Fic: SV/Batverse: Could End Up A Story (5/7)
Title: Could End Up A Story 5/7
Author: fryadvocate
Disclaimer: I own neither any of the characters in SV nor in the DC 'verse.
Summary: Chloe meets Gotham by accident, on her way from one story to the next.
Slam was just opening the door when Chloe got back to the office; his hand was tight on a man's elbow. Chloe did a quick up down survey of the guy - tall, white, with this slicked back black hair that made her grimace. Up close, he reeked of cologne, not artfully scented, like Bruce or Lex, but soaked in the stuff, like he'd taken a bath in A&F Woodsman to cover the scent of failure she saw in his dirty suit. The cuffs were worn, dirty, and when Slam strong-armed him into the parking garage, she saw a pale yellow stain on the front of his shirt.
"I always wondered what happened to WASPS when they failed at life. Now, I know," she said, waited for the loosening of the frown lines that meant Slam was laughing on the inside.
"If Wayne sent you, doesn't he see that I'm already as low as I can go? I'm sorry, ok? I'm so sorry," he started crying, dry hitching sobs that twisted something deep inside Chloe. Something about the pathetic nature of grown men crying in front of strangers, idealized gender roles and all, but it hit her the same way that the helplessness of dirty, grungy homeless kids made her want to beat her fists against something.
For all that he could save them from being shot or being blown up, Superman couldn't save anyone from their own lives.
"We aren't with Wayne," Slam said, shortly.
"We just want to take you out for a cup of coffee," Chloe said. "Hear your side of the story."
It was her saccharine voice, and it worked on most desperate people. When she glanced back at Slam, his jaw had tightened. Well, even if he thought that this guy hadn't done anything to deserve Chloe's pity, she did.
The guy nodded, face in his hands. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Oh, God."
Chloe glared hard at Slam until he sighed, pulled the car into a diner parking lot. "Pull yourself together," he growled at the guy.
Strangely, it worked. Gasping hard, the guy wiped his eyes, red from the crying and rubbing, but nearly dry. Chloe fished out her pack of emergency tissues and handed them over so that he could blow his nose.
Slam opened, the backseat door, let the guy out, but kept a hand tight on his elbow. In a more liberal city, Chloe thought that Slam and Allen might have seemed lovers, but in Gotham, the waitress just glanced between the three of them and seated them as far in the back as she could. Away from the few families and children. The waitress dropped their menus on the table and left without giving them the lunch specials.
"Lunch time," Chloe commented, briefly looked out the window, ignored the nearly empty restaurant. She and Slam had trapped Allen in the circular booth, and she was staring at Slam when she said it.
"No." When the waitress came back Slam said, "Three coffees."
"Sure," she said, tucked her pen and order pad back into her apron, took the menus.
"Talk," Slam said. The waitress returned with a pot of coffee, three empty mugs. She filled them quickly, left again.
Allen sighed, as though he were Atlas and this was too much for him to bear. "You want to know about the Waterfront deal? That's what you said."
"How did Lex get it?" Chloe asked. She pulled out her notepad, opened it to the mess of notes that was Gotham, pages covered in blue ink.
"After the quake, the seller, this business guy from midtown, wanted out. So, I listed it. Tried to sell it to a business, because I didn't think that the nuns would want it." He shook his head. "Only they did and they were offering three quarters asking price. Which is..."
He trailed off, made a helpless motion. "I couldn't get the buyer to back off. He wanted what he'd paid for it, but he didn't get that there was no market for anything in the East End. I mean, the place was trash and he wanted what it had been worth before the quake."
Chloe nodded. "So, the nuns wanted it, seller wanted more money. Where did Luthor come from?"
"Out of nowhere, I get contacted by some guy, who works for Luthor. They're looking for something waterfront, with direct shipping access. Their starting bid was more than the asking price." He drank some of his coffee, smeared what had spilled over with his thumb. "So, I tell the seller that it's a lot better than he's going to get."
"And he took it?" Chloe said.
"Not right away, the seller was getting cold feet about the whole deal," Allen shook his head. "No one was supposed to know it was Luthor, and so I just tell the nuns that they've been out bid because Sister fuckin' Magdalene was calling me every day. As soon as the papers are drawn up, ready to sign I get another call. Sister Maggie's come up with enough money to reach the asking price. I didn't ask how."
