Hopeful Idiot – Chapter 07: Trouble

Hope came into the bullpen with stomping hard steps, clearly on a mission. Every male with any sense (or experience with the opposite sex) took one look at her and got out of her way. "Kent!" she barked out sharply.

Clark looked up, blinking in confusion as the part of his brain that he kept on guard for local/physical proximity pinged. His pure-blue eyes blinked at the I.T. specialist, and the woman he'd been having dinner with for the last three nights. Then his mind registered her expression and felt a pit of dread somewhere in his stomach. "Yes, Ms Kramer?" he barely got the formal address out before she grabbed hold of his ear, twisted, and pulled him forcibly out of the room.

(Of course, it wasn't as if he didn't want to go with her – well, he didn't, but she was his Hope and he went willingly. In a sense. Ears were sensitive!)

"Hope?" he asked as she pushed with all her strength at his chest, shoving him bodily into her realm. He went where she directed. He didn't think it was the best time to bring up how, if he didn't want to, she wouldn't have been able to budge him with an industrial crane. "What's wrong, Hope?"

For several moments – as in the long walk there – she just seethed as she glared at him with every fiber of her being. Finally, still unable to voice her anger, she shoved a paper at him. It was obviously printed from an internet site, but the headline "Superman Gives Exclusive" was in large bold letters. He blinked at it, then up at her, confused. "It was your idea to go to another newspaper… You listed several. Isn't this what you wanted?" To get away from Lois went unsaid.

Hope went even redder as her anger grew, if that were possible. With a loud growl of sheer frustration, she whirled on her heel, spinning in place, as her arms came up to beg askance from whatever deities felt like listening. Still, she was so beyond words that it was all she could do. Glares and sounds. After serval minutes of Clark patiently waiting in absolute confusion, she got hold of herself enough to punch a button on her laptop.

Immediately, a chorus of "jungle sounds" began to blast from several surround-sound speakers. Clark jerked, wincing at the unexpectedness.

Hope really didn't care. She finally had enough strength and mindfulness to speak. "On her balcony?!" she half-screamed at him. He blinked at her, not understanding her anger. She wasn't mad about the article? "You met with a reporter. A female reporter. On her balcony. At night. Alone. And you thought this was a GOOD IDEA?!"

"Umm…"

Her glare intensified at his obvious cluelessness. "You actually thought this through and decided, 'oh sure, meeting with a fully mature, single, female, at night, at her home, was a FABULOUS idea!' Is that what happened, Idiot? Because you are DEFINITELY living up to your name right now!" Now that her anger had an available, safe, outlet, and her words had been able to be freed from their capture the first time she'd read the article, her face broke and Clark could see that buried under the fury was actually pain. She had been hurt by his actions, and he didn't understand why. He watched as his Hope lost enough steam that she practically fell into her desk chair and her eyes looked up at him in askance. "Please, Clark. Please help me make sense of why you did this." His Hope. Such a pure soul. One who intensely cared about him in ways no one else did. She took pains to protect not only him but his mother as well. Going so far as to endanger herself to do so. Asking nothing in return except to throw the evidence of her protection into a volcano. Giving freely of her food and home. Going out of her way to see to his needs. He had fallen hard and fast for this beautiful woman, who most overlooked and took for granted; just as Superman himself was by society as a whole.

His Hope. And she was only two inches away from crying.

It was more than he could bare. He stepped forward and knelt, grabbing her hand in his own, looking up into her hazel eyes. "It was just an interview. You said to go to another newspaper. She's their lead investigative reporter. Nothing happened, I swear to you."

Hope didn't want to admit how close she was to tears. She felt them in the back of her throat, just waiting. "You met with her, alone, at her home, at night. What is anyone supposed to think, Clark?" She called him by name. A symbol of how serious this was. This was no small thing to her. No small thing at all. "The article says you knew what color her underwear was, Clark. Her underwear. Why are you looking at another woman's underwear?"

Clark sighed, shaking his head, disavowing the intention. "She asked if I could see through anything. Then asked about the color of her underwear to prove it. I—" he stopped, having no words. What did one say at a time like this?

Hope didn't have glares left. Oh, she was still angry, don't get her wrong, but the overwhelming feeling of betrayal was more prevalent. However, she had spent several hours going through the biography of one Clark Kent in order to build a new one and kill the old. She knew him more than most. Most didn't realize how much was on their social media accounts. She knew what almost no one did: Superman had never before had a girlfriend.

