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Oliver had no idea how did he manage to keep getting himself into this situation. Only one reasonable explanation was that his past was catching up to him, and if that was the truth, then whoever ruled over the fate had a sickening sense of humor.
He hated substances that influenced one’s mind. Ever since he came back from the Lian Yu – well, the island and the rest of his adventures – he tried to avoid them as much as he could. He didn’t like it when his head was foggy, when he couldn’t concentrate and see all possible danger. Call him paranoid, but being able to notice things had saved his life on many occasions.
But hallucinogens were the worst of them all because, contrary to popular belief, he was not paranoid. Cautious, yes, but not paranoid. Who would like having their mind play tricks on them? He certainly wouldn’t. Didn’t, to be more precise, and never had.
Not like he had any say in that matter, because the man he’d been fighting with didn’t ask him whether he would like getting drugged or not. Not like his consent would matter in this case, considering he’d been out as an illegal vigilante at the time.
Oliver hated Vertigo. It seemed that no matter how many times he’d destroyed the drug and its dealers, they always came back, just with some modifications, such like the ones he was experiencing now.
The man managed to empty about three quarters of the syringe in his bloodstream before Oliver yanked it out of his arm and knocked the dealer out.
“Green Arrow!” Dig, who had seen them, was suddenly by his side and supporting him. It was for the best, because the next moment his knees buckled and he had to lean against him. “Hold on, man.”
“I’m fine,” he brushed him off and got up. The dizziness disappeared as quickly as it came and he was able to stand on his own, though Diggle did not look convinced. He hit the comm link sewn into his chest armor. “You alright, guys?”
“Fine and done,” Wild Dog announced, coming from behind the corner with the others. They’d been taking down a gang. Successfully, obviously. More or less. “What happened, hoss?”
“Lucky shot,” Oliver grumbled. “Got dosed.”
Dinah frowned. “With what?”
He shrugged, lifting the nearly empty syrigne so they could see the green substance in it. “This.” In other words, he didn’t know.
Felicity sighed through the comms. “Well, at least we won’t have to take your blood for tests. Come back to the base, you’re done for tonight.”
They didn’t argue. Being drugged was one thing, being drugged with unknown substance was something different.
They didn’t even make it to the base before Oliver figured out what he’d been dosed with. He had experience with Vertigo, after all, so it took him only four stops-and-lookbacks at sounds that no one else heard to realize. His teammates were giving him worrying looks but he said nothing, not until he suddenly drew his bow and aimed an arrow at the cloaked figure standing in the shadows.
That made the rest of the team stop. They had their weapons in hands instantly, looking in the direction he was poiting at.
“O – Arrow?” Diggle asked. “Is everything alright?”
He remained silent, his eyes locked on Malcolm Merlyn who was grinning back at him from the shadows, hands behing his back.
The vigilantes looked at each other.
“Oliver?” Felicity prompted, foregoing the codenames. “What’s going on?”
The grip on his bow grew stronger. “… no one is standing there, right?”
A pause. “No,” Dinah answered cautiously.
He blinked. Merlyn was gone. Slowly, Oliver put the arrow back in quiver. “I think I know what’s the drug.” He turned to look at them, a grimace on his face. “If it’s another modified version of Vertigo, I swear I will shoot someone.” Preferably the person who created it. Or the man who drugged him.
Curtis shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be Vertigo. But I think it’s clear that it is a hallucinogen, and in that case we need to get to the Arrowcave ASAP.”
Then they were on the move again. Oliver tried his best not noticing the figures that formed in the shadow or the voices in his head that sounded exactly like the people he knew or had once known. He flinched a few times, going for his weapon, but someone from the team was always there, steadying him and reminding that nothing was real.
They made it to the base in what seemed like a record time. Felicity was waiting on them, lab with the necessary tools already prepared. She and Curtis immediately started working on the syringe, while Diggle stepped closer, stretching out a hand. “Gimme your bow, Oliver.”
He frowned at his friend. When had he managed to dress into normal clothes? They had just got here. Also, Oliver could do it on his own, thank you very much. He breathed in, preparing to answer, when Diggle made a move for his bow.
Oliver had him on the ground, holding him in a wristlock in less than three seconds, a voice in his mind that sounded like Ra's al Ghul screaming at him to Kill him before he does it first.
“Whoa, hey!” Rene gripped his arm and he and Dinah forced him to release the hold. “Chill out, man.”
“He tried to disarm me!” Oliver snarled, repeating the words Ra's was still yelling at him from… somewhere. He didn’t see him, but he heard him loud and clear.
With a groan, Diggle got up from the ground. “You didn’t react for a hald a minute when I spoke to you,” he explained tensely as he tried to keep anger out of his voice. He shook his hand and twirled the wrist.
Oliver stared at him, soft “Ah” escaping his mouth. He pressed his lips together. “Sorry, Dig. It didn’t seem…” He fell silent, staring at the leader of the Leauge of Assassins who was suddenly right next to the man, holding a sword to his throat.
