ABC
Title: ABC
Summary: A songfic describing the episode, Roulette. Inspired by Imogen Heap- Speeding Cars. Dedicated to gen717 as a very belated birthday present, due to writer’s block. I hope you had a wonderful day, Gen!
Listen to the song here
Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
Just run with me through rows of speeding cars
Chloe watched through the traffic cameras of Metropolis from her desk at Watchtower as Oliver took Victoria’s hand and ran through the streets, avoiding the blanks the paid theatre majors from Metropolis University were shooting at him while Dinah shattered the glass soundlessly with her cry.
All that was needed was for Victoria to fake her own death. She had Victor ready to fake a computer in a hidden room upstairs with a laptop to make it look like all of Oliver’s funds were disappearing. Every detail of this was planned. All she needed to do right now was make sure that nobody from the outside got involved.
“Okay, this is taking too long”, she said into her com. “If he gets too far away from the scene, they’re never going to be able to take him in. Roulette, drop down. Now.”
And on command, Victoria faked getting shot. She stood still for a split second as Bart sneaked onto the scene and threw fake blood on her.
“No, come on!” she heard Oliver pull her up before Roulette fell to the ground.
“Make it look real”, she whispered into the com so that Oliver wouldn’t hear anything. Chloe grabbed her mouse and clicked twice on the image, zooming in on the camera.
“Victoria, look at me. Look at me.”
“Let me go”, Roulette said. “This is the only way I’ll be free.”
“Listen to me, you’ve got to fight, okay? You’ve got to hang on”, Oliver said desperately.
No, Oliver. You have to fight. You have to be the one to hang on. “Cue the cars”, she spoke, pressing a button to signal in the police cars. The students were happy to speed in, angry looks in their eyes.
“Hands up”, she heard one of them shouting, pointing a gun at him. God, these guys were good.
“Hey, wait a minute. You’ve got the wrong guy, okay?” Oliver asked
“Aquaman, you made sure that the stun gun is on a low enough voltage, right?”
“Yes”, the man responded.
“Good.”
Bart sped to the scene once Oliver was knocked unconscious, and Victoria stood up. “Are you sure she knows what she’s doing?” she asked
He nodded.
“Roulette, this is no time for second thoughts. I need you to get over to the club right away. Cyborg, make sure you have that program ready.”
***
She inspected Oliver as he walked through the door. “Oh my god, are you okay?” The concern was fake- she knew that he would be fine. But the question told the others to stay away from the Watchtower until notified otherwise.
“South of there. By a few horror movies”, he said, walking past her and sitting down on the couch.
The papercuts, the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
I know you think it’s more than just bad luck
She was glad that he was staring down at his feet. Because if he had looked at her for too long, she knew that he probably would have seen right through her act.
She glanced at Clark instead. “Someone’s been using Oliver as a pawn in their game. We need to figure out who.”
It was her. It was her, it was her, it was her.
“Just tell me where to start”, she told him.
“The name of the club is Roulette.” Clark gave her the business card that she had created herself. The club name modelled the name of the operation. And the fact that Chloe was controlling all of the odds. “He met a woman there named Victoria.”
“At the risk of taking a belly-flop into an awkward pool, what kind of game puts people through hell?” she asked to make conversation as she typed
“The kind that starts with being buried alive and ends with bankruptcy.” Oliver answered
There there baby
It’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
She hoped that he would understand why she was doing all of this when everything was over.
The computer beeped with the response, and she reported her skewed version of what was going on, to make it seem like Roulette was behind the entire thing. Chloe wanted to give him the motive for going after someone, for following through a lead.
But it didn’t go the way she had wanted it to. Oliver seemed to want Roulette dead now. Wanted whoever was behind this to be killed. And that wasn’t Victoria. It was her.
“Oliver, when you turned your back on us, I locked up your arsenal, hoping that one day, you would want it back. But not like this.”
“This is my fight, Chloe. I’ll handle it how I see fit.”
But this wasn’t his fight anymore. This hadn’t been his fight in a long time.
Now now darling
Oh, don’t lose your head
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
“Where did that line lead you last night?” Clark asked stopping him at the door.
“Look, I got into this mess on my own. I’ll get out of it the same way. With my lawyers. Okay, scout?” he asked before patting Clark on the shoulder and going on his way.
