A/N - A special thanks to Okoriwadsworth for beta-reading this fic.
The Flash woke up. He was no longer on the streets of Central City; instead, he was on a rooftop. He looked down to see that he was strapped down to the chimney with some sort of metallic cord. It reminded him of the strong tactile cord he used when ensnaring his foes.
He then tried to phase through it only to realize that he had a B.O.O.T. around his ankle. He was trapped, he had no way to escape the metahuman version of a ball and chain. His friend's design was being used against them. Against him.
He looked up to see a woman in dark-colored clothes. She was wearing a black leather jacket and ripped black jeans with black heeled combat boots.
He was momentarily shocked; he was so used to people—meta-humans looking so different from the general population. He could have passed her in the streets below and never suspected her if her doppelganger was not recently murdered.
Barry sat in the uncomfortable upright position, bound to the chimney, as his captor took a generous swig of her flask. "This is another one of your missions?" He then stretched his neck to remove the kink from it. As he did, he noticed that she hadn't removed his cowl.
Why hadn't she unmasked him? He felt a cold droplet of sweat escaped the confines of his cowl. Did she know his secret like Eobard did?
"How many would this make it? Huh, Laurel?"
She didn't answer as she stared off into the distance sipping from the metallic flask once again.
So, he continued the one-way conversation. That is what Joe always taught him and Iris. If you were a hostage. Talk to them. While they're talking they're not doing anything else. Humanize yourself. He remembered. "I'm guessing you've done this sort of thing before? People from your world have said as much."
She took a sip from the drinking vessel before putting it down beside her. She then stretched her arm. From the short distance, the speedster could hear her joints crack from her movements. It was likely that she had been sitting in that spot for almost as long as he had been bound.
"How long have you been a one-woman army, Laurel? Your whole adult life? Six months? A year?"
She then stood up and continued stretching her limbs. As if she was warming up for a fight. It reminded him of boxers before they entered the ring.
The Flash gulped at the thought of the carnage the Earth 2 doppelgänger of his friend and ally could wreak upon his city. She had already demolished Mercury Labs with her Canary Cry when searching for one of Zoom's soldiers.
"No one has to die, Laurel." He watched as she seemingly ignored him. "You can stop now. Walk away. Rest."
She then swung her head in his direction, her eyes glaring at him, as she leaned against the brick wall behind her. "Leave? Could you do that, Red?" The silence that emanated between the two was her answer. She nodded at his silent response. "Thought so, it's never that easy."
A bell struck. Barry looked over at the bell that stood proudly above City Hall. He hoped it was not the time that he thought it was, "Is it midnight?"
Laurel nodded as she walked back over to her bottle of beer and took another sip. "Yeah, City Hall. The damn thing used to scare me every night before I went to sleep when I was a kid."
But not her. She thought. She was too much like her father, possessing the ability to sleep through anything. Laurel looked back at the cityscape and blinked away her tears. She took a large gulp of the amber liquid that slightly numbed the pain.
Barry's head swung in her direction. He had assumed that she had lived in Starling City all her life like her double did. "You lived in Central City?" That surprised him, he had always thought Laurel, like Oliver, had a special affinity for Star City.
As she looked out over the city, he called home, she answered simply. "Once."
Barry gave a small chuckle. "You visit Jitters? It's the best café in the city, wouldn't you agree?"
She shook her head before looking down at her boots. "You can stop now, Red."
"Stop?" He asked curiously. He knew he had to be careful, but he couldn't resist trying to keep her talking, there was definitely more to this woman than what Harry and Joe were willing to see. She seemed broken, a stark difference to the resilient attorney she met in Starling.
"Digging. Make your captor empathize with you. Make them realize that you're human." She gave a hollow snort. "I know the techniques too." She answered wistfully.
Barry gently tapped the back of his head against the chimney. Of course, she would know the techniques he was using. She had also had a cop like her father. He found himself, for the second time this year, wishing that he got to know Laurel Lance of his Earth better. First, after her death, when he tried to help Oliver grieve for the woman he loved, and now with her broken vengeful doppelgänger.
