Chapter 143: Player
All three of Star City's vigilantes arrived to the Foundry post-haste once the announcement about Purity had been sent out to the entire Justice League. They dressed in their costumes with well-practiced movements and were fully in uniform by the time the video conference was due to start. Almost immediately, every monitor in their base was covered with members of the JL, either in their own personal bases or at headquarters at the Hall of Justice. At the center of it all was Amanda Waller, as grim-faced and taciturn as ever.
"You're certain she has Pestilence's powers?" Oliver demanded, looking at the screen that had the faces of Astra and Hal.
"We saw her kill agents using the same methodology as Pestilence," Astra confirmed, expression dark. Clearly she was still beating herself up for Purity escaping on her watch. "Her nails elongated and she scratched them, and they collapsed from the virus attacking their immune systems."
Kara looked deeply worried, biting her nail. "How, Aunt Astra? Do you think it has to do with their modified biology, whatever allowed them to live as normal humans for all these years before their powers started awakening?" Even now, they still didn't have an answer for why Purity and Pestilence differed so much from normal Kryptonians such as herself, her aunt, and Kal.
The former general simply shook her head. "I do not know, little one. All she said on the matter before she escaped is that while we may have killed her 'sister', we did not destroy her 'power'. That implies that if we had managed to kill Purity before we captured Pestilence, Purity's power would've passed to Pestilence." Everyone shuddered at the thought. Purity was bad enough, but Pestilence… what little they saw of her personality bespoke true madness. Metropolis would've never ended as well as it did had Pestilence had access to Purity's powers, that was for sure.
"Barry," Oliver looked to another monitor, addressing his younger brother.
"I've already told Caitlin. She and the rest of her division are already working on a way to counteract the virus that Pestilence used," Barry confirmed. "However, there is no guarantee that is the same virus that Purity is using. We will need the bodies of the agents she killed during her escape so we know what we're working with."
"Consider it done, Allen," Amanda proclaimed in the center monitor. "As for Purity herself — there is obviously more to this situation than she told us, to what Pestilence and her actually are and what kind of connection they have. But that no longer matters; now that she has Pestilence's powers, she's too dangerous to be allowed free. While capture is preferred, do not hesitate to kill her if necessary upon confrontation. We cannot afford to have a deadly plague spreading around the world just because we're too squeamish about shedding blood."
"How are we on tracking her down?" J'onn asked, scarlet eyes glowing.
"We're using the same algorithms and methods we used to track down Pestilence. We've also got our best scientists working out a method to track her down using her sound-based powers. Canary, we will need to be apprised of your location at all times so that we do not confuse you with Purity, so please keep your JL ring and communicator on your person at all times." Laurel nodded to acknowledge she heard Amanda's order.
"Everyone, please be on standby. Due to the danger Purity now poses, it is best to have the entire Justice League present to ensure she does not escape the next time she attacks. We cannot afford the consequences should she do so."
After the meeting concluded, Kara bid Oliver and Laurel farewell, wishing to meet up with Kal, Sam, and Ruby upon their return from the theatre so they would not worry about her. That left the nascent 'power couple' of Star City, as many tabloids called them, all alone in the Foundry. Oliver was about to ask Laurel if she wanted to get some training in now that they were here, but paused when he saw a pensive look on his girlfriend's face. She had looked a bit lost in though throughout the meeting, he recalled.
"Is something wrong, Laurel?" he asked her carefully.
Laurel glanced at him, and shook her head, sighing. "There's nothing wrong, Ollie. I've just been thinking about my family."
Oliver frowned. "Is there a problem with them, then?"
"No. It's just… well, I keep on thinking about Black Siren. You know, how she impersonated me those few hours while I was trapped with the others on Earth-2?"
The archer's mood darkened when she mentioned that particular incident. Oh, he remembered what his girlfriend's doppelgänger had done very well. "Yeah. What about it? You know she can't pull that stunt anymore." Hard to do when you were imprisoned in a super-max facility on an entirely different earth.
The lawyer shrugged. "I was just thinking… if Siren had decided to hurt my family during that time, or revealed to them the truth about what happened to me, there's nothing they could've done about it. They would've been left completely in the dark, wondering if I was still alive."
