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thejusticelounge2013-02-08 08:51 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-02-08 08:51 am
Entry tags:
the left coast
MESSAGE (ENCRYPTED)
Katiebird, when you meet me in my Coast bunker(coordinates attached, secret password is “collywobble”) remind me to tell you about what I’ve been working on wrt the ol’ Queen Tower.
Love, O
MESSAGE (encrypted):
collywobble? interesting choice, Ollie, though way better than ‘speak friend and enter’…god, that was so obvious, Tolkien.
anyway, I’ll be there by six, will bring pad thai, seeing as I have to drive like a normal person.
wrt Queen Tower: by working on, you don’t just mean the soundproofing of your office, I’m assuming.
love,
ks xx
The mention of pad thai got Ollie’s stomach grumbling — he hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, or that he’d missed eating lunch somewhere among catching up on the exploits and rantings of Glorious Gordon Godfrey, reviewing the proposed test filtration installments for his company’s clean energy, air, and water initiatives, and filing progress reports on Guy’s current condition.
Christmas was always a busy time in Ollie Queen’s world.
Most years that was self-imposed, a way to distract himself, but this year had brought discord from outside the League in the form of a hate-mongering talking head, as well as distress from inside with a bout of particularly vicious Lantern amnesia. He probably wouldn’t have to work to hard to find things to do, especially since at least one of those things necessitated meeting off-Tower.
Coast City was on the rise again, that was true. But that was mostly in neighbourhoods that had been established before the city was levelled, neighbourhoods tight to the rapidly restored Midtown core. The further out you got, the sparser the reconstruction. Back in the day, even the industrial areas out in Vallejo were bustling, but now that there were no companies manufacturing in The City Without Fear, it was a wasteland. And an abandoned furniture refinishing warehouse was the perfect place for Ollie to set up a satellite HQ if he wanted to keep his vigilante doings out of his Star City on the bay … and out of his home.
Kate would have been lying if she said things weren’t rough—admittedly, they weren’t rough with regards to her personal life, not really, and at least she wasn’t in the middle of a hopelessly poor decision and spy mission gone to hell. But emotionally, what had happened to Guy had thrown everybody, regardless of how they felt about it.
But not only that, there was this weird shit with the right-wingers, far worse than anything she’d faced in Sacramento or DC from the actual government. This had gone past Fox News raving and Daily Kos counter-raving in return, reeked of something considerably more sinister. And when it came to radicals, it was always smart to assume the worst; people had died for not paying attention.
Not on Kate’s watch. Besides, somehow it felt like this was all a little connected, though maybe she was just overly paranoid. (Dealing with the Joker meant she’d never be the same again.)
She made good time in her rental, picked up the promised Thai in the joint in the center of town that Kyle had recommended a while back, then set the GPS and drove to the coordinates she’d been given. Despite being in the boonies, somewhere that’d get Kate’s hackles up if it weren’t Coast City, it took three retina scans, a show tune, and the password to get into the building.
As she approached the hum of screens and the pensive silhouette of Ollie Queen, she shook the paper bag a little. “You know, one would think the delivery girl would get a slightly warmer reception. Or at least a tip,” she noted, wryly, as she set the back down on a countertop and perched alongside it.
Ollie’d been peripherally aware of Kate coming in, still in a brown study over not only the current complications they’d met to discuss but also the phase of his Queen Tower refit that he needed to tell her about, but it took her quiet, teasing voice to break him out of it and refocus.
Coming over to her, he pressed his fingertips lightly to the counter on either side of her hips, leaning in to give her a gentle kiss on the mouth. “How’s that for a tip?” Ollie asked, pushing his nose alongside hers for a moment. He was starting to crave these tiny points of interaction between the two of them more and more, soft sweet affectionate stitches securing them ever closer. “Or the warm reception, for that matter.”
He got a couple of bowls and chopsticks and forks from the food prep area and came back to Kate, who had busied herself tearing open the brown paper takeout bag and opening the container of pad thai. “At the risk of ruining our meal,” he said, watching her dole noodles between the bowls, “I got caught up on Godfrey’s media machine over the last couple of days. You’re absolutely right, Kate — this doesn’t seem like your regular kind of anti-cape Minuteman far-right gasbag. I can’t tell if he’s got an actual plan of cohesive action under all his rhetoric and he’s waiting for just the right moment, maybe just the right support.”
Accepting his full bowl from her, Ollie picked up a clump of rice noodles with his chopsticks, chewing them thoughtfully. “Orrrr … he’s making it all up as he goes along, escalating off *our* responses to him instead of announcing initiatives of his own. Which would make it easy to spin all of his moves as countering ours, as defence rather than attack. With him as the little guy and the League as the club of bullies.” Ollie grimaced. “He’d have to have secured some seriously powerful backing to be able to indulge in a tactic as scattershot as that, hey?”
“Mm, not bad. I sort of expected at least a fiver, all things considered,” Kate replied, voice low and teasing as Ollie brushed his lips against hers, lingered near her for a moment. She smiled slowly, her fingertips impulsively catching his arm for a second, trailing against his shirt and muscle underneath. The need to do it hit her almost as hard as arousal then eased as they pulled away, but the smell of the carryout was making her hungry. All she’d had on the road was a half of an Americano and a bagel.
She opened the paper takeout boxes and dished up the noodles before perching on a stool and breaking apart a pair of chopsticks. Raising an eyebrow, she doused her bowl with a packet of sriracha and considered the situation. “I’m just glad you agree,” she said. “It’s just so damn close to the kind of raving that gets militias raised and bombs sent by mail, but organized. Damon says he smells big money behind it—”
Pausing, she pointed her chopsticks in Ollie’s direction as he mentioned Godfrey’s backing. “Either way, he’s got to have some cash behind him and some ammunition, outside the usual rightwingers in Congress, a PAC at the very least, some Daddy Warbucks or criminal backer at the worst. His threats are just a little too specific, more than the ‘some day our non-existent nostalgic retro family values day will come’ kind of rage you usually get from the far right. My guess is he’s trying to spur us into provocative action, then use that as the opportunity for his merry band to put us down…and I don’t know what that merry band might have, which is the scary part. With what’s happened lately, anything’s goddamn possible.”
Kate let out a frustrated huff from her nostrils, then settled in to the process of pad thai consumption. Righteous rage or not, she’d be no good if she didn’t eat.
“If you ask me — and based on the way the League itself is funded — I’d say he’s got billionaire villain-types backing him.” Ollie rustled in the bag for a moment, taking out the container of extra chopped peanuts with a kiss to Kate’s temple for remembering to get them for him. He sprinkled them liberally over his pad thai, frowning at the thought of a secret backer for Godfrey. “From all the pro-America rhetoric, my first guess would be somebody homegrown, like Lex Luthor, but when it comes to that kind of money? Who really knows. I’m sure Godfrey could come up with some tortured justification for using foreign funds if he was pressed for one.”
Ollie swirled his last bit of noodles around in the bowl. “Anyhow, keep Damon working on finding out where the money’s coming from. You and I’ll concentrate on sniffing out what sort of connections Godfrey has when it comes to Capitol Hill. Did you see what he posted on his Twitter the other day?” Ollie abandoned his empty bowl, pulling up Godfrey’s Twitter feed on one of the big, humming screens and pointing. “There, December 12th, he mentions a ‘Registration Act’. That’s more concrete than his raving about Diana’s choice in bustiers.”
Another thought occurred to Ollie as he scanned the display, catching sight of the pictures on the side. “And that reminds me — we need to issue a gag order to the League when it comes to interacting with this dipshit. Between Billy and Dick, he worked himself up into a helluva lather, and we don’t look any better at the end of it, considering Godfrey’s the one controlling the message.”
“Definitely. Though they’d have to be either the ironic type or the type that don’t mind playing games from the shadows, which narrows down the list considerably.” Kate twirled some noodles around her chopsticks, making a faintly irritated noise when they wouldn’t stay curled, then tried again. “I think the flag-waving is just a means to an end, really. That kind of person is the perfect target audience, so who knows if Godfrey actually believed it initially and or has bought into the concept in the long run?”
She got up and got them both some green tea, leaning against the counter as the water boiled and squinting at the screen. “That scares the shit out of me. Registration…hell, Ramsey watches X-Men, I know how that played out in fiction for metas. And the real life precedents for that kind of concept are far uglier. He must have some kind of support, but I don’t get the feeling it’s quite having Congressional leaders in his pocket. Maybe in the pocket of whomever’s backing him, seeing as even the Eden Corps found it easy enough to buy a few.”
Maybe the EC wasn’t the best thing to mention, Kate noted to herself, and turned back to brew the tea. She did keep talking, though, as it would be all right. It had to be, because that was goddamn over and done with. “Gag order is easier said than done,” she pointed out, coming back over to Ollie with two mugs. She handed him one that looked vaguely like a Christmas sweater and kept the one that was covered with chalkboard paint. “There’s a reason we don’t have a leader, and part of that is because no one would listen to any kind of directive. Hell, Dick said it was a coping mechanism and I couldn’t bring myself to stop him…even though I should have.”