Looking down at her notes, Chloe realized that she had written Sister Maggie??, nearly crossed it out before leaving it. "So, why didn't you sell it to the Our Lady?"
Allen looked down, ran a hand through his hair, and looked as though he was about to say something up there on the scale of Biblically stupid things. "They'd pissed me off. Sister Maggie really wanted the place and wouldn't let it go. Also, Luthor was still out bidding them, so I didn't tell the client, we signed the papers and then Bruce Wayne calls our firm, 'Everything that has turned earthquake recovery into a nightmare for victims.'" His voice rose high on the impression, whiney and parodied upper class. "'They turned the horror of our tragedy into a chance for profit.'"
"You didn't know he'd given Our Lady the money," Chloe said.
Snorting Allen said, "He didn't give Our Lady the money, he gave Sister Maggie the money. God, if I'd known it was Bruce Wayne that wanted it..." He took on his helpless, lost expression again. "I'm not against Gotham. The way he made me sound, like I was some sort of vulture preying on the people hurt by the 'quake. I was here, too. I was in Gotham when it happened. You don't get to tell me that I'm evil."
"Why did he give Sister Maggie the money?" Chloe asked, she underlined what she's written, the pieces coming together in odd ways.
"I don't know. All I know is she was the only nun in the background of that press conference." Allen finished off his coffee just as the waitress came back. He smiled, a thin, watery, pathetic smile that made the waitress look away, uncomfortable.
Slam was stoic across the table, drank a gulp of coffee loudly. "What did Luthor want it for?"
"He didn't say, didn't even want to see the place." Allen looked at Chloe. "He didn't even ask me if I knew any good contractors to help with the damage. I gave his guy a list, but, after the papers were signed and we got the money, we never saw him again."
Allen tapped one finger on the table. "I'm pretty sure we helped him set up something bad. A factory for something. From what I hear, the third world might as well be Gotham for all it matters." He made the now universal, Superman flying motion. "I mean, Superman can get anywhere, right?"
"Thanks, Allen," Chloe said, she touched his hand once - maintain contact was one of her billion first rules. When you leave them, don't make them feel like you're abandoning them even when you are.
She stood, watched Slam do the same, trotted out behind him. As soon as they were outside, she said, "Do you think that Sister Magdalene is involved in some sort of cover-up of Selina's past?"
Slam blinked, obviously not what he was thinking. "When?" He didn't ask, 'why do you think that?' because she knew he expected her to answer that one anyway.
"Selina Kyle was a hooker when she was younger. About ten years ago, when Lex was doing his playboy druggie whore of the world thing." She held up her first finger, listed the rest of her points. "Around then, ten years ago, Bruce Wayne donates a ton of money to the convent and Selina disappears. Later, she shows up and starts dating Bruce, they're the perfect twu wuv couple and Bruce donates a lot of money to help get Lex back out of Gotham and to help Sister Magdalene keep her clinic open. That property was important to Sister Magdalene and if you think that was accidental that Lex out bid her you're joking with yourself."
Chloe inhaled in a gasp, ready to defend her theory. She didn't need Smallville Wall of Weird to put together a mystery.
Pulling out a cigarette, Slam lit it, looked hard at her. "What are you going to write your article about?" He asked, and it did sound like Perry, the way that Perry would stop her mid-Lex-rant #24 and ask her what was news about Lex being an asshole.
"Lex building kryptonite weapons in Gotham," she answered slowly. "Or whatever else illegal he's doing."
"Does digging up the past of those two girls really help you with that?" He unlocked his car door and got in.
"No," Chloe said, pulling open her own door, sliding into the seat. "But, it's- don't you think that it's important?"
"Not the way that you do," Slam said. "Those two, if you're right, have survived hell and back getting Luthor out of the East End the first time. You publish their story and it becomes gossip, Selina gets it harder from the press, Sister Magdalene can't get anyone to donate to her clinic."
Chloe was silent, watched the streets pass by, waited a few blocks before she asked, "Where are we going?"
"Where do you want to go?" Slam said. "What do you need to prove that Luthor's building something bad?"
Sighing, Chloe thought of the headache that research would be, pulling on any number of her sources to try and find out who Lex was buying the parts from. If he wasn't secretly making them himself. "Someone with firsthand knowledge would be nice. One of the workers coming clean with a sample of whatever Lex is doing."
"Call your friend," Slam said. "Find something to do for a couple of hours."
"And what will you be doing?" Chloe asked, even though she was pretty sure she didn't want to know.
