The Unanswered

[Connor Kent]

Move, already.

The chair groaned as Connor deflated like a balloon. He could feel his patience leaving him, rasping on the way out. Powerless to leave, he gave a lazy stretch for one of the comic books scattered haphazardly on the table before him.

Much like his wait, Gotham Library (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BylNxeYl1ayOTkE0blVJSkxlSzg/view?usp=sharing) seemed to go on forever. High-vaulted halls of mahogany that arched into places beyond daylight’s reach, with soldier columns of bookshelves that stood in proud symmetry along the flanks; a place where the immaculate marble white brows of long-dead scholars shimmered in violent contrast with wood so old it was almost black. It had that rich library smell of paper, thick like smoke, and the tang of fresh floor varnish. On the visitor’s pamphlet, it said it had been built in the shape of a crucifix, which was one of those big words Connor knew, but he didn’t know how.

It was his first time in a library, and the silence was like a symphony. Never before had he been around so many people making so little noise. Just to remove his earphones for a while had been a welcome change. Sometimes, from the whisper of turning pages came the explosive bark of a cough or the ear-splitting screech of a chair; on one occasion, when a big guy sneezed at the far end of the hall, Connor almost jumped out of his seat. That was when the old women moved a few seats away, looking at him like he was some sort of schizophrenic, which was someone who suffered from hallucinations and behaved in strange and unpredictable ways.

Come on. Move.

In his frustration, Connor plucked at the glossy pages of his comic, knifing glances at the images inside. Men and women packed into impossible skin-tight outfits so bright they made his eyes hurt. Superheroes. His jaw clenched like a vice. He had been born into a world where people actually bought into this crap, and lived out their fantasies with the same goofy costumes and ridiculous names. People like the Flash, Batman… and Superman. The comic book was discarded without ceremony, and was sent fluttering to the ground like a wounded bird. The old women were tutting like they meant to charm a cat from a tree.

Will… you… just… move!?

Across the gothic expanse, Oliver Queen hunched over a computer terminal in a shabby jacket and a baseball cap. He, like the clusters of bright screens that were at odds with their surroundings, had been tucked conspicuously out of sight. His books were far from the leather-bound classics that gathered dust near the rafters - they were plastic and new. What did a yuppie like him need to research in a library? The stock market, came the answer. Connor wasn’t sure he understood, but he was certain he didn’t care to. Oliver Queen was the sort of rich idiot who thought he could hide his face from the world with a simple hat, and as far as Connor was concerned, he was only good for one thing: answers.

[Oliver Queen]

A grunt of frustration escaped from under Oliver's breath. Computers had never been his thing. Much to the frustration of Mia and Roy, he had missed the information technology revolution. He had missed the part where old people had become good at using technology. He was still stuck in the era where Google was still the epitome of research sophistication, where music and files and movies still came on shiny discs instead of these digital downloads and USB drives. He wasn't even sure what USB meant, and he was of the point where he was too ashamed to ask. A hesitant thought crept into his mind - opening up a new tab in the browser, he consulted the Google in search of an answer. Universal Serial Bus. That wasn't particularly helpful. Worlds like interface and peripheral cluttered up the explanation that the internet provided made his eyes glaze over. Plug thing, he decided, burying that query deep in the back of his head. It means 'plug thing'.

Unleashing a sigh, Oliver hoisted the brim of his baseball cap and smoothed a hand across his hair before settling it back into place. The text books and introductory guides on business terminology and corporate law that he'd found amongst the shelves had proven of little use in the long run, though that was hardly his fault. He'd been trying to unravel the events that had caused the transformation of Queen Industries into Queen Consolidated; the circumstances under which William Glenmorgan had obtained control of Oliver's birthright - after his presumed death at sea - and then given it away to shareholders and stakeholders who had somehow transformed it into the ominous malevolent entity that Oliver now found it to be. He'd hoped for a name that could prove useful: someone involved in the legal proceedings that was in some way suspicious, someone he could manipulate for information. He'd hoped that if he went back far enough, tracing Queen Consolidated's acquisitions over the last decade, he would begin to see a pattern emerging; begin to see the point at which whatever plan or scheme Consolidated was working towards had first begun to take form. But there was nothing. Everything was so utterly above board that Oliver found it impossible to trust. Too perfect to be believed, and yet too perfect to decipher. A situation impossible to resolve. Another dead end.

Oliver dug into his pocket and pulled out his Qphone, scrolling down his list of contacts. Almost everyone was assigned some sort of abbreviated nickname; everyone of any significance entered in as if they were some floozy or groupie whose real name he'd not bothered to take the time to learn. Better people glimpse his phone and see the name 'Ruby' paired with a generic drunken image yielded by the internet than 'Mia Dearden' and a picture of a clearly under age teenager that Oliver Queen had no good reason to know. His scrolling faltered as he reached the entry that simply said 'Her'; now wasn't the time to dwell though. 'Babs' was who he was looking for. Barbara Gordon. Or more specifically, the burner phone that he'd provided to Barbara Gordon in case she had any more information to provide him with. He'd done a little digging since their encounter, familiarising who she was and what she was about. She was a librarian; and having one of those on his side - as opposed to the angry old women who had scowled at him, presumably because he was wearing a hat indoors - would have been all kinds of useful about now.

But no. Secret identity not withstanding, Barbara didn't need dragging into this. It would be too dangerous, too irresponsible to voluntarily expose her to this. If someone had a problem with Oliver Queen digging into Queen Consolidated's business, he had an aura of celebrity to discourage anything they might consider, and the skills to take care of himself if they followed through on coming after him anyway. Barbara didn't have that: it would be all too easy to make it look like a hit by one of the crime family's against the Commissioner's niece; and Oliver couldn't guarantee her safety if he let her get in too deep.

That only left him with a handful of options, a rapidly depleting array of next steps, none of which seemed particularly appealing; a whole host of people he didn't particularly want to have to talk to when seeking answers or help. But sitting here and spinning his wheels wasn't going to get him anywhere either.

Carefully lifting the chair beneath him to avoid any sound against the floor, Oliver began to gather up his things and make his way out of the library. He needed a break; a drink; and maybe the company of someone attractive and blonde.

[Connor Kent]

Despite the best of intentions, inexorably, boredom lent itself to distraction. And, after a half hour of staring at the back of Oliver Queen’s head, Connor found himself distracted.

Of the three, he preferred the redhead, he decided. Red hair was something rare and exotic, like a precious jewel or something. It tumbled in thick flaming curls and crashed about her shoulders like lava. Connor wondered what it would feel like between his fingers, and found himself idly probing his own short hair to underwhelming effect. He bet it smelled like…

Finally!

