Chapter Twenty-Five:
The news had in with Bird having been found dead. One of the most dangerous arms dealers and criminals who had graced Central City in a long time was no more, and several thousand dollars worth of stolen technology, drugs, and weapons have been recovered thanks to a series of mysterious tip offs.
Brianna read the report this morning, while drinking her morning coffee. The mysterious Hood showed up apparently, or the Phantom, depending on what reports she believed. It was completely odd, he, or she, or whoever, whatever, showed up at this exact moment.
"So you heard the news?"
Oliver Queen caused Brianna to jump almost halfway up off of the ground and spill her coffee. Two hands shot up, one to steady the coffee and one to steady her by the waist.
"You scared me," Brianna said with a sharp breath.
"Sorry about that."
Brianna shook it off, and took a few seconds to recompile her thoughts. To be fair, Oliver had been on her mind, for quite some time. And she could not shake him off no matter how many times she tried to get back into her work.
"So, did you get your stuff back?"
"Yes," Oliver said. "And we're doubling down on security. Good thing the Hood was almost in town."
"Yeah, good thing, although he can be a bit…"
"Overkill?" Oliver suggested.
Not the word Brianna was going to suggest, but yeah, she went with it. She had a crazy, crazy thought which popped into her mind. The CSI dismissed it as pure lunacy, although some of the patterns seemed to be there and she was very much able to figure it out.
Isabel ensured the microchip, which was completely useless and only used as bait to get Bird out in the open, had been recovered, and they had been going down.
"So, you in Central City for business?"
"Yes," Oliver said. "I'm heating to Star Labs, to meet with Tess Wells, about mutual business interests."
"They're going to launch the Particle Accelerator by the end of the year," Brianna said. "I hope I get to see it, there are a lot of protests, and people wanting to shut it down. Safety concerns, although I'm sure she's taken all of the precauctions possible."
"Yes," Oliver agreed.
"So, you're pretty busy?"
"Mmm, yes," Oliver said. "But, I actually wanted to buy you lunch if you want it."
"Well, my breaks at noon," Brianna said. "You think you would be done by then?"
Barring the fact nothing happened which needed her attention. The life of a CSI meant Brianna would be on call at any and every time. Still Oliver nodded and leaned in to her, before putting a hand on her shoulder. It caused butterflies to go down her stomach.
"See you then."
Brianna Nora Allen could not believe her luck. She had gotten a lunch date with Oliver Queen. Oh, she could not wait, she could not wait, hopefully nothing went wrong, and she did not embarrass herself.
Barbara and Oliver walked up into Central City's branch of Star Labs.
"So, thanks for tagging along?"
"Well, someone has to, and besides, I've been wanting to meet and talk with Doctor Wells about her passion project," Barbara said. "I've got a few concerns about it."
"Well, you're not the only one," Oliver said. "Brianna and I…"
"Make it good for her, she's had a tough life," Barbara said.
And that was all Barbara was going to say about the subject. A beautiful dark haired woman entered the elevator, which caught their attention. She fit into the professional clothes very nicely, and Oliver thought about how she would look in them.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Queen," she said. "Doctor Wells, said she would be expecting you today. She'll be coming back soon, but if there's anything that I can get you, while she waits, you can just ask me."
"Well, I'm glad you're here to help,' Oliver said. "But, I'm afraid I haven't caught your name."
"Doctor Caitlin Snow, you can just call me Caitlin, if you want," Caitlin said.
Caitlin swept her eyes over Oliver for the next few seconds. Oh, yes, he could call her whatever he wanted. And besides, Caitlin's engagement broke off last week, so she was on the rebound, and if the rumors about Oliver were true, he had taken advantage of the Polygamy laws and took advantage of them well.
To be honest, Caitlin wanted to see what a relationship like that would be like and how the dynamics would work. You know, for science.
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Caitlin," Oliver said. "I've read about your work here, and I must say, it's a shame that Doctor Wells has you under a long term contract, because I would hire you to work for Queen Consolidated if I could."
"And I'm sure you would give me an offer I couldn't refuse."
Barbara closed her eyes. Okay, she had slept with Oliver herself, but that did not mean she liked when he gave every woman he met attention. Although, she could not fault his taste on this point, and for the most part, Oliver's taste had been pretty good with the women in his harem.
Collective, as Laurel once reprimanded her. And for Barbara, she would have to say, To-may-To, To-Mah-To.
"Doctor Snow, I'm Barbara Gordon," she said. "I would actually like to discuss something with you, so if you don't mind…"
"Oh?" Caitlin asked.
The elevator opened and one of the guards made their way down.
"Mr. Queen, Doctor Morgan-Wells will see you now?"
Oliver left Caitlin and Barbara to talk and he walked his way down the hallway with the guard.
Oliver Queen would have to say this. Tess Morgan-Wells would be a woman who could stand out, just by her demeanor and attitude alone, never mind her beauty. She dressed very professionally, although Oliver took notice of her legs, which were very nice looking.
"Mr. Queen, I was surprised to see you would take this meeting, but not entirely displeased," Tess said as she shook his hand. "Welcome, take a seat."
Oliver noticed the picture in Tess's office. She noticed him noticing and nodded towards the man in the picture.
