Chapter Text
He’s ready long before 1400. He can’t leave the apartment yet; Natalia’s bug hasn’t had time to kill the cameras. So he cleans his gun. Again. He checks the rounds and takes inventory of his ammo, though he knows the workings of every weapon he uses by heart. Really it’s just something to keep him busy; since the programming started to deteriorate he’s been plagued with a constant need for motion. Between the conditioning and the cryo he’d been still for too long. So he keeps cleaning, keeps checking the rounds.
“All clear,” Natalia says from her position in the van. “You have twenty minutes.”
He snaps the M4 back into place and is out the door in exactly one-point-two seconds. Down the hall in fifteen-point-four. Up the stairs in forty-point-seven, but only because stealth takes priority over speed. In position in six-point-two. Exactly five minutes after Natalia’s initial go-ahead his target is in his sights. He checks the muffler one last time and waits.
He keeps the gun steady, waiting in for the target to get alone. Now he’s still – hardly even breathing. This is easy for him. This is familiar, had been before the fall.
The target enters his office and locks his door. Doesn’t check the windows, doesn’t even glance out. He sits with his face turned away and leans back, giving the Soldier a clear shot. He takes it. He waits only long enough to see the target fall forward and he’s out of the room.
He’s back to get his gear eight minutes and three seconds after Natalia’s go-ahead, packed and in her van seventy-three-point-five seconds after that.
By the time the body’s found they are halfway across the city, checking on one of Natalia’s unrelated leads.
-
Thea presses her lips together as she stalks out of the office. She loves Roy – that isn’t in question. She’ll always love Roy. But he can be such a bone-head, and he’s so secretive. Just like Ollie – except Roy doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s keeping things from her. Just tells her they aren’t his secrets to tell and lets her stew.
She briefly considers going back to the mansion, but home is the last place she wants to be. Well, the second-to-last place. She really doesn’t want to go to Roy’s either. Which leaves her with a sum total of zero places to crash.
Stepping out into the cool night air, she digs her phone out and opens a search engine. The Queens (well, actually just Oliver from before the island, but he’d reserved it under the family name) have a standing reservation at the Garden – at this point, not even the thought of sleeping where her brother’d dragged his conquests seven years ago is enough to get her to actually spend the night with said brother in the house.
The garage is almost abandoned by the time she reaches it. She’d parked on the third level, which had sucked at the time and sucks now, because her feet hurt and all she wants is to sink into a hot bath. Maybe she can get the hotel to have one waiting for her? She’ll ask once she gets in the car.
Which is her last thought before her world goes black.
Before she can let out a good scream someone covers her mouth and nose, forcing her to inhale through the cloth. She realizes too late that shes being drugged; she feels the effects like a bad trip. It slows her down, makes her clumsy, and the pathetic kick she sends out does nothing.
She loses steam as the seconds wear on, and she feels her assailants manhandle her into a car before blacking out completely.