2012-07-06 Lane Interviews Sometimes

The lunch rush... means that nearly everyone heads out, stuffs face, and comes back into work more lethargic than usual. Such in the case at the Daily Planet and so the bull pen of a newsroom is far more sedate than usual. The phones ring and the TVs are on, giving the newspaper a soft buzzing hum of activity, but there is definitely a lack of gusto in the air.
At her desk, Lois is looking over her notes, various pages of hand written shorthand, between periods of surfing the internet. This is what's called research.
Where does one find a journalist? The first answer Marissa had to that thought was 'Not the Daily Bugle'. And, for various other reasons, she eliminated the other New York papers. And Gotham scares her...Leslie didn't, but the city itself, shadowed and dark and somehow...twisted. So, she didn't even consider going *there*. Now, she's trying to, uh, infiltrate the Daily Planet. Her first thought was to sneak in. Her second, was to bribe her way past the receptionist. With candy. Candy always works...and now she's in the entrance to the newsroom. She attempted a disguise before leaving the hotel, not wanting to be recognized on the bus ride here. Disowning her, she sort of expected. Outing her in a public statement? Not cool, 'daddy'. She's covered her hair with a scarf and is wearing a pair of heavy framed glasses. Reading glasses. Which means she's squinting. Possibly not the best of moves.
The mail boys and couriers moving here and there move around the disguised Marissa, not even bothering to stop and try to help. They'll all either too busy or too sluggish to reallly try anything. That is, until one finally stops when he finds Marissa in his way. "Yes," he asks her. "Can I help you?"
Lois leans into her computer, one hand reaching out to grab some chex mix she's munching on for lunch.
"I was hoping to talk to somebody," she says softly...a little uncertain. Her dad was always good with the press, but she's...feeling as if she's nothing and nobody. And angry, yes. The anger is in the voice too. Soft, subtle anger, and all the more, perhaps, dangerous for it.
The mail boy ohs, and looks about the bull pen. Everyone's on the phone but... "Hey, Lane! Got a live one for ya," he calls out, thumbing at Marissa.
The sound makes the reporter look up, fingers in her lips in the barely completed motion of getting food into mouth. She blinks once, then quickly gets the chexmix into her mouth fully, hides it in her cheek while she stands and makes her way over. She tries to hide the motion of dustingher fingers off as she goes. "Thanks Carl," she tells the boy, reaching out to take her mail before offering Marissa a hand to shake. "Lois Lane, Daily Planet. What can I do for you?"
Marissa Sometimes shakes hands. "I think...we might be able to do something for each other." She finds the confidence she was always raised to show, although it's harder to find right now." She didn't give all the candy to the receptionist. Tugging a bag of M&Ms out of her pocket, she offers the 'bribe' to the reporter. Maybe she's recognizable...maybe not. Lois IS, after all, an investigative reporter.
Yes. And investigative reporter with the flaw: unable to see past hornrimmed glasses. Lois eyes the M&Ms, then shakes her head. "No thanks, but why don't you come sit down and we can talk," she offers, voice holding a clear note of 'who the hell is this person' even as she turns to lead the way back to her desk.
Once she sits down, though, Marissa tugs off the scarf and the glasses. The refused M&Ms are tucked back in her pocket. She can always eat them later. NOW she might be rather more familiar...to people who follow the news. And the rumors...that she's missing, that she's dead, even that she was kidnapped by Tony Stark and has been in his penthouse. Which, no doubt, poor Stark is trying to deny, although she WAS last seen with Pepper Potts. Of all people. Most certainly, though, she doesn't look like she got shot a week ago. At all.
"Oh my god! Marissa Sometimes," Lois declares as the disguise is removed and the truth balantly revealed for all the world to see. Her hand immediately reaches for a pen. "You're alive! I mean, you're here! I mean.. Hi, I'm Lois." Someone's a little excited.
"Rumors of my demise, etc. I also have NOT been in Stark's penthouse. Not even once." Poor Tony...and for once he didn't even do anything. A few heads around the newsroom probably DO turn.
Lois drops two pens and finds a third not writing before she FINALLY gets one that works. "Don't mind if i write this down do you? What happened, exactly? Your father was attacked, you were shot. You /were/ shot, weren't you?"
