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Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 1: Unexpected

Susan Williams: Thank you for agreeing to sit down with me, Mister-

Thomas Merlyn: [raises a hand to interrupt] Please, don't call me that. Call me Tommy. Thomas if you absolutely have to be formal.

Susan: [nods] Alright. Thomas it is. As I was saying, thank you for agreeing to sit down with me for this interview.

----

Thomas: ...I'm sure some of your viewers will think it's self-serving to say this, but my father and I were not close. Haven't been for years. [long pause] Not since my mother was killed. He was... very distant. The last year was an exception - first he cuts me off, then he starts trying to reconnect. I didn't know what to make of it when he tried to reach out. Part of me assumed he was up to something.

Susan: You don't think he was trying to reach out to you out of some sort of... I don't know, guilt over what he was planning?

Thomas: [humorless laugh] If Malcolm Merlyn was capable of feeling even the slightest shred of guilt, I can't imagine he'd have tried to kill thousands of residence of this city. No... maybe there was some tiny remnant of fatherly affection left in him, I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to try to make sure I didn't die at Verdant when his fancy devices went off, so someone could inherit his stuff eventually.

Susan: Do you miss him?

Thomas: Now isn't that a loaded question to ask? If I say yes, there's video of me saying I miss a mass-murdering psychopath, and if I say no, I look like some prick who's dancing on the grave of the father he didn't really love.

Susan: ...That's not an answer.

Thomas: No. It isn't. 

[Long Pause]

Susan: I suppose I can't expect you to give me an answer to that.

Thomas: I know he had to die. He would have gotten the death penalty if he'd been taken in alive... and like I said, he was a mass-murdering psychopath. There's no other way it could have ended, no other way it should have ended.

Susan: And yet you haven't shut down his company.

Thomas: No, I haven't. I've already given over the Merlyn Mansion to the city to help house, I've given all the properties he bought up in the Glades over to their residents, Glades charities or the city, I've donated almost all the actual money I got in the will, after the fines the city, state and federal government hit the company with. 

Susan: And what, you feel like that's enough?

Thomas: I had nothing to do with what my father did. I gave what I did because I wanted to help the people my father hurt, because it was the right thing to do. And I'm keeping Merlyn Global Group open for the same reason.

Susan: How is that?

Thomas: Even with pretty much everyone who works for the company in Starling City quitting, and plenty more worldwide, there's still over ten thousand people employed by Merlyn Global Group or it's subsidiaries worldwide. A lot of them... their livelihoods depend on this company. I'm not going to just leave them all out in the cold because my father decided that he wanted to play mad scientist and create his very own earthquake.

Susan: An admirable desire, but given the company's stock prices and falling revenues, will that do anything but delay the inevitable? And... well, you're not exactly a man with a strong track record in business. 

Thomas: [Deadpan] Ouch. Tell me what you really think, why don't you?

------

Susan: Have you been to see Moira Queen in Iron Heights?

Thomas: I've barely left the Merlyn Global building in the last two months. I mean, you've seen the people protesting out front. If I wasn't for the State Police stationed outside by the governor... well, I understand why people want to take their anger out on someone available....So no, I haven't had the chance to see her.

Susan: Her lawyers have been claiming that she was coerced into everything, but the District Attorney seems determined to prosecute Mrs. Queen. Do you think he's right to do so?

Thomas: [Shakes head] No, not remotely. He seems to think my father wasn't actually threatening her or that... I don't know, she was willingly in on it. Which is absurd. 

Susan: You believe that he threatened her, threatened her children? That he would have actually killed Oliver and Thea Queen?

Thomas: You don't? [scoff] My father or not, Malcolm Merlyn was, as it turns out, even less sentimental than I ever thought. He killed Robert Queen - supposedly his best friend - to keep his scheme hidden, and even those scientists who made him his earthquake machines. Moira Queen was practically a second mother to me, after mine died. [Long pause] I've known her practically my entire life. I was closer to her than I was ever to my dad and there's nothing that she wouldn't do for her children. She certainly believed my dad killed Oliver for five years, so why wouldn't she believe he'd kill Thea too? 

Susan: So you think she's innocent?

Thomas: She was coerced. She was protecting her children's lives. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not, but... what, would you let someone kill your kids - hypothetically - to save the lives of strangers?

Susan: [Pause] I suppose that's the question, isn't it? I don't have an answer - at least not a fair one.

Thomas: Neither do I. I'd like to think I'd do the right thing, but in the end... can I be sure? Nobody can.

----

Thomas: ...I won't sit here and say that I think vigilantes are a good idea. I didn't before the Hood - or the Arrow, or whatever we're supposed to call him now - killed my father,and I don't now. But... well, it seems like they were necessary. And the Hood's stopped killing people, low bar to clear as it is.

Susan: Do you think the SCPD is right to still consider them criminals to be arrested?

Thomas: In a perfect world, sure. But we don't live in a perfect world. I'm not saying I'd walk up to the Arrow, or the Black Canary, shake their hand and thank them, but... well, it looks like Starling City needs them. I have nothing but respect for the Starling City Police Department and their detectives and officers, but... things would be a lot worse in the Glades without them. Hell, the rest of the city too.

Susan: You're not worried about copycats?

Thomas: You mean like the guys who called themselves the Hoods? [Scoff] I think the Hood - Arrow - pretty much made it clear how much we needed to be worried about them. [Deep breath, sigh] Yeah, I'm worried about other people being vigilantes. I mean, sure, the Arrow and the Black Canary have proven their hearts are in the right place, and when he was killing, at least he was judicious about it, but... those guys weren't. At all. I mean, for god's sake, they tried to go after Oliver Queen, and... well, the worst he's ever done is steal a taxi seven... no, eight years ago.

Susan: Weren't you involved in that too?

Thomas: I was never charged... but yes. [Sigh] I won't deny that I was a reckless kid... and reckless adult. And so was Oliver. But both of us have had to become something we never planned on being.

Susan: Like CEOs of your fathers' companies?

Thomas: [Nods] Among other things. [Pause] You know, the Hoods aren't the only copycats. You've got that new community watch, in the Glades. The Canaries, they're calling it. It's been years since something like that made progress, and... whether anyone likes it or not, and I have it on good authority the SCPD does not, the Black Canary has... well, she's inspired something in the Glades. Gave people hope.[Pause] Both of them have, in different ways, for different things.

Susan: What do you mean?

Thomas: I mean... the Arrow... god knows there's a problem with rich people abusing the system to get away with crimes - guilty as charged. I can't say I like how he's been doing it, but he's giving people hope that justice will be served, the guilty will get punished. And the Black Canary? She's... she's given people hope that things will get better.That life can change, things don't have to be shit forever. [Pause, clears throat] Sorry, you're probably gonna have to censor that on airtime, aren't you?

Susan: Unfortunately, but I think the viewers will understand what you mean.

Thomas: Like I said, they seem to be necessary. And... with any luck, they'll do their job well enough Starling won't need them forever. 

Susan: Pretty philosophical for someone who reportedly barely skated by in College.

-----

Susan: What do you think of Alderman Sebastian Blood? Word is he's planning on running for mayor.

Thomas: Well, the man's been outside practically calling for my head on a stick, so I can't say I'm his biggest fan. But... well, he seems to care more about the people in the Glades than the rest of the city's government. 

Susan: Is that an endorsement?

Thomas: I think the last thing Alderman Blood wants would be me to endorse him... [Small Laugh] so yeah, let's call it an endorsement.

-Excerpts from the transcript of an interview between Susan Williams and Tommy Merlyn, August 15th, 2013, aired on Channel 15 August 16th, 2013 at 7:00pm PST.

October 5th, 2012

Sara Lance's Apartment

Over the last few months, Sara had spent even less time in her apartment than she ever had before. Between the SCPD working double time to try to keep order - especially after a number of prisoners escaped Iron Heights in the chaos after the Undertaking, including Vanch and the Count - and working with Oliver and her sister to try to do... something for the city.

Things in the Glades had been getting worse, overall. Sure, Oliver and Laurel had made quick work of the 'Hood Gang' trying to pretend they were doing good for the city, instead of just stealing for themselves, and there were signs that the people of the Glades were trying to take their home back, like with the new neighborhood watch - the 'Canaries' as they were calling themselves (and she'd enjoyed teasing Laurel a bit about that) - or Alderman Blood's work to organize the Glades and probably run for Mayor. All but confirmed, really.

But even with all that, Sara was busy, two jobs and very little sleep to show for it. And if Captain Stein hadn't practically forced her to stop taking double shifts, she wouldn't be home either.

Even dad told me to take a break. And her workaholic father was going half mad after being busted down to beat cop. It was the punishment the higher ups in the department had insisted on after he'd taken the fall for her... for working with vigilantes.

It's not gonna last. He's too good at his job to waste in a patrol car. Sara was happy that IA wasn't on her case any more, but she couldn't help but feel guilty... even if he'd insisted he'd do it again.

Though they'd had some choice words after the Hood Gang had started their thing. About vigilantes. About Sara not being willing to never work with them again.

If only he knew how close. 

But here she was. Home with time to spare for the first time in a while.

And her fridge was empty.

Sara started looking through cupboards, trying to figure out when the last time she'd been to the store was, finally finding a package of instant ramen she could make. Even as she started to boil the water, she had to admit...

I've got no damn idea when I last went.

"Of course, all of us have too many jobs right now." Sara muttered to herself as she added the pasta to the water. The whole thing was done quickly enough and soon she had something she could at least call dinner.

Sara was just starting to eat, not even bothering to leave the kitchen when she heard a knock on her front door.

Sara's hand went to her gun. "Who is it?"

"Sara, it's me," 

Sara closed her eyes and let go of her gun. She swallowed, standing there, debating whether or not to just... ignore her. She was good at that, pretending her mother didn't exist. 

"Sara?" Her mother asked again, and finally, Sara set her bowl down on the counter and walked over to the door, pulling open.

"What do you want?" She hadn't seen her mother since... since Laurel had come back. 

"Really?" Her mother asked softly, raising an eyebrow, and Sara closed her eyes again, pulling the hand that wasn't on the door down her face. "Hi Sara, it's been nearly a year."

"It has," Sara agreed. "And you had no problem staying away that year, or the year before that." She stepped aside, letting her mom walk in. "So... I ask again, what do you want?"

"Is it so hard to believe that I might want to see my daughter?" Dinah asked,closing the door behind her as she walked in. "I... I was in town, visiting Laurel at her new place. She - she invited me up, and..."

"And what, you decided to drop in unannounced, on the off chance I was even here?" Sara snapped. She knew she shouldn't be like this, intellectually. Her mother was just a phone call away, and Sara could count on the fingers of one hand she'd actually initiated a phone call herself since her mother had moved to Central City..

But Sara hadn't been the one to move in the first place. 

"You do still have my phone number, right?"

"I wasn't sure you'd even pick up," her mother pointed out. "I mean... it's not like you've wanted to have much to do with me,"

"Yeah, I wonder why that might be?" Sara scoffed. "I can't imagine. Oh... wait," She held up a finger, as if suddenly getting an idea. "Right, I know why. You made it pretty clear how you felt about being my mother years ago: Not great. Probably regret it and everything - Sara the problem kid who grew up and decided to follow her dad rather than you."

"Sara, I know you're still upset I divorced your father, but don't ever pretend I don't love you or that I regret having you - you're my daughter, and I'm always going to love you," Her mom said, voice serious, stern. She let out a long breath. "I just haven't known how to talk to you, lately." She added, softer. 

"Well, you could start by making sure I'm home before visiting," Sara pointed out. She let out a long breath, trying - and failing - not to make it obvious how frustrated and exasperated she was. She leaned against the wall, looking at her mother.

"I thought I might just wait for a bit, if you weren't here..." Her mother explained. "And... leaving a note if you didn't show up."

"You mean because I'm as much of a workaholic as dad?" Sara raised an eyebrow, knowing what her mother was implying.

"Sara, our entire family is workaholics," Her mother pointed out. "I'm not innocent of that either. I used to think maybe you were, but I guess you just had to grow into it, like I did." Sara bit her lip, inhaling sharply. Dinah let out a long sigh.

"I didn't come here to argue with you," She murmured. 

"Well, what did you expect Mom?" Sara stared at her mother. "I mean... really? And while we're on the subject, you really think the only reason I'm upset with you is because you divorced dad. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not thrilled you just broke up with him and left him to deal with everything himself a year after we all thought Laurel died, but that's not the only problem I have with you. Or the reason I wonder if you actually want to be my mother," Sara swallowed, then looked down.

"Look, mom... I... I know you love me. I haven't ever really doubted that, not... really." Not in her heart of hearts, anyway. "It's just - you moved. You moved to Central City, not to somewhere else in the city, or nearby. I was still mourning my sister, my dad was crawling into a bottle, and you... you just left. And that's not even talking about how you reacted when I told you I wanted to become a cop!" Sara wished the plaintive note in her voice wasn't there, the -

"I did try to encourage you to transfer to Central City University," her Mom pointed out, softly. Sara stared at her mother, not believing her. I mean, you mentioned the prospect like... once? Before you'd actually told me you were moving. "As for..." she swallowed, then looked away before speaking again: "You're right. I wasn't very supportive about your choice. But given how dangerous being a police officer is in Starling City, can you- can you at least understand why I at least wasn't thrilled about the prospect?"

"Bullshit. You married a cop! You were unhappy I was 'taking Dad's side'," Sara used air quotes around that part, though her mother had never said it in as many words. "I didn't even know you two were going to divorce when I first told you both I wanted to go into law enforcement, so how could I have been taking-"

"Sara!" Dinah raised her voice, something that she'd only done a few times, and not since Sara had been 14. And even then, it still wasn't even a yell, here and now. "Yes, I married your father knowing he was a police officer, but for one, the city was safer back then, and for another, I still had countless sleepless nights worrying about him. I'd lost your sister to the sea, and I'd lost your father to the bottle, and the thought of losing you-"

Dinah choked up and stopped talking, swallowing. "Maybe...maybe subconsciously I thought you were taking his side, or... something." She admitted, quietly.

Sara licked her lips, taking another long breath. "I don't even understand why you just... why did you just... leave him? We all lost Laurel, we all mourned together. Fine, he started drinking again, he threw himself into the job even more, but - I stayed for that. I was able to still be there for dad and to mourn my sister, why couldn't you stay there for him?" Sara had never understood this, never gotten it. She'd always thought her parents' marriage was practically perfect, until one day they just... weren't married anymore. Even when her mom had said she was divorcing her dad, Sara hadn't really believed it was happening until it did.

"I mean... what happened to 'in sickness and in health'? Did... did mourning Laurel just... was it so much you just stopped loving Dad?"

Dinah put a closed fist to her mouth for a moment, then pulled it away. "I didn't stop loving your father because we all thought Laurel died," she shook her head. "Your father's an alcoholic. It wasn't as if that was the first time he'd crawled into a bottle... I'd been there for him through that before. Hiding it, saying he was working late when he was at the bar. Then hiding empty bottles everywhere. The lying about why he was stumbling home, reeking of alcohol..." Her mother shook her head. "Every bit of it. We always kept it hidden from you, from Laurel, your father never got so bad as that, but..."

She swallowed. "I loved your father, and yes, we did vow to stay together for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. But I couldn't... I couldn't stay there and deal with your father vanishing into a bottle again, and deal with all of it, while mourning your sister. Not again," she repeated. "I wasn't going to light myself on fire to keep your father warm."

Sara opened her mouth to say something, to argue, but...

She didn't agree with her mother, exactly, but...

I can't... I can't say she's wrong. 

She closed her mouth and swallowed, letting out a long sigh. "I..." She dropped her head down, chin on her chest a moment, before looking back at her mother. "Okay. Okay. I...fine. You..." she swallowed again. "But you didn't have to just... leave? Go to Central City? I mean... you said you tried to get me to come with you, but - you..." she cut herself off again.

"I'm sorry," she finally said after a long moment to her mom. "I - I don't want to admit you have something resembling a point, but..."

"I'll take it for now," her mother nodded. "I - I could have done more, around when I left, or tried harder to stay in contact with you, even if I felt like you were too mad at me."

"I was. I am," Sara considered. She couldn't just let go of years of being angry at her mom all at once. "But I could have called more, or... I don't know, visited." She winced internally even as she suggested it, hating the idea of admitting she bore part of the blame here.

"Everything in Starling reminded me of Laurel. I don't know how you managed to stay here," her mother murmured. 

"We grieved differently," Sara noted. She closed the distance between herself and her mother and gave her a momentary, but tight, hug. "At the end of the day, I...I'm still mad at you. I still don't like what you did. But... I'll try. Okay?"

"Like I said, I'm not - I could have done better," her mother agreed. "I'll try too." Dinah echoed.

October 6th, 2012

The Glades, Starling City

From a very narrow perspective, the Undertaking had made moving around the Glades unseen easier, in some ways. With many buildings damaged and partially collapsed inward, it was easier to get to various high vantage points, and then jump to the next one without dropping to the ground.

Oliver still had the easier time of it with his zipline arrows, but Laurel preferred the climbing anyway. 

Things in the Glades had not gotten better since the Undertaking, despite her efforts, despite Oliver's efforts. Even with the Hood Gang shut down after a few quick attempts to 'redistribute' the wealth to themselves, the Glades were overrun with criminals, the desperate and the opportunistic. There were even rumors of criminals coming to Starling City specifically to

She'd asked Sin to keep her ear to the ground about that. The girl had returned to the Glades after the Undertaking, and had not been happy with Laurel - Dinah, as she knew her - for sending her away like that, and had all but demanded to help more. She hated asking the teenager to put herself at risk, even if she had before, but given the way things were working in The Glades now...

But there were things that were looking up. The new Neighbor Watch, the Canaries - they'd taken her name as their ideal, thinking of themselves as the canaries in the coal mine that drew attention to things that needed to be noticed. That really wasn't why Laurel had picked the name, but... it fit.

When Laurel was seen, either on purpose or not - no matter how good she was, moving around the Glades and staying invisible all the time was essentially impossible - she sometimes had some of them pass her information.

Not all of it bore out. One had been a trap by a new gang leader on the rise, calling himself the Mayor of the Glades, for all that his territory was tiny yet. Laurel hadn't been sure if the tipper was in on the trap or not, but she'd been careful to begin with.

One name that wasn't among those causing issues was Brickwell. He'd gone underground since the Undertaking, barely noticed, abandoning several of his known associates. Laurel was worried about him. He was a brute, but he had more cunning than most thugs.

The sound of a woman letting out a single scream of shock and surprise nearby drew her attention, and Laurel looked towards the sound, racing across a caved in rooftop, jumping across a narrow alley and then finding her destination, a young woman pressed against the wall by another man, groping her, while two of his friends looked on, big stupid grins on their faces.

They still haven't learned. Okay, that was unfair. Try as she might, she didn't get every criminal every time. So a lot of these types, if they thought at all, figured they were safe.

Criminals played the odds.

Tonight, the odds were not in their-

Laurel was just about to jump and attack when someone else arrived on the scene, interrupting the thugs, telling them to leave the girl alone - he drew the thugs attention, telling the girl to run, and she did so.

Leaving him three on one.

Laurel didn't stop to pay much attention to the good samaritan who was stepping in and risking getting his ass beaten. He was on the right side here, so she'd help him out - the three men rushed for the samaritan, but Laurel dropped down behind them and grabbed one guy, arm around his throat and pulling him backwards, hitting him on the head with the base of her tonfa and then pushing him, spinning a bit, into the wall.

The other two were already on the Samaritan - and then a hard kick to the leg sent him staggering back and one thug drew a knife - he didn't get one step before Laurel was on him, smashing her tonfa into the two, one on each, pushing them apart as she hit their sides, then ducked under their punches - they lacked any sort of finesse or skill, making the fight simple as she hit, ducked, sidestepped and hit. After a few rounds of that as she got them on the arms and sides, she managed to get one across the windpipe, making him gag and bend over, and then she took him out with a hit to the back of the head, and was able to focus on the last one - he tried to stab her with a knife of his own, but he never even touched her, and soon enough he was on the ground with his friends. 

Laurel turned towards the good samaritan who had stood there, watching the fight, holding his side, clearly in some pain.

Laurel recognized him after a moment - the red hoodie was the first marker, then she goot a look at his face.

Roy Harper. Thea's boyfriend. Thea had mentioned to her, to Ollie, and especially to Sara that Roy really wanted to find the Black Canary, help her or... something. That her rescue of him had inspired him to make something of himself, do good.

Which she liked.

Less good that Thea's boyfriend was risking his life like this, but... 

She couldn't tell him to stop without being a hypocrite, not really. 

"Roy Harper," She said, voice modulator on. "I hear you've been looking for me... and it seems you've found me."

"You know?"

"You haven't exactly been quiet about it," Laurel pointed out. One tactic she'd found to be useful was to imply that she was more... aware of things going on in the Glades than she was. She tried to stay abreast of things, but she couldn't be omniscient. But if people thought she was more aware of things...

"Before you and the Hood - Arrow - saved me... I..." Roy shook his head. "I was scum. I just... I made excuses for myself, about how bad life in the Glades was, how stealing was okay because I had no other options. But I did. I just... did what was easy. When you rescued me, and then my girlfriend believing in me - maybe I don't have to just be a thug."

"You don't have to be a thug. And I'm not going to tell you to stop trying to help people, like you helped that girl," Laurel told him. 

"I want to more than just... fight people. You do more than just take out thugs - you fought Merlyn, that Dark Archer, you guys did everything you could to save the Glades. You're not just taking down gangbangers. I want to help, somehow. Be more."

"I'm not in the market for a sidekick," Laurel offered with a slight chuckle. The 'wounded ego' expression on Roy's face suggested it didn't quite go over so well. "Like I said, I'm not going to tell you to stop. I would say this: there are other ways to give back to the Glades, to rise above your past, if you want to be more than you were." Just like Laurel had set out to be more than a murderer.

"So why do you want to do it this way? Why risk yourself every night like that?" She asked, looking at him. "Why do you want to help me?"

"You saved my life." Roy said earnestly, taking a small step forward.

"I've saved a lot of people. Most don't come find me and offer to help. Or risk getting knifed by gangbangers to save a woman walking home from a night shift," Laurel pointed out. "Like I said, I don't need a sidekick - and while you held your own against those two as best as you could with your injury... you have a lot of work to do before you can do this safely."

"So that would be a 'go away, you're a liability and I don'tneed your help then?" Roy demanded, sounding more than a little bitter at the prospect of rejection.

"Not exactly. I may be dedicated to helping the Glades, but well... I can't be everywhere. You live and work in the Glades.You can hear things I won't."

"You want me to... what, be your street informant?" Roy  had an unsurprising mix of hope and impatience - the idea of doing something like that probably didn't sit well on the kid - he was eager, wanted to prove himself.

"Until you know for sure that this is what you want to do - and why you want to do it - you shouldn't risk your life fighting on the streets," Laurel told him. "But I'm not going to turn down an offer of help entirely. Let's call it a trial run," she offered.

She wasn't really interested in just... bringing Roy on. She didn't - as she said - need some sort of sidekick. She could imagine ways another vigilante could be useful, but she couldn't even contemplate promises without a lot more thought on the matter, talking to Ollie about it... and letting the kid really be sure he wanted this.

But if someone was inspired by her example... she couldn't just turn that down. Or tell him to stop. But if she could convince him to be more constructive...

"You aren't a half-bad street fighter, but there's a lot of room for improvement. Work on that. Find your answers for yourself, why you want this... and help. Let me know if you hear anything." She suggested, gently. "And I'll think about it."

"How do I 'work on it'?" Roy asked, again hopeful, just a little, but trying to sound less eager than he was at the prospect she was implying. 

"Join a gym, use your phone to learn some things and brush up on your basic technique... you've got some raw potential," he did indeed, from what she'd seen, what she'd heard from Thea or Sara. "Hone that potential, and like I said - I'll think about it." She jumped, grabbing onto a broken wall and quickly climbing to the roof of a building. "I'll see you around, Roy Harper," she told him, vanishing off into the night.

October 10, 2013

Conference Room, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Ms. Rochev," Oliver said, sitting down at the head of the table. Stellmoor had sent a few people with Rochev, but from what Felicity had told him the company and the people being sent, Rochev was the one he had to be worried about the most. 

"I figured it was the least I could do since I'll have your job in a few days," Rochev said, in a relatively flat tone - not so much emotionless as very, very careful and guarded. 

"You seem very confident that Stellmoor will be able to obtain controlling interest in the company," Oliver was glad he'd had a week to prepare for this meeting. It wasn't enough, not given everything else he'd been trying to do with his time... especially given how over his head he was. He had almost no idea how to run Queen Consolidated, and he was maybe, maybe treading water.

He'd had no idea how he was going to stop Stellmoore from buying up a majority of the stock until he'd visited his mother in jail a few days ago. She'd reminded him of something he'd forgotten, options he had.

It wasn't a great option, and there was a chance it wouldn't work, but knowing that he had Walter willing to help him buy him as much of the stock that was due to be released in a few days gave Oliver confidence that at least, he'd have a chance.

In so many ways, I wish I could just let someone else run the company. 

But he couldn't.

Especially not Stellmoor.

"I am," Rochev agreed. "Though I'm not surprised you're surprised by my confidence, given that you majored in dropping out of college," 

"I may have dropped out of four colleges, but I do know how to compare two numbers and do basic math. Stellmoor controls 45% of the company, but so do I. The remaining shares will be released in a few days, and your ability to control this company depends on you getting enough of them before I do."

"Something that will hardly be difficult, Mr. Queen," Rochev nearly scoffed, folding her hands in front of her on the table. "Your trust fund is not that deep, and while I'm sure you're searching for options, there's no angel investor that is going to swoop in at the last minute to rescue the company that built the weapon that killed 318 people and destroyed half the Glades."

"That would be Malcolm Merlyn, not Queen Consolidated," Oliver pointed out. 

"And if Merlyn Global had more than thirty percent of it's stock available for purchase, Stellmoor might have decided to try to take them over, but they don't," Rochev countered blandly. "And regardless of how you dress it up, Unidac Industries was owned by Queen Consolidated, and your company and your family will forever be associated with the Undertaking in the public eye." 

Rochev leaned forward a bit, "It would be much more beneficial for you to simply sell your shares to the only interested party and take your money while you can, Mr. Queen. Certainly, I don't think your chances of success in running Queen Consolidated, even if you do manage to prevent Stellmoor from obtaining a controlling interest, are very high. Not given your track record as caretaker CEO."

"Sell out so you can fire all the employees, gut the company, sell off the assets and destroy everything my family built?" Oliver asked pointedly. "I'll take my chances." He didn't let the way that comment hit close to home show on his face. His powers as caretaker CEO while much of the stock had been sold off in individual chunks - apart from what he already had, in his own right, or that his mother gave him after she'd been taken to prison - were very limited, and they hadn't allowed him to do much to salvage the company or it's name in the eyes of the public. He'd done what he could, but it was far from enough.

At least the board, such as it was, had stopped giving him grief over naming Felicity to head of the entire company's IT department after he showed them her internal aptitude scores and the performance reviews she'd had. Officially, he'd pointed out the only reason she'd been stuck in such a low-level position was...

Well, her foot in mouth disease. Oliver said he didn't care about that, and given how many of their employees in all departments, IT included, had quit, they couldn't afford to. So he'd promoted Felicity. A lot. And the Board had been ready to complain until he'd shown them those scores.

Unofficially, it was because he needed her in a position where it wouldn't seem strange if they were seen talking regularly. And, well, Felicity's aptitude with computers really was among the best in the company.

Rochev looked him in the eye for a long moment. "You're not at all what people say about you, Mr. Queen," she said, a note of surprise in her voice, a slight smirk appearing momentarily on her face.

"Most people fail to see the real me." Oliver told her simply. He stood, "Thank you again for agreeing to this meeting. It was... enlightening."

"Likewise, Mr. Queen," Rochev stood, extending a hand and he shook it. 

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 2: Written Off

Alderman Blood: What brings you to Glades Memorial, Mr. Queen? I assume someone of your means can afford the best medical treatment money can buy. And I can assure you, you're not going to find it here.

Oliver Queen: You're right, Alderman, and that's unacceptable.The people of the Glades have suffered too much to not have access to basic medical services.

Alderman Blood: [Steps closer to Queen] Well that's very compassionate of you to say. Although I wonder where your family's concern for it's fellow citizens was when they ordered the construction of the earthquake machine that killed 318 people.

Oliver Queen: You'd have to ask the only member of my family who was involved in that, Alderman. I believe visiting hours at Iron Heights are 9 to 7, on most days. [Tries to walk past Blood, his bodyguard trying to clear a path.]

Alderman Blood: You think this is all a joke? [Steps in front of Queen to stop him from getting by] The people of the Glades suffered at the hands of your family-

Oliver Queen: But not at my hands, and not at the hands of my best friend, who you've practically called for to be dragged out and ripped to shreds. The people of the Glades suffered, and I aim to do everything in my power to help make up for what happened, but that doesn't give them the right to kill an innocent man just because his father was a monster. 

-Transcript of an exchange between Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Consolidated, and Alderman Sebastian Blood, captured in front of Glades Memorial Hospital, October 17th, 2013 by Channel 52 News. Oliver Queen's vehicle was mobbed by the protesters and several windows broken shortly after as he departed.

October 17th, 2013

FEMA Depot, Outskirts of Starling City

Laurel couldn't understand how things had gotten like this. That the news wouldn't care to report on the theft of the medical supplies she could understand, even if she hated how much the Glades were being written off so easily. But that the Federal Government had just let four truckloads of medical supplies sent by FEMA get hijacked without providing security, or demanding the city provide some sort of security - these were federal employees being killed, but street thugs on the street of a major city. Six so far - and if too many more died, would FEMA even have any more drivers willing to drive the medicine to Glades Memorial?

What was the Federal Government doing? And if they wouldn't do anything, there was always the national guard. 

Then again, given how unwilling the Governor was to declare a state of emergency and deploy the guard even right after the Undertaking...

The rest of the country wasn't ignoring the disaster that was the Undertaking, funds were still coming in from all over the country, but the government on all levels seemed to be sleeping on the job when it came to the response to the aftermath. Everyone was concerned with optics and apparently sending in the troops looked worse than people suffering.

"The trucks should be leaving any minute now," Felicity told them over the comms. "The hijackings would happen anywhere on the-" Whatever Felicity kept saying, Laurel ignored due to the sound of gunfire inside the depot. Grabbing her sonic device in one hand moving towards the entrance. The two trucks were there, both about to be boarded by two men in black, wearing motorcycle helmets - just like the previous hijackings, based on what witness testimony they had.

There were two dead drivers sprawled out on the ground, and another trying to get away, pleading for his life. Laurel ran forward, about to try to knock one into the other to give the driver a chance to escape, but Oliver beat her to it.

"Down!" He shouted from behind the man - the driver dropped and two arrows flew from Oliver's bow, hitting each would-be hijacker in the shoulders, sending them sprawling backwards. Laurel grabbed one and spun him around, punching him in the gut and then kicking his legs out from under him, Oliver using his bow to break the faceplate of the other one's helmet and forcing him back as glass threatened to get in his eyes, cutting into his face.

The two hijackers weren't down for the count entirely, but they were distracted, one trying to get to his feet and the other ripping his helmet off as useless. 

"Get in the truck and drive!" Laurel shouted at the driver. "Go, now!" She urged. The driver looked terrified, but through psychological inertia or courage or dedication to his job, he managed to climb to his feet and open the door to one of the trucks - but he couldn't even get into the seat before a knife, curved in the hilt, whistled through the air and embedded in the man's neck.

"And here you are, the Black Canary and the Emerald Archer," an all too familiar voice called out, stepping into view, spinning a knife easily in her hand. She gestured to her two goons - the Triad must have been behind the hijackings from the start - and they managed to get to their feet, pulling away from Laurel and Oliver, behind China White. 

"I was worried neither of you would show up, and I'd be stuck robbing trucks until they stopped sending them," she mused. "But now I have the chance to pay you both back for your past interference in my business."

"This was all just to lure us out?" Laurel demanded. "The people in the Glades are dying for lack of medicine, and all you wanted was us?"

"Revenge is never a sole motive, Black Canary. But I suppose I wouldn't expect a vigilante to understand the needs of profit to keep an enterprise moving." 

"You're not going to be profiting off of these trucks anymore," Oliver snarled, firing an arrow. But before it reached China White, another man dropped down in front of China White, a tekkō-kagi on each hand, the long clawlike blades catching Oliver's arrow and breaking it.

"I think my friend disagrees with you," China smirked. The man blocked two more arrows with ease, then charged Oliver, who blocked a swing of the claws with his bow. Laurel debated grabbing her sonic device to try to use it against him, but dismissed it after a moment. China White had earplugs against it, and if she'd brought this other man to the fight expecting her to come, he'd have similar plugs as well.

Now if only I could get her to stand under glass. Then her device could still be useful.

"After all, I couldn't have your boyfriend interfering in our rematch," China said, stalking towards Laurel. She threw the blade in her hand, and Laurel stepped to the side and ducked a bit under, the blade whizzing overhead, though the triad enforcer didn't look surprised by that. "Good, you haven't lost your edge. I'd hate for this fight to be boring."

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Oliver and the other man fight, but Laurel kept her focus on China White, the two women circling around each other, watching for an opening. Laurel looked to the enforcer's face, focusing there rather than on her feet, or hands. She saw it - a glance, merely a second, behind her. Laurel turned quickly, the two would be hijackers from earlier about attacking her from behind - Laurel swung both tonfa, hitting the helmetless one in the side of the head, and bashing the other in the stomach, sending them both to the ground.

But Laurel wasn't quick enough - she heard China White Lunge, and before she could turn to face her, the woman had one arm pinning one of Laurel's arms, and the other holding a knife to her neck.

"At my mercy at last," The woman growled. "I should savor-" Laurel kicked back and hit the woman's shin, rocking her back just enough to loosen the grip on her arm - which let Laurel spin away, the blade scraping a thin line along her neck and up her jaw a bit that stung, but it didn't feel like it had done any more than that.

Laurel didn't have any time to worry about that though, because as she dropped into a defensive crouch, the triad enforcer was on her, two more blades in hand. Laurel blocked one with a tonfa, dodged the other swing and the fight was on in earnest.

"You might not have lost your edge, but you'll never beat me if you're not willing to make a killing blow," the white haired woman ground out after Laurel caught both of her knives and then kicked at her legs - China White stepped away, avoiding the attack, but was clearly frustrated with how the battle was going. 

Laurel stepped towards her, then paused a moment at the sound of police sirens in the distance.

All four combatants hesitated a second, but the police weren't here yet - Laurel ran at the triad enforcer her the moment the other woman made for the open door of the truck, getting inside the cab before Laurel could stop her, starting it up even as Laurel was hanging onto the door - the police were there - Laurel had to jump off the truck as bullets started to fly, one cracking the windshield of the truck, and then it was off, two cops in the way of the truck barely getting by as China White drove it around the cops, shots ringing off the car.

But even as shots were coming off the car, more members of the SCPD were coming towards the three remaining - and Oliver and the other man were still struggling in close quarters.

Laurel recognized two of the cops in the lead - Lt. Pike, and... Sara.

"SCPD, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!" Pike shouted, "You're surrounded, and we will open fire if you do not comply-"

Laurel watched Oliver redirect the other man's tekkō-kagi into canisters, some sort of white smoke flooding out and covering the space between them all and the cops - Laurel and Oliver both fled, the other man probably doing the same, as more shots rang out - Laurel cried out as she felt one graze her side, and when she and Ollie reached their bikes, she his left leg lagging just a touch as he got on - he'd been shot as well.

Damnit.

October 17th, 2013

The Foundry, Starling City

"Damnit Sara, why didn't you warn us the SCPD was going to be there!?" Laurel all but snarled, stepping towards her. 

"Laurel, stand still or I'm going to have to start over," Diggle cut in, grabbing the needle and surgical thread again, patching up the small grazing wound on her side. He'd helped Oliver with the one on his leg first, but Laurel had been too angry at Sara to let her help.

Yes, because I'm totally the one who shot you. Sara had made sure her shots went wide, but she'd had to look like she was at least trying to hit the escaping vigilantes. 

"I couldn't! I only found out about Lt. Pike's plan a few hours before it happened, and I couldn't get away to make a call!" Sara shot back, defensively, not meaning to raise her voice, but doing it all the same in response to Laurel's yelling. "So my choices were to warn you and get arrested for obstructing justice, or know that you two could handle it."

"Yes, we handled it just fine - China White got away with one of the trucks and her friend escaped too!" Laurel countered, though she refrained from moving this time as Diggle finished with the needle, snipping off the thread and stepping back. Laurel grabbed her shirt, but didn't pull it back on yet. "You couldn't have even given us a text?!"

"What would that have even accomplished? Were you going to just sit at home and let the trucks get taken?!" Sara stepped closer to Laurel, glaring at her older sister. This is not my fault. She'd been so worried when she saw her sister bleeding when she arrived at the foundry right after her and Oliver, but all the concern had slipped away the moment Laurel decided that berating her for not warning them was a good idea.

"And for the record, no, I couldn't get out a text. Pike was keeping everything and everyone close for this, and if I'd tried to get away, it would have gotten back to IA. There's people there that are convinced I was the one who leaked what we knew about the Hoods to you two." And this was one she hadn't even been guilty of. "And with dad taking the fall... there are people who are convinced I was in on working with the vigilantes too. So they're already suspicious."

"They wouldn't have been able to arrest you or fire you just for ducking out to make a phone call!" Laurel crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Maybe, maybe not," Sara shook her head, "Like I said, they're suspicious. It would have gotten them to keep even more eyes on me, and then I wouldn't be able to help you at all ever again!"

"Well, I don't see how it really matters, because by doing nothing this time, you didn't help at all, and China White got away with a truckload of the medicine - again! Because you couldn't be bothered to take a damn risk!" Laurel turned away from Sara, disgust evident on her face.

Sara stared, swallowing a moment, inhaling sharp, shallow breaths quickly, blood pumping in her ears. 

"I can't be bothered to take a risk? I can't be - for god's sake, Laurel, every single day I go into that station, I'm risking jail, and if I end up in prison, I'm dead in a week!" Sara stepped after Laurel. Cops didn't do well in prison, and there were plenty of people in Iron Heights specifically that would love to kill her, either for her own sake, or to get at her dad. "I couldn't warn you, and I'm sorry for that, I'm sorry you got shot, and I'm sorry China White got away, but don't take it out on me!" She grabbed at Laurel's arm - she heard Oliver say something, but she was too focused on her sister to pay attention. But the moment her hand grabbed Laurel's forearm, her sister was spinning back around, and her free hand punching into Sara's gut. Sara let go of Laurel and staggered back, hands on her stomach, barely able to breath, gasping as she fell back onto her ass - she managed to start sucking in air, one hand still on her stomach.

Fuck! That was going to leave a bruise, or that's what it felt like anyway...

She inhaled, and the gesture hurt a little, though she was pretty sure none of her ribs had broken.

"Sara!" Laurel hurried to her, crouching by her side and putting a hand under her arm to help her up. "I - I didn't mean -"

Sara pushed Laurel away, and climbed to her feet slowly. "It's fine... I - I shouldn't have grabbed your arm from behind like that." She said after a moment to take a breath again, then shook her head a little, reorienting herself.

"I - still, I shouldn't have - it's not your fault that IA-" Sara cut her sister off. The apology sounded forced, and she wasn't in the mood to hear something Laurel didn't mean.

"Save it." Sara shook her head. She turned away from her sister, moving to a chair and dropping into it. 

"Both of you - just... this isn't helping," Oliver cut in. "Yes, it would have been better if Sara could have warned us, but she couldn't. Not without risking too much." He stepped towards them, limping a tiny bit from the injury on his leg, even with the wound closed up. "Besides, Laurel..." Sara watched him put his hand on Laurel's arm, "It's not Sara you're mad at."

Laurel looked away, and Sara knew her sister well enough to know her sister was feeling ashamed - whether at punching her, or yelling at her, or both, Sara wasn't sure. After a moment, Laurel looked back at them and nodded.

"No, she's not. Not really." She looked to Sara, "What the hell was Lt. Pike thinking?!" Despite the emphasis of her words, she wasn't yelling anymore. "He had to have been close enough to stop the initial hijackers, and he could have sent a police car after the truck China White took."

"Lt. Pike wouldn't answer me when I demanded an answer, but it's not like I didn't already know," Sara shook her head softly. Pike was a good cop, and a good lieutenant for the force, but he was, like her dad - but even more so - stuck inside the box, and by virtue of his position, had to be as much concerned about politics and optics. "Apart from Alderman Blood, not enough people in city leadership care about the medicine hijackings, and blood doesn't have any pull over the SCPD."

"So the Glades get written off all over again?" Oliver grimaced. "By everyone."

"By too many." Sara agreed. "It's more complicated than that but at the end of the day..." she shook her head, "You know what it is."

"The SCPD thinks we make them look bad," Laurel scoffed.

"Well, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary do make the SCPD look bad," Sara pointed out. "But it is a bit more complicated than that, like I said... I mean - god, I can't even count the number of laws you've broken." She threw up her hands in abandonment of even trying to count the number of criminal acts they'd both committed. Sara had kept a running tally in her own head of the number of charges that could be brought against her.

Right now, she was sitting at just under 200, depending on how much you wanted to separate out each individual action. 

"And..." Sara shook her head. "I stopped letting that get to me - much - when I committed to helping you both, but the fact remains... if the law doesn't apply to everybody, it applies to nobody. That includes the both of you. Lieutenant Pike... he's just... too much of a cop's cop to just let that slide. Even if he should be focusing on the Glades more."

Of course, the other part was also related to the Glades - it had been decades since the people of the Glades and the SCPD had anything but an adversarial relationship. Between class resentments, racism -deliberate or just accidental - on the part of too many cops, and a thousand other grievances, big and small, almost no one who lived in the Glades trusted the police. Sara had earned the trust of a few people, as had her father, but even those people didn't trust the SCPD as a whole.

Pike, and those above him in the department, seemed convinced that if they could get rid of both the Arrow and the Black Canary, the people of the Glades would have no one else to turn to and there'd be more willingness to work with the SCPD among the people there.

It made no sense to Sara, but that seemed to be the working theory.

"I'd have more sympathy for that argument if the rest of the SCPD was applying the laws to the criminals running amok in the Glades," Laurel shot back. Sara inhaled, about to counter her sister's words, but then the other woman held up a hand. "Look - I know you don't agree with it, but you seem to be in the minority."

Sara exhaled and looked down at the ground. She wished she could defend the SCPD more, but she really couldn't. The last year had done a lot to strip away some of the illusions she'd still had about police work.

"And as long as the SCPD keeps trying to hunt us down... we're not going to be able to help the city," Oliver growled. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then slammed his fist down on the metal table - if his hand hurt from that, he didn't show it. "And what happened at Glades Memorial proves helping the city as Oliver Queen - or anyone connected to him - isn't all that possible either."

Oliver's hands flinched to the edge of the table, but he didn't actually grab it and turn it over, which was a bit of a surprise, given the barely suppressed anger all but rolling off of him in waves. His stance only got tighter, more tensed, but he didn't act on it.

"We spent a year trying to save the city, and all we did was... God, Starling's worse than it was this time last year." Oliver ground out. He looked away, "There has to be a better way to do this."

October 18th, 2013

CEO's Office, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

Though technically he shared the position of CEO with Isabel Rochev, Oliver still had the original CEO office, with Isabel having moved into another office on the floor. 

"Mr. Queen," the voice of his secretary came from the front office, "Alderman Blood is here for your 4 o'clock meeting,"

"Thank you Tyler," Oliver nodded. While he knew Laurel trusted him,  Oliver was cognizant of his reputation... and how some secretaries might want to exploit that, or think they could. They couldn't, but it would be easier, and avoid even the appearance of scandal if he had a male secretary, which he did. Tyler Mayfield was fresh out of college with an Administrative Services degree, hired a few days before the Undertaking for the secretarial pool, and so far, he had done quite well managing Oliver's schedule and everything else he had to handle. 

"There's no cameras for him to play to, and no one to throw things at you here," Laurel pointed out. "I'm still surprised he agreed to meet you, especially on short notice." Oliver had contacted the Alderman this morning, after getting an idea and talking it over with Laurel, but he was just as surprised as Laurel that it had worked out so easily.

"I'm just glad he's here," Oliver approached the Alderman, who was waiting in the front office, "Alderman," Oliver raised his voice a little, greeting the man, and holding out a hand. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me here."

Blood brushed past him, into the office, ignoring the offered hand. Oliver lowered his hand, grimacing for a moment as Blood walked to the window.

"This is some view," Blood mused, standing in front of the window, looking out on the city below. "How small the rest of us must look from up here."

"When I look out of this window, I tend to think more about how small we all are against the city itself," Laurel countered. "How much bigger than any of us Starling City is."

Blood turned around, "An interesting way of putting it."

"Alderman, this is Laurel Lance-" Oliver started to introduce her, even if he figured Blood probably knew her name already/

"Your girlfriend," Blood nodded, "I do occasionally read the tabloids."

"Then you might also know that she's also the new manager of the Queen Family Charitable Trust," Oliver pointed out. "That's why she's here at this meeting with us."

"Yes, I heard about that." Blood stood behind one of the chairs. "I would have assumed the worst, Miss Lance, but everyone I spoke to had nothing but praise for your time with NOVA. Hopefully, you'll be able to do as well in your new position." He looked back to Oliver. "I have to say, though, I'm surprised you asked to meet with me."

"As surprised as I am that you agreed to come," Oliver gestured to the chair, "Please, have a seat," He gestured to the chair Blood was standing behind, while he and Laurel sat down in chairs next to each other. Laurel took his hand and squeezed it for a moment. Her new job title was the biggest part of the reason she was here, but moral support was almost as important. For both of them.

"As surprised as I was when you turned an angry mob on me?" Oliver added, pointedly. Whatever grievances Blood and his constituents had with him and his family, legitimate or not, what he'd done at the hospital wasn't right, or acceptable.

"Are you surprised?" Blood asked, even though he did sit down. "My constituents have a lot of anger towards your family,"

"And you have no problem using that anger," Oliver pointed out. 

"Mr. Queen, I'm a politician." Blood said, uncrossing his arms. "I became an Alderman to help the people of the Glades, and yes, I'm hoping to use their anger for good, so I can help them more. But that does make for a dirty business, no matter how much I might wish it otherwise,"

"And I understand that. I just want us all to know where we stand. I don't blame your constituents for being angry at my family - coerced or not, my mother was willing to kill potentially thousands of them." Oliver hated to say it like that, but it was the truth. His mother had decided that the lives of the thousands of people who lived in the Glades was worth it, if it meant it saved Thea's life, his life.

"But that doesn't mean I'm happy with being mobbed - or with the people who would kill Tommy Merlyn if he came within reach. We're both our own men, and we're not your enemies."

Blood paused for a moment, "You're not my friends, to me, or to the people in the Glades, either. As for your friend Merlyn -" he let out a small sigh, "I can't deny that some of the things I've said have gone too far. What happened at the Hospital did too." He admitted. "Anger or no anger, it wasn't acceptable, and I am sorry for things going that far." Blood's tone softened a little. 

"I appreciate hearing that," Oliver nodded. "And I understand why you don't see me as a friend. I'm hoping that this meeting can help change that."

Blood's expression didn't change, the schooled expression of an experienced politician not trying to give anything away.

"This isn't something you can just throw money at until it goes away, Mr. Queen. Not you, not your family's charitable trust." Blood shook his head, "It'll help with the immediate problem, but even once all the rebuilding is done, the real problem will remain - and it's not going to go away until your elitist friends realize it's unacceptable to let thousands of their fellow citizens live in conditions akin to a third world country, just a few blocks away."

Blood leaned forward as he said that, and some real emotion, real, genuine anger was in his voice and his expression, even as he tried to keep it under control, trying to play the political game.

But he was sincere. Oliver had wondered if this really was all politics for him - he didn't really know much about government, or elections or any of that, but he understood how people could exploit the desperate for their own gain.

OIiver didn't doubt there was some ambition at work with Blood, but...

The Alderman was genuine in his righteous anger, and his desire

Still, there were some issues with his response.

For one, I'm not actually friends with most of the elite of the city... Oliver had had a few friends among the wealthy of Starling, apart from Tommy, but it wasn't like he was chummy with the high society. But he understood what Blood meant.

"And if we were just proposing a simple donation, even a large one, then you'd be right. But we're thinking in terms of something that will hopefully be more impactful." Laurel chimed in. "A fundraiser, held here, at Queen Consolidated, for the Glades recovery effort. Oliver will host it."

"And I'll invite all my elitist friends," Oliver added. Even Carter Bowen, given the generous track record the endlessly annoying guy's family had for charitable donations. "Hopefully, between the three of us, we can help them see what needs to be done."

"And the Queen Family Charitable Trust will assume all the costs, so every dime raised goes straight to the Glades," Laurel concluded.

Blood looked genuinely surprised, though Oliver could tell he thought he was hiding it. The man leaned back, one hand relaxed over the back of the chair next to him. When he spoke after a few moments, there was a pensive, thoughtful tone to his voice as he spoke slowly.

"People seeing you... seeing you stand up as the CEO of Queen Consolidated, as a Queen - practically the First Family of the city - being the public face for this cause." Blood nodded, "That would make a difference. It would change some minds."

Oliver stood, and Blood did as well, "Then let's make a difference," he told the Alderman. He held out his hand again, and this time Blood accepted it - though not without a momentary grimace -, giving him a firm shake, then he did the same with Laurel.

"I'll see what I can do about talking to the people protesting and camped outside Merlyn Global," Blood offered. "I can't promise they'll just be happy to see Tommy Merlyn walking around, but I think I can convince enough of them to back off, for now, that the rest will have to leave."

"Thank you," Oliver said. He hadn't spoken to Tommy since the day he'd killed Malcolm Merlyn, but he didn't bear his friend even a little ill will for the silence - and Tommy deserved better than to be trapped inside Merlyn Global in fear for his life.

October 20th, 2013

Reception Hall, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

"Good think you have me to help keep you on time for these things," Laurel said. She'd styled her hair in carefully arranged curls, and was wearing an elegant black sleeveless dress that looked beautiful on her - though as Oliver had noted, there was pretty much nothing Laurel could wear that wouldn't look beautiful on her.

"Oliver Queen does have a reputation for being fashionably late," Oliver pointed out. "It wouldn't have been the end of the world if I was a little late."

Diggle cleared his throat, "Have I mentioned this penchant of yours for talking in the third person weirds me out?"

Oliver was about to say something else, but he got a call on his phone. Felicity. 

"Felicity, go," Oliver turned the phone on speaker, since the three of them were alone in the elevator.

"Okay, so, good news and bad news," Felicity told them. "I've hacked FEMA - another federal crime by the way - and I know when the next truck is leaving."

"The bad news being that it's right now?" Laurel asked.

"Just about. It's due to leave in five minutes," Felicity explained. "They did up security around the truck depot itself, so I'm going to guess the Triad tries to hit it on route."

"I hope so, because there's no way we can get to the truck depot in five minutes," Oliver grimaced. This fundraising benefit was important, but the truck - it needed to be protected.

"No, there isn't, because you're not going," Laurel cut in. Wait, what? There was no way Laurel was suggesting they just let the truck get hit. He turned to stare at her, raising an eyebrow. "You can't go, Oliver. If you do, this whole benefit fails, and then where will that leave us with Blood? He's going to whip up his angry mob even more."

"You can't go up against China White and her friend alone!" Oliver protested. He knew Laurel was good, but so were those two. "I mean - you can't take that risk."

"I have to," Laurel countered. "I can go - you can say I'm feeling sick and couldn't make it. But I can't do the same for you," She stared at him. "Oliver, this whole thing hinges on you." Laurel shook her head, "I can't say I'm thrilled about facing them together, but I do have a few options. I've been working on reproducing some of the other tools and tricks of the League that I didn't use much myself."

Laurel took his hand and squeezed. "I'll be careful."

"I can provide some backup," Diggle chimed in, making the suggestion. "In case you need it."

"I might," Laurel nodded. "And there's enough other Queen Consolidated security there... so we don't need you at the benefit either..." 

"Guys, whatever you decide, you need to do it soon, the truck's going to leave any minute now," Felicity cut in over the phone.

"Text me the route info," Laurel said, "I'll be on my way as soon as I can." Showing the same reflexes she did when they sparred - and beat him most of the time - Laurel grabbed the phone from Oliver and hung up as the elevator reached the level for the reception hall, where the benefit was being held.

"Oliver, you know I'm right."

Oliver stared at her as the elevator dinged and the door opened. She is right... He couldn't not attend. It would ruin the entire event, and it would turn Blood against him even more. 

Laurel was the best hand to hand fighter he'd ever seen. China White had only successfully gotten away with the truck a few nights ago because the cops intervened...

But still. Two on one, both of them protected from her sonic device...

"Be careful. Please," He stepped out of the elevator and watched it close behind him as Laurel pressed another button. He walked down the hall, and found it filled with his 'elitist friends'. He started shaking hands and greeting people as he looked for Alderman Blood, thanking them for attending.

"Mr. Queen." Blood said behind him, and Oliver turned. This time, the Alderman held out his hand first, and Oliver accepted it, giving him a firm shake. "I saw you come in, but I had to work my way over to you." He looked around the crowd. "When you said you'd invite all your elitist friends, I didn't know you'd actually invite all of them." He had a bit of a rueful smile, though how much of that was a carefully crafted politician charm offensive, Oliver didn't know. 

"Well, I do like to be thorough. The more people we can reach, the better it will be for the Glades." Oliver agreed. He saw Blood looking around a bit, and he guessed he was looking for Laurel. "Laurel came down with a stomach bug a few hours ago. As we were leaving, she decided it was better to stay home," he hadn't practiced the lie, but it was simple, and delivered easily. 

"A pity. She did excellently organizing this on short notice," Blood noted. "Please, give her my compliments."

"I will," Oliver smiled. "I suppose we should get started, since we're both here," He grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, and a fork from the table of hors d'oeuvres. With Blood walking next to him, Oliver made his way through the crowd, shaking a few more hands as he went, and reached the front of the room.

He tapped the fork against the champagne glass to get everyone's attention, and the murmur of conversation tapered off quickly enough.

"I want to thank all of you for coming," Laurel had helped him write a short speech to start this off, and he was pretty sure that between them, they'd managed to hit the right notes. "What happened in the Glades last April was a horrifying tragedy - but it has been good to see help coming in, from across the country. But the whole reason we're here is that it's still not enough. Not for the Glades, and not for the people who live there. Not for our city." He 

"Which is why I'm very happy all of you decided to come, so we can do what we can to help fix that," he went on. "I'd also like to thank Laurel Lance, for organizing this whole thing on short notice. Unfortunately, she's feeling a bit under the weather, or she'd be here at my side, helping me get you all to donate as much as we can get out of you." There was a small patter of polite laughter at the joke. 

"And of course, I'd like to thank Alderman Blood. I know that for you, being here with all of us must be like taking a trip to your idea of hell, and I appreciate you braving being in the belly of the beast to be here with us today.`` The chorus of laughter from the crowd, and even the amused, if suppressed chuckles from the Alderman next to him were much more genuine than for his last joke.

"What happened in April was a tragedy, as I said," Oliver repeated. "But maybe, maybe it can be a wake up call, for all of us - the people who live in the Glades deserve the same dignity that you and I deserve." He gestured to himself, "I was born a Queen. Born rich, privileged and a whole drawer of silver spoons in my crib. And I frittered away my life, idle rich, partying, crashing cars and generally being a burden on my family. But eventually, you have to step up and take responsibility. And that's why I fought so hard to keep a hold of Queen Consolidated. I could have sold my shares and let the company be sold off, and lived rich off that money, but too many people in the city depend on the jobs Queen Consolidated offers here. Starling City is my home, it's all our homes, and that's why we're still here, right?" There was a chorus of 'hear hear' from the attendees in response.

"So yes, this night is about raising money for the reconstruction efforts in the Glades, and to help the people there rebuild their lives. But I hope that for all of us, it can be a chance for us to step up, and take responsibility for making sure that things in the Glades get better. Permanently. Because at the end of the day, this is all our city."

There was a polite applause, and he nodded to the Alderman. Blood nodded.

"Nice speech," Blood admitted in a soft voice, and then he stepped up to start giving his own. It was more fiery, and a bit more accusatory, but the Alderman knew how to play to his crowd, offering a very different tone than he did to his constituents, than he did for the cameras. Once that was done, they both started doing the rounds, and walking around the room, talking to people one on one, in smaller groups.

Oliver tried to channel his parents as he tried to convince people about the need to donate, and used the talking points Laurel had suggested for him, based on her experience at NOVA. After about fifteen minutes, he moved on to the next person, and then blinked when he recognized...

"Tommy?" Oliver murmured. He saw two men in suits standing not far from Tommy, keeping an eye on him and the crowd. "I... I didn't think you'd come after..." He'd sent Tommy an invite, but he hadn't expected...

"It couldn't not," Tommy shook his head."Besides, I'm guessing the protestors vanishing from around Merlyn Global's HQ is related to this?" 

Oliver nodded, "Blood said he'd try and talk people into at least keeping their distance. But it looks like the State Police are still keeping an eye on you."

"They insisted on sending a few people to come with me, in case someone tried something," Tommy made a bit of a face at the idea of his minders following him around. He looked away, "Look, Oliver - I'm not..." His expression made it obvious he didn't want to talk about what he was about to say, something about not being ready to forgive Oliver yet, probably.

Oliver shook his head in turn, interrupting Tommy. "Tommy, we don't have to talk about that, if you aren't ready. Tonight's for the fundraising benefit."

Tommy's expression softened. "Thank you... and speaking of - Laurel really outdid herself here." He lowered his voice, "Is she actually under the weather or-"

"I think you can guess," Oliver answered in a low tone, and Tommy nodded.

"I suppose I can." Tommy admitted. "That was a good speech," he added, raising his voice a little. "We're all stepping up now, aren't we?"

"Someone has to. The city deserves better." Oliver nodded. He stood for a moment, looking at Tommy, feeling awkward, unsure of what to say.

Tommy, though, kept things on topic. They started talking about the reconstruction effort,and a few other people joined in, and Tommy actually helped him get a few people to donate more than they initially were going to. He'd always been great at schmoozing at parties, and he put that skill to full use now.

October 20th, 2013

Sidestreet near the Glades, Starling City 

"Felicity, how close am I?"

"Turn down the next side street, and you should come out in front of the truck," Felicity said in Laurel's ear. Diggle was following close behind in the car, but she was taking her motorbike, letting Felicity track the truck. "Crap," Felicity spoke as Laurel turned down the street in question. "It's stopped moving."

"The Triad. They'll disable the transmitter as soon as they can," Laurell gunned the bike and came out onto another side street - though wider than the last few - to see a dead FEMA driver on the ground, China White, her claw-wielding friend, and two others with her. Laurel pulled a knife from her belt as she drove towards them, chucking it into the shoulder of one of the goons, sending him reeling backwards. Laurel stopped the bike in front of the truck, and stepped off.

China White smirked.

"Just in time to die." She nodded to her goons, and both of them, the injured one struggling to pull the dagger from his shoulder, stepped back, towards the truck. Laurel knew she'd have to trust that Diggle could handle that part, because she couldn't focus on it as China White and the other man charged in at her. Laurel jumped back, landing on the roof of a nearby car as the claw-man slashed at where she'd been, China White leaping onto the car as well, pulling her knives. 

"What, no defiant words about how I'm going to lose?" The Triad Enforcer chuckled. 

"I don't really see the point of stating the obvious," Laurel shot back, ducking under a slash and pulling out her tonfas, kicking at the other woman's side - her other opponent jumped onto the hood of the car behind her, and Laurel had to divide her attention, trying to keep both away. She needed to buy Diggle time, and she needed to take one of these two out...

The other man clawed at her, but she avoided the attack, grabbing his arm and redirectly his slash as she rolled off the car, putting a couple feet of distance between herself and the other two as they had to turn and reorient their strategy. China White hung back for a moment, and the other man came at her, Laurel's back to a building's wall. He thought she was pinned...

He was almost on her when Laurel threw the powder at his face - the man's instincts were good and he threw up his hands to cover just in time, the bright light from the flash powder - a specialized variant the League used, her her cheaper knockoff anyway - went off, Laurel seeing some of it even with her eyes closed as she ran to the side, jumping over a trash can - then kicking it towards China White as she pursued. Laurel circled around, her two opponents extricating themselves - but Laurel wasn't idle. She caught the truck starting out of the corner of her eye, and positioned herself, pulling out more of the powder and running towards China White, tossing it at the ground at the enforcer's feet as she finished getting back up - White managed to look away as the powder burst into light, but she was dazed enough. Laurel kicked the other woman in the stomach, sending it sprawling back on her ass as the man with the claws came at her again. 

"Tricks and distractions, is that all you have?" He growled, slashing at her. Laurel caught one of his sets of claws on one tonfa, then tried to hit him with her other, but this time it was his chance to duck and strike - the claws slashed at her stomach, and she twisted, losing her block on his other claws, which allowed him to cut across her upper shoulder. Laurel bit back a cry of pain as her skin was cut, even shallowly, dropping her Tonfa and staggering back. She stepped back again, and the other man grinned, stepping towards her, clearly wanting to savor having the advantage... and then he turned, watching the truck, Diggle in the driver's seat, driving right at him. He dove out of the way, rolling on the ground as he mistimed his landing and Laurel pressed one hand to her cut shoulder, biting her lip. 

Just get that to the Hospital, Dig. Laurel let go of her shoulder and moved quickly towards the prone man as he pushed himself to his feet - he was on all fours, and Laurel kicked him, getting him in the stomach and sending him rolling a bit away - but before she could follow up, China White came at her from the side. 

"The truck's out of your reach," Laurel growled, jumping away, her reaction slowed a little by the pain of her cuts, but enough to avoid the enforcer's slashes with her knives.

"But you aren't," The other woman growled. "Getting rid of you will do more than enough for my organization's bottom line," China White ran to the side, as if trying to flank Laurel, but when Laurel moved to block her, the woman ran past her, to the building, parkouring off the wall a bit to land behind her. Laurel turned, barely blocking her strike, catching the inside of her arm with her forearm, grabbing White's other wrist with her injured arm, holding her at bay... barely. She clenched her jaw, fighting to hold China White back. 

The triad enforcer tried to kick at her, but Laurel moved her leg into her instep, catching her and forcing her to stop. 

"Sooner or later, this dance of ours has to end with one of us dead," White noted. "And since you don't kill, it's going to be you." But the 'sooner or later' came with the slightest twitch of the other woman's lips....

"Not everything has to come down to murder," Laurel shot back. She ducked under, pushing China White up and over her, using the other woman's forward momentum to send her flying overhead. She heard the other woman impact her ally and the two fall to the ground before she could straight back up and turn around, but now both of her opponents were on the ground, tangled with each other. 

Hissing again in pain, Laurel closed up to them and kicked China White off her friend, stepping on his wrist lightly, and then punching him in the neck, knocking all the air out of him and putting him out like a light. She crouched and pulled his claws off his hands, tossing them to the side as she heard police sirens coming towards them.

China White was struggling to push herself onto all fours, and she looked at Laurel, shaking her head. "You think not killing makes you a hero? The police would rather catch you than stop me. You'll always be a criminal to them, and to this city."

"Standing between you and the people of this city matters, not what people call me," Laurel shot back... which was true and false. But she wasn't here to debate vigilante ethics with her. Laurel grabbed the Asian woman's arm, pulling her to her feet, pinning the arm behind her, and then grabbed the enforcer's other arm, wrenching it back - more than it could take - before kneeing the woman in the back and letting her go, sending her staggering forward and falling on her face.

And Laurel would be lying if she hadn't felt a spark of satisfaction at the cry of pain China White had made when she dislocated her arm.

"You could do so much more with your talents," White shook her head, managing to not show the pain in her voice, though she couldn't get up.

"So could you. But I suppose you won't even have that chance in prison." Laurel ran to her bike, getting onto it as the sirens grew closer, gasping as she tried to move her injured arm as little as possible.

"Dig?"

"Truck's at the entrance to the hospital parking lot, I'm on my way back to base. How about you?"

"They're dealt with for now, cops will pick them up," Laurel inhaled sharply as she spoke, turning the bike down another side street to make sure she stayed out of the notice of the cops.

"I'll prep the first aid kit," Diggle commented, the knowing tone in his voice. "How do you figure Oliver's doing at the benefit?"

"He's survived worse."

Diner near SCPD, Starling City

October 21st, 2013

Sara had fifteen minutes to finish her late breakfast and get back to the precinct, but thankfully, this diner - popular with the SCPD - was just a few minutes walk, so she could at least avoid being too fast. She dipped the toast in her sunny-side up egg, letting it get covered in the yolk before taking a bite.

Sara's phone rang... Come on, just let me eat some goddamn food... assuming it was someone from the department, she answered accordingly. "Detective Lance," 

"Is that what you want me to start calling you?" Tommy asked in a tone that someone who didn't know the man as well as she did might call flirtatious. 

"Sorry. I figured you were someone else from the department." Sara stopped to take a sip of her coffee. None of the food here was really spectacular, but the coffee was pretty good for the cheap diner drink it was. 

Orders of magnitude better than the stuff at the station.

"I assumed." Tommy inhaled a moment, taking a deep breath. "Sara... I know we haven't exactly... talked about the elephant in the room the last few months,"

"I figured you didn't want to touch it," Sara noted. They'd kept their discussions pretty light, or as light as they could be in the situation. Joanna had been a saint sticking by Tommy's side through all of this, when no one else could, and most wouldn't.

"I'm still not really wanting to touch it, but..." He inhaled another deep breath. "Look, can you get away from the station this evening? Drop by Merlyn Global?"

Sara's eyes narrowed. "Tommy? What's wrong?" 

"A lot... but specifically... there's something I need to show you." 

Sara would have a hard time getting away this evening, but she could probably manage it. And from Tommy's tone...

"I'll be there. See you then."

"See you," Tommy hung up first and Sara returned to the food on her plate, smearing a link of sausage with egg yolk and eating it. She was only a few more bites into her breakfast when she was interrupted again.

"Eggs, sausage and bacon?" Sara looked up at the sound of her sister's voice in front of her. Laurel slipped into the booth across from her. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack eating breakfast like that all the time." The smile on her face took the heat out of her words, but Sara wasn't really interested in bantering with her sister. 

Laurel must have picked that up, because her expression fell. "Look - I... I just wanted to... I'm sorry." 

Sara inhaled, reading the sincerity on her sister's expression this time. She nodded, "Thank you. I... I'm sorry for giving you the silent treatment the last few days."

"I deserved it," Laurel shook her head. "I was just..." she shook her head again. "No, no need to make excuses. It was wrong."

"You were angry. We all screw up. It happens." Sara took a bite of her toast. Her phone rang again, and she growled in frustration. "Am I never going to finish my breakfast?" She grumbled under her breath, checking the caller ID this time.

Lt. Pike.

"Detective Lance," Sara answered.

"Lance, get back to the station, no." 

"Sir, what happened?" Sara's eyes widened at the Lieutenant's tone. Shit had hit the fan.

"China White escaped the truck transporting her to Iron Heights, killed the driver and an officer. All hands on deck, she's not getting out of the city."

Oh, now we care about her, because she killed one of us? Despite her bitter thought, Sara was too loyal to her uniform and her fellow cops to not feel that simmering anger at the death of another officer. "I'm on my way," As she hung up and stood, Sara grabbed the last two pieces of bacon off her plate, all but inhaling them as she pulled a couple bills out of her wallet and dropped them on the table to cover the bill and the tip.

"Sorry, I've got to go. China White escaped," She caught Laurel's flash of anger at the thought of the woman escaping - given the trouble the triad enforcer had given her, Sara understood her consternation. "I'll fill you in when I can," She added, hurrying out the exit and into her car.

I'm going to have to call Tommy and let him know I can't drop by tonight.

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 3: Secrets

In the annals of serial killer history, I don't think anyone has had quite as humiliating a beatdown as Barton Mathis did in late October, 2013.

-Buzzfeed's "Top 10 Most Hilarious Serial Killer Fails", posted July 10, 2021.

Residential Suite
Merlyn Global Headquarters, Starling City

October 23, 2013

"I'm sorry I couldn't come by the day you called," Sara let out a long sigh as Tommy let her into the 'little' apartment he'd been living in on the top floor of Merlyn Global. 

Malcolm Merlyn, being the workaholic he was in addition to being a murderous bastard, had a whole well-appointed apartment on the same floor as the top office, so he could stay there on days he worked too late for it to be worth going home. Tommy had been staying there, since his home was still given over to housing refugees from the Undertaking, and it was safer up here anyway.

"It's okay." Tommy assured her. "You've got... a lot on your plate. I heard about that woman who escaped. Killed a cop."

"She's not the only one who escaped prison after..." Sara shook her head. "Anyway. I also come bearing gifts, which I know both of you need." She looked around, expecting to see Joanna. The two of them stayed pretty close together most of the time. 

"Joanna's a couple levels down, working on how to fend off the array of impending lawsuits... or at least, not let them completely cripple the company." Tommy explained, guessing why she was looking around. "I told her she didn't have to, but... well, she's one of the few lawyers still working here, and she refuses to quit, even though I gave her the chance."

"Of course she won't quit, she loves you, you idiot," Sara gently punched him in the shoulder, watching the mock expression of pain on his face as he 'recoiled' from the blow. She held up the beg with two bottles. "Wine for you, and vodka for Joanna." It wasn't a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and she couldn't get Joanna's absolute favorite brand of vodka, but even as a well-paid lawyer at Merlyn Global before... recent events, she'd only bought sparingly, and from what Sara gathered, she'd enjoy this one as well.

"This... yeah, these will be put to good use. Which reminds me," Tommy led her into the small kitchenette, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer, which he handed to her. "You'll need this."

Sara looked at the beer. Then back at Tommy. "Okay, now I'm worried. What's going on? What do you need to talk to me about."

"I need to show you a recording Dad left for me to watch in his will," Tommy explained. "Took me months to stomach opening it, and I had to break open a bottle of Dad's favorite twenty year old scotch after I did." Tommy hated scotch.

Okay, no, that wasn't true. Tommy hated drinking Scotch for enjoyment. Scotch was his drink of choice when he wanted to forget something, or just wanted to get absolutely smashed.

Sara looked down at the bottle in her hand, then back to Tommy. He looked... god, he looked so fucking exhausted. Redness in the eyes, worry lines across his face. He'd given her a small smile just a minute before, and now his expression was looking like he'd never smiled in his entire life.

Anything to do with his Dad, especially now, had a tendency to bring Tommy down, but this... even under the circumstances...

"How bad?"

"I... I don't even know." Tommy admitted. "Over here," He led her over to a table where a laptop was sitting, and a video file paused and ready to play, Malcolm Merlyn's face at the center of the view, standing in front of a chair. 

Tommy gestured for her to sit down in front of the laptop. Sara looked at him pointedly, then took a breath and sat down. Tommy moved the Mouse, and pressed play.

After a moment, Merlyn on the screen started speaking. He sounded... unusually earnest for the usually flat and soulless bastard she'd come to know and expect.

"Tommy, if you're watching this... I'm dead. I don't know what happened, or when. But... if you're watching this, then... well, we never really had a chance to..." Merlyn paused, then inhaled. "I know you... I know we don't... things have been tough between us, for years. Ever since your mother died. And I know I'm terrible at showing it but... all I've ever really wanted, was for us to be close."

Well, there's a fucking lie. Sara knew there had clearly been more the bastard wanted. She looked over to Tommy, who was watching stone faced.

"But there's been things. Important things I've been trying to do. If you're seeing this they didn't work... but that doesn't matter. There's something else you need to know."

"After your mother died, I was lost. I was furious at the world. I shut myself off from everyone, even you. In the six months between Rebecca dying..." He trailed off a moment, then went on. "In those six months, I put everything I could into finding the man who killed her. I killed him."

Sara inhaled sharply. I mean, I knew Merlyn was a murderer, but I didn't know he started before...

"I shot him in the back. I don't regret giving him what he deserved for a moment," Big surprise there, Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "But... it didn't take the pain away. It didn't bring your mother back. Nothing did. That's why I left, eventually. But before I did, I did something else, something I'm not proud of."

"I slept with Moira Queen."

Sara blinked. Then she stared at the screen. Before she could look at Tommy, or process what the recording was saying, especially in light of Thea's theories once that Merlyn and her mother were having an affair...

"Robert... Robert Queen was many things. But being faithful to his wife was not one of them. Moira... she bore up under it, most of the time, but for a few weeks, in April '94... she was tired of it. She was angry with Robert, and I was grieving, angry and, well. We had an affair. It was two people, looking for comfort. I hope you won't think less of me for it Tommy." Merlyn admitted, and to Sara, that was the first thing that sounded like genuine emotion from the man, really, his voice almost like it was approaching choking up for just a split second.

I think Tommy has too many other reasons to think less of you for this one to really register. Sara could understand why Tommy would want to show this to her. Sitting on something like this? There was no way he could show it to Oliver or Thea, not right now, and if there was any evidence of this affair that the DA's office could find...

Shit. 

If the DA even got a sniff of this, no matter how well the defense argued the truth, that Moira Queen had been afraid for her life and that of her children... Sara turned back to Tommy, about to say something, but Tommy just shook his head.

"Keep watching," Sara turned her eyes back to the screen, where Malcolm Merlyn was already speaking again.

"But then Moira returned to her life with Robert and I... well, I left. Two years I was gone. Never gave you an answer about why, or where... I went to a place, in the Hindu Kush, to find a man. A man I'd heard stories about, who could help someone... find meaning. He helped me become who I am today, gave me the strength to do what needs to be done, for this city. But... while I was gone... Moira and Robert had a daughter. Thea."

No. He's not... 

"She was born 9 months after Moira and I had our affair. Nine months." Malcolm actually leaned a little forward, closer to the camera."Thea Queen is your sister, Tommy."

Sara immediately paused the video. "Are you - is he- this-" Sara closed her mouth before she took a breath and started again, looking at Tommy. "This - this can't be real."

"Dad claims he got a DNA test done, in the recording," Tommy said. "And... there's the results of that test, on the same drive." Tommy shook his head. Sara couldn't believe Tommy would lie about it, but she opened the drive and looked at the included DNA test results...

"Maybe he faked them... but... I don't even see why he would. Even after what he did I can't... what does he gain by lying?" Tommy asked. He pulled out one of the other chairs and dropped into it. 

I mean, unless he wanted to ensure that Moira went to prison after he died... or got executed. But from the start of the recording, it sounded like Malcolm thought this recording would only reach Tommy if he died before completing his 'Undertaking'. So that didn't make much sense.

Sara looked at the beer Tommy had handed her and twisted the cap off, downing what could only be called a gulp quickly, taking another breath.

"You can't show this to Thea," Sara said immediately, the first really coherent thought she could grab onto. "It'll destroy her."

"I know." Tommy agreed, voice soft. "God... God knows I know that. She practically worships her dad - her actual dad, in every way that counts. Even knowing that he was a serial philanderer... she still... and to find out that... my dad..." Tommy shook his head, dropping his head into his hand. 

He took a breath and looked back up at her. "I had to show someone, and I couldn't show Oliver, couldn't show Thea... maybe Laurel, but of the two Lance sisters, you're the one I'm closer to these days... and I'm still not really ready to be face to face with either of them alone."

Sara reached out and put a hand on his wrist gently, "Tommy..."

"I'm not angry at them... I don't know. I'm something. And... I just need time. But this..." he gestured to the computer, to the DNA test results. "I love Thea like a sister, but in every way that counts, she's not my dad's kid. But..." He shook his head. "I can't unlearn this. Any of it."

"I wouldn't ask you to. Thea still looks up to you..." she grimaced, "I think she had a bit of a crush on you at one point."

Tommy smiled wryly, "What's not to have a crush on?" He laughed, though it was more than a bit forced, the humor in his 'arrogant playboy' routine dampened by the circumstances. "But yeah... I noticed. Didn't do anything to encourage it," he held up a hand, "and thankfully she's very happy with Roy now. But yeah... that..." He trailed off, unable to find the words.

Sara withdrew her hand, "I don't even have the slightest idea of what to do with this information, you know that right?" She chuckled, equally hollowly when she saw the 'well duh' expression on his face. "Right. Well... first thing - we can't let the DA find out about this..."

"I'm not planning on handing this over to anyone," Tommy promised. "I've got... I've got more than half a mind to just erase it all now, now that you've seen it, just in case somehow I get served with a warrant that includes it. I mean... there might be ways to prove the affair, or imply it, and if..." 

"I don't see what purpose keeping it serves," Sara admitted. "Unless you want to show it to Thea someday, but... I'll hurt you if you do, you do get that, right?" She raised an eyebrow. Granted, it would just be punching him in the stomach a few times, or maybe just slap his face depending on the circumstances...

"Pretty sure Oliver would hurt me more, if I showed Thea," Tommy pointed out, "And that's not even counting his... nighttime activities." He looked at her, mouth half open for a long moment. "How can you-" He started, then cut himself off. He swallowed and started again: "Just... you're a cop. How do you... how do you justify working with them to yourself? I mean, I know you'd never turn in Laurel, but there's not turning in and then there's actively helping." Tommy asked, 

"Because the city needs them right now," Sara admitted. "The SCPD failed Starling City - we'd never have had even a tiny inkling of what Merlyn was up to without them. And there's so many other things they've been able to do, without being held back by red tape and bureaucracies and-"

"Red tape and bureaucracies like... trials? Evidence? Right now, all it takes is Oliver deciding you're guilty and you get killed without -" Tommy interrupted, starting to raise his voice, but then Sara cut him off in turn.

"The last person the Arrow killed was your father, Tommy. And no, I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not comfortable with any of this." Sara stood, then took a long drink from her beer, taking a breath herself. "It's necessary, right now, but I don't like that they're judge and jury and yeah, if they wanted, not much else could stop either of them from being executioner. But they are right. And I know them both. You know them both. The rules exist for good reason, but there's a reason that the founding principles of the legal system's structure can be boiled down to 'better ten guilty men go free then one innocent man be imprisoned,'" Sara quoted, though even as she said it she was pretty sure she'd gotten the phrasing wrong.

"And when you have an SCPD that doesn't give a shit about the Glades most of the time, and a DA's office that's overworked and can't be bothered to deal with a lot of shit anyway... Starling City needs them."

She looked down at the ground, swallowing a moment. "At least, that's what I tell myself, every time I think about it. And so far, I've kept believing it."

"Sounds about right," Tommy murmured.

Starling City Police Department

October 24th, 2013

"Sara, you got a minute?" Sara looked up from her desk, seeing her father standing there. Even after a few months of it, it felt wrong to see her father in an officer's uniform, no detective shield, nothing. Busted down to beat cop, and looking the part. 

Sara quickly closed the case file in front of her, but from the look on her dad's face, he saw the crime scene photos-

"Dad-" Sara started, trying to come up with something to say and her father shook his head.

"I thought Hilton was on that case." Her father almost growled, and Sara bit her lip. Her father didn't berate her often, but he did sometimes, and it seemed like this might be another time of that, if she couldn't find a way to defuse this.

Thank you so much Lt. Pike, this is exactly what my life needed right now. She had enough on her plate between helping Oliver and her sister, being a detective and now dealing with knowing something about Thea that she had to keep secret from fucking everyone - and while she appreciated Tommy had had to tell someone and she was the best option, she was not totally thrilled with him about telling her - and now,now, she had a Serial Killer case and her dad was going to give her grief over it. And probably try to run his own investigation.

A small, traitorous part of Sara's mind reminded her of all the times she'd given her dad an ulcer over her own not totally authorized investigations. She tried to push that thought away.

"Pike asked me to help him on it. The faster it gets done, the faster we get Mathis off the streets." Which was true. But there were other detectives. I should be flattered he thinks I can handle a case like this, but I'm not convinced this isn't some trap. Whether for her, or for her dad, she couldn't tell. 

"That's my case," Her father shot back, voice low. "You can't just lock me out-"

"I can, and I will, Dad. Same reason Hilton is. You're not a Detective anymore-" Sara bit her lip even as she said that, given that she was the reason he wasn't a Detective anymore. To his credit, her father didn't take the opening to even hint at it. "And last time you worked this case, it nearly destroyed you."

"We both know that's not why I went over the edge," Her father countered, and Sara bit her lip to stop herself from arguing the point. Yes, part of it had been the fact that Laurel had just 'died' and her mom was probably going to divorce him as he dove head first into drinking and the job and...

Sure, all those were things, but Dad, I  watched  you. Mathis got inside your head.

"Dad, please. Don't get involved, don't try to - don't try to run your own investigation, don't try to -"

"Don't try to what, reach out to people outside?" The question cut right through Sara and she pulled up short, unable to come up with a counterpoint, especially not since they were here in public, so going into detail was not a great idea. 

"Dad..." Sara started, then trailed off. She shook her head. "If they catch you getting involved, they will arrest you for obstruction."

"Hilton said as much," her father shook his head dismissively. "It's not gonna happen." He sounded far too confident of that for Sara's taste. And while Sara wouldn't arrest her dad if she could avoid it... Hilton would. Hilton would hate it, but he would.

I'm not rolling in favors, but if he does... I might be able to use a few... She'd have to, because she wasn't going to let her Dad

She knew this was going to happen the moment Pike gave her the case, but at the same time, she couldn't help but be annoyed at how insistent he was against letting her do her job. I'm a Detective, same as you Dad, and I'm damn good at my job!

"You know, if I was in the mood to be resentful, Dad, I'd think that maybe you don't trust me to handle this case," Sara glared at him.

Her father shook his head, but didn't protest her interpretation of things. "Nobody knows this case better than me, Sara. Nobody. I got Mathis last time, and one way or another, I'll get him again." Sara opened her mouth to try again, even knowing it would be futile, but he held up a hand. "Save it." He turned around, walking away, and Sara dropped back into her chair, rubbing at her forehead, letting out a long breath.

She looked back at the file.

Mathis had no one in his life. No friends, no family, no known associates. The only person he'd corresponded with while in prison was...

His attorney. 

If Mathis was smart, he wouldn't reach out to Toby Daniels now that he was free - attorney client privilege didn't cover crimes in progress, such as being a prison escapee. And Daniels was a criminal defense attorney, so he wouldn't be just handing out information about his clients. Even the disturbing ones, like Mathis.

Of course, if I implied to him that Mathis has an issue with him... wants revenge for failing on his defense and appeals...

It was underhanded and dubiously legal - to put it mildly - but the only other options she could think of were even less legal.

Alleyway, The Glades

October 25th, 2013

"Sin," Laurel said, dropping in behind the teenage girl - who immediately turned around, but didn't drop the bag of fast food she was carrying. 

"Are you this dramatic in your real life?" Sin asked, shaking her head. "Always walking up behind people and trying to scare them?"

"Just trying to keep you on your toes," Laurel offered with a small smile. She raised an eyebrow as she watched Sin do a double-take. "What?"

"What do you mean what? You've got yourself a new superhero suit." Sin gestured to her. "Gotta say, I'm loving the whole 'tight black leather' look. Much sexier than the last one... though you still looked good in that."

Laurel smiled wryly. She really should have expected something like this from Sin, and yet. She had had some misgivings about the new outfit, now that it was finally ready - but despite how it looked, it was actually a better option for her. Made of more advanced materials - not exactly bulletproof, but she would have a lot less trouble with grazing shots - and she could even manuever just a little bit better, though it wasn't as if the League's uniform was that much of an impediment.

But one thing it was was very different, visually, from the last outfit. If not for the blonde wig, her mask being the same and probably the fact that she used all the same moves, people might think she was someone else.

"Really? I'm almost twice your age." Well, close enough anyway. 

"I'm not flirting with you, I'm just saying, your boyfriend probably dropped his bow when he saw you in that," Sin grinned, and Laurel chuckled a little. Because... well...

Oliver had stared for quite a long moment when she'd first put on the new outfit. 

The guy who made it was Henry Fyff, a somewhat asocial nerd who worked at Queen Consolidated's R&D department. Laurel had had Felicity check the online activities of anyone who worked in R&D to see who might be amenable to helping her with a new suit, and Fyff spent a lot of time online singing her praises and defending her from critics. She wouldn't say he was obsessed, but he clearly considered himself the President of her fanclub. It had made her a little hesitant, but the man was brilliant, and after approaching him at his place a few months ago about designing her a new suit...

Well, after he'd recovered from realizing- in his words - 'Holy shit The Black Canary is asking me for help!', he'd pursued the matter quite seriously. The end result was what she was wearing now. She'd told Fyff that their budget was no real concern - it wasn't - and he'd designed a suit that did the job and then some. 

She'd already considered asking for his help working on a few other tricks, but she hadn't decided. Asking for help once, even on a big project, was one thing. But any more, and you risked bringing him in full time, which was all well and good in theory, but the less people who knew, the better. Especially since she was seriously considering giving into Roy Harper's request. He really did have promise, and he had taken her words to him seriously, from what she'd heard and seen from Thea. Give him another month, maybe have him get some information for her, see if he could follow through and follow orders...

Plus, if she asked for Fyff's help again, he might just have a heart attack out of excitement.

Sin chuckled again, then she let out a long breath. "I heard something," she started. "About the 'Mayor'."

"Is he planning another trap?" His last one had been pretty amateurish, but he'd at least had the brains to put together a trap that might have worked, if she'd been hit in the head with a brick first/

"Well, I'm sure killing you is his plan, but right now, he's got guns coming. Word is, a lot of guns. He seems pretty confident about just how much firepower he's going to be getting." Sin warned. "And his people are shaking down people a lot more than normal in his turf."

"So he's trying to get more money quickly, in other words." Laurel considered. "He still wants to expand his operations across the Glades then." Laurel wasn't that concerned, though that did depend on just how much firepower he was expecting. She'd have to see what they could find about arms thefts nearby, or arms dealers that might be on the movie. From the way Sin said it, it sounded like the Mayor didn't have the guns now, but he would soon.

How soon was the question.

"What about Brick?" Laurel was most concerned about him. He was still the most formidable and clever gang leader she'd run into yet, and he'd pretty much gone to ground since the ambush Merlyn had arranged for them. Which only had her worried.

"Nothing," Sin shook her head.

Maybe I can see if Roy knows anyone who knows anything... the kid might be on the straight and narrow now, but he had known people in his previous life of crime. He might be able to be a little more direct, rather than Sin, who just kept her ear to the ground...

"Damn. He's not the type to just sit quietly and do nothing. He has to have a plan..." She shook her head. "Thank you. You know you don't have to do this-"

"I want to," Sin cut in. "And you know that too. The Glades needs you, and you need information."

Apartment Building Near the Bisque Museum

October 26th, 2013

It had taken Toby Daniels the better part of a day to stew in his own fear and obvious disgust for Mathis before the lawyer had decided to give up something that might actually have been useful - Mathis' favorite place in the city, the Bisque Museum. 

Getting a warrant on that information was harder. But she didn't need a warrant to see if Mathis was there, and then she could worry about the niceties. A quick flash of his picture at the desk had confirmed a man that at least looked like Mathis had rented a room for the week, in cash. It was one of those sorts of apartment buildings, but at least she'd been willing to answer Sara's questions.

Sara kept one hand on he handle of her gun, ready to pull if if she needed to as she approached room 52. You know, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should have asked Laurel or Oliver to have my back...

But the two of them had other things to deal with, like rumors of a fresh influx of heavy arms into the Glades soon and enough other crap on their plates.

Sara knocked on the door... only for it to swing open under the slightest of pressure - it had been unlocked, and not even closed properly.

Sara pulled out her gun as the door swung open, expecting a trap... and instead, she saw a doll, porcelain, 'holding' a newspaper's front page, the very one from when Mathis had been arrested, her father pushing into a cruiser, the headline blaring for all to see that the Dollmaker had been brought to justice.

So much for that.

Sara reached for her phone, ready to call it in - she could get a warrant on this place now. If they were lucky, Mathis had left something behind, some clue.

But given that the whole thing wasobviously a setup to mess with her dad's head... probably not.

Sara stopped mid-dial when the rotary phone below the doll started to ring. Sara pocketed her phone and held her service pistol in both hands, stepping into the apartment, looking for a camera, or any sort of-

Keeping her pistol ready, Sara reached for the phone, answering it on the fourth ring.

"Detective Sara Lance." She'd watched the interrogation footage after the man's arrest. It was Mathis on the other end of the line. "I was expecting your father, but I suppose you'll do fine."

"My dad has better things to deal with than you," Sara said coldly. She cursed in her head, wishing she'd thought to at least ask Felicity to be available. But that wouldn't be admissible either. You do have to at least look like you're doing this right. And now she had a phone call she couldn't even try to trace. 

Cradling the phone against her shoulder, she texted Felicity with one hand, hoping that maybe Felicity could trace the call anyway, despite not having any warning, but she didn't have a lot of hope. 

"Oh Detective, I'm hurt." Mathis mocked her. 

"If you were capable of feeling anything, I might actually care," Sara countered. "You got caught once, and that was before you had time in prison to lose your edge." Sara saw a text back from Felicity - she was trying to trace the call. Sara hoped it would work as Mathis kept talking.

"Lost my edge? Why don't you say that to my guest? They'd like to say hello to you anyway..." there was a brief pause, "say hello dear." The muffled screams of someone unable to speak made it clear Mathis already had a second victim... Sara's heart pounded in her chest as she kept hearing the girl whimpering in the background as Mathis spoke more. "You'll have to forgive her, she's a little inarticulate." Sara watched her phone, biting her lip, but nothing from Felicity, no trace... 

She had to keep him talking...

"I'm going to be there when they give your injection, Mathis. No life sentence for you this time," Sara growled.

"What, no pleading for me to let her go, let her slip away and fade into mediocrity?" Mathis sounded almost confused there, and Sara shook her head, even if he couldn't see her.

"You're going to kill her whatever I do, so I'm not interested in playing your twisted little game," Sara could only pray Felicity got a trace before she had to hear the girl die, hear him fill her throat up...

"Well, Detective, then I suppose I'll need to try harder next time," and before Sara could say anything else, the call ended, giving her a dial tone - and a text from Felicity, saying she hadn't been able to make a trace.

Sara dropped the phone on the table, her whole body shaking as she held back from screaming, or throwing the phone against the wall - not at Mathis, but at herself.

If I'd just kept him talking, if I'd played his game... Damnit Sara! You know better than that! If she'd just kept the call going, maybe, maybe she could have made that girl's death mean something...

Instead, she was back to square one. Or worse.

Queen Consolidated Parking Garage

October 27th, 2013

Laurel had expected that taking over the Queen Family Charitable Trust would be a time consuming and exhausting project, mentally and physically. She'd been right, and then some. But at least since the benefit with Blood, things were looking up - still the same amount of work, but it felt less futile. She was organizing another event in a few months to help pick up where the last one went, after several national charities reached out to her after the success of the first one.

And, on short notice, she was putting together a proposal for a gun buyback - if the Mayor was about to flood the Glades with guns, then maybe they could get a few out of the neighborhood before he did so. The trick would be funds. The Charitable Trust wasn't exactly rolling in money, and the Queen Family's actual liquid assets right now were pretty limited. If they were going to hold more benefits, keep the interest coming on the endowment... if she'd had a bit more time, the gun buyback could be funded, but the idea was to do it soon.

Maybe I can convince Rochev to agree to have Queen Consolidated fund it. The benefit, despite not being run by Queen Consolidated -all the company had done was rent out the space at cost - had given the company's stock price a bit of a rally, and maybe she could convince Oliver's co-CEO that this could help too, if they attached their name to it and provided the funds.

I suppose it can't hurt. Laurel pulled out her phone and made a note in her notesapp to talk to Rochev first thing tomorrow as she approached her car - and pulled up short. Crouched by the driver side door was a man, hunched over, wearing a foul-smelling, ratty looking coat, shaking and murmuring like he was either high, or going through withdrawal.

