throwing one of the sticks into the center of his chest in an attempt to shatter the lens before he could retract it again.

Before I could see what happened next, Starfire carried me out the window, leaving the sounds of the continuing battle to fade away into the cool night air.