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It's a night of nonstop action, a night of calamity and chaos; a night that saw Star City become a war zone.
It's a night that needs a hero.
The city screams, shrieking and bending under the weight of the disaster. Mia can hear the fresh agony. How can she not answer the call? Lian will be fine. She's already in bed, and Roy's neighbor promised she'd drop in and check on the kid once an hour. There are other girls, girls whose lives hang in the balance. Girls who need a hero to answer their screams.
One such girl is clawing at her assailant's arm. There's terror in her face, in her scream. Mia can spot the silver glint from half a block away. Disasters always have those willing to take advantage—the scum of society crawling up from their holes, a sea of fresh victims ripe for the picking.
Mia's in full Speedy regalia, leaping across the roof and drawing an arrow in the same movement.
Too slow. Her arrow hits its target, but not before his knife embeds itself in his hostage's shoulder. It would have been her neck if not for Mia's swift shot. She spins into them, kicking him away and knocking him out in one smooth motion.
Mia shoves a pressure bandage on the wound, taking just enough time to say, "Keep pressure on the wound," before she's off like a shot, chasing the next preventable tragedy.
Chaos surrounds her; screaming, wailing, the crash of buildings felled.
She's—she's missing something.
Mia scans her surroundings. Star City is in complete disarray, civilians panicking and hurting and dying.
There's smoke in the air. The ground shifts beneath her feet, disorienting and alive. What is she missing?
Her ears ring, high and unreal.
What is she missing?
Mia doesn't—she can't—
Pressure on her windpipe. The world swirls out around it, landscape unfolding and forming from the bare ungloved fingers clasping her voice in their grief-stricken grip.
It's her predecessor. It's her almost-family. It's Roy.
Roy's hand around her throat. His voice echoing around the deserted field, louder than life. You let my daughter die.
Mia chokes on it (it the truth, it the agony), staring at the tiny coffin. Her throat closes with vivid recall of Roy's fingers, punishing and honest.
She turns, looking for comfort, looking for—
Ollie's gravepale face, rasping, "My little Lolita."
Mia sits up in a cold sweat, gagging at the frozen corpse-stink and the words. Ollie wouldn't but he did but it wasn't him—
Mia digs her nails into her arm, forcibly adjusting to wakefulness, refocusing herself on her known reality. She's safe. She's in her bed. Lian's still dead.
She wishes that was just a nightmare.
Her lamp casts warm light upon her, turning shadows to safety. It's too soothing, a comfort she can't bear. Mia flicks it back off, plunging herself back into pitch-black oblivion.
The disturbed sleep, the cold terror still gripping her—none of it is new.
When she was little, she used to have nightmares about the monster under the bed. It had a scratchy face and superstrength and Dad's beer-breath. Now, her dreams are a collage of pure awful reality—no thin veneer of childish fantasy left to protect her.
The nightmares aren't going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.
How can they, when she can't even escape them in the light of day?
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Lian's limp body, smeared in ash and blood. She never seemed as little as when she was clutched in Ollie's arms.
Mia grabs her brush.
It's dumb, but she used to brush out Lian's hair before putting her to bed, when she babysat. There’s something soothing in the repetitive steady motions, the untangling and the smoothing. And at first, when she really needs it, the sharp sting as the brush pulls on her scalp, none of the gentleness she afforded Lian. The pain is grounding. Inconsequential. Less than she deserves.
When she can’t stand the quiet dark any longer, Mia slides off the bed. She wraps her blanket around her shoulders; it's very soft—microfleece, courtesy of Dinah. She's too cold to go it in just her oversized Great Frog shirt and her volleyball shorts. (The shirt is her favorite—worn soft and gifted with a lost familial love.) The night chill has overpowered their crap heating, and Mia already has goosebumps down her arms. The warming sun won't be up for hours.
Her destination is the kitchen, a once-known room rebuilt into unfamiliarity. Again.
Mia really should snuggle up on the couch and turn on Power Girls or SVU—it would drown out the worst of her thoughts—but… she doesn't deserve to feel better. Not after Lian's glossy black hair was clumped with gray ash, not after you let my daughter die.
So: the kitchen.
Mia'll get something to wash the taste of blood and sleep from her mouth, and then she'll stand on the cold tile until she feels corpse-cold, life leeched from her. It's never quite right, never the pain of Lian's death or the rot of her now. But Mia tries.
She stops in the doorway, thumb digging into the shiny hinge, unsurprised and unreasonably wary.
Someone's already there.
It's stupid, but it's reassuring to see him with color. Not much color, considering he went from prison to the nocturnal life with nary a second in between to breathe. It's a bad look on him, but Mia can't bring himself to judge. She isn't exactly at her finest either.
Ollie's eyes are shadowed; his hair is so greasy it's almost brown. Those cheekbones could cut glass, practically obscene in their prominence. Even his facial hair is unkempt. He's a shell of his former self. Aren't they all?
"Nightmare?" he asks.
It's not really a question, but Mia nods anyway.
