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A Newcomer-run news network? It's a great idea.

[Though it comes with its own trials and issues. It means they can be easily targetted. It puts them at risk. And there's the fact that they'll have to compete--and compete well enough to actually pay their bills.]

It could be difficult. We're not talking the Daily Planet, with a safe paycheck no matter how the paper's doing that week.

Good. Thought you'd think so.

[She smiles brightly up at him. She's practically vibrating with excitement over this; it might not be the Planet, but damned if she isn't going to try to make it that.]

We're working on funding and location, so hopefully we'll get something to start. And most of us are still working whatever job we have until we've got it set up enough to actually give it a go.

[Beat.] You're helping. [Yeah. That wasn't a question.]

[Clark is now busy with the boxes she'd taken off him. He takes about a second to sort the food into portions and hand her her meal, chopsticks and all.]

You can tell me about it while we eat. Want to go up to the roof, maybe?

[Lois raises her eyebrows for a moment, and then smiles slightly with a shrug.]

Sounds good to me.

Anyway, there's not actually that much to tell yet.

[He smiles, but says nothing, because he's not really in the whole mood to commit to telling his stuff. Jason. The Kryptonite. Khisanth. No, to be honest he just wants to spoon against her and listen to the sound of her voice--and she can probably see right through him.

He takes them to the roof so that their food doesn't have too long to get cold, lowering Lois into the swing chair with a smile, and dropping down next to her.]

Then tell me about Ford. He's a mutant--one of Jubilee's household. She's afraid that if anything happens to him, Michael Xavier will lose what little control he has of himself. He's an electric field manipulator; he's powerful, and not a little xenophobic.

[Lois can tell something's bothering him, and honestly she's been so busy with work, over-timing with the plans for the new network, and trying to take care of Clark at home that she isn't entirely sure what's been going on with him lately. So she'll talk. She's good at that.

Smiling her head and shaking her head slightly, she starts poking at her food with her chopsticks. It takes her a moment to parse 'Ford' as Kevin Ford, but then she nods slightly.]

Kevin Ford--he's a mutant, yeah. There've been a couple from his world, and all of them have this conviction that mutants--what I'd call metahumans--are always going to be treated like shit by humans. And that mutants and humans are different because of one active gene. I've tried asking "were you parents human?" because I know they won't listen to my definitions of humanity, and I should ask if they can breed with humans. 'Cause seriously, they must know basic biology, right?

[Then again, in Lois' eyes, Clark's body and parts of his brain architecture might be alien, but his heart and soul are entirely human.]

The Frost woman doesn't seem to be... quite as bad as you're describing this Xavier to be, but she was a little iffy.

[None of which was specifically about Kevin, of course.]

[He thinks for a moment.]

Frost. She strikes me as something of a busybody--overqualified, with no wisdom to match her intelligence.

[Pause.]

Their world's a rough place, and because of that they see enemies where there are none. The system's been ruined for them, and they don't trust it.

[He picks through his box.]

Xavier's intelligent, but he's also wise. That gives him an advantage on Frost.

[There's a raised eyebrow and faint flash of a smirk at his estimation of Emma Frost--because man, Clark may rarely say anything bad about anyone, much less curse, but when he does?

So, so cutting.]

The busybody I'll agree with. And, I think, a little impressed with herself. I frankly couldn't stand her.

[Sighing, she eyes the way he's picking at his food and decides to dig in a little more enthusiastically, if only to make it look like she's not still a little worried about him.]

That's what I've gathered. Kevin... seemed to really not believe that anyone would treat him half-decently, whether for being a mutant or a Newcomer. I gather that the kids in his world have as many problems with new powers as people here seem to run into, too.

Something he said--how at school they're kind of forced into being heroes, but he implied he... really didn't want to be, just to be left alone. I felt pretty bad for the kid, really.

[Pause, and then he looks seriously up at him.]

What's he likely to do, if he snaps?

It sounded like that to me too, like it was education with a catch. But Jubilee will tell me it's nothing like that. It's a rough world, but mandatory heroism just sounds so unlikely.

[Pause.]

Kid, Lois?

[Ignoring the question about Magneto until she asks him again.</small]

Yeah, I'm not sure what to think of 'mandatory heroism.' On the one hand, still heroic acts and all; on the other... I'm an Army brat enough to feel like it sounds more like boot camp for metas--mutants, whatever--than anything.

[She frowns up at him at the question.]

What? He's a teenager, I think. Or at least he certainly acts all young, wary--you know, the general picked-on-segregated-terrified-of-getting-killed-or-rejected kind of air.

[And then her frown turns a little more skeptical.]

You didn't answer my question, Smallville.

Uh huh. Teenagers charged with murder, Lois. A minor? No wonder Frost and Xavier are so concerned. By law they're his guardians, and they might be implicated.

[He shakes his head.]

Michael's power is electro-magnetism--and we're not talking on a small scale. We're talking decades of learning, not the yesterday's-meteor-freak that we get at home. Massive power.

I think he could rip apart the world, or destroy civilisation itself. An big enough electro-magnetic pulse could destroy every bit of electrical equipment on the island--maybe even the planet.

How many kids are actually murderous? I mean, when they're not irradiated by your favorite poison into insanity. I talked with him, before all this. He was practically meek. It could have been an accident--involuntary manslaughter. Either way, I am not letting a scared kid go through this without someone trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You ought to know. Don't tell me there couldn't have been an accident when you were fifteen ending in someone getting killed.

[Lois stops, then, and stares. Her voice is faintly sick when she does speak again.]

And you say he's... xenophobic? Against non-mutants?

[Superpowers she can deal with--she's even got a Thing. In the hands of a guy on the edge? Not so much.]

