A/N: I had totally forgotten that at the end of "The Green Arrow," I had Roy and Thea get married. Therefore, any previous references to Roy being her boyfriend has been changed to husband. However, Thea will remain Thea Queen. Legally, she's Thea Harper but publicly she didn't change her name.
Enjoy!
Deadline
As Oliver lifted his wrist up, he saw that the feed on his screen had changed just like he had expected. However, he didn't necessarily see what he expected to see. Instead of the same image he had seen with the last two, Oliver saw Roy but this time, there were three other people in the room. The first held a gun to Roy's head. The second and third both helped hold Roy's arm down against a table in front of him.
"OLIVER QUEEN, YOUR TIME IS UP."
"Just do it quickly." Oliver whispered, begging that if they were going to take Roy from him and Thea that they do it quickly.
"WE ARE AWARE THAT YOU HAVE ARRIVED IN METROPOLIS. IN LIEU OF THAT DEVELOPMENT, WE HAVE SELECTED AN ALTERNATIVE OPTION, OLIVER QUEEN."
"What is that?" Oliver asked desperately.
"THIS."
Suddenly, one of the men holding Roy's arm down withdrew a sword from behind him. In one motion, he swung and hit Roy's arm, separating his hand from the rest of his arm just below the elbow. Instantly, Roy began to growl in pain. However, he never screamed, refusing to give in to the pain that was surely racking through his body along with the shock of losing his hand.
"You motherfuckers!" Oliver shouted. "I swear on my father's life that I will kill each and every one of you."
"IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER, OLIVER QUEEN, THAT YOUR FRIEND IS NOT DEAD."
Quickly, the two men worked together to tie a tourniquet around what remained of Roy's arm. While it didn't stop the bleeding, it certainly was slowing it down and allowing the blood to clot. That would give him a lot more time.
"IN THIRTY MINUTES, ROY HARPER WILL START TO HALLUCINATE. IN ONE HOUR, HE WILL PASS OUT. IN ANYWHERE FROM TWO TO FOUR HOURS, HE WILL DIE. FIND US BEFORE THEN AND YOU'LL BE ABLE TO SAVE HIM. FAIL AND THE ARSENAL DIES."
Seconds later, the image cut away and Oliver's normal wrist computer screen returned.
"Please tell me that you were able to trace that." Oliver pleaded into his comm.
"It's going to take about fifteen minutes but I'm fairly certain I was able to locate it."
"Work fast." Oliver said before collapsing against the side of the building next to him.
It took Oliver a few minutes to realize that his hands were shaking. Slowly, Oliver removed his gloves, rubbing his hands together to try and combat what was surely the start of shock. He couldn't afford to freak out now but it was something that Oliver couldn't help. He was close, so close, to finding his family. At this point, his vengeance didn't matter. What mattered was returning his family to Starling City and never allowing them to leave again.
At least not leave him.
In that moment, Oliver had never felt further from them. He had tracked them all the way across the country and then chased their ghosts around Metropolis, hoping upon hope that he would find them before their time expired.
He had failed again. Even though Roy was alive, he was lying alone in that same room that Lyla and his mother had died in, bleeding from the stump where his hand used to be. Things would never be the same, Oliver realized. Even if everyone that was left got to go home, they could never go back to the way things used to be. Without a huge breakthrough in technology, Arsenal would be forced into an early retirement and that was the best case scenario.
The worst case is that Arsenal's gear would be added to Sara's memorial case.
Suddenly, Oliver was brought back to one of the first times that Oliver and Roy had really talked. It had been just after Oliver revealed his identity to Roy.
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...
"Relax." Oliver whispered from behind the younger man has he pulled back on the drawstring.
"Telling me to relax isn't going to help me relax." Roy snapped back. "Why do I have to learn how to use a bow anyway? I can just, you know, smash them into a wall."
"You really want to live the rest of your life like this, Roy?" Oliver asked.
"Not really." Roy admitted.
"But you still want to help after we get this out of you?"
"I wanted to help before I had this Mirakuru junk floating through my veins."
"Then you learn how to use this." Oliver said, pointing to the bow. "When we cure you, you'll need it."
"Where did you learn to use a bow?" Roy asked as he pulled the drawstring back again.
"You certainly ask a lot of questions." Oliver growled simply.
"I figure if we're going to be doing this together, I probably ought to get to know you better."