“It’s true. Whether he believes in it or not, Godfrey’s not missing a step when it comes to choosing the most inflammatory premises for his hoo-haw. God, country, freedom and the little guy — heady stuff, and hard to argue against if you don’t wanna rely on broad strokes and jingoistic hyperbole.” Ollie accepted the warm mug of tea gratefully, letting the steam ease some of the cold from the tip of his nose as he waited for it to cool down enough to sip.
“As for the gag order — they’re a headstrong bunch, yeah, but I think if you or I gave the directive we’d get results. We may not have a formal leader, but there’s certain authorities that come along with being *us*, Manhunter and Green Arrow, the ones who deal with all of the inspection by the government and focus from the media. We could take it to Committee if there’s pushback and we need a hard decision, but once we lay out the reasons for shutting up when it comes to GGG Media, I doubt we’ll get any protests.”
Ollie took a few gulps of his tea, rolling the green acrid taste around his mouth as he mulled over the situation. “I hope to god the Eden Corps isn’t involved in this yet again,” he muttered direly. “Although their methods seem more along the lines of terrorism and cryptic threats, not open campaigns to drum up public and political support against us. As lulu as it sounds, I’d be happier to know that Godfrey’s getting support from some other avenue than those yahoos again.”
Sighing, Ollie noticed that Kate had the chalkboard mug and wandered over to his desk to rummage around for a moment, returning to stand next to her. “I got more to show you, anyhow, if you wanna take a look before we start making gameplans on how to deal with Godfrey,” he said, drawing a fat, slightly squashed heart on her mug in yellow chalk.
“No kidding. That’s why we suffered through enough years of that bullshit in the White House,” said Kate, slurping her tea even though it was a little too hot—not quite so hot it’d burn her tastebuds though, fortunately. “It takes a lot of skill to fight it, and frankly it’s probably past my PR ability, meager as it is. I’d say we should hire a consultant but it’s probably too late for that end of things—and why the hell is no cape type ever a PR director in their civilian day life?”
She laughed a little as she tried to picture it, then sobered. “Maybe we could. I’m having one of those delightful moments of imposter syndrome, but if you think it’d work, then yeah, it needs to get put into place sooner rather than later—though Godfrey will likely notice we’re not rising to the bait and use that too. He’s that good or knows someone who is. And that someone’s not the Eden Corps, that’s not really a workable solution for either party, you’re right.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what was in his desk that he needed, but Kate still smiled softly anyway when Ollie drew a heart on her coffee mug, because it was that damn adorable. She ran a fingertip over the lines, blurring them just a little and leaving a trace of chalk on her finger so she could smudge a little on Ollie’s cheek as she leaned in to kiss him. “More to show me that’s not related to this?” she asked, easing back to finish her tea. “Okay, what’s going on that you’ve holed up here to do it?”
Ollie’s eyes lit up with excitement and he clasped Kate’s wrist, towing her to the screen display and flicking it on. The projections sprang up obediently, and Ollie swirled a few folders around before opening what he wanted. He’d gotten better at this since that time in the control room when Kate had to do it for him, but he was still slow enough that it almost made her want to take over.
“Ahhh, here we go,” he crowed finally, as a familiar building shimmered over multiple screens to loom over them. “You recognize Queen Tower, of course — can’t miss it in the Star City skyline, since unfortunately they had the prongs built when I wasn’t in control of the company and before we got the construction laws passed to preserve the city’s view corridors —” Ollie could see Kate’s eyebrow slowly raising in an “i can recite this rant along with you by this point, Oliver, move on” kind of way, so he harrumphed and tapped the bottom screen to bring up another set of images, this time schematics.
“After all the attacks on the Watchtower that necessitated us turning Warriors’ into an impromptu meeting place,” he explained, “I figured we needed somewhere else planetside. Somewhere better equipped to function as a JLA base. We’ve had them before, and I think it’s prudent to have one again. Therefore the core of Queen Tower, the original structure—” he ran his finger along the segment where the twinned towers joined, “—has been refitted and redesigned with us in mind.”
He grinned at Kate, snagging two fingers into the waistband of her pants. “Whaddyou think? We’ll have a dedicated satellite, zeta tube access, a helipad, everything you need for an Earth base. No docking bays for Javelins, or fancy arboretums, but it’s not intended for spaceships and space plants anyhow.”
Kate let herself be tugged over to the screens, then waited, more than a little antsy, as Ollie tried to pull stuff up on the display. Seriously, it was as if he knew how it worked on an intellectual level but couldn’t quite get there intuitively. She twitched a little and was about to offer to help, sardonically, when he finally made it work.
Ollie started his spiel, and she settled back onto a stool, arms crossed, appraising the situation. The rambling about Queen Tower meant she gently gestured for him to get on to his point, because she doubted he was this excited over a lecture she’d heard half a dozen times before. Instead, his expression was almost like that of a puppy who’d brought a stick home, e.g. oh boy Kate isn’t this the most amazing stick you have ever seen and smell it it smells so fantastic and funky and oh wow there’s no other stick gonna be this awesome ever.
Actually, the mental image of that made her smile to herself a little, until she actually caught up with what he was saying. Her brow furrowed and she held up a finger to stop him a second. “Okay, okay. Hold up.”
Deep down, Kate was trying to parse out her reaction and having serious difficulty with it. Part of the problem was fear that the League was never, ever, ever going to go along with this, decent idea or not—that they’d all descend into bitching about Ollie presuming and taking too much initiative. Part of it was concern (it’d make Star City a target, it’d be next to impossible to defend without throwing even more money at it than QI had). And part of it was…
“Ollie, how long exactly have you been working on this?” she asked, a wary and unpleasant sensation growing in her mind, no matter how much she tried to tell herself to be a better person than that.
That brought him up short. Ollie gaped at Kate for a moment, the significance of what she was asking slicing through all the other blather in his forebrain to hit him dead centre. For a frantic, horrified moment he thought of claiming that he’d dreamed it all up on the fly and had it built by genius speedsters, but fortunately he got himself under control quickly enough to kibosh that.
“Um,” he said, letting his fingers slip out from her jeans, although he drew them down the side of her hip in what he hoped was a placating manner. “A little while. Well, I had the idea of an HQ here since, uh, the black mamba snake bit Mia, but it wasn’t a fully fleshed-out kind of thing, and then as attacks and League compromises kept escalating, I sort of … the idea shifted, is all, kinda mushroom clouded into something more expansive, and I thought I should keep it quiet because jeez, this is a scale even I’m not used to working at, Kate, and with all the security leaks and so forth it seemed like ….”
Ollie trailed off, twisting his mouth. “It’s been on the go for a while. Since before I found out you were undercover with the EC. But it’s not —” he gestured wildly, fingers spinning in the air, “—it’s not the *same*! This is just a *project* that happened to come to fruition! It’s not the same.”
Even *he* didn’t sound convinced to his own ears. “I’m sorry,” Ollie said, dragging his fingertips along the front of Kate’s thigh. “I should’ve told you.”
Yeah, definitely not a better person than that. Though not easily placated by caresses and faintly wibbling (Ollie’s mustache twitched a little as he wibbled, which was both adorable and irritating) expressions, at least, Kate decided, which did make a little bit of a difference.
She settled her gaze on him, didn’t let him escape it, but didn’t say anything. As many people did when faced with a Kate Spencer cross-examination, Ollie ended up giving himself just enough rope to hang, anyway. The rambling would have been fine, a combination of the usual Ollie Queen mile-a-minute thought process combined with desperate scramble to back out of a fuckup, and some of his reasoning was valid. But then he had to go and say ‘it’s not the same’.
This, though true, was probably not the best way to go about saying as much.
Kate’s eyes narrowed further, even as Ollie recognized he’d probably screwed up more than he’d thought and then really apologetically wibbled at her in earnest. “No, it’s not the same, action-wise,” she said, coolly, not taking the whole petting her leg thing into account at all in the pro side. “And I can understand your motivation, and I do think it’s probably a decent idea. But I have to say, Oliver, it stings just a little bit to have been dragged over the coals and now be held to a higher standard with regards to secret projects. This might take me a minute.”
There was an … *off* note in Kate’s voice that made Ollie swallow, hard, catch her hands up in his. “You’re right,” he said, contritely. He *did* feel bad about it on a level of basic integrity, creating this double standard, but knowing he’d hurt her in the process was worse. ”You have every right to be upset with me. And I don’t mean this as a way to try and wriggle out of it, but…”
Ollie took a deep breath, looking around at the display screens again, all the architectural and technological ins and outs of the JLA segment of Queen Tower. “But all of this,” he said, “you’re my partner in it. I’ll never keep any of it from you again, Kate. Even if—” he clutched her hands a little tighter, “—even if my enormous ego kicks in as a response to traumatic situations, and I feel like I need to do something big and impressive and all by myself in order to feel like I’m in control of things again.” Ollie blinked, thinking that over. “You’re right,” he said, a bit wondrously. “That’s not the best way to deal with things. And in fact, I don’t *want* to use that coping mechanism anymore, not now that I have you to share everything with!”
