tushanshu_logs | What Are You Worth, the Things You Love or the People You Hurt?

Hayley takes a deep breath. Her heart starts pounding again with the anticipation of what she's about to do. It feels right somehow, feels like the thing to do. Maybe this is what trusting someone is. Whatever the cause, she lets out her breath and then steps back, opening the door halfway. She drops her gaze for a second and then lifts it to him again.

It's a silent invitation. She has given him enough space to enter without touching her and trusts him not to kill her for now. Even if her heart is beating in her throat. That Jor-El calls what he was a monster is evidence enough for her that he's better now. She knows a monster when she sees one. It's reassuring that, in this case at least, so does he.

It's also a sign of hope.

Jor-El sees it for what it is, and enters silently, giving her as much space as possible until he passes by, before he turns to face her once more.

He is still keeping his distance.

Just when Hayley feels like her heart can't possibly race any harder, it rises to pound in ears as well. His approach causes her muscles to tense again and she has to fight the instinct to again slam the door or to kick or punch him just to feel better. As soon as he's passed her, she slams the door closed in a vain attempt to make herself feel a little better.

When she turns around to look at him, standing there calmly in the middle of her suite, her carefully constructed resolve crumbles. Pain and anger and fear and all those other things she's been suppressing for too long thrash violently to the surface of her consciousness. She marches forward to close the distance between them, cocks back her arm, and punches him in the chest.

It feels like hitting a brick wall. Smoother, perhaps, but no less hard. Hayley lifts her other hand to pound on his chest this time, a little softer and with the flat of her fist rather than in a proper punch. Part of her knows it's doing nothing to him. Her eyes begin to glisten with fresh tears as she pounds at his chest again. And again. The pain of hitting him feels good. Even though she knows it's doing nothing, it feels like some small form of revenge.

The first punch takes him by surprise; it doesn't hurt, and makes no real impact, but it was not something he had expected.

And then the next comes, and the one after that, and he sees the tears beginning to well at her eyes.

At this point, there's nothing to do, that he should do, except wait for her to finish. Stopping her would remove the only outlet she has to take her past what they did to her.

Hayley continues hitting him for what feels like ages. Even though it's only a few minutes, the sides of her hands are growing raw and sore, turning red with the irritation. Tears begin to fall down her face as she continues hitting him, practically silent. She switches to a flat hand, smacking him a few times before she finally makes the gesture of trying to shove him away. All she succeeds in doing is pushing herself away a foot or two away from him.

Then she looks at him, still hurt and angry and confused. She's less afraid now, having been able to hit him without his hurting her. But his unyielding calm only upsets her more. He doesn't understand what it's like and he never will.

"Have you ever been afraid?" She demands, her voice stronger now than it was before, despite her crying. "Actually afraid. Of anything."

"Yes, I have." It's an honest answer, yet one that some on Krypton would have doubted anyways.

"I feared for my life when I wasn't sure I would succeed in doing what I needed to send Kal-El away." How his death actually happened had not been part of the plan, not been intended, but it was not one he had been afraid of- it was the other events of his last few hours that had panged him with a great anxiety that was only displaced when Lara began to ready the launch.

"Every day I spend here has some fear to it; Kal-El has had most of a lifetime to adjust to his abilities. He's grown with them. I was never meant to have these powers, Hayley."

Of course it has to come back to Kal-El. Hayley cringes slightly at the name, frowning. Then she scrubs her tears away as he continues, slowly regaining control of herself. Her heart has stopped pounding. Her hands ache. She feels exhausted from the surge of adrenaline and cortisol in her system now wearing down. She sighs and lifts her hands to scratch at her hair, then grabs two fistfuls and pulls at it angrily, kind of wanting to scream.

It's basically a full on meltdown. While not the first she's had since coming, it's the first to take place in front of someone else. Jor-El's probably not the best person for it to happen with, she realizes, but it's not exactly something she can control.

"You're scared of your own powers?" She huffs, dropping her hands. "Do you even- I mean, I get it, but- Are you seriously-"

It's hard to speak with so many thoughts racing through her head. Part of her resents that it's Jor-El and not Clark here. As fond as she's become of the man here with her, Clark was the closest thing she had to a real caretaker and she misses that, knowing it's entirely her own fault.

