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But, on the other hand,

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You extend your hand. “I noticed you’re new here. What’s your name?”

Clark’s introducing her around.  “This is my good friend, Diana, she’s in from out of town.”

Clark stops a few feet away and squints at you worriedly from behind those ridiculous glasses you’re 99% sure he doesn’t actually need, and asks tentatively, “Everything all right?”

You ignore him in favor of staring at the inky dark numerals hovering over the beaming fool gesticulating some fantastic yacht story for a gaggle of secretaries and minor columnists.

Meanwhile, your paranoia gets to you. You start working out. Training in self defense. Studying the Justice League, trying to find its members. Finding out all their identities so you can be ready.

One day you wake up with a ten above your head.

That day you get a call. You recognize the area code. Gotham. Your heart is in your throat. You should throw the phone away, run. They’ve found you. You’re doomed. You might be a ten, but you can’t beat them all.

You pick up the phone anyways.

“Hello?”

“Hey, this is Clark Kent. I was wondering if we could talk.”

Your mouth goes dry. “About what?”

But they’d find you. You know they’d find you. They’re goddamned superheroes. They can carry buildings. They could probably manage finding you.

“Hello?” Clark’s voice returns, tinged with concern, and suddenly you stop. Calm down. They’re the good guys. At least they’re supposed to be.

“Yeah, sorry, just a little shocked you–”

“Caught up to you?” Clark asked. He laughed a little, but it wasn’t teasing. His voice had his regular ease, the same casual tone he would employ to talk about the weather in the break room. “Yeah. Lois noticed your odd behavior, actually. We didn’t realize it was linked to the League until you refused to interview Bruce, and then we knew something was up.”

“Speaking of Bruce Wayne, are you using his phone? Your area code is Gotham, not Metropolis.”

Clark laughed. “Damn. Lois wasn’t kidding when she said you were the best investigator working for the Daily Planet.”

“I just notice things is all.” You laughed nervously. You still can’t shake your general unease. This guy could kill you without any effort. You’re no match for him, or for any of his friends for that matter. Hell, Batman didn’t even have powers and he’d still fuck you up.

“Yeah, and that’s a skill we could use around here. Would you like to talk about joining? Bruce can send you a car, bring you here–”

“No,” you say, sharper than you intended. “Sorry. I’d rather meet in public, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course. Lunch or coffee? It’s still early, but it’s a bit easier to cram all of us in a restaurant than a coffee shop.”

“Lunch, I guess. And no superhero stuff.”

Clark pauses, then sighs sadly. You’ve heard this sadness before in rare amounts. When bad things happened and fear and greed overtook people, he’d always frown and sigh, like someone watching their best friend self destruct, unable to help or save them. “You’re afraid of us. Aren’t you?” His voice is concerned and hushed.

A pang of guilt starts to replace the fear. “You can throw around buildings like a sack of potatoes, Clark. Your friend is powerful on an impossible level, Bruce’s kid is a fucking eight–”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Clark said, the sadness disappearing. “You have a number system for us?”

“Look, it’s a whole thing. I’ll talk about it over lunch.” You grab your laptop bag. “Where are we meeting?”

Clark said something to someone else. “Got any restaurant ideas? They want lunch.”

Bruce Wayne – you’ve heard enough interviews to recognize his voice – said, “Saffron’s pretty good.”

“Jesus,” someone else said. You’ve heard the voice, but you couldn’t place it. “I keep on forgetting you’re rich.”

“You don’t think it’s a little much, Bruce? The pay at Daily Planet is good but not that good,” said Clark.

“I’ll cover their tab.”

“Okay…” Clark returned to the call. “Saffron, in…thirty minutes? You’re downtown, right?”

“You can get a table to Saffron in thirty minutes?” said the strange voice. “Boy, am I glad I made friends with you guys.”

“Yeah, that works.” You’re a bit hesitant, but you swallow your nerves. At least for now. Your thoughts about threat levels made you forget that Clark is a decent guy. All you could do is hope that he thinks you’re decent, too. “See you then.”

