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Oliver slammed his bow down onto the Diggles’ dining table, his dark green wings flaring and bristling furiously as he whipped around, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes. He shouted, anger clear in his tone, “Where is she?!”
It had been days. Three days. And Felicity was still missing. Oliver had flown all over the city, searching in every possible place his girlfriend could have been at. Diggle had told him that on the day she went missing, she hadn’t reached the government HQ for work, so the Angel spent hours and hours mapping out all the possible routes she could have taken in her car, and then on foot, to get there, trying to figure out every section of land where there was a chance, even the slightest probability, that he would find a clue. It was pointless - he couldn’t find anything. It was almost as if Felicity had vanished from the face of the Earth.
And that, unfortunately, was a very real probability. Raphael’s last words to Oliver, when he’d been bringing in his wings, had been to appreciate the time left he had with her. God himself had told him that his tryst as a human was temporary. Maybe it was the Angels and the Father punishing him, for not returning to his duties as soon as his Grace was re-bestowed. God knew of his feelings towards the IT girl, and it would be exactly like that manipulative bastard to threaten her to blackmail Oliver. Or, at least, order one of his Archangels to do that on his behalf. Oliver, however, didn’t like thinking about that. It meant that Angels he’d formed strong sibling bonds with and cared about had betrayed him and were working behind his back, deliberately causing him pain.
So, he insisted to Diggle and Lyla that they couldn’t go down that path of blaming the Heavens before they explored all other avenues. The one that kept on bringing Oliver’s suspicions to the surface was his theory that the government had actually kidnapped Felicity. She’d always told him that the US government believed that the Starling City Guardian Angel was still alive, and if they had worked out his connection to Felicity, then what was to say that they hadn’t taken her, to try and lure Oliver out of hiding and into the light again? Getting into the government’s systems using the Diggles’ home computer system, without alerting them to the hack, was too difficult. Oliver wished that he could take them both to the Lair he’d set up when first arriving on Earth, but he needed to ensure that the both of them were properly trustworthy before doing that. Meanwhile, he tracked down, stampeded and combed every single government base that Starling had to offer, going as far as to search the ones within a five hundred mile radius as well. If the government were holding Felicity anywhere, they’d be holding her in one of their secret facilities. Even his two new human allies had to admit that it sounded reasonable.
Speaking of which, Diggle slammed the front door behind him, equally frustrated that yet another raid of a government facility in which he had participated, massively putting himself at risk, had yielded no results.
Lyla halted in the stirring of the soup she was heating up on the stove to hiss sternly at them both, “Keep it down, both of you! Sara just got to sleep.” As if she was prompted, the baby girl began wailing furiously in her nursery, making the woman snarl to herself and throw down her wooden spoon, shaking her head. “Great. Just great.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver offered quietly, shifting awkwardly on his feet as his wings drooped in shame and exhaustion. He had to admit that he absolutely adored baby Sara. Her pure, innocent Soul had drawn him in the first time he had seen her, and his wings and Grace fascinated her, so the two of them had bonded very well. “I’ll go and care for her.”
Lyla’s gaze softened slightly upon seeing his tiredness. “Oliver, you don’t have to -”
“I woke her up, I’ll get her back to sleep. It’s only fair.”
Silently traipsing across the living room and into the nursery, Oliver’s wings stiffened and he ducked his head a little as he sensed the worried gazes of his friends on his back, and if he lengthened and quickened his stride to avoid their concern, he didn’t think anything of it. He didn’t want their pity. He was suffering without Felicity, sure, but they had no idea what Felicity herself was being put through… wherever she was.
Pausing upon reaching the cot, he managed a small smile. Sara was sitting with her tiny legs curled beneath her and hands gripping the bars fiercely as she screamed her lungs out. Upon seeing the Angel looming above her, though, his gigantic wings casting a shadow over her, her cries turned into awed and happy gurgling noises, and she reached her arms up towards him, asking him to pick her up. Shushing her gently, Oliver lifted the baby out of the cot and cradled her against his chest, backing up until he reached the stool in the corner of the room, where he sat and started rocking carefully, trying to lull her back to sleep.
