Author's Note: Hello again friends, and welcome to the second book! I hope you enjoy this one as much as the first x All my love.
. . .
"Friends break up, friends get married,
Strangers get born, strangers get buried
Trends change, rumours fly through new skies
But I'm right where you left me"
TAYLOR SWIFT - 'Right Where You Left Me'
. . .
Tape #1
Begin Recording.
Whirrr. Click.
"Miss Merlyn? Miss Merlyn, are you okay? Can you continue the interview?"
"I'm fine. Sorry. I'm fine. Let's continue."
"Miss Merlyn, people are saying that you should be in prison with Moira Queen. What's your comment on that? Do you think you should be facing the court as well?"
A pause. A sigh.
Whirrrr. Click.
"I think.... I think that, somehow, I should've known. Maybe I should be punished for that, for suspecting but not doing anything. My father is - was - a monster. He did monstrous things. He threatened Oliver and Thea just to keep Moira in line. If I knew what he was planning, I would have stopped it. Would've tried to stop it. Would've tried to keep my brother alive."
"Tommy was found in the wreckage of CNRI, wasn't he?"
Clearing of a throat.
"Yeah, he-he was."
"You were also in the Glades when the quake hit, isn't that right, Miss Merlyn?"
"I was, yes."
"That's how you've avoided facing jail time with Moira Queen. But there are still those who think that you were working with your father - that you and Tommy went into the Glades to give yourselves an alibi, to keep yourselves safe from justice."
Whirrr. Click.
"My father, despite his psychopathy, would never try to kill his children."
Whirrr. Click.
"Miss Merlyn, with all due respect-"
"With all due respect, my brother fucking died. There's no way I would ever willingly be a part of the thing that killed him."
"Miss Merlyn-"
Whirr. Click.
Quieter:
"My brother died. It's my biggest regret that I didn't die beside him."
Whirr. Click.
End of Recording.
. . .
Everything that flickered by the window was...grey.
The sidewalks were matted with ash and leftover debris, dirty people with no homes lined the pavement like sad statues, burnt out cars flipped on their roofs and left to rot. Spider-web cracks claimed the sides of still-standing buildings, like a grotesque tally of the deaths etched into the concrete.
Five hundred and three people.
Until now, Oliver had thought that Lian Yu had been the pinnacle of loss and decay. Slade and Shado, Fyers. Sara. The countless unnamed soldiers and threats that he'd obliterated off the map. He'd thought that the leaves had dripped blood, the branches made brittle by a sickly kind of rage. Lian Yu had been a weight around his shoulders, an ache deep in his bones, and he'd hated it again and again and again.
But coming home to Starling City, where the hateful looks were daggers sliding deep into his side and every gasping inhale added another layer of tar to his tongue, made him miss the forests. Being back, being Oliver Queen again, was claustrophobic and stifling and overly-warm and he hated it, so much more than he had ever hated the island.
He hated that Felicity and John had gone to get him. He hated that he had let them bring him back again.
He hated that Cali hadn't been there.
He hated himself more for being the reason why.
In between the debris and the shrines lining the curbs, in between the decaying children with no more parents, there was a sign with red writing - something about voting for Blood.
"Who's Blood?" He asked, as exhaustion settled comfortably across his shoulders. It seemed he would always be one step behind, swallowed up by the too-fast-paced city life in a world where nobody could take a break for fear of being replaced. Even while it was grieving, Starling City was not kind to its protector.
Both Diggle and Felicity hesitated, glanced at each other in a way that had Oliver's eyes narrowing, but it ended up being Dig who answered. "An alderman from the Glades trying to save the city." His tone was wry, belying his scepticism. "Fill your shoes."
This alderman could fucking have his shoes. Oliver would hand them over in an instant. His bow and arrows too.
Movement in the front seat. "Here's everything on Stellmoor International," Felicity said, handing him a thin file. The photos that caught his eye the most were the ones where that ragged and seething edge was present in Isabel Rochev's eyes. "She's the Vice President of Acquisitions," Felicity explained. "She looks angry in every photo."
"So where to?" Diggle asked from the driver's seat, and Oliver ignored the way his friend's eyes searched for him in the rear-view mirror. "The office?"
He could - should - go to the office, should figure out how to save his father's company, but...
"Home," he decided, settling against the window. "I wanna check in on Thea."
Felicity swallowed, adjusted her seat belt uncomfortably, avoided his eyes, and somehow Oliver knew what she was going to say before she managed to say it. "Uh, she's not at your house, Oliver."
