Starling City
It was a pretty normal day in Star City. People were getting their morning coffee and parents were taking kids to school. At the main office for Kord Industries, office workers and scientists were just starting their day, expecting it to be a normal day. But it was not going to be a normal day.
Two men walked into Kord Industries, dressed like office worker's. They even had earpiece's to receive calls and keep walking to their destination. But the earpiece's these two wore had a sinister purpose.
"In 6 seconds, lobby security will undergo a shift change." A man spoke to the two men through the earpieces from another location. "When that happens, make for the elevator bay."
"Copy," One whispered as he and his partner stepped into the elevator, slipping past security.
At his computer desk, the man directing the two goons monitored everything going on at Kord Industries. "Remember what I told you. Timing is everything," the man said, showing that he was very meticulous and precise with what he did.
The two men stepped out of the elevator, having shed their suits and wearing janitorial clothes. They pushed their suits and briefcase into a nearby janitor cart, just as thier boss had been planned, and walked toward their destination.
They walked through a set of office cubicles as the man at the computer desk spoke. "Maintain a pace of 1.3 meters per second. 6 seconds to target."
The two men soon saw their targets. 3 men with one carrying a special briefcase. "Now is the time, gentleman." The two goons used knockout gas to quickly incapacitate the Kord Industry officials. They looked at the case containing the item they had been sent to get and immediately noticed a problem.
"It's a fingerprint reader, I can't crack it," the one goon said.
"I can," The man at the computer, William Tockman, said. A few keystrokes later, the fingerprint scanner appeared to read a fingerprint, even though none had been scanned, and opened, allowing the two goons to retrieve the device.
"You have 5.3 seconds to get down the east stairwell." Tockman said to his goons as they moved to get out of the building. Then Tockman saw a guard that would certainly intercept them if they were to continue moving via him being tapped into the security cameras and said, "Stop!"
"What the hell are we doing? We got what we came for." One goon said in panic, as their faces were in front of cameras.
"He said to wait." His partner said, who had more faith in the skills of Tockman than the first goon did.
"Out in the open? Forget this." The one goon said, moving down the hall, only to encounter the guard that Tockamn was trying to prevent from seeing them.
"Don't do it." The goon warned the guard when he saw him going for his gun.
"Don't do it!" The goon warned, but when he saw the guard draw his gun, he shot the man dead.
"Security clocked us!" The goon said to Tockman, while Tockman hit his desk in frustration as this was something he was trying to avoid. He steeled himself and began furiously typing away to track the SCPD and contain the situation. "They've alerted the SCPD. Exit the east lobby in 22 seconds."
Sirens could be heard as the police pull up. One of the officers is Officer Lance. As Walczak and his partner exit the building, they open fire on the officers, who took cover behind their cars.
"SCPD! Put your weapons down!" Lance shouted before he caught a glimpse of Walczak's face, recognizing him. "Delta Charlie 52 to search, I need back-up, downtown!" Lance ran after them, but the two goons manage to lose him when they insert themselves into a local mob of protester's, having ditched their clothes.
Arrow Cave
Down in the Arrow Cave, Naruto was training with Natasha, Helena, Lyla, and Sara using bamboo bow staffs. Skye was working on the computer. During their session, Helena swung too hard and hit Sara above the eye, causing her to swerve her head and groan.
"Sara, I'm so sorry." Helena apologized.
Sara groaned, but stood back up straight. "It's ok, I'm fine."
"Let me see." Naruto said as he moved her aside and saw that it was just a shallow cut. "She's bleeding, but it's not deep."
"Good, I can't take any more scars," Sara said. Her body had enough scars, she felt. "Speaking of, sniper round?"
"8 years ago, when I still worked for the KGB, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot at my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the guy who shot my tires was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me. Bye Bye, bikini's." Natasha said with her usual smirk as she showed a healed and faint scar on her stomach. "Good eye."
"I know my wounds." Sara said as she pointed at her ankle, "Grenade. Algiers."
"I've never been hit by a grenade." Naruto said.
"All those scars, you've never been hit by a grenade?" Natasha asked.
"Arrow, knife, knife. A lot of bullets, a lot more torture wounds, no grenades." Naruto said as he pointed to some of his scars.
Helena and Skye didn't really have scars so they weren't a part of the conversation.
"We should get going." Naruto said as he put the stick down, "You don't want to be late for your own welcome home party."
"You didn't have to throw me a party, Nate." Sara said as she walked over to him.
