stands_for_hope | At Home with Clark and Jim

"I've had better," he admitted, "but they weren't for cooking. I had to sharpen them. That's the only reason they were being given away, anyway."

People who didn't know how to sharpen knives, just giving them away - but then, they didn't have his history, either. He'd almost finished his potato prep, knife sharpening aside. Something simple to set his mind to while he sat there alone.

He'd yet to cut his hair. He'd yet to decide if he needed to or not. But he had used a couple of dollars to buy elastic bands to pull it back out of his face. That would do for now. "Everything should be done in about an hour."

"Perfect. I'm just starting to get hungry," he said as he turned on the television. There was a news report about global warming, which some thought to be related to the incident in Metropolis despite the majority of scientists thinking otherwise. Of course, the news gave both sides equal billing even if the ones representing the anti-Kryptonian opinions looked slightly crazed around the eyes.

Then there was a report that Anonymous had picked up the fight against HYDRA to some extent, which had made others theorize that it may be a front for some of SHIELD's misplaced operatives. As soon as he sees a flash of red, white and blue zooming up to full size as part of the report, he shuts it off.

"You mind if I put on a movie?"

"It's fine." He didn't watch much TV. The newspaper was more his style, which made Clark's career all the more fitting. He didn't have to steal them from coffee shops or diners anymore. It was easier to slowly digest the news, especially with how much of it pertained to SHIELD and the Kryptonian incident in Metropolis, in a form that he could set aside when his thoughts started to go into patterns that he knew better than to follow. "I'll finish up cooking."

There really wasn't much left to do, but it was better, he'd found, to wash as he went. It kept things from piling up.

"I'll do the clean up after we eat," he offered, "and I was thinking of picking up some ice cream or something. What flavor do you want?"

He started looking through his movie collection, small though it was. Most of it was old westerns (his father's favorites), old mystery and noir films (his mother's favorites), and a small smattering of sports movies that he'd collected almost like a dirty secret. Given the rather important role sports played in Kansas high schools, the fact that he'd never been allowed to play in any of the teams had resulted in the films serving as something of a guilty pleasure, no matter how sappy or ridiculous they ended up being.

He tossed in Rudy and hoped that Jim didn't think he was too ridiculous, considering.

"I... don't know." That was something he'd not had a reason to think about yet. But he dropped the potato chunks into the roast pot, the lid lifting to let the scent waft through the entire room. It really did smell good. He was impressed with himself. "I can't remember."

He had told Clark one night, very quietly, that he had no real memory past a matter of weeks previous. That he had instincts, and only a handful of them were good. And that his memories were there, kept threatening to return, but also liked to stay just out of reach. His preferred ice cream flavour seemed to be among the distant ones.

"Eh, then I'll grab a couple different things," he said breezily. "It's a good excuse to make you try my favorites."

"One of my columns got reprinted so I got a little royalty check. No reason not to celebrate."

The movie was starting up and he smiled at a few of the pan shots of Notre Damn. He'd flown over it a time or two himself, inspired by the movie. It was just one of those things he'd done during his trip that he hadn't really shared with anyone because it was so silly.

"Anything else you need from the store?"

"You get a royalty check every time a column is reprinted?" The way journalism actually worked was something of a mystery to him. He understood that reporters investigated and wrote the stories to be printed, that the editors made sure it all worked together, but beyond that, how reporters were paid, how stories were chosen, he didn't know. It was all a part of his desire, almost need, for facts.

But the question Clark asked - he thought about it before shaking his head. "Not that I know of right now."

"Emphasis on little. The paper got paid by another publication who wanted to use my piece so I got a little extra for it," he explained. Honestly, he didn't know as much about it as he could have but Lois had been very helpful when it came to navigating things. She'd also told him he'd better negotiate a better rate if he wanted to get out of his crappy apartment.

Given that he rather liked his apartment, and he was trying not to garner too much attention, he was just fine with it as it was.

"I'd offer to show you the office, but I kind of figured you'd prefer to stay away from people who make their living butting their nose into things."

For just a moment, there was a near-smile on Jim's face. "Who knows if they managed to catch me on camera. I try to stay out of it, but this was... high profile."

Three helicarriers had fallen out of the sky, shooting each other down. SHIELD had fallen. That was more than a little high profile. And if there was a hint of a picture of him, he did have one unmistakeable distinguishing characteristic. It was shiny metal and around a yard long.

"They'd snoop on you for being my roommate before they'd worry about you being involved with the helicarrier incident," he said with a laugh in return.

