Chapter 10: The Hunter and the Hunted
Ben felt the surveillance three nights running—the prickling awareness of being watched by someone very, very good at it. Not the obvious attention of street criminals or gang lookouts, but something more professional. More patient. The kind of observation that came from training in environments where failure to notice meant death.
His Prescience offered no warnings, no blue afterimages of immediate danger. But instincts honed by a lifetime of watching for threats told him he'd attracted exactly the kind of attention he'd been trying to avoid.
Oliver.
The realization hit him during his Thursday evening walk, as he took a deliberately circuitous route through the warehouse district. The surveillance had started the day after Felicity's visit, which meant she'd reported their conversation to someone. Someone with the resources and motivation to investigate a mysteriously knowledgeable gym teacher who'd been present at several impossible incidents.
Ben altered his pattern, taking routes that would force any tail to expose themselves or lose contact. Standard counter-surveillance techniques from a life he was trying not to think about too much. The watching presence stayed with him, invisible but persistent, and Ben began to understand he was dealing with someone operating at a level far beyond street criminals.
"He knows I know he's there. This isn't about gathering information anymore—it's about making contact. Question is, do I let him make the approach on his terms, or do I force the confrontation while I still have some control over the circumstances?"
The arrow embedded itself in the brick wall exactly two inches from Ben's head with a sound like controlled thunder. He froze, hands rising instinctively, as a figure dropped from the fire escape above with the fluid grace of someone who'd learned to fall without making noise.
The Hood.
Oliver Queen stood fifteen feet away, bow drawn and arrow nocked, face hidden beneath a green hood that somehow made him look more inhuman than any mask could have. The electronic modulator in his voice stripped away everything that might have sounded young or uncertain, leaving only cold authority.
"Ben Hale."
It wasn't a question. Ben kept his hands visible, fighting the urge to look for escape routes. His Prescience was going haywire in the vigilante's presence, blue afterimages cascading and overlapping until he couldn't tell what was prediction and what was wishful thinking.
"That's me."
"You have a habit of being in places where my operations occur. I want to know why."
"Stay calm. He's fishing. He knows I've been present at several incidents, but he doesn't know about the powers or the foreknowledge. This is an interrogation, not an execution. Yet."
"Bad timing, I guess. Wrong place, wrong time."
The Hood's draw never wavered. "Three separate incidents. Always positioned to observe but never directly involved. Always managing to avoid danger despite being a civilian with no apparent combat training."
"I walk a lot at night. Insomnia. Sometimes I hear trouble and hide instead of running. Doesn't make me special."
"The bomb collar incident. You were present when an electronic device failed in a way experts say is impossible. Care to explain that?"
Ben's heart hammered against his ribs, but he kept his voice steady. "Lucky timing. Guy needed help, I tried to help, the device malfunctioned. Sometimes things just work out."
"Things don't 'just work out' in Starling City. Especially not for civilians who happen to be in the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right instincts."
The arrow point never moved, but Ben could feel Oliver studying him with the intensity of someone who'd learned to read threats in the expressions of people trying to kill him. The green hood created shadows that made it impossible to see his eyes, but Ben could feel the weight of that attention like a physical pressure.
"Are you protecting the Glades," Ben asked, "or terrorizing it?"
The question hung between them like a challenge. Oliver's draw remained steady, but something in his posture shifted—surprise, maybe, that someone with an arrow pointed at their chest would push back instead of cowering.
"I'm doing what's necessary."
"Necessary for what? Revenge? Justice? Or just because you can?"
"You don't know anything about what I'm doing or why."
"I know you're hunting people in neighborhoods where the police don't care and the politicians don't visit. I know you're killing some and terrifying others. And I know that whatever your reasons, the people who live here are caught in the middle."
"This is dangerous. I'm challenging him, and that could go very badly very quickly. But if I just cower and answer questions, I look like I'm hiding something. Better to act like a civilian with opinions than a target with secrets."
Oliver stepped closer, and Ben's malfunctioning Prescience showed him a dozen possible futures simultaneously—the arrow releasing, a fist to his throat, questions that would strip away every layer of his carefully constructed identity. But underneath the threatening possibilities, Ben caught glimpses of something else: respect. Oliver Queen had spent five years around people who feared him, followed him, or tried to kill him. A civilian who stood their ground and asked hard questions was... unexpected.
"You could be working for the people I'm hunting," Oliver said. "Sent to observe my operations, report my methods."
"I could be. But I'm not."
"How do I know that?"
"Because if I were working for corrupt businessmen and crime bosses, I probably wouldn't be teaching self-defense classes to single mothers in the Glades for barely enough money to pay rent."
Another shift in Oliver's stance. The bow was still drawn, but the arrow wasn't quite pointing at Ben's chest anymore.
"Marcus's gym," Oliver said. "You've been there eight weeks."
He's done his research. Of course he has.
"Nine weeks, actually. And if you've been watching me that closely, you know I'm exactly what I appear to be—a guy trying to help people learn to protect themselves."
"People don't just appear in Starling City with no history, no connections, no digital footprint before their arrival. Especially not people with your particular skill set."
The statement hit too close to the truth. Ben forced himself to maintain eye contact with the shadowed void where Oliver's face should be.
"What skill set? I teach basic self-defense."
"You move like someone with combat training. Advanced training. Your eyes tracked my bow despite poor lighting conditions. And you haven't shown any signs of panic despite having a weapon pointed at you for the last five minutes."
