Chapter Text
Laurel couldn’t stop herself from pacing behind Curtis’ back as she watched him work on the device Cisco had made her only a year ago. Since that initial model, it had undergone various updates, but this was going to be the most experimental. It also counted the most; Oliver continued to writhe on the exam table in unimaginable pain. If this didn’t work, they’d lose him for good, and Laurel was never going to be ready for that to happen.
“So I tweaked a couple things just so we can get you as loud as possible,” he explained, handing it back to her. “I’d love to get a more extensive look at that device, maybe talk to the designer—”
“Yeah, maybe later,” she promised, refastening it around her neck. Laurel took up her stance on the platform about ten feet away from Oliver’s table and waited till the others got out of the way.
“Don’t hold back,” Curtis advised.
Laurel turned on the device and nodded. Then she drew in a breath like so many times before, her fears rising — and let it all out.
The air rippled in front of her as sparks began to fly from the device. Laurel felt something rising up within, something stronger than ever before. When it burst from her lips, the choker broke and fell from her neck. But the cry didn’t stop.
Laurel’s heels slid back a couple inches as the ripples solidified into waves of sound, pitched impossibly high. Glass all around the bunker began to shatter, forcing the others to duck for some kind of shelter.
Oliver didn’t have that option, and the waves hit him directly. A yell was wrenched from him that she couldn’t hear over her cry before he and the table went crashing to the ground.
“Oliver!” John’s hands were pressed over his ears, half-risen from his place of hiding.
“Stop, honey! You’ve gotta stop!” Her father had managed to crawl around behind her so she could hear clearly, but Laurel couldn’t answer. She reached for her neck, but her hands could do nothing. The lights blew completely, and more glass rained down all around them in the sudden darkness.
Panic set in as the waves kept coming and coming from her until, gradually, they died down. She’d run out of breath. Laurel was left panting in near silence.
After several moments, her father voiced what they were all thinking. “What the hell was that?”
“Okay, maybe you should have held back a little,” Curtis’ voice came timidly out of the dark. “Could somebody help me up? I can’t see anything without my glasses. But I guess they wouldn’t help much with no lights.”
“I’ve got some flashlights in the car,” said her father. He turned to go, but stopped and looked back at her for a long moment. In the dark, she couldn’t make out his expression. Then he left the bunker without another word.
A low groan distracted her. Ollie , Laurel thought desperately, a hand pressed over her mouth in horror at what had happened. She hurried to the fallen table, where John was already checking on their friend. Laurel hovered at his elbow, guilt creeping in to keep her from reaching out to Oliver.
John glanced back and seemed to read the conflict in her expression. “Can you get me the med kit?”
She nodded, glad to be of at least some help, and made her way as steady as she could through the dark and off the platform. Something crunched under her boots, and her eyes had finally adjusted enough in the darkness to tell that it wasn’t just glass. The case containing Darhk’s idol must have broken, sending it to the floor in pieces too small and too many for her to count. Some of it was simply dust. It didn’t look to be remotely repairable this time around. How had she done it, and why hadn’t it stopped once the device had broken?
Laurel dismissed the destroyed artifact with a shake of the head and retrieved the medical kit before returning to John’s side. Curtis had joined them as well with what little of his equipment he’d salvaged.
“Well, the good news is, the bees seem to be gone.” When she didn’t share his smile, he added, “I probably disabled too many of the suppressors on that device. There were a lot of them. My bad.”
Laurel shook her head and pointed to herself as she knelt down at Oliver’s side.
“Your bad?” He guessed. “Is something wrong with your voice?”
She shook her head again.
“You’re just not talking? You think it’ll happen again?”
Whenever she’d used her device out in the field, Laurel had always been careful not to talk when it was turned on. But now there was no device, no on or off switch. What if she tried to speak and all that came out was a scream?
The door into the bunker opened and a beam of light hit them. “How’s Oliver?” Her father asked.
Oliver’s face had scrunched up in reaction to the light hitting it. “Think he might be waking up,” said John. He placed a hand on their friend’s shoulder. “Oliver?”
Slowly, Oliver’s eyes blinked open with another groan — which couldn’t possibly be good; he never vocalized his pain unless he couldn’t stop himself — and he looked at all of them knelt around him. His eyes finally landed on her.
“I don’t remember that hurting so much the last time,” he said loudly with a grimace. Laurel looked down at her hands folded together in her lap. He’d clearly said it to make light of things, but she didn’t appreciate the reminder that this wasn’t the first time she’d hurt him with the device.
