tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Characters: Hayley Stark + Bruce Banner, Tony Stark (MCU), Jor-El, others [CLOSED]
Date: Post-Superman attack (Dec 8→)
Location: All over
Situation Hayley attacked Superman and some people are not entirely thrilled about it + she has some explaining to do.
Warnings/Ratings: PG-13 for violence, language, possible references to homicide, suicide, pedophilia, etc. idk it's Hayley.

[ooc: Log for Kryptonite plot stuff. Please request a thread if you want one.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

He doesn't move at all, whether towards the door or closer to where she is sitting. He spent enough time on Krypton ignoring suggestions worded similarly, pressing onwards even in the face of such dismissals.

"Why does he need to feel remorse for his actions? How did he refuse to be vulnerable?" The questions are gently spoken, and only rephrasing her own words, using the same way he had previously encouraged her to examine the world around them.

"There was Kryptonite here before and he wouldn't let anyone have it because he said that the Bat Man had some and would stop him if anything happened. Only then someone else got his powers? And the Bat Man was mysteriously absent. More than one person died because he wouldn't risk trusting the people he's allegedly protecting."

She tries to keep the bitterness from her words as she explains, attempts to match the objective and scientific tone in which he speaks. Her efforts are strained and some of the tone bleeds through, coloring her points. "I know I'm one of the ones who died, but it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't me. It's about everyone here who's in danger because he wants to play god."

It's different now, knowing he's Clark. She knows how much he cares about people, but the two are still disconnected in her mind somehow and she has trouble reconciling them. Besides, Clark or not, he still made the choice not to let anyone have the rock that might have saved Tony or Lois.

Bruce strongly disagrees that it's not that dangerous. Kal-El is a kind man, he'd have to be deaf and blind to have missed that, but he's incredibly powerful and Hayley is only a girl. If he'd justifiably taken offense to her holding one of his biggest weaknesses, it could've gotten messy, fast.

But he can't harp on that, because she's revealing facts about their murderer and his stomach turns over to hear it. "So someone had his powers," he says instantly. "That's how they could-- without either of you realizing who it was." It suddenly makes a lot more sense why Hayley would want to hold onto the Kryptonite, as a pivotal weakness for the set of powers that had murdered her.

The thought makes him sober, thinking over the implications. "Thank you for telling me," he says honestly, folding his arms and drumming his fingers against his bicep. "Nothing should be impervious, for reasons like this." Bruce definitely feels better having so many people around that he knows can withstand the Hulk. "I agree that holding onto it is a good idea. We don't know what might happen again. He won't be able to guess that I have it?"

Bruce has no idea what Superman knows of his relationship with Hayley, whether he'd think to guess that she'd have passed the Kryptonite onto him.

Hayley watches and listens in silence as Bruce begins to piece it together. It's dangerous, him knowing so much. In this situation, though, she's aware enough to recognize that she may need help to find the killer and she knows Bruce's words will have more sway with Tony than her own. That means she needs Bruce on her side and to understand that she's not entirely innocent and definitely not content to idle around until the man is found.

She feels a weight lift from her shoulders, one she didn't realize she had been carrying, when he agrees to hold onto the Kryptonite. The girl really didn't want to test that theory about the Hulk protecting her to get time to retrieve the rock from him if he wanted to give it away. With most of her anxiety settling to a more manageable level, exhaustion floods in to fill the gap and she finally moves over to take a seat on the edge of a chair near him.

"I don't know. I think I told him I stayed with you, but I don't think he knows how-" '..how close we are,' 'how much I trust you?' It's the last thing Hayley's willing to admit aloud without absolute necessity. "..often we talk."

"Don't invite him in and maybe.. I think we'll be okay." She begins a different thought than she ends with. Hayley knows Stark Industries would be a safer place for the rock to be, but she doesn't trust Tony with it. The more people they tell, the more risks there are of the wrong person knowing and trying to kill Clark. That's really not what she wants right now.

These days, he spends most of his time at home during the day and at work during the nighttime hours. There are fewer people there in the middle of the night and he doesn’t feel like dealing with anyone. Since the alcohol dried up, figuratively speaking, he hasn’t felt like dealing with much of anything, and that means pulling strings of all-nighters until he feels so disconnected and out of it that he doesn’t care anymore. But eventually he has to sleep, his body gives up and forces it on him, and the whole cycle starts all over again.

