'Hey, Aria, can I... Borrow you for a second?' Oliver requested from near the back of the club while I was polishing a few glasses.
'What is the matter, Ollie?' I smiled as I joined him down in the Arrowcave, only the two of us there.
'I'm worried about Felicity,' Oliver told me slowly, sounding much more timid than when he had been yelling at Felicity earlier.
'Why?' I tried to figure out what Oliver meant, but soon enough, I realised. 'You're worried that you recruited someone who can't get the job done when necessary.'
'Maybe,' Oliver nodded slightly. 'You could've just done what Felicity does instead, and I wouldn't have had to get another person involved in all... This.'
'Oh, Oliver,' I said sympathetically, warming to this new, very caring Oliver Queen. 'I could never do all the complicated hacking and decryption Felicity does, and she is way more quicker at typing than me. Today was just a mistake, and it wasn't her fault.'
'But what if she makes another mistake, and then another?' Oliver worried.
'I've made lots of mistakes,' I reminded him. 'And you and Diggle have too; a few weeks ago, I killed the Dodger, last month, Diggle joined Black Hawk, and just last week, you trusted Helena. This time, not being able to stop Joseph Falk was Felicity's blip, and trust me, I doubt she will let anything like this happen again.'
'I talked to her, just before I called you down here, actually,' Oliver told me. 'She said that she'd never seen anyone die before, until today. I feel like we just... Pushed her into the deep end before we gave her chance to learn how to swim.'
'That was very profound, Ollie, but maybe that's not a bad thing,' I supposed. 'Yes, she is the only one out of our team who hasn't been a soldier, or a fighter, or shipwrecked, but we were pushed into situations we had never experienced before on the island. And we survived, didn't we?'
'But what if she finds she can't cope with what we do?' Oliver worried some more. 'What if she finds it too... Dark?'
'Well, maybe we need her to be our light,' I theorised quickly. 'You, Diggle and I, we've all been through some pretty dark times, and I think it made us lose a part of us, inside. It dimmed the light in our souls, bit by bit, and once your soul is darkened, it can never shine completely. We need Felicity to help us make the right decisions, to put us on the right path. And, sometimes you get really serious, scary serious, and if we didn't have her here, I think you would just stay like that forever. And you are so boring when you're all angsty.'
Oliver just gave me a quizzical look to my last statement, but he had been listening to the rest of what I said.
'I guess you're right, Aria,' Oliver nodded, like he was enlightened or something. 'You always know the right thing to say. You're like... Yoda.'
'Excuse me, I am not green, wrinkly and I am much taller than like, two feet!' I exclaimed, pretending to be offended. 'But, if you're saying I'm wise, then, that's acceptable.'
Oliver just grinned, unusually refraining from smirking at me, and kept eye contact with me for longer than normal. I expected him to lose his gaze, but we were locked by our irises for an even longer period of time.
Why was he looking at me for so long? Or was my brain just exaggerating the time period? I was so confused, as per usual, but I didn't want to look away from him, losing myself in his deep blue eyes, their colour reminding me of the sea, of sailing under the summer sun, of the Gambit... Crashing in the storming and throwing me into the ocean. Quickly, I averted my gaze, and looked at my trembling hands, not knowing exactly what had come over me. I had accepted what had happened to me on the island all these years, but Vanch's trial had made me relive it again only a few weeks ago, and now, reminders of that awful year kept cropping up wherever I went, only this time, it was starting to get to me.
Would I never be completely over it? Oliver seemed to be, but I knew he had been up to other things since I had left the island and when he had returned to the city just over half a year ago. What had he been doing for those unexplained four years? How had he become such a great fighter? He hadn't been as great as he was now, even at the end of our stay on Lian Yu, when we had tried to take Ivo's boat and sail back home. I had only been good at defending myself because of Merlyn's training, and although we had both had to survive, Oliver had been shipwrecked onto the island with much lesser survival and fighting skills than I.
'Are you okay?' Oliver was concerned for my sudden change of mood, taking me by the hand. 'Did I say something?'
'No,' I barely chuckled. 'I just... Thought about things. About my past. My soul really is darkened.'
'Don't be so hard on yourself, Aria,' Oliver said, almost as if he could read my mind, his eyes staring into my soul and his hand on my cheek. 'While you're helping others, you're just torturing yourself. Why don't you let someone help you? Let me help you.'
'Ollie, I'm beyond help,' I attempted to block him out, but instead of using words, he tried another way.
Without hesitation, his lips met mine, our arms around each other and both of us not wanting to let go. He felt so warm against my cold skin, my long hairs lightly brushing against his face and his hair ruffled against my forehead. This kiss was different to the one on the night of the fundraiser; it didn't feel like something forbidden, or unrequited. Oliver really did love me, after all. McKenna and Tommy had been right.
Tommy. The thought of kissing Tommy's best friend made me withdraw, my feelings suddenly dissolving. I couldn't be with my past lover's best friend; it wasn't right, even if Tommy was unavailable and dating another of my friends.
