Inturlude: Chloe in New York
"You gonna be in New York for a while?" Oliver asked Chloe as she got settled in her hotel room.
"A few weeks. Edwards got about ten papers in the city." She sat down at her desk and opened up her computer. "Why?"
"I was hoping you could do me a favor." Chloe paused her typing.
"What kind of favor?"
"You think you could track down that Spiderman who's been in all the papers?" Oliver asked. "I'd like to talk with him."
"Gonna offer him a place on the team?" Chloe smiled.
"Something like that." Oliver said.
"Well I can find him." She grabbed a file folder. "But from what I can get of this Spiderman, he seems to think New York's his territory. Probably not much of a team player."
"Just like Clark." Oliver sighed. "I'd like to talk to him anyway."
"Sure I'll get right on that." She looked through the file. "I've got to visit the Daily Bugle tomorrow anyway, apparently their photographer has some special relationship with the guy, well he's the one getting all the pictures anyway."
"I owe you one Watchtower." Oliver said.
"Yeah, you owe me like fifty at this point." Chloe hung up the phone and sighed. "Another superhero, just what I need."
"Mr. Jameson, Chloe Sullivan is here to see you." Jameson sighed and handed Peter a voucher.
"Great." He sighed. "Just what I need right now."
"Who's Chloe Sullivan?" Peter asked.
"She owns the paper." Robertson said.
"Hello." A petite blonde woman walked in the office. "I'm sorry I didn't realize you were in a meeting." She turned to leave and Jameson held up a hand.
"We're finished here." He looked at Peter. "These are crap, get me better ones." Peter just nodded and stood up. "Get these to copy." He handed the photos over to Robertson.
"Those more pictures of Spiderman?" Chloe asked holding out her hand. Robertson handed them over and she flipped through them. "These are really good shots."
Jameson smiled. "Peter here's got some kind of exclusive deal with the guy."
"Do you?" Chloe looked up at Peter. "That's great. Gives us quite an edge over the competition."
"That's why I hired him." Jameson said and Peter shot him a look.
"Good job." Chloe handed the photos back.
Jameson stared at Peter and Robertson. "Don't you two have work to do?" They both jumped up and walked out of the room.
Chloe smiled at them and then sat down. "Mr. Jameson." She put her hands in her lap. "I want to start off on a good foot. I'm not here to change your paper, fire a bunch of people or anything like that. You're circulations good, your papers putting out quality." She almost swallowed that one; she had a real problem with all the "Spiderman is a menace" stories. "I'm just here to take a look around, see the in's and out's, just check it out."
"Well." Jameson smiled. "That sounds good."
"I'd like to tour the paper, just get the lay of the land first thing." She stood up.
"I'll get Robertson…" He grabbed his phone.
"I want Peter Parker." Chloe said. "I want to talk to him about this Spiderman fellow."
"Spiderman huh?" Jameson looked at her then nodded and pushed a button. "Has Parker left yet?"
"No sir. He's getting his check." The secretary said.
"Send him back in here." Jameson slammed the phone down and grabbed a cigar.
Chloe looked around the office until Peter popped his head back in. "You wanted to see me sir?"
"Yeah, I want you to give Miss Sullivan here a tour of the paper." Jameson said.
"A tour of the paper?" Peter looked at Chloe confused. "But I…"
"She asked for you personally." He glared at Peter hoping he would get the "Don't piss off the owner" vibe he was going for.
"Sure sir." Peter stepped into the room. "I'd love to."
"Great." Chloe said. "We could start now if you don't have somewhere else you've got to be."
No, my schedule is clear." Peter smiled. "Right this way." Chloe nodded at Jameson and let Peter lead her out of the office.
They walked for a little while in silence. "Here is the room where the writers, well write."
"The bull pen." Chloe offered. "That's what we call it. The bull pen."
"Oh." Peter ducked his head. He glanced at Chloe and then stopped sheepishly. "You know I don't actually do much work here, at the paper…I don't even know where anything is."