Staring down at the baby resting in his arms, drifting back off to sleep as her podgy fingers grabbed onto the green hood pooled at his neck for security, Oliver couldn’t help but wonder what a potential child of he and Felicity would look like.
Would they have blue eyes like their parents? Would they have blonde, or Felicity’s natural brunette hair? Would they be calm and quiet, or loud and curious? More significantly… would the child have wings? It wasn’t much of a leap to think that if he and Felicity had a baby, it would be half-Angel: a Nephilim. Now that… that was a scary thought. Nephilim were forbidden, and if they ever came into existence, they were destroyed immediately. The Heavens had, after all, had rather awful experiences with power-hungry, arrogant Nephilim before. Not all Nephilim were bad, but most of them had been. Because of that, there had been a culling, a mass genocide of them.
Oh God. If he and Felicity had a child, would God kill it? A Nephilim had free will, due to its half human side, and had been named Untouchable by the Father himself upon the First’s creation, but… would God send an Angel down to destroy it? Would he and Felicity forever be on the run with the baby if they ever chose to have children? Was that risk of the child being killed even worth trying for one?
Panic and dread hit him. What if that was why Felicity was missing? What if she was carrying his half-Angel child, and the government had found out, or God had decided it needed to be eradicated? They'd never used protection, as awful and irresponsible as it sounded. They hadn't seen the need to. There was the slightest, smallest possibility that she was pregnant, and a chance that she had been kidnapped because of that, and didn't that constrict Oliver with fear.
What if whoever had taken her had killed her? What if Felicity was already dead? She couldn't be, he tried to convince himself. She was his True Love, his Always, his Soulmate. Oliver would have sensed something. Wouldn't he?
He didn’t realise he was hyperventilating until Diggle knelt down in front of him, prying his sleeping baby girl from the Angel’s arms and placing her in her cot before taking a firm grasp of Oliver’s wrist and ordering him firmly, “Breathe. Just breathe. Clear your mind. Take deep breaths. Breathe, Oliver.”
The Angel’s entire body was shaking, his wings trembling. He didn’t realise that the tears that had been building in his eyes had fallen until his face felt wet, and he was crying silently, leaning forwards to rest his head against the human’s shoulder. Diggle cupped the back of his neck, offering solidarity in order to ground him as he gasped desperately, attempting to lower his heart rate and stall the tears. Finally, after a few minutes, the Angel was able to compose himself. Pulling away from Diggle, and avoiding the human’s gaze so he didn’t have to see the sympathy there, he stood rigidly and walked past him, back out into the living room.
“Oliver?” Lyla asked concernedly, seeing his puffy red eyes from crying, no doubt. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” he answered, stopping in front of the apartment’s window, the one he had crawled through just a few days ago when breaking in. Staring out into the city often helped soothe his nerves, and he felt pretty fried after his spiralling thought process about children. “Sara’s asleep again.”
“I thought Angels weren’t supposed to lie,” Diggle said, re-emerging from the nursery with his arms crossed. He frowned at Oliver’s pained expression. “You’re not fine. Oliver -”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he replied shortly.
The human shook his head, looking disgruntled. “Alright, be that way,” he grumbled, moving across the room to help his wife pour the soup out into three bowls.
Oliver ran shaky hand through his hair, drawing his wings in tightly to his back self-consciously. He didn’t move from his position in front of the window until Lyla softly called his name to summon him to the dining table.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“Like I said - I’m not hungry.” Eating and sleeping seemed like a waste of his time; time that could be spent looking for Felicity.
There was a beat of silence, and Oliver inhaled and exhaled slowly, guessing that the two humans had finally just given up and were leaving him in peace, but then fingers brushed against his right wing, and he lashed out. Not only because he was startled and wasn’t expecting the touch, and his messed up Angel threat processing registered it as hostile, urging him to attack, but also because it hurt. The sudden flash of pain that surged through his wings and down through his spine left him shaking, holding in an agonised gasp.