His tone stayed flat and lifeless, but something harder and agitated edged it. "Where is she?"
Another moment of hesitation, where Oliver could feel the way that their eyes were settled on his face, assessing their options. As if he might lash out if they said the wrong thing, told him too much or too little. As if he was the fragile one, who needed coddling and love and gentleness.
Had they forgotten that he'd killed half the city?
"Alright," he said, voice razor thin and just as sharp. "Fine. What about Cali?"
"Thea's at Verdant," Felicity confessed in a rush, abruptly unsettled. "We can go there, and you can see her."
Oliver flicked his attention over to her and opened his mouth, but John beat him to it. "That's all we can do for you right now, Oliver," he said in the same way he gave orders in the field. It was a warning and an apology, wrapped into one. "Thea or the office or your home. Everything else has to wait."
They hadn't mentioned Cali when they'd begged him to come back. That should've registered, should've made his hackles raise defensively, should've made him stay on that fucking island.
"Why can't I see her?"
He saw - tasted - the trepidation that tripped across their tongues, and it scalded something soft and vulnerable in his belly. They'd forced him back into the claustrophobic 'Oliver Queen' suit that he'd worked hard to shed, they'd lured him off his island and back into a wounded city, and now they were hiding things from him. Hiding Cali from him.
He bared his teeth at his own reflection. "I want to see her."
"Too bad," Felicity said sharply, and Oliver's spine straightened at the molten steel in the words. "If you wanted to see her, you shouldn't have vanished after Tommy's funeral. But you did, so you don't get to come back and start demanding things from her again, okay?"
"I'm not going to demand things from her," Oliver argued, stung by her refusal. "Jesus, I just want to make sure she's okay."
"Her brother died," Felicity snapped back. "She's pretty far from okay."
Diggle inhaled slowly and used one hand to grab her hand. Her shaking hand, Oliver realised. "Felicity," Diggle murmured, low and slow. "Not now." His eyes flickered up to meet Oliver's in the rear-view mirror. "Thea or home or your office, Oliver. You have to be patient for everything else."
And Oliver wanted to argue - wanted to snap and snarl and rage and howl until they bowed to his wishes and just let him go to her. The ragged and feral part of him that had been bred and groomed on that godforsaken spit of land tore his insides to shreds in its attempt to get out, to attack, to make him the apex predator.
But these were his friends. His friends whom he had abandoned, left to suffer in their mourning, left to repair the damage that he'd done.
So Oliver swallowed down that killer living in his chest, and said, with forced politeness, "I'd like to see Thea, please."
With a tight smile, John flicked on the indicator, and turned left.
. . .
Tape #2
Begin Recording.
Whirrr. Click.
"State your name and occupation for the record, please."
"My name is Parker Layett, and I am Miss Cali's driver."
"Thank you, Mister Layett. You understand that you will be questioned about your relationship with Calissa Merlyn, as well as your whereabouts on the night of the earthquake?"
"I understand, sir."
"Alright then."
Whirrr. Click.
"Describe your relationship with Miss Merlyn. You say you're her driver, but we've had reports of you running private security for her as well."
"I was employed by her father, Malcolm Merlyn, as one of two main chauffeurs. At the time of my employment, she was still young and living with him, as was her brother. As she got older and started a serious relationship with Michael Martin, I was reassigned to Mister Merlyn, where I ran errands and drove him to appointments. It was not until she began to live on her own that I was instructed to return to her service."
"And the private security?"
A pause.
Whirr, Click.
"Mister Layett, it's important that you tell us everything you know."
"Cassidy Stokes, Miss Cali's other driver, began to notice that Mister Merlyn seemed to be... spying on Miss Cali, through the staff that he sent to her. They would report on her movements, and feed him information about her work schedule. It was using this intel that Mister Merlyn secured her a promotion at the Starling Public Library, using bribery. Miss Cali was not aware of this until later. At this point, I had grown fond of my charge and was resistant to seeing her so unsafe. Cassidy and I did our best to ensure she was protected from everyone. Including her father."
"So you perceived Malcolm Merlyn as a threat long before he created this mess."
"If I may speak frankly? I truly believed that, if Cassidy and I had not subtly interfered as we did, Mister Merlyn may have actually killed his daughter in one of his blind rages."
Whirr. Click.
"Did he ever hit her?"