"I figured as much." Chloe smiled. "It doesn't matter, once you've seen one newspaper office you've seen dozens."
"Then why did you?" He looked confused.
"I wanted to talk to you." Chloe said steering him to where she hoped the copy room was, it would be loud in there.
"About what?" Peter asked.
"Spiderman." Chloe said closing the door behind her as the presses whirled in the background. "I hear you and he are friends?"
"We…know each other." Peter said.
"Pretty well I assume." Chloe pointed out. "What from the quality of pictures you've been putting out."
"Well he figures people are gonna try and get shots of him, if he lets me do it, he won't get mobbed every time he's out." Peter shrugged.
"Yeah but this is the Daily Bugle. He could have gone to the staff photographer at the New York Times, bigger paper, bigger circulation, from what I've read they don't seem to be so…prejudice against him either."
"Well…" Peter sighed not sure what to say.
"So I'd say you guys have to be pretty good friends for him to put with that." Chloe tilted her head and Peter searched for something to say.
"I don't know who he is." Peter finally said.
"I'm not asking you to tell me…" Chloe sighed. "I'd like to talk to him."
"You want to talk to Spiderman?" Peter looked at her. "He doesn't do interviews."
"Well he should." Chloe said. "But that's not why I want to talk to him."
"Oh." Peter seemed even more confused.
"You heard of the Green Arrow?" Chloe asked.
"The guy in Star City?" Peter wracked his brain for information. "Dresses in Green, likes a bow and arrow over a gun?"
"That's him." Chloe said. "He's got a message he wants me to pass on."
"You know the Green Arrow?" Peter's eyes got huge.
"We had our own arrangement when I worked at the Planet in Metropolis, not unlike you and Spiderman." Chloe pulled out a business card and handed it to Peter. "Could you just give him that for me, the next time you see him?"
"Sure thing." Peter said. "Uh, do we have to finish the tour?"
"No." Chloe smiled. "But I'll make sure to tell Mr. Jameson that you were the perfect host."
"Thanks." Peter smiled and walked out of the room.
Chloe was ready for it, Superhero's were never much for calling and making appointments, they followed you around until you were alone and then dropped in on you. As much as Chloe was expecting it she almost jumped ten feet in the air when a man dropped down in front of her as she made her way back to her apartment later that night. She made herself proud that she only flinched a little. "Spiderman." She smiled at him.
"I heard you had a message for me." He said.
"Yeah I…" She looked at him. "Are we gonna do this thing with you upside down?" She tilted her head. "Cause its a little distracting."
He chuckled and then pulled himself up. Chloe glared until he was falling back down to the ground, right side up. "Better?"
"Much." Chloe smiled. "So how's your night been?" She looked around. "I'm not keeping you from anything more…important?"
"No." He shrugged as she continued her walk toward her penthouse. "I broke up a few muggings on the way over, no big deal."
"Does modesty come with the superpowers?" Chloe laughed. "Every one of you guys are all the same." She kept glancing over at him; something was just so familiar about the guy.
"You know many of "us guys"?" Spiderman asked.
"I know my fair share." Chloe said.
"Like the Green Arrow?" Spiderman reminded her and Chloe noticed that as they walked he was searching the streets back and forth, looking out for trouble.
"Like the Green Arrow." Chloe nodded. "Which brings me to the point of this meeting. He'd like to talk to you."
"What about?" Spiderman asked and could tell Chloe was weighing her words carefully. "I know you know."
"Yeah but he really likes to do the whole speech thing, I can't take that away from him." Chloe smiled.
"How do I know this isn't some trap?" Spiderman asked. "I've read about him you know. Vengeful vigilante they call him."
"You know better than to believe everything you read." Chloe stopped in front of a building. "Well this is me." Spiderman looked up at the building. "So can I set something up?"
"I'll get back to you." He smiled before releasing a web and swinging himself up to the top of the building.
