Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow or anything associated with it.

A/N: I seem to like taking vigilantes and sending them through the ringer just to explore some of the darker crevices in their characters. So what started as a shameless hurt/comfort story has now turned into an exploration into Oliver Queen. And also a bit of a glance at the relationship he has with the amorous John Diggle. I hope you enjoy reading this exposition as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Cheers, Laatija

The Most Dangerous Thing

He didn't fall.

He never fell.

It was impossible.

Or at the very least improbable.

He always caught himself. He flowed with the environment. It didn't matter if he was stalking evil men from treetops or catwalks, he was always able to traverse any space because he was quick. Not just his body but his mind. He was able to see the obstacles and glide over or around or under or through them. He paid attention. Not just to what was in front but what was beside and behind and whatever might possibly be around the corner. That's how he could send arrows with such breathtaking accuracy. It was almost as if he could will the arrows to fly true. But really? He just paid attention. Because if you didn't, if you fell, you were dead.

And so he never fell.

Well, ok. He never fell when he was under normal heart pounding, bullets flying, anti-light circumstances. He never fell when he could help it.

So when his forearm suddenly decided to impersonate a wet noodle, Oliver wasn't quite as prepared as he thought he was. It was mid-swing. Normally, his speed and weight would have carried him across the gap between chemical tanks with ease. He would land on his feet and use his momentum to keep running down the scaffolding after the environmental terrorist who was hell bent on destroying the factory. The exact details behind the reason for him to be dangling were rather insignificant, however, as he was suddenly not flying neatly through the air as planned but rather falling awkwardly between two very tall chemical tanks.

Oliver wasn't exactly aware of what happened precisely but the next thing he was fully conscious of was not being able to breathe. He was flat on his back on the factory floor, staring up at the rapidly disappearing eco-terrorist as the man fled. Oliver worked his mouth, trying to pull in a lungful of air but his chest seemed to stop working.

For one very brief moment that seemed to last like an eternity, Oliver panicked. He thrashed. His eyes were as big as golf balls. His mouth was agape.

What he was not aware of was the smooth cold stone-hard floor that was unyielding. He did not notice the sickly yellow pall cast over the factory from the caged incandescent light bulbs high up on the walls. He didn't notice the shadows that blotted out parts of his body. Nor did he notice the smell that was vaguely similar to the time he put Tommy's tamagotchi in the microwave just to see what would happen when they were teens.

All he was terribly aware of was the feeling that something had squashed his chest into a pancake.

And then he was coughing. His body had reset itself and he was taking great big gulps of air and coughing them back out again. After a few seconds, the coughing subsided and Oliver settled into a ragged sort of breathing.

Damn. He felt like hell.

And just a little bit embarrassed.

Get up, Queen. Go get the bad guy...

Oliver rolled onto his side and drew his limbs under him. And then immediately regretted the action as a fresh new hell rolled up from the direction of his left thigh. Instead of screaming, he sort of curled into himself – forehead pressed to the floor, his body half propped up on his forearms and right knee. His left leg he let hang limply because that seemed to cause the least amount of pain.

A groan of pain spread out across the concrete.

Gingerly, Oliver managed to get onto his rump. He gently fingered the source of his agony and his stomach nearly did a summersault.

The Archer was here.

He had an arrow in his thigh because the Archer had shot him.

Oliver instinctively reached for his bow but his fingers closed on thin air. His bow was gone. And his arrows. And...

Oliver stopped panicking.

His bow was five feet away. His arrows were all over the floor. He'd landed on one. He knew this very clearly now because of the bloody arrowhead that was poking out of his thigh, cutting through the meaty part. Definitely one of his.

For a second, Oliver just stared at it. The feeling of stupid was mounting.

And then something else caught his attention. Quite suddenly, the details of his being in the factory were alarmingly important.

There was a bomb strapped to the base of the nearest chemical tank. He'd never have found it if he hadn't fallen. Later, he'd use the bomb as his reason for suddenly plummeting twenty feet down mid- pursuit. But for now, he was lashing himself into action.

Oliver half lunged, half flopped to the bomb. It was a simply made thing but he didn't know much about disarming bombs. Or so his potentially concussed head insisted. But he could tell that it wasn't that much C-4. If he could separate bomb from chemicals, the outcome would be drastically better.

Within a moment, Oliver had a knife out and was carefully sawing through the strap that held the bomb in place. He had all of twenty-three seconds.

The bomb was liberated.

Twenty-one.

Oliver was lurching down the floor of the factory, bomb in hand, left leg dragging a little.

Fifteen.

Oliver was at the basement steps. He stumbled down the steps, tripping on the fifth one.

