Satellite, headlines read
Someone's secrets you've seen
Eyes and ears have been
Satellite dish in my yard
Tell me more, tell me more
Who's the king of your satellite castle?

Satellite
The Dave Matthews Band

-4-

Chloe closed her eyes in mortification. Clark shifted uncomfortably, face turning red. Bruce's mouth opened in surprise.

Lois, not noticing, continued putting her foot in her mouth.

"Okay!" Bruce jumped in before she could do anymore damage, placing an arm around her waist and steering her away from the wealthy entrepreneur she apparently thought so poorly of. "I think I see someone over there."

"Charming," said Arthur Douglas dryly, a man Chloe could care less for as well, not that she was going to say anything about it.

"Isn't she?" Chloe grinned sparklingly, lifting her glass of white wine to her lips.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch either of your names before," the older man said, extending a hand to shake Clark's.

"This is Chloe Sullivan, and I'm Clark Kent, the Senator's son," Clark introduced with a distinct lack of warmth.

"Oh I see," the man said, interested now that he knew who Clark was. "And, Miss Sullivan is your...?" he left the blank for Clark to fill in.

"Friend. We work together at the Daily Planet."

The man's smile melted off his face. "You're both reporters as well?" he asked with little effort to hide his distaste.

Chloe nodded, smirking. "Mmhmm."

"Well," he said, shifting his weight to his other foot nervously. "Well...oh goodness, I see my wife has returned from the powder room. You'll excuse me, won't you?" he asked, not giving them a chance to reply as he left them to cross to the other side of the room where his wife was standing, proudly fingering a largely gaudy necklace around her neck

Clark glared after him and Chloe chuckled. "This is what your mom is going to have to put up with to get re-elected?" she asked.

Clark sighed. "It's always the same. Scum."

"Well, I like to think we're not all that bad," said a voice behind them, startling them. Chloe and Clark turned to see Oliver Queen standing behind them with an amused expression on his face, glass of scotch in hand. "Oliver Queen," he introduced himself, reaching to shake Clark's hand as well, forcing himself not to stare blatantly at Chloe. He'd forgotten just how stunning she was. And she looked particularly attractive in the ivory silk she was wearing. The high halter-style neckline set off the delicate curve of her shoulders, and the low back exposed an expanse of creamy, mouth-watering skin that his fingers itched to touch. "Did I hear you say you were Senator Kent's son?" he asked, focusing on Clark instead, "It's a pleasure."

Chloe swallowed as she watched him, her mouth suddenly a bit dry. She'd recognized when Bobby pointed him out at the bar that Oliver Queen was attractive, but up close she realized he wasn't just attractive. He was drop-dead gorgeous. He was possibly one of the most attractive men she'd ever met, and coming from a woman who had arrived that evening in the company of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, that was saying something.

Clark nodded, shaking Oliver's hand a little warily, not sure what to make of the man and a little embarrassed at being overheard.

Chloe raised an eyebrow at him. "Eavesdropping were you?" she asked, less than impressed.

He raised a shoulder casually. "Eavesdropping...overhearing...something like that. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, though, Miss...?" he flashed her a charming grin.

Unmoved, Chloe answered flatly, "Chloe Sullivan."

"Sullivan? That sounds familiar," he said, then, pretending revelation: "Didn't you write the expose last week on LuthorCorp? Impressive work," he complimented sincerely.

Chloe's eyebrow rose still further. "You thought so, hmm? Yes, well, I imagine it didn't do anything to hurt Queen Industries, did it?" she asked, figuring he had only been interested in the piece from a strictly mercenary aspect.

Oliver's brow creased almost undetectably. Wow. She'd only been speaking to him for two minutes and she really seemed to dislike him. Challenge accepted, Miss Sullivan, he thought to himself. "You really think that's the only reason I'd enjoy it, don't you? That's a bit narrow minded for a reporter, don't you think?"

Chloe shrugged. "I call 'em like I see 'em. Maybe you'll get lucky and prove me wrong."

Clark stood watching this exchange with his eyebrows raised, aware that the pair seemed to have forgotten his presence...and possibly his existence altogether.

"So in other words: guilty until proven innocent. That's not usually how it works in America. Interesting," Oliver continued, his expression challenging and full of amusement.

Chloe had opened her mouth to continue, but at that moment Bruce Wayne had chosen to introduce Martha for her brief address.

