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“Duck!” Oliver cries out, and Laurel obeys on instinct earned through months of ruthless training at his hand.
Just in time too, as a bullet flies over her head, and she turns in the direction it was fired from, letting loose a scream that echoes in the concrete room. Her target goes flying, crumpling against the hard, gray wall. When she straightens then, re-evaluating the scene, it’s to the realization that Oliver’s been paying more mind to her safety than his own. Someone’s kicked his knees out from under him and one man is in the process of choking him out with his own chains.
Laurel growls, feeling the fury rage through her, but she holds back her scream. Too much risk of hitting Oliver.
“Stalemate, bitch,” the man holding the chain says, gleeful and cruel. The last two other men, one of them leaning against the wall and favoring an ankle, the other seemingly untouched (thus far), pause, following his lead.
Laurel lets herself still too, watching the way Oliver’s face is turning red, the way the chain is digging into his throat, the way the tightness of the length is forcing the manacles to dig into his wrists and ankles. She takes a moment to study the shackles, which she’d only gotten a glimpse of when she’d charged into the room. The wrist and ankle restraints actually connect, and the length of chain between them runs through a metal loop embedded in the concrete floor, holding Oliver in the center of the room. There’d been enough chain for Oliver to stand, earlier, and there’s just enough for him to be strangled by, now that he’s down on his knees.
Despite the tension on the chain and the imminent risk of unconsciousness, Oliver meets her gaze unflinchingly. There’s steel there unfettered by the damage being done to his throat. As Laurel watches him he deliberately flicks his gaze down to the loop in the floor in front of him, then back to her.
No. He couldn’t be thinking… Laurel scatters her gaze around the room, quickly, quickly, aware of the limited oxygen getting to Oliver’s brain. She could take on the other two, all three of them even, but not quickly enough. Shattering the chain though… She can do that too, easily, but she’ll be aiming her scream at Oliver’s knees, or near enough. The metal might fracture, might shatter and turn into shrapnel.
There’s no time to make a decision. Oliver’s given his command.
Oliver’s been through enough already, she thinks bitterly, angry. Now this, too? Rage swirls through her, as it usually does when she comes across an injustice.
Taking a deep breath, she steels herself. She screams.
She tries to keep it as targeted as possible, sharp and pinpoint in her accuracy, but she’s better at the wider-range, long-range screams. This isn’t something she’s practiced enough, and she’s already screamed a few times this evening so her throat is wearing thin. But her friend’s life is on the line here. She screams, and pours her rage and fury and love into it.
The loop holding the chain, the chain beneath the loop, shatters. The man holding Oliver flinches back, tugging at the chain he’d been using to choke the life out of him, but with the link between the wrist and ankle restraints broken there’s no tension on the line. He stumbles away from Oliver’s kneeling form unintentionally, expecting a handhold that’s no longer secure (no longer pressing against Oliver’s neck).
Laurel doesn’t wait. She’d run through the scenarios in the little time she’d had and knows she has to trust in Oliver’s capabilities, even after twenty-four hours captive, weapons gone, hood down, and possible shrapnel wounds in his legs. She turns to the left instead and screams again, fierce and wide and still so angry. People like these men, people who don’t care about fairness, or justice, or kindness…
They’d taken Oliver and they’d chained him like an animal, metal digging into his flesh. His feet and arms are bare, but he’s still wearing his leather pants and vest. He’s not covered in blood, at least, from the glances she’s caught, but there are bruises and scrapes on his arms, and even if he was, well, the darkness of his clothes coupled with the poor lighting would make spotting any injuries difficult (makes spotting any shrapnel difficult). She doubts he’s eaten, or had anything to drink even. Laurel hates that, hates this, hates the knowledge that Oliver would make the same decisions that led him here again and again, just to save the rest of them a bit of pain.