"Sara, when you come back from the dead, you get a party. It's a Queen family tradition." Nathan said with a smirk.
"I don't know how well that's going to work with the Lance family tradition of holding grudges forever." Sara pointed out.
"She'll come around. Just be patient," Nathan assured her.
"Maybe. And maybe we should keep what's going on between you, me and the others between us. For Laurel's sake." Sara said, as Laurel would probably not react well to Nate's little harem.
"I get that." Nathan said.
"I survived Lian Yu and Nanda Parbat, I guess I can handle a cocktail party." Sara said as she and Nate shared a kiss.
Later that night
Tockman's Lair
The two goons had delivered the device to Tockman, who was currently inspecting it, already imagining different ways to modify it to suit his needs.
"You left us sitting in front of the security camera." Walzcak accused Tockman, even though it was because of his arrogance and impatience that got him and his partner nearly caught in the first place. "Guards could have killed us."
When Tockman did not respond, Walzcak pressed him further, "Are you listening?"
"If you had simply waited for five more seconds, like you were told, no one would have died." Tockman coldly and rightly pointed out.
"Sorry. I wasn't going to bet ten to twenty up in Iron Heights on your skills with a stopwatch." Walzcak said sarcastically.
"The strongest of all warriors are these two- time and patience." Tockman quoted Tolstoy's War and Peace.
"What?" Walzcak asked as Tockman coughed a bit.
"It's from "War and Peace." 1,440 pages. It takes a while, but it's worth a read. Tolstoy knew that patience was the epitome of strength. It takes fortitude to stand still." Tockman said as he glared at Walzcak, since he very nearly botched the job, Just as it is a sign of weakness or cowardice to move when you should not!"
Walzcak did not appreciate that tone and approached Tockman with his hand on his gun, "Look. We did the job. You owe me."
Tockman smiled fakely and made it look like he was going to acquiesce but then he picked up a minute hand from his desk and said lowly, "The dead are owed nothing." He then suddenly stabbed Walzcak in the chest several times, killing him almost instantly. Tockman coughed a little and wiped off the blood on his glasses, having put fear in his other goon, who already listened to orders and definitely would not make the same mistake that Walzcak made.
Party at the Queens
Nate opened the door to see Sara with her parents standing there. He was a bit disappointed that Laurel did not come, but he had expected it, since the two sisters still had not patched things up yet. Thea was standing next to Nate. Sadly, Helena could not be here since she had work tonight at her company.
"Come in, come in." He greeted them warmly before he gave her a hug, "Welcome home, Sara."
"I'm so happy you're here." Thea said as she hooked her arm around Sara's and dragged her along.
Roy and Sin came into view at that point. When Sin saw Sara, she could not contain her happiness and gave her a hug, surprising Sara and Thea.
"Oh, Sara, this is Sin." Thea said with a raised eyebrow. Sin stopped hugging Sara at that point.
"Wait, do you two know each other?" Roy asked.
"Uh, no. We don't." Sara lied, subtly telling Sin to tell a quick lie about it. They didn't need to know about her being a vigilante.
"Right. Uh...I just, I love when people come back from the dead. You know. Juices my zombie fetish." Sin said, acting like a tough girl again.
"Hmm." Roy hummed, not believing it.
"Um, Roy." Roy said, introducing himself, for the sake of Thea, since as far as she knew, Sara and him had never met.
"Sara." She said, 'officially' meeting for the first time, before she was dragged off by Thea.
Nate called up Laurel who was laying on her couch, not drinking alcohol right now but also not in the mood to go to a party for a sister she was still mad at.
"Laurel, it's Nate," He said, "I hoped you were coming to the party. I heard that you were still a little mad at Sara, and I...she's your sister, and-and you only get one. Look, just please don't stay mad at her forever. Bye." As he hug up, Lance walked up to him.
"Hey." Nate greeted.
"Laurel is not coming." Lance told him.
"Well, maybe she just needs time." Nathan said, as honestly, with some honest help, that was what she needed.
"Yeah. Yeah, I needed time, too," Lance said, not that it had helped him stay off the bottle, "When you got back, I...Well, I was pretty harsh on you.
"Look, Lance, you don't have to—" Nate said as by now, he was basically over it, but Lance wouldn't hear it.
"Oh, I do. When you, your brother, and Sara went off on your dad's boat, you were just a kid, all of you were. And whether she came back, or...I was way out of line. You're not a killer, Nathan." Lance apologized, extending his hand to shake. Nate supposed that he could live with Lance believing he was not a killer. Even though it wasn't true, it's not like he needed to know. They then walked back to the party.
