#clearly olli and Tommi are the only normal ones

[sopxhiea]

Charm

Alfie Solomons X Reader

Tommy makes an appearance

| Prompt

“You’re questioning my methods.” “I’m not questioning it, I’m saying it’s stupid.” 

It’s late.

Too late for anyone’s liking as the stars serenade the moon through the night, there’s not one loud noise that can be heard in the streets, just a couple of stray dogs and the warmth of homes seeping through the night.

You don’t want to be here.

The corridors reek of rum, there’s no one but you, your assistant and a curly haired man you’re following. The space is empty, darkness of the sky reflects on the surroundings while your eyes travel to the only source of light, the door.

It’s closed.

You know the people behind it. You like one of them, he’s helped you both on business and on a personal occasion once, the favours have been returned to him as well which is why you’re on good terms. You know his family, the way he conducts business and the attitude he has towards most things.

The other person is the one you’re dreading to see.

He’s too direct, stubborn and grumpy. On that one occasion you did business with him, he had somehow managed to annoy you each time you’d seen his face. He was smart, you knew that all too well which why was you had put up with his antics but you had sworn to never torture yourself like that again.

But there you were, walking towards the room both souls were in.

Ollie reached for the door but you were too fast, your impatience towards the whole situation showing as you kicked down the door. It woke both men from their slumber when the wooden piece of furnished cover hit the wall. Alfie murmured a small ‘fucking hell’ which you chose to not hear while your eyes met Tommy’s first.

He seemed tired, he always was. You didn’t know one man around here who actually had the opportunity to sleep soundly at night, yourself included. You didn’t offer him a smile like you usually did. He knew of your distaste to the jewish man in the room and he didn’t question anything you were about to do. His hands reached out to grab your shoulders as an attempt to calm you down but you moved before he could grab you.

“Play nice.” you hear him say when your eyes meet Alfie’s. Your fury is obvious to him, also very charming.

You have no intentions to play nice.

It’s three am on a monday, the day is already rough as it is. You aren’t on your good spirits today, the whole situation is bugging you and so is he with his charming smile as he whispers a small “’ello” your way, you don’t stop staring.

You know of the business he does, you conduct a very similar one of your own. You don’t mind the dirt he carries on his shoulders as it’s far too close to home for you, it’s the attitude he has. He knows that he’s smart, it bugs you. He knows how good he is at doing business, especially the way he has done for himself for the past years, you don’t like that he’s so cocky around you.

“It’s three fucking am.” you speak up, you rarely curse which makes Tommy’s eyebrows move higher than usual.

His eyes meet yours, you seem tired but somehow, you pull it off. He knows of the business you do, needless to say, he’s impressed. It’s hard for anyone to hold up their own in this world, let alone a young woman like yourself. 

He knows you don’t like him.

It’s obvious in the way you walk around, seething through your teeth as Tommy’s presence remains the only good thing about the visit you’re making. He knows you can act well, you just choose not to.

Nobody speaks.

“You lot called me in here!” you say, your voice rising as Alfie watches your small form roam around the room.

He admires you.

He knows you have a fire within you. Not only is it visible in your eyes but it’s how you make money. Your wicked ways pay off when you have the face you do, it’s your act. He knows you play the role of clueless beauty all too well, it’s how you gather information and run your own business.

“Now, Y/N..” Tommy speaks and gets up, you’re on his end of the room while Alfie stays seated on the other side of the room.

“Calm down, alright?” he comes near you but you dodge, you don’t want him to reassure you. You need to get straight down to business.

“Shut up, Tommy.” his eyes shoot up at your words, even in his sleepy state. Your words erupt a chuckle from Alfie from the far end of the room, you don’t like that he laughs but his laugh is pleasant enough for you to put up with.

“Oi, listen.” Tommy’s hands finally meet your arms as he holds you in place, he’s serious.

“What?” you say, your voice low as he sighs.

Alfie knows that the fire in your had scared Tommy off many times but his persistency, that he finds admirable as the man tries to get a word out about why you’re called in here at an ungodly hour in the first place.

“Alfie’s found the egg...” he speaks, your breath hitches.

It’s the faberge egg.

You don’t want it for yourself, you don’t care for such commotion in the first place. It’s for someone you adore, also for someone who’ll pay you three times the normal price because he’s dying. You look at Alfie from the other side of the room, his amused eyes meet your cold ones as you speak.

“Where is it?” you don’t skip a beat as words come out of your mouth, you walk towards where he’s sitting but remain at a comfortable distance for you, you know he wants to close the distance as much as possible.

“It’s with the Russians, yeah..” he speaks as you look at him from where you’re standing, his words earn a nod of your head.

You know he won’t just give you the information, it’s not how he works. It’s not how it works. He smiles lowly at first, you know the smile all too well as he gets up, his vanilla scent roams around the room as you watch his every move, he knows how to captivate an audience.

“What do you want, Mr. Solomons?” you ask him, knowing very well just how many times he’d told you not to call him that.

“Now, doll..” he speaks, hands clasping together as he rubs them together, he’s walking towards Tommy around the table.

“Yer gonna ‘ave to do somethin’ for me, yeah?” he speaks and you scoff, what does he want again?

