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Run and Repeat
"So," Barry looked tentatively at Oliver as they stood in the base once again, "you believe me?"
"I'm… willing to consider it, anyway," Oliver nodded at Barry, trying to hide the uncertain expression on his face. "But if this is going to… I need to be sure…"
"I get it," Barry nodded at his future vigilante mentor in understanding. "Believe me, I spent years basically chasing the idea of the impossible and it still took me a while to consider time travel as a serious explanation for what happened to my dad…"
His voice trailed off and he glanced at his watch. "Damnit…"
"Problem?" Diggle asked.
"Just that I need to remember to call Joe tomorrow to tell him I'll be off tomorrow."
"Joe?" Oliver asked.
"Joe West," Barry answered with a brief smile. "He's basically been my foster dad since my mom died and dad was sent to prison, but he's also one of my supervisors at the Central City police department."
"You're a cop?" Diggle raised a surprised eyebrow.
"Crime scene analyst, actually," Barry clarified with a smile. "Actually, that's how I met you next year; I read reports about the guy with mirakuru and dropped by claiming that I was a head CSI tracking a similar case back home."
"Claiming?" Oliver repeated.
"I was actually just an assistant running my own investigation; like I said, I was interested in the weird stuff, so I often did my own work to chase up any other leads I found on anything that was just… out of the ordinary, even if it wasn't specifically my case."
"Going around the rules to do what you had to do," Diggle nodded at Barry. "I like that."
"All right," Oliver said, looking between the two men. "I take it we've got time before this 'Undertaking' happens?"
"It's at least a couple of months from now when it all goes down."
"Then right now we could probably all do with a bit of a rest before we start planning our next move," Oliver responded, before he indicated the room around them. "This isn't much, but it's got a bed of sorts that we've used to treat my injuries, and I think we can all agree that bringing you to stay with me or Digg isn't entirely practical…"
"No, that'll work," Barry smiled in understanding as he looked at the stretcher in the base. "Besides, all being well, I'm only going to be here for a little while; I can put up with an uncomfortable bed for that long."
As Oliver and Diggle exchanged glances, Barry didn't need his future experience with them to know what they were thinking; how likely was it that things were going to be that simple?
Still… if he could just remember enough of the key points, that had to be enough, right? OK, so he'd forgotten that Tommy Merlyn had been an old friend of the Queens and one of the victims of the original Undertaking, but it wasn't like he'd ever had any reason to pay attention to photos of that guy. Before the Undertaking Tommy Merlyn was just some rich guy's son in another city who never did anything really bad enough to make Barry pay attention to any news about him, and afterwards people weren't exactly going to draw more attention to one particular victim when it was clear he'd had nothing to do with his father's plans for the city.
Seeing the guy upstairs had been a bit unexpected, but it just reinforced the importance of what Barry was trying to do; Oliver wasn't going to lose a good friend if Barry could do anything to stop it.
I just need to be sure I know what I can tell them.
"Yeah, so I'm not going to be in for the next few days," Barry said, hoping that his vibrating vocal chords were helping to sell the idea of him being ill. "Caught some kind of bug since last night; it's nothing serious, but it's probably best I don't infect anyone else."
"You're sure you'll be OK?" Joe asked at the other end of the line. "I could send Iris-"
"Just need a little time to rest; I'll be fine," Barry said as urgently as he could while feigning sickness. "I'll let you know if anything changes, but I'm pretty sure I just feel like crap right now."
"…All right," Joe said, his voice showing concern but no sign of suspicion. "Just me know if you need anything, OK?"
"I will," Barry confirmed, before he hung up the phone and turned back to Oliver and Diggle. "OK, that's me sorted for the next few days."
"And he'll just buy that?" Diggle asked.
"The advantage of being basically the good kid since I was twelve," Barry shrugged. "Once I… stopped trying to break into the prison to see my dad… I've generally been pretty good about things like school and work, such as saving my days off for private research; he wouldn't think that I'd deliberately ditch my job."
"OK, I can get that, but you're sure that you'll be OK staying off work?" Diggle asked. "I mean, if you're in the past… and I can't believe I have to think about crap like that-"
"Don't worry about it," Barry smiled. "I gave it some thought while I was on the way here; I'm still officially just the CSI assistant at this point, so there's a bit of leeway in how seriously they take me in the first place, and if I remember everything correctly, the next few days are fairly straightforward cases."
