For this chapter, I really just wanted to have a scene of Lois going on with her life, falling out of buildings without Superman around, so that's where this chapter started, but then I decided to start showing the shift of public opinion where the League is concerned, and show how it's starting to be a touchy subject with people. Hope you like it, please review!
For the next week, Mallory was practically obsessed with patrolling Metropolis. She had nearly doubled her patrolling time already since Clark's depression, and now she added even more time on top of it. She no longer went out simply because she liked to, and she was too busy scanning the streets to enjoy flying above the city. Conner called her on her comm one evening while she was flying through the business district.
"Hey, are you back at your dorm yet?" he asked.
Mallory glanced around guiltily. "Uh, no, not exactly," she said.
"You aren't still patrolling, are you? Mal, you need to get some sleep."
"I will, I promise. I just want to check over by the Planet one more time, then I'll head back. What are you doing?"
Conner sighed. "I'm trying to fix your bike."
Mallory paused midair. "What's wrong with my bike? I haven't even ridden it in like a month."
"Yeah, well, Peter and Gar know that, so they didn't think you'd miss it if they took it out a few times, and they brought it back in pretty bad shape. I didn't get a complete story from them, but based on what's wrong with it, I'd say they drove it off a cliff."
Mallory groaned. "When did that happen?" she asked.
"Yesterday. Don't worry, I should be able to fix it up, or at least salvage most of it."
She sighed. "Thanks. I'll take over when I get to the cave." Conner said something in response, but he was interrupted by an ear-splitting shriek. "Uh, I have to go," she said, already flying towards the sound.
"You going to head back soon?" he asked.
"I wouldn't count on it, something came up," Mallory replied, and she shut off the communication. When she rounded a building, she almost flew into a falling woman, the source of the screaming. Adrenaline rushed in and she dove to catch the woman. She caught up to her ten floors from the ground, absorbing the momentum by rolling in the air and speeding up.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
The woman flipped her wind-blown hair away from her face and cocked her head at her rescuer. "Thanks," she said calmly.
Mallory shook her head. "Really, Lois? He hasn't even been gone for a week and you're already falling out of buildings?"
Lois smiled and shrugged. "What can I say? It does wonders for clearing your head."
Mallory landed on the nearest roof and set the woman down gently. "All right, how'd it happen?" she asked.
Lois grinned. "Let's just say our police commissioner is going to have a lot of answer for when this tape comes out with the best police corruption article in history in tomorrow's paper." She paused and added, "with my name under it, of course."
"Of course," Mallory muttered. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm just glad I was in the neighborhood. Superman would have killed us both if he came back and found out that you went and got yourself killed and I wasn't around to save you."
Lois chuckled and sat on the ledge, writing notes in her notebook. "How about an interview from the woman who saved the woman of the day?" she asked teasingly.
Mallory shook her head. "Lois, I'm serious. I don't have super hearing, or speed. I can't always be listening for you while I'm in class or at the cave."
"That shouldn't be a problem, considering you never do anything but patrol anymore," the older woman quipped.
"Yeah, if I were you I wouldn't try for a lecture on living my life to the fullest right now when me patrolling overtime is the only reason you're still here to point it out."
The reporter shrugged. "Touche," she said. "All right, how about this. When I'm going out on assignment, I'll give you or Conner a call, you can come along and keep an eye on me."
Mallory smiled and nodded. "Ok, as long as you don't forget," she said.
Lois nodded and continued, "but I need you to promise to go have some fun every now and then. There's police in the city for a reason. Let them do their jobs, they're better at it than you seem to think."
Mallory chuckled. "Ok, deal. Do you want a ride home? It's on the way to campus."
The reporter shook her head. "No, thanks, but I'm not going home. If you could drop me on the Planet roof, I have a story to write."
Mallory nodded and picked Lois up, and they flew a few buildings down to the Planet's roof. The reporter produced a skeleton key and let herself into the building, and Mallory jumped off the roof and flew towards the college campus, ready to finally let herself relax and get some long-overdue sleep.
