Chapter Text
It didn’t take long to understand his current situation. To clarify, Oliver still has absolutely no idea what happened on Lian Yu, but it has become clear that he is now on a whole new continent – and most importantly, he is in the future.
The newspaper reads “National Daily” and the date is June 25th, 2016. Ten months has disappeared in the blink of an eye. Oliver huffed in annoyance. Time travel was supposedly Barry’s area of expertise.
From what he gathered, he has landed in National City, still part of the United States according to the newspaper. Indeed, the surrounding environment do feel like the American style. Yet, he failed to recall any major cities going by that name. He did skip history and politic classes, and dropped out of college. But no way would he ignore a city this size. He did consider the possibility of magic and delusions, but based on his limited knowledge, even magic has its limitation, and rewriting the reality at such a scale and delicacy should have been an impossible task.
The imminent task now is to figure out what exactly happened in the past ten months.
Looking at the bright side, this is hardly his first time being thrown into a whole new environment, and considering its familiar urban setting he should be able to settle himself down in no time. Then he would be able to plan his next step.
Information is the key, and money is certainly a great helper. Unfortunately, he has only got his leather outfit, his bow and quiver, and a bunch of flechettes and other gadgets with him when it happened. No cash, no ID. It has never occurred to him that he would be needing them on Lian Yu. If everything else remained the same, he should be able to access his bank account. However, given the consideration of the mysteriously National City, he wouldn’t be so sure of it. Plus, a ten-months-leap together with the three months on Lian Yu is more than sufficient to mark his status as missing or dead once again.
Deciding that his outfit and the archery set would be too conspicuous, Oliver’s first move would be finding a place for stay and stock. Perhaps an abandoned apartment. Lots of them in the Glades, and he could reasonably expect the same around here. The amount of dust accumulated on the windowsill was enough to indicate when its last visitor has come by, and breaking in from the window takes almost zero effort. Fate has finally decided to play nice for once and Oliver spotted a suitable target. There he hid his bow and quiver, and grabbed a jacket from the wardrobe.
Time to explore.
Obtaining money is hardly a challenge. Granted, he is not particularly interested in becoming a thief or a robber on his first day in down, but he’s got no problem if the money was dirty beforehand. Drug dealers, robbers, he dealt with a few and got a few hundred bucks, with a ski mask, of course. That should be sufficient. He stopped it right there, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself.
Next target is Internet access. Felicity loved to bubble that give her an electronic device with Wi-Fi and the world is in her palm. Oliver is not as good as Felicity – as a matter of fact, they are not even on the same plane – but he did pick up a few useful tricks during his time at ARGUS, and from Felicity.
Phone, laptop, sim card, some food and drinks as necessary nutrients intake, and now the new world unfolds.
***
Things has turned out to be worse than he imagined. A whole new world. With aliens. Lots of them, equipped with special powers. Two stand out particularly, cousins from the planet Krypton, superheroes of this dimension, known to the public as Superman and Supergirl, the later has her base at National City. On top of that, there is a failed alien evasion scheme just one month ago, stopped by Supergirl. Even his ten-months time travel seems to be a lesser concern in comparison.
What’s even worse, he is a complete stranger to this world. Aside from the National City that came from nowhere, Central City and Starling City do exist. Except for the fact that, no STAR Lab, no Queen Consolidated – no CSI Barry Allen or Cisco Ramon or team Flash to help him interpret this time-travel thing, no team Arrow (No, he still doesn’t appreciate the name) to call for support and no home to go back to. He’s less sure about Lyla, John and ARGUS – he’ll need Felicity’s tricks to dig for that info – but he would prefer not to attract Amanda Waller’s attention, if she does exist in this reality at all.
Physics and science is really not his thing, but he did recall some concept called the parallel universe from a sci-fi movie. In his defense, it was Felicity who made the call that movie night. He’s not exactly sure what the term actually means, aside from something like in another space and time, one different choice could result in a whole new world. Besides, it was just a theory that the physicists were unable to prove or falsify — in other words, meaningless for him unless he ends up finding himself in a parallel universe (Spoiler alert: he does). He should have paid more attention to Felicity’s bubbling explanation.
With his research going on, one specific article came into his attention.
Flash, A New Hero, Saved CatCo Employee From Silver Banshee’s Attack.
Flash.
