True Face: The Beautiful Crime

by I've got Rhythm in my Soul

Though Oliver Queen is the reigning champion of the man with two faces, it's Felicity Smoak who knows the true crime of the masks they wear. It's of a particular beauty. One Mr Queen begins to grasp as he hounds the criminals in the city of Starling. But he moves in sync with an established shadow. ...You'll understand eventual

8. Chapter 8

Exposure

Exposure makes you famous; not just good work. Famous is being plastered everywhere. Francesca Annis

WEBG Starling City News, 5 days ago:

"…have to advise the audience that the following footage, though not prohibited, may be subject to censoring following this report due to the legislation brought into effect almost 2 years ago."

"Might want to get this recorded ASAP folks. We already have."

"Saved and secure Nick."

"Play the recording."

-Hunt Multinational stood in direct view, but the camera was tilted upwards and the holder - though he had a steady hand - was breathing too loudly and too fast to hear much of anything else as one of the upper storey windows shattered neatly, without blowing out too far on the street.

A figure in dark green twisted out with it, spirally downwards on something that allowed him to glide across the expanse between buildings-

"Jesus! What-"

-Another more familiar figure in black, dived out of the hole; somehow swinging around the side of the building, before latching onto the stone wall with what just looked like hands and feet.

"-are freaking kidding me? Did you see that?! Did you-"

The figure in black began to climb. Up. The. Side. Of. The. Building.

And it moved fast.

"Holy –censored- that's the Watchman! That's the-"

The figure in black pushed off; arching backwards into the air-

A hand covered the camera. "That's enough! There's nothing to see here; get back inside. Back inside-"

World obscured, the screen turned dark.

"That was all the footage taken before the police cordoned off the area and… my God. Real live footage."

"The Watchman."

"It was out of focus but… take a look at this."

"Is that-?"

"A blow-up screenshot of the Watchman's face. It's a blur; but that is a mask."

"It's confirmation."

"I'd say a certain legislation needs an appeal."

"I'd say! But what about this other… man? Vigilante? Who is he?"

"I don't want to decide anything but, I think we just got a shot of the man who saved the lives of returnee, Oliver Queen and Thomas Merlyn."

"Already a busy guy."

"Well, it's Starling…"

---

WEBG Starling City News, 4 days ago:

"Adding to the weekend's surprises, Adam Hunt of Hunt Multinational has declared bankruptcy! It was the night, coincidentally, that the Watchman and the man in the green hood had an altercation inside Hunt's office, that progressed over the welcome home celebration for Oliver Queen. We revealed that footage here last night and it is still accessible on our website. If either occurrence is connected, we can only speculate; the SCPD and DA's office are keeping quiet about this one but… rumours are circulating."

"With the lack of information available, I'd say the involvement of the mayor is more than likely at this point."

"Indeed. It would seem that after the shocking reimbursement of the embezzled funds, another official mandate was sent out to keep any and all information pertaining to the night's event, under wraps…"

---

WEBG Starling City News, 3 days ago:

"…After almost two years, the official directive preventing all outgoing sources from formerly acknowledging the existence of the Watchman, has been revoked. The city is in an uproar; Media agencies are demanding compensation for any monetary outgoings lost in denial of the truth and already, newspapers are scheduled for re-prints. I don't think that's happened since before the closure of the Queen Steel Works Factory."

"Well, compensation would suggest a wrong doing, which… yes. It won't happen."

"They've labelled the Watchman a criminal fugitive since the start; by all rights, they were just performing legalities."

"Politically correct is the term, I'm sure."

"In the meantime, outcries for the story of the century mount: an exclusive with the Watchman."

"They'd have a job getting one!"

"So, you don't think he'd ever come out of the shadows to do that? Now that we can acknowledge him as a-"

"Living, breathing vigilante who's been helping the police do their jobs for them?"

"Candice…"

"I'm not sugar coating this. The Watchman, like it or not, has had an ameliorating effect on the city. Since Christmas, his involvement slowly started to increase – crime rate has experienced a gradual decrease; so steady, no one noticed."

"Like putting a frog in pot of cold water and slowly turning up the heat."

"Exactly. And now, they're all noticing. His increased presence these last weeks, because of Carlos Valdez and those fires in the Glades, proves it. There was a fall in muggings and vandalism while he was rescuing families from burning buildings. A decrease in assault when he was searching for Valdez. Now, if he were to be more active…?"

"…I'd say the frog has sprung free of the boiling pot."

"Well, now that we can legally say we have a vigilante in the city, people are really going to start looking at this guy: why does he do the things he does? How does he do them? And what's his endgame? Does he even have an endgame? What makes a person do what he does?"

"And not everyone in the city is a fan."

"Like every single criminal?"

"Like the SCPD who, that I've been made aware, are already vying for a warrant for arrest of the Watchman from the DA's office."

"Of course, they are."

"And what of the man in the hood?"

"That's another good question…"

"And we've, all of us, just put Watchman in the spotlight."

"We don't really know the man in green's motives yet; just his methods, which are altogether much more alarming than the Watchman's."

"But you can't argue with his results."

"Actually, I can because we don't really know yet what those are. Until now, intelligence has been on the short side. We don't know what his goal is, or if there even is one. We know even less about him than the Watchman and the difference is a piece of thread. He and the Watchman clashed at Hunt Multinational, but are they enemies or-"

"Or are they working together?"

---

WEBG Starling City News, 2 days ago:

"Adam Hunt of Hunt Multinational has been released from prison after evidence of his embezzlement was nulled when the money in question couldn't be traced into the accounts handed over to the SCPD – and this is new information folks – by the Watchman."

"He was involved?"

"It seems he was the one who got the ball rolling on that. Thanks to whoever emptied the accounts, and reports state the hooded man was the guilty party, Hunt is now free."

"But his company is bankrupt and, in the dirt, as we speak."

"A small consolation."

"So, the hooded man robs him, but he gets to walk out of prison, even though he subjected hundreds of people several months of hardship…"

"Crime's never fair."

"The city isn't either. And this hood is playing the prince of thieves: a thief who steals from thieves."

"You know that's not bad."

"Nick?"

"Hood. The Hood."

---

1 Day previous, Wednesday: Hunt Multinational

Sat on the only leather cushioned chair left behind by the undertakers because of the large gash in its side made by the broken pieces of his glass coffee table, Adam Hunt - leant over as he was - held his face in the palms of his hands.

He was ruined.

"How did he do it?" How did the Hood - as the papers had already started labelling him - take the money without even touching the protected terminal in the safe? How did one man wielding a bow and arrow leave him destitute?

"The point you're missing," Robert Stellart uttered; poised and absolutely unconcerned with the man who'd just lost everything he'd built over the last 20 years, "is how you unwisely decided that the prudent course of action to saving the financial inclines in your company was to steal funds directly from its clients and subsidiaries." The click of a briefcase made Hunt's stomach drop. It was over. "You left your fingerprints on everything."

The reminder sent prickles of anger down his spine.

Feeling ten years older than his 54 years - being incarcerated for 3 days and fearing for his life after two freaks in masks had the kind of fight normal people never expected to see, meant he hadn't slept - Adam dragged his fingers down his face; blinking blearily at his lawyer.

His ex-lawyer.

He'd known from the start that, if the end should come - if he wasn't a safe client - Stellart would pull out. His clientele sheet wasn't just lengthy; it held names Hunt didn't want to see. People he'd been terrified of before. People who paid better; the same people who'd advised the shark to accept Hunt as one of them. They'd both known the nature of their affiliation. Now he was leaving him.

And Hunt had no reason for him to stay.

Straightening - lifting his personalised briefcase off the desk in the now very empty office that hunt had been given 24 hours to clear out of - Robert pressed a hand to his suit; as if wiping off that singular speck of dust. Wiping off Adam Hunt.

"It's done." He uttered. "You have one offshore account that should keep you for a while, but your backers have pulled out completely and you can't honestly blame them." Head tilting, gaging him; the light caught on Stellart's glasses, casting a shield over cold eyes and it wasn't any more comforting to see. Makes him look like a robot. In many ways he was just as cold and remote as one; Robert Stellart had been the responsible party behind the idea for blackmailing Laurel Lance… and other things. He had contacts he'd suggested using. They won't be necessary anymore. "It's done. Mr Merlyn wants his report ASAP. Clean-up is already in progress."

Clean-up: any connection Hunt held with a certain organisation, was to be erased from existence.

"So that's it?" Grinding his teeth, Adam made to stand on shaky legs: his life's work was ruined. He had no family or connections willing to go to the bat for him. What was to become of him? "I make one mistake and he lets me go? We had a deal-"

"You actually think you have any control in this to surrender?" And the smile on Robert's face - the politely-puzzled way of it belying the truth, how Robert was telling him in the nicest way he knew, that in the eyes and ears of Tempest, Hunt meant nothing - rendered him silent. "Mr Hunt, you received exactly what you asked for. You did this to yourself. Now," inhaling and taking one last look at Hunt's office - as if admiring the general splendour that he'd remembered it being, because money talked, instead of the sad emptiness it had become - Robert Stellart sent Adam Hunt, who'd dropped back into the chair - one last courtesy smile. "My next patron is waiting for me. You won't be seeing me again."

Striding from the office, he made a final comment. "Be mindful of how you go about your affairs in future. You were protected by the alliance before. Miss Lance may have no more reason to look at you, but now you're exposed and it's open season."

---

Court House, Wednesday: 8am.

Take a breath. Let it out. This was what she'd been waiting for and she was more than ready. Time to make waves.

Steadying herself, she looked to the woman on her left - the woman who'd made it possible for Laurel to fight back against a particular brand of chauvinism, against her father's control and against injustice - Laurel quietly asked. "Are you ready?"

Taking her own deeper breath as she stared through her window towards the court house that loomed on top the steps, Emily Nocenti nodded. "I think so."

"I know so." Laurel emphasized; her hand on the brave woman's arm. "We've been over every single aspect of your case. Your father shouldn't have to stay in hiding and his case isn't something that should be kept out of the papers either. People need to know: Somers employs three dozen workers who are clueless about certain extracurricular activities of his. Let's force him into the spotlight: see if he can swim without a life jacket."

It would be her pleasure.

"I just want to see my father again without worrying whether he'll get shot to death."

And Laurel couldn't help but admire how Emily managed to say those words without even a quiver in her voice.

"That's what this is about." Glimpsing her friend through the window, Laurel gestured outside. "There's Joanna. It's time."

Stepping out of her car and into place with her partner, she and Joanna escorted Emily up the stairs leading into the courthouse, furtively looking at each other over her head.

They were doing it. Making waves.

And as they moved towards room 3, they heard exactly what Laurel Lance hoped to hear.

"This is a complete waste of my time." Somers, who had no idea his day was about to go sour. No idea that there were brave men and women out there who wouldn't allow men like him to commit murder and steal and ruin lives to save their own. "I was called down here on, what? A technicality? Which employee hates me this time?" The sheer arrogance in his tone made Laurel's spine go rigid.

"Mr Somers," a court official muttered as Laurel paused near the doors to listen, "I don't think you understand the seriousness of this order. You've been charged with an official-"

"Well, now I'm truly terrified."

"The fact that you were brought here after you were found dissolving a contract between Starling Port and the shipping agency you rented unused warehouses from in your district that are not officially affiliated with your business, an agency that is currently under official investigation after the incident last week, should be giving you pause at least."

"It takes a lot more than that to shake me, Magistrate."

Well then, Laurel glanced at Joanna who had her game-face on, let's see what it takes.

And they walked through the heavy double doors.

She'd take the moment Martin Somers looked to them - the way his eyes moved from Laurel to Emily, the exact second the expression on his face froze, the way he ever so slightly paled as he clearly recognised the daughter of the man who used to work for him, the man he tried to have killed the previous week - with her forever.

"Sorry we're late." The office was just a formality. They were paying Somers a courtesy by being here before the hearing, one he didn't deserve. "Depositions are difficult to file in Starling City."

Especially when her boss had spent twenty minutes at the crack of dawn, lecturing them all on how no court official would take the case on anything less than a sure thing.

Which they didn't have.

We don't need a sure thing, Laurel thought as they were seated; we have a witness, we just need to buy the jury.

And, just maybe, it would bring the case to the attention of a certain man in black.

My father, Victor Nocenti, Emily and I- we couldn't, shouldn't be working alone. But if she had to, she was more than willing to take a stand. For the sake of an honest man and his daughter, Laurel would bring this story to light. She would force the police to see that they couldn't just brush it under the rug and let a small family fear for their lives; she would make them all act.

Even if it scared her.

It was why Joanna hadn't eaten that morning, why Laurel hadn't slept: they were terrified.

But Laurel believed: she believed in Emily, in herself and in her father's ability to recognise when to do the right thing. After assuring Joanna that her detective father wouldn't let them come to harm, she'd shared her last nugget with her closest friend.

"Just… please don't tell me that were doing this because you're pissed at your father." Joanna pleaded with her.

They'd been at Laurel's apartment the night before, going over their plan of attack and Joanna - taking advantage of Emily's uncharacteristic poor punctuality - had taken the moment to air her fears.

"The Watchman told Victor to go to my father and to keep me out of this, to keep me safe." Laurel explained over her Indian curry. "He needs to know that I don't need to be kept safe. I want in."

"Which 'he' Laurel?"

Unable to respond honestly - because she was unsure of her answer - Laurel looked down, but Joanna continued.

"You see, I thought this was about your father's overprotective tendencies and your desire to see Victor Nocenti vindicated… but it's neither is it? You're doing this now, to get the Watchman's attention."

She wasn't sure what shocked her more: that her friend would think it or that she felt caught. Laurel couldn't eat another bite. "It's not about that." At Joanna's shrewd glance, she exhaled and added, "it's not all about that."

"I knew years ago that Laurel Lance would never be satisfied sitting on the side-lines or being told to duck out when the going gets tough." Joanna told her. "But your father isn't so blind as to let justice get away from him."

"He would to keep me safe." Laurel was more than certain of that.

"But this is different. Me and you both know that the effect the Watchman's had on some of CNRI's clients." The effect he had on the two of them. "Knowing that he's out there, especially after those fires, made it a little easier for me to cope with my brother being a fireman. Hope goes a long way. Every time he bags one Starling's top 20 most infamous, the rate of depressants in the city drops for a while and that's just one example."

"Yeah."

"But it never remains that way. If the Watchman wanted to do more, he'd have reached out: he doesn't want civilians in this with him and I get that."

At this, Laurel sent Joanna a look. "We aren't civilians." They were arbiters of truth and justice.

"We are exactly that. We're lawyers. That's it." There was something in that, which Laurel flat out resented. Hated even. That she had no more power than anyone else to bring bad men and women to justice, and Joanna knew her well enough to see it. "And you hate it, but those are the breaks. I have enough respect for that man – a vigilante – even though I've never met him, to do exactly what he says."

"I can't."

And for the first time, her friend looked scared. "God, why?"

"Because I want to help him!" She didn't so much shout as put an undeniable amount of passion into the words. "I want… I want to do this with him." I want to be part of something greater. "I want him to know that when he gets the bad guy, the justice system won't fail to make good on his hard work."

She wanted to make a difference too and it seemed like the only person in the city who'd managed to do that to date, was the Watchman.

A masked man who was, quite possibly, more alone than any of them.

And if he didn't want her help, then she'd simply show them all that she didn't need protecting.

"…When I left law school, when we joined CNRI, I had a purpose." Laurel explained. "We both knew the city was corrupt, that the chances of a successful hearing were 40% lower than the average city in north America-"

"Except in Gotham."

"-but we both had a goal." She pressed her friend, sounding more and more emphatic. Hungrier. "In the year since, what have we accomplished?"

Joanna shook her head; understanding softening her features. "You already have your answer. It's only been a year, Laurel. We literally skipped the two-year induction with the DA for immediate positions; expecting more so quickly would be professional suicide."

But Laurel had, did, expect more. "That isn't good enough for me. Adam Hunt was our first big hit in those 12 months: we didn't know that the Watchman was the reason why we were able to convict him-"

"Not that we got around to even doing that."