But Clark wanted to go after him. And Chloe had been holding out on the latest Kryptonian update so that she could distract him.
She ran over to him before he could speed out. “Clark, he just needs to cool off a little bit, okay? Right now, you have bigger problems. Trust me.”
She grabbed the touch screen as she spoke. “Now, my relationship with Oliver may have dissolved”, something she hoped would change later. “But I didn’t lose everything in the meltdown. Our computers are still linked. Which is how I found this.”
She pulled up the video footage of Oliver’s suicide attempt. And listened as Clark talked about an argument that he and Lois had over whether or not Lois deserved to know what was going on.
Sleeping pills know sleeping dogs lie
Never far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
When she had first accessed it after setting off those alarms, she wasn’t as controlled as she was now. She wanted to do something- to somehow get access to his earpiece and tell him that the bomb was a fake.
But all she could do at the time was listen in as Toyman called him a murderer. And all she could do was watch as he finally unglued his hand from the glass podium in front of him and take a step backwards once the last person had left the room. She watched as he attempted to give up his life completely.
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years
You can’t keep on like this
Now’s a bad a time as any
There was nothing that she was incapable of. She ran an entire newspaper single handedly as a teenager back in high school. She juggled helping Clark save the world and getting not only papers done but her articles in by the deadline for years, and even though it was her dream, she dealt with being fired from the Daily Planet in order to help Clark.
If the team thought that they could just disappear off of the grid and think that she wouldn’t be able to find them, then they had another thing coming. She already did that, when she ran off with Davis. She disappeared off of the grid first.
She tracked them all down and convinced them to help her for one last mission. To remember how it felt to tackle a mission before completely giving up on this completely. One by one, they all agreed.
She liked seeing Bart’s face light up as he sped in and out of the Watchtower again and again. She liked Victor plugging himself into a new Queen Industries upgrade and being a part of a family. She liked putting out a glass pitcher of water, even though she knew that she would have to refill it within twenty minutes once AC walked into the room. And she liked Dinah threatening to kill the guys with her throwing knives if they irritated her for too long.
She brought them all back home, even though Clark told her that they all didn’t have one. He told her that she couldn’t do it, and even though there were Kryptonians running around to distract herself, she did it.
She sent Clark on his way before walking back over to the computer and re-connecting herself with the team. “What do we have right now?”
“We had a bit of a hiccup”, Roulette said through the com.
Oh no. “Define hiccup”
“Lois found Oliver’s car parked outside of the club, and then found Roulette.” Dinah said
“By the sound of it, Victoria’s okay. I don’t know how much time we have before Oliver storms in there. Fast forward a little bit.”
“I knocked her out, and dressed her up like me. Tied her to a chair in the club.” Roulette said
“That won’t be a problem. I have his arsenal, and the only other weapons that he has are two guns, one in his car and another in his desk drawer. They’re both filled with blanks.”
“Are you sure?” Victor asked from the hidden room
“Yes, I’m sure.” Chloe answered. What was he still doing in that room? “Clark’s gone. You can come back out now”, she added.
A bookcase opened, and Victor walked in with his laptop tucked under his arm. “He should be there any second”, he said.
Chloe started typing on the main computer in order to pull up the cameras in the club, and sure enough, there was Lois, sitting in a chair. Oliver was approaching her with a gun in his hand. He looked like he was about to shoot.
“If he shoots her, then we destroyed him”, Victor said. “Even if the gun’s loaded with blanks. He won’t see it like that. He’ll go around killing everybody who gets in his way instead of saving people.”
She kept her eyes on the monitor. She was terrified, and there were tears in her eyes, but she kept her eyes on the monitor.
Oliver’s hands were shaking as he gripped the gun. Chloe kept watching as he kept the gun pointed on what he believed to be Victoria.
And then he lowered his gun slowly. “I guess your luck hasn’t run out”, he managed to get out.
He approached the body, and turned her around until he saw that Lois was bound and gagged. “Lois.”
But he wasn’t supposed to save Lois. That’s not how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to save the enemy. “Roulette. Get in there”, she said.
And instantly, a gun was loaded. She watched as Oliver turned around and saw Victoria standing there in black leather. “I’m disappointed, Oliver. You lack the killer instinct after all. Toss the gun.”