Humans weren’t meant to touch Grace. And since Angel wings were a manifestation of pure Grace, so that their eyes didn’t burn and their brains didn’t implode… touching them was sort of a bad idea. Except, because Angels were forbidden to harm any of God’s innocent creations, the action of an innocent human touching Grace, which should hurt them, ended up hurting the Angel instead.
Diggle immediately backed off, his hands raised with an agitated expression on his face. Seconds later, the occupants of the room were standing opposed to one another, the humans on one side with the Angel on the other, staring at them distrustfully and hunched over himself, having to hold onto the back of a chair to keep himself upright. Oliver’s wings still throbbed in pain, but at least it wasn’t as sharp now.
“What was that?” Diggle questioned warily.
“The consequence of something that humans aren’t allowed to do,” Oliver responded quietly.
The man shook his head. “Felicity’s touched your wings before.”
“Felicity’s my True Love,” the Angel countered. Straightening as much as he could without it hurting, he gingerly half spread his wings, flinching when spikes of pain sparked within them again, flowing through his green feathers and down his back. “Humans aren’t meant to touch Grace.”
Lyla looked as if she wanted to rush over to him and envelop him in a hug, her motherly instincts telling her to care for the person in pain, but after the Angel’s reaction to Diggle touching him, she was hesitant. “It hurt you?”
“Yes.” He didn’t meet either of their gazes. “It’s fine. Let’s move on.”
“No, let’s not move on. We need to talk, man.”
Oliver blinked at Diggle suspiciously as the human moved to the couch, guiding Lyla by the hand to sit beside them. The two of them settled, and then stared at him patiently, waiting for the Angel to join them. Cautiously, Oliver circled around them both and drew a chair over from the dining table, turning it around so he could straddle it and not crush his wings. Once he was seated, the humans both seemed to relax, sinking back into the cushions and fixing him with warm, empathetic looks. This time, Oliver didn’t see pity or sympathy, and since neither of them appeared to be feeling sorry for him, the Angel didn’t shy away, and instead met their gazes head on.
“What do we need to talk about?” he asked flatly.
“What just happened a minute ago might have hurt you physically, but you’re hurting a lot more emotionally and mentally than you’re letting on,” Lyla told him. “And it’s not healthy for you. John and I have been watching you struggle for the last few days now helplessly, and we can’t sit on our asses and just let you bury yourself into a hole any longer.”
Oliver slowly dragged his eyes over the both of them, swallowing, subconsciously pulling his wings in a little closer as they fluffed up defensively. “And what do you propose we do?” he replied coldly. “Talk about our feelings like some kind of therapy group?” Growing frustrated, he growled, “I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now. There isn’t a word to describe this… this pain that I’ve been constantly feeling since Felicity -” He couldn’t keep going.
Diggle and Lyla exchanged glances. “Viraag,” Diggle responded calmly. “What you’re feeling, it’s called viraag, in Hindi. And in Romanian, it’s called Dor.”
The Angel’s head fell into his hands, and he closed his hands as he murmured the definition, “The sense of emotional pain associated with being separated from the person you love.”
“You’re spiralling, Oliver,” Lyla smiled sadly. “You’re not coping. Felicity is missing, and you haven’t found her yet, and you’re doing almost everything you can searching for her and still, her location eludes you. From what you’ve been telling us over the last few days… she’s the person who anchors your very being and gives your life purpose, beyond Angelic duties. She is, as you say, your True Love, and now you’ve experienced a life with her in it, learnt what it means to love so deeply, and survive on that love… without her, you’re becoming depressed.”
“You miss her,” Diggle translated. “You miss her, a lot.”