He then proceeds to sit you down calmly as you ignore his warm touch on your shoulder, you listen to him with furrowed brows as he explains a personal job, one that only you can do. Tommy also chimes in every now and then, clearly seeking the opportunity for you to take the egg.

You smile at the end, it’s not smile with good intentions behind but he likes it anyway.

You get up, walk around the room for a short while as both men watch you. You turn back, looking at them both in the face before settling on Alfie’s face, his gaze is never torn away from yours.

“It won’t work..” you say, a mocking expression on your face as Alfie takes the turn to scoff this time. Tommy just watches the two of you quarrel like small kids.

“What the fuck is ‘hat supposed to mean?” he speaks, voice a little higher than usual as you enjoy his riled up state.

“It just doesn-”

“You’re questioning my methods.”

It’s not the first time you’d called his plans that, you genuinely think it won’t work. He’s smart, you know that but he tends to miss details and you know for a fact that details create a vital difference at a job like he’s wanting you to do.

“I’m not questioning it, I’m saying it’s stupid.”

He scoffs again, a blooming smile on his lips. A part of him loves this side of you, the side that’s not afraid of him. You fight his rage with the fire that resides inside you, it’s a fair match as far as you can tell.

He looks at Tommy, Tommy just shrugs. He had never been one to reach an agreement with you, you always got your way. Maybe it’s your beauty, Alfie thinks, it lets you get away with people not quite caring what you do but he’s also aware of how smart you are, you wouldn’t be able to last this long in this line of business if you weren’t.

“What do you ye’ fuckin’ suggest we do, hmm?” he speaks, anger evident in his voice as he gets up but you don’t flinch. You’re calmer now that he’s the angry one.

You stand up, knowing very well that both man were watching you and proceeded to talk. You started from why you thought the plan was not going to work, simply said: stupid, and gave reasons as to why, Tommy nodded along your words as if to say that he agreed but Alfie remained silent. You continued to talk, telling him your very rough plan how you would tackle the task down and get the egg from the Russians.

It’s simple and clear for the both men as they stare at you, one of them has already made up his mind.

“Seems doable..” Tommy says while he looks at you, it’s a hard plan but he knows what you’re capable of so he doesn’t push it by saying he wants it to be a safer one. You watch him light a cigarette and soon enough, your gaze is on the bulkier one out of the two.

Alfie pulls at his beard, looks down at the floor and does everything else but to look at you and speak for a while. You’re not bothered, you know he’ll come around when it’s time.

It takes him half an hour.

“You’re sure ya’ can take ‘em?” he speaks, asking about the men you were supposed to take down around the back part of the said building.

You nod, almost offended that he’d doubt you.

“You don’t trust me, Alfie..” you say.

He likes the way you say his name.

“I do, yeah, I fucking know what yer capable of..” he speaks as Tommy nods at the words.

He offers you his hand to shake, as a sign of truce until this job is over. You look down at his awaiting hands, not sure you want to do deal with a man you consider to be unpleasant.

Even though he’s been pleasant this whole time.

You shake your head, hating yourself for doing it because it’s the exact same way as the last time you did business with him. He smiles, it’s genuine and you hate that he’s so charming.

You shake his hand, leaving with a promise to see him a couple of days after to go over things before the night of the robbery comes along.

He knows he’ll see you sooner than that.

[jammatown919]

Another Love (Lauryssa)

Note: A complete shot in the dark as to where this is in the timeline) Content: In which Nyssa steals a kiss and Laurel doesn't know what to do about it.

Over the past year, training with Nyssa had easily become one of the Laurel's favorite pass times. At first, it had been because these moments had always made her feel like some small piece of Sara was still with her, but things were different now. Sara was back, and Nyssa had become so much more to Laurel than just a reminder of her sister. They were friends, best friends, and Laurel would be lying if she said she didn't think about this woman all the time.

She looked forward to the training sessions they held in the disused warehouse they'd claimed as their own, not because she particularly enjoyed sparring, but because she loved spending time with Nyssa. She loved the way Nyssa gently corrected her, loved the way she fought, loved the playful banter they kept as they trained, loved taking her to their favorite diner afterward.

Of course, their closeness didn't mean that Nyssa would ever considering going easy on Laurel, as she knew all too well from being knocked flat on her back for the third time that evening.

"Dead." Nyssa declared. She lightly jabbed her training staff into Laurel's gut, eliciting a small "oof!" from her opponent. "Your stance needs to be wider, or else you'll be easily unbalanced."

She extended her hand, and Laurel pretended to reach for it. As Nyssa relaxed, clearly under the impression that they were done for the moment, Laurel took the opportunity to kick out at her legs. Nyssa's eyes widened slightly with the impact, but she hardly moved. Laurel sighed, accepting defeat, and took Nyssa's hand to hoist herself up.

"Nice try," Nyssa offered, a hint of playful smugness in her voice. "But without proper form, that move won't do you much good against someone who know what they're doing."

"It's worked on Ollie, though." Laurel pointed out.

"Like I said." Nyssa replied smoothly, prompting Laurel to let out a loud bark of a laugh.

"That's cold."

