Subtraction Time (Chapter Eleven)

Banner by purplemoon123

PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Little mistake in the previous chapter. I had that last January as 2010, when it should have been 2011. Whoopsie! Fixed it!

Flashbacks going into the rest of Beacon...

Chapter Eleven
November, 2011

This was ridiculous. There was no reason for a full meeting. Maybe a tiny chat with Victor about Rachel… and Rachel alone. But not about Batman. 

Of course, Ollie had already spilled the beans that she knew Batman personally to Victor, who had already started in on her. Now she had to sit and wait for everyone to show up just so they could all browbeat her about hiding the fact that she knew Bru… Batman. She had to be careful even thinking it. This wasn’t her secret to tell, damn it! 

She tried to point that out to Victor. “I think you would understand that with how carefully you all protect your own identities.”

“We’re not after secrets,” Victor said, undeterred. “If he’s not comfortable sharing his day job, then that’s fine. We’re not asking for much. Just for you to set up a meeting with him, something official. Tell him we can provide transportation and pay any expenses occurred and…”

“He won’t show. I know him.”

“But we need to find out what he knows about The Suicide Squad’s activities.” Victor shrugged. “If we can also give a little pitch on what being part of our…”

“Listen, I want him with us as much as any of you,” Chloe said tiredly, “maybe more. But he needs time to come around to the idea of…”

“You don’t know him. He’s so stubborn. He needs time,” Oliver said in a high-pitched voice, dropping into the chair next to her.

“That sounds nothing like me.” Chloe sat back, crossing her arms.

Oliver just nudged her. “Baby, we get it. But, if The Squad is after him, then we need to get to him before they do.”

“Yes. Exactly!” Victor pointed at Oliver. “We need to compare notes at the very least.” A series of loud beeps rang out from the ceiling... and Victor. “Who’s accessing the east side? I told everyone it’s southern entrance only or the system…” He moved off, muttering to himself.

Oliver turned to Chloe. “You have to admit it. We need to talk to him before…”

“I’m not saying Batman doesn’t need to be talked to. I just don’t think there should be a whole damned meeting about it,” she hissed.

“Babe, we’re a league now. You Metropolis types can’t make all the decisions alone anymore.”

“I live in Star City,” she had to point out.

“But you’re still in that Metropolis mindset, where everything’s all closely guarded and nobody gets to know. We all agreed,” he gestured around, even with only Zatanna and John in the meeting chambers, “that if something big came up, we don’t do this lone hero shtick anymore. We call a meeting and have at least five members decide on…”

“But this is hardly big,” she insisted. “Listen, I know this seems like a big deal, but Batman is in no danger of joining up with Flag and company. I know him. If I can just get time to talk to him and explain…”

“No. This isn’t just about that,” Oliver pointed out. “We need to know what he knows in detail and not through an intermediary, not even you. And, considering how The Squad works, we all need to be prepared for the fall-out. Everything they do gives the rest of us a bad name.” 

She groaned and sat back. 

January 26th, 2011

Oliver was holding her back from the door. “Let me go! What are you…”

“I’m trying to get you to calm down,” Oliver said in her ear. “She’s fine. It wasn’t a fatal shot. The news is even reporting she’s speaking clearly and being taken to Met Gen and…”

“I don’t care if it’s fatal,” she growled, trying to break out of his hold. “Do you know what Martha’s done for me? For so many years, she’s been…” Chloe struggled anew. “I have to go to her right this…”

“You have to put on some clothes first,” He broke in.

She stilled against him, glancing down. “Yeah. I do. I knew that.”

“I get it, Chloe.” He kissed the back of her head as he released her. “I’ll get ready, too.”

“No!” She turned to him. “You’re not leaving here.”

“But Mrs. K was just…”

“You just said she was fine,” Chloe pointed out. “Besides, this is just… a little check-in with her.” 

Oliver didn’t buy into it and there was another ten minutes of back and forth as she dressed. But she won, in the end, just by the inarguable fact that it was safer for a not-so-famous, dead girl to roam the city than a notorious, wanted man. 