Again, the reminder felt like a slash from a knife and frustration licked at her insides. "The point is, I don't want to be kept safe. I don't want to be protected. I want to do the best I can do, and I don't want to wait to do it. And the only person I can see doing the exact same thing, is the Watchman. Think of how much more he could do with people out there he can trust?"

With that exciting notion – however farfetched it had appeared – Joanna, despite her reservations, had grinned at her. "Careful Loor; you're starting to sound like a radical."

The idea was titillating.

Laurel knew: if this hit the media – and it would – the Watchman would have no choice but to step in, behind the scenes. Maybe he'd contact her father or Victor directly, ascertaining the safety of the Nocenti family.

And Laurel would be right there; helping to sweep up the ashes the vigilante leaves behind.

As she watched Somers take in the Judge's words, how she studied his face - catching his concentrated effort to remain confidently nonchalant, even as he was being told he was being charged with attempted murder - she felt a thimbleful of satisfaction.

Oh, what it would be like to start a friendly fire…

Like the Watchman.

But Laurel didn't understand: there was no such thing as friendly fire. As egging on the blazes. A flame was a flame. They burnt all that they touched and rarely was anyone ever left unharmed. You couldn't control a fire.

You either put it out or you let it burn.

And Laurel?

She hadn't the ability, nor the stomach, to do either.

Even if she started one.

Lessons are harsh for a reason: they target your weakest point and make damn sure they're all you can see.

---

Queen Mansion

WEBG Starling City News:

"Over the past 15 years, Mr Redmond has withdrawn more than 3O million dollars from the plan's account. Mr Redmond claims refunding the Halcyon pension plan has always been his intent, but sources say Redmond was coerced by the Hood."

"So, he's more than just a thief?"

"His methods are unorthodox, to say the least."

"So are the Watchman's."

"The question is: which side is the Hood on?

"So, we have the Watchman," Thea aired unthinkingly from where she stood beside her mother's reclined form, "and now there's a Hood? God, this city. And look at that!" She gestured towards the screen where repeat footage of the 'event' over her brother's return bash occurred. "Video footage pops up, and suddenly everyone from anywhere is bringing it up."

Which meant, she'd probably be hearing about it every day for the rest of her life. As if any of it even matters.

Since the Friday before, every online media centre, every newspaper outlet: they'd all gone gaga about an honest-to-goodness sighting of the Watchman and the emergence of an arrow toting nut job. They didn't show signs of stopping. They'll probably have us doing essays on it at school. Like I care.

"I cannot believe," murmured her mother from cream sofa she'd been reclining in as she waited for her husband, "the SCPD have let a second vigilante appear in the city. That the Watchman was never caught is enough of an embarrassment; how are we supposed to have faith in our law enforcement now?"

Not that her mother would ever call the police; just bodyguards.

"There's a difference." Striding into the lounge, Walter was already watching the news report with open interest; as if he'd been listening as he finished signing his documents. "The Watchman has been diligently pushing his way into targeted criminalities and has proven to have a certain ameliorating affect that I for one, have been pleased to see. The other has, in a very short period time, openly coerced and threatened two CEO's; owners of their own corporations leading to their financial ruin. That isn't counting the deaths." Pausing behind his wife's chair, he considered his own words and made an addition. "This hooded man is very brazen."

Thea couldn't help but smile at her stepfather, who made her feel smarter just by being in the same room. "That's a real polite way of saying he's an asshole."

"Thea." Her mother quietly admonished.

Shrugging, Thea looked back towards the report and absently commented. "There really is something wrong with this city though if vigilantes are popping up."

Having one was already abnormal for any city, but two? It's definitely not because we're special.

It was kind of horrifying.

And Walter hummed his assent. "And yet, that only occurred to you because of the appearance of the Hood last week." He waited until he had Thea's full attention before continuing. "Some people need dramatic examples, like the Hood. Others understand the advantages to a slow takeover, which is what I think the Watchman has been trying to achieve." He gestured to the screen: to the somewhat blurred screenshot of the Watchman and the drawn poster of the Hood. "Maybe they could learn a thing or two from each other."

"Oh, there's an idea." Moira interjected; shifting in her seat as if the thought made her truly uncomfortable. "Let two dangerous menaces team up against the wealthy and powerful."

"You assume that's his target?" Walter asked her, brow arched.

"Adam Hunt. Redford. My son. Theatricality doesn't save lives; it creates enemies. And victims." She added thoughtfully. "People lash out from fear and the police already have their work cut out for them."

"What's wrong mum?" Looking down to her mother - is that actual fear on her face -Thea took casual delight in getting under her mother's skin; in pressing against the 'noblesse oblige', the superiority there because it was all a joke. What matters more to her; the money or the privilege? It certainly isn't her family. Just like Ollie. "Afraid we're going to be next?"

Even as her mother sent her a look of warning, Thea could only think, let them come. At the very least, it might shake up the household a bit. Might make miracles happen; might make her brother stop avoiding them all-

"Is it the Hood guy again?"

Speak of the devil. But she hadn't noticed that he'd been standing at the door until he opened his mouth. Kind of creepy.

Her brother, the sneak. He never used to sneak: it made her feel wary of him, which was so surreal.

But he wasn't watching the expressions on her face alter, figures. "The Watchman." Hands in his pockets, he was looking at the screen. "Who came up with that name anyway?"

"Nobody knows." And Walter was doing the same: engrossed. "The first year rumours started to circulate about him, he was more ghost than man. Online forums and local gatherings began writing in code about him, but eventually word did break out…" He trailed off as a warrant for the arrest of both vigilantes appeared in bold underneath. "Preposterous."

Smiling – always smiling – Oliver sent his father in law a glance. "You're an admirer?"

"I think the efforts of the Watchman are commendable." Walter admitted with a slight smile of his own. "And that the SCPD are, once again wasting resources they don't have."

"They're doing their jobs." How prim and proper, mum. How boring.

How hypocritical after showing her lack of faith in the system.

"The Watchman has built an image that gives comfort to some and instils caution in others, but this is the most he's ever been involved in the press or in an open investigation; especially after Carlos Vuentes." Walter continued. "The case against Adam Hunt was thought to have been started by an internal investigation; now we know that the Watchman was behind it. How many others has he been part of that the public were unaware of? And now this: the mandate that should never have been enforced – particularly since the SCPD were said to have created a specialised taskforce against him - has been lifted and he's a criminal all over again, instead of…"

"A watchman." Oliver filled in.

A smile. "Indeed. This other individual, this… Hood? He brought the Watchman out of the shadows with his violence. Maybe for the better." He stated conclusively; his tone sounded surprised at the route of his own thoughts.

As her brother looked at Walter, she watched her brother; unsurprised when she found she couldn't read him or understand why he was listening - unblinkingly and without an ounce of glibness - to Walter's words when he'd shown zero consideration or concern for anything else. Not Ollie.

And yet-

"You don't think it would have been better for the Watchman to stay out of the spotlight?" He eventually asked, mildly curious.

"I do not. Secrets have a way of revealing themselves and not usually in a way that benefits anyone. This is better. Change can be a good thing and with recent events, another rise in crime, alternatives should be sought. Anyway." Reaching for his coat resting on the back of the chair Moira sat on, Walter asked, "do you have any questions about today Oliver? It's a simple proof of life declaration; there shouldn't be anything to worry about."

And once again, the subject changed, and her brother turned into the aloof stranger he'd returned home as.

And her resentment grew.

Today, he'd be granted his death in absentia and he looked super thrilled about being declared alive and well.

He didn't look like anything at all.

Like he didn't care that he was home: he might as well have been getting his suit re-measured for how little. He. Seemed. To. Care.

Save the smiles he wore - each a varying degree of blasé or cocky - you couldn't really tell. And her mother looked like all her dreams had come true, without really paying attention to anything around her. Nothing new then. With the saccharine sweetness of it coating her teeth, Thea excused herself from the equation.

Her brother, mother, step-father; they could be happy liars in front of the camera for her. I'm out. They didn't need a fourth set of teary eyes in the court room. Been there, done that.

She'd been at court when they'd declared her big brother and daddy dead. A memory that had given her nightmares for months. Thanks for asking Ollie; for thinking it might be difficult for her or even wondering if it had ever been difficult for her since he'd been gone. Thanks for remembering mom; that the first time might be one time too much for her daughter. So, Thea bailed.

Story of my life.

That and, Tommy Merlyn walking into view gave her a great reason to look back as she walked out of the room because that was a very fine jean-clad behind on display there…

Silver linings.

---

Typical knee-jerk reaction of an island returnee: if in doubt, don't touch it.

"Let her go." Oliver told his mother - his tone utterly untroubled because it would make her pause; his once and future ability to undervalue meaningful moments in time was something his mother still seemed to be indulgently fond of, as if the fact that he hadn't grown mentally after five years was a comfort to her - reaching an errant hand out to stop her from following his younger sister. "This must be pretty rough for her."

And he shrugged… he didn't actually know whether it was rough on Thea or not; simply that there was a fracture between him and his sister that demanded he be open and honest with her if it was to heal.

And he couldn't be. Not ever.

So, let her go. Be the jerk.

Sighing, his mother acquiesced; but she sounded disappointed. "She isn't alone it that." She shucked on her coat. "But we should be doing this as a family."

"Moira." As much as Walter's presence had been more 'rude awakening' than happy circumstance, Oliver couldn't deny the man's calming influence over his mother. "I think we should be grateful that she's actually chosen to go to school rather than miss another day before term-time."

Unimpressed, his mother's lips pursed. "A rather thin silver lining."

To say the least: with each day after his return, his sister became more 'Ollie' than Thea.

The world didn't need another Ollie Queen.

Missing days of school? Attending his welcome home party as if the world expected her to be there? Hitting the kind of clubs that she shouldn't be allowed to step foot in and not coming home until an hour before her alarm clock would start a new day? Taking drugs, skipping class, smoking, sex… All this, instead of being at home or at a friend's house; watching bad TV and doing her online shopping with a tray of nachos in her lap, the way he'd seen her do on movie night.

And ever since that night - the night of his welcome home party - she'd been distant. It was his fault… and he couldn't change it.

"I don't need her to be there today." He said assuredly to his mother; inclining his head at her pointed look. "It's only fair: she's seen me in court before."

"And he's not wrong!" Tommy. Interjecting when his mother clearly didn't appreciate the attempt at finding humour in this, if the narrowed eyed look was anything to go by, was Tommy's style. "There was the DUI, the assault on that paparazzi douchebag, stealing a taxi," the memory reflected in his eyes, Tommy put a hand on Oliver's arm, "I still can't believe you stole a taxi-" a little guffaw escaped him before turning his wide grin back to the adults in the room… who were clearly not him, "and who can forget peeing on a cop?"

His mother sent them bothlong-suffering, yet indulging looks. "I wish everyone would."

Ditto. Not his finest moment-

"-And CNRI Lawyer Laurel Lance, leads the charge against Martin Somers; CEO of Starling Port."

The words took a moment to resonate before Oliver's gaze moved back to the TV screen: the news presenter at WEBG had pulled up an image of the courthouse, inside which he would be brought back to life.

In the middle of the shot stood who the screen labelled Martin Somers as he stormed out of one of the offices-

Laurel, plus two other women, followed him out.

"After a surprising statement this morning, the attorney made waves by bringing undeniable proof that CEO Martin Somers of Starling Port is involved with smuggling drugs into the city: his charges include illegal trafficking of narcotics and attempted murder!"

Martin Somers.

The warehouse the Watchman had apparently visited the week before: it had been one of Starling Port's official storerooms, the property of Martin Somers.

At his side, he felt Tommy shift; heard him exhale quietly as he watched with him. "There she goes again."

The words felt… reluctant.

And worried.

He looked at his friend.

"The trial is set for three days from now, where Miss Lance will present said evidence to…"

"Tommy?" His mother asked, mutedly; peering at him around Oliver who watched Martin Somers on camera, make a hasty comment to a reporter within the chamber walls clamouring for his attention, looking worryingly confident despite the questions being thrown at him.

"It's her…" Tommy ruminated, "I supposed you could call it a crusade." Tommy told his mother.

"Laurel?" As in, that Laurel Lance?

He nodded. "She's dead set on ridding the city of evil: one corrupt businessman at a time."

First Hunt, now Somers. Both were on the list: he'd checked after the news report, he'd… he'd done more than check. The presence of the Watchman had demanded more than a simple check.

His felt mother pulled back; knew she'd be worrying about the eldest Lance daughter, his ex-girlfriend who he knew his mother had adored.

"She's just doing her job." Oliver absently, irrelevantly stated; not even watching the screen at this point as his mind created scenario after scenario of possible future outcomes.

Why is Laurel after Somers?

The Watchman, now Laurel… being on the list meant he'd be after him soon too.

Three for three. Coincidence?

"No, I know her; she's got a scent." It took two seconds for Tommy to backtrack, glancing worrying at Oliver who just looked at him. "Not that you don't know her; I just-"

"Relax Tommy." He smiled banally at him, to put him at ease. "I haven't been here: you have. Of course, you know her."

Oliver doubted he'd ever truly known Laurel. Or maybe he had, and it was just easier to think he hadn't because he'd still disrespected her, betraying a good person in the worst way. What man could do that to a woman like Laurel Lance, to a woman he loved?

It was part of what was behind his motivation to change, behind his need to complete his father's mission, but it was also what required to him to remain to exact same way he'd always been. A ruse maintained through truth.

How could he ever heal what he'd broken between him and Laurel when he had to be Ollie with her? She would never accept 'Oliver'. Not his violence, not his views, not his vendetta or his mission… the man she'd known had died at sea: could she ever love the man he'd become?

There was no way she could. It was unrealistic.

Women like Laurel couldn't love monsters.

He knew that one day, there was the slight possibility that he could go back. That if he was ever given the opportunity to stop… he could go to her and he could try again, if she'd have him. If she'd let him make it up to her, let him fix the past.

But until then, they might as well be strangers.

Then there was Tommy. You grow close to the people you sleep with, sometimes. And rules changed when feelings were involved. Looking at Tommy's face, it was clear to Oliver that they had. Of course they had. He'd expected it when he'd seen them a few years ago. If it was real, he'd keep his distance: she deserved someone who wouldn't betray her.

The mission came first.

And he couldn't blame Tommy; a woman like Laurel? What wasn't there to love?

"You don't approve?" His mother asked Tommy as she moved to switch of the TV.

A noise left his friend. "I worry."

Oliver was a step past that; he didn't know Laurel's case file history. Did she do this normally? Did she target such criminals, or did she simply work on what she was given? Either way, it was going to get her hurt. Or worse.

---

Crown Court House

It was over before they got there.

"Hey, there's our girl." Tommy said under breath and this time: his use of our girl went past his notice.

Because she was suddenly right there, leaving the Judge's anti-chambers.

Tommy opened his mouth to call out to her probably, and it was the worst way for her and Oliver to have any kind of conversation, but before either he or Oliver could speak, Martin Somers was on her heels-

Striding right past her as if she didn't exist. Oliver would have preferred it that way, that Martin Somers had never laid eyes on her.

"You may have good lawyers Somers," arms folded, jaw strong, a small justified smile on her face; Laurel called out to him, making the man slow, "but good lawyers don't stand up to good evidence."

"And what," his voice was a smooth compendium of self-assurance and money, "evidence do you think you have Miss Lance?" A slow turn made Somers abruptly in control of the situation, despite the faint flicker of panic in his eyes. "Everything you say you have, is merely heresy-"

"I have that evidence Somers. The jury will be eating out of the palm of my hand before this is done."

"Are you admitting to manipulating the jury to put a one-percenter behind bars?" Head tilting, ridicule laced his tone. "Personal grudge maybe…" his eyes drifted to several feet behind her.

Where Tommy was stood with his fists clenched and Oliver behind him.

Watching. Blank faced.

"A little history perhaps?" He insinuated, making the muscles in Laurel's cheeks flutter.

But she regained her ground, "A little scared of the Watchman, maybe?"

At this, a definite stillness overcame Martin Somers. A fear that Oliver could only wonder at: pulled from concern for Laurel, from any kind of tactical plan he'd been swiftly developing in his mind-

To absolute absorption.