"Hardly." Nyssa rolled her eyes, the smallest of grins on her face. Laurel let her gaze linger on it. She'd never known Nyssa to smile much, which was a shame, because her smile really was a sight to behold. "What are you staring at?" Nyssa gave her a look, and Laurel quickly averted her eyes.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare." She said hastily, slowly looking back at Nyssa. "You just have a nice smile."

Nyssa said nothing for a few moments, during which Laurel could almost swear that her face had flushed.

"Well, if you're finished," Nyssa began, and any remnant of a blush disappeared. "How about one more go tonight?"

Laurel almost said no, that she was too tired to get her ass handed to her a fourth time, but there was something in the way Nyssa was looking at her that made her want to stay. She could handle a few more minutes of training.

"Yeah," She agreed. What was the harm in one last round? "One more."

Laurel quickly scooped up the training staff she'd dropped during her fall and assumed a defensive position, waiting for Nyssa to make the first move. Nyssa came at her smoothly, their staffs clashing together once, then twice, and as Laurel moved to strike a third time, Nyssa's leg swept out and her foot crashed into Laurel's ankle.

Startled, Laurel let out a yelp and instinctively grabbed onto her friend's sleeve in an attempt to right herself. Her weight brought them both to the floor, Nyssa on top of Laurel.

"I thought you said that move didn't work." Laurel grumbled as she watched their dropped staffs roll off to the side of the little training area they'd set up.

"I'm not going to make the same joke twice." Nyssa replied, smirking down at Laurel. Her eyes shone with mischief, something that Laurel had seldom ever seen in her.

"Ha ha," Laurel said dryly, attempting to push Nyssa off of her. Predictably, Nyssa didn't budge; even after a year of training, Nyssa was still flatly stronger than her. She'd only be getting up when Nyssa let her. "One of these day it'll be you who's pinned."

"Is that so?" Nyssa asked teasingly, her face so close that her dangling hair brushed Laurel's nose. Is this the part where we kiss? Laurel asked herself jokingly, but before she could say it out loud, Nyssa actually began leaning in.

Their lips pressed softly together, and Laurel had absolutely no idea how to react. On one hand, there was a beautiful, amazing woman whose smile she could never look away from on top of her and kissing her. That thought alone was enough to make her want to melt into the kiss, but on the other hand, this woman was her best friend and her sister's ex girlfriend. They couldn't do this.

Nyssa pulled away after about five seconds, but Laurel felt like they'd been there on the mat for hours.

"Nyssa, what the hell?" She asked breathlessly. Nyssa's eyes widened as she scrambled off of Laurel.

"I thought-" For the first time since Laurel had known her, she actually looked quite spooked. "I- Have I... made things awkward?"

"I mean, yeah, kind of." Laurel said as she got to her feet. "You're my sister's ex!"

"Sara has moved on." Nyssa protested, looking thoroughly embarrassed. "I thought it was time I did the same."

"With her sister?" Laurel asked incredulously.

"With another woman with whom I enjoy spending my time." Nyssa corrected. "But, I am sorry. I never intended to make you uncomfortable."

"It's not that I didn't like that, I just-" Laurel struggled the find the words. The kiss had actually be quite nice. It was her first since Tommy, and she hadn't quite realized until now how much she'd missed that type of affection. "We can't."

"Because of Sara?" Nyssa inquired. "I highly doubt she would mind. And even if she did, why does she get a say? This is entirely up to you and me."

"It's not just Sara," Laurel sighed heavily. "It's everyone. What would my father think of me dating someone who kidnapped my mother? And what about the team?"

"You're making excuses." Nyssa said flatly.

"Excuse me?"

"Laurel, I have feelings for you, and that is the truth." Nyssa told her firmly. "If you don't return them, you can just say it. I won't be hurt. What does hurt me is that you're making excuses, telling me we can't instead of telling me why you won't. Just look me in the eye and tell me you don't feel the same way and we can move on. We can go back to normal as soon as you say it."

"I-" Laurel froze for a moment. Could she say it? Could she look this woman in the eye and honestly say that she didn't think about her all the time? That her smile didn't light up a room? That she didn't love her?

"Say it, Laurel."

"I can't." Laurel admitted softly. She looked away, suddenly unable to meet Nyssa's gaze.

"And why not?" Nyssa demanded.

"Because it's not true." Laurel hugged her chest, staring pointedly at the floor. "I can't say that I don't love you because that's a lie, but I can't say that I do because it would just complicate everything. I've never even dated a woman before, much less a former assassin. And I know you think I'm making excuses, but you can't honestly tell me that people wouldn't talk." She spoke quickly, urgently, as if something terrible would happen if she didn't get this all out right then.  "Maybe Sara would be fine, but I really don't think my father would approve. He still thinks I'm straight, how am I going to come out and tell him I'm dating my sister's ex who kidnapped my mother all in the same breath?"

She drew in a shaky breath, slightly embarrassed by her outburst.

"Are you finished?" Nyssa said as soon as she could got a word in through Laurel's rambling. Laurel gave her a small nod. "Good. Now look at me." Slowly, Laurel brought her eyes back up to Nyssa's face. "It doesn't matter to me what other people are going think, and I don't know why it matters to you. This isn't their decision. It's yours. I don't care what they want, I'm asking what you want. What do you want?"