“You failed to finish him,” Ra's hissed. “I’ll do it for you, Al Sah-him. Allow me to show you how is it done.”
He slit Diggle’s throat.
And then Diggle was right in front of him. He spoke urgently but didn’t touch him; he’d learnt his lesson.
“Tie me to something.”
Diggle paused, startled by the sudden sentence. “What?”
“Tie me to something,” Oliver repeated, more pressingly than before. “If these hallucinations get any worse, I don’t know what I’ll do and I really, really don’t want to accidentally kill you.”
He destroyed the lair the last time. He didn’t want to find out what he could to if he was lost to the visions and fought with someone for real. He’d been taught to survive no matter what state he was in and when his rational thinking couldn’t work, he slipped into the survival mode he’d mastered through the years of hell.
His teammates might had had a numerical superiority, but not a fighting one.
He had killed in the past. He knew how easy it was.
Diggle nodded. “That’s a good idea, actually.” He’d been with Oliver basically from the beginning, and had been on the receiving end of his delirious state more than once. It wasn’t their first rodeo.
They used one of the tables that served as a provisional berth when one of them was in need of medical care that didn’t require going to the hospital.
Oliver hopped on the table, trying and failing to ignore the way his vision tilted at the movement. He had to close his eyes to take a deep breath, listening to the sound of the base. He heard Felicity and Curtis’ mumbles, heard Dinah placing the bow on its stand, heard the screetching of steel being dragged against stone, the buzz of the machines turning into cracking of electricity –
No, that wasn’t right. These sounds didn’t belong to the lair. There was nothing that sounded like tazer. Or at least there shouldn’t be.
“Oliver.”
His eyes snapped open. Diggle stood in front of him, holding two handcuffs. “I’m going to handcuff you to the table. Your right hand first.”
He nodded, watching closely as the metal clasped against his wrist and the other part got fastened to the table. Oliver felt his heartbeat rising as he forced himself to breath steadily. He didn’t like being restricted, never had. Honestly, who could blame him? Not being able to protect himself was one of his biggest fears, along with being out of control.
He didn’t notice that Diggle had moved, not until the cuff closed around his other wrist. He flinched, going for the attack immediately, but something pushed his hand down to rest on the table and then he couldn’t lift it.
“Look at you,” Malcolm laughed. “These people call themselves your friend and yet they tie you down the moment they think you’ll lose control.”
Oliver squeezed his eyes. “Shut up,” he hissed. I asked them to do so, he reminded himself. I wanted this.
Malcolm clicked his tongue. “Did you really? Or do you just want to avoid slipping back into your old habits and killing them?”
“Shut. Up.”
He shook his head and the voice disappeared. Oliver opened his eyes to find Rene staring at him in concern. “I think you were right with the Vertigo.”
“He was,” Curtis confirmed. “It’s a little modified but the base is the same. We’ll have antidote soon.”
“Great.” He shifted on the table, trying to make himself a bit more comfortable. He was still dressed in the suit, but they were lucky they had managed to pry the bow and quiver out of his hands. Besides, the suit itself was quite comfortable, it was the hard table he could go without. Oliver pointedly ignored the metallic clanking.
Wild Dog pushed a chair closer to the table and sat down on it. “Dare I ask what was it that you were hearing?”
“You don’t.”
They looked at each other, the movement didn’t go unnoticed by the archer.
“Look at them,” Diaz chuckled, doing the exact same thing he wanted from Oliver. “Is it pity they feel for you?” He walked between them, tilting his head as he stopped at Dinah, who was watching Oliver with furrowed brow. “Or is it fear? The Canary does look concerned.”
He glared at the man, bitting his lower lip to stop himself from saying something. He isn’t here, he reminded himself. He isn’t here because if he was, the rest wouldn’t just stand and do nothing.
Probably for the first time in his life, Oliver hoped that it indeed was pity, not fear. Both options were horrible, but he wasn’t a killer and therefore there was no need to be afraid of him. He was. Not. A murderer.
Diaz shook his head. “The pile of bodies you left behind disagree. But they say that if you repeat something enough times, you start to believe it’s the truth, after all.”
He’s not here, it’s just an illusion. It’s just in your head. Close your eyes, he’s not here.
“Running from your problems again?” Malcolm’s voice, right next to him. He didn’t dare open his eyes. “How typical for you, Oliver.”
“Silence!”
He waited, and waited, and then relaxed when he found nothing but the desired silence. He didn’t even care what the others might think about his outbursts anymore. He had his eyes closed so he couldn’t see anything and the voices were quiet and that was all that mattered right now.
He didn’t know how long he laid there, but he did notice when the silence started to be a little bit too unnerving. Something in the air shifted; the atmosphere got heavy and anxious. Something was wrong, and it didn’t take him long to realize what. He wanted silence but now it was too quiet. His teammates weren’t speaking, he couldn’t hear them move, even the omnipresent hum of machines was gone.
Oliver opened his eyes, finding the light dimmed. “People?” he called out, turned his head – and completely froze.