Chloe watched him swing away and then walked up to the door as the doorman let her in. He didn't even comment on her choice in escorts home, or his exit. They just saw too much weird stuff in New York for it to faze him.
Weird abounded in New York City. Some guy, who the Daily Bugle has dubbed as Electro because he seemed to have control over Electricity, was terrorizing the city. There had been three blackouts since she'd been there alone. She was on her way to Jameson's office at the Daily Bugle, they had been printing more Spiderman and Electro articles, linking them as friends instead of enemies and as much as she said she wasn't going to interfere with the paper, Spiderman was doing good work and she hated to see him abused in the paper like that. "Hold the elevator." A frantic voice said and Chloe smacked the open button quickly.
"Hey Peter." She smiled as the photographer jumped in the elevator, out of breath.
"You ok?" She asked taking in his sweat soaked shirt.
"Yeah just running late." He sighed catching his breath.
"Me too." She smiled at him. "I was supposed to meet Jameson thirty minutes ago." Peter looked up at her and smiled. "I wanted to thank you…for setting up that meeting with Spiderman."
"I just gave him the message." Peter shrugged. "He decided whether he wanted to show or not." Peter glanced at her. "So did you tell him what you needed?"
"Yeah, I still don't have an answer though." Chloe sighed. "You think you could ask him to speed up his thought process? It's not like I'm gonna be in the city forever."
"I'll have a word with him about it." Peter chuckled. He held the elevator open for her as they reached the top floor and they walked together to Jameson's office.
"Where the hell is Parker?" He was screaming through the door.
"See that's the difference. You're late, no big deal, I'm late…" He motioned to the door as Jameson opened the door and looked out.
"Damn it Parker, I go to print in thirty minutes, do you have the pictures." Peter nodded and they all filed into Jameson's office. He grabbed the envelope from Peter and started to flip through the shots. "You don't have any of him with this Electro guy?"
"It's not like I know where he's gonna attack Mr. Jameson."
"Why not?" Jameson slammed the papers down on the table. "I guess these will do." He wrote out a receipt for the picture and was handing them over as the lights flickered and then went out completely. "Not again." Jameson screamed.
Chloe walked over to the window and sighed. "It's the whole block at least, maybe more."
"This guy is a menace…" The lights flickered back on and Jameson was standing there holding Peter's receipt out but Peter wasn't there. "Where's Parker?"
Chloe turned around and shrugged and then Spiderman flew past the window.
She visited a few of the other papers, some not so well off as the Bugle but most doing all right. You basically had to be dead in New York City to not sell papers. "He hasn't gotten back to me yet." Chloe explained to Oliver as she walked home, debating on what to get for diner.
"Talk to this Parker guy again would you." Oliver said. "I really want to talk to Spiderman."
"You can't come on to strong. It's like going after a woman; you can't just keep calling her and calling her. You've got to give her time, to make up her mind and come after you." Chloe laughed.
"Oh, really? Is that how you go after women?" Oliver smirked. "I didn't know that."
"Don't be such a brat." Chloe had a very strong desire to stick her tongue out at him but before she could she was flat on the ground. "Oh." She looked around confused.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention, I should have…" Chloe looked up at the guy who bumped into her. "Miss Sullivan?"
"Peter?" Chloe grabbed the hand he held out to her and she allowed him to help her up.
"Chloe…Chloe are you all right?" Oliver was screaming over the phone.
"I'm fine." She said absentmindedly. "I'll call you back." She looked over at Peter and the girl he was with. "Fancy meeting you here." She brushed off her pants.
"I'm so sorry Miss Sullivan." He smiled at her. "I didn't hurt you did I?"
"No." She shook her head. "I'm fine, don't worry about it, I should have been paying attention. And don't call me Miss Sullivan, I'm probably just as old as you, Chloe's fine."