Laurel barely had to think about that; she knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be wrapped up in Nyssa's arms, and to feel Nyssa's lips on hers without worrying about consequences. It was asking for it that Laurel found difficult. Still, Nyssa was right. This wasn't up to anybody else. She could be with Nyssa, she could love and be loved in a way she hadn't since Tommy's death; all she had to do was say she wanted to.

"I want to kiss you again." Her voice was quiet, like she was telling a secret.

"Is that all?" Nyssa prompted patiently.

"I want to be with you," Laurel confessed. "But I don't know how."

"Did you know how to be a lawyer before you went to law school?" Nyssa asked, giving Laurel pause. What was she getting at? "Did you know how to be a vigilante before becoming the Black Canary? No. You learned how to do those things. If you really want this, you'll learn."

"Okay," Laurel practically whispered. "Where do we start?"

"We start here." Nyssa slowly closed the distance between the two of them and brought one hand up to cup Laurel's cheek. Carefully, Laurel leaned forward until their lips met, her chest fluttering as they pressed against one another. It was short and sweet, and when Nyssa pulled away, Laurel found herself wishing it had been longer.

After separating from Laurel, Nyssa went to collect their staffs, which had conveniently stopped rolling at the bottom of the rack in which they were stored.

"If it's alright with you, I think that's enough training for tonight." She said as she placed the staffs on the rack. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah," Laurel smiled as Nyssa turned around to face her, and Nyssa smiled right back. "Our diner's still open. It can be our first date."

Nyssa walked back over to Laurel and held out her hand. Laurel hesitantly took it in her own, running her thumb over the back of it. She couldn't believe they were actually going out. If this went well, she'd have a girlfriend.

"Alright, then," Nyssa replied, turning toward the warehouse's exit. "It's a date."

[itshoneywhatever]

Can you write about the twins first birthday? Do they go all out with the celebrations because “they’re our kids, of course they need something special!” or is it more low key since after all, they’re only one? I’m also curious if Charlie gets all jealous because it’s his baby brothers who are getting all the attention and presents, and not him?

Twins 1° Birthday Celebration

Tommy had one idea in mind on how to celebrate the twins’ first birthday, Alfie also had an idea on how to celebrate it.

Tommy’s idea was to have simple lunch, just the 5 of them and the house staff who all love and adore the kids. The idea was to keep it simple; they are only one year old, they won’t remember. He knows for a fact Charlie doesn’t remember his first birthday. Rationally, Alfie knew that but still he wanted to make the boy’s first birthday especial.

Alfie’s idea was to pamper the twins all they long, with a good breakfast, lunch with the family (aunts and uncles) and then dinner in the late afternoon with the rest of the Shelby clan.

Alfie’s idea was supported by everyone else. Tommy was clearly outnumbered.

So when the day came, it was the adults that went to wake up the kids, first Charlie and then the twins so they could all wish them a happy birthday. Then they had breakfast downstairs, a chorus of ‘happy birthday, boys’ were heard wherever the twins went.

When lunch time came around so did Tommy’s immediate family, and gifts were handed out for the boys to enjoy. Polly, ever the sane one, brought one for Charlie too, so he doesn’t feel too left out. Of course, lunch was a busy affair with all of them talking over each other and kids asking for attention. All in all, it was a normal family lunch.

Then it was time for the rest to arrive, uncle Charlie came with Curly and Johnny Dogs, Aberama came too with his son Bonnie, Ollie showed up as well.

When Charlie didn’t get any other gift besides Polly’s, he started crying because he didn’t understand why his brothers were getting all these new things and he wasn’t. Tommy held him in his arms, and with Alfie’s help they explain to the boy how birthdays work. He nods his head in understanding but his eyes are still filled to the rim with tears and lips firmly set in a pout. If Tommy and Alfie spend the rest of the night keeping Charlie close to them at all times, well that’s nobody’s business but their own.

All in all, it was a good first birthday party.

-

Hope you like it! ❤

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm 16/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Moira Queen, Thea Queen, Roy Harper, Quentin Lance, Jean Loring, Lucas Hilton, Frank Pike, Athena, Tommy Merlyn, John Diggle Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

Oliver couldn’t find it in him to try and intimidate his sister’s boyfriend as they drove the twenty miles out of the city to his family’s manor. For one thing, Laurel was keeping up a steady chatter with Roy since the two were friends of a kind, and for another, his mind was too preoccupied with the talk he planned to have with his mother once the visit with Roy had concluded. It was long past time to get to the bottom of his mother’s involvement with Tempest, especially now that he knew for himself how entrenched the company was in the city’s institutions. The campaign contributions to Councilman Kullens and Councilwoman Pollard alone were damning.

He had not turned over to Lance what he knew about his mother’s involvement or the Gambit because he wanted to give her the chance to come clean first. He had to hope that she would. As much as it would hurt him, Thea would be even worse off if he was forced to turn his mother in just two weeks after the news about Walter.

“Mrs. Queen really isn’t as scary as she might seem,” Laurel was coaching Roy. She had put on a white sundress for the occasion with a jean jacket. Her favorite leather jacket that had been torn in the fight with Stein’s people was in her friend Anita’s trusted care, as the woman said she knew how to repair tears in leather. 

