A/N: I am trying out a new format for this. Hope it goes well. Basically, this is a (really long) AU Season 3 one-shot. I don't know where the show will be going with this supposed new love interest for Thea, but where they left off Season 2 with Thea and Roy made my mind ripe with all the possibilities. And of course being me, I picked the darker one. The rating is T for language and mild violence. I hope you all enjoy this. Feedback is much appreciated.
And just as an aside, neither archery nor technology are my fortes, so I apologize for any inconsistencies if there are any.
Bad Habits
Roy Harper returned to an empty house.
In the past few hours he'd woken up from an intense steroid-induced frenzy, been chastised in every way he knew how, and fought roughly a hundred masked men on the same juice that nearly killed him until the city was safe. He was tired and worn and weary, covered in cuts and bruises that he can't see but can feel with every step he takes. He wanted to collapse into himself until he couldn't see the destruction around him and sink into a blissfully naïve existence. He wanted to go home, and home always meant Thea Queen. The fact that she forgave him was the only thing keeping him upright when he felt that he'd taken one hit too many.
But Thea Queen was gone.
She wasn't dead, thank God.
Not that he really knew that for sure, but her letter didn't scream suicide note. It was more like a well thought out "fuck you". And Roy deserved that. For hurting her, for disappearing, for not telling her what was really going on until she discovered the incriminating evidence for herself. He was dumb to think that he could ever hide something that big from someone as intuitive as her.
After nearly punching a hole through Oliver's face, Roy found out that while not dead, Thea had become a ghost. She had simply vanished out of thin air. As if that was any better or made him sleep sounder at night. Oliver explains it as, "one night she was there and the next morning she wasn't." She even left all of her stuff, phone included. Gone without a trace.
He left the Foundry angrier and more out of control than he had been in a while.
After days of training and stopping pointless petty thefts, Roy finally plucked up the courage to ask Oliver what made Thea run away.
"The truth," was the only answer that fell from Oliver's tightly pursed lips. And by the look that followed, Roy knew he was lucky to have gotten that.
Later, as he unwound the tape from his hands from a particularly brutal workout, he asked Felicity the same question. She was much more honest with him.
"She found out Oliver's secret," she said simply, still hacking away at some complex coding.
"She found out he's the Arrow?"
"No, she found out that Oliver was keeping a secret from her. That her father is really Malcolm Merlin."
Malcolm Merlin: the psychopath who leveled the Glades. The man Oliver supposedly put an arrow through on that same night. He was Thea's father. Roy was sick to his stomach just thinking about it. He could only imagine how Thea felt finding out that she was related to such a monster. For a second he didn't blame her for up and running away. Her whole life must have just seemed like one big lie.
"She didn't take it well then?" he asked lamely, at a loss of what else to say.
"No, not at all."
He was left in charge of a very important operation one night. Oliver decided that he had better things to do, i.e. Felicity Smoak, so he left his budding new partner alone. Perfect. It was not that Roy wasn't used to flying solo; he did that for majority of his criminal life. It was just a bit different a hundred feet up in the air, his military grade bow the only thing between him and the entire criminal underworld should they try to take him down with guns blazing.
And the guns blazing thing was a definite possibility with the cargo he is supposed to be supervising. At first, Roy thought it was weird that the police department had asked them to transport some super secret device from STAR Labs to the buyer themselves, but then when Roy thought about the number of armed car robberies that went on in the city, he decided that having some powerful back up was not such a bad thing. He just really wished that he had someone else around so he didn't have to die of complete and utter boredom.
He was almost to his destination; he could see the lights of the meeting place lit up like a beacon. Only a few more blocks and he'd be well on his way to relaxing on his couch for the rest of the night.
And then he heard it, the faint but familiar whistle of an arrow. He barely had time to duck before the damned thing pierced the air right where his head used to be. He would be lying if he said he wasn't absolutely terrified.
Now alert, he snapped his head back, trying frantically to locate his attacker. But immediately he has to duck down as more arrows assault him. He sees the weapon this time as it almost grazes his nose, far too close for comfort, and he tucks himself into a roll before another can get to him.
Now incredibly angry, Roy reared up and drew an arrow. He didn't know who was shooting, but he'd be damned if he didn't get in a few shots of his own. But as he tracked the arrow to its archer, he could only find himself hesitating.
There, not a hundred feet away, his attacker crouched on a ledge, a vision in black leather, her striking silver bow still poised to shoot. Clearly she wanted the device, and even more clearly she was willing to kill for it.
Mustering up all his energy, he threw himself upward and charged at the woman jumping up to her ledge, causing her to lose her precarious balance. But she braced herself against him and hit back, throwing her weight against his hold and punching him in the gut hard. He crippled over in pain, already exhausted from saving his own skin. But he couldn't let her take the device.
She was fast, but he was faster, his hand gripping her wrists as she tried to get in a few more swipes. He could see the cold, hard hatred in her dark eyes as they struggled. She was masked in silver as he was in red, her lips a deep wine color screwed into a determined snarl.
