Quid Pro Quo - Chapter Three
Chapter Three
“Alright Clark, walk me through this again and this time try not to get quite so emotional”, Chloe said with a heavy sigh. Clark was her best friend and she loved him dearly but sometimes he could be such a drama queen. He had arrived in her apartment at The Talon with a whoosh - without so much as a ‘by your leave’ - and had begun to pour out some story about him and Tess which sounded ridiculous even to Chloe’s ear. And she always loved a good meteor freak story, in fact, she had invented the genre.
Clark took a deep breath, trying to control himself. He clenched his fists and began to pace the length of the apartment from Chloe’s bed to Lois’ and then back again. It wasn’t really big enough to accommodate his long legs and short temper.
“This morning I went to work”, he began, trying to go through it all point by point without sounding patronising.
“Always a good idea”, Chloe broke in, unable to help herself.
Clark shot her a look.
“Wipe that look off your face or you find someone else to help you”, she informed him with in a calm tone.
“Right sorry”, Clark rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, the way that he always did when he was embarrassed.
“Alright then, go on”, Chloe replied, placated.
“I was late”, he continued.
“In the interests of getting to the end of this story I won’t add ‘What a shock’”, Chloe said helpfully.
Clark was too stressed out to laugh.
“Come on Clark, we deal with terrible things every single day of the week. What is so bad that you can’t crack a smile?” The blonde smiled at him from behind her laptop where she was poised, ready to save the day.
“I was walking along when Lois called to ask if I could pick her up something sweet, so I went to the bakery and just outside was a crash”, he explained. It hadn’t been a huge surprise, Lois always wanted something sweet.
“A crash, what are we talking about here, two bikes, two cars?” Chloe began to add legs to her spider diagram. She thought that she would entitle this one Clark’s Morning Trouble, at least provisionally until she could come up with something better.
“Two juggernauts carrying petrol that had got lost”, Clark explained.
“Two juggernauts carrying petrol that had got lost”, she repeated, “wow Clark you don’t go for halves do you?”
“No”, he smiled, “but I didn’t plan on that happening. I know that it was risky but what choice did I have when people were in trouble?”
“None at all Clark, that’s why you are you”, she gave him a warm smile. “I take it that no one was hurt?”
“No”, he confirmed, oddly touched by her words. They had been doing this for so long that sometimes they took each other for granted. He would have to be better about that.
“Why wasn’t that on the news, I wonder. And what were they doing there. People transporting petrol don’t tend to get lost”, Chloe pondered, as she clicked her mouse a few times.
“I’m not sure”, but he had several suspicions. “And it gets worse”.
Chloe stared up at him and waited for him to continue.
“When I got to work I was late and Tess called me into her office”, he took a deep breath. He always hated giving Chloe bad news, “She had pictures”.
“Pictures? Of you at the accident?”
“Yes. To be more precise of a man in a suit holding up one of the juggernauts with one hand, moving someone out of the way and then pushing it back onto its wheels”, he explained. “One had tried to get around the other and was beginning to topple over when I saw it”.
“Can you tell that it was you?” Chloe demanded.
“I ... I’m not sure. Part of my profile is showing. It is obvious if you already know, I don’t know how anyone could miss it to be honest but we have got away with worse photos of me. It could probably be brazened out but ...”
“What?”
“Not if the caption read my name and had a picture of me normally by its side”, he continued.
“Right, we have to stop those pictures being published and destroy the originals”, she announced as she began to jot down a plan. Before Clark could get a word in edgewise, she continued, “How soon after the accident was this meeting?”
“Ten minutes. If that”, he considered.
“Ten minutes?” Chloe’s head snapped up from her laptop’s screen. “And these were printed pictures? You were set up! Right, this changes things ...”
He stared at her. “I was beginning to think that myself, but it gets worse”.
“How much worse can this actually get?” Chloe asked with a groan, almost continuously typing now.
“Well, the good news is that you don’t have to worry about anyone else seeing the pictures as they are well and truly destroyed”, he said, rubbing the back of his neck again.
“But this isn’t good news?” His sidekick regarded him sceptically, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Tess knows. I think”, the words came out but not fluently. “She didn’t come right out and say it so I couldn’t but then she said that I needed to get her the story on this or else she would have to publish those pictures”.
“Yep, she knows” Chloe agreed. “But don’t worry, you came straight to me so we can sort this out”.
