The Archer and The Bird.

(Author's Note: This is the final chapter of Crying Question. There will be lots of ass-kicking in this fic, and general sweetness and romance. This is what Laurel and Oliver should have been the whole time.)

8 Years ago, …

In the week before their first mission together, Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance went deep into the minutiae of their new lives. First on the list of said intricacies was that new members were thought of for addition to this crusade. At first, he was against it wholly. Saving the city was their responsibility, and he was utterly sure he could not find anyone who cared about it as much as they did.

And then he got kidnapped. It galled him after he got free, and was forced to kill his kidnappers to ensure his family remained safe, that he hadn't had enough situational awareness to see the trap closing around him. So, because he knew he needed a set of eyes that would see as his did, he agreed when Walter and his mother said that he needed a bodyguard. All he asked of his mother, Moira, was that he personally review the candidates. The reason he gave her was that the person who would be his personal security would have to spend a lot of time with him, so it should at least be someone who he could have a warm relationship with.

This, of course, was only a small fraction of the reason. The rest of it was down to his night job, because that was just as important to him. He knew the training he was giving Laurel wasn't enough, and he couldn't have lived with himself if she got hurt due to some error he had made. So, one impossibly early morning over Turkish-style coffee rich with cardamom and honey, he pulled out the manila file folders of everyone who had been picked. But before he started to work out who he wanted; he did the only thing he could.

"Laurel? We're going to do this your way. Mind coming over to help me pick out who it should be? I've got coffee, and I think I can make you French toast with caramelized peaches?" he said, a smile on his face at the mere thought of spending more time with his Black Canary.

"Of course, Ollie. We need to find someone who can train us both, and who loves this city like we do. Maybe we should have interviews" she stated confidently.

"We should. But we can't be too specific. And, now that I think about it, we probably shouldn't be talking about this over the phone. Come over. Breakfast will be ready soon" said Oliver, heading over to the stove to get things started.

A few hours later….

Laurel Lance had found it. To be sure, it had taken her 4-and-a-half hours and copious amounts of French toast and that GLORIOUS coffee to do it. Honestly, one day, she was going to use all of her considerable charms to inveigle that coffee recipe out of Ollie and re-purpose it for her needs when she was up all night reading statutes.

Nonetheless, after reading through more dossiers than she ever thought she'd have to, she found it. More to the point, she found him.

"Ollie! I got it. John Thomas Diggle. Three tours with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan, more medals and commendations than we know what to do with, and also…. Lived in Starling City until he enlisted. Lives here now. I think this is our guy" says Laurel confidently, handing the file over to her boyfriend even as she spears a stray bite of French toast from him.

"You know what? This is good. For a bodyguard, this is perfect. But how do we convince him about, you know, the other thing?" Ollie says, wagging his finger no when his girlfriend tries to sneak past his defenses for another bite of his French toast.

"Anyone who serves three tours in the Army, Ollie, knows about duty. They understand it in their bones, and they want to do the right thing. This, saving a city no one really knows is rotten but us, is about as right a thing as you can do" she says, and Oliver Queen begins to see the point.

To do this, it can't be about vengeance. Vengeance, he idly guesses, is like throwing potato chips into a fire. The grease causes the fire to flash hot for a minute, but there's simply not enough mass to have any genuine effect. Instead, a nobility of purpose is what's needed. And despite his money, despite everything he knows he can do and give, removing the putrefaction from his city feels like the best purpose he has ever had.

"Let's call him. I get the sense, though, we're going to need a special trainer for you. Maybe you could hire, I don't know, a personal assistant" Oliver says, the tumblers of his plan dropping together in his mind.

"Who do you have in mind, Mr. Queen?" she says confidently, truly impressed by her boyfriend's quick thinking and razor-sharp intellect.

"I got the chance to meet a few people while I was on the island, and a couple of them said they'd help me with my mission when I told them what it was. One of them was named Talia Raatko, and she's as good a martial artist as I have ever seen. She can train you, and me, up to those standards. I think that could be good for both you, and her" he said, hugging her tight as he simply needs to hold her to remind himself that he's alive and through those dark times.

"Ollie? I know you always worry that somehow, you've become a monster because of what you endured. I can see it in your eyes, the fear you have that this will all be a dream. But it isn't. Everything you went through made you the man you needed to be, the man this city deserves. And just so you know, from this day until you and I both have no more days, I will always love you. Always" said Laurel, snuggling up to him in the Queen Mansion breakfast nook.

And that, as it turned out, was exactly what he needed to hear. Oliver Queen had become a world-class archer, a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, and a top-notch interrogator. Every last one of those skills, however, came at a heavy price. The heaviest of which was his self-esteem and belief in himself. He didn't think of himself as anything other than a monster.

