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Thread: The Mechanic

  1. #21
    Oliver remained quiet as Mal unleashed his stern rebuke against Connor; and as the teenager awkwardly extracted himself from the conversation to cool off in the private vicinity of the jukebox, Oliver caught himself wondering if he'd wanted this; expected this. Or perhaps he had been oblivious, and shouldn't have been. He new Mal, knew how he'd react to someone whose attitude affected such an extensive radius. Was Oliver simply immune to such things, vaccinated against it by his prolonged exposure to Roy and Mia; or had he simply been a coward, steering Connor into Mal's path and into an inevitable confrontation, letting Mal play antagonist so that Oliver could remain the hero?

    The silence lasted long enough for Oliver to feel Mal's discomfort with it. Within moments of Connor's exit from their booth, Mal's irritation had subsided - not that it had even been raised, not really. Oliver had seen Malcolm angry - been on the receiving end, in fact. This had barely registered as stern; but it was a breed of resolute opposition that Oliver had suspected Connor had little experience with. Perhaps Mal had fallen victim to an elaborate experiment on Oliver's part to see those suspicions proven.

    "Do you do house calls?"

    Oliver kept his face neutral, but a few flickers of emotion and sentiment crept into his words. Humour. Sympathy. Apology. Small glimmers rather than anything fully fledged, enough for Mal to know they were there, without the embarrassing extent of exposing them for all the world to see.

    "There's no way that Mia would ever back down that quickly, but I'm pretty sure it would make for a watch with popcorn sort of experience."

  2. #22
    Whatever amusement Oliver was managing to find in this situation, Mal didn't share it. He liked to think of himself as someone who was stern, but fair. He never set out to be cruel, never set out to anger or upset; but at the same time, he understood that certain people of a certain age explored the world by trying to push and see how far they could get, and Mal took it upon himself to be the immovable object that put that irresistible force squarely in its place. He wasn't someone who pushed back: just someone who refused to be moved.

    Or at least, that was the theory. He'd thought he had a read on Connor. An attitude in a tracksuit. Rough home life at a guess; daddy issues, more than likely. Someone who didn't feel at home with family, so they found a surrogate on the streets. For the most part it would be attitude and solidarity, a little petty crime here and there; but it was a foundation, one that was cemented by the belief that the world was apathetic to their existence, their needs, their concerns. The belief that no one cared what you did eroded so much. You broke the rules, pushing your luck as far as you could, just to see how long you could go before you finally earned notice. It wasn't attention seeking - not in the petty, infantile way that everyone used that term. It was more fundamental than that; and easier to understand than that.

    That had been Mal's assumption, at least. He had met so many kids like that in Gotham; and he took it upon himself to be the person who noticed, the person who cared, the person who took exception long before the police ever needed to. He wasn't going to go around holding hands the way that Oliver did; he was more of a slap up the side of the head kind of guy, and for a lot of kids it worked. The world looked very different when you had someone to disappoint.

    Connor's reaction hadn't fit that profile. The armour that Mal had expected wasn't there; the salvo he'd thought he might need to break through had been overkill, and Connor had acted almost wounded by them. He hadn't responded in kind the way that Mal would have expected, and that he was prepared for. He'd seen the flare of anger, but it had been subdued; quashed. Connor was something different; there was something beyond the norm lurking beneath his layers of brooding. A metahuman, Oliver had said. Perhaps that was it.

    "Don't start with me, Queen," Mal grunted back. When Mal Duncan started using real names, you knew the situation was getting serious; and he delivered Oliver's surname with all the resounding force of a right hook. "What are you even doing introducing me to this kid, anyway? Clearly, I am not the right fit for whatever charity case shenanigans you're planning."

  3. #23
    Oliver considered the question, his own thoughts on the topic reframed as he sought to form an answer not for himself, but for Mal. His intentions, and his own dissection thereof, faded in the face of a much simpler truth.

    "This isn't my city."

    His voice had a strange quality to it as he uttered those words; as if they were fleetingly close to a familiar sentiment, but different enough to turn them bittersweet. Perhaps he hadn't considered it, or admitted it until now, but it was an uncomfortable truth: Gotham wasn't his city. It had been, once, for a few years of schooling at Brentwood Academy; but even then he'd been a visitor, an outsider; and that was where he found himself again. This city belonged to the Batman, to Bruce Wayne, and - to his further discomfort - to Queen Consolidated to some degree. He was here on a mission, a crusade; but he did not belong, and in time he would succeed or fail, and return to the streets of Star City.

    Malcolm understood that. Not the specifics, perhaps, but enough that Oliver could leave most of it unsaid.

    "Sooner or later, I'm gone; and when I am, what then? Connor is -"

    Oliver trailed off, struggling to find words to describe the abstract sentiment he felt regarding his charity case shenanigans, as Mal had called them. There was something about Connor that he couldn't shake: some sort of familiarity, or obligation, or something else, that was made all the more complicated by the strength and who knew what else that set Connor apart from his peers. That was the word, wasn't it?

    "He's complicated. He has a lot of strength, a lot of anger, and not a lot of trust. When I leave, that circle of trust gets smaller; and for his sake, and mine, I'd rather not see that circle shrink all the way to a zero."

