Chapter 4
While Oliver is a man who believes, who needs to believe, that people change, he acknowledges that on some level we are all who we've always been, himself included. And Oliver Queen may be well-versed in self-flagellation, but he is not someone who has ever spent much time on self-reflection. Truthfully, it's always been a point of pride; he likes that he's a man of action. But now, dangling yet another bad guy over an overpass, knowing it will yield nothing, he's starting to feel his life is one long, inescapable episode of deja vu.
"Where is Darhk?" He pulls the Ghost up over the edge and forces him down on the pavement. "Where is the boy?"
The man smiles at him, and Oliver has been here before, already knows how this ends. He is going to get nothing. He will be able to stop nothing. He wraps his hands around the man's neck, digs his fingers in to cut off the air supply. He watches the smile fade, and he feels nothing.
"Where is the boy?" He slams the man's head into the pavement. "Where is boy?" He asks over and over again until he's flying backwards.
The Ghost is stumbling away, and he's fucking laughing as he goes. Oliver turns on the man who yanked him back. "What the hell, John? He's gone? He gave us nothing, and you let him get away?"
"I stopped you from killing a man who had no information to give, Oliver. Who, even if he had anything, would die before giving it up."
"I am trying to save my my son," Oliver rages.
"And I'm trying to save you. Look, I get it. If it were Sara, I would want to burn the world to ground-"
"And I would help you."
Dig grabs his arm. "No, man, you would be there to ground me, to give me perspective. Burning the world the to ground isn't working, Oliver. It feels good, but it's not how we get WIlliam back. We get William back by fighting smart."
Oliver stalks away, but isn't surprised when his friend follows. He knows Dig is right, he knows they need to regroup, but the idea that he might have to do anything that isn't actively looking for WIlliam kills him.
"Curtis noticed you've turned off your comms. He's been calling us back. C'mon, man. Let's go."
Oliver slides into the car beside Dig. He can't even say for sure where he left the Ducati. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. He rakes his hands through his hair, remembering the last time he'd gone to visit WIlliam. It had only been two weeks ago, which feels like yesterday and like too long ago all at the same time. Felicity had been in occupational therapy all day. He'd used a stopover at Star Labs to see Cisco for some adjustments on his suit as an excuse. He'd felt sick with guilt on the train home, but his time with WIlliam, it had been good. It had felt more comfortable, more natural than his other visits.
"He likes baseball. And anything 'red' flavored. The Flash is his hero." Oliver chokes out a laugh.
"Of course." Diggle laughs too. "How long have you known about him?"
Oliver doesn't hear any of the judgement he was expecting in the question. "Not long. It was when we were in Central City helping Kendra. It was….complicated."
"Yeah. It always is."
Oliver keeps expecting the anger, is looking forward to it, in fact. He wouldn't mind a fight right now, but Dig is just talking to him like he always does, like a friend. "Samantha, she said I couldn't tell Felicity. That it was a condition of getting to be a part of William's life. She said no one could know."
Dig lets out a low whistle.
"I held up my part of the deal. I kept this huge thing from the most important person in my life, and I decided it was worth it because he's my son, Dig. But in the end, it doesn't matter. I couldn't protect him from me. It's like just by being in his orbit, even a tiny bit, I put him in the line of fire. He's just a kid. He's just a little kid." Oliver puts his head between his knees, trying to find his breath. He absolutely cannot fall apart right now. Dig's hand is on his shoulder, but Oliver still can't shake the feeling that he's on his own.
oOo
Laurel and Thea are already at the lair with Curtis when he and Dig arrive. He guesses he was the only one muting his comms. Curtis turns to the computers as he walks in, but not before Oliver sees a flash of anger on the other man's face. Whether it's for Felicity or because he went MIA, he isn't sure. Either way, Oliver can't blame him.
If Oliver is wanting a fight, he finds it in Thea. He doesn't get a chance to open his mouth before his sister is flying at him, bow drawn.
"I should shoot you right now."
"Thea-" Laurel starts easing toward her.
"No, he's an asshole. Where did you disappear to, Oliver? No one could get in touch with you."
"Not now, Thea," he growls.
