Fanfic / What It Takes

What It Takes is an Arrowverse fan fics by Ray_Writes. It is an AU starting in between Arrow Seasons 3 and 4.

Official Summary: The summer the Arrow leaves - or dies, as the public believes - Quentin Lance decides vigilantism in Starling City must be brought to an end once and for all. When his daughter stands defiant, lines are crossed, and Damien Darhk sees an opportunity to accelerate his plans for Genesis in the midst of a fight for the city's soul. Can the Black Canary save the world, and just which allies will end up joining her?

It is now complete.

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What It Takes contains examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating: The Glades have a very low opinion of the City Council in general, and Darhk and Quentin in particular. That opinion hits rock bottom when the truth about Darhk is revealed to the public.
• Abusive Parents: Quentin. Dear God, Quentin.
  • Outing Laurel as the Black Canary, setting a S.W.A.T. team on her and eventually authorizing a shoot-on-sight order for her is just the beginning of what he does. By the time he finally comes to his senses, the damage is done and no one except Dinah and him are surprised when Laurel refuses to forgive him for his actions.
  • He's also emotionally abusive to Sara as well, if to a lesser degree. He basically ignores all her opinions and feelings about the current situation and keeps on using her as an excuse to be abusive to her sister. It's not surprising that Sara decides to cut him out of her life as well.
• Accidental Misnaming: Despite Oliver insisting that he's "the Arrow" and not the "Green Arrow", when the President gives authorization for Oliver to legally work as a vigilante, he labels him the "Green Arrow" in his official statement, meaning Oliver's now stuck with that alias.
• Act of True Love: The very moment Oliver learns about what's going on in Starling, particularly the fact that Laurel has been exposed as Black Canary and is now on the run, he drops everything to go back home and help her. In the process, he exposes himself as the (Green) Arrow to the public and destroys his own life as well, sending him on the lam with her.
• Adaptational Karma: In canon, Felicity's selfishness is constantly ignored or glossed over. Here, not only is it openly acknowledged once her actions come to light, it ends up costing her everything — her friends, her job, and above all else, the relationship with Oliver that she wanted so badly.
• Addled Addict: It is indicated that if Quentin was drinking less, he'd be able to recognize that Darhk is a villain. It's also preventing him from doing his job effectively. In Chapter 9, he tries to draw his gun on Laurel (again), only for her to flatly state, "You're too drunk to aim".
• The Alcoholic: Laurel being forced on the run from the law has lead to Quentin's drinking problems getting considerably worse.
• All for Nothing:
  • Discussed and defied. Laurel and Oliver both note that his being exposed as the real Arrow seems to make Roy's sacrifice be for nothing; but Oliver concludes that he is still alive and free to help the city, so it did accomplish that at least.
  • Discussed when Sara is revived by Thea and regains her soul, fully bringing her back to life. While both Laurel and Quentin are overjoyed to have her back again, both bitterly reflect on how the reason for their estrangement — and indeed, the events of the story — is now completely gone, as if it never happened. Especially since that, in the end, it doesn't do anything to repair the damage that has already been done.
  • Played straight with the Starling City Council, who go through the trouble of supporting the hunt for Laurel and alienating their constituents to please Darhk, for the sake of restoring the city and profiting off it. By the end of the fic, they've released hundreds of dangerous criminals out on the streets, the city is in more chaos than ever, Darhk is revealed to be an international terrorist with a plan to destroy the world and rule the ashes, and Laurel and the other vigilantes are pardoned and deputized as official federal agents for stopping him. In addition, the entire city government is put under investigation by the FBI for their complicity in Darhk's plans, all but guaranteeing that most of them are going to be removed from office if not outright jailed.
  • Felicity did everything she could to keep Oliver Locked Out of the Loop in order to maintain their relationship, up to and including abandoning their friends and neglecting her job. Oliver finds out anyway, promptly breaks up with her when she proves to be unrepentant and unwilling to help him, and returns home and helps solves the crisis with Laurel, who he gets back together with. He also tells all their friends what she did, which causes them to cut ties with her too. She then loses her job thanks to Ray being declared alive again and due to her poor performance as CEO, effectively leaving her with nothing.
• Always Someone Better: Oracle fairly quickly establishes herself as the superior hacker to Felicity; when she assists Laurel and Barry in rescuing Ray Palmer, she's even able to spot a few modifications to the internal security system that Felicity missed in canon.
• Ambiguous Situation: Oliver has a dream about his father, where Robert explains the reasons for his affair with Isabel and why he decided to end it, as an allegory to his current situation with Felicity during their vacation in Bali. It's unclear whether or not this is Oliver's subconscious telling him to go back home, or Robert himself reaching out from beyond the grave to push him in the right direction.
• Amicable Exes: Oliver and Sara, who are still best friends despite their previous break-up and completely supportive of each others' relationships with Laurel and Nyssa, respectively.
• The Antichrist: Damien Darhk always had shades of this (it's right there in the name), but his turning of the city council against Laurel has definite "false prophet" vibes to it.
• Asshole Victim:
  • According to an Author's Note, Malcolm Merlyn was still in Nanda Parbat when it was nuked.
  • Some time in the past, Batman finally broke his one rule and killed The Joker. Considering it was The Joker, he absolutely deserved it.
• Authority in Name Only: After Malcolm is killed during the nuclear attack on Nanda Parbat, Thea is by default next-in-line to succeed him as Ra's al Ghul. Since the attack killed everyone in the League not lucky enough to be somewhere else at the time, the title is effectively meaningless because there's barely any members left. People find it ridiculous that Athena and her followers are trying to kill Thea for an empty title, and eventually decide to tell Talia about them so she can either absorb the group or crush them if they refuse to heel.
  Sara: Tell Athena to get lost. The League’s dead, and so is H.I.V.E.. You all can go get a real life.
• Avengers Assemble: In Chapter 17, Lyla recruits Roy Harper, Ray Palmer, Vixen, Huntress and Nightwing to assist in the planned assault on Damien Darhk's base, with Barry arriving a few moments later with Oliver's new suit. The following chapter sees Henry Allen, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, Joe and Iris West, various residents of the Glades- including Ted, Rene and Sin- and Talia's own League- including Bruce Wayne- joining the campaign, although it's made clear that Henry and Caitlin only intend to offer medical support and Cisco isn't sure if he should be in the field given his limited experience with his own powers.
• Awful Truth: Laurel is well aware that the Lance family is seriously dysfunctional, with her parents both clearly favoring Sara. Knowing this doesn't make it any easier to accept. Sara however is horrified to realize it.
• Bad Powers, Good People: In the climax, Oliver is able to temporarily immobilize Darhk with magic to prevent him from killing Laurel. He's alarmed by this, but Zatanna tells him that while that type of magic is usually dark magic, he did it to save the life of someone he loves. As such, he has nothing to worry about.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Laurel being a fugitive has left her incapable of getting sufficient amounts of sunlight, ensuring she eats enough, or even tending to her own personal hygiene. She becomes slightly paler and thinner as a result.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Ray muses that Liza Warner is on the verge of this, as she expresses her disapproval of vigilantes and yet encourages citizens to try and capture/kill Laurel or Oliver if they see them in action in the same speech.
• Beta Couple: While Oliver and Laurel are the Official Couple, they aren't the only couples working through their relationship drama throughout the story.
  • Diggle and Lyla, who find themselves working together after Diggle is forced to join A.R.G.U.S. to avoid prosecution for his time as a vigilante.
  • Thea and Roy, who are still very much in love; the events of the story eventually cause Roy to return to Starling to help out, regardless of the potential consequences of being caught. By the time of the epilogue, they're engaged.
  • Sara and Nyssa, who are also still in love. After learning about the nuking of Nanda Parbat and realizing how close they were to death, they have Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex in Quentin's apartment, which acts as the unofficial restart of their relationship.
  • Bruce and Talia, who are also in love and actually together at the start of the story, but only because Bruce fled Gotham and joined Talia's League to deal with the guilt of killing the Joker in retaliation for Jason Todd's death. Their relationship is further complicated by Talia falling pregnant with Damian right before the epilogue, though they've seemed to have worked out something a year later.
• Betrayal by Inaction: By choosing to not only abandon her loved ones in Starling but also deliberately keeping Oliver in the dark so he won't leave her to help, Felicity effectively betrayed all of her friends. Unsurprisingly, they permanently cut her out of their lives once they learn the truth from Oliver himself.
• Big Bad: Damien Darhk, as this is essentially Arrow Season 4.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Athena, following Nanda Parbat being nuked. She's driven off by Oliver fairly easily, and a lackey of hers is defeated with laughable ease by Sara and Nyssa. Ultimately, despite being hell bent on killing Thea to claim the title of Ra's, she never manages to be a credible threat, with the heroes opting to let Talia deal with her instead.