He managed to finally throw her though, tossing her off her balance, making her hit the ground hard. She didn't move or try to get up. She was down, and he breathed out a sigh of relief, turning to make sure the device was secured once more to his belt.
But it was his fault for looking away. Before he knew it another arrow was flying right at him, this one catching onto his suit and pinning him to the electrical box behind him. He was immediately bound to the harsh metal, the arrow unraveling into thin steel cable, rendering him immobile. He writhed against the constraints, trying to free his arms to fight back. But she was upon him again, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. She regarded him with malice, and if he was not mistaken, a bit of humor.
Though it was pointless, he tried to wiggle away from her as she reached down to yank the device from his belt. She inspected it thoroughly, clearly enjoying her victory, before turning to go.
"You won't get away with this!" Roy shouted in protest, desperately trying to find any way to free himself.
But she didn't seem to hear him, that or she just didn't care. Instead she continued to saunter away, picking up her fallen bow and quiver, ever increasing the space between them until she reached the ledge of what was left of the roof. She was done with him, that much was clear. She had gotten what she had came for; he was lucky to get away with his life, he knew that, but rage boiled in his veins in a way that he hadn't felt since he was juiced up on Mirakuru.
How dare she attack him? How dare she humiliate him like this, leave him here tied to a rooftop and just walk away like nothing happened?.
"Who are you?" he screamed after her, infuriated that he was beaten and that he had failed. He had to know who had done this to him. He had to know who to take down.
She turned to him and smirked. Even though her voice was masked by the same technology he was using, making it rough and gravelly, he understood her clearly as she replied with, "Artemis."
And then she jumped, a glint of silver the last thing he saw before she vanished stories down into the city below. He was not dumb enough to think that he could escape his bonds and chase after her; he knew that she had some method of escape to take her back to whatever evil lair she inhabited. It always seemed like they inhabited lairs. Hell, the "Arrow Cave" - as it was lovingly called - was practically one too.
But he didn't know if he would be welcomed back there after tonight. He had 'failed the city' as Oliver would say. His first night alone on the job and he had been taken out by three arrows and a few punches.
Oliver would be so disappointed when he came to cut him down.
Even though Oliver was not very happy with Roy, the prospect of a third and more dangerous archer had practically eclipsed the importance of the stolen device.
It had also turned Oliver into one big mass of tension and stress.
It wasn't the fact that there was a new archer per say, but that there was one with both the skill and means to rival their own. One who was definitely not playing for their team. She was Team Arrow's most wanted person per Oliver's decree. If they couldn't persuade her to stop whatever she was doing, then they had to take her down. No other option.
Roy was a fan of the latter option. He was no friend to the mystery archer who had it out for him. Every training session, he pushed himself harder. He practiced falls and recovery times, pretending that each tumble was a roll away from an explosion that each duck was an arrow nearly missed. He would not be caught off guard or be made a fool of.
He would face her again, and this time he would win.
They'd been tracking her for weeks with no results.
She was untraceable, and each time they got close, she slipped right through their fingers. The last time they got even remotely near her, they found themselves in the middle of a standoff between the Triad and some very hostile mafia members. He and Oliver were lucky to not have had their heads blown into bits. It was like she knew that they were looking and she was purposely fucking with them. He wouldn't put it past the girl with cold, obsidian eyes.
But then they got lucky. A blip, a moment of chance as the tracker that was placed on the stolen fusion device Artemis stole began to emit a signal again. They were both a bit wary, knowing full well what the woman was capable of, but decided that following the signal was their best chance of catching the fiend.
Roy asked to be sent in to retrieve the device and neutralize Artemis alone. Oliver did not agree at first, but he knew that this was personal to Roy, that Roy felt like he had something to prove not only to him but also to himself. For that reason alone, Oliver finally conceded, but he made Roy put on a microphone just in case something was to happen. He was not going to let Artemis get away again, and if Roy couldn't neutralize her, then Oliver would put an arrow in her chest.
Simple.
"Hello Roy," came a chillingly familiar voice. "I've been waiting for you to show up."
He breathed in sharply, not daring himself to breathe, bow slipping from his grasp, crashing to the floor.
His mouth hung open as his mind tried to process what it was seeing. For there, in the middle of the room, reclining in a chair was none other than Thea Queen. She looked so posh, so elegant with her long pale legs thrown over the arm, head cocked back so that her hair fell down in a substantially-shorter waterfall.
"You're here…" he practically choked, overcome with joy of seeing his lost girl once again. She was home, and he had never been happier.
As she raised her head to look up at him however, he was hit by the differences in the girl he loved. Her face was thinner and paler than before, her lips too dark in contrast, puffing with smoke as she lowered her cigarette, hand hanging limply at her side. He felt a pang as he realized that she had taken up smoking again. She smirked at him though, familiar crinkles lining her forehead, but now they looked slightly off.
"You look ridiculous," she noted, going back to smoking her cigarette, reverting her gaze to the ceiling.