It might have been too early yet in the apology process for kissing, but Ollie was so transported by this realization that he leaned in and kissed Kate before he considered that.
Kate couldn’t help herself—she laughed, laughed at the fact that Ollie had had a hell of a lightbulb moment of self-awareness in the process of apologizing. It wasn’t a mean laugh, either, more just surprise and recognition of the inherent truth of the statements. She laughed again, a brief huff through her nose, as he kissed her, but didn’t let him linger as long as he might have wanted to.
“Look,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Just…Ollie, you don’t have to tell me everything about some things, if you don’t feel you should or can. But a heads up, just general, ‘working on a project, it’s a surprise’ or ‘it’s a one man job’…that would have been better, all things considered. Apology accepted, as long as you actually put it into practice instead of just suddenly getting it about yourself but going on the same way.”
Leaning against him, Kate shifted to have a look at the screens, squinting just a little to make out the detail. “And let’s face it. You need me to help you figure out how to pitch this to the League, Oliver,” she noted, lips quirking in the combination of tease and honesty. “It’s going to have to be framed in a certain way, because I’m sure someone will whine about Star City as the location, and someone will complain about Queen money being so obvious in it…and god help us if Godfrey figures this out, we will be so ever-fucked.”
She paused and turned to him, wryly adding, “Yeah, maybe I can see why you kept it under wraps.”
“Ah-ah-ah, from now on the story is that *we* kept it under wraps. Can’t be my partner in this without taking some of the blame, even if it’s from before your involvement.” Ollie grinned cheekily, knowing he wasn’t quite out of the doghouse yet, but that Kate took his apology and subsequent resolution into account. “Seriously, though — I hear you. I’ll do my best to remember this next time, no matter how tempting it seems to retreat into old patterns. Hopefully by that point, keeping something from you won’t even seem like a viable option.”
Shifting back into discussion mode, he scratched the back of his neck as Kate noted the possible (okay, probable) objections that the League would have. “Yeah,” Ollie said. “It was a lot easier to sidestep that sort’ve thing when I was funding the League anonymously. Nobody complained about shit if there was a chance the money could be cut off at any moment. Augh!!” Ollie scrubbed his hand against the back of his head as if he could scratch away the doubts like fleas, then nudged Kate over to a control screen that had been blinking quietly and patiently away all this time.
“This is the best part,” he said, leaning in to kiss the tip of her ear as he stood next to her. “You should be the one to turn her on.” Kate looked up at him, and, trying to keep a rein on his voice, Ollie explained, “She’s our satellite. Every good base of operations needs an orbiter, and this is ours. She’s the Mongoose.”
“Oh, you owe me for this, Queen. Between the charity ball and this stunt,” Kate said, jokingly shaking a finger at him, though she did mean that he owed her. “I am gonna take you somewhere soundproof, then beat it out of your ass and enjoy every single second thereof, understood?” She looked at Ollie, firmly, until he managed to look suitably (if likely mockingly) chagrined, then carried on.
“This is going to take some thinking to phrase properly,” she mused, pursing her lips in thought as Ollie moved over to the screens, looking irrationally excited at what was a rather irritatingly blinking notification, now that she’d noticed it. “I think we should reframe it as a matter of resources, though without pushing your money in everyone’s faces…”
There was a pause in her thoughts as she turned to listen, and she couldn’t help herself but start to laugh a little bit at the name of the satellite. At the same time, though she’d hate to admit it, she was blushing and pleased, sheepishly cupping her hands around her mug. “You named the orbiter the Mongoose,” she said—well, duh, obviously he had. “Oh my god, you are such a dork, Oliver. Or a sap. Or, quite frankly, a sappy dork.” Kate still couldn’t disguise the spark of delight in her eyes, though, even if she’d been trying to do so.
“What do I do to it?” she said, gesturing to the screen. “To turn her on.”
“Well, I generally find that comments veering from ridiculous sentiment to unbridled lust do the trick,” Ollie chuckled, waiting for Kate to put down her mug momentarily and roll her eyes at him, although she was smiling, her cheeks flushed.
Her reaction made him even more excited about the whole thing and he drew a circle on the panel and tapped in a code (“We’ll have to come up with joint codes that we’ll both remember, once I get you online with the satellite and security systems,” he reminded himself), and a red button icon presented itself. There was a stylized mongoose symbol on it, and Ollie shrugged, too pleased with himself to be bashful about it. “Naomi Klein aside,” he said, “sometimes you really do need a good, recognizable logo on something.”
Looking up at the big display, Ollie clasped Kate’s unoccupied hand, knuckles brushing against the side of her thigh. “Go on,” he urged. The rest of it could wait for the moment. He just wanted to see *this*.
“Oh, you think you’re so damn impressive,” Kate said to Ollie, rolling her eyes at his quip, though admittedly it was a quip with some real truth to it. She set down her mug, though, and leaned against him, considering the screen as he did some gestures to it—they were a little more considered than his early ones, she noticed.
And laughed, blushing more, as he brought up the logo. “I cannot believe you, Oliver,” she said, swatting him in the bicep. “God, you paid a designer to come up with a goddamn mongoose logo icon thing, you big güero dork.” Even so, she was really ridiculously pleased, despite herself, and she couldn’t bring herself to tease him any more than that, all things considered. Considering that it was obvious, the reason why he’d done it, when it was entirely superfluous to the project, that he had been thinking of her.
It did soften her frustration at not being told, a little; though only a little.
“Here goes,” she said, and reached out, leaning against his hand, to touch the ridiculous red mongoosey button on the screen. Fortunately sirens did not go off and terrible noises didn’t occur, though other screens popped to life, one by one, in what was actually a pretty amazing show.
They watched in quiet awe as the Mongoose sprang into action, scattering her satellite images all across the screens in blues and greens and browns. The readouts informed them of all the pertinent basic info, place names and geolocations, temperatures and languages and so forth in a scrolling loop.
“You’re right,” Ollie told Kate as they stood in the shifting light of the screens. “We should stay away from making this about my money — the location aside — and more about necessity, keeping us all safer and more connected. And having you help me do that’ll go a long ways to getting the rest of the League to get on board, since I can be a little, ah, polarizing.”
“Just a little,” Kate teased, her fingernails scraping his palm lightly. Ollie growled at her, but he was too happy and enthused at the moment to commit much to even teasing her back. “And if Godfrey has something bigger planned, something to target us, having a backup HQ’ll be a goddamn *boon*. Especially since the idea of the Watchtower seems to stick in Godfrey’s craw … and being one of the non-space-breathing, non-space-flying contingent of the League? I can’t even say I completely blame him for finding that tin can Olympus unsettling.”
One of the screens chimed gently to indicate that it was changing its display, switching to an annotated slideshow of the major political and super-community figures of the nation that screen was currently set to. “Come on, admit it,” Ollie said, voice hushed and slightly strained as he tilted his head back to look up at the screens, take it all in. He squeezed Kate’s hand. “I’m a *little* impressive.”
It was stunning, really, and Kate and Ollie stood there for a moment to watch it before he said something—quietly, a little more hushed than usual, definitely. She was slightly rapt, herself, in the flood of information. Hell, they were kids of the television age, after all, so there was something else to blame for it.
“Polarizing as massive understatement,” she snorted softly, then slipped her thumb against Ollie’s wrist a little bit, reaching out with her free hand to drag up sub-windows and data boxes (though to be fair she wasn’t sure that the political figures of Ulaanbaatar were entirely relevant to the conversation, it was just so damn cool). “All right,” she then admitted, turning to glance up at Ollie a little. “You’re a little impressive.” Her eyes were shining, even as she said it, but she cleared her throat after a second and shifted gears.
“And you’re right. I wouldn’t put it past Godfrey and whatever his long game is to make targets out of everything obviously League. Keeping this on the massive DL is pretty critical to its usefulness.” Kate was getting the sense Ollie wasn’t quite done, though. Not by a long shot.
Kate’s praise (heartfelt, he knew, even if it *was* ootched out’ve her) set Ollie to beaming proudly, and he turned to hug her and indulge himself in kissing her hair for a few moments before getting back to business again.
“The actual Queen towers base’ll be even more comprehensive and functional for a large group like the League,” he assured her, gesturing expansively up at the screens and around them at the sufficient-but-cosy Coast City warehouse. “This, all this is just Arrow-stuff for my little family and loved associates—” another kiss to the crown of Kate’s smooth sleek head, “—and you’ll get to know all the bells and whistles in the big place soon enough, since we can start meeting there from now on to talk about Godfrey and other sensitive matters that’re best not discussed on the Tower. And there’s something that …” Ollie started pulling up the plans and figures of the QT base on the screens, but then he stopped and wrapped up the info on the screen, sending it scurrying off the side of the display like he was flicking a bug.
