i ache in the places where i used to play

[bossymarmalade]

Oliver knocks on Talia’s door. It’s been a while that he’s been spending time with her, and now Alfred trusts him to find his own way to her tower when he’s there. Ollie’d gotten the League broadcast, but with his leg still on the mend and Batman probably in the thick of things, this is likely where he can be of the most use.

Talia, herself, opens the door, in a wheel chair. Her legs are covered, and she looks decisively frail in the tall metal seat: it is an antique seat, most certainly not standard medical gear, and she controls it through a panel on the arm. She reverses the seat, looking up at him, and while she has not put on the weight she’s lost, she doesn’t look nearly as frail as she once had. Oliver follows her in, shutting the door behind them, and fetches the gilt-edged hairbrush from her dressing table. They’ve come to agreements about certain things, and he doesn’t ask before he moves behind her, gathering the thick dark waves of her hair and starting to pass the brush through them, smoothing the strands. Her hair has started to regain its customary luster, as well; another sign that she’s on the mend.

"I brought you baklava today," Ollie tells her. "There were all these different shapes and I wasn’t sure if that meant they were different varieties, so I got two of each. And some kind of semolina cake."

Talia allows her eyelids to drift to half closed, and she gestures to the makeshift seating area by the room’s window. The round endtable is too low to be a proper table, but there is a tray upon it for their tea set, and it’s as if she had known he would be coming: the spout steams at the tip, his setting placed delicate on the empty, plush ottoman, across from where she will eventually wheel herself.

Oliver finishes up brushing her hair, planting a light kiss on the glossy waves, and moves over to his place. He doesn’t offer or try to wheel her there, just settles down and opens the bakery box of sticky honey pastries, pouring tea for them both. “You look about sixty times better than when I first started coming here,” Ollie says, and then because it’s good to make Talia laugh and she has a surprisingly ribald sense of humour sometimes for being a princess type, amends, “Maybe even sixty-nine times better.”



Talia blinks, and then, does laugh, but mostly at how he amends his statement, like a school boy. She wheels herself over to him, and comments. “I think you’ve helped it regain some of its shine.” The width of her almond eyes widen the tiniest bit, her mouth curling as she settles—contrary to what she’d said—right next to the archer. She folds her hands and waits for him to pour her tea, an eyebrow lifting as she thinks on what she’s said. She had not meant her hair.

Oliver gives Talia her cup, cradling his own in his hand; it’s fine china, delicate. The cost would make it at home in Wayne Manor, but the design makes him think that perhaps the set is Talia’s, or was procured with her in mind. To make her more comfortable here, the princess trapped in the tower. “Anything to help,” Ollie says, and it’s not a lie. Not even an evasion of truth. He initially offered to take on this companion task to take some pressure off of Bruce, but it had rapidly evolved from that. He found himself … /enjoying/ Talia’s company, looking forward to seeing her. At this point he feels pretty much comfortable with the woman, invested in her well-being.

He sips the tea — it’s delicious, of course, slightly astringent and a golden colour that catches the light from the big window — and says, “Maybe you’ll be ready to go outside in a while?” Talia looks towards the window when he does, but her gaze remains on the pane of glass, pupils contracting. “I don’t know if he was fully conscious of the decision to put me up here,” she comments, softly. Oliver looks at her in astonishment.

“Like, you think he was, uh, floundering at that point? Just trying to find a way to get you off the Watchtower?” Ollie knows there’s no point trying to dissemble with Talia — he’s not a good liar, never has been, and it’s poor strategy to play a game with people who are more skilled at it than you are. His candour has always been his strength and he sticks to it.

Talia looks back at Oliver, her expression softening as she explains: “When we were in love, this was my place.” She looks up at the bare walls, at the low laying divan, and her expression flattens out as she remembers something, perhaps. Looking back to the archer, Talia’s plush mouth curls, sharply. “He closed it up. Locked it.” Her voice is a low purr, and she reaches for her tea, lifting the glass to take a sip, the dark grey of her eyes never leaving Ollie’s face.

