Ending: Bittersweet Ending

Dates: March 2040-Fall 2070

For the next few weeks, the DEO cracked down hard on trying to figure out where the missing aliens had gone this time, but no results could ever be found. Alex was reaching her wits end. She carried on, however, and led the way in the quest to rescue the missing aliens. She did manage to find a few traces here and there but, other than that, nothing all that useful came of it. Then at last, by the time Kara had been gone for 20 years, Alex finally, finally surrendered.
"Alright," she muttered at last, looking absolutely devastated, yet still resolute. "Alright. I give up. I give in. Kara's gone, and she won't be coming back," she raised her hands and stepped away from the DEO meeting table. The only people in attendance were Winn, James and Maggie, but it might as well have been the entire world just because of what an epic announcement this was.
"Alex," James was the first one to try and comfort her, but she cut him off before he could say more.
"No, no," she muttered. "It's ok, it's alright, it's been 20 years. If I haven't found her by now, then I know I won't ever find her again..." she paused, a small sob entering her voice, but she fought hard to remain resolute.
Winn and Maggie looked at her with sadness and Maggie walked over to her, giving her a gentle hug and burying her face in Alex's shoulder. Alex hugged her back, holding in her tears just as tightly as she was holding Maggie. Winn was next to join the hug, then James, and for a good while, the four remained like that, simply embracing one another in love and support.
Not too long after that, Eliza Danvers finally passed away. Alex had been crushed, but her one consolation came in the fact that Eliza had passed away peacefully in her sleep. There was no struggle or stress, no crying or pain, just eternal sleep. It was still a dark and difficult time for Alex and she had barely been able to attend the funeral without breaking down. But in time, even that wound healed and Alex was able to pass two headstones in the graveyard with only a few tears shed each visit.
"Bottoms up," Alex grinned dryly as she raised up a beer bottle and tipped it back. Beside her, Lena did likewise, although she was drinking scotch instead of beer. The two of them were currently sitting in Alex's apartment with James, Winn, J'onn, Nia, Brainy and Cat. They were all busy devouring Universe Food burgers while playing a boardgame. They were playing Candy Land. Perhaps that seemed like a stupid and childish game, but sometimes, stupid and childish was just what someone needed to take their mind off of their troubles. Alex was sitting this round out, one arm wrapped around Maggie and one wrapped around her burger and beer. It was Nia, Brainy, Cat and James who were playing, busily arguing over how long James was going to be stuck on Molasses Swamp.
"Idiots," Alex grinned affectionately as the quartet continued to bicker. Nia and James were the most passionate while Brainy was trying to apply logic and reasoning to explain to James why he had to remain in Molasses Swamp before offering up probabilities of how many more turns he'd have to take before he (might) get out. Cat, meanwhile, was rolling her eyes disdainfully. It was clear she was thinking along the same lines as Alex, though with less of the affection and more exasperation.
"I knew we should've played Clue," Maggie joked, nestling deeper into Alex's arms as she took another bite of her meat pie.
"Or we could've played chess," Lena joked as she set her scotch down to grab a burger.
"Oh, god," Alex pretended to recoil in horror. "Even if all of us played against you, you'd still win!" Lena only responded by playfully sticking her tongue out before she bit into her burger. It was one of those new White Meat burgers that had been released as part of the 20th anniversary celebration for Universe Food. It wasn't quite as flavorful as the others, but it was decent, and the decrease in flavor meant that it went really well with the sauces because the burger itself wasn't overpowering.
Miles and miles away, Lex Luthor was thinking the same thing, chewing his newest burger thoughtfully.
"Valerians aren't very flavorful, are they?" he mused, but he shrugged it off before dipping the burger in some BBQ and taking another bite. Yum!
ooo
About a decade after Eliza passed away, Alex put in her retirement for the DEO.
"Well, old boss, how does it finally feel to join the rank of the retired?" J'onn joked, incredibly old himself by this point.
"Just as long as I ain't as old as you," she replied playfully. Although age may have taken her physical form, it had not taken her metal form at all and she was still just as sharp, bright, intelligent and witty as she'd ever been.
"Want some ice for that burn, old man?" Winn teased.
"Speak for yourself," J'onn teased back. Winn was officially the only one of the Superfriends who still worked at the DEO. Everyone else, including James, Maggie, Lena, Nia and Brainy had all retired. Lena was still employed, refusing to let go of L-Corp just yet, but she no longer worked for the DEO. Tonight, however, she had left L-Corp to be looked after by one of her potential heirs. She was still trying to find someone she could trust with the company, but since tonight was Alex's retirement party, she put her problem on hold just for a little while.
"Bottoms up?" she asked the older Danvers sister jokingly as she handed her a beer.
