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Characters: Hayley & OPEN
Date: June 25th (or the next couple days)
Location: Hayley's sweet new digs or outside in the Metal Sector
Situation: Roommate shenanigans, Hayley coming out of hiding to be social again, whatever..
Warnings/Rating: None yet.

Hayley had done her best to avoid people for the last few weeks, trying to regain a more objective view of the situation and of her relationships. These friendships were getting harder to avoid and while part of her wanted to accept them, there remained a voice in the back of her mind warning her of the dangers of embracing these people. Moving had been a very unwelcome break in the monotony, but a joyous excuse for helping her in hiding away in a nice place and pretending she didn't exist. She kept contact, of course; it was the bare minimum required to keep anyone from thinking she had disappeared from the turtle.

Now, finally, boredom has overcome her and so instead of taking her food to her room and leaving for work at odd hours, Hayley was returning to a more standard routine. It meant she was more likely to run into people and to have to be friends again. She knew that and was slightly apprehensive about it, but the part of her that wanted those kinds of connections had inevitably won out and she found herself missing Bart and Kon and the others after enough time.

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Mark had been, in some ways, slightly more difficult. While not quite as close of a friend as some of the others, their spontaneous repositioning as practically roommates made things tricky. In addition to late night showers and sneaking in and out of the kitchen for food, Hayley had done her absolute best to avoid Mark beyond a quick and casual "hi," "bye," and wave. If she didn't know better, she would say he almost seemed worried about her by the end.

Regardless, she was resuming normality now, overcome with boredom and isolation being less comforting than she remembered. And so, one day, Hayley grabbed a small plate of cookie like treats and climbed the stairs of her own place. With a deep breath, she knocked on Mark's door.

"Hey, it's me."

Suddenly developing telepathy, it turns out, is a little bit disruptive to one's life. It has interesting applications, to be sure, but after trying a few of them out, Donatello needed a little space from his housemates to deal with all the implications.

Fortunately, wandering the city is a little safer right now than it has been in the past weeks. Don is trying to put his thoughts aside and take full advantage, exploring the various goings-on and enjoying the festive mood. While he holds back from getting involved in much of anything, he asks the kedan lots of questions, and takes an interest in just about everything relating to the celebrations.

Mark began noticing Hayley avoiding him shortly after he made his identity public. That, combined with her concerns about such a move, led him to believe that the distance was his fault. Every time he tried to talk to her about it, he was met with a cut ending line and the sight of her back as she walked away. He knew he could easily catch up to her with his speed, but for whatever reason she was uncomfortable talking to him now that everyone knew he was Invincible, and he wasn't going to force the issue. If she wanted to talk to him, she knew where he lived... especially after they wound up living in the same place.

"I don't know any me's," called Mark as he turned the page in his book. After a pause he added: "It's open."

She cringed slightly at his response. "It's Hayley."

The girl waited a breath before taking hold of the handle and pushing the door open to give them a mutual line of sight. She didn't move from her stance at the door, plate of cookies balancing on one hand while she stared awkwardly into the room and to the guy that she had rarely felt awkward around before, the one who usually made things easy somehow.

"I brought cookies," she offered lamely, knowing it was a poor attempt at reconciliation for how often she had avoided him as of late. If someone had done the same to her, she would be unlikely to accept cookies and an awkward inability to express feelings as an adequate apology. But Mark had always been a better person than she was.

Hayley hasn't exactly spontaneously returned to a ball of happiness and joy, but the girl is making the effort to be around and be social. It takes a conscious decision at the moment, to engage with people that she couldn't care less about. When she finally catches sight of the turtle man, it's a welcome relief from the inane banter, seeing someone she finally feels some level of genuine curiosity for. Without hesitation, she slides between the kedan crowding around the area and sidles up next to the man, falling into step beside him.

"Have you always been a turtle?" She asks with an intentional tone of humor, as if the answer is obvious. It's not to her, but Hayley finds that most people respond better to jokes than random interrogations.

Don's not really sure what the joke is. Being mistaken for a shape-shifted kedan was new to him when he arrived here, but he's already gotten used to it.

"Yes, I have," he says, a little guardedly. All kinds of rude questions could follow an opener like that, and he's in no hurry to find out what they might be this time.

Coming back to the turtle in such a different state both mentally and physically had been draining and strange in a lot of ways. He remembered people here, spoke to Bart, hung out with him in the suite and around the city. He'd met Kal and explained why he had done what he had done. He'd spoken to knew people that he didn't remember. Kon hadn't seen or spoken to Hayley in a long time and he'd been worried. Even before he had been sent back home.

