Summary:
July 18, 2014: Kara has some news for Clark, and they have a a heart to heart chat about their roles in the world at large.
Clark Kent's apartment.
The story takes place at Clark Kent's two-bedroom Metropolis apartment.
Characters
NPCs
Mood Music:
"Another day, another dollar," Clark comments to himself as he crosses the threshold to his apartment. He immediately goes for his red silk tie, loosening the noose around his neck, and unbuttons the top two buttons of his white Egyptian cotton dress shirt. His jacket is temporarily hung up on a hanging tree and he looks around. With a shrug, he kicks into super speed, taking off the rest of his clothes, replacing them with a bathrobe around his waist. He cleans them, using his powers to simulate dry cleaning, and heads into a shower, which he slows down to enjoy. A few minutes later, he emerges, hair damp, wearing navy blue sweatpants, white socks, a white t-shirt, and a beige towel hanging around his neck. Scratching his chin for a moment, he speeds out of the room, returning a moment later with what looks and smells like authentic Chinese food.
It's a little bit after Clark returns with his Chinese food that a brunette teenage girl appears at his door. The residents of Clark's apartment building recognise her as the reporter's younger cousin, Kara. Of course, the mousey-haired and bespectacled girl holds the same secret as the mild-mannered reporter. But, there's no need for Supergirl at the moment, and Kara has some things she needs to talk to Clark about. So, Kara gets through the apartment building with ease, giving shy smiles and waves to Clark's neighbours that greet her. And when she stands in front of Clark's apartment door, she does a quick scan with her x-ray vision first to make sure he's home before knocking on the door. "Clark? Are you home?" Sure, she knows he's home, but pretences must be kept up. "It's Kara, Clark…"
"Come in," comes a muffled voice through the door, as Clark rises from his seat in front of the television, wolfing down chopsticks full of Chicken Fried Rice. If she doesn't enter before he reaches her, he'll open the door for her. "Kara, you know you're always welcome here. It's why I gave you a key." To him, giving her a key held a special meaning, as he knew she could get in, through a window, through the door, through a wall if she wanted, but he meant for her to feel welcome in his home. 'Mi casa es su casa,' he had said to her at the time, "Would you like to join me. I just 'ordered' Chinese food?"
Kara uses her key to ulock the apartment door and enters. She smiles as Clark greets her and Kara gives him a hugs and a kiss on the cheek. "I know, but it's only proper manners to announce myself before entering if I know you're home, right?" Ha! Logical victory. She smiles and waves off the offer of food. "No thanks; I had like 3 Double Big Belly Burgers on patrol about an hour or so ago, so I'm fine." The girl walks over to the couch and takes a seat, making sure Clark has plenty of space. "So…I have…a couple of things to ask." And she's looking a bit nervous as she settles in. "Well….a question and more of a….situation."
Her smile is returned in kind, and he holds her as embraces him, giving him a friendly peck on the cheek. He nods his head up and down, agreeing with her logic, but then he smiles, trying not to laugh, and exclaims, "Three double big belly burgers?" Sure, Kryptonians may not have to worry about gaining weight, technically they don't even need to eat in the presence of a yellow dwarf star, but still, that's a bit excessive. He shakes his head, smirking more than anything else as he follows her over to the couch, taking a seat next to her. As things get serious, he adopts his sympathetic look, "What's wrong Kara, I'll help in any way I can."
"Hey, they're really good," Kara says about her dinner with a light laugh. "The only thing I really don't miss about Krypton is the food. Human food has so much variety in tastes and textures." She shrugs, clearly not guilty about her only real vice. But, she brought up the serious business and Clark is looking like he's going to support her unconditionally, which she loves him for. "Well, first off… I know we just moved me into my single dorm room… but my friend, Stargirl. Well, Courtney, because that's her real name. Courtney goes to Metropolis U like me, and she has a double dorm room without a current roommate. She's my best friend, she's been a hero for a while now, and I was wondering if it would be okay for me to switch rooms so that I'm her roommate?" Now, she gets ready to give the sales pitch. "It would help us both out since you'd be paying less for my housing and she and I would then both have a roommate that we didn't have to worry about having our secret identities exposed. She doesn't know my full name and I don't know hers, so we'd be exchanging our secret ID's. That's why I wanted to ask you, to see if you would be okay with that." Her last statement has more of the tone of a hopeful question.
