Hola lovely people! I hope your Saturday is quite lovely! Comments are very much welcome!
I can't believe we are almost at the end! Like wow! So there are two more chapters then the epilogue!
BUUUTTTTTT, I do have some other things planned, so if you like this little verse and want to see more of it let me know!
As always major thanks to my amazing beta! You are awesome!
Now onto the show.
Chapter Text
Chapter 23
"Hey Speedy," Oliver called as he entered Verdant about an hour before it was scheduled to open.
"Hey, what are you doing here?' Thea asked as she came around from behind the bar and gave her brother a hug.
He smiled enigmatically at her, "Do you have time to come with me for a sec? There's something I want you to see."
Thea sighed and set down the clipboard that she had been using to do inventory with. "Can you make it quick? Since Roy's disappeared, I don't have him to help me, and I have a lot to do before we open tonight." Oliver's smile faded at the mention of Roy, but he continued walking down the hallway to the door to the basement as Thea followed behind him. "What are you going? That door is jammed and won't unlock. Tommy told me not to worry about it because the basement was flooded anyways." Oliver punched a code into the lock and the door swung open. "No way! Is this your secret lair?"
Oliver rocked back on his heels and gestured to the dark stairs, "After you."
Thea quickly descended the stairs only to be met with darkness until Oliver flipped a switch, the lights illuminated the large area. "Holy shit!" She exclaimed.
Oliver smiled as he watched his sister explore the room taking in everything including the uniform stands with his and Sara's outfits on their mannequins, the weapons that were displayed, and all of the various pieces of training equipment. When she was finished exploring, Thea sat in the chair that Felicity normally used. "So, we never got the chance to talk. Who all knows about you being the Arrow?"
Pulling a seat over Oliver sat down in front of his sister and said, "Too many people for me to be comfortable with because everyone who knows could be in danger, including you. But in answer to your question, in the order that they found out, Diggle, my bodyguard…"
Thea started laughing.
"What?" Oliver asked puzzled.
"I'm sorry, but the Arrow has a bodyguard. Now that is ironic." She said still giggling, but Oliver just shook his head at her response and decided to move on.
"Sara, Felicity, Tommy, Roy…" He knew that the last name would have the most impact.
"Wait, Roy knows?" Thea interrupted, startled.
"The day after I shot him with that arrow he was kidnapped and injected with an experimental drug called mirakuru that made him super strong and allowed him to heal extremely quickly. Unfortunately the drug also warps the person's mind. I've been trying to work with him in hopes that he wouldn't go crazy, but…" Oliver paused. "He was starting to show signs of instability." He knew the next part would make his sister angry but he was trying to be more honest with those that he loved. "I asked him to break up with you, at least until he gets himself under control again."
"You jerk!" Thea cried, hauling off and punching him hard in the shoulder.
"I was only trying to look out for you." Oliver calmly explained.
"Fine, I forgive you, but I'm still mad. Continue." Thea said glaring at him with her arms crossed.
"He took off the other night and I haven't seen him since. I hope that he's okay." Oliver really did care for the kid. He just wanted to keep his baby sister safe. "If he shows up, you need to call me because we don't know what's happening to him right now."
"As long as you will do the same." The siblings shook on it. "So can I shoot an arrow?" Thea asked with a twinkle in her eye.
"You have to be better than Roy, did at first he had horrible aim." Oliver said as he picked up a compound bow and some of his training arrows. He took her over to the archery corner and let her shoot a few targets where she did surprisingly well.
"It must be in the genetics," she said, smirking at her brother "I'd make a good vigilante, you can call me the Red Arrow."
He laughed, "If you get a mask, we'll call you Speedy."
"Come on, Ollie" She groaned as she started to head back up to the club. "You know that's the worst nickname ever!" The siblings chatted with each other as Oliver helped her get the club set up, and, taking a rare night off from vigilante work, he went home to eat supper and have a quiet night with his family, since Moira didn't have any political events planned for that evening. As Oliver sat in the living room of the mansion surrounded by his family, he felt at peace.