“Actually,” he said, “that can all wait until we’re actually there. Right now we might as well sort out this Godfrey mess and an approach so we can announce it to the League. A thorough tour and orientation for the QT base can wait that long.”
“Loved associates,” Kate said, though she figured she probably was family as well, to a certain extent. It was an odd place to be, in perfect honesty, though one she wouldn’t trade for the world. Universe, even. “Loved associates who enjoy being sneaky and singing showtunes to get access to the place. A nice touch, really, and it’d definitely put off any villainous attempts at sneaky entry…unless they’re fond of Chicago.”
She paused, though, at Ollie’s awkward segue, eyes narrowing as she tried to get a glimpse of what he’d sent off-screen. “Hold up,” she said, reaching out to put one hand over his forearm, firmly enough to let him know she meant business and wasn’t letting it slide. “If you’ve got something up your sleeve, or more than than one thing, I want to know about it, Oliver.”
Licking her lips, she reached forward with her free hand and pulled back a screen or two with her fingertips. “Give me the Reader’s Digest version and then we can get to work. I need to know.”
“You’re more family than associate by this point, my darling, but I *do* love having you work with me. Wouldn’t want to give one up for the other.” Ollie grinned at Kate. “No fun doing the press conference rag by myself, is it?”
He was ready to move on for now but Kate clearly was having none of it, stilling his hand and bringing back the schematics he’d put away. She was being very firm about this full disclosure thing, but all things considered, Ollie could see why. When he’d kept the entirety of this enormous project from her, when she’d kept her double agent work from him, when they’d promised each other that there would be no more big secrets. Or small ones, for that matter. Small ones could be just as devastating, in the long run.
“Fine, fine,” Ollie capitulated, making no move to stop Kate as she expanded out sub-directories and structural diagrams of Queen Tower. “Spoil all my surprises. Just don’t yawn when I’m actually showing you around the place because you’ve already found out all the bells and whistles.” He hovered a finger over one of the images. “See that central part of the building? The base of the prong, as it were? Well, I figured that even though this HQ is *meant* to be earthbound, there might come a time when it would be necessary to get the hell out of Star City and out of sight. So that section — and I know you’re sick of me blathering on about height regulations on Star City high rises, but it’s a boon here, Katie — that section can tilt out, detach from the rest of the building, and be flown as an independent aircraft.”
Ollie brushed two fingertips one after the other against the still image of the building, and it leaped into a 3-D projection of the midsection of QT doing just that. He gestured at the holographic construct. “Leaving only the prongs standing, they’re structurally sound enough to remain without the middle part. And the ship segment is fully armed, can be cloaked, and it’s self-sustaining for at least six months on clean — well, Qlean power.” Ollie’s voice quirked on the slightly whirly name of his own company’s energy initiative (it was very fiddly to pronounce, but important to him that his name be in there somehow). “It doesn’t have the capacity for space flight, and no bays for Javelins or anything like that, the really extravagant stuff that the Tower prioritizes. But the rest ain’t bad, huh?”
“Sometimes I think you like making me do the press circuit with you because it reminds you of us having unresolved sexual tension,” Kate pointed out. Idly, she wondered if there was fanfic of that, realized there probably was somewhere, then decided she really, really didn’t want to know. “You do realize you’re definitely Mulder to my Scully,” she added, seemingly out of nowhere, though it made sense in her head.
“And speaking of Mulder level of batshit…an aircraft. Seriously.” She stared at Ollie for a long moment, skeptically, until after a few seconds passed and she came to a conclusion. Let no one say she couldn’t read him like a book (not that he made it difficult). “You didn’t want to tell me because you wanted me to give you this slackjawed metaphorical and not classist yokel look along with everyone else, right? I mean, it’s absolutely fantastic and honestly useful, don’t misinterpret me there—” because at this point he was looking like a kicked puppy, “but just…where the hell did you get this idea?”
She paused again as she flicked through the schematics, longer this time, then slowly grinned up at him. “Oh my god, Oliver, have you been watching The Avengers again? The only person on the planet who saw those movies and was like hey, I’m a billionaire with an R&D department at my disposal, I can totally do better than Tony Stark and be ecologically friendly while assisting my own superhero initiative in their time of need!”
After a second, she quietly added, nudging him with her elbow, “Speaking of Avengers, I’m definitely Mrs. Peel to your Steed. You’d rock the sword umbrella and bowler.”
“So you’re both Emma Peel *and* Scully?” Ollie asked, amused. Kate was switching topics faster than even their usual admittedly twisty-turny courses of conversation, which Ollie guessed was an indication that either her mind was processing all of this more rapidly than her voice could keep up, or she was just a leetle bit thrown off-balance by everything he was showing her. Either way, it wasn’t a reaction Ollie objected to. Wasn’t every day he could manage to impress this woman.
“Not that I mind your casting, because it puts you in a catsuit,” he said, catching her elbow and pulling her close. “And no, I wasn’t gonna do the big reveal with you among the slack-jawed crowed, thankyew very much. I wanted to save it for while we were *there*, in the building, because it would give the whole thing a better sense of, oh, I dunno…” Ollie gestured around widely with his free arm, raising his voice so it echoed. “Vastness! Importance! Rather than showing you on a piddly little holographic display in a musty old Coast City re-kerjiggered warehouse.” He rubbed his hand briskly just above her hip, up and down where she curved in at the waist. “It had more to do with my sense of dramatics, darling, than numbering you among the throngs of onlookers.”
He paused there to claim a kiss, and then leaned back, raising an eyebrow. “And I assure you that Tony Stark in the movies is at *least* thirty-five percent based on yours truly, Kate. Who manages to get shit done without the benefit of an arc reactor *or* genius-level intelligence.” Ollie kissed her again. “He has really great cars, though.”
Maybe Kate was a little off-kilter, it was true, but she managed to persevere regardless. Her aplomb was barely…unaplombed, and she sipped the last cool dregs of her tea from her mug as she looked back at Ollie. “No, I said, I’m Peel to your Steed and you’re Mulder to my Scully,” she said, “get it right the first time…it’s not anything without the context. Or without you.”
This was sappy by Kate standards, so she blushed a little and cleared her throat, turning back to schematics. “And I enjoy thwarting your attempts at melodrama, cielo, you know that. Seriously, it’s cool, and it’s impressive even without being there and gawping up at it, I promise. It’s a little too cool and perhaps man’s reach outwith his grasp or whatever the Browning is, but it’s worth it, I swear.” She kissed him back in response to his own, nipping his lower lip.
Then, after a second, she said, “Come on, you totally need to get some great cars like Tony Stark. Is the only reason you haven’t because Mia would insist on driving them? I bet it is. You don’t need the arc reactor to be amazing, though, not in my book…”
Leaning up, she murmured in his ear, “And you’re clever enough by half already, Mr. Queen. Shall we go fuck with some neocons?”
Kate’s warm-breathed whispering in his ear wasn’t anything new, her suggestion that they screw with right-wingers not your traditional romance, but still Ollie couldn’t keep a thrilled shiver from running through him. “You know me so well,” he purred, “my serpentining beauty. And before I forget to say it —” he wrapped his arms around Kate’s waist, bringing them close, “—none of this would mean anything without you, either. I want our contexts to always include each other, always.” He brushed his nose against her forehead. “Whether it’s Mulder and Scully or Manhunter and Green Arrow or Kate and Ollie. Always.”
One more kiss and Ollie added, “Or Tony and Pepper, since you admire his cars so much. Roy took Mia out in one of mine and gave her a taste for it, although saints be praised she still likes her bike most of all. But anyhow, what’s a car in the long run? I once blew up the Arrowcar just to prove a point, and it was a tricked-out beauty of a classic yellow Jag like you wouldn’t believe.”
He wouldn’t have minded running on like this for a while longer, pop culture and motor vehicle nonsense, but as always, responsibilities were calling. Clearing the workscreens of Queen Tower-related displays, Ollie said, “All right, down to the business of dealing with Godfrey. We need a gag order that we’ll put into place in the new year, how’s that? I don’t think anybody’ll be rushing to talk to him over the holidays….”
“You know they will,” Kate replied, voice just as low and purring in his ear. She could feel Ollie shiver, and she smiled to herself, even as his tone of voice sent white heat running through her as well. Right, there was plenty of time for that later, wasn’t there? They could find some time to dedicate the site a little more intimately once some groundwork got laid first and foremost.
Got laid, heh.
She cleared her throat and settled back into her seat, sitting up a little more attentively rather than sprawling against him. “Right. I’ll start drafting something up for that, which is a good start. We really, really don’t need anything he can use against us in the public eye, and hopefully that’s obvious enough that it’s how we’ll be able to convince the League. As for what he might be planning, well.” She smirked a bit. “Remember, Lombardi said the best offense was a good defense…”
Katiebird, when you meet me in my Coast bunker(coordinates attached, secret password is “collywobble”) remind me to tell you about what I’ve been working on wrt the ol’ Queen Tower.