    His eyes glanced briefly at Connor's direction, watching him brood quietly by the jukebox.

    "Most kids like him are just one mistake away from prison. If Connor makes that one mistake -"

  4. #24
    Mal's mouth drew into a thin line, his thoughts picking up where Oliver's trailed off.

    "- DEO, Supermax, and never seen again."

    It was grim, and pessimistic, an absolute worst case scenario; but not an unrealistic one. Metahumans weren't some urban myth, and the United States government made no secret of their efforts to contain and detain them. In theory, there was nothing illegal about being born with an active metagene, or an unexpected mutation in your DNA, or whatever the hell it was that gave folks crazy super powers; but the law sure as hell didn't give you much breathing room if you were. A regular kid loses their temper, and you get a few broken windows, a few broken toys; maybe a few broken bones, depending on the circumstances. A kid like Connor loses their temper, and suddenly there's destruction of property, reckless endangerment, and all sorts of other disproportionate overreactions. Sure, it was the government's job to keep the people safe; but far too often it came at the cost of forgetting that folks who were different were still people.

    Mal grunted out a small laugh.

    "Good work on the guilt trip there," he muttered, the sentence collapsing into a sigh as it finished. "So, what, this is your way of asking me to keep an eye out for the kid after you're gone?"

  5. #25
    Oliver fell quiet again, more sombre than thoughtful this time.

    "I don't know, Mal," he admitted, fingers idly twisting his glass clockwise and back, clearing waving lines through the condensation with no real purpose. He mustered a sigh of his own, but it lacked the conviction that Mal's had carried.

    That was the biggest problem: the fact that he didn't know. Oliver wasn't addicted to control, didn't crave it or obsess over it, but he did strive towards it; worked to stay on top of a situation, ahead of a curve, and whatever other idioms pointed towards him being someone who wasn't caught by surprise or off guard. His life often depended on it. Roy and Mia's lives depended on it. His city depended on it. But his time here in Gotham, this expedition of curiosity and investigation, was driven not by a plan but by a mystery, and Oliver's choices were subject to the whims of whatever discoveries he happened across. It could be resolved by the end of the week, or stretch for years, or lead him off to Metropolis, or Opal City, or any of a thousand other places. This was white water, and the best Oliver could hope for was steering himself towards the safest path he could see.

    Before Connor, he had been at peace with that. Gotham was a deviation, a temporary excursion before he returned to where he belonged. It was Batman's city, his populace to save; Oliver was merely keeping his head down, embarking on his personal mission, leaving the rest to the Dark Knight. Then Connor had come along, and literally hit him in the face with the truth of the matter. Here was a man who ran around at night dressed as Robin Hood, out of choice. It was a deliberate choice; a statement, not that he was planning on robbing from the rich, but that he was looking out for the poor, for those being exploited and neglected. He'd dismissed them all as Gothamites, the protectees of some other hero, and thus not his concern; but everyone was supposed to be his concern - it was supposed to be what the Green Arrow stood for.

    That was hard to rationalise with the other obligations that filled his mind. Pragmatically, the people of Gotham seemed to need saving more than any other; and so a question presented itself: should he stay? Was that the right choice; the best choice; the smart choice? What of Star City, the home that he loved and that loved him; the home that he would abandon if he followed through on his thoughts of staying?

    Oliver wrestled, pulled and torn in all directions; and Connor stood there at the middle of it all. Perhaps that was the kernel of the boy's familiarity: an embodiment of Gotham, a personification of the people Oliver had the choice to stay and protect. It was too much: too much to fathom, too much to process.

    He offered Mal a shrug.

    "I just wanted to buy the two of you a burger, and go from there."

  6. #26
    The music coming from the jukebox was mellow and bright, like walking down the street on a summer's day. Connor couldn't wait for summer, so he could go for a stroll and enjoy the sun while listening to the machine gun drums of Slayer's Raining Blood or the racing riffs of Motorhead's Ace of Spades, instead of this innocuous crap. Who the hell was Sheryl Crow, anyway? He rested his hands on the rounded glass, and weathered the vibrations, listening carefully to the guitars working in effortless harmony together, to the perfunctory rhythmic drumming, and the sweet voice sailing over it all. But, beyond that, there was the uneven grinding of the fake record player, and the piercing scratch of the fake needle. Neon lights buzzed like flies, and from behind the counter came the V12 growl of the coffee grinder; he winced, and closed his eyes to drown out the waterfall crash of a restroom faucet, the battlefield clash of knives against forks, and the apocalyptic boom of Arlene's shuffling plimsolls.

    Beneath the din, he discovered the low murmur of conversation, of words uttered in earthy undertones, tumbling over each other like freshly-tilled soil. It was the rich foundation of human interaction, the bedrock of Jeff's Diner itself. There were so many voices; words collided, fell apart, reduced to a thick stew of senseless syllables. And, deeper still, he heard a sound, it was a deep rumble, but it fell upon his ears with softness and warmth, parting the relentless clamour like gentle thunder.

    "What are you even doing introducing me to this kid, anyway?"

