The Trial and Judgement of Malcolm Merlyn
Chapter 1: Starfall
Summary: AU. Malcolm Merlyn is tried and judged for his actions. With a twist.
Author's note: First, a foreword on what is different in this verse, before we get to the first chapter itself.
HERE IT GOES: Moira Queen never held the press conference, never told anyone when the Undertaking was happening and that Malcolm was behind it, for fear of Merlyn's wrath and her children's lives.
Oliver managed to escape his unfortunate fight with Malcolm at the Merlyn Global office, but not before the Dark Archer had pulled his hood off when he gained the upper hand in their brawl. During the conversation before the fight, Merlyn did not reveal to Oliver that he had moved up the time of the Undertaking's execution, only that he found out about the Trojan in his system.
Nobody in Starling has a clue what is about to happen and who is behind it. Only the Vigilante and his associates know that Malcolm Merlyn is the Dark Archer and what he has orchestrated. Oliver and the team learn the planned time of the artificial earthquake on the very brink of the event's occurrence.
The Markov device can only be accessed and disarmed remotely, so as Diggle and Oliver race for Merlyn Global to get to the Dark Archer, Felicity is frantically trying to re-hack Merlyn's computer.
P.S. Oliver did not sleep with Laurel at the end of 1x22 and Tommy still has hopes of reuniting with her.
XxXxXxX
Meanwhile, at the Merlyn Global Penthouse.
"Dad, why did you ask me to come here at this hour?" Tommy had stormed into the place, removing his jacket and tie, throwing them carelessly onto one of the chairs. He looked at his father, concern and confusion painted on his face.
Malcolm stood by the window, his gaze fixed far away on the city spreading below them.
The moment had come. It was time his son finally learned the truth. He steeled himself inwardly for the conversation that was so long overdue.
"Tommy," he said levelly, his eyes never leaving the cityscape he had come to know so well and was now about to change forever. "Do you remember that time in the hospital when I told you about a new purpose I had found during my journey, in Nanda Parbat? That I want to make this city a better place… for you… for us?"
Tommy was getting more and more confused. Why would his father be bringing this up now? "Y-yes," he finally managed. "But you never told me how."
Malcolm suddenly turned and looked straight at him, his eyes dark as pools of deep water.
"By destroying this rats' nest out there," he said coldly, indicating the Glades. "Tonight."
Tommy froze. His thoughts focused on just one person.
Laurel. She worked in the Glades. She was there.
Tonight.
"It's the reason I closed your mother's clinic. I didn't want to see it leveled," his father continued.
"Wh… What?" Tommy's mind was spinning. He wondered for a moment if he had had too many glasses of whiskey with his dinner and was starting to hallucinate.
Malcolm moved away from the window. "I have something I'd like you to listen to." He patted Tommy on the arm, encouraging him to follow. He removed an ornate silver box from a shelf and turned to place it upon the desk.
"The night your mother died..." Malcolm let the flood of memories rise, allowed himself to feel again just a sliver of what he'd felt that night. The box was cool under his hand; the spines of the carved Chinese dragon pressed into his palms.
He lifted the lid, turned it over. Tommy moved closer, his steps hesitant.
"She called me," Malcolm continued, holding the precious round object in his hands. "She left me a message."
"Dad?" Tommy asked hesitantly, trepidation clear in his voice.
"Her final gift to me," Malcolm said, suddenly hoarse. He closed his eyes briefly, laying the lid slowly and tenderly on the table.
Inside it was a black Mp3 player.
Malcolm pressed the "Play" button and suddenly Tommy heard his mother, a ghost from the past, forever frozen in time.
"Malcolm, I'm in trouble…," Rebecca was saying in a small, trembling voice. "I t-to... I told them to take everything… My money… My ring…"
Tommy felt freezing cold washing over him. "Turn it off!" he begged Malcolm, staring at the lid with wide eyes.
His father didn't relent, gaze icy blue, fixed somewhere… somewhere very distant.
"He shot me. I screamed for help…" Rebecca's voice was getting weaker and weaker, she was gasping for breath.