The gun was thrown away and the two began to circle each other around the table in front of them. “You know, true gamesman?” Chloe heard him start, “They don’t cheat by stacking the deck.”
“Well”, Victoria laughed. “Everything was aces until your girlfriend showed up. As always, I had to play with the hand I was dealt.”
“Enough with the card metaphors, already.” Victor muttered underneath his breath. Chloe smiled.
“So, why don’t you just let her go?” Oliver asked
“You didn’t play by my rules, why should I play by yours? You were supposed to shoot her.”
“You see, that’s what I don’t understand”, Oliver started. “You could have killed her yourself, you could have shot me when I walked through the door. Why set the scene?”
“Don’t tell him the truth. Let him figure it out”, Chloe ordered.
Roulette nodded and smiled. “One can tie up loose ends with a simple square knot”, she began. “Or one can choose a more elegant cloverleaf. It’s all a matter of style.”
“Make him believe it”, Victor added. “Make him fight for his life.”
“Oh, and I’d say I’m sorry for taking your money. But in your case, it hardly matters. You can’t take it with you.” Roulette said before shooting in his general direction.
Victoria shot to miss and Oliver was plenty capable of taking care of himself. Chloe knew that. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t holding her breath the entire time as Oliver jumped over to the other side of the room, and got down behind a game table.
“So how do I know this isn’t just another part of your game?” Oliver shouted over the gunshot noises
There there baby
It’s just textbook stuff
It’s the ABC of growing up
Roulette shot out three more bullets for emphasis. To show that he was onto something.
But it was lost on him. “Right”, Oliver answered.
Chloe watched as Victoria kept shooting, but with no sound coming out of the gun. The woman was out of bullets.
“Get over to Lois. He won’t try anything if you’re over there”, she said to Roulette.
Oliver crawled until he saw his own gun. Then, he somersaulted across the room, picking up the gun on the way and aiming it.
Chloe spoke into the com. “Impulse, activate the gas, and get out of there.”
“Got it.”
The woman was standing over by Lois. Lois was shouting something muffled. “Shoot her.”
Oliver shook his head. “She knows I won’t. Not if there’s a chance I’d hit you.” And then he started sniffing.
Chloe smiled. “Here’s our moment of truth.”
“Gasoline”, Victoria said. “I thought I’d torch the place when we’re done.”
“Clover knot.”
“No, I just like playing with fire”, she said, holding out a lighter that Chloe had given her. The very one that Oliver had used to burn his Green Arrow outfit. “Never bet against the house.” She pushed Lois, and ran.
“Lois!” Oliver ran over to her cousin as Roulette started the fire and put herself in position.
“Come on, Oliver. Focus.” Chloe muttered as Victoria screamed for help.
His head shot up in the direction of the yelling, and he looked back over at Lois. “Oh, hell.”
Chloe watched, her heart swelling with pride as Oliver abandoned Lois and ran to save Roulette. As he abandoned the woman that people grew out of, and ran to save the idea of the woman that people grew into.
She switched the camera views into the new room, and tried to make the most she could out of all of the smoke.
“Why did you come?” Victoria asked “You could have left me here. After everything I put you through, no one would blame you.”
“I would blame myself.” He struggled against the wreckage. “Listen, I don’t care what you did or who you are. I’m going to get you the hell out of here, alright? I’m not going to let you die.”
“There’s the answer that I’ve been looking for”, Chloe said. “Deactivating the fire now.”
The fires that did exist were switched on by remote. It didn’t take very long for her to switch it all off.
Now now darling
Oh, don’t kill yourself
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
“You kept asking me who did this to you. My question was always the answer: who did you destroy? I hear your some sort of hero- one that tried to bury that part of himself. You’ve just proven that hero is still alive, Oliver. Now, it’s time to resurrect him.”
It’s okay by me…it was a long time ago
Chloe waited at the Café with a cup of coffee and a copy of the morning’s edition of the Daily Planet in her hand until he figured everything out and came to her.
“Nicely played.”
There there baby it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
Oh, don’t lose your head
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
He wasn’t angry. At least, he didn’t seem to be. “I started asking myself who knew about Lex, about Toyman, the things I’d given up, what I tried to do”, he started as he took a seat across the table from her. “Then it all occurred to me. Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers, and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing. Right?”