    It was Mal's voice. He used the words 'charity case,' and the jukebox glass cracked. Rather than becoming distracted by the mishap, however, Connor focused, latching onto his voice, like a buoy on a turbulent sea. And sure enough, there was Oliver's voice, too. The news that he wasn't going to be around for long should not have come as any sort of surprise - Connor knew he was from Star City, after all - nevertheless, the thought remained, stubborn, like a splinter lodged in his mind. It was stupid to dwell on it: Queen had a life beyond Gotham, a life of his own, with his family, and friends, and a place he could call home. Just like Barbara. Just like Mal. Connor had no place in all of that. He was...

    "He's complicated. He has a lot of strength, a lot of anger, and not a lot of trust. When I leave, that circle of trust gets smaller..."

    Connor braced himself against the strange sinking feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach. He held on, clinging to the conversation until mention of the DEO sent his thoughts into freefall. His stomach churned in protest to the sudden spike of fear, sending his heart into a frantic gallop, and phantom icy fingers of dread crawling up his neck. He took a long breath. And another. When his eyes opened, he distracted himself with the task of feeding the jukebox quarters until he was ready to select new tracks. This was where he existed, in the place between anger and fear, each keeping the other in check. He was living on borrowed time, he knew it, and all it took was one mistake. Cadmus? DEO? They were just different brands on a cage. But which was worse? The scientists of Cadmus gave him life, they raised him, made him into the person he was - in a way, perhaps they were his family, after all, and Cadmus was the place that he could call home. For a foolish instant, he felt content in his ignorance, he felt safe. Then the fiction came undone.

    "I just wanted to buy the two of you a burger, and go from there."

    Who even were these guys to care about what happened to him, anyway? Conflicted, Connor stabbed at the buttons on the jukebox, and with narrowed eyes drank in the names of unfamiliar bands and their unfamiliar songs. It was so strange. Is that what people did? Worry about kids they'd never met before? He didn't know what to make of it all. It should've felt good, he supposed. But it was all a tease. A taster of what other people have. Oliver would be gone, soon, and Mal was only helping out a friend. He had no real connection to these people. He knew it was stupid to get close. And yet...

    "I hope you like the Rolling Stones," he said, returning to his seat, "And I Love Rock n' Roll, by the Black Jets. Figured it was a safe bet. And, uh, there's a band called Take That? They have a song called Rule the World. I don't know it, but it sounds..."

    At a loss for words, Connor concluded his assessment with a covert showing of devil's horns. In the renewed silence came the cynical sneer of Keith Richards' guitar. Connor drank his not-Americano and sunk low in his seat. Yeah. Whatever this was, it felt safe.

  7. #27
    Take That.

    Mal stared blankly in Connor's direction, trying to figure out whether the kid was naive, stupid, or making some sort of misguided attempt to be funny.

    He supposed it was conceivable that Connor had no idea who the British boy band were. Mal Duncan of ten years ago sure as hell hadn't; back in the blissful times before his favourite daytime radio station had begun their fatal love affair with the English export. It wasn't that the music was bad; it wasn't. Objectively, the music was fine. He might even have gone as far as to call it cachy, when he'd heard it the first couple of times. Pretty soon though, it had gone from catchy to infectious, and not in the good way. Infectious in the way that plagues were infectious; or an STD; or an embarrasing fungal growth. Infectious in the way that, even when he'd thrown a socket wrench through the radio after hearing one of their damned songs one time too many, he still caught himself humming Shine under his breath as he'd polished up the chromework on the vintage Charger he'd been servicing. It wasn't just the infection either, it was the betrayal. It wasn't right for that prissy Brit crap to be ladeedahing its way around pure American muscle - meaning both the car, and the mechanic.

    He let it all tumble aside. Whatever Connor's intentions, they'd reveal themselves in time, the kid's reactions giving him the answers he needn't bother asking for now. Besides, the arrival of their food helped make that decision for him, and by the time Arlene had distributed the plates, drinks, and fries baskets in front of the appropriate people - noticably avoiding Mal's occasional embarrassed glances in her direction as she did so - the moment had passed.

    Instead, he turned his mind to other things; to the conversation that Oliver and he had just been sharing. There were delicate ways of bringing the kid into the fold for such a thing; subtle ways; gentle ways. Hell with that. Mal didn't have the time, inclination, or disposition for hugs and hand holding.

    "So. Queenie tells me you're a meta."

    At that moment, as well as many others, Mal was glad that Oliver wasn't Kryptonian. Even without that physiology though, he was pretty sure he could still feel heat vision burning it's way into the side of his face. Mal ignored it, reaching for his soder float instead, a long and ponderous sip extracted thoughtfully from the straw.

    "You figured out what you can do yet? Or is nose punching the extent of it?"

  8. #28
    The question had been sprung on him just as he was about to stuff another of the Amazon fries into his mouth. It had been a good call, on Mal's part, to swap out the Warriors for the Amazons. They were bright, orange, crispy, and sweet, and delicious. In fact, he was on the cusp of complimenting the burly mechanic for his choice, when he said something that might as well have slapped the taste from his mouth. A moment passed while he stared, dumbstruck, the one uneaten Amazon fry held erect in pitiful objection. He then followed Mal's gaze to Oliver, whose expression all but confirmed that Mal had not been given permission to say such a thing. But then, Connor couldn't recall ever granting Queen permission to discuss his secret with anyone else. It was a double betrayal, then.