Eleven.

Oliver was forcing himself upwards. His leg gave out. Up again. Lunging for the closet.

Five.

Bomb inside.

Four.

Door shut.

Three.

Turn.

Two.

Run.

One.

Oliver flew across the basement as the door of the closet careened outward on a concussive ball of air and fire and various cleaning supplies. Flaming rolls of toilet paper rained down. He managed to hold onto the breath in his lungs this time around but his ears didn't fair quite as well. They were ringing. It was incredibly disorientating. Not to mention indicative of something a little more startling.

Oliver stood up and immediately toppled sideways.

The room was spun around and around. He felt like he was falling despite the firm concrete beneath him.

His inner ear balance was shot.

As alarming as the realization was, Oliver had a hard time wrapping his mind around it. His concentration kept slipping away from...everything.

There was...smoke? Fire. There was fire spreading. Damn his ears were ringing so loudly! Mother fu— Where did the arrow in his leg go?! Owowowowowowow... Diggle was going to have his head. Get up. That's not ringing. The smoke was super thick now. Or was it because he still couldn't breathe properly? Was the basement collapsing? It felt like someone had dumped a bottle of fire ants into his thigh.

That's not ringing.

Sirens.

Go.

Move.

Run.

With a great deal of effort, Oliver forced himself to stand. His knees buckled and the world tilted and he ended up on his side. A few feet closer to the wall. He repeated the action. Standing and falling. He did it one more time and this time, he managed to fall into the wall. It held him upright. With nearly all of his right side already smashed against it, Oliver pressed both of his hands on the wall and slid down its length, just barely keeping his body parallel with it.

By the time he rounded the corner, some semblance of balance had returned and the ringing was completely gone. Oliver moved a little faster, only one hand on the wall now. He had one goal only: get out. Everything else could be dealt with as soon as he was free and clear of the police that were surely arriving on scene by now.

When grilled by Diggle about it later, Oliver couldn't give an exact account of how he was able to make it out of the factory. The important thing to note was that he had, in fact, made it out. Not only did he make it out but he made it a full block away from all the flashing lights before he collapsed on the roof of some nameless building.

The adrenaline was quickly vanishing, reducing him to a quivering mess of pulled muscles, flash burns, and deep tissue bruises. Not to mention the gaping trench in his thigh. The arrow had gone missing. Or rather, at some point during the explosion, the arrow had been forcibly separated from him. When he closed his eyes, he could picture it getting caught on something and ripping away from his flesh while he was catapulted forwards.

It made his stomach roll a few times.

Oliver balled his hands into fists and pressed them against the ridges of his eye sockets. He took few deep and calculated breathes, trying to gather his wits again.

Call Diggle.

That was the thing to do in these situations.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and immediately made a face as his fingers slipped around the space where his phone currently wasn't. No calling Diggle, then. Guess that meant he had to hoof it back to his bike. And balance on the speeding death trap. While concussed. With an inner ear balance thing going on.

He decided to walk.

The club wasn't too far away. Just a handful of miles. Or so. Wait. Damn it! No that was the other factory from yesterday. This one was practically outside of the city. He was almost closer to farm country then he was to the club.

Damn damn damn...

Oliver stood up as straight as he could manage and did a slow three-sixty turn, trying to figure out exactly where he was. If the sun had been shining, he could at least move in the right direction. But, as it was, his head was simply too fuddled to go on instinct alone. It wasn't like he had the stars to follow like he did on the island.

Oliver shuddered involuntarily.

He put his hands on his hips and closed his eyes. Drew in a slow deep breath. Calmed his thrashing heart. Another slow deep breath.

With a considerable amount of renewed concentration, Oliver looked around again. If the factory was behind him and the sky scrapers were clustered in front and slightly to the right, his bat cave would sort of be between the two points. He turned ninety degrees and stared at the city as it unfolded before him. It was a start. Now he just had to work up the motivation...

Oliver took off his hooded jacket. As cold as it was out here, he'd rather be chilled then pegged as Arrow in his current sorry state. He wiped off the green oil paint which was easier said than done. This was the stuff that stayed with you. Military grade camo paint. And also dirt and soot and was that blood? Yes. Yes, he was bleeding. Fantastic.

