tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

His time was his own, due to the particular arrangement and set up for the science division. What time he lost now could and would be easily made up at a later point.

"Is there anywhere you would feel comfortable for us to discuss this at?" He asks as he begins to walk. While this building would not be private enough, he was open to holding this conversation somewhere she would prefer.

Hayley followed along beside him, splitting her attention between where they're going and his expression. Her hands found the strap of her bag across her chest and rested there, a casual position for while they walked. She immediately tried to think of a place nearby, not wanting the wrong people to see them together right now, but not entirely confident in being along with him.

"My suite," she replied finally. He already knew where she lived and she had Bruce checking on her often enough to prevent anything too serious. "But, seriously, if you're going to kill me, at least do it before we get there."

"I have no intention of doing so," he reiterates, as they begin their way to her suite. "Regardless of what you may think." The concept of murder until her death had still been only that; an idea.

Even now, having been exposed to it as more than a concept, the act was one he would not personally consider.

"Cool."

It only takes roughly ten minutes for the pair to arrive at her suite and Hayley immediately steps forward to unlock the door and let them both in. She waits and watches him as he enters, then closes and locks the door behind him. It's vaguely a sign of trust, that she locks it with him in here. Then she's dropping her messenger bag on the floor and walking towards the kitchen, intentionally treating his presence and the conversation as less than solemn.

"So, what's up?" She calls out as she enters the other room, beginning to make some coffee for herself.

He notices her locking the door, something that, if she still has the kryptonite in her possession, he will have to keep in mind, though nothing indicates that it may still be the case.

He doesn't waste time with his request after her question. With as serious as the matter is, delaying would only be misleading, something which isn't needed. "I would like to hear from you the reasons you attacked Kal-El." Even as he says it, there are no accusatory tones to his voice, no anger.

Hayley sighs a little, enough to be audible to the man, but only halfhearted. She continues making her coffee, unwilling to give him the attention that he deserves in this moment. If he's going to play games of neutrality, then she can play apathy. At least she respects him for jumping to it and not beating around the bush. Directness is always admirable in a place where there's so very little of it.

"I'm sure he already told you what I said, so why do you need to hear it from me?"

The sigh doesn't escape his notice. "He has yet to recover," Jor-El responds, mildly, "and what he had to say is tempered by that." He also had no intent in pressing Kal-El further with questions than he had already.

"I would prefer to hear it from you."

Hayley's expression darkens when he mentions that Clark is still sick. She knew the Kryptonite made him weak, but didn't realize its effects would last for so long. Although she knows she should have done more research, she doesn't know how. It's not like she can just ask about things like that.

By the time she finishes preparing her coffee to brew and turns around, her features wear a mask of neutrality to mirror Jor-El's own. Then she returns to the living room where he stands and takes a seat on the arm of the couch only a couple yards away from him.

"You get why I couldn't tell you, right? I mean, I know he's your son and you'll probably hate me for it, but it was the right thing to do knowing everything I knew then." She's not sure knowing that Superman was Clark would have entirely changed her mind, but it would have made a difference. "Oh and I'll keep his secret, obviously, so you really don't have to worry about that."

"There are many things we think are the correct course of action. It does not mean they actually are, Hayley."

He had seen the negatives of extremism and violence- even as he subscribed to ideas that acting on were illegal and unthought of in Kryptonian society, he was still a product of its culture, one which was conservative, focused on preserving itself above all else. Zod's extremism did nothing to help their people, started as it was in violence. "What did you hope to achieve with your actions?"

"Look, if you're just here to lecture me? The door's over there." She gestures past him to the suite's entrance and exit, but that's all she does. Hayley makes no move to get rid of him and, honestly, hopes that he'll remain. There's no version of this scenario she can imagine in which they return to their teacher-student relationship at the end of this. None. Yet that's still what she wants.

Assuming he makes no movement to leave after a moment, she'll continue speaking. "I wanted him to know what it felt like to be vulnerable without dying. He needed to feel remorse for what he's done and what he's allowed to happen by refusing to be vulnerable."

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.

"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?"

"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."

Hayley gives no outward sign of the chill that runs the length of her spine at his words. It's strange to her, to think someone with no obligation to trust or like her would offer to save her. Jor-El, specifically, is one not to make the offer out of any sense of placating. Even though some part of her knows he would save anyone, the way he speaks the words make it personal.

'I died for my son.' The sentiment is foreign. She can't imagine caring enough for anyone, family or otherwise, to die for them. His idea of family itself is so far removed from her own that she struggles with trying to imagine it, that being related could automatically assume any kind of bond. She can't help some level of resentment at that, at Kal-El for having a father like this man. The thought is easily dismissed. It's not relevant. Not now.

Her brow furrows at Clark's name and it takes her a beat to put the pieces together. The young Clark, awkward and isolated, being the same Clark Kent that she now knows to be Superman. It's no wonder they never became close and she doesn't understand why he's bringing it up now, unless to emphasize just how many people she trusted who lied to her and betrayed that trust.

The fact that he ends by essentially promising to still be that presence in her life only angers her more. Even though it's what she wants, Hayley wants it on her own terms and is tired of people deciding her fate for her.