The girl coughed. "Oh I'm sorry, Chloe this is Mary Jane Watson, Mary Jane, this is Chloe Sullivan, she owns the Daily Bugle."
"Nice to meet you." Mary Jane held out her hand and Chloe shook it.
"You too." Chloe said. "Peter, I actually wanted to talk to you about…"
"Give me your money and your jewelry." A voice said from behind them. They all turned and froze when they saw the three guys with guns.
"Come on." One of the guys without a gun smacked Chloe in the face and she fell to the ground. Mary Jane ran over to her to check her out.
"Ok." Chloe said. "Just calm down." She sighed wondering how in a city full of a million people she was always getting mugged. If her luck held however...
"Leave them alone." A voice said and the men turned around to see Spiderman hanging in the alley.
"It's Spiderman." One guys said.
"No shit Sherlock." The guy with the gun said. "Get him."
Mary Jane grabbed a Kleenex from her purse and handed it to Chloe. She pressed it up against her lip to stop the bleeding. "You ok?" She asked.
"Fine." Chloe said watching Spiderman. Then she looked around. "Where's Peter?"
Mary Jane bit her lip and Chloe looked at her confused. "He went for help." She finally said and Chloe paused then looked over at Spiderman. Her lips curled slightly and then she made sure to wipe the smile off of her face quickly before Mary Jane noticed it. The voice, the build, the fact that he disappeared right when trouble seemed to happen.
"Good, ok." Mary Jane helped her up and they watched as Spiderman dispatched the muggers quickly.
"Ladies." He said to them. "You should be a little more careful." He titled his head and then shot a web and was gone.
"Hey you guys ok?" A policeman asked running up to them.
"Fine." Chloe watched Spiderman, or rather, Peter Parker swing away from them. "We're fine, they didn't take anything."
Chloe wondered for a second if this was gonna be too much, but the truth of the matter was Spiderman was dragging his feet and all she was asking for was a meeting. Peter walked in the apartment and shrugged off his jacket. "Peter." Chloe flipped on the lamp beside the chair she was sitting in.
"Miss…Chloe." Peter said turning around. "What are you…how did you get in here?"
"I need an answer." She said. "Green Arrows coming to town in a few days, on business he really wants to talk to you."
"I thought he wanted to talk to Spiderman." Peter said.
"You are Spiderman." Chloe pointed out. Peter's eyes got huge. "Don't worry; I'm not going to say anything."
"I don't understand…how did you?" He sat down heavy.
"When you've been around as many superheroes with secret identities as I have you pick up a few things." She smiled. "Like how you always disappear right before Spiderman shows up, or the way you slouch just a bit when as Peter Parker, how you get close enough to him to get all those great shots."
"I…how do I know I can trust you?" Peter asked anxiously.
"You don't." Chloe said. "Not for sure. Look I've been keeping so many secrets for so many years, and as a former reporter…that says quite a lot, hell maybe that's my superpower." Peter chuckled. "I don't want anything from you, I don't want to use you, I'm not gonna hold this above your head. I just want you to listen to Green Arrow, hear what he has to say and then…maybe make a decision in a timely fashion."
Peter looked at her for a bit and then sighed. "Ok, I'll meet with him."
"Great. Maybe now he'll stop calling me." She stood up. "He hasn't left me alone for two weeks. "Did you talk to Spiderman?" "When are you going to talk to Spiderman?" "Why hasn't he given you and answer yet?" He's driving me crazy."
"Sorry about that." Peter shrugged.
"No problem." She walked to the door. "I'll be in touch."
Two weeks later Chloe was on the roof of the Daily Bugle building, working out in her head a way to find some sort of correlation between superheroes and rooftops, waiting. She heard the familiar sound of an arrow whizzing past her and sighed. "You're late…" Chloe glared as Green Arrow pulled himself up on the roof.
"Well looks like our friendly neighborhood Spiderman is too." Green Arrow jumped on the roof and smiled. "Good to see you Watchtower."