Then it hit him. He was still in his Arsenal costume.
How could she possibly know?
And then the situation came hurtling back to him, hitting him in the head at a million miles per hour. He was supposed to be finding Artemis and the fusion device. She was there in the warehouse somewhere, hiding, and he was supposed to take her down. He was supposed to be saving the day from disaster.
So why was Thea Queen in the same place?
"What's wrong? You look stressed," Thea chimed back in, throwing off his train of thought. But he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was severely wrong.
"Nothing," he replied distractedly, still not sure he believed that. His mind was racing, checking all corners for Artemis, but something was already telling him that he wouldn't find her.
"Someone needs to loosen up," she sing-songed a bit, snickering to herself as she swung her legs back and forth. "Want a light?"
"You shouldn't be smoking those," he bit out, now on full alert. Why wasn't this making any sense?! And why Thea acting so nonchalant?! Couldn't she tell that something was seriously wrong?
"Sorry," she drew the word, the smoke curling from her lips. "Bad habit,"
"Thea," he snapped, his full attention now back on her, "what are you doing here?"
She sat up fully at his words, like he had finally said something worth giving her full attention. And he felt that attention rapt on him, much more intense than he remembered but not in a pleasant way.
"I could ask you the same thing Arrow-boy."
Her answer stunned him, causing him to pause. This definitely was not the Thea he expected, not the way she was jousting with him. Not while he was wearing his entire Arsenal get up, red leather and all. He expected curses and damnation while in reality she was reclining in chairs in the middle of hostile territory. At first he thought she may be a damsel in distress, but now he saw that she was there willingly, like she was supposed to be in that chair.
"Thea," he started, nearing her as he heard the rafters creak. Artemis was there, he knew it, hiding and waiting to strike. He didn't know what she did to Thea, but if she had harmed her then there would be no saving the archer from a painful death.
"Thea you need to get out of here, okay? There is someone here, and I don't know what she has done to you but I promise that she won't get away with it. You'll be safe, you just have to go."
By the time he finished his speech, he found that Thea was laughing at him. Laughing at him like he was a child that had just done the most amusing yet idiotic thing. He didn't know why, but it unnerved him. He needed her out, needed her to be safe. He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't lose her again.
"Thea you need to go! Come on," He paced over and grasped her by the arm, dragging her out of the chair. But he was startled by her resistance that came immediately after, her arm far more solid than it had been before. He looked up into her eyes and found none of the laughter he saw before, only a cold hardness.
"You're the only one who's not safe here Roy," she stared him down with eyes that held no kindness, and he immediately let go of her, as if her skin had shocked him. That seemed to be her intended reaction, because in the next moment she was smiling and cocking her head towards the back of the room.
And there, emerging from the shadows above the pair of them, on the far set of metal stairs, was a vision from the past, the Devil in a three-piece suit. Not a hair was out of place on his slicked-back hair, not a tooth crooked in his wide, unnerving smile. Roy had never felt so uncomfortable in his life.
"But you-you're dead," was all he managed to coherently put together out of all the conflicting and rapid thoughts firing through his head.
"I know, isn't it just fabulous?" Malcolm exclaimed in glee, clapping his hands together.
"Why?" Roy sputtered at Thea, needing answers from her above all other people. Why are you here with him? Why is he still alive? Why won't you tell me what's going on? But Malcolm was quick to cut in, loud and domineering.
"Come on now Roy! Surely you're smarter than that," Malcolm teased with more malice than anything, reaching out to place his hands on Thea's shoulders. "We are family; she wanted to get to know her good old dad. After all, I am the only one who hasn't lied to her."
Paired with his domineering touch, Malcolm's statement caused something to snap inside Roy. Sure, Roy hadn't been completely honest all the time, but Malcolm was a snake, the person to trust the least, and whatever hooks he had in Thea could not be good ones, father or not.
"Then what do you call what you are doing to her now?" he shouted, fingers flexing into fists.
"What is it that you think I'm doing?" Malcolm baited Roy, eyebrows waggling in a challenge.
"This isn't Thea! She isn't acting like herself." Roy replied petulantly.
"Isn't she? You have been apart for a very long time."
"What did you do? What did you tell her?" Roy snapped, now ready to sink an arrow into Malcolm's head.
All Malcolm did though was throw his head back and laugh, a low and manic sound. "I told her the truth! You know, the thing that you have always denied her."
"Really? What truth? Yours? We all know how twisted your version of the truth is," Roy shouted with venom, mocking Malcolm. It seemed to work, the man's face twisting into a semblance of an annoyed frown, but quickly smoothed back out. This time, Malcolm did not reply, but instead let the silence linger.
"Does she know that you've been working with an assassin?" Roy continued, thinking he now had the upper hand.
"An assassin? That's a rather wild accusation," Malcolm quipped, his eyes a bit more crazy than Roy's liking.
"Don't act dumb. You were a member of the League of Shadows. Surely archers know other archers, and people of the likes of you must know some dirty enough to commit an armed robbery."
