++++++ Hello again.
May I introduce you to part four of the Chronicles of Shade - Jiātíng meaning family.
If you haven't read parts 1 - 3 I recommend that you do, part 2 isn't essential.
This will LOOSELY follow cannon, roughly 50% cannon and 50% AU.
A recap of characters:
Oliver Queen - Starling City Vigilante the Arrow, wears green.
Felicity Smoak - Starling City vigilante/IT Queen Cypher, wears blue
River Harper nee Quinn - Starling City Vigilante/Philanthropist Shade, wears purple
Roy Harper - Starling City Vigilante/mentor Arsenal, wears red
Charlie Allen - Starling City/Central City Vigilante Pisces, controls water
Suki Wilson - The Lost Queen
The rest you'll get to know either again or for the first time.
I hope you enjoy.
I do not own ++++++
One
Eight months ago, this city was under siege.
The SCPD rallied behind a band of vigilante's led by a man in a hood.
I ended up with a captain's rank, and they didn't even get a thank you.
But today they do.
Cause today, the Starling City Police Department is formally recognizing the individuals known as the Arrow, Shade, Cypher and Pisces. And I'm using my new position to disband the anti-vigilante task force charged with capturing these individuals.
Make no mistake-vigilantism will never be tolerated but I refuse to hunt, in the name of this city, the heroes who saved it.
Gliding over the back of the grass behind the almost complete Queen Manor, Charlotte 'Charlie' Barry aka Pisces surfed on her own private wave, laughing like she hadn't a care in the world. Today was one of those rare days-no, rare weeks where Team Arrow got to sit back and relax. With crime at an all-time low the only thing the city had to deal now was its low population and high unemployment.
I doubt that would fix itself anytime soon.
So many things had changed and yet so many things had stayed the same. We are the sum of all our parts-hero, friend, lover, sister, wife, mother. This is what I was. These were my parts. They were the best parts of me.
Last year, Queen Manor had been burnt down by the medically enhanced super-soldier, Isabel Rochev, in her quest for revenge against the Queen family. Most of the manor had been rebuilt to what it used to be but there was still a long way to go. Oliver Queen-friend, brother, partner and owner of the huge house had invited the rest of Team Arrow over for a day of rest.
"Can you say mummy? Can you say mummy?" That's my husband, Roy Harper and our two moth old daughter, Sara. He's been trying to get her to say mummy since the day we came home from the hospital but she's daddy's girl and I think she always will be. From behind the book I was reading I chuckled and shook my head. She's got a long way to go before she can say anything. Mostly she just chews on her hands and sleeps. "Come on, kiddo. Mummy."
Nothing. Poor fool.
I sit the book down in my lap as a shadow falls over me, looking up I see my husband lay Sara in the bassinet beside me.
"River Harper, you have failed this baby," Roy smirked, wrapping his arms around my neck to kiss me.
I snorted. "I've failed this baby? Just because she loves her daddy more?" Balancing a charity, a secret identity and parenthood was hard but we had a nanny that we could both trust, Anastasia Fox, the granddaughter of a close friend who knew about our crime fighting life style. We also had a set up in what had been dubbed 'The Arrowcave' for Sara on nights where Ana wasn't available. "When are you picking your mother up?" I inquired.
Rachael Murray, estranged mother of Roy Harper and very strange grandmother of one Sara Moira Harper, was arriving on train from Central City to attend the christening of her one and only grandchild. She would be staying the night to 'help'. Her intentions were good but I soon found out that I hated my mother-in-law when she was staying in our penthouse. Roy's lucky he only has my step-father, Peter Wilson, detective for Metropolis PD.
"Her train gets in at five," Roy confessed. He ran his hands through my now short, ebony pixie hair-having it pulled too many times made it annoying so I chopped it off. "So what do you think about newly appointed Captain Lance of SCPD declaring you guys heroes?"
"It'll make things easier for us, that's for sure," I grinned, moving over on my deckchair so Roy could sit beside me. "No police chasing after us is a good thing-I asked the good captain the other day if we could have our own floodlight like Batman-no dice."
"She really did," Felicity Smoak backed me up. She walked down the stairs from the newly built kitchen holding a tray of food for lunch. "The fact that she was laughing when she asked I think was why he said no in the first place." Felicity Smoak was my best friend in the whole world and godmother to Sara, I couldn't trust anyone with the safety of our daughter but Felicity and Oliver. "What time were Laurel and Tessa coming?" she questioned, sitting the tray on the table.
"Laurel was going to speak to her father about Vegas," Oliver answered, opening a beer for him and Roy. I don't think anyone was more surprised about the relationship between Laurel Lance, ADA and Tessa Morgan, Magician more so then Oliver Queen. He'd dated Laurel! Oliver had never expected the two to have come back from a three week long trip to Las Vegas sporting matching wedding rings or thought that they still be together. Laurel's father didn't know yet but she was dancing around telling him.
"Where's ours?" Felicity and I asked at the same time as Charlie decided to come down to solid ground.
"Oh thanks!" Charlie grinned, grabbing Roy's beer off the table to take a swig before Oliver took it off her. "Hey!" she pouted. Charlie Barry was an unusual case, we'd met her and her brother Barry last year. Barry had come chasing down evidence of the impossible and Charlie had come to drag her brother back. After an accident in Central City, Barry was still in a coma and Charlie who, affected by radiation from the particle accelerator at STAR Labs, could now control any kind of liquid substance on the planet. She'd come to Starling City to train, to learn how to be a hero and in a few days, the girl would be going home soon. "You're letting me drive your car tomorrow to pick up your cousin but you won't let me have a beer? You suck." She flicked her wrist and Oliver soon found himself completely drenched from head to toe.
"Damn it, Charlie!" Oliver hissed.
Oliver Queen and Charlie Allen didn't get along as well as they could have since Oliver had sent away his cousin, and her growing best friend, Suki Wilson, daughter of former enemy, Slade Wilson, to Gotham City. It was mostly just harmless pranks and basic disrespect but it was still annoying enough. One word though from Oliver's former bodyguard, John Diggle, and Charlie was on her best behaviour. She looked up to him more so than anyone else. Charlie stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared into the pool.
"Oliver," Felicity sighed, "you two would better solve your issues if you just called Suki." Felicity was a very wise girlfriend.
Last year the press had gone absolutely crazy on the discovery of Dan Brown's next great novel title-The Lost Queen. Turns out, via DNA testing, that former ARGUS agent Suki Wilson was the cousin of Oliver and Thea Queen. There was a whole complicated story behind it but by trying to kill her father, Suki almost got Felicity killed-yet another story. Everyone wants to kill everyone. And because Oliver had yet to tell Suki she could come back, he wasn't Charlie's favourite person.
"She started it," he huffed, pulling his shirt off to wring it out to which Felicity proceeded to whistle and clap. Oliver rolled his eyes and sat down beside his girlfriend, whispering something in her ear to make her blush.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Let's eat. F, pour me a glass of wine."
I've come to appreciate these lazy days, not realizing that it was the last for a very, very long time.
++++++ And yes, you may have noticed that I paired Laurel Lance up with another one of my characters. Her role in Team Arrow will continue as is so there's nothing to worry about. She just has a wife now.
Cheers ++++++