I'm Back People!

After an incredibly exhausting last few months, I'm finally free. Hopefully this means more writing and thus more updating.

As a treat (because of my terrible lack of updating recently), I'm updating both of my Arrow fics (Miracle and Four Vigilantes) at the same time.

Stay obsessed, my fellow fanfic fans. (And send me some lovely long reviews :D)

It was barely ten minutes before the van spluttered to a rolling stop, the two men dragged Tommy out first, dumping him carelessly on a wooden pallet, his hands zip-tied together, and his face only inches from the rough wet concrete floor.

Oliver once again let the kidnappers haul his limp body on to a simple wooden chair, almost laughing at the zip-tie that was fastened on his wrists and the chair, even without the Mirakuru he would be able to break through the thin white plastic with relative ease.

He felt a black bag being placed onto his head and a needle, undoubtedly filled with a substance akin to adrenaline, aimed to wake him in just seconds.

"Mr. Queen."

He pretended to stir, tensing his muscles and shifting his body weight, as his eyes flickered open the itchy bag was pulled off and the bright fluorescent overhead light that should have blinded him, if not for his Mirakuru enhanced eyes.

"Mr. Queen."

He saw the grinning demon mask of what was, presumably, the leader looking down at him, and the Taser in his hands flickering with electricity.

Oliver scanned the room to see Tommy on the pallet and the other two red masked goons flanking the interrogator less than six paces away.

This warehouse would be perfect for him to kill these men and dispose of them without incident, he severely doubted that there were any more men but the ones he saw, and even if there were he knew that it would take him only minutes to dispose of them, even if he restrained himself from using the extra talents that the Mirakuru granted him.

"What do you know about the Queen Gambit accident?"

Oliver blinked slowly in surprise, he had expected the men to be hired guns after a quick buck – a ransom for the son of a billionaire – he did not expect any one to be asking about his time before the island, particularly asking about what he knew to be sabotage.

Perhaps they have been hired by the ones that interfered with the Queen's Gambit on that fateful voyage, Oliver thought.

"I ask the questions. You give me the answers."

Oliver ignored the foolish man and broke the zip-ties but kept his hands behind his back, possibly if he was lucky, the idiots might give away their employer without Oliver having to resort to torture.

The torture itself wasn't the problem, he excelled at it and had no moral conjuncture on using his extensive knowledge on these men, however the Mirakuru relished in it, and Oliver did not wish to lose control of his sanity again.

The Taser man seemed almost confused by Oliver's lack of response, gesturing to his companions before turning and shoving the Taser against Oliver's chest.

Oliver faked a small yell of pain as volts of electricity course through his veins.

"Did your father tell you anything before the boat sank?"

Oliver once again ignored the men and focused on the apparition that had walked into his vision. Slade Wilson smirked at the men, "I almost feel sorry for them. They're out of their depth with you, kid."

The Taser once again made contact with his flesh and Oliver took the pain professionally, breathing heavily as the Mirakuru countered the electricity in seconds.

"I know…" Oliver paused, looking down at the ground.

"Get on with it – you're flair for the dramatics will kill you one day." Slade growled lightly.

The demon-mask nodded and lowered down, "What do you know, Mr. Queen?"

His breath came out in clouds of silvery smoke, and his voice turned colder than ice, "I know that I'm going to kill you."

He lifted his head, half-annoyed that the men wore masks so that he could not read their facial expressions, but their body language told what would be a similar story – disbelief and incredulity.

The men laughed, the interrogator crouched before him and spoke, amusement still tinging his voice "You're delusional. You're zip-cuffed to the chair."

Oliver moved his hands to the front of the chair so that the men could see that he was free, "Not anymore."

He reached underneath him as he stood to flip the chair, dodging the interrogator's first punch then using the chair to block the second punch which tore through the back of the wooden chair.

The second man had now advanced close enough for Oliver to reverse the chair and shove the hardwood seat into his neck forcing him to stumble to the floor grasping his heavily bruised throat.

Oliver grabbed one of the wooden seat posts and spun around, and staking the interrogator in the upper chest, puncturing a lung, and for good measure forcing the Taser up and into the man's jaw, killing him instantly.

The second man was now standing again and Oliver grabbed his neck in a chock hold and held him up as a shield, letting the third man's hail of bullets strike his own team member.