"Will you sit, please?" Hayley snaps. Maybe he'll be less intimidating then. Maybe he'll seem less perfectly composed, less judgmental, and less apt to destroy her at any minute.

Edited (icon) 2014-03-14 03:09 (UTC)

As emotional as he has seen her appear, this is the first time he has seen her like this. In many ways, this is something he's more used to, due to Dru-Zod; unlike much of their cohort, including himself, the man had never bothered much with the matter of hiding his emotional state, or afraid of flying into a flurry of passion.

He had learned with Zod that presenting himself passively when the other man had reached a certain point that it would only aggravate him further. Which, depending on the subject matter at hand, could be entertaining in its own right, but sometimes the only way to respond was to match to some extent to the same level.

"Considering the number of times I've accidentally destroyed something in my own suite despite a lack of clumsiness on my part, yes, I am," he returns. He's not snapping, but there's an almost challenging tone to his voice, not quite sarcasm, and not quite a quip as he moves towards a nearby chair, but doesn't yet sit. "It could easily be a person, which is something I've endeavored to avoid."

Kryptonite is the first thing to cross her mind. To some extent, she can't help it. The rock has become such a forbidden object, painted as such evil, that some part of her mind always keeps the idea close at hand. By making it ultimately forbidden, they have made it something she will forever want by sheer rebellion alone. That they then terrorize her when they're evil or that Jor-El's here talking about being afraid of accidentally killing someone.. well, it doesn't help.

But she knows better. Hayley doesn't want to hurt Jor-El. The rock is a comfort to her, another protection like lying or refusing to make friends, but that's all changing now. She wants it to, in some ways, and appreciates the benefits that come with it. It's hard to learn though, hard to truly believe that she doesn't need a Plan B and exit strategies.

"Why are you telling me?" She replies coldly. The girl doesn't consciously recognize his sudden emotion, however feigned it might be, but she responds to it at an unconscious level. "And you need to sit down."

Hayley thought she was getting better. Seeing him stand there makes her nervous all over again. Afraid.

That fear was one of the many things that has in some ways blunted him since his arrival; a new needed caution among others and with things, the constant required need to focus intensely if he didn't want to be completely overcome by the stimulus that surrounded him, the strangeness of the culture already present and those introduced by other foreigners.

"I was under the impression you had asked me if I had ever been afraid." Only a certain dryness belies an actual awareness of what he's saying.

This time, however, he sits down, leaning slightly forward to look at her, hands clasped.

Once he finally takes a seat, Hayley lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Then she crosses in front of him and, against her natural instincts, sits on the couch with him. Even though she's at the opposite end, it still only leaves a couple feet between them as she turns to face him, pulling her feet up onto the cushion and sitting cross-legged to look at him.

She follows his response to the idea of honesty behind it, to that of honesty being rare, of Clark taking offense to being called out for his lies and asking her about her own willingness to accept lies in her life. Everyone lies. She doesn't understand why it's so personal to him - to all heroes.

Hayley feels her muscles tense sitting this close to him and yet remains where she is, dropping her hands in her lap and sighing a little. She doesn't know what to say. "Apology accepted, or whatever."

A pause. "I'm not from your world. I think superpowers are cool, but they're terrifying too. And every superhero lies about who they are, and judges, and wants to act like the way they do it is so much better than every other hero's way. None of them understand why I'm afraid or why I don't just automatically know the right way to do things, like I'm supposed to have been taught their personal moral code for my entire life like they were."

She wonders if he remembers everything from when he was evil, including her words about her father. "They don't try to teach me. They get angry and they lie and they judge me and tell me how much I don't fit intro their world and then they wonder why I'm not honest."

It's a little bit rambling, sure, but Hayley needs someone logical to talk to right now. She discovered Bruce's disappearance just earlier today - when she went to talk to him - and she's going a bit crazy having no one. This whole trying to have friends thing is either all or nothing and she's not sure nothing is an option anymore.