The Watchman.

"The Watchman's a myth, Miss Lance." Tone utterly demeaning, Somers cleared his throat, straightening his already straight tie and glancing towards the doors of the courthouse where an army of journalists and reporters were waiting for the account of the vilified businessman.

He could do real damage with the right words.

"Tell that to the guard currently in traction." New information. And how did Laurel find that out? Her father? No, Quentin Lance wouldn't put her close to a criminal like that. "Or the news report last week, showing crystal clear footage that the Watchman exists. I mean, do you want to explain why you suddenly closed up shop, became a hermit and can't be found at your penthouse sweet anymore?" Taking two very audacious steps towards the now sharply observant drug smuggler and entrepreneur, Laurel lowered her voice just enough to make it hard for Oliver to hear her. "You're afraid. You're afraid of him." There was a spike of admiration in her voice and at hearing it, Oliver saw Tommy shift in his peripheral: worry and something else making him look less a playboy and more-

Worried boyfriend.

"Rest assured Mr Somers, like the Watchman I will not rest until the truth is brought to light and the criminal put behind bars. If that isn't you," the fakest of fake smiles made the lipstick Laurel wear, more potent: even Martin Somers's eyes fell there, "then there's nothing you need to be worried about." Turning, she made her way back to the two other women accompanying her: an effortlessly stunning, dark skinned brunette he recognised as Johanna and a petit blond whose gaze was two bright, too invested to be anything other than an emotionally involved victim of circumstance. I need more information. "We'll see you in court Mr Somers." She called back without looking at him once again, touching the blond girl's arm and smiling before the three women started walking towards the front doors, passing Tommy and Oliver-

Gaze locking at the last second, Oliver swore he heard her breath catch, saw her eyes widen and she almost crashed into her friend. So focused on her job, she hadn't given them proper notice until now.

It was as if the previous Friday hadn't happened, as if she'd held it all in: his return, the fact that they hadn't properly spoken yet and she still wanted to, evidently.

"I wished you'd rot in hell a whole lot longer than five years."

How could she? In that instant, he wanted nothing more than to go back and undo it all so that he could be there for her now. Show her he thought she was brave and smart and right.

As he was, he wanted to lock her away in a box and throw away the key. Did she have any idea of how dangerous this was? Maybe she does. He couldn't see her running into danger without knowing all the facts, without having a backup plan.

Clearing his throat - eyes flickering away from Oliver, towards Tommy, Oliver could see Laurel visibly collect herself, not good enough though - Tommy sounded more than a little awkward. "Nicely done Miss Lance-"

"Don't distract me right now, Tommy." Eye roll already half complete by his Miss, Laurel was already far past them both with her dark-haired friend casting curious looks at him as they went.

The front doors opened, and the din of shouting reporters ensconced them in seconds; none of the women paid attention to Somers anymore or the way he watched them go, the mobile he was already speaking into in a hushed whisper that Oliver hadn't a hope in hell of hearing.

Laurel had no idea how dangerous men like Somers were-

A flash of effervescent blond in the crowd outside made his thoughts stop.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Laurel Lance of the now." A sigh made Tommy's shoulders sag. "I'd be more inclined to admiration if she hadn't started scaring me-"

Not hearing a word, Oliver was striding past him before he could finish.

"Hey- hey Ollie!"

He didn't stop; eyes searching the through the wide-open doors he was quickly nearing, he could have sworn he'd just seen her.

Felicity Smoak.

What was she doing here?

Was it even her?

It had him pausing mid-step. Why did he care?

She was no longer a factor in the equation. He'd deliberately not taken her up on her offer the week before.

"You have my number Mr Queen." She offered as she slid off the stool, her hair trickling over one shoulder in an oddly enticing way in that it hadn't been deliberate or for affect. That was Felicity Smoak: somehow who didn't act to play her role. "…I don't mind."

The mystery of her generosity was another, alluring thing that he quietly locked away.

His eyes followed her out of the club.

Captivation was dangerous.

So, he'd made a decision.

It would be better for her if he didn't see her again. It would be safer for him not to have a loose end: a woman who seemed to drag out secrets without trying to. It was a dangerous quality for anyone to have around him. She seemed to… see him. Some of him. Some of what he'd been sure he'd kept concealed. He didn't know what to call that. Was she just perceptive? No one else saw the little that she'd seen. Besides, he couldn't be real; not to anyone and Felicity Smoak would demand nothing less. Maybe not at first but he couldn't see a woman like that condoning lies and seeing masks as a way of life. And there was little point in having a friendship with anyone: death followed in his wake.

He wouldn't willingly put her close to that.

He didn't need a friend; he'd put her out of his mind.

So why did I just-

"Ollie," hands on his shoulders, Tommy muttered in his ear, "if you're late to your own rebirth- well, it would be fitting," he laughed in an undertone, "but I don't want to imagine your mum's face when you walk into the courtroom." The media would eat it up though. Hm. Patting both of his shoulders, Tommy's voice became much more consolidatory, more loyal. "Shake it off. Talk to Laurel afterwards: I know for a fact that her head's so deep into that case right now that she wouldn't hear a word you say."

Except she'd stared at him.

Except Oliver's thoughts had been focused on a very different woman just now that it was discombobulating to pull back. Disturbing in how… not good that made him feel. Deciding which was necessary - old loves and new acquaintances - and which he couldn't control - the emotions he'd tried to kill - or bury. It was a bit of an effort to come back to Tommy's wavelength.

In theory. He hadn't been on Tommy's wavelength in years.

"Yeah." He breathed; his eyes still unseeing on the crowd, stop looking for her. He pulled away and turned. "Let's bring me back to life."

To make the people on the list, regret that he ever had.

And some people that were never supposed to.

---

He was past anybody's notice now; secluded enough for this phone call.

"You were right." Somers breathed down the receiver, his nerves a little too exposed in the light of day. "Miss Lance is an issue. In any case, she's made it easy to find her should we have to… pay her a visit." Media coverage was a blessing in this case.

The ad from CNRI, the paperwork involved with this new hearing. Laurel Lance. Emily Nocenti. Victor Nocenti. Addresses. Contacts. Piece of cake. Marks. For more capable men and women to deal with.

He was simply the payday.

"And do you have a lawyer yet?"

In case it all backfired on him and he was blamed for the death of one of Starling's good girls and the daughter of a detective to boot. "Robert Stellart was available."

No surprise there: the man was the first choice of most men and women of Somers's class. And character.

"Good. I'll make it look gang affiliated. The SCPD can be held accountable for their decrease in manpower and presence on the streets."

It would kill Miss Lance's father. It would make it so that the Detective couldn't think straight. Good.

Except-

He cleared his throat. "And the Watchman?"

"Fighting in the dark from shadowed corners is his forte; overwhelming odds aren't." Confidence. She sounded confident and it was a balm; he needn't fear for ever making such deals with them last year. She had this. Even if the figure from the week before was haunting, he'd had days to process it. The Watchman was still human. He breathed in and out like the rest of them. "Besides, spontaneity can outfox any creature of the night. Keep chatter down: I don't want anyone broadcasting."

He wouldn't want to be blamed for such evils, would he?

"Perfect Miss White. Tonight?"

"Tonight. Stay where someone can see you."

---

11.23pm, several Blocks from the SCPD

Car stopping at a red light, it took everything Laurel had to remain composed for her client. "Don't be disillusioned Emily."

"I'm not disillusioned."

"Good." Good girl. "You-"

"I'm angry."

Her stomach twisted, eyes shooting to the woman on her right. "Emily…"

"He wouldn't let me see my father."

The He was Laurel's father and Laurel had been as angry about that as Victor Nocenti's daughter was now.

Even if his explanation… made an awful kind of sense to her; a rationale she couldn't deny. Even if she'd been forced to realise that maybe – just maybe – she'd pushed a little too far with this. Even if, despite the solid argument her father had provided, she still thought his reasoning behind pushing her out, lay in very different waters labelled you are my daughter and I will keep you out of this so help me-

Even if it was an angle she hadn't considered, which made her do the one thing she'd never done.

Doubt herself.

"You can't prevent her from seeing her father." Laurel pushed, swiftly following her dad as he – in his ire – stormed out towards one of the three back alley exits in the SCPD. "She has that right, despite what you want from me right now. There's no reason to keep them separated-"

"What you did this morning destroyed that right." He bit out; slamming the door shut behind her and secluding them in the dismal dark alley. "You might as well have painted a bullseye on them both!"

There he goes again: over the top and absolutely unwilling to admit that he'd been wrong. "What I did, was get the ball rolling on something you and the SCPD are too afraid to do anything but sit on." Shaking her head, her hands lifted helplessly. "It's been a week dad: what have you been doing?"

Squinting at her, her father tilted his head; as if he didn't understand what he was seeing in her. "You really don't think well of me at all, do you?"

It hurt to hear, that he'd aired it at all. That he'd had to.

It dropped into her stomach, the shock. Worst still, she'd given him reason to think that. But he'd know it isn't the case if he just listened to me. "You know the department isn't what it used to be, you told me so yourself: budget cuts and moles. I wasn't referring to you specifically-"

"Yes, you were. But let's focus on what's important right now." Jumping clear past the more personal issue, he looked so intent that her curiosity demanded she do as told for a moment. "I told you this was dangerous, that there was a reason I needed you to steer clear from it and it isn't because I'm trying to keep you out of it."

She scoffed. "Sure, it isn't."

"Laurel!" The shout made her flinch: her father was usually on edge but not to this degree. It wasn't normally this easy to get a rise out of him and she tried to avoid that at all costs. Once her father made a decision, he'd protect it with the ferociousness of a guard dog. "As much as I love you, not everything I do is about you being my daughter."

Arms folding, she spared her father an arched brow. "You could have fooled me."

Looking at her do that, she could see that her father - perhaps for the first time in a long time - realised that maybe trying a different tack, might work better than simply getting frustrated at her. There's a first time for everything.

Honesty. "Look. There's a reason why this had to be kept away from the media-"

"Spare me, dad. You waited far too long for-"

"No, this is where you get to listen." And that low, quiet tone - rarely used for her - made her stare. For her dad, being quiet was worse than the grumpy shouts. "This morning, you presented Emily Nocenti on a platter for Martin Somers and his contacts. His Triad contacts. Before today, he had no idea where Victor Nocenti was or that his daughter had refused protective custody on your suggestion." His tone made it very clear what he thought about that, but she couldn't feel hurt; a churning chasm replaced it in her belly. He was starting to make a slow, foreboding sense to her; the kind she didn't want him to make. "Hell, he didn't even know he was under investigation! All he knew was the vigilante-"

"The Watchman."

"The Watchman," near hissing the word, "uncovered his dirty secrets. He ran to ground, but he had no reason to think he needed to stay there. That there were loose ends he couldn't cut because they're in hiding with the police. Now he knows. I told you that we had to stay quiet on this one, that if we were to keep Nocenti safe, then we'd have no option but to hide him until we not only had enough evidence to put Somers away without a trial, but enough time to make his daughter was safe too. Enough time to make damn sure that the double agent I know this department has, doesn't pass on the fact that the one person who could destroy not only a criminal one percenter but the chance of the Triad extending their reach into this city, is currently in our custody and has agreed to work with us." Somehow, he managed to say it all without giving into the frustration she could see rising in his eyes. "But you didn't care about that. You just wanted to show your old man a thing or two." His smile was dry, humourless and short lasting. "Well, mission accomplished: you get to be the one to explain to Victor why his daughter's been killed. Oh wait, no you don't: I do."

Shaken by his words, Laurel opened what felt like numb lips. "You don't know that, dad."

Even she heard how weak that was. But I can't live my life in fear. She wouldn't bow down to it.

He sent her such a dad look and it told her just how young she really was in the grand scheme of things. "Laurel, I've been working this job a lot longer than you've been a lawyer. Scratch that, I've been a cop all your damn life; something, I see, has little to no relevance to you at all."

"Hey, I-"

"You have no idea how serious this is." He told her, point blank and it was like running into a wall. "You have no experience in cases such as this one, to be making the kind of decisions that can change the life of a family like the Nocenti's."

"I can only gain that experience by gaining that experience."

"And in the meantime, I'm sure that'll be swell compensation for any damage done along the way."

Looking at her father, she wondered how it had all gone so wrong. "You have no faith on me, do you?"

"Jesus, Laurel." Eyes closing, hand coming up to rub over them, she could see what the worry was doing to his sleep. Cutting it in half probably… and she'd added to it by not working with him, which is ample reason why we should have been working together from the start. "This isn't about you. This was never about you being a good lawyer, or whether or not I trusted or respected you."

"No, it's about my case and how you-"

"It's about Emily." Laurel blinked at the simple candidness in her father's voice: as if she should know better than to keep missing the point. "It's about Victor Nocenti. It's about how your little demonstration this morning," his belittling tone was something she'd normally cut in for, if she hadn't just realised that… he had a tiny point, "made it impossible to protect them the way they needed to be protected. You're so sure of yourself, you went off, half-cocked. We can't force Emily to welcome our protection, just like – if he chooses – we can't force Victor to stay in hiding. Seeing that on the news this morning, it was all I could do to convince him not to break with us. Once he does- and he will Laurel." He enforced, the quiet in his voice leaving for a different tone, the 'what the hell did you think you were trying to accomplish'? "He will cut and run, thinking it's safer to do so for his daughter and you know there's Jack we can do for him if he does. You know how difficult it is to get accurate witness testimonials and how they can be the deciding factor in court, but that isn't all we need. Evidence, camera footage, a paper trail: PROOF."

Something Johanna had said:

"Or maybe," and at this, Laurel knew she was pushing her friend her a little, "your father wants to make sure they have everything they need first. Maybe he's trying to establish a precedent for future cases."

Had she been right?

"I'm not talking out of my ass: taking down a man like Somers takes a whole lot more than a witness. And witnesses can be bought with money and through fear. Your actions might cause the worst to happen and yes," he cut her off before her mouth could even repeat the words, you don't know that, "I think in worst case scenarios because someone has to. In the real-world Laurel, idealistic lawyers get people killed."

The truth. It was the truth, wasn't it?

"You did exactly what the defence expected a green attorney to do. You invited the media. Made it a spectacle. They're probably already popping open the champagne. I'm sure you thought that in doing so, you were trapping Martin Somers," that was exactly what she'd thought, "but all you did was make it super easy for the bastard to walk through this whole thing intact. And I know that, because I've worked this kind of case a dozen times before. I'm made the same mistakes you have before, just in case you were getting any bright ideas of telling me that there's always a first time."

Which was something she did a lot with her father: she questioned and second-guessed decisions he'd made through decades of experience… with zero of her own to back up her claims of success.

And she'd wanted him to agree.

Which was maybe why she spoke her next words, unthinkingly. Overwhelmed. "Well, maybe if you'd shared this earlier with me, it could have been prevented. Maybe if you'd explained to me-"

"Maybe if you thought for a second that I had the right to be a cop in this scenario and not your father," which was what she'd been seeing him as, "that I might actually know what I was doing. Maybe if you'd thought like a lawyer and not like a hurt daughter," the whip of accusation, of disappointed love made the back of her eyes burn, "maybe you'd have realised that what you should have done the moment Emily Nocenti walked into CNRI, was pick up the phone and call the detective you knew was secretly working on a case that the rest of the city didn't know existed for a reason, so that we could bring her in and make her safe. Maybe you'd have trusted me to do the right thing, instead what felt good at the time."

It had felt good.

That morning, at the Courts, it had felt so tremendously good; openly flaunting what she'd thought was the ultimate threat in Martin Somers face. Making a criminal realise that maybe, he couldn't hide behind lawyers, red tape and money. Knowing her father would be watching the news, would see her take a step, see her take a stand.

Doing it in front of Oliver, who'd never seen her be a lawyer before, who'd - she was simultaneously annoyed at herself and thrilled to realise - been openly staring at her as she'd walked by; as she'd left the Courts in favour of gaining an audience to what might be the most controversial case - a rich businessman turned illegal drug smuggler - to make the papers in the latter half of the year.

