Warnings: action-related violence, character death
Chapter 4: Put Some Heat in My Heartache
"Red, tend to Merlyn. I'll deal with Cupid."
Red Arrow's eyebrow rose, but he withheld any berating comment. Roy knew that he wasn't just acting 'rebellious' towards Green Arrow; the elder archer should have been the one to tend to his former idol. In addition, Cupid as a threat had been neutralized.
Despite his misgivings, Red Arrow didn't say anything, dutifully following Green Arrow's orders as he checked to see if Merlyn was even still alive. The police and medics would arrive shortly, but in the possibility that Merlyn died, Ollie should have been the one to stay by his side. Even Roy felt bad for the wounded, possibly dying archer, who had stopped gagging and only looked at him with tired, withdrawn eyes.
"He'll live…darn, can you forgive me, baby?" Cupid pouted as she stared at Green Arrow.
Cameron stared between the archers and Cupid, unsure of what to say. His lips trembled slightly; his mind zoned in on the psychotic murderess.
She couldn't have known before this fight that he was working for the Arrows; even his warped criminal mind clung to the belief in the Justice League's infallibility. The League's secrets were unknowable; their actions always protected by what some saw as divine justice. The League could never lose. They were good and glorious, which the thought of made Cameron feel naïve. He was…no longer a child mauling the TV for images of the League with his eyes.
Cameron inwardly cursed himself, blaming his obsession with Conner. Caring and protecting others made him uneasy; despite this, his childish dreams of superheroes, he had now come full-circle. He once again believed in the League, its cause, and its members…or maybe just a very muscled, domineering clone.
"Darling…" Cupid drawled, the majority of her body still encased in ice. Otherwise, she would have probably plunged herself into some casual exotic dancing upon seeing Green Arrow, before proceeding to kill them. "I was just teaching snowflake a lesson before he rudely froze me! Bad!" Cupid whined 'bad' like a '20s harlot, cooing in a babyish voice that tested the limits of Cameron's gag reflex.
"I could have killed her," Cameron stared at the Arrows, ignoring the vigilante.
"She needs to be taken, alive," Green Arrow chastised the ice-meta, but Cameron noticed that the elder archer's eyes didn't even look in his direction. Green Arrow's eyes were locked upon Cupid; studying, devouring, and relishing in her newly trapped state. The archer felt powerful, slightly ignoring the two teens to focus on Cupid.
"She killed your usual play-pals," Cameron quickly retorted, much to the amusement of Red Arrow. "You could just cry 'self-defense' to your JL buddies."
Cameron moved away from Green Arrow and Cupid, returning his attention to Merlyn. Both Red Arrow and Icicle Jr. crouched down by him, neither cared to watch Ollie probably unleash his most dangerous moves on the vigilante…the sloppy and gross French kiss.
"Are you done 'interrogating' her yet?" Red Arrow hollered at his former mentor. Merlyn, despite wounded, slightly smiled; his eyes regained the barest glint of life. "I don't think this is safe for the kids…Icicle, cover your ears!"
Cameron let out the smallest chuckle; his head still racing. The ice-meta outstretched his hand, clasping Merlyn's right hand a little too tightly. Cameron didn't want to see himself as a child, grasping Merlyn for dear life, but he couldn't help but be affected. He was no longer emotionally cold and refined. That didn't make him a sob-fest though; not even Conner could have turned him into an emotional mess.
Cameron's eyebrows were knitted in concern, but he looked over at Red Arrow briefly. The archer wasn't as annoying as he had been…he might be just as likely to smash his jaw again, but they felt like friends now. The ice-meta appreciated the archer's sense of humor, which probably saved him from becoming angrier and killing the vigilante.
"I don't want to look behind me," Cameron whispered, turning his head towards Red Arrow. "But is Ollie getting to first base, yet?"
Red Arrow just glared, before grinning back. "He just has a weakness…like all superheroes do. Superman has Kryptonite, Green Arrow has women in fishnets."
"Hello, Green Arrow, are you going to just keep staring at her back there or actually say something?" Cameron tilted his head back, studying the relatively calm archer have a glare-match with the flirty vigilante.
Cameron needed to keep calm; humor lessened the clenching of his free hand into a fist. The ice-meta didn't know if that fist was meant for Green Arrow or Cupid. Sure, she was a killer; but the archer enabled her. It's not like Green Arrow could pull the morally superior card and claim that he was above morally wrong acts like killing…Red Arrow loved telling Cameron of his former mentor's debauched, wealthy lifestyle.
Green Arrow might not be a murderer, but in a business of exploiting the poor to fuel his own wealth and status, the man was probably even more morally lax than Icicle Jr., former criminal. If Green Arrow would not kill Cupid, he could have easily hired someone to do it. Unless the archer had purposely allowed for Cupid to kill...that would allow low-level villains to be permanently eliminated while Green Arrow got to play the hero and 'save the day.'
Maybe Cameron was just over-analyzing this. Green Arrow was his ticket out of crime. As long as Merlyn lived, the ice-meta should be happy to finally be with Conner. He shouldn't question the Ollie's motives.
"Focus on Conner…focus on Conner…" Cameron mentally repeated to himself, ignoring his doubts of authority.
Finally, after what seemed like a weeklong staring match, Green Arrow spoke. "I don't love you."
"Really? That's it? No, 'you're a bad, evil killer, lady, and I'm gonna lock you up?'"
Cameron kept staring into Merlyn's eyes, fearfully awaiting any sign that the elder archer would slip away. He shouldn't have paid attention to Green Arrow now, but Cameron was prickly. He wouldn't start being happy-go-lucky and nice like Conner's team.
"What? You just wanna..." Cupid trailed off, suggestively.