Clicking into the article he found a red blur zipping on the building. At a first glance, the red streak highly resembles Barry’s signature in motion.
It could have been a simple coincidence, even if this Flash is also a speedster, they could have been someone else. He has learnt from Cisco that, speedsters do emit different color while traveling, but Barry is not the only one in red.
Further research indicated that the this Flash has only been active for one day, two appearances spotted. First one being the article he just read, and the second being a collaboration with Supergirl.
Flash Collaborated With Supergirl To Rescue Cat Grant From Livewire and Silver Banshee.
This time with a clear shot of Flash and Supergirl. The red guy in the picture is clearly Barry Allen in his suit. The design is a bit different from the one in his memory, no doubt some upgrades by Cisco.
Unlike him, Barry has no habit of sneaking under the radar. Hence to the conclusion, if Barry has since disappeared from the media, it could only mean two possibilities. Either he’s found his way back, or something unfortunate happened and he could no longer be out in the field. Given his short period of time here, and that Supergirl seems like a strong ally, it’s unlikely for him to be targeted right after his first show. So, he probably did find his way. If he could travel through time and find his way back, then travel through parallel universe and going back home doesn’t seem that impossible after all. Hell, He is Barry Allen the Flash, his existence alone defies the term impossible.
The problem remains. How did Barry get back?
If Barry has got back – which would have happened one month ago – there’s no way for him to find a lead from Barry. However, he does have another choice here. Supergirl. Truth to be told, he is not exactly excited about meeting with the hero of National City in person, but for now it seems like she’s the only lead he has.
For a brief moment, he was tempted to just let go of everything and forget about going back. He could start anew here. No one would recognize him as Oliver Queen, the former billionaire playboy who miraculously survived five years on an island and finally returned home, only to have his family business lost and mother brutally murdered. No one knows about his history. No more burden from the past. He could finally be set free. After all, isn’t that part of the reason why he has chosen Lian Yu for his self-exile? Identity is not a problem. Years of experiences dealing with mobs and criminals, he is perfectly capable of obtaining some fake IDs.
But he couldn’t afford to have his family and friends think of losing him one more time. They have been through enough because of him. He couldn’t let Thea lose her brother a fourth time. Leaving him alone and give him some space is one thing. Being unreachable and missing and presumed dead is entirely something else.
No. He needs to go back. He has to.
He’ll have to meet up with Supergirl and have a chat.
There are two ways laying in front of him. The most convenient way would be to do something dangerous and count on Supergirl to get here and “save” him. However, it would have attracted unwanted attention – the local press is very enthusiastic about reporting Supergirl events. In addition, chances are that Supergirl happens to be dealing with something else, or did not hear his signal at all. He would prefer to have things under his control, rather than betting on his luck. A more conservative way would be finding out Supergirl’s identity behind the mask – not that her actually wears a mask – and reach out to her in private. That is to assume Supergirl does live a human life.
Oliver did some further research on Supergirl. Apparently, Supergirl has come out to the public merely one year ago, started with rescuing a plane that was about to crush, just like her cousin in Metropolis. Either she was purposely mimicking her cousin, or that was a coincidence – highly unlikely. Or, it could be that someone she cared about happens to be on that plane and was not equipped with flying superpower like her. Oliver made a mental note to look into the passengers on that plane. Right after the plane incident, Supergirl has been spotted multiple times. Stopping crimes, providing conveniences for normal citizens… just like Barry. While Barry fights the metas, she duels powerful aliens. No wonder why they became good friends in one day. It was also noticeable that she’s made quite some mistakes at the beginning, and has changed her custom frequently in the first couple of scenes with minor adjustments on the detail. Probably a rookie and unprepared for the sudden shift of identity. That would imply his guess on the plane incident is likely to be right. In that sense, he’s got a lead but he’ll have to go through a background check on that three hundred people on that plane, which is going to take a lot of time and effort.
Aside from that, it has become evidently clear that she has to live a human life, otherwise it would be hard to explain her kindness towards human as an alien. Having established that she does have a human identity, the easiest way would be triangulating all her actions to calculate her likely home address, but she flies way too fast for that data to be statistically effective.