Oliver grinned at them both. "It was a pleasure to meet you two," he said and seemed quite sincere about it. He didn't give either of them a chance to respond before ducking away, and Clark and Chloe were forced to turn their attention to Bruce, who was waiting for the noise to die down.

Clark was giving Chloe a humorous look and her defenses bristled. "What?"

He smirked. "Has anyone ever told you you're a bit of a snob?"

She was about to defend herself when Clark got that distant, distracted look. Chloe sighed. "Go. I'll explain to your mom later." He nodded and headed for the door, where she was sure he disappeared for all intents and purposes.

Martha had just finished giving her address to the crowd when Chloe heard something whistle through the air and the lights went out. She blinked rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes to the sudden darkness as she heard a gasp in the crowd.

She managed to see a hooded figure pushing his way through the stunned crowd, pause in front of Mrs. Douglas and snatch the necklace off her neck, muttering something before taking off toward the door again. Everyone around him seemed to stunned to do anything.

Chloe recovered her wits more quickly and darted after him, sprinting around the corner and down the hall after him where there was an open window. As she ran she realized the back of that hood looked upsettingly familiar. Surely not...

"Stop!" she called after him, not exactly sure what she would do if she caught up to him.

She didn't get a chance to find out, though, when he reached the window in ample time, perching on the ledge and shooting his zip-line. He turned to glance at her with an unbearable smirk on his face and blew her a kiss before ascending the cable and making good his escape.

Chloe collided with the window ledge, trying to see if she could spot him, but he was already out of sight.

She cursed. Fantastic. So much for 'hero,' she thought derisively, feeling horribly let down.

She bit her lip. She had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe there was more to it than that.

Maybe.

But even if there is, it doesn't justify theft, she thought bitterly. She turned to leave, knowing there was nothing else she could do for the moment but check to make sure that the guests were all right.

As she was turning, her foot accidentally kicked a small object that went skidding across the floor. She frowned, walking over to it and picking it up. It was a ring, and looking back by the window she saw a broken metal chain. Was it something he'd been wearing? She fingered the ring carefully, its smooth metal cool in her hand. She glanced at the chain and back at the ring and bit her lip.

To tamper with crime scene evidence or not to tamper with crime scene evidence. That is the...oh who am I kidding? She picked up the broken chain and the ring and carefully tucked them inside her bra for the time being.

Watching her from across the street, Oliver sighed. There went his only fan, he figured. Not that she'd necessarily been waving pom poms around before or anything. But he'd liked her. He'd seen her spying on the boat the other week, and he'd been able to tell she was resourceful, intelligent, and quick on her feet. He had had the distinct suspicion that even if he hadn't been around to save her, she would have found a way to get herself out of trouble. Maybe not quite as neatly as with his help, but still.

Now it looked as if she seriously disliked Oliver Queen for no good reason, and she probably just lost most of her faith in the Green Arrow, if she'd had that much to begin with. He glanced down at his spoils, clutching the necklace in his hand.

Worth it. I don't do this for me.

At least, that was what he told himself. But he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he didn't necessarily agree with himself.

He watched Chloe turn to leave, clearly frustrated and confused, and then she paused, something catching her attention. He frowned and zoomed his glasses in on her, trying to see what she was doing. She walked a few feet down the hallway and picked something up, something small. Then she looked back to the window and hesitated before walking back to it and picking something else up.

He couldn't quite see what she was doing at first but then he saw her hold up a ring, examine it, and then tuck both it and a chain into her cleavage.

He nearly fell off the building, clutching at his neck to make sure he'd seen what he thought he'd seen.

He let out a string of curses. If he hadn't misjudged her intelligence...he was in a lot of trouble.

"I don't see what's so difficult to understand about it," Lois frowned irritably the next evening, leaning over Chloe's notes. "The guy's a louse. A criminal."

Chloe sighed. She felt that might be taking it a little far, but Lois was incensed with the belief that the Green Arrow had thoroughly embarrassed Martha Kent - the greatest of all deadly sins - and seriously damaged her chances for re-election. On some level, Chloe agreed, but she wasn't quite as ready as Lois to string the Green Arrow up from a tree.

She'd been putting off the article all day, working on all the extra assignments she'd promised Perry lately, the little, boring, fluff pieces.

But as the day wore on she couldn't put it off any longer. Perry knew there had been an incident, and apparently he had dubbed all things Green Arrow to be Chloe's responsibility, particularly since she'd been at the scene of the crime.