A part of Clark thinks it might have been a mistake to base her name off of his, for his family to set up a back story for her. He's put his life as Clark Kent on the line for her, and after being on this planet for all of five minutes, she's about to reveal her identity to someone. But it's a small part. He trusts her. He's like that. "Kara, if you think you can trust her, and if it's what you want, then I don't see why not? I just want you to remember that whenever someone learns your identity, it's not much of a leap to learn mine. So, I'm trusting you with all of this," and he gestures towards the apartment, a very American apartment. Clark lives as a human, he's been doing it for his entire life. But smiles as he gestures, winking at her, and giving her a playful brush on the shoulder. "If you think this Stargirl can handle it, then I know she can."
"Thanks," Kara says as she hugs Clark. "I know she can be trusted, Kal," she adds as she settles back into the couch. "She's been a hero for a long time. And her step-dad was a hero too, named Stripesy. Although now he uses a suit of power armour he calls S.T.R.I.P.E. And I know how serious someone knowing my identity is, which is why I wanted to talk to you first before any definite plans were made." She smiles wide, happy at how things are going. "And I really want you to meet her. I think she'd make a great asset to the League." Okay; hurdle one passed. Now for the big news. And Kara takes a few breaths before starting up. "The situation is…. I met a woman the other night in Metropolis. She's Kryptonian, sort of." Again, a big breath is taken. "She claims to be me from an alternate universe." Quickly, Kara holds up her hands. "I know, anyone could claim that. But… she looks like me, given about 10 years. She looks very similar to my mother. She knows Kryptonian. She's just as strong as I am. So, I'm not saying she is, but…." Kara sighs and shrugs. "She doesn't know our secret ID's, I didn't tell her anything. You need to meet her first and judge for yourself. She calls herself Power Girl here. And she said her secret identity is Karen Starr of New York. So…." Kara smiles a bit, biting the corner of her lip. "Yeah. That's how my week has gone."
It's a lot to take in. Clark sits patiently, listening. His mood seems to be that of calmness and serenity. Sometimes he can be a hard one to read. Finally, he says, "I look forward to meeting your new roommate," giving his blessing, not that it was required, "and I'm sure you two will have a lot of fun this year. I know I did in my first year at Metropolis University." But that second issue, that gives him more reason to pause. "Whether or not this Power Girl, Karen Starr, is who she says she is or not, really isn't the question. It's whether we can trust her. I've… met a few people who claimed to be alternate versions of myself, and it wasn't a good situation." He still worries about that. He may have real darkness inside him if they're to be believed. But no, he doesn't want to contemplate that. "I'd recommend caution for now."
"Of course," Kara says with a serious nod. "I'm going to be careful regarding Power Girl. But, I encountered her hanging out at the top of the Daily Planet, so you might want to keep an eye out for her. I didn't tell her your identity, but if she really is an alternate version of me, she probably knows it already. I guess the easiest thing would be to run a genetic comparison between she and I to know for sure" Kara decides to leave it at that; Kal certainly knows how to handle threats to his identity. And Kryptonians that suddenly appear out of nowhere. "So, how have you been? How was your day? Hopefully it was a good day for you today?"
His first thought would shock her. Around 155,000 people died today. Oh, he saved some, he did his thing, but it's never enough. Even Superman, at the end of the day, is just one man. With Kara, they are two, but they need more, much more. "Israel invaded Gaza, pro-Russian rebels shot down a Malaysian plane over the Ukraine, Louis van Gaal had his first press conference as manager of Manchester United, Microsoft cut 18,000 jobs, Airbus filed a patent for saddle seats, a typhoon threatened China," and he goes on, perhaps showing off on how conscious he is about world events, listing a variety of news stories. He is a reporter after all. "All in all, a pretty average day." Perhaps he sounds jaded, but somehow, even while listing all the things that are going on, the bad outweighing the good, he still manages to sound hopeful, "But tomorrow is another day, and I will try to do more than I did today."
