It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet, Part 8
Title: It'll Give Us Something To Talk About The Next Time We Meet
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to
iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!
Table of Contents
After some digging in the fridge they ended up with green beans and some scrambled eggs. They ate companionably enough, keeping the conversation to the food and what they'd liked as kids and what they still wouldn't eat even now. For Tess that included yams and chayote squash and anything with cayenne pepper. Oliver, on the other hand, couldn't think of anything he at least wouldn't try. He told her that after a few months of roasted rat on the island, he'd finally learned not to be picky. She was quiet after that, and a few minutes later mentioned she was tired.
He was fairly certain Lois would react even more badly to stumbling home and finding Tess in her bed than finding him, so he offered Tess the guest room for the night. This invitation complicated by the fact that he didn't know where the linens were kept or what, exactly, to do with them once he'd found them. The last time he'd had to fend for himself in the house-keeping department there hadn't been sheets and pillows and whatever that white quilted thing was that went beneath the sheets and above the mattress. Nor, for that matter, had their been a mattress. Looking back he probably should have admitted he didn't know what the white quilted thing was called, since actually naming it “the white quilted thing” when she refused to understand which “that” he was pointing to made her whoop with laughter. But that was fine. A woman hadn't laughed at him since Dinah'd snickered at his glasses earlier this evening; he figured he was about due.
After the bed was made he wished her an awkward good night and wandered back out into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door, shut it, opened it again and stared at the rest of the green beans and the half-eaten container of hummus and half-case of Michelob Ultra left in it. The beer looked vaguely tempting but with Clark in stalker mode that was out. That meant patrol was out too. Well, that was it then. No beer and no patrol (and no girlfriend). He'd be chopping through the door to Tess' room with an ax in no time. He closed the fridge. He'd made an enormous gamble that night, and now his adrenaline was high. He needed to work off some of that energy, settle his head so he could think. Find some focus.
Peeling off his shirt, he headed for the roof.
The building had an exercise studio, but he liked working on the more uneven terrain of the grass planted up there. It was good training. Unless he could design an arrow to lay some portable, no-skid sprung vinyl flooring down when he saw a bad-guy approaching, he doubted he would ever have a real fight where he didn't have to take the ground into account. Plus when the clumps of the big prairie grasses got to be taller than he was, like they were now, it was easier to pretend he was somewhere wild again. Somewhere the only thing he had to worry about was hunting his dinner. Somewhere where his half-sister wasn't sleeping with his nemesis. Or, hey - how about somewhere where he didn't have a nemesis? That would be nice. Maybe somewhere where his nemesis was actually one of the good guys. As if that was ever going to happen.
On the other hand, he thought, he never would have believed the sorceress he'd had Bart running around in circles to find would have been hiding in a seven-foot-tall stand of big bluestem on his roof, but there she was, pushing her way out of it. She just needed a drum roll to make the effect complete.
“Some view,” she said, strolling to the edge of the roof and peering down.
“Generally I like to share it with the kind of guests who come with invitations.”
“And here I thought you were supposed to be charming.”
“Here I thought my security system was supposed to work. How did you get up here?”
She shook her head. “If I told you that they'd kick me out of the magician's union.”
Oliver shoved his hands in his pockets and wrapped his fingers around the arrowhead. He shook head. At the time Chloe'd slipped it into his pocket he'd thought there couldn't possibly be any more bend for him to go around. How wrong he'd been. “So. You do perform. I wondered.”
She turned back to him and smiled. It was very mysterious and come-hither and doubtless the perfect distraction to whatever sleights of hands she performed. “Madame Xanadu's in Chinatown, every Friday and Saturday at midnight: Mademoiselle Giselle et sa Theatre du Fantaisie. Next time you're looking for me you can find me there.”
“Good to know. I look forward to seeing you.”
“I look forward to being seen."
“Yeah. Speaking of seeing you in odd places, my sister ran into you this afternoon. She told me about the offer you made her.”
If she was surprised by his little revelation, she said nothing. “How's that working out for her?”
“As well as can be expected. There's only one problem. She doesn't have the book.”
“No, you do.” Her eyes narrowed. “It's not yours, you know.”