• Big Damn Heroes: Laurel gets distant but important aid in the form of Barbara Gordon, AKA Oracle, who not only helps Laurel get money and resources, but is also able to call Barry for help when Laurel's first direct confrontation with Damien Darhk nearly gets her killed when she underestimates what her enemy is capable of.
  • Laurel repays the favor in Chapter 11, coming to Barbara's aid when she's attacked by HIVE.
  • At the end of Chapter 12, Oliver, John, and Lyla are all Darhk's prisoners. Laurel arrives to save them all the next chapter.
  • In Chapter 17, while Thea is fighting Athena — who seeks to kill Malcolm's last heir so that she can become the new Ra's — Oliver intervenes when Athena gets the upper hand.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Felicity, who everyone initially believes to be a quirky and awkward woman who nonetheless means well, only to turn out to be a selfish Control Freak with Never My Fault tendencies. One of the reasons why nobody holds it against Oliver for being gullible enough to believe Felicity for so long is because none of them thought Felicity was capable of that level of duplicity and selfishness either.
• Bittersweet Ending: Heavily on the sweet side. Darhk is stopped and the world is saved. The President pardons both Oliver and Laurel, and gives them official authorization to be heroes. A year later, the Justice League has been formed, Thea and Roy are engaged, Batman and Talia have had their baby, but Quentin has died of heart problems and alcoholism and was never able to reconcile with Laurel, who can't help but wonder if a reconciliation could have prevented his death. Knowing deep down that it wouldn't, and their relationship would never have been healthy, does not particularly help.
• Bond Breaker:
  • Sara's supposed death on the Gambit is this for the Lance family, according to Laurel. That's when the family completely fell apart, and even Sara coming back the first time didn't really bring them back together, as proven when Sara died for real. When Sara comes Back from the Dead again and tries to fix things between Laurel and Quentin, Laurel lets her go but sadly and correctly notes that her sister isn't going to succeed: their family is permanently broken, and it doesn't matter how many times Sara comes back — nothing is ever going to fix it.
  • Felicity's decision to keep Oliver Locked Out of the Loop proves to be this for OTA, as neither Oliver nor John can forgive her for willingly abandoning the rest of the team in their time of need, nor for forcing an unwitting Oliver to do the same. Her decision not to come back to help after Oliver finally found out what was going on cements it, and both are content to cut her completely out of their lives for good.
• Both Sides Have a Point: In regards to Oliver leaving, Oliver says he shouldn't have left, as it left his loved ones and Starling vulnerable when they needed him. While he's correct, Laurel and John both say he probably did need to leave, or even just take a break from being a vigilante to recover from the trauma and stress of the past year. Laurel notes the only thing she would've changed is having Thea come with Oliver and Felicity, since Thea didn't handle loneliness well and needed some time to recover too. Even Barry notes that the time away did him some good, as it gave him a fresh perspective on everything and helped him realize what was important to him and what he wanted in his life.
• Broken Masquerade: In Chapter 18, Darhk's status as a Villain with Good Publicity is ended when the heroes manage to bug his conversation with the President and the Atom subsequently gives the recording to Susan Williams.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Oliver suffers a case of this for the first half of the story when it looks like he's abandoned Laurel and everyone else to their fates. When he comes back, he becomes a Rebuilt Pedestal, especially after they find out that the only reason he didn't come back sooner is because Felicity kept the truth about what was going on away from him.
  • John is devastated when he realizes that his brother is alive and a willing associate of HIVE, to the extent that Andy shoots the other two members of the strike team Diggle was leading to rescue Oliver just because Darhk asked him to.
  • Team Arrow loses all respect for Quentin when he exposes Laurel. As does Sara. It's actually telling that Laurel comparing John's behavior regarding Andy's death to Quentin's actions during the story over Sara's death is enough for John to immediately take a step back and rethink his actions.
  • Diggle is crushed when he realizes that not only did Felicity deliberately keep Oliver from learning what has happened in Starling (which could have led to Laurel's death), but she wouldn't even come back to help. Everyone else's opinion of Felicity drops exponentially as well when they find out, destroying any chance she has of reconciling with any of them.
• Cain and Abel: John and Andy Diggle, as in canon. Though this time its Waller who kills Andy, rather than John.
• Came Back Wrong: Sara from the Lazarus Pit again.
• Canon Welding: In the Arrowverse, Danny Brickwell is just a regular mobster with Charles Atlas Superpower but here he has his comics-accurate Super-Strength and invulnerability. However he's vulnerable in his armpits which Talia Al-Ghul exploits to stab him there during the final battle.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Laurel is unable to convince her father that Darhk is a villain.
  • Oliver doesn't have any success either.
  • Even Sara is unable to convince him, though by that point it's obvious it's less about him not believing her and more about not wanting to believe her, because it means he destroyed his relationship with Laurel to please a terrorist who is about to cause a nuclear apocalypse.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Nightwing is fond bantering in the middle of a fight.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Laurel has the opportunity to flee the city (and is actually taken to Central City at one point), but is unwilling to abandoning Star City to its fate, despite that clearly being the best option for her.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Felicity is even more possessive of Oliver than usual, because she's scared the crisis in Starling will drive him back into Laurel's arms. Later, when Oliver finds out, it becomes clear it isn't Laurel she's jealous of, but everyone else as well. When Oliver tells her that she shouldn't have kept him from "the people [he] love[d]", no doubt referring to John and Thea as well as Laurel, she insists that she, and she alone, is the person he loves. That blatant display of selfish possessiveness shows she doesn't really care about Oliver's feelings, as long as he puts her first.
• Control Freak: Quentin. When it comes down to it, all his actions against Laurel are driven by his resentment over how she's not acting like the "perfect" daughter he expects and wants her to be.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Not in the sense of a traditional "battle", but it's almost childishly easy for Barry to break into buildings to acquire key technology and rescue Ray from Darhk's forces.
• Daddy's Girl: For all that Sara was the favorite, Laurel was this growing up. Sara says that Laurel and Quentin have always been close, which is why at first she can't believe Quentin would do any of this to Laurel, and Dinah says that Laurel thought Quentin "hung the moon and the stars" and that if he wants forgiveness, all he has to do is ask for it. Which is why it's such a shock to her that Laurel doesn't forgive him when he does.
• Death by Despair: While Quentin's official cause of death is a heart disease-induced heart attack caused partially by his relapse into alcoholism, it's all but stated that losing everything and being unable to reconcile with Sara and especially Laurel caused him to lose the will to live and led to his death.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Everyone is shocked when Laurel displays her Canary Cry without her collar. Including Laurel herself.
  • Laurel is shocked when Damien Darhk first uses his magic on her.
  • Shortly after that, Darhk tosses Laurel off a ledge, only for her to use her powers to slow her descent. There's then a slight pause as everyone processes what just happened.
  Damien: I'll be damned. [Beat] Oh well. Kill her.
  • Darhk is in turn stunned (and alarmed) when his powers fail to work on Laurel.
  • Everyone is stunned when they learn that Nanda Parbat (and by extension Malcolm and the League) were nuked.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Quentin outs Laurel's identity as the Black Canary to the entire city, and asks them to report any sightings of her to the police. As Diggle points out, every criminal in the city will be out for revenge and will kill her on sight (although on the flip side, most of the common people she protects aren't that inclined to turn her in under these circumstances).
  • Malcolm accuses Thea of this when she uses the Lazarus Pit to bring Sara back to life and only learns about how Sara will want to kill her given the circumstances of her death after the feral Sara has started trying to attack her.
  • As a wanted criminal, Laurel has to constantly keep her guard up, and is afraid of her base being compromised. So, when Barry drops by unannounced (by phasing through the wall no less), she nearly cracks his head with her staff. Other people keep making this mistake too.
  • Felicity's decision to lie to Oliver and keep him Locked Out of the Loop is this, because not once does it occur to her that if Oliver ever did find out the truth, especially after one of his loved ones was hurt, their subsequent break-up would make his original one with Laurel look downright benign. Not to mention how everyone else would react when they found out what Felicity did. Luckily for her, he finds out before something unforgivable happens, but that doesn't stop them from breaking up when she refuses to come back with him to help out.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • While Quentin frames his actions as his way of "protecting" Laurel, in the end he's really doing this to punish her for keeping Sara's death a secret from him. This "punishment" includes outing her as the Black Canary, forcing her on the run, having his officers hunt her down, and eventually issuing a shoot-on-sight order on her. Unsurprisingly, absolutely no one is impressed with his actions, especially when they figure out what his real motivations are.
  • Darhk's grudge against the League of Assassins is so strong that he decides to nuke it out of spite, even though the main reason he hated them so much, his "old friend" aka the previous Ra's al Ghul, is dead and no longer in charge.
• Distinction Without a Difference: This exchange, when Darhk takes control of the hunt for Laurel:
  Darhk: And really, Quentin, wouldn’t you feel better having someone else in charge of this case? Wash your hands of the whole thing. No man wants to hunt his own daughter.
  Quentin: I’m not hunting her, I’m—
  Darhk: Sending armed police after her with the intent to capture. Yes, they’re very different things.
