Stronger Together Chapter 36: The Dominos Fall, an arrow fanfic

February 26, 2014, early morning hours:

There's a scowl on Sin's face as Thea approaches her after closing time. It's nothing she hasn't done before, a hundred times by now, the two of them finishing up work together and leaving Verdant side by side, but tension hangs in the air between them this time. It's been hanging there for far too long, mainly because it'd taken Thea so long to even realize it was there. (She can recognize the blame lies mostly with her, even if she's got a hundred good reasons for the distance between them now. Even now, worried about Sin, a stronger worry for Roy aches in her gut.)

Thea opens her mouth – to say what, she's really not sure – but Sin just tosses her rag down on the counter.

"No thanks," the other woman sneers, "I'm good to walk myself home."

Thea's mouth closes, opens again, and then closes once more as Sin stalks away from her. White hot anger flashes through her, but it doesn't last long. She's angry at Oliver, and she won't apologize for that, but Sin has every right to be angry at her too, she supposes. With all her worry for Roy, and all her confusing feelings about Oliver's work as the Green Arrow, she hasn't been a really good friend lately.

Months, actually, if she's being honest. Maybe even as far back as November. She can't really remember when she'd started to pull away, when she and Roy and Sin had slowly begun to turn back into just her and Roy. The thought dulls her anger at Sin, but not really her anger overall, and the worst part is she doesn't even know what – who – she's angry at.

Oliver, she can't help but think, harshly, cruelly, but that's wrong too. It's the aftermath of the miniquake all over again, wanting to be furious with her mother but knowing that doing so had meant she had to be angry with her dad too, and not wanting to be angry at a dead father she barely remembered. Her anger had had nowhere to go back then. It's got nowhere to go now.

Directing it toward Oliver is an obvious target. An easy target. He's holding her back. Won't let her help. Treats her like a little kid. Her awe at learning he's the Green Arrow hasn't entirely faded though, and it's hard to be angry at him knowing how he's really spending his nights. Partially.

Partially, it's also incredibly easy, because he's risking his life, over and over and over, and he doesn't seem to care. He'd almost died in December. She'd almost lost him.

She can't lose him, and he doesn't seem to understand that. Is that why she's angry then?

Is she angry because he won't let her help the way she wants to? Is she angry because she's afraid of losing him? Is she angry at herself, for pulling away from Sin? Is she angry because of what's happened to Roy, because her boyfriend's terrified of losing control and hurting someone (someone else, because he'd already hurt Oliver)?

Is she angry because the city is turning against the Green Arrow, someone framing her brother for their murders?

She doesn't know and that only makes her angrier and it's a vicious cycle and she wants to hit something but Oliver won't let her and –

Deep breaths. Roy's been trying to meditate a lot lately, trying to control the sudden rage that might blossom inside him at any moment, and Thea imitates him now, standing alone on the darkened floor of Verdant. Remnants of the night's activities are scattered around her: spilled drinks, empty cups, crumpled napkins on the floor. She closes her eyes to the debris. Deep breaths. The cleaning staff usually start with the bathrooms – there's only two of them every shift, and it usually takes them an hour or so to go through everything.

Which means there's no one around to watch as Thea attempts to wrestle back control of her own mind. There's no one around – the thought sticks out like a sore thumb, and Thea finds her eyes opening again. She scans Verdant's dark interior; no one's flicked on the overhead lights yet, so the space is still filled with dim club lighting, flashes of neon scattered around, and she has to squint a bit as she looks upstairs at the storeroom and office. No, there's no one around. But she knows Roy was on shift tonight, which means he's probably downstairs by now.

Only a few days ago, that would have been her too, but now Thea hesitates. It's not a matter of if she's welcome downstairs, it's a matter of if she wants to hear Oliver tell her no again. But screw Oliver (not really, she doesn't mean it, she's seen how much he sacrifices for the city) – she's not going to let him tell her what to do.

Heals clicking on the hard ground, Thea moves toward the basement door and types in the code. It's a rotating password, changing every two weeks, and Felicity had taught her a couple memory tricks so she doesn't forget. (Felicity has associated something different with every number, and the combination that each password results in is truly bizarre, but Thea supposes that only helps her remember, so she hasn't argued with the mnemonics.)

It's too late – tonight, at least – to apologize to Sin, but there might still be time to fix the tension that's sprung up between her and Roy. Not with Oliver, not tonight. Oliver's made it clear where he stands, and however much Thea might hate the decision he's made, she knows him well enough to know that one more night of arguing won't change his mind. It might help, in the long run, but nothing will change for now.

Roy though… She's not made at Roy. She can't be mad at Roy; her heart aches for him, and for what he's going through.

Forget Roy's hero worship for the Green Arrow – for her brother. Forget his need to help the Glades and atone for his supposed sins. Forget her anger at Oliver. Forget the danger it puts them both in.

Thea can't take Roy away from the only man who has any idea of what he's going through, who knows exactly what's coursing through Roy's veins, who might be the only chance he has of keeping himself whole and sane. Roy doesn't talk about it – won't talk about it, actually – but Thea can't help but see the guilt he's been carrying, since his neighbor's deaths.

Guilt over their deaths, of course. Maybe they hadn't quite been friends – maybe they never would have been – but he'd liked them both. It's not just that though. It's what happened afterward.

Roy had attacked Oliver. Broken his ankle. Bruised (broken?) his ribs. She'd never blamed him for that. Oliver hadn't either. But he blames himself.

He's hurting, and he's feeling guilty, and he's got a serum in his blood that just might turn him delusional. She doesn't care how angry she is at Oliver, or how much Roy doesn't agree with her. She's not leaving him behind.

He turns to look at her, when she reaches the bottom of the stairs. He shouldn't, Thea can recognize that much: his legs are crossed on the floor in front of him where he sits on one of the exercise mats, which means he's meditating again. She's broken his concentration.

Frustration tears through Thea at the sight. Half of her feels like she shouldn't – won't – apologize for that. She has every right to be here. The other half is just worried for Roy. Worried and anxious and exhausting herself wondering about all the possibilities of how this could go wrong.

"Everything alright?" Felicity is the one to ask, only just barely turning away from her computers to do so.

There's no judgement to her question, just casual concern, a hint of worry, an air of distractedness. She must be busy, Thea knows. Her own gaze flickers over the basement. Felicity's in front of the main panel of computers, two monitors covered in programs Thea can't recognize at a glance, the third half-filled by a portion of a map of what has to be Star City, given the blinking dot over one of the buildings. Sure enough, Oliver's mannequin is empty. Out on the streets already.

Not that that's surprising. It's the early hours of the morning, nearing the end of his shift, probably. Sunrise isn't until almost seven, but the sky'll start getting lighter after five. Oliver tends not to stay out too long after that starts to happen. More often than not, he's in before the first hints of light touch the horizon. Thea's been around long enough to know that, unless there's something immediate that needs his attention, he's almost always in by four, five am at the latest, and often even by three, depending on the day.

She could be out there, helping him. Roy could be. Diggle could be, but instead he's at the secondary bank of computers with the second chair, the ones without as much processing power and fewer programs. Probably sorting through already acquired data. Thea's anger rises again, partially at the sight, partially at Felicity's question.

Her brother's out on the streets, alone, and she's seen his scars, seen his injuries, seen the hardness in his eyes that years of suffering have put there, and she can't do anything about it. No, everything is not alright.

But she doesn't swear at Felicity just yet and manages to reign in her anger for a moment as she casts another glance around the basement. She doesn't know what she's doing here. She's got nothing to say, if they're not going to let her help.

You came down for Roy, Thea reminds herself, but she can see now that that's a mistake too. Roy's in the middle of something – in the middle of training she's not allowed to participate in – and her being present can only distract him. That's not what Thea wants.

There's a scowl on her face, Thea knows, as the time ticks by and the silence in response to Felicity's question starts to get uncomfortable. She doesn't much care about that, but she's also never much been one to let herself remain speechless.

"Oliver tracking down another convict?" she finds herself asking. Her own tone is harsh, and it shouldn't be, because these aren't the people she's mad at, but sometimes it feels like she's mad at everyone and everything, at the world, at the universe, for existing, for giving her such a shitty lot in life. So her words come out a little cruel. A little rude. So what?

Felicity hesitates for the briefest of moments, probably because Thea didn't actually answer her question. "Yeah," she eventually says. Her tone isn't as chipper as it usually is – it's wary. Like Thea is a bomb waiting to go off, like Felicity doesn't want to trigger the explosion.

Thea shouldn't be mad at her for that either, but she is.

(She doesn't want to be mad – she thought she was done with this, thought she'd gotten over it and moved on, thought she was getting better. Does this count as a relapse? Or had she never really improved in the first place?)

"Three of the escapees have fled the state," Digg says, before Thea can continue the conversation. "SCPD brought in another one. Oliver's tracking down number five." His tone seems cautious, but Thea can't tell if that's because he's treading lightly around her, distracted by what he's doing, or if she's just reading too much into it.

"Not counting the one we already found," Felicity chimes in.

Neither statement helps improve her mood. Nothing much does, when she gets like this. The mention of the SCPD certainly doesn't help.

"Let the cops handle it then," she scowls. "Thought you guys were focusing on the Mirakuru."

Digg looks up from his computer screens, disapproval on his face. "We are," he says, in a way that also says 'you know better than to think otherwise'.

It might be condescension. It probably isn't. But Thea's not thinking straight, so she loses the little control she's managed to wrest back, forgets her own brief attempts at meditation, forgets that it's not these people that she's angry at.

The cops don't even trust Oliver anymore!" she scolds the group, as if they need any reminding of how much worse things have gotten, of how these copycat murders are ruining all the progress they've made. (Progress they've made without her.) "They cut ties – remember? Don't want to be associated with a killer! So why the fuck are you doing their job for them?! Let them deal with the convicts!"