Having lived a double life himself, Oliver does know a thing or two about uncovering secret identity. No matter how well-prepared you are, there would always be some flaws. For example, troubles do not tend to stop happening around you just because you have taken off your mask. No, they catch up with your real identity. There would definitely be something unusual happening around Supergirl’s human alter ego. That hardly qualifies a lead, but it would help him narrow things down once he’s got a direction.
Masked identity principle two, people who are close to one identity tend to be closely associated to another as well. The Arrow has went to Laurel for legal consultation because she is the best lawyer Oliver Queen knows. The Arrow has collaborated with Quentin on cases because Oliver Queen knows him as Laurel’s father. Felicity is part of the Arrow team and she also happens to be a friend of Oliver Queen and gotten an unexplainable promotion as Q.C. CEO’s new executive assistant – by the way, Felicity was right to be mad at him for it, she should have been so much more than that, Palmer was the perfect proof.
Cataloging the countless events involving Supergirl – superspeed does have its advantages, Oliver wouldn't have been able to accomplish one-third of it in a year’s time – two companies have stood out. Lord Technology and CatCo Worldwide Media. Both CEOs endured multiple attacks and kidnapping that eventually got resolved by Supergirl. In addition to that, ex-employees gone rogue, assaults on company-owned property or company-held events. Most importantly, both CEOs have assisted Supergirl in the Myriad, the failed doom’s day event a month ago. That couldn’t have been merely a coincidence. However, neither does provide any direct evidence. It could have been that the villain here hold grudges against the two companies, or merely because the power of press and tech comes in handy. Just like Mercury Lab’s bases in Starling and Central City.
Aside from the attacks, one further information grabbed his interest. Supergirl has a habit of granting her exclusives only to CatCo – her first interview with their CEO Cat Grant, either Cat Grant is Supergirl or she has to have a close connection with Supergirl’s human alter ego. However, given her years of experiences in the working field, the rookie mistakes made by Supergirl at the first few months seems highly uncharacteristic. Oliver would expect the Media Queen to act more mature. Add on to the facts that Supergirl and Grant has been spotted together in multiple occasions, too frequent to be an elaborately planned alibi.
Her marriage status involves four divorced marriage, none of which tracks back to recent years, no daughters or sisters, and two sons with limited information available. The queen of media would want to shield her kids from the media, that makes total sense.
Yet, one interesting thing is that Supergirl has also gone rogue for once, one day to be precise, and she has chosen to go after Grant for no reason at all. That reminds him of the time Barry got whammied by Bivolo, he has gone after Detective Thawne for his relationship with Iris. If the two events have anything in common, it’s highly likely that Supergirl’s occupation or personal life involves constantly dealing with Grant. Looking into the company profile and uncredited rumors, working with Grant does not seem too enjoyable – she practically changes her assistant once a month, except for Kara Danvers, who has lasted almost one whole year. Record breaker.
Kara Danvers. That name seems familiar.
The CatCo employee saved by Flash in his first appearance.
Which leads him to wonder, could Barry have gotten in touch with Supergirl through Kara Danvers? Take a wild guess, the key to Supergirl might not be Cat Grant, but Kara Danvers. Sure, Barry is friendly and trusting and easy-going and all that, but he couldn’t possibly just bump out of the air, meet Supergirl, and become besties. They have to had some more interactions before teaming up for the kidnapping event in the park. However, if Barry has reached Supergirl through saving Danvers, it would all make sense.
Cross referencing the passengers on flight 237, Oliver found one named Alex Danvers. This has to be it. His theory about the plane incident checks out.
However, his did some further research on the Danvers sisters’ profile, which quickly raised his suspicions. The elder Danvers graduated in college with a bioengineering degree, then went into a medical school, both prestigious institutions and straight into some random unprofitable biotech company as a bio-engineer upon graduation, as if the four years she spent on medical degree has been for nothing. No more information updates thereafter. Clean and unobtrusive, the type of profile that ARGUS would have designed for their agents, clearly a cover-up story. The younger Danvers, on the other hand, has a much more normal profile. BA (Marketing) in NCU, internship in Midvale Newspaper, waitress at a restaurant and then CEO assistant at CatCo, recently promoted to reporter. Messy, inconsistent for a journalism career, but real. If he has to bet on one of them by profile, he would have pick Alex Danvers to be Supergirl. However, she was on that plane, and Kara Danvers seems a more promising answer according to his conjectures around CatCo.
He will need some closer observation before drawing his final conclusion.