“Her main thing is that her children are safe and happy, and since Thea seems pretty happy with you, you have nothing to worry about.”

Roy, for his part, wore his black work pants and a red button-up shirt, probably the nicest clothes he owned. A vase of what Oliver was pretty sure were tulips sat on his lap, courtesy of Green Glades, as Laurel and Pam had helped the young man pick out a hostess gift.

Oliver couldn’t help a soft smile as he watched Laurel continue to talk out of the corner of his eye and thought about the circle of friends and neighbors she had built for herself since moving to the Glades. The cautious, embittered woman wary of letting anyone in that he had found when he returned from the island was gone, and Laurel’s giving heart was once more on full display. She had, to pardon the pun, flourished in the face of adversity.

“Now what are you smiling about?” She asked slyly, whether sensing his gaze or just noticing him, he wasn’t sure.

“Just had a funny thought, that’s all. You’d hate it, it was a dumb joke.”

“Yeah?”

He was about to reply, but Oliver frowned as a cop car raced past them going in the opposite direction. Roy tensed up in the backseat as they passed.

“No sirens,” Laurel murmured. “Maybe a dispute they settled at one of the manors out here?”

“Maybe.” An uneasy feeling settled in his gut, solidifying as they pulled into the drive and he spotted Thea’s hunched form on the steps, the front door wide open. A second cop car was still pulled off to the side, though the officers were nowhere in sight.

Oliver threw the car into park and was out the door, Roy right on his heels. Laurel met them around the other side. “Thea?”

His sister looked up and flung herself into his arms as soon as he reached her, sobbing into his shoulder. Oliver looked around, trying to spot some sort of source for whatever had caused this kind of distress. He noticed Raisa enter the doorway, drying her hands on a towel.

Laurel saw her, too, and walked up to his family’s maid. “Raisa, did you see what happened?”

The older woman shook her head. “No, I was finishing icing the coffee cake, but I heard raised voices. There are officers upstairs, but I did not find Mrs. Queen.”

“They took her,” Thea said in a shattered voice. 

Oliver looked down, trying to get her to meet his eyes. “The police?”

“The police. Detective Lance,” she added, spitting the name out. Laurel winced. “He’s accusing her of murder just like he did to you, Ollie. Why can’t he leave our family alone?”

Oliver swallowed. It was obvious Thea was angry and didn’t believe Lance’s accusation in the least, yet he couldn’t share her certainty given the little that he knew. His mother, after all, had covered up the Gambit wreckage. But that hadn’t been because she was involved. It wouldn’t make sense.

“Look we’ll- we’ll head down to the station, okay? Get this sorted out.”

“I’ll talk to my father,” Laurel promised, coming back down the steps and laying a hand on Thea’s back. “See what has him acting like this this time.” She met Oliver’s eyes, and they shared a significant look. Whatever Lance’s intel was, Laurel was their best way of getting a hold of it short of using another worm on the SCPD’s systems.

“He said s-something about Unidac,” Thea told them, wiping at her eyes and clearly trying to calm herself down. “The company Walter bought last fall.”

“Excuse us, ma’am.” Two officers carrying what looked like his mother’s computer monitor and hard drive stepped past Raisa through the front door.

“Why do you need her stuff?” Roy asked, scowling at the officers.

“This is an ongoing investigation, young man. These have to go downtown, and that’s all we’re allowed to say about it.”

“We’re coming downtown with you,” Oliver told them firmly, and the officers seemed to know better than to argue. “Speedy, I have to drive, so…” He slowly extricated himself from his sister’s hold and gestured Roy forward. Roy seemed to not know what to do with the vase in his hands now that he was also being given charge of his girlfriend.

Thea’s hand went up to her mouth and a half-laugh, half-sob left her. “You brought flowers.” She hugged her boyfriend and Oliver heard her murmur a muffled “Thank you.”

Raisa came and took possession of the vase, and Oliver led the four of them back to the car, Roy helping Thea into the back while Laurel sat up front with him again. He quickly caught up to and surpassed the officers in their squad car, his first priority reaching his mother. “Could you call Jean for me? I don’t know if mom will have yet or not.”

Laurel nodded, taking out her phone. “And John?”

“Not yet. He was taking A.J. to the park.” He had thought, aside from confronting his mother, that today would be a relatively normal one. How had things changed so abruptly? If nothing else, the confrontation was being forced. He needed to know what his mother knew if he was going to help her.

Once Laurel had finished arranging for Jean to meet them at the station, it was an otherwise silent drive. Thea rested her head on Roy’s shoulder the whole way, while Oliver took the hand that Laurel offered palm-up. What were the charges his mother was facing? Was she guilty, or was this truly all a misunderstanding? Something told him it wouldn’t be so simple, no matter how much he wanted it to be.

---

Moira sat in an interrogation room, the same one which her son had sat in several months prior when Detective Lance had attempted to blame him for the Hood’s crimes. Moira didn’t have the same hope of having the charges dismissed as her son’s had been, however. What little she knew of them meant that they might not be so inaccurate.