“See you then. Be safe. Bye.” Clark hangs up, and you’re left in your room. The worry is starting to turn into something different. Excitement.

They aren’t wearing masks or uniforms, no bright colors and costumes. Clark Kent is in his usual office wear, Bruce Wayne is wearing a tailored suit, Diana Prince dons a nice blue dress, and Oliver Queen wears a nice button down. You don’t recognize two of them – a twenty something in jeans and a hoodie, a man in a green shirt, and a burly guy in a baggy t-shirt and old jeans who looks like he had just washed up from the sea. All of them, aside from Diana, are tens, of course.

Clark Kent stands, shakes your hand when you come in. “Glad to see you made it.” He introduces you to the others, and they all shake your hand quite happily and greet you like a friend. You learn that the guy in the hoodie is Barry Allen, the dude in green is Hal Jordan, and the beach dude is Arthur Curry. Waitresses, all ones, twos, and threes, come in with drinks, and one plops a mug of coffee in front of you, along with a small menu. Clark Kent gives you a knowing gaze.

Once the waitresses clear out, Bruce sits up straight. “Clark, would you rather I do the honors?” His silver watch glitters in the light from the windows.

“No, no, Bruce,” Clark says, setting down his glass of water. “I think it’s best if I ask them myself.”

Within a moment, you piece it together. “You want me to join the Justice League?”

Clark Kent cracks a smile. “How’d you guess?”

“You call me out of the blue, mention the Justice League, invite me to Bruce Wayne’s place, and then here, where you introduce me to a group of people who all look strikingly similar to the members of the Justice League.” You take a sip of coffee. “Subtlety is hardly your strong suit.”

Barry Allen laughed. “They got you there on that one.”

“Well, you’re right. At first Bruce wanted to handle the situation himself,” – you’d rather not think about what handle was a euphemism for – “but I insisted we do some more digging. We did, and what we found was…surprising. To say the least.”

You look at him oddly. You aren’t normal – no one else saw numbers floating above people’s heads – but you weren’t surprising. Your parents were the only ones who knew about your ability, and they’re long gone. You’ve got no checkered past, no odd history–

“You have powers.” Clark’s voice was clearly impressed.

“How did you find out about that?” The fear comes back, forming a knot in your stomach. “I’ve never told anyone else about it.”

“It’s not hard to notice,” Barry Allen says in between sips of soda. “Most of the information we got we got from Lois after she’s hung out with you.”

“I’ve never her told her anything about the numbers, though.”

Oliver Queen sits up, flashing you a confused look. “Numbers?”

Okay, something’s not right here. “The number I see over everyone’s heads,” you say, keeping your voice low. “It ties into how dangerous everyone is. Usually it’s just a one or two, maybe a three or four or five if they’ve got some kind of training or if they work out or whatever. Almost everyone at this table has a ten.”

“Almost?” Diana furrows her brow.

“You have an eleven,” you add.

Diana nods, smiling with a bit of pride and making an “I told you so” face to Bruce Wayne, who rolls his eyes. Oliver Queen clears his throat as Bruce and Hal pass him a couple bills.

“Ignore them,” Barry says, rolling his eyes at the three of them. “What you said was interesting – I might have to ask you a few questions on that later – but it wasn’t what I found. Remember the sensory and memory study you did when you were ten?”

You do remember it. Your parents were contacted by a scientist friend of theirs who needed kids to run a study on memory and stimuli. You remember it clearly. The large sterile room, the tests, the person conducting them, a handsome woman with a four above her head, the questions, the smell of latex gloves and fresh bleach. But you don’t remember the results. You were never told the results, other than that they were good, though with a test like that it was hard to say.

“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.” the statement, though barely a whisper, made Clark pivot. 

Tears were welling now and it was starting to get hard to see the food in front of me. Bruce rests his chin on his clasped hands, “We know this may all come as a shock to you, as it did for many of us, both about you and about ourselves.” There were nods around the table.

