The Assignment

By: CarolM <carolmfolc@gmail.com>

Rated: G

Submitted: August, 2008

A/N:

Thanks to my fabulous BR, Beth, for her aid. You rock! Thanks, also, to those who left FDK on the boards. (http://www.lcficmbs.com/cgi-bin/boards/ultimatebb.cgi?)

***** The Assignment *****

"What are you talking about?"

Clark stared at her, dumbfounded. "What do you mean? You don't know?"

Lois shook her head as she glared at him. "Does this look like the face of a person in the know?"

"I guess not." He cringed inwardly. "Well, Perry said..."

"*Perry* said?"

Clark nodded. "Perry said that this is the plan."

"The big plan that you two spent three hours in there concocting?"

He shook his head. "No. He concocted the plan in about forty-five seconds. The other two hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifteen seconds were filled with Elvis stories."

Lois rolled her eyes. "Great. When do we leave?"

Clark grimaced. He was the one who was going to have to live with her for the next few days. "An hour."

She sighed. "I'm going home."

"You can't."

She glared at him some more. "What do you mean I can't go home? We're leaving for four days and four nights, and I need to pack."

He shook his head. "Sorry, no time. You have to finish those phone calls and get your notes to Eduardo for the press conference tomorrow before we can go."

"Why can't he do his own research?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"No time. He's finishing up the story on the new sewers today and the press conference is bright and early."

She sighed. "Fine. But since I have to buy everything I need while we're gone, the Planet's paying for it and I'm not shopping cheap."

Clark shrugged. "Gotta take that up with the Chief, but somehow I doubt he's going to go for it."

That earned him another glare. "How are we getting there exactly?"

"I'm driving your Jeep," he told her without looking directly at her.

"Excuse me?" Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline.

"You're supposed to have a broken ankle, remember? How can you drive?"

She slammed the drawer shut. She'd opened it as he spoke and pulled out one of her Double Fudge Crunch Bars. She reopened it and slammed it again for good measure. She better get a Kerth out of this at the very least or Perry might be looking for a new top reporter.

*****

"Here we are," Clark said with his characteristic grin.

She glared at him even more. "I still don't see why I couldn't have driven most of the way and you drive the last little bit."

"You hate not being in control, don't you?"

The look she gave him made him extra glad he was invulnerable.

He grabbed his bag out of the back, she still wasn't sure how he'd managed enough time to go get it, and walked around to her side of the car as he slung it over his shoulder.

"Come on, *honey*."

"If you 'honey' me one more time," she threatened, "I'll drizzle honey all over you and leave you on an ant hill near a bear's cave."

Clark winced as he helped her out, fake cast and all, then picked her up easily. He could hear her muttering under her breath the whole time, but even superhearing didn't help make out what it was she was saying. He was sure she was plotting eighteen different, and very painful, ways to kill him.

As long as they didn't involve Kryptonite, he'd be okay.

He set her down in the hotel lobby and she leaned against the counter.

"Charlie and Lola *King*," she said through gritted teeth. "We have reservations for the... *honeymoon* suite."

He could feel the sarcasm dripping off her.

The extremely chipper young lady behind the desk didn't realize who she was dealing with and started gushing over the 'newlyweds', asking for all kinds of details about the ceremony and the proposal and how they met. Lois simply glared at her as she typed in the computer. Finally, the blond, who didn't know how lucky she was to still be alive, handed Lois the room key.

"Enjoy your stay, Mrs. King," she said with a bright smile. "Do you need any help with your luggage?"

Clark grinned. "Nope, just the one bag."

The blond girl blushed furiously.

Lois glared at him. Oh, he was going to pay for that.

"Well, you do have your own private Jacuzzi and balcony. You don't even need to come down to use the hotel hot tub if you don't want to," she informed them brightly.

Clark picked Lois back up, smiling his thank you at the young lady.

"You should have let me kill her. I've been watching NCIS, and all three CSIs, and that Law and Order spinoff with the guy that looks so much like Henderson, and I bet I could do it using only a paperclip without leaving any forensic evidence."

"I'm sure you could, dear." He purposely didn't look at her as he said it. "Would you mind pushing the up button, darling?"

She jabbed at it and he could have sworn he heard her mumbling about killing *him* with said paperclip.

Four days was going to be entirely too long.

*****

"You *cannot* be serious." Lois stared at the room. "I thought this was a luxury *suite*."

"It is?" Clark looked around. "Sort of. I guess they figure honeymooners don't need much more than a bed?"