She had requested her lawyer and stated her intent not to speak until Jean had arrived, so the officers had left her alone in here with her hands chained to the table. The phone with which to make her call seemed to be taking its time to arrive, and she didn’t doubt it was meant to be an intimidation tactic. That was fine; Queens were not so easily intimidated, not with tricks like this. No matter where her speculations took her, outwardly she maintained an aura of calm.

Detective Lance had mentioned what Unidac was building. That could only mean the earthquake device. For the police to know about it, this meant she had been betrayed, but by whom? Had one of the others decided to make their own move to get out from under Malcolm’s plans? Had it been Frank? He’d been suspicious of her at the memorial, but she had counted on his cowardly nature keeping him from doing anything rash. Unless perhaps the police had caught on to him, and he was throwing her over to save his own hide.

The door opened at last, admitting Jean herself to Moira’s surprise, though it faded somewhat as Oliver and Thea followed her into the room. One of her children must have placed the call for her.

Jean took the chair across the table while her children pulled chairs around either side of her, Thea reaching for her hands. Her daughter’s eyes teared up as she looked at the handcuffs. Oliver’s expression, by contrast, was unreadable.

Jean set a folder down on the table and sighed. “I’ll come right out and say it, Moira. The charges you’re facing are incredibly severe. We need to do what we can to disprove them immediately.”

“They read me some of the charges, but not the specifics,” Moira said, side-stepping around the question of if they could disprove them for now. “Who is it that I’ve kidnapped and murdered?”

“I don’t like this one bit, but the kidnapping charge is for your second husband, and the murder charge is for you first along with the crew of the Queen’s Gambit, Miss Sara Lance… and there’s an additional charge for Malcolm Merlyn.”

Moira couldn’t quite stop herself from sucking in a breath at the last name. The others, she was not guilty of anything other than knowing about them, but Malcolm… what was to be done about Malcolm?

“That’s crazy,” Thea exploded beside her. On Moira’s other side, her son only bowed his head.

“Oliver?”

He looked up, pain in his eyes. “Dad… he thought that something wasn’t right about the Gambit’s destruction. That it could have been sabotaged.”

“Okay, but mom didn’t do it, Ollie,” Thea said pointedly.

“Of course not, but — is there something you know about it, mom? Something the investigators could have found out?”

“The more we can cooperate with them, the greater our chances are of seeing a better outcome,” Jean advised.

Moira’s hands shook. What could she say? Someone was blaming her for Malcolm’s crimes, but without Malcolm present who could she point to as the true guilty party?

“Mom.” There was something far more serious in Oliver’s voice, the way he had sometimes gotten this year. She found it hard to look away from him. “What is it you know?”

“I think,” she began, “I think I’m being framed.”

“Wait, so the Gambit was actually sabotaged?” Thea asked. “Why?”

Her world was coming down around her, and Moira didn’t see a way out of this. Not fully, at least. The lies she had told and the pretenses that she had put up could not withstand this, not when the police had in their possession a device designed to create an earthquake built by a company under her purview. She had always suspected Malcolm had not wished to bid on Unidac personally in order to separate himself to some degree should the worst happen, and Moira fervently wished someone else at Tempest had been given the instruction to purchase it instead.

If the police had taken her things, they would be able to see for themselves that she was not the mastermind behind this. It would be better for Moira to come clean about Malcolm’s role at the head of Tempest and what he had done to ensure her cooperation before they read about it. But first, she needed to come clean to her children, before they assumed the worst.

“What you both need to understand is that this family has been under threat for a long time,” she finally revealed. “And everything I have done is to protect you both.”

Oliver and Thea exchanged a nervous glance, and Jean’s lips pulled into a thin line.

“Your father was going on that trip all those years ago because he had learned about a terrible plot. A plot I asked him to put a stop to. If I hadn’t, he might still be alive.”

Thea gasped, but Oliver remained almost totally still as he asked, “Who was behind it?”

“Malcolm,” she answered, watching all three of their eyes widen. “And when he had the Gambit destroyed, I had no choice but to become his accomplice in order to protect Thea.”

“His accomplice in what, mom? What was his plan?” Her son could have passed for one of the officers wanting her confession if he put on a uniform, and the hairs on the backs of her arms seemed to stand up as Moira couldn’t help but be reminded of a different man’s pointed questions to her months ago. But it couldn’t be. She didn’t want to think what that would mean if it was true.

“He… he commissioned a device.” Moira’s mouth had run dry, and she swallowed once. “To level the Glades and everyone in it.”

Her eyes squeezed shut, unable to stand watching the shock and revulsion she knew had to be there in their eyes.

“Oh God,” Jean murmured under her breath.

“Mom, no,” Thea begged, her hands drawing back. “Please.”

A chair scraped back, and Moira could not stop herself from looking. Oliver had stood up, a hand passing over his face and eyes betraying far more emotion than she was used to seeing in him ever since he had come home. “Oliver…”

He shook his head, turning away as both hands braced the back of his neck. Her own son couldn’t even look at her.

“Did Malcolm Merlyn have Walter abducted?” Jean asked, seeming to have gathered herself enough to get down to work.

“Yes. And killed,” Moira added.

“The police don’t have Walter’s death listed as one of the charges. There’s no record of his death here,” her old friend said, sorting through the papers.