She pasted on a lighthearted smile. “I don’t think we want to risk another citizen’s arrest just for a hospital visit,” she’d finished before she finally left.

Of course, it felt like more than that every second Chloe rushed to Met Gen and through the halls. She didn’t actually turn off her internal sirens until the moment she heard Martha Kent’s calm and measured tones…

“Your father and I made a pact many years ago. We knew protecting you would always be dangerous, but we vowed to do it, even if it cost us our lives. I’m willing to sacrifice the same thing your father did.”

“I’m not gonna let you go on a suicide mission for me,” Chloe heard Clark say as she stopped just outside the door. “And the person who did this to you is still out there and I’m gonna find him!”

Chloe shook her head, hugging the wall. She’d been on Martha’s side of this conversation and knew Martha’s plight all too well. Maybe they didn’t have super powers or even super skills… When you could do something to make the world a better place, you did it -- without question.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you, too,” she heard before Clark broke the sound barrier in a rush of wind.

She sighed. Even with a life lived on Martha’s powerless side of things, she still knew where Clark was coming from. She stepped into the doorway. “He’s just worried about you, Mrs. Kent,” she said softly, moving into the room. “We all are. Oliver really wanted to come, too, but I was afraid he’d get recognized.” She moved in to hug her.

“Oh!” Martha winced.

“Sorry.” Chloe pulled away, annoyed that a hug could hurt, annoyed at the whole situation. “You know, who would have thought there would have been a day when heroes need this much protection?”

“It’s nothing new,” Martha breathed. “A long time ago, Jonathon and I realized Clark wasn’t just our blessing. Someday, we’d have to share him with the world. Protecting him suddenly became a much bigger responsibility,” she finished gravely.

Chloe nodded. She knew that feeling, having picked up that torch on a full-time bases when Martha left for Washington… up until she reappeared. “That explains why the Red Queen eventually entered the game.”

“I’ve been watching you, too,” Martha said, holding her gaze. “I know you took over where Waller left off, but why did you leave Clark’s side in the first place?”

Chloe almost hated the wariness in Martha’s eyes, as if she wasn’t a good girl anymore, as if Clark shouldn’t be allowed to hang around that Sullivan girl who played with the Suicide Squad. She wanted to tell Martha it was not that simple… that she hadn’t become Waller, that she only dealt with them to save Oliver, that she only aligned with them to stop their pyrotechnics, that she only worked with them to save everyone, and that she was finished with them and their questionable methods now. But there was time for that later. 

“Same reason you did,” she said, trying to simplify things a bit, remembering where she’d been just before she left. “It turns out there’s a very fine line between being protective and being over-protective.”

Martha turned away with a sad smile. “We both needed to leave for Clark to stand up on his own.” She met Chloe’s eyes again. “But maybe we stepped away too far.”

“Mrs. Kent, I never stopped watching his back.” Even when Flag’s methods conflicted with her ideals, she took advantage of them to save Oliver… and Clark. She couldn’t forget Clark. Clark had been her sole focus for so long and…

Are you ever going to stop worrying about what Clark needs?

She shook off Oliver’s words as Martha went on.

“Clark needs you as much as the world needs him. You’re part of this family, Chloe.”

Chloe sat down, feeling almost disloyal in the way something in her leapt at those words. She wanted to think she didn’t need to hear them, having reconnected with her father, even with her mother, but… “You know, growing up I never had much of a mother figure to look up to… until I met you.” Maybe it was unfair, knowing her mother couldn’t help her condition, but Martha Kent had become that figure, the one she wanted to guide her, approve of her. “You really taught me what it meant to take care of the people that I love.”

“And as Clark’s oldest friend, I can’t think of anyone better to watch over him.” Martha smiled.

Chloe was smiling when she left her, but somewhere between Met Gen and Watchtower, maybe a long walk in between, she dropped that smile. She was home now and she did want to be there for Clark, but there had to be a limit. 

Clark has gotten by these last months without you holding his hand. I think it’s something he needed. You’ve spent so many years anticipating his needs and trying to fill in all the blanks. He needs to learn to get by without you.