"So wouldn't you start with where I like to eat, what's my favorite movie, that kind of thing?" Oliver asked as Roy fired the arrow, missing the target entirely. "I said relax, Roy. You're bringing tension into the bow when you pull back. Just breathe and shoot."
"Ok." Roy said before turning back to the target. "You know I would ask you that kind of stuff but it seems a bit simple, doesn't it? No offense but I didn't come down here because I thought you were Oliver Queen."
"No offense taken. So why ask me about the bow?"
Lowering the bow and releasing the tension on the bowstring, Roy turned back to Oliver.
"Because I want to know how a billionaire playboy turned into a murdering vigilante."
"I don't do that anymore." Oliver growled, his heart sinking slightly.
"But you did. According to Thea, you filled Merlyn's pool with beer once and you and Tommy rented out a football stadium to play strip kickball before you left with your dad. That same person came back and decided they were going to help people."
"Is there a question coming?"
Oliver had to admit: Roy's question was simple and very good.
"What happened to you?"
"More than you could possibly know."
"Maybe you'll tell me someday." Roy said as he turned back to the targets.
"Roy, these are things that not even Diggle knows."
"What about Felicity?" Roy said softly. "I've noticed that there aren't really a whole lot of secrets between the two of you."
"There aren't any secrets between any of us."
"You haven't told Thea you're The Arrow." Roy countered. "And it seems to me that you haven't told Diggle or Felicity what really happened to you on that island."
"Are you done?" Oliver growled. "No one needs to know about that. I'm different, I'm better than the version of me that left and that's all that matters."
"I think Felicity would disagree."
"Why would I care if she disagreed?" Oliver asked in confusion.
"Seriously?" Roy said, looking at Oliver as if he was the stupidest man alive. "You're really going to play that card?"
"What card?" Oliver asked again, completely oblivious to whatever Roy was talking about.
"You are totally into Felicity. She's into you too, by the way."
Roy thought that he was in love with Felicity? For a moment, Oliver had to fight down the urge to laugh. Sure, he cared about Felicity and she certainly wasn't bad on the eyes. But he was with Sara. They were meant for each other, equally broken. Maybe they weren't particularly great for each other but there was only one person left who really understood what he had gone through and that was Sara.
Same thing for him with her.
"I don't know what you think you're seeing but you are wrong."
"You'll see." Roy said as he turned back to the target. Taking a second, Roy breathed, allowing all of his tension to disappear before firing. His shot wasn't perfect but it hit the target, a rapid improvement from a second earlier. "When you figure it out, I'll be there to say I told you so."
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...
Even then, Roy had been able to see what everyone else had seen.
Everyone except for him.
It was amazing how quickly Roy had acclimated to being a part of Team Arrow. The moment he had been brought into the fold, he had done everything he could to be better. Things weren't perfect and there were bumps along the way but most of those were fueled by Mirakuru. Once they had been able to cure him, he had become one of Oliver's most trusted friends, not to mention his sister's boyfriend.
At first, he had been an annoying tag-a-long, someone who, despite Oliver's repeated attempts to get him to stop, just followed him around, almost causing more trouble than he helped to stop. Now, he was family, just like the rest of them.
Slowly, Oliver worked his way back to his feet before muttering into his comms.
"What do you have for me?"
"Unfortunately, not that much. We're still tracing the transmission signal although I can say that we were definitely right about it being in downtown."
"Good." Oliver replied, his voice breaking ever so slightly. "I'll keep looking."
"We're going to find them, Oliver." Cole said in his ear.
"Damn straight. We're going to find them and we're going to take them all home."
1 hour and 45 minutes until Roy Harper bleeds out***
Ten minutes later, Oliver checked in again as he raced to another warehouse.
"Anything?" Oliver said as he dove in and out of traffic.
"We've managed to narrow it down to three locations." Snapper said before explaining. "Palmer literally has not stopped typing since you called last. Figured I'd answer for him."
"What are those locations?"
"There's the office building, the warehouse you are currently going to or the Wayne Enterprises facility six blocks away."
"Keep me informed." Oliver said before ripping his wrist back, causing the bike to launch itself forward at even more dangerous speeds. As he did, he heard his cell phone go off. Hitting a button on his wrist, the phone's display was placed on a hologram HUD inside his helmet which allowed him to see who was calling.
Not entirely shocked at the identity of the caller, Oliver answered.
"Clark."
"Oliver, how are you?"
"I've been doing better, Clark." Oliver asked, knowing that this was Kent simply being polite. "Are you going to scold me now?"
