Summary: After defeating and surviving Slade Wilson's siege on Starling City, crimes have been at an all time low in the past five months. But what happens when a new challenger emerges, which causes Oliver to make one of the biggest decisions of his life? Will he do what he thinks is best for him, or best for his friends and Starling City? I do not own none of the characters, everything belongs to DC. (Obviously?)
"Table for two."
Night time, Starling City
Oliver was speeding down the road, on his motorcycle.
"Kelvin Nico just knocked over a liquor store." John announced over the comms, in his black van. "Nico's in Steelgrave's crew."
"Send his photo to Roy. Get me Felicity." Oliver ordered.
"You got it." John said.
Same time, tech store
"I can't talk right now, I'm at work." Felicity informed the team, tapping into her comms. "Could I ask you guys just to wait one moment?" She asked the customers in front of her. "Someone's calling for tech support!" She yelled, running to the customer service center.
"Oh, you are going to get so incredibly fired." Felicity said, while pressing keys. "I'm hacking into the city's database. I am running facial recognition... now."
"Do you like Italian?" Oliver asked.
"What?" Felicity asked, as the photos of Steelgrave's crew popped up.
"For tonight, you like Italian right?" Oliver asked, driving on the motorcycle. "Everyone likes Italian."
"Oliver you're in the middle of a high speed chase." Felicity replied.
"I'm multitasking." He said.
"I got him, he's in the sewer." Felicity informed him. "I'm picking up his cell phone underneath. He's at the corner of Grand and Ames. And yes, I love Italian."
She then seen a police car, on the screen via the street cameras.
"Detective Lance- Captain Lance- is also in pursuit." She announced. "You are welcome, I have to go.'
Minutes later, the sewer
Steelgrave's crew member was on the run, underneath the city. He took a turn before getting hit in the face by Captain Lance, who wasn't supposed to be in the field. The crew member got back up and continued running off in the sewer but was later captured by the Arrow. Quentin stopped to take his medical pills.
"Detective, thank you." The Arrow said, with his modulated voice.
"You had it handled." Quentin responded.
"For what you said today." He said, referring to Lance's speech, earlier today.
"I wish I could do more." Captain Lance said.
"You've already done more than enough." Arrow replied. "I've got to go. Some place I have to be."
"You got a hot date or something?" Lance asked.
The Arrow smiled before walking off, leaving Steelgrave's crew member on the ground.
Five Years Ago, Hong Kong, abandoned building
Oliver was sitting in a chair, as the Chinese man stood nearby him.
"So this morning makes how many escape attempts in the last five months?" A female voice asked.
"Nine." Oliver answered.
"What we have here is a failure to reach an understanding." She said.
"Go to hell." Oliver muttered.
"So this is my reward from saving you from drowning in that freighter off the coast of Lian Yu?" She asked.
"Yeah. Why'd you do that?" Oliver asked.
"That's need to know." The woman answered, the light shining in the face of Amanda Waller. "Suffice it to say, I have need of a man of your capacity."
"I don't care." Oliver said. "I don't care about anything except going home and you know that. You should know that I will never stop trying to escape."
"And you should know that it's extremely easy to kill someone, the world already thinks is dead." Amanda replied.
"Kill me, then." Oliver says to her. "I don't care."
"We're going to have to try this another way, then." Amanda told the Chinese man.
As she walked away, he knocked him out, again.
Present day, Starling City, tech store
"Hi, thank you for waiting." Felicity told the customer.
"Ah, no problem. I just want to buy this." The customer said, placing the object on the counter.
"This is a satellite frequency communicator TX40." Felicity said, touching the box.
"Yeah, I'm trying to breach a TORsecured firewall and I need something to help me piggyback off a Keyhole Hexagon satellite, so..." He replied.
"I did that once." Felicity told him, smiling. "Hacked a public wifi signal, piggybacked using crowd-sourced stealth processing."
The customer looked amazed before looking at her name tag.
"You're Felicity Smoak." He said. "Formerly of Queen Consolidated. Mind if I ask you something, why are you here?"
"How do you know who I am?" She asked, curious.
"I know a guy who might be interested in hiring someone with your expertise." The customer answered.
"I'm not actually looking for a new job, but I can help you buy this." She said. "Unless I can't, I mean, I shouldn't. You shouldn't buy this."
Felicity put the box down before walking over to an aisle.
"Okay, clearly you don't understand how this whole sales thing works." He said, following her.