    First, a cautionary glance to survey their immediate surroundings. He stooped low, shrinking the gap between himself and Mal, who, he was discovering, possessed all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

    "Keep it down, will you?" he said, gruff with annoyance. Once more he glanced back to Oliver, this time in unspoken request. Their eyes met, but there was nothing, no warning, no apprehension, just patience. It seemed like this Mal guy was safe enough. He shrugged.

    "I'm strong. I can punch through walls, bend metal; I tossed a Honda Civic into Gotham Harbour once. Only once. I can jump... like really high." A small smile crept through the po-faced summary, just a glimmer before the nervous tension resurfaced. Another glance around the diner. He continued:

    "I'm tough, too. I can't be hurt. Or, at least, not so far. I've fallen from a tall building, I've been hit with a baseball bat, a crowbar, a hammer, several hammers, a truck. Knives don't cut me, either. Big ones, small ones, serrated, straight. Doesn't matter if they're hacking at me, or stabbing. Nothing. The knives and baseball bats break before I do."

    Finally, the lonely Amazon fry was bitten in half with a satifying crunch.

    "Oh, and I can see through walls. Sometimes."

  9. #29
    Strong and tough was a combination that Mal could cope with. A man could spend time at the gym and wind up that way, or at least a fraction of the way there. Mal understood the science and mechanics of such things to wrap his head around the possibilities, as well. Exosuits, high-tech materials, there was science that made those kinds of things possible, and comprehensible; the kid's metagenes were just a biological hand-wave that sidestepped the realistic logistics of it all.

    See through walls, though?

    "Sometimes?" he echoed, quietly. "You mean, when there's a window or something?"

    Mal would have shaken his head, if he wasn't investing so much effort on trying not to. That was some crazy science fiction bullshit right there. Sure, he'd heard about it. Everyone had heard of x-ray vision. Everyone had worn those dumb plastic x-ray specs from the comic book store. Everyone knew that the Big Man in the cape was supposed to be capable of it, too. But as for how? That kind of thing hurt Mal's mind. It wasn't just that a person could see x-rays - if that was even how the damned thing actually worked - it was the idea of it being targeted. Focused. Notions of someone firing high-energy photon beams from their eyes floated through Mal's mind, and he was suddenly deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of being glared at by Oliver's new stray.

  10. #30
    "Huh? No. Not windows."

    After a few seconds of vacant confusion, Connor's face creased with disbelief, and he took a moment to regard Mal and the way he was labouring over this latest curious detail. Part of him wondered if he was lining up a punchline to a terrible pun, but when nothing happened, he struggled to keep a cruel smirk of amusement from taking shape. In Mal's defence - not that Connor thought for one second that he needed defending - x-ray vision wasn't exactly normal. Besides, it wasn't exactly x-ray vision, and if he didn't know what the hell it was, how could expect anything different from someone else? Still... windows, though.

    "What I mean is I don't see through walls all the time. And I can't exactly control it. And it's not only walls I see through. It's plants, machines, flesh, bone; if I focus, I can peel them away the layers, like onion skins. Anything except lead."

    Now, he took a bite of his Supervillain burger, and melted in his seat. When his eyes opened again, he considered the men at the table, and found himself unnerved by their silence.

    "That's pretty cool, right?" He said, prompting them for comment, before conceding, "I mean it's weird. But it's cool."

  11. #31
    Given the circumstances, the prospect of peeling flesh and bone away, layer by layer, wasn't exactly the sort of thing that Mal wanted to be hearing. He hesitated, eyes focusing on the burger halfway towards his mouth, the layers of bacon and beef and cheese and whatever else suddenly looking a lot less appetising.

    Mal let out a sigh, depositing the burger back onto the plate, distracting himself by turning his thoughts instead to what Connor had semi-rhetorically asked. It's weird, but it's cool. That was the premise, the status quo that Oliver's new pet project sought to assert. Mal wondered if he was in a position to make that kind of call. After all, cool was the domain of the young. It took effort, attention, and giving a damn - a combination that Mal was a long way past willingness to involve. Even if he wasn't, his thoughts didn't really matter. The situation was what it was. Cool or not, this kid could see through walls - or so he claimed.

    It was a subject of extensive debate, the same as every other deviation from the norm. Politics, sexuality, race, religion, gender, genetics - didn't matter what it was, society danced its way through the exact same motions. People were afraid. Afraid of what was different. Afraid of what they couldn't understand. Afraid of what others had, and they did not. Mal could imagine the debate and discussion. Forget the fact that the kid was strong. Forget that he was invulnerable. The seeing through walls thing, that alone would drive society crazy. People would be afraid of what Connor might do. What he might do, what he might see, what he might look at, who he might look at. They'd construct a scenario, projecting their own worst impulses to construct a hypothetical scenario that matched and justified the fear that they felt, and then would expect and demand that they be safeguarded and that those capable of it be controlled and penalised for that laundry list of imaginary actions. Connor didn't need that; and even if the kid deserved that, he was sure to find it from literally anyone else. Mal couldn't, and wouldn't indulge in that. It is what it is, he asserted to himself once again.