"Not for many years, that I've seen. But he got increasingly more... physical during their arguments. He would try to intimidate her, cow her into doing what he wanted. There were times when he would ambush her at her apartment, and that would rattle her quite badly. Cassidy reported that she had bruises on her arm from an incident where Mister Merlyn had grabbed her tight and refused to let go."
"I see."
Whirrr. Click.
"Mister Layett, do you believe that Calissa Merlyn was involved in her father's plot to destroy the Glades?"
"I've known Miss Cali for many years, sir. She is kind, and good, and I would give my life for hers. Cassidy would vow the same. She had no part in this tragedy, and neither did her brother. You must understand, sir. Her father did his best to break her, and it wasn't until he took away her brother that he succeeded."
Whirrr. Click.
"I see. Thank you for your time, Mister Layett."
Whirr. Click.
End of Recording.
. . .
Seeing Thea at Verdant was akin to drinking cold water on a hot day - Oliver couldn't help but take in the sight of her, warm and glowing and settled in her skin in a way that he'd never seen. Her hair was clean and loose, her cheeks full and rosy with life. When she smiled at him after they greeted each other, her eyes glittered.
It was good to see her happy.
"I hear rumours that my club is under new management," he said easily, sliding his hands into his pocket as Thea grinned at him.
"Ah, actually, it's my club now, and you're not getting it back."
"You're not old enough to drink."
Thea led him over to the bench. "But I am old enough to run a bar." There was something in her voice, something grown-up and almost unfamiliar. He'd missed so much during his absence - time like this, he would never be able to get back. She'd matured in a way that made her even more like their father, and that was a truth that thickened in his throat and made breathing significantly harder.
So he settled one hip against the bar and tried to keep his next question casual. "Have you made it to Iron Heights?"
He might as well have suggested the world was ending with the way that Thea's shoulders tensed, the way her fingers spasmed around the pen she had clutched tightly in her hand. She'd shut some part of herself away now, locked up the vulnerable centre she'd let him see.
"To visit a woman who dropped a city on five hundred innocent people?" The question was acidic, venom dripping from Thea's teeth. "No thank you."
And damn her, she was right, but...
"Thea-" He bit the sentence off with a sigh. "That's not what Mom did."
"Right. She had no choice." A sceptical snort. "But guess what? She did. A choice not be a mass murderer. A choice not to get Tommy and Janet killed. And I had a choice too." A flicker of something like regret in her eyes before she bit out, "So I choose not to be her daughter."
Oliver felt the world stand still, and go silent.
His next breath punched out of him, and then he couldn't inhale again, couldn't find the air, couldn't make a sound as he stared at his oblivious sister. His sister who had no idea the bombshell she'd just dropped at his feet.
Janet Parker was dead.
Fuck.
"But I am so happy you're home," Thea was saying with a smile, before turning back to her clipboard on the bar and frowning. "Honestly, I need to deal with our liquor distributor who shorted me on yesterday's delivery, and one of my bartenders called in sick, so..." She trailed off, finally getting a good look at him and registering the vacancy plastered across his face. "What?"
Oliver swallowed, ignored the sharpness in his throat, and managed a raspy, "Nothing. It's just- It's nice to see you like this."
"Like what?"
He had a razor-slash smile and blood on his teeth. "Together."
Thea snorted, but something about her had softened again - whatever anger he'd stirred up by mentioning Moira had been soothed once more. But there was still one more thing he had to ask about, one more thing that could upset their tentative peace. One thing that he just couldn't stand to leave alone, despite Felicity's warnings.
"I, uh-" he swallowed sharply, avoiding Thea's eyes, "-I didn't know about Janet. About what...what happened."
Thea's smile died a quick death. "Oh," she said quietly.
"Is Cali- Is she-"
"You haven't been to see her, yet, have you?"
Why was it so hard to get a straight answer from someone? Frustration lashed around his neck like a choker that was pulled too tight, strangling his words and his breaths until he could only choke out a strained, "No."
Thea nodded once, short and determined, and pulled out her phone. "Good," she said absently, tapping on the screen. "That's good. I'll tell Parker to send out an update on her, then, given that she's probably heard the news that you're back in town. I'm sure Felicity already has plans to go see her tonight, but we can never be too careful with her these days."
"What - do you have her on watch?" Oliver spluttered, equal parts dismayed and incredulous. "What's happening? Why won't anyone let me see her or-or tell me how she's doing?"
"Her brother died," Thea shot back. "Of course we have her on watch."
"Thea." He would beg, if he had to. For Cali, he would beg.