When his face was relatively flesh toned again, Oliver climbed down from the rooftop and started the long walk back to the club. He was painfully aware of just how awful he looked but he was banking on the fact that it was nearly 4am and he wobbled around like a drunk person. Hopefully, no one would question his apparent inebriated state. And if they did? Oliver figured he was concussed enough to work up a little vomit to sell the charade. No one liked to question a man who was spewing vomit in ones general direction. Even if that man was Oliver Queen

And so, Oliver hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets and limped away. He must have been limping for hours but he wasn't exactly aware of the passing of time. Oliver had plugged into his survival mode. His body was full of ache and pain but he didn't let it overwhelm his senses. After a point, you just sort of coexisted with the pain. It did its thing and you did yours and eventually you found a nice balance where you aggravated it as little as possible and it let you function with some remote sense of normalcy. While he didn't notice the city blocks that crawled past him or the wind that chilled him to the bone or the overall weariness that clung to him like mud, he did notice every single thug hiding in the shadows and every drunken vagrant peering at him over bagged bottles of whiskey. He noticed the cough from down the street and the hoots of laughter around the corner and the very distant sound of glass being broken. He was keenly aware of each and every car that passed and doubly aware of the one that slowed down to a crawl to get a good long at his limping form before it squealed away.

He was also very conscious of the amount of strength he could muster. If he was careful, he could expend just the right amount of energy taking down the very large black man following him at a distance and still have enough energy to face off with the black man's friends who were surely waiting in the alley half a block in front of him.

But he wasn't attacked as he passed the alley. The black man had stopped following him. And he moved on to the next potential danger.

In this manner, Oliver made it back to his safe house.

Safe house.

Safety.

He didn't have to put on a mask here. He didn't need to pretend. He didn't have to keep moving anymore. He could sit and nurse his hurts. He could give his pain the attention it demanded.

As soon as he locked the door behind him, Oliver released his death grip on survival mode. The hyper awareness melted away and he slumped down against the door because sitting was suddenly a very good idea. He closed his eyes...

"Oliver!"

Diggle heard the back door open and close and he visibly relaxed. Oliver was supposed to be back over two hours ago. Something must have gone horribly wrong. So when five minutes passed and Oliver hadn't appeared in the main room, Diggle went looking for him. For the second time that night.

He found Queen sitting on the floor, just inside the door.

Diggle ran.

"Oliver!"

The younger man jerked back into awareness. First alarm crossed his face and then confusion and finally resignation.

"Diggle..."

John was down on one knee at Oliver's side. "Come on, man, let's get you inside," he said, gingerly taking Oliver by the arm and hauling him to his feet.

Oliver winced and released a slow controlled hiss. "I'm fine, Diggle. I can walk," he insisted.

John didn't let go until Oliver was firmly on his own two feet. And then he hovered until Oliver was leaning against the computer table. The man was a mess. He looked like he'd been dragged behind a car for the past two hours.

"What happened?" John snapped.

"I lost my phone."

"What took so long?"

"I...lost my bike. I had to walk back."

"Oliver..."

"I'm fine, Diggle. Really," Oliver insisted with a smile.

Diggle watched as the mask of pride slide down over Oliver's face. He shook his head. The kid was clearly not fine and it was disturbing how easily Oliver put on that cool smile. It probably wouldn't have fooled anyone if they didn't so desperately want him to be ok. That smile was a gift to his loved ones. It was the billionaire saying that it was ok not to worry. It was ok not to care in that messy sort of way. But that smile also had a much more selfish purpose. Pride. He didn't like being vulnerable. He didn't like pity. Oliver wanted to be the strong one, not the human one.

"Sit down, Oliver," Diggle ordered, pointing to the examination table that they bought for just this reason.

"Diggle—"

"Don't make me drug you. Because you know I will." Diggle glared hard at the younger man and was mildly alarmed at how quickly Oliver backed down. The kid was really hurting.

Oliver moved with a sort of heaviness that was very unlike him. He eased onto the table and sort of melted down into a lump of a posture, not quite willing to actually lie down just yet. He twisted around and reached to the side table, hand stretched out for the half empty bottle of Gatorade that was sitting there from this morning's workout. He froze just inches from the bottle, eyes closed, jaw clenching and unclenching in an effort to control the agonized groan that pooled in the back of his throat.

John frowned. He grabbed the bottle and handed it to Oliver.

"Thank you," Oliver breathed. He downed the rest of the liquid inside the bottle in one long gulping drink.

"What really happened?" Diggle asked as he produced the first aid kit from the supply shelf and snapped on a pair of surgical gloves.

"I found a bomb," Oliver said cryptically. "It exploded. But not as badly as it would have if I hadn't found it." Oliver hadn't been looking at him before but now he held Diggle's scrutinizing gaze as if to say 'don't push it'.

"Anyone else get hurt?" Diggle asked. "Take your shirt off."