"'Breach of trust?'" She asks snidely, standing from the arm of the chair and not hiding any of the anger from her tone. "Please tell me that you're joking. Because you can't seriously be talking about how I betrayed the trust of a vigilante hero who was lying about his entire identity and who- oh my god- who I told all of these little details to! Because I thought 'hey, he can help me with the whole Clark thing' and- erh!."

The last comes out simply as a frustrated noise. "My family? Wasn't important. So that's great that you're going to protect him regardless of whether he was right or wrong? But then don't play loyalty with me."

It's the first time she's willingly admitted any such detail about her family to someone who can understand the nuances of what that might mean for her. Hayley's too caught up in her anger to think about it now, too busy trying to inspire the anger she wants from him to carefully choose her words. In typical fashion, her words turn more towards sarcasm than anger as she continues.

"I attacked your son. That means something, right? You died for him and I attacked him. You're totally right. I did and nothing will change that, so it doesn't matter why I did it, you know? I could have the best fucking reason in the whole world and it wouldn't make a difference except maybe to make me a charity case to a couple bored aliens."

Which, really, is more infuriating than the idea of anything else to her. She'll choose being hated over being pitied any day. "Stop acting like you care and just get it over with! Whatever you want to say, just say it."

"If it would not make a difference, I would not have asked why you did it in the first place." The response is mild in comparison to her burst of anger, even as he's processing- trying to process- her declaration that her own family was not important. It more than anything else- even her outburst- is a reminder that despite her similar appearance and behavior, she was not Kryptonian.

"It was a breach of trust. I trusted you with one version of my son. You attacked the one still present under false pretense." All factual.

"I have had no reason to affect empathy for you at any point. You and your actions provided your own merit." It is a reminder, more than anything, that the tasks he set her to learn and lessons he gave her she had been readily able to accomplish.

She resents him a little more for not meeting her mood, for remaining logical and collected through her outburst. It immediately tempers her own attitude, quieting her voice and allowing her vitriol to mix with both weariness and sadness as she continues, two emotions she feels more than she'll admit.

"Tell me what difference it'll make, Jor-El. Tell me why it matters why I attacked him." Because it doesn't matter, in a way. Of course she has reasons and they matter to her, but the actions should speak for themselves. Clark's the only one who deserves to know why she did it and he's not the one asking, even if Jor-El is, in some ways, closer to Hayley than his son.

"Because if you're judging me based on merit and accomplishments? Then shouldn't this just be one more action to judge me by?" She pauses, hands balling into fists at her side to ease some of the aggression no longer in her tone. "I'm not one of your science experiments."

The answer is simple, even as- perhaps because- her response reminds him of someone he once called a friend.

"Because I cannot help you if I do not know why."

Hayley freezes.

Her muscles tense and her expression locks into something awkward, disgusted, and appalled all simultaneously. She stares at him, fingers still curled into fists at her sides. For a moment, she forgets to breath, too caught up in his words and all the insinuations that come with it to worry about something so mundane. She allows the silence to stretch between them for what feels like a much longer time than actually passes, her eyes twitching to narrow and then relax again as she regards him.

Her voice is quiet, sharp, and dark. "Don't you get it? I don't need your help. I don't need anyone."

She swallows the lump in her throat and forces herself to breathe.

The sensitivity of his hearing here means that with his focus on her, the complete halt of her breathing is all too noticeable, as is the beat of her heart.

His voice quiets as well, once more soft, low, and gentle. "I believe you do." As he speaks, he stands where he is, rather than approaching or otherwise moving, staying still rather than making any movement that may alarm her.

This is something he was not prepared for, but is still telling- he had been concerned that something unrelated was wrong, and while he does not know the source of this it casts everything in a different light.

It doesn't even occur to her that Jor-El has all the powers of Superman. Even though she knows it to be true, she's entirely oblivious right now to how much he can hear, the accelerated heart rate and slowed breathing. She doesn't react to his movement, not scared of him so much as the idea of trusting him. Her muscles remain tense.

"Get out," she replies softly at first, still sharp, but then the girl immediately defaults to anger. Without hesitation, Hayley moves forward to close the distance between them, planting her hands on his chest just long enough to give him a shove. It's the kind of move that, on an average man, would be noticeably halfhearted. "Get out!"

He steps back, out of sync with her shove, only acting on the slight force- noticeably light, even with the changes brought on under the yellow sun- once he notices it.

"If that is what you truly want, I shall."

Hayley drops her hands back to her sides, remaining where she is, unperturbed by the short gap between them now. She trusts him, in spite of everything, not to hurt her. Because he said he wouldn't. The recognition of that trust doesn't register in her mind, instead, she continues with her anger.

"It's not like I'm going to attack anyone else you care about, so why do you care about making me your little pet project anyway? Kal's safe. He's safe and you're safe and Lois and you don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm giving you an out. You can walk away and blame me and, I mean, sure, I'll still be around the turtle, but you never have to even look at me ever again."

The sudden swing in her behavior away from fearful he takes as a promising sign.

"It is not my safety I am concerned for." What is left unsaid, but still clear, is that it is hers. "If this 'out' is optional, as you say, then I will not take it."