"If you count the bathroom as a separate room. It's as big as this room is. There's not even a couch for you to sleep on this time."

With that Clark dumped her, fake busted ankle and all, onto the bed. "You mean a couch for you to sleep on. I never got a turn last time."

She glared at him. "And why do I have to keep wearing this stupid thing anyway? The people who are supposed to think I have a broken ankle are in Metropolis. Far, *far* away from here."

"Because you never know who you might run into?" He shrugged. "Perry insisted."

She just glared at him again. "Order room service."

He shut the doors. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Order room service. And find the concierge so I can get some clothes or something."

Clark surreptitiously used his powers as he jumped onto the bed next to her. "I am *not* here for you to order around, Lois. If you want something, either do it yourself, or ask nicely."

She mumbled something about uppity-green-jean-hack-reporter-wanna-bes-from-middle-of-nowhere-near-Tiny-Town, Kansas before turning her most saccharine sweet smile his direction. "Clarkie, dear, would you be a sweetheart, darling, and be so very kind as to order us some dinner, precious love of my life? And would you please honor my most humble request that you call the concierge or someone to find me a way to get me some clothes, sweet husband of mine?"

Clark leaned back, plumping the pillow as he did, and settled down on the bed. "Not until you say it like you mean it."

Lois rolled her eyes. "Please, Clark. I would really appreciate it."

His eyes gleamed. "I don't know. I mean, the dinner thing, sure. But the whole clothes thing... we're supposed to be on our honeymoon and not planning on leaving the room for anything short of a natural disaster. How would it look if I went and bought my wife some new clothes for her to wear when we're supposed to be wearing next to nothing at all? Or less." He closed his eyes and settled a little further into the bed.

"Buy some feminine products to go with the clothes," she said through clenched teeth. "Then everyone will know why you're not getting any. Or better yet, buy some male product that shows why you're not getting any because you're having some sort of... problem."

He shook his head, eyes still closed. "Nope. Not gonna happen. I'm not buying *feminine* products or whatever it is you think I could get for some sort of imaginary guy problem so that everyone thinks I'm not getting lucky on my honeymoon."

"I feel sorry for your wife," she muttered.

He rolled over onto an arm. "Lois, if I was actually on my honeymoon and that was actually the problem, believe me, I would have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about taking care of purchasing whatever my wife might need. But, as you reminded me ninety-seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen times on the way here, this is *not* a real wedding night, or honeymoon, or whatever, and there is no way on God's green earth I'm seeing you naked, I think is what you said. So if you have any sort of things that need taken care of, clothes, *feminine* stuff, whatever, you can do it yourself. I'll be happy to call down to the desk and have them send up a toothbrush and those kinds of things, but anything that makes this look like less than it's supposed to be is up to you." He settled back down before adding, "dear."

He could practically hear Lois seething on the other side of the bed. After a few minutes, he calmly reached over and pulled out the room service menu. "What would you like to eat?"

*****

Clark Kent was dead meat.

He was pond scum.

He was worse than pond scum.

He was the film on top of the pond scum that grew on algae in the Metropolis Sewer Reclamation Facility.

Or something like that.

The only reason she didn't make disparaging remarks about his mother or other aspects of his childhood was because she liked both Martha and Jonathan Kent.

How they could have raised such a Neanderthal was beyond her.

He gladly carried her down to the lobby to the gift shop, smiling the whole time and saying loud enough for any passers-by to hear that he was more than happy to hold her in his arms rather than make her use those horrid crutches she hated so much.

Well, that much was true. She did hate crutches. She found three pairs of shorts that would fit and a total of five shirts. She still wasn't sure exactly how they were going to know when this assignment was over. She glared at Clark until he went a discrete distance away while she got some undergarments. She didn't care how un-honeymoonish they were.

When she finished checking out, Clark slipped the handle of the bag over his arm and lifted her easily. She heard the women behind the counter sigh as they noticed the way his muscles moved under the muscle shir...

Wait.

When did she start noticing Clark's muscles?

She knew when.

When he came out of the bathroom after changing clothes and looked entirely too yummy in...

Yummy?

When did she start thinking of Clark as looking 'yummy'?

Right.

When he came out of the bathroom after changing clothes looking all well-built, that was better, in a muscle shirt and a pair of sweat shorts that showed off his well-muscled thighs and rear en...

Wait.

When did she start thinking about Clark's thighs and rear end?

Right.