"Thea," Roy says slowly, cautiously, standing from the mat.

Thea huffs in frustration. He's not being wary because of you, she tries to tell herself. He just can't afford to get angry right now. It's true, she knows, but knowing something is true and believing it aren't quite the same things, she's come to realize.

"We've made it our goal to protect Star City," Digg says, cautiously, and okay, yeah, this time he's definitely treading warily around her. "All of it."

"The police didn't trust us when we started this," Felicity says. "This isn't any different."

Oliver's words. Those have to be Oliver's words. Even if they are though, Felicity still sounds like she means them.

"Then let me help," Thea finds herself pleading, surging forward, frustration fueling her footsteps, anger clenching her fists. Her jaw and shoulders are tight, her blood pumping through her veins.

Felicity gives her a long look and Roy wavers where he stands, clearly torn between moving toward her and finishing whatever task Oliver's set him to now.

"You're welcome to," Felicity says after a moment, slow and appraising. "Got a robbery at Kord Industries yesterday, perps killed a guard then slipped a shoot-out with the SCPD."

Thea's jaw clenches even tighter for a moment. "You know that's not what I meant," she says, low and dangerous.

Felicity's eyes flash, but it's Digg who steps forward. "And you know that's not our call to make," he replies, equally as low.

Thea finds herself scoffing, but she manages to stop herself from saying anything about the way Felicity and Digg go along with whatever Oliver says. The thing is, she knows that's not entirely true. She knows they've argued before. Which means, if they're not arguing about this, not defending her, then they're on Oliver's side. That only makes the anger flash through her again, because Thea doesn't want to be angry at Oliver – she's worried about him – but she can't help it.

She's known for a while now though that there's no point in trying to convince Oliver's partners without him around. With effort, she draws her gaze back to Roy.

"My mom decided to run," she bites out through gritted teeth. "I'll be helping her with her campaign, starting tomorrow." She hadn't known she was going to say that, hadn't yet decided what it would mean to her if Moira Queen was mayor of Star City, but she's not about to take back her words now. If they won't let her help them here than she'll go somewhere where she can help, and her mom's been trying to spend more time with her anyway lately. She's supported the idea so far because it gives her mom a way to help too, but there's nothing that says she can't be a part of that – since apparently she can't be a part of this.

Roy bites his lip. "Dinner, then?" he asks. "Before our shifts?"

Thea's angry enough to consider saying no, turning him down for nothing more or less than the fact that Oliver will train him and not her, but she's not that petty. She wants to be better than that. Instead she only nods once, casts her gaze over Felicity and Digg again, then sweeps up the stairs.

February 27, 2014, evening:

Jo doesn't know what to expect of Laurel's new friend, except that she's young, from the Glades, and was investigating the clinic Anderson volunteers at all on her own. Well, that and she tried to talk Laurel out of throwing herself needlessly into danger. Whatever little Laurel's told her about Sin – whatever little Laurel actually knows – Jo can be grateful for that, at least, and she knows it's coloring her expectations a little. Young, but tough enough to fight back against Laurel's stubbornness and, if not win, at least draw a compromise that had Laurel pulling back a bit.

She's from the Glades, but she's also clearly standing a bit apart from them as she investigates a clinic that a lot of people go to for help.

Jo really should have expected the rebellious look.

Sin is young – probably only a bit over eighteen, if that, and certainly not a day over twenty-one – and she's got a look in her eyes that hints as to where she's grown up. She's also got short, practical black hair that's certainly not getting in her way, a seemingly permanent scowl on her face, and is dressed almost entirely in the color black. She's short and scrappy, and even just seeing her standing in Laurel's doorway is enough for Jo to realize that she's more than a match for her best friend.

It reminds Jo of the first time she met Laurel. And, like then, their personalities are either going to clash very badly, or they're going to get along like fire and gasoline.

Jo's not really the aggressive type. That's Laurel purview. Jo knows how to fight for what she wants – she has to, working at CNRD against people wealthier than she could ever dream of being – but Laurel's the one who pushes and grabs and takes. Still, when she grins at Sin she wouldn't be surprised if her own expression is a bit feral, a bit too much teeth. Even just seeing the slouch in Sin's shoulders, the tightness of her jaw, the way she throws suspicious glances at Laurel as she lets the older woman lead her into her home…

It's not a kindred spirit that Jo sees in Sin. It's almost the opposite of that, actually. Laurel ushers the wary teen through her front door and into the kitchen where Jo is waiting, and Jo takes five seconds to look at their new partner in crime and know that Laurel's met her match.

Like she'd thought. Either Sin's going to hate her, or the two of them together are finally going to be able to talk Laurel out of her riskier stunts. So, yeah, there might be something a little wild in her grin as Jo stands and holds out a hand for Sin to shake.

"Joanna de la Vega. Call me Jo. It's a pleasure to meet the woman who managed to convince this one to stand down," she says, a jerk of her head making it clear that she's talking about Laurel.

Sin bares a grin at that too, all teeth and wild eyes, letting out a brief startled laugh. "So you're not crazy enough to try and get yourself killed in the Glades too then?" she asks.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jo sees Laurel huff slightly, indignant, but her focus is all on Sin at the moment. She returns the laughter at the retort. "Hell no," she says, holding out her hand. "Someone's gotta be the sensible one in this relationship."

Sin takes her hand. Her grip is firm, clearly testing Jo, but Jo's squared up with some bad people. Laurel's the aggressive one, but that doesn't mean Jo doesn't know how to handle herself.

"Not sensible enough to give up investigating?"

It's a test. Jo knows it is. She doubts her grin is as fierce as Sin's, but it's fierce enough for her purposes. "We wouldn't be friends if I was. There're people that need our help."

Jo and Laurel have been investigating the slimmest glimmers of a potential malpractice suit against one doctor. They've been going after the clinic because they can't get near the hospital where Anderson works. Sin though, Sin doesn't know anything about that. She thinks the whole clinic is corrupt.

"That makes a lot of sense," Laurel says, once the explanations have been exchanged and everyone's been brought up to speed. "I never got the impression that Anderson was all that altruistic."

Jo doesn't disagree, not entirely, but she's always known that she's meant to be the voice of caution in this relationship. "We've always known that," she counters. "He's there because it fluffs his resume, means people are less likely to consider him a bad doctor." She turns her attention to Sin. "We can't guarantee these things are linked. What proof do you have of the corruption?"

Sin scowls. "No proof. Nothing you'd accept anyway."

"We can start with anything." Laurel leans forward where she sits, eager for the slightest bit of new information. "What do you have? Rumors? Gossip?" There have been so many delays in their investigation – other, more pressing cases with better evidence to work on; Tommy's kidnapping; Laurel's trip to visit her mom that had ended with her staying longer than anticipated after a particle accelerator exploded… Too many things have slowed them down, and it's been months since they've starting looking into Anderson, months since the Green Arrow had given Laurel a copy of Malcolm Merlyn's List.

Sure, they've done other things with the List since then – they certainly haven't forgotten it. They've used it to provide support when CNRI gets a case related to someone who's name is on the List. They've used it to point their coworkers in the right direction, to choose which cases get their attention. Since Laurel had shown it to her last fall, they've made a point to take any case directly related to a Lister they could. But those have almost always been cases with solid evidence, usually clear cut, ending in settlements – the rich of Star City are even less likely to go to court nowadays, given the public's ongoing suspicion.

So Jo can't blame Laurel for being eager for anything, even scraps. The people they've taken down have been scum – visible, obvious, scum. CNRI hadn't questioned their cases, and Jo and Laurel both would have taken them with or without the List. It had only served as extra motivation. Anderson though… they're only looking into Anderson because Laurel recognized his name. Otherwise there wouldn't have been enough evidence, his victim would have never gotten a case.

She still doesn't have one, Jo reminds herself, eyes flickering to Sin in the wake of Laurel's questions. Maybe Sin doesn't think what she has is enough – and it probably isn't, not for court – but it's a start, and it's more than they had before.

Still, Sin hesitates. Whether it's because they're strangers she doesn't trust, because she's doubting herself, or because she barely has anything, Laurel clearly doesn't care. She leans forward a bit further, urging the truth to come out with every line of her body.

"We can start with anything," she repeats. "No matter how small. I don't care if you heard it from your uncle's nephew's wife's sister. If that clinic's not aboveboard, I want to know about it."

Sin's jaw clenches, a steely glint entering her eye. "Alright," she agrees, leaning forward a bit in her own seat. "Here's what I know," she says, and spills the whole story.

It isn't much, and it is mostly just rumors and gossip, but it points their investigation in a whole new direction, so Jo understands the excitement that builds in Laurel the more Sin speaks. Their malpractice suit against Anderson is weak. He's made a few mistakes here and there, mostly because he was either paid to, they've been figuring, or because he simply doesn't care, but he genuinely is, for the most part, a talented doctor. But if they can tie him to the corruption of the clinic, instead of just relying on the testimony of his victims (who are not medical professionals), then they have a much better shot of succeeding at this.

"If you're right," Jo says, feeling horror mounting even as Laurel's excitement builds, "then that clinic needs to be shut down. As soon as possible."

"You're right," Laurel agrees. "If they're stitching up arrow wounds, there's no telling what else they're hiding – every doctor in that place is suspect."

"Have you looked into anyone but Anderson?" Sin cuts in.

Laurel and Jo exchange glances. No, no they haven't.

"You got any names?" Laurel asks.

"Yeah," Sin says, "real shady guy. I've been there for a couple of his shifts and he hasn't taken a single patient. Lucas Mallory."

They pull out their computers, Laurel handing her tablet over to Sin and keeping her laptop for herself, and get to work.