Lois picked up a sharpie and bent over Chloe's notes, scribbling a few things down for her, and then adding the word "Bandit" next to the words "Green Arrow" at the top of the page.

"There," she said with a satisfied tone, "that should help. Now I've got a date with Bruce since he's not in town much longer." She glanced around at the nearly empty bullpen, almost everyone having gone home for the day. She looked down at Chloe and rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "Just remember: fair and unbiased. And try not to stay here too late, cuz."

"Thanks, Lo," Chloe said half-heartedly as Lois threw her bag over her shoulder.

Lois left and Chloe soon found herself alone with her notes, the ring she had found burning a hole in her pocket.

Seized with a sudden paranoia, she looked around to be sure that everyone really had gone home, the hairs on the back of her neck rising for some reason. She shook herself, turning back to the matter at hand. She sighed, rubbing her hand over her face tiredly. She would not look into the ring now. She could do that on her own time. She needed to write the article first, and the ring didn't have anything to do with the stolen necklace. At least that was what she told herself.

The truth was she saw the ring not as related evidence, but as a key to the Green Arrow's identity. Thief or not, he had stopped a bank robbery, helped her expose a major crime, and saved her life. She wasn't going to reveal his identity at the drop of a hat.

She shook her head and looked down at her notes. Lois's harsh additions combining with the undisputed facts to give her a seemingly pitiful look, as if they were saying to her, "Cheer up kid. You're obviously just not as good of a judge of character as you thought for all these years."

She scoffed, as if the papers had offended her, muttering under her breath, "Not a good judge of character, huh?" She snatched up her pen, intending to strike out the word, "Bandit," but suddenly Lois's voice rang in her ears: Fair and unbiased.

Biting her lip, she put the word in parentheses and drew a question mark next to it. Then she pulled out the ring and started photographing it with her new camera. There was a very small engraving on it, and she hoped if she digitally enhanced the photos, she might have a clue to his identity. She wasn't prepared to expose him just yet, but maybe if she knew who he was, it would provide some sort of insight into why he would steal.

She had just pulled the photos up on the computer, setting the ring momentarily aside when the dart hit her desk, releasing some sort of smoke. Before she even had time to react, she felt the gas tugging at her sense, slipping her into unconsciousness.

Oliver - or, rather, the Green Arrow - stepped out of the shadows, feeling only a light tinge of guilt at the sight of her passed out in her chair.

He'd been forced to follow her home the previous night and then extensively search her apartment when she left for work. Faced with the fact that she had clearly brought the ring with her when she left, he'd followed her to the Daily Planet, hiding in the ventilation and hoping an opportunity would present itself.

Not the way he preferred to spend his Saturday.

When she failed to produce the ring for her brunette friend, he began to question whether she really had it with her after all. His relief had been immense when she finally showed it.

He picked up the ring and pocketed it, prepared to leave then and there, but his curiosity got the better of him. He glanced down at Chloe, smirking, "You don't mind, do you?" He paused, as if waiting for an answer before grinning, "Well all right then."

He moved behind the desk to stand next to her, looking down at the papers scattered over her desk. His brow arched, impressed. She'd done her homework. She had print outs of information on every major robbery in the last month. All the ones he'd been behind had the titles highlighted, and the others had big X's crossed over them in permanent marker. She'd put together the fact that none of the robberies had been reported to the police, including Mrs. Douglas's necklace. And she'd noticed something he'd actually failed to connect: all the alleged victims employed the same security company.

There was a police sketch she'd obviously contributed to, with disconcerting accuracy, although fortunately, even in the drawing, he was wearing a hood and sunglasses.

Finally, in front of her was a legal pad with her scribbling all over it, and on the computer was a photo of his family crest on the ring. He arched an eyebrow at that and promptly deleted the photos from her camera and computer. He glanced at the notes to make sure she hadn't connected anything to the crest and found that his heart sank a little at the words scrawled across the top of the page. "Green Arrow (BANDIT)?"

He glanced at her. "Come on, Beautiful. Cut me some slack." Digging around, he managed to find a green sharpie and promptly scribbled through the word "Bandit" before glancing through her notes to see what else she had to say. He circled the section about no one reporting the items missing, hoping that she would focus her attention on that.