"You know, Central City has a special place in most of the people that call it home. Even if they weren't from here. They can't leave…Until something happens. They get older, have a family, or maybe…"
Her head then snapped towards him, and her body tensed. "You a shrink, Red?" Again, like the last time she asked a question in retort, he failed to answer her.
She seemed to use defection as a technique to avoid her feelings, her history…whatever she was running from. "Didn't think so." She said curtly, "So, what exactly are you when you are not the Scarlet Clad Road Runner?"
At least, she didn't know his secret. Joe, Iris, his dad, and all his friends were safe.
Barry shook his head and smirked. Ever the lawyer. An expert at deflecting and redirecting the flow of speech. "I'm just a guy." He answered vaguely.
Her mind wandered back to when Moira had come to her, with her lawyers informing her that Oliver had been killed on the Gambit. And that Moira would allow her to retain custody of Olivia if she and her baby girl never returned to Starling City. And that she had to change both her's and Liv's last name from Queen to Lance and finally never speak to Thea.
The woman had never approved of her marriage to her eldest son. All because of her rough upbringing. Ted Grant, a former Marine, had found her on the streets after her father's death. He gave her a life, a purpose.
She was only fourteen when her father was murdered. She never knew her mother, her father had told her that one day her mother had turned up and gave her to him. She was only a week or so old.
She was forced onto the streets, sleeping on cardboard in derelict buildings and eating food from the dumpsters from behind bakeries and restaurants.
Ted had found her in his gym, ransacking his equipment. Instead of calling the cops he helped her find all of his valuables, an hour or so after they had started to talk, he offered her the cot in his gym and told her the local Pizzeria held tabs for him, and she was welcome to use it, in turn, she would have to clean the equipment and the floors of the gym.
A year later, he had enrolled her in a school to finish her education and taught her how to box. He had become something like a second father to her in some ways.
A few years down the line, she met a man that she thought was one of the most pretentious assholes in the world. Oliver Queen. A man who wore his heart on his sleeve, and despite his outward demeanor he had a gentle heart.
A year later they were engaged, then they married a year after that. Not long after they were married, they were expecting a new addition to their family.
All that came tumbling down when Oliver and Robert perished at sea and Moira quickly disowned her and Olivia a few months later. Trimming the family tree of what she perceived to be a diseased limb, Thea once told her.
Laurel enclosed her fist, hearing each joint in her hand crack. "You ever been disowned by your family?"
He shook his head in sympathy. "No."
"Then leave it." She replied curtly. "Don't talk about something you have no idea about."
"I've had my fair share of familial troubles though, Laurel. My mother was killed and my father was imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit."
She turned her head. "We're not talking about that! Your father was still alive and loved you, Red." Perhaps she knew exactly who she was and just didn't care. "I'm talking about shit. Shit that changes you from the inside."
She thought about the long-time she went without food just to let Olivia eat. How her daughter had to live off stale bread that she could scavenge, just so she could earn enough money to get back to Central City. How she felt like a terrible mother because she couldn't provide for her daughter.
"I know one thing," Barry said, breaking the silence.
"What's that, Red?" She asked with mild curiosity.
"Being disowned changes people. Your whole perception of reality is turned upside down. If you cannot trust your family, who can you trust?"
She sighed. "Fair enough."
"I'm just saying. I know that losing your family can be difficult."
"You know it can be hard?" She asked with a disdainful tone of voice. "You speed around this city, in a pair of little boy's pajamas and a mask. When you go home to your apartment or your house, you get to remove that cowl and you can think or pretend that someone else did those deeds." She then added condescendingly. "Couldn't have been me, I'm Mr. John Doe." She then flicked her wrist, "Or whatever the hell, your real name is. I don't have that luxury."
"You wanna know what I think Laurel?"
She turned and started walking backwards a few paces. "What's that, Red?"
"I think that you're at war." A war between within herself, and the meta army that Zoom brought.