February 27, 2014, night:

Thursday at work, Detective Lance catches her arm before she's even halfway through the door and tells her they're going on patrol together – uptick in Arrow graffiti on Harrison Avenue – and hustles her right back out, before she can so much as shrug off her coat or grab a cup of coffee.

"Others are busy?" she asks as he lets go of her arm and she obediently follows after him to his unmarked car. Lance is a decent boss, not afraid to get his hands dirty, even if he does prefer to shift off any and all paperwork that he can to his subordinates. Still, it's not like him to go on patrol, much less for him to take her with him. He's got enough on his plate without that.

"They've got their own assignments," Lance grunts out, which is a yes if Emily ever heard one. Far as she knows, he's got his own assignments too, so if he's making time for this it must be important. Not a patrol then, she's guessing.

As far as she knows, she and Lance are the only ones who've actually physically spoken with the Green Arrow, either in person or on the phone. It's possible one or more of the others has, and they're keeping it quiet, much like she is, but Emily finds that unlikely, even if she's willing to admit that part of that doubt might just be her wanting to feel special. GA doesn't seem like the kind of guy who trusts easily – Lance's been in contact with him since at least May last year, if Emily's suspicions about the miniquake are correct, but aside from a few spontaneous back-alley meetings after she'd joined the task force, it'd taken until December before she'd had a proper one-on-one meeting with the hero. Even that had been simply because Lance hadn't been able to make the meeting. Not to mention that Lance has some secondary phone that he only uses to call GA. Emily doesn't have one of those.

Not yet, she lets herself think, because she's got plans, visions for the future, and getting an in with Star City's hero can only help with those.

She slides into the passenger seat across from her boss, buckling the belt as he starts up the car. "Pro-vigilante or anti-vigilante graffiti?" she asks. It's doubtful this is about any graffiti, Green Arrow related or not, but she might as well cover all the bases.

Sure enough, Lance gives her a look over his shoulder before he puts the car into reverse and backs out of his spot.

"What's your stance on these arrow murders?" he says instead of answering.

Emily falters for a moment at the question. He knows perfectly well where she stands, or at least he did a month ago. They'd stood over the cooling victim's body as they'd called Green Arrow together. So why is he asking her again now?

Before, her mind reminds her, the city didn't actually believe that GA was at fault. Now they do. Yeah, they do – they believe it well enough that the SCPD has cut all their unofficial ties with the hero and reaffirmed that the taskforce's goal is to bring him in, soon as they see him.

Is Lance trying to give her an out? If he is, she doesn't want it. As part of the taskforce, Emily has moved further up the food chain than she'd thought she would, this early in her career. But it's only been since Green Arrow has taken an interest in her that she's really started to feel the effects of her new position, at least in her mindset. Lance can't let on to the others too much, which is why she figures none of the rest of them have met Star City's hero up close and personal, but he trusts her. Trusts her to stand in his place, at least when it comes to GA.

Emily knows what that kind of trust means. She knows perfectly well that what she's doing is either going to make or break her career. If her association with GA gets out, she'll be all but done for. Lance had scraped by and gotten charge of the taskforce solely because he'd helped stop the miniquake from being a thousand times worse. No, scratch that – the SCPD had been about to demote him for working with Green Arrow. It had only been Superman's words of a helper in the SCPD that had helped him keep his job, no matter that Superman had given no hint as to who had stopped the other device.

Truthfully, even Emily doesn't have proof. She's never brought herself to ask. But she doesn't need proof; Lance's association with GA is enough evidence for her.

The risk is worth it. The taskforce won't be enough forever, but it's a step in the right direction, towards where she wants to go, and she isn't about to give up her alliance with GA either.

"Arrow murders?" she asks. "News doesn't have a clever name for the copycat yet?" It isn't a question she expects an answer to, only meant to be an answer to Lance's own question. She isn't sure copycat is quite the right term, but it tells him perfectly well where she stands. (Fanatic might be better, or even adversary, because even now that the news is blaming GA, no one is stepping forward to take credit. A true copycat – one trying to mimic GA's ideals – probably wouldn't be so quiet.)

Lance grunts once, taking a moment to switch lanes and take a left turn. Traffic's not too busy this time of night, but Emily gives him the moment, and more. Whatever he's got to say to her is sure to be important; she'll let him have the time he needs to make sure he says it right.

"Brass has been riding me lately – they're more interested in catching our friend than they have been the past year."

The information is nothing new, but Lance pauses when he's done, so Emily takes the time to think out a response.

"They're just following the media," she says carefully. Is he still testing her allegiance? Does he think she might rat him out for a promotion? The idea hasn't occurred to her before now, but now she can't help but wonder. What would their captain do if she told him Lance had a direct line to GA? Does she care? No. "They'll quiet down once the murders end."

Lance grunts again, this time sounding vaguely approving. "Might not, if our pal's name isn't cleared."

Emily hums in unhappy agreement. He's right, unfortunately. Even back when Green Arrow didn't care if his arrows killed their targets, he'd rarely meant for it to happen. He'd always given his victims a first chance to put things right, aside from the occasional bodyguard who'd gotten in the way and bled out before anyone could help them. It doesn't sit right with Emily, thinking about the harm the city's hero had done, but she can still clearly see the difference between those deaths and these. These deaths feel more real, somehow, to the city and her both. The youngest victim was still a teenager. The most prominent the mayor. These aren't nameless muscle or shady millionaires. They're people, people of Star City. (She chastises herself for these thoughts – everyone is someone to someone else – but that doesn't make her feelings any less real.)

Regardless, these deaths make it feel as if anyone could be next, and that scares people. Even bringing down the copycat won't be enough to restore trust in GA. Hopefully, whoever it is has enough evidence somewhere that they can clear GA's name, but Emily can't count on that. And if GA's name is never cleared of these murders… Well, that just makes her job all the harder.

"You hear about the robbery at Kord?" Lance asks, instead of continuing their conversation.

Emily knows better than to think the two subjects aren't related. "Who hasn't?" she replies. The robbery of some of Kord Industry's most high-profile (if secretive) tech and the murder of the security guard alone are enough to spark rumors throughout the SCPD, and Emily makes it a point to keep an ear out for even the smallest of gossip – that's why she puts up with Holyfield, at least more than the rest of the unis on the taskforce do. But it hadn't just been an armed robbery gone wrong. The SCPD had been alerted the moment Kord's alarms had gone off and there'd been a shootout at the back door. That was enough to make the front-page news, and even if it hadn't been, Hwang's got enough friends in the department to hear about it if so much as a single shot is fired.

Lance grunts again. This one speaks of annoyance, though Emily's not sure if that's from the gossip that's been spreading because of the shootout or if it's because the perp got away. Probably both, knowing her boss. He still seems like he's weighing his words carefully though, eyes on the road as he drives nowhere in particular, so Emily speaks up into the silence.

"I take it our friend's aware of the incident too?"

It's a pointless question, and Lance huffs a dry laugh that isn't really amusement at her words. Fair point. Emily's got no proof of this either, but she's fairly certain GA can access the SCPD systems any time he wants. That doesn't sit right with her either, but there're enough corrupt cops around that she's not going to protest just yet. Regardless, his intel is probably even better than Emily's gossip network.

"And?" Emily prompts, when Lance doesn't say anything.

He's her boss, and she knows she's pushing it a bit, but there's a sour twist to Lance's mouth that says he's not happy about something, and if Lance isn't happy about something, Emily wants to know what it is. He's not a perfect cop – he's old guard, stuck in his ways a bit – but far more often than not his morals fall on the right side of the line, by her standards anyway. He doesn't do bureaucracy and paperwork, he hates politics and pandering, and he wants to do right by his city. It's good enough for her.

"His attention's a bit split at the moment," Lance ends up saying, grimace on his face. "Same as ours. Was looking for a little help."

Emily's not sure their costumed vigilante phrased it quite like that – Green Arrow's not the kinda guy who asks for help, but she'll wear him down on that too, eventually – but the end result is the same either way. She's not surprised he's busy. Between a copycat murderer, whoever supplied Gold with the drugs to help him Hulk out, and now these escaped convicts on the loose, he's probably out from dusk to dawn each night. Adding in someone stealing Kord tech, and he might start having to stay out in the light.

He doesn't have to, though – not while he's got them on his side. Because he does have them, not just Lance, even if he's never called her asking for help. And if Lance is bringing it up to her, that's because he can't follow through – he's got the same dissatisfied grimace on his face as he did when he asked her to go to the meeting with GA in his place. Emily focuses on that, for the moment.

"Something big coming our way?" she asks.

Lance gives her a look.

"Something else?" she clarifies, because the brass hasn't just been riding Lance about catching Green Arrow, they've been riding everyone. As if two unis on patrol together would really stand a chance in Hell. (As if she wasn't usually paired with Lazarov anyway, who wouldn't go after GA unless his own mother asked him to.)

Her boss grimaces again. "Too many eyes," is all he says, sour twist to his mouth.

So, it's not that he can't do it, or that Green Arrow didn't ask for him, it's that he doesn't want anyone to catch on to his connection with the hero. Especially because she's pretty sure the brass – or, their captain, at the very least – already knows something. Not the details, surely, but he probably knows enough to know that Lance has met with GA before. She wonders if they know that Lance has a way to contact the masked hero, or if they think it's Green Arrow who always tracks down Lance. She wonders how much of his association with GA Lance has kept from her.

If Lance can't do it though, that leaves her as the only other option, and Emily doesn't know how to feel about that. Following through on something at the bequest of Green Arrow might bring her to the edge of a dangerous precipice, and Emily's not sure if that's a route she wants to go.