He was going to leave it at that but suddenly stopped. "Oh hell with it," he muttered, rolling his eyes at himself. It wasn't so much that he cared how the media portrayed him. It was just that he was unusually concerned with her opinion of him. He didn't like the idea of her thinking so lowly of him. He pulled open the internet on her computer and set to work, pulling up the necklace's black market history in one window, figuring she'd take the lead on that one. Then he pulled open a couple of pages noting the history of anonymous donations coinciding with the robberies. He shot another look at the police sketch and considered having it shredded, but then figured that was going a bit far, and anyway she'd just give the details on him a second time and have another one drawn up. So instead he searched her desk for a pencil and then took the eraser to the sketch, "improving" it. He got rid of the ever-so-incriminating cleft in his chin, narrowed his neck a bit, and altered his mouth slightly. He knew he couldn't do anything too dramatic or she would realize it, but that dimple definitely had to go. He straightened up, tossing the pencil aside. "That oughta do it," he said pleasantly.

He took another look at Chloe and then made one last quick decision, scanning her desk until he found a pad of sticky-notes. Jotting a few words down on it, he put the pad back and placed the note on her forehead, lips pressing together with humor as he imagined her outrage when she woke up, which, he realized a bit nervously, would be within the next few minutes most likely. He shouldn't have lingered so long.

Unable to stop himself, he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Later, Sidekick," he said in her ear before taking his leave.

Chloe groaned, her senses slowly returning to her as she blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to bring the world back into focus. She reached up to rub her forehead and knocked off a sticky note that had gotten there somehow. She shot up in her chair, memory of the little green dart flooding back to her. She looked around and sure enough the ring was gone.

"Jerk," she muttered irritably, snatching the sticky-note off the ground to read.

Sidekick -

She rolled her eyes at the address.

Looking forward to reading it.

Yours,

"Green Arrow"

She narrowed her eyes at the signature. He obviously wasn't fond of the "Bandit" addition. "Arrogant ass," she said, noticing he'd struck it out on her notepad as well. She frowned as she noticed the additions he'd made to her notes, checking off things as if to give her his approval, and circling the bit about no one reporting the stolen items. She grabbed her camera and saw that sure enough, the photos were gone. And on the computer as well. She frowned, leaning forward as she started flipping through the web pages he'd left open for her.

She grinned, then. Well, she thought happily, this puts a new spin on things.

Oliver grinned a day later as he read the latest edition of the paper. He hadn't made the headline this time, only a brief intro in the sidebar of the front page, directing him to its continuation a couple of pages later.

It looked like she'd accepted his little...nudge. She'd put together the fact that every item had some sort of dirty history, and that every robbery matched up with an extremely generous, anonymous donation to a charity. He had to chuckle a little as he continued reading, noting the general tone of disapproval in the article. She defended him to an extent, and she'd left out the addition to his name, but she clearly didn't condone the actual act of stealing, no matter what his intentions. Although, to his absolute delight, she compared him to Robin Hood at one point.

"All right, all right," he said to the article as he reached the final paragraph. "I can take a hint."

He knew it was probably dumb, but he couldn't resist shooting her another e-mail. He opened up the yahoo account he'd created solely for the purpose of sending her his last e-mail and was surprised to see she'd replied to him. It hadn't occurred to him to check.

Archer,

Thanks. Couldn't have done it without your help. I owe you one.

Be seeing you.

"Sidekick"

He grinned broadly as he read it. Looked like she was relatively modest, too. He opened up a new e-mail and sent a response to her latest article on him.

Chloe, sitting at home with Lois and enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, glanced up when her computer alerted her to a new e-mail. She stood from the couch to go check it and Lois shouted grumpily after her, not taking her eyes off the movie they were watching, "No work. You promised."

"I know; I know. I'm just going to see what it says." She pulled open her e-mail and felt her heart thump erratically at the name of the sender. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Lois was amply distracted before eagerly opening it.

Sidekick -

Okay, okay. I see your point.

;)

The Prince of Thieves

She rolled her eyes at his Robin Hood reference. He really was an arrogant one. She e-mailed him back, smirking.

Bandit,

Was the knock-out gas really necessary?

She debated how to sign it, but then suddenly grinned and finished it off, hitting send. Then she closed her laptop, knowing that Lois wouldn't be pleased if she jumped up every five minutes to check her e-mail

Oliver looked up in surprise when he saw he had a new e-mail. Surely it wasn't from her, he chided himself, figuring it was just a coincidence. It was, though, and he laughed at her message, but frowned at her sign-off.

Not amused,

The Honorable Sheriff

Knowing he was being stupid to get ensnared in this, he responded anyway.

I'd rather see you as the Maid Marion of this scenario. You don't seem like the sheriff type.