• Doomed Hometown: Nanda Parbat, for both Nyssa and Talia. While Talia is genuinely devastated to the point of tears, Nyssa is more stunned than anything else, having already begun to stop thinking of it as home before it was nuked.
• Dramatic Irony: Quentin and Darhk at various points read a letter from Oliver to Laurel saying "you're the hero", and conclude he wrote it before he left with Felicity this past summer, and was using this to encourage her to be the Black Canary. It's actually his "Dear John" Letter to her from over two years ago, and he never supported her being the Black Canary.
  • Diggle of course wants revenge on H.I.V.E. for the murder of his brother. Readers already know that Andy is still alive and Evil All Along.
  • By Chapter 11, Oliver's continued absence (and long history of crappy treatment) have convinced Laurel that he does not care about her enough to come back. In truth, not only was he only away for so long because Felicity was keeping the truth from him, but he's already on his way back.
  • Laurel isn't particularly surprised to learn that Andy Diggle is alive, as "She knew better than most people that sometimes siblings weren’t really dead." Unbeknownst to her, Sara (once again) isn't really dead.
  • After the Flash refuses to give her an interview, citing that Iris West has exclusive rights to that, Susan Williams bitterly muses "That Central City upstart didn’t know how good she had it." Iris of course knows exactly how good she has it.
• The Dreaded: Both Zatanna and John Constantine are afraid of Damien Darhk. She comments that fear is probably how he's stayed alive and in power for so long, not enough people are willing to challenge him.
• Driven by Envy: Another reason why Felicity tries to keep Oliver away from Starling is because she fears that this new crisis might push him into forgetting about her and getting back together with Laurel. Ironically, while Oliver does still love Laurel, he's convinced that all their baggage means they no longer have a future together, so he's committed himself entirely to giving his relationship with Felicity a chance. In the end, it's Felicity's own actions and insecurities that causes him to end their relationship, not his love for Laurel or anyone else for that matter.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Malcolm gets a rather anti-climatic end when he gets nuked along with the rest of Nanda Parbat.
• Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: In her first attempt to leave the city, Laurel is rushing to meet Diggle when she overhears a man abusing his girlfriend. She barely hesitates before she intervenes; and after that, she prevents a robbery. This is enough to convince her to stay and try to protect the city.
• Due to the Dead: In the final chapter, one of Ray's first acts as the new mayor is to honor the memory of Billy Malone, the only casualty for the heroes in the battle.
• Dying Alone: Quentin, one year after the events of the story. By the time it happened, he had already alienated all his friends and loved ones for his previous choices, so it's hardly surprising. It's reinforced with his Lonely Funeral, as of his family, only Sara is confirmed to have attended.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Both Rene and Athena appear in Chapter 11, well before either of them first appeared in the show.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • In Chapter 17, Thea, Diggle and Roy are all quick to forgive Oliver and Laurel for their role in recent events, recognizing that their friends had good intentions and other factors just got in the way.
  • And averted. Quentin is not forgiven by anyone.
• Easy Amnesia: After Laurel and Barry rescue him, Ray decides to claim that he was subject to this to explain why he took so long to reveal that he was alive.
• Enemy Mine: Talia makes it clear to Oliver that she's angry at him for killing her father and letting Malcolm succeed him, but is willing to put that aside and team up with him to stop Darhk, especially after Darhk nukes Nanda Parbat. Interestingly, despite her anger at him, she still seems to have a significant amount respect for him, as his regard for Laurel is one of the reasons Talia decides to trust her and follow her lead. During the epilogue, it's implied that she's let the grudge go and has left him alone for the most part to raise Damian.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Quentin thinks that Sara's grave was disturbed for Laurel, and was in retaliation for his actions. It was actually done for him, as a ploy to resurrect Sara and get him to stop what he's doing.
  • When Nyssa and Laurel learn of it, they think Darhk dug her up as a possible power source.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • When Malcolm calls out Thea for using the Lazarus Pit to resurrect Sara, he assumes that Thea did so to alleviate her guilt from having killed Sara (which she only did because she had been drugged by Malcolm). Thea immediately fires back that she brought Sara back so that she could convince Quentin to drop his vendetta against Laurel.
  • While Liza Warner may be more of a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist than outright evil, she immediately assumes that Laurel is responsible for a pair of dead bodies rather than accept Laurel's attempt to explain that she found them like this, eager for any "evidence" that the Black Canary is a threat.
  • Invoked for Amanda Waller; while a somewhat more Well-Intentioned Extremist than Warner, she still gives an order to have Laurel brought in for Task Force X if captured, ignoring the fact that just because Laurel has been declared a criminal doesn't mean that she is a criminal psychologically.
• Evil Is Petty: After Ray's survival is revealed, he has difficulty arranging a court date for his legal resurrection. Presumably, this is Darhk acting out of spite.
• Exact Words: When Darhk attempts to question Ray about Laurel and the Arrow's other vigilante contacts, Ray can honestly say that he doesn't know who the "man in the helmet" and "Speedy" are as he can only guess those are John Diggle and Thea Queen without being certain of it (and backs up his public doubts by asking if "Speedy" is the Flash).
• Fair-Weather Friend:
  • Felicity proves to be this to the extreme at the start of the story. When she finds out about what's happening in Starling, her heart "goes out" to Laurel and the others but she immediately decides not to help them, and to make sure Oliver doesn't find out what's going on so he can't leave to help them either, so that way he won't get himself killed. While it's justified by her disillusionment with Starling City due to all the chaos and suffering the city has gone through in the past three years, at the end of the day she's still abandoning her friends in their time of need to maintain her "perfect life" with Oliver. When they find out she abandoned them and kept Oliver away, they all implicitly end their friendships with her.
  • Dinah. She's lamenting Laurel's choices and blames herself for Laurel becoming a vigilante but doesn't actually do anything to help deal with the situation, like convincing Laurel to turn herself in peacefully. Then, after Laurel saves the world and is pardoned, she's all up for returning to Starling and reuniting their family despite clear disinterest in previous years, even after Sara came back home. Naturally, Laurel isn't having any of it, and disowns Dinah alongside Quentin.
• False Soulmate: Felicity to Oliver. At the start of the story they're vacationing in Bali and seemingly happier than ever. However, their relationship hits a rough patch after Oliver starts getting homesick, and when he asks her about returning to Starling, she's extremely hostile to the idea, causing an argument. Their relationship gradually deteriorates from that point on with Felicity's continuous refusal to go back and visit their loved ones. And then they're visited by Athena and attacked by H.I.V.E., where upon he learns that she's been deliberating isolating him from his loved ones, who are in a major crisis and have been all but begging him to come back and help. Oliver immediately calls her out on her actions, but her refusal to accept the blame or to go back and help them with him effectively destroys their relationship and any hope of them getting back together after. Not long after, Oliver returns to Starling and eventually gets back together with Laurel while they're still on the run, and is much happier.
• Family of Choice: Laurel spells it out, declaring why the various heroes are her family and Quentin and Dinah are not:
  "This is family. Real family. Not the kind that only shows up if I behave a certain way or if it’s convenient for them. I have known for so many years that you didn’t need me. And now I know I don’t need either of you."
• Fatal Flaw: Felicity's is selfishness. While she may care about her friends in a superficial way, in the end she's not afraid to leave them all hanging if it means she gets what she wants. She proved this when she nearly got everyone killed trying to sneak Oliver out of Nanda Parbat, and does it again by deliberately keeping Oliver Locked Out of the Loop in regards to the current events happening in Starling. This leads to her losing the relationship she craved for so long when Oliver finds out the truth, all her friends when they find out she kept Oliver away and abandoned them, and even her job.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The Original Team Arrow is permanently broken after Oliver learns that Felicity was keeping what was happening in Starling City away from him, causing them to break up. John similarly loses most if not all high regard he had for her when Oliver tells him about what she did. While Oliver and John reconcile after ironing out all the issues and misunderstandings between them, John has taken a back seat on vigilantism due to joining A.R.G.U.S. and raising his daughter with Lyla. Meanwhile, Felicity's refusal to return to Starling with Oliver to help out ends any hope of her reconciling with either of them, and the rest of the superhero community for that matter.
• Foil: Quentin and Oliver. Both have difficult relationships with Laurel, but Quentin's is because of Laurel's perceived failings while studiously ignoring his own faults, while Oliver's is because he's an Insecure Love Interest who has never felt good enough for Laurel, putting all of the faults of their relationship on himself. Quentin ends up betraying Laurel by exposing her as Black Canary and siding with a terrorist, thoroughly destroying her life, while Oliver drops everything to go help her the moment he learns she's in potentially fatal danger, destroying his life in the process. Quentin becomes one of the most hated men in the planet for unwittingly helping Darhk destroy the world, while Oliver becomes revered as a hero for helping save the very world Darhk tried to destroy. Finally, Quentin is unable to reconcile with Laurel, having finally crossed the one line she couldn't forgive, and dies alone, a depressed and broken man, while Oliver successfully rekindles his romance with Laurel and ends the story looking forward to a happy future with her.