Queen was on the move. Connor perked up in his seat, and watched him wind his way through the nest of computers, and towards the stairs. On the opposite side of the library, he mirrored his movements, stealing a glance before he disappeared down the narrow spiral staircase. Under his feet, the wrought iron clattered like a shunting train. Being of a height where few things obstructed his view, Connor found that, once he stepped into the main hall, it wasn’t difficult to relocate his quarry. Few people were ignorant enough to wear a hat indoors, and in that regard, it looked like he and Oliver Queen had been cut from the same cloth. He was confident, however, that that was the beginning and end of their similarities.

Beyond the mighty walls of Gotham Library, the torture resumed. Like a rising tide, the sound of a thousand voices crashed over him, and a hellish chorus of growling engines and wailing horns were there to welcome him as he descended the steps to the street. The temptation to drown it out with his earphones was strong, but he needed to have his wits about him. In the bustling street, amongst the mad scrum of pedestrians, it was difficult keep tabs of the bobbing baseball cap while maintaining a reasonable distance. Unlike in the library, Connor couldn’t afford to stare, not with so many people around. He hated making eye contact with strangers: every time, it felt like a gamble, a waiting game until he saw the uncertain flicker of recognition kindle in their eyes. There was probably a word for it, but, that feeling of falling he got, but inside his stomach, like fear, but more complicated, it could remain nameless for all he cared.

It occurred to Connor that there was something strange about a man like Oliver Queen walking, well, anywhere. Surely, he had a fleet of expensive cars to ferry him from place to place? Perhaps he was going to meet friends, or maybe his chauffeur. The streets were too crowded to act; with every passing minute, he could feel his window of opportunity getting smaller and smaller. At length, however, things started to look good when Queen turned away from the more imposing buildings that loomed like giants, and headed towards the rougher side of town. Connor’s spirits lifted - this was familiar territory. As the crowds thinned, he afforded himself more distance, and when his quarry crossed the road for a shortcut through an alley, Connor felt a thrill of victory.

Rookie mistake.

[Oliver Queen]

Okay, so the drink could wait. Thoughts of blondes had led his mind into angry circles, and that had guided his feet without him even realising it. He was halfway to one of Gotham's seedier, more industrial neighbourhoods by the time he clocked on to where he was going, and by that point he'd he'd worked himself up into too much of a mood to turn back. So now here he was, standing outside the rough brick-built building, peering up at an all too familiar sign.

Wildcat's.

Anyone who was anyone in the vigilante community had learned to swing a punch from Ted Grant: heavyweight champion and Golden Age hero. It was pretty brazen, having his vigilante alter ego hanging on a sign out front, but Ted didn't seem to care. Neither did the authorities, or the locals. This neighbourhood was a weird haven within the seedier parts of Gotham: somewhere the gangs steered clear of for the most part, somewhere they knew better than to mess with, because Ted Grant had made damn sure the locals were taken care of, and knew how to take care of themselves. Places like this reminded Oliver of why he did what he did; why he was the kind of vigilante that he was. Bruce worked his magic by putting the fear of god into the city's criminals, but Oliver didn't work that way. Ted didn't work that way. For them it wasn't a war on crime: it was a resistance movement, a quest to save the city's soul, to bring hope to people and stand together. Criminals ran rampant in Gotham because the city let them; stopping that corruption, and complacency, and resignation was as vital as stopping the criminals itself. Gotham's shadows bred villainy: people like Ted Grant worked by example to cut off it's balls, and bring that breeding to a stop.

Sure, he hadn't brought any stuff with him: he hadn't bothered bringing his green spangly shorts or his matching gloves, and the Arrow suit was locked away in the safe in his hotel room, an extra gizmo slapped on the side to stop the hotel's natural override on the keypad from working; not that he could get away with wearing it until night fell anyway. Didn't matter. He'd strip off his shirt and fight as he was if needs be - an uncomfortable walk back to the hotel in sweaty pants and boxers was a small price to pay for blowing off a little steam.

With a huffed out sigh, Oliver leant heavily against the gym's sturdy wooden door, and made his way inside.

[Connor Kent]

In his overconfidence, Connor had been too generous with the distance he’d allowed to grow between himself and Oliver Queen. Out of sight, where he’d intended to corner Queen and make him talk, he instead found himself running, a mad dash to relocate his wayward millionaire. The alley branched off in an almost labyrinthian tangle of sordid little passages and, after several dead ends, Connor counted himself lucky to catch a glimpse of Queen just as he entered a squat and robust-looking place called Wildcat's.

The signage made him scoff. Typical.

Beyond the weight of the door, Connor was assaulted on all fronts by the smell of leather, and grease, and the unmistakable musk of sweat that permeated every corner of the room. In the thick of it, there was Queen, on the receiving end of a vigorous handshake from a large and overly-friendly man. Connor bit back a curse: after all his shrewd maneuvering, he had found himself, unwittingly, on Oliver Queen’s turf. And now he had to wait. Head down, he skulked the periphery of the gym, enduring the packing thuds of punch bags and fists, and the relentless crack of skipping ropes upon the floor. If he just remained still long enough, he could blend into the background.

But it was the violent clatter of a barbell rack that dashed his plan, and with a jolt, his statuesque exterior crumbled about his feet. His heart was racing, and his eyes darted about for the source of the noise, when he spotted Queen, much closer this time, considering the empty boxing ring in front of him. Was he going to fight? If Connor got to see him beaten and bloody, then this detour would be totally with it.

[Oliver Queen]

Oliver finished unbuttoning his shirt, tossing it casually atop the jacket and hat that had already been discarded onto a convenient chair. A couple of minor flexes loosened up the muscles in his legs a little - hardly a full warm-up, but Oliver's body was more than accustomed to surging into sudden action without more than a moment's notice. He was glad of his practical clothing choices: not jeans, but something styled to be similar, made from a much softer and more forgiving fabric. They probably had a fancy name, which Oliver was too disinterested in to have bothered learning; what mattered to him was that they looked like the sort of thing that Oliver Queen would wear, but were loose and soft enough that if he found himself needing to scale a building or chase down a target, he could do so without denim getting in the way of his joints flexing, or causing an unpleasant amount of friction injury to what was one of his more valuable pieces of bodily real estate.

Ted had been kind enough to provide Oliver with a set of gloves; though it had earned him a disapproving glare when he'd asked for green ones. Instead he got a scuffed and worn black pair, the insides of which were a little tattered and maybe a little moist from the last person who had used them. Whatever. Oliver wasn't squeamish. If he could put his hand in someone's gut to fish out a bullet, or rummage through a dead guy's entrails looking for the USB drive he'd swallowed, he could cope with wearing loner gloves that were a little sweaty on the inside.

