Chapter 13
Author's Note: Guess who wouldn't sleep and finished this way quicker than I thought I would?
"Morning sunshine!"
Alex groaned awake, aches shooting to every nerve ending in her body. Her head pounded as she sluggishly jerked upright to the sound of the voice. Her vision span as she tried to look around the room, images coming to her in a broken haze. It took a few moments for her to adjust, her body registering her surroundings with a brutal lethargy. The first thing that she clued into, was the warm, familiar mass pressed against her side that could only be Maggie. The second was that the bed she was in definitely wasn't her own. The third was an annoyingly happy and hangover free Kryptonian.
"I hate you." Alex groaned. Because of course her sister didn't get hangovers.
Kara only smiled brighter.
"Oliver's in the kitchen making breakfast." She grinned before turning around and bounding out of the room.
"Your sister sucks." Maggie groaned beside her as Alex settled back down in the bed.
XXX
Oliver couldn't push the grin from his face as he continued to stir the eggs which he had scrambled into one of the frying pans he had dug out from the back of Kara's kitchen cupboards. Between the strange mental peace that he had found during his time in National City and his lingering amusement from the previous night, coupled with the belligerent groaning he had heard from Kara's room, Oliver was content in a way that he was unaccustomed to feeling. The ease at which he stood in Kara's kitchen making breakfast for her, Alex, and Maggie was strange. Images of Ivy Town flickered through his mind, but with Kara there at his side, sat on the countertop as he made pancakes. The domesticity was surprising. The soft padding of feet against laminate altered him to Kara's return, and he used his free hand to snag a fork and flip the bacon in the pan before he spoke.
"I take it Bert and Ernie are passing on breakfast?" He chuckled, sensing Kara's light-hearted irritation at being caught.
The amusement in her voice was obvious. "Doesn't look like it, but when Alex comes around and smells bacon she'll be in here like a shot."
As Oliver pushed the scrambled eggs onto a different plate, he saw Kara come up to his side in his peripheral.
"Anything I can do to help?"
Oliver chuckled fondly. "Kara, I had to wipe dust off these pans before I could do anything, I get the feeling that cooking might not be one of your many talents." Once the pan was clear of eggs, Oliver stepped across to the sink and quickly rinsed it out.
Kara eyed him in mock-anger for a moment before it fell from her face. "That's…not entirely inaccurate."
Oliver returned the pan to the heat and turned to Kara. "Pass me the pancake batter?"
Kara's eyes lit up brilliantly as soon as the words left his lips, spinning around to grab the jug of batter and place it in Oliver's hands at superspeed. As Oliver reached out to take the handle, a bright grin still on his face, their hands brushed together, and if the look in Kara's face gave anything away to him, she had felt the same jolt of electricity that he had done. The two held frozen for a moment, both of them thrown back in memory to the "kiss that had almost been" as Oliver's internal monologue had taken to calling it. Without even thinking about it, Oliver opened his mouth to speak.
"Kara, I…"
A loud pop hissed out from beside them, and Oliver's focus snapped back to the pan of bacon which had gone unattended. Placing the jug on pancake batter down quickly, Oliver grabbed the handle of the frying pan and wrenched it from the heat, scowling a little at the overly crispy bacon as it sizzled. Once he had placed the pan onto a part of the cooker that wasn't in use, he turned back to Kara. It only took a moment after their eyes met for them both to burst out laughing. It faded after a moment, and Oliver let out a sigh as he turned his focus back to Kara.
"I smell bacon." A familiar voice called out, and over Kara's shoulder Oliver's eyes landed on Alex.
Kara took in a deep breath, putting a smile on her face before turning to her sister. "Yup, Oliver's done a full breakfast. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, the lot."
Alex let out a low hum of approval and she hoisted herself into one of the seats at the kitchen island. She grabbed the cafetière of coffee and poured a mug before her gaze snapped up.
"You can cook?" Alex asked suspiciously, her hungover slowed brain only just catching up with what Kara had said.
"Not just a pretty face, huh?" Oliver smirked, turning his attention back to the cooker. Grabbing the pan, he slid the bacon onto the same plate as the eggs, then placed the loaded ceramic on the island in front of Alex. "How's the head?"