Somehow, Lance has managed to balance his partnership with GA – and it is a partnership, however lacking that term might be as a descriptor. Lance doesn't do favors for Green Arrow, he isn't owed anything in return for those scant few times he's followed GA's lead, or done as the hero asked, and he doesn't expect anything. At the same time, he's not GA's lackey either, blindly following his lead. He can and has fought back against decisions he doesn't agree with, and Emily knows that if Green Arrow truly were to return to his habit of not caring where his arrows landed, Lance would be fighting with the rest of the SCPD to bring him in.

It's a grudging partnership, one full of distrust and half-lies and secrets, but for all the power imbalance in their fighting skills, there isn't much of a power imbalance in their relationship. There's respect there, however hesitant.

Emily doesn't want her relationship with Green Arrow to be any different. She doesn't want to hold what she does over his head, claiming that he owes her if she helps him, but nor does she want him to think that he can ask her to do anything for him, or that she owes him if he brings her intel she couldn't otherwise get. She's made it clear over the months that he doesn't frighten her (well, he does, but that's more in the abstract of what-he-might-be-capable-of-if-pushed-over-the-edge rather than what-he-might-do-here-and-now).

On the other hand, she doesn't want him to resent her help either. She remembers how he'd reacted, when she'd stood in Lance's stead and he hadn't been given any warning of the switch up beforehand. She wants this to be a willing partnership, on both sides.

So she doesn't immediately say no to Lance's unspoken request. "Do you think he'd mind if I gave him a call?" she asks instead.

Lance pulls off the road at that, sliding into some empty street parking only a little way down – it is late at night, after all, even if midnight hasn't quite arrived yet – as he rides the curb. Emily can't tell if he's just that surprised at her request or if he's tired of not being able to look her in the face during their conversation. Regardless, he gives her a look that tells her perfectly well what he thinks about that question. It's not anything Emily wasn't expecting.

"If he wants me to work with him, then I'm going to work with him," she says firmly. Lance may be her boss, but he can't order her to work with Green Arrow. That's entirely outside of her job description. For now.

Lance's jaw tightens as his lips thin.

"I'm not asking to keep the phone," Emily says. "You can sit here and listen to the whole thing if you want, put it on speaker – the phone doesn't even have to leave your hands. But if he wants help – if I'm gonna be the one to help him – I'm not just going to follow him blindly into the dark."

Lance grimaces. Emily's first impression is that he agrees with her, but she also has no idea how much work it took for Lance and GA to have the relationship they do now. Somehow, Lance had gone from dead set on bringing him in – so much so that he'd used his own daughter as bait, and that might be a closely kept secret, but Emily knows people – to working at his side and taking his intel at face value. She doesn't know what happened between them to get them there. She doesn't know if her request will jeopardize that relationship.

She doesn't want it to, but she's also not willing to budge too much when it comes to this. If GA expects her to trust him as much as Lance does, in a manner of speaking, then she's going to need something to show for it.

As Lance continues to hesitate, Emily speaks up again. "You wouldn't."

The words are enough to tip her boss over the edge. He scowls at her, but its more irritation at the expectance of GA's displeasure than true anger with her, she figures. He pulls a phone out of his pocket and hits speed dial one.

Despite herself, Emily startles slightly, shifting in her seat in surprise. "Now?" she finds herself asking without meaning to.

"He's working the Kord case," Lance returns shortly. "Time sensitive."

Understanding comes quickly to Emily. That makes more sense than if he'd decided to turn to them about the Gold investigation after all this time, or if he'd decided that he couldn't handle the copycat case anymore.

"Go."

"You asked for my help," Lance replies to the artificial voice. "I've got too many eyes on me. But we've got a mutual friend who isn't so closely watched."

Emily doesn't doubt that the phone in Lance's hand is secure. More secure than the SCPD's system, probably. But she knows the rules. No names. No details. Obscure conversations. This is why she prefers face-to-face – it's so much easier to talk, even if GA still likes to be short and cryptic.

There's a moment's silence as Green Arrow processes the statement.

"She won't be working with me."

"I am perfectly capable of handling –!"

"No. You won't be working with me."

Even through the distortion, Emily can hear the emphasis on the last word.

"Hello!" comes another voice. She can tell the tone is cheerful and female, and maybe a bit wary too, no matter how garbled it is.

Green Arrow's partner. Emily knows only three things about her. She's female. She's good with tech. And she's not nearly as mistrusting, or as much of a hardened criminal, as GA is himself. The first two Lance has explicitly told her. The third she's gleaned herself from one conversation with the woman in which she'd unintentionally revealed Green Arrow's then-current physical weakness to them by refusing a meeting. It's not something easily forgotten.

But Lance says she's good, and he'd been sincere, and Emily's pretty sure he knows more about this woman than he's willing to say. Rumor has it Green Arrow and the SCPD worked together to take down one of Merlyn's earthquake devices. Except Emily also knows for a fact that Green Arrow was fighting face to face with Merlyn himself, the city's dark archer, that night. Learning of this woman's existence has cleared up a few inconsistencies.

It was probably this woman who talked Lance through dismantling the device, which means she's been with GA since last May, at the very latest.

Those few facts are enough for Emily, for now.

"You're handling the Kord case?" she asks.

"I am. Not in the field though, just with the computers, which is where Lance, or well, you now, I guess, come in."

She's a talker, but Emily bets she's good enough to not give anything away. GA probably wouldn't let her speak for him if he thought she would.

Green Arrow's voice comes back over the line. "There'll be a phone on your windowsill after your shift. Use it." The line goes dead.

Lance gives her a look that says 'did you expect that to go any differently?' as he pulls back out into traffic, and silence settles between them.

Emily doesn't know how to feel when she finds the sleek phone exactly where GA had said it would be. It's not that she didn't expect him to know where she lives. She'd have been surprised if he hadn't. But she's still not sure what the feeling in her gut is as she thinks about it, pictures him perching outside her window. She trusts him, more or less, but it's one thing to know how good he is on the streets, and another thing entirely to think about what he could do to her, if he really wanted too, and how little she could do in return. He's a faceless shadow in the night, and it works, for what he has to do, stops bad people from targeting him when he isn't wearing the hood – but it stops the good people from finding him too.

What is the world supposed to do, if he steps over the line? Who can stop him then?

With effort, she shakes such thoughts from her mind. She trusts him. She does. It's enough for now. Anything else will take time, and she's known that since the second she fought to get placed on Lance's task force.

There's only one number in the phone. She could call, but it's late (early), and she knows enough to know that GA's hours are irregular. Besides, it's supposedly not him she'll be working with. She pulls up the messaging app instead.

Talk in the morning, or are we working late tonight?

It takes only moments for her to get a reply.

4:30 pm work for you?

It's enough time for Emily to get in plenty of sleep after her shift, but she says goodbye to the plans she'd had for the day, mentally rearranging her schedule. She doesn't mind, not for this kind of work. She wonders if the time means anything, but forces herself not to dwell on it. For one thing, it doesn't matter if GA's partner has a day job (or if GA does himself). For another, she doubts she's going to learn anything from this phone that they don't want her to learn.

Yes.

4:30 pm on the dot, Emily's new phone gets another text. It's an email address at some domain name Emily doesn't recognize, and a password. She hesitates, but she doesn't think GA or his partner is interested in giving her a virus. And if they want access to her computer, she's sure that they'll find a way, whether or not she goes along with this. She boots up the internet and logs in to her new email account. There's one message already waiting for her, and Emily reads through it quickly, then reads through it again.

It's everything they have on the Kord Industries case: details on the robbery, the death of the suspect later that night, and information on what they stole. Some of the information is clearly listed straight off of the police reports of each incident, but some of it has also clearly been pieced together by either GA or his partner. Most notably is the report of another robbery last night. There's nothing that immediately links it to the robbery at Kord Industries; one was theft of tech, the other of straight cash, and the suspect who'd committed the first crime was already dead by the time the second had taken place.

Except for what was stolen from Kord in the first place, a skeleton key that can be modified to hack into any bank vault, apparently. Emily doesn't pretend to understand the computer science behind it, and the SCPD hasn't even linked the two cases yet, but she trusts the judgement of whoever put together the report she has now, and she trusts the small section at the end that details assumptions and connections that don't fit in the fact-laden beginning of the email.

GA and his partner are assuming their mastermind is intelligent, and has been planning this for a while. Emily agrees: a robbery one morning, suspect dead by that night, followed by another robbery the next day – it all hints at something worked out in advance and tightly timed.

She wonders if GA's partner is expecting her to bounce ideas off her, or just follow her lead, but while Emily might not be a detective yet, she is still a cop. If they want her to work this case, she's going to work it, properly.

What's next? she sends out in a quick text.

The phone vibrates almost instantly in response. Need you to canvas a few blocks. We were getting a signal from the skeleton key last night but didn't have the resources to pursue. An address follows the words.

Emily spends the ride to the location processing the words – what was said, and how it was said. The writing had been short, clinical, and exact. Phrases like "canvas" and "resources to pursue" remind her of her fellow cops. That says something about the author of the text.

More importantly, she figures, is the statement that they didn't have the resources to pursue in the first place, which means GA was busy somewhere else when the latest robbery took place. There was another copycat murder last night, a man who fell to his death with an arrow in his chest, and footage of a silhouette of GA on the rooftop beside her. But there was also a report of a drug bust last night that Green Arrow had gotten to first – not street drugs but prescription drugs, something Emily figures has to do with whatever gave Gold his unnatural strength – and Emily knows which report she believes.

Maneuvering her car into a metered spot, Emily sets such thoughts aside as she digs through her cupholder for spare change. Wonder if they reimburse, she can't help but joke even in her own mind as she pulls out enough quarters for an hour's wait. It's barely the end of the workday for most people, not quite for others, and the street bustles with people moving to and fro – people leaving work, people heading out for dinner, or doing their shopping now that the day is done. She'd had to park a bit away from the address Green Arrow's partner had given her, but even with the flow of people around her it doesn't take her long to make her way to the spot. It's the location of the robbery from last night, and Emily immediately ignores the front door and moves around to the side alley and the back door the robbers had used.

