Killer Saviour
Disclaimer: No ownership of any of the Smallville or DC Comics characters is claimed. This story is fictional – any similarities to real people or events are co-incidences.
Summary: Oliver is a brilliant businessman, strategist & utterly ruthless in pursuit of his goals. An alternative interpretation of the first five episodes of Season 9; what if his 'downward spiral' was part of his pursuit of Chloe? (Chlollie; ignores Crossfire) Rated M. One-shot.
Killer Saviour: One-Shot
As Oliver settled into this seat, he relaxed and permitted himself a smile of victory. Chloe was already sitting next to the window, her head against the glass as she snorted softly in her sleep. The jet slowly taxied for take-off, and his hot stewardess came towards him, informing Mr Queen that they would be airborne in five minutes.
Oliver nodded and casually requested a drink – Whisky on the rocks. Toasting his lips, the alcohol burned down his throat. He had won! Won! Chloe was his, utterly, at last.
Staring after her at the funeral, as she walked away with Canary, obviously devastated, he swore that he would make it right.
Right? In what way? He couldn't bring Jimmy back to life, and frankly it wouldn't solve the problem. Chloe spent so much time looking after others that she had lost herself.
Where was the pitbull who had demanded that he save Bart and Clark from Lex? The girl who had been fearless in fighting for justice? How had she been corrupted by Brainiac and Davis? How had she, in his own words, "Become one of the bad guys?"
Chloe had to choose to be on the good guys again. She needed a project, something to help her with the grief. And in future she needed someone to protect her from herself – since Clark was obviously not going to do it.
How Smallville had not seen the changes in his own best friend, Oliver would never understand. If he had even half of her loyalty… well, he'd seen how far she was prepared to go to get Clark back from the Phantom Zone. At the time, he'd been shocked, and it had been the first time Oliver had taken Chloe seriously. Before that, she'd been Clark's sidekick who had helped out a couple of times, but she was first and foremost Lois' cousin and a child.
A child! It amused him now, that he ever thought it. But back then, sure she was Clark's secret keeper, but she was largely irrelevant to him, Oliver Queen. He had a hacker – Victor – and he didn't need another. She was a geeky reporter, who did corporate espionage on the side for him. Not exactly his type. It was a business arrangement – she spied on Lex, and he paid for it.
He hadn't meant for her to get hurt, but neither did she figure largely in his plans.
His focus was on saving the world from Lex Luthor and rescuing Clark from his own idiocy and good intentions. He'd fallen for Lois long before his met Smallville or Chloe. But he had chosen the world over what his heart desperately wanted.
After Oliver had helped Chloe get Clark back from the Phantom Zone, he'd had Victor hack into her past. What he found disturbed Oliver profoundly. Nearly everything Chloe had done in the past few years had been to protect Clark.
Without his resources, she had taken on Lionel Luthor and almost lost. He'd been aware that she shared his hatred of Lex's 33.1 project, but he hadn't been aware of why. Chloe was a meteor-freak! It explained why she thought that she could heal Clark at the facility, when it was obvious he was bleeding to death.
At the time, Oliver had considered Chloe half-mad, obsessed with Clark. Sure he knew that Chloe had been arrested, and yes, he'd had his lawyers look into it. But, no, he had not taken a personal interest – finding Clark and Lex was the priority.
Oliver and his team had only gone after Chloe because Clark had insisted, and Clark usually got what he wanted. Even then he'd felt guilt when he looked into her eyes, and had seen that she'd been made to do things against her will. But making sure Clark was safe had been more important, as usual.
Over the next few months, Oliver had surveillance on Chloe. Something was going on with her – she was becoming ruthless. He'd tried to warn Clark – but all that chump could think of was to take her memories away. Oliver had been stumped, when Chloe thought he was still with Lois at the wedding, when she appeared not to know him.
Still, it had not really fixed the problem: the alien super-computer in Chloe's head, controlling her.
He had been shocked when he'd seen her kill a man in cold blood. And he had wondered if it had been the first time. Her apparent love for Davis – a serial killer – made him doubt her. How, could she with her code of ethics, love a man like that?
Despite his angry words to her that day, after being trapped with the beast in the Talon's cellar, logic dictated that she could not, unless controlled or manipulated by Davis. Or it was her loyalty to Clark. But there was no doubt that Chloe's dark side, was dark. And in the end, she'd lost everything – Jimmy the man she'd loved but never trusted. Chloe had not seen the tragedy in the making; Oliver had. It was why he'd made the decision to betray Clark and kill Davis in his human form.
It had not worked out and Jimmy had fallen victim to Davis' obsession with Chloe. Had she really not seen it? But then Chloe probably did not see herself as an object of desire, of murderous passion. That was for the Lois' and Lanas of this world.
Oliver decided later, that Chloe was probably largely innocent. That Davis had manipulated her desire to protect people by promising not to kill people as long as she stayed.
Chloe always needed a cause to live for. Oliver would make sure she got one; one where she could be supervised. So he sent his team away and disbanded the Justice League. But he left Emil and access to his accounts, and made him swear to secrecy. Emil true to his word, filled the Watchtower Jimmy had bought, with all the digital gadgets Chloe could want.
Oliver wanted Chloe to choose the League, to choose to be Watchtower again, to redeem herself from her catastrophic mistakes. He himself played the despairing, helpless playboy, giving up on life. Knowing that she was watching his every move, he amped it up a little: burning his costume, stepping off the pressure plate, doing everything he could to make her want to help him.
Chloe fundamentally needed to help someone. Clark had long since stopped requiring her aid and had more or less given up on their friendship. So Oliver offered himself up for saving.
Her ruthless loyalty would make her a great asset to the team, and she would finally belong to him, not Clark. Unlike the alien, Oliver would appreciate her and understand her actions, because underneath, they were alike.
So he knew the second that he heard Lex' voice after waking up in the coffin, that Chloe had made her move. Ripping off the empty coffin-lid and seeing the speakers, he knew the game had started.
He was fighting for his life: Chloe would be willing to kill him to save him. It appeared that she had ordered a hit on him – did she just trust that he would survive? As the dragon-tattoo lady died on the street, he realised that Chloe might have taken things a bit far and Oliver started to get desperate.
Later, he thought that as grateful as he was that she had chosen to 'save' him, Oliver couldn't forget that she had risked Lois. But he believed her when she said "I trust you Oliver, just not that much", and that the worst that had faced Lois was blank bullets. The best moment had been that evening in Watchtower, savouring the fact that Chloe was now officially his sidekick, and that she had been the only one of his associates who had seen through the schtick to get to the hero.
Yes, in his eyes, Chloe had definitely redeemed herself. And now she was all his, well she would be as soon as Oliver could convince her to be… Now that Clark was no longer in the picture.
It would just require the right timing, strategy and perhaps a little call to Zatanna…