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STAR CITY TRAIN STATION
Drake Lance
When I walk off of the train I walk with the crowd hiding myself and carry the bag with Oliver’s costume tightly. As I walk with the crowd I sneak myself into the men’s bathroom and look for the nearest sink. I turn the faucet on and wash my hand and throw water to my face and then look at myself in the mirror but not recognizing myself.
I look at my new platinum blonde hair, color contact green eyes, and even to contouring my face with contour powder to change my appearance. I’m not Drake Lance anymore. I take out my wallet for my identity and pull out the Driver’s License and see the name. Dima Ivanov.
I need to head to the bunker, if it’s still safe there. I continue to stare at myself in the mirror and see other men walk behind me or stand next to me to wash their hands. They haven’t noticed that I’m Drake Lance. Good.
I open my bag and take out a hat and put it on to hide myself from the cameras. I fix myself up by adjusting the beige sweater and these uncomfortable blue jeans. I would never wear this kind of thing, it’s almost feminine on me. I stop starring myself at the mirror and walk out of the bathroom and head out of the station.
As I walk out I see that it’s dark outside. I take my phone out and see the time being 10 pm. The city is crowded with civilians walking around minding their own business and it’s good since they won’t notice me. I walk around the city making my way to the bunker hiding my face from all the cameras.
“BREAKING NEWS, NEW FOOTAGE SHOWS BLACK CANARY TAKING DOWN FOUR JUSTICE LEAGUE MEMBERS INCLUDING WONDER WOMAN. THERE IS SUSPICION THAT BLACK CANARY ATTACKED THE HALL OF JUSTICE.” I hear the news outlet and give my attention to the sound and see a TV store playing the news channel from across the street. I stare at the TV screen and see the footage of myself screaming at Fire and then taking Hawkman down violently.
They left me no choice. They didn’t give me time to explain.
I walk away from the news channel and ignore it. I’ll figure this out, I know I can. Slade can help as well.
___________
TEAM ARROW BUNKER
The elevator door opens and I walk into the bunker and see Felicity and Diggle jump up walking towards me in relief. I take my hat off and walk towards them dropping my bag on a silver table and take out Oliver’s costume.
“What happened!?” Felicity says worried and angry at me. I stop walking feeling threatened by them both and Diggle walks up but I see no sign of weapons on him. “Why’s your hair blonde now?”
“The Ghost Archer.” I say starring at them both and they raise their eyebrow. “It’s a long story. He’s some sort of underworld archer. My canary cry isn’t effective on him, and I think he might’ve set me up.”
“On the Hall of Justice?” Diggle says raising an eyebrow and they both know I was here this morning talking to Slade which they don’t know about, from my perspective.
“When I got Ollie’s suit, a planted explosive exploded when I escaped. Helena walked out with the same arrow that killed Will’s mother, shot at Slade, and almost killed me last night.” I say and they’re connected.
“Where’s Slade now? Maybe he knows something.” Felicity asks me and I bite my lip as she’s going to yell at me.
“About that…” I say softly and walk out of the conversation to go see him. “He’s here, with us.” I tell them as I walk towards the medical room and they both follow me.
“He’s here?! Like in the bunker?” Felicity says being paranoid about my action and being scared to trust me.
“I think you hit all the points.” I say and I open the door and walk in to see Slade watching the news coverage about me. I walk towards the TV and turn it off being annoyed by it. “That’s enough of that.” I stare at Slade and he gets up from his bed in his full clothing.
“Hey blondie.” Slade says mocking me and then looks over at Diggle and Felicity. “I haven’t seen you all since-“
“-You tried to kill us?” Felicity finishes his sentence as she is angry and crosses her arms.
“Wow it’s almost like you two are meant for each other! C’mon Slade, we need to get out of here.” I say and take Slade pushing him off the bed and push him out of the room like a stubborn child.
“Why is Slade here?” Felicity says and I walk away from her with Slade on my side.