“The state of Kansas might disagree with you there.” Now that, he thought as the words tripped over his tongue, was a stupid statement. The point was to win her sympathy, not antagonize her. He'd reminded himself not to spend an entire evening with Dinah and Tess the next time he needed to negotiate something critical.
“You can't use it.”
He shrugged. “I know.”
“Then to you it's nothing more than another dusty, expensive book on your shelf. But to me it's everything. My father wrote that book. He wrote down everything he'd learned from his father and that his father had learned from his. It's my heritage, and it's all I have left of him. That's something I'd think you of all people would be able to understand.”
“I guess I would.” Despite his flub earlier, he couldn't have asked for a better opening. He wandered over to the ledge next to her, establishing a sense of connection. “So if I give it to you, what will you do?”
She smiled again, a little eagerly. “Whatever you wish.”
He laughed. “You know, you'd be surprised how often I get that.”
“No, I don't think I would be,” she said, her smile turning rueful. “But nobody who's ever made you that offer could give you what I can give you. The one thing you truly want. Your heart's desire.”
“Do you just go around that offering to anyone with a Barnes and Noble bag in hand?”
“This isn't a joke.”
“No, I believe you,” and the funny thing was, after his talk with Tess, he did, “but that's not what I meant. What I want to know is if I give you this book, what will happen to Tess? What will happen to Yuri? I mean, I'm assuming you've made him truly psychic by now or whatever it is he wants to be --”
“Dead languages,” she said.
“What?”
“He wanted to be able to speak in dead languages.”
Well, that was a little anti-climatic, he thought. “And, he can now?”
“I don't fool around.”
“That's kind of the problem. What if my heart's desire was to bomb Canada back to the Stone Age, or have all my business competitors suffer sudden, fatal heart attacks?”
“Because nobody wants to bomb Canada. Nobody ever wants anything like that. Not in their heart of hearts. You might think you hate someone, but nobody hates anything more than they love something else, even if it's only gravy fries.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Well, I did notice there's no giant mound of potatoes and cheese curds behind us,” she teased.
In spite of himself, Oliver looked back. Just a lot of native grass and a couple of Adirondack's. Zatanna laughed. Oliver grimaced. Maybe he should quit his day job and just take his new doofus act on the road.
The problem was he already had a night job, and he needed to get on with it. “So you're one of those people-are-really-good-at-heart people?” he asked her.
“Not always. Mostly I've seen that people want to be happy, even if they don't know up here how to do that,” she said, tapping her skull. “But in their hearts they know it's better to be happily married now than to get revenge on an ex-lover. It's better to have their son healed and whole than it is to get back at the person who maimed him. It's not something they have to think about. It's instinctual.” She said “instinctual” very slowly. He wondered if the seduction was meant as a distraction or if she was actually attracted to him.
Then he snorted. The only thing that seemed to be instinctual for him was suspicion. “I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.”
“If we must. I'd still bet that what you want is to be happy.”
“Maybe.” His reality didn't seem designed for happiness. “What about you? From the way you were talking earlier it sounded as if having your dad back would be your heart's desire. Why don't you just wish for the book?”
“It doesn't work that way. I can't wish for things for myself.”
“Ah. Sucks to be you, I guess.”
“My dad always said having to work for what you wanted built character.”
“Sounds like a very dad thing to say.” She smiled in agreement, but her suddenly sad eyes flickered to the stream of lights below. She was either a very subtle actress or she really did miss her father, he thought. “The thing is,” he continued, “is that I need more than happiness. I need help.”
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So far, the best part of Dinah's evening had to be the fact that it wasn't raining. Nothing else came even close to the fact that she was dry. Not the fact that Oliver was busy entertaining a Luthor; not the fact that Victor hadn't comm'd in since reporting that he'd arrived at the farm; not the fact that Bart would. Not. Shut. Up. From the moment they hit the streets he started in with a character-by-character run-down of who in BC's Angelic Warrior Host, who were actually a collection of aliens, mutants, and demons attempting to earn their way back into heaven, would win in fights against Amazing's Wolf Pack - only one of which was a wolf. Who could rip steel with his claws. And talk.
“So he's a were-wolf,” she said absently.
“No. Absolutely not. He's a shaman who becomes possessed with the totemic spirit of his ancestors. And kicks ass.”
