Every Superman Needs A Lois Lane

By BenRG

Disclaimer

'Ben 10' and 'Ben 10 – Alien Force' were created by Man of Action for The Cartoon Network.

The author claims no ownership or rights over the copyrighted and trademarked entities portrayed herein. This is a not-for-profit fan story for free distribution through the world-wide web.

Author's Notes

Okay, in response to (and partly in penance for) my humorous Ben 10 story, I've decided to write an infinitely more serious story. This story is written entirely from the primary character's point of view.

As everyone who read my last story will know… I did promise her a focus episode. ;-)

Censor: T

Chapter 2 – Meet the Tennysons

I think that, at this stage, it is important to make something very clear. Benjamin Maxwell Tennyson is no noble knight in shining armour. At age 10, he could be a brat when he wanted to be or when he wasn't thinking about the consequences of his actions. Like all kids of his age, he could also be intensely selfish and has an edge of cunning and cruel humour to his personality. Even now, he can be exasperatingly lazy and has an incredibly lax approach to work if he does not consider it personally important.

He and Gwen were and are like water and sodium. There was just something about the one that set the other off in a violent reaction that was sure to consume all their surroundings in the resulting conflagration. Oh, Gwen liked to try to make out that she was always the injured party. However, she had an acid-tipped tongue and loved to provoke Ben to exasperation whenever possible. She was just an adept a prankster as he and had the additional advantage of her incredibly sharp mind as a weapon.

Both Ben and Gwen can be offensively arrogant sometimes. Even when they are modest, they somehow find a way to wave their egos around.

Yet… you could not ask for finer friends. For they are always there when it counts. If Ben and Gwen fight all the time it is because they love interacting so much that they are always looking for excuses to do so. With their friends, they are always true. They always look out for those close to them. You can honestly say that everything they do tends to have a good motive, no matter how weirdly expressed.

Frankly, I loved them both.

It might sound odd, but of the two Tennyson kids, I got to know Gwen first.

However, when you think about it, it isn't so strange. Remember that I was a going-on-10 year old girl who had just developed a galaxy-sized crush on a guy who had saved her from bullies. I could barely even face Ben, let alone strike up a conversation with him. He must have thought little Julie was the weirdest kid in school, the way that she would always go bright red in the face when she saw him and ran away. Still, I was a girl and therefore inherently incomprehensible, so I doubt that he worried very much about it.

I first met Gwen outside of school at judo class. After the incident with JT and Cash, my dad (over my mom's objections) had enrolled me in a number of martial arts classes so I could look after myself. Gwen, as one of 'those Tennyson kids' was automatically excluded from social cliques and no one was entirely willing to be the one to practice with her. Thus it was that Gwen and I ended up paired together. It is astonishing how much one can learn about a girl when you are trying to beat ten kinds of stuffing out of her.

I learnt that Gwen was not quite the academically-inclined bookworm that she made out to be. She was an adventurous sort really, as adventurous as Ben in her own way. She had a great love for nature, for computer games and for astonishing facts, the more astonishing the better. Gwen idolised her older brother, Kenny, who was now in college and was hoping to emulate his grandfather and become a NASA astronaut. Gwen was also pretty lonely. The only other person her age who was willing to talk to her was Ben and, being a boy and pretty hyperactive sometimes, that wasn't always what Gwen wanted or needed.

I found that Gwen was generally a quiet sort of person, in decided contrast to Ben's loud, extrovert defiance of the whole world. Gwen could enjoy the quiet of a spring meadow and the sight and sound of a stream for hours when Ben would need to be doing something. Now, I'm as active as any other kid but I could appreciate Gwen's love for beauty and peace, something that I often found reflected in my mother's own leisure pursuits (itself a reflection of our Buddhist faith).

Naturally, having a crush on the boy, I used Gwen as a way to get to know my hero a little bit better. According to Gwen, Ben was a 'dweeb' and was always causing her trouble, picking on her and playing evil pranks. Then she regaled me with tales of her own pranks, sometimes carried out in what she called 'pre-emptive revenge'. As Gwen got more familiar with me and more willing to talk, I came to realise that at least some of her exasperation with Ben was worry that her cousin would allow himself to fall behind in school and end up getting in trouble. Gwen actually spent a surprising amount of time worrying about Ben and that probably helped me get to understand the nature of that boy a lot better.

Gwen and I became Best Friends Forever, to use the school phrase (or so we thought – how simple a child's world is!). We studied together, we hung out together and sat next to each other in shared classes. We looked out for each other and we generally grew as close as two girls from different backgrounds could.

The next significant amount of time I spent around Ben didn't come until his and Gwen's shared 10th birthday party at Gwen's house. I learnt from Gwen that, as she and her cousin shared a birthday, it had long been a Tennyson family practice to celebrate their birthdays with one party. It just happened that this year it was at Gwen's place.