The Oliver that he'd become on the island - the thing he'd become once he'd escaped with Anatoli - never would've stooped to this level. The Oliver that Slade had known and trained and sculpted would have gone straight to Cali, damn the people telling him otherwise. Wouldn't have stopped until he could touch her, assess her with his own eyes, soothe that raging ocean of feelings in his chest.
The Oliver Queen he was trying to be now - the one untouched by Slade and Shado, untouched by the shadowy years he spent learning how to be the Bogeyman - this Oliver just wanted what was best for her.
And if what was best for her was him staying away...
It would kill him. But he'd do it.
Thea must've read all that and more in his face, because her next breath was a sigh of surrender. "Alright," she said tiredly, looking down and typing out another message before tucking her phone away again. "Listen, after the Quake, someone spilled Cali's address to the press. People showed up at her apartment - some of them had weapons, guns, and they tore the place to shreds. Bricks went through windows, they smashed her furniture, tore up paperwork. Police arrived just in time to stop them burning it down."
Heart in his throat, Oliver said, "Was she....?"
Thea shook her head, lips thin and colourless. "She was with Parker at a check-up. Detective Lance warned them away before they could make it home. And then the Council seized all of Malcolm's assets, so she was kicked out of the mansion as well. Parker and Cassidy found her a safe house, somewhere just outside of town. She's being crucified by the media. The city blames her for everything, Ollie. She can't risk showing her face around here in case someone tries to attack her. She's gotten death threats, real death threats, both online and letters left at her old address."
"Why didn't you keep her at home with you?"
"We tried. But then people started figuring it out and tried to overrun security at our place too. And with Mom being at Iron Heights..." Thea chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, expression bleak. "Cali left in the night after people started sending threats to me too. Parker and Cassidy smuggled her away. I haven't seen her since, but Parker sends out updates pretty regularly. I think Felicity is the only one that gets to visit."
He never should have left her here.
The realisation screamed through him with talons of fire, raking his soft flesh to ribbons and pouring acidic guilt into the wounds.
He never should have abandoned her after Tommy's funeral. He should've known that this would be the city's reaction, should've known that having the last name 'Merlyn' was enough to condemn her, should've known that sympathy for a dead brother only stretched so far when you weren't the only one burying your family.
Cali had lost her brother, her lover, and her father in one night.
One night, and Malcolm had ruined her life. Had ruined her.
Oliver wished that he'd had the chance to kill Malcolm slower - wished with his entire being that he'd had enough time to coax the shadows living with the cobwebs in that box in his head out into the open, wished that he could've made Malcolm scream.
"Have the death threats stopped?" He asked Thea quietly, swallowing down that darkness. "Are you safe?"
"Yeah," she answered just as quietly. "Yeah, um, Cali did an interview before she disappeared. Kept the attention on her, instead of me." Thea laughed bitterly, glanced at something over Oliver's shoulder, eyes slightly glazed. "Stupid girl doesn't know when to stop."
And she never would, Oliver knew. She'd grown up on the fundamental belief that she was worth so much less than the people around her - that love had to be earned by bowing and scraping and sacrificing.
God, she must be little more than a ghost, trapped in that decaying body as her grief ate her from the inside out. Losing Tommy would have been bad enough, but losing Janet as well would have undoubtedly tipped her over the edge. Cali had given parts of herself to both of them - had let Janet hold her heart, had let Tommy take ownership of her soul - and those parts surely had died with them, buried in the rubble of the Glades.
How could his own misery even hold a candle to hers? How could he tear himself apart so viciously for the sake of his lost ones when he had single-handedly ripped Tommy away from her? She must blame him.
Thea's touch on his arm was gentle, but he tensed anyway, snapping his attention back to her. "She doesn't hate you, Ollie," she said quietly, solemnly, carefully. "She's not angry with you. She missed you when you went away. I think that's what killed her the most."
He never should have come back here. Should have just stayed on that fucking island.
"I don't think I can ever face her again," he confessed.
And if he was looking for hollow platitudes, Thea would never be the one to give it to him. "For once, this isn't about you," she said. "If she wants to see you, you owe it to her to be there. Besides, it's Felicity you've gotta get through. And she's pretty scary."
Felicity was terrifying, Oliver could admit. Especially if she was playing guard dog for Cali.
But Thea was right. This wasn't for him. This was for Cali, who'd just lost her brother and her father and her lover in one fell swoop. Had lost Oliver too, in a way.