• Forgot the Disability: More accurately, Never Knew About the Disability; Laurel only learns that Oracle is a woman in a wheelchair when she has to rescue Oracle from HIVE forces and only brings a motorbike. However, Barbara is forgiving of the mistake, and assures Laurel she'll be fine so long as Laurel doesn't mind carrying her downstairs, Barbara subsequently holding on to Laurel from behind as they ride away.
• Formerly Friendly Family: Laurel and Quentin, daughter and father who are at odds with each other for the entire story. One news channel even describes their relationship as a "family feud" that is happening on the streets. When Sara is brought Back from the Dead and finds out what's happening, she almost can't believe it as the two of them have always been close, and is horrified to learn that her death was the cause of it.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Lampshaded by Sara, who refuses to let herself be the excuse Quentin keeps on using to justify all his terrible choices, especially when those choices involve hurting Laurel. Laurel and everyone else agree, as his anger over her keeping Sara's death a secret, however rightful, does not justify the extremes he goes to over the course of the story. In the end, nobody forgives him and he ends up Dying Alone a year later.
• Genre Blind: What else can you call people stupid enough to trust someone called Damien Darhk?
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Nyssa and Sara have sex (in Quentin's apartment no less) shortly after learning of Nanda Parbat's destruction. This is both celebrating that Sara is alive and ensouled again, and due to them realizing how close they were to killed by the nuke as well.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • With no way to alert Oliver to what's happening in their home, Thea goes to Malcolm for help in contacting him. Later, when the city government goes so far as to release the criminals arrested because of Team Arrow, she finally concludes that it's time for her to return to the streets as Red Arrow.
  • In addition to the above point, Thea also becomes so desperate to help Laurel and stop Quentin's hunt for her that she resurrects Sara using the Lazarus Pit.
• Good Is Not Soft: Laurel is about to knock out a Ghost when she's informed he's Andy Diggle. The moment he reaches for a gun, she knocks him out anyway saying:
  "Look, take him with you if you have to, but I’ve dealt with these people long enough to know they’ll put a bullet between my eyes as soon as look at me."
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Even though Oliver and her have been dating for months and are seemingly happy together in Bali, Felicity is still jealous of his previous relationship with Laurel. This jealousy drives her actions in the first half of the story, which backfires on her and causes all her fears to come to pass.
  • When he realizes Oliver and Laurel have gotten back together, Quentin becomes jealous of the former because Oliver somehow managed to find a way back into Laurel's heart despite everything that's happened between them, while Quentin's actions have permanently destroyed whatever relationship with Laurel he had left.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Discussed. Laurel notes that if her father had thrown in his lot with anyone other than someone like Damien Darhk, he might have been seen as the tragic hero forced to turn her in for her own good. After all, she did lie about Sara's death and became a vigilante, breaking the law.
• Gullible Lemmings: Basically defied; despite the city council's support of Damien Darhk and the police making an active effort to capture her, the average Star City citizen is completely behind Laurel as the Black Canary.
• Guilt Complex: Oliver, as always, who blames himself for everything that's going on after he finds out the truth. Everyone does everything they can to disabuse him of this. Zatanna tells him that he's not responsible for Quentin or Darhk's choices, and neither Laurel nor John blame him for leaving, knowing he needed the break, nor for staying away, as that was clearly Felicity's fault. Even the one thing he's really guilty of, keeping Sara's death a secret from Quentin, is more Laurel's fault than his, as Laurel herself points out.
• Had to Be Sharp: After she's exposed as Black Canary, Laurel's combat skills and overall strategic abilities begin to improve at a rapid pace as she does her best to survive being a publicly-known fugitive and the city's sole vigilante at the same time. Deconstructed in that despite her improved skills, having to take on so much starts to run her down anyway, especially since the police are getting wiser to her tactics and abilities. If Oliver, and later Sara and Nyssa, hadn't shown up to help her, it's doubtful she would've lasted long enough to eventually stop Darhk's plans.
• Handsome Lech: Constantine, as usual.
• Hard Truth Aesop: In the end, just because Quentin apologized and clearly regretted his actions doesn't mean that Laurel can forgive him for everything he's done over the past year. Or all the years before that. Especially when his actions indirectly helped cause the end of the world.
• Hated by All:
  • At the end of the story, Quentin. He's kicked off the force, Laurel and Sara have cut him from their lives permanently, their friends hate him too, and the rest of the world holds him in contempt for his complicity in Darhk's plans. The only person who still has any regard for him is Dinah, and that's only because she is more interested in the idea of reuniting their family than him as a person. To no one's surprise, he ends up Dying Alone and having a Lonely Funeral to boot.
  • Felicity is a smaller case of this with the rest of the superhero community, as no one is particularly happy with her after finding out she kept Oliver in the dark and effectively abandoned the rest of Team Arrow to maintain her relationship with him. In the last chapter, when she hacks into his tablet to have a final conversation with Oliver, he notes he needs to keep everyone else in the house unaware because he thinks the device won't survive the subsequent abuse they would all put it through.
• Heel Realization: Quentin finally has one once Darhk's plans are publicly released.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Played with. As far as the police and politicians are concerned, Black Canary is Public Enemy Number 1. As far as the average citizen is concerned (especially those from the Glades), she is the only one keeping them safe.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Understandably, Laurel has one after Quentin tries to arrest her in the first chapter.
  • She has another, larger one in Chapter 8, when she learns that the police have enacted a shoot-on-sight policy, something that had to have been authorized by her own father.
  • Diggle has one when he learns Andy is both alive and evil.
  • Quentin after the heroes save the world, and he's forced to realize how wrong he was and how terribly he's treated Laurel.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The aforementioned Evil Is Petty action backfires when Ray is arrested at the protest. As his lawyer points out, the police can't "hold a dead man for a crime", forcing them to release him.
• Hollywood Midlife Crisis:
  • Nightwing's assessment of why Bruce is working with Talia's League.
  • One of Oliver's dreams reveals that Robert had one of these, and one of the byproducts was his affair with Isabel. While it's Oliver's subconscious supposedly telling him this, it does fit what the readers know of Robert's character and the reason why he broke it off with Isabel.
• Honesty Aesop: A Central Theme of the story is that keeping secrets from your loved ones, especially when those secrets involve them, never ends well.
  • One of the biggest reasons Quentin decides to out Laurel as the Black Canary is because he's still angry at her for keeping Sara's death a secret. While his reaction is Disproportionate Retribution, Laurel does acknowledge it was the wrong thing to do.
  • Felicity's refusal to accept this is actually one of the causes of her break-up with Oliver. When Oliver finds out that she's been hiding what's been happening back in Starling City from him and lying to him, he calls her out on it, but she refuses to take any of the blame, trying to justify it by saying that it was the right thing to do in order to protect him.
  • Barry lampshades this after finding out what Felicity did. He notes that he should have never lied to Iris about being the Flash or convinced Eddie to go with it, especially when it didn't make her any safer in the end, and is grateful that Iris still considers him a friend despite everything. It's for that reason that he can't blame Oliver for not being nearly as forgiving to Felicity, especially when her actions could have led to Laurel dying.
  • This idea reaches its eventual conclusion in the heroes deciding to release a recording of Darhk's meeting with the President in order to expose the former as an international terrorist. Nyssa even notes that secrets is how the League of Assassins operated, and now that they're gone, maybe it's time for a new order, and a new way of doing things, to replace them.
• Horrible Judge of Character: John Diggle comes to realize this about himself over the course of the story.
  • First is the relatively benign example of his bad treatment of Laurel due to his grudge regarding the Deadshot situation two years ago, which he admits to himself was wrong of him after getting to know her better and seeing how much she loves and wants to protect Starling, allowing them to build a genuine and close friendship.
  • Next is learning about the amount of trauma Oliver went through during his five years, causing him to acknowledge that he's been too hard on Oliver for some of his choices and that he now understands him better. That allows for an easy reconciliation between them when they finally have the chance to really talk.
  • Then comes Andy, which comes with its own set of problems because John operates under the belief that Andy has been brainwashed for the rest of the story and is implied to still be in denial even after the confirmation from Darhk that Andy was a willing member of HIVE.
  • It really hits when he finds out about Felicity ditching him and the others and keeping Oliver in the dark in order to maintain their relationship. He flat-out tells Oliver that he completely misjudged her and that he should've realized what kind of person she was after she nearly got all of the team killed trying to sneak Oliver out of Nanda Parbat. Though he doesn't say it outright, it's obvious he no longer considers her a friend.
• I Have Your Wife: Waller at one point threatens a captive Andy Diggle with having his wife, son, or brother killed. However when it becomes apparent that he doesn't care about any of them, she drops it and moves on.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • An inversion of the usual form; Nyssa initially intends to kill the resurrected Sara in the belief that there's nothing left of her real self, but when Sara resists killing Thea even when Thea offers to let Sara kill her, Nyssa realises that there may still be something of Sara left in what she's become.