There's nothing in the alley that hints at last night's crime. If the vault and side door were cordoned off by the police, they're free and clear now. Emily scans the dirty ground anyway. It's not that she doubts the forensics team, but in a place like this it's easy to miss something. Debris litters the area, the alley filled with the usual things people keep off to the side and out of the way.

It's not that poorly lit, she muses, or, at least, it shouldn't be, if the streetlight she can see works during the night.

You get footage of this spot? she asks in a quick text, once she spots the security camera. Their perp is tech savvy, but apparently so is GA's partner – who really needs a name of her own. Emily hopes she found something, but she doesn't rest all her expectations on that hope.

No sign of their transport, no clear images of their faces, is the reply. Anywhere nearby they could have hidden the getaway vehicle?

Emily reaches the mouth of the alley and looks around. The street's full of places to park – it really would help if she knew what she was looking for. But she's got the general picture: the getaway vehicle would have been tucked away somewhere where it wouldn't immediately be spotted, but close enough to the site of the robbery, given how quickly the perps had gotten in and out.

Checking. Other cameras nearby?

Too many to search them all.

Right, Emily's here for the footwork, after all, because GA's busy. She just needs to narrow things down to make the tech side of things easier. She gets to work canvasing the nearby streets, and stops into a few stores just to see if anyone was working late last night and spotted something. Most of the places were closed, and she only comes across two people who were working that late last night, neither of whom saw anything. She does her due diligence anyway, because there'd been no mention of a canvas in the police report.

It's easy enough to get lost in her work, even if she's not technically on the clock. This is the busy work of police work (other than paperwork), the kind they show on TV but with a myriad of cuts between scenes to make it seem quick. It's not quick, but it's engaging for Emily. She thrives off this kind of detective work, which she doesn't get to do much as a uni. It's past an hour later, and she's sent on several likely locations, when she gets another text.

Call it a night, GA's partner instructs her. We got what we needed. Thanks.

Thanks. That cements it in Emily's mind – she's almost certainly not talking to Green Arrow himself. Not that she'd thought she was, but…

No problem, she shoots back. She glances around the busy street as she pockets her phone again, considering ignoring the directive, but the other woman's right. She's gotten far enough from the crime scene by now that it's unlikely she'll find anything more of use.

The meter's ran a little long, but there's no ticket on her windshield yet, so Emily shrugs it off and moves on, already calculating whether or not she can make the dinner she'd planned for in her head. She tries to put thoughts of the robbery from her mind, tries to stop solving it in her head – she's a uni, not a detective, so the SCPD certainly isn't going to put her on the case, and she's only there to do the footwork because GA's busy. But thoughts linger nevertheless, as she sets up in her kitchen and starts cooking, because she's been presented with a crime, and she can't not try to solve it, even if it's not the kind of crime she usually is interested in.

She can't help but wonder why this thief needs money. Why go to all the effort of the skeleton key for only one robbery? Is there a connection with Kord Industries? Will there be more robberies?

A knock on the door just before she leaves for her shift doesn't help Emily shift her mindset – it's a courier (no brand name on his uniform), and the package he drops off contains nothing more than a single earbud.

Emily stares at it for a moment, then slips it into her right ear. It's small, small enough to probably go unnoticed, especially if she leaves her ponytail a touch looser than normal and lets her hair cover her ear.

There's a tiny button on the part that sticks out.

"I assume there's no point in asking who I'm talking to?"

"You assume correctly!" a familiar voice answers, chipper even through the modulated voice software. "Nice to finally meet you Officer Hwang."

Emily doesn't point out that they've technically spoken before – she understands the sentiment, and it makes her think that GA might not be listening in to this call. Every other time the two of them have spoken it was because Lance and GA needed to talk, and they just happened to be listening in. This is the first time – she assumes – that it's just the two of them.

"Any leads?" she can't help but ask, because she's been wondering since they separated if they're been anything to find on the local cameras.

"Nothing yet, but we're still scanning footage. That was a few cameras you gave us and we've been keeping – Well. Its busy work being a vigilante."

Emily ignores the attempted humor, recognizing it for the deflection it is. She knows perfectly well Green Arrow and his partner are busy, and she can even guess at a few of the things no doubt keeping him occupied, though she doesn't pretend to know it all. She fiddles with the earbud instead as she makes her way to her car, wondering how long it will take her to get used to the sensation. It fits surprisingly well.

"So, what's the procedure on these things?"

"They're easy enough to use, not that I've ever used them myself, actually. Well, once, but… Just turn it on when you need to say something, I'll be listening. You can leave it on if you want, or turn it off at any time."

"GPS tracker?" she asks with a wry grin, wondering how this talkative and yet secretive woman will respond to that.

"Not yet, though Green Arrow –" She noticeably cuts herself off, and Emily can't help but chuckle.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to press you for secrets about your operations, even if I thought you would spill." Emily continues before an awkward silence can follow her brutally honest statement. "So, what do I call you?"

"What?"

"Unless you just expect me to say, 'Hey, you!' whenever I need to get your attention."

"Oh. Overwatch. You can call me Overwatch."

Emily so desperately wishes she could pick up tone better behind the artificially altered voice, but she thinks that's pride, as the woman says her name.

"Overwatch it is then," she agrees. "Nice to meet you too."

For the most part, Emily manages to shift her mind back to work easily enough, despite the ever-present earbud reminding her of her new partnership. Without the robbery to occupy her mind, she finds her hand going to her ear every so often, wondering about the future. This is the next step in getting close to Green Arrow, but she doesn't want to let herself get too excited about that. Hero though he might be, he has his faults, and just having an inside line with him won't be enough for her plans for the future.

She knows better than to bug Overwatch though, no matter her warring excitement and trepidation, so she keeps the earbud off until a few hours after her shift begins, when it clicks on through no effort of her own. Good to know Overwatch has complete control. Emily'd suspected, of course, and it doesn't bother her, but it's good to know.

"Skeleton key's back on, transmitting another signal. You free?"

There are so many things Emily can glean from those sentences alone. Most importantly: Green Arrow isn't free. She thinks about saying 'you really don't know?' – she's alone at the moment, no one around to hear her talk to herself, and that can't be a coincidence – but she holds it in.

"Think our robber needs more of a payout?"

"Only one way to find out. I can brainstorm how else it might be used but…"

"But in the meantime we can just nip this in the bud."

"I can pull Green Arrow off his –"

"No, no," Emily cuts in. "That's fine. I'll just take Lazarov, tell him I got an anonymous tip. He won't ask." He's naïve that way, but Emily doesn't begrudge him for that. She keeps an eye on him, to watch out and make sure he doesn't put his trust in the wrong person, but otherwise she appreciates the optimistic nature he brings to the taskforce. Even if he's a bit blind to GA's flaws.

Sure enough, when Emily tells him there's something she wants to check out, he doesn't ask any questions. Just checks to make sure he's free, wraps up the paperwork he'd been working on, and hops in the car with her. He's a talker too, like Overwatch, but unlike Overwatch he doesn't hide things by speaking about something else. He babbles freely instead about his sister and his brother and his niece and his best friend's daughter, who might as well be his niece and…

Emily finds herself drawn into it, the way she always is, because he's just so genuine. He'd bounced back from his injuries last year with barely a falter, and she can't help but admire him for it.

"Hey," she finds herself saying, as she pulls into a parking spot near the skeleton key's still transmitting signal, because she doesn't like lying to him, even by omission. "This tip has to do with the Kord Industries robbery. It might be dangerous."

Lazarov only grins back at her. "Always is," he says without falter. "I got your back." He doesn't ask questions, just… goes with the flow. Emily has no idea how he came to be assigned to the task force, but she's glad he was.

But they've wasted too much time already. Emily ushers him out of the car and, true to his words, he hangs on her six, guarding the rear. Neither of them have pulled their weapons yet, but they're both on high alert, casing their surroundings. Emily's still cognizant of the earbud in her ear, but she doesn't turn it on. She figures Overwatch is tracking her every move anyway, and she doesn't really have anything to report.

"Guard the entrance," she requests, as they inch toward the coordinates and reach an alley. Lazarov gives a firm nod, hand on his still holstered weapon. Emily takes a moment to sweep the surroundings, ignoring the very obvious truck parked in the alley in favor of looking for any other trouble. Nothing sticks out.

Just inside the alley, she brushes her hair aside as an excuse to press the button on the earbud.

"Approaching what looks like the getaway vehicle," she mutters under her breath.

"Roger that," comes the quiet tone. The voice modulator garbles it, turns what might have been soft confidence into roughness, but Emily likes having the backup regardless.

Any thoughts of how well the day has been going go out the window when she opens the truck to find it empty but for some piece of electronic equipment Emily knows she doesn't have a hope of understanding. She barely has time to relay what she's found before a shot rings out, deafening and painful.

It takes her a moment to realize the pain is because the bullet scraped by her right arm, and by the time the realization has properly formed in her mind she's already spun around, hunkered down, and pulled her own weapon.

"Lazarov!"

There are grunts coming from the front of the alley. Emily races for them, sees the glint of a gun off a nearby street lamp, and dives to the ground. It's not a graceful dive. Her body impacts the hard pavement, pushing the breath from her lungs and sending reverberations up through her bones. Her brain rattles in her skull. Her arm burns.

Get up, she tells herself, get up! She does, though that isn't graceful either, and it takes her a moment for her sight to return to her entirely. Lazarov is fighting off two at once, or at least trying to – one of the perps must have gotten away from him twice already, to account for the two shots fired at her.

