A/N: I do not own Smallville or its characters.
Chapter Three: Victor Stone
**Flashback**
Chloe Sullivan was at the Watchtower, programming furiously. She was trying to program a fire alarm into the security system where Oliver Queen was addressing the members of his board. When she finally succeeded, she clicked on a couple of buttons to reveal the video feed of the room. Although there were red lights flashing, and an alarm blaring, Chloe looked straight at Oliver.
"Come on, Oliver, what are you going to do?" she muttered under her breath. She wished that she could hack her way into his earpiece so that he would know what was going on. She wanted to tell him that the pressure plate didn't have a bomb, but she couldn't. Maybe Oliver would figure it out. Technology can only go so far, she thought to herself bitterly. All she could do now was watch.
The world did not need to know the truth about Lex Luther's death, although telling it would relieve a burden. Chloe however, knew one thing- the world would not be safe if Oliver was in jail. People would start to investigate him, and once they discovered that he was really the Green Arrow, the identities of heroes all throughout the world would slowly unfold. The world needed Oliver Queen to be free.
Chloe stared at the man on stage, waiting in anticipation as Clark went behind the scenes and destroyed the real bomb. When the last person hurried out of the room, Oliver closed his eyes for a moment. Then, he stepped back.
"How did you know that the pressure plate was a fake?" she heard Clark's voice
"I didn't." Oliver replied softly, shaking his head.
Chloe's eyes widened as she felt a sinking sensation deep in her stomach. She turned away from the computer and walked slowly into the kitchen. She grabbed a coffee mug, and filled it with coffee and sugar. She needed to process this, so she walked around to the middle of the room, and sipped from the mug. There was only one thought screaming in her head: what if he had died?
Her hands shook at the thought, and the next thing she knew, the coffee mug crashed on the tile floor, and shattered in pieces. The black liquid colored the white tiles, as Chloe slid down onto the floor, wrapping her arms around her legs. She stared at the mess in front of her, and tried to block out a constant ringing noise in her ears.
**End Flashback**
It was 6 o'clock in the morning, and Chloe was tapping away at the Watchtower computers. It had been two days since Oliver's suicide attempt, and she had been working on the ultimate plan to bring him back to his senses. She had come to the conclusion that Oliver was a hero, and that his suicide attempt proved that he was willing to die for what he believed in. Although murder was wrong, Lex Luther certainly wasn't a saint. Oliver could still be saved, and she was on a mission. She hadn't slept, that much was certain from her messy short hair and the dark circles underneath her eyes. She finished her typing, and clicked print.
The front door opened, and Arthur Curry walked in, adorned in his usual orange and green outfit and headset. He sat down after downing a tall glass of water and carrying the water pitcher along with him.
"Use a coaster", Chloe told him as she grabbed her print-outs. A.C. complied, but scowled at Chloe when her back was turned as she reached for more coffee. The coffee was wiped from the kitchen floor, but the broken pieces of the mug were still there. Chloe had swept them into a corner.
"Alright, so let's go over the plan" he said.
"Okay. Roulette wants to have lunch tomorrow to go over everything, so we better get our story straight. I want you coming with me on this one." She told him
"Okay. First question: location?" he started, smiling.
"The special casino that you and Bart helped restore, with help from yours truly. It will have paid actors there to gamble their money away, bartend, and make the entire thing seem real." she replied
"Okay, let's start at the beginning. Oliver's position?" he asked
"He'll be recklessly gambling his money away, drunk," She said sadly.
"Roulette's position?" he prompted
"She goes over to the table, and starts a conversation" She replied
"What are his possible responses?" he asked
"Either calling it a night, or attempting to seduce her." She said, curtly
"What will Roulette do in either situation?" he asked her
"For the first situation, try and get him to stay. For the second, try and play hard to get." She said
"What's the next step?" he asked her
"She gets him to swallow the pill" she replied
"What if he doesn't? Oliver's not stupid, you know." He told her
"She'll ask him if he has anything to lose." She said
"Okay, so he takes it, and is knocked out. What next?" he asked
Before Chloe had a chance to respond, Bart super-sped over, and started tapping rapidly on a computer. Chloe realized early that in order to put the plan into action, she needed the rest of the team back together.
Unfortunately, Victor and Dinah never stayed in one place for very long. Chloe suspected that like Bart, Victor and Dinah found the tracking devices and decided to move around since they couldn't turn them off. Chloe felt guilty for sending Bart around the world the second that their blips steadied. There had been a lot of dead ends.
