A/N - Warning There are references to Mia Dearden's backstory revolves around child prostitution and child abuse.
He pinched his brow, as it had been lights out for almost an hour. Oliver extended his arm upwards to grab the hardcover book that was sitting on his lone shelf. He opened the book, to find the last page he was reading. Upon opening to the page, he saw the photograph that he was using as a bookmark with the dim light from outside; Him, Laurel, William, and Mia Dearden.
Seeing his family put a smile on his face as he remembered finding the orphan girl who had been living on the streets of The Glades, with nothing to her name beyond the clothes on her back. For the longest time, she didn't talk of her time before she had been rescued. Until a few months later, after she started to trust people again, did she reveal to him and Laurel that her father used to abuse her.
The skinny blonde fourteen-year-old was a feisty tenacious girl, and it wasn't long before Laurel had adopted the girl, and taken her under her wings. And right now, she was under the spotlight from the media, and he was the cause of it.
He was the one who had capitulated to Agent Watson's demands, to protect the team, his family, all to prevent Ricardo Diaz from establishing himself as The Kingpin of Star City. Oliver pressed a gentle kiss to his middle and index finger before pressing it on the photograph.
The media was currently hounding Laurel about Mia's health, how she had contracted HIV, and whether it had anything to do with his vigilantism. They were harassing his daughter and wife, and yet he could do nothing. He was stuck here, behind bars.
At one point in his life, he would have gladly accepted his place here, that he would have deserved incarceration, in order to atone for his crimes. But he had everything to live for, an intelligent son, that he, Laurel and Samantha had agreed upon a custody agreement, in which he would get to have his son home, for a few weeks during the holidays, and occasionally a weekend. It was all down the drain now. After witnessing how the media was harassing William's adopted half-sister, Samantha thought it was prudent to keep William away from him, and Star City.
Mia, while not as academically minded as William, was still passing her classes with flying colors, but her passions were more directed towards gymnastics, she had already received a trophy for coming third in her heat. It was at that moment when he, Laurel and Speedy watched her win a trophy for coming first in her competition did he finally understand a parent's pride in their child. Something he hadn't been able to experience with William. Something that he knew both his parents had occasionally had for him, and definitely for Thea.
He also had his beautiful wife, Laurel, and he had rekindled their relationship, and together they were enjoying married life. And this, him being in prison was just another road bump in their lives, they had endured and overcome all the other obstacles, like his infidelity, they would endure this even if this was not the marriage that either had in mind, with her trying to get him out of this cell, whilst looking after their daughter.
He placed the photograph back into the book and laid on the thin mattress, his hands clasping behind his head. Laurel, despite her mourning her father's murder and looking after Mia, had somehow managed to perform a legal miracle and get him into the protective wing.
It wasn't long before the guard, who decided to be obnoxious, like clockwork, Guard Yorke, rattled Oliver's cage with his nightstick. Oliver slowly sat up, glaring at the man.
"Morning 4587, Beautiful day."
Oliver blinked, "Is it?" He asked, as he looked around his familiar cell, and marked another stroke on his tally. Thirty-five days. Five weeks in Slabside and god only knows how long he was going to stay here, weeks, months, years, the rest of his life?
"I suppose that depends on you, Green Arrow. It seems like you missed roll-call, last night." He sneered as he tossed the newspaper on the floor through the bars. The picture had caught his eye, someone was wearing his suit.
Oliver squeezed his eyes shut, and groaned, clutching his side as he bent down to scoop up the paper in his hands. Before he took a glance at the paper, he said, "I've told you countless times, Yorke, I'm not the Green Arrow. I was proven innocent by The Late Captain Lance's investigation twice."
"And I'm the Virgin Mary." Yorke, taped the bar again, as he scoffed, "In this castle, everyone is innocent. Rapists, Murders, Gangbangers. Every one of them. And maybe your late father-in-law deserved to be in here bunking with you. Since he was covering for you."
"Talk about me all you want, but please do not sully his reputation." Quintin was a good man, and despite his flaws, he was a good father who loved his daughters. It was he, who Oliver had tried to emulate when he had taken the role of a father to Mia, and started to be a father to William.
Oliver then eyed the paper to see someone wearing a variant of his suit. It was too dark to make out who was wearing the green suit, seemed to have a mask, and the darkness obscured their build. He hoped it wasn't Laurel in that suit. She had hinted to him earlier that the city needed a Green Arrow, he thought they were on the same page, that she was to stay away from vigilantism and look after their daughter and focus on his case.
Oliver looked up from the newspaper to Yorke, "You do realize that I haven't been convicted of a crime? That I'm waiting for my trial?"