She chuckled as she sauntered towards him and spoke mockingly. "Save it, Red. I don't have the money to pay you by the hour." She then walked back over to her perch and sat down overlooking the city sipping her alcoholic beverage.
Barry sighed in exasperation before asking: "Why am I here?"
She closed her eyes before locking the green orbs on him. "I've been on this earth, in this city for months. You wanna know a secret?"
"What's that?"
"Your little escapades. Speeding around this city like it's a racecourse. Save people here, beat meta there. It doesn't work."
The speedster scoffed. "And you think you do better?"
"I do what is needed." She answered simply.
Barry smirked. She is so similar to how Ollie was when he first met him, to how Felicity and Diggle had described him as when he returned from the island he was marooned on. "Come on." He mocked the Earth-Two meta. "You're not the only one. Who did you lose? Huh?" He asked with growing frustration and ridicule towards the doppelgänger of the hero he looked up to. "Was it someone you loved?"
She could see those she loved killed in front of her. First, Ted. Zoom phased his past through his heart, then to Thea. Then, finally, in the blink of an eye, he ripped her baby girl from her arms and dashed Liv's head against the wall. All she could see was blood, and hear Zoom telling her that it was her fault.
He ignored the hurt on her face as he continued to berate her. "Well, boo-hoo. Laurel, everyone loses someone. It doesn't mean you have to go around killing people."
She then looked away, wiping her eyes. He retorted with venom. "Well, I guess grief and loss affect everyone differently."
"Yeah…Yeah. Maybe, but Laurel, do you think that what you're doing is the right thing for you or your loved ones?"
"Maybe not? But for me. What am I, or what's left of the woman I was? It is the best I've got." She then took another swig. "What kind of name is The Flash anyway? I mean, it sounds like a streaker. Or a stripper."
"I didn't ask for that name." He answered thinking of Iris's other names that were far worse.
She smirked at the annoyance on the younger man's face. "Didn't try to put distance between you and it?"
"I don't do this to hurt people." He replied adamantly.
"No?" She tilted her head. "You don't find some sort of relief knowing that you put down your rivals? Men who were about to beat their wives, sister, their children? People who would endanger the public? You get no satisfaction?"
Barry then glared at her. "I don't kill people."
Her lips pursed. "So that's it. That's the crux of your issue with me. I kill. What? You're Laurel didn't?" Laurel snorted, "Makes sense. That's why Darhk was able to put an arrow in her chest." She then twirled an empty beer bottle between her fingers. "I hate to break it to you, Red. I'm my own woman."
"I can see that." He replied with growing frustration that was bubbling to the surface.
"You think you're morally superior to me? Better than me?" She then dropped the glass down to the street below. A faint sound of the clash colliding with the pavement below could be heard. "You think you're a big goddamn hero?"
Barry looked away from her gaze. "It doesn't matter what I think. People don't have to die. There are alternatives to killing."
Laurel scoffed as she grabbed another bottle from her cooler, her flask sitting on the railing seemingly forgotten. "You really believe that?"
"It's not our call, Laurel. We have these powers. We should use them to help those who cannot help themselves."
"Interesting point. So, what was it; a divine intervention that forced you to wear that crimson and gold onesie? Or did you take it upon yourself?" She then stood up from her perch. "This is what I think, hero." She then walked slowly to him and knelt down to his level. "I think you're a half measure, a man who leaves his mission half complete. A man who is too frightened to do what is necessary."
Barry maintained eye contact with her as she continued her speech. "You wanna know the one thing that you can't seem to grasp in that little red boyish head of yours? You're one bad day away from being me. Zoom will ensure that if I don't get to him first."
Barry was startled at that thought. What had she been through that would wipe the light within her? What had Zoom done to her?
Laurel then spun her head in the direction of the door to the building below. "Keep quiet, Red. You know what I'll do to them. I will open their heads all over this roof, we both know I don't need a gun to do that."
"Who?"
She raised her finger to her lips as she walked over to the door and opened it. As an elderly man stood in the doorway.
