I've got another Arrow fanfic knocking around in my mind. Will continue writing it and publish if I think it has potential. After this upload I won't be uploading for the next 3 weeks, and if I do it's because I'm procrastinating from studying, I have finals and those take priority. Some of the scenes in here are adapted from the eponymous Corto Maltese episode in Arrow season 3.

See ya later!

Corto Maltese

The town square was buzzing with activity, fisherman crying their catch, old men smoking their pipes stuffed with Cuban tobacco and pushing happy hour seven hours earlier. Tourists who dared to brave the trip to a country under conflict were lounging in the air conditioned cafes beneath wide vibrantly colored umbrellas, street artists and musicians were enveloped in small isolated crowds catching tips in their straw hats and news boy caps. Corto Maltese had plenty of anti-American sentiment but John told him it was only a facade to lure traitors to the tropical paradise.

The ground was paved with stones arranged in concentric circles; they were worn but had clearly stood the test of time, with packed earth emerging through the cracks. At least this part of the island had remained untouched by the protests, fighting between the rebels and royalists had mostly affected the rural villages. Shaw was meant to check in at the fountain that centered the square-now defiled with graffiti-every two weeks. He had failed to do so for a month. Oliver was trying to keep an eye on Felicity as she ventured enthusiastically from kiosk to café, to souvenir shop to the small calypso bands performing.

"—he should have a decoder on him for me to confirm my identity on" said Diggle whom was briefing him on the mission. "It's transmitting a signal but we don't know from where. If he's captured its likely Solos Sepulveda has it".

"And you don't think we should go after the arms dealer?"

"Shaw isn't the most compliant agent out there."

"Copy that" he answered blandly as Felicity shook a pair of hand-painted maracas in his face before heading deeper into the cramped over-priced souvenir shop, he had a mind to use the Arrow modulator on the owner to make him lower the prices to reasonable numbers.

"Can't you at least try to enjoy yourself?" She called from inside.

"You know me, I don't know how to vacation like a normal person".

"So Felicity filled me in on what happened with Roy" said Digg. He knew that tone; it was the one he used whenever a conversation of moral judgement was coming along. In fact, John had always given him the best advice when he didn't ask for it, especially when he didn't ask for it.

"Like you said Digg, sharing my secrets equals avoidable confrontations."

The soldier shrugged, "You wouldn't be doing your job right if you did, and neither would I."

"He should be here with us. Seeing Thea, he could help me convince her to come back."

"He'll come around, Oliver. He will." They had an optimal view of the fountain and Diggle ushered Oliver to stand beside him as he took out a pair of binoculars. They stayed a distance from the check-in point to be discreet in case any rebels or Solos' men were prowling the area for the ARGUS agent.

"I see him. Shaw" John passed the binoculars. For a man who had gone missing for a month presumed dead or in serious trouble he looked perfectly at ease, he really just did not give a crap to tell his superiors he was still alive.

"I'm going in".

"Wait, don't you think it's a little odd that he didn't report his whereabouts to Lyla or to Waller, but here he is casually walking through the town square like he's on a holiday? He's meant to be on a mission isn't he? So why didn't he follow the protocol?"

"There's no way for me to find out by standing here, he's a friendly". Diggle left and walked over to Mark Shaw, leaving Oliver and Felicity.

The agent had his back to him. "Shaw." On instinct he leaned to his right as a knife darted out from Shaw's hand; he grabbed his wrist to further deter him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm with ARGUS."

Mark was glaring at him, his free hand itching to outmaneuver John's hold. "How did the capuchins get away?"

"Jumping from tree to tree with its tail."

With the challenge code answered correctly, both men relaxed their stances and they could start being a little more civilized. "Lyla Michaels sent me. She's been worried about you, Shaw."

"I don't know you, how do I know you're not HIVE?"

"Lyla gave me a security transcoder on my right pocket." Mark's eyes squinted with scrutiny and Digg pursed his lips and glanced away giving him permission to search him. Shaw found the transcoder and decoded it, John's ID and confirmation proved he was no fraud or HIVE agent. Convinced, Shaw returned it to Digg.

"Pretty jumpy, Shaw".

He snorted derisively, "Yeah, better jumpy than dead."

"Fair enough. What's going on?" Mark answered him to walk around the fountain, he lowered his voice.