Laurel Lance, though? She saw him as better, as the representation of everything Starling City had once been before her eyes were opened to its true nature. And, if she could do nothing else, she needed to remind him of that.

So that meant the 2nd thing they had to check off was the costuming.

"You and I both want to save the city, Ollie" she said in something of a non-sequitur, although she supposed he knew where she was going with this. "But you can't save it wearing green that's so dark, it's almost like black. You need to be a force for good, a light that people can see even in their darkest times. I think you need to wear the green of emeralds, of growing grass, of the green light that tells people to move forward."

"You know what? I think you're right. The hood I was given on the island, the hood that I will wear to honor those who sacrificed their lives to ensure I could save my city, that was never that bright. But everything else? That can be" he said, already conceptualizing wearing and being something brighter. He knew he'd have to intimidate people, to be a figure of fear to those who thought that their money and resources meant that they didn't have to fear anything. But the everyday citizen? They didn't need to be scared of him. They could sleep at night, knowing someone was looking out for them.

And right at that moment, maybe for the first time since he returned from the island, he felt something like normal.

That Friday….

Ever since their decision, they had and prepared for every contingency. After bringing John Diggle in, aided by a trip to a local Tunisian restaurant that had treated him with superlative kindness, they asked him to be their armorer and quartermaster, a job he took on with tremendous skill. Mr. Diggle had even made their uniforms, tailoring them to both carry their hand-to-hand weapons and to be as resistant to blades and bullets as the technology of the time indicated they could be.

When Talia Raatko arrived, having created a perfect cover identity as a recent émigré from Morocco who was only all too eager to work in the field of law, Laurel's fight training and skills rocketed into form. Soon, she was an equal of her teacher herself.

Despite all of that, the previous day, Oliver and Laurel had thought about not wanting to have to do this. Raiding someone's office and setting them up to be arrested by the FBI and INTERPOL was not something they took lightly. So, before they did anything, they grabbed Adam Hunt out of his limo and attempted to make him see the error of his ways. They told him to return the money he had stolen, and give over his buildings to people in the city who could use them to get a 2nd chance. He told them to go fuck themselves.

Well then, that pretty much left only one decision. They were going hunting. And they told him as such, and that they'd come back to take his money and return it to those who needed it.

So, at precisely 9:45 PM, Oliver Jonas Queen and Dinah Laurel Lance shared one last intense kiss at the welcome-back party Tommy had thrown for them before sneaking into an out-of-the-way alcove and getting changed. Oliver into an emerald-green Kevlar vest with a quiver of 36 emerald-green arrows, and green leather pants upon which all of his flechettes were placed in bandoliers. Meanwhile, Laurel dressed in a blonde wig, black Kevlar tank top, and bare legs covered by what appeared to be Kevlar fishnets. Oliver loved this look on her, but now was absolutely not the time for that. Work had to be done.

Despite knowing what was likely to happen, they both hoped. Nonetheless, at 2 minutes to 10, they checked their phones and groaned when they realized the money had not been returned.

So, at precisely 10 PM, the Green Arrow and the Black Canary snuck into the garage of Adam Hunt's high rise and got to work dealing with the security. Laurel dispatched her targets with well-timed blows with a polished wooden staff, and flurries of kicks and elbows. Oliver, for his part, landed devastating punches and arrows in non-lethal areas that would still hurt like hell. He knew Laurel would hate him with the fire of a thousand suns if he killed, but she didn't say a single word about making every thug in the city fear seeing him coming.

Eventually, they made it to the penthouse. They had run on adrenaline and the sort of simpatico thinking that comes with having been romantically linked with each other since they were teenagers. But here, at the top floor, the true scope of what they were doing dawned on them. Because as they waited inside the elevator, John Diggle used the cameras he had installed in their uniforms to inform them that they were about to plunge headlong into two regiments of disgraced members of the elite Egyptian counter-terrorism unit known as Unit 999. This would prove to be a problem.

But, as they kissed one last time with as much fear in it as love, they cut through those units with arrows, and high-level hand-to-hand combat. Finally, there they stood. Behind them, two regiments of elite Egyptian special forces lay staggered, beaten, and useless. In front, a terrified Adam Hunt. Nodding her head, Laurel watched as Oliver fired an arrow into the wall right behind Adam Hunt's head.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Hunt. In about 15 minutes, the FBI and INTERPOL will be walking through that door. Please feel free to explain to them where you got the money to hire these soldiers, all ejected from Unit 999 of the Egyptian Army for taking bribes and conduct unbecoming an officer. We told you we would take your money, and you wouldn't like how. This is how" smirked Laurel, before both she and Oliver flew out on a grappling arrow he had fired to a nearby building.

Once they got down, they smiled. This was what they knew they needed to do. They would be together the whole time. No one, no person, could pry them apart.