"They hit me instead of him." From Marissa's tone...she doesn't want to talk about it, but she's making herself do so. It's taking willpower.
Lois is jotting all down, while her other hand is desperately trying to find her digital recorder. "Did you see who attacked?"
Marissa Sometimes shakes her head. "No...I didn't see them at all. I was out cold for most of it." Well, she was dead...sort of. It still confuses her, exactly how it all works.
Nodding, Lois gives up her hunt and just takes notes the old fashioned way: by yelling to a passing intern, "Get me some coffee, right now." She turns back to Marissa, eyes tense. "You've been on the run since then I'd imagine. Why are you here?"
"Actually, I haven't been on the run. The Tony Stark rumor wasn't *entirely* inaccurate. I've been in a hotel suite with Ms. Potts." Which indirectly *does* tie her to Stark. "And I don't know. I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm trying to deal with stuff, and I have my dad spouting everything on national television." Sounds almost like she wants to retaliate.
To that Lois stops. "Whoa whoa whoa. Hang on. Let's slow down a mintue." The intern brings the coffee and Lois thanks him, only to lean towrad him and whisper: "Bring me the CNN tapes on the Sometimes interviews."
Turning back to Marissa, Lois holds out a cup of joe. "Here. Start from the the beginning. What happened?"
"My dad took me to the expo as a graduation present." A pause. "I realize, that's weird given he's all women should marry well...it took me years to convince him to let me learn engineering. But that's all I want to do." She doesn't look the part...she looks like a pretty teenaged girl, not somebody who might enjoy spending time under cars...or maybe planes.
Takes all kinds. Lois listens, and takes notes, the coffee cups set down on her desk between them. "What happened at the expo," she prompts.
"All I remember is that I was drooling over one of Stark's flying cars, something slammed into my neck and I passed out. The next thing I know, my dad was storming off calling me a freak. Ms. Potts got me into an ambulance." She lets out a breath. "I did get shot. I just got *better*. And that's what scared my dad."
Unwilling to wait for the intern, Lois turns to her computer and does a really fast internet search. 'govrenor charles sometimes statement expo attack' is in the Google bar faster than one can blink, and a moment later, Lois is skimming through transcripts of CNN until.
"That rat bastard," she curses at her screen. "Principles before. Hmph, him and the General would have a grand ol' time wouldn't they?"
Clearly upset, Lois turns to look at Marissa, and smiles. "Ms. Sometimes... I have personally met with a half dozen nonhumans, of which more than half or more than likely mutants. It's horribly intolerant of your father to say what he said, and if you'd like I would be more than happy to see his pretty gubernatoral ass burned all over page one."
"I might calm down, but right now I'd love to see him dragged through so much mud nobody will dare vote for him for dogcatcher. He's always been like this." A pause. "I'm divorcing him." Using the slang used in some quarters by minors seeking emancipation. Just as soon as she can get a job. Maybe she can fetch coffee for somebody at StarkTech. Or... She'll think of something. College? Delayed, but she's determined it will still happen. "Who's the General?"
Lois waves the question of her father away with a hand. "He's not important." She collects up her pen, turns to face Marissa and smiles a predatory sort of smile - reporter on a mission. "Tell me /everything/."
"Ms. Potts took me to a clinic...I'm afraid I can't say where. Kind of a protect your sources thing. Made sure I was okay. She's really been awesome." And will she appreciate having a journalist told how awesome she is? Tony will...it's good publicity for Stark. Or is it? "They checked me over...found absolutely nothing wrong with me. Did a genetic screen. And since then I've been holed up in a hotel room."
"Has the genetic screen come back with any conclusives," asks the reporter, noting that and circling a largely printed: CALL STARK.
Marissa Sometimes nods. "My dad wasn't lying. I'm a mutant." She doesn't sound as if she's worked out how to deal with it yet. Almost ashamed. But then, if the Friends of Humanity has their equivalent to the Hitler Youth? She was probably in it. She's the very thing she was raised to hate the most.
Lois nods, a very warm and accepting smile. "And that's nothing to be ashamed of. The ones I've met have all be very wonderful people," adds the reporter, jotting down her notes.
