Oliver Queen
Nov 4th, 2015, 08:40:21 AM
Gravel crunched beneath the wheels of Oliver's car as he finally rolled his way up to the entrance of Wayne Manor.
It had taken a long time to decide the sort of car that Oliver Queen would drive. For Bruce Wayne it was easy: whatever was most expensive, and several of them. But for Oliver Queen it was a little trickier. He needed to maintain the right image. He needed a car that would fit with someone important enough to be invited to parties and galas, and who would attract enough attention to appear in the gossip columns and on the paparazzi blogs when he wanted to - those publications were his alibi, the evidence that he couldn't possibly be the Green Arrow, in case anyone came too close to unravelling that mystery. At the same time though, he needed something that could conceivably go unnoticed; something that he could park up in the city and not immediately have it draw the eye of everyone in a ten mile radius. Nothing European then, nothing fancy or ostentatious - no Ferraris, or Lamborghinis, or Aston Martins, no matter how cool it would have been to cruise around feeling like James Bond. Nothing green, either; that one was a little disappointing. Instead he'd bought American (http://www.teenagemutantninjaturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/TMNT-2-Casey-Jones.jpg), and settled for nice, generic black.
They said that the length of a man's drive was a status symbol; the longer you had to travel between the main road and the front door, the more wealthy they were, the more land they owned and all that. If that was the truth, then Bruce Wayne's driveway must have been about seventeen miles long. It certainly felt that way. Oliver was from money, but he was from California money. He was used to luxury Coast City beach houses, swanky mansions with more bathrooms than bedrooms, and enough swimming pool acreage to float a small navy. This New England style of wealth, the grand old houses that were almost as old as America, these vast tracts of land with nothing on them, just a visual indicator of how much you could afford - it was both weird and nostalgic. It reminded him of his years at Brentwood, after his parents had died and his uncle decided the easiest way to be an effective legal guardian was to ship Oliver off to a boarding school on the far side of the country and leave someone else to worry about his care. That was why he was here, ultimately: that stretch spent in Gotham during his troubled youth was when he'd first met Bruce Wayne; and now here he was, half a lifetime later, showing up on the man's doorstep.
With a breath for courage, he climbed out of the car and let the door close behind him, blipping the locks closed with the remote on the key fob. When Wayne Manor was built, there would have been enough staff to be swarming him with attention by now, but nowadays Bruce Wayne and his wards rattled around in this place more or less alone. That left the place seeming deathly silent - none of the clattering of life or activity from within the huge house, and nothing but the sounds of nature to distract in the background. Oliver wasn't sure if he liked it or not. For most, escaping the bustle of the city for the tranquillity of the country was the epitome of peaceful relaxation - but for Oliver, it was all a little too familiar: the city was already an escape, from the lonely stillness of the island.
There were too many steps leading up to Wayne Manor's doorway, but at least the steps were smaller than Oliver remembered. It was strange: he'd met Bruce numerous times since his return from the island, both with masks and cowls, and without. It was Bruce who was the reason that Oliver had become entangled with the Justice League: apparently a mask and a hood hadn't been enough to prevent the World's Greatest Detective from discerning his identity. Yet in all that time, he had never come back here. The island had been so transformative, it was almost as if the man he was now had never been here at all; all of those memories belonged to someone else, to some other life.
The door knocker was about a foot lower than it used to be. Oliver grasped hold, and pounded it against the door.
It had taken a long time to decide the sort of car that Oliver Queen would drive. For Bruce Wayne it was easy: whatever was most expensive, and several of them. But for Oliver Queen it was a little trickier. He needed to maintain the right image. He needed a car that would fit with someone important enough to be invited to parties and galas, and who would attract enough attention to appear in the gossip columns and on the paparazzi blogs when he wanted to - those publications were his alibi, the evidence that he couldn't possibly be the Green Arrow, in case anyone came too close to unravelling that mystery. At the same time though, he needed something that could conceivably go unnoticed; something that he could park up in the city and not immediately have it draw the eye of everyone in a ten mile radius. Nothing European then, nothing fancy or ostentatious - no Ferraris, or Lamborghinis, or Aston Martins, no matter how cool it would have been to cruise around feeling like James Bond. Nothing green, either; that one was a little disappointing. Instead he'd bought American (http://www.teenagemutantninjaturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/TMNT-2-Casey-Jones.jpg), and settled for nice, generic black.
They said that the length of a man's drive was a status symbol; the longer you had to travel between the main road and the front door, the more wealthy they were, the more land they owned and all that. If that was the truth, then Bruce Wayne's driveway must have been about seventeen miles long. It certainly felt that way. Oliver was from money, but he was from California money. He was used to luxury Coast City beach houses, swanky mansions with more bathrooms than bedrooms, and enough swimming pool acreage to float a small navy. This New England style of wealth, the grand old houses that were almost as old as America, these vast tracts of land with nothing on them, just a visual indicator of how much you could afford - it was both weird and nostalgic. It reminded him of his years at Brentwood, after his parents had died and his uncle decided the easiest way to be an effective legal guardian was to ship Oliver off to a boarding school on the far side of the country and leave someone else to worry about his care. That was why he was here, ultimately: that stretch spent in Gotham during his troubled youth was when he'd first met Bruce Wayne; and now here he was, half a lifetime later, showing up on the man's doorstep.
With a breath for courage, he climbed out of the car and let the door close behind him, blipping the locks closed with the remote on the key fob. When Wayne Manor was built, there would have been enough staff to be swarming him with attention by now, but nowadays Bruce Wayne and his wards rattled around in this place more or less alone. That left the place seeming deathly silent - none of the clattering of life or activity from within the huge house, and nothing but the sounds of nature to distract in the background. Oliver wasn't sure if he liked it or not. For most, escaping the bustle of the city for the tranquillity of the country was the epitome of peaceful relaxation - but for Oliver, it was all a little too familiar: the city was already an escape, from the lonely stillness of the island.
There were too many steps leading up to Wayne Manor's doorway, but at least the steps were smaller than Oliver remembered. It was strange: he'd met Bruce numerous times since his return from the island, both with masks and cowls, and without. It was Bruce who was the reason that Oliver had become entangled with the Justice League: apparently a mask and a hood hadn't been enough to prevent the World's Greatest Detective from discerning his identity. Yet in all that time, he had never come back here. The island had been so transformative, it was almost as if the man he was now had never been here at all; all of those memories belonged to someone else, to some other life.
The door knocker was about a foot lower than it used to be. Oliver grasped hold, and pounded it against the door.