Well to be fair, Lois, plenty of them. But your experience of Smallville High was what? Seventeen days? If I counted up the classmates and teachers who used their powers to kill intentionally once they worked out how to use them, you'd probably be surprised.

And some of them were 'meek', too.

[A wry smile.]

As for whether my powers could have killed people, you don't have to tell me. There's a reason I wasn't allowed to play football.

[He goes back to Xavier, folding his arms. Quietly pretending it doesn't shake him.]

Here, you'd think there wasn't a problem. Everyone has powers. Everyone has to learn to use them like the people from their world.

But here, Xavier sees the locals as a threat. As a danger to newcomers. And he's on the NPP.

Edited 2011-09-16 00:06 (UTC)

Did I mention the whole "they were pretty clearly driven a little nuts by the radioactive pieces of your blown-up planet"?

He's fifteen. He's fifteen, the media is hanging him out to dry, and whatever the police and facts find out about it, he's getting screwed over because he's a Newcomer, he's used to being ostracized, from what I saw not used to standing up for himself. Someone's got to stretch out a hand to him.

And you ask if he's a kid just because he's being charged with something I doubt he ever intended to do?

[She gives him a flat look. He's taking this way, way too lightly.]

You took the risk anyway.

[Lois doesn't even bother pretending it doesn't shake her.

After a moment, she bites her lip, voice much quieter.]

Could you do anything if he lost it?

No I--

[He actually looks hurt, and glances away. His dinner goes down on the swing beside them.]

I didn't say it wasn't an accident. Or might not be. He shouldn't be in there--he's frightened, and alone. I know all that, Lois. I'm just trying to be objective. There's more people than just Ford involved with this, so if you go in there with your mind made up, you're not going to be treating them fairly. Any of them.

[His hands go to the back of his neck. And now the other subject.]

I've spent the last nine years blaming myself for all the pain I see around me. Every time something bad happens? Guess what? It's alien; usually Kryptonian. It's there for me, because of me, or after me.

For the record, though? I'm probably one of the few people on this island who could do anything about it--and probably the only one who would.

It's not as if he threw rocks at someone's head for entertainment--there was never any indication he ever knew the guy. It was during the riots, it could have been anything.

You stay objective, then--you, the law, whatever. You're supposed to be the logically distant ones. Go right ahead. The press is never objective whatever they claim, you know that. You think it's right to be objective, fine. I think it's right to find some way to keep a kid from suffering more than he has to.

[Her eyes snap a little, as she rolls her eyes.]

Your guilt complex is incredibly frustrating, you know that? Everything bad does not actually revolve around you. You sit there thinking it when, for instance, you could blame the fucking idiots who didn't check for radiation after a freaking meteor shower, didn't clean up after it.

[Swallowing a little, a flash of worry crosses her face. Furious or not, she gets freaked out by things like this.]

How badly could he hurt you?

It's fine, Lois. Just... It's fine. You're right.

[He can't stay sitting down. He stands instead, crossing his arms, burying his chin into his shoulder.]

It's not like I have a vested interest in a teenager struggling to deal with how they're different. It's not like being objective is easy for me, or anything.

[He's angry with her too. His guilt complex is frustrating? He didn't need to hear that right now. Not when he's just added another knot of guilt to what he had so far. Jason.]

I don't know.

[At the end of it all he almost sounds defeated.]

He could interfere with the way I absorb sunlight, or bury me under a sixty story skyscraper.

All I'm saying is that I talked to him. I know stories when I see them. This kid didn't murder the guy. Killed him maybe, but it wasn't murder.

And it doesn't matter what the police find--this keeps up, he'll pay the social price for it. I can't be objective. This isn't about the law.

[She can tell he's angry, but she doesn't say anything. This thing with Xavier is too important.]

Or both--or--

If it happens--over this or if it ever happens--promise me you won't be your heroically, overly-sacrificing, pig-headed idiot self and try to do this without help.

Wow, Lois, why don't you tell me what you really think of me?

[There's only half hearted anger there. A great deal more teasing. Because he doesn't want this to turn into a row. Not over the story.

He has other things she can yell at him about.]

I have help here. Someone I can trust--even if you don't.

One of us has to have some kind of realism about people, and god knows you never will.

[Unfortunately, Lois has been spoiling for this fight for a while.

And anyway, whether or not there's anger involved? You never, ever say that to Lois Lane.]

Where did you want me to start, sweetheart? We've already covered the over-developed guilt and hero complexes. Just let me know the next bullet point you wanted me to hit, we can cover as many as you like.

[That stings, and Clark, sighing, folds his arms, still looking away. His parents had rarely fought - or so it had seemed to him. The truth was probably different to his reality of it, but the fact was that he didn't know how to deal with it, especially not from Lois.

He's having the worst week.

Exhausted, he turns to look back at her.]

Why don't you just give me the Cliff Notes version, and go from there?

You're insane.

[The answer is quick and blunt--several months worth of frustration, anger, and alternating pressure and complete withdrawal are finally bubbling to the surface.]

I love you to pieces, Clark, but some days you are so far in left field I want to kill you with my shoes. There's at least half a dozen different ways and somehow when they all mix together you end up acting completely asinine.

And if anyone points it out to you it's even odds whether you actually listen or go wallow in a guilt party.

[Wow. That is blunt.]

I'm listening now.

[Still odds, though, but Lois is being honest with him and he can at least give her that. She needs to say this, he needs to hear it.]

[Oddly, for once in her life Lois wishes he'd do more than just listen all the time. Sure, he listens.

But god forbid he say anything.]

Really? Because that'd be a first for the last few months. Maybe more.

[His shoulders drop, and he looks away from her again.]

Things are different here, Lois. We both know it. Batman, the suit. I'm keeping things from you more than I ever had, and expecting you to just trust me without telling you why.

Just like before.

That a good start?

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