"Something wrong, Missy?" The old man asked with worry.
Barry watched as she sighed in exasperation. "Dealing with an old boyfriend."
The man nodded, looking at her sympathetically. "One of the bad ones?"
She smiled ruefully at him. "You have no idea. I'm sorry if I woke you up, sir… I just needed to vent,"
The man smiled. "Be careful, up here. Don't want a young pretty thing like yourself doing something impulsive and being on the news."
Laurel nodded as she brushed her fingers through her dirty blonde hair. "I promise. No death drops here, just venting hot air."
"Be safe. And keep clear of your ex."
"Will do." The man then patted her on the shoulder before leaving. As she returned, she walked back over to her perch, only this time she didn't grab her beer, she opened a small black and green backpack and pulled out a photograph of Olivia and Oliver, she smiled ruefully, before putting it back in the bag and zipping it up.
"Were you really going to kill an innocent Laurel?"
"Have I done so far?" She asked before turning around. "I'm disappointed. You act if you know me, and yet, you haven't checked out those that I killed." She then walked over to him. "I'm not a bad person, Flash."
"Want to explain that to the orphans and widows of the people you killed?"
Laurel spun on her heels. "For Christ's sake! That's what you think?" She asked as she walked back to her perch. "That I'm a madwoman, a psycho, that goes around killing people to get my kicks?"
"That's exactly what I think! You don't deserve to be wearing that face." He bellowed at her.
"Hmm." She hummed. "That's too bad, I'm rather attached to this one."
He then fired a question back at her as she watched the street below from her perch. "You think you're something else? Then tell me, Laurel, I need help understanding. Help me understand."
She looked over at him as she lounged on her little perch. "I kill because the savages and monsters of the world, no matter what world, need to be put down."
"Laurel, you left men hanging off re-bar after you fought Earth 2 Hartley and his men. The coroner found that you had used your sonic scream to rupture their eardrums they were impaled from a concussive like force."
She scoffed. "They had a lesser sentence because they provided me with information."
Barry's eyes went wide. Those men either slowly died, or will be crippled for the rest of their life. And that was a lighter sentence?
"You rampaged through the CCPD." He said, deciding to change the subject.
"And how many people were hurt that didn't deserve it? Huh? Not one of the men or women working in that building were hurt beyond minor wounds. And those were the ones that tried to get in my way."
"Laurel, what happens the day that someone follows your brand of justice? When they come after you?"
"I'll be waiting. They better have a damn good shot, because I'm never down for long. Your buddy in the car a few weeks ago proved that. Besides, we all die eventually."
"You rampage through my city, my earth like it's your private gladiatorial display!"
She then jumped from her perch glaring at him with her green eyes. "Yeah, you're no better. Get off that high horse of yours! You run around like it's a playground. You zip around the city, beat the bullies and throw them in jail. Or what you count as one, I kill them, while you force them into squalor. And everyone venerates you as their bloody Guardian Angel. Have a coffee made in your honor."
She then sauntered towards him intimidatingly. "Only, they don't see what really happens. Criminals are taken into custody and sentenced. Then what happens, a few days later, or month, a year later, what happens? They are released and they go back to their delinquent ways. Rinse Repeat. Rinse Repeat. That's insanity. At what point are you responsible for their actions?"
"So, you just put them into the morgue?"
Laurel shrugged as she answered. "Can't hurt anyone if they're dead. And their families will have closure knowing that the pricks can never harm another innocent."
"Ever doubt yourself, Laurel? That you killed a person." She scoffed, but he soldiered through her snide remarks. "They deserve to try again. If not for them, for you." Ollie had told him that killing people doesn't just affect the victim and their family, but also the murderer themselves. Taking chunks out of them until there is nothing left but the shell.
"No, and I'll tell you why since you're so interested in my philosophy. None of the men and women I have killed had any good within them. Rapists, murderers, terrorists, and the like. They gave up their right to be treated as a member of the human race! They're parasites, and you kill parasites." She then pointed around the city. "Look around, Red. This City, Zoom turned it into a sewer, it stinks, and I can't get the shit out of my nose."
