It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 10
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!
Table of Contents
It didn't seem fair, really, that Dinah'd had practically a front-row seat to the story of the year and she couldn't go after it because the world's fastest man was slowing her down. They needed to implant a chip in him, some kind of tracking device she could use to at least know where he had been even if his power made him too Heisenberg-uncertain for her to know where he was. She drummed the fingers of one hand against her keyboard and clicked the stations of Watchtower's many monitors endlessly with those of the other, waiting for that cow Catherine Grant on Good Morning Metropolis to scoop her, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, waiting for Bart to get back and report.
Which he was not doing. She drummed her fingers a little faster. She'd still get decent ratings off the guest interviews and call-ins, but she'd really want to break this one. She'd been there, dammit, talked to the freakin' witnesses and everything. Not that she would be able to say any of that on air, but it would have to give her some kind of edge. Wouldn't it? She hoped it would. She could use the break. Breaks were getting hard to come by, what with Victor missing. She knew she should be doing something besides nothing, something to help find him, but she wasn't sure what that would be. Victor and Stuart were the keyboard wizards; she was just a moonlighting pundalist who'd pounded way too much caffeine in the last forty-five minutes.
She tried to tell herself that was why her heart was racing and her mouth was dry. That was what was making her stupid. It wasn't because Victor, besides being preternaturally pretty, was religiously reliable, and would have made contact by now if he was able to. It was definitely the coffee. That and waiting for Cat's blonde head to fill her screen, informing her and the rest of the city that Ultraman was -
“Jesus H. Christ!” she yelled as an enormous swath of fabric came out of nowhere to switch her face before collapsing, with a grunt, on to the floor.
“A little help?” Bart groaned.
“I'm trying!” the pile of fabric grumbled. “I think you're on top of the sheet.”
Dinah frowned. She knew that voice.
“No one minds if you get up without the sheet. Really,” Bart answered.
“Chloe?” Dinah asked.
“Dinah?” Chloe answered. A face emerged from the pile of cloth, the face of the woman who'd gotten her tangled up in this whole knot to begin with. Actually, quite a bit more than face emerged. A neck and a shoulder and most of her chest emerged too, much to Bart's enjoyment below.
“I thought your name was 'Elizabeth',” he said.
“Sit up,” Dinah told him, yanking at the material. She managed to free enough of it for Chloe to stand up and re-arrange it so it more-or-less covered her. “Is that a sheet? Why are you wearing a sheet?” she asked. In retrospect she decided that bit of stupidity was also due to the caffeine.
“It was what was available,” Chloe told Dinah, “and yes, I'd appreciate it if you called me 'Elizabeth' here,” she told Bart. “I understand there's a situation? Ultraman's back in business and Cyborg's out of commission?”
“How do you know that name?” Bart asked.
“Because I really do know everything,” Chloe answered, shuffling over to the workstation at the desk. “Except where Cyborg's at right now. And why I'm here. And why I don't have any clothes. And where I can get some of that coffee I smell. And how to log in to this system.”
“Oh, here, I can get you in,” Dinah said, jogging over there. She didn't know why she didn't think to do it before. “You didn't use, you know, that thing you use?”
Bart threw his hands on his hips “What 'thing' would she be using?”
“No, I didn't,” Chloe answered, grumpy. “I have no idea how I got here. Maybe somebody in your reality used theirs and it transferred me over? The only problem is I'm dead here, so that would defy even the laws of Kryptonian physics.”
“Well whatever happened, it's great to see you.” It really was. Dinah had the giddy, irrational feeling the cavalry had arrived.
“There's a 'your reality'?” Bart practically yelled. “What does that mean? There are other realities out there?” An eager smile broke out on Bart's face. “Are you, like, from the fifth dimension or something? Do you concurrently exist in all times? Is that how you know so much?”
Dinah exchanged a look with Chloe, who shrugged . “It's more like a mirror universe,” Chloe said, typing something into the system. “Except we don't read things backwards or scream before we get hurt. It's pretty much the same as here, apart from it being there. Where was Cyborg's last known position?”
“So when you say you're dead here, but you exist there, does that mean we exist here but are dead there?” Bart asked slowly.
Dinah gave her the address of the farm and watched Chloe look up its latitude and longitude. “Nope,” Chloe told him. “You exist.”
