The whiskey splashed into the tumbler. There was no ice or water to break it up, just a fall of deep amber that filled the glass two-thirds full. He set the bottle down and lifted the drink.
The fumes of it took his breath slightly, filling his mouth with the taste before he even took a sip.
The doorbell chimed.
He set the glass down, the whiskey untasted.
Moving quickly, before the doorbell could chime again, he crossed the room and opened the door. John Diggle stood there.
“John,” he said in greeting, stepping back to let his friend inside.
Diggle looked him up and down, taking in Oliver’s rumpled sleeves and creased pants, then glancing around the still disheveled apartment.
“Rough night?”
“I just got William to bed.”
The newcomer didn’t even glance at his watch. He knew exactly how late it was.
“Well, turn the television on to channel fifty-two, the evening is about to get worse.”
Oliver sighed, stepped over, and picked up the whiskey. He raised it. “I have a feeling I’m going to need this. Would you like me to pour you one?”
Diggle just shook his head.
Oliver took a pull from the glass, the dark liquid lighting the back of his throat with heat. It splashed down into his empty stomach, his half-finished sushi dinner long departed from his system, and began to work immediately.
Topping the glass, he left the bottle open on the bar and went to the couch. Diggle had already found the remote and sat perched on the edge of the couch with the television on. Oliver sank into the cushions as Diggle found the right channel and anchorwoman Bethany Snow filled the screen. Tonight she wore a sharp blue suit that made her hair seem more blond than normal, and she wore an expression more stern than usual. She was mid-sentence as Diggle unmuted the television.
“—we live in this city with vigilantes as a fact of life. Unlike the bright and shiny Flash in Central City, ours operate in the shadows. Most of the time they seem to make a difference. However, their means and methods are always questionable.
“Should we allow these people to interfere in police investigations just because they have costumes? Worse, what happens if they decide to go rogue and become criminals? Would the police be willing to stop them, and would they even have the means? Are we simply biding our time until we are in danger from the very people some look to as heroes?
“Channel fifty-two has this exclusive video, obtained just tonight, showing the Green Arrow crossing the line.” She leaned in to the camera. “Before we roll I have to warn you, this footage may be unsettling for many viewers. It depicts a brutal attack. Yes, the victim is a criminal who had just been part of an armed robbery attempt moments before this was recorded. That aside, this footage contains violence that is difficult to watch. If you have young children in the room, you may want to send them out now.”
Oliver looked over at Diggle, who nodded back to the television.
The footage began, silent, a grainy image of a door in an alleyway. From the left side of the screen a young man stumbled into the frame, coming around a corner. He crouched against the wall for a long moment before glancing around rapidly. This stopped as his face turned toward the camera. He moved to stand when from the left side a dark figure, moving in a blur, crashed into him, driving him to the ground.
The figure bent, lifting the man before slapping him with a wide swing of his right hand. The young man raised his hands in supplication to the hooded figure who loomed over him, then turned back to the camera.
The young man was begging for mercy.
The hooded figure pulled a gun from a holster he wore on his side. Oliver leaned forward, the half-full glass of whiskey forgotten in his hand.
The hooded person swung the gun high, reaching far behind him for the maximum amount of force. He held the gun back, shoulders moving in a way that Oliver recognized as the body mechanics of yelling. He had a moment to wonder what the hooded figure had screamed before the beating began.
Over and over and over again the gun rose and fell, coming back up a little darker each time.
For the last few minutes of the beating the young man lay motionless on the ground, long unconscious and unable to fight off his attacker. Appearing to be satisfied, the hooded figure wiped his gun on the young man’s shirt, holstered it, and moved off camera.
Bethany Snow’s face came back on screen. Diggle muted the sound before she could speak, then he turned toward Oliver.
“That wasn’t me,” Oliver said.
“I know,” Diggle said. “I’ve trained with you enough by now to recognize your moves. Lyla turned me on to this, so I came over to give you a heads up.”
“Does A.R.G.U.S. know who it is?”
“She asked me the same thing. Looks like you have a copycat.”
