painful drabble prompts | accepting

                    she’s not sure how she always manages to end up in the WRONG place at the WRONG time but she does. on the outside, caroline seemed like the type of girl who had everything going for her — she wanted for nothing so she asked for nothing. she had graduated in the top ten percent of her collegiate class with a major in broadcast journalism, moved to starling city on her own dime & carved out a fairly decent life for herself. yet there seemed to be a MISSING piece, something she could never put her finger on. she had friends & family & all her dreams were unfolding but there was just a f e e l i n g like something wasn’t quite right. instead of dwelling on it, she expends that strange energy on her favorite obsession: the arrow. starling’s famed vigilante. her co-workers have dubbed her the EXPERT on arrow exploitation as she is the first on the scene, the one who asks the arrow’s so-called cohorts the hard questions. but she had never been in the cross-hairs before now. 

                     it was a harmless event – one sponsored by all of the city’s greatest figures, including an elusive mister oliver queen – but it turned into a war zone. her story about the crumbling queen empire that relied so much on this interview with the heir was falling apart more quickly than his assets when the attack happened. the rest was sort of a BLUR for her — again, she was used to the aftermath, not the actual unfolding of it. mister queen was dragging her to safety, she assumed, but not in the typical panicked way most men reacted when faced with possible death. in fact — he kept his mysterious cool even as he was taking down would-be assailants right in front of her. she  hadn’t been aware that martial artistry was a part of a billionaire’s repertoire. if there was one thing she was excellent at it was connecting the dots. the masked men were focusing too much on oliver, leaving most other citizens unharmed & in such close proximity, she could feel the HEAT. queen knew something. maybe even too much. 

                   a couple of close calls & a flesh wound later, she’s staring at him like she hasn’t been familiar with his face all these years. she was a journalist, for god’s sake. he’s wrapping her leg with a torn piece of her expensive valencia dress with a PRECISION she wouldn’t have expected of a trust-funded ex-party boy. suddenly, he became more interesting than ever to her — something she couldn’t put her finger on. when he delivers her safely to the police – who are fashionably late as always – she can’t help herself, she grabs his arm to stop him. there’s a look in his handsome face that tells her he’s not used to being TOUCHED. it gives rise to the thought in the back of her mind that perhaps the world didn’t know oliver queen as well as they thought — but she was determined to. 

                                             " ——- thank you. “