Rating: NC-17 for smut smut smut

Verse: Smallville, Post Episode, AU (sorta)

Summary: What could've happened if Oliver had gone to see Tess months after Salvation, knowing she'd saved the world?

A/N: There's no Granny Goodness, Darkseid, or Season 10 in this universe!

Bad Romance

[Their story doesn't end...]

Her life felt less ruled by her father. Somehow she hadn't ever put together that he'd caused her pain. A therapist would've put that together instantly, but she preferred not to view her life as one of a victim. But today, as she finished typing her document and stood up, she felt a little less restrained by his power.

"Tess?"

She looked up, her eyes widening slightly when she saw him.

"Oliver?" she asked.

"Hey," he said, walking in slowly, a hint of cautiousness in his stride. He noticed the mild, healing burn marks on her face.

"Is it really you?" she asked, not trusting her own mind after all Maxwell Lord had done.

"Meaning?"

She shook her head. "Never mind." She stepped out from behind her desk. "Are you okay? Clark told me Chloe went to find you after you disappeared."

"I'm good. Got my ass kicked but that's nothing I'm not used to." He paused, looking at her attentive but confused face, so he continued. "I just got back into town yesterday, Chloe's staying in Star City for awhile but uh…Clark filled me in on what happened with Zod and the end of the world, and you."

He reached up to turn her face slightly, acquiring a better look at her healing face. She worked to let him, but between the guilt and the humiliation, she turned her face away after a few seconds.

"Yes, well, after seven months of treatment, it's amazing what a difference time can make. I know you can still tell, but trust me, it's a good thing Zod's gone."

She stepped back, looking down at her desk and Oliver that knew all Clark had said was true, minus the part about knowing who Tess was…or who she had been several years ago.

"What happened?" Oliver asked.

"You just said Clark told you."

"Clark wasn't there."

Tess smiled a brave smile, faking strength. "I tried to save the world - or Clark at least. I took kryptonite to the fortress and tried to kill Zod with it. I failed and he burned me. I woke up in the hospital and I told Clark how to stop him."

Oliver's eyes closed but Tess could barely focus on him. The desk wasn't giving her sufficient space from him.

"Look, Oliver, I think it's really…admirable of you to come and check on me but I'm not entirely sure what this is so if you want me to do something, I'd be really grateful if you'd just tell me what that is."

He'd never seen her uncomfortable around him. More than that it was like she was almost afraid of what he'd say. That was the last thing he'd expected. He always expected her to yell at him, threaten him with her piercing green eyes and frankly terrify him a little. What he was getting was a woman who seemed so much smaller than her 5'11 form, someone who did seem like she'd been burned by a super-human being, shattered and depleted by a life more powerful than her own.

And like someone whose life had been threatened by the man she loved.

"I'm not here to ask anything of you. I just wanted to see the woman who saved the world."

There was a look in her eyes he recognized. It was that *you're-so-full-of-shit* look.

"Oh yes," she replied sarcastically. "Right after being the one who helped put it at risk, right?"

She pulled a file off her desk and gave it to him.

"Here's an update. I know the company matters to you more than you let on."

He took the file and looked back at her, unintentionally forcing her eyes away from him.

"Listen, I never knew if I'd see you again, and I certainly never knew if you'd say anything civil to me. So regardless of if it means anything to you, I'm not angry anymore for what happened all those years ago. I know that it should've taken me a lot less time to let it go, but I don't look at you anymore and think about it. I understand now. I understand because when I kidnapped you, it had nothing to do with hurting you. It didn't even really have anything to do with hurting Green Arrow. Checkmate was going to kill me and I was scared for my life. I made a really poor decision and it cost me something I cared about, it cost me you. So that's how I know what it was like for you when you slept with someone else. I thought it was about me, but it wasn't in the way that I'd thought. And by the time I finally let it go, I destroyed any feeling you had left for me."

She tucked her hair behind her ear.

"It took me a lot of time and a lot of unforgivable mistakes, but maybe someday you can see what I finally saw. Realize what I finally realized about you."

He gave her a small smile. "I figure out revelations pretty quickly."

She nodded, and he saw that she was trying to believe him.

"Tess?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I do this to you or did Zod?"

"Do what?"

"This," he said, motioning his hand between them. "I want you confident and strong, like you usually are." He stepped up to her. "I know I said horrible things to you - things I never should have said - at a time when you were scared and needed someone, but I am really proud of what you did, and what you're trying to do. And it's more, honestly, than a lot of things I've done. I was angry, more than just at you, and you were the one I took it out on. But I still want you to be who you are."

She exhaled a laugh. If only he knew how ridiculous that was now. She felt even less powerful when he took her face in his hand and guided it towards his.