"You know me too well, Lena," Alex replied with a gentle smile. Then she and Lena clinked glasses before chugging. Right then, someone came knocking at the door. It was Cat Grant. She had retired far before anyone else in the Superfriends had, using all her savings from CatCo in order to nick a very nice and easy life for herself as soon as she could. She still supervised the company, but she was no longer, technically, its owner.
"I brought dinner!" she grinned as she stepped into the apartment, bearing bags of Universe Food goodies.
"Halleluiah!" Nia and James joked in unison as they hopped up to retrieve the food from Cat, then no more was said as the old team sat around Alex's apartment and ate, and ate, and ate.
"This stuff never gets old!" Nia hummed as she ate one of their old Fire Burgers. Beside her, Brainy was having a Bacon Bomber. Winn was busily eating one of the White Meat burgers and dipping it in all the sauce containers at once, to the amusement and slight disgust of everyone else.
Still miles and miles away, Lex sat in his little old cell, an old man by this point.
"But old or not, I still won!" his wrinkled face contorted into a sadistic smile as he bit into another burger. It was the original, the one made from Kara Zor-El, Superman's stupid little cousin. It was always his favorite of the burgers! He had one nearly every day, having since bribed the guards into allowing him to order the burgers. Since they had no clue that he was actually the creator of Universe Food, they would mock and deride him, calling him fat and slobby and disgusting. They accused him of being addicted to fast food. But in order to keep his ruse in place, Lex only agreed.
"You pig!" one of the guards sneered as Lex devoured another Universe Food burger.
"They really are good," Lex replied, calmly licking his fingers. "You should try one."
"I have," the guard replied. "But unlike you, I have a bit of self-control!" he raised his chin as though proud of the fact that he didn't eat burgers every day, but Lex only smiled serenely up at him, secretly pleased to realize that he had this entire jail wrapped around his little finger. Let them scoff and scorn him, they were still eating his burgers. That was all that mattered to him! He would be sure to tell his loyal, stupid little manservant, Lenny, about this later. Maybe he could arrange to have Lenny start up a partnership with the jail and start feeding them burgers every day...
ooo
In the decades to come, there finally came a time when the very last member of the Superfriends passed away. Alex, Lena, Winn, James, Maggie, Nia, J'onn. All of them finally died. After living a long, (decently) successful life, each of them in their turn finally passed away. Alex, who had been the third to die, had been the most anxious, not in the sense that she was afraid, but in the sense that she was hoping that, somehow, she might end up meeting Kara again on the other side. She still wasn't sure what she felt in regards to an afterlife, but she could only hope that if there was one, her entire family would be waiting there for her.
"I'm coming, Kara," she whispered, and that was when she finally died. The survivors, back then, had grieved bitterly, but each in their turn followed in Alex's footsteps until there was no one left.
Eventually, even Lex and Lenny kicked the bucket, both of them dying of old age with their crimes never answered for. Lenny died while vacationing on his big fancy yacht, surrounded by fine wine and beautiful women and every other material possession one could think of. Lex, meanwhile, died in squalor, passing away alone in the cold night with no one there to see it happen, not even his cellmates. But that was ok. He had won in the end, so as he felt his life finally slipping away from him for good, he could only smile. His last minutes on Earth were quite pleasant.
"I won!" he rasped weakly with a twisted smile as he heard the sound of a burger wrapper coming from the next cell over. Sweet, sweet victory! Then he breathed his last, the sound of that burger wrapper echoing satisfyingly in his mind as he died.
There was enough power left in Lex's twisted machinery to keep it running for a few decades more, but at last, without any humans there to maintain it, his great beast took its last shuddering breaths. Its creators were both long-dead and because it only had robots to keep itself alive and functioning, it relied upon those metal humans to never fail. Of course, anyone with a head on their shoulders knew that even robots died eventually and when they died, so did the great slaughterhouse that started it all. The machinery began to spark and fizz, the metal rusted and weakened, the ovens stopped working and closing properly. The cloning machines no longer made perfect or complete copies. With Lex and Lenny dead, the robots were left to take control, but as they rusted and rotted away, that left the factory to be self-sufficient. In time, though, even that began to die.
One by one, bit by bit, Lex's great machinery shut itself down until the slaughterhouse went totally silent. It was nothing but an abandoned factory once again. Universe Food shipped out its last package of meat and when customers clamored for more only to realize that the company had mysteriously gone dark and silent, the public could only ask how and why. The mystery became the galaxy's biggest story. It was the ultimate conspiracy. But no amount of research ever shed any light on the topic. It just seemed that Universe Foods was finished, and there was no word from anyone on the reason why. So as much as the public desired to know the truth behind the corporation's mysterious shutdown, they never got to learn the answer. Nor did they ever truly realize what it was that they had been eating all along.