Clark Kent (kryptonslast) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-10-13 22:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | supergirl, superman |
Who: Kara and Clark
Where: Clark's place in Metropolis
When: RECENTLY
What: Bonding and Adorableness
Notes: Yeah. That cut tag is a thing that happened. Sorry it kind of got away from me.
Kara knew she shouldn't be in Metropolis, but she hadn't seen anyone since the arrests, and she was lonely. It wasn't easy being alone in Sanctuary all the time, and even Krypto and the AIs stopped being enough company after awhile. She'd been watching the sunstone, in the hopes that Damian would show up or talk to her, but he hadn't. She'd sulked about that, and she'd tried on every single outfit in her closet, and then she'd considered helping Jason somehow, even though she knew she wasn't supposed to. In the end, she'd spent some time working on scenarios for the holochamber, and she'd considered (not for the first time) going into her father's laboratory again, where she knew the row of clone pods against the wall would be like a magnet for her curiosity.
She had that Wonderland key, too, but she didn't want to go exploring alone, because that was boring, and she'd finally decided to risk going to see Kal. Metropolis wasn't as bad as Gotham. There weren't signs declaring her as WANTED everywhere, and she could get into Kal's apartment without being seen.
As long as that Hal wasn't there, it would be fine. She'd keep her temper.
And, as expected, getting inside the apartment was easy. It was empty, and Kara took advantage of the quiet to have an Earth shower, with water that pelted against the skin, and then she stole a pair of Kal's running pants and one of his shirts, which completely engulfed her. She sat down on his couch, where she spent five minutes taking the remote control completely apart, before giving up and using a tiny electrical charge to change the channels without moving. She'd never watched a television, but she'd seen them at Damian's house, and she found a program where everyone sang everything. It was something about living in New York City without electricity, and she couldn't take her eyes off the screen.
Clark was still working on finding his way around this brave new world. He wasn’t much of a fan, but he was spending a lot of time in Gotham City visiting with Bruce and that was helping, at least a little. He was unsure, exactly, what he found familiar about it. Technically neither were from the same time or place. But he found it one of the few familiar things he had. That’s where he was coming from now, he heard the TV on in his apartment well before he arrived and just to be safe he looked in through the walls to be sure it wasn’t someone he didn’t want to see.
He was glad to see it was Kara and he let himself in and met her in the living room. She looked comfortable at least, even though she had destroyed his remote control. He looked at the TV for a moment, and then back at her. He had no idea what she was watching but she seemed engrossed, he almost hated to interrupt her. “Hi,” he said finally but only after sitting down on the couch next to her.
She looked over when Kal sat beside her, and she pointed at the television. "Why does no one notice that they are singing everything?" she asked with the curiosity of a fifteen-year-old. There were no movies on Krypton, and there were no televisions. Their recreation was more advanced, mainly focusing on holoprogramming, where becoming part of the entertainment was the key draw.
A second later, Kara looked away from screen and looked at her cousin. She still remembered babysitting him, and being around him always reminded her that she had slept for nearly as many years as she'd been alive on Krypton. It made her skin crawl, and she looked back at the screen quickly, preferring the distraction of people singing about not paying rent. "How do they decide what tasks they are responsible for here?" she finally asked curiously. On Krypton, everyone was bred and born into a caste, and that determined everything about a Kryptonian's future life. But that wasn't the case in this place, and she wondered if that was the reason for all the chaos. Because she might not say it aloud anymore, but she still thought this Earth to be a barbaric place.
She asked very sensible, though simple, questions and Clark often found that he didn’t have the answer. For some reason, ‘because it’s a musical’ was the easy answer but it wouldn’t make sense to anyone who had never been confronted with such a thing. “It’s a musical,” he said anyway, “They sing and since it’s fictional, everyone else sings too. And no one seems to mind. It’s just a story with songs.” He doubted that made much more sense.
