#but. yeah. Buck calling Tommy baby occasionally. We love to see it

[buckttommy]

i know we've all headcanoned that "baby" is tommy's name for buck but. i do believe buck calls him that occasionally and it makes tommy's heart go stupid every. single. time.

[raywritesthings]

What Have They Lost 2/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow, The Flash Characters: Barry Allen, Iris West, Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Thea Queen, Connor Hawke, Ted Grant, Quentin Lance Pairings: Barry Allen/Iris West, Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: "I can definitely tell you that there’s a way we’re going to bring [Laurel] back and she’s going to be alive and well. And Flashpoint might have a little bit to do with that.“ -Wendy Mericle AKA: The AU where that wasn’t a blatant lie, and Flashpoint has bigger repercussions for Barry’s friends and allies than he first realized. *Also can be read on my AO3*

Oliver’s life was rarely dull ever since he boarded the Queen’s Gambit back in ‘07 with both of his parents and lost them to the sea, but the last few years particularly had had their ups and downs.

One of those big ups was Connor. Even if the kid could be a handful sometimes. But that was better than when he’d first got here.

Oliver stepped forward and ripped the arrowheads from the wall that were keeping Barry held back and handed the line off to Connor. “Not bad placement.”

Connor beamed up at him. “Thanks, dad.”

He reached out and ruffled his son’s hair, looking back to Barry with a grin of his own. “He’s getting almost as good as me.”

“Yeah, that’s- that’s good,” Barry said, staring at Connor with the weirdest look on his face.

Connor seemed to notice it, too, for he shrunk back a little. “I think I’ll go meditate for a bit. Let you two talk about whatever.”

Oliver nodded, seeing his son off before rounding back on Barry. “Want to explain anything?”

“It’s, um, complicated. Look, Oliver, can you just answer a couple questions without asking me why I don’t know the answers already?”

He raised an eyebrow, but said, “Alright, shoot.”

“Connor is your son.”

“Not a question, Barry.”

“I know, but he’s...he’s gotta be like fifteen, doesn’t he?”

Oliver looked down, grimacing. “He’s fourteen.” He didn’t need to look up to know there was a follow up question on Barry’s lips. “We all know I screwed around, okay? Can we leave it at that?”

He’d been sixteen and stupid, sneaking into a college party with his best friend, Tommy Merlyn. Tommy had played wingman for him with a college girl named Sandra, and they’d fallen into bed with more alcohol in them than was wise. He’d forgotten the condom, or ripped it in his clumsiness, or something. He couldn’t remember anymore. He’d put the night out of his mind for almost twelve years.

Sandra hadn’t, of course. She’d gotten pregnant with an underage boy’s baby. And so she’d disappeared, she’d had to. Back to her father’s ranch in Idaho. And only when Connor was old enough to know the truth about his father had he come looking for him, turning Oliver’s whole world upside-down.

Maybe Barry hadn’t gotten all the dirty details when he’d first met Connor, but he’d got the gist. So what was the deal?

“And you don’t have any other sons?” Barry asked next.

“Not that I know of. Barry, are you going to tell me what the point of this is? What does this have to do with — who’d you ask me about?”

“Laur- Dinah,” Barry corrected himself. “She goes by Dinah, and maybe you’ve heard some of her music, but uh—”

“Oh,” said Oliver. “You mean the singer? With the- what’s that band called — Bats or Birds or something?”

“Yeah,” said Barry, though he didn’t look all that happy they’d gotten on the same page. “Do you know her?”

“I know of her. Wouldn’t mind getting to know her,” he mused aloud. She was something else from the occasional photo or poster he’d seen. Those legs in those fishnets...

Barry coughed.

Oliver blinked and came back to himself. “Well, what about her, Barry?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” the speedster hedged. “Felicity didn’t happen to talk to you after I saw her a couple weeks ago, did she?”

Oliver frowned. “Barry, you know she doesn’t talk to me unless she has to anymore, right?”