And the difference between them would be, what, exactly? “And why does he win the fight against the Persephone character you say looks like me?”
“Prosperine,” he corrected. “It's because he's got all of this spiritual energy that he can use to boil her demon blood. It's like that time - “
“Quiet.” They were walking down Tedesco, past Morelli's Spirits but not quite to the playground. The main sounds were the interstate in the distance and the thumping bass of a car a few blocks away, but she thought she'd heard something else.
“What --”
“Less talk, more listen,” she said.
Once he closed his mouth, the sounds became distinct. A woman was yelling: “That's right you son of a bitch” and then a car door slammed. A domestic? In progress, or finished? An engine started, tires squealed, and the woman's voice was drowned out by the car roaring toward them. After it passed the only sound was the soft buzz of traffic half a mile away.
“What just happened?” she asked him.
“Um, a car drove by?”
“Yes, it did. But where did it come from? Who was driving it? Where's it going?”
“Seriously?”
She glared. “Did you really think we're out here to talk about your comic collection?”
“I … okay. Geesh. Um, he came from over there,” he said, pointing down the street the car had driven.
“And where is 'over there'?”
“It's there. It's like three blocks over.”
“What is the name of the street three blocks over?”
“Are you - yeah, you're serious.” He shrugged. “I don't know.”
“No, you don't, and that's why we're out here. Surprisingly enough, a lot of this job involves calling 911 and you don't want to be the guy who can't give an address over the phone because he doesn't know where he is. If you're running and you overshoot --”
“Dude, I haven't done that in years.”
“You also don't want to be chasing anyone into alleys you don't know or into a building you think is empty that isn't,” she continued. “You need to know what you're running into. And you of all people on the team should know the city like the back of your hand.”
“Right. Lesson One: Become a human GPS. Got it.”
“There's more to it than knowing the map. You gotta think like a cop on the beat. You gotta notice what's going on around you. Are there any weird sounds? People yelling, dogs barking? Get to know the neighborhood. You should know what businesses are opening, and which are closing. You should know if there's a lot of activity going on around a closed business or if a business suddenly pops up that never seems to be open.”
“Like, in case they're running drugs or something out of it?”
“There are other things to look out for there; a business selling drugs is gonna try to look as legit as possible. But think about what Vic found at Cadmus. A legitimate off-shoot of LuthorCorp, but there was nothing going on inside the building with the sign out front. These are the things we need to be aware of.”
“So, Lesson Two: Know Thy Hood.”
“Yep. Moving on,” she replied. “What is that guy wearing?” She nodded her head at the guy trotting down the steps of some cruddy 60's-era apartment block and into a saggy Olds parked on the street.
“A hoodie. And some jeans.”
“What color hoodie?”
“White. No - gray. Maybe. How am I supposed to see colors in this light?”
“What was the license plate number on the car?”
“Man, you told me to check out the guy, not the car!”
“Ok. Let's say you were out here on your own and the guy was running from the building and then jumped in the car and sped away. What would you be able to identify about him or the car?”
“Well, the car's a boat. Old. Guy was skinny. He looked pretty young.”
“So, if you found out he'd lifted some jewelry from a little old lady in the building, how would you find him again? Check out all the old boats being driven by young, skinny guys?”
“No, I'd run around until I found that old boat being driven by that young, skinny buy. Seriously, it wouldn't take that long to find him.”
The irritating part, Dinah thought, was that he was right. It would probably take him two seconds to find the right car. That was no excuse for sloppy fundamentals though. “Impulse, we're doing this so you can learn what to do when you can't use your powers. Like if you're busy tracking a target and need to be able to report something else that happens to the police or to Stuart so he can follow up. Of if you're in broad daylight in a crowd of people who might notice and wonder where the hell you've disappeared.”
“Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do,” he shrugged.
“Yeah. Sometimes.” She tried to sound patient and affirming and all those other things she was expected to sound like because she was a girl. “But sometimes you gotta remember the big picture. Capturing your target. Protecting the team. Protecting the identities of the team, and that means your identity too.”
“Ok, so Lesson Three is Pay Attention to Details.”
“You're learning,” she said.
That's when she was knocked to the ground.