"What if one of us had found something? What if one of us had found my nephew, the nephew I didn't know existed until he was kidnapped? What then, Oliver? How would we have told you?"
"That didn't happen, did it?"
Thea shoves him, and he grabs her wrist, but she doesn't back down. He sees the rage in her eyes, and he doesn't know how much of it is the situation and how much is the bloodlust, but he's willing to take this fight.
"And you don't think it will, do you? You don't think any of us could really help find William, right? You think it's all up to you, that it will only ever be all up to you?"
The fight ebbs out of him and suddenly he's just tired. "Thea-"
"No, you talk a big game about a team, but you don't believe any of it, do you? When everything gets real, you're on your own, right? Screw the rest of us, right?"
"Thea," his voice is a plea, and it is weak, and he doesn't care. He is weak, and it doesn't matter who knows it.
"A secret kid, Ollie? Because I'm assuming that I wasn't the only one clued into the fact that I'm an auntie. I'm assuming Felicity got a hell of a shock when baby mama-"
"Her name is Samantha," he grounds out.
"I don't care what her name is, Oliver! All of that stuff before about no more secrets and living in the light, that was just bullshit, right? You just meant until it was inconvenient for you, yeah? Same old Oliver."
The rage is back and he embraces it, because it is so much better than weakness. "This is not the time. A child is missing, Darhk has him, and so you're just going to wait to process your feelings. Is that understood?" He's yelling, and he sounds like such a dick, but his words hit their mark. Thea backs down.
"You're a lot like your parents. I guess some people never learn."
He bites his tongue to keep himself from making a remark about Thea and the Merlyn blood. He's barely holding on, but he can't afford to do one more thing he'll never be able to take back. He turns to Curtis. "The Ghosts are getting us nowhere. What else have we got?"
Curtis doesn't look at him. "Well, I've spent most of my time tracking you down. Felicity hasn't been able to locate Darhk or William using facial recognition. Lance took a vacation day, went down to Central City. Once Barry finished searching warehouses and wooded areas, he and Lance spent some time talking to Samantha's neighbors on the DL. One of them remembers being awakened by the sound of a car backfiring around the same time we believe William was taken."
"A car backfiring? What is this, the 70's?"
"You make a point, Ms. Lance," Curtis says. "It's hard to imagine someone as fussy as Damien Darhk driving a clunker, even to a kidnapping. So, the car thing could be unrelated…."
"Or?" Oliver demands.
"Or, it could be someone other than Damien Darhk."
"Meaning we have spent a lot of time looking in all the wrong places," Laurel says, crossing her arms.
Curtis nods at her.
"Darhk has William." Oliver is certain. He remembers when he saved the man's wife and daughter, the promise they'd parted on. Enjoy your time with your family. Oliver should've realized then that the man had known.
"Felicity and Lyla are scanning traffic cam footage in the vicinity of Samantha's house. Hopefully we'll have more information soon."
"Oliver, maybe it's time to consider the possibility that we've read this all wrong?"
"And what does that even look like, Dig? Tell me. What is a single viable alternative here? Someone else just happens to kidnap my son, and it's completely unrelated to the madman who wants to destroy me? One with a history of going after the children of his opposition?"
"Felicity has located all known and suspected sex offenders in a twenty mile radius. She did some digging on the dark net too, identifying anyone with...um...search histories that might indicate…"
Oliver sends the chair in front of him flying. He's still certain it's Darhk, but those men on the list? When this was over, they'd be getting a visit from the Green Arrow.
"She has Barry checking them out now."
"And still no sign of William?"
Curtis nods.
WIlliam with a sex offender is not something Oliver is even willing to consider. "Other thoughts, then?'
"You have other enemies, Oliver," Dig says. "It doesn't have to be Darhk to be related to the Green Arrow."
"Yeah...Felicity is on that too. She's kind of the MVP of your little group, huh?" Curtis gives Oliver a tight smile.
Any other time Oliver wouldn't begrudge him his loyalty, but this is about his son, dammit. "And?' He grinds out.