"I've been worse," Alex answered in a grumble as she piled bacon and eggs onto a separate plate. "I would like to know why it feels like I've been kicked in the ass though."
"You don't remember?" Kara giggled.
From the sour look on Alex's face, Oliver could tell she wasn't in the mood for the usual sisterly teasing her and Kara shared. It might have been a while since his last hangover, but he certainly recalled how brutal they could be. He opted to fill Alex in before she got annoyed.
"You slipped on an ice cube, not very ceremonious, but apparently even special agents are easy to catch out when they start seeing double." Oliver was unable to stop himself throwing his own jab at Alex's expense. "You went straight to the ground and hauled Maggie with you."
"And you didn't catch me?" Alex grumbled, shooting her sister a traitorous glare.
Oliver met Kara's eyes for a moment and they both laughed a little at Alex's misery before Kara answered.
"And out myself because you got too drunk to stand up straight?" Kara asked with a crooked smile. "I don't love you that much."
Oliver couldn't fully make out Alex's next words, muffled as they were through a mouthful of bacon and eggs as well as her grumbling. From the look on Kara's face, he guessed that it was probably something aimed to irritate the Kryptonian. A flush rose on Kara's cheeks, the redness spreading down her neck a little, and her eyes widened. In an instant, Kara had supersped to Alex's side and swatted her on the shoulder. Oliver couldn't help but to smile at the antics of the two sisters, but still his thoughts drifted to Thea back on his own Earth.
He had been gone for the two weeks Thea had been able to guarantee him at City Hall, and even though he probably could push it a little longer, Oliver knew that his return to Star City was close. The comfortable rhythm he had found on Earth-38 had been surprising to say the least, but Oliver still found himself missing his home a little – or, at least, the people there. His eyes drifted back to Kara, the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Diggle which had been getting louder ever since his arrival in National City, called out for him to do something. In two weeks, he and Kara had shared so many moments, opportunities that had come and gone because of their lifestyle. Oliver knew something had to change.
"J'onn needs the both of you to head into the D.E.O. today for a debrief about what went down last night." Alex's gaze flicked to Oliver, and his thoughts wheeled back to the conversation he and Alex had shared the previous night, the lie he had told about Jeremiah.
He had told Kara the same story that morning, before Alex and Maggie had woken. She had taken the news with the same bitter resignation that Alex had, a grim acceptance that there was something about her adoptive father that she didn't understand and maybe never would. Telling Kara had been more difficult, not only because of the connection they shared that Oliver couldn't quite put into words, but because of her powers. Winn had told him that Kara was functionally a living lie detector, that her powers allowed her to notice all the small tells a person had, the ones they couldn't even control…well, that most people couldn't control. Perhaps it was his training that stopped him giving anything away, or that the weight of the news was so much that Kara didn't even think to check to see if he was telling the truth, or that she trusted him so implicitly that she didn't consider that he would lie to her. Whatever the reason, he had still lied.
Maybe Felicity had been right about his inability to trust anyone else.
"I'll head in once I've cleaned up here," Oliver answered before turning to Kara. "Maybe you should go on patrol first, put in a little facetime as Supergirl just to be let Cadmus know you're still out there."
Kara nodded her agreement before heading into her room. No soon had she disappeared around the corner that a high pitched yelp rang out, followed by a cackle that could only belong to Maggie. Kara came speeding back out of the room, Supergirl outfit in hand and flushed bright red once again.
"See you at the D.E.O." Was all she said before turning to the window and taking flight.
Oliver turned his questioning gaze to Alex, who only shrugged in answer and promptly returned to eating. A moment later, Maggie walked from the bedroom, a wide grin on her lips. Oliver raised an eyebrow at the detective in curiosity and her grin only got bigger.
"Little Danvers walked in on me getting dressed," She answered, unable to hold back her laughter as she did. Maggie took a seat next to Alex and continued. "I can't tell if I should be insulted by that reaction."
Alex snorted unceremoniously as Maggie reached across to grab the pot of coffee. "Kara's got a thing about modesty, I think growing up with x-ray vision made her nervous about accidently creeping on people."
Maggie smiled as she filled up a mug, and refiled Alex's before putting the cafetière down. "Well at least there's one Danvers sister who appreciates getting to see me naked."