So here he is, wide awake and out running his demons by pacing the halls of this Through the Looking Glass version of Stark Industries. It’s quiet, peaceful, making him feel deceptively like he’s the only person in the world. It’s a terrible feeling, but an oddly comforting one too. No one can get hurt, and no one can hurt him, if he’s the only one left.

It’s then, thoroughly wrapped up in his maudlin thoughts, that he rounds the corner and runs into Hayley. The other, other Stark, as the guy with the laptop called her. Hauled out of his thoughts, Tony steps back and blinks at her, trying to work out what she’s doing here at this hour.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” he settles on, temporizing in the hope that she’ll explain it without him having to ask further.

Hayley knows that Tony spends most nights here. She has done her best to avoid them and has been more than successful thus far, keeping to the levels and areas mainly designed for lower workers and paperwork. On this particular night, having slept here so many nights already, she's plain sloppy. Her thoughts have carried her away from focusing and she's wandering down a hall she rarely frequents just in time to come face-to-face with the man himself.

Her hands immediately lift into a defensive position when she bumps into the man and her muscles tense. Then her brain catches up and she drops her hands and takes a couple steps back, mirroring his own response.

"I'm sorry!" She begins immediately, defaulting to awkward and nervous teenage girl. "I know I shouldn't be here this late, but I was working on a project and I didn't think anyone would be here and I really didn't mean to disturb you."

Hayley refrains from adding 'sir' on the end.

From one of the techs, Tony would think nothing of it. He doesn’t run a tight ship. Employees can make their own hours, come and go as they please, and he knows that he isn’t the only one who does it. But Hayley isn’t like him. She’s a kid, and there are very few kids who take science so seriously that they forgo sleep, entertainment, and other forms of amusement to come into a lab to do work. As far as he knows, he’s the only kid who’s ever done it.

But he also knows that Hayley’s undergoing something most normal kids aren’t. She’s dealing with having been killed. Maybe, if she knows, she’s dealing with being a clone. For all he knows, maybe she’s also dealing with being separated from that sleazy guy she’d been emailing before she’d shown up here.

That’s probably none of his business. No, he knows that that isn’t any of his business and he tells himself that he’s going to avoid that topic like the plague.

“What project are you working on?” That question he doesn’t shy away from asking.

This is a serious situation, no doubt, but it's nowhere near close to alarming enough to provoke a major reaction out of Bruce. He's fully in damage control mode, unperturbed by the suddenness. It's just his long held, simmering anger at their murderer that's affecting him.

How often we talk is a good euphemism for their actual relationship, one Bruce accepts in lieu of anything about trust. Trust is such a precarious thing; he doesn't expect Hayley to do more than trust that she can depend on him in certain situations. Such as this one.

"I won't invite him here," he promises, somewhat speculative, like he's thinking. There has to be more to this situation than just what Hayley's telling him, and Bruce, like her, isn't the type to sit idly when he has answers that he wants. "Do you think he knows any more than we do about... what happened?"

Hayley accepts the thinking aloud for what it is. She tucks her hands besides her thighs and stretches her legs out in front of her, trying to relax, watching Bruce. Although she does her best to follow his line of thinking, all she can do is wildly speculate and wait for his actual thoughts to come in the form of words. It isn't until his question that she speaks again.

"No," she replies confidently and almost immediately. "He knows it was his powers, but that's it. He's trying to find whoever it was too."

Her hands clench up with that thought. Lois and Clark rushing to find her killer in order to put him away in jail until he can get lose and kill again. She hates that they might find him before she and Tony do, that their murderer might not get true justice.

"A medical file," she answers too quickly. After all the hours of rehearsing lies in her mind, she falters with the unexpected appearance of her boss and fellow murdered. Knowing her answer sounds as phony as it is, she adds tentatively, "It's not exactly urgent, but I know it could be helpful, so I thought I'd just try to get it finished anyway, you know?"

He knows it's a lie. She knows that he knows. Mostly, she's hoping he'll have enough sympathy to let her go with the blatant deceit instead of continuing to ask questions.

“Uh huh.” Tony’s dealt with so many liars over the course of his life that he’s gotten pretty good at detecting them when he hears them. He doesn’t always get it right, he never saw the duplicity of Stane coming, but when it comes from those who aren’t close to him, he’s fairly confident that he can tell the difference between the truth and a lie.

