Major Season 3 spoilers/speculation ahead. Melfeb211 prompted "Diggle talks to Oliver after he finds out Oliver has told Felicity he can't be with her." Not quiet that, but we got to talking on the Fanforum spoilers board where Diggle is when Oliver brings Felicity back to the lair after things go boom. And then this just sorta happened. Changing the rating to T, because in my head canon, Dig gets a little expressive when things are tense.
John Diggle awoke with a start, and it took him a moment to remember why the antiseptic smell of hospital was surrounding him. For once, that smell wasn't there because of pain and blood and destruction. The cloying scent of industrial strength cleaners and sterilization meant something entirely different. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he could make up Lyla's form in the hospital bed, curled on her side with her hand extended in to the small, see-through bassinet. She had fallen asleep with her hand over little Andi's tiny, pink-capped head. His daughter's tiny little hands were fisted on either side of her head, face turned in the direction of her mother as her mouth made little tiny sucking motions. He could hardly believe that they had made this tiny, perfect little girl, with cafe au lait skin and Lyla's eyes. He was someone's father now. It shouldn't have been that different from being someone's uncle or brother, but it was. It was worlds and worlds beyond anything that he would have expected it to be.
He pressed a gentle kiss on each of his girls' heads, then headed down to the cafeteria. It was after midnight, but he wanted coffee and a snack. In all the excitement of the birth, things like sustenance had been forgotten. As he waited in the surprisingly busy cafeteria, a flash on the television screen caught his attention. A reporter stood in front of a caution tape in front of a smoking building, with firefighters and police working in the background. Bombing at Demaggios, the headline at the bottom read. Dig felt his stomach drop out, remembering Oliver's playful banter from the op in the early hours of the morning the previous day. "How about Italian? Everyone likes Italian." He pulled out his phone. No messages, no missed calls. He dialed Felicity, and then Oliver, with the same result. Straight to voicemail. He cursed, and tried Roy.
The kid picked up, but it was silent at the end. "What happened, Roy?" Dig ground out. Because he knew something had to have happened. He heard silence. The kid swallowing. "How BAD, Roy?" he nearly roared.
"It's bad," he said. "They are okay, Diggle, but it's bad."
Dig cursed. "You're at the foundry?" As soon as the kid gave an affirmative, he was headed for the exit.
xxx
He wasn't sure what to expect when he came down the stairs, but it wasn't Felicity, unconscious on the table. He descended the stairs slowly, taking her in. She looked small and broken, swamped in one of Oliver's hoodies. Roy stood up from the chair he had pulled next to her, but he didn't let go of her hand. Dig cursed as he caught side of the bruises on her face, the butterfly bandage covering four carefully formed stitches along her hairline. Vestiges of soot and blood clung to her skin. He glanced to the waste bin and saw a ruined flash of red among gauze peppered with red and black. He closed his eyes as he thought about Oliver cleaning her up, stitching her up. For the first time, he became aware of the other man's absence. He swore vehemently as his eyes moved over the two empty cases across the room. The suit and the bow were gone.
"What the actual fuck, Roy!" He yelled.
Roy looked down at Felicity, his forehead scrunching up as if he was making a difficult decision. "He didn't want to bother you with this, because of the baby." Dig glared at him, then moved to the computer, pulling up Oliver's tracker as Roy continued to fill him in. "He called me to come stay with her, and then he took off."
Dig thought another string of curses as he located Oliver, across town in the neighborhood they believed Vertigo was once again being manufactured. "How long?" Dig asked.
"Maybe half an hour."
Fuck. "How was he when he left?"
Roy met his eyes. "Angry. Shaken." He paused, his jaw working, regret swimming in his eyes. "I should have called you."
Dig nodded. "Yeah. That's the understatement of the century, kid." With a few keystrokes, he sent the tracking information to his phone. He went to Felicity then, still unable to believe how small and pale she looked on the table. He leaned down, running a hand through her still blood-matted hair. Christ, she must have been a mess when he brought her down here, for him to have cleaned her up and for her to still have that much blood in her hair. His stomach turned at the thought. "Don't you worry, Felicity," he whispered to her. "I'll get him back here for you. Just get better, okay?" He glanced at Roy. "You take care of her." The kid raised an eyebrow, as if to question what else he was going to do.