There are a thousand regrets. Ollie has them too, but Mia's the one who made so many mistakes. Leaving Lian is the sharpest, the one that burns at her every second of every day, but it's hardly the only. The what-ifs haunt her almost as much as the tangible harm she's wrought.
If she had killed the Electrocutioner that night, would Roy be as fucked up as he is now?
That was her kill. Hers by right. Hers by redemption.
Ollie stole that from her. Ollie saved her.
She's killed before. (You don't have any choice! Kill me!) But not out of anger or revenge or even grief. If she had… would that have changed something fundamental inside her? Would she have broken?
It's an irrelevant question now; it's over and done and there's no going back.
Roy took that burden instead.
And look where it fucking got him. Look where it got them all.
Ollie sighs, a gusty dramatic thing, dragging her from her thoughts with forceful loving precision. If Mia was a little less hollowed-out, she'd be amused. "Sure, make me and my old-man bones do it."
He heaves himself up, wincing as his back twinges. Mia knows he hasn't been keeping up with his stretching. That's… bad. She should start bugging him about it again.
The cabinet clatters as he opens it, rooting around and finally pulling out two mugs.
Mia scowls down at her bitten-short nails.
She's not a little kid—like Lian, her mind whispers. She doesn't need Ollie to fix her a mug of warm milk. That's the kind of shit Ollie should be doing for his granddaughter, not the kid who he took in and trained and then who got said granddaughter killed. It feels like theft. It feels like she's a deceiver, wicked and happy to reap the consequences of Lian's death.
(Mia would renounce her place here, leave behind every family she has found and every joy she has clawed if only it would bring Lian back.)
But… Ollie likes to feel like he's helping in some actionable way. Who is she to deny him that?
Ollie doesn't really have anyone else. Roy's MIA. Connor's out trying to find Roy, and covering for all of Ollie's League duties. He's barely home.
Dinah's not here.
Maybe they should be banding together. Making good on the whisper of family, the steady promise that fell apart with Lian's death, turning it to a single strand of silk, fragile and delicate. But Mia hasn't seen Roy since the funeral and Dinah… calls.
Mia misses her.
Ollie and Dinah, their marriage is—strained, right now. Ollie says she shouldn't worry about that, that they'll work themselves out eventually. Mia isn't so sure. Lian's death irreparably fractured them all. How can anyone ever fix that?
So Dinah calls. Always Mia, never Ollie.
She says: How are you doing, honey?
She says: I hope you're hanging in there.
She says: It wasn't your fault.
Dinah's a good liar.
Ollie isn't.
He lets his heart rule his head and that's what makes him good, what makes him a hero.
Mia doesn't ask Ollie if she's to blame. They've played that game before.
There was no other way. Mia held onto those words, making them sound more believing in her head. They weren't untrue, strictly speaking. If she had waited even a second longer, the whole world might have been forfeit. Might have been. Mia wears Ollie's words like a bulletproof vest, like a lifesaver jacket. There was no other way. She molds them into an iron core around which all other context orbits. There wasn't.
She believes it because she has to, but she could never trust Ollie's kind lies about her role in Lian's death. Her responsibility.
Ollie loves her too much.
His love isn't like any she's known before—fierce and strong and blessedly platonic. His love is a shield, but Mia is far too guilty to cower behind it this time.
She thinks there's probably blame deep down inside all of them—Ollie and Connor and Dinah.
Roy was just the only one with the guts to show it. The only one whose grief managed to eclipse any care he once had for her.
Mia flinches at the microwave's shrill beep.
Ollie passes her a mug—the 'bread for all, and roses too' one—full of watery brown muck. Ugh. It's Connor's gross herbal tea that always tastes like actual sticks and dirt. Mia can't even manage the obligatory complaint. It burns her tongue, her throat. Mia still can't taste much, so it doesn't matter.
Sometimes she wonders if it would be better, or easier, at least, if she only remembered Lian as a body in Ollie's arms. A tragedy the way any dead kid is a tragedy—not her beloved sort-of-neice, the only person in the world Mia would genuinely think of as darling. It's a moot point. The memories are here to stay, awful and piercing where they once sparked joy.
Mia is haunted by Lian's bright living self.
That sweet face looking up at her, imploring gaze fixed to Mia's face—begging for a treat, a toy, a later bedtime. Mia caved like a chump every damn time. Ollie had the same weakness, and even Roy couldn't resist all the time.
Suddenly, her mouth is full of sour bile. She swallows, chugs the last of her scalding tea like it can burn her sins from her flesh.
Lian's dead and Mia's drinking microwaved tea in the kitchen with the grandfather of the kid she got killed. Ollie and Connor are the closest thing she has to a family, but Lian had more a claim to them than Mia ever did.
Lian's dead and Mia's here.
Living is usually a reclamation. Now it just feels like a tragedy.
Ollie knocks his shoulder into hers as he goes to dump his mug in the sink.
He drank maybe a fourth of it. Enough to have watery taupe stick-tea clinging to his mustache, not nearly enough to fill his belly.