"'Finally, something interesting about Smallville'," he mimicked, his voice husky and jockish. Steve "The Slinger" Lombard was one of the ones who especially liked to give him trouble. Despite being of seemingly sound mind and body, he'd neglected to join a single sports team at school which, in Lombard's world, meant that he was either to be pitied or despised and possibly both.

"And Cat would be after you in a heartbeat trying to get your number. She's... got something of a type."

Namely male and breathing.

Edited 2014-04-17 05:34 (UTC)

He wondered what, of all that, would be the most troublesome - being asked about his living arrangements or being pursued romantically. Swiftly enough, he decided the latter. He could at least be boring enough to be written off as someone's roommate, but from what he'd seen since becoming his own person, romantic pursuits were, at the moment, more than he had the willpower for. He was still adjusting to something as simple as friendship. Anything more would be too much.

"Tell them you keep me around because I cook." It was close enough to the truth to pass.

He'd washed dishes well and good enough until they ate. They each found a place in the drainer before he walked over to the sofa and sat down. He picked up a screwdriver on the way and looked into his arm. It wasn't malfunctioning just yet, but he wondered what he would do if it ever did.

"Well," he muses, "it'll keep Cat off me for a bit."

And it would make Lois laugh herself sick in the ladies room.

He pulled off his glasses, kicked off his shoes, and ran a hand through his hair to muss it up a little. Then he gave a deep breath out, deep enough to just rustle some of the papers around the house.

"Sorry about that."

But it was kind of amazing to him that he had a roommate, who knew, where he could be himself. College had been hell in a lot of ways, and while his parents had known about him right from the start, his father had always been quick to stomp down on any displays that would set Clark apart from the rest, even at home.

This was good for him, though. As much as he had figured out some parts of the life he'd chosen, finding an internal balance was still somewhat eluding him. Being comfortable with who and what he was... it was going to take some time.

"I think you have more abilities than Captain America," Jim said quietly, but it was true. The strength was about the same, but Clark could fly, had that magnified hearing. Compared to Steve, he was sure Clark was stronger. It had started to give him a sense of security. He and Steve were almost even, but with someone like Clark on his side, he had a chance to heal on his own time.

And he had finally been able to accept it as healing, even if he spent more of his time denying. At least it seemed his nightmares, when he managed to sleep, hadn't awakened anyone but him. He couldn't censor those. He couldn't deny in his sleep.

"I haven't really thought about it," he admits, and it is the truth. He's never been competitive, that particular virtue highly frowned upon in the Kent household other than scholastically.

"I just... use it when I need it."

He looks back at Jim.

"I guess it makes sense, though. Captain America used to be a normal person. I'm not even from this planet."

Not even human is unspoken, but the echo is there anyway.

Edited 2014-04-17 06:27 (UTC)

"I'm not sure a normal person would let themselves be experimented on." Was that his friend? Someone who let himself be changed just to fight in a war?

So many questions.

"And I have a metal arm. None of us are normal."

"But we all choose to be human," he says, quiet and if not at peace with the decision, then learning to be.

It wasn't often that Clark tried to talk about his own struggles on that particular front, as much because he wasn't comfortable with it being spoken aloud as because he felt he was pushing something on Jim that he shouldn't.

"In this world, there's not much else to be. Some variety of human." Clark had been raised by humans. He had been... programmed by humans. Captain America had been created by humans. "Humanity is the worst and the best. Everything in between. Everything's a choice except humanity."

"I'm not sure if I agree about the lack of choice," he admits, tilting his head a little over the edge of the couch, "but I admit, I'm in something of a unique position."

After all, being human was more than just your species. And while humans had taken over most of the globe, they hadn't taken over all of it. There were ways to get away and people who chose to stay there, disconnected, apart. Clark respected the choice even as he envied them the fact that they always had the choice to reconnect; in the age of the internet especially, one could not deny that no matter how strange, one could find others like themselves somewhere. He didn't like the part of himself that envied them, but he knew it was there. He tried to mitigate it, reminded himself that for all the world he looked and acted and seemed like them, but he would always know he wasn't one.

He pops his feet up on the coffee table and folds his hands in his lap.

"As for the best and worst... " he let his eyes slip closed, "that's a much longer discussion. And one I'm definitely not having on an empty stomach."

"It'll be done soon." The meat was really already mostly done if it wasn't done already. Right now was for the vegetables he'd added, which needed time to cook and soften instead of staying hard and bitter. They'd pick up the seasonings as they cooked. How he knew to do this, he wasn't quite sure, but it seemed like second nature. "Wasn't intending to start a conversation, anyway."

