It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 4
Title: It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think! (Also, herein lies my teensy little tribute to Breaking Bad and if anyone out there would write me some Andrea/Walt/Jesse/Gus fic, I will be your virtual love slave.)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7a / Part 7b
Per usual, Oliver was taking his own sweet time answering. To be fair, it wasn't as if he could simply whip out his cell phone in front of a bunch of VP's or photographers and start chatting away about his secret force of meta-powered crime fighters, so Dinah figured she should probably cut him some slack in that regard. Unfortunately she wasn't in a slack-cutting mood. Thanks to Bart she was already running late and her own non-secret identity career meant she wouldn't be able to have this conversation for another eight hours if he didn't pick up soon. Then, just as she was about to give up hope, the fake ring-tone in her ear cut off and Oliver asked: “What happened?”
“Well, hello to you,” she answered.
There was a pause before he responded. “Where are you?”
“Uh, my car. Which is in the parking garage. Which means I'm not at work, which is where I'm supposed to be right now, so if you could - “
“So you're alone?”
“Yeah. Where is this going?”
“I assumed you couldn't talk openly, but if you can, it'll save a lot of time if you just tell me what happened.”
Oh for fuck's sake. Dinah banged her head against her steering wheel a few times. “Nothing's happened,” she gritted out. Well, Bart had happened, plowing into her just as she'd opened her front door, but other than that, no.
“Then I'm confused. Why are you calling me?”
“Because I need to talk to you,” she said, slowly.
“I thought we were trying to be discreet.”
Deep breaths, Dinah. Deep breaths. “Yeah. We are. But the Lower Midwest Leadership Conference starts tomorrow and I'm supposed to be local celebrity chatting up all the big donors for the next two days. Lots of eyeballs on me and no spare time. Which is why I'm calling you from my car, in my parking garage.”
“Who's going to be patrolling?”
“You. You keep sneaking out anyway, so you might as well. Anyway, speaking of discretion, I need you think back to your Robin Hood days and tell me who I could talk to about selling something quietly, but not too quietly, if you get my drift.”
“That depends on what you're trying to sell.”
“Zatanna's father's magic manual.”
There was another pause. Either he was not yet fully awake - unlikely, if Bart had been the one to wake him - or he was just having his usual mental processing problems. “Do you have Zatanna's father's magic manual?” he asked.
Of course she didn't. What the - deep breaths. “No, but that's not the point. The point is to make her think we have it so she'll approach us about buying it.”
“And we do that by spreading word among the discreet and disreputable that it's for sale. Huh.”
And that, she supposed, was all the compliment she was going to get for her genius idea: Huh. Good thing she wasn't calling him for compliments. It was a little sad she had to call him at all on this, but none of her dad's old buddies from the force knew who would broker something this weird and difficult to appraise.
“Exactly. The question is who would be a go-between for an old, hand-written, possibly stolen manuscript?”
“A few guys,” he answered. “One in particular. But the point of a fence is usually to provide some insulation between the buyer and seller. Besides which, this guy is going to want to authenticate it before putting himself out there.”
Oh. She didn't say that, of course. Instead she thought furiously. “Well, can we ask your guy to arrange a meet? Maybe tell him the item has sentimental value and we would want to make sure whoever buys it is really going to appreciate it.”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “It isn't as if this is a Matisse, though. Most people aren't buying home-made spell books for their re-sell value. He's gonna assume that whoever wants it will want it for some kooky reason of their own.”
She sighed. Deeply. “So you're telling me that there's no one in the seamy under-belly of the world of rare books who'd be willing to simply do this for the right price?”
“No, but we don't have unlimited funds to throw at this, either.” And they were back to money again. That didn't take long, she thought. “Besides,” he continued, “have you considered that she may already have it?”
Dinah had, although she'd been counting on him not to consider that himself. Counting on the old Ollie, that is. When she'd first met him he'd been perfectly willing to let her sweat the “small” stuff, but the last few months he'd become a micro-managing gluteus maximus. The problem with the new Ollie, beyond his questions being a huge waste of everyone's time - she was, she noticed, now officially ten minutes late to the station - was that the more he dug into these particular details, the closer he got to tapping the well of his emotional issues again. Maybe if she threw him a bone he'd gnaw on that and be satisfied. “I don't think she does,” she said, with the same confidence she used to hock gold coins and security systems for sponsor ads. “Her M.O.I.R.A. entry says she didn't re-acquire the book in Chloe's world until a few years ago, and even then she needed the League's help.”