"Sorry. I was raised to believe...my dad believes that mutants are a punishment on their parents. That we mean some horrible sin has been committed. I think he now thinks my mom must have cheated on him." Ah. Denial. It's a country occupied by far too many.
Lois is hard pressed NOT to roll her eyes as she copies that down. "That Friends of Humanity, thing, right?"
"Yeah. He genuinely believes that mutants should be locked up. Or eliminated. And I just...I didn't see it. He told me all of it, and hey, they were just mutants." Or just Jews. Or just blacks. Or just homosexuals. But then... "He doesn't like gay people either," she adds. "I suppose it's all part of the same thing.
"Gay, mutant..." LOois drops to a cold murmur to add, "space alien" ..."You're not the first, you won't be the last. What's change about your perspection of the world, since your discovery?"
"I don't know. I know my mother didn't do anything...I refuse to believe she had an affair. Right now I'm angry enough to almost wish she did. But it wasn't the kind of stupid thing she did. Ride off into the desert on her own, *that* was her brand of stupid." Faint, lingering anger there. An old wound, but one that takes far longer to heal than anything physical.
Lois makes a face at that. "Seriously? You turned into a mutant because your mom might have had an affair? Is that really what your dad believes? Wow... How very... medieval of him," Lois blurts out before her mind has the sense to try to stop the words.
"No. He believes that I'm not *his kid*. He won't take any responsibility for it. I seem to recall somebody saying...from the crowd...that it passes through the male line and was his fault. Maybe he believed them." A pause. "Like I said, I'm angry enough to wish it was likely to be true..."
Lois just shakes her head, "You know, we could call for a paternity test..." Yick. That's a little to Maury Povich. Lois frowns and waves it away. "It doesn't matter. You were raised to believe mutants are really bad and now you're one, and your father's disowned you," she reprompts, looking for the way to spin this correctly.
Marissa Sometimes nods. "Pretty much. And outed me, which was kind of insult to injury, you know. I don't know whether to hope people believe him or not."
"Other than drag him through the same mud you've just gone through, what do /you/ want," Lois asks, settling her violet eyes on the girl.
"Right now. I'm not sure. I want to make sure people know what really happened. The assholes will still vote for him, but maybe it will sway some of the undecided types. Then...I don't know. I have to work out what to do." She's only a kid, after all, suddenly plunged into adult responsibilities. And perhaps more than that.
Lois nods, liking that strength of will. With a smile, the reporter squares her shoulders and asks in a very calm and gently firm tone, "What really /did/ happen?"
"Okay..." She takes a deep breath. "I'm Marissa Sometimes. My father is Charles Sometimes, current governor of Arizona." A pause. "And everything they say about him is true. He's an extreme social conservative who hates mutants, hates homosexuals, hates non-whites. He's not so great about women either. I've fought to be respected by him as a person. At the expo, somebody tried to kill him. I don't know who it was, but he's given enough people reason. They got me instead. Except...I got better. Charles Sometimes couldn't handle that. He stormed away, he left me in the care of strangers. Strangers who treated me with more respect than he ever did. Now he's disowning me, telling the world I'm a mutant. I don't know what else he might do...I've been hiding from him, but I'm not going to do that any more. I'm not going to hide anything. I *am* a mutant. He can't deal with that...I'm finding it hard enough myself. But if he wants me back, he's going to have to change. If not...then I am going to just have to carry on without him." Wow. The girl's got a spine in there somewhere.
And what a spine. Lois' pen is scribbling frantically, hurriedly jotting out hte key elements of what she said. As she writes the tip of her tongue pokes out from between her lips. "What has this talk you about mutants, humans, and society as a whole that you'd like to share with everyone? How has this ordeal made you stronger or weaker or both?"
"First of all, I'm sorry. I refuse to think I'm not human. That's just silly. Maybe not quite the same as other humans, but this entire different species thing just seems so weird to me. I don't feel any different from the way I did before last week...I don't act any different, I don't think. Maybe a bit more assertive." And less afraid. There's something about what happened that makes the things she's afraid of seem...inconsequential. Near death experiences will do that to you.