"Sorry I had eyes on me the whole week. If it isn't HIVE itself then its Solos' men looking for revenge, I toppled the arm's dealer and gunned him dead, but now the rebels are working on their own with HIVE, no middle man. I'm back to zero."

It could give HIVE a foothold in the nation if the rebels won, in addition to the revenue they were getting from selling weapons to Onslaught. To control an entire country could mean many opportunities of exploitation by the organization's leaders, whoever they were.

"Then why stay here when you're in danger? What's so important that you need to be here for?"

They stopped, Mark glanced left and right as if to make sure no one was in the vicinity of hearing. "I have hard intel. Someone from Corto Maltese acquired the ARGUS actual."

His first day at ARGUS a recruit had tutored him on the ins and outs of the building, as well as the several high level secured databases ARGUS had wired to implode if the agency was compromised, "the encrypted data omnibus, complete with a record of agent covers, personal details, affiliated soft targets." His chest filled with dread, he thought of Lyla and Rose, the entire time he was here he had thought of nothing but them and now they could be in grave danger.

"Anyone gets their hands on it and ARGUS could fall within a day. You get why this is so important. There's a buy happening this afternoon, rebels selling the actual to HIVE in exchange for weapons. We have to stop it."

Diggle and Shaw took a jeep wrangler to the site of the buy. Oliver had gotten there on his own, how, he wasn't sure; Queen had a way of getting to obscure places before anyone else and under everyone's noses. Felicity was online keeping an eye on the satellite footage and traffic in and out of the dark web.

"The sale of the actual is going down here" said the agent turning into an abandoned junkyard.

"Only two of us? You sure you don't want to call for backup?"

"This is the only back-up you're going to need" Shaw practically tossed the gun to him from the glove compartment like it was a baseball. He caught it and shot a scathing glare at him, but he didn't notice. They parked and John hopped out of the jeep.

"I'm in position." John could see Oliver ducking beneath a railing on scaffolding just below a rusted water tower.

"You're not worried about them seeing the car?" No answer. "How did you know the buy was happening here anyway?" A creeping unsettling feeling was sinking into his stomach; he stood in his place waiting for Shaw to give him an answer to convince him this wasn't all bullshit.

"I've been a station agent in Corto Maltese for 3 years now; I've got this third world garbage dump wired."

Felicity came online, "Digg, something's off. There was a recent buy on the dark net; either Solos Sepulveda's ghost is selling his arms for him or he isn't dead at all and Shaw's lying". From the look on his face Shaw could see John knew the jig was up.

"What's wrong?"

"There's no buy is there Shaw?" He growled and pressed the trigger on the gun, it clicked; it was about as useless as a plastic version of it. Digg dropped it and lunged, Shaw was faster and out from his hand darted a Taser. John went into a seizure as if hot spokes were curling through his legs and arms, his teeth clenched on his tongue. He fell head-first onto the dirt ground in the next second.

He rolled on the floor groaning, there was gun fire. There was the scrap of boots beside his head but to his disappointment it was still Shaw. "There is a buy going down just not till tomorrow" rasped the corrupt son-of-bitch. "I needed to get my hands on this first though" he bent down to him and got the transcoder from his right pocket, "thanks for helping me decode the actual."

Grand Meridian Hotel, Corto Maltese

John and Oliver returned to their hotel rooms with their egos bruised at how haphazardly they had handled that mission, how could I have let myself get double crossed like that? Diggle had never known Shaw personally but he was feeling the string of betrayal all the same. This is what Waller and Lyla meant by losing friends to HIVE, this was what it was like to have people whom you thought you could trust, drive knives into your back. Lyla made no comment on the matter after he told her; they all had jobs to do.

"Why didn't you call me sooner? I could've helped" she said on Skype, with only a slight disproving reprimand in her tone, she didn't want to completely embarrass him in front of the team.

"I didn't want you to worry Lyla, besides I thought we could handle it."

"We've hacked his email traffic. He's got a buyer already in Corto Maltese."

"Who?"

"We've got the tech boys working on that. And I'm sure Felicity is too" Lyla said speaking to the tech in the room with them who she couldn't see. Smoak wagged her index sassily in the air while not taking her eyes off her own computer screen.

"You got that right."

"Meanwhile, Waller's dispatched a wet team to your position."

Moving that much muscle south of the Atlantic within the time frame they had and with the jumbo plane they would have to take to get here? Discretion would be thrown out the window. This could do more damage than harm. "They won't get here in time."