"No," Green Arrow broke her off, somewhat shakily.
"Fine! I knew that snow-cone freak has been working for you!" Cupid, no longer caring to play things sweet, turned into a more angry, but unsurprisingly still seductive tone. Her voice spoke of a challenge: even in defeat, she wanted Green Arrow to want her.
"How did you know that?" Red and Green Arrow spoke in unison, agreeing on something for perhaps the first time in months. Cameron blankly stared at them, inwardly laughing at how similar the two were in personality...despite the different outlook and experiences that made them distinct heroes.
"I didn't involve...any lesser thugs."
Cameron, tired of the conversation between the two, interrupted, "She's been spying on us. Big surprise." The ice-meta didn't know if he was right, but he hoped that she was merely a stalker. If he could make himself believe that, his paranoia of villains coming after him...mainly his father...would be lessened. He couldn't allow himself to believe that others had helped her.
"You didn't even cheat on me. Not even with her."
Cupid spoke mater-of-factly, both admitting to Cameron's comment and treating Dinah like some low-class, villainous harpy. The vigilante's warped view casted Dinah as her ultimate rival, whose name didn't even deserve to be spoken. Cupid's tone had once again calmed, no longer playfully combative.
"Maybe she just doesn't like another woman in fishnets."
"How long have you been spying on us?" Green Arrow spoke in a low, drowning voice. It was something Cupid could just get lost in; the male archer didn't even need to torture her for information.
"Since you saved me, hero." She batted her eyelashes, sightly perking her lips.
In some warped fanfiction, Green Arrow could have planted a kiss on her; choosing Cupid over Black Canary. Cupid had loved the archer, more brutally and obsessively to the point that it was poetic. Years earlier, Green Arrow had mistakenly killed her husband Ross, believing that he had been abusing her. In reality, she had tried to kill her husband, just as she killed a line of villains for her Green Arrow.
The streets of Star had become a temple, bathed in the blood and bullets of human sacrifices for the green archer. Cupid was the priestess, eagerly awaiting even the barest wink or nod from her god. Nothing would prevent her from killing and offering him more villains...not even jail. Jail would just become a multi-layer cake: layers of after cell-blocks to kill and present to Green Arrow.
But this wasn't a romance; instead of freeing Cupid or even grazing her lips in the kiss he could have long craved, Green Arrow drew his bow and aimed it at her head.
Long ago, Cupid had taken the broken tip of one of his arrows and carved a now infamous heart with an arrow through her chest. Through the ice and because of her revealing clothing, the heart still shown through like a glaring signal to Green Arrow.
Before Cameron or Roy could stop him, Ollie shot his arrow at the vigilante. In one fleeting moment, she had received not a kiss, but what she probably saw as the ultimate expression of Green Arrow's love. He had shot her; he had claimed her.
He had loved her.
"Red, Icicle," Oliver turned to the teens, "Pick up Merlyn. We're leaving."
Neither teen said anything for the rest of the night, the image of a smiling Cupid stuck on repeat in their minds. Not even the permanence of her self-carved scar could rival the effect of this moment cutting itself into their memories.
Conner had arrived the day after to meet Cameron, sensing how emotionally distraught his boyfriend was. The reformed ice-criminal was temporarily living with Green and Red Arrow at the Queen Estate mansion, but had been shocked into an uncharacteristic silence. Even Roy had grown silent; avoiding both Cameron and Ollie to train at the mansion's archery range.
The Queen family mansion was gaudy, grand, and...grotesque. Cameron hadn't grown up surrounded by signs of obvious wealth; him and his father were too often living on the lamb or in jail. Like Belle Reve, the walls of the mansion looked off-puttingly sterile, but carried a dark, almost corrupted air. Cameron really needed to stop projecting his thoughts onto inanimate objects.
When Superboy had shown up, Icicle Jr. quickly pulled him into the guest bedroom he had slept in, pushing him against the wall as he made sure the door was closed.
Cameron was too stressed to say anything; sheer consumption of his Kryptonian temporarily sated his feelings. Conner simply tasted...alive. Although Cameron had started a chaste kiss, he soon gave up and slipped his tongue across the Conner's bottom lip. Before he could prod Conner's lips open, the clone gripped him.
"I thought I was the top."
Conner, who was way too confident to be cute, gently pressed his lips against Conner's cheek, placing a trail of lingering, chaste kisses, before stopping and starring at Cameron, denying him one, final climatic kiss on the mouth. Their eyes were locked, only a couple inches apart. Something about the natural, slightly lost and unsure look on Cameron's face would always appeal to Conner; it somehow innocently and seductively pleaded for another kiss, as if to rival the women painted into immortality by Vermeer. Cameron's lips parted slightly, in a male rendition of the Girl with a Pearl Earring.
"What happened?"
Cameron slowly inhaled, without squirming out of Conner' grip. If anything, Conner's possessiveness was reassuring. Even if the ice-meta was flawed and might never completely reveal himself truthfully to the clone, he could tell him about Green Arrow and Merlyn. Conner deserved that at least.
AN: This chapter quickly came out (I felt bad since I had neglected this fic for months. I felt like such a tease - for the longest time, only two chapters were posted). Anyways, next chapter will explain more of Merlyn (but not that much) and have the Arrows meet with the League/force them to accept Cameron on the team (and more kissing).
I'm not trying to make Green Arrow into a villain. I'm trying to make Green Arrow more morally-grey (to be more like Roy and Cameron). So, who is fine that Green Arrow killed an obsessive vigilante?
There is a sad lack of Conner/Cameron fics. Anyways, thankyou to TheWickedWizardOfOz, who suggested a name for this couple. From this day forth (dramatic drum roll), Conner/Cameron will be called KryptonIce.