The next day Oliver made sure to actually go to the QC office. When he arrived Tommy was in his office waiting for him. Handing him a tablet Tommy said, "I found out why Isabel wanted to take over the company." On the tablet were plans for the Queen Consolidated Applied Sciences division to start mass producing the serum. He wordlessly handed the table over to Felicity.
"Is there anything else you may have uncovered?" Oliver asked as he wearily sank into his office chair.
"Not yet, but I've just scratched the surface of what she was doing." Tommy sighed. "I know that it was a shock, but I'm glad to get rid of that snake." His expression changed into one of concern. "I haven't had a chance to talk to Thea except by text. How is she really going?"
A small smile appeared on Oliver's face, "She's doing much better. She knows that I'm the Arrow and that you guys know about it. I also think that she has finally come to terms with who her father is, both biological and the man who raised her. Weirdly enough, it was what Isabel said that had a huge impact on her."
"I can't believe I slept with that Ice Witch." Tommy shuddered with revulsion.
"We need to be on alert though. Slade will still be looking for a way to build his army now that his plans for QC have fallen through." Oliver said turning to Felicity.
"So, what we need to find out where cutting edge technology is being stored." she said finishing his thought. "I'll be looking and will have a list of possibilities for you by tonight. Now you have CEO stuff to do, 'cause I'm not tossing any more missed messages."
"Could I hope for a cup of coffee?" He asked with a teasing smile.
"You could hope, but I'm not getting it for you" Felicity informed him on her way out of the office, "And you can get one for me while you are at it." Felicity said with a wink as she closed the door behind her.
"She legit has the top-of-the-line coffee machine sitting right behind her and she's asking me to bring her coffee." Oliver said shaking his head mournfully, looking at Tommy.
"The things we do for our girlfriends." Tommy said clapping Oliver on his shoulder, he paused and then continued. "By the way, does it seem like Laurel's been acting funny to you?"
Oliver thought for a second, "Not really, but with everything that has been happening because of Slade I haven't been paying that much attention. Why?"
Tommy shrugged, "It just seems like she's been sort of shifty for the last few days. You know, the way she is when she's trying to figure something out, but she doesn't want to tell you or let on to you that she knows."
"Sorry I'm not any help." Oliver said before looking down at his desk and sighing, he really needed to get some QC related work done. The almost takeover had been a real wakeup call that he had people who were depending on him to lead the company. Just as Tommy reached the door, Oliver looked up from the paperwork and called, "Hey Tommy, at lunch we're meeting with Sara at the club to go over a few things if you want to join us."
"Naw, you can just fill me in later. Someone has to stay here and actually do your job while you save the city." With that he left, leaving Oliver to it.
When the team arrived at the Lair for lunch, they found Slade waiting in the basement for them. Oliver quickly shielded Felicity from Slade's bullets. He knew they were powerless against the armored up Deathstroke, but that didn't stop Sara from attacking. Once she went down Diggle tried to take the maniac down, with a growl of frustration Oliver jumped in to help his friends out with disastrous results, leaving them all barely conscious on the floor.
Once they were sure that he was gone Sara announced that she had at minimum sprained her wrist. It was decided that Oliver would take her to the hospital to get checked out using their usual motorcycle excuse while Felicity and Diggle cleaned up, took inventory and secured the lair. That night after Olivia had been safely tucked into bed and was being watched over by Tommy and a security team, which had been handpicked and vetted by Diggle, her parents returned to the lair along with Sara and Dig to continue searching for where Slade had set up his base of operations. Felicity determined that a likely target was the Star Labs Warehouse, but when they arrived to check it out, they were too late, it had already been broken into and the two employees, Cisco Ramon and Caitlyn Frost, who Felicity knew through Barry Allen, wouldn't tell them what had been taken. Felicity was able to hack into the database of Dr. Harrison Wells, Star Lab's director, and figure out what had been stolen. This left Team Arrow playing a waiting game, as there wasn't much that they could do unless they could get more information. When an energy spike was discovered; it was right in the middle of Oliver's bedtime routine with Olivia. He knew that saving the city from this threat came first so he quickly finished tucking her in, said goodnight, then suited up and went to the address that Felicity had provided.