"So the rumors are true. I just got a call from my friend at the Daily Planet that someone that looks oddly like The Green Arrow has been racing around Metropolis."
"I wanted to get out of the city for awhile."
"I could have sworn that when we started the Justice League, we decided that no one entered another hero's city without letting them know that they were going to be there."
Of course it wasn't Oliver's actual presence that bothered him. It was the fact that Oliver had broken their very loose rules when he did come to Metropolis without warning.
"No time, Clark. I found out that whoever took my family brought them here. So I got on a plane and came here."
"I understand. Just don't forget that you abide by my rules when you're here."
"You and I have the same rule." Oliver growled.
"No, we don't. You've killed before and you killed Ra's al Ghul just two years ago. Don't try and tell me that you don't kill, especially when your family is involved."
"Just stay out of my way." Oliver warned. "Then we don't have any problems."
"Do you need any help?" Clark asked, ignoring Oliver's threat. "I can search much quicker."
"No. Whoever did this is watching me and your city. If they see you searching, there's no telling what they're going to do."
"You've been getting help behind the scenes. How is that not the same thing?"
"You're going to have to ask whoever it is when I don't kill them." Oliver said flatly. "Are we done, Clark?"
"Yes. Just be safe out there."
"Thanks, Mom." Oliver said before cutting the phone call off.
Of course he had forgotten about the League's rule: we all stay in our city. If there's a reason to come to someone else's city as your alter ego, you call ahead and you ask permission. This was supposed to work for everyone: Clark called Bruce, Dick called Diana and Oliver called Barry. Unfortunately for them, that rule wasn't really thought through that well when it came to emergencies. Knowing Oliver and the fact that he liked Clark (even if he was a bit of a boy scout), he probably would have contacted him eventually.
But Clark followed the rules to a T and that meant that when you were coming to his city, you acted as he would have.
Oliver just hoped that his presence wouldn't have Clark's underwear in a bunch the rest of the night.
Seconds later, Oliver arrived at one of three remaining places where his family could be held. Again, this place appeared to be abandoned. However, Oliver learned not to underestimate any location based on its appearances. Withdrawing his bow, Oliver went through these locations much slower than he did the others. With the other searches, there had been about a 6% chance of finding his family and the people who took them.
Now, that percentage went up to 33% and that meant the odds of a firefight also went up dramatically.
This particular warehouse was rather small in terms of office space where his family could be held. There were only two floors and each floor was only about five offices. Slowly, Oliver made his way through, busting into the doors of each office, searching each one for possible basement entrances or even hidden entrances. Using a device that Felicity and Ray had developed, Oliver was able to locate any potential hidden entrances using an ultrasonic frequency that would penetrate the walls and floors. Any gap in the surface would register as a possible hidden door and be tagged.
Unfortunately for Oliver, nothing came up and so Oliver raced back out to his bike. Once he was there, he sat back on the bike and activated his commlink.
"Speak to me."
"Still nothing too certain. It's obviously not the location that you're at." Ray muttered as the sound of keyboard strikes clicked in the background.
"Obviously." Oliver said with annoyance. "We've got to get something soon. Roy doesn't have that much longer."
"I know, Oliver. But I can only push the computer so hard and I'm making it do as much as I can."
"Update me when you can. I'm going to the Wayne facility."
"You got it."
As Oliver drove off towards his next target, he was suddenly brought to an image of Felicity, a smile coming to his face as he remembered a conversation he had had with Felicity. It had happened only the day after the death of Ra's al Ghul.
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...
Smiling, Oliver took a seat next to Felicity in the Foundry. Oliver still couldn't believe that everything had worked out. It hadn't been perfect. Quentin had died. Slade had died. It surprised Oliver how much that one hurt him in particular. He had already tried to kill Slade once in the past. However, Slade had been different in his last weeks. The hatred fueled by the Mirakuru had slowly but surely started to disappear. While that insanity would probably always left its mark, he may have been a bit more normal.
It felt fitting that his mask was placed next to Sara's gear in the memorial case along with the gun that Quentin had on him that night.
"Are you as shocked as I am that we actually won?" Felicity asked as she leaned into him.
"I'm more amazed that we managed to keep the death toll as low as we did."
The final reports were that only 213 of the city's police officers had been killed along with Slade. That was in comparison to the estimated 500 League members who had been killed in the surprise assault.
"We had a good leader." Felicity said softly, his voice tickling his chin.
"Your leader had good help." Oliver said, his arm bringing Felicity in closer. Come hell or high water, Oliver vowed to never let her go.