But she'd forgotten about the payoffs, about his associates and his reach. She'd forgotten that sitting behind a desk narrowed your view of the world: she had limited knowledge of how such criminals worked. She'd thought she'd known enough, that each one was just like the last…

No, she hadn't forgotten. She'd ignored it. She'd ignored her father. So sure he'd been simply trying to keep her safely tucked away in CNRI, she'd taken his claims and had put them in the trash; choosing to disbelieve.

Quentin Lance didn't look angry, didn't look like he was accusing her; he just looked sad. Like she was still a child, making the same mistakes- except these mistakes wouldn't just affect her this time.

Swallowing, taking a breath - she was trembling, and she hated that - Laurel blinked down, backing off a step, seeing her father exhale in regret.

And got annoyed that he had. She inhaled away the tears. "I can't take back that I started the trial." She said; cross by this show of condescension from him suddenly. "But I can see it through to the end. I can bring Martin Somers to justice. Watch me." She said through a clenched jaw; refusing to acknowledge that she felt like she was aiming too high now. It doesn't matter: I'll make this work.

She didn't need anything more than her brain, Emily… and maybe a little outside help.

She'd been waiting for him to make a move since Emily had first walked into CNRI after all.

Regretful, frustrated and worried all at once; Quentin Lance called out to her as she reached the exit door, "Laurel-"

"You can't blame me for not trusting the SCPD dad." I sure know how to twist the moment, and she felt shameful in doing so but she needed to think. Needed to make this right and self-blame would colour her with too much doubt to function. She had to lay it elsewhere for a time. "For not thinking you'd get the job done." The hurt on her father's face nearly made her take it back. It was unfair to include him in that. He was a good cop, the best cop. He didn't deserve it. But he needed to back off. "Dad-"

He lifted a hand. "How about we stop trying to make each other see our points of view for one night." Gruff and waspish, her dad joined her at the door. "I've got a job to do."

She felt the sting: he was giving her whiplash and she wasn't used to it. "And I've got to tell Emily that after waiting over a week, she still can't see her father."

"He's in protective custody." He growled out the reminder. "If we move him and we're being watched-"

"The he's a dead man?" I don't think so. "You forget that the Watchman's watching, right dad?" Stepping through, she responded over her shoulder with a confidence she felt might be displaced but was also requisite knowing how little her father thought of the vigilante. "You also forget that the media knows there's a case now." He'd made that blatantly clear. "Victor Nocenti doesn't need to be in protective custody anymore." She smiled at him. "Unless there's else something I don't know?"

But the disbelief in his responding expression told her that she should have known what she didn't know. That she was missing something. Again. That she'd gotten it wrong, that she was being obtuse.

It was a trigger. "Didn't the Watchman basically hand you this case too, like with Hunt?" She asked. "Kind of hypocritical to reprimand me for what I did this morning when you're handling an investigation practically spearheaded by a vigilante you claim to be hunting."

At that, she left him high and dry. Ground regained? Yes, point made? No.

And there was this sinking feeling in her chest as his words registered:

"Well, mission accomplished: you get to be the one to explain to Emily why her father's been killed. Oh wait, no you don't: I do."

That maybe, she really had done the wrong thing.

And now, it felt like she didn't have enough eyes. Or hands. Every darkened corner her car passed was a place for bad people to hide in and there was something to be said for being shielded by several tonnes of metal. Every moment of silence was a reminder that she'd convinced Emily that Somers wouldn't be so stupid to come after her… and how ridiculous that seemed after her father had brought up the Triad.

This isn't the movies: assassins aren't going to pop up from out of the dark to come kill us. In the real world, businessmen like Somers didn't authorise hits, especially with the media so focused on them. Everyone would know, which was what I'd been trying to explain to my father, but he'll never agree with me.

Somewhat mollified by her own logic - and I came top in my self-defence class; I have a gun and pepper spray, I'll be fine - that media attention had been the very best thing, Laurel breathed out some of the tension in her chest as she let herself look at Emily. I should never have let him bother me like this. Only family could tear you down like that. "Are you sure you don't want to stay with me?"

"I'll be fine." The monotone told Laurel the girl was tired. "Just tell me I'll see him soon."

"You'll see him soon." Johanna's voice dishing out truth - never, ever promise what you might not be able to provide - was quickly waved away. Laurel always made promises she could keep. "Now," peering into the darkness outside her car, Laurel frowned, "has this area always been so…"

"Dark?" Apt: the side-road they'd just dove down was unoccupied but there were unlit lanterns, as if there'd been a few broken bulbs and the city council hadn't bothered to come fix them.

Smiling, a little dark never hurt anyone, Laurel turned another corner but a glaring light too bright to look into, flared in their eyes and she slowed the car down, blinking it away-

Then rammed on the breaks, her car swerving into a screaming halt when several dark figures stepped, dropped and moved into view; right in front of her car. Seemingly from out of nowhere.

It was an ambush.

Like… on TV.

She owed her father an apology.

She noted the guns in their arms and dread dropped a boulder in her stomach.

"Oh no." Emily whispered and for a frozen moment, Laurel's brain chose to remember:

"This morning, you presented Emily Nocenti on a platter for Martin Somers and his contacts. His Triad contacts. Before today, he had no idea where Victor Nocenti was or that his daughter had refused protective custody on your suggestion."

She'd thought he'd been ridiculously melodramatic.

He hadn't.

The men jogging to cover the front of her car? She could just see outlines of their faces: foreign, Asian. All of them.

They all lifted their guns as one, taking aim. At her car. At them.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it. Helpless.

"Get down!" Arm reaching over to Emily, Laurel didn't have it in her to flood the engine with gas: she knew it was too late. The car would be full of bullets before she managed to rev the engine.

Heads ducking down beneath the dashboard, their eyes squeezed shut, hoping for a miracle…

But then nothing happened.

Breathing in too large breaths, gasps, Laurel – inch by inch – lifted her head, feeling foolish. Feeling afraid in a situation here she knew she held no power. They could drag them out of the car, video tape the whole thing and send it to Victor Nocenti. They might even keep them alive.

It meant her father was correct and Laurel hadn't been.

"No, don't!" It was more a whimper from Emily than a word as Laurel tried to rise, as if being quiet would keep them hidden. "Wait-"

A thud from outside - like meat hitting tarmac - made them both stop and stare at each other.

What was that? Head just brushing over the rim, Laurel peered over the obstacle, her heart pounding-

Then her mouth popped open, eyes widening at what she saw; heart pounding, brain flooding with chemicals that made her move, made her scramble up. "Emily, get up!"

"What? What is it?"

Hope. "Just get up!" And if she sounded a little breathless, a little light-headed, she could be forgiven…

Because she was watching the Watchman level out the playing field by a lot.

He'd come. He's here.

She knew he'd be watching. Now she knew he always would.

"Holy crap." Sounding exactly as Laurel felt, Emily stared into the darkness as a body was dragged so swiftly across wet tarmac it was a blur and – finally – a blaze of gunfire from another man, lit up the night and they caught sight of another darker figure in a cape-like coat, lash an arm upwards and dislodge the rifle only to – what Laurel recognised from defence class – dislocate the man's arm and disappear again with the kind of ease she admired.

Envied.

But then her body was working for her and Laurel's hands took control of the car, unable to stop watching what was happening; how another one of the men vanished along with the faint sound of a yelp. "Hold on."

---

This isn't fear.

But it was. It always was.

Memory was cruel in the way that it never let you forget; not even for a moment.

Weapons can hurt, can kill; they're meant to be feared, but she… she was afraid of guns. It was something she couldn't admit to out loud, that there was something that made the Watchman want to revert to her alter ego.

Sometimes fear had to be buried, because there are things that should be.

The kind of fear that would paralyse Felicity Smoak, hyperaware of what they could do and had done - of how easily they could destroy - in the wrong hands.

The Watchman knew that the hand holding the back of a man's head right now as she jerked it forwards into the side door of a car – where the man had crouched – was small. Too small to be male.

Supporting it with leather – a tight glove over the body suit beneath – was applicable to the rest of the her body: as with the now three-inch rubber soles at the bottom of her feet, the coat that was thin, light and durable that concealed her form adequately enough without restricting the use of her legs, and the mask-

A black sheath that was more art than face; it could be dismantled, it had its uses, but it wasn't human. She had other masks but this one fit her.

Right now, it fit her.

An anomaly. Without name or face or figure.

It didn't change the fact that she was a woman. Smaller than most would think. A woman who enjoyed Netflix and ice cream and pretty dresses and fuck me shoes that emphasised her figure.

A woman who'd seen the city for what it was: a time bomb. Potential for greatness, but likely to implode. Not a ticking man trap, but a rising tidal wave of violence and pain waiting to ripple through the city like a cancer. The kind of escalating hostility that created monsters and mayhem and made myth, real. No one was dismantling it. No one wanted to look too hard into the darker places that the city naturally nourished.

The thought, once, had numbed her; had screamed at her to run, run and pretend like she didn't know, hadn't seen a thing.

Until she'd realised how much she fit that dark place. How much she could do, if only she could swallow her fear, if only she could learn. And it had taken time to do that, to learn; to being a friend to the night, to understanding how to escape insurmountable odds, to not getting the ever loving crap beat out of her because she'd made a noise or because she'd miscalculated, to being efficient, to being the best.

So.

I can handle it. She had for years. She was a shadow and shadows didn't feel. Nightmares didn't flinch as barrels were cocked. Those who endure didn't pray to be anywhere else but in the centre of the madness. There is a price to choosing to live in the dark: the right to be stilled by fear.

You can't kill fear.

You feel it. You accept it and you resign yourself to being a construction of it. You use it to face the real monsters in the dark squatting alongside where you step.

Yes, ego played a part. It had to, for reasons far from the vanity-soaked compulsion that had driven a lawyer - with zero credential standing in the corporate and criminal courts - to walk into a court house - on a silver platter with Emily Nocenti as a side dish - to try and destroy a man she didn't have a hope of tearing down, simply because she'd wanted to dress down her father?

All Miss Lance had managed to accomplish, was to make a very easy target out of herself, an innocent man and his daughter.

A woman who broadcasts her secrets with poorly handled factoids of men like Hunt on wooden boards around her desk for the world to see, who allows her face to be used as a deterrent and a marketing device, who blows cases wide open to the media for her own caprice, was a woman looking to make her mark on the world rather than bring criminals to justice. No matter what she'd convinced herself.

Pride. Money. Conviction.

And it stank of ego.

Which meant, the Watchman couldn't avoid the guns like a plague, couldn't allow them to walk away.

The Watchman was a villain all on her own, but guns scared her.

One, two; buckle my shoe…

It explained the aggression.

How every man she knocked down tonight, wouldn't be waking for hours instead of being gagged and bound and conscious; how she was using her most effective moves to disarm each of them because she wasn't as big as they were and didn't have the option of being caught.

Physical engagement had never been her first choice: it wasn't her forte.

There were weaknesses there.

When she'd first started out, she'd been hyper aware of her own inexperience. Unlike Laurel Lance, she'd had to make damn sure she could back up with confidence any kind of physical threat that she'd tried to impose on the world. It had been slow; born of youth and patience and anxiety.

She'd had no sureness.

Three, Four; shut the front door…

If speed was essential, there was a trick to sprinting into a field of fire; to moving and breathing and fighting as bullets fly. Break past limitations of the flesh. The flinches, and pauses, the stops and starts.

No thought. Let the body do the thinking. Let the senses take over.

Reach out-

Five, Six; pick up sticks…

Don't reach out; don't feel them, don't touch the violence in them. Just distract with rhyme.

There were the things even the Watchman didn't want to face.

Seven, eight; lay them straight…

Only when the bodies hit the floor - alive, alive - save all but one, could she focus on the problem currently hightailing it in the opposite direction they'd driven from. Not fast enough.

Not for me.

Laurel Lance. If she wasn't careful, she'd become the person who gets people killed.

Or gets herself killed.

---

The engine sounded too loud suddenly as the car skidded backwards the way it had come.

It was a good thing, since the motorcycle Laurel hadn't noticed to her left - the one with someone boosting up the engine - abruptly sped at them-

Ramming into the wall, where Laurel's car had been seconds before.

Emily's scream made her speed into overdrive and they were out of sight and down another lane before either of them could take another breath.

Fingers numb, brain stunned into silence, Laurel tried for breath. For words.

Nothing came.

"The SCPD." Emily managed to punch out and Laurel nodded: daddy…

But then, as she turned the bend leading past an alley that would exit on the main road, a dark shape – so different from the rigid figures that had wanted to shoot them up – fluidly dropped out from nowhere. From up high.

Directly in their path.

Her foot slammed into the breaks and both women were thrown forwards, their chests catching on their seatbelts.

Neither uttered a word; too scared, too stunned.

Too thrilled.

The shape straightened, and Laurel glimpsed the mask her father – the news – had brought up. It was scarily androgynous and… detached. The features were for practical use only, as if a smile - even for the face underneath - was too much to ask for. The contours were oddly slender and something in Laurel liked the fact that this person, though far from physically imposing, could still scare hardening criminal shitless because he could back up the darkness he brought with him, with true capability. Could scare her shitless, because he looked like a black stain, even in the night.

Because he can fulfil his promises.

Maybe he could teach her how.

The thought surprised her. Where did that come from? It didn't matter-

It didn't matter because the Watchman's arm suddenly lifted; a hand reaching outwards towards them… and he curled inwards a finger once, twice-

A, come out here.

Then the hand turned, the finger pointing down once, twice-

To me.

The head move, body didn't twitch, but had a feeling he was staring unblinkingly at them.

Now.

The hand fell down, and she could gleam nothing from the mask, save that she was sure he was looking - gesticulating - to her and not Emily.

Heart beating so fast she could barely feel it in her chest, it made her feel kind of dreamlike as she stepped out of the car with Emily rooted in her seat; too overwhelmed to really consider what they were doing-

"You ignored me."

Stumbling from the open car door, her heart stopped for a second. That's what he sounds like. "Your voice…"

The low, rolling rasp of what Laurel presumed was the voice modifier she'd heard brought up in regard to the Watchman, made the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention. It was surreally smooth too and she couldn't help trusting it in the absence of any avarice or malevolence coming from him.

He said nothing. He just… stood there. Perfectly still. Was he even looking at her? Just when like when a person wears shades, she couldn't tell.

Mouth opening, no other words escaped her when she tried, which was mortifying and ridiculous. She'd officially become the stereotype; the classic damsel, unable to voice words after she'd been rescued. Don't falter now; this is what you wanted. To be seen by this criminal hunter. To be contacted.

If they worked together, they could achieve so much.

Maybe that was why, after the Watchman spoke next, a wave of frustration, pure nerve and anxiety loosened her up.

"I specifically instructed to Detective Hilton," and there was no inflection, no insight to how the Watchman might be feeling in the tone or words he used, "that Laurel Lance shouldn't be involved in the building of the case against Martin Somers." She couldn't even tell if he was angry. Or nothing. Or something. But her name on his lips made breathing difficult. "That you were too inexperienced to handle a criminal trial where the judge, the defence, and most certainly, the jury, have been bought by the Triad; a case fought for by others, a case with internal connections. That you'd be too driven by emotion, by professional discontent, to see clearly the damages you could accrue." With the slightest movement, the Watchman glanced towards Emily still sat in the car and there was the rising heat she'd been waiting to feel. She couldn't let him think like her father; to see only one thing and not what she could bring to the metaphorical table. "Given the nature of the conversation between yourself and Detective Lance earlier this evening, I'm assuming this is something you're already well aware of." Wait, what? He'd heard her and her dad talking? How? They'd been alone in that alley… that she could see. Oh my god. He'd been listening in on them: she didn't know how but if he could modify his voice like that then it wouldn't be difficult would it? "But assumptions make fools of us all and I've been wrong before."

When, she wanted to ask because she couldn't see it happening.

This person was larger than life, than her life.

Maybe that was why she couldn't rush into this with all four cylinders rotating, words rolling off her tongue, entitled justification seeping from her pores – I live in this city. She deserved to feel anger at the inequality of the way the city worked.