"But no one would come." Malcolm said in synch with his dead wife, his eyes blue steel.
Rebecca was crying now. "Oh God, Malcolm… I don't want to die alone…" She gasped and then there was silence.
"She bled out into the pavement while people passed by and did nothing," Malcolm said bitterly, staring off into the distance.
Tommy closed his eyes in agony, a quiet sob escaping him. This was too much.
Malcolm suddenly turned to look at his son with intensity. "Your mother built her clinic in the Glades because she wanted to save this city… It can't be saved. Because the people there don't want it to be saved," Merlyn felt anger rise up inside his chest with each word he spoke.
Tommy couldn't tear his gaze away from the recording in the lid. He heard the wrath rising up in Malcolm's voice. He knew his father could get angry, he knew he could be cold, but this… This was beyond everything. Beyond even the ice-cold man that returned after he had left on his two-year sojourn when his son was just eight years old.
Tommy gathered up his courage. "So you'll kill them all?" he asked quietly, in disbelief.
"Yes!" Malcolm screamed and Tommy jumped at the rage, the fury in his father's voice.
"They deserve to die! All of them! The way she died!"
Tommy looked at Malcolm in shock, unable to move or speak. His thoughts were whirling around in his head in a mad spiral. He dropped his wide-eyed gaze to the floor; his breath came faster as he tried to struggle through the maelstrom.
How could he not see this? He had been eight. Hell, he had been angry at Malcolm for going on his famous 'sojourn', leaving him alone for such a long time. But his 'daddy' failed to see it.
Malcolm returned so stone cold when Tommy was still just a boy and needed his father's warmth the most.
It was not until the boy became a teenager that the full force of his anger at Malcolm hit him. Robert Queen had become more of a dad to him than his own ever was.
Two freaking years of finding this 'new purpose'?!
Abandoning his son, sacrificing him for the sake of some quest.
And the purpose he found was what? Mass-murder?
Destroy the Glades…
All Tommy could think of now… Laurel was there. HIS Laurel. Doing the best she could for people in the Glades in CNRI, like his mother had before she was killed.
How could his father fail to see it? How could he be willing to murder the good along with the bad?
Tommy made an ultimate decision then that he could not change.
He slowly backed away from the desk, his darkened blue gaze holding his father's until he stood near a small antique cabinet. He reached behind him and opened a drawer where he knew Malcolm kept an emergency gun ever since the assassination attempt months ago.
He grabbed the weapon and pointed it in his father's face. "I can't let you do this, Dad." His hand shook.
Malcolm approached him slowly. He blinked and looked at the boy again, but saw only hate and judgment. Not the man he had hoped to see.
He stood in front of his son, unarmed and, apparently, unafraid. "You can't stop me," he said levelly.
Blue eyes met blue…
Then, suddenly, Malcolm whipped out his hand and twisted Tommy's arm, grabbing the gun and hitting the boy over his head with it, knocking him unconscious.
He tossed the gun into a far corner of the room. He looked at the crumpled form of his son with sadness and disappointment. He knelt down and checked the pulse. It was strong; he had calculated right, as always – he had only hit hard enough to disable, not kill. Tommy would wake up at some point with a very major headache.
Oh, how Malcolm wished his son had reacted differently and could be by his side when they avenged Rebecca.
But dreams are not enough to win a war.
Suddenly, his senses caught the sounds of a fight in the staircase leading up to the top floor. He allowed himself a bitter smile. He knew who it must be. The Vigilante. Oliver Queen, of all people.
He ran towards one of the paintings behind his desk. He typed in the code to the door and entered his lair.
XxXxXxX
Oliver and Diggle disabled Merlyn's security guards pretty quickly and crashed into the penthouse. The businessman was nowhere in sight, but Oliver noticed Tommy lying on the floor unconscious. He ran up and knelt next to his best friend, taking off his hood.
"Tommy? Tommy!"
Tommy coughed, then opened his eyes, unfocused and blurry.
"Where's your father?" Oliver asked.
"I don't know…," Tommy said, clearly dazed and confused, blood running down the side of his head.