"Don't you think that's a little far fetched Roy? Even for you?"
"I've been tracking the archer," Roy continued to tread onwards, ignoring anything Malcolm had to say to twist the story to his will. He was clever like that, making people think that they were wrong by turning phrases. But Roy wasn't wrong. "I pinpointed her location to this warehouse. Why else would you show up here of all places unless you were collecting your precious device?"
"You mean this device?" Malcolm asked nonchalantly as he pulled the incriminating thing from inside his jacket pocket. Roy's jaw dropped, everything rearranging as Malcolm twirled the device in his hand.
"That…that's not possible…"
"A miniature fusion reactor. A bit unstable in nature, but if my calculations are correct, I'd say that this little beauty is going to do great things."
"I don't understand…how do you…?"
"How did I happen to come into possession of this highly dangerous prototype?" Malcolm prompted, his voice high with glee and victory. "Well, it was very hard to come by. Experimental technologies are often left under lock and key, but I'll give you a tip Roy: never do yourself what others can do for you."
"You mean steal for you?" Roy substituted, barely containing his repulsion.
"Coming from the boy who picked pockets for a living?"
"So you are working with the archer, Artemis. She's here," Roy concluded, shaking off the jab. Malcolm looked physically put out by the statement, though that didn't stop his manic amusement from growing.
"Well, that is a rather long and complicated story…" Malcolm trailed, pretending to study his shoe and kick up dirt, feigning confliction before smiling deviously.
"Then uncomplicated it for me," Roy said tersely, getting tired of whatever game Malcolm was trying to play with him.
However, the man's lips curled up at the ends, eyes darkening when he stepped forward to say, "Why don't you ask her yourself?"
When he followed Malcolm's gaze over his shoulder, he immediately snapped his bow up to attack, ready to take down whatever came in his way. Ready to take down Artemis.
And then his entire world shattered.
Because during the time he was so wrapped up in Malcolm's web, he'd forgotten to watch Thea. He'd forgotten to watch her, and now she stood a few meters across the warehouse with a silver bow in her hands.
And then he started to tremble as the pieces began to connect. Her nonchalant attitude, the cold cryptic words, the fact that Artemis knew exactly where to hit him get him down…
It was all Thea.
Thea was Artemis. Artemis was Thea.
They were the same.
His mind was short-circuiting, not understanding what was going on, refusing to accept the complete impossibility of the situation. As far as he knew, Thea could barely recognize an arrow and there she was, aiming one right at his chest like she had been shooting all her life.
It was so absurd that he thought that he was imagining things. Surely this must be some sort of trick. But the seconds ticked by and the vision didn't clear away. It only became sharper, each angry line carved into Thea's brow becoming more and more prevalent. And then when he finally remembered to breathe, he realized that the vengeful woman in front of him didn't really look like Thea at all.
"Do you really want to get into a shooting match with me Roy?" she asked with a bite, her bow raised in a warning. "You know how well that went for you last time."
He lowered his in response, not even recognizing that he was still poised to attack as well, his movements jerky and stuttering. It was like he was moving on autopilot as he internalized this betrayal. But he couldn't hurt her. Even with her obvious hatred for him, he couldn't bring himself to feel the same in response. Instead all he felt was empty, gutted.
"Why?" he asked quietly, a question meant for only Thea's ears. He knew he how weak he sounded, how pathetic he was for being so affected. Of all the people to rip his heart out, he expected Thea to be the last.
But this wasn't Thea, not anymore.
"I was tired of being walked on, of being manipulated by my friends," she replied harshly, her eyes boring into him like she was wishing him into the deepest levels of hell. "Now I'm the one doing the walking."
Her words were heavy with the ones she did not say, but he saw them written on her face. They said that there once was a time when she would have bent the moon and stars to make sure he was safe. She used to drop everything for him in an instant. But he and Oliver and countless others had abused that kindness. Now there was none left.
But amidst all of the chaos inside of him, there was still a nagging in his head, screaming at him that everything was just so wrong. That even though she was spreading hatred, her words sounded hollow, empty, and so very wrong. This wasn't Thea; his Thea would never do something as low as this, act as careless and destructive as this. He knew she had problems, more problems than possibly imaginable, but never once had she tried to take those out on anyone but herself. Now he was in the way of her destructive path, and Malcolm Merlin was the one who had her finger wrapped around the trigger.
His knowing that she wasn't herself didn't stop her from continuing her charade. She tossed her bow aside and stepped forward towards him.
"Take this as your warning. Back off, or things will get nasty. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have to stick an arrow through my brother's skull."
Against his better judgment, he couldn't help but flinch as she left only a millimeter's worth of space between them. He felt pressure on his shoulder, fingers that were once so loving now frigid and sinister, running up his neck to his ear. It wasn't until he felt a tugging sensation from inside that he knew what she was after.
"Did you get all that Ollie?" she asked, her lips ghosting over Roy's ear so that he shivered at her breath. There was only radio silence coming from the other end of the com device, and Roy had never felt more helpless.