Diggle was lying on the ground, horror written in his face, eyes glassy. There was a pool of blood beneath him. Three arrows were sticking out of his stomach and he didn’t move an inch.
Oliver flinched. The change in position relealed equally injured Dinah and Rene, both dead and with arrows embedded in their bodies. Oliver twisted, looking at the dias with computers where were the last two teammates. He couldn’t see Felicity, she was hidden behind a computer screen, but he did see the hand she had placed on the table, pale and with blood flowing down the arm.
There was a cloaked figure standing on the dais and Oliver recognized it as the uniform of members of the Leauge of Assassins. Curtis was forced on his knees and the man held a sword to his throat. The man fixed his eyes on Oliver and the archer couldn’t do anything but stare at himself as Al Sah-him slit Curtis’s throat.
“No!” Oliver screamed, trashing on the table. The handcuffs rattled.
Al Sah-him smiled as he wiped the blood on his forearm. Slowly, he stalked down the stairs, coming to stand next to the table Oliver was tied to. “Only one of us can win.”
Al Sah-him brought his sword down and Oliver did the only thing he could think of. He dislocated his thumbs and slid down from the table, going for the nearest weapon. Behind him, Al Sah-him laughed, dark and deep.
He nearly made it to the rack with guns before he was tackled to the ground. He felt the cold steel cut through the suit and pierce the skin and he could do nothing to stop it.
Oliver screamed.
~~~
At first, they didn’t notice that something was terribly wrong. Oliver’s yell for silence surprised them and they grew concerned when he didn’t respond, but it seemed that he was stuck in whatever the drug was making him see. They monitored him. However, soon the seconds turned into minutes and there wasn’t really much they could do but wait.
No one noticed when he opened his eyes. What they did notice was a loud snap, and the next moment Oliver went flying off the table. He fell on the ground with a loud crash which he seemed to barely notice, for he was on his feet and running towards the stand with submachine guns.
Everyone sprung into action. They couldn’t let him reach the rack, no matter what, because if he made it there, they were all dead.
Diggle reached him first. He went for his knees, effectively knocking him on the ground. “Hold him down!” Diggle yelled, wrenching Oliver’s arms behind his back to create a lock. “Rene!”
Wild Dog kneeled the archer down, using every dirty technique he’d learned from Oliver himself. He couldn’t help but wince when he pressed his knee against the man’s thigh, knowing how much it hurt, but it worked and that was what mattered the most.
Oliver didn’t go willingly. He trashed and screamed, fighting for his life. The fact that he’d managed to get out of the handcuffs told them that he didn’t care about pain, if he even could feel it at the moment, which was highly dangerous to him and them alike.
“Hold him!” Diggle instructed sharply.
“I’m trying!” Rene yelled back.
It didn’t look promising. Oliver managed to roll himself over, nearly crushing Diggle beneath himself, which meant that he could use his legs for defense now. But at least he was preoccupied with fighting them and was no longer trying to possess a gun.
“Die!” Oliver roared, following with a stream of arabic, and Rene instantly wished he could take his thoughts back. That did not at all sound good.
Curtis appeared out of nowhere. With a shout, he threw himself at Oliver, stabbing a syringe in his neck. That made Oliver even more angry and determined to get out of their holding, but eventually, he stilled.
“Did if work?” Felicity asked urgently, leaning over the railing on the dais.
Curtis stood up and stepped back. “I think so?”
“What did you do?” Rene demanded, staring at the unmoving man. Oliver’s eyes were open and twitching which meant he was awake, just… not moving. “Is it the antidote?”
Curtis shook his head. “No, that’s not finished yet. I dosed him with a paralytic substance.”
Dinah blinked. “You paralyzed him?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean – Look, we needed him to stop moving, and this was the only option that came on my mind. It shouldn’t interfere with the Vertigo.” He paused. “I think. It shouldn’t. But what if it does? Oh god, what if I accidentally overdosed him?”
Oliver’s fingers twitched.
“I don’t think so,” Rene muttered. “Dig, help me get him back on the table. This time, let’s tie up every limb he has.”
“If we’re lucky, he won’t wake up for a few hours,” Curtis chimed in. “And by that time, the effects of Vertigo should be gone. It wouldn’t be wise giving him the antidote, not with so many different chemicals in his bloodstream already.”
“Well,” Dinah said as she gathered some rop efor his ankles, “it’s Oliver Queen. In his case, I’m not relying on ‘If we’re lucky.’ Look where did it get us.”
Curtis stared at her for a second. “Yeah, that’s a fair point.”
They tied Oliver to the table for the second time tonight. Curtis prepared another dose of the paralytic drug, just in case something went wrong. This time, everyone gathered around the table, because no one was willing to repeat this nearly catastrophic experience.
So they sat on guard around the unmoving man, looking anywhere else than in his eyes that revealed the pain and anger and fear caused by the things he was seeing and hearing, and hoped, for Olivers’s sake, that the effects would pass soon.