“It was a federal agency that found the proof, wasn’t it? Oliver?” She looked back to him in time to see him freeze for a moment.

He turned around slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll have to see if Mr. Diggle’s friend can send us the proof. But mom… why?”

“I told you, I had to protect—”

He raised a hand. “Not why did you do it. Why was Malcolm going to do it?”

The absolute disbelief in his eyes caused her trembling to finally stop, and as she looked around she realized he was not the only one struggling to process this. It was difficult remembering that to most people, Malcolm had been a well-liked and respected figure. That he had seemingly died a martyr. They would never have the opportunity to know him like she had.

“It was for Rebecca,” she finally managed to answer. “He never forgave the city for her death. The Glades in particular. He believed it needed a ‘fresh start’, and he was going to provide it.”

“But he — what about the people, mom? What about Roy? Laurel? Everybody going to Ollie’s club at night?” Thea seemed to be shocked beyond the point of tears, though her eyes looked glassy with water that had gathered in them and not fallen.

“I did what I did to keep you and your brother safe.”

“Then you’re going to need a better defense,” Oliver snapped, his voice harsh once more. “This isn’t — we’re talking hundreds or maybe thousands of lives. We weren’t worth that.”

“You are to me,” she argued back. “I don’t expect you to understand that. You’re not a parent. There is nothing you aren’t willing to do for your children. It’s why I- I tried to put a stop to Malcolm’s plans after the Hood attacked me.”

She watched as Oliver seemed to lose all color. He drew back from the table again, totally silent.

“So the hiring an assassin charge…” Jean trailed off. Moira bowed her head.

“I can’t believe this,” Thea muttered, and she stood as well, opening and shutting the heavy metal door with a slam. After a moment’s hesitation, Oliver followed more quietly.

She had lost them. The one thing above all else she had wanted to avoid.

“Let’s just try to get our facts together, Moira, to present your case in the best light possible,” Jean advised. “I can’t make any promises as to how this will turn out, not without definitive proof that what you’re saying about Malcolm Merlyn is true.”

“My files should take care of that,” Moira replied. It wasn’t the smoking gun of the Gambit wreckage, but it was better than nothing. And if she could just determine who had placed her in this position, she would know who among Tempest might be her potential allies still. And who were her enemies.

---

Laurel’s heart seemed to plummet further and further with each line she read of the file. If all of this was true, if Mrs. Queen had really been planning to detonate a bomb underneath the Glades, how many people could have lost their lives? Anita, Jerome, Pam, Hank and his son, Mrs. Ross, Ted and his gym patrons, the members of her capoeira class, John and his sister-in-law and her son, Raisa and her family, Roy, her. Every person whose life she had protected the last couple months, all gone in a terrible catastrophe.

How would she have died? Falling into a newly-created ravine? Crushed by a falling building? Suffocated while trapped under a pile of rubble in a depleting pocket of air? It was horrific. How could a person even plan such a thing?

“You’re not supposed to be looking at that,” her father scolded in a low voice as he came back into the interview room with two coffees.

“I needed to know what’s happening so I can support Oliver and Thea through this,” she excused, accepting her own cup as she added, “And it’s not as if you haven’t snooped on me, you might recall.” That wound was still fresh thanks to her father’s recent use of the vigilante phone, not that she could ever tell him she knew about that.

Predictably, he grumbled something that was an attempted apology. Laurel let it go. What was done was done, after all.

“I just can’t believe she could have been planning this.” Both of her children worked regularly in the Glades, had friends or loved ones there. Did Mrs. Queen even realize she was dooming her own longtime cook and housekeeper with this kind of monstrous machine?

“Well, soon as she’s done speaking to her lawyer, we’ll find out why.”

“She couldn’t have been doing this all by herself,” Laurel mused. She knew for a fact that at least one other person had known about the Gambit since John had overheard the woman talking about it with an unknown man. “Who even is the source of this information?”

“Honey, you know I can’t tell you that. Even if you weren’t so close to the family.”

Laurel frowned. “She has a right to face her accuser.”

“Yeah, in a court of law,” her father said. “That’s not right now. Look, this source has reason to be worried for their life, alright? She‘s had more than one whistleblower dealt with.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean both her husbands, for one thing. According to our source, Robert Queen had just found out about this plan before she had his yacht sabotaged.”

“What, so she was stopping him from traveling?” That didn’t add up with what Oliver had said about his father. Mr. Queen hadn’t told Oliver to right his mother’s wrongs, but his. “Why would she have let Oliver go on the trip if she was planning to blow up the yacht?”

Hilton came back into the room. “Frank thinks we give them five more minutes.”

“Alright. Look, why don’t you go keep an eye on that Harper kid for me while you wait for Queen and his sister?” Her dad suggested.

Laurel knew she couldn’t expect to keep sitting in on this with her father’s coworkers and superior coming back soon, so she slipped back out the door. She felt a little silly passing by other cops and detectives in their practical gear while she was dressed for brunch, but she soon found Roy sitting in a chair out in the hall.

“How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad,” she told him bluntly. “But I think they’re missing something.”

“Like the evidence?”

Laurel raised an eyebrow.