Her next question was a bit more complex and he thought it over for a minute watching the TV but not really seeing anything. “People decide what they want to do here. And once they’ve decided that they do it, and usually they have someone to answer to if it’s a job they’ll have a boss that directs their work. Of course there are a lot of people who want to do something different from what they might have the resources to do, and it's kind of an issue. People here like to make their own paths, Kara. And most of the time it’s ok.”
Fictional didn't make any sense to Kara. Without her sunstone, her translation abilities were all tied back to H'El's gift to her, and that gift didn't come with definitions for words that didn't exist in Kryptonian. It was garble, unlike the sunstone's repetition of nonsense words, which let her go look them up. But stories to songs, those she understood. "Like the myths?" she asked, because Krypton had many, many folkloric tales, and many were from the sung tradition. She asked in English, because talking to Kal in English was easier for both of them, she assumed. For her, it hurt to hear Kryptonian spoken in a way that was nothing at all like it had been at home. For Kal, she assumed Kryptonian was a challenge, since he'd never had anyone to speak it with before. Anyway, her English really did need to improve.
She listened to his explanation of careers and futures, and her expression was quizzically young. "Do you like it here?" she asked. She tried to imagine him on Krypton, where life was so different, and she wasn't sure if she could. Her expression softened a little, and she tried to decide if mentioning his parents was okay, or if it would make him sad. "Your parents were very nice," she finally said, deciding that was an inoffensive statement, one he could pursue or not pursue, as he chose.
He nodded, myths were as close as he could get to what he was trying to stay. “Yes, it’s like a story. It’s not real - just a good story. Humans use it for entertainment, movies, books, television all of that.” He didn’t know what he was doing half the time, but Kara made him feel better. Made him feel a little more comfortable in his skin, and in this strange version of Metropolis (that he was never in because of everything going south in Gotham). But they had their complications too. Communication was just one of them, but he tried, and he knew she did too. They were doing their best with what they had.
Though, more than anything, he wished she hadn’t been through everything she had been dealing with. He wanted her to be able to see that good was actually in the majority here. He believed that completely - but he didn’t know how to show her. Not yet. He nodded easily at her question, “I do,” he said honestly. He didn’t bother trying to hide it or sugarcoat it, this was his home. “I like it here, I wish that things were sometimes different. But I like it here.”
At the mention of his parents he was quiet for a long moment, it was still a strange thing to wrap his head around even with as long as he’d been dealing with it. Even still his knee jerk reaction was to agree completely because Jonathan and Martha Kent were wonderful people. He agreed. But he didn’t think she was talking about them. “I don’t remember,” he said finally. Then after another beat. “I wish I did.”
His explanation about the movie made sense, and she thought it was like the holoprogram in Sanctuary, only flat and watched, instead of experienced. She didn't like it as much as the holoprogram, but she thought it might be good for when she was feeling lazy, and she wondered if she she could get the feed off a satellite. She wondered, and then she stopped mid-thought, remembering Damian's offer. "Damian says he will get me an identity that is not mine, and that I can get a place to live in Gotham, and that I can go to school with him and Stephanie," she said. She didn't understand about money, so she didn't realize there was a cost associated with everything Damian was offering. And, of course, she had nothing to pay with. But her eyes went bright, bright blue at the possibility of living where people lived, and at being around people her own age all day.
The subject of his parents made her sober a little. "They were very proud of you, and they were very kind." She didn't see the point in explaining about the feud that existed between their fathers. Jor-El had never cared, and he'd made her feel like part of the family, even with the feud existing. And she knew the things her father had done now; she couldn't defend him, even though she still loved him so much that it hurt sometimes.
Clark looked at her listening with interest when she talked about going to school and he wanted that for her. He was thinking of the practical things, but he thought it would be doable. He could help. Maybe he could try and split his time between Gotham and Metropolis. Or just go to Gotham for the rest of the school year. He was willing to do anything he could to try and give her some positive experiences. “We can make that happen if you want, Kara,” Bruce would help, maybe she could stay there until he found a place, maybe for the both of them if she wanted. He wanted to help. “I can get Bruce to give us both some paperwork, so I can help you sign up for school.” He didn’t know what the process for that was, or if it was something that was even allowed - or if it would all have to be fake. He didn’t mind taking responsibility for her if that was necessary.