The emotions that their words were erupting within the Angel’s chest made him want to sob and break down. Oliver couldn’t even collect himself enough to reply, without choking on his voice, “Yeah, I do.” His hands were trembling as he rubbed his eyes, desperately trying to halt the tears that were beginning to flow out of them. Angels were warriors, they didn’t whine, they didn’t complain, but above all, they didn’t cry. But he couldn’t stop. “I need her. Like I need air. I just don’t know how I’m going to keep living if it turns out that she’s…” He trailed off, having to mentally brace himself so his fragile heart didn’t fragment even more as he finished, voice breaking, “Dead.”
As soon as Oliver said that, he began shaking uncontrollably again, his chest tightening and vision blurring. Horrifying thoughts invaded his head, of holding Felicity’s lifeless body in his arms, her blood spilling out on his wings and permanently staining his feathers a deep, traumatic crimson, and, the most awful and panic-inducing thought of all, a tiny little Soul protected within his True Love fading under his hand, as he could do nothing to stop it. Choking and gasping with every breath the Angel took, he tried to stand and flee upon managing to catch a glimpse of Lyla and Diggle’s disconcerted faces, but his legs gave out under him and he pooled on the biting cold floor, curling his wings over himself.
He didn’t know exactly how long he was in that state for, but by the time he broke out of his trance and managed to heave himself to his knees, dawn was fringing upon the horizon, the sun just peaking over the tops of the buildings viewable out of the apartment’s window and sending rays of light spilling onto the floor and over his wings, highlighting them a beautiful forest green. Diggle and Lyla were still seated on the sofa, pressed up against each other, and Oliver could vaguely remember their soft and kind words reassuring and calming him, as they remained a careful distance away and attempted to bring the Angel back to reality.
Diggle awoke just as Oliver got to his feet, swaying slightly, his wings flaring and tucking to balance him. He stayed quiet, just watching Oliver take a seat at the dining table and sit there silently, before the human got up and moved across the room and began to wash up the dishes in the sink. Lyla woke up five minutes later, sensing her partner was gone from her side, and she went to begin preparing breakfast, her eyes also set on the Angel carefully. Oliver shifted awkwardly, feeling like a wolf cornered by hunters, his feathers twitching and bristling.
“We both have work until six tonight,” Lyla informed him, placing three glasses and a carton of orange juice on the table. “Usually John and I’d call a babysitter over, but would you mind -”
“Looking after Sara for you?” Oliver finished. A small smile quirked at his lips, but it immediately vanished. He shouldn’t be smiling, not when Felicity was missing. “Of course. There’s another location about sixty miles north of here that I’d like to check out as well, it’s an abandoned government airfield, so I’ll do the research and leave after you two get back so Sara isn’t on her own.”
“And also so you can have back up,” Lyla added sternly.
Oliver shook his head. “John isn’t coming out with me any more,” he said.
Diggle turned around, pausing in his egg whisking to make omelettes as he replied dryly, “I was not aware of this. Why didn’t I get a say in this decision?”
“Because it’s too dangerous for you,” the Angel responded. “I can’t have you out there with me when there’s a chance you could be killed, and you have a family to come home to every night who relies on you and loves you.”
“And why the sudden change?” Lyla questioned, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms.
“John almost got shot last night.”
“I thought we agreed that was gunna stay between us, man!” Diggle hissed.
“No, you stated, I never agreed to anything,” Oliver said, shrugging.
Diggle narrowed his eyes at him, questioning, “Did you and Felicity argue a lot, by any chance?”
“How is that relevant?”
“You’re the most irritating Angel I’ve ever met.”
“I’m the only Angel you’ve ever met.”
“Boys! Boys,” Lyla interrupted, holding her hand out to get them both to shut up. She was smirking as she looked between them both. “Let’s have breakfast and then get out of here. Oliver, if you go out tonight searching that airfield, then John will be going with you, because I don’t trust you not to get yourself killed, and you will both look after each other.”
“Why if?” Oliver frowned.