"What happened?" AC asked
"I found Victor. I don't know what he's doing, but he's flying and his blip's moving fast. I think he's been programmed to do something." he replied quickly.
Chloe looked at the tracking blip. Bart was right- it was moving a lot faster than usual.
Bart moved away from the computer and Chloe typed quickly. "You're right. Someone programmed a virus in Victor, so that he can't do anything until the command has been fulfilled."
"Have you seen anything like it before?" AC asked her
"When I was in high school, there was a woman who used technology to brainwash my friends to try and kill me. That's the only similarity that I can think of." She told him
"Well, what did you do to fix it back then?" Bart asked
"A good old fashioned bop on the head did the trick" Chloe told him.
"But none of us can fly! We can't get up there", AC told her.
"Yeah, but this is literally programmed into Victor. It's not hypnosis, it's different. I should be able to get in there and disable it or something." She rushed over to the fridge, and took out something that was wrapped in tinfoil. It had a cylindrical shape.
"Impulse, I need you to get over there, and follow him from below. Take this to go." she told him, throwing him the object. Bart caught it, and peeled off the foil. He saw that it was a burrito, and smiling before taking a huge bite of it, and speeding away.
She gave her printouts to AC. "We'll verbally go over the loopholes of the plan later. Here's the general overview- could you take a look? If there are any big mistakes, we need to fix them."
"Sounds like a plan", he replied as he reached for a pen.
"Impulse, what's your status?" she said through her earpiece
"I caught up to him. I'm trying to get through to him, but nothing's working." Impulse told her
"This virus is complex. I'm trying to disable it, but the best that I can do right now is turn him off. Has anyone spotted him yet?" Chloe asked
"He flew past a plane of people. A couple of little kids noticed, but I don't think anyone's going to believe them. Watchtower, do what you have to do. We can't have anyone important recognizing him", Impulse told her.
Chloe stared at the screen as she typed. "Alright, I'm going to turn him off. He's going to fall, and I need you to catch him okay? Take him to a little hotel- nothing too exciting."
"Got it."
"5…4…3…2…1…now." She said, as she pressed a button.
Victor Stone fell. His once red eyes became brown, and then closed as his body became rigid and dropped like a rock. Bart positioned himself to catch him, but ended up breaking his fall instead.
"Dude, you're way too heavy" he told Cyborg, although he wasn't heard. Bart picked him up, and sped to a nearby hotel. After placing him on a bed, he said in his earpiece "Impulse to Watchtower, Cyborg is in hibernation mode. I'm coming back."
Impulse sped back to the Watchtower, and AC gave him a high five "Nice one, bro", he said with a chuckle.
"We can't just leave him at a hotel. What next?" Bart asked Chloe
"Hold on a second, Bart." She said, her eyes still on the screen of the computer, her fingers moving at light speed.
"Okay. I just removed the virus from Victor's body. You broke his fall Bart, but he's still in pretty bad shape. We should pay a visit to that hotel in the morning when he reboots- give him an upgrade, and maybe try and get him back."
"What about lunch with Roulette?" AC asked her.
"I think that we can still make that. We can always make it a late lunch if everything goes wrong. For now, Cyborg's in one place. We'll be able to find him tomorrow."
"What was the command? What was Vic forced to do?" Bart asked
"He was programmed to blow himself up in front of the United Nations", she said softly.
"Cyborg's strong. How did he let someone get that close to destroying him?" AC wondered, aloud.
"I don't know, AC. We're going to have to ask Victor. Right now, we should iron out the details of the plan, so that we're ready for lunch tomorrow."
Hours later, the group was exhausted, but every hole in the plan was now filled. Chloe walked over to one of the computer monitors and pushed a couple of buttons. She glanced at Victor's steadied tracking blip and looked at the location.
"Good work today, boys. Get some sleep. In the morning, we're going to Philadelphia."
***
The next day, the group was in Victor's hotel room. Bart and AC stood in the middle of the room as Chloe set down her laptop bag and a large stainless steel briefcase. She walked over to the bed that Victor was lay in, and took out her laptop.
She typed on it for a minute, and glanced over at the half-man/half-machine that was in front of her. She had no idea what his reaction to their presence was going to be, and she was a bit nervous. Then, she realized that regardless of the team, they were all friends first. She pressed enter.