As Oliver's eyes kept tabs on the rest of the gym, he realised the kind of attention he was drawing. People were always casually curious whenever Ted seemed to recognise someone who entered his gym: you never knew who was a boxing champ that Ted had helped to coach, who was a celebrity that had come to the best for a little self defense training, who was some millionaire brat that they could try and pick a fight with. Oliver though? The second that shirt came off, the tone in the gym changed a little. This wasn't some soggy nobody who wasn't worth anyone's time. This wasn't even a regular decent guy in reasonable shape. This was someone tough: someone ripped, someone tattooed and battle-scarred, someone who looked as if they had a decent amount of fight in them. It was a side of Oliver that people didn't often get the opportunity to see: the side he buried under fancy loose-fit shirts by day, and beneath layers of leather and armour at night; the side that had survived five years on a hellish island; the side of him that he actually was, not the costumes he put on when he needed to pretend to be the Green Arrow or Oliver Queen.

He watched as people's body language shifted. A few set their focus firmly back on the bags they were punching or the weights that they were lifting. No way, man. I ain't picking a fight with that. Others pricked up their attention even more, overconfidence now viewing Oliver as a 'worthy challenge' to their perceived level of skill. He'd probably get some degree of satisfaction out of showing them up, making them look bad in front of the people they were trying to show off for. He doubted anyone in here was much of a match for him, save for Grant himself, of course. Wasn't an arrogance thing, just objective: unless Bruce, or Dinah, or Drakon were lurking in the corners somewhere, the odds of someone at Wildcat's being able to successfully kick his ass were pretty slim. You didn't spent ten years honing yourself into a weapon without that sort of thing becoming true.

But then there was that guy. That kid loitering off to the side. The one watching, but trying not to. Could've been all kinds of reasons for that. Maybe he'd recognised Oliver Queen, and was trying to seem like he hadn't; respecting privacy and all that. Maybe he'd just looked over and liked what he saw, but wasn't at a place in his life where he was comfortable admitting that kind of stuff; Oliver would've felt nothing but flattered if that were true. Maybe it was something else, though. There was something about him. Something off. Something that felt as if Oliver was missing something really important, but couldn't fathom what on earth it might be. Had he seen him before? Had he noticed something subconsciously that his mind felt he needed warning about? Had he picked up on a concealed weapon, a flicker of something that might have been metahuman, a whiff of something magical?

"Hey kid."

Oliver heard himself calling before his brain even decided what it was doing. Honestly, his better judgement wasn't entirely on board with the plan, but apparently it was already far too late for rationality and good sense to get a look-in.

"You look like you're at a bit of a loose end. Wanna go a few rounds?"

[Connor Kent]

Connor was making such an effort to ignore the sounds around him that, at first, it didn’t register. Sheltered by the brim of his cap, he instead counted the myriad sweat droplets that speckled the hard gym floor, like counting sheep, but more disgusting. Through his self-induced daze, a voice rang, and he caught the words as they tapered off to the edges of the room. He looked up. Oliver Queen was staring at him from the boxing ring. No, he couldn’t be. Uncertain glances swept left, then right, where he found others now staring out him, too. Back to Queen, he raised a hand to his chest in an unspoken gesture of, “Me?”

He straightened up then, and heard a voice speak on his behalf, “Sure.”

Why did he just say that? He was taking steps towards the ring. What was he doing? Drawing attention to himself was the last thing he wanted. But Oliver Queen had just thrown down a challenge in front of all these people, he reasoned, there was no way he was about to back down. He removed his cap. Besides, didn’t he want to see him beaten and bloody? He shrugged out of his training jacket, and pulled off his shirt. So, drawing attention to himself was the second-to-last thing he wanted, after all.

As someone ringside started to fit him in a pair of gloves, he looked up, and afforded Queen the ghost of a smirk, “What can it hurt?”

[Oliver Queen]

Oliver's face shifted into a smirk at that comment, but behind the surface the cogs of his mind were grinding away. There was definitely something familiar about this boy, but he couldn't for the life of him put his finger on it. Did he just have one of those faces? Did he know the kid's father from somewhere? His mother?

That latter thought raised some alarming possibilities. Back before the island, Oliver had been the worst kind of person, putting it about with anyone who stayed still and spread their legs long enough. It wasn't until after those five years of transformation, wasn't until her that he got his head on straight. Hadn't necessarily worked out all that well for him in the end, perhaps, but it certainly seemed better than the man he was. All those other girls though? Those drunken one-night stands? Sweet Christmas, was there actually a chance of him having kids out there in the world somewhere?

Reaching out, Oliver hoisted the ropes so that his opponent could clamber through. He hesitated as the boy passed. Was that his jawline? His dad's nose? Dear god, what if it was?

"I'm Oliver," he introduced, forcing himself to speak. He held out a glove towards the kid; to bulky to shake hands, he knew that, but weren't fist bumps what all the kids were doing nowadays anyway?

[Connor Kent]

“Connor,” he replied. The gloves met with a dull thud.

He took a walk. Now that he was inside, the ring felt smaller, and more intimate. On the outskirts of the gym, people were abandoning their dumbbells and skipping ropes to watch. He shook his head, incredulous. Oliver Queen, ever the celebrity.

But, to his surprise, the man stood before him looked nothing like the image in his head he had long cultivated with a litany of jealous prejudices. Oliver Queen did not look like the stereotypical pampered rich boy with a flat waxed chest, an unnatural tan, and otherwise, nary a hair out of place. Instead, he was sculpted like he was made from stone, and was as hard as wood, he looked like an athlete in apex condition; a specimen human were it not for the network of scars that wrote an entirely different story into his very skin. Connor considered what he saw with an almost imperceptible nod. Good - the rich boy can take a beating. Then it won’t be over too soon.

“Do you pick fights with strangers often,” he said, then, with a cocky tilt of the head, “Ollie?”

[Oliver Queen]

Oh, you have no idea.

Oliver tossed Connor a cocky smile. "Probably about as often as you follow strangers into boxing gyms, kid."

It had all clicked at that moment, the weird familiarity. Back at the library, the kid he'd figured was staring at him, and had just shrugged off on account of how damned dejected he was. He'd figured at the time it was just someone who'd managed to see through his admittedly not fantastic disguise, and had recognised Oliver for who he was. He'd half expected a snapped photo and a tweeted heads-up to bring the entire female population of Gotham descending upon the library to try to not-very-subtly sneak photos and then run off giggling. It was the unfortunate problem of who he was.