For two, three, terrifying non-breaths she clutched the side-walk and willed herself to inhale. When her body finally obeyed and she was able to scramble up, Bart was gone. Where, she didn't know. Why, she didn't want to think about. Either she had just experienced one of those micro-bursts Metropolis was famous for, or -
“He's back,” Bart said, apperating in front of her.
“What? Who? Where did you go?”
“I was following him.”
“Him him? The him who's as fast as you?”
“Almost as fast, and yeah, it was him.”
“But Victor found the lab,” she said. And hadn't made contact since he'd arrived.
“Looks like he was a day late and a few dinero short. He's back,” Bart answered.
In the distance a woman screamed.
Like that, Bart was gone again.
Dinah broke into a run, thanking herself for ditching the undercover hooker look for once and patrolling in boots with sensible heels. It was four blocks to Payne, made a little shorter she cut through the alley, the vacant lot and the lawns of two foreclosed-upon shot-gun houses. There were more screams and yelling as she ran, men's voices as well as women's. A crowd was gathering.
As soon as she hit Payne she saw it, people and a few cars bunching around Mickey's Diner a few blocks south. Flames appeared to be coming out of the wall, but as she ran toward it the fire began to die. A few people were clapping, and one man whistled. It was hard to see what had happened with all the gawkers milling around but she she could guess.
No. She knew.
When she got to the diner Bart was no where to be seen; probably he'd shot off to call 911 someplace where he wouldn't be identified. About half the crowd was gathered around a young girl, a working girl by the way she was dressed, sobbing and holding the body of a man who could have been her father but was probably her pimp. The other half were over by the wall, taking photos with their phones. The fire was out but you could still see its charred remains, a “U” surrounded by an upside-down pentagon.
Dinah willed her body to breathe again. They were so fucked.
Author: Flying High / latetothpartyhp
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, Clark/Tess, ex-Lois/Oliver
Rating: Teen / PG-13
Warnings: Coarse language, violence, brief nudity
Spoilers: For Luthor and Hex
Summary: Oliver has problems. Lois wants out, Tess wants Clark and Clark wants his powers back. If only Oliver could have what he wants... Set in the Luthor-verse about a month after the Finale.
Sequel to Of All The Towns In All The Worlds In All The Parallel Universes, You Had To Walk Into Mine and I Don't Mind A Little Trouble.
Author's Note (and some additional warnings): Many, many thanks to
iluvaqt for beta'ing this and giving me the confidence to keep writing it. This is a JLA-centered story with a Chlollie twist that ya'll should see coming from a mile away (which I write to persuade anyone put off by the lack of Chloe in the first few chapters). Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think!
Table of Contents
After some digging in the fridge they ended up with green beans and some scrambled eggs. They ate companionably enough, keeping the conversation to the food and what they'd liked as kids and what they still wouldn't eat even now. For Tess that included yams and chayote squash and anything with cayenne pepper. Oliver, on the other hand, couldn't think of anything he at least wouldn't try. He told her that after a few months of roasted rat on the island, he'd finally learned not to be picky. She was quiet after that, and a few minutes later mentioned she was tired.
He was fairly certain Lois would react even more badly to stumbling home and finding Tess in her bed than finding him, so he offered Tess the guest room for the night. This invitation complicated by the fact that he didn't know where the linens were kept or what, exactly, to do with them once he'd found them. The last time he'd had to fend for himself in the house-keeping department there hadn't been sheets and pillows and whatever that white quilted thing was that went beneath the sheets and above the mattress. Nor, for that matter, had their been a mattress. Looking back he probably should have admitted he didn't know what the white quilted thing was called, since actually naming it “the white quilted thing” when she refused to understand which “that” he was pointing to made her whoop with laughter. But that was fine. A woman hadn't laughed at him since Dinah'd snickered at his glasses earlier this evening; he figured he was about due.
After the bed was made he wished her an awkward good night and wandered back out into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door, shut it, opened it again and stared at the rest of the green beans and the half-eaten container of hummus and half-case of Michelob Ultra left in it. The beer looked vaguely tempting but with Clark in stalker mode that was out. That meant patrol was out too. Well, that was it then. No beer and no patrol (and no girlfriend). He'd be chopping through the door to Tess' room with an ax in no time. He closed the fridge. He'd made an enormous gamble that night, and now his adrenaline was high. He needed to work off some of that energy, settle his head so he could think. Find some focus.