"Finding you a source," Slam said. "Talking to union people, finding out who's scabbing."
He stopped the car in front of a high-end boutique, the beginning of a strip of shops where price tags were considered gauche. If they were having a fire sale, Chloe still wouldn't be able to afford anything in the store. "What am I supposed to do here?"
"Not get into trouble," Slam said. "I'll call you when I'm done."
Chloe slammed the door hard behind her, vindictive. She knew why she couldn't go, though, even understood it. In her career, she'd had more than her share of touchy informants, the ones that wouldn't talk even with goofy, friendly, Clark Kent dork-extraodinaire in the room. Gotham wasn't her town; she was an outsider and was playing at being the hero here. She understood deeply why Clark was so hesitant to even step inside the city limits.
Standing outside the boutique, tastefully named, "Dessous", she dialed Clark's number, second on her speed dial.
The sound of Clark's voicemail clicked in, and she didn't even listen to the message, waited for the tone and said, "Clark. I'm calling you to tell you that things are still going well and if you have time, could you maybe ask your tech savvy friend to see if Luthor's been purchasing any weapon parts? Missiles, maybe? Guns? Miss you." She shut her phone and went into the shop because one of the shop girls kept throwing her dark looks.
She was looking at the most ridiculous bra she'd ever seen when she heard a familiar voice say, "Well, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were better as a paparazzi than a journalist."
The bra would look perfect on Selina Kyle, who had the type of body that Chloe would think was only on TV if she didn't know Lex dated girls who looked like that all the time. "You said we should do lunch," Chloe grinned, tried to make it look less odd that she was in a lingerie store with Bruce Wayne's girlfriend.
"Well," Selina tilted her head, slightly. "Let's go, then."
Dropping the underwear she was holding on the counter, Selina leaned in towards the shop girl. "Call me when you aren't so elitist to friends of Bruce Wayne," Selina didn't need to glance at Chloe for the girl to blush, glance apologetically at Chloe.
In the fresh air, Selina slid her sunglasses out of her hair, pushed them onto her face. Her mouth twitched when Chloe burst out laughing. "She thinks that you're one of Bruce Wayne's mistresses now," the statement was bland, curiosity the cautious cat creeping around the words.
"Oh, man, but it's worth it," Chloe said. "I don't know what's good to eat around here."
"Nothing's good," Selina said. "Everything's expensive, which is mistaken for good by the stupid."
"Well, lead on," Chloe said. "You can buy."
"Bruce can buy," Selina said, tossing her hair with one hand. "Here." She opened the door to a restaurant with tall glass windows, high trees indoors, quiet lunch patrons in business suits and summer dresses.
The hostess smiled faintly when she saw them, as though she didn't want to give too much away.
"Reservation for Bruce Wayne?" Selina wasn't even looking at the girl, instead staring out the window. She hadn't taken off her sunglasses yet; she looked bored.
The hostess gathered two menus, said, "Mister Wayne was seated twenty minutes ago." Chloe wondered if it was strictly a Gotham thing, to be so proprietary about the celebrities.
Selina smiled faintly, a hint of a threat that made the hostess duck her head. At the table, Bruce was looking through a folder, holding red wine in one hand. When he saw them, he stood, closing the folder.
The hostess held out Selina's seat, but Selina leaned over, pressing her mouth soft and sensually against Bruce's before she sat down, grinning at the hostess's averted eyes. Chloe sat before the whole thing could become even more awkward.
"You're late," Bruce said, fliply, he used his napkin to wipe the smear of lipstick off of his mouth.
"You didn't care," Selina said, examining the menu. "I brought press, Bruce, try to behave."
Bruce shrugged; his smile seemed dangerous. Chloe wanted to be able to say, "touché" like he could -- non-verbally and nearly aggressive. They were staring at each other as though they would love to hurt each other, Chloe knew how many times she'd looked at Clark like that, knew that he'd never once reflected it back at her with half the passion that Bruce was using to tell Selina he hated her, wanted her dead, was angry, wanted her now.
"What's good here?" Chloe asked brightly, staring at the menu, the words were foreign to her mental food lexicon of hamburgers, pizza, Mexican, and Chinese.
"Everything," Bruce said. "I can order for you, if you'd like?"
The waiter arrived, more quietly and formal than the diner waitress from earlier, but the same edge of service-industry boredom that Chloe, luckily, never had to learn. "Would you like to order now?"