“Actually, I didn’t”, he said, for all of his superpowers and towering height suddenly resembling a naughty little boy who had been found with his hand in the biscuit barrel.
“You didn’t come straight to me?” Chloe’s obsessive typing halted.
He shook his head in the negative.
“Damn it Clark, how many times have we gone through this?” She demanded, slapping her palms down on the desk. “When it comes to running faster than the speed of light no one is better”, she paused, “except Bart, but super-speed aside you are the number one superhero and you and Ollie tie for who looked best in lyrca and I think that you have the edge on the whole hair thing but when it comes to solving mysteries for goodness sake let me handle it. You never get it right”.
“I almost ...” He considered, no Chloe did have the edge.
“So, what did you do?” She asked with a heavy sigh as she began to massage her temples.
“I went back to the crime scene”, he started, cautiously.
“So it is irrelevant whether they have the first set of pictures or not because now they have even more photos of you?” She needed an aspirin.
He swallowed, he hadn’t thought of that, he had just been acting quickly to prevent this all blowing up in their faces. So much for that. “Then I found clues and I followed them, it was very easy”.
“Yes, it normally is when you are being set up”, Chloe sighed, there was no point in getting upset about it. It wouldn’t change anything.
He blushed slightly.
“Go on”, she persisted, bracing herself for the worst.
“I followed the trail to a quarry just outside the city”, Clark informed her slowly.
“Do I even want to know what the logic was there?” She broke her pact with herself not to display any more anger over his stupidity.
“I swear that it made sense at the time”, he tried to defend himself.
“Go on. You went to a quarry, hopefully not one of the ones containing green meteor rocks”.
“No”, he took a deep breath, “red”.
“Red! Oh”, a tidal-wave of expletives crashed over him. “But wait, you aren’t all red now?”
“No”, he admitted. “The first thing that I did was go and see Tess - well, actually that was the second, the first was to um borrow a very nice suit from a store”.
“At least tell me that they didn’t see you there”, she sighed.
“No, but Tess definitely did”, he blushed at the memory.
“Is she ...” Chloe swallowed, “you were angry. Is she alright?”
“Yeah”, he let out a shaky sigh and sat down, his legs suddenly feeling weak, “when I came round that was the first thing that I thought of but I’m sure that I didn’t. I was furious though”. He steeled himself and fixed his eyes on Chloe, feeling guilt gnawing at him. “I told her the truth about me”. He had put them all in danger. He should have never let Chloe find out the truth about him all of those years ago.
“You what?” Chloe exploded. “I realise that I lowers you inhibitions, does it also lower your IQ, I don’t know, a couple of thousand points?!?”
“Well, not in so many words and she already knew. We, um”, he turned his trade mark colour, “somehow we kind of ended up well you know ...”
“No”, Chloe stared at him blankly.
“Chloe, you know”, he couldn’t believe that she was really going to make him say it. She had to know.
“Know what? You argued, you destroyed her pictures, what?” God she wished that he would just come to the point. The sooner she knew what it was that he had done, the sooner she could fix it.
“Remember that time that I came in in a hurry and Jimmy was here but he didn’t see anything because well”, Clark gestured, now so deeply scarlet that he was verging on purple.
“Oh”, comprehension dawned on Chloe’s features, followed swiftly but a pinkish hue, “that yes. Um well ...” She pulled herself together. “When this is all over we need to go over the whole knocking procedure. So how long ago was this?”
“Five minutes? I doubt that she is even out of the shower yet”, he answered, “I came straight here”.
“Shower?” Why was it that Clark could never relate all of the facts in a clear and concise manner?
“Yes, that’s when the red K wore off or got washed off?” He wasn’t really quite sure what had happened vis-à-vis the red K this time. He just knew that he had been operating under its effects and now he wasn’t.
“Either is possible”, Chloe nodded and resumed her typing, even more furiously as if that could banish the images she had no wish to be imagining.
“Chlo, what are you doing?” Clark inquired as he came around to look over her shoulder. He never really understood what it was that she was doing - she was the tech wiz, not he - but this time he recognised that she was doing something in the LuthorCorp files. “I don’t want to pry, but why does your computer have Tess’ name, user-name and DP ID number on it?”
“Because I just hacked into her computer”, Chloe informed him placidly.
“And just how illegal is this exactly?”
“It’s irrelevant as no one is ever going to know”, she answered with a shrug.