He would do it for her.
He would only ever do it for her.
. . .
He saw Laurel, gaunt and unhappy, after the shooting of the Mayor, and felt nothing. Pity, maybe, as a fleeting shadow through his chest, but not love. Not anymore. Every word he said to her, every response he could coax, all of it meant nothing. Because Tommy had died loving her, and Oliver was tired of letting his best friend down.
So he left, her words still ringing in his ears, and he confronted John in the car, and he went home, and he didn't sleep, and he woke up, and he called John to take him into the city.
And he didn't once let himself think about the fact that it was really hard to care about anything at all.
. . .
"I don't know what you want me to do about it," Tommy scoffed, flopping on Oliver's bed and burying himself under the copious amount of pillows.
Oliver scowled, young and stupid and trapped by college, trapped by Sara. "Just tell her to stop, dude."
"Why don't you tell her?"
"I have! She won't listen to me!"
Tommy sighed loudly, scrubbing at his face with one hand. "I'm her brother, not her freaking keeper. Cali can do what she wants. If it really, genuinely upsets you, tell her that. She's not doing it to make you upset. She just thinks it's funny that you scream like a girl when you get spooked."
"It's embarrassing. And she only ever does it when Sara's here."
"Probably 'cause it makes Sara laugh."
And fuck, Oliver couldn't even argue that. Sara had a nice laugh - bright and clear and ethereal - and he'd certainly orchestrated situations just to hear it again and again. But he was getting tired of Cali jumping out of places and shouting at him, tired of checking every shadowy hallway before he could let the tension out of his coiled muscles. He was tired of always being on guard, always expecting an attack.
"I'll talk to her again," he decided, throwing himself down beside Tommy, who squeaked as he bounced on the bed. "Doesn't it cramp your style, having your baby sister follow you everywhere?"
Tommy shrugged. "She's, like, cool. Makes me look good in front of the ladies. Stays out of the way when I've got someone. She needs company a lot after bad nights, but that's, you know, the life these days."
"Does she know about the coke?"
"Nah. She'd freak. She only knows about the drinking."
Oliver stole one of the cushions, burying it under his head. "Thea doesn't even know about that," he said lightly. "She just thinks I'm a loser."
Tommy snorted. "Dude, you are a loser."
Oliver jabbed a finger into his side, satisfied when Tommy yelped. The smugness lasted all of a minute before Tommy launched at him, and they scuffled, laughing and shouting, until Thea shouted at them to shut up and Moira begged them to spare the furniture.
. . .
There was something about Oliver that put John on edge, in a way that he hadn't been since the first week after meeting him.
It was something in the way he held himself - restrained, but barely, with tension rippling through those powerful shoulders. He had more strength in one hand than most people had in their entire bodies, and he knew it, basked in it. The island had opened up that festering wound inside him again, and this time, they didn't have Cali to drain the poison away.
"Oliver," he greeted as his friend slid into the backseat with barely a sound. "Where to?"
"The office." No pleasantries exchanged, no softness or familiarity in that blank voice. Losing Tommy had stripped something vital from him, from everyone, John knew that. But he also knew that Starling City needed Oliver, in any way they could get him. It didn't make the guilt any less, nor the sorrow any lighter, but it settled his conscience enough for him to get some sleep at night.
One glance at his charge in the mirror told him enough about Oliver's conversation with Thea. "You know about Janet, then."
Something flickered across Oliver's face, too fast for John to recognise it. "Yes," Oliver said, the admission a hiss through gritted teeth. "The library?"
John grimaced, taking a moment to focus on changing lanes, on cultivating his reply. Oliver was... volatile, even on a good day, and this was not a good day. "It survived mostly unscathed," he answered carefully. "They turned part of it into a safe zone - gathered donations, distributed them to citizens of the Glade, offered whatever shelter they could until safe houses opened up."
"Cali's team?"
"No losses." Thank the heavens for small mercies. "Martha Johnson is the only wounded. She was in the Glades when the Quake hit, suffered a spinal injury. She's paralysed from the waist down, but one of the other girls, Naomi, helps her out. They're both still working there. Taking charge since Cali went into hiding."
Cassidy had confirmed that Cali didn't know about Martha being wheelchair bound, didn't know that Brendan had lost his parents in the Quake and had lost most of himself because of it. She didn't know that Nancy chose to stay indoors now, and had since resigned. One of the uni students they'd hired casually - Vanessa - lived almost full-time in the library now, because her home had been lost to the vandals.