"Th next-gen model, the TX50, comes out in a few months." Felicity informed him. "I got to touch one last year, pure bliss." She picked up a pamphlet. "And if you want to breach TOR-level security, you should really deploy a remote administration tool. I have a good one, here's the URL." Felicity says, while writing down the URL on the pamphlet and handing it to him.
"Thanks." He said.
"Happy hacking." Felicity said, with such enthusiasm.
"I certainly hope so." He replied before walking off.
Starling General Hospital
John was pacing back and forth in the room, as Lyla was laying in the chair. The doctor was standing next to her.
"False alarm." He said to her and John.
"Are you sure? These contractions..." Lyla said.
"Just braxton-hicks. You're not even four centimeters dilated." He informed her.
"I feel like an M1-A1." She told him.
The doctor looked up, curious.
"It's a tank. Think a big, big tank." John told him.
"You did the right thing coming in. You don't want your husband,"
"Boyfriend."
"Ex-husband."
Lyla and John said at the same time, correcting the doctor.
"to be delivering the baby on the side of the freeway." He finished the sentence. "You can get dressed now." The doctor said before exiting the room.
"All right." John said.
"You okay?" Lyla asked.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not the one that's nine months pregnant." John answered.
"You look a little scared." She said.
"Honey, please, I've thrown down with the Taliban, Malcom Merlyn, and a host of Mirakuru-powered human weapons. I'm terrified." John said before the two laughed.
Night time, Italian restaurant.
Oliver used a special arrow to zip-line onto the building. Once getting inside, he began taking off his vigilante suit, already wearing a tux underneath. Oliver then hid the duffel bag full of the Arrow suit.
He then, properly, entered.
"Queen, party of two." Oliver said to the man at the front.
"Right this way." He informed him.
Oliver then seen Felicity in a red dress, hair down, and no glasses. They smiled before Oliver approached her.
"Hi." Felicity said.
"Hey." Oliver replied before hugging.
They sat down at the table.
"What?" Felicity asked after Oliver sighed.
"Nothing, I'm just.." He said, before getting interrupted.
"Nervous?" Felicity said, finishing the sentence.
"Yeah." He answered.
"Line forms behind me." Felicity replied, joking.
"Scotch, neat." Oliver tells the waiter.
"And just the water for me, thanks." Felicity said but then Oliver stopped the waiter from leaving.
"Are you sure? The booze might sort of help with the whole-"
"The alcohol is not going to mix well with the three benzos I took." Felicity said before Oliver let the waiter fetch their drinks.
"Am I being crazy? I mean, what do we have to be nervous about?" Oliver asked, chuckling.
"Well, we've already exhausted every topic that one would normally talk about on a first date." Felicity answered. "And a second date, and a third date, and every date, actually, and I've already seen you shirtless." She said. "Multiple times. Shirtless, all the time."
"Thank you." Oliver said to the waiter as he returned with their drinks.
Felicity took a sip of her water.
"There are still a few things that you don't know about me." Oliver told her.
"Please, name one." Felicity said.
"The five years that I was away, I wasn't always on Lian Yu." Oliver said.
"I thought so. So where were you?" She asked.
"Hong Kong." He answered. "For one. And I have been thinking a lot recently about my time there. The choices that I had to make." Oliver said, reminiscing.
"Those years sound like they were full of a whole lot of suck." Felicity mentions.
"I'm sorry, I'm just a little out of my element." Oliver replied. "The entire time that I was gone, I could never completely trust someone. And when that goes on for so long, you stop... seeing people for people. You see.. threats." Oliver said. "Or targets. And when I decided to come home, I just didn't know how to turn that part of me off." Oliver paused. "Then I walked into your office. You were the first person that I could see as a person. There was just something about you."
"Oh, yeah, I was chewing on a pen." Felicity said, remembering.
"It was red." Oliver noted, also remembering.
Same time, elsewhere
"GPS shows him in the restaurant." A ginger haired man said, holding a tablet, which showed a map.
In Oliver's bag, the suit had a GPS on it, which had been secretly planted.
"The arrow is definitely in there. If we're going to find him, we got to get in closer." He pointed out.
The dragon tattoo'd man opened up a crate.
"We're close enough." He said.
"Do you remember when I told you that because of what we do, I didn't think that I could be with someone that I really care about?" Oliver asked.
"Yeah, I remember." Felicity answered.
"So maybe I was wrong." Oliver said.
On the roof of another building, across from the restaurant, was the dragon tattoo man. He was whistling while aiming his bazooka at the restaurant, Oliver and Felicity was in.
