thisisontherecord

( His apology that cannot be sincere in full earnestness earns a sort of scoff from Lois, but a fond one. It even gets half a smile out of her, though it doesn't last, Lois raking fingers through the hair at her temple and considering what one of the Bruces had offered.

Along with: )

Think he will?

( Get rid of it. Hold on to it. Or most relevantly, talk to her at all. Lois Lane doesn't believe in holding a kill switch out of fear, particularly since that's as absurd as asking for one to exist for Accelerator in her mind: one person she suspects could go toe to toe with Clark, even if she hasn't said as much. Similarly with some of their magical community, for what they can do that Clark can't counteract simply because of his unique physiology or mastery of his particular gifts. )

[If he hadn't ruined her journalistic objectivity, they wouldn't be here now — or worse, they'd both be here, but not as a couple and she'd only recently have learned the truth — so no, he can't be truly sincere.]

I think there's an excellent chance you'll need to be the one to reach out to him first.

[He'd known that on some level even as he'd told Bruce to do it and talked like it was a given he would. Still, it was only right not to assume he'd always be avoidant.]

And I think...he thought he would, when he made the offer. Actually doing it, well. We'd have to see. Not that I know how to do it. Even if you ground it down to dust, there's no safe amount of kryptonite.

[So what would be the answer? Ask Aurora for a way to launch it into the cosmos, beyond the bubble city?]

I know we've got magic as an option now. Other things too, maybe. But if we wanted to be really sure —

[Maybe he could shrug off magic, eventually. Maybe his force of will could overcome telepathy even with him in an altered state. He still wouldn't be able to beat kryptonite.]

I told him that you could talk about it with him, and whatever the two of you decide, I'm fine with it, because I trust you. And I told him if you decide to keep it around, to do something with it — I don't need to know what that is.

( Adding it to her mental to do list. Deciding if it's a "do" before or after teh next mission is part of that, but again, what can she say? How much they need to handle the fallout of... everything, again and again, when it can fundamentally alter how they interact with the world.

She gets the fear. She doesn't believe in letting that fear rule, on the other hand. That's a slippery slope that historically has never ended well. )

You can't, either way, for it to be effective.

( She says this with a tired certainty, hand dropping away from her temple and back to his hands. Her current plan is "outside of here or destroyed via request," but who knows. It's something to discuss because there are things and things to think about. )

Or else what you know is something whatever might influence you could know, including something as simple as your self-contained, influenced thoughts. Really sure means you lack the ability to counter what's coming. Clark, when we keep going that way, everyone here ends up some level of dangerous.

( Here it's... another thought. Because as she asks this, it's... hard. )

Clark. Would you be able to live with yourself knowing you'd been manipulated into killing someone when it wasn't a last resort? Could you work through that?

[It's that simple, and it's not. He gets what Lois means, gets that there are plenty of dangerous people here who don't — as far as he knows — have kill switches floating around in case they break bad.

But he also knows how powerful he can be, knows what he can do in a way that Lois can't quite. She knows what he's capable of intellectually; he knows down to his bones.

It doesn't really matter, though, because her next question catches him completely off-guard and he instinctively winces. Which may be enough of an answer in itself.]

I don't know.

[His fingers curl around her hands. He just — he needs to hold on to her for a minute.]

Probably not.

Mm.

( His fingers around her hands tells her more than she'd ever have wanted to ask. The memories of how black veins had crawled up his neck and across his hands, how he hadn't been strong enough to stand without help, how he'd passed out in the T-flyer or whatever Mr. Terrific called his flying ship. Knows that the quickest answer for how to stop Clark from struggling under the weight of his own worst nightmares is to drive him back to that place, and hope it stops short of killing him — or it kills him fast enough he won't suffer in agony.

But even so, her first affirmation is knowing having the tool doesn't mean needing to use the tool. She grew up with locked gun cabinets and ammunition stored elsewhere. No military brat is unaware of the difference between possession (safe, locked down, calculated) and intention (the loaded gun in hand, the moment when the safety's off and you will use it — no question).