"Yes, I'll have the Caesar salad. Chloe will have the shitake mushroom. And Selina-"
"Can order for herself," Selina said. "I'll have steak, rare. I like it bloody." She was staring at Bruce when she said it, handed over her menu without looking away.
They were both still smiling, creepy, angry, wanting smiles that made Chloe want to pull out her tape recorder just to see what they would say. Instead she bit into a piece of bread, said, "It's too bad how Our Lady of Endless Sorrow lost the clinic space."
Both of them turned to look at her, sharply interested, intrigued. Selina looked dangerous, Bruce looked impassive. "It is," Bruce finally agreed. "They were doing good work."
"Yeah, I saw that you gave them some financial help for that." Chloe buttered the bread, ignoring that she was the only one eating it.
The wine at Bruce's elbow was untouched still, though both he and Selina were continuously drinking water.
"Bruce likes to help out lost causes," Selina said, her voice slightly hoarse, when she looked over at him.
Shrugging, Bruce said, "Of course, they'll find new space."
"But it won't be the same, will it, Bruce?" Selina said, arching an eyebrow, her mouth tight. "They wanted that space for old memories, to wash away a den of sin? Isn't that how you put it?"
Silently, Bruce raised his wine glass to his lips, took what couldn't even be called a sip, placed it back down. "I called the area somewhere that needed to be reborn, but you'd know that better than I would. You spent time with Luthor there, what was it? Ten years ago?"
"Read that?" Selina asked. "You might have benefited from spending less time in that ivory tower of yours. Lex did."
If this was how they fought, careful innuendoes and secrets told in public like strips of pain they were exacting from each other's skin in moderate tones, Chloe was glad that Clark never looked at her like they looked at each other. Clark fought with her earnestly, they always knew what was on the table. Chloe had no idea what Bruce and Selina's pink elephant was, but she figured that before the meal was over, she probably would.
Although, if the warehouse had used to be a club, if it had been a club that Lex used to frequent with Selina, then it couldn't be innocent that Sister Magdalene and Lex Luthor wanted the space. Opening her mouth, Chloe tried to formulate her question, found it impossible.
Her handbag vibrated and started ringing the Simpson's theme song. She blushed, when everyone turned to stare, even Bruce and Selina both looking more amused than irritated.
"I should get this," she said, pulling it out and silencing it. Clark. And he'd just get upset if she didn't answer. She walked to the door, trying not to rush out like the person that farted in the movie theater. "What?" she snapped when she was outside.
"Chloe?" Clark asked, carefully. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I'm fine."
"Oh, you just sounded-" he stopped. "I asked my 'friend' and he said that there hasn't been anything within the past ten months, but about a year ago Lex bought a lot of missile pieces in large quantities from different suppliers. What's going on?"
"I think that Lex is making Kryptonite weapons." She paused, looked around, expected to see Clark Kent, casually walking around the corner at any moment. The easiest way to "happen" to see Clark was to mention Lex and Kryptonite in the same sentence.
"Where?" Clark's voice was tight, furious. She was strangely relieved to know it wasn't directed at her.
"Gotham," she said. "He's got a factory up and running near the waterfront."
The pause was long, Clark's breathing audible. "And Batman hasn't stopped him." The words were dark, cold, Superman words. They barely resembled anything that Clark would say in a way that only three people -- four counting Lex -- truly understood.
"Not yet," Chloe said, hedging her bets.
"Well," Clark said, strangely flat. "You're going to write an article on it?"
"Yeah, I'm finding sources right now." Slam was right. The history of Lex trying to make two women pay for pissing him off when he was a sullen, high teenager was nothing when compared to him building weapons in Gotham just so that Superman wouldn't notice.
Clark's sigh was short. "Ok. I'll see you when I get back? Let me know if you need anything else. Call." He hung up without a goodbye.
Walking back inside, she sat down, realized that she shouldn't have left because the tension had shifted. Bruce and Selina were the gorgeous Gotham couple again, friendly smiles, sharing food. Bruce shifted away the questions about Selina's past with the same slick, blatant lies that Chloe remembered from their first interview.
The lunch was a wash, even though the meal was amazing.
Leaving the restaurant, both Bruce and Selina had "meetings" and they smiled, kind, vacant smiles that left Chloe's teeth on edge. Slam calling was the best sound she'd heard ever.
"Where are you?" he asked.