Chloe rolled her eyes and gave him a hug. "He'll be here, he's got this whole city to take care of you know."
"It has to be the city that never sleeps too." Spiderman said swinging onto the rooftop. "One day a month, that would work for me."
"You must be Spiderman." Green Arrow stepped forward and held out his hand.
"I guess I must be." Spiderman shook his hand and nodded at Chloe. "And you're the Green Arrow."
"The one and only." Oliver smiled and Chloe rolled her eyes.
"Miss Sullivan said you wanted to talk to me about something?" Spiderman asked.
"Miss Sullivan?" Green Arrow turned to Chloe and raised his eyebrows.
"It's called manners, you should learn some." Chloe snapped at him.
"Oh I should learn some, you have no respect for me." Green Arrow crossed his arms over his chest.
"You want respect?" Chloe scoffed. "How about you quit treating me like your errand boy. Sending me to set up your meetings."
"Can you two kids fight later?" Spiderman said. "I don't have a lot of time here."
"Right sorry." Green Arrow glared at Chloe, he may have had sunglasses on but she could tell he was doing it anyway. "The reason I wanted to talk to you. I've got a team going; we're working on a name…"
"I thought you liked Justice League." Chloe interrupted.
"I do like it, I'm just still thinking about it." Green Arrow said and then turned back to Spiderman. "Anyway, was hoping you'd consider joining up."
"A team?" Spiderman said confused. "I don't really understand. What does this team do?"
"Well." Green Arrow leaned against the railing. "We fight injustice. There's more in this world that could use your help than muggers and petty criminals."
"I don't just do muggers and petty criminals." Spiderman crossed his arms over his chest.
"He's doing it wrong, he always does it wrong." Chloe turned and glared at him. "Why do you have to insult them, all the time with the insulting?" She stepped up and pulled something out of her bag, a file. She handed it to Spiderman who took it a looked through it.
"What is this?" He asked staring at pictures of Lex's lab, people being experimented on.
"That's what we fight against." Chloe said. "Lex Luther takes people, people like you, people with abilities and he experiments on them, he tortures them, he dissects them." Her voice was different now, gone was the teasing tone she had taken with the Green Arrow.
"Why?" Spiderman handed the file back.
"Because he can?" Chloe shrugged. "Because he wants to control the powers, duplicate them use them for his own twisted reasons, we don't really care about the why, we just want to stop him."
"So what do you say?" Green Arrow asked. "Want to join up?"
"I think what you're doing is great." Spiderman said. "But this is my city, this is my home, they need me here."
"The world needs you." Green Arrow countered.
"I want to help you, if you ever need something, back up you can call but I've got to stay here." He said.
Green Arrow opened his mouth and Chloe elbowed him in the ribs. "I understand." He said through clenched teeth.
"Help!" Someone screamed from a few blocks over.
"I'll take this one." Green Arrow said. "You've cleaned up this town, I haven't had much to do all night, give you a break."
"Have at it." Spiderman said and Green Arrow swooped off the building.
"He's got a team?" Spiderman said to Chloe.
"Don't make fun; they do a lot of good." Chloe said. "He gets a little passionate about what he does."
"And what is it that you do?" Spiderman asked.
"What do you mean?" Chloe asked.
"What's your role in all this?" Spiderman asked. "You're more than just a newspaper owner, high society girl."
"I don't know what you mean?" Chloe shrugged.
"Go on." Green Arrow said, back on the rooftop. "Tell him Watchtower."
"Watchtower?" Spiderman raised his eyebrows.
"You can know ever else's secrets and no one can know yours?" Green Arrow pointed out.
They both turned and looked at her. "That's so not fair, you can't gang up on me like that." Chloe glared. "I'm just the computer whiz." She shrugged. "I do all the information gathering."
"Don't be so modest." Green Arrow walked forward. "If I ever said you were just the computer whiz you would have smacked me. She's the brains of the operation." Green Arrow told Spiderman. "Keeps us together, on task, alive."
