recklessthings | ⚖ laurel lance

[Laurel is still unsure how she feels about Hell's Kitchen most days. Then again, Laurel is unsure how she feels about a lot of things most days.

Sara finally deemed it safe to return her from the Waverider, all the places that she thought she would have the chance to go back to were filled by other people. There was a new Black Canary, a new DA and no room for Laurel to slip back in. She can't blame them for moving on - they didn't know what Sara had done - but that does leave not a lot left for her to stay for in Star City.

Moving across the country might be a little extreme, but she's been desperately in need of a fresh start for a long time. Now is as good a time as any to get started. The fact that she wound up in another city full of masks is just a coincidence that she's choosing (for now) to ignore. Oliver and the current DA, Adrian Chase, helped her get her identity back. She got a job at a small little firm in the city which spent more time helping people than worrying about their profit margins (her kind of firm, to be honest) and tries to get back into life as Laurel again, intending to put the Black Canary far behind her.

(The thing about that is that the things you don't know can never make that as easy as it sounds. Things Laurel doesn't know:

Adrian Chase isn't the friend he makes himself out to be, and the alter ego of Prometheus lurks under the smiling surface.
Prometheus wants the Arrow, and by extension Oliver Queen to suffer.
What better way to make him suffer than by watching Laurel Lance die twice?)

He sends his men to take her, bring her back to Lian Yu to die with the rest of her family, but the streets of Hell's Kitchen aren't safe and Laurel's always been smarter than she looks.

(Things that Prometheus Didn't Know:

Laurel Lance may not be actively be the Black Canary anymore, but she still knows how to fight and she still carries her baton and the sonic device Cisco made for her.
The Devil of Hell's Kitchen has really good hearing.

Things Laurel Also Doesn't Know:

What her boss gets up to in his downtime, though for the moment, she's very grateful for it.)

Prometheus' minions come for her with machine guns and body armor but that doesn't seem to bother her much. The minute she opens her mouth and sonic waves echo across the alleyway where they have her cornered, the hands around their guns falter, and she takes the opportunity where she has it. Her baton comes up and goes for the easy weaknesses - the knees, the elbows - but even with the element of surprise, there are still too many for her.

This was a lot easier when she wasn't alone. There are a few hard hits as one manages to cold cock her with the butt of his weapon and she goes down hard. She can taste blood in her mouth, and she spits it out before looking up at him with a glare.]

You're going to regret that.

Edited 2017-08-17 14:21 (UTC)

[ There are relatively few things that Matt knows about his new employee. The one that he cares about is that she's a good lawyer who's willing to work for a minuscule amount of money. In all seriousness, Laurel clearly wants to help out the little guy and that counts in a firm like Matt's, where occasionally lawyers are paid in casseroles, pies, and boxes of produce. At least they won't go hungry.

There are many, many more things about Laurel that Matt doesn't know, like:

Why she moved across the country (fresh start had been enough of an excuse for him)
What she used to get up to in her time off.
What she's still getting up to in her time off.

However, he is aware that there's a new player in his city, one working on the same side that he's working on. He hasn't managed to catch whomever it is in action until tonight. When he hears that sonic blast (accompanied the sounds of a fight) from several blocks away, he doesn't hesitate to head in that direction. The voice is slightly distorted, but he's fairly certain the person being attacked is Laurel and he's absolutely certain of it when he gets close enough to catch her scent. She can't see the confusion on his face beneath the mask, but it's definitely there. ]

She's right. You really are.

[ He flicks open his own baton with a turn of his wrist and configures it to the shocking mode then steps into the battle, keeping a part of his attention on Laurel. He expects she'll get back up and fight judging from her snark, what he does know of her and the sounds of the scuffle, not to mention the state of the people she's fighting. He can smell blood. ]

[Laurel definitely doesn't intend to just stay there and play the damsel. The minute the men are distracted by the unprecedented arrival of the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, Laurel immediately turns and kicks the one who cold cocked her in the shin, forcing him to stumble away from her so she can get some distance.

Her vision is swimming, just a little, but it's not bad enough that she can't keep going, at least until the rest of them are taken down. Once she's on her feet, her fists come up and she'll start swinging again, throwing herself back into the fray.

She's choosing to ignore, for the moment, how familiar that voice is. She knows it, somehow, even if she's not quite sure how. Fortunately, for right now she has larger problems to deal with, so she chooses to put it to the side.]