Peeling off his shirt, he headed for the roof.
The building had an exercise studio, but he liked working on the more uneven terrain of the grass planted up there. It was good training. Unless he could design an arrow to lay some portable, no-skid sprung vinyl flooring down when he saw a bad-guy approaching, he doubted he would ever have a real fight where he didn't have to take the ground into account. Plus when the clumps of the big prairie grasses got to be taller than he was, like they were now, it was easier to pretend he was somewhere wild again. Somewhere the only thing he had to worry about was hunting his dinner. Somewhere where his half-sister wasn't sleeping with his nemesis. Or, hey - how about somewhere where he didn't have a nemesis? That would be nice. Maybe somewhere where his nemesis was actually one of the good guys. As if that was ever going to happen.
On the other hand, he thought, he never would have believed the sorceress he'd had Bart running around in circles to find would have been hiding in a seven-foot-tall stand of big bluestem on his roof, but there she was, pushing her way out of it. She just needed a drum roll to make the effect complete.
“Some view,” she said, strolling to the edge of the roof and peering down.
“Generally I like to share it with the kind of guests who come with invitations.”
“And here I thought you were supposed to be charming.”
“Here I thought my security system was supposed to work. How did you get up here?”
She shook her head. “If I told you that they'd kick me out of the magician's union.”
Oliver shoved his hands in his pockets and wrapped his fingers around the arrowhead. He shook head. At the time Chloe'd slipped it into his pocket he'd thought there couldn't possibly be any more bend for him to go around. How wrong he'd been. “So. You do perform. I wondered.”
She turned back to him and smiled. It was very mysterious and come-hither and doubtless the perfect distraction to whatever sleights of hands she performed. “Madame Xanadu's in Chinatown, every Friday and Saturday at midnight: Mademoiselle Giselle et sa Theatre du Fantaisie. Next time you're looking for me you can find me there.”
“Good to know. I look forward to seeing you.”
“I look forward to being seen."
“Yeah. Speaking of seeing you in odd places, my sister ran into you this afternoon. She told me about the offer you made her.”
If she was surprised by his little revelation, she said nothing. “How's that working out for her?”
“As well as can be expected. There's only one problem. She doesn't have the book.”
“No, you do.” Her eyes narrowed. “It's not yours, you know.”
“The state of Kansas might disagree with you there.” Now that, he thought as the words tripped over his tongue, was a stupid statement. The point was to win her sympathy, not antagonize her. He'd reminded himself not to spend an entire evening with Dinah and Tess the next time he needed to negotiate something critical.
“You can't use it.”
He shrugged. “I know.”
“Then to you it's nothing more than another dusty, expensive book on your shelf. But to me it's everything. My father wrote that book. He wrote down everything he'd learned from his father and that his father had learned from his. It's my heritage, and it's all I have left of him. That's something I'd think you of all people would be able to understand.”
“I guess I would.” Despite his flub earlier, he couldn't have asked for a better opening. He wandered over to the ledge next to her, establishing a sense of connection. “So if I give it to you, what will you do?”
She smiled again, a little eagerly. “Whatever you wish.”
He laughed. “You know, you'd be surprised how often I get that.”
“No, I don't think I would be,” she said, her smile turning rueful. “But nobody who's ever made you that offer could give you what I can give you. The one thing you truly want. Your heart's desire.”
“Do you just go around that offering to anyone with a Barnes and Noble bag in hand?”
“This isn't a joke.”
“No, I believe you,” and the funny thing was, after his talk with Tess, he did, “but that's not what I meant. What I want to know is if I give you this book, what will happen to Tess? What will happen to Yuri? I mean, I'm assuming you've made him truly psychic by now or whatever it is he wants to be --”
“Dead languages,” she said.
“What?”
“He wanted to be able to speak in dead languages.”
Well, that was a little anti-climatic, he thought. “And, he can now?”
“I don't fool around.”
“That's kind of the problem. What if my heart's desire was to bomb Canada back to the Stone Age, or have all my business competitors suffer sudden, fatal heart attacks?”
