Tear Jerker / Ben 10: Unlimited

Caution, spoilers unmarked!

The Downer Beginning of this fanfic should give you an idea that this fic is not a very happy one. While far from a complete Dark Fic and having its heartwarming moments, it's still got all manner of tragedy and pain within it.

• The aforementioned Downer Beginning. Ben is Driven to Suicide after the death of Gwen, Kevin, Max, Julie, his parents, and his aunt and uncle, drowning in grief and well past the Despair Event Horizon. When he meets with the Justice League, his pain is very evident, with Wonder Woman sensing pain, rage, and despair.
• When J'onn reads Ben's mind about what happened, he recoils in horror ^note  Remember that J'onn watched his entire species, including his wife and children die, and this gets even sadder , with Ben finally processing and revealing what happened.
  Two days ago, one of my old villains attacked me. Short version: everyone that I cared about, my parents, my grandpa, my aunt and uncle, my cousin, my best friend and my girlfriend all died. (Broken Tears begin to form) There isn't a single person on my Earth left for me. And it's all because I got this stupid thing attached to my wrist.
  • The Justice League are all understandably horrified, especially when J'onn reveals that he was attempting to commit suicide before then.
• Ben and Kara commiserating over the loss of their home worlds, serving as a stark reminder of what they've each lost.
• Ben's first night after meeting Kara has him suffer a Flashback Nightmare, with Kara hearing him cry in his sleep, and when she enters, Ben just shatters, reduced to Inelegant Blubbering as he cries into her shoulder.
• During the fight against Brimstone as Way Big, Ben watches Captain Atom, Supergirl, and Green Arrow all get trounced, causing him to snapback to his destroyed home in Bellwood and the remains of his family, triggering his Trauma Button.
• Just as heartbreaking as its canon counterpart, "For The Man Who Has Everything" is a heartbreaking affair, but instead of seeing Batman's greatest wish, it's Ben's.
  • What is Ben's greatest wish? To be back with Julie, Kevin, and Gwen in his old universe. For a few moments, Ben's trauma is gone, but when Diana helps work to break him out of the Black Mercy's grasp, Ben ends up seeing Gwen, Kevin and Julie fall into a crevasse. While he can save Julie, Kevin and Gwen are nowhere to be seen, but Julie speaks in Diana's voice, causing him to realize that the moments were simply an illusion, and his family is gone. The last thing he can do is kiss Julie as deeply as he can before saying that he will always love her.
    • What's even harsher? This is the only time Kevin and Julie will ever be seen "on-screen", for lack of a better term, in the entire series. Gwen does appear one more time, but as her younger self during "The Once and Future Thing" arc, and only due to Ben turning into her as a result of time travel shenanigans.
  • After the Black Mercy is removed, Ben simply breaks down crying after essentially seeing his loved ones die all over again, leaving Wonder Woman to comfort him.
  • When Ben arrives back home, Batman has J'onn send for Kara, who only finds him in an almost catatonic state, with pale skin and eyes bloodshot from crying.
• While Ben and Kara's first date is a very heartwarming occasion, there's still a painful moment when Kara asks how much Ben means to her, and worries that she'll be replacing Julie. Ben admits that Julie will always occupy a place in his heart, and Kara takes that to mean that he may not love her the same way, though that ultimately gets dispelled.
• Verdona's arrival reveals that Ben holds bad blood towards her because she never contacted him, and the normally flighty Anodite starts to show a more human, vulnerable side, especially when Ben rebukes her for not being there to save her family. Verdona reveals that she did try to come, but Gwen's distress call arrived far too late for her to do anything, and she ended up getting so caught up in grieving her husband, children, and favorite grandchild that she forgot about Ben. When she realized her mistake, she did everything she could to try to find him, only for her search to be in vain, making her feel that she'd lost him forever, left with only her regrets.
• Ben's grandmother isn't the only ally who couldn't help Ben and left with grief. The Plumber's Helpers were also alerted to what happened, but they were several light-years away, and devastated by the deaths of the Tennyson family and Kevin and Julie.
• "The Doomsday Sanction" has Ben end up comatose as a result of preventing the Kryptonite missile from striking San Baquero, leaving Supergirl to watch over him and making Batman snappier than usual, telling Superman he shouldn't joke about turning out as bad as the Justice Lords when Ben took a bullet for him.
• Just as Brainiac-Luthor made clones of the Justice League, he also made one for Ben, and his own insecurities of feeling like an outsider are brought to the forefront.
  You don't even belong in this universe! You'll never have a true home here!
• Bluntly, the Closure Arc, and a showcase of all the pain Ben suffered.
  • The story reveals that Ben's nightmares have returned, and they've begun to affect his performance. Wonder Woman then realizes the reason behind them: Ben never got complete closure for the death of his friends and family.
  • Vilgax returns and reveals his sadistic glee in murdering Ben's family and friends before depowering the Ultimatrix and giving a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Ben that leaves him a mangled mess. As Batman puts it:
    Ben Tennyson hung limply from Vilgax's clawed hand; in fact, the only reason that they even knew it was Ben was from the tattered green jacket that he wore. His body was covered in wounds, his face slashed apart, and it looked like both of his legs were broken.
    The worst injury, however, was his left arm. Batman, as he was analyzing Ben's injuries, was amazed that it was still attached to the rest of him. Ben's arm was crushed and mangled; the Ultimatrix was shattered, tiny pieces of it falling to the ground.
  • Ben is left in critical condition as a result of his injuries, and leaves the Justice League members in a state of shock and anxiety, especially when it turns out that Vilgax disabling the Ultimatrix also poisoned Ben due to the device's shoddy construction.
  • Azmuth angrily rebukes Ben for his vengeful behavior when he awakens, and Ben realizes that he used it the way it was never meant to be used: as a weapon. He's simply left muttering apologies over and over again.
  • As one last attempt to hurt Ben, Vilgax spitefully tries to desecrate the graves of his friends and family. As Supergirl pummels Vilgax, she flashes back to every moment Ben's pain surfaced.
    She hit Vilgax again and again; each time her fist connected, she saw different images. First, she saw Ben from that first night at the Kent home, sobbing uncontrollably. Then, she saw the haunted look on his face after Mongol forced him to see his family die again. Then, she saw every time he woke up next to her at night, his eyes darting everywhere in fear.
  • The final part, where Ben finally gets closure for the deaths of his friends and family. He eulogizes each and every one of them, and cries more and more each time.
    • Ship also has shades of this, as he is left to mourn over Julie's grave.
    • Even years later, though, he's still shown to be distraught over the deaths of his family, as Ken recalls that Ben telling him about them was an incredibly painful process.
• While the Christmas chapter is a mostly happy one that predates the wedding of Ben and Kara, it still has a depressing moment between J'onn and Verdona, both of whom commiserate over losing their families and the pain that comes from missing them.

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