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seriousficTitle: Davis Bloom – Hero To Those Who Wander Through Dark Alleys In The Dead of Night
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,530
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis
Timeline: Spoilers for 8x09 Abyss. Sequel to Chloe Sullivan – Sidekick To The Stars
Summary: Clark faces a little competition and Davis tries to work around that time Lois stabbed him and forgot about it.
“Dark alleyways,” Davis muttered, “why is it always dark alleyways?”
Chloe had taken to running his little operation like Professor X to Cerebro. Though she had a lot more hair, not to mention cleavage, than ol’ Xavier. Davis would take all the help he could get, even if she wasn’t in a wheelchair.
“Okay, got something. I checked the Humane Society record for the Whitakers and there was an investigation for animal cruelty.”
“Do you want a clean kill or to send a message?” Davis asked in his best Bond James Bond accent. Some empty beer bottles clattered off to Davis’s side. He whirled, fists raised, but it was just a cat. “Clocktower, you mind skipping to the end?”
“They say there was a methane leak, but that’s impossible. I think what we’re dealing with is a metahuman who drains life force.”
“Sounds like my ex-wife.”
“You’ve never been married.”
“Offering to fix that?”
“I don’t think Jeremy Whitaker meant to hurt anyone. By all accounts, he’s a happy, healthy member of Generation Y.”
“So were the Columbine kids.”
“Do you trust me or not? He’s just a scared kid, probably exposed to meteor rocks as an infant. Don’t go in guns blazing.”
Davis nodded grimly. “Okay, but if you’re wrong, it’s my funeral.”
“I’ll deliver a very moving eulogy.”
Davis tapped off his line to Chloe and walked out into the open. “Jeremy? I’m not here to hurt you. I’d just like to talk.” He was greeted with silence. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt your family. But they’re at the hospital, worried about you.”
A voice came out of the darkness. “You’re lying! I saw them wither!”
Davis held up his hands. “I have a friend who’s like you. She healed them. I can call them, if you’d like.”
The voice downshifted into a piteous whisper. “Okay.”
Davis pulled out his cell-phone and quick-dialed Chloe. “Put me through to the Whittakers.” He set the mobile down and slid it into the shadows. He saw its lit-up screen travel upwards and illuminate the side of a stubbled face.
“Mom?” He snapped the phone shut after a moment, fighting back tears. “She’s alive!”
A red blur shot between them and Jeremy was suddenly airborne, screaming, windmilling. He traveled thirty feet, hit the wall, fell from there and landed on a dumpster.
“Jeremy!” Davis ran to his side. “Don’t move.” He tapped his earpiece. “Clocktower, I need an ambulance. Possible internal bleeding…” he finished shining his penlight in Jeremy’s eyes. “Definite concussion. Jesus!”
He looked in the direction the red blur had traveled, stirring up old newspapers in its wake.
“What was that?”
***
Davis handed off a copy of Jeremy’s chart to Chloe in the hospital cafeteria. Neither of them felt much like eating, so Davis’s lunch tray grew cold between them.
“Think Isis can help him?”
“With the powers, sure. The internal bleeding, I leave to the HMO.”
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Chloe rubbed her temple. “In my nightmares, maybe. But whatever it is, hasn’t made a very good first impression on me.”
“Got you in a vendetta kind of mood?”
“You’re the superhero.”
“We’re the superhero. If you hadn’t gotten me there, I couldn’t have done anything.”
“Well, enjoy it while it lasts. I have a honeymoon coming up. Niagara Falls.”
Davis bit the inside of his cheek. “How… conventional.”
“Maybe I like conventional.”
“Maybe.” Davis leaned back. “But you don’t.”
“Sup, niggas!” Lois sat down beside Chloe. “You gonna eat that? I skipped breakfast.”
Chloe slid the lunch tray her way and stood up. “I was just leaving. Blog isn’t going to update itself.”
“Blog?”
Chloe smiled at Lois. “Yeah, didn’t you hear? Print media is dead.”
Lois waved her off as she left. “Pfft.” Then she noticed the way Davis was gripping his plastic spork. “Why so serious, cowboy?”
Davis’s eyebrows made a big for what was left of his hairline. “You seriously don’t remember?”
“Oh, did we…” Lois pushed her forefinger through a circle of her thumb and other forefinger.
Davis let go of the spork. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“How was I?”
Davis held his hand flat and waved it a little from side to side. “Eh.”