"Are you alright?"
"I…Y-yeah, just… dizzy."
"Oliver," Diggle's voice called from beside the entrance to the Dark Archer's lair.
"Are you going to kill him?" Tommy asked quietly, a hint of concern mixed with… something else visible in his eyes that could not be identified in the brief time they had.
Oliver didn't answer the question.
"Get to safety," he said briskly, then rose, put his hood back on and headed to where Diggle was standing.
The bodyguard was aiming his gun through the crack in the entrance to the lair. "Looks like a false wall."
He pulled it open fully to reveal Malcolm Merlyn standing at the very back of the room in his Dark Archer leathers, his hood hanging loosely at his back, bow in hand. A huge ventilation fan was spinning behind him, casting a myriad of dancing shadows on all the weapons gathered in this murderer's cave.
"Welcome, gentlemen," Merlyn drawled with a confident, sarcastic smile as Oliver entered, nothing but pure rage on the boy's face, Diggle right behind him. "I've been waiting for you. I wanted to see you watch your city die." His voice was dripping with ice.
"I wish you could understand why it has to be this way, Oliver. You of all people should. But now I see that you won't." Had a hint of regret entered Malcolm's voice? Oliver dismissed the thought as the Dark Archer continued, the steely edge sharpening his tone yet again. "You can't beat me, Oliver. You might be younger, you might be faster… You might even have 'backup'." Merlyn shot a deprecating glance at Diggle. "And yet, you always seem to come up short against me. Want to know why?"
Oliver felt as if he were tied, pinned against a wall, though Merlyn did not reach out. He made no movement at all, but his steady gaze kept the Vigilante frozen.
"Because you don't know," Merlyn said, emphasizing his words, "in your heart, what you are fighting for. What you are willing to sacrifice... And I do."
Oliver stayed silent for a bit, his gaze unable to leave Merlyn's. Then Diggle saw a glint of something he could not identify flash across his friend's eyes.
"Where's the transmitter?!" Oliver growled finally.
"Somewhere I can easily get to it." Malcolm said, his smile widening, seemingly relaxed. Inside, he was coiled up and ready to fight, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his veins and a sense of giddiness at the certainty no one could stop what was about to come. Not even the Vigilante and his sidekick.
"I doubt it," the bodyguard sneered. "You'll be too dead."
Oliver launched his arrow as Diggle started firing, but Malcolm darted around a corner. From this scant cover, he shot at the Vigilante, more as a delaying tactic than anything. The bodyguard cleared the corner, his gun held predictably before him in a straight-arm grip.
Malcolm struck at his wrists, disarming him and sending the gun flying. Diggle leapt at him, and Malcolm brought his knee up, doubling the man over and driving him back. With one eye on his other opponent, the Dark Archer struck rapidly at the bodyguard, blocking the man's counterpunches. Oliver circled the weapons rack and Malcolm found himself fighting both men at once.
Malcolm had to admit he had underestimated the bodyguard. He could clearly handle himself in a fight better than expected. Still, he was no match for the Dark Archer's League of Assassins training.
The boy, on the other hand, was fuelled by rage that seemed to rival his own.
Malcolm remembered where he had hurt him the most during their previous fight, so he kept aiming his blows at these places, using his bow, fists and elbows to do as much damage as possible.
The Dark Archer kicked out, and Oliver smashed into a side counter, crying out in pain. Probably another broken rib, Malcolm thought with cruel satisfaction.
Merlyn blocked a wicked punch from Diggle and returned it with interest. The bodyguard recoiled and drew back, trying to defend himself as Malcolm went in for the kill.
Unfortunately, Oliver pushed himself off the counter and back into the fray. His bow smashed brutally across the Dark Archer's face and neck.
The Dark Archer staggered back, grunting in pain. He took a few steps to regain his footing, then broke into a run. As he turned, he whipped out a pair of throwing daggers and flung them towards the bodyguard.
The knives struck Diggle in the chest and leg, and he collapsed. Oliver turned to him with concern, letting Merlyn escape through another false wall.