"You're making it harder," she whispered, placing her hand on his wrist.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said gently.

"My skin's burned now, Oliver. It's-"

"So what? Do you think that matters? It changes nothing."

He kissed her once, gently, feeling her take in a breath. Her hand instantly went to his chest, bracing herself against him. He pulled back before she felt the need to push him off. She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him. She hated seeing what she used to think about on a constant basis.

He left her for a second and went to the door of her office, shutting it and locking it. She wasn't unfamiliar with him doing that, but she'd lost her ability to feel empowered by a physical connection with him.

"Oliver, while I suppose I should be flattered you're locking the door to have sex with me in my office, I'm really going to have to ask you to look elsewhere. I'm not up for creating any sexual confusion between us."

By the time she'd finished her sentence he was in front of her again. He took her hand and pulled her into his arms.

"This isn't about sex," he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers.

She felt him absolutely take her over in the embrace, his arms containing all of her in their kiss, and somewhere in the back of her mind, behind the love she felt for him, she remembered a woman who was once fierce and strong. She remembered a woman who would kiss him back, whose arms would confidently go up his defined back; but now she simply let him consume her.

She felt very out of her body, extremely disconnected. She could tell that it felt good, that he felt good, but more than anything it was strange and confusing that he would do this. Why was he holding her? He wasn't attacking her, tearing her clothes off and throwing her to the floor. He was just kissing her, really desperately. Was it desperate? She was so fucked up that she was barely experiencing it.

His hand went to her scarred cheek and for an instant she forgot how she now saw herself. His tongue opened her mouth and aggressively licked her teeth, moving to caress her lips and then he sighed into her mouth. His hand had wrapped around the back of her head and he'd finally taken an instant to catch his breath before continuing. She didn't feel connected to herself enough to be as overwhelmed as she should've been as he came at her, tasting her lips. She pulled back.

"Wait."

"Why?"

She didn't really have very far to back up as she realized that she'd already been leaning back against her desk. Looking at her, he almost felt as if he were seeing a completely different person. He hadn't seen her so…so human, so before she'd become the most powerful person in the world in a long time.

"I haven't understood a single thing you've said since you walked in the door. What are you doing? Why are you in the same room with me, let alone laying a hand on me?" She covered her eyes with her hands in confusion.

"Tess," he said comfortingly.

She returned her eyes to him. "Is it because I slept with you before? And you think it'd be easy? I'm not available any time Lois or Chloe breaks up with you."

"I know that. If I thought that I'd buy someone a drink at a bar. I'm here because of you."

She just stared at him in disbelief.

"Okay, now you're just making me feel bad," he smiled.

"I-I'm not trying to be anything, or make you angry, I just don't understand. If you said you forgave me, I'd just be…shocked. But I don't know what you're doing. What happened to you?"

He laughed softly. "Why are you acting like you've never met me? And you know enough about what happened to me."

She looked at him like he was crazy for asking her. "Stop acting like I'm the one who's insane. When was the last time we were civil to each other?"

"Hey, it takes two to be civil. You're doing half the work. Clark told me what happened. I don't want this to be the same as last time. I want it to be different for us."

What the hell was he talking about? Different than when? "Did you take something before you came here?"

She wasn't significantly less confused when his mouth was on hers again, when his hands went to her throat and tilted her face upwards. She didn't know why, maybe because he was there, maybe because it felt good, but she opened her mouth and kissed him back, but the second she did she remembered Zod and submitting herself to him.

"I just can't handle any more right now," she said to him. "I can't take anything else."

"I know," he agreed. "I feel the same way."

"And you walked through my door?"

"Tess, you haven't talked this much in your entire life. Shut up."

He pulled her off the desk and she couldn't help but think that he was incredibly stupid to come near her. Didn't he know how lethal she was? She swore to herself that if he hurt her again she'd blow his head off. Logical, Tess. Way to stay in the light of the sanity that you've worked so hard to get back to. Everything was slow, easy, cerebral. His mouth kissed her harder, and he lightly dragged his teeth over her upper lip before sucking it into his mouth. She clenched her eyes and gasped against his mouth at the sudden jolt of pleasure cycling through her. Leaning against him for the first time, she reached her hand up to his face but his hands were faster and he pushed her jacket off her shoulders.

Tess bit her lip as he ran his mouth along her jawline, down her neck. Flashes emerged behind her closed eyes, flashes he projected into her, convincing her of things that she knew were untrue. He was good at that, so good at that that sometimes she believed he was the one who taught her how to do that, not Lex. And the images, along with his touch, were almost too much. She felt her mouth drop open when he slowed his pace and then quickened it again, making the liquid heat in her lower stomach nearly reach a boiling point. Her fingers reached for his shirt, his tongue brutally refusing to leave her mouth.