He grabbed a balaclava and a few extra items from the weapons case, as well as a syringe full of the antidote they had worked up for the latest version of Vertigo that was circulating, then headed back to the stairs. As he climbed into the car, he sent Lyla a quick text. Code Black. Two words, but they carried a hundred words along with them. The shit has hit the fan. Back when I can. I love you. The drive across town was usually twenty minutes, but he made it in ten. He glanced at his phone, pinpointing Oliver to a warehouse two blocks up. He found his bike and parked behind it. Pulling on the balaclava, he drew his gun and headed in the direction of Oliver's blip.
It wasn't long before he heard gunfire, and Diggle segued into battle mode. He focused on everything around him as he entered what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. He cleared the hall and moved in the direction of the blip, wishing that Felicity was in his ear giving him intel on what he was walking into. He heard a shout that sounded like Oliver, and resisted the urge to run to help his friend. Cautious means living to see another day. He finally made it into a large, cavernous room that looked like a factory floor. It opened to the roof, with a second story landing surrounding the room. An eerie blue light shone from the second floor. He could see Oliver on the landing on the north side, fighting with at least three goons. Dig located the staircase, looking for hostiles. It was clear, and now he ran. Soon he was on the second story and engaging the enemy. Kick, hit, shoot. A hostile came close to getting a point blank shot off on Oliver, but Dig leveled him with a bullet. They were beginning to come out on top when he felt and unexpected blow to his head, and heard Oliver bellowing his name. Something was wrong about that, but he couldn't place what.
When he came to, Oliver was dragging him down the stairs. Oliver stumbled, braced himself against the wall for a moment, stumbled on. That didn't seem right either. He brought a hand up to his head, feeling the bump there. "We clear?" He groaned.
Oliver looked at him, and Dig realized something defiantly wasn't right. His pupils were dilated, his eyes hazy. Fuck. He had probably been dosed with vertigo. "I have the antedote in the car," he said.
Oliver nodded as he stumbled forward again, trying to move them further down the stairs. "Thas a good thing," Oliver slurred. Dig tried to take on more of the younger man's weight to expedite their exit. The building was eerily quiet now.
Dig felt the cool chill of the early morning air on his face as he pulled Oliver out into the street and toward the car. He shoved him in the passenger seat, then reached back into his bag for the syringe. He jammed it into Oliver's leg, then climbed into the front seat. He sent a message to Sara, who was thankfully back in town, asking her to recover the bike. (And why the hell Oliver hadn't at least thought to call her, Diggle didn't know.) He looked over at Oliver as he pulled away, realizing he had passed out. He reached over to push down the hood and take off the mask, just in case anyone could see through the car's darkly tinted windows.
They were only a few minutes from the foundry when Oliver came to with a start. "Easy," Dig said, sparing a glance from the road as he reached to touch his friend's shoulder. "We're clear."
Oliver closed his eyes and sunk back in the seat. "Christ, Diggle, I thought you were dead," he said. Dig realized that was what had been so off when he had gotten knocked out. Oliver, in his drug addled state, had yelled his name. Without the affects of the drug, he would have known it was nothing serious, other than something that would leave him with a hell of a headache later. Of course, that probably would not have happened if he hadn't gone in blind, without backup.
"What the hell, Oliver," he said. "You should have called."
Oliver swallowed, scrubbing his hands over his face. "You just had a baby."
"And Felicity is laying on the table in the foundry. I think that warrants a call."
Oliver's jaw worked as he closed his eyes again. When he opened them, Dig could see that things were going to be bad, even in the dim light of the car.
"It was ridiculous to think that I could be who I am, and have a life too."
Shit. "What happened Oliver."
"She could have died. I literally had her blood on my hands, and it wouldn't have taken much more . . . she could have been gone. You could have died. You have a family of your own to think about now."
"And you could die any given day of the week. That's not really anything new for us."
Oliver just turned and looked out the window. Dig could see all the progress he had made in the past few months slipping away before his eyes. He was going to pull the plug on this thing with Felicity. They would be lucky if that was all that he did.