First Meetings – The Daily Planet
"…show her what it means. Blue. Blue! Fucking hell in a handbasket how can you be so blind you can't tell what fucking blue is? Damned idiots…" the voice kept going on like this, using profanity that would make his mother wash his mouth out with soap. It was an obviously feminine voice, even while it used harsh words too low to be heard by a normal human.
Clark followed the cussing to the small group which included his desk. "Hello?" he asked politely. The feet he had finally tracked down stopped their small movements meant to help leverage whoever was doing whatever underneath Lois Lane's desk. "Ummm…do you need help down there?" he called in the same tone, carefully setting down his briefcase.
The feet – blue jean covered legs with well-used black sneakers – resumed their shuffling movements to help the woman angle her upper body, which had yet to move out from under the other reporter's desk. "No. Thank you." Her voice was louder in her reply. Polite, but only slightly less harsh than her cursing. "I'm just trying to fix Mrs Lane's printer issue."
"Oh." Clark shifted his glasses higher on his nose as he continued to gaze down at the pair of feet. "Yeah, she's been complaining about it for the last week or so. I remember. I bet she'll really appreciate your help."
"Wouldn't need fixing if the damnedable woman did what any fucking tech told her the first damned time she asked," back to a barely audible mutter that Clark pretended not to hear. Louder she said, "Uh huh. That's the plan."
"Hey Kent!" Lois came smiling over. Her tone filled with humor when she spotted where his attention was directed. "I see you've met the new IT tech."
Clark nodded. "Indeed, I have. Though we've yet to be introduced, she has nice shoes."
Lois snorted. "You wouldn't know a nice pair of shoes if they bit you, farm boy. That's Faith Ridwell."
"Not even close you moron," the mutter from under the desk was again too soft for human ears. "I may wear three year old shoes, but they're comfortable, don't make noise when I walk, aren't annoying, and I can run in them. None of which you can say, you harridan. Shit on a shingle! How can you have three cables going absolutely fucking nowhere and another two that aren't even supposed to be here?!"
"How much longer will it be, Faith?" Lois called down. "I've got a deadline today."
Mutters, "Jesus H. Christ, she has no idea the hell that is down here. I only got here ten minutes ago! Who does she think I am, Saint Hope of the Impossible?" Louder she answered Lois, "I suggest you either borrow someone else's computer, or go find a pen."
"Pin? I don't have a pin code for anything, let alone a computer. Unless you mean the front security door? Are there any available computers not in use?" Lois was obviously confused.
"P-E-N. Noun. A writing implement used to apply ink to a surface, usually paper. You could also use a pencil, though statistically pens are easier to find."
Lois' face flamed and her mouth tightened in anger. She didn't speak for a full minute before she turned to him. "Clark?"
"Yeah," he answered the unasked question and handed her a few blank pages of copy paper from the instigating printer's drawer, as well as the nearest black pen.
"I'll be in the break room when it's ready," she gritted, stalking off.
"Uh huh, keep dreaming Lady McFuckUp." A sigh. "God, where the hell does this one go? Seriously, who did this install? I'm gonna make them watch Barney & Friends…" A pause. "Did no one fucking label anything?!" All of which was said under the woman's breath.
"Are you sure I can't help?" Clark asked, kneeling down to get a better angle to see who was speaking. Now that Lois was off with no chance of returning anytime soon, he didn't feel as self-conscious in his observation.
"Not unless you can find me the original plans for this…mess," she said the last word as if it were an expletive.
He nodded his understanding and suggested instead, "Sorry, but I can keep you company while you work."
"Don't you have your own deadline, Mr Kent?"
His eyebrows rose at her knowing his name, then remembered that Lois had said it earlier. Earlier by several minutes in fact. This woman could multitask well and retain information. Such was unusual enough by human standards to be notable. "I'm actually early for once. It's no trouble."
"Fine. Suit yourself. Here, hold this." A hand came out clutching a bundle of wires, both thick and thin, with at least three different ends he could see.
Obediently, Clark grabbed the wires. "So, are you going to introduce yourself?"