Back at the party, Moira was talking to Dinah.
"I'm so happy for you, Dinah." Moira said to her. "Those five years that Nathan was gone, was...like a piece of me was missing."
"I know just what you mean." Dinah said as Nate walked up to speak with his mother.
"Oh, excuse me." Dinah excused herself as she realized Nathan wanted to talk to his mom.
"Hey mom, I didn't think you'd be here." Nathan said to his mom.
"This is my house." Moira said as she looked at him, "And if you don't want to be around me, then don't throw parties in my home."
"It's actually my house, mom." Nathan said as he turned his head to look at her, "While you were in prison, I bought the deed to the land and mansion. So, I can technically do whatever I want in my house."
Nathan sighed as he turned his whole body to face her, "Look mom, I'm still mad about you hiding the existence of my daughter from me. Like I said before, I just need some time to…cool off, I guess." Moira turned from him with a sigh, as he did have a right to be angry at her, but that didn't mean she had to like it either. So, she walked away. Thea saw this and walked over.
"Mom? Is everything ok with you and Nate?" Thea asked.
"Yes, of course." Moira lied as she continued walking away.
Nate was then very glad when Skye gave him a call about a strange homicide so he could slip away.
At the Crime Scene
Lance was at the crime scene as Nate and Sara showed up in their alter egos.
Lance asked, "What, you guys just show up to every crime scene now?"
"I saw you leave." Sara said.
"CSU just pulled this out of a skel I know named Eddie Walczak." Lance said as he handed them the evidence bag.
"I've never seen a knife life this." Sara noted.
"It's not a knife, it's a minute hand. Like from a clock." Lance explained, "I popped Walczak for b&e a few years back. This morning, he and an accomplice were involved in a robbery homicide."
"What'd they steal?" Nate asked.
"Some high-tech gizmo. Kord rep called it a, um, skeleton key." Lance said.
"Son of a bitch, not that damn thing" Prometheus muttered, getting Lance's attention.
"What? You know what it is?" Lance asked.
"It was intended as a military tool to aid in code breaking on foreign intelligence targets. Queen Consolidated was working on something similar... but Nathaniel Queen shut it down once he realized what it could be used for." Prometheus said.
"What?" Lance asked.
"It could be modified to open a bank vault. Any bank vault." Prometheus said.
"Ok, listen...Walczak's small-time on a good day. I mean, I doubt he'd even know how to use this thing, let alone break into a place like Kord and steal it on his own.
"Walczak was just a pawn." Sara said, "We need to find the brain."
One of Starling Cities Banks
Next night
"Device is hot. 3.2 seconds." Tockman commented over his encrypted signal to his goons as they successfully break in to the vault. Unfortunately, he had to wait a whole extra day because he had to find another goon to replace the one he killed. He breathes a sigh of relief as this will be all the money he needs, "Extract as much money as you can in 90 seconds."
The grunts began to extract the money when Tockman said 70 seconds later, "Stop! Get out of there!"
"We've still got 20 seconds." The one goon said.
"No, you don't." Tockman said as he saw through the camera's in the building that Prometheus was stalking menacingly towards their location.
"They're already gone!" Nate said when he and Sara arrive in the vault.
"I think I have an idea where. The skeleton key operates on an OFDM wireless signal. I'm picking up a transmission signal in the alley next to the bank." Skye said.
"But you won't be heading there." Tockman's voice came over their radio.
"What the-? Did he just hack us?" Nate asked as he started to see that he couldn't let someone with those skills get away.
"He's hacked our transmission." Skye confirmed.
"My associates may be headed to the alley, but the 9:10 bus from Crescent Circle is about to collide with the Starlight Freight Express." Tockman told them.
"Oh, my God, he's right, the 9:10's headed for the track at Amherst." Skye said in horror as she furiously typed away to try to stop it, but Tockman had her locked out.
"By my calculations, you can't be in two places at once." Tockman said.
"He doesn't know there's more of us." Nate said to Sara as he hopped through a portal that he quickly made.
With Tockman
Tockman's goons were running toward him with the money as he popped out of his stolen truck.
"Come on! Come on!" He shouted at them to hurry up as Sara was right behind them. He fired a few shots at her but each bullet missed. He didn't get to fire off any more as a crossbow bolt from Helena, who was positioned on the roof above him, pierced his throat. Tockman gurgled and struggled to breath as he watched his two goons get shot down as well while he quickly bled out.
