The room was dimly lit, the moonlight being filtered by the thick curtains hanging in front of the window.

Oliver lay in his bed, tossing and turning, caught in a nightmare. Suddenly, a creaking floorboard made him jump up, only to feel the familiar prick of a dart hitting his neck.

Seconds later, he felt the sedative in his system, slowing his reaction. He lifted his hand, pulling the dart out, but felt that it was too late already. Nevertheless Oliver jumped up and tried to get a look at the intruder. He was swaying on his feet, his step towards the black-dressed person that stood near the door tentative and slow. Before he could reach the person, his legs gave out under him and Oliver crashed to the floor, banging his head at the nightstand.

The last thing he saw before his vision faded to black was a malicious half-smile.

And Oliver Queen lay on the floor, defeated.

He woke to a dull pain in his shoulders and arms and groaned softly, hesitantly opening his eyes to take in his surroundings. Blinding white light was all his brain registered before he screwed them shut again. Oliver's head throbbed in the rhythm of his heartbeat and he felt slightly nauseous due to the sedative they pumped into his system. His body seemed to have developed allergies to all kinds of narcotics or painkillers in the five years he had been away, as Oliver had come to realize soon after his return, and the combination of this and the possible concussion he had from falling onto that stupid nightstand made him feel like he had to puke, but he suppressed the sensation to focus on the situation at hand.

More carefully this time, he tried to open his eyes again. Once they had adjusted to the bright spotlight that was directed on him, he could finally see where he was. The room he was in looked like a large, empty warehouse, furnished with nothing but the spotlight and two chairs standing in the shadows behind it. It didn't have any windows, but there were two doors leading into it, one right in front of Oliver behind the chairs and one to his right side. Both were firmly shut, but Oliver feared that this would change any minute. After all, why would someone bother with tying him up somewhere, if they didn't have any intention to do something with him?

He was tied up by someone who knew what they were doing. The pain in his arms came from the fact that he basically hung from his wrists, his feet barely touching the ground. Heavy iron manacles held his arms up, fixed at long chains which were in turn fixed at a metal pipe at the ceiling. Oliver estimated that it were maybe thirty feet to the pipe. Maybe, that would provide him just the opportunity he needed to get out of here.

And he desperately had to get out. The Undertaking was about to happen. He needed to get into his suit, needed to get out, needed to stop it from happening. Oliver couldn't allow himself to think of what would happen if he failed. He silently cursed Diggle for convincing him to get a few hours of sleep, even if it was for the first time in days. He had barely been able to function any longer, though, losing his focus every few seconds, so it had probably been for the best to make him rest. Because Oliver knew better than anyone that a mistake could be fatal out there. And not just for himself, but for everyone involved.

Oliver couldn't focus on that right now, though. Instead, he clamped down on the pain, the nausea and the exhaustion. He could give in to that later, once the city was safe again. With turning his body around, he twisted the chains with each other, then pushed himself off the floor and started climbing. If he managed to get close to the top, he could probably break the chains off the pipe with the momentum of falling back down. Adrenaline helped him to push on, and soon he was almost twenty-five feet over the ground.

In the shades down below him, three people had entered the hall, unseen by Oliver, who was focused on his task. A man and a woman smiled at each other before giving the other man a short signal. He pulled a lever, and suddenly, the left chain gave a sharp pull. Oliver lost his grip on the other, dropping until his fall was suddenly stopped, estimatedly five feet from where he'd been before.

He clamped his mouth shut to hide the scream that threatened to escape him as he felt his left shoulder dislocate. He groaned, trying to control his rapid breathing and get a grip on the pain, when suddenly, the left chain went slack and the right one tightened. The drop was worse, this time. He ended up maybe ten feet over the ground, whole right arm screaming in agony. He couldn't hold his own scream in this time, either. Something had snapped in his wrist, and his shoulder felt like it had been downright torn out of its socket. Definitely a dislocation, probably even connected to a broken arm, he thought.

With his left hand, Oliver was desperately groping for the other chain to take at least some weight off the injured joint, but the chain hung slack and deprived him of support.

One last signal of the people in the shadows made the chains slack completely and Oliver collided with the floor with an ugly thud, his right ankle giving out under his weight and his left knee taking the brunt force of the impact. Another agonized groan came out of his mouth and he stayed where he collapsed, trembling but unmoving.

It took him a while to focus through the pain enough to form a somewhat coherent thought, but once the black dots had cleared from his vision, he carefully lifted his head and looked around, trying to assess his surroundings. He didn't see anyone, but knew that his attacker couldn't be far. But if they didn't show themselves right now, he would first turn to some equally important things, like trying to get back into fighting shape.

He knew that he needed to somehow set his shoulders, which were radiating white-hot pain just while he was lying there. He barely wanted to imagine how much worse that would get if he tried to move. But he also knew that with every minute they stayed dislocated, the pain would grow and the consequences of the injury might possibly get irreversible.

The fall had made him land on his stomach, his arms twisted over his head. Since the left shoulder was hurt a bit less severely, Oliver decided to start with that one and work his way on from there. Painstakingly slow, he tried to position the arm so it lay completely parallel to his body, so that with rolling over that side, the shoulder should reposition itself. If it didn't break completely…

Oliver bit his tongue in order not to make sounds of pain. He had to be fast; the procedure would hurt as it was, but if he prolonged it unnecessarily, it would do no good.

Slowly, he rolled onto his left side until he started pushing against the aching joint. At this point he stilled for a second, taking a deep breath, before suddenly gathering momentum and pushing his body around.

He couldn't hide a small cry of pain when the shoulder slipped back into the socket, and just lay on his back for a short while, taking deep breaths against the pain that had faded a little now, but was still all too prominent.

Moving the arm carefully, he now proceeded with softly examining his other arm. The shoulder was completely misshapen, swollen almost twice its size already. A few inches underneath, Oliver felt a bulge in his arm, too – broken, just as he'd thought. How should he possibly be able to reset this on his own, without hurting himself even worse?

With slow movements and groaning in barely suppressed pain he managed to move the right arm down so that the shackled wrist lay on his chest. It was hurt badly, too, the skin under the manacle almost completely torn off. The white tip of a bone showed underneath. But there was absolutely nothing he could do in this place right now.

Instead, he turned back to his shoulder. His right hand braced on his chest, he gripped his elbow with the left hand and pulled. The scream that tore from his throat seemed inhuman. Pain shot from his shoulder right through the broken arm and into every fingertip as the joint moved painstakingly slow back into place. He pressed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth to suppress the whimper that wanted to escape. But he would not show that weakness.

Right in that moment, as he was at his lowest, having let his guard down due to the pain, the woman stepped into the light. She moved towards Oliver, her eyes shining with hate and malice. He didn't see her coming until a foot kicked his injured knee. Not having felt that much of it before, Oliver now almost whined at the burning agony that shot through his leg. His eyes flew open, taking in his attacker. And what he saw almost made Oliver's heart stop.