A head half appeared, looking at him sideways. Her coloring was remarkably similar to Lois Lane's, but a shade or two off. Her eyes were more hazel and her hair darker. She gazed at him for a second or two, blinking with incredulousness, before disappearing back behind and under again. Her hands had never left whatever they were holding out of his line of sight. "Hope."
"How long have you worked at the Daily Planet, Hope?" he prompted after she didn't continue.
"What time is it?"
He looked at his watch. "9:48am."
"Forty-eight minutes."
He blinked back at her. "Pardon?"
"I've worked here for forty-eight minutes. Officially, at least." Her body stretched as she reached for something. "There you are you stubborn, vindictive cretin! I've got you now!" Her hand thrust a wire at him again, "Hold this and don't lose it in the ones I already gave you."
"Yes ma'am." He smirked at her, amused at her in spite of the language. "I'm surprised you're doing anything other than paperwork on your first day."
"Well," she grunted as she stretched into a tight place, reaching for something again out of her reach above her head based on what her feet were doing to help get her in the required position, "Mr. White wanted his star reporter to have her printer back. I'm currently the only IT person in the building. And HR managed to snag me when I came in at 7."
He blinked. "Why'd you come in so early?"
"I wanted to see how much work I had ahead of me. That and to make sure I knew where the essentials were." Her hand came back out of the desk, this time empty. He handed her the last wire she'd given him to hold. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," he replied automatically. "That was the one you wanted, correct?"
"Yup," she said. "Almost done down here, I think."
"Nice. Lois will be happy."
"I said 'done down here'. After the cables are connected to actual places instead of thin air, I have to make sure everything is installed properly and run test pages, et cetera." She made a small humming sound in the back of her throat. "Gotcha, you little dickens! Now screw you…and…stay. That should hopefully be the right connection input…" She began to butt-crawl backward, her hands coming up to feel where the edge of the desk lay in order to avoid hitting it as she rose.
Without the darkness of the shadows, he noticed her hair was lighter, and closer to Lois', than he'd thought at first. Her eyes were more green than he'd seen too. He smiled at her and held out a hand. "Clark Kent."
"Hope Kramer." She dropped his hand just as quickly as she'd grabbed it; practically falling into the available rolling chair to begin messing with Lois' computer.
"Out of curiosity, do you always swear so much?"
She glanced at him, surprised. "You heard that? Sorry." She refocused on the screen, her right hand on the mouse and left on the keyboard. "I try to make sure it's a low enough volume so no one hears me. It's a way to vent frustration. Otherwise, I tend to start doing things better left to the imagination."
"Such as?"
"Erasing someone's identity because they put a credit card in their disk drive. Uploading a virus to forever make a computer slower than an eight-and-a-half inch floppy. Cramming peanut butter into their air vent because they wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Printing 72-point font signs labelling everything 'do not attempt to fix yourself' in capital letters. You know, the classics."
He couldn't help himself; he laughed.
She smiled at him as she closed the windows she'd been using and pushed back from the desk. "Mrs. Lane should be able to print now. Please don't attempt to fix it yourselves if it still doesn't work."
He chuckled at the reiteration. "How about turning it off and back on again?"
"Only if you want to push your luck, Mr. Kent." She stood and began to walk away backwards, still smiling at him.
"Clark," he corrected. All she did was nod and turn right-way around. When she finally made it around a corner, he got to his feet to go get Lois.
Second Meetings
Perry White gave a loud exclamation, drawing everyone's attention in the immediate vicinity, right before there was a muted half-explosion and smoke began to billow from his desktop.
Clark was the first to his boss's side, pulling him away from the small flames. A short, sharp exhale of superhuman force denied it oxygen long enough to go out. There was already a smell of smoke in the air, along with electrical discharge. He was surprised that the smoke alarms hadn't come on, but was grateful. He didn't want to be drying out the entire floor after the sprinklers came on for such a small fire. "Are you alright, sir?"
"Yes, I'm fine Kent. Thank you." The man growled, understandably irritable. He picked up the phone, dialed an extension from memory, and yelled, "Kramer, get up here!"
"Wha-?" Clark heard briefly through the phone before Perry hung up.
"Are you sure you're alright Mr. White?"
"I'm fine! But this damned thing just lost all of tomorrow's layout!"
