Chapter 9
Thanks to Giles' friend Willow, Riley and his men won't remember a thing about his true identity. She even healed the worst of everyone's injuries. There is a ton of damage at the manor to take care of, but Bruce isn't worried about that. He has reliable people to take care of that. No, it is Oliver Queen that troubles him. Finding out Oliver is the Green Arrow wasn't much of a shock, but seeing what being Green Arrow drove Oliver too has chilled Bruce to the core. He walks an all too similar tight rope. He came close to becoming Oliver several times. Come tomorrow midnight he'll take Oliver down one way or the other.
"You're not him." Alfred offers reading his employer's mind as usual.
"But I could be." Bruce answers as he broods leaning over his workbench in the cave.
"No you couldn't." Alfred answers.
Looking at his butler surrogate father and his only family, Bruce feels very lucky to have Alfred. Without Alfred he would be dead or far worse than Oliver Queen. Putting a comforting hand on Alfred's shoulder is as close to thanks as Bruce can vocalize, but Alfred gets the message.
"We have to finish this before they can regroup. If we hit hard now, the government will back off and this whole project will be shut down." Bruce explains to everyone else.
"With the destruction of their main base, the only place the files are is on Oliver's Queen Industries servers. I can hack in and delete all the online versions, but there will hard copies and back-ups. That means someone has to go in." Chloe puts in as she pulls up a blue print of Oliver's building.
"Faith and I can handle those." Dick offers.
"What makes you think I want you tagging along?" Faith quips to which Dick just smirks.
"What about Oliver?" Chloe asks afraid of the answer.
"I'll deal with him." Bruce answers.
"Please don't kill him. He's just misguided by his grief." she pleads.
"I'll do what is necessary to stop him, beyond that I can make no promises." Bruce coldly replies.
"Don't worry. Bats will make him see the light." Faith remarks.
Oliver does something he hasn't done for the better part of a year, he dons his Green Arrow costume. He realized when his perimeter security flickered that Chloe was hacking in to finish things. She knows he has hard copies and back-ups so some of her new friends will be paying him a visit. "I made my choices and will see this to the end." Oliver muses. Drawing his bow, he settles himself into an ambush spot taking aim on his windows.
With Chloe guiding them, they easily make their way through the building's ducts to the server room. They plant some EMP charges to fry the servers and the backups. Next they wait until Chloe triggers the fire alarm. Once the few people in the building at this time of night have left, Faith and Dick make their way to the records room where they plant incendiary charges to take of the files. The charges will limit the fire to this room. Now, for the hard part.
Making her way to the bioweapons lab they enter to find a few personnel still watching over the sleeping Buffy clone/monster. While Nightwing deals with the staff, she makes her way to the creature's chamber. With a heavy heart, she shuts down the life support systems and watches as the creature twitches and then dies. Thankfully it never woke up. Faith runs her hand over the creature's chamber as she whispers "I'm sorry. You didn't ask for any of this."
"Good plan, but you picked the wrong spot." a voice behind Oliver says.
"Oh I don't know about that." he quips with a smirk as he dives forward and releases the arrow he is holding into the floor. Even prepared for it, the resulting flash partially blinds him. Still he knows were his enemy is. Reversing direction he has another arrow notched and loose in a second. Against another opponent it would be fast enough but not against Batman. Oliver's arrow strikes the far wall.
Saved from the blinding flash by his special built in eye filters, Bruce moves to the left of where Oliver was as he angles in to attack. He doesn't bother to knock the bow from Oliver's hands. Instead he goes for Oliver's body forcing Oliver to drop the bow in order to protect himself. Slowed by the bow in his hands Oliver can't manage to block the first blow but he recovers quickly. He and Batman trade blows for several minutes. Oliver realizes he can't match Batman's fighting prowess. However, the fact he has nothing left to lose frees him to push himself well beyond his normal limits. This raw ferocity is actually letting drive Batman back. It isn't enough though. All too soon Oliver finds his breathe becoming more ragged as fatigue weighs down his limbs. His rage is nearly spent. It is now that Batman presses his attack. He relentlessly pummels Oliver until Oliver collapses on the carpets.
"It's over." Batman announces.
"No, I won't stop till I find the answer. I am so close. I could have the answer by now if you hadn't interfered." Oliver fires back. His guilt and despair nearly overwhelm him as he thinks of her forever trapped in her comma.
"The price is too high." Bruce answers.
"Really? Can you say for certain you wouldn't do what I have to save someone you care for Bruce?" Oliver taunts.
"I can't, but I know my friends would stop me just like yours are trying to stop you. We walk the line. We don't cross it." Bruce replies not at all surprised Oliver knows who he is. He makes a mental note to see if Willow can figure out who learned his secret and can erase their memories as well. A useful ability, but dangerous if abused.
"I've made my choice." Oliver says as he struggles to his feet. "There is only one way you can end this." he adds.
"You don't get off that easy." Bruce answers as he knocks out several of Oliver's teeth as he knocks Oliver unconscious.
Outside the holding cell, Chloe peers in at her former boss. She knows it will be a long haul but once she has him transferred to Smallville she is sure she can save him from himself.
"Your father would be proud of you." Alfred tells Giles as they sit off to the side just watching.
Emotion unusually clear on his face Giles replies "Thanks."
Thanks to some magic Bruce's secret is safe once more. Still Bruce broods over just how easy it would be for him to cross the line just like Oliver did. "Not today anyway." he reminds himself as he watches his former ward splash his current ward in the pool.
Faith is soaked from Dick's cannon ball. Determined to get even she chases him around the pool until she can catch him. She dunks Dick under the water, but worries for a second when he doesn't pop right back up. She reaches under and pulls him to the surface concerned to see he is not breathing. Dragging him to the pool's edge, she shoves him out of the pool. She then leans over him to give him mouth to mouth. As she starts she hears his heart beat pick up sharply, but she doesn't care as the kiss deepens. She isn't sure wearing tights is for her, but there are some perks.