Arriving at the warehouse Oliver was not prepared for what he found inside. Instead of Slade being hooked up to a machine draining his blood and making him weak, it was Roy, who barely looked alive, with Slade and Isabel Rochev standing over him. Oliver was determined that he wasn't going to let Roy down a second time. He swiftly killed the power to the machine with a arrow, and incapacitated Slade for a few minutes, which allowed him to then knock Isabel down and work at disconnecting Roy from the machine to free him. He hadn't anticipated Isabel opening fire, however Diggle arrived just in time to take Rochev out and save their bacon.
Once they were back at the basement Oliver laid Roy on the table while Sara checked him over. "I don't know Oliver; his pulse is extremely slow. We're going to have to wait and see. I don't know if he'll pull through, especially since we don't know exactly what they did to him." Sara said.
"Felicity," Oliver called getting her attention. He handed her a green vial. "I was able to grab a sample of the mirakuru. Do you think your friends over at Star Labs can help us and cook up a cure?"
She took the sample. "I'm not sure, but they'll be willing to try and it's our only play against an army of super soldiers." She grabbed her purse and jacket. "I'm going to go and give this to them right now, and then head home for the night."
Oliver pulled her in for a quick kiss, "I'm going to go upstairs and talk to Thea, I promised her that I would let her know if we found Roy. I hope to be home shortly after that."
"I'm headed out too then." Dig said as grabbed his things.
"I'll stay here and keep an eye on Roy." Sara volunteered. "The hospital's given me the week off for my wrist."
Oliver quickly climbed the steps and found his sister in her office going over a stack of paperwork. She looked up as he came in, "Hey Ollie, want to help me do some paperwork?"
"I'll pass on the paperwork, but I do need to talk to you. I've got news about Roy."
"Tell me." Thea said as she stood up and walked over to him.
"We found him tonight. Slade had him and he was using him as a way to make more mirakuru soldiers. He's in bad shape. Right now, he's unconscious in the basement and Sara's with him, monitoring his condition." Oliver gently told his sister.
"Thank you for finding him Ollie." She said as she rested her head on his shoulder,
Oliver gave her a hug and kissed her on her forehead. "Go down and visit him whenever you like. Just be careful we don't know how he will react when he wakes up, so one of us should be there as well. I'm headed home to check on Olivia and Mom."
The next few days were quiet, so Oliver decided to give both himself and Felicity the night off from vigilante work since Sara was still off from the hospital and could monitor the Lair. Relaxing into each other they laid together on Oliver's bed.
"This is nice," Felicity said, as she ran a finger up and down Oliver's back stopping occasionally to trace a scar.
"Very nice." Oliver murmured placing kisses down her neck.
"I've been thinking of letting my house go." Felicity said off handedly.
"Are you sure?" Oliver asked as he moved into a better position so that he could see Felicity's face. "I know how much it means to you to be independent and not rely on the Queen money."
She nodded, "I love the house but with the whole Slade thing we've been spending more time here and when we do it's to sneak off and have sex, which is what we're doing here right now." She giggled, "We don't need a sex pad. I know that I can afford to still pay the rent, but the point is that I don't want to, and I would rather be here with you." She took a deep breath. "In fact, I was hoping that you would be okay if we moved into one room together. We could turn the other one room into a study or maybe a back-up Lair in case I can't leave the mansion for some reason. We also can't expect Tommy to baby sit Livy forever. I'm pretty sure that he's going to want to move in with Laurel soon, and then they'll have kids, and he can't baby sit our kid and their kids and are you ever going to stop me?"
"I think it's cute." Oliver said as grinned down at her while she groaned and blushed, "And I would love for you to move in here with me." He leaned down and claimed her mouth in a searing kiss, just as both of their phones started ringing causing them both to groan.
After quickly getting dressed Oliver stuck his head in Tommy's room. A tousled head looked up and groggily asked, "Wha?"
"Felicity and I need to go, could you watch Livy?" The head disappeared back into its pillow, but a hand giving them the thumbs up sign appeared as Oliver quietly closed the door.