When he'd disappeared he'd been little more than a D-list celebrity with about as much substance as the Hiltons or Kardashians but with nowhere near the brand recognition. Returning from the dead though? That sort of thing earned you plenty of hits, or views, or whatever they were called on the internet. Everyone wanted to interview him. Not about what had happened, either: everyone was weirdly disinterested in that. They wanted to know what he'd missed. They wanted to know who he was dating. They wanted to know what five items he now carried with him always just in case he found himself stranded again. The old him would have loved it, and that was why he'd allowed it to happen, playing the part and all that. It was all so hollow, though. So meaningless. The parties, the candid photos, the movie premieres - how had he ever seen that as a worthy aspiration for his life? Was it all just because he'd seen inheriting Queen Industries as his only possible future, and some media whore minor celebrity was the only other thing his life left space for?

Still, he had made it to #73 on the Top 100 Sexiest Men Alive that first year. Roy had framed a copy as a joke, but Oliver still kept it in his office as a reminder: a touchstone for the man that he still sometimes needed the media to believe that he was.

He rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck, shaking off imaginary stiffness that wasn't really there; anything to instil a faint false sense of security in his chosen opponent. "You ever boxed before, Connie? Martial arts, anything like that? Or are you more of a beat up kids and steal their lunch money sort of guy?"

[Connor Kent]

When Queen revealed, with crushing informality, that there had been nothing clandestine about Connor’s stalking technique, the glow of pride died in his eyes. In its place grew something hard. Gone, too, was the braggart’s swagger with which he had circled the ring, instead he became rigid, like elastic ready to snap. How had he known? Had he always known?

A thought surfaced from the thick stew of resentment bubbling deep inside: had Oliver Queen lured him all the way here just to have a fight? It was a laughable idea that gave life to the mirthless flicker of a sneer, creasing his youthful face into something ugly and cruel. He wanted to hurt this man. The look was gone in an instant, replaced with an expression of hard determination that translated into long strides, eating up the distance between him and Queen. To his disbelief, he saw the rich boy was still talking, still making noise through that smug grin of his.

“Depends,” he said, utilising his height advantage to maximum effect, he threw the first punch, “Got any lunch money?”

[Oliver Queen]

Connor's actions were sign posted in neon. As Oliver might have guessed from the look of him, he seemed more of a brawler than a skilled fighter; all power, no control. That was a weakness, and an exploitable one.

For most opponents, Oliver might have let a hit land: soaked it up and shrugged it off, just to give his opponent a sense of the kind of man that they were facing. His five years on the island had made pain pretty easy to ignore, and while he didn't have the advantage of any sort of superhuman or metahuman ability to take a beating the way that Arthur or Diana did, he'd learned to cope. You kinda had to, if you were going to have Black Canary as a sparring partner - needed to be able to suffer through a few blows to your body, as well as your pride.

That approach wouldn't work for this Connor kid, though. Oliver employed a different approach. With a quick step back and another to the side, Oliver evaded the blow completely, batting Connor's punch aside as if it was nothing. As the kid's momentum carried him onwards, Oliver circled back and around, giving himself some distance to work with, goading Connor into more reckless strikes like a matador with a bull.

"I left my wallet in the Lamborghini, I'm afraid," Oliver verbally jousted back, his hands raised in a casual ready stance that hardly even looked like he was trying. "But if you're feeling hungry, I'm sure I can muster up a knuckle sandwich or two."

[Connor Kent]

The punch, he thought, was fast. Oliver Queen was faster. And while his fist hung in dead space, time itself seemed to take a breather; it wasn’t a Kodak moment, but there was enough time between him missing and reacting to fill an entire photo album. Meanwhile, Queen danced away with the kind of sideways trot that put him squarely in the company of experienced boxers. Connor didn’t know how to box, but he sure knew technique when he saw it. He had to be careful.

Once his fist was reeled in, he turned. Reflected in Oliver Queen, he did not recognise the same shuffle of leaden feet with which he felt suddenly afflicted. If he tried hopping from foot to foot like that, Connor was certain the ring would start to shudder across the room like a possessed washing machine. He had to play to his strengths, or, rather, he had to play to his strength. One punch. That was all he needed. He just had to bide his time, and play it cool.

But the rich boy was talking again, bragging about his Lamborghini (which was an expensive car), and being smart with his mouth. How could anyone be so smug? Inwardly, Connor considered the cost of a Lamborghini, and to what kind of sordid deals Oliver Queen signed his name to afford it. He had a few ideas in that regard. Before he knew it, he was throwing another punch, and as it sailed what might as well have been several kilometers short of its mark, he found himself wondering:

What the hell is a Kodak moment, anyway?

[Oliver Queen]

The sheer amount of rage that Connor had brought into the ring with him had Oliver wondering if he'd been too quick to dismiss the notion of secretly being the kid's father. Either Connor's fuse was short enough to be measured in microns, or there had already been rage primed and ready to go; and you didn't go stalking people across town unless that anger was in some way personal.

When it came to aggression towards one's father, Oliver was certainly no stranger; aside from his own problematic teenage years with dear old dad, he'd gone and helped raise two of the angriest teenagers known to mankind. He had been told - loudly - that he didn't understand, that he was meddling, pressuring, stifling, or whatever else so many times that it almost didn't affect him any more. Almost. But this seemed different. This wasn't anger being vented as harsh words and scathing half-truths; this was meditated, and violent. So what then had Oliver done to earn this ire? What offence did this boy feel that he had caused?

"You aren't going to get anywhere just flailing around like that," Oliver countered, fumbling around to find the kid's buttons, trying to work out what to do or say that might goad an admission out of him. "I don't wanna have to quote Morpheus at you, kid, but that dude's got some advice you need to take on board right about now."

[Connor Kent]

“Stop talking in riddles, and fight!”

Connor was already closing in, but Queen kept his distance. He was enjoying himself far too much. Who was this Morpheus guy he was talking about? Was he a boxer? After he had knocked the smile off Oliver Queen’s criminally-unscathed face, Connor would look him up. It gave him another excuse to spend time at the library, at least. Maybe he could pick up some tips to swat opponents who buzz around the ring like flies.

On the edge of his vision, Connor noticed some of the spectators had already lost interest and returned to their equipment. Being upstaged by Oliver Queen was one thing, but to be so totally outclassed that the fight isn’t even worth watching? That was hard. Unbidden, a rush of prickly heat climbed his neck, not from the exertion, but from the shame of it all. He had to try. He had to be patient, and loose, and quick. A deep breath - as if it could expel the sum of his frustrations - and his stalking turned into a lighter, more measured, advance.

“What’s the matter, rich boy? You don't want to ruin your manicure?” They were close now that he could see the cool blue of his eyes. It was well-documented that, some time ago, Oliver Queen, millionaire playboy, disappeared for five years, and was presumed dead. Nothing was really known about what had happened to him - there were many rumours, of course, each as outlandish as the next - but, in that moment, Connor found himself wondering what those eyes had seen. They didn’t look so playful, anymore. What was he thinking? Maybe he was ready.

