Slade Wilson

"SOMETIMES, SOMEONE COMES INTO YOUR LIFE, SO UNEXPECTEDLY, TAKES YOUR HEART BY SURPRISE, AND CHANGES YOUR LIFE FOREVER"

I don't know how I went wrong.

It's the same, repetitive, genuine thought that has failed to leave my mind in the last 12 hours, from when Oliver beat me, to now, as I'm being flown to God knows where, on this terrible, broken down helicopter with cuffs restricting every single part of my body and an additional ten ARGUS agents restricting me even more.

I have to admit, I feel smug, and a little cocky that ARGUS and Oliver thought that I needed this much protection even after my defeat and loss of the Mirakuru.

And when the thought of failure crosses my mind once more, it is accompanied by the same damn, thought that won't leave my head.

I don't know where I went wrong.

I had planned this for years and years. Ever since I learned that the boy was still alive. I spent every living moment planning for every possible outcome, every possible move, and every possible error. There was no place for things to go wrong; there was no way things could have gone wrong.

I knew his secret identity. I had a plan in place and running long before he even knew I was alive. I had Ms Rochev infiltrate his company. I had Blood become his friend. I had Mirakuru. I had enough skill to beat him in a fight. I had everything necessary for my success.

I don't know how I went wrong.

Tired of facing the same stone face agent for the past hour, I opt to look out the window.

And feel rage fuel me, causing my hands to strain against the restraints and my jaw to clench so tightly I feel pain in my head.

They're taking me back to fucking Lian Yu.

I prefer death to this place. A place where I lost everything I have ever known. The place I found Oliver. The place where I became a true monster. The place where I fell in love. The place where I lost a brother. The place where I lost Shado. The place where I lost my sanity. The place where I lost fucking everything.

Yet, I don't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing my face crumble, the panic weaving through me, and the memories slaughtering my brain, making it unable for me to breathe. I keep my expression schooled into the blank, hard cold mask that I had to don ever since Shado died, ever since I felt the monster take over.

And as I set foot onto the island for the first time in years, unprepared for the familiarity of it all, I can't help but allow the onslaught of the words that are etched into my brain now.

I don't know how I went wrong.

I know when it went wrong. I know where it went wrong. But I don't know how.

It went wrong in the wretched mansion. It went wrong through the camera I put in order to spy on the Queens, the camera that unexpectedly came to life on that fateful night. I remember hearing the beeping in my office, I remember being confused because there wasn't supposed to be anyone in the mansion. I remember thinking that perhaps it was a Starling City resident who somehow managed to break into the great estate to provide them with some safety from to the terror I had rained on the city.

I remember being shell-shocked when none other than Oliver Queen had walked into the room, followed by none other than Felicity Smoak. I remember being even more confused as he told her to stay in the mansion. I remember wondering why he wasn't searching for Ms Lance or his sister, or anyone.

I remember my world falling apart when he admitted to loving her, because that wasn't a part of the plan. He was supposed to be in love with Laurel Lance, he was supposed to see her die. I remember going back through memory lane to the night when Shado died, to the night when Oliver had to make a choice.

I remember the excruciating amount of satisfaction I felt when the opportunity was presented to me on a silver platter. I remember hastily ordering guards to snatch me Ms Smoak, calling Oliver as soon as she was in front of me. I remember the cold feeling of satisfaction as I asked Oliver to make his choice, as I asked him to choose between his current love and his former love.

I remember it all going shit after that.

We pass through the forest, through a path I don't entirely recognize despite being on the island for so long. We cross the river, and walk in the opposite direction of the plane. I notice that all the landmines are gone, and that some of the plants and trees have been cleared.

A still don't know how I went wrong.

I know Oliver Queen better than most. I shaped him into the man he is now. I know all his ticks, and tells, and expressions. I was the one who taught him how to hide his feelings, how to make his weaknesses vanish in the face of an enemy and how to lie so efficiently, you don't even realize you're lying.

How did I miss the fact that he was lying when he told Felicity that he loved her?

Even I, the master of lying, cheating and manipulating, know that there is no way I could have pulled off such a believable lie. The way Oliver was looking at that women; as if she was his world, his hope, his entire reason for living, it's practically impossible for any one person to bogusly look at someone like that.

And I know that there is no coming back from being looked at the way Oliver looked at Felicity. While

may have been in on the plan, I can almost guarantee that she was not expecting for Queen to look at her with such...love, the kind of look in one's eye that every single person on the planet wants to be on the receiving end of.

Oliver Queen did the unthinkable by pretending to be in love with Felicity Smoak.

How did I go wrong?

The answer comes to me when I am escorted into a dark room, littered with a series of cages, and nothing else, providing me good insight on what Oliver and Argus have in store for me. They're going to trap me in some cage as if I were a dog or a wild animal; a cage in Lian Yu, Oliver probably thought up of that one with the assistance of Waller.

The Argus agents roughly lead me along the dark and enclosed cave, until we go through the very last door into a room with nothing but a moderately sized cell and Team Arrow huddled together in the corner.

When the sound of the door opening registers, Oliver and John Diggle have their defenses up immediately, Ms Smoak only following seconds later, when the doors close shut. I don't miss the way the three inch closer together, the two men taking a step in front of Felicity, who, instead of looking scared and exhausted, looks rather mad and deadly. The very trio I vowed to destroy into small tiny pieces is alive and stronger than ever.