When they got to the Lair, they quickly got ready for action. Roy had woken up violently, throwing a table, hitting Diggle, and then running away. They weren't sure what state his mind currently was in, but Sara was already suited up and Oliver wasted no time in getting his suit on as well. Felicity ran the command post tracking him and informing them of any sightings. When they had no luck finding him or getting reports of sightings for over an hour they called it a night.
Once Oliver had changed back to his civilian clothes he waited for Dig to be ready to leave. "Would you do me a favor?"
"What now? Need me to purchase more drugs?" Dig asked as he crossed his arms and looked at his friend.
That comment brought a slight smile to Oliver's face. "No, no drugs. With Roy lost and out of his head I'm worried about Thea. Would you mind shadowing her until we get Roy back and hopeful under control?"
"You got it brother." Dig said holding out his hand as the two shook hands on it. Now it was time for Oliver to find Thea and update her about the situation.
The club had just closed so Thea was in her office tallying up the night's receipts. "Hey sis." He greeted her as he knocked and opened the door.
Not glancing up from her spreadsheet she asked, "What brings you to the upstairs?"
"I've got an update on Roy. He woke up." That caught Thea's attention and she looked up hopefully and started to get out of her chair and head downstairs, but Oliver held out a hand asking her to stop. "But he flipped a table and bolted. We've been out looking for him, but all we've found so far were a few police reports of a guy in a red hoodie beating people up."
"It's that drug! He would never do something like that without provocation." Thea cried, putting her hand over her mouth in shock.
"I know and I understand, but I would really like for you to keep Diggle with you until we have a chance to catch him." Oliver explained. "For both your safety and his."
"And what are you going to do with him when you catch him?" Thea asked as she narrowed her eyes.
"Hopefully sedate him until we can find a cure." Oliver hedged.
"Okay, then Mr. Diggle can be my shadow." Thea accepted. "As long as you are doing everything that you can to get him back in one piece."
The next night Sara's friend Cin called telling them that she had found Roy hiding in her crash pad, the old clock tower. Oliver and Sara loaded up and went to the tower to try to take Roy in before he could do something that he would regret. When Oliver saw Roy put Sara down without a thought or any effort, he decided to try what had worked before, and pulled off his mask to try to appeal to the man behind the mirakuru.
"Roy, it's Oliver, it's me, Thea's brother. What's happening is because the mirakuru. You're a good person, Roy. You have a conscience and a soul I need you to use those and fight this! You can do it!" As Oliver spoke, he could see that Roy wasn't comprehending what he was saying as his expression didn't change. Roy turned to Oliver, and used the arrow that Oliver had fired earlier as a melee weapon when he started attacking Oliver. Roy slammed him against a pillar and threw him to the ground, when Oliver tried to get up, Roy used his enhanced strength to kick the back of Oliver's knee causing shooting pain through his entire leg and Oliver to scream in agony. For the next few seconds all Oliver could do was scream from the pain it was so bad, and Roy took the opportunity to flee while both of his opponents were down. Once Sara was back on her feet, she helped Oliver up and over to the window where they watched Roy attack two police officers before seeing him run off, Oliver slid down the wall, defeated and in pain.
Crouching down beside him Sara gently palpated his knee, but it still felt like it was on fire. "I hate to say this Ollie, but we need to get you to the hospital and get some imaging done, this looks bad."
"It feels bad." He gasped, as sweat was beading on his face from the pain.
Sara helped him up and they slowly made their way down the steps, the pain making each step worse than the one before. Once they got to the motorcycle Oliver looked at it and at his knee, then leaning over he promptly threw up from the pain.
Sara sighed and then activated the comms, "Hey Dig, can you bring the van with a change of clothes? Don't worry Felicity, he'll live."
Once Dig got there with the van Sara quickly changed into her civilian clothes, while Oliver got stuck when he tried to take his pants off by himself. His face flushed he asked softly, "Can you help me get these leathers off? My knee has swollen to the point where I can't…"
"Can't we just cut them off?" Sara asked looking down at his knee, which looked bad even through the pants.