"They might" she said firmly, shutting down any further recriminations. "Keep your powder dry".

Diggle nodded and signed off. The moment the laptop screen shut close, Oliver said, "Yeah... we're not going to keep our powder dry."

"Hell no."

He got up and paced the sitting area. He wanted to wait for the wet team, but this was going to be one of the-he guessed many-times where he would disobey Amanda Waller's orders. You could say his judgment was clouded, but he had to make the call, for Rose, for Lyla, for everyone on that list with a family they would die to protect. When he got his hands on Shaw, he was going to give the bastard the punishment he deserved.

"This guy is somewhat of a hacker" commented Felicity, reading his file.

"Broke into ARGUS' system faster than you did."

"He does have the help of the security transcoder, and from the looks of it he left a trail." She leaned into the screen to concentrate. "It's faint hacking wise, but with a little bit of luck ill find him or his laptop. I'll tell you when I have something."

Oliver stood and smoothed his pants, there was time before the buy tomorrow and he had another task in Corto to complete and it wasn't sightseeing much to Felicity's disappointment. "I should see Thea."

"Do you have any idea what you're going to say to her?" Asked John.

"The truth."

Felicity swiveled in her chair and pointed a pen at him, "And by truth you mean…?"

"All of it, what happened the five years I was away, everything after that. All of it." From their responses he could tell they were doubtful of this method. But he knew his sister better than they thought and he was never more ready to tell her the truth than he was now.

"Whoa man, are you sure that's wise?"

"Lies are what drove her away from Starling. The truth is the only thing that's going to get her back."

Diggle waved his hands in a way to get him to consider the situation as a whole. "Hold on; look at it from Thea's perspective. She might not see the truth as it is, she'll see that her brother had been lying to her with almost pathological sincerity for the past two years, she'll never believe another word you say Oliver, and you will lose her forever."

He smiled forlornly and gave a small shrug, "Well look around, I've already lost her; I don't have any other choice."

Sara had given him the address via text. The café Thea was working at was outdoors, with thatched umbrellas and wooden chairs and tables. At first he did not recognize her with the new haircut, but even when she spoke in Spanish he knew it was his little sister.

"Thea".

She turned around and her eyes widened with mild surprise, then she smiled brightly. "Ollie, hi." She put his arms around him for a hug.

"It's good to see you."

"You too" she said. But he could tell that he must have been interrupting something here, her life in Corto, whatever salvation she had found on the tiny island; he did not enjoy being a reminder of the carnage her life had crumbled into in Starling. "Um what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question" he countered.

She opened her mouth to say something and just sighed, considering that this conversation was unavoidable. They sat down at a table, she told a busboy she was taking a break at least that was what he assumed, he didn't know a lick of Spanish, and if he remembered correctly neither did she five months ago.

"You look good; I like your hair cut."

Subconsciously she reached to her neck and ran her fingers along the sharp edges of her pixie cut. "Thanks, yeah I wanted it short, you know, it gets hot down here." From the demeanor he was giving off she knew he was waiting for an explanation and there was no use in stalling. "I'm sorry I lied to you about where I was, I just I had to get away from it all."

He gave a neutral smile, "I know you needed space; you've been gone for five months."

She leaned back in her chair grouchily and crossed her arms, "I'm getting the vibe that this isn't just a visit".

"After mum I understood why you left Starling. But Thea I miss you. And I would really like it if you came home."

Her face softened and she sighed heavily, "I miss you too, and I love you, but I'm never coming back to Starling city" she said sternly. "I'm happy here. I'm Mia and there's no one here who knows me."

"I understand." Oliver knew the advantages of falling into the hands of escapism when the world went to hell, he'd found that on Lian Yu after Tommy. "But it's been so long since we've had anything like a family. I shouldn't have told you to leave, we should have stuck together." He understood that now too, the day Thea packed the mansion, all their childhood possessions, family portraits and furniture that had withstood decades in the Queen home; he should have told her the truth then.

"How do I know anything's going to change if I come home?" There was a hint she was still bitter about all the lies.

The start of this type of conversation had never been easy for Oliver. "There are things I haven't told you about my five years away" he told her, she turned her chin to the side as she frowned at him. "Things I wanted to hide from you for fear that they would change the way you saw me."

She shook her head a little as if he had yet to comprehend the bigger picture she had been trying to convey for years. "Don't you get it? You'll always be my big brother, Oliver. It's what you kept from me about my life that made me want to leave for good."