Stepping back on her heels but never breaking eye contact with Roy, she called out to Malcolm, "It's time to go."
"Yes, I think you're right," Malcolm mused, taking in the extent of his damage. "Well this has been fun!"
With much effort, Roy shifted his focus to Malcolm. The man was practically manic, leaning over the metal rail with a certain kind of victory plastered over his face. Roy wanted so badly to hurt him, to have even half of his old strength just so he could use it to wipe away that damned look.
But he couldn't. Not when Thea was caught in the crossfire. Whatever he did now, he'd have to tread lightly, not matter how sick it made him to watch Thea saunter over to the madman and stand proudly at his side.
"Whatever it is that you have planned Merlin, we will stop you," Roy warned, his voice low and controlled even though all his instincts screamed at him to attack.
"I'm sure you'll try," the man replied, his eyes narrowing into something dangerous.
Roy watched raptly as he placed his hand on Thea's shoulder possessively, guiding her out the door behind them. Roy made no moves to follow. He just stood idly by and watched the single most important thing in his life walk away. Again.
When Roy came back, the Foundry was wrecked.
Tables were overturned, beakers and test tubes shattered. There were arrows lodged in the walls, like someone had taken to shooting anything they could see. And by someone, Roy meant Oliver. It wasn't like Felicity could hold a bow, and Diggle was far more controlled than Roy's wayward mentor.
That and the man in question was hunched over a chair in the middle of the wreckage, his whole body shaking.
It took Roy a few seconds to process that the man was actually crying.
He couldn't believe it. Oliver Queen, the Arrow, was crying. Roy was startled, completely out of his element. But he still approached him, gently touching his shoulder from the side. But Oliver, the most responsive and on-guard man he had ever met, did not respond.
Roy did not know how to soothe someone this broken. And as much as Oliver wanted to deny it, he was as broken as broken came, tiny pieces hanging on fragile threads, shattering and patching itself back together but each time more and more shards getting lost in the mix.
Roy feared that this might be the one time that Oliver could not put himself back together.
Through all the bad things, he had always had Thea. Oliver had once told Roy that he thought of her on his darkest days and it was her face that kept him going. She was a constant, a saving grace of normality in his sea of chaos. But now even she was gone, twisted by that same chaos that he brought back with him.
It wasn't bad enough that he had to watch both his parents die, to become an orphan. It wasn't bad enough to have been stranded five years on a deserted island and have gone through five years of a hell that he still hadn't mentally escaped. No. That was not enough.
Because now Oliver Queen really was alone. Alone in the Foundry with only Roy to lean on.
Artemis was a ghost.
She hadn't shown up anywhere, not on police scanners or the late night news. Not even on CCTV cameras walking along the streets. It wasn't like he hadn't checked the film nearly a dozen times.
But this time neither Oliver nor Roy really cared.
Because how could they possibly put a target on Thea Queen?
They'd been beaten.
They knew they'd been beaten because neither one of them tried to fight back, not when Thea – no Artemis – was holding the arrows to their throats as they struggled in their steel cable bonds. Roy had been in this situation before, but this time it was different. This time his heart was heavy and he felt like he could be sick. There was no anger, no fire, no rage to win. Not when it meant fighting Thea. They tried to fight her, and they both failed. No matter what, even firing projectiles at their heads, she was still someone they both loved. They would not hurt her, even when she hurt them.
But Malcolm was there too, and him Roy wouldn't mind thrashing until the man's face turned black and blue. Roy hated him for what he had turned Thea into. Even if she went willingly, fueled on rage and betrayal, Roy knew that Malcolm had used her to make her a million times worse. Even though she was a natural with a bow, she looked completely out of place in black leather, standing by the side of a madman as he constructed God knows what to cause irreparable damage.
And he was pretty sure that she wasn't meant to be a murderer either. But that was what Malcolm Merlin was going to turn her into if she actually went through with his ominous 'kill them!'
Obediently, she strung her weapon and targeted her unfailing aim on his chest, but this time was different. Her eyes were wide and Roy could see where her chest heaved under the pressure of making this life-changing decision. She was terrified, and in that split second of clarity everything Roy thought he knew about this new Thea shifted.
"Do it!" Malcolm screamed into the night, his words making Thea flinch, but only slightly. Her face was still steely, and even though there was that doubt, Roy was not sure what she was going to do, caught up in the swirling mix of Malcolm's insanity and Oliver's pleading and the sirens wailing from somewhere far below. If the last thing he ever saw was Thea's face then he supposed this death was better than most he'd imagined.
But the pain of an arrow never reached Roy. No, when the hiss and pop of the firing of a bow actually happened, Roy did not see shiny white lights at the end of a tunnel or sprawling fields of hell fire. Instead, he opened his eyes that he didn't even know had closed to see that the arrow had indeed killed, but not him nor Oliver.
Instead, Malcolm Merlin swayed on his feet, arrow sticking straight out of his throat, before he collapsed to a heap on the concrete of the roof.