"You have a colorful cast of enemies, Mr- Queen-slash-Green-Arrow. Just...you've made some weird choices. Right. Not the time. Anyway, I've been helping her with remote surveillance and Lyla seems to have a unique level of access to some of these folks. Have we talked about how illegal all of this probably is? Because I feel like I'm exposing myself to some real liability here, and I hope Felicity is prepared to give me some serious compensation in the form of vacation leave...but, right, again, not the time. Um, yeah, they're still working on it, but as of last check-in, no one has William."
Oliver holds out his hand. "So this is what you've pulled me away from the search for Darhk for? To tell me everyone else you've eliminated as possible suspects?"
Curtis laughs bitterly. "Well, I've been trying to tell you over comms, but you turned those off, so…."
"So we're back where we started. With Darhk as the only possible suspect." Oliver doesn't have time for this anymore. Every second he's here is a second he is spending not looking for William.
"Oliver, man, we still need to talk about a new plan. We've run out of places to search for Darhk."
"And of course there's another possibility that we haven't considered." Laurel speaks so quietly that Oliver almost doesn't hear her.
"And what's that, Laurel?"
"Maybe this isn't connected to you at all." Oliver starts to protest, but Laurel cuts him off. "What if we're focused on you, when we should be focused on William's mother?"
"Samantha?"
"Yes. Samantha. How much did you know about her before you impregnated her, Oliver?"
More confirmation for his deja vu theory. Because how many times had he had this conversation with Laurel Lance? Okay, minus the impregnating part. There would be plenty of time for an Oliver Queen Is A Colossal Fuck Up roundtable when it wouldn't be at the expense of his son. "Laurel, do you really want to go down this road again right now?"
"It's a fair question, Ollie," Thea says.
"I'm not trying to play the role of the woman scorned while your kid is missing, Oliver. Give me a tiny amount of credit. Look, you're certain of Darhk because you're looking for the most obvious answer, and that's the right instinct, okay? The most obvious answer is usually the right one. I'm just saying maybe we're missing a more obvious answer. Samantha is William's only parent of record. We'd be negligent to not even consider the possibility that this is connected her. So what do you know about her?"
Oliver barely knows anything. He met her at a party, spent one night with her, then had a couple of fraught follow-up conversations. He burns with shame. He really is a fuck-up. "I don't know much. She was on her own. I think her parents are dead."
Laurel tries not to give anything away, but Oliver has known her for far too long to not know exactly how she looks when she's fighting hard not to roll her eyes. He does give her credit for effort. "Oookay, well, what about when you've talked to William? Does he mention the people in his life? Is there anything he's said-"
"No." Oliver can sense Laurel, all of them really, waiting for him to elaborate, but he's not going to. His relationship with William is still so new, and it exists in this sort of bubble, where the outside world isn't a factor...or at least it wasn't until now. Until Darhk decided to take it from him. "I'm done here. No more standing around. We've explored other possibilities and come up empty. Barry's checking out other possible threats on the off-chance it's not Darhk. It's time to get back out there." Oliver sees Diggle start to protest, but he cuts him off. "I know we're getting nowhere with Ghosts, so forget them, okay? Let's go back over every location known to be associated with Darhk. We'll find him, or we'll find clues-"
"Before you rush off, you might want to hear what Felicity and Lyla found." Curtis gestures to the computer where Felicity and Lyla are on videofeed. He clicks a button. "Okay ladies, you are live with Team Arrow."
And even with his world rapidly collapsing around him, just the sight of Felicity is enough to make it easier for him to breathe. She looks as worn and worried as he feels, but she's still right there, and he is not in this alone. If he could only steal a moment and lose himself in her he's certain it would be enough to reassure him that everything will be okay. But stealing time isn't one of his options. For now he has to ignore the dread creeping in, telling him that even after he finds William, he still stands to lose everything. He can't acknowledge that and keep on. He has to keep William at the forefront of his mind, which means he has to push her out.
"Where is Samantha?" He asks.
"Sleeping. Lyla gave her something." He huffs and even though she's not actually in the room Felicity obviously senses his irritation. "Don't give us that look, Oliver. She'd been up for over twenty-four hours. Her child is missing. She needs to rest."