So after a few weeks of nothing, he made the decision to go and see her after he found out where she had been moved to. Kon was aware that she probably saw him on the network, saw what he now looked like. Who he looked like and heck he even used his name. Well, a name. He knew that Hayley would probably be wary of such a big change, but he didn't want to lose a friendship like hers. Even if it meant freaking her out a little by showing up and giving her little choice to talk to him.

It didn't take him long before he arrived at the suite and knocked on the door. Hoping it wasn't any of her suite mates that answered it 'hello can Hayley come out to play?'

Hayley wasn't keen on answering the door in the best of circumstances and this was hardly the best, but she saw no one else around and didn't like the idea of someone knocking incessantly or trying to call out. She wasn't expecting anyone, so it was likely someone she would need to shoo away anyway and she was okay with that. It was with this mindset that she pulled the door halfway open with a casual smile.

Then she froze.

Her eyes widened a noticeable degree and it took effort to swallow. She had to focus on breathing after the split second passed, her hand tightening around the door itself. Hayley directed her gaze up to the guy who she was no longer comfortable around.

She had seen him on the network, had heard he was back. But Kon was different now. Older, so much more like Clark. He carried himself with the kind of authority that made her inherently uncomfortable from someone she liked, especially now that he was, more than she would care to admit, noticeably attractive.

Hayley buried all of her surprise and discomfort as fast as possible, donning a smile she knew he would recognize as fake because it was all she could do. "Hey."

"It's a good look for you," she offers offhandedly. Hayley still walks beside him, appearing to the outside observer as if they might already be acquainted and simply getting to know each other better. It's the kind of image she wants to send. It helps to avoid attention.

She directs her gaze forward, toward the direction they're walking without really thinking much about it. It's not the weirdest thing she's found here, but it's hardly commonplace either. "Are you a superhero?"

Um, okay.

"I'm Donatello," he says, because if they're going to walk around like they know each other, they should at least introduce themselves. "Ordinary guy."

As for where they're going, he's not walking anywhere in particular, but maybe there's something new to see around the next corner.

Clark had, like he usually did, assumed it was a personal thing. That he was avoiding him and not just avoidance in general- he'd talked to Mark about her, and the kid hadn't told him anything was wrong with her. So he'd thought that maybe she just- needed her time, like she did every now and then. And that was fine, by him. She had Kon, Bart, Mark... she wasn't alone. She was going to be fine.

Clark was still surprised to bump into her as he walked out of the Stark offices after a talk with Aya about the radio, in his Clark Kent clothes.. She did work here, he guessed it had to happen sooner or later.

"Well, hi."

Kon wasn't sure if the feeling that he was experiencing was hurt or not. The situation was just so complicated that it wasn't something he could easily make sense of. But he instantly thought that maybe he should have waited for her to come to him, and then instantly forgot that thought because if he had, she may never have come.

He would have argued that he was still the same person she knew, that he was just older and much more confident in himself. That he had experienced the same things as when she knew him, and a lot more. A heck of a lot more.

It was hurt, because he found that he had to put on a smile himself after he watched her smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and looked tight in the cheeks.

"Hi."

Kon slipped his hands in his pockets and moved a foot as if he was grinding something on the ground.

"I thought. I thought maybe I should come over and say 'hi'. I hadn't seen you in a while and I was worried..." He trailed off and his smile was gone, replaced by a slight frown as he took a hand out of one of his pockets and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"I'm still the same guy and I hope that things between us are still cool." He's quiet a moment and his brow creases a little deeper. "Maybe stupidly. I mean obviously it's stupid but...I don't want to lose you as a friend."

"Hayley," she returns. It's hard to think of the turtle man as an ordinary guy, but she thinks for a moment before following up with her potentially rude questions. Hayley's less concerned than she probably should be about offending people.

"Is everyone a turtle where you're from? Is it even a turtle or is it like, an alien thing?" A beat. "Are you a mutant?"

Hayley nearly literally bumped face first into Clark Kent, catching herself less than a foot shy of the action when his words, rather than any attentiveness, brought her up short. She immediately stepped back just once to a comfortable distance, smiling up at him as if nothing was wrong and as if she hadn't been avoiding him along with everyone else.

"Hi, Clark." The words were meant to sound lightweight and carefree, to float gracefully instead of lingering awkwardly in the air as they ended up doing. There was something about Clark - about Superman - that continued to put her on edge. They both knew what it was, knew that their history had made things complicated.

And so, after a second, she added, "I wasn't avoiding you."

Hayley's expression contorted into a brief grimace before she exhaled a melodramatic sigh. Her gaze slipped past him, out onto the streets before she stepped aside, giving him plenty of room to enter.

"It's not stupid," she replied carefully. Once he was inside, she would close and lock the door behind him like usual. With the new housing arrangements, however, she hesitated. The girl valued privacy among most things, which meant talking in her room, but taking the older, hotter, and likely way more powerful Kon into her room with her wasn't exactly ideal.