Diana stepped up and placed a warm hand on my shoulder, “It’s a burden and often, it does push us to extremes, but it makes us stronger, mind and soul.” 

Are you kidding me? You think, this can’t be happening. “I’m not like all of you!” The shout brings with it, glares from farther away tables, but the music keeps playing and everyone goes back to their dinners. Clark sits down again with a frown on his face, casting a concerned look at the others.

The waitress comes then, a welcome reprieve, so normal. A simple 2 above her head. Green eyes, blonde pig tails, probably no taller than yourself. Her lips a dull red. She puts a pitcher of water down with a couple of glasses. “If your needin’ anything else, please, lemme know.” Her voice lower pitch, southern I think. Why can’t I be more like her? More normal… Why?

As soon as the waitress left, each of them tried to figure out what to say next, but when nothing was forthcoming, Barry piped up, “Doing some digging we were able to find that blah, blahblah blah-” You stopped paying attention. They can catch planes, stop trains, and even scale mountains in a few seconds. What could I even do? You lose track of time, your expression lost as you stared aimlessly into your water. The music was so, normal. The man singing. Everything but them. The song was Luck be a Lady, something you listened to once in a while. Frank Loesser I think it was, 1950. I laughed to myself for a moment, such a peaceful song. 

I hardly realized that Barry stopped talking, they all were focused on the singer. No one was looking at me, save Bruce who only gave an occasional glance. All of them were smiling. So happy. Even after dropping all this on you. The thought made you scowl but the music was quickly turning the mood. “Beautiful.” Hal put in. And it was… 

The time passed, the song drawing to an end. Everyone clapped, then, there they were, eyes back on me. “You really enjoyed the song didn’t you?” Bruce said looking to his wine now. “It’s calmed me down a bit. Yah.” This can’t be all bad you think, they are the good guys after all. “But… what makes you think I even should be… you know, super.” The word hung for a moment, Hal pointed his finger to the air, hand over his heart , “Because with great power, comes great responsibility.” As he said it, he chuckled to himself and looked to the others. 

I couldn’t help but start laughing, first a chuckle, then it grows until it catches on with the rest of them. After it all dies down you look to Clark, “But what do I do? So I can remember stuff pretty good and I see numbers about danger levels. How does that help at all?” Clark paused for a moment then said, “Identifying criminals.” Barry cut in, “You could help me! I’m a detective.” “You seemed to be able to pick us from a crowd, why not villains?”Arthur put in. Bruce looked to you “What exactly can you identify about people? Is it short term?” 

The questions came so quickly. After answering the first few you could feel your voice straining. “Clark, could I get some more water please?” The pitcher was empty now and Clark just gave a reassuring, “Of course” accompanied by a warm smile. Barry came up again pointing to the waitress, “What about our foxy waitress over there? anything you can tell us about her?” I let my vision linger on him for a moment with a crooked eyebrow. “You don’t have to.” Diana spoke. I wave at her, “It’s fine.” The two came back to the table now, “What can I getcha?” the waitress offered with a sly wink. 

 “What..” 

What did she just say?

Something so subtle… Her voice was off by an octave. Where was that southern accent? Glistening black lipstick?? A quick glance around told me everyone was simply waiting on my reply, Barry on the edge of his seat. I slowly looked back to her, she’s leaning in. Her eyes! Not right! Blue?!? 

Clark seeing my concern, tries to make sense of my heartbeat and furrowed brow. Then I froze. I must have skipped a beat. My eyes wide open. There. Above her head. Nine??

“I said,” She cocked her head to the side, a wide smile on her face, 

Image: Twitter post by ‘la sirena’ (@venusin12th)

Text:

If you really want to do something, do this: don’t try to defend or stand by and do nothing while other men do the shit that makes us complain about them.

If your guy friends are harassing a woman, being disrespectful to them, or just “boys being boys”, don’t sit there and do nothing. Don’t defend them. You’re just as bad as them.

Tell them to stop, tell them it’s not right, help her, step up.