When Justice Calls
After the Undertaking Oliver Queen has hung up his hood and is now running his family's business. Then he hears there's another vigilante in town and she's been looking for him. He puts on his hood to find her and comes face to face with a ghost. SPOILERS for SEASON 2!
A/N: This story is from the news I've heard surrounding season 2 of Arrow. This is my take on that.
Ch 1
Officer Lance looked through the window of the hospital room. He had just finished talking to patient, Nicolas Collins, Nicolas Collins whose case was dropped on a technicality. His wife was found nearly beaten to death in their kitchen by a neighbor. The weapon, a blender. The same neighbor said he heard multiple fights from the couple. Friends said she always tried to hide the bruises but she never filed any domestic abuse complaints against her husband. So he had no priors. Nick showed up the next morning nursing a hangover, said he'd been at a bar all night. His alibi was flimsy, the other bar patrons remembered seeing him, but couldn't give a time. So he was arrested, but they had no proof that he did it. His fingerprints would've been on the blender in his own home. His wife was in coma and no one could place him at the scene at the time the beating occurred. So he was out on bond, his trial pending. That was two days ago and now he was the one lying in the hospital bed nearly beaten to death.
He asked him if it was the Hood, but what the reply he got out of the man's broken jaw was a garbled "Stupid bitch!"
Which is not something you would call the Hood. The Hood hadn't been seen since the destruction of the Glades. He originally thought the Hood needed to be stopped, but without him being around crime had picked up tenfold. As much as he hated to admit this city needed him.
Felicity sat in the chair reading a book on her tablet and drinking an iced coffee. She didn't know why she bothered to show up here every day. She supposed part of her hoped that Oliver would be there suited and up and ready to fight the crime that plaque this city. But so far he hadn't. For the past five months it was just her alone in the new and improved arrow lair. The hood lair didn't have quite the ring she was looking for so she christened it the Arrow Lair. Not that it mattered if no one was using it.
Diggle told her Oliver needed time and she understood that after what had happened they all needed time to recover. It could've been much worse if they hadn't done their part; the city was still picking up the pieces of Glades. There were many casualties including Oliver's friend Tommy. She knew Oliver needed to mourn but he had hung up his suit because he blamed himself for what happened. But the city needed a hero now more than ever.
Felicity Smoak nearly dropped her coffee when her police scanner crackled to life. She had it on all the time but it was always the same news warning people to stay inside as much as possible. Since the city was half destroyed crime had gone up. The empty stores and house made everyone think it was a free for all. So she turned it down and made it search for certain key words. And now it had found one. Vigilante.
She rolled her chair closer to the screen and started typing to pull up the call. They said there was a disturbance downtown; another mugging. Three men were being taken to the hospital. They have been listed as critical condition. Could it be Oliver, was he back? She thought as she listened.
"The vic described her savior as a female; about five foot five, blonde, wearing a black leather jacket and a mask."
Okay, not Oliver then. She once again said to herself. A woman? That's interesting. She saved the report and pulled out her cell phone to call Diggle.
Diggle listened while leaning on his hands over the desk. It couldn't be Helena because she wouldn't have cared to stop a mugging and she wasn't blond. That meant it was someone else. There was another one. Where the hell did she come from? He exhaled and looked at Felicity who was sitting back in her chair waiting for him to say something. "I don't know who that is" he told her.
"I know that" she replied. "But you should tell Oliver about her, maybe he'll want to come back to find her"
"Felicity" Diggle said to her softly. "He doesn't want to come back"
"I know he keeps saying that. But I don't think that's true" she knew that wasn't true. This was what he was meant to do and the city needed him. The police were in over the heads with the crime now, they can't do it alone. "The city needs him"
"Well the city has leather clad girl now" He said to her. "She can help the city"
"We don't even know why she's doing this. We don't know if she's one of the good guys!" Felicity shouted at him. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "I'm sorry. But we don't know if can trust her. She may not even be from here. Maybe those guys pissed her off, maybe she's just passing through. Diggle, we need Oliver to come back. We need the Hood."
She sat shaking her legs and looking at the clock. She promised to leave him alone about the hood issue and she had, until now. She scheduled a meeting telling him that she needed to discuss the new network upgrade with him, because he after all was now the acting CEO of Queen Consolidated. Making him think it was work related was the only way he'd see her. And it was work related, just not this work.
She was saddened that their relationship had become strained after what happened. He was grieving a friend and he and Laurel had parted ways again unable to let go of what happed to Tommy. She wasn't too upset about that, Laurel didn't seem right for him. She didn't see the real him, so she wouldn't understand him not like she could. Not that she meant she wanted him. No, that's not what she meant. And now she was babbling to herself in her head. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths. She needed to pull herself together; there were more important things on the line then whether she had feeling for Oliver or not. She did. She admitted that to herself one day alone in her apartment. But not that he would go for her, he went for girls like Laurel and she wasn't anything like Laurel Lance. Felicity you need to stop talking. Great, she was talking to herself now. She really needed to fight some crime to keep her mind occupied.
