Title: Watchtower
Rating: M (16+) (brief sex scene, but not explicit)
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing: Chloe/Oliver, (Clark/Lois implied)
Word Count: 3,666
Summary: For two years, Oliver and the members of the Justice League have been without a Watchtower. Character death involved.
Author's Notes: The idea for this story came to me when I was contemplating how Chloe might ultimately fit into the Superman comic/animated 'verse beyond Smallville. It's Chloe/Oliver because...I like Chloe/Oliver. This is my first ever Smallville fanfic...so please be kind.
Oliver glanced out the enormous window in front of him at the sphere far below, blue enshrouded in white and interspersed with brown and green. The planet seemed deceptively peaceful from his vantage point, as if the billions below lived in harmony and the nights weren't interrupted by the screams of the helpless and cries of the hopeless.
Most days it felt as if nothing much had changed. Except for me, he thought, as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass. His lifestyle was slowly catching up to him. There were lines in his face where there had been none just ten short years ago. While he was certainly vain, his vanity wasn't enough to require that he wash away the gray that was now sparsely mixed in with the blond. The goatee and the mustache were relatively recent, cultivated out of a desire to lay to rest his baby-faced billionaire playboy image once and for all.
He shifted his gaze to his immediate surroundings. It was finished, after two long years and countless billions of dollars discreetly funneled away from various dummy projects by both Queen Industries and Wayne Enterprises. And it was still empty, pristine and cold, awaiting inhabitants. The first arrivals were scheduled for tomorrow. For today, it still belonged to him...and it was time.
He closed his eyes and braced his arms against one of the consoles. His heart pounded in his chest and clammy sweat beaded upon his brow. Nausea gripped his stomach, but he swallowed the bile rising in his throat and concentrated on breathing deeply in and out...in and out.
"Do you have it?" Bruce asked quietly.
Oliver stiffened at the sound of a husky voice over his shoulder; he hadn't heard footsteps approaching...but then, no one ever knew Batman was approaching until he was already there. His fingers tightened on the console before he released his grip, nodding. He turned toward Bruce and rotated his palm upward, revealing a small, cube-shaped object made of crystal. Bruce gazed at it solemnly.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he said. "We have some of the best programmers on the planet at our disposal. It will take a few more weeks, but we can get this place up and running without...that," Bruce finished after a brief but awkward pause, gesturing towards the crystal. "You have other options. The technology needed is advancing at an unprecedented rate. In a few more years...."
"No. It's been too long already," Oliver replied brusquely, cutting his friend off before he could finish voicing the thought. "This was her idea. I promised her. This is what she wanted."
Bruce gave a sharp nod and waited a moment, respectfully silent while his friend gazed at the cube. When Oliver made no further move, he spoke again.
"Do you want me to do it?"
Oliver shook his head, closing his fist around the crystal. He took a deep breath and reached shaking fingers toward a small button on the console in front of him. When he pressed it, a small panel, not much larger than the cube, slid away. Oliver held the cube delicately in his fingers, as if it were his most precious possession. Just before he reached the opening in the console, he drew back and passed the crystal to Bruce.
"Do it," he said hoarsely, stepping away from the console toward the center of the room. His arms were folded tightly against his chest, as if to keep himself from breaking apart.
Bruce gazed at the cube almost reverently, a slight smile gracing his lips. "You've been missed," he whispered gruffly to it, then placed it gently into the receptacle. The panel slid closed, and the seams sealed behind it, as if it had never been there. Around him, lights began to flicker, and the faint whir and hum of the boot process dispelled the silence. Display screens around the room lit one by one, words scrolling past at a rate faster than he could read, until each of them read, "INITIAL BOOT PROCESS SUCCESSFUL - WATCHTOWER ONLINE." Satisfied, Bruce turned to leave, clasping Oliver's shoulder briefly before he stepped onto the lift and departed as quietly as he had entered.
Oliver simply waited, eyes closed, paralyzed by terror and anticipation. It might not work. It had been two years, and there were so many things that could go wrong. The crystal may have been damaged. It might not interface with the systems properly, though J'onn had assured him it would. It...she...might be different.
Might not remember.
"Oliver?"
Oh, God.
He wasn't sure he could do this. His knees buckled and he crouched on one knee to keep from keeling over, struggling not to hyperventilate. Even behind closed eyes he could discern the light penetrating the darkness, and he felt as if he were kneeling in homage before it...before her. She spoke again, and he shuddered, though whether in rapture or fear, he couldn't say.