Yet… nothing came out.

There was this pause; lengthy and dreadful but the idea of breaking it felt impossible, especially when that mask - his head - tilted just a tad. Like an animal - a panther - gaging her.

Eventually he spoke again. "Were you unaware of what I asked?"

Okay. This was it. The moment she proved she wasn't this little greenhorn who needed protecting. "I was-"

"Gratifyingly, nepotism doesn't sway your father." It wasn't just like she hadn't spoken: it was as if he knew exactly what she'd been about to say and had found it irrelevant. "And divergence isn't as daily as most hope, leading to me assume - and I dislike the notion, greatly - that you did know and, for reasons that I cannot fathom, simply ignored what I asked. What I asked for a very good reason." He added when her mouth hurried open once more. "Life is important, Miss Lance. The life of your client. Your life. The life of Victor Nocenti. And you almost threw it all away on the promise of a mark of distinction on your file at CNRI."

Ire spiked in her chest. "That isn't fair." The words weren't making sense to her.

It hadn't been like that. If he'd been watching, he'd have known. She'd been in full control-

"But you didn't care about that. You just wanted to show your old man a thing or two." His smile was dry, humourless and short lasting. "Well, mission accomplished: you get to be the one to explain to Victor why his daughter's been killed. Oh wait, no you don't: I do."

It was possible she'd missed a thing or two… but she was more than capable of fixing it. Of getting Victor Nocenti the justice he deserved: she was very good at her job. "I admit, I didn't consider the full ramifications of what I did this morning but I did it for reasons you don't-"

"You did it because you thought the entirety of the SCPD force were in the pockets of men and women like Somers and that having a credible witness in their custody was erroneous at best, disastrous at worst. An understandable concern, but one extremely unhelpful to act on. You did it because you've lost faith in your father, you're loosing sight of why you wanted so badly to join CNRI and you don't understand the lack of passion from the people around you regarding the unfairness of the judicial system on the victims you face daily. You did it because you were angry. You didn't do it for Nocenti."

The words were disarming. Damning.

He still didn't move. Didn't shift. Didn't breathe as far as she could tell; he just stared at her and it hit her that the Watchman was waiting for her to reveal some of the intelligence she used on the daily, the kind of intelligence he was displaying now. To form words instead of incoherent gasps. To show that she hadn't simply done it to prove a point.

To give him a reason to trust her.

Sucking in a breath, Laurel straightened but her palms were sweaty. "I-I," I'm stuttering- stop it. She didn't have her gun on her and he had her at a verbal disadvantage: two feelings of vulnerability she wasn't used to. "I think that you have no idea who I am or why I-"

Too fast to consider, the Watchman was suddenly right in front of her and her mouth trembled shut. As in inches away.

It would touch her later that they were roughly the same height.

"Falling back on such schoolyard play as 'you have no idea who I am' and 'what' and 'how' and 'why' and 'if'… I see." The slow roll of each word made Laurel realise how unimpressive she'd managed to sound. Her face grew hot. "I'm not surprised."

"If you'd just-"

"I am incredibly worried." He was bigger than her and she wondered just how much muscle lay beneath the suit, just how much negative experience made this man so confident as to overlook the potential possibilities that could come from Laurel spearheading this. "You've convinced yourself that only you can achieve what an experienced DA cannot, that there are no others to take your place."

"Are there?" She managed to push out. "Is there someone in this city with the conscience and nerve to do this?"

She didn't think so-

"Yes." Punch in the gut. "There are two; their profiles are credible and extensive. I was planning on contacting one of them before this morning, when the case was a worthy one. Now I'll be lucky if a CNRI attorney with lofty goals and no prior practice to back her takes over as prosecution." The quiet, steady tone - as if he didn't need to be louder than what average conversation would warrant to get his point across and he didn't - was oddly soft, as if in life, this man's voice wasn't… deep. Or hard. And it gave her the impression now that he was disappointed… but then she remembered. He thought his hard work – saving Nocenti, scattering the smugglers on purpose the previous week – was going to waste. "Yet you utilise methods that not only provoke men like Somers into taking the kind of action that almost got you and your client - the woman you promised would be safe with you without any kind of assurance to that self-proclaimed fact - shot to death tonight," she flinched, "but that also takes away public confidence in the SCPD. In CNRI. In the law itself."

Humiliation at the weight of his words made her speak. "Says the vigilante." It just came out and even to Laurel's ears, it sounded asinine and it took everything she had not to look away.

The vigilante. This man who'd appeared because weakness in the law had helped create people like Somers, because sometimes it didn't help the victims, but the criminals.

You don't have to go outside the law to get justice.

It had been her mantra.

When had it changed? When did she-

"True." The agreement made her soar, allowed her to take a breath, to look back up- "But if I wanted to undermine men and women like your father, I'd have been far more active, more ostentatious, and more debilitating to the city in the past. Just as you were this morning." The excitement died in her chest: that wasn't a compliment. "It's clear you think you're alone in this; that you're the only one trying to shine a light on what the rich, the powerful, and the other evils in this city, have tried to hide. It's incredibly short sighted." She wanted to scream: he made it sound absurd, but he didn't understand. Just because she worked at CNRI, it didn't mean that she should just ignore the atrocities that occur under the noses of her boss, of SCPD – the kind of things that were ignored. If she had to step past red tape, then so be it. The Watchman did it too after all. She hadn't been alone, not really. He'd been there from the start. She could deliver justice in her own way. "Hunt. Somers. They're examples of a defunct, prejudicial system."

"I don't need to be reminded of that."

"A system that you are employed by. A system you once had great faith in."

Eyes wide, she stared at the mask. It's like he knows what I'm thinking. "A system that's failing."

"Rapidly switching your rationale to fit a time, isn't something that inspires trust Miss Lance."

Lips pressing together, she accepted that point. She did sound… flaky. "There's only so much you can take before you strike out. Can't I believe both?"

"Believing that the law works until it doesn't; how self-serving can you become? No: simply choosing to see only one side, one set of examples and ethics to follow, results in faulty reasoning. In limited compassion. Nothing in this world works at 100%, 100% of the time." His words were hypnotic. "The city is a bird pen; a haven for predators and a home to prey and you think you're trying to rattle a cage," there was nothing admiring in his tone, "but you have no idea how large it is, how many species of predator there are or how one act can ricochet onto another. You either break it open or you gradually pry apart the bars. The files on Hunt and Somers were made available - given to you - because I pried open a bar." A sudden inhale from him, breathed life into his otherwise still form. "What I didn't do was supervise subsequent action and I'm only just beginning to see how careless I've been. How lackadaisical others are: corruption travels in various forms in this city." Because the vigilante had already dived in, had already stirred the hornets' nest, but he'd done it so quietly no one had noticed. A true shadow. Laurel had simply - accidentally - been awarded with the fruits of his labour. Head turning enough to make her think he was looking down the alley, he added what she figured was an afterthought. "So I have to thank you there… for making me aware."

It didn't sound quite like gratitude to her.

Something dawned in her just then. Had he reached out before? Deliberately? "How many cases have you been solving that we weren't aware of?"

There was a long moment where he didn't do anything, yet it pressed on her. That nothingness. His surreal calm. The tension.

The head came back to her. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it does." She whispered; wide eyed and a little overawed.

"Why?" Head moving, slanting, he gave the impression that he'd cocked a brow. "I'm sure your interest would wane: it doesn't pack quite the same punch as walking into a Court of Law with the lie of charges pressed by a man who rescinded your council, with only the daughter of a terrified witness to back you up against a snake- against Robert Stellart who will dissect and destroy every aspect of your case thinned by a severe shortage of usable evidence. You are not the mongoose in this scenario."

His words were like bullet fire, only quieter: her mouth snapped shut.

That eerie stillness she'd mistaken for calm? It was control, she realised. What was he feeling so strongly that it warranted for control? Was he so worried about her presence in this case?

And-

"…it doesn't pack quite the same punch as walking into a Court of Law with the lie of charges pressed by a man who rescinded your council, with only the daughter of a terrified witness to back you up against a snake-"

She'd heralded a case for a man who'd given her up as his attorney.

She could get fired-

No. She was Emily's attorney… Emily who had agreed to civil action in place of her father, which was the technicality in question. So, she wouldn't get fired, but if CNRI discovered Victor Nocenti wouldn't work with her – that she'd started a fire without it - the very least she'd receive was a trip to her bosses office. Public embarrassment.

Johanna had warned her. Johanna believed enough in her to take a chance on a less than sure thing.

"Evidence of Hunt's embezzlement could only be ascertained by directly interfacing with his internal server located within the confines of the home office in his tertiary abode." He continued, pulling her out of her worry. "The SCPD weren't granted the warrant they needed; Hunt is on good terms with the judge. Slipping inside what was once his corporation was easy. Gaining evidence in such a way as to make it a viable option in court wasn't. There's a reason why it is essential that others follow the law in place of me: the system has to do part of the work, otherwise what is it that I'm trying to accomplish here?" The philosophical conundrum threw her. She'd love to know that answer and would have asked him to explain, except he wasn't finished. "I did what had to be done I passed it onto Hilton… who followed orders."

He'd passed it onto CNRI, where it was handed to her.

Why did the Watchman sound… she couldn't really tell; he was still giving nothing away and she didn't understand it at all.

"I've been placated by my own ideals: I believed that justice could prevail with some outside help." His focus on her was a real physical sensation. "Hunt was taken care of before you had to pick the date of his trial." That she'd done nothing to aid in the dismantling of his company still burned, all the more hot because she'd received some of the credit for doing nothing. "Then Victor Nocenti's daughter walks into CNRI and Laurel Lance sees an opportunity undermine everything she stands for." The way he phrased it stopped her words. Again. He was good at that. "Instead of taking precautions, instead of communicating with your father - with the SCPD - you took it upon yourself to expose the solitary witness in an attempted murder investigation and drug smuggling enterprise to the media. You gain nothing for it, save some credibility for CNRI." Slowing down to a crawl, his tone was unmistakeably repelled but flat which was, oddly, far more effective than any kind of shout and he practically spelled the next words; separating the syllables clearly to emphasise the issue. "I'm sure your bosses are very pleased."

Which sounded like she'd done it for the money and prestige and-

"It wasn't like that, I-"

"You informed Somers and the Triad that Nocenti is in witness protection, that Emily Nocenti is in your company and there are only so many places to hide in a city with broken cops and the desperate, the impoverished. This was your mark against the rising tide of crime." He made it sound demeaning and even though the case had been handed to her, even though people thought she'd been brave enough to accept it, she hadn't actually done a thing to aid in it. All her research, all her claims; unnecessary and useless in an instant. "You have no idea what you're doing, and it shows."

Retracting from her suddenly, the Watchman turned; moving away towards the car and Laurel almost fall forwards, distracted by the insult – the truth in it that she couldn't deny, especially after her father's words - but he was several steps away before she righted herself. "Don't undermine me; I am very good at my job."

"I'm sure you are." Ineffective. She might as well hurl bowling balls at his head.

Stood side-on, the Watchman considered - she presumed, since she couldn't see his face, save the way his head moved - the state of her car, which she'd only just noticed, had taken some damage.

Some bullets.

"You're lucky they didn't hit the engine." He said quite simply as he inspected the area. "You'd be dead if they had."

That's enough. "Why are you here if you think all I've done is jeopardise this case? If I wanted a lecture, I'd have stayed with my father."

The Watchman, on his haunches - black on black - stilled; elbows on thighs hidden by the dark shroud of his coat… and then his head and only his head, twisted in her direction. "Did you honestly just question why I saved your lives?"

Stupid.

The word smacked her in the face. Oh god. Her eyes closed. She'd done it. She said something undeniably dumb. In front of the Watchman. "That's not what I meant."

"Clearly." It sounded more like, I really hope not. Silence and a cool breeze cooled her cheeks before he continued. "Your face in the papers was another reason I kept track of you and Emily Nocenti." He'd seen her face in the ads; he'd watched her on the news. But the burr of the modulator had her swallowing; this time, the words sounded clipped. "Audacious. Brave." Finally. Finally, the derision her father had shoved at her disappeared. "Thoughtless. Unwise." Only for it to return; sharper than before. "Senseless. Pick a descriptive." Him standing abruptly had her stomach clenching even though he was several yards away and heading towards where Emily sat, gawking at his approaching form. "Please tell me you realise you're being used?"

The question had the impression of a gong being bashed upside her skull.

Used?

"What do you mean?" She latched onto the question like a blood hound to blood. How did he know? What had she missed? "By who?"

Watching the Watchman ignore her question and carefully pull open the side door to the car – seeing the mixture of fear and hope in Emily's eyes as he came into view without a window as a barrier – Laurel realised… she'd missed a lot more than she'd realised.

A whole lot more.

"Emily Nocenti." He didn't offer a hand; instead he stepped back, leaving room for her to exit the vehicle. To her credit, Emily didn't immediately run away; she stood there staring at him. "Is there a place you can stay tonight: your home is currently surrounded."

"Surrounded?" Emily repeated, sounding a bit more herself than Laurel had.

"Somers has connections to the Triad: they sent in their gun for hire's. It would have only taken a few hours to set up."

The words made Laurel feel sick.

She'd. Missed. Everything.

"Oh god, um..." Visibly swallowing, Emily looked from him to Laurel and back. "Maybe I should take up that offer for witness protection?"

"It's too late for that." Blunt but necessary, the Watchman took Emily's focus. "Their contacts will have made it impossible for you to be taken where they can't find you. In a matter of hours you'd be in their grasp regardless."

A small, unrestrained sound of distress left the young, strong woman. "Then what do I do?"

"Stay with Miss Lance." As the aforementioned lawyer's eyes questioned him, he responded to her silent words. "After the reveal this morning," her jaw tightened, "and the discussion earlier, your father had two squad cars placed outside your apartment complex: I checked before I came here." He murmured. "Five policemen roving the area: former swat. The only ones he trusts." He added.

As if to soothe her.

Tentative… she smiled in thanks. Felt the pressure in her chest seep out. Nodding. "Alright. We'll go."

"That would be wise." His attention went back to Emily. "They won't be there after they realise what's happened to their friends but I would err on the side of caution."

Then he was walking away…

She knew that he'd go and her body moved before she could stop it; running towards where Emily stood, pale against the car. "What happens now?"

His back to them both, he paused: the mask tilting just enough in their direction for Laurel to glimpse the slight shimmer of the black covers where she guessed a pair of eyes with a direct gaze were situated. "Now? Be specific."

"After this. Tomorrow?" The trial. Her father. Emily. Victor. Me. Us against them. What about that?

She felt ridiculous. She felt excited.

Half turned to them, the Watchman took a moment. "Tomorrow and the next day, you do your job. You haven't given me much choice but to trust you in this."

She stepped closer. "You can trust me."

"I don't trust anyone."

She felt that and, for some reason, wanted to reach out. "That's a lonely way to live."

"It's the way things are." So decided he was; the response was mechanical. So there's a heart under there. Only someone who felt acutely could compose an answer so robotic is sounded rehearsed. "It's how things have to be."

"Do they?" Making sure to quieten, to keep her words from Emily's ears, Laurel took another step. "If we worked together in this-"

"If we were working together, you would have never done what you did this morning." And she could feel eyes she couldn't see, boring into her. "Don't try to persuade me into thinking you're a logical person who listens to advice given from people who know better than you do: the world doesn't work the way you want it to, just because you want it to."

Mouth open, she tried to retaliate…

But she felt the danger here: like exposing herself to a black hole with something she couldn't possibly understand hidden in its depths. Exposed to the black. But she knew it wouldn't hurt her.

So she felt the rub of his words and the snarl finally worked its way past her mouth to-

"I'll be close." He muttered, already moving to walk away.

"Wait," she licked lips; this hadn't gone at all like she thought it would, "you said I was being used?" He could think what he liked about her; he was stuck with her. She'd show him, she'd prove herself. "What did you mean?"

"You don't need to know." His voice called back.