"Sir?" Laurel asked, but she didn't get closer. She couldn't place it, but something seemed off, out of place. "Are you alright?" The man didn't say anything, muttering something about 'lies' and 'christmas lights'. 

Wait.

This parking garage wasn't exactly free access. Some homeless person couldn't just wander in..

Laurel slowly stepped towards him, keeping her voice 'calm' and 'concerned'. "Sir?" She 'asked' again. "Do you need a doctor?' She got just close enough to reach and gently touch his back - then immediately she was jumping back as the man spun arond - he was blonde, with glasses. She didn't recognize him, but she did recognize the taser he tried to hit her with - Laurel was able to avoid it with ease.

Allaena, she swore. The man tried to come at her again, but Laurel kicked out at his hand, getting him and sending him staggering back as his taser went out of his hand. He's just one man - I can afford to not let him win this time. With Vanch, he'd had a whole gang of goons with him, but Laurel could take on one guy.

And if anyone asked, she could say her last kidnapping had made her get more self-defense training.

"Who the hell are you?" Laurel demanded, then she lunged, getting him in the stomach and leaving him doubled over in pain. She stepped back, watching him, as he straighted up and dove for his taser - Laurel got there first, punching him in the jaw - and then, as he reeled back and spun, falling to the ground, she recognized him.

Barton Mathis, the Dollmaker. One of the guys her dad had put away while she was gone. But wasn't he supposed to be in iron heights?

Mathis tried to get up, pushing himself into a sitting position as he tried to rise - Laurel didn't give him a chance - she kicked him in the face, hearing his nose crunch under the blow, and then he was reeling back, blood all over his face, and Laurel took a step back again, eyes on him - Mathis fell over, onto his back, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

Fuck. 

Laurel pulled out her phone and dialed 911, then slowly approached the Dollmaker's unconscious body, rolling him over onto his side - which took a bit of work to do one-handed.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I'm at the Queen Consolidated Parking Lot, 4th floor. I was attacked - I broke his nose and he's unconscious..." Laurel made her voice sound shaky, as if she was rattled, but not afraid. "I -"

"Ma'am, ma'am, are you okay, right now, are you safe? Are you hurt?" The operator interrupted.

"I'm not hurt, I As long as he doesn't wake up before anyone gets here..." Laurel trailed off, playing her role to the hilt. 

"Police and an ambulance are on their way. Is there security in the building?"

"There should be, on the ground floor, I - should I go down?"

"Is your car available?"

"It's right here," 

"Get inside and lock the doors. Police should be there in less than three minutes. I'll stay with you on the phone until they get there."

"Ok-okay," Laurel took a deep, shuddering breath and made a show of loudly fumbling with her keys, unlocking the car door and getting inside, locking it. "I'm inside, it's locked." Laurel kept talking to the operator as she started working on exactly what she'd tell the police - shouldn't have to lie, much. She'd felt something was off, been careful, the guy had tried to tase her, she'd fought back.

He must have been trying to get revenge on Dad by coming for me? 

First someone coming after her over Sara, and now over her Dad. 

Who would have thought her civilian life would be more dangerous than her work as a vigilante?

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 4: Biggest Gun Usually Loses

When I started out in the game, every villain was handing out guns to their henchmen like candy, figuring the more bullets you fired, the faster you killed the hero. By the time I was on my third boss, they'd decided it was down to who had the best karate moves or some BS like that. By my tenth, it was all about taking crazy drugs and hoping you got superpowers out of the deal.

-Excerpt from "Confessions of a Professional Henchman," by Rick Montel, published by Simon and Schuster, 2063

CEO's Office, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

October 29th, 2013

"Shouldn't your boyfriend be here for this?" Rochev asked pointedly. The other woman's expression was too well controlled for Laurel to get a read on her. It probably did her well in negotiations, but it was annoying. She'd convinced Rochev to have the meeting here with Blood, but it remained to be seen if she would accept whatever terms Blood might want to set on this deal.

"Oliver gave me full authority to negotiate on behalf of Queen Consolidated on this particular subject," Laurel pulled a piece of paper out of her file portfolio, handing it to Rochev. Oliver, being Oliver, hadn't thought of the idea on her own, but Laurel had worried Rochev might try to play that card, so she'd typed the letter up and had Oliver sign it. 

Rochev looked the letter over, raising an eyebrow, then nodded. "Since it is for charity-related purposes, I suppose this makes sense." She handed the paper back to Laure. "Your idea?"

"What makes you say that?" Laurel could guess, but she was curious what was going through Rochev's mind. Her reputation as a corporate raider suggested she was pretty heatless and career-focused, but equally made clear that for all her cold, unreadable demeanor, she was able to own a negotiation. And - well, there was no denying the woman was smart.

It really would be easier if Rochev was an idiot, but then she wouldn't be in this position. Oliver and Laurel had plans for what they could do with Queen Consolidated, to help the city, but it was hard to do with Rochev in place.

"Your boyfriend might be competent at schmoozing at corporate events, and better than expected at holding onto this company, but he is not known for his forethought about the little things." Rochev ticked off, "You, on the other hand, were on track to be a lawyer. And by all accounts, you would have been a meticulous one."

"You've done your research."

"Of course." Before Rochev could say more, Oliver's secretary opened the door to let Blood in.

"Alderman, thank you so much for coming again." Laurel stood and walked over to him, shaking his hand. "This is Isabel Rochev, the Co-CEO of Queen Consolidated." She introduced Rochev, who politely extended her own hand for a quick, firm shake. 

"Co-CEO?" The Alderman raised an eyebrow. "I'm not an expert on corporate org charts, but that seems... unusual."

"It is. But it's very uncommon for two people to both own exactly 50% of the voting stock in a company," Rochev nodded. "Has Miss Lance explained what this meeting is about?" She gestured for Blood to sit, clearly trying to take control of the meeting.

"She mentioned wanting to do something to help with the gun violence in the Glades," Blood pointedly didn't sit for several seconds, before finally doing so, and then Laurel took a seat next to Rochev. "By your presence here, I'm assuming it has something to do with Queen Consolidated, not just the Charitable Trust."

"It does," Laurel cut in. She pulled open her portfolio and pulled out three copies of the plan, handing one to Blood and one to Rochev. "I'd like to have Queen Consolidated and the Queen Family Charitable Trust partner to do a gun buyback in the Glades. Your support would make it more likely to be a success, Alderman."

Blood looked over the first page, while Rochev was already moving forward, looking for the costs. Laurel went on, "Given time, the Trust will have the funds to do things like this on it's own, but between other commitments, we don't. Unfortunately, the Glades can't wait a few months for investments to come through or capital to free itself up." 

"And the fact that having Queen Consolidated attach its name to this will help rally your stock prices and improve public confidence has nothing to do with it?" Blood looked at Laurel accusingly.

"Corporations supporting charitable work does have a long history, Alderman." Laurel pointed out.

"One hand washes the other, you mean," Blood noted sourly.

"You say that like it's corrupt, Alderman," Rochev cut in. "It's simply good business. A deal where everyone gets something out of it." She cocked an eyebrow carefully. 

"I'm not interested in just creating an ineffective photo-op for your company to wave around, pretend it wasn't involved in what happened last summer," Blood countered. "My constituents might not be interested in burning Queen Consolidated to the ground, but you're not a particularly popular company in the Glades."

"You don't want to be seen being too close to the company, or to the Queen Family, publicly." Laurel had figured this was where things were going to. It was one thing for the Alderman to associate with the company, with Oliver, in galas or other relatively private social events, but a big public collaboration for all his constituents to see?

"I wouldn't have said it to you quite like that, but essentially, yes," Blood agreed. 

"If Queen Consolidated is going to finance this venture, we will need proper recognition," Rochev said flatly. "What matters more to you? Spiting Queen Consolidated, or help-"

Laurel cut in before Rochev could finish that thought, seeing Blood's expression quickly turn indignant. "Ms. Rochev, the Alderman's concerns are legitimate. Political capital is a pretty volatile currency, and the returns on investment aren't always as predictable as they can be in the world of business. Equally, Alderman, Queen Consolidated does have an ethical obligation to be a responsible steward for its money."

She pulled out another piece of paper, handing it to Blood. "Even after everything that's happened since the summer, five thousand people in this city are directly employed by Queen Consolidated or it's subsidiaries, and another fifteen thousand are at least partially employed by work contracted out. The net economic value to the Glades alone that Queen Consolidate offers is quite substantive, all told," she handed him another paper, pointing to the number. "Helping Queen Consolidated keep it's stock price afloat does help your constituents... indirectly."

"Very indirectly sometimes. I do know Ms. Rochev's reputation," Blood said, turning to her. "I do do my research."

"I do what's best for the situation. I didn't aim to take Queen Consolidated just to hollow the company out," Rochev countered. Laurel considered those words, finding them curious. Would she really have tried to do right by the company if Oliver had lost the contest for the buyout? Or would she have just plundered the company and moved on, like Stellmoor usually did?

For that matter, I haven't really heard much about her reporting to her nominal bosses at Stellmoor. Laurel made a mental note to look into that. Was she just being given wide latitude, or was she playing her own game at the expense of her bosses? Or just quiet about reporting to them? 

"Yes, it's indirect and if I was asking you to give Queen Consolidated an undeserved tax break or city subsidy, I'd understand you saying no. But this gun buyback helps your constituents directly and - by helping keep Queen Consolidated on an even keel in these times - helps them indirectly."

Laurel looked at Blood pointedly. "So the only legitimate question left is - what sort of level of clear QC involvement will you be happy with that Ms. Rochev will be happy with?"

"Miss Lance, I hope I never have to run against you for anything," Blood said after a long moment, offering her a small smirk, then he nodded. "Alright. I'm sold on the idea, let's get to the specifics."

The Foundary, Starling City

October 30th, 2013

"You found something?"

"I did, and Felicity worked that into a lead," Diggle nodded. "The bad news is the Mayor does have military grade hardware, not just high grade civilian guns. The good news - well, I'll let you take this one, Felicity," Diggle gestured to the hacker, who Oliver had to admit looked almost ready to burst with whatever good news she had.

"The guns were stolen as a whole crate from Camp Kirby - Army CID doesn't have any idea who stole it yet - but each crate comes with a tracker. One just like this," she gestured to a small electronic device on the table next to her, a green light glowing softly from it. 

"If it was as simple as using the tracker-" Oliver started, but Felicity shook her head.

"It's not. The Mayor did turn it off, but - and here's the fun part - guess which company made this? Hint, it has two CEOs," Felicity sat back down in front of the computer. "And according to internal company files, there's something that QC kept hidden from the military - when broadcast with the right subform wave frequency, the tracker turns back on." 

And who was CEO when we hid that from them? Knowing what he did about his dad now, Oliver wouldn't put it past his father to have hidden that, but he had trouble thinking Walter would have done something like that. 

Then again, Walter hadn't been all that in control of the company, as it turned out.

"Is QC going to be liable for that little secret?" Laurel asked. "I mean, how did the military not notice?"

"Well, the military didn't plan on turning the trackers off, so I don't think it ever came up," Felicity shrugged. "They work perfectly otherwise, and I won't tell the DoD if you guys won't," she kept typing away. "One thing to know - once we turn the tracker back on, the light goes on." 

"And if someone sees the tracker on, when it's supposed to be off, they might move the goods," Diggle finished Felicity's implication. It was obvious, but a good point to make anyway.

"So not a lot of time," Oliver agreed. He turned to Laurel, "You've been trying to find the Mayor's new hideout, since the last time he tried to pull a trap on you. How much have you narrowed it down?"

"Less than I'd like. His territory has a lot of abandoned buildings, especially lately," Laurel shook her head. "Still, we can get close." She moved towards her gear, and Oliver pulled his bow out of it's box. She looked over her shoulder at Felicity. "Stand by, be ready to reactivate the tracker."

"Got it," Felicity nodded. 

Abandoned Nightclub, The Glades, Starling City

October 31st, 2013

I can't believe I was this close to finding him. Laurel shook her head a little as she berated herself for not checking this place sooner. The nightclub - never one of the hot, happening clubs like Verdant or Fuller's club Poison (though Verdant had dethroned it as the hottest place in the city) - had stood abandoned and empty since the Undertaking, and it was one of the places Laurel had considered for the Mayor's new hideout, but she had figured the location wasn't central enough in the gang leader's territory. She would have checked it anyway soon enough, but other places had been prioritized.

"...just lost the signal," Felicity said quietly over the coms. "He found the tracker,"

Laurel didn't bother saying anything back as she crept down the hallway. Oliver would move first, shooting down from above and then she'd come at them from ground level while they were all aiming up top. The Mayor might - might - have been able to get earplugs for himself, but he wasn't likely to have enough for his whole gang. 

He wasn't at the level of real organized crime, or even well-financed thugs like Brick and Vanch.

Yet.

"...the tracker was off, man," one of the Mayor's thugs was protesting.

"So what, it just turned back on on it's own, is that it?" The Mayor demanded, and Laurel peered around the corner to see him holding the thug who'd protested at gunpoint. "That's not a thing that happens. Which means you screwed up," The Mayor pressed the gun against the chest of his goon, the others getting out of the line of fire. 

"I can't have that sort of weakness in my organization. So give me one good reason not to cut it out."

I have one: Your organization is about to be a hell of a lot smaller. 

As if on cue, Oliver chimed in with his own answer - an arrow came out from above, hitting the thug at gunpoint with an arrow, the force of it sending him spinning back, away from the gun, and Laurel smirked as everyone started firing upwards, backs to her.

Laurel activated her device on a timer, then slid it across the floor into the main room. A moment later, it started screaming, and sure enough the majority of the people in the room were grabbing at their ears, trying in vain to block the sound, glass breaking all around the room.

Laurel didn't give anyone a chance to recover - the truth was that as loud as the device was, it wouldn't keep everyone down for the count forever, and it didn't run forever. But it didn't need to. Laurel dashed into the room, kicking one of the Mayor's gang in the back, sending him sprawling onto the stage, the headless mannequin falling over under the collison, and then she pulled out her tonfa and set to work on another two thugs, sweeping one's legs out from under him.

She knocked the other's gun from his hand, hooked her arm around his, spun him and held his arm in place, the crack enough to have him crying out and staggering back, out for the count for the moment.

Oliver dropped down from the upper level, shooting another target in the leg, but Laurel didn't spare him any focus as she caught a glimpse of the Mayor running for another exit, shouting at two of his men. They hesitated for a moment, then fell in behind him, aiming their guns right at Laurel and opening fire.

Laurel was already moving as they started aiming, dropping below a table and knocking it over - but the wood didn't offer much protection and she was already moving on as bullets started to shred it. Her sonic device shut off, and Laurel jumped, vaulting close towards the blocking thugs, a bullet grazing her side - she didn't think it actually penetrated the suit, but then another hit her leg, and as she landed on it, she nearly bit her lip bloody as it almost caved on her, but she managed to stay on her feet long enough to deal with the two men - the first she threw off balance with an uppercut, then the other she grabbed by the ears, drove his face down onto her knee and sent sprawling back, his nose broken and bloody. Laurel didn't let them have a moment to breathe and smashed the other one in the face again, this time with her tonfa, then quickly hit the insides of his arms, not enough to really hurt but more than enough to leave him reeling, utterly open for one more punch to his throat that left him gasping. She drove her elbow into his gut and knocked him to the ground.

She looked past the two fallen foes, but the Mayor was gone, the double doors still moving a little from the force and speed of his fight.

She turned back to Oliver, who was at the crate of weapons. All the other thugs were either groaning and unable to move - or too afraid too - unconscious, or had already fled. He picked up her sonic device and tossed it to her lightly. Laurel caught it and set it back on her belt, moving over to the crate. 

"We're done," Laurel murmured in the comms. "Weapons secure, Mayor's gone." They couldn't just leave the guns here as they were - even if the cops came, it wouldn't be quick enough. She gestured to Oliver, who kicked the crate to the far end of the room, away from anyone left in the abandoned club, and planted an explosive arrow on a timer, right in the middle of the guns. The charge wouldn't be enough to cause a major explosion, but it would damage the guns enough to make them unusable or nearly so.

"Fifteen seconds on the clock," Oliver muttered and they ran back down the hallway she'd come in through, towards the exit.

"No one's called 911 about all that shooting, and from the sound of police chatter, they're still staying out of the Glades tonight, as usual," Felicity told them over the comms, once they were safely outside and moving towards their motorcycles.

"The Mayor ran with his tail between his legs, but he has more people than the ones we saw here," Laurel shook her head. "He's not out for the count."

"But he's going to have to make a show of things," Oliver pointed out, then frowned, another thought clearly occurring - and one Laurel did not want to hear, "He's going to hit the gun buyback."

"Guns, and a crowd for him to play to. If he wants to make a big splash to make up for this, it has everything he needs," Diggle agreed. 

"We have to cancel it," Oliver started, but Laurel shook her head.

"Not a chance. There's no way in hell I'm going to be able to get Rochev and Blood to agree to another one, especially not if this one goes wrong," Laurel countered. "The police will be there, that's the first thing we arranged. The SCPD needs the good press as much as Blood and QC do."

"You can't just let people come to the buyback knowing it's going to be hit," Diggle countered. 

"The people of the Glades know that any day is the day they could get mugged, shot, stabbed or worse. Anyone who will be coming to the buyback will be doing so knowing they're taking a risk," Laurel wouldn't call her tone pleading, but she needed to keep Oliver onboard with this plan.

"The people of the Glades need to play a role in taking back their community from the Mayor too." She didn't say his name aloud, but her tone carried it at the end nonetheless. "That's always been true." Laurel went on, raising the pitch, though not the volume, of her voice, trying - and failing - to stop from getting worked up.

"There's a difference between the daily danger of living in the Glades and painting a target on people's backs," Diggle shot back.

"I'm not getting anywhere in figuring out who at Camp Kirby might have helped the Mayor get his guns," Felicity added. "I can give the cops an anonymous tip or five that something might happen at the buyback?" She offered, her voice pitching up with a hopeful tone.

"I doubt that will work," Laurel admitted. "It might be broad daylight, but there's no reason the Black Canary can't show-"

"We both have to be there for the cameras," Oliver countered. "You already sold me on that part earlier."

I did, didn't I? Laurel cursed her past self for the successful argument. But she had been right then - Oliver needed to be there to help make sure QC got the benefit it needed, and Laurel needed to be there as head of the Charitable Trust. She didn't have a lot of staff - couldn't afford it - and she had to be hands on for something this high profile.

Someday, it'll be a lot more routine. Laurel was hoping that the Trust could hold buybacks regularly, because she knew it would be a running battle to keep the neighborhood free of illegal arms.

So she wouldn't need to be there for every single one. 

But she would for this first one. 

"We'll just have to prepare, then." Laurel shook her head, "We cancel this on short notice, it's going to undermine things with QC, with Blood and it's going to mean the Glades doesn't get rid of guns it doesn't need." 

"There's going to be TV cameras there, right?" Felicity double-checked, and Laurel responded in the affirmative. "Then I can use that to find out where he's getting his guns."

"I'm not following,," Oliver said slowly, skeptically.

"From what you've told me, Canary, nobody knows the Mayor's name, or even really where he came from. He just showed up two years ago and started building a gang."

"That's what they say, yeah," Laurel agreed. 

"Well, he shows up for the cameras, I can run his face, and find out who he is. The Mayor isn't rich enough to be buying these guns, especially not with the Arrow putting almost every arms dealer who pokes his nose into the city in the hospital or a prison cell."

"You think he's got someone at Camp Kirby..." Diggle was the one who spoke first, but Laurel was reaching the conclusion at the same as well, and from the look on his face, Oliver was too.

"Family, friend, something like that, yeah. Have I mentioned how hanging around with you guys has made me think more about these things than I ever wanted to?" Felicity added. "No? Well, it's true, but I might as well make use of it."

"I still think it's too risky," Diggle opined, but Laurel ignored him, looking Oliver in the eye. 

"Risky or not, it's the only available option, on multiple counts."

"Canary's right," Oliver finally agreed, inhaling. "We'll just have to try to make sure we're prepared for things to go wrong."

Underpass Near the Glades

November 2nd, 2013

They'd prepared. Enough that Laurel had been pretty sure they were covered. OIiver had agreed with her. No plan was perfect, but they'd hopefully arranged things so no one would get seriously hurt.

No one was actually dead, at least.

At least not yet.

Things had started as planned, people were turning in guns, they were up to 200 guns by the start of the third hour, and the clip only seemed ready to go up.

The Mayor - as expected - had shown up, and that's where things hadn't gone according to plan. 

Because rather than running for cover like a reasonable civilian, Alderman Blood had decided to take this, of all moments, to make a show of standing up to the criminals ruining the Glades. Oliver gave him points for bravery, and this was the sort of thing they needed to happen, but had it had to happen right then?

'You don't speak for these people!' Blood has shouted, drawing attention to himself - and gunfire. But with someone standing up to him, the Mayor started shooting. The police fired back, and Oliver had managed to tackle Blood to the ground, at least stopping him taking more than a bullet to the arm.

The indiscriminate spray as a result of the cops firing back and the brief window the Mayor was there - he only managed to snag a few guns, at least - meant that was what most of the injuries were. Grazing shots, injured arms and legs

But a few others were in critical condition, bullets in their guts, one  who had gotten hit in the upper thigh, with a nicked artery.

Oliver had authorized QC to pay for everyone's immediate medical care, something Rochev wouldn't be able to undo now that it happened, but he was sure she'd give him grief for it when he next saw her.

He'd dodged several calls from her already in the aftermath.

But, at least the trap went off, Oliver clenched his jaw. He looked over at Laurel, who was crouched next to him on the roof as they watched the military convoy approach. Felicity had used his face to find his name - Xavier Reed. And connected him to Camp Kirby by a foster brother, Ezra Barnes.

Oliver was curious why this Barnes, who had served three tours in Iraq, would suddenly start supplying a bottom-feeding gangster like Reed, even if they had been foster brothers, but it was ultimately immaterial.

The weapons Barnes was transporting tonight were even more dangerous than the last ones he'd snuck Reed.

As the trucks came through the underpass, the Mayor stepped into view, standing in the middle of the road like someone just asking to be run over. But the convoy stopped in front of him, and more of the Mayor's men stepped out, moving towards the trucks, as a driver stepped out of each.

"They're with me," Barnes gestured to the other two soldiers. He gestured to the back of a truck, "these ones weren't." The implication was obvious, but the casual admission of murder - unsurprisingly - had Reed laughing and embracing his brother.

"You're done being all you can be," Reed told Barnes, "With what you're bringing... you and me, we're gonna own this town." Barnes handed him one of the guns, and Reed's expression grew wide, somewhere between a kid at Christmas and a dog staring at a juicy steak. 

"Now this... this is what I'm talking about!" He hefted the weapon a little, getting the feel for it. "Load 'em up!" The last of his men pulled out of an alley with a large truck, two more coming out of the cab, and another from the back.

Ten people total, counting Barnes and his fellow soon to be former soldiers. 

That'll be everyone. 

Laurel didn't bother to open with her device this time - she just somersaulted down behind one of the soldiers, hit him on the side of the head with one tonfa and at his elbow with the other, stunning his arm a moment and then she hit him twice across the face, sending him sprawling, out for a moment and she was onto the next. Barnes and Reed turned, but Reed shouted at his men to keep loading.

Oliver didn't give them a chance - he fired three arrows in quick succession, the first and third finding home in the shoulders of a thug, the second missing by the dumb luck of his target turning at just the right moment, shoulder barely an inch from whereit had been, but just enough.

Bunched up close to the Mayor as she was, the thugs couldn't shoot at Laurel, but they could shoot at Oliver, and as they fired, Oliver dropped down from the roof, rolling and coming up in front of them, punching one in the face and kicking another in the gut - he pulled the arrow from another's shoulder and drove it into his other shoulder as he tried to aim his gun anyway.

No one could get a clear shot at either of them, and Oliver didn't let them have a moment, shooting another arrow in one thug's leg with a smooth motion, and pivoting to hit one coming from behind across the arm with his bow, sending him staggering back a half-step at an angle - it left his chest wide open, and Oliver gave him a punch to the gut and the throat.

The melee was short, and brutal, with their targets needing to be knocked down more than once but soon enough, they were all knocked out or down, groaning and unable to get back up yet - if at all, in the case of a few with broken or injured limbs.

Oliver noticed Barnes clutching between his legs as he tried to curl into a fetal ball, but with one arm broken, it was rather difficult. Laurel watched Oliver's gaze, and answered the unvoiced question:

"He made a comment about my outfit," Laurel offered. "Nothing too permanent." Oliver looked at the fallen criminals, then realized that the Mayor wasn't among them.

"Reed-"

"He went over to where-" Laurel started, then the Mayor spoke from behind them, his ego getting the better of him again - if he'd been smart about not showing up for the TV cameras...

"You two like old school weapons. I can respect that," the Mayor was raising his voice, not quite shouting. He walked a few steps towards them, but still further away than they could get to him before he fired the grenade launcher under the barrel of his gun.

His tone actually did sound like he meant it when he said 'respect'.

"Must take some serious skill, using a bow or those... whatever you call them," he gestured at Laurel with the gun. "Me, I'm a simple guy. I like the bang, I like the boom. Here's something your gear can't do." 

Oliver fired an arrow at the same time Reed fired the grenade, and halfway between them, the two connected. Even bracing for it and turning away, the force of the blast had Oliver flying back and landing on his ass, his bow flying out of his hands. 

Ears ringing, blinking against the flash, Oliver saw Laurel climbing to her feet first as he struggled onto her knees. His bow was by her feet, and with a quick kick upwards, she grabbed it, running towards Reed as he started to shoot, weaving away from the fire, diving and grabbing an arrow from the ground.

She didn't stop moving and with a motion almost - but not quite - as Oliver's own skill with the bow, she fired, the arrow connecting not with Reed himself, but the sharpened metal hitting the barrel of the gun from the side, puncturing it.

Oliver found his footing and moved towards the Mayor's truck, making sure it was empty, knowing Laurel had the man in hand now that he was cornered.

"Hah! Do your worst, bitch!" Reed shouted defiantly, and Oliver looked to see Laurel had him in a chokehold from behind, her other hand pinning one arm hard enough to twist it entirely out of the socket if she needed to. "You don't have the guts to kill me."

"I don't need to. Iron Heights is full of little tin gods like you," Laurel snapped, and pulled her elbow in over his neck tight, watching as he lost consciousness, letting him drop.

"Felicity, are the police on their way?"

"Two minutes, give or take," the hacker replied over the comms.

Oliver looked at the trucks, loaded with weapons and sitting there.

"Warn us when we're at a minute," Oliver said, "Can't leave these things unattended for long."

"The Mayor's been recalled, I think he'll be reading the returns from a cell by the time he wakes up," Laurel chuckled to herself, though it took Oliver a moment to get the joke. Laurel tossed him his bow, which he caught and then retrieved her dropped tonfa, moments before Felicity warned them they were almost out of time.

As the police sirens grew louder in the distance, Oliver and Laurel were already vanishing down an alley.

CEO's Office, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

November 3rd, 2013

"...in other news, the Queen Consolidated sponsored Gun Buyback, now coming off it's second day, is credited with getting over eight hundred guns off the streets of the Glades. Although the event was interrupted by the gang leader calling himself the Mayor yesterday, head of the Queen Family Charitable Trust, Laurel Lance, insisted on re-opening the event today.

The Buyback has been received with some controversy in the Glades, given Queen Consolidated's role in the terrorist attack known as the Undertaking, but when asked by reporters yesterday, Alderman Sebastian Blood had this to say:

'I won't pretend I'm thrilled about all the good press the Queen name is getting from this, but Oliver Queen is trying to help, and he's been trying to help ever since the Undertaking. More than I can say about a lot of people in this city.'

"Not the most glowing of recommendations, I admit," Oliver heard Blood say from behind him, and Oliver turned after muting the news report, seeing the Alderman. He had one arm in a sling, but he seemed otherwise fine.

"In my defense," the politician added with a smile that actually seemed genuine, "I didn't know you'd save my life an hour from then."

"I just did what anyone should have done," Oliver shook his head. "And compared to our first conversation..." he offered Blood a small smile, and held out a hand so he could shake Blood's good one. "I'm just sorry I couldn't pull you down sooner."

Blood scoffed, waving his hand dismissively once the handshake was done. "You did what you could." He chuckled a little, "Besides, getting shot standing up for your constituents? It's not a strategy I'd ever recommend trying on purpose, but it does do wonders for your approval ratings."

"Useful to know," Oliver nodded. "I just acted on instinct,"

"Your instinct was to risk your life to save mine. That says a lot about you." Blood said softly. "I owe you." He held up his hand, palm out, "I do. Don't try to pretend otherwise."

Oliver looked the other man over, seeing the resolve in his eyes. Blood was a politician, and by all accounts, a consummate one. But he believed in his mission to help his constituents. 

"Alright. Well, how about you pay me back by considering a career change?" Oliver suggested. Before Blood could respond, Oliver went on: "Last I heard, the position of 'Mayor of the Glades' opened up." There'd been a report on the arrest of the Mayor earlier, with the SCPD trying to take full credit, but the local reporters weren't buying it.

Blood chuckled darkly. "Is that another endorsement? You and your friend Tommy Merlyn really do see the world differently than your parents, don't you?"

"Well, I think in the case of Tommy, he only endorsed you in that interview because it would annoy you." Oliver felt a slight twinge at the mention of his friend's name. They hadn't spoken since Tommy had shown up at that fundraiser. "But he cares about the city - and you do too. For what it's worth, you'd have my vote."

"There is more than one way to save a city, Oliver," Blood shook his head. "Mayor? I tried running, I'd have every wealthy family in the city - hell, the state - crawling out of the woodwork to fight me. Even the philanthropic ones."

"Not every family," Oliver gestured around the room. "Though I suppose my endorsement wouldn't be all that useful either."

Blood shook his hand in an equivocating gesture a moment, moving his head to the side a little. "Before yesterday, that might have been true. But now?"

"And before yesterday, I might have thought you weren't the one for the job," Oliver countered. "But I've seen the signs, the graffiti. 'Blood for Mayor'" He moved his hand left to right in three quick motions, as if over the words themselves. "A lot of people want you to have the job." Oliver shrugged, "For what it's worth, you have one more."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 5: Following Up

Organized Crime has been a thing since the moment two criminals decided to work together rather than backstab each other. But it's always changing - classic movies and TV shows like the Godfather and the Sopranos painted an image of the Italian Mafia that hadn't really ever been true, but was especially not true by the early 21st century, when everything changed. The Mafia wouldn't survive the rise of Superheroes. We still have organized crime, but it's villains and their rotating casts of minions, not mobsters and dons.

-Opening lines of the Youtube Video "Whatever Happened to the Mafia?: A 10 Minute Summary", from the channel 'CrimeHistoryTV'. Posted on April 24th, 2078.

Warehouse, Outskirts of the Glades

November 11th, 2013

"Good job finding them," Laurel told Roy Harper, dropping in behind him. Unlike the last few times she'd done this, he didn't audibly startle - his shoulders did stiffen and he physically jumped up a bit, but the kid had started to hone his situational awareness, and more importantly, control his reactions.

Also, Laurel hadn't tried as hard as she usually would to hide her approach. 

"Isn't counterfeit money a little bourgeois for you?" Roy asked, lowering the binoculars .

"Aren't you dating one of the richest heiresses in the city?" Laurel countered, a little surprised by his word choice. Roy wasn't an idiot, but a word like 'bourgeois' wasn't really something she'd have expected from him. "Besides, the best way to spend counterfeit money is in bodegas, independent little shops where the most people are likely to have is an easily beatable testing pen. Banks and millionaires aren't usually fooled by the fakes, not for long."

"My girlfriend isn't your business,"

"No, not especially," Laurel agreed, though it really was, if Roy ever did wrong by Thea. At least when Oliver was out of the city, like he was right now, helping Diggle rescue his ex, Lyla from somewhere in Russia. "Wait here," Laurel added, starting to move past him.

"I-" Roy started, wanting to protest, but he seemed to think better of it, taking a breath.

"I need intel more than I need a sidekick," Laurel said. "Besides, while you're getting better, you didn't notice that I'm not the only one who here, watching you." Laurel looked over into the shadows beside a bunch of rusted metal barrels. "You can come out now," 

"There's no one there-" Roy started to say, following her gaze, when Nyssa stepped out of the shadows. If Laurel hadn't known her and the League's tricks so well, she might have missed her too.

"Your would be apprentice has much work ahead of him," Nyssa observed, looking at Roy. "And you haven't even broken any of his bones."

"Your full-contact method of training has its downsides, Nyssa," Laurel said dryly. She had managed to be a fairly fast learner under Nyssa's tutelage, but - it took a hell's worth of pain to get there. 

Laurel saw Roy's eyes go from one to the other, confusion written on his face.

"You didn't think I just sprang up, fully formed knowing how to fight like I did?" Laurel pointed out, chuckling a little. "Nyssa taught me everything I know."

"You've grown quite beyond that now, Black Canary," Nyssa praised. Laurel was surprised that Nyssa would call her that, but she must have gathered that Roy didn't know her identity yet. "I'm afraid I'm not in Starling for pleasure, but it would seem you have your hands full."

"Not especially. But it would be easter if you came along," Laurel offered. She turned to Roy, "You did good, but like I said, not yet. You're improving, but if you're serious about helping, you need to be better before you won't get in the way."

Roy bit back the instinctive protest, but nodded, stepping up and back, turning a corner and walking away.

"He's not leaving," Nyssa murmured in Arabic to Laurel. "He'll stay and try to get involved."

"Of course he will," Laurel replied in the same language. "But he won't have an opening. Especially not now that you're here," Laurel drew her tonfas, and then frowned as Nyssa drew her sword. "No killing," she added in English.

"You have sworn your oaths to take no more lives, but I have not," Nyssa countered. "The men you are here for are hardly innocent."

"The Black Canary doesn't kill. And even the Arrow doesn't anymore. If word got out the Black Canary was seen with someone who did kill..." Laurel shook her head. "No killing."

Nyssa frowned, obviously not understanding, but nodded, "Only the flat of the blade," she offered, and Laurel nodded. It was the best she was going to get.

There were only four criminals in the warehouse, less than Laurel had expected - the two with the plates for the fake money, and the two paying for them. Laurel dropped down behind the two with the plates, sweeping their legs out from under them with blows from her tonfas, kicking the case with the plates off to the side. She barely needed to do any more - her two all but screamed out their surrenders when they realized the woman standing over them as they struggled to get to their feet was the Black Canary.

Laurel still knocked them out, rather than risk them running.

The other two had been dealt with just as easily - Laurel's arrival had seen them draw their weapons, but Nyssa had dropped down behind them, hitting their hands with the flat of her blade, knocking the guns free and leaving them easy pickings - with a few kicks and hits from the flat, Nyssa had them on the floor, her foot on the chest of the one, and her blade at the throat of the other.

"You- I though you didn't kill!" The one with the sword at his throat protested, looking past Nyssa to Laurel. "You gonna let-"

Nyssa rapped his cheek lightly with her sword. "You're alive, aren't you?" Nyssa didn't have a mask, or even her hood on, but it hardly mattered. She stepped back, blade still raised. "This is the Black Canary's city, so I honor her code." 

"Who the hell are you?" The thug protested, but Nyssa didn't answer, leaning down and hitting him atop his head with the hilt of her blade, enough to knock him out but with minimal chance for permanent damage.

"Yo- you don't need to do that-" the other one, the foot on hios chest still holding him in place. At the sound of sirens in the distance, Nyssa decided not to waste any more time, giving him the same treatment.

With all four dealt with, it was a simple matter to be gone from the warehouse by the time the police arrived, moving quickly into empty alleys and side streets to travel the short distance to where Laurel had stashed her bike before coming in silently.

"When word gets out about you, it's just going to raise all sorts of questions," Laurel considered. "Black Canary's friend with a sword."

"They will speak of me?" Nyssa raised an eyebrow.

"Criminals are practically high school girls, when it comes to gossipping about the Black Canary and the Arrow. I've overheard more theories, guesses and wild speculation about who we are and where we came from than I can keep track off," Laurel replied, chuckling. From the conventional (former organized crime enforcers, former MMA fighter in the case of the Black Canary and a professional historical reenactor in the case of the Arrow who had both lost friends or family to crime), to the unlikely (that they were ex CIA assassins or ex special forces of one sort or another) to the outlandish - they were aliens, or time travelers, of all things. One particularly devout drug dealer - a contradiction in terms - had decided he thought the Black Canary had made a deal with the devil to be able to pull off everything she did.

'How is she always showing up at just the right time to ruin everything. Gotta be she sold her soul, man!"

None of the criminals she'd overheard had ever taken seriously the 'I think it might be Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance' theory that had been floated a few times on the internet, though far less often since Oliver's staged and failed trial.

"Their speculation only fuels their fear," Nyssa considered. "In time, perhaps you will scare them into behaving."

"Has the League managed to put an end to sin, Nyssa?" Laurel countered, "You've been putting the fear of Justice into the hearts of criminals and monsters for centuries, and yet humanity has yet to learn it."

"One city is smaller than all the world, and you are far more public than the League." Nyssa pointed out. "But I did not say you would stop all crime. Only that perhaps the fearful would learn you will always stop them."

Nyssa had a strange capacity for a unique sort of optimism. For all that she was a victim of the League in her own way, Nyssa believed in the mission of the league with a passion that matched Laurel's own passion for helping others.

It's one of the reasons I came to see her as a friend. The League was a cult, but for most, Laurel didn't think they had a true passion for their brand of justice. Some, yes. For others it was rote, it was just all they had. It was an excuse to be a bully, a way to have power, to kill with relative impunity. Even when they believed in that mission...

It wasn't the same drive that Nyssa had.

It sometimes made Laurel's heart ache for her friend, what else that passion could have been used for, that drive and ambition to advance her cause, if she'd been given the chance to have even a halfway normal life.

She would have made a damn good lawyer. Especially given how meticulous Nyssa could be in her planning, when she needed to.

"Without us, the areas of the world under our protection would be far worse, the guilty allowed to roam far freer," Nyssa continued, then paused, walking by her side silently as they drew up to her bike, stashed out of sight.

"But I did not come here to speak of the future, but of the past," Nyssa continued. "Ra's al Ghul has sent me to this city."

"I thought it was understood he would leave Starling to us?" Laurel did not want the League to start turning their gaze towards Starling. 

"I am not here for the criminals that infest this city. You and your beloved handle them well enough. But Merlyn remains our responsibility. He might be dead, but his legacy is not."

His legacy? Does she mean Tommy? The League can't possibly be going after- "Are you talking about-"

"There is a third Markov Device." Nyssa cut in, and Laurel stared at her, unable to form words for a long moment. Finally, throat feeling dry, Laurel managed to swallow and speak.

"We probably shouldn't discuss this here."

Laurel and Oliver's Apartment, Starling City

November 12th, 2013

"Laurel, I know it's my own damn fault in the big picture, but it's 1 in the goddamn morning, and I just got off a long day and night at the precinct," Sara said as she stepped inside the penthouse apartment. She had been looking forward to getting back home and collapsing onto her bed, but instead, Laurel had texted her, asking her to meet her at the place she and Oliver had moved to. That it was important.

Laurel wouldn't use 'important' in that context, in text, unless it was code for 'vigilante' related, but to meet her at the apartment, rather than the Foundry didn't make much sense to Sara. 

"So please, why wouldn't we just discuss this tomorrow, or over the phone or something? Didn't you make me secure my personal phone with all that tech for a reason?" Sara added one the door closed behind her and she looked at Laurel.

Then she blinked, realizing Laurel wasn't alone. Nyssa was standing there, wearing her League outfit, sword at her belt, bow and quiver on her back. Laurel was still in her Black Canary outfit, minus the mask and wig.

"Ah." Sara finally said after a moment. It really was unfair how pretty Nyssa was, given everything. She eyed the bow, wondering how good Nyssa was with it. Laurel had demonstrated her own skill with a bow once, and it was impressive, but as Laurel would freely admit, Oliver was better than her.

Is Nyssa better than Oliver then? It wasn't just idle curiosity on the scale of those 'who would win in a fight' questions regarding characters from fiction, but at least Nyssa was unlikely to come after Laurel or Oliver right now.

"I have come to Starling in the matter of Al-Saher, the one you know as Malcolm Merlyn." Nyssa explained.

"He's dead." Sara said flatly, confused. Then she blinked, remembering that her life was practically a fucking comic book now. "He is dead, right? He didn't use some sort of super science nonsense to resurrect himself? He didn't have some backup clone, right?"

Nyssa stared at her silently as she spoke, her expression unreadable. "He is dead, that has not changed." Sara flushed a little.

"Well, your dad is over two hundred years old and heals himself with something called 'the Lazarus Pit', so forgive me if I've stopped assuming things are impossible these days." Sara countered. "So what is the issue?"

"Merlyn was one of the League's own, so they're making sure they clean up after the mess he left behind, at least outside of Starling." Laurel explained, stepping in not quite between Sara and Nyssa, but close. "The investigation has turned up something - a prototype Markov Device that was made."

"...there's a third one of those things lying around?"

"There's a third one," Laurel nodded. "From what Nyssa has uncovered, it's not as powerful as the ones he actually used, but it could still be used to hurt a lot of people - or reverse engineered."

"And of even more dire import, the League is not the only one seeking this device." Nyssa added. "It is imperative that we find it before they do."

Sara considered. The League had a philosophy of tearingd down a rotten house, which had given Merlyn his inspiration, from what Laurel had said. Granted, they'd disagreed with the scope and scale of Merlyn's plans, it seemed, but still. She didn't really like the idea of them having this device,

But she liked the idea of someone less principled having it even less. The FBI had confiscated all available information on the device already, and much as Sara wasn't some anti-government crusader, she wasn't naive enough to think no one in the Military-Industrial Complex wasn't salivating at the idea.

Nukes were a bad idea too, thinking back to when Laurel had been in college and she'd been working on a position paper on why bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII had been immoral and indefensible. She also remembered Laurel complaining about her professor's disagreement with her argument, though she had nonetheless scored well on the paper anyway.

Sara had been and still was on her sister's side.

But still. The US Government was one thing. Even the League was one thing. If terrorists or arms dealers or like... Iran got their hands on the prototype, and made more...

As long as you used it in an earthquake prone area and didn't leave a paper trail, people even now would likely assume a devastating earthquake was natural, without proof.

"Well, as far as I know the SCPD hasn't heard hide nor hair about a third device. I could just be out of the loop, but-"

"But you do have access to the information the police have in the investigation," Laurel added. "You could do some discrete digging, get some information that might help narrow it down, at least." Laurel's tone was urgent, voice low, leaning forward a bit earnestly.

"You do not trust the League," Nyssa said, looking Sara over. "It is unfortunate, but unsurprising, for one of your profession. You fear us." I wouldn't say I'm afraid of you. Sara didn't interrupt as Nyssa went on, "But know that you would trust even less and fear even more the man who seeks the device. His hive is searching everywhere for the device, but they are wary or provoking the guardians of this city. That wariness will not stop them for long."

"I'm shaking in my boots," Sara rolled her eyes, Nyssa's dramatics making her sound a little ridiculous. His 'hive'? Who calls someone's criminal organization a 'hive'? "I'll look into it," Sara promised. 

"That will be sufficient," Nyssa nodded. She looked to Laurel, "I will continue my search as well. Ra's al Ghul has made the recovery of the device of highest importance." With that, Nyssa moved to the open window and moved down the fire escape.

I suppose she can't just use the front door dressed like that. Sara conceded. But still - did the League teach their people to be dramatic? Or did it just come naturally to Nyssa. She's so stiff and formal too. 

"You didn't need to antagonize her," Laurel scolded, quietly.

"I didn't!" Sara protested, then she rolled her eyes. "Okay, a bit, at the end, but still. Is it so bad for me to not trust the League? They're murderers."

"Like me? Like Ollie?" Laurel walked into the kitchen, and Sara followed her, the biting words burning in her ear.

"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Sara protested, her voice lower than the vehemence with which she spoke would suggest. "I know you two. I trust you two. And you've both stopped. The League still does it. So yeah, I can't say I like the idea of them having this prototype Markov device."

"Neither do I," Laurel admitted, taking a K-cup of some kind of herbal tea out of it's box and grabbing a mug. "Which is why Nyssa told me she was here looking for it." Sara stared at Laurel, not understanding what her sister was saying. Laurel let out a long breath. "Nyssa didn't have to tell me the League was looking. She didn't have to let us know anything. But she knows me, and she knows that I would rather see the prototype destroyed."

"...so she told you so you'd beat her to it?" Sara hated the slow way she asked the question, pinching the bridge of her nose. She hated feeling slow on the uptake.

"She gave us a chance to, yeah," Laurel confirmed, taking a slow sip of her tea. She gestured to the cupboard with the K-cups. "Coffee?"

What? The sudden change of topic left Sara dizzy for a moment, but then she shook her head. "No, I probably shouldn't." She leaned against the doorframe behind her. "So Nyssa is double-crossing her dad? You said she'd be willing to kill you if he ordered her to."

"Nyssa would not disobey a direct order from her father," Laurel answered softly, letting out a long breath. "But she is capable of being creative within the limits he sets her. She wasn't supposed to come back and tell us what she did about 'Al-Saher'. But she did, because she hadn't been ordered not to. Nyssa believes in the League, and she's loyal to her father. But..."

Laurel looked away, "She doesn't have anyone else in her life she could call friend, but me. Because I didn't know better than to befriend the Heir to the Demon, when she trained me. So... when it comes to me, I guess she's willing to try to carve out an exception." She leaned her head back for a moment, rubbing at her neck, then resumed staring off into space, in the direction of the window overlooking the city.

"When she does things like this... I keep getting this stupid hope that maybe somehow, Nyssa will find it in her to leave the League." Laurel's expression was wistful, hopeful, one corner of her mouth turned up a little. Then it and her face fell entirely as she shook her head. "But she won't, and it's not as if her father would ever release her." 

Sara didn't really know what to say to that. She watched her sister set the tea on the counter and towards the window.

"She's her father's heir, but I'm pretty sure he hates and despises her. Certainly doesn't think she's worth much." Laurel scoffed humorlessly. "Could never figure out if it was because of his rampant misogyny or just how much of a terrible father he is."

"Well, I'd guess that it's both," Sara suggested. "Speaking as a cop, terrible fathers who hate their daughters for the unforgiveable sin of being born girls are depressingly common."

Laurel barked another humorless laugh. "Sounds about right." She inhaled. "We need to find that device. Not just so that the League doesn't, but so Damien Darhk and his hive don't."

Sara blinked. "Why are you and Nyssa both referring to this guy's minions as a 'hive'? And who is this... Damien Darhk?"

Laurel turned, looking at Sara. "Not hive as in a word, HIVE as in the acronym. Don't ask me what it stands for, I don't think anyone outside of the group knows, and they are even less inclined to talk than League members. Or so the rumor goes."

"Rumor?"

"Only the innermost members of the League ever had anything directly to do with Darhk, or HIVE. Nyssa didn't share a lot of details. The more junior members, like me... we just shared the stories that passed around Nanda Parbat."

Sara chuckled, the mental image of assassins all wearing the same kind of outfit Laurel had worn last year in some ancient fortress, whispering in each other's ears like middle school girls.

"So you guys had... what, gossip?"

"I mean..." Laurel made a face, clearly not liking that characterization. "More or less. There's a few versions of the story, but the short version is that the current Ra's and Darhk were friends. Or at least as close as men like that could have. They were both candidates to succeed the Ra's al Ghul of that period. In the end, Nyssa's father got the nod and then he failed to kill Darhk,"

Laurel walkled back to her tea and took another sip. "One story is Ra's failed, the other is that he didn't want to kill Darhk."

"Why did he have to?" Sara blinked.

"The ancient law of the League. There can be no one who is in a position to claim the Demon's Head except the current holder and their designated heir. When Ra's ascended to the positon instead of Darhk, Darhk had to die. Instead, he escaped... somehow. Ra's has been obsessed with finding him ever since."

Laurel shrugged, "That's what they say, anyway. What I do know is that Damien Darhk was a member of the League, then he left, and now he heads up a criminal empire known as HIVE. Arms dealing, bank theft, assassinations, possibly human trafficking and drugs... I heard a rumor they tried to buy a nuke on the Black Market once. They say Darhk made deals with the Nazis during World War II... they say he has magical powers, that he can turn your own weapons against you, drain the life from you with a touch. They say a lot of things about him. But everything agrees he's bad news. Ra's has sent people to kill him time and again. If they're lucky, they just don't find Darhk at all."

"And if they do?" Sara could guess the answer.

"They die." Laurel said flatly. "Twice, a team was sent to kill Darhk, while I was thereThe first time, they didn't find him. The second time, of the five sent, some of the best killers in the league, only one survived long enough to be taken back to Nanda Parbat. And he still died a few days later from complications of his injuries."

"I wasn't there, but it's said Darhk killed the other four himself." Laurel once more made a humorless laughing sound. "Like I said, they say a lot of things. He's basically... the boogeyman, for the League."

"If he's so scary... I mean..." Sara trailed off. "Nyssa said that he was wary of crossing you and Oliver. I mean... if he is that much better than even some of the League's best people..."

"If the stories are true, he could probably wipe the floor with Oliver and me," Laurel answered, flatly. "Even half true, probably. If we got the drop on him, or got lucky somehow... maybe. But... he has his whole army of minions. Like Ra's, he prefers to work behind the scenes as much as possible. And Oliver and I have both proven how good we are at dealing with minions." Laurel's laugh this time, small and quiet though it was.

Sara grinned "That you have." She felt a sudden flash of brain fog and blinked repeatedly, everything blurring for a second. "I should head home, before I have to crash on your couch."

"We do have a guest bedroom here..." Laurel trailed off. "You saw it during the housewarming party."

"I did. And that bed looks like it cost as much as I make in two months."

"It came with the penthouse." Laurel flushed a little. "We got this place for the privacy, the building's very discreet and secure."

"I don't begrudge you and Oliver having money, Laurel. But I am still stuck at a low-grade Detective's salary. And if I slept in your guest bed, I'd be ruined for mine, forever."

"I could buy you a better bed, Sara," Laurel offered, earnestly. "Not even one like ones here... they are a bit much," she admitted. "But one that isn't... well, as bad as yours."

"No thank you," Sara waved her sister off, "I'm good."

"Is this a pride thing?" Laurel set her tea down again.

"It's a cop thing, you wouldn't get it. If we started sleeping on comfortable beds, we'd be terrible cops." Sara quoted her training officer. "Knowing what waits us when we get home is what keeps us at the station."

"I thought it was battery acid coffee that kept you all there."

"It has its charms, once you drink enough that it kills your taste buds," Sara shot back. Then she slapped the side of her face lightly. "I'll see what I can do when I get into the precinct tomorrow- later today," Sara corrected. "If I find a lead on the device, I'll let you know."

Merlyn Manor, Starling City

November 13th, 2013

After the Undertaking, Tommy had handed Merlyn Manor over to housing the homeless refugees and serving as a center for helping relocate them, provide food, clothing and healthcare, and anything else he could manage. The estate had sprung up a small tent village that had - thanks to FEMA - been converted to having a bunch of prefab structures fairly quickly.

The extensive grounds, then, had become home to people that couldn't fit inside the large manor.

In the months since, a good chunk of those homeless had found new homes, or moved from Starling to try and start a new life elsewhere, but plenty still lived in the space. 

Tommy had already made plans to sell the property and most things in it, except for a few pieces of art that had sentimental value to him - things his mother had liked, mostly - and donate the proceeds to the victims of the Undertaking.

Only once the refugees had been fully relocated elsewhere, of course. 

Until then, Tommy had refrained from showing his face, given how unpopular he was with anyone who had been a resident of the Glades.

At least, he'd refrained until now.

Sara watched Tommy get out of his car, a man from the state police getting out of the driver's seat. With the threats against his life (mostly) dropping off, most of the people assigned to guard him had been weaned away, but there was still at least one officer of the state police hand

She'd told Tommy to come around the back entrance, where less people were likely to be. So far, no one was here to see him.

Tommy looked around, clearly nervous and uncomfortable in his current position. "What's this about?" He asked, bluntly, and Sara could practically feel how much he wanted to get away from the manor.

"Can I have a moment away from your minder?" She looked at the officer. She recognized him - Richardson, his name was. "You've let me through to his residential suite enough times, Richardson."

"You're good," Richardson nodded. "But did you have to have him come here?"

"I did, I need to ask him about something here." Sara explained. They walked along the back 'porch' area, though calling it a porch felt grossly inadequate. 

Merlyn kept this place just as rich and ostentatious as the Queens kept their place, but Queen Manor at least... felt like a home. Like people lived and loved there.

Any time Sara had visited Tommy here - few and far between as such times had been - everywhere outside of Tommy's rooms had a certain antiseptic, sterilized quality to it. Like a house on display for realtors, or something.

"So... what's the big problem?" Tommy asked once they were out of Richardson's earshot. "Has to be a problem, or you'd never ask me to come here of all places." His tone wasn't quite an angry hiss, but he was making his displeasure with the situation quite clear.

"It's... related to Oliver and Laurel's extracurriculars," Sara muttered. Tommy's expression closed off entirely, and Sara went on, quickly, "I know you don't want to talk about them or what they do, and I'd respect that if something pretty serious wasn't going on."

"This is Starling. Something serious has been going on nonstop for a while." Tommy pointed out, his comment sarcastic, but his tone alarmingly flat.

"Not as serious as there being a third one of those devices your dad used to destroy the Glades." Sara countered deadpan. "And I'm pretty sure it's hidden somewhere here in the Manor."

That broke through Tommy's raised walls, and he reeled back physically, taking a step away from her in shock, swaying a bit. 

"You - there's - he-" The words quickly gave way to just an incoherent strangled sound of terrified dismay, Tommy's mouth closed as he made it.

"Long story shorter - when your dad vanished for two years a few months after your mom died, he joined up with a group. They're the ones who taught him how to kill. Even after he left, he's still sort of their mess to clean up, so when they got wind of a third Markov Device, they started looking for it. They're... not good people, but the Undertaking was too far gone for them." She put a hand on his shoulder lightly, "With me so far?"

Tommy nodded, slowly, swallowing.

"They reached out to Laurel. She hasn't told me everything that happened on the island, but she did meet them at some point." Sara wasn't going to spill the full details of what had happened to Laurel. Not without her permission. But she didn't want to lie to Tommy either, so she went with the kind of technically true answer that she hated when she was the one getting it in an interrogation.

"But they're not the only ones looking for it. Again, there's a lot I don't know," also true, also misleading. Laurel, Oliver, Diggle and Felicity are the only people I can be mostly honest with in my life right now.

She'd call that a sobering thought, but it was really more the kind of thought that could drive a woman to drink.

"But some other group, arms dealers, want it. To sell it, use it, reverse-engineer it, who knows. So far, neither group has been willing to risk provoking Laurel and Oliver by coming to Starling, in case it's somewhere else."

"But if it was... they'd have found it by now," Tommy said slowly after swallowing again. Sara nodded. "And you think it's here?"

"I've been doing some digging. And every still intact property that your dad owned, even through a shell company within a whole Russian Nesting Doll of shell companies, has been searched thoroughly for evidence, complete with walls being ripped out in some cases... except here."

"Here?" Tommy frowned. "That makes no sense."

"You handed it over for housing the refugees from the Glades so quickly and the SCPD and FBI had already decided that your dad ran everything through his offices at Merlyn Global... there wasn't time to do a top to bottom search of the whole place."

Sara shrugged, "That's my theory, then. Which is why we're here. We need to figure out where the hell your dad hid it."

"Dad had this place built from the ground up when he moved to Starling with mom." Tommy said, "He could have hidden all sorts of secret places around the house."

"Would he have, though?" Sara asked softly. "I mean, before your mom died... he wasn't-"

"A sociopath?" Tommy offered, the words bleeding with repressed anger. "A monster? A murderer? A delusional idiot? Take your pick, because believe me, I've said all of them and more to him, since he died." 

Tommy dropped his head into his hands for a moment, pulling them down his face as he let out a long exhale.

"That's a good point." Tommy admitted. "So it's probably not in some secret compartment-" his eyes widened. "Follow me." He started walking away, and Sara followed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richardson following at a careful distance, not get any closer, but still keeping an eye on them.

"Where are you-" Sara started, but Tommy held up a finger to shush her and kept walking, moving to the corner of the building and turning around.

Unfortunately, a couple teenagers were up ahead, loitering, talking quietly. And looking in their direction, though by sheer coincidence, it seemed.

"Hey - ain't that Tommy Merlyn?" One of the teens asked his friend.

"Yeah, I think it is." Sara didn't like the way that one said it, with a bit of menace to the comment. "What the hell are you doing here? You gonna kick us out the way your dad kicked us out of the Glades?" The one talking took a few steps towards them, but Sara moved between Tommy and the kids, taking out her badge.

"SCPD, don't get too close."

"Protecting the murderer's kid. Classic cop," the loudmouth snarled. "Get out of the way, lady-"

"Is this some creative way to get me to arrest you?" Sara asked, pulling her jacket back a bit to reveal the cuffs at her belt. "I've run into a few people who had a thing for cops and cuffs."

"Come on, back off," the third teen chimed in. "Thanks to this guy, givin' up all his money" he gestured at Merlyn, "Uncle Luis got a new job with all the rebuilding. And even Blood says he's... you know, not that bad." Sara was a little surprised this kid knew what Alderman Blood had to say about anything, but Sebastian Blood did have quite the following among the displaced Glades refugees.

"The rich bastard who's never worked a day in his life throws some money at us and that's supposed to make my brother dying okay!?" The loudmouth snarled. 

"No, it's not," Tommy said, moving to stand  next to Sara, ignoring her when she tried to get him to move back behind her. "Nothing I could do could make that okay. But I'm not my dad, and I didn't kill your brother." The loudmouth scoffed, but Tommy went on. "Look at it this way - right now, I die, this whole place goes into receivership, and you really do get kicked out."

"You can look at it however you want, but right now, you're going to get out of the way," Sara gestured off to the side with her hand. 

Loudmouth stared at her, but Sara met his gaze, raising one eyebrow. After a long moment, he blinked, stepping away.

"You're not worth going to prison over," he scoffed, waving his hand dismissively, moving off with his friends.

"Well... that was fun," Tommy inhaled. He looked back to Richardson. "It's all good," He raised his voice.

"So I saw," the officer nodded. "Detective Lance seemed to have it in hand." 

"So where are we going?" Sara asked Tommy quietly, as they started walking again.

"What are you going to do if it's there?" Tommy asked. "You can't just turn it in to the cops."

"I was going to tell Laurel, let her destroy it. It's a pretty fragile piece of machinery when it's not turned on." She shook her head, "I mean, you can't turn it in either." Tommy stopped when they reached the garage door, a keypad blocking entry. Tommy typed in a six digit code and the door rolled open. 

"There's an underground part of the garage, where dad kept the really valuable cars he didn't drive," Tommy explained, moving to the far end of the room, ignoring the several fancy cars still there, reaching a lift in the floor, bit enough for a car to be on. He walked past it and opened another door, revealing stairs.

"Sara and I need a moment, stay up here please?" Tommy asked Richardson, and after a long moment of silence, the officer nodded. Together, they both went down.

"If I was trying to hide something, I'd do it here. Dad almost never took anyone down here. I went down here once when I was 17, and it was the only time dad ever bothered to punish me." Tommy explained. He flicked on lights, watching the large, open space get illuminated as the lights flickered on

There were another half-dozen cars down here, all looking quite vintage. Sara couldn't tell anything beyond that, but she had to assume they were worth a lot. 

Eyes darting over the space, they lighted on a small sliding door in the wall on the closer wall, at a right angle from them. There was a keypad next to it.

"There?"

Tommy frowned, "...no idea. I don't think I've ever seen inside there. I don't know the keypad either." He walked up to it. 

Sara stood next to Tommy, watching Tommy enter in his mother's birthday, to an angry negative beeping from the keypad.

No... he wouldn't use her birthday...

"I've got it." Sara entered in a six digit date. The day, month and year Rebecca Merlyn died. Sure enough, the small door slid upwards slowly. "That's what this was always about for him."

"Right..." Tommy nodded, breath hitching as the small closet-like space was revealed.

Sara's own breath caught. It does not look like something that could kill hundreds of people.

Or worse.

"Well, I guess I know what Laurel is doing tonight."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 6: Everything I Wish I Didn't Know

Most of the attention on Vertigo's early years focus on the two Counts, Cecil Adams and Werner Zytle, and the role both men played in the beginning of Superheroes, and especially the careers of the Arrow and the Black Canary. The more farsighted will note the way Vertigo's initial breakout inspired the music of Sam "Chainsaw" Katuri or the impact it had on helping actress Donna Porter to get clean. But few recognize the fact that had Adam Donovan not gotten dosed by so-called Vertigo Vaccine, then the odds are Moira Queen would have been found guilty or forced to take a plea deal. And had that happened, the post-Siege "Starling City Miracle" under Mayor Queen would almost certainly never have happened.

-Excerpt from "Vertigo: The Life And Times Of The World's Deadliest Drug" by Michelle Kurlansky. Published by Martins & Queen Publishing, 2158.

Starling City Courthouse, Starling City

November 20th, 2013

Laurel tried not to let regrets dominate her life, and she'd made her choice to turn away from the legal career for all sorts of good reasons. And she had liked her work for NOVA, and as tiresome and... sometimes futile as it felt, she was enjoying running the Queen Family Charitable Trust.

But sometimes... she really hated that she wasn't a lawyer. Like right now, watching Adam Donner deliver his opening statements, completely mischaracterizing Moira Queen, the entire nature of the Undertaking. The man was barely acknowledging Tempest was a thing!

And I know that the information we gave the police had the details on the other members of Tempest. And I also know SCPD arrested them and has them all under house arrest/protective custody pending their trials. That much wasn't exactly classified information, but it was closely held under wraps, kept as quiet as possible.

And yet, here Donner was, grandstanding and acting like Moira had been as much the mastermind of the scheme as Merlyn.

Laurel would have loved to be part of Moira's defense team, and wipe that smug little smirk behind the man's eyes as he delivered his statement, made his argument. 

Though it's not like Jean isn't a good defense lawyer. Laurel had to admit. The woman knew her stuff, and realistically, there were very good reasons for Laurel - had she been a lawyer - to not actually take her boyfriend's mother on as a client.

Finally, both sides had delivered their arguments, and the case broke for the day, with first witness testimony tomorrow. And then stretching for however long it would. Donner seemed confident of victory.

And to be fair, there's a chance. Laurel hated that, but the judge had refused summary dismissal on the grounds of coercion months ago, so all Donner had to do was cast enough doubt, and a vengeful jury - because why not hold the trial in the same city because who ever heard of change of venue?

Laurel closed her eyes and forced herself to take a breath as Donner started to wind down. She knew full well exactly what had happened, in a way that no member of the jury, no member of the prosecution could. Too many people would think 'oh, I wouldn't prioritize my family over innocent lives', or they'd think 'Merlyn wouldn't kill his fellow rich people, he just wanted to kill the poor people'. 

And because Merlyn had the wreckage of the Queen's Gambit destroyed...

Eventually, Jean finished with her opening statement, and court broke, the audience filing out, reporters once more demanding answers from Donner, from Jean, from Oliver and Thea, even her. With Diggle feeling under the weather, they didn't have his help cutting through the crowd, but Oliver did a pretty good job of his own.

"No comment," Laurel answered as a reporter thrust a microphone in her face. She saw Donner head down a side hallway - a split second decision later, and Laurel broke off from the group, not so much pushing through the crowd now as weaving through the gaps, trying to make sure Donner didn't get too far ahead of her. 

And by sheer luck, she managed to get to the hallway, to see Donner answering questions to a microphone and a camera, Susan Williams, from Channel 52 behind the microphone.

"...and what does the DA's office plan to do about the other three members of Tempest that were arrested?" Williams asked. "None of whom stepped forward to warn the public at all?"

Good question.

"Ms. Williams, you know I can't answer any questions like that."

"You don't need to. I know for a fact that their indictments haven't been scheduled, and that they're all citing coercion and fear for their families as why they didn't step forward. But at least Moira Queen did." Williams pressed, and Laurel recognized her tone as the 'I'm about to spring the big question' one, from her other interviews. "So my real question, Mr. Donner, is this: Why are you trying Mrs. Queen first, given that her announcement absolutely saved hundreds of lives?"

"Her announcement was a last minute expression of cold feet, or a guilty conscience, neither of which should spare the 318 people that died that day justice," Donner replied. To his credit, Donner was handling Williams better than his boss Kate Spencer had six months ago when WIlliams cornered her with some questions. "As for the claims of coercion, the DA's office is not convinced that Malcolm Merlyn represented any threat to Mrs. Queen or her family."

Laurel blinked as she heard that, almost seeing red. No threat? No threat? Thanks to Merlyn, she spent five years in hell. She sold herself to Ivo to survive, and then spent two and a half years in the League. Merlyn planted the bomb knowing it would kill Robert Queen, his best friend, and didn't let the knowledge that Oliver was on the yacht stop him either.

"Given that she had every reason to believe that Malcolm Merlyn killed not only her husband, but her son," Laurel said, closing the distance between herself and Donner quickly. Much as she hated wearing heels, she appreciated how the way they clicked on the marble floor added to the drama of her entrance, "why wouldn't she believe that he'd just as easily kill her. Especially after what happened with Frank Chen?"

Ddonner turned to face her, blinking a moment in surprise. "Miss Lance, as you can see, I'm a bit-"

"Oh, don't stop on my account," Williams offered with a grin, gesturing to her cameraman, who adjusted his angle so he could catch both Laurel and Donner. 

"So, why are you so convinced Mrs. Queen wasn't being threatened?"

"She was quite friendly with a man she claims was terrified of. How many social engagements at Queen Manor was Merlyn invited too? There's video evidence of them being friendly at numerous public events." Donner countered. "Merlyn was a threat to the people of the Glades, not his friends."

"So... what, Malcolm Merlyn didn't plant a bomb on his best friend's yacht?" Laurel countered. "Because if that were true, that would mean I didn't spend five years stranded on an island in the north China sea. Which is great news for me, since that means I went to law school and passed the bar." Laurel leaned in, "Tell me Mr. Donner, is the DA's office hiring?"

Donner stepped back a bit, thrown off balance, though she could already see the wheels turning in his head.

"And you actually saw this bomb, Miss Lance?" Donner countered. "If you'd had any reason to believe that the sinking of the Queen's Gambit was sabotage, why didn't you or Mr. Queen say anything when you returned?" There was a smug look on his face, like some kid who'd just scored a seemingly inescapable checkmate.

"Have you ever been on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, during a storm, that just cracked in half?" Laurel countered, escaping the trap, though his point had been made. "I was a little busy."

"Unfortunate for Mrs. Queen then, because as it stands, all we have is her hearsay testimony that Malcolm Merlyn told her that he destroyed the yacht," Donner countered. "There's any number of other explanations - including her exploiting an accident to assist her claims of coercion." 

Laurel didn't have much she could say to that directly, apart from laughing at the absurdity of it, but that wouldn't help at all. Instead, she changed tack. "You still didn't really answer Susan Williams's question - why start with Moira Queen?" She waved a hand dismissively, scoffing a little dramatically. "Wait, I already know. Tell me, Mr. Donner, have you already filed the 527 Organization paperwork to create the 'Adam Donner for Starling City DA Committee' for are you waiting until after the trial?"

"Excuse me?" Donner blinked, staring at her, the words coming out just a little hesitantly.

"That's what this is about. That's why you're so intent on railroading an innocent woman as if she was the only person who had anything to do with the crime - the other members of Tempest didn't come up in your opening statement at all," Laurel pointed out. She looked directly at the camera: 

"I'd invite all of your viewers to go over the information on Malcolm Merlyn's plans and organization that was opened to the public," Laurel even gave them a URL that would redirect to the overly complicated local government URL.She turned back to Donner. "But you don't care about any of that, because for you, the key thing is making a big splash, with a big conviction. All to set up your run for DA."

"I - my only interest is in getting justice for the 318 people who died thanks to Moira Queen's actions!" Donner countered, stammering at the start, apparently caught completely off guard.

"I'm sure it is, Mr. Donner. Have a lovely day." She turned, walking back down the hallway as Susan Williams started asking Donner questions, the ADA now completely off his game, more than a few verbal pauses as he tried to work his way through Williams's questions.

The Foundry, Starling City

November 22nd, 2013

"Somehow, I can't bring myself to give a shit about Donner being the one the Count decided to kidnap," Sara observed, as the Count's video ended. 

"Sara!" Laurel turned to her. 

"What? You don't like him either. I watched you eviscerate him on the news. And especially after what he did to Thea today!" She'd wanted to jump out of the stands and deck him for that. And she was stunned that the audience didn't start booing him for it, after seeing it made plain as day on the news what all this grandstanding was about.

"That doesn't mean he deserves to be kidnapped and dosed up with that trash," Oliver countered. "No one deserves that," He added, quieter. Sara followed his gaze as he looked over at Diggle, who had the blanket wrapped around him, the effects of his body needing Vertigo leaving him in cold sweats and worse. 

"He doesn't, but I don't really care to shed a tear," Sara muttered. Her phone rang, and Sara pulled out. "Lance," She answered.

"Lance." It was Lt. Pike, "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm off for the day - or I was until that broadcast." Sara concluded. "Supporting my sister, and the Queens."

"Yeah, well, like you said, you were. It's all hands on deck, get back here, pronto," Pike snapped, hanging up on her. Sara glared at the phone and shook her head, "Somehow, I don't think we - that is, the police - will have a better chance of finding the Count than you do." She gestured to Felicity, Oliver and Laurel.

"I'm scrubbing the footage as fast as I can, as thoroughly as I can," Felicity said, a program scanning through the video frame by frame as she typed away at her computer.

"When you get to the precinct, figure out why now?" Diggle asked, voice shaking as much as he was. "The Count has been out since the Undertaking. No sign of him. Then this."

"Preparing for this?" Laurel suggested. "The Count's a showman. You remember what he was like when you pretended to be buying from him," Laurel gestured at Oliver, and Sara blinked, remembering her father mentioning that.

"Wait, so that's how you figured out where he was?!" Sara looked at Laurel. "You followed him home from the meeting!"

"Long enough to plant a tracker on his escape vehicle, yeah," Laurel nodded. "But the Count... he's all about the theatrics of it."

"He likes showing off, but he has to know this is unsustainable." Oliver countered. "Something this public - the FBI and DEA will come down on his head if the SCPD can't find him soon."

"It's a trap." Sara said, before she even realized the words were leaving her. 

Oliver and Laurel both inhaled, catching her meaning right after she said it. "He wants revenge on the Black Canary," Laurel said after a long moment.

"One way or the other, he wants one or both of you to come after him." Sara nodded.

"Then we should spring it back on him," Oliver concluded. He turned back to Felicity, "Call as soon as you have something."

"You know I will," Felicity agreed, not looking away from the screen. "But no matter how fast I'm going, this could take a while. You may want to find another way to entertain yourselves in the meantime.

Private Conference Room, Starling City Courthouse, Starling City

November 25th, 2013

"Donner might have been rescued by our resident vigilantes," Jean explained, "But he's off the case until he recovers. Normally, I'd expect the prosecution to move for some sort of delay, but for some reason the DA is pressing ahead with this trial."

"Donner isn't the only one hoping to make this into political theater," Oliver's mom shook her head. "Spencer wants to strike when the iron is hot."

We might have rescued Donner, but that's about all we pulled off last night.

It had been a trap - that much they'd realized. Even if Sara hadn't said it, it would have been obvious at how unguarded every entrance to the old Records Building had been, including the mysteriously broken Skylight that opened into an empty part of the building.

And the Count had prepared well. All of his men had had earplugs, protecting them from Laurel's sonic device, and despite what they'd assumed, his production equipment hadn't been there - protecting it from being destroyed? 

Donner had been there, the real bait, but alongside that bait had been a dozen men, all armed with state of the art assault weapons. And the Count himself, pontificating from behind several more of his people, unarmed.

Fighting a dozen heavily armed people without killing them was easier said than done. Oliver had had to move carefully the entire time he was in the courthouse, so no attention could be drawn to the injuries on his left side - two grazing shots, one on the side, one on the leg. Laurel had managed to avoid getting shot, but in the process had taken a nasty blow on the shoulder that had nearly dislocated her arm, among other smaller injuries.

But what had been most telling was something the Count had said while grandstanding.

'It's remarkable the number of people in this city who want you both dead. And even more interesting how much some of them paid me to see you dealt with.'

That people wanted the Arrow and Black Canary dead wasn't news. That someone was putting money behind that also wasn't news. The going rate on the Arrow's head was $1,500,000 and the Black Canary's bounty was $850,000, last they'd heard. The disparity wasn't entirely surprising, given the Black Canary's focus on the Glades, on lower-level crime, on street dealers and that sort of thing, and the Arrow had targeted white collar criminals a lot more. It was honestly a bit surprising that Laurel's bounty was so high.

But Laurel had pissed off people with resources, and from what they'd heard, China White was the chief sponsor of that high bounty. Which did make a lot of sense.

But for someone to pay the Count to lure them out? To give him the resources to take his product city-wide with the flu vaccine? All to try to kill the Arrow and Black Canary?

That - that didn't make much sense.

"That's probably what Spencer has in mind. But she's not taking over the case herself, at least." Jean agreed, jolting Oliver back to the now. "Either way, Moira, your best bet is still to testify."

"But -" Thea started, looking at their mom, then, "You said you didn't want to."

"I don't want to," Their mother agreed. 

"But you have to," Thea looked down at her hands in her lap, voice lower. "Because of me."

"No, no-" Their mother reached out, touching Thea's shoulder. "None of this is your fault." She inhaled, "We're here because of what I did."

"What you were forced to do," Thea corrected, and their mother shook her head.

"I still choose to do what I did, and - if the jury finds me guilty because of it-" She shook her head. "It will never be your fault. Neither of you." She looked from Thea, to Oliver. 

"Mom, if you go on the stand -" Oliver started. Laurel had explained why it was a risky play, to expose her to cross-examination. All it would take was a good - or at least, good at being misleading - question and a poorly worded or hesitant answer from her, and his mother could end up crucified by her own words.

"I know. Which is why I didn't want to do it." His mother nodded. 

"But it is our best option. Your mother was a victim of Merlyn, terrorized by him for five years. The best way to get the jury to sympathize with her is to put her on the stand." Jean added. "And fortunately, we know what Donner's play is almost certainly going to be." At a nod from his mother, Jean went on, opening a folder. "He tried to bury it in all the documents he gave us, but..." Jean hesitated, trailing off.

"He's going to try to make it look like I was having an affair with Malcolm Merlyn," their mother provided. 

"But you didn't." Thea looked up, insistent in word, in tone, back stiff, but Oliver could see a plea in her eyes, desperation. And fear that she had been lied to again. "I asked you about this. Oliver asked you about this, last year. And you swore there was nothing between you."

"And there wasn't," his mother assured her. "There was no affair. But... until he murdered your father, and tried to kill you," she looked at Oliver, "Malcolm was a man I considered a friend. He has letters we wrote, during periods when I was... upset with your father's unfaithfulness. Travel records - when I went to his villa in Corto Maltese at the same time he was there, nine years ago. More recent phone records. Evidence of Malcolm at social events at Queen Manor."

"Circumstantial evidence." Oliver dismissed, believing his mother when she said there was no affair. 

"Exactly," Jean agreed. "Unfortunately, there's a real risk that the circumstantial evidence could convince a jury. And you two need to be prepared for the accusation." She spread the papers out, and Oliver looked them over. Photos, phone records, letters... Oliver's eyes passed over one sentence: 'I wish my husband was as devoted to me as you are to your wife's memory'.

In hindsight, probably not. But it was true - as far as Oliver knew, Merlyjn had never even so much as dated. No string of stepmothers or potential stepmothers. Tommy had always appreciated that from his father, at least.

Probably didn't want to let feelings of love, or moving on, distract him from his need to murder people to make himself feel better, Oliver considered, not caring that the spiteful thought was more than a bit petty. 

The letters did have an affectionate tone, and a lot of detailed complaints about Robert Queen and his affairs. More than Oliver really wanted to hear. If they were in the hands of someone wanting to make a case that there was something going on...

"If the jury falls for this, they won't believe that Merlyn's threats were real." Jean concluded. "And if they think either of you believe it-"

"They might think it's true," Thea finished. 

"Exactly," Jean nodded. She took a breath, "In a way, we may be fortunate that Donner is out of commission. The jury knows and trusts him, and he knows how to twist the facts to suit his case. Anyone else they replace him with will be a new face, and won't be as familiar with the case."

"I just wish he was still -" Thea started, then cut herself off, "I mean... I don't, but- after what he did when I testified..."

"No one deserves to be kidnapped like that," Oliver told her, and Thea nodded.

Starling City Police Department

November 25th, 2013

Even though they were all supposed to be working the Count, trying to figure out where he was hiding, where he was cooking his new product, every cop in the station had half an eye - at least - on the TV playing the Moira Queen trial.

"Mrs. Queen," the ADA replacing Donner - a new guy Sara didn't know named Victor Quinn - spoke, looking down at the papers on his table. "What was the nature of your relationship with Malcolm Merlyn before he started threatening your life?"

"We were friends, or at least I thought we were. My husband was his best friend, my son and his were inseparable."

"And you were quite close to him as well."

"I considered him a friend, yes." 

Sara wondered where the ADA was going. He wasn't impressing Sara with his delivery, coming off a bit hesitant, nervous. Not a lot, but just a little. I hope the jury is picking up on that too.

"So much so you stayed at his villa in Corto Maltese, while he was there," The prosecutor said, lifting up a piece of paper, "Prosecution Exhibit 17-A. Flight records for both the defendant and Malcolm Merlyn, as well as Exhibit 17-B, the signed affidavits," he held up more papers, "Of three staff members at said villa testifying that the defendant stayed at the villa while in Corto Maltese." There were some whispers and murmurs among the crowd and jury, and Sara bit her lip, stiffening as she heard the same at the station, as more people looked fully at the screen, watching intently.

Is he about to-

"Objection!" Jean stood up, "Is there a question in all that?"

"Sustained," The judge nodded, sounding reluctant that he had to agree with Moira's lawyer on anything. "Ask a question, prosecution."

"Why were you there, at Malcolm Merlyn's villa?"

"Have you never visited a friend's home, Mr. Quinn?" Moira asked. "I'm aware that being a lawyer is a hard job, but I assumed you were allowed some social life." Despite everything, the tension thick in the courtroom - and the precinct - there were a few soft giggles and laughs from the audience.

"You traveled without your husband, and stayed for several weeks. That's more than just a 'visit'. That sounds more like an assignation." 

"Are you insinuating-"

"I'm not insinuating, Mrs. Queen, I'm saying." Quinn managed the delivery with confidence. "I'm saying that you and Mr. Merlyn were having an affair."

"On a single trip?"

"On a trip, on your phone records, and on these letters." Quinn entered more things into evidence. "These letters - they're not something I'd write to a friend. Especially not someone who was also friends with my spouse." He started reading off excerpts, and Sara stiffened. They did sound pretty affectionate. Intimate, in places. 

And I know that there was an affair. Thought it was longer than nine years ago, since Thea was the product of it.

I hope to god Tommy really did destroy all evidence of that video, that test... Sara inhaled, sharply. Thea did not need to find that out - but especially not in open court. 

"All you have is evidence that I trusted Malcolm Merlyn with my secrets." Moira countered. "A trust he betrayed when he murdered my husband and nearly killed my son!" Somehow, Sara doubted that Moira raising her voice there was unplanned. She did know the other woman pretty well, and she was very good at controlling her emotional displays. 

But it does look pretty authentic...

"Yes, I traveled to Malcolm's villa nine years ago, because my husband was having yet another affair, and I was unhappy about it, and wanted to get away from the house." Moira countered. Sara winced. Robert Queen had hidden his affairs well, and now it was getting revealed, his name dragged into the mud posthumously. Oliver and Thea don't deserve this either.

"I went to stay with a friend, someone who knew Robert, and who wasn't any happier with his infidelity than I was."

"Right. Because you wished your husband was as devoted to you as Merlyn was to his late wife." Quinn paraphrased, sneering. The Camera panned to the jury, and Sara was heartened to see several of them looking at Quinn like he was covered in slime, or bugs. But others were leaning forward, as if earnestly thinking he may have a point.

"If your goal is to make me seem like a fool for believing that Malcolm Merlyn was a good man, a good friend, then yes, I believed that once." Moira admitted, softly. 

"And then he murdered your husband and - as you believed - your son, and started threatening the life of your daughter," Quinn's expression and tone were smug, like the cat that had eaten a canary. "At least, that's what you'd have us believe."

"It's the truth." Moira countered. 

"Is it? Because it looks to me like you and Malcolm Merlyn were having an affair, you killed your husband together and then plotted to level the Glades in some elaborate real estate scam." The Camera panned to the audience, to Thea and Oliver. Oliver had a hand on Thea's shoulder, and Thea looked like she wanted to launch herself at Quinn. "You were never under any threat from him, and you only got cold feet at the last minute-"

Sara could almost hear Moira's control snap, like a taut rope being cut. "Are you accusing me of nearly murdering my own son!? I went through hell for five years thinking he was dead, and now you want to claim I had something to do with it?! What-" Her voice was raised, and she 

"If Malcolm Merlyn was an ever-present threat in your life, why did you have him over at your house time and again for all sorts of social events? Your own daughter's birthday, for instance." More noises from the audience, low murmurs, gasps -

"Shut up asshole!" Someone in the audience shouted, more murmurs quickly in response, louder -

The judge banged his gavel, "Order in my courtroom! Bailiffs, get that man out of here!" For a moment, Sara worried it might have been Roy, but when the camera panned to the young man being dragged out of the courtroom by two bailiffs, she didn't recognize him.

Still, the man had been shouting at Quinn. And there hadn't been boos or attempts to shout him down.

He's losing the jury. She'd seen Donner's altercation with Laurel. Donner had more than once insinuated and suggested that the Queen's Gambit's sinking wasn't Merlyn's fault, but he'd never come out and accused Moira and Merlyn of having done it deliberately to kill Robert - and Oliver. He wasn't that stupid.

"Mrs. Queen, answer Mr. Quinn's question," the Judge instructed, once everything quieted down again, a minute or so later.

Moira inhaled a moment, "Malcolm made it very clear that it was important to maintain appearances."

"Right." Quinn dropped the papers on the table again. "Let's move on. Last year, Malcolm Merlyn kidnapped your second husband. You've claimed it was to ensure your cooperation, but if fear of reprisal against you or your family is what kept you quiet all these years, why wouldn't he have just killed Water Steele like he did Robert Queen?"

"He needed my cooperation, not just my silent complicity." Moira replied after a moment's silence. 

"And he couldn't have gotten that just by threatening to kill Mr. Steele?" Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe he kidnapped Mr. Steele because he was a threat to your plan, and you persuaded him to spare Mr. Steele." 

"Objection, this is unfounded speculation!" Jean cut in, and once more, the Judge sounded disgusted when he had to sustain it.

Yeah, let the whole world know which side you're on. Sara knew this judge was a detective's dream, given how often he sided with the prosecution, but...

When I arrest someone, I know they're fucking guilty.

"Was I having an affair with Malcolm Merlyn, or did I love Walter and intervene to save his life, Mr. Quinn? Pick, because it can't be both. I don't know what was going through his mind. What I can say is that he said we were getting close to the end, and he wanted to remind me what was at stake. I demanded proof of life, which he provided-"

"And then you continued right along, doing as he said."

"Because my husband, myself and my children were under threat. I was well past any point where I thought any friendship I thought we once had would have saved my life." Moira inhaled, "Do you want me to say I should have spoken out anyway? That I should have taken the risk sooner? Yes, I probably should have, but I challenge any mother or father, any husband or wife, to so casually risk the lives of their loved ones given the circumstances!"

The audience was silent enough you could hear a pin drop, but the jury - some of them anyway - seemed thoughtful. Quinn looked them over, and the Camera caught his expression dropping, mouth twisting in a grimace. 

"No further questions, your honor." Quinn dropped.

"Defense, would you like to redirect?" The judge asked Jean, who nodded, starting to stand up.

Quinn raised a hand, "I'm sorry your honor, but the prosecution requests a recess-"

"Granted. Half an hour." The Judge didn't even need Quinn to give some BS excuse and banged his gavel, and the TV went back to the newsroom.

Before Sara could hear what the talking heads were going to say about what they'd just seen, her desk phone rang.

"Detective Lance," She replied automatically.

"Hello Detective," Sara felt a chill down her spine as she heard the voice - and remembered the last time she'd heard it over the phone. "Miss me?"

"Vanch," Sara's hand tightened into a fist on her desk. She started to text Kelton, to get him to trace the call.

"So you do remember me. I'm touched," Vanch drawled. "I assume you've been watching the trial. How wholesome, to know that the Arrow's own mother is a killer. I guess it runs in the family."

Sara's blood chilled and her phone slipped from a nerveless grip, right as her thumb had hovered over a send button.

No.

"That's right, Detective." Vanch chuckled. "It really wasn't that hard to put two and two together, when you and your sister's boyfriend showed up to rescue her. Tell me, does your father know when his daughter does at night, or is that just a secret between sisters?"

"Now, I sure hope you don't have the police tracing this call, because if any cop that isn't you gets within a hundred feet of me, you can be sure I'll be going to the presses."

"With what?" Sara demanded, her voice a low hiss. 

"Well, I think we'll save the show and tell for later, don't you? Right now, I think it's time we had a chat. Just you and me. Someplace... private." Vanch's tone almost made it sound like he was trying to flirt with her, but Sara suspected it was probably just him getting off on being a creep. 

"I don't think so." Sara countered. "You've got nothing."

"Do you really want to take that chance?" Vanch teased. If he's telling the truth...

But what could he have? Oliver and Laurel were careful. The only time there was anything other than circumstantial evidence at best was that video in the stairwell at the Unidac auction, and that was planned.

"Do I really want to take the chance you'll try the same thing you did last year, with a different sister?" Sara countered. "I'm not that stupid, Vanch."

"Oh, don't worry, I have nothing but respect for your mind, Detective. It's one of your two best features." Sara cringed at the way he said that, his tone making it clear what he thought her 'other' best feature was. I'm going to need a long shower after this.

"You can be armed with whatever you like. I won't be carrying so much as a taser." Somehow, Sara actually believed him there, but there was no way he was being sincere. He was just that good of a liar. He's never played anything straight once in his life. "Trust me, I don't have any plans to kidnap you. Promise." 

"Trusting you is something I'll never do."

"Well, the hard way it is, then." Vanch's playful tone didn't change at all. His voice lowered a bit more, as if he was leaning forward to share a secret. "Honestly, that way's more fun. I'll be in touch. But remember what I said - no cops, or you can say goodbye to your sister being a free woman."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 7: The Hard Way

Just as police kill in the line of duty, so too do Superheroes. And... just as with police, sometimes a Superhero killing is an act less of an accident, of fighting to protect oneself and others with the only options available. Sometimes it's more ambiguous.

Sometimes it's just murder, though.

It's been said, and remains true, though less than it was a century ago, that police tend to close ranks and protect their own when it comes to so-called 'officer involved deaths'. But the same does not tend to hold true for Superheroes protecting their own in the same way. Supers tend to feel less institutional loyalty, even with superheroes that are deputized by or authorized by the same situation.

It is thus, almost paradoxically, easier to bring a Superhero who used excessive force, leading to a death, to justice, than it is a police officer.

-Excerpt from: "Supers on Trial: When Heroes Commit Murder." by Cassandra Cassowitz, Victor Achebe and Harold Nakamura. Published by HarperCollins, 2149.

The Foundry, Starling City

November 25th, 2013

"I'll kill him, and then I'll drag him to Nanda Parbat and the Lazarus Pit so I can kill him again," Laurel growled, pacing like a hungry tiger in a cage. It wasn't just her sister's stance, or tone that was setting Sara off, either.

It was her expression.

Sara had seen her sister angry before. A lot, as a teenager, when she'd messed with Laurel or her stuff, and gotten caught. Or when she'd come home from college, ranting about pigheaded or narrowminded professors and students.

The angriest she'd ever seen Laurel is when she'd nearly killed Vanch in March, after her kidnapping.

But this...

This was worse.

Laurel's face was one of pure, distilled rage.

And it was terrifying to see.

"Laurel, you can't-" Sara started, but Laurel cut her off.

"He came after you once, and now he's doing it again, and he thinks he can use me to get to you, both times! He hasn't learned his lesson! Nobody hurts my family!"

It's not that - 

Hell, I wanted to kill him at first, when he kidnapped Laurel. What had changed things was seeing Laurel holding him, knife to his neck. Seeing how close her sister was to killing him. And what she learned later, about how Laurel had gotten so close to losing herself entirely, being a killer for the League...

That made that moment hit even harder.

Made this hit even harder.

"He's not worth becoming a killer again, over, Laurel!" Sara insisted, raising her voice over Laurel trying to interrupt her again.

"I'm already a killer, Sara!" Laurel spun, all but pinning her to the ground with her glare. "You don't stop being a killer just because you stop killing! So if I kill Vanch, that doesn't change anything! It's not as if not killing him has gotten me, or Starling City anywhere!" Laurel went on. "I didn't kill The Count and look where that's gotten the city!"

Sara didn't think Laurel really meant a word of it. She hoped she didn't. She's just... she's just angry. Protective. Not that Sara could blame her, but...

The fact that Laurel didn't kill, that Oliver had stopped killing... it made working with them much more acceptable, given how many laws and rules and principles she'd thought she'd once had she was breaking as it was.

"You don't stop being an alcoholic just because you stop drinking," Sara said softly, echoing something her dad had told her, when he'd pulled himself out of the bottle after crawling back in, when Laurel 'died' on the Gambit. 

"What?" The seeming non-sequitur of it all somehow threw Laurel off just enough to have her stop ranting. But she was still...

I wish Ollie were here to help. But Oliver still had to stay with his mom, his sister. The case may have turned against the prosecution, but Oliver couldn't just duck out of the trial or leave his mom and sister alone right now.

"It's something Dad said to me once." Sara explained. "You said that even if you're stopped killing, you're still a killer." Sara grimaced, opening her hands halfway, spreading her arms a bit, palms upward. "I don't know if I agree with that logic, but... that's what you're saying. So fine. You're a killer. But do you really think that going back to killing isn't going to make the next kill after that easier? And the next kill after that?"

Sara pulled a hand down her face, trying to keep her voice level.

"Dad wants a drink. He always wants a drink. But the problem is, he doesn't just have a drink. He doesn't just want a drink. He wants ten. One drink probably wouldn't hurt dad,  that much, if he could have just one. But he can't. Because he's an alcoholic."

"I'm not addicted to killing!" Laurel protested.

"No, you're not." Sara agreed. "But-" Sara sighed. "You're not wrong. Not killing the Count is why the whole city is held hostage to Vertigo. And not killing Vanch... is why he can call and make vague, nonspecific threats." She bit her lip. "I... I won't deny that neither man really deserves to stay among the living, but... you haven't killed in over a year. Can you just... kill one person, or even two people, and stop there? You wanted the Black Canary to be a symbol of hope, a bright light for the Glades." Laurel started to open her mouth again, and Sara brandished a hand, nearly yelling the next words: "Let me finish!"

Somewhat to Sara's surprise, Laurel shut her mouth.

"Fine, you kill them. Because if they just get tossed in prison, then they'll probably come back, right? What about those thugs you break the limbs of every night, hurt them enough to leave them unable to commit crimes for a few months. A lot of them - they're just gonna go back to it when their arms heal. Some will get the message, and the rapists may not be able to physical do it after how you break their dicks in half, but most? It's what they do. And if they end up in prison, sure, maybe they're out of play for a few years, but I mean... have you seen the recidivism rates in this country?"