The reaction makes Lois smile a bit, on the inside. Outwardly, the reporter nods, jots down the answer, and fires again. "But you took a bullet to the...head, was it? And you're still here. So other than assertive, has learning that bullets don't kill you changed you in anyway?"
Marissa Sometimes winces. "Throat...it hurt. I remember that, and then I remember getting up perfectly fine. But I don't know that I can answer that yet. I don't...I think I'm still kind of processing it all.
A smile and a nod is what Lois gives to that. "Sure, of course. If your father were right here, right now, and willing to hear anything you had to say to him, without interruption, what would you want him to know?" Lois knows this answer's going to sting but...
"I'd tell him that he...he thinks he's standing by principles, but I realized he's standing by his fears. I know. I have them too." She doesn't mention, not now, the mutant who showed up on her hotel balcony. The 'welcome wagon'. The hint at...something. Something that might be an implication beyond bullets not killing her. "Everything he stands for is fear and hate. And I'm going to be right here waiting if he's ever willing to get over it." True. She's walking away from him, but he's still her dad. She can't quite let go of that.
Lois jots that down, or enough of it to act as a full quote in a later story. "And the rest of the mutant and super-fearing world?"
"That what you can do isn't that important. Look at me. You think I'm dangerous, I'm...what? I can't blow up a building without a ton of C4 or home-made explosives." True, she *could* be dangerous. "I'm betting most mutants aren't dangerous...and don't want to be. You have to *work* at being dangerous." Her dad's more dangerous. She understands that now.
"And other mutants out there, mutants that are living in fear of prosecution, fear of what they are, of being hated for it?" Call her butter. Lois is onna roll!
What will people do to her now? She's out, she's in the public. It's like being out of the closet...in the 1970s. But she's gone too far to turn back now. "You have to start by not fearing yourself. Maybe that's easy for some people, but it's not for me. I'm sure it's not for others." Too many people are being raised to hate and fear the supers. "Then...we just have to change minds one or two at a time. We have to show people that we're just people...and sure, there are bad ones out there. I mean, I can understand why it might be hard to resist becoming a thief if you can teleport, say. But there's also some good people. Even my dad sort of admits that Superman's not a bad guy. Sort of."
Lois grins at that last, her mind doing a little ('Does he now?'). It's visible in her grin and infects the tone of her next question. "And to those do-gooder supers out there? Superman, as you've just mentioned?"
"Keep it up...but be careful. It wouldn't take much of an accident to turn everyone against them." She thinks about it for a moment. But she's not sure she's dangerous enough to be useful...to be anything but a liability.
Lois jots that down, tongue poking out again, smile on her face. She dots the period with a vigor, and then looks to Marissa. "Perfect. Anything else?"
"Hrm...I'm not sure right now." She shakes her head. "I'm not usually the one doing interviews for journalists. That was always dad's thing. And mom's, when she was alive, and she was always all about...graciousness and hospitality. And horses."
Mother. A softer angle. Lois's head tilts, her smile softening. "Tell me about your mom? What she anti-mutatnt crazy too?"
"If she wasn't, she never admitted to it. But she really bought into the entire the man is the head of the household thing. Sometimes, I wonder, though. She spent an awful lot of time alone." Away from Marissa. Away from Charles.
Lois stops writing, a hand reaching out to rest near Marissa though not touching. A proximity comfort thing. "I'm so sorry."
Marissa Sometimes shakes her head. "It's been long enough that it's scabbed over...if you know what I mean."
Lois nods and smiles, even if it's just a tiny bit (read: A whole lot and she's not going to admit it!) fake. "Yes, course. Well. Can I... call a taxi for you or.. something?"
Marissa Sometimes considers that, reaching for her headscarf. "I...okay. I'll take a cab." Hopefully the disguise will keep her from being pounced. She has quite a way to go to her safe haven.
"Alright. Wait here..." Lois says, rising. She dips a hand into her purse for her big 80s retro shades. "And try these. They've got a little less prescription than yours." And because sunglasses don't foll Lois! Only horn rimmed glasses do! >.>
On her feet, she moves to Perry's office, speaks with the editor, and gets permission to get her source a cab. A few minutes later, and Lois is escourting Marissa down to the lobby to await the yellow taxi. "It was great to talk to you," she says, holding out a hand and purposefully NOT giving names.
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