Dance with me: Chapter V (5/?)
Title: Dance with Me
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Chloe and Oliver (Chlollie)
Rating: PG / PG-13
Warning: AU
Summary: Busy searching for the whereabouts of Lex Luthor along with the League, Chloe has enough on her plate without having to worry about attending Queen Industries Charity Ball. Then there's the dance lessons the boys are so determined to give her, and just why is Lex after Oliver instead of Clark?
Disclaimer: I disclaim!
I've been back from vacation for awhile now, but never got the chance to post. Now I'm back in the world of fanfiction, and trying to catch up on all the amazing stories, and working on my own fics. Enjoy this chapter!
Chapter 5: Explosive Bombs and Personalities
Fingers busy tapping away at the keyboard while her eyes glazed at the screen in deep concentration, Chloe was able to forget about the awkward tension orbiting around she and Oliver back at the old Clock Tower, although something told her that the induced awkwardness was solely on her part. However, once the emanating buzzing from her cell phone reached her ears, Chloe was reminded of those notions when her eyes made contact with the name clearly displayed across the screen: Lois Lane.
Crap! Lois!
Tapping the screen to connect herself to her cousin, Chloe brought the device towards her ear with a bitten lip.
“Chloe Anne Sullivan!”
And there was the mother alert she hadn’t missed at all.
“Lois,” she swallowed, feigning a grin, “hi!”
“Where were you last night? I have been worried sick!”
Frowning, Chloe reminded her cousin that she could have called, to which Lois retaliated that she had-and more than once. Cringing, Chloe didn’t bother checking. Somewhere between her drive from Watchtower to Oliver’s penthouse, she had been distantly aware of the vibrations emanating from her cell, but she ignored them, Oliver’s request that she report to his penthouse as soon as the mission was aborted sounding more urgent.
“Where were you, Chloe?” Lois repeated in a more demanding tone.
Swallowing, Chloe wondered how she would fib her way out of this one. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t crashed at Oliver’s place or Watchtower previously, but usually she was able to make it back to the Talon before Lois realized she had been missing all night. Today, however, her encounter with Oliver had made her so discombobulated that she wasn’t thinking clearly.
“I was at Ollie’s,” she sighed.
“All night?”
Already knowing how it was going to sound, Chloe nodded. “Yes.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“God, Lois, Ollie and I are just friends. Have you forgotten that the Isis Foundation is under his company? I was busy at work, then needed to bring over documents for him to sign, and ended up crashing there. He wouldn’t let me drive home that late.”
Lois’s end paused as she teetered with Chloe’s response. “Well, despite his public persona, Ollie is always looking out for the people he cares about.”
Catching herself nodding absently, Chloe said, “True. But Lois, I am a big girl, and I can take care of myself, you have nothing to worry about.”
Not liking the sound of that one bit, Lois grinded an “okay” through her teeth.
Noticing that Lois wasn’t alone, and having heard Clark’s muffled voice in the background, Chloe’s eyes fell to the large digital clock, reminding her that the dynamic duo were at the Daily Planet. “Hey, Lois, can I speak to Clark for a minute?”
In that moment, Lois automatically turned around, catching a sudden breeze and realizing Clark was nowhere where he was two seconds ago. “Ah…I’ll have him call you back, he just kind of vanished...”
Understanding dawning onto her, Chloe ended the conversation, more than happy to put this morning’s events behind her.
xoxoxox
Sinking into the large leather chair positioned behind his desk at LuthorCorp, Oliver buried his face into his hands. He had just lost a multi-million dollar deal, a deal which Tess was certain would put Queen Industries and LuthorCorp on the map. Not only would the shareholders have even more reason to think Oliver shouldn’t be joint CEO of LuthorCorp, but Tess would be livid. She was so excited about this deal, often reminding him of the Tess she used to be with the bigger-than-herself dreams as they sat through sleep inducing PowerPoint presentation after sleep inducing PowerPoint presentation.
