Hey everyone! This is my first ever Olicity fic! Inspired by a prompt I saw on tumblr where Lance questions why the Arrow killed the Count. I hope you guys like it! Let me know what you think!

He had heard the call on the police radio and almost couldn't believe what he had heard. He must have misheard or the investigators were wrong. He would probably get arrested if he went to investigate, but he had to see for himself, he had to know that the reports were wrong. He put the keys in the ignition of the police car and put his lights on, to hell with speed limits.

The two miles it took to reach the Queen Consolidated building was some of the fastest driving he had done in his entire police career but it still felt like an eternity before he reached the oversized building. Police cars surrounded the area directly outside, crime scene tape circled around a bright yellow car parallel parked next to the building and he was forced to park across from the scene. He stepped out of the car, surveying the area in front of him as he often did when he was on a case before walking towards the yellow crime scene tape. It was a mess to say the least: the car had been smashed by something, or more accurately, someone who was currently lying on top of the car, glass had scatter the streets and a glance up told him it was probably the broken window on one of the upper floors of the building. He would have simply assumed it had been a suicide had it not been for the three arrows protruding from the victim's chest, confirming any suspicion of who the culprit was. So much for trying something new he thought with a sinking feeling.

"Lance," he heard his name and turned to his right where the voice had come from, "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" The stern voice of his superior officer interrupted his thoughts.

"I heard the call on the radio and came to see if I could help." It wasn't an outright lie. He had heard the call, but his desire to be here stemmed from wanting to be proven wrong about the vigilante; to believe that he had not actually placed his trust in the wrong side of the law. The scene in front of him seemed to say otherwise.

"Do you honestly think that I would let you work this case? After what happened last time?" The man looked incredulous. "You were working with this guy Quentin, how am I supposed to believe that you won't sabotage evidence when my back is turned?" Lance glanced at the crime scene, seeing the man sprawled on top of the car, the arrows buried in his chest. How had he ever thought that this guy was a hero, someone worth defending him? A small voice in the back of his mind told him that there was probably a reason behind it, but a larger part was reminding him that this wasn't the first time he had ever killed. It was only the first time since he had said he was done with killing.

"Look, I don't expect you to trust me, but let me at least talk to the witnesses. You can be there the whole time and…" He started.

"Out of the question Lance" His supervisor interrupted, "And if you continue to push me I will arrest you for obstruction, again. Or do I need to remind you of the dollmaker case?" The sternness in his voice told Lance he was serious and he didn't need another arrest under his belt. He was dangerously close to losing his job as it was, it was better not to risk it at all. Of course working with the vigilante was jeopardizing his role as a police officer but that hadn't stopped him yet.

He put his arms up in surrender, complying with his boss's wishes, "Alright, I'll back off."

"Good, now go home, get some rest. I'll see you in the office tomorrow." The man turned and headed towards the crime scene, barking orders to the crime unit currently analyzing the scene. He took another moment to scan the scene: the man in question who he finally recognized as the man who had threatened the D.A. before the vigilante had stepped in. Count Vertigo, the drug lord who had plagued the city with the addictive substance for almost a year. A small part of him held no remorse for the man, but a larger portion was angry that he, like many others, was not facing the real justice system, but some other person's twisted version.

He turned around, heading back to his squad car, but not before noticing a flash of blonde being escorted out of the Queen Consolidated building. He thought nothing of it as he got in his car and headed home. The only thing he could think of was that whatever hero the vigilante had tried to be, that man was gone now.

He stood on the rooftop of the building where he always met the vigilante when they needed to discuss something. Silently waiting and wondering if it had been a mistake to not alert the police of the meeting. He obviously was not the hero he had claimed to be a few days earlier, letting true justice run its course instead of taking the law into his own hands. But Lance couldn't shake the feeling that something about this instance had been different, that there was some reason behind the death of the psychotic drug lord.

"I wasn't sure you would come." He heard the deep voice behind him and turned abruptly. How the hell did he manage to sneak up on people like that?

"Well I'm here aren't I?" He replied impatiently. The longer he spent up here the worse he felt about it, like he was somehow betraying his duty as a cop by being with a man that seemed to support everything he was against.

"I need to talk to you about Sebastian Blood." He said, clearly ignoring any hostility that Lance might have had for him.

"The alderman? What do you want to do? Find his location so you can kill him like you did the Count?" He asked bitterly, noting the way the vigilante's fists clenched at the mention of the count, apparently he had struck a nerve. Not wanting to quit while he was ahead, Lance continued, "What happened? I thought you were trying something different, that you were going to let us do the punishment from now on." He could feel the anger boiling up inside him. He had known going in not to ever put his faith in this man, but somewhere down the road he had started to trust him.

"The situation was complicated" the vigilante commented, turning away from Lance and seeming to be, regretful? That was not something he had expected: anger, impatience towards Lance for bringing it up to begin with, but certainly not remorse.

Lance snorted, "Care to explain what was so complicated about the situation because I have been doing my damndest to think of any explanation and I can't." It was true; he had spent the better part of the week wondering what had pushed him to the breaking point when nothing else had. "What made him worse than Mathis or any of the other people that you haven't killed since you came back?" The others Lance could understand sparing. But Mathis was a completely different story. He was a psychopath who had killed innocent girls, including Laurel. Mathis he could have understood. And yet he had lived up to his word, refusing to kill any of them. What had made some crazed drug lord any worse than the others? "Better yet, if you wanted to kill him, why didn't you do it the first time you took him down? Or the second or the third? What made this time so different?" He had spared him before the drastic change and once after the change when he had saved the D.A. The more he had thought about it, the more convinced he was that something had happened in the office building that provoked him to break whatever oath he had made.

The vigilante remained quiet for a moment, seeming to take in everything that he was saying. The silence seemed to last for an eternity before he finally spoke, so soft that Lance could barely hear him: "He had Felicity."

Visions of a blonde being escorted from the scene flashed before his mind and it was as if the puzzle pieces had fallen into place. The blonde that had been so determined to protect him, even at her own expense. The girl that had stood up and told him that while she had had doubts initially, that the vigilante was a hero for giving up everything that he did to help the city. "He took her?" The vigilante nodded and he couldn't see his face but he was sure that there was fear and sorrow underneath the mask that he wore.

"She was investigating something for me, a break in the vertigo case, and he found her." His voice seemed to break at the last point, seeming to relive whatever had happened in the offices that forced him to kill. "He was going to kill her and I reacted." Lance couldn't even bring himself to blame him, hell, he understood. If Laurel had been in the same position he would have done anything to protect her. The thought of Laurel in that position made him think about the implications of the actions in this moment compared to all the others. The fact that others had been in danger and he had still kept his promise led Lance to a realization that he hadn't expected to learn when the vigilante had first called him to meet.

"You love her, don't you." It wasn't a question because he already knew the answer. The fact that he had broken his vow for her and no one else was enough of an answer. Still, he had never thought that the chip in the vigilante's armor was a brilliant, blonde, and sometimes awkward IT girl.

"The life that I lead detective, I don't have the luxury of being with someone that I care about." Felicity's words about sacrifice had repeated over and over in his head, but it was only now he truly understood the implications. How much this man was willing to sacrifice for the good of people he didn't even know.

"She's lucky to have you." He said and somewhere deep down, he hoped that they would find a way to make it work.

He shook his head, "That's where your wrong detective. I'm lucky to have her." And before Lance could respond he was gone.