"I don't give a rat's furry ass, you are here, in a federal penitentiary, Queen. I don't give a damn about why you are here! And the word around is that you won't make it to trial. It's not as if they are rushing to hear your case, no matter how many times your wife cries to the Feds."
"Trust me, if she cried, they would have heard her." Laurel had steadfastly refused to waive his right to a swift trial, but the way the courts seem to be taking their sweet time, he was forced to assume that their definition of swift was vastly different to normal people.
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
Mia walked into her family's loft. Family. It was still something that didn't seem real to her, her father had forced himself onto her when she was only twelve, her breasts had only started to develop. Then after everything that happened, she was forced on the streets, and had to offer her body to just keep breathing.
Then she was given hope, a chance to live. A chance to be what she wanted to be. Her knights in black and green had saved her from further exploitation by more men who wanted to use her to get off. Laurel and Oliver had shown her what an actual family was, and how they cared for her as a person and not a possession.
Not long after she was saved, Laurel adopted her, a year down the line, Oliver became her father.
Mia looked around the living room to see countless amounts of cardboard boxes, it looked as if Laurel had been working all day to try to get the ball moving. What they needed to do was burn coal beneath their feet, and direct them to the cool water, that is getting Ollie his fair and fast trial.
What did it matter if he was the Green Arrow or not? He has done as much, if not more than Red, over in Central City. Ollie had stopped Merlyn's Earthquake Device that would have killed her the night of The Undertaking. He had stopped those masked whackos during The Siege, and the ninjas during The Outbreak. He stopped Damian Darhk and then he saved her.
She had even heard Laurel trying to call The White House to try to get Ollie a presidential pardon due to him protecting the world from aliens, but to no avail, officially their hands were tied. Which was political B.S. for; I don't want to because it will make me look bad.
Mia walked past the small towers of brown, and a table full of legal documents and manilla folders to see her mom passed out, with her laptop on her lap, and an empty coffee mug hanging limply from her hand.
Laurel stirred, as Mia gently shook her shoulder after placing the computer and cup on the coffee table. "M…Mia? What's wrong?" Laurel mumbled, groggily wiping her eyes from sleep.
"Nothing, well, not nothing, Willy had P.M'd and asked how Dad was coping in jail?" She then hesitated, biting her lip. "What should I tell the Half-Pint?"
"He doesn't like being called Half-Pint." Laurel half-seriously admonished her daughter. "Tell him that Dad is still going strong and that he sends his love to William."
"And you?" Mia asked, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa, wrapping her arms around Laurel. "When was the last time that you had slept in your bed, Mom?"
Laughed sighed, as she wiped her face again. "Since my Dad was killed, and Ollie was blackmailed into accepting a deal that should never have been made. If I hadn't tried going after Diaz by myself, maybe Dad or I could have…"
"Mom, I learned a long time ago, that if you look back and wonder what if, you will hurt yourself more."
Laurel smiled, "It's supposed to be my job to give you advice, not the other way around."
Mia shrugged, "Besides, Dad's in the protective wing." Upon seeing Laurel blink back tears, she felt her stomach lurch. "Mom?"
"Ollie may be put in gen-pop. That he doesn't deserve the protection of a police officer or an attorney. If The Green Arrow can fight and survive in dangerous conditions they don't need to spend extra money on him."
"But they haven't proved that he is our Emerald Archer, all they have is an uncorroborated and a forced confession."
"Watson has officially been put on administrative leave, and that is because Thea and I had been shouting it from the rooftops. But they have made a strong enough case to warrant him being locked up."
Mia dropped her backpack on the floor, "We need to see Dad."
Before Laurel could stand up, she received a phone call, and picked up her buzzing phone and answered it. After listening to the man on the other end of the line, she hesitantly agreed, before hanging up and looking at her daughter. "Change of plans, Mia. We need to meet an old friend of your father's."
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
Oliver sat on the gurney in the medical wing, the sterile tiles, and lights all made the room look unforgiving, and not a place of solace for those sick, injured or maimed. And yet, it was the first time in days since he was allowed outside the confines of his cell.
It somehow felt like a warped sense of liberty, though this freedom came with too many issues rather than boons. He was no longer alone, he was vulnerable from all sides, inmates, and guards alike.
After his bandage was taken off his ribs, all that was left was a yellow-purple bruise on his sternum. Before he could button up his overalls, the curtain was torn open, and Ben Turner, AKA, Bronze Tiger, was standing there with a smug smirk, standing beside two of his men.
"Benjamin Turner?" Oliver asked, feigning ignorance.