"You remember cases from over two years ago?" Oliver asked.
"I had a pretty big moment last December- your last December, to be clear- when I proved that another cop was trying to plant evidence to get the conviction he wanted last month; the next few cases stuck out because I didn't want to just end up riding on the high of that victory," Barry clarified, before he looked more awkwardly at the other two men. "But on the topic of memory… you have to realise that I don't completely know what caused the Undertaking."
"I thought you said it was earthquake machines?" Diggle asked.
"Yeah, but there were… I mean, you've got to realise that Malcolm can't just stick something like those anywhere in the city and expect them to go off and destroy everything, right?"
"In other words, he needs to set them off in a specific location and you don't know where that is?" Oliver concluded, looking pointedly at Barry.
"Or where they were made," Barry added awkwardly. "I mean, I did read over the news about the event when it happened, but you've got to keep in mind that I didn't plan to come back like this; I didn't do any exact research on where the machines were made or where they were set off because I didn't think I'd need to know any of that…"
"OK, fair enough," Oliver held up a hand to stop Barry's apology. "So what do you suggest we do to get more information?"
"Well…" Barry began, looking tentatively at the two men before his gaze settled on Oliver, "I do know that the machines were built by your parents' company… so there might be a way we could get more information…"
Walking back into the mansion, Oliver still found it hard to accept that things had come to this point so quickly.
He'd only been thinking about 'visiting' his mother as the Hood to make her talk, but if Barry Allen was right, he had to do everything he could to get confirmation of her role in this mess, which meant that he had to be sure he was provoking all her buttons to learn everything she knew.
He couldn't believe that he was showing this much faith in Barry Allen's words when he'd barely even known the man for a day, but there was something in the young man's manner that would have made Oliver at least want to believe him even if Allen hadn't demonstrated his speed to support his story.
"Hey, Mom," he said, walking into the lounge to find her standing thoughtfully by a window.
"Oliver?" she looked at him curiously. "What is it?"
"I was just… that book of Dad's got me thinking," Oliver said. "If that book I showed you was about some of Dad's old secrets… maybe something about that book prompted Walter's kidnapping-"
"It's safest to leave things alone," Moira said firmly.
"Even when some of the names on there have already been targeted?"
"Targeted?" his mother looked at him in surprise. "By who?"
"By the Hood."
"The Hood?" Moira repeated, with a sense of disbelief that Oliver could have almost accepted if he wasn't already suspicious of her. "You can't seriously believe that-"
"I'm asking you for the truth," Oliver looked pleadingly at her. "I'm not saying that you had bad reasons for doing it, but you can't just keep acting like I'm still some kid who needs to be protected from the consequences of your own mistakes. Maybe you were scared, and I don't think you meant for any of this to happen, but you've been struggling with something since Walter went missing-"
"You need to stop asking these things," Moira said, walking up to stand directly in front of him. "Do you understand? I need you to stop."
"I can't," Oliver said, privately exasperated at her attitude; even if he hadn't been the Hood, the way she was acting like he was still a child she had to protect was frankly offensive at best. "I need to know."
Moira's hesitation was enough time for the room to go black.
"Is that a power outage?" Oliver asked, playing along with the current scheme with only slight surprise; Barry had said he'd be watching, but it was still unexpected to realise just how fast the speedster could trip the fuses when he wasn't sure if Barry had ever been in this house before (even if he appreciated that the man could have visited the property in the future).
"I don't know," Moira began, before glass broke and Oliver felt something himself being pulled away; he could just hear his mother calling out before he heard the slight 'phuft' of a dart being fired, followed by him coming to a halt in the main hall with Allen standing alongside him.
"You're sure-?" he began.
"Digg confirmed that the tranquiliser he's using will just disorientate your mom; she'll assume me grabbing you like that was just a hallucination," the speedster nodded. "You're sure about this?"
"It's the only way to be sure," Oliver said solemnly.
He didn't voice his darker thoughts; if this turned out to be an elaborate lie after all, he and Allen were going to have words…
Tied down in a metal chair in an abandoned warehouse; Oliver wondered how this kind of cliché had so easily become a part of his life. It wasn't exactly hard to find a suitable location, considering the unemployment problems out in the Glades, but it was almost embarrassing that this was the best situation he could come up with to question his mother.