“You know, if Oliver isn’t paying you enough to do all of this for the Justice League then you could make a fortune working for the NSS with answers like that”, he suggested.
“Nah, bastards turned down my application”, she muttered as she began to download all of Tess’ files.
“What, you really applied? I was only joking”.
“Yeah, a few years ago when MetU was first destroyed. I had to do something to make a little bit of extra spending money. Reporting pays squat”, she said and then apparently remembered that she was speaking to The Daily Planet’s newest employee. “Sorry”.
“It’s fine”, he smiled. Compared to farming the pay wasn’t bad, but no where near what a tech wiz like Chloe deserved.
“No, I enjoy doing what I’m doing. Besides, Oliver’s is a great employer. His bonus package is huge. No pun intended”, she smirked.
“Thanks, that was an image that I really needed seared into my brain”, Clark grumbled.
“You’re welcome” she paused, “Hello!” The files had finished downloading and she now had complete access to Tess’ entire system, thankfully just in time as the laptop was being booted up. A few seconds later they were greeted by a split screen, one half Tess’ computer screen and the other the feed from the web-cam which automatically came on thanks to a bug of Chloe’s.
The new head of the Daily Planet sat at her desk, dressed only in a towel, tangle of damp curls framing her face, unknowingly staring at them.
“I wonder what her workout regime is”, Chloe pondered, examining her current enemy’s arms.
“You can find that out form her files”, Clark replied tersely, uncomfortably aware that in spite of the rage he felt towards the red-headed temptress his eyes were drawn to her body, and unlike Chloe not to her arms.
“Very true, oh”, Chloe broke off in excitement as Tess began to type. She loved it when a mystery began to unravel itself.
“Effects of Red K on the subject”, Tess’ manicured nails tapped, an small, satisfied smirk on her lips.
“Shit”, Chloe swore. “Okay Clark we have to handle this with ...”
Whoosh.
“Clark?” She looked around but already knew what had happened. She could call in her team to stop him if she were really quite and she glanced back at her screen. Maybe she could ... Oh sod it, she would just watch the blow up. Tess already knew so what was the worst that could happen? She wondered if she had time to get some popcorn. Oops, no.
“Here we go”, she said to the empty room.
“Alright Clark, walk me through this again and this time try not to get quite so emotional”, Chloe said with a heavy sigh. Clark was her best friend and she loved him dearly but sometimes he could be such a drama queen. He had arrived in her apartment at The Talon with a whoosh - without so much as a ‘by your leave’ - and had begun to pour out some story about him and Tess which sounded ridiculous even to Chloe’s ear. And she always loved a good meteor freak story, in fact, she had invented the genre.
Clark took a deep breath, trying to control himself. He clenched his fists and began to pace the length of the apartment from Chloe’s bed to Lois’ and then back again. It wasn’t really big enough to accommodate his long legs and short temper.
“This morning I went to work”, he began, trying to go through it all point by point without sounding patronising.
“Always a good idea”, Chloe broke in, unable to help herself.
Clark shot her a look.
“Wipe that look off your face or you find someone else to help you”, she informed him with in a calm tone.
“Right sorry”, Clark rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, the way that he always did when he was embarrassed.
“Alright then, go on”, Chloe replied, placated.
“I was late”, he continued.
“In the interests of getting to the end of this story I won’t add ‘What a shock’”, Chloe said helpfully.
Clark was too stressed out to laugh.
“Come on Clark, we deal with terrible things every single day of the week. What is so bad that you can’t crack a smile?” The blonde smiled at him from behind her laptop where she was poised, ready to save the day.
“I was walking along when Lois called to ask if I could pick her up something sweet, so I went to the bakery and just outside was a crash”, he explained. It hadn’t been a huge surprise, Lois always wanted something sweet.
“A crash, what are we talking about here, two bikes, two cars?” Chloe began to add legs to her spider diagram. She thought that she would entitle this one Clark’s Morning Trouble, at least provisionally until she could come up with something better.
“Two juggernauts carrying petrol that had got lost”, Clark explained.
“Two juggernauts carrying petrol that had got lost”, she repeated, “wow Clark you don’t go for halves do you?”
“No”, he smiled, “but I didn’t plan on that happening. I know that it was risky but what choice did I have when people were in trouble?”
“None at all Clark, that’s why you are you”, she gave him a warm smile. “I take it that no one was hurt?”