And Cali...
"Will I ever be allowed to see her?" Oliver asked quietly, with enough of his old self-deprecation that sympathy squeezed John's heart.
Reluctantly, he loosed a breath and said, "She just needs time, Oliver. You left - whatever reasons you have, whatever freedom and space you needed, it doesn't matter. As far as she's concerned, she lost you, too, the same way she lost Tommy and Janet."
"I didn't think about Janet." The confession was raw in a way that John hadn't expected, as though Oliver had been thinking dual thoughts about the matter and forgot to strip those conflicting secrets away before speaking. "I didn't... I was so focused on Tommy-" He choked on the name, took a second to swallow the emotion back, "-that I didn't even think."
And it sounded genuine, his grief for Janet - his grief for Cali after she'd lost Janet.
But there was just enough of an edge to it that John risked another glance at Oliver's face, and found that something from before twisting his expression. And John recognised it, and he hated it, the same way he knew Oliver would be hating it too.
Because if he didn't know better he would have called that unexpected emotion relief. Relief that he didn't have to fight for Cali's affections anymore, because there was no-one left to fight with. Relief that Janet hadn't become a problem for him to deal with later on. Relief that he didn't have to hate her anymore, because she was underground while Oliver was here.
Relief.
And John knew that Cali would feel it, no matter how deeply Oliver buried it. She would sniff it out and take it from him and hate him and love him. Because she didn't know how not to be a part of him.
Sickened, he forced his attention back to driving, and swore to himself that he would fight to keep Oliver and Cali away from each other for as long as he could. Until the slimy, dirty feeling of betrayal had washed away. Until Oliver knew how to be human again.
God help them all.
. . .
"We have to die at the same time on the same day, you know that right?" Cali said with conviction one night, when they were sharing a bed in an attempt to escape the inky sadness of the night.
Tommy rolled his head to look at her, eyes soft. "Hm?"
She kept her gaze on the roof, where they'd stuck as many glow in the dark stars that they'd been able to find, just because they'd had them as children. "We have to die together," she repeated. "Bonnie and Clyde style."
"Are you proposing incest? Because that's disgusting."
She hit him in the arm, hard enough that he yelped. "No," she scowled. "Fuck. That's revolting. Ew."
He grinned. "No incest, gotcha."
"Fuck you, you know what I mean."
He did know what she meant. Knew that if one of them died, the other would be left with a gaping hole where their heart used to be. Knew that there was no way to live without each other. "If one of us dies first," he said quietly, gently, sadly, and ignored the way Cali's eyes filled with tears at the tone, "then the other follows soon after. I know, Cali."
It wouldn't be him that died first. Not with the way that his sister seemed so in tune with danger and pain and heartbreak. He would lose her first - to Malcolm, or the city, or her own pit of despair - and he would live without her for maybe a month before he would follow her into the darkness of death.
But he would not die first.
He would not leave that burden on her shoulders. He could protect her from that in the same way that he'd protected her from Malcolm for all those years. Protect her in the way he'd failed to protect her from Michael's fists, from Oliver's obliviousness, from the death of their mother.
He would be there for as long as he needed him, longer still, and if there was a god out there, and he was merciful, they would go together many, many decades in the future.
Cali's hand found his in the sheets, and they held onto each other tightly and watched the stars glow softly on the ceiling until sleep claimed them both.
. . .
Isabel Rochev was the kind of woman on whom you might cut yourself if you touched her. Everything about her was sharp and mean and spiteful, and yet she was alluring in a way that Oliver couldn't quite figure out. There was a hollowness to her face that the photos he'd seen had failed to capture - a stain in her dark eyes that probably wouldn't ever wash away, a predatory stillness to the way she held herself, a brittleness to her words and her voice that put him on edge.
"Isabel Rochev," She introduced without any kind of false emotion, offering her hand.
He took it, assessed the way her grip flexed as he said, "Oliver Queen. Sorry I'm late."
"For this meeting or a career in business?"
Some bitter and twisted part of him wanted to bark a laugh as he sat down. "I didn't realise hostile takeovers had so much hostility."
Isabel Rochev's smile was more a baring of teeth as she, too, took her seat. "Not at all. I'm actually in quite a good mood."
"Really?" He liked this game, almost as much as he hated that he was already losing. "So destroying companies agrees with you?"
"Winning agrees with me," she retorted, swift and scalpel-sharp.
"You haven't won yet."
