Author's
Notes: Back from my little holiday jaunt across the country. Only three more chapters after this one. I'm pretty sure. Hope to be able to crank them out in the next few days. Happy New Year.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Fiddlesticks!" Superman cursed noticing the time.
"Ohhh," the young child gasped in surprise. "You said a naughty word!"
"Sorry," Superman noticed the wide-eyed look of surprise on the little girl's face. "I'm just so… so… so upset at all the starving children in Africa."
"Fiddlesticks, Superman, fiddlesticks," the girl agreed thinking about the reason she was forced to eat broccoli.
"Gotta run," Superman grinned wondering just where this undoubtedly intelligent conversation might head. "And remember just because a bear is hibernating doesn't mean it needs more hugs."
Superman took off into the sky, faster than a speeding bullet, primarily because he was late for lunch with Chloe, but also because the good toppings never lasted long on the pizza buffet.
Clark adjusted his tie and glasses and spotted that Chloe wasn't alone for lunch.
"Pete!" Clark greeted in surprise at seeing Pete Ross again so soon. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Clark, it's good to see you too," Pete greeted back mocking Clark's lack of manners.
Clark rolled his eyes. "Weren't you the one who lectured me on unnecessary pleasantries?"
Chloe grinned as she and Pete had cleared out all the fresh and hot pepperoni from the buffet moments before Clark's arrival. "Everything alright?"
Clark nodded and snagged a slice of pepperoni off Pete's plate faster than the eye could see. "Yup, just got held up by a kid confusing a grizzly bear with a teddy bear. But seriously, Pete, what brings you to Metropolis?"
Pete was counting the slices on his plate and could have sworn one disappeared. "We decided to take a little family vacation. I promised Mikey that if we started a big fire, he could meet Superman."
Clark huffed. "You can't just-"
"Sheesh Kent," Pete interrupted. "It was a joke. All this subtlety is killing your sense of humor."
"Sorry," Clark admitted bashfully, munching on his stolen slice of pepperoni.
"Honestly," Pete said giving the pizza in Clark's hand a curious look. "When it comes to the hobbies I'm introducing Mikey to, I'm saving arson until he's at least old enough to drive the getaway car."
"That's good parenting right there," Clark said as his X-ray vision picked up on a fresh Italian sausage pizza pie coming out of the oven and headed for the buffet. "I'm going to go get myself some food. Back in a sec."
"He stole a slice of my pepperoni, didn't he?" Pete asked as he watched Clark walk away.
Chloe snuck a slice off Pete's plate when he turned towards Clark and answered, "Two actually."
Pete snapped his head back to his plate. "What? That's so unfair."
"It's unconscionable," Chloe agreed through a mouthful of pepperoni.
Clark came back having scooped up more than half the sausage pizza for himself. He dropped a fresh piece on Pete's plate. "I snagged a slice from you earlier."
"Just one?" Pete looked at him curiously.
"Just the one," Clark nodded honestly and they both noticed Chloe was having trouble swallowing after shoving nearly an entire slice into her mouth.
"Hmm," Pete said noticing Chloe was still chewing and avoiding eye contact.
"So where's Esmerelda and the kids?" Clark asked looking at Pete staring down Chloe.
"They're at the Children's Museum," Pete said. "Esmerelda was quite eager to have lunch with you until she found out Chloe was going to be here."
Clark chuckled. "Oh right. The skanky blonde trollop."
Chloe sighed. "I met her once at your wedding. That's it."
Pete snickered. "Doesn't matter. Though bit of advice for you youngsters. Never, ever, ever tell your significant other about childhood crushes. It rarely ends well."
"She doesn't even know me," Chloe argued.
"Sure she does," Clark agreed. "You're the skanky blonde trollop."
"So tell me oh ancient and wise one," Chloe grinned at Pete. "Any other pearls of wisdom you can bestow upon us so that we may learn from your vast experience?"
"Sure," Pete agreed digging into another slice. "If you find a celebrity attractive, figure out your better half's opinion of the celebrity before ever expressing your own opinion. Trust me. I still can't watch Milla Jovovich movies."
"You're not allowed?" Chloe snickered thinking the skinny Russian was a skanky trollop.
"Oh, I'm allowed," Pete retorted. "I just have to endure the peanut gallery constantly pointing out things like, 'She looks like such a man. Look at those man hands. And you'd think she might have grown breasts by now. I just can't understand what you see in her.' It's a freaking zombie action movie, woman."
"Settle down, Pete," Clark grinned. "Though I know what you mean. It's like admitting to any female that you find Jennifer Love Hewitt attractive."
"Exactly!" Pete agreed readily. "Just once you should try mentioning that she looked like Audrey Hepburn in that Hepburn biopic and…" Pete stopped and saw Chloe's expression. "See! Look at Chloe. She's about stab me with her fork."
Chloe was centering her rage and turned to Clark. "So tell us, how are things with Lois?"
"Oh boy," Pete admitted going back to his lunch.
Chloe continued with a straight face. "Set her breasts on fire anytime recently?"
Clark knew it was just a matter of time before that one was coming back at him. He was patting Pete on the back when the man began choking on his food. Clark ruefully grinned, "I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"
"You set her breasts on fire!" Pete yelled loud enough to startle the young boy and his grandparents in the booth behind them.
Clark smiled weakly towards the young boy. "Chicken breasts. She likes them well done. Nothing to see here." He whirled back towards his friends and gave them a look indicating they needed to keep it down.
"Oh yes," Chloe delighted in sharing this story. "Lois told me all about Clark's lack of response to her highly flammable sweater."