Roy didn't even have time to react before Thea was on him, slicing through his and Oliver's bonds with the arrow she had previously aimed at them. Thea was shaky on her feet, nearly tripping over the ledge as she led them out of their little alcove. The tension was thick as they stood across from one another silently collecting themselves, but the haze of adrenaline made it bearable.
"The device - how do we stop it?" Oliver finally managed to get out, compartmentalizing his emotions for the moment, putting his Arrow persona back on.
It was clear that his question was aimed towards Thea, but she was somewhere else, trapped in her mind, looking far more distressed than she had moments ago, almost sickly. Roy had seen that look before, that look she gave when she felt like she was way in over her head, drowning in herself. Roy didn't have to be a mind reader to know that her thoughts were fixed on Malcolm and her eyes similarly stuck to his bleeding corpse. He knew that because that's where his mind had gone the first time he'd killed a man. The vision had haunted him for months.
Pangs of sympathy hit Roy, the urge to hold Thea strong, but he kept his distance. He was not going to risk anything, not when he wasn't sure if they were enemies or allies, and especially not when there were other things like saving the city to be done.
But those thoughts didn't faze Oliver. No, he was pacing around the device, leaving the core group to kneel down beside it to get a better look. He grunted in anger after a few moments, furiously running his hands over the dangerous device. Because petting is always the obvious answer to dealing with hostile technology, Roy thought.
"What even is it?" he asked suddenly, distressed by all the flashing buttons and crisscrossing wires, frustration creeping in on him as well.
"An earthquake device," Thea practically whispered, like the shame of her actions was finally setting in.
Oliver leaned back at her words, shouting in frustration before working more furiously than before, pulling at the wires that came out of its top. But Roy was still confused.
"What is an earthquake device?" Usually he would assume that the machine caused earthquakes, but in his experience, he could never be sure.
"It's the device Malcolm Merlin used to level the Glades the first time. And now it looks like he's built another with twice the power. Enough to wipe away the entire city."
Oliver was glaring at Thea, his wide eyes full of anger, rage, and most of all, heartbreak. As if he couldn't believe that his own sister could willingly partake in something so awful. She knew what damage the first one caused first-hand; she was in the heart of the Glades when it went off. She barely escaped with her life, and in return she would willing rob others of theirs.
Roy couldn't help but stare at her in the exact same way.
Thea couldn't meet their eyes, not when tears were threatening to fall at any moment. Roy could see the determination, the physical pain she went through to swallow down their judgment and run her hands over her face, scrubbing herself away for the moment.
"You won't stop it that way," Thea gestured to the wires Oliver was yanking on, ready to cut. "Malcolm set it to blow already; cutting the wires will only jump start it," she said stoically, suddenly looking much more settled than she had before. "There is one way, maybe."
"What is it?" Roy asked impatiently. There was no time to waste when thousands lives were at stake. Each second was precious.
"There is a way to reroute the power, make it cancel itself out. I remember Malcolm talking about it."
"Can you do it?" Oliver asked sternly. Even though he wanted the city safe as much as Roy, Roy also knew that he could not fully trust Thea or her motives at the moment, not after all she had done. She could just be baiting them into to speeding up the reaction.
"I think so," Thea replied just as seriously, and something in her gaze must have persuaded Oliver into trusting her.
"I need a power source," Thea started, staring down the device with a dazed expression. "There is an electrical panel over in the corner that's hooked up to the machine. It can't be turned off, not now that it's self-sufficient. But..."
She rummaged around in her quiver, pulling out an arrow that looked bigger than the others, handing it over to Oliver like a lifeline.
"Take this to the panel and when I give the cue, pull the arrowhead off and place the shaft inside. There will be an outlet when you open the panel up. If all goes well, it will stop the machine."
Both men were a bit wary. An arrow to solve all their problems? Sure it looked bigger and heavier than the others - it could have been packing some miracle tech - but it was still an arrow. It was a simple plan, too simple really, but Roy supposed that he had been a part of simpler. This plan working would really make his night a whole lot easier.
"You need both of us?" Oliver asked skeptically, but still took the arrow.
"Do you really need to argue with me?! This thing is going off at any second and you're wasting time!" Thea finally snapped, looking completely out of sorts.
But it made Roy smile. Finally some of the old Thea was shining through. Perhaps there was some hope left.
Oliver nodded, maybe even thinking the same things Roy was, and sprinted towards the electrical panel. It really was a fair distance, but they pushed themselves hard, practically ripping the door off the panel. Oliver yanked the head off the arrow, but there was no plug head, no chip, no hook up. There was only the sharp blade of a grapple.
Oliver held the thing quizzically until something dawned across him a split second later, his head snapping up. Something that Roy hadn't gotten yet. At least, not until he saw that there was no outlet either.
There was no fancy way to blow it up. There never was. It was all a trick
Of course he didn't realize that until he turned to see Thea sticking an arrow into the damn thing.