'I can't do this, Ollie,' I said sheepishly, ashamed of myself. 'I can't do this because of Tommy. He would feel so betrayed, that his best friend was with his ex.'
'Aria, like you said, you're his ex,' Oliver spoke back after a few moments of nothing. 'You're not with him anymore, you don't have to feel like you're... Betraying him.'
'But that's what he's doing to you, isn't he?' I brought up something I soon would wish I hadn't. 'He's with Laurel, and I know that hurts you. I don't want to do that to Tommy. I'm sorry.'
I raced off upstairs to find Tommy checking some document on a clipboard by a table housing many newly-bought bottles of spirits and liqueurs. How coincidental. But I couldn't complain; after all, Tommy did manage the club with me, and he was on good terms with me, now that he had accepted some parts of my vigilantism. However, if he found out that Oliver and I had a possibility of being together, he would surely be heartbroken.
'You look... Tired,' he greeted me hesitantly as he saw the expression on my face. 'Did something happen to Oliver? When he was... Dressed in green?'
'No, no, he's fine,' I explained as vaguely as I could. 'We actually tried to stop that guy who's been killing people on live video, but as you probably can tell, we were unsuccessful.'
'Oh, I'm sorry,' Tommy actually showed some concerned interest to Team Arrow. 'Well, I'm sure you'll stop him if he tries anything again, you always win in the end.'
'Surely Tommy Merlyn's not advocating vigilantes breaking the law?' I joked, Tommy smirking in response.
'More on the story out of The Glades,' the news reporter spoke on the TV behind us before either of us said anything else. 'The kidnapper seems to have another victim and is broadcasting the feed to his website. A warning to viewers, this is live footage, so we're not sure what we're about to see.'
Tommy and I slowly walked towards the screen, getting closer to the video so we could see and hear exactly what was going on.
'Meet Roy Harper,' Falk announced who his latest victim was, zooming in on a somehow familiar but beaten and bloodied face. 'Arrests, larceny, robbery, aggravated assault, and yet you're out in the street. Another gang banger in The Glades, running free, like the ones who killed my wife.'
I noticed that the guy was wearing a hoodie, like the red one he had been wearing when I had seen him in the SCPD with Thea.
'Oh my God,' I whispered. 'Isn't he the guy who Thea knows? The one who she asked you to hire? He was going to work here, but he never showed up.'
Oliver soon appeared behind us, looking like he wanted to speak with me. I guessed it was about what was happening onscreen, and I was correct.
'Aria,' Oliver got my attention. 'We need to get this guy, before he gets to kill again.'
'I grew up in The Glades too, and it didn't turn me into a criminal,' Falk continued in the video.
'I know that kid,' Tommy started to recognise the victim too after processing what I had said just before Oliver had turned up.
'How?' Oliver asked Tommy immediately.
'Ollie!' Thea's voice came from the front of the club.
She looked a mess, her makeup smudged all over her face and her hair bedraggled. She had been crying, no doubt about Roy being kidnapped. She really must have cared about him.
'Oh God, no', she sobbed, staring at the TV screen with terror, close to her brother, well, Oliver; it was difficult to remember that Tommy and Oliver both were her half-brothers. 'I didn't know where else to go.'
'You know him?' Oliver asked Thea, completely unaware of Thea's relation to Roy.
'Roy, he's my friend,' Thea explained through her tears. 'We were in a fight and some guy came out of nowhere and just attacked us. He doesn't deserve to die.'
'I promise you, he's going to be okay,' Oliver reassured his sister. 'You stay here with Tommy, alright?'
Oliver beckoned towards me and we rushed downstairs, Felicity and Diggle already there, working on finding Roy's whereabouts.
'Anything?' Oliver questioned as soon as we saw them.
'I've been going through all the video we got, trying to see if there's anything that'll tell us where this guy is and I've got nothing except... Sound, buried in the ambient noise, almost rhythmic,' Felicity filled us in quickly. 'Here, I've isolated it.'
A quiet sound, rhythmic like Felicity said, played in the computer speakers, it sounding almost recognisable. It was as though I had heard it somewhere, but I couldn't quite place it.
'What is that?' Oliver wondered aloud as we all tried to figure out what it was. 'Sounds like a... Car driving over lane markers.'
'Has to be bigger than a car,' Felicity interjected.
'Bigger than a car, what, a bus?' Oliver concluded, but we were still unsure.
'Er, I know this,' Diggle stated, putting his ear towards a set of headphones the sound clip was also playing through. 'I know it.'
'Come on, guys,' Oliver demanded hurriedly.
'Felicity, show me a map, sites of the abductions and where we've seen the signal so far,' Diggle requested, Felicity following this. 'Right, right there, right there. Twenty-third and Mira, Locksley and Adams, Whale Street down by CNRI- those are all subway stops.'
'Starling City doesn't have a subway,' Oliver stated in confusion.
'No, but they used to,' Diggle explained. 'When I was a kid my dad used to take me down to the Rockets game by subway. For fourteen minutes, I leaned against a window, feeling the rhythm of the train moving.'