When he came out of the bathroom after changing clothes looking muscular in a T-shirt with no sleeves and sweat shorts.

And when did he have time to work out?

She'd seen his cabinets on many occasions. He ate junk food like her eight-year-old neighbor kids did. She was going to have to work out for an hour because of the Double Fudge Crunch Bars and other... snacks she ate on the way up here. And Clark wasn't going to let her use the gym at the hotel because they were supposed to be burning calories... other ways.

So he still ate like a child and still looked like Mr. Hardbod...

No.

He still ate like a child and had a metabolism that would make Superman jealous.

She sighed as he stopped in front of the elevator and she pushed the up button. The door opened immediately and she pushed the top button, trying to convince herself that she wasn't going to snuggle down into those arms and feel all safe or anything.

She glanced up at him and, with another sigh, finally rested her head on his shoulder as the other couple in the elevator looked at them out of the corner of their eyes.

Superman had nothing him.

What?

Where had that come from?

But he didn't.

Superman had nothing on Clark Ken...

No.

She wasn't going there.

Finally in front of their 'suite', she stuck the key in the slot and opened the door.

He set her down as soon as the doors were closed.

"Better?" he asked.

She glared at him again and held her hand out. "Bag, please?"

He handed it to her with a smile. "Here, dear."

She turned and hobbled off in a huff, heading to the bathroom to change clothes. When she reemerged, she found Mr. Hardbod...

No.

She found Clark asleep on the bed.

She hadn't been in there that long.

Had she?

Yes, she had.

She'd been hoping that he would be asleep but she'd also been hoping that he'd have been gentleman enough to either sleep on the floor or on top of the covers.

No such luck.

He was curled up under the covers.

Well, curled up wasn't technically accurate.

He was sprawled on his stomach.

Taking up nearly two-thirds of the bed.

Where on earth was she supposed to sleep?

Next to him, she supposed, as he let out a soft snore.

Great.

How was she supposed to sleep through that?

She gingerly climbed into the empty side, and she thought that term loosely, of the bed and hugged the edge as much as she could without falling off.

She felt Clark shift and, relieved, rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

Why was she thinking about Clark like this?

And why was she desperately hoping that he'd roll over and take her in those not-so-muscle bound arms of his?

Okay, those very muscle-bound arms of his.

Not that she was hoping to... see him naked or anything, though her mind suddenly caught her off guard, thinking that it wasn't such a horrid idea; there were much worse thoughts in life than thinking about the possibility of making lo...

No.

How had she started thinking about *that*?

No.

She was just sort of, kind of, not really hoping to find out what it felt like to really *sleep* in the arms of a man she felt safe with.

She felt Clark moving again, but didn't look at him.

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like if Lex were here with her and she was in his arms.

Safe wasn't the first word that came to mind.

What about Superman?

Her brow furrowed at that.

Superman.

Sleeping.

With her.

*Sleeping* with her.

As in...

Sleep.

Zzzzzzs.

Snoring.

Like Clark.

Like Clark...

She couldn't imagine sleeping with Superman holding her in his arms. Did he sleep in the suit? That couldnÕt be comfortable. And as nice as it was, it probably wouldn't be all that comfortable to try to sleep next to him while he was in it. Cape all in the way. 'S' being all scratchy.

But Clark...

Before she could follow the thought through to the logical - or illogical, conclusion, an arm flopped across her stomach.

Apparently, here was her chance to find out.

Careful, slow, methodical maneuvering landed her on her side, snuggling back into Clark's chest.

His bare chest.

He must have taken off that green shirt that showed off his musc...

No.

He must have taken off that green shirt.

She closed her eyes and his arm tightened around her, making her feel lighter than air.

Lighter than air?

How was that possible?

She opened one eye cautiously, then the other.

There in front of her was the incredibly tacky flower painting she'd been grousing about earlier.

At eye level.

She cautiously lowered one arm slightly to discover that the mattress wasn't anywhere to be found.

That scum.

That pond scum.

That film on top of the pond scum that grew on algae in the Metropolis Sewer Reclamation Facility.

No wonder he could eat like an eight-year-old.

"Clark Jerome Kent," she hissed. "Put us down right now."

She suddenly found herself practically bouncing on the bed and when she looked up, she saw Clark.

Floating.

Clark floating above her.

And looking absolutely petrified.

Good.

Right where she wanted him.

For now.

Later...

Later he could float with her while they slept.

Slept.

And only slept.

Together.

But now...

Now he had some explaining to do.