"Why are we here?" Red asked, sat in position on a rooftop opposite the ship they were watching dock.

"I told you. We're watching for that ship." Arsenal answered stonily from his sniper position on the other side of the harbour. It sounded like he was focusing one hundred percent on watching the ships, like he might miss it if he wasn't careful.

"Yeah, I know, that's what you keep saying." Red whispered into his comm link, irritability from the long stakeout starting to settle in. "But you don't know what the ship looks like, where it's coming from, where it's going, what it's carrying..."

"Okay, okay!" Arsenal never once took his eyes off the harbour, ready to spring into action at any moment. "I know I wasn't exactly forthcoming with information. I'm not really sure enough on all that stuff to give you anything solid. But I know it's coming." Arsenal lifted his eyes to the rooftop Red was sat on for a second. "Probably." He added as a quiet whisper.

"Wait a second!" Red muttered angrily into his comm, his eyes going over to see the other boy who was watching like a hawk. "Are you telling me now that we came all the way down here and sat around staring at a dock for four hours on information that may or may not be right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Did I not make that clear during pizza time?"

Red narrowed his eyes. "No. You did not make that clear during pizza time. And I'm not paying for you to eat again."

That earned a scoff from Arsenal. "Please, be real. That pizza came out of Ollie's bank account."

Red went silent and continued to watch the dock. It was now almost six o clock, the shipment was due in just a little under four hours ago, and Red was not happy. This felt like a waste of a day.

"Where did you even get this mysterious lead from anyway?" Red asked, slightly annoyed at the faulty information.

Arsenal seemed to be keeping his spirits up just fine, though. "I have my sources." He whispered.

"That's pretty cryptic." Red whispered back, and after that they went silent for a little while longer.

"So," Arsenal started, ignoring the glare sent at him by Red from across the harbour. "How are you?"

Red flicked his eyes over to Arsenal in a movement so subtle he couldn't possibly have caught it from across the pier. "What, you mean besides the faulty information and the waste of four hours?" Arsenal nodded, but kept his eyes on the dock. "Alright. Why?"

"I'm trying to be nice, you could at least give me a little something to work with." Arsenal replied with a huff.

It's more than that, Red thought idly. The way he said it wasn't just small talk, chatter between friends , it was... concern. Like he wanted to know how Red really was.

"I just guess I could be better." It wasn't meant to sound sappy, but he didn't really want it to come out sounding so bitter, either. He waited for Arsenal to reply for a few seconds, and when he didn't, Red thought it fell to him to apologise. "Sorry. I'm being mean."

Arsenal was sat all the way across the harbour, but Red could still see him nod. "It's okay. You've got stuff. I get that."

Red let out a light laugh, not loud enough to out them as hiding, but apparently loud enough for Arsenal to hear it and turn his head towards him. Red wasn't sure why he felt so relived that Arsenal wasn't mad at him, but it felt nice that someone understood that he had stuff going on. He was having a hard time just getting up in the morning, not that he'd ever admit it to anyone. Especially Ollie. Just imagine all the overprotective parenting.

Green Arrow was pretty underestimated by villains and other heroes alike. When he gets mad, he's easily just as scary as Batman, maybe even more (though Red will deny that if he ever asks). And when he gets protective? If Ollie wanted to baby him, really wanted to and had no doubts about 'whether he should be allowed to be his own person' (Dinah's words) then he wouldn't be going anywhere.

As much as he really hated Ollie, he also really loved him. True, he wasn't his dad. No one was. His dad was awesome. But Ollie was great in his own special way. They were family, whether he liked it or not, even if Ollie was annoying and he was a terrible son. He should really go visit at some point, once he gets his life sorted out. Gets everything straight.

"So are you really okay?" This time he wasn't trying to hide the hidden meaning behind the question. "I mean, I know you have a lot of stuff, and I don't think anyone in your position would be okay, and this is probably a really insensitive way to phrase the question? But are you okay? Because you know that anyone would be willing to help you, all you have to do is let us..."

"I don't need help." Red snapped, a little angrier than intended. It was a lie. He knew it. He was pretty sure Arsenal knew it, because he really did need help, but he wouldn't take it. Not from them. He could help himself.

"Okay, I'm not saying you do." Arsenal almost whispered, trying to use what Red assumed was supposed to be a calming tone but sounded more angry and frustrated. "I'm just saying that if you ever do need it, if your ever not okay, that everyone is here for you. Well, not everyone. A lot of people."

Red sighed. "I know. Thanks." He wasn't finished, he had more things to say, but he was pulled out of his conversation by movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his neck around to look, instinctively, and saw it. A big, regular looking cargo ship with "LexCorp" written across the side. Arsenal seemed to notice it too, because there was no more vocal prodding from him over the comm link, just silence, concentration. Of course, Red was too focused to actually look at Arsenal and check.