Oliver digests this information. He’s told himself time and time again that it’s fine that Bruce had loves in his life before Ollie and Kate; he’s always been okay talking to Kate about Peter, about Cam. But sitting here with one of those loves, and not being entirely sure that Bruce isn’t /still/ in love with her, even a little? That’s something else again. “He tends to do that,” Ollie settles on saying. “Locks things away to try and move on. Locks them out.” He drains his cup of tea and picks up one of the baklava, a rolled one, eating it in a couple of bites. It’s filled with pistachio. “But then again, Talia, there’s reasons he’s tried to move on from you. Daddy-shaped reasons, I’m betting a lot of ‘em are. It’s not as if you had a fairytale romance and a tragic split. You’re an assassin princess.” He refills his cup, offering her more tea as well. “We can’t pretend like you’re not.”

Talia also takes one of the baklava, bringing her gaze up to the window for a moment longer before looking back at Oliver, her smile growing sad. “I wouldn’t dare to deny it,” she begins, softly, and then, the music in her voice grows and her mouth flickers in a brief smile. “But.. ‘assassin princess’ is a bit much, Oliver,” his name curls in her mouth like a flame, hot and smokey against her teeth, “..could we agree on..” She looks up at the ceiling, taking a slow bite of the flaky pastry, enjoying the way the first layer lifts off against her teeth and tongue. She chews, swallows, and chases with tea, still looking around her room. “..survivalist?”

"All right," Ollie acquiesces after a silence. "I’ve been a survivalist too. But I didn’t have the body count you do. I’m not that kinda ruthless." Ollie turns his teacup around in his hand. It’s hard to ignore the way Talia is looking at him, how her voice wraps around his name. So he asks, "—do you wish he’d gotten in contact with your father? I mean, from what I hear, the al Ghuls have a preferred method of medical treatment in the family."

Talia’s eyes narrow at the mention of her father, her gaze going sharp and she sets her teacup on the plate she holds. “My father and I are not..” She trails off, tilting her chin and looks back towards the window, up towards the sky and where she imagines the Watchtower is turning, now, in orbit around and above them. “No. He understood that I would rather take the time I need to heal than turn to my father’s secrets.”

"So whaddyou think is gonna happen when you’re well enough to be mobile? Clearly they don’t trust you. I mean, Alfred alone—" A thought occurs, and Ollie leans forward, touching the side of Talia’s knee. "Say, when I first came to see you, Alfred put a vase on your tray. But he didn’t put a flower in it, just a stem. What was that about?"

Talia settles her hand over Oliver’s palm, her teacup clinking into place against the saucer, before lifting both to bring his hand to her lips and kissing the top of it. Softly. She smiles, and this time, there is no delicate coyness to it. She slides her tongue along the webbing between his forefinger and middle digit, rubbing her cheek against the wetness she trails. “..the old man’s memory is like a bear-trap,” she explains. “Ask him yourself.”

Oliver blinks at Talia, suddenly acutely aware of the scent of her, the softness of her lips. He licks his own, unsettled, and tries to stay casual-sounding when he asks, “So you’re not gonna tell me, then? Because, ah … I think I’d much rather hear the story from you.” He doesn’t take his hand back, though, and moves his thumb to touch her bottom lip, the lavish curl of it, imagining her kissing Bruce. Imagining her doing all kinds of things. For a split second Ollie recalls Kate’s distrust of Talia, but it’s all gone again the moment he looks at Talia’s legs, so still and thin. This woman isn’t any kind of threat. She’s just lonely and sad up here, trying to recover on her own.

Talia kisses his thumb, softly, tilting her head to the side to draw the tip of it into her mouth, watching the archer for the first signs of discomfort, of dismay. Talia slides her hands down his forearm, thumbs pressing into the raised bands of muscle there, the long shiver of her hair drifting over her shoulder as she bends forward, exhaling. Sotto voce, she begins. “..I planted one of her bulbs,” she explains, and lifts her eyes towards Oliver’s; her teeth flash, against the calloused pad of his thumb. “The most.. beautiful Dahlia, erupted from the ground..” The corner of her mouth curls up. “..rich, full petals, the color of sunsets, something he had not been able to do.” Talia drags her teeth against the man’s skin again, before pushing his hand against her breast, outright. “..and I fell with child, the week after they bloomed.” The notes of music in her voice are ripe now, as she drags his hand against the firm curve of her. Her mouth curls into a hard expression. “He brings me stems with no flowers to remind me of the fact that my son is gone, but I remain.. A stalk. Bloomless. Waiting.”