“The League?”
“The Justice League. That's what they call themselves.”
“Why'd she need their help?”
She sighed again. Of course he wouldn't want his bone. She was going to have to throw him the pig's ear. “I'm not sure,” she said, truthfully. “It just says Lex had it among his possessions when he died and she contacted them for help getting it out of storage in a LuthorCorp warehouse.”
He didn't reply.
Oh, hell. She was going to have to throw him the whole damn hog. “It's just, it's Luthor connected,” she began, “and things connected to the Luthors ...”
“... tend to remain connected to the Luthors,” he finished. He paused for another few seconds, but to her surprise didn't comment on her hypothesis. “Ok. Let's proceed assuming she doesn't have it. What happens when she realizes we don't have it, either?”
Dinah released a huge, silent pent-up breath. She had, as it happened, considered that as well. “We offer to trade services. We help her find it in exchange for her help with Clark. If nothing else it'll give Bart something to do besides play Call of Duty and stare down my neckline.”
“Yeah, he was just complaining about not having enough to do,” Oliver said dryly. “I told him he needs more training. He found Zatanna last night - “
“Yes, and now he's demanding I call him 'Bart the Badass'.”
She heard him snicker. He would find that funny. “Did he tell you he lost her too?”
“I kinda read it between the lines when he said you told him he was supposed to start going out on patrol with me. Out of curiosity, when were you going to tell me about that?”
“I just did!”
“Because I called you. This is not a good idea. Kid's looking for the Girlfriend Experience. All I have to offer is Discipline. You should be the one to go out with him. You've got the next couple of patrols anyway, and he looks up to you.”
He laughed outright at that. “That was smooth.”
“The fact is he would whine less with you.”
“I wouldn't count on it. He needs to learn and we all need to do our part teaching him, Vic and Andrea too.”
“Oh God. Andrea'd plop him down in a Spanish conversation class and leave him there.” And she'd be right to do it, Dinah thought. Things were going from bad to worse near the border. Maybe when they found Zatanna she could throw a tablecloth over all the blue meth flying over the border and make it disappear.
But first they had to find her.
“She'd better not,” Oliver said. “Bart's too valuable to waste. Set up a schedule with her and Victor. I'll pencil myself in when Gina doesn't have me going through hoops at the office.”
“Ah, no. I am not Gina. Set your own damn schedule.”
“Fine. Have Stuart coordinate it.”
“Stuart? He's a hacker. He can barely talk to real people.”
“He's tech support. Emphasis on 'support'. Since unlike the rest of you, he's actually getting paid, he shouldn't complain. While you're at it, have him email me that photo of the spell book.”
“Why? What are you going to do with it?”
“Send it to my guy as bait.”
“No,” she told him. “No way. This was my idea.”
“And if Dinah Lance, champion of law and order, wants to meet with a man about selling stolen goods, what do you think the reaction from said guy will be?”
She scowled. It wasn't that she hated it when he was right. It was just that she loathed, despised, and generally abhorred it. “Fine.”
“It's a good plan, Dinah,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to delegate. Anything else?”
How 'bout you take a long walk off a short pier, Queen? “Nope.”
“We'll talk later,” he said, and then she heard the beep telling her he'd ended the call.
She threw her phone down on the passenger seat and stared at the cinder block wall beyond her car hood. Had that happened? Had she really just called to ask him a question only to have it turned into a damn teaching moment? She banged her head against the wheel again. “Sometimes you just gotta play the game,” had been her dad's favorite bit of parenting advice when she'd been little. Then they'd both gotten older and it had changed to “Screw 'em.” At least in her hearing it had been. Now she just had to decide which to follow.
Her phone beeped. Henry, he of the sandy hair and the water behind the ears, had texted her: Ms. Lance? Where are you? She threw her phone back down and buckled her seat belt. She bet Gina wasn't texting that to Oliver. Or maybe she was. She'd like to think so. Somebody should be giving him hell. Softening him up for her. Getting him used to the fact that he wasn't always going to be in charge.
* - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - #
Oliver emailed the photo to Yuri and then sat back to wait. Or rather, did a million other things while the day crawled by, as did the next, and the next. Three days in which he woke up alone, went to bed alone, and in between had to threaten to rip out the newly installed gaming apparatus in the Tower after Bart pantsed a convenience store robber. Three days of discussing the earnings announcement with the board, oil price fluctuations with the strategic planning team and flower arrangements with Gina, who seemed oblivious to Lois' sudden lack of participation in their wedding plans. There were seven grande lattes; five tumblers of Craggenmore; two nights of patrol in which he assigned Bart to follow him at normal speeds and then spent doubling back searching for him; two conference calls on the patent infringement lawsuit Lionel was still pursuing in spite of his recent public announcement of his desire to “renew” their relationship; one luncheon with the chair of the Forest Stewardship Council; one announcement from Victor that he was certain he had found the site of Clark's Evil Lab of Evil (Lance one, Queen one); and one noisy, sanctimonious fight with Dinah over the ethics of destroying Clark's private property.
The last thing he needed - really, the very last thing he needed - at the moment, he thought as he stared at his mysteriously empty glass, was to start questioning whether keeping a known psychopath from regaining superpowers was the right thing to do. With said powers, he'd reminded her, the guy couldn't be stopped, or, you know, seen. Had she forgotten that? And when the hell had she decided to start coddling criminals anyway? Wasn't her schtick on her show all about how cops were being ham-strung by paperwork and technicalities and if the Supreme Court just reversed the Miranda decision there'd finally be safety all night and sunshine all day and a unicorn in every garage?
It wasn't until the first fat drops of water hit his arms that he realized he'd suited up and was on the roof, reeking of stanky leather and Scotch. He remembered now he'd emptied the bottle before coming up here. He stood there as the drops fell more abundantly, hitting his nose and arms and neck, dripping down his chin and dribbling below his vest. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night kept him from his appointed rounds, but he'd never patrolled after drinking this much. It was one or the other - that had been one of the rules Lois had scribbled on the back of a coaster and framed for him. The others were “No driving”, “No tabs”, “No heels taller than 2 inches”, “Nobody is that good looking (except for you, Ollie)”, and “Buy your own drinks”. She'd managed to find her way around some of them (as in: “It totally doesn't count if I put it on your tab, Oliver”), but she was adamant about the heels, the cabs, and the patrolling. Not that whether he patrolled was any of her business anymore, but he doubted she would see it that way, especially if she ever figured out he had a security detail tailing her.
Perhaps unconsciously reacting to her reaction to that, he kept himself to a crouch. The interior of his vest had a wick-away lining but even it had not been engineered to stay dry during the kind of downpour this was turning into, and it was beginning to cling to his chest and back. The wet would be hell on the bow as well, but there was no rule that said he had to use it. And Lois had never made a rule that he couldn't fight when he was drunk - except with her, of course.
But while he zipped over the alleys to a rented garage, Lois was buying her own drinks at the Ace of Clubs, where she had seemed to spend every night since her announcement that she was moving to Gotham. This was unlike her - she'd been raised to damn the torpedoes - but in a way it was a relief from her recent billiarding between sniping on Dinah to bitching about Clark to staring moodily into space. Actually none of that was like her either - well, the bitching about Clark was, but since her firing it had risen to dizzying new heights. She had not been happy when he'd pointed out that crime had been creeping back up in the city since Clark's reign of terror had ended and therefore additional patrols were necessary. “You don't think you're going to replace him,” had been her response, which had gotten his back up, which had led to their last fight, which had led to her need for space.
Which was fine. She could keep her space and her new job and her new city and he would keep his. His space, his city, his Ducati. Even Bart would yell at him for riding it in this rain, but it wasn't just a Ducati. It was his mission, and he was going to keep it. Tonight and every night. He may not be capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but he wasn't going to spend his life behind a desk or up in a tower or letting all the pimps and dealers and the bosses who ran them take the chance that someone wasn't watching them tonight. He was going to show this city that justice wasn't about fear and corruption and helplessness. It was about doing what you could, where you could, and right now what he could do was patrol the alleys of Suicide Slums.
He turned over the engine and headed out toward the Payne Reliever.
