There are moments in your life that can change the course of your future. One instance was when Malcolm Merlyn took me to Starling City. One was when I was shipwrecked on Lian Yu. And this next moment of my life was another.
---
Time went by as I grew more and more devoted to my work, wanting to prevent Lance and Hilton finding the vigilante as much as possible. I knew their plans, and every time they thought they found him, I would innocently divert them in some way. And they were none the wiser.
It was another day at the SCPD, but it would turn out to be no ordinary one. I was taking out tests on my latest sample up at the lab, when Lance arrived with some news.
'We've got eyes on the Hood,' he grinned. 'We need you to watch the CCTV whilst we track him down so you can direct us to where he is exactly.'
'But-'
I wanted to tell Lance that I had grown tired of his hunting, and I didn't know myself if I could stop them from finding the Hood much longer. I needed more time to think of a new strategy, but my time was extremely limited.
'I trust you, Miss Coleman,' Lance nodded respectfully. 'You could finally see the criminal behind the mask.'
Before I could argue, Lance was already on his way to catch the Hood, and I had no say in the matter. I hadn't really anticipated what I had let myself in for.
Finding the CCTV link on my computer, I scoured the city for the vigilante's presence. I had no idea as to where he was for almost an hour, but when I found him, I knew there was something wrong.
Locking into a camera filming some dark alleyway across the city, I witnessed the vigilante lose to four figures in dark attire, where they shot what appeared to be tranquilliser darts. His body fell to the floor, two of the criminals dragging him into a van at the alleyway opening.
Quickly, I zoomed in on the number plate, noting it down with haste. The vigilante was in trouble, and unless someone helped him, he could end up dead and the city would be exposed to peril once again. But no one knew of his disappearance, and so no one could help him out of this mess... Except me.
I needed to save the vigilante, for he could no longer save himself.
Frantically, I searched the room for anything I could use to help the Hood. I had no plan, and no idea where he had ended up, but I knew one thing for certain; I was going to try my best in rescuing the hero.
As I rooted through my belongings from under my desk, I found a gun the SCPD had given me all those years ago for any emergencies - well, this certainly was one. It felt strange to have that metal machine grasped in my hand once again after so long, it's familiarity taking me back to the times I was also a Starling City vigilante.
It reminded me of how I would risk everything for a citizen's life, and how I would be exhilarated by fighting crime on the front line. It reminded me of how I missed the life I once led. And the people I had lost along the way.
Shaking myself out of my memories, I gritted my teeth as I tried to gather the courage to go out and fight once again. I couldn't let The Hood end up like Isaac did, or watch him pass like Harper did. I wouldn't let him lose to his crusade.
--
Blood flowing through my veins, I felt an exhilarating rush of adrenaline pump through my limbs, giving me almost-superhuman abilities I never thought I had. The sound of the wind brushing behind my ears and rustling through my hair made me feel alive again, each step turning into a sprint of excitement. I was finally free from my ordinary life I had moulded for myself, and now I was living instead of just existing.
And I knew I couldn't go back to normality after this was over.
I kept to the shadows of the city, the black outfit I had hastily put together concealing my face from surveillance and nosy onlookers. No one needed to know I was out finding the vigilante, and no one ever would. Well, almost no one.
Using a device from the SCPD's storage unit, I tracked down the van that had took the Hood, ending up at a crumbling garage on the edge of the South Boulevard district of the city. It seemed the perfect place for a hideout, it's peeling paint just one of the many unappealing features of the location.
It was odd, me searching for the Hood when he was the one who usually searched for me. I had to repay him for helping me out of bad situations, as well as out of honour on behalf of the whole city. It was my duty, as a Starling citizen and a vigilante veteran.
Using my gun as a guide, I quietly crept around the ruin of a building, ready for trouble. My fighting was surely rusty and my shooting was probably inaccurate, but my valour enabled me to forget about all of that. My mission was simple, and I could only carry it out if I was focused and impulsive.