“Because nobody wants to bomb Canada. Nobody ever wants anything like that. Not in their heart of hearts. You might think you hate someone, but nobody hates anything more than they love something else, even if it's only gravy fries.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Well, I did notice there's no giant mound of potatoes and cheese curds behind us,” she teased.
In spite of himself, Oliver looked back. Just a lot of native grass and a couple of Adirondack's. Zatanna laughed. Oliver grimaced. Maybe he should quit his day job and just take his new doofus act on the road.
The problem was he already had a night job, and he needed to get on with it. “So you're one of those people-are-really-good-at-heart people?” he asked her.
“Not always. Mostly I've seen that people want to be happy, even if they don't know up here how to do that,” she said, tapping her skull. “But in their hearts they know it's better to be happily married now than to get revenge on an ex-lover. It's better to have their son healed and whole than it is to get back at the person who maimed him. It's not something they have to think about. It's instinctual.” She said “instinctual” very slowly. He wondered if the seduction was meant as a distraction or if she was actually attracted to him.
Then he snorted. The only thing that seemed to be instinctual for him was suspicion. “I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.”
“If we must. I'd still bet that what you want is to be happy.”
“Maybe.” His reality didn't seem designed for happiness. “What about you? From the way you were talking earlier it sounded as if having your dad back would be your heart's desire. Why don't you just wish for the book?”
“It doesn't work that way. I can't wish for things for myself.”
“Ah. Sucks to be you, I guess.”
“My dad always said having to work for what you wanted built character.”
“Sounds like a very dad thing to say.” She smiled in agreement, but her suddenly sad eyes flickered to the stream of lights below. She was either a very subtle actress or she really did miss her father, he thought. “The thing is,” he continued, “is that I need more than happiness. I need help.”
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So far, the best part of Dinah's evening had to be the fact that it wasn't raining. Nothing else came even close to the fact that she was dry. Not the fact that Oliver was busy entertaining a Luthor; not the fact that Victor hadn't comm'd in since reporting that he'd arrived at the farm; not the fact that Bart would. Not. Shut. Up. From the moment they hit the streets he started in with a character-by-character run-down of who in BC's Angelic Warrior Host, who were actually a collection of aliens, mutants, and demons attempting to earn their way back into heaven, would win in fights against Amazing's Wolf Pack - only one of which was a wolf. Who could rip steel with his claws. And talk.
“So he's a were-wolf,” she said absently.
“No. Absolutely not. He's a shaman who becomes possessed with the totemic spirit of his ancestors. And kicks ass.”
And the difference between them would be, what, exactly? “And why does he win the fight against the Persephone character you say looks like me?”
“Prosperine,” he corrected. “It's because he's got all of this spiritual energy that he can use to boil her demon blood. It's like that time - “
“Quiet.” They were walking down Tedesco, past Morelli's Spirits but not quite to the playground. The main sounds were the interstate in the distance and the thumping bass of a car a few blocks away, but she thought she'd heard something else.
“What --”
“Less talk, more listen,” she said.
Once he closed his mouth, the sounds became distinct. A woman was yelling: “That's right you son of a bitch” and then a car door slammed. A domestic? In progress, or finished? An engine started, tires squealed, and the woman's voice was drowned out by the car roaring toward them. After it passed the only sound was the soft buzz of traffic half a mile away.
“What just happened?” she asked him.
“Um, a car drove by?”
“Yes, it did. But where did it come from? Who was driving it? Where's it going?”
“Seriously?”
She glared. “Did you really think we're out here to talk about your comic collection?”
“I … okay. Geesh. Um, he came from over there,” he said, pointing down the street the car had driven.
“And where is 'over there'?”
“It's there. It's like three blocks over.”
“What is the name of the street three blocks over?”
“Are you - yeah, you're serious.” He shrugged. “I don't know.”
“No, you don't, and that's why we're out here. Surprisingly enough, a lot of this job involves calling 911 and you don't want to be the guy who can't give an address over the phone because he doesn't know where he is. If you're running and you overshoot --”
“Dude, I haven't done that in years.”
“You also don't want to be chasing anyone into alleys you don't know or into a building you think is empty that isn't,” she continued. “You need to know what you're running into. And you of all people on the team should know the city like the back of your hand.”
