Title: Break Me Down, You Got a Lovely Face
Words: 2250
Pairings: Oliver/Sara, Laurel/Slade
Genre: Romance/Angst
Status: Done.

Summary:
Slade comes to tell Laurel about Oliver's little secret and then shows her the one thing that she hasn't had in a long time. Trust. And for Oliver, that is the most dangerous thing in the world.

Watching the news of Thea's safe return to her family, Laurel couldn't help but feel a little relief. Bear was safe. Slade Wilson, god, she wanted to kill him. She couldn't believe that someone so connected with Moira could do that. Well, not really. Moira wasn't the best mother. She messed up plenty. Her associates including Malcolm Merlyn which put your judgment under question, but she always tried to keep Thea safe.

She put her bowl in her kitchen and heard her a rap on the door. She opened it. Slade. Fuck.

She tried to push it back, but he was too strong. He pushed forward and into her home.

The fucker grinned. "Don't worry. I am not here to harm you." Like that made it better.

"Go to hell," She spat at him.

"All in good time I'm sure." He laughed a little, "But before then, I have come to Starling City to see Oliver Queen suffer," He told her looking her straight in the eye, dead serious now.

She didn't get it though. "Oliver? What? Why?" She asked him, trying at harsh and just sounding a little bit panicked. When someone took someone you loved like Bear, you had the right to be panicked. What the fuck did Oliver have to do with any of this? Why did he want Oliver to suffer. There was just so much about this, she didn't get .

"Because he's not the man you think he is." He answered.

This time, Laurel had strength and turned her chin up at him, her posture straightening up. "And how would you know that?" Her voice tried to sear him, but the effects of Mirakuru had done more than strengthen him physically. He was never scared by tactics like this before and now he saw them as the last straw of a broken person.

"Because I know Oliver Queen is…" He paused for the dramatic effect of keeping her on her toes. This was the woman that Oliver loved the most, the way he showed up at that sham trial for Frank Bertinelli was proof enough of that. "The Arrow."

And in an instant her demeanor changed. All of the courage she just had went from her face and in that moment it was pure shock. He felt bad for her. This was a woman who lost all the people she loved and he could take pity on that. "Why did you tell me that?" She asked him, looking up at him and the brokenness of her eyes attracted him. Those eyes looked like they could kill if given the right motivation.

"I told you because you deserve the truth. You have always given it. I know what it likes to be lied to by Oliver Queen. He makes you the most special and then he screws you over. You are so much more than that, darling." He whispered as he put his hand on her shoulder.

And despite the fact that he just kidnapped her Bear and that he told her oldest friend was the Arrow, the vigilante who had kidnapped her at least once, the vigilante that she had a whole SWAT Team on once, she turned around and hugged him. They ended on the couch and he held her like a treasured gem, with all the reverence and gentleness he could muster.

"Darling, I promise you, he will pay for breaking you," Slade told her after a long while as he kissed her hair. He remembered seeing her picture that Oliver kept like a puppy. And then he got back with Sara so easily. On the island and now that she was 'alive' to them. "I promise I will make him pay for what he did to you,"

They were broken. He was a broken man who lost every girl he ever loved to death. She was a broken girl who lost every man she ever loved to death or to a stupid island that he didn't think he still carried with him. She wiped some tears away with her thumb and she looked up to him and smiled brokenly. "You kidnapped Bear. I should shoot you, right now," She told him as she shook her head against his chest.

"дорогая," He said, Darling in Russian. "Your Bear was fine. But Oliver and I have feud and he was keeping things from her. I needed him to see how easily things could be taken from him. Things he didn't think could be taken from him." He told her with honesty.

She looked into his eye. There was something he wasn't telling her. "You're keeping me out of it. And I want to know why." She told him, sitting directly in his lap and holding his gaze.

He liked this one. She was feisty. And much more defiant and a better actress than the other sister he was so hung up on. This one afforded a challenge and he liked that. He couldn't see how anyone would pick the other over this one, but no one ever gave Oliver points for being smart, not even that tech girl that liked him so much. "Oh, I'm not keeping you out of it. I told you his identity. But I'm giving you the choice about what to do with it." He said, grabbing her and bringing her closer to him and grinned.

It had been a long time since a woman was perched on his lap. She grinned back to him. It had been so long since someone trusted her to make a decision about her life and it was kind of intoxicating. "I think I want to make him pay. I think I want to see him fall. I think I want him to see what it's like to really lose me. I think I want him to see what it makes me feel when he dates Sara."

"Are you scared of me?" He asked her.

She shook her head and grinned wildly, "Not anymore. You're honest, albeit morally gray. And you trust me to make a decision. You know how long it's been since someone's done that? No, I'm enamored by you." She murmured and combed her hand through his hair, looking up at him with a reverence that he hadn't been shown for anything but his ability to destroy lately.

She gave him a light kiss and he kissed her back. Telling her was the best thing he ever did. A broken girl. The girl Oliver broke. "I just want you. And I want you and I to show him exactly what it means to be broken," He said as he picked her up and took her to the bedroom.