“Huh. Usually I’m a rowdy drunk. Must’ve been really blotto. But I can see how that could be awkward, you having the hots for my cousin and all.” She took a bite of sausage link. “Mmm! I know all the jokes about hospital food, but this is really good!”
“Lois, you cannot tell anyone about this!”
“Relax, your ‘secret’ is safe with me. Does she know?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Oh, the usual way. I confessed my undying love for her and she shot me down like a Messerschmitt over London.” He grabbed Lois’s Jell-o cup and miserably dug into it.
Lois was just sympathetic enough to let him get away with it. “That figures. Chloe is still stuck on what we might call the ‘ugly duckling’ stage. She thinks she’s a bloated weirdo, not noticing she’s grown into a smaller, blonder version of me.” Lois licked her finger and touched it to her chest, making a sizzling sound. “Therefore, she’s so grateful for the attention of a boy… even one who doesn’t even wait for marriage to do adulterous… that she doesn’t notice he’s only a ‘prize’ in the Cracker Jack box sense of the word.”
Davis reared up, intensely interested. “So you don’t think she loves Jimmy?”
“Clearly not!”
“And I am? That why you’re helping me?”
“Yeah, she’s a freaky girl and she needs someone like you to be her boytoy. And there’s no way I’m letting her get married before me.”
“Someone like me?”
“You know. Creepy, but in a sexy kind of way.”
“I’m creepy?”
“In a classically-trained British villain actor sort of way. You’re Alan Rickman.”
“I don’t want to be Alan Rickman!”
“Hey, I don’t decide these things. Say, long as I’m here, how about a man-on-the-street opinion on the Metropolitan?”
“The what?”
“The who! EMTs on the scene report a guy in a gimp suit giving first aid to the Whittaker kid.”
“Gimp suit… the Metropolitan? That’s a horrible name. No one will ever use that.”
“That’s what they said about Red Cape, our last costumed adventurer.”
“Superhero.”
“What and ever.”
***
“Clark, I have great news!” Chloe said, helping herself to one of the Talon’s coffee dispensers.
“Jimmy stopped using your razor for bikini area shaves?”
“Even better! It’s like I’ve found my calling in life!” She put extra whipped cream on her latte. “I’ve always wanted to be a journalist to help people, but with the blog, people are sending in tips about metahumans. And with the Isis Foundation and Metro, I can help them! It’s like I’m a reporter by day, superhero by night.
“Wait, you’re helping Metro the Metropolitan?” Clark frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. And helping him… it just feels so right. I’ve thought my relationship with Jimmy was good, but this is better than sex!”
It occurred to Clark that Chloe didn’t have a very good frame of reference. “So who is Metro?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes.”
“So can I.” Chloe bopped him on the shoulder. “Clark, we’re still friends. Nothing could make me forget that.”
“You’re talking like I’m jealous of this Cosmopolitan.”
“Metropolitan.”
“See? I couldn’t care less.”
***
“The Metropolitan?” Clark read from the Daily Planet. “FATHER, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?”
“Kal-El, you don’t have to shout. I can turn back time, I can hear you if you use your indoor voice.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Clark waved the newspaper in the general direction of the disembodied AI. “This Metro is stealing all my thunder. Giving people hope, wearing a costume… that’s supposed to be my job. I’m the Traveler!... not that anyone calls me that. How come he gets a kickass name like Metro and I’m just ‘the red and blue blur’. That’s not even a name, that’s a description.”
“My son, perhaps now is the time to start a disguise.”
“Like a mask?”
“Or a fake scar, a wig, Magic Marker freckles… why must I think of everything? I’m dead!”
“Chloe would know what to do. That’s another thing! He stole my sidekick!”
“You did wipe her memory. Even by my complex standards, that was a dick move.”
“Oh, when it’s something stupid you want to do, like rule the world or let my friends die, you’re all gung-ho about it, but when I do something stupid, you can’t say… no?”
“You never listen. All the time I warn you about dire consequences, but do you ever listen? No, you go and pout in your barn.”
“I don’t pout!”
“You sulk. And cry sometimes.”
“I do not!”
“You cry like someone kicked you in the vagina,” Jor-El intoned sonorously. “You’re getting misty right now!”
“I wish I had never been shot through the ice-cold vacuum of space to land on Earth!”
“You won’t speak to me in that voice! I am an artificial representation of your father!”