They did much more than that. They worked as a team again, and AC helped her to put together most of the brainstorming.
There there baby it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
“You were living like you had a death wish, Oliver. You had to face your demons if you were ever going to make it out alive, and I had to push you over the ledge in order to pull you back.”
“Did you have to push with a three ton truck?” he asked
“I didn’t think that a tricycle would be a strong enough point”, she said, leaning forward. “You’re a fighter, Oliver. You fought for yourself, and for a second chance.”
Now now darling
Oh, don’t kill yourself
“Chloe, I’m not the only one you put at risk.”
“If you’re worried about our little club and Lex, don’t be. I played my cards close to my chest.” It looked like Victoria rubbed off on her. Now, she was the one using card metaphors.
“And Lois was what? She was, uh, just another ace up your sleeve?”
“No, I never meant for her to get involved”, she said automatically. “She was chasing after you when she accidentally ended up storming the field. That’s when Victoria went off script”, she explained.
“I could have killed her.”
She never would have given him the chance. Not with her cousin’s life. “No offense to your manhood, but I made sure that your gun was loaded with blanks. Just in case.”
She felt that she needed to explain herself somehow to him. That she still trusted him. Family just came first. “I trust you, Oliver. Just…not that much.”
She took a sip of the coffee in her hand and waited for him to say something.
“Did Clark know about this?”
Clark wouldn’t have been able to. “You can’t be serious. Clark would never in a million years risk what needed to be done.”
“Well, he’s lead a different life than we have, hasn’t he? I can’t expect him to know me like you do. The places that I had sunk to, the depths you must have had to go to bring me back.” He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
She smiled, proud of herself for what she had accomplished. Because she had done more than just bring him back, or bring the others back. She had reinstated the Justice League.
But she couldn’t take all of the credit. Oliver wanted to be saved- they all did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to get anything done. “You proved it to yourself. Even with your face in the gutter, you still had the hero in your heart.”
And then something unexpected happened. He grabbed her hand. “You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth, and the man.”
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
Summary: A songfic describing the episode, Roulette. Inspired by Imogen Heap- Speeding Cars. Dedicated to gen717 as a very belated birthday present, due to writer’s block. I hope you had a wonderful day, Gen!
Listen to the song here
Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
Just run with me through rows of speeding cars
Chloe watched through the traffic cameras of Metropolis from her desk at Watchtower as Oliver took Victoria’s hand and ran through the streets, avoiding the blanks the paid theatre majors from Metropolis University were shooting at him while Dinah shattered the glass soundlessly with her cry.
All that was needed was for Victoria to fake her own death. She had Victor ready to fake a computer in a hidden room upstairs with a laptop to make it look like all of Oliver’s funds were disappearing. Every detail of this was planned. All she needed to do right now was make sure that nobody from the outside got involved.
“Okay, this is taking too long”, she said into her com. “If he gets too far away from the scene, they’re never going to be able to take him in. Roulette, drop down. Now.”
And on command, Victoria faked getting shot. She stood still for a split second as Bart sneaked onto the scene and threw fake blood on her.
“No, come on!” she heard Oliver pull her up before Roulette fell to the ground.
“Make it look real”, she whispered into the com so that Oliver wouldn’t hear anything. Chloe grabbed her mouse and clicked twice on the image, zooming in on the camera.
“Victoria, look at me. Look at me.”
“Let me go”, Roulette said. “This is the only way I’ll be free.”
“Listen to me, you’ve got to fight, okay? You’ve got to hang on”, Oliver said desperately.
No, Oliver. You have to fight. You have to be the one to hang on. “Cue the cars”, she spoke, pressing a button to signal in the police cars. The students were happy to speed in, angry looks in their eyes.
“Hands up”, she heard one of them shouting, pointing a gun at him. God, these guys were good.
“Hey, wait a minute. You’ve got the wrong guy, okay?” Oliver asked
“Aquaman, you made sure that the stun gun is on a low enough voltage, right?”
“Yes”, the man responded.
“Good.”
Bart sped to the scene once Oliver was knocked unconscious, and Victoria stood up. “Are you sure she knows what she’s doing?” she asked
He nodded.