Love, O
MESSAGE (encrypted):
collywobble? interesting choice, Ollie, though way better than ‘speak friend and enter’…god, that was so obvious, Tolkien.
anyway, I’ll be there by six, will bring pad thai, seeing as I have to drive like a normal person.
wrt Queen Tower: by working on, you don’t just mean the soundproofing of your office, I’m assuming.
love,
ks xx
The mention of pad thai got Ollie’s stomach grumbling — he hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, or that he’d missed eating lunch somewhere among catching up on the exploits and rantings of Glorious Gordon Godfrey, reviewing the proposed test filtration installments for his company’s clean energy, air, and water initiatives, and filing progress reports on Guy’s current condition.
Christmas was always a busy time in Ollie Queen’s world.
Most years that was self-imposed, a way to distract himself, but this year had brought discord from outside the League in the form of a hate-mongering talking head, as well as distress from inside with a bout of particularly vicious Lantern amnesia. He probably wouldn’t have to work to hard to find things to do, especially since at least one of those things necessitated meeting off-Tower.
Coast City was on the rise again, that was true. But that was mostly in neighbourhoods that had been established before the city was levelled, neighbourhoods tight to the rapidly restored Midtown core. The further out you got, the sparser the reconstruction. Back in the day, even the industrial areas out in Vallejo were bustling, but now that there were no companies manufacturing in The City Without Fear, it was a wasteland. And an abandoned furniture refinishing warehouse was the perfect place for Ollie to set up a satellite HQ if he wanted to keep his vigilante doings out of his Star City on the bay … and out of his home.
Kate would have been lying if she said things weren’t rough—admittedly, they weren’t rough with regards to her personal life, not really, and at least she wasn’t in the middle of a hopelessly poor decision and spy mission gone to hell. But emotionally, what had happened to Guy had thrown everybody, regardless of how they felt about it.
But not only that, there was this weird shit with the right-wingers, far worse than anything she’d faced in Sacramento or DC from the actual government. This had gone past Fox News raving and Daily Kos counter-raving in return, reeked of something considerably more sinister. And when it came to radicals, it was always smart to assume the worst; people had died for not paying attention.
Not on Kate’s watch. Besides, somehow it felt like this was all a little connected, though maybe she was just overly paranoid. (Dealing with the Joker meant she’d never be the same again.)
She made good time in her rental, picked up the promised Thai in the joint in the center of town that Kyle had recommended a while back, then set the GPS and drove to the coordinates she’d been given. Despite being in the boonies, somewhere that’d get Kate’s hackles up if it weren’t Coast City, it took three retina scans, a show tune, and the password to get into the building.
As she approached the hum of screens and the pensive silhouette of Ollie Queen, she shook the paper bag a little. “You know, one would think the delivery girl would get a slightly warmer reception. Or at least a tip,” she noted, wryly, as she set the back down on a countertop and perched alongside it.
Ollie’d been peripherally aware of Kate coming in, still in a brown study over not only the current complications they’d met to discuss but also the phase of his Queen Tower refit that he needed to tell her about, but it took her quiet, teasing voice to break him out of it and refocus.
Coming over to her, he pressed his fingertips lightly to the counter on either side of her hips, leaning in to give her a gentle kiss on the mouth. “How’s that for a tip?” Ollie asked, pushing his nose alongside hers for a moment. He was starting to crave these tiny points of interaction between the two of them more and more, soft sweet affectionate stitches securing them ever closer. “Or the warm reception, for that matter.”
He got a couple of bowls and chopsticks and forks from the food prep area and came back to Kate, who had busied herself tearing open the brown paper takeout bag and opening the container of pad thai. “At the risk of ruining our meal,” he said, watching her dole noodles between the bowls, “I got caught up on Godfrey’s media machine over the last couple of days. You’re absolutely right, Kate — this doesn’t seem like your regular kind of anti-cape Minuteman far-right gasbag. I can’t tell if he’s got an actual plan of cohesive action under all his rhetoric and he’s waiting for just the right moment, maybe just the right support.”
Accepting his full bowl from her, Ollie picked up a clump of rice noodles with his chopsticks, chewing them thoughtfully. “Orrrr … he’s making it all up as he goes along, escalating off *our* responses to him instead of announcing initiatives of his own. Which would make it easy to spin all of his moves as countering ours, as defence rather than attack. With him as the little guy and the League as the club of bullies.” Ollie grimaced. “He’d have to have secured some seriously powerful backing to be able to indulge in a tactic as scattershot as that, hey?”
“Mm, not bad. I sort of expected at least a fiver, all things considered,” Kate replied, voice low and teasing as Ollie brushed his lips against hers, lingered near her for a moment. She smiled slowly, her fingertips impulsively catching his arm for a second, trailing against his shirt and muscle underneath. The need to do it hit her almost as hard as arousal then eased as they pulled away, but the smell of the carryout was making her hungry. All she’d had on the road was a half of an Americano and a bagel.
She opened the paper takeout boxes and dished up the noodles before perching on a stool and breaking apart a pair of chopsticks. Raising an eyebrow, she doused her bowl with a packet of sriracha and considered the situation. “I’m just glad you agree,” she said. “It’s just so damn close to the kind of raving that gets militias raised and bombs sent by mail, but organized. Damon says he smells big money behind it—”
Pausing, she pointed her chopsticks in Ollie’s direction as he mentioned Godfrey’s backing. “Either way, he’s got to have some cash behind him and some ammunition, outside the usual rightwingers in Congress, a PAC at the very least, some Daddy Warbucks or criminal backer at the worst. His threats are just a little too specific, more than the ‘some day our non-existent nostalgic retro family values day will come’ kind of rage you usually get from the far right. My guess is he’s trying to spur us into provocative action, then use that as the opportunity for his merry band to put us down…and I don’t know what that merry band might have, which is the scary part. With what’s happened lately, anything’s goddamn possible.”
Kate let out a frustrated huff from her nostrils, then settled in to the process of pad thai consumption. Righteous rage or not, she’d be no good if she didn’t eat.
“If you ask me — and based on the way the League itself is funded — I’d say he’s got billionaire villain-types backing him.” Ollie rustled in the bag for a moment, taking out the container of extra chopped peanuts with a kiss to Kate’s temple for remembering to get them for him. He sprinkled them liberally over his pad thai, frowning at the thought of a secret backer for Godfrey. “From all the pro-America rhetoric, my first guess would be somebody homegrown, like Lex Luthor, but when it comes to that kind of money? Who really knows. I’m sure Godfrey could come up with some tortured justification for using foreign funds if he was pressed for one.”
Ollie swirled his last bit of noodles around in the bowl. “Anyhow, keep Damon working on finding out where the money’s coming from. You and I’ll concentrate on sniffing out what sort of connections Godfrey has when it comes to Capitol Hill. Did you see what he posted on his Twitter the other day?” Ollie abandoned his empty bowl, pulling up Godfrey’s Twitter feed on one of the big, humming screens and pointing. “There, December 12th, he mentions a ‘Registration Act’. That’s more concrete than his raving about Diana’s choice in bustiers.”
Another thought occurred to Ollie as he scanned the display, catching sight of the pictures on the side. “And that reminds me — we need to issue a gag order to the League when it comes to interacting with this dipshit. Between Billy and Dick, he worked himself up into a helluva lather, and we don’t look any better at the end of it, considering Godfrey’s the one controlling the message.”
“Definitely. Though they’d have to be either the ironic type or the type that don’t mind playing games from the shadows, which narrows down the list considerably.” Kate twirled some noodles around her chopsticks, making a faintly irritated noise when they wouldn’t stay curled, then tried again. “I think the flag-waving is just a means to an end, really. That kind of person is the perfect target audience, so who knows if Godfrey actually believed it initially and or has bought into the concept in the long run?”
She got up and got them both some green tea, leaning against the counter as the water boiled and squinting at the screen. “That scares the shit out of me. Registration…hell, Ramsey watches X-Men, I know how that played out in fiction for metas. And the real life precedents for that kind of concept are far uglier. He must have some kind of support, but I don’t get the feeling it’s quite having Congressional leaders in his pocket. Maybe in the pocket of whomever’s backing him, seeing as even the Eden Corps found it easy enough to buy a few.”
Maybe the EC wasn’t the best thing to mention, Kate noted to herself, and turned back to brew the tea. She did keep talking, though, as it would be all right. It had to be, because that was goddamn over and done with. “Gag order is easier said than done,” she pointed out, coming back over to Ollie with two mugs. She handed him one that looked vaguely like a Christmas sweater and kept the one that was covered with chalkboard paint. “There’s a reason we don’t have a leader, and part of that is because no one would listen to any kind of directive. Hell, Dick said it was a coping mechanism and I couldn’t bring myself to stop him…even though I should have.”