"Don't play me," Turner said with his deep baritone voice that had an edge to it. A warning. "How much do you know about Slabside beyond your keep? The protective wing?"
Oliver looked up at him, "I hear enough."
"Then you know what Darhk did to one of my boys?"
To Oliver, it looked like Turner cared about the boy that had been killed. His head was smashed in the shower stall. From what he heard, Turner's ally was only meant to ensure that Darhk was kept away from a certain area of the prison. A warning, and only a verbal warning.
They didn't know Darhk like he did. That Damien Darhk was trouble even without his magic, political and, or monetary clout. He was League trained and was once a horseman to Ra's Al Ghul. He really should have been placed in ARGUS custody. In reality, he should have been dead, an arrow in his body just like he did to her.
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
FLASHBACK
DOMINATOR INVASION
"This is a weird article, Barry. I don't know the laws of Time Travel, or the specifics. I don't care. You need to stop blaming yourself."
Barry spun around on his heels to look at Oliver with a helpless, vulnerable look. As he didn't the weird futuristic tech stopped projecting the newspaper article. "This is all my fault."
Oliver shrugged his shoulders, "Maybe, maybe not. But Barry, you said you were surprised to see Laurel and her daughter." In truth, lately, Oliver had been feeling as if Mia was his own child, and no different to William. "That Thea had used her inheritance from Malcolm Merlyn to buy back Palmer Tech, and name the company to Queen ?"
Oliver was almost certain why, and that was one of the reasons he hadn't berated Barry for Flashpoint.
"I… When I came back from Flashpoint. It changed stuff, you know, it changed Sara Diggle, to John Junior. Well, somehow it rewrote history to what you know it as. That Laurel had been stabbed by the arrow that you had shot, and out of some kind of defense mechanism, Laurel developed her metahuman power, and knocked out Dark and destroyed The Khushu Idol beyond repair. In the original timeline… She didn't make it, and you never met or saved her adopted daughter from the life that she was living."
Oliver took a step forward and embraced the young man that he considered his baby brother. "You saved Laurel; you gave her a second chance. You gave us a second chance. And I'm forever in your debt."
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
PRESENT TIME
As the former mayor of Star City, I can tell you that you shouldn't send your men anywhere near him. He's not a normal man like you or most of the people in these prison walls." He's League trained.
Turner chuckled, as did his two inmate guards. "I don't think you understand, Queenie. It only takes one assumption for someone to kill you. Darhk thought my boy was an assassin. So he killed him. It's a parable. It doesn't matter who you are, only what they think you are. And if they believe you are Robin Hood, then there are a lot of convicts here that have a grudge, and will enjoy shoving a shiv in your liver."
Oliver gritted his teeth, "Let me guess, you think I'm The Green Arrow? That I have skills that you could use in here, and in return, you protect my liver?"
"Got it in one."
Oliver feigned a snigger. "I'm a reformed playboy, a former public servant, and a devoted father and husband. Why on earth would I risk my family and my life for vigilantism?" It was a good question, and one that he had been asking himself since he had met William, and the question had kept niggling at him since he had married Laurel, and adopted their daughter. "You are wasting your time, Turner."
"We ain't the same, but you have to pick a side, Queen. Especially if you want to live to see Lance and your two kids. You haven't been in contact with Brick, nor Zytle. And I know that even if you aren't Green Arrow, Oliver Queen and Damien Darhk have bad blood. I can protect you, but it doesn't come free. You better be quick about it, Queen."
It wasn't long before he was escorted back to his quarters, only his guard was taking him in a different direction. Oliver looked around, trying to remember if he had been down this specific hallway before until he noticed that his guard was sweating. It wasn't even hot. Not even remotely.
Something was wrong. And it wasn't until the guard opened the adjoining door, and saw Brick and his men standing there as if they had been waiting for him. The guard was quickly knocked out and shoved to the side.
"No cameras, no witnesses. No need to try to pull the wool over our eyes, Green Arrow." Brick's voice carried through the room.
Oliver tensed, "This is a mistake. You don't want to do this."
Brick continued to grin at Oliver, but he was undeterred about any threat Oliver could pose. Oliver was still a small fish in this pond, Brick though was a shark.
"Oh, but I do. If you're the Emerald Archer, then I know who the Black Canary is. She put me behind bars twice. And now it's my turn to use you to get to your beautiful wife. It's time that she gets what's coming to her. You have two minutes until guards come here in numbers. Either: A; You will return to your wife in a body bag or B; You will have some explaining to do."
A second later, Oliver ducked under a blow. He had to be careful to use soft martial arts, he had to make the narrative Laurel had carefully constructed that he was just the average person. That he had to maintain this image of a father and devoted husband.
