Chapter Four: Stop to Think About It

"I guess I should have knocked," Vince choked out the next day. Once again he had surprised Jamie by turning up at her office, but this time she wasn't alone. He had walked in on her kissing with Ian. For a moment, he supposed he should be grateful that they were both clothed, but then dismissed the thought. Surely they would exercise restraint in her office.

"Hey bro, long time, no see." Ian greeted him after pulling away from his girlfriend.

"Yeah, uh, it's good to see you again, Ian. You're looking—" satisfied, "—well," Vince replied.

"And yet you look like the notion of two people making out is foreign and—"

"You wanted to see me, Vince?" Jamie interjected, only her upbringing saving her cheeks from going scarlet.

"Yes, could we talk for a minute? It's about your father."

"The guy with the crush on you," Ian grinned. "What?" he continued, seeing the horrified look on his twin's face. "It's totally obvious."

"Can we have some privacy, please," Vince implored him.

"Your embarrassment is so adorable. Alright," he held up his hands. "Alright, I'm leaving. We can catch up later. But I want you to know, I'm hurt that you won't discuss your love life with your own brother." He closed the door behind him before the other blond* could yell at him.

"First time I've seen him in years and no, 'hey, sorry to hear about your divorce!' Or 'hey, so glad you didn't die in an explosion,'" Vince grumbled.

"What's this about, Vince?" Jamie asked.

"Okay, firstly, I'm sorry I didn't call first," very, very sorry.

"Apology accepted. What did Dad do this time?"

"He's fine now, but he was attacked last night by the 'Hood.'"

"And you're just telling me now?"

"I thought it might be best to tell you in person. Your father's fine," he repeated, since she looked worried. "I saved him, but this guy may try again."

"Do you have anything we could use to track him down?" Orwell asked, fury beginning to overpower her fear. "Did you get a good look at him?"

"Oh, I got a good look at him alright. He wasn't wearing a mask. It's Oliver Queen."

"Oliver Queen?" Jamie repeated. She stared at him, trying to digest the revelation.

"I know," he anticipated her next sentence, "he's too prominent. We can't move on him without evidence. Right now I want to know why he's after your father. Can you hack into Queen Consolidated's computers?"

"I'm on it," she said, barely letting her partner finish the question. She frowned at something that appeared on the screen. "Vince, did you see this? It says that the Hood killed Adam Hunt last night."

Vince approached the computer and read the article over her shoulder.

"That couldn't have been him. We were fighting Queen at the time Hunt died," Faraday pointed out.

"Well someone's gone to a lot of effort to frame Queen's alter ego," Jamie shivered. "If he doesn't stop there, if he's going to keep hunting Queen's victims—"

"Then Peter has another threat to watch out for," Vince grimaced. "See what you can find out."

~OQ~

Diggle found Oliver in the lair and turned on the news.

"You need to see this," he gestured towards the screen. The lead story was that the Hood had murdered Adam Hunt the night before.

"I thought the Hood was paying Fleming a visit last night," Diggle remarked as he turned off the volume.

"He did. That wasn't me," Oliver said quietly, indicating the recent death.

"I believe you. But it doesn't look that way to the rest of the city," John warned him.

"Just what I needed today," the billionaire grumbled.

"How did things go last night?" Diggle asked.

"Badly; there's another vigilante in town. He interfered. Fleming doesn't seem to be remotely intimidated by me—"

"Another vigilante," Diggle interrupted him. "Do you think this is the guy that's trying to frame you?"

"I doubt it," Queen shook his head. "He could no sooner be in two places at once than I could. Not that I think he'd back me up on the alibi," he sighed. "There's more. Whoever this guy is, he and Fleming know who I am."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!" Diggle yelled.

"Apparently I should give the mask thing some more consideration, but what's done is done."

Diggle cursed. He looked towards the staircase leading up to what would soon be Oliver's nightclub, as if expecting Detective Lance to come barging down with a half dozen men, all with guns drawn.

"They don't know you're involved," the younger man continued calmly. "Even if they tried to turn me in, which they don't seem inclined to, I will do whatever is necessary to keep you out of this. You have my word."

"I still don't like this. They have the advantage over you. You didn't catch this guy's name?"

"For all I know, he's also known as the Hood," Oliver replied.

"He can't have that handle; it's taken," Diggle managed to smile.

"It's lame; I should pay him to take it from me," the blond joked.

"What are you going to do now?" John asked, turning serious.

"I need help," he sighed. "I need to know more about all of this. I wish I could just talk to Lance. He's probably going to be investigating these other vigilantes anyway. Hell, I bet he's already been assigned to the Hunt case. If I could talk him into sharing his information with me…"

"Good luck with that," the bodyguard snorted. "Last time I checked, the only way you can have a conversation without you being arrested is if you've got him bent over the hood of his car."

Oliver wondered, idly, if he confided in Diggle a little too much.

"You've got a point… But what if we weren't talking face-to-face? What if he didn't have an opportunity to shoot at me?"

"What are you saying? The Hood is going to call Lance up on the phone for a chat?" the older man asked sarcastically.

"Actually, I think that's a good idea," Oliver smiled.