Sara laughed, hollowly. "I mean, yes, there's a lot of reasons why people repeat offend after prison, and god knows cops do our part to make that worse, as do cruel parole officers, biased assholes when it comes to hiring, an overly broad sex-offender registry and a million and one other problems." She waved a hand, "But where it comes back to you - there's good odds the mugger you're going to stop tomorrow, or the extortion thug you're doing to beat down next week will do it again. And sooner or later, they'll kill someone, right?"

"I'm not going to kill a random mugger," Laurel protested again, but without raising her voice.

"No, probably not. But -" Sara pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm not saying you're addicted to killing but - what you said. You sounded exactly like dad." Sara took another slow breath. "You said that killing for the League nearly destroyed you. Fine, maybe you can be sure the people you kill now really deserve it. But..." Sara trailed off. "Vanch isn't worth it, Laurel. He's not worth - not on my account."

Laurel stared at her, and Sara met her gaze. They kept it up for almost a minute until her sister  sagged, almost visibly deflating, leaning back against one of the pillars, a long breath escaping her lips.

"I can't let him hurt you."

"I'm touched you're willing to kill for me, I really am. Especially after all the crap I put you through when we were kids," Sara tried to add a joke at the end, but when Laurel didn't smile, she quickly moved on. Okay, that was dumb of me. "...I was ready to kill him too, you know." Sara admitted, softly. She'd implied as much to Oliver, or even said it, she couldn't remember, before they went to rescue her.

But she'd never admitted it to Laurel.

"I know... Oliver told me what you said," Laurel told her, and Sara bit her lower lip, looking away. It wasn't like she'd expected him to keep it secret - the two were joined not so much at the hip but at the brain, or so it felt like sometimes. At the very least, they really do embody that whole 'one soul, two bodies' thing. 

"What stopped you?" Laurel asked, not hostile, just... trying to understand.

"It wasn't morality, or my principles as a cop," Sara admitted, quietly. "Seeing - seeing you, seeing how close you got to killing him. Right there, in cold blood..." She inhaled. "You know I became a cop to be close to you, more than to be close to dad, right?"

"...I..." Laurel flushed, but she nodded, slowly. "I suspected."

"Seeing you like that... it made me wonder how you'd have looked at me if I had killed him, if you hadn't been the one holding the knife..." Sara didn't want to say it, say that she'd been terrified of Laurel, of the woman that seemed to be wearing her sister's face in that moment. 

And how I never want to scare Laurel like that.

"It's not like I would hate you for it," Laurel told her. "Even if... even if... everything," she gestured vaguely, "hadn't happened to make me who I am today... I couldn't hate you for doing that."

"And it's not like I would hate you for killing Vanch now," Sara confirmed. "But..." Sara exhaled, then, "Not to make this all about myself, but basically, I'd hate myself for being someone that drove you to kill again. You know as well as I do... killing someone... it changes you." Sara had killed as a cop, and as much as she'd tried to pretend otherwise, the first time she'd taken a life - the triad assassin that had attacked her and Laurel for investigating Somers...

She hadn't had to kill anyone since, but...

The thought of doing it...

It sat differently. Not just when she was angry. She'd taken a life.

And of course, like an idiot I didn't talk about it enough with a shrink until I've now reached the point where I can't talk about anything to a shrink without...

Doctor patient confidentiality only covered so much. And it's not like some therapists wouldn't break it anyway. The truth of the Arrow and Black Canary's identities... an intoxicating reason to break that. Or a desperate one.

"You haven't killed in a year, and if you started again now... do you think it wouldn't make you more like you used to be? Just a little?"

Laurel looked away, clearly not wanting to talk, not wanting to admit it verbally. 

"Unless you've been sloppy, Vanch doesn't have anything. He can't have anything more than circumstantial evidence. There's whole factions on the internet that still insist you're the Black Canary and that Oliver is the Arrow. They have flame wars about it." Sara tried to stay away from those discussions when she saw them on social media, but Felicity apparently kept close track of them and had shown her a few snippets, usually from people eviscerating the idea of Oliver and Laurel being the two.

"Of course, there's the people who think Tommy is the Arrow, the ones who think the Black Canary is an alien who doesn't need a sonic device to scream, the ones that think you're both robots from the future... Felicity keeps a whole database of the people the internet thinks are you two. Last she told me, the leading choices were..." Sara furrowed her brow. "Chris Hemsworth and Brie Larson."

Laurel snorted. "Hemsworth has nothing on Oliver." Laurel's expression went from amused to pensive for a long moment. 

"So... what, just let Vanch spin his wheels?"

"Until he tries a new plan. I don't know if he was planning to kidnap me, or kill me, or offer me a timeshare in Boca Raton. But he's bluffing, or at least trying to make a pair sound like a full house." Sara shrugged. If he tries to come after you in public, I mean, there's security, there's cops... yeah, he wants you dead, but so does every criminal on the West Coast."

"But every criminal on the West Coast doesn't know who I am." Laurel pointed out. "You don't think Vanch would try something?"

"I don't know what he's up to, but given how you guys don't even have a small security team on your penthouse, just the building's security, and you don't even have one personal security guard... I figure he's had his chance." 

It was a guess, but Vanch was a man with poor impulse control when it came to something he really wanted. He was a petulant manchild who probably hadn't ever been refused dessert as a child. 

If he wanted to kill

"More practically, remember what you told me about his plans? Yeah, he wanted to kill me for revenge, but he also wanted to make a name for himself in the underworld, absorb the Bertinelli organization and the Triad." Sara reminded her. 

"So he can't exactly kill Laurel Lance or Oliver Queen. He needs the cred of killing the Arrow, the Black Canary as they are, not a sniper bullet killing the Arrow during his day job from a distance." Laurel nodded. "I see your point."

"Maybe I'm wrong - you two could stand to take your security more seriously, publicly." Sara suggested, since, really, it was downright reckless of them. Oliver at least had Dig around, and yeah, he was probably the bigger target as the CEO of the famous family than Laurel the charity director - serial killers their dad put away notwithstanding - but still. 

Still. Laurel really should have a goddamn bodyguard. If she was at an event, and there were cameras...

Laurel made a face, grimacing at the thought. "No thank you. We'd have to ditch them all the time, like Ollie did for Dig at first."

"We vet for one we can trust enough to-"

"No," Laurel repeated, and Sara rolled her eyes. 

"Fine," she gave up that line of attack for now. Maybe she could try Ollie, get him to convince Laurel to take her safety more seriously.

Take advantage of that one soul thing. She smiled a little at the thought.

"I'll have to run an independent investigation into Vanch, figure out where he's hiding, what he's planning." Sara couldn't bring the cops in directly. Sure, he only had circumstantial at best, but the less the police even considered the idea, the better. It wouldn't kill them if he tried to go public with his evidence, but it would be better to not let him.

Laurel opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again, "I hate that there's no way I can talk you out of that."

Sara laughed, "Relax. If I do get in over my head, I can just call my big sister in to break his arms and legs." She stuck out her tongue at Laurel, who at least managed a smile over it.

Starling City Courthouse, Starling City

November 26th, 2013

Despite the efforts of the SCPD, Felicity, Oliver and herself, the Count location, and the way he'd managed to dose so much of the city, was still eluding everyone. And so here she was, ready to hear the Jury's verdict. They'd taken less than six hours to agree on a verdict.

That could be very good, or very bad.

They were seated right behind Moira's table, Laurel at the end of the row, Oliver next to her, Thea next to him. Oliver had a hand on Thea's shoulder, trying to reassure her... he was doing a good job of putting on a show, for her, for the camera, but Laurel could see it. The way he held his shoulders tighter, the slightest clench to his jaw...

Laurel reached for his free hand, holding it tight. Oliver turned to her, meeting her eyes a moment, before he returned his gaze  to the jury, gathering back in their seats.

Victor Quinn - and there's a hack of a lawyer if I ever saw one, way to fail to disprove the old saw about government work being for people who can't get jobs anywhere else - was an idiot. He lost the jury, and hard, yesterday. 

Just like the Police had lost Vanch, and Sara too. There was no trail on him. His girlfriend hadn't escaped custody with him, and none of his old haunts, none of his old goons... he'd gone completely to ground. It was hard to say he actually had any goons at all. No crimes that had his hallmark, from what Sara had said. No bodies that seemed like his work.

"Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?" The judge asked, accepting a piece of paper from the Bailiff.

"It has, your honor," the forwoman of the jury nodded. 

"Then read it out," the judge added, folding the paper back up, and setting it down with what seemed like disdain.

The Judge hadn't once been on Moira's side, and his impartiality had very much been in question, as far as Laurel was concerned. So that could mean...

"On the charge of Conspiracy in the first degree, we the members of the jury find the Defendant, Moira Queen... not guilty." The forwoman said, eliciting gasps from the crowd, murmurs - the Judge banged his gavel and demanded order. 

There's no way they'd find her innocent of that if they didn't also... right? Laurel tightened her grip on Ollie's hand.

"On the charge of 318 counts of Murder in the first degree, we the members of the jury find the defendant, Moira Queen..." 

Time seemed to stretch and slow, and as if to ruin the moment, Laurel heard the sound of a text on her phone, vibrating. Laurel ignored it. Was the forwoman literally holding things up? She couldn't -

"Not guilty."

The response was again, gasps, of horror, or surprise, Moira let out a strangled sound that could have been a laugh, shock and happiness warring on her face, her every move. She hugged Jean, then around the banister, towards her children. Laurel let go of Oliver's hand, and watched Moira hug her children tight, murmuring something in their ears as she held them both, tears in her eyes. The judge was demanding order, as several people seemed ready to lunge themselves at Moira, held back by the police, the bailiffs, or... by other attendees.

Laurel looked around - not everyone was angry. Some... some looked... at least accepting of the ruling, even satisfied. Like they thought justice had been done.

Laurel's phone buzzed again, and biting her lip to stop from making any sound of annoyance, she pulled it out of her pocket. Felicity.

'I know you're busy with the trial but when it's done Dig and I figured out how he got sick.

A lead. Laurel almost could have kissed her phone. More good news. 

'Time sensitive?' she quickly tapped out, back. This was not the time for her or Oliver to go haring off after the Count, but if he was about to do something else, if they needed to deal with it now...

'Don't know.'

Laurel looked at Moira, still clutching to her children, at Oliver returning the hug, perhaps not as tightly, but...

'Tonight. Call if emergency.' Laurel texted back, slipping the phone back in her pocket.

She saw Moira finally pull back from the embrace, and walked by them.

"Laurel," Moira said, softly. "Thank you." She wasn't crying anymore, but there was still more emotion on her face than Laurel was used to seeing on her. Faster than Laurel imagined, Moira had pulled her in for a hug - not as close, or tight as the one for her children, of course, but a genuine embrace nonetheless. Laurel stiffened at the sudden movement, hands on her back, almost reacting...

Badly. 

But then she returned the hug, pulling back when she did a moment or two later.

"Thank you for always being there for my son, and my daughter." Moira said, meeting her eyes.

"I couldn't do anything less than that," Laurel told her, softly. "Congratulations." Moira nodded, and Jean came back from speaking to one of the Balifs. 

"We have permission to go out the back, the driver is bringing the car around now," The lawyer explained.

"The press will be all over the front," Oliver agreed, quietly. "I'll go," he said quickly. "You and Thea can go out the back, I'll draw their attention." Oliver looked to Laurel, the silent 'keep them safe' not needing to be said.

"Oliver-" Moira started, but Oliver shook his head. 

"You know the paparazzi and the press vultures will know you're going out the back if you don't show up out the front. If I go out, make it seem like you're still in the courtroom, the courthouse, that'll buy time."

"He's right," Laurel agreed. But it wasn't the press that worried Oliver, or her. 

Only some people had accepted the verdict. 

All it took was one desperate, angry person with a gun. And the city was full of those.

Moira nodded, and as Jean and Oliver headed out to fend off the press vultures, Laurel went first, leading Thea and Moira out the back.

Starling City Municipal Works Parking Garage

November 26th, 2013

If Felicity and Diggle's theory was right - and given the data, it fit - then the Count had somehow managed to suborn the flu vaccine program, or at least one of the mobile trucks. As Oliver pushed open the now unlocked door, he made a mental note to figure out how.

A bribe, probably. Corruption in Starling City wasn't actually endemic, but there were still enough public servants up and down the hierarchy willing to take money to look the other way, give favors, access...

But still. Did they know they were giving the Count access for his drug? Did the Count double-cross them?

There were several parked vaccination vans, the city-wide mobile flu vaccine program a pretty significant effort, funded in part by a grant from the CDC. Starling was part of a testbed for a nationwide mobile vaccination program.

"Which van?" Oliver asked Felicity over the comms.

"According to the official plans, the route was served by van number four," Felicity answered. Then, "oh crap."

"What?" Laurel asked - the two split up, approaching the correct van from opposite ends. Oliver pulled an arrow from his quiver, ready to notch and fire the moment something went wrong. He wouldn't just leave this truck unguarded. But on the other hand, for the ruse to work...

"Van four is due to go back out on a new circuit tomorrow." Felicity explained. "...and it's going to go through the Glades."

"Got it," Oliver murmured. "Are you picking up anyone else on the cameras?"

"Nope, seems like the Count really did just leave his drug stash lying around where anyone could get at it."

"If he actually left the drugs in here," Laurel pointed out. "If he could get access to one truck, he could get access to them all. So..."

Oliver followed her logic, nodding. "We may have to check them all." If they could get a sample of his new Vertigo, they could try to get an antidote worked up, maybe even figure out where his lab was. Even a vial with a bit of residue..

Oliver put a hand on the sliding door of the van. "Ready." He murmured over the comms. 

"Me too. Now." At the same time, they opened the van from two ends - Oliver from the side, Laurel from the driver door. 

The inside of the van was empty of people, and looked for all the world like a normal mobile clinic van, nothing out of the ordinary. Carefully, Oliver stepped up inside the van. There were drawers and a closed cabinet up top...

"The van wasn't hotwired, so he definitely as a key," Laurel murmured, not over the comms, now that they were practically next to eachother. She crouched down, "No bombs under the front seats."

But if he was going to leave a trap for them - which was possible, since apparently this was all about killing them, thanks to whoever the Count's mysterious benefactor was...

The Count wouldn't want to kill himself while he's -

Oliver turned his head up and to the left, to the back, top corner of the van.

A camera, small, probably wifi-connected, was right there. Oliver was already turning, back towards the exit as the Count's voice echoed through the van.

"I was wondering when you'd notice. Goodbye, Arrow. It's 3 2 1 Blast off!" He didn't 'count down' so much as speed the numbers out, but by the time he actually said blast off, Laurel and Oliver were both diving out of the van, dropping into a roll as the van exploded, the flames flying upwards and somewhat to the sides, the shrapnel flying - Oliver felt smaller pieces pelt him, grunting a little as he managed to get underneath one of the other vans, the explosion not enough to set any of the other vehicles on fire - 

There was a sharp pain in his leg as he rolled flat onto his back under the other van, and Oliver looked down, a long, sharp piece of metal in his leg at a diagonal. Oliver reached down, gloved hand checking it, very carefully - the fire alarms had already gone off, water raining down on the inside of the garage.

There was a sound in his ear, Oliver blinked, barely able to process it...

Shit. Oliver knew his hearing would recover, but now he couldn't hear the comms. 

"Can't hear," Oliver said, knowing he was probably shouting, but he didn't need Felicity or Diggle shouting in his ear while he checked his leg -

It didn't seem very deep in, the diagonal angle keeping it from going too far, hitting anything vital... he couldn't pull it out here.

Carefully, he pulled himself out from under the truck, the water raining onto him, eyes scanning for - 

Laurel.

She was walking, hand pressed to her side, blood seeping -

Oliver rushed towards her, ignoring his leg-

"I'm - flesh -" Laurel shouted, as he got close, her voice muted, but less so. The sound in his ears got loud, from the comms, but he couldn't make out distinct words. But given that there had just been an explosion - "-need - go," Laurel shouted, both of them now soaked, at least the blood dripping from Laurel's side would be washed away -

Oliver nodded, and they moved for the exit. The Count had laid a trap for them, but they weren't dead, and even these injuries weren't enough to stop them.

He was going to be stopped.

Laurel and Oliver's Apartment, Starling City

November 27th, 2022

Oliver was sleeping.

Was.

For a moment, as he woke, arms around Laurel's waist, her back against his chest, he wasn't sure why he was awake. Not a nightmare... he'd had less, the last few months, and -

Laurel stirred in his arms, turning around, her eyes as wide open as his, just as awake. She might have even have woken before him.

But then they both stiffened. The front door was opening.

Slowly, a quiet creak. 

Oliver didn't keep a bow in the apartment, but neither of them were defenseless. He locked eyes with Laurel a moment, and they both nodded, almost simultaneously. She was thinking exactly as he was. Oliver pulled his arms away from her as he rolled quietly over onto his stomach, closer to the edge of the bed, Laurel doing the same, and Oliver pulled a knife from under the bed, Laurel doing the same. 

A gun would have been even less conspicuous as a self-defense item to keep in the house, but guns made you sloppy.

Oliver let himself 'fall' to the floor, landing on all fours easily, quietly, a light thump on the wood, unlikely to be heard by your average would-be robber or attacker.

Possibilities ran through his head. Vanch? Maybe... he knew Laurel was the Black Canary, even if he couldn't have solid proof. He had to know who the Arrow was too then, or guess. Guess one, guess the other.

Admittedly a weak point for our anonymity. 

But it could just be a thief, thinking he could rob one of the richest men in the city. Even with the hits following the Undertaking, Oliver had a lot of money... technically. (So much of it was now invested in Queen Consolidated). But the would-be burglar was going to be disappointed because there wasn't much worth stealing here. Even the TV system they barely used wasn't that fancy or valuable, and neither of them had copious amounts of valuables. Some of Laurel's dresses and earrings she wore to charity events maybe, but even that probably wouldn't be what someone stealing from a Queen expected.

Or it could be revenge. His mother had gotten off, and so many people were sure that she deserved the death penalty. The security at Queen Manor was much more than what they had here...

Oliver and Laurel stayed low, crouched, as they made their way to the bedroom door, hearing footsteps in the rest of the penthouse. Someone was making an effort to be quiet, not draw attention.

No. 

Multiple someones. At least three.

Not good.

Oliver made a few quick gestures, suggesting they split up once outside the bedroom-

Someone stumbled, nearly tripping from the sound of it, loud enough to wake them if they had still been asleep, if they'd been anything but the heaviest of sleepers-

"No, no, no, you absolutely pathetic boor!" A familiar voice snarled, hissing low, but lough enough for them to hear. 

The Count. How-

Why-

He knows.

"Sorry-" The quiet attempt at an apology was cut off  by the sound of the speaker being punched in the gut, ot what sounded like it, the oof as the wind was knocked out of him telltale.

"Sorry doesn't cut it when they know we're here, you idiot!" The Count snapped, then he raised his voice. "I suppose there's no more playing games... Arrow and Black Canary." 

Well, that settles that.

How? Vanch? Some clue? 

Right now, it didn't matter. Right now, they had three criminals, probably armed with guns. Oliver and Laurel had a knife each, and no armor.

"You, down that hall," The Count ordered, and footsteps started from the living room, down the hall that ended in the bedroom. Oliver pulled back from the door, making a few gestures at Laurel, getting his plan across when she nodded, pulling back a pace as well.

Against an enemy with a gun and you didn't have one, a good plan usuall plan was to get in close and prevent them from firing too much. But right now... less than ideal.

Wait for this one...

"You know, when my new... associate Cyvus Vanch told me the real identities of you two, I almost didn't believe him," The Count remarked, loving the sound of his own voice, showboating. "But then I remembered that meeting with Oliver Queen I had. Just after midnight. And within less than 24 hours, the Black Canary was taking down my entire operation. Really does put a lot of things into perspective."

The one coming down the hall, walking slowly, kicked open the door. He'd look in, not seeing them. 

"They're not in here!" He called out to the Count. "...empty bedroom." He'd be looking in, not seeing them, still a bit further from the doorframe...

"Well, go in and see where they might have gone, do i have to think of everything myself!?" The Count demanded, and his goon moved slowly into the room, gun in his hands, showing at least some degree of care with looking around but not low enough yet -

Oliver grabbed his arm, pulling the goon towards him, arm around his neck before he could do more than make a single shout of surprise. With a knife pointed at his stomach, he didn't struggle much, and Oliver dropped the man, letting the pressure on his windpipe release as he was unconscious within seconds.

"Harlton? Harlton?" When there was no reply, the count continued: "Well, I'm going to guess you found them then." Two sets of footsteps, coming towards the bedroom -

Then bullets, piercing through the walls. Oliver  dove for the ground, rolling towards the underside of the bed, Laurel taking cover inside the closet as the Count decided to try to kill them without seeing them. 

The stream of bullets ended quickly, and the sound of guns reloading.

"Odds are they're not dead yet, so let's take a closer look, shall we?" The Count ordered, and the other goon made an affirmative noise. "You first." The goon said nothing, but started walking. Oliver could hear a hesitation in his step, the pace just a little too slow-

But not enough. They reached the bedroom, and found only the unconscious Harelton.

"Well, where oh where could they be hiding?" The Count grinned. He frowned, and Oliver watched his feet turn, he seemed to be looking at Harlton. "Even here, you still won't kill." The Count tsked. "Well, I can't really have this sort of weakness in my organization, so..." There was a single gunshot, and blood pooling quickly on the floor.

The other goon stepped back, "You - oh, fuck this. You're not paying me enough for -" The man started to turn, run, but the Count shot him too.

"Oh dear, good help is so hard to find, isn't it?" The Count grumbled. "Well, well, which do I do? Under the bed, or in the closet. If I try to go for one, the other one of you will come out. Very clever." The Count chuckled. "Of course, one of you could be through that door into what I'm assuming is the bathroom."

"Do you ever stop loving the sound of your own voice?" Oliver snapped, rolling out from under the bed, pulling his attention away from the closet, a little. It sounded like the Count had a pistol, rather than something faster firing. Oliver didn't stand up entirely, but enough for the Count to see him there. The Count leveled the pistol at him, then chuckled.

"Ah, yes, distract me so your girlfriend can come at me from behind. I think not." the Count stepped back, flicking his gun back and forth between Oliver and the closet, quicker than Oliver would have thought he could. But with his free hand, he pulled a grenade out of his pocket. 

"Now, the real question is which one of you dies quickly..." He gestured with the grenade. "And which one of you I get to take my time with?"

"You really think this ends well for you?" Laurel asked, stepping partially out of the closet, partially in cover, low, not presenting as much of a target, knife in hand. "There's no scenario that ends with you getting out of this with your life. Vanch sent you here to die."

"I did consider that, but given what he would like to do to your sister, Miss Lance, I'm fairly certain he's quite genuine in his desire to see you dead." The Count made a great show of considering something, even as he kept his gun trained on them both, as much as he could. Oliver was inching slightly towards the foot of the bed, to vault around it and tackle him -

But Laurel acted first, lunging at him, darting out of the closet, hitting first one arm, then the other with the pommel of the knife, hitting his wrist in just the right spot to make him drop the still not live grenade - he fired the gun, but Laurel was too close for him to aim, and she dropped him to the ground with a sweeping kick to the legs. The Count landed on his ass, but he fired again, Laurel barely avoiding it. Oliver moved closer as the Count pushed himself to his feet, back to the wall, gun aimed at both of them, or trying to -

"This would be so much easier if you would both just die already!" He snarled, firing again, trying to aim for Oliver, but Oliver managed to dodge, the Count's aim sloppy and distracted, the drug dealer desperate and frustrated at his repeated failures to kill them. Oliver tossed the knife at the Count's hand, but the Count managed to move his arm away just in time - the blade embedded itself into the wall.

Shit. 

Laurel lunged, grabbing the count by the throat, blade and hilt of the knife pressed against his neck, her other hand pushing his hand up as a bullet hit the ceiling, and then she squeezed his wrist, forcing the gun to clatter to the ground.

"Ah, now here's the moment of truth, isn't it, Black Canary," the Count grinned, Laurel's blade to his neck. He tried to grab at her wrist with his free hand, but  Laurel pressed harder with the knife, nearly breaking skin.

"You have me at your mercy, but you know if I get handed over to the police... well, there'll be some awkward questions for you both."

"I'm pretty sure your testimony won't count for much." Laurel countered, "I think I'm covered with the SCPD."

"Ah yes, the detective sister. She knows all about you. Almost a shame she'll be too dead to help you." He grinned, the way his lips curled, teeth set, smarmy and sickening. "Another shame is that I won't be there to watch Cyvus deal with her. I was so wondering what her begging would sound like. He really hates her, you know."

"Shut up!" Laurel snarled, pressing harder, drawing blood.

"Or what? You won't kill me, you're even more willing to deny yourself the pleasure of murder than him," The Count laughed, almost maniacal. "Let me go, and I'll tell Vanch to spare your sister. I'm sure he can find all sorts of ways to punish her without killing her. She'll make all sorts of interesting sounds while he's at it too." The way the Count licked his lips made it clear what he had in mind.

Before Oliver could stop himself, he was on the Count, grabbing his other hand, which had been trying to pull a switchblade from his pocket, and pinned his other arm to the wall. Oliver grabbed his knife from the wood, pulling it out and pressing it to the Count's stomach.

"You seem so eager for one of us to kill you, I'm willing to oblige," Oliver ground out. "You said a benefactor helped you set up your operation. Who?!"

The Count laughed, "Oh, you'll see soon enough. He hates you both, you know. Oh so very much." He laughed again, even more mad and manic than before. 

"Who!? Vanch!?" It would explain what Vanch had been doing, working behind the scenes, using the Count as a catspaw.

"Oh, no, no. Cyvus Vanch is hardly the mastermind here. He's just a fellow traveler. But as I said, he was oh so very eager to pay a visit to Detective Sara Lance. Went on and on about the ways he'd make her rue the day she ever arrested him. Very detail-oriented sort of man, when it comes to revenge." The Count turned his gaze back to Laurel.

"I wonder, will she cry out your name, begging for help as he-" The Count's words were cut off again. Oliver pulled back in shock as Laurel pulled her knife from the Count's neck, and drove it into his stomach, pushing upwards, blood spurting out around the blade. Laurel pulled the knife back, stabbed him again snarling almost incoherently in Arabic - Oliver could pick out the words 'not my sister' and 'monster', the knife coming out, goung in a third time, the stomach wounds bleeding, covering Laurel's hand in blood. Oliver pulled her back, one hand on her shoulder, the other around her waist.

"Laurel, Laurel, Laurel," Oliver murmured her name in her ear, the hand on her shoulder going to her hair, running through it as he pulled her back - Laurel didn't even struggle, bloody knife dropping from her hand to the ground, the Count's body slid to the ground, unconscious from bloodloss and likely dead in minutes if not sooner. Laurel knew how to kill someone with a blade, any blade, organs had to have been punctured, enough blood loss would do it anyway -

"I killed - I killed-" Laurel started, starting to hyperventilate. "I didn't mean - I-"

"Laurel, it's okay, you're not - you're not a monster. You're not a murderer." He told her, truthfully, in every way that mattered, what Laurel had just done was hardly murder. And it couldn't make her a monster, make her like the woman she'd been in the League. "You're not tayir 'aswad anymore."

Laurel's breathing wasn't slowing, at least not much, but she seemed to regain more focus, more purchase on -

"Sara. I need to call- I need to -" Laurel pulled out of his grip, going to the bedside table on her side of the bed. "I need to warn her- she -" She tried to dial, but her bloody hand was slick, the phone slipping out of her grip, clattering to the floor, and Oliver picked it up, quickly, speed dialing Sara with number two.

"I'm calling her. We'll warn her." OIiver told her, murmuring in her ear.

Sara's Apartment, Starling City

November 27th, 2013

Sara groaned as she heard something ring. She turned over onto her side, pulling a pillow atop her head. 

"Five more minutes," She groaned out as she realized it was her phone, ringing. They must have had a lead on the Count, the Captain must be calling all hands on deck-

Sara grabbed the phone, pressing answer even as she blinked and saw that it was Laurel calling.

"Laurel?" Sara hated how tired she still sounded, throat dry and voice weak. "What are you-"

"Sara? Are you okay? Are you- is anyone else there, did someone attack you?" Oliver demanded. His tone was almost completely flat, dead, emotionless, which could only mean something -

It wasn't quite as good as cup of coffee, but it had adrenaline pumping as she swung her legs out of bed, still on the phone, standing up.

"Oliver, what happened, is Laurel - is she - are you?" Sara heard what sounded like someone nearly hyperventilating in the background - was that - was that her sister?

"The Count attacked us, in our apartment. He said Vanch told him who we were." Oliver explained. "He implied - he implied-" Oliver paused, then started again. "He said that Vanch said he was coming for you, tonight."

"If he was in here, he didn't do anything, I've been asleep for the last -" she looked at the clock on her beside table even as she was pulling clothes on, "three and a half hours. Where is the Count? Did he get away, did you knock him out?"

"He's dead," Oliver answered. "Laurel - Laurel," his voice nearly broken. "She lost control and killed him."

Sara rocked back on her heels, legs nearly giving way under her, catching onto the dresser to keep herself standing.

"She - stay there. I'm on my way." Sara choked out. "Do you think anyone called 911?"

"There were shots fired, there's a good chance," Oliver answered.

"Fuck, fuck, okay just - it was self-defense, home defense, right. Just tell the police that if they get there before you, fuck fuck, fuck. I'm on my way." Sara hung up, needing both hands free to pull her shirt on and button it, cursing repeatedly as her fingers, moving frantically, missed a button, she had to go back.

Her phone buzzed again, and Sara saw a text. She ignored it, finishing with her shirt, then snatched it up as she moved to where she'd careless tossed her shoes when she'd gotten home not five hours ago. 

The text was from an unfamiliar number, a video file. Without even pressing play, it started, as soon as she opened her text app.

It only too Sara a moment see  what it was.

It was video, shot from a sophisticated camera, but through a window. A window into Oliver and Laurel's bedroom. Oliver Laurel were there, both dressed for sleep, both holding knives, and someone else was there too.

The Count. Cecil Adams, in the flesh. He was holding a gun, pointing it back and forth at them, something else in his other hand. The Camera was capturing more detail than she'd have expected from whatever distance it was, but -

Then Laurel attacked him, shots were fired, and almost too quickly, Laurel had him pinned to the wall, gun dropping from his hand, knife at his throat. Oliver joined in, pinning the other hand-

The talked, or at least the Count looked like he was laughing, he said something, laughing again, pauses like conversation. She couldn't see Laurel or Oliver's faces, and then-

The knife, Laurel's knife, into the Count's stomach. Once. Twice. Three times. Oliver pulling her back, away from the Count as the video file ended, and her phone started to ring. Another number she didn't recognize. 

But she didn't need to.

"Vanch." Sara snarled the name. "I'm going to track you down, and I am going to-"

"What? Join your sister in going down for murder one?" Vanch chuckled. "I'm shaking in my boots. Maybe that video doesn't convince the police your sister is the Black Canary - though look at how she moves there. But at the very least... That doesn't look like self-defense to me."

"You-" Sara snarled, unable to even - she couldn't even find the words. "You set this up just for -"

"Just for video evidence that I can use to blackmail you with? Why yes, yes I did. The Count was a slimy little weasel, nobody will miss him. A sacrifice of a pawn for a much better prize: You."

"What the hell are you talking about?" 

"As long as you do what I say, this video stays with me, secure. Nobody has to know. Refuse any of my very reasonable requests, or send the police, or your sister or her boyfriend after me, and this video goes to the DA's office, every captain in the SCPD, the FBI and any other agency I can think of. Plus, everyone who ever had any grudge against the Black Canary. I hear China White and Danny Brickwell would love to have a piece of her. Possibly literally, in the case of Brick. I hear rumors he picks his teeth with the bones of people he's killed."

Sara felt her chest tighten, her throat clench, vision blurred - head light, she almost swayed, feeling like she was having some sort of attack or -

"Now, like  I said, listen to my very reasonable requests, and we'll get along just fine. Like I said, I have no intention of hurting you, or even kidnapping you."

:"What do you want?!" Sara demanded, trying not to scream into the phone, or just scream more generally. 

"The same thing I wanted before. A meeting. Just you and me. You said no, so we tried the hard way. Would you like to find out what the harder way is, or shall we have a meeting?"

"Where and when," Sara demanded, the slimy, sleezey 'I'm so charming but not really because I'm a disgusting, monstrous sociopathic creep' energy coming off of Vanch was so strong she wanted to drop her phone in a vat of boiling bleach. 

"Wharf 17. Three days. Midnight. See you then!"

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 8: Collector of the Impossible

Metahuman  - Noun. 

(Plural: Metahumans)

A human with an activated meta-gene. 

See Also:  Alien,  Improved Human

Meta-gene  - Noun

(Plural: Meta-Genes)

A rare genetic anomaly in some humans. Usually recessive. When a human who possesses the meta-gene is exposed to exotic particles that do not exist naturally in our physical reality, the meta-gene can become activated, turning its possessor into a metahuman. An activated meta-gene is dominant and will generally be passed on to any children. The meta-genes of the children of metahumans will usually activate on their own a few years after completing puberty. 

-Retrieved from Wiktionary.com April 29th, 2057.

Wharf 17, Starling City

November 30th, 2013

Her police badge got her past security at the entrance, not that it was particularly rigorous. Starling Port was concerned with people stealing shipping crates or their containers, not one person in a small car. 

Sara got out of her car as she drew close to the Wharf. Whatever Vanch had claimed, she didn't trust this wasn't just an elaborate plan to kill her. At least not enough to drive in and make a big target of herself. 

Gun in hand, Sara slipped down the wharf, using the various equipment as cover. At the far end, right up near the water, was one lone figure. It looked male, seemed the right height to be Vanch. Making out the face, even allowing for the dark, was impossible because he was reading a newspaper.

Was he stupid enough to come alone? Sara furrowed her brow, ignoring that she too had come alone. She drew closer, but the final stretch was wide open. Nothing she could use to get closer. If he had a sniper, or... something...

"Now I'm guessing you didn't stand me up, Detective." A voice called out. Vanch's voice. His smarmy, smug, cheery tone set her teeth on edge. Every goddamn time. "So why don't you come out in the open? I promise, I'm here alone."

Sara looked around the back of the Crane. Vanch had lowered the newspaper and was standing, wide open, arms spread, making himself a pretty obvious target.

"I'm even unarmed. If you wanted, you could just shoot me and -" Sara stepped out from behind the crane, into his line of sight, her gun in a two hand grip as she leveled it at him. "Ah, there you are, Detective!" He said it like they were old friends seeing each other for the first time in a while. As she got closer, she could see the smirk on his face. 

"Of course," he went on as Sara got closer, "if I'm dead then I can't deactivate the deadman's switch program that stops the video - you know, the video - from ending up exactly where I threatened it would. So... to shoot, or not to shoot, that is the question, hm?"

Sara stopped just out of arm's reach, even if he lunged. She kept her gun trained on him.

"Oh, come on, Detective, this won't be much fun if you just stand there quietly." Vanch tossed the paper he'd been reading at her feet. It was from the 28th. A picture of Laurel, from one of the Charity Gala's she'd helped organize while at NOVA, was on the cover. The headline was one she already knew: 'CHARITABLE FOUNDATION HEAD DEFENDS AGAINST HOME INVASION BY DRUG DEALER!'

Sara had arrived at Oliver's apartment mere minutes after the cops that had been called in by the shooting. Laurel was already giving a statement, and- 

Even as wrecked as Laurel had been, she'd been able to spin what she'd said. Sara supposed on some level she should be bothered how easily her sister could lie, even when she was barely functioning. But it wasn't that much of a lie, really, right? 

Self-defense. Laurel had reacted on instinct and when the Count had gotten too close, she'd stabbed him, she'd been too terrified and high on adrenaline to realize how many times... with a few tears, gasps and broken sentences as she seemed to obviously be in shock, the cops had bought self-defense, that neither Laurel nor Oliver knew why the Count had come for them.

The public had responded by celebrating her, mostly. The Count was a menace, nobody could deny he'd been the guilty party there, and she'd just defended herself and the man she loved. Even if the DA's office hadn't bought her story, they'd have faced an uphill battle. Especially with the egg on their face after Mrs. Queen's trial.

"Admiring your handiwork?" 

"I think it was more your sister's handiwork, but yes, I suppose I'm proud of the role I played in setting this all up. What's really interesting to me is the headline. I expected something like 'Billionaire's Girlfriend defends against home invasion', or something like that." He laughed, "You know, that's a pretty typical thing, in the media, defining women by their men. But I suppose she's made quite the name for herself in charity work." 

"What the hell do you want, Vanch?" Sara demanded, already bored of his antics.

"I want a lot of things, but right now, what I want is a captive audience, and that, Detective, is exactly what you are." Vanch grinned, and pointed at her. "See, I did my research, when you put me away a second time. You're an interesting cop. In my experience, there's two kinds of police." He clasped his hands behind his back and walked back and forth along the edge of the wharf.

It would be so easy to just shove him into the water. But that was no guarantee he'd die, and then...

Deadman switch.

"There's the inflexible ones, who are dedicated to enforcing all the laws, even the stupid ones, snd there's the flexible ones, who know how to take a bribe and keep things going. Back in the glory days of the mob, the flexible cops ran the show. There's still enough of them kicking around. But you - you - Detective Lance, don't fit either category."

He pointed at her again as he said that, laughing incredulously, then he turned to look at her again.

Sara hadn't lowered the gun, but she couldn't keep her arms up, gun ready, finger inches from the trigger forever. Was that his plan? Talk her to death until she lowered the gun?

"You certainly believe in the law, and god knows you wouldn't take a bribe if I threw a million dollars in your face, but here you are, not taking me in for all my many, many crimes and helping people get away with murder."

"Self-defense," Sara snapped. 

"Even if we ignore the way your sister absolutely butchered the Count, there's all of Mr. Queen's murders too, before he toned down on the killing. No statute of limitations there. And the thing is, having done my research, I can say for a certainty that you've kept a runny tally of all the laws you've broken helping them out." Vanch grinned.

256, depending on how you count. Sara didn't say it out loud, and she did her best to hold back any reaction to his accurate assumption.

"Really, Detective, no fun at all." He shook his head. "Fine, fine. All business." He clapped his hands together once, then went on, not losing the cheerful 'we're friends' tone at all. "Currently, in the SCPD evidence lockup, there's 2 kilos of heroin." He rattled off a case file number. "I'm going to need you to steal it for me.":

Sara blinked, staring at him. She lowered the gun, not even really realizing she was doing it. 

"You're - you're an idiot." Sara squinted a little. Why in the - why would he ever think she'd do that for him. "I'm not stealing evidence for you."

"Why not? I'm sure you've done it for your vigilante friends at least once." Vanch made a face, as if he was hurt, "And here I thought we were friends." He burst into laughter, doubling over. "Your face-'' He managed to get out. He calmed down quickly, and this time, the cheery, friendly tone was all gone. In its place was flat, deadly intent.

"You'll steal that heroin because if you don't, then I release the video of your sister killing the Count to everyone. And sure, maybe, just maybe she gets off on self-defense even with the video," he conceded, shrugging. "And maybe the police and the FBI and everyone else in Law Enforcement don't take a second look at your sister, suspecting she's the Black Canary, that her boyfriend is the Arrow. But I can promise you that China White, Danny Brickwell, and every other criminal in this city that those two have pissed off won't worry about things like probable cause, or the prospect that maybe they're wrong in assuming based on that video."

He shook his head, "No, they'll just start trying to kill her. And trust me, most of them are smarter and more dangerous than the Count." He scoffed. "So... you have a choice, I guess. I mean, I'm not asking you to kill anyone, or even to cover up a crime. That heroin's been there for months, the case is closed, and it's due to be incinerated by the DEA soon anyway, soon as they get around to coming for it."

If I steal drugs for him, he has more to blackmail me with.

But did she have a choice? Until she could find out what sort of failsafe he had for making sure that video went out...

I don't have a choice. Laurel and Oliver couldn't get lucky every time, if they got attacked away from their gear time and time again. And that really did assume no one in the SCPD, or the FBI or any number of other agencies didn't get suspicious.

But... the threat of the evidence would hang over her forever, if she let it.

"And when does it end?" Sara asked. "I do this for you, and then what?" 

"Well, and then I ask you for another favor, probably," Vanch confirmed her worst fears. "On the other hand, play ball, be a good girl-" Sara suppressed a shudder at the way he said that, his voice back to the usual smug tone, "and don't make waves, and I'll be happy to give you - and the vigilantes - all sorts of tips on how to deal with my rivals." He smirked, "I quite like the idea  of having the Black Canary and Arrow at my beck and call."

"I won't use them to help you grow your criminal empire all over again," Sara countered, firmly. "There's limits to what you can force me into doing with that video."

"I'm not so sure, but I suppose it's true this early in the relationship," Vanch wagged a finger at her. "But, sure, you won't want to have them take out my rivals, but if I give you information on someone's hideout and the security there, you're not going to just do nothing and let them stay free on the street, will you?" 

Sara inhaled slowly, gritting her teeth. He was... right. Somewhat. She wouldn't trust any information he gave her, but still. If it checked out, she couldn't just sit on it, right?

"And, as a bonus - at some point I'll even tell you who financed the Count's new operation and paid him to take out the Arrow and Black Canary." Vanch grinned and laughed with a wide-open mouth. "It's a real doozy, you know." 

Vanch looked up at the stars, then back down at his watch. "Well, the ball's in your court now, Detective. Let's say... you have 72 hours to get me those drugs. I'll call you in 48 with the details on how to get them to me. You don't do that, and I'll assume you've decided to take your sister's chances for her."

Sara turned away, without saying anything, then turned back again. "One way or another, you're going to regret this. I promise you that."

"Oh, I'm sure you believe that now, but you know what I think, Detective? I think this could be the start of a beautiful relationship."

Snarling, Sara charged at him, punching him right in the jaw, and sending him reeling back - if she hadn't grabbed the collar of his shirt and held up on the Wharf, he'd have fallen back, into the water. She pulled him close.

"There's also a limit to how much you can provoke me before I do something, Vanch." She kicked one leg out from under him, then let go of his shirt, letting him fall backward into the water with a splash.

"There's the fighter!" Vanch called out after he came back to the surface, treading water. "This is gonna be fun!"

Robert Queen Applied Sciences Center, Starling City

December 1st, 2013

Well, that could have gone better. He'd thought his mother's acquittal meant he could hand over more of the CEO duties to her - she actually had something resembling a head for business, while Oliver still felt like he was treading water, at best. The Company's stock prices had improved, and it looked like they might be in the black for the next quarter, but...

Well, Oliver wasn't sure how much of that he could take credit for.

Instead, the Board's reaction to Moira Queen in their midst had been... mixed. A few old hands seemed receptive, and two had even greeted his mother warmly, with a handshake, her acquittal and the way public opinion had turned in her favor after the way the DA's office had screwed it all up...

But the rest had not. And Rochev had made it pretty clear she was not willing to 'be seen working with her'. Acquitted or not, a turn in public opinion or not, lots of people in Starling and outside of it still saw her as a murderer. 

Oliver hated it, but he couldn't deny there was truth to it.

I should be in Central City right now, with Laurel. Laurel had left two days ago for Central to stay with her mother, to ground herself after killing the Count. She'd worked so hard to put that behind her, and... 

It would be wrong to say Laurel was a wreck - not for more than fifteen minutes after the act, really. But she was off her game, and she knew it. Second-guessing herself, and her nightmares had been worse. She needed a breather, a chance to... take a second, gather herself.  The plan had been for him to join her as soon as he'd arranged things for his absence here...

But then, as he'd been set to leave even after that mixed bag board meeting, he got word of what had happened at the Applied Sciences building. And now he had a robbery and dead security guards to deal with. If not for the murdered guards, Oliver would probably have just left this to the SCPD, and QC security, but... 

The guards were his employees. His responsibility. Rochev wouldn't care - at best she'd not argue with the company's 'death on the job' life insurance policy for employees' families. At worst, she might still try to fight it.

And so, here he was.

As he walked into the building, he saw Sara arguing with another detective, while a few uniforms secured the scene.

"...this was a robbery. The murders were incidental to that." The other one said, concluding with a very smug look on his face. "And besides, your closeness to Oliver Queen means you should-" Oliver watched him, but before he could get closer and intervene, Sara cut in.

"Stay away from cases where he's the suspect. But do you have any reason to believe he's behind this?" Sara countered. The Detective shook his head. "And yes, normally, I'd say yes, please take the case off my hands, but one," she held up a finger, "the last time there was a robbery at a tech company - the Kord Industries case last year - the company threw up all sorts of red tape and just ended up paying the thief for their stuff back. I seem to remember Commissioner Nudocerdo ripping your boss a new one for that." The detective cleared his throat and looked away. "And two," she held up another finger, "Oliver doesn't have a very high opinion of the SCPD as a whole given the way the rest of you tried to railroad his mother through the courts so... in this case..."

"Fine, fine, take the case, it's yours!" The detective threw up his hands, "I've got better things to do anyway." He stormed out, and Sara approached. 

"That door was made of titanium. Reinforced." Diggle gestured back to the bent metal on the ground. "Have you guys figured out how the robbers took this down?"

"Not yet," Sara said. She gestured to the metal, "No sign of explosives, so working theory now is a crane, or forklift. But how they got it in place, took down the door, came in, killed the guards and ripped out whatever was over there," she gestured to an empty patch of raised concrete, where something metal had once stood on a tripod, only bits of the legs remaining, "and got out fast. So it had to be a crew. Five people, maybe six? Impossible to say. The techs are pulling the security footage now."

"So that's the only thing missing?" Oliver looked at it, trying to remember what it was, from the two times he'd actually been inside the building. But he was drawing a complete blank. 

"So far. We're about to go through the inventory, but that seems to be it." Sara nodded. She walked over to the bare concrete, and Oliver followed, Diggle by his side.

If Sara's on the case, then I don't have to worry about the SCPD not taking this seriously. With any luck, this wouldn't need the Arrow. Waking up without Laurel in the bed next to him, sleeping without her there, next to him...

It was...

Hard.

One of those techs approached, tablet in hand. "This is what we were able to pull off the security cameras." Oliver looked down at the screen, Sara and Diggle moving to get a look. One man, with a mask of some sort, tossing one of the guards like a rag doll, then picking up a metal crate, and tossing it at the camera.

Someone strong. Well, the guards had broken necks, so that checked. Probably the muscle of the crew, and the only one risking being seen by the cameras.

"Just him?" Sara asked, and the tech nodded. "So the rest must have come in afterwards. Again, this is a very efficient timeline." She shook her head, "A robbery crew this good coming into town - you'd expect someone to hear something. Far as I know, nothing."

"Actually, it probably was just the one guy," an unfamiliar voice said behind them, and from the look on Sara's face, she didn't recognize the voice either. He turned, and approaching them was a thin, almost gangly young man. He looked barely out of high school. "Sorry I'm late." He said, as if they all knew who he was. "Well, actually, my train was late." He corrected, then went on, babbling with what Oliver assumed was nerves, though it didn't seem to show on his face or in his posture. "Well, the second one. The first one I did miss but that was my cab driver's fault," he waved a hand dismissively. "I've got this great traffic app and -"

The young man took a breath and looked at everyone staring at him. "..but he thought he was right and..." he was quieter. "But I'm here now though."

"Okay, and why are you on my crime scene?" Sara demanded, coolly.

"And do your parents know that you're here?" Oliver added, before he could stop himself. Seriously, was he still in college, or just baby-faced?

"I'm Barry Allen, from the Central City Police Department?" He looked at Sara, and Oliver looked at her as well, but there was no sign of recognition. "...you mean my Captain didn't call you guys?"

"If he did, I didn't hear about it. What's CCPD doing here?" Sara asked. "You're about two hundred miles out of your jurisdiction,"

"One hundred and ninety seven," The young man - Barry Allen - corrected, then cleared his throat and pulled out an ID badge. "Sorry. I'm a CSI. We're working on a case with some similar unexplained elements in Central City, so when we got word about this one, I got the short straw to come down here and follow up." 

Oliver wasn't an expert on the way police departments working together worked, but wouldn't they send an actual detective, not a CSI? Something seemed off about Allen's words. But not off in a way Oliver could understand. Allen was lying about something, but Oliver's gut didn't make it seem like he was up to anything. Which made no sense at all.

"Well, I'm sure we can sort that out in a minute," Sara nodded. "In the meantime - explain how you think one guy took down the door, took out both guards and carried whatever was there off all in the limited time between when the alarm went off and cops got here. You think he used the crane to break the door and then got out and did the rest all by himself?"

"I think he ripped the door down by hand, or with something a lot smaller than a crane," Allen countered. "Like I said, unexplained."

"You think someone ripped through that door," Diggle raised an eyebrow, "on their own. Queen Consolidated didn't skimp on the security for this building. Or the materials in the door."

"I'm sure they didn't," Allen said, and then he looked at Oliver, blinked, and "Oh - Mr. Queen. I- I didn't think the CEO would be here personally." Allen sounded surprised to see him in person. He cleared his throat, "I'm not saying there was anything wrong with the door, but -" He held up his own tablet, and brought up an image of one of the dead guards, the telltale marks around his neck of strangulation.

"It takes about 1,250 foot pounds of torque to break a neck." he turned the tablet around and gave them a closer look. 

From this angle... Oliver furrowed his brow. He'd assumed their necks had been broken the usual way, hand on the chin and the back of the head, diagonal twist up-

But this... it was like someone grabbed him by the neck and just... snapped it. Like a pencil.

"But here... from the bruise patterns, it's like he broke their necks one-handed." He flipped to the other dead guard, same pattern. "I'm guessing you don't know how hard it is to break someone's neck like that?"

"I know it should basically be impossible if you're not the Incredible Hulk," Sara suggested. 

"And there's this." He gestured back to the concrete, "Judging from what I've read about what this building was capable of - Popular Science did a whole feature on it last year -  and the tripod... I think this was the Kord Enterprises 2BX-900 Industrial Centrifuge." He walked over to them, and Oliver frowned.

People with incredible strength existed. Oliver had run into a few. Snapping necks one-handed... it wasn't impossible. And the bruising pattern could be wrong.

"These weren't cut by bolt cutters, look, it's nowhere near smooth enough. And the cables were bent here, and here, like someone just ripped the centrifuge forward and off the concrete entirely," Allen explained. "On its own... I'd assume machine assistance, but with the necks? And especially here, look at the cracks heading towards the door. One set of footprints." Allen shook his head "No, this was one person. One... really strong person." He added at the very end, sounding like he knew it sounded insane. He hesitated, backtracking, "it's just a theory, but... it's backed by a lot of evidence." 

Of course, was it actually insane? Oliver didn't know the science here, but... it seemed like this Barry Allen had a point...

Oliver stiffened.

No. It couldn't be.

There was no way. 

"That... seems impossible," Sara shook her head. 

"Like I said, similar unexplained elements." Allen repeated. 

"Detective, a word?" Oliver asked Sara, and she followed him, away from the SCPD tech and Barry Allen, Diggle coming with them.

"You're not thinking he's right?" Diggle asked, voice a low murmur.

"I mean, it seems insane, but I did hear about a pit of magic water that makes someone live for centuries, and an earthquake machine nearly leveled the Glades, so..." Sara looked Oliver in the eye, raising an eyebrow.

"You know what this is?" Diggle asked.

"Do you remember when Laurel and I told you about the Island? About Dr. Ivo, and Slade Wilson?"

"...yeah." Sara growled, the hatred she felt for Ivo almost physically coming off of her as she said the word. Then she - "You said he was looking for some experimental super soldier drug Japan made in World War II. And..."

"But you said all the samples were destroyed when your friend-" Diggle frowned, correcting himself, "when Wilson died when you guys destroyed the Amazo."

"They were." Oliver confirmed. "But it's the only thing I've ever heard of that would let one person be that strong. I hope to hell I'm wrong." It felt like an understatement to say that. Allen could be wrong, or some... rogue body-builder turned criminal could be at work. Stranger things had happened.

It was impossible.

Besides, why would it turn up here? Now? Stealing a centrifuge from Queen Consolidated? Even if someone had found some other remnant of the Japanese project that Ivo missed...

Laurel was with him for months. If there's someone else who was looking, he might have-

Oliver shut down that train of thought immediately. He wasn't going to bother Laurel with this. Not without proof. She needed the time, time away from the mission. He wasn't going to take that from her on an impossible hunch.

"From what you said, it drove Wilson insane and made him damn-near unkillable." Diggle suggested, and Oliver nodded, slowly. 

"It can't be Mirakuru, but... maybe someone developed something similar." Oliver reasoned. It made sense. Anyone could invent something, if it was possible. If Japan could make it with 1940s science, couldn't someone trying for the same goal make it now?

It made sense.

So why does it feel like I'm grasping at straws?

"Either way, I don't like the sound of it." Diggle murmured. "If it really is some super soldier guy, and not a crew, or just some... Andre the Giant type deal, then is SCPD really capable of handling him?"

"No... no they're not." Sara said, looking pale. "Not from the way you and Laurel described Slade. Even the little you said. We'd need multiple SWAT teams, and how would I even explain that to anyone?"

Oliver grimaced. She was right. "Is there any way you can play this close to the vest? Keep SCPD from getting too involved... if it turns out...?"

"I can do my best," Sara nodded. She headed back over to the tech, and Barry

"Well, Mr. Allen, since you're here, and the crime lab is always backed up with work, I might as well put you to work helping with this case." Sara said. 

"I'd love to. Should I just go down and get started-"

"Detective, we can't just let someone access the crime lab without permission. There's paperwork, vetting..." the tech started. Sara raised an eyebrow at him, and he backtracked a little, even taking a step back as he went on:  "I mean, I suppose since he works for CCPD we could get past most of that, but it's not just the people that are backed up, it's the machines too."

"Well, I mean, this building has all the equipment I'd need to run any analysis I'd need." Allen suggested. Then he cleared his throat, "Assuming that's okay with you, Mr. Queen," he added.

Convenient. Oliver was surprised the CSI was so happy to make the offer, but he nodded. "If it finds the company's stolen property faster, and more importantly, gets justice for the dead, I'm all for it."

"It's irregular, but it could work." Sara nodded after a moment. "Sure, let's go with that."

"I just need to connect my tablet to your systems so they have the right software to analyze any evidence here, or that comes up," Barry started. "I- I assume you don't want to just uh... you know, give me that access." He gestured, "Corporate secrets and all?"

"You assume right. I'll get someone from our IT department to come down and help you set things up." Oliver nodded. "In the meantime, I'll leave you and the Detective to it."

As he walked away, Oliver pulled out his phone and dialed Felicity's office.

"Hello?"

"Felicity. Do you have a busy schedule today?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, apart from orientation for a new intern..." Felicity started, then she cleared her throat "...I'm gonna have to hand that off to someone else, won't I?" She sighed, "You know, if I keep handing tasks off, people are going to wonder how I got this promotion and keep this position." 

"You'll have to find someone else to handle it, yes. I need you to come down to the Applied Sciences center and help Detective Lance."

"The dead security guards?"

"Yeah. It's an unusual case."

"Unusual. Of course." Felicity clearly got his meaning. "On it."

Robert Queen Applied Sciences Center, Starling City

December 1st, 2013

Despite the other city only being two hundred - no, sorry, 197, apparently - miles away from Starling, Sara didn't really know much about Central City. Even after her mother moved there, after the Gambit. Sara had visited her a few times, before things had gotten bad but only for a bit, and Sara didn't really take in the sights. And then things between her and her mom had soured a lot, and she'd stopped visiting entirely. At least now though there were tentative plans to spend Christmas with her on the table, now that they'd sort of reconciled, or started to.

Offhand, apart from the particle accelerator that kept popping up in the news, and all the research labs that set up there thanks to the city's generous tax breaks, the only thing Sara knew offhand was that the city had much less violent crime than Starling.

Well, that and it always seemed to have much clearer skies than Starling, for reasons that she could not understand.

But all that meant she really had no frame of reference for what the CCPD was like, or why he was here, or why he was so eager to do something so irregular as use the crime scene itself as his crime lab.

Well, you're letting him. Sara pointed out to herself. But she had the excuse of needing to keep this at a remove from the SCPD if it turned out there was a super soldier out and about to commit crimes in Starling City.

Sara, your life is a fucking comic book. She'd long since accepted that, but it bore repeating sometimes.

Something was off about Barry Allen, but if she pressed too hard, especially through official channels...

"Well," Sara said, looking over the inventory again, then gesturing for the uniforms who had helped with checking everything to head out, "it looks like the centrifuge was the only thing stolen."

"That seems odd, doesn't it?" Barry asked, looking up examining the ground around where the centrifuge had been. "I mean, millions of dollars worth of equipment here - some of it certainly more mobile. Even if I'm right, and we're dealing with one, really strong guy... why the centrifuge?"

"It's a good question," Sara nodded. "You're the scientist. What could you actually use a centrifuge for?" 

Barry stood up, and pulled away, frowning. "A lot of things. There's all kinds of practical uses for a centrifuge, but nothing that would be very interesting to most criminals. It's all complex, involved processes, and anyone who needed one would buy one legitimately." He shook his head. "Unless someone was going to..." Barry laughed, "I don't know, try to sell this one to Iran or something, which would be absurd."

Sara felt like she was missing something here. "...why would someone want to sell a stolen centrifuge to Iran?" 

Barry started her, blinked, then shook his head, "Sorry, I-" He cleared his throat. "One of the best ways to enrich uranium for any use - nuclear power or..." he moved one hand in a repeating circle for a moment, in a 'you know' gesture, "weapons is to run the uranium through a series of centrifuges. But the Kord Enterprises 2BX-900 Industrial Centrifuge would be absolutely terrible for that job. I mean, it's not rated for handling Uranium safely, and I'm not even sure it would do all that good of a job of it anyway. It would be like trying to..." he paused, groping for the right words with one hand. "I'm not sure what the analogy would be, but any rogue government's nuclear program would have people that would know it wouldn't work."

Sara was trying very hard not to freak out at what the CSI was saying. He'd basically just casually dropped that this could be some crank trying to make a nuke at home-

"And you didn't think it was relevant to mention - I mean, this could be a domestic terrorism-" Sara started, reaching for her phone, but Barry shook his head, waving his hands in a 'no' getsure as he did, speaking quickly.

"Oh, no - no... I mean, even if some militia group or something was trying to... you'd need a whole lot of centrifuges, and huge amounts of power, not to mention enough uranium...I mean, statistically speaking, the odds would be much more in favor of a terrorist making a dirty bomb, if they could actually get their hands on uranium in the first place, but I mean..." Barry shook his head.

"There's almost no chance of it being part of some sort of attack," he concluded, confidently.

"No chance of what being part of some sort of attack?" Felicity asked.

"No chance of a nuclear attack thanks to the stolen centrifuge, apparently," Sara explained. 

"Well... yeah, obviously. The Kord Enterprises 2BX-900 Industrial Centrifuge wouldn't work for that at all." Felicity shrugged. 

"That's what I told the Detective!" Barry explained. Then he blinked, looking at Felicity. "I - are you here to help me get set up for the-" he asked quickly, gesturing to his gear he'd set up on a table next to a bank of computers.

"I am. Felicity Smoak, Head of the IT department at QC in Starling." She held out a hand.

Barry accepted it, "Barry. Barry Allen. CSI." He held onto her hand for a moment too long, then let go, clearing his throat. "Should we - should we get started?" 

"Good idea. This isn't exactly my normal job, so... I have no idea how long this will take." Felicity followed him over to the computers, and the two of them started talking some rapid-fire tech-speak that Sara quickly lost all hope of following.

Sara quickly found herself wishing she had a magazine as they started running programs and installing drivers or whatever they were doing. Sara knew enough about computers to do the basic troubleshooting and run a virus scanner and stuff like that, and that was about it. The two seemed to be getting along well, assuming she was following the tone of their conversation properly.

After what felt like hours, but what the clock on her phone insisted was only twenty minutes, they stepped back away from the computer.

"So now it just has to finish syncing with your analysis programs, which shouldn't take too long, and then it's set," Felicity said. She leaned back in her chair. "Sounds like you've done this a lot."

Barry shrugged, "Any time my department has a case in another jurisdiction that seems similar to one of ours, they send me down to - you know, take a lot. So I'm making use of other department's labs a lot. Just never used a major tech company's." 

Wouldn't they send a detective? Sara had never drawn the short straw for that, but when the SCPD needed to liaise with another jurisdiction over a related crime or something - Bludhaven, a lot - they sent a detective. Her dad had done that now and again. 

Maybe CCPD did things differently...

Her gut didn't say Barry was... well, up to anything nefarious, but her gut wasn't perfect. But on the other hand, she couldn't poke too hard, because if Barry wasn't here on official CCPD business, but still wasn't hiding something then there went her ability to have faster testing results from the lab at a remove from the rest of the SCPD.

After a moment, Sara fired off a quick text to Diggle. He had to have a former army buddy or something like that that could do some checking into Barry Allen and whatever CCPD had going that was similar, quietly. Just in case.

I mean, Central City does have all those labs, so maybe the super-soldier was made there? 

"Can I ask a question?" Barry's voice drew her away from her phone as she hit 'send' on the text, but Barry was looking at Felicity. The hacker nodded after a moment. "You're the head of IT at the headquarters for the company, and you're down here helping me set these up for my investigation? Isn't that - I mean shouldn't you have more important things to do?"

Sara watched Felicity shrug, "I should, but Oliver trusts me, and so when something sensitive comes up involving our computer systems, he likes to have me handle it myself."

Barry laughed, a little incredulously, "You're on a first name basis with Oliver Queen?"

Felicity rolled her eyes, "He's less impressive when he uses you as his personal tech support for a year, but I suppose my ability to recover his data no matter what he did to his laptops impressed him enough to get the promotion, so it was worth it." She shook her head, "Seriously though, the man is a menace to any computer he gets his hands on. Spilled coffee on more than one, broke another by closing it too hard, got another one so full of malware I was tempted to send the thing to Chernobyl to quarantine it," she listed off several more things, none of which Sara quite understood, but from the look on Barry's face, he did understand the tech jargon.

Well, as excuses for why she's involved here, that makes sense. Sara considered. Perhaps not the most flattering to Oliver, but convincing. Had Oliver come up with it, or was it passive-aggressiveness on Felicity's part, quiet revenge for all the times Oliver used her for his work (with what were obvious lies) before bringing her onto the team?

Felicity was at one of the other computers while Barry focused on the one Felicity had set him up at. Sara's phone buzzed and she frowned. Was Dig getting back to her-

From Felicity? 'Traffic cam footage'. Attachment. Then she realized what it was. Felicity must have pulled the footage - no need to wait for official channels to request it - and found it. One guy, carrying.

Okay, so one more point for the freakishly strong guy theory. Definitely not a crew.

"Barry," Sara walked over towards him. "I just got sent this traffic cam footage. Across the street, three minutes after the robbery. Is this our centrifuge?" She didn't let him see that the video had been sent from Felicity, not from someone else at SCPD pulling it up and sending it.

Barry watched the video, then nodded. "Yeah. And one guy." 

"Looks like you were right." Sara acknowledged, and Barry laughed a little, then cleared his throat after Sara raised an eyebrow.

"Right. If it hadn't been raining so hard at the time, I'd say we could check for trace evidence left by the truck, but..." Barry trailed off. "I don't think that'll work in this case, Detective Lance. I'm about to run the analysis on anything our thief might have tracked in on his boots though?"

"Good. Let me know if you find any-"

"Wait. Detective Lance. You're Detective Sara Lance! You - your sister got kidnapped by Cyvus Vanch in March."

"Yeah..." Sara narrowed her eyes. That wasn't exactly major news. Sure it had come up in Vanch's second trial but -

"I - the Arrow helped you rescue her." Barry went on, seemingly missing her careful, cautious tone. He cleared his throat. "I - that means you've met him. Face to face."

Great. A vigilante fanboy. Maybe that's why he's here? Get a chance to see the local vigilantes in person? In principle, Sara agreed that Oliver and Laurel had accomplished a lot, and were worthy of the praise, but in practice, she'd run into more than a few people who took the idea of being fans of the Arrow and the Black Canary way too far. "Well, more like I helped him. It was stupid of me, but when a sociopath kidnaps your sister, you're allowed to be a little stupid." She shook her head, "IA nearly had my badge over that. But yeah, I did see him, but just the green hood."

"Well, see, green, that's an interesting choice!" Barry started, "In an urban environment, you'd think black, or dark gray would be the better choice for stealth or camouflage." He went on, with several correct theories - that the Arrow had trained in a forest environment (which, from what Sara knew about the Island) and the Black Canary had originally trained on more lethal weapons than her tonfas. And his theory they had partners behind the scenes, including someone with a lot of computer science skills. 

Also true. Though his comment about carbon-aluminum composite was worth filing away. She wouldn't tell Oliver how to make his arrows, but it could be Oliver just didn't know metallurgy enough to know. God knows Sara hadn't known that was a thing.

Sara and Felicity both tried to affect disinterest, before Felicity asked why he was so interested in the vigilantes, which had led to him telling them about his mother, murdered when he was eleven, and how they never caught the guy.

Well, as reasons to be interested in vigilantes go, I've heard worse. At least Laurel and Oliver weren't inspiring Barry Allen to try and put on a mask of his own or something. Oliver had hated the idea of those copycat 'Hoods', and Laurel wanted to inspire people into helping save their city in all the little ways she couldn't, rather than make more masked vigilantes running around. In the end, you could only solve so many problems by beating up criminals.

The solemn moment was broken from Barry's computer beeping. He looked at it, frowning. "Well... that's weird."

"You found something in the footprints?"

"Yeah. Sugar."

"Sugar?"

"Well, there's a sugar refinery not too far away," Sara considered. "That could mean he's spent time there. Maybe he works there, or..." Then she pulled out her phone again and looked at the traffic cam footage again. The truck. She couldn't get a great look at the logo, but didn't that word look like the back end of 'sugar'? 

Furrowing her brow, she checked a recent app the department had set up, to check crime reports all over the city that got added to the database at SCPD.

"Well, it looks like the sugar refinery got one of their delivery trucks stolen, and this," she brought up the logo of the company, showed it to them, and then switched back to the traffic cam footage. "Looks like the same logo," she added. "Good work," she nodded to Barry. With the crime lab as backed up as it was, that could have taken days. 

Sara didn't have the kind of pull to demand a rush job.

"I'll call this in. You keep looking for more evidence in what we have, and stay on hand in case... I dunno, our perp ditches the truck." Sara told Barry. 

"Right." Barry nodded, and Sara moved away, calling Oliver and speaking quietly as she filled him in on the latest developments. That done, she hung up and turned, keeping an eye on Barry for the moment. Though, from the way Felicity and Barry were leaning in close, looking at a computer screen and talking quickly, Felicity had plenty of reason to keep an eye on him.

Okay... yeah, I'll admit it, they'd make a cute couple, Sara suppressed a giggle at the sight of them. It was like both of them were trying not to flirt, but couldn't help doing it, just a little.

Streets of Starling

December 1st, 2013

The second Sara told him that the truck used in the robbery from Applied Sciences was involved in stealing from a blood bank, Oliver knew he should call Laurel.

He didn't. 

She needed the time, they'd just spoken that morning, Laurel wanted to come back and knew she couldn't yet, and Oliver couldn't take that from her.

Not without proof that this was Mirakuru, that someone had either developed the serum anew, or... someone, somehow, had picked up where Ivo had left off. 

And Oliver didn't have that proof.

Yes, Oliver couldn't think of any other reason, short of Diggle's 'I hope I'm joking' suggestion of vampirism, that a freakishly strong person would steal vast quantities of blood right after stealing an industrial centrifuge. Something that could be used to prepare said blood to be the final component to Mirakuru. 

But technically, another explanation could exist, right? 

Bullshit. 

But there had to be another one.

Because there was no way someone had picked up where Ivo had left off. Slade was dead. Ivo was dead. His test subjects were dead. All the Mirakuru on the island, destroyed.

And the odds of someone just stumbling on the serum, on their own?

So there had to be another explanation.

That mantra kept running through his head as he gunned it on the motorcycle. He was nearly there - he turned down a street and then onto another one. He saw it - the Simmons Sugar Refinery truck just ahead.

He drew close as they hit the underpass, Oliver sped up, moving to the side, trying to get up alongside - nearly there...

With a screech, the car pushed to the side, Oliver killing his speed for a moment so he didn't slam into the truck... he moved, other side, and the car moved again, just enough to get in the way, nearly making him crash right into it.

We'll see about that... Oliver moved to the side, as the truck started to compensate again, He let go of the bike's handles just long enough to notch and fire an arrow into the rearview mirror, shattering it.

Up and forward, alongside -

No door.

The entire driver's side door had been ripped off, cleanly.

Mirakuru. Oliver swallowed. 

Locking the motorcycle into its acceleration, Oliver leapt, grabbing onto the top of the truck by the tips of his fingers, clinging - clinging - pressing his feet against the truck, he pushed, jumping to the side, hitting the cab of the truck, grabbing the top.

The driver wore a mask that covered his face and eyes, completely. Oliver kicked once, twice, right in the jaw - no effect.

The word 'Mirakuru' barely had a chance to run through his mind again as the driver pulled a hand off the wheel and punched - the fist caught on his stomach, and Oliver felt all the air leave him as he fell back, holding onto the open doorway for dear life, dropping dangerously close to the road, nearly dragging along-

Oliver grabbed back on, leveraging himself up, punching again.He just needed to get the driver off the wheel... Once, twice, three times.

The third punch actually looked like he felt it as his head moved to the side, he seemed to pause a moment - Oliver's hand reverberated with every punch -

And then, before Oliver realized what was happening, he was away from the door, on the hood of the car, and the driver had punched through the glass. Oliver tried to grab at the hand as it tugged him into through the broken windshield, glass scraping at his arms and shoulders, none of it sharp enough to break the skin through his outfit-

Oliver slammed into the passenger seat, wind knocked out of him for a split second. Oliver grabbed an arrow from his quiver and, holding it at the base of the head, stabbed it into the driver's leg. 

Holding the arrow in place, Oliver reached for another arrow - if he could just get it-

The driver punched into his ribs, once, twice, Oliver could almost feel his bones cracking under the force as he was thrown back, his grip on the arrow not releasing, tagging the whole thing with him as he was pushed into the remaining door, back hitting it with enough force to break it from the truck entirely-

It hit the street, sparks flying as it slide across and away from the truck as it sped off, protecting him from having the skin of his back ripped off by sliding across the pavement at this pace-

Oliver's whole body exploded with pain as he slammed into something solid, but at least with some give. It took him a moment to realize he'd slammed into a pile of trash bags next to a trash can.

Breathing hurt, his back hurt, his chest, his head-

Nothing felt broken, at least not completely, but with adrenaline still pumping, Oliver couldn't be sure.

Mirakuru.

There was no denying it now. The force of those blows, the contemptuous ease behind them, the way kids and punches right to the face had almost no effect, the difficulty in actually getting deep into the driver's leg with the arrow...

Oliver knew exactly what it was. He'd seen it, felt it before.

Mirakuru. He didn't know who, he didn't know how...

It was Mirakuru. And there's almost no chance someone just... accidentally reinvented it. 

He couldn't pretend. Somehow, some way, some scrap of it must have survived on the island. Maybe there'd been more in the sub they'd missed? Maybe Slade had hidden a sample away, before -

Before you killed -

Wait. 

Mirakuru.

Almost as if his mind came to a screeching halt, it hit Oliver: The driver had been very much sane, with a specific focus and task, not to mention very much alive. For that to be the case, he had to have been hit with a strong sedative right after the Mirakuru... 

Oliver looked down at the deformed arrow in his hand, covered in blood halfway up the shaft, and even a few bits of flesh stuck to it.

If there were traces of the sedative in his blood...

Then they could figure out what he had access to, and trace him. 

All Oliver needed to do was get the drop on the driver. I beat Slade. I've learned so much more about fighting since then. Three more years of hell on the island, and a year and a half of being the Arrow.

He could do this.

The Foundry, Starling City

December 1st, 2013

"Ow!" Oliver's hands were balled into fists and he barely managed to avoid pulling away entirely as Sara applied the tape to his ribs. 

"Oh calm down," Sara countered. "And stay still," she added as she finished up, stepping back. "There." 

"Thanks," Oliver tugged a hoodie on carefully. "It was Mirakuru," he added. Saying it aloud made it seem more real, even after he had received very real, very physical proof of it. After calling Diggle to bring a car and meet him - the motorcycle was trashed - the first thing Oliver had done was call Laurel. She needed to know that somehow, some way, Mirakuru was back, and here, in Starling.

But his call had gone to voicemail immediately - Laurel must have turned her phone off. He left a message, but he had only been able to be so specific, mentioning only something important involving 'a miracle' had happened. 

"Mirakuru?" Felicity looked away from the computers, where she'd been trying to backtrack through the traffic cams to trace where the truck had gone. "Japanese for 'miracle'?"

"Yeah," Oliver sat up, biting back a groan. Felicity hadn't been there for the explanation Laurel and he had given Sara and Diggle. "It was an attempt by the Japanese in World War II to make super soldiers. The submarine carrying it ran aground on the Island during the war... Laurel and I destroyed all the samples, there shouldn't have been any trace of it. But..." he shook his head. "Clearly some survived, either there or... or somewhere else."

"Super soldiers." Felicity laughed, a somewhat frantic, higher pitch. "No wonder you couldn't stop him. Now we have evil Captain America running all over the city." She laughed again, "I'm really starting to regret moving to Starling after college."

"I beat someone enhanced with Mirakuru before," Oliver assured her, assured Sara and Diggle, both of whom seemed worried - though perhaps not as much as Felicity. They know how to fight back, shoot a gun, get away... Oliver made a mental note to suggest that Sara and Laurel show Felicity some moves, something she could use to get away. She was working with them, she could end up in danger, if someone tracked them to the base, or realized Felicity was helping them...

Really should have thought of that sooner.

"How?" Diggle countered, gesturing to the bloody arrow on the table next to him. "I mean, look at the way just stabbing him in the leg bent that arrow. Somehow, I don't think shooting him in the legs and shoulders is gonna stop him."

"Enough shots would," Oliver disagreed. Then he let out a breath, "You're right. It won't be easy. But taking on someone stronger than you in hand to hand never is. Fortunately... if we can figure out where he's hiding, or where he's going, I can get the drop on him, take him out at range." He'd have to target the head, the eye, the neck... all places he'd have the best chance to either kill... or do enough damage to leave him in serious risk of dying...

At least if they got too close. If he could attack from enough distance, Oliver knew he'd be able to fire enough arrows, fast enough to slow him down,take him out without as much chance of him dying...

But it's not like someone like this can be held in a prison cell. Dr. Ivo's cure... Oliver couldn't even begin to imagine who he could trust to try to make that. Where would someone even start?

"Which," he went on, picking up the clean part of the arrow carefully, "is where this comes in. In order for Mirakuru to work properly, someone dosed with it has to be hit with a strong sedative. Otherwise... assuming they don't die, they're insane." 

Sara took the arrow gingerly. "If we can figure out which sedative they're using..." 

"We can figure out where the next robbery will be, or where they already stole it from." Diggle finished. Sara pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket, opening it up and putting it over the bloody part of the arrow. It wasn't big enough to hold all of it, but...

"I'll get this to Barry." Sara nodded. 

"I'll take it to him," Felicity volunteered quickly. She cleared her throat. "There's not much I can do here, I can't figure out where the truck is now. I might as well do something else productive with my time."

"Sure. Be careful with it," Sara handed it to Felicity, who grimaced, even looking a little sick at the sight of all the blood on it, and being so close to it. Despite that, she took it, grabbing her things with her free hand and heading out the side exit, so no club goers saw her carrying a blood-covered green arrow.

Once she was gone, Oliver looked at them. "That's... not normal for Felicity."

"No, but I'm pretty sure she just wanted the excuse to hang with Barry a bit more," Sara suggested. Oliver looked at her, eyebrow raised. "I think she has a bit of a crush. Which, I get. Barry's cute, in a tall, lanky nerd sort of way." She laughed. "Felicity doesn't have much more of a social life than the rest of us. Barry seems a lot like her, I suppose it tracks."

"About that..." Diggle hesitated, then, "I heard back from my buddy in Central. About Barry." Oliver narrowed his eyes, looking at him, then back to Sara. 

"Why didn't you tell me you were suspicious of Barry?" Oliver bit his tongue a moment, inhaling. Something had been... off, or odd, or strange about the CSI. 

"Because it wasn't serious." Sara shook her head. "Or at least, it didn't seem like it was." She frowned. "Just some things that didn't seem to make a lot of sense. But it was easier to have him do the tests then try to get a backed up crime lab to leap my case to the front of the line. For my case, and yours." Sara emphasized.

Oliver inhaled again, clenching his jaw, then looked to Diggle. "Do we have anything to be worried about?"

"Maybe not," Diggle allowed, before explaining what he'd learned about one Bartholomew Henry Allen.

Robert Queen Applied Sciences Center, Starling City

December 1st, 2013

It had taken some doing, but Sara had talked Oliver out of kicking Barry off this investigation entirely. Yes, fine, he'd lied about why he was here, technically, and Sara intended to ask him about that, but assuming his answer was satisfactory... Sara was content to let him finish out this investigation. It was... maybe not the most cautious move, but it was hardly a bad one. Oliver had given her a 'this is on your head' look, which, fine.

If this all goes wrong, sure, I'll take the blame. 

If nothing else, this case was giving her something else to focus on than the deadline Vanch had given her for stealing the heroin. I still have two days. Sara had time to try to find... some other solution. Or... 

She shook her head and stepped inside the building, walking towards where Felicity and Barry were. It looked like they were already testing the blood. The machine they were standing by looked like the one the crime lab used, anyway.

Just more expensive, and newer.

"...while we wait for that..." Felicity started. "There was - I wanted to ask you." She paused, flushing, and Sara stood back, arms crossed, watching them talk. "See, I have this invitation." She explained, fidgeting. "Since I'm a Department Head, it's a work function..." she let out a breath. "It's a party. Tomorrow."

There's a party tomorrow? Oh, right, Moira Queen's party. Thea had mentioned it. Also mentioned how she thought it wasn't a great idea, same with her mom, but Oliver had been insistent, and there it was. 

She did get off, and the public was at least sympathetic after what Quinn pulled - still kind of surprised the DA didn't fire him completely - but... still. It seemed a bad idea to Sara too. 

"And... I have a plus one." Felicity added. With Barry facing Felicity, his back to her, Sara couldn't see the man's expression. It seemed like he was into her too, but... "And - well... I mean, if you're gonna still be in town tomorrow, I thought - I thought you'd make a good one. A good plus one, I mean." She flushed more, cheeks red. "If - if you're interested, anyway."

"I- that sounds like fun." Barry said, laughing softly, sounding like he was smiling. Then, "There's not gonna be dancing, is there?" He asked, concerned. "I - I'm just not too good on my feet."

"There might be a little, but we don't have to dance," Felicity offered. "It'll be a chance to have some fancy food on Oliver's dime."

"I've been to Queen parties, for the company and the family. They always have excellent catering," Sara added, walking towards them again. She gave Felicity a thumbs up and a smile, before Barry turned to face her as well. "How goes the blood sample testing?"

"It's running now." Barry explained. "So - the Arrow is working this case too?"

"So it would seem, yeah." Sara nodded, shrugging. "It's a hazard of law enforcement in this town. Unless you're working the really boring homicides - you know, Jack shot Bill over Jill," she quoted an old saying, referencing the very straight forward domestic crimes. "Then there's a good chance the Arrow or Black Canary is going to get involved at some point."

"Still, and he just left the arrow behind?"

"Well, I'm guessing our killer ripped it out and dropped it, but yeah," Sara demurred. "How long until you figure out what sedative he has in his system?"

"It's hard to say, it depends on how long it's been in his bloodstream. And what sedative. Some metabolize faster than others... it's possible it might all be gone by now, but hopefully not." Barry equivocated. He paused, then, "Why are we looking for a sedative? Do you know how-"

"Better question:," Sara interrupted, "did this plan of yours really assume no one at SCPD would call your Captain and figure out you weren't here on a 'similar' case?"

Felicity's head snapped up and she looked at Sara, then at Barry. Barry's expression fell. 

"Barry? What is she talking about?"

"I-" Barry started, then swallowed. "I..." he looked at the ground, one foot grinding into the concrete floor. "You'd be surprised how often people don't," Barry admitted. "Call CCPD and check, I mean."

"Well, I didn't either," Sara admitted, watching him look at her quickly, eyes wide, mouth open, "I did some checking because I was curious why you suggested using the equipment here. And why a CSI would be sent to look into a similar case, rather than a detective. But as far as your Captain knows, whatever excuse you gave for not being at work is still valid."

"Food poisoning," Barry offered, swallowing. 

"You lied? Why - why did you even come here?" Felicity asked, the hurt obvious in the way she glared at him, hands clenched at her sides. 

"Good question." Sara asked, raising an eyebrow pointedly, carefully. Barry said nothing for a long moment, Sara staring at him, and finally, he broke first.

"I told you, about how my mom was murdered, when I was eleven." His voice was quiet. "And that they never caught the killer." He inhaled, slowly, swallowing. "The thing is... the police - they think they did."

Sara folded her arms in front of her chest as Barry went on.

"They arrested my dad for it..." He looked at Felicity, then Sara, eyes wide, earnest. "You have to understand: He didn't kill her!" 

Easy thing for someone to pretend to themselves... Sara considered, lips pursed. "What makes you so sure?" She had to assume he was getting to a point about why he was here.

"Because I saw it. The police didn't believe me. Just some kid, lying to protect his dad." Barry scoffed. "Or traumatized, imagined things. That night... something just came into our house. It was... it was like a tornado. A blur of yellow... but... there was a person. Like they were moving fast - impossibly fast. Who - or what... my dad went to fight it. I tried to run towards him, get to my mom... and suddenly I was twenty blocks away from our house. In the blink of an eye."

What the hell? Sara's first thought was the obvious one - the one he acknowledged. Some kid, imagining things. Lying to cover for his dad.

Her second...

Again. My life is a comic book. Her sister was a masked vigilante. There was a man with a magical fountain-of-youth type deal called the Lazarus Pit, a name right out of cheesy science fiction. And she was currently investigating a case of an honest to god super soldier made using a serum designed during the Second World War. The whole plot seemed ripped right out of Marvel's back catalog. 

So was it actually impossible?

"They never believed me. No one ever has. But I know what I saw. I know it was real." Barry insisted. He gestured to where the thief had ripped down the door, replaced now by some kind of fancy plastic plugging the hole for now. "As real as someone ripping down a metal door with his bare hands!"

Sara inclined her head to the side, nodding a bit. 

"So... you... what? Go around, looking into strange, unusual cases. Impossible-seeming things?" 

Barry nodded. "Anything that seems to defy explanation... police- most police tend to just take the simpler, 'obvious' answer, rather than accept that something impossible could be happening." He cleared his throat. "I mean- you-"

"No, you're right. Most police are. Especially if the answer does seem so obvious." Dead wife, living husband, no one else present. Obvious case.

"My dad is serving a life sentence, for a crime he didn't commit. Whoever or whatever killed my mom could still be out there." He swallowed. "Maybe I can't find proof on who killed her. But if I can make sense of just one impossible case. Prove that it's real..." he trailed off.

Maybe someone will listen? Someone will believe me when I say my dad didn't kill my mom? Sara finished mentally. 

"I'm sorry I lied to you." Barry finished. He straightened up and moved towards his stuff on the table, next to his bag. He paused, halfway there, looking at Felicity - who had lost the wide-eyed glare. She had that look, when you were holding back a few tears, like you had something caught in your throat. "Better find another plus one," he told her, sounding genuinely regretful.

Felicity's mouth opened, shocked, and she looked not at Barry, but at Sara, glaring once more, at her.

Oh, come on, give me more credit than that, Felicity! 

"Barry, I didn't say you should leave," Sara interrupted, as he started to put his tablet into his bag. She kept talking as Barry paused, looking at her again, confused even more, brow furrowed. "I wanted to know why you were here, and now I do. You lied, yeah, but you can't leave..." Sara held one hand up, palm facing her, lowering it after a moment. 

"Well, I mean, you can, if you want, but one, I'll be stuck relying on a backed up crime lab, on a case that all the forensic people who work there will relegate to the 'impossible' and some super-strong freakshow will still be out there, running around, free in Starling after killing two people here, and leaving three of the workers at the blood bank in the hospital. And two," she ticked both items off on her fingers, "you have a date tomorrow, and it would be a shame if Felicity was stood up."

Felicity's expression went from upset to surprised to grinning with a few tears in her eyes within seconds, and Barry just stared at her dumbly for a long moment, then closed his mouth and cleared his throat.

"So you're not- I mean- you're not going to kick me off this case?"

"I probably should, if I was doing this by the book," Sara admitted. "You're lucky I'm the one on this case. But yeah, I'm not kicking you off the case, or out of Starling. I mean... you're right. Something impossible does seem to be happening here," she gestured to the plastic covering, to where the centrifuge had been. 

"From the damage to this arrow, it's almost like it got fired into concrete," Felicity added, and Sara snapped her fingers, gesturing at her

"Another good point." Sara nodded, then let out a breath, walking towards Barry. "Look, I care more about getting this guy off the streets than anything else. I get the feeling that if we can figure out who he is, or where he is, we'll probably end up with more than enough evidence that any... irregularities from your involvement won't come up."

Playing it fast and loose in all the ways you hate when other cops do it, Sara ignored that voice. She knew she was on the side of right here, and...

Well, somehow, she doubted this would be ending with a trial anyway.

Sara held out a hand, "So what do you say? You get to help solve this case, and your Captain can be none the wiser. Deal?"

Barry hesitated, then looked over at Felicity. He smiled a bit, then looked back at her, accepting her hand.

"Deal."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 9: The Impossible Laid Bare

Senator James Mackenzie: Director Henshaw, why was the DEO not involved in Central City the moment it became clear that metahumans were extant in the city? Are not Metahumans by their very nature 'Extranormal' and thus under your division of ARGUS's jurisdiction?

Division Director Hank Henshaw: At the direction of Director Waller, I did send several of my agents to Central City to investigate the reports and establish a permanent presence in the city, but I recalled them after General Eiling asserted priority in the city and the then Secretary of Defense backed him. As ARGUS nominally operated under the DoD at the time, Director Waller decided it wasn't worth starting a turf war given the situation, especially given the circumstances on the ground in <DATA EXPUNGED FOR NATIONAL SECURITY>.

-Partial declassified excerpt from the 2016 Closed Senate Hearings about the 'Eiling Affair', released pursuant to a FOIA request in 2020 by the Central City Citizen.

Queen Manor, Starling City

December 2nd, 2013

Apparently even with the whole multi-million dollar lab at his disposal, identifying the sedative in the Mirakuru-soldier's blood had taken a day, and then some. According to Sara, Barry was confident it would be finished in a few hours, but...

Well, Felicity seems pretty happy he has the time to be here for this. Oliver sipped at his glass of grape juice. The staff at these events understood now not to serve him actual wine - OIiver refused to let anything dull his reactions, especially right now - but Oliver Queen, CEO, had to look a bit the part. And that meant drinking expensive wine, so they found a juice that at least to a casual observer would look like wine.

Well, Felicity had complained a few times about how much helping him had killed what little social life she'd had, so he didn't begrudge her this. 

"It would seem owe you a bit of an apology," Rochev's voice was behind him, and Oliver turned, sipping at his glass again. His co-CEO had dressed well for the occasion, between the necklace, earrings and dress, every inch the high-powered woman at an event. Her look reminded him a bit of a few old photos he'd seen of his mother, from before he'd been born. 

"Why would you say that?" Oliver asked. 

"Well, I told you to stop thinking like a son, and more like a CEO, but maybe more people in the city are willing to give your mother a second chance than I thought." Rochev gestured around the ballroom. It wasn't as crowded as the events from before the Undertaking, especially ones when Oliver was a teenager, or a perpetual college dropout. 

But... it was a reasonable cross-section of Starling City's elite. All here to celebrate Moira Queen's well-earned acquittal. 

"Well, your warning was...not entirely wrong," Oliver allowed. He had hoped more people would come than this. "And you were trying to help."

"I still won't work with her as co-CEO," Rochev added, carefully. "There are limits to how much risk I'm willing to expose this company to, especially since we're finally getting the stock price to go up steadily."

"I don't you'll have to worry about that," Oliver murmured. His mother had made her disinterest  in taking her position as CEO back clear, even though some of the board had been amenable. He saw Thea standing alone - hadn't Roy been dancing with her like five minutes ago? "Excuse me." He handed his half-empty glass to the bartender and went over to his sister.

"Where's Roy?" Oliver asked quietly. "Was he- uncomfortable with... all  this?" The first time he'd invited Laurel to an event like this, she had been very uncomfortable surrounded by Starling high society. And she'd had the preparation of going to Balloi Prep and rubbing elbows with the upper crust for years anyway. 

And the leap from her middle-class home to Queen Manor would have been ever so slightly less than the leap Roy was making from his background in the Glades to...

This.

"No - no..." Thea shook her head. "One of his friends, back in the Glades. They used to know each other, way back, and one of her friends has gone missing. He's been trying to help her find him... he went to go give her some moral support." She crossed her arms in front of her chest for a moment. She seemed very unhappy with this, more than just 'I'm at a party without my boyfriend' unhappy.

"Do you not believe him?" Does she think it was a sign he was cheating? Oliver wouldn't have pegged Roy for it. But if he was... Oliver resisted the urge to tighten a hand into a fist. He didn't exactly have a lot of room to throw stones if - if - Roy was cheating, given his past, but Thea was his sister, so...

"I do - I just..." Thea let out a sigh. "I don't think his friend likes me all that much. So between that and... appearances, I'm here. I'd rather be with Roy, wherever he was." She gestured around her. 

Oliver relaxed. Even allowing for his rap sheet, Roy seemed a much more responsible kid than Oliver was at his age. Especially in the last half-year. 

"We need to be here to support Mom," Oliver told her, and Thea rolled her eyes. 

"I know. And I'm glad Mom didn't... I'm glad she got off, and that at least some of her old friends came out to support her, but all this..." she shook her head. "Do we really need a string quartet? And to blow money on the super expensive wine and these expensive decorations and..." 

Thea let out a breath. "Ever since I started dating Roy... I mean, I'm not saying being rich is evil or something, I like my nice things but... do we really need to be this rich?"

"If you want to start giving away your trust fund when you turn 21 and get control of it, I'll support you all the way," Oliver joked. "I'll even let you crash on my couch." Then he frowned. "I don't... I don't disagree with you." Having money gave Oliver options, resources that he'd used, that Laurel had used, as they fought to protect this city, but the obscene wealth afforded to him as a Queen - even if he had put most of what he had into saving the company at this point.

"Unfortunately... we have to maintain some appearances" Oliver held back a sigh. Apart from his penthouse, and the stuff he needed for his work as the Arrow, Oliver didn't exactly have a lot of expensive needs, so he tried to put as much of his money as he could into the Queen Foundation. But there was only so much that could do and -

Well, there were reasons other than public image he supported Sebastian Blood. The man was the only major politician in the city trying to help the poorest people of this city.

"When Laurel gets back from Central City, maybe you can talk to her. You could do some volunteer work with the Foundation, or one of the charities we work with? And I am serious - you don't have to keep your entire trust fund to yourself once you get it." Oliver assured her. 

"I don't plan on it, but... I mean, is this fair? That we're this rich because our great-grandparents got lucky?"

Oliver shook his head, "Well, if you believe what Dad always said about how we got started, it wasn't all luck, but... no. I don't think it's fair."

Robert Queen Applied Sciences Center

December 2nd, 2013

One day, Vanch, I am going to laugh while I watch you get the goddamn chair. That thought, as pleasant as it was, was cold comfort against the feeling of revulsion deep in her gut. 

