A Room Without a View

"So you just let Oliver hand himself over," Diggle asked, eyebrows raised. They were all sitting in the sitting room of the safe house (minus Thea and Moira – Roy was also missing because he was with them upstairs, keeping them away from seeing everybody present and overhearing the conversation), all of the curtains pulled closed.

"What was I supposed to do?" Sara snapped.

"Talk him out of it," Felicity offered, not looking up from her computer. She couldn't believe that Sara had let those men drive off with Oliver without even trying to help. "Or you could have done something ninja. You two are always doing ninja like things, working out ways to fight even when outnumbered." Oliver and Sara always had their thoughts in sync – when they fought together it looked like a well-choreographed and practised dance. They made it all look so easy (except, of course, when one of them got it wrong, lost timing for a second; or when she looked into Oliver's eyes and saw something there that made her stomach clench in fear and nausea and heartbreak).

"I did try to talk him out of it, to get us to think of another plan," Sara countered. "But he was right. They had Laurel and we couldn't risk her." Sara glanced over at her sister, who was being very quiet. She was still very shaken by her ordeal. "Ollie knew they weren't going to kill him until he gave them what they want, and he trusts us to find him before they do. We'll have plenty of time, Ollie doesn't break easily. So we just need to stay calm."

"How could he do it?" Laurel asked suddenly, breaking her silence. "Just hand himself over like that. Knowing that they would hurt him?"

"He loves you, Laurel," Sara said simply. Felicity felt a slight stab inside at that; she wondered if Sara felt that same painful pull at Oliver's obsession with Laurel. She felt a sudden swell of pity for Sara, having to compete with her own sister.

"He loves you, as well," Felicity said to Sara. "He would have traded for you just as quickly." It was true.

"Ollie would have done it for anybody in this house," Sara said carefully. "This is everybody he cares about, so everybody here is potential leverage and needs to be kept safe. Although they didn't try to trade Laurel for the information. That means Ollie would be unwilling to give that information for her life, even though he would willingly give his own life for hers."

"So whatever it is he knows, it's dangerous," Lance clarified. He wondered what it was, what Oliver could possibly know that would lead to all of this effort. "In that case we need to get to him before he gives it up."

"Ollie won't give it up. Not if it's important," Sara assured. She was utterly certain. Ollie was one of the most stubborn people she had ever met, and he also had an extremely high pain threshold – that combination was bad news for Marcus Black.

"Sara, everybody has a breaking point," Lance said carefully. "It's just a matter of how long…" he tailed off. Sara didn't respond, and the room fell silent.

"We need to find him so we don't have to find out," Diggle said, breaking the silence.

"I've looked up Marcus Black," Felicity said. "With the name and the description I've come up one scary guy. He's a wealthy and well-connected man, with a long history of hushed up violence." She felt sickened at the idea of Ollie spending time with him.

"Does he own property in Starling?" Lance asked.

"His company owns a lot. But I can't think of how to narrow it down – and to be honest, I don't think he'd take Oliver to somewhere connected to him. He's very careful. People he doesn't like tend to turn up dead, but their deaths are never linked back to him."

"Why did he come to the trade-off himself then?" Diggle asked. "He was named, Laurel even saw his face."

"Maybe this is so important that he feels the need to oversee it personally," Lance suggested.

"He's the one who told me what they were going to do," Laurel spoke up again. Her voice, previously quiet, was picking up some of her old passion and anger.

"Do what?" Felicity asked. She didn't understand (didn't know if she wanted to understand).

"He told me all of the things that he was going to do to Oliver," Laurel said shortly.

"List them." Diggle said. Laurel stared at him.

"Why?" Laurel asked, looking nauseated. "They were all awful."

"He's right," Sara agreed suddenly.

"I don't understand." Laurel said.

"We need to know everything. Some techniques might narrow down the location," Sara explained. Laurel didn't look happy at the idea of recounting. But she wanted Ollie to be safe. She was still reeling at the idea that he was the vigilante. She still saw Oliver as the man she had known before he had returned, and equating him to the cold vigilante (killer) was difficult.

"Please Laurel," Felicity said softly. She didn't want to hear what they were going to do to Oliver, but the things were going to happen either way; not knowing could reduce their chances of saving him.

"Go on sweetheart," Lance encouraged gently.

"He said he would pull out Oliver's fingernails with pliers. Shock him with a car battery. Drown him. Make him sleep on broken glass. Cut him. Burn the bottom of his feet so he couldn't run away…" Laurel said, her voice taking on a deadened quality as she went through the list. "Other things too, but I can't remember. None of those need a 'special location'." The room was silent after she spoke. But then Sara snorted.

"None of that will be enough." Sara said grimly. "He's not even creative with his methods."

"That's a lot for one man to take," Lance said. He felt ill. He couldn't believe that they were going to do those things, and that those people had held his daughter. He didn't think Oliver could take that – beatings from thugs and brawls were not on the same level as torture. Like Laurel, he still had problems equating Oliver Queen from before the island with the Oliver Queen from after.

"Ollie is really, really tough." Sara said seriously. "He's had to be. He knows how to shut down against pain. He'll just freeze it all out until he can find leverage. That's how people like us operate."

"I don't think-" Laurel started, but Sara cut her off.

"Ollie's done this more than once. He knows how to resist. When I first met him after the ship sank he had just been shot and made to pull the bullet out himself with pliers and he still didn't tell us where Shado and Slade were. And that was after only one year on the island. He had four more."

"Us?" Felicity asked, looking confused. "What do you mean he didn't tell us?"

"We started out on opposite teams." Sara said, making it straightforward.

"You helped torture him?" Felicity asked, appalled.

"We didn't need to. We tricked him using me," Sara said, awareness suddenly crossing her features.

"You think they'll have to trick him?" Diggle asked her.

"No. We only tricked him because he trusted me. He doesn't trust like that anymore, which I suppose is my fault. But this has reminded me of Ivo's second strategy. Drugs."

"They'll use drugs." Diggle said with a sigh (both from relief at the presence of a plan and in sympathy for Oliver). "We can find the supplier."

"I don't think that Black thought he'd need them – but he sure as hell will," Sara said coldly. "He'll find that out very quickly. Then he'll go to whoever supplies interrogation drugs in Starling. We can stake it out and follow him from there."

"I'll start looking right away," Felicity said quickly, and went back to her computer. It was nice not to have to think, just to work.

"Do you really think Oliver will be so resilient that they'll have to resort to drugs?" Lance asked Sara quietly.

"Unfortunately, I'm sure of it. It's not just a theory, it's well tested." Sara said grimly.

In a basement somewhere, the lights flicked on. Oliver Queen closed his eyes against the sudden glare. His eyes adjusted, and he opened them carefully, glaring up at Marcus Black.

"Make this easy," Marcus Black said with a slight smile. "This doesn't have to be painful. I respect you Oliver, I don't revel in this. But this can only go one way."

"I agree," Oliver said, voice low. "But I don't think it will be the way you're expecting. We both know that this isn't going to be easy for you. So let's see what you've got." Oliver relaxed his body, focused on his breathing, and prepared for the pain.

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