“How are you feeling?” John asked him.
Oliver didn’t immediately answer. In fact, when Laurel glanced back up, he was frowning in puzzlement and didn’t appear to have registered John’s question. “Why… can’t I hear myself? Am I talking?”
Her eyes went wide, and the look on her face had him pushing up on one arm in alarm. “Laurel? Laurel, say something.”
“She’s not talking, Oliver,” John explained, and again, Oliver didn’t even look in his direction. “Oliver.” He reached out and squeezed the other man’s shoulder again, which caused him to give a start and look in John’s direction. “Oliver, can you hear me?”
In the dim light, Oliver squinted and looked to be trying to read the words off of John’s lips. His head shook mutely, dawning horror in his eyes.
“Jesus,” her dad muttered.
Laurel drew in a ragged breath and stood, walking a few paces away from the group. The Cry from the device had been worse than too strong. It had deafened him. How could she have done this to him? Her eyes were stinging, but she forced the tears down. Feeling sorry for herself was the last thing anyone needed right now.
“Just sit tight for a minute,” John was saying slowly, likely to make it easier for Oliver to read off him. The others got up and gathered a few paces away. She allowed herself one final steadying breath and joined them.
“It could be temporary,” John offered. “One of my buddies in Afghanistan lost his hearing in one ear for a while because he was too near a bomb blast. But he’s alright now.”
“So what do we do, take him to a hospital?” Her dad asked. “How are we gonna explain what happened?”
“No idea. We’re gonna have to call in a favor from STAR Labs,” John decided, crossing his arms with a frown. “Especially since that was their device.”
Laurel peeked over his shoulder at Oliver. He was watching them all, clearly growing more and more frustrated at being unable to understand. When he noticed her staring, she looked away again. She wouldn’t know what to do if she saw anger in his eyes when she had no way to even try to defend herself, much less apologize.
“Okay, so do we get him on a train tonight?”
“A train might be too loud,” Curtis said. “I think you’re supposed to keep things as quiet as possible while the person recovers. Maybe someone should take him home?”
“He is home,” John said with a sigh. Right, Oliver had moved out of the loft after the breakup. The guilt she was enduring somehow continued to grow as she observed the wreckage she’d made of his current living arrangement, however utilitarian it was.
There had to be a broom or something around here. If she couldn’t contribute to the conversation she could at least be useful. Laurel reached for one of the flashlights her father had brought in and descended the steps of the platform.
She didn’t quite make it out of the room when Oliver’s voice practically shouted, “Laurel?”
She froze but turned back.
“Sorry, is this loud?” He asked as she approached. “I can’t tell if I’m being loud or not.”
She made a quiet down gesture, then knelt in front of him again.
He nodded. “Got it. Uh, you’re not talking. Even to the others.”
Laurel pointed to her throat.
“You think it’ll happen again?”
She shrugged.
“Okay. But you can still fight?”
Her raised eyebrow was enough to let him know he needed to elaborate.
“Larvan still has Palmer Tech hostage, and… I don’t think I can go out there like this.” His gaze had fallen to the left of her and just over her shoulder, and she knew that admission had cost him.
Laurel reached out and guided his eyes back to hers with a hand on his cheek. She smiled for him, one that she hoped showed all the comfort and apology she wanted to give him.
She didn’t know how he wasn’t furious or blaming her for this, but Oliver smiled back. “Thank you.”
As much as it didn’t feel right to leave him, there was, as ever, more at stake. Laurel nodded and stood, rejoining the rest and tapping John on the shoulder.
“Thea,” she mouthed when he turned to her. “Felicity.”
John nodded, seeming to get her message. “We’ve still got to stop Larvan. Curtis, I’m giving you the number for STAR. Just tell them you’re with us and ask for Caitlin Snow. She’s a doctor.”
“Got it.”
John followed her to gather up the rest of their gear. When it came time to put on his helmet, however, he stopped and turned to her. “This wasn’t your fault. None of us know what the hell just happened, but you saved his life. We’ll figure out the rest.”
Laurel glanced up at him but didn’t respond in any way, not fully believing him.
Whatever her intention, she’d seriously damaged Oliver’s ears to the point of hearing loss. They still didn’t know if it could be reversed, though hopefully Curtis would have an answer for them when they got back from rescuing Palmer Tech and the hostages inside.
Thea . How could Laurel tell her she’d possibly permanently deafened her brother? What would Thea think of her after this?