  • Diggle to Andy when they first interact, to no avail.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • At the start of the story, Laurel holds no grudge against Oliver for leaving with Felicity, simply wanting her friends to be happy. She says as much to Oliver when they reunite and he starts putting himself down for leaving Starling again, saying that Felicity and him deserved their chance at a relationship, and only lets the matter go when he tells her that he wasn't happy in Bali with Felicity, having eventually gotten homesick and miserable.
  • In the final chapter, Talia encourages Bruce to return to Gotham, recognizing that he doesn't belong with her League just because he killed the Joker and it was selfish of her to keep him away from his city and his true family for so long.
• Immigrant Patriotism: During a meeting of Glades residents, Raisa urges them to hold a formal protest saying:
  "I came to this country from my homeland because there, you could not speak out. This is America. We speak here."
• Imminent Danger Clue: Laurel is about to intervene in an assault when she realizes: (1) the attackers are suspiciously coordinated, (2) they and their victim are all wearing the same steel toed boot and (3) one of them has what looks like a badge in their pocket...
• Insane Troll Logic: Susan Williams feels that her editors are invoking this when they complain about Iris getting the initial scoop on Ray Palmer's survival when Ray publicly came "back to life" in Central City in the first place.
• Insecure Love Interest:
  • Felicity, in regards to her relationship with Oliver, because she knows he still has feelings for Laurel even though he's with her now. She notes that if he found out about what happened to his ex-girlfriend, he'd leave Felicity and Bali to help her immediately, because he's "forever trying to fix things with Laurel". And when Oracle blares out a song from Oliver and Laurel's prom to try and signal him, Felicity has a dream that night about Oliver getting arrested and taken back to Starling, being jailed with Laurel and dancing with her to that very song while Felicity fruitlessly tries to separate the bars to get them apart, symbolically representing her jealousy of their previous relationship. In the end, those insecurities help drive her decision to keep Oliver Locked Out of the Loop, which only causes the end of their relationship when he finds out the truth.
  • Oliver for Laurel, as always. Despite the fact that he sincerely loves her, Oliver has never felt good enough for her and had initially given up on any chance of renewing their relationship because he figured she deserved better. Learning about her situation snaps him out of this mindset, and while he still doesn't feel good enough for her, he's willing to give everything that he has to help her and decides to work harder to better himself instead.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Laurel is still exposed as the Black Canary, though this time it's when she's alive and not to keep her name clean but rather to put pressure on her so her father can capture her. Similarly, Oliver is exposed as the (Green) Arrow upon his return to Starling to help her.
  • Sara is still resurrected, though the responsible party is Thea, not Laurel.
  • Nyssa still ends up causing the end of the League of Assassins, though here it's by complete accident. Not to mention, instead of just being disbanded, the organization is wiped out by a nuke.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Laurel learns that Damien Darhk is the man behind her father's actions in Chapter 4, and learns that he's leading H.I.V.E. and has the Kushu Idol in Chapter 6.
  • Diggle learns the above in Chapter 7.
  • Team Flash learns that Ray is still alive and Darhk's prisoner in Chapter 7.
  • Oliver learns the truth about what's been happening in Starling in Chapter 10.
  • Nyssa learns that Sara has been resurrected in Chapter 11.
  • Diggle learns about Andy being alive in Chapter 12.
  • Quentin learns Sara has been resurrected in Chapter 14. Laurel and Oliver learn in Chapter 15.
• Irony: As Oliver notes, Diggle's Shipper on Deck mentality towards him and Felicity only winds up causing him pain when the truth about her comes out.
• It's All About Me:
  • While Felicity frames keeping Oliver from learning the truth as protecting him, he and Diggle conclude it was really about putting her relationship with him over everyone else.
  • Quentin frames his actions as doing what he couldn't for Sara and "protecting" Laurel, when in reality he's doing this to spite Laurel for keeping Sara's death a secret from him, completely ignoring how Sara wouldn't have wanted any of this. Sara herself says as much after realizing the Double Standard he has in regards to his treatment of both of them, as in the end he's just using her as an excuse to justify his own choices.
• It's All My Fault:
  • As Oliver continues to live in isolation with Felicity, he becomes increasingly concerned about how cut off he is from his old allies, but tolerates it for so long because he's concerned that something about him just keeps finding fault in his own relationships. After he returns to Star City, Zatanna confronts him about this, pointing out that even he doesn't really believe that he "made" Darhk or Quentin do anything they've done recently and he needs to just accept personal responsibility for his own actions.
  • Subverted with Sara. While she resents the fact that her death is what caused the permanent estrangement between Laurel and Quentin, she openly acknowledges that Quentin is the one at fault, as he's the one making those choices and using her death to justify them.
• It's Personal:
  • Laurel's initial Canary Cry left Liza Warner deaf in one ear, leaving her with a strong hatred for Laurel.
  • Diggle has officially given up the vigilante life, but once he learns that H.I.V.E. is involved with what's happening, he has an interest in helping Laurel again to avenge his brother.
  • Ray notes that Darhk now has a personal grudge against Laurel over her continued survival.
• Jerkass Realization:
  • Diggle has had one prior to the start of the story, realizing that Laurel has actually been fighting for the city longer than any of them (she just didn't used to use a mask) and that he let his anger over Deadshot getting away cloud his judgment of her. He is currently trying to do better by her.
  • Roy appears in Chapter 7, and he also regrets his crappy treatment of Laurel when she first joined (or wanted to join) the team.
  • Diggle has another in Chapter 10, when he learns more about Oliver's time in A.R.G.U.S. (and how Waller kept him in line), and comes to understand just how long Oliver has been fighting. He even compares the times Oliver has left the city to a soldier on leave.
  • Diggle has a final one in the last chapter when Laurel outright compares his potential plans to find a way to bring Andy back to Quentin's inability to let go of his own issues, encouraging Diggle to acknowledge the family he still has rather than fixate on what he's lost.
• Karmic Death: Malcolm Merlyn helped triggered the events of the fic by brainwashing Thea into murdering Sara to get off the League's hit list, something he eventually used to manipulate his way into becoming Ra's al Ghul. The death of his predecessor is what helped give Darhk the courage to finally enact his plans, leading him to steal Rubicon and use it to nuke Nanda Parbat in a test run, causing Malcolm's own death and the deaths of most of the League.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Waller and Andy both die in Chapter 15.
  • Malcolm Merlyn, and most of the League of Assassins, dies in Chapter 16.
• Kirk Summation: Laurel to Darhk in their final battle.
  Darhk: I can make a better [world]!
  Laurel: You can’t make a perfect world, Damien. No matter who you pick to live in it. People are flawed and complicated, and they break things and burn bridges just because they can. Because they think they’re right. And maybe they are. But you don’t have the right to take those choices out of their hands. And sorry, but it’s been my dream to save the world since I was five. So let’s get this over with.
• Klingon Promotion:
  • In a non-lethal sense; after Darhk is defeated and Ruve arrested, Ray Palmer, one of the heroes who opposed his actions (although nobody outside the heroes knows that), is elected Star City's new mayor.
  • In the more traditional sense, Lyla kills Amanda Waller and becomes the new Director of A.R.G.U.S.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Cisco is, as in canon, a total Black Canary fanboy.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Felicity keeping the truth about what's happening in Starling City from Oliver destroys their relationship. Her refusal to return to Starling also costs her other relationships and her job. By the end of the story, she appears to have nothing.
  • Ultimately, all of Quentin's actions over the course of the story come back to haunt him. He's forced to resign from the police force, his reputation is permanently tarnished, and he's destroyed his relationships with all of his friends and loved ones, including and especially both his daughters. When he dies a year later, no one is really surprised.
  • An extreme version with Malcolm Merlyn, who is responsible for the events of the story due to being the one to arrange for Sara's death, and eventually took advantage of it to usurp the League of Assassins and become Ra's al Ghul. This promptly leads to him getting nuked, because Damien Darhk still holds a grudge against the League of Assassins even though his "old friend" is dead and no longer in charge of them, and decides to destroy Nanda Parbat in retaliation.
• Late to the Realization: Laurel is perfectly aware she is The Unfavorite, and most of her loved ones figure it out fairly easily after seeing how far Quentin is willing to go to "punish" her for keeping Sara's death a secret from him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Lances (including Sara) are blind to the dynamic. Sara figures it out after confronting her father and seeing the Double Standard he has for both sisters, which horrifies her and causes her to estrange herself from Quentin. Quentin himself realizes it once everything is over, but by that point is unable to reconcile with Laurel. Dinah is the only who remains oblivious by the end.