She scratched at her brow, then tugged at her hair before finally turning to lead him up the stairs toward her room, not saying another word until they arrived there. Then she opened the door and gestured for him to enter, lingering behind him near the exit.

He might notice that the glasses he had given her as a present sat as the sole item atop her dresser; he might also notice that Jor-El's cape was sprawled across one side of her bed like a blanket. Everything else was plain, with most other items hidden away in the closet or drawers.

Hayley watched him closely, tension apparent both in her posture and heartbeat. "How old are you?"

With the door opened in invitation, he visibly relaxed and let out a sigh as he stepped in. Careful to give her room as he passed, he could remember what she was like. Especially when they were first getting to know each other. He was also grateful that she didn't think it was stupid, even if she was only just saying it, it was something he would take.

The open area was the same as his with maybe a few differences from the other occupants. He was both surprised and not at the fact she took him up to her room, Kon knew Hayley was a private person, that she liked her privacy and that it must have been hard to move in to shared accommodation with only a room to yourself. He followed he and when he stepped in to her room he looked around, a slight smile as he saw the glasses, something he hadn't seen in so long back home. The cape hit him hard, he had forgotten everyone here, even Jor-El but back here, he remembers how close he had been to the man and their relationship. How the man he had called Gramps was gone.

Kon turned to look at her, a few feet into her room and brought a shoulder up.

"18." That was the easy answer. Even if he ignored the clone thing, that was still the easy one.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I should have."

The first two questions are typical; the third, surprising. Don turns to Hayley with a look of vague astonishment.

"Yes, I am."

Now why did you ask that? Nobody guesses 'mutant'.

He doesn't say any more yet, waiting to see if Hayley will answer the unspoken question, not realizing he just accidentally broadcast it into her brain.

"You look.." Like him. Stronger. Unfamiliar. "..older."

Hayley lifted both hands to rest on the back of her neck, tight, elbows nearly meeting in front of her. She knew that Kon, of all people, was very aware what the pose meant and the fear and anxiety it represented. If he remembered, of course. Even if he remembered her well enough to worry now, that didn't mean he would remember everything. It was impossible to know really, not without asking. It was too soon to ask.

"We're not like, dating or BFFs or whatever? So you really don't owe me anything." The reply was intentionally flippant and she donned a light smile to match, one simultaneously sincere and an act - a defense mechanism. "You left, lived a few years back home, and then came back, right? Forgot about us. Made better friends. Got stronger. And now the prodigal son returns."

She couldn't help the edge of hurt in her voice. As much as Hayley liked to pretend she was above friendship and all of those petty attachments, it still got to her. It still hurt when the guy who had been something like her best friend here suddenly disappeared and came back as someone else.

"That's not fair Hayley."

They were both hurt and Kon was so cautious around her right now. So careful not to say the wrong thing and break what ever fragile relationship there was that still existed. Kon didn't remember everything, it was impossible to remember every conversation he'd had with people here when to him it had been years. But he remembered a lot. Remembered what people were like and remembered the important conversations, the important events.

"I did owe you. To me? You were my best friend along with Bart. I...I knew I'd look like this and I should have told you because I know it isn't easy for you."

He didn't expect that what she had said would have hurt him so much but then he had done the same to her by leaving.

"Look, when I was here before, I didn't want to become this," he gestures to himself, "I saw it as being someone else because everyone called me Conner and I was on a different team. But I'm still him, I'm still Kon-El, I've lived the same stuff I've just got more baggage and experience that's all. I didn't do this so I'd experience everything, I literally did it so I could help more, so that I could deal the same hurt that they give to us. I knew I'd forget everything here because it happened before, I knew what made me me here? I knew I'd forget back home and I just hoped I'd remember coming back, like last time. I didn't go back so I could see my team mates and make 'better' friends like you put it.

I did so our team could dish out a little more here in this place."

He wasn't angry and his voice was even like he was having a normal conversation with her. He couldn't get angry at her because he still understood so much about her and about what made her tick. Maybe more than he had before.

"Cool," comes the generic response, as if they're talking about favorite colors. The surprised look is more than enough reward for this entire conversation. With that arrogance, she gives him a small grin. "Victor was a mutant too. I didn't know him super well or anything, but he seemed cool, so.. Not a big deal to me, you know?"

She flinched at his initial response. It was the same thing Clark had told her once, or possibly more than once. The girl couldn't help the automatic gesture, body withdrawing for a split-second as if he had physically threatened to attack her. Of course she reclaimed her posture as quickly as possible, trying to hide the response and knowing it was too late, that he would have seen.