"Stairs, Oliver, go! Go!" Diggle yelled from the floor, grabbing at the dagger in his chest, then the one in his leg. The Vigilante nodded and darted after Merlyn. There was nothing he could do for his friend now.
The second Oliver opened the door to the roof, a black arrow zinged past him and he dodged instinctively.
The Dark Archer was standing at a distance, his hood and mask now on, another arrow already notched.
"So tell me… Are you ready to die?" Merlyn asked in a steely voice.
XxXxXxX
Felicity kept clicking frantically on her keyboard, eyes darting between screens. Darn, Malcolm Merlyn really upped his IT security systems to top levels after he had discovered her Trojan.
She had managed to break through for a moment a few hours earlier for long enough to see that the earthquake was going to happen this very night, but then a secondary security alert was triggered and it had crashed her systems, so she had to reboot, losing precious time.
Now, as Oliver and Diggle had sped off to keep Merlyn from unleashing hell upon the Glades and needed her help the most, she kept hitting dead end after dead end, like a virtual labyrinth with no exit point.
The fact that the noises of the fight on her comm kept distracting her was not helping, either, but she had to hear, inform, update Diggle and Oliver about her progress. She had to know what was going on with them.
Felicity gasped as Diggle grunted in pain when Merlyn's daggers hit him. Then she heard him yell at Oliver to keep going.
"Diggs?" She screamed, her heart beating a hundred miles a minute.
"I'm fine," he gasped. "Where are we with the device?"
"Nowhere, so far," she said resignedly, returning to her keyboard and pulling up yet another window.
Bingo! One of the firewalls was finally down. Now, how many more to go? She flashed back to the main screen as her eyes darted across the lines of code.
"Diggle?"
"Yes?" he gasped and she heard a hint of impatience in his voice.
"We are getting somewhere. One firewall down," She did not wait for a response, neither did she expect any. She just kept clicking away on her keyboard. Malcolm Merlyn's firewalls would not stop Felicity Smoak.
XxXxXxX
Both Archers aimed and shot arrow after arrow, dodging or deflecting as they ran towards each other across the roof, finally clashing in the middle.
Merlyn tried to smash Oliver over the head with his bow, but the Vigilante ducked on one knee. Malcolm halted his momentum, swiveled around on his feet in a flash and tried to land a blow to Oliver's back, but the boy blocked it with his own bow, then rose and spun around, trying to hit Merlyn in the abdomen.
The warrior backed away fluidly, spinning on his heel and attacking again. Bow smashed against bow.
The two archers kept playing the game of dodging and deflecting, weapons clashing, heavy grunts and panting of the two opponents the only sounds to be heard under the starlit sky.
Oliver landed a blow to Merlyn's shoulder, but the Dark Archer recovered quickly and lashed out with his bow in a wide arc, aiming for Oliver's head. The boy managed to dodge that, and the reverse sweep.
He grabbed Merlyn in an armbar and used the leverage to throw him down. The warrior went with the fall, turning it into a forward roll that allowed him to regain his feet. This maneuver gave the Vigilante enough time to stand up as well, aim his bow and shoot straight at Merlyn's head.
The Dark Archer caught the arrow, like he had during his earlier fight with Oliver in the Merlyn Global office. His massive protective glove hid the little red-blinking addition on the shaft as it exploded, throwing him off his feet.
Stupid mistake, Malcolm realized all too late as he was falling, giving Oliver the advantage he knew he would use.
XxXxXxX
Felicity downed another firewall. She heard Diggle scream in pain as he clearly tried to get up.
"Diggs... Maybe you should…"
"I know what you are about to say, Felicity. Don't bother. I'm going up there."
"But I hear the fight on my comm. As do you! Oliver just threw his exploding arrow at Merlyn! It might be over now!" She screamed, knowing the bodyguard would not listen to her anyway. She kept clicking away at the keyboard, finally breaking through the rest of the firewalls like she did with the first one.
Different code, different programming, but she knew what she was dealing with now. So she focused her gaze, wrote in her code doggedly, failed, then fussed with it a bit until she saw the Markov device control panels.
