It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 7b
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!
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7a / Part 7b
Posting this in two parts because lj hates me and is there anyone out there who can clue me in on how to fix this damnable spacing problem?
He was probably crazy for doing this, but then the whole situation was crazy. And he'd found his lucky arrowhead in the Tower when he'd gone in for his biometric scans. Maybe a little crazy would bring him luck. He grabbed the file-folder with the photo of Zatanna out of his bedroom and brought it back out to her. “Check this out.” He pulled the photo out. Tess took it.
“Yeah, that's her,” she said, surprised.
Oliver froze for a moment. “That's the woman who offered you the wish? You sure?”
She another look at the photo, then lifted her face to study his. “She must have been wearing a wig, but yeah.”
“Son of a bitch.” He considered throwing his glass across the room, but with Tess appraising him the way that she was he decided against it.
“She was the one you were expecting to meet at the bookstore.” It was most definitely not a question.
Oliver took a breath, studying his glass. He wondered if she would see it as a tell. Of course she would, he thought. If he saw it she would see it. “I've been trying to track her down.”
“She was the buyer you were planning to meet today.”
Damn. He reminded himself he was relying on the crazy right now. “Yes. Yes, I was.”
Tess picked up the photo again. “Why would she approach me about it and not you?”
Oliver hadn't considered that. Had Zatanna somehow connected Bart to him? “Maybe she was scared off by my bad-ass black eye,” he offered.
“Yeah, that'd do it,” she said flippantly, but her brows were drawn together in thought and her finger was tapping the back of the picture.
“It does sorta raise the question of what you were doing there to begin with,” he said. “I mean, why do you want to buy the book?”
Her finger stopped tapping. “Why do you want to sell it?”
“I asked you first.”
“You can't use it, can you,” she said, oblivious to his rebuttal. Again, it was not a question. “You want to find someone who can.”
“Which I'm guessing wouldn't be you, unless you've recently gotten grant money to cook some eye of newt in a cauldron. So why would you want it?”
“Documents of pre-scientific cultures seeking to exploit nature have always fascinated me,” she said, adopting a business-like smile he was sure the Met U administration ate up with a spoon.
“Bullshit. You're not a collector; since Lionel cut you off you don't have the cash for it, and even if you were no one gets as worked up about pre-scientific documents as you were this morning unless they're Indiana Jones.”
“Maybe I'm looking for the Holy Grail,” she smirked.
“Don't.” He leaned forward. In his pocket he could feel the arrowhead digging into his thigh as the fabric over it stretched. “It's not worth it. Those dangerous people we spoke about earlier? This woman is one of them, and it looks to me as if she's made you an offer you couldn't refuse. You're a piece of work but you are my sister and I hate to think what she might do if you can't hold up your end of the bargain.”
“I can hold up my end of the bargain.”
“How?”
“You could sell me the book.”
Actually, he couldn't. Not yet, at least. There was no reason to get into specifics, however. Embrace the crazy, he thought. “That assumes I would want to. I might, but Lionel's not the only one with plans.”
“And your plans would be to recruit yourself a pet witch?”
Tess wasn't the only one who could ignore questions, he decided. “If she's been paying attention at all she's bound to know how you used your wish, and in my experience she's always paying attention.” That, of course, was a downright lie. He had no experience with Zatanna at all, but that also was not necessary for Tess to know. “Who's to say she wouldn't take the offer back by taking Clark out?”
Tess' eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. If you'd been paying attention you would have heard me to offer to help. I might sell you the book. If I wanted to. But first I would need to know why you wanted it yourself.”
“Like father, like son,” she muttered. Oliver bristled, but her shoulders were slumping. “It's fitting, I'll say that. The truth is, I don't give a damn about it. But it's exactly the kind of thing that would interest Lionel.”
He frowned. “Why's that?”
“He collects old books of magic. He's got a whole shelf of them in his office at LuthorCorp. They feed into some plan or another,” she said said vaguely. “He gets pretty worked up about them, too. Before Genevieve died the two of them together nearly drove some poor girl in Smallville crazy going after one she owned.”
“Genevieve Teague?” he asked.
“The one and only. You know I wouldn't be surprised to find out one of these days that Jason's a long-lost brother as well.”
“Yeah.” He answered. An idea sprang up from the depths of his mind and began popping up and down like a deranged whack-a-mole he couldn't quite hit. “Wouldn't that be a kicker?”
“So what about the book?”
Oliver pulled himself back from the frustration in his mind. “It's not in Metropolis,” he said. The lies were coming easily to him this evening.
“Where is it?”
“Not here. I'll have to go get it.”
“And that's it?”
“It might take a few days.”
“You're going to just give it to me?”
“No. We can discuss an appropriate payment once I have it in hand.”
“I think we can discuss an appropriate payment now.”
Oliver forced himself not to drum his fingers against the armrest. “Alright. What do you think would be appropriate?”
“Five thousand.”
“Really?” He couldn't help but laugh. “Where would you get that kind of money?”
She gave him that look again. “Where do you think?”
“Yeah, you're gonna have to forgive me if I say no to that.”
“I suppose we could work out a payment plan.”
“I don't need the money.”
A wariness entered her eyes. “What then?”
He'd learned tonight he wouldn't tell him anything if he asked her outright, not unless she was afraid - and not just for herself. But every once in awhile she would let her guard down, let something slip.
“You ever think about working in the private sector?” he asked.
She quirked a brow. “Are you offering me a job in the growing field of indentured servitude?”
“Maybe. If that's what you call not having to beg for money every two years to pay the two doctoral candidates and an undergrad that are your only staff.”
“And you would offer that money to me for free.”
“For your work. You're brilliant, Tess, and I want that brilliance to make some pivotal, patentable discoveries for QI.”
“I enjoy basic research.”
“I'm not saying you can't do that too.”
She stared at him a moment. “You're serious.”
“It's a win-win. Actually it's more like a win-win-win, with two win's for you.”
“And only one for you.”
“I'm thinking long-term.”
“You'll understand then that I need some time to think about it.”
He nodded. “I thought you would. Hey are you hungry at all? I haven't eaten since breakfast.”