"Comparatively, using heat vision physically on her is a bit more subtle than usual," Pete commented. "But defacing a national treasure like the Lane twins shouldn't go unpunished. What did you figure you could just kiss them and make them better?"
Clark's mind drifted into dangerous territory and did his best to not think about Pete's last comment. "It was an accident. She wasn't hurt. At least I don't think she was. And last I saw they were doing just fine."
Chloe was snickering. "And when was the last time you saw?"
"Oh stop it," Clark scolded them both unable to stop thinking about kissing, making better, and the last he saw them. "And who the heck told her to take up jogging anyway?"
Pete laughed at how irritated Clark was. "What happened? Did you fly into a tree?"
Clark wouldn't meet their eyes and tried to keep the color out of his cheeks.
"You did fly into a tree!" Chloe boisterously laughed out loud attracting the young boy in the next booth again.
"Model airplane, remote control, nothing to see here," Clark explained when the young boy looked towards him for an explanation.
"At least you didn't set the tree on fire," Pete said, giving Clark some support.
"I can't help it," Clark argued. "I heard her heart rate increase at like six in the morning. It's not normal for her to be up that early, so I went to make sure she was okay, and what do I discover? Lois Lane. Jogging. In the rain. In a white t-shirt. You add that up and it's not my fault."
"Right," Chloe snickered. "This is like when you kissed her while covering for the Green Arrow. I still remember you storming in and exclaiming, Chloe, I think Lois is made of red kryptonite."
Clark saw the little boy staring at him again and tried to defend that last exclamation. Clark opened his mouth and closed it. "I got nothing."
The little boy whispered towards him, "Are you Super-"
"Young man!" Clark said loudly, attracting the attention of his grandparents. "You shouldn't stare at other people while they're trying to eat."
"Darren!" the boy's grandmother scolded, pulling the boy down into his seat facing away from Clark. "Get back down here this instant!"
Pete snickered hearing a quiet muttered, "The real Superman's not a doodybrain tattletale." Pete looked back at Chloe and argued, "I'm the one that had to break the news to him that he was in love with her."
"I'm not that bad," Clark whined feebly.
"Right," Pete chided and explained to Chloe. "You know he didn't even try to deny being in love with her? He just looked flabbergasted and wondered, why didn't Chloe tell me?"
"I told you dozens of times," Chloe shook her head at Clark.
"Yeah, but…" Clark paused and admitted. "I didn't think you were being serious then."
"You're such an idiot," Chloe sighed.
"Yup," Pete agreed and nodded at Clark. "Flying into trees doesn't exactly support your counter argument against idiocy either."
Clark grumbled to himself. "I never said I wasn't an idiot, but who knows. Maybe Kryptonians are highly susceptible to hypnosis. I mean I was just listening to her heartbeat and watching her body and muscles move in those graceful and beautiful patterns and rhythms when my head slammed right into a tree trunk, sending leaves and loose branches everywhere."
"Oh dear," Chloe was thinking she wanted to locate partially uprooted trees around Lois' neighborhood for the Scrapbook of Super-Subtle, her latest replacement for the Wall of Weird.
"Even with headphones on, Lois heard the sound. She stopped and turned in my direction so I had to hide up in the tree, hoping she wouldn't spot me. Accidentally knocked a squirrel right off its branch."
"Oh no!" Chloe gasped. "The poor squirrel!"
"I saved the dumb squirrel," Clark grumbled getting irritated at the smile Pete was just beaming at him.
Chloe narrowed her eyes. "Don't insult the squirrel, you over-sized ogre!"
"Stupid suburb rat tried to bite me," Clark continued with a devious little grin. "Deserved the chipped tooth it got."
"So what future exploits and foolproof plans do we have to look forward to?" Pete asked curiously. "Maybe it's time for the boy in blue to wear glasses?"
"I tried that already!" Clark explained with a sigh. "To be honest, I'm not even sure what to do next. This is turning out to be more difficult than I expected. I guess I'm just being too subtle."
Pete and Chloe shared a look of pure amusement and pity.
"Go ahead, laugh," Clark admitted. "It's almost not worth the trouble."
"Yeah right," Pete chuckled trying to imagine a time when Clark wasn't infatuated with Lois.
"I'm serious!" Clark argued. "I'm through with Lois. Chloe, how about it, you and me. What do you say?"
"No," Chloe answered without pause. "It's a cold day in LuthorCorp before I give that train-wreck-in-the-making another thought."
"But you used to have the biggest crush on me!" Clark said fluttering his baby blues at her.
Chloe rolled her eyes. "And you used to have the biggest crush on Lana."
Pete snickered as Clark's face fell into immediate defeat.
"Touché Sullivan, touché," Clark solemnly agreed. "But I still say that might have been invis-"
"There's no such thing as invisible kryptonite!" Chloe snapped back in irritation.
Clark thinned his lips. "And just how are you so certain?"
"He's got a point," Pete said grinning at Chloe. "For all we know it could be invisible-"
"Don't encourage him," Chloe scolded. "He uses that stuff for every bad decision in his life."
"But it could be!" Clark whined as his voice cracked. "I mean do you even remember me and Lana? You really think even at that age I could have been that much of a…"
"Yes I most certainly do," Chloe insisted.
Pete shrugged. "Even I'd admit that Lana, at the right angle, in the right light, with her mouth closed, on a day her complexion isn't too orange-y, can be a hottie. And no one said Kryptonians think with the big heads on their shoulders."
Clark sighed thinking invisible kryptonite made a lot more sense. "Stupid earthlings."
"Hey!" Pete recalled. "You know she does kind of look like an alien. Maybe that's why-"
"Shut up."