Hayley’s lying. This isn’t a hospital. The likelihood of anyone working on a medical file into all hours of the night is slim to nil, especially when that someone happens to be a child. But he thinks that he knows what she’s doing. Perhaps not entirely, but enough that he can relate.

“Look, you want to use my stuff, you don’t bullshit me. I’ll let it go tonight, but fair warning for the future.”

Bruce isn't even thinking of jail. It's so not a viable option to him that, like Hayley, he finds the entire idea pointless. Even Fury wouldn't be able to contain him in prison forever, whatever cage he thinks he has, and in a place like this where death is frequently impermanent, it seems fruitless to try. That doesn't mean Bruce is going to give up on the idea that murderers should face consequences; no, it just says to him that he needs to be more... inventive.

But he's spent the past decade going to extreme lengths to prevent others from being harmed. One person who got lucky with a power swap, and notably isn't the Hulk? He's not phased at all.

All that races through his head in another moment of obvious thought, before it breaks and he scrapes his hand through his hair. "Okay. So. Whoever this is... we can't use the method he killed with as an effective identifier. That's not what he's normally capable of. Actually that's, that's promising."

Looking more through her than at her, Bruce is rapidly getting lost in a whirl of ideas about things he could make, likely with Tony's help. He'd never think of leaving him out of this.

"If that was a rare opportunity for him," which is supported by the fact that there hasn't been a huge string of murders afterwards, "then he's not as hard to restrain as Superman. Maybe we could make something, build something, I don't know. But we need a plan for what we're doing with him after we find him, before we do it."

Hayley's lips pull tight at the edges at his blatantly skeptical reply. She still manages a smile, strained though it is, and manages not to shift impatiently from one foot to the other. Although she doesn't know Tony particularly well, she can't imagine Bruce being so close with someone who isn't nearly as perceptive as the scientist. The fact that Tony owns this whole company aside, he must have something going for him in terms of practical or personally applicable intelligence and not simply the technology aspect.

"I'm not using your stuff," she replies defensively. Hayley may be lying, but she's not about to get called out on something she's not actually doing. A sigh. "I'm spending the night, okay? There was this misunderstanding with this guy I know and I didn't want to stay with Bruce again and I- I wanted somewhere safe, okay? I was hoping you'd get it."

Edited (word choice) 2013-12-29 07:16 (UTC)

Again, Hayley allows a silence to give Bruce time to think. She knows that half the time he isn't exactly listening and suspects he's the type who has spent so much time alone that he thinks aloud regardless of another presence. It doesn't bother her in the slightest, cuing her in on his train of thought without requiring her to ask questions or interfere. It's almost preferred.

It isn't until he again crosses a topic that needs addressing until she reestablishes her presence. When she does speak, it's not angry or threatened, but very confident and factual. "I don't think it's your decision."

She waits a beat, ensuring that she has his attention before she elaborates. "He killed Tony and he killed me. I think the two of us should get to decide what to do with him. That's why I don't want Lois or Clark or those guys to find him first."

Her voice turns cold as she continues, distancing herself from the subject and unconsciously dehumanizing the perpetrator. "He deserves consequences and I don't think anyone else needs to know what Tony or I need to do to feel okay again, you know? I don't want to kill him, but.. he needs more than to be put in jail."

Torture. Isolation, starvation, suicide. He deserves physical and psychological agony for what he caused to others. It's the only viable method of prevention she can come up with really.

Bruce reacts to his solitude by closing up, withdrawing even further; he hardly ever speaks to himself. No, what he's doing here is awkwardly trying to draw another in to his thought processes, a rusty memory of doing that with Betty guiding him. Bruce is bad at explaining himself but sees the necessity of it here, and as always, finds it far easier to focus on the practical than on the human element.

His focus abruptly sharpens to a fine point on that human element at what she says, though. There's a few seconds of tense silence, awaiting his response, as his thoughts align themselves. Bruce can't gainsay anyone's desire for revenge or justice or whatever they want to call it-- it's their attempt to regain power, basically, and his whole life has been one long attempt at regaining power. He knows it. But he also instinctively disapproves of watching someone he cares about, for whatever misguided reason that is, break themselves down with violence.

He's not sure that's what she's saying here. Hayley's been vague, likely deliberately so.