The only issue in his plan would be that these people were in the same gang.
Oliver ducked beneath another blow, sending his elbow into another's neck. In doing so he just missed a shiv to his artery, instead, it had nicked the edge of his jaw. The sting was enough to remind him that he had to train the best he could while he was trapped here.
While this was like a picnic in comparison to Lian Yu, and his five years in hell, this still was far from a utopia. No, that would in his own home, sitting watching some boring movie with his family. It didn't matter if it was one of those sappy teen dramas that Mia loved. All that would matter is that he was at home, with his family. All of them. Laurel, William, Mia, and Speedy.
After the thugs were dealt with, Oliver knelt down and raised his hands to his head around a group of knocked out and bloodied men
The guards came in with riot shields and batons. "Get on your knees, convict! That's it, no sudden movements." They said, before roughly hauling him off into the hole. They would be sending a doctor to him with an armed escort to him in solitary confinement.
The whole time he was dragged off to solitary was how he had failed his family. Laurel was working around the clock, the last time he had seen his wife, she had dark bags around her eyes from little to no sleep. And no, he had just made all of those sleepless nights amounted to absolutely nothing.
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
Laurel and Mia walked in and stood by the reception desk with Mia leaning against the wall chewing gum. "Dad won't be happy about this."
"It is the only way. He will understand when he finds out," Laurel said, though even to her own ears it sounded hollow. She didn't like pulling the wool over Ollie's eyes, they had long since put behind keeping secrets from one another.
Mia shrugged her shoulders. "I still think he will be rocked by this and will lash out."
Laurel knew that would be the case, and yet, she needed to do this. It was the only way. Laurel swallowed quickly, and moved to the reception area, "My name is Dinah Laurel Queen. I'm here to speak to my client, Oliver Queen."
The guard sitting at the reception desk looked at her with a bored expression. "Convict 4587 has currently been detained in Solitary Confinement. He is currently not at liberty to be visited by family members at this moment."
Laurel squared her shoulders, "I'm here as his attorney, not his wife. My daughter is here as my paralegal. A family law firm. Now, if you want to keep depriving my client's right to his civil liberties, I will dismantle this entire prison and all of its employers including yourself. All it takes is one call."
The guard looked at Laurel as if to gauge whether or not she was bluffing, before taking an audible sigh and buzzing the security door. "4587 will be waiting for you and your… Paralegal in the visitor's wing."
Laurel gave the man a small smile that didn't reach her eyes, before walking with Mia down the long corridors.
" You scared the pants off him. I bet there is a brown stain in his pants now."
"Dad always said I lived to argue."
Her daughter snorted, "Quintin was a good man." She waited for a second, before asking. "Are you sure that his man is ready?"
Laurel gave a hesitant nod, she didn't trust the man as far as she could throw him, but Ollie did. "He said that he had everything ready." Laurel stopped short of the visitor area, "Are you sure that you will be fine with this? There will be blood, and I can't promise that you will be safe."
"As long as you and Dad are alright, I will deal. I… I just don't want to lose the family that you and Dad have built for us. The life that you have given to me after you and him, saved me. After we found out about me having HIV you both paid for my medication. Without ever asking for something in return. It… It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me."
Laurel stooped walking and immediately wrapped her arms around her daughter. She remembered how Mia had offered to back her bags and was too willing to leave after receiving her results, just too spare herself from the rejection, only her daughter received anything but rejection. "You have been through so much, and I'm sorry I have to add to it. But I promise after all is said and done…"
"I know," Mia said.
"I love you."
I love you, too." Mia repeated as she relished the warm embrace her mother gave her.
::-:-:-::-:-:-::
Oliver sat on the edge of the mattress; he had been in worse conditions than a sanitary tiny room. He didn't know how long he was in here, hours? Surely no longer than a day?
He was nearly blinded by the light outside, as the steel door creaked open. "4587, Your Lawyer is here."
Oliver walked down the long dark hallways until he was directed into a door, and moved to his seat, to see Laurel and their daughter. Laurel looked tired, with a hint of fear in her eyes that she was trying to hide from him. Mia on the hand looked too stoic. She was shutting herself from her emotions, likely a survival mechanism that she had learned.
"Hey, Pretty Bird." He breathed, despite her looking exhausted, seeing two of the most important people in his life made him feel lighter.
Laurel smiled and raised her hand to the translucent material separating them. "Ollie…" She then noticed his bruises and nicks from his fight. "I thought that we agreed that you would be keeping your head down?"