He was just sure he'd seen, and been, the worst humanity had to offer.

"I don't mind it, as far as it goes," he said philosophically, "but questions like that aren't good for the stomach and I'm looking forward to this."

He turned to give Jim half a grin.

"It smells pretty close to my mom's."

That made him frown and lean back.

"I should let you meet her. She about flipped when she heard I had a roommate. College was just a little nervewracking."

He stopped himself before he spoke. Of course Clark's mother would know his abilities. No mother could miss that. But it made him ask, "They're that worried about you?"

He wasn't sure that Clark's parents meeting him was such a good idea. It wouldn't exactly be encouraging, so far as he knew.

He breathes out.

"She doesn't usually worry about me physically, but she worries about me just about every other way. Growing up was... it wasn't exactly easy."

Listen to my voice, Clark. Use my voice to pull yourself out. Come on, sweetheart. You can do it.

The words echo in his mind and he doesn't shake them away. They're comforting, quiet and gentle, and he uses them as often now as he did then.

"I'd get overwhelmed in class or the kids at school would go after me because I refused to fight back," he explains, eyes distant. After a moment, he looks over at Jim.

"My dad didn't want me using the parts of me that set me apart, but she was always of a mind that I should do what made me happy as long as I didn't hurt anyone else. She said... she said I had to figure out who I wanted to be beyond the fear."

He turned a lopsided grin on his friend.

"I'm still working on it."

Beyond the fear.

Fear still seemed alien to him. He didn't fear for his life. He didn't fear dying, but he didn't want to die, either. Especially not at the hands of Hydra. But to think of fearing what he was... Did he?

And fighting back...

Alleyways. Alleyways and loud voices and three against one. And that one smaller, slighter, brave and stupid at once. Steve Rogers. Too brave for his own good.

He shook his head, making his mind move to a different subject, making himself stop thinking about memories that kept miring him. There was so much he wanted to avoid.

"What kind of fear?" he asked instead. Easier to talk about Clark.

He's looking at Jim, so he saw the twitch of something in him, but he doesn't ask. As far as he's concerned, Jim can deal with his own trouble as quickly or as slowly as he wants. But since Jim asked, he'd be happy to answer... and if any of it rang true somewhere in Jim, so be it.

"When I was little, I was afraid of my parents abandoning me. I'd break something and I could see it in their faces that they were mad but the told me it was okay, that they weren't mad. But I could hear their heartbeats. I could hear it when they whispered in their room about how I was going to get found out, how the government would come, how maybe they were too old to take in a child."

He turns to Jim and waves it off a little.

"It's the kind of thing that parents say; it's not easy and there's always doubts. I know that now. But most parents can hide things like that from their kids."

Clark folds his hands in his lap.

"When I got older, I was afraid I'd break something important, something expensive. A little older than that and I was terrified I'd hurt someone. I wasn't..." he breathes in "the kids who picked on me, they couldn't hurt me, but it still burned that I had to put up with it. That I could knock every one of them on their backsides..."

He shakes his head.

"Some of that went away when we had an accident on the bus one day. I got a taste of what it was like to have people ask how I could have done that, what made me different, insisting they knew the truth. And that, that was when I started being afraid of being found out. What they could do to me, to my mom, my dad. And eventually, my dad told me about where I'd come from."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, pulling his feet back under him to stand up. He doesn't pace, but he walks over to the table and sits across from Jim.

"Then it was just the fear of the unknown. What was I? How was I supposed to be? Was I really a monster hiding in this teenager's skin? Was I just trained to be human? Why did they send me there? What was I supposed to be? And what did it mean to me since it seemed like I was just living my life, going along my way. Was I failing to live up to a destiny? Was I going to live up to it no matter what I wanted?"

He turns to give Jim an uneven, faint but ultimately hopeful smile.

"That's the one I'm working on, mostly."

Edited 2014-04-18 01:58 (UTC)

"I was an orphan."

The thought was there, clear, fully formed. He had been an orphan. Steve had had his mother, but she'd passed away, and--

'Til the end of the line.

He'd said it to Steve outside Steve's apartment after giving him the spare key, when Steve was being his usual stubborn self, trying to deny help when he needed it, but it was his job to help Steve because Steve needed it.

The vivid memory left him breathless and staring and aware, in the back of his mind, of exactly how unfair it was to think of that while Clark was being so honest.

"I... I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I think I'm glad my parents never saw me become this. Between us, I'm the monster. You... have heart. If you have a destiny, it's one you built, and it's better than mine."

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