“Roulette, this is no time for second thoughts. I need you to get over to the club right away. Cyborg, make sure you have that program ready.”
***
She inspected Oliver as he walked through the door. “Oh my god, are you okay?” The concern was fake- she knew that he would be fine. But the question told the others to stay away from the Watchtower until notified otherwise.
“South of there. By a few horror movies”, he said, walking past her and sitting down on the couch.
The papercuts, the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
I know you think it’s more than just bad luck
She was glad that he was staring down at his feet. Because if he had looked at her for too long, she knew that he probably would have seen right through her act.
She glanced at Clark instead. “Someone’s been using Oliver as a pawn in their game. We need to figure out who.”
It was her. It was her, it was her, it was her.
“Just tell me where to start”, she told him.
“The name of the club is Roulette.” Clark gave her the business card that she had created herself. The club name modelled the name of the operation. And the fact that Chloe was controlling all of the odds. “He met a woman there named Victoria.”
“At the risk of taking a belly-flop into an awkward pool, what kind of game puts people through hell?” she asked to make conversation as she typed
“The kind that starts with being buried alive and ends with bankruptcy.” Oliver answered
There there baby
It’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
She hoped that he would understand why she was doing all of this when everything was over.
The computer beeped with the response, and she reported her skewed version of what was going on, to make it seem like Roulette was behind the entire thing. Chloe wanted to give him the motive for going after someone, for following through a lead.
But it didn’t go the way she had wanted it to. Oliver seemed to want Roulette dead now. Wanted whoever was behind this to be killed. And that wasn’t Victoria. It was her.
“Oliver, when you turned your back on us, I locked up your arsenal, hoping that one day, you would want it back. But not like this.”
“This is my fight, Chloe. I’ll handle it how I see fit.”
But this wasn’t his fight anymore. This hadn’t been his fight in a long time.
Now now darling
Oh, don’t lose your head
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
“Where did that line lead you last night?” Clark asked stopping him at the door.
“Look, I got into this mess on my own. I’ll get out of it the same way. With my lawyers. Okay, scout?” he asked before patting Clark on the shoulder and going on his way.
But Clark wanted to go after him. And Chloe had been holding out on the latest Kryptonian update so that she could distract him.
She ran over to him before he could speed out. “Clark, he just needs to cool off a little bit, okay? Right now, you have bigger problems. Trust me.”
She grabbed the touch screen as she spoke. “Now, my relationship with Oliver may have dissolved”, something she hoped would change later. “But I didn’t lose everything in the meltdown. Our computers are still linked. Which is how I found this.”
She pulled up the video footage of Oliver’s suicide attempt. And listened as Clark talked about an argument that he and Lois had over whether or not Lois deserved to know what was going on.
Sleeping pills know sleeping dogs lie
Never far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
When she had first accessed it after setting off those alarms, she wasn’t as controlled as she was now. She wanted to do something- to somehow get access to his earpiece and tell him that the bomb was a fake.
But all she could do at the time was listen in as Toyman called him a murderer. And all she could do was watch as he finally unglued his hand from the glass podium in front of him and take a step backwards once the last person had left the room. She watched as he attempted to give up his life completely.
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years
You can’t keep on like this
Now’s a bad a time as any
There was nothing that she was incapable of. She ran an entire newspaper single handedly as a teenager back in high school. She juggled helping Clark save the world and getting not only papers done but her articles in by the deadline for years, and even though it was her dream, she dealt with being fired from the Daily Planet in order to help Clark.
If the team thought that they could just disappear off of the grid and think that she wouldn’t be able to find them, then they had another thing coming. She already did that, when she ran off with Davis. She disappeared off of the grid first.
She tracked them all down and convinced them to help her for one last mission. To remember how it felt to tackle a mission before completely giving up on this completely. One by one, they all agreed.
She liked seeing Bart’s face light up as he sped in and out of the Watchtower again and again. She liked Victor plugging himself into a new Queen Industries upgrade and being a part of a family. She liked putting out a glass pitcher of water, even though she knew that she would have to refill it within twenty minutes once AC walked into the room. And she liked Dinah threatening to kill the guys with her throwing knives if they irritated her for too long.
