He headed toward the gym, where he could punch something and not get kicked out. He found even as he was throwing punches he was getting flashes of her. Her hair. Her eyes. They came with each punch and only served to encourage him.
There was one question that beat against his head. He hated so much about her. Her secrets, her lies, all of it, everything she had become. So, why did he still love her so much?
He tried to tell himself that it was because he had cared once upon a time, and he was in love with that person. And not the person he knew now. It was the only option. The only option besides exactly what he was afraid of in every respect. Love.
He knew how corny that sounded. He had been running from the possibility of being able to spend the rest of his life with someone. He ran from commitment. He ran from her. He ran from the possibility of a long happy life with a wife, and maybe even kids. He ran as far as he could and as much as he'd like to say he'd never looked back, he did. He looked back every night as he went to sleep. The what could have beens played on the back of his eyelids in his dreams.
He was at the point where he wanted to go to her for comfort. But he couldn't because that'd be pointless. Run to her for comfort because of her, yeah, that makes sense. His frustration was building. He slammed the punching bag, sending it flying back and forth.
His thoughts of her, always her, made him more and frustrated until his anger burned out and he broke. He held it the bag, stopping it, grabbed his stuff, and decided to head for the bar, where he could wallow in the numbing arms of alcohol.
After a few drinks his anger was down to pure sadness. He sat, a little dazed on a barstool, thinking, still about her. "Always about her," he mumbled.
A man sat beside him and ordered "the usual" and the bartender complied. Oliver could only imagine what she would say right now if she saw him. She always seemed to know which approach he needed at that particular point in time. She could be comforting or exactly the kick he needed to get up again. He just wish someone else knew too.
"Girl problems?"
"Always," Oliver answered grimly, "You?"
"Yeah, just got major league dumped. I was thinking about proposing, too. What happened to you?"
What did happen to him? What could he have done to change this? Should he have listened to what she had to say? When thinking about what he could've done to make his life better he always came back to one conclusion. One decision, made on one drunken night.
The night he cheated on her. He had never seen such a blatant mixture of hurt and anger on her face. It was a look he hoped never to see again. It broke his heart. It made him, even drunk, regret what he did. It was the look that plagued his nightmares. He had hurt himself just by hurting her. And he didn't understand it.
This time she had kept in the hurt look until he left. So he didn't regret his decision as quickly. "She couldn't be trusted. So I walked out." But he knew it was coming.
"Why couldn't she be trusted?"
"She did some things. I can't explain, but..." He trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.
"Did you entrust something to her?"
"No."
The man paused, and asked ever so rudely, "Do you hate her?"
Oliver stopped for a moment and thought. Did he hate her? Could he hate her? If it came down to it, would he allow her to get hurt? If he was going to do something but she got hurt in the process, would he go through with it?
"No."
"I think you love her. Maybe I'm missing something. But maybe you are, too. I suggest you talk to her."
Oliver knew what he had to do. He had to go to the top of the Daily Planet to see her, as Green Arrow, of course. It just may be the only way they can get over this.
He had his gear in the car and another hour and a half before he had to be there and he was right around the corner, so he didn't have to leave just yet. Deciding that thinking about her in every way shape or form didn't feel very good, he pulled out his phone to see that he got an e-mail, sent by Tess this morning.
Attached was a copy of the document that he had seen. The body of the e-mail said that she was pushing a project forward to attempt to find these people and remove the trackers as they could be used against them.
When he had come to pick her up Tess assumed he had read the e-mail. But the look on his face said it all. Those papers were the first he had heard of it. Now, she sat on her couch, utterly confused on how to proceed.
She knew Oliver hadn't trusted her completely yet but she thought he gave her more credit than that. At least a little bit.
Why did she care, anyway? "Because I love him," she whispered to herself. She admitted the bitter fact to herself. She knew she had loved him in the past, really truly loved him. But for a while that love was instead consumed by bitter hatred.
Start over. She made the decision. If Oliver wasn't the only one that could make her heart skip a beat than that meant that he wasn't the only one she could love. She still had time to make it to the Daily Planet. If she left now she would only be a few minutes late.
She got up and left without a second thought. She had a chance and she was going to take it. What's done is done. That's how she had to look at it. It was easiest that way.
As she stood at the top of the Daily Planet this is what she convinced herself. Look to the future. He was 15 minutes late. She had been 2 minutes late but was he really that punctual?
No, he probably wasn't. He probably just wasn't coming.
She couldn't waste too much time on this either, so she turned to leave. "Sorry I'm late."
Tess whirled around, not realizing just how excited she actually was. She hadn't realized how upset she had been that he hadn't shown. She was really beginning to appreciate the strength of her defense mechanism. "You make your decision?"
She laughed humorlessly. "It was made for me."
"I'm sorry," he said with a lot more emotion than she would have expected. He sounded genuinely sorry, as though it was his fault.
"It's not your fault." He had almost forgotten that it wasn't supposed to be his fault. This would be so much simpler if only...but then she probably wouldn't speak to him at the moment if she knew.
"Still. You should have had the option."
"You're not...upset?" She had expected him to be. It made sense. She's only here because someone else shut her down. That's how she thought he would see it. She didn't know that he saw how he had messed up and hurt her and that this is his chance to make it right.
"No. What happened?"