—
The ride to Palmer Tech was completely silent. With Laurel not talking and John still half-focused on what had just gone on in the bunker, there wasn’t much reason for noise.
He’d become pretty familiar with Laurel’s Canary Cry, especially over the months he’d led the team in Oliver’s absence. And he knew what they’d just witnessed should have been impossible. Which was an unfortunately frequent occurrence in their lives.
The only thing he didn’t understand was how. Curtis had mentioned something about suppressors. Why had there been suppressors in the first place? Shouldn’t Cisco have just built it not to deafen people?
Something wasn’t adding up. John chose to keep that thought to himself, however, as Laurel already seemed guilty and worried enough. They needed to be on their A game to stop Larvan.
She’d cornered Felicity and Thea up in the CEO’s office, and just as he and Laurel arrived, Thea was thrown back into a table. Laurel rushed to her side to check on her.
He could see Felicity sneaking around the side of the room with a lamp, so John did his best to keep Larvan distracted without getting stung. It worked, as Felicity was able to jab the lamp at Larvan’s walking robot, but the resulting electric shock fed back into Larvan’s controls and knocked her out. John hurried to make sure she was breathing.
“Lay down, bee-yotch!” Felicity declared.
“She’s gonna need an ambulance. Can you call one up here?”
“Well, yeah, but did you hear — I mean, it was a pun, get it? Bees? Bee -yotch?”
John wasn’t really in the mood. They already had one medical emergency back at the base to deal with. “She’s not responding, Felicity.”
“Oh. Okay, right. One ambulance coming up.” His friend hurried to get a working connection to the outside world now that Larvan couldn’t control the building.
Across the room, Thea seemed to be responding, at least. She sat up with a groan, leaning heavily onto Laurel’s shoulder. “I hate bugs.”
“How’s she doing?”
Laurel gave him a thumbs up, which Thea watched happen with a confused look on her face.
“Did something happen? How come you’re not talking?” She reached to touch the older woman’s neck. “Where’s your device?”
Laurel shook her head, eyes bright with a wet sheen.
“Laurel, seriously, are you okay?”
The clack of heels announced Felicity’s return. “The authorities are on their way.”
“Alright.” He stood up as Laurel helped Thea onto her feet.
“So, Oliver was busy, I take it?” Felicity asked, tone a forced casual.
“He wanted to be here, Felicity,” John started to tell her. It would be just Oliver’s luck if this whole thing made Felicity think he was avoiding her on purpose.
She held up a hand. “That’s okay, because I didn’t want him to be here. This is just really for the best for everyone.”
Laurel looked desperately like she wanted to say something in Oliver’s defense, but her own self-imposed silence stopped her.
John tried one more time. “He’s—”
“I really don’t want to know, John. Oliver and I are not a part of each other’s lives anymore. So, actually, you can tell him that if I ever find myself in a situation like this again, you or Laurel or Thea are my preference in terms of vigilante help.”
The faint sound of approaching sirens reached their ears. He exchanged a look and nod with Laurel.
“We’ll wait around back in the van if you want a ride back to the base after you’re done talking to the cops.”
Thea nodded while Felicity pointedly looked away. John sighed and turned for the exit, Laurel following wordlessly behind him.
“Well, Felicity needs more time,” he remarked once they were both settled back in their seats. Laurel gave two slow nods. “It’ll get better,” he said, though he wasn’t too sure how much of that was his own wishful thinking.
He couldn’t say how long he sat there before he felt a soft poke on his arm. John realized Laurel probably needed him to be facing her to have anything approximating a conversation. “Thea , ” she mouthed for the second time that night. She didn’t have to fill in the rest for him to know what was on her mind. The fear was plain as day in her eyes.
“We’ll have to tell her before we get back to the base. But she’s not going to blame you, Laurel. We’d all rather have Oliver alive than not.”
Laurel worried her bottom lip with her teeth but gave no indication as to whether she believed him or not. He didn’t see how she could doubt it; the two of them had been through so much and forgiven far greater transgressions than what amounted to an accident.
He spotted Thea approaching in the mirror, and moments later the side door was sliding open.
“So how come Ollie isn’t here? You’re right, he would’ve wanted to be.”
John looked to Laurel, who seemed to be trying to project all the guilt and remorse she felt to Thea through her expressions alone. He sighed. “Larvan got him with some bees, and when we tried getting rid of them it went a bit sideways.”
“Sideways how?”