Can I really call myself a cop after this? Any and every misgiving she'd had about all the laws she'd broken helping Laurel and Oliver paled against this. She'd stolen evidence, she'd obstructed justice, lied on official paperwork... the list went on.

Sara cleared her throat, forcing down the bile that threatened to rise. Two kilos of heroin, sitting hidden in her car.

Stealing it from the evidence warehouse was simple. All she needed was an exuse, a case to look at and then she was allowed into the storage space. There were cameras, but not enough, not in every aisle, and not in the aisle she needed. 

Two kilos. You'd think it would be harder to slip that inside a coat pocket, given the sheer amount of money that represented, but nope. One bag in one pocket, one back in the other. 

Bulky coat, move with a purpose like you belonged, and you could get where you needed...

It shouldn't have been that easy to steal evidence. And there wasn't much Sara could do to fix that. How could she go to the Commissioner or anyone else in authority and go 'any detective with an excuse can get in and steal stuff from a shelf that has no camera coverage' without implicating herself?

Vanch would be calling with instructions on where she wanted it, and god knew what else. Knowing him, it would be something worse.

Sara closed her eyes and took a slow breath, pushing open the door to the Applied Sciences center. She had something more immediate she needed to do, she had to focus. As she stepped inside, she saw them. Barry and Felicity had come back right b\here after the party at Queen Manor - which she'd had to miss - and Felicity had texted that Barry was close to isolating the sedative as she'd left the evidence warehouse.

Lanky or not, Sara had to admit that Barry looked sharp in his rented tux, and Felicity looked nice as well in her dress, her hair done up. They make a cute couple. Sara wondered if anything would come of it once Barry went home, but it wasn't really her business.

"Yes sir," Barry said into his phone, pacing back and forth. "Yes, I am aware that this isn't the first time." Pace, pace. "Yes sir, I do value my job, very much so." Barry nodded, and Sara could only guess that his boss had seen through Barry's claim of food poisoning. I wonder how? And he'd been caught lying about this before? How was Barry still employed as a CSI?

"I'll be on the next train. Tonight. Yes." Barry hung up the phone, and looked at Felicity, then blinked as he realized Sara was there as well. "Well - my boss just found out I lied about the food poisoning, so-" Barry cleared his throat. "If I want to stay employed, which I do..." He trailed off. "The results came back right before Director Singh called - the sedative in the man's blood is Ketamine."

"Thank you. Would it help if I called your boss and explained you really have been helpful to the SCPD?" Sara offered, but Barry shook his head.

"I still lied about being out sick. And you're bending the rules to let me help you-"

"Because you got me the results I needed. So thank you." She held out a hand, and Barry accepted it, giving her a firm handshake. "If you do end up losing your job in Central, I'm sure the Crime Lab here in Starling could find a place for you."

Barry laughed a little, giving a quick glance over at Felicity. "I- Thank you." He shook his head. "But I think I like Central City too much. Starling... well, there's all the rain and -"

"All the violent crime?" Felicity offered. 

"No, no - I just - a lot of the best labs in the country are based in Central, not to mention the new Star Labs particle accelerator..." Barry shook his head. "I'd rather stay closer to the action. Not that - not that there aren't good things about Starling." He cleared his throat, eyes darting to Felicity for a moment.

"I'll leave you two to say your goodbyes. Thanks again Barry." Sara nodded, quickly returning to her car and pulling out the secure phone for vigilante work.

"It's Ketamine," Sara said, once Oliver answered. "That's a controlled drug, and with how much blood this guy stole -"

"There can't be a lot of places that have it in large enough quantities." Oliver agreed. "Thank you. I'll take care of it."

"Be careful. Have you had any more luck getting ahold of Laurel?" Sara hadn't actually tried calling her sister herself, too distracted by guilt. 

"None. Her phone just keeps going to voicemail. Does your mom know where she is?" Oliver was trying very hard not to sound worried, but - Sara noticed it. Probably because she felt it herself.

"No," Sara let out a breath. "All she says is that she and Laurel had an argument in the morning yesterday, and then Laurel left, saying she was going to stay in a motel for a few nights, then never called back or anything. Mom went into panic mode once I told her that neither of us could reach her."

Sara took in another breath. "What do you think is -"

"I don't know." Oliver shook his head. "I don't know, but I know Laurel can take care of herself. If she's turned off her phone, or let it run out of battery or - whatever, it's for a good reason."

"I'll keep trying. Just - just stop this guy before he hurts anyone else, please. And - Ollie, be careful."

"I'll stop him." Oliver promised, hanging up.

Alley Near Verdant

December 2nd, 2013

There was only one place in the city that had enough Ketamine for all the stolen blood: an ARGUS disaster bunker on the edge of the city. The only question was if he was going to get there fast enough. 

This delay, the piece of black cloth left behind by Roy saying he needed to talk to the Black Canary - a signal that was only supposed to use if it was urgent -was costing him time, but Oliver owed it to Laurel to at least hear him out.

Oliver saw his sister's boyfriend waiting, and Oliver dropped down into the alley. "What is it?" Oliver demanded of the other man, letting the voice modulator do it's work.

Roy stiffened, "You're-" He shook his head a moment. "Where's the Black Canary?"

"She's unavailable," Oliver answered. "Do you have information?" That was how Roy had been helping her, and doing well on that score, as well as taking seriously the idea of training to fight better. The idea of actually inviting him onto the team though, as Laurel seemed increasingly willing to do-

That would risk Thea finding out. Unless he tried to force Roy to break up with her, and that seemed like a recipe to make his sister hate him for a long while if she found out about that part.

"No - I need her help. I guess your help - is she okay?"

"She's fine. I'm short on time, Harper. What do you need?" There was only so much he could do, and the Mirakuru soldier took precedence, but - he couldn't burn Laurel's bridge with him unless he had no choice. He'd hear Roy out.

"Sin. She's the Black Canary's friend too. She couldn't get in touch with her either, so she reached out to me, to see if I could. I couldn't either but -" Roy started, then, "One of her friends. The cops think he OD'd, but - Sin thinks, hell, I think it was murder."

Roy and Sin? He had to follow up on this, one way or the other. "Why do you think so?" Oliver could look into it - heartless as it was to think, if this friend of Sin's was murdered, then at least... at least he could see to it tomorrow, after he'd stopped this super soldier. 

"One, he wasn't an addict. And two..." Roy took out his phone and turned it to Oliver. It was a photo of a young man, dead, blood come out of his eyes like he'd been crying the stuff as he died. "This doesn't look like any OD I've ever seen, and living in the Glades, I've seen them all."

Mirakuru. 

A rejected test subject. Not only was someone continuing Ivo's work, whether they realized it or not, but they were also continuing with his ethics. Using people up, and tossing them out like garbage. Sin's friend was probably poor, homeless or nearly so. Perfect prey for anyone looking to test a serum like Mirakuru.

Is the one behind the experiments our thief, or is there someone behind him? Taking someone empowered by Mirakuru prisoner would be impossible, so if there was someone else...

"You're right that it wasn't an OD." Oliver said after a moment. "You need to stay away from this." Oliver added.

"You know what this is?" Roy demanded. "You know what happened to him?!"

"I do. And it's more dangerous than you can handle-"

"I'm not helpless!" Roy shot back, keeping his anger under control, but barely so. Oliver stiffened, readying his hand to grab and arrow and load the bow if Roy needed a warning off. "Being the Black Canary's eyes on the street isn't exactly safe, and I know you like to spend more time going after white collar criminals and their private security, but here in the Glades, we live with danger every day!"

"This is bigger than you, or Sin's friend's death," Oliver growled. "If you get involved, you will get hurt." 

"What happened to him?!" Roy demanded. "I have to tell Sin something. People in this city are dying, and I can't just keep standing and watching and gathering information!" He was nearly yelling now. 

"Whether or not you're ready for more is up to the Black Canary," Oliver shot back. Oliver couldn't tell Roy everything - or even all that much. The other man didn't seem willing to back down. "Whoever killed Sin's friend was using him for medical experimentation," Oliver finally said after a moment. "Because he was poor, and disposable and they thought he wouldn't be missed."

"That's - that's insane! You -" Roy started, protesting. Oliver wasn't surprised. People didn't just disappear off the street to be used in medical experiments. Not even at it's worst did that happen in the Glades, not like that. It was the sort of thing up there with urban legends about waking up in a bathtub full of ice and missing a kidney.

"You're serious."

"I am. I'm already working on stopping them. So don't get involved."

"You don't know who exactly they are, do you? If you did, they'd already have arrows in them." Roy realized, proving he was entirely too clever for Oliver's taste right now. "If you knew more about how Max got taken, where he was-" Oliver cut him off, before he could go on:

"Harper, I mean it, if you get involved, you will get hurt." Didn't this - Oliver wasn't trying to shut him out.

"I can handle myself," Roy said confidently. "I promised the Black Canary I'd be here eyes and ears, and I'm going to do that. If-" Roy cut himself off as Oliver pulled an arrow from his bow and aimed it at Roy. 

Oliver let the arrow fly - it passed right by Roy's right shoulder, missing him by barley an inch - or it would have, had Roy not moved to dodge. It wasn't a terrible move, ducking to the left, and down, nearly dropping into a roll to get away before he realized he wasn't being shot at anymore.

"What the hell was that!? You could have-"

"I missed on purpose, Harper." Oliver growled. "I can't stop you from looking into this." he wanted to, but short of shooting an arrow into the kid's leg and crippling him until he healed, Oliver couldn't think of an option. 

"No, you can't," Roy agreed. "You're insane." 

"The Black Canary said you were taking training seriously. She was right." Oliver explained. "But you're still not prepared for this." Could anyone be? 

"What is this? Why are you so sure I can't handle myself?" Roy demanded, then shook his head. "No, I don't care. I can handle myself, I know how to be careful." Roy turned, starting to walk away, then, "Max went missing the day of the Blood Drive last week, here in the Glades. He donated blood for extra cash."

The perfect place to find a victim. That drive was sponsored by Sebastian Blood, but... anyone could have snuck into that, to grab someone as they were leaving.

"...thank you," Oliver finally said. 

"No more warnings about how in over my head I am?"

"You can't see daylight from where you are already, but I can't stop you, so I won't. Just think about the reasons you have to stay alive and uninjured." Oliver did not want Thea to lose her boyfriend, or for Roy to end up seriously injured if he went up against the kinds of people that were willing to meddle with Mirakuru, or anything even close. "Watch your back."

Roy bit his lip a moment, then nodded. "You too, Arrow. You- you're my second favorite, you know? After the Black Canary." Roy turned and hurried away, down the alley.

I think that embodies the phrase 'damning with faint praise,' Oliver considered. There were just two vigilantes. 

ARGUS Disaster Depot, Starling City

December 2nd, 2013

The depot door was already broken open when he got there. Delayed by Roy. But the sugar truck, a replacement door in place of the one that had been ripped off before, was still out there. 

He thinks he can do this, be this conspicuous, because nobody can stop him. And right now, no one could. No one but him.

Oliver scanned his surroundings as he stepped in, slowly, eyes alert. If he could find the Mirakuru soldier first...

But he also needed to know who was behind this. If they were taking people off the streets to test their work... this was a network. An organization. Not just a mad scientist and one super soldier. He can't be taken prisoner, but-

A bolas arrow could buy him time. 

The shelves loomed overhead, lined with crates, barrels, boxes, all sorts of supplies that would be needed in the event of a major terrorist attack, or worse. But they didn't use the supplies here after the Undertaking. Not needed, or had Waller decided the secrecy being maintained was worth it? Knowing her, it could have been either.

Oliver stepped carefully, slowly - movement, above, a sound, and Oliver picked up his pace, darting forward and turning - a crate, larger than him, crashed down where he'd been the second before, and Oliver could see the other man on the tops of the shelves.

Was he waiting for me? Or just anyone? Oliver didn't have time to worry about that. He fired., Again, and again, arrows missing, hitting the metal railings of the shelf-tops, as the man dropped down, then down again - another miss, and the super soldier was on the ground in front of him,

Oliver fired again, standing on front of one of the shelf supports - he reached to his quiver, hand tightening around a Bolas arrow. A punch - easily telegraphed, and Oliver moved out of the way. The Mirakuru soldier might be strong, but he was a brawler, not trained any anything, relying on just brute force.

Nothing like Slade. Slade had been a deadly combatant before Mirakuru, and a monster after. This - this man was all force. 

As his opponent turned, bracing to charge at him, Oliver notched and fired the bolas arrow in one fluid motion, hitting his mark, wrapping around his neck, sticking him to the metal pole behind him - at the last second, despite the force of the cord, the other man got his hands around the cord, holding it tight.

"Who are you!" Oliver demanded. He only had a few seconds. Oliver readied another arrow. The eyes. The neck. But he had to hit, and he had to hit in just the right spot. 

At this close range, there was no room for error. If he missed, the other man was on him. One good blow, just like before, and Oliver knew -

He needed to keep the other man at bay.

"Merely a follower." The man spoke with an almost apocalyptic zeal, pulling against the bolas. 

"Of who!?" How much could he get from him? Oliver stepped back, hands on another arrow, ready to fire.

"My brother," was the reply, as informative as anything else a true fanatic had to say. Some sort of cult, dedicated to... what? Super soldiers? Laurel would know what to say, what to ask - the League had more experience attacking and destroying cults, she'd -

She's not here. I need to find out what I can.

"Was he the one who gave you the Mirakuru? The one who injected you, made you stronger!?" Oliver demanded, nearly yelling. 

"No." The soldier ripped the bolas off his neck, "he saved me with it!" He charged, but Oliver was faster, two arrows, one after another, hitting him in the feet, sticking him to the ground, at least for a few more moments. Oliver pulled back as his opponent tried to grab him, punch him, roaring in frustration.

Oliver fired, getting the man in the shoulder, but then he ripped the arrow from his shoulder and threw it at Oliver - Oliver ducked, but so to did the mirakuru soldier, snapping the arrows off in his feet -

Shit. Oliver fired again, diving back, missing entirely as the other man charged. Oliver ducked and rolled to the side, heart pounding in his ears as he fired again - he hit, in the other shoulder this time, but it didn't slow him down. Oliver jumped, grabbing onto a shelf above. Just a little distance, just a little time to go for the eye, the throat, pin his hand.

"We were warned about you, and your tricks," The Mirakuru soldier growled. "My brother knew you'd come." Oliver pulled up, onto the shelf-

A hand, around his ankle, at the last moment. Oliver kicked - his heel connected with something, it felt like the other man's nose, but even as something crunched under his boot, his one foot felt like he'd kicked solid concrete, and then - Oliver was flying, crashing into plastic barrels.

Vision blurred, pain flaring around his body, Oliver pushed himself up, rolling a little as he saw the outline of the other man coming at him. Oliver braced, knowing he couldn't get to his feet - the kick came, Oliver rolled as it hit, the blow still knocking all the air out of his body, but it threw him back with less force-

The other man was on him again, Oliver barely noticing him move- Oliver punched uselessly at the other man's face as he was lifted, - Oliver kicked with both legs, one hand grabbing the front of his armor, lifting him up - the drag on the armor, tightening the material, it was around his neck, not quite choking - air cut off a little, Oliver gasping -

Oliver's feet connected with the man's chest, to no avail, but with his other hand, Oliver reached back, once, twice, finally grabbing the fletching of the arrow he wanted, needed-.

"There's nothing you can do but fail, Arrow. My brother will transform this city!" Oliver pulled out the flashbang arrow and averted his eyes as he set it, one second, and threw it at the soldier's face -

Snarling as it went off, Oliver felt his body sail through the air again, throne - and then his back hit something, many somethings, plastic, collapsing -

Sharp, a prick in his thigh, ears throbbing, eyes shadowy - averted or not, the flashbang did it's work -

He couldn't tell the fate of the other man, but no follow up blow, no additional attack came - 

Breath - Oliver's chest was tight, throat - breathing shallow. He tried, struggling to his feet, but his body refused to respond, to work -

He barely managed to move his hand enough, pressing the emergency beacon at his collar.

Oliver stilled, saving energy, trying, needing to keep his breathing steady. Vision slowly returning, shapes, outlines, colors - two syringes, his leg, somehow emptied under the force of the impact, breathing...

He had - he had to stay conscious, as long as he could. He had -

I can't die. Not now. Not like this. I won't-

Oliver just needed to buy time-

Needed...

To buy...

Time... 

Greyhound Bus Station, Starling City

December 2nd, 2013

Gut churning, Sara slammed the door to the bus station behind her as she stepped out. She'd made sure there were no cameras, no witnesses -

Vanch had picked without cameras too. She was no good to him suspended from the force, or arrested. But then- he could have his own cameras. She'd checked, done everything she could -

But whatever she did, she was giving him rope to hang her with.

I just need an opening. Some... Sara had left a bug in the locker with the drugs. Vanch would spot a tracker, but a bug might pick... something up. A clue. A snatch of conversation, a bit of a phone call. It was a slim chance now, but all she needed was for Vanch to slip up.

Sara dialed the Burner Vanch had called her from half an hour ago. He'd ditch it soon, if he hadn't already, but she might be able to at least -

"Cyvus Vanch, Blackmailer Extraordinaire, how can I extort you today?"

"Do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice, you son of a bitch?" Sara snarled, unable to help herself. Damnit. Sara - 

Sara couldn't keep antagonizing him. Not if she wanted him to drop his guard. But he'd never buy an attempt to be friendly. And she couldn't stomach it. There was no way she could try to fake some sort of rapport with the bastard.

On the other hand-

Vanch chuckled, "No, I really don't, Detective. I take it you've done what I asked?" Sara breathed in sharply, closed her eyes a moment, and spoke again.

"Yeah. It's done." Sara managed to keep her voice level.

"Ah, there we go. Keeping that temper under control now, are we? Nicely done. I don't have any more favors I need done right now. I do have some information about Brick's new operation, but I don't think you've quite earned that yet." Vanch chuckled. "Keep behaving, and I think some mutual 'friends' of ours may find themselves a little full of holes and with broken eardrums, no?"

"I told you before. They're not going to just take out your competition for you."

"We'll see. We'll see." Vanch hung up, and Sara got into her car, resisting the urge to toss her phone against the asphalt, watch it break and-

Sara had barely started the car up when another call, on a different phone came. Felicity. Sara pulled it from her inside jacket pocket, bringing it to her ear. "Felici-"

"It's Oliver. He's-" Felicity's voice was choked, frantic, "He lost. He's hurt - I don't know what got in him, the syringes are coded and the computer was destroyed I can't look up to find out-" The mental whiplash from one mood to the next as Sara cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear was almost enough for Sara to feel it, feeling her throat catch, her rage at Vanch melting away - Felicity didn't sound like -

Something as wrong. Very wrong.

"Felicity, start from the beginning, slow. What happened to Oliver, is he-"

"He's alive, but - he's barely breathing he -" Felicity cut herself off, trying to take a breath, but it was mostly shallow. "We're leaving the Argus depot - Oliver lost. The... the super soldier got away, with the Ketamine, and - he must have thrown Oliver into boxes of syringes. He got jabbed with two, and most of the contents got in." Even after the attempt at a breath, and with more information, Felicity was babbling almost. Almost too fast.

"What did he get hit with? What-"

"That's the problem. I don't know! They've got some kind of ARGUS code identifying what's what, and the computer that could look them up is broken! Without knowing what he got hit with, what's making him - we can't take him to a hospital. Not like this. But - Sara, I -I think Barry could figure it out."

Barry?

Sara almost rejected it out of hand. Barry wasn't a doctor. And they couldn't just tell him that Oliver was the Arrow, that she was helping him. He did work for the police, even if in a different city!

"Please, Sara, it's this or the hospital, and then - he's outed as the Arrow! And then Laurel would be next!" Felicity pointed out, and Sara gritted her teeth as she realized the hacker was right about that too. 

A hospital wasn't an option. Oliver and Laurel had all sorts of supplies in the Foundry, ready to use for almost any eventuality for exactly that reason, but if they didn't know- and Oliver was out of his herbs from the island that he'd been able to use before. 

It was a hail mary.

But it was the better option. If the Hospital was the only option - she wanted Oliver to live, even if he got caught but -

"Barry said he was leaving. He's probably already on the train to Central City by now!" Even as she said it, Sara was already pulling out onto the road. The train station was a block from the bus terminal - she could check. 

"Barry - everything he's told me - he is absolutely terrible at being on time." Felicity said hurriedly, a small laugh, sounding almost hysterical given the frenetic energy of her voice. "The last train to Central left ten minutes ago, and he would have had to take the bus from the Applied Sciences center to there - there's a good chance he-"

"I'm already on my way. If he's there, I'll get him. Are you sure we can trust him?" And yet, they didn't have much choice...

"You heard him talking about the Arrow yesterday, and about his mother - he's..." Felicity laughed again, another little hysterical giggle, "He's practically an Arrow and Black Canary fanboy. And - I can't be one hundred percent sure, but do you know of anyone else we can-"

"No, I don't." Sara interrupted. "I'm there, if he's there, I'll get him and bring him to the Foundry, one way or another. Just keep - just keep Ollie alive until we get there. Please." Sara hung up the phone, then immediately dialed Laurel again as she pulled into the train station parking lot, the late hour meaning there were almost no cars. She barely even let the car stop before she opened the door, getting out.

Come on Laurel, pick up the goddamn phone already! 

Voicemail. Voicemail again.This wasn't like Laurel to - to be so unreachable! And now - now of all fucking times?! 

"Laurel, answer your phone, turn on your phone" Sara hissed into the speaker, "Oliver's hurt, he's - there's Mirakuru in this city, or nearly so and I'm about to effectively out you to a CSI so - pick up already!" Sara hung up, pressing on the red end call button harder than she needed to and barreled into the lobby of the train station. The lights at the ticket counter were off, the lobby's lights were mostly off and then-

"Barry!" Sara called out, seeing him there, sitting on a bench, half-hunched over, hand on his forehead, she ran towards him.

"Detective Lance-" Barry looked up, anxiety and confusion warring on his face as he stared at her, eyes wide, baffled-

"I need you to come with me. Now." Sara snapped. "Get up, bring your stuff, we have to go, now." Sara grabbed Barry's arm and pulled him to his feet, ignoring his protest.

"Detective, this - what the hell? I need - I have to get back to Central, I can't help with your case-"

"The next train doesn't leave for Central until 8:30 am," Sara gestured to the sign above the ticket counter, digitally displaying tomorrow's train times. "Barry, I need your help, I need you to come with me." She spoke as quickly as she could and still have her words come across clearly, letting go of Barry's arm - for now.

"What - what is this about, Detective? I can't - what do you need me for? I have to-"

"Barry, you can come with me voluntarily, or I can make you come with me," It took all she had not to shout the words at him.

"Am I under arrest?" Barry's mouth was agape, too confused and lost to really protest as Sara grabbed his bags. With her free hand, Sara pulled back her jacket and revealed her handcuffs at her belt.

"Do I need to put these on you to get you to come with me?" Sara forced herself to take a breath. "Barry. I need you to come with me." she said again, voice quieter, a little less hard-edged. "Please."

Barry opened his mouth, hesitated, and she could almost see the back and forth that had to be happening in his head, and then he closed his mouth, took a breath, and nodded. "Okay. I'll come with you."

The Foundry, Starling City

December 2nd, 2012

"Verdant? What - isn't that Oliver Queen's nightclub?"

"Yes, it is. Your point?" Sara said as she opened the door, gesturing for Barry to follow him. The club above was active, but Sara ignored that, leading him around to the alley in back, the back entrance to the basement. As she reached the door, she turned, then faced Barry, covering the keypad.

"You're going to have questions. A lot of them. Save them for after."

"After what? I already have a ton of questions, Detective," Barry countered, and Sara shook her head.

"You'll see." She opened the door, gesturing for Barry to go in first. They were halfway down the stairs when he saw it. Oliver, on the table - barely breathing, attached to a heart monitor that was going slow, terrifyingly slowly. Sara's breath stopped for a moment as she saw him. The arrows, freshly forged, and waiting to be loaded into a quiver. The two mannikins, one holding Laurel's unused costume, the other empty. The boys. The tonfas, the computers, the training gear-

And Diggle, and Felicity. Diggle, standing by the table, watching Oliver, jaw set grimly, and Felicity, pacing frantically, looking on the verge of tears.

"Please, Barry. Save him." Felicity locked eyes with him, her voice urgent, but without demanding just... raw. 

Barry stared for a moment, then nodded. "What happened? What's wrong with him?"

"We don't know - he was - he got injected with something, some kind of medicine, but too much, or just when he didn't need it or-" Felicity explained. She held up two syringes, and Barry looked at them.

"I don't recognize this coding. Right, okay -" Barry took a breath. He ran a hand down his face. "I - I've ever worked on a dead person. Right, right, right," Barry approached the table, examining Oliver. "I need a flashlight, or penlight or-" Felicity grabbed one from the cart and handed it to him, slapping it into his palm really. Barry took it, peeling open one of Oliver's eyes and shining the light in.

"Okay, okay... what's his pulse?" Barry asked Diggle, who gave a number. It was slow. Too slow, or it sounded like it - Sara didn't know. Barry went over to the cart, then grabbed a clean syringe, a needle, "There's a couple of possibilities - I need to check his blood. Pull up his sleeve," Diggle complied, and Barry was about to stick the needle in when the heart monitor went off. 

Oliver was coding.

"Hold him down!" Barry pleaded, and Sara rushed to the table, her hands on one side, Diggle's on the others, holding him in place - Barry stuck the needle in, pulling out a small sample of blood. He held it up to light. "Intravenous coagulation."

"Which would be?" Sara demanded, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the heart monitor going off. 

"His blood is clotting, it's unnaturally thick, like syrup. We need to thin it." Barry ran to the cart, looking at it. "Start chest compressions, now." He added, and Sara switched to holding Oliver down on both shoulders, or trying to as Diggle started doing just that.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Barry looking around, desperately, one hand going through his hair, down the back of his neck and then he walked quickly, over to the corner, picking up a box of -

"Rat poison? Are you kidding, that'll kill him!?" Diggle demanded, still compressing Oliver's chest.

"It's a natural blood thinner, and it's the only option you have. Just the right amount and it will let his blood circulate properly." Barry very carefully added some to water, looking back at Oliver, biting his lower lip - into another syringe a bit of the mixture went. Breathing quickly, shallowly, Barry injected the mixture into his arm. The heart monitor was still screaming at them, Oliver still coding, Sara couldn't breath herself, Felicity had her fist over her mouth, looking like she might start biting into her knuckles, Diggle was still compressing -

Suddenly, a beep. Slow. Small. Again.

Barry sagged and Diggle stopped the chest compressions.

"You got his heart going enough... the warfarin in the rat poison should be able to do it's work now," Barry murmured, and Felicity let out a soft gasp of relief as she nearly fell into one of the chairs. Sara could finally breathe, and she did, letting out a long, slow breath. She pulled away from the table.

He's alive. She didn't have to tell Laurel - whenever the hell she answered her fucking phone! - that Oliver was dead. She didn't have to find a way to give the same news to Thea, or god forbid Moira. No funeral, no...

And I don't lose my closest friend I'm not blood related to. Because Oliver wasn't just her sister's boyfriend. He'd always been a friend, even, when they were younger, that friendship had been initially predicated on Oliver's friendship with Laurel, and they'd always been closer as friends even before dating.

But after the last year, working alongside Oliver and Laurel, helping them, keeping their secrets...

Ha. Even in the privacy of her own brain, the laugh sounded hollow and sardonic. I suppose Felicity isn't the only one this work has killed the social life of. What friends Sara had had on the force, or even outside of the SCPD, she barely socialized with. She hadn't exactly been dating a whole lot even before Laurel and Oliver 'came back from the dead', but since she started helping them...

I haven't even had a one-night stand. Sara hadn't realized just how much of her life had become bound up in this, the work.

If Oliver had died... she'd have lost a friend, and she'd have lost... a whole lot more than that, really. It would have destroyed her sister, and it wouldn't...

It wouldn't have left me in all that great a position either. 

But Oliver wasn't dead. Sara let out another, longer breath, as she really let that thought sink in. She looked around again, and saw Barry and Felicity hugging, tightly for a long moment, and then Barry pulled away.

"Barry." Sara called over to him, and he looked at her. "Thank you." She told him, voice soft. Then before she even realized what she was doing, she'd stepped over a few paces and hugged Barry as well - not as tight, or as long as Barry and Felicity, just a moment of...

Heartfelt gratitude. 

"Thank you." She said again, pulling back from Barry. 

"You're welcome." Barry nodded. He looked at Diggle, and after a moment, the two men exchanged a handshake. Barry looked around the Foundry, then at Oliver, the green arrow outfit still on him. "So. Oliver Queen really was the Arrow? The SCPD had it right that one time?" He looked over at her, then the Black Canary costume on the mannikin. 

"...oh." Barry murmured. He was putting two and two together. It was unavoidable, really. He took a breath. "I'm leaving this basement alive, right?"

"You are." Felicity said quickly, standing up, then she glared at her, then Diggle. "He is."

"He is." Sara agreed. She looked at Barry, swallowing. "Our choices were taking Oliver to a hospital, or the hail mary play. Felicity trusted you. I trusted you."

"I won't tell anyone." Barry promised, and as far as Sara could tell... "I... the Arrow and the Black Canary are doing good work. And... I mean... you guys trusted me. With - this." He gestured around them. "I won't betray that trust."

"That's good to hear," Diggle nodded.

Barry looked over at Sara. "You said to hold the questions until after. I have...a lot of them."

"There's a lot that it's not our place to answer." Sara cautioned. She looked at Oliver's still unconscious form, but at least she could see him breathing now. It was bad enough they'd told Barry Oliver's - and Laurel's - identity but... there was a lot Sara knew neither of them would want a stranger to know. There was a lot Sara didn't know, just surmised, or guessed. Inferred. Deducted. Hypothesized. She listed off a few more synonyms in her head.

"That said..." Sara took a breath. "Ask your first question?"

The Foundry, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

It had been some time since Oliver had woken up to an unfamiliar face looming over him. As he opened his eyes, vision still blurry, he felt the hard surface of the table in the Foundry underneath him. Not a hospital. 

The face above him - who - who was in the Foundry that wasn't supposed to-

Oliver lunged, wrapping his hand around the throat of the man - the gasp from the other man as Oliver cut off his air, and then Olver realized he was familiar. The CSI - the one who had lied to get involved in-

What is he doing here! 

"Oliver, let him go!" Sara shouted, and she and Diggle were on him, pulling his hand off Barry, pushing him back, away from the CSI. Oliver pushed their arms away from him, sitting up, swinging his legs off the table as Barry moved away, Felicity moving to stand between them.

Oliver took a breath, mind racing as he quickly inventoried the situation.

One: He was alive. They'd gotten to him, the Mirakuru soldier hadn't killed him, and he wasn't in a hospital. 

Two: None of his bones actually felt broken. His ribs ached, his back felt like he'd been hit by a truck, and his whole body was sore just standing up. Nothing he couldn't deal with.

Three: Barry Allen was here in the Foundry, and Sara, Diggle and Felicity didn't seem surprised, and had defended him. So they'd invited him in. 

Four:...

Oliver took a breath. Barry's here, he knows my secret, and if he knows Sara knows - It wasn't that hard of a stretch from there that Barry would guess Laurel was the Black Canary. They had no right to tell him, no right to put Laurel in danger-

But Sara wouldn't have done it if she thought Barry would put her sister in danger by telling anyone. And Diggle and Felicity...

Oliver forced himself to take another breath. If Barry's here, it's for a very good reason.

"I'm sorry," he told Barry after a moment. "I didn't expect to see you here and I-" Oliver inhaled. "And I overreacted."

"I'll say," Barry shot back, voice raised a little, as he rubbed his neck, then he flushed, other hand running down the back of his head. "But - yeah, I guess... I guess that makes sense."

"Why is he here?" He looked to the others. Felicity had a guilty look on her face, turning away from Oliver for a moment. Then she set her jaw and looked back at him, meeting his eye.

"When we found you after you activated the beacon, you'd been injected by... something." Felicity held up two syringes. "No idea what was in them and the computer system was too damaged to look up the codes. You were barely breathing..." She looked away. "And the hospital wasn't an option."

"So Felicity suggested Barry." Sara supplied. "He saved your life." 

Barry cleared his throat, "I was able to figure out that whatever got in you served as a strong-acting blood coagulant. Fortunately, you had a good, fast-acting blood thinner on hand." He gestured to the box of rat poison on the table next to him, and Oliver nodded, slowly. Warfarin was a blood thinner. He wouldn't have been able to figure out a safe dosage on his own, but he supposed it made sense a trained CSI might be able to.

"Not that I'm not grateful but..." He looked at them all - Felicity, Sara, Diggle. "You told him."

"It was that or let you die," Sara shot back. 

"It wasn't your secret to tell." Oliver shot back, then he exhaled. "And by telling him - he knows-"

"Yeah, he knows about Laurel too," Sara agreed. "Not hard to guess once he knew you were the Green Arrow."

"They haven't actually told me that much about either of you," Barry volunteered, raising his hand a little to catch Oliver's attention. "For what it's worth."

Oliver wanted to yell at all of them, for risking... everything. When they had added Diggle, Oliver had vetted him to make sure. Laurel knew Sara and spent months trying to make sure Sara could be trusted with this. Felicity too, carefully leaving breadcrumbs and testing just how much she could be trusted.

But he couldn't -

"Thank you," he told Barry, simply. 

"You're welcome." Barry nodded hesitantly. "You - you're not going to put an arrow in me, right?"

It would be simpler. But unless Barry was actually going to tell anyone...

"Are you going to tell anyone? About me? About the Black Canary?" Oliver stepped forward, legs still shaky under him, 

"I would never," Barry replied, and Oliver searched the other man's face. There seemed to be no deception. "I understand... I understand what it's like to want to find solutions outside the law."

His mother. Sara had given him a summary of Barry's side of the story, about what had happened to his mother. How his father had been framed.

Someone, moving within lightning. It sounded impossible, but Oliver had seen the impossible before. And the impossible was back here in Starling City all over again, so...

"And you... you're both doing good things, for Starling. Violent Crime, not counting the Undertaking itself, or what you and the Black Canary do to criminals, is down in Starling City by 23%, and people are almost half as likely to die in robberies, muggings, carjackings or as bystanders to fights between criminals." Barry went on. "That's over the last year."

Oliver frowned a moment, brow furrowing. That... 

It wasn't that he didn't know - or at least, hope - that things were doing better, but... was he right? 

"It's not all perfect - multiple casualty attacks are up by-" Barry continued, then he cleared his throat. "Sorry. I uh... I study a lot of crime statistics."

"I haven't run the numbers, but he sounds about right," Sara nodded.

"I mean... so yeah. I won't tell anyone." Barry concluded. 

"Good." Oliver nodded. Barry seemed to be completely honest, sincere. That was good. Oliver heard a phone buzzing, and realized it was his, sitting by the computer. He picked it up, the text from his mother asking him to come see her. "Is Laurel on her way back?"

"Still can't get ahold of her. Mom's freaking out. She must have turned her phone off, or let it run out batteries or - I don't understand, but..." Sara shook her head. "It was all I could do to convince Mom not to report Laurel missing. She's told Dad, and now he's freaking. This isn't like her."

"No. But... there's an explanation," Oliver knew there had to be one. Laurel was fine. She could take care of herself, given anything that was going to happen in Central. After killing the Count, she'd needed time to process. The fight with her mother just... threw her off, or something.

It was... it had been over 24 hours since he'd first tried and failed to reach her, but...

"But, we have to focus on the situation here. The Mirakuru soldier - he got away with the Ketamine. He has what he needs to mass produce the serum now. We have to stop him." 

"I might be able to help with that," Barry offered, holding up a small piece of... plastic? It almost looked like tape, or the container of a band-aid? "Felicity and Diggle said it looked like you'd been choked when they found you, so I checked, and there are oils leftover from the... super soldier's hand when he grabbed you." He chuckled softly, "I can't believe I'm actually saying that." Then he cleared his throat. "Sorry. But... with the right materials, I might be able to get some useable fingerprints."

Making himself useful immediately. 

"Good." He took a breath. "I need to - I'll be back as soon as I can. Until this serum is off the streets, we have to focus on this."

"I'll walk out with you," Sara offered. "I need to fake a police report that explains why Barry isn't back in Central." Oliver looked over at her, then at Barry.

"My boss realized I didn't have food poisoning last night, and told me if I wasn't back in Central on the next train, I'd be fired. I missed that train... why is why I'm here, but..."

"I called the CCPD and claimed that Barry, despite not being here on official CCPD business, had become a material witness in my case and I needed to keep him here for another day, maybe two. The Captain there - I'm not sure he believed me, even once I convinced him I was actually from SCPD, but he told me he wanted a copy of the relevant report once it was written so..." Sara shrugged. 

"Thank you for that, by the way," Barry told her. "For... you know, lying on a police report for me. Because - I'd like to keep working as a CSI."

"Lying on a police report will be the least of my sins at this point, Barry." Sara shook her head. "I'm sure you're used to hearing this from detectives but if you can double-time it on those prints?"

Barry cracked a smile, "I'll go as fast as I can." 

Oliver nodded again, and he walked up the stairs with Sara, out the side exit. "I may have another lead. One of the side effects of failed Mirakuru injection can be bleeding from the eyes." Oliver explained quietly. "Almost looking like tears of blood. It turns out, a friend of Sin's turned out, just like that." Sara frowned, then slowly nodded as she registered the name, remembering who Sin was.

"Before I went to the ARGUS depot, I had to talk to Roy. He left a sign that he needed to speak to the Black Canary, that it was an emergency. I had to at least see what it was about. Apparently Sin reached out to him when she couldn't find Laurel, when her friend went missing."

"And he was given Mirakuru?"

"Roy showed me a picture he took of the body. It's Mirakuru," Oliver swallowed. "I tried to warn him off, but he didn't seem entirely interested. Either way, he did say that this friend, Max, went missing at Sebastian Blood's Blood Drive last week. It would be a perfect place to find people to test the serum on. Only the healthy could get their blood drawn." It burned at Oliver to think someone might be using Sebastian's effort to improve the city, to help save lives and fill the city's undersupplied blood banks as a way to find test subjects for Mirakuru. 

"You want me to see if anyone else went missing around the event?" Sara asked, and Oliver nodded. "I can check, but... Sin's a street kid right? Was her friend another street kid, the kind of person..." Sara hesitated, then went on: "The kind of person no one would miss?" 

Oliver knew Sara didn't actually believe those words, or mean it that way, but he still hated the phrasing. Everyone mattered - there was only so much that could be done to help everyone, help all the people in the city, but no one was a nobody.

"Just find out what you can. Maybe someone reported someone... strange hanging around. Nothing actionable, but-"

"I'll see what I can do."

The Foundry, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

Though his mother had made her unwillingness to serve as CEO or even take up any responsibilities in Queen Consolidated clear, she had been moved by the fact that as many people as they did showed up to celebrate her acquittal with her. While his mother had decided that she didn't think there should be another Queen Christmas Gala, wanting a smaller, more intimate gathering, she had begun drawing up plans for events in the coming year. 

She had then drafted Oliver into helping provide some assistance in drawing up the schedule for those plans, even turning his own argument that if things were returning to normal... Oliver had wanted to at least turn those events to be fundraisers, or at least some of them, for the Trust, but Moira had pointed out that acquittal or not, it might not be best to associate her name with an event like that. Especially if Oliver wanted to keep working with Sebastian Blood.

And then there's what she had to say about Sebastian. His mother's little lecture there had been... missing so much about what was happening in the city. She was worried Oliver was too publicly close to the Alderman. 

'I understand the need to rehabilitate the family name and to get him to stop being so aggressive against you and our family, but at the same time, Alderman Blood is exactly the sort of class-warfare, rabble-rousing politician that scares off businesses from this city. And he's hardly the sort of man a Queen should be friendly with.'

She had been more nuanced than that in the details, but the point was it was fine to do charity events, but as Blood's campaign for mayor became closer to being publicly official - and rumor was he'd be announcing within the next few days - Oliver shouldn't be seen as being so close to him. 

He'd tried to make her understand - Blood was the only person in the city's government speaking for the people of the Glades, the people his mother had hurt. And she still thought Oliver needed to distance himself. For the good of the company, and the good of the family's reputation.

And yet, you still don't want to actually take up any position in the company. Oliver hadn't said it to her, but if she was going to insist on forcing him to stay as CEO, he wasn't going to let her dictate to him how he acted as CEO. Working with Blood had worked well for the company's public image, improving stock value, which pleased Rochev and other investors, and it let him actually do some real good for the city instead of constantly just trying to get richer for the sake of being rich.

All in all, the whole conversation, amidst everything else happening, was leaving a sour taste in his mouth.

"Do we have anything?" Oliver asked, as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Knowing they probably hadn't gotten much sleep, he had brought coffee for all three of them. "I don't know how you like your coffee, so I just got you a regular, and some creamer and sweetener," Oliver said, as he set the coffee down in front of Barry.

"Oliver Queen, bringing me coffee?" Barry blinked, "Just when this day couldn't get more surreal." Oliver held back a quiet laugh at the other man's words as he handed Felicity and Diggle their preferred coffees. 

"You saved my life, I think that merits a bit of coffee," Oliver offered. 

"Thank you," Barry sipped at the drink for a moment, then nodded. "I did get some fingerprints. Felicity's running them now." He cleared his throat. "Look, I know it's none of my business, but I have to ask, just so I know if my guess was right: Did you train in a jungle or forest environment?" 

"...what?"

"The hood." Barry explained, gesturing to his costume on the mask. "Green isn't actually a great color for urban camouflage. There's - there's a lot of theories, on the internet, about why you use green, and I've always thought that it's because you trained in a forest or jungle environment. The way you use your grapple arrows and ziplines to maneuver on to and off of the high ground, it all - it all made sense, anyway."

Oliver cleared his throat. Oliver knew that people talked about the Arrow and Black Canary sometimes. Hell, when he'd first started, '#starlingcityarcher' had quickly become a trending topic on twitter - and that had been... weird. And there was speculation about the Arrow's identity all over social media. Oliver tried to avoid it as much as he could. 

"People talk about my tactics online?"

Barry started at him for a moment, as if baffled by the question, then nodded. "Uh. Yes. They do. And argue about it. A lot." Barry's eyes widened, "I won't - I'm not going to tell anyone you told me or - I just... I have to know."

"...yes. I was. A forest environment." It wasn't why he wore the hood, but it was why the hood was green. Yao Fei, and then Shado had worn it. And now he did.

"I knew it!" Barry did a little fist pump, then, "In your face HanShotFirst1991!" Then he flushed, hand on the back of his neck again. "Sorry. Like I said, I won't tell anyone, I just..." Barry cleared his throat. "If I didn't just kill all my credibility, can I ask a more practical question?"

Oliver inhaled slowly, then nodded. The kid was helping and... seemed earnest. It was... kind of refreshing actually, in a weird way. Really weird. And...

"Why don't you wear a mask? I mean... I don't - I'm not trying to tell you how to sharpen your arrows - though you really should switch to a carbon-aluminum composite - but... grease paint doesn't do that much to actually hide your identity." Barry cleared his throat again. "I mean - you know this, I'm sure."

"I do." Oliver nodded. A mask was fine for Laurel, given that she fought her enemies up close. But Oliver's needs were different. He'd tried it, knowing a mask would do better. It hadn't worked very well. "But any mask I'd wear would need to conform perfectly to my face, so it wouldn't impair my ability to aim while on the move."

Barry nodded slowly, "That... that does make sense. I didn't think about it from that perspective..." he started say something about 'Compressible microfibers', but as he spoke, Felicity spoke up:

"Found him!" She moved away from the computer screen, a face now on it. "Our super-soldier is Cyrus Gold. His prints are in the system from a short stint in prison when he was 19 for robbery, but he's been a remarkably model citizen since then. I don't have an address yet, but I'm digging, and I'll run facial recognition on feed from traffic cams. Maybe we'll get lucky that way too."

Oliver nodded. "Good." Of course, even if they found him, Oliver needed another option to even the odds. He'd tried keeping a distance, but that hadn't worked as well as he'd thought. If he really could get the drop on this Gold, then he could win, but that... well, he couldn't count on that. He had to plan for if he was the one surprised, as he nearly had been before.

The flashbang did its job. But I can't just rely on those to stop him. They don't last for long, and they're a double edged sword. But..

The flashbang arrows were a good start. There's no time to design a whole new type of arrow... 

But there might be time to improvise. Badly, but he needed something to even the odds. 

He couldn't expect another hail mary to save him if he lost again.

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 10: Blood, Sweat and Cries

HanShotFirst1991:  Just when I thought I couldn't be any more of a fan of the Black Canary, she has superpowers! Check out the attached traffic cam video! 

MotivatedWerewolf16:  What are you talking about? Look at her throat, she's got some kind of gadget there, it's glowing all blue, like her old sonic device. She just made something new. Pfft, superpowers. This isn't a comic book.

HanshotFirst1991:  Dude, have you been paying any attention to the stuff happening in Central City? And not a comic book? We've got masked superheroes fighting crime and a man tried to artificially generate an earthquake last year!

TheKingofFyff:  He's got a point, Werewolf, I think we're past the point where 'this isn't a comic book' makes sense. But really, HanShotFirst, superpowers? I'm not saying there isn't some weird shit going down in Central City, even if the mainstream news isn't talking about it, but science is still a thing. But yeah, Black Canary's clearly got some kind of new gadget, easier to use than something she tosses around and has to collect after. I wonder how she's got it wired to her actual screams so perfectly. And look at how she made that goon fly when she hit him with it! 

-Excerpt from a Conversation on Musingsonthemasked, a Superhero/Vigilante fansite, February 18th, 2014

Alderman Blood's Office, City Hall, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

Sara didn't like doing this, it was far too direct. But the truth is, she had no probable cause to pull any information on Blood's blood drive, especially since he was an Alderman. And she had no favors she could call in with anyone who might be able to help her. So all she really had as an option was to go right to the source.

"Is the Alderman in?" Sara asked the young man at the front desk. She held up her badge, "If he's not too busy, I would like a word with him. He's not under any investigation, I'm just trying to get some context from him that might help with a case." Sara needed to cover her ass. She was still on all sorts of thin ice with I.A. If Blood made any sort of complaint that she was... going after him, or that the SCPD was trying to 'oppress' him and his message of change for the city - especially since transferring funds from the police to social services was a proposal he'd pushed repeatedly and would no doubt be a central plank of his inevitable and very likely soon announcement to run for Mayor...

Not that I'm not against the idea in principle, though he takes it too far but if he decides I'm going after him because of that...

"I can see if he is, Detective...?" The young man asked, though he sounded skeptical.

"Detective Lance," Sara supplied, and the man picked up the phone, pressing a button. 

"Alderman? There's a Detective Lance here to see you? She just wants a few questions." A pause, "Sir?" Pause, "Okay. I'll send her in." He set the phone down. "The Alderman will see you now." He sounded surprised, and honestly, Sara didn't blame him.

"Thank you," she put her badge away and then approached the door at the far end of the room, opening up into a well-appointed office. She looked around, seeing the well-made craftsmanship of a few pieces of art, one being a local artist Sara recognized - didn't that guy live in the Glades? Nice touch. 

It showed off a certain degree of success, and sophistication, for when Blood was dealing with city officials, lobbyists, the media, but it wasn't... extravagant. Nothing that looked too expensive, nothing that seemed... ostentatious. Everything was put perfectly in its place, to allow Blood to seem like a reasonable professional city official, but also one who knew where he came from.

In other words, a politician with a carefully crafted mask. Sara respected Blood's general intentions, though she'd have wished for a less firebrand candidate carrying the message, but he was ultimately, almost certainly, just another politician.

Even if Laurel and Oliver seemed to think otherwise.

But he was certainly no worse, and probably better, than some politicians, she could give him that.

"Detective," Blood was standing behind his desk and held out a hand, which she accepted and shook. "I only have a short time before my next meeting, so we will have to be quick, but how can I help the SCPD today?"

"It's... it's not an official investigation, more a favor for a friend that may turn into an investigation if there's something to it." Sara explained, then cleared her throat. "A friend of a friend went missing recently, and then turned up dead in the Glades a week later. The police that landed the case ruled it an OD."

"And you don't think it was, Detective?" Blood assumed, not that that wasn't obvious. "I do have some pull when it comes to cases in my Ward, I could have it looked into again-"

"No -" Sara cleared her throat. "The victim - he was poor. Lived in the glades his whole life. Exactly the sort of person that..." she let out a breath and decided that there wasn't much need to beat around the bush here with Blood on this. "Well, yeah, a lot of cops write people like him off, and it's not something I'm a fan of."

"I'd think so, given your sister's profound sense of justice." Blood pointed out. "It's good to hear that there are people in the SCPD that are prepared to give that justice for everyone in this city, rich and poor alike. How can I help?"

So that's why he agreed to meet me? Laurel had worked with Blood on the gun buyback and the earlier charity gala, clearly she'd made a good impression. 

"The last place this person, Max, went was your recent blood donation drive." Sara explained. "According to my friend, he did blood donations regularly for spare cash, so there's no chance he was a drug user."

"True, we screen for that quite thoroughly at my blood drives," the Alderman nodded. "But I can't just hand over any of this young man's medical records from the drive, even if he's dead, without some kind of court order,"

"No - no, I understand. I don't need those. I believe my friend when they insist he never used drugs intentionally. I think someone abducted him, and your blood drive is the last place anyone saw him..." She cleared her throat. "To put it bluntly, Alderman, I'm worried someone might have used your blood drive as a place to look for someone who wouldn't be missed. From what I gather, Max had no family, no stable job..." 

She paused, "Remember when Vertigo was first appearing, the Count got his name because of all the homeless people he snatched off the street to test his new drug on?" Blood nodded. "It seems insane to think someone might be doing something like that again, and maybe they're not, but... I'd like to at least tell my friend that I did what I could to help them find out what happened to Max. Maybe... maybe something happened and he accidentally took drugs somehow, maybe he used it for the first time or maybe he ran afoul of some dealer who decided to try and hide a murder behind an apparent OD. Wouldn't be the first time." Sara really didn't like how much she had to cover herself here, on so many levels. But they needed some kind of lead. And she was hoping the mention of Vertigo - which Blood had sounded the alarm about well before the rest of the city took seriously - might get him interested.

"But either way... I was hoping you'd be willing to give me the names of some of the volunteers who worked at the drive. I'm hoping one of them remembers Max, maybe saw or heard where he might have been going, or if someone was hanging around him... it's a long shot, I know, but -"

"It's a very troubling prospect you raise, even if it is a slim one," Blood said, voice soft, his tone grave. "I don't know if all of my volunteers would be comfortable with me just handing their names over to the police." He opened his hands a bit, gesturing with his arms a bit wide, as if to say 'what can you do?'

"And I fully understand that. Anything you can do, I would appreciate greatly." Sara said quickly. "Is there someone on your staff who coordinated this that I could talk to, so I don't take up too much of your time-"

"My outreach coordinator, yes," Blood wrote down a name and a phone number on a post-it note and handed it to her. "He would be able to talk to the volunteers directly and ask them if any of them would be comfortable talking to you." He paused, "There's another couple people I can also suggest," He wrote down a few more names. 

"We partnered with the Langford Institute. They're a psych clinic in the south side, they have a pilot program to help provide low cost or free psychiatric or psychological assistance to residents of the Glades who are dealing with a specific set of issues, and many of our donors sat down with them to see if the Institute might be able to help them. Unfortunately, the institute only has so many slots open, so a lot of people didn't get helped, but they may have spoken to your friend's friend, or seen something, and given the permit paperwork they signed when we partnered with them to set things up, I can give your their names in good conscience."

A pilot program for low cost or free psychological care? Sara swallowed. That was...

That was exactly the sort of thing that someone might use as a cover to find people for medical experimentation, right? Who had family or friends waiting for them? Who was desperate, who might be missed, who might not?

As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch, so...

Maybe they had been on the level, and if not for the fact that she knew someone had taken this Max and dosed him up with Mirakuru - or at least, Oliver knew - she'd have assumed it was about the good press, tax write-offs, maybe someone's charitable donation, but now...

"Thank you very much for your help." Sara stood, holding out a hand and Blood accepted it, shaking it. 

"I'm sure they or my outreach coordinator will be able to help you. Please, if it does turn out that someone is preying on the people of the Glades, and if they're using my blood drives as a way to do it..."

"You'll be the first to know, I promise." Sara assured him.

The Foundry, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

Oliver was not a master engineer. But he had learned the hard way how to make good arrows, and how to adapt other people's designs into something that worked for him. The internet was full of people imagining all sorts of trick arrows, among other things, and while most of them were either useless, impractical or impossible, there were a few designs that, on testing, had worked out.

And Oliver could use other designs as inspirations for his own testing as well. Even things that worked might not work for his needs without tweaking.

This...

This really wasn't the same thing.

This was the equivalent of strapping a bunch of shrapnel onto a firework and aiming it in the direction of your enemies.

But... if it worked, at least for the short term...

"It was like... I mean, I've fought you, I've fought Laurel, and both of you kick my ass all the time, but this guy..." Diggle trailed off, "It was unreal."

Oliver didn't look up from his work as he carefully wrapped a small amount - very small - of C-4 just behind the head of what had been a flashbang arrow, but wasn't going to be one for much longer. 

"There's a reason they called it Mirakuru," Oliver pointed out. Diggle scoffed, and Oliver could guess he was rolling his eyes. "In a one to one, fair fight, there's no beating anyone hopped up on Mirakuru. Even fighting dirty doesn't work, unless you do it just right."

"Man practically shrugged off my bullets like they were nerf," Diggle pointed out. "I suppose if I had proper armor-piercing rounds, or sniper rifle or something, something more than a sidearm, but..." he let out a sigh. "It's insane - if the Japanese had managed to actually get that stuff into mass production, during the war..."

"Not something that I'd really like to think about," Oliver suggested. One Mirakuru soldier was... more than enough. "If whoever is behind Cyrus Gold manages to get things to mass production, we'll get a taste of what could have been." Diggle was probably right - almost certainly right - that with powerful enough bullets, or maybe just enough of them, it would be possible to kill a Mirakuru soldier. But if there were enough of these super soldiers, and they came prepared, with body armor to slow bullet impacts even a little, attacked from multiple directions...

A fully equipped modern military, with tanks and air support and the rest might be able to win, in the end, but the casualties could end up being horrendous. And the militaries of the 1940s?

Oliver really didn't want to think about that. 

With the C-4 in place, Oliver carefully removed the flashbang head of the arrow, and opened it up. If he wanted the plastic explosive to go off when it was supposed to, he needed more explosive force. This was the real issue. A full sized detonator would be too unwieldy, and he'd have to specifically press it or rely on a timer he couldn't count on. But his flashbang arrows went off within seconds of being fired, or getting an impact, or stopping. 

He just needed a bigger explosion to make sure the C-4 went off. What he wasn't sure of was if he could -

"Nah, no, if you want that plastic to go off, you want the center of the explosion closer," Diggle cut in, and Oliver looked up at him, eyebrow raised. "I used plenty of C-4 when I was in Afghanistan, and disarmed detonators strapped to it too. That detonator's small, really small, so you want to have it right up against the C-4, like -" Diggle shook his head and gestured for Oliver to move out of the way. "Let me show you."

Oliver started a moment, unsure, but then nodded. "Okay." He stepped back, handing the tool he'd been using to place the miniature detonator to Diggle.

"See, you want it right up against the stuff. There's no room for playing around here. If you want the arrow to go off." Diggle showed him what he meant, moving it so it was practically touching the plastic explosive. "The whole point of C-4 is how stable it is. It doesn't want to go off."

"Doesn't give me a lot of room to maneuver either. If I'm close -" Oliver pointed out, as he examined the arrow. Given time, he might be able to find a more reliable option than this slapped-together thing, but... it looked like Diggle had a point.

"If you're close enough to this supersoldier for the explosion to do much damage..." Diggle trailed off meaningfully, looking down at his arm, which the supersoldier had gotten this close to breaking. 

"Point," Oliver nodded. He was about to say something more when his phone rang. Sara. "Do you have anything?" He asked, carefully fitting the head of the arrow back over the detonator, the phone on speaker.

"I found... something. Blood partnered with a local psychological clinic, the Langford Institute, during the blood drive. According to all the official records, they were doing a pilot program to try and bring psychological and psychiatric care to the people in the glades. Low-cost, or even free, in some cases. They did evaluations to find out who might be eligible." Sara explained. 

"That could be nothing."

"It could, yeah. They could have been doing real charitable work, they could have been doing evaluations to see if they can get people into legit research trials. But the Langford Institute doesn't really seem to exist. I mean, it does, but I don't see a lot of evidence of patients, or even medical trials. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, and if not for Sin's friend going missing..."

"Felicity?" Oliver looked over at the blonde, who hadn't waited for his word to start typing furiously.

"Already looking for everything I can find on the Langford Institute," Felicity added. A pause, "...they have unusually strong firewalls, even for a psychology clinic. Not," she added quickly, too quickly, "that I've ever tested any of those. Their tax information is pretty sparse... yeah, it looks like they haven't seen many patients over the last few years, really. Ever since they got bought out by some shell company 'New Rebirth Industries" which... also doesn't seem to exist. Just ends in a post office box in Corto Maltese and a routing number. I'm not seeing any sort of declaration of charitable donation that would be funding anything, and..."

Felicity shook her head, trailing off. "Nothing damning, but nothing exonerating them either."

"I could call the people at the Langford Institute," Sara suggested. "Ask questions, see if that turns anything up. But if they're involved..."

"That might get them to start destroying the evidence, or send Cyrus Gold to kill you." Oliver disagreed.

"I'm not worried about - I can just stay at the station-"

"Sara, if one of these men attacked a police station that wasn't prepared for it, there's a very good chance most of the officers present would die," Oliver shook his head. "And I don't think you could convince Captain Pike to just fill the department with SWAT officers in body armor and AP rounds in everyone's bullets."

"Not without telling him more than I can safely say," Sara let out an angry breath, the exhale rough and with almost a low growl at the end. "Oliver, you can't go up against this guy alone again!"

"Sara, there's not much you can do. I've - I've got something that might be able to help even the odds, so- " Oliver cut himself off. "I have to do this. Just - keep trying to reach Laurel. But we don't have much time now - whoever is behind this has the blood, and the Ketamine, so they could be hours from making more super soldiers."

Oliver set his jaw, looking down at the makeshift explosive arrow. If it hit Gold, or Gold caught it, or tried to bat it away, or something, it should go off. There wasn't enough C-4 to do too much damage, but it should do enough.

He looked over at Diggle, then Felicity and Barry, all of whom looked as worried as Sara had sounded, but none of them could present a better argument.

"I have to do this, Sara." Oliver repeated. I can do this. I don't even need to kill Gold to stop them. Just destroy the centrifuge. He looked over at Felicity. "The Langford Institute should have building schematics on file at city hall, right?"

"They're supposed to," Felicity agreed quickly. A few seconds typing, "Luckily I have all that stuff handy because you need it all the time- and yes. Here." She pulled away from the screen and Oliver looked it over. There was no way to know from looking at the schematic where the centrifuge would be, but there were several ways in and out. He'd have to check the exterior to know the best options, but now he knew where to start.

"Keep calling Laurel," Oliver told Sara again, then hung up the phone.

It was time to stop this Mirakuru project before it got any further.

Langford Institute, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

Criminals sometimes stole from other criminals. They killed other criminals. More than once, Oliver had come upon that happening in real time. 

"Felicity, someone else broke in here, and recently." The broken glass on the inside of the door hadn't even been swept away. It was a sloppy job, but sloppy did the work when someone wasn't expecting anything. "Anything turned up on who might want to steal from this place?" The institute was in a reasonably safe neighborhood... regular street crime wasn't common here, and who would break into a psych clinic?

Pharmaceuticals? Oliver didn't think any of the medications a psychologist would prescribe had much street value, but it was the most likely case.

"Nothing specific, no." Felicity's voice came over the comms. Oliver stepped in slowly, bow in hand, other hand on the corner as he turned down a wall.

Two men, both masked like Cyrus Gold had been, were walking towards him from the far end of the hall. Oliver tensed for a moment - was he too late? 

No.

They didn't move like supersoldiers.

Grabbing two regular arrows, Oliver loaded, jumped into the hallway, and fired - two cries in pain, nearly in unison as the guards spun backwards, arrows in the shoulder. Oliver was already on them, driving his fist into the chin of one, kicking the others leg, hooking his foot behind the knee and yanking -

With a thud, one guard was on the ground, the other reeling.

The reeling one tried to grab at a walkie-talking on his belt - but before he could bring it to his mouth, Oliver's hands were on the man's wrist and he twisted, forcing the electronic device out of his hands - other hand grabbed the back of the man's head, forced it down, forward, hard, into his own hand - and then another kick to the stomach and he was down for a moment. A moment was all Oliver needed as he grabbed the guard he'd tripped.

That one was already struggling to his feet when hands grabbed the front of his coat and slammed him against the wall.

"Where's the centrifuge?!" Oliver snarled, the voice modulator disguising his voice.

"I will never betray my brother," The guard said confidently, despite his situation. "He will save this city from itself."

"Not with Mirakuru," Oliver snarled. "It's poison that destroys everything and everyone it touches," Oliver drove his knee into the guard's stomach, then pulled him away from the wall and slammed him back into it as he gasped. "Where is the centrifuge!?" He shouted. The guard said nothing, trying to smirk defiantly as he sucked in air. It didn't really work, but it made the man's point regardless. Oliver snarled, pulling the man's mask off his face, tossing it aside and then punching him square in the jaw and throwing him into his compatriot, who had just been starting to get up.

With both guards down for the count, Oliver stalked down the hall, kicking open a door, seeing nothing but file cabinets in that one. Another had just two chairs, and a few light, banal decorations. A third was an office. 

"Wait, I have something!" Felicity's voice came over the comms as Oliver checked yet another room, revealing a break room, complete with a fridge, microwave and coffee maker. The room smelled faintly of microwaved fish. "The official plans for the building on file at City Hall don't have a basement, but I tracked down the records of the original application for the building before the Langford Institute bought it and there was a basement in the original blueprint."

They had the version at City Hall changed? Oliver frowned. That wasn't impossible, but generally more effort than it was worth - Oliver hadn't bothered to do that with the basement of Verdant. It could mean they had an ally in City Hall to make that easier, or...

Or they just took that extra step on their own.

"Where's the entrance?" If there was a hidden basement... that's where Oliver would keep a stolen centrifuge

"Near the opposite end of the building from where you came in. Just keep going down the central hallway, then turn left before the lobby and keep going." 

"On my way." Oliver picked up the pace, getting closer to the lobby, and then turning. Another two guards were there, these ones had pulled out pistols, waiting for him.

Oliver dove as bullets flew over head, tackling the legs of one of the guards, knocking him to the ground, grabbing his torso and flipping them, putting this guard between himself and his compatriot - another shot from the still standing guard went into his ally, and then Oliver shoved the still alive - for now, - guard off himself, rolling as more shots went where he just was.

Oliver stood quickly, throwing a flechette at the man, watching it hit his face - not enough to do much damage, but enough to distract him - Oliver fired an arrow into his leg, the guard cried out again, dropping and with another quick movement, Oliver kicked the guard in the face. 

He didn't stop to see if they were unconscious or just down for the moment as he raced for the basement door. It was locked, and one kick didn't prove enough to break it open. He shoved with his whole body, shoulder reverberating under the force, but he heard it crack - but it still didn't open. But now, damaged enough, he kicked again, and the door, reinforced or not, broke open, enough that Oliver could clear a hole and stoop through. 

The stairs curved around, and he moved as quickly as he could without running, coming out into a room that looked a bit like a mad doctors office from one of those sci-fi horror movies he and Tommy had used to watch and mock as teenagers. 

The dim lighting did the lion's share of that, casting shadows around the room, with a few industrial flood lights on low setting near the center of the room, lighting that space up and only adding to the 'creepy' effect. There was a table with various tools and implements, another with vials, pill bottles. The centrifuge, full of vials full of a green liquid, the way the light hit them almost made them look like they were glowing. 

Another cabinet/medical freezer, full of more medical supplies.

There were three people in the room, all turned to face him when he arrived. One, a man in a suit, some sort of brown, horror-movie-esque mask on his face... Oliver couldn't even tell what it was meant to be of, but it made it look like the man had a mouth full of long teeth, or at least gave off that impression. Maybe a skull?

 Standing by him was another man in a suit, tall, thin, almost reedy. He was balding, and sweating, and obviously too terrified to be a threat in a fight, even though he was scrambling to pull a gun from his suit jacket pocket.

And the last was Cyrus Gold, not wearing his mask, standing by the cabinet.

There was a gurney, against one wall, the concrete walls weren't exactly stained with blood, but the room smelled strongly of bleach. And at the center of the room was a chair. An occupied chair.

Oliver almost didn't recognize the man strapped to that chair, stripped down to a sleeveless shirt, barely conscious. 

Roy Harper.

Damnit Roy. Oliver pushed the question of how Roy had gotten here, had known to come here - or if he'd just gotten too close in some other way and been taken here - aside as he saw the syringe in the masked man's hand.

It was full.

He didn't inject Roy. Oliver could only be grateful he'd arrived in time to save Roy from that fate...

"You." the masked man said, his voice distorted - but unlike Oliver's which just made his voice deeper and obviously masked - this one made his voice almost reverberate, like multiple people were talking. "Brother Cyrus said you were dead." He glanced over at his supersoldier, who was bracing himself for a charge, hands against the wall, but obviously waiting for a signal from the masked man.

The balding man managed to pull his gun from his jacket, but he nearly dropped it, hyperventilating - Oliver fired a single arrow, hitting the gun more than the man's hands, but it was enough to have the balding man drop to the ground, one hand bleeding from a grazing cut and too terrified to do more.

"Your Mirakuru only did so much. Strength alone doesn't win your battles."

"Perhaps," The masked man allowed. "But my brothers also have conviction. And soon, I will have many brothers with Brother Cyrus's strength." He added. "Starting with Roy Harper here." 

"That's never going to happen," Oliver growled. "How did you get the Mirakuru?" There shouldn't have been any samples of it left. Had some survived on the island? Elsewhere? 

"It was a gift." The Masked man said, and though he barely moved as he said it, there was almost a shrug in his voice, as if he didn't care where he got it. "And I will use it to save this city from itself."

No one gives something like Mirakuru as a gift without a motive. One way or the other, Oliver would have to find out who was behind this man. But that would have to wait.

"And though Brother Cyrus may have failed to kill you, you also failed to stop him." The masked man nodded to Cyrus, and Cyrus charged. The Masked Man moved towards Roy, about to inject -

Oliver made his choice, and fired-

The masked man managed to evade the arrow just at the last moment, but the syringe fell out of his hand as he half-stumbled in his dodge, but after that Oliver had to focus all his efforts as a punch to his chest from Gold sent him reeling, spinning back, crashing into the wall.

Groaning, Oliver rolled along the wall, just barely missing a punch to the head that actually broke the concrete where it hit. Oliver grabbed an arrow from his quiver - a normal one, and stabbed it at Cyrus, getting him in the thigh - it only slowed him a moment as he grunted, seemingly more from surprise than pain. Oliver pulled back, putting as much distance between himself and the supersoldier as the room allowed. His hand closed around the explosive arrow, and he pulled it out, fitting it into his bow, pushing the button on the back, priming the detonator. Once he fired...

"You can't win, Arrow." Gold growled. "This city will be cleansed!" He snapped the arrow off in his leg. "Bullets, knives, arrows, fists - nothing anyone can do to me can stop me! Or my brother soldiers to come!" He smirked as he watched Oliver pull back the string on his bow, and rather than run at Oliver, walked, confident that nothing could stop him. 

Conviction indeed.

Oliver fired.

The arrow hit Gold in the shoulder, near to his face and neck, but not quite.

"I told you-" Gold started, reaching his hand up to break the shaft off of this arrow and then-

Oliver dropped into a crouch as the detonator went off - the sound of the explosion was louder than Oliver expected, but lacked the brightness of the flashbang - Oliver was able to look at Gold, reeling back, somehow still standing, his shoulder in bloody shreds, his neck, his face-

It had been a small, almost miniscule amount of C-4, but the damage, blowing away skin, destroying half his lips and practically bursting one eye.

Gold was still standing, still breaking, but with blood pouring from his ruined face, neck, shoulder-

He was dead soon. He had to be.

But with a scream of pain and fury, he charged, not ready to die yet.

Oliver dove to the right, ducking under a punch, sidestepping another swing, the man half-blind, mad with pain - his punches were sloppy, his technique even worse, his speed more than enough for Oliver to keep dodging. He pulled out another arrow from his quiver, and yet again didn't fire it from his bow - Gold was too close, and then -

Wither another punch flying over his head as Oliver ducked, Gold overstended himself fatally - literally. Even if not for the damage to his face, his neck, the supersoldier couldn't be left alive. Gripping the arrow behind the head, Oliver stabbed it like a knife, right into his carotid triangle, above the neck.

Dense muscle tissue across his body or not, the skin there was still fairly soft, though the arrowhead caught on bone and only went in so far.

It was enough, as Gold gurgled scream of pain, fury, frustration as Oliver jumped back, Gold staggered, stalling, hands at his neck, ripping the arrow out -

He dropped to his knees, trying to say something, but he couldn't get it out, trying in vain to hold the blood back -

Oliver turned, heading the thud as Gold landed face-first on the ground. He had a man to unmas-

The masked man was gone. The balding man was still there, but dead now, shot in the face, executed for his failure no doubt...

Oliver looked to the centrifuge. It was still there, and almost all of the nearly hundred vials were still there, but...

Several were taken.

Four missing.

Oliver looked quickly - the syringe the masked man had dropped was still on the ground, still full. He looked to Roy, who was conscious now, awake, aware, eyes glued to the sight of the dead, or maybe still barely alive for now Gold - but the pool of blood slowly spreading as he lay there on the ground meant he couldn't have much longer.

"You - you-" Roy gasped, then looked to Oliver, or the Arrow, as he knew him. "He -" His chest was rising and falling quickly, breathing fast. Roy gasped, sucking in air, trying to control himself. Oliver moved towards him, slowly, and undid the straps holding Roy to the chair."How did he- you - how did he... the way he moved and - the wall and... then... he survived... what was that?"

"An explosion." Oliver answered, helping Roy out of the chair, making sure not to give Roy a chance to look too closely at his face under the hood. "The drug they gave Sin's friend, Max. The drug they almost gave you. If you had survived, you'd have been like him. Stronger, faster... and insane." Oliver drew another arrow, a regular flashbag.

"He... the man in the mask said I would fight for him." Roy swallowed, looking back at the dead Gold again. 

"You would have died, or you would have lost everything that made you who you were," Oliver explained. "Get to the stairs."

"You- I-" Roy started, then stopped, and swallowed. "Thank you."

"I'll find you soon." Oliver said. "But the police will be here soon. Don't be here when they are." Roy nodded, and ran for the stairs. Oliver got as far from the centrifuge as he could, and fired the flashbang arrow not at the centrifuge itself, but the breaker box next to it. He averted his eyes as it connected, exploded, raining sparks onto the centrifuge, shattering the vials, glass flying into others.

The Mirakuru splattered all over the floor, the walls, into the ceiling, and then parts of the ceiling rained down onto it, the force of the explosion from the breaker's box not enough to seriously threaten the building's stability, but enough to do the job.

The Foundry, Starling City

December 3rd, 2013

Sara hadn't exactly been holding her breath the whole time since Oliver had insisted he had to go to the Langford Institute, but - as the door opened, and she looked, hand flying to her gun -

She let out a breath anyway as she saw it was Oliver.

He was alive, and though from the he moved, he was injured, but at least there was no... blood? His limbs seemed intact. No broken arms or legs. No mysterious syringes in his leg...

"You're okay." Sara let out another breath, sagging where she stood.

Diggle grabbed the first aid kid, gesturing for Oliver to sit in the chair. "But you're hurt, so-"

"I'm -" Oliver started, then grunted as he reached the bottom of the stairs. "In a minute." He swallowed. "You were right about the Langford Institute. And you were right about the basement," he looked at Felicity.

"Actually, it was Barry's idea..." Felicity admitted. "He - he had to leave, to catch the train to Central, but as he did, he suggested that everywhere on the ground floor was too exposed. Too many windows, the walls not thick enough in case someone screamed. But there wasn't a basement and then I-" Felicity had started babbling, then she managed to stop herself, taking a breath.

"I'm just- I'm glad you're okay." She finished.

"...If you and Barry hadn't found out about the basement as fast as you did, Roy would have been injected." Oliver told her. "You saved his life."

"Roy - is he? Is he okay?" Sara honestly didn't know him all that well, but she knew how much Thea loved him and -

"He's fine. Shaken up. But fine. I don't know how he ended up in the Institute, but they didn't manage to inject him. I destroyed the centrifuge, and almost all of the Mirakuru." 

Almost? That - Sara's breath caught. Would they be doing this all over again?

"Almost?" Diggle asked before Sara could, and Oliver nodded.

"Gold was working for someone. A man in a mask, with the image of.." Oliver held his hand over his face a moment as he seemed to grope for the right word. "A skull, I guess. While I fought Gold, he- he got away with four vials of the serum." 

Shit. That meant... okay, so maybe not four more supersoldiers, if some could die, like Sin's friend Max. But more. 

"This isn't over." Sara murmured.

"No." Oliver shook his head. "It's not. He didn't tell me where he got the Mirakuru formula from, but - he said it was a gift, given to him. That he'd use to save this city. Gold talked about... cleansing. The way they all called each other brother. It's some kind of... messianic cult."

"A recipe for super soldiers as a gift?" Diggle shook his head, half in awe, half incredulity. "And I thought buying a new Playstation 4 for my nephew was the best Christmas gift."

"For a kid his age, that probably is," Felicity pointed out, smiling, trying - and failing - to lighten the mood. She cleared her throat, looking away.

"You don't do something like that without a reason." Oliver murmured. He took a breath. "We'll have to keep our eyes out." He exhaled, slowly. "But the explosive arrow worked."

"Is Gold-" Diggle started, and Oliver nodded.

"Died on Saturday, buried on Sunday," he said, like he was quoting a poem or song or something. Sara didn't know what it was, but....

Oliver went on, looking off to the side at nothing in particular. "Roy... Roy will have questions. And I need to know how he ended up at the Langford Institute." He sat down in the chair Diggle had directed him too earlier. "If he keeps poking his nose into things, though... he may not be so lucky next time. Laurel's going to have to think seriously about cutting him loose, or... bringing him in." He turned back, looking towards Sara.

"I haven't been able to reach Laurel, still. Mom called the cops in Central, reported her missing." It was still a bad move. Sara was sure Laurel was fine. It's not like anyone would know she was the Black Canary if they tried to go after her, and while muggings and other street crime wasn't unheard of in Central City, it was far, far, far from common.

Laurel was fine. 

She had to be.

"Dad is freaking out, he's already trying to file for leave to run to Central and try to find her himself." Sara added.

"We've been trying for nearly two days. And she left your mom's house before that." Oliver bit his lip, stood quickly, and then groaned, falling back into the chair.

"First aid first, find your girlfriend second." Diggle cut in. Oliver opened his mouth to protest, then nodded.

Sara turned away from them, looking to Felicity.

"...can you get into Central City's traffic cams?" Felicity raised an eyebrow, and Sara rolled her eyes. "Stupid question, of course you can. Can you please do that? See if you can find Laurel?"

"Absolutely," Felicity nodded, and Sara bit her lip, turning away, dialing Laurel's phone again.

Where the hell is she?

Outside a Mini-Mart, Central City

December 3rd, 2013

I'd call this a comedy of errors, but none of it was funny. Laurel grumbled to herself as she handed the clerk her card, already opening the packaging of the burner phone.

In her haste to get out of her mom's house after the fight - a simple disagreement that had turned into a shouting match and then Laurel letting out things she hadn't - things she hadn't even realized she was still angry about, that she'd ever been that angry about and -

She'd stormed out, only grabbing her purse, and her phone, and only realized she hadn't brought her charger once she was at the motel she'd selected to stay at. Of course, by the time she realized she didn't have her charger, the phone was nearly dead, and every single shop she'd stopped at was out of chargers that fit her phone. It was insane, but apparently there had been some sort of shipping issue.

For every shop in town.

So the phone was dead and then she couldn't even find a burner phone in stock, at least not one she'd actually trust as far as she could throw it. She'd been going around Central for two days, still fuming about her fight with her mom, and getting nowhere. 

There was no point signing up for a new phone or contract, her dead phone was properly secured by the best tech Oliver could get for it. 

Laurel knew she should have called her mother, let her know she was okay, with a payphone or something, but something stopped her. Spite, probably, as foreign a feeling as that was.

Everything is still shot. I feel... I feel like I did when I first joined the League. No emotional control. Everything raw, an exposed nerve.

She'd been doing better, the time away from Central, able to center herself again, and then-

And then she'd run into Samantha Clayton at that coffee shop. Jitters. With her son. William. Who was - whatever Samantha had tried to lie - exactly the right age.

Exactly the right age to be Oliver's son.

When she'd seen Samantha, her first thought was to catch up with her old friend, old roommate. She'd wondered, for a long time, why Samantha had abruptly transferred to Central City University, barely a goodbye. Of course, once Oliver told her what had happened, after their reunion in Russia...

She wanted Samantha to know she didn't blame her. Forgave her. 

The memory of the way Samantha hadn't been able to look her in the face as she'd rushed out with the last of her bags made sense, now. The other girl had to have been feeling guilty. 

Samantha had looked like she was nearly having a heart attack when she realized who she was. She'd tried to stammer out an apology and Laurel had had to interrupt her, explaining that she wasn't mad. 

Then she'd seen the son. Seen William. And asked his age. Samantha had lied - it was a good lie. Someone else might have believed it. She'd made up an excuse, that she had to go, they had to go...

Ollie had said Sam told him she lost the baby. A lie. But not from Oliver. From Sam.

Oliver had the right to know he had a son. But at the same time, Samantha seemed - she seemed to be doing well by him. Being a good mother. Did she have the right to upset that? But she also didn't have the right to keep that secret from him. 

There were no secrets between her and Ollie anymore. 

But in trying to figure out how to actually raise the issue with Oliver, she'd made the mistake of asking her mother for advice.

And then things had gone... downhill. 

Laurel closed her eyes and took a breath, taking her card back from the clerk and turning away, starting the process of activating the phone. She needed to call Ollie. He'd know she could take care of herself, but he had to have called in the last two days. She'd seen the news alert about the murders at the Applied Sciences building, gotten his text that he was staying to make sure the case got resolved, or at least staying for a few more days...

He could be on his way to the city now and I wouldn't know it. Hell, he could  be  here, in the city, and I wouldn't know.

Laurel stepped out of the Minimart, standing under the overhang, the rain downpouring. It was even worse than when she'd walked into the building twenty minutes ago. She looked at a nearby telephone pole, a waterlogged, partially damaged poster protesting the STAR Labs particle accelerator that had gone live less than an hour before. Something about opening black holes.

Idiots. I only did my general education science credits, and I know that's now how anything works. Laurel shook her head, then looked back at the phone, typing in the last thing she needed to activate it. She looked at the storm, then sighed. She went back into the mini-mart, buying an umbrella as she watched the phone slowly - way too slowly - finish and as she stepped out again, opening the umbrella and hearing the rain pelt it, she finally managed to get the damn thing to work.

Oliver's number she knew by heart, of course, and she held it up to her ear.

"Oliver Queen," Oliver's voice was tense, taut, and Laurel furrowed her brow.

"Ollie? What's wrong, you sound-"

"Laurel!?!" Oliver nearly shouted, a fast, loud exhalation of breath audible on the other end. "You're - you're okay. Where are you? Are you hurt? What happened!? I've - we've - your mom reported you missing!"

"She - she WHAT?!" Laurel nearly shouted, ducking into an alley. Seriously mom? What the - what is wrong with that woman!?

 "I'm fine, I'm still in Central. I - I left my charger at her house when I left and then -" She barked a hollow laugh. "I don't know how every damn store in this city - a city famous for all the tech companies and research labs that are based out of her - could be out of chargers and burner phones and yet somehow... I finally just got one." She shook her head. The rain was loud. "Look, the rain is - I should call you back once I get inside somewhere-"

"Laurel, we've been trying to reach you for almost two days. Sara and I - " Oliver took a breath. "Mirakuru, Laurel."

Laurel's blood ran cold. No. 

No.

"Oliver, you know better than to - is my sister's perverse sense of humor rubbing off on you?!"

"Someone rediscovered the formula. Tried to make more. They did make more." Oliver explained, speaking quickly. 

I'm just mishearing him over the sound of the -

"I'm on my way. I - I'll get back to the city as soon as I -" Laurel cut herself off as she heard a boom, and a bright light towards the center of the city.

Is that...

Is that STAR Labs?

A pillar of orange light, or so it seemed, blasted up from what she was-

"Laurel?" Oliver demanded, voice shaking with worry.

"I think the STAR Labs particle accelerator just blew up!" Laurel shouted, and then she saw it. A wave of orange... something, burning through the city, passing through buildings. It was coming -

Laurel ran. 

"There's - I-" Laurel's phone suddenly stopped working, static, she got out of the alley and then-

The wave hit her.

Her whole body exploded with pain, she couldn't even describe it. She couldn't move, the force of the wave hitting her, but rather than knocking her into anything, it almost paralyzed her body. She closed her eyes, feeling like she was about to-

She screamed, louder, longer than she'd ever done before, ever thought possible as the pain overwhelmed her. For a split second, she almost thought she could see the sound waves in the air before her and then-

Everything went black. Her last sensation was hitting the pavement and then

Nothing.

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 11: Cry Canary Cry

"My critics call this class warfare, and to that I say: if it's class warfare to ask why the richest people in this city are allowed to have two tracks of justice, then I am a class warrior. If it's class warfare to ask why the poorest people in this city are reduced to such low priorities for the city's government that they have to rely on vigilantes to deliver them even a sliver of justice, then I am a class warrior. If it's class warfare to ask for the elites that dominate this city to give even the tiniest morsel to you, the people who make this city work, then I am a class warrior. So, I ask you this, people of Starling City:

Are you class warriors!?"

-Excerpt from a speech at a Campaign Rally by Sebastian Blood February 16th, 2014

Central City Memorial Hospital, Central City

December 4th, 2013

I feel fine, Mom. Laurel could imagine she was going to get very sick of the sound of dry erase markers writing if she didn't recover use of her voice quickly. She kept writing, At the very least, I want to get out of this hospital gown. Laurel started erasing the board once she was sure her mother had read it. 

She did feel fine. A bit of dull pain at the back of her head, bruising across her back - nothing she hadn't dealt with god knew how many times before - and then there was the fact that she couldn't talk. 

Which was new. But the doctors assured her there was no reason to believe it was permanent. 

"Laurel, you've lost your voice, and you were thrown clear against a building by the blast, humor me, please, and stay in observation for another night?" Her mother pleaded. 

The hospital is overcrowded as it is, Laurel paused to erase that, then, I just want to sleep in my own bed. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed, a place she hadn't remembered choosing to go to sleep at had nearly had her attacking the nurse checking on her. She'd managed to hold back, at the last minute, just giving the woman a start as she'd woken up and lurched up, rather than lunging at her.

And then they'd both found out she couldn't talk.

Her mother frowned a moment, no doubt wanting to suggest she stay longer in Central. That had been the plan, and of course, Laurel had been away from home for a few days after the argument and then -

But it wasn't as if staying in Central was really the calming thing to do right now. From what the news was saying, the city was a madhouse.

"Oliver is on his way here with your father, they should be here any minute. Apparently SCPD can't spare both him and your sister, so Sara's staying back in Starling," Her mother grimaced. "Just... I - I know why you want to go back, but are you sure you can't stay in Central for a few more days?"

Yes. And then rather than write anything else, she pointed to the muted TV, still broadcasting the live CNN coverage of the ongoing situation in Central City. Then she added, You should come to Starling with us. Erase once her mother had read it and was about to respond. It's not like classes aren't canceled at CCU right now anyway.

"Well, that and it's exams now, and I don't actually need to be there for that..." She let her voice trail off, sounding like she was coming around to the idea. "I'd have to get a hotel room-" she started, then stopped talking when Laurel started writing again.

We have a guest room, Mom. There were reasons - very good reasons - not to have her mother in the guest room at the penthouse, but... Laurel also wanted to have her around. Yes, she'd gotten into an argument with her mom and let her anger keep her away for a few days, but she was still her mother, and with her living in Central, and so many obligations keeping Laurel busy in Starling...

She didn't get to see her mother enough.

It will make things harder for a few days, and especially with the Mirakuru... But -

A few days wouldn't ruin everything, right?

"Laurel!" Laurel heard the sound of her father's voice from the doorway, and looked up just in time for him to nearly tackle her, pulling her into a tight hug, which Laurel returned, slowly. "You're alright. Oh thank god, when your mother called, she couldn't reach you and then - the explosion and she called again and -" He pulled back as he realized she wasn't saying anything. "Laurel?"

"She's lost her voice, Quentin," Her mother explained gently. 

The doctors say there's nothing medically wrong with my vocal cords but strain. Wait. Erase. They think it's mostly psychosomatic.

"And now I'm reminded why you always won at family scrabble nights." Quentin managed a small laugh, an attempt to inject humor. Laurel smiled faintly at the comment, then he took a breath. "Are you - are you sure you're alright? I - the city's a madhouse out there."

I'm fine. I promise. Pause. Erase. Where's Ollie?

"We ran into a bunch of fuc-" He cleared his throat, "A bunch of reporters in the lobby. Vultures, the whole lot of them. Apparently they heard you were up here, and when they saw Oliver and me... they swarmed us. Oliver and that bodyguard of his played interference so I could get up here. He should be up here soon-"

"I think the reporters have decided you're three floors up from this one," Oliver said from the door. He didn't run across the distance to her side, but she could tell he wanted to. He approached and then pulled her in for a hug, holding her tight, kissing her lips gently, leaning down as their foreheads touched. "I - I - I'm- you're okay."

Laurel nodded, closing her eyes, feeling her heart rate drop, tension she hadn't even realized she'd been holding slipping away now that her other half - literally, really - was so close again. She swallowed, kissing him again, before gently pushing him away so she could write on the board again. Quickly, with her mother's help and her own writing, she explained - again - the situation with her voice.

The doctors think that as long as I get plenty of fluids and don't strain my vocal cords or anything, my voice should recover entirely in the next few days.

"But you're okay otherwise?" Oliver pressed. "That's the important thing. Sara's been texting like mad, she's been losing her mind since she can't come. Speaking of," He reached into his pocket and handed her a phone. "New phone, with all the apps you like." Properly secured and encrypted, in other words. The burner she'd been using when she'd been hit by that... wave from the particle accelerator explosion had been fried in the blast or whatever it was. 

I'm fine. I'll text Sara. Pause. Erase. Mom, Dad, can I have a moment with Ollie?

"Right." Her father nodded, then looked over at her mother. "We'll - we'll go talk to the doctors about getting you released." Her mother hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, leaving the room with her dad. 

What happened in Starling? Mirakuru!? You said someone made more?

Oliver spoke quietly in Russian, quickly, though Laurel had already confirmed there were no cameras or listening devices in the room. "Someone - they had a soldier, Cyrus Gold. He was... it was like fighting Slade, but at least Gold wasn't a trained killer, not in the same way. The murders at the Applied Sciences building - they were stealing a centrifuge. And then they stole blood, and ketamine."

Laurel could add the pieces together without Oliver needing to say it. She knew the serum better than Oliver, she'd sat through Ivo's countless lectures and rants on it, that first year on the boat. Every moment burned in her memory. She felt her breath catch a moment, and she reached over, grabbing Oliver's hand, squeezing it, forcing herself to take another breath, trying to center herself.

"It was just one. He's dead. And I destroyed the centrifuge." Oliver reassured her. "There's more - whoever was behind it will try again. But... we have time." He grabbed the chair and pulled it over to rest by the bed, not not letting go of her hand, running his thumb across the back. Laurel closed her eyes for a moment, taking another breath.

She'd faced many opponents during those five years, especially once she joined the League. None had terrified her the way Slade had. People she'd sparred against in the League had been more dangerous combatants - Al Owal, Nyssa. She'd never actually sparred against Ra's al Ghul, but she'd seen him fight. He was a more skilled fighter than Slade, but Slade...

Slade had been something else. The strength, the speed - 

A thought rose, unbidden to the top of her mind, and despite everything, she laughed, or at least tried to, no sound actually escaping her lips.

"Laurel?" Oliver asked, and Laurel regretfully pulled her hand away, quickly writing. 

I just imagined - Ra's Al Ghul fighting Slade. And imagining Ra's losing. It was a satisfying mental image, the Demon's Head smashed into paste on the ground. She took a breath, closing her eyes and banishing that happy thought. As important as it was to understand everything about what had happened in Starling, and who could be behind this new Mirakuru...

She needed to tell Oliver about Samantha, and her son. His son.

The reason Mom and I fought and I left the house. She erased it to write more, and Oliver raised a hand.

"We can talk about it later." Oliver assured her, voice soft, but Laurel shook her head. It was a lot to drop on Oliver, especially now, but it was important, and she wasn't going to keep it secret.

No. This is important. I ran into Samantha. Clayton. 

Oliver flushed, looking away. Laurel reached out and gently turned his face back towards her, and the whiteboard.

I ran into Samantha Clayton...and her son, William. She said he was five, but - he looked closer to seven.

 "Sev-" Oliver's breath caught, and he snapped his mouth shut, staring at her, processing for a long moment, staring. She could almost imagine his brain rebooting as she told him he was in fact a father. As a teenager, she'd once imagined what it would be like to tell Ollie that, and to be honest, she'd imagined a very similar expression on his face.

It wasn't as if marriage and kids with Ollie had been her only ambition in life, but it had been something she'd wanted. Still wanted, even if... Well, there were a lot of reasons children especially were a bad idea, right now.

"You mean- you think-"

I can't imagine any reason she'd lie about his age - and she was lying - if he wasn't yours. On some level, she couldn't blame Samantha for lying about losing the baby. Oh, she was upset with her former roommate for sleeping with her boyfriend, or had been, for a brief while, once told. But she'd been more upset with Ollie, even if she forgave him by then, given everything that had happened, by the time he told her...

But while she could understand why Samantha would want to lie, she didn't forgive her for it. Yes, the fear of tabloids, the fact that Oliver had cheated with her, the fact that rich or not, Oliver back then... he wasn't exactly well positioned to be a good father. She believed firmly he would have straightened out his life very quickly if he had found himself a father then, in reality, but... well, she couldn't blame Samantha for not thinking that much.

But Oliver still deserved to know. Still deserved the choice.

I'm not - I don't think Oliver should just be able to... sue for custody, get half time with him. It wasn't like either of them were in any position to have a seven year old boy in their lives, living with them. But Oliver could visit, get to know his son, let his son get to know him...

He's had a good life already, he doesn't need to have it uprooted... That had been her mother's argument. That, and she'd been worried that Oliver might leave her for Samantha, or something. The idea was of course laughable. The argument had been made worse by the fact that mentioning William had required detailing the whole 'Oliver cheated on me with my roommate' thing. Which had even made her mother - very briefly - seem confused Laurel had ever forgiven him in the first place. Laurel had shut down that line of conversation very quickly. Her mother just... didn't understand. Couldn't. 

"I... I have..." Oliver trailed off, unable to find the words. Laurel took and squeezed his hand again, and he returned the gesture, taking a breath. "She lied... she lied about losing... why would she..." he grimaced. "No. I can understand why she would have lied. I -"

Mom thought I shouldn't tell you. That - that's what we argued about.