Like fuck I don't. "You said I did the wrong thing before but don't you think keeping your secrets close made all of this possible? If you'd shared what you knew-"

"Then maybe you wouldn't make mistake after mistake?" Stopping in place further into the alley, the Watchman turned back to her. "Blame me if you need to Miss Lance: you're a dog with a bone. Once you're on a case, there is nothing and no one that you stop for. Even if it's the truth."

He was leaving and she didn't know how to- "How do I contact you?"

"You don't."

Without any kind of flare, without telegraphing what he was about to do, the Watchman raised one arm towards the sky and it was only when it was fully arched that she noticed a device of some kind in his grasp, familiar to a pistol only larger.

Then his finger twitched and something shot up out of the thing, going fast enough that she didn't see the tip reach where the Watchman had pointed-

Before the Watchman himself was lifted into the air. Fast.

"What-" Stunned, gaping and not caring that was, Laurel stumbled forwards to where he'd disappeared and looked up-

Just in time for Emily to catch up with her and see leather boats and a black coat disappear from sight over the rooftop five floors above their heads.

"Wow." Deeply feminine, Emily sounded breathless.

"You can say that again."

"Wow."

Smiling at the insanity of it, feeling a thrilled tingling shift something inside her – change could be a good thing – Laurel pushed away an errant lock of hair.

If she had nothing – no evidence of an attempted murder, no way to protect her sources – then fine. She'd change the angle: she'd make it about the drugs. There had to be evidence left behind by the smugglers at the warehouse.

It was a start.

She'd forgotten the rush of starting something new; how good it could feel, like pure adrenaline and purpose.

She'd forgotten how much ending something could hurt; that she wasn't invulnerable to it and that no number of new things could take away that pain.

---

Queen Consolidated, Thursday

He thought he wouldn't remember a thing, that it had been 9 years too long, but he knew.

The moment he got out of the car, he felt it. This building was his father's.

And… he didn't really care.

His reason for returning to Starling hadn't included getting involved with a company that was already running smoothly: his mission was the list. The names his father had written down: men and women who'd aided in the criminal tidal wave sweeping the city. It wasn't the Glades the city needed to fear; it was the hidden ruling class.

"The rich folks of Starling tend to ignore the general degeneration of an integral part of their city." Watching Felicity Smoak, he realised she wasn't really seeing him at the moment. She was seeing something she'd discovered about the city, her home. It would take a while for the wonder to build in him; for the realisation that this was something only she had noticed. "Pretty sure some of them play a hand in making it worse."

The rich, the CEO's, the owners of corporations… According to his father, their assets had been built upon the foundation of other people's unhappiness, but Oliver wasn't interested in destroying something that paved the future for so many.

His mother, his father. Walter Steele and Malcolm Merlyn. People like his parents had made this city worse and it was his duty to stop them. To honour his father, not tear his name to pieces...

Right?

"Oliver?"

Eyes falling from the ceiling, he saw his mother was smiling at him, like he was natural to smile at her son, like he'd earned it; her hand reaching out. Mouth pulling upwards in response - his mother had earned a smile; she was timeless, she'd suffered, had persevered and was impossible to match - he opened his arm, allowing hers to link with his.

This was a tour, but he was the one on display. He knew that. His mother knew it, so did Walter who walked genially behind them. As with everyone who worked in Queen Consolidated's main building, he was the exciting commodity; something for the employees to flurry on about for a while. An attraction, a display piece… and his mother had placed him in the centre.

"This way, I want to introduce you to… do you remember when your father was… did you both ever manage to… you used to challenge us to see who could reach the bottom floor first if you took the stairs while we were in the elevator…

The expectations in the building weren't only stifling but higher in his mother than he'd ever thought they'd be.

Still, it was clear she'd moved forwards. Everyone had. Each word was laced with fond commemoration.

It was a pale sort of torture.

"I used to see you standing there with Robert," his mother sighed as they passed the finance department, and it was a contented sort of sound, "imagining what kind of CEO you'd be like…"

And the discomfort rose.

It was nonsensical: him being the CEO of any corporate office. Never mind that the past five years hadn't lent itself to his business acumen or that he had no idea what it would entail, never mind that his interest was severely hampered in that… he didn't have any.

This was something he'd never wanted and had never pushed for; not before the sinking of the Gambit. Not during his time away. Not on his return.

There was too much time gone.

Still, he'd expected this kind of welcome back. The kind that said, 'your future is set; nothing has changed. Five years on an island hasn't shaken anything. You can replace what was lost'.

No matter what he did from now on, he was going to disappoint his mother.

Thankfully, she was more focused on the tour rather than his immediate insurgence into the family business, enjoying reacquainting him with something that had and would always be a large part of her life. Smiling indulgently and patting his arm.

Being his mother.

It was surreal; he hadn't, physically, had a mother in five years. He no longer needed her to make the world easier for him. But her affection was unfamiliar, inviting and frightening. He would disappoint her in this as well.

It wasn't something he wanted to let back in, so he concentrated on the visit.

Or rather, he took in exits, entrances, depths, square feet, ventilation shafts, corridors per floor, elevators and staircases.

Part of him soaked in the wonder of his heritage: the aching familiarity, nostalgia and pride following his every footstep through the lobby of the monochrome, silver and pale blue; the fishbowl offices, the pointing fingers, the whispers and wondering.

The rest of him felt acutely the absence of the man who'd helped build Queen Consolidated from the ground up: each sweeping glance, seeing something new with the old was an unwelcome reminder.

With an empty smile on his face and a straight back, he calmly walked in his father's footsteps; all to please his mother who was by his side. And, if he was being honest with himself, to feel his dad's presence one more time in the place he'd spent half his life.

Yet nothing jumped out at him beyond the perfunctory, beyond the usual 'oh' and 'yeah'; the 'I can see that' and the echoes of what once was. No sensory memory obliterating his calm, no flash of emotion… nothing.

It made acting the part, easier.

And he needed the distraction.

After the Court house the day before - after Laurel and knowing that he was putting off talking to her - and the words he'd been told to say in front of a judge, it put to the front of his mind-

"Survive."

The pistol lifted, his father casting him one last desperate look as he pointed it to his temple and maybe it was a punishment that he wouldn't break eye contact with his son, because the sight of his father's fearful pale blue eyes before he pulled the trigger-

"No!"

-As the life left them, as blood splattered over everything, would forever wait for Oliver in that space between sleep and consciousness.

-That.

"Ollie!"

Sara.

The lie and the truth of her death: it was his selfishness and salacious nature that had taken from a family he loved, a precious one. They knew that, all of them. They didn't know that she died twice: taken by the ocean both times. Both times… his fault.

The push and press of the paparazzi, the flash of the cameras and the abrasive questions shouted constantly brought to mind the two people who'd died because of him. As much as Tommy was trying to be there for him, he could never understand.

At this point, it wasn't about being Ollie or regaining what he'd lost.

He was beyond hope.

But for the first time since his return, there wasn't the constant thrum of dread that accompanied him wherever he went, no guilt and heavy awareness. It was all background noise: the swirling mess of emotions, the clotting darkness of his sin, wasn't touching him. Not because of his visit today, not because of his mother. There was something else.

He hadn't found Somers.

The reason why he hadn't found Somers was equally as diverting.

The warehouse that Somers had been 'subletting' to bring in drugs for the Triad, had been abandoned. There was no paper trail. No connective threads.

He had no way of tracking him.

He could follow the more obvious trail - the Triad's hired thugs - but that would take time and he'd had to be back at the mansion before his family asked too many questions. Same to be said of establishing who Martin Somers's contacts were, where he might hide or why he'd been hiding before the trial that morning had been blared over the news.

Infiltrating the SCPD during the night, he'd hacked into their servers with his portal pod: his sync up between networks, since the SCPD used a standalone grid with telecom wires beneath the building and had returned to the Foundry in order to piggyback off the relay.

It had taken almost an hour to root out the information and when he did, he found exactly what he'd simultaneously expected and feared.

And… wondered about.

This shouldn't be happening. There shouldn't be a vigilante in the city by any other name than Queen.

The Watchman had been aware of Martin Somers and his Triad ties, he'd stopped their operation and had prevented an innocent man from being killed. The warehouse on the news the week before was the warehouse Somers had fled.

He'd made the smugglers scatter. Now I can't find them.

In any other circumstance, he might have thought it a reckless move made by a novice, except-

"Four bodies in the hall, at least two more downstairs... That's one way to get attention."

The Watchman was anything but. He saw… he saw everything. Everyone. Ten to one, the Watchman had placed a tracker on them. Or something close.

I need to be on the lookout. This would end in a clean sweep.

However, the coincidence that Martin Somers and Adam Hunt were both on the list and had both been targeted by the Watchman, made Oliver consider the impossible.

Did the Watchman… have a list?

How could he?

His own had been given to him by his father in the moments before he died. Blood soaked and metaphorically laden, he'd carried it with him since then but hadn't accepted the reality of it, of what his father might be asking of it, until years later.

There was only one way he could have done to make things right, only one thing he was good at. Killing.

So, who is the Watchman?

Not quite up to creating a database or an algorithm or any of the things he needed to be accomplished at in order to infiltrate secure systems, Oliver had started to dig. Past cases, prior events, newspaper articles: where had the Watchman come from and when had he first appeared?

But the police radio he'd hooked up to the car battery that was temporarily keeping the light on in the Foundry, had blared on three different channels at around midnight and he'd had to abandon his search.

"Shots fired… no casualties… five men found at the scene, evidence of weapons-larceny, possible gang affiliation, ten-forty… might want to put Detective Lance on this one… his daughter, yeah… wait, um, there's something else… looks like the Watchman put in an appearance… Miss Lance isn't giving us anything… ten-four."

Not that the SCPD knew they were being monitored but he was almost certain that was too much information handed out over an insecure line. Good thing for me.

Laurel's efforts against Somers had made her a target… and the Watchman had seen it, had saved her life.

It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, adrenaline keeping him awake for the rest of the night. He was a step behind. And there was only so much he could drip sweat on the cold Foundry floor before he admitted to himself that there was nothing he could do just then, except try to sleep.

When that failed, he'd walked back to the mansion; it didn't matter that it was miles outside of the city. He'd needed the space to think.

He'd needed not to be driven home at 3am by his disgruntled and suspicious bodyguard.

The man following the three of them just a few steps back as his mother spoke to him. "Some things never change." Generous, permissive, blind; his mother made a show of him as they strolled by three young interns. Two were female-

"Hi Ollie." With a wave that was more a flutter of fake nails and a smile that screamed we had sex, the brunette sent him a bright-eyed, coquettish glance: part nervous - the co-owner of the building was standing on Oliver's right - part awed with him and all confidence, she lowered her voice. "Remember me?"

He remembered her voice. Like so many other voices he'd once made moan. But in all honesty, he hadn't given her a second thought. That's not what the Friday before had been about.

It was the woman who Tommy had gifted him the night of the welcome home party. She'd called him Ollie. Enough said.

By now, he knew how to perfect the smile to say, I had you and I enjoyed it, but I don't do seconds. There was an edge to it that was lent more towards cold calculus than heated sex appeal and it cast an uncertain shade to her eyes. It was, as Tommy would call it, a dick move; smoothed over by the way it also told her she'd been a very good time.

She hadn't, but that wasn't he point.

"Hi." He said; his tone low but strong, making certain to sweep his eyes down her form in a way that he knew many women had considered to be devastating to their egos in a positive or sometimes negative way. "I don't remember your name…?" He truly didn't but he hated using that here, to twist her perception of him.

Ollie Queen screws around, has fun, does shots and comes back for more. Oliver Queen fucks hard, doesn't care for an after show and discards the leftovers as conquests.

There was a purpose behind everything he did now.

Seeing it, her smile dropped, which was what he'd wanted. What had she expected? A fond remembrance of their dirty romp? Yes, he was the same playboy who'd slept with three women in one night when one of the women was his unknowing girlfriend, yes; he promised a good time and orgasms aplenty.

Empty sex.

Alcohol.

Lies.

But unlike before, when it was all happy-go-lucky and guilt free; this time he wanted them to think he was a bastard. Cold natured. Openly averse to feelings, to love.

I am.

As if he just didn't care at all about the women he slept with.

His body was a weapon just as much as it was a tool to achieve his goals: he'd make use of it in any way he had to.

The advert would go: 'he was an amazing time, but he'd give a girl whiplash the next day. Sex is what he's good at, but he isn't a good guy; not the type to introduce to friends, to take home to mom. He likes violence; he cheats, steals and he lies like a champ. He's all kinds of wrong for you.'

There was nothing to worship in him the absurd way some people had at the party: for riches, for looks, for the fact that he'd survived what many were speculating to be a secret five-year party overseas. And he knew there were people who would be enticed by him anyway, by his wanting only one thing from a woman. Some would consider it a challenge. Tempting. Easy.

Not the kind of woman he'd want to spend time with.

And next to her - and he noted now how clear it was that, without the added makeup and push up bra, the brunette wasn't half as desirable as she thought she was - was the red head Tommy had allowed to drag him - laughing as she fumbled at his belt buckle - through the hotel doors. Room 210, Tommy had declared: a wink, a smirk and a drunken look in his eyes attached.

Here she was, very much sober, and a little overwhelmed by is presence. "Mr… Queen…" she breathed, eyes darting to and from him and his mother.

But they all were in the elevator with Walter stepping in behind them before she could attempt further speech.

An exhale blew out of his mother's nostrils as he watched the numbers climb. "It's as if you were never away." She could only hope. From the corner of Oliver's eye, Walter's smile accompanied the love poured like golden honey from his mother's voice. "Enjoying yourself?"

She actually thought he liked this.

He cleared his throat. "I won't lie." Except he was. All the time.

But her laugh made him smile again - he'd be okay lying just to hear it - as a ping rang out for their exits and they all stepped out into-

"As you can see Oliver," Walter's smooth, British accent carried far more weight to this little excursion than even his mother's recollections, "we've modernised quite a bit." He started as they turned right towards-

-What was once his father's office. I never thought I'd see this again.

The reality of it made him whistle appreciatively, because even thought it had clearly been modernised – no more rustics – it was clearly still the office his father used let him drink soda and read comics in and his head turned to take in the new sleek-

Stood against the wall just outside of the glass walls, was Felicity Smoak.

It hit him like a battering ram and shouldn't have. She works here. It shouldn't have been surprising. She told me she works here.

He hadn't forgotten, so why hadn't he been prepared?

For his mother, he knew when to be around, when to be cautious, and when to be absent; he also always knew when she was in the vicinity. It was the same for every single person he'd come home to: he watched them. Learned them. Had to, for their sake if not for his.

Treating loved ones like targets might be disturbing on many levels but to him, it meant safe. There was always a certain amount of suspicion he had to cast on them: the kind of questioning doubts that kept him - and them - in their necessary places. The kind that informed him when to be more cautious, when to hide and how best to lie.

The kind that assessed if they were a risk now.

John Diggle was to his back: I did it with him that first day he was given the job; he had a profile set up within 48 hours and had found… possibilities. So why wasn't he doing that with the woman, the acquaintance, before him?

Lips pressing together, Oliver gave her a quick, inquisitive, once over.

She was preoccupied.

Bottom lip in her mouth, stained with just a touch of perfectly applied red this time – he was developing a strange, surreal, curiosity about the kind of cosmetics she possessed - her eyes were, thankfully, down on her tablet as she tapped away - without pause or error, efficient - and it gave him the precious seconds available before she did see him, to take her in.

This was only their third meet, despite it feeling like more and, once again, she looked different.

It was blue, the dress and something so simple, so modest, shouldn't have looked that… pretty. Somehow the bold choice in lipstick matched and the way she brought a finger up to her mouth to absently suck on it was less sweet and distracted and more, I'm thinking about so many different things at once that my body needs to have something to do and practical lipstick that doesn't smudge is my port of choice.

Intelligence was attractive: in the last five years it had shot up from the bottom of the list of qualities that Oliver had found made a woman immediately tempting.

The dress fit her like a glove, stopping primly two inches above her knees; snug against what he'd missed to be incredibly toned thighs and calves and how does an IT girl have legs like that?

