Arrow – A Lonely Game
He didn't need friends, he didn't need a team
It was his job to protect Starling City, and no one else's. He spent five years in increasingly hellish situations, and there were few thoughts that got him going, one of which being what he would do once he went back home. His father gave his life for him, and had left behind a legacy Oliver spent five years wondering how he would be able to honor, but eventually the answer came to him the first time he put an arrow through someone and felt nothing for it.
He would be his home's protector, and damn all those who stood in his way, because his aim would be certain, deadly, and righteous.
There were those who discovered his intentions and were absolutely against his bloody way of doing things, but John Diggle was a jaded man who understood how a soldier sometimes needed to get his hands dirty, and even Felicity Smoak, so sheltered and innocent as Oliver couldn't even remember being anymore, she came to accept that some people were beyond help, that even behind bars they would be able to continue spreading terror.
They fancied themselves his allies, even his friends, but he knew the truth in it – they were pawns in his war against the evil that plagued Starling City, for Oliver to make use of as he needed them, and no more.
A protector had only one job, and that didn't include making friends, caring for individuals when the entire city needed his assistance and protection. Friends, family, they were just a farce, a façade one needed to keep up in order to remain looking human and normal, and after Oliver returned home, he desperately needed people to think he was okay, that he didn't have the most violent dreams of shooting all the people he ever knew through the heart.
Oliver Queen, playboy heir from Starling City had died the moment Robert Queen took a gun to his head and told him to survive. Through hell and back, what came out of that Oliver Queen survived, and that man, that monster, couldn't quite recall what it was like to long for his mother's hugs, to take pleasure in ruffling his sister's hair, to laugh alongside his best friend, no, all he could do, all he could want, was to protect Starling City, damned the consequences.
Damn all. Damn him.
It wasn't difficult to pretend to care about Diggle, about Smoak, about his mom, sister, Tommy. It wasn't even that hard to play Laurel and her father, both far too human, with perfectly human feelings, but Oliver felt no amusement from their desperation, from their anger, from their suspicion. He was not the boy who took Sara Lance into the Queen's Gambit and put a knife to her throat and slashed it the first moment he could on the island, and the man Oliver now was could feel no regret for their pain either.
The assholes who dared touch his city with anything but good intentions were disposed of with little to no fanfare. Sometimes he used his bow, sometimes just a knife, sometimes even a gun, and the police questioned whether the killers would ever be identified and caught. Det. Lance searched feverishly for an answer, and Oliver wondered for a moment if his efforts to hide his identify were hurting the city, but dismissed it quickly. He was making sacrifices, for the good of the city was all that mattered.
Smoak was the first to come at him, demanding to know why he had to kill every single person he deemed unworthy of being in Starling City, why he couldn't send some of them to jail, strip them of their wealth and power while they were at it. Oliver opened a grin that was equal parts cruel and unforgiving, and Smoak froze in place, clearly unused to being subject to such terror tactics.
She wouldn't have lasted a second on the island, Oliver thought as he told her in no uncertain terms that he appreciated her technological assistance, and she was free to walk away at any point with the understanding that should she ever try to expose him or his vendetta against the scum of Starling, he would come for her, and her mother back in Las Vegas would never have a single hair to bury. It made the woman, the girl, shiver in abject fear as Oliver turned to finish his plans on his next target.
To his surprise, she stayed on, though her tone turned chilly and stilted. Just as well, her growing soft feelings for him were starting to jeopardize his plans, and that was unacceptable. Diggle, who'd grown to see Oliver's point of view with clear, fair eyes, pulled him aside and told him that Smoak was scared of him, and as much as Diggle hated the changes in her, he knew it was for the best. The man then assured Oliver that he wasn't going to walk away, but if he did, could he at least make sure his family knew he was gone, even if they'd never have his body to put to the ground?
Much as it went against Oliver's morals, he nodded in agreement. The man was loyal, useful and skilled, so Oliver supposed that if the day ever came, he could give his family this much peace of mind.
A part of him wished he didn't have to dispose of John Diggle. He'd never had any brother in arms, and he was the closest he would ever have, he thought. Tommy was as gentle hearted as ever, and though they once were as close as brothers, they had never killed anyone together, and never would, so Oliver could only count on Diggle for his brother role.
Starling City would be rid of the evil that had clawed their way into its bowels, one drop of blood at a time. Oliver Queen, the Shadow of Starling, would make damn sure of it.
I don't think I've ever read a Dark!Oliver fic, so here's my take on it.