Barry’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? You’re not saying the breakup went worse?”

He gave a small snort. “Yeah, breakup. It was one date, Barry.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Because Connor came to me right after, and I was busy trying to verify if what he was telling me was the truth, remember? I asked you to run a paternity test?”

Barry’s head hung back. “And Felicity found out after and got upset and broke up with you?”

“Yes, except I did the breaking up. I’d just found out I had a kid, I wasn’t at all in a good place to be starting a relationship.” Truthfully, he was kind of glad things had worked out that way. He liked Felicity well enough, but at times they just couldn’t relate. He’d thought about dating her mostly because she was one of the few who knew his secret; it would’ve been practical. But love wasn’t practical. He’d been kidding himself.

Oliver shook his head. “Is there a reason you’ve developed selective amnesia?”

“There is. It’s just, I’m not sure how much I should say.”

“Well, if it’s about Connor, then I need to know. I’m his father, Barry.”

He stared the younger man down, who shifted uneasily.

“What do you know about time travel?”

“That you can do it? Or that speedsters can, I guess.”

“Okay.” Barry took a deep breath. “The thing is, I sort of time traveled this last spring and as a result some things changed.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Well, like, um, some things about your life and the people you know. It’s not all bad. I mean, Laurel’s still — Dinah, I mean. Dinah’s still...and Digg’s okay! I didn’t see anything about Thea, either.”

Oliver blinked. “Who’s Thea?”

Barry snapped out of his babbling, a lingering smile on his face. “Oliver, come on. Thea. Thea Queen? Your sister?”

“Barry, that’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be — Oh God. Does she not...exist? I — no, that can’t be right. I- I gotta go.”

And with one last horrified look, Barry was gone in a rush of wind. Oliver sat down hard, putting his head in his hands. What had just happened?

Barry had messed with time, and now something about Oliver’s life had him spooked. But it was his life. It didn’t feel strange or wrong to him. Was he just thinking that because that was how things had always been.

And what did a literal rockstar have to do with it? There was no way he could be connected to someone like her. His whole team never stopped reminding him of what a dork he was.

Oliver shook his head and left the base for the upstairs loft he shared with Connor. Owning the whole building did come with some perks.

Connor looked up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the couch, taking deep, even breaths. Oliver raised a hand. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“It’s okay. I just got here five minutes before you did.”

Oliver paused, then shook his head. He should have figured his son would’ve listened in. “Alright. What do you think? Uncle Barry’s gone round the bend?”

Connor made a face. “Doesn’t seem like he wants to be my uncle.”

Oliver’s smile dropped. “Connor, no. It’s not you, it’s speedsters. You know how big picture they get, zipping up and down through time. Makes me glad not to be one.” He settled down on the couch beside Connor. “Give Barry some time to readjust, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. And if not, I’ll be talking to Iris.”

If anyone had a problem with his son, he’d go to whoever he had to to set it right. Oliver couldn’t even fathom a world without his kid now, imperfect as their relationship had started out. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Connor smirked briefly, though it fell as he asked, “Dad, do you really have a sister?”

“I…”

He wanted to say no. Before today, he would have said so without thinking. But Barry’s confusion about the past had him thinking of his own past, of those dark, bygone years.

His mother wasting away in the liferaft, muttering feverishly into his shoulder as she clung to him. “Oh, my babies. My babies…”

“I’m right here, mom.”

“My beautiful boy. Keep her safe. Robert, Robert mustn’t know…”

“Know what, mom? Mom?”

She hadn’t responded, slipping into unconsciousness from which she never awoke.

He wrapped an arm around Connor’s shoulders to ward off the dark mood that usually came along with such recollections. “Honestly, I don’t know. There was a lot that my parents chose not to tell me. Not until the end.”

And if he did have a sister? All these years, he had failed his mother’s last request, to keep her safe. If she was even real.