Oliver winces, not at the feel of Talia’s body against his hand (no, not that, his palm curving instinctively around the firm, sweet weight of her breast, full and luscious), but at her words. “I didn’t think Alfred would be that cruel,” Ollie says in a low voice, frowning. “I thought —” he gives a slightly sheepish snort. “Well, I thought there was some black ops thing going on there. That you could, I dunno, use the blossom in some deadly way to attack him and get free.” He laughs at the idea. “I didn’t know it was something so…personal.” He considers it for a while. Talia coaxing life from the left-behind tulip bulb of another mother, the one gone before, then coaxing life from her own body. The symbolism makes a shiver run through him and he moves closer to her, bringing his other hand up to cup Talia’s face as he strokes her breast. “Although I suppose you count as one, as far as deadly blossoms go,” Ollie says, half-distractedly, and shuts his eyes when he leans in to kiss her.

Talia parts her lips when he leans in, her own eyes open, and returns his kiss. She tastes of tea leaves, of honey and the delicacy of phyllo. There is no girlish coquettishness in how she embraces him, one hand’s fingers delicately sliding over his arm, and she makes a sport of it: darting her tongue over the seam of his lips, near tickling it to gain access to the sweetness of his own mouth. Talia makes a soft, dulcet noise, high in the back of her throat.

Oliver growls into that sweet sound she makes, feeding it back to her, and moves his hand to the back of Talia’s head to tangle his fingers in the hair he brushed so meticulously. Her breast is warm and enticing under his palm, and he strokes his hand around her side, to her back, and then around again to hold her, thumb seeking her nipple. “I don’t trust you for a moment,” Ollie mutters against Talia’s mouth. The protest sounds impossible even to his own ears.

Talia gasps wetly against his lips, arching into his hand, thrusting the rise of her nipple—hardening to pebbles, both of them, her body responds faster than she thought it could; Talia is pleased—into his fingers. “Then.. We’ll get along perfectly.” She moans, a low and rolling, heady noise. She slides her hand down his arm and tangled her fingers in the front of his shirt. Oliver grunts, not exactly liking that answer. But the taste of her, the smell of her, the heady feeling of her curves against him, they’re sparking off fireworks low in his belly.

So Ollie does what he does: go with his gut feeling. Moving both his hands to her chest, Ollie cups her breasts as Talia tugs him forward by his shirt. He’s perfectly happy with Kate, but he had, after all, spent years with Dinah. The way Talia’s full breasts fill his hands, it’s intoxicating. He thumbs her nipples through the silken material of her blouse, then lowers his head to take one into his mouth, leaving the fabric dark and sodden.

Talia tangles her hands in his hair, the blond hair long under her fingers, and tugs as he suckles the tip of her breast, hardening the nipple the rest of the way. She arches her back, a gentle curve, and exhales. “That’s it,” she exhales, letting him know he’s latched onto it. She smoothes her hands over the top of his skull.

Oliver should be unsettled, he thinks, by the unmistakably maternal note to Talia’s voice, that encouraging comment, but he isn’t. Instead he feels /pleased/ and rubs the end of his long nose against her, pushes his chin into the swell of her breast, uses his teeth. One hand moves to her other breast, fingers flicking and cupping, and his other hand sprawls along her back to move her forward in her chair, closer to him, giving him more access to her. She’s small, enough of a difference between her and Kate for him to be acutely aware of it, and again Ollie thinks unbidden of Bruce and what the two of them must have looked like together.

"What do you want," Ollie asks her, suddenly very perplexed by this entire development. "Talia. What do you /want/?"

Talia pulls back from the archer, tilting her head down so the sides of her hair, long and flowing, come down across her cheeks, enveloping him in the scent of it as she cups his face, tilts it up. She kisses his nose, his mouth, his chin before she meets his eyes, canting her head to the side, her face softening as she drags her fingers against his cheek. “You,” she explains, fingers lingering over the high ridge of his cheek. “I want you inside of me.”

If he’d been monitoring the situation with the League, Ollie would know about the Watchtower being invaded, he’d know about the threat of the rapid overheating, the speed and force of Nightstar’s attack, the warning from the Amazon princess. But he hasn’t checked the comm since he got into the Manor. Instead he’s here in this tower with Talia, heat creeping up through his chest and throat and face as Talia tells him what she wants, pushing harder against her despite the tiny voice in the back of his mind, Kate’s voice, warning him to veer off of this path of action. Ollie doesn’t hear it. He hears Talia’s voice ringing in his head, over and over, making him half-mad, and when he gathers her into his lap to embrace her, there’s nothing in his brain but flames of desire.