"I'm sure she does." Spiderman laughed. "Like I said, I like what you guys are doing but I can't leave New York."
"I get it, had to offer." Green Arrow shook his hand again. "It was good to meet you."
"You too." Spiderman said. "Well I got to go, no rest for the weary." He shot a web and was gone.
"Nice guy." Green Arrow said. "A little on the goody goody side, kind of like Boy Scout."
"Don't make fun." Chloe said walking to the roof access door. "You want to get some dinner?"
"Yeah, just let me change. I think Spiderman's got this city covered." He grabbed his Arrow out of the wall on the way out and Chloe chuckled. "You're not sleeping with this one too are you?"
Chloe couldn't help it, Green Arrow costume and all she slapped him as hard as she could on the side of his head.
"Everything's going good here." Chloe smiled at Jameson on her last day in New York. "Circulation and ad revenues are up from last year. No complaints from corporate as far as the business side is concerned. "
"What does that mean?" Jameson asked.
"Well…" Chloe looked over at Jameson's secretary who was chatting with Peter Parker.
"Well what?" Jameson asked.
"I know you think I'm some punk kid who got a couple of newspapers for Christmas and is having fun playing with them." The expression on his face showed that that was exactly what he thought. "But I know the business, I now the job. You need to stop with the Spiderman is a villain angle, it's obvious the city doesn't agree with you and you're only going to end up isolating yourself from the people and hurt your bottom line." She stood up. "And I tried to get a shot of Spiderman the other day, that guy's pretty elusive; you're not paying Parker enough."
"What do you mean?" Jameson asked confused.
"I mean I want you to triple whatever you're giving him now, it's near impossible to get those shots and he's delivering on a regular basis, the only edge you have with the New York Times and The Post. Triple it, or your going to lose him and that would really be bad for your bottom line." Chloe said. "If you don't have room in the budget, I can take care of it."
"Ok." Jameson looked at Robertson who shrugged.
"Starting now." She raised her eyebrows and nodded to his secretary.
He glared and picked up the phone. "Emily, triple what you're giving Peter."
"What?" Emily looked up into the office.
"Don't ask questions, Miss Sullivan wants it tripled so just triple it." Jameson slammed the phone down.
"It was nice doing business with you." Chloe got up and walked out of the office nodding at Peter as she left.
"What's this?" Peter asked looking at the check.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth Peter." Emily smiled.
"But this is triple what I normally get." Peter said.
"Hey orders from the boss." Emily shrugged.
"Mr. Jameson?" Peter looked into the office at the man who was screaming at someone on the phone.
"I guess I should say orders from the boss's boss." Emily smiled.
Peter looked over at Chloe who was getting into the elevator and ran. "Hey, hold the elevator." Peter said and Chloe pushed the button.
"Running late again?" She asked.
"No I just…wanted to talk to you." Peter said holding up the check.
"Oh." Chloe looked at the check. "What?"
"You don't need to do this…I don't take charity." He handed the check to her.
"It's not charity Peter. You don't get recognition from anyone for what you do, this city, the people, no one. It's hard living a double life and part of the perks of Green Arrows team is a pretty good salary. If you won't join the team, at least let me make one thing easier on you. Besides, this is what you'd make at the New York Times or well any other paper without a tight wad for an editor." Peter chuckled as she handed the check back to him.
"Thanks." Peter said.
"It's no big deal." Chloe said. "Really. It's the least I could do."
"Does modesty come with your job?" Peter asked, throwing her words back in her face.
"Hey I'm not the one out there, fighting the bad guys, putting my life in danger. I help how I can, money may not be important when some villain holds the city hostage, but it's nice to have an apartment and a full fridge when you get home from a long day of saving the planet."
The elevator doors opened and Chloe stepped out. "Thanks." Peter said folding up the check and putting it in his pocket.
A/N Next Chapter Chloe and Oliver together in Star City!