And just like that, it hit Oliver. "You want to tell them you're Black Canary," he surmised. You want to stop lying to them, was the implicit statement. He couldn't help but sympathize; Laurel might be a vigilante, but she was nowhere near as duplicitous as he was.
"I am," Laurel admitted. "But I'm hesitant."
"Why? It's your secret, Laurel."
"Except it isn't," she countered. "It hasn't just been my secret for a long time. It's yours as well — the moment they learn I'm Black Canary, they'll figure out you're Green Arrow. Because there's no way you don't know, since we live together, and considering how close our vigilante personas are in public…"
Oliver winced. That was true. "Not to mention Barry and Kara; it didn't take Tommy much of a leap to figure out they were the Flash and Supergirl, and my dad's a detective. He'll connect the dots immediately. And once they find out, they're going to want to know why you guys, well, became what you are. And that's not my story to tell."
Oh. Well, that was true too. As much as he loved Laurel and shared everything with her, his secrets weren't hers to tell unless it was under the most dire of circumstances. And telling her parents the truth, while important, wasn't one of them. "It's fine, Laurel," Oliver sighed after some thought. "We'll need to talk to Barry and Kara about it as well, but if you think it's best to tell your family the truth, then you have my blessing. And if they want to know about what happened to us, then just direct them to me."
He normally wouldn't want people to know his secret, but obviously having to lie so much to her family was hurting Laurel, and that's one thing he couldn't stand. If she needed to do this to have some peace of mind, then she could have it. It didn't mean he was ready to tell his family the truth quite yet, after all. Thea, perhaps, would be fine, but his mother and father would just demand him to stop so he could focus on the company, and that would just prove to be the final break in their relationship. Oliver really would like not to have another shouting match with his parents, thank you very much.
Laurel smiled at him. "Thanks, Ollie," she said happily, before giving him a kiss on the cheek. Oliver smiled back.
"Iris, I'm back—did you just get me a dozen bags of Big Belly Burger?" Barry blinked at the large pile of fast food bags that were now dotting his lab.
Iris, munching on her own bag, nodded. "I was hungry, and figured you would be too," she answered honestly. Barry was always hungry, after all.
"You are the best," Barry declared, grabbing the top-most bag from the pile and heading over to where Iris was eating. "Remind me to pay you back later."
Just as he was about to sit down, however, his phone started ringing again. He checked the Caller ID, and sighed. Ralph.
"Hey man," Ralph started off the moment he accepted the call. "Have you finished the tests yet?"
"Just the preliminary testing. Haven't got the specifics yet, but I've determined that the substance is some kind of gas accelerant. I'll need to do more testing to determine what kind though."
There was a brief pause over the line. "Gas accelerant, you say?" The private investigator was speaking casually, but Barry could sense the tension in his voice.
The scientist frowned. "Yeah. Why?"
"Could it be a kind of gas accelerant used in motorcycles too?"
"Well, yeah, but again — I'll have to do more testing just to be sure. Why?"
"It's nothing, Barry," Ralph replied, but Barry wasn't fooled. Not in the least. "Thanks for your help. Tell me once you have the full results, alright?"
"Alright," Barry said slowly. With that, Ralph hung up the call. The speedster slowly removed his phone from his ear to briefly stare at it in confusion, before sharing a look with an equally perplexed Iris. Seriously — what the hell is Ralph investigating? He couldn't help but wonder.
When Tommy Merlyn returned to Star City several months ago, one of the first things he did was sell off the old Merlyn Mansion. There were just too many memories there that he didn't want to remember, even with the recent reconciliation with his father. Not to mention, it was also a security risk; in order to keep a place like that running, he would need to have staff and security. Something that would make it hard to have clandestine meetings with his supposedly-dead sire and said sire's band of assassins.
Having a penthouse apartment in midtown had its own security risks, but ultimately was safer in the long-term. No amount of security his building had could prevent Malcolm from getting in undetected, and he had the entire place to himself. It gave him a sort of privacy he would never have in a remote estate, something Tommy relished with all his being.