"I'm not going anywhere, Oliver." Felicity said, obviously sensing what was on Oliver's mind. "I mean, I'll have to leave eventually but not like permanently! You know work, bathroom visits, showers, grocery store, all those kind of things. I'll be leaving but I won't really be leaving because I'll be coming back and I'm rambling again and I did not miss this while I was in Gotham."
"I did." Oliver whispered before placing a kiss on her head. "I missed it every day."
"Really?" Felicity asked, her eyes looking up to match his. "You missed me rambling? How could you possibly miss that? I mean, it's so obnoxious and my voice gets kind of whiny the longer I go on and I'm doing it again. OK, stopping in 3, 2, 1."
Felicity literally held her breath to stop herself, causing Oliver to laugh out loud.
"I didn't even know you could do that." Felicity observed.
"Honestly, I haven't had much reason to over the last few years." Oliver admitted. "I may not be on the island anymore but things haven't really been that much easier."
"You didn't help, you know." Felicity muttered. "You did your very best to keep yourself away from everyone else, even Dig and I."
"I thought you'd be safer that way."
"Oliver, you're the flippin' Green Arrow. I can't think of a single person who I would be safer to be around."
"You'd become a target." Oliver said sadly before Felicity turned to face him suddenly before planting a kiss right on his lips. "You would protect me. I'm not asking you to give yourself up for me. I'm asking you to protect me if I need it."
"What if I'm the one that needs the protection?" Oliver asked with a grin.
"The only thing you need protection from is yourself." Felicity said, rolling her eyes before returning to her seat pressed up against him. "Yourself and me if you make me angry."
"Damn straight there."
"Glad we agree." Felicity said before segueing to another topic. "Now, I heard rumors that the CEOs of Queen Consolidated are resigning."
"Where did you hear that?"
"Thea."
"Makes sense." Oliver chuckled before nodding his head. "Yeah, we're going to retain controlling interest and basically run the company that way but we're going to handpick our successor."
"Walter." Felicity replied, not really asking.
"Yeah, he's the only one on our list so far." Oliver smirked. "How'd you guess?"
"He's your stepfather, a brilliant businessman, previously worked for Queen Consolidated and one of the few people you know that you can trust."
"His accent is also fantastic." Oliver added with a smirk.
"Oh god, it is." Felicity replied practically drooling before looking up at Oliver. "I did that in front of you, didn't I?"
"You did." Oliver said softly. "I suppose it's alright."
"You suppose?" Felicity asked, her eyes raised but her voice full of sarcasm. "Is Oliver Queen going to get possessive and or jealous?"
"If you let me." Oliver grinned before leaning forward to kiss her. Felicity's face was red when they broke apart.
"You keep doing that and I'll let you do whatever you want to me."
"Really?"
"Well, I, you see-" Felicity started, the embarrassment obvious before it simply faded away. "Actually, yeah, whatever you want."
"I could get used to that." Oliver grinned.
"I certainly hope so."
Over the next few months, Felicity would consistently tease Oliver about his unemployment, especially after Walter named her the newest Vice President of Queen Consolidated. Of course, Oliver was a billionaire and not necessarily hurting for work but he did admit that sitting at home all day and watching his fortune grow was not necessarily the most fulfilling thing.
It had been Diggle who had originally suggested the idea of running for Mayor. Of course, he meant it as a joke. But it was Felicity who took the idea and ran with it, suggesting that there was no person so singularly devoted to Starling City as Oliver and no one else who had the means to change the city for the better without accepting a host of "donations" that basically were bribes intended to slave out the political process.
So, Oliver secretly started working out of an office that would eventually be his campaign headquarters to determine whether he would be a good candidate. Pollsters were paid inordinate amounts of money and signed legally binding gag orders to maintain the secrecy of his search.
The results were good. Very good.
When compared to the likes of Thea Queen-Harper, Walter Steele, Ted Kord, Maxwell Lord, Adam Donner and Carter Bowen, Oliver appeared to be a runaway favorite to challenge for Donner's place. Kord spent too much time in Keystone City, Steele was considered to be a bit on the older range and was not in a stable relationship, Thea wasn't old enough yet and was about to leave for Keystone and Carter Bowen hadn't been consistently in Starling City for years.
In the end, the race really came down to Lord and Oliver or so the data had said.
Still, Oliver had considered not running until Felicity basically scolded him into doing it, something she very quickly became good at.
It had been one of the greatest surprises in his life when he found out that she had been right all along.