“It’s true. Whether he believes in it or not, Godfrey’s not missing a step when it comes to choosing the most inflammatory premises for his hoo-haw. God, country, freedom and the little guy — heady stuff, and hard to argue against if you don’t wanna rely on broad strokes and jingoistic hyperbole.” Ollie accepted the warm mug of tea gratefully, letting the steam ease some of the cold from the tip of his nose as he waited for it to cool down enough to sip.
“As for the gag order — they’re a headstrong bunch, yeah, but I think if you or I gave the directive we’d get results. We may not have a formal leader, but there’s certain authorities that come along with being *us*, Manhunter and Green Arrow, the ones who deal with all of the inspection by the government and focus from the media. We could take it to Committee if there’s pushback and we need a hard decision, but once we lay out the reasons for shutting up when it comes to GGG Media, I doubt we’ll get any protests.”
Ollie took a few gulps of his tea, rolling the green acrid taste around his mouth as he mulled over the situation. “I hope to god the Eden Corps isn’t involved in this yet again,” he muttered direly. “Although their methods seem more along the lines of terrorism and cryptic threats, not open campaigns to drum up public and political support against us. As lulu as it sounds, I’d be happier to know that Godfrey’s getting support from some other avenue than those yahoos again.”
Sighing, Ollie noticed that Kate had the chalkboard mug and wandered over to his desk to rummage around for a moment, returning to stand next to her. “I got more to show you, anyhow, if you wanna take a look before we start making gameplans on how to deal with Godfrey,” he said, drawing a fat, slightly squashed heart on her mug in yellow chalk.
“No kidding. That’s why we suffered through enough years of that bullshit in the White House,” said Kate, slurping her tea even though it was a little too hot—not quite so hot it’d burn her tastebuds though, fortunately. “It takes a lot of skill to fight it, and frankly it’s probably past my PR ability, meager as it is. I’d say we should hire a consultant but it’s probably too late for that end of things—and why the hell is no cape type ever a PR director in their civilian day life?”
She laughed a little as she tried to picture it, then sobered. “Maybe we could. I’m having one of those delightful moments of imposter syndrome, but if you think it’d work, then yeah, it needs to get put into place sooner rather than later—though Godfrey will likely notice we’re not rising to the bait and use that too. He’s that good or knows someone who is. And that someone’s not the Eden Corps, that’s not really a workable solution for either party, you’re right.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what was in his desk that he needed, but Kate still smiled softly anyway when Ollie drew a heart on her coffee mug, because it was that damn adorable. She ran a fingertip over the lines, blurring them just a little and leaving a trace of chalk on her finger so she could smudge a little on Ollie’s cheek as she leaned in to kiss him. “More to show me that’s not related to this?” she asked, easing back to finish her tea. “Okay, what’s going on that you’ve holed up here to do it?”
Ollie’s eyes lit up with excitement and he clasped Kate’s wrist, towing her to the screen display and flicking it on. The projections sprang up obediently, and Ollie swirled a few folders around before opening what he wanted. He’d gotten better at this since that time in the control room when Kate had to do it for him, but he was still slow enough that it almost made her want to take over.
“Ahhh, here we go,” he crowed finally, as a familiar building shimmered over multiple screens to loom over them. “You recognize Queen Tower, of course — can’t miss it in the Star City skyline, since unfortunately they had the prongs built when I wasn’t in control of the company and before we got the construction laws passed to preserve the city’s view corridors —” Ollie could see Kate’s eyebrow slowly raising in an “i can recite this rant along with you by this point, Oliver, move on” kind of way, so he harrumphed and tapped the bottom screen to bring up another set of images, this time schematics.
“After all the attacks on the Watchtower that necessitated us turning Warriors’ into an impromptu meeting place,” he explained, “I figured we needed somewhere else planetside. Somewhere better equipped to function as a JLA base. We’ve had them before, and I think it’s prudent to have one again. Therefore the core of Queen Tower, the original structure—” he ran his finger along the segment where the twinned towers joined, “—has been refitted and redesigned with us in mind.”
He grinned at Kate, snagging two fingers into the waistband of her pants. “Whaddyou think? We’ll have a dedicated satellite, zeta tube access, a helipad, everything you need for an Earth base. No docking bays for Javelins, or fancy arboretums, but it’s not intended for spaceships and space plants anyhow.”
Kate let herself be tugged over to the screens, then waited, more than a little antsy, as Ollie tried to pull stuff up on the display. Seriously, it was as if he knew how it worked on an intellectual level but couldn’t quite get there intuitively. She twitched a little and was about to offer to help, sardonically, when he finally made it work.
Ollie started his spiel, and she settled back onto a stool, arms crossed, appraising the situation. The rambling about Queen Tower meant she gently gestured for him to get on to his point, because she doubted he was this excited over a lecture she’d heard half a dozen times before. Instead, his expression was almost like that of a puppy who’d brought a stick home, e.g. oh boy Kate isn’t this the most amazing stick you have ever seen and smell it it smells so fantastic and funky and oh wow there’s no other stick gonna be this awesome ever.
Actually, the mental image of that made her smile to herself a little, until she actually caught up with what he was saying. Her brow furrowed and she held up a finger to stop him a second. “Okay, okay. Hold up.”
Deep down, Kate was trying to parse out her reaction and having serious difficulty with it. Part of the problem was fear that the League was never, ever, ever going to go along with this, decent idea or not—that they’d all descend into bitching about Ollie presuming and taking too much initiative. Part of it was concern (it’d make Star City a target, it’d be next to impossible to defend without throwing even more money at it than QI had). And part of it was…
“Ollie, how long exactly have you been working on this?” she asked, a wary and unpleasant sensation growing in her mind, no matter how much she tried to tell herself to be a better person than that.
That brought him up short. Ollie gaped at Kate for a moment, the significance of what she was asking slicing through all the other blather in his forebrain to hit him dead centre. For a frantic, horrified moment he thought of claiming that he’d dreamed it all up on the fly and had it built by genius speedsters, but fortunately he got himself under control quickly enough to kibosh that.
“Um,” he said, letting his fingers slip out from her jeans, although he drew them down the side of her hip in what he hoped was a placating manner. “A little while. Well, I had the idea of an HQ here since, uh, the black mamba snake bit Mia, but it wasn’t a fully fleshed-out kind of thing, and then as attacks and League compromises kept escalating, I sort of … the idea shifted, is all, kinda mushroom clouded into something more expansive, and I thought I should keep it quiet because jeez, this is a scale even I’m not used to working at, Kate, and with all the security leaks and so forth it seemed like ….”
Ollie trailed off, twisting his mouth. “It’s been on the go for a while. Since before I found out you were undercover with the EC. But it’s not —” he gestured wildly, fingers spinning in the air, “—it’s not the *same*! This is just a *project* that happened to come to fruition! It’s not the same.”
Even *he* didn’t sound convinced to his own ears. “I’m sorry,” Ollie said, dragging his fingertips along the front of Kate’s thigh. “I should’ve told you.”
Yeah, definitely not a better person than that. Though not easily placated by caresses and faintly wibbling (Ollie’s mustache twitched a little as he wibbled, which was both adorable and irritating) expressions, at least, Kate decided, which did make a little bit of a difference.
She settled her gaze on him, didn’t let him escape it, but didn’t say anything. As many people did when faced with a Kate Spencer cross-examination, Ollie ended up giving himself just enough rope to hang, anyway. The rambling would have been fine, a combination of the usual Ollie Queen mile-a-minute thought process combined with desperate scramble to back out of a fuckup, and some of his reasoning was valid. But then he had to go and say ‘it’s not the same’.
This, though true, was probably not the best way to go about saying as much.
Kate’s eyes narrowed further, even as Ollie recognized he’d probably screwed up more than he’d thought and then really apologetically wibbled at her in earnest. “No, it’s not the same, action-wise,” she said, coolly, not taking the whole petting her leg thing into account at all in the pro side. “And I can understand your motivation, and I do think it’s probably a decent idea. But I have to say, Oliver, it stings just a little bit to have been dragged over the coals and now be held to a higher standard with regards to secret projects. This might take me a minute.”
There was an … *off* note in Kate’s voice that made Ollie swallow, hard, catch her hands up in his. “You’re right,” he said, contritely. He *did* feel bad about it on a level of basic integrity, creating this double standard, but knowing he’d hurt her in the process was worse. ”You have every right to be upset with me. And I don’t mean this as a way to try and wriggle out of it, but…”
Ollie took a deep breath, looking around at the display screens again, all the architectural and technological ins and outs of the JLA segment of Queen Tower. “But all of this,” he said, “you’re my partner in it. I’ll never keep any of it from you again, Kate. Even if—” he clutched her hands a little tighter, “—even if my enormous ego kicks in as a response to traumatic situations, and I feel like I need to do something big and impressive and all by myself in order to feel like I’m in control of things again.” Ollie blinked, thinking that over. “You’re right,” he said, a bit wondrously. “That’s not the best way to deal with things. And in fact, I don’t *want* to use that coping mechanism anymore, not now that I have you to share everything with!”