Like now. Tommy needed privacy more than ever right now as he tried to process the truth he had just learned a night ago. Isabel, his lost love, the woman he had intended to marry before she was cruelly taken from him, had never been the person he thought she was. No, that person had been a facade, a disguise made to lure him in and make him dance to her tune. Tommy had been played once again.
Isabel hadn't been his sweet and loving girlfriend. No, she had been a vindictive ex-mistress of his godfather, who had been using him in her own long-term plot of revenge. She had been working for Talia, had been manipulating him upon Talia's direction, all under the likely promise of being able to get back at the Queens and stand at the top of Star City's high society. She had never loved him, like he loved her.
Tommy had been a pawn to her, like he was to everyone else. Never had he hated anything more than that realization. That's all anyone was ever going to see, wasn't it?
Not like Oliver, he couldn't help but think derisively. Oliver was never a pawn to anyone, a piece in the game. No, he was the prize to be won, the princess in the castle that needed to be saved and protected. It had been like that ever since he had first returned to the city, to his family. And if Malcolm or the Queens ever found out the truth about him, the real truth, he would no longer be a prize at all — no, he would be a teammate, a fellow conspirator, an equal. Whereas Tommy was always only ever seen beneath, Oliver would be seen as another, or even above. And Tommy was sick of it just like everything else.
For once in his life, Tommy didn't want to be played. He wanted to be the player. That's all he wanted to be, but that's not what anyone was going to let him be.
So maybe it was time to stop letting people decide what he needed to be. Maybe it was time to decide that for himself.
A few nights later…
I can't believe I'm doing this.
Ralph had never felt more nervous in his life. He had tried to keep his suspicions under wraps, tried not to jump to conclusions like any good detective, but it was impossible for him not to start seeing the connections. And when Barry finally called him back and gave him the full test results, he couldn't ignore it any more. He had thrown himself into gathering more evidence, trying desperately to prove what was rapidly becoming the only real conclusion to this case. One he didn't want to believe with all his heart.
Finally, he couldn't deny it any longer. Ever single path he tried to follow led to the same place, no matter how many times he double-checked his work, tried to find something wrong in what he was seeing. He wanted to bring someone else in on this, just to make sure, but the terms of his client were quite clear; nobody could know the details. He could outsource the processing of the evidence, but nobody was allowed to work the case with him. If he broke that, then he wasn't paid. Part of him was still sorely tempted anyway for his peace of mind, but a look at his bills quickly changed it.
So now he was here. In the middle of one of Central City's most private and affluent neighborhoods, in front of one of its most luxurious houses. He gathered up all his courage, and pressed the button for the doorbell.
The door opened. "Ralph?" Eddie Thawne said from the other side of the door, blinking.
Eddie had moved into this neighborhood not long after the deaths of his parents in order to avoid the subsequent media blitz that had surrounded him in the wake of the tragedy. He wasn't able to afford it on a cop's salary, but that had been remedied thanks to their wills, which had named him as the sole beneficiary. Eddie had inherited the family fortune and all of the properties his parents had bought over the years, including the nice luxury home they had bought in this specific neighborhood to stay in during their brief forays in Central City.
Ralph didn't blame him for wanting to avoid the paps. He could only hope, however, that the reason Eddie wanted to avoid them so badly was just because he didn't want his face splashed on the news everywhere. Not the… well, he wasn't quite ready to admit it yet.
"What are you doing here, Ralph?" The other detective demanded, frowning.
The metahuman cleared his throat. "I need to talk to you," Ralph explained. "I recently got a case for my firm and it involves you. Can you let me inside so we can speak privately?"
Eddie looked highly reluctant, but nonetheless complied with his request, stepping aside so Ralph could walk in. Ralph was directed to the living room, and spent the time glancing around the house. The entire place was devoid of any portraits or pictures, beyond the few Eddie had of Iris and the others at the precinct. There were none of his parents.
"Alright. Let's get this over with," Eddie said, crossing his arms with a scowl.
Despite himself, Ralph couldn't help but smirk a bit. "Really don't want me here, do you?"
"After what you did? Hell no. I'm still pissed at you."
"Right," Ralph sighed. "Right."
Eddie glared at him, which was all Ralph needed as a prompt to get on with it. "A few weeks ago, I got a call from an anonymous client asking me to investigate the death of your parents."