Ten minutes later, they were headed back towards the East End.
*****
On to Part 6
Author: fryadvocate
Disclaimer: I own neither any of the characters in SV nor in the DC 'verse.
Summary: Chloe meets Gotham by accident, on her way from one story to the next.
Slam was just opening the door when Chloe got back to the office; his hand was tight on a man's elbow. Chloe did a quick up down survey of the guy - tall, white, with this slicked back black hair that made her grimace. Up close, he reeked of cologne, not artfully scented, like Bruce or Lex, but soaked in the stuff, like he'd taken a bath in A&F Woodsman to cover the scent of failure she saw in his dirty suit. The cuffs were worn, dirty, and when Slam strong-armed him into the parking garage, she saw a pale yellow stain on the front of his shirt.
"I always wondered what happened to WASPS when they failed at life. Now, I know," she said, waited for the loosening of the frown lines that meant Slam was laughing on the inside.
"If Wayne sent you, doesn't he see that I'm already as low as I can go? I'm sorry, ok? I'm so sorry," he started crying, dry hitching sobs that twisted something deep inside Chloe. Something about the pathetic nature of grown men crying in front of strangers, idealized gender roles and all, but it hit her the same way that the helplessness of dirty, grungy homeless kids made her want to beat her fists against something.
For all that he could save them from being shot or being blown up, Superman couldn't save anyone from their own lives.
"We aren't with Wayne," Slam said, shortly.
"We just want to take you out for a cup of coffee," Chloe said. "Hear your side of the story."
It was her saccharine voice, and it worked on most desperate people. When she glanced back at Slam, his jaw had tightened. Well, even if he thought that this guy hadn't done anything to deserve Chloe's pity, she did.
The guy nodded, face in his hands. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Oh, God."
Chloe glared hard at Slam until he sighed, pulled the car into a diner parking lot. "Pull yourself together," he growled at the guy.
Strangely, it worked. Gasping hard, the guy wiped his eyes, red from the crying and rubbing, but nearly dry. Chloe fished out her pack of emergency tissues and handed them over so that he could blow his nose.
Slam opened, the backseat door, let the guy out, but kept a hand tight on his elbow. In a more liberal city, Chloe thought that Slam and Allen might have seemed lovers, but in Gotham, the waitress just glanced between the three of them and seated them as far in the back as she could. Away from the few families and children. The waitress dropped their menus on the table and left without giving them the lunch specials.
"Lunch time," Chloe commented, briefly looked out the window, ignored the nearly empty restaurant. She and Slam had trapped Allen in the circular booth, and she was staring at Slam when she said it.
"No." When the waitress came back Slam said, "Three coffees."
"Sure," she said, tucked her pen and order pad back into her apron, took the menus.
"Talk," Slam said. The waitress returned with a pot of coffee, three empty mugs. She filled them quickly, left again.
Allen sighed, as though he were Atlas and this was too much for him to bear. "You want to know about the Waterfront deal? That's what you said."
"How did Lex get it?" Chloe asked. She pulled out her notepad, opened it to the mess of notes that was Gotham, pages covered in blue ink.
"After the quake, the seller, this business guy from midtown, wanted out. So, I listed it. Tried to sell it to a business, because I didn't think that the nuns would want it." He shook his head. "Only they did and they were offering three quarters asking price. Which is..."
He trailed off, made a helpless motion. "I couldn't get the buyer to back off. He wanted what he'd paid for it, but he didn't get that there was no market for anything in the East End. I mean, the place was trash and he wanted what it had been worth before the quake."
Chloe nodded. "So, the nuns wanted it, seller wanted more money. Where did Luthor come from?"
"Out of nowhere, I get contacted by some guy, who works for Luthor. They're looking for something waterfront, with direct shipping access. Their starting bid was more than the asking price." He drank some of his coffee, smeared what had spilled over with his thumb. "So, I tell the seller that it's a lot better than he's going to get."
"And he took it?" Chloe said.
"Not right away, the seller was getting cold feet about the whole deal," Allen shook his head. "No one was supposed to know it was Luthor, and so I just tell the nuns that they've been out bid because Sister fuckin' Magdalene was calling me every day. As soon as the papers are drawn up, ready to sign I get another call. Sister Maggie's come up with enough money to reach the asking price. I didn't ask how."
Looking down at her notes, Chloe realized that she had written Sister Maggie??, nearly crossed it out before leaving it. "So, why didn't you sell it to the Our Lady?"