"You finished it," she said. "Just like you promised."
He couldn't bring himself to answer. He had to get control first, or he'd wind up weeping like a baby, so again he concentrated on breathing, in and out...in and out.
"Ollie?"
The hesitance in her voice was what broke him, as if she were unsure of herself, unsure of him. He opened his eyes, and found she was kneeling in front of him, hand stretched out towards him.
He could see the consoles on the other side of the room through her, lights flickering faintly. He reached his fingers out toward hers and came into contact with the plasma onto which her hologram was projected, causing the image to ripple slightly. His skin tingled pleasantly, goose flesh raised along his arm the way it always had whenever she touched him.
"Ollie?" she asked again, concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"
He withdrew his hand and closed his eyes again. No. He definitely was not okay. He hadn't been okay for two-and-a-half years, not since they had sat together in the doctor's office and listened to the diagnosis, their fingers clenched together as their world fell apart.
Untreatable. Aggressive. Six months at the outside.
She had been stoic; he had been destroyed. After she had fallen asleep in his arms that night, he'd dressed in his leathers, selected a bow at random and departed on his bike, roaring through the streets of Star City as if pursuing the devil himself. He still didn't remember the time in between, but Clark had found him in an alley in Metropolis almost a week later, weaponless, getting the crap beaten out of him by a thug who had fifty pounds on him and had apparently taken offense at the fact that Oliver had interrupted his "date." The girl in question was slumped nearby, face and neck bruised, blouse torn, pantyhose ripped.
Her hair was short, wavy and blond.
Clark dispatched the thug and turned him over to the police, took the girl to the hospital, and finally deposited Oliver none-too-gently on a nearby rooftop. Oliver managed to roll into a seated position, his back against the raised ledge. He glared up at Clark resentfully.
"I was handling it," he bit out angrily.
"You were getting your ass handed to you," Clark retorted humorlessly. Then, more kindly he asked, "What are you doing, Oliver?"
"My job," Oliver replied, his voice flat. "What else can I do?"
Clark looked at him sadly, and Oliver looked away, guilt and helplessness eating away at him.
"Be there with her," Clark said quietly.
Oliver dropped his head into his hands, which were trembling. "It's not enough," he said in a hoarse voice.
Clark sat on the ledge, at a loss for words. Of all people...she had healed so many others selflessly. She didn't deserve this. Neither did Oliver, who only ever wanted to help make the world a better place. She hadn't even complained when she'd called him, asking him to check on her missing husband. She'd understood; she knew Oliver hadn't abandoned her. She just wanted Clark to make sure he was okay. Clark wondered for what had to be the thousandth time what good it was to be Superman when he couldn't spare his best friends this pain. Finally, he looked over at Oliver.
"It's more than enough, Oliver. It's everything."
Oliver broke then, harsh sobs ripping their way out of his chest. He hated that Clark was there to witness his weakness, wanted to scream at him to get the fuck away and leave him alone, that he didn't need his pity and he could take his fucking super powers and shove them up his pompous, overgrown-boy-scout ass.
Clark remained blessedly silent and didn't try to touch him. Oliver was grateful for that. Otherwise, he would have had to punch his wife's best friend, which would have done nothing except garner him a broken hand and a trip to the emergency room. Finally, when his grief had temporarily spent itself, he looked up to see that Clark had moved far enough away to spare him some of his dignity. The red cape he wore as Superman was billowing in the wind, and Oliver couldn't help but chuckle slightly. Clark had been right...it did look ridiculous, but somehow Boy Scout managed to pull it off. Clark turned back to look at him.
"Ready to go?"
Oliver pushed himself to his feet and flexed his fingers before he nodded, wincing from the pain in his bruised knuckles.
"Yeah. Have you seen my bike?"
Clark raised one eyebrow.
"You totalled it two nights ago in Gotham. Bruce was less than pleased," he said, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"Ah, crap. I really liked that one," Oliver said, sighing at his own stupidity.
"Want a lift?" Clark asked. He knew Oliver hated flying with him, but he had to make the offer anyway.
"Not really, but I don't have much choice, now, do I?"
Clark held out the cell phone that Lois insisted he carry, just in case. "Queen Industries could have the helicopter here in a couple of hours. I don't mind waiting with you."
