A Dangerous Love: Athena and Prometheus (An Arrow: Season 5 Fanfiction)

Chapter 21: The Landmine

Thea and Malcolm walked alongside each other as Curtis, Felicity and Evelyn were walking at hte front of the group. 

'You know, I travelled halfway across the world to rescue you. I thought it would at least entitle me to a conversation.' 

'Yeah, well, it doesn't,' she snapped. 

'Did it ever occur to you that I'm here because I'm your father?' 

'No. You're not. We are nothing to each other. Don't you ever understand that?' She stopped and apparently so did the group, as there was a sudden click beneath her feet. She looked down. Curtis stepped forward. 

'Thea... you okay?' he asked. 

'No, she's not,' Malcolm replied. 'She just activated a landmine. Don't move.' He knelt down to inspect it, and then looked back up at her. 'The trigger's rusted over.'

'That's - that's good, right? That's a good sign?' 

'No. That's really bad news,' Curtis said. 'That means we can't disarm it.' 

'Well, somebody needs to do something,' Samantha said, panicked. I stepped forwards. 

'Everybody, keep calm, please. We'll figure it out, I promise. Thea, on the count of three, take your foot off the mine.' 

'No. That will blow us all up,' Felicity said. 

'I'm gonna take her place,' Malcolm said. 

'That's crazy,' Samantha spoke. 

'You're not the first one to call him that,' I said. 

'I'll just find a boulder around here or something,' Curtis said, looking around frantically. 

'No!' Malcolm exclaimed. 'We don't have that kind of time.' He looked up at his daughter. 'Thea.' 

'No. No one is doing this, okay?' Malcolm stood up, noticing her shaking. 

'Okay, okay. It's all right. All right.' He let out a nervous laugh. 'I forgot how stubborn you could be.' Then, he suddenly shoved her off the mine, and we all let out a collective gasp. He landed safely on the mine. 'Thank you for reminding me,' Malcolm added to Thea. She stood up with an angry look on her face. 

'What the hell are you doing?' 

'I'm going to take care of them, disarm the mine, and I'll catch up with you,' he assured her. 

'Yeah, and how are you gonna do that with one foot planted on the -' I said, but Thea said something that made all of our hearts sink. 

'He's not going to.' She stepped up. 'No. Okay. If you think that you need to prove something to me, you don't, okay? You proved it.' 

'I'm not trying to prove anything. From the moment you were born, all I ever wanted was to protect you.' 

'You don't have to. I didn't ask for you to,' she replied, her voice cracking, tears growing in her eyes. 

'A child doesn't have to ask,' he replied with a sad smile. 

'Don't do this, okay?' she asked, her voice breaking further. 

'You may not think of me as your father, Thea. But you'll always be my daughter.' Suddenly, a boomerang flew, landing in a tree just ahead of them. 'All right. Go. Quick. Get her out of here. All of you, go!' 

'This is insane!' Thea exclaimed, but Felicity and I pulled her away. 

'Go!' Malcolm shouted after us. 

We started to run through the forest, not stopping. When we had gotten a while away, we slowed down, only for an explosion to ring throughout the forest. Thea looked back. 

Nyssa, Slade and Oliver kept walking, and they stopped in front of a tree. 

'The trail continues this way,' she said. The two looked down at the wreckage of a plane. 

'This place brings back memories,' Slade said.

'Feels like a lifetime ago,' Oliver replied. 

'For Shado, it was,' Slade said, making the two of them look at each other.

'No time for nostalgia,' Nyssa spoke up, making the two of them look back at her. 'I know where they're going.' She handed a pair of binoculars to Oliver, and he looked through them to see a building far off in the distance, the remains of what seemed to be a temple or monastery of some sort. 

Some time later... 

I was taking point, helping get them to safety, while Curtis and Samantha walked behind me, and Felicity and Thea were walking at the back of the group. 

'I'd ask if you're okay,' Felicity said, 'but I don't see how you possibly could be.' 

'Honestly, I - I don't even know how I feel right now. 24 hours ago, I couldn't even think of Malcolm without wanting to scream, and now - now I miss him. Is... is that insane?' 

'It's not insane,' Felicity replied. 'He's your father.' 

'He manipulated me, he lied to me, he got me to kill my friend's sister. I - how can you miss somebody that you have hated so much?' 

'Yeah. I mean, I have some experience with evil dads too. My father abandoned me, lied to me, and then took a bullet for me, saving my life.' The two stopped in the middle of the forest to keep talking. 'Malcolm was not a good person, and he was an even worse father, but in his own way, he loved you. Today he proved that.' 

'I don't know. It's like today, I got - I got to see the father that he could have been, but he'll... he'll never get to be, because he's gone.' Felicity pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead. Just then Curtis ran up. 

'The plane, boss! The plane!' he exclaimed. They stopped, staring him. 'Reference too dated?' I scoffed. 

'That's perhaps the dumbest thing I've heard all day,' I said with a laugh. We walked, or rather jogged, to the plane. 

'Who's gonna fly the plane now?' I asked. 

'Oh, don't worry. Between Curtis and I, we have over 500 points of IQ, so we'll probably be able to figure it out.' 

'No,' Thea said. Felicity turned around. 

'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' she replied in a mildly insulted tone.

'It's not that,' Thea said. We looked down to see Curtis removing layers of pine needles to uncover a bomb in the dirt. 

'Are those antennas?' Samantha asked worriedly. 

'Yep,' Thea replied. 'And that's C4.' 

'This is way too many antennas for a remote trigger,' Curtis said. 'They must be networked.' 

'Great,' I groaned. 'So there's more than one.' 

'Yeah, you could say that,' Felicity said, looking at her tablet. I peered over her shoulder to look at the map of the island. 'There's hundreds.' 

'Way too many to defuse,' Curtis chimed in. 

'Oh, my God,' I gasped.