As if he had woken up from his worst nightmare, Victor's eyes opened widely, and he sprang up from the bed. "Chloe? AC? Bart? What's going on?" he asked, confused
"Victor, what is the last thing that you remember?" Chloe asked softly
"I was talking to my buddy Ron Evers in Chicago, and then…nothing." Victor said
"Who's Ron?" Bart asked him
"A friend of mine- he works for the Geek Squad. We're really close." Victor answered
"Did you tell him about…you know…?" AC asked awkwardly
"That I'm basically a human machine? Yeah, after a while- he's okay with it." Victor told him
Chloe researched Ron Evers in her laptop. "Victor, Ron isn't who you think he is." She explained
"What do you mean?"
"The Geek Squad cover makes sense. He gave you a virus- it took control of your entire body, and forced you to carry out a singular command."
There was a moment of silence. Victor was trying to process it, but he couldn't help but wonder "Chloe, what did he force me to do?" he asked quietly
She pressed a couple of buttons on her laptop and turned it around so that he could see. "He programmed you to explode, like a bomb. You were supposed to blow up the United Nations building", she explained.
"If I exploded, I would be dead. He's my best friend- he's been there for me. I was depressed, and he helped me get my life back together. He wouldn't do that to me!"
"Look at the screen, Victor. You were programmed."
"Why should I believe you? I haven't seen you guys in months." Victor said, bitterly
AC stepped in "Chloe's trying to get us all back together. We need to be a team again."
"Why? I wasn't even involved when Clark needed 'the team'" he said, making air-quotes
"You should be grateful. You don't have Jimmy Olsen's blood on your hands." Bart told him, shaking his head slightly.
"So I should be grateful that I wasn't called in when you guys needed me? I could have helped- I could have set off the bombs from far away. I could have been in the room when he died, could have stopped Davis" Victor said, almost in tears now.
"You can't turn back time, Victor." Chloe said, trying to reach out to him.
"I know what you're going through right now, bro. I really do." AC said, stepping forward.
"How?" Victor asked.
"I wasn't Clark's go-to man either. And on some level, I don't think that he even called Oliver. He knew because he got everyone together in the first place. It was his team." AC told him
"Clark is like that sometimes. There are times in which his needs seem to outweigh everyone else's." Chloe said
"It doesn't make him a bad hero, or person for that matter. It just makes him…human. Sometimes, we all need to be selfish" Bart added
"Exactly. It's not that Clark prefers one member to another. Sometimes he just doesn't think", AC explained.
"It's not just that. It's different for me. It feels as if…" Victor trailed off
"As if people take advantage of you. As if you don't matter in the group and if you just take yourself out of the picture, you think that everything would run smoothly without you." AC finished for him
Just then, one singular tear rolled down Cyborg's eye. "Yes. Like in the end, all I am is a machine." He said
"Look", Chloe said, her finger wiping the tear away, and showing it to him.
"I'm…crying?" Victor asked, hesitantly.
"See? You were a human before you were upgraded, and you are still human now" Chloe said, firmly.
"I can't help but think that if I had blown up the United Nations, all those people…"
"But you didn't." Bart confirmed
"Why didn't I?" Victor asked
Chloe put an arm around him "Because we didn't let it happen." She said
"We won't let anything happen." AC told him
"If it happened, I would be dead. How can someone who even pretends to be my best friend have the heart to kill me?" Victor asked, still confused
"He took advantage of you", Bart said simply.
"And we're never going to let you get hurt like this ever again." Chloe said, putting away her laptop and picking up the stainless steel briefcase. She looked at Victor's scratches and bruises, guilty.
"What's that?" Victor asked, curiously
"Queen Industries upgrade. No matter what happens to you physically, this will help. You will heal yourself." She explained
"This isn't a bribe to get me back on the team, is it?" he asked
"No bribing. If you don't want to come back, you can take it and walk out of here. We will never follow you again, although our door will always be open. But if there is a little part of you that wants to stop moving from place to place and feel as if you have a family that loves you and is there for you, then just come home." Chloe said genuinely.
"I'm coming back with you guys. But on one condition" he stated
"Name it", Chloe said
"I want you guys to keep me in the loop. Whatever Oliver's planning, I just want to know what's going on, regardless of whether or not I'm needed" Victor told them
"Done." Chloe told him
"Yeah, but there's one problem- Oliver's not himself, and it's up to us to get him out of the funk that he's in" AC said.
"He's blaming himself for what happened to Jimmy, and he's gone back to being his old different woman every night, binge drinking, reckless, careless self." Bart explained
"I'm afraid it's a bit more serious than that, you guys." Chloe said. The three men looked at her.
"Ollie tried to kill himself two days ago", she whispered. If she didn't say it too loudly, maybe it wouldn't be true.
"We need to help him, now" Bart and AC said together.
Victor nodded his head, more certain of his path now than he had in weeks.
"How can I help?"