Alex grinned, putting down her fork before leaning over to place a kiss on Maggie's cheek. "You know it."
Chuckling a little to himself, Oliver threw down the towel he had been drying the dishes with and turned to the couple.
"And that's my cue to head out," He took a few steps towards the door, grabbing his jacket from one of the pegs. "I'll see you at the D.E.O."
XXX
The debrief at the D.E.O. had reminded Oliver a little too much of his time working for Amanda Waller. It had been a long time since he had been forced to deal with the bureaucracies of official – or as was in the D.E.O.'s case unofficial – government agencies. No soon he had arrived he had been summoned into J'onn's office and been asked a series of questions about his working with Alex and Maggie to track down Jeremiah Danvers and Cadmus – starting with his arrival at her apartment following her suspension.
The disapproving glare in the Martian's eyes had been evident all the way through the questioning Oliver had received, clearly J'onn didn't like having his orders disobeyed – something Oliver could related to a little too well. There was something else too that took Oliver a little while to place, and it wasn't until he told J'onn how he had followed Alex to the abandoned Luthor Corp facility despite her insistence she worked alone that it clicked. Gratitude. J'onn was glad that Oliver had been there to watch Alex's back, even if he wouldn't admit it out aloud.
Then came the retelling of the fight with the real Hank Henshaw. He went over the true elements of fight in detail, Henshaw showing up out of nowhere, he and Jeremiah doing their best to hold him off. The lie was next, and Oliver retold it in the same way he had to Kara and Alex. Henshaw winded him, by the time he got to his feet again Henshaw was out of the count and Jeremiah had disappeared. Then he had gone after the frigate on his bike, leaving Henshaw's unconscious body behind.
"And that's it?" J'onn asked from across the desk.
Oliver nodded. "Everything relevant. After that, Supergirl brought the frigate down and the two of us returned to National City once the D.E.O. arrived to take the civilians home."
The two fell into a silence for a few moments, then J'onn sighed. The Martian leaned forward in his chair and tapped a button on the recording device that sat on the desk between them.
"Mr. Queen…Oliver," J'onn began, Oliver reading the discomfort emanating from him. "On Mars it was considered improper to read another's mind without their permission, but I can still read passive psychic energy. Quite frankly, I know that you're lying to me."
Oliver's eyes dropped for a moment, he had been afraid of that.
"It's not that I can tell that you're being deceitful, but I can feel something else," J'onn continued. "Guilt. Since I highly doubt that a man like you would feel guilty about lying to a federal agency, certainly not one from a dimension that isn't your own, I can only infer that it's because of what you told Alex and Kara."
Remaining silent, Oliver fixed the other man with a dangerous look, a little unsure how to proceed.
"You don't need to get defensive," J'onn tried, his voice a littler gentler. "I turned off the recorder for a reason, anything else you say won't leave this room."
Oliver hung his head for a moment and sighed. "Jeremiah didn't just vanish," He admitted. "We took down Henshaw together. When I went to peruse Alex, he wouldn't come with me. He begged me to let him run, because he knew that if he came back with us that you'd be forced to arrest him, have him tried as a terrorist. He didn't want to put his family through that," He let out a heavy breath. "No father would."
J'onn didn't answer for a few moments, his gaze drifted into the middle distance as he processed what Oliver had told him. Whatever J'onn's decision, Oliver was prepared for it. Legally, he had allowed an officially declared enemy combatant to escape, he was guilty of aiding and abetting. On the other hand, he wasn't a citizen of the dimension where he had committed said crime, and he doubted Earth-38 had legislature to deal with that.
"Sparing one's children pain is one of the greatest gifts a father can impart." J'onn spoke, his eyes thick with something Oliver recognised all too easily. "I'm…thankful it was you with him, any other agent might not have understood."
"I'm sorry for your loss." Oliver said simply, knowing J'onn would understand him.
"I am the last of my kind, Oliver," J'onn's voice was heavy with sorrow. "Not only do I have to live with that weight, but also the knowledge that I was unable to protect my own family…my own children." He paused for a few moments, neither man speaking a word. "I'll call off the search for Jeremiah. With any luck, Cadmus will struggle to find him as much as we have, and if Jeremiah isn't actively working for them…then I see no reason to believe that he is an immanent threat."