Oliver had said it. Hell, she had thought it, almost a year ago. She remembered that day, standing with Clark in a decimated Watchtower, telling him she needed something more than Watchtower and Clark… he told her he still needed her and she pressed that button and opened the airlock over the windows and smiled and told herself it would be enough… But it wasn’t. There had to be a limit. Martha was wrong. He might need her now and then, but Clark needed to get by without her. Oliver was right… and gone.

When she moved into Watchtower, he was nowhere to be found and she found it especially annoying that she had spent the entire elevator ride up practicing telling him how right he was only to find him gone. He went out. Even though she told him it was too risky he still…

Her phone rang. It wasn’t Oliver, of course. He knew better than to call for a good six or seven hours. It was Lois.

She picked up. “Yeah. Hi. I just saw Martha. She was…”

“I know. I know. She’s here now. She’s fine,” Lois cut in. “But I have actual urgent to-dos going on right now. I need you to meet me at our school.”

Chloe shook her head. “Our school?” 

Lois groaned loudly. “I went there, too, you know. Why does nobody even remember that? Fine! Your school. Smallville high! Meet me in archives. Now!”

November, 2011

Oliver kept nudging her. 

“Quit it!”

“Not till you admit it. I’m right. You and Batman… This is meeting-level stuff.”

“I admit nothing,” Chloe grunted. “And I will reveal nothing.”

“I’m not asking you to reveal anything. You know, we can leave you knowing Bats between me, Vic, and the cave walls, but…”

“Could you not call him Bats?” she hissed. “Besides, I can talk to him on my own and, by calling this stupid meeting, you have just wasted everyone’s time.”

“Not necessarily.” Oliver let out a low chuckle. “You know, we never did get to play out that locker room scenario in an actual locker room.”

Chloe scoffed loudly. “If you think there is any sex happening in the next twenty-four hours, you are dead wrong. In fact…”

“I’m just saying. We got side-tracked last night. But you kept going on about that nerdy journalist controlling the interview and…”

“Like you’d let me control anything,” she mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she sighed as Clark appeared in the doorway. She didn’t want to get into that, not with all the very real meeting happening any second now. “Never mind.”

Oliver frowned. “No. I heard you. What do you mean by…”

Bart skidded to a stop in front of the four folding tables, gathered into a messy square, then leapt to the center. “Okay. What gives? Didn’t we seriously just have a meeting yesterday?”

“That wasn’t a meeting. It was orientation for the newbies,” Victor said, strolling in, “something you barely listened to as you set off the alarms on the east…”

Bart shrugged. “Well, they’re silent alarms, so…”

“Silent to everyone but me,” Victor said, rubbing absently at his forehead as he moved to the console. “And stop whining. It’s not like you can’t be anywhere in less than a minute.” He waved Bart away from the center. “Everyone take a seat.”

Bart rushed to one, still frowning. “But we just had…”

“That wasn’t an official League meeting. This is our first in the new quarters and the new situation room.” Victor clapped his hands together almost eagerly and turned to the rest. “I know we’ve got a bare bones set-up for now. But the kids and I have been planning the layout. In about two weeks, we will have a round table with consoles in the center for whoever is running the meeting and…”

“Meaning you,” John Jones put in as he sat down.

“Well, it could be me, just due to familiarity with the technology and being stationed here on a regular basis, but…” Victor stopped, nodding to himself. “Well, we never did vote on who should be officially…”

“I think we’re all agreed it’s you,” Clark said, pulling up his chair. 

Victor put up a finger. “Well, we technically need five votes out of nine, making a majority win, for any official appointments of…”

Oliver raised a hand. “Everyone for Victor running Happy Harbor and all the obnoxious teenagers and all the boring meetings raise a hand,” Oliver said drolly. 

Clark, John, Zatanna, and Bart raised their hands with his. Even though she was here under protest and her vote wasn’t needed for the win, Chloe put up a hand as well. It wasn’t like there was anyone better suited to commune with all the new technology and Victor seemed to want this so much.