She brought them all back home, even though Clark told her that they all didn’t have one. He told her that she couldn’t do it, and even though there were Kryptonians running around to distract herself, she did it.
She sent Clark on his way before walking back over to the computer and re-connecting herself with the team. “What do we have right now?”
“We had a bit of a hiccup”, Roulette said through the com.
Oh no. “Define hiccup”
“Lois found Oliver’s car parked outside of the club, and then found Roulette.” Dinah said
“By the sound of it, Victoria’s okay. I don’t know how much time we have before Oliver storms in there. Fast forward a little bit.”
“I knocked her out, and dressed her up like me. Tied her to a chair in the club.” Roulette said
“That won’t be a problem. I have his arsenal, and the only other weapons that he has are two guns, one in his car and another in his desk drawer. They’re both filled with blanks.”
“Are you sure?” Victor asked from the hidden room
“Yes, I’m sure.” Chloe answered. What was he still doing in that room? “Clark’s gone. You can come back out now”, she added.
A bookcase opened, and Victor walked in with his laptop tucked under his arm. “He should be there any second”, he said.
Chloe started typing on the main computer in order to pull up the cameras in the club, and sure enough, there was Lois, sitting in a chair. Oliver was approaching her with a gun in his hand. He looked like he was about to shoot.
“If he shoots her, then we destroyed him”, Victor said. “Even if the gun’s loaded with blanks. He won’t see it like that. He’ll go around killing everybody who gets in his way instead of saving people.”
She kept her eyes on the monitor. She was terrified, and there were tears in her eyes, but she kept her eyes on the monitor.
Oliver’s hands were shaking as he gripped the gun. Chloe kept watching as he kept the gun pointed on what he believed to be Victoria.
And then he lowered his gun slowly. “I guess your luck hasn’t run out”, he managed to get out.
He approached the body, and turned her around until he saw that Lois was bound and gagged. “Lois.”
But he wasn’t supposed to save Lois. That’s not how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to save the enemy. “Roulette. Get in there”, she said.
And instantly, a gun was loaded. She watched as Oliver turned around and saw Victoria standing there in black leather. “I’m disappointed, Oliver. You lack the killer instinct after all. Toss the gun.”
The gun was thrown away and the two began to circle each other around the table in front of them. “You know, true gamesman?” Chloe heard him start, “They don’t cheat by stacking the deck.”
“Well”, Victoria laughed. “Everything was aces until your girlfriend showed up. As always, I had to play with the hand I was dealt.”
“Enough with the card metaphors, already.” Victor muttered underneath his breath. Chloe smiled.
“So, why don’t you just let her go?” Oliver asked
“You didn’t play by my rules, why should I play by yours? You were supposed to shoot her.”
“You see, that’s what I don’t understand”, Oliver started. “You could have killed her yourself, you could have shot me when I walked through the door. Why set the scene?”
“Don’t tell him the truth. Let him figure it out”, Chloe ordered.
Roulette nodded and smiled. “One can tie up loose ends with a simple square knot”, she began. “Or one can choose a more elegant cloverleaf. It’s all a matter of style.”
“Make him believe it”, Victor added. “Make him fight for his life.”
“Oh, and I’d say I’m sorry for taking your money. But in your case, it hardly matters. You can’t take it with you.” Roulette said before shooting in his general direction.
Victoria shot to miss and Oliver was plenty capable of taking care of himself. Chloe knew that. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t holding her breath the entire time as Oliver jumped over to the other side of the room, and got down behind a game table.
“So how do I know this isn’t just another part of your game?” Oliver shouted over the gunshot noises
There there baby
It’s just textbook stuff
It’s the ABC of growing up
Roulette shot out three more bullets for emphasis. To show that he was onto something.
But it was lost on him. “Right”, Oliver answered.
Chloe watched as Victoria kept shooting, but with no sound coming out of the gun. The woman was out of bullets.
“Get over to Lois. He won’t try anything if you’re over there”, she said to Roulette.
Oliver crawled until he saw his own gun. Then, he somersaulted across the room, picking up the gun on the way and aiming it.
Chloe spoke into the com. “Impulse, activate the gas, and get out of there.”
“Got it.”
The woman was standing over by Lois. Lois was shouting something muffled. “Shoot her.”
