Green Arrow

Issue #1: Home Not So Sweet Home

Written by: u/The_Word_Wizard

Edited by: u/AdamantAce

Next -> The Monster Within

Arc: The Ties that Bind

An intense light shone through his eyelids, pulling him from a restless sleep. It faded, and reappeared again. Within seconds his mind was awake and he realized what the repeating light meant: people. He raced to the beach and saw the ship several miles off the coast, it’s beacon illuminating the pitch black night. He lit the bonfire on the beach that had been set up months before and waited, barely daring to breathe. He let out a sigh of relief when the ship turned and started heading towards the beach.

Oliver Queen was coming home.

“Hey, back off! Back off!” a woman’s voice rose over the crowd of reporters outside the Queen mansion. Word travelled fast in Star City, and no paper or television network was going to miss the local scoop of the decade. It wasn’t every day a dead man came back to life. Flashing lights blinded Oliver as he tried to look for the source of the voice. As the crowd parted and the woman stepped towards him, both paused a moment, hardly believing it to be true.

“Mom..?” he said tentatively. Her hand rose to her mouth to stifle tears. He ran to her and pulled her into a warm hug. “I’m home.” They stood silently for a moment, before becoming aware of the flashing lights of cameras and the murmur of reporters.

“My son is very tired,” Moira Queen said to them. “We’ll hold a press conference in a few days when he’s rested, until then you’ll just have to be patient.” Ignoring the calls from the reporters she put an arm around her son and led him into the peace and quiet of the house.

“So what’s happened since I’ve been gone?” he said. “Five years is a long time.”

“Well let’s see… your sister graduates college, that pizza place downtown you liked closed, though it reopened a year later. Oh, and most importantly with your father gone Malcolm Merlyn took over operations at Queen” Moira was cut off by Oliver’s sister, Thea, entering the room.

“Don’t forget about Coast City,” was all she said as she headed for the kitchen. Moira looked down at her knees.

“Mom, what about Coast City?” Oliver prodded.

She paused, unable to find the right words for several minutes. “About a year ago the Justice League were involved in a fight with some... robot, and the city...it’s gone…” she said through faint tears. Oliver just stared at her. Coast City, gone? It’s hard to imagine all the times he visited there with his father and Tommy, his best friend. Tommy Merlyn had always wanted to move out there someday, but could never pull himself away from Star City.

“Hey mom, what’s Tommy been up to?” he said, excited to see his friend again. But all his question did was prompt more tears from Moira. “Mom? Where’s Tommy?”

Thea had come up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. They didn’t need to tell him where he was.

“I guess he finally got to live his dream of living by the sea,” Oliver said as he tried to hold back tears of his own. It seems more had changed than he expected.

“Hey Ollie, what do you say we take you out tonight? Take your mind off...everything,” Thea said later that night. Oliver did have a lot on his mind. Maybe she was right, a night out could do him some good.

“Does Mom know?” he asked as they walked out the front door to the car.

“Of course not,” she said with a smirk.

“Just like old times then.”

After the relative quiet of the island, the noise of civilization had already been a bit of a shock to Oliver, and the booming music at the club only exaggerated that dissonance.

“Who are they?” Oliver shouted to Thea, gesturing to the band.

“Canaries Cry,” she said. “They’re on tour from Gotham!”

“Well they’re a bit loud and… aggressive for my taste! I’m going to get some air!”

Thea didn’t seem to hear him over the music, so he just left and went for a bit of a walk around the block. It was damp out, but at least the rain held off. A homeless man shivered at the corner of the building, and Oliver handed the man his coat. He had plenty at home, after all.

“No...no stop I’ll give you whatever you want!” came a voice from down a nearby alley. Oliver sneaked closer and leaned against the corner to listen.

“What do you want money? Is that it? Here I’ve got my checkbook right here-agh! What the hell was that for?”

“I don’t want your money,” said a much deeper voice. “I want you off the board.” There was a twang followed by a thud. Oliver came around the corner, but by the time he did, one of the men was gone, and the other was dead with an arrow in his chest. That man was James Holder, CEO of the Holder Group.

“Who did this?” Oliver asked after giving the police his statement.

“How do you not know about the Dark Archer? He’s been putting arrows is Star City’s elite for months now.” Oliver raised his eyebrows at the officer, who continued and said, “Oh, right. You’ve been out of town for a bit. Well don’t worry, he seems to always go for the figureheads, the CEOs, so I’m sure you and your family are safe, Mr. Queen. Now head on home, we’ll handle this mess.”

He may be safe, but Oliver wasn’t going to let this Dark Archer murder Malcolm Merlyn. His father wouldn’t have wanted that.

Back at the Queen Mansion, he dug into the back of his closet and got out the only thing he had brought back from the island. A simple burlap bag, containing a bow, a quiver of arrows, and a green hood.

“Merlyn can’t protect himself from the Archer, but maybe the Green Arrow can…”

High atop the roof of Queen Consolidated, waiting for, well he wasn’t sure what, Oliver had some time to think. A lot had changed since he left. Thea was an adult now, Merlyn was in charge of the company, and Tommy…

But there was no time to think about that, as the sound of breaking glass came from below. The Merlyns didn’t need to suffer through another loss, and they wouldn’t if Oliver had any say in the matter.

He kept to the edge of the roof and shot a grappling hook arrow back at the building, using it to swing through a window, breaking more glass. He scanned the dark room, his eyes quickly adjusting to the lack of light.

“I thought Merlyn was working late tonight?” he muttered to himself.

“Think again,” said a voice from a dark corner, but before he could react a scream pinned him against the wall, and knocked him out.