"He's in the transit department network! He's-he's hacked the signaling system. I-I can't get the crossing barriers down!" Skye said frantically typing away, seemingly in vain to stop it.
"Those buses have radios. Can you break in, wave them off?" Nate said as he ran behind the bus.
"No, he's locked me out." Skye said. With that said, he ran even faster, getting in front of the bus, and forcing the driver to stop just shy of the tracks as the train went by and they narrowly avoided being T-boned.
"Where are we at on the skeleton key?" Nate asked as he removed himself from the bus and opened a portal.
"Secured. And the hacker and his grunts are all dead," Helena said as she held it in her hands and was hopping out of the truck.
"Sit tight. I'll pick you two up and we will head back to base." Nate said as he stepped through the portal.
Verdant
Nate, Sara and Helena walked into his bar to find Thea talking on the phone sounding very annoyed.
"How can I run a bar without any bartenders? For that matter, how can you quit without giving me notice? No, one hour before opening is not notice, Mandy." Thea said on the phone as she hug up and sighed before she spotted Nathan and stared at him. "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"I'm going to go use the little blonde's room." Sara said as she could see this was a private conversation and Helena basically did the same.
"Everything ok?" Nate asked as he leaned on the bar.
"You tell me. Other than the party, I haven't seen you very much." Thea pointed out.
"I've been busy. Being a CEO doesn't leave me a lot of free time. Besides, you know that I live in my loft uptown." Nate pointed out, not ready to tell her about his nocturnal activities quite yet.
"Yeah, looks to me a whole lot like you're avoiding mom." Thea pointed out.
"Look, I will admit that mom and I are in a bit of a fight right now, but I just need some time to cool off. Everything will be fine." Nate said with a smile.
"You know, it's secrets that pushed this family apart in the first place, Nate." Thea said as she got back to work, prepping the bar for later tonight.
"Speedy, Speedy. Really. Everything will be fine." Nate said as he kissed her forehead and Thea sighed in response.
Cave
"What do we have?" Nate asked as he headed down stairs to the lair.
"He hacked into our frequency, somehow gained remote access, but I'm upgrading our firewall and hardware. Now the next guy will need a bazooka to hack into our network. You know... computer science-wise." Skye said as she was inside one of the servers, adding better hardware into it.
"Very Good, Skye." Nate said with a smile, causing her to smile back. "I am a little curious though, as to who this guy was. Far as I can tell, he wasn't on the List."
"I think I have something that might help us track him down." Helena said as she held up the crossbow bolt she pulled out of Tockman's throat.
"May I?" Sara asked and Helena gave the bolt to her as she some of the blood off to view it under a microscope.
"You're pretty handy with the microscope." Natasha noted as she walked by, helping Skye with the hardware upgrades.
"I spent a year on the freighter studying genetic blood anomalies. I kind of know my way around a microscope," Sara said as she took a look and immediately saw something that stood out, "There's some significant cell damage and the platelet count is extremely low."
Sara moved over to the computer and typed away as Nate took a look and noted the same thing.
"Macgregor's Syndrome. It's a genetic defect that creates fluid build-up in the lungs, which leads to oxygen deprivation and multi system organ failure. It's terminal." Sara said.
"That hardly matters, seeing as he's been terminated." Helena quipped, causing Nathan to smirk.
"People with Macgregor's are extremely rare, and people with Macgregor's and a degree in computer science are even more rare. Could be a away to identify him," Nate said he typed it up and got a match. "William Tockman. Former encryption engineer at Kord Enterprises."
"What was the point? He would have been dead before he can spend all the money anyway." Helena wondered.
"He was probably stealing it for his family. His sister, specifically. She's got cystic fibrosis and needs a lung transplant." Nate said as he realized that while the man was not innocent, he did everything mainly to save his sister's life. He did regret it a bit, but not a whole lot, as he had a rep to uphold. But he would see about making up for it by paying for the woman's treatment.
Nate then looked at the time, "Oh look at the time. Only an hour left before your dinner with Laurel, Sara."
"Right. Dinner at Laurel's." Sara said as she grew uncomfortable. Her dad had organized the whole thing so they could try to start being a family again, "This is more important."
"I have all the help I need here, Sara. You at least still have a family. You shouldn't ignore them." Skye said to her while she was working on installing new hardware into the serves.