He wants to say that William is his child too and that no one, no one anywhere, should get to rest until he is back where he belongs.
"As we were saying, we've been able to put together the reasons why Samantha has been estranged from her parents all these years-"
"I thought her parents were dead."
"They are very much alive, Oliver," Lyla says.
"Samantha spent her early years in one of those communes with all the sad hippies who didn't quite know when to let go. Which, kind of makes basically growing up in a casino not so bad, when you think about it…." Felicity catches herself rambling and gives herself a little shake to snap her out of it. It's adorable, and Oliver can't help but allow himself a small smile. "So, yeah, teenage Samantha bolted as soon as she could, found her way to the then-Starling City University, where somewhere around 8-years-ago, she apparently had the good luck to run into billionaire playboy Oliver Queen."
And there it is again, the gut punch.
"But that is beside the point. Well, except not really, since that meeting resulted in little William who is now missing, but again my relevant point, which I absolutely have, is that there is no record of Samantha ever responding to any of her parents' attempts to contact her, of which there have been many over the years. And, even more relevant, is that the former hippie commune took a dark turn. The way communes often do. I really think "Communes never end well" is as good a guiding life principle as any, but, right, my point is, they morphed into something of a cult. Obsessed with purity and healing-slash-purging the sickness infecting the human race. Creep factor is high in this one, friends. I would guess kidnapping would be right in their wheelhouse."
Everyone is talking at once, but Oliver is shaking his head. It's a distraction. A tempting one. A cult full of former hippies would be no match for his team, but Oliver knows better than to trust anything that comes that easy. "And why would these people take William now? Why would they take him at all? So Samantha has a fucked up family, who doesn't?"
Felicity smiles back at him, but there is fire in her eyes. "Well, Oliver, A. I think your sample is a bit skewed because despite the company you keep, most of the world doesn't have quite this level of dysfunction in their families and B. Did you hear anything I just told you?"
"Yes, I heard it, and none of it convinces me that they are better suspects than Darhk."
"That is only if you believe that William's kidnapping is about you and, as hard as I know this is for you to accept, Oliver, not everything is about you."
"Felicity," his voice is pleading, "what kind of person takes a little boy from his bed? Who does that? A pair of old hippies? Or the kind of man who tries to massacre a woman in a limo to punish the man who just proposed to her? How can you ask me to believe this isn't Darhk? You, of all people, after everything?"
The certainty that had been written all over Felicity's face begins to melt away, and Oliver catches Lyla's hand as it moves to squeeze her shoulder.
"Maybe it's time you start thinking a bit more objectively-"
"Lyla, we're continuing our pursuit of Darhk."
"Fine. Felicity and I are going to speak with Samantha, and we're going to continue exploring this angle."
Oliver doesn't have the energy to fight them on this. He just wants to get back out there. "Sure. Okay, if you really believe that's the right thing to do."
Felicity starts to respond, but Lyla reaches over her and the connection goes dark. Oliver turns to Dig, expecting a fight.
There is annoyance on his friend's face, but he surprises Oliver by simply asking "Where to next, man?"
Oliver gives instructions, and his team falls in line- Curtis is back on comms, pulling up maps and devising routes, and Dig and Thea are following him out. He almost doesn't notice that Laurel isn't moving.
"Are you coming?"
She doesn't look at him. "I'm going to meet up with Lyla and Felicity. See what I can do to help them."
It feels like she's choosing sides, and it hurts more than Oliver expects. He doesn't know if it's because Laurel isn't choosing him, or if it's because there are sides and he and Felicity are on opposing ones.
Laurel's face softens. "I just want to give us the best chance of finding William."
"If you'd been in that limo, Laurel….Felicity doesn't remember it, but if she did. If you were there, if she remembered, you'd both know why I can't let this go. This man, there isn't a line he wouldn't cross." Oliver shuts down all thoughts of that limo ride because he knows from experience that the memory of those few minutes is enough to send him spinning for days.
"Then go, Ollie. Felicity and Lyla and I are just making sure we hedge our bets."
He nods. "Stay in touch with Curtis. I promise I won't go offline again. Good luck."
"You too."