Later that week, Mallory was sitting at her desk in her dorm room when Jen burst into the room, a huge grin on her face. "You'll never guess where we're going tonight!" she said, practically hopping over to her friend.
Mallory pushed her book away from her and turned in her chair. "Probably not, so just tell me," she said, smiling. Jen held up two tickets, but she was waving them around too much for Mallory to read them. The pyrokinetic grabbed her friend's wrist and pulled her arm closer, laughing at Jen's excitement. She understood as soon as she read what the tickets were for. "No way! You got tickets for the Cassidy concert? I thought they were sold out ages ago," she said.
"They were, but Brandon's cousin works with the stadium, and they had some very last minute cancellations, so he got them for us!"
"How much are they?" Mallory asked.
"Nothing, Brandon paid for them. He got six, so it'll be us, him, Seth and Anna, and Alex." She was watching Mallory's face when she said Alex's name, looking for a reaction.
Mallory just smiled and stood up, going to her closet. "That sounds great. What do you think I should wear?" It was snowing outside, had been for most of the day, so Mallory pulled out some black cargo pants, a sheer antique top, and a leather jacket. "This look warm enough?" the pyrokinetic asked. She could control her body temperature, so the cold wasn't a problem, but she still needed to blend in.
"Yeah, it looks great," Jen replied, going to her own closet to pick out some clothes. "So," she said nonchalantly, "what happened between you and Alex?"
Mallory shook her head. "Nothing, we're still friends."
"You know what I mean. For a while it seemed like you were going to be more than friends, and then it just stopped. What happened?"
Mallory sighed. "The world just got a little crazy, and it never slowed down. Besides, I don't think it's a good idea to date someone that isn't connected to my work. It wouldn't be fair to have to keep that many secrets from them. Are you ready?"
Jen looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. "Just need to touch up my makeup. You might want to run a brush through your hair or something."
Mallory glanced at her reflection and grabbed her brush and makeup off the counter to finish getting ready.
Four hours later, the group was sitting inside at a sidewalk cafe, needing a break from the cold before continuing on to campus. They all ordered hot beverages and snacks and settled in at a table in a corner.
"It was better than even I was expecting!" Anna said as she sat down next to Seth.
Mallory found herself in between Jen and Alex. She shrugged off her coat and put it on the back of her chair. "The effects were great. I'm surprised she still works with fire after what happened to her in Gotham," she replied. The singer was known for her fire-themed songs and the use of fire on stage as special effects, but she'd attracted the villain Fire Fly a few months before.
"I know, I think I'd be scarred after something like that!" Jen said.
"It's a good thing Batman was there, or she probably would have been," Mallory mentioned as their drinks arrived. Anna made a face, and Mallory tilted her head. "What?" she asked.
"Well, it's not like he was her only hope," the girl said, her tone a little condescending.
"I didn't say he was, but the story was that he stopped Fire Fly from burning Gotham and kidnapping her. If the police had been involved, he could have gotten scared and moved up his timeline."
Seth and Brandon's faces changed, and Seth said, "you talk like you actually like him."
Mallory smiled a little. "Please, he's not my favorite hero, but he works well with Gotham. I mean, have you ever been there?"
"So, you still think that superheroes are the angels that they pretend to be," Anna said flatly.
Mallory scrunched her eyebrows together slightly, confused at the turn in the conversation. "I don't think they're pretending to be angels," she said deliberately, refusing to back down, "I think they're basically good people trying to do a hard job the best they can."
"What about all the stuff that has come out about them lately? You can't tell me that you still think of them in the same way."
"What stuff are you talking about? I haven't seen anything that would shake my faith in them."
"There are aliens pretending to be important people, and you don't think there's questions that need to be answered?" Seth asked.
"They already have been answered!" Mallory said, her tone becoming a little more argumentative to match the others'. "The League gave the governments detection devices, didn't they? What more can you really expect them to do? It's not like they're the ones posing as people!"
"Oh, aren't they? Who's to say who Superman is when he's not in the costume? Or Martian Manhunter? He can shapeshift into anyone or anything. Besides, how did they come up with the tech to detect aliens so fast if they didn't have a heads up about the threat?"