"Which means she knows about..." Oliver flushed. "Laurel, you know-"

You don't need to apologize again, Ollie. And Mom can think what she wants. Erase. If she tells Dad, he can think what he wants. Erase it all, since there wasn't enough room on the board for more. You've more than made up for your mistakes.

"Still... you shouldn't have to stand between your parents and me if -" Oliver looked down. "If your father decides he wants to hit me for it, I'll give him a free shot. One."

Laurel smiled, laughing a little soundlessly. I suppose that's fair. Then she frowned. Her mom might already be telling her Dad, or soon, and really, it was probably going to come up with him soon anyway, but there was Sara. If both her parents were going to know.... If Mom does tell Dad, we should tell Sara too. It was Oliver's story to share, more than hers, but this was a pretty big thing to keep under wraps, and it wouldn't stay that way forever.

Oliver stiffened, then grimaced, "She might just decide to out me as the Arrow and arrest me at that point," he smiled as he said it, but obviously he was a bit concerned about Sara's reaction. "They're going to have trouble understanding why you forgave me. Even Sara."

At some point, understanding doesn't matter. They just have to accept it. Laurel countered. She understood it, but it wasn't like parental disapproval of her relationship with Oliver was new, and Sara understood enough. And as for what even she didn't understand... Well, it didn't really matter. Oliver was more than just her soulmate, and ultimately the only person who had an opinion on the subject that mattered to her felt the same way about her as she did him.

"I love you," Oliver murmured, pulling her in for another tight hug, kissing her forehead. "I'd say I don't deserve you, but I know how you feel about that."

Damn right you do. Laurel glared at him. She knew he wasn't really meaning it, not the way that he might have once. She'd had to beat it into his stubborn, often self-loathing skull enough, that 'worthy' wasn't really a thing, that no one 'deserved' anyone else, that love and relationships didn't work like that.

And it had eventually taken. So he didn't really mean it that way, anymore. Which was good. But still. She glared, just a little.

Oliver and Laurel's Apartment, Starling City

December 5th, 2013

"I've fought professional killers that punched with less force than your dad," Oliver muttered, rubbing his jaw. The punch had come pretty much the moment they'd walked back into the apartment, Laurel's parents in tow, once they were somewhere private where they could have it out.

That was an hour ago, and now it was just past midnight, and Oliver's jaw still hurt. Just a little, but still. He hadn't fully braced himself as he might in the field, to avoid any suspicion, but... 

Even after I told him I wouldn't let him hit you again, I was sure he'd try. Laurel wrote. Her voice still wasn't working, which was annoying to both of them, but - they'd have to live with it. It would make field work harder, but there were ways to cope with it. Text to speech devices, though that wouldn't be the most practical. He could tell it was especially bothering Laurel. 

Defending him to her father had required Laurel to write a lot, and fast, which had necessitated them moving to paper and pen, so she could just tear off a sheet from a legal pad and keep going, rather than erasing. Even without being able to talk, Laurel was passionate and incredibly persuasive when she argued, and she'd at least convinced her father that trying to talk her into breaking up with Oliver over his mistake eight years ago was a non-starter.

Once Quentin had gotten that - though he clearly needed more time to internalize it - he'd actually given Oliver some advice, good advice even.

'If you're even a quarter of the man my daughter insists you are, you'll be there for this kid, once you've gotten it all worked out with his mother. But - go gentle. This kid doesn't know you, and he's not gonna handle having a new father in his life all of a sudden all that easy, at least if his mom's any good. Take it slow, and listen to the kid, about who he is, what he's like, what he likes. I've seen too many criminals come out, ready to stay on the straight and narrow for the kid they didn't get to see grow up, and then find out the kid wasn't what they expected, or wasn't ready to embrace someone they didn't know the way they wanted. Some of them?' He'd shrugged. 'Well, they're in prison again.'

'Not the same thing here, with you, but just - be careful. And don't tell the kid he was a mistake.' He'd added.

It was good advice, and he was surprised Laurel's father had given it, but Oliver supposed maybe he'd grown on the older man that much. Or at least he didn't want to see an innocent kid hurt in all this.

"I'm sure he wanted to. I'm surprised your mom didn't have any choice words for me." Laurel's mother was in the guest room, on the other side of the apartment, but they weren't speaking very loudly, and the walls here were good anyway. Oliver agreed with Laurel it was inconvenient, and it would make their other work harder, but he also agreed that Laurel should have the chance to spend the time with her mom. 

I think she already figured out arguing with me about this wasn't going to work already. Laurel pointed out, shrugging as Oliver read it. And you do know my Mom. She's not not the most confrontational of people. Which was also true. She could be stern, as a teacher, when she'd taught at Balloi Prep, but before the Gambit, when he'd been at Laurel's place, or whatever, Laurel's mom hadn't been one for yelling at people, most of the time. More passive-aggressive. 

Dinah - then Lance - had definitely been more accepting of Laurel and him dating, when they were younger, but he'd definitely felt like she was judging him a few times. Not that he hadn't merited some of that, but the passive-aggression almost had been worse than her father's much more overt disapproval.

And... Mom's always been more of a romantic than dad. Laurel paused, clearly thinking for the right words. Or at least the... following your heart. I love you, and she accepts that whatever she thinks about it, I forgave you years ago. As far as Laurel's parents knew, Oliver had told her all about Samantha, and the cheating, and the pregnancy and the 'miscarriage' in the earlier times on the Island. In truth, it hadn't been until after their reunion in Russia. That time together, that second year on the island - there'd never been a moment for them to have a conversation like that.

Oliver was about to say something when his phone buzzed with a text. He picked it up. Sara was finally off-shift and she was on her way here. Oliver showed Laurel the text.  He sat down on the bed next to her. "We should probably just bite the bullet and tell her." Then something occurred to him, something he'd made a note about needing to tell Laurel, once he'd gotten in touch with her again...

And then of course she'd called, and then the particle accelerator explosion, and it had been driven out of his mind entirely.

"There is something else. In all the - I think... I think it might be time to bring Roy in more. Or cut him loose." Oliver held up a hand. "It's still your call, we agreed on that, but... much as I hate to admit it... I'm not sure cutting him loose is a good idea, and... he's earned the chance to have the choice, I think." Oliver was grimacing as he said  that. It wasn't an issue with Roy at all. He'd been impressed by the young man's tenacity, drive and his courage in standing up to him - to the Arrow - and then pursuing leads on his own. And of course, he'd proven to be a good boyfriend for Thea, even to Oliver's rather high standards for anyone who should be allowed to date Thea. 

Of course, it was Thea that was the problem. He didn't want Thea anywhere near this. She had her whole life ahead of her, a chance for a real, normal life. Hopefully one that involved her going to college next year, and doing better than he had, but that was something he'd not quite managed to convince her of the necessity of yet. 

But if Roy was brought into things more fully, even if they kept their identities secret, he'd have to keep that secret from Thea. And Thea deserved better than to have a boyfriend who was keeping secrets from her. Even secrets for her own good.

What brought this on?

Oliver explained. How Sin's friend had gone missing, Sin had tried to reach out to the Black Canary, but she was of course out of town, so Sin had gone to Roy, but Roy couldn't make contact, and so then they'd done their own searching, and then he'd tried to reach her again, only to get his 'second favorite' vigilante.

Laurel had smiled at that part, laughing just a little - silently. For what it's worth, I do think Roy actually does like the Arrow. He just likes the Black Canary more.

"Well, I can't actually disagree with him, seeing as I like the Black Canary better too," Oliver murmured, smirking. Laurel rolled her eyes a little at that, and then Oliver grimaced again, going on: "But - that wasn't the end of it. With the tip Roy gave, we were able to track the front that whoever was behind the Mirakuru was using." He told her about the Langford Institute, how Sara had talked to Blood about the blood drive, and gotten their name. Oliver had gone there, found the centrifuge, Cyrus Gold, and the man in the mask.

And Roy.

"I arrived just in time to stop them from injecting him, but... the fact that he refused to back down. Maybe you could have talked him down, but he's clearly tired of staying on the sidelines, and... he's dedicated. I know I worried about how much he actually cared about the cause, but... you were right and I was wrong."

Well, the Black Canary will have to talk to him. And there's Thea to consider. You've made the point about him keeping secrets from her not being good.

Laurel paused, then added, We can work it out later. It's... we do have a lot to deal with.

"True." Oliver inhaled, then exhaled. "For Sara..." he trailed off, not sure what to say. "She'll probably be more willing to let you explain without interruption, but... maybe you should prepare some writing ahead of time?"

Laurel cocked her head to one side, then nodded. Not a bad idea. She started writing, and Oliver stood, pacing, trying to figure out the best way to broach this whole thing with Sara. And if Sara would ever forgive him.

With Tommy still keeping his distance, Oliver's actual circle of friends was small, and Sara was a big part of it. They'd been friends for a long time, anyway, so... 

 And then Oliver blinked as something else he hadn't thought of until just now occurred to him.

Mom. And Thea. Oliver had no plans to try to sue for shared custody. For one, the media circus. Laurel didn't deserve that, Sam didn't deserve that, and William didn't deserve that. Besides, right now, with the mission and -

He was in no position to have any custody. Nor did he want to uproot William from his home, his friends...

But Oliver was going to be part of William's life, or... he was going to try very hard to convince Samantha of that. And maybe eventually he'd be able to be at a point where William could... visit? Or something? 

And that meant that even if he tried to hide it from them, they were going to find out, sooner or later.

Mom already knows about... knows that I got Sam pregnant. But she still thought that the baby was lost. So the only real issue there was if his mother would try to encourage him to have nothing to do with William, for the sake of appearances. I think she'd be fine with me... trying to set up some sort of college fund, or more, for him, but... 

As for Thea... well, after the revelations about their father, how often he'd cheated on their mother, he didn't want to...

Thea didn't know. About the times he'd cheated on Laurel - Sam being the worst, of course, but not the only, unfortunately. Well, maybe she knew - some of them had been more noticed by paparazzi than others. But those, while bad, weren't the same as the far more deliberate decision he'd made with Sam.

He didn't want Thea to be disappointed in him. But there wasn't much choice. Sooner or later, he'd have to tell them both, about William.

The sound of Sara knocking at the door, calling out, drew Oliver's attention, and with a nod to Laurel, he went out to the door to get it, seeing Laurel's mother coming out of the kitchen, a cup of coffee in hand. He supposed he wasn't surprised she hadn't tried to go to sleep yet. Oliver opened the front door. 

"God, Oliver, I'm so - I tried to get off shift sooner, but the's been near riots in the streets for the last sixteen hours, after someone leaked that Star Labs has a storage facility in town, and there was an attempt to actually lynch someone who worked at Star Labs, and people are trying to storm the storage facility which has god knows what kind of crazy science shit inside it, and City Hall wants the Storage facility emptied but of course it's not like there's anyone at Star Labs who can oversee removing that shit safely since the whole place blew up and half the employees are in the hospital, so we've been trying to get the crowd to disperse and -" Sara paused for breath, finally, and Oliver held up a hand.

"It's alright. We only got back here an hour ago. Laurel's in our room." He stepped aside to let Sara fully into the apartment, closing the door behind her. Sara glanced past him and saw her mother, the cup of coffee in hand.

"Mom?"

"Since classes at Central City University are canceled right now, and - your sister's trip got abridged, especially after she left after..." Sara's mom trailed off, then  shook her head. "Laurel and Oliver invited me to come over for a few days." 

Sara nodded, shooting Oliver a look that said 'you couldn't have warned me?'. Then she took a breath. "I suppose you both had a lot of other things to -" she trailed off, then walked over to her Mom. 

"It is nice to see you, Mom." She said softly, and hugged her for a moment - Dinah returned the hug, one armed - and then pulled back. "I just - I just want to check on Laurel, and then I - I need to get back to my place, I'm on shift again in nine hours... I'll - I'll call you?"

Dinah handed her the cup of coffee. "It's more cream and sugar than you like, but I think you're going to need this more than me, right now." She murmured softly, looking past her daughter a moment to meet Oliver's eyes. Oliver nodded, slowly. Sara looked at her, then back to Oliver, raising an eyebrow.

"...what's going on?"

"There's something that Laurel and I need to tell you." Oliver said quietly. Sara looked even more confused, but followed silently into the bedroom, where Laurel was still sitting on the bed, writing more. Sara sipped at the coffee, making a face at presumably the amount of cream and sugar in it, but that didn't stop her from taking another sip a few moments later. 

"So... I'm going to guess, from Mom saying I would need this cup of saccharine coffee that's practically milk at this point that... I'm going to find out what it is that you argued with her about, Laurel?" Sara let out, then dropped her head in her hand, clearing her throat. She approached Laurel, setting the coffee down on a side table and hugging her sister, tight.

"Sorry - I - I haven't slept in twenty four hours and I'm stressed, I should have opened with... - I -" Sara flushed. "Asking if you're okay seems a little inadequate, since your voice isn't -" She let out a breath, pulling away. "Are you okay, Laurel? I know you said you were, but you're still okay?"

Laurel held up a piece of paper. I'm okay as I can be, under the circumstances. The doctors say my voice should come back on its own soon. 

Sara let out a breath, "Oh thank god. How - how did -"

"The doctors said they don't know." Oliver saved Laurel from having to write it all out. "Laurel's last memory before the explosion hit her was screaming, so they think it's a combination of strain and psychosomatic reactions."

"I guess... I guess that makes sense. I assume, between that, and Mom being here, you're still going to be taking a break from the... other job?" Sara murmured that last part, and Laurel nodded, writing quickly.

If it lasts for more than a few days, I'm not letting it stop me, but yes, for now. Then she found one of the papers she'd already written on, and added a few words, before holding it up. As for the argument Mom and I had - it was about what to do about the fact that Oliver has a son.

Laurel! Admittedly there was no good way to ease into it, but - 

Oliver and Laurel's Apartment, Starling City

December 5th, 2013

As for the argument Mom and I had - it was about what to do about the fact that Oliver has a son.

Sara knew better than that, but she still found herself looking at Laurel's midsection. She picked up the cup of coffee again, taking another sip, grimacing again. I used to like this much sugar and cream in my coffee. It was something her mother and she used to have in common Being a cop really has fucked over my taste buds when it comes to this.  

"...judging from the look on Oliver's face, I'm guessing this doesn't mean I'm going to be an aunt in half a year, so..." she trailed off, looking at Oliver. She knew Oliver hadn't always been faithful to Laurel way back when, when he'd gotten too drunk, at a party, or - and then there'd been a few times they'd briefly broken up... "So... I'm guessing that means you ran into someone who had a kid of his..." Though she found it hard to believe that someone with Oliver's kid wouldn't have tried to go public with that information... or maybe not, given what had happened to the Queen name, since the Undertaking, but what about before?

Laurel nodded, holding up a prewritten piece of paper. I ran into Samantha Clayton. And her son William.She lied about how old he was.

"Samantha Clayton... that name sounds..." Sara furrowed her brow. "Why do I know that name?"

Laurel turned that piece of paper over. Samantha was my roommate in college. 

"Right. I remember you saying something about your roommate moving out in the middle of the year abruptly, and -" Sara blinked, then turned to Oliver. "You cheated on Laurel with her ROOMMATE?!" Sara was stunned she didn't screech those words, but somehow she just hissed them. "That's -  that's - cheating with your girlfriend's roommate is just a step or two below cheating with her sister, which I mean - at least that couldn't happen because I'd never - but -'' Sara gabbled wordlessly for a long moment, unable to even find the right words, then finally shutting her mouth, and inhaling sharply.

It was one thing to cheat when you got drunk or high or worse at a party. Sara had sometimes wondered if Laurel was right in taking Oliver back those times, but he was Oliver Queen, and that long ago, Sara would have said Oliver was hot enough to be worth that. And it wasn't like Sara could throw a ton of stones for most of it, given her own habits at those same sorts of parties.

"I know." Oliver said quietly. 

"You know! Is that all you have to say-"

"There's not much I can say. It was one of the stupidest decisions I ever made, but I made it. I told Laurel about it, about everything, when - when we found eachother again."

Sara only knew the outline of all five years for both of them, but he did know they'd met back up in Russia, and -

Sara felt her hands balling into fists, and she was still breathing in and out, quickly, sharply, feeling her jaw clench. She turned back to look at Laurel.

Dad already punched him. Oliver gave him the free shot - his choice. It's up to Oliver if he gives you the same chance.

"Oh, I'll do more than just punch him! How can you - he-" Sara closed her eyes, taking a breath, then letting it out, slowly. "...I - I guess, by then, with everything -" He gritted her teeth. "I can sort of understand it, but you - you -" she turned back to Oliver. "I am hurting you worse than Dad ever did, because I have a much better idea of what you're capable of taking than him."

Oliver grimaced, opened his mouth to say something, then stopped as Laurel started writing something. Sara held her tongue as well, until Laurel held up the paper again.

Whatever you do, whatever Oliver lets you do - and it's up to him. If I was up to me, Dad wouldn't have even been allowed the one punch - you can't kick him between the legs, or anything like that. And knowing you, it's crossing your mind. 

Laurel held up another sheet, a deadpan, almost flat expression on her face. I like what's down there to be in full working order, thank you very much. Somehow, the deadpan expression,and the fact that she wasn't saying it out loud actually made that absolutely ridiculous line sound more -

Despite everything, Sara cracked a smile. She looked over at Oliver, who had looked over at Laurel, making a face at her, but Laurel just raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'll keep that in mind." She looked back at Oliver. "We'll talk about what I'm doing to you later, because we still have your son to talk about." God that sounds fucking weird to say. Sure it was probably inevitable eventually but - you expect to have some time to get used to the idea that someone you know is about to become a parent. "You didn't know about him, or there wouldn't have been Laurel having it out with Mom over it."

"Samantha said she lost the baby." Oliver nodded.

Well, that... I mean, that's surprising. At the very least, she'd have imagined anyone impregnated by Oliver Queen would have tried to get child support, or a trust fund - this was back when the Queens had ungodly sums of money, instead of just a lot of money. With most of Oliver's assets now invested into his effort to hold onto Queen Consolidated, or the trust that Laurel ran, that sort of thing wouldn't be as profitable now.

On the other hand, maybe she wanted to spare her child the media circus. Or worse. 

"Well, clearly she lied. Are you sure her son is-"

When I ran into her, the first thing I did was tell her I know about the cheating, and that I forgave her. So she knew I knew about things. So she'd have no reason to lie about her son's age if he wasn't Oliver's.

"...point." Sara admitted. "You told Mom all this?"

I wanted her advice on - William has a life. Should I really uproot it? Should we? I knew I had to tell Oliver, but- what was there to do afterwards? Mom tried to convince me I shouldn't tell him at all.

"Wait, really?" Sara blinked. "What on earth was she - what, did she think Oliver was going to leave you for his baby momma? Whatever thoughtless, cruel, stupid shit he did all those years ago, that's not him now." She scoffed, "Hell, even if he was that sort of person still - and he's not, he's really not - he'd always come back to you, as long as you took him." The sky was blue. Water was wet. Oliver and Laurel would always get back together. Universal constants, really.

Yes, Mom thought that. Laurel shook her head. I know she meant well, but she doesn't understand.

"And you got angry with her and stormed out, during the argument?"

After the Count, I was, I still am, feeling raw. She lowered the paper and wrote a bit more. Exposed. Like a nerve. She swallowed, and Sara felt her anger at Oliver - well, not melt away, but at least get superseded. There were bigger things. 

"Right. And... and I suppose an exploding particle accelerator, losing your voice and having to beat it into Dad's head that you forgave Oliver didn't help." Sara murmured, letting out a long sigh. "I'll - I'll try not to make it worse, for now."

Thank you. Laurel wrote. We still need to figure out what to do about William. He deserves a chance to know his father.

"I'm not planning on suing for custody or anything," Oliver murmured. "I - I just... he's my son."

"You don't need to explain that to me. I understand." And she understood not wanting to sue for custody. It was the right move, for a kid who was about to have his whole world change. But it's the right move, not suing for custody. At least as long as she doesn't try to keep you away from him entirely." Sara agreed. "You don't have to figure it out right now either." She sipped at the coffee again, then just downed the entire cup. Given how little she was running on, it would be enough to keep her awake until she got home, and then...

True. But we can't wait forever.

"No, but you have someone trying to make supersoldiers running around too." And IA was giving her another way too close look, since once again she was involved in a case - had actively taken over a case - that had vigilante fingerprints all over it. A friend of a friend in IA had even very obliquely hinted that they were taking another look at the prospect of Oliver and Laurel being the vigilantes.

Or at least, that was one way to interpret the warning. That friend of a friend was probably the only guy in IA she knew that appreciated what the Arrow and Black Canary were trying to do. 

Well, in IA's defense, any good cop who works there has to be even more dedicated to upholding the letter of the law. Most of the SCPD wasn't a fan of the vigilantes, though some, like she'd been able to do before finding out who they were, could see why they were necessary.

But IA especially hated the vigilantes, and she knew they had it out for her. There were too many suspicious things piling up in her record. 

"And..." She hesitated. This was her problem first, since IA was looking into her, first and foremost, but - if there was...

What?

"It - it can wait." IA moved slow, at the best of times, and it wasn't like they hadn't all covered their tracks. They had. There was - it could wait until things were -

There's only so much IA can actually do. The Vigilantes aren't their remit, technically. Sara told herself.

Sara. Laurel gave her a pointed look.

"Just - it's nothing that can't wait, I promise. Just a few days, okay?" She hugged Laurel again, holding her sister tight. "If you drop out of communication like that again, I'm tracking you down and dragging you back home myself." 

You can certainly try. Laurel smiled, and Sara rolled her eyes. 

"Okay, yes, I'd try. But I'd try very hard, so don't do it again. Even a pay phone or an unsecured line just to let us know you're alive!"

I didn't know an emergency was happening that was having you call that much to be worried! Laurel countered.

"I would have been calling you every day anyway, you know that." Oliver pointed out, and Laurel slowly nodded, conceding the point. 

Next time I'm somewhere that has a run on phone characters, I'll find a different way to reach out, promise.

"Good." Sara said, chuckling a moment, allowing herself that moment of humor. She stood, then "I know there's a lot to discuss... and you and I," she looked to Oliver, "need to have words. But - I also need to get some sleep before my next shift, and I need... I do need to think. I'm still coming to terms with super soldiers too."

"...that did take some time to get used to the first time around," Oliver admitted. He looked away from her for a moment. "As for the words-"

"Later." Sara said, softly. Then she let out a breath. "Laurel forgave you, and she's the one you wronged, so that's the important thing. I can't control being upset on her behalf, even if she'd probably prefer I just move on."

It would be ideal, but I'd probably have problems doing that if our positions were reversed. Laurel admitted. 

"Angry or not, you're still my friend." Oliver didn't do anything so obvious as sigh in relief or anything, but she could see a bit of tension leave him. "Worried about that?"

"Just... just a little." Oliver admitted quietly. 

"Well, don't." Sara assured him. Besides, with as tiny as my social circle is, cutting him out would leave me with even fewer friends. And since Laurel and Oliver wouldn't break up even if faced with the heat death of the universe, even if she had decided she hated Oliver until the end of time, she'd have to learn to live with him anyway.

She covered her mouth as the yawn she'd been holding back all day finally escaped her lips, even as she tried to stop it. "And with that - I should move now, while I can still drive safely. I'll talk to you both in the morning."

The Foundry, Starling City

December 8th, 2013

Laurel's voice still hadn't recovered.

A quick check at Starling General had confirmed that things were still fine, she should have it back any moment. There was something a bit 'unusual' about her bloodwork, but after a second check by the lab, the doctors couldn't find anything to be worried about.

But Laurel was worrying. If there was no medical reason why she could have lost her voice, it was entirely psychological, and that meant she had some sort of... mental block? Somehow?

It didn't make any sense to her. And it was driving her to distraction, distraction that had brought her here, back down to the foundry, working the wing chun dummy and the salmon ladder. She was pushing herself as hard as she could, trying to push past this block, this distraction, everything coiled tight, inside her.

Her mother had, somewhat reluctantly, headed back to Central a few hours ago, getting word that classes would be starting up again next week. Her mom wasn't the only person she knew going from Starling to Central either. 

Oliver and Sara had filled her in on all the details, about the CSI from Central - Barry Allen - and how he'd helped them, how Barry had saved Oliver's life. It wasn't ideal someone they didn't have time to vet knew the secret, but it had seemed to work out. 

Only Allen had ended up also dealing with the effects of the Particle Accelerator explosion, which had left him in a coma. Which was why Felicity was taking a brief break from both of her jobs to head down to Central to visit the guy she was crushing on. According to Sara, the two were pretty cute together.

But more interesting, more concern, was the story relayed about Barry's mother's murder. Someone, moving in the lightning, being the real killer. It seemed impossible, but what little she knew about magic, and other... strange things, that the League had more experience with, it seemed possible. The League, and the circles it moved in, were rife with stories. Gossip, even, like Sara had described it a few months back.

Stories of the more strange and esoteric enemies that the League had killed, or dealt with. Most of the League's kills were of corrupt politicians, well-guarded warlords, people who had paid up with all the right people to be untouchable. Ordinary justice wouldn't deal with them, and so the League did. But there were always stories, of the kinds of people that ordinary justice couldn't deal with. 

Malcolm Merlyn would have been - had been - a potent enemy for a SWAT team. Impossible, probably. But a bunch of SWAT Teams? An attack helicopter or two? Even Merlyn couldn't have handled all that at once.

But someone like Slade? Maybe. And the stories, not just of people like Damien Darhk and Felix Faust, with magic at their command, but other strange, unusual powers that defied explanation.

Some of them had to be fake, but others?

Unfortunately, try as Laurel might - and she had, wanting to pay Barry back for saving Oliver's life - she couldn't recall any stories about someone with the power to control, or become, or... move inside lightning, or whatever it was that Barry had apparently seen.

All that and more worked through her mind as she tried not to think about her lack of a voice, or how this might stick around, long-term. The problems it could create in the field, if she couldn't communicate directly. She could learn sign language of some sort, Oliver could as well, but -

I can't let it stop me. There's too much that needs to be done. More work to save this city. 

The door started to open, and Laurel pulled away from the dummy, breathing harder than she usually did after a training session, having put more effort into this -

"Laurel." Sara greeted, coming in. Laurel nodded, raising her hand in a simple wave of greeting, grabbing a towel and drying off quickly, getting the worst of the sweat off her. "Do you have a minute... or ten? Or, like, thirty?" Sara's tone was slow, cautious and - anxious. Her sister was doing a good job of hiding it, but Laurel knew her too well to not notice the tense way she was standing, like she was ready to bolt. Not that she was, but it was her tell, when she was nervous, anxious, worried - a subtle shift in her stance, but one Laurel recognized.

Laurel nodded, looking for the pad of paper she'd brought with her, in case she needed it, finding it resting next to the computers. She grabbed it, and Sara nodded.

"So... you know how I said it wasn't anything that couldn't wait, the other day?" Sara started slowly, and Laurel nodded again. "I wasn't lying... it could wait. It can wait. But - it - you and Oliver you have so much on your plate and I -" Sara cut herself off. Laurel started to write, but Sara interrupted her. "I - I need to get this out now, because there's a lot to say, and if you interrupt me, I'm not sure I'm going to finish."

Now Laurel was worried. She swallowed, then nodded. What could be this much of an issue, affecting her this much? Sara still hadn't had a chance to have her 'words' with Oliver about Samantha, yet, but that couldn't be related to this. 

"You know that there's people in SCPD, in Internal Affairs, who think I'm involved with the Hood and the Black Canary. Correctly, even if they don't know that for sure." Laurel remembered getting very annoyed, even a little angry with Sara over how she'd been unable to warn them about the SCPD's attempt at a trap, with the medical supply trucks. She'd been unfair about it, not really thinking about the pressures Sara had to be in. Which was doubly stupid, since worry about leaving Sara torn between her family and her job was the whole reason she'd been hesitant about bringing her in, asking for her help, accepting her help, initially.

"What you don't know, what I didn't know until just four days ago, while Oliver and Dad were driving down to Central to get you and -" Sara paused, took another breath, then went on. "...IA is looking even more closely now. Like, full on opening an investigation into me. And more importantly, someone at IA has gotten it into their heads that if I am working with the Black Canary and the Arrow... then the most likely candidates for Black Canary and Arrow are you and Oliver."

Laurel tensed. This is her definition of something that can wait? It wasn't that suspicion was the end of the world. They had plans for this. Oliver had a guy he knew, who could throw more mud into the water, distract, like she had when they'd arrested Oliver the first time. But they could only prepare for that sort of thing when they knew what was coming! Or even deliberately laid some leads themselves just to lure the SCPD and DA's office into overextending their hand.

This - this was not something that could.

"I know what you're thinking, and yes, it could wait, yes it can wait. IA moves slow at the best of times, and this is not the best of times." Sara insisted. She tensed more, biting her lip, crossing her arms in front of her chest, then uncrossing them as she kept going. "The SCPD - most of the department doesn't like the vigilantes. You know, for making us look bad, for breaking an ungodly number of laws - I've broken 262 laws at this point, depending on how you count! IA has every right to want to string me up and leave me out to dry," Sara laughed, a sardonic, pained bark without any humor. She kept talking, voice rising, sounding almost a little hysterical. 

She's been letting this fester. That was a problem with both her, and her sister. They got it from Dad. Sitting on emotions, letting them ball up, repressing, and then... they kind of blew up. I got so good at that, in the League, I didn't realize I was even doing it so much, until after... until after the Count. Laurel closed her eyes a moment, forcing herself to take a breath, pushing back the sudden hit of anger and self-loathing that hit again as she remembered, the guilt, the shame -

"But - IA really doesn't like you two. It comes with the job, really.  To be a good cop in Internal Affairs, not the kind of obstructionist asshole on the crime shows, you have to actually - you have to believe in the letter of the law. Like, deep, in your bones. So... IA really doesn't like you, or Oliver. Or the Vigilantes, anyway. You. Mostly. There's one. A friend of a friend. He's one of the few cops that - that sees why you're both necessary. Even if he doesn't like it. He let me know that IA was opening a formal case, made a very oblique reference, that they were looking into you, into Oliver." Sara held up a hand, starting to pace. 

"All in the context of looking into me. They can't - IA can only investigate other cops. And IA's cases - they can't just hand information over to other branches of the department. Not without a whole, complicated process. Normally, I'd call it very stupid, but right now, it's a good thing." 

Sara... you should have told us sooner. She'd only mentioned IA a few times, months ago. Nothing since. Even if this formal opening of a case was new, the eying her and Oliver, Sara still had to have known something was building. She hadn't come to them.

She doesn't need to be handling this by herself. 

And she should have said something. She - they couldn't do their work if one of them was keeping information like this back! But she closed her eyes again, trying to push down on her anger. She'd - she'd yell at Sara later, when she had her voice back. Just - just a little yelling. As much because she was worried about her sister as anything else, but...

You can't keep this sort of thing secret, Sara.

Laurel approached Sara and touched her shoulder, gently, making her stop her pacing. Laurel wrapped her arms around her sister, hugging her for a moment, and Sara hesitated, then returned the hug, just for another few moments. Sara's breathing slowed, a little, she seemed less on the edge of hyperventilating.

Sara pulled away, "I... I -" She paused, saying nothing for a long moment. Laurel assumed she was done, and started writing, quickly.

We'll figure this one out too. We can cut back on how much you help us, for a while, try to get involved in other Detective's cases, actively muddy the waters... It's not like the SCPD's firewalls are so secure that Felicity can't get past most of them to get the info we need.

"It's more than that. I was a good cop, a good detective." Sara started, voice soft again, at least. A little calmer. "I had a good case closure rate, never had even a hint of any sort of corruption, and in a city like Starling, that's hard. Even good cops end up with... some kind of blemish." Sara turned away, then back to her. "Did you know that ninety percent of the detectives in SCPD get at least one use of force complaint against them, at some point in their careers?"

Laurel had found that statistic, when she was pre-law, doing a project for one of her classes. And she'd found that her father - their father - had had several, then. And while a few were unfounded, a few - a few probably weren't. It was one of the first times Laurel had ever had trouble looking her Dad in the eye, for several weeks after.

"Sure, some of them are nonsense, and some of them are complicated, but a lot are legitimate, even if - even if there's more to the cops behind them. Sometimes. But - I never had one. Sure, I sometimes pushed protocol, ran investigations without full approval, a lot of people complained to their lawyers about me digging into them too much, and some of the warrants I got were... dubious. I won't pretend to be perfect, I'm not sure any cop could be and damn me to hell if that isn't an indictment on my profession. But I was a good cop. And now - I've had IA open multiple investigations against me and -"

Sara! Stop! Laurel tried to get her attention, to get her to stop, finally settling for the very direct expedient of covering her mouth with one hand, like she had when they were - 

I was... what, sixteen last time I did this to her? 

She pulled her hand back, and Sara at least gave her a moment to write.

Sara. I'm sorry. I never wanted you to I never meant for you to have to end up in this situation. If you need to stop helping us entirely, I understand. Oliver would understand. This was not what she expected. And it was not something she wanted. 

She - she understood why this might bother Sara. Why this - she didn't want to see Sara leave the team, the work. It wasn't just for her help, but for -

As sisters, she and Sara had always loved each other, but there had been times, especially when Sara dove into her partygirl antics too much, where she and Sara hadn't been friends. She'd been closer to her sister now, with her sister now, on the team, than she had for years before the Gambit.

She didn't want to lose that. And...

She couldn't deny being... again. Angry. Just a little. That Sara was potentially about to abandon the work. She understood, but -

She knows the SCPD has issues, she knows the work is important, and she wants to leave? Abandon - Laurel knew she was being unreasonable, but -

"That's just it! I can't stop. If I stop now, everything I've done, every law I've broken, will have been for nothing! And - the work you two do. I hate that it's true, but Starling City needs you. Both of you. Crime has dropped thanks to you, more people are alive because of you, and people that the SCPD could never have dealt with, or at least, not without a lot more work, a lot more deaths, a lot more time, are in prison or dead or just - not an issue anymore. I can't just stop helping you, knowing what I know. And if - if something happens, something where you, or Oliver, you need my help, and I'm not there... I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

You don't need to do this to yourself, for me, for Oliver. Please don't. Don't light yourself on fire to keep me warm, Sara. 

"It's not that simple. It - it's too late. I -" Sara started pacing. "There's - there's more - there's something - I can't - I can't just quit, Laurel. This problem is mine. Mine to deal with. We'll - we'll have to work on the - we can deal with IA, you're right, I just -" Sara ran a hand through her hair.

Laurel moved to stand in front of her sister, writing again. There's more? Sara, whatever it is, you can tell me. Yes, I'm a little upset you held this back, and if my voice was working I might even yell at you a bit, but I understand why you did, and - I don't want you to quit working with us, with the team, but I don't want you to feel so torn in two.

"You don't get it, Laurel! You need to stop being so - you need to stop being supportive and understanding! This isn't the only thing I'm keeping from you, from Oliver. And my worst - I've done more than just obstruct justice and leak information and - I stole two kilos of Heroin from evidence lockup for Cyvus Vanch because he's blackmailing me with footage of you killing the Count!"

Sara's eyes went wide with horror, her mouth dropping open as if she was only realizing what she'd actually said. "Laurel, no - I -"

Laurel felt her heart pounding in her chest, breathing suddenly quickening. She - she felt something in her throat. A - something gathering, or coiling or - she didn't have the right words for it. It was - it was almost like something was stuck there, some piece of food, but she wasn't choking, she could breathe just fine.

She was - she mentioned Vanch calling her, making threats, talking big, and then she never - she knows better than this! Knows better than to - she - she  stole  evidence, not to hide our work, not - everyone knows I killed the Count, it-

And Vanch. Vanch was coming after her sister. Again. He hadn't learned his lesson the first time. 

"Laurel you - He was - He was the one who told The Count where to go! He was the - he set the Count up. He had everything planned. That footage - it's not just you killing! I saw how - anyone who's seen the Black Canary fight, who has even the slightest inkling - and it's more than the cops! He could send it to Danny Brickwell, China White - he has backups, deadman switches- you can't do anything to him! I didn't - I shouldn't have told you-"

YES YOU SHOULD HAVE! Laurel wanted to scream. This wasn't just - a bit of a delay, keeping something bottled up until it was too big to hide or -

This was -

She stole heroin, gave it to Vanch. That just gave him more dirt on her. What else was he going to demand from her? The video - they could deal with some video, or even -

"This is my problem to deal with, not yours. I'll deal with Vanch - you don't need to-" Sara was talking quickly. Laurel felt like her throat was on fire as Sara kept trying to walk back what she said, pretending it wasn't what it was. She was talking around something, trying to avoid saying something else, about Vanch, about. 

Why didn't she - she had no right to keep something like this quiet! This isn't just about her! We could have planned for the video, gotten out in front of it-

She was seeing red. Some small part of her mind she wasn't really listening to was trying to point out it really hadn't been that long since she'd killed the Count, despite it feeling like months (and yet feeling like yesterday, at the same time), that there was still plenty of time to lay some sort of ground work, get out in front of the video. That Sara's concerns about how she'd have reacted to the news, especially right then, might have been reasonable -

No. None of that was registering in her mind, against an unassailable brick wall of half-reasonable, half-unreasonable rage, and that feeling in her throat, almost like her anger was -

She felt something rising, almost like she was going to vomit, about to force it's way up -  but it wasn't vomit, couldn't be vomit -

I can't - I need to turn away from Sara. Some instinct told her she had to turn, had to look away-

Laurel turned, facing away from Sara, towards the computers, the equipment on the tables - her mouth all but forced itself open, and she screamed-

And she watched, as her scream seemed to travel in visible waves, from her, into the computers, the equipment, Oliver's tennis-ball shooting device for arrow practice - all of it exploded, sparks flying from the computers, the diagnostic medical cart, the visible sound waves crashing into the wall, actually making pieces of the concrete fly off, concrete dust rising.

Laurel stood there, surveying the damage, the wreck her scream had left of their hideout, the damage mere sound - sound she'd made, not some sonic device or -

"Madha bihaqi aljahim?" Laurel found herself saying, her first words since the particle accelerator explosion in Arabic, her mind instinctively going back to the language she'd practically thought and dreamed in, while in the League.

What the hell?

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 12: Control

Arrow:  I will always come for you, pretty bird. [Embraces The Black Canary, presses his forehead to hers] 

Black Canary:  I never doubted it for a minute. I love you. [Whispers] Drop, now. 

[Arrow drops to the ground, as the camera shifts, revealing DEATHSTROKE standing back up behind where Arrow had been standing, despite the multiple arrows in his body, his mask torn half-off. Black Canary screams at Deathstroke, sending him flying off the top of the skyscraper as he staggers back under the force of the sound waves.]

-Excerpt from the transcript of 'Black Canary And Arrow: The Siege of Starling City', a movie released in 2026 based on the events of the supervillain Deathstroke's attack on Starling City in 2014. At the time, though many suspected it by then, neither Oliver Queen or Laurel Lance had come out as being vigilantes, though the movie series took sides on the dispute by casting actors that looked quite similar to the two in 2014. The movie was panned as being inaccurate to the events in question - Arrow was reportedly especially known to have disliked the movie, but it was praised as being genuine to the heart and soul of the heroes and the culmination of their romance (first hinted at in 2023's movie "Black Canary and Arrow: The First Supervillain', about the events of the Undertaking) was praised as one of the best Hollywood had produced in years.

The Foundry, Starling City

December 8th, 2013

"What just happened? What the - what did I do? How did I -" she looked at Sara, as if hoping her sister had answers, but her sister was rubbing around her ears. "Sara! Did I - did I - are you - are your ears okay? Can you hear?"

"Laurel, I don't speak Arabic... can you say that again?" Sara asked, raising her voice a little, like she'd been listening to loud music and hadn't quite adapted her ears.

Laurel blinked, and realized she had been speaking more Arabic, not just the curse word. Laurel swallowed and tried again. "Sorry I - " She raised her voice just a little, terrified whatever had happened would happen again - not looking at Sara, just in case - "I was trying to ask if you could hear okay."

"There's this godawful ringing, and my head hurts all of a sudden, but the headache might just be because of the conversation we were just having. And the ringing is less than what happens to people who get hit by your sonic device so... I'll manage." Sara's volume dropped a little by the end of her answer, though not completely back to normal. "What the hell was that?"

"I..." Laurel heard her own voice now, and realized she sounded... hoarse. Scratchy. Like she'd just...

Just been screaming.

Which she had.

"I don't know." Laurel finished. "I felt this," she brought a hand up, gesturing at her neck, her diaphragm. "I felt this... something in my throat. And I knew - somehow I knew I shouldn't be facing you. And then I screamed and then..." she gestured to the wreckage of the hideout. Half the place was wrecked. The tables and chairs themselves seemed to be intact, even if toppled over, but the computers and more... it even looked like the concrete wall was chipped a little. Laurel walked towards it, gingerly stepping over shards of computer and pieces of equipment and touched the wall, feeling the spots that looked like they'd been damaged, looking at them.

Definitely bits blasted out. Not a lot, but still.

"You didn't... you didn't by any chance swallow your sonic device at some point, did you?" Sara asked, an awkward, forced laugh following the question. Laurel turned to look at her sister, and Sara held up a hand, "Sorry. Bad joke, I - I just... what?"

A really good question. Laurel felt her breath catch as she pondered that, her pulse racing. She closed her eyes and took a breath, and then another. Her emotional control was still ragged, but her physical control - even if days of being angry with her mother hadn't done much for her state of mind while away from her in Central, she had gotten her body back under control.

To do what she did, to fight as she did, to not kill, she had to be as aware as possible of her body and her strength. A talent drilled into her by the League. Granted, they hadn't taught her these skills with the intent to use them to reduce less than the maximum harm possible, but... they were adaptable.

She couldn't afford to lose that again, so she took another breath, eyes still closed.

"Laurel?" Sara asked, tentatively, carefully walking towards her. She reached out an arm to gently touch her shoulder slowly. Laurel turned, holding up her hand.

"Don't - not - I'm still angry with you. With what you hid." Laurel murmured softly. Sara grimaced, looking away a moment, then she nodded.

"Right. Sorry."

"I just want to make it clear we're not done with that conversation." Laurel pressed, and Sara nodded again. With that out of the way, Laurel pulled her sister in for a quick hug, as much for her own sake as for Sara's. She used the hug to ground herself further as she tried to understand what had happened.

She'd... screamed. Louder than should be possible. And her sound waves had been unidirectional, visible and done an insane amount of damage for... well, a human scream.

But is it a human scream? 

Somehow, she had the ability to do that? Or... had it been some freak accident? Some... bizarre event that just... happened. And if she could do that, if she could scream like that, was it something she did consciously, or could she control it.

And of course, if I am doing it, how? People didn't do that.

Normal people didn't, anyway. But... then... normal people weren't the only people in the world. Hadn't she just been pondering that before Sara came in, and dropped her revelations, one and then the other?

Damien Darhk and Felix Faust and the others... most of them... magic is something ancient. It's a thing of talismans and rituals, icons and spells... not... just making a thing happen. But there were other stories that were passed around the league. A shapeshifting telepath was another story that passed around. Demons, or beings that could be called that. Some were probably just stories, but others...

Oliver and that Idol he found. Mirakuru itself. Reality really is stranger than we think.

"I... step back, away. I - I'm going to see if I can do it again." Laurel told her sister. "See if it's something I can do consciously." She stepped away from the wall as well, making sure only things she'd already destroyed were her field of vision, apart from the wall. No reason to destroy more stuff.

Sara nodded, "Right. Uhm... I'll stand over here." She hurried around behind Laurel, into the undestroyed part of the base. 

Laurel took another breath. She wanted to see if she could do this when she wasn't angry. Or rather, when anger wasn't dominating her. Because she was still angry at her sister and at Vanch. 

She focused on the feeling of something trying force itself up her throat, how it had felt like she had to vomit, but not. How she'd screamed. The way it had felt for that... force to rip from her throat.

She screamed.

And nothing happened. Just a loud noise. 

She cursed in Arabic for a moment. If this was something that happened any time she got angry, that would be dangerous. Very dangerous. She had to know for sure. And if it was, she had to find a way to make sure it didn't happen.

Staying calm in the field is usually easy, but all it takes is one slip.

She heard Sara shifting on her feet behind her. She heard the sound of her own breathing, felt her own pulse. 

Maybe focusing on the feeling of how it had happened for the first time wasn't it? Laurel had loved YA novels as a teenager, stories about teens having powers, or strange abilities or magic. She didn't read those sorts of books these days, or even sci-fi fantasy novels as much as she might have under other circumstances, but she still did from time to time. And Sara was always comparing her life, their lives, this whole situation to comic books.

Laurel had always seen it as much as Sara's coping with what had to seem like pure insanity to someone normal, someone who hadn't been to hell and back like she had, like Oliver had. Diggle had served three tours in Afghanistan, its own kind of hell, even if different. Being a cop in Starling City wasn't easy but... Still.

As such, Laurel's view of the 'comic book' comparisons had been that they were... understandable, but wrong. Or at least, shallow comparisons.

But now. Well. she had a superpower, didn't she?

I have a superpower. She repeated in her head. It sounded slightly less insane the second time. Stress-induced abilities are not unheard of in those sorts of stories, but they don't need to be stressed to use them. Usually. How did a hero in the comics use their powers? Usually, they just willed them to happen.

So she screamed again, thinking about how her scream had been so much louder, so much more powerful-

The visible sound waves flew from her mouth again, crashing into the debris in front of her and breaking them even more, chipping more concrete off the wall. It seemed to have as much force, as much power as the first time...

"Well, that confirms I can do it consciously, but..." Laurel shook her head. 

"But what? Laurel, you have superpowers!" Laurel turned to face her sister, who was bouncing on her feet excitedly. "And a cool one too, not a lame one like Reed Richards stretching or the Mystery Men's whole... whatever." Sara gestured vaguely. "I remember nothing about that movie except that everyone's powers sucked." She shook her head. "Not the point. The point is, you have superpowers! And from an exploding particle accelerator to boot. Which is just..."

Sara furrowed her brow. "...which means other people probably have powers too. Since there's tens of thousands of people in Central City and the odds of you being the only one with powers after that seem pretty slim."

Laurel hadn't even thought about the how - though to be fair, she'd only just had that first scream five minutes ago, but...

What else would it be? There had to be a connection between the explosion causing her to lose her voice, and her powers.

"I... I guess that makes sense." Laurel murmured. It did make a frightening amount of sense. Laurel wasn't arrogant enough to assume she was special in this regard. "Something to worry about later, but there's nothing we can do about it now." Laurel didn't see how they could prove anything right now, and what were they supposed to do, go to STAR Labs and tell them 'hey, your exploding accelerator gave me superpowers'?

Sara looked doubtful, raising an eyebrow and sideying her a little, but she said nothing.

All this assumes STAR Labs even survives the next month. I'm amazed Dr. Wells hasn't been lynched yet. The way even people in Starling had freaked, attacking that STAR Labs storage annex Sara had been forced to defend...

It was terrifying, but mob justice was all too possible. Or just the legal system.

And Laurel would have to tell people who she was, and risk outing herself as a vigilante to people she didn't know, didn't know if she could trust... and that assumed nobody wanted to experiment on her. Find a way to manufacture more of her. 

She'd call it a modern Mirakuru project if Mirakuru wasn't already happening in her city.

Because given what Waller had subjected Oliver too, what she'd seen as a member of the League... she didn't doubt most world governments would at least have a passing interest in trying to use her - or any other... mutant that emerged to get an edge. 

And then there's always the risk of us being made into second-class citizens, or worse. 

No. For now, secrecy was important. 

"I suppose it wouldn't be that simple," Sara agreed, visibly skeptical as she frowned, but she wasn't arguing the point. Which is good. There's still enough that we need to argue about. No need to add more. Then she chuckled. "I wish I could be there to see when you use it on criminals tonight."

"Use it on criminals tonight?" Laurel shook her head "Sara, I'm not going to do that." 

Sara blinked. "You're not going into the field tonight? Okay... tomorrow night then." She shrugged. "Whatever. I just wish I could be there to watch them be surprised when you hit them with your... scream power."

"I'm not going to be using it in the field. Not tonight when I go out." She'd put it off too much, but she couldn't just leave Oliver to handle everything alone. "Not tomorrow. Not anytime soon." 

"Why?" Sara stared at her. "You're saying it like you're stating the obvious, but I mean - what I just saw seems a lot more useful than your sonic device, and more powerful? It did a lot more damage, and it seemed more... focused?" She gestured to her ears, "Like I said, since I wasn't the target, it didn't do the same thing to me as the sonic device would? At all? Sure, made my ears hurt and ring for a bit, but not much. Am I wrong, or is that not more tactically useful? Being able to have less chance of friendly fire?"

"And like I said, more powerful, I mean, look at what it did to the wall!" Sara gestured at the wall, laughing a little incredulously.

"Yes, Sara, I saw what it did to the wall. Yes, it's more directed, and more controllable in who or what I hit with... it?" Laurel needed a name for this? Her Scream? That felt... too simple, but it worked. Though she was called the Banshee once, before Black Canary caught on, so she supposed 'scream' worked as well as anything else. 

"I won't use this in the field until I know how much damage it does... to people. To my surroundings. I can't - I won't - use it if there's a serious risk of killing someone, or permanently destroying their hearing..." Laurel had no illusions that she didn't sometimes cause permanent damage to the criminals she took down nonlethally - a broken arm or leg could heal, as could most other broken bones, but the human body was fragile, and damage could linger. But she did her best to leave it possible that people she hurt could function close to how they did before.

She always strove to do the exact amount of damage needed, relative to the situation, the enemy she faced. And she was almost always successful because she knew herself, knew her strength, and knew what her enemies could do.

She'd lost that when she'd killed the Count, at least... she'd lost her confidence in it. Her nerves were still raw - and Sara's revelation hadn't helped at all - but she felt more sure of her physical control in a fight, at least.

But this? She did not feel any sort of confidence in her control over this... this... scream, in a fight. Not until she knew what it could do, how much she could hurt someone. And if she could use it at... different volumes. Different levels of control.

"That... that makes sense." Sara nodded slowly. "But that raises a question-"

"How can I know?" Laurel finished, and Sara nodded. "I'm not sure. Decibel meters and a lot of research about the impact of sound waves at high pitches on the human body?" 

There was no ethical way she could test it on anyone. You could always test it on Vanch. Laurel closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling. No. As cathartic and satisfying as that would be, it wouldn't work. She'd have to do a bit of research. There were ways to make dummies that could be used to reasonably test the damage things could do to a human body with close approximation. She'd have to look into those as well, potentially.

Laurel took another breath. She wasn't sure how she could test it, not completely. She'd have to find somewhere suitably secluded, but that was doable. But there was someone who might - who should - be able to help her. She just had to reach out.

But I should talk to Oliver first. Not just to see if he thought reaching out to Nyssa was a good idea - though she did want to know his take on it, even if she might still do it regardless of what he thought - but also because... well, if Oliver suddenly developed superpowers, she'd want to know about it as soon as possible too.

"We have time to work on that. There's more we need to do." She pulled her phone - the new one Oliver had given her at the hospital - out and dialed him. There was a pause.

"Laurel? Do you- is your-" He started, hesitant, concerned, hopeful, worried...

"My voice is back... and then some," Laurel answered. "Can you get away from the office soon?" She held up a hand, interrupting Oliver's answer before it started, even if Oliver couldn't see her gesture. "Don't force it. You have appearances to make, and since apparently IA, as part of their investigation into Sara is looking into us..." 

Sara rolled her eyes and made a cutting motion with her hand, clearing trying to get Laurel to not say anymore. No, sorry Sara, I'm telling Ollie this.

"What?" Oliver demanded, then he dropped his voice lower, "This is what she was going to mention the other night?"

"It was. She insists that since IA is looking only in the context of trying to investigate her, and they can't turn over information to the rest of the SCPD, we should be fine..." Laurel trailed off.

"Because you will be!" Sara insisted, raising her voice. Laurel covered the phone's mouthpiece and 'shhhh'd' her sister, then went back to the call. 

"But that's not the worst of it. Vanch didn't just tell the Count who we were, he set the Count up to die. To be killed by one of us. And apparently he has video footage of..." Laurel's breath caught a moment, she twitched several times, then, "of me killing him. And he's been holding it over Sara as blackmail. Threatening to send it to the press, the police... or other criminals. Brickwell, China White... anyone with a grudge against the Black Canary."

"...they'd try to take a shot at you when you're not prepared, when you don't have your suit, your weapons..." Oliver murmured. "She still should have told us."

"She insists its her problem to deal with." Laurel turned away she couldn't see Sara making faces and gesticulating her disagreement. "It's not that simple. But we actually have a bigger problem, or... bigger situation, anyway."

"...bigger? Than that?" 

"You know how Sara keeps saying our lives are like comic books?" Oliver made an affirmative sound. "Turns out, she's more right than any of us realized. The-" Laurel flushed, feeling like it was insane to say it, but wasn't like Oliver wasn't going to believe her. "The particle accelerator explosion seems to have given me some kind of superpowers."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." Oliver said, but before Laurel could object, he added, "As soon as I can get done what I have to get done, to rearrange the schedule. Rochev has a new round of layoffs and wage freezes she wants to discuss, and I can't duck out of it."

"Don't. That woman already has too much influence over what Queen Consolidated does." She'd managed to talk Rochev into letting QC fund that gun buyback, but the woman's eyes were consistently on the short-term profit, rather than long-term benefit for QC. The company was understaffed as it was, which was one of the reasons they were losing contracts and thus making less profit - not enough people to do everything as quickly as it needed to be done - and her approach was to risk losing what talent the company had left. And of course, the damage layoffs here in Starling would do to the city... 

For someone who claimed to not want to just gut the company in typical corporate raider fashion...

Okay, maybe I'm being unfair. She does have bosses at Stellmor to report to, who expect returns. And expecting her to have a social conscience is a tall order for any CEO. She could wish CEOs would, but it was never going to be something she'd expect.

The woman was interested in profit for Queen Consolidated, and she could just have different ideas how to do it than Oliver.

Or she just wanted to loot the company and was claiming otherwise because she had to share.

"I'm well aware." Oliver muttered. "If I survive this year as CEO, it will be a miracle. People shooting bullets at me is less likely to kill me than this."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true, Ollie." She paused, "Half the equipment in the base is destroyed. Including most of the computers."

"...I'll tell Felicity to draw up a list of things she needs for that then." Oliver commented, blandly. "I'll see you as soon as I can. I love you."

"Love you." Laurel hung up, and turned back to Sara, who had found a garbage bag and gloves and started picking up pieces where she could. 

"Okay, so I shouldn't have interrupted your call, but it is actually not your problem, Laurel. It's my problem to deal with! You can't do anything about the IA investigation, and there's nothing you can do about Vanch. If finds out I told you about the video, he'll probably just put it out as it is!"

"You're giving him too much credit," Laurel shook her head, going to fetch a beg of her own. She'd made the mess, she should be the one to clean up. "He's not a mastermind. He's a clever thug. At best."

"All you saw from him was him when he kidnapped you. Which, if you hadn't been the Black Canary, and Oliver hadn't been the Arrow, would have been a great way to get me killed, which was the whole point for him." Sara countered. "I was the one who arrested him. He may not have managed to make it as big as the Triads, or the Bertinelli family, but he killed 52 people, he had his hands in drug running, human trafficking - he was poised to get bigger. It's one of the things that let us have a solid enough case against him in the first place - he was outpacing his ability to cover himself, legally."

Laurel frowned. She could see what her sister was saying. From everything she'd learned, from her pre-law classes, from her dad, from reading book after book on the subject in college, from staying informed on it now, even from her time in the League, the truth was that the old, established organized crime syndicates had well-crafted defenses. Legions of lawyers, nested levels of deniability, middle-ranked guys ready to take a plea bargain, ties of family and even friendship to keep the membership loyal and together. They had connections inside and outside police departments, justice systems... and they knew how to play the rules. How to hide the bodies, how to not go so far that they drew too much attention. At least, once. In recent times, less so, but still. 

And if nothing else, organized crime liked stability. 

All of which was why making cases against the core enterprises of these families could be very hard.

But someone like Vanch wouldn't have all that. 

"That doesn't make him a mastermind." Laurel countered. What she'd seen of him when he'd held her prisoner - sure, he'd figured certain things out, about the Arrow's strategies, his quiver, planned for The Black Canary's sonic device, but at the end of the day, it was all brute force. Nothing fancy, elaborate.

A clever thug, like she'd said. He'd killed his way into prominence, not did it with finesse. 

"It means you can't underestimate him." Sara snapped. "He'll have backups of any footage, and deadman switches for releasing it. And do you really think he won't spill your name, Oliver's name, if he ends up with the cops? Or, more importantly, hand over that footage anyway?"

"So what, you're just going to let him Blackmail you forever! Until you get caught stealing evidence for him, or letting one of his goons go?! Sara, he has to be stopped!" Laurel snapped.

"And I will stop him, in my own way, with my own plan, because he's my problem! I need to play this out, find out what his actual plans are." Sara countered. She looked around, as if searching for an excuse to defend herself with. This isn't just your problem, Sara, and even if it was, you don't have to deal with a man like Vanch on your own! "And find out more about his backups for the footage."

"If he's as smart as you think he is, he's not going to just tell you how he's planning to release it!" Laurel tied off the bag she was filling and moved it aside. She needed a paper bag, or a box, for the next pile of shard and pieces, too sharp for even a good garbage bag to hold.

"I didn't say he was a genius, I said don't underestimate him. I said he's got plans. And yes, Vanch is smart, but he's also the most egotistical piece of shit I've ever arrested. He likes to shoot his mouth off. And when we spoke, he really liked that I refused to play along with his banter." Sara scoffed, "He took it as a challenge, I think, that I wouldn't give into his 'we're all friends now' schtick, to humor him, placate him." 

She started pacing, one hand behind her back, the other one raised, one finger up. Laurel crossed her arms in front of her, watching Sara, willing to hear her out, at least.

"He offered to give me details on his rivals in the criminal world, if I 'played along'/" Sara continued.

"To pass it on to us? We're not going to become his attack dogs!"

"If he had information on China White's location, or where a gun runner was keeping a stash of military grade weapons, would you not act on that?" Sara countered, and Laurel opened her mouth to protest that she wouldn't...

And then closed it.

The weapons... maybe she could sit on that. As dangerous as that sort of gear would be on the streets, it could be dealt with piecemeal, or at the sale, or... something. But China White? Laurel wasn't sure she could pass up a chance to get the drop on the other woman. She was too dangerous to leave free.

"And then he made another offer. Which..." Sara bit her lip. "Do you think it's just a coincidence that some mysterious bad guy with a mask starts trying to make supersoldiers right after the Count was sent after the Arrow and the Black Canary by someone with a lot of resources? Because I don't."

Laurel inhaled, stiffening as Sara put it like that. She hadn't...

She hadn't thought about it. 

"If Vanch had said anything about supersoldiers, you would have said so, sooner." Laurel felt like she was grasping at straws here. Mirakuru is bad enough. Tie in Vanch. The Count. What is going on if it's that -

"No, of course not just - Vanch knows who financed the Count." Sara now had both hands gesturing, flailing almost, as she got more and more heated. "Yes, Vanch has no problem with lying, but he's too full of himself to do it that much. He didn't lie there." She paused, stopped moving and brought her hands up to her face, pulling them down across it for a long moment, letting out a breath, and then taking one, the action slow and deliberate.

"This is my problem," Sara murmured, speaking quietly and slowly now. "But," She added, before Laurel could waste her breath trying to argue the point more, "You're also right that I probably should have said something. Maybe not right then, right after Vanch sent me the copy of the video, but... soon. About Vanch, and about IA." She let out a breath. 

Laurel pursed her lips, wanting to press harder. But if Sara was going to apologize right now, she would have. She probably wasn't sorry. Acknowledging she should have done differently wasn't the same thing as feeling bad about what she did.

She did that a lot as a kid too. It wasn't that Sara never said sorry, but sometimes... sometimes she kind of skipped that stage. 

"You think the person that helped the Count is behind the Mirakuru?" Laurel circled back, accepting the 'apology' as all she was getting for now. 

"I think it's likely. And even if it's not, they'll try again. I need to play this out, find more about his backups, his long-term plans. Something that can get him put away safely. And if, while I'm doing that, I find out something more. He said it was 'a doozy'. Again... he was too full of himself to lie about it." Sara made a face, grimacing, "Okay, so... I'm pretty sure, anyway. I'm not saying we take him at his word once he tells me more but-"

Laurel held up a hand, interrupting Sara before she could start heated again. "I get your point. And... I don't think it's as simple as it being your problem, but if you want to play this out, for now, I won't stop you. Just... make sure you tell me, tell us what else Vanch 'asks' you to do." Sara nodded. 

Laurel stared at her sister. "Are you keeping anything else secret?" She hated feeling like she had to ask that, and she probably didn't, but... just to be safe. She had to ask.

"Of course." Sara shrugged. "All sorts of thing. My social life may not be what it was, but I do still technically have friends, people who tell me things in confidence. And I'm allowed my own privacy. But if you mean am I keeping anything secret that's relevant to you, or your vigilante stuff or anything like that, then no, I'm not."

Laurel watched her sister, but Sara didn't give off any sign she was lying, or even omitting... she was telling the truth.

"Okay. Good." She let out a breath. "Oliver probably won't be here for a few hours, if you need to get back to the precienct-"

"I'm good for the rest of the day. Union rules about how many extra shifts I can be forced into. Police Union does more than protect shitty cops from consequences. Who knew?" Sara shrugged. "I can stick around and help with this." She gestured to all the mess. "Besides, I want to see the look on Oliver's face when you show him what you can do." Sara grinned, and Laurel rolled her eyes.

Okay. So that's typical Sara.

The Foundry, Starling City

December 8th, 2013

Even after his meeting with Rochev, Oliver hadn't been able to get away. The head of the New York City office needed face time to discuss a new product launch for January 1st. If things went well with this new computer component - some sort of processor - then the company's profits might actually be enough to satisfy Rochev. He'd managed to fend off her plans to lay people off, or cut wages, and even talked her out of most of the raise and bonus freezes she was trying to get, but as he was quickly learning, she had just as much ability to stop him as he did her.

Two people holding 50% of the voting shares each could easily lead to deadlock.

And so Oliver had had to concede on a few bonus freezes and raise freezes. They'd agreed on a hard cap on how many people, and which people they do it to. Not low-ranking employees, and he hadn't been able to convince her to do it to the executives (though he had signed away his own End of Year Bonus) but some of the upper management, right below the executive tier. They made enough right now, and they could afford the freeze better. And most of them had put in enough years at the company that Oliver could hope they'd stay and ride things out.

Hopefully.

But then after Rochev, and the product launch discussion, there was a talk with the Head of Legal about some nuisance lawsuits that the company was being hit with in Texas, and a new set of regulation passed in the EU that would necessitate some restructuring of how the Milan branch was organized. And then some.

According to Legal, the new environmental regulations would make certain parts of the Milan Office's focus unprofitable to follow them, necessitating a shutdown of that division and a relocation of its operations. Oliver wasn't convinced that it was true, and had asked the Milan Office to take another look. 

I just don't want to fire a hundred-odd people halfway around the world just because it's inconvenient to control our chemical disposal process better.

So between all of that, and other meetings, it was into the evening by the time Oliver was able to get away. Diggle right behind him, Oliver walked down the stairs into the Foundry. 

There was no sign of all the wrecked equipment that Laurel had warned him about, but half of it was missing. Most of the computers, the cases holding their uniforms, the tennis ball shooter Oliver trained with, a few other bits and pieces. All gone.

Sara was leaning against one pillar, looking at her phone, while Felicity was at the one remaining computer. Laurel was doing the Salmon Ladder. She dropped down when she saw him, landing on the mat.

"Did you manage to fend off Rochev?"

"Mostly, but then I had other meetings." Oliver watched as Laurel ran a towel over her face, then grabbed her shirt and pulled it back on. "So what exactly happened to all the equipment."

"When I came in they were still picking pieces of the computers off the floor." Felicity complained. "I put a lot of work into upgrading those." She muttered that last part, sour, but Oliver shrugged. He'd get new ones and Felicity could upgrade those. 

"We'll worry about that in a minute." He walked over to Laurel, taking her hand, speaking in a low tone: "Are you good?"

"Apart from freaking out just a little that I'm some kind of mutant, yeah." Laurel murmured back, too quiet for anyone else to hear. "Still angry with Sara, but she... sort of apologized. That way she does sometimes."

Oliver frowned, but he didn't say anything else. He knew what Laurel was saying. It wasn't Sara's best trait, but it didn't happen anywhere as much as it had in years last, and he wasn't going to tell Laurel she couldn't accept it. "So what do we do about Vanch? And IA?"

"Keep our distance as vigilantes from her and her cases, at least where anyone can see. As for Vanch, she wants to play it out." Oliver raised an eyebrow, staring at her, then looking over at Sara, who met his gaze impassively. Oliver looked back to Laurel. "Yeah," Laurel murmured. "But she may have a point. Not sure I agree with it, but we can't exactly force her to do things differently." Laurel gave him a quick summary of the discussion she'd had with Sara - about Vanch wanting to use them to take out his rivals (and Oliver had to admit that depending on the information, it would be hard to justify not acting on it) and about Vanch's offer to reveal who was behind the Count.

Oliver blinked when she mentioned that. He'd forgotten entirely that the Count had mentioned that. Between Laurel killing him, and then her going to Central, and then the murders at the Applied Science Center, Mirakuru... Laurel getting hospitalized, losing her voice...

He'd forgotten, or at least pushed it far to the back of his mind.

"...we need to plan for if he releases it." Oliver noted, as she finished up. "Or for IA."

"The question is which option do we go with for each? Or both? They could end up feeding on each other." Laurel murmured. Then she exhaled. "We have time. We also have something else we need to deal with."

"Your superpowers. You didn't say what they were." Oliver shrugged. "Not sure it's something we need to 'deal' with." He looked at her, almost wishing he'd read more fantasy stories or even comic books when he was younger, so he might have even the slightest frame of reference for all this, beyond what he'd picked up from cultural osmosis. "Apart from knowing what you can do in the field so we can plan for it-"

"I can't use it in the field. At least, not yet." Laurel interrupted. "It'll be easier if I show you." She stepped away and raised her voice. "Everyone, stay behind me, and cover your ears." 

Oliver obeyed, and Sara moved very quickly as Laurel stood in the section where all the missing equipment once stood, facing the wall. It was as Oliver watched Laurel move into position that he noticed that the wall was... damaged? Small cracks, pieces chipped off. Nothing too bad, but.

"You really will want to cover your years," Sara suggested, moving next to him. "It's like her sonic device, but not as bad when you're behind her. Still, not fun."

What's like her sonic device? From what Laurel and Sara were saying, and the comment Felicity had made about everything being in pieces.... Some sort of sonic wave thing? How would that work? 

Laurel has superpowers because a particle accelerator exploded. Even having seen magic firsthand, even with everything that had happened in his life, this seemed the most absurd. 

Laurel leaned forward a bit, opened her mouth, wide, as if to scream -

And she did. Except that it was loud. If he had been standing right next to her, Oliver was pretty sure it would be louder than anything he'd ever heard. He could see the sound flying out from her, hitting the wall, and he watched more pieces of concrete chip off of it. If she'd been standing closer to the wall, Oliver worried she might blow even more out of it. 

Amazing. Oliver started at his girlfriend, at the amount of awesome power she had displayed. How many people could say they had a legitimate superhero as a partner? And one as beautiful and amazing as Laurel? She was one of the most formidable combatants he'd ever known, the smartest woman he'd ever met, she cared about people, always dedicated herself to helping them in ways even he had trouble matching...

And now she had superpowers. 

If it was possible, this just made him even more in love with her. It wasn't possible, but still.

Laurel closed her mouth, straightening back up and turning to them. Oliver walked up to her, hands on her arms. 

"That was amazing," He told her softly. 

Laurel smiled softly. "...it's very weird to do, but..." she exhaled. "But you can see why I can't use it in the field." Oliver frowned, and Laurel shook her head, "Look what I did to the wall. I shattered all that equipment. What would I do to a person? I need to know if I can change the amount of force behind the... scream, or whatever I call it. Can I do it quieter? Louder? Narrower? Wider? What if I use it a lot? Would that damage my throat? My voice?"

Oliver nodded. "I see your point. But there still would be situations where you could use it." Oliver took her hand and squeezed it. "I just don't want you to turn down any opportunity you can, if something turns against you..."

Laurel pursed her lips a moment, her free hand playing with her hair a moment. "...true. But there's another concern. If people found out I had superpowers - and I can't possibly be the only person who was in Central City who got powers - then they might try to lock me away, or worse, make more of me. A modern mirakuru project."

Oliver grimaced. He could see Waller doing something like that. 

I know ARGUS has a major base in Starling. Waller hasn't bothered us because we've never been important enough to. But if she knew Laurel had powers, and thought she could grab her, use her to make more, make supersoldiers...

Oliver would fight to the death to stop Waller from being able to do that, but he wasn't foolish enough to think he was guaranteed victory in such a circumstance. 

"I hate to interrupt your... moment, but what if you just made it look like not a superpower?" Felicity suggested from the sidelines. Oliver and Laurel both turned to look at her. Felicity cleared her throat, "I mean - that - The Black Canary is known for her sonic device. What if you, like... made something you could... wear around your neck, or something, that made it look like it was just... an upgraded version of your sonic device? It would just be a shiny toy but..." Felicity trailed off, looking away. "Stupid idea?"

"...no, actually, I think that's a pretty good one." Laurel murmured, and Oliver agreed.

"People don't tend to assume things they know are impossible. Superpowers aren't real. Magic isn't real. Secret organizations of assassins don't exist for hundreds or thousands of years." Oliver nodded. "Give them a reason to believe it's just smoke and mirrors..."

"And they'll be looking for the man behind the curtain." Laurel finished. "Do you think you could make something that looked like it would be a legitimate upgrade? If we want to keep my powers secret, we need to do this in-house, if we can."

Felicity frowned, bringing her fist up to her lips a moment, "Maybe? No promises, but if it just needs to look shiny and not stand up to any scrutiny... It's got to be doable. I didn't exactly do that great in the electrical engineering course I took in college, but... I passed." Felicity flushed. "Forget I said that last part."

"As long as it looks right and doesn't electrocute me or anything, I think it will work," Laurel chuckled. Felicity nodded. "As for controlling it... I seem to be in control of it right now, but... I was... angry when I screamed the first time earlier. If I get angry in the field again... I need to be careful. Especially right now." Laurel grimaced. "I have an idea on how I might be able to find out the best way to control it, but... you're probably not going to like it, Ollie." She looked over at her sister. "You won't either."

"If it makes it so you can be sure you can control this..." Oliver wasn't sure what she meant.

"Even if it means asking Nyssa for the League's help?"

"I thought they cut you loose?" Sara cut in. "I mean, she came by looking for that other earthquake machine, but... why would they help you? Without... I mean, everything you've said about the League, and Ra's... everyone in the group other than Nyssa, they're all evil bastards."

Laurel clenched her hands into fists, letting out a breath. "It's a bit more complicated than that. Most people in the League are... just going along with it. Whatever principles they had were broken long ago. Even the people who are in it for the license to kill believe in the principles of the League, largely. Sort of. It's not like any of us trusted each other. Nyssa was the only one I could ever even somewhat confide in, and vice-versa." 

Oliver knew this part of things. Laurel had felt guilty about abandoning Nyssa from the moment she had, when they met again in Russia, and had told Oliver all about her. 

"You think the League can help?" Oliver was more worried about what the League might demand for their help. He trusted Nyssa - or at least, he trusted Laurel's trust in her. He didn't trust the rest of the League.

"I think there's a good chance. They taught me the control I rely on in a fight to begin with. And... if nothing else, they do have experience with people with... unusual abilities. Usually killing them, but... it's not like there's anyone else with any experience with this we can contact." 

Which means you'd be giving them a chance to work out how to kill you, how to counter your powers. Nothing they were doing should draw the League's ire, but... 

But Laurel was also right. Maybe ARGUS had some sort of knowledge on the subject, but he actually trusted the League to keep their word more than he did Waller. 

"As for why they'd help... Nyssa would be willing to on her own. Ra's..." Laurel exhaled. "I may not be part of the League, but just as with Malcolm, if the League decides that I'm violating their code, or if I... I don't know, start spilling their secrets, then they'll come to... clean up their mess. Letting him know about something like this, so he can plan for it if he needs to... eliminate me."

"So you want to make it easier for him to kill you if he decides you need to die?" Sara rolled her eyes. "No, I can't imagine why you might think Oliver and I would have a problem with this." 

"Laurel knows what she's doing." Oliver shot back. 

"Of course she does, but that doesn't mean I have to like that it's probably the best plan." Sara snapped. She let out a breath. "I shouldn't have said it like that. I'm sorry."

Laurel nodded. "I can't say I'm thrilled about the prospect. As for contacting Nyssa... well, I can't pick up a phone and call her." Mostly because Nyssa didn't have a permanent phone, and she didn't know how to contact Nanda Parbat directly. There was several operating satellite phones there, and the League used phones in the field all the time, but Laurel had no idea how to connect to any of them. 

"Carrier pigeon?" Sara suggested, and Laurel shook her head.

"They have a people all over the world. People that someone who knows about them can contact, to report word on the kind of person the League targets. I know who that person is for North America. Reaching out to him is a little more complicated than just a single phone call, but I can ask him to pass a message on to Nyssa. And then we wait."

"We'll figure something out, even if the League can't or won't help." Oliver assured Laurel. 

Oliver and Laurel's Apartment, Starling City

December 11th, 2013

Oliver was, by necessity, a light sleeper.

He did tend to sleep heavier, relatively speaking here, with Laurel next to him, in a place they could be reasonably sure they were safe. The Count's attempted attack had proven that 'reasonably sure' was hardly a guarantee, but some improvements to security and the fact they could only sleep so heavily no matter what meant Oliver was...

Well, less worried, anyway.

He opened his eyes, and realized Laurel wasn't next to him. She was standing by the window, a loose robe on, looking out on the city. He sat up a little, and Laurel turned.

"Did you even sleep?" Oliver asked her quietly, and Laurel raised an eyebrow. "Or just woke up a bit ago?"

"I slept... but I've been up a while," Laurel admitted. She walked back away from the window, sitting on the bed. "Worrying. Wondering. Wishing for answers. That sort of thing."

Oliver didn't need to ask what she was worrying and wondering about. What she wanted answers about.

"We could start trying to vet doctors, ones that we could trust to ask?" Oliver murmured. They had a list of potential doctors, if they found themselves in need of emergency care they couldn't get at the base, from anyone already in on the secret. It was a small list, and they still weren't entirely sure about any of them.

Felicity, Diggle and Sara hadn't known about that list, which was why they'd figured the choices were Barry or the hospital, after Oliver had been dosed by that mystery drug at the ARGUS stockpile. They'd fixed that since, but still. Barry was probably the better choice, as it had turned out.

At some point, after all, you could only be so sure. Sometimes, you just had to find out if you were right about someone, the hard way. And making that call in that sort of emergency was a lot to ask of anyone. 

Of course, asking one of those doctors, who could probably be trusted to keep a secret about a vigilante to keep secret about Laurel's new superpowers...

"Even if we could be sure about the doctor, they'd need a lot more equipment than we can feasibly keep in the base." Laurel countered. "It's... more philosophical than important for right now." Oliver raised an eyebrow, trailing a hand along her side gently. 

"Just... I'm some sort of mutant. I mean, how else do you describe it?" Laurel chuckled grimly. There was no moral weight attached to 'mutant' in her voice.

"I suppose that's simpler than saying 'someone with superpowers'." Oliver agreed. "But I don't know if that is the best word, given what people think of when they hear mutant."

"You mean third arms and grotesque transformations like in a B-horror film?" Laurel offered, and Oliver nodded. "True. But... normal people, normal humans... they can't scream so loud that they break concrete. Which of course, raises the question: Am I human?"

"Yes." Oliver nodded firmly. 

"I don't know if we can actually be that sure. It doesn't matter in a lot of ways. I'm still me. I'm still a person. But... am I human? How much can someone change, and still be human. Ship of Theseus, but for humanity." Laurel shrugged. Oliver frowned, not recognizing the reference - he knew Theseus was a Greek Mythological hero, but not what his ship had to do with this. But he followed the question.

"Well, if it doesn't matter then... it doesn't matter?" Oliver offered. "You have an ability most humans -"

"No other human can do what I can do, with that scream."

"Out of the billions of humans alive today, and have been alive, are you sure?" Oliver pointed out, and Laurel nodded slowly. "And even if you are the first, 'most' can cover 'everyone but you'." Oliver had not done well in the logic course he'd taken at the second college he'd flunked out of, but dating someone who had been angling for law school had eventually rubbed off on him. Somewhat.

"Maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm still curious. What does it mean? How does it work? If anyone else was affected by that explosion, how? In what ways? And why... screaming?" Laurel shook her head. "I didn't even have my sonic device on me at the time."

Oliver chuckled, "You know, I had wondered about that. Given how quiet you can be in bed, screaming powers did seem a little strange." Oliver moved that hand that had been on Laurel's side across her torso, caressing her chest a moment before it reached the back of Laurel's neck and kissed her on the lips.

He'd meant it to be something quick, but Laurel's hand found the back of his head and held him close, deepening the kiss until they both pulled back several seconds later.

"Somehow, I don't think that has anything to do with why I have this particular power either way," Laurel offered with a soft smile, chuckling. She moved her hand down along Oliver's side. She let out a breath. "I'm not going to get any answers right now. And I'm not going to get back to sleep until I can move these questions out of my head for now." She ran her hand up his chest, smirking.

"Care to distract me?" Laurel offered. After answering in the affirmative, Oliver grabbed her hips and pulled her close, and proceeded to do just that.

The Glades, Starling City

December 15th, 2013

Laurel had made sure that she kept busy, over the last week. She'd gotten back into her work for the Queen Family Charitable Trust - with the holidays closing fast, the need for charity was even greater than normal, and Laurel was busy vetting programs for getting gifts for needy families across Starling and Bludhaven. Filtering out not just the obvious scams, but the ones that would let the trust get the most bang for its buck - help the most people the best ways possible for the least cost.

Freeing up more money to help more people.

There was still more to do, but so far at least a two hundred children in Starling City and Bludhaven would have some toys for Christmas when they wouldn't have any.

Of course, with her days busy with that, her nights as the Black City were busy on the streets. With the weather getting colder as it was, crime was down in the Glades, but she needed to make her appearances, check in with Sin, and search for Brickwell, for China White, get a better feel for what the local gangs were up to...

She'd also been looking for any sign of Vanch rebuilding his little gang and criminal empire, but so far, there was no sign of him. He was hiding well. She'd followed some of his old associates - and taken out a few of them, leaving them with clear evidence of their cocaine dealing and illegal arms possession.

But so far, nobody seemed to be linked to Vanch. He was hiding, not recruiting muscle, not getting back into business. 

Her absence for a few weeks from the streets between going to Central, and losing her voice, had emboldened a few idiots. Brickwell had come out of the woodwork with his closest goons, robbed a number of stores and started mugging and murdering again. She hadn't been able to find him, but she'd tracked down and dealt with two of his closest lieutenants. One was in a cell awaiting trial, the other was in a hospital but had no current crimes on him anyone could prove.

Yet. 

And muggings had gone up, a little. 

Every criminal thinks they're the one that will get away with it, rather than get caught by the Arrow, or the Black Canary.

She'd found Roy, apologized for her absence, and thanked him for the helping the Arrow. And teased him about the 'second favorite' comment he'd made. 

Oliver was right though. He was chomping at the bit for more, and Laurel didn't think she could hold him off that for much longer.

And she wasn't sure she wanted to. 

Because there were too many criminals who got away. Two people just wasn't enough. They couldn't cover the entire city every night. Three wouldn't be enough either, but... it would help.

And, once Roy was ready, three people would make dealing with larger forces of criminals easier. Safer. Faster.

Roy had proven he could take direction, and that he was serious. He'd taken training seriously.

The only thing holding her back, apart from the simple issue of how many hours in the day, was Thea.

Because training Roy would require revealing their identities to him. And even if it didn't, telling Roy that he had to keep it a secret from Thea... 

That wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair to Thea.

And so, if they brought Roy in, they needed to tell Thea. 

Oliver was still being... stubborn, about that part. He knew she was right, he knew asking Roy to keep it secret from Thea... it might work, but it was all too likely to go wrong, for him, or for Thea. 

As for her powers... Laurel had managed to avoid using them. Finding somewhere safe to practice them - she could hardly keep doing it in the Foundry - was easier said than done. She had felt... an itch, for lack of a better word, in her throat, during one heated encounter with one of Brick's lieutenants. She hadn't been angry, but the man, Alec, was a particularly odious bastard, and leaving him hospitalized with a month or more recovery had been profoundly satisfying.

So far, there were no hard signs of any other people who had gotten powers from the Particle Accelerator Explosion. Diggle had an ex-army buddy who worked in the CCPD, and Felicity was checking crime data from the city (Laurel made a mental note to get the woman a gift card or a dozen. She was going well above and beyond, and they kept piling more requests on her.) 

It had only been a week though. And Laurel could only assume that people were, like her, staying under the radar, or getting lost in the chaos after the particle accelerator explosion, the mess it had made of the city.

Barry Allen had been transferred to Star Labs custody, according to Felicity, which... struck Laurel as... odd. Apparently he was flatlining with alarming frequency, and somehow, the now wheelchair-bound Harrison Wells had figured out a way to stop that, even if Barry was still in a coma. Barry's family, the one that had raised him after his father's imprisonment, had accepted the pariah doctor's offer of help out of desperation.

I want to trust that this Dr. Wells is just trying to make up for his mistake in what little way he can, but... knowing that I have powers... It made her wonder. Was Dr. Wells just trying to help? Or was something else going on?

Did that mean Barry had powers now? Or would, if he woke up? Oliver's own suspicions had been raised the same way hers had, but there was little to be done, yet. Laurel still needed to thank Barry for saving Oliver's life, so they had to keep an eye on that, even if less of one.

As for Nyssa... she'd reached out to the League's point of contact, with the message for Nyssa. He'd sent word she would be on her way as soon as she could, but...

She wasn't here yet.

Laurel dropped down from the building she'd been perched on, landing easily in the alley below. She'd tracked a street-level heroin dealer, and she was quite certain this now abandoned warehouse was where he was meeting his supplier. She had made a bet with herself that it was probably Triad, but it could be Vanch, could be another, smaller-scale cartel or dealer.

She doubted this was where whoever was supplying actually kept the heroin. The drug trade in Starling had had to adapt to the vigilantes. There was more going on inside clubs, behind closed doors, places it was harder for the vigilantes to see, find out about. And the ones still dealing through dealers on the streets were putting more and more removes, keeping the cash and the drugs separate, keeping the street-level dealers away from the main stashes of both, so they couldn't spill to the vigilantes, or get tracked to them...

"Were you followed?" Laurel heard a voice, as she crouched under a window. 

"I don't think so," the dealer shot back. 

"You don't think so?" There was a deadly emphasis on think, and she heard a gun being cocked, and from the way the dealer suddenly went 'woah', it was probably being pointed at him too.

"You show me someone who knows they ain't being followed by the fucking archer or the Bitch Canary, and I'' show you someone who's about to land themselves in the hospital or prison. I was careful, but thinking that you're safe for sure is just gonna get you beat down, fast." 

Bitch Canary? She'd heard a lot of derogatory nicknames from the criminals she took down, or was about to take down, streets, but that one was new. And not even that creative.

Laurel looked into the window. There were four people there. The dealer was a white guy with a shaved head, and there were the people he was meeting.

Triad. All three were clearly Asian, either recent immigrants or born here, it was impossible to say. And the guns that two of them had out were the Triad's preferred model. The third one, the one speaking with the dealer, didn't have a weapon out.

"The Triad has ways to deal with the vigilantes when they cause us problems." The man said, and the dealer scoffed.

"Yeah, and that's why we're meeting here like this rather than doing business the way we used to." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills, which he held out to the man. "I want my product. One kilo, like usual."

The man accepted the money, gesturing to one of his guards, who lowered his gun and pulled a kilo of heroin out of his coat. The guard counted the money quickly. 

"It's all here." He gestured to the guard again, and he handed the dealer the heroin. Laurel would have to deal with him another night. She watched the Triad members go out the back, into an alley, following behind carefully. She watched them get into a normal looking car. Laurel noted the license plates - she could use one of Felicity's programs to run the plates and find out a registration. Probably a fake identity or otherwise useless for finding the stash in case tonight went wrong, but you never knew.

But she did stay behind a corner as the car started up, pulling out, towards her direction... Laurel removed the tracking dart from her pocket as she dropped to the ground and threw it at the wheel, connecting with the rim, sticking in. It was a very small dart, but there was every chance they'd see it once they stopped the car. Which meant Laurel would have to move quickly, but at least she had some lee time.

The car sped off down the streets of the Glades, and Laurel heard movement as someone dropped from a rooftop behind her. Laurel spun, not sure how she'd missed someone even getting that close, hands on her tonfa...

Only to relax when she saw that it was Nyssa. There was a time when I wouldn't even have heard her drop down behind me. Her first sign that Nyssa was present would have been the woman speaking behind her, or maybe just standing there when Laurel turned anyway. But Laurel wasn't one to let any skill idle or lie fallow.

"I had wondered why you were so content to watch the exchange happen without interference." Nyssa murmured lightly. She smiled softly. "But I knew you had a greater purpose in mind."

"Nyssa." Laurel laughed softly, wanting to hug her friend, but holding back, for now. 

"Are you well?" Nyssa asked quietly. "Your message spoke of... your new abilities. But such abilities rarely come without cost, in the experience of the League."

"I'm as well as I can be, under the circumstances." Laurel shrugged. She hadn't noticed any adverse effects - no third arm, no strange mutations, not even a discolored patch of skin anywhere. Of course, it was stressful, especially wondering if she could lose control, or if she could be found out. Was her DNA different? If she ever went to the hospital, would a doctor tell she was... changed? 

And while she wasn't an expert on the human body, she also had to wonder... how exactly did it work? She felt no different, so how could she actually, physically, scream that loud.

"It's good to see you again," Laurel said softly.

"And you as well," Nyssa nodded. "Ra's al Ghul did not deny me permission to come and see this new... ability you have gained. Nor did he deny me to provide you aid. Before we see to that... do you want to see where these criminals went?"

"It would be better to deal with it first, yeah." Laurel nodded. "Is the League familiar with China White?" She was a pretty notorious woman in the criminal underworld, but Laurel hadn't heard of her while in the League.

"...the name is not familiar to me."

"She's one of the most dangerous woman I've met, outside the League. And she's an enforcer for the Triad. I have no idea if she'll be there, but if she is, we need to be careful."

"I will bear that in mind."

The Foundry, Starling City

December 15th, 2013

Oliver and Sara were waiting at the Foundry by the time Laurel got back, with Nyssa in tow. Tracking the Triad members in their car had been simple enough, following them out of the Glades and into another neighborhood that had been hit with gentrification a few decades ago. 

The Triad was not storing their drugs there, because as it tuned out, the Triad had gotten even more clever than Laurel was willing to give them credit for. The middle-men who delivered product to the dealers on the street were actually getting them directly from the Triad's front companies that got them from the Port of Starling.

Somers was in prison, and good riddance, but the Triad was still moving product into the city through the port. The people who owned and ran the port now were about as clean as people in their position could be, but the same couldn't be said for every worker and guard, and the Triad's front businesses had all sorts of legitimate purchases coming through.

From what a few pointed questions and what they'd overheard before attacking could reveal, it sounded like the Triad didn't have a heroin stash. They got a kilo or two at a time, packaged in with other things, and then resold them to street dealers quickly. It cost more, and was slower, but it kept them better insulated from customs, the DEA and of course, the vigilantes.

Before leaving them for the police - Nyssa hadn't needed prompting to leave them alive and mostly unharmed - one of them had said that it was China White's idea, and that she ran the Triad in Starling now, free and clear. If any of them knew where their boss was hiding, none had talked.

The police might have better luck, but I doubt it. 

Still, they had left a half-dozen triad goons for the police and a large pile of drug money for them to seize, and enough illegal weapons to see them off the streets for a while, in most cases. It was better than nothing.

Intercepting their drugs, if they're really coming in piecemeal like that, is not going to be very doable.

"Nyssa," Oliver greeted her as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "Thank you for coming." Sara didn't say anything, though she did nod at Nyssa. Laurel watched a small smile form on Sara's face as Nyssa stepped into her full view. There was an appraising, attentive look in her eye, and Laurel held back a groan.

Oh no... 

"I would not turn down a request for help from Laurel that I could provide," Nyssa agreed. She looked Oliver over. He was in costume as well, quiver still on his back, while his bow was resting in its holder. "You look well. If there is time while I am here, I would like to test my archery against yours."

For Nyssa, that was about as friendly as it got, in most cases, in Laurel's experience. Her whole life was the League, training to serve it, training to fight, and learning to kill. Insofar as she had any hobbies, combat was one of them. And it wasn't like Nyssa knew Oliver, except what Laurel had told her of him.

Oliver blinked, then nodded slowly. "That's possible. How long will you be here?"

"Not as long as I would wish." Nyssa explained. "I have a mission I must see to in Mexico, and I cannot linger long here, no matter the need to see to Laurel's new abilities, no matter the need to help her learn to control and use them safely."

"So, what?" Sara snapped, "You came all this way to tell Laurel you couldn't help her? Just came to make sure your precious League knew how to kill her easier?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest, glaring daggers at Nyssa. "Why waste your time doing that, wasting her time, wasting our time? I feel like that could have just been sent in an email. Or maybe carrier pigeon." Sara's words were delivered in a sharp, biting tone.

"Sara," Laurel cut in, before her sister could say more, because she could tell that she wanted to. Sara was inhaling sharply, chest rising and falling, and she looked ready to go on a rant, bracing herself, squaring her shoulders-

"Your concerns for your sister are understandable, and admirable," Nyssa commented. Then she turned to Laurel, speaking Arabic now in a quiet tone. "Your sister is... striking, when she is angry." Laurel knew Nyssa well enough to know what was meant by that pause before 'striking'. The appreciative look in her eye left no chance Laurel was imagining it.

Laurel closed her eyes a second, resisting the urge to drop her head into her hands. 

Oh no... she repeated in her head, for the exact same reasons, in reverse. Now I'm glad Nyssa's not going to be here long. Well, no, not glad, but at least she didn't feel as bad about it. She'd rather have Nyssa around than not, but...

There were upsides, such as they were, to Nyssa not sticking around in Starling for long.

Laurel bit back the warning she wanted to give Nyssa, to keep away from Sara. There would be no point, and she didn't want Sara to be wondering what their conversation was about, if Nyssa responded to her warning...

"But," Nyssa returned to English, a strange look on her face at Laurel's lack of response, looking back over to Sara and Oliver, "though I cannot stay long, that does not mean I cannot help. Laurel needs to learn total control of her new power, as the League taught her total control of her body. That can be done by others, including one who is not of the League, and thus free to stay as long as is necessary." Nyssa paused. "One who would be willing to help Laurel, at my request."

"Oh." Sara let out softly. Her shoulders sagged. "Right."

"Who is it?" Oliver asked, and she could catch the concern in his voice. He trusted Laurel's trust of Nyssa, but trusting Nyssa's trust of someone else?"

"She goes by several names, but the one I know her by is Shiva. Lady Shiva." Laurel blinked, the name sounding familiar. 

"...she knows your sister?" Laurel murmured softly, thinking she remembered hearing about the two of them in some context... vague rumors, whispers, stories.

"Lady Shiva knows many in the League, including my sister," Nyssa nodded. "She is one of the most formidable combatants, with any weapon, I have ever known or known of. Even Ra's al Ghul would be cautious about challenging her." 

Laurel hadn't heard that. But then, it made sense Ra's wouldn't want to have it be known that there was someone he was afraid of. Or at least, someone who could beat him. Not something you can let people talk about freely. 

