One week ago…
All across the city, everyone could see it. Her Kryptonian body exploded in a massive ever-expanding ring of flames and smoke. The Legends, Team Arrow, Team Flash, and even the Earth-X Nazis all had their attention drawn to the sky, mesmerized by this sudden turn of events.
Dark Arrow swiftly turned from his foe, Oliver of Earth-1, his Reich mask dissolving quickly. He saw the flames in the sky and knew their window of opportunity had passed.
Overgirl had at last reached her boiling point.
"No!" he screeched, his voice filled with sheer agony. He dropped to one knee, then two. His wife, his muse, the true reason he invaded Earth-1 in the first place, was gone. His mind flew into a thousand scenarios, trying desperately to think of one that would fix this. What if he had killed the Earth-1 heroes when he had them restrained in the warehouse? Why did he need leverage in the first place? Certainly killing everybody would accomplish the same goal of demoralizing Supergirl to the point where she would willingly give in to their demand. His eyes scoured the battlefield, finding his forces dwindling against the combined teams of superheroes. Through his own self-admonishment, he felt only one thing: rage.
"I'm gonna kill you!" he snarled through gritted teeth, spinning and reaching for an arrow out of his quiver.
Then it struck him. He'd already been tagged?! He looked down at the green-accented arrow penetrating the center of his chest. Staggered, he sheepishly crumpled onto the roof of the van, the expression of shock evident on his face. The last thing he saw was the Green Arrow glaring mercilessly at him.
Present day…
"I think I'm gonna call it a night, guys," Diggle said, tossing his jacket on. "I've got a busy day tomorrow. I'm gonna take John Junior to the zoo and then I've called in a babysitter for the night."
"Ooh, you and Lyla finally getting a night out?" Felicity commented coyly.
Diggle scoffed. "We'll see. With the psychos in this city, you can never count on quality time with your loved ones."
"Speaking of which," Oliver said. "Do you mind if I head out with you? I want to spend some time with William before it's too late tonight. I haven't exactly been father of the year these past couple weeks."
"Well, who could've counted on ninjas and Nazi doppelgangers showing up, one of which your alternate self was married to…?" Felicity quipped in a demeaning tone, spinning in her chair all the while.
Oliver sighed and gave her a stern glare before turning to Diggle.
"Yeah, man, come on," Diggle responded.
Oliver approached Felicity, stopping her from spinning and leaning in close. He attempted to kiss her, but she tilted her head away, giving him only her cheek.
He backed off, nodding solemnly before joining Diggle at the elevator.
As the elevator rose, Diggle and Oliver stood silently for a moment.
"Time is all she needs," Diggle said. "You've been through worse."
Oliver sighed heavily. "I know. It's just… I don't know why it's still bothering her. It wasn't me and it wasn't Kara. It was—"
Diggle interrupted, "—your Earth-X selves. I know, man. But to a woman like Felicity, it still doesn't look good. Put yourself in her shoes. What if Felicity from Earth-6 showed up and she was happily married to Ray Palmer? How would you feel?"
"I'd be happy for her."
Diggle snickered. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, brother."
"What are you saying, Dig?"
Diggle turned to Oliver. "Look, man, I wasn't there to see all of this unfold for myself, but I got the rundown from Dinah and Felicity. Earth-X Oliver and Earth-X Kara were married, they were evil, but they certainly loved each other. I also heard about that awkward goodbye you had with our Kara."
"Oh, come on. It wasn't awkward, it was—it was—casual."
"Mhmm. It was so casual you decided to pay a visit to Earth-38 and spend an entire day with Kara, huh?"
Oliver's eyes widened a bit. "That was to apologize for the Kryptonite arrow. She had a right to know my reasoning in an environment where we weren't being shot at. I apologized, she forgave me—" He noticed the sly grin on Diggle's face. "—she forgave me, her sister Alex invited me to stay for dinner, and being the polite man I am, I agreed. What was I supposed to do? Decline and make things more awkward?" He paused. "We watched a bunch of movies anyway. You'd be surprised how many are the same as our Earth."
The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
Diggle stepped out. "Well, as long as you had a good time."
"I did," Oliver replied quickly.
"Alright. Fair enough."
The two went off towards the truck.