The third man, realising that Oliver was a highly skilled adversary, turned tail and ran. Oliver made to follow him, not bothering to check that Tommy was still alive.

The man ran through the warehouse, Oliver – smart enough to not use the power the Mirakuru gave him – still managed to gain ground despite the man turning to fire random bursts of bullets at him.

The masked man ran over the roofs of another warehouse, Oliver jumped over wires easily, rolling to absorb the impact.

Another hail of bullets and Oliver slid down the tin roof towards the stairs that the man was running down.

It was second nature for Oliver to dodge the bullets despite the fact that they could not do any lasting damage to his body.

Oliver jumped down the three metre drop easily and followed the man through a tight alley and into a third warehouse filled with old abandoned rusting machinery, the man tearing off his mask as he ran, the ineffectual gun still in his hands.

Oliver ran up along a large row of crates and concrete reinforcing, the third hail of bullets missed Oliver as he sprinted and grabbed onto a hanging chain, he used the momentum to swing around a metal structural support column and landed next to the man who was reloading his gun.

A punch to his face stunned him enough for Oliver to grab his neck in a chock hold, bending the man backwards as he gasped for air.

"You killed that man." Oliver stated calmly.

"You don't have to do this." The man pleaded for his life, but the Mirakuru pumped strong within Oliver no matter how hard he tried to supress it.

"Yes, You do." Slade's vengeful voice murmured in Oliver's ear, never quite outgrowing his role as a mentor.

"Yes I do."Oliver repeated Slade's words. I need to kill, it is the only way the Mirakuru is kept at bay, Oliver thought. "Nobody can know my secrets."

With one movement he snapped the man's neck and let the body fall to the ground.

Oliver hauled the body onto his shoulder in a fireman-like hold, dragging the mass of bones and skin back to the warehouse that Tommy was still in, dumping the body out of sight.

As Oliver entered he noticed Tommy sitting with his head in his hands, the drugs still affecting him immensely, but the phone next to him had dialled 911.

Luckily Tommy was so out of it that he had yet to notice that Oliver had ever left the building.

Sighing but acknowledging that he had no other option but to wait for the Police, Oliver slumped down next to the Merlyn, pretending to still be affected by the drugs and the dead bodies.

It was only when the police cars pulled up around the warehouse did Oliver realise that if he had not given in to the urge to kill, he would have had a chance to interrogate one of the mercenaries to find out who sent them and why.

…/|\...

"I think that the Universe still hates you." Slade's dry voice cracked like a whip as Oliver perched uncomfortably on the edge of an overstuffed sofa in the main sitting room of the Queen Manor.

Oliver, aware that he was in the company of his parents and Tommy, shot a subtle questioning look to the apparition.

"Detective Anger-Management-Issues has arrived." Slade intoned.

Oliver turned his head, hearing the crunch of the detectives footsteps on the gravel driveway from almost two hundred metres away despite the incessant background noise which ranged from the loud breathing of Tommy beside him, to the music playing quietly out of Thea's iPhone in the room next door, to the engine running in the garage, to the constant beating heart and subsequent rush of blood by every animal and human within two hundred metres.

He waited patiently for the two men to enter the room, knowing that this interview could devolve into a trading of barbed comments, and possibly a punch to the face depending on the level of professionalism and restraint that Detective Lance would keep throughout the conversation.

This was not the first interview he had suffered through since the kidnapping and despite it being a simple fact check, Oliver suspected that it was insisted upon by Detective Lance.

"So that's you're story." Lance threw down a fairly ambiguous drawing of a man in a hood. "A guy in a hoodie flew in and single-handedly took out three armed kidnappers." The scorn in his voice told a story of disbelief. "I mean, who is he? Why would he do that?"

An odd impulse inside him, perhaps a remnant of the boy he once was, wanted to smile and laugh – I killed them, I tore them apart – but he suppressed the feeling easily and replied with a shrug and a hint of a smirk, "I don't know. Find him and you can ask."

Slade snorted in amusement at Oliver's blatant mocking of the Detective.

"Yeah." Lance's thinly veiled disbelief and hatred was anything but intimidating to Oliver.

"What about you?" Lance picked up the vague drawing to show Tommy, "You see the hood guy?"

Oliver looked carefully at his old friends' face confident that he had nothing to say that would implicate him.