"I'm not sure about this," She said as she she looked up to him, being in her bedroom with him, that was certainly something she wanted, but he told her that he wanted to destroy Oliver. And she didn't want to be the one he lied to, just to say he fucked her to Oliver.

He nodded and put her on the bed as he sat. "I understand, darling. We can take this as fast or slow as you want." He assured her as he kissed her hair.

"We'll figure this out," She told him.

He nodded and smiled to her as he kissed her temple once more "Yes, we will. I'll be over soon," He told her as he left and her lips quirked into a smile.

Oliver was on the outside of the window and he saw Slade bring Laurel into her bedroom the way he used to and then respect her when she said something about not being ready, because he wasn't watching them fuck like rabbits. Thank god. He might have had to intervene at that point, but he kissed her temple and then left.

The thing that broke him was that smile, the one so genuine in her feelings when he left. It was only her by herself. She liked him.

He got out of the outfit and went into her apartment complex, of course, running into Slade coming down the stairs. "Should have figured you'd be here already." He grinned and it was his evil grin. "How much did you see?" He asked.

"Enough," Oliver gritted.

He laughed in Oliver's face. "Oh, kid, you have so much to learn. When you catch up, let me know," He said and then he went down the stairs and Oliver raced up to Laurel's apartment.

"Laurel!" He yelled through the door. "Laurel, come on, open up," She came out and she looked pissed. "Look, I don't know what he told you, but it's all wrong." He promised her.

Laurel's face just got angrier. "Oh, you think that Slade is the liar here? That's real rich from the guy who kidnapped me last year. You think I'm in danger because Slade told me your truth? The one you should have trusted me enough to tell me. But I had to learn from him. Yeah, Slade's clearly the bad guy,"

"Kidnap?" He asked her.

She raised her eyebrow. "Do you really not remember, asshole?"

"You mean..." He said, and the light bulb popped. "He told you about what I do at night."

She nodded to him. She couldn't believe that he didn't remember on the first hand. And at at this point, she didn't actually have the love in her heart for him at the moment to let him off the hook, "Yes. And it should have been you. You should have told me instead of letting me be kidnapped and my apartment trashed for no apparent reason. And you. It was you who let Tommy die. All along I had been blaming myself, but it was actually your fault."

"Slade is dangerous. He kidnapped Thea." He muttered to her.

She rolled her eyes. "To get to you. Also real dangerous telling me the truth and letting me make a choice what to do with it and then being affectionate. Which you saw. Because you were at my window. I don't know exactly why. And you know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous. But that could never happen right? Because you're so in love with Sara right?" She asked him with a sear in her voice.

Oliver was much easier to intimidate than Slade. He did not have the ocean to lick his wounds and she knew them better than anyone. And she was right. He was jealous, because seeing Slade hold her like he would have, it made him want to take her in his arms and make her forget about any other man she'd ever been with. And he was supposed to be with Sara. He was in love with her. They had a connection that Laurel and no one in Starling would ever understand. Except maybe Slade. And he picked Laurel.

"What do you want, Laurel?" He asked her, exasperated with the whole thing.

She looked him in the eye and said the words that she knew would cut him. "I want someone who picks me and only me. I want him, because he respected me enough to let me know the truth and make a decision about what to do about it." She told him with venom in her mouth. "I want to break you the way you broke me. You were never honest with me." She told him.

Slade came back up and smiled, "You know, darling, I think I forgot my phone in your apartment, but I see you have company" He told her with a grin.

Laurel smiled to him with a blush, "Come, on. Let's go get it, Oliver was just leaving," She told him.

Oliver stood there for a minute and watched the scene unfold. She looked on the couch and presented him with his phone. "Why don't you take my number?" She asked him as she gave him a kiss.

He shook his head. "I already have it darling." He told her wit the loving look that he gave Shado back on the island. Shit. Oliver had not even thought about that. He managed to push them closer together with the one thing that bonded them together, the loss of their romantic loved ones.

She came back out in the hall with him, "I hope you have a good evening, Mr. Queen," Slade said as he gave Laurel an open mouthed kiss.

"Bye Ollie," She said, with her arms crossed. He was so fucked. Laurel had one of the strictest moral codes he knew and he fell on the wrong side of it.

This one was going to be the hardest of all the tests, because Laurel could easily destroy him mentally and emotionally and Slade could best him physically and they were teaming at least until Slade found himself on the other side of Laurel's rage. But he would do that until Oliver had been destroyed. So what he needed to do was to make sure that Slade destroyed himself.

And then hopefully he could get Laurel back. But she was very right. He was very jealous. God, his Laurel and Slade. He couldn't believe it. He wanted to win her back. But first, Slade must be destroyed. Keeping secrets had been the worst thing he ever did and he was doing it to protect them and this was the reward he got. The love of his life wanting to break him. A breaking blow.