That was something made evident by the way Victor tried not to smile as he accessed the console. “Okay. Diana is on her way from Washington and Dinah is tied up in Coast City with A.C. Just local shark issues with the dolphin community. I think they have it covered. Considering, we have a majority here, I say we start and catch Diana up when she…”

“Yeah, yeah. All agree. I don’t think we need hands raised on this,” Oliver went on hurriedly, standing. “Now, since we’re in the situation room, here’s the situation. The Suicide Squad is attempting to recruit Batman and…”

Chloe slapped the table. “And he is not going to join them,” she had to point out.

“But that’s not all,” Oliver said over her. “Batman mentioned something about demons and…”

“Wait, wait…” Clark stood. “How is Batman mentioning anything?”

Oliver glanced at Chloe. “Well, he…”

“Seriously, every time we approach him, he barely says any…”

“That’s the thing. Maybe we weren’t the right ones to approach him.” Oliver started to pull Chloe from her chair.

She resisted adamantly.

“Demons?” Zatanna peered closely at Oliver. “You know, I can detect demonic energy.”

“Maybe we’ll need you to.” Oliver nodded. “On that note, we should probably keep an eye on…”

Chloe stood, then. “You know, that might have just been a miscommunication,” she said quickly. “All we know for sure is that The Suicide Squad has been in contact with Batman,” she finished, turning pleading eyes to Oliver. He, himself, said that they didn’t know if there was anything demonic going on or if it had anything to do with Rachel. And Zatanna was still not Rachel’s biggest fan. “I think one of us,” she went on carefully, “should talk to him about clarifying what he meant. I mean, it was all in texts and you know how texts give only the smallest…”

“Texts?” Clark shook his head. “Batman is texting us? You mean we have his cell…”

Chloe shook her head furiously. “No. No, we don’t. It was from a blocked number, but…”

Clark threw up his hands. “Then how do you know it was him?”

There was silence all around.

“Chloe knows Batman,” Oliver blurted out suddenly.

She turned to glare at him. “What about you, me, Vic, and the cave walls?”

“There’s no other way to explain this.” Oliver shrugged.

She turned to the others, all eyes on her, and sank back in her chair.

It was going to be a long day.

January 26th, 2011

It had been a long day, one that had Chloe hacking into every national news site she could. Lois wanted her to get to all of them, but she only got to most. But it had been enough to put together some footage for Clark. Even while cutting it all together while Lois paced behind her, she kept wondering if this could be it. Maybe Lois could learn a few tips and tricks, do some of the things she had. Because Oliver was right. She couldn’t keep holding Clark’s hand indefinitely.

By the time she moved into Watchtower to find Oliver sleeping, she was less reluctant to tell him he was right. But the slap she’d been saving up for the back of his head was pretty weak by then, too. And she barely protested when he pulled her in, kissing her like he hadn’t kept her worried sick all day. 

“Where were you?” she breathed, pulling away.

He barely opened his eyes. “Investigating with Clark, hanging out with Lionel and Alexander, just stuff.”

“What?” She leaned over him. 

He groaned and pulled her down, pulling the covers over the both of them. “Let’s just hope this vote goes well.”

He filled her in, though it didn’t relax either of them. And Clark filled her in even more when he called just after they started to drift off… the fire, the destruction of Luthor Manor, Lionel on the run, Alexander in the barn, and Tess promising she would handle him. And Lois didn’t fill her in much with her rants, but it did bring it home to Chloe that her night wasn’t over. She made her way back to The Planet to finish up, cutting together all the strange faces, knowing that this was something Clark needed, seeing all these testimonials, something t to give him hope so he could go on.

Yet she still wondered if this could be the end. 

Martha seemed to want Chloe to assure her she’d always be there for Clark. And she would be there when needed. But not indefinitely. She couldn’t get caught up again, paranoid again, so wrapped up in him to the exclusion of all else again. That led to bad places.