"Didn't you save?" Hope asked as she entered the office at almost a run. "Or at least have auto-save enabled?" She sniffed and jerked. "What the hell happened?" It had been almost seven months since Clark first met her, but she didn't look any different. Same jeans and sneakers. Hair in the same style as before: pulled back in a tight French braid.
"How the hell am I supposed to know?" He screamed at her. "It's your job to keep these things in top shape, damn it! Now I've lost hours of work due to your negligence!"
Hope's mouth tightened in anger as she froze, looking at her boss with narrowed eyes. If her eyes could glare daggers, Perry White would've been cut to ribbons. "Sir," she said through clenched teeth, "did you back up to the cloud?"
"I don't have time for that!" he retorted.
"Fine. I'll do what I can."
"Huh," he snorted derisively. "You do that, Kramer. Or you're fired!" He marched out.
Clark blinked, shocked by the interchange. "Did something happen between you and Mr. White?" It seemed to be an extreme reaction over something relatively small. Inconvenient, but not a firing offense.
He'd seen her briefly in the seven months she'd worked at The Planet, but it was only the usual required pleasantries since their first meeting. While she intrigued him, he'd been too busy with one thing or another, either as Clark Kent or Superman, to take the time to have another conversation. So, something could've easily happened between the techy and director and Clark not know.
Though gossip being what it was, he should've still heard about it. Unless Hope was better at keeping things to herself than one would think, being a staff member of a prominent paper. Clark already knew that White was good at keeping secrets. As the editor/director of The Daily Planet, it was practically a job requirement.
Hope visibly tried to calm as she took her place in the chair. "I apparently have 'unreasonable demands' regarding updating software and equipment." Her eyes widened in shock when she saw the melted wires. "Good grief, this could've gotten out of hand in a hurry." She looked up at him with an expression he couldn't quite put his finger on, but said nothing. She pulled out a handful of bits of wire from a pocket and a Swiss Army knife from another as she focused back to the pile of mangled plastic.
"You came prepared."
"Well, as much as he likes to yell and blame me, once I figured out he wouldn't upgrade until things literally fell apart, I began to carry around common replacement parts and tools." With quick efficiency, she spliced the new wires where the melted made been. Then she attempted to restart the computer. "Come on, sweetie, you can do it," she crooned.
"No profanity?" he teased.
"Nah. It's not the computer's fault that Mr. White won't listen. It's doing the best it can with what it's got. Just like everyone, I suppose." He blinked at the philosophical segue as her fingers flew over the keys. "Ah ha, there we go." A document came up, presumably the one White had been working on when the meltdown occurred. She immediately saved and transferred the file to the Planet's cloud storage system she herself had originally set up for the company. Clark had heard, and overheard, many thanking the system in the time sense its inception. If anyone knew who'd thought it up or maintained it, he'd bet Mrs. Kramer would have a lot more friends than she currently did. Making firing her an almost protest-worthy offense. However, he doubted that Hope thought in political terms like that.
"There! Now…what made you go nuclear?" she muttered to herself as she began to hunt through coding.
"Can I help?" Clark offered.
"Shut up."
"Right. Sorry."
She blinked, focusing on him with a noticeable effort. Sighed. "Sorry, but finding what caused this will take a lot of concentration. Quiet helps."
He smiled, indicating he wasn't offended. "I understand. I'll let you work." He left, gently closing the office door behind him to block as much sound as it was capable. He doubted she noticed, having already started glaring at the screen yet again.
With an inward smile, he wandered to the coffee machine and decided to drop a juicy piece of gossip or three…
Third Meetings
"MRS. LANE! If you don't stop deliberately trying to bypass my system, I'll make you fix your own issues!" Hope Kramer's voice yelled over even the usual din.
"I need it to research for my story!" Lois shouted back.
"You have no idea what programs are on the dark web, Mrs. Lane. Those hackers won't even bother laughing as they melt it all down!"
"You're being overly dramatic!"
"No, I'm being smart, you curious—"
"Woah!" Clark jumped into the middle of the two so similar appearing females who were facing against one another with postures suggestive of a real bullpen. That or an arena. "Ladies!"