There's a gun aimed at her again, but Emily's close enough now. She barrels into the perp, and his gun goes off as she tackles him. Her brain rattles more violently. She's almost certain a cry of pain escapes her, but if one does it's not one she can hear. She can't hear much of anything beyond the ringing in her skull. She glances down at the man she'd tackled, blinking, but his head must have hit the pavement hard (she hadn't heard that either). He's dazed, and blinking.

She takes a moment to wrestle his gun away, then turns him face down and cuffs his hands behind his back. It feels like it's harder than it should be, and the world is wobbly and distorted. There's something she's forgetting…

Lazarov! Right! There's another perp. Emily staggers to her feet, inner equilibrium out of whack and pain flickering through her body. She squints. Lazarov is wrestling with the other man, and neither of them seem to have possession of their guns anymore.

But there's a glint… It's a knife, and Emily's not sure Lazarov can see it. She musters her strength and rushes for it, pulling the perp's arm away before he can strike Lazarov. She succeeds, but he kicks out at her, and pulls his arm lose again.

Emily tries to dodge his next attack, a swipe of the knife across her midsection, but she must not be entirely successful because it stings. Her arm curls around her gut reflexively and she can feel the warm stickiness of her blood seeping into her palm, and then it doesn't sting, it burns. She falls to her knees. Fuck that hurts.

"Overwatch," she gets out through gritted teeth, watching as Lazarov finishes off the second perp.

"Ambulance is already on the way," comes the voice, faint and barely audible – though that might just be because of the ringing still filling Emily's ears.

"Overwatch, huh? I must admit, I was expecting someone different to come snooping into my work. No matter. I don't believe you'll be back."

The voice isn't GA's, and it certainly isn't Overwatch's, but it's in Emily's ear nevertheless. She tries to focus on what that means, but they already knew their perp was good at tech, and much more important is what's right in front of her, the perp struggling against Lazarov's attempts to cuff him.

Staggering to her feet again, Emily uses the arm not wrapped around her midsection to pick up her gun.

"Don't move," she commands, hoping her voice comes out steady – and at the right volume.

The perp freezes, Emily's vision wavers, and the next thing she knows Lazarov is helping her to the ground again, calm voice in her ear.

"All good?" she asks, breathless and faint.

"Just hold on," Lazarov tells her with a grin. "I can hear the sirens. You're gonna be fine."

Huh, Emily can't help but think. His optimism really is unflappable.

March 1, 2014, evening:

Lance and de la Vega are already waiting for her when Sin meets up with them in the parking lot. This clinic isn't one of the twenty-four-hour outfits (all the better to break the law after dark, Sin figures), so it closes at five on weekdays and the parking lot is nearly empty. The air has started to chill a little, and sunset's only a little ways away.

The few cars that are around are probably staff cleaning up, or people using the parking lot but not the clinic. Or, not officially the clinic. The street isn't the worst in the Glades – there's a Large Hawk a little way down across the street, and most of the street lights work (except for the one, go figure, directly in front of the clinic) – but it would still look pretty suspicious if the three of them stood around in the parking lot after hours while they took the time to discuss their next steps.

Instead, Sin slips into the backseat of Lance's car. It's not that much less suspicious than standing around, but it's less noticeable from a distance, and she hadn't been ready to pass out her phone number after a few hours in Lance's apartment. Lance and de la Vega seem like the good guys, but Sin's a fan of the policy known as trust but verify. Yeah, she went to Lance's apartment. No, that doesn't mean she's about to spill her life story. She hasn't even told Lance she's friends with – acquaintances with? – Thea yet. Honestly, she doesn't really know what Thea's connection to Lance is, other than the fact that Lance dated Thea's brother, which somehow led to Lance bailing Thea out and getting her community service when she got in trouble?

Whatever, Sin doesn't really care. That's not why she's meeting with Lance, and Thea isn't here, isn't helping, so why does she have anything to do with this, even in Sin's thoughts?

"How long have you been here?" she asks, instead of saying something simple like 'hello' or 'how are you?'.

Lance's eyebrows go up slightly, and de la Vega's brow furrows, but neither of them call her out on her rudeness.

"Less than five minutes," Lance says easily. "No one's watching us." She gives Sin a look.

Okay, okay, so yeah, Sin had been pretty sure Lance could handle herself after only a few minutes of talking to her, but she's still some middle-class girl from the suburbs. Doesn't hurt to double check. She raises her hands and backs off.

"Any problems getting the tape on the door?" Lance returns.

Sin feels a scowl come across her face, but she bites back a retort. Fair's fair – she questions them, Lance has every right to question her in return.

Lance just smirks at the scowl, taking it as the response it is, then turns to her friend. "Ready to go?"

de la Vega hesitates, glancing apprehensively toward the clinic. "Are we sure –"

"Yes," Sin cuts in.

de la Vega's eyes flicker to her. She grimaces. "Right. Right. Okay, so, we're actually doing this."

Sin doesn't have high hopes for de la Vega's competence (at least, not right now; she's sure that she's fine as a lawyer and what not). She gives Lance a questioning look. 'You sure about this?'

Lance ignores her. "It'll be fine, Jo," she says. "You could always –"

With a snort, de la Vega shakes her head. "No. No way. Someone has to make sure you don't do something stupid. Well, more stupid."

Sin fidgets where she sits. If they have doubts, they should have had their crisis of confidence earlier. Right now, they just need to move. de la Vega's right, and this is monumentally stupid, but it's the least stupid thing Sin had been able to think of, and the least stupid thing she and de la Vega had been able to talk Lance into doing. This way, no one sees their faces, no one has any conversations with them they'll remember later – with luck, no one will even know they were here. The longer they linger in the parking lot though, the worse their chances of that happening gets.

"Great," she bites out. "Can we get going then?" If she had it her way, she'd be slipping through the back door already, but they're working as a team here. She'd agreed to work as a team here. (Sometimes she can't believe herself – first best friends with a vigilante, then friends with Thea Queen and another vigilante's sidekick, and now this, breaking and entering with Laurel Lance to help the Glades. What a life.)

With the tape in place, strategically put there by her just before closing, opening the backdoor doesn't set off any alarms. It's dark inside, and the light trickling through the windows in the lobby isn't quite bright enough to fully illuminate their path. Well, it's good enough to navigate by, since Sin already knows the way, but it certainly won't help them read anything important. Lance pulls out a flashlight and clicks it on – it's black and small in her hand, and bright on the floor in front of them, illuminating the ugly patterned carpet of the back hall.

Just like a cop's kid, Sin can't help but think, because she hasn't forgotten who Lance's father is either. She pulls her own cheap phone out of her pocket and taps on the flashlight app. Cheap and outdated it might be, but it's still Kord tech, so it's plenty bright enough for her.

"You know where Anderson's office is from here?" Lance murmurs under her breath to her friend. There's not really a need for silence, but Sin doesn't chide Lance for the lowered tone. Something about the dark office presses down on them, or maybe that's just the weight of what they're doing, and stealth seems like the name of the game, even if it's not really required.

"Got it," de la Vega murmurs back. "Stay safe." She slips off on her own.

They've talked about this already: shady information won't be found at the front desk. If they want something, they'll have to find a back office, something that holds the records, whether paper copies or electronic. But even if the clinic's shady as Hell, Lance and de la Vega were originally here for Anderson, and if they can't find evidence of the clinic's other dealings, then at least they can try and bring down one of their crappy doctors.

Sin shouldn't be uncomfortable, watching de la Vega separate from them – it's after hours, there's no one here – but she hesitates to start looking for a file room. Lance lingers right alongside her for a moment too, an uneasy expression on her face before she straightens. Sin shoulders past her before she can start moving first, elbow not quite touching Lance's own arm as she brushes past her. They're both wearing dark clothing – Sin by nature, Lance, she supposes, by design – and the forward light from their flashlights casts eerie shadows on Lance's face.

"C'mon," Sin finds herself muttering, probably a bit harsher than necessary. "No point standing around."

She doesn't turn to see whatever expression crosses Lance's face at her words, but she can picture the grimace, defiant and proud, or maybe the eye roll, exasperated and impatient. Whatever the reaction, Lance pads silently after her. Sin had been pleased to see she and de la Vega both had forgone heels for this little adventure, but then – as she keeps reminding herself – she'd pegged Lance as the practical type from nearly the moment she'd met her. She doubts Lance has had much occasion to need flats over heels, but regardless, she's come prepared.

It still feels too much like taking an unnecessary risk to say too much in the quiet hall as they push open doors, one after the other, watching each other's backs, but maybe that's why Sin does it. Maybe she's trying to push back her fear, keep it from creeping over her like the shadows inching through the windows as the sun sets. Maybe she's trying to make the atmosphere less stifling, trying to distract herself from the fact that this is wrong and dangerous and stupid. (Oh my God, she's never done anything so stupid in her life, what is she thinking? She lives in the Glades, she knows how to keep a low profile, how to look out for herself. It's street life 101. This is very much not looking after herself!)

Despite her rough life of, yeah, occasional thievery and whatnot, Sin's never done anything like this before. The uneasy feeling in her gut, the tightness in her throat, is very much new. She doesn't like it.

"So, do this often?" Sin forces herself to say, light and airy and louder than she wants too, but still only barely at normal conversational level. The words ring too loudly in the empty space, but they shouldn't, because there's no real need to keep silent.

Lance snorts, then blanches, seemingly taken aback by her own reaction. After a moment, she seems to realize that there's no need to worry about making too much noise, no matter how much it feels like they should stay quiet, and her expression settles again. "No, not really. You?"

Despite herself, Sin finds herself exchanging grins with Lance over the light of their flashlights. Lance's casual reaction is her kind of humor and her nonchalance in the face of the out-of-the-ordinary fits right alongside her own. "Nah," she replies, going for even more casual than before. "Clinics aren't really my scene."