She stepped away from her work as she heard Clark and Lois coming down the stairs. She was too caught up in finishing her edits to hear the words. She didn’t need to. She knew the gist. Clark was whining and Lois was trying to buck him up, like Chloe used to. Maybe that could be up to Lois alone now. Maybe Clark would listen to Lois as he’d only ever brushed Chloe off. 

Chloe was done after this… she hoped.

She stood as their voices grew closer, running a hand over her old desk, thinking of that green girl with dreams and wondering if this older, wiser version could dream at all...

“…and after this vote, I’ll be an outlaw forever,” Clark said as they moved into the bullpen, sunny and optimistic as ever.

”Hey.” Chloe pasted on a smile, unfazed. “You might want to take a look at this…”

November, 2011

“Were you seriously never going to tell us this?” Clark demanded.

Bart was grinning widely. “You know Batman?”

Clark stood. “Do you know how hard we’ve been working to recruit…”

“Yes, I do! Because he hasn’t let me hear the end of it.” Chloe massaged her temples.

“Apparently, the two of them talk a lot,” Oliver put in.

Chloe stood and slapped his arm. “You weren’t going to tell them this part,” Chloe hissed at Oliver. “Because it wasn’t anyone’s business,” she said to the rest loudly.

“Babe, this part is pretty much the reason we’re meeting. He texted you about The Squad. There’s no other way to explain it. Besides, Vic already knows and it’s not like Jones can’t read your every thought.”

Jones lifted a hand. “You know, just because I candoesn’t mean I do or will. I do have ethical boundaries.”

“I’m making a point, here.” Oliver waved him off. “Anyway, people know.” He turned to the others. “Chloe’s known Batman since her time away. And she trained with him and he texts her and…”

“No! You weren’t supposed to tell them that part,” Chloe said through clenched teeth. 

Oliver turned to her. “And you promised to love, honor and be honest with me and we all know how that turned out!”

“I thought it was ‘obey’,” Bart cut in, looking around.

Zatanna snorted. “Maybe fifty years ago. Seriously, update your ideas, Bart!”

“Like she’d ever obey.” Oliver chuckled.

“How do you guys even remember your wedding vows?” Clark shook his head. “I still don’t remember anything about that night.” He turned to Zatanna. “Thanks a lot, by the way.”

“Again with this?” Zatanna slapped the table. “Call me crazy, but since you all had fun, for a change…”

”Not that wedding. The legal one,” Oliver cut in, still staring hard at Chloe. “Doesn’t matter. The point is that, whoever Batman is, he needs to know we’re not part of the Suicide Squad and we need to know what they’ve told him.”

Clark stood. “I agree.” He turned to Chloe. “Seriously? You know Batman? For how long have you hidden…”

“Fine! I know Batman!” Chloe threw up her hands and turned to the others. “I know how to contact him and he knows how to contact me. But that doesn’t mean I have some kind of magical influence over him. He’s not interested in joining us… yet.”

Clark sat back down. “So you think he might, in the future…”

“Not if you guys don’t stop haranguing him! Trust me. He doesn’t respond to pestering and… and…” She turned to Oliver and Victor again. “Listen, I get that he needs to know we’re not with The Squad! But, if you give me some space and time, I can talk to him on my own. We didn’t need to meet about this!”

Clark stood again. “Yes, we do. This is 2009 all over again, Chloe. You can’t just decide what’s best for…”

“No,” Chloe said hotly. “Don’t you compare this to then! I happened to meet B… Batman in my time away, but he trusted me to keep our time together secret and I have! And I have done that for every single one of you in my own way! So don’t you dare tell me that I owe him anything less just because you want him on your team!”

They were silent at that, still even. 

They only moved when Diana whooshed into the room. “So sorry I’m late,” she droned, dusting herself off. “You know, I was on my way, but then this tour bus almost ran into a rock quarry and…”

“No, it’s fine,” Victor said, waving her off. “Saving people comes first.”

Clark speared Chloe with a glance. “Which is exactly why we need a larger team of…”

“Just stop it,” Chloe snapped. “You know I’m right.”

Diana stared at them as she warily took a seat. “Wow. Kind of tense in here. What did I miss?”