“You’re not my father!”
“That’s what I just said!”
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,530
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis
Timeline: Spoilers for 8x09 Abyss. Sequel to Chloe Sullivan – Sidekick To The Stars
Summary: Clark faces a little competition and Davis tries to work around that time Lois stabbed him and forgot about it.
“Dark alleyways,” Davis muttered, “why is it always dark alleyways?”
Chloe had taken to running his little operation like Professor X to Cerebro. Though she had a lot more hair, not to mention cleavage, than ol’ Xavier. Davis would take all the help he could get, even if she wasn’t in a wheelchair.
“Okay, got something. I checked the Humane Society record for the Whitakers and there was an investigation for animal cruelty.”
“Do you want a clean kill or to send a message?” Davis asked in his best Bond James Bond accent. Some empty beer bottles clattered off to Davis’s side. He whirled, fists raised, but it was just a cat. “Clocktower, you mind skipping to the end?”
“They say there was a methane leak, but that’s impossible. I think what we’re dealing with is a metahuman who drains life force.”
“Sounds like my ex-wife.”
“You’ve never been married.”
“Offering to fix that?”
“I don’t think Jeremy Whitaker meant to hurt anyone. By all accounts, he’s a happy, healthy member of Generation Y.”
“So were the Columbine kids.”
“Do you trust me or not? He’s just a scared kid, probably exposed to meteor rocks as an infant. Don’t go in guns blazing.”
Davis nodded grimly. “Okay, but if you’re wrong, it’s my funeral.”
“I’ll deliver a very moving eulogy.”
Davis tapped off his line to Chloe and walked out into the open. “Jeremy? I’m not here to hurt you. I’d just like to talk.” He was greeted with silence. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt your family. But they’re at the hospital, worried about you.”
A voice came out of the darkness. “You’re lying! I saw them wither!”
Davis held up his hands. “I have a friend who’s like you. She healed them. I can call them, if you’d like.”
The voice downshifted into a piteous whisper. “Okay.”
Davis pulled out his cell-phone and quick-dialed Chloe. “Put me through to the Whittakers.” He set the mobile down and slid it into the shadows. He saw its lit-up screen travel upwards and illuminate the side of a stubbled face.
“Mom?” He snapped the phone shut after a moment, fighting back tears. “She’s alive!”
A red blur shot between them and Jeremy was suddenly airborne, screaming, windmilling. He traveled thirty feet, hit the wall, fell from there and landed on a dumpster.
“Jeremy!” Davis ran to his side. “Don’t move.” He tapped his earpiece. “Clocktower, I need an ambulance. Possible internal bleeding…” he finished shining his penlight in Jeremy’s eyes. “Definite concussion. Jesus!”
He looked in the direction the red blur had traveled, stirring up old newspapers in its wake.
“What was that?”
***
Davis handed off a copy of Jeremy’s chart to Chloe in the hospital cafeteria. Neither of them felt much like eating, so Davis’s lunch tray grew cold between them.
“Think Isis can help him?”
“With the powers, sure. The internal bleeding, I leave to the HMO.”
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Chloe rubbed her temple. “In my nightmares, maybe. But whatever it is, hasn’t made a very good first impression on me.”
“Got you in a vendetta kind of mood?”
“You’re the superhero.”
“We’re the superhero. If you hadn’t gotten me there, I couldn’t have done anything.”
“Well, enjoy it while it lasts. I have a honeymoon coming up. Niagara Falls.”
Davis bit the inside of his cheek. “How… conventional.”
“Maybe I like conventional.”
“Maybe.” Davis leaned back. “But you don’t.”
“Sup, niggas!” Lois sat down beside Chloe. “You gonna eat that? I skipped breakfast.”
Chloe slid the lunch tray her way and stood up. “I was just leaving. Blog isn’t going to update itself.”
“Blog?”
Chloe smiled at Lois. “Yeah, didn’t you hear? Print media is dead.”
Lois waved her off as she left. “Pfft.” Then she noticed the way Davis was gripping his plastic spork. “Why so serious, cowboy?”
Davis’s eyebrows made a big for what was left of his hairline. “You seriously don’t remember?”
“Oh, did we…” Lois pushed her forefinger through a circle of her thumb and other forefinger.
Davis let go of the spork. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“How was I?”
Davis held his hand flat and waved it a little from side to side. “Eh.”