“Come on. Hit me.”

[Oliver Queen]

Wham.

Oliver didn't hesitate, didn't give Connor the opportunity to tense up or ready himself after he'd been mouthing off. It hurt. Really hurt. Oliver had punched enough metahumans to be certain that this kid wasn't entirely average; that set off all manner of warning bells in the back of his head. Some random kid stalking Oliver Queen with some sort of grudge was one thing; but a meta stalking someone who just happened to secretly be a vigilante? That was somewhat more concerning. Oliver had his fair share of enemies, but almost all of them had been earned by the Green Arrow; very few - as far as he was aware - knew about his true identity. If this was some clumsy attempt by an adversary to send a message, to rattle him -

He wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Changing tactics instantly, Oliver wheeled around and dropped, thrusting his left leg out in a broad sweep that cut out Connor's legs from beneath him. Sure, it was dirty boxing. Sure, it was cheating. But this kid had started it, bringing metahuman muscles to a fist fight. Only fair that Oliver shake things up a little, to level out the playing field.

Effortlessly back on his feet, Oliver adopted a slightly more martial arts ready stance, and threw a cocky look in Connor's direction.

"What's the view like from down there?"

[Connor Kent]

The punch was surprising in two ways: first, it landed before Connor was aware it had been thrown, and secondly, it was strong. Over the course of his short life, Connor had found himself on the receiving end of many a right hook - partly, because of the company he kept, but mostly, because he brought that sort of thing out in people - but this was the first punch he felt. Beneath the meager layers of boxing glove, he could feel the contours of his opponent’s knuckles rolling off of his chin, and it made him move. It actually made him move.

Of course, Connor wasn’t allowed the time to process his surprise, before the entire room was upended, and he was on his back. The support beams rumbled like thunder beneath him. And there was Oliver Queen, mocking him.

Connor threw himself onto his feet, as if, in his haste, he could dispel the shameful memory of his fall from all in attendance. A volcanic surge of anger rose up inside of him, and if he didn’t attack now, it would surely burst through his ribs in a fantastic spray of gore. The sensation was as real as rope tightening around his chest, pulling him forward. And, it was with a monumental display of willpower that Connor did not succumb to these urges. If he did, the fight was lost. The rules of the game had just been changed, and he had to keep up. He had to beat him. He had to!

“Everything is such a joke to you, isn’t it?” He advanced with caution, snapping his gaze to Queen’s feet from time to time, awaiting his next trick, “You think you’re so untouchable.”

[Oliver Queen]

"I know a lot of models and waitresses who'd argue I'm very touchable," Oliver quipped back.

This kid wasn't just tough, he was fast too, if the haste with which he'd got back up was any indication. Oliver was used to tussling with one or the other, but both at once was a rare combo. He certainly wouldn't have engaged such a meta close quarters if he'd known in advance: his reflexes were fast, but they were wasted at this range; his use of a bow wasn't just part of the image, there were countless practical benefits as well. Someone like Brickwell or Blockbuster was devastating up close, but with enough range, and enough time to wait for a perfect opportunity, they were easy pickings for a seasoned veteran like Oliver. But this kid?

Oliver found himself with two options, neither of them preferable. He could launch in with a feint, draw out another reckless attempt at a strike from Connor, and then smack him down decisively, in the hopes that enough humiliation would make the kid back down - or at the very least send up enough red flags to Ted Grant to make him step in and break things up. A right hook as a decoy; an exploit of Connor's distraction by the fist flying towards his face to sweep out his legs; Oliver could have followed him down, pinned him to the canvas; maybe whispered a few words about knowing Connor's secret to get him to back down. But that could backfire all too easily. Oliver didn't know how strong this meta was; he could be fuelled by anger for all he knew, wouldn't be the first time. Right now Connor's anger was focused on him, but if it increased, there was no telling how much it could overflow onto others; and dangerous as this meta might be, it was nothing compared with the beat down that Oliver would be due if he provoked the kid into smashing up Ted's gym.

That left the other option. The painful option. Oliver imagined an injury, stemming from the initial blow that Connor had landed. Imagined pain forming in the nearby joints, aches in the nearby bones. He let that shoulder sag a little, the muscles moving a little more stiffly, the guard on that arm a little lower and less effective. "Come on, kid," he challenged, bracing himself against the pain that was no doubt coming, already planning how he was going to drop the instant Connor's opportunity strike landed. It took all the self control that Oliver could muster not to grimace in anticipation.

"Stop trying to hit me, and hit me."

[Connor Kent]

When he had invited Oliver Queen to throw a punch, he snapped up the opportunity like a hundred dollar... He snapped it up. Now that the tables were turned, the last thing Connor wanted was to appear hesitant in front of his opponent. He would not flinch at the chance to land a blow on the man responsible for, well, everything.

And was that a dip in his shoulder? Maybe the rich boy was tired from all that dancing about. Connor closed in; tension had set like concrete in his legs, making every step feel heavy and slow. He needed this hit. And, if his fists hit only thin air again, he was going to tear the whole damn building down. First, a right jab to give Queen something to think about. It receded inches from his face, to reveal the approach of a left-hook that was full of promise. When Connor felt the sweet kiss of flesh against his glove, his heart leapt. It was over. He'd won!

[Oliver Queen]

* * *

Oliver pressed the bag of frozen peas to the side of his face. He winced a little at the pain, but that only made it worse. It'd take an x-ray to confirm it, but it felt like a small fracture in his cheekbone: the kind that wasn't really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but that hurt like hell. What was it about the small injuries - paper cuts, hairline fractures - that made them so damned painful? At least he'd sustained this injury as Oliver Queen: the lack of need to come up with a creative excuse was a nice reprieve; there were only so many ways you could explain why a wealthy playboy had a limp, or a sling, a set of busted ribs, or a gunshot wound before the excuses started to wear a little thin.

What I wouldn't give for a little of that speedster healing right now, though.Another microscopic glimmer of silver lining was that the most comfortable expression for his face right now was a scowl, and that felt like exactly the sort of arrangement his features should be in right now. He turned it on the kid; Oliver wasn't sure if the smugness was genuinely there or if it was just imagined, but he supposed it wouldn't have been out of place. Oliver had been overconfident. He'd underestimated just how fast and how strong this Connor kid was, and a single hit had landed him squarely on his ass - not quite a one hit KO, but close enough; Oliver had been dazed enough and sensible enough to stay down.