She then stared back at him with fierce determination. "Both of our worlds. Earth One and Two. We need people who are willing to make the hard calls. Someone who won't pussyfoot around and will start putting down scum to prevent further injustice, to prevent families from being massacred and torn apart."
"That's bullshit, Laurel!"
"We both do what it takes to protect people. We're the same, Flash. Only I take the extra step. It's a step that you're too afraid to take. You hit them and they get back up, I hit them and they stay down."
Barry shook his head in dismay and sadness for the woman who was so broken that she believed that she was doing the right thing. That through her trauma she now had a warped sense of justice."What happened, Laurel?"
He then thought about Captain Cold finding redemption. How Sara and Oliver had become heroes. "What about the chance to try to right their wrongs? If they die, they can't try to atone."
Laurel's eyes flickered between him and the sky above. The look of self-loathing was gone as quickly as it appeared. "Are we going to talk about the Easter Bunny? If we are talking about the impossible, let's talk about things that are more likely to occur or exist."
She was putting up her walls. He suspected that she hadn't expected this conversation.
"You don't believe that, or you are as crazy as the police think you are!" As bad as Harry thought she was.
Laurel could still see clear as day, her baby girl's head cracked open across the wall as if it were a boiled apple. She could still her baby pleading for her to save her. Laurel clenched her fists. Zoom and his ilk were going to face justice. For killing her family. For killing her daughter. For Killing Liv. Anything less than an eye for an eye would suffice.
She does not forgive and she doesn't forget. And it would only end one way.
Justice will be achieved. She would be the sword that Lady Justice wielded, a deadly force used to exact justice for those that can't do it for themselves. She would protect people like her surrogate father, Ted, her sister-in-law, Thea, and her beautiful baby. Their Baby Bird. That's what Ollie affectionately called their daughter, after Ollie telling her that he was proud of her. Pretty Bird has a Baby Bird.
Barry flinched as she domineered over him. "What did you say?" She asked darkly, causing Barry to flinch slightly.
"You need help, Laurel. You do. I can help you. But if you continue, your one-woman crusade, you better kill me, because I'm never going to allow you to continue down this path."
"Woah, cute speech. Practice that in your head?" She asked before knocking him out.
A little while later, Barry woke up still tethered to the chimney. Only this time he had a pistol strapped to his hand. He tried to phase, but only to remember the BOOT was still on his ankle.
"That gun in your hand is a SIG-Sauer P226. One bullet, one kill. Dad used to use one just like that." She added wistfully. She then waltzed around in front of him. "Before you do something impulsive. I should warn you. I'm all geared up. Only a headshot will stop me." She said, tapping her abdomen.
"I'm not going to kill you, Laurel."
She then walked over to the other side of the roof dragging Earth-Two Double Down. "Time to test how strong you hold your philosophy, Flash." She then kicked the man's knees, forcing him to the ground. "Jeremy Tell, AKA Double Down. Of Earth-Two." She then kicked the man in the side of the head with her knee, "Tell him!"
The man refused. She brutally punched him in the face forcing him to spit some teeth out.
"Stop, Please!" Barry pleaded.
"Tell Red here what you did! How you betrayed Ted!" She commanded as she delivered another punch only this time to his stomach.
"Ok…Okay. I did it. I told Zoom Where you and Olivia were." He revealed as he spat some more blood from his mouth.
Barry looked between the two with fear and anxiety growing in the pit of his stomach. "What happened?"
Tell smiled, with his front teeth half broken. "Zoom offered a large bounty for other metas to build his army. When Grant came to me for supplies, I knew it was her that he was harboring. I told Zoom everything. He paid me handsomely before he went to say hello to you and your family." He said, looking up at Laurel with an unrepentant grin.
She then picked him up, her mouth next to his ear. "And you allowed Zoom to kill my family. The only family I had left after I was thrown away as if I were nothing more than muck on Moira Queen's Prada heels. Zoom put his hand through the chest of a man who was like a father to me, a woman who was as close to me as a sister and…." She caught herself, biting her lip.