Then her heeled shoes made him look twice because they definitely weren't the uninspiring pair she'd worn that first time…

The first time he'd seen her- no, the first time they'd met, she'd been soaked. Her bright blond hair had been a partially curled mess trapped in a bobble with endearing pieces of it falling over her wet glasses and the red pen in her mouth: an image as a whole that had sent a devilish swirl of something to his stomach. She'd worn a plain black skirt; her lips a dusky pink and he'd admitted to himself that most men wouldn't be able to forget her, even looking like she'd swam to the mansion.

Even though he knew she thought she was extremely forgettable… which was something he'd helped reinforce the 7 days.

She stood out: colour against the whites, greys – the neat monochrome. She fit because she didn't fit.

His eyes roamed as his mother brought him close enough to her that she'd have to look up and he saw that her hair had been straightened.

At the party, loose, feminine curls had stroked over her shoulders and it had stayed with him. But here, her hair was up high and straightened to fall down her back in a way that made him want to test its softness.

She looked ridiculously touchable.

Oh. Why it had hit him like a battering ram. Touch was, generally, the last thing on his mind.

Suddenly he wanted to say hi, and he found himself forgetting for a moment his decision to stay away, to pretend as if he he'd never spent the night at her place as his feet aligned with her pristine blue shoes, and he was leaning in before he could stop it.

His shadow over her tablet made her jolt and lift her head-

The smile on his face felt real. "Hey." This hello was a whisper of quiet warmth, and he meant it.

It was inexplicably good to see her.

Face hovering over her own, he let himself enjoy for a moment the way her lashes fluttered, and her mouth popped open in surprise as she exclaimed. "Oliver!"

And just like that, they were back with his mother, his brand new step-dad and his ever-present shadow at Queen Consolidated.

Pulling back, a flash of awkwardness made him clear his throat - made his eyes dodge hers - and that real smile disappeared; replaced by the wide one he'd been wearing until now, one that made his cheeks ache.

At the end of the day, she was a stranger and he didn't have the luxury of making friends.

It would be inevitable: someone as smart, as capable as her – she'd figure it out. The longer he held off on that - because eventually he'd probably need her help - the better for her.

But for the first time, he realised, it wasn't better for him.

It was the first time since he'd come home where he'd felt like that.

"Miss Smoak." Expensive shoes made no sound as Walter circled around Oliver and his wife - his mother who, when Oliver looked at her, appeared a little taken aback herself that her husband knew this young woman - as Felicity's eyes moved over the group several times, as if hoping her brain would sense of this with each rotation. "Thank you for joining us."

"It's fine!" The nervousness wasn't new, but the need to please her boss, was. Felicity respected Walter.

How much?

"Um, I mean," shaking her head, flustered; Felicity winced so hard her eyes briefly closed, "why am I here, sir?"

Foreboding flashed through him on hearing his mother's curiosity. "Dear?"

Watching Felicity swallow at hearing her voice, made Oliver's lips twitch upwards but, what was Walter doing?

"Who better than to show Oliver the success of Queen Consolidated," the man in question began, stepping forwards to open his office to them, "than one of our most promising employees? I dare say he'd find anything she says much more interesting than if it came from us."

"So, I'm kind of like a dirty puzzle box with a naughty prize attached or is that the wrong metaphor?" It was clear she hadn't thought about her words, as was the case with people with nervous dispositions, because her neck tightened, and her wide eyes refused to blink behind her glasses. "Not that you'd use me for my looks, Mr Steele," voice elevated now – and it was quite low still for a woman; not loud or obnoxious – her shoulders started rising towards her chin, "I am the last person you'd probably go to for that." Cue an unnecessary laugh as Felicity tried to find a way around her verbal gaff. "What are the chances that you can forget I just said that?" She whispered to her boss.

The man took it in his stride. "My stepdaughter made me aware of something recently; needless to say, I feel that information is best taken in when delivered by the right person."

He smiled genially.

Jaw clamping shut, Felicity nodded. "Kay."

And there it was. The rub.

Walter knew that Moira wanted her son to one day have a place in the company. Being the good husband that he clearly was, he'd managed to find a way to try to give her exactly that as well as make it less of a chore for Oliver.

It might have worked, but they did it without talking to him about it and had dragged Felicity into it without advising her; most likely because a smart woman would have backed out immediately, delegating it to another.

"What is this about?" He aimed for clueless bachelor as he squared a glance at them all: Felicity included, as if she'd been in on this too.

Her furious headshake to the contrary, looked painful.

"Yes," turning in his arm, his mother looked up at Oliver as she tried to pull him back with her into the office, "there's something we wanted to discuss with you."

Body automatically locking in place, "Mum, you talking to me like this is making me nervous," Oliver gestured with a hand for Felicity to enter the room before him. Please.

She did so slowly, as if granting him a moment to yank her back out; looking very much sorry.

As if she knew that this was the exact opposite of what he'd hoped would happen today. What did I expect coming here?

But what hit him randomly was that there was nothing in her that spoke of hurt feelings or disappointment that he hadn't taken her up on her offer last week, which was… he didn't know what that was.

Sending her a subtle glance, it's fine - he didn't quite know what else to do with his mother watching him so closely - he waited until she'd stepped over the threshold - something pleasant and musky infiltrating his olfactory senses as she did - before he allowed himself and his mother to follow on through.

Closing the door behind them, Walter took the floor. "Maybe we could start by offering a detailed breakdown of our current successes." Looking to Felicity as she gradually rotated to face him - as if she was moving through something thick and sticky - he gestured to her. "Our latest results with biotech, keeping an eye on what our investors are interested in-"

"And branching out?" Eyebrows lifting, the IT girl's painted nails tapped against the back of her tablet. "Our interest in Unidac Industries and the new science division?"

Pleased with her - and something about that told Oliver this wasn't a rare occurrence - Walter nodded. "Diversification."

Clearly Felicity Smoak spoke more than one language, but Oliver still had a bad feeling about this. He'd gladly cooperate and act the part; he'd play the game and spend the next year pretending to be the good business son and learning the trades of the company might even help him in his mission.

But he was missing something.

"It's all pretty amazing Mr Steele." And smiling such a goofy smile - a gorgeous set of teeth under red lips - that everyone had to look at it, Felicity presented a complex contradiction. An enigma that distracted him as much as she made him pay attention. "Especially knowing that you're dedicating the site to Mr Queen."

He'd made it clear that hearing Mr Queen reminded him of his father, and something told him that Felicity wasn't the type forget a thing like that so…

"For dad?" He asked, glancing down at his shoes at her smile and nod; his words were less cool dude, more I miss him. "Very nice."

"We were going to reveal that gently, Miss Smoak." Unimpressed, poised and perfect in tone and authority; his mother laced her fingers together before her, as she added. "Seeing as how it was personal family business."

The shade of pink Felicity turned would have been endearing in any other situation. How is it family business when everyone at the company will know about it? It hadn't bothered him at all, but he felt a stab of sympathy for Felicity: his mother wasn't the easiest of people to stand in front of. Only Laurel met her expectations. Not even Sara. And Tommy's the son of her friend.

"About the dedication this weekend-"

"That Mr Steele had invited me to earlier this morning," a nervous tick - she did just audaciously cut past his mother and, brave - had Felicity reaching up to right her perfectly straight glasses, "after informing me that he wanted me to come to his office and wait for him before my new supervisor shows up, which could be whenever the man feels like it because he was supposed to show up three days ago and- but you don't want to hear about that." At his mother's pointed stare, a very tight, pained laugh left her. "I'm know now that the something Mr Steele wants me to do is give Mr Queen," she inclined her head towards Oliver who was watching, with interest, to see how she'd handle this, "a full breakdown of what his family's company has been proactive in the past five years and I thought that… what better way to start with than telling him directly his missed?"

Looking at her, Oliver saw clearly that she meant every word and-

Smooth.

Very.

So, she can get straight to a point. He was beginning to realise he liked her rambles, but it was interesting to discover that she could be the opposite too. When the heart wasn't so involved, at least. And because he was still looking at her, the tiniest hint of bold defiance was visible in her gaze alongside her natural compassion. A babbler who wasn't intentionally negligent with her words.

It made him eye his mother, and he couldn't decide what arrested him more; intrigue about Felicity Smoak's unpredictable nature or foreboding about the reason his mother wanted him here.

"I see." Watching his mother slowly - begrudgingly - nod, he was surprised enough to blink. "Though next time, you might want to wait for your boss- forgive my error, your boss's boss," Jesus, "to finish and give you instruction?"

The reminder of her lowly status made Felicity's mouth - her smile - falter. "Right." But she continued to smile regardless; as if they were for free. As if she was thankful for the correction.

And another person might have thought she was an ass kisser but after her comment at the party-

"I got my supervisor fired." A nervous giggle left her; head tilting away, hair falling and covering her face. "I got him fired. He was, ah, embezzling funds from QC. That, and he was a crappy boss. I was always correcting his work, which was how I caught him. Hoist by his own petard."

-told him it didn't scratch the surface.

When her gaze flickered down, when her lips briefly rubbed together and she looked like she was deciding something, he thought that maybe she was about to surprise him again.

"But I was also pretty certain," she said, not quite in a rush but not slowly either, "that Oliver doesn't want me to babble away about the company and its recent in-roads, when his main focus the past five years has been surviving alone, on an island. I could be wrong about that though." She added in lieu of a backup for her backup because, as she'd said, she was neurotically thorough but couldn't plan spontaneous outbursts of realism and-

Holy fucking shit.

She couldn't have shocked him more if she'd told his mother that he was the man under the hood in the wanted posters on the news. It was the first time in a long time that Oliver was floored by something that didn't involve a knife, a gun, an assassin, the Bratva or Lian Yu.

His expression all but slid off his face as he openly, unblinkingly, gaped at her.

Uncertain and anxious she may have been - and her voice had shaken a little at the end there - she spoke clearly. And it absolutely stopped his mother who looked like she'd walked into an invisible wall.

He couldn't help but think about that night: his first real night in Starling City.

"Honestly, more than anything else, I would want to be away from people. I-I mean," licking her lips, her head tilted against her shoulder when she shrugged. "If it were me, if I were you… I'd want to have the company of just me, myself and I. Too many people with no room to breathe or think or something, I mean I could be wrong."

She'd shown patience and an understanding that, if he'd had expectations, she'd have both met and defied right then and there.

"You've been through something most couldn't understand. Did you think you could… did you think you could return home, and everything would be the same as it was?" His 'normal' had been the island of Lian Yu or wherever he'd been the past five years. "You shouldn't have to pretend that everything's fine." She said softly. "And you shouldn't worry when it's not."

And she kept doing that. Kept stunning him.

She'd already helped him with information. Both with the factory in the Glades and the realtor. He'd known he'd go to her for that despite his self-imposed promise not to know her more personally, which was something he was sure friendship required-

Naked chest lifting into her palm, he didn't pull away. Somehow, he knew that to do so, might trigger off… whatever that had been. A panic attack. He'd attacked her, the least he could do was provide a small comfort; a warm body, a heartbeat, something he'd instinctively realised she'd needed and though he'd shied away from anything more than a hug the last 24 hours, standing in her bathroom – wearing the sweatpants she'd given him and nothing else – after blocking her between himself and a corner cupboard, it should have felt like a lot more.

Instead, he was quite comfortable.

And… feeling. He was feeling things. Things that would make a man like him want to hold a woman he'd never known before today, because for a moment Felicity Smoak had looked as damaged as he was.

-That he'd seek her out for those deft fingers, IQ and hacker skills that her loose lips had opened up about last week…

Purposely?

No, she didn't know him. Which meant, that maybe she was just that kind. Maybe, in all his travels – the last five unbearable years – some deity he hadn't paid attention to had seen fit to grant him with something – someone – who might not try to pry into his heart with a pickaxe the way his family and friends unknowingly did with questions no one seemed to understand he wasn't ready to answer. He could take bullets and knives and bombs and poison, but…

Being home was so much harder than he'd ever thought it would be.

Good things didn't just happen. Reality wasn't kind: it was a trap that only the strong survive.

You had to make kindness happen and he'd always thought it took a certain kind of strength for someone to do that, to choose be kind. He had every right to be suspicious.

Seeing Felicity Smoak grow to new levels of discomfort, knowing that they were all watching her, Oliver wondered; so why am I not?

Three times. They'd spoken three times.

"That might be," any small amount of composure cracked by this young stranger's unwanted opinion – a rare moment for his mother, he was sure – was quickly regained, which, he was sure, meant less than good things for Felicity, "but if we want Oliver to take a leadership position in this company then he's going to have to listen to that 'babble'." Cheeks re-blooming, Felicity pressed her lips together, told; but to her credit, she didn't hide away or look elsewhere. She continued to look at his mother. She didn't even blink. "Though I'm thinking a less forward employee," his mother's eyes hit Walters who didn't seem provoked, "at this company would be more suited to the task."

Voice smooth, Walter offered a calm smile. "She's doing just fine."

But the words had just reached Oliver's mental musing. "Um, No?" Don't let this be the reason.

The reason why she'd been so enthusiastic about his visit today.

"No, it's your company sweetie." His mother stepped towards him, her gaze warm as if she thought she was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime. "You always knew that, one day, you'd stand at the top."

It felt like a trap. "I will always see it as my father's company." He succinctly stated, feeling an odd pressure rise from his chest. "I don't want to lead anything in it or out of it." He never had: leadership potential wasn't exactly on his short list of qualities but for once, he could safely say it had little to do with running away from responsibility. "Besides, from what I can see, Walter is doing an amazing job here. He doesn't need me."

"But you said at the house that you wanted to be a different person. You are Robert Queen's son."

Being a different person meant being Robert Queen? He couldn't be his father, not ever.

He didn't want to be his father.

And he couldn't help how it came out. "I don't need to be reminded of that." It was flat, rude and absolutely confused as to why his mother was so insistent on this.

"Well, obviously you do."

Now, why did that burn? His father died because of him: how could he ever forget?

It was almost stupid of his mother to mention.

"I think… um, maybe I should come back later." The words were whisper-light, uncomfortable and obvious, which seemed to be in the realm of Felicity's social forte.

He sent her a flat smile. "That would be great."

Thankfully, she seemed to understand that it wasn't about her; he just didn't want an audience right now.

"No." The order made Felicity halt in place before his mother whirled round to look at him again. "We aren't finished here."

"Yes, we are." Nodding to himself in the futile hope that she'd stop with his rudeness, he eyed Felicity over her head. "Hey," her eyes touched him, "can you ask the secretary if I can a sparkling water or something cold, please?"

He didn't want a drink. He wanted one less witness to another less than stellar scene he seemed to be having in abundance with his loved ones.

Mouth forming an oh, Felicity nodded, stepping lightly towards the exit-

"Oliver, you're being a child." The undertone didn't hide his mother's displeasure.

Irritation started to build in him, felt at his sides and his chest and he didn't know how to respond except to stare at her. Why didn't she get it?

Taking the diplomatic stance, he saw Walter move in his peripheral. "We know this has been a difficult transition for you son-"

"I'm not your son." The room went quiet. Low toned and to the point, without any kind of anger, Oliver looked Walter in both eyes. "My father is dead, and I can't, not for a second," his gaze went back to his mother who warred between open shock and injured anger, "imagine replacing him in any capacity." It would be an impossible task.

Near the doors, he could see Felicity try - hard, if her crinkled nose and closed eyes were anything to go by - to pretend like she couldn't hear, hadn't heard a thing.

"Never mind that I didn't get my MBA on the island," he continued, and his voice wasn't deliberately rising. This wasn't all an act just to make them stop; he meant it. "I would be working with my father's CFO; the man who has taken dad's place, in more ways than one."

It was all too close to home, in every aspect of the term.

It was strange: Walter didn't appear perturbed or offended. Taken aback, he shared a look with Felicity of all people who just… she just looked back. As if, waiting.

And then there was his mother.

Who looked hurt.

Not because he was hurt too, but because he'd said no. Because he'd destroyed her expectations and he knew he would before they'd stepped foot in the building.

He should have avoided it: cancelling plans to visit would have matched his playboy persona.