"My late husband," she said. "A brilliant man, cut down before his brilliance even better. Much like another mutual friend of the Queens, a Doctor Virgil Swann."
Oliver had been surprised at the casual way she slipped that subject.
"Your friend, Alexandra, has been feverishly contacting me, but I suppose you can pass the message onto her in person," Tess said. "I would like to know what happened to his journal as well. It has writings about his research, along with work he and my late husband did, which would change what we thought we knew about science, if it could be fully realized. Sadly, it's been lost in time. Hopefully, the journal is still intact somewhere."
"Do you have any idea where it might be?"
Tess responded with a shake of her head.
"Not a clue, unfortunately," Tess replied.
"So, I'm hearing the Particle Accelerator is going online soon," Oliver said.
"Yes, hopefully by Christmas. And it will be successful, despite what a bunch of oversensitive types in the media would like to tell you."
Oliver felt her pain. He noticed one thing since returning how the Mainstream Media veered towards sensalism and fear mongering. Perhaps it had been that way always and Oliver had just been caught up in his own problems to realize it until he encountered the media. Only a small group of independent journalists, like Chloe, would Oliver trust to be honest and balanced, although perhaps harsh if the situation warranted it.
"And I've brought the agreement to renew our contract for the next five years on the satellites," Oliver said. "You can look this over?"
Tess took a few minutes reading over the paper.
"Everything appears to be in order, Mr. Queen," Tess said. "And I know my attorneys will agree. I know you have places to be and unfortunately, I have more meetings, so I hope we can do more business in the future."
Oliver had been surprised he had been dismissed so calmly, although he supposed she did have a lot of work to do leading up to the Particle Accelerator launch.
"Well, I hope to get to know you better in the future."
Oliver shook her hand one more time and left. The woman in the office smiled at his retreating back and waited until he was out of earshot to speak.
"Yes, we will know each other soon enough, Ra's al Ghul."
A spark of light emitted from Tess's eyeball when she saw this. This timeline had been interesting to say the least, especially after she and Ms. Allen ended on displacing their alternate universe male counterparts. Tess suspected they got swapped, although she and Brianna were here and Barry and Eobard were not here, and that was all this boiled down to.
And quite frankly, all she cared about.
"You're bullshitting me, Brie."
Brianna laughed at Iris's statement. Iris looked sternly at her sister, younger, by about nine months, but technically her baby sister, in Iris's mind.
"No, Iris, I'm not bullshitting you," Brianna said. "Look, you know I can't lie to say my life. Everytime you and I were up to no good as kids, I was the one who ended up fessing up to Joe."
Iris thought this point was very true. Very, very true indeed. Still, she found it hard to believe.
"So, Oliver Queen, just happened to walk into your lab and ask you out in a date?" Iris asked skeptically. "That's about as believable as Perry White offering me a job."
"Hey, Iris, you never know," Brianna said. "So, how's the story going?"
"Well, the Chief wants me to write fluff pieces," Iris said. "But, I'm more interested on this arm's deal thing and what it meant. I mean, this is like a Starling City or even Gotham City thing. And the Hood is there. Although, I think there's more than one of the Hood. I think the SSPD, or a branch of it, is behind it, and they're trying to be coy about it because they can't support vigilantes on the record."
"Well, yeah, that's frowned upon in most police departments," Brianna said. "Mostly because of a public relations issue, because you don't want to encourage your average citizen to take the law into their own hands."
"True," Iris conceded. "Well, unless you're Gotham."
"Are you trying to tell me, that putting a giant spotlight in the shape of a bat on the roof of Police Headquarters is an endorsement?"
A knock on the door prevented Iris from making a witty retort. She sprang into action to answer the door.
"Oh my God, you're Oliver Queen!"
This was about the only coherent thing which Iris said before she stared dumbstruck at him.
"See, Iris."
"You must be Brianna's sister," Oliver said. "A pleasure to meet you."
"Um, yeah, nice to meet you too," Iris said. "I guess you don't really bullshit me, Brie, you can't tell a lie."
"Told you, I was pants at lying," Brianna said.
Oliver smiled at the banter between the two sisters. Perhaps it was too soon to net another pair of sisters for his collective, adoptive sure, but Oliver would still count it.
"Ready?"
"Born that way."
"So, I have to tell the truth, come clean right now."
Oliver and Brianna finished their lunch date and went up to Oliver's penthouse in Central City. The fact Oliver Queen had a Penthouse in Central City was not a surprise to Brianna at all.
"Iris and I, we had a little bet going on."
"And here I thought gambling was illegal in Central City," Oliver said.
"Well, it was a silly little thing, and we had a couple of drinks when it happened," Brianna said. "But, we bet if one of us could bed you first, or I guess you could bed us, we would pay the other a dollar."
"Really, a dollar?" Oliver asked. "That's what I'm worth to you?"
Brianna started to backtrack a little bit, but Oliver just smiled at her.
"Well, today's your lucky day. Because, you're going to be a dollar richer."
So, that's what he meant by inviting her back to his penthouse for coffee. Brianna could have slapped herself for being a bit slow on the uptake. Oliver leaned in and Brianna met him halfway. The two of them kissed each other and Brianna could feel her toes curl.
Yes, today would be a very interesting day.
The Shameless Smut Commences In the Next Chapter.