It might have been too early yet in the apology process for kissing, but Ollie was so transported by this realization that he leaned in and kissed Kate before he considered that.
Kate couldn’t help herself—she laughed, laughed at the fact that Ollie had had a hell of a lightbulb moment of self-awareness in the process of apologizing. It wasn’t a mean laugh, either, more just surprise and recognition of the inherent truth of the statements. She laughed again, a brief huff through her nose, as he kissed her, but didn’t let him linger as long as he might have wanted to.
“Look,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Just…Ollie, you don’t have to tell me everything about some things, if you don’t feel you should or can. But a heads up, just general, ‘working on a project, it’s a surprise’ or ‘it’s a one man job’…that would have been better, all things considered. Apology accepted, as long as you actually put it into practice instead of just suddenly getting it about yourself but going on the same way.”
Leaning against him, Kate shifted to have a look at the screens, squinting just a little to make out the detail. “And let’s face it. You need me to help you figure out how to pitch this to the League, Oliver,” she noted, lips quirking in the combination of tease and honesty. “It’s going to have to be framed in a certain way, because I’m sure someone will whine about Star City as the location, and someone will complain about Queen money being so obvious in it…and god help us if Godfrey figures this out, we will be so ever-fucked.”
She paused and turned to him, wryly adding, “Yeah, maybe I can see why you kept it under wraps.”
“Ah-ah-ah, from now on the story is that *we* kept it under wraps. Can’t be my partner in this without taking some of the blame, even if it’s from before your involvement.” Ollie grinned cheekily, knowing he wasn’t quite out of the doghouse yet, but that Kate took his apology and subsequent resolution into account. “Seriously, though — I hear you. I’ll do my best to remember this next time, no matter how tempting it seems to retreat into old patterns. Hopefully by that point, keeping something from you won’t even seem like a viable option.”
Shifting back into discussion mode, he scratched the back of his neck as Kate noted the possible (okay, probable) objections that the League would have. “Yeah,” Ollie said. “It was a lot easier to sidestep that sort’ve thing when I was funding the League anonymously. Nobody complained about shit if there was a chance the money could be cut off at any moment. Augh!!” Ollie scrubbed his hand against the back of his head as if he could scratch away the doubts like fleas, then nudged Kate over to a control screen that had been blinking quietly and patiently away all this time.
“This is the best part,” he said, leaning in to kiss the tip of her ear as he stood next to her. “You should be the one to turn her on.” Kate looked up at him, and, trying to keep a rein on his voice, Ollie explained, “She’s our satellite. Every good base of operations needs an orbiter, and this is ours. She’s the Mongoose.”
“Oh, you owe me for this, Queen. Between the charity ball and this stunt,” Kate said, jokingly shaking a finger at him, though she did mean that he owed her. “I am gonna take you somewhere soundproof, then beat it out of your ass and enjoy every single second thereof, understood?” She looked at Ollie, firmly, until he managed to look suitably (if likely mockingly) chagrined, then carried on.
“This is going to take some thinking to phrase properly,” she mused, pursing her lips in thought as Ollie moved over to the screens, looking irrationally excited at what was a rather irritatingly blinking notification, now that she’d noticed it. “I think we should reframe it as a matter of resources, though without pushing your money in everyone’s faces…”
There was a pause in her thoughts as she turned to listen, and she couldn’t help herself but start to laugh a little bit at the name of the satellite. At the same time, though she’d hate to admit it, she was blushing and pleased, sheepishly cupping her hands around her mug. “You named the orbiter the Mongoose,” she said—well, duh, obviously he had. “Oh my god, you are such a dork, Oliver. Or a sap. Or, quite frankly, a sappy dork.” Kate still couldn’t disguise the spark of delight in her eyes, though, even if she’d been trying to do so.
“What do I do to it?” she said, gesturing to the screen. “To turn her on.”
“Well, I generally find that comments veering from ridiculous sentiment to unbridled lust do the trick,” Ollie chuckled, waiting for Kate to put down her mug momentarily and roll her eyes at him, although she was smiling, her cheeks flushed.
Her reaction made him even more excited about the whole thing and he drew a circle on the panel and tapped in a code (“We’ll have to come up with joint codes that we’ll both remember, once I get you online with the satellite and security systems,” he reminded himself), and a red button icon presented itself. There was a stylized mongoose symbol on it, and Ollie shrugged, too pleased with himself to be bashful about it. “Naomi Klein aside,” he said, “sometimes you really do need a good, recognizable logo on something.”
Looking up at the big display, Ollie clasped Kate’s unoccupied hand, knuckles brushing against the side of her thigh. “Go on,” he urged. The rest of it could wait for the moment. He just wanted to see *this*.
“Oh, you think you’re so damn impressive,” Kate said to Ollie, rolling her eyes at his quip, though admittedly it was a quip with some real truth to it. She set down her mug, though, and leaned against him, considering the screen as he did some gestures to it—they were a little more considered than his early ones, she noticed.
And laughed, blushing more, as he brought up the logo. “I cannot believe you, Oliver,” she said, swatting him in the bicep. “God, you paid a designer to come up with a goddamn mongoose logo icon thing, you big güero dork.” Even so, she was really ridiculously pleased, despite herself, and she couldn’t bring herself to tease him any more than that, all things considered. Considering that it was obvious, the reason why he’d done it, when it was entirely superfluous to the project, that he had been thinking of her.
It did soften her frustration at not being told, a little; though only a little.
“Here goes,” she said, and reached out, leaning against his hand, to touch the ridiculous red mongoosey button on the screen. Fortunately sirens did not go off and terrible noises didn’t occur, though other screens popped to life, one by one, in what was actually a pretty amazing show.
They watched in quiet awe as the Mongoose sprang into action, scattering her satellite images all across the screens in blues and greens and browns. The readouts informed them of all the pertinent basic info, place names and geolocations, temperatures and languages and so forth in a scrolling loop.
“You’re right,” Ollie told Kate as they stood in the shifting light of the screens. “We should stay away from making this about my money — the location aside — and more about necessity, keeping us all safer and more connected. And having you help me do that’ll go a long ways to getting the rest of the League to get on board, since I can be a little, ah, polarizing.”
“Just a little,” Kate teased, her fingernails scraping his palm lightly. Ollie growled at her, but he was too happy and enthused at the moment to commit much to even teasing her back. “And if Godfrey has something bigger planned, something to target us, having a backup HQ’ll be a goddamn *boon*. Especially since the idea of the Watchtower seems to stick in Godfrey’s craw … and being one of the non-space-breathing, non-space-flying contingent of the League? I can’t even say I completely blame him for finding that tin can Olympus unsettling.”
One of the screens chimed gently to indicate that it was changing its display, switching to an annotated slideshow of the major political and super-community figures of the nation that screen was currently set to. “Come on, admit it,” Ollie said, voice hushed and slightly strained as he tilted his head back to look up at the screens, take it all in. He squeezed Kate’s hand. “I’m a *little* impressive.”
It was stunning, really, and Kate and Ollie stood there for a moment to watch it before he said something—quietly, a little more hushed than usual, definitely. She was slightly rapt, herself, in the flood of information. Hell, they were kids of the television age, after all, so there was something else to blame for it.
“Polarizing as massive understatement,” she snorted softly, then slipped her thumb against Ollie’s wrist a little bit, reaching out with her free hand to drag up sub-windows and data boxes (though to be fair she wasn’t sure that the political figures of Ulaanbaatar were entirely relevant to the conversation, it was just so damn cool). “All right,” she then admitted, turning to glance up at Ollie a little. “You’re a little impressive.” Her eyes were shining, even as she said it, but she cleared her throat after a second and shifted gears.
“And you’re right. I wouldn’t put it past Godfrey and whatever his long game is to make targets out of everything obviously League. Keeping this on the massive DL is pretty critical to its usefulness.” Kate was getting the sense Ollie wasn’t quite done, though. Not by a long shot.
Kate’s praise (heartfelt, he knew, even if it *was* ootched out’ve her) set Ollie to beaming proudly, and he turned to hug her and indulge himself in kissing her hair for a few moments before getting back to business again.
“The actual Queen towers base’ll be even more comprehensive and functional for a large group like the League,” he assured her, gesturing expansively up at the screens and around them at the sufficient-but-cosy Coast City warehouse. “This, all this is just Arrow-stuff for my little family and loved associates—” another kiss to the crown of Kate’s smooth sleek head, “—and you’ll get to know all the bells and whistles in the big place soon enough, since we can start meeting there from now on to talk about Godfrey and other sensitive matters that’re best not discussed on the Tower. And there’s something that …” Ollie started pulling up the plans and figures of the QT base on the screens, but then he stopped and wrapped up the info on the screen, sending it scurrying off the side of the display like he was flicking a bug.