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think! (Also, herein lies my teensy little tribute to Breaking Bad and if anyone out there would write me some Andrea/Walt/Jesse/Gus fic, I will be your virtual love slave.)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7a / Part 7b
Per usual, Oliver was taking his own sweet time answering. To be fair, it wasn't as if he could simply whip out his cell phone in front of a bunch of VP's or photographers and start chatting away about his secret force of meta-powered crime fighters, so Dinah figured she should probably cut him some slack in that regard. Unfortunately she wasn't in a slack-cutting mood. Thanks to Bart she was already running late and her own non-secret identity career meant she wouldn't be able to have this conversation for another eight hours if he didn't pick up soon. Then, just as she was about to give up hope, the fake ring-tone in her ear cut off and Oliver asked: “What happened?”
“Well, hello to you,” she answered.
There was a pause before he responded. “Where are you?”
“Uh, my car. Which is in the parking garage. Which means I'm not at work, which is where I'm supposed to be right now, so if you could - “
“So you're alone?”
“Yeah. Where is this going?”
“I assumed you couldn't talk openly, but if you can, it'll save a lot of time if you just tell me what happened.”
Oh for fuck's sake. Dinah banged her head against her steering wheel a few times. “Nothing's happened,” she gritted out. Well, Bart had happened, plowing into her just as she'd opened her front door, but other than that, no.
“Then I'm confused. Why are you calling me?”
“Because I need to talk to you,” she said, slowly.
“I thought we were trying to be discreet.”
Deep breaths, Dinah. Deep breaths. “Yeah. We are. But the Lower Midwest Leadership Conference starts tomorrow and I'm supposed to be local celebrity chatting up all the big donors for the next two days. Lots of eyeballs on me and no spare time. Which is why I'm calling you from my car, in my parking garage.”
“Who's going to be patrolling?”
“You. You keep sneaking out anyway, so you might as well. Anyway, speaking of discretion, I need you think back to your Robin Hood days and tell me who I could talk to about selling something quietly, but not too quietly, if you get my drift.”
“That depends on what you're trying to sell.”
“Zatanna's father's magic manual.”
There was another pause. Either he was not yet fully awake - unlikely, if Bart had been the one to wake him - or he was just having his usual mental processing problems. “Do you have Zatanna's father's magic manual?” he asked.
Of course she didn't. What the - deep breaths. “No, but that's not the point. The point is to make her think we have it so she'll approach us about buying it.”
“And we do that by spreading word among the discreet and disreputable that it's for sale. Huh.”
And that, she supposed, was all the compliment she was going to get for her genius idea: Huh. Good thing she wasn't calling him for compliments. It was a little sad she had to call him at all on this, but none of her dad's old buddies from the force knew who would broker something this weird and difficult to appraise.
“Exactly. The question is who would be a go-between for an old, hand-written, possibly stolen manuscript?”
“A few guys,” he answered. “One in particular. But the point of a fence is usually to provide some insulation between the buyer and seller. Besides which, this guy is going to want to authenticate it before putting himself out there.”
Oh. She didn't say that, of course. Instead she thought furiously. “Well, can we ask your guy to arrange a meet? Maybe tell him the item has sentimental value and we would want to make sure whoever buys it is really going to appreciate it.”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “It isn't as if this is a Matisse, though. Most people aren't buying home-made spell books for their re-sell value. He's gonna assume that whoever wants it will want it for some kooky reason of their own.”
She sighed. Deeply. “So you're telling me that there's no one in the seamy under-belly of the world of rare books who'd be willing to simply do this for the right price?”
“No, but we don't have unlimited funds to throw at this, either.” And they were back to money again. That didn't take long, she thought. “Besides,” he continued, “have you considered that she may already have it?”
Dinah had, although she'd been counting on him not to consider that himself. Counting on the old Ollie, that is. When she'd first met him he'd been perfectly willing to let her sweat the “small” stuff, but the last few months he'd become a micro-managing gluteus maximus. The problem with the new Ollie, beyond his questions being a huge waste of everyone's time - she was, she noticed, now officially ten minutes late to the station - was that the more he dug into these particular details, the closer he got to tapping the well of his emotional issues again. Maybe if she threw him a bone he'd gnaw on that and be satisfied. “I don't think she does,” she said, with the same confidence she used to hock gold coins and security systems for sponsor ads. “Her M.O.I.R.A. entry says she didn't re-acquire the book in Chloe's world until a few years ago, and even then she needed the League's help.”