Allen looked down, ran a hand through his hair, and looked as though he was about to say something up there on the scale of Biblically stupid things. "They'd pissed me off. Sister Maggie really wanted the place and wouldn't let it go. Also, Luthor was still out bidding them, so I didn't tell the client, we signed the papers and then Bruce Wayne calls our firm, 'Everything that has turned earthquake recovery into a nightmare for victims.'" His voice rose high on the impression, whiney and parodied upper class. "'They turned the horror of our tragedy into a chance for profit.'"
"You didn't know he'd given Our Lady the money," Chloe said.
Snorting Allen said, "He didn't give Our Lady the money, he gave Sister Maggie the money. God, if I'd known it was Bruce Wayne that wanted it..." He took on his helpless, lost expression again. "I'm not against Gotham. The way he made me sound, like I was some sort of vulture preying on the people hurt by the 'quake. I was here, too. I was in Gotham when it happened. You don't get to tell me that I'm evil."
"Why did he give Sister Maggie the money?" Chloe asked, she underlined what she's written, the pieces coming together in odd ways.
"I don't know. All I know is she was the only nun in the background of that press conference." Allen finished off his coffee just as the waitress came back. He smiled, a thin, watery, pathetic smile that made the waitress look away, uncomfortable.
Slam was stoic across the table, drank a gulp of coffee loudly. "What did Luthor want it for?"
"He didn't say, didn't even want to see the place." Allen looked at Chloe. "He didn't even ask me if I knew any good contractors to help with the damage. I gave his guy a list, but, after the papers were signed and we got the money, we never saw him again."
Allen tapped one finger on the table. "I'm pretty sure we helped him set up something bad. A factory for something. From what I hear, the third world might as well be Gotham for all it matters." He made the now universal, Superman flying motion. "I mean, Superman can get anywhere, right?"
"Thanks, Allen," Chloe said, she touched his hand once - maintain contact was one of her billion first rules. When you leave them, don't make them feel like you're abandoning them even when you are.
She stood, watched Slam do the same, trotted out behind him. As soon as they were outside, she said, "Do you think that Sister Magdalene is involved in some sort of cover-up of Selina's past?"
Slam blinked, obviously not what he was thinking. "When?" He didn't ask, 'why do you think that?' because she knew he expected her to answer that one anyway.
"Selina Kyle was a hooker when she was younger. About ten years ago, when Lex was doing his playboy druggie whore of the world thing." She held up her first finger, listed the rest of her points. "Around then, ten years ago, Bruce Wayne donates a ton of money to the convent and Selina disappears. Later, she shows up and starts dating Bruce, they're the perfect twu wuv couple and Bruce donates a lot of money to help get Lex back out of Gotham and to help Sister Magdalene keep her clinic open. That property was important to Sister Magdalene and if you think that was accidental that Lex out bid her you're joking with yourself."
Chloe inhaled in a gasp, ready to defend her theory. She didn't need Smallville Wall of Weird to put together a mystery.
Pulling out a cigarette, Slam lit it, looked hard at her. "What are you going to write your article about?" He asked, and it did sound like Perry, the way that Perry would stop her mid-Lex-rant #24 and ask her what was news about Lex being an asshole.
"Lex building kryptonite weapons in Gotham," she answered slowly. "Or whatever else illegal he's doing."
"Does digging up the past of those two girls really help you with that?" He unlocked his car door and got in.
"No," Chloe said, pulling open her own door, sliding into the seat. "But, it's- don't you think that it's important?"
"Not the way that you do," Slam said. "Those two, if you're right, have survived hell and back getting Luthor out of the East End the first time. You publish their story and it becomes gossip, Selina gets it harder from the press, Sister Magdalene can't get anyone to donate to her clinic."
Chloe was silent, watched the streets pass by, waited a few blocks before she asked, "Where are we going?"
"Where do you want to go?" Slam said. "What do you need to prove that Luthor's building something bad?"
Sighing, Chloe thought of the headache that research would be, pulling on any number of her sources to try and find out who Lex was buying the parts from. If he wasn't secretly making them himself. "Someone with firsthand knowledge would be nice. One of the workers coming clean with a sample of whatever Lex is doing."
"Call your friend," Slam said. "Find something to do for a couple of hours."
"And what will you be doing?" Chloe asked, even though she was pretty sure she didn't want to know.