    Mal managed to muster a contemplative expression on his face for a few moments, adjusting it slightly into a gruff scowl as he reached for his drink. "I'd better not catch you undressing me with your eyes, kid," he grunted, as much of a reaction to Connor's question as he was willing to offer.

  12. #32
    Despite the gravity of Mal's warning, Connor stifled a snort. For a second, his face was a picture of warped amusement, the corners of his mouth tense, preventing the thin-lipped smile from blossoming into an outright grin. It was not the validation he had perhaps been hoping for, but then, having known Mal for a whole 15 minutes, he knew well enough not expect from him any kind of hand-holding, or gentle words of encouragement. Hell, it was probably exactly what he would've said, had their places been switched.

    "Don't sweat it, old man," he said, prodding the fries around his plate with a certain self-satisfied detachment, "You're not exactly my type."

    Now he met the mechanic's gaze across the table, and allowed his eyebrows to jump in time with his fork, to crunch into another one of those delicious sweet potato fries.

    In the beat of silence between words, Connor recognised something within himself that he'd not noticed before. It felt like melancholy, like a small wound in his chest in need of treatment. An emptiness. What exactly had he expected? For someone to drape an arm around his shoulders, tell him it was alright that he was different, that it was cool to be different, and that he was not alone? No. People only did that sort of thing in the movies, or in poorly-acted TV shows. Connor didn't want any of that. What he got was a perfectly natural response from one guy to another, it was funny, and it was, above all things, normal. Normal, when it could've been so much worse.

    Connor smiled to himself, and toyed with his food. Beyond Cadmus Labs, there were now two people who knew who he was and what he could do, and they didn't want to put him in a cage. He exhaled, and sunk comfortably back into his seat.

    "Good call on the Amazon fries, by the way."

  13. #33
    Oliver wrestled with a small smile of his own, though succeeded a little better than Connor in his efforts to conceal it. There was depth to that, reasons why his face so naturally fell into a stoic mask whenever the playful smile beneath it was allowed to relax too far. Reasons that he clung to jokes, to wit and sarcasm, as if they were a life raft carrying him away from the deserted island he claimed to have spent five years stranded upon. But they were his reasons; his demons, in his closet. He took a silent moment to grab a mental shovel and pat down the earth beneath which those reasons were buried, and clung instead to the subtle positive that they had stumbled across. Banter. The briefest instant, yes, but it was better than nothing, a sign of progress, and Oliver was keen to take the win.

    Perhaps that was selfish of him. Perhaps all of this was. Dress it up how you like: this introduction was a contingency plan, a foundation established to lessen any guilt that Oliver might feel when his affairs in Gotham were over, and his crusades drew him back home to Star City. True, there were others in Gotham who he could perhaps convince to take an interest in Connor, a web that he could build that would make for a more effective support structure than Oliver could ever provide alone. There were factors in Gotham that could have the opposite effect as well, factors that Connor needed to be steered away from, for his own sake and for the sake of those around him. Criminals. Exploitation. Bats. It was a sad but common tragedy whenever Gotham's network of criminals stole the life and potential of one of the city's sons or daughters; a, fortunately, rarer but more worrisome one when that son or daughter could see through walls, punch like a freight train, and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

    The obvious correlation had not escaped him. There was no monopoly on super strength and invulnerability, but x-ray vision? Oliver wasn't clear on the metaphysics behind the seemingly impossible feats that Kryptonians were capable of, but he understood enough to know that it had something to do with light. Sunlight, x-rays, infrared; and wasn't radiation, like the kind that pulsed out of kryptonite just a form of light too? He might not understand how a bunch of photons or waves or whatever could make someone bulletproof and capable of flight, but thanks to a chance encounter with the glowing green pyjamas guy, he'd learned that light was capable of a whole heck of a lot more than they'd taught him in science class back at Brentwood Academy.

    It was probably nothing. Probably a coincidence. Probably that thing that palaeontologists were always talking about, convergent evolution or whatever, where two completely unrelated species figured out the same evolutionary solution to the same kind of problem. After all, Kryptonians were an endangered species: there were probably more mountain gorillas left in the wild than Kryptonians; as well as more nature documentaries on the TV in Oliver's hotel room than one might expect. This was just a coincidence, a metahuman stumbling into the right genetic combo to result in a few of those familiar abilities. Either that, or the big blue Boy Scout had been whipping it out of his little red trunks and knocking up the Gotham populace, and Oliver was pretty confident that Lois Lane would have his balls in a jar if anything like that had ever happened - something that those very same little red trunks gave Oliver an uncomfortable ability to be confident was not the case.

    Even so, the faintest possibility of it lingered in his thoughts. He studied Mal, looking for some sort of clue that the titanic mechanic was thinking along similar lines. Mal was his usual unreadable self: the only time you could ever see what Mal was thinking was when disapproval was painted across his face, and usually, by that point, you were mere seconds away from being told exactly why in explicit detail.