She only has to worry for the briefest of moments that the joke won't land. (Will Lance think that she's being serious, and that she's snuck into other places before?) Then Lance – Laurel – snorts again. "You know, my boyfriend's trying to start up a free clinic in the Glades," she says idly, peering into another room. Office. They move on.

"Really?" Sin asks, instead of snarking back. They're going for casual, and Laurel hadn't gotten suspicious of her joke. She doesn't need to make a snide comment about rich idiots not knowing how to help the poor. Besides, there were a couple places that closed last year, notably around the time of the miniquake. The Glades could use another clinic.

Laurel hums in agreement. "Uh huh. He bought a building over on Henry already."

Sin pushes another door open, and for a moment forgets about their side conversation. "Oh, maybe this one?" she asks, pushing the door open a little wider so Laurel can see inside too. The other woman aims her flashlight at the placard on the wall next to the door.

"Yeah, this'll be a good start," she agrees.

No guarantee they don't have other records elsewhere, or that the important stuff isn't on a computer, but the small room's filled with file cabinets, so Sin agrees. It's as good a place to start as any.

Three hours later, she's not quite sure she feels the same way. Everything in the room seems to be patient records, not employment files or information about the doctors who volunteer there. There's definitely some shady stuff going on here – they'd cross referenced the information in the files with the list of employees/volunteers, and Sin was right, there's a couple doctors who don't seem to take any patients – but if there are records of the patients who sneak in, they're not here.

"Makes sense that they wouldn't put their shady plans in the open with all their other paperwork," she grumbles. She's sitting on the floor between two file cabinets, back against the wall, left leg splayed out on the thin carpet beneath her, right leg tucked up so she can rest her forearm on her knee as she skims through another file.

Laurel, across the tiny room and cross-legged on the floor, papers spread out in a semi-circle around her, grunts in agreement, only half paying attention.

At least their other co-conspirator is having a bit more luck. Jo's stopped in twice already, every hour on the hour just checking in on them, and apparently she's found some good evidence on Anderson. Or, well, something they can use at least. Sin's not a lawyer. She doesn't pretend to understand everything the two woman have discussed so far. And speaking of Jo…

"Hey," Sin says. "I thought your friend was gonna check in again?" She doesn't wear a watch, but she can check her phone just fine and it's five minutes past the hour.

"Hmm?" Laurel looks up, frowning, then glances down at her own phone. "I'll go check on her," she offers. "She probably just got distracted."

Sin doesn't think that's likely, or, at least, that it'd be more likely for Laurel than for Jo, but Laurel knows her friend far better than Sin does, so she doesn't argue.

"I need to stretch my legs anyway," she says, because it'd been interesting at first, but spending hours looking through paperwork isn't really her thing.

Laurel's already standing. "Nah, I got it. Maybe you can see if there's another office where they might store the employee paperwork?"

"Sure," Sin agrees. No reason why not to. She watches Laurel leave, makes a half-hearted attempt to clean up the stacks of files she's already gone through, then switches back on her phone flashlight, switches off the room's light, and steps back into the hall. Laurel's disappearing down to the left, towards Anderson's office, so she pads softly down the right, flicking her light over the placards beside each door, testing locks.

Truthfully, the place isn't that big, so Sin isn't surprised when she stops coming across offices and starts opening doors into examination rooms. After the fifth examination room, Sin decides to turn around. She rounds the corner towards the back of the building again, and spots Laurel moving toward her.

In the hours that they've been there, Sin's lost her discomfort over rummaging around illegally in a dark building at night, and she's not the only one. They'd stopped whispering only a few minutes after they'd started going through files, and they'd flipped on the lights to that room – which admittedly didn't have a window – only shortly after that. But watching Laurel approach her down the dark hall, Sin feels something uncomfortable in her gut, a worry tightening her throat. Unease seems to creep through the darkness, and she finds her fingers tightening on the phone in her hand, instincts screaming at her.

They're right to scream. A figure moves out of the darkness behind Laurel, large and looming and definitely not Jo. Sin flinches, brain frozen for a moment. Laurel's eyes widen too, and there's a creak from the floor behind her, and Sin has the terrifying realization that the figure behind Laurel isn't alone. It's all she has time to think. Hands grab her from behind, twisting one arm behind her back as a thick forearm presses itself against her throat.

Down the hall from her, a hand is clamped over Laurel's mouth before she even has the time to scream. Sin opens her own mouth, exchanging terrified glances with Laurel, but then there's a cloth over her face, and a sickly sweet scent infusing her nostrils, and the world goes hazy and her limbs go limp. She feels the figure behind her loosen their grip, pulling both her hands behind her back and zip tying her wrists together, but it's hard to focus. The ache in her shoulders as she's pulled along isn't so clear, but neither is the rest of the world. The hallway seems to waver slightly around her as her head hangs heavy on her neck.

Time passes, but Sin couldn't say how long. She doesn't quite pass out, but she can't be certain that she's fully aware during every minute that ticks by. She knows that they toss her and Laurel into a dark room, carelessly enough that they lean against each other where they've fallen. She's fairly certain that they went down some steps to get there? (Does the clinic have a basement?)

She knows that hands move up and down her legs, dig into her jacket pockets, pat down her waist. (She doesn't know where her phone is. She might have dropped it in the hall when they grabbed her.) She knows that Jo either joins them shortly after they're locked away, or was already there when they arrived.

The next thing she's aware of – minutes later? Hours? – is a figure pacing in front of them, scowling and angry. Her feet are bunched up under her, her shoulders strained from the time spent pulled behind her back. Her right shoulder is pressed into Laurel's left, head against Laurel's shoulder. Laurel herself has her feet out in front of her, leaning against the file cabinet in the corner of the room they've been tossed in. Jo's against the other wall, on the other side of the file cabinet. Her eyes are closed, but she's wincing like she's awake. Her feet are stretched out too, tangled with Laurel's.

Sin blinks, pulling her head off Laurel's shoulder and grimacing. The pacing man is still ranting. She struggles to focus on the words.

"– kidnapper?! Our agreement clearly states –"

A goon cuts him off. It's impossible to say if he was one of the men who'd grabbed them, but judging from his dark clothing and the irritated expression on his face – and his reply – Sin's inclined to believe he is.

"Your agreement states you get an alibi. Your mess, your problem."

("Anderson," Laurel mumbles under her breath at Sin's side.)

"You've made it my problem!" Pacing guy – Anderson, probably – shouts, pointing a finger at the three of them. "They've seen my face! I am paying you for more than just an alibi! I've told you for ages –"

"You've got a problem with the way we run things here, take it up with the boss."

The words stop Pacing Guy in his tracks. He looks flummoxed for a moment before his scowl deepens. "I am not a kidnapper!" he repeats. "I do not handle the dirty work! I stay out of your way, I don't question what you're doing with the drugs that go missing, or the criminals you sneak through the back doors. But even though I've warned you for months –"

Goon #1 takes a menacing step forward from where he was leaning against the open doorway. His arms are still crossed and his shoulders are nothing but muscle. He's got a foot on Sin, easily, and probably half a foot on Pacing Guy. Pacing Guy, probably-Anderson, Sin is starting to recognize, is not the threatening type. Once again, Goon #1 stops him in his tracks.

"Take it up with the boss," he repeats. Insists. No, it's really more of an order.

Anderson backs down, momentarily flustered again, then draws himself up once more and straightens his shoulders. "I will," he says, trying and mostly failing to sound firm. He storms from the room.

Goon #1 watches him go, looking half tempted into rolling his eyes. He glances back at the three of them. "Best get comfortable," he says with a smirk. "You're gonna be here a while."

Sin thinks that's it, for the moment, as he too leaves the room, but Goon #2 enters as he exits. He's thinner than his… coworker, but no less menacing. He wraps cloth around their faces, shoving it between their lips, and he isn't gentle about it. Sin's half tempted to bite him, but she knows better. She's always been rather good at self-preservation. Then Goon #2 leaves as well, shutting off the lights behind him, and the three of them are left in the dark.

March 1, 2014, night:

"Still on the Mirakuru?"

Digg glances up from the papers spread out on the desk in front of him as Felicity approaches, and the computer screens in front of those. He gives her a searching look, but doesn't press – they've had enough conversations about Hwang's injuries the past couple of days. "Yeah. Think I might have a lead on the medical side of things." If he's already here, then that means Oliver's already here, and sure enough when Felicity glances over the suit is already gone.

Well, at least he's not overly worried about her. Felicity's not sure she appreciates the vote of confidence about her mental capabilities or if she wants him to be worried about her. Regardless, she knows they're too busy for him not to go out – that was why they'd asked for Hwang's help in the first place. If only – No. No you stupid brain, Felicity forces herself to think, we're not going there again. She draws her attention back to Digg.

"Medical? You mean the sedative?"

Digg shakes his head, already bent back over his desk. "Not quite," he answers, absentminded. "Looking into whoever mixed the sedative with the blood and the Mirakuru."

Felicity settles into her own workspace. Either Oliver or Digg has already booted things up – the map's going steady on screen three, 911 feeds scrolling underneath it. "Man in the skull mask?" she asks over her shoulder, checking to make sure there's nothing immediate that needs Oliver's attention (and, yeah, looking in at the app she wrote that lets her know if there have been any updates to Hwang's medical file. Sue her. She's not dwelling, she's just concerned). He's mobile at the moment, so he's either not in the middle of something, or about to be, but she's re-routed him from a task before. It makes her feel slimy, sometimes, to prioritize who needs him more, but she's learned to handle it. What happened with Hwang was no different. She couldn't have known.

Papers shuffle behind her, Digg now out of her line of sight. He grunts in answer. "Uh, maybe. Too early to say. But someone had to do the mixing, get the dosages right."