Oliver let out a breath of relief that he didn't realise he had been holding. "Thank you, J'onn."
"As much as I understand Jeremiah's reasons for disappearing, I highly doubt Alex and Kara will. You know the risk you're taking by keeping this promise, they may not forgive you. Are you sure that's a price you're willing to pay if they find out the truth?"
"I won't be on your Earth much longer," Oliver evaded the question. "They won't have time to find out."
"Then good luck to you."
XXX
As soon as his debrief with J'onn had concluded Oliver had taken to the storage room he had been operating out of during his time working with the D.E.O. His equipment had been strewn over various surfaces, the shattered fragments of his compound bow sat almost ceremoniously on one table, the duffle bad he had brought from his own Earth that still contained a few remaining sets of civilian clothes left atop a chair. Oliver hefted the bag containing his Green Arrow suit and equipment that he had brought from Kara's apartment onto one of the tables and turned to the rest of his belongings.
Once he had spoken to J'onn, Oliver had decided that he would return to his own Earth by the end of the day. He knew he had been gone too long, that he needed to get back to Star City and the people he had left behind. Despite the desire of a small – not as small as Oliver would have liked though – part of his subconscious that kept telling him to act in his own interest for once and spend more time on Earth-38 with Kara, away from the darkness that always threatened to consume him at home, Oliver knew the reality of the situation. Star City needed The Green Arrow, and Mayor Queen.
Sure, Diggle would have made a few appearances on the streets in a spare Green Arrow suit, as was the standard protocol they had established for any occasions where Oliver would be away from Star City for a significant proportion of time, but it wasn't the same. And City Hall was one of the few things that could keep him truly grounded. When he had been CEO of Queen Consolidated it had been too easy for him to push his responsibilities onto other people, being the Mayor didn't afford him that same luxury. It reminded him that Oliver Queen was more than just camouflage, that he could do just as much to help people out of the hood. Yet that voice that told him he could have more still continued to make noise in the back of his mind.
Then, Oliver locked it down.
He busied himself with returning his equipment back into the duffle bag, carefully packing the arrows that remained unused, then resting the two halves of his bow on top. Oliver looked down at himself then across at the bag containing his suit. He had no intention of wearing it for his return journey to Earth-1, since he would be arriving straight into The Bunker there was no need for it. Doubting that the DEO would miss a single canvas bag, Oliver left his suit, bow, and quiver where they were and zipped up the duffle.
The only thing the remained on the table was a breech device.
Oliver had asked Cisco to provide him with two. One for the team back in Star City should they have needed to bring him back from Earth-38 for whatever reason and another for him to take himself, just to be safe. He glanced around the room, satisfied that he had collected everything that belonged to him, then took a seat in one of the chairs, plucked the breech device from where it lay and rolled it between his fingers idly.
Before the cacophony of thoughts could drag him back under, Oliver's attention was grabbed by the soft click of the door to the storage room opening. Sliding the breech device back onto the table Oliver stood and turned to face the door. Unsurprisingly, Kara walked in, cape swishing behind her. She stopped short as she took in the room, the packed equipment, the clear sign that Oliver was leaving.
"Oh," Her voice hardly audible, Kara's gaze turned to Oliver and she spoke up. "You're leaving?"
A reluctant sigh forced its way past Oliver lips before he answered. "I've already been gone too long, I need to get back to Star City."
"And you weren't…" Kara trailed off, disappointment crossing her features.
Oliver's eyes snapped wide for a moment as he realised Kara's misunderstanding. She had thought he was sneaking away without telling her. "Kara, of course not," He took a step towards her. "I just thought it would be easier to pack now since I was here anyway. I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye."
Kara brightened at his reassurance, and Oliver couldn't help the way her reaction tugged at something inside of him. Everything he had shared with Kara over two weeks, the charged arguments about ethics, the heartfelt apologies and strange connection that had been interrupted by Mxyzptlk, the hours they spent on her couch eating ice cream and sharing history, the laughter they'd shared as they'd watched Maggie and Alex's drunk antics…the kiss that had almost been. The bond that had formed between them in such short time, unnameable in exactly what it was drawing them to one another, Oliver was fully aware of how strong that was. He knew why his reassurance had brightened Kara the way it did, even with her endless optimism she had loved and lost more than anyone Oliver knew, despite all her powers the one thing that was still beautifully mortal was her heart.