Victor shook his head. “Nothing much. Chloe was just telling us about her little friend in Gotham.”

“Oh, Rachel?” Diana pulled off her boot and shook out several rocks. “I think she’s sweet. Little stand-offish, but…”

Clark rolled his eyes. “No, the other one. The one she never talks about, apparently.” 

“Is this about the one who pays your expenses?” Diana tossed Chloe a smile. “Bruce, right?”

Chloe just stared at her.

Diana stared back. “What?”

[i]January 27th, 2011[/b]

When Chloe finally crawled into bed with Oliver, sleeping with a phone curled in his fist, this time to stay, she wondered if this was it. She thought of Clark’s face, watching those other earnest, happy faces on the monitor, all believing in him, all telling him how much he meant to them. She wanted him to feel good. Hell, she felt good, knowing she had a small part in his work all these years. Yet, on a selfish level, she wondered if that feeling would come, that “mission accomplished” feeling that told her she could be free to figure out where she fit into this future, if she even had one. But it wasn’t there, not even now.

Fate’s Helmet was a fickle mistress and she started to wonder if the gigantic question mark that was her purpose in all this would ever be resolved. Would this be the rest of her life? Waiting for some pull, some vision, some dream that reminded her, once again, she was just a cog in the works of something greater than her? When would she be done?

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe when the VRA was voted down. It just had to be voted down.

And it was.

The celebration at the Kent Farm was small, but earnest. Chloe rejoiced as much as anyone, yet with a selfish note of annoyance. Something was still nagging at her, something that told her there was something more to do.

With every move she made, she waited for that moment of “mission accomplished.”

It didn’t come when she interrupted Clark and Martha and suggested Martha make her speech this morning with Oliver, the only “out” hero, by her side.

It didn’t come when Clark took her aside and asked her to help him in confronting Lionel at Luthorcorp “just to make sure Lionel knows we have eyes everywhere…”

But she half-wondered, when speaking to Lionel himself, if it should come after that. Confronting Lionel Luthor, or at least some version of him, had long been on her wish list. After all the things Lionel, before his sudden conversion to the gospel of Jor-El, had done to her personally. Even if this wasn’t the Lionel she knew, she couldn’t resist just a moment power over him. The moment had been… interesting.

“Hello, Lionel,” she said calmly.

“And, uh, who might you be?”

It did annoy her, that after all he’d done to her, he didn’t know her. There was this strange part of her that thought, in this other world, that things had been the same, that she had been an adversary to him as surely as he’d been to her before things changed. It irked her, the idea that she’d been so unimportant there and it even made her madly wonder if, in the end, all she did here wouldn’t matter. Then again, maybe he wanted her to feel that, every bit of it.

So she didn’t let her annoyance show. She just smiled tightly. “Oh, so you haven’t quite figured out who everyone on this side if the mirror is, have you?”

He only chuckled. She knew that that laugh from earlier dealings with him, before his “conversion.” It was a Luthor move, through and through. It was meant to be dismissive, but it was a stall and one she didn’t have time for.

“Over here, I protect Clark,” she went on. “But I’m not the one stopping you today.”

He was still smiling. “And that would be…”

“Lionel?”

She switched off as Clark appeared behind Lionel, as Lionel’s smile faltered.

That was all she was here to do. Just a little smoke-and-mirrors.

Yet it wasn’t all she had to do. Or she’d feel done. There was something else. Much like with all the events since putting on Fate’s helmet, she knew it would come to her when it was time. But, damn it all, she still hated waiting.

The doors hissed opened behind her and Oliver strolled in, pulling off his tie from his appearance with Martha. “You know, that’s the one thing I seriously liked about being a wanted man. No damned ties!”

She caught it before it hit the floor and looped it around his neck. He was the one thing that could make the wait worthwhile. “I kind of like you all corporate. More fun to mess you up.” She grinned and leaned up to meet his lips.

“Hmm.” He kissed her back enthusiastically. “Is this a role play thing?”

“Maybe.” She trailed kissed along his jawline. “Or maybe I’m just happy you’re not incognito.”