She also knows how much she hates unmitigated violence, or the assumption that violence is a necessity. Violence is not inherently just. It's not the system they should rely on; it's what people should be protected from. Also ironic, because part of what makes Superman so Super is his highly controlled, extremely mitigated violence, applied to protect and defend when words are failing, or beings simply cannot be reasoned with.

But he's not a killer. It's not in him. Lois loves that. Sure, part of it can be frustrating, because his desire to save all lives is literally an impossibility and can lead to harm, but he's never been wrong that all life is inherently worth protecting. )

Got it.

( The softening at the corners of her eyes, the small way her lips relax from the line she'd been pressing them into, is a different decision in the process of working itself out. She'll arrive at that crossroads soon enough, but Clark. Clark isn't going to be okay if he ends up being made into a killer. She's not equipped to help him handle the PTSD to follow, even if she isn't sure any of them can handle any of the PTSD any of them are probably picking up in this place. How is Jon doing with it?

... Not great, she guesses, and his one saving grace might be his age. Ten year olds are more elastic than adults in certain ways. Right? Aren't they? Can she find any child psychology books to help give her an idea, because Crane is not who she'll trust on that. )

I feel like this is an eat all the ice cream out of the freezer kind of night. What do you think?

[For all that she's an amazing writer, Lois can also be a woman of few words at times. Maybe it's because she's an amazing writer, only choosing the right words, and there just aren't any right now. Not in this place, where minds and values can be warped far too easily.

Clark can still tell there's a lot more she's thinking about than she's saying, and that's fine, that's okay. He trusts her with the kryptonite and he trusts her to say what needs saying. And maybe it's a little easier not to hear more, when he's already on the edge of agonizing over every terrible possibility.

He's really, really lucky to have her. Lucky she knows him well enough to know the difference between what he needs to hear and what he has to hear.]

Eating all the ice cream sounds fantastic.

[And they have plenty, considering the ten-year-old with the appetite of a Kryptonian adult sleeping soundly in the other room. He breaths out a soft laugh and squeezes her hands briefly, letting his shoulders relax and leaning in. Just being closer helps. She doesn't have to actually embrace him for Clark to feel held.]

Thank you.

( With a squeeze of his hands in turn, Lois offers the simple and important follow up of: )

I call first dibs on the Rocky Road.

( They'll deal with everything as it comes along and comes up. With Kryptonite, with having stop-gaps and fail-safes, and with the knowledge that the most likely reason they'll have either is because the next social experiment will be attacking their sense of identity in a way different than the alternate Earth's anomaly, or the space nebula particles.

This is a different discussion they'll need to have sometime, but given it's more naval gazing and about creating a reaction plan than anything helpful, Lois opts to hold off on it for now.

Though she will start to steer them both toward the freezer. No time like the present, if they're going to do some good old fashioned eat when your feelings are having a helluva day (and also because Krpytonite. Just. Kryptonite.). )

Deal.

[Clark does like Rocky Road himself, but they have other options he likes just as much. With Kryptonian appetites and a ten-year-old's sweet tooth, it's been necessary to buy extra. He snags a container of Strawberry Crunch before veering off to fetch some bowls and spoons for them.]

Be nice if all our problems could be solved with ice cream, huh?

( Lois is prying that lid off and it is refusing to comply by the time Clark's presenting bowls and spoons. She manages not to give a triumphant, "Hah!" when the lid does peel back and display this is a whole new quart of Rocky Road, pristine top about to be wrecked by two spoon wielding adults. )

Sure would make the dairy industry the most powerful force in the world. Plus whichever pharmaceutical giants make the generic lactose intolerance pills.

( Sliding one bowl over and stabbing into the ice cream with the spoon... and it cuts in smooth as butter. Lois smiles, mischievous, before she starts with a generous scoop into the bowl. )

Between you and Jon, we'd probably get endless sponsorship offers.

[He'd offer to help, but Clark is pretty sure that she'd prefer to defeat the stubborn ice cream lid on her own. And she does, so all's well. Aside from the kryptonite.]

I don't think it would be a good idea for Superman and Superboy to get caught up in corporate sponsorships. Maybe if the money went to charity or something.

[He starts scooping his own ice cream and yeah, it's just as generous. This is an ice cream gluttony kind of evening.]

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