More Young Justice Trash

Miscommunication

"How was it?" Clark asked that afternoon as the two of them stared down the slowly filling coffee pot.

Lois perked up, pulled out of her friday-afternoon daze. "Hmm? Oh, the essay? It was cute. A little too professional for what is essentially an opinion piece, but cute." 

"That's nice." Clark replied. "I used to do stuff like that all the time: write about people I admired. Where's the kid from?"

"Somewhere called Happy Harbor, Rhode Island." She shrugged. "I googled it, has a population of like 35k or something tiny like that." Clark's eyebrows raised a quarter inch, but she saw hen rise. "What?"

"What?"

"You were... She gestured at his face. "Doing that look you do when you forgot to call your mom."

"Oh, uh, I was just trying to remember the population of Smallville, to compare." He laughed lightly. "It's definitely less that 3500."

"Clark, the way you talk about it, it sounds like there's a population of twelve!" She shook her head. "I was actually thinking about you earlier."

"Really?" Clark fumbled with his glasses, trying to wipe a smudge off.

She laughed a little. "Not like that. It's because the kid's last name was Kent."

"Oh." Clark got that look again, eyebrows up and jaw tight, like a slightly concerned boarder collie.

"What now?" 

"Nothing." Clark said quickly. "I... uh... I think the coffee's done."

Artemis.

The sweet summer child. 

The same kid who asked for new kneepads for her last birthday.

The same kid who's mother, an ex-assassin, had entrusted her to his care.

"Okay, Ollie, what's wrong?" Dinah sunk onto the sofa beside him, tossing her platinum hair back over her shoulder. "You've barely eaten, you're not talking, are you sulking about something?"

"First: I thought I asked you not to play playground therapist with me." He sighed, siting up. "Second: Look what I found in the laundry." He held out the packets. Dinah grabbed one to inspect. "I asked Roy, but he says he knows nothing about it, so it has to be..."

"They're mine."

"What?"

"I was in that little sex shop of Granville." She said quickly. "They were free samples so I just..."

Oliver didn't think he'd been that relieved since Roy graduated last year. "You mean...?"

"They aren't hers."

He let out the heaviest sigh of his life. "Thank god."

Dinah stuffed the lube packets into her coat pocket. "I'm sure you have nothing to worry about."

"M'gann! Megan!"

"No running!"

Conner forcefully slowed himself to a powerwalk, hastening to where M'gann and her other friends were sitting. "She saw it."

"Who saw what?" Karen asked.

"Lois Lane!"  Conner exclaimed.

 "A journalist we read once in class." M'gann explained, standig from the floor in front of the lockers. "Conner wrote his person-I-admire essay about her. Oh Conner, that's great!" She pulled him into a hug so tight it lifted his toes off the floor. A little sheepish, she put him back down. "Did she tweet about it or something?"

"Better." Conner shook his head. "She emailed me advising me on how to improve my writing."

The circle of  students gave each other unsure looks. "I'm sorry?" Wendy tentatively asked.

"Why?" Conner asked. "This is great, I'm going to copy down her advice before lunch ends."

"Artemis?" Dinah knocked softly on the door. 

"Yeah?"

She pushed the door open. "I think I have something of yours." Curiously, the girl looked up from her homework. Dinah shook the little plastic packets out onto the bedcovers.

Artemis gasped. "Where--"

"Ollie found them in the laundry-- don't worry, I told him they were mine-- but," She pressed one into the kid's hand, "Maybe keep track of that. I think he'd have a heart attack if he ever learned you're dating someone."

"You won't tell him?" She pleaded.

"Our secret." Dinah rested a hand on her head, "Now get changed, you have work tonight."