Chapter 22: Deadshot's Auction
The charity auction drew Starling's elite like moths to flame—perfect hunting ground for an assassin, and Ben's Prescience screamed warnings the moment he entered the museum's grand ballroom.
Blue afterimages cascaded around the elegant crowd like deadly flowers, showing violence that hadn't happened yet but felt inevitable. Ben's enhanced awareness catalogued exits and sight lines while his power tracked potential threats through the sea of designer gowns and expensive suits. Something was wrong with this picture, wrong enough to make his abilities activate without conscious direction.
"Too much potential danger. Too many variables converging in one space. This isn't just social anxiety—my power recognizes an active threat scenario."
Ben scanned the room methodically, looking for whatever his Prescience had detected. Oliver was here somewhere, maintaining his public persona as billionaire playboy while secretly coordinating security through Diggle's earpiece. The man himself stood near the bar, projecting casual alertness that didn't quite hide his military bearing to someone who knew what to look for.
Then Ben saw the setup.
Floyd Lawton moved through the crowd with the patient efficiency of a professional predator, his wrist-mounted weapons concealed beneath expensive cuffs while he positioned himself for optimal killing angles. Deadshot—a name Ben remembered from the show along with the man's reputation for never missing his target.
Ben's Prescience exploded into overlapping futures of death and chaos. Multiple shots fired simultaneously. Blood spreading across marble floors. Diggle collapsing with precision wounds that suggested someone had studied his movements and identified his weaknesses.
"Deadshot's here for Diggle. Oliver's too far away to help, and there are too many civilians between me and the shooter. Three seconds of foresight against perfect aim—the math doesn't favor survival for anyone in this room."
Ben moved through the crowd toward Diggle, heart hammering as his enhanced awareness tracked Lawton's preparations. The assassin had identified his target and was adjusting position for the kill shot, hands moving with practiced efficiency toward concealed weapons.
"John," Ben said, approaching Diggle with forced casualness. "Enjoying the party?"
Diggle's eyes sharpened with recognition. "Ben. Didn't expect to see you here."
"Last-minute invitation. Networking opportunity." Ben positioned himself strategically, using his body to block Lawton's sight lines while his Prescience showed him the exact moment when everything would go to hell. "Beautiful venue. Lots of interesting sight lines for someone who appreciates architecture."
The coded warning registered in Diggle's expression—enough military experience to recognize when someone was trying to communicate danger without alarming civilians. But before either man could act on the intelligence, Lawton made his move.
The first shot came from wrist-mounted guns that emerged from concealed mechanisms with mechanical precision. Ben's Prescience showed him the bullet's trajectory—a perfect line toward Diggle's center mass that would punch through Kevlar and bone with equal ease.
Ben threw himself into the bullet's path, his Kinetic absorption catching most of the impact in a flare of blue light that ran through his veins like liquid electricity. Pain exploded across his chest where the round struck, but the energy flowed into his power instead of his organs, stored rather than dissipated.
The second shot followed immediately, targeting the same location with Lawton's signature precision. This time Ben didn't try to absorb—instead, he denied the attack's existence. Red energy shimmered around his eyes as his Negation power activated, and the bullet simply ceased to exist mid-flight, erased from reality like it had never been fired.
"Two powers down, one to go. Deadshot's already adjusting for the impossible—he's seen metahumans before. Third shot will compensate for variables he doesn't understand."
The third bullet came from a different angle, Lawton having repositioned during the chaos. Ben absorbed it like the first, feeling his stored energy reach dangerous levels as kinetic force accumulated beyond safe parameters.
Ben pushed with his mind, channeling every ounce of stored kinetic energy through his fist in a directed blast that crossed the ballroom like invisible thunder. The concussive force caught Lawton center-mass and sent him crashing through a floor-to-ceiling window in an explosion of glass and twisted metal.
The entire sequence had taken three seconds.
Ben collapsed to one knee, blood seeping from bullet impacts that should have killed him, his veins still glowing with residual energy while his head spun from power overuse. Around him, the auction had descended into chaos—screaming civilians, security personnel shouting orders, the particular confusion that followed violence in spaces where violence wasn't supposed to exist.