And he was sure he screamed. Screamed so loud and long that it would rival any other primordial call. But it didn't compare to the sound of the explosion that followed Thea's strike, that rang in his ears long after Oliver had pulled them both over and off the roof. It didn't compare to the flames that consumed the rooftop right in front of his eyes, that ate away at his back as he free fell.
And it sure as hell didn't compare to Oliver's absolutely devastating cry as they finally let themselves rest on the ground, far too worn to do anything but collapse.
Diggle drove them home a few hours later, but no words were spoken.
From the window of the blacked-out limousine, Roy could make out the city scape, all of the skyscrapers so lit up and alive with those who were too privileged or too lucky to understand anything but that naïve, gleaming life. But in the mix of the pristine and wonderful, he could make out final dying embers atop of Malcolm's once powerful empire.
Strangely, from where he sat, the flames almost looked beautiful, trails of smoke and ash rising up into the air. Just like her cigarettes.
There was a funeral, white roses and black suits and all.
It wasn't public – that would mean a press statement and a million other tiny white lies that would eat at them all from the inside out at night. It was just a private gathering of the four of them: Oliver, Felicity, Diggle and himself. That was all who mattered anyway. Of course there was Walter, but he was much better off not knowing what Thea had turned into.
They never found her body, so they buried an empty casket. The minister was quick and meaningful in his words since no one else wanted to say any. No one quite knew what to say to a headstone. Not when the headstone wouldn't talk back with something snarky and sarcastic.
Roy thought that of all things about Thea, he'd miss that most.
He's tried looking for her. On the street, at fancy parties, on the tops of buildings during night patrols. The list goes on.
She's never there.
Roy was home one evening when he heard a strange groaning come from his front porch. Getting up, he grabbed a baseball bat by the window and stalked towards his front door. Really, the neighborhood kids should stop trying to break into his dump of a place. Even if there was anything to steal, most people knew by now not to mess with him unless they wanted a few broken bones and some stitches.
But when he swung the door open, there was only the chilly January air to greet him. He shivered involuntarily at the assault and stepped further out into the cold, gripping the bat tightly in his fist. He would be damned if he would let some punk pull something and get away with it.
"And they say I'm paranoid."
His heart started at the familiar snide voice off to his side. The bat fell from his fingers, forgotten on the old wooden floors as he faced his fallen angel.
His first instinct - other than to question his own sanity - was to ask how. How was Thea Queen standing on his front porch when he watched her go up in flames? But he wasn't so ignorant anymore. The dead hardly ever stayed dead in this world of superheroes and villains.
She looked completely unharmed as far as he could tell, skin undamaged and perfectly pale, no trace of burns except for the cigarette lit in her wine-colored lips. Her eyes had lost some of their stony indifference, the warmth that once welcomed him slowly returning. But he wasn't blind; she still held an edge that he knew would never leave. Even if she learned to trust again, those eyes would never be the same.
"You're alive," he stated blankly, not sure if he could really believe what he was seeing. How many times had his mind tricked him into an illusion? Too many, far too many.
"And you still look ridiculous," she replied, dragging the cigarette from her lips as she exhaled a hot cloud of smoke. For a minute her face was distorted, but she smoke cleared and she was still there. Still real.
But as the silence stretched between them, thick and heavy, he found that they really had nothing left to say. What could he even say to someone who had yanked his emotions around like a yo-yo for the past few months? He considered it a big improvement that they weren't trying to kill one another anymore, but they had successfully burned their relationship to the ground, and nothing they did would change that.
"Why are you here?" he finally asked, still expecting her to vanish in the vapor that billowed from her mouth.
She cracked a semi-smile to herself, as if she was just now considering that question. "I don't know. Maybe this was a mistake…"
"No, not a mistake," Roy was quick to assure her, "I'm glad you're here."
"Well there's a first," she tried to joke, but the mood fell flat instantaneously. Neither of them were up for a laugh.
"Does Oliver know you're alive?"
She shook her head in a solid 'no', not meeting his gaze, her focus fixed on the view from his front porch. Everything was so calm in the world around them, and for a moment he was jealous of all those who lived in it. Everything there was so much easier. Simple.
"Do you plan on telling him?"
Silence.
"Do you plan on telling anyone?"
This time, she let out a long, rattling breath.
"I don't know…I don't really have this thing planned out. I didn't even know I was headed here until I was knocking on your door."
This was a first: Thea Queen, the woman with a plan, not knowing what to do. He was just as confused as she was.
"Where will you go then? What will you do?" he tried again. She could be anything she wanted now. Clearly the same thought was dawning on her, her eyes narrowing in concentration.
"Somewhere far away from here, where I can start over. There's nothing for me here anymore, not after everything that's happened. I can't stay, can't walk along the streets and pretend that I didn't try to level this place the ground again."
She fidgeted with her hands as bad memories took hold of her. She couldn't go there; she wasn't strong enough to face that pain yet. She inhaled her cigarette deeply, the nicotine strangely calming as it coated her lungs and heart. Roy was staring at her pensively, that much she knew. He was always one for staring, and she waited for the next, inevitable statement to leave his mouth.