Diggle called back, "I have a pair of trauma sheers in the first aid kit for that reason."
"Just help me pull them off, I'll be okay." Oliver said determinedly, even though every time his leg moved it sent jolts of pain through him. Breaking in his costume, took time and patience and he had just broken these pants in correctly, so the need to preserve them won out.
With a sigh Sara helped him pull them off and put the sweatpants on. Oliver lay flat on his back in the van and hoped that the pain level would go down soon. He needed to be back on his feet quickly to take care of his family and to protect them against Slade. Dig pulled the van up beside the side entrance of the emergency room and Sara helped Oliver to hobble into the empty waiting room. Using her badge Sara disappeared into the back and a few minutes later she reappeared with a doctor in tow.
"Dr. Kane, this is my friend, Oliver Queen." The doctor was in his early thirties, a bit on the tall side, with longer brown hair that looked mussed from sleep.
"Nice to meet ya, Mr. Queen." Dr Kane had a deep voice with a Southern drawl. "Sara here tells me that you done busted up your knee?"
"Yep," Oliver replied succinctly, knowing that the doctor was fishing for more information but he was unwilling to give it.
"Well, alrighty then. Let's get ya into the back and we'll get some pictures taken of that knee. Then we'll see what we're working with." Oliver started to rise, but the doctor quickly held up his hand. "Whoa there, partner. Sara's going to rustle up a wheelchair. We can't have the city's favorite CEO limping around and possibly damaging that knee even more."
Oliver sank back down into the chair and waited for his ride to arrive. Sara smiled at him when she got back, "Your chariot good sir." She said with an English accent and bowed deeply.
"Why couldn't you have been this nice while we were dating?" He asked, grumpily teasing her as she helped him into the chair, and they started after Dr. Kane.
"Y'all dated?" Kane asked nonchalantly, but Oliver narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the doctors probing.
"Briefly." Sara replied as they stopped at an exam room.
"I'm going to have Sara start an IV so we can get some pain relief going, and while she's doing that I'm gonna call up to imaging and get you cleared to go up there." Kane yawned, "Sorry man, it's been a long day."
Once he had left the room Oliver told Sara, "Nothing that will put me out or make me loopy. I need to be aware and able to function."
"You also need to be able to get some relief." She argued.
He gently placed his hand over hers pausing her prep for the IV. "Sara, I went five years without getting pain relief of any sort. You've stitched me up enough times to know that I can handle it."
Sara glared at him in frustration as she finished inserting the IV and got the meds out of the locked area. "I know you can handle it, but you don't need to. I'll give you a lower dose that will cut the pain, but not knock you on your butt."
"Thank you." He said quietly. Things moved quickly once the doctor was able to get ahold of imaging and when Oliver was finally back in the room with the images from his scan on the computer Dr. Kane looked at them closely and assessed what he saw.
"Some of this damage is chronic," he observed.
"I enjoy parkour as a stress relief." Oliver said, shrugging as he watched Sara out of the corner of his eye trying to hide her laugh.
"Well, the best way to heal this knee is to keep off of it for at least a week. You'll want to alternate hot and cold packs and anti-inflammatory meds as well. Then we'll start you with physical therapy once the swelling goes down." Dr. Kane laid it out.
"I need to be able to use my knee," At the doctor's questioning look he lied, "I'm training for a parkour competition and there's a lot riding on it." As Dr. Kane looked at him incredulously, Oliver shrugged and said, "You know us eccentric billionaire's and our crazy ways."
Dr. Kane sighed, and then said, "I can prescribe you a brace that should help to stabilize the knee, but you will still be in horrible amounts of pain. I'm also going to prescribe an anti-inflammatory and some pain meds to help combat that pain. Be sure to use them and stay off that knee as much as possible."
Feeling relieved Oliver nodded, "Thanks Doc."
Dr. Kane looked him straight in the eye, "This isn't going to magically fix your knee, but it will help to support the knee as it heals. For it to heal fully and properly you will need to stay off of it." With that said Kane walked over to the medicine cabinet and unlocked it. Not looking at Oliver he mused. "You know a few months ago, this cabinet would have been almost empty. But thanks to that Arrow dude, it's fully stocked. I've always wanted a way to say thank you to him." He pulled a vial from the cabinet before he relocked it.