Now was the time for the fist pump.
And time to drop her hand as she realized there was still a lot more hacking to be done to disable the lethal weapon she was facing.
XxXxXxX
The Dark Archer recovered quickly from his fall, knowing he would have to make up double time for the one mistake he had made.
Oliver attacked, lashing out with his bow as he would with a rapier or a sword. Malcolm jumped up, then blocked the blow with his own weapon. Again, bow smashed against bow. Merlyn found himself thinking like he had during his League of Assassins training days.
Focus on the now.
He was like water, washing around Oliver, dodging every blow, dropping to the ground, smoothly pulling his opponent up and throwing him over his head as if the famous Vigilante weighed nothing.
He felt anger rise up inside him and he let it.
This was the moment. Soon, the earthquake would begin.
Malcolm noticed, throwing a sideways glance, that the bodyguard Diggle had emerged from the door leading to the roof. Clearly, he had removed the daggers from his chest and leg. But the weapons had done their damage.
The man only made it so far after he entered through the door. He dropped to his knees, leaning against the wall.
Malcolm allowed himself a smile as he kept battling Oliver.
Bloodloss.
Diggle no longer posed a threat he would have to worry about.
Oliver was a whole different story. The boy had a lot of fight in him, Merlyn admitted reluctantly to himself.
But then, finally, the Dark Archer had him right where he wanted. His right arm gripped Oliver's neck in a deadly hold, lowering and lowering, blocking the boy's every attempt at movement. The only thing Oliver managed to do was tear off Malcolm's mask.
"Don't struggle. It's over," Merlyn said as he slowly but firmly forced the Vigilante down. "There was never any doubt in the outcome." He allowed himself a moment of triumph. "Don't worry, your mother and sister will be joining you in death!" Malcolm delivered the final verbal blow, preparing to suffocate the boy.
That, or snap his neck, whatever would come easier… or be more satisfying.
Oliver seemed to lose all his strength, giving in to the pressure, his knees weakening, lower and lower onto the ground.
Malcolm allowed himself a satisfied smile. Suffocation it would be. Slower and more agonizing.
Oliver felt himself going weaker, but less so than he had expected. He learned a lot on the Island, including the skill of making his opponent feel as if he had the upper hand. He leaned against Malcolm to make him think he was weaker than he truly was.
He heard Merlyn's words about his mother and Thea as his arch-enemy squeezed his neck, ever so slowly, preparing to deprive his opponent of breath.
Oliver saw an arrow on the ground in front of him and got a different idea on how this night would end.
Within a second, his mind was back on the raft with his father and their bodyguard, who had made it there after Sara was so suddenly ripped away by the sea. He saw him shoot the man and then shoot himself in the head before saying just one word: "Survive."
He allowed Malcolm to lower him fully to the ground, pretending to give in, while his hand reached out towards the arrow lying there.
He kept patting the ground with his hand frantically until he grabbed the arrow. He stabbed himself with it, using all of the strength he had, knowing he would hit Merlyn too. The grunt of pain he heard behind him was a satisfying proof he had judged right.
This was the last thing Malcolm expected. Pain exploded in his chest; the arrow penetrating his flesh took all his breath away. His eyes opened wide in disbelief.
It was NOT possible. With the remnants of his strength, he pushed Oliver away and the arrow fell to the ground as he stumbled backwards and fell too, choking on his own blood.
"Thank you, for teaching me what I'm fighting for," Oliver grunted, getting up with lightning speed.
Malcolm could do nothing but attempt to get up as well, trying to get over his disbelief at what had happened and assess the damage to his body.
He failed.
"But my father taught me how," Oliver finished what he was saying and delivered a blow to Malcolm that kept him from rising up.
XxXxXxX
Felicity thought she would never get where she wanted. She heard Diggle's heavy breathing and Oliver's grunts as he fought Malcolm Merlyn. Block it all out, block it! she kept saying to herself as she looked at the Markov device operating code and searched for a way to switch it off.