"I don't think so but I didn't stick around to find out." Oliver started to pull his dirty white tee-shirt off and paused with it halfway over his head. John could see his torso trembling and almost reached out to help him but then Oliver quickly whisked it off and let the shirt drop to the floor. His face was a little paler then before.

"The eco-guy?" Diggle asked as he took in deep bruises covering Oliver's back. It sort of looked like someone very heavy had sat on him.

"Gone," Oliver said flatly. He suddenly became very interested in his index finger which was turning a fantastic shade of purple.

"What the hell happened to your leg?" Diggle asked, prodding the skin around the ravaged flesh. "Looks like someone took a chunk out of you."

"No, I don't think there're any chunks missing..." Oliver said in a voice that was tight with pain. "Damn it, Dig! Stop poking it!"

"This is bad, Oliver. I need to stitch this up." He dug around for one of the syringes that was loaded with a local anesthetic that would kill all the feeling in his leg for a while. "I have something to numb it here..."

"No, I'm fine. Just do it," Oliver insisted.

Diggle glared. "It's not gonna feel any better if I don't."

"Just do it, Dig. I'll be fine."

"Cut the stoic crap, Oliver. I can't make clean stitches if you're twitching every time I put a needle through your skin. I'm just going to do a local, alright?"

Oliver glared at him in that tight lipped 'this is really not ok' sort of way. But then he nodded. "Fine," he snapped.

Diggle produced the syringe and jabbed it unceremoniously into Oliver's thigh.

Oliver winced. And then he sort of softened. Some of the hard lines smoothed out of his face. "You sure...you sure that was a local anti—ani—anesthetic?" he slurred.

"Huh. Looks like that was morphine. Oops," Diggle said, deadpan. He didn't sound sorry because he wasn't. Queen would be pissed later but that would be fine because Diggle could see the clear difference the painkiller was making.

Oliver suddenly fixed Diggle with a very raw and frantic stare. Fear burned brightly in his eyes.

In that one look, Diggle was firmly reminded of where exactly Oliver Queen had been for the past five years.

In hell.

In a place where you had to hold on so desperately to your wits that you would suffer any amount of pain to remain lucid. Because if you didn't, you were dead. Because, most of the time, you didn't have a choice between pain and not pain. Most of the time, the creatures – the evil men – lurking in the shadows, were just waiting for one small slip of the mind that they could turn into the worst kind of destruction. Danger danger danger.

And as quick as it had come, the frantic fear was gone. Buried under the face of the lovable, easy going, controlled Oliver Queen.

"Relax, Oliver," Diggle said quietly.

The vigilante nodded dumbly. He finally laid down and closed his eyes – a signal of submission on any lesser man. For Oliver, it was a show of trust.

In silence, Diggle washed out the arrow wound and made a neat little row of stitches. He thought Oliver had fallen asleep as he moved on to take care of the other burns and cuts so it came as a surprise when Oliver spoke again.

"Thanks, Dig," he murmured.

"You're welcome, Oliver," John replied. And then, because these sorts of comments could always turn awkward, he gave Oliver a basic sort of plan. "You can sleep for a while here but then I'll take you home. Say you were in a bar fight or something. No cops were involved. Both of you were drunk."

Oliver, his eyes still closed, nodded . "...'kay."

"I'm going to ask Thea to wake you up every couple of hours. We need to make sure you don't have a serious concussion," Diggle continued.

Oliver wrinkled his nose a little at the mention of his sister waking him up but he nodded again. "Kay."

Diggle put a gentle hand on Oliver's shoulder. "I'm gonna go get some ice packs for your back. I'll be right back."

Again, Oliver nodded. "Thanks," he repeated. The word was steeped with gratitude but slurred with exhaustion.

"That's what I'm here for, man," Diggle said.

As he listened to the sound of Diggle walking away, Oliver felt more relaxed then he had in a while. It was probably just the morphine. But it was also, in some significant part, because of this...this safety that he'd found. Oliver was suddenly very aware that he wasn't alone in anymore. On the island, even with his cryptic archer friend, he was so very alone. Ultimately, he had to survive on his own. He couldn't fall because there was no guarantee that anyone would be able to pick him back up. Mistakes ended in disaster.

But not so here. Here he had help.

Here he had a home to crawl back to. There was a loving family waiting with warm hugs and good food. He had a hand to reach down and pull him up and set him on his feet again. A lifeline. A safety net. A reason not to be quite so quick and exhaustingly unstoppable.

He had to be careful.

A vigilante could get used to this.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

But for now, today, he would let himself accept it – the safety. Because sometimes you were just too weak not to.

And sometimes that was ok.

Oliver heaved a heavy sigh and settled into the deep sleep of exhaustion.