Ted had made sure none of the witnesses did anything stupid; no ambulance calls, no cell phone photos, nothing like that. He'd made a show of checking that Oliver was okay, but it was feigned and unnecessary concern - Grant was more interested in who this mystery kid was. A subtle shake of Oliver's head had clued him in enough to stop Wildcat going into you could be a real contender, kid mode; got him downplaying the situation as much as possible, mumbling about silver spoons and glass jaws; better to make it seem like Oliver Queen was all show and no substance than to have the GCPD and the DEO kicking down the doors with a full tactical team ready to subdue and apprehend the metahuman in their midsts.

It'd only be a matter of time though, before the word leaked out and things got problematic. Oliver wanted - needed - answers before then; it was down to him and his aching face to get them.

"You wanna give me one good reason why I shouldn't pick up a phone and call the DEO's metahuman hotline, kid? No way in hell you hit that hard and move that fast with baseline DNA."

[Connor Kent]

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Connor tossed his accusation Queen’s way with a lift of his chin. In the time since they departed the boxing ring, he’d squared himself hard against the wall, and folded his arms. That way, if anyone tried anything, he could see it coming.

The atmosphere inside the gym had changed the moment Oliver Queen hit the canvas. It took forever, his fall, long enough for the sight of his opponent’s contorted rubbery face to burn itself into the back of Connor’s eyes. Now that Queen was getting intimate with a bag of frozen peas, he could relish the memory of his vacant punchdrunk gaze - a nostalgic keepsake to be dusted off and admired long into the future - but at the time, it had filled him with a cold dread. The wait tied his insides in knots; he watched as the big guy roused him, and wondered if he would ever get up. More than once, he had looked to the exit and considered his escape route. But it was not to be: Oliver Queen found his feet at last, and the least he could do was join him ringside while he recovered. It gave Connor time to think, and reflect on what had just transpired: in his blind anger, he’d almost killed a man.

Guilt held his tongue and bowed his head, and the silence stretched in taut tenuous strands between them. But when his would-be-victim finally spoke, the tension snapped, and he dismissed that particular albatross with a shrug, rising to his full height. So Queen knew his secret. It was no great surprise, considering what had happened, and it wasn’t like Connor had tried to hide it, after all. He wanted him to see the fruits of his labour, to feel it. And now, Oliver Queen was threatening him with the authorities instead of assuming responsibility for his actions. How predictable. A swarm of sharp and jagged thoughts took flight in his mind, stoking the fires of a familiar grudge. His jaw turned to stone. His fists were rocks. He could fight. He could run.

And, in a breath, the fight was gone. Long and measured, he sucked in air like ice water, dousing the flames of his anger. If he lashed out now, it marked the end of his time in Gotham. Where would he go? What would he do? The shadow of faceless tormentors passed over him - they were only a phone call away. One phone call, and his whole world became a mousetrap, or worse, a hamster wheel. He couldn’t run anymore. There had to be another way, but he struggled to believe the solution was to trust in the mercy of a privileged rich boy. After all, he had seen the extent of Queen mercy, first hand.

“You started this, Oliver Queen.” The name itself was a condemnation, “You started all of it!”

[Oliver Queen]

He'd know all about it? What was that supposed to mean?

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if it was a reference to his alter ego - some allusion to Green Arrow being more familiar than most with metahumans, having faced off against them from time to time. But that didn't make sense. Sure, there were metahumans in Star City, but the Green Arrow was hardly notorious for fighting them in particular; any metahumans he encountered were incidental, criminals who just happened to have powers. Unlike the Flash, or the Atom, or Firestorm, he didn't have a reputation for finding a scientific solution to scientific threats: he just shot at things with arrows. It didn't fit with Connor's reactions, either: he'd seemed surprised to find someone atypically muscular underneath his Oliver Queen disguise. He hadn't expected Oliver to be someone who could fight back.

So then what? Before the island, Oliver had been every bit the vacuous trust fund brat that everyone accused him of being. For the next five years he'd been dead as far as the world was concerned, and for the five since he'd done nothing publicly, not really. A few charity endorsements, a few fundraisers, a few parties and premieres to keep him enough in the public consciousness that no one ever wondered what he was truly up to. His life was a carefully crafted smokescreen, a distraction with entirely no substance. Amid all that, what on earth could he possibly have started?

He kept his face as neutral as he could; kept his voice calm, erring slightly towards stern interrogation but with plenty of care to avoid and provocation or semblance of threat?

"You'll have to be a bit more specific than that, kid. For some reason my brain is feeling a little sluggish right now."

[Connor Kent]

“Cadmus Labs.”

With those two words uttered, he folded his arms, as if tying a bow on a perfectly packaged argument. He waited, expecting to see the weight of his words unloaded into Queen’s unfaltering gaze. In his mind’s eye, he saw it as clear as day: the slight widening of the eyes, a telling drop in the jaw, the stupid gaping mouth. But his imagination held no sway over reality, and the look on Queen’s spoke not of surprise, but of a man waiting to hear the punchline to an unfunny joke. Was he trying to piss him off?

“Don’t play dumb!” he snapped, “Cadmus Labs - a company making breakthroughs in genetic research doesn’t just disappear overnight. Did you think no one would notice?”

A snort of disbelief gnarled his face. After his escape, once he felt safe enough to surface from the rotten shadows, Connor sought to make sense of what had happened to him, of the things he’d seen and heard. The images were vivid, but brief; painful flashes, like pinpricks in his mind. He pieced them together as best he could, using snippets from newspapers, and word on the street, to make a Frankenstein’s monster of his memories. According to all sources, Cadmus Labs no longer existed, which meant that either someone was lying, or he was having a really bad dream. All he knew for sure was that, though the labcoats of Cadmus had been his jailors, it was the money of Queen Consolidated that had built his bars. And it was insulting to think that Oliver Queen himself could just sit there and deny it.

Despite the broth of emotions simmering below the surface, in that moment, Connor at least had the presence of mind to close the space between them, and mutter his confession:

“I was there. And your family’s fingerprints were all over it, Queen.”

[Oliver Queen]

"Are you Amish?"

The indignant question struggled it's way out of Oliver, utter disbelief needing to spool up before the words could be uttered. Oliver had been accused of a great many things in his life, and a fair percentage of those had something to do with his surname. He'd had his fair share of stalkers too, but everything about this was baffling and disappointing. Was this kid from the dark ages? Had he chosen the victim of his ire without so much as a google search, a few seconds spent on Oliver's wikipedia page?

"I don't have a family, kid. When I was about thirteen years old, my parents died in an accident on safari in Africa. Ten years ago, I was thrown overboard by a storm during a yacht party, and spent nearly five years stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific. When I finally made it home I had been declared legally dead, and my company had gone public."

He shook his head, ignoring how much it hurt so that he could muster a disapproving scowl towards Connor. Right now, he kinda was wishing he had wound up secretly being this kid's father: at least that way he could kick his ass and send him to his room. Then again... Connor? Who the hell in their right mind would name their son Connor?