"I've heard of her... once." Oliver admitted. "Only in passing. You think she'll help Laurel?"

"She will, at my request." Nyssa nodded. She reached into her League outfit, a hidden pocket, and pulled out a sat phone. "I will need to go back outside to contact her, but it will not be long."

"Wait, you have a phone?!" Sara nearly shouted the words out, sounding stunned. Laurel looked at her sister, baffled by Sara's confusion, and from the blank look on Oliver's face, he was too. Nyssa merely arched an eyebrow, looking at Sara appraisingly. 

Sara flushed and looked down at the ground. "It's just - with your insistence on bows and arrows and swords and thinking guns are bad, and being a cu-" Sara cut off, cleared her throat, "And everything else, I figured you guys were more like... the Amish, you know? Just with murder."

Laurel stared at Sara for a moment, the mental image her words creating forming in her head. She imagined one of the Amish, in their stereotypical outfits, and (in the case of the men) their beards, running around killing large numbers of people with their farm implements. 

Then she imagined someone like al-Owal wearing that stereotypical Amish clothing.

Then she laughed, covering her mouth with a closed fist to try and muffle it. "Sorry," She managed to get out, taking a breath - and failing, due to laughing. "I just... just imagining some of the people in the League, dressed like the Amish." She forced herself to take a breath. "I can see why you would think that, but no. The League's choice of weaponry aside, they're perfectly capable of using and content to use modern technology that serves the needs of their mission." Though only as far as it served their mission, and no further. 

"Right." Sara muttered. She cleared her throat and looked away, cheeks still red. Laurel looked over at Nyssa, who looked at Sara like she was looking at some strange, bizarre species she'd never seen before. 

"Do you really think the League would fail to avail itself of such a useful technology as the phone, if doing so could be done in a way that did not jeopardize our case?" Nyssa asked. 

"Well, you seem to have a pathological hatred for any weapon more modern than what, 1300?" Sara pointed out after taking a deep breath. "You're still wrong about guns being a crutch for the unskilled. You might be able to kick my ass or outftight me with any one of god knows how many weapons,"

Sixty-one, as far as I know, Laurel mused as Sara went on.

"But," the detective continued, "I could outshoot you with a gun every fucking day of the week, because I have the skill, and you don't."

"You are quite confidence in your skills with your weapon of choice."

"I saw how you shoot. You're good. I'm better." Sara shrugged confidently. Laurel blinked.

"When did you see her shoot a gun?" She knew Nyssa knew how to use a gun and was pretty good with one, but she had seen her sister shoot, so she wouldn't be entirely surprised if Sara was better with firearms, at least in a competition or something.

Sara, thankfully, doesn't have the killer instinct. Nyssa, much as Laurel hated it, did.

"Back when she visited, before the Undertaking. I was at the SCSC," Starling City Shooting Club. Dad had taken them both there to show them the basics of guns, gun safety and gun use. "And she dropped in for a chat."

Laurel looked over at Nyssa. That... didn't sound like Nyssa at all. Not with someone she barely knew.

"I would not call it an idle chat," Nyssa explained. "Your sister did not trust me, and I had hoped to assuage her concerns... I did not succeed. And then..." Nyssa inhaled in a brief, sharp way that almost seemed like a very short, suppressed chuckle. "We had a short discussion on the merits of firearms relative to the weapons preferred by the League."

"Where you told Sara that guns are a crutch?" Oliver frowned. "That's... is that really how the League sees it?" Slowly, Nyssa nodded. 

"Your choice of weapon is a bow and arrow as well."

"Because I know how to use one better than a gun, and I have more control over the lethality." Oliver countered. "Learning to use a bow takes discipline, but learning how to be good with a gun takes discipline too." He shook his head. "We're getting sidetracked."

"...so we are." Nyssa nodded. "I will contact Lady Shiva." She looked to Laurel, "I would ask, if it is possible that I might see your new ability for myself, afterwards?"

Laurel was hit with a bit of whiplash by the sudden change in topic, and she was still grappling with the idea that Nyssa had sought Sara out for a conversation, and then actually debated guns with her. I suppose I can see her wanting to see if she could make my sister trust her, and maybe... maybe she felt a little like she knew Sara, since I told her so much about her?

There was a third option, but Laurel was not going to think about that, because it wasn't actually an option.

She shook her head slightly, forcing the thoughts from her head. Here and now, here and now.

"It should be, yeah, though... not here." They were in the Glades, and there should be an abandoned building they could use safely. She could think of several promising possibilities offhand.

"Thank you," Nyssa smiled, again a soft, slight gesture, but there it was. Every time she saw Nyssa smile, it did Laurel's heart good. To know that even after she'd left the League, left Nyssa, the woman continued to hold onto that spark in herself.

Laurel went with Nyssa outside, watching Nyssa dial a number on the sat phone, then bringing it up to her ear. She waited a few moments, then spoke in Cantonese. "Shiva. It is time that the debt you owe me be repaid." There was a pause. "I do not presume to dictate to you, but you are a woman of honor, and you honor your debts. You promised to aid me when I called. I am calling now." Another pause.

Laurel wondered what Lady Shiva was saying on the other side, but Nyssa looked relaxed and unconcerned - or as relaxed as she got - and so Laurel wasn't worried.

"There is a woman. My dearest companion and friend." A long pause, "Yes, she was once of the League, but she is no longer, released by Ra's for a service paid. She is known as the Black Canary." Lady Shiva spoke for a longer time on the other end, with Nyssa occasionally interjecting a 'yes' or a 'no'. Finally Nyssa spoke more fully again, "She has need of your skills as a teacher. She has discovered, acquired a strange power, and would not use it in battle until she understands it fully, controls it fully."

"There is no better teacher to teach such control that I can think of but you." Nyssa added. Knowing Nyssa, Laurel doubted that was her laying it on thick. "Yes. Starling City. She will not abandon her responsibilities here." Pause. "Very well." Nyssa hung up the phone without a goodbye and slipped it back into a pocket, looking back at Laurel, speaking English again, though Laurel could have carried on fluently in Cantonese with her.

"She will be here in two days. I will leave it to you if you wish to reveal your identity to her." Nyssa explained. "Lady Shiva is not a woman who concerns herself with justice, or with protecting of the innocent. I cannot say she is likely to become your enemy - she is an assassin for hire, selling her skills to many evil people, but she is most often hired to kill men and women as evil as her clients. And even if you were to cross blades in the future, she would not reveal your identity." Nyssa hesitated, then, "But, if she were hired to kill the Black Canary, and knew your identity, she would attack as easily during the day as night."

"Is she likely to be?" Laurel didn't relish the prospect of fighting Shiva, given what she was hearing about her. "I know the League does not operate in countries like the United States, given..."

"The presence of organizations like ARGUS, Département Gamma and their equivalents in other nations?" Nyssa interjected, and Laurel nodded. "Lady Shiva is one woman, and does not share the League's need for secrecy. She would demand a kingly sum to kill a warrior as formidable as you, but if she was paid to do such in the future, she would."

"Then probably best to keep my mask on when dealing with her." It might also be a good idea to train somewhere other than the Foundry. They had a number of backup locations, much less well stocked than the Foundry, but they had the essentials. All much harder to connect to her or Oliver than the Foundry.

"Understandable." Nyssa nodded.

"Now, why don't I find somewhere I can show you what I can do?" Laurel offered, and they did find a warehouse. From what they had been able to tell from the couple of times she'd done it a week ago, the sound of her scream didn't actually travel that far in any direction she wasn't aiming it.

In the end, in an apartment building that had yet to be rebuilt and was still surrounded by hazard tape, Laurel ended up screaming a large hole in an already damaged drywall and plaster of one of the ground floor apartments. It was sobering once more.

Even if she found ways to tone it down, she wanted to be careful about using it where she could damage people's homes, or businesses. Especially individually owned ones and other small enterprises. Ones where the owners couldn't just pay an insurance premium and rebuild.

And Laurel saw another small smile on Nyssa's face as she watched what Laurel could do. Only for a moment, but the expression on her face was - for that moment - almost one of childlike delight and wonder.

Alley behind Verdant, Starling City

December 15th, 2013

Nyssa and Laurel returned about half an hour after they left, with the news that 'Lady Shiva' would be coming two days, and Nyssa would be remaining in Starling until then. She claimed she could delay her mission for that long, but no longer.

Laurel and Oliver then offered to let Nyssa use their guest room, but Nyssa demurred, not wanting to intrude. She would see to her own accommodations. And then - much to Sara's amusement - she repeated her interest in testing her skill with a bow against Oliver's.

Sara found herself hoping Oliver beat her, though she had no idea how likely that was. She really couldn't say much about how capable Oliver actually was, with a bow, relative to anyone else. From what Laurel had said, Laurel would lose in a hand-to-hand fight against Nyssa, which made some sense, since the assassin had apparently taught Laurel all she knew, but was that true for Oliver and a bow?

I just want to see that smugness fall off her stupid, gorgeous face. Sara slapped herself mentally as she registered her thought. 

Yes, Nyssa was gorgeous and sexy and beautiful and Sara couldn't help but notice that, but that did not have to come up every time she thought about the woman, did it? I'm not a teenager fresh out of puberty, damnit! 

And yet, as Nyssa took her leave and left the Foundry for the evening - after arranging to have her competition with Oliver tomorrow night - Sara found herself going after the other woman. 

For a perfectly legitimate reason, mind you!

"Nyssa, wait," Sara called out, before the assassin could vanish off to who knew where, and do god knew what. I mean, she won't kill anyone in Starling...probably. This is Laurel's city, and she seems to respect that. Nyssa turned to look at her, and Sara walked closer. "I wanted to apologize." Sara explained. "You know, for the whole..." she felt her cheeks heat, and she cursed herself mentally. I'm an adult woman, not a fucking teenager! She repeated the thought, emphatically. "The whole... getting angry at you for not staying to help Laurel yourself, and then the whole... Amish, but with murder, comment."

It really had been stupid. Of course the League would have some modern technology. She doubted they had wi-fi at their super secret clubhouse in the Hindu Kush or anything like that. Try as she might, even with the sight of Nyssa holding a phone, she just couldn't imagine a member of the League unwinding by getting on social media or watching a funny video on youtube.

But still. Modern communication. Probably, if they needed it, modern gear to get past security systems. Sure, they probably needed that kind of stuff less than normal assassins since they were this weird cult with ancient techniques and all that, but still.

"An apology is unnecessary." Nyssa said, in what Sara thought was meant to be reassuring. Maybe. Or maybe just patronizing. It was hard to tell, the woman's expression was pretty unreadable. "For the former, you should never apologize for anger on your sister's behalf. She is your sister, and you want what is best for her. So do I."

"Yeah, but that's the point. I know you're close to Laurel, that you care about her, and that you've taken risks for her. And I still got pissy without giving you a chance to explain yourself." She ran a hand through her hair, rubbing the back of her neck. "So like I said... I'm sorry."

Nyssa nodded slowly. "If you insist." 

"I do."

"Very well." Nyssa considered her a moment, her hands by her side. "As for your latter comment... such misunderstandings about the League are not uncommon, and understandable." She paused, and then leaned forward, as if sharing a secret, in a lower tone, "And, as did your sister, I must admit, the image of the Amish or other Anabaptist groups of similar nature serving as assassins is a humorous one."

Sara blinked. She wasn't so much stunned that Nyssa had a sense of humor, but she was stunned Nyssa was admitting it to her. 

"Okay, that's true," Sara smiled, unable to hold back a chuckle, though it felt more incredulous than really about the humor of it. "Well - there's another reason I -" Sara cut herself off and cleared her throat. "I know you're only here for two days, but is there any chance you could spare an hour or two during that time?" Nyssa said nothing for a long moment, and Sara cleared her throat again, then explained, quickly, "You're Laurel's friend... and it seems like you're going to keep being part of her life. Which is good. But given that, I'd like to get to know you better." Sara snorted. "There's not a lot of people who I can talk about the whole... Black Canary thing with, after all. And Felicity - she doesn't know Laurel as well as you clearly do, so it's different."

This was just about getting to know Nyssa, get a feel for her. There was still every chance that Nyssa might be ordered to come after Laurel. From everything Laurel had said about her father, the bastard would probably send Laurel to do the deed, if he ever decided Laurel had to die.

So she wanted to get a better feel for her, how she acted, how she thought, for that.

And yeah. She did want to understand this person who was so important to her sister. Who was probably the only reason her sister had survived those three years in the League.

"I am not sure if I would have such a chance, but it is certainly possible." Nyssa said after a long moment, sounding... unsure? Awkward? It was hard to say - it wasn't that Nyssa's face and tone lacked expression or inflection or whatever, but she was so guarded and careful, it was hard to know what meant what, from her.

Even with Sara's experience as a cop.

"I will call you, if such an occasion arises." There was a sparkle in Nyssa's eyes that Sara could only call mischievous as she said that, and Sara pinched the bridge of her nose, as much for the excuse to run her hand down her face and partially cover what she was pretty sure was another flush in her cheeks.

"I suppose I set myself up for that one." She pulled out one of her detective business cards she handed to witnesses on the scene to call if they recalled anything else, and wrote a number on the back. 

"Probably best if you didn't call my phone at the precinct." Sara explained. Because that was all it was, obviously.

Even if this could be counted as sort of setting up a date, which it wasn't, it wasn't like anything, even a one-night-stand could happen with Nyssa. The woman was a murderer. And a member of a crazy cult of murders. And even if the whole 'being a murderer' thing was because she had been raised in that cult and knew nothing else -

No. It just wasn't possible. Or even a good idea. A recipe for disaster.

Nyssa accepted the card. "Reasonable." She slipped it into a pocket, and started to turn.

"Wait," Sara called out. "One last question - how do you take your coffee?" It was just the polite thing to do. "If you drink it, I mean." Sara added. "I figure... if we do meet up, I should - be polite, bring you something." 

Probably just black coffee without anything else. Sugar or milk or whatever would be a frippery or whatever she'd say. You know. An unnecessary luxury distracting from the mission.

Thought you were wrong about the lack of technology thing, so... 

"I don't drink coffee," Nyssa shook her head. "I drink tea, preferably masala chai, though in all the times I have passed through this country, I have yet to find one worthy of the name here."

Okay, so masala chai makes sense, and the tea snobbery also makes sense too, I mean, the Hindu Kush mountains are called the Hindu Kush because they're near India, right? She'd have to actually check a map, but it made sense she would have access to 'authentic' masala chai.

But still. Yeah, America had all kinds of adulterated and americanized stuff - and she would say that's usually fine, because the Americanized version was usually fatty, deep fried and crispy so what was the problem? - but you could get something authentic if you knew where to look.

Such as that little spice and tea shop on that little side street in the South End. Mister Bagchi, a genuinely lovely old Indian man who had had the misfortune of once being a witness to a murder in front of his shop, would probably have something up to Nyssa's standards.

"I'll bear that in mind." Sara nodded, holding back a smirk. Again, it would be nice to see a bit of that smugness get wiped off Nyssa's face. "Guess I'll see you around then."

"Indeed." Nyssa nodded, and then turned around, walking out of the alley and down a side street.

Out of curiosity, Sara gave it five seconds, and then walked down to the end of the alley, looking the way Nyssa had gone.

No sign of her.

Okay, now that's just showing off, right? 

The Foundry, Starling City

December 16th, 2013

Oliver did not tend to think of himself - these days - as a competitive person. Ego didn't belong out in the field, and getting caught up in being too proud of your skills was an easy way to make mistakes.

So he was a little surprised at how annoyed he felt that Nyssa was beating him in this contest. It wasn't that he'd gone into this expecting to win handily - Nyssa had been training to fight since she was a child, and the bow was apparently her primary weapon, for all that he'd never seen her use it - but being faced with just how much better she was than him was proving to be... humbling. Just a little.

And apparently, it was not an enjoyable experience.

The wall was now studded with punctured tennis balls and the arrows holding them against the concrete. As well as even more arrows that had missed their targets.

Over half -almost six out of ten, actually - of the tennis balls were punctured by Nyssa's red-fletched arrows, with the rest Oliver's. And more of Oliver's arrows had missed. Nyssa had been more accurate, and faster firing the entire time.

"Impressively done so far, Oliver," Nyssa said, despite the fact that she was winning. She walked over towards the wall to pull her arrows out of it, and Oliver joined her. Most of them were going to be salvageable with a bit of sharpening - no sense in wasting arrows, after all. 

"Not as impressive as you." Back when the prospect of actually fighting Nyssa had been a thing, last year, Oliver hadn't had high hopes for his chances, though he would have been prepared to fight to the death and use every advantage and trick he could to save Laurel. 

But the finesse Nyssa had shown here...

Very good that she found another option, then.

"Even more impressive is that I can't even figure out exactly what you're doing better." Nyssa's form was excellent, but Oliver knew - without being arrogant about it - his own was too, and they both had a perfect feel for their weapons and their arrows, treating both as practically extensions of themselves, but she'd been able to fire faster and aim better than him. "Beyond just having years more experience then I've had." Oliver added.

"You breathe too much while firing," Nyssa explained. "It slows you down, ever so slightly." She examined the tip of one arrow, gently tracing her finger against the point, then flipped it over in her hand. "But you nearly split my arrow here, and here," she gestured to two. "If we were using arrows of wood and feather, you might actually have." 

Oliver looked at the arrows in question, where hers had hit the tennis ball head on, and his had indeed scraped along the shaft, damaging the fletching to the point of making the arrows in question unsalvageable and pressed up against the tip of her arrow as it was embedded in the concrete.

"So you don't breathe when you're shooting at all?"

"Not when I need to shoot at a contained number of targets in a short span." Nyssa explained. "In the field, rarely is it so simple."

"In the field, you're also shooting bigger targets than tennis balls though," Oliver pointed out, and Nyssa nodded. 

"There are many in the League who have failed to do as well as you have, and I can think of very few outside of it who would have come as close as you did. Laurel remains in good hands."

Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Was that what this was? To see if I was worthy of Laurel in your eyes?"

"Laurel decides who is worthy of her." Nyssa countered, which Oliver could only agree with. Nyssa collected the last of her arrows, damaged or otherwise, and stepped away. "I admit, her tales of your... younger antics did not impress me. But her love for you was evident then, despite that."

"I can't blame you for not being impressed by that version of me." Oliver wasn't all that impressed with his past self either. In moments of quiet, self-reflective honesty, he could admit that even then he had some good traits, but they were buried under the layers of stupidity he'd let dictate his actions. But Oliver didn't spend those moments pondering his past failings all that much. 

"But if I cannot be here to fight alongside Laurel's side, that someone who is as skilled as you can be here..." Nyssa nodded, then shrugged. "And, I admit, I was curious, simply to see how our abilities compared. Even allowing for your experiences, what I know of them, your talents with the bow are impressive." 

"...this was fun for you, wasn't it?" Oliver realized. I can't imagine Nyssa has a lot of conventional hobbies. Not that Oliver could really criticize. He did read, but apart from spending time with Laurel, there wasn't much else he did that wasn't his day job or his night job.

"Of course. It was not for you?"

"...I don't do this for the joy of it." Oliver admitted. "It's necessary, but that's all." He could take satisfaction in it, it wasn't as though he hated archery, but it wasn't fun. 

Nyssa's expression - if he was reading her right - was one of mild confusion at his words. "Strange." She turned, putting her intact arrows back into her quiver, and marking the ones where the tips were too damaged to be worth salvaging before putting those back in as well. 

I'm strange? Oliver wanted to roll his eyes.

Secondary Base Number 1, Starling City

December 17th, 2013

A call from Nyssa that Shiva was in the city several hours earlier than Nyssa had expected - it was still mid-afternoon - and was ready for her had seen Laurel tell Nyssa to bring Nyssa to here, one of their backup bases. It wasn't in the Glades, but the surrounding neighborhood wasn't all that well-off regardless, and as a result, the fact that the convenience store above it had been out of business for four years and nothing had replaced it was not entirely surprising. Oliver had bought it through a series of fake names and shell companies nearly a year ago, and the owners had been more than happy to unload the place at a bargain price.

The basement was much smaller than the foundry, and sparsely prepared - emergency supplies, some basic training gear, a cot, medical supplies, extra equipment, and backup masks and protective gear. Not a full replacement for their suits, but in a pinch, they would do.

Laurel was herself in her full suit, having changed once she got here (it would have been conspicuous during the day) waiting for Nyssa and Shiva to arrive. She didn't hear them enter the upstairs, to her complete lack of surprise, but she did see them coming down the stairs.

Nyssa first, wearing not her League uniform - again, conspicuous - but black jeans, a dark blue shirt, and a black jacket. An outfit she'd seen Nyssa wear before, when going out in civilian garb. Nyssa was never going to be one for bright colors, when she had a choice.

Behind her, was the woman Laurel could only assume was Lady Shiva. She wore a red shirt, a black long coat, and white pants, with black boots that went up nearly to her knees. Shiva herself was an Asian woman with long black hair and brown eyes. On the surface, nothing in her face suggested that she was an assassin deadly enough to scare Ra's al Ghul, but there was a hint, in her eyes, if you knew what to look for, of that killer instinct.

And the way she walked. That was really hit. Every step she took, prowling down the stairs like a panther on the hunt, commanding total control of her surroundings. Laurel actually braced herself for the other woman to pounce at her in attack, so apt was the predatory cat metaphor for the way she carried herself and moved.

There was nothing stilted, or even careful about her movements. No caution - not that Laurel though Shiva was reckless, but that she didn't need to move with caution, because she had full control of herself in a way Laurel could only dream of.

"Nyssa." Laurel greeted her, as they reached the base of the stairs.

"Black Canary," Nyssa nodded. "This is Lady Shiva. And this, Shiva, is the Black Canary."

"Caution about your real identity. A fair precaution." Shiva considered. She spoke English without an accent. She looked over at Nyssa. "I will aid her, as you request, and then all debts between us are wiped clean."

"Indeed." Nyssa nodded.

Shiva approached Laurel, an appraising look in her eye. "I am called Shiva. And you are the Black Canary. You were once a member of the League?"

"I was." Laurel nodded. "Were you? Is that how Talia and Nyssa know you?"

"My relationship with the League of Assassins is... complicated." Shiva answered. "But I have never been a member. Nyssa did me a great service once, several years ago, and so, I have owed her since. And now I am here to help you control your new ability."

"That's the idea," Laurel nodded. "I can't use it in a battle if I can't be absolutely sure what it will do to my enemy. How much damage. Especially not if it might kill them."

Shiva scoffed, "Your concern for the lives of your foes is a weakness no warrior can afford." 

"I wouldn't consider not wanting to commit murder a weakness." Laurel countered, cooly. "I do what I do to help the people of this city, to serve as an example to them. I can't do that while killing people left and right."

Shiva shook her head, "Typical, of one who found a place within the League." Laurel stared, unsure of what to make of that. She didn't really see how what she said would be 'typical' of the League, but from what Nyssa had said, Shiva didn't even have the League's sense of morality so...

"But, we are not here to debate philosophy." Shiva stepped onto the training mat in the center of the room, and gestured for Laurel to join her. "If I am to teach you anything, I will need to gauge your skill personally."

You don't want to see my scream first, since that's what this is all about? Laurel supposed she could follow the logic though. Shiva was very direct and to the point about it. Laurel stepped onto the mat, and looked over at Nyssa.

"Would you prefer if I remained, Black Canary?" Nyssa asked softly, and Laurel shook her head. 

"It's not necessary. You have your mission." She didn't want to be responsible for Nyssa failing to complete her assignment, for what her father might do or say if she did fail, or if she succeeded. "I'll see you again soon, I hope."

"I hope so as well." Nyssa nodded. She looked to Shiva, "Good fortune to you, Lady Shiva."

"And you, Nyssa al Ghul." Shiva replied. Nyssa left the basement, and Laurel turned her focus to Shiva.

"So, how exactly is this going to work?" Laurel asked. "You want to fight, first, but beyond that..." She trailed off, unsure. She trusted Nyssa's assurance that Shiva would keep her word, but still. What exactly were they about to do? Learning the level of control she had now, that she'd learned from the League, had required nearly destroying her and rebuilding from there. That was hardly an acceptable option now.

"Beyond that will have to wait until I have seen how you fight. But the principle will be the same: this new ability of yours is merely another extension of yourself. Control yourself, and you control your ability." Shiva started to circle to the left, and Laurel mirrored her movement, keeping the woman in front of her. "You learned much from the League. I will show you how to use those same skills in ways the followers of the Demon's Head do not consider."

"Nyssa tells me Ra's al Ghul is scared of you. Is it true?" Laurel really hoped it was.

"I doubt those were Nyssa's words." Shiva shook her head. "She would never speak against her father that way."

"...she said he would be cautious about challenging you. But that seems like the same thing." Laurel countered.

"Not at all. I would be cautious about challenging Ra's al Ghul. I believe it far more likely than not that I could defeat him, but he is formidable, and the risk of defeat exists. A risk great enough to be worth considering with care. It has been many years since I last spoke to him, but I imagine he feels the same, but in reverse."

That 'many years' comment raised questions. How old was Shiva anyway? She looked sort of... ageless? Laurel would palace her age as 'between her twenties and her forties' but beyond that... 

"I take your point." Laurel chuckled. "If you do decide to fight Ra's al Ghul, any chance you'd be willing to sell tickets. I'd love to see him get his ass kicked."

Shiva laughed, then grinned, "He is a man quite possessed of himself," She nodded. "I will bear your request in mind. But we are not here to discuss the failings of the Demon's Head as a man, and as a father." I never said anything about his qualities as a father. Then again, Shiva knew she was friends with Nyssa, and anyone who knew both Ra's and Nyssa would know Ra's quality as a parent was...

Shit.

"Attack me." Shiva beckoned her to attack. Laurel complied, moving towards Shiva, feinting a punch and instead kicking at her side - Shiva didn't fall for it, and she sidestepped the kick easily, grabbing at Laurel's leg.

Laurel pulled her leg back just in time and ducked under a punch, the speed of Shiva's reactions, the way she changed course mid-movement almost dizzying. Laurel jumped back as Shiva lashed out again, a flurry of blows that Laurel wasn't even sure how she was managing to stay one inch away from, if that -

Laurel slid to the left, interdicted one of the punches with her arm, putting a blow in at the inside of Shiva's elbow -

Or trying to, anyway. As she made the punch in what seemed like the smallest and slightest of openings, Shiva grabbed onto her arm and twisted, pulling her around to her side, spinning - and then leveraging the arm to flip Laurel over, sending her careening away, landing on the edge of the mat.

All the wind was knocked of Laurel by the blow, and she felt like her arm had been - nearly - dislocated, and then some. A quick test as she struggled onto her knees showed it wasn't actually, but...

"I have observed your career with interest since you emerged as the Black Canary." Shiva commented. "Mild interest, but interest nonetheless. You are skilled."

Laurel picked herself up off the mat, rubbing at her arm. "You dropped me in less than a minute. I don't feel skilled just now." It wasn't that she'd been expecting to beat Shiva, not even close, but she hadn't expected to get thrown so damn easily.

Then again, who did?

"Your arm isn't broken. Compared to many I have done that too..." Shiva trailed off, and Laurel got the idea. "I do not offer praise lightly. I am here because the favor I owe Nyssa has called me here, but given your progress and conduct thus far, I may have come a few years from now regardless, to test your skills and offer you training, had you continued as you already have."

Laurel's brow furrowed. From what little Nyssa had said about Lady Shiva, what little she remembered having heard, and what she was getting from the woman now, she didn't exactly offer to train people lightly. "Thank you. I think?"

"Few I offer such training to thank me as it happens." Shiva observed. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, giving Laurel a pointed look. "I am not here to improve your skills with the martial arts directly, though any training I give you to improve your control will doubtless do that. But I am not a forgiving teacher, and I do not offer my services freely."

"...but since this is a favor to Nyssa, you won't be asking anything of me, right?" Laurel hoped that was the case. Because she doubted Shiva would request something Laurel could easily agree to.

"Not this time. If I come again, then things will be quite different. Shall we begin again?" Shiva gestured for Laurel to try to attack her once more.

Laurel grimaced. This is going to be a long day. 

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 13: A Campaign That Starts off With A BOOM

Solidsnakestightass69: (7:43 PM March 18, 2019)
I'm not defending Deathstroke or Rochev, the former was a psychotic terrorist and the latter was a rich corporate raider who decided she wanted revenge on her former boyfriend's kid for some reason, but I am saying that it's mighty suspicious that Sebastian Blood, who was basically the closest thing we've had to a socialist nearly winning mayor of a major city in a long time, turned out to be 'allied' with those two.

Wizardvortex712471: (7:57 PM March 18, 2019)
So, what, you think Arrow and Black Canary framed him? I mean, Arrow may be a little too busy with supervillains constantly attacking Starling to go after the 1% like he used to, but he's not gonna frame a guy trying to help the poor, and Black Canary sure as hell wouldn't.

Solidsnakestightass69: (8:09 PM March 18, 2019)
I'm saying Moira Queen and the corporate establishment in Starling framed Blood. And I wouldn't be surprised if they were behind Deathstroke. There was a lot of money being made in rebuilding the city, and funny how a lot of the deaths were in poor and middle class neighborhoods.
#Mighty Suspicious #SSTA Wears Their Tinfoil Hat #Supervillain Discourse #Late Stage Capitalism

-a post on Tumblr blog Solidsnakestightass69, retrieved April 21, 2020

Hochman Hotel, Starling City

December 17th, 2013

Sara hadn't been sure she'd actually get the call that Nyssa had the time to chat, but she did. Sara had just enough time to stop by Mister Bagchi's place, get a cup of his Masala Chai tea made, and get to Nyssa's hotel - the Hochman. Because why not have the member of the not-Amish but with murder stay at the most expensive hotel in town?

Okay, actually, in fairness, they're also the most private. They were the only hotel where everyone, cleaning and cooking staff on upward, signed ironclad confidentiality agreements. Legally, without a warrant, the staff there couldn't tell anyone anything about the hotel they couldn't see with their own two eyes.

Walking in through the front door, Sara went up to the front desk. "Sara Lance, to see Nyssa Raatko." She told the clerk. 

The clerk looked at her computer, then nodded. "One moment please." She dialed a number on the phone, then picked it up. "Ma'am? Yes. She's here. Of course. We'll send her up." The clerk handed her a small key-fob looking thing, though with no buttons. "Hold this up to the elevator controls to be taken to the right floor - 7th floor. Miss Raatko is in room 703." 

"Right." Sara looked at the fob. So guests had specific fobs for specific floors? That seemed... a bit much. 

As she waited for the elevator to come back down to the ground level, Sara tried to ignore that her pulse was raising, her heart was bounding in her chest, and she kept licking her lips.

I'm not nervous. She was just - concerned. She was about to go meet with an assassin on her own turf, or at least ground of the assassin's choosing, and sure, Nyssa wasn't going to do anything to her, Sara was confident in the other woman's lack of interest in doing anything that would upset Laurel, but...

Still. On principle. 

Her cop's instincts were screaming at her to just turn around and leave. That this was not a good idea.

Sara ignored those instincts. This was important.

There was so much about Laurel's time in the League, what it had done to her, that Sara didn't know. That Sara would almost certainly never hear from Laurel. Plus, with Nyssa like another sister to Laurel... 

Sara needed to have this conversation.

And it had nothing - nothing - to do with the fact that Nyssa was apparently her achilles heel when it came to how women looked. 

Nothing

Because yes, Nyssa was gorgeous, and Sara was absolutely thinking about that fact a lot. And yes, Sara knew that she was prone to being distracted by a very very attractive man or woman, she'd known that even before she was bi, even if she'd rationalized the distracted by an attractive woman part away back then. But just because the other woman had invited her to her hotel room to talk didn't mean that she was thinking of this as any sort of-

Oh who am I kidding. Part of me absolutely thinking like that. 

Which, honestly, was baffling. Sara was indeed prone to the distraction thing, but it wasn't like she'd been forced to deal with it over the years, and done a good job of it. And yes, Nyssa was gorgeous, but Sara was not some teenager driven by hormones. And yet, when it came to the woman, part of Sara was that.

She did feel like a teenager having their first serious crush - like a high school sophomore crushing on a college kid, someone they felt like was way, way out of their league, and also knew on a very fundamental level that dating them, even if it was possible, was all sorts of bad ideas.

Yes, Sara was confident she'd be able to stay on task, but... 

What the fuck is it about this woman?! It would be easy to blame the fact that Sara hadn't dated or anything else in ages, which was true, but that couldn't possibly be it. Sara had run into other gay or bi women in that time who were, objectively, on the same level as Nyssa aesthetically, and Sara did not react this way.

So what was it about -

Sara was jolted out of her thoughts by the ding of the elevator as it opened for her. She ran the fob over the reader when she stepped inside, and the elevator closed, the number '7' appearing on a digital display next to the doors. 

There are questions I need Nyssa to answer, and as much as part of me wishes otherwise 'do you want to have sex?' is not actually one of them.

Shaking her head, Sara managed to keep herself focused as she walked over to room 703 and knocked.

Of course, when Nyssa opened the door and Sara saw her again, that focus slipped a little, but she managed to avoid making a complete fool of herself as she held out a thermos. "Tea? Masala Chai. I have it on good authority from a habitual drinker that it's pretty good." 

Nyssa raised an eyebrow. "Good authority from whom?" She accepted the thermos, but didn't drink from it yet, stepping aside to let Sara come into the hotel room.

The room was large - nearly the size of her apartment, and through the open door of the bathroom she could see what looked like an absurdly oversized bathtub for -

Nope. Sara blinked, not letting her brain follow where that would inevitably lead.

"Well, one, I figured since I'm eating up your free time, so I should come bringing gifts, and two, you can't go around insulting my country like that and not expect me to show you up. I'll grant that we americanize a lot of stuff - because it tastes better like that - but you can get authentic stuff if you know where to look." Sara kept looking around the room, mostly to avoid looking at Sara and the way she wore those black jeans. 

It was... fancy. There was some sort of expensive-looking art on one wall, the bed was huge, and the TV equally some sort of oversized monstrosity. A dining table complete with a full tea set, which also looked fancy as hell and a desk that looked older than either of them - probably a reproduction, but a really high-end one - helped round out the excess of the room. 

"So this is what it's like to travel on the League's dime?" Sara asked, chuckling. "Are they taking applications?" 

"It is this hotel's ability to keep their resident's privacy that serves as the primary utility," Nyssa countered. "Your government takes a dim view of the League's actions, and especially in larger cities, I must be careful." Sara looked at the assassin, and she genuinely couldn't tell if the woman was being honest or bullshitting her.

Which made sense, given her profession, but, like... there were other ways to be anonymous. Lots of shitty motels that didn't ask questions, didn't have answers - she had to be picking the Hochman

"Where exactly did you get this tea?"

"Little spice and tea shop in the South End. The owner likes me. Not a tea person, but I get spices from him from time to time." She needed some way to make the microwave meals she ate at home more flavorful. "I figured he would have something that might live up to your exacting standards. Does it?"

Nyssa raised an eyebrow, but unscrewed the lid of thermos, looking at the contents, then smelling them.

"What, you think it's poisoned?" Sara made a face at the idea Nyssa thought she'd do that. You're important to my sister, of course i'm not going to -

"The proper experience of tea requires more than just taste," Nyssa's words interrupted Sara's thoughts. Sara blinked, then felt her cheeks got hot. Right. Duh. Sorry.

"I - sorry." Really can't stop putting my foot in my mouth around her, can I?

Nyssa took a sip of the tea, then lowered the still open thermos, a thoughtful expression on her face. She took another slow, careful sip.

"Good?"

"Surprisingly so." Nyssa admitted. "Would you like coffee? I understand that you take it black." 

"...did Laurel tell you that?" Sara wasn't sure when that would have come up. She'd only started liking it black after becoming a cop, so Laurel wouldn't have known that and told her when she was in the League...

"You talk about it on your facebook page." Nyssa explained. 

"...Okay, now you're just fucking with me, right?" Sara asked, staring at the woman. She just... could not imagine Nyssa on facebook. At all. The image of her, scrolling through her feed, hitting 'like' on memes or news articles and commenting on someone's status update - it refused to actually take shape in Sara's head. 

"I'll admit that the whole Amish but with murder line was stupid and I should never have assumed you don't use any technology," though Nyssa's weird elitism on guns had given her good reason to think it was a thing, "but there is no way you use facebook or any other social media. What next, are you going to tell me you secretly have a reddit account where you upvote funny lolcats, or you reblog spiders georg memes while tagging posts with 'superwholock' on tumblr?"

Nyssa stared at her, tilting her head to the side a little, as if considering her. "...That was technically English, and yet I have no idea what you just said." Nyssa sipped at the tea again, slowly. "The rise of facebook and other social media where people remove any divide between their private life and their life on the internet has done much of the preliminary research on our targets for us," Nyssa explained. "It is rare that our targets themselves share vital details, but their employees and family members often do. I simply performed research before our meeting." 

She walked over to the TV, opening a cupboard on the stand and revealing a very expensive looking coffee maker. She watched Nyssa unscrew a bottle of water, pour it's contents into the maker, and then set to work making coffee.

"...you guys research your targets on facebook. I -" Sara blinked as she watched Nyssa start the maker, looking away so she didn't think about those jeans even more now that Nyssa was facing away from her. Her entire train of thought derailed, she went with the first thing that came to mind: Objecting to expensive coffee. "You don't need to - Christ, Nyssa, one cup of whatever coffee you're making probably costs more than a tank of gas. You don't need to make me any."

"It is the polite thing to do for a guest." Nyssa countered. "You would not make me a rude host. The Laws of Hospitality are sacred to the League."

Sara bit back her immediate 'that makes no sense' because she'd been burned by that hot stove too many times. She pursed her lips, thinking it through. She'd read a few books, watched a few shows, where the Laws of Hospitality, or something like that was a thing. And a faint memory of learning about Greek Mythology in High School niggled at her , something about Zeus punishing people who were bad to their guests or something like that.

The League serves its own sense of justice. An older form of it. An older law. Laurel had told her that once, in one of the few times she'd said much about her time in the league...

"Because Hospitality is one of those older laws you uphold." Sara murmured. 

"Indeed." Nyssa nodded. "In the days when the League was founded, violations of the Laws of Hospitality were among the gravest of betrayals. They were far from the only law we enforced, but it was one of the most common that drew our ire - when a ruler or a general would invite his enemies or rivals to a meal, and betray them at the feast, or when a guest would come to an invited banquet and kill their host. And smaller violations of Sacred Hospitality, when word of them reached us."

It was interesting, watching Nyssa speak. She chose her words carefully, deliberately. Her eyes were expressive, but it was hard to tell what they meant, especially when the rest of her face was carefully schooled as she spoke. 

"And if someone showed up at your fancy mountain fortress? Would they be extended the same Hospitality?" Sara doubted the answer was 'no', but she wanted to hear what Nyssa said about it. She needed to understand the way this League worked.

"Nanda Parbat does not host visitors often, but on the rare occasions when Ra's al Ghul allows a guest, they would be treated as a guest under those traditions. Hospitality can only happen with mutual agreement - a host is by no means obligated to accept a given guest. But once they do..."

"They have to follow the rules. I have to imagine that you don't get as many opportunities to punish people for breaking hospitality these days." Sara noted.

"Less so than in days past, true. But there will always be evil for the League to punish. Man will always stray from justice, and the League will always be there to correct that course." Nyssa selected a mug and set it in place in the coffee maker, then gestured to two cushioned chairs next to a coffee table. "Shall we sit?"

"...that seems like a good idea." Sara picked one of the chairs and tried to not sit as tensely as she felt, but not really to much success. Nyssa sat down, seemingly relaxed, but Sara had no doubt the woman's guard was still up.

It is very unfair how good she is at seeming nonchalant. And how good nonchalant looks on her.

"You said you wanted to get to know me better. Because I will be part of your sister's life." Nyssa murmured. "What do you want to know?"

A lot of things that I'm not going to actually ask you.

"Well, for starters, the League. Clearly, I have a lot of misconceptions about it, and Laurel... Laurel doesn't talk about the League much, or her time in it. But it had an impact on her. And... well, the League is your life. Understand the League, I understand you, maybe I understand Laurel more..." 

Cult or not, how can you all be okay with being murderers? With just... declaring yourselves arbiters of life and death? It was -

It was the central question of Sara's life these days.

And just... What was it like, being part of the League? Laurel made it sound like a hellish, repressed existence, that most people she knew in the league were pretty dead inside after a while and yet Nyssa... wasn't? Why? And how - how did Laurel and Nyssa come to be so close?  

"You don't ask simple questions, do you?" Nyssa murmured. 

"I didn't even ask the question yet, but... why wouldn't it be simple? You go around killing people who violate your code. Without any accountability. No authorization." Laws - from governments - and so on all... it all went back to that whole 'social contract' thing. Sara's badge came from somewhere, she was supposed to be accountable. 

There were huge problems with that system, but there wasn't anything for the League. Just themselves. And how long had Ra's let Malcolm Merlyn run rampant? 

"The Traditions of the League speak of a powerful being, a sky god, who charged the first Ra's al Ghul with defeating evil and protecting the innocent." Nyssa countered. "What gives your sister, or her beloved their authorization to act as they do?"

"They aren't killing people, if they can help it." Sara countered, her defense of her sister feeling  a bit weak. Sara wasn't going to argue with Nyssa on religious grounds, and she didn't think Nyssa was inviting her to question the existence of this 'Sky God'. "That's what makes them doing what they do okay. Or at least.. Less bad." Sara let out a long sigh. "Okay, I don't really have a good answer to that question."

"And yet you demand an answer from me? From the League? Not all within the League believe our most ancient of traditions, but all believe in our cause. We are called to defend Justice. It is that same call that animates Laurel, and Oliver." Nyssa explained.

"And that call to justice mandates killing anyone who tries to leave?" Sara asked, cleared her throat, "You don't need to respond to that. I just - I don't understand. There's a difference between killing people and... well, being an Assassin."

"That is, in truth, a misunderstanding of our true name," Nyssa countered. She stood, fetching the cup of coffee as the maker finished, and bringing it over to Sara. Sara accepted the coffee, bringing it up to her lips for a very small, very careful sip.

It was scalding hot on her tongue, but it was also intensely smooth. No acidity, no bitterness.  The battery acid she drank at the precinct was all well and good but this...

"I hate how good this is," Sara murmured, then cleared her throat as she realized someone was actually here to hear her say that. "Thank you. It's... very good." Certainly the best coffee she'd had in a very long while. "So... you're not actually the League of Assassins? Laurel calls you that."

"It is, at this point, the accepted translation into English, and most European languages, for our proper name, but it is... imprecise. How familiar are you with the Crusades, and the story of the so-called Hashshāshīn?"

"Only what's in the Assassin's Creed video games." Her girlfriend in college, the one who hadn't wanted to date a cop so they'd broken things off before she'd graduated, had been really into them. "So for all intents and purposes, very little." Sara clarified quickly. 

"It is a complicated story, but the so-called Order of Assassins was created many decades after the League." Nyssa explained, leaning back in her chair, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear. 

"And Europeans just called you guys the League of Assassins because you killed people and spoke Arabic?" Sara could see that being a thing. Standard European white people treating foreigners like all one group or whatever.

"No doubt in part, but the League does have a history with the Isma'ili sect I'm speaking of." 

The next hour and a half ended up enlightening Sara very little about the way the League of Assassins operated, or what it was like at Nanda Parbat, what made Nyssa okay with the League's actions and every other question she'd come into the hotel room with.

Instead, she'd had a surprisingly engaging history of Islamic interfaith conflict, the role the Crusades and the Mongols played in it, and the fact that after the 'Order of Assassins' fell, many of it's members would end up joining the League, even if they had become disillusioned of their old faith in many ways, embracing the ways of the League instead. It was why Arabic had become the language of the League, rather than one of several spoken within it.

The most she'd gotten was a loose sketch of the League's history until the 1500s, from the point of the Assassin's merger with them forward.

It was only when Sara had left, after Nyssa had said that she needed to make ready to depart on her mission, after Sara had gotten back into her car and was halfway back to the precinct that she realized she'd gotten almost none of the answers she'd sought. She'd been so engrossed in what Nyssa was saying - less even than how she looked while saying, and as much how... animated she was, discussing the League's history? She'd been... oddly passionate about it, in a very restrained sort of way.

I guess she doesn't get much chance to share it with people who don't know? 

But if Nyssa al Ghul hadn't been deliberately sidetracking, then Sara would eat her badge. In other words, Sara had been played.

As she pulled parked her car at the precinct, this realization saw Sara pause, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the keys she'd just turned to turn off the car. She stared ahead for a long moment, then muttered:

"Motherfucker,"  

Oliver and Laurel's Apartment, Starling City

December 17th, 2013

With their 'night jobs', seeing the other bruised, bloodied, cut or otherwise hurt was par for the course. But still, even seeing how stiffly Laurel was moving when she came back after her training with Shiva, Oliver wasn't prepared for just how much of Laurel's arms, legs and torso was starting to turn - just starting - black and blue.

It was an exaggeration, but she basically was one giant bruise. Despite all his experience in seeing her injured - and his experience in controlling an almost primal desire to protect the most important woman in his life - Oliver couldn't help but inhale a breath sharply.

"Normally I'd say you should see the other guy, but I couldn't even land a hit on Shiva." Laurel admitted, looking over her shoulder as she carefully examined her injuries in the mirror on the inside door of their walk-in closet. 

"What did that accomplish for why she's here?" Oliver asked, before retrieving bruise cream and handing it to her. She would have applied some earlier, after training, but still. Oliver got some onto one hand, and then used the other to give it to Laurel. Shel accepted the container, nodding. 

"Control. I need to learn how to control my body, my reactions. Even more than the League did, if I want to be able to make sure I can control this ability." Laurel winced as she moved her arm to apply the bruise cream, and Oliver started gently applying some to her back and sides. Laurel let out a long breath. "If this helps me make sure I don't accidentally kill anyone with my new superpower, then it's worth it."

"Will it?"

"I think so." Laurel nodded. "It may have just been one session so far, but I learned... a lot. God, Oliver, you should see the way she moves." Laurel shook her head, mouth hanging half-open. "And her expression. I never once guessed what she was going to do next. No hints, no signs, no little indications. I couldn't read her at all. Every move I made, she caught, every attack, she countered - but when she went on the offense..." Laurel exhaled, trailing off. "Well, you can see for yourself."

Oliver wished he could admit that he didn't feel a desire to find Shiva and make her pay for what she had done to Laurel. Laurel didn't need him defending her, not in this case. But it was just a flash of protectiveness, and the fact that Laurel could take care of herself, and could end the training whenever she wanted or needed. He trusted Laurel to know what was best for her in this case.

The other thing that made his momentary desire to hurt Shiva for hurting Laurel was the fact that he knew that even if he tried shooting her with his arrows from a safe distance, he was all but guaranteed to end up in a melee with her, and in that arena, Shiva would have him beat in less than five seconds, judging from what Laurel was saying.

As it was, Laurel could beat him in a hand to hand almost every time. If Laurel had even no chance against Shiva...

I just hope no one hires her to deal with the Arrow, or the Black Canary. If it came to that... well, they wouldn't just lay down and die, but they'd be in for the fight of their lives, to say the least. 

Once they were done, Oliver and Laurel both sat in bed together, Oliver's arm gently around Laurel's shoulders, holding her close. 

"Have you finally accepted that we need to tell Roy, even if that means telling Thea?"

Oliver exhaled slowly. "Yeah. You're right that we need to tell Roy. He's proven he's invested, that he wants to help, and after being taken by... whoever was behind Cyrus Gold... he's involved. And Thea..." Oliver let out a long breath. "If anyone did find out who the Arrow is... she's the first person they'd go for." His mother didn't stay cooped up in the estate all the time, but she did stay home more often these days, and the security there was still solid. Thea, on the other hand..."

"She goes out on her own a lot, or just with Roy." Laurel finished. "She wouldn't be helpless - she's still training at that same gym she's been practicing at since she met Roy, and Roy's going too, but -"

"A little self-defense won't count for much if she doesn't realize the kinds of people that might come for her. A single mugger or something like that? But -" Oliver shook his head. "I just... I never wanted my family to know about this. You always wanted to bring Sara in, but - with Thea..."

Thea had always been his baby sister. That was true for Laurel and Sara, yes, but Sara was a lot closer to Laurel in age. When they'd actually gotten along - which, growing up, hadn't always been the case - Laurel and Sara's dynamic was closer to friends, rather than Oliver looking out for his baby sister who was always 'speeding' after him and his friends. 

"If we tell her, when we tell her that we're the vigilantes, when we bring Roy in  - I'm worried she'll want to be involved. Ever since her community service, since she's been spending more time in the Glades, or dating Roy..." Oliver trailed off. "She's been paying more attention to the problems in the city. And it's not like I can forbid her from doing something if she decides to do it on her own." And the thought of Thea going out into the night, fighting for her life...

Maybe I can delay her by pointing out she needs training? Oliver could only hope that Thea decided against going out onto the streets and fighting, but... it felt like a dim hope.

"Well, I mean, you could try," Laurel offered, grinning. "You'd just be a raging hypocrite."

"Yeah, well, I try to avoid that these days." Oliver murmured, kissing the top of Laurel's head lightly. "So how do you want to do this? If we're going to tell them both... we should just tell them both. Bring them both down into the Foundry and fill them in."

The conversation was going to be hard. He'd have to tell Thea the truth about what happened to their dad, how he'd shot himself, about the list... having Roy there for her would be good. And if he and Laurel were going to have to relay even the high points of the five years they were gone, then it was probably better to do it once. 

"Ask Thea to bring Roy and meet you at Verdant?" Laurel suggested. "Then take them down into the Foundry. I can be there. They see the arrows, our costumes on the mannikins -"

"They'll figure it out, and we can explain from there." Oliver nodded. He swallowed. He -

He wanted to believe that Thea wouldn't turn away from them - that the fact that he'd killed people, even if he wasn't anymore, the fact that Laurel had been an assassin - wouldn't make her behave the way Tommy did, once he'd found out.

Of course, granted, he found out around the same time we killed his dad, and that - that's not really applicable here.

Laurel laughed, and Oliver raised an eyebrow, looking at her. Laurel covered her mouth a moment, taking a breath, then explained:  "You know - Thea did archery for a bit, while we were gone. Sara said she was pretty good."

"Yeah." Oliver nodded slowly. "I remember her joking she was into it before it was cool." He blinked. "If she does decide she wants to get involved, then archery would be a good option." Oliver let out a long breath. 

"It'll probably be the one she gravitates to. You know how much she still looks up to you."

"Not as much as she used to." Oliver shook his head.

"Not in the same way, maybe, but even if she doesn't want to admit it, Thea still kind of idolizes you," Laurel corrected. 

"I think she idolizes you more. She even took after you in your taste for men everyone else thinks are lost causes," Oliver didn't say it with any heat, or bitterness or implication that he actually qualifed. He knew Laurel never saw him as that, and after enough time of her all but beating it into his head, Oliver was starting to believe it too. But when they'd started dating, and kept dating, and had their on and off periods, and every time he'd screwed up -

Laurel had been told by people he was a lost cause. Her friends. Her dad. Hell, I told her that sometimes.

"Roy isn't one, but god knows Mom really wishes she could tell Thea he is. And Roy..." Oliver trailed off. His mother hadn't every said much against Roy, since at first she'd never known about him, and then she was in jail

"Roy was convinced he was a lost cause himself, until 'The Savior' got him, and then I rescued him." Laurel finished. Then she chuckled, more of an ironic exhale, "I suppose you could put it like that."

"I do. Thea looked up to you when she was twelve as much as she did me." Oliver hadn't heard Thea say it like that, but she'd always been full of praise for Laurel, in awe of her almost.

"Then maybe we should trade students?" Laurel teased.

"There's no guarantee Thea's interested. And you're definitely the one Roy wants training from."

"...you're still sore that he said you were his second favorite vigilante, aren't you?" Laurel laughed, poking him lightly.

"Guilty as charged," Oliver 'confirmed', smiling. He let out a long breath. "Nothing can be simple anymore, can it?"

"I don't think anything was ever simple. I think we just thought it was." 

The Foundry, Starling City

December 19th

Laurel was waiting in the base, as she heard the door from the club open, Thea's voice ringing out as she walked down the stairs, Roy and then Oliver right behind her.

"I thought you said this place flooded during the Under...." Thea trailed off as she got far enough down the stairs to see the contents of the basement. Laurel watched Thea's eyes dart from the bow and arrows in their place, their costumes on the mannikins, the training equipment, the medical equipment...

And then of course, her eyes landed on Laurel, standing there, waiting for them. 

"Laurel?!" She nearly shouted, and then she finished going down the stairs, Roy looking around just as much as her. Thea stared, seemingly at a loss for words, as she looked back to her brother.

"...I told you your brother was scary," Roy told Thea quietly, and Laurel smiled. 

"I'd have tried to be scary to my sister's boyfriend regardless." Oliver noted. "But you've more than proven yourself, Roy. Just keep being good to Thea, and we won't have any problems on that front. Hurt her," Oliver gave Roy a friendly smile, "And I'll snap-"

"Oh no, no, NO!" Thea cut in quickly. "You're not threatening to kill my boyfriend, not even in a half-joking way, not after you're just - You're the Arrow!" She looked at Laurel, "You're the Black Canary! You can't just open with that and pretend everything's normal! Explain!"

"We were going to get to that," Laurel assured her. "You know Roy's been helping the Black Canary, serving as her eyes and ears."

"Yeah... and it's weird seeing you talk about yourself in the third person." Thea observed, a skeptical, careful cast to her voice. 

"Hazard of having two identities, I'm afraid," Laurel let out a breath. "The point is, Roy, you've worked hard on your training, and proven that your desire to do more isn't some passing fancy. And... well, you've proven that you're a good person, and I think, the right person to help us."

Roy swallowed, staring, "So you mean - you - I -" he took a breath. "You'll let me join you?"

"First I'll be training you more - directly. The Wildcat Gym gave you a very solid foundation, but there's a difference between knowing how to fight, and actively trying to take on the worst this city has to offer." Laurel explained. "But yes. If you can show the same skill and dedication you have so far, then you'll be able to join us out on the streets, if you still want that."

"I do!" Roy said quickly, "I -" He cut himself off, looking at Thea. "I - this is important, to me, Thea. I need to do this. But - are you -"

"I am nowhere near ready to say if I'm okay with you suiting up in some costume and mask and taking on criminals on the streets of the city!" Thea raised her voice. She closed her eyes and took a breath, slow and shuddering. "My big brother is the Arrow, his girlfriend is the Black Canary, and I -" Thea cut herself off, looked at Oliver, then Laurel. "Tommy knows. That's why he's being all weird and avoiding you guys all the time. Because you killed his dad."

"...he figured it out, yeah." Oliver nodded slowly. In hindsight, Laurel wished there was another way they could have told Tommy, but even if they'd told him earlier, his father had still had to die. A prison couldn't have easily held him, and that fight - if they hadn't been fighting to kill...

He might have killed them. 

And everything he'd done - the death penalty would have applied anyway.

But Tommy still would have had the fact that they killed his dad hanging over everything.

"And all those times you or Laurel had to ditch or weren't around or - you were doing... you were out, fighting crime, saving people and -" Thea cut herself off again. She looked at them again, barking a small laugh. "I can't say I saw this coming the whole time or anything, God no, but now that I know..." She shook her head. "So much makes sense."

That was probably going to be a common reaction from anyone who knew them, if they found out. Sara had already basically figured it out herself when they told her, but anyone else? It would probably be that missing piece that fit it all together.

"Does Mom know?" Thea shook her head. "No, there's no way she knows or she'd - god I don't even know what she'd do, but she'd be freaking out and trying to stop you." She laughed again, this time amused and bitter. "She'd say something about robbing from the rich being an 'inappropriate passtime for a Queen'. And yet here you are, being freaking Robin Hood."

"I'm not Robin Hood." Oliver muttered. Laurel laughed, his minor annoyance at the comparisons always amusing - he wasn't even that bothered anymore, Laurel knew, used to it, but still.

"You wear green, you use a bow and arrow, you go after rich bastards hurting the poor people in the city," Thea ticked off. "You're Robin Hood." She chuckled at Oliver's consternation. Then Laurel watch her expression get more serious. "So - you're telling Roy because you're bringing him in to your little club, but why are you telling me? I mean, you were fine with keeping it secret for over a year and I-" Thea paused, lowering her voice. "And I get it, I get why and - I - why are you telling me now?"

"We can't exactly tell Roy and expect him to lie to you about it." Laurel pointed out. 

"I wouldn't have." Roy said firmly. 

"So it's not because you want me to dust off my old archery equipment and join you?" Thea asked, sounding just a little disappointed, even though she laughed while asking the question.  Laurel looked past the two kids and met Oliver's eye. Oliver grimaced, but then walked around to stand beside her.

"That's up to you." Oliver let out a breath. He grimaced again, then looked at Thea. "I can't say that I - that I like the idea of you choosing to put yourself in danger like that." Thea started to protest, but Oliver kept going. "But I can't stop you. I still - I still think of you as my baby sister, Thea, a little. Protecting you should be my job, but -" He laughed. "I'm also not enough of a hypocrite to try and insist you can't be involved in this if you want to be."

Then he shook his head, "But if you do decide you want to get involved, you won't be using the gear you used when you were on Balloi Prep's archery team. That's not what anyone should use in a real fight."

Thea stared at him "The Arrow is a snob about his equipment? Who knew!" She grinned.

"When your equipment is the thing keeping you from getting killed, you'll be a snob about it too." Oliver said gravely. "This isn't a game, Thea. It's dangerous. These days, I'm just as likely to have a criminal give up when they see me as fight, but when they fight, they fight to kill."

"You're still alive." Thea pointed out, but she swallowed, her expression falling. She bit her lip, looking away, at Roy. She took his hand, and squeezed it gently. Roy squeezed back, and the two shared a look. Laurel watched, wondering what was passing between them in that look. Thea looked back at Oliver, at Laurel.

"I'm still processing all this. It's dangerous and you do this every night?! Why? What - I mean, Tommy's dad was a psycho and it's good you guys stopped him but - how did any of this start?" Thea shook her head, "You wash up on an island and spend five years there, and - you both come back and decide to start fighting crime?!"

"No, it's not that simple." Oliver admitted. "There's a lot about what happened during those five years you don't know. We didn't actually wash up there together, at first. And Dad... he didn't die during the sinking. He made it to the lifeboat with one of the crew, and made sure I was in it too." 

Laurel tensed as she saw Thea stiffen, watched Roy squeeze her hand. She met Roy's eyes and flicked her head in the direction of two chairs nearby, set up for this. Roy gently tried to direct Thea towards the chairs.

"Dad... dad made it a lifeboat? But-" Thea started, not resisting Roy maneuvering her into the chair. "He -" She closed her eyes, "What - happened to him? Did he - on the island? Why didn't you say anything?! We could have- where is he buried?!"

"He didn't make it to the island alive." Oliver told her softly. Now it was Laurel's turn to grab Oliver's hand, squeezing gently. "The lifeboat - there was only so much food... so much water. And there were three of us. Dad - he told me I had to live. That I had to get back to Starling, to you, to mom... that I had to right his wrongs. And then - then he shot the crewmember... and then-"

Thea could see where this was going, "No!" She choked out, starting to cry. Roy embraced her quickly, holding her close as she cried into his shirt, repeating the word 'No' a few times, before she forced herself to take a breath, holding on to Roy tightly, hands on his shoulders. She took another breath, removing one hand from Roy to wipe her eyes, and then she looked back to Oliver. 

"Dad killed himself, to make sure there'd be enough food and water on the lifeboat for you?" Thea's voice broke as she asked, eyes still wet.

"Yes." Oliver answered. 

"And - Laurel wasn't in the boat? But you were both on that island. And what did he mean, righting his wrongs? He was trying to stop Mr. Merlyn!"

"He was. But the only reason he knew about what Malcolm Merlyn was up to was because he had been working with him before," Laurel explained gently. "There's still a lot we don't know, but from what we know, what was revealed in your mom's trial - your dad, Merlyn, and some of their friends were trying to blackmail white collar criminals into helping the city. Make them donate to charities, or things like that."

Thea opened her mouth, as if to protest, but then stopped, closed her mouth, wiping at her eyes again, and then: "...that doesn't sound too bad. I mean, it's against the law but... they were trying to help. But if they had evidence... why didn't they turn it in? To the police? I mean - I know courts aren't perfect, I mean, they nearly railroaded mom, but-"

"We don't know for sure." Laurel explained. She held up a hand, ticking off the possibilities on her fingers. "It may be they didn't want blowback, or they were afraid the court system's failings were too severe to prosecute all of them. Maybe they didn't have enough evidence admissible in court. Maybe they thought regularly getting money out of them would help more people in the long run." She shook her head. "Or maybe they were afraid of rocking the boat, of disrupting the position of the rich people in this city too much."

Oliver went to a small safe under one of the tables and crouched down, unlocking it and pulling out a small book.

"I found this on Dad's body. When I finally figured out it was a list of names, I thought that it was a list he'd made of people who were destroying the city. We only figured out Merlyn had made the list later." Oliver explained. "Once we'd started."

"That - I - I mean..." Thea closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm usually more coherent than this."

"You're dealing with a lot." Roy pointed out, voice soft. "And you're still holding it together." He put his hand over hers, still on his shoulder.

Thea pressed her forehead to Roy's for a moment, then pulled back. She took another breath, deeper, slower. 

"And how did that... how did that turn into... this. How did you learn... I mean, unless you both were hiding it really well, neither of you could - I mean, neither of you could fight like you do now. You can't just... I mean, you need training, right? You don't just get that good practicing on your own!? What - what happened on that island?"

"A lot. And it's a very long story." Oliver told her softly. "There's no way we can tell it all now, but..." He looked at Laurel, who nodded. "But we can tell you the highlights."

"While Oliver was in the lifeboat," Laurel started, "I was clinging to a piece of the ship. And then I got found, by another ship, called the Amazo." She paused, took a breath and swallowed. "The man who was in charge of the ship was... a monster named Dr. Ivo." She kept her tone calm and even as she said his name. The power he'd once had over her, the memory of him, and what he'd done to her, was gone. But it still wasn't something she really wanted to talk about. But she did have to share at least the outline of it.

And Thea especially needed to understand the stakes of the world she might be entering into.

"And he was convinced he was going to save the world..."

The Foundry, Starling City

December 19th, 2013

Even with abridging a lot of the details, or skipping over large parts of the story - the details of what happened in Hong Kong, or with Shadowspire were mostly glided over, for instance, and Laurel could hardly have gone into everything she did while part of the League - relaying the story of the last six years took an hour.

Thea and Roy didn't interrupt much, thankfully, which made it easier to get it all out in one go.

Of course, by the time they were done, Thea and Roy looked overwhelmed. Thea in particular - her eyes were wide, she looked mentally and emotionally drained, skin pale, hands gripping the one arm of her chair tight, knuckles all but colorless, the other hand squeezing Roy's hand tight enough by five minutes into the story Oliver wouldn't be surprised if his hand had gone numb.

Roy was handling his shock better, keeping a measured, controlled expression, but his eyes were darting between them, confused, swallowing. He opened his mouth a little, as if to start speaking, then cleared his throat a few times, and closed his mouth again.

"How... how exactly are you - how are you still sane?" Thea finally asked. "How - after everything you've been through... how - shouldn't you be... how are you still sane?" She repeated, gawping at them.

If that question had been from someone other than his own sister, or someone just as close, Oliver might have been upset, but - he knew Thea. Knew what she was asking. How had they been through all they'd been through, and were still functioning.

It was a question Oliver asked himself, though he was certain a key part of the answer was Laurel - the memory of her, when he thought she was dead, and then her again, now that she was here. If he'd been doing this alone...

"Well, if you believe our detractors in the media," Laurel offered with a wry, bitter smile, "We aren't."

And most of the local news talking heads were still not huge fans of the Arrow or Black Canary, though they'd moderated their criticism since the Undertaking, and a few on local public radio had actually come out enthusiastically supportive of them, from what Sara relayed.

Oliver tried to avoid news stories or public discussion about his vigilante identity, but it was unavoidable in the city now. Even on conference calls with other branches of the company in other cities, in other countries, the topic came up. Concerns about the vigilantes and their effect on the company's business, if nothing else.

To those, Oliver always pointed out that as long as they continued with ethical business practices, there shouldn't be a problem. 

It didn't always dissuade the executives in their concerns, of course.

"Ha, ha," Thea said flatly. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I - if I - If I'd been through even half - hell, like, even ten percent - of what you guys went through - I'd need a straightjacket! I mean, I was twelve when you left, Ollie, and I loved you, and I love you, but - how did the guy you were then survive?"

"Because I had to." Oliver answered quietly. "And you're stronger than you think, Thea. I'm - I'm very glad you didn't go through what I did, and I hope you never go through anything even close to like it, but you could survive." He stepped forward, putting a hand on her shoulder for a moment.

Thea swallowed, eyes watering again. "...Why do you have to be such a supportive brother at all the worst moments?" She asked, a choked laugh escaping her as she said it. She wiped at her eyes, letting out a long breath.

"I don't - god, I don't even know where to start with processing all this."

"I can't say I really do either," Roy admitted, shaking his head. He held up a hand, "Don't get me wrong - I still - I still want to help you, Laurel, if you'll let me. I want to do something to help this city... be more than I was."

"Roy, you already are. You don't need to put yourself in the line of fire just to make up for some petty crimes," Laurel told him, firmly. "If you want this, you have to want to do this because you want to help protect the people of this city."

"I do." Roy nodded. "It's not just about what I did. I can help, and even if it means taking chances, putting myself in the line of fire..." He shook his head, "I don't want to keep sitting on the sidelines."

"Then you won't have to," Laurel confirmed. "Take your time to think about it. When the new year starts, we'll start your training. And get you set up with a costume. We'll need a codename for you to, so think about what you want."

"Or you'll be stuck trying to fight against what else people try and stick you with," Oliver noted. "'The Hood' was never a great codename."

"I didn't mind Banshee that much, but it didn't really have the connotations I was going with."

"I'll think about it." Roy nodded. "Why do we have to wait until after the new year?"

"Mostly because there's something else that's going to be taking up most of my time until then," Laurel admitted. "We'll get to that in one second." She looked over at Oliver, gesturing very slightly towards Thea with the hand by her side.

Oliver nodded. We have to give her the chance if she wants it. He wouldn't even chance his sister going out there until she was really, truly ready, but...

If she decided she wanted to be involved, there really wasn't much Oliver could do to stop her, if she really wanted it. 

"Which brings us back to you, Thea." Laurel said as she turned back to his sister You don't have to have an answer now, but... do you want to do the same thing as Roy?"

"I know you're starting to see how bad things really are in Starling for most people," Oliver noted. "But you don't have to get involved like this. With this."

"Well, as long as Roy's going to be going out and beating up criminals and getting shot at, then yeah, I'll be getting involved." Thea pointed out. "But if you mean do I want to suit up in some costume and go around shooting people with arrows?" Thea let out a small laugh, smiling. "It - it sounds like it would be cool. I mean, being a legit heroine - you've seen the way people talk about you guys on Twitter-" Thea started, and then she screwed up her face, making a gagging sound.

"What?" Oliver raised an eyebrow.

"I'm guessing she's remembering the thirst posts people make about the Arrow." Roy answered, holding back a smile "There's - there's a lot of people on Twitter with some... very specific things they want the Arrow - or Black Canary - to do to them."

"Oh. Those." Laurel rolled her eyes. "You learn to deal with that sort of thing. Ignoring it usually helps."

"God, now that I know you're the Arrow there are so many people on Twitter I'm going to have to block to be able to ever have peace of mind again!" Thea made another gagging sound, shaking her head. She closed her eyes, shook her head once more and took a breath. "Okay, sorry, sorry I - I'm good."

"You sure?" Oliver raised an eyebrow. Sara had shown him a few things people said about him - the Arrow, that is - on Twitter - the 'more tame' ones she'd said, but even those... hadn't been. It was a lot more... visceral than some of the stuff that had been said, that was still said about 'Oliver Queen, rich playboy' or 'former playboy' now, since the tabloids had finally accepted Laurel was the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with...

So all in all, what they were saying didn't bother him much, as long as he ignored it. But what he had seen... 

"Yeah. I'll manage." Thea chuckled, "...Sara didn't always know you were the Black Canary, like from the moment you guys got back, right?"

Laurel cleared her throat, and Oliver shot her a small smile as she nearly spluttered. "...No. Not at first. And we can table any discussion of that for later time. Much later."

"I don't think we need to, kind of answered it," Thea laughed. Then she sighed. "As for the question... I mean, it would kinda be cool, like I said, but I -" she shook her head. "I want to help, but I don't know if I want to help like that." She looked over at Roy, "One of us should be grounded and not acting like we're in a comic book."

"At this point, we may as well just accept comic books are real. I mean, those guys that had me - super soldiers? What's next, superpowers?" Roy pointed out. 

Oliver looked at Laurel. They weren't going to get a better segue than that. 

"Funny you should say that." Laurel noted. They'd discussed how they were going to do this, but after her session with Lady Shiva earlier today, Laurel was at least... reasonably confident that she could do her scream with more restraint. Still, they'd cleared away the training equipment from a section of wall.

"...what?" Roy asked. "Are you - no. Come on. No!" He shook his head. He looked at Oliver. "Is she- does she - what?"

"You'll see." Oliver said by way of answer. "You may want to cover your ears." He added, and did so. Laure's ability wouldn't really hurt them even if she screamed louder than intended, since she wasn't facing them, but if she was that loud, it would still make their ears ring, if unprotected.

Roy and Thea hesitated for a moment, then followed suit, hands over their ears. Laurel turned away from them, standing five feet from a different section of the wall than she'd hit last time, and then -

Visible waves of sound, matched with a loud, piercing cry coming from Laurel, crashed into the wall. It was, as Laurel had said, less intense than her earlier efforts, the waves seemingly smaller, and the sound was definitely less, but Oliver was still glad he'd covered his ears.

Laurel turned, breathing heavily a moment, face flushed. God, she's beautiful.

Roy and Thea just gaped at her for a long moment, before finally Thea spoke first.

"Holy shit that's so cool! You have superpowers Laurel!"

Secondary Base Number 1, Starling City
December 30th, 2013

Training with Lady Shiva, even if it was only a few hours at a time, and even if it was as much focused on practicing her scream as anything else, was hell.

Despite every trick she'd learned in the League, during her year and a half on the streets of Starling, and everything her imagination could come up with in the fight with her, Laurel had yet to land a hit on Lady Shiva that wasn't one the other woman deliberately allowed as part of a strategy against her.

Laurel liked to think she'd gotten closer, and she was doing better - her reaction times had picked up, and she'd even managed to reverse course a few times when attacking Shiva and the other woman dodged, but still.

She always ended up flat on the mats soon enough. 

But the sparring was never the point, only a means to an end, and for that end...

"You have made great progress in developing your control." Shiva observed as Laurel picked herself up again. "Every movement you make is directed and carefully chosen."

"Only way I can try to keep up. And the only way I can do what you're here to help me do." Laurel noted. Shiva was right about that too. It wasn't just her training with Shiva - more distance from when she'd killed the Count, and even starting to work with Roy had done much to leave her not feeling ragged and raw, like an exposed nerve - but every session with Shiva forced Laurel to focus on every movement she made, and improve on the effort to have total awareness of her body and everything she did with it. Obviously, Laurel wasn't at the point where she could control all her autonomic functions, but -

She was better. And as much as that hadn't helped her with her fights with Shiva, at least in terms of letting her beat her, it had helped with her scream. She was able to consistently use it at lower levels of power - no matter what, it was probably always going to be pretty damaging to any glass or other fragile stuff that was vulnerable to sound, but in terms of causing damage to other things, like concrete walls, she was able to modulate it. Dial back the power, and then dial it back up. Laurel wasn't sure what the upper limits of what she could do were, but she was starting to wonder if she might be able to take down a small house with one scream if she did it right.

Laurel had no plans to test that, but she had tested the full range of scream.

It was hard to put into words how she was doing it - ultimately, it came down to willing her scream to be more or less powerful and just... focusing on that. It wasn't quite that simple, but it was - it was the same as choosing to scream words, or whisper. She chose, and so her vocal cords responded. How her body was able to do this at all, Laurel still didn't know, and didn't know how to safely go about figuring it out.

And there did appear to be limits. Using the scream several times in quick succession left her throat feeling raw, voice scratchy. She hadn't pushed it past there, unwilling to find out if she could lose her voice again if she went too much, too loud, too often.

"You have made rapid progress on both fronts." Shiva paused, considering her. "I can see why Nyssa holds you in such regard."

How? Laurel didn't exactly share any details with Shiva about anything, about herself - they sparred, they worked on her scream, and then Laurel left, black and blue and sore all over, but having made progress. So how exactly did Shiva claim to understand her, and why she and Nyssa were close, how she'd managed to win Nyssa over, how Nyssa had in turn, won her over. 

Of course, it was entirely possible Shiva just had no idea what she was saying. 

Now I'm curious.

"How? You don't exactly know me. We don't talk about anything but this training."

"True," Shiva stepped to the side, keeping her eyes on Laurel - who moved in the opposite direction, watching Shiva carefully. "But the purest way to know someone is to watch them fight. Combat reveals the true essence of a person's character."

Okay so... no? That was a mindset that some in the League also shared, and it didn't really surprise Laurel that Shiva thought like that, but violence was not the purest expression of anyone's character, even the hopelessly savage. Humanity was worth more than it's ability to administer harm. 

"I can't say I agree." Laurel countered, stepping more to the side as she already had, watching Shiva mirror her movements.

"This does not surprise me." Shiva noted. She gestured for Laurel to attack her, and Laurel didn't make a move at first, standing still, watching Shiva. Shiva watching her. "You hobble yourself by refusing to kill, you still seek to bring justice... there is much left for you to learn and understand."

"I don't think there's any amount of learning that would make me see things your way," Laurel countered. She was moving before she finished, running at Shiva, pulling back from a seeming lunge/tackle and kicking out at the other woman - aiming for her chest. Shiva moved, almost too fast to see, ducking under the kick and trying to grab at Laurel's leg, leverage it against her - Laurel, though, managed to pull her leg back at the last moment as Shiva ducked, leaving her standing, still, on the mats, though in an awkward and exposed position. She repositioned, pulling her feet back into a defensive stance.

"Several moments of exposure," Shiva noted. "But your recovery was well-done. I think it is time for one last test."

Laurel stared at her a moment. "You want me to scream at you."

"Indeed." Shiva pulled two earplugs from a pocket inside her coat and put them in. Some testing with decibel readers had suggested that in theory, there were no earplugs that could ensure protection of hearing against her scream at its loudest, but she was never going to directly aim her scream at it's loudest at another person, so that wasn't much - much - concern.

Laurel nodded, and took a breath.

In the next moment, two things happened - Shiva jumped at her, and Laurel opened her mouth, getting ready to scream, but as Shiva moved at her, Laurel just reacted.

She let out a scream - less intense than she could, far less, still managing to control herself that much, as waves of visible sound crashed into Lady Shiva - they knocked her backwards, sending her away from Laurel.

But Shiva did not, as someone else might, land flat on her back - she rode the scream, moving with it and landing on her feet and one hand, half-crouched, on the concrete, but no worse for the wear, or so it seemed.

Shiva stood for a moment, looking at herself. The force of the sound had actually ripped her coat in a few places, though nothing too much, and Shiva herself didn't seem to have any broken limbs.

"Fractures on my rips and my arms. Minor, but a serious concern for a lesser combatant. But nothing worse." She took one of the earplugs out, walking towards Laurel. "Minimal setback to my hearing. It would seem, Black Canary, that you have successfully achieved what we set out to do."

"Thanks to you." Laurel gave Shiva a quick, relatively shallow bow - respectful, and grateful, but nothing more. "Then you will be leaving?"

"I will." Shiva nodded. "My favor to Nyssa has been repaid, and you have learned what I came to teach you at this time." She looked at Laurel carefully. "As I said, you have much to learn, about the world, and about combat. But there is much potential in you, in both theaters. I suspect, should you survive whatever it is that you face in the coming years, that we will meet again."

"I hope it's not as enemies." Though if it was... 

Well, Laurel would have to burn that bridge later.

"If it is, by that point, you may just be a worthy opponent."

That's probably the highest praise she has to offer.

Laurel nodded. "Thank you for your help."

Verdant, Starling City

January 15th, 2014

These days Oliver didn't have much direct hand in managing Verdant, having promoted one of the bartenders to manager on Tommy's recommendation after Tommy left after the Undertaking, but he was still the owner, and he could make decisions like closing the club down for an evening to hold a fundraising event for Sebastian Blood's mayoral campaign.

Oliver would have preferred to just let him use the space for free, but both Laurel and Blood had made it clear that that counted as a campaign donation, and while Starling City had looser campaign donation laws than federal elections did, Blood's desire to avoid the appearance of impropriety saw him insisting on paying fair market price for the space. Which was also why his campaign had born all the other expenses for the event.

Still, Oliver was here, and he was going to be donating in his own personal capacity, as were others. Not enough - too many of the well off people in the city were scared off by Sebastian's rhetoric, too concerned with their own bank accounts and their own privileges. Oliver had hoped his continued, open and active support for the Alderman might convince more people in the upper tier of the city to come out in support of the man.

Unfortunately, nowhere near as many as he'd wanted, but they did have some. Even some people from elsewhere in the state who supported Sebastian and wanted to help him get elected, supporting his ideas, and wanting to see more politicians like him elected across the country.

"To be honest, before Sebastian Blood started attacking me and my family, I hadn't had much chance to think about him. Or city government at all. But then I got the chance to talk to him. Get to know him. Get to understand him. It took a bit, but I think I managed to convince him I wasn't the enemy," a polite laughter rippled through the room, and Sebastian, standing next to him, smiled slightly. "And he managed to convince me that for all that I cared about the plight of the people of this city, there's a lot I didn't understand. There's more I have to learn, but one thing I have learned for certain is this: Sebastian Blood is the man we need in the Mayor's Office. So I hope you'll all join me in sending Starling's favored son there." Oliver stepped away from the microphone to polite applause as Sebastian stepped up and started speaking, thanking him, and Laurel for their support, and their friendship.

Oliver stood next to Laurel, scanning the crowd. Even if the turn out among his fellow 'elite' was not as much as Oliver had been hoping for, the turnout was still pretty good overall, with plenty of people come to show their support. 

"...I am the man today because of my Starling City family. I think it's high time I start to give back, so thank you, thank you for your support." More applause when Sebastian stepped away from the microphone, as the glad-handing started. The alderman made his way into the crowd, talking to individual people, shaking hands, as some of his staffers and aides did the same. All about talking the candidate up, and talking people out of their money.

"You know politics better than I do," Oliver murmured to Laurel as they got off the stage. "How do you think things stand, for his chances?"

"Well, the Republicans don't have anyone half-way viable running for the nomination, while Sebastian has talked every potential Democratic candidate into bowing out and letting him have the nomination in a walk, so, so far - I'd say his chances are good. Very good." Laurel considered. 

"Starling's usually a Republican city, with all the suburban areas incorporated into it, but after the Undertaking? With how good Sebastian is with a crowd?" Laurel shook her head, "I'm not saying it'll be a walk in the general, there's too many people who won't vote for a Democratic candidate even if he was Jesus himself, but..." she laughed.

"Pretty sure mom falls into the latter camp." His mother hadn't said anything bad about Oliver hosting this fundraiser, hadn't even given him a look when he'd told her - he'd felt like it was better to tell her than let her find out from the news or something. Still, even if his mother didn't agree with Republicans on social stuff, she sure did on economics. And the local Republican party was mild on that stuff, since Washington was very - very - blue, but still.

Oliver hadn't started paying attention to politics until this last year, but he'd picked up some things.

"I'd have said Dad would have been that too, but after Sara came out, he stopped voting Red and he seems to really like Sebastian too," Laurel observed. But she let out a small sigh and nodded. "Rochev hasn't tried to give you grief about this from a legal perspective, has she? If she even thinks about it - she wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

"Just noted I can't make use of any company resources or spaces for anything, which I wasn't. Queen Consolidated doesn't own Verdant, so there's nothing she can do." Oliver shook his head. 

Oliver saw Sebastian talking to Thea and Roy for a moment, before turning to talk to someone wearing more in jewelry than some families made in six months. Thea had taken well to the first few archery lessons - better than Oliver had, at least - but she had a lot to do to boost her upper body strength so she could handle better draw weight-

The sound of an explosion - the boom, the shaking, glass shattering, car alarms going off in the near-distance pulled Oliver out of his thoughts. Without even thinking, he crouched, tugging Laurel down with him as others screamed, and panicked - out of the corner of his eye, Oliver saw Roy pull Thea behind him, pushing her down a little, trying to give her some cover. One of Sebastian's bodyguard had done the same for him.

It took Oliver and Laurel both only a few seconds to realize that whatever had blown up, it had been nearby, but not close enough to actually damage the club itself. Everyone else caught on moments later, straightening up, some even shrugging, or at least, not looking very worried anymore.

"What was that?" Laurel asked. 

"I don't know." Oliver hurried to the front of the club, the crowd parting for him - he noticed in passing that Sebastian and his guard were close behind. He pushed open the doors and then looked - not too far away, just outside the limits of the Glades, an office building was burning on one of the upper levels.

"Bombs." Sebastian's voice came from next to him, the alderman looking at the explosion as well. There were murmurs behind them both, a crowd of people gathering. "People fearing for their lives. Is this the Starling City we want to be? Where we just get used to hearing explosions in the distance like it's the sound of church bells?"

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 14: The Blast Zone

"...it's the great question, isn't it? Possibly the most fought over one in the entire field of Superhero Studies. Did Vigilantes, and Superheroes actually make things better? Would the kinds of criminals who started to emerge at the same time the earliest vigilantes and superheroes were acting still have emerged? Science was on a cusp of all sorts of new technologies. What people were then calling 'Late Stage Capitalism' was creating all sorts of social ills, treatment for mental illness was  at standards practically medieval by today's view, and so, some will argue that many of the same villains would have emerged."

"But that's not the thesis you suggest in your book, Doctor."

"No. Unfortunately, I think the truth is a lot more complicated. Many criminals, many early Supervillains  likely  would have emerged anyway, but not all, and not in the same way. I think that the early vigilantes and superheroes served as an inspiration - what one person could achieve, if they became something greater. For many, that inspiration started their own vigilante and superhero careers, or even things as mundane as community watch programs, more people going into the social work or medical fields, even going into law enforcement. But... some people were inspired in a different way. A lot of people asked themselves: If one person can change my city, change the world, why can't I do the same? And not all the people asking were asking for the right reasons, or with the kinds of goals you or I would consider socially acceptable."

"Seems like a bit of an understatement, really."

"True."

-Excerpt from a 2099 interview with William Urquist, PhD, during his book tour for his book "Dark Inspirations - When Superheroes Create Their Own Supervillains." 

January 15th, 2014

ICTB Building, Starling City

The International Commodities Trade Bank Building was burning.

"Diggle, talk to us, what's the status?" Laurel didn't usually have to raise her voice to be picked up by the comms, but in this case, with so many fire engines outside the building and the fire blazing, the sound of internal fire alarms - the ones that still had power - going off, it was necessary.

"There's still a few people on the fifth floor. Fire fighters think everything else is clear, but they can't get past the third floor." Diggle said in their ears. Laurel and Oliver had gotten into the building from the less on fire back end of the building, but once you actually got inside, the fires were still pretty intense, and spread out. Whatever had happened here had fires all over the building, almost perfectly placed to impede progress from firefighters.

Had to be foul play. Arson, or maybe bombs. It wasn't guaranteed, but - 

"That's less of a problem for us," Oliver noted. "Closest stairs to the back lobby?" A long pause. "Dig?"

"I'm working - Felicity makes getting this kind of info on demand look way too easy," Diggle said quickly. "Okay, her program's pulled up the schematics on file with the city. Head north about - sixty feet, then down the hall on your left, and it's on the right from there."

The hallway to the north was full of small fires, fallen bits of ceiling tile, blazing away, the whole thing feeling like a furnace, but nothing was so hot that they couldn't bet by - Laurel got ahead of Oliver, leaping over some of the smaller flames that Oliver had to be more careful to get by, reaching the hallway in question, looking down.

Shit. There was a much larger fire - getting by it would be doable, but it would edge far too -

Part of Laurel wondered if her new superpower, her sonic scream could do something to the fire, but she wasn't quite willing to take the chance it might make things worse - if nothing else, damage the building. She'd gotten better at controlling it, so much better, but there was only so much you do to prevent destroying or damaging walls...

The flames still nearly came up to her waist, but there was plenty of room - she pulled back, braced, and ran, vaulting over the flames, feeling the heat almost hit her legs and torso as she went over, but barely, just barely escaping hitting them. She looked back to Oliver, coming into the hallway on her heels.

Shit. Oliver should be able to do it still, but he'd be cutting it even finer....

If I was going to get superpowers, creating water would have been a bit more all-purpose, no? 

It was only a few moments but it felt much longer as Laurel watched Oliver run back, brace and he too leapt over the flames. Fire practically grabbed at his boot, but he didn't actually burn so that was more than enough enough. She moved over as Oliver tucked into a roll as he landed, getting back to his feet after landing. 

The stairs were just ahead and Oliver kicked the door open, revealing stairs that were - like the first hallway - littered with bits of flaming debris, but not entirely aflame - but she could see, a few landings up, fire, blocking further access up, blazing, spreading -

Oliver fired a cable-arrow, aiming for the stairs past the blaze - it locked in, and Laurel grabbed onto him, arms around him as his free arm went around her, and they went up, quickly bypassing the blaze. 

"On the fifth floor," Laurel said, as Oliver detached the arrow and extended it back down, then kicked down another door, moving into the building. "Any idea where the people here are?"

The fifth floor looked to be less on fire, but it still wasn't in great condition, and less was a relative statement if there ever was one. 

Diggle gave directions - the trail of damage across the the fifth floor was significant, light fixture and other pieces of the ceiling having rained down. Several people were trapped in a room, debris having fallen in front of the door. Laurel cleared the door as Oliver pushed ahead.

"Black Canary?!" One of the people - a janitor - said, recognizing her, or at least her custom.

"Stairwell in the back, use the cable to get past the blaze down to the ground level!" Laurel ordered, the voice scrambler covering her words as she shouted that, gesturing. She ran down the hallway, speaking into the comms, "Do you have any way to get the firefighters around to the back? We're getting the survivors down through the stairs!"

"No need to do that for more, the firefighters are almost through to the fifth floor," Diggle said. 

"There's a few more people left in this room, and if the fire gets to them before the firefighters do, they're dead," Oliver called back over the comms, and Laurel raced towards the Oliver, reaching him. He was, lifting a piece of ceiling off a man's legs, helping him up - Laurel came, taking the man from him as Oliver moved to lift a filing cabinet that had tilted over, pinning someone else -

Just get them out of this room... there was a blaze creeping closer to this room, but one hallway was clear, so Laurel just had to get this man there, get him out of the path, if the firefighters were close - 

It wasn't that hard - the man was heavy, and with one leg either broken or nearly so, he couldn't do much in his dazed condition, but good enough. She got him into the safer hallway.

"Wait here," she urged, "firefighters are nearly here, and the fire won't get here before they get to you." She returned to the room, helping Oliver get the people out of the room - each person they got to more injured, and more out of it than the last, the last one entirely unconscious, and she looked to be barely breathing, but before Laurel could try to do anything about that, she heard the sound of a door being broken down, firefighters shouting nearby. She set the unconscious girl down, gestured to Oliver, and they moved, retreating back down the cable and out of the building.

Once they were safely a street away, down an alley, Laurel turned to Oliver.

"Explosions like that aren't accidents. And that wasn't targeted enough to be a hit on any specific person there." Especially with the way fires had practically been set up to block access to the higher levels of the building.

Oliver nodded, understanding her argument, and going to the next logical solution. "You think someone was trying to send a message?"

"Most likely. It could have been someone disguising a hit with something big, but... I don't think so. We'll know for sure if a manifesto goes live." Laurel chuckled without humor. "There's always a manifesto."

On Top of SCPD, Starling City

January 16th, 2014

As was almost always the case, Laurel was right: There was a manifesto.

"You know, I've been a cop for most of my life, and I've only been up here twice." Quentin Lance's voice came from the door leading into the building, as he closed the door behind him. "Haven't heard from you for a while. Figured you were content risking my daughter's career." Quentin let out a breath. "Not even sure why I still had that phone, or why I agreed to help you when you called."

"Because you know that we can help find the man behind the bombing yesterday." Oliver explained, not looking directly at the man, the voice scrambler of course running. "Faster than the SCPD can. Hopefully before anyone else gets hurt."

Felicity had gotten back in the morning, coming back from visiting a comatose Barry earlier than planned, but she only had so much to work with until they could get information on the bomb residue. 

'SCPD keeps more of it's information entirely on paper these days, thanks to how often they've been hacked,' Felicity had said, after trying to get the information her way. Asking Sara to get it was the obvious choice, but Laurel was hesitant to ask her sister, with IA apparently taking a closer look at her.

Oliver felt like that should have been Sara's choice, but...

Quentin scoffed, bitterly. "And the fact that that's true is just another sign of the times." Quentin let out a long sigh. "You and your girlfriend mean well, in your own way - though I can't say part of me doesn't hope you pay for the murders you committed back before you stopped with that - but you're still part of the problem. And the solution, but... this bomber? I read over some of his manifesto. He talks about the power of one man to challenge the system, change the word. Doesn't mention either of you by name, but -"

"You think we're responsible for him." Oliver cut off. He and Laurel had inspired the so-called 'Savior', and then the 'Hoods' - so far, there hadn't been many more people 'inspired' in the same way, and none were killing people, but the prospect was one that worried him.

Neither he nor Laurel had bothered to read the manifesto, and Diggle hadn't said much beyond it being 'normal fare', but the Arrow and the Black Canary had shown people what they could achieve. Had this man taken that message-

"No. He's a nut. He's responsible for himself. But sooner or later, you're going to get more people like the Savior, or the 'Hoods'. Or people who decide to do what you do, but as criminals. I've been hearing some crazy shit down the grapevine from Central City, you know." Quentin shook his head. "Didn't agree to meet with you to debate you." He pulled a manilla folder out from under his arm.

"Captain Pike called in a favor from the FBI, got them to analyze the bomb residue faster than we could, had them run it against their database. Somehow, they got a hit just an hour ago." 

When Quentin had called back, saying he had something for them.

"Bomb residue traces to an anti-government militia site calling itself "The Movement". The usual bullshit from what the tech guys say, but apparently their site is based in a different country, one that doesn't like the US demanding stuff from them. So getting permission to get anything to connect this bombing to any specific user there is going to take time. Time Starling City doesn't have." Quentin held out the folder. "But that shouldn't be a problem for you guys."

"No, it shouldn't." Oliver agreed. He reached for the folder, and Quentin tugged it back before Oliver could grab it.

"First, tell me why you asked me, and not my daughter." 

Oliver grimaced. Did Sara want her dad to know that IA was sniffing around her? She definitely didn't want her dad to know about Vanch. 

"We can't ask any one source for information too often." Oliver said, after a moment. "Draws attention."

"You think IA is looking at Sara?" Quentin asked, stiffening a bit, growling the words out. "Bad enough you two got her into this, somehow, but - you nearly cost her her career once, if you do it again-"

"This might be something to ask her about," Oliver said after a moment, diplomatically. "We've never asked her to do anything she wasn't willing to do." Which was true.

Quentin scoffed, "That doesn't say much. My daughters have always been more idealistic than their old man. And Sara's respect for the rules has always been... perfunctory." He sighed. "Like I said, you two have your hearts in the right place, and you are helping, even if I also think you make it worse sometimes as well. But if my daughter gets hurt because of you two..." He trailed off, presumably intending to let Oliver's imagination do the work. 