“It’s a long story — and nobody’s fault,” he added, “but he can’t hear anything. We’re operating under the hope it’s temporary.”
“Oh, my God,” Thea gasped. “But — but how — Laurel?”
Laurel was tapping her throat where the device normally rested over.
“Curtis figured out we could cut the bees’ signal and cause them to biodegrade from the inside if Oliver was hit with a specific frequency. Laurel’s device should’ve been able to do that with a little bit of fiddling, but something went wrong with it. It came out way stronger than usual.”
“I’m sorry , ” Laurel was trying to say without speaking.
“Curtis is reaching out to STAR Labs to see what can be done,” John continued. “We should have more of an idea when we get back.”
“Okay,” said Thea, wide-eyed with worry.
“I know this is tough, but without the Cry at all he would’ve died from Larvan’s attack. We still have him. This is not the worst case scenario,” he stressed to both of them. The truth was, he’d grown close to Laurel and Thea during the summer they’d spent fighting crime on their own and saw them as sort of like younger sisters. He didn’t want to see either of them suffering, especially when they still had some hope to hang onto.
Thea took a shaky breath and nodded. “Right.” Then she reached forward to take one of Laurel’s hands. “It’s okay, really. I know you wouldn’t have done it on purpose. Ollie has to know that, too.”
Laurel pressed her lips together, and Thea leaned in, the two sharing something of a hug over the car seat. John waited until they’d both sat back down properly to start the van.
He knew Laurel and Thea had history that stretched back to when Thea had just been a kid, maybe even a baby. They’d only grown even closer those five months Oliver and Felicity had been out of town, to the point where he’d swear at times they were the siblings. Not that he’d ever say that out loud; it would crush Oliver, for one thing. But he was glad his instincts had been right in this case. Laurel and Thea were a team, and they stuck together through just about anything.
As long as those two stayed a united front, he thought Oliver and the rest of them might just be okay.
—
Oliver had helped Lance to right the metal exam table and then been made to sit on it and wait. He resented the idea that he might hurt himself if allowed to move about freely. He’d survived worse before. A loss of hearing couldn’t that badly impair him; he had to believe that, in case this turned out to be his new normal.
But whenever Curtis or Lance appeared in his field of vision without warning, he couldn’t help a flinch. He didn’t like not knowing where people were moving about around him just because they were out of his sight line.
To ground himself, he tried to retrace the events that had led up to his hearing loss. He’d been stung by one of Larvan’s bees, creating a kind of infection that had felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out. If going deaf was the price to end that kind of pain, he might be willing to pay it.
Curtis must have determined Laurel’s Canary Cry was needed to cure him. But something had gone wrong; that was clear enough to see simply by looking around the bunker. And he’d never known a power quite so strong to come from the device Cisco had made.
Laurel was frightened and refusing to speak. But when he thought back on it, she hadn’t been wearing the choker at all when they’d, well, communicated for lack of a better term. Why was she afraid of a repeat? This was the truly frustrating part of his current condition; he couldn’t get much more than short, simple answers from people instead of the explanations he wanted.
Curtis turned up with a shopping bag, and Oliver supposed he must have left the bunker at some point and came back with him unawares the whole time. He tried not to let that unnerve him.
And he grit his teeth together when Curtis withdrew a pair of earmuffs from the bag and held them out to him. The tech genius mimed putting them on. With extreme reluctance, he did so. The next thing Curtis took out had him rolling his eyes: a deck of cards.
The other man shuffled and then began to deal three piles. He was nearly finished by the time Lance came over, and Oliver didn’t need his hearing to know the other man was likely grumbling all the while.
Curtis was talking to Lance, perhaps explaining the rules. Oliver sat and waited until Curtis gave an embarrassed glance his way. The other man reached for his phone and a few moments later Oliver’s buzzed with a text containing whatever instructions they were meant to be following. Only half of his attention was on the game; the rest of it was trying to determine how long the others had been gone and what the state of Palmer Tech was. He hated waiting on the sidelines. He’d had to completely tune out of the news from Star City when he and Felicity had gone on their vacation in order to just relax and not feel he should be doing something about it. But was this how it would always be from now on? Sitting and waiting for his sister and friends, worrying about them, unable to help?
Oliver had angled himself to be facing the entrance and so noticed at nearly the same time as the other two when Digg, Thea, and Laurel all entered. Felicity wasn’t with them, he couldn’t help noting. He wondered if she knew what had happened, if it would make any difference even if it didn’t change anything about why she’d left him.