"My family doesn't have it's fingerprints on anything, kid. If you'd spent more than five seconds reading up on me before you decided on this little misplaced vendetta, you would have realised that."

[Connor Kent]

That… was unexpected.

“What?”

Just a twinge of disbelief laced his words. The rest of it had been boiled away by Queen’s fierce and decisive rebuttal. There was nothing of what had been said that Connor could challenge, primarily because, it was true, he simply didn’t know better. The words washed over him like wire wool, scrubbing away layer upon layer of prejudicial callous, until all that remained was the red raw fool underneath.

If what Oliver Queen said was true, then, in his own quest for the truth, Connor had made one glaring oversight. If it was true, the man stood before him not only had nothing to do with Queen Consolidated, but by extension, he also had no answers to give. Inside, he was in freefall. It was not enough that he had chased his leads to a dead end; it was not enough that he had revealed to a perfect stranger his secret; it was not enough that he had pinned his frustrations on an innocent man, but that, in his anger, he had stalked and attacked him, too. A quest for the truth? He gave himself far too much credit. Queen had it right: this was a vendetta.

“You know nothing about Cadmus Labs? About…” The last stubborn ember of disbelief died in his eyes. In its place, there came a plea: “Nothing?”

[Oliver Queen]

The stupid decision was made right then and there: right as he watched the hope die in Connor's eyes. It didn't matter that Oliver and his family were innocent of whatever fate had befallen Connor; it didn't matter that logically, none of this was his fault. Logic had nothing to do with it. Logic wasn't the reason that he was here in Gotham, investigating what had become of his father's legacy. Logic wasn't why he was trying to uncover the sordid activities being inflicted upon Gotham's people in his name. Not logic: responsibility. Maybe even a little desire for justice: for his parents' memory, but more importantly for the people made to suffer by it. When one of those people presented themselves to him the way that Connor had, how could he do anything but help?

"About Cadmus Labs?"

He shook his head, choosing his words carefully.

"Queen Consolidated has made dozens, maybe hundreds of acquisitions over the last decade. Some of those companies have contributed their proprietary designs into QC's latest tech, but things like pharmaceuticals, or genetic research? Something untoward is going on with my father's old company, and I don't like it. That -"

For the briefest moment he found himself hesitating. Why was he saying this? Why was he showing his hand this way? Had the kid hit him so hard that all sense had vacated his skull, or was it just that nagging, niggling familiarity about this kid that he couldn't shake; that sense that he knew this boy, and knew he could be trusted? Too late now, Oliver. The chips are down; time to find out if this kid is bluffing or not.

"That's why I'm here, in Gotham. That's why I was in the library earlier, in fact: I'm trying to track down all of QC's acquisitions, see if there's some sort of discernible pattern. Cadmus Labs, though?"

He shook his head, trying to shuffle through his memories to see if it matched any of them. He knew Cadmus was a figure from Greek mythology; the guy who planted the teeth in the ground, and grew himself an army of skeleton warriors, like that old stop motion scene in the Jason and the Argonauts movie. King of Thebes, slayer of dragons, inventor of the Greek alphabet, ancestor of the Kings of Sparta... nothing rang any bells. There'd been nothing named Cadmus, or anything like it in the list of acquisitions thus far. Maybe the corporation had been renamed before it was acquired, but certainly not as anything that even remotely related to it's original name. He'd need to begin a whole new line of investigation -

He frowned. "I'm really hoping you did more research into Cadmus than you did into me."

[Connor Kent]

“Cadmus Labs is a ghost story,” Connor began. He glanced up, and met Queen’s gaze, which, despite being half-framed in a palette of bruising and unflattering puffiness, remained steadfast. Was he really having this conversation?

While ‘serendipity’ was a word in his vocabulary, it wasn’t until Oliver Queen began his confession in earnest that he truly understood its meaning. He hung off his words, and fumbled blindly for the chair behind him. Once seated, he leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees - to the casual onlooker, the pair of them could be simply reviewing their fight. When it became Connor’s turn to speak, his face creased in thought.

“It was called Project Cadmus, in the beginning. A small team of scientists with backgrounds in stem cell research. They were working on a cure for,” here, he glanced beyond Queen, and his voice took on a monotonous quality, as if he were labouring over a word in a book, “Osteoporosis.”

“With funding from Queen Industries, Project Cadmus expanded to a much larger site in Metropolis. They become Cadmus Labs. That was when they started to work on… embryonic… gene therapy. Seven years ago, it happened: there were rumours something big was about to come out of the labs, like they had some big announcement planned, and then they were gone, almost overnight. It was as if Cadmus Labs never existed.”

His gaze had drifted off as he recalled the details he’d accumulated over the last two months. The story had been committed to memory, and recited, like a prayer, in the quiet of the night. It was good to have an audience, at last. It was better than that - it was like exhaling a long-held breath. Finally, he returned his attention to Oliver Queen, his unlikely confidante.

“There are all kinds of strange theories. Some say Cadmus was relocated to Washington to work for the government. Some say Queen Industries pulled its funding, but I know better: I saw the machines, the equipment, the weapons - your name was everywhere.”

[Oliver Queen]

First Tyler Chemical, the pharmaceutical firm with a flair for vitamins and supplements; now Cadmus Labs, with stem cell research and gene therapies. The two stuck out like a sore thumb, components of Queen Consolidated that didn't seem to jive with what was supposed to be the company's mandate; acquisitions that Oliver just couldn't understand the rationale behind.

At least Connor's information disposed of one mystery. Cadmus Labs wasn't one of Queen Consolidated's recent acquisitions, hence it's absence from his recent research. It was something older, a project that the family business had funded into existence; one that had apparently undergone the same mysterious disappearances as Tyler Chemical, AmerTek Industries, and the rest. Queen Industries funding medical research wasn't beyond the realm of normalcy either. Bruce Wayne had his Wayne Foundation for such things, but he wasn't the only wealthy capitalist who gave money to good sources when he had the opportunity. Osteoporosis was an oddly specific cause; but all it took was one close friend, one member of the board, one prominent employee to have a loved one suffering from the condition, and that was enough to bring Project Cadmus to the attention of Robert Queen, or William Glenmorgan, or whoever happened to have been running the company at the time.

That old movie drifted through Oliver's mind again; that clunky old stop-motion animation. Growing skeletons. Stem cells. Osteoporosis. Quite the appropriate name, all things considered.