"Because we're not good enough how we are. Normal people aren't good enough." Where Kon - she refused to call him Conner - managed some level of calm and patience, Hayley snapped her reply. She was looking for a fight. She knew it and didn't care; a fight would be good for them, a chance to get it out and be angry and keep going without having to hold back. It was the only way she was comfortable expressing just how hurt she was. "We need more powers and superheros?"

She closed the door behind her, leaning back against it and frowning at him. It was a subtle sign that she wasn't trying to get rid of him. Not yet, at least.

Edited (addendum) 2014-06-29 22:19 (UTC)

Somehow he knew that's how she was going to take it. Right back there in his mind he knew but he had stupidly come here thinking that they could get back to how they were before. There wasn't any point in getting angry but he didn't have the patience of a saint. And he wasn't going to stand there and take her snapping at him for wanting to help. For offering his help in the hopes that the clashes they have are a little more in their favour.

"I never said that and you know it! You know I'd never say anything like that." Not when he's recently seen his best friend back home who's so much like her in a lot of ways. He wouldn't say anything like that, because that would mean saying Tim isn't good enough. She might notice that his right hand clenches a little and for a second as he tries not to raise his voice.

"I've told you why I did it and if you want to pick and choose words to put in my mouth, don't bother. If you're going to make up some kind of assumptions then I'd rather you base them on how you know me because I haven't changed that much since I was here last. I just got older and yeah, I got stronger and no, I'm not going to apologise for wanting to help people out and stop the bad guys from hurting innocent people, kedan or us. No I'm not doing it to protect you cause I meant it when I said you don't need it."

It was strange how getting the fight she was looking for was a little less fulfilling than she had hoped. Maybe it was his new found maturity or how she knew she didn't really have an argument other than the ones she wasn't sure she wanted to make, or maybe it was just that it hurt more than she had realized. Whatever the case, she frowned at him and was silent for a moment after he had finished, as if she might not reply at all.

"You said you'd never leave," she responded finally, quietly. Hayley dropped her gaze for a moment, then looked up at him again. "Then you left. You didn't say anything. You just disappeared and now you're.."

She gestured at him in a vague way, her expression becoming more and more neutral as she continued, her tone more apathetic. "You look like Clark." A beat. "I don't even care about that, but you look.."

Hayley shook her head in order to prevent her feelings from leaking through again. "We're still friends, okay? I'm not your best friend anymore, but.. we can hang out and go on missions and whatever you want. Just don't expect me to come to you for advice or to be braiding each other's hair at a sleepover."

And that there is what had Kon's body just sag. Hurting her had been the last thing on his mind and while on the shell it had only been a day...he'd still left. He'd still been gone for years and he'd still broken his word and for that he felt like the biggest douche in the world. Kon wanted to go to her, wanted to say he was sorry for breaking it, but not for the result. He'd thought of this as a big deal before he'd left, said to Bart it was almost a self sacrifice. That was hard to explain to people. Hard to word what he'd meant by that.

"I'm not him. I'm me." He'd had a notebook not long after he went back to living with Ma Kent, listing things he did and who they lined up with more, Lex or Superman. He burned it because he didn't need it to tell him who he was. He knew. And he just hoped that Hayley could look past that similarity. Eventually.

The fact that they were friends was a relief and yet at the same time it was like a stab to the heart as he knew they wouldn't be as close as they had been. Chances were those bonds wouldn't ever be mended no matter how hard he tried to. There would always be that thing between then, he'd lied to her and come back looking close to the man she was uncomfortable with.

He offered a smile and nodded, accepting the fact they were still friends.

"I'll take it. Just...it's a two way street, okay? It's not just about what I want. If you want space and for me to leave you alone, I will. Just...not for months on end."

Her offer to be friends was almost entirely to placate him and his smile at her dismissal irritated Hayley all the more. Maybe she was imagining it, but she felt like Kon should have known her better than to let it go at that, than to accept that she was actually being honest.

"I want you to be who you were before, but I guess that's not really an option," she replied before she could even think about stopping herself or reconsidering her words to choose them more carefully. She didn't regret it.

Kon's clarification that he was his own person wasn't really needed. She knew that he wasn't Clark, although his spouting the same lines the hero had didn't help, and she wasn't too concerned about that. The girl was more concerned with how much he reminded her of someone else, and of how much he had clearly changed in general.

"You're not you anymore," she sighed. "Kon was my best friend, but now?"

And to think the whole point of avoiding everyone was to gain some objectivity and distance. Hayley was already disappointed with herself and how quickly she caved into attachment again. "I mean, sure, you have some of the memories and you kind of like me, but.. how much is that worth, really? Because right now you're just a stranger who looks like a guy that made my life a living hell for years on end."

It was more than she had ever admitted to Clark about his own appearance. Kon had earned that much at least, for his honesty.

Edited 2014-06-29 23:28 (UTC)

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FOR MARK

Around the Metal Sector

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