"Miss Smoak, Mr. Queen will see you now" Oliver's skinny red headed model looking assistant said to her. She got up, took a deep breath and entered his office.
"Felicity" he said with a small smile. At least he's still using my first name. She thought and walked over to his desk. "So how much funding are we talking about for the upgrade?" he asked.
He was all business now dressed in a clean pressed white shirt, black tie and tailored pants. While he looked the part, and he never admit it but she could tell he was uncomfortable. This wasn't him, not anymore. She cleared her throat, held her head up high and placed her cell phone on his desk. He raised his eye brow at her. "Press play" she told him.
"You recorded what you wanted to say to me?" he was confused. "Felicity, I know we've talked much these past few months, but I still consider you a friend. You can ask me whatever you want"
"I know. But just press play and listen, okay" she told him. She didn't know how he'd react. Diggle told her to leave it alone and let the female vigilante do whatever she wanted. But now she knew what she wanted.
Oliver Queen looked at her, besides Diggle she was one of his only friends that knew the truth about him. And he knew she was upset that he stopped being the Hood. But he had put too many people at risk, his family, and his friends and now he had lost one because of who he was and what he did. He wasn't going to let that happen again.
She wouldn't stop staring at him and using her head to point to her phone. So he picked it up and pressed play. He brought the phone closer to his face as the dark video began to play, he saw a flash of blond hair and black leather, he heard grunts of pain and then thuds as the men in the video went down one by one. "What is this?" he asked her and then "Did you take this?"
"She's calling herself the Black Canary and no, I got that off of Youtube" she said to him. She smiled when she saw the light in his eyes as he watched the video. He missed it.
"The Black Canary" he repeated and looked at the paused video of a blurry masked woman. "Why are you showing this to me?"
"I thought you might want to know there's someone else out there…fighting for justice" she said to him hoping she didn't sound like an asshole.
"And you thought this would make me want to come back?" he asked her.
"Kind of" she answered honestly.
"I told you I was done" he said to her strongly, handing her back her phone. "If someone else wants to do that, let them" He put the phone down in front of her when she didn't reach out to take it. "Now if you are here to discuss business then go ahead, if not then I suggest you get back to work"
She bowed her head at the harshness of his tone. She knew he wasn't done. He survived hell to come back here; this was what he was meant to do. She grabbed her phone, scrolled through it. "There is one more thing" she told him. "This video I did take" she said and pressed play.
The shaky video caught the Black Canary stopping a mugging. She had been hiding behind a dumpster to get it. She wasn't really looking for her but she decided to walk home down Central Ave that would take her through the Glades instead of taking her usual way home. She knew it was dangerous but she had to see this new vigilante for herself. And she was in luck because she found her, but then it turned out she hadn't. The Black Canary was following her.
Oliver was angry that Felicity had gone out alone to the dangerous part of town. The whole city was warned not to go there unless you lived there. She could've gotten hurt or that could've been her that was being mugged. She couldn't expect the vigilante to just show up. But as angry and worried as he washe watched as the woman easily took down the two men. He had to admit she was good, she fought like Shado, precise, quick and deadly. Then he saw the camera drop, the video disappeared but he could hear Felicity breathing heavily. "I'm sorry" he heard her say. Then he heard another voice. "Tell the Hood I'm looking for him"
Felicity stopped the video and looked Oliver who was now inches away from her. "You shouldn't have done that" he said to her worriedly. "That was dangerous"
"It wasn't though…because she was following me" she told him. "I mean I don't know how she got my name, maybe from Lance; he knows I work for you. So you see Oliver, I'm already a part of this whether you're the Hood or not"
"She's looking for me?" he asked out loud.
"Yeah. Do you have any other ex girlfriends that have issues with you and like to dress in leather?" she said laughing nervously remembering Helena.
"Not that I know of" Oliver replied. He walked over to his desk and grabbed his jacket. "Let's go" he said and walked out of his office. He told Amber to cancel his meetings; he had an outside project that needed his attention.
Diggle caught them as they were leaving the building and drove them to Verdant. Felicity was excited to show him the new lair. She worked hard on it and couldn't wait to see his face.
She keyed in the code and they walked down the stairs. The beginning part looked like a storage room for the club. She took them father inside to the wall. She slid a hidden panel open and typed in another code and the wall slid open to reveal the real lair.
Oliver stepped through and looked all around it. Purplish blue lighting shone down on the new space, she had an entire computer network set up, a 3D printer, medical equipment and even a small bedroom with a bathroom. A tall case in the middle held his Hood outfit and another case held his bow and arrows and other weapons.
"I upgraded a bit" she told him with a proud grin.
"I can see that" Oliver said as he walked over the case holding his bow. "I don't think I want to be called the Hood anymore"
"What do you want to be called?" Diggle asked.
Oliver looked picked up an arrow and cocked his brow at him.
Tbc…