She hums absentmindedly herself in response. No urgent calls at the moment, and anything big from earlier looks like it was time sensitive, so nothing she can send Oliver out on. She clicks on the mic. "Checking in here in the lair," she says, just so Oliver knows she's there.

Oliver clicks on his own mic in response. "Updates on Tockman?"

William Tockman. Felicity finds herself scowling at the name. He's the man who'd orchestrated the theft of the skeleton key. Former Kord Industries employee, current expert in hacking.

He's the one who hacked her comm link to Hwang the other night, he's the reason a good officer of the SCPD is still in the hospital. It'd taken her hours – days – to find his identity from the scant evidence he'd left at the various crime scenes, mostly because he hadn't been on site for most of them, as far as she could tell. Still, she'd had his voice, which had narrowed it down, and she'd had the knowledge of what he was capable of, which had narrowed it down further. Truthfully, they still don't have proof it's him, but they're all but certain.

And when Felicity finally gets her hands on the scum who hacked into her communications network and went after her officer –

Felicity forces herself to push such thoughts aside. Digg and Oliver both had cautioned her about revenge, about making this personal. She's got a grudge against Tockman, but she can't let that distract her from the mission. Hwang is fine. She had minor injuries, and a bad concussion, and they'd mostly kept her at the hospital for observation. She'll be going home today. Felicity didn't get anyone killed.

"About to contact Hwang now. Hopefully the SCPD will be bringing him in tonight."

Oliver grunts in response, and clicks off. This is the first time Felicity's handled a big case by herself – well, relatively speaking; she's had Hwang doing her field work – but it hasn't made her nervous yet. Doubting, after Hwang's injuries, yes, but nervous? No. After everything she's done with Digg and Oliver, directing Hwang around truthfully just hadn't felt that different. She probably won't be ready to jump back into it again right away, but she knows she will eventually, provided Hwang wants to work with them again. And if she doesn't, there's still Lance, who she's worked with before.

(Overwatch. She has a name now, and it's Overwatch, and despite the situation that led to her needing a handle all her own, some part of her wants to squeal in delight.)

Felicity can admit she's being extra cautious on everything these days, refusing to let herself be hacked again, refusing to underestimate their opponents, but she can only regard that as a good thing. With everything that's been going on with the Mirakuru, and the strange connected kidnappings of Tommy and Oliver and Thea, she should have known better, but for some reason she'd thought she was unhackable anyway, even though she was the one who told Oliver the skeleton key's capabilities.

She knows better now.

"Need any help?" Felicity throws back over her shoulder as Oliver's mic goes dark, picking back up her conversation with Digg. He knows she's busy, so he knows perfectly well she means "help with anything computer related that you don't know how to do yourself before I throw myself into this work and become so distracted I can't help you?".

"I'm good," he tosses back at her.

Felicity lets herself get lost in the usual check-ups beyond just looking in on Oliver's location – local, county, state, and national alerts; new arrest warrants; making sure the equipment is all functioning properly; etc. – but she's got enough small programs that alert her to most issues that the standard check only takes a few minutes. Then she pushes away from her usual computers and towards the brand-new communication system.

Brand-new, and a piece of crap, if she's being honest. Unfortunately, however, that's sort of the point. Tockman had hacked her comms like she hadn't had a single firewall in place, because that's what the skeleton key does. Begrudgingly, even Felicity had had to admit that she couldn't put up a defense against it, at least, not in the little time she had. That doesn't mean she can't outsmart Tockman, because she'll be damned if he gets the better of her again.

Hence, the brand-new comm system that is completely, utterly, and totally disconnected from literally every other electronic equipment in the lair. She even has it running on battery power, using a hotspot instead of the internet connection every other device uses. Tockman will hack into it, sure, but Felicity will be ready for him when he does, and he won't get anything out of the bargain.

At least it seems to be working properly. She spins back to the computers, and pulls up the app that lets her text from Oliver's phone.

All set? she asks.

All set, Emily replies.

Good. Lance is being watched too closely for her to spend too much time talking to him – it wouldn't do for him to be spotted using a different phone than the department issued Kord tech, especially not because the SCPD knows Oliver's given him a phone before – but she can still talk to Hwang, and Hwang can relay everything to Lance when he visits her in the hospital.

He can help with the plan, he just can't be suspected of working with the Green Arrow to come up with that plan. While Oliver tracks down and drags in another of the escaped convicts, Felicity helps Lance bring in a thief.

March 2, 2014, early morning:

When Oliver trudges in at half-past four in the morning he looks as exhausted as Felicity's ever seen him, and that's saying something.

He's not like, slouching, or anything that drastic, but his movements aren't as quick, aren't as sure. He takes his time, unstrapping his quiver and hanging up his bow, and he takes longer to change out of his costume too.

"Took a bit longer on your way back," Digg comments when he comes out of the bathroom. Oliver had radioed in at four he was on his way back, after all.

Oliver grimaces. "Cops have upped their presence. I took a different route."

"It's not just you," Felicity tries to offer. "They're looking for the prisoners too."

Oliver doesn't say anything, which means he doesn't necessarily agree. "Updates?" he asks instead.

"No word on the copycat since he scared someone to death."

"Scared to death?" Digg says with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression.

"I mean, maybe not scared to death," Felicity corrects, "but he didn't use arrows this time."

"He fell to his death," Oliver says, blunt, and harsh, words cutting through the easy conversation and turning it somber again.

There's nothing amusing about someone's death; Felicity had never thought that. But she's been working with Oliver and Digg for over a year now, and they've developed a relationship that, yeah, sometimes includes adding a little levity to crappy situations. That Oliver's not joining in now is…

Okay, maybe that's not that unusual. That Oliver's stopping them from finding amusement where they can, from Digg poking fun at Felicity's word choice, that's unusual, a symptom of the exhaustion that's been trudging after him for months now, weighing him down.

"We'll get him," Digg says, clearly thinking similarly to her.

Oliver's jaw tightens, which means he's not as hopeful, but he gives a sharp nod, because Felicity knows he'll never accept any other option. "Any luck connecting his victims?"

Digg turns to her, because he's been working on the Mirakuru, so she's been saddled with the copycat.

She shakes her head. "I don't know. I mean, you've got the mayor, but then there's Roy's neighbors, who were former street kids, and that girl who used to work with Laurel who became a hot shot lawyer whose only fault was I guess she wanted money more than helping people, and then Marks – who Tommy said used to get him drugs, which, I mean, I always knew he was a party guy but –" Felicity cuts herself off before she can talk about – think about – Tommy (and Oliver) and what they might have gotten into. Not the hard stuff, she's (fairly) confident about that, but weed's not technically legal, so… "Anyway," she forces herself to get back on track. "The person he chased off the roof was a former cop, retired. No charges or anything, but he was actually Lance's partner, once, so I asked him about him and he said that –"

"Wait," Oliver says, cutting in. "He was Lance's partner?"

"Yeah, a long time ago. Maybe more of a mentor than a partner. Why?"

Digg and Oliver exchange glances – clearly both of them have picked up something from her rambling that she hasn't. Which, Felicity's a little impatient to hear what, but it's also nice to be reminded that her partners – her friends – don't just tune her out when she rambles.

"Roy's neighbors, Laurel's ex-coworker, Tommy's ex-drug dealer, and now Lance's former partner?" Digg points out.

Okay, yeah, that's weird, but… "The mayor?" Felicity counters. "Cassidy Thomas? Shawn Tilgath?"

"Moira is running for mayor now," Digg points out.

"Yeah, but only because Walter asked her to oppose Blood. She never would have done that before the mayor died – there was no connection before his death," Oliver says. "Still, it's worth looking into."

"If you're right though," Felicity says, "that means that there's someone out there who knows who you are. And if that's the truth, why are they only ruining your reputation?"

"People have hired assassins before, but it's never worked out for them. Maybe this is a different track?"

Oliver shakes his head. "I don't know, but we can't let the pattern keep up. If Roy loses anyone else…"

Felicity winces. Yeah. He's holding his own, and she doesn't have any experience with Mirakuru besides Gold, but last time someone he knows had been killed by the copycat, he'd snapped Oliver's ankle, and that had been a couple months ago. He's only gotten worse since then. "I'll look into it," she promises, making a mental note to investigate the other victims for connections to Oliver and those closest to him. "Speaking of your reputation, an article dropped about Oliver Queen in the tabloids while you were out."

"Judging from your expression, I'm guessing it wasn't positive."

Felicity winces again. "Yeah, that's putting it lightly. You probably don't want to know." Oliver does stuff every now and again to get in the news – hosts lavish parties, purposefully gets seen coming out of hotels, or with some girl on his arm – but for once, there'd been nothing true in the latest diatribe against him.

"You should get some rest," Digg says.

"I thought we were moving on to the Mirakuru."

"I'm close, but I'm not there yet. Get some sleep, man. I should have enough to go after the doctor tonight."

Oliver narrows his eyes. "If you already know who it is –"

"I need to narrow down a location. This guy… he doesn't leave a trail. Doesn't even have a home address. Take a break. I'll have something tonight," Digg repeats.

Oliver's jaw clenches as he glances between them. It looks like he wants to disagree, but knows he can't. "Breakfast first," he counters. "I'll go get us something to eat."

From the look on his face, arguing will get them nowhere. Felicity exchanges a helpless glance with Digg, then gives Oliver her breakfast order.

AN: Well, it's been ages, but I'm back! This chapter wasn't supposed to be nearly this long, but Emily Hwang needed a phone, and she really wanted to have a conversation with Lance before that could happen, so... I'm sure nobody's complaining about the length anyway.

Thanks for everyone's patience, and all the reviews, favorites, and follows this story has received! The next chapter is mostly written, but I still want to try and build up a buffer, so it'll be a short while before I post another one. Hopefully sometime in April.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, enjoy the spring!