Her sweet sixteenth birthday: Hope wakes up earlier than her parents, and curiosity lures her out of her bed, and down the stairs. She quickly makes sure that her parents haven't planned any sort of surprise party (the idea of it makes her shudder), and is satisfied when she can't find any mass quantities of streamers or paper cups and plates. Diana and Clark of course would have loved to give Hope a huge birthday party, would have invited half the League and all—but Hope, who is maybe different from her childhood years, is not so different in that she still hates parties: parties where everyone always thinks they know so much about her, and always waiting anxiously for her to entertain them.
There are presents in the living room, mounds of them, presents from people she has always disliked and people she has never met. As always, Hope has the sneaking sensation that these people are merely trying to curry favor with her parents, rather than really trying to send her their care on her birthday. And some of them, she thinks, are not doing it just to get in good with Superman or Wonder Woman alone, but are already planning what best-buds they'll be with the daughter—after all, what better future insurance could there be?
"Stop thinking like that." Hope whispers to herself, and in spite of her self-imposed maturity, she finds her hands drifting over the brightly wrapped things, turning some this way and that, looking for something, anything from Bruce. When she's gone halfway through the different piles, and light is starting to show, filling the windows of the houses, Hope knows that she should get back to bed—her parents will be disappointed if they know she's seen her mountains of gifts, and she has to remember to act surprised, if only for their sake. Slightly worried (though convincing herself that Bruce probably sent her an entire pile by himself, that she just hadn't gotten to it) Hope quickly and quietly goes back upstairs to her bed, and pretends to sleep.
Not too long afterwards, she can hear her parents wake, hears her mother's footsteps padding down the stairs and the start of the coffee machine, hears her father speaking softly with her, and they share a laugh. Hope thinks for a second that she could hear Bruce's name in there somewhere, but the conversation is lost as there is shuffling downstairs. There are footsteps, heavier, her father's, coming up the stairs, and Hope finds that smooth equilibrium that it takes to pretend one is asleep: her eyes are closed gently, not squinted, and her mouth just barely open. Of course, it's more difficult to fool her father than maybe someone else's father, and she even focuses on slowing her heart, just a bit.
"Hope?" He calls, gentle as always, and comes to her. With large hands, which are slowly beginning to lose the calluses of decades of rough work, her father brushes her hair back, and she turns to him, smiling. "Hey there birthday girl," Clark greets her in the way that he has greeted her once every year for the past fifteen years (ironically, as human tradition would have it, this wasn't said on her one true birthday).
"No surprise party or anything right?"
"No surprise party," Her father affirms, and laughs. "I don't know when you're going to grow out of not liking people, you know?" And though his voice is full of innocent mirth, Hope understands that this really is something that he thinks about. "Must be hanging around uncle Bruce too much."
"He's not my uncle," Hope groans, and her father laughs again: they go through the traces that they've both known for these years. "So anyway, what did he get me?" She knows that her father won't tell, that he likes the surprise maybe more than she does, but asks anyway. It only piques her interest further when her father half sighs and shakes his head—not in a completely joking manner.
"You'll see soon enough," He offers, and ends it with a smirk, though Hope imagines that there is a bit of something like nostalgia in it. A bit of: my baby is growing up too fast, she thinks, but doesn't resent her father for it. "So, should I carry the birthday girl downstairs to her presents?"
"Please, I know how mom is. She'll be down there waiting with a camera to take three rolls of film of me in my pajamas—so that the both of you can show half the world." Hope grumbles this out in mock annoyance, and finishes with a smile. Her father does not disagree with this, even nods a bit. "I'll be down in a minute." After her father leaves, the teenaged girl nearly flies into her clothes, and in her haste yanks on a shirt first inside out, and then rights it. Fighting the urge to run and jump down all the stairs at once (and she has taught herself to do this, mostly without any help from her superhuman abilities) Hope confines herself to a steady walk, and pretends to still be wiping the sleep from her eyes as she enters the kitchen.
There is a large cake set up, and though her parents normally enforce a healthy eating habit for her (which she doesn't have a problem with—Hope was never too fond of junk food to begin with) her birthday is the only day a year where she can start off with something so sugary and unhealthy. Her parents sing her Happy Birthday, and though Hope wishes Bruce were there to sing with them, she knows that he has pressing issues back in Gotham (and also knows that the fact that he is missing her birthday because of them is undoubtedly making him a very difficult person to be around right then). To her knowledge, Bruce Wayne's own company, as well as other companies within the city that he had always been active in, is trying to unseat him—ready to rip all his influence and power out from under him. This isn't really shocking, though it does inspire a dull anger in Hope: after what happened a decade and a half ago, there was a rush to remove meta-humans from power—and though Bruce Wayne is nothing but human, his presence still makes them uneasy.