[ Good. Laurel has never struck him as a damsel. Besides, it's good to have someone at his back, so to speak.

She gets her distance and Matt knocks one of the guys out with a knock to his temple with his baton. He takes another out at the knees then uses the moment of respite to check on Laurel. ]

Let's get out of here. Get you somewhere safe.

[Laurel will not argue with that. Her hand reaches for Matt because she knows eventually that head injury is going to catch up with her. Once the adrenaline fades, she's going to be less steady on her feet and she knows it.]

Not my place. They'll probably be looking for me there.

[ He takes her hand then transfers that to putting his arm around her to help when that head injury does catch up. ]

We'll go back to my place, provided you can keep the secret about who I am.

[ Not that Laurel has ever seen Matt's place before, but she'll see the cane, the sunglasses and he'll shed the suit. She will find out who he is and he thinks she's trustworthy. He'll save questions for her like where she got that device that emitted the sonic sound and what she was doing out there for when they're both safe at his place.] We'll take the back routes.

[Laurel raises an eyebrow at that, before she nods in agreement.]

If we do this, you're going to probably wind up keeping a few of mine too.

[So as long as she can trust him, he can trust her. And she's always felt that masks worked best together rather than against each other anyway.]

[ Matt nods at that, guiding her toward one of the back ways toward his apartment. ]

Sounds like a fair deal to me. [ He's quiet for a moment as they make their way to the apartment. He's listening to her body, determining what sort of injuries she might have. ]

How does your head feel? I'm afraid you might have a concussion.

You're probably right. One of them got me pretty good with the butt of the gun.

[She focuses on walking to the apartment for now, and once they're inside she smirks a bit.]

Guess you'll just have to keep me awake, Murdock.

We'll get you lying down.

[ When she calls him 'Murdock' he almost stumbles, just catching himself. ]

What gave it away?

[She smirks.]

Your voice. And the fact that you offered to bring me back to your place, trusting that I could keep a secret.

[She moves over to the couch and very slowly lowers herself down against the cushions with a groan.]

Seems to imply you already knew me, and I don't know that many people in New York.

Excellent deducting, Counselor. [ His smile comes through in his voice, but it's also on his lips beneath his mask. Speaking of which, he peels it off.]

I'm going to change out of this suit then I'll get us something to drink. I can make some hot tea or go with something stronger.

[ He's got something of an affinity for scotch.]

As nice as something stronger sounds right now, I'm going to stick with tea.

[Tonight is not the night to ruin her sobriety. But, in case she thinks it's related to his hospitality, which it isn't:]

I'm three years sober.

[There are so many thoughts racing through her mind, things that she needs to sort through and figure out. She isn't entirely sure how she was found in the first place, and if her location has been outted, she can't help but worry about the one person who knew it.

It's probably not safe to use her cell though.]

Do you mind if I use your phone?

[ Matt nods and moves behind the particle board bar to put an electric kettle on. ]

Congratulations. I didn't know.

[ And he admires Laurel more than he did a moment before because he's not sure he could deal with the things she's dealt with sober. ]

Of course not. It should be on the coffee table. [ He doesn't take it with him when he's doing the vigilante thing for lots of obvious reasons. ]

[She calls and leaves a message for Thea - she knows the other girl doesn't pick up numbers she doesn't know, so she hopes that the voicemail will be enough for her to call her back fast.

Then she follows with a message for Oliver, because Oliver just ... doesn't answer his phone. And then she'll place it back down again as she leans back.

And then a message on the house voicemail for Diggle and Lyla, because having that many irons in the fire couldn't hurt.]

Thanks. Hopefully they're all okay and someone will call me back.

[ Matt is happy enough to let Laurel use the phone, picking it up when Thea does call back. Of course, the voice assistant on his phone will announce to the room when Thea or Oliver return her calls. It's good to know that she still has people back home even if she's making a new life here.]

Feel free to pick the phone up when they do rather than go through me.

[ The kettle boils and Matt pours hot water into two mugs with waiting tea bags. It's anothing fancy, just standard English breakfast tea. ]

Sugar, lemon, honey? I think the milk in the fridge is still good. [ He kind of conspicously sniffs the air. ] Nope. Sorry. The milk is close to turning.

Just honey is fine.

[She likes her tea black, less so with her coffee, but tea isn't usually as strong.]

So can I ask how you got into the vigilante business?

⚖ laurel lance | arrow

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