"Oliver, I…" Kara fumbled over her words, taking a few steps towards him. Oliver's gaze was briefly drawn down as Kara began to anxiously pull at the fabric of her suit around her wrists. "See, uh…" Chuckling nervously Kara fixed her eyes back on Oliver. "I can be strong and stand my ground, when I'm protecting someone else, but when that someone is me…it's a lot harder, because I don't like being vulnerable." Kara spoke as if she had been reading Oliver's mind. "We're a lot alike, but we're also really different."
Oliver couldn't stop Kara's smile infecting him.
"It's just that last year I thought I could have it all, and then I thought I couldn't…that I had to pick. So, I chose being Supergirl over having a relationship." Kara continued. The dilemma was one he had shared himself. The image of himself and Felicity stood in the hospital corridor as he told her they couldn't be together leaping into his mind. "And then, you came along. When we met, I thought you were an obnoxious hard ass, and maybe a tiny bit xenophobic. But I was wrong, you proved me wrong. Then everything that's happened these last two weeks and I feel closer to you than almost anyone I've ever known." Kara took a few more steps forward, hardly an arm's reach remained between them. Oliver knew where her line of thinking was going, where it had been going from the moment that she realised he was leaving. Worse still, he knew what he had to say. "And it's just got me thinking…maybe I can have it all."
Inches remained between them. There was a silence, punctuated only by their own breathing. Oliver fixed his gaze on Kara, the blue of her eyes glistening like starlight. Words he knew he should be saying out loud trawled through his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to say any of them, knowing what it would do to them both. Oliver thought that, for a moment, their breathing matched pace.
Their lips were on each other before either of them realised what was happening. It was like resolution. The heavy emotions and unnameable energy collapsed inwards like a meteor crashing and burning, surrendering to a mutual gravity that had been pulling them together for two weeks. The featherlight contact of their lips lasted little more than a second, but to Oliver the moment seemed to last eons. Reality snapped him to attention, and his hands came up, lightly pressing on Kara's shoulders to keep either of them from leaning back into the kiss.
"Kara, it…I can't."
The Kryptonian stepped away like she had been burnt. The hurt in her eyes evident in a way that tripled the self-loathing Oliver had expected to be feeling.
Kara's hands returned to their nervous fidgeting with the cuffs of her uniform. "Rao, w-was I wrong about…"
"No, Kara, no." Oliver hurriedly cut over her. "Whatever there is between us, whatever there could be…I just can't. Every time I let people get close to me, they get infected by the darkness, my darkness. I've seen too many good people get dragged down to my level, I can't let you become one of them."
"Oliver," Kara breathed his name, the hurt in her eyes gave way to sympathy. "You can't blame yourself for every bad thing that happens to the people around you. I can handle whatever darkness you think you have."
Against his will, Oliver's mind rushed through flashes from his past. Prometheus taunting him as he stood over Billy Malone's body, Laurel telling him that she still loved him with her last minutes of life, Sara laying bloodied on a table in The Foundry with three arrows in her chest, Slade with a sword run through his mother's chest, Tommy dying in his arms.
He swallowed thickly. "I won't take the chance that you're wrong."
Sympathy turned to sadness. "Do I not get a say in that?"
"I'm sorry, Kara."
Sadness to resignation. "I uh…thank you," Kara sighed heavily and blinked hard. "For everything you've done, f-for coming when I asked."
Oliver knew what she was doing, she was saying goodbye. "Kara, I…" He trailed off, unsure of what to say.
"Have a safe journey home, Oliver." Kara took a few steps backwards as she spoke, before turning on her heel and heading quickly out of the room.
It wasn't until the door clicked shut once again that Oliver moved. For a moment he allowed his eyes to drift shut, taking in a deep breath, and centring himself. Before he could allow himself to overthink the situation, Oliver grabbed both his bags and swiped the breech device from the table. The swirling blue gateway snapped open in front of him and, with a final glance towards the door, he stepped through.