“Right. Lesson One: Become a human GPS. Got it.”
“There's more to it than knowing the map. You gotta think like a cop on the beat. You gotta notice what's going on around you. Are there any weird sounds? People yelling, dogs barking? Get to know the neighborhood. You should know what businesses are opening, and which are closing. You should know if there's a lot of activity going on around a closed business or if a business suddenly pops up that never seems to be open.”
“Like, in case they're running drugs or something out of it?”
“There are other things to look out for there; a business selling drugs is gonna try to look as legit as possible. But think about what Vic found at Cadmus. A legitimate off-shoot of LuthorCorp, but there was nothing going on inside the building with the sign out front. These are the things we need to be aware of.”
“So, Lesson Two: Know Thy Hood.”
“Yep. Moving on,” she replied. “What is that guy wearing?” She nodded her head at the guy trotting down the steps of some cruddy 60's-era apartment block and into a saggy Olds parked on the street.
“A hoodie. And some jeans.”
“What color hoodie?”
“White. No - gray. Maybe. How am I supposed to see colors in this light?”
“What was the license plate number on the car?”
“Man, you told me to check out the guy, not the car!”
“Ok. Let's say you were out here on your own and the guy was running from the building and then jumped in the car and sped away. What would you be able to identify about him or the car?”
“Well, the car's a boat. Old. Guy was skinny. He looked pretty young.”
“So, if you found out he'd lifted some jewelry from a little old lady in the building, how would you find him again? Check out all the old boats being driven by young, skinny guys?”
“No, I'd run around until I found that old boat being driven by that young, skinny buy. Seriously, it wouldn't take that long to find him.”
The irritating part, Dinah thought, was that he was right. It would probably take him two seconds to find the right car. That was no excuse for sloppy fundamentals though. “Impulse, we're doing this so you can learn what to do when you can't use your powers. Like if you're busy tracking a target and need to be able to report something else that happens to the police or to Stuart so he can follow up. Of if you're in broad daylight in a crowd of people who might notice and wonder where the hell you've disappeared.”
“Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do,” he shrugged.
“Yeah. Sometimes.” She tried to sound patient and affirming and all those other things she was expected to sound like because she was a girl. “But sometimes you gotta remember the big picture. Capturing your target. Protecting the team. Protecting the identities of the team, and that means your identity too.”
“Ok, so Lesson Three is Pay Attention to Details.”
“You're learning,” she said.
That's when she was knocked to the ground.
For two, three, terrifying non-breaths she clutched the side-walk and willed herself to inhale. When her body finally obeyed and she was able to scramble up, Bart was gone. Where, she didn't know. Why, she didn't want to think about. Either she had just experienced one of those micro-bursts Metropolis was famous for, or -
“He's back,” Bart said, apperating in front of her.
“What? Who? Where did you go?”
“I was following him.”
“Him him? The him who's as fast as you?”
“Almost as fast, and yeah, it was him.”
“But Victor found the lab,” she said. And hadn't made contact since he'd arrived.
“Looks like he was a day late and a few dinero short. He's back,” Bart answered.
In the distance a woman screamed.
Like that, Bart was gone again.
Dinah broke into a run, thanking herself for ditching the undercover hooker look for once and patrolling in boots with sensible heels. It was four blocks to Payne, made a little shorter she cut through the alley, the vacant lot and the lawns of two foreclosed-upon shot-gun houses. There were more screams and yelling as she ran, men's voices as well as women's. A crowd was gathering.
As soon as she hit Payne she saw it, people and a few cars bunching around Mickey's Diner a few blocks south. Flames appeared to be coming out of the wall, but as she ran toward it the fire began to die. A few people were clapping, and one man whistled. It was hard to see what had happened with all the gawkers milling around but she she could guess.
No. She knew.
When she got to the diner Bart was no where to be seen; probably he'd shot off to call 911 someplace where he wouldn't be identified. About half the crowd was gathered around a young girl, a working girl by the way she was dressed, sobbing and holding the body of a man who could have been her father but was probably her pimp. The other half were over by the wall, taking photos with their phones. The fire was out but you could still see its charred remains, a “U” surrounded by an upside-down pentagon.
Dinah willed her body to breathe again. They were so fucked.