“The League?”
“The Justice League. That's what they call themselves.”
“Why'd she need their help?”
She sighed again. Of course he wouldn't want his bone. She was going to have to throw him the pig's ear. “I'm not sure,” she said, truthfully. “It just says Lex had it among his possessions when he died and she contacted them for help getting it out of storage in a LuthorCorp warehouse.”
He didn't reply.
Oh, hell. She was going to have to throw him the whole damn hog. “It's just, it's Luthor connected,” she began, “and things connected to the Luthors ...”
“... tend to remain connected to the Luthors,” he finished. He paused for another few seconds, but to her surprise didn't comment on her hypothesis. “Ok. Let's proceed assuming she doesn't have it. What happens when she realizes we don't have it, either?”
Dinah released a huge, silent pent-up breath. She had, as it happened, considered that as well. “We offer to trade services. We help her find it in exchange for her help with Clark. If nothing else it'll give Bart something to do besides play Call of Duty and stare down my neckline.”
“Yeah, he was just complaining about not having enough to do,” Oliver said dryly. “I told him he needs more training. He found Zatanna last night - “
“Yes, and now he's demanding I call him 'Bart the Badass'.”
She heard him snicker. He would find that funny. “Did he tell you he lost her too?”
“I kinda read it between the lines when he said you told him he was supposed to start going out on patrol with me. Out of curiosity, when were you going to tell me about that?”
“I just did!”
“Because I called you. This is not a good idea. Kid's looking for the Girlfriend Experience. All I have to offer is Discipline. You should be the one to go out with him. You've got the next couple of patrols anyway, and he looks up to you.”
He laughed outright at that. “That was smooth.”
“The fact is he would whine less with you.”
“I wouldn't count on it. He needs to learn and we all need to do our part teaching him, Vic and Andrea too.”
“Oh God. Andrea'd plop him down in a Spanish conversation class and leave him there.” And she'd be right to do it, Dinah thought. Things were going from bad to worse near the border. Maybe when they found Zatanna she could throw a tablecloth over all the blue meth flying over the border and make it disappear.
But first they had to find her.
“She'd better not,” Oliver said. “Bart's too valuable to waste. Set up a schedule with her and Victor. I'll pencil myself in when Gina doesn't have me going through hoops at the office.”
“Ah, no. I am not Gina. Set your own damn schedule.”
“Fine. Have Stuart coordinate it.”
“Stuart? He's a hacker. He can barely talk to real people.”
“He's tech support. Emphasis on 'support'. Since unlike the rest of you, he's actually getting paid, he shouldn't complain. While you're at it, have him email me that photo of the spell book.”
“Why? What are you going to do with it?”
“Send it to my guy as bait.”
“No,” she told him. “No way. This was my idea.”
“And if Dinah Lance, champion of law and order, wants to meet with a man about selling stolen goods, what do you think the reaction from said guy will be?”
She scowled. It wasn't that she hated it when he was right. It was just that she loathed, despised, and generally abhorred it. “Fine.”
“It's a good plan, Dinah,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to delegate. Anything else?”
How 'bout you take a long walk off a short pier, Queen? “Nope.”
“We'll talk later,” he said, and then she heard the beep telling her he'd ended the call.
She threw her phone down on the passenger seat and stared at the cinder block wall beyond her car hood. Had that happened? Had she really just called to ask him a question only to have it turned into a damn teaching moment? She banged her head against the wheel again. “Sometimes you just gotta play the game,” had been her dad's favorite bit of parenting advice when she'd been little. Then they'd both gotten older and it had changed to “Screw 'em.” At least in her hearing it had been. Now she just had to decide which to follow.
Her phone beeped. Henry, he of the sandy hair and the water behind the ears, had texted her: Ms. Lance? Where are you? She threw her phone back down and buckled her seat belt. She bet Gina wasn't texting that to Oliver. Or maybe she was. She'd like to think so. Somebody should be giving him hell. Softening him up for her. Getting him used to the fact that he wasn't always going to be in charge.
* - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - # - - * - & % @ - #
Oliver emailed the photo to Yuri and then sat back to wait. Or rather, did a million other things while the day crawled by, as did the next, and the next. Three days in which he woke up alone, went to bed alone, and in between had to threaten to rip out the newly installed gaming apparatus in the Tower after Bart pantsed a convenience store robber. Three days of discussing the earnings announcement with the board, oil price fluctuations with the strategic planning team and flower arrangements with Gina, who seemed oblivious to Lois' sudden lack of participation in their wedding plans. There were seven grande lattes; five tumblers of Craggenmore; two nights of patrol in which he assigned Bart to follow him at normal speeds and then spent doubling back searching for him; two conference calls on the patent infringement lawsuit Lionel was still pursuing in spite of his recent public announcement of his desire to “renew” their relationship; one luncheon with the chair of the Forest Stewardship Council; one announcement from Victor that he was certain he had found the site of Clark's Evil Lab of Evil (Lance one, Queen one); and one noisy, sanctimonious fight with Dinah over the ethics of destroying Clark's private property.
The last thing he needed - really, the very last thing he needed - at the moment, he thought as he stared at his mysteriously empty glass, was to start questioning whether keeping a known psychopath from regaining superpowers was the right thing to do. With said powers, he'd reminded her, the guy couldn't be stopped, or, you know, seen. Had she forgotten that? And when the hell had she decided to start coddling criminals anyway? Wasn't her schtick on her show all about how cops were being ham-strung by paperwork and technicalities and if the Supreme Court just reversed the Miranda decision there'd finally be safety all night and sunshine all day and a unicorn in every garage?
It wasn't until the first fat drops of water hit his arms that he realized he'd suited up and was on the roof, reeking of stanky leather and Scotch. He remembered now he'd emptied the bottle before coming up here. He stood there as the drops fell more abundantly, hitting his nose and arms and neck, dripping down his chin and dribbling below his vest. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night kept him from his appointed rounds, but he'd never patrolled after drinking this much. It was one or the other - that had been one of the rules Lois had scribbled on the back of a coaster and framed for him. The others were “No driving”, “No tabs”, “No heels taller than 2 inches”, “Nobody is that good looking (except for you, Ollie)”, and “Buy your own drinks”. She'd managed to find her way around some of them (as in: “It totally doesn't count if I put it on your tab, Oliver”), but she was adamant about the heels, the cabs, and the patrolling. Not that whether he patrolled was any of her business anymore, but he doubted she would see it that way, especially if she ever figured out he had a security detail tailing her.
Perhaps unconsciously reacting to her reaction to that, he kept himself to a crouch. The interior of his vest had a wick-away lining but even it had not been engineered to stay dry during the kind of downpour this was turning into, and it was beginning to cling to his chest and back. The wet would be hell on the bow as well, but there was no rule that said he had to use it. And Lois had never made a rule that he couldn't fight when he was drunk - except with her, of course.
But while he zipped over the alleys to a rented garage, Lois was buying her own drinks at the Ace of Clubs, where she had seemed to spend every night since her announcement that she was moving to Gotham. This was unlike her - she'd been raised to damn the torpedoes - but in a way it was a relief from her recent billiarding between sniping on Dinah to bitching about Clark to staring moodily into space. Actually none of that was like her either - well, the bitching about Clark was, but since her firing it had risen to dizzying new heights. She had not been happy when he'd pointed out that crime had been creeping back up in the city since Clark's reign of terror had ended and therefore additional patrols were necessary. “You don't think you're going to replace him,” had been her response, which had gotten his back up, which had led to their last fight, which had led to her need for space.
Which was fine. She could keep her space and her new job and her new city and he would keep his. His space, his city, his Ducati. Even Bart would yell at him for riding it in this rain, but it wasn't just a Ducati. It was his mission, and he was going to keep it. Tonight and every night. He may not be capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but he wasn't going to spend his life behind a desk or up in a tower or letting all the pimps and dealers and the bosses who ran them take the chance that someone wasn't watching them tonight. He was going to show this city that justice wasn't about fear and corruption and helplessness. It was about doing what you could, where you could, and right now what he could do was patrol the alleys of Suicide Slums.
He turned over the engine and headed out toward the Payne Reliever.