He squeezed Connor tight for a moment before standing. “I’m going to be busy looking through the old family papers for a couple days, okay?”

“You want any help?”

“Nah, it’ll be boring. You keep up with your target practice.” He reached out and ruffled his son’s hair. “Since you’re determined to join me out on the field.”

“Okay, okay.” Connor brought up his hands to fend off the attack, so Oliver left for the kitchen to get started on making a late dinner.

He put on a pot of coffee for good measure. He was going to be pulling a lot of late nights.

—-

Mia wiped off the bartop with a rag as a young couple left their seats to head out into the evening air. There were a couple bucks left under an empty glass, and she quickly stuffed them into her bra. Better to keep track of tips than leave them lying around.

There was chatter from the booths and music blaring overhead. Larry was already taking up his end of the bar. Just another evening.

She felt a sort of charge to the air for a moment, and the ends of her hair whipped around her face. Quickly as it had happened, it stopped. Mia blinked and shook her head.

The front door opened and a man staggered through, making straight for her at the bar. He’d be cute if he didn’t look half-crazed.

“Okay. You’re still here. That’s- that’s good. Ollie’s not gonna kill me now.”

Mia arched a single eyebrow. “Can I help you?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ve just been looking the last two days. Between work and everything else, had to do it in stages,” he explained. “Actually, can I get a water?”

“Sure.”

Mia got it for him with growing bemusement, especially when he gulped it down and asked for another.

“You gonna actually buy anything?”

“Uh, no. Actually, I don’t drink. But, uh, I could tip you?” He added when she gave him a look.

“Yes, you could.”

He got out his wallet. “So, just to be sure, we’ve never met before, right? You have no idea who I am?”

“No. Should I?” Oh God, it’d be just her luck that this guy was from her druggie days.

He shrugged. “Depends how you look at it. I’m Barry.”

“Mia.”

His face scrunched up. “Mia?”

“Yeah, what about it?” She dropped a hand to her hip and snatached up the dollar he’d just laid on the counter.

“Nothing. But I guess it explains earlier.”

She wanted to ask him about that. She wanted to ask him about a lot of things, actually.

“Hey, can I get a scotch or what?” Larry called out, and Mia groaned in the back of her throat.

“Yeah, Larry.”

She pulled down another glass and poured out the drink. She was tempted to water it down a bit, but even sloshed he would probably notice. Mia scooped up the dollar tip he slapped down as she set the drink in front of Larry, then walked back down to the other end of the bar where her new friend sat.

“Did you just call that guy Larry?”

Mia shrugged. “Yeah, what about it?”

“But he’s…” Barry shook his head. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Just that he’s a regular. Why, what’s it to you? Wanna buy him a drink?”

“Um, no. Maybe. He’s here a lot then? Doesn’t he have family or something?”

Mia snorted. “That’s cute that you think people just ‘have family’ lying around waiting to take care of them.”

“Well. Don’t you?”

Mia froze for a moment, then turned to the rack of washed glasses while ripping a clean rag out of the bag they kept under the counters.

“Mia, what do you know about Oliver Queen?”

She snorted. “What, the trust fund brat they fished out of the ocean a few years ago? Heard he’s got a kid, doesn’t he?”

“He does, yeah. What about his parents?”

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” This guy was making less sense than the drunks.

“They are, but what else about them?” He had something pulled up on his phone, a news article or wiki page by the looks of it. “What about Moira Dearden Queen?”

“Her name’s Dearden?”

“Her maiden name, yeah.”

“Okay,” she said, forcing a laugh. “What’s the joke?”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned forward and muttered, “I mean, that’s my name. Mia Dearden.” A thought hit her. “Tell me you’re not gonna use that to stalk me.”

“No. No, I’m not trying to stalk anybody! I’m just trying to make something right. Something I screwed up.” He dragged both hands through his hair. “And there isn’t really a way I can explain why without sounding crazy.”

The door opened, and Mia looked up. “Oh my God.”