She heard Oliver win the fight, closed her eyes and wished she could win too. She clicked and clicked away until she cracked the code and the Markov device was down.
"Oliver!" she screamed. "I disabled it!"
"It's over...," Oliver said, walking back up to Merlyn, ready to kick him again.
He felt a sense of foreboding as the man on the ground started laughing. "If I've learned anything as a successful businessman, it's…," Merlyn paused as he coughed up more blood…, "redundancy."
He let his head fall and prepared to slow down his breathing so that the Vigilante would think he was dead, while he awaited the sounds of the earthquake.
"Felicity… There is another device." Oliver growled into the comm.
XxXxXxX
"Are you joking?" Felicity asked, just to say something, her fingers already on the keyboard, trying to locate the other Markov device. She searched with her GPS engine and there it was, not far from the first one.
In the disabled underground station, a few kilometers away, at the end of the street where Rebecca Merlyn was killed. It would destroy a different part of the Glades.
Killing hundreds… or thousands. Including her. Oliver's club basement, where she was right now, happened to be in the area the earthquake would impact.
She tried to re-hack into the device, but a different code flashed. Darn, Merlyn's IT department was good.
"Take a deep breath and try again," she said to herself, but then panic took over.
XxXxXxX
Malcolm lay where Oliver had dropped him and stopped his breathing. The time to "die" had come. The second device would start operating within minutes, and the Glades would be gone for good.
He tried to slow down his heartbeat, but the intensity of his expectation made it go way too fast. He heard Oliver Queen approaching, took a hidden, very silent, calming breath to trick the boy into believing he was dead. Suddenly, someone in the Vigilante's commlink said something that made him stop, turn around and walk back.
Oh yes.
They were trying to disable the second device. Malcolm smirked. They could not stop it. He had to refocus on slowing down his breathing and heartbeat, not get too excited. They must believe he was dead. He looked above at the starlit sky and closed his eyes. He slowly reached up to his overcoat and activated a hidden GPS tracker button to alert his two emergency associates that extraction time was approaching.
XxXxXxX
Felicity hacked for a living. And now, she had to perform the hack of her life.
She had thought she would pass out when she found out there was a second Markov device. And that she now was within the earthquake's reach. She kept her mind focused on the task at hand, located the device and stopped breathing for a very long time. Whoa, Malcolm Merlyn was one heck of an opponent.
This device had been activated the moment she disabled the first one. The screens went crazy, lights in the room started blinking as she pushed the button to get extra power for her computers.
It wouldn't go down like it did when she had performed her previous hack.
Time for some special Felicity Smoak… tricks. She entered a code on a Hail Mary.
It failed, then she modified it and whispered the Hail Mary again. It worked. She was in. She disabled the second device seconds before it hit the ground.
"Oliver, it's down. The second Markov device." She practically collapsed in the chair by her computer after she delivered the message.
"Good job, Felicity," she heard Oliver say in his Vigilante voice before he switched off the comm.
Oliver Queen walked over to Merlyn, who had almost slowed down his heartbeat to zero.
Almost.
"It's done. Your grand earthquake is not happening," Oliver said flatly, then leaned over and checked Merlyn's pulse. It was there. Slow, but present. "And you are not dead. Alive to see your grand plan fail."
Malcolm hesitated, then allowed himself a slow, deep breath.
And earned kick after kick, after kick, for his effort. All of them delivered precisely by Oliver Queen.
Malcolm felt his ribs break, and there came a time when he no longer even had the strength to cry out.
At some point it ended… Not the pain, but the blows from the person inflicting it.
The Dark Archer lay on his back, slowly losing consciousness as the Vigilante stood triumphant over him.
Merlyn looked up and felt surprised at how wicked the boy's smile could get.
"It's over. And so are you." Oliver said.
Malcolm could not respond, his breath and ability to speak failed him. Oliver's face kept melting into Robert's features. He moved his gaze away from the boy's eyes, which were filled with so much hate and rage.
All he could see as he turned away now was the black sky and the stars above.
They seemed to be falling as Malcolm's gaze lost its focus.
One by one…
Falling…
Falling stars…