"It's not my decision," he agrees neutrally, the bland composure that returns to him a more dangerous sign than any apparent display of feeling. "It's yours and Tony's and whoever else was killed. I'm willing to help if I agree with it." Carefully not committing himself to anything unilateral, trying to draw her out into revealing her hand before he reveals his. Bruce doesn't think this conversation is trivial; not at all. It's a foreshadowing to an inevitability-- they will catch him eventually, and what happens afterward needs to be addressed now.

Without a change in tone but deliberate, weighted, he asks, "What do you intend to do?"

Edited 2013-12-29 07:58 (UTC)

She watches him. Some deep part of her anxiously awaits his response and there's even some small corner in the back of her mind that seeks some form of approval. Much more prevalent, however, is her firm and unwavering knowledge that she has made the right decision and that, regardless of what he thinks and whether or not he approves, she'll do what she thinks is right. It's the same mindset that tells her that everyone really does approve of torture in terms of the results that it brings. It's only that no one wants to be faced with the moral conundrum and the chance of being deemed cruel that makes them shy away from the sometimes necessary choices. For some people, there is no other method.

Hayley can't - and won't - say that her killer can only be educated by that method. Not yet. She has to find out who it is and evaluate him independently first. But she's prepared to do whatever is necessary. That much she knows.

"I don't know," she replies evenly. The girl can't handle surprises worth a damn, but Bruce is rarely a surprise anymore. Even if everything he says is unexpected, his disconnect and measured words prevent the sort of spontaneity than can fluster her.

He might know about her attacking Superman and, through that, be able to anticipate some level of what she's capable of. He might know some of her past and the darkness that bring. He might even know how deeply manipulative and deceitful she can be. But he doesn't know her. Not entirely. "Maybe we'll have to wait and see who it is."

Edited 2013-12-29 08:05 (UTC)

“This?” He waves a hand in the air, indicating the building. “This is my stuff.” Now it’s his stuff. Technically, it belonged to another Tony Stark, which is a fact he hasn’t forgotten. “You see where I’m going with this, right?”

If she’s watching closely enough, she may notice a faint hint of something wary and slightly suspicious pass over his face when she mentions staying with Bruce. It could be innocent, of course, but he’s read the email. He knows she goes for older men. After all the things he’s done, he doesn’t have much room to judge the personal lives of others, but he has always drawn the line at messing around with underage people. Maybe Bruce does too. Maybe he doesn’t. It’s not his business though, and after the initial suspicion, he releases it, ignores it and moves on.

Because he isn’t going to facilitate her sleeping on the street, or putting herself in harm’s way with whoever she’s gotten on the wrong side of now, he continues with, “Take an empty office somewhere. Second floor, probably. There were a few there last time I checked. Pick one with a couch, it’ll be more comfortable than sleeping on the floor.”

Hayley frowns and her hands ball into fists at her sides. It's hard to control her anger. Harder, even, when she's tired and surprised and sick of people trying to get things from her in exchange for offering her protection. His suggesting a second floor office is unexpected, but she's too caught up in what sounds like a demand to accept it with gratitude.

"And.. what? Pay you a rental fee? Owe you a favor for using your stuff? I'm sure you're great and whatever, but I think I'd rather take my chances at my suite and hope no super friends come knocking."

Truthfully, she doesn't want to. Staying with Bruce is inviting her potential enemies to find the Kryptonite and she doesn't really have anywhere else to go except back to her suite, where Superman and all of his buddies know where she is. Hayley's reckless and all, but she's very aware that, at the end of the day, she's a technically 15-year-old, very petite little girl.

Tony isn't possessed of an overabundance of empathy or sympathy. He isn't anyone's first choice for advice or help or a listening ear and nor should he be. And he's the last person anyone wants dealing with kids and teenagers.

“So go ahead.” There's no favor he wants, no repayment necessary. He simply wants her to do him the courtesy of not lying to his face. If she can't, she can't. She certainly wouldn't be the first who couldn't manage it.

“I'm American. I assume it's a free country until proven otherwise. So you can figure out whatever you’re doing, but you’re on your own with that because I have work to do.” Giving her a nod and a little wave, he turns to go back upstairs.

Although unknown to Bruce, Hayley takes on a very similar mindset to one that he has about his own problems-- which is being incredibly stubborn. He's as resistant to external influence as she is, and denies any hidden desire for approval just as well.

