Kansas Breakin II

Rating: K
Disclaimer: copyright, DC
Notes: Lame cliffhangers are lame. I think I need to quit picking on Ollie so much. But he's just so cute when I do and I just want to pinch his adorable Leftist cheeks. And I bet you thought I was actually bring plot into this. No way! That would ruin everything.

The man, who's figure was so perfectly and so stupidly outlined by the backlighting from the hallway, had a broom in hand, looking confused and startled and a whole lot like a janitor.

"Mr. Sanchez."

The man – the janitor? - jerked his stare away from the threatening end of Green Arrow's bow, and visibly blanched. Arrow could sympathize; Question's blank face tended to cause that reaction in people, even more so when it was half-shrouded in shadows.

"Not suppose to be here." Question's voice was bland with a hint of mild reproach, fingers resting lightly and stilled on the keyboard in front of him.

The janitor's eyes flicked briefly over to Green Arrow, before settling back on Question. He had apparently decided that despite the faceless man's lack of visible weapon and the very solid wooden desk between them acting as a barrier, Question was still the greater threat. Or at the least, more scary. Arrow wasn't sure if he should be insulted or not.

"I-" The janitor stuttered hesitantly. "I switched shifts with Larry."

"Didn't inform your supervisor." This was not a question, said once again with a touch of admonishment.

"No, I-"

"Huhm." Question drummed his fingers once – a series of four short taps that caused the janitor to flinch – then turned to face the monitor in a surprisingly effective dismissive motion. "Well, Arrow? Going to shoot?"

Arrow started, lowering the bow he just realized he had been aiming this whole time. "What? No! I'm not going to shoot some random janitor! It's not like he's going to attack us."

The janitor nodded frantically in agreement.

"May not attack us but will certainly alert those who will."

"Yeah, but..."

The janitor stared helplessly. Arrow stared helplessly back... and thought he might have heard a faint snort coming from the direction of his current partner-in-crime.

"Alright," Arrow sighed. "Get in here. And make sure to bring your cart... thing with you."

The janitor took a hesitant step backwards, as if afraid any movement on his part would result in an arrow through something important. When Arrow made no moves to skewer him from across the room, the janitor scurried just outside the doorway, returning in half a second dragging a wheeled pushcart ladened with cleaning supplies and a large trashcan behind him.

Arrow strode towards the door. The janitor simultaneously scuttled backwards into a corner, as far from both Justice Leaguers as he possibly could get. His cart's little wheels squeaked as they drifted to a halt.

Beneath his mask, Arrow arched an eyebrow, slowly pushing the door closed until it latched. The room was plunged into barely lit darkness once more.

Silence, except for the persistent clicking of keyboard keys, joined now by the steady crunch of a thinking portable hard drive.

"...So," Arrow crossed his arms, leaning back against the now closed door. "Sanchez, was it?"

The whites of the man's eyes were bright against the dark. "It's, uh, it's Daniel Sanchez. Sir. I know Daniel isn't very, um, isn't..." Trailing off, he finished with a rather lame, "My dad was hispanic."

"Ah. I see." The archer's mustache twitched. No, he didn't see, but exchanging pleasantries with someone he was technically holding hostage wasn't something he had a lot of experience with. "And- Would you quite flinching?" Daniel – My Father Was Hispanic – Sanchez flinched. Green Arrow gritted his teeth. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

The janitor's eyes seemed to flicker, involuntary, off to the side in the general direction of a certain faceless man.

"And neither is he! Are you, Question?" Phrased like a question, but the tone certainly didn't leave any room to be one.

"Hum?" Distracted, indifferent, and something that came very close to apathy. "No, of course not."

Oh, that had been reassuring. "Question-"

"Congratulations, Mr. Sanchez, you've just received an irreversible ten percent raise on your monthly salary as of yesterday morning." Question stood as he spoke, stashing the hard drive in his laptop satchel. The rolling chair was neatly tucked back under the desk. The computer powered down and left the room in sudden, jarring quiet and darkness.

Two pairs of eyes stared at the man without a face, one exasperated and the other confused.

"What? I don't- A raise?"

The Question made his way over to Green Arrow as the archer opened the office door once more, standing next to, but not quite within, the revealed beam of light. Beside his fellow League member's proud broad shouldered and almost instinctively confident stance, he looked distinctly rumpled and bedraggled. "A raise. Yes. Hope we never have to speak of this again, Mr. Sanchez."

"I- what?"

Question nodded, and exited out the doorway in a flare of worn trenchcoat.

Sighing, Arrow gave a parting apologetic glance to the cart-fortified corner before following in the other man's wake.

It wasn't until they had safely backtracked out of the compound and returned to the relative safety of the copse of trees with a respectable whole three minutes left on their twenty minute time limit, that Arrow dared to speak again. "That was... surprisingly anticlimactic."

"Huhm..."

"You do this a lot?"

A casual, one shoulder shrug. The faceless man seemed much more interested in digging through his many pockets.

Arrow's gloved hand drifted up to the comlink in his ear. Hesitated, then asked, "What'd we just get from that place, anyway?"

"The connection between Star Labs and Cadmus. If I'm right." His search went from the left pockets to the right. "Should finally be able to use the data gained to follow the paper trail left behind."

"Left behind? From what..." Arrow trailed off, hand falling back down to his side. "Supergirl."

Question made a faintly pleased noise.

"I still can't believe Professor Hamilton could have possibly done that to Kara. But..." Arrow swept his hat off his head and used his free hand to run his fingers through his thick, blonde hair. "You bribed that janitor, didn't you?"

"Perhaps."

"And then threatened him into silence... You wouldn't actually go have a 'talk' with him if he spoke up, would you?"

"Wouldn't I?"

A pause, then- "No, you wouldn't."

A noncommittal noise this time. Question stopped his searching, but left his hands in their habitual default position within his trenchcoat pockets. "Do you have your comlink? Seem to have misplaced mine."

"...You're a really difficult guy to be around, sometimes."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are."

"Ah."

Arrow rolled his eyes, and touched a fingertip to his ear. "Watchtower- two to beam up."

"...scotty..." Question muttered, with an accompanying amused grunt that sounded like it had aspirations of one day growing up and becoming a real laugh.

Green Arrow felt an involuntary grin creeping onto his face as their molecules scrambled and faded away.