The glare faded away into shock as Eddie stiffened. Ralph noticed, but wisely didn't comment, instead just watching the other man closely. "I took a second look at the autopsy report, then had some of the evidence at the scene of the fire re-processed by someone else. And the report doesn't lie, Eddie — Hugo and Charlene died before the fire that burned their house down was even set."
Silence, still. Ralph pushed on. "The evidence I found was gas accelerant, from a brand typically used for motorcycles. It was what was used to set the fire. Now, I was wondering; why would the Thawnes have a motorcycle? It's not like Hugo had that kind of fetish, as far as I was aware. But then I looked at their records, and talked with some of their acquaintances, and learned something interesting — they did keep one motorcycle at their family home. It was a gift for you on your sixteenth birthday."
"What are you trying to say, Ralph?" Eddie demanded. His voice was monotone, but the glare had returned, twice as deadly.
"Did you kill your parents, Eddie?" Ralph asked, this time completely serious.
A stand-off ensued. The two men glared at each other silently for a long moment. And then, Eddie sighed.
"Yes," the younger man finally admitted. "I did."
Something loosened in Ralph's chest even as horror overcame him. His expression crumpled. "Eddie—"
"It was an accident," Eddie cut him off, quick to defend himself. "We got into an argument, and it got extremely heated. I… My powers activated—"
"You're a metahuman?"
"Yeah, I am," he confirmed. "I don't know what they do, still don't, but before I knew it, my dad was dead. Then my mom started screaming at me and calling me a monster and something in me just… snapped and she was dead too."
Ralph crossed his arms, eyes wide. "And then you covered up their deaths?" He tried not to sound too accusing, but it was hard not to be. Accidental murder was one thing, but covering it up?
"I had no choice," Eddie asserted. "Even if it was an accident, a black mark like this would never go away. If the public found out — the entire thing would've turned into some kind of media circus. My life would've been over. I couldn't afford that; I had just gotten out of the hospital, my life was already derailed enough."
Well, he wasn't wrong, and Ralph couldn't help feel a bit of sympathy for his fellow detective. Eddie's parents were assholes and they had done plenty enough to their son; their deaths shouldn't be what ruined Eddie's life. But even so, that didn't change the fact that Eddie had killed them, and someone had gotten suspicious enough about their deaths to ask Ralph to investigate the case. Even if Ralph lied and reported that their deaths really were an accident, there was no guarantee the client would believe him, or that they might reach out to another private eye to investigate it. The entire situation had become a ticking time bomb that might very well blow up in all their faces. And, well, there was only one way to defuse it.
"Look, man," Ralph sighed. "I get it. I feel for you. But it's still wrong. It's not that much different from what I did, and we both know what happened there."
Eddie winced. "This secret you've got is always going to be hanging over your head. One day, someone much less nicer than me might figure it out and will be a lot less willing to listen to your side of the story, and it won't be pretty. You need to turn yourself in now and save yourself any future grief."
For a moment, it seemed like Ralph had gotten to him. But then Eddie scowled and shook his head. "No way, man. I can't."
"Eddie—"
"No, Ralph! If I do that, all it's going to do is ruin my life, and my parents have done enough of that already. They shouldn't be able to keep doing that when they're dead."
He turned away. Ralph stretched out his arm. "Eddie, please, come on—"
Anything else Ralph wanted to say was cut off. Eddie whirled around, eyes glowing an incandescent blue, and the wisps of similarly-colored flames began to emanate from him. "I. Said. NO!"
That was the last thing Ralph would ever hear. There was a bright, blue light, and then he knew no more.
It was originally going to be Patty who was going to investigate Eddie, figure out what he did, and be accidentally killed. But then all that stuff with Ralph's actor happened and I switched them and found this works much better. Not entirely sure if I'm still going to keep Patty around, I've never been fond of her character, but we'll see.
In other news, Tommy and Eddie both continue their descents. Where that will lead them — well, you'll see. And we get some hints on what's nagging Laurel, and how it contrasts with Oliver's situation. Oh, the irony is amazing.
As always, feel free to make comments, flames will be ignored and deleted, and don't forget to update the TV Tropes page!