Mallory laughed dryly, recognizing the words almost exactly from a news broadcast she'd seen. Jen put a hand on her arm below the table, trying to calm her down and get her to drop it, but she pulled away, ignoring her friend. "Are you seriously letting one biased news station do all of your thinking for you? Come on, Godfrey's been making a career out of trying to discredit the League since he got the job!"
"Maybe we should have been listening to him," Anna said.
"Ok, maybe, but Mallory's got a point," Alex said calmly, looking at the pyrokinetic. "They did give the governments the tech, and they would have gotten backlash no matter what they did in the situation. I think we owe them the benefit of the doubt after everything that they've done for us over the years."
Seth scoffed, his face breaking into a smile. "Of course Alex's gonna side with the heroes," he said, grinning. Anna and Brandon chuckled with him, and Alex shrugged and smiled. "You know me," he said.
Mallory let the friends move the conversation on, feeling Jen's eyes burning into the side of her head. They got through the rest of their drinks without the subject coming up, but Mallory couldn't get the conversation out of her head. They thought that the public wouldn't turn on the League so quickly, but they already were. It was going to take a lot to get the peoples' faith back in the League. She looked at Jen as she talked with the others. She hadn't said anything, but the way her friend had tried to shut her down had felt more like an agreement than anything, which bothered her. She tried to put it aside as they bundled up and went back out into the cold, but the feeling stayed with her as they walked back to campus. They got to the outside of the girls' dorm and, while Jen and Anna said goodbye to Brandon and Seth, Mallory turned to Alex.
"Thanks for what you did at the cafe," she said.
He smiled. "Don't worry about it, I would have defended the League anyway. They've been stuck on this since the thing with the Kroloteans. I've tried to tell them that they need to give it some time, but all they can see is what the news has been showing them."
Mallory sighed. "I think that's how most people are these days," she said, more to herself. Jen and Anna were going inside, so Mallory said a quick goodbye to Alex and Brandon before hurrying after them. She caught up with Jen at the elevator, and they rode up in silence.
When they got to the room, Mallory pushed the door open and held it for her friend. Jen went to her closet and started pulling out some comfortable clothes, but Mallory was still standing by the door, the feeling still with her.
"Do you not trust the League?" she asked quietly.
Jen looked up. "What?" she asked.
"Do you agree with Brandon and his friends?" Mallory asked again.
Jen stared at her hesitantly, but Mallory kept her eyes fixed on her until she finally said, "No, or, I don't know."
It didn't make sense to Mallory. "What do you mean, you don't know?" she asked.
"Well, It's hard to trust people that you don't know anything about. For all we know, they could be working to take over the world or something."
Mallory scoffed. "If they wanted to take over the world, they didn't have to wait this long, or form the Justice League. Besides, I know them, and you've heard me talk about them. I trust them all with my life, literally."
Jen nodded. "I know, but…"
Mallory tilted her head. "Do you trust me?" she asked.
"Oh, Mallory, of course! You're my best friend, of course I trust you."
"I wish you would have some faith in the League, then. Jen, they sacrifice so much for people, and then the public just turns on us like this. It's narrow minded and unfair."
"Well, you have to admit, they do keep a lot of secrets from people, and when the news finally uncovers some, they go run and hide."
"So does the government and the military, and no one really talks about that!" Mallory pointed out. "Besides, we aren't keeping as many secrets as people seem to think we are. At least, not dangerous ones. We didn't know about the Kroloteans until the night before the public did, some of us didn't even find out until the news story came out. And they got the tech together so fast because the basics of it had existed for years, they just had to make some adjustments."
"You should tell more people that, give them the answers they need," Jen said.
Mallory shook her head. "That would just open us up to more criticism, and we can't take that right now. Besides, we have more important things to do than try to do a popularity battle with some arrogant news guy who doesn't know what he's talking about half the time."
She moved to her closet and started pulling out some clothes to change, not saying anything else on the subject.