Finally, his mother regained consciousness, looking anxiously around herself to confirm their location; empty wooden boxes, a large illuminated light hanging in front of her, and Oliver on the other side of the room, tied up in the same manner.
"Mom!" Oliver yelled, faking fear as he realised that she was awake.
"Oliver," Moira shook her head. "Are you OK? Oliver, what- we have to get out of here."
"Moira Queen!" Diggle said, appearing in the traditional Hood costume, the shadows just enough to stop anyone noticing the differences as he stood alongside Oliver's chair. "You have failed this city!"
It was the first time Oliver had heard that line from the other side, and he was relieved to find that it was suitably intimidating even if he knew he had nothing to fear from the other party.
"Do not hurt my son," his mother said desperately.
"Tell me what the Undertaking is and I won't have to," Diggle said as he turned to stand in front of Oliver. For a moment Oliver just stared up at his friend, Diggle's face just visible under the hood to assure Oliver of his reluctance to do this, but a slight nod from Oliver confirmed that Diggle should start the plan, punching Oliver in the face.
"No!" Moira said desperately.
"Tell me!" Diggle said as he hit Oliver again.
"Please!" his mother called. "Leave my son alone!"
"What is Malcolm Merlyn planning?"
"I can't tell you!" Moira said (Oliver briefly noted that at least her lack of confusion when Merlyn's name came up confirmed that Allen had been right about the 'who', even if they still needed evidence of everything else). "He'll kill me, he'll kill my family-!"
"You should be more worried about what I'll do," Diggle said, before launching another punch that knocked Oliver's chair to the side.
"No!" his mother yelled out again. "Malcolm is planning to level the Glades!"
The confirmation was more shocking than almost any blow Oliver had taken since he was first trapped on the island. He'd still hoped that Allen might be wrong about something, but hearing that revelant…
"He said so he could rebuild it, but…" his mother explained, trailing off and making it clear that she didn't have anything more to tell.
"How?" Diggle turned back to look at her.
"There's a device-"
"What device?"
"He said that it can cause an earthquake-"
"How is this possible?"
"I don't know," Moira shook her head, her voice trembling as she looked at Oliver; it was almost a relief that he didn't have to act at the horror he was feeling upon hearing confirmation of everything Allen had told him so far. "It was invented by Unidac Industries. Malcolm used my company's Applied Sciences to turn it into a weapon."
"Why would you get involved in something like this?" Diggle asked; at least his friend knew what questions Oliver would want answered in this situation.
"My husband… he got involved without my knowing," Moira explained shakily.
"He was just trying to do some good. He was lost… His decisions left me vulnerable to Malcolm, and I had no choice; I had to protect my family and my children."
"This device," Diggle asked, now standing in the middle of the two chairs. "Where is it?"
"I don't know," Moira replied.
"If you don't tell me, I can't stop Merlyn."
"Oh, you can't stop him," Moira said, shaking her head tearfully. "It's too late."
Diggle stood in silence for a moment, and then he turned back towards Oliver's chair and pulled out a knife.
"No, no, no, I told you everything!" his mother yelled as Diggle crouched down. "Oliver! No!"
She fell silent when Diggle stood up and revealed that he had just cut Oliver's bonds. Walking back over to Moira, Diggle cut her ropes as well before he walked out of the warehouse as Moira ran to look at her fallen son.
"Oh, sweet-" she began, as Oliver coughed and got to his feet; even holding back enough to do nothing more than bruise, Diggle still packed a punch.
"Please," his mother looked desperately at him. "I know what you must be thinking, sweetheart, but I never intended any of this to happen. You know I would never willingly be a part of anything like this."
"I don't know anything any more," Oliver said, his tone cold as he staggered towards the warehouse exit, leaving Moira Queen sobbing on the floor behind him. Whatever he had just learned here, he knew that he had to get away from his mother before he did something that he might regret later. He already had a few ideas about how he was going to follow up on the leads this interrogation had given him now that they'd verified some of Allen's future knowledge, but right now he had a more immediate priority.
He'd spent the last few months trying to keep his family safe by keeping his activities secret, but if his mother had taught him anything right now, it was that keeping secrets from family would just put more people in danger, which meant that he was going to get Thea to safety right now.