'Diggle's right,' I confirmed as I remembered something from a good few years back. 'When you were still missing, Ollie, when I was a vigilante before I was on this team, there was a gang called the Culebra Gang. They had a base of operations down in a part of the abandoned subway station.'
'That's how he did it,' Felicity had a sudden brainwave.
'What?' Oliver asked her, intrigued.
'He was at 23rd and Mira, but he was underground,' Felicity concluded quickly. 'He used to work for the Department of Transportation so that's why he knows all the old subway stops. That's why I couldn't trace the signal, he was moving, he was in a subway car.'
'Where is he now?' Oliver demanded answers immediately.
'He's on the old cross town line,' Felicity replied. 'And if he continued on this route, he'll be at Spring Street stop in fifteen minutes.'
'That's near where the Culebra Gang base used to be,' I remembered. 'I know my way around that part of the tunnel.'
'Suit up,' he told me with a smile. 'We've got a Roy Harper to save.'
---
The crumbling brick hole I had found when I had been down in the subway tunnel a few years back was larger than before, the wall around it even more deteriorated, Oliver and I stepping through it on our way to our intended location. It was strange to be back down there, passing the musty tiles and walking on the same rough, concrete floor, but instead of waking up disoriented with Tommy in the tunnel after being knocked out and abducted, I was there with Oliver out of choice to save somebody else.
'You do know your way round here,' Oliver commented as I led the way beside the rusty train tracks and past the peeling and now faded subway posters.
'I did have to find my way out of here so Tommy and I could escape,' I pointed out, telling Oliver a story he hadn't heard due to his time away from the city. 'And so we could get away from these... Snakes, and save Laurel.'
'Tommy and Laurel were in danger?' Oliver worried at once about past events.
'Yes, but they're fine now, you obviously know that,' I reassured him. 'My, er, old vigilante team saved us from dying down here. That's why, Ollie, you shouldn't take on so much responsibility about Laurel and Tommy. They were in danger before you were The Hood, so you're not the reason they could be in danger now. You're not the only thing that determines what happens to them.'
'But I still feel guilty,' Oliver said sincerely as we carried on down to the stop Felicity had told us to go to.
'I feel guilty too,' I told Oliver. 'I've put many people in danger, even now; at the fundraiser, I-'
The sound of an old screechy train came from behind us, Oliver jumping at me to shield me from the vehicle as we both stood as far away from the train as we could so we wouldn't be sucked under the cart from the force it had to travel on the train tracks.
'What's happening?' Felicity turned on her earpiece and contacted us for the first time in the subway tunnels.
'We found the train,' Oliver said in a loud voice so Felicity and Diggle could hear us over the noise.
'How do we get on?' I asked quickly, trying to figure out how to go about it.
'We need to get on the roof so we can smash through the windows and jump inside,' Oliver decided, preparing himself to leap into the train as it carried on passing us. 'We only have time for one of us to get on.'
'You go,' I stepped down voluntarily. 'You go get Roy, I'll leave the police an anonymous tip for The Saviour's whereabouts.'
Oliver nodded at me one last time before he successfully leapt onto the roof of the train and smashed the window through, I not being able to see them any more as they left into the distance.
'Is Roy still alive?' I questioned Felicity through my earpiece.
'I think so, Falk dropped his camera as soon as he heard footsteps on the roof of the train,' Felicity informed me. 'Go Oliver!'
When I got back to the Arrowcave, Oliver appeared to have just joined them, us both coming back more or less at the same time.
'Thea's friend is upstairs,' Diggle said.
'I saw,' Oliver confirmed with a happy lilt in his voice.
'You probably saw that they were very happy to see each other, if you know what I mean,' Felicity suggestively chipped in, but stopping herself before she said something she was going to regret. 'Which you probably don't want to talk about because, she's your baby sister.'
'I told the police about Falk,' I stated to the three, but Oliver just bowed his head.
'Then they will find a dead body,' Oliver replied, looking guilty for some reason. 'I couldn't help him, I tried. But he was so... Hellbent on killing Roy. And I couldn't let that happen.'
'You okay?' Diggle checked on his friend, slightly concerned.
'Getting there,' Oliver sighed. 'Thank you.'
He walked up to Felicity slowly with a sympathetic smile on his face.
'By the way, if you ever need to tell someone about your day, you can tell me.'
I wonder what that was about.
'Thanks,' Felicity muttered, Oliver gazing at the computer screen.
'What's that?' Oliver was captivated by whatever had caught his eye, pointing at the screen.
'Felicity pulled that up,' Diggle explained. 'It's an old map of the decommissioned subway line, rides underneath the low rent district of the city.'
Oliver opened his List book that he was now holding, and looked at the Tempest logo inside the cover. Previously, Leyla and I had just assumed it was a random design of a circle with some lines in it, but now, I knew that wasn't the case, and Oliver did too. The Tempest logo was a section of the map of Starling City, and specifically The Glades.
'I've seen that map before,' Oliver started to tell Felicity and Diggle what we had simultaneously realised. 'It was right in front of our faces the entire time. My father, the other archer, the Undertaking; whatever the plan is, it's all connected to The Glades.'