The man she’d targeted slumps against the wall. Laurel doesn’t pause to wonder if he’ll be alright, or how badly she might have hurt him. She’s only thinking about Oliver, and his constant, stupid belief that he needs to sacrifice himself for them, that there’s nothing else he can do to make up for the hurt he’s done than throw himself in front of bullets, drown his hopes and dreams so theirs live, break his bones and tear his flesh and hurt in turn, as if he owes it to the universe.
Laurel hates that, and she hates that there was a time she’d have agreed with that.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Oliver grappling with the man who’d been holding him. She turns to the last then and surges forward and funnels her rage into her fists, into her arms and legs, into the flow of her body and the dance of her feet. She downs this man without a noise from her deadly throat.
When she turns back, Oliver, too, is standing triumphant over his foe. She gets a better look at him, at the exhaustion in his bones and the heaving of his chest. She’d broken the chain, but it’s still there, hands still tight together, ankles still restricted, even if the length between them has been severed. She’d say it’s a miracle he fought back, shackled as he is, except she knows Oliver. He’s fought in worse conditions, with worse hurts.
There’s no time now either though, to delay. They’ve beaten these goons, but there may be more coming, and some of them will no doubt be stirring soon, even injured and incapacitated as they are.
“Can you get out of those?” she asks, practicality taking over out of necessity as her rage simmers down.
Oliver grimaces, rotating a shoulder. “Not without a good set of lockpicks,” he says, gruff and clearly displeased. “Everyone else?”
“No one’s injured, if that’s what you’re worrying about, but they’re not close either. We had to split up. Spartan and Red Arrow are on their way, and Speedy’s watching the entrance, but…”
Oliver nods, taking in the information easily.
“What about walking?” Laurel continues.
“Not quickly.” From Oliver’s expression and displeased tone, he knows as well as her there aren’t really any other options.
Laurel glances at the chain again. He can stand with his feet shoulder width apart, maybe a bit more than that, but not by much. He certainly won’t be running. Time is of the essence though.
“If you –”
“No.” Laurel cuts him off instantaneously. She can see now, too, beyond the chains, newly bleeding cuts and scrapes on Oliver’s arms and a small hunk of metal that has pierced the leather covering his thigh. “We’re not that desperate.”
The look he gives her says he’s not so certain, but Laurel doesn’t care. It’s her choice. She’s not doing it.
“Let’s go, then,” he says, gruff and grim and striding from the room, as much as he can stride with his feet barely able to separate.
Well. At least he’s not arguing. Laurel sets off after him, quickly catching up. “Here,” she says, digging around in one of the pouches around her waist and pulling out a mini power bar.
Oliver takes it without comment. For a short while, they walk in silence, but it isn’t long before Oliver is stilling. Laurel recognizes the movement (or, rather, the lack thereof) for what it is. It isn’t Oliver giving in to some bodily need (rest, pain, hunger, thirst – no, they’ve all seem him up and moving even after nearly dying before). He’s wary, he’s tense, and he’s listening hard. Now that the soft clinking of his chains has stopped echoing gently in the underground tunnels, Laurel focuses her ears too. She’d been keeping a careful watch on the pathways in front of them, focusing on the maps Felicity had made them memorize, but it’s clear that Oliver’s more interested in what’s behind them.
She wants to ask what it is he thinks he’s heard – she can hear something, though not enough to distinguish the sound – but that would only disrupt his focus. Forcing herself to be patient, she presses herself against the wall on her side of the hallway, ready for anything. Sight won’t grant her much, dimly lit as the area surrounding them is, so she keeps her gaze on Oliver. On the chains hanging from his wrists and ankles, the scrapes and cuts and bruises.
Rage had filled her earlier, when she’d gotten a good look at him. Now she’s just sad. Oliver’s been through enough already, she thinks for a second time, but instead of bitter and angry she’s tired and disheartened. Not enough to drag down her energy, not enough to make her weary or make her want to give up the fight, but… Enough. He’s been through enough, she thinks a third time, and this time it’s desperate and pleading, even though she doesn’t believe in any sort of god.