Oliver hesitated. He wasn't sure if the guy was just talking out loud, or if he had seen the damage to his body and put all the pieces together. "Thanks Doc."
Dr. Kane clapped him on the shoulder, "And good luck with that contest." He handed the vial to Sara, "Five milligrams of that should help with the swelling." With that he walked out the door. Oliver looked at Sara who just shrugged obviously unsure about the conversation as well. She pulled up the dosage and put it in Oliver's IV.
"I'm going to go and get what we need to get you outta here." Sara said before disappearing also.
Oliver tried not to drown in all that he felt like he needed to do, both personally and as the Hood. He was mentally running through the list of things that needed to be done and others that were coming up like being at his mother's debate, subduing Roy, spending time with Olivia, and the list went on, when his spiraling thoughts were interrupted by Sara returning.
"Let me get this brace on you, and then we can scoot. I've already done all of the necessary paperwork." She informed him.
"Thank you, Sara, I really don't know where I would be without all your help." Oliver said smiling up at her gratefully.
"Up a creek," she said dryly, as she slid the brace onto his knee and secured it. His pain levels were manageable, and he knew that with some help from the herbs from the Island he could be back on his feet sooner rather than later. When he was ready to leave Sara and Dig helped him into the back of the van where he sat with his leg stretched out, as they drove he noticed that they weren't heading back to Verdant.
"Hey! I thought we were going back to the club!" He demanded, angry that they were making a move without informing him.
"You're injured and we're taking you to the mansion. You need to rest that leg." Sara said rolling her eyes.
"But what about Roy and I need to be there for Mom's debate." Oliver protested.
"Felicity's running down any leads that come up and will alert us if she finds one that pans out. Meanwhile, the debate isn't going to happen for several more hours, which gives you plenty of time to go take a nap before you have to be on for tonight." Sara countered evenly.
"Fine," Seeing that he wasn't going to win the argument he conceded to them. "So, about Roy..."
"What about Roy?" Sara asked disgruntled
"What are we going to do when we find him?" Oliver asked.
"What are we going to do?! What can we do, chain him up? You saw what he did to those cops! He needs to be stopped." Sara stated getting agitated.
"What happened to first do no harm?" Oliver asked.
"That's for doctors, not us nurses." Sara sighed and leaned her head back against the side of the van. Dig, in the driver's seat, was being uncharacteristically quiet but still keeping a close eye on the two in the rearview mirror. "The only way I can see to keep the people that I love and care about safe is to end Roy. I know that he's Thea's boyfriend, but his actions are too unpredictable and violent. I'm afraid that if we don't take him off the board that someone else that we care about will be hurt, or worse, die."
"Star Labs is working on the cure." Oliver pointed out.
"A cure that we don't know if it will work or not." Sara countered. "Look I don't want to be right, but we have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario."
Oliver nodded, "Let's try it my way first though, please."
"Fine," Sara said and then looked out the window until they arrived back at the mansion.
"You made the right choice," Dig told Oliver softly as he helped him out of the van while Sara went to open the door.
Once Oliver was out of the van Dig carefully helped him to the front door where and excited and concerned Olivia was waiting. "Hi Daddy!" she said brightly, "Uncle Tommy says that you have a boo-boo so we need to sit to play. So, I picked out a movie fors us. It's the one with the horse that swims!" She grabbed his hand and led him to the living room where the movie was all set up and ready to play with drinks, a blanket, and ice packs on a side table. Olivia turned and looked at him, "Is this good Daddy?"
Oliver smiled and scooped up his baby girl, tickling her, "It's perfect." He said and he slowly lowered the two of them down on the couch and placed the ice packs on his knee. Olivia took the blanket and wrapped it around them and then curled up into his side. Between the pain medication that he had been given, the safety and comfort of his home, the warmth from the blanket and his daughter, and the drone from the movie he was soon sound asleep.