Oliver shook his head. “She knows I won’t. Not if there’s a chance I’d hit you.” And then he started sniffing.
Chloe smiled. “Here’s our moment of truth.”
“Gasoline”, Victoria said. “I thought I’d torch the place when we’re done.”
“Clover knot.”
“No, I just like playing with fire”, she said, holding out a lighter that Chloe had given her. The very one that Oliver had used to burn his Green Arrow outfit. “Never bet against the house.” She pushed Lois, and ran.
“Lois!” Oliver ran over to her cousin as Roulette started the fire and put herself in position.
“Come on, Oliver. Focus.” Chloe muttered as Victoria screamed for help.
His head shot up in the direction of the yelling, and he looked back over at Lois. “Oh, hell.”
Chloe watched, her heart swelling with pride as Oliver abandoned Lois and ran to save Roulette. As he abandoned the woman that people grew out of, and ran to save the idea of the woman that people grew into.
She switched the camera views into the new room, and tried to make the most she could out of all of the smoke.
“Why did you come?” Victoria asked “You could have left me here. After everything I put you through, no one would blame you.”
“I would blame myself.” He struggled against the wreckage. “Listen, I don’t care what you did or who you are. I’m going to get you the hell out of here, alright? I’m not going to let you die.”
“There’s the answer that I’ve been looking for”, Chloe said. “Deactivating the fire now.”
The fires that did exist were switched on by remote. It didn’t take very long for her to switch it all off.
Now now darling
Oh, don’t kill yourself
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
“You kept asking me who did this to you. My question was always the answer: who did you destroy? I hear your some sort of hero- one that tried to bury that part of himself. You’ve just proven that hero is still alive, Oliver. Now, it’s time to resurrect him.”
It’s okay by me…it was a long time ago
Chloe waited at the Café with a cup of coffee and a copy of the morning’s edition of the Daily Planet in her hand until he figured everything out and came to her.
“Nicely played.”
There there baby it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
Oh, don’t lose your head
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah
He wasn’t angry. At least, he didn’t seem to be. “I started asking myself who knew about Lex, about Toyman, the things I’d given up, what I tried to do”, he started as he took a seat across the table from her. “Then it all occurred to me. Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers, and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing. Right?”
They did much more than that. They worked as a team again, and AC helped her to put together most of the brainstorming.
There there baby it’s just textbook stuff
It’s in the ABC of growing up
“You were living like you had a death wish, Oliver. You had to face your demons if you were ever going to make it out alive, and I had to push you over the ledge in order to pull you back.”
“Did you have to push with a three ton truck?” he asked
“I didn’t think that a tricycle would be a strong enough point”, she said, leaning forward. “You’re a fighter, Oliver. You fought for yourself, and for a second chance.”
Now now darling
Oh, don’t kill yourself
“Chloe, I’m not the only one you put at risk.”
“If you’re worried about our little club and Lex, don’t be. I played my cards close to my chest.” It looked like Victoria rubbed off on her. Now, she was the one using card metaphors.
“And Lois was what? She was, uh, just another ace up your sleeve?”
“No, I never meant for her to get involved”, she said automatically. “She was chasing after you when she accidentally ended up storming the field. That’s when Victoria went off script”, she explained.
“I could have killed her.”
She never would have given him the chance. Not with her cousin’s life. “No offense to your manhood, but I made sure that your gun was loaded with blanks. Just in case.”
She felt that she needed to explain herself somehow to him. That she still trusted him. Family just came first. “I trust you, Oliver. Just…not that much.”
She took a sip of the coffee in her hand and waited for him to say something.
“Did Clark know about this?”
Clark wouldn’t have been able to. “You can’t be serious. Clark would never in a million years risk what needed to be done.”
“Well, he’s lead a different life than we have, hasn’t he? I can’t expect him to know me like you do. The places that I had sunk to, the depths you must have had to go to bring me back.” He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
She smiled, proud of herself for what she had accomplished. Because she had done more than just bring him back, or bring the others back. She had reinstated the Justice League.
But she couldn’t take all of the credit. Oliver wanted to be saved- they all did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to get anything done. “You proved it to yourself. Even with your face in the gutter, you still had the hero in your heart.”
And then something unexpected happened. He grabbed her hand. “You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth, and the man.”
Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yeah