Oliver shook his head. He couldn't let his ego get in the way now. He'd wasted enough time already.
"No. I need to get home. Just make it quick, Boy Scout. This isn't a sightseeing trip."
Clark rolled his eyes at Oliver's insistence on using his pre-Superman codename, and Oliver cracked a half-hearted grin. Before he could say anything else, they were speeding through the air. Moments later, he was on his own balcony.
"Hug her for me," Clark said. "Call us if you need anything. We'll be here in a few days to visit."
Oliver nodded and opened his mouth to thank him, but Clark had already sped away.
"Ollie? Are you okay?"
She had been waiting for him then. He had taken her in his arms and promised to be there with her for whatever time they had left.
She was waiting for him now, still reaching for him, but he could no longer take her in his arms.
J'onn had come to them two weeks after Oliver's return and shown them the crystal, explained the Martian technology to them, technology that was light-years beyond anything anyone on Earth was capable of. It wasn't something he would offer to just anyone.
She was mediator, mother figure, and mentor. She held them together, counseled the new recruits, especially the meteor-infected ones. She still ran comm for many of their missions, and helped research those that she didn't personally oversee. She was one of the cornerstones the Justice League was built upon. They could go on without her--but they didn't really want to.
Oliver had been resistant at first.
"It wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be you; it would just be a copy."
"No. That's not the way J'onn explained it," she said. "It would be me, my consciousness. Only...with a hardware upgrade," she said with a wry smile.
He looked down at her. She lay next to him, in their marriage bed in the downtown penthouse that was relatively cozy compared to the Queen mansion. She was tucked into his side with his arms wrapped around her. He would hold onto her as tight as he could for as long as he could. He couldn't imagine not being able to hold her like this. And if she went through with it, he'd never be able to hold her again.
"I don't want to lose what time we have left, Chloe," he rasped.
She swallowed hard, her eyes glimmering with tears. "Oliver, what's coming...it won't be pretty. It won't be easy, not even with all the morphine they can pump into me. Don't get me wrong. I'm no stranger to pain." At that, Oliver flinched and turned away, but she cupped his face in her hand and turned him back toward her. "But I've already seen what it does to you when I'm in pain. I can handle my pain, Ollie. I can't handle yours."
He couldn't argue her point. He'd been shot, stabbed, concussed more times than he could count, and almost fatally poisoned; however, nothing compared to the agony of watching Chloe suffer and being helpless to stop it. He would do almost anything to spare her that pain. But tendrils of fear gripped his insides where some part of him was panicking that she was even considering this insane plan of J'onn's.
"You don't even know if it will work," he ground out harshly. "What if it doesn't? We'll have lost weeks...months, maybe. We can find another doctor. There has to be some kind of treatment."
Chloe lifted her fingers to his lips to shush him and shook her head. "No. No more doctors. No more hospitals. I've risked too much already. The cancer is in my head, Ollie, slowly taking over. I've been through this before. I'm already losing bits and pieces of my memories. And I'm so afraid...."
She paused as the tears she'd been blinking away began to spill down her face. He pushed her hair aside to kiss her brow, cupped her head and pulled her against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, digging her trembling fingers into his back. The rest of his protests dwindled in the face of her fear. He could only hold her until her tears subsided enough that she could finish her thought in a shaky voice.
"Oliver, I'm afraid of losing you, of losing all the memories that make up our life together. That frightens me more than anything."
Chloe buried her head in his chest again, and Oliver felt a tremor run through her body. He caressed stroked her hair gently until she pushed herself away from him and looked up, catching and holding his gaze.
"Jonn's giving me a chance to hold on to those memories. And I'll still be able to do what I do best. I want to do this, Oliver. I need to do this. And I really need you to be okay with it," she pleaded.
With his thumbs he smoothed away the tears on her cheeks and leaned his forehead against hers. "Sweetheart, when have I ever been able to refuse you anything?" he asked, smiling sadly.
"Never," she answered with a smile of her own. "It would be a shame to break a perfect record."
Oliver nodded and looked over her shoulder toward the window, where the sky was turning gray. They had spent most of the night talking, and she needed her rest.
"Get some sleep, baby," he said, kissing her temple gently.