When her hands touched his chest, she broke the kiss, looking down.

"It was real," she whispered brokenly, seeing the deep scar expanding over his torso. "He did it to you," she said.

Her eyes closed in shame.

"Hey," Oliver said, tipping her face back up.

"It's my fault."

"I fought him and he won. Clark was the only one who had a chance against him. It's no one's fault but Zod's."

Tess shook her head. "No, I-I empowered him, I encouraged-"

He kissed her forehead. "Don't," he told her. "He's gone; let him go."

She touched his face but kept her eyes shut, painfully aware of all that she'd brought down on everyone.

"I mean it," he said. "Let him go, not just for this moment, but for your future. You can't let him be with you forever. He can't be a plague on your life. He has nothing on you, not really. So don't let anything he did to me weigh you down. Please."

She knew she had never had a constant in her life. She knew any strength she had was always something she'd found in herself, but the little Clark had given her when he'd saved her wasn't sustaining her in everyday life, despite the fact that she'd put entirely every ounce of her faith in Clark. She'd been a child the last time she'd had any faith in Oliver, but that didn't mean she couldn't let his words bring her up from the ground she felt completely swallowed in.

She trembled from the tension and anger inside her system, attempting to release it. A lifetime of pain and complete fucked-up-ness was hard on her body. Oliver's lips rained soft kisses along her forehead, turning her head slightly so that he could reclaim her mouth as she exhaled.

The second she kissed him back, he pulled her from where she was standing and in her complete haze, he brought her swiftly to the floor. Maybe he had projected an entire world into her mind, but no matter what he did, she loved him so much that she still didn't care. She liked the feeling of his body over hers, protecting her, covering her. She let his hands pull her blouse off, unhook her bra, and through the escalating dizziness she was enduring, she somehow managed to realize that those barriers were no longer between them.

His mouth traveled its way along her body, leaving a wet path behind, but he kept his focus on her face. When his lips moved their attention from her mouth she turned her face and sought them out again. His fingers dove blindly into her red hair as she reveled once again in the total adoration he bestowed upon her. He was winning the battle and to her it was relaxing that he was overwhelming her. He gently pushed her legs a little further apart, pushing into her as she gripped his face, rising up slightly.

"Oliver," she whispered urgently. "Doesn't…doesn't matter anymore what you think, or what you say. Nothing matters much anyway." She looked down, licking her lower lip. "But in my whole life, there has only been one person."

She felt his breath on her lips, and then he kissed her, pushing his tongue into her mouth as he pushed himself into her. Rolling her back down on the floor, he pulled back just enough so he could speak.

"I love you," he said, and that was the last thing she remembered.

~o~

She didn't waste any time putting her clothes back on, which sincerely pissed him off. What part of 'wanting this to be different than last time' did she not understand?

"What are you doing?" he asked, lying naked beside her.

"My desk is over there," she replied.

He could tell by her response that she didn't believe in anything that he had said or what they had done. He rubbed his face in aggravation.

"How can you possibly be so stupid?" he asked.

She finished putting her blouse on and glared at him. "How can you possibly be such a traitorous bastard?" she shot back.

She started to stand up but he yanked her arm cruelly. She fought the urge to render him unconscious.

"Stop it, Tess. You've fought for everything you've ever had in your life. Fight for me."

"You so don't want me to respond to that."

She was off the ground and out of his reach. Somehow, he thought having pants on before continuing to argue with her might be a good idea, though he remembered countless arguments they'd both had without clothes on. However, once he'd achieved his goal, he came up behind her, always enjoying the invasion of her personal space.

"Would you at least think about it? If we hadn't slept together, if we hadn't said anything, this wouldn't be an issue. You don't have to make it one."

She turned around and looked up at him. "How is it that you never fail to make every situation about how incredible you are? Believe me, no matter how many years I know you, it never gets charming."

He blocked her. "And I never stop hearing that." He reached for her and she flung his hand away. He grabbed her and she flinched. "Don't fight me!" he yelled at her. "You're angry with me again; that's progress. But it doesn't mean that I want you pulling away from me. Not believing me."

With surprising force she pushed him off of her.

"Look," she informed. "I don't know what the hell you really came in here for but if you think you can erase the words you said to me that night, you're mistaken. I can have a conversation with you. I can work with you. I can be in the same room with you. We can be where we were before Checkmate happened, but that's as far back as I can go."

Seeing the frustration in his eyes, she surrendered and gave in, if only for the purpose of shutting him up and getting him out of her office.

"I promise you that I will think about it."

"Your version of thinking about it is pushing me as far away from you as possible."

"Well that's all you get!"

He made fists with his hands, working hard not to connect them with her.

"I swear," he said to her. "It's a good thing you and I already disregard the law."

To Be Continued