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Oliver knew that when they all came back they would be disappointed that he was no longer Mayor. However, he could live with their disappointment if it meant that they were alive and home.
Not like they would have much choice.
As Oliver approached the Wayne Enterprises facility, Oliver groaned when he saw the size of the building. It was a fourteen story factory/office building that acted as the WayneTech location for Metropolis. This meant a host of offices to check and more hidden places than Oliver could certainly checked. He hoped that Palmer would come back to him with something soon.
Otherwise, he was going to have to manually check each room in this building and that was time that he couldn't truly afford. As it was, that was his only option and so Oliver went about scanning the entire factory floor.
Each room was checked, each closet opened and each nook and cranny scanned for possible trap doors and hidden entrances.
Nothing.
Slowly, Oliver entered the office section of the building. With each door that he opened, Oliver's frustration grew. He knew that if they weren't here that they had narrow the possible locations down to one.
That was good news.
What wasn't good news was that this particular building was a brand new 101-story office building that had been build within the last year. The building rose nearly two thousand feet from the ground, making it the tallest structure in the United States. Currently, the building was inhabited by only a few companies but more were intending to move in within the next year.
The square footage of the building meant that a complete scan of the building would take hours. Unfortunately, Oliver couldn't waste that time when he could check and eliminate entire structures from their list. Oliver had a strange feeling that they were being held within that tower but he had to check other locations first to make sure.
As Oliver made his way through the offices, he kept looking for something that may have reminded him of the two rooms he had seen so far but was finding no success. Of course, both rooms were standard white empty offices so there wasn't a whole lot to go on either.
Every room that Oliver opened was completely furnished unfortunately and none of them bore the uncleaned walls from the murders of Lyla and Moira that would surely be there.
Finally, Oliver reached the top floor of the Wayne Enterprises facility and opened the last office door.
Empty.
"Dammit." Oliver whispered to himself, his worst fears come true. "Ray, I need info and I need it now."
"What do you have?"
"They're not here, they must be in that new high rise." Oliver said before slamming his fist into the wall next to him which gave way easily. Removing his hand from the wall, Oliver made a mental note to send Wayne a small check for the repairs to the wall. "I can't just go in there and search every floor. I need something more than that."
"If we know that they're in the high rise, I think I can do something about that."
"What?"
"Well, it's a relatively new building and so there's not a whole lot of activity in there. If I can hack into the utilities for Metropolis, I should be able to find where they're all going in that building. I imagine that kidnapping and holding an entire family would use a lot of resources, especially internet with the amount of video they've been streaming to us."
"How long with it take?"
"Depends on how long it takes me to get into the various systems. Half hour or so?"
"Make it fifteen minutes." Oliver ordered as he marched out of the building.
"I'll do my best."
45 minutes left
With nothing better to do, Oliver had raced over to the tower where his family was being held while he waited for more specific information from Ray. Even once Oliver knew where he was going to be heading, this was going to be a race against the clock. More than likely, they weren't on a lower floor as those were already starting to be filled (they were the cheapest rental spaces). This meant that Oliver was probably looking for his family on one of the upper floors.
If Oliver was right, that meant either a trip on the elevator or a race up the stairs. Unfortunately for Oliver, whoever had taken his family had been watching him from the very beginning and now that Oliver was literally right under their noses, he doubted that had changed. The culprits behind his family's kidnapping had done everything they could to make this as challenging for Oliver has possible and more than likely, that meant that Oliver wasn't getting a free trip up the tower in the glass elevators.
"Anything?" Oliver asked as he drifted to a stop just in front of the building.
"I'm in the system now. It's going to take another few minutes."
"Do it quick."
"I'm working as fast as I can." Ray snapped back.
"I know you are." Oliver said softly. "I want to thank all of you. Without you, I would have been nowhere near finding my family. Without you guys, I'm fairly certain that all of my family would have died before I found them."
"Get them back safe and then you can be thankful." Cole said firmly.
"I don't know about you guys but I rather like the thanks. Thea is too similar to her brother."
"What does that mean?"
"She forgets the work that I do sometimes." Snapper replied. "Roy was always pretty quick to express his appreciation. Thea not so much. Not that I'm doing this for their thanks."
"Thea appreciated the work you did, Snapper." Oliver answered. "She told me as much herself and when she finds out that you were instrumental in helping me, I'm certain that she'll tell you herself."
"Now that I think about that, I honestly don't care about that. I just want them to be safe or at the very least choosing to put themselves in danger."