As I ventured further into the building, I started to hear voices grow louder, each utterance sounding arrogant and baiting. Finally finding the wall that separated me and them, I kept to the outside, hidden from plain sight. Not knowing where to go, I looked for a vantage point as I tried to listen in to what they were saying.
'You have no idea what you have done to us and our family,' I heard a male voice growl with resentment and anger.
'And for what?' A female voice added to the conversation. 'Your quest for revenge?'
'Your father failed this city,' the Hood spoke up in his low monotonous voice. 'He had to pay.'
'Well, Hood,' the guy spat. 'You're gonna pay for what you did to them!'
I cringed as I heard the sound of a knife entering the vigilante's flesh, but his silence was the thing that made me shiver. It was as though he was invincible, torture a trivial thing for the Hood.
'Oh, so you think you're tough?' The woman suddenly lost it at his resilience with a rather nonsensical phrase, as though his strength had greatly offended her. 'Well we'll see about that!'
Before anything could get any worse, I ran into the room without a second thought, not being able to take their torture any longer. Sliding on the floor, I took out two of the four members of the group, each falling with a single shot.
Perhaps my aim wasn't that bad after all.
'And who are you?' The man opposite me sneered. 'I didn't know the Hood had... Competition.'
'I'm not here for a fight with this vigilante,' I said in a domineering tone, pocket knife in one hand and my shotgun in the other. 'I'm here to fight you.'
'I know, sweetie,' the woman smiled sarcastically. 'We're always prepared.'
My victims stood back up without a scratch on their bodies, their shadows covering me. Feeling a dart enter my back, the drug on the end of the dart created a numbing sensation, causing me to lose my balance. Whilst I fell, I dragged my pocket knife down on the rope that bound the vigilante to confinement.
And then something amazing happened.
My body suddenly fought off the substance injected in me, my legs gaining mobility again and my senses alert once more. I swung my fists at both of the men behind me, rendering them unconscious. Picking up my gun I had dropped during my fall, I shot the two ringleaders back, this time aiming accurately.
The vigilante gave me an appreciative nod as he grabbed his bow and arrows from the far side of the room, finally at one with his weapons.
'Thank you,' he said, bowing his head slightly. 'I let this gang torture me when I could have so easily stopped them. I was foolish today. But you saved me.'
'No problem,' I nodded back, trying to mask my voice from him under my scarf I had tied across my mouth.
As the Hood stared at me, I felt as though he suddenly recognised me, his head slightly tilting in realisation.
'Aria?' He said, his voice higher and demeanour gentler.
'How- how do you know my name?' I exclaimed, being as indiscreet as I could.
He quickly turned away, ashamed at his announcement.
'Who are you?' I asked in confusion, taking my scarf off from around my mouth.
All I got was silence.
'Please, just, tell me,' I requested. 'It seems pretty fair, since you know who I am.'
Slowly, the Hood turned back around, his face exposed and still stuck in shock. Instead of the face of a stranger, I was staring at a very familiar one.
Oliver Queen was stood before me.
'Oliver?' I gasped, stumbling backwards. 'You- you're- how?'
But before he could say anything, he collapsed to the ground.
---
I fumbled for the brakes as I swerved across the road, the police vehicle's long time in service causing it to halt unexpectedly, the worn tires giving me hardly any friction as we slid across the rainy road, gaining motion of the car again. It felt like a bad water slide, getting stuck at every kink and suddenly shooting down the surface for a few seconds.
'We're nearly at the hospital,' I shouted to the back seats of the car, where Oliver lay partially unconscious.
'No,' Oliver groaned back as quickly as he could. 'I can't go there.'
'Then where can you go?' I asked, puzzled. 'You need to get some help!'
'It'll expose my identity,' he pointed out. 'Drive me to my club.'
'Which hasn't been completed yet?' I added, confusion taking over me. 'You want me to drive you to... A building site?'