~QL~

"Detective Lance?" the messenger asked, standing by Quentin's desk with a non-descript package.

"That's me."

"Package for you; sign here, please."

Quentin did. The messenger took off right after handing him the small box. Curious, Lance opened it up and found a new cell phone. There was no note. He turned it on, and almost immediately it buzzed with an incoming call. The screen informed him that the caller's number was blocked and asked if he would accept or deny the call.

He should ignore it, he told himself. He had a pretty good idea of who would be on the other end of it, and had no desire to speak with him. Well, perhaps he would under the right circumstances—say, if the caller was behind bars. But he couldn't imagine that the call would be productive. It would probably just raise his blood pressure…and somehow he still found himself answering.

"Lance."

"Don't try to trace this call," the modulated voice began. Quentin frowned. It wasn't that the thought hadn't occurred to him, it was just that he'd already known a trace would be pointless. The Hood could afford the technology needed to cover his tracks.

"I'm hanging up now," Quentin answered.

"Wait," the Hood commanded. "I assume you've been assigned to the Hunt murder?"

"Not that it's any of your business…"

"It wasn't me."

"Great. I'll just tell that to the superintendent when he asks. " In fact, he already had told him that the night before, but the man hadn't cared for his take on it.

"If you can get me an arrow from the crime scene, I'll be able to track him down before he kills again."

"You want me to give over evidence to a man I don't trust, whose motives I don't know? Gee, thanks, but I think I'll pass."

"Call me when you've reconsidered. The number's programmed in; and Lance?"

"What?"

"There's another vigilante in town, too. We were starting to get acquainted at the time Hunt was being killed."

"So your alibi is another person who won't show his face or give his name; how helpful."

"I'm not telling you this because I need an alibi. I'm telling you because I don't know who he is or if I can trust him. I wanted to give you a heads-up on this."

"And what do you expect in return?" Lance asked.

"If you find out anything about him, let me know," the Hood finished, before cutting the connection.

Quentin groaned and resisted the urge to drop his head onto his desk. This time yesterday he only had to worry about one vigilante. Now he had to keep track of three.

He'd better get a damn promotion out of this.

~JF~

"Find anything yet?" Vince asked.

"Not yet," Jamie shot back. So far she couldn't find any files in Queen Consolidated's computers mentioning her father, or anything that would be related to the Hood… "What the hell?" she asked suddenly.

"What's wrong?"

"Somebody's blocking me! I just got locked out of their system!" she stared at the screen. No one was supposed to be able to stop Orwell.

"Can you get past them?" Vince inquired.

"Oh, I will," Orwell rolled up her sleeves. "Just watch me."

~MQ~

"…not impressed with this Hood guy. Stealing from the rich to give to the poor is the Democrats' job,"** Malcolm Merlyn, head of the Merlyn Group, spoke to a knot of party-goers at the Queen mansion.

"But you have to take this menace seriously when you consider all of the people he's murdered," one of them began.

Moira Queen approached the group.

"Malcolm, may I have a word?"

"Of course; if you'll excuse me," he said, extricating himself from the other guests so the two could speak in private.

"Walter knows too much," Moira blurted once they were alone. (Walter Steele, the current CEO of Queen Consolidated, was her second husband. They had married during Oliver's time on the island.) "He's asking too many questions and he," she clenched her fists, "after Hunt was killed yesterday he went to go warn another member of the list that he might be in danger—someone who has not been targeted by the vigilante before and who would have no reason to worry if not for the list."

"You said Robert's copy went down with the Queen's Gambit," Malcolm said.

"It did—it must have. Oliver knows nothing about it," she insisted. Her son couldn't know anything about the list because when he had first returned to Starling City, she had had him kidnapped and interrogated to make sure he didn't know anything about the League's business. That done, she could assure her colleagues that there was no reason for Oliver to suffer the same fate his father had.

"And yet somehow Walter found a copy. Don't worry about it, Moira. I'll take care of this."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, worried. The last time Merlyn had taken care of something, Robert's boat went down. She didn't relish the idea of sacrificing another husband to the cause.

"I'm going to kidnap Walter and have him kept out of the way until our work in Starling is complete. And you're going to help me."

"I—"

"You're going to help me," Malcolm repeated, "because if you don't cooperate with me you're going to be a widow, again."

Footnotes/Author's Note:

*Physically, Vince and his twin are about as blonde as Arrow's Oliver Queen, which is to say, barely.

**Line borrowed from Year's End, of course.

It occurred to me that I should clarify the story's title. "Black Bird" does not refer to the Black Canary. Rather, Black Bird refers to Scales' nickname for the Cape. (Scales will not be appearing in the story.) When I began this fic back in season one, I vowed that Laurel would not become the Black Canary during this fic because " I don't hate her father."

Well, I still don't hate her father, which is more than I can say for the writers of the show, but a lot has happened since season one and after giving the matter much thought, I am no longer opposed to Laurel's moonlighting. (Of course, if you visited my profile lately, you probably already knew that.)

Thanks to those who reviewed and to those of you who have added the story to your list of alerts/favorites!

Chapter title is from Three Days Grace's "I Hate Everything About You."