"Me too." Oliver said softly, a slight smirk on his face as he stepped off his bike.
Looking up at the building in front of him, Oliver realized the fight he was in for suddenly. It had been months since he had faced a task this large and the last time he had, he had Laurel and Diggle right next to him. Now, he was going to end up fighting his way up a superstructure alone and facing against a group of mercenaries that took his entire family without leaving a trace.
Needless to say, Oliver was not particularly thrilled about this. However, it changed nothing. If his life had taught him anything, it was that he was capable of overcoming unimaginable odds especially when it came to his family. Oliver had fought through Lian Yu, Hong Kong and Moscow to return to his family. He had fought and defeated Malcolm Merlyn, Slade Wilson and Ra's al Ghul to keep his family safe.
This was just the next step. Whether it was an army of mercenaries, Assassins or simply Mirakuru goons, Oliver would fight and defeat anyone who stood between him and his family and this situation would end no differently.
One way or another, Oliver was walking out of this building and he was doing it with his family intact.
"Oliver."
"Ray, please tell me you got something."
"I've got a massive spike in bandwidth usage on the 94th floor." Ray explained. "Going back to the specs of the buidling, the 94th floor was built and designed to house some company's secret projects. It's x-ray proof and was built with the ability to withstand a high grade explosive impact."
"Someone was planning on hiding from someone with this."
"Yes, but I don't think it was you."
"Clark?" Oliver asked curiously as he took off in a sprint towards the building.
"Protection from super bombs and X-Ray vision? That's kind of Kent's MO, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." Oliver said as he literally jumped through the front door. "I'm in. Unless I ask for your help, I'm going to need radio silence."
"You got it." was Ray's reply before a click told him that Ray had shut him mic off.
Good. The last thing Oliver needed was a half-formed vigilante genius spewing helpful hints into his ear. Knowing that it was wishful thinking aside, Oliver approached the elevator bay and pressed the call button.
Sure enough, all of the elevators were down.
"Stairs?" Oliver asked.
"Far end of the lobby. Just so you know, those stairs are crawling with heat signatures."
"I expected as much." Oliver said before taking off a sprint. As he did, he grabbed his bow and Slade's sword and mentally prepared himself for the battle that was about to take place.
Once Oliver reached the door, he took a deep breath before kicking the door in and appearing in the stairway. Sure enough, there were already three mercenaries racing down the stairs towards him.
"Don't look so happy to see me." Oliver taunted before attacking.
The first merc went down instantly from a solid strike to the head. The second tried to swipe at Oliver with his own sword before Oliver matched him with Slade's. Once they were engaged, Oliver reared back and stepped into the man's knee causing it to fold backwards on itself. The third, obviously the smartest of the bunch, waited behind and then attempted to attack when he thought Oliver was too distracted crippling his teammate.
He was wrong.
As he leaned into punch Oliver, Oliver grabbed him by the throat and picked him up before slamming him repeatedly into the wall next to him. As Oliver released him, he quickly collapsed to the ground, forming a small pile of black-clad mercenaries at the bottom of the stairs. Having dealt with them, Oliver took off at a sprint up the stairs.
It wasn't until he reached the tenth floor that Oliver encountered more resistance. This time, instead of fighting them on the stairs, Oliver bolted out on the main floor, rolling through the door and rotating to face the door, bow with arrow notched in hand.
The second the first mercenary broke through the door, he received an arrow to the right shoulder.
Same for the two that followed him.
One of the three tried to be brave and get back up. So, Oliver stepped on his arm, breaking it clean in two. Having dealt with them, Oliver stepped over them and raced back up the stairs. At this point, Oliver wasn't aiming for subtly, something he usually favored over force.
Instead, he wanted these people to know that he was coming. He was a force of nature, a wrecking ball and a destroyer of worlds racing up the stairs and anyone that got into his way would get seriously hurt.
On the 25th floor, Oliver encountered seven mercenaries and again preferred to fight on the open floor. For their troubles, these seven mercenaries got hit with nine arrows, suffered two caved-in knee caps, four broken hands, five broken arms and Oliver was fairly certain that he fractured the skull of two of them. At this point, Oliver didn't care that he was probably causing lasting damage to some of these men.
They had taken his family. What they deserved was a slow and painful death but that was no longer in Oliver's bag of tricks. So, they got debilitating injuries and a collection of massive headaches.