“Actually,” he said, “that can all wait until we’re actually there. Right now we might as well sort out this Godfrey mess and an approach so we can announce it to the League. A thorough tour and orientation for the QT base can wait that long.”
“Loved associates,” Kate said, though she figured she probably was family as well, to a certain extent. It was an odd place to be, in perfect honesty, though one she wouldn’t trade for the world. Universe, even. “Loved associates who enjoy being sneaky and singing showtunes to get access to the place. A nice touch, really, and it’d definitely put off any villainous attempts at sneaky entry…unless they’re fond of Chicago.”
She paused, though, at Ollie’s awkward segue, eyes narrowing as she tried to get a glimpse of what he’d sent off-screen. “Hold up,” she said, reaching out to put one hand over his forearm, firmly enough to let him know she meant business and wasn’t letting it slide. “If you’ve got something up your sleeve, or more than than one thing, I want to know about it, Oliver.”
Licking her lips, she reached forward with her free hand and pulled back a screen or two with her fingertips. “Give me the Reader’s Digest version and then we can get to work. I need to know.”
“You’re more family than associate by this point, my darling, but I *do* love having you work with me. Wouldn’t want to give one up for the other.” Ollie grinned at Kate. “No fun doing the press conference rag by myself, is it?”
He was ready to move on for now but Kate clearly was having none of it, stilling his hand and bringing back the schematics he’d put away. She was being very firm about this full disclosure thing, but all things considered, Ollie could see why. When he’d kept the entirety of this enormous project from her, when she’d kept her double agent work from him, when they’d promised each other that there would be no more big secrets. Or small ones, for that matter. Small ones could be just as devastating, in the long run.
“Fine, fine,” Ollie capitulated, making no move to stop Kate as she expanded out sub-directories and structural diagrams of Queen Tower. “Spoil all my surprises. Just don’t yawn when I’m actually showing you around the place because you’ve already found out all the bells and whistles.” He hovered a finger over one of the images. “See that central part of the building? The base of the prong, as it were? Well, I figured that even though this HQ is *meant* to be earthbound, there might come a time when it would be necessary to get the hell out of Star City and out of sight. So that section — and I know you’re sick of me blathering on about height regulations on Star City high rises, but it’s a boon here, Katie — that section can tilt out, detach from the rest of the building, and be flown as an independent aircraft.”
Ollie brushed two fingertips one after the other against the still image of the building, and it leaped into a 3-D projection of the midsection of QT doing just that. He gestured at the holographic construct. “Leaving only the prongs standing, they’re structurally sound enough to remain without the middle part. And the ship segment is fully armed, can be cloaked, and it’s self-sustaining for at least six months on clean — well, Qlean power.” Ollie’s voice quirked on the slightly whirly name of his own company’s energy initiative (it was very fiddly to pronounce, but important to him that his name be in there somehow). “It doesn’t have the capacity for space flight, and no bays for Javelins or anything like that, the really extravagant stuff that the Tower prioritizes. But the rest ain’t bad, huh?”
“Sometimes I think you like making me do the press circuit with you because it reminds you of us having unresolved sexual tension,” Kate pointed out. Idly, she wondered if there was fanfic of that, realized there probably was somewhere, then decided she really, really didn’t want to know. “You do realize you’re definitely Mulder to my Scully,” she added, seemingly out of nowhere, though it made sense in her head.
“And speaking of Mulder level of batshit…an aircraft. Seriously.” She stared at Ollie for a long moment, skeptically, until after a few seconds passed and she came to a conclusion. Let no one say she couldn’t read him like a book (not that he made it difficult). “You didn’t want to tell me because you wanted me to give you this slackjawed metaphorical and not classist yokel look along with everyone else, right? I mean, it’s absolutely fantastic and honestly useful, don’t misinterpret me there—” because at this point he was looking like a kicked puppy, “but just…where the hell did you get this idea?”
She paused again as she flicked through the schematics, longer this time, then slowly grinned up at him. “Oh my god, Oliver, have you been watching The Avengers again? The only person on the planet who saw those movies and was like hey, I’m a billionaire with an R&D department at my disposal, I can totally do better than Tony Stark and be ecologically friendly while assisting my own superhero initiative in their time of need!”
After a second, she quietly added, nudging him with her elbow, “Speaking of Avengers, I’m definitely Mrs. Peel to your Steed. You’d rock the sword umbrella and bowler.”
“So you’re both Emma Peel *and* Scully?” Ollie asked, amused. Kate was switching topics faster than even their usual admittedly twisty-turny courses of conversation, which Ollie guessed was an indication that either her mind was processing all of this more rapidly than her voice could keep up, or she was just a leetle bit thrown off-balance by everything he was showing her. Either way, it wasn’t a reaction Ollie objected to. Wasn’t every day he could manage to impress this woman.
“Not that I mind your casting, because it puts you in a catsuit,” he said, catching her elbow and pulling her close. “And no, I wasn’t gonna do the big reveal with you among the slack-jawed crowed, thankyew very much. I wanted to save it for while we were *there*, in the building, because it would give the whole thing a better sense of, oh, I dunno…” Ollie gestured around widely with his free arm, raising his voice so it echoed. “Vastness! Importance! Rather than showing you on a piddly little holographic display in a musty old Coast City re-kerjiggered warehouse.” He rubbed his hand briskly just above her hip, up and down where she curved in at the waist. “It had more to do with my sense of dramatics, darling, than numbering you among the throngs of onlookers.”
He paused there to claim a kiss, and then leaned back, raising an eyebrow. “And I assure you that Tony Stark in the movies is at *least* thirty-five percent based on yours truly, Kate. Who manages to get shit done without the benefit of an arc reactor *or* genius-level intelligence.” Ollie kissed her again. “He has really great cars, though.”
Maybe Kate was a little off-kilter, it was true, but she managed to persevere regardless. Her aplomb was barely…unaplombed, and she sipped the last cool dregs of her tea from her mug as she looked back at Ollie. “No, I said, I’m Peel to your Steed and you’re Mulder to my Scully,” she said, “get it right the first time…it’s not anything without the context. Or without you.”
This was sappy by Kate standards, so she blushed a little and cleared her throat, turning back to schematics. “And I enjoy thwarting your attempts at melodrama, cielo, you know that. Seriously, it’s cool, and it’s impressive even without being there and gawping up at it, I promise. It’s a little too cool and perhaps man’s reach outwith his grasp or whatever the Browning is, but it’s worth it, I swear.” She kissed him back in response to his own, nipping his lower lip.
Then, after a second, she said, “Come on, you totally need to get some great cars like Tony Stark. Is the only reason you haven’t because Mia would insist on driving them? I bet it is. You don’t need the arc reactor to be amazing, though, not in my book…”
Leaning up, she murmured in his ear, “And you’re clever enough by half already, Mr. Queen. Shall we go fuck with some neocons?”
Kate’s warm-breathed whispering in his ear wasn’t anything new, her suggestion that they screw with right-wingers not your traditional romance, but still Ollie couldn’t keep a thrilled shiver from running through him. “You know me so well,” he purred, “my serpentining beauty. And before I forget to say it —” he wrapped his arms around Kate’s waist, bringing them close, “—none of this would mean anything without you, either. I want our contexts to always include each other, always.” He brushed his nose against her forehead. “Whether it’s Mulder and Scully or Manhunter and Green Arrow or Kate and Ollie. Always.”
One more kiss and Ollie added, “Or Tony and Pepper, since you admire his cars so much. Roy took Mia out in one of mine and gave her a taste for it, although saints be praised she still likes her bike most of all. But anyhow, what’s a car in the long run? I once blew up the Arrowcar just to prove a point, and it was a tricked-out beauty of a classic yellow Jag like you wouldn’t believe.”
He wouldn’t have minded running on like this for a while longer, pop culture and motor vehicle nonsense, but as always, responsibilities were calling. Clearing the workscreens of Queen Tower-related displays, Ollie said, “All right, down to the business of dealing with Godfrey. We need a gag order that we’ll put into place in the new year, how’s that? I don’t think anybody’ll be rushing to talk to him over the holidays….”
“You know they will,” Kate replied, voice just as low and purring in his ear. She could feel Ollie shiver, and she smiled to herself, even as his tone of voice sent white heat running through her as well. Right, there was plenty of time for that later, wasn’t there? They could find some time to dedicate the site a little more intimately once some groundwork got laid first and foremost.
Got laid, heh.
She cleared her throat and settled back into her seat, sitting up a little more attentively rather than sprawling against him. “Right. I’ll start drafting something up for that, which is a good start. We really, really don’t need anything he can use against us in the public eye, and hopefully that’s obvious enough that it’s how we’ll be able to convince the League. As for what he might be planning, well.” She smirked a bit. “Remember, Lombardi said the best offense was a good defense…”