Lyla sighed, looking over at Diggle. Diggle looked back at her with an almost resigned expression. The two of them paused in their activities to slide into chairs in front of the Angel. This very much reminded him of the intervention they had held for him last night, making Oliver narrow his eyes, trying to suss out what they were going to scold him about this time. However, whilst last time the humans had been urging him to talk, and wanting him to listen to them, this time they seemed reluctant to speak, almost as if they were scared of what the Angel’s reaction was going to be. To be fair, Oliver hadn’t really reacted well to their little intervention last night, and he’d shown them both numerous times that when he was angry he didn’t put his best foot forwards. Whatever they were going to tell him, he wasn’t going to like it.
“We think that we’ve done all we can in searching the government,” Diggle told him. “We think it would be better if we started exploring other avenues… namely, we think we should start questioning whether or not it was the Angels who took Felicity.”
Oliver instinctively looked upwards at the sky for a moment, vaguely towards where the dimension where Heaven lay was located, before looking back down at the humans with a blank mask plastered on his face and wings held completely still, answering shortly, “Why?”
“We’ve searched fifty seven different government bases, Oliver,” Lyla said tiredly. “Don’t you think that if Felicity was being held by them… we would have found her by now?”
“But -”
“Look, all we’re saying is that we’ve gone down that road,” Diggle cut in. “And that road has currently only resulted in dead ends. And the street on the other side of the cross roads, well, that’s looking pretty suspicious. You told us yourself that Raphael told you -”
“That doesn’t mean my Brethren kidnapped Felicity!” Oliver snapped.
“I know it’s difficult to think about, man,” Diggle said sympathetically. “I know it’s awful to think your siblings could betray you like that, try and hurt you. But c’mon… you know that it makes sense for us to at least question. Would God use Felicity to get you back to your duties?”
God was pretty unpredictable, and changeable in his moods and opinions. It was unnerving to think that God would do something like that… but realistic. “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “But my Father was the one who told me that loving Felicity wasn’t a sin. I don’t see why he’d say that and then a month later kidnap her to manipulate me away from her.”
“Then what if it’s an Angel?” Lyla suggested.
“All Angels perform God’s Will,” Oliver said automatically.
“Really?” Lyla raised an eyebrow. “Then how come you’re here, not doing any of your duties as a Guardian Angel, having fallen in love with a human, and searching for her?” Realising that Oliver was getting frustrated by this line of questioning, she changed the subject, asking, “What about Roy? Could we possibly rope him in, try and get him to spy on the Angels for us?”
“Roy won’t talk to me. That plan’s a non-starter.” The young Cupid with red wings had completely avoided Oliver since their last meeting, when Raphael had muttered those ominous words. He’d probably returned to Heaven.
“Okay,” Lyla said, beginning to look visibly irritated. “Do you have an in with any other Angels?”
He paused for a moment, thinking. Finally, he nodded hesitantly, relaxing his wings so they slumped at half span, shadowing the room. “Gabriel. He taught me archery. We’ve always been close… well, closer than Angels would normally be to each other.”
“Gabriel - as in, the Archangel?” Diggle asked.
“The one and only.”
“Could you get in contact with him?” Lyla asked. “Maybe he could just keep an eye out in Heaven for us. We don’t want to have to send you back there, Oliver, until we know for sure whether they have Felicity or not. It could be that they’re laying down a trap for you.”
Oliver was unsure. Gabriel was a little more sassy and open-mouthed than the other Angels, not afraid of disagreeing with God or going against orders occasionally, but he wasn’t certain whether or not he’d aid Oliver with finding his True Love, not when Felicity was human, and the Archangel thought that loving humans was a sin. But it was worth a shot. “I can try.”
At that point, Sara began to cry from the nursery, and Oliver got up immediately and went to her before Lyla and Diggle could even stand. Cradling the hiccupping baby girl against his chest, he shushed her quietly whilst Lyla prepared the baby’s breakfast, Diggle smiling at the Angel rocking his daughter. When Lyla came back over to take the gurgling baby out of Oliver’s arms, Diggle laughed when Sara allowed her mother to pull her away from the Angel, but kept a firm grip on the feathers of Oliver’s right wing, resulting in him being practically dragged across the room, wincing and biting his lip.