“I know, I probably do sound crazy already,” Barry groaned. “Iris tried to warn me.”

“No, not you.” Mia swatted at his arm impatiently. “Is that- I mean, maybe she’s just a lookalike—”

“Who?” Barry started to turn around in his seat.

“Don’t just stare!” She hissed, as she stared at the blonde walking across the room to the end of the bar. She didn’t sit down, instead stopping by...Larry’s chair?

“I’m not crazy, right? That’s Dinah from Birds of Prey.”

“Sure is,” Barry said with a grimace.

Mia only barely held in a squeal.

—

Dinah stepped off the train and drew in a deep breath. Yep, same old Star.

“You sure you don’t wanna skip the old man this time? You can always mail him,” Ted suggested.

She shook her head. “This is the only way I can make sure he’s still kicking, Ted.” If barely, she added mentally.

He shouldered both of their duffles and passed her a set of keys. “Alright. Here’s for the apartment. And don’t let him get to you.”

“Nothing gets to me.”

She shrugged deeper into the shoulders of her beat up leather jacket before marching off. It was a fifteen minute walk from the train station to the old walkup, and in that time she was catcalled three times and only stomped on two sets of toes. On her best behavior, really.

She entered the front hall with its sour milk smell to find the old landlord Nichols pounding on her dear old dad’s door. “Lance, I’m warning you this time! You’re three weeks late!”

“Hey.”

He turned and sucked in his gut at the sight of her.

“Oh, uhhh.”

“Give me a minute to get it all squared away, would you?” She smiled with no teeth as she slipped by him and bent to snag the key out from under the threadbare mat. Dinah could feel the old lecher’s eyes on her.

She entered the empty apartment and thumbed through a stack of bills. He was falling behind again.

Dinah took out the envelope of money she’d brought with her, fishing out several twenties before leaving the rest on top of the bills. Then she exited the apartment and locked up.

“Here you go,” she told Nichols sweetly, tucking the bills into his breast pocket. Then with a light shove to get him out of her way, she left the building.

From there, she hit the bars, from closest to furthest. It was in the fifth one that she spotted him hunched over a scotch.

He’d gone totally bald last year, but it was still strange to see. He looked older, frailer somehow even without the scraggly mess that used to sit there. Dinah walked up and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey.”

Her father raised his head from the bar top, bloodshot eyes taking her in before he snorted in disgust. “What’ve I told you about walking around looking like that, huh? You hoping to get jumped?”

Dinah crossed her arms. “I can take care of myself. And I wear what I like.”

“Yeah? Does that Grant like it? Lousy old—”

“I don’t wanna fight about Ted. You know he thinks anyone who isn’t in sweats is just screwing themselves anyway.” She pulled the stool beside his over and sat with her back to the bar, a nonverbal signal she wasn’t interested in what they were selling.

“I ran into Nichols in your building. You’re all paid up.”

He scoffed into his drink. “I don’t need charity.”

“Right, just your rent,” she observed dryly. “Dad, why don’t you let me buy you a house?”

“I just said—”

“It wouldn’t be charity. It’d be, I don’t know.” She pushed her hair back behind one ear. “It could be our house. You know?”

He actually put the glass down. “Our house with you running all over the country? Yeah right. We haven’t had a house since you were eight years old. Bet you wish she’d taken you too, huh? Dinah?”

“Don’t do this here,” she muttered.

“Well, why’d you take back her name?” He accused, turning sideways to face her head on. “Why’re you doing any of this, selling yourself to all these people? You were gonna do something with your life once. Remember that? Always told me you wanted to save the world, just like your pops,” he said, voice breaking on the last word. He swayed a bit on the stool.

“Yeah, well my pops got kicked off the force for drinking and left his daughter in foster care,” she answered stiffly. “You sort of forget about the world when you’re just trying to save yourself.”

He blinked and shrunk back. “Laurel—”

She shrugged off his hand when he tried to reach out. “Go home, dad. You’re only embarrassing yourself.”

