𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓷𝓼 • 𝒜𝓇𝓇ℴ𝓌

1.5| 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓣𝓮𝓼𝓽

-🌹-

It wasn't long before she was making her way down the steps and into the foundry, finding it illuminated by the cold, pale buzzing electric lights, the heavy scent of rust and damp greeting her once more.

Her heels echoing out on the metal steps as she made her way down, quickly drawing the attention of Oliver who was standing at one of the metal desks-and she used the word desk loosely-stuffing things into a bag.

He turned towards her with a frown. 'I thought you where going to Central City to visit your siblings?'

'I was.' Chloé hummed with a heavy sigh, 'they came to me.' Part of her still couldn't believe it, the other part of her however felt she by now should have known better.

'Ah.' He nodded, 'I haven't found anything further on this other archer. I'm just here to grab my stuff in case I need to make a swift exit at tonight's party.' He paused. 'If they're here why don't you bring them along.'

Chloé stared at him before she began to chuckle slowly bursting into laughter. 'Bring them? To your house?' Barely able to contain her laughter. 'Oliver, your mother already doesn't like me and you want me to turn up, at her house with my brother and sister in tow?'

He raised a finger. 'She doesn't hate you. She hates Vivienné.'

'Oh, well we have that in common I guess.' Chloé mumbled with a shrug, taking a seat at her leg began to ache.

'She doesn't know you or your siblings.' Oliver offered as he sat opposite her. 'Once she see's that you're nothing like her, she'll warm up. And Walter's your family too, he asked me to ask you.'

'It's still a very bad idea.' Chloé stated with a sigh, rubbing a hand over her face. She hated doing anything that might upset or hurt Walter, but she also did not want to be the one to betray Oliver's secret to them. 'Because it's not just her I don't want to meet, it's you.'

He raised his brows, a tightness to his jaw. 'Me?'

'Yeah.' Chloé admitted resting her head on her cane, this wasn't something she'd wanted to bring up or planned to talk about but it was out there now. 'Oliver, you are doing a good thing here. But that's kind of the problem-' she gestured around to everything.

'Well, I trust both you and John to be able to keep a secret.' He stated voice growing sharper, 'even from them.'

'Oh trust me.' Chloé declared, 'I intend to. I've caused them enough problems this-' she threw up her hands once more. 'This is the last thing I want them involved in. Ever. Which is why I didn't want them to meet you.'

'Well it's a good job I'm good at pretending to be something I'm not then.' Oliver said as he stood, 'you think they're going to see through me?'

She bit on her lip as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. 'I did. And it's not just you they might see through it's me.' She sighed, 'Oliver, they're my siblings, nobody knows as well as they do. And that aside, I don't know how much research you did on them but-' She let out a heavy breath.

'A decent amount.' He said, zipping up the bag that had been on the table. 'I know your brother's a crime journalist-'

She nodded with a tight hum. 'Yeah and he's unfortunately very very good at it.' She said through clenched teeth, 'I mean you and him would probably get along spectacularly; since you both go after the same kind of guys.' Gripping tighter to her cane. 'You shoot them with arrows, Théodore airs all their dirty secrets in the press like it's fun and or sport-Hell it basically is to him at this point.' Running a hand through her hair. 'He also does this by hacking into things to obtain otherwise unobtainable information, needless this is led to a lot of arrests. But since he pokes holes in the law like it's a game of whack-a-mole, he has so far only ever been charged once.'