Oliver took another drink. This time the alcohol tasted bad in his mouth. He made a face and set it down on the table.
Have to remember to pour that out before William wakes up, he thought. “Could it be one of Faust’s operatives? Perhaps someone else Chase has set up for me to deal with?”
Diggle considered both possibilities. “I’d strike the Chase angle just because that psycho already showed he’ll let you know—even from the grave—when he is messing with you.” Diggle shook his head, “Man, that guy.”
Oliver knew exactly what he meant. It was difficult to grasp how meticulously evil Adrian Chase had turned out to be. Keeping secret his identity as Prometheus, while working alongside them as Adrian Chase. Burrowing his way into all aspects of Team Arrow, turning people he, Oliver, had taken under his wing and using them to betray the team. Uncovering his secret son. Even now, dead by his own hand, he still tormented Oliver and Star City.
Adrian Chase was a nightmare in human form. Pure psychotic obsessive evil personified.
“Back on track,” Diggle said. “We’ve gone up against Faust twice now, with the fire at Dearden Tower and then on that ship. He had some muscle working for him, but nobody like this. This guy is completely different. He looks low-key, more like a lone wolf vigilante.”
“You think he’s purposely copying me?”
“Did you not hear the ‘lone wolf vigilante’ part?”
“I’m your friend, and on your team. Trust me, you’re still a lone wolf at your core.”
Oliver said nothing. Even this far in, he still found it tempting at times to default to his original modus operandi. To working alone. Every time he worked with Team Arrow, it took a conscious effort. Being solo had been ground into him during his time on Lian Yu, where he could only rely on himself.
It was more complicated than self-reliance, though. He’d seen too much bloodshed, too many people hurt and killed—too much mourning caused by his mission in life—to be entirely comfortable having other people do what he did.
Even the man sitting next to him.
John Diggle had proven himself a warrior long before Oliver ever met him and brought him into the fold, serving in the army with distinctions for valor in combat. He’d listened to the stories Diggle told late in the night. John had also proven time and again that Oliver could rely on him, trust him with his life and the lives of those he loved. Yet Oliver still had to fight the temptation to cut him out when things got bad.
John had a family, Lyla and John junior. If anything happened to him because Oliver included him in a mission…
The guilt wouldn’t destroy him—his heart was too closed off, too calloused for that—but it would drive him further from his tenuous connection with humanity, push him back over into the killer he always could become again. He was never far from that, really, but if Diggle was killed, he might well embrace it.
Just like Adrian Chase had said.
“—get out there and find him.” Diggle was talking, but he hadn’t been listening.
“I’m sorry, John, what was that?”
Diggle looked at him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Diggle turned his head, giving Oliver the side-eye.
“Really, I’m fine, I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Oliver, you always have a lot on your mind.”
“Then you should be used to it.”
“Was that a joke?”
“May have been,” Oliver replied without changing his expression. “You were saying—”
“I said maybe we should hit the streets, and find this copycat of yours.”
“I agree.”
“Gotta wonder if he might even be a good addition to the team.”
The words made Oliver clench his jaw. “I don’t think so.”
“I’ll admit that what we saw in that footage was pretty brutal,” Diggle pressed, “but really, we’ve both done just as bad. Judging from the reports, this guy took down three armed criminals. That’s impressive by any measure.”
Oliver didn’t say anything in response, but the tension across his shoulders made him shift on the couch. He glanced at the glass of whiskey, but left it where it was.
“The team is fine as it stands,” he said.
“We lost Ragman and Artemis. We could replace them.”
“The team. Is fine.”
“We could always use another shooter.”
“I’ve got you and Rene. Shooters are covered.”
“I’m former military, Oliver, you always need more shooters.”
Oliver gave his friend a hard look.
Diggle raised his hands. “I’m just saying, with this Faust still out there, and the fact that the bad guys just keep coming, we could bring this guy in, see if he’s a match, and then train him if he is. It could be a good thing.”
Oliver forced himself to consider it. “I don’t like the idea,” he said, “but we should find this copycat and see what side he’s on. That may give you your answer.”
Diggle let it stand.
It was as close as he would get to an agreement.