On the 50th floor, they sent only two men but each was armed with automatic rifles. Both of those rifles miraculously were disassembled in front of their very eyes before Oliver strung them up like animal carcasses. When one of them (while hanging upside-down) decided to get mouthy with Oliver, he caved his face in with a one-two combo that would have made Mike Tyson cry like a little girl.
The 75th floor was when Oliver knew that he had frightened whoever it was at the top of this tower. On that floor, there were now ten mercenaries, all of them equipped with the same rifles as the two below on 50. Fortunately for Oliver, none of them were as good as he was. When Oliver shut the power off to the entire floor, they were scared.
When three of them disappeared without anyone seeing him, they were terrified.
And when two more got hit with arrows that no one saw coming, they dropped their weapons and ran down the stairs towards the ground level. Any other night, Oliver would have gone after them but he had more important things on his mind that evening.
The last bit of resistance that Oliver got was on the 90th floor. There, he was matched up against only three mercenaries but these were obviously the crown jewels of the group. Oliver had to admit that each of them was a master martial artist and certainly gave Oliver a challenge.
Unfortunately for them, they didn't work together. If they had, maybe the outcome would have been different. As it was, they attacked one at a time. The first was a boxer, judging by his stance and quick hands. Fortunately for Oliver, the man's feet were slow, especially in comparison to Oliver's parkour style of fighting.
Oliver dodged a couple quick strikes to the head before reaching out and kicking the man in the side of the leg. While it did no lasting damage, it certainly angered the man. From there, the merc threw two wild haymakers as Oliver's head, neither landing. When Oliver saw his opening, he took it. Retrieving his bow from his back, Oliver swiped at the man's legs.
Countering that momentum, Oliver rotated back and swung, striking the boxer in the face. The resounding crack the contact made was highly satisfying as was the grunt and blood that accompanied it. Now off balance, Oliver was easily able to go to work, beating the boxer into submission with a combination of kicks and bow strikes.
When Oliver was finished, all that was left of the man was a bleeding pile on the ground.
The second man was like Oliver. However, Oliver fought to win, not to look flashy. This man, in contrast, started their fight back attempting to strike over off of a back handspring. Fighting someone like Oliver, this left him to much time to read the attack and respond.
Oliver's response was to grab him out of mid-air and swing him around, using his momentum to throw him at the nearest wall.
Or through the nearest wall as it actually turned out. The man-shaped hole in the wall and the subsequent moaning on the far side of it told Oliver that he wasn't going to need to worry about him anymore.
Finally, the last mercenary. At this point, Oliver was simply done with having to fight these one-off, nameless thugs. He wanted the main men or women involved in this.
So, Oliver simply picked up his bow, notched an arrow and fired, burying the shot directly in the man's right shoulder. A simple punch to the face knocked the last mercenary unconscious. Having taken care of them, Oliver sprinted back to the stairs and made his way up to the 94th floor.
Once he hit that floor, the procedure was the same. He was going to kick every door in until he found them. Of course, there were nearly fifty individual offices on this floor so it was going to take some time but that meant nothing to Oliver.
He was going to find them.
Door after door, Oliver kicked, bashed and threw open only to find nothing. Was it possible that they were wrong? Could it be that this was one giant trap? If so, why? Oliver knew why. If he was in fact wrong and his family wasn't here, he would be broken. It would take more effort to keep back up and to keep searching than anything that Oliver had ever done before.
It wouldn't matter. They would not win. He would break himself to the point of no return if it meant getting his family back.
Eventually, it became that he was kicking in doors and searching on autopilot, repeatedly searching and repeatedly finding nothing.
Then, something.
He kicked a door open and found the blood spattered walls that he remembered from the videos. He saw the bodies of Lyla Diggle and his mother thrown aside. But most importantly, he saw the frame of Roy Harper, collapsed over that table, barely breathing.
For several seconds, Oliver couldn't move. They really were there. Tears threatened to stop him in his place. Internally, he knew this wasn't the end. They still had to make it all the way down the giant skyscraper.
Still, finding any one of them was something, a form of success that Oliver hadn't had in days.
"Roy." Oliver whispered as he stepped forward. His breathing was shallow and weak but his pulse was still strong. Ironically, Oliver imagined that there was some part of the Mirakuru that helped him remain alive for as long as he had.
"Oliver?"
Slowly and weakly, Roy lifted his head and his eyes met Oliver's. For a second, Roy simply stared at Oliver but then, something happened. He started shaking his head.
"No, no, no. He's not here." Roy said softly as he lowered his head. "It's the blood loss. It's just another ghost, another fake."