The day goes smoothly enough, and Hope spends nearly three hours just to open her gifts. There are only a rare few that she finds are things that she will ever make use of—the rest is mostly either stuff thrown in just to give her parents a laugh, completely random tidbits from the more eccentric Justice League members, and even a good deal of clothes (most of which Hope plans to donate to a local orphanage, as soon as the chance arises). It isn't merely the opening that takes so long, but also the recording: a list (which is now several pages long) is made with the name of each gift-sender, as well as their present—though Hope enjoys her birthdays, the process of sending thank-you letters (which her mother has insisted on since she was old enough to write them) is quite possibly the most dreaded thing of her progressing life.
Finally, with the last gifts unwrapped and sorted, Hope sits with a scowl on her face, doing a mental check over her presents: Bruce Wayne's was not among them. Bruce would never forget to send her a present—she knows that, as sure as she knows that the sun rises in the east, and that moss grows on the north side of trees (as long as you're in the northern hemisphere). A horrible, fleeting idea passes before her mind: What if Bruce Wayne has died? What if Bruce is dead, and her parents feared to tell her, in case what happened eight years ago would happen again? Her father saves her from this brief anguish by sighing, and looking towards her mother.
Almost as if on cue, Hope hears the sound of a helicopter, or many helicopters, their wings beating hard and heavy in the air.
"What's that?" Hope asks, concerned but not afraid—her parents do not look shocked or worried, but merely hold each other's hands.
"We were thinking about sending your uncle's present back," Her mother says, looking at her father out of the corner of her eyes. Hope looks anxiously between the two of them, and knows that the helicopters and Bruce's present have something to do with each other. "But we decided that that would be… too over-protective."
"Here you go, kid." Clark hands her a small present, wrapped neatly in dark red paper that is almost satiny to the touch. The noise of the helicopters distracts her, and she wonders what would be inside of such a small present that they would ever think about sending back-
-and then she understands.
And you're supposed to be bright, Hope tries to scold herself, but doesn't have the heart too—her fingers are working fast, tearing away the expensive wrapping paper, until what's left is a small leather case. Unable to stop the yell that climbs it's way into her throat, Hope let's out a whooping howl when she seems the emblem engraved on the dark leather front: a rearing silver horse, mane and tail flying. Without hesitating, she pops open the case to find a perfectly nestled key, attached to a key-chain with the same Ferrari logo.
She's on her feet without thinking, running for the front door (hurdling over the piles of sorted presents). Within moments she is standing outside in their expansive front lawn, watching a huge helicopter touch down—a helicopter that is so loud that it could drown out the sound of several smaller ones. It is black, sleek looking despite its size: perfectly and undoubtedly sent by Bruce. When the side hatch opens, several men stand back as a bright, cherry red Ferrari purrs its way down the ramp, coming to a stop not far from the family of Kents (or, to be wholly correct, Kent-Prices). Hope is barely listening as a man comes to her, shakes her hand, starts riddling off facts. She catches that it's a 2015 (making it about a year or so before its release date) 12-cylinder Maranello convertible.
Bruce Wayne always gives the best presents.
It is at this point that Hope begins to plan her first great journey—Clark and Diana both recognize the almost-wild look in her eyes, and know that inch by inch, Hope is preparing to shrug off their values and morals, so that she can learn them for herself, the way every child must before they become an adult. It's not an easy thing to see for any parent, and no parent is ever really ready for their child's first great freedom, but they know better than to stand in their daughter's way. Part of Clark, and part of Diana as well, resents this gift, feels sullen and somewhat sour anger at Bruce for this. On one hand, it is an amazing (and of course stylish) birthday gift for their now 16-year-old daughter: on the other hand, however, neither of them would deny that it's also a message, loud and clear.
The message is that Hope must be allowed to decide her own fate, must be allowed to progress and grow for herself, must—if she is to be a leader, if she is to live up to the name that she was born with—be allowed perhaps greater freedoms than Diana and Clark feel ready (and, as before: no parent is ever really ready) to permit.
Ironically, or maybe as some kind of appeasement, knowing that his main gift will certainly not sit well with Hope's parents: Bruce also sends another fairly expensive present—a small cellular phone with unprecedented access, able to receive service from inside of a lead building, or under stories of mountains, with a plan that supports calls from all over the globe.
Clark, despite his slight nausea, has to stifle a laugh.
