Chapter Text
Finishing the last drop of whiskey while watching Supergirl taking off, Oliver tidied up everything and went back to his temporary safe house. Kara has been friendly and obliging. Yet, it doesn’t solve the problem he is facing right now. Barry’s way of going back has involved the use of his power, and he is just an ordinary human. Looking up this Winn person’s profile – worked with Kara, good at IT, which means he should check around CatCo’s IT employees…
And there he is, from the long list of names he spotted Winslow Schott, graduated from NCU with a CS degree, used to work at CatCo IT, until a few days ago quitted his job and took up an engineer job at another unknown company, the same company as Alexandra Danvers. DEO it is then.
Oliver pondered for a moment if a CS guy would be able to figure out how to travel across universes. Working with Felicity has taught him to never underestimate an IT, but this is something else, an entirely different domain and the frontier of science. Then again, it’s not like he’d be able to persuade some top physics lab to help him with it, plus there is no STAR lab in Central City, so this could very well be his only shot. If Kara trusts him so much, he can afford to wait for a few days.
After two hours of push-ups and other exercises, the ones he could perform with limited equipment in that apartment that is, Oliver took a shower (no supply of hot water, but he’s had way worse) and picked up his phone, just in time to see the messages from Kara.
- Hey Oliver, I told Winn about you and he’ll look into it tomorrow.
- Btw it is late now but I was meaning to ask, where are you staying for the night? You are welcomed to crash at my couch for a night then I can have DEO arrange something for you tomorrow.
Oliver contemplated the offer of accommodation for a while. Kara is hospitable and warm-hearted like Barry but he would prefer to keep his distance. Besides, given all his entanglement with ARGUS in the past few years, he doesn’t feel like getting in touch with any more federal agencies without necessity. The fact is, he doesn’t trust DEO.
- I can take care of my accommodation. Have you caught the Kryptonian? Oliver attempted.
- OK, where are you staying? He decided to ignore the question, lucky for him, Kara didn’t pressure.
- We got him, but he’s a Daxamite.
- Daxamite?
Oliver frowned at the message.
- Wait, how do you know I was going after him?
- Lucky guess.
Kara didn’t say what she’s up to when being called away, but combining the fact that DEO is a federal agency and the attack has targeted the president, it’s kind of expected.
- Daxam is a planet near Krypton, a monarchy filled with a bunch of hoodlums.
Great, another alien species. Oliver’s dislike for this earth is growing stronger by the minute.
- And he doesn’t dare admitting that he attacked the president!
Her anger is floating through the texts. Although for Oliver, he feels like something seems off. Alien mindset may be different, but there has to be some logic behind the actions.
- An invasion? US has the most advanced military and riding off its leader could benefit the invaders in countless ways.
- That wouldn’t be possible. Daxamite was destroyed alongside Krypton.
Now that is absurd. Maybe he wasn’t behind the attack after all. Not that he trusts what the Daxamite has said, if he trusts people for their words, he’d already be dead a thousand times over. The pieces do not add up.
Going back to his research again, the president is here for… Alien Amnesty Act, granting full American citizenship to aliens and urging them to come out and register. If the attacker’s beef is with the Act, either they are alien and does not want to come out and register, or they are human with high tech who dislikes alien and wants the Act abolished. On the other hand, it could simply be someone who wants the president dead and disguise their goal with this timing. Politics is a dirty business. Way too many possibility and not enough evidence.
Today being the arrival of the president, tomorrow is the real show – president signing the Act at Kimball Park. Oliver pondered if he should go out there. DEO and Supergirl was supposed to handle the subject. Even if they have let down their guards thinking the attacker apprehended, there’s still the CIA, NCPD, and the president’s own personnel. They can handle it. Starling has showed that vigilante like him isn’t exactly what the city needs, and he has made his mind on retirement. However, the consequence of tomorrow’s event goes wrong could be devastative. Hundreds of people are going to the gathering.
At last, he decided it wouldn’t hurt for him to go there as an ordinary audience, see how it plays out. Bow and quiver would be too eye-catching. He doesn’t have IDs for firearm purchase, and choices in the black market are too costly. The only things that could come in handy is the few flechettes he’s carried with, which would be sufficient for normal human but hardly an even match against aliens with heat vision and God knows what else, or assassination groups carrying high tech weaponry. Either way, he’ll have to improvise his moves.
What he needs now is a good rest and be ready for tomorrow.
Fourteen hours later, he is at Kimball Park. Leaning against a tree with a newspaper as cover, observing the crowd under his casquette – Supergirl is hovering in the sky and he doesn’t want her to notice his presence, especially not when DEO is here. The view isn’t great, the ground is flat and the mass crowd is blocking half of his sight. He couldn’t walk around inside the crowd too frequently without drawing suspicions to himself. He has sighted several guards in uniforms, clearly professionals, travelling back and forth inspecting for potential assaults.