    "Don't worry, buddy," Oliver offered, clapping Mal on the shoulder. "We'll just find you a lead planter to stand behind so that Connor can't see your pink and lacies."

    It was subtle, and obscure, a reference to a certain article that pretty much anyone of a certain age was sure to be familiar with. Assuming, of course, Mal Duncan was the kind of person to use the Daily Planet for something other than just soaking up oil spills in his garage.

  14. #34
    It took longer than it should have for the notion to penetrate. At first Mal's eyes widened, and then narrowed, fixating on Oliver's questioning glance. He understood what Time Magazine was trying to suggest, and could guess the kind of places his mind was likely to go in the wake of that. Mal wasn't sure what pre-shipwreck Oliver Queen was like, but this new version who'd returned home all those years ago seemed like the kind of person who'd never met a challenge he didn't want to try and solve on his own. By himself. With no help from anyone. Especially not anyone who knew what in the damn hell they were doing.

    "Not sure that's an experiment I want to risk taking part in."

    His words were chosen carefully; his tone not so much. For the most part it was civil, but there was an undercurrent of warning that Mal couldn't manage - and didn't want - to strip away. He hoped it was enough to drive home the innuendo and implication. He threw in a chuckle for cover, but the note of humour didn't undercut the sincerity of the sentiment.

    "The word exposure applies in too many different ways, and that's not something I like the sound of anywhere near me and my junk."


    * * *

  15. #35
    After a rocky start, lunch at Jeff's hadn't been a complete disaster. Connor took what limited time he had to build upon the sorry scrap of civility he had inside of him, and salvaged his reputation. To a point. For the most part, he left the talking to Oliver and Mal, while he enjoyed a much needed double-helping of burgers and fries. He tried, though. Tried to be interested, and interesting; he even mustered a small smile, now and then, when someone said something uncharacteristically lighthearted. He had to be careful with that, though. It wasn't so much that he had a tin ear for comedy, but rather, there wasn't much for Connor Kent to laugh about. So he looked to Oliver and Mal for the right cues. It went ok, not that he dwelled on it much: the important part was the food, and that was great.

    With a full and satisfied stomach, he traipsed behind the old friends, granting them some space to talk on the way back to Mal's garage. It certainly seemed like his kind of place, somehow. Connor tempered his curiosity enough to not be intrusive, and dealt with the farewell with trademark simplicity; why make a fuss, when a curt nod, and a "See you around," would do? It was not the last he was to think about Mal, even as he watched the small unassuming garage vanish into the distance in the mirror, he found himself wondering about the quirks of fate that brought a man like that into the orbit of a man like Oliver Queen.

    A fresh growl from the engine derailed his thoughts, he could feel it travel up through his feet and rumble in his belly. Oliver's car was... black. From the paint work, to the wheel trims, to the seat leather, and the rest of the interior, everything was black. Even the windows were tinted for added blackness. Connor didn't know anything about cars, and hadn't given them any thought, before today. But there was something about this particular car, with a sleek design that contrasted its stocky shape, and an angry snarling grill, that just appealed to him on some inexplicable level. Even nestled inside, his eyes were drawn to the smallest of features, like the fine stitching on his seat, and the shimmer of silver detail on the stick. And the smell. What was it about the smell? It was... seductive. No, intoxicating. And when the engine first stirred with such a guttural roar, it made his hair stand on end.

    "Nice car," he conceded, using it as an excuse to reach out and stroke the dashboard like a pet dog, whereupon he gave an appreciative nod, "It's soft. Tasteful. I bet it's expensive."

    Remembering who the driver was, he tossed Oliver a knowing look, "Let me guess: it was your birthday and you couldn't decide between a new car, or a small island."

  16. #36
    Something tugged at the corner of Oliver's expression, something part way between a smile and a wince. He noticed and noted Connor's attempt at humour, and might otherwise have been amused by it, were it not for the unpleasant memories that his choice of contrast brought up. The official story, one which Connor seemed to be only vaguely familiar with at best, was that Oliver Queen had spent five years stranded on an island in the Pacific. The reality was, well, distinctly more complicated, and distinctly less pleasant.

    "I'm not really a fan of islands."

    He could have left it at that, the conversational equivalent of a cross court back-hand: but they were on the way to a stakeout, not the US Open, and Oliver wasn't out here trying to score points. Whether deliberately or not, Connor had initiated a potential conversation, and Oliver was starting to learn that such voluntary small talk was a rare commodity from the young meta. Instead he leaned into it, trying to strike up a verbal rally.