“If it helps he’s not going to be here in less than two minutes.” I continue to walk away and she quickly catches up to me or at least tries to. Me and Slade move fast to the alleyway exit of the bunker and I spot the black camero I took from a car rental place. I unlock the doors to the car and Slade opens the door getting in the passenger seat and I stand behind him.
“Stop running away!” Felicity shouts not having enough patience for me, but neither do I. I need to be moving fast, the League is going to look here first for me. “Drake what is happening?” She says and I stop moving and look around for any CCTV cameras and find one as it stares directly at me but it won’t recognize me as Drake Lance. “Please, tell me!” She says and I look at her.
“I have to go… Someone is after me. They framed me for the destruction of the Hall Of Justice and not only is The Justice League after me, somebody else is too. Whoever this was, they came after Helena, Ollie’s longtime ex.”
“His past… Where are you going with Slade?” Felicity asks me and I can tell that she doesn’t want to loose me. She’s worried for my own safety and my life.
“Slade is going to help me. I told him I’d let him off easy if he helped me.” I tell him and she nods nervously but standing her ground with her pride. “Watch Will while I go out of the grid, I’ll figure this out.” I say and walk away from her and she stands worried for me. I get in the driver seat of the car and start the engine driving off.
“She seems worried about you.” Slade says as I drive through the city streets not really sure where to go. I didn’t plan this out all the way.
“Should I be worried?” I ask him being snarky and he chuckles.
“You’re being framed by who knows who, targeted from some psychotic archer, and you don’t even know where to hide. I’m pretty sure I would be worried if that were an emotion I could feel.” He says and then takes out his phone as he read me better than anyone. There’s something about him that doesn’t make me want to kill him.
“If you ask me, I was just going to wing this.” I say smiling and make a turn knowing where I might be going. “I was going to try Oliver’s old Verdant Club, the old hideout he had before I joined.”
“I’m pretty sure thats where they will look. The cops invaded that place and it’s on their record. I’m sure Batman already found us and has spies around.” He says and he’s wrong, Bruce would never work against me.
“Well do you have any other idea?” I ask him wanting his two cents and he takes out his phone already prepared and hands it to me. I look at the phone as it’s a set GPS route to the clocktower in downtown.
“I do.” He says and I sigh in relief as Slade is helping me more than I thought he would. I would’ve expected us to have knives at our throats already, literally.
______________
OLD CLOCKTOWER
I walk into the top floor of the clocktower and spot the actual mechanics of the clocks behind the windows. Not only is this a clocktower, but this is a home. I look around seeing computers, furniture and a bathroom with a shower. I see book shelves filled with books, a punching bag, and a comfortable bed and I am completely amazed with it.
Slade walks in from behind me as I stand in the middle of the room amazed by it. Ollie’s old apartment was nice, but this safe house of Slade’s, it’s beautiful. It’s simple actually. It’s not overdone with modernized stuff and island counters, I like this.
Slade walks towards his computer and turns it on activating everything with passwords and his encryptions. “How did you find out about this place?” I ask him and he starts to type as I watch his screen pop millions of tabs of numbers and load outs.
“This used to be your sister’s hideout. Sara’s.” He says and I walk towards the window behind the clock to stare over Star City and hear the sirens of it all.
“When she was The Canary?” I ask knowing about her presence here, now she’s time traveling with the Legends saving the world from bigger and greater threats. I haven’t seen her in so long. I haven’t seen any of my family in awhile, especially dad.
“Of course.” Slade says and then walks towards me and stands next to me. “After she left, I took over it and transformed it into something better when I come to Star City.”
“A safehouse.” I correct him and he nods as I look next to me to see him and he looks directly at me. It begins to rain outside and it starts to pour with a loud thunderstorm. I back away from the window leaving Slade there and sit on the bed as I’m tired but I have to keep my guard up incase anything happens.