Instead, he'd managed to make his tenuous portrayal as the good son, all the more untenable. "You haven't changed a bit." His mother told him, and her words fell like lead in his stomach as she walked off, still speaking. "But I have, because your irresponsibility used to be charming. It is a lot less so now."

And she was gone from the office before he could stop her, not that he wanted to. Walter followed; looking like he was trying not to reveal what he was thinking on his face, leaving Oliver very much-

Almost alone.

John Diggle stood outside, next to the secretary's desk where his eyes burned holes into Oliver; less bodyguard than he was a watchdog.

And-

"I'm going to go out on the limb and say you'd have rather had anything else happen just now." Like she'd rather be anywhere but here, Felicity held her tablet to her chest; her painted lips etched with empathy, her body turned to his. "Do you want me to go?"

He honestly didn't have an opinion beyond considering whether he should have returned home anonymously after all. Maybe it would have been better for his family if they'd never known he was back in the city. Maybe he should have simply worn the hood. Except there were some things he could only achieve and discover as Oliver Queen.

And he'd been silent – lost in feelings of regret – for too long because she spoke again.

"What can I do?"

Exhaling, I don't even understand what that question means, he finally put his eyes to her…

And it took too long to get his face straight again: he felt cold inside that he couldn't push it back, and he knew it showed because she her eyes caught him try. "It's fine." He managed with a hand pressing against his jacket – the jacket plus jeans combo made him feel preppy and ridiculous but he'd been aiming for dumb – as he forced a smile on his face. "I have to go anyway."

To the Foundry. To a place he could be himself.

"Past security, past us nosey employees, the paparazzi and," eyes stealthily side-lining to his bodyguard - who'd, thankfully, turned in his casual 360 check of his surroundings and didn't see her - Felicity spoke under her breath, "with him?"

He shrugged, seemingly apathetic.

Stood there - lips pressed together, as if she was giving quick consideration to something - Felicity gagged him in the eye for one, two, three seconds before-

"Right." Moving quickly, she secured her tablet beneath her arm and stepped - tip toed, as if John Diggle possessed heightened hearing - to him; her fingers barely touching his bicep as her lashes flitted up at him. "Come with me."

What is she-

Confused, he followed as if there was no other choice to make and she led him towards the set of doors – not glass – leading into an encased area that Walter's office had kept hidden: you had to be standing directly inside to see it. "What are you doing?"

Hand on the handle, she pushed open the door and looked back at him; bright eyed, halfway between anxious she'd overstepped and confident that this was the right thing to do. "You don't want to pass the paparazzi again, do you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Well…" he shifted, completely lost, "no?"

"I'm also guessing you'd rather not have to spend the rest of the day being followed by a guy," her index flickered to the left towards the far side of the room where John was doing his rotation, "who's arms are that impressive and who's eyes never leave you?"

Something unfurled inside his chest as they stared at each other.

"…No."

Her small smile was as warm as her voice. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes." It came out automatically and… he was a little staggered that he meant it.

But he couldn't, he wasn't supposed to.

Yet he did.

Problem. It set his teeth on edge, the vulnerability. The exposure.

But it was hard to think about just then, not when her teeth were against her lip - she really was a good girl - when she stepped over the threshold. "Come on."

Into the pristine elevator accompanied with a single leather seat and a plant.

The CEO's office had a private elevator.

Her eyes flying back to the front of the office, they widened before she twisted past him into the small area and he looked back to see what she'd seen-

To see John Diggle catch them fleeing, slipping through the hidden door and it made him frown before a clue hit him. Eyes quickly clearing, he slowly stepped around the secretary's desk; his frown becoming a glare-

Hurrying forwards, Oliver felt himself start to smile. A genuine smile with a feeling something long absent, like mischief and the permission to enjoy it coursing sluggishly into his blood stream - long forgotten - as he stepped close to Felicity when she punched the button for the lift to open. "Ladies first." He whispered and he wasn't sure what he was doing or what was going on: only that he felt a fission between himself and the situation a minute ago, a welcome one and it was starting to entertain him.

Looking oddly hesitant given that this was her idea, Felicity stumbled through. "Oh, you want me to…"

Join him?

His look was plain. It was your idea.

His hand brushing against her back to nudge her further forwards, she pressed another button on the panel as she hopped to, and he joined her.

The doors started closing just as Diggle stepped into the entryway to the hidden lift area, exactly at the moment Oliver saw comprehension dawn on his face; irritation and shock that he was being ditched again in a mode of escape he hadn't considered with a diminutive IT girl he hadn't paid attention to.

Oliver couldn't help what he did next.

He waved at him like an idiot deliberately poking a bear - Felicity snuffing an involuntary, very feminine laugh behind her hand - with his own lips pulling up at the corners as the doors shut, surprising himself.

Fun. For one moment, he'd had fun.

And maybe she had too because, her back against the elevator wall and her eyes closed; Felicity smiled guiltily. "I feel like I just kidnapped you again."

He sent her an inquisitive glance she didn't see, what?

Grousing good naturedly, one eye slid open to peer at him. "That first night? It did kind of feel like I'd kidnapped the boss's son." She faked a wince.

Ah. That. He mulled it over. "Is it still kidnapping if the victim asks you too?"

Once again, her lower lip was between her teeth; her grin straining against it. "Was this okay though? I don't want you to get into trouble."

It wouldn't be him who caught trouble if there was even the slightest possibility of it and her concern touched to the side of his rib cage. She'd managed to give him an out with his bodyguard, a way to evade the press and his mother, and she was worried.

"It's fine." Releasing a breath, he joined her in watching the floors go by. "I wasn't exactly relishing leaving the building."

Her answer was a quiet one. "I can imagine."

Eyes trailing over the floor, they hit her shoes… then her arms and, fleetingly, the side of her face before they lifted back up to the counter when he found himself speaking again. "Is this Walter's-"

"Private elevator? That, as an employee who doesn't work on any of the floors about the 37th, I am not supposed to make use of?" She added under her breath; somehow sounding both candid and unbelievably whipped. "Yep."

She loves her job. So, why risk it?

But he didn't mention it, choosing instead to ask:

"And you know about it… how?"

He saw the moment the words hit; enjoying the slight widening of her eyes and he kept a passive expression as her own became a furtive collection of unknowns, as if she was debating how honest to be.

Mouth opening, pausing for a second; her ponytail bounced as her head turned in his direction. "I… You remember what I said about being good at computers?"

Side on, he nodded once.

"I'm also curious." He knew that already.

It was why she'd followed him out into the rain that first night when he'd used her to get a head-start on what he'd needed to do. Why, despite her very real compassion and empathy, she'd invited him into her home. It was part of how she'd gotten her supervisor fired.

Only someone who took the care to look deeply enough into another colleague's work, would have discovered he'd been breaking the law.

She was a good person… who couldn't stop inhaling secrets.

And she looked like she clearly thought that he'd think it a negative, even if she didn't, which was clear. And he didn't think that at all. "And an information junkie. I can be a little paranoid too. And I work too fast, which means I get bored easily." At each descriptive point, his brow arched higher, but he understood.

She works too fast, huh… meaning she was too smart for her position in the company but hadn't been promoted because no one had seen just how smart she really was and instead of flaunting said smartness she simply tied up loose ends, ghosted through the floors without notice; anonymously fixing what needed to be fixed and made returnees such as himself feel less like a prisoner, sideshow attraction or a child being dragged by mommy's hand and more like a human being entitled to a… a fast getaway via the CEO's secret exit.

She saw more than most, but no one sees her.

Except Walter.

And Oliver.

He exhaled. "That's quite a list."

Looking diminutive stood at his side, she looked up at him through long lashes. "I said I was neurotically thorough; now you know I'm just plain…" she gave him a single shoulder shrug, "neurotic."

The translation as quick to come: she liked to know what her options were in case the worst happened: exists, entrances and powerlines.

Very clever.

The look he gave her might not have told her that, but it was definitely on the side of, well now; look at you.

Neurotic wasn't the word he'd use. Words. There were many coming to mind with her standing there. And she looked like she was silently laughing at herself; as if there was always something about her that should be laughed at and was used to it.

There was something to it that wouldn't settle inside him; this woman who'd reacted to him trying to harm her with a soothing space to exist in, a cup of coffee and a ride home without questions; but it was too small to give thought to.

He wanted Martin Somers. He needed to find out who the Triad sent.

He had to speak to Laurel.

Felicity Smoak was a conundrum he knew would take more than one conversation to dissect.

"So." Straightening his jacket, Oliver inhaled; not looking at her this time. "Do you escort every visitor out of the building this way, or am I a special case?"

"You're a special case." It was impossible not to stare down at her quick response, catching the moment her face did this comical, oh no thing and she stepped back on herself. "I mean, you looked kind of like you'd been forced to drink salt water up there."

He made a noncommittal sound. "Revolting."

"It really is. Not that I practice drinking salt water…" Eyes closing, brow furrowing, he saw her stop herself. "Sorry. That wasn't my point."

"Nothing to be sorry for." There was a quality to this moment in time, created by the fact that she had no idea where to draw the line because she a) didn't draw one in the dirt in the first place, which was confusing and intriguing to him, and b) she wasn't sure if he wanted space from her; given that he hadn't spoken to her since the party, it was a normal conclusion and it was making him talk. But he wouldn't have stepped into the lift with her if that had been the case. "Did I look like I needed saving?"

It wasn't the question of the hour, but her tone was so naturally gentle, he found himself adding to what should have been an awkward silence.

Both eyes clear, she spared him an open stare as the elevator came to a halt. "Yes."

Stomach tight, he didn't respond.

"Don't take my word for it." How could he not? It was almost lulling, her voice. Never rising above polite conversation, it still seemed to carry over him; even as the doors pinged opened for them to exit. "But I've found that it's family and loved ones who pose the biggest threats, especially when you know you've changed too much for even you to bear thinking about." An arm reaching out to halt the doors when he didn't move, she pressed on. "They want so much to help that what you need starts to become what they want and it's beyond painful letting them down." Shaking her head once – also softly, as if she thought he needed it and maybe he did need it in the way that he had no idea how to handle it other than to pay attention – Felicity's face was full of understanding, a wealth of patience and a dash of it gets better. "It's not your fault."

Sucking in a breath - her perfume there again; unobtrusive yet, like the rest of her, enticing and distracting - he felt like he'd been given a momentary surge of clemency that, though he didn't feel he deserved an ounce of it, felt good nonetheless. He had to look down then; taking a single step so that he was stood between the doors. "It feels like that's all I'm doing." Letting them down.

There was a truth to the way her head tilted at him; as if she'd been through something similar once upon a time. "I promise you, it's not."

Eyes lifting, he cocked his brow again. It was fake. He figured she knew that and could take the cocky. The arrogant. The mask. "You're promising me?" And because it sounded too good - too perfect, too much of the one thing he'd been so long without - he couldn't help but play with her a little bit: he needed to see how she'd react. What she'd say or do. He needed to border up; he needed his walls. "Are you going to take responsibility to make that happen, or make it up to me if you're wrong?

He heard the entendre.

He didn't correct it… because he didn't feel like there was anything to correct in the challenge. Are you really this good a person? The last five years had taught him a lot about people. True kindness was rare. It was strength.

Where did hers come from and what was it that she wanted from him, because even friendship had its limits and she made it sound as if her friendship, didn't?

And why, even with his misgivings, was it still difficult to keep his guard raised with her?

Just this person stood next to him in a secret elevator because each day was another chance to be emotionally eviscerated and she'd just wanted to help him.

"I'm not wrong." She merely said and he snorted at her candour. "But I'll be here if I am."

Eyes darting to her, they immediately scoped out he garage… because what was he supposed to say to that?

Not that she needed an answer.

"My car's this way." She stated as the elevator doors started closing.

Falling into step beside her, he asked. "Are you going to give me a ride?" Was that why they were here?

"I'm going to give you my keys." They rattled in her grasp when she raised her hand in a brief show and tell. "I still have a half day of work to complete."

Frowning, "are you sure?" He asked quietly as her heels click-clopped lightly across the ground.

She threw him an arched brow. "Do you have a better option?"

"No… but I don't want to put you out."

"You're not." She hummed as they moved further into the lot. "You must miss it."

"Miss what?"

A stutter-skid across tarmac told him she'd caught herself off guard. "I'm not sure I should say it." She sent him a long-suffering glance. "You remember how my mouth opens a lot and words pour out without me telling them to?"

Pensive, he continued eyeing the darker parts of the garage, but he found himself telling her something real. "The last week, my family," he gestured behind them, "even with what happened upstairs: they walk on eggshells around me so, please. Say it."

Her next breath was a deep one too. "Okay." Too far from the elevators, he saw her red Toyota, but he stopped when she did; wondering what was on her mind.

"The freedom. You must miss the freedom." His confusion must have been evidence because she explained. "Being beholden to no one the past five years, there must have been times - despite the adverse environment, and the loneliness," so quiet, soft, she seemed to know she was touched a place he wasn't ready to return to quite yet, "where you felt genuinely free to be yourself and to do whatever you needed to, even when you missed your home. Even when all you could think about was your family or a warm bed, a hot meal, someone who loves you. You must have felt that."

That look. Those eyes. Her voice. The words coming out of her mouth that threatened to pull out secrets from his past and promised that it would feel good.

Floored, he stared at her.

How did she know that? No one knew that.

"It's okay if you did." She added at the silence, at his hard stare. "It's okay."

Inhaling hard up his nostrils – probably sounding like an angry gorilla – Oliver felt his jaw flex as his throat tightened, as his fists clenched, and he couldn't decide what he was feeling: anger? Exposure? Shame?

A connection?

"I did." He admitted to her shoes; his voice gravel, his tone vulnerable and surprised. "More than once." Looking up, guarded as he was; the moment his eyes touched her expressive, accepting ones, he blurted out. "I missed my family." It came out like a punch because it was the truth. "There never a day that went by where I didn't but…"

Nodding, smiling like they weren't discussing what they were discussing, Felicity simply stood there. "We all have our islands, I suppose."

A deep breath calmed his nerves a little, eyes flitting away from her every other second but returning just as fast. "Yeah?"

"Yes."

And something made his mouth upturn, made pleasure and lightness flood through him so strongly that he couldn't help the fragile smile he sent her.

Then a ping echoed through the garage.

The elevator.

Turning as one, they looked just in time to see the doors open.

To see John Diggle step out of it and immediately search the area. There he is.

Without a sound, Felicity dropped down to the floor.

Feeling quite calm, he looked down at her and something about seeing the woman crouch in high heels, a form fitting dress and hair that over her shoulders - with a genuinely, hide, on her face - made his lips twitch upwards. "What are you doing?"

Looking baffled for a moment, Felicity peeked – like a child playing hide and seek – upwards at him. "I… I thought you were trying to escape your bodyguard."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Then get down here!" She whispered-hissed.

"Normally I'd love to," crouching down to hide with her, "but I also kind of need to leave." And suddenly his light tone, yuppie billionaire, playboy edge was back. "Things to do."

His hand opened to her; fingers wiggling. Keys please.

"Mr Queen!"

Head turning quickly towards the loud bark, he saw Mr Diggle a couple of hundred paces away and he started to powerwalk past the cars.

Oliver looked back down to her. "I've been spotted."

"You wouldn't duck!" Eyes narrowing, she held up said keys. "You're enjoying this." She correctly deduced.

Winking, he palmed them and proceeded to walk – why rush when you can stroll – towards her car. "Thank you."

She'd followed him. "You're welcome and," he opened the driver's side door, "he's almost here."

"Best hurry then." Sliding into the driver's seat – the extremely clean and tidy space somehow spoke more of her orderly nature than of her personality and he wondered what car she'd drive if she had her pick of the lot – he sent her a fast look. "Can you keep him off me for a while?"

It was pushing it. It was asking far too much but Oliver the playboy Queen was nothing if not brazen.

And when her index finger poked his shoulder, he blinked at her. "Should be fun."

Fun?

"Oliver!"

Slamming the door closed – making sure she'd stepped back first – he was pulling in reverse and speeding out of the lot just as John Diggle's hands slapped uselessly against the rear.

And he did it with a small smile.