Chapter Text
The night his father’s boat went down, everything changed. As the heavy waves crashed against his worn body and salty water spilled into his lungs, he became changed.
Losing both Sara and his father wrecked him; their deaths tore up his insides the way that storm tore at the yacht. Losing Yao Fei and Shado wrecked him even further. It would take Oliver a month to realize that each of their deaths was indeed his fault, that it was more than survivor’s guilt plaguing every privileged, waking moment. He lived at the cost of his loved one’s lives.
He learned that his touch brought death; it was the price he paid for his own endurance. A bare hand on a shoulder. A brush of a lock of hair. A handshake. Any part of his skin that touched another living creature meant certain demise. It was the only explanation, one which the universe subtly reminded him of over and over.
He tested his theory on Edward Fyers, opting to beat the man instead of relying on the explosives. Fyers succumbed to death at a startlingly rapid rate.
He tested his theory on Ivo, choosing to cut off his air supply, rather than using the gun. Ivo was gone before he’d even started squeezing.
He tested his theory on one of Ivo’s men, bashing his skull with a rock. It only took one sure blow to the temple. He did not miss. He was beginning to think he was incapable of missing.
Oliver Queen no longer required the protection of another living person. He didn’t need any weapons, makeshift or otherwise. He was the weapon.
Oliver also discovered rather quickly that no matter what he did, he could not die. He could not drown–he clocked himself at 12 minutes, holding his breath underwater before the shark attacked him. But even that deep, aching bite could not fully drain his blood. A single touch rendered the ravenous animal unconscious. He ran directly into a hail of gunfire alongside Slade Wilson, and no bullets touched any major organs, only grazing his legs and nicking a few minor veins. Trembling, he raised a gun to his head, wanting this hell to just end, only to find the weapon void of bullets.
Even he could not be so lucky.
The universe was determined to keep him alive, as much as it was determined to use him as an instrument of death. Did the lives he destroyed prolong his own? Was he bound by destiny to forever take and take , until he was the only person left on earth?
He hadn’t meant to test his theory further in Hong Kong, but an accidental touch of a young boy named Akio showed him how truly like a monster he was.
Isolating himself from the world seemed like the best option. He joined the League of Assassins, harnessing his “gift,” as Ra’s Al Ghul called it. He willingly took on every impossible mission, faced any opponent Ra’s considered worthy of competing against the great Al Sahhim, his right-hand invincible puppet. Sometimes he walked away from a battle with more scars, but nothing was ever fatal enough to harm him irrevocably.
His year in the Russian mob forged him into a sharper weapon, while solidifying a growing, gnawing facet of this theory. His power was fueled by emotion. The more angry he became, the faster his assailants perished. At the peak of his physical condition, a single touch rendered his opponent deceased within minutes.
24 hours was the longest anyone survived his touch.
24 seconds was the shortest.
He never got more time, and he never got less.
After five years of nothing but savage death, he grew weary.
When Oliver realized what he could do–how much damage he had already caused with just two bare hands–he became plagued with a new, darker guilt. The guilt of a killer. No righteous act could undo his innumerable wrongs.
But maybe…he could honor his father’s last wishes, as a kind of penance. Maybe, just maybe, he could seek to save lives, even working against the universe’s curse if he had to. Surely the universe owed him that at least.
His five years away had taught him that he could not stop this power, but he could at least control it, maintain it, minimize it to a degree. It took that entire time away before he felt a semblance of control again, before he at last felt confident and comfortable enough in his own skin to return home.
His arrival proved to be his greatest test yet. It was a test against himself.
The boy that he was died when that boat went down; instead, shrouded in darkness, waiting in a crinkled hospital gown stood a shell of a human. He remained stoic and standoffish, nothing like the man he was before he left. He could tell his mother was more worried than afraid of him. For now. But that needed to change. She needed to fear him. Fear would keep her safe.
The party boy that he was could no longer linger in a crowded club. The playboy that he was could no longer be intimate with anyone, no matter how much he was sorely tempted. The brother that he was could not even hug his sister…ever again.
And so he retreated deep into his crusade, vowing to honor his father’s memory, to right his family’s wrongs–his father’s and his own. He kept his body covered in dark green leather, his hands wrapped in gloves for stealth as much as for safety, using the bow as his only tool. The bow forced him to maintain a dependable distance from his enemies on the streets, constraining his untapped power as much as he knew was possible.
The people of Starling City started calling the man in the green hood a guardian angel.
They were only half right.
He was an angel…an angel of death.