A flash of fire in those dark, dark eyes. It was all he could do to keep that 'Oliver Queen' mask donned and genuine. Her small smirk was dripping with distaste as she said, "Since you majored in Dropping out of College, let me put this in terms that are easy for you to understand." He liked her. "You control forty-five percent of Queen Consolidated stock. I control forty-five percent, leaving ten percent outstanding. But, in two days, the Board will release the final ten percent."
"And I'll buy it before you do." A bluff.
She called it. "With what money?" Her voice was saccharine sweet as she dug her teeth in. "I doubt your trust fund is that large, and no angel investor will go near the company that built the machine that destroyed half the city." Whatever she read in his face, whatever frustration he wasn't hiding from her, she was kind enough not to use it against him. "Companies rise and fall, Mister Queen. Your company has fallen."
He would not lose to her, not like this. Not today. His mind was already running over possibilities, seeking out loopholes, calculating and recalculating numbers and data. He liked Isabel Rochev, liked the snake's fangs she kept hidden behind those pink-glossed lips, but he refused to let her have the victory.
Surrender wasn't in his nature. Unfortunately, he supposed, it wasn't in hers either.
Whatever she was going to say next was lost in the suddenness of the masked and hooded figures that burst into the conference room, armed and angry and quietly pathetic.
"Oliver Queen!" One shouted. "You have failed this city!"
And that was...that was his line, his mission, his crucible. He could feel his face scrunching at the indignity, at the audacity, even as he remembered the way John had refused to apologise for tricking him back into Starling City. Because of these lunatics, Oliver realised distantly, even as the first bullet fired and someone shouted for him to get down.
Isabel Rochev was already scrambling for the door. It was only once she was out that he turned to search for Felicity, uncowed by the sound of gunfire and John shouting and glass shattering. He turned just in time to witness her clobbering one of the attackers with some kind of makeshift weapon, and then he was gathering her close and throwing them both to the ground to avoid the next round of gunfire.
One day. He'd been back in the city for one day and already he was dragging his friends back into the firing line. This is why he'd left.
If he was too late to save one of them... If he had to watch them die...
He kept Felicity pressed close as he raced for the only available escape: the window. It was think or die.
He grabbed some kind of cord with one hand, held Felicity to him with the other.
And he swung.
Straight out the god-damned window.
Felicity shrieked as they dropped and dropped and dropped, only for the sound to choke off and shrivel up as Oliver kicked in the glass several floors down and threw them both back inside the building.
They barely cleared the desk positioned there, landing hard on the floor as glass continued to rain down around them. It was only when he was certain they weren't in any more danger that he reached out to Felicity, checking her for irreparable damage even as he brushed her blonde hair out of her face.
He could very well have killed her.
It was instincts from the island still - the urge to flee through any means necessary, with any risks a mere afterthought. Adrenaline ruled his reactions. Choices made in the moment were not made with safety in mind, only escape.
And Felicity had paid for it. With small cuts and scratches from the broken glass, from what would be innumerable bruises from where his fingers had dug into her skin, where she'd landed on the ground.
This was why they didn't want him near Cali.
This was why he shouldn't have returned at all.
. . .
It wasn't until Isabel Rochev had left, and they'd managed to escape the police's questions that they retreated to his office a few floors up. Any cool amusement he'd felt before the meeting had dried up in the face of Felicity's disappointment, John's disappointment, everyone's disappointment. He'd heard what Lance had said to Felicity, heard the question that everybody had been wondering.
It always came back to the Hood. To being the vigilante. To helping an ungrateful city filled with mongrels and murderers and starving, desperate people who did stupid things to survive.
He didn't want this city anymore. And despite what people were saying, he wasn't sure it wanted him back either.
"You could have stopped those guys," Felicity seethed as they marched into his office. Different, she'd become so different in his absence. Harder, a little colder. An after-effect of becoming Cali's defender, Oliver supposed.
"Not without giving Isabel Rochev and the hoods a pretty good idea of what I'm capable of," he told her sternly. He was tired of the arguing, tired of the expectations, tired of being the hero.
But John wouldn't grant him peace either. "I think what Felicity's wondering is whether you avoided taking those hoods on." Oliver grit his teeth at the accusation hidden in his mild words. "And, Oliver, she's not the only one wondering."
"I told you!" He retorted, tone acrimonious and spiteful and bitter, his anger burning ice-hot. "I did not come back to Starling City to be the vigilante!"