Kara may not have been here on Earth with her cousin for long, but she can sense his moods easily enough. She reaches over, putting a hand on his shoulder and trying to take away some of that weight that he puts on himself. "Even we can only do so much, Kal. We can't save humanity from itself by solving every problem they have. We could do it, of course, but that wouldn't solve anything. All we can do is our best, and to stand forward to help light the way into the future for humanity. We stand for something, Clark." Kara switches to his human name because she knows it has more impact for him. "<b>You</b> stand for something. You took the symbol of our House and turned it into a beacon of hope for this world. You can speak, you can lead, you can inspire… you already do all that for so many humans. But the one thing you can't do is force people to listen to you. There's always going to be those that ignore your message because it's too inconvenient for them. It threatens their own petty power base. And you can't concern yourself about those folks; you can't let their static nature take away from your message of hope. Because for every mad man that does some awful thing in the world, you inspire thousands of others to help their fellow man instead of harm him. Don't carry the sins of humanity on your shoulders; those were set in motion ages before you got here. Keep showing them how to rise above those petty natures and become the great people they can be."
The hand on his shoulder does not go unnoticed, but it does go unremarked. He smiles silently. It's a forced smile, but the gesture is appreciated. "But we can Kara. We can solve every problem that currently plagues humanity. We could do it. Except, we can't. If we did, then they wouldn't be human anymore. They'd be more like… more like Krypton." Jor-El, when he sent his son to this world, knew that his path would be a difficult one. To be a beacon of hope, to help humanity, but not like Zod. It's a fine line, one that he has so far never crossed, but the temptation is there. Though he may appear as a paragon of virtue, of a being beyond reproach, he is far more human than he lets on, and that is something he has struggled with ever since he recognised his power. "I try, I do what I can, but it is never enough. There is always more to do. Like right now, I'm sitting with you. I don't need to spend time with family. I'm eating. I don't need to eat. I could be out there. I could be doing something for someone. There's always someone who needs me…"
Kara listens to what her cousin is saying, and she manages to hold back the frown. Instead, she nods and tries to comfort him. "But that's the same trap, Clark. We both want humans to start solving their own problems. And I don't want humans to die any more than you." Kara knows that she's walking a fine line here, so she's trying to choose her words carefully. "But the path you're talking about turns them into pets, rather than allowing them to walk and grow on their own. We have to be there for the big problems; the ones humans can't handle on their own yet." And then, part of the answer to this problem occurs to her. "I remember a passage from the Bible. One that gets repeated a lot. 'To everything, there is a season. And a purpose under Heaven'. People will always need us, Clark. But they need to learn to stand on their own more. And they are learning to stand, Clark. They're learning to stand and walking a better path because of you and the rest of the League showing them that better way. It's hard, I know. But you taught me that the right thing to do isn't always easy; a lot of times it's hard. It's hard to watch humanity struggle to walk on this better way, but one day, they will make it. You have to have hope of that, Clark."
"I do, Kara, I do…" he intones, he has nothing but hope for them. But on days like these, when there is so much violence, it's easy to wonder, is he really doing all that he can. The answer is of course not, but then, that's not what they need. Kryptonians are like Gods among humans. But the best Gods, the Greek and Norse Gods, eventually learned that less is more. As much as they might wish to interfere, to solve the problems of man, the less they do, the better it is for man. And so Clark has strived to be an example, something to aspire to, but he is Super<b>man</b>. At the end of the day, he is a man, just like them. He has his wants and desires, and needs time to himself. If it weren't for his humanity, he might walk the path that scares him so.
"Then let yourself rest," Kara says with a gentle smile. "Let yourself be Clark Kent more. Let others stand up and carry the beacon that Superman lit. The best of humanity comes out in a crisis, and heroes rise up to protect others because you showed them it's both possible and necessary. That power means protecting others and helping them gain their own strength. Let the League do more so you don't feel as harried as you do now. Maybe even ask a certain fellow reporter out for coffee." Here, Kara smiles and winks a Clark, giving him a playful nudge of her shoulder. "Life is a precious gift, Clark. Appreciate yours more and enjoy it a little. It's what our parents wanted: for us to survive, thrive, and be happy."
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