• Living Emotional Crutch: An interesting case. Quentin is unable to acknowledge that Laurel is capable of making her own decisions, and won't admit that it is as a result of his actions that their relationship is permanently destroyed. He's still clearly dependent on her, and the destruction of this relationship has caused his drinking problem to spiral out of control. At the same time, however, it's a deconstruction, because Laurel only managed to be this to him by constantly compromising her own self-worth, including enduring years of his verbal and emotional abuse and heartbreak whenever he screwed up. This contributes to her cutting him out of her life for good, and in the final chapter, he's shown to have died when he suffered a relapse rather than commit to a rehab program. However, Oliver assures Laurel that Quentin still made his own choices in the end.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Felicity is well aware of what's happening in Star City, but is keeping Oliver from finding out because she thought it was her way of protecting him. This backfires on her when Oliver finds out the truth.
  • For most of the story, only Thea, Malcolm, and Nyssa know the truth about why Sara was dug up, or what her current condition is.
• Lonely Funeral: It's revealed Quentin's funeral was one of these in the epilogue, being small and brief. Of his family, only Sara is confirmed to have attended; Laurel did not, but she does visit his grave briefly to mourn him.
• Loved by All: The people of the Glades are well aware that the Black Canary is now the only person fighting for them, and refuse to help the police arrest her. Several stores have even taken to hanging a black square in their window as a subtle display of support. Then they start prepping "go bags" for her, giving her basic necessities for free. This later extends to Oliver when he returns home and is revealed to be the Arrow and begins helping Laurel in her crusade.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Oliver's affection for Felicity lets her fool him into believing that there was no way to make any contact with anyone Starling City, as Bali apparently has no Wi-Fi and the only device they could have was her work computer. He even let her keep their phones. This allows her to keep him in the dark over what's happening for over half the story until people are sent to seek them out. Understandably, whatever affection Oliver has for Felicity dies after he learns the truth, and when explaining the situation to others he lampshades how much of an idiot he was being.
• Loving a Shadow:
  • In one of Oliver's dreams, his father Robert reveals that his relationship with Isabel was more of a byproduct of a Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis. He wised up after Thea fell off her horse, and realized that if he stayed with her he'd be missing out on his family, on being there when they needed him.
  • Oliver initially believes that his relationship with Felicity isn't this, as he cares about her far more than his father ever cared about Isabel, since she was his friend and teammate before she became his lover. And then he finds out she's been lying to him for months and left their friends and loved ones out to dry in order to maintain their relationship and keep him "safe". So it is a case of this, just in a different way than Robert's relationship with Isabel. Whereas Robert chased after Isabel to feel young, Oliver wanted a genuine relationship with the person he thought Felicity was, instead of the selfish Control Freak she actually was.
• Make Up or Break Up: Oliver/Felicity does not end well in this story. They begin the story seemingly happy in Bali, but after Oliver starts getting homesick, their relationship begins falling apart, as Felicity refuses to go back to Starling or let Oliver go back himself. When Oliver finds out that Felicity has been keeping him Locked Out of the Loop in regards to what's happening in Starling, you can pinpoint the exact moment whatever feelings he had for her die. In the final chapter, they have one last video chat, where Oliver apologizes for leading Felicity on and making her believe he was in love with her, but also refuses to absolve her for her actions in keeping him in the dark, making Felicity more than happy to wash her hands of him for not letting her get the last word in. In return, after confirming Felicity is safe and not in danger, Oliver is perfectly content to forget that she was ever a part of his life, being more interested in looking forward to his happy future with Laurel.
• Manipulative Bastard: Darhk suckers the city council into getting rid of their own vigilante protectors. Later, he manages to manipulate them into granting him more and more authority.
• Meaningful Echo: Sara references her line to Oliver that he should be with someone without a mask after he's gotten back together with Laurel. Oliver also realizes that Sara was talking about Laurel the first time she said that.
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • For about half the story, the rest of Team Arrow grows increasingly angry at Oliver for abandoning Starling and ignoring all their pleas for help after Laurel is outed as the Black Canary. When Oliver comes back, their anger quickly shifts to the rightful target, Felicity, upon learning that she was the one keeping Oliver away and Locked Out of the Loop. John goes as far as to compare the situation to 'sabotage', and resolves not to doubt Oliver about his devotion to the city ever again.
  • Upon seeing footage of Nyssa help rescue Oliver and Laurel from another sticky situation, Darhk naturally assumes that the League is finally getting involved with stopping his operations and decides to nuke Nanda Parbat in retaliation. In reality, Nyssa left Nanda Parbat against orders in order to bring a revived Sara back to her family.
• Mundane Luxury:
  • During Laurel's brief stint in S.T.A.R. Labs, a shower is treated as the absolute height of luxury, and something that has not had access to in awhile.
  • In Chapter 11, Laurel gets a dinner from Zatanna. The slightly awkward way she approaches table makes it clear it has been a long time since she's had a home-cooked meal, or eaten something with a fork.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While the exact moment isn't shown, Quentin is found drunk into a stupor after Darhk's true intentions are broadcast to the world, making it clear that he was horrified to learn what he'd been a part of.
• Mythology Gag: In the show, Darhk murdered Laurel to keep a promise to Quentin. Here, he tries to kill her, specifically breaking a promise to Quentin in doing so.
• Never My Fault:
  • Even when Laurel confronts Quentin about the implications of Darhk having a private army and his past association with the League of Assassins, or Oliver confronts him with the simple fact that Darhk is now in charge of the city, Quentin continues to claim that this is only their fault for making the city so "attractive" to costumed criminals. He loses this attitude by the end of the story, but by that point, it's already too late and nobody can find it in them to forgive him for his actions, least of all Laurel and Oliver.
  • He is also completely unwilling to admit that he has destroyed Laurel's life, and instead firmly believes he is in the right for attempting to arrest her and then revealing that she is the Black Canary.
  • Once Oliver finally learns both the truth about what's happening in Starling City and that Felicity was hiding it from him, she refuses to apologize or admit she was wrong to do so. When this ends their relationship, she acts as if she was blameless for how it turned out.
  • By the final chapter, Liza Warner has lost all hearing in one ear and blames Laurel for causing that injury in the first place, going so far as to try and shoot her even after Laurel has been given a presidential pardon and official authorization as the Black Canary, when Warner could have received treatment for her ear problem if she'd just given the hunt for Black Canary a rest.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Iris and Ray's article condemning the city council for their poor decisions gave Laurel an even bigger popularity boost among Star City's citizens. However, the backlash from this caused the council to panic, and "to restore order" authorized Darhk to bring his forces into the city, giving him even more power, to the extent that he has Oliver arrested almost as soon as he returns home and is thus able to lure Lyla and Diggle into a trap.
  • Sin and Ted work together to rally the people of the Glades into having a protest march for the Black Canary. This messes things up twice over. First, they tip their hands enough for Susan Williams to conclude that Oliver was the Arrow. Then, when Oliver intervenes to protect them from HIVE reprisal, Sin warns him of Susan's knowledge and points out she's recording the whole affair. This distracts him long enough for HIVE to subdue him.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ray explicitly muses that he would have kept trying to contact Felicity through his company servers for months if Darhk's rants about Laurel hadn't inspired him to try S.T.A.R. Labs instead.
• Noodle Implements: Of the Dramatic Irony variety. Laurel eventually learns that the Ghosts are shipping corn to a construction site in the Glades. Readers will know exactly what this is about, but Laurel is understandably confused as to what "a paramilitary group, the construction site in the Glades and corn" could possibly all add up to.
• Not Quite Flight: The new suit Cisco made for Laurel is designed to work in conjunction with her Canary Cry to allow her to glide.
• Nuke 'em: Darhk's goal is of course a nuclear Armageddon. After cracking Rubicon, he tests it by firing a nuke at Nanda Parbat, destroying the headquarters of the League of Assassins.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: When Sara learns about Laurel being the Black Canary, she asks if she "joined Ollie's team". Oliver, remembering his terrible treatment of her when she did so, can only look away in shame.
• Off the Wagon:
  • As noted above, Laurel escaping police custody quickly leads to Quentin drinking again.
  • Averted with Laurel herself, who has remained sober while on the run.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Laurel understandably panics when Damien Darhk is able to telekinetically immobilize her.
  • Lyla gets a good one when Darhk reveals that he knows about Rubicon, and is about to cut it out of her.
    • Waller insists that she does not panic, but she is understandably alarmed when she learns of the above.
  • Darhk has a very satisfying one when he fails to immobilize Laurel with his magic.
  • Even Nyssa can't hide her shock and horror when she learns Darhk has access to Nukes. Sara's reaction is not much better.
  • Darhk gets another one in the final battle when he and Laurel are fighting on a bridge over one of his domes and he pins her to the edge of the bridge face down, allowing Laurel to destroy it with her Canary Cry.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Felicity, as usual. In particular, when Oliver notes that a song that is currently playing also played his prom, Felicity snippily comments that she doesn't want to hear about "whatever bimbo" he took. This causes quite the awkward moment when he informs her that his prom date was Laurel.