He smiled when she talked about his parents, it was always strange to think about, he’d had such a different life than her. “I would like to take you to Smallville sometime,” he said finally. “If you’d like to go with me.” She was family, he wanted her to see what he knew.
She wasn't expecting him to agree, just like she wasn't expecting him to make it easier for her. She hadn't heard from Damian in a while, and she was used to the gaps between him talking to her now. And she was young, but she wasn't stupid; she knew what being stood up meant. But that didn't change the fact that the idea he'd planted had taken on a life of its own, and she very much wanted to try, with or without him. She turned on the couch, angling her body toward her cousin, and her smile brightened impossibly. "You would do that? Batman would help us?" For some reason, she'd thought it would all need to be a secret from Damian's father, because she assumed he wouldn't trust her to even be in Gotham after what had happened there with the man and the arrows. "I would stay here," she added a second later, a little bit of guilt settling in, "but all my friends are there. I will be safe, and I will not use my powers or cause trouble. You can promise Batman."
She looked down at her hands sheepishly when he mentioned Smallville. "I have gone there, to practice in the fields once, but I did not go anywhere else," she promised, remembering her early visit there with Sam. "A friend wanted to come to our door to see me, and I did not want to take him to Sanctuary. It makes people uncomfortable to be there," she admitted of her home beneath the ocean. "I would like to go with you, if you want to take me," she added quickly, because that had been her reason for originally going to the small town, to see where he had come from, even if she'd never managed to leave one little wheat field.
“Of course I would do that, and yes, Bruce would help us,” he said sounding quite sure of at least that. He smiled when she said she’d stay here and he understood it but he liked that she went to explain it. “We’ll see what we can do. I don’t mind going to stay in Gotham for a bit if you need an adult to sign paperwork,” he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I believe you, Kara, and you’ll have people to help you with all of it.”
“Which friend?” he asked curiously. He hadn’t heard about her trip to Smallville, he wished he could have been there. But he was more than determined to take her now. “I want to take you. Maybe after we get things sorted and set up in Gotham.” He needed to talk to Bruce about where the kids went to school. He was already writing himself a list in his mind.
Kara clapped her hands together, and she bounced slightly on the couch, excited at the more-normal future that seemed to stretch in front of her. She wasn't even worried about her abilities just then. "Thank you!" she said, happy when he offered to stay in Gotham for a little while. She didn't actually say it aloud, but it would be less scary with him there, at least at first. If the police came to arrest her, he would be there, and he could handle it. And if something went wrong with her powers, she assumed he could hear her, just like she could hear people she was familiar with. "Tell Batman that I said thank you," she added as an afterthought, since she assumed he had to give permission for anything to happen in his city. In her mind, Batman was the equivalent of Krypton's council.
"His name is Sam Winchester," she said of the friend who had visited her in Smallville. "He is nice," she assured him. She hadn't spoken to Sam in a while, not since things had gone wrong in Gotham; she'd been leaving him on purpose intentionally. When he said he would take her to Smallville after things were settled in Gotham, she smiled, and she set her cheek against his shoulder, even as she slouched on the couch in typical teenager fashion. "Can you ask Batman if Damian is okay?" she asked with the subtly of a teenager, which meant she was not subtle at all.
He smiled, he was glad to see her happy, he hadn’t seen her this happy since he’d gotten here, and it was promising. More than anything he wanted positive experiences for her. He didn’t know how to assure her that everything would be okay, but hopefully something would work out. “You’re welcome. Just remember that if you need anything, Kara, you can always ask me.”
He nodded, he made a mental note to add checking up on Damian to his list of things to talk to Bruce about. “I’ll ask him.” Teenagers. He still wasn’t sure if he was cut out for most of this - but the getting her settled to school might be a start.