“There's another me? That's awesome!”
“It is,” Chloe agreed. “And the best part is my world's you can get me a cup of coffee even before I finish...” Chloe smiled at him and at the coffee sloshed on her sheet. “Thanks.”
Bart beamed back. “So, is there a Canary in your world?”
“Yep. So knowing Clark Luthor is now faster than a speeding bullet, we know that Cyborg could, technically, be anywhere in the world. However, we also know that there are a limited number of places Clark could bring him without raising questions, and that most of those places are either owned by LuthorCorp or are so isolated Clark probably doesn't know any more about them than we do. So I say we start our search pattern beginning at the farm and moving systematically from there to the closest LuthorCorp facility, then to the next closest, et cetera.”
“Is there a reason he'd want to stay close to the farm?” Dinah asked.
“It sounds as if he's just gotten his powers back recently, which means that if he has a base he's been using regularly I'm guessing it would be one he could get to easily by ordinary means. Bart, after you check the farm, we want you to head south to …” she paused. “Lexington. Looks as if the Luthors own a wind farm there. When are you scheduled to be at the station?” she asked Dinah.
“Well, nine, usually,” Dinah answered, a little taken aback. Probably the caffeine slowing her brain down again.
“But it'll be a big news day for the crime and punishment beat. You'd better shower and get over there. It'll look weird if you're not on top of this.”
“I guess,” Dinah answered.
“Wait, why am I the one doing all the work here?” Bart asked.
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Oliver didn't bother to shower. Where he was going it wouldn't matter, and the clock was ticking. Tess was gone. The security feeds showed her leaving, hair tousled, her shoes tucked under her arm, half an hour before Lois arrived. That meant she'd left before Bart's ruckus, which would have been a relief if he didn't have so many reasons to worry about where she'd gone.
Nor did he have any way of finding out until Bart reported in. At the moment, he had to concentrate on what he could do, which was yanking on yesterday's clothes and dialing Gina. Either Tess had colluded with Zatanna, played him like a fiddle and escaped to plan world destruction or she hadn't. The dice he’d thrown last night had yet to land, but either way he had a job to do.
Gina picked up on the second ring, her “Hello?” brisk and efficient even at six in the morning.
“Gina. Good morning.” He unlocked the Lexus and climbed into the front seat. “I know it's early, but I need the helicopter ready in fifteen.”
“Will you be returning today?”
“Yes, but cancel all appointments. Something personal's come up.”
Beep. He had another call coming in.
“Is everything alright?”
Beep. He took a glance at the caller ID. “Trusty Couriers” was attempting to reach him.
“Yes, thanks. I have another call coming in.”
He ended the call and switched over to the “courier”. “Man, where are you? You are needed!” Bart groaned.
“The question is where's Cyborg,” corrected Oliver. Traffic was still light at this time of the morning; with any luck he'd get to the helipad in the fifteen minutes he'd given to Gina.
“Not at the farm. Neither's the farm girl. Just lots and lots and lots of lovely Mary Jane.”
“Ok. Do for NinjaStriker what you did for me this morning and rendezvous with Canary. You're gonna see if he's left any virtual crumbs for us to follow.”
“When this is over you're gonna explain why the computer geek gets an awesome code name like that and I get Impulse.”
“No, I'm not. Where's Watchtower?”
“Yeah, I know, I know. I'm supposed to be memorizing street names. I've been a little busy the last few hours.”
“I meant our new friend. Blondie.”
“You're naming her after the building?”
“Yes.” Oliver rolled his eyes. “I'm naming her after the building. Where is she?”
“In the building. Seriously, I think she'd like 'Blondie' better.”
“I doubt that.” He also doubted whether Watchtower was the safest place for her. He'd sent her off with Bart because she'd been clear, at their last meeting, that “I can't be involved”, but Clark knew the Tower and he knew her from it. If he was going to get her out of this mess and back to her own reality in one piece, it was probably best if he sent her to the safe house. “Okay, I'm going to give you a phone number on the condition that if you ever dial it again your refrigerator privileges are permanently revoked. It's 710-132-0517. Once you get NinjaStriker to the Tower I want you to call Lois and tell her that you and Watchtower will be meeting up with her and Watchtower's going with her. Got it.”
“I don't think that's going to work.”
“I call Lois on that number all the time.”
“No, I mean, Blondie's not going to go for that. You may not have noticed this, but she's a little bossy. She had a headset on like two seconds after we got to the Tower.”
“Watchtower knows how to follow orders,” Oliver replied. Well, she'd allowed herself to be tied up that first time they'd met. She hadn't stayed tied up very long, true, but the point was that she hadn't put up a fight.
“Uh-huh. And where are you gonna be in all of this?'”
“Right now your mission is to get Watchtower to safety and to find Cyborg, understood?”
“Sure,” Bart answered after a brief moment during which Oliver got the impression he'd had to reject every other response that came into his head. “Impulse out.”
Oliver hit the END button a second time that morning and dialed a new call.
“For what city?” the automated operator asked.
“Smallville,” he replied.
“For what listing?”
“Smallville High School.”
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Once at the helipad, Oliver strapped himself in and took a deep breath. Kasich was waiting for him, looking a little disgruntled, but moments like these were why Oliver paid him the big bucks, and Kasich, like Gina, knew not to question it. Of course, Kasich, like Gina, would probably eventually get his own back. Just before take-off Gina had not-so-subtly emailed him the white paper on the Chinese solar panel industry by the members of the strategic development team he had been scheduled to meet with today. Personal issues or no personal issues, she was telling him, he still had a company to run. Not for the first time he debated just telling her and be done. If she knew what was really going on...
... she would never be safe. She would be in the exact same danger Lois was in, only worse, because Gina would think it was her job to help him. The way Chloe obviously thought she needed to help him. The way she had helped him so strategically in the past. If he'd been thinking at all, he would have known she was … He swallowed. He couldn't think that way. She wasn't here of her own volition. She didn't have her silvery box to beam her away. Hell, she didn't even have clothes. Knowing Bart, she wouldn't get any, either. The kid would probably drop her off at the safehouse in that sheet she'd been wrapped in. He'd have to send someone from the security team out to get some. She could borrow some from Lois for now but God knew how long she was going to be here, or how he was going to get her back. That was one of many things Zatanna was going to explain when he got back to Metropolis.
The second, of course, was how the hell she'd gotten up on his damn roof. The coincidence of her appearing there when she had, the night that Ultraman returned to the living, was beyond extraordinary. Yes, the database listed teleportation among her abilities, but why choose the roof? Why not his front door, his living room, his bedroom? She'd certainly seemed up for using his bed. The only answer he could think of was that she hadn't gotten there on her own strength. Someone had dropped her off there, and by “someone”, he meant Clark Luthor, flying by en route to kill his latest un-accused and untried criminal.
Looking down at the suburban industrial parks passing below them, he wondered if this is what Clark saw every time he flew: giant warehouses churning out engine parts and cartons and stamped metal; giant semi-trucks transporting the products churned to factories and ports all over the continent; giant SUVs and pick-ups transporting the workers to and from the factories to houses and day-care facilities and restaurants, and all of it reduced to the size of a model train set. All of it no bigger than a child's toy. He wondered if that was what allowed him to pass judgment so quickly, to kill so easily, because human industry and human civilization and human lives were just so many playthings to an alien with the powers of a demi-god.
Or was it simply the way he'd been taught to view the world by Lionel? In Lionel's world, everyone was expendable, even Clark. But “The Blur” in Chloe's database wasn't a killer; based on his entry he was Jesus Christ in a buffalo-plaid shirt. What differentiates this world from hers is the fact that Lionel got to Clark before the Kents did.
He wondered if Lionel had any idea at all what Clark would be capable of now that he had his powers back.
Maybe he did, and he didn't care. Maybe that was the plan, to create a being so powerful and ruthless that not even Lionel could stop him. Not that Lionel would ever stop trying to control anything, but neither did he have any use for weakness. Weakness was to be eliminated wherever it emerged, even if it emerged in one's own son. In that insane logic rested his hope. Lionel had joined Swann's little club to welcome the Traveler to earth, but had double-crossed or killed every other member in order to win the prize for himself. If he and Genevieve had begun working together again - or, which was more likely, Lionel had duped her again - it had to be because he truly feared being weakened by losing his prize. Somehow, some poor girl in Smallville had gotten her hands on a genuine book of magic, and he had to find it. It was the only leverage he had.