He held out the folder again, and Oliver took it without a problem this time.

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Officer Lance." Oliver answered before leaving.

Or rather, he started to, before the sound of an explosion from further in downtown drew both their eyes. The Starling City Municipal Building was exploding, an expanding ball of flame pluming out from somewhere halfway up the skyscraper.

Reports were already coming in over Quentin's radio. He cursed up a storm, "Get this guy, before he hits again." He ran for the door back inside, and Oliver fired a cable arrow, changing roofs and heading to his motorcycle. 

"Tell me you have something. Anything." Oliver demanded over the comms, dropping down, sticking the folder in a secure place on the bike. 

"You're in luck, Arrow, because I do." Felicity said as Oliver started his bike up. "I've been trying to monitor the cell towers, in case this guy's using phone triggers.There was a GSM spike of 3800 Megahertz two seconds before the blast." Oliver didn't know what that meant exactly, but Felicity wouldn't be drawing attention to it if it wasn't important, especially in the context of cell towers. "That's way outside the approved frequencies for US carriers."

"Can you track that signal back to him?"

"Already done. Signal's moving." Oliver drove out of the alley onto the main street. 

"Give me an intersection. Black Canary, are you hearing this?"

"Already heading out," Laurel answered. 

"He's pulling into a main thoroughfare 400 meters ahead of you, Arrow," Felicity said quickly. "He's got to be trying to blend in with the traffic merging."

"He won't make it," Oliver said confidently. 

"What's the parallel street to the one he's on?" Laurel asked. "If he pulls anything, I can switchover before he gets a chance to put in distance. If he doesn't see me, he can't plan for me." 

Felicity gave Laurel a street name, and they were off, Felicity giving more instructions as she tracked the signal. 

"His signal is starting to scramble," she warned, speaking quickly. "if you don't get eyes on him soon-"

There were a lot of cars ahead, and Oliver weaved through them, ignoring the honking horns, people screaming through open windows at him. Fifty meters ahead... around that car -

And there. Right where the signal was coming from. A van. Unmarked, and driving just a little erratically, as if the driver was distracted by trying to scramble a signal. Not enough to draw too much attention from a cop looking for drunk drivers, but...

"I have eyes on him. A van. Light grey." He rattled off the make and model. "I can't get a good look at the plate." If Oliver didn't miss his guess, the man had probably deliberately damaged them, but he wasn't close enough to see. 

"He's turning left on 67th." Felicity told him, and Oliver pulled the motorcycle around as sharply as he could, foot hitting the ground for a moment and then he was off again, closing the distance. 

The two of them weaved around the cars, but the bomber didn't have the same regard for other drivers, recklessly getting close, forcing them out of the way. Offensive driving, in other words. Which only forced Oliver to have to duck around, drive around, avoid cars, the honks and screeching of tires all around. 

An arm reached out from the driver's side window, dropping something. It bounced and rolled towards him - a small, round -

Grenade.

Oliver jumped off the bike seat, still holding on to the handles, holding his legs up, hanging off the edge as it moved, tilting more than was remotely safe as the grenade rolled, he moved closer - it exploded on the other side, a shower of flame and shrapnel, most hitting the bike itself, and nothing critical damaged, at least. 

"He's got grenades." Oliver noted. "If it goes to you, watch for them," he cautioned Laurel, getting back onto the cycle. He still had eyes, but the van had put some distance between them - Oliver gritted his teeth and gunned the engine, picking up speed.

"Black Canary is still running parallel." Felicity said in his ear. "But I'm going to lose his signal in a minute,"

"Can you buy us more time?!" Oliver heard his tires screech in protest as he leaned to the side, moving around another car, pulling in closer - closer...

"I'm trying, but - it's not like he's setting off more cell-phone bombs for me to use to triangulate his signal!" Felicity countered, nearly shouting.

Oliver bit back a response - he knew Felicity was doing the best she could, she always did. He leaned forward - he was almost there, if he could just get a little closer, he could leap onto the van -

The arm stuck out again, dropping another grenade. Oliver braced, slowing just a little, hanging off to the side again, using the cycle as cover - but instead of shrapnel and fire, smoke filled his vision, blocking the view of anything -

"I've lost sight of him. Smoke grenade. Black Canary-" Oliver said between coughs, pulling the cycle to a complete stop for just a moment, the inertia nearly carrying him off the thing entirely. 

"I'm on him." Laurel confirmed.

"Fifteen seconds until I lose the signal!" Felicity warned. 

Streets of Starling

January 16th, 2014 

Laurel ignored the protest of cars and drivers as she broke pretty much every traffic law in the books, spinning a hard turn, taking the wrong lane to weave around cars and merging into the main street. 

Grey van. The make and model ran through her head and she looked in the direction it should be going.

"I see it," Laurel said quickly, turning hard again, moving as fast as she dared - there was a clear stretch of road now between her and the van, she just needed to get closer -

An arm stuck out of the driver's side, dropping something again - Laurel didn't wait to see if it was a smoke grenade or a regular grenade - she used the advantage of the clear road to just go wide around it, losing some ground as it blew up, but the blast missed here entirely, and she could make up the ground quickly.

"Signal's gone. I'm going to try to get it again, but-"

"Don't worry, I've still got eyes on him." She said which direction he was heading, on what street. "I think he's trying to get to the Glades, thinks he'll be able to lose us there." It was just a guess, there were other possibilities, but Laurel wasn't going to let him get that far anyway, even if it was.

Laurel hadn't used her powers in the field yet. Not out of fear of not being able to control them - her training with Lady Shiva, some practice after had settled her concerns there. But so far, she hadn't faced an opponent that merited it. The usual spread of thugs, Triad dealers and other small-time problems. But this - getting close enough to the van to do what she might have done, leap onto it, force her way in, take control of the vehicle that way -

Possible, but with his arsenal of grenades, riskier than she'd like.

The van sped up, the driver clearing trying to floor it, but the van was hardly top of the line, there was only so much speed the bomber could get out of it. Laurel, on the other hand, was riding a much, much more sophisticated bike than most people had access to. She didn't need to get up to the side of it. Just a little closer-

Laurel opened her mouth and screamed - the device on her neck that Felicity had made glowed blue for a moment, enough to make someone think she had an upgraded sonic device, as an expanding cone of sonic waves crashed into the van - glass broke, metal bent and the whole vehicle came to a halt, spinning out to the side, now perpendicular to the road, sparks coming out of the good - just a few, she was pretty sure the thing wasn't about to explode, but to be safe, she pulled up short, keeping the bike between herself and the car. She saw the driver's side door open after a moment, and a brown-haired man stumbled out.

He didn't really look the part of a mad bomber. He had a black sweater jacket on over a flannel-patterned shirt, jeans, and his hair was well kempt, rather than wild, or sticking up all over the place. He was bleeding from the nose, though, and Laurel could only assume either her scream ruptured a blood vessel in his nose, or more likely the force of the car stopping and her scream had been enough to slam his face into the steering wheel. His blip was blood too, and he reached into his jacket, pulling out a gun.

"You should be on MY SIDE!" The man screamed. "I'm standing up to the politicians! The corporate greed! The elites poisoning this city, poisoning this country!" He fired the gun, his aim terrible, erratic. Where his looks didn't convey mad bomber before, his tone did, and his eyes, wide and frenzied. He was shouting, firing again - Laurel didn't even really have to dodge as the bullet flew by her, but she wasn't going to just stand there.

She ran around her motorcycle, zig-zagging towards him as he kept ranting, screaming, asserting that he was the one who would fix the city of all it's ills, that his bombs would purge the 'filth' - such a fun word for a white man who hung out on militia forums to be saying - from the city. 

Laurel let it wash over her and then she got close, crossing the remaining distance with a leap, tackling him to the ground, knocking the gun from his hand.

"Your bombs aren't about anything but your own ego," she growled, grabbing the front of his shirt and delivering a swift uppercut to his jaw, sending his head reeling back. For good measure she delivered another punch, letting him drop limply to the ground. There were cars pulling up short, tires screeching as they did so, she could hear doors opening, people coming out. Probably camera phones were being deployed too.

Police would be on their way soon.

Laurel stood, standing over the unconscious body of the bomber. 

"This man is a criminal, a murderer, who set the bombs that hit the ITCB Building, killing two people, and the bomb that hit the Starling City Municipal Building just minutes ago." Laurel  shouted. "He did it for his own ego, for his own mad desire to tear down anything he hated." She hadn't read the whole manifesto, but she'd read enough. "He claimed to be fighting those in power, but instead, he killed two janitors, just trying to make a living. He cared only about creating fear and panic, and then put the lives of innocent people in jeopardy to try and escape justice."

"No one can outrun justice forever. Not in this city, not as long as I still draw breath."

Laurel knew some people would call this grandstanding, or glory-seeking, but being the Black Canary had always been about sending a message, to the people of Starling City.

"Not as long as good people still seek to live out their lives in peace, and stand up for what's right." She could hear police sirens in the distance.

There were murmurs, shouts, questions coming from the onlookers, but Laurel couldn't stay for any of them. Sooner or later, we should probably give an interview. Laurel considered, as she mounted her motorcycle and sped off.

January 17th, 2014

The Foundry, Starling City

Roy was not the best student she could have wished for - he was too impatient, too eager to get out there and mix it up - but he was still pretty good. He took getting knocked on his ass in good humor, and that was pretty important, since it happened multiple times a day, when she trained him.

Roy picked himself up off the mat again, rubbing at his thigh. "Is this all we're going to do? It's been ten days, and that's all you've done."

"True, but your average time before I beat you has gone up from twelve seconds to thirty," Laurel pointed out, handing him a bottle of water. He took a slow, careful sip. "But no, that's not all. If you're going to go out into the field, you're going to need a weapon." Laurel stepped off the mat and retrieved an item from a box. It was a long chain, a heavy leather weight on one hand. 

"This is a Meteor Hammer." She explained, holding it out to Roy. 

"A leather ball on a chain?" Roy couldn't hide his dismay and confusion, though he was trying. "That's - I don't-"

Laurel stepped back, swinging the weapon around, getting Roy on the leg, then pulled the chain back as Roy hissed, stumbling back. Laurel swung it out again, wrapping it around Roy's torso quickly, pulling and forcing him back down to the ground as she pulled the chain back once more.

"It's definitely an unusual weapon, I'll give you that," Laurel agreed, bending over to give Roy a hand and help him back up. "But it's far from ineffective."

"...I suppose I can't argue with that. But why this, and not your - tonfa?" He stumbled over the word a little - he'd called them 'nightsticks' at first, which made sense, but Laurel had been rather insistent on using the proper terminology, and Roy had mostly caught on. 

"One, I think this will be better suited to your style of fighting, two, because there's almost no one out there on the streets of Starling that has encountered someone using one of these." China White being a possible exception, "and three, because you'll have a better chance of standing out on your own as a vigilante if you're using your own weapon." 

If you were going to send a message, you couldn't ignore the optics. 

"That -  okay," Roy blinked, taking a breath. "So how do I use it?"

"Well, it's not easy, but I think you can get the hang of it." She handed him the chain and showed him how to loop part of the chain around his fingers, so he could control how much length he had at any given time. "You can use the weight, or the chain as the weapon. It's easy to hide, easy to deploy, and about as nonlethal as any weapon can be."

Roy stared at her, blinking: " 'About as nonlethal as any weapon can be'? That - I don't - I don't want to kill people."

"I know. But any weapon can kill someone if you try hard enough, or under the right - or wrong - circumstances. And you can kill someone with your bare hands, for that matter." Laurel pointed out, and Roy opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, nodding. "My trainer could kill anyone with just about anything." Laurel added. "Including a soup spoon." Well, Laurel wasn't sure if Nyssa was messing with her when she'd told her the story about killing a man with just a soup spoon and a rolled up magazine, but she could certainly believe it.

"Once you get the hang of this, we can swap out for a metal weight - as long as you don't go cracking people in the skull with full force, the most you're likely to do is broken limbs and a lot of bruises." Laurel added.

"Okay." Roy stepped away from Laurel, holding it like she told him to, giving a few experimental swings. "And - how long do I have to train with this before I can go out?"

"Roy, going out there unprepared is a one-way trip to the morgue." Laurel countered. "The truth is, yes, you could handle yourself against your average street thug, but at this point, your average street thug isn't our biggest concern."

"...well, yeah, if I run into one of those super-soldier guys, I'll run and get you two," Roy said, chuckling. "I do get that I have limits." 

Laurel wasn't so sure he would, if his blood was up. And of course, would he realize in time? Would he get away.

"Mirakuru soldiers are just the top of the list. China White? Her top enforces? Anyone heavily armed? Your suit will have ballistic fiber woven into it, but mobility is going to be your best defense. Which is one of the reasons why I went with the meteor hammer for you. It will give you your best chance to control the battlefield." Laurel gestured at him. "Let's see if you can use that to last a minute."

Roy grimaced, but turned towards her. "Well... at least I know you're not going to break any of my bones any time you take me down?" 

"Probably not," Laurel agreed, grinning. "Let's get started."

Another hour of grueling training later, and Roy finally did make that minute, though he managed it mostly by trying to avoid her, rather than fighting back.

He's getting it. 

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 15: Dangerous Leads

"In unexpected acquisitions news, Wayne Enterprises has outbid LuthorCorp for control over several subsidiary companies previously owned by MerlynGlobal. This news resulted in a rallying stock price, which had been on a steady downturn after the still unsolved murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne three months ago. Analysts are torn on if this is a reckless gamble by the Gotham City-based company, or if it's a sign that the company is now steadying its course under its new leadership."

"In further stock news, PalmerTech's stock soared today following the announcement of a new generation of their top-selling smartwatch, which should hit store shelves in May. CEO and Founder Ray Palmer promised that this new smartwatch would be 'just as much of a game changer as our first generation'"

-Excerpt from a CNBC News Broadcast on February 12th, 2014

January 20th, 2014

Merlyn Global HQ, Starling City

"No. Absolutely not." Tommy said, an uncharacteristic heat to his voice. "If you want to do something as stupid as this, you can do it, but you'll be doing it without my help."

"Why?! She has a right to know!"

"Know what? That her biological father is the monster who murdered the man she knew as her father, and then another 318 people in a manufactured Earthquake? Not to mention the god knows how many other people he's killed." Tommy set his jaw, looking at her, "I tried to figure it out, you know. Ran the numbers. The crew of the Gambit, the people he killed before Christmas to draw Oliver out, Frank Chen... but there's got to be more. And that?" Tommy demanded, "That's what you think Thea deserves to know? That her father is that psychopath?"

Sara could hear the bitterness and loathing dripping off of Tommy's every word. Her friend was not really one for hating people, never had been. Sure, there were people he didn't like, people he didn't want to be around, but hating people always seemed too much work, he'd said. 

He hated Malcolm Merlyn. And the depth of it in Tommy's voice now... Just one more thing that bastard ruined.

"Her father is and will always be Robert Queen." Sara said. "But she has a right to know that biologically, Merlyn sired her, yes. For one, god forbid the medical history of her family ever become relevant, it might be useful to know who her actual dad is in those circumstances. For another, if there's one thing I've learned in the last twelve months, it's that secrets have a godawful habit of getting out at the worst possible times." She inhaled sharply, then let out a low, slow breath. "I don't want to tell Thea. But I think she needs to know."

"Didn't you tell me, back when I first showed you...his message and the DNA test, that you'd hurt me, if I told her?"

Yeah, but that was before Cyvus Vanch started blackmailing me, and then I accidentally let it out because the secret was eating me alive, along with the new IA investigation. From what little Sara could tell, it was stalling out, but still, there it was, looming overhead. That was before Oliver and Laurel decided to reveal their identities as the Arrow and Black Canary to Thea.

"In my defense, I had just learned about it, Tommy. Forgive me if my first reaction was the same as yours - hide it, and pretend it never happened. But we can't do that." She shook her head and started pacing in front of Tommy's desk. Tommy had sealed off his office, there was no one else here, no one else outside could hear the conversation they were having (small favors for Malcolm Merlyn's paranoia, she supposed.) "Not forever. I don't know how, I don't know when, but the odds of this coming out? At the worst possible time?"

"How!? Who even would know?"

"The person Malcolm had run the DNA test? Maybe he killed them, but he couldn't exactly kill everyone who ever did anything sensitive for him." Criminals who did that quickly ran out of people. "Maybe a doctor Moira had to tell when they were seeing Thea? I don't know. But she has a right to know from us, rather than if this gets out in some other way." 

Sara couldn't go into the rest of it. The reason why all these secrets were weighing on her. And why she was so sure it would all get out. She and Laurel still hadn't discussed Vanch - Sara had kept putting it off, and Laurel kept pressing her about it, but wasn't forcing it. Probably because there was just so much else to do, and Vanch hadn't reached out since she'd given him that heroin. She kept waiting for that shoe to drop. 

And of course, there was another secret that had eventually come out - William. Oliver's son. So far no one was sure if Samantha Clayton had covered him up. Sara, knowing what she knew about Thea's parentage... 

Moira Queen was clearly capable of keeping secrets. And hiding them. So...

"Sara, you're worrying about nothing." Tommy countered. "You don't think Mrs. Queen would have made absolutely sure about who she shared that information with?"

"She would have, but despite how well her trial went, it's not like her name is worth as much as it used to be," Sara pointed out. "Tommy, if I go to Thea without proof, she's going to think It's some sick joke I'm telling her." She held her hands together, pleading with him to see things her way.

"It fucking sounds like a sick joke," Tommy muttered, then he spoke at a conversational tone again: "The trial where the prosecution tried to make a big deal out of the idea that Moira Queen and Malcolm Merlyn were sleeping together? You want to tell Thea they actually did?"

Sara shook her head, trying very hard not to raise her voice. She spoke quickly, urgently. "Tommy, stop bringing up 'want'. 'Want' doesn't enter into this. I don't want to tell Thea anything. I don't want her to ever find out, and I sure as hell don't want Oliver or Laurel to know I knew and didn't tell them, even if I point out it wasn't my secret to tell them. But I also don't want Thea to find out from a stranger, or as part of some attack on her, or her mom, or from some tell-all book that comes out in a few years that reveals all the dirty secrets of the Queen Family!" 

"None of which is particularly like, Sara. I get it, this is a huge secret to keep. But do you really think it will make anything better? Do you want to crush Thea's spirit? Make her never talk to her mom again? Not to mention what this will do to Oliver's relationship with his mom." Tommy shook his head. "I'm not even that angry at Oliver, or Laurel, anymore, over-" he gestured vaguely, "things. But even if I was, I wouldn't want to risk ruining Oliver's relationship with his mom over this."

"Isn't the reason you were angry with them in the first place the fact that they kept that they were the Arrow and Black Canary secret?" Sara said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. 

"This is different," Tommy said.

"How?"

"It - I'll get back to you on that." Tommy said quickly, looking away. Sara raised an eyebrow. "It is! This is a secret that would make Thea's life worse, not better. And - it's not finding out two of your best friends are willing to murder people!" 

"No, but it's just as important."

"If you want to tell her, you'll be doing it without my help, Sara," Tommy said firmly. "You're worried someone will tell her, but I don't see any scenario where that's likely to happen."

"That's the point," Sara said, trying very hard not to grit her teeth. "It's the scenarios you don't see where it's a problem, Tommy." She didn't wait for his response, instead turning and heading for the door. Thea needed to know, but... Sara didn't want to go without Tommy's agreement. Not just because more proof was good, but because...

Well, Tommy's got a lot of good points. She couldn't shudder to imagine what sort of reaction Thea would have to finding out Malcolm Merlyn was her biological father, what sort of response she'd have to finding out just how much her mom had lied about that.

The prosecution never actually implied the affair happened remotely when it actually did. Not that Sara was sure 'affair' was the right word. It was a mistake by Moira, certainly, a moment of weakness, but in her mind, 'affair' implied a more prolonged process, and that wasn't it.

But if she had been able to convince Tommy, then that would have been proof she wasn't overreacting. Because... again. He had a point. 

But so do I, damnit!

Inhaling sharply, Sara stalked to the elevator, heading down. She had to get back to work anyway. She would find another way to convince Tommy... or give up, if she couldn't. For now anyway.

Just for now.

January 20th, 2014

Streets of the Glades, Starling City

Laurel tried not to have too much of a direct connection with the 'Canaries', that neighborhood watch program that had taken their name and inspiration from her. They did their best to look out for their fellow Glades citizens, without involving the police. 

She had mixed feelings about that, since she knew that vigilantism could not do everything a full police department could. There were all kinds of things they couldn't do. She didn't want to undermine people's faith in the police.

Of course, I didn't really do that, now did I? The police did that all by themselves. 

And no amount of being a vigilante would do that either.

Regardless, she kept her distance from them, most of the time. She didn't want people like China White, or Danny Brickwell to think that going through them was a good way to get to her. So far as she knew, no one knew that Sin knew her, that Roy had been a conduit of information to her. 

But every now and then, one of the Canaries did go looking for her, or she was willing to show herself to one. Usually when they had information, and she'd heard as much. She kept a watch on places where the Canaries liked to gather, to make sure no one got hurt, and to find out if they knew something. And then she could drop by one, alone.

Better to be safe, than sorry.

Laurel dropped into the alley behind one older woman, the manager of a dollar store in the Glades. The place had been robbed at least once a month, before she'd started being active. It hadn't been robbed at all in the last twelve months.  

"I hear you've been looking for me?" Laurel said, voice scrambler serving to mask her words. The importance of spectacle, of seeming like she had eyes and ears everywhere had done a lot to deter criminals in the Glades too. 

The woman nearly jumped out of her skin, letting out a noise of startlement, then she turned, breathing heavily. 

"My apologies," Laurel added. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"You'd think I'd know to expect it. Everyone always says you do this. Drop down behind someone." The woman said. "Of course, it seems to work on all the bad guys too."

"Not quite all, but close," Laurel agreed. "In my experience, people aren't used to thinking in three dimensions, so they never think to look up, most of the time."

"In any other city, this conversation would be even more surreal than it already is," the woman muttered to herself, then flushed a little as she realized she'd said that out loud. "I - sorry, I didn't-"

"It's okay." Laurel shook her head. "What was it you were looking for me about?"

"There's a man, looking for you. Well, two men, actually. They've been going through the Glades, talking to people, trying to figure out where you hang out, how to find you, if anyone can get in contact with you." 

"Have they threatened anyone?" Laurel tensed. If someone was looking for her, and going through the people of the Glades to do it...

"Oh, no, no! They're not - they're reporters. Well, a reporter and a photographer." The woman said, quickly. "He said it was from the Daily Planet." She furrowed her brow, "Aren't they a Metropolis paper?"

"Still one of the most nationally celebrated papers," Laurel considered. A reporter, looking for her? She supposed it could be a cover, some criminal pretending. Or it could be the police or some other law enforcement, with a similar cover. Though if the press heard about it, they would have a field day. "Did you catch his name?"

"White. Perry White."

"The investigative journalist?" Laurel blinked. If there was ever a reporter to go looking for her, even here in the Glades, she supposed it would be a guy who had reported on the crime families of Gotham, investigated corruption in the New York Governor's office, and helped with a series of bombshell reports about covered up military misconduct at a base in Texas. The man was by all accounts very hard to scare or worry.

I can't deny I'm tempted to let him find me. In hindsight, this was something she and Oliver should have thought about. Reporters would of course want to find them, talk to them. In even more hindsight, she was surprised no one else had by now. Starling didn't have a particularly robust local newspaper - she was pretty sure Malcolm Merlyn could be blamed for that, but she couldn't prove it.

"I...I can't say I read the paper, any paper," The woman admitted, sounding a little embarrassed. 

"He's the real deal. But I appreciate you letting me know he's looking for me." Her temptation aside, she definitely would need to talk to Ollie about it first. "And the other man with him?"

"Uhm... he had a camera. He was African-American, tall... bald." She leaned in a bit, lowering her voice, "Don't tell my husband I said this, or he might pout, but he was a very handsome young man."

"Did you catch a name?"

"John? James? Something with a J. I'm -"

"You don't need to apologize." Laurel interrupted. "Thank you, again. Be careful, and stay safe." Laurel used the closed dumpster against an alley wall to get back on top of a roof with just a few jumps, and then moved a few more roofs away, continuing her surveying of the glades, then brought a finger to her ear.

"Felicity?"

"Yeah? Yeah?!" Felicity sounded like she'd started to drift off. 

"You okay?" Laurel blinked.

"Just - just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately. Rochev is demanding a whole bunch of compliance stuff from the IT department, so I've been getting started a little earlier for the last week. I swear that woman has it out for me." Felicity grumbled. "I might have been doing some extracurricular digging to see if she's guilty of anything, but so far, nothing illegal." She admitted, speaking quickly. "I would have said something to you and Oliver if I found anything," she added, just as quickly, defensively.

"I figured you would. Do you want Oliver to talk to her?"

"No. This is stuff that needs to get done sooner or later, she's just putting it on a tight time scale. But if you don't mind, I'll probably head home earlier than normal tonight."

"Sure. Before you go: Do you know if there's a way you could check to see if Perry White is in town?"

"The guy who broke the story about that base in Texas, with the covered up rapes?"

"Yeah. Apparently he's in town, looking to interview the Black Canary. I just want to make sure it's him, and not someone pretending to be him to try and trap me." Laurel explained.

"Wait, you're thinking of giving him the interview?"

"Considering it, on my terms." Laurel admitted. "The media has been speculating about the Black Canary and the Arrow for over a year. Be nice to offer our side of the narrative."

"...if you do decide to do the interview, can you tell me beforehand so I can place a bet with the internet bookies when they finally get confirmation that the Black Canary and Arrow are romantically involved?" Felicity asked, then she laughed, "Just joking, by the way, but that is a thing there are actual bets online about."

Laurel exhaled slowly. "Of course they are." She rolled her eyes, chuckling. "God forbid a woman be prominent and not romantically attached." 

"Confirmation that you're dating the scariest man in Starling City might get some of the grossest people talking about the Black Canary online to shut up," Felicity shuddered a little. Laurel knew Felicity had a bunch of programs running monitoring online chatter about their vigilante identities, which Sara had hinted could include some very unpleasant stuff. "Then again, it's the internet. Maybe not. But about the Perry White thing, I can run a check on credit cards in his name, or associated with the Daily Planet, for hotel rooms and coffee shops in Starling. That's going to take a few hours, at best, so I'll set it to run and head home."

"Sounds good. Thanks, Felicity."

January 21st, 2014

The Foundry, Starling City

"You know, when I agreed to have you teach me how to get better at archery, this part isn't quite what I had in mind," Thea grumbled. "I thought we were just going to work on my aim, shooting speed, that whole firing between breaths thing." 

"But no," She went on, accepting the bottle of water Oliver handed her. "It's chin-ups and bench pressing and rows and pull-ups!" She sucked down a gulp of water, wiping her forehead with her towel, her hair kind of sticking to her scalp. "I'm not even going to go out shooting bad guys with you, so why did I agree to this?"

"Because you wanted to be prepared and keep your options open, is what you said." Oliver answered, smiling. "Though I think you were just using that as an excuse to spend time with your big brother again, Speedy."

"Okay, so, rule number one - if I do lose my sanity and decide to go out at night in a mask and stuff, my code name is not going to be Speedy." Thea said quickly, gesturing at him with the water bottle. "But seriously, what's with all the strength training?"

"Your aim and shooting form is pretty good, all things considered. Room for improvement, but if you're ever seriously going to defend yourself with a bow and arrow, you need to be able to handle greater draw weights." Oliver explained. He let out a breath, "Look, I won't deny that I might be working you hard, but - I -"

Thea held up a hand, "I'm just bitching at you, I'm not actually wanting to quit. And I know you're worried about those... super soldier miracle guys. I just... can we at least agree to no more pull-ups? I don't want to do a single pull-up ever again in my life."

Oliver nodded, "We can take those out of the rotation for a while, but when it comes to pull-ups, if you ever find yourself dangling off the edge of a building twenty stories up, you're going to want to do at least one." He grinned after he said that, and Thea rolled her eyes.

"Fun-ny," she said, then set the water down. "Okay. So. More strength training?"

"Not yet. I've got a meeting at the Company soon so I need to leave to be ready for that. But we have enough time to test where you're at." Oliver stepped away from the training area, over to where Laurel and he kept their weapons, and crouched under the table, retrieving a long, narrow box, when he opened, pulling out a bow, sized for Thea. 

"I had this made, specific to your measurements. It's the same kind I use out there, in the streets. I want to see how much you can handle, so we know where we need to go." Oliver said, walking over and holding out to her. "It's adjustable, so we'll take it simple, and go from there." He added.

Thea accepted the bow, holding it up. "Looks... weird, compared to the ones I used on the Archery team." She held the grip in one hand, moving the bow, looking at it from all angles. "But then, those are just for hitting targets, not going through people."

"For something like that, there's a point where extra penetration power is undesirable," Oliver agreed. 

Thea chuckled, "Guess you wouldn't want it going through the target and getting someone who's behind it." She lowered the bow, holding it by her side. "So this... when does this end?" She asked, looking around.

"Whenever you want it to," Oliver raised an eyebrow. He had to admit, he hoped Thea wasn't counting down the days until she could be 'done' with training. He still dreaded the prospect of Thea deciding she wanted to out onto the streets alongside Roy, or alongside him, but...

He had also enjoyed teaching her. He didn't find archery in of itself 'fun'. But teaching Thea how to shoot better? How to build her strength for handling better bows? Seeing her progress? He was surprised to realize how much he was enjoying that.

"No, not this," she held up the bow. "This," she gestured to the whole Foundry, taking in the whole space. "The whole... vigilante thing. Is this... is this just your lives, forever? Is there..." she shrugged, "I don't know, a point where you're going to decide you've shot up enough criminals, punished enough one percenters?"

Oliver shook his head, "There can't really be an 'end' to the mission, Thea. I mean... What would count as an end? No crime? That'll never happen." He sighed, turning away for a moment. "When I first resolved that I was going to use the List to honor Dad's last words to me, right his wrongs, I thought... maybe when I'd dealt with every name on it, gotten justice for the victims of each one, either through recompense or sending them to jail or killing them, maybe then I'd be done. That that was all I needed to do." 

"When did you change your mind?"

"Before I even got back to Starling. When I found Laurel again, in Russia. When we both resolved to go back." Oliver looked back at Thea, "Remember what Tommy and I always said to Laurel, when we were teens? 'Dinah Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world'?"

Thea smiled, nodding. "I remember."

"Well, the thing is, there is no point when the world is 'saved'. There's no end to crime. And you and I both know that there's always going to be rich people willing to do illegal or immoral things to make more money." Oliver shook his head. "I hope... I hope we reach a point where the Arrow and the Black Canary aren't necessary. Where the police can and do handle all the crimes the city faces, not just some. And maybe we'll reach a point where the police are equipped to handle things like Malcolm Merlyn, or a Mirakuru super soldier.

"And until then, what, this is your whole life?" Thea asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean... no end in sight?"

Oliver raised an eyebrow again, trying to understand why this was coming up now. Oliver didn't have an end in sight, no. Aspirationally, yes, he'd like to see a point when the Arrow wasn't needed. And... he didn't want to be doing this while being a parent, something both Laurel and he still wanted. Someday. William had implicitly raised the question sooner - and Oliver still wasn't sure how that could be handled, how to do what was best for William, while still having a chance to get to know him - but it was still in the future. 

Someday, Oliver would like to hang the bow up. 

But it wouldn't be because his 'work' was done. With Roy now training with Laurel, perhaps the answer was that eventually, they could pass it down to Roy, and Roy may have his own sidekick someday.

Not that Laurel had ever called Roy a sidekick to his face. She didn't want to do that to the kid's pride.

Roy. 

"You're wondering if Roy will be doing this forever." Oliver said, stepping closer to her.

Thea scoffed quietly, softly. "I'm not exactly measuring myself for a wedding dress, god no, but I am at the point with Roy where I'm wondering about long term prospects. I mean, I've already moved in with him-" she looked directly at Oliver, holding up her hand. "And before you ask, yes, we're using protection, and I'm on the pill."

Oliver stepped back, blinking, "I - I wasn't going to ask, and I do not want to know about what you and Roy do, alone, in private."

"Good. Because it is none of your business." Thea added firmly, then she swallowed slowly, letting out a long breath. "But... yeah. I - this makes Roy happy, you know. Helping the Black Canary, now training to be Laurel's sidekick," her words, not mine, Oliver thought to himself as Thea kept going, "and I don't want to take that from him. But... I guess I just want to know if I should prepare myself for him to do this for the rest of his life, if we do stay together for the long haul."

"Well, that's a conversation you'll want to have with him, eventually," Oliver said softly. 

"Roy's still getting used to the fact that he might actually live to see his 22nd birthday, let alone any longer than that," Thea said, shaking her head and smiling a little.

January 22nd, 2014

Ruins of CNRI, Starling City

The City Necessary Resources Initiative. One of the best things the Glades had had going for it, probably the only thing, apart from the Rebecca Merlyn free clinic, that had kept the district even halfway liveable, had been shut down due to lack of funds, the last of it's big wealthy donors pulling out in the months leading up to the Undertaking. 

The very slow, and not very well publicized investigations, trials and plea bargains of the other members of Malcolm's little group was, from what Sara had heard, proving that the end of CNRI's funding had indeed been directly instigated by Merlyn.

Thankfully, she was hearing rumors that something like CNRI might be reestablished. Though if it was going to be, it wouldn't be here. 

The building that had once housed CNRI, like so many empty buildings in the Glades, hadn't been reoccupied before the Undertaking, and now, it was a half-collapsed pile of rubble and crumbling walls.

And Cyvus Vanch had decided he wanted to meet her here.

"Well, well, well, I was wondering if you'd even show, Detective Lance," Vanch said smugly, stepping out into view on what was left of an upper level of the structure. Sara was standing in what was once the lobby, looking up at him through the big gaping hole in the ceiling.

"How the hell did you even get up there? Is there actually an intact staircase left in this building?" Sara demanded.

"Close enough to intact," Vanch chuckled. "I'll bet you've been driving yourself mad, wondering when I'll call again, what I've been up to since you stole that heroin for me."

Yes, but I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of telling you that. Sara shrugged.

"Oh, now you're going to tell me you didn't give me much thought at all, right?" Vanch asked.

"Well, that would be a lie too, and you'd know it. What do you want, Vanch?" Sara crossed her arms in front of her chest. She'd heard nothing about him on the streets, which was one of the most un-Vanch things she could imagine. The man thrived on the spotlight, on spectacle and theatricality. That was how he'd assembled his little criminal empire, especially after he'd gotten out of prison the first time and taken advantage of the chaos with the Bertinelli and the Triads at the time.

She could only assume he'd learned a little about keeping things quiet after how openly living large at his late Lawyer's mansion had worked against him so much. But he had to have a plan. Something that ended with him in control of a sizeable portion of crime in Starling City, if not all of it. And something that ended with Laurel, Oliver and herself dead.

Vanch didn't let people who'd wronged him live.

But she had no idea what it was. And so, she had to play along. Find out what he was up to, find out how to stop him from releasing that video.

What sort of deadman switch does he have? Will it send out emails? Actual mail with the video on a CD? Both? She didn't even know where to start with him.

"I hear your friend Oliver Hood has been shooting arrows in a lot of legs and shoulders all over the seedy parts of the city, looking for a man with a skull mask." Vanch produced an apple from his pocket and tossed it up in the air lightly, catching it, biting into it slowly. He chewed, then once he'd swallowed, continued. "Funny story - there's a guy who's been causing me some problems lately." 

No.

No. 

It couldn't be that easy. Vanch wasn't going to just drop that information into their laps. Her lap. And she wouldn't be able to trust it, either. 

"He wore a skull mask." Sara raised an eyebrow. "You realize how incredibly convenient that sounds? The Arrow is looking for a man in a skull mask, and you just happen to know where he is?"

"Oh, I don't have the slightest clue where he is." Vanch chuckled. "But I do know where he's been. And I know who he's been seen with. An unusually strong son of a bitch, the kind of person who broke the backs of two special K dealers working the dorms at Starling City University, and jacked their stash. Just two days ago."

 Special K. Ketamine.

"And what do you get from telling me this?"

"The two dealers might have worked for my new operation. Or I might just want to see what your archer friend does with this information." Vanch laughed, "Oh, who am I kidding: The man in the skull mask has plans for this city that don't line up with mine. And as long as you, the Arrow and the Black Canary work for me, might as well put you to use." He took another bite out of the apple. 

"None of us work for you." Sara growled. "And you haven't actually given us anything useful."

"Just follow the blood trail," Vanch said, and then he doubled over laughing, like he had told the funniest joke known to man. "You'll all be kicking yourselves when you find out. I can't wait." He walked away, out of view, taking another bite out of the apple as he did so. 

Follow the blood trail? 

She needed to check something at the station.

This is at least two kinds of trap, but... it's a possible lead...

January 22nd, 2014

The Foundry, Starling City

Laurel was just getting suited up to head out. She had a possibility on Brickwell's location - the man had been laying low since the Undertaking, sending out his crew to handle protection rackets, carjacking and mugging under his orders. Of course, she managed to take out more his guys nearly as fast as he could send them out, and he was hurting for money, and rep, so Brickwell had decided to try something big and bold and shown his face at a jewelry store in the nice part of town, robbing the register, the safe and a lot of diamonds. 

That was more than he normally went for, but it would get him a lot of money, if he could get the money from fencing them. There weren't a lot of fences left in Starling that would deal with people like Brickwell, unfortunately for him. Oliver had put arrows in more than a few, the Dodger had of course killed one and gotten another arrested, and she'd gone after most of the rest.

Enough to convince most fences in the city that if you bought from people like Brickwell, criminals who left trails of bodies in their wake, that you'd be getting the city's vigilantes landing on you like a ton of bricks.

She would rather have put them all out of business, but she admittedly didn't really like the idea of hospitalizing the ones that weren't hurting anyone directly. And some fences wouldn't stop for anything short of that. So she'd prioritized. Fences were a critical cog in the criminal machine, but, she had to focus on the people who were still preying directly on the people of the city.

Despite all that she'd done, people still got mugged and robbed and assaulted in the Glades. Less, yes, and less lethally, but still.

Tonight though, tonight for finding Brickwell, at the one fence he was almost certain to use. Who Felicity had recently managed to locate.

Laurel put her mask on, and then the 'sonic collar' when she heard the exterior door open, Sara coming down the stairs.

"Where's Oliver?" Sara asked quickly. "I've got a lead on the man in the skull mask."

 "He's over by the docks, he thinks some of the dealers there might-" Laurel started,

"Nope, nope, he doesn't want to be anywhere near the docks." Sara cut in. "I don't know where the man in the skull mask is, but we have a new Mirakuru supersoldier."

Laurel stiffened. "Tell me everything," she said flatly. She looked over to Felicity, who contacted Oliver over the comms, telling him that Laurel told him to come back to the Foundry.

"You're not going to like how I got the lead." Sara said. "Neither of you are."

"What? Did you torture someone for it?" She laughed even as she said it. Laurel couldn't imagine her sister doing anything like that - maybe by subjecting someone to the awful music she'd liked when she was in High School, sure, but -

"No!" Sara made a face. "Why would you-" she cut herself off and shook her head. "Doesn't matter. No. I got a tip from Vanch."

Laurel's mirth fled from her, and she swallowed, setting her jaw. "We still haven't had that conversation about Vanch." So much kept happening, and Sara had kept avoiding-

"And we'll have to put it off for later." Sara said hurriedly. 

Oh no you don't, Sara. "You can't possibly think Vanch is telling the truth-"

"The man in the skull mask was the same person who financed the Count's big scheme to draw you and Oliver out."

"And Vanch is the one who told the Count who we were!" Laurel said, raising her voice. "For all we know he's working with the man in the skull mask!"

"Laurel, I'll concede you know a lot of things I don't, you understand things I'll never understand, but I am the one who arrested Vanch. I'm the one cop on the entire task force who figured out where he was hiding the first time, before the case against him fell apart. I know how he thinks. Vanch doesn't work for anyone. He's always dreamed big, and he's still dreaming big." Sara started pacing, "I don't know what his endgame is, but it's different from whatever the man in the skull mask wants. Vanch wouldn't create supersoldiers to do his fighting for him. At least not once he knew the serum worked, which it does. He'd give it to himself and rip the doors off a cop car, kill the cops inside with a knife, and do it all in front of news cameras. He'd-"

Laurel bit her lower lip, watching Sara's agitation increase, her tone increasing in pitch, her hands moving faster, wildly. Her sister was working herself up into a minor frenzy.

"Sara!" Laurel raised her voice again, but it  was just a shout, cutting her off, catching her attention. Sara pulled up short, dropping her hands by her side, turning back to look at Laurel. "I'll concede that you understand Vanch better than I do," Laurel said, forcing herself to speak in a lower volume, "but - why - why are you taking him at his word? Even if he does want to stop the man in the skull mask so he can do whatever he wants, he doesn't want to help us." 

"As far as he's concerned, we'll be helping him. You don't under-" Sara swallowed, took a long, slow deep breath, moving her hands, palms down, to her sides, slowly. 

Despite the gravity of the situation, and how upset she got with her sister every time Vanch came up now, Laurel couldn't help but feel concerned at Sara's agitation, how... visibly worked up, and anxious and -

She needs to stop holding everything in like that.

"Vanch thinks he's in control of everything." Sara said, finally sounding calmer again. "That I have no choice but to dance to his tune, that through me, with the video he has, he's got you under control too. You and Oliver. As far as he's concerned, we're tools for him. He's going to use us." Sara exhaled slowly. "As long as he thinks he can keep using you to clear out the competition..."

"Then he's not going to tip us off into a trap."

"Especially since all Vanch did was give me a place to look. Son of a bitch has apparently decided being vague is too much fun," Sara muttered. She reached into her pocket, pulling out a thumb drive. "Felicity? I'm sorry you keep having to be witness to Lance sister arguments, but can you pull up the reports I compiled on this?"

"Of course." Felicity nodded. Laurel watched Sara turn back to her after giving Felicity the drive. "Vanch said that someone with unusual strength broke the backs of two Special K dealers near Starling City University."

"Ketamine." Laurel swore under her breath in Arabic. He had his serum, he had one soldier, and now he had his sedative again. So making more could be possible. 

"I looked into it, and there's no police reports of any dealers having been assaulted near SCU. But there are two people who Vice suspected were dealing Ketamine - also LSD and Ecstasy - to students who recently were found in the streets after a suspected hit and run. A lot of broken bones, both are still in comas, and both are probably paralyzed for life." Sara shook her head, "And oddly enough, quite a few Ketamine dealers have wound up in suspected hit and run accidents lately."

"There's no way Vice doesn't suspect-"

"Oh yeah, they suspect. Actually, they've handed the case to IA, because they think someone inside the SCPD is killing the dealers and jacking their stash to sell. Every dealer was suspected, but no proof, and apparently Ketamine dealers in Starling keep a very low profile." Sara shrugged. "Who knew."

Laurel blinked. Club drugs had been the least of her worries, so she'd barely paid any attention to them, even in the Glades. She wasn't trying to fight the War on Drugs. The only time she'd gone after anyone that had anything to do with Ketamine was a date rapist.

So them keeping a low profile made sense. 

"Okay. And you drew IA to your attention by looking into this?" Laurel asked.

"Laurel, I have been dodging IA and hiding my tracks from them for the last year. I think I know what I'm doing." Sara crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I used the password and access card of a different cop who's out of state on vacation right now. He'll get some grief, but nothing serious." Laurel bit back a response. Sara needed to stop playing chicken with IA, but...   she couldn't force Sara to stop, and there was no way Sara could. All she could do was get Sara to actually talk about what she was doing so Laurel could help her. 

"But what's important," Sara continued, holding up a finger," is that there's just one more major Special K dealer left in Starling right now that the SCPD suspects, and he operates out of one of those expensive soy wheat germ extra healthy grass smoothie places that cater to upper middle class soccer moms and trophy wives trying to milk a few more years before their husbands trade them in for a newer model."

"And you think the Mirakuru soldier is going to go after him?"

"I'm positive." Sara said. "And I think it's going to be tonight. This guy keeps a very regular schedule, and at 11:30 pm, he's going to be passing through a usually empty - at that hour - side street, with no traffic cameras, wide enough for a 'car' to 'hit and run' and with lots of ways for someone to get away unseen."

Laurel turned, and saw Felicity had opened all the files on the screens, "Show me this street."

Felicity nodded, pulling it up on a map of the city. "No traffic cams. Nothing for two blocks either way." She typed away. "Hell, I don't even think there's any private security cameras on this side street. Not outside, anyway. There's no external access to buildings to protect, no businesses..."

Laurel leaned forward, looking at the screen, where Felicity highlighted the cameras, projected the route the man supposedly took through that street every night.

It does look like a perfect spot for an ambush. 

"There's no way we can force someone on Mirakuru to talk if they don't want to." Laurel murmured. "Whoever it is isn't going to feel fear."

"Not even after Oliver killed the last one?"

"Not even," Laurel murmured. "And there's no way to take one prisoner." She shook her head, "And I don't think we should." The idea of going up against someone enhanced by Mirakuru...

It'll just be another thug. Like Gold. Not a trained killer like Slade. She swallowed. But there was Mirakuru out there. And they needed to stop it at the source. That meant finding the man with the skull mask.

 "I think I should let him get away." Laurel murmured, a plan forming in her mind. 

"Laurel... what are you..." Sara started.

Laurel turned back to Sara. "The only way we're going to stop Mirakuru is to find the man in the skull mask, and find out who gave him the serum, and how. And the only way we're going to do that is if we let him get away, and follow him back to base."

"...there's no way it'll be that simple."

"Oh, no. It's a lot of things. But simple isn't one of them. I'm going to need your help, Sara."

"Of course."

"And we are going to have that talk about Vanch, afterward," Laurel said firmly, then she leaned forward, a hand on Sara's shoulder. "You don't have to keep dealing with this on your own, Sara."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 16: Slicing the Threads

Susan Williams: Detective, what can you say about these brutal murders! Is there any connection to the Arrow, or the Black Canary?

Detective Sara Lance: I can't comment on an ongoing investigation.

Susan Williams: Reports suggest that the victims were all known criminals, and they were killed by a sword. Was this the work of a new vigilante on the streets of our city? What is the SCPD doing to try and prevent the proliferation of masked people taking justice into their own hands?

Detective Sara Lance: Again, no comment on the investigation at this time. Any questions about Department policies can be directed to the SCPD's Public Information Office. Here's one of their cards, now if you'll excuse me-"

Detective Lance hands a business card to Susan Williams and then walks around her, ignoring Williams calling out 'Detective!' after her as she gets into her car and drives away from the crime scene.

-Transcript from a Channel 52 News Broadcast, aired live at 5:31pm on January 25th, 2014

January 22nd, 2014

Side Street, Starling City

Oliver had misgivings about this plan.

It wasn't that he doubted Laurel. It wasn't that he doubted Sara. He doubted Vanch, but all of them did, though Sara did differently than Laurel and he did. 

I think she has a point when she says he knows him and how he thinks, but that doesn't change the fact that relying on his help.

Laurel's plan was a good one, giving them a good chance to save the dealer, and follow the Mirakuru soldier back to wherever the man in the skull mask had moved his operation to. And from there, they could find out who else was involved, where he got the Mirakuru...

But it was still risky. Laurel's powers might make it easier to deal with the supersoldier once they had him cornered, if they had him cornered... 

But there was also no guarantee the soldier would go back to base after he failed to kill the dealer. And if he didn't, they let a supersoldier run free around the city, and with no clear lead where he'd be showing up next.

We're going to have to kill him sooner or later. Well. He'd have to. 

Oliver looked across the sidestreet, to where Laurel was perched on another rooftop. 

The street was well lit, the lamps undamaged and well maintained - this was a part of town Oliver rarely went to. Not rich, so he didn't come here to deal with one percenters, and not poor and crime-ridden. Comfortably bourgeois, perhaps. The lack of cameras was yet more proof of that - between traffic cameras, ATM cameras and private cameras for security, there was a lot of this city that was covered. Here? Nothing.

"I think he's coming onto the street," Laurel said over the comms, and Oliver watched a man walk onto the street, hands in his pockets, whistling a cheery-sounding song out of tune. He had no idea what was about to happen.

Sara's car drove onto the street, wheels screeching as she spun the car out in front of him, ultimately getting half onto the sidewalk. The dealer went stock still for a moment, then started to turn, making to run back the way he came.

"I'd really recommend against that, Mr. Doherty," Sara said, getting out of the car, raising her voice. "Detective Sara Lance, SCPD. Don't make me chase you."

"Detective?" The man stiffened for a moment, then turned back around, maintaining a very blase tone, hands slipping back into his pockets. "What seems to be the problem?"

Sara approached him, pulling out her badge and showing it to him. "I'm going to need you to come with me."

Oliver looked away, ignoring their conversation for the moment as he looked for any side of the supersoldier. There were no alleyways into or out of the side street, and just two ways in. If Oliver was the supersoldier, he'd be waiting inside one of the buildings... 

Blinking, something else occurred to Oliver. He can't possibly have his stash with him. And I doubt he's stupid enough to keep the lion's share of it either at his job, or his home. So the soldier will want to interrogate him. Which would explain the sheer number of broken bones. Yes, it was about making it look like a hit and run, but they needed to find the Ketamine.

"Check the windows you can see," Oliver suggested to Laurel, "I think he might be on a second story."

Laurel made a noise in the affirmative, and then a minute later, Sara was still insistently trying to talk the dealer into getting into her car, without actually forcing him or saying he was under arrest, Laurel said, "I see movement, second floor, right below you.."

She only barely got the words out when Oliver heard glass shattering from somewhere below him, in his blindspot. He saw Laurel leap down from a rooftop, to a ledge, and then to the street level, and Oliver did the same, pulling an arrow into his bow as he hit the ground. 

"Actually, on second thought, maybe I should go with you Detective-" Doherty started, then cut himself off as the soldier, ignoring the arrow that Oliver hit him with in the leg, grabbed him around the arm and pulled him back, spinning him around.

"It's time we discussed the location of your stash, Mr. Doherty," The soldier ground out in a low, heavy voice. He seemed to have no mind to the fact that the Green Arrow was aiming another arrow at him, and the Black Canary was running towards him.

Laurel lunged forward, kicking at the back of his legs - it was enough to make him stumble, and Oliver fired again, getting him in the arm - he'd aimed for the first, but that would do, and he let go of Doherty.

Well, it was more that he tossed the drug dealer aside, watching him land on the ground several feet away, crying out in pain at the impact, but alive.

"You know this can't stop me," the soldier got out, ripping the arrows of his arm and leg, turning to try and grab at Laurel as she made to grab at his leg. "Nothing you can do can stop me."

"Your dead friend Cryus Gold would beg to differ," Oliver shouted, voice scrambler at work. He fired again, the soldier presented his back and turned, lunging at Laurel, who danced out of reach of him. Oliver fired more arrows in rapid succession, but several of them missed as the soldier kept going at Laurel, who kept just barely getting out of the way.

"The man in the skull mask! Who is he? Who gave him Mirakuru!?" Laurel demanded, ducking another swing. Every blow by the man was telegraphed, clumsy - there was no skill here, but Oliver knew Laurel couldn't just keep going, couldn't just keep dodging forever. But if she tried using her Tonfa, she'd likely break them as not, and punching or kicking him directly was a poor choice too.

"You'll find out when he truly saves this city! Though since you stand against him, you may not live to see it." 

Oliver had more explosive arrows, made like the one he'd used on Gold at the end, as a last resort, but they needed him to leave once his mission was a failure. But he needed to think they'd made a serious effort, that they weren't trying to get him to lead them to his boss.

"Laurel, back, now," Oliver muttered in Russian over the comms, pulling out another explosive arrow and aiming not for the soldier, but for the ground near his feet, making it seem he'd aimed for the man's leg and missed.

As Oliver loosed the arrow, Laurel acted on his warning, darting to the left and back, the arrow flying between the man's legs and landing in front of his foot as he started after her -

Before he could go further, it exploded, the small charge enough to hit damage his leg, and he roared in pain, but it wasn't crippling.

Sara was dragging Doherty, who didn't seem capable of walking, to her car. It was now or never... They had to get the tracker on the Mirakuru soldier. So far, it had all gone according to plan, so they just needed to -

Taking advantage of the soldier's distraction and pain, Laurel turned and ran towards him, getting around behind him, his movements even slower than before, for the moment. He tried to finish turning to get to her, but Laurel leapt onto his back, wrapping her arms around his neck as if trying to choke him. 

It wouldn't work, there was just no way for Laurel to put enough pressure on his airways before he could throw her off, but all they needed was the split second when only one of her arms was around his neck, and the other was sticking a small, very expensive tracker onto him.

"Stand down, and tell us who the man in the skull mask is!" Laurel got out, holding on as if for dear life, as if she thought this would work.

The soldier snarled, "Never! You are both traitors to Starling City, but you'll learn what a real hero, a real savior can do!" He tried to grab Laurel, and she let go, dropping back and away at the last moment. 

Oliver could see she was breathing heavily. The trouble with making a good show of trying to beat someone like a Mirakuru soldier is that you had to try to beat someone like a Mirakuru soldier...

Sara was opening the door to her car, pushing the dealer inside, onto the seat.

"You claim to be standing up for this city, and try to save the very people poisoning it, work with the very people destroying it!" He pulled a knife from his belt and flung it towards Sara, towards the dealer  - untrained or not, by luck or by skill, the blade flew true.

Doherty, semi-conscious, gurgled blood as the blade punched through into his lung, slumping to the side and out of Sara's car.

"You're only delaying the inevitable, Black Canary, Arrow." He charged at them both - they scattered, Oliver going one way, Laurel the other and he ran for the edge of the side street. Oliver fired another arrow at his legs, missing - not entirely on purpose - but the man had worked.

Well, mostly.

"Sara!" Oliver was by her side first, watching as she fumbled with her phone, her other hand desperately trying to do something about the man choking on his own blood in front of her, half-cradled in her arms. 

"I'm fine! I'm fine! Go! I'm calling 911, there's nothing you two can do that they can't! Find the man in the skull mask!" Sara said, looking to Oliver, then Laurel. 

Oliver nodded. Laurel looked at Sara for a moment, then nodded as well, both pulling away as Sara started telling the 911 operator to send an ambulance, that she had a man that seemed to be coughing up blood, had a chest wound -

There was a chance the man would live, but there was just as much chance he wouldn't.

The Mirakuru Soldier would have killed him anyway. 

Somehow, that didn't make Oliver feel better about the fact that they used the Ketamine dealer as bait.

January 23rd, 2014

Condemned Public School, The Glades

It felt heartless to articulate it in words, even in her own head, but Laurel couldn't afford to linger on the death of Mr. Doherty. Her plan had put the Ketamine dealer in danger he wouldn't have been otherwise - they could have just rescued him, prevented him from entering that street.

She would wonder about possibilities later, come to terms with her plan's failure later. People were not tools to use and leave to be disposed of, but Laurel could not be perfect. No one could.

For now, what Laurel had to focus on, what she was focusing on, was the Mirakuru soldier, the man in the skull mask.

With Felicity's guidance on the other end of the comms watching the tracking, they made their way towards the tracker. It had gone into the Glades after crossing half the city, and they headed after the signal, moving slower, hanging back, avoiding notice and hopefully giving the supersoldier and his boss that false sense of security that, failure or not, they weren't about to attack his base.

We can't have him getting ready to flee again, can't have him destroy any information on where he found Mirakuru. Oliver suspected some sort of pharmaceutical company. Laurel... Laurel worried that someone was following in Ivo's footsteps. Had he left notes? Journals behind? Students that might have set out to follow in his work? What if Slade's body had been recovered, somehow?

They had tracked the supersoldier here, to what had been a public school, rendered unusable by the Undertaking, and like so much of the Glades, left unrepaired. If not for State and Federal requirements, Laurel honestly doubted that the city would have provided school buses to take the former students of this school elsewhere. 

The tracker had only been able to be so precise, so they knew roughly where the soldier was in the building, but not exactly.

"I don't think we should split up," Oliver said as they stepped carefully through long-destroyed front doors. Debris and detritus filled the hallway, signs that at some point people had squatted here scattered around as they proceeded: food wrappers, abandoned clothing, debris moved away to make room for sleeping bags or just blankets. But nothing recent.

The man in the skull mask wouldn't want anyone to be here, to see what he's up to.

"Agreed," Laurel whispered back. This was the real do or die moment of her plan. Could her power serve as an equalizer against a Mirakuru supersoldier? After she'd used it on Shrapnel, people were talking about her 'improved sonic device', so the soldier would know about it, but would it matter? Even if it wasn't enough to stop him on his own...

Laurel and Oliver both creeped forward, lower to the ground as they neared the section of the school the soldier should be in, moving slowly. 

Minutes later, they heard it. Voices, ahead. 

They moved closer.

"...we have more than enough Ketamine to do what needs to be done." A low voice said. Laurel looked to Oliver, and Oliver's eyes narrowed, then he nodded, slowly. 

The man in the skull mask.

"...but the Black Canary and the Arrow were there. It's not time to deal with them." The supersoldier.

"No, it's not. But given their resources, it's reasonable that they put two and two together. This was anticipated. We'll have to relocate soon enough anyway."

We can't let them do that. Laurel peered around a corridor, revealing an open set of double doors, and Laurel could see, through that doorway, a well-lit room with a floor that looked like an indoor basketball court.

Laurel took the lead, reaching the doorway and very carefully, very slowly, pressing herself against the wall next to it and peeking into the room.

It was indeed a former basketball court, the walls on two sides lined with half-collapsed bleacher seating, hoops at either end of the court... and the court itself taken up by several tables, with various lab equipment set up on it, and a few computers. There was a chair with a body slumped on it, blood running from the eye sockets. Laurel couldn't tell from here if they were dead, or just seemed it, but might come back later, like Slade had.

The supersoldier was there, mask no longer covering his face. He had red hair, and sharp, haggard features. He wasn't anyone she recognized from trying to check through known associates of Cyrus Gold, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

The Man in the Skull Mask was there as well, wearing a suit and tie, which created an odd, clashing look when paired with that mask. There was no one else. Either they no longer had an additional doctor, like Oliver had seen at the Langford Institute, or the doctor wasn't here now. 

"Relocating won't be an option," Laurel said, stepping into the gymnasium, Oliver right next to her, an arrow strung on his bow, pointing at the super soldier. 

The Man in the Skull Mask shook his head, "Do you really think you can stop us?" He closed one of the laptops on the table and grabbed several vials from it as well, starting to run towards a door on the far end of the room. "You will not stop me from cleansing Starling City!" He shouted.

"This city doesn't need a savior like you!" Oliver fired his arrow, not at the supersoldier, but at the fleeing man, catching him in the leg and sending him sprawling with a cry. But then the super soldier was on them, lunging at Oliver, who barely got out of the way, rolling back, grabbing another arrow. Laurel moved to punch the soldier, but pulled back at the last minute, the feint still pulling him away from Oliver and towards her.

"You can't stop us. But it's not your time to die yet, Black Canary."

"And when is my time to die, then?" Laurel growled. "Because right now, we have you outnumbered, and supersoldier or not, the Arrow defeated your friend Cyrus Gold all on his own." Even as she spoke she was ducking under attacks, but most importantly, she was getting Oliver out of the line of fire, maneuvering their fight so the supersoldier was facing the door they'd just come in through.

Or so was the intent.

"Soon there will be an army of us, soldiers ready to save this city. From those who destroy it from within and those like you two who pretend to help us, but leave those who deserve death alive!" he lunged again, and this time, Laurel found her back against the bleachers and his hand grabbed onto her shoulder, locking her in place.

The man grinned, "It's not your time to die, but there's no reason I can't make this fun," the man grinned, a wicked, cruel grin on his face, his eyes full of bloodlust. 

His hand on her shoulder squeezed and pushed down, and it was all Laurel could do to stay on her feet - she opened her mouth and screamed as his fist came towards her - 

The piercing, pitched cry of her impossible ability echoed in her ears as visible waves of sound hit the soldier. He staggered back, just a few paces, letting go of her, blood trickling out of his nose, hands on his ears. 

"Stand down, and you won't meet the same fate as Cyrus Gold did," Laurel demanded. "Mirakuru isn't enough." She was only slightly surprised it didn't send the man flying, though some of the lab equipment had shattered. She'd targeted the blast better, but still room for improvement. 

She'd kept the scream down, and the durability Mirakuru gave him...

"Never!" The man said, clearly still able to hear her. He lowered his hands and started to move at her again, but she screamed again, and he staggered back again, dropping to his knees, more blood forming a trial down over his upper lip from his nose, and this time blood seemed to be trickling from his left ear as he tried to stagger to his feet. He shouted again, but this time it was the telltale too-high-pitched sound of someone who couldn't hear. "YOU WILL NOT STOP US!" He lunged at her again, and Laurel caught his fist on her side as she tried to evade, the man's moves reckless and foolish now, rage overpowering everything else.

Laurel nearly flew right off her feet from the force of the punch, bing her lip, hissing as she fell back, almost falling, she ran back again, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Oliver gesturing for her to get more distance -

Oliver fired another C4 arrow and Laurel dove out of the way, wincing as her side hit the ground as she slid, nearly hitting an errant bit of old debris with her head. She turned, propping herself up on her elbows for a moment as she caught her breath, and saw the supersoldier, blood streaming from his back, where the explosion had done some serious damage. Staggering to his feet, the soldier stood up, snarling in fury.

Before he could charge, Oliver fired again, then again after it - the soldier dodged the first arrow, which exploded behind him, raining wooden splinters all over the soldier's back, but the other got him in the chest, right below his neck...

Laurel looked away, the explosion going off - maybe it wasn't enough to kill him yet, but it would have to be enough to make him die from his wounds. But...

Ollie won't leave him to linger. That was dangerous... and it was cruel. 

Laurel looked to where the man in the Skull Mask now finally stood, having gotten to his feet, grabbed his laptop again. He had a pistol in his hand.

"Put the gun down!" She shouted, walking towards him, drawing her tonfa. "Put the gun down, and take off the mask!"

"I will do no such thing," The man replied, shaking his head. "You won't get your prize of having answers, Black Canary. I don't know how either of you know about Mirakuru, but you won't stop me from saving this city." He turned, trying to run out of the gym, but his leg was hurt, and even at his best, he wasn't going to be able to outrun Laurel. She chased him, catching him by the far door, grabbing his arms, the laptop falling to the ground by his feet - she heard something crack as it connected.

Hope Felicity can recover anything from that...

"You're saving Starling City like this! How many people have you killed to create just two supersoldiers?!" Laurel demanded. She pinned his arms behind his back, hand around his wrists, holding him, the other on his shoulder. "Where did you find the Mirakuru!?" She let go of his shoulder to grab at his mask, and he kicked at her leg with his own, aiming backwards - he missed, but in pulling back to avoid it, he managed to wrench a hand free. Laurel grabbed his arm - but she moved just a moment too late, as she saw him pull something out of his suit. She grabbed his wrist, but it was too late, as his hand turned towards her

"You've robbed Starling City of my genius! I won't let you put me on display in a prison!"

Even before she recognized the detonator for what it was, before her brain processed what she was seeing, she was turning, running, diving to the floor, shouting at Oliver to stay back.

By chance as much by skill, Laurel got away from the man, outside of the blast radius - she felt heat behind and above her, but nothing enough to hurt her.

She rolled over onto her back for a second time, and looked. The man's body was in several pieces, his laptop in pieces too. There were two other computers still intact, the lab equipment...

No answers. Where did he get Mirakuru?

January 23rd, 2014

The Foundry

"Well, by some insane miracle, there is a little bit of intact data on this harddrive," Felicity said, looking up from the burned and damaged drive that had somehow avoided being completely destroyed by the blast. 

"How intact are we talking?" Oliver asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"The sort of thing where It's going to take a few days - at least - to reconstruct anything usable, and it's going to be half guesswork. Interpolating what's left and trying to figure out what's missing." Felicity shook her head and tried - and failed - to hold back a yawn. "And before you ask, there is nothing I can do to make it go faster. And there's no guarantee I'll find anything readable, even after reconstructing."

Oliver sighed, knowing Felicity was trying her best. "Well, if it's going to be days no matter what, you should go get some sleep. Start fresh later." He wanted her to give them an answer now, but...

Oliver's first instinct was that the Man in the Skull mask was covering for someone. His real boss. He spoke like a fanatic, his soldiers did too. So killing himself to protect the cause, destroying the laptop... and it was very convenient that he had explosives on him.

On the other hand, he was also a madman. Someone so sure they were the genius that could save the world... It would make sense that he blew himself up to deny a victory to his enemies, to avoid prison, a chance to take someone with him... maybe he just took to carrying the explosives on him after Oliver stopped him the first time, at the Langford Institute.

"What about the other two computers?" Laurel asked. She was tense, speaking in clipped, almost snappish tones. Laurel was blaming herself - for the death of the dealer, for not realizing the man in the skull mask was going to blow himself up until it was too late. "DNA samples of the man? The soldier?"

"I am not actually a CSI, I can't run DNA. We don't really have the tools here even if I could. Sara could probably get it into the crime lab, but that will take time, I know the crime lab is always backed up" Felicity told Laurel, sounding too tired to actually be frustrated with her.

"Right. Right." Laurel let out a breath, her shoulders still hunched and tense. Oliver put his hand on her back, rubbing small circles, and she slowly relaxed her body. "Sorry. I-"

"The other two computers seem to be mostly encrypted emails saved and downloaded, and research notes, also encrypted. Both I should be able to start getting into by tomorrow. I've got my programs running now, they'll do their work overnight."

"That's good." Laurel nodded. "Oliver's right, you should get some sleep."

"You both should too," Felicity stood. "I - don't take this the wrong way, please, but you both look like hell."

"She's right," Diggle observed, stepping forward. "Neither of you took serious hits, all said and done, but you both look like hell."

Oliver let out a breath. He felt it. They'd succeeded in finding the Man in the Skull Mask - he had the same height, same build, the voice sounded the same. It had to have been an affectation both times, people didn't normally talk in tones like that, but it was the same affectation, so...

Fall guy was very, very possible. But they had the man in the Skull Mask. They'd shut down his supersoldier project. 

Whoever was behind this - and they did need to know - 

"I knew it was possible neither of them would surrender, but... I didn't expect him to blow himself up." Laurel inhaled slowly. She closed her eyes, "And until Felicity processes the data, or we get DNA results from Sara, there's not much we can do to follow up."

"You should probably listen to the same advice you gave Felicity. Get some sleep. You're not going to get answers if you focus on this at the expense of everything else," Diggle said. He shook his head, "If this was just a pharma company, there have to be better ways to do the testing than this."

"But the man is also clearly well-financed. They bought the Langford Institute out for this. Used them as cover. They can't anymore, which is good, but they got a whole new set of lab equipment, more test subjects..." Oliver reasoned. "Who else would be behind it?"

"Someone who thinks they're saving the world? Saving the city? Dr. Ivo had a lot of money once, he sank it all into his Mirakuru search." Laurel murmured. "Someone else might have the same idea. Ivo was a monster, and a madman, but he believed it when he said his work was going to save the world."

"Whatever it is, it could end up being bigger than Starling City," Diggle pointed out. "You two can't just leave the city to just rumors and possibilities."

Oliver let his hand drop to his side as Laurel pulled away. Oliver took a long breath himself. His mind raced, but he couldn't deny Diggle had a point. They had possibilities, ideas... potential leads, but

"If you do come up with something bigger, too big, there's always ARGUS. I could hand it over to Lyla." Diggle held up a hand, "I get you two have issues with ARGUS. Can't say I'm a huge fan of them either. I heard rumors about them. But they have the reach to deal with something big, and Mirakuru is the sort of unusual thing they deal with anyway."

Oliver looked at Laurel, raising an eyebrow, speaking in Russian. "He's right. If it is too big for us, then we'd have to turn it over to someone else. And sooner or later, it would end up with ARGUS."

Laurel stared at him, before responding in the same language, "Do you want to give Waller access to supersoldiers?!"

"Not my first plan, but..." Oliver sighed, and then dropped back into English. "We can worry about it when the time comes. Laurel, please," he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "We won't get anywhere talking in circles about it."

Laurel nodded after another moment. "You're right."

January 23rd, 2014

Oliver and Laurel's Apartment, Starling City

"I know better. I know it's pointless. But I keep going over it in my head," Laurel murmured, standing by the window, looking out at the city. "If I'd been faster. Doherty could still be alive, I might have stopped the Man in the Skull Mask from blowing himself up...

She inhaled, feeling Oliver behind her, his arms around her waist, chin on her shoulder. 

"Is it Sara's fault Doherty died?" Oliver asked. "She was the one who was supposed to get him to safety." Laurel knew Oliver  wasn't actually blaming Sara, but a momentary flare of sisterly protectiveness made her inhale sharply.

"No, god no." Laurel shook her head. "She did everything she could."

"And so did you." Oliver pointed out, quietly. "You know that you did."

"It was still my plan. We could have stopped Doherty sooner. Not used him as bait." Laurel licked her lips, letting out a long, slow breath. Even then, she'd known there was a risk. Every step of the way, there was a risk.

If they hadn't gotten involved, Doherty would have died anyway. And they needed to find the man behind the Mirakuru. Even if they weren't at the bottom of the mystery, they had to have set the whole process back. Someone beyond Starling might be behind this, probably was...

And yet.

"I don't know if I'd say we used him as bait. We just... we could have warned him sooner, yes, gotten him out of the line of fire. And we're both going to have to live with the fact we failed." Oliver replied quietly. He removed a hand from her waist, holding it up as she opened her mouth to counter his claim to a share of the blame. "It was your plan, but I could have said something. I was right there too. I could have fired more arrows at the Man in the Skull Mask too."

"We failed Doherty though."

"We did." Oliver agreed quietly. 

Another person on the list. Another person they failed to save. Laurel tried not to torment herself with things like that. There was a list, at the Foundry, of everyone she knew she'd failed to save, including every name of everyone who'd died in the Undertaking.

But she didn't linger on it every day.

But she couldn't let herself forget that there was a price for failure. And this was worse, because it would have been so preventable... at the risk of letting the Man in the Skull Mask go free. 

But he hadn't gone free. He was dead.

Laurel was turning that one over in her head too, but there was less guilt. She was sorry she'd failed to take him alive, and she wished she'd figured out he was wired with explosives in time, but...

He was clearly willing to die for his ego, or for his cause, or to protect someone else. There was only so much you could do to save someone like that.

Laurel let out another breath. 

One more death to live with. But the number of people they'd saved was greater too, now that Mirakuru was - at least for now - out of play.

It would have to be enough. It always would.

"We really should get some sleep." Laurel said in a low voice, turning away from the window, wrapping her arms around Oliver for a long moment, then pulling away and walking to the bed. 

It was enough.  

But she could never lose sight of the human cost, or she'd stop being someone that anyone could call a hero.

January 24th, 2014

SCPD, Starling City

A day with no fresh homicides for her. The death of Doherty had Vice and IA up in arms, even if she wasn't supposed to know about it, since they were playing it close to the vest. Sara had no idea who could possibly be the leak in the department about the suspected Ketamine dealers. She had to hope there was something the information that Felicity might be able to recover from all the computers that might tell them that.

But with no new cases to take, Sara was left with paperwork and trying not to linger on the yet more laws she'd broken obstructing evidence of Doherty dying in her car. She'd had to dump the body, clean the car, make sure there was nothing she'd left behind.

Really putting all my skills as a cop to good use, covering things up. 

Thoughts like that had been a constant for her since she'd decided to destroy the DNA evidence that connected the vigilante then still known as 'the Hood' to Oliver after his failed attempt to interrogate his mother. 

But they'd grown more frequently since Vanch had started blackmailing her.

It didn't make sense. She'd stolen some heroin for him. That was it. There was so much more he could have tried to force her to do, and she was constantly waiting for that other shoe. Wherever he was, whatever he was up to, he was staying uncharacteristically quiet. 

Sara shook her head and let out a sigh. She needed to stop. She'd made her choice. She'd made it a year ago. She'd made it every time she pushed and bent and twisted the rules to get criminals in her entire career as a Detective.

"Lance," one of the other detectives, from Robbery, waved her down, coming towards her. Serena Velazquez was a short, butch latina, her sharp, almost chiseled features having drawn Sara's eye more than once. There weren't a lot of bisexual or lesbian female cops in the department, and those that were out knew each other. 

"Velazquez," Sara pulled up short, standing halfway out the door into the parking garage. "How are you? Haven't seen you in a while." They'd sparred with some frequency in the precinct gym, but Sara had made a lot less use of that space over the last year.

"I'm doing good. You look - you look like you're working yourself too hard," Velazquez chided, a small smile on her face. 

"The curse of being a Homicide Detective in Starling. Not that you don't log too many hours yourself," Sara pointed out. 

"Don't we all," Velazquez said with a chuckle. She bit her lip for a moment. "Heading out?"

"Yeah. No cases, paperwork is done, or at least enough for today. There's a bottle of beer and a new show on streaming with my name on it back home. You?"

"I was gonna go for a drink," she named a nearby bar, though not one of the usual officer hangouts. "I was wondering if you wanted to join me?" She gave Sara a look, appraising her, something in her eyes making it very clear Velazquez was doing what she sounded like she was doing.

Velazquez was attractive, and Sara got on with her, and she'd even say she liked the other woman well enough, given that she didn't know her as well as she might. And it had been a long time since she'd gone on a date. Or even anything that could be called one.

"Velazquez - I -" Sara cleared her throat. "I didn't know you were interested."

Velazquez grinned, "What, did you get rid of all the mirrors at your place? No I- I've been thinking about it for a while." Her expression fell. "Shit. I'm too late, aren't I? That's why you haven't been around the station as much."

Sara blinked. "What? No, God, no, I'm - I'm very, very single." The closest thing she'd had to a date in ages was coffee and tea with a wanted international assassin in her fancy hotel room. "I -" she licked her lips. Velazquez was attractive - not as hot as Nyssa, a stupid, horny part of her brain pointed out, but Sara pushed back at that thought. The assassin was the very definition of unavailable and in a class of her own. 

Given her extracurricular activities, dating another cop had its... complications, but - it wasn't like the other Detective was asking her for some long-term commitment. Just a drink. 

"I - yeah. A drink sounds good. I'll meet you there?" 

"Sounds like a plan!" Velazquez grinned.

January 24th, 2014

Sara's Apartment, 2014

One drink had turned into a couple, though nothing enough to impair her, or make her more than a bit buzzed, but she'd enjoyed her not-quite date with Velazquez. She felt... relaxed. Probably just the alcohol talking as much as anything else, but some flirtatious banter, a lot of casual chat with an attractive, available lesbian who was her type - and not a killer - had done wonders for her mood.

Why did I never think to ask her out before now?

Sara closed her door behind her and flicked on the lights in her bedroom, starting to undress. Her cell started to ring as she was halfway through undoing the buttons on her shirt and she felt her good mood turn to ash in her mind as she saw the 'unavailable' flash on the caller ID.

Vanch. He wasn't the only one that might have come up like that, and yet, Sara just knew it was him. 

"Lance," Sara answered.

"You are a fucking idiot, Lance. You know that old saying about leading a horse to water? You're the fucking horse, and instead of water, it was the best goddamn champagne in the world and you still couldn't drink." Vanch's tone was harried, furious. 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sara demanded, the criminal's words setting her on edge. She could hear voices, muffled in the background, several of them, people speaking in loud voices.

Vanch laughed hysterically, "You - you don't get it. Oh my god, I knew you and your sister and Queen were all idiots but I never knew how fucking stupid you all were!" He was shouting into the phone. "I gave you everything you needed, and you still couldn't get the goddamn job done! Useless! Fucking useless!"

"If you just called to insult me, Vanch, then why don't we meet in person and I remind you what I can do all on my own?" Sara snapped. "Unless you have something I need to hear, I'm hanging up in five seconds."

She expected him to immediately play his blackmail card, threaten to release that video, keep her on the lie so he could keep indulging in whatever power play he was doing here.

What did we do that pissed him off? We got rid of the Man in the Skull Mask for him. Maybe Vanch had expected them to get the man behind the man too? That was one possibility her sister and Oliver had raised when letting her know what they'd found out, how Mr. Skull Mask had blown himself up like he was in Baghdad or something. 

Had they not done it in the way he wanted? Did -

"You go ahead and do that. I'm done with you, and your sister. God, I should have just killed you all when I had the chance." Vanch snarled, the faux-civilized demeanor gone and the thug he'd always been was on full display. Vanch liked to pretend he was on the level of a real criminal mastermind who controlled it all. But he really was just a brute.

Sara felt all the blood rush from her face. He was going to release the video and - 

She started to open her mouth, about to... beg? Plead? Ask? Bargain? She wasn't even sure. But she couldn't get a response out before she heard it.

Shouting. Gunfire. Lots of gunfire. She heard Vanch's voice, a shout of shock, and then the call cut off, the sound of bullets from automatic weapons the last thing ringing in her ears.

What the fuck.

What the fuck happened? Someone was attacking Vanch. Gunshots. There had to be. She had to find out where. Find out -

She had to call Laurel. Warn her. Let her know that Vanch might have sent the video of her killing the Count to China White, Brickwell, anyone else...

And she needed to find out where Vanch was now. Find out where the gunshots were.

January 25th, 2014
Foreclosed Mansion, Starling City

The moon was still in the sky as Sara parked her car, unbuckling and getting out almost before she actually shut the vehicle off. She could hear the voices of gawkers and the press at the edge of the police, uniformed officers telling people to stay back. 

It was well past midnight, and Sara was running on fear and anxiety as much as caffeine at this point. She thanked god she'd only had those few drinks when she'd gotten the call while on her way to the Foundry to talk to Laurel about Vanch's call.

She'd called Laurel as soon as she'd gathered her thoughts, mere minutes after the call with that bastard had ended. They couldn't have a long conversation about this over the phone, but they could establish that they needed damage control. And they needed to figure out exactly what damage that video tape could do.

Sara was most concerned about China White, Brickwell, other enemies of the Black Canary realizing it was Laurel behind that mask and attacking while she was in the open, unmasked. Laurel was worried about the police, but Sara figured that tape wouldn't be enough on its own.

Though there was IA.

Sara had needed time to collect herself before she joined Laurel and Oliver to talk about this. Another hour spent trying to stay awake, get the booze out of her system and prepare. She needed to stay calm.

And she had managed that.

But before she could do more, she'd gotten a call from Captain Pike. She was being called in to assist at a multiple homicide - twelve bodies, just discovered in the most upscale neighborhood of Starling, inside a foreclosed mansion that had largely been closed off from the surrounding houses by a large lawn and high walls.

Shots had been heard fired - a lot of them - someone had called 911, and when cops came to look, merely fifteen minutes after the first call, twelve dead bodies. And now, all hands were on deck.

A high-class place with plenty of security. Exactly the sort of place Vanch would hide out. And exactly the sort of place that he'd know the Black Canary and the Arrow couldn't easily check out casually.

Passing the reporters, Sara stepped under the police tape at the now open gate, showing her badge to one of the Uniforms guarding the entrance. She had to show it again to get inside, and there they were in the atrium of the walking up to the lead detective.

With twelve dead bodies, there wasn't room to . She found him, standing over a severed hand, a cellphone in it. It had been destroyed by what looked like a thrust right through it, and into the hand, though if Sara had to guess, it happened post-severing.

"Lance," The other detective said as she approached. "Glad to have you here. This is a weird one, and I know how you gravitate to those."

Sara wouldn't have said that, but she supposed her habit of getting involved with cases that attracted the interest of the Black Canary, and the Arrow, would have seemed like that from the outside.

"Twelve people killed by a sword definitely qualifies." Sara agreed. 

"Every one of them thugs with a rap sheet longer than my arm. I recognize those three just by sight," he gestured to a few of the bodies. Sara looked around, seeing a few familiar faces. Former foot soldiers of the Triad, the Bertinelli's, every gang and band of thugs that had been at work in the city and lost leadership to the Black Canary and the Arrow. "None of these guys were soft -" he gestured to all the shell casings around them, "And they got a lot of shots out. This was no ordinary gang-on-gang violence."

"No." Sara agreed. "Even China White isn't capable of something like this." At least Sara hoped to God that woman wasn't. Or else her next fight with Laurel...

"What do you think? Someone took inspiration from the Arrow and decided what this city needed was another nut murdering people with archaic weapons?"  

"I think," Sara said, crouching by the severed hand, putting on some gloves and carefully prying the destroyed phone from it, dropping it into an evidence bag, "that whoever did this really didn't want someone to make a phone call."

Twelve bodies. And no Vanch.

Which meant Vanch had escaped. But...

"That's a fair point. Stop someone from calling for reinforcements?"

Sara straightened up. "I mean, with that much gunfire, in a neighborhood like this, cops are getting called, they're coming as quickly as possible. If there hadn't been that accident on the freeway, they might have gotten here in ten minutes." She looked around, trying to see if the number of hands didn't add up. One hand, there was no body near the hand, which suggested someone had escaped, but...

"Whoever did this killed twelve people with a sword and got out inside fifteen minutes of the first gunshots being fired." He looked around. "Even the vigilantes don't move that fast."

Still looking around, Sara pointed out the obvious: "Could be a team." Sara wished she could just say she knew it was Vanch, but...

There were a few severed limbs - movies made that seem easy, but Sara knew it wasn't quite so simple. But what did that take? Just a very sharp sword and some good strength? Skill?

"I think whoever that hand and this phone belonged to got away too." Sara added, looking back to the lead detective.

"I was thinking that myself. Their fingerprints are probably in the system too." he let out a haggard breath. "What I want to know is how this many people were squatting in this place without any neighbors knowing. There's signs that people have been living here for at least a month, in the rest of the building."

"It is a foreclosure. And the walls are pretty high. This isn't quite as spread out as all the mansions on the outskirts of the city, the ones with sprawling estates, but there's a good amount of space. Time your trips right? Maybe pretend to be contractors from the bank fixing the place up?" Sara shook her head. "We'll need statements from all the neighbors going back the whole month. Which bank owns this place?"

"They're still running that down."

Was Vanch staying here a target of opportunity? The best hiding place that suited him, or did he have a connection. And who attacked him? 

Who uses swords? League of Assassins? But they weren't supposed to operate in Starling. Right? 

Had Vanch gotten the video out? Was it stored anywhere here? She had to believe no. Vanch wouldn't just keep something like that lying around.

He would keep it  on his phone though. Which was pretty thoroughly destroyed.

Sara was going to have to see if she could get that double-checked though.

"It's a pretty diverse group of muscle here. All vicious. All killers. All local." The detective mused. "So was their boss?"

"Probably. But who's left in Starling that could pull these kinds of people together?" Maybe Sara could draw an inference about Vanch that could get people looking for him. "Can't be China White, the Triad doesn't gather such an eclectic mix like this."

"And no other signs this is Triad either," the lead detective agreed.

"We're both Homicide, not Vice or Gangs, but I mean - whose left? Between the Vigilantes and the SCPD, Starling's running short on criminals with that sort of pull. Brickwell has what it takes to get this many guys together from the dregs of other groups, but these sorts of guns? Automatics, semi-automatics? Submachine guns? This many of them? Not his type." She shook her head.

The other detective nodded, agreeing again. "I've caught a few Brickwell cases. No one wants to testify against him, of course, but... you have to scrape his victims off the sidewalk." He looked at her. "You have a theory."

"I've been wondering where the hell Cyvus Vanch has been holed up. He escaped Iron Heights at the same time as the Count, the Dollmaker. But no sign of him." Sara gestured at their surroundings. "When I arrested him the second time, he was staying at his lawyer's place. Swanky place, a lot like this."

"Right. Vanch was one of yours. Though you did have help the second time." The lead detective nearly recoiled as Sara shot him a glare and he held up his hands. "Hey, not criticizing. If I had a sister, or a brother, and Vanch took them? I'm not so sure I'd turn down an offer of help either." the detective looked around, letting out a sigh. "You think this was Vanch's crew?"

"I think these guns are the right sort of thing for him. Vanch never believed that overkill was a thing, if you remember all the bodies he and his crew left in their wake." Sara pointed out, and the Detective nodded. "Like you said, a lot of bullets." She went on, gesturing to the shell casings. "Vanch was always happy to grab anyone with a rap sheet. He's not here in the dead bodies." Sara gestured to the severed hand. 

"And yet, somehow, I suspect we're going to find out that the prints on this hand are Vanch's." Sara finished.

The detective stared at her for a moment, "You know, I heard the story about how you figured out where Vanch was hiding, before his first arrest. Said you got into his head. I kind of figured you got lucky, maybe had a good guess." He shook his head. "You really got in there, didn't you?"

"I don't recommend it." Sara inhaled. "It was a lot of reading over every case, every murder, every rumor, witness statement - I needed a few dozen showers after it was all done. But the thing I realized is that Vanch is pretty simple, for all that he pretends to be complicated." Most criminals were, in Sara's experience, at the end of the day.

"If this is Vanch's hand, then that means we have a handless criminal mastermind running around."

"And we have someone with a sword. Multiple someones probably." Sara let out a breath, "None of these rounds were armor piercing?"

"I don't think so, but the crime scene techs will tell us in the end." The detective shrugged, "Working theory, on the spot: If this was Vanch, then either we have a bunch of sword-wielding criminals doing gang on gang violence, or we have a team of vigilantes that make the Arrow, hell, that make that guy that broadcast those videos from the subway last year, look sane and well-adjusted. Probably wearing body armor and..." he sighed. "Why the hell swords?"

"Guns are tracked more? Cops pay attention to people amassing hardware, or try to. Who notices someone buying up a bunch of swords? Even now, it's not like the SCPD is keeping track of bows and crossbows at hunting supply stores." Sara pointed out.

"Well, that's because the Arrow is clearly making his himself, or getting some sort of under the table custom job." The other detective tapped his chin. "Good point though. I think vigilantes make more sense here. Or at least people who want to play act at it." He shook his head, "Elegant theories aren't proof. Go get some of the gawkers and ask them the usual questions, if they're local," he directed. Sara turned and started to walk back to the police tape and the detective called back, "Mind the reporters! I think I saw that Williams woman from 52 there."

Sara grimaced. She didn't dislike Susan Williams as much as a lot of cops did, but her persistence could get annoying.

January 25th, 2014
Queen Mansion, Starling City

The frantic call from Sara last night about Vanch all but threatening to leak the video of Laurel had left both of them barely able to sleep, even after Sara had called back with the news that Vanch's hideout had been found... by someone else. Or that his hand had been cut off, and he was at large. 

Because not only was the threat of Laurel being outed as the Black Canary. Oliver thought Sara was right that Brickwell, China White and other criminals coming after Laurel in public was the greater threat, but the police were right behind. 

And if they connected Laurel and the Black Canary, connecting him and the Arrow was not that hard of a leap. 

It made concentrating at work difficult, and so he'd almost been thankful for the excuse to leave when his mother called, and said there was something important she wanted to discuss with Thea and him. 

Of course, wondering what that was was its own problem.

Oliver came into the living room, seeing Thea and his mother both there, waiting for him.

"Sorry, I came as quickly as I could, but I had to finish off a few things," Oliver was getting better at managing the load of being a CEO, mostly by finding the right people inside the company he could rely on, which was easier said than done, but ultimately, this was never going to be the sort of work he was going to thrive at.

Laurel would do better with this. Not that she'd love it, all the compromises and deal cutting, but she'd be better at it.

"It's okay. The company is important, and you need to see to your responsibilities. Besides, Thea only got here a few minutes ahead of you." His mother explained. Oliver sat down on a couch next to Thea on the couch, perpendicular to the couch their mother was sitting at. 

"You know about Walter inviting me to dinner the other day," their mother said, and Oliver nodded. Thea did as well, though there was a funny look on her face, like she had a better idea of what was going on. Oliver had heard about it from Thea, who had been eager about the idea of Walter getting back with their mother. Oliver had tried not to burst her bubble, but he'd doubted it would be so simple.

Still, he'd hoped. Their mother deserved some happiness.

"As it turned out, it was a dinner not just with him, but with someone who works closely with the Steering Committee for the Starling City Republican Party." Oliver blinked, wondering where this was going, but at least getting a shape of it. Thea's mouth opened in a small 'o' for a moment before she closed it. She knew exactly what this was.

I mean, she's not working anymore, getting involved in local politics makes sense. Maybe she just wanted to warn us before the press started giving her grief for... running for some position in the local party? Was that even a thing? Did the local party do internal elections? A vague memory of a Polisci class he'd dropped out of in college made him pretty sure that was a thing.

"I know you are a supporter of Sebastian Blood, Oliver, and I know both of you have..." Their mother hesitated, "...differences of opinion about what families like ours should do with our money," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But there are a lot of people who are worried about him and his proposed policies - especially since half the things he talks about aren't actually things a mayor has the power to do anyway. All they'll do is scare businesses and investors away from Starling."

"I - I don't think it's that simple, Mom," Oliver started.

"I know you don't agree with me, and I didn't ask you here to try to convince you to stop being the idealistic young man you are, Oliver. And the same for you, Thea. I think it's good that you care as much as you do." She lifted her hands off the desk a moment, "I think both of you are going about it the wrong way, but either way the important thing is this: Sebastian Blood has had no viable opponent in this race. Not in the primary, and so far, no real substantive opponents seem likely in the general."

No. She wasn't -

"That's not particularly good for the city, however you feel about Blood's policy proposals. But the local party thinks that I'm their best chance for a viable candidate against Blood."

The woman who a few months ago was accused of murdering hundreds of people in the Glades? Oliver's first thought was that it was absurd. His mother was innocent, but still.  On the other hand, she'd been acquitted. She'd got better reception at Queen Consolidated than Rochev had expected, and her party had been reasonably well attended too.

There's plenty of people who would just never vote for Blood no matter what, so if they have a decent candidate... And his mother would have a lot of money to draw on, donations-wise. 

Maybe it wasn't so crazy.

"So you decided to do it?" Thea asked. 

"I wasn't sure, until you said the idea didn't sound so crazy when Walter told you that's what he was trying to get me to do," Their mother answered.

Oliver didn't let his face show much reaction to that, but given some of the conversations he'd had with Thea lately, he was a little surprised.

Thea actually hesitated for a moment, "I mean -  it's not that crazy. I mean... as far as Republicans go, it's not like you're going to be some sort of Anti-Choice, homophobic, climate-change denying, bomb Iran sort of Republican. And you're smart and I mean, I've seen how you can talk a room of stuffy rich bastards around to your point of view."

"Thea," Their mother scolded Thea's language, but she was smiling slightly, and then laughed, "That is all certainly true. Starling tends to be more liberal on the first three issues anyway as well..." She bit her lip, "Walter and you both convinced me that running for Mayor would not be an insane idea. I would like to try to repay this city, help fix the mistakes I made. And, arrogant as it may sound, I think I would be better for the city than Sebastian Blood."

"I mean, I think a certain amount of confidence is necessary to run for office no matter what. Sebastian is a good man, but he can be arrogant sometimes." Oliver offered. 

If their mother really did run for office, Oliver would have to withdraw his support for Sebastian Blood. The optics of Moira Queen's own son publicly supporting her opponent would be terrible. And he wouldn't do that to her. 

Would his mother be a good Mayor? She could certainly do the job - she handled being the CEO far better than he had thus far, in his estimation. Though under better circumstances. As Thea said, she was hardly that bad on a number of issues, compared to Republicans.

But...

His mother wasn't unconcerned about the plight of the poor of Starling City. He'd attended too many charity fundraisers she'd held in the years before the Gambit, to think otherwise, but she still saw things through the lens of the family's wealth and status. She certainly wasn't interested in raising the minimum wage or regulating workplaces, expanding social safety nets, investing resources into the poorest parts of the city...

Sebastian was. 