"There was... a misunderstanding."
"Any chance of fixing it?"
"I don't think so."
He gave a small smile. "Good. Then you won't feel guilty about this." He tilted her chin up and kissed her softly. His hand moved to her face, his thumb rubbing her cheek.
Her hand slid up to his shoulder. His arm moved around her waist. She rested her other hand on his chest. The kiss didn't move towards something more passionate but stayed at something both were unaccustomed to. A tender, gentle kiss. It was slow and comforting. Neither could tell you how long they stayed like that. But when they finally broke apart both felt like they woke up from a dream and crash landed into reality.
"I can't tell you who I am yet," He said slowly.
She wanted to tell him that she didn't care and that she just wanted to curl up in his arms and cry or maybe sleep. But she didn't. Instead she said. "It's safer that way."
Somehow he seemed to know what she needed. He took her in his arms and she nestled herself into him. She fit perfectly, almost like she did with Oliver. She closed her eyes at the painful thought and let herself drown in the comfort she was getting.
He whispered words of comfort in her ear. She didn't know what he was saying but it still helped somehow.
But as expected. It had to end. Sirens went off in the distance. She pulled away. "You have to go."
"The Blur can-"
"They need you more than I do." He looked at her, searching her eyes. She was stubborn he knew that, so he quickly kissed her again before leaving.
"Two days. Same time, same place," he called back.
Tess figured that since she was there she could finish up at the Daily Planet and make sure everything was running smoothly even though she took the day off.
She walked down. Checked the preview for the morning edition. Everything seemed to have gone well and most seemed to have cleared out or were chasing a lead. "Tess?" Everyone except Lois Lane.
"Hello, Lois."
"What are you doing here? We assumed you played hooky because you weren't feeling too great." Tess held back a sigh. She really didn't want to have this conversation.
"I'm just checking how things went over," she made up an excuse.
"And?" Always the reporter. Never able to let it lie.
"I wasn't feeling spectacular earlier, but a nap does wonders sometimes." Well, then she would just lie her way out of it. Though her outfit wasn't doing much to support her lies.
"Then why couldn't Oliver come?" Of course she put two and two together. It'd be too easy otherwise.
"Last I checked I'm not Oliver." Thankfully.
Chloe walked in carrying two cups of coffee and handed one to Lois, announcing all the way, "Yeah, but you two are showing signs of Lois and Clark syndrome," Chloe announced herself, "and constant knowledge of each other's whereabouts is one of the side affects."
Lois shot her a dirty look that Chloe returned with a bright smile. Meanwhile Tess was quickly realizing that this was going downhill and decided to try and make an exit. "As much as I hate to disappoint, I really have no idea where he was."
Chloe and Lois exchanged a look of disbelief but didn't stop her exit, following her with their eyes the whole way out, both silent, both thinking the same exact thing. Something was up. And they wanted to know what.
Later the cousins and their respective partners were assembled at the Kent farm, sitting around a tv that wasn't on. "So it wasn't exactly what we thought."
"Or anything like like it," Lois added.
"We don't know that for sure. But we do know something's off," Chloe rushed to explain.
"Like what?" Bruce asked.
"Maybe they had a fight?" Clark offered.
Chloe asked the follow up question. "Over what?"
"Who knows? Especially with those two it could be anything from she brought Hitler back to life or Oliver didn't think her cereal was high enough in calcium," Lois quipped, knowing full well about Ollie's protective instinct, especially when it came to Tess. But on the other hand who knew what she was capable of.
"Funny, but not very productive," Bruce pointed out.
"Did she seem uncomfortable when you mentioned Oliver?" Clark tried to steer the conversation back to its original purpose.
"A little," Chloe admitted.
"So it probably has something to do with him," Bruce deduced like the Einstein he is.
Lois opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Clark. "We know Hitler to Wheaties." Lois shot him a dirty look but shut her mouth, taking to sulking in silence.
"I'll call him," Bruce reasoned. He picked up his phone and dialed the number. He put it on speaker so everyone else could hear, too because reexplaining what was sure to be a strange conversation was certainly not something he wanted to do. After a few rings Oliver picked up.
"Look, Bruce, I'm not really in the mood to talk."
"Why is that?" Bruce met Clark's eyes which glimmered with naive hope that he still envied. He knew they weren't getting anything out of Oliver, otherwise he would not be airing out his dirty laundry so easily. He was just hoping to get him off his case.
"I had a major blowout with Tess as Oliver, realized I was wrong, and comforted her as Green Arrow." Complicated, Bruce would give him that. Note to self: never engage in romance as costumed vigilante.
"So basically you're right back where you started."
"No this is worse." Oliver sounded depressed, which was unusual for him, and slightly worrisome.
"You wanna grab a drink?" he offered hesitantly. He probably did not need any more to drink but it had to be asked.
"Already been there." At least he admitted it.
"Wanna grab another?" Why wouldn't he stop there? Right, Chloe was looking at him begging for answers. Darn his soft spot for her.
"Nah, I'm just gonna talk to her tomorrow." His lower lip jutted out in appreciation. That took guts, he had to give him that.
"Ok, man, talk to you later." Bruce hung up, looking at all the eyes that were rained on him.
Chloe sighed and leaned back into the couch. "That's why you go to Tess for answers," she pointed out.