It's this similarity that makes him convinced immediately that she's lying when she says she doesn't know. Of course she knows. She's been thinking about it, she has to have been. Bruce as a teenager had been consumed with thoughts of angry revenge, if not against his father (that seemed impossible to him even then to attempt) then against all those others who had hurt him. And there were many.

He also knows from that experience that personal capabilities can be overcome in pursuit of retribution. Hayley might be just a girl, but he's not about to discount her. He was just a boy when he'd built a bomb in his school basement.

"Let's try that again," he says, gentler. "What would you like to do?" He's not unsympathetic, he really isn't. But he does want the truth about what he's aiding and abetting.

Hayley lifts her chin to meet his gaze dead on, the way she did with Jason Todd, insinuating a darkness rarely shown. Unlike Jason, it's not empathy and understanding that she sees in him, not in the same way. While Jason is subtly encouraging her to kill, she's fairly confident that Bruce will pull her back from that. He might allow it from Tony, but she's a girl and a kid and she's sure that he can't ignore those things.

After a moment, she drops her eyes to her lap and pulls her legs back in towards her, looking down to her shoes. When she returns her gaze to Bruce, the hint of menace beneath her features has lessened and her tone is flippant and weary. "It really depends on who it is. It's not about anger or revenge or whatever, Bruce. It's about making sure it doesn't happen again. The only way to do that is to make sure he knows it's not worth it."

"Kal-El was not the only one affected, Hayley." As it stood, he had been in no position to ensure Hayley's safety either, even if he had known. "The underlying circumstances led to no one being prepared for what happened. Possession of it would not necessarily have deterred your attacker." If they were so determined to kill, proximity to Kryptonite would have been only a temporary stopgap.

His voice is still quiet and even, though all the while as he listens to her he's growing more concerned. "In what way has he shown that he intends to play god?"

Hayley is proud. She's independent, a little narcissistic, and she loves believing that she doesn't need anyone else. But she's also smart enough to know that she's in a really bad situation and that pissing off or alienating the guy who's her most valuable resource right now is a really stupid idea. Especially when there's a fairly good chance that he'll be the one to find their killer before she will.

"Wait," she calls out. It sounds as begrudging as it is. She allows a pause, but continues when he seems to stop. "I think some people are after me. I'm not.. like.. paranoid. I did something stupid and I mean, maybe I even deserve it, but they're people with powers and.. I don't know. I figured I'd be safer here."

He wants honesty, he'll get honesty. The girl can't afford to lose any more allies. Besides, if she wants to continue staying here for awhile, sneaking around and claiming couches every night seems a lot easier if he's aware of it.

"Yeah, he was. I know you all like to think he's the only thing you live for or whatever, but it was just him." Like it was just her who died. No one else's life changed one way or another because of it, not really. If Tony hadn't died, there wouldn't even be the progress on the case that there has been. Her death affected only her and her attack on Clark affected only him. Directly, at least. She doesn't count familial concerns and friendly sympathies.

Hayley sighs again. "You won't get it. I can try to explain, but you'll never understand and you'll always blame me. So why does it matter? Because you want to feel like you listened or be able to tell people that you did before you disown me?"

Jor-El's tone is still patient when he replies, but its timbre has changed, not quite as quiet, and somewhat lower.

"Had it been in my power and I had known, I would have done my best to save you. It was not. Murder is a serious offense, and one that was so grave it unheard of on Krypton. It is not something to suffer lightly, much less allow."

He gazes into her eyes with his next words. "You reversed the importance. I do not live for Kal-El. I died for my son. Kal-El is family, and I will hold him as such.

"At the same time, I chose to teach you, and you accepted when the younger Clark Kent arrived and became his friend." The name is softly spoken, quiet, and still strange on his lips. "You are welcome to explain how you feel, Hayley, and I will accept it as what you believe. There is nothing to blame you for what you did not do."

He pauses as he watches her. "However, you attacked him. Regardless of how you present your rationale, this is fact. I asked why you did it so I could understand what led you to commit this breach of trust. Not only on Kal-El's part, but on mine. Protecting my family is important, even though as an adult, Kal-El is able to take care of himself.

"If you think that this will lead to me disowning you in some manner or otherwise abandoning you, you are incorrect. The role I accepted in teaching you is one stronger than that."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 5