    "This is a little more understated than what I usually drive -"

    Understated was an understatement, Oliver realised in instant hindsight, fighting against the flicker of a smile as he contemplated the sleek green profile of his Arrowcar back home. Despite appearences, the two vehicles were remarkably similar: both gas-guzzling monstrosities on the outside, but utterly transformed within, the negative aspects of their past design stripped out in favour of something more benevolent and conscientious. In the case of the vehicles, conventional internal combustion gave way to electric motors, hybrid engines, and environmentally conscious biofuels: but Oliver liked to think it made for an apt summation of himself, as well, an eye-catching misconception that belied something better - or at least less terrible - beneath. If the Arrowcar was Green Arrow - flashy, eyecatching, and painfully on-brand - then this car was the Oliver Queen of the dichotomy. On the surface it was a Dodge Challenger: American-made and a long way from cheap, but not as overtly attention-grabbing, more apt to blend in on the streets of Gotham. If the Arrowcar was costumed and quivered, then the Dodge was plain clothes. Perhaps silver or a graphite gray would have been even more benign and uninteresting, but the black was a concession to Oliver's own inner monologue that, obviously, everything in Gotham needed to be painted black.

    "- back home in Star City. I'm no Bruce Wayne, I don't have an entire annex on my home that's just for cars or anything like that, but people out there seem to care about what I spend my money on, and so I figure, why not do something useful with that attention? I have a thing for hybrids, and electric cars. Not the crappy little city runabout ones, but the swanky things, the ones that look like proper cars instead of overgrown RC toys. The technology is getting better all the time, and with the world the way it is, we kinda need that. But, stuff like that doesn't get developed or invented unless there's a market, and a demand. So, I buy into that. Draw some attention. Add my name to their list of celebrity customers. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but -"

    He let out a small sigh, his hands fidgetting into a slightly different position on the wheel.

    "I am who I am. I am what I am. There's not much I can do to change that, but maybe I can leverage that to do a little good. Charities. Causes. Publicity. Whatever."

    This time Oliver did smile, slightly, a faint chuckle tumbling out of his lips.

    "I promise it's not nearly as pretentious as I just made it sound."

  17. #37
    "Nah. It's not pretentious," Connor shrugged off Oliver's attempt to be self-deprecating, and, pausing to find the right word, he concluded, "It's considerate."

    He was beginning to notice the way Oliver Queen made light of serious things, as if to somehow rob them of their weight. Maybe he was reading into it too much, of course. Maybe Queen just had a really strange sense of humour. But he wasn't about to deny him the credit he deserved, after all, there was something he said - and Queen had said a whole lot - that somehow resonated with him.

    "All of that attention," he mused aloud, eyes resolutely on the road ahead, "Having your every move scrutinised, every word debated, every purchase judged. Sounds like hell to me. It's a decent thing, trying to take the attention, and use it for something good."

    There were things Oliver Queen said that were of little consequence; matters of opinion, about hybrid cars, crappy runabout cars, and proper cars. Lacking any personal experience of his own, Connor had nothing of value to add the conversation, but Queen's words were scattered like seeds, taking root in the fertile soil of his uninformed mind. From an economical sense, his argument in favour of hybrid and electrical vehicles carried weight, and more importantly, from an ecological point, too. Even he was aware of climate change. Now, the next time someone casually brought up the topic of cars, he was armed with a knowledge and a vernacular, ready for the challenge.

    But it had not been the car talk that resonated, but rather the all-too-familiar subject of unwanted attention. Since their first encounter, Connor had summed up Oliver Queen as a privileged rich boy with a tragic history - it had been a stupid misstep to mention islands in front of him, and he should've known better - someone with whom he shared nothing in common, for they each came from completely different worlds. And yet, the fame which he had always disregarded as quirky byproduct of his rich boy privilege, seemed suddenly like a cage. And cages were something with which he was only too familiar.

    "And a damn sight better than what I would do," he muttered, darkly. Then, remembering himself, he added, "I, uh... I value my privacy."

    They existed like dream fragments, lingering in the dark recesses of his mind, broken images, but always the same: the frosted glass, the faceless men, warped voices, lights, blinking, the blinding white, then darkness and silence again. Silence, much like the ominous void filling the limited space inside Queen's proper car. Connor exorcised the ghosts of distant memories and punctured the quiet with a question he'd been holding onto for too long:

    "Okay, so... how does a guy like you know a guy like Mal?"

  18. #38
    I value my privacy.

    Those words resonated with Oliver, and he allowed himself to dwell on them for a few moments as the car rumbled on down the Gotham streets. Connor's tone framed the attitude as a failing, but Oliver felt otherwise. To value privacy was to understand that it was precious, something often forgotten in this modern world of social media and outspoken opinion. Oliver was not the kind of entitled celebrity to complain about his fame: born into it or not, by choice or not, it was the privilege that he had, and he could no more surrender it or wish it away than he could his nationality or ethnicity or gender. Yet, he couldn't help the pang of sadness he felt for those so eager to sacrifice their privacy wholesale alongside the obscurity they were desperate to lose. Throwing the baby out with the bath water, his mother would have said, one of the many quirky sayings that used to purr from her in a gentle brogue that transformed into quite the horrifying notion if you thought about it too long.

    Oliver did think about it too long, and the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips carried with it a hint of sadness.

    "A guy like me?"

    He injected enough amused indignation into his voice to flush away the residual hints of anything else.

    "I'm not sure how to take that, Connor. Should I feel insulted, or should Mal?"

  19. #39
    "Something tells me you ain't old school buddies."