Peaking through his fingers at the sound of the double doors bursting open, Oliver braced himself to face the fiery redhead. Instead, he was surprised to find a stoic Clark trekking towards him. Eyes trailing after the crumpled silver sphere Clark had placed on his desk, Oliver watched it wobble to a stop. Looking up with quirked brows, he met his friend’s blue eyes. “It’s really sweet of you, Clark,” he smirked, lips slightly twitching, “but it isn’t my birthday.”
Lips pursing, Clark picked up the tiny object.
“Okay, for Christmas I’m getting you a sense of humor.”
Brushing off the man’s comment, Clark plowed ahead. “This is an explosive, a bomb, found onsite at your factory.”
Clicking to the idea that it wasn’t a machinery malfunction, but an intentional explosion, Oliver stood up, pressing his palms onto the glassy surface for support. “Maybe you shouldn’t be tampering with evidence.”
Frown growing deeper, Clark turned the tiny object so the broken side faced Oliver. “It’s made by Queen Industries.”
Gathering the object in his hand, Oliver mentally traced the all too familiar QI insignia with his eyes. “Queen Industries supplies various customers, government included, with explosives. The person or persons behind this could have purchased or stolen it from anywhere, Clark,” Oliver finished, despite theorizing hours before with the League that someone may have had a vendetta against him or the company, and that person could very well be Lex Luthor. Dropping the bomb back into Clark’s palm, Oliver made his way around the desk.
Watching him in slight confusion, Clark asked, “What are you doing about this, Oliver?”
“Right now, I’m letting the police handle it, but feel free to play Sherlock Holmes.”
“Aren’t you the least bit concerned that someone could…”
“Look, man, I just lost a multi-million dollar deal,” he confessed, rubbing his temple, “and now I have to go deal with the terror Mercy is no doubt going to inflict upon me, so maybe another time. Thanks for dropping by.”
xoxoxox
Arriving at Watchtower, Clark found the petite blonde frowning at the various computer screens decked throughout the space. Profiles of people previously employed under the Queen Industries name filled the monitors.
Realizing that the whoosh of air was Clark, because frankly, Bart may have been impulsive, but his stops were much smoother than Clark’s, Chloe said, “It’ll take days for me to go through each and every one of them.”
Eyes squinting on the closest image, Clark turned to her in blatant curiosity. “What are you and the League up to?”
“Okay,” she sighed, turning around to face him, “I know you pretty much like to go solo on your missions and hide behind the shadows,” she paused, “or perch yourself on a crow’s nest, but we’ve been trying to track Lex.”
“You have been for awhile now,” Clark pointed out, cocking his head to the side, “but what’s all of this?” He gestured to the numerous faces occupying the various monitors.
“We think that if Lex is out there, and with that warehouse facility popping up, he must be out there, we decided he’s too weak to work on his own, and therefore must be in cahoots with someone.”
“Right,” he stated absently, eyes still roaming across the images, “any of this have to do with Oliver’s company?”
Tucking a ruffled strand of hair behind her ear from Clark’s not so elegant swoop in, Chloe nodded. “There was a list of information on ex-employees from Queen Industries on the data Victor was able to swipe.”
“So you think someone must be after Oliver?”
“Someone or Lex,” she added meekly.
Turning around, Clark began pacing in a short distance, stopping when he reached one of the stained glassed windows, through which he could clearly see the LuthorCorp building. The sunlight was pouring in, staining the floor with shattered images of the ones depicted in the window, the light also bouncing off Clark. “Interesting,” he began, facing in the direction of the blonde, “because I just went to see Oliver, having found a bomb onsite…”
So that’s where Clark had run off too during her conversation with Lois. He must have gone to investigate the factory again.
“And he didn’t tell me any of this.”
Chloe’s brows furrowed. “That’s strange,” she uttered with a shake of her head, “because we were going over this just last night.”
“Oliver did always have trust issues.” Walking back towards Chloe, Clark outstretched his palm as Chloe picked up the explosive he’d found, eyes turning to Clark after having spotted the QI logo in intrigue.