"Finding you a source," Slam said. "Talking to union people, finding out who's scabbing."
He stopped the car in front of a high-end boutique, the beginning of a strip of shops where price tags were considered gauche. If they were having a fire sale, Chloe still wouldn't be able to afford anything in the store. "What am I supposed to do here?"
"Not get into trouble," Slam said. "I'll call you when I'm done."
Chloe slammed the door hard behind her, vindictive. She knew why she couldn't go, though, even understood it. In her career, she'd had more than her share of touchy informants, the ones that wouldn't talk even with goofy, friendly, Clark Kent dork-extraodinaire in the room. Gotham wasn't her town; she was an outsider and was playing at being the hero here. She understood deeply why Clark was so hesitant to even step inside the city limits.
Standing outside the boutique, tastefully named, "Dessous", she dialed Clark's number, second on her speed dial.
The sound of Clark's voicemail clicked in, and she didn't even listen to the message, waited for the tone and said, "Clark. I'm calling you to tell you that things are still going well and if you have time, could you maybe ask your tech savvy friend to see if Luthor's been purchasing any weapon parts? Missiles, maybe? Guns? Miss you." She shut her phone and went into the shop because one of the shop girls kept throwing her dark looks.
She was looking at the most ridiculous bra she'd ever seen when she heard a familiar voice say, "Well, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were better as a paparazzi than a journalist."
The bra would look perfect on Selina Kyle, who had the type of body that Chloe would think was only on TV if she didn't know Lex dated girls who looked like that all the time. "You said we should do lunch," Chloe grinned, tried to make it look less odd that she was in a lingerie store with Bruce Wayne's girlfriend.
"Well," Selina tilted her head, slightly. "Let's go, then."
Dropping the underwear she was holding on the counter, Selina leaned in towards the shop girl. "Call me when you aren't so elitist to friends of Bruce Wayne," Selina didn't need to glance at Chloe for the girl to blush, glance apologetically at Chloe.
In the fresh air, Selina slid her sunglasses out of her hair, pushed them onto her face. Her mouth twitched when Chloe burst out laughing. "She thinks that you're one of Bruce Wayne's mistresses now," the statement was bland, curiosity the cautious cat creeping around the words.
"Oh, man, but it's worth it," Chloe said. "I don't know what's good to eat around here."
"Nothing's good," Selina said. "Everything's expensive, which is mistaken for good by the stupid."
"Well, lead on," Chloe said. "You can buy."
"Bruce can buy," Selina said, tossing her hair with one hand. "Here." She opened the door to a restaurant with tall glass windows, high trees indoors, quiet lunch patrons in business suits and summer dresses.
The hostess smiled faintly when she saw them, as though she didn't want to give too much away.
"Reservation for Bruce Wayne?" Selina wasn't even looking at the girl, instead staring out the window. She hadn't taken off her sunglasses yet; she looked bored.
The hostess gathered two menus, said, "Mister Wayne was seated twenty minutes ago." Chloe wondered if it was strictly a Gotham thing, to be so proprietary about the celebrities.
Selina smiled faintly, a hint of a threat that made the hostess duck her head. At the table, Bruce was looking through a folder, holding red wine in one hand. When he saw them, he stood, closing the folder.
The hostess held out Selina's seat, but Selina leaned over, pressing her mouth soft and sensually against Bruce's before she sat down, grinning at the hostess's averted eyes. Chloe sat before the whole thing could become even more awkward.
"You're late," Bruce said, fliply, he used his napkin to wipe the smear of lipstick off of his mouth.
"You didn't care," Selina said, examining the menu. "I brought press, Bruce, try to behave."
Bruce shrugged; his smile seemed dangerous. Chloe wanted to be able to say, "touché" like he could -- non-verbally and nearly aggressive. They were staring at each other as though they would love to hurt each other, Chloe knew how many times she'd looked at Clark like that, knew that he'd never once reflected it back at her with half the passion that Bruce was using to tell Selina he hated her, wanted her dead, was angry, wanted her now.
"What's good here?" Chloe asked brightly, staring at the menu, the words were foreign to her mental food lexicon of hamburgers, pizza, Mexican, and Chinese.
"Everything," Bruce said. "I can order for you, if you'd like?"
The waiter arrived, more quietly and formal than the diner waitress from earlier, but the same edge of service-industry boredom that Chloe, luckily, never had to learn. "Would you like to order now?"