“You should probably get some rest. I’ll look into the Hall of Justice cameras to find out who framed you, and where the arrows are from as well.” Slade says as he turns towards me staring directly at me and I don’t trust him for one second.
“I’m fine.” I say aggressively and try to think about what the hell happened in the Hall Of Justice as I have time to think. I then look at myself realizing how dirty my hands are, covered in Helena’s dried up blood as they’re stained.
“No you’re not. You’re hurt and you smell.” Slade says and he has a point. He then walks to a closet door and takes out a towel and throws it to me. “Go.” He says and I catch the towel and stare at him as he looks innocent. I know he will hurt me, I don’t trust him fully.
“Trusting you is harder than you think Slade.” I say knowing how he turns on his allies. I’ve heard plenty of stories of the Legendary Deathstroke, I’m not up to become one of them.
“If I wanted you dead Drake, I would’ve done it by now.” He says with a small smile and I begin to trust him. It’s a step. I chuckle at him and he chuckles as I stand up from the bed and walk to the shower purposely bumping into his shoulder to tease him.
“I’m not that easy to kill… I think you already know that.” I say stubbornly knowing I can handle him. I just don’t want him doing anything suspicious. If he does turn on me, this is the first place I will destroy and I won’t let him live for long. “Don’t try anything stupid.”
I walk into his bathroom and close the door behind me spotting the red bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror trying to recognize myself from the fake green eyes, blonde hair and the weird feminine outfit. I sigh at myself and take the clothes off seeing all the tattoos on my body and walk towards the shower turning it on.
I wait for the shower to get warm so I can soak myself up and relax for once. As I look at my body I see the burn on my shoulder from Fire’s blast. They wanted me dead, that’s for sure. I touch my shoulder to feel the pain and I exhale sharply being careful with myself. I’ve had worst.
I continue to look at myself in the mirror wanting to get rid of this platinum blonde. It’s personally not for me. I’m more of a black hair or a light brown. I’ll go back to light brown when this is over… If there is time.
I notice the mirror is openable and decide to open it and as I do I see shelves of prescribed medication, vitamins, and surprisingly beard care items. Classic. I look at the beard items and laugh at it in my head and put it back.
I spot a picture behind the stacks of pills and push the pills aside and look at the picture of Slade and a young boy on what looks like a camping trip. Slade holds what I presume his son and his son holds him tight. I look at the date of it, 2005, years back before Oliver and Slade were stuck together on Lian Yu. I ignore the picture and put it back on how it was and close the mirror.
I get fully naked and feel the water from the shower as it’s warm and decide to walk in. I close the curtains and take my long awaited shower cleaning myself. I use some of Slade’s body washes and wash myself with it scrubbing myself.
I try to get rid of Helena’s stained blood and spend time on it. I get rid of the blood seeing my golden Hollywood skin and turn the shower off. I grab Slade’s towel and dry myself and put on my underwear and find a plain grey t-shirt laying on the sink counter. Slade must’ve left it there. I grab the shirt and put it on me and walk out with my shirt and boxer briefs.
“You were in there for awhile.” I hear Slade’s voice and spot him looking through what appears to be the dark web on his computer. I walk towards him from behind and see his screen.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.” I say to him and he ignores me. “Did you find anything out?” I ask him as I stand over him.
“The arrow that he shot Helena, Will’s mother, and I… It’s League of Assassins.” He says and I raise an eyebrow confused. “It makes sense, since Ras al Ghul escaped from that same morning.”
“Next question is… Why are they going after us?” I ask him as I cross my arms wanting these answers to pop up but they won’t. These are the questions that I’m going to have to hurt somebody to get the answers, which isn’t my favorite thing.
“I’m trying to recover the camera footages from the Hall Of Justice to see what really happened and maybe we can figure something out with it.” He says and turns his head towards me. “But now, we get some rest.”
“Whoever framed me. They’re not gonna like what’s going to come next.”
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