John Diggle makes his way to exit the prison, presumably to exchange a few words with Amanda Waller, if she's even here, or whichever winged monkey she sent. I have to smirk in pride at the glare he sends me, full of hatred and violence, but not lacking fear. I'm a chained animal and they still fear me. The thought is gratifying.

It leaves me alone with Oliver, Felicity, and four other unknown agents. As I refocus my attention to the former two, I notice that Oliver has gotten Felicity plastered to his side, her small figure partially hidden behind his broad shoulders, their fingers intertwined behind his back, at her side; they look like a cliché couple on an action movie poster.

"Man, let's go." I don't turn around at the sound of John Diggle's voice, but I can picture the man at the entrance, impatiently clenching his fists, waiting to get out of this godforsaken island. The island that Oliver is once again abandoning me in.

Maybe it's the leftover Mirakuru in me, or the anger in my veins. Maybe it's just the fact that I haven't riled up Ms Smoak as much as I wanted to, or maybe it's the fact that she outsmarted me, but either one of those aspects could have been the reason as to why I end up calling for her, as she walks away.

"Tell me Ms Smoak," They both freeze. I see Oliver's face take on a murderous rage and the hand on his partner's back urges her forward, but the stubborn blonde doesn't move, allowing me to continue, "Which one of my great acts did you enjoy the most? Stealing Oliver's company away from him through Isabel Rochev, making him an orphan by stabbing his mother, ruining Roy Harper. Or maybe it was the way I forced Oliver to look into your eyes with uttermost love that ended up being an absolute lie just so he can pawn you off to the devil—" I'm not given the opportunity to finish.

Because Felicity Megan Smoak, throws a punch straight to my gut, probably with all she has, because I can feel the pain resonating through my jaws and in the ringing of my ears.

But I'm unwilling to give her the satisfaction of knowing that the punch got to me, so swallowing the blood that has risen to my mouth, I harden my face and turn around to look at Ms Smoak, expecting to see and hear a cliché, corny, witty comeback that these heroes have managed to perfect.

Instead, her face is scrunched up into a look of dramatic pain, and she starts to mock howl, clutching her fist to her chest, and blubbering out a mess of almost incomprehensible words.

"Holy Fracking Google! What the hell was that! That hurts so much I think I broke five bones in my abdomen just by throwing a punch. Why did anyone tell me it would hurt? I think I deserved to know. Actually, I have a right to know. Do you guys actually do this on a daily basis? Sara makes it look like nothing when she taught me how to throw a punch. In fact, she made it seem like the most simple thing in the world. But damn..."

Her voice eventually tunes out because all my attention and focus is directed towards Oliver Queen who, instead of stopping her and taking her away after she punched me, looks at the still rambling blonde (how did the conversation go from punches to bullet wounds?) with a soft look in his face that eliminates all the darkness that I helped conjure up, leaving only the blinding light of the boy who got shipwrecked on this very island seven years ago.

"Felicity," He says her name, stretching out every syllable, giving each letter a meaning of its own, "Let's go."

And he places his hands on her back, and guides her out of the door, too busy looking her fisted knuckles to bother looking back at me. And damn, he was supposed to look back at me. He was supposed to turn around and be reminded one last time, of everything that he lost. Everything that I took from him.

And it's only after everyone is gone, after they leave me locked up in darkness, in the very island that started it all, that I finally manage to decipher the expression in Oliver's face; an expression that I, for the life of me, have never seen before.

I was so blinded by the light that radiated from him at that moment, the light I fought so hard to shut off, the light I had genuinely thought I took away, that I completely ignored all of his other tells, the tells I know so well.

I know all of his tells. I know his lies, his masks, and his darkness. I thought that two years away had changed him, that I couldn't recognize what he was trying to do, when he was trying to fool me.

But it didn't.

I still know all of his tells.

Meaning that he wasn't lying when he told Felicity Smoak he loved her.

And I finally gather some insight as to where my plan had gone wrong.

I severely underestimated Felicity Smoak. I paid absolutely no attention to her, and dismissed her as some genius IT geek who served as nothing but tech support in Oliver's crusade. I deemed her far less important than Moira, Thea, Sara, Laurel, John, and even Roy. I completely ignored her because I didn't think that Oliver himself held her at any importance.

Turns out he holds her at a higher level of importance than anyone else.

In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. The way he abandoned his teammates to protect her when I attacked their lair, the way he never, ever mentioned Felicity in any of our conversations, the way he made sure to put her in the open every time, noticeable enough to not raise my suspicions but far enough to not consider her as a target, proves that he loves her.

It's proven in the way he looked at her in the cave a couple of hours ago; with love, affection, desire, yearning, and surprise. Surprise. He doesn't realize the severity of his feelings. Didn't realize it until recently. As soon as he admitted the feelings he knew he had somewhere in his cold, broken heart, he realized how true they were, how strong it was, how far gone he was.

I had expected everything. Planned for every miniscule detail. Prepared for any possible outcome, error, and complication.

I did not expect Felicity Smoak. I did not expect her to be brave, to be smart, and to be so trusting of Oliver Queen to willingly go into the lion's den and wait for him to rescue her.

I did not expect her to be so important to Oliver Queen. I did not expect for her to make him fall in love with her.

The bittersweet part of all of this; falling in love with Felicity Smoak is the last thing Oliver Queen himself expected to happen to him.

I know how I went wrong.

"SOMETIMES THE PERFECT PERSON FOR YOU IS WHO YOU LEAST EXPECTED IT TO BE"

Slade Wilson failed because he didn't expect Felicity Smoak. In his defense, Oliver Queen didn't expect her either.