"I'm sorry, but I want to start over. Mum and dad loved us, you know." As if he needed to remind her; flashes of the night Slade drove the sword through his mother's heart assaulted his mind. He felt steel bands constrict around his heart at the memory, he could not imagine a day he would wake up one morning and feel any less grief for that moment. But this may be the truth that convinced her to return with him to Starling.

"Dad did make it off the gambit with me."

She was confused, "You said—"

"I know what I said. I lied. We were both in the lifeboat but there wasn't enough food and water for both of us." She touched her mouth, a pang of sadness hitting her in the hole in her heart Robert had left when he died. "He shot himself so that I would make it." Thea glanced away from him, from the seriousness in his tone, images assailing her of what it must have been for her elder brother to witness that. Out of the suffering he had endured in those five years, the innocence that had died inside of him bit by bit, that would always be the first moment where he knew he could never get back to the person he was when he left Starling on that fateful cruise. Thinking about Moira and Robert's death reminded him of the power of their love, and that he would die for his sister too if need be.

"Our parents sacrificed their lives so that we could live. We're stronger together Thea, as a family. And if we're not then what are we?" He went into his pocket and took out the flight ticket he had gotten for her; he laid it on the table. "You may not need me... but I need you."

Grand Meridian Hotel, Corto Maltese

The next day with twilight fast approaching, the guys were reporting from the highway as they drove towards the meeting point. It was very tedious business if you asked Felicity, four years ago; she would never have imagined a vacation to the Caribbean consisted of being bolted in a hotel room with enough satellite access, routers, megabits, and processing power to hack into the NSA.

The coastline outside the expansive picture-frame window was incredibly tempting with its warm rays, cloudless skies, and crescent blue waves. But no, she had to assist the Arrow an archer vigilante and a super spy prevent a database of potential soft targets from getting leaked and being exploited by an evil organization named after the nest of a colony of bees, mmhm I wonder what the acronym stands for? She had planned on tanning by the beach, drinking mimosas in a quaint shack beneath the shade of a palm tree, watching Oliver sun kissed and shirtless wearing Bermuda's and frolicking in the ocean…

And now she needed to get a hold of her imagination.

There was a creak from the master bedroom.

Felicity whipped her head around at the adjacent archway; she saw the queen-sized bed and on the floor- a growing shadow. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled; she got up slowly and gently picked the letter opener off the study.

She could hardly be called an expert fighter, even a mediocre fighter. But she had learnt enough from Diggle and Sara to handle herself in case anyone attacked her, underestimating her capabilities, to kidnap her or use her for whatever purpose because of her association with the Arrow. She had learnt from the incident with Al-Sayad that she needed to keep her emotions downplayed in stressful situations.

Whoever this was, was not expecting an IT tech to be able to sense when she was being snuck up on. Going towards the window she tiptoed slowly to the adjacent wall away from the direct view of the bedroom, her heartbeat drumming into her ears.

She counted in her head, waiting for those footsteps to emerge from the room. She heard the soft pad of a shoe sliding on the carpet and charged.

A flash of a black and a tuck and dive later, she was unarmed and floundering on the bed like a fish. When she saw who had swiftly maneuvered her out of their way she equally sighed and groaned out in frustration.

"Jeez Sara, can't you use the front door?!"

She got off the bed and flicked the stray strands of hair that had come out of her ponytail out from her eyes. She stood before the assassin who was dressed head to toe in her Canary gear.

"Sorry, I was scouting the island" in her hand was the letter opener she had snatched out of Felicity's hand when she tried to attack her, Sara didn't know what to do with it so she awkwardly handed it back to Felicity. "I didn't have time to change, but I needed to see all of you".

She could hardly complain about that hello, since she had thrown her onto the bed for a soft landing, and besides on the positive side of things it was nice to see an old friend. "Yeah, it's good to see you too Sara. It's been a while, not the kind of welcome back party I would've planned for you or the location, but oh well."

Sara smiled simply because deep down they both knew she was never going to be a part of the team again. "I'm not back for anything just wanted to check up on you guys". It was weird seeing the Canary in full costume, smiling, ironic for a masked vigilante who the underlings of Starling saw as a deadly threat. Most of the time when they came back to the Foundry after an outing back in the day their masks were pulled off the moment they walked in. Now she was Taer-Al-Asfar and she had made it a uncompromising fact what side she chose.