Oliver swallowed, "I had no choice, trust me before this I had kept my head down, avoiding everyone I could." He then looked over at their daughter, "I'm almost finished The Count of Monte Cristo, thank you for lending it to me, Sweetheart."
Mia's head bobbed, "I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I missed you, Dad, and so has Willy."
Oliver's smile faltered slightly, "How's William? I thought that Sam was keeping William as far away from me to keep him safe?"
"Apparently William has a bit of a rebellious streak in him. Besides, he was talking to his Big Sis."
Oliver chuckled. He had missed hearing his daughter's voice. "I thought only my lawyer could visit me after everything that happened?"
Mia snorted as she crossed her arms, "You should have seen Mom, she threatened to dismantle the entire prison including everyone it employs for depriving you of your rights, and when they mentioned me, she without blinking told them that I was her paralegal."
He looked over to his beautiful wife to see her cheeks redden slightly. "I'm doing whatever it takes to protect our family, Ollie."
"I saw The Starling Times, a few days ago, tell me that it wasn't you who was in the suit."
"I haven't had the time to be in my suit let alone yours, Ollie. But it's the first piece of good news that I have seen or heard in the news recently about you. Ollie, it causes some reasonable doubt as to whether or not you are The Emerald Archer."
"So, you have to try to not getting into any brawls over toilet paper, who mounts who." Mia dryly said with a small smirk.
"You're quite lippy today."
Mia shrugged, "A remnant of me living on the streets."
"Just try not to speak like that Mia, you're better than that," Oliver said seriously, before looking back at Laurel. What brought you here and provoked you to start ruffling some feathers?"
"The Feds want to put you in gen-pop."
Oliver closed his eyes, it made sense, it made things easier if he was dead before the trial. The issue of Watson extorting him would disappear, meaning no internal investigation into the FBI, they could say, his entire testimony on the corrupt SCPD and parts of City Hall being the ravings of a then mentally disturbed man. Everything would be swept under the rug.
Laurel seemed to notice how he was feeling despite him trying to hide it. "Ollie, I know that this is likely a way to have them sweep everything under the rug because if you went up on the stand and proclaimed you are innocent, along with numerous other people who know could provide testimonies in your favor that would be the end of it and you would be a free man. "
"How's Speedy?"
Laurel smiled, "She and Walter Steele have purchased a couple of factories and businesses in Gotham, Coast and Central City and a couple of small locations in Seattle. She said a few weeks ago that she had offered to give William and Mia an internship when he comes of age."
"The others?" He asked. Laurel had barely spoken of John, Curtis or Rene.
Mia spoke up before Laurel, "Uncle John has joined his wife at ARGUS, and Curtis is working in Central City under the Robert Queen Applied Science Division that works closely with STAR Labs to provide Police with technology to help them with metahumans. Rene moved to Keystone where Wildog now operates and Felicity is still a prisoner of ARGUS after releasing Cayden James."
"Ollie, since you were mayor, and accused of being a vigilante that has had a large impact on the criminal underworld, they shouldn't be able to send you there. But after yesterday with your fight, it does make it harder even with Green Arrow stalking around the city."
"Laurel, there were no cameras. And there is no prisoner that will say a word about it." Brick didn't want to risk a longer prison sentence than he already had to his name, nor did he want to deprive himself of any of his liberties.
He wouldn't tell Laurel that Brick had attacked him to get to her. She had enough to deal with and didn't need her guilt to be compounded on top of the stress that she was already handling.
"I swear to you Ollie, I will do whatever it takes to get you home and back to us. Just hang on a little longer and just… persevere through anything that comes your way, promise me, Ollie?"
Oliver bit his lip and nodded. "I promise, Pretty Bird."
"I love you," Laurel said, kissing her fingers and pressing them to the protective plastic.
"I love you two so much, send my love to Speedy and William." He said mimicking his wife's gesture.
Oliver was escorted back to his solitary quarters, where there was a note sitting on his mattress.
Oliver,
The lesson has nothing to do with your stint in solitary confinement. While it's not possible to hurt you, your family isn't. How many times must you learn that your family is your weakness, Oliver? How can you protect your precious daughter or your Pretty Bird behind cement walls and steel doors?
Oliver crunched the note in his hand, as he slammed on the door, only no one came. He could hear Mia screaming in the distance, and people groaning before everything when silent. "Laurel! Mia! Someone, please help my family!" Oliver bellowed helplessly through his door. It was hours before he found out what had happened.
Laurel was ripped from him, and there was no one that could fix it this time. Laurel was gone, his soulmate, his love was ripped from him, by someone in this prison and they were going to pay. Brick was going to pay.