The novelty thought faded however as Connor's information continued to sink in. Queen's name, everywhere? Lab equipment? Weapons? Queen Industries had never had a weapons division, not under his father's leadership, but AmerTek Industries? Military contracts and weapons development had definitely been their forte, back before they had disappeared. Medical equipment didn't leap out as something Oliver could recall the business ever making, but he was willing to bet that if he looked through his list of acquisitions, he'd find all the constituent parts accounted for amongst Queen Consolidated's missing subsidiaries. Not gone then, not dissolved or disbanded: just off the grid, still in operation, but away from the prying eyes of the public - and the authorities. Somehow, he doubted whatever practices had led to Connor's current metahuman circumstances were FDA approved.

"I'm guessing they didn't exactly let you go." It was more of a statement than a question, his mind already racing off down tangents, trying to recall incidents in recent months that he might have read about that might explain the escape of someone with Connor's abilities. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack; a haystack he hadn't really been paying attention to in the first place. Maybe Connor had more information; somewhere to start, at least. "The facility where you were held... I don't suppose you remember where it was, do you?"

[Connor Kent]

“Somewhere in Nevada.” Connor shrugged, “I was disoriented. Confused. For the longest time, there was nothing but sand and dust. I avoided roads, towns. The first time I bothered to read a sign, it said ‘Welcome to Utah.’”

The absurdity of it hit him the moment he said it, and he smiled in spite of himself. It was a ridiculous story, and that’s all it was, really: a story. Those first memories were so far removed from who he was that it felt like they belonged to someone else. It was the fractured misadventure of a sobering drunk, struggling to put the pieces together. And, like any self-respecting drunk, he kept the uncomfortable details to himself. It had been a hell of a hangover.

“The facility itself was deep underground, but up top, I saw some buildings, vehicles… planes, too. There was a military presence.” He shook his head, disappointed, “That’s all I know.”

[Oliver Queen]

Oliver blinked. Was Connor saying what it seemed like he was saying?

"A secret military base."

He couldn't believe he was saying those words. Couldn't believe he was even entertaining the notion.

"In Nevada."

The ice pack left Oliver's cheek, and pressed itself against his forehead, drooping down enough for the cooling contact to soothe across his closed eyes. It was a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. Whether you called it Groom Lake, or Dreamland, or something else entirely, the prospect of secret experiments happening at an underground facility at or near Area 51 - it seemed absurd. But then, perhaps not. Little green men, little grey men, and the experiments conducted on them had always seemed like the stuff of fiction, of the Twilight Zone, of X-Files. And then Superman had shown up, in all his red caped, red trunked glory. Aliens were real. The supernatural was real. Magic, and telepaths, and shapeshifters, and all of that. What reason then was there to cling to scepticism? Why were those conspiracies still so hard to believe?

"I don't suppose there was a big '51' painted on the wall anywhere, was there?"

[Connor Kent]

“No.”

There was no amusement in Connor’s eyes. In that moment, his face was a cemetery of good humour, and he did not appreciate Queen’s untimely appetite for comedy. There was nothing funny about it, he thought, with simmering indignation. Perhaps Queen thought he was mistaken, or, even worse, lying, about what he saw.

“I know how it sounds, but it’s the truth. Maybe that was the point, to hide Cadmus Labs behind all that conspiracy theory crap. I don’t know.”

He stood, no longer willing to justify himself. The bundle of straws was growing thin, and he wasn’t about to start grasping at them like someone desperate. Whatever crusade Oliver Queen had embarked upon, to redeem his family’s name, it did not involve skulking around in top secret military bases. He didn’t seem the type. He was the have-lunch-with-people-in-expensive-suits type, even if he did have a killer right cross.

Connor pulled on his jacket, and replaced his cap. He considered Queen, and his newfound understanding of him, and allowed for one concession, “Look, just... if you hear anything, look me up. Okay?”

[Oliver Queen]

"And how do I do that, exactly?"

Okay, so perhaps this kid had a right to be stoic and humourless. Being experimented upon hardly seemed like an experience that would be a pleasant memory. Being stranded on a secluded island for several years and forced to fight day by day to survive wasn't a pleasant memory either, nor were all of the other off-menu ordeals that he had faced during that time. Being miserable about it didn't make those experiences go away. It didn't stop you being the product of them. There was something absurd and science fictional about Connor's story; but there was something absurd and science fictional about life these days. Hiding from it, scowling about it, refusing to find the scraps of joy in amongst the bad - that helped no one. That was a path that led only to misery and darkness. That was the switch that flipped between an ordeal making you a hero, and it making you a villain.

Oliver shrugged.

"You didn't exactly give me a full name and address or anything. Do I just wander around the city trying to find random groups of young people, calling your name until I stumble across you?"

[Connor Kent]

“Oh, yeah,” Connor said to himself. From inside his jacket, he fished a small notepad, and flipped through pages of wild scribblings until he found a blank sheet. A pen was produced, and he wrote down the number to his phone. It was a cheap chunk of plastic that Turk had insisted he keep on him at all times - it was nice to be able to give his number to someone who wasn’t a criminal. He tore out the page and handed it to Queen, “My number. Although, if you ever do call my name? I have excellent hearing.”

So it was hypocritical of him to bust out the humour after being so serious. What else was he going to do when Oliver Queen’s mouth was set to maximum snark? He even afforded him the slightest of smiles to diffuse the tension. The encounter had been productive, after all, even if he hadn’t found the answers he sought.

“Thank you for not calling the DEO on me. And, uh…” With a wince, he pointed at his swollen cheek, “Sorry I broke your face.”

[Oliver Queen]

A small smile tugged at the corner of Oliver's mouth. Not calling the DEO was about the least-bad thing that Oliver could have done, all things considered. There were all manner of secret prisons and shady organisations out in the world, each with increasingly negative opinion of metahumans. The DEO was pretty fluffy and friendly by comparison, all things considered.

More than that though, it was the concern. The apology. Connor looked at him, and saw Oliver Queen. He had no idea how regularly Oliver found himself punched through a wall, thrown from a building by an explosion, whammied by some metahuman power or other... taking a blow to the face in a boxing ring, that was practically normal person behaviour; as close to it as Oliver ever got, at least. He'd taken worse hits during sparring matches with Dinah; not surprising really, when you and one of the world's most formidable martial artists treated sparring as some weird alternative to flirting the way regular humans did.

"Don't worry, Connor," Oliver assured, with a slight chuckle. "You hit like a girl."

Of course, that crack in the floodgates unleashed a torrent of thoughts and emotions that battered into Oliver like a tidal wave. He was Oliver Queen. The ultimate bachelor. The ultimate loner. Independent. Self sufficient. All these feelings, this sadness and regret, the tugging sensation in his chest as if he desperately needed to be even just a few paces closer to wherever she was; those sensations shouldn't belong to him. He was smarter than that. Wasn't he?

"Trust me," he added, his faint distraction scuffing off some of the mirthful edge from those words. "Given the kind of girls that I hang around with, that's definitely a compliment."