He knew by Hope's tone that she'd been about to cuss Lois to the best of her considerable ability, probably resulting in a loss of employment. Perry liked Lois too much to tolerate such insubordination, no matter how fast and efficient—and liked by most, if in a tertiary fashion, due to his own gossip-dropping comments—Hope had become in the year since she joined The Planet. He also knew Lois well enough that the reporter wasn't going to back down, no matter what anyone said to the contrary.
The rest of the bullpen had stopped to watch the quickly escalating fight between two beautiful women. Clark heard one group on the far side of the room taking bets. Several were muttering about popcorn.
Hope continued to glare at Lois before saying in tightly controlled tones, "Will you at least let me isolate your computer from the network so that when you do get a Lorainna Bobbitt virus it won't kill the entire building?"
"That sounds reasonable. Lois?" Clark said.
"Fine! Take her side!" the woman stalked off.
"I'm not taking—" he sighed, cutting himself off as she never slowed. "That went well."
Hope snorted derisively. "That woman is a—" it was her turn to cut herself off, glaring at the desktop screen as she set about doing whatever it was she intended.
He watched her for several long minutes, listening to the sharp staccato of keys. The rest of the room had groaned at the end of their entertainment and moved back to doing their jobs. So when he asked the question, he was reasonably sure only she could hear him or was even paying attention to their small corner of the room anymore. "Why don't you like Lois?"
Hope shot him a quick look. "She's an excellent reporter." As if that explained everything.
"Then why—"
She continued, "She's a terrible friend. Everything is always about her."
"That's not true."
"She's curious."
"That's not a bad thing."
"For a reporter. A friend should be able to not just keep secrets, but also let you keep some to yourself. Not push you and keep pushing until you tell her everything. There's no reason for her to know everything about a person just because she thinks she has the right."
Clark grimaced, conceding the point. He waited. "What else?"
Hope glanced at him. "That's not enough? Ego-centric. Curious to a fault. She's also an adrenaline junkie, searching for that next big high of danger. Someday it's going to get her killed." She sighed, suddenly drained of her anger. "Lois Lane is an absolutely brilliant reporter. She's married to her work. Her entire world is the news. Which means she's leading on that poor bastard, and I doubt he has a clue."
Clark blinked at her. "Which poor bastard?" Lois had many admirers, but most had figured out that she wasn't interested and had gone searching elsewhere for romance. The only one left was…
"Superman," Hope said as if hearing his thoughts. He froze in shock. The whole world was aware of Lois Lane's relationship with Superman, due to Zod's interference, but most hadn't thought there was more than a passing acquaintance once the first article came out saying such.
She sighed again as if answering a question. "I know. Sometimes I'm not sure if she even realizes what she's doing to the guy."
"What… What do you mean?" the words almost came on their own without his thought or approval.
"Think about it. When do you see Superman with Lois?" They both knew the answer: when he was rescuing her.
"That doesn't mean that's all they do together." Clark countered.
"True, but when does Lois talk about Superman? It isn't ever anything mundane. That they hung out one night watching movies or went to Paris to watch fireworks or something similar. No, it's always what he did for her; helped her with her next story, or agreed to another interview, or rescued her from whatever situation she'd gotten herself in to last."
Clark's mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"Lois Lane doesn't dream about growing old and settling down. I doubt she thinks that far into her future. She's the best at what she does because it's her passion. Which also means she'll likely die young while doing what she loves. Which is great for her, but terrible for her family and friends. I pity the man who marries her, because it'll probably take him years before he realizes the truth, if he ever does."
"Which is?" his voice was a bare whisper.
"That he'll always be second-best. He'll never be her first priority," Hope glanced at him and grimaced. "I know that I'm a minority in my opinion about the woman. Feel free to ignore me."
Clark had nothing more to say. Couldn't say more. Instead, he settled at his desk and spent the rest of the day staring at his computer screen. Thinking about her words. Words which rang too close to the truth for comfort.
And as much as he wished to deny them, no matter how much he wracked his eidetic memory through all their encounters could he recall a single instance to contradict those words.
First Superman (or any DC really) fanfic. Please let me know what you think: what you liked, disliked (constructive criticism, please), if should be continued, etc.