"And maybe I'm not good enough to be a hero. Maybe I really will be a villain like they said. But I don't want to be."

He turns to face her as well, when she sits wholly on the couch; it's a sudden shift that he was not expecting, for her to suddenly move this close to him willingly.

"No, you're not," he replies. The thought has occurred to him in the past; in many ways she acts similar to a Kryptonian before a flash of her humanity shows through. In the past it's made him wonder to which guild she would be best suited, with her temperament and interests. Jor-El reaches to his shoulders, slowly detaching his cape. "Nor are you from their versions of Earth, either."

"It means you have the capacity for much more than you think. Choice, free will, it's something you have available to you, Hayley. You are allowed to not know what is the 'right way' as according to others. It's their own path, not yours." The words are considerate, even in tone.

In his time here they've taken on a far greater meaning than he originally understood; on Krypton, it had largely been an abstract- an important one, one he thought they should return to, but until Keeliai he had not been able to appreciate it in full. Seeing it in practice was something that made it all the more real a tragedy that it was never achieved outside of Kal-El, though he found himself occasionally stalling and at a loss. Even away from Krypton, he was still limited by what he was born to do, despite doing the best he could to ignore his own mind.

"If you're still willing, I will teach you what I know, but I can't tell you what to think, or what to do. Those are your own choices to make." He pulls the cape to the side, before bringing it to the front, folding it.

"I think if you tried, though, you would find it possible to be as good as you hope to be. Our faults and mistakes don't make us evil unless we refuse to acknowledge and change them when they cause damage to others, and you haven't displayed either trait."

He sets the cape down in the space between them.

"Yeah, except that me trying to figure out the right way means I'm constantly being watched, protected, lied to, and criticized," she grumbled angrily. It's a very adolescent tangent and she knows it, but she doesn't care.

Mark seems to be appreciating her efforts. Maybe even Kon too. But Clark, Lois, Bart, and others? They're all too ready to jump down her throat at the first sign of trouble. Meanwhile, the Bat Man's trying to mold her into his own image and Jason was telling her it was only a matter of time until she started killing.

She sighs and reaches out slowly to his cape, running her fingers over the fabric if he doesn't protest. Hayley doesn't understand why he took it off, looking up to him as if silently asking for an answer. Then she remembers his other words.

"I still want to learn," she agrees. "But more about practical skills like defending myself or escaping. I'm in a hero's world, Jor-El. I want to be a part of it."

To her touch, she'd find the fabric of the cape soft and velveteen, comfortable against the skin. The wearing of one was a near constant in some form or style on Krypton, and in his time here, he had not quit the habit.

"Those aren't skills I can teach you safely, as much as I would like to." He learned to fight and how to defend himself from Zod, but here those skills are limited in application, and ones he is hesitant to put to use now, in the aftermath.

The likelihood of severely injuring or killing her in the process, if he did try, would be nearly guaranteed. Even without powers, accidents happened.

As for her grumblings...

"While not everyone uses methods you like, they're trying because they care for you."

Hayley's fingers glided over the surface of the cape for another couple passes before his last words forced her attention to snap back to him. Her eyes lifted and she stared. For as obvious as the information he was presenting should be, there was something about hearing it confirm it like that that surprised her. Bart seemed obvious. Mark too. She doubted the Bat Man did, but Jason had left her a house and some equipment.

"What's the difference between caring about someone and trusting them?" She asked evenly as she withdrew her hand from his cape, bringing it back into her lap. "And if you're seriously that eager to keep me out of harm's way, wouldn't teaching me those skills be better?"

It was easy to mistake his concern for safety as an unwillingness to teach her combat skills. She was, after all, a teenage girl and Bart and Clark both seemed more than eager to try to keep her locked up in her suite rather than let her close to anything potentially dangerous.

"They aren't coupled together so simply. Trusting someone can be a deeper act, if the people involved aren't used to being able to do so."

The line of discussion was almost- almost- a return to the previous discussions they had before. But the reason he was here in the first place he was unable to forget.