She stood and left him sitting there with his drink, heading straight for the door. She didn’t hold out any hopes that he would listen to her advice. He never listened to anybody’s.

Dinah glanced sharply over her shoulder. All she saw was a line of patrons sitting at the bar and a young bartender at the end drying the same glass over and over. She shook her head and left out the front door. Probably just paranoia.

But she could swear someone had been watching her.

—-

Barry shrunk down at the other end of the bar, hoping he hadn’t been spotted. At the sound of the door swinging shut, he relaxed.

“Wow,” Thea — or Mia, he guessed, breathed. “I can’t believe Dinah from Birds of Prey just walked right in here! How does some loser like Larry know her anyway?”

“He’s her father,” Barry said on a sigh.

“What?”

“Or he was. I — this is a mess.”

“How do you know? You friends with her or something?”

“Or something,” he replied.

“Lucky,” said Mia enviously. He wanted to tell her that she had it all wrong, that she was the one who was good friends with Laurel. That they were like sisters, inseparable.

But they weren’t. They were strangers. He was sitting in a sea of strangers.

Barry stood. “Uh, listen, thanks for the water. And- and take care of yourself, okay?”

“Sure.” She gave him another crooked smile like she was trying not to broadcast her thoughts that he was being weird. Then she took his glass and took it over to wash.

There were more piercings in her ear than he thought she’d had. The knuckles on her right hand were bruised. Did she still fight? Did she have a place to stay? Were they okay like this, and was there any way for him to judge it fairly? Some way to stack up the improvements against the drawbacks and put his conscience to rest.

Larry Lance fell off his stool. Barry ducked his head and left the bar. He didn’t think he could offer his help, knowing he’d done this to the man.

Out on the street, he looked both ways, trying to spot Laurel. Or Dinah. For some reason, it was harder for him to think of her that way than the others; maybe because he wanted more than the others for her to be exactly as she’d been before the prison riot, before Darhk, before Oliver and the others had lost her.

Barry didn’t have to search far.

“She said to let her go,” he heard her familiar voice from down the end of an alley. “Or do you need your hearing checked?”

When Barry stopped just outside the entrance of the alley, he found Laurel standing with her arms crossed in front of two men, one of whom was tugging on the arm of another terrified looking woman.

“Hey, this is my girl, alright? Stay out of it,” the man holding the woman at his side said. “Unless you wanna keep my buddy company.”

His friend cracked his knuckles.

“Very cute,” Laurel remarked. Her tone was light, but Barry recognized that stance. Whether she knew it or not, that was the Black Canary.

The second guy advanced menacingly. “I’ll show you cute.”

Just as Barry was preparing to intervene — rush the innocent woman to safety, then deal with these less than exemplary examples of the male species — Laurel made her move.

Only he’d been wrong. It was Siren’s move.

The sound waves crashed into the guy and sent him flying as she screamed, and he rolled to a stop just before the alley wall.

“Jesus!” The first man exclaimed. His supposed woman took off running in his distraction. He picked his friend up off the ground and the two men tore off in the opposite direction.

Laurel stood breathing heavily in the alley, fists clenched at her sides. Then she looked over her shoulder.

Their eyes met. Laurel’s breath stuttered in her chest. Barry gave a slow, disbelieving shake of the head. Then he drew one step back.

Barry ran. He ran all the way to Central, to Joe’s house, and up the stairs. He found himself stopped outside Iris’ door.

It was late, way too late. But he knocked anyway.

Iris answered in mere minutes. Her laptop was sitting open on her bed with her notebook beside it. Her hair sat in a knot on top of her head. The easy smile she wore slipped off her face at the sight of him.

“Bear? What’s wrong?” She reached to touch his arms. “Did you find Thea?”

Mia, Larry, Connor, Dinah — it was wrong, it was all wrong, and he couldn’t fathom the careless damage he’d done.

So he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and cried.