“Huh. Usually I’m a rowdy drunk. Must’ve been really blotto. But I can see how that could be awkward, you having the hots for my cousin and all.” She took a bite of sausage link. “Mmm! I know all the jokes about hospital food, but this is really good!”
“Lois, you cannot tell anyone about this!”
“Relax, your ‘secret’ is safe with me. Does she know?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Oh, the usual way. I confessed my undying love for her and she shot me down like a Messerschmitt over London.” He grabbed Lois’s Jell-o cup and miserably dug into it.
Lois was just sympathetic enough to let him get away with it. “That figures. Chloe is still stuck on what we might call the ‘ugly duckling’ stage. She thinks she’s a bloated weirdo, not noticing she’s grown into a smaller, blonder version of me.” Lois licked her finger and touched it to her chest, making a sizzling sound. “Therefore, she’s so grateful for the attention of a boy… even one who doesn’t even wait for marriage to do adulterous… that she doesn’t notice he’s only a ‘prize’ in the Cracker Jack box sense of the word.”
Davis reared up, intensely interested. “So you don’t think she loves Jimmy?”
“Clearly not!”
“And I am? That why you’re helping me?”
“Yeah, she’s a freaky girl and she needs someone like you to be her boytoy. And there’s no way I’m letting her get married before me.”
“Someone like me?”
“You know. Creepy, but in a sexy kind of way.”
“I’m creepy?”
“In a classically-trained British villain actor sort of way. You’re Alan Rickman.”
“I don’t want to be Alan Rickman!”
“Hey, I don’t decide these things. Say, long as I’m here, how about a man-on-the-street opinion on the Metropolitan?”
“The what?”
“The who! EMTs on the scene report a guy in a gimp suit giving first aid to the Whittaker kid.”
“Gimp suit… the Metropolitan? That’s a horrible name. No one will ever use that.”
“That’s what they said about Red Cape, our last costumed adventurer.”
“Superhero.”
“What and ever.”
***
“Clark, I have great news!” Chloe said, helping herself to one of the Talon’s coffee dispensers.
“Jimmy stopped using your razor for bikini area shaves?”
“Even better! It’s like I’ve found my calling in life!” She put extra whipped cream on her latte. “I’ve always wanted to be a journalist to help people, but with the blog, people are sending in tips about metahumans. And with the Isis Foundation and Metro, I can help them! It’s like I’m a reporter by day, superhero by night.
“Wait, you’re helping Metro the Metropolitan?” Clark frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. And helping him… it just feels so right. I’ve thought my relationship with Jimmy was good, but this is better than sex!”
It occurred to Clark that Chloe didn’t have a very good frame of reference. “So who is Metro?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes.”
“So can I.” Chloe bopped him on the shoulder. “Clark, we’re still friends. Nothing could make me forget that.”
“You’re talking like I’m jealous of this Cosmopolitan.”
“Metropolitan.”
“See? I couldn’t care less.”
***
“The Metropolitan?” Clark read from the Daily Planet. “FATHER, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?”
“Kal-El, you don’t have to shout. I can turn back time, I can hear you if you use your indoor voice.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Clark waved the newspaper in the general direction of the disembodied AI. “This Metro is stealing all my thunder. Giving people hope, wearing a costume… that’s supposed to be my job. I’m the Traveler!... not that anyone calls me that. How come he gets a kickass name like Metro and I’m just ‘the red and blue blur’. That’s not even a name, that’s a description.”
“My son, perhaps now is the time to start a disguise.”
“Like a mask?”
“Or a fake scar, a wig, Magic Marker freckles… why must I think of everything? I’m dead!”
“Chloe would know what to do. That’s another thing! He stole my sidekick!”
“You did wipe her memory. Even by my complex standards, that was a dick move.”
“Oh, when it’s something stupid you want to do, like rule the world or let my friends die, you’re all gung-ho about it, but when I do something stupid, you can’t say… no?”
“You never listen. All the time I warn you about dire consequences, but do you ever listen? No, you go and pout in your barn.”
“I don’t pout!”
“You sulk. And cry sometimes.”
“I do not!”
“You cry like someone kicked you in the vagina,” Jor-El intoned sonorously. “You’re getting misty right now!”
“I wish I had never been shot through the ice-cold vacuum of space to land on Earth!”
“You won’t speak to me in that voice! I am an artificial representation of your father!”
“You’re not my father!”
“That’s what I just said!”