His sister looked relatively unharmed, yet she ran right to him and threw her arms around him. Laurel was hanging back, eyes on her boots, and when he looked at John, the man nodded. Thea had been told.
She pulled back to meet him face to face. Oliver smiled for her to try and make her worry less.
Most of the others were grouping together again, and he couldn’t tell what was being discussed. He snagged Thea’s arm before she could join them. “What are they saying?”
She took out her phone rather than attempting to mime, and he read over her shoulder as she typed.
Trying to figure out where you’re gonna stay tonight
John was shaking his head, and it was no wonder; between baby Sara and his brother, he and Lyla were at full capacity.
He was about to tell them all to forget it — as long as the glass was swept away he could make do — when Laurel stepped forward. She looked to him, the offer clear enough without words.
“That’s fine,” he said, or at least thought he said. Oliver wasn’t sure he could ever get used to not hearing himself when he spoke.
Thea wrapped him in a hug from the side, clearly happy with the arrangement since it kept them together. He took one of her hands and squeezed it.
For whatever reason, Digg insisted on dropping them all off, and soon enough he was following Thea and Laurel up to their apartment. He was glad they didn’t meet anyone along the way since he was still wearing the earmuffs per Dr. Snow of Central City’s orders. While spring weather hadn’t quite arrived, it definitely was warm enough that he would have attracted odd looks.
Laurel was efficient as ever, finding blankets and pillows to make a bed out of the couch for him. “Thanks,” he told her, only for her to immediately shake her head and turn to go. Oliver stepped into her path. “No, really. I know things didn’t exactly turn out the best, but I’m alive. We can work on the rest.”
He saw her sigh, though she avoided his gaze. She placed a hand on his shoulder briefly then retreated to her room.
Oliver dropped onto the couch, his head in his hands. This was a mess, and one he definitely didn’t need right now what with the wreck his personal life had already become. He could only hope for some good news from the STAR Labs team soon. His worries, the discomfort of trying to sleep while wearing earmuffs, and the eerie absence of any sound had him tossing and turning late into the night, though eventually he dropped off from sheer exhaustion.
He woke to silence, his sister frantically shaking his shoulder.
“Thea?” He said but did not hear, and that wasn’t the fault of the earmuffs either. Oliver grimaced, but asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Laurel,” was all he was able to read off her lips, but it was enough to have him throw the blanket off himself and allow Thea to pull him into the kitchen.
Laurel was sitting at the table, a large mug of steaming tea between her hands and an intensely troubled look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” He repeated.
Thea placed a legal pad and pen on the table in front of Laurel. She ran a hand through her hair once before taking both and writing a brief message. Then she spun it around to face him.
I can’t talk, he read. My voice isn’t working at all.
“Call John and Lance,” he instructed Thea, then sat at the table across from Laurel. “When did you lose it?”
She shrugged and began to write again. I didn’t try speaking until this morning.
“So some time after the Cry went wrong.”
Laurel nodded.
Thea returned and tapped him on the shoulder, then mimed out something to the effect of the others being on their way.
With little else to do, Oliver made himself and Thea coffee while Laurel sipped at her tea. In the absence of verbal comfort, he found himself crossing to where she sat and laying a hand on her shoulder. Laurel blinked and looked up at him, just the barest of smiles crossing her lips as she placed her hand over his.
He was startled when Lance and John both walked into the kitchen, not having the benefit of hearing the door open. Lance went straight to his daughter, forcing him to step back.
Digg was asking him something, but Oliver just shook his head.
Thea seemed to be trying to explain everything. Laurel kept starting a sentence on her legal pad, then having to cross out and begin again when something else was said, none of which Oliver could understand at all. What he could tell was that none of this was getting them anywhere.
“We need to see the others at STAR Labs. In person,” Oliver decided.
Everyone had started in place when he first spoke, which seemed to indicate he’d been too loud again. Oliver grimaced. It was hard when he was just trying to hear his own voice with only the reactions of the others to tell whether he’d even spoken.
John was nodding, though. He turned to the others and began talking. Thea walked a couple paces away and was soon on her phone with who even knew. This was probably more frustrating than the volume control if he was being perfectly honest, watching them make plans and decide things about him without his input.
Though he wasn’t entirely alone in that regard. Laurel could at least understand what was going on but was largely being ignored. After several minutes of this, he could feel his patience running out. Oliver sent a questioning look Laurel’s way and watched as she wrote a brief message on her legal pad, then spun it around for him to read.
Road trip .