"You really shouldn't smoke. It's not good for you."
Roy peered down at her, only then realizing the irony of his statement. Because there he was: the person who turned her life upside down on a whim. She was supposed to be a random target, a snatch and run just like he had done a million other times before. Instead he was poison, the worst thing to run into her life. He had lost count of the hours wondering how much better off she would be if they had never met, if he had decided to wait five more minutes and snatch the next lady's purse instead of hers. Maybe they both could've avoided catastrophe.
"Hmmm..." she replied with a slight smirk, giving her cigarette a pensive look before tossing it off the porch. "Bad habit."
And those words started a collision that he could not stop, the memory of her tossing a cigarette to the ground in an abandoned warehouse flooding his mind, snippets of flying arrows fracturing the explosions of orange and white that came immediately afterwards.
"Why me? Why did you save me? Why my door?" The questions that had been haunting him since the explosion flooding from his mouth in a wave. "You could've had me on that rooftop, and I wouldn't have stopped you..."
It was her expression that stopped him from going any further, the stricken face halting all other questions his lips. How stupid he was to forget who he was talking to. A stone cold mask and wine red lips didn't change the fiber of the girl across from him. Because no matter how mad or twisted Thea Queen was, no matter how wronged she had been, she would never have it in her to kill anyone, especially anyone she loved. The Thea that killed Malcolm Merlin was something dark and hideous that Roy could tell even now that she was struggling to come to terms with, something that Malcolm had molded for his own devious purposes, something she was tearing herself to pieces over. The Thea that felt remorse for killing her abuser, who couldn't truly hate anyone, that was who he was talking to now.
And that hit hardest of all.
Because that meant that after all Roy had done to her, she still loved him.
She didn't have to say it, but he knew. He knew in the way she was smiling apologetically, so much sadness present in her eyes. Maybe that look was nothing to someone looking in, but he knew that everything Thea did had a purpose. It was the closest thing he was going to get to an explanation, but more closure than any words could give him.
Before he could blink, she turned away and stepped off his porch, breaking the intimate closeness they had created in the past few moments. He felt empty as her heat left him, the bite of the winter wind sneaking back into his bones until he felt his skin prickle with goose bumps. But it wasn't just the weather that was making him feel so cold: it was a lack of her. He had forgotten what it felt like to have her - the real her - there, so close, burning as hot and bright as she did on her best days. She had a light that was all her own, one that he forgot he needed until that moment.
He couldn't let her leave, let her walk down the street and out of sight while his heart shattered into a million pieces. He wouldn't survive that, not again. He wasn't afraid to admit that he was weak – that after all the emotional abuse of the past few months that he didn't know how to be strong anymore. That's what she was for. Always, she was the stronger one.
His mind made up, he turned after her. She was already paces away from his house, but he caught up with her in a few strides. He didn't get to hear her protests nor see her look of annoyance before he was kissing them off her face.
He poured everything he had left in that kiss: his shattered hopes, his dreams, his battered heart and broken soul. All of it. They were always hers to begin with, from the day they met. She was his only sanctuary, and he siphoned off her fire until he could feel himself burning from the inside out. And she drank him in, sweeter than any high imaginable. Her own personal poison.
Everything about them was toxic, from the people they were to the lives that they led, but neither one gave a damn. They were two broken people who had broken each other past all limits. He had betrayed her trust and she repaid him with arrows and lies. But he held onto her, cradling her face, treating her like something that would shatter even though he knew that she was perfectly capable of doing some shattering of her own. With her eyes closed like they were now, it was hard to believe that she was anything but fragile.
"Sorry," Roy managed to breathe out as he pulled away, "bad habit."
Thea laughed. Of all things she could do, that unpredictable girl, she decided to laugh as if nothing had changed, throwing back her head before leaning into him, connecting them once more.
This time the kiss slowed from something of heat and passion into something slow and meaningful. Somehow Roy's hands found their way into Thea's hair, and likewise Thea found herself gripping onto Roy's jacket a little too tightly, like she was grasping onto him for fear that he may slip through her fingers. After all the lies and cutting words and cigarettes, Roy was surprised to find that her lips didn't taste like damage and bitterness, but underneath the nicotine was something was still a hundred percent Thea: lavender and coffee and cherry chap stick. They marveled in the way that after all this time that they still fit into each other perfectly, like lock and key. The key was rusted through and the lock was already cracked open, but underneath the wear and tear was something familiar.
At least, that was what he kept in mind as he backed himself up, leading her into his house and shutting the door behind him them.
In that moment, they left the past behind them on the porch, entering a sanctuary where the rest of the world didn't matter. She'd pick it up on her way out to wherever she'd end up going, and he'd linger inside for as long as possible, dreading the moment when his sheets would cease to smell like her. He'd crave her scent, her taste, her body like an addict. Withdrawals would most likely kill him. But he didn't care.
He would always indulge this bad habit.