"My concern for your safety is because of what could happen if I taught you myself. Accidents aren't uncommon when learning how to fight." He pauses for a moment to allow her to take it into consideration. "I'm not opposed to you learning. It would be to you benefit, but will have to be from someone else."

Hayley flinched at the thought of his hurting her, unconsciously reaching a hand up to its opposite shoulder where the bruise from his grip had faded way. She understood what he meant. Her lips formed a small frown with the thought, that he couldn't teach her the things she most needed to know. Maybe the Bat Man or Mark could.

"Okay," she agreed. "So what do you want to teach me?"

It was a conscious choice not to ask anymore of the first subject or to add to it. To her, the two were fairly deeply intertwined, but she could imagine some scenarios where she had found separation between them and it was something she needed to spend more time thinking about on her own.

The flinching doesn't escape his notice, or the reach for the shoulder he had purposefully hurt under the statue's influence.

Jor-El picks up the cape's edges, as he begins to speak, lifting them. "I will teach you whatever you want to learn."

He sets it around her shoulders. Hayley seemed to take comfort from the cape earlier, and it was the most he felt comfortable with doing, rather than setting a hand on her shoulder again.

Hayley drops her hand from her shoulder the moment she realizes it's there. It isn't her intention to make him feel guilty. Her shoulders tighten when he moves closer to her, but then he's putting his cape on her and it's one of the most meaningful gestures of her entire lifetime, up there with Bruce holding the Kryptonite for her and Bart's yelling at her about caring about her well being. Her posture straightens with the cape now on her shoulders, wondering if it means as much to him as it does to her.

"Teach me how to be good," she answers with a small smile, looking up at Jor-El.

"I will try my best." He isn't aware of the personal significance of the words on either of their parts, or exactly how much they mean to her, but he means his words, completely.

All he is able to work from is what he sees.

There's something almost poetic about the situation, Jor-El offering to teach her. It's the opportunity he might have had with Kal-El in a different circumstance. Now she's the one learning from him instead, the one who attacked the son who was raised by an ordinary human family. Sounds like the stuff of comic books.

Hayley lifts her hands to readjust the cape ever so slightly. Then she wraps the excess width around herself as much as she can while sitting, admiring the feel of it. Her smile remains as she tilts her head. "Why did you give me this?"

It's a scenario he has tried to not think on. He knew well before Kal-El's birth that it was something that would never happen, that it was too late to ever have. He never expected to know his son at all, but here he has. It does not mean he will restrict himself to teaching only family, has not.

"To comfort you." He gives a smile in return. It's small, but readily present, and fully evident it's one. This had gone far better than he had hoped; while she may still have flinched earlier, he hadn't actually expected her to be willing to still continue learning from him, even in the case of her accepting the apology.

She's not entirely certain what prompted it, but she's pretty sure this is the first time she's seen Jor-El actually smile. It only takes her a moment to realize how strange it is. Normally he's so logical. Now here he is, apologizing, giving her his cape to comfort her, and even smiling with a look that Hayley knows she could easily come to strive for.

"Are you feeling okay?" The question comes with some humor in her tone, but the sentiment behind it is sincere. She's certainly not about to complain if he is. The last thing she needs, though, is him showing up in another week to apologize again and ask for the return of the cape.

As unusual as it may seem to her- and he's fairly confident that that is what is prompting her question- he does actually know how to smile. It's something he rarely chooses to exhibit.

"Yes, I am." He has much more to do, with who he needs to find and apologize to, for what he and Kal-El did, but it no longer seems as difficult or unlikely to accomplish as it did at the start. He now has something more than an empty hope and absolute reasoning to go off- evidence.

Hayley gives him another smile. Normally this is the part where she would reach out a hand to shake or give him a nudge. Unfortunately, she finds that for all their talking and progress, the idea of casual physical contact with him is still intimidating. Instead, she just pulls the cape around herself again as a reminder that he's someone to trust.

"Thanks, for apologizing. I know you didn't have to. And yeah, I mean obviously it was pretty evil, but I know you're really trying to make it right." It's the method in which he attempts to find justice that intrigues her more than the actual act. Is this what heroes do? She's not sure she wants to think about it right now.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject