The Fall 2/?
Title: The Fall 2/?
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sometimes even a hero needs to be rescued.
Notes: Another chapter. Hope everyone likes it. Let me know. Reviews ar always appreciated.
A loud persistent knock at the door drew Chloe’s attention away from the TV. Rarely did anyone knock. Clark half the time landed on her balcony and that was when he even visited. Lois had a key.
She glanced warily at the at the side table that had a gun hidden underneath it. “Who is it?”
“Me, so don’t shoot!”
Chloe sighed and shook her head. With a groan she set her TV dinner to the side and stood up. “I’m off!” But she slowly made her way to the door. Seconds later, after punching in a code on the keypad, she found herself faced with three men. One much shorter than the others. “Well this is a surprise. Is there a reunion?’
“Not a good reunion.” Victor said gravely and stepped into her apartment, Bart and AC following behind him.
“Well that sounds foreboding.” After locking up she moved back to the sofa and grabbed the plate she had just discarded. “If you don’t mind, I’m hungry.” Victor shook his head, seeming to not even hear her. “What’s up?”
“Oliver.”
Somehow she had just lost her appetite. “Well nothing has been up with Oliver in months besides drunken escapades and bad business decisions. So care to enlighten me.”
“He’s disappeared.” AC clarified.
She stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Like on purpose?” AC and Bart looked to Victor. That wasn’t good.
“I don’t think so. You know how we’d been watching his movements?” Chloe nodded. It had been her idea after all. Oliver’s current state of mind made him slightly untrustworthy. “Well he’s off the grid. Before I came to you I did a little bit of investigating. Three days ago he took off to Havana on a private jet. It turns out he has some old friends that live there. He stayed in his hotel room for one night and hasn’t been in it since.”
“Maybe he’s been staying somewhere else.” Chloe shrugged. Lord only knew what tramp he could have hooked up with.
“Yea maybe. But every tracking device we stuck on him is off.”
She frowned. That included his watch, ring, cell phones, luggage, and laptops. “Which?”
“The ring, watch and cell phones.”
Either he figured it out and destroyed them or something did happen. Chloe was inclined to believe if he found out they had been tracking him they would have heard about it to no end. “So what do you want from me?” She wanted to help, and she would, but the way they were looking at her made her worry. It reminded her of children pleading with a mother. “I mean I’m not exactly one of the more physically active members of the team you know. More in the background. It sounds like you covered all the bases that I would have.”
“Not really.” Victor sighed. “Look we need to get over there. Usually it was Oliver who got us access to travel around the world, but with him gone…”
She sighed and chewed on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, hundreds of possibilities and scenarios running through her head. “Okay, I think I could probably commandeer one of his jets. It should be easy enough to fake a meeting with him on his calendar and some flight plans. I’ll book some rooms at his hotel room.” Victor pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Thanks. Let me work on it tonight. If all goes as planned we’ll take off tomorrow at four.”
“In the morning?” Bart raised his eyebrows.
Chloe frowned. “Yes. And its ten now. So get going and gear up.” They didn’t hesitate, already heading to the door.
“She sounds like Oliver.” Bart mumbled.
“I heard that!” She snapped as she followed the three of them. After locking back up Chloe settled back on the sofa, determined to scarf down the rest of her dinner. Minutes later she was in the kitchen, tossing her spoon in the sink and the little black plastic dish in the trash. The slide away wall to her command center could barely be seen from the door way.
As worried as she was for his safety, she still cursed him. Oliver’s behavior recently had been impossible. Even Lois hadn’t any luck with speaking with him. Chloe wanted to help him, but you couldn’t help those who didn’t want it help. People needed him, but Oliver couldn’t see it that way.
Looking down, she raised her hand, palm facing up, and sighed. Her brow furrowed in concentration and then slowly, much easier than it had been in the beginning, a small blue bubble of light grew in her palm, growing and expanding. “You idiot.” She said out loud to Oliver. The light disappeared suddenly as she closed her hand in a loose fist. With a shake of her head she walked out of the kitchen.
Loud music, it was all he really heard, and he was grateful it drowned out the voices of the two women next to him. He dearly wished they would have just shut up. They didn’t need to talk for him to buy them drinks. He slid his eyes over them, not appreciatively, but more in an analytical way, deciding if it was worth the cat fight to choose between the two of them. They weren’t that good looking.
Instead he chose to excuse himself and headed to the bar in search of some other company. His friends had long ago left him, leaving Oliver to his own entertainment.
As he neared a bar he spotted one woman. Short skirt, long wavy brown hair. She turned her head, surveying the bar and he couldn’t help but see Lois in her. Shrewd eyes and a small smirk, the entire package.
“Hey, we’re back.” Bart announced. Chloe was bent over the hotel room desk. “Hey!”
“She’s got ear phones on you ass.” AC nudged him.
“Hey.” Chloe pulled the ear buds from her ears and turned to the guys.
“His friends said they left him at a bar two nights ago, haven’t seen him since. We’ve got the address though.” Victor explained then shrugged. “But nothing else.”
“I’ve got bad news.” Chloe said, and before they had a chance to question her she explained. “It appears he got arrested two nights ago. I broke into the local sheriff’s office database, but all records of him were erased. I was lucky I picked up what I did. But I don’t think he’s still there.”
“If he was arrested then he would have called someone one. Or bailed himself out.”
Chloe turned to AC and frowned. “Exactly. And if he was released then he would have been back by now. But as we could see from his hotel room everything is still there.”
“So what are you thinking?”
Chloe turned to Victor and shook her head, brow furrowing in thought. “I don’t know. I mean it could just be Oliver being erratic like he has been. But to totally drop off the map like this…I think something is going on. Why would they have erased any record of him?”
“Okay this is Oliver we’re talking about, he makes enemies, as himself and the Green Arrow.” Bart piped up. “I mean are we thinking kidnapped?”
“Maybe.” She admitted regretfully. “Let’s check out that bar tonight.” The other men remained grim and silent. Chloe shook her head. “If I ever get my hands on him…”
They went out early enough that the club wouldn’t have been too crowded. She was a little anxious, being in such a strange place. Good thing was that Bart, AC, and Victor were trailing behind her. Plus AC had a habit of looking a little intimidating if he chose. If not, at least she could depend on Bart to get her out of there fast enough.
They started with the bartender; luckily that was where they ended.
“Oh yea I remember him.”
He chuckled to himself when Chloe showed him a picture of Oliver, like it was his own personnel joke. “Something funny about it?”
“Yea. Pretty boy hit on the wrong woman.” He shook his head as he dried a glass. “Got into a little bit of a scuffle with the men with her. As much liqueur as I served him I’m surprised he held his own though. Broke a couple of arms and noses I believe. Took off by himself though, out that door.” He nodded to the exit. “Good luck finding him though.”
Another private laugh. Chloe wanted to respond with something nasty, but she held back. “Why?”
“Hey.” The bartender held his hands up. “That’s as much as you’re getting out of me. And I’d advise you to not nose around, before you get yourself in trouble.”
“You said he picked up on the wrong woman?” He looked at her with a wary look. “Look, tell me or I’m going to make your life miserable. Do you understand? After they are done with you,” Chloe pointed behind her to AC, Victor, and Barat, who hopefully had their game faces on, “I’ll make sure no one ever knows you ever existed. Ever trace of you will be gone. Now tell me.” She grounded out.
“What do you think Watchtower?”
Chloe bit her lip thoughtfully. “Come on back. I’m going to pull up some satellite images. Watchtower out.” The bartender at the bar had been more then helpful with a little convincing. It turned out Oliver had managed to get tangled up with some local mob boss. They could get him out of trouble; she only prayed he was still alive.
It was easy enough to find out where mob boss Ernesto Vasquez. The problem was getting in there. The guys had gone straight to his place of residence. A swanky place set outside the rest of the city. When they found men patrolling the area with machine guns she knew they were in trouble. Her heart immediately began beating with something close to panic. Oliver could hold his own long enough, but still… The bottom line was they needed to find him.
She sighed and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes for a moment. The problem with closing her eyes was that all she saw was Oliver. With a shake of her head she opened her eyes she held out her hand, palm up. Slowly the blue ball began to glow, enlarging as it always did. What she needed was somewhere to practice.
When they got back they’d gear up and head out. It was a braze move, going in without a full drawn out plan. But they knew too little about what happened to Oliver. Wasting time would not benefit Oliver, only hurt him.
A dinging pulled her attention from her thoughts. Leaning forward she enlarged the alert on her laptop and inhaled sharply. “Oliver.”
“I said I’m going!” Chloe pulled her hair back and continued to pack her equipment.
“But we need you here. What if you get hurt?”
Chloe turned to AC with narrowed eyes. “You need me there. And trust me I won’t get hurt. I’m in charge this time. You aren’t getting in and out alive without me. So I say I’m going. Besides, I’m not going in. I’ll use that van you all stole to set up in.” The stood in silence. She didn’t care if they’d given up or were still thinking it over. “Come on.”
“Oliver would be pissed.” Bart said under his breath as he turned away.
“Oliver isn’t here! Oliver got his ass handed to him and now needs us to bail him out.” AC knocked the shorter man on the back of the head and then they were out of the hotel room, getting together there on belongings. They were checking out, and if all went well they could collect Oliver and head straight to the jet.
“So how does this work?” Victor asked and scooted closer to Chloe.
“Watch out for the bumps Bart!” She shook her head and spoke under her breath. “Why did I let him drive?”
“I was wondering the same thing.” AC called out from the front passenger seat.
“I broke into the city’s planning database and was able to find some floor plans to the house, or I guess mansion if you want to be technical. I’m going to overlay it over the satellite images I snagged and the GPS from the locator in his ring.”
“Sounds good in theory.”
“Yea. The only thing that worries me is that Oliver may not be where his ring is.”
“We always knew we would have problems with the ring.” Victor commented in an attempt to make her feel better. “Too many outside variables with it. And it was small. The fact that the rings locater went off may have had nothing to do with him getting kidnapped. It could have just been a glitch.”
“That came on at the perfect time?” She asked him knowingly. He just shrugged. They could be walking into a trap, but still, they couldn’t very well abandon Oliver, even if he was being an ass. “I just wish Oliver was here.” She said softly. It was the first time she was admitting to any kind of weakness. He smiled sadly. “Yea, I know.” She said without even needing his response.
“I think we all do. I mean he was great at the planning stuff. Plus when it came down to a real down and dirty fight that was where Oliver came in. Trust me; if I’m going into a building with guys with guns I’d rather have Oliver along for the ride. He’ll come around, he always does.”
Chloe looked at him. Victor sounded so sure, but she couldn’t share his faith. “Forgive me if I don’t have much faith in heroes these days.”
“Everybody is different.” Victor shrugged, knowing she was referring to Clark also. “We all have a lot to bear. Some more than others. Clark, Oliver, even you.”
“Yea well…” She frowned. “Some of us deal with it better and don’t desert our friends.” He didn’t respond, and she figured he really couldn’t. Either because she was telling the truth or he didn’t want to even go there. “We’re almost there.” She announced loudly. “Bart, pull over and I’ll drive. Everybody get ready.”
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Sometimes even a hero needs to be rescued.
Notes: Another chapter. Hope everyone likes it. Let me know. Reviews ar always appreciated.
A loud persistent knock at the door drew Chloe’s attention away from the TV. Rarely did anyone knock. Clark half the time landed on her balcony and that was when he even visited. Lois had a key.
She glanced warily at the at the side table that had a gun hidden underneath it. “Who is it?”
“Me, so don’t shoot!”
Chloe sighed and shook her head. With a groan she set her TV dinner to the side and stood up. “I’m off!” But she slowly made her way to the door. Seconds later, after punching in a code on the keypad, she found herself faced with three men. One much shorter than the others. “Well this is a surprise. Is there a reunion?’
“Not a good reunion.” Victor said gravely and stepped into her apartment, Bart and AC following behind him.
“Well that sounds foreboding.” After locking up she moved back to the sofa and grabbed the plate she had just discarded. “If you don’t mind, I’m hungry.” Victor shook his head, seeming to not even hear her. “What’s up?”
“Oliver.”
Somehow she had just lost her appetite. “Well nothing has been up with Oliver in months besides drunken escapades and bad business decisions. So care to enlighten me.”
“He’s disappeared.” AC clarified.
She stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth. “Like on purpose?” AC and Bart looked to Victor. That wasn’t good.
“I don’t think so. You know how we’d been watching his movements?” Chloe nodded. It had been her idea after all. Oliver’s current state of mind made him slightly untrustworthy. “Well he’s off the grid. Before I came to you I did a little bit of investigating. Three days ago he took off to Havana on a private jet. It turns out he has some old friends that live there. He stayed in his hotel room for one night and hasn’t been in it since.”
“Maybe he’s been staying somewhere else.” Chloe shrugged. Lord only knew what tramp he could have hooked up with.
“Yea maybe. But every tracking device we stuck on him is off.”
She frowned. That included his watch, ring, cell phones, luggage, and laptops. “Which?”
“The ring, watch and cell phones.”
Either he figured it out and destroyed them or something did happen. Chloe was inclined to believe if he found out they had been tracking him they would have heard about it to no end. “So what do you want from me?” She wanted to help, and she would, but the way they were looking at her made her worry. It reminded her of children pleading with a mother. “I mean I’m not exactly one of the more physically active members of the team you know. More in the background. It sounds like you covered all the bases that I would have.”
“Not really.” Victor sighed. “Look we need to get over there. Usually it was Oliver who got us access to travel around the world, but with him gone…”
She sighed and chewed on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, hundreds of possibilities and scenarios running through her head. “Okay, I think I could probably commandeer one of his jets. It should be easy enough to fake a meeting with him on his calendar and some flight plans. I’ll book some rooms at his hotel room.” Victor pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Thanks. Let me work on it tonight. If all goes as planned we’ll take off tomorrow at four.”
“In the morning?” Bart raised his eyebrows.
Chloe frowned. “Yes. And its ten now. So get going and gear up.” They didn’t hesitate, already heading to the door.
“She sounds like Oliver.” Bart mumbled.
“I heard that!” She snapped as she followed the three of them. After locking back up Chloe settled back on the sofa, determined to scarf down the rest of her dinner. Minutes later she was in the kitchen, tossing her spoon in the sink and the little black plastic dish in the trash. The slide away wall to her command center could barely be seen from the door way.
As worried as she was for his safety, she still cursed him. Oliver’s behavior recently had been impossible. Even Lois hadn’t any luck with speaking with him. Chloe wanted to help him, but you couldn’t help those who didn’t want it help. People needed him, but Oliver couldn’t see it that way.
Looking down, she raised her hand, palm facing up, and sighed. Her brow furrowed in concentration and then slowly, much easier than it had been in the beginning, a small blue bubble of light grew in her palm, growing and expanding. “You idiot.” She said out loud to Oliver. The light disappeared suddenly as she closed her hand in a loose fist. With a shake of her head she walked out of the kitchen.
Loud music, it was all he really heard, and he was grateful it drowned out the voices of the two women next to him. He dearly wished they would have just shut up. They didn’t need to talk for him to buy them drinks. He slid his eyes over them, not appreciatively, but more in an analytical way, deciding if it was worth the cat fight to choose between the two of them. They weren’t that good looking.
Instead he chose to excuse himself and headed to the bar in search of some other company. His friends had long ago left him, leaving Oliver to his own entertainment.
As he neared a bar he spotted one woman. Short skirt, long wavy brown hair. She turned her head, surveying the bar and he couldn’t help but see Lois in her. Shrewd eyes and a small smirk, the entire package.
“Hey, we’re back.” Bart announced. Chloe was bent over the hotel room desk. “Hey!”
“She’s got ear phones on you ass.” AC nudged him.
“Hey.” Chloe pulled the ear buds from her ears and turned to the guys.
“His friends said they left him at a bar two nights ago, haven’t seen him since. We’ve got the address though.” Victor explained then shrugged. “But nothing else.”
“I’ve got bad news.” Chloe said, and before they had a chance to question her she explained. “It appears he got arrested two nights ago. I broke into the local sheriff’s office database, but all records of him were erased. I was lucky I picked up what I did. But I don’t think he’s still there.”
“If he was arrested then he would have called someone one. Or bailed himself out.”
Chloe turned to AC and frowned. “Exactly. And if he was released then he would have been back by now. But as we could see from his hotel room everything is still there.”
“So what are you thinking?”
Chloe turned to Victor and shook her head, brow furrowing in thought. “I don’t know. I mean it could just be Oliver being erratic like he has been. But to totally drop off the map like this…I think something is going on. Why would they have erased any record of him?”
“Okay this is Oliver we’re talking about, he makes enemies, as himself and the Green Arrow.” Bart piped up. “I mean are we thinking kidnapped?”
“Maybe.” She admitted regretfully. “Let’s check out that bar tonight.” The other men remained grim and silent. Chloe shook her head. “If I ever get my hands on him…”
They went out early enough that the club wouldn’t have been too crowded. She was a little anxious, being in such a strange place. Good thing was that Bart, AC, and Victor were trailing behind her. Plus AC had a habit of looking a little intimidating if he chose. If not, at least she could depend on Bart to get her out of there fast enough.
They started with the bartender; luckily that was where they ended.
“Oh yea I remember him.”
He chuckled to himself when Chloe showed him a picture of Oliver, like it was his own personnel joke. “Something funny about it?”
“Yea. Pretty boy hit on the wrong woman.” He shook his head as he dried a glass. “Got into a little bit of a scuffle with the men with her. As much liqueur as I served him I’m surprised he held his own though. Broke a couple of arms and noses I believe. Took off by himself though, out that door.” He nodded to the exit. “Good luck finding him though.”
Another private laugh. Chloe wanted to respond with something nasty, but she held back. “Why?”
“Hey.” The bartender held his hands up. “That’s as much as you’re getting out of me. And I’d advise you to not nose around, before you get yourself in trouble.”
“You said he picked up on the wrong woman?” He looked at her with a wary look. “Look, tell me or I’m going to make your life miserable. Do you understand? After they are done with you,” Chloe pointed behind her to AC, Victor, and Barat, who hopefully had their game faces on, “I’ll make sure no one ever knows you ever existed. Ever trace of you will be gone. Now tell me.” She grounded out.
“What do you think Watchtower?”
Chloe bit her lip thoughtfully. “Come on back. I’m going to pull up some satellite images. Watchtower out.” The bartender at the bar had been more then helpful with a little convincing. It turned out Oliver had managed to get tangled up with some local mob boss. They could get him out of trouble; she only prayed he was still alive.
It was easy enough to find out where mob boss Ernesto Vasquez. The problem was getting in there. The guys had gone straight to his place of residence. A swanky place set outside the rest of the city. When they found men patrolling the area with machine guns she knew they were in trouble. Her heart immediately began beating with something close to panic. Oliver could hold his own long enough, but still… The bottom line was they needed to find him.
She sighed and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes for a moment. The problem with closing her eyes was that all she saw was Oliver. With a shake of her head she opened her eyes she held out her hand, palm up. Slowly the blue ball began to glow, enlarging as it always did. What she needed was somewhere to practice.
When they got back they’d gear up and head out. It was a braze move, going in without a full drawn out plan. But they knew too little about what happened to Oliver. Wasting time would not benefit Oliver, only hurt him.
A dinging pulled her attention from her thoughts. Leaning forward she enlarged the alert on her laptop and inhaled sharply. “Oliver.”
“I said I’m going!” Chloe pulled her hair back and continued to pack her equipment.
“But we need you here. What if you get hurt?”
Chloe turned to AC with narrowed eyes. “You need me there. And trust me I won’t get hurt. I’m in charge this time. You aren’t getting in and out alive without me. So I say I’m going. Besides, I’m not going in. I’ll use that van you all stole to set up in.” The stood in silence. She didn’t care if they’d given up or were still thinking it over. “Come on.”
“Oliver would be pissed.” Bart said under his breath as he turned away.
“Oliver isn’t here! Oliver got his ass handed to him and now needs us to bail him out.” AC knocked the shorter man on the back of the head and then they were out of the hotel room, getting together there on belongings. They were checking out, and if all went well they could collect Oliver and head straight to the jet.
“So how does this work?” Victor asked and scooted closer to Chloe.
“Watch out for the bumps Bart!” She shook her head and spoke under her breath. “Why did I let him drive?”
“I was wondering the same thing.” AC called out from the front passenger seat.
“I broke into the city’s planning database and was able to find some floor plans to the house, or I guess mansion if you want to be technical. I’m going to overlay it over the satellite images I snagged and the GPS from the locator in his ring.”
“Sounds good in theory.”
“Yea. The only thing that worries me is that Oliver may not be where his ring is.”
“We always knew we would have problems with the ring.” Victor commented in an attempt to make her feel better. “Too many outside variables with it. And it was small. The fact that the rings locater went off may have had nothing to do with him getting kidnapped. It could have just been a glitch.”
“That came on at the perfect time?” She asked him knowingly. He just shrugged. They could be walking into a trap, but still, they couldn’t very well abandon Oliver, even if he was being an ass. “I just wish Oliver was here.” She said softly. It was the first time she was admitting to any kind of weakness. He smiled sadly. “Yea, I know.” She said without even needing his response.
“I think we all do. I mean he was great at the planning stuff. Plus when it came down to a real down and dirty fight that was where Oliver came in. Trust me; if I’m going into a building with guys with guns I’d rather have Oliver along for the ride. He’ll come around, he always does.”
Chloe looked at him. Victor sounded so sure, but she couldn’t share his faith. “Forgive me if I don’t have much faith in heroes these days.”
“Everybody is different.” Victor shrugged, knowing she was referring to Clark also. “We all have a lot to bear. Some more than others. Clark, Oliver, even you.”
“Yea well…” She frowned. “Some of us deal with it better and don’t desert our friends.” He didn’t respond, and she figured he really couldn’t. Either because she was telling the truth or he didn’t want to even go there. “We’re almost there.” She announced loudly. “Bart, pull over and I’ll drive. Everybody get ready.”