"Roy."
"I'm not listening."
"Roy." Oliver said again, this time more insistent.
"You can't make me listen!"
"Roy!" Oliver shouted, only this time he slammed his hand on the table.
With that, Roy looked up again, something changed in his eyes.
"Ghosts can't make tables move."
"I'm no ghost." Oliver said with a grin.
"God, Oliver? It's really you?" Roy said, hope appearing in his for the first time, followed by the same tears that Oliver was fighting back. "You're really here?"
"I'm here and I'm getting you all out." Oliver said firmly. "Where are the rest of them?"
"The room across the hall." Roy grinned. "Go see your girls."
"I'll be right back." Oliver said softly.
"I'll hold you to it."
Hurriedly, Oliver stood in place and turned to the door before walking out into the hallway. As Oliver reached for the door handle, his hand froze. What if they had killed the rest of them just to taunt him? What if they had moved them when Oliver had gotten close?
These were questions that would be answered later and only if something bad had happened. If not, Oliver needed to open that door.
So he did.
Slowly, Oliver pushed the door in. As he did, the door revealed them to him one by one.
Felicity, Thea, Laurel, John and Andy. All of them safe, intact. Sure, they all looked like they could use several hot meals, a warm shower and a nap but they were there.
"Oh my god." Thea said softly as her eyes met Oliver's."
"Oliver?" Felicity said as she stood. Quickly, Oliver moved to her and hugged her. In an instant, it was like she was everywhere. He could smell her, feel her hair brush against her face and her hands grip his back.
She was there and she was alive.
But this wasn't the end. They still had to get out. Forcing himself to let her go, Oliver looked around.
"Are you all okay?"
"We're fine." Thea said before she suddenly looked down. "Did you see them?"
"I saw Mom and I saw Lyla." Oliver said knowingly before placing a finger under her chin. "He's still alive."
"What?" Thea replied softly, her voice holding back the hope that Oliver knew she was fighting.
"He's alive. They didn't kill him. They knew that I had already made my way to town and so they challenged me instead."
"Challenged you?" Diggle asked in confusion. "How?"
He knew this wasn't going to go over well.
"They removed his hand and told me that I had until he died of blood loss to find you." Oliver said flatly before turning back to Thea. "He's weak but he's alive. Speaking of which, we need to move. Now."
"We can't." Felicity said with determination.
"Why not?" Oliver asked, confused as to why she didn't want to leave.
"Well, you see-"
Unfortunately, Oliver didn't get to see. Instead, while the rest of them had been talking, a single mercenary had snuck up on them. Normally, Oliver would have heard him but he was distracted by finding his family. While Felicity started her sentence, the merc hit Oliver in the back of the neck with a tranquilizer dart. Within seconds, the room was spinning and Oliver was down.
He could hear the concerned voices of his friends and family as he fell but soon enough, Oliver saw all the rest of them fall as well before he blacked out.
"Mr. Queen, I do believe it is past time that you woke up."
The first thing Oliver noticed other than the voice was that the room was still spinning and he had a splitting headache. The second thing that Oliver noticed was that the room that was spinning was not the room that he had been in before.
In fact, it was a very different room indeed. This room was one large floor of the skyscraper that he had been in with only the four giant glass windows as walls. The only thing that Oliver could see was a desk that overlooked the window to his right and a long conference style table to his left. At the conference table was each member of his family, obviously tied to the chairs.
However, it was the three other people in the room that Oliver was at least mildly surprised to see.
The first was his former campaign manager and fellow millionaire Roman Sionis, a grim smirk on his face as he saw Oliver tied to a chair in front of him.
The second was not unexpected when he knew who the first was. Maxwell Lord, his opponent in the Starling City Mayor race, sat next to him, the grin on his face wild with joy at the thought of Oliver tied up in front of him.
But it was the third face, and the owner of the voice that had just spoken, that shocked and surprised Oliver.
"You?"
"Yes, Mr. Queen. Me." he said firmly, a wide grin also on his face. His frame was much larger than the other two and the evil look in his eyes was unchallenged by most of the men on the Earth.
However, it was the reflection of the man's head, even in the relative darkness of this room, that gave the man's identity away.
"So, I know why the other two are here. But why are you here, Lex?"
Grinning like a madman, Lex Luthor leaned forward and snarled.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
***This time measurement is based on the low end expectation. So when the voice said two to four hours, Oliver is counting to two hours, not to four.