"I saw…" Tommy looked uncertainly towards Oliver who kept his face a blank mask, "Just movement. Everything blurry. I was… kinda out of it."

"Yeah." Lance's soft voice tinged the air with a special kind of disdain that would have made some men flinch.

"It's funny, isn't it? One day back and already somebody's gunning for you." The implied threat in that statement was amusing to the Mirakuru and to Slade.

"What's funny is that you think that you are threatening." Slade grumbled in retaliation.

Oliver, however kept his calm and said nothing.

"Aren't you popular?"

Moira intervened before Lance's hatred could get out of control, "Were you able to identify the men."

Detective Hilton, not wishing to watch his partner start an argument with the Queens, answered quickly, "Scrubbed identities, untraceable weapons. These were pros."

"Yeah. Well, they probably figured you'd pay a king's ransom to get your boy back. Or a Queen's ransom as it were." Lance looked down at his hands and Oliver knew that another barbed insult was about to be spat out with some measure of bitterness.

"After all, a parent would do anything to keep their child safe." Oliver met Lance's eyes steadily, the unsaid insult meant nothing to Oliver and even less to the Mirakuru.

"Bloody hypocrite. His Precious little Sara was hardly safe here in Starling." Slade snarled, referring to the party lifestyle with copious quantities of drugs, alcohol and sex that Sara had once led.

"I don't find you tone appropriate, detective." Once again Moria spoke for Oliver in an attempt to redirect his anger.

"If my son remembers any more detail, I will contact you." Robert stood coolly with his hands in his pockets, "Rasia, please kindly show the detectives out."

Lance barely suppressed his anger, picked up his briefcase and stood with a reluctant nod to Robert, despite the stony dismissal.

Oliver also stood, not comfortable sitting while a threat (although Detective Lance could hardly be called much of a threat) was standing so close to him.

"You're luck never seems to run out, does it?" With the rhetorical question hanging in the air, Oliver turned and watched the two detectives leave.

Slade, of course, would not let that last remark go, and said in an incredulous tone, "Luck? The only luck Oliver has is with the ladies, and even them he still manages to fuck up."

Oliver decided that a quick escape from the room was needed before he lost any semblance of control.

"I think I need some more rest after this ordeal. I'll be in my room if you need me." Oliver walked out calmly, knowing that no one would interrupt him for at least a few hours.

Oliver slipped upstairs, deciding that he would have to prepare the Queen Warehouse in the Glades into a place where he could work out the Mirakuru and an excuse to not join his father's company, as soon as possible.

As he and Slade sparred with bamboo eskrima poles, he began debating what he could turn the warehouse into, something that was both believable for his playboy façade to be interested in, while giving him the space and time needed for him to set up the equipment that he needed to keep the Mirakuru at bay.

"How do people even get into business?" Oliver wondered out loud.

"How am I supposed to know? I have less experience than you do. Remember I dropped out of school at sixteen to join the army." Slade managed to a successful right hook and left jab combo.

"Grrrr…" Oliver growled in frustration and flipped his body in the air, kicking out with his left leg.

Slade swayed sideways to dodge the sweeping leg, "I reckon it's like most things, you have to do what your good at."

"That's the problem, I don't exactly have many legally marketable skills." Oliver struck out, with a thrust and

"You could start a gun shop – you sure as hell know enough about weapons."

"Marketable skills regarding Ollie Queen the playboy, Slade. I can't just go and open a gun shop, people will question it too much."

"Fine." Slade grumbled, "What about a gym?"

Oliver frowned, "It's a better idea, but it's not perfect. I doubt I would get clientele in the Glades, and no other building that I know of has the same structural aspects that suits my needs."

"So – something that will not be questioned, something that will have the clientele, and something that will hide the needs of the Mirakuru."

"Yeah, that's about right." Oliver said warily.

Oliver lay staring at the ceiling as sweat trickled down his brow, nothing pumped the Mirakuru through his veins like a sparring session with Slade – even if it was only a ghostly apparition, a reflection of the Mirakuru, rather than the man himself.

"Nightclub." The both spoke at the same time.

"It's perfect." Oliver could already see the floor plans form in his head; A dance floor, a place for a DJ at one end, stairs leading to a balcony, a bar along the back wall, and a discreet corridor in the back with rooms for storage, an office and a door to his workout space below. It would be themed with industrial metal and green lights, and most importantly it wouldn't be questioned.