His mother laughed at his words, pulling Oliver back to the now. "I suppose there is truth to that." She took a breath, "But though there are reasons why I think running is a good idea, I am your mother, first and foremost." She looked at both of them. "During the trial, both of you were insulated from legal scrutiny, but the press still put you under a lot of attention. If I run, that will start up again. And worse. Especially after your public support for Blood, Oliver."

She hesitated, and Oliver realized she was genuinely unsure of herself here, as she went on. "Acting unilaterally... just doing what I thought was best for this family ended up creating the circumstances that led to the Undertaking. I thought it was the best choice to protect my family, and it nearly destroyed it." 

It was a level of vulnerability in front of her children that Oliver had rarely seen from his mother, though Thea might have seen it more during those five years...

"So my final answer on if I'll run for Mayor depends entirely on you both being okay with me running. And," she went on, folding her hands into her lap again, straightening up, "that you're willing to at least not publicly speak out against my candidacy or policies."

"No, of course - I wouldn't do that," Thea said, quickly. "I'm not - what am I going to do, bitch to the press about you grounding me after I broke into that clothing store?"

"Well, you could talk about some of our recent disagreements about what we owe the poor of this city," Their mother pointed out, smiling. Thea tucked some hair behind her ear and looked away for a moment. "Like I said, I don't have an issue with your idealism, Thea. I don't share it, but I would love to be proved wrong, someday. But I... I don't want to be seen publicly arguing with my children, politically. So if a reporter asked you about your views on my candidacy, or my policies..."

"I won't say anything." Thea assured her. "I mean, what reporter expects an eighteen year old to know what they're talking about when it comes to politics anyway?" Oliver detected a slightly bitter note underneath the sarcastic humor, which Oliver recognized from Laurel, when she'd complained about her opinions not being taken seriously by adults when she was a teenager.

"The bigger problem," Oliver said after a long moment, "is the fact that I've openly supported Blood in the press, held a fundraiser for him, I'm his friend. I can't do all that while you're running." 

"That is true. I know you agree with many of his policies-"

"Family is more important than politics," Oliver said firmly. His mother wanted this. And he didn't want to be the one to stand in the way. It wasn't a crazy choice. And... his mother would be a better Republican candidate than any other likely alternative he'd heard of from Sebastian, or Laurel.

And it's not like it would be impossible for me to try to convince her to...  do more? His mother was not an immovable woman, so... 

"I don't think there's any rule that says you can't be his friend. More civility in politics is just a good thing in general," his mother pointed out. "I'm more concerned about how he'll react to you pulling support for his campaign, given the way he whipped angry mobs against you before." He could tell his mother's concerns were sincere, but it was just like her to make that sort of assumption about a man like Sebastian.

"Sebastian has already apologized for all that, even before I started supporting his campaign. He just didn't know me, and he was angry, looking for a target, like a lot of people were. As for our friendship... if he actually ends that over me supporting my family, then maybe he wasn't the man I thought he was." Oliver shook his head. "I don't think he will though."

Oliver took a breath. "I think you could be an excellent Mayor for Starling," which Oliver did think was true. More or less. "And as for the press's attention - I can handle that. And I will pull my support for Sebastian's campaign, and any disagreements we have - I'm more than happy to keep them private." Which he would have preferred to do anyway. 

No one needed to know that he and his mother disagreed on political issues, even before she was running. It wasn't their business.

Smiling, their mother reached across the desk and took one of his hands, and the one of Thea's hands, squeezing both gently.

"Then, with your blessing, I suppose I'm running for Mayor."

January 25th, 2014

The Foundry, Starling City

"Okay, Laurel, please, can we take five?" Roy said, stepping back, sweat covering him, his forehead all but dripping. Laurel hesitated for a moment, then pulled back, nodding. "Thanks." Roy started to towel off after setting his meteor hammer down. He was learning fast with it, and though Laurel was still unsure if he was ready for the field...

She wasn't sure she could justify not giving him a chance to do it. Something relatively safe, a normal patrol, let him take on a single criminal. Mugger, carjacker, armed robbery. Assault. See how he handled it.

His costume was now set. In keeping with the color theme, Roy's outfit was red. It had been his choice, Laurel was a little skeptical given his own fondness for the color in his everyday life, but he said he could just start wearing hoodies of a different color. And he had, so far. So she'd decided not to push the issue. 

His new choice of name had annoyed Oliver, since Oliver really didn't like the idea of the whole 'colors in front of the name' thing becoming a pattern. When he'd started correcting people who'd called him the 'Hood' with 'the Arrow', Laurel had suggested 'Green Arrow', since she was 'Black Canary'.

Oliver had rejected the idea flatly. She loved her boyfriend, but sometimes she wondered just what went through his head. She knew outside observers - Sara, Thea, Roy, and everyone else they both knew - sometimes saw Oliver and her as practically one unit, one mind, and there was a lot to that, but...

Sometimes, Oliver really is from Mars.

Regardless of exactly when, the 'Red Whirlwind' would be coming out  onto the streets of Starling soon. 

The name made sense, given the way he moved, and the way the Meteor Hammer would work. It suited the young man's sense of... 'coolness factor' too, Laurel suspected. For Roy, as much as this was important work he believed in, Laurel was fairly certain there was a certain... excitement to it all, motivating him.

Reminded her of Nyssa, in a strange way. Fighting was, for Nyssa, fun. Combat in all its forms, serious or otherwise. Roy didn't take the same thrill in it all in her, but the exhilaration of it all was a draw. The training had been about making Roy take it seriously, smooth off some of his roughest edges in that regard, and it was working.

"So what do you think about those guys that got cut up in that fancy mansion?" Roy asked. "You can't just be thinking that's an ordinary criminal who decided to get medieval, right?"

No, I don't. "Swords aren't exactly something your average person picks up and starts hacking limbs off with, no," Laurel shook her head. "On a basic level, anyone can use a sword with a little practice - pointy end goes in the other man, hit the other guy with the slashy bit." Roy gave her an incredulous laugh at her choice of language. 

"What, you've never seen the movie that first line is from?" Roy shook his head. Laurel started. Mask of Zorro was a classic! Well, as much as anything less than twenty years old can be a classic. It's really good though!

"Not really one for movies. Just the ones I've seen with Thea, mostly." Roy shrugged. 

"Well, you should watch Mask of Zorro, but -" she waved a hand, returning to the problem at hand. "There's a very good chance Cyvus Vanch was holed up there. From what Oliver and Sara dealt with after he kidnapped me," she grimaced, remembering how much she'd hated playing along when he'd first come at her, "he doesn't hire completely useless thugs, and he gives them some serious heavy weaponry. To be able to take on all those people, armed like that - we're looking at a group. There's only so many people in the world capable of that sort of violence with a sword." 

"You?" Roy knew her initial training had been with swords.

"...Technically." Laurel admitted, voice quiet. "Though against that many people at once, I wouldn't do it without backup if I had a choice." Only one person ever could have. "There's a few possibilities I can think of, people I've heard rumors about, seen their handiwork. I'll ask Felicity to run some searches when she has a moment. It's not the people who trained me though."

"Aren't they supposed to be major vigilantes? Why wouldn't they?"

"Because they hold to their honor, and they respect that Starling is Oliver's and mine. Ours to protect. It's a very old school, feudal way of looking at the world, but it keeps them out of the city, so I can't complain." Not that she hadn't reached out to Nyssa indirectly, just in case.

"No, this gang is something else. We'll figure them out, and stop them from leaving more bodies in their wake."

She gestured at Roy, "Ready to go some more?"

Roy shook his head, "I - not really." He let out a breath, "I feel like I'm a walking bruise right now." He held up a hand, "You're not working me any harder than usual, I'm just - hopefully later."

Laurel bit her lip. I have been working him a little harder. The other shoe of Vanch's blackmail. Felicity had set up programs to alert any of them if she picked up police or FBI chatter about either Oliver or her being vigilantes, but the lack of any sign from that didn't mean Vanch hadn't sent it out. They could be vetting it, checking it.

And less concerned about China White and Danny Brickwell than Sara didn't mean she wasn't worried about them, and what they'd do if they were behind it.

But there wasn't anything she could do. And until it was dark, she couldn't go and search for Vanch. She was going to tear the city apart if she had to to find him. And she had to hope that whatever attack had happened had stopped him from doing what he'd threatened.

January 25th, 2014

Sara Lance's Apartment, Starling City

Sara didn't have much time. Six hours maybe, before she needed to get back in. Susan William's questions on if this was a new vigilante had taken the city by storm, and the police commissioner was riding Captain Pike's ass, and Captain Pike was riding all their asses about solving this murder, and catching the new vigilante or vigilantes, before the public gave them a name, before the Arrow or Black Canary got involved...

Which - well. Too late.

Canvassing the neighborhood, running prints, checking into the movements of every one of the thugs that Vanch had gathered to him.

And it had been Vanch. The prints had matched.

"Losing a hand couldn't happen to a nicer shithead." Sara muttered to herself, flicking the lights on as she closed the door to her apartment. She needed to take a shower, get a few hours sleep - food could wait. She could just grab something on the way-

"Well, that hurts me, Detective," There was a click of a gun, and Cyvus Vanch stood there, a gun in his hand, safety off, aimed directly at her. His words were amiable, but there was nothing amiable, nothing friendly about his tone. None of his faux-civility, his attempts at pretending they were friends. Not even to mess with her.

His tone was angry, grim, deadly. His eyes stared at her blazing with hate. Sara's hand flew to her service weapon, but he leveled the gun at her directly, finger tightening on the trigger. Sara's eyes flicked down to his other hand, or - the stump.

Bandages were wrapped around it. Sara didn't even understand how Vanch was functioning. The pain? The blood loss? He must have cauterized the wound, or something. 

"Who the hell attacked you, Vanch?!" Sara demanded.

Vanch giggled madly, sounding almost like he was out of breath. "You think - oh, Detective Lance, it doesn't matter who attacked me, because you're not leaving this apartment alive. I gave you and your useless friends everything on a platter and-"

"And the Man in the Skull Mask is dead, Vanch. Who. Attacked. You?" Sara enunciated each word slowly, so maybe he'd actually understand them.. "You have to want the people who sliced off your hand as much as we want to find them."

Vanch stared at her, bringing his stump up to his hair as if to grab his head for a moment, giggling more. "My god. You - you really don't get it. You don't get how fucking much you screwed up. How fucking screwed you are. Oh my god, I knew you were stupid and -" He stepped closer. "There's no asking questions, Detective. There's just you begging for me to kill you." 

"Never." I suppose Vanch could still do a lot of damage, even with one hand...

"Never say never, Detective." Vanch grinned, baring his teeth. "Now, draw your gun. Slowly, and drop it on the ground."

Sarah's hand pulled her gun, diving to the left, expecting a bullet, hoping she was able to avoid the worst of the shots-

Vanch's gun clicked empty. Sara stared at him, standing up straight as he tossed the gun aside. 

"Oh no, you're not getting away with things that easily. No quick death for you. I really hoped that when it came time to kill you, I could really take my time." He looked her over, smirking lasciviously, licking his lower lip in an exaggerated way as Vanch parted his mouth open a little. Sara shuddered, instantly feeling like she needed a shower. "After all, you're very attractive, Detective, and I really do like to take my time with a beautiful woman."

"Touch me, and I'll crush your balls." She aimed her pistol at his crotch. "Or just shoot them off."

Vanch held up his hand and his stump. "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, now would you?" Vanch shook his head, stepping closer. "You're still too much of a goody two-shoes for that." He lowered his voice, "There's only two ways this ends, Detective. Either I leave this apartment after torturing you to death, the last few hours of your life spent begging, or you arrest me. And I tell the cops who your sister really is. I tell the judge and jury and bailiffs and everyone else at my trial. I tell everyone in prison. I keep telling until someone kills that bitch, and you have to know you could have stopped it. I don't need video evidence for enough people to believe me." 

He doesn't-

The phone. Sara swallowed. Someone really didn't want someone to make a phone call. She'd said it seriously, but almost as a jest but -

Did he really have no backups? Or maybe he just can't get at them? Vanch wouldn't want to risk any of his goons getting at the video, so maybe he really didn't...

"I'm not stupid enough to believe you wouldn't tell everyone anyway." Sara hissed, pushing her pistol into his chest. She brought her other hand up to him, shoving him backwards. He took the push well, stepping back gracefully, hands still raised. He gestured with his head to her kitchen counter, a pair of zip ties sitting there.

"You're going to put your gun down and put those on." Vanch ordered, nostrils flaring. "I may not be able to really take as long as I want, but it'll be enough. As for your sister - I'll be leaving Starling after I'm done with you. Your sister? Her boyfriend? This whole damn city? You're all screwed, because you can't accomplish the most basic of shit! It'll be fun to watch, from a safe distance. But I'm not leaving Starling without some 

They're screwed? Sara could only assume he meant the people who had taken out his men. He had to think they were going to do something bigger... and that they wanted to kill the Black Canary and the Arrow...

Can't accomplish...? How did anyone screw up? Was he expecting them to deal with the people with swords? 

Sara opened her mouth to ask him again, but - there was nothing. No. Vanch wasn't going to talk. There was nothing but hate and rage and a narcissistic, psychotic manchild who was going to get even, one way or another.

There was no reason there. Vanch was just spewing nonsense.

"I'm not going to do anything of the sort." Sara shook her head. "I have a better suggestion. You put them on."

"Really?" Vanch shook his head. "And here I was thinking you'd give anything to protect your sister. I misjudged you."

"I'd die to protect her, gladly. But that's not what letting you have your sick, twisted, pathetic revenge on me would do." Sara told him, swallowing. "My god, Vanch, you really are so fucking worthless, even by the standards of criminals."

"Big words, considering that I have your sister's life in my hands. How long do you think the Black Canary will last in prison?" Vanch licked his lips again, the same disgusting way as before. "You know, I know some people in the prison system. Even in prison myself, I could probably get a video of it. I'll make sure someone sends you a copy. You're a dyke, you'd appreciate it, right?" 

Sara made a face, stepping back, feeling sick even at the implication - of everything he was saying. It - Vanch was just trying to set her off. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Physically, she wasn't about to throw up, but -

All in my head. All in my head. Vanch wanted to live. He was so sure he had all the cards. She just - she just had to get it. Get inside his head. 

But Vanch was unraveling. The absence of his usual facade, the hysterical, almost insane laughter, the - he might be easier to manipulate in a way, easier to set off, but he would also be more unpredictable. Could she get inside his head?

Vanch gestured at the ties with his stump again. "Put them on."

"No. And you're not going to reveal Laurel's identity." Sara inhaled a shuddering, staggered breath. 

"You can't stop me. Like I said, there's only two choices here, Detective." Vanch pulled a knife out of his coat, flipping it in his hand for a moment, then driving it into her counter. "I'm unarmed." He stepped away from the knife. "I have no other weapons. You don't have a choice. Either you arrest me, or you do what I tell you."

"Meekly submit to torture, you mean?"

"Well, once you're tied to the chair, you can fight back as much as you want." Vanch laughed. "I welcome it, then. I love breaking a girl with some fight, after all. You arrested me the first time. You know what I like. Oh, I've been planning what I'm going to do to you for a long time. After I'd had my..." He inhaled slowly, stretching things out, looking upwards a little, "fun with you, I was going to start with your eyes. So you could never see what I was about to do." He gestured at her face. "Then I'd take my time from there. First you, then it would be your sister. Had it all planned out."

"And you call me an idiot? Even if you could have gotten me, there's no way you could have gotten Laurel?"

Vanch shook his head. "Oh, you underestimate me."

"Not even close. You like living too much. So stand down now."

"Or what? You'll kill me? In front of the camera recording this and saving it to the computer?" Vanch gestured over the kitchen counter, into her living room, where a tripod was set up. Her eyes had been so focused on Vanch, she hadn't even seen it. "It's not recording sound, of course, no reason to give you a chance of self-defense."

"Repeating tactics? I thought you said you didn't have the video of Laurel and the Count." Sara's eyes flicked to the camera, then back to Vanch.

"I don't. But I don't need it for this. And if it works, It works." Vanch took a step towards her. 

If I arrest him, he spills Laurel's identity. To everyone. If I don't arrest him... I can't - Sara wasn't going to - she wasn't going to just sit there, and let him torture her. 

Somehow, against all odds, she'd lucked out. Vanch hadn't been able to release that video. His word wouldn't be enough for the police. Maybe not even enough for a criminal. Not on its own. But -

 He's just playing the same tricks. Vanch has never been creative. He doesn't - he doesn't trust people. He wouldn't be able to set up some fancy automated system. She'd always believed him when he said he had a deadman switch, but -

If he did, it had failed, miserable.

He never had one, had he? He'd played her. Played on her assumptions. His own assumptions.

Vanch took another step, and reached out for her, putting his hand on her shoulder. Sara pulled herself away from his grip, pressing the gun against his chest.

Vanch ignored it as he started to monologue, arrogant, smug, controlled fake-civil tone coming back, his sense of assurance coming back. 

"You may as well stop pretending. You're not going to kill me in cold blood. You don't have it in you." He leaned forward, whispering. "You don't have the killer instinct." He straightened up, speaking in a normal tone again. "Your sister does, even if she seems to be pretending. Queen does. You? You believe in the law, in order. In right and wrong. That killing people is bad." He said that part in a sing-song, nasally voice, mocking the idea. 

"I could have had your sister first, and as long as I was unarmed, you wouldn't kill me. That gives me all the power here, Detective Lance. Because I'm willing to do all sorts of things that you won't. That's always been the thing that I built my empire on. You have lines. Queen - now Queen had a chance to really be something. Then he stopped killing... much. And your sister - my god, your sister! The way she fights?" He brought his fingers to his lips in an exaggerated 'chef's kiss'. "A real artist."

"But you? Oh, you have the most lines of them all. Makes you weak. Makes you pathetic. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what are you willing to do to see through what you want done? I'm willing to kill and die for it. You? You won't kill. You can't. Not like this. Not when you technically have me in your power. It's murder."

Sara said nothing, feeling her chest rise and fall, digging the muzzle of her pistol into him, into his chest. His heart was right there, right behind -

"It's never been about the law, for me, Vanch. The law was always a means to an end. I care about it," Vanch made a face, edges of his mouth twisted, a gagging sound escaping him. "But pushing the limits of the rules? I've been doing that my entire life." Sara laughed, feeling light-headed, the sound sounding a bit like Vanch's mad, high-pitched giggles now. 

Insanity must be contagious.

"Order? I could care less. Killing people is bad? If I thought that so categorically, I'd have turned Oliver in as soon as Laurel was rescued." Even as she said it all, Sara couldn't even tell what was truth, what was bravado.

"I became a cop because I believed in Justice. In helping people. In making this city safe."

"Yes, yes, protect and serve. Spare your posturing. We both know how this ends, Detective."

"No. You really don't. Because the best way to keep this city safe means taking monsters like you out of it. That's always been it. Murder's wrong, you're right. And if I shoot you know, it will be in cold blood." 

Sara pulled the trigger, the sound of the shot muffled only a little by Vanch's body as it went right through him, hopefully right through his heart. His body jerked involuntarily, shaking, blood trickling from his mouth as he stepped back, one pace, two, his stump flying to the entry wound as he dropped, knees hitting the ground. 

"And I guess I'm going to have to live with that."

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 17: Living With It

"The Black Canary didn't just have words to share about her relationship with her partner - in both senses of the word, it seems - the Arrow, or her work protecting the people of Starling City, but she also had a lot to say about the Starling City Police Department. Among other things, she cited their failures in protecting the poorest citizens of the city, especially in the Glades, before and after Malcolm Merlyn's terrorist attack, as the central focus that drives her work. And she came armed with specifics."

-Excerpt from the first of Perry White's Pulizter-winning articles on The Black Canary, drawn from his interview with the vigilante. Published February 4th, 2013, in the Daily Planet.

January 26th, 2013

Laurel and Oliver's Apartment

Laurel and Oliver had spent the previous night, and into the small hours of this morning, looking for Vanch, any sign of him. She'd tangled with a few of Brickwell's along the way, but they'd had nothing either, on Vanch's location. Not that she'd expected them to, but -

So far, there was still no indication that Vanch had released any evidence he had, and she was starting to suspect that his destroyed phone had had the only copy of that video. 

There'd also been no word about madmen running around with a sword either, beyond the wild rumors spreading around the city since the attack. With Sara and the rest of the SCPD all hands trying to locate Vanch and solve the high-profile attack before the 'Starling City Slashers' (as the press were already starting to call the assumed group behind the attack), they'd also been a greater need to dodge the police during their search

The simple biological need to sleep had been enough to force both her and Oliver to return to their apartment to get some sleep, but it had been a restless four hours. And despite everything else, they had to at least pretend in their normal lives that there wasn't a crisis. So Oliver had had to head to Queen Consolidated for a last minute meeting Rochev was demanding, and Laurel had to deal with some paperwork and meet with some financial advisors regarding the Trust.

But none of that changed the fact that since she'd woken up, a bad feeling had pulled at her. Sara. She needed to call Sara. she'd convinced herself to hold off, knowing Sara was dealing with a million things at once on her end, but -

She snatched her phone up and pulled up Sara's phone from her contacts. This the secure phone she used for talking about the vigilante work, but -

It rang twice, and then the voice that answered on the other end wasn't Sara's. 

"Laurel?" Her father's voice came through, loud and clear

"Dad? Why do you have Sara's phone?" She stiffened, throat feeling tight for a moment, before she controlled herself again. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?"

"I have her phone because she crashed on my couch last night and is borrowing my shower right now." Her father explained. "She's not hurt... as for okay, no, your sister's not okay."

Laurel's mind raced - their father's apartment was closer to the station, so maybe Sara had been especially tired and just crashed there? Or - but she wasn't okay so-

"What - what happened? Dad, what happened to Sara? Why did she crash on your couch?" 

"She's not okay because she killed that rat-faced scumbag Cyvus Vanch last night. He broke into her place, was waiting for her when she came home, there was some kind of confrontation, and she shot him."

He's dead. And - Sara wouldn't have killed him, no matter what, if she believed he actually had a working deadman's switch on that video.

But any prospect of feeling relief at that Damocles sword no longer looming overhead was ruined by the fact that Sara had killed someone. Her baby sister had killed someone. Her sister had killed before, that triad assassin who'd attacked her, along with China White. That one had gotten to her.

And this would too.

"What - what happened?"

"I don't know all the details. Laurel... your sister - I don't know what it is, but she's let this one get to her. It's just fucking Vanch, and the clearest case of self-defense in the world, from what the Captain told me when I called him, but killing him has her tied up in knots." Her father's tone was thick, worry evident. "She's half a zombie, Laurel. Showed up, still had blood splatter on her shirt, you should have - you should have heard her voice last night." 

Why didn't I? Why hadn't Sara - was Sara afraid Laurel would... Sara had only killed two people, counting Vanch - Laurel would never be in a position to judge her baby sister over that, and she wouldn't try. Had she just ran to Dad like she'd done when they were kids? Automatic reaction? That made the most sense to Laurel, without more information, but -

"She's... a little better now, this morning, but she's still not - I can't get to her, Laurel, she won't explain why this one has her like this." Her father let out a long breath. "She's got to go into the station, make more statements - Captain Pike said there's not gonna be some prolonged review or suspension or anything like that, thank god, but -" He cut himself off for a moment, taking a breath. "I can't get her to talk. Maybe you can. God knows your mother will never be able to get through to her."

"I thought they were doing better?" Laurel had her argument with her mother about William, and things were never going to be like they'd been before the Gambit and Mom divorcing dad and moving to Central, but still, Laurel loved her mom and things between them were good.

Sara - Sara still seemed to resent their mother for divorcing Dad, for moving - and though they'd made movements towards reconciling, Laurel would hesitate to say either of them was 'good'. 

"They might be, I've never asked, but - your mother has never liked Sara being a cop, and she'd only have variations on 'I told you so' to say to Sara." Laurel wasn't sure if the bitterness in her dad's voice was rooted in his actual belief in how her mother would talk to Sara, or in his own bitterness about the divorce.

Probably both. Laurel didn't think he was completely right, but given how Sara and her mother were doing, even optimistically, she might not help.

"What time is she going into the station?"

"She's gonna have to leave in about half an hour." Not enough time for Laurel to be there and talk to her, try to figure out what had her like this. 

"I'll go to the station and meet her after she's done then," Laurel promised. Which meant she had enough time to at least deal with the paperwork, but she'd have to reschedule the meeting with the financial advisors. "Sara's tough. She can get through this." 

"Yeah, she is," her father said softly. "I'll tell her you called. Was there- anything you wanted to pass on?"

A lot, but nothing you can hear, dad. "Just - tell her I love her, and I know she's a good person. I'll - I'll talk to you later, Dad." She hung up, licking her lips slowly.

Vanch was dead, and the threat of his blackmail, that video, was no longer hanging overhead. That was, unambiguously, a good thing. That Sara was the one to kill him was a lot less good, but - Sara was a good person. She was hardly a murderer. If Vanch had broken into her place, and was waiting there for her - Sara wouldn't have just shot him in cold blood, and Captain Pike wouldn't be calling it clear-cut self-defense if she had. 

So the real problem was that she was tied up in knots about it. 

In a way, it was good, that her sister was broken up over killing someone, even a guy like Vanch. In the League, Laurel had eventually reached a point where killing hadn't done that to her, and she had hated that, hated herself, for a long time after.

Of course, it wasn't good that Sara was 'half a zombie'. And Laurel would help her sister through that.

Finishing getting dressed, Laurel dialed her Administrative Aide at the Trust, "Hey, it's Laurel - something's come up. Family thing. I can still sign those papers and get everything set to file, but then we're going to have to reschedule the meeting with the financial advisors." She stepped into the hallway, phone between head and shoulder. 

"No, I know it's important, but this is important too. Just - Okay. Tomorrow. Same time. I'll make tomorrow's meeting, I promise, barring the whole city catching fire or something." She paused, letting her overworked aide respond, then, "Okay, fine, even if the whole city is on fire, I'll be there for the meeting." She forced a small, but genuine-sounding laugh, "I'm not sure they'll be there if it is, but I'll be there. Promise."

She hung up, taking another breath, and pausing to knock lightly on the wood-paneled walls of the hallway leading to the elevator.

Just in case she'd nearly jinxed them all.

January 26th, 2013

Starling City Police Department

Sara had told her Dad that she could - and wanted to - make the drive from his place to the precinct, and she'd meant it when she'd said it, but then she'd slipped into autopilot and paid almost no attention to what she was doing, despite repeated attempts to break through the fog in her mind. As a result, Sara was almost stunned that she'd reached the station without an accident.

But she'd managed it.

Every few moments, shooting Vanch replayed in her mind. What he'd said. What she'd said. What she'd done. How she'd killed him. Just... shot him. Watched him lay there for nearly a minute before finding the presence of mind to call it in.

And even more, she played her own emotional state before, and after. How she'd felt, how she'd made the choice to kill him. The cold blooded choice that there really was no other choice.

And the fact that she didn't feel bad about that.

Much.

That fact - that she only felt a small twinge of guilt and regret at murdering a man - was the real problem. And what that meant about her. About her as a person, as a sister, as a daughter, as a cop.

What everything she'd done in the last year and a half meant about her as a cop.

She hadn't been able to come to any conclusions. Or stop that image from playing out, that memory of him dying looping through her mind. 

I'll have plenty of time to get it worked out. She'd killed a man in the line of duty before, once. Genuine self-defense. She hadn't even been trying to kill him, there'd - there's just been too much going on and three Triad assassins and China White fighting with her sister - she'd killed the man.

She'd only had a few nightmares about that. It was too clear-cut for her to feel too much guilt. And that was before she'd run into all the other moral and ethical quandaries regarding the badge she carried, the uniform she wore. 

That time, it had been a week of Administrative Leave, a review, and a psych eval. Sara didn't look forward to that last part, how much she'd have to lie about to the therapist. But there was no getting out of that part.

This time? It was a lot less clear-cut, and she couldn't imagine she'd have less time on leave. The review would be more rigorous too. The psych eval would still probably only be the one session, she knew how much therapy was derided by most of her fellow officers and detectives. 

Don't say that like you didn't start to agree with them about it for a while there. 

Now, of course, Sara would have killed to have a therapist she could actually trust to talk to. 

She bit her lip as she took the elevator up into the precinct. 

Really poor choice of words there.

The elevator dinged and Sara swallowed, taking one last deep breath as the doors opened, stepping out into the main body of the station. She could - she could do this. She just had to push past the knots in her stomach and -

For a moment, everything seemed normal, people at their desks, talking, taking calls, paperwork, walking to and from the coffee machines in the break room. She looked ahead, charting a clear path to Captain Pike's office and then a few people caught sight of her. Sara braced herself for -

Well, she wasn't sure what for, but it wasn't what she got.

An officer, one she recognized who lost his brother (also an officer) in the line of duty six years ago faced her, brought his hands apart, and then back together, repeating the gesture. Then a detective, one of the ones she'd worked on the original task force to take down Vanch the first time joined in. Within moments three, then four, then even more of the people in this part of the station were clapping, several who had been sitting stood for her.

Sara stood still, staring at everyone for a moment, biting her lower lip, trying very hard not to start hyperventilating. She closed her eyes, swallowing a moment, the knots in her stomach getting worse, a bit of bile rising -

No. No. Sara forced it down, concentrating, taking a breath.

"Congrats on finally getting that bastard for good," a detective said, coming up to her to shake her hand. Sara managed to return the gesture, mechanically, saying something - she wasn't even sure what, but it didn't seem to provoke any kind of negative reaction. A few others came up to her as well as the applause ended, all sharing similar sentiments, not expressing relief that Vanch was dead, which Sara could understand, but congratulating her, as if she could be proud of the fact that she killed an unarmed man in cold blood.

As if that was some great achievement.

Not everyone had been clapping, and Sara met eyes with one of them, the guy from IA who had obliquely warned her about the investigation her way regarding everything the vigilantes. She nodded at him, and he nodded back, before returning to his desk.

It's not - it's not that it's not good, on a certain level, that Vanch can't hurt anyone, and I hate that I'm thinking that, but - it is. But... 

It wasn't something to cheer, or congratulate over. Was this - was this really the SCPD? It wasn't the entire department, not even close but -

Sara shut down her thoughts before she started down another spiral she'd never get out of. She - she'd have time to sort through it all. This was - this wasn't the be all and end all of the SCPD.

"I - I need to talk to Captain Pike," Sara said, using that as an excuse to step away from someone asking her about what happened. 

"Right." the other police detective nodded. "Still. That slimy son of a bitch is dead. I owe you a drink sometime." He returned to his desk and Sara continued on to Captain Pike's office, opening the door.

Sara was surprised there was no one from IA or the Review Board in the Captain's office with him. It was just the Captain. 

"Captain Pike," Sara said, trying not to stand stiffly. 

"Detective Lance. Have a seat." Pike gestured to the chair, and Sara sat down. "You should be able to have your apartment back tonight, there's not really much need to keep it sealed up, since there's not a long investigation into the death that needs to happen."

"That's good to hear," Sara said, trying to sound less mechanical, but the words just sort of came out, stilted. "What am I looking at Captain?"

"Well, despite what some people would probably like, I can't exactly give you a medal for killing Vanch," Pike said. Sara felt the bile in her throat again, but the fact that Pike didn't seem disappointed by that fact - that was good. It wasn't as if he wanted to give her one. Pike was a straight shooter.  Too straight, maybe, given his stance on the Arrow and especially the Black Canary, the desire to catch them more than some of the criminals they dealt with, but -

"But I mean, this is a pretty clear cut case of self-defense. This isn't you just getting in a shootout with some perp or suspect who refused to come quietly or a gangland shooting." Pike continued. "There's a few people in IA who want to give you major grief over this, but they're the same assholes that have been sniffing after you ever since your sister got kidnapped by Vanch the first time, so..." Pike shook his head.

"You always know there's a risk that a criminal you take down might come after you or your family, but this Vanch guy - a whole new level of that." Pike observed, letting out a sigh. "Haven't seen a lot of guys quite that obsessed in my time."

"I hurt Vanch's ego. Repeatedly." Sara said, truthfully. Even if there was more going on. "He has - had an inferiority complex, covered by all that narcissism." And he was clever. Simple, yes, but clever. "It's just - it's just good he never managed to do worse."

"Very. But that does figure into the calculations here. Vanch broke into your home, armed, and represented a clear and present danger to you and your family - not just then, but for the future."

"He wasn't armed. His gun was empty and he'd put down his knife. He - he wanted me to surrender so he could... lord it over me."

"That's what you said when you called it in, but he did have another pistol and several more knives on his person," Pike handed her a copy of the evidence report from her apartment. Sara looked it over, inhaling as she saw the list. No cell phone. Not even a burner. No indication of any digital files, nothing that could hold the view.

And yeah. Weapons. Another pistol. More knives. She supposed both of those things made sense for Vanch. He wouldn't want to give up control by going completely unarmed, no matter how sure he was of everything. 

She should have thought of that. 

She hadn't.

And either way he didn't have any weapons in his hands. And weapons aren't why I killed him.

"I didn't know that he did! I - self-defense doesn't cover deadly force unless I had no choice! I had a choice. I could have - I could have shot his arm or his leg or... anything!" Sara knew why she didn't. Why she hadn't been able to risk taking him in alive, and she couldn't say it, not without risking more than herself and -

"A man responsible for dozens of murders broke into your home to pursue a year-long vendetta and then came up to you." Pike insisted, "There's not a jury in the world that would convict a cop with your record of anything over this." He shook his head. "Even if there was anyone at the DA's office willing to commit the kind of career suicide it would be to prosecute."

It's not exactly good that prosecutors aren't willing to go after cops. Granted, Sara agreed that her case was different than the more flagrant instances of her fellow cops getting away with things, but - 

"I - I'm not saying I think I deserve to go to jail for this- God no," Sara said with a certainty she didn't entirely feel. "But that's not what I was asking. I just wanted to know what sort of Administrative Leave I'd be put on, what sort of review process there'd be. Whatever weapons he did have on him, which again, I didn't know about, I still killed a man!"

"You killed Cyvus Vanch." Pike pointed out, as if that changed things enough to matter. 

"There's a process, rules - Vanch wasn't armed when I killed him."

"He had the weapons on him, and a clear pattern of behavior. You were fully justified in the use of deadly force, Lance." Pike countered. "The Review board is meeting later today, but I can't imagine they're going to have any issues to discuss. It's cut and dry."

CUT AND DRY?! Sara grabbed onto the arms of the chair, trying to hold herself back from shouting, not out of anger, but confusion, bafflement, the insanity, the vertigo of what the captain was saying.

The board was meeting later today? IA had already made a clear decision? Things didn't move that fast! They never did!

"Why is the review- Okay," she shook her head, that - that didn't matter. "Okay. That - but what sort of Administrative Leave am I looking at?" Sara asked again.

How long would she have to sort through all this?

"None, obviously," Captain Pike shook his head. "Detective, the SCPD is short-staffed as it is, and for all your preference for certain... unorthodox choices, you're one of the best detectives we have. Your father has every right to be as proud as he is of your performance."

A year and a half ago, that would have been something she'd have loved to hear. Hell, something she had heard - her dad wasn't effusive in his praise all the time or anything, but he had told her he was proud of her when she became an officer, and when she became a detective, and after her first major case.

Today? It just drove in the knife. Drove in the knife that her dad - while hardly congratulating her for killing Vanch, at least - hadn't understood why she was like this. Because he couldn't understand. Sara couldn't say anything without revealing too much.

I didn't kill him out of self-defense. I killed him to -

She'd killed him because of what he knew. She'd murdered a man just to silence him. The danger he'd posed to her, unarmed as he'd seemed - had been a distinctly secondary factor in that final choice.

Sara blinked as she processed the first part of what Pike had said. "No - no leave? Sir - this is the second time I killed someone in the line of duty!" Sara laid her hands flat on his desk, fighting the urge to stand up and yell at him, shout some sense into the Captain. "I - last time I - I had a week's administrative leave, and it wasn't - it wasn't - it was a lot less ambiguous than this, since that person was actually shooting at me!"

"Context matters, and Cyvus Vanch is a hell of a lot of context, Detective. And given when that previous incident happened, the situation in the city was very different. The SCPD needs all hands on deck to deal with these vigilantes and their copycats and all the other insanity they've brought with them!"

The vigilantes have reduced violent crime in this city! And catching them was a waste of the SCPD's time. The other things, the copycats, like the gang with swords that had attacked Vanch, those were important but the SCPD was not so short-staffed that it couldn't afford to put her on administrative leave. They had to! There had to be -

"Captain - this - there's - you can't just do nothing after I killed a man!" Sara insisted, desperately trying to salvage the eroding, crumbling ice that was holding her up above the endless sea below her. "There's rules! Procedures!"

"Like I said, there's no jury in the world that would convict you for killing Vanch under these circumstances." Pike said. "You've always been a bit... careful about use of force, Detective, and I mostly approve of that-"

The way the captain had hesitated before saying the word 'careful', the qualification before 'approve' - Sara could guess what he meant. That she was 'squeamish' about use of force. The fact that she'd never had a use of force complaint against her - and how rare that was - was something others had noticed.

She'd never thought the Captain shared the sentiment she'd occasionally picked up from others.

Oh god. That's why those people were congratulating me, wasn't it? Because they think I've finally stopped being so - so 'squeamish'. Sara pressed the back of her hand to her lips, struggling to hold back the bile again - she managed, barely, but, she wasn't - she wasn't sure she could do it much longer. Her stomach was - There was no dressing it up, no description: she felt like she needed to throw up.

"That - Captain, that doesn't mean - my badge isn't a license to kill!"

"If you were a civilian, you'd be just as covered, Lance! The man broke into your home, armed, and threatened your life! Expressed a desire to torture you- repeatedly, from what you've said, and this is part of a pattern of violence! The law around self-defense and defense of your own home is pretty clear in these cases."

"And? Shouldn't I be held to a higher standard than just any civilian?" Sara stood now, palms still flat on the desk, leaning forward. "Vanch may have actually still had weapons on him, but I didn't know. I just - I just shot him. There - there has to be some kind of... I killed someone, Captain. Hazard of the job, I knew that when I signed up, and after the first time, but - it's not something to just take lightly!"

Pike shook his head, letting out a long breath. "I understand that this whole incident is affecting you, a lot. Can't say I quite understand why you're so determined to be put on suspension or punished, and like I said, we just don't have the manpower to put you on any sort of forced leave over something like this." Pike paused, giving her a pointed look before she could respond. "That said, you, like every detective in the department, have some unused leave time, so you can take the day, at least, and be back for the review board's decision tomorrow."

"Sir, if you could-"

"Detective, take the day. Get your head screwed on straight." Pike insisted, gesturing to the door to his office. 

Sara took a shuddering, deep breath, then nodded. "Yes sir." She turned on her heel and managed to keep her head up, keep from doubling over as the nausea boiled up in her again - she barely paid attention to where she was walking. A few people gave her nods, but thankfully there were no more congratulations, there was no more applause. She barely registered, getting to the elevator and going back down to parking -

The Elevator dinged as it went down one floor, stopping at the public entrance. Sara braced herself, hand over her mouth, needing - she needed -

She hadn't had any breakfast this morning. Just coffee and water-  but the nausea was too much. She couldn't hold back much longer -  

She pulled back to the back corner of the elevator as the doors opened.

Laurel? 

"Sara? I was just going to go up to see you. Are you - stupid question, you're obviously not alright-" Her sister rushed in, pulling her in for a tight hug as the doors closed again behind her. Sara didn't - couldn't return the gesture, pushing her back - she didn't want to vomit all over her sister. Laurel stepped back, "Sara, what's-?" She started, letting go of Sara, accepting the 'don't hug me' cues, but then getting a look at her face. 

I wonder just how bad I'm looking, how obvious it is that I -

Sara held up her free hand as the elevator dinged on the parking level where she'd left her car, and she staggered out of the open door, finding the trashcan right where she could be. She doubled over, hands on the rim of the can as she emptied the contents of her stomach, the taste of bile on her tongue, filling her nose.

She wasn't sure how long she was there, reduced from emptying her stomach to just dry-heaving, her stomach still roiling, her body shaking - she felt a hand on her shoulder as she pulled back. 

"Sara?" Laurel asked. "Are you - are you sick? Did the Captain- did they put you on some kind of suspension? Take your badge?" 

She wasn't sure how, but Sara managed a dark, humorless laugh as she held onto the wall by the elevator to keep herself up. Took her badge? Was it wrong she'd almost rather that, than this?

"No. God, no, not even close," Sara managed to get out, swallowing, the taste of bile still on her tongue, burning at her throat.

January 26th, 2013

Starling City Police Department

"No. God, no, not even close." Sara said in a shaky, almost broken voice that sounded nothing like the girl Sara had known for most of her life.

Laurel wasn't sure what she'd expected when she got here, but her dad's comments about Sara being 'half a zombie' weren't even close to enough to prepare her for how shaky and pale and... hunched Sara was, the way she looked like she was being hemmed in from every direction... nor for her to be throwing up.

"Hold on, I've got some water in my car," Laurel quickly pulled away, returning to the visitor's parking just a short distance from the elevator and grabbing a bottle from her car, returning with it to Sara, who had turned to press her back against the stonework of the underground parking wall. It was her first good look at Sara's face now - the bags under her eyes, the hollowness in the eyes themselves - she looked the same in her face physically, but there was something in the way she looked, pale and with a cold sweat and -

She looked gaunt, almost.

Laurel had seen a similar look in the mirror, the first time - the first time she'd killed someone, shortly after joining the League. But this wasn't Sara's first time, and killing that triad shooter had affected her, but not like this.

She gave Sara the bottle, and watched her sister unscrew the cap, moving mechanically, taking a deep sip, swishing the water around, and then spitting it in the trash can, before taking another sip.

"Dad said that the Captain told him there wouldn't be any sort of suspension or anything, but - what happened when you went in to talk to Captain Pike?" Laurel asked softly. "Sara, what's wrong?"

"So much. So much is wrong." Sara blinked, swallowing. "But - we shouldn't - we shouldn't talk about it here." She added, voice still much the same. 

"Okay. Your place?" Maybe not, given that Sara had killed Vanch there, but, Laurel wasn't sure if Sara -

"No - no - I don't..." Sara started, and then she closed her eyes and tried again. "Actually I - that - that... I guess that works."

Laurel stared at her, confused by the change. "Okay." She took Sara's hand and pulled her sister over towards her car.

"I can drive. I took my car here. I can't leave it." Sara resisted as Laurel opened the door for her.

"Sara, please. Take a breath, get in the car. I don't - I don't think you're really in any state to drive." Her sister's movements - granted, she'd been dragging her, but - it was a shuffle, an automatic step. She was not okay. In so many ways.

What happened last night, Sara?

January 26th, 2013

Sara Lance's Apartment, Starling City

Laurel wanted to bombard her sister with questions on the way back to her apartment, but this wasn't the time, or the place and she needed more time to gather her thoughts, now that she'd seen her sister, seen what she was like.

The state of her. 

Sara had said nothing, volunteered nothing, but the way she hugged herself, hunched her shoulders, stared blankly ahead... the way she'd thrown up.

Sara wasn't a killer, which was good, and it was understandable that killing someone would leave her feeling like this. But this much seemed... out of place, when compared to that previous time. Throwing up after killing someone, yes. Throwing up the next day?

Something had happened inside the station to make her nauseous. But it had to stem from the same thing.

Guilt.

Laurel couldn't imagine that Sara felt guilty about killing Vanch of all people more than that Triad assassin, so there had to be something about the specific context. Which meant that whatever her Dad had said and presumably whatever Captain Pike had said, it wasn't 'clear cut self-defense'. 

Laurel didn't think it was really murder. Her sister wasn't - wasn't capable of that. Not as she was, not with what she'd experienced. Even normal, once well-adjusted people could become killers. Laurel was textbook proof of that. But it wasn't something that happened overnight. It had taken a lot for Ollie and her to get there, taken the sorts of circumstances and experiences that Laurel would never let happen to her sister. 

Never.

But Sara wouldn't be this broken up if she'd just killed the guy when he came at her armed. Or at least, that didn't make sense.

When they finally got inside Sara's apartment, there were still bloodstains on the kitchen tile. Sara stopped to stare at them for a long moment. 

"I just stood here after I killed him," Sara said quietly. "A minute... just watching him, bleeding. I - I just... I just stared." She looked at her hand, the one she'd have shot with. "Then I called... I called it in..." She swallowed, looking back at Laurel. 

"You were in shock." Laurel said, hand on her sister's shoulder again. "Let's get you onto the couch, okay. There's cleaning services that specialize in this sort of thing, or you and I can take care of this later." Tile wasn't as bad as carpet or wood. 

Sara didn't resist as Laurel steered her out of the kitchen and onto the couch. "You don't have any herbal tea, do you?" Sara shook her head. "Didn't think so." Her sister needed something warm, but coffee was a bad idea. "Decaf coffee?" Sara looked blankly at her. "Right. Dumb question." Laurel held back a sigh, "Do you have anything non-caffeinated in your house that isn't water or beer?"

"The closest would be hot cocoa... I think - I think I have some in the cupboard over the dishwasher -" Sara started to stand, and Laurel pushed her back down, hands on her shoulders. "Stay there. Sit. Sara, please." 

"Laurel - I - I'm not - I'm not an invalid." Sara insisted back, and Laurel shook her head, though at least there was something over than the dead, broken tone in her voice this time. That was good.

"Please, Sara." Laurel repeated, gently pushing Sara back onto the couch when she tried to get up again. This time Sara nodded, slowly, and Laurel went back into the kitchen.  Sara did indeed have a couple of packets of instant hot cocoa in the back of the cupboard, and Laurel grabbed that, heating two mugs of water in the microwave while she did so. 

A few minutes later, she returned and handed a cup to Sara, who held the mug in her hands, letting it warm her hands. Laurel took a sip of her own, looking at Sara, waiting for her to start., Or at least, giving her the chance.

"They congratulated me." Sara said quietly, staring past Laurel, at the wall.

"Who?"

"The - a lot of the other cops and detectives. When I came in. They clapped. They applauded me for killing someone." Sara shook her head. "They didn't applaud when I caught him the first time. Or the second. I did get congratulated, the first time." She added, tilting her head to the side, as if conceding something. "And this time. 'Congrats on finally getting that bastard for good.'"

Shit. Laurel could see how that could -

Sara was already feeling guilty, and her coworkers drove the knife in further.

"Did I ever tell you... after the first time I killed someone, in the League?" Laurel murmured. 

Sara looked at her, eyes wide, "No. You never talk with me about the League."

Laurel blinked, about to protest and then... she realized she really didn't. She talked to Oliver - there was nothing during those five years Oliver didn't know about, and vice-versa. But she'd never shared many details with Sara.

"Nyssa congratulated me. Not so much for killing him, but for... how well I did it. How efficiently. We had something I'd almost call a party." Laurel said. There was a tradition in the League - not followed by everyone, but - for a sort of... ceremony, after a new recruits first mission, if it truly was a success.  Laurel really wasn't sure you could call it a party. In a way it was, but... there was too much ritual to it to really count.

And of course, Laurel hadn't been in a festive mood.

She'd discovered another part of the tradition - that is, sex - when Nyssa had tried to kiss her, propositioned her. Thankfully, the other woman had taken 'I'm not into girls' and 'I still love my dead boyfriend' as answers. They were true, but Nyssa probably would have been less happy to accept 'I don't think murder is a cause for celebration'. Either way, Nyssa had moved past any disappointment quickly.

"She at least has the excuse of having been raised in a murder cult." Sara remarked, bitterly. "They don't have that excuse." She took a breath and reached out for Laurel's hand with one hand, taking it and squeezing it for a moment. "But... thank you. For telling me." Sara murmured. 

Sara's grip on her mug slackened a little, and Laurel caught it before it slipped and fell to the ground, setting it aside on the coffee table next to her own.

"I... I can't promise total transparency about the League..." Laurel admitted. "But I -"

"I've never pressed because I know you don't want to talk about it." Sara interrupted. "Don't... don't feel like you have to talk about it just to make me feel better." She squeezed Laurel's hand again. "I... It's - you understand, how it feels to have someone praising you for murder, then."

"Murder?" 

"Close enough," Sara closed her eyes. "He - he was here, when I came home. Went on and on about... god knows what. Wasting time. Hearing himself talk." She barked a hollow, cutting laugh, all sharp-edges and darkness. "Probably to bamboozle me, or just mess with me. He didn't have the video anymore." She shook her head. "But he still knew. And he could tell anyone. Promised he would. He'd tell cops, and fellow prisoners and... he promised it would be worse than just you dying."

Laurel swallowed. She'd wondered - she'd wondered if that had played a role in the killing of Vanch. Sara I never - I never wanted you to do anything like that for me.

But Laurel... Laurel would have done the same, if their positions were reversed. Had done the same, ot as close as she could, anyway, when the Count had talked about how he thought Vanch was going to torture and kill Sara.

But I'm the killer. Sara isn't. Her baby sister was the cop. She wasn't supposed to be... she wasn't supposed to become a killer herself.

And she's not. Vanch still broke in. He was still a threat.

And even if -

Well. It was Sara. Her sister. 

"He told me the only choice I had to prevent that was to..." she took a breath. "Let him have his fun with me, before he split town." The flatness of her tone made it clear what she meant, and the spike of rage that threatened to consume Laurel - gone as it was in moments - made Laurel...

Well. She couldn't kill Vanch twice.

"You obviously weren't going to do that." 

"No. But I-" Sara shook her head. "He was unarmed. He'd put down his gun. His knife. He had more, turns out, but I didn't know. I thought he was unarmed." 

Oh god. That was -

That was why Sara was so - she'd killed a man she thought was unarmed.

"Sara." Laurel reached for her sister, but Sara recoiled back.

"No! Don't - I don't -" She screwed up her eyes tight, tears appearing in them. "I killed him! I just - he closed the distance! He was so sure he had all the cards! He was unarmed and he was so smug and so sure that I'd have no choice but to - to let him win, either by letting him rape and torture and kill me," Sara's words choked out, tears now escaping her face as she tried to keep talking, her whole body shaking. "Or arrest him and he - there'd be no end to it. No end to him. To him trying to kill you, kill Oliver, just to hurt me! I had - I had to stop him!" 

Sara sobbed, "I had to stop him!" She said again, nearly shouting. "He was so sure - he was so sure I'd never shoot an unarmed man!" Her hands were balled into fists at her waist. "He kept going on and on about how I had no choice, because I wouldn't kill him while he was unarmed and I knew - I knew he was right, if he left the apartment alive he could - I couldn't let him - I shot him, Laurel! He walked up to me, I pressed my gun to his chest - he was -"

"He was so sure! And-" Sara stood, "He was wrong!" She spread her arms wide, "He was wrong, Sara! I was willing to shoot him in cold blood! An unarmed man! Dead. And I killed him! Because there would have been -" She dropped back to the couch, but it was more her falling backwards rather than sitting. "Because there would have been no end to him. I told myself - it had to be done. He was a monster. And he was, Laurel. My god, he was -"

Sara cut herself off, still sobbing, "But I don't - I can't just - but I did! And I'd do it again! I'd kill him again Sara! And what - what does that say about me!? What does that say about Sara Lance, Detective? God - what does that say about  Sara Lance, Human being!?!" Her words were coming out in a horrified whisper.

Laurel's chest and throat were tight, watching her sister break down in front of her. She reached for Sara again, her sister recoiled again, but Sara refused to let her, pulling her in for a hug, chin on her shoulder, not letting Sara pull away, letting Sara sob into her shoulder.

"I killed him! I shot him and they congratulated me for it and I - a badge isn't just a license to kill and I - I knew I could get away with it and I killed him and I'd - I'd always do it again!" She repeated variations on this several times as she kept crying, and Laurel didn't let her go.

Her sister was so sure she was a murderer, but Laurel knew it wasn't that simple. Her sister wasn't a monster. Her grief and guilt proved that in spades. Sara killed an unarmed man. But even if Laurel was in a position to judge, she wouldn't. 

Vanch's death wasn't something to celebrate, or congratulate. Sara was right about that. But it wasn't something to mourn. And Laurel would have done the same, and more, if their positions were reversed. 

She swallowed, hating how true she knew that fact was, the simple reality that anyone threatening her sister had a vastly shortened lifespan. It scared her, to know it was true.

And Sara was probably scared of herself, scared of what this meant about her. That this meant she was someone who used her badge to get away with murder. That she was a monster.

As her sister finally started to seem to run out of tears, Laurel spoke, still holding and hugging her.

"I forgive you, Sara." Laurel said quietly, knowing her sister needed to hear it. "You're not a monster. And whatever else, you're my sister and I will always love you." 

Sara sniffled, inhaling, trying to take a deep breath, but failing repeatedly. She pulled back a little. "I-" She cut herself off, swallowing, trying to take a deep breath and succeeding this time, shuddering and shaky though the breath was as she inhaled, exhaled. 

She sniffled again, pulling back a little from Laurel's shoulder, wiping at her eyes. 

"You shouldn't. It's - it's not the same as what - you didn't have a choice, in the League." Sara insisted, desperate.

"I always had a choice, Sara. That the choices were death, or be a killer doesn't change that they existed." Laurel pointed out. "I wanted to survive. I hated myself for it most days, but I did." She shook her head. "I can't tell you how to feel about what you did. But I can tell you you're not a monster. You're not even really a murderer. Not... not in any way that I would consider it."

Laurel pulled back and looked Sara in the eyes, hands on her sister's upper arms. "You didn't just find Vanch on the streets, and shoot him. You didn't kill him for 'resisting arrest'. You didn't do it out of revenge or rage or hate or -" she shook her head. "You did it because you weren't ready to die, and you wanted to protect me."

"Murder is murder, whatever the motive," Sara said, weakly, sounding like she was desperately clinging to straws in the face of Laurel's words.

Laurel didn't think she was going to just... out logic Sara's guilt and self-loathing over what she'd done with words alone, tonight. But as long as she could crack that shell...

Most days now, Laurel didn't hate herself anymore. And she'd done so much worse than Sara ever could.

This would stick with her sister. Probably forever. But one day, she'd wake up and...

The guilt wouldn't constantly be there, waiting for her when she did.

"Killing is killing, whatever the motive," Laurel corrected. "Murder..." she shook her head. "Those people who congratulated you for killing Vanch were wrong. And... killing Vanch was wrong. But you don't need me to tell you either of those things. What you do need me to tell you is that I know you. I know that whatever else, you are, and always have been, a good person. You became a police officer so you could do the right thing, so you could help people." Laurel paused, squeezing Sara's arm. 

Laurel let out a long breath of her own. 

"You killed a man. Motives don't change that fact, or that you'll have to live with that fact. But motives do change what that fact means. Context changes what that means. You killed a man as awful as Vanch, and you worry about what that says about you, you feel guilty over the fact you'd still do it again. You aren't trying to hide behind your badge, or even using the fact that killing a known murderer who breaks into your home with the intent to torture means that a lot of people would say you were justified."

Laurel shook her head, letting go of Sara's left arm and holding up her hand to keep her from interrupting. 

"Most people would tell you to stop beating yourself up over this. And I know you're smart enough to run through all the reasons why they'd have a point." Sara nodded slowly. "But point or not, you're still beating yourself up. I think, Sara," Laurel pulled her sister in for another, much faster hug, "That tells us everything you need to know, about whether you're a good person, or a killer, in your heart of hearts. One act doesn't define you. It's what you do after that act, that does."

January 27th, 2013

Laurel and Oliver's Apartment

Staring out the window was Laurel's most common reaction to not being able to sleep. Oliver wasn't sure what it was, because Laurel wasn't sure herself. 

Oliver thought that looking over the city they were both dedicated to protecting helped center Laurel, remind her why they did this, but... hard to say for certain.

He padded up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her close. "Worried about Sara?" Laurel had filled him in on all the details, about Vanch, what Sara had said, what she'd done. Oliver was no more inclined to fault Sara than Laurel, in this case. Less, possibly.

Just because I've stopped killing as much, tried to stop as much as possible, doesn't mean I don't remember why I did it. Anger and rage and kill or be killed was part of it, but he had believed - did believe - that the world was better without certain people in it.

He was just less willing to be the one to do that, now, knowing what it would continue to cost him if he did. And had narrowed his view of who would be better dead significantly.

"I am, but that's not what's keeping me up." Laurel admitted quietly. She said nothing for a silent stretch, and Oliver let her gather her thoughts. Finally: "It's the SCPD."

"That they clapped for Sara?" Oliver didn't like what that said about the police department either - though their priorities in trying to catch the Arrow and the Black Canary hadn't done much to endear him to the Department as a whole. 

"Not all of them, but yes. And not just that." Laurel sighed. "Whatever we do, unless we want to start setting up our own private prison, we have to rely on the police at some point in the process, implicitly. But if they're going to just... applaud and congratulate her over Vanch, give Sara a complete pass, just because it's inconvenient to put her on some kind of temporary suspension... and they want to catch us as much or more than deal with all the other problems they have to deal with?" 

Laurel let out a long, slow breath. "What does that say about the police? About this city, letting it happen?"

"Charitably?" Oliver offered, "It means they're so used to an old, siege and bunker mentality they don't know how to do anything else? They have a hammer, and they're going to use it on anything that looks like a nail." He grinned a little as Laurel tilted her head up a bit to look at him. 

"I seem to remember saying something like that to you, when I was in college." Laurel murmured.

Oliver chuckled, "What can I say? A very smart woman told me something, and I remembered it." He sighed. "Uncharitably, it says that the police are part of the problem, or at least a lot of them are."

But you couldn't just... get rid of them. Oliver and Laurel couldn't single-handedly stop all crime. He didn't think any number of vigilantes could, really. There were crimes that vigilantes could never directly address - someone kills their spouse in a mad fit of jealousy, or someone killed their neighbor in a spat that went too far.

There were a lot of crimes that couldn't be resolved by beating people up or turning them into pincushions. And as she said - were they just supposed to set up a private prison?

Oliver really didn't like that idea.

"Probably a bit of both," Laurel let out a breath. "But you can't exactly uncouple the two. And we can't exactly fix the SCPD ourselves."

"Not really, no. But we could keep our ear to the ground more about dirty cops, or ones that have... bad habits around force." Oliver considered. "And we could go on the offensive."

Laurel turned around in his arms, looking up at him, eyebrow raised. "Okay, so I know you're not suggesting we go into the SCPD and start hitting people with arrows and tonfa."

Oliver chuckled, "No, no. I just - you were thinking about taking Perry White up on that interview with you he clearly wants. Go on the offensive in the press. Call out the SCPD for not doing enough."

He watched a small smile form on Laurel's face. "One interview wouldn't do it, but... it would be a start." She considered, then her smile turned into a smirk. "What do you think about giving Susan Williams the scoop of a lifetime?"

Oliver started for a moment. Williams was one of the better local reporters, always willing to hold people to task. So he could see why Laurel would suggest her. "You mean-"

"Perry White may get the first interview with the Black Canary - it's only fair, since he's the first one who really went looking - but maybe Williams should get the first interview with the Arrow?"

January 27th, 2013

Starling City Police Department

Sara slept better this time. Not great. But better. If only cleaning the blood from her floor had been the hardest part, but...

The guilt still gnawed at her, but what was taking up her mind as she'd tried to sleep, as she'd gotten up, and as she walked into the elevator at the station, was the question of the SCPD. 

The applause and congratulations. Pike's blithe dismissal of the fact that she should be put on some kind of suspension, or Administrative Leave, or something. The patronizing way he'd told her to 'get your head screwed on straight'. 

The fact that Pike didn't entirely approve of how careful she was about not using too much force. The fact that Pike was on the moderate end of that spectrum.

And the running tallies of just how many laws she'd broken. That she knew of.

Vanch's death might not have counted as murder, maybe, but she'd still broken laws, misrepresenting what had happened, just a little. But that was part and parcel of the whole list. And then there was the stealing of heroin. She was just lucky he'd never asked for a lot of 'favors' before losing his hand - metaphorically and literally.

Did her badge really mean anything, after all that? And did she want it to mean something, if those were the people she had to call her compatriots?

Sara had wondered. She knew how bad the police could get. But she'd - she'd always rationalized it away. The worst were... small parts of it. And there was so much good the SCPD, all police, did. And yet. 

And yet.

And this... the way it had pulled the veneer back. The way she'd been left with little to do but think.

Please let the review board at least put some kind of reprimand in my file. There had to be rules. There had to be something done to her. 

And she'd have to make sure no one else thought her 'squeamishness' about force was gone, like they must have last night. She'd have to prove to those cops she wasn't like them.

"Detective, thank you for coming," the head of the review board said. It was a mix of civilians and detectives, there to handle questions involving potential police misconduct, office-involved deaths, complaints... They were like IA, but more bureaucrats. 

"I'm surprised you had your meeting so soon after... after the incident." Sara said. Pike wasn't in the room, there were rules about that... 

The Board would take this more seriously. They had to.

"Usually these things do take time to arrange and resolve, but in this case, it seemed prudent to move quickly," the man said. "We've gone over the facts of the case, and as will probably be no surprise to you, we aren't going to force you onto any sort of Administrative Leave or suspension over this."

Sara swallowed, but nodded slowly. "I was given to believe that was likely, yes." 

"And quite frankly, given the circumstances and context of the shooting, including the fact that Vanch broke into your home, We didn't think there's really much need for any sort of prolonged review. It's quite cut and dry."

"The facts of the incident are pretty straightforward, yes." Sara tensed. They aren't - they can't just - please! Remember the rules!

"We will need to obviously include this incident in your file, but as far as officer-involved shootings go, this is... as callous as it may be to say, not that bad." The others on the review board all nodded in agreement. "You're a successful Detective with a string of closed high-profile cases behind you, your father was an excellent detective during his tenure as one, and we really see no reason why this... unpleasant incident has to color your career going forward."

"So. Not even an official reprimand? For killing an unarmed man?!" Sara didn't let herself raise her voice.

"Hardly unarmed." The head of the board produced a folder, and passed it across the long table to her. She opened it, looking at the final report from the board, summarizing everything. "Vanch was armed when he broke in, and had multiple remaining weapons on his person."

And I didn't know about them! I didn't kill him because of them! Sara's eyes flicked over the report - it was... accurate, but it kept the descriptions too clinical, too flat, too-

Her eyes went back up a paragraph. No. That's not.

She read it a third time.

"This report is a lie." Sara said, dropping it onto the table. "Vanch did not have a knife in his hand when he approached me."

"He had four more knives on his person, and his own record makes it clear he's quite skilled and fast with them. You had every legitimate-" one of the members of the board spoke up, but Sara cut them off.

"But he didn't have a knife in his hand." Sara repeated. "I am not signing a lie."

"It's not a lie," the head protested. "It's-"

"It's not true. Therefore, it's a lie."

"If the Mayoral election goes the way it's likely to, this department will be under a microscope, Detective," the head explained. "This is true in all the relevant and important details."

Sara almost expected the nausea to return as she looked at the board, their nods of agreement, none of them protesting the lie, all agreeing it didn't matter. 

"In other words, you want me to lie to help cover the SCPD's ass. Because it's not like this is the only officer-involved shooting, or a case where an officer or detective hurt someone unarmed!" Sara's control snapped as she spoke, and by the end she was nearly snarling the words. 

"Even if he hadn't had a knife in his hand, he came up to you, and he could have attacked you in any number of ways!"

"Then say that!" Sara countered. "At least it would be truer than this!" Sara stood, so fast her chair fell over behind her. She leaned forward, hands on the table. "Is this really what the SCPD is? Willing to lie just to polish this a little bit? I killed an armed man in my apartment a year and a half ago. This same board, all seven of you, grilled me about why I killed him, why I didn't aim for a less lethal shot."

"And this same board ruled you were fine."

"But this time, there's no grilling? No Administrative Leave? You're not even formally reprimanding me or mandating me a psych eval!" Sara shook her head. 

"I don't see any reason why a detective of your caliber should be benched over this. The SCPD needs every capable officer and detective it has."

"And the incapable ones you can't go after because the union covers their ass!" Sara snapped. "The ones you shunt off to meter-reading and traffic stops! And what exactly is the SCPD doing with all its manpower? We're not patrolling the Glades, are we!? We're not going after the people who prey on the poorest people in the city! Those medicine robberies by the Triad?! Last I checked, the department was more concerned about the vigilantes!"

"The vigilantes are a bigger concern than-" One of the detectives on the board cut in, but Sara didn't let him finish.

"Then what? Then protecting and serving? Or is it just that they're embarrassing us?! And how exactly did we end up needing them to stop Malcolm Merlyn? We know Captain Stein was on his payroll. Nudocerdo was more corrupt than Nixon! Were any of you?!" Sara demanded, ignoring the offended looks from every member of the board. "How did the SCPD let the city get so bad in the first place that we needed vigilantes!?"

"This board hardly sets policy for the entire-" the head tried, but Sara couldn't stop herself. Words came to her lips unbidden, a year of secrets and lies and frustrations with herself and her own sins against the law, her entire career of knowing the police were imperfect but believing there was still enough else...

And there wasn't. Just people who want to cheer the death of a criminal, people who think excessive force is A-Ok, and a review board that wants to lie about something minor just to polish a turd in case we get a reformist Mayor.

"No, but it sure as hell could at least show a bit of integrity! Vanch was unarmed! I shot him right through the fucking heart! I didn't have to! I didn't have to resort to deadly force, and I did! That should earn me a fucking reprimand and a psych eval at a minimum!"

"I'm confused, Detective, you want to be punished?!"

Yes.

But she clenched her teeth, shaking her head, "That's not the point. There are rules! Policies! Laws! The badge should mean something, including being held to a higher standard! And yet, here you are, not doing that, because it's not expedient. Is this really what the SCPD has been reduced to?! Is the turd really that bad? Do we need to polish it with this?!" She picked up the folder again and threw it at the members of the board, papers flying out and hitting a few of them in the face.

"Detective Lance, if you're so eager to face some kind of reprimand or suspension, you're well on your way to-" The head of the board snapped, standing up himself, hands closed into fists resting on the table. "Cyvus Vanch was a criminal and a murderer, the scum of the Earth, and the city is immeasurably improved by his death!"

"That doesn't give any of us a free license to kill him! Maybe I was legally justified, but not to the extent you seem to want to claim! And not morally! But you don't care about that! You're covering up the facts! How many claims of excessive force have been leveled against the members of this department? One is too many and it's a hell of a lot more than that! And yet it's the Arrow and the Black Canary that are the problem?! IA spends its time going after me instead of the 'bad apples!'" She added air quotes to that. "Except this time. Because you need to keep the turd polished. I'm your token good cop, right? Can't let my image be tarnished even a little when it comes to use of force, so you can hold me up as proof of the SCPD getting it right, right?!"

Sara didn't even know where this was coming from, or if she was talking out of her ass - it felt true, it rang true to her, but at this point, she didn't even care.

My dad took the fall for me right before the Undertaking because the SCPD cared more about the fact that a cop worked with the vigilantes than the fact that it involved revealing a terrorist attack against this city! They gladly worked with the DA's office to single out Moira Queen, as if there weren't other members of Tempest! And god knows how many of them were complicit, bribed or not, in one or more of Malcolm's schemes!?

This is the SCPD she dedicated her life to? Maybe it had been good, maybe she'd just never realized it was this bad. Maybe she was losing her mind. Everything felt insane, impossible. Had she really missed it? 

She broke laws. Too many. Hundreds. But they were to solve the problems the SCPD itself refused to solve. She'd become an officer to help people, and maybe she had, but if this was what the SCPD wanted to be now, how much good could she do for anyone?

"Detective Lance, your wish for a suspension is granted!" The head of the board shouted. "You'll be lucky if you're thrown into traffic tickets after this!"

"The hell I will be!" Sara countered, shouting back, all caution, all sanity to the wind now. "If this really is the SCPD now, if the SCPD really cares this much about stopping vigilantes and protecting its image over actually enforcing the law and protecting people, then I want no part of it!" She waved her hand, left to right in a cutting motion. "Effective immediately, I resign!" She ripped her badge off her belt, flinging it at the desk. "I was the one the vigilantes contacted about the Undertaking. Not my father. Not that it should have mattered - it was disgraceful you busted him down to officer for doing the right thing to protect the people of the Glades!" There were reactions from the members of the review board, but she ignored their attempts to blather, to say something that didn't matter. Not anymore.

She ripped her holster off her belt, slamming it and the gun inside onto the table as well. 

"To hell with you! To hell with the entire SCPD!" Her hand flew up to her shoulder, to the patch marking her as a member of the SCPD, and she ripped it off - had she been less furious, she might have been surprised how easily it came off, but sense and reason weren't really her companions right now. 

She threw that onto the table as well. 

"To hell with all of you!" Sara said one last time, her voice level now, cold and flat, heart in her chest. "I quit." 

She ignored anything else they said as she turned on her heel, leaving the meeting room, the door slamming behind her.

There was only one thing at her desk she cared to grab as she left - a picture of her, and Laurel and dad, on Laurel's 14th birthday. One of her happiest memories with her sister, brought here when she got the desk, when she thought Laurel was dead. She'd kept it to remind her why she'd become a cop.

So much for that. I sure picked a shitty way to honor Laurel's commitment to justice and helping people, didn't I? As she passed her desk, she snatched the framed photo and continued walking, no one noticing that this would be the last time she would be in the station as a member of it.

January 27th, 2013

The Foundry, Starling City

Laurel was gearing up to go hunting again - though this time, not for criminals, or at least, not just criminals. She was about to put on her mask when the door from the outside opened up, and Sara was standing there, a large, heavy-looking box in hand. She seemed to be swaying a bit, unwieldy. It covered her face, but the position of the upper landing to the door and where she stood meant she could see her sister in profile. Hard to mistake her hair, if nothing else.

"Sara?"

"Would you and Oliver mind if I store this here for a few weeks?" Sara asked, very carefully going down the stairs. 

"I - I doubt it." Oliver might grump about it, but he wouldn't begrudge the single box for Sara. "What - what's in -" she rushed over to grab the edge of the box, helping Sara get it down the rest of the way. It was more bulky than it was heavy - though not light, by any means. They stuck it under the stairs, Sara pushing it in place.

"What - what's with the box? Why do you need to store it?"

"Well, given that I told my landlord I'm breaking my lease, it's not really an option to keep my stuff there. This is what I can't stick in my car that I actually care about keeping." Sara said quietly.

"You - you broke your lease?" Laurel stared at her sister, feeling like she was missing something.

"Given that I'm not going to be drawing a salary anymore, I can't exactly afford to pay rent on that place. Especially since the landlord gives discounts to cops, and... well, can't be a cop when you quit the force." She laughed softly. "Would be nice if the world didn't work like that, but-"

"You-" Her sister sounded... almost cheerful? There was a lightness to her voice that Laurel hadn't heard much lately. She stood tall, expression open, in a way Laurel realized now that Sara hadn't in a while. 

"You love being a detective. I don't - I don't understand?"

"I loved being able to help people, being able to help bring killers to justice. Being a cop was just the way I could do that." Sara shook her head. "But the SCPD isn't the one I joined. Maybe it never was, but it sure isn't now."

"Because of the applause and -" This was her sister, it sounded like her sister, but - Sara had taken pride in her work as a detective. She'd always heard that, every time she talked about it.

But it... it was about what she could do as one... The cases she'd closed, the criminals she'd helped put behind bars...

"No. I mean... that wasn't the final straw," Sara shook her head. "I went in for the review. I didn't - I didn't expect much. I was hoping for... something. Some sign they cared about the rules, that... they weren't going to just blithely endorse what happened." 

She shook her head. "Instead, they shattered the illusions I had left." She swallowed. "At the end of a review like this, they give you a report, summarizing the conclusions. You're supposed to sign it, approve it, agree with it. And they lied."

"About what?" Laurel took a step closer to her sister.

"They wanted me to agree that Vanch had a knife in his hand when I shot him." She snorted. "They said it was close enough. That it didn't matter. That they needed to make sure the SCPD looked as good as possible in case Blood becomes Mayor, since he's so gung-ho about police reform."

Laurel stared. They wanted to lie about that? Why would they even - Vanch was still a murderer, and he was dangerous even unarmed and he'd really had more weapons on him. Why would they bother?

And if they were willing to lie about that...

"I can see the wheels turning in your head," Sara chuckled darkly. "What else are they willing to lie about? How many other times has the review board fudged the facts?" Sara shook her head. "I have no idea. But... I don't really get it, how that made me - how it made me see everything in a new light, but..." she let out a long breath.

"I can't be part of a department willing to lie like that. That has so many people that cheer on death. That - that is more concerned with chasing you and Oliver than it does about stopping the Triad from stealing medicine. Or literally anything else, it feels like, half the time. That cares more about covering their ass and making themselves look good."

Sara turned away from Laurel, looking at the rest of the Foundry as she kept talking. "I thought the badge meant something. Now? I don't know what it means, but I can't be part of it. Besides... I told them that as a cop I should be held to a higher standard. They might not agree, but I still do. I've broken a lot of laws in the last year, and if I could do it all over again, I would break most of them again."

"Helping Oliver and me." Laurel said quietly, throat tight.

"Helping Oliver and you, yeah." Sara nodded. "But I chose to. I didn't have to. I didn't do it just because you're my sister - I mean, that's a huge part of it. But I believe in what you're doing. Damn me to hell, but you've done more to help the people in this city than I did since the moment I joined the SCPD." 

I never wanted you to quit... Laurel opened her mouth to say as much, to apologize for putting Sara into this position, but Sara shook her head, holding up a hand.

"Don't apologize, Laurel. This isn't your fault. It never was. You would never have asked me or wanted me to pick between being a cop and you" She smiled. "I didn't make this choice for you. I made it for myself." 

Laurel couldn't deny that Sara's words were a relief, but... wasn't it still her fault, in a way? That she'd put Sara in this place?

Then she scoffed, as the absurdity hit her.

"What's so funny?"

"You just told me this wasn't my fault, and then I started blaming myself anyway." She shook her head, "I - I won't ask if you're sure this is what you want."

"I think the only thing I've been this sure about was joining the SCPD in the first place." Sara said quietly. "I - the only thing I do regret is that I won't be able to help you and Oliver anymore. At least not the way I did."

"Sara, you'll always be able to help us. You're part of this team, for as long as you want to be." She pulled her sister in for a tight hug, which Sara returned for a long moment, before they both pulled back. "Oliver will think the same way." 

They stood in silence for a moment, and then Laurel spoke again.

"So... what - what are you going to do?" Her sister didn't have a job, didn't have a place to live... Laurel would volunteer the guest room, but Sara wouldn't want to impose like that, not for long anyway. She wouldn't just let her sister be homeless though.

"Well, first I'm going to Central City for a few weeks. Visit Mom. Try to start over with her, a little."

"Aren't you worried she's going to-"

"Say I told you so?" Sara laughed. "I told her if she said anything even close to that, I'd leave and never visit again. I love her, I really do, but..." she shook her head. "God, she can be..."

"She can be a lot," Laurel agreed. It was... strange, really, it being like this. Growing up, Sara had always been their mother's favorite. She'd always have denied it of course, but it was true. It had never gone too far, but it had been a fact Laurel had reconciled with. And now? Now Laurel was closer to their mother, and Sara sometimes seemed like she could barely be in the same room as her. 

But... hopefully that was going to change. 

"Just a few weeks. Maybe less. But I need to get out of the city before Dad - before Dad finds me. I've been dodging his calls for the last few hours."

"Do you want me to-" Laurel offered, but Sara shook her head.

"I'll talk to him. Just... once there's some distance. He won't get it, but if he knows I'm staying at Mom's house, he might decide to rein himself in, so he doesn't push me more towards her, or something."

"What happens when you come back?"

"I find a cheaper place. Find a job. I don't know what yet. I have savings, so I can manage in the short term, at least." Sara shook her head. "You know, it's odd. I feel... I feel good. Not completely, but I feel like... I have choices again. I didn't even realize I didn't, but... I sort of didn't, before." 

"Sara, there's very little you can't do, if you set your mind to it." Laurel told her sister. She hugged her again, and then, as Sara started back up the stairs, she added: "Good luck. If you need any help-"

"I just have to call. And the same for you. Whatever I can do for you, I'm there. I love you."

"Love you too, Sara." Laurel watched her sister leave, the door closing behind her feeling like the close of a major chapter in her sister's life, the final punctuation.

Which, it was. Only Sara would know what the next chapter of her life was going to be.

Whatever it is, I'll be there for her.

Chapter Text

The Siege of Starling City

By Kylia

Chapter 18: Mayor Queen?

Susan Williams: Your partner had some very harsh words for the SCPD in her recent interview with Perry White, Arrow. Do you share her sentiment?

Arrow: I agree with Black Canary on the subject of the SCPD's conduct since the Undertaking, yes. They've chosen to prioritize protecting their own image and the well-off of this city, rather than protect the average citizen. But that was always their problem, even from the start.

Susan Williams: You did make it your mission to target one percenters who had evaded punishment for their offenses, but along the way, you killed more than one, and you killed their bodyguards in more than a few cases. You may have turned around since the Undertaking, but murder is still murder. How can you stand and judge the SCPD when you refuse to be judged yourself?

Arrow, after a momentary pause: The SCPD doesn't have a good history of judging themselves for their own killings. But I don't refuse to be judged. What I did was wrong. I can offer excuses - the bodyguards I killed were rarely free of innocent blood on their hands, they were often in the heat of a fight - but that's all they are: excuses. I shouldn't have killed those people, in most cases.

Susan Williams: In most cases? So there are some killings you stand by?

Arrow: Malcolm Meryn was not going to let a prison cell hold him. There was no way the fight with him ended in anything but death, for us, or for him. And as for the others I killed - their blood is on my hands, whatever my justifications, and I'll have to live with that. 

Susan Williams: I think that's cold comfort to their families. Merlyn's son may have little love lost for his father, but Merlyn wasn't the only man you killed that had surviving loved ones, and some of them want justice for their deaths.

Arrow, after another pause:  I can never say anything, or do anything, to ease the pain of those families. I can't bring the people I killed back. But I can try to atone for those mistakes, and make sure I don't add to the list of families mourning - both by not killing, and by saving as many lives as I can.

-Excerpt from the transcript of Susan Williams interview with the Arrow on February 8th, 2014. The interview didn't air until the evening news hour on February 16th, due to Channel 52's lawyers being concerned about liability.

February 5th, 2014

CEO's Office, Queen Consolidated, Starling City

"Thank you for meeting with me here," Oliver said, standing up when his secretary let Sebastian Blood into his office. He came around the desk, giving Sebastian a firm handshake. "I know you're busy with the campaign."

"Not as busy as I might have been. All but one of my primary opponents has stood down, and the Republicans haven't put forward anyone to be worried about." Sebastian took a seat after Oliver pulled one out for him, and then Oliver sat down as well. "But... I'm guessing that's about to change?"

Oliver held back a grimace, but nodded. "You've heard?"

"I've heard rumors about your mother meeting with state and local Republican Party bigwigs, big-ticket donors. Experienced professionals getting snapped. I didn't say anything last time we talked because I wasn't sure if she was just trying to help someone else run... or if she was going to run herself." Sebastian explained. "And I didn't know if you knew." He settled back into his chair.

"I didn't know at first," Oliver admitted. "But once she started considering it seriously, she told us a little over a week ago that assuming everything went ahead with the local party, she'd be running for Mayor. She's making a formal announcement tomorrow, but I didn't you to be taken by surprise about it tomorrow, or at least after hearing nothing from me." Oliver clenched his jaw a moment. "Because - well, I've been pretty publicly supportive of you, but now that my mother is running..."

"You have to pull support from my campaign and people will ask both of us about that." Sebastian finished, and Oliver nodded. 

"I supported you for Mayor because I believe you're the best man for the job. You care about the people of this city, and I think your ideas are good." Sebastian could be the man who helped the city in a way the Arrow could. Even in ways the Black Canary couldn't - he could be a hero in the open, serving to rally the people of the city to fix the underlying problems that a vigilante could never touch. 

Sebastian could fix the damage his family did to Starling City. 

"But, I don't - I don't think my mother would be such a horrible disaster for the city that I would be willing to publicly oppose her by continuing to back your campaign." Oliver finished. "I think she'd even be a good Mayor, in a lot of ways, even if I don't agree with most of her priorities." And that was true. His mother was smart, capable, driven, and had done well as CEO after Walter's disappearance. She was very good at talking people around to her way of thinking - at least people who were in certain social or economic circles. 

But... she cared more about the wealthy as an idea. She didn't trust the average citizen of the city. 

"I don't disagree with you she'd be a capable Mayor in some respects... and on not being fond of her priorities." Sebastian smiled for a moment. "But I also understand why you don't want to publicly oppose her. Blood is thicker than politics, and it should be. I appreciate you giving me the heads up."

"I just hope this doesn't jeopardize our friendship. I do value it," Oliver added.

"Not at all. But, in the spirit of that friendship, there is one thing to consider," Sebastian added. He leaned forward in his chair. "Politics is a dirty business. Too dirty. But I owe it to the people who've supported me to run the best campaign I can. I've always tried to run as clean a campaign as possible, running on the issues, not the candidate. But it doesn't always work out like that."

Oliver grimaced, clenching his jaw. He understood what Sebastian was saying. He'd barely paid attention to politics before the Island, apathetic about it as he had a lot of things, but he did know about attack ads and mudslinging and all that.

"I will promise that I'll give as good as I get. If your mother runs a clean, issues-focused campaign, then that's what I'll run on too. And I'll only ever go as far as she goes. But I can't just unilaterally disarm, politically." 

Oliver inhaled slowly. He didn't really like the idea of Sebastian playing dirty politics against his mother, but... she knew what she was getting into when she decided to run? And if he did promise to match clean with clean and all that - 

I mean, Mom probably wouldn't want to run some sort of horrible attack-ridden campaig either. She understands we need to build something together in Starling. Her whole problem with Sebastian is she thinks he's too divisive.

"I can't speak for my mother, but... I can at least pass that message on?" Oliver offered. "And at the very least, I appreciate you being willing to respect our friendship enough to make the offer at all."

"Always, Oliver. You're a good man. I hope we'll have plenty of chances to work together to make this city better in the future." He stood, and Oliver stood as well, nodding. "Unfortunately, a candidate's time is always in demand." 

A few more quick pleasantries later, and Sebastian was gone.

February 7th, 2014

Queen Mansion, Starling City

Tommy hadn't been out here in a year? A little under. He wasn't sure of the exact last time. Not that there'd been much need to, at first, even if he'd been able to leave his place at all without risking being lynched. 

He hadn't exactly been interested in talking to Oliver and Laurel, and they'd moved out of the Mansion anyway. Thea too. Neither had moved back in, even after Moira Queen was released from prison. Tommy could only imagine Mrs. Queen wasn't happy about that, but Thea hadn't said anything about her mom trying to pressure her to move back in or anything, so... maybe she knew she couldn't and shouldn't force the issue?

So as he drove down the long driveway and parked out in front of the mansion, Tommy found himself looking at the mansion for the first time in a long time. It was maintained, sure, but it did just... feel emptier.

Or maybe it was the fact that all his memories of this place were tainted. Things could never be the same with Oliver and Laurel as they had been. He didn't even know how and where to reach out, how to rebuild something, but even if they became friends again... it wouldn't be the same.

The friends I knew before the yacht just.., aren't there. Laurel was closer to her old self, but even then...

And then there was the knowledge his own father had been the one to kill Robert Queen. The man that had been more of a father to him than his own biological one. 

And -

Tommy shook his head and took a breath. There was a reason he was here, and it wasn't to walk down memory lane, or let him reflect on how awful his father was.

He knocked on the front door after a moment. There was a man at the front gate, and there would be more security, but Tommy doubted there were like, as many staff as the place had had before. He waited a minute, and sure enough, it was Mrs. Queen who answered the door.

She looked... the same as ever, really. Well put together, carefully presented. Wielding the clothes and the makeup and the hair and the earrings and all that as a weapon. Moira Queen, socialite extraoordinaire. He hadn't realized how that all worked until recently, but it was hard to unsee.

How much of it is an act? Or is it even an act anymore? If Tommy kept acting like 'CEO Merlyn' as he tried to keep what was left of Merlyn Global afloat - for now - would he turn into that? Would it stop being an act?

Jesus Christ I need to have a legitimate party again. I'm spending way too much time reflecting.

"Tommy." Mrs. Queen said, her voice sounding just a little surprised, but there was a bit of the affection she used to have when she'd greeted him. And a hint of stiffness.

"Mrs. Queen," Tommy nodded. "It's been a while."

"It has." She stepped aside. "Please, come in."

Tommy went inside. "I have a meeting related to the campaign in the city in a little over an hour," she said as she closed the door behind them. "I'm sorry about that." She chuckled softly, "I'm going from having almost nothing occupying my time, to having a very full schedule."

"I do know the feeling," Tommy agreed, smiling ruefully a moment. "Taking over Merlyn Global, compared even to managing Oliver's club...." He shook his head. "Big transition."

"How is that going?" She asked, as they stepped into the living room. Tommy looked around - there had to be more guards onsite, but there didn't seem to be any around them, which was good. No one could overhear what he wanted to talk to Mrs. Queen about. "I know it can't have been easy to try to salvage the company. Or even to make the decision to keep it going at all."

"It wasn't. I was tempted to just let it all collapse, but..." Tommy trailed off, shaking his head. "Too many people worldwide depended on the company. But as for how it's going... I mean, all I feel like I've really done is turned the tailspin into a controlled landing." He gave a small, half-hollow chuckle.

"Under the circumstances, Tommy, that's hardly nothing," Mrs. Queen praised. She sat down in one of the chairs, and Tommy sat down on one of the couches. "I'd ask how things are going with your girlfriend, but you look like you have something important to discuss."

"I do." Tommy nodded, saying the words quickly and firmly. He looked around. "There's no one around who can hear us, right?" Things with Joanna were going... well, but he could tell she was feeling the strain. Not only did she have a lot of work - though less so in recent months, at least - but being cooped up in the penthouse or the office was taking it's toll on her as much as it was on him.

She'd never been as much of a party animal as he had, but she wasn't built for shutting out the entire world either. 

Before he'd heard about Mrs. Queen's mayor announcement, he'd been working on arranging taking her on a date out of the city - maybe go down to National City for a weekend, or L.A. or something. They'd get less attention, they could spare the time, just that much.

And he still wanted to do that, but he did have to deal with this first. And with Sara out of the city and saying she didn't feel like she could come back yet... it was just him handling it.

She told me. She told me we needed to tell Thea. And I said it didn't matter. And then Mrs. Queen decides to run for Mayor! She had to assume the information was safe, but... was it? Was it really?

He knew. As far as Tommy knew, the lawyer who'd given him the drive didn't know what was on it, but... 

"No." Mrs. Queen looked at him carefully. "Tommy, I don't think I've ever seen you this worried about anything in your life."

"...You're probably right. I haven't been." Tommy inhaled. Damnit Sara. I know you said you were worried if you came back now, you'd have some kind of... breakdown, that you'd start second guessing yourself over quitting and all that but -

Sara hadn't been expecting Mrs. Queen to run for Mayor either. She'd just... wanted to tell Thea. Worried about the secret getting loose.

"As part of my... my father's will, I was given a flash drive from him. It had a video message... and DNA test results." He watched Mrs. Queen's expression, but apart from a momentary widening of her eyes, she didn't let anything show on her face. 

She's good.

"And you believed the message? The results?"

"I don't really see why he'd lie about them." Tommy snorted. "He actually asked me to not 'think less of him' for what he was talking about in it." He shook his head. "The prosecution wasn't wrong about you and my dad."

"The prosecution thought I'd had an ongoing affair with your father less than ten years ago. That I was sleeping with him after Robert's death. They were very wrong about both." Mrs. Queen countered calmly. 

"I know Thea's my half-sister, biologically, Mrs. Queen." Tommy cut in flatly, before she could keep dancing around it. "Fine, it wasn't an affair, and it wasn't when the prosecutors tried to say it was, but it happened. There's proof out there. A paper trail." He didn't pause for more than the shallowest breath, pushing ahead. "As far as I'm concerned, Thea's father is Robert Queen, in every way that matters. I'm not really her brother in any way that matters either. I don't want Thea to find out about this. But you're running for Mayor now. People are going to be picking over every inch of your life. Even worse than in court."

Public servants on a low wage were nothing against legions of journalists looking for a big score, opposition researches, PIs... and Tommy really doubted Adlerman Blood was going to just not dig, and not use whatever he found.

"It's already been handled," Mrs. Queen said after a moment. "If you're sincere, you're hardly going to give this information to the press or my opposition."

"God no. But are you really sure that this is secret? That no one knows? Because I know. Sara Lance knows-"

"You told Sara?! Did she -" Mrs. Queen cut herself off. "No. She wouldn't have told Laurel, because Laurel would have told Oliver, and there's no way my son wouldn't have said something to me if he knew." She inhaled slowly.

"I had to tell someone, once I found out." Tommy shook his head. "But no, she hasn't told anyone. And she won't tell anyone either. But do you really think there's no chance this gets out? That no one could possibly figure it out?"

"I suppose that depends on what you did with the drive your father left you." Mrs. Queen said, managing to continue to seem calm. Tommy felt like pulling his hair out. 

"Do you really think it's that simple?"

"What exactly are you looking for, Tommy? Who else might know?"

"I don't know! I don't think the lawyer who gave me the drive knew, but what about the person that did the DNA test? My father's track record of killing people who knew too much aside, would he have had any reason to kill this one?"

"I don't pretend to understand who your father deemed worth killing." Mrs. Queen replied cooly. "Thea will never know about this. You won't tell her. You're not going to tell Oliver or Laurel. And neither will Sara."

Maybe Sara will tell Thea, once she gets back. Whenever that was.

"And if someone does find out, and Thea finds out in an attack ad? From the news?" Tommy let out a breath. "If you tell her yourself, it'll be better than if she finds out some other way."

"There's no scenario where Thea finding out about this could possibly be 'better'." Mrs. Queen countered. "She loved Robert. It would destroy her to find out he wasn't her father, and destroy her to find out her father was Malcolm." She said his father's name like it was a slur, and Tommy couldn't even pretend to be bothered by that.

"I understand the feeling. I'm not thrilled about it either." Tommy shook his head. "But if does find out. If someone else knows, or suspects and can put together enough clues - she's going to be even less happy." 

"You don't have children, Tommy." Mrs. Queen said firmly, standing up. "You wouldn't understand." 

Tommy stood as well, meeting her eyes. "I don't have kids, and God knows if I even want to or ever will," not a discussion he and Joanna had had. They hadn't been dating long enough, yet. "But I do know Thea. And I know what it's like to have people close to you lie and find out the hard way they were probably never going to tell you the truth," It would be so much easier if he could just tell Mrs. Queen about what her son and future daughter in law were up to, but he couldn't do that to him.

I can't even imagine how she'd take it to find out that her son is fucking Robin Hood. He could only guess how annoyed she would have been when Oliver started backing Blood's Mayoral campaign - though he'd pulled back from that since she'd started running.

"By the time you learned about what your father was up to, he was killed by the Arrow and Black Canary a short time after. If Thea finds out, it will be very different." Mrs. Queen replied, her voice now all but icy. "You've said what you've came here to say, Tommy, and I'm sure you believe you're speaking in Thea's best interests, but I know what's best for my family." She gestured towards the door. "Please leave my home."

Tommy clenched his jaw, inhaled, let it out, then nodded. "Fine." He started for the foyer, then turned back halfway, looking at her over his shoulder. "Thinking you knew what was best for your family was what let to 318 people dying, and your children nearly hating you forever, Mrs. Queen." He turned back and continued out, letting out another breath, a long, slow exhale as he closed the front door behind him.

She's not going to tell Thea, is she? He'd said his peace. He'd made his case, or tried to. He'd had more to say, but she clearly wasn't listening.

"Fuck." He muttered under his breath, letting out another long exhale, and then. 

I'm going to have to tell her. Sooner or later. Probably sooner.