“No”, he confirmed, oddly touched by her words. They had been doing this for so long that sometimes they took each other for granted. He would have to be better about that.
“Why wasn’t that on the news, I wonder. And what were they doing there. People transporting petrol don’t tend to get lost”, Chloe pondered, as she clicked her mouse a few times.
“I’m not sure”, but he had several suspicions. “And it gets worse”.
Chloe stared up at him and waited for him to continue.
“When I got to work I was late and Tess called me into her office”, he took a deep breath. He always hated giving Chloe bad news, “She had pictures”.
“Pictures? Of you at the accident?”
“Yes. To be more precise of a man in a suit holding up one of the juggernauts with one hand, moving someone out of the way and then pushing it back onto its wheels”, he explained. “One had tried to get around the other and was beginning to topple over when I saw it”.
“Can you tell that it was you?” Chloe demanded.
“I ... I’m not sure. Part of my profile is showing. It is obvious if you already know, I don’t know how anyone could miss it to be honest but we have got away with worse photos of me. It could probably be brazened out but ...”
“What?”
“Not if the caption read my name and had a picture of me normally by its side”, he continued.
“Right, we have to stop those pictures being published and destroy the originals”, she announced as she began to jot down a plan. Before Clark could get a word in edgewise, she continued, “How soon after the accident was this meeting?”
“Ten minutes. If that”, he considered.
“Ten minutes?” Chloe’s head snapped up from her laptop’s screen. “And these were printed pictures? You were set up! Right, this changes things ...”
He stared at her. “I was beginning to think that myself, but it gets worse”.
“How much worse can this actually get?” Chloe asked with a groan, almost continuously typing now.
“Well, the good news is that you don’t have to worry about anyone else seeing the pictures as they are well and truly destroyed”, he said, rubbing the back of his neck again.
“But this isn’t good news?” His sidekick regarded him sceptically, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Tess knows. I think”, the words came out but not fluently. “She didn’t come right out and say it so I couldn’t but then she said that I needed to get her the story on this or else she would have to publish those pictures”.
“Yep, she knows” Chloe agreed. “But don’t worry, you came straight to me so we can sort this out”.
“Actually, I didn’t”, he said, for all of his superpowers and towering height suddenly resembling a naughty little boy who had been found with his hand in the biscuit barrel.
“You didn’t come straight to me?” Chloe’s obsessive typing halted.
He shook his head in the negative.
“Damn it Clark, how many times have we gone through this?” She demanded, slapping her palms down on the desk. “When it comes to running faster than the speed of light no one is better”, she paused, “except Bart, but super-speed aside you are the number one superhero and you and Ollie tie for who looked best in lyrca and I think that you have the edge on the whole hair thing but when it comes to solving mysteries for goodness sake let me handle it. You never get it right”.
“I almost ...” He considered, no Chloe did have the edge.
“So, what did you do?” She asked with a heavy sigh as she began to massage her temples.
“I went back to the crime scene”, he started, cautiously.
“So it is irrelevant whether they have the first set of pictures or not because now they have even more photos of you?” She needed an aspirin.
He swallowed, he hadn’t thought of that, he had just been acting quickly to prevent this all blowing up in their faces. So much for that. “Then I found clues and I followed them, it was very easy”.
“Yes, it normally is when you are being set up”, Chloe sighed, there was no point in getting upset about it. It wouldn’t change anything.
He blushed slightly.
“Go on”, she persisted, bracing herself for the worst.
“I followed the trail to a quarry just outside the city”, Clark informed her slowly.
“Do I even want to know what the logic was there?” She broke her pact with herself not to display any more anger over his stupidity.
“I swear that it made sense at the time”, he tried to defend himself.
“Go on. You went to a quarry, hopefully not one of the ones containing green meteor rocks”.
“No”, he took a deep breath, “red”.
“Red! Oh”, a tidal-wave of expletives crashed over him. “But wait, you aren’t all red now?”
“No”, he admitted. “The first thing that I did was go and see Tess - well, actually that was the second, the first was to um borrow a very nice suit from a store”.
“At least tell me that they didn’t see you there”, she sighed.
“No, but Tess definitely did”, he blushed at the memory.
“Is she ...” Chloe swallowed, “you were angry. Is she alright?”