'Just, listen to me, Aria,' Oliver instructed firmly.
'Okay then,' I raised my eyebrow at him and accelerated away from Oliver's recovery.
As I pulled up outside the site, a tall, burly figure joined us at the car. For some reason, Oliver's bodyguard had decided to join the party.
'And why are you here?' I wondered.
'I'm here to help you nurse Oliver back to health,' he explained seriously, carrying Oliver like he was a light plush toy.
'So- wait- you know?' I asked, astounded.
'I am his bodyguard,' he said obviously.
I followed Oliver and his bodyguard through the club building, it's unfinished exterior keeping me wondering as to why Oliver would want us to heal him there. Shrouded in darkness, I heard a beep as we walked through a door hidden in the back wall, not completely aware of my surroundings.
'Where are we going?' I whispered as I fumbled my way down a flight of stairs.
The bodyguard flicked the light switches, revealing our location. Instead of looking at the messy interior of an unfinished rave, I found myself in a warehouse-worthy space littered with latest generation computers and worktops full of tools and weaponry.
It reminded me of when I had first entered Ted Grant's Wildcat base, his vigilantism taking my breath away. But this time, it was a whole other level of artistry I was being let into.
'Quick, he's bleeding out, and fast,' the bodyguard called me to where he had laid Oliver, medical instruments beside him.
'Do you know how we can stop him from, you know, dying?' I supposed, trying not to freak out. 'I have no idea how to be a doctor.'
'Well, lucky for Oliver, I have a little experience in this sort of thing,' he told me, reaching for the antiseptic. 'But I'm usually the one on the counter.'
'Is there anything I can do?' I offered hopefully. 'Mr-?'
'John Diggle,' he nodded whilst reaching for a needle. 'And no, you're okay for now.'
I watched nervously as Diggle stitched Oliver's torture wounds, his patient wincing in pain, feeling everything Diggle did to his body.
'Doesn't he need an anaesthetic, or something?' I became alarmed at the amount of pain Oliver was going through.
'Oh, yeah, I... Forgot about that,' Diggle realised awkwardly.
'I thought you said you had experience in this sort of thing,' I commented with irony, searching in the cabinet Diggle had pointed towards for the anaesthetic.
'I told you I'm usually on the other side of this,' Diggle reminded me. 'I've never seen Oliver in this much pain before.'
'They must have done some serious damage to him,' I shook my head in sadness. 'The knife they used was pretty deep in his skin when I arrived.'
'If you hadn't had been there, let's just say that Starling City probably wouldn't have their vigilante anymore,' Diggle commented, making me shudder at what could've been.
'Anaesthetic,' I said as I passed the solution to Diggle, who used a syringe to inject it into Oliver's system. 'And he's out.'
As Diggle carried on with the procedure, I watched from the other side of Oliver's body in hope of his recovery. But my worry couldn't overshadow the countless questions and utmost shock I had at the new discovery I had made.
Oliver Queen. Oliver Queen? I was stuck between awe and anger, the amazement of Oliver being the vigilante coupled with my frustration at him keeping such a secret from me. I was stupid not to recognise his fighting style from the island, but I was hurt by the fact that he hadn't bothered to tell me, the one person who had never given up on Oliver whilst we had been shipwrecked together. Yes, we had been through hell on Lian Yu, but he hadn't even considered that while he had supposedly been dead, I had been protecting the city before the Hood had even been a possible idea.
'I didn't know you could fight,' Diggle snapped me out of my pick-and-mix of emotions.
'I work for the SCPD,' I shrugged. 'Of course I have to know how to.'
'But you're a forensic scientist,' he pointed out. 'You don't need to know how to fight to the level you must have had to tonight.'
'This city isn't exactly the safest place on the planet,' I said, surprised at Diggle's assumptions. 'I don't want to be helpless. And we've had to deal with plenty attacks inside the SCPD, some more serious than the ones outside in the city.'
