Burned, torn and frayed

Chapter 7 - Oliver

When he entered the lair, Oliver could already hear his dummy being pummeled by a heavy breathing Diggle. He walked down the stair and there he was, his bodyguard, punching the hell out of his wooden opponent.

"Rottate your hips Diggle! That's where the power comes from! Not just your arms even if they're... the sizes of bowling balls. Laurel reached out to the Hood last night"

"Really? I thought the vigilante spooked her pretty well last time"

"She thinks somebody's killing firemen," he said, handing the file he had to Diggle

"It looks all in the job, seems pretty thin"

"We look into it?"

"Yeah" the bodyguard agreed "I have a friend who has a friend in the fire investigation department. I'll reach out"

"If you get any leads, tip the police," said Oliver as he closed the casket he had placed his hood in. However, he felt his acolyte hesitate at his words

"The police?" he asked

Oliver sighed and turned toward his friend "They just need something to jumpstart them"

"Wasn't the whole idea of being a vigilante is that you do the police's job?" he asked rhetorically "You know Oliver, you've been spending a lot of time around here lately. I thought after six weeks, you'd be anxious to hood up. Hell, I even prepared the "you got to slow down" speech"

At that moment, they heard a voice yelling something like "Where is everybody?". The men shared an intrigued look and Oliver straightened up from the table he was leaning on

"Let me see what's going on upstairs in the club," he said

When he exited the secret passage, he recognized the voice as Tommy's, saying "There's supposed to be a delivery this morning, and another this afternoon and I see nobody ready to work. If we don't see any progress here in the next week, we'll bring someone else in, is that clear?"

When Oliver arrived behind his general manager, he made his presence know by saying "You know, I do realize that it's difficult for you to manage my night club what with there not being an actual nightclub here"

As the contractor quickly bailed, probably now that he was faced with not one but the two head of the construction he was supposed to do, Tommy turned around

"Yeah, I just took the liberty of yelling at our contractor, I told him that if we didn't see any real progress, we were going to bring someone else in to finish the job"

"Good" was all Oliver found to say, walking toward the table where the plan was unfolded "How's Laurel friend, the one who's brother was a fireman?"

"She's hanging in there, thanks. I have something I want to bring up. I was thinking that we could throw a fundraiser for the fire department. Raise some money for the families"

"That's a great idea," said Oliver, 

"We could do it here. Keep the overhead low. Make sure we maximize the proceeds to the firemen"

Oliver found that pretty amusing. Not about the idea, but the fact that it was Tommy who was giving it

"Who are you?" he playfully asked as he turned around "Where's my friend Tommy Merlin? the guy who once rented out a pro football stadium so that he could play strip kickball with models?"

Tommy smiled at the memory, and probably at how ridiculous that idea had been "That guy needed a swift kick in his lazy ass"