"Oliver, are you-"
Felicity stopped when she noticed Oliver looking off.
"Oliver?" She asked before Oliver grabbed her and took her down to the ground.
Seconds before they hit the ground, though, the bazooka was fired and an explosion went off in the restaurant.
Later
Oliver became conscious again and stared up at the burning chandelier. He moved his eyes around to see a dead man's body on the ground, with blood on his face. The inside of the restaurant was a complete wreckage. He finally began moving and then found Felicity, either unconscious or dead.
The Bunker
Oliver carried Felicity down the stairs and onto the table, where John and Roy joined.
"Is she okay?" Roy asked, concerned.
"She's just knocked out." Oliver answered, dust almost covering his face.
"Saw it all over the news, police and fire are on the scene." John announced, looking at the computer screen.
"Yeah, I didn't think it was the best idea to stick around and answer questions." Oliver said.
"You don't think you and an explosion at the same place is a coincidence?" John asked him.
"Hey, check this out." Roy said, holding Oliver's bag and a small piece of object in his hand. "It's a GPS. I found it on your jacket, it's wasted now."
"You took out one of Steelgrave's crew earlier tonight." John said, remembering.
"It was a set up." Oliver told them, after putting the pieces together in his head. "So they could plant that thing on me."
"Oliver, I know what you're thinking." John said.
"No you don't." Oliver fired back, now angry.
"Listen, I'm not other people." John said, approaching him. "I know exactly what's going on in your head, and you are wrong."
"Diggle, somebody put a tracer on me and I don't notice? The only explanation.." Oliver then pauses. "I lost my focus."
Oliver then dialed the only number on his burner phone.
SCPD
"Detective, the person we took down earlier is working with whoever's responsible for tonight's explosion."
Quentin took some pills, again.
"Another one of Steelgrave's crew, I'm guessing." Lance said.
"Well I need to know who's at the top of that organization, now." Oliver responded. "And where I can find him."
"I'm on it." He replied before hanging up.
Oliver walked back to Felicity before she jolted.
"Oliver!" Felicity yelled.
"Hey, hey." Oliver said, holding her. "You're safe. I'm here."
Later that night, undisclosed location
Oliver already had an arrow in the bow, ready to fire. He then heard someone up on the second floor and aimed the arrow, only to see Lance.
"I'm on your side." Detective Lance said, throwing his hands up.
"Got this handled, Detective." Oliver tells him, with a modulated voice.
"These guys blew up a building, you think I'm sitting this out?" Detective asked, but wasn't really a question. "The guy you're looking for: Ricardo Diaz, but he goes by Dragon." Detective Lance informed him. "He's so called the real deal in the streets of Starling City."
"Keep your head on a swivel, then." He responded.
The two had split up and Oliver began searching the place for Diaz. Then, felt something touch him. Oliver turned around to see Ricardo.
"I'm Ricardo Diaz." He said before sticking a needle in Oliver's neck. "Are you familiar with Vertigo?"
"How? The Count's dead!" Oliver replied.
"Some things never die." Diaz said, chuckling. "You, for example. It's frustrating. Just means I have to try a little bit harder."
Then, Ricardo started going for strikes and Oliver was keeping up with him, using the bow to block his attacks. Oliver found an opening and nailed Diaz in the face with his bow. Suddenly, Oliver felt himself losing balance and stumbled.
"The Count might be dead, true.." Diaz' voice began echoing in Oliver's ears. "But his narcotic lives on with a few changes that'll reveal to you your greatest fear. It's kind of like gazing upon the truth." He informed him.
Oliver then saw Ricardo Diaz' face transform into Oliver's greatest fear, himself. Oliver continued attacking Ricardo but Ricardo moved smarter, finding several openings to strike the hooded vigilante. He then grabbed Oliver and threw him, knocking a small counter top over. Oliver got back up and Ricardo quickly strikes Oliver but he stopped when a gunshot rang.
"Get away from him or get put down!" Detective Lance yelled, pointing his gun at Dragon.
He tossed a needle and it hit the wall, next to Lance. He fired a shot and Ricardo's grip loosened, allowing Oliver to escape. Then, Detective felt a pain in his side and dropped his gun before dropping to the ground. Ricardo approached him before an arrow was shot in his back;Dragon dropped to the floor. Oliver then seen Detective on the ground, struggling.
"Felicity, call an ambulance!" He ordered, tapping into his comms.
Then, Lance passed out.