POV: Diggle
Diggle regained consciousness to find Ben hovering over him with concerned eyes and blood-stained clothing, asking if he was okay with the kind of intensity that suggested personal stakes beyond professional obligation.
"I'm fine," Diggle managed, though his ears were ringing from the concussive blast. "You?"
"Been better. But alive, which wasn't guaranteed a few seconds ago."
Diggle processed what he'd witnessed while emergency responders swarmed the scene. Ben had thrown himself between Diggle and certain death without hesitation, then done things that violated several fundamental laws of physics to ensure that sacrifice actually mattered. The brotherhood that had been forming over weeks of training and conversation solidified in that moment—Ben had taken bullets meant for him, then performed miracles to stop more.
"Why didn't you lead with 'I can stop bullets' in the powers briefing?" Diggle asked as EMTs checked them both for injuries that Ben somehow didn't have despite taking multiple rounds center-mass.
"Didn't know I could until I had to."
The simple honesty in Ben's voice carried more weight than elaborate explanations. Diggle had seen enough combat to recognize someone operating on instinct and desperation rather than trained confidence. Ben had discovered the full scope of his abilities in the moment when someone else's life hung in the balance.
"He didn't save me because I'm valuable to the mission or because Oliver ordered him to. He saved me because he couldn't live with watching someone die when he might be able to prevent it. That's not tactical calculation—that's character. And character matters more than whatever secrets he's carrying."
"Thank you," Diggle said, and meant it with the weight of someone who understood that he was breathing because another man had chosen to risk everything rather than watch him die.
"Thank you for being worth saving," Ben replied, and Diggle heard the echo of his own military philosophy in the words—protect the people who make the world better, and let the cost be someone else's concern.
The ride to the hospital passed in companionable silence broken only by radio chatter and the ambient noise of a city processing another impossible incident. Ben submitted to medical examination while giving useless statements to police about adrenaline rushes and lucky timing, maintaining his cover of confused civilian while his full power set had just been revealed to dozens of witnesses.
"Ben's secrets are less important than his choices. He used abilities I didn't know he possessed to save my life without hesitation. That's enough information for me to work with. Questions can wait until after we've made sure he understands how much this meant."
Diggle made a decision as they waited for the all-clear from paramedics. Ben Hale was exactly the kind of person John Diggle had spent his military career protecting—someone who'd risk everything to save a life, who'd reveal dangerous capabilities rather than let innocent people die, who'd choose personal sacrifice over operational security when it mattered.
Whatever else Ben was hiding, his character had been tested under fire and proven solid. That was enough for trust, enough for brotherhood, enough for the kind of loyalty that transcended missions and organizations to become something more fundamental.
Ben sat in the ambulance realizing he'd just revealed his complete hand to save one man—and would do it again without hesitation. His cover as "just an energy absorber" was blown, his careful management of revealed abilities destroyed by three seconds of desperation and moral certainty.
"Oliver will demand full disclosure now. Felicity will want to analyze power combinations she didn't know existed. Diggle will ask questions about capabilities I've been hiding. But John Diggle is alive because I chose to act instead of calculate, and that's a trade I'll make every time."
SCPD cordoned off the scene while Deadshot escaped in the chaos, his mission failed but his reputation intact. Ben watched the investigation unfold through ambulance windows, processing the knowledge that his careful balance of revelation and concealment had just collapsed under the weight of a moral choice he couldn't regret.
"Three powers used in rapid combination, witnessed by civilians, recorded by security cameras. No more pretending to be anything other than what I am. From now on, it's full disclosure with the team or operational separation. And after what John Diggle just witnessed, separation isn't an option I can live with."
The weight of belonging and the cost of secrecy had finally intersected at the point where Ben couldn't maintain both. He'd chosen belonging—chosen to save a friend regardless of consequences—and whatever came next would have to be built on that foundation.
Outside the ambulance, Starling City hummed with its usual mixture of hope and desperation, unaware that one of its protectors had just crossed a line from which there would be no return. But inside the vehicle, two men who'd found brotherhood through shared violence and mutual sacrifice began planning for a future built on trust rather than necessity.
It was, Ben thought, a fair trade for the secrets he could no longer keep.
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