Then the president has arrived, waving at the people with her heartening smile. Oliver leaved his newspaper and joined the crowd at their edge, eyes darting around for suspicious things, people carrying abnormal packages. There were none.
The speech is provocative and inspiring, taking a quick glance at the sky he noticed that Supergirl is also looking at the president with admiration. Oliver hasn’t pictured Kara as one of the president’s admirer, yet considering the president’s stance and Kara’s enthusiasm when she talked about her reporter job, maybe the president is indeed one of a kind in the political world. He wishes Kara isn’t placing her hope in the wrong person, like he did with Sabastian Blood.
Then the sudden fireball flying right onto the president’s podium interrupted his trail of thought. The crowd began to panic and running towards all the directions. Luckily, the park is large enough for the gathering and the attacker seems to care more about creating chaos than actually causing casualties. Taking a quick glance at the ongoing fight, apparently the attacker is an alien (or metahuman, do they have metahuman on this earth?), and not the Daxamite, since Supergirl described the Daxamite with a he and this is clearly a she.
While Supergirl and her are busy fighting each other, Oliver decided the least he could do is help to evacuate the crowd – that was before a fire wave storms towards his right, where stands a seemingly seven-year-old girl, holding a teddy bear in her arms, staring at the fire. The second Oliver throws himself at her, he felt the sense of burning on the back. He let go of the girl – she’ll probably suffer a bruise or two from the fall, but she’ll be fine – and rolled over on the ground for two rounds while getting off the jacket in the process, before finally standing up again.
The little girl is still standing there, holding the bear tightly in her chest, looking at her surrounding with fear. Oliver squatted down and looked into her eyes, speaking as firm and gentle as he could handle, “Hey, little one, what’s your name?”
“Sara.” She responded, her voice almost too light to be heard. The name and her blonde hair stings, reminding him of someone he failed.
“Sara, it is dangerous here, now, I need you to be brave and walk out of here with me, ok? We can do this, together.” He reaches out a hand to her, the little girl, Sara, hesitantly nodded and holds his hand.
Two minutes later, they have gotten away from the center of the fight, resting beside the tree he stayed before be event started. The chaos has stopped. Oliver is not sure about the attacker, but no one is throwing fire all around, that’s a good news. Time to get the girl back to her parents, they must have been worried sick.
“Sara, it’s all right. You are safe now. Do you remember your parents’ phone number or your home address?”
Sara opened her mouth to answer but stopped, instead she looked beyond him and shouted with noticeable joy in her voice. “Supergirl!”
Clearly the universe loves to toy with him. So much for laying low.
He stands up, turns around, just in time to see Supergirl landing right next to him, looking surprised. “Oliver! You came to see the president?”
“Hey, Sara, may I call you Sara?” Supergirl looked at the little girl with a prompting smile, and she nodded vigorously in return, too excited to utter even a word. “Would you like me to take you home?” Looking at the warm smile on her face, he could understand why National City loves Supergirl.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” was all Kara said before taking off with the girl. Taking the moment to leave is obviously a bad idea now.
Kara is a woman of her words. Not forty seconds later, she is back here with him, looking at him with concern. Before he could come up with his excuse of being here, Kara exclaimed. “You are injured!”
“I’m fine, Kara.” The last thing he needs now is going to the hospital. Plus, he’s got plenty of experiences dealing with burning marks. From the feeling of it and the short time of intense exposure to heat, it’s probably just a second-degree burn, he can handle it.
“Supergirl?” A female agent with a familiar face, judging by her black field uniform and the gun hanging around her hip, comes right behind them. Most likely a DEO agent, the very encountering he’s been trying to avoid.
“Alex! This is Oliver, the friend of Barry from his earth. Oliver, Alex, my sister.” No wonder she looks familiar, he’s seen her picture when doing his research. Alex greeted him with a nod, which he returned equivalently. Judging by the look on her face, she doesn’t seem too pleased to meet him either. “Oliver’s injured, could you help him to the DEO?” Alex shoot her a glance and Kara smiled apologetically, “I know, I know. But Oliver’s a friend of Barry, plus Winn is helping him getting his way home. It's fine.” Adoptive sisters but they are evidently close to each other.
Oliver feels like he should speak up before it’s too late. “Kara, I’m fine. Besides, the DEO’s got an attacker to worry about.”
“The DEO also has a medbay. Oliver, you don’t have an ID or insurance for hospital and clinics.” She’s got a point. Not that he’s planned on going anyways, bondage, ice pack and some antibiotics would do just fine. But she did make it harder for him to reject.
“Kara’s right, your injury needs medical attention.” Alex finally joined Kara in agreement, though he doubts if it’s her true intention. The real problem is, he can’t find a reasonable excuse to turn down the suggestion now that Alex has agreed on behalf of the DEO.
“Fine.” He sighed mentally. A trip to the DEO, he shouldn’t have come here in the first place.