Ben arrived looking about as morose as you can imagine. So much so that I had to laugh, clearly offending him. Not only did Ben clearly not want to be around the 'dork's' house, attending her party when he could be having one of his own, but he had also clearly driven his father to the very ends of his patience with his complaints and attempts to avoid attending. Being threatened with grounding is no way to celebrate a birthday.

Gwen, being Ben's ever-loving cousin, couldn't help but rub salt into the wound. One day, I will work out how Gwen's mom managed to stop the food fight so quickly and efficiently. However, that didn't prevent me from getting lime Jell-O on my favourite white sundress and ending up in tears.

Ben had to personally apologise to each partygoer for the trouble he had caused. So it was that I spent my first time in close contact with my hero since that day on the sidewalk, some two months previously now.

"Um… hi." I managed, blushing like a warning light. Ben was slouched over so far that his head seemed to be poking forward from his body rather than being on top of it. His face was close to a parody of misery and his fists were stuffed into the pockets of his cargoes. It was pretty clear that he barely recognised me, except as Gwen's friend.

"Okay, let's get this over with," Ben muttered. The boy sucked in a breath. How he did this I don't know, but I swear that the next words came out all in one breath. "I'm sorry that I threw Jell-O at you and got your dress dirty; I didn't mean to upset you; I know it was wrong of me and I should have thought about other people; I hope that you'll forgive me and won't be mad."

Ben turned and was about to slouch out of the room when I caught his arm. "What?" he snapped, anger and a little fear in his eyes. I was frozen for a moment. "Look, I said I'm sorry for the stupid food fight! What else do you want?"

"I want you to mean it!" I was quite surprised by my outburst and so was Ben.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped.

"You're only saying it because your dad and mom said so!" I shot back. "Forced apologies are no apologies!"

"Oh man! What do you want from me! Blood?!?" I was already learning that such histrionics were a fairly common behaviour for both the younger Tennysons.

"I want you to apologise and mean it!"

"Why should I have to apologise?" Ben snapped. "It's Gwen's stupid fault for going on about me having to come to her stupid party!"

"So?" I nearly shouted. "You didn't have to start throwing things at her!"

"What was I supposed to do? It isn't fair!" Ben and my moms came in at this point, attracted by the noise we were making. "What do I care about you anyway? I'm glad that your stupid dress is dirty! I hope it's ruined forever!"

I burst into tears at that. Oddly enough, so did Ben. The boy tried to rush out but instead collided with his Mom's legs. Things would probably have ended there if I hadn't yelled out: "I can't believe I wanted to like you! You're as horrible as Cash and JT!"

When Ben's green eyes turned towards me, they were filled with a fire that I had never seen before. He slipped out of his mother's grasp and was in my personal space in an instant. "I'm nothing like them!" he spat.

"Then say you're sorry!" I almost shrieked.

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry about the stupid dress! I AM! I didn't want to hurt anyone! AAARGH! Oh man! Gwen just gets me so mad! Why can't she leave me alone?"

"She shouldn't have teased you," I responded hotly. "But you shouldn't have retaliated!"

"What should I…? Wait a minute!" Ben suddenly was looking at me in a weird way. "What did you say? You don't think Gwen was right to make fun of me?"

That was a complex grammatical creation for a 10-year-old and I had to think about my reply. "Er… no!"

The two of us were looking at each other in a weird way. Our mothers were looking at each other too, quite mystified by the sudden drop in the level of anger in the room.

"Aren't you her friend?"

"Yeah!"

"Then shouldn't you… uh… take her side all the time?"

"Um… no? Not when she's being mean, no!"

"But… you're still going to be her friend?"

"Of course! I like hanging out with her and doing stuff with her!"

Ben blinked at me as if he had never seen me before. "I don't get it!" he said.

"Being friends is more than just agreeing," I said. "Mommy says that being a friend means that you want to spend time with someone, think about them all the time and want to help them!"

"Yeah… I guess… It's kinda weird though." Ben shook his head. Suddenly, he grinned at me in a mischievous way that always made my stomach turn loops. "You're kinda weird, Julie," he said at last. "That's okay. I like weird. I even like Gwen's weirdness when she isn't being a nerd or a dork!"

"Is… is that why you saved me from Cash and JT?" I suppose there was a little wistful hope in my voice.

"I… what?" Ben looked at me for a long time and I could feel my blush starting up again at the closeness of his inspection of my face. "So that's where I knew you from! I should have known! You're only friends with Gwen so you could get close to your hero!" Ben then adopted a parody of a heroic pose. Only two 10-year-olds could possibly have taken it seriously.