Double Down cackled. "He dashed your girl's head in huh? That's what you get for not accepting his invitation. One of the last heroes lost her halo that night, huh?"
Barry now understood her pain. He now understood everything about her. She was once like the Laurel Lance he knew. Only, Zoom had taken everything from her, until all that was left was revenge. And darkness in her heart. That is what has kept her alive. Kept her going. He felt sick at mocking her pain earlier.
She was Laurel Lance that he had met. Only with a harder, less merciful edge. But as much as he hated the man in front of him, he couldn't take his life. "I won't kill him, Laurel. But I can help you, I promise, there is another way."
"I'm beyond your help. Zoom is what matters. Justice will be achieved. Lex Talionis." She then shoved Tell closer. "Now, Kill him, Or I will. Either way, his blood will be on your hands. If you don't kill him, you are just as guilty as he is as far as I'm concerned."
"Let me take him in. "My dad's a cop. no one is beyond help, Laurel. Please!"
"Nope, different earth, different jurisdiction. He will just be allowed to find the next easy target and kill or betray them. Do you really want to allow this shithead, the man who gave Zoom my daughter? Some hero you are!" She sneered. "A hero who won't seek out justice for an innocent five-year-old girl, who was playing with the rag-doll that I could just afford for her birthday, the week before. What would your beloved city say about that?" She asked, "Their Guardian Angel not giving justice to an innocent five-year-old child."
Barry continued trying to phase, as well as kicking the device on his ankle.
"Take the shot, Flash. You let him live, you validate his actions. Deem a life of a five-year-old girl to be nothing compared to the man with my daughter's blood…. With Olivia's blood on his hands."
"Killing Double Down won't bring Ted, Thea or Olivia back."
She nodded, a tear escaping her eyes. "I know. But I will sleep easier, knowing that he, Zoom and their army won't harm anyone else."
"I promise Laurel. Joe will help make this right. I promise that he will never hurt anyone again."
"No. It's too good for him…He never allowed me or mine that luxury. I will count to five. One!"
"Laurel!"
"Two! Three!"
"Please help me Flash!" Cried the man.
"One!" She then screamed as Barry broke the B.O.O.T knocking her down as Tell's head hit the cement roof hard, knocking him out.
As the Flash held her in his grip, throwing her gun away, Laurel screamed in anguish. "He killed my daughter! He let that prick kill my Liv...!"
" I know," Barry said softly, as he held Laurel in his arms. "I know, and he will never see the light of day again. He and Zoom will get what is coming to them. But I need you to help me to stop them, with only one rule."
Laurel kicked Tell once more on the side of the head, before shaking Barry's hand. "No more dropping bodies for now... But If I see Zoom and there is no other course of action…"
"We will talk about it if that happens." Barry quickly sped off, taking Earth-2 Double down to the pipeline until he could talk to Joe. When he returned, he noticed that Laurel was waiting for him. He had no doubt in his mind though, if she decided to kill Zoom or one of his lieutenants she would take the kill. In a way, she wasn't that dissimilar to Oliver in that way.
"I want to lay down some ground rules, Red. I'm not a member of your posse, and I don't work with people I don't know."
Barry exhaled, and pulled down his cowl, to show Laurel his identity. "I'm Barry Allen." He watched as Laurel nodded and extended her hand to shake his.
"Call me Dinah."
"Dinah, then." He then gave her a hesitant smile, "Partners?"
Laurel looked down at their joined hands and sighed. "Partners." Perhaps, one day he could help this Laurel become a hero like her Earth one counterpart. And he also knew that he should talk to both Laurel and Ollie, knowing that they both deserved to meet each other, but right now, their objective was clear, they had to stop Zoom.
He watched as Laurel started to back up her belongings and started to leave, "Where are you going?"
"I need time to think. To be alone. I'll be around, and I promise to adhere to our agreement, Barry."