    It was an evasion delivered with the same hint of levity as the question itself. Queen was being deliberately obtuse, he could tell; the implication that his words harboured insult either for Oliver or Mal left him short on options, and he wasn't about to let himself get cornered so easily. Connor sunk further into his seat, partly an instinctive display of relaxed defiance in the face of the new line of questioning, but also because the seat was so damn comfortable.

    "It's like you and me, Queen. The wealthy playboy slash philanthropist," he was quick to add, to give him his due and all, "Riding around Gotham with some... moody meta. Right? What I'm saying is things like that don't just happen. There's a story there, we know there is, and I bet there's a story with you and the big guy, too."

    Already, the landscape around them was beginning to change, rising and falling like an indecisive tide; the swell of grey high-rises as they cut through downtown diminished into the scruffy dwarven warehouses of the docklands. Connor gazed out of the window, drinking in the sights; there was so much of the city that was still completely alien to him.

    "But we all have our secrets, I guess," he said, idly, before shaking off the cobwebs of thoughts, "And speaking of which, where the hell are we going?"

  20. #40
    Oliver sucked the inside of a cheek between his teeth, mostly in an effort to stop an amused smile from fully forming as Connor dug himself deeper into a whole. All manner of opportunities for Oliver to deliberately act offended presented himself, on his own behalf or on Mal's. Was Connor suggesting that Oliver saw himself as too good to associate with the rest of humanity? Was he implying that Mal wasn't worthy of moving in the same vaunted circles? Could he twist things so it seemed like Connor was applying the label of 'moody meta' to the towering mechanic?

    In truth, the speculation and deliberate misunderstanding was far more entertaining than the actual truth. The story of Mal and Oliver was the same as any other: an acquaintance who had become a friend. Oliver had sought him out, an expert in applied physics who had parted ways with his former employers at STAR Labs, after Queen Consolidated approached him with a job offer and Mal had - in his own words - told them where to shove it. Oliver had already begun to harbour suspicions about his family's former company, and Mal's shared animosity had made him a resource at first; his skills with technology, and the services he'd ultimately rendered to the Green Arrow had made him an ally.

    Perhaps it would have been difficult to convey the sentiments of that progression without Oliver revealing more than he would have wanted to, but Connor quickly excused Oliver of the need to, abandoning his line of enquiry and shifting his questions to focus elsewhere. Oliver spent a moment contemplating the boy's reasons. Was it courtesy, a respect for Oliver's privacy and secrets from someone who would at some point hope to receive the same? Or was it surrender, or disinterest, the sign of someone whose attention span wavered quicker than Kid Flash at a free buffet?

    Oliver allowed himself to complete a turn before he answered, steering them onto one of Gotham's smaller streets. Burnley, and Mal's garage were far behind them, as was the city's uptown island, and the residences of Coventry were giving way into the industrial structures of Red Hook. This was Bratva territory: the the Whisper Gang, the Ivgene Clan, the Odessa Mob, organised crime out of Russia and Ukraine who controlled the Red Hook docks, trafficking in guns, explosives, heroin, stolen goods, and sometimes stolen people, in part or in whole, to an extent that would make even the Triads and Yakuza feel a little squeamish. It was one of Gotham's most grim neighbourhoods, and yet it hid it well, behind the protective shell of warehouses and shipping depots, and in the shadow of the comparative pleasantry of the Gotham Village and Robinson Park.

    They weren't here for the crime though, not exactly.

    "Tyler Chemicals," Oliver offered, in answer to Connor's question. "They're a pharmaceutical company, founded in the Seventies, that Queen Consolidated acquired in a hostile takeover a few years back, and then almost immediately shuttered. That's not as weird as it sounds: probably just means that Tyler Chemicals had a patent or impending breakthrough that QC wanted, and buying the whole company wound up being a better deal than paying licence fees piecemeal."

    He fell quiet again as the car drew to a halt, eased carefully into a hopefully inconspicuous parking spot alongside a worn and grubby abandoned warehouse.

    "What is weird is that building over there," Oliver continued, with a gesture through the windshield. "According to city records, that building was an 'ancillary storage facility' for Tyler Chemicals, which I guess is just a swanky way of saying 'warehouse'. It should be abandoned, and Queen Consolidated doesn't list it as a line item on their facilities budget, and yet?"

    Oliver dug into his pocket, pulling out what on the surface seemed to be a smartphone, albeit a somewhat clunky and boxy variation on the theme, rather than the sleek profile that a QPhone or Waynecom product might cut. A fingerprint scan and a pin code later however, and the screen that sprang to life was something very different: a map of Gotham City, covered in a web of colour coded lines and regions that intersected and overlapped. A few clicks, and most of them faded, leaving behind a thin red line and a modest area of effect superimposed over what presumably - if the little black you are here triangle was any indication - was the building that warranted their attention. Oliver presented it to Connor, almost triumphant.

    "Someone has been paying the electric bill for the last few weeks, and they're using it to run wifi."

    He shrugged, shifting a little in his seat to get more comfortable.

    "Now, it could just be that Queen Consolidated has a security guard in there who spends his days watching Netflix and porn, or that they're redecorating the eleventh floor and needed somewhere to shove all that stuff... or it could be something else. Sorta seemed like a stakeout situation to me."

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