They watched the ship as it pulled in to dock, and two big men with big guns got off to guard the door. Which all seemed very legitimate for an illegal transporting. A black car pulled up in front of the ship, and out got two more goons, followed by none other than Lex Luthor himself, and his cyber secretary/bodyguard, Mercy. That was strange, it wasn't like Lex to show up to something as simple as a shipping. A glorified delivery. Why would someone as important as him show up at such a mundane event? It was interesting.

A small man in a lab coat scuttled off the boat towards Luthor, an industrial briefcase with a double chrome plated lock and an identity recognition scanner in his hands. The case was very heavily secured, much more heavily secured than any normal thing would be. They talked, and Arsenal had left a bug over by the dock so they could listen to it later, but Red was very curious as to what they were discussing. Speaking of Arsenal, he was utilising his better vantage point to get the whole thing on camera, another upgrade he added to that arm of his. A secret camera. Red was really going to have to get a list of everything that arm could do because he was starting to lose track.

Now it was Red's time to shine. He reached into his quiver and knocked an arrow, not a regular arrow, the special sort of arrow that would silently place a tracker that they could follow to wherever Lex was hiding. Once Red had locked on his target, which took less than a second thanks to his excellent marksmanship skills and the sniper position he was in, he let the arrow fly silently through the air until it scratched the back of the shady looking car that Lex had arrived in. On contact the arrow will have released thousands of nano trackers (or nanites, as Ollie called them, which is a weird name but one Roy wouldn't deny had a ring to it) into the body work of the car, meaning that there was no real way to extract them other than to drive the car off a cliff (hopefully- it was one of Red's newer designs, and although he had tested it throughly, and frankly way more than an arrow need to be tested, it was still its first real run out in the field). Once the arrow successfully did its job and he got the thumbs up from Arsenal signalling that the nano tracers were in and online, all that was left to do was watch and wait for something to happen. Once they left, the plan was that Arsenal and Red were going to head back to the apartment, sort through the footage and audio they gathered, look at the nano trackers to see where that car and the goons had escorted Luthor, and then formulate their next plan. However, all they could do right now was watch.

The small man in the lab coat opened the briefcase to Luthor, who smiled and nodded. Red couldn't seem the contents of the briefcase, but he could see Lex's smug little face clear as day and he was happy about whatever was in there. Very happy.

That strange amount of happy that Lex always seems to get whenever something terrible is about to happen.

Red couldn't shake off the very bad feeling that had suddenly taken over him. He didn't know what was in that case, but in the grand scheme of things it probably wasn't going to benefit anyone that wasn't Luthor himself.

Arsenal looked like he was about to jump into action and start beating guards down. "Arsenal, keep your cover."

"Why?" Arsenal demanded. "They deserve a good beat down."

"I know." Red muttered. He really did know. It was because of him that Wally was gone, that son-of-bitch, but he had to keep a level head in these situations. "Blowing our cover and potentially getting us killed isn't the way to go when it comes to stopping Luthor."

Arsenal scoffed. "I could take them."

"You might be able to, but with all those people and Mercy there, I don't like the idea of you taking your chances." Red whispered, watching Luthor get back into the black car as one of the goons opened the door for him, and the small man in the lab coat return to his ship.

"I don't take orders from you." Arsenal was still angry, but he seemed to calm down once all the people had left. "Anyway, I've taken Mercy on before and won."

Red scoffed. "No, you've taken Mercy on before and fought to a standstill. That's not the same as winning."

"I beat Mercy!" Arsenal tried to sound triumphant, but he just sounded angry. "It was Luthor than I fought to a standstill. And I would have won, too."

Red looked over at him, and Arsenal was looking at his arm, nervously fiddling with the buttons again. "But you chose satisfaction. Remember that?"

"Yeah, I remember that." Arsenal started. "Look, if your going to try and make me feel bad for the decisions I've made, it's not going to work. Yes I did it, but I'd do it again if-"

"Hey, hey, calm down." Red muttered, cutting Arsenal off. "I'm not going to yell at you for the decisions you made. I know how it feels to have people yell at you for what you choose." An image of Wally yelling at him for getting hitched to a villain flashed through his mind, but he repressed it. "The truth is, if I was in that situation, I'd have probably done the same thing. But you getting yourself into that situation in the first place was stupid, so I'm not going to stand by and watch you take your chances with Luthor alone again."

Arsenal was silent for a second. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Red whispered in return.

There was another moment of silence as they heard the engine of the car fade into the distance and they knew that Luthor had really left. "Hey," Arsenal whispered, starting to leave his hiding spot but still being careful for anyone who might still be around. "I won't have much fun strangling Luthor if I get killed."

Red smiled and started to move himself. "That's the spirit."