"Yes, I'll have the Caesar salad. Chloe will have the shitake mushroom. And Selina-"
"Can order for herself," Selina said. "I'll have steak, rare. I like it bloody." She was staring at Bruce when she said it, handed over her menu without looking away.
They were both still smiling, creepy, angry, wanting smiles that made Chloe want to pull out her tape recorder just to see what they would say. Instead she bit into a piece of bread, said, "It's too bad how Our Lady of Endless Sorrow lost the clinic space."
Both of them turned to look at her, sharply interested, intrigued. Selina looked dangerous, Bruce looked impassive. "It is," Bruce finally agreed. "They were doing good work."
"Yeah, I saw that you gave them some financial help for that." Chloe buttered the bread, ignoring that she was the only one eating it.
The wine at Bruce's elbow was untouched still, though both he and Selina were continuously drinking water.
"Bruce likes to help out lost causes," Selina said, her voice slightly hoarse, when she looked over at him.
Shrugging, Bruce said, "Of course, they'll find new space."
"But it won't be the same, will it, Bruce?" Selina said, arching an eyebrow, her mouth tight. "They wanted that space for old memories, to wash away a den of sin? Isn't that how you put it?"
Silently, Bruce raised his wine glass to his lips, took what couldn't even be called a sip, placed it back down. "I called the area somewhere that needed to be reborn, but you'd know that better than I would. You spent time with Luthor there, what was it? Ten years ago?"
"Read that?" Selina asked. "You might have benefited from spending less time in that ivory tower of yours. Lex did."
If this was how they fought, careful innuendoes and secrets told in public like strips of pain they were exacting from each other's skin in moderate tones, Chloe was glad that Clark never looked at her like they looked at each other. Clark fought with her earnestly, they always knew what was on the table. Chloe had no idea what Bruce and Selina's pink elephant was, but she figured that before the meal was over, she probably would.
Although, if the warehouse had used to be a club, if it had been a club that Lex used to frequent with Selina, then it couldn't be innocent that Sister Magdalene and Lex Luthor wanted the space. Opening her mouth, Chloe tried to formulate her question, found it impossible.
Her handbag vibrated and started ringing the Simpson's theme song. She blushed, when everyone turned to stare, even Bruce and Selina both looking more amused than irritated.
"I should get this," she said, pulling it out and silencing it. Clark. And he'd just get upset if she didn't answer. She walked to the door, trying not to rush out like the person that farted in the movie theater. "What?" she snapped when she was outside.
"Chloe?" Clark asked, carefully. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I'm fine."
"Oh, you just sounded-" he stopped. "I asked my 'friend' and he said that there hasn't been anything within the past ten months, but about a year ago Lex bought a lot of missile pieces in large quantities from different suppliers. What's going on?"
"I think that Lex is making Kryptonite weapons." She paused, looked around, expected to see Clark Kent, casually walking around the corner at any moment. The easiest way to "happen" to see Clark was to mention Lex and Kryptonite in the same sentence.
"Where?" Clark's voice was tight, furious. She was strangely relieved to know it wasn't directed at her.
"Gotham," she said. "He's got a factory up and running near the waterfront."
The pause was long, Clark's breathing audible. "And Batman hasn't stopped him." The words were dark, cold, Superman words. They barely resembled anything that Clark would say in a way that only three people -- four counting Lex -- truly understood.
"Not yet," Chloe said, hedging her bets.
"Well," Clark said, strangely flat. "You're going to write an article on it?"
"Yeah, I'm finding sources right now." Slam was right. The history of Lex trying to make two women pay for pissing him off when he was a sullen, high teenager was nothing when compared to him building weapons in Gotham just so that Superman wouldn't notice.
Clark's sigh was short. "Ok. I'll see you when I get back? Let me know if you need anything else. Call." He hung up without a goodbye.
Walking back inside, she sat down, realized that she shouldn't have left because the tension had shifted. Bruce and Selina were the gorgeous Gotham couple again, friendly smiles, sharing food. Bruce shifted away the questions about Selina's past with the same slick, blatant lies that Chloe remembered from their first interview.
The lunch was a wash, even though the meal was amazing.
Leaving the restaurant, both Bruce and Selina had "meetings" and they smiled, kind, vacant smiles that left Chloe's teeth on edge. Slam calling was the best sound she'd heard ever.
"Where are you?" he asked.
Ten minutes later, they were headed back towards the East End.
*****
On to Part 6