• Open Secret: Discussed. Once Laurel's secret is outed, it doesn't take long for many people to start making connections and realize who the rest of the vigilantes are. Oliver later notes that while Roy's ploy to impersonate him as the Arrow bought them time, that's all it really did — too many people knew the secret by that point, and only more were going to find out. Eventually, the whole thing would've collapsed like a house of cards and they'd be in the same position they are now.
• One-Steve Limit: Invoked in Chapter 18 when characters note that there are too many people who are known by some kind of "Arrow" alias; it's swiftly clarified that Roy and Thea are "Arsenal" and "Speedy" rather than either of them being "Red Arrow", while Oliver insists he's just "the Arrow". He later gets stuck with "Green Arrow" due to a misunderstanding and subsequent misprint with his presidential pardon.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Once news of Laurel being the Black Canary makes its way to Iron Heights and Slabside, some random prisoner boasts that he'll be the one to kill the Black Canary. A fight promptly breaks out as each prisoner tries to show that they will be the one to do it.
• "Open!" Says Me: When faced with a secure door requiring a voiceprint authentication, Laurel just uses her Canary Cry to blast it off its hinges.
• Outlaw Couple: When Oliver returns to Starling, is exposed as the Arrow and reunited with Laurel, the news starts describing them as the "Bonnie and Clyde of Vigilantism". Ironically, while they silently acknowledge they still love each other during their first few conversations, they don't actually become a couple again until several chapters later.
• Parental Betrayal: Right off the bat, Quentin outing Laurel's identity and trying to arrest her.
• Parental Favoritism: Laurel is bitterly aware that both of her parents loved Sara more than her. She eventually outright yells at Quentin that if Sara was the one to warn him about Darhk, he'd believe her instantly, despite any past lies. invokedWhen Quentin welcomes her back and makes excuses for why she turned to vigilantism but condemns Laurel for it, Sara realizes it too, much to her horror. According to Word of God, they believe that Sara originally thought Laurel was the favorite, and when she reunited with her family, that her parents had no favorites. Obviously, learning that she has been the favorite all along, especially under these circumstances, does not make her happy in the least.
• Parents as People: Quentin might love Laurel deep down, but he is far from a perfect parent, and eventually his love for her has become more about controlling her than supporting her. Laurel is forced to acknowledge that while she does still love her father, her father is still a flawed person who has made many mistakes and done countless wrongs to her, and that she no longer wants him in her life after all the pain he's caused her. That being said, after she cut him out of her life, she still can't help but mourn him when he dies because she still loved him despite it all.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Oliver describes Diggle and Felicity as this, noting that John was, in some ways closer to Felicity than Oliver ever was. Which is why John takes it so hard when he learns that she abandoned everyone in Starling and tried to keep Oliver away from helping them.
• Plot Parallel: Laurel's ongoing conflict with Quentin, who is trying to "protect" her by outing her as the Black Canary and trying to bring her in, is mirrored by Oliver's gradually deteriorating relationship Felicity while they're vacationing in Bali, as she's refusing all his requests to go home and keeping him isolated in order to "protect" him from getting killed in Starling. In truth, Quentin isn't really trying to protect Laurel at all but is actually trying to spite her for her actions regarding Sara's death in the previous year, and is simply trying to justify it. Similarly, Felicity doesn't really care about protecting Oliver so much as keeping him with her so they can live their own lives away from the chaos, even thought it means abandoning their friends and family. Both end the story permanently estranged from their respective loved ones, though for different reasons: Quentin because his actions were a step too far despite genuine repentance on his end, Felicity because she refuses to admit her actions were wrong.
• Police Are Useless:
  • Demonstrating some serious Skewed Priorities, they have a tendency to focus on apprehending Laurel instead of actual criminals. Also, after frequent failures to capture Laurel, Darhk finally comments on it.
  "Well, well, Mr. Palmer. I think I finally understand why you and so many like you have taken to vigilantism in this city. Your police are inept!"
  • Even Quentin, to his chagrin, is forced to acknowledge the police are simply not as skilled as the vigilantes.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Oliver and Laurel reunite again in the story, Oliver confronts Laurel over the fact she kept the "Dear John" Letter he sent her two years ago, at the end of Season One. She confirms that she did and doesn't say more, but it's in that moment that he realizes that she still loves him, like he still loves her, but that like him, she had figured they didn't have a chance anymore. He bitterly notes that if one of them had just bothered to ask, they might've avoided all this pain and been back together already.
• Present Absence: Ra's al Ghul. Though he's been dead for at least a month by the start of the story, it's his actions that help trigger the events of the fic. His terrorist attack on Starling is one of the reasons the city council wants to please Darhk (who is posing as a sort of white knight/angel investor), and his framing of the Arrow led to Roy Taking the Heat and faking his death and Oliver taking off with Felicity to recover from the trauma the man put him through. It's even implied that the only reason Darhk started pursuing his plan at the beginning of the story is because Ra's is dead. Laurel in particular holds a hatred of him, especially after the Lazarus Pit is used to help bring back Sara; she notes that he had the solution to all the problems Team Arrow had over the course of the second half of the season, and instead used Sara's death to screw them all over for his agenda.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Darhk. Lampshaded by Ray at one point.
  "Darhk threw his arms wide in a gesture he probably thought was comical. He was always putting a show on, and Ray wondered just who hadn't paid enough attention to little Damien when he was a child."
• Rage Breaking Point: Quentin is completely enraged when he learns that Sara's grave has been dug up (which he incorrectly concludes was done for Laurel), so much so that he actually gives the police shoot-on-sight authorization for Laurel.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Joe West draws his gun on Laurel when he sees her, and informs Barry that he shouldn't be helping her, but listens to arguments that she is no threat, and lets her leave without incident. He later admits it was wrong of him to try and prevent Barry from helping Laurel, and makes up for it by joining the rest of Team Flash as they go to stop Darhk with the other vigilantes.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: For the first half of the story, most of Oliver's loved ones become increasingly angry at him for not responding to their messages or coming back to help them with the current situation. Their opinion of him swiftly improves when he does come back, and reveals that he was away for so long only because Felicity kept him ignorant about what was happening back home.
• Red Shirt: Lyla and Diggle take three ARGUS operatives with them when they go to free Oliver. All three die.
• Rejected Apology:
  • In the end, Quentin sincerely apologizes for his actions, but Laurel can't forgive him. Nor can anyone else.
  • Subverted with Oliver and Laurel. While Laurel does accept his apology for his previous bad treatment of her, she doesn't accept his apology for leaving, because she doesn't begrudge him taking his chance at a relationship with Felicity (who everyone, even him, thought he was in love with at the time) and because he probably did need the break after everything that happened the past year.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Ray Palmer, as in in canon. This happens so often in Starling City that people aren't overly surprised when they learn of it.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: Athena and her followers are treated like this after Nanda Parbat is nuked. As far as everyone else is concerned, that is the end of the true League of Assassins, and they're just a band of sycophants uselessly holding on to a bunch of outdated traditions that don't even matter anymore. When they become too much of a nuisance, the heroes decide to set Talia on them, not even bothering to deal with them themselves.
• Revenge Before Reason: In the end, Laurel has saved the world, been pardoned by the President, given a license to be a vigilante, and is almost universally adored by her city. Liza Warner still tries to kill her at a public ceremony.
• Revenge by Proxy:
  • Oliver notes that Darhk might try to kill him just to hurt Laurel, who's been opposing HIVE for months. Also doubles as a Mythology Gag to canon.
  • Even though Ra's is long dead, Darhk still holds enough of a grudge against him to nuke Nanda Parbat out of spite.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Thea returns to Star City, Lance is quick to confront her and guess that she has his daughter in her currently-locked bedroom; he was just wrong about which daughter was in that room, for the understandable reason that he still thought Sara was dead.
• Rule of Symbolism: When Oliver, Laurel and Constantine enter Sara's soul to help the resurrection, the representations of the League of Assassins stand down and kneel to the arrivals rather than fighting them, speculated to represent Sara mastering her darkness by refusing to kill Thea.
• Running Gag:
  • People keep dropping by Laurel's lair unannounced, and are nearly attacked for it.
  • In the final battle, despite his Super-Speed Barry once again gets tagged by an enemy due to not minding his surroundings.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Once Laurel's identity is out, Diggle is forced to sign up with A.R.G.U.S. for protection. When Quentin arrives to arrest him, this is enough to force him to back off.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • When Amanda Waller orders Lyla to bring Laurel in for recruitment to Task Force X, Lyla accepts the order to Waller's face while privately musing she'll just claim she never had the chance to do it even if she meets Laurel directly, recognizing that just because Laurel has been declared a criminal doesn't mean that she has anything in common with the rest of the "Suicide Squad".
  • Several police officers eventually catch on to the fact that Darhk is up to no good and that the actions of the department are becoming illegal. They decide to stop pursuing Laurel and any other vigilantes, and focus on their real jobs instead. This comes to a head when they try to aid the Glades and the vigilantes in stopping Darhk; and while they do try to arrest Oliver and Laurel after the crisis is over, they ultimately step down, recognizing they no longer have the right to try.