Felicity spun in her chair, blowing out air as she pondered how long she was going to sit in the lair brooding, which was normally Oliver's job, but he was mostly oblivious to her feelings at the moment. Maybe another hour, maybe the rest of the night. It's not like she had any responsibilities outside of being Overwatch, not since Curtis decided to pursue his own company after she used the start-up donations to bail Oliver out of jail a couple weeks ago. It's not like she did that for her own selfish desires; Oliver needed to be out in the free world for William and the city's sakes.
The elevator lowering mechanism whirred to life. She could hear the box descending, but spun in the other direction.
"Probably Oliver coming to apologize as he always does," she told herself. "And he'll make those puppy dog eyes, get on one knee, and beg me to forgive him for spending a whole day with the alternate Earth version of his doppelganger's wife… Because that's not fishy at all."
The elevator finished its descent with a hard clank, and the doors opened.
Still leaning back in her chair facing the opposite direction, Felicity murmured, "I'm not in the mood right now, Oliver."
A dark, almost synthesized voice answered back. "I don't care."
Knives ran up and down Felicity's spine. Her heart nearly burst from her chest. She breathed in sharply. She knew that voice, but she didn't believe it. She stood up from her chair, facing the direction of the response.
She closed her eyes, pretending he was a monster that could just be wished away. Unfortunately, when she opened them, he was still standing there in all of his Earth-X Nazi glory:
Dark Arrow, Führer of the Reich on Earth-X, the man who would have ruthlessly killed her at STAR Labs had Green Arrow not intervened at the right time.
"No, no, no, no, no, no…" Felicity whispered to herself, frantically backing away into the computers. She placed her hand over a specific area of the keyboard, prepared to send a distress signal to the other members of the team.
Without hesitation and in the blink of an eye, Dark Arrow fired one of his red-accented arrows straight through Felicity's hand, pinning her to the desktop. She screamed in anguish as the situation registered in her mind, blood spurting from her wound, dripping all over the counter and the keyboard.
Dark Arrow marched determinedly towards her. Her stopped in front of her, kneeling down slowly. He merely stared at her, the red bug-like eyes on his mask menacing and distressing her. He was enjoying this, her crying and squirming before him.
"Whatever you want," she said between deep breaths, "you won't get it. Oliver will stop you like he did before."
Dark Arrow, while keeping his attention on her, reached up and wrenched the arrow around in her hand. She shrieked, pounding on the desk like a suffering animal.
Finally, Dark Arrow responded. "Felicity Smoak, what I want is simple. Revenge." He leaned in closer to her. "He took my wife from me. I will take his."
"Oliver didn't kill your Kara!" Felicity shouted weakly. "That was Supergirl, Kara from Earth-38!" Despite her jealousy, she didn't feel great about throwing Kara under the bus. It was simply survival at this point.
"It makes no difference to me. He was the leader of your resistance, therefore, he was responsible."
He stood up, ripping the arrow out of her hand violently. He watched attentively as she immediately tended to her injury, ripping a piece of her dress off and wrapping it up. He turned his back on her, knowing full well she would make a run for it, and she did. She shot up from her position and ran for the armory, but she didn't make it more than five feet before another arrow pierced her quad, bringing her collapsing to the floor.
She held back her urge to break down in tears, unwilling to give him the satisfaction. She gritted her teeth, trying desperately to crawl as far as she could, knowing it was futile.
He stepped on her wounded leg, putting most of his weight on the area around the puncture.
After a long shriek, she laid back on the floor. "Why don't you just get it over with, you Nazi bastard?" she asked with venom in her words.
"I will, but I'm enjoying this." He pressed a button on the side of his mask, revealing his familiar face to her. "And I'll sleep better at night knowing the last thing you saw before you were violently eviscerated was a mirror image of your husband's face."
"You're not him!"
"No, I am not. I am better than him. I am a true hero. Just ask the billions on my Earth that worship me."
"You're a monster, and there's a difference between respecting a leader and fearing him."
Dark Arrow peered down at her leg puncture. It was leaking blood profusely. "Hmm. You have about ten minutes to live—maybe less depending on how much you fight back."
"F-f-fight back?" She was afraid to ask.
Dark Arrow bent down, giving her a sinister glare. She recognized that glare from back in the day when her Oliver had no qualms with torturing and killing people.
"I suppose we should get started," he said, genuinely disturbing.
A/N: Just a quick one-shot. If you enjoyed that to some extent, please leave a review and let me know. Even if you hated it, I'd like to know why.