"He's good. Really good. Every observation is accurate, and together they paint a picture of someone with military or intelligence background. I need to give him something true enough to be believable without revealing the impossible parts."
"I learned to fight because I was tired of being helpless. I learned to stay calm under pressure because panic gets people killed. And I learned to pay attention to my surroundings because this city is dangerous and I wanted to survive it."
Ben took a half-step forward, still keeping his hands visible. "But you want to know what I think? I think you're asking the wrong questions."
"Enlighten me."
"You want to know if I'm a threat. But what you should be asking is whether I might be an asset."
The bow finally lowered a fraction of an inch. "Explain."
"I live in the Glades. I see what happens here every day. I know which businesses are fronts, which cops take bribes, which politicians make promises they never intend to keep. You're hunting corruption from the outside, working through a list that may or may not be complete. I'm here on the ground, watching it happen in real time."
"I'm offering intelligence cooperation without admitting to any specific knowledge. It's a gamble, but it shifts the conversation from interrogation to potential recruitment."
Oliver considered this for a long moment. The arrow remained nocked but no longer aimed. "And what would you want in return for this... cooperation?"
"For you to remember that the people you're trying to save live in the neighborhoods where your war is being fought. Whatever you're planning, whatever endgame you're working toward, it's going to affect innocent people who have no idea what's coming."
The words carried weight Ben hadn't intended—his knowledge of the Undertaking bleeding through despite his attempts to stay vague. Oliver's head tilted slightly, like a predator catching an unexpected scent.
"What makes you think there's an endgame?"
Careful. That was too specific.
"Because nobody goes to this much trouble for random crime fighting. You're not stopping muggings—you're hunting specific people with specific connections. That means you're working toward something bigger."
"And you want to be part of that?"
"I want to make sure it doesn't destroy the people I'm trying to protect."
The standoff stretched into silence broken only by distant sirens and the ambient noise of a city that never quite slept. Ben could feel Oliver weighing options, calculating risks, trying to determine if the mysterious gym teacher represented an opportunity or a threat that needed elimination.
POV: Oliver
In the foundry an hour later, Oliver pulled back his hood and accepted the coffee Diggle offered without comment. His first direct contact with Ben Hale had raised more questions than it answered.
"So?" Diggle asked. "Friend or foe?"
"Unknown."
"That's helpful."
Oliver reviewed the encounter in his mind, cataloguing details with the systematic approach Slade Wilson had beaten into him on the island. Ben Hale moved like someone with professional training but claimed to be self-taught. He spoke about Starling City's corruption with the specificity of insider knowledge but maintained he was just an observant civilian. He'd stood his ground against the Hood while offering cooperation instead of begging for mercy.
"He's hiding something," Oliver said finally. "But I don't think he's working for my targets."
"Based on what?"
"Body language. Facial expressions. The way he responded to pressure." Oliver sipped his coffee, tasting the bitter edge that reminded him of five years of survival on insufficient resources. "He was afraid—anybody would be in that situation. But he wasn't guilty. And when he talked about protecting people in the Glades, there was genuine conviction there."
"So you trust him?"
"I don't trust anyone. But I think he might be useful."
"Useful how?"
Oliver pulled up a map of Starling City on his computer, marking the locations where he'd encountered Ben over the past weeks. The pattern was subtle but clear—the man had been present at every major operation, always positioned to observe but never to interfere.
"He claims to have ground-level intelligence on Glades corruption. If that's true, it could accelerate my work considerably. Right now, I'm working through my father's list methodically, but that approach is slow and reactive. Someone with current, real-time knowledge of criminal operations could help me get ahead of problems instead of just responding to them."
"And if he's lying?"
"Then I eliminate the threat."
Diggle nodded with the calm acceptance of someone who'd seen enough violence to understand that sometimes elimination was the only viable option. "What's your next move?"
"Watch him. If he's legitimate, he'll continue his current pattern—teaching civilians, avoiding direct involvement in criminal activity, staying under the radar except for bad timing. If he's something else, he'll make a mistake eventually."
"And then?"
"Then I'll decide which side of my list his name belongs on."
Oliver returned to his map, marking potential surveillance points and planning observation schedules. Ben Hale remained an unknown variable in an equation that couldn't afford too many uncertain elements. But the gym teacher had made one point that resonated: whatever Oliver was building toward, innocent people would be caught in the crossfire.
The question was whether Ben Hale was one of those innocent people, or something else entirely.
Ben made it back to his apartment without further incident, but his hands were shaking as he locked the door behind him. The encounter with Oliver had been every bit as dangerous as he'd feared—and possibly more productive than he'd dared hope.
"He didn't kill me. That's step one. Step two is that he's considering me as a potential asset instead of just a threat to be eliminated. But he's going to be watching even more closely now, which means every move I make has to support the cover identity I've built."
Ben updated his coded journal with careful notes about the encounter, documenting Oliver's questions and his own responses. The vigilante was suspicious but not hostile, curious but not convinced. It was a precarious balance that could tip toward recruitment or elimination based on Ben's next actions.
"No more coincidental appearances at Hood operations. I've pushed that luck as far as it can go. From now on, I have to be the gym teacher who teaches civilians and minds his own business. At least until the Undertaking forces me to step up."
But as he settled into bed and tried to process the night's events, Ben couldn't shake the feeling that his carefully planned strategy of staying under the radar had just become impossible. Oliver Queen knew about him now, was actively evaluating him as either asset or threat.
The question was which evaluation would prove correct when the time came to choose sides.
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