“That a hint? Maybe with me not being a wanted man, we could get out. Eat at an actual table with real plates or…”

She giggled and met his lips again. “I don’t know.” She looped her arms around his neck and leaned back. “Have we ever survived a real night out?”

“Sure, we did. We…” He frowned. “We kind of do a lot of take-out, don’t we? There was the inn.”

“With the banshee?” 

“Well, when you got back from… wherever.” He pursed his lips. “You know you never did tell me exactly…”

“We took our food to go that night,” she said quickly, “with you still on the lam.”

“Have we seriously never had a date night?” He bit his lip, then seemed to think better of it and bit hers. “Okay, how about tonight, we…”

There was a loud buzz from his pocket.

Chloe sighed. “I’d ask if that means you’re happy to see me, but…”

“I’ve had it on alert with the police scanner with Watchtower out of commission.” He groaned and fished it out. “It might be nothing.”

“So that’s how you’ve been…”

“You know, once watchtower is back up, we can sort through and figure out what’s what.” He frowned at the screen. “This is a definite what. Got a jewelry store on tenth.” He dropped a kiss on her nose and pulled away. “I’m sorry. I’ll be back before…”

“No. It’s fine. I’m going to have to think about unpacking Watchtower for assists.”

She watched him go. 

Yet, when she put a hand on the plastic covering the main console, she stopped. She was still waiting for that damned, elusive, “mission accomplished” feeling. 

She called Clark, asked if he was done with that other Lionel. She called Lois, wondering if having her there would merit some passing of the torch. 

She stood there with the both of them, pushed that button, let that sunlight fill the room just like last year and…

Just like last year, it didn’t have the answers she wanted it to. It left her with that same feeling. Clark had said, back then, that this place would serve future generations. That should translate to it being full of possibilities, exciting even. Yet it just felt like an inescapable tower.

November, 2011

It was inevitable. They were all putting it together now and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She could only watch in growing horror.

It didn’t matter how tightly she zipped her lip now. She’d said enough before this to Diana. 

Bruce takes care of my expenses.

It didn’t even matter that it was under the influence of that damned lasso of hers. It was enough for them to start with.

“I am so sorry,” Diana said in her ear.

“It’s fine,” Chloe droned, unable to stop it now.

“So we need a Bruce in Gotham,” Victor was saying as the others crowded around the console. He turned to John Jones. “Can’t you just…”

“No.” John stepped away from. “I recuse myself from all of this.”

“I had no idea,” Diana was saying, “that your other friends and your… other friends weren’t…” She shook her head. “I mean, I am new here!”

“It’s my own fault,” Chloe droned.

“I’ve got one hundred and fifty Bruces in the Gotham tri-city area,” Victor announced.

Diana sighed. “I didn’t know it was such a secret or I’d have known to…”

“I never told you it was a secret,” Chloe said dully. “Apparently I’m not as good at keeping secrets as I…”

“Wait a sec,” Clark said loudly. “Chloe told me about this wondrous woman…” He turned and gestured vaguely at Diana. “But she also mentioned this billionaire with high-tech toys!”

Chloe’s eyes widened. No. She was definitely not much good at keeping secrets anymore, not with all the info she’d dropped along the way. Any minute now, they’d…

Clark frowned. “But that could be a different…”

“Hey!” Oliver turned to her. “Billionaire with high tech toys... So you told Clark about him and not me?”

“I didn't exactly tell Clark about him,” she said miserably, then sat back to mutter. “But, apparently, I said enough.”

“That has to narrow it down.” Zatanna nudged Victor. “How many billionaires are in Gotham?”

Bart snorted. “How many exist, period?”

Chloe groaned and tried to slink lower in her chair. 

Oliver stared at her shrewdly before facing the others. “Stop searching. There’s only one man in Gotham with the budget for this.” He turned back to Chloe. “It’s Bruce Wayne, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

You might have noticed that I included that deleted Chloe/Lionel2 scene from Beacon. Had to. Gah! I miss Chloe interacting with Luthors.