Mia watches the silver maw of the drain suck down all of that precious drink that's probably infused with antioxidents or some shit. Ollie used to go nuts for that kind of stuff—even if he hated it, he'd choke it down with a winning smile, more a matter of principles and subscribed ethics than anything else. Also, the corners of Connor's eyes get all crinkly-happy when Ollie does that, and although he wouldn't admit it in a million years, Ollie's a sucker for his kid's joy and approval. Now Connor's gone and Roy's gone and Dinah's gone. She doesn't say anything.
If it was just the gross tea or just the once, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal—but it's not and it is.
Ollie's not eating much these days. He picks at his food like a displeased bird. Mia's the teenage girl, isn't she the one who's supposed to get anorexic when things go to shit?
Supposed to doesn't count for shit when she can count Ollie's ribs. At the very least, he needs to retain his muscle to be Green Arrow. That means food. That means actually eating what Mia forces onto him.
Mia opens the fridge, grabs the ziplock bag with the two leftover slices of pizza, and tosses it at him. It's been in there for too long, probably, but Ollie's got an iron gut. He attributes it to his island years. She could've used that—once, when she was thirteen, she ate a sausage link from the trash and her stomach hurt so bad she couldn't stand for two days. Bad time. Not as bad as this.
"Cold pizza," Ollie says flatly. "Yum."
Mia rolls her eyes.
It takes few minutes of pointed staring, but Ollie eventually takes a lackluster bite. He chews like it's taking monumental effort. Maybe it does. Maybe living takes monumental effort from Ollie these days.
It's a scary thought.
She tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth. She tastes blood. Mia grabs a paper towel and holds it to her lip. Ollie doesn't comment on it.
"Have you heard from—"
"No," Ollie interrupts. He pulls a green pepper from his pizza, avoiding her gaze.
She didn't figure—it's unlikely Roy called in between now and seven hours ago when she last inquired, but—she had to ask.
They only concretely know two things about Roy right now, two awful wretched things:
Roy's in the wind and he's not okay.
It haunts both of them; while they're here, in shambles and broken, but physically safe, Roy is god-knows-where doing god-knows-what. Nothing good—Mia'd bet solid cash on that, every penny she's got, given or earned. Nothing safe.
Ollie clears his throat. It sounds like a broken rusted carberator booting up. Mia braces herself.
"I'm going back once the sun's up, if you want a ride."
Mia exhales, loud and intentionally obnoxious. It's probably not good, that they go to see Lian every day. But Mia needs this too. Besides, if there's even a fraction of a chance of running into Roy, they have to keep going. He needs serious help, and he's family.
Lian was family too, that poisonous voice whispers in her ears, look where being family with you got her.
An agonizing death and a pretty plot. Limp babylimbs flopping from Ollie's arms and the look on Roy's face at the funeral—jagged, broken, furious at her and himself and the whole world and then her again.
Mia folds in on herself the best she can. "Yeah."
She has to. Besides, it's not like she has any other plans. Her schedule is packed, but not exactly with social events. Between Speedy and visiting Lian and haunting this strange new rebuilt house-that-is-not-a-home, Mia has no free time.
All other responsibilities fell by the wayside. Atonement is all she strives for, and atonement is all she knows she will never have. How can the pressing weight on her soul ever ease when Lian's is gone from this earth? How can Mia ever rest when other little girls are dying?
Mia hasn't so much as texted Gina in months.
She functionally dropped out of school weeks ago. Just—stopped going. It was easier than she thought it would be.
Ollie's been too out of it to notice. Mia hates herself for being disappointed by that.
He tries. That's the most Mia can hope for, after everything. Ollie's continued efforts. His not-leaving.
This new life they survivors have carved is half-complete and washed out. It's no life at all. And yet, they live.
Mia wishes she hadn't.
Living is more than a tragedy—it's a condemnation.
Living without Lian is a curse. A curse she can never escape, a curse there's no getting rid of. Mia is forced to persevere through this half-life, forced to live with this agonizing insurmountable guilt.
It's no less than she deserves.
Mia breathes in air in a Lian-less world and hates herself for creating it. That's all she does these days—mourns and patrols and hates herself.
It helps a little, in an awful sort of way, to know Ollie lives the same life. They're stuck in the quicksand of grief together.
Mia rests her head on Ollie's shoulder.
He doesn’t push her away. He wouldn’t, Mia knows that, but it's nice to feel it. Ollie's kind; he allows Mia her soft moments.
"C'mon, kid," Ollie murmurs. He loops his arm around her shoulders, and she almost can't tell he's lost weight, such is the steadiness of his grip. Mia isn't sure which of them he's trying to reassure. "C'mon."
She presses closer, like Ollie's loving paternal warmth can roll back time and fix them.
It may not be able to do that, but it's miraculous in other ways. Mia is reminded of a core truth a dozen different ways—the rhythmic movement of Ollie's thumb on her upper arm, his steady grieving heartbeat, their ragged breaths matching up. It's a truth she has known and forgotten a thousand times. It's a truth never fails to stun her, forcing a recalibration of everything she thought she knew.
Mia's not living this Lian-less existence alone.