So Hope did what she thought her mother might do in such a situation, she steeled her spine, pushed away her emotions, and began to educate. "Do you realize how she would see your interview? The subterfuge and intimate nature of the rendezvous?" He blinked blankly. "She thought it was a date, Clark. A romantic interlude. Meeting someone of the opposite sex that is over the age of majority, alone, in that person's home… Anyone who read that article will think the same." He blinked again. Her heart clenched at his expression. He really hadn't realized what he'd done. The poor clueless bastard. "You took her flying, Clark. Something you haven't even done with me. Considering that you are the engine for such an experience, I can only imagine that the…embrace…you shared was quite intimate." He shook his head, ready to argue. She didn't give him the chance. "Intimate for her, then." His mouth closed with a snap. She shook her head and sighed. "You're such an idiot."

There was a long silence that fell between them. Then, quietly, his strong deep voice said, "But I'm your Idiot."

She looked back into those deep blue eyes. Eyes that were currently pleading for forgiveness. She sighed. "If you get another idea like this, you need to run it by me first."

"Yes."

"You don't understand how girls think. Earth-raised or not. I can't have my boyfriend galivanting off with single females unaccompanied. I won't." The last was side with a firm finality. Except when she peeked again at his eyes, they were glittering with amused happiness. "What?"

"Boyfriend?" He grinned.

She blinked. "Of everything I said, that is what you took?"

"Oh, I heard it all… But I think that's the most important piece, yes." He nodded just as firmly. "Definitely the most important."

Hope blinked again, then turned her eyes towards heaven. Males, no matter the planet of origin, couldn't understand female thought processes, but it seemed that females didn't either. They were both so screwed…and not in the fun way. At least not yet.

She sighed, looked down at her hopeless Idiot, and sighed again. "You are taking me flying." It was not a question or request. Her tears had dried up. For now at least. This was a command.

"Where do you want to go?" he didn't argue. Having an excuse to hold her close, to breathe in her scent? Nope, he wasn't going to argue.

"…No idea. But you are NOT going to give a flying lesson to some single bimbo reporter without giving one to your girlfriend. Every female will be on my side too, if we could ask them. It's unconscionable. Horrible lapse in judgement on your part." She thought of at least one female that she could tell and her eyes narrowed on him, "And if you think I'm wrong, I'll just call your mother and explain things. Wonder what she'll say about this, hmmm?" She'd been meaning to call Martha Kent about her pie recipe anyway. Apparently Hope's own pies weren't quite as good as Martha's and Hope wanted desperately to know what she was doing wrong. She'd tried fixing it three times now and still with unsatisfactory results!

Clark used some of his monumental will to suppress his smile. This was more than promising in his eyes. His Hope was thinking, not only of his family and loved ones, but of her relationship to them, to him, and possibly of their future together. He hadn't been so happy in years. "How about I meet you on your balcony tonight? The two of us take a flight to Paris?"

Paris was reportedly the most romantic city on the planet. But that was to the average joe. Hope was not the average joe. Her eyes narrowed. "You trying to weasel your way out of this? Wrong destination."

He drew her forward into his arms. The wheels of her desk chair aiding him in bringing her as close as he wished. Beyond propriety. "Where do you want to go, my Hope?" he whispered into her ear. He felt her bodily shiver and gave a purely male smile into her hair. "I'll fly you to the stars, if that is your wish." The inuendo was obvious, even to him.

Hope couldn't help her shiver and felt that deep-belly tighten again. Then wondered how good his sense of smell was. Could he smell her arousal when he used that timbre? It was intoxicating! Definitely bringing to mind dark thing in the bedroom that 'good girls' didn't know about. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one thought about it, she hadn't been a good girl for many years.

However, they hadn't moved beyond sparse touches and cheek-kisses. With that in mind, she swallowed back her lust, and intoned, "You aren't getting off that easily, Kent. You'll take me to the one place you'll never take anyone else. This is a test of trust, Clark." She drew back to look him deeply in the eyes, trying to portray how serious this was. If he was going to go gallivanting off to other women's balconies at all times of the night, Hope needed some serious reassurances. She was a one-man woman, and she didn't share. "I've given you the keys to me, Clark. Because of this," she tapped the printed pages, "I need some reciprocity sooner than you may be comfortable. I was willing to wait…" she sighed. "I need something. Some proof. Something that you'd never give another woman. Proof I can hold to my heart as you are off flying with other women." Her chest clenched at the mere idea.

Clark's eyes narrowed as he heard her heart actually skip a beat. This was far more serious than her initially realized. Whatever she saw in his actions –which was obvious something that he hadn't seen, still didn't really—it was important to her. Important enough that she was drawing a proverbial line in the sand. Whatever it was that he chose to show her, it was significant. Serious. Would tell her something that he wasn't sure he fully understood from her body language, though he did understand the intensity.

He nodded slowly, agreeing. He knew that she didn't need words right now. That much he did know. She needed actions. She needed to believe. "I'll meet you at eight, my Hope. Wear something warm."

+++HOPEFUL+IDIOT+++

I was watching the 1978 Superman movie, got to the scene with Lois and Clark flying after their news interview and this drove me crazy enough that I had to stop the movie to write. Hope you enjoyed!