Diggle just gave me a knowing look, as of he was trying to suggest he knew more about me than I wanted him to. I wasn't going to go into detail about my training with Merlyn, or my time on Lian Yu, with some random bodyguard I rarely spoke to at the house. And I wasn't the same trusting girl I had once been before I had met Marcus and consequently been fed a sea of lies and deceit. Oliver hadn't even bothered to introduce Mr Diggle to me during the couple of months he had been working with the Queens, and so I wasn't going to open up to someone who had been so closed off from me.
'I just hope Ollie is going to be okay,' I said quietly, trying to prevent myself from getting to emotional as I knelt beside his unconscious body and slipped my right hand into his left.
I could feel Diggle's eyes bore into the back of my head, but I wouldn't tell him about my life so easily. If Oliver had said anything about me to him, then that was all he was going to know.
'I know what you're doing, Aria,' Diggle told me, somehow reading me like an open book. 'A few years in Afghanistan didn't teach me nothing. I met plenty of people like you, damaged and tired of feeling played. But joining the army didn't make them forget their past, or trust their comrades any more. They just stayed closed, and let their guilt, or pain, or whatever it was they were feeling eat them up inside. And knowing Oliver, if he really does think so highly of you as he lets on to me, then I'm sure that you have more to you than you think.'
'It's like you're staring into my soul,' I joked to mask my tears, Diggle's monologue resonating within me. 'I know I'm a wreck, trust me. But I like to keep my past to myself, as I'm sure Oliver does. And I will try to be more open, because I really need to work on that. Especially with you, John Diggle.'
'Diggle's just fine,' he nodded, a small smile seeming to appear on his serious face.
---
'Hi,' I smiled as Oliver stirred, his grip tightening on my hand as he regained his energy in abundance.
Looking round the room, he gathered his bearings and started to remember what had happened before he had been doped up.
'Hey,' he smiled back, turning towards me with a massive, thankful grin on his face. 'Thank you, Diggle, for patching me up and saving my life.'
'No problem, Oliver,' he nodded, his face softening, before he left the room to only Oliver and I.
'And Aria, you were amazing tonight,' Oliver says breathlessly. 'I don't know how you knew where I was or how you fought like that, but I will always be in your debt for what you did.'
'Oh, don't be like that,' I shook my head with my mouth upturned. 'You're the city's hero. You go round saving people's lives on a daily basis. I've only saved you once.'
'I forgot how great you were at fighting,' Oliver said, remembering the past. 'You were almost... Superhuman on the island.'
'Are you sure that wasn't just the Mirakuru?' I added sarcastically. 'And honestly, it was nothing. I saw you get abducted by those guys on CCTV back at work and I had to act. What's Starling City without their vigilante?'
'I can't begin to imagine the questions you have,' Oliver admitted, realising that I would have many unanswered questions about his vigilantism. 'I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.'
'I get it,' I said understandingly. 'I've been in your position before and I know how hard it is to tell the people closest to you.'
I had had time to contemplate about Oliver's actions since he arrived back in the city whilst he had been under the anaesthetic, and with the help of Diggle I had understood the choices Oliver had made as of late.
'You've been in my position?' Oliver inquired confusedly.
I had slipped up, big time. I had revealed part of my past and I still wasn't ready for it to resurface. And now I was the one who had some explaining to do.
'What did you do once you got off the island?' Oliver questioned me, a puzzled look across his face.
'It's a... Long story,' I said awkwardly, bitting my lip. 'I'd rather not talk about it.'
'You can trust me, Aria,' Oliver said earnestly, sitting opposite me with his hands intertwined with mine. 'You know about me and all of... This. And if you can trust me, I know you're ready.'
'Ready for what?' I wondered in anticipation.
'To join me and Diggle,' Oliver explained vaguely. 'In saving the innocent and righting the wrongs of some of the people in this city.'