It was like being kicked in the head and the balls at the same time.

She'd said League. Left the League. In the moment, he'd thought nothing of it, but now it was spelled out, things slowly began to click into place. She was an assassin. She had been an assassin. Everything he'd assumed was wrong. The long absences, the trips abroad, the work that she couldn't tell him about; he'd assumed it was government work. Agent. Operative. It was an easy assumption to make, given their past. They'd first met when Roy joined the Army, a misguided choice to follow in Oliver's footsteps, volunteering for the military service that Oliver had been forced into by his own guardian. He'd been a Lance Corporal; she'd been the Lieutenant in intelligence. It had been something secret, something taboo, something impulsive and exciting and unspoken.

Service had taken them in different directions, and that had been the end of it; right up until fate slammed the two of them back together in Star City. She hadn't been willing or able to tell him about what she did; but then, neither had he, not until that last night. It had been familiar, but different, and he'd let himself get swept up in it. He'd thought maybe it was more than it was, and so he'd made the step: tell her the truth, admit that he was a vigilante. All had seemed well until she'd left in the night without a word; but now it was different, not running because of what he was, but running because of what she was; what she'd done; how he might have reacted if she'd shared the same kind of truth. Did that change things? Maybe it did, but for now his mind was too busy reeling from the secondary blow to his delicates.

Your child is going to be hunted.

Your child. His child. Something he'd never considered, never imagined. At the back of his mind, he wondered if perhaps he would follow in Oliver's footsteps. Perhaps he would be the Green Arrow in his own right one day, the one and only rather than some elaborate decoy; or perhaps he'd strike his own path, but either way, perhaps one day he'd find a Speedy of his own. Find someone struggling through the same kind of hardships that he, and Mia, and Oliver all shared. Perhaps they'd become his ward, and perhaps one day they'd look at him as almost a father in the same way that he saw Oliver. Never had he considered that his own child might be part of the equation; maybe that was just part of being an orphan, or maybe that was just him. But here was Jade, standing here in front of him, telling him that he was going to be a father; that the unimagined was already happening.

But no, that wasn't all of it. Hunted. Not merely hunted, either: hunted by the League of Assassins. Ruthless. Insidious. Unstoppable. Jade said she had run, to Gotham of all places; but why? For what?

Roy drew a breath, and released it slowly.

"I need you to start at the start, Jade."

Another step closer was taken. The bow fell completely to his side this time, arrow stashed back in his quiver. Another step, and another; his freed hand reached out, hesitating for an instant before it came to rest against Jade's arm.

"What happened? Why are they after you?"