She can hear the sounds of footsteps now, coming after them. Maybe the goons are just familiar with the quickest way out of the tunnels. Maybe they're following a trail of Oliver’s blood, or the clinking of his chains.
He’s been through enough, she thinks, again, and again, and again, and her emotions morph and shift and change until she’s angry again, but determined instead of bitter, fierce and protective and rageful – angry not at the universe but these men, who thought they could get away with this.
“Cover your ears,” she says, stepping in front of Oliver, stepping back the way they’d come. There’s no need to maintain these tunnels, and the ceilings are thick enough that a collapse shouldn’t disturb the surface too much.
Oliver, with his limbs still restrained, Oliver, hungry and dehydrated, Oliver, in pain and weary and covered in scars and filled with memories that still make him scream at night – Oliver doesn’t need to fight this time. Laurel can handle things.
She screams. She pours her heart into it again, her rage and her love again, loud and furious. She puts her feelings out into the universe and the ceiling cracks and crumbles and crashes down.
She turns back to Oliver. She grins, fierce and proud and angry. “C’mon,” she says. “I’m getting you out of here.”
They meet up with Digg and Roy without further incident, but neither of them have the tools to remove the shackles either and it’s still slow going to fully exit the tunnels. Laurel feels better, with the three of them flanking Oliver, but the haunting sound of the chain clinking together (he’d wrapped the lower part around his leg, stopping at least the soft sound of it dragging along the concrete) only adds to the nausea in her gut. Digg and Roy, she can tell, don’t feel any better about it. In fact, Roy looks like he’s one “I’m fine” comment from Oliver away from blowing a fuse.
Oliver, either sensing that or too tired to speak, doesn’t try to hard to reassure his partners that all is well.
In the van, Thea with them now, they don’t have the tools to remove them either, something Laurel curses and Roy grits his teeth at and Digg pointedly doesn’t dwell on as he quickly moves to the driver’s seat. (Thea's still drinking in the sight of her brother, equal parts relieved and sickened.) They do have a first aid kit though and Laurel and Roy are quick to divide it among them. Roy gets Oliver some water, first, while Laurel moves through the task of disinfecting the wounds on his left side, and slipping some soft gauze where the shackles are rubbing his skin raw.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Roy says, low and careful. He’s not angry, not quite, but there’s still rage there, even if it’s not directed at Oliver.
They all know what he’s talking about.
Oliver meets his gaze unflinchingly, even as Laurel dabs at his wounds in ways that must sting. He studies Roy’s eyes for a moment, saying nothing.
“Yes, I did,” he settles on.
Laurel hates his response, and hates that she can see the reason in it. Him, or them? In his mind, the right answer is always him, and if she puts him up against Roy, against this young kid with so much promise in him… Oliver, who’s been chained down more times than he has fingers by now, and Roy, who hasn’t. Oliver, who was trained by ARGUS to withstand torture, and Roy, who wasn’t.
It’s practical. It’s cold hearted. It’s a part of Laurel she wishes she didn’t have, and a part she knows she can’t do without; not if she wants to keep being the Black Canary.
But she wouldn’t be who she is today, if she wasn’t dedicated to fighting for a better future.
“No,” she counters, even though she agrees, and hates that she does. “There’s always another way.”
Oliver meets her gaze. He doesn’t share her optimism. She can see that, knows that, understands that, after everything he’s been through. He’s probably been in some situations far worse than this, where there really, truly, wasn’t another option.
She doesn’t care. Oliver taught her this practicality, how to hone her fierceness into a protective rage, how to save lives, and how to stop herself from taking them with her scream. She can teach him this in turn, how to believe in a better world again, how to imagine that anything can be possible, that at its core, humanity deserves saving.
That he deserves it too.
His shackles clink and rattle against his chains as the van trundles down the highway at speed. He meets her gaze. Laurel’s love and rage swim hand in hand in her eyes.
Oliver looks away first. He doesn’t believe it, just yet. That’s okay. One day, he will. Laurel will see to that.