When he eventually came to Oliver was slumped in a corner of Merlyn’s office, his wrists bound. A woman was at his desk, her face lit up by the light of a computer screen. Trying not to give himself away Oliver dislocated his thumbs, and slipped out of the bonds, moving as little as possible.

“This your handiwork?” he asked, holding up the rope he was freed from.

“What? Yes, how did you get out?” she said, taken aback.

“Old secret. I can’t just go sharing it with anybody,” he said, trying to keep the situation light. The last thing he wanted was to get knocked out and tied up. Though she’d probably add a few more bonds next time. “I’d like to know what you’re doing here,” he said, scooping up his bow and nocking an arrow.

“I wouldn’t do that, bow boy,” she said, stepping around the desk to confront him.

“And why not?” In a swift motion he pulled back the bow and let the arrow fly. The woman let out a rapid roar and shattered the arrow with the sound waves. Oliver was knocked off his feet, but thankfully remained conscious.

“Not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t that,” he said, getting up and dusting himself off. Seeing she was still angry, he held out a hand. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Green Arrow, and you are?”

“None of your business,” she said, returning to the computer.

“Actually, you are,” he said. “See I’m trying to protect Mr. Merlyn from this Dark Archer fella, and right now you’re looking pretty suspicious, hacking into his computer and all.”

She stopped and gave him an “are you stupid” look. “Really? You think I’m the one in league with the Archer? Says Robin Hood.”

Oliver opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it just as fast. He couldn’t really argue with her logic.

“Well then, what are you doing here?” he asked, wondering when she would have enough of his questions and knock him out again.

But for some reason she continued to humor him. “Your buddy Merlyn? He’s not quite the saint you think he is.”

“What do you-“ Voices and flashlight beams down the hall cut him off.

“I think it came from down here,” one of them said, and seconds later two security guards came through the doors into the office.

“Hope you have an escape plan,” the woman said, getting ready to scream.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Oliver said as he shot another grappling arrow into the floor and ran towards the broken window, scooping the woman up in his arms as he threw himself out.

“Impressive, I thought for sure you’d scream my ears out,” he said as they descended to a balcony below.

“I figured that would only lead me to a long unpleasant fall,” she said before smacking him. “But don’t you ever try a stunt like that again!”

“You’re saying that like I might get a chance?”

“We’ll see,” she said and slapped something into his hand. It was a flash drive. “Take a look at that, and maybe we'll meet again. Take care, Robin Hood.”

“Wait, you know my name, but what do I call you?” he shouted as she started to run away.

“Black Canary,” she said. Without another word she leapt off the balcony and across the neighboring rooftops, until she vanished from Ollie’s sight.

Oliver went home and paced the floor, thumbing the flash drive in his hand as he did so. The information on it came from Merlyn’s computer, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that much about his dad’s best friend.

But he had to. If Merlyn was using Queen Consolidated for shady business, he had to know. He plugged the drive into his computer, and opened it. There weren’t many files, though Canary hadn’t had much time for a deep dive, but what was there was damning. Thousands of unmarked transactions, mostly outgoing, for incredible sums of money. Oliver scrolled to find the earliest one and found an enormous incoming transaction, from someone labeled with all nines.

“Well that’s interesting…” Ollie said stroking his beard.

“What’s interesting?” Moira said as she entered the room.

“Oh, uh, nothing,” he said. “Just saw they finally did a sequel to Finding Nemo.”

“Yes, you certainly missed a lot,” she said. “And you missed something the other night too.”

He wasn’t sure what she was talking about. The last time he went out, that she knew of, was to the club with…

“Thea!”

His mother nodded. “You left your sister. You might want to go apologize.” She got up without another word, leaving Ollie alone with his thoughts. He knew he had to go talk to Thea and apologize, but he also knew she wasn’t going to let him off easy.

He knocked softly on the door, behind which he could hear his sister listening to the band from the other night. It opened, and Thea’s smile faded immediately. “Maybe that island was a better home for you after all. Can’t ditch anybody if there’s nobody around.”

“Thea, I’m-”

“Sorry? Yeah, I know you are. You always are. You think you can just do whatever you want and say you’re ‘sorry’ and it’ll all be forgiven. Well don’t worry, you won’t mess up like that again.

Cause I won’t give you the chance.” She turned and closed the door in his face without letting Ollie say another word.

“She’ll cool down eventually,” he muttered to himself. She always did after all. But for now he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Green Arrow turned his attention from the Star City skyline to the flash drive in his gloved hand. He had looked at the files, and only had to find the Canary. “You said to look at this, and then we’d meet again,” he said to the drive in his hand. “But how am I supposed to do that? You didn’t leave me any clues on this thing.”

“So you opened my drive then,” a voice said on the rooftop behind him. It was her.

“Yes, I did,” Green Arrow said, standing up from his perch and walking over to the woman. “But how did you know?”

“There’s a bug on it, don’t worry, I couldn’t hear any of your private conversations,” she said, addressing his indignant expression. “It’s not that kind of bug. I could only see that you opened the files, and then it lets me track the drive’s location. I’m just glad you didn’t throw it out and lead me to some dumpster.”

“Do you really think that little of me?” he said coyly.

She let her eyes look him over before responding. “I guess we’ll see. You’ve proven that at least I can trust you, so here,” she handed him a small pager-looking device. “Now we can keep in touch.”

“You’re leaving again? So soon?”

“For now,” she said. “We need to find a way back inside Queen Consolidated to get back to Merlyn’s computer. Security has been tightened in the days since our break in, so it won’t be as easy as last time.”

“Leave that to me,” Green Arrow said. It was time Oliver Queen paid his dad’s best friend a visit...