Safe Haven

Part One: Strange New World

Roy Harper has seen a lot in his life, but never anything like the sight before him. He entered the complex expecting to find a beaten, broken prisoner, but instead he finds the man he was sent to exfiltrate strapped to a horrific-looking chair in the middle of the room. It's hard to tell anything about the man under the long hair and beard, but Roy doesn't think it looks like he's breathing.

Which, if this guy is as good as they think he is, that is the worst possible scenario if the Underground is going to win this war.

"Third floor: body chains, torture devices," he mutters to himself as the small lift pulls to a halt, and he drops the duffle bag on the floor as he moves forward. The cells in the back don't look too good, either, and the machine attached to the chair still buzzes with energy. One look tells him that it's the ominous purple glow of Dark Eco, and that is definitely not good. Now he knows why the guy is so important; he's been selected for the Dark Warrior program, and Slade only finds the best for that.

But if they've already injected him, he's also probably dead because Slade's program also has no survivors.

Roy jams his fingers to the guy's pulse point, surprised to find a faint throbbing against the pad of his fingers. "You're a tough one," he can't help but note. "Everyone else Slade's pumped full of that poison is dead. You should probably be dead. Or at least insane, which could still be the case." He rolls the prisoner's head over to one side to get a better look at him, and Roy is surprised to find two blue eyes staring up at him.

The guy instantly struggles against the metal restraints holding him in the chair, and Roy holds his hands up. "Easy, big guy, I'm here to get you out. My name is Roy—I'm with the Underground fighting against Slade." He turns to the control panel, afraid to touch the buttons but unsure how else to get him out. Maybe he should have learned Russian after all; it would be useful in reading the print on the machine. "Now I just have to see how to get you out of that thing."

Instead of answering, suddenly the restraints break, and the prisoner's eyes are jet black now—no pupil, no iris, no white space; the entirety of both eyes go black. "Or, you know, you could do it," Roy adds as an afterthought. He watches slowly as the clearly-not-completely-normal prisoner's eyes turn normal again, and then swallows. "Okay, remind me not to piss you off."

His first words to Roy are a declarative announcement of five words, clear despite the rasp in his voice: "I'm going to kill Slade."

Simple, declarative, and to the point—Roy can work with that. At least he's not some sort of mute; Roy doesn't like to be the only one doing the talking. "I'm okay with that," he answers slowly. Then he takes the duffle from the lift and tosses it to him. "I think you're gonna need some new clothes—you can't run around Starling City in a prison uniform, unless you want to wind up back here." He hesitates. "You have a name, right?"

"Oliver," he answers. He doesn't offer a surname, instead focusing on trading out raggedy, prison uniform shirt for the new gray sweater in the bag. The action exposes a myriad of scars across his back, probably from Slade's hospitality.

Roy goes over to the computer terminal to mine any further data from the systems, only to find it locked. He reminds himself to do the one computer thing he knows so that their resident expert can access the files later, and by that point Oliver is ready to go, looking for all the world like just another Starling City resident.

"Come on, Tall-Dark-and-Gruesome," Roy says finally. "Let's get you out of here so you can go meet the rest of the happy family."

***

Oliver Queen watches the boy little older than his sister charge ahead of him, discussing what's changed in Starling City over the past five years, when Oliver was in his own personal Hell. Roy Harper has a sardonic sense of humor, forged by the oppression of Slade and his regime. Vaguely, Oliver wonders if the changes in Starling since their parents were killed have hardened Thea, too. Then he wonders if she's still alive. Then he wonders about his friend, and he decides it's not a good idea to let his mind wander of life and death.