When you disappear for four years you expect things to change, Oliver Queen just didn't realize how much it could change. Even though this has happened to him before. So at least he has a clue, right?
If only Black Canary hadn't gone missing wi...
Oliver zetad to Star City. It was home turf. A home he hadn't seen in four years. He needed to see it, just to prove that something was the same. It was also a likely place to be able to find at least one of his kids. When he had left, it had been Mia living there as a part-time college freshman, part-time superhero, Arrowette.
She was probably the one he had messed up the least while teaching her. But that bar was pretty low considering he had:
-Lost the first one to Luthor and Cadmus
-Believed he had found Roy and raised his clone instead
-Not noticed Roy was a clone for three years
-Not found the original for eight years (and Roy was the one who actually found and rescued him)
-Let Roy become obsessive over finding the original
-Letting Roy, the original one, stew in anger (leading to the endangerment of the Team)
-[Batman had nearly had his head for that one]
-Artemis faking her own death
-Roy marrying an assassin
Yep.
The bar was low.
He just hoped Mia was still in town.
He found the nearest of the safe houses used by the Arrows. The fact that it was clearly still in use meant someone was still in town. He used the computer to find Mia's current residence. As it turned out, it was the same place he and Dinah had helped her move into four years ago. Time to go reveal that he wasn't dead.
The car parked out front was different than it had been four years ago. She had insisted in paying for her own car, rather than let Oliver and Dinah give her one. It had been a old blue Buick. That beat up old thing had clearly been replaced by a newer Toyota. It was clearly Mia's, who else would hang a red bow and arrow from the mirror? Chuckling that she still had that old thing, a gift for passing her drivers test, Oliver made his way up to his daughter's apartment.
He could hear music emanating from the apartment, hopefully that was a sign she was home. He nocked on the door, and he could hear someone getting up to get the door. The lock could be heard, scraping back, and the door opened to reveal a woman with blond hair pulled up in a ponytail, who said, "Hello?"
Then she realized who was standing on her doorstep, her blue eyes widening in shock, and Mia cried out, "Ollie?!"
Oliver smirked, "Hello Mia."
She gapped at him, "Your alive?! How are you alive?! We all thought you were dead! Where on Earth have you been?!"
"Not on Earth, obviously. And should your neighbors really be hearing this, kid?" he asked her.
She smacked her hand to her forehead, muttering "You idiot," to herself, and then to Oliver, "Get in here."
He entered the apartment, and Mia closed the door behind him. Then she turned to him, threw her arms around him, saying, "God I missed you, Dad." Then asking, "Who else knows you're alive?"
He sighed "Only part of the League. I was rescued earlier today."
Her face contorted in fury as she said, "And clearly no one thought the Roys, Artemis, or I should know that our dad was alive!" She raged over to her computer, probably to complain to the League, or possible to e-mail her siblings.
"Mia"
Her head jerked towards him, "What, Dad?"
"Where's Dinah?"
Her hands froze, mid-type. She gave him a look, somewhere between nervousness and sadness. "Dad", she began. "She left."
He gave her a look of complete confusion. "Why?"
Mia bit her lip, a nervous habit of hers'. She sighed lightly, looking him straight in the eye as she said, dejectedly, "We don't know."
She turned back to her computer, leaving him to stew in his thoughts. And stew he did.
How? That was his main question, that and why? Why had she left everything behind? How had she left it all behind, being a hero, being part of their family?
"Done."
He glanced at her as she triumphantly said, "I sent a notice to everyone in the family. I even managed to get one to the one-armed git who thinks, incorrectly of course, that he isn't part of this family."
"How'd your track him down?" he asked her.
In response, she shrugged, "I tracked him down, oh about two years back. I didn't let him disappear again. Also, despite his response of 'Why should I care that the old jerk is back?', I'm confident that he'll show up. He cares, in spite what he says." With that she went back to her computer, probably sending that rant to the JLA now.
Oliver raised an eyebrow at her. He didn't doubt that she had contact with 'the one armed git', as she had so elegantly put it. But him actually showing up, not likely.
He continued to ponder the differences, yet similarities of his kids. What a crazy bunch. A one-armed, former archer with a gun disguised as a arm. A clone of the first with anger issues, and an assassin for a wife. The younger sister of the assassin, with a con and a ex-con as parents, who was married to a speedster. And a former street kid, who somehow held the entire family together, well almost the entire family.
He was saved from that train of thought by the knock on the door. Mia shot up, "That's probably Roy." She flung open the door, to reveal an irritated Roy Harper holding the hand of a little girl.
"What is so terribly important that I had to come this instant?" he demanded. "I need to drop off Lian at her friends, so what is so terribly important?"
Mia pointed. Roy looked at who she was pointing at, and his jaw dropped."Ollie?!"
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