Wordlessly, Chloe tucked her head against him and closed her eyes. Oliver buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling the soothing vanilla fragrance of her perfume. He sighed heavily and tightened his arms around her. Softly, she trailed her hands up and down his back until he shivered, his body responding to her touch as if nothing had changed. The lightest caress of her hands on his skin still made him want her with a ferocity that was astonishing. He quaked with need and fastened his lips to her neck as if he would draw her essence from her to slake his thirst like a vampire, ashamed that he wanted to be inside her, when already the disease was taking its toll on her body. There was no denying the erection that was pressed insistently at the apex of her thighs, and it embarrassed him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
To his surprise, she laughed and said, "I'm not." She threaded her fingers into his hair and tugged, forcing him to reveal his face, to look her in the eyes and see the love there, and the desire.
"Ollie," she whispered, "celebrate me, don't mourn me."
With that, she had pressed her lips against his and slipped her hand between them, closing it around his flesh and stroking lightly, eliciting a sharp gasp from him. She giggled softly and broke her kiss long enough to say in the sultry tone she used so often to tease him over the comm, "C'mon, Arrow. You know you want me."
The cool metal of her wedding band was in contrast to the warmth of her palm against his skin. He couldn't help but think of the old-fashioned marriage vow she had insisted upon during their wedding ceremony.
With this ring, I thee wed. With my body, I thee worship.
She squealed when he closed his hands on her hips and rolled them so that she straddled him. When he leaned up to reach her, she met him halfway. With his mouth, he kissed her lips, tasting her sweetness. With his hands, he stroked her sides from hip to breast, cupping the satin-clad mounds of flesh and grazing his thumbs across them. She hissed with pleasure, no longer giggling.
With his body, he worshipped her until she cried his name with her release, her body spasming around him, pulling him over the brink with her, her name a reverent litany on his lips.
Two months later, J'onn was ready, and so were they. Construction of the structure had already begun. Chloe had helped with the design, working closely with J'onn, Bruce and Lucius Fox. A visual interface had been implemented at her request, along with several other enhancements that Oliver couldn't bring himself to consider yet. Unfortunately, the structure would take more time to build than she had left. She would be in limbo until it was complete.
She had wanted to say their goodbyes at home rather than the cold, impersonal lab, but Oliver couldn't bear the thought of not being there with her, even if it killed him. And it almost had. He couldn't stop the sharp cry of anguish that escaped when her hands had gone limp in his, even though her body still respired. He stayed with her until Clark, at Lois's behest, had held him down while Bruce injected him with a sedative. He slept for three days. When he awoke, Lois gently told him that Chloe's body had ceased to function during the night, as if it had been her will alone holding the cancer at bay.
He didn't remember much about the funeral, only that her voice continued to whisper in his ear that it was only her body...only her body, and that her love for him would never die.
J'onn kept the crystal for him. Oliver was terrified that it would be damaged if it remained in his possession. He spent much of the time in limbo himself. He ate, he slept, and he carried on with the rest of the activities that were expected of a twenty-first century human. He even showered, though probably less than he should have. Every time he did he pictured Chloe, her back pressed against the tile, moaning with pleasure as he thrust into her over and over until she came like a rocket. Spilling himself into the shower only made the ache in his groin fade. It didn't do a damned thing for the ache in his heart.
He sold the penthouse. He sold the mansion, too, though it held few memories of her. He had only held onto it in hopes of one day starting a family with her. He packed their life away into cardboard boxes and left them in storage with Bruce. He had plenty of room, and Oliver knew that Alfred would ensure that everything was properly cared for. After taking delivery of a new motorcycle designed by Queen Industries, he took a leave of absence from the Justice League and from his position as CEO and simply drifted, existing only as Green Arrow. He checked in with Lois once a month to let her know he was still alive. He wouldn't have bothered, but she threatened to send Boy Scout after him if he didn't.
He attended the launch of the primary module with mixed feelings. After a year, his grief was no longer fresh, but it also had not healed, merely scabbed over. Most of the League was in attendance, and they dedicated the ceremony to her memory. Hearing their friends and colleagues speak of her tore the wounds open again, but he remembered he had made Chloe a promise. In order to keep it, he had to set his grief aside.
That had been a year ago. Oliver wasn't sure he had really believed this moment would ever happen. But it had, and now she was patiently waiting for him to say something. So he opened his eyes once more, unable to keep hot tears from spilling over as he reached for her again.
"Welcome home, Watchtower."