"But they came after you, Oliver," John argued back. "You could have taken them out."
"No I couldn't," he snarled, and then took a breath. He couldn't afford to lose his temper now. Not here. Not like this. "Look," he started again, a little tamer. "There's a part of being the Hood that neither one of you are considering." Blank looks from both of them. He fought the urge to hit something. "The body count."
They had to understand, they had to know where he was coming from. Had to understand that Tommy had wanted-
Well. They had to know.
Felicity follows him around the desk. "And excuse me for saying this, but so what? Since when do you care?"
Different. She'd become so different in his absence. She'd learned all the worst habits from him, and built herself some armour from them. To protect Cali. To protect herself. To protect the both from a city that didn't care for them, that had turned on them, that had chewed up and spat out everyone and everything they cared about.
But as he stared her down, he couldn't help the gnarls of hurt that snagged in his chest. Because he thought, of everyone, she might understand that he couldn't do this.
"Since Tommy," Diggle said lowly, immediately more forgiving.
Felicity's glare didn't' waver, even as Oliver swallowed against that stupid lump in his throat, and said to her, "After he found out my secret, do you know what Tommy called me?" He remembered the confrontation clear as day. "A murderer. And he was right." The grit of the debris, the way the blood made Tommy's hand slippery- "My best friend died thinking I was a murderer, and anyone that I kill dishonours his memory."
That part of him stung, exposed as it was. He'd avoided thinking about his legacy and what about it Tommy had hated. He dreamed about it, sometimes. The blame and the hatred and the sickness he's seen in his friend's face when he'd finally learned the truth.
How could he keep being the Hood? How could he keep killing when that had been what had gotten Tommy killed?
Felicity's voice was less agitated, but still jagged and upset, when she said, "So don't. It's not like you've killed every guy you've faced."
"I could have," he said tiredly. "Because when I put on the hood, it's kill or be killed. That is what kept me alive." Slade, Sara, Shado, Fyers, Anatoli. Everything that had come after that fucking nightmare. That's why I should have stayed on that island."
To their credit, they didn't follow him as he started for the door. But Felicity's voice carried. "Is that where you're going now?" A dare, and a challenge.
But Oliver didn't rise to the bait. "The two of you won't help me save my family's company. I'm going to talk to somebody who will."
He left them there, in that ringing silence.
And he found that he simply did not care.
. . .
Tape #3
Begin Recording.
Whirrr. Click.
"What can you tell us about Calissa Merlyn, Miss Clark?"
"Just Naomi is fine."
"Alright. Naomi."
"I just want to say for the record that I don't think Cali should be blamed in any way for the earthquake. Like, she literally lost her dad and her brother. And I think maybe her girlfriend. There's no way she would've done that to herself."
"We aren't making accusations, Naomi. It's simply procedure, to determine how to proceed with her inheritance and her father's estate."
Whirrr. Click.
"You just want to put her in jail with Moira Queen. You think she's a criminal who deserved punishment. Her family is dead. Isn't that punishment enough?"
"Naomi. If you would answer the question, please."
"Can you repeat the question?"
Whirr. Click.
"What can you tell us about Calissa Merlyn?"
"She was gentle. She shouldn't have been - I mean, her old boyfriend was a real piece of work. He should've beaten that kindness right out of her. But somehow, she kept herself soft and warm. We all love her. And yeah, she's a little unreliable with work, but only after Oliver came back. Before he came back, and she was promoted, she was the best of us."
"Were you aware that her promotion was bought?"
Whirrr. Click.
"We knew something wasn't right about it. Carlisle was a stubborn old bastard. There's no way he would've given up the role without a little persuading. But we never thought that Cali did it for herself. She isn't the type."
"Did she have regular contact with her father?"
"Not regular. He would call her sometimes. But she was never happy to talk to him."
Whirrr. Click.
"Do you know what her relationship with her brother was like?"
"Sure. I mean, we weren't best friends, but Cali's a very expressive person, and she struggles to keep her private life overly private. And I'm the nosy sort. They had fights, and some of them were bad. But you guys have to understand - Tommy was her entire world. I guarantee that her heart stopped beating when his did. Metaphorically of course."
Whirrrr. Click.
"Miss Clark-"
"She was the best of us, I'm telling you. There is nothing we wouldn't have done for her. If you think she had any part in this, you're lying to yourselves and to this city. So how about you leave her alone, and you leave us alone, and we focus on rebuilding instead, okay?
Whirr. Click.
End of recording.