Whatever sweet moment was occurring, however, was entirely ruined when the Diggles’ apartment’s front door came crashing down, thrown off its hinges as a group of masked men in black, armed with assault rifles in SWAT gear stormed the room, surrounding them all and barking harsh ordered, pointing their guns at the family. Diggle immediately leapt to his feet and went to Lyla, pulling his wife and child into his arms before inching over to the Angel, who’d reacted instantly to the invasion.
Oliver had his wings three quarter spread threateningly, his feathers puffing up to make himself look bigger in order to intimidate the enemy, and he had his bow in his hand and drawn to anchor point, arrow nocked before any human could have possibly blinked. His heart thudding in his chest at a dangerously fast pace and his throat thick, he tried not to let his fury and anger overwhelm his mind, not giving in to his immediate instinct to shoot every single threat within the room.
“John Diggle, Lyla Diggle, you are under arrest for the harbouring of the Starling City Guardian Angel,” one of the masked men said. “All three of you can either come willingly into government custody, or we will use lethal force if necessary.”
The Diggles didn’t seem to know what to do, not when they had their baby in their arms and they were vastly outnumbered. Oliver, however, was willing to protect his new friends in any way he could. Stepping forwards and fanning his wings out even further to full span, so that Diggle, Lyla and Sara were shielded behind him, he slowly twisted his form, alternating which masked man he pointed his arrow at.
“Try and use lethal force,” he snarled, his voice low and deep. A ripple of unease spread through the SWAT team, making them all shift on their feet and mutter incoherently. “I dare you, just try.”
“You need to come into government custody, sir,” one of the men, sounding slightly younger than the one before, piped up, attempting to sound firm. His voice didn’t waver, but there was a note of fear held within his tone.
Oliver switched his dark gaze between them all, just itching to let his arrow loose into one of the intruders. There was only one choice to make - the Diggles were in danger, and if he got inside the government, he’d know, once and for all, whether or not they had kidnapped Felicity. “The Diggles get pardoned,” he reasoned, staring directly at the man who’d spoken so bravely to him. “Agree and swear to the Father on it, and I will go with you.”
The young masked man paused, as if listening to orders through a comm unit, which was actually precisely what he was doing, if the muffled noises Oliver could hear coming from his helmet were anything to go by. “Alright. I swear to God, the Diggles will be pardoned.” The life-binding contract clicked into place, implemented by an Angel being present in the room, and everybody collectively shivered.
The masked men circled behind them as Oliver began retracting his wings, tucking them in cautiously, but leaving them open at half-span so that the men knew that they weren’t dealing with an entirely pacified Angel. Turning back to lock gazes with the worried Diggles, Oliver gave the two parents both a small nod of reassurance, a promise to them that he would keep them safe, and he attempted to send out a soothing wave of Grace towards Sara to calm her, noticing that she was wriggling in her mother’s arm, making small distressed noises.
As they began to be shepherded out of the apartment and down the staircase, towards a large black lorry parked up on the side of the street, Oliver looked back at the Diggles and said softly, “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“It really isn’t,” Diggle said exhaustedly.
“Neither of you would be in this mess if I hadn’t -”
“Oliver,” Lyla said sternly. “What’s done is done. We deal with that is going to happen. Together. Now, do you have a plan?”
The masked men were listening on all sides, so Oliver could only relay quietly, “We do what they say. They take us to wherever they take us, we try and stick together, and then we go from there. Stay alert. You have your human rights, don’t let them take advantage of you, and whatever you do, don’t show any vulnerabilities.”
As the three of them, plus baby Sara, were marshalled into the dimly lit back of the empty black lorry, and pushed to sit down on the floor, Oliver had to tuck his bristling wings tight against his back, as two of the masked men squeezed in either side of him, brandishing their weapons to make sure he didn’t try anything funny. The Angel could only hope that he’d made the right decision, and that he wouldn’t live to regret it.