The Hood and Athena: An Arrow: Season 2 Fanfiction

Prologue

The grief hit me not long after the Undertaking. I began to have nightmares, and I was scared - constantly. Oliver Queen, my brother, had taken on the mantle of the Hood, or the Arrow, but he, too, was grief-stricken at Tommy Merlyn's death, and so he left, retreating to Lian Yu. I didn't blame him. Not for a damn thing. He felt guilty for Tommy's death, for not saving everyone. I remember I tried to convince him that he couldn't have saved everyone, not at the rate that the city was falling down. 

He blamed himself for not protecting Felicity when she elected to stay behind and help deactivate the device. 

He blamed himself for Diggle getting hurt by the Dark Archer. 

He blamed himself for Tommy's death. 

He blamed himself for the countless thousands of residents who lived in the Glades dying as a result of the Undertaking. 

I guess it's a lot for a leader to take on. The guilt, the pain, the weight of several thousand souls depending on you every night to take down the city. But as Oliver's sister, as Athena, I felt that weight too. I think we all did, trying to save the city that night. But it was the night that we truly became a team, that we relied on each other to save as many people as we can, to defeat the Dark Archer and to save the Glades from the Undertaking. Most importantly, to bring justice to those who would do harm to our city. 

The people on the list. 

Malcolm Merlyn. 

Unidac Industries. 

And my mother, Moira Queen.

I never thought in a million years that my mother could be capable of collaborating in such an act as the Undertaking. I convinced myself in the early days of finding out, that it wasn't real, that she would tuck me into bed again and smile and stroke my hair, that we could go back to the way everything was. That we could go back to the way things used to be. 

But they can't. 

And I have to keep going forward. 

For our team. 

For the city. 

Because I am Evelyn Queen. 

Because I am... Athena.