I hotly denied it but Ben should have caught the lie from my blush. "Gwen really is my friend you know," I stammered. "I like her for her!"

"Really?" Ben blinked at me in surprise. Then his green eyes were elsewhere. "No accounting for taste." Ben looked at his mother and my mother, both of whom were looking puzzled at recent events. He then looked back at me, looked at the green stain on my dress and physically winced. "Oh man!" he sighed again (I had already realised that this was his 'catch-phrase' of sorts) and ran a hand through his untidy brown hair. "Look, Julie… I hope your dress isn't ruined. I've got favourite clothes too…!" He continued in a low murmur. "It sucks when you need to get new ones!"

"Apology accepted!" I suddenly lunged forwards, grabbed Ben around the neck and hugged him.

"Aargh! Cooties!" Ben screamed and fought like a madman to get loose.

I can't say that my relationship with Ben was dramatically closer after that. However, I had been promoted from "One of Gwen's Friends" to "Weird But Likeable Girl I Know". Having encountered Ben in a less-than-ideal situation, my crush was broken. He was just a boy – cuter than most but bad-behaved like most boys. Once, as the summer semester proceeded, when Gwen was unwell, he actually hung out with me one long holiday weekend.

Ben claimed it was to 'De-Gwen' me, whatever that meant. What I found out was how much like Gwen he actually was. He, too, liked video games and astonishing facts and sights. Being a boy, he was a lot more active than Gwen and I found him daring me to jump over walls and fences and swing on ropes dangling from branches over the Bellwood River. However, in quiet moments, I saw a similar love for nature and beauty in his eyes. Naturally, those quiet moments didn't last for long. If Gwen was like a warm, comforting blanket, Ben was like a fast, invigorating wind, always daring me to new and exciting things.

It was the start of what could have been a lifelong friendship if it hadn't been for that road trip. Ben and Gwen spent ten long weeks away from Bellwood with their Grandpa Max, driving all over America in his battered-looking RV. It was a hard separation but I comforted myself with the knowledge that they would return soon enough.

When they came back, my friends had changed. When they entered homeroom on the first day of the autumn semester of our sophomore year, their eyes…. Their eyes were different; haunted. They seemed to search the room for threats and checking the exits.

There was a harshness to both of them now. They still tried to have fun and be the Ben and Gwen I remembered, but there was a seriousness and burden to their personalities that, as a 10-year-old girl, I could neither understand nor handle. It wouldn't be until Kenny Tennyson came back from his first tour of duty some three years later that I would realise that these were the hallmarks of a soldier who had seen active duty.

Somehow, Ben and Gwen had grown closer during that road trip. They could communicate without words and only needed to exchange a quirked eyebrow or nod. Rumours began of them being in some kind of 'unnatural relationship' (the girls being the worst gossips). Even I, Gwen's supposed BFF, couldn't share this sudden intimacy they enjoyed.

There were now things about Gwen that I didn't and couldn't understand. Suddenly, she needed more private time away from me. She always seemed to have secrets and interests that she refused to share with me. She remained a studious, focussed girl but she had lost a little of her carefree nature and had become hardened somehow. I also noticed the increasingly pagan aesthetic of her clothing and room. Naturally, this only served to reinforce the impression most had that she was 'not right'. Occasionally, inexplicable things happened around Gwen: loud preppy girls would trip over or somehow spill their drinks in their laps; tennis balls would suddenly seem to swerve away from her; she could somehow get from place to place far quicker than it should be possible. Sometimes, she would frighten me.

Ben, too, had changed. There was a sudden focus to him that changed him radically. At school, he suddenly became a physical presence. Cash and JT, who, previously, saw him as a challenge, suddenly tended to avoid his hard gaze. Conversations would stop every time he would enter the room.

Ben also had a new toy; the weirdest thing I had ever seen. He described it as a 'novelty wristwatch' that his grandfather had bought for him in Hollywood. However, it didn't look like a wristwatch to me. If anything, it looked like a metal manacle, clamped onto his left lower arm. It never came off, even when Ben was in swimming class. Its subtly glowing green hourglass face had no numerals displayed, although I occasionally caught Ben touching the glowing green controls and twisting the face. When he saw me watching, he'd always stop and loudly try to distract my attention.

Ben joined the judo and kung-fu classes. Both he and Gwen showed a nearly-terrifying level of focus. No one could hope to beat them once they had their measure. When the two bullies finally gained the courage to challenge Ben, he barely even hurt them, just put them onto the ground so firmly that they realised it was wise to stay there.

They tried to maintain their friendship but I was too weirded out. Almost unconsciously, I drew away from them. By the time we started Junior year, I barely even acknowledged them anymore, having fallen in with the sporty set as my skill with tennis grew.

I suppose that my association with the Tennysons could have ended there, but fate had different plans.

To be continued…