"Yeah." Sara sighed.
"You should go." Nate said, as this could help start to repair the relationship between the sisters.
"Will you go with me?" Sara asked suddenly.
"What?" Nate asked.
"I know I've wanted us all to get together for a while now. It's just, now that it's actually here, I'm nervous. I mean, last time I saw Laurel, it...didn't go very well, and... It'd be helpful to not have to go alone." Sara stammered a bit.
"I'll take you up there, but I really should not go in. It's meant to be just the family." Nate said, as while he wanted to support Sara, he was still trying to help Laurel and she started getting off the alcohol and drugs. He didn't want Laurel to suffer a relapse. Naruto gave her a passionate kiss and Skye looked away so she didn't seem jealous but Natasha caught it.
"Call me if you guys need anything." Nate said as he and Sara walked up the stairs.
Skye went back to working on the hardware while Natasha helped. "You wanna talk about it?" Nat asked.
"About what?" Skye asked her.
"I know we haven't talked about this, but it's probably not easy being one of the only girls down here that isn't in a relationship and then having to see that all the time." Natasha said, hitting the mark as Skye put the tools down.
"I don't want to seem jealous but I can't help it. Ever since I discovered the whole harem thing, I can't help but feel a little left out. Especially since I have feelings for him. I don't know what to do, because I don't know if I want to be a part of that yet." Skye admitted sadly. She liked Nate a lot, but the harem thing was not something she would ever have to consider when it came to the guy she liked.
"I wish I could give you some good advice, but truthfully, I'm dealing with the same thing." Natasha said from her crouched position. After all, despite his own issues, Natasha could not help but like the guy. He had very desirable qualities, both personality-wise and physically, as a partner. She and Skye stilled remembered that time from their trip to the other universe where Nate had a mishap with his new powers and accidentally left his clothes behind when experimenting with his portals. She had discovered her own primal instincts, likely intensified by her receiving spider powers of her own, calling out for her to claim him as her mate.
Shaking her head and clearing away those lust filled thoughts that she would need to do something about soon, Natasha decided to start training Skye, both as a way to take thier minds off Nate for now, and because she would need more than her powers if she would ever be able to defend herself.
Next Day
As Nate found out when he brought Sara home to the loft to join him and Helena for the night, it turned out that not going inside with Sara for her family dinner was the right decision. Without him there, Laurel did not get mad and accuse Sara of sleeping with Nathan, which allowed her and Sara to have a good heart to heart where they started repairing their relationship. That morning, Nathan picked up Laurel and took her to her first AA meeting. He wasn't about to let her off the hook after she nearly killed herself with her addiction. So, here he was, standing with Laurel outside of the AA meeting room.
"Thanks for giving me a ride," Laurel said to Nathan.
"I promised to help you through this, didn't I? Past mistakes this year aside, I still stand by that." Nathan said with a smile, getting a smile from her as he kissed her forehead, before he motioned with his head for her to head on in. "I'll be out here if you need me."
She was greeted with the site of her father in the room before she slowly walked in a took a seat across from him. Lance was glad his daughter was finally opening up and getting the help she needed to deal with her drug and alcohol problem.
Nate then got a SOS text from Thea, saying he needed to come to the mansion. Nate made a clone to stay with Laurel while he headed over to the mansion.
Later at the Queen Mansion
"Thea!" Nathan called out as he walked into the mansion.
"Nathan, "Moira walked up behind him, "What's wrong, is everything alright?"
"I don't know. Thea texted me that there was an emergency at the house." Nathan said as he faced his mother.
"Well there isn't. I'm in a meeting and Thea's not even here." Moira explained.
"Then why would she...I can't believe she would do this." Nathan groaned as put it together.
"Do what?" Moira asked.
"She's trying to force us to talk because she knows there's tension between us." Nathan explained.
"And what did you tell her?" Moira asked.
"Nothing. Our issues don't really have anything to do with her. She doesn't need to know." Nathan said dryly.
"Mrs. Queen, is everything okay?" A voice called out.
"Yes, my son just dropped by," Moira said as she led Nathan into the sitting room, "Nathan, I'd like you to meet Slade Wilson."
Nathan's blood ran cold. Slade stood up and faced Nathan and Nathan could see the eye patch on his former brother in arms as he walked over to him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Slade dropped the smile once Moira could no longer see his face, "Mr. Queen." Nathan could only glare at his former brother-in-arms, turned hated enemy.