Felicity wondered if she would ever see Sara's face again.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm a looking for someone."

"A traitor with a bounty on their head?" It almost always was. "Is it Lacroix?"

"Where's Oliver? Has he gone to see Thea?" She said without answering, I hate it when Oliver does that, she was even worse than him actually, but Felicity was better at getting Queen to admit what he was hiding than she was at getting Sara too.

"He's helping Digg on an ARGUS mission."

"ARGUS? Since when do you work with them?"

Felicity sighed tiredly and sat down. "It's a long story; don't tell me you're holding something against them too?"

"It's a long story, but basically the League isn't a fan of the organization—annnd I've said too much."

She sniggered and fixed the headset on her ear. But in the three minutes she had been idle she had missed a lot. There was only static on the other end.

"Digg? Oliver? Come in?" She typed frantically to get another frequency, and Sara felt the urgency too. "Digg? Oliver?" Nothing.

"What's wrong?"

No, no I can't lose them again. With no one to report to her, she was left to command the mission blindly. Okay don't freak out Smoak, you've got this, you have to find them. "Their comms have been cut off I can't get the signal!"

Sara jogged towards her and took out her bo staff from her belt, she held the edges and pressed, the sides extended out to full-length.

"Where are they?"

Corto Maltese

He had to leave his thoughts on Thea's decision behind when they arrived at the location of the buy. This would be the first time they would cross paths with HIVE and he was anxious to put a face to the mysterious group that had ARGUS and Amanda Waller shaking in their boots. But he was ready. The sun was a mottled red in the horizon painting the sky in strokes of fire, the heat still persisted until he was sweating through his shirt.

They hid behind rusted barrels with a view of the open space with the dilapidated shack situated in the center; across from them on their right were unused crates and shipping containers. As it was, he felt exposed, he would've sweltered in his leather green hood but at least he wouldn't feel so naked.

"There's Shaw".

Oliver turned his head a fraction and saw the dust clouds rolling out from the tires of the ex-agent's wrangler. He got out of the jeep and carried a flat medium-sized black case to the open shack. Oliver had lodged a mic arrow on the roof to record any discourse between the buyers and sellers.

From the other side of the shack a giant SUV and a camouflage truck skidded beside it. A trade like this conducted in broad daylight for anyone to see? Corto was worse off than it appeared to be. Unidentifiable uniformed soldiers hopped out, they were led by a man who was must have been their leader for he was the only one unmasked, whether he was a HIVE lackey or a he was someone who actually called the shots was uncertain.

"Where's Mr. Armitage?" Asked Shaw. The lackey didn't even open his month to respond, someone from behind him did, a woman from the tenor of her voice. It was smooth, balanced in its volume and bass, sophisticated, the kind of voice your ideal therapist would talk to you in and your problems would seem lighter and easier to bear afterwards.

"Mr. Armitage is no longer with us. His commander decided to take matters into her own hands." She said, referring to herself in third person.

"She's one of them; a HIVE leader" whispered Diggle; "I need to get eyes on her" he took out binoculars while Oliver scanned the perimeter. Empty at the moment but could fill with hostiles soon if they did not react fast.

"Commander Kane" remarked Shaw, having failed to keep his shocked mouth closed. He shut his trap, "This is…unexpected." The understatement of the century actually.

"And to think a few months ago you were serving the enemy" and Oliver could hear the smile she must have had on her lips as she said it. "Do you have the actual?"

"Do you have the money?" Mark countered getting back to business, a moment later Oliver heard the sound of a heavy bag being caught by Shaw.

He glanced around the barrel and squinted at the HIVE commander. She was tall, with sleek blonde hair that curled on her sharp shoulders, polished and refined in her mannerisms, wearing a white pencil skirt and suit that didn't have a single blemish or speck of dust despite the yellow sand that never ceased to blow into the air. John passed the binoculars to him and he brought them to his eyes.

And he saw a dead woman.

"What is it?" Diggle asked when he saw the troubling look that drowned into Oliver's normally reserved face. Oliver took a second glance into the binoculars to make sure he wasn't dreaming and nothing had changed, his hand went limp to the ground.

"I know her".

"What? What do you mean? How?"

Oliver sunk lower into his crouching position, unable to make any sense of it himself, it wasn't possible, it just wasn't.

"…because six years ago, I killed her."