“Yeah”, he let out a shaky sigh and sat down, his legs suddenly feeling weak, “when I came round that was the first thing that I thought of but I’m sure that I didn’t. I was furious though”. He steeled himself and fixed his eyes on Chloe, feeling guilt gnawing at him. “I told her the truth about me”. He had put them all in danger. He should have never let Chloe find out the truth about him all of those years ago.
“You what?” Chloe exploded. “I realise that I lowers you inhibitions, does it also lower your IQ, I don’t know, a couple of thousand points?!?”
“Well, not in so many words and she already knew. We, um”, he turned his trade mark colour, “somehow we kind of ended up well you know ...”
“No”, Chloe stared at him blankly.
“Chloe, you know”, he couldn’t believe that she was really going to make him say it. She had to know.
“Know what? You argued, you destroyed her pictures, what?” God she wished that he would just come to the point. The sooner she knew what it was that he had done, the sooner she could fix it.
“Remember that time that I came in in a hurry and Jimmy was here but he didn’t see anything because well”, Clark gestured, now so deeply scarlet that he was verging on purple.
“Oh”, comprehension dawned on Chloe’s features, followed swiftly but a pinkish hue, “that yes. Um well ...” She pulled herself together. “When this is all over we need to go over the whole knocking procedure. So how long ago was this?”
“Five minutes? I doubt that she is even out of the shower yet”, he answered, “I came straight here”.
“Shower?” Why was it that Clark could never relate all of the facts in a clear and concise manner?
“Yes, that’s when the red K wore off or got washed off?” He wasn’t really quite sure what had happened vis-à-vis the red K this time. He just knew that he had been operating under its effects and now he wasn’t.
“Either is possible”, Chloe nodded and resumed her typing, even more furiously as if that could banish the images she had no wish to be imagining.
“Chlo, what are you doing?” Clark inquired as he came around to look over her shoulder. He never really understood what it was that she was doing - she was the tech wiz, not he - but this time he recognised that she was doing something in the LuthorCorp files. “I don’t want to pry, but why does your computer have Tess’ name, user-name and DP ID number on it?”
“Because I just hacked into her computer”, Chloe informed him placidly.
“And just how illegal is this exactly?”
“It’s irrelevant as no one is ever going to know”, she answered with a shrug.
“You know, if Oliver isn’t paying you enough to do all of this for the Justice League then you could make a fortune working for the NSS with answers like that”, he suggested.
“Nah, bastards turned down my application”, she muttered as she began to download all of Tess’ files.
“What, you really applied? I was only joking”.
“Yeah, a few years ago when MetU was first destroyed. I had to do something to make a little bit of extra spending money. Reporting pays squat”, she said and then apparently remembered that she was speaking to The Daily Planet’s newest employee. “Sorry”.
“It’s fine”, he smiled. Compared to farming the pay wasn’t bad, but no where near what a tech wiz like Chloe deserved.
“No, I enjoy doing what I’m doing. Besides, Oliver’s is a great employer. His bonus package is huge. No pun intended”, she smirked.
“Thanks, that was an image that I really needed seared into my brain”, Clark grumbled.
“You’re welcome” she paused, “Hello!” The files had finished downloading and she now had complete access to Tess’ entire system, thankfully just in time as the laptop was being booted up. A few seconds later they were greeted by a split screen, one half Tess’ computer screen and the other the feed from the web-cam which automatically came on thanks to a bug of Chloe’s.
The new head of the Daily Planet sat at her desk, dressed only in a towel, tangle of damp curls framing her face, unknowingly staring at them.
“I wonder what her workout regime is”, Chloe pondered, examining her current enemy’s arms.
“You can find that out form her files”, Clark replied tersely, uncomfortably aware that in spite of the rage he felt towards the red-headed temptress his eyes were drawn to her body, and unlike Chloe not to her arms.
“Very true, oh”, Chloe broke off in excitement as Tess began to type. She loved it when a mystery began to unravel itself.
“Effects of Red K on the subject”, Tess’ manicured nails tapped, an small, satisfied smirk on her lips.
“Shit”, Chloe swore. “Okay Clark we have to handle this with ...”
Whoosh.
“Clark?” She looked around but already knew what had happened. She could call in her team to stop him if she were really quite and she glanced back at her screen. Maybe she could ... Oh sod it, she would just watch the blow up. Tess already knew so what was the worst that could happen? She wondered if she had time to get some popcorn. Oops, no.
“Here we go”, she said to the empty room.