• Selective Obliviousness: Even when Sara explicitly tells her father about Darhk's true plans, Lance continues to deny that any of this can be true and insist that the only "problem" is that the vigilantes have stirred everything up and his girls need psychiatric help.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Felicity decides to keep Oliver Locked Out of the Loop in regards to what's happening in Starling so he won't break up with her and rekindle his relationship with Laurel. When Oliver finds out the truth, he promptly breaks up with her and eventually rekindles his relationship with Laurel.
• Ship Tease: Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon aren't an Official Couple like the others, but they clearly have feelings for each other stemming from their long history together.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Thea is initially surprised that Oliver and Laurel are back together again, but that quickly turns into genuine happiness.
  • Sara is one for Oliver/Laurel as well, and has been since she broke up with Oliver herself at the end of Season Two, with the advice she gave him before they parted ways being about Laurel and not Felicity. When she found out Oliver misconstrued it and ended up chasing after Felicity instead, she gives him a deadpan look, clearly unimpressed.
  • John also becomes supportive of their relationship after it becomes clear Laurel is the person Oliver really loved and that he came back for her. He even apologizes for pushing Oliver towards Felicity instead, only for Oliver to tell him it's not his fault that the relationship didn't work out.
• Shout-Out:
  • An author's note confirms that Ray's story of his survival was inspired by the Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Late Mr. Kent", with such details as his claim of Easy Amnesia and being blown away by the explosion.
  • When Diggle meets with Ray, he compares Ray's time shrunk to a real-life Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
  • During the final battle, Nightwing compares Brick to a "Bane rip-off", and later traps him with cables that are allegedly capable of holding "Croc" (as in Killer Croc).
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • The Darhks. Damien Darhk is taken into custody after he's defeated by Laurel and Oliver, as is Ruve Darhk after she's removed from office.
  • Technically Laurel, as the events of this story have fully averted her canonical death.
• Speak Ill of the Dead:
  • Absolutely no one has any kind words for Ra's al Ghul (except for Talia, who still loved him despite her difficulties with him), as all of Team Arrow's current problems can be traced back to him, one way or the other. Laurel even plainly tells Talia to her face that she hated Ra's and doesn't hold him in any high regard at all.
  • While he's a lot more respectful about it than most examples, Oliver has no issues telling Laurel his honest opinion about Quentin: namely, that only Quentin is to blame for how things turned out for him, and that it is not her fault her father couldn't find it in him to love her the way she loved him. This conversation happens in front of Quentin's grave, no less, showing how far Oliver's opinion of Quentin had fallen after everything that happened in the story.
• Spotting the Thread: Susan Williams notes the obvious flaw with the idea of Roy Harper being the Arrow: he isn't tall enough. This is made apparent by the fact that Roy and Laurel have verifiable heights, and the images that exist of the Hood/Arrow with Laurel in her civilian or Black Canary identity show him to be taller than Roy is.
• Super Gullible: Oliver is accused of being this after people learn that he took Felicity's claims about there being no wi-fi in Bali at face value. However, it's justified by the fact that no sane person would ever believe their girlfriend would deliberately keep their significant other Locked Out of the Loop like Felicity did, especially when it involved their friends and family being in danger. Oliver himself acknowledges he shouldn't have believed Felicity so easily like that, but also notes that it does not absolve her for keeping him in the dark for so long, and it serves as one of the main factors in their subsequent break-up.
• Sycophantic Servant: Athena to Malcolm.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • Laurel inwardly notes that she can't forgive her father for his recent actions. Not only for what this has cost her but how it has left Thea alone and forced Diggle to work for Waller, to say nothing of how his actions during Ra's's attack on Starling forced Oliver to give up being the Arrow and led to Roy being on the run. And in the end, she does not forgive him or her mother. Neither does anyone else.
  • Sara cuts ties with him for the same reason.
• Token Good Teammate: In Chapter 17, when Helena joins the group making a stand against Darhk, Lyla notes that the Huntress is the only member of Task Force X who did the job without the threat of an explosive chip in her neck. Unsurprisingly, the epilogue reveals she's fully reformed and is now a full-fledged member of the Justice League.
• Underestimating Badassery: Liza Warner considers Laurel's new strategy — diving down from the rooftops using her sonic scream to slow her descent — as "proof" that the vigilante is a coward who would lose in a straight fight.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • As later lampshaded, Felicity unknowingly put her relationship with Oliver above the safety of the entire world. Without Oliver to counteract Darhk's magic, it's very likely Laurel wouldn't have been able to defeat him.
  • Nyssa's decision to go with Thea and escort Sara back to Starling leads to Darhk assuming that the League is mobilizing against him, so he commits a preemptive strike by nuking Nanda Parbat. While no one is exactly mourning the deaths of Malcolm and his followers, the situation sets off an international crisis, with India and Pakistan both pointing fingers at each other for what happened.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Quentin actually qualifies as a villain in this story, even if he doesn't think so, but he actually gets a few good points in the first chapter. Namely, Slade and Ra's only attacked the city because of personal vendettas or campaigns against Oliver, and if Moira had turned evidence against Malcolm years ago the Undertaking could have been prevented. To be completely fair, Slade would've attacked Starling regardless of whether or not Oliver became a vigilante thanks to the Mirakuru, so Oliver's vigilante activities are really only to blame for Ra's.
  • Darhk is the Big Bad of the story. He is also absolutely correct that the police are inept.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Darhk has presented himself to the Star City Council as an investor who can save their dying city. It ends when the heroes leak his conversation with the President to the world, revealing him to be an international terrorist.
• Waving Signs Around: The protest on behalf of Black Canary has a number of signs like "Fly Canary Fly", "Less Guns More Funds", "Dump Darhk", and "Long Live Laurel Lance". There's also one specifically condemning Quentin.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Quentin and Felicity are each making significant decisions about the lives of the people they love because they believe they know what's "best" for Laurel and Oliver respectively, ignoring how Laurel made her choice to become the Black Canary and Oliver deserves to know what's happening back in Star City.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Laurel doesn't outright yell at Barry, but she does make him see that trying to keep his team safe by pushing them away, or ignoring the continued messages from Harrison Wells' lawyer, isn't a good way to deal with his current problems.
  • Oliver gets this from his own subconscious, when he has a nightmare where both his father and Roy call him out on abandoning both Thea and the city even before he knows of the current situation.
    • Later he has a series of nightmares of his team members dying in his absence. Laurel's eulogy for Thea includes a dig at him for constantly abandoning her, and the ghost of Diggle does so on never being there for him either.
  • Diggle tells Quentin that Sara would not approve of his actions. Quentin doesn't take it well.
  • Iris publishes an interview with Ray Palmer, in which they both condemn the Star City Council (and Quentin Lance in particular) for their actions against Laurel.
  • When looking up what happened in the city after Laurel's identity went public, Sara is outraged that someone actually released all of the people prosecuted by Laurel or arrested thanks to Star City's vigilantes, observing that most of the criminals they brought in were definitely guilty and the circumstances of their arrest shouldn't be relevant (although the DA's obvious tension during that broadcast suggests to Sara that she's being forced to read that statement).
  • Nightwing at least starts to deliver one to his old mentor once he realises that Bruce is part of Talia's forces, but the two soon decide to focus on the current problem over arguing about Bruce's actions.
• Worth Living For: When Laurel discusses the possibility of Oliver focusing his attention entirely on Darhk in order to make sure he's taken down, he refuses because that would give Darhk an opportunity to kill her. She tries to argue the safety of the world is more important than her personal safety, but Oliver tells her that he doesn't care, that he's doing this so she and him can finally have a future together, and that he can't save anything without her. This leads to them finally sleeping together, renewing their relationship.
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back: In the final battle, Nightwing yells at Brick: "Gotham called and wants their Bane rip-off back".
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Oliver is finally convinced to go back to the man he was when he experiences a dream of his father, Robert Queen essentially inspiring Oliver to become the man he became on the island once again and stop trying to be the domestic boyfriend he's been pretending to be for the last few months. He gets another such speech in person when Laurel tells him that, even if he constantly struggles with his ability to emotionally connect to others, the fact that he keeps trying to do so is what really matters in this case.
  • In the final chapter, Dick and Barbara each assure Bruce that they understand that him killing the Joker doesn't compromise everything else he chooses to stand for as Batman, and also encourage him to acknowledge that he can be a good father to his upcoming child with Talia. Talia herself supports this argument, telling Bruce that the Joker was a sickness on his city and his spirit and killing him makes him free rather than one of her students, confessing that she only kept him with her out of selfishness.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Laurel makes it a point to find Nyssa as well as Sara after Nanda Parbat is nuked, because the former now really does have nowhere else to go but with Laurel, Sara and the rest of Team Arrow.
• You're Cute When You're Angry: A variation, when Zatanna basically orders Constantine to head to Starling City:
  "You know you sound beautiful when you're bossy?"

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