“The cops with her home office stuff should’ve gotten here by now,” Roy pointed out. “They weren’t that far behind us.”

“They haven’t come through?”

The door to the interrogation room flew open, Thea storming out with teary eyes. Roy immediately stood up. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. Just my mom’s a crazy murderer.”

Laurel shushed her younger friend, glancing back down the hall towards the bullpen. “Thea, whatever you’re feeling right now, you need to be careful. Anything you say has the potential to be used against your mother, too.”

Oliver had stepped out by this time as well, far more calm though that said little for what he might really be feeling. He was far better at hiding that than most people. Laurel walked up to him.

“Hey.”

“Hey, can we?” He jerked his head in the direction of the back alley. Laurel nodded, leading him away from the younger couple. Thea had at least let Roy wrap her in another hug, so hopefully that would avoid any further outburst.

When they exited and headed down the short few steps, Laurel glanced around to make sure the alley was empty. “You mother confessed?”

“Not to everything. She- Tommy was right. Someone did hire a hit man to kill his father, and it was her.” Before she could react to that, he continued, “The thing is, she’s claiming he was the one who had the Gambit sabotaged and commissioned this device to- to—”

“The earthquake device, I read my father’s file,” she finished for him. “Oliver, if Mr. Merlyn was the one behind everything, then why would someone be framing your mother for it? Why not just expose him?”

He frowned in thought for a long moment. “Because exposing him isn’t their goal. I’m not even sure exposing this plot was the goal. It’s revenge.”

“Revenge for having Malcolm killed? But then…” She didn’t even want to voice it. The deep pain in Oliver’s eyes said it all.

“Tommy’s their source.”

Only weeks ago she would have denied it. Tommy would never do something so underhanded. But he had changed so much this year. They all had. But how could he have condoned what his father had been planning enough to want to avenge him while still knowing those plans would damn Moira Queen in the eyes of the law? How did he reconcile it?

The precinct’s back door burst open. “Ollie, the cops are really upset about something,” Thea said in a panic. “I think there’s more people dead!”

They exchanged a quick look before hurrying back indoors. A number of officers were arguing heatedly in the bullpen, one shaking an evidence bag containing two black-tipped arrows stained with blood. She felt Oliver tense behind her.

“By the time we made it to the car, Groves and Jones were dead. Shot straight through the heart,” the partner of the officer holding the bag of arrows said, a deep scowl on his face shared by many. “Evidence was gone.”

“What would the copycat archer want with it?”

“Could Queen have hired him?”

“She’s been in our custody the whole time,” Hilton pointed out steadily, but Laurel’s heart sank when he asked, “How do we link it back to her?”

“This isn’t good,” Laurel said, looking back at Oliver. “If your mother’s computer had communications between her and Merlyn on them—”

“Then the Dark Archer just took care of them,” Oliver said through gritted teeth. He glanced at Thea and Roy, who remained close by them watching the officers. Laurel knew he didn’t want to risk saying anything more.

It wouldn’t matter what he said, especially to her father and his precinct right now. This case had become about more than the Glades for them; they were going after a cop killer, and Laurel knew Mrs. Queen’s situation had just gotten a whole lot worse.

Officer Washington, who Laurel remembered had been put on desk duty while completing his full physical therapy regimen after the injury he sustained from the Royal Flush Gang last fall, came into the bullpen. “Detectives! We’ve got press in the lobby. Somehow they got a hold of the Queen case.”

“Damn,” Laurel muttered under her breath, and it was echoed around the room at varying volumes. If she’d had any doubt about this being a play for revenge rather than justice, that was out the window now.

“How did they find out?” Thea asked, though only their group of four seemed to notice. 

Lieutenant Pike was busy joining Washington, though he turned to point around the room. “Nobody talks to the press! This is an investigation, not a TMZ exclusive!”

“They’re really gonna want to talk to you and your brother,” Roy said to Thea. “We better get out of here.”

“That’s a good idea,” Oliver agreed. “We’ll head out the back for the car, hope to avoid them. Come on.”

Oliver had her take the lead while he brought up the rear, keeping Roy and especially Thea sandwiched between them.

They made it around the side of the building and halfway to the car before they were spotted. “Oliver! Thea!”

A woman from Channel 52 led the charge towards them, but Oliver quickly wrenched open the back door and lifted his sister bodily inside. Laurel jumped into the passenger seat before he felt the need to do the same to her, and so he and Roy ran around the other side of the car and got in, Oliver starting the engine and swerving straight out into traffic.

“What now?” Laurel prompted him. She could see his mind working hard to play catch-up to all these developments; his mother’s confession, the Dark Archer’s reappearance, the media picking up the story, Tommy’s very likely part in all this. They couldn’t afford to just keep reacting, though.

“Now, we need to figure out how far this goes. Thea, you’ll come with us to the club and stay there with Roy. I’m keeping it closed tonight, so it’ll be safest there.”

“Okay,” his sister agreed. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll just be in my office,” he replied. “Trying to do damage control.”

His phone started buzzing. Oliver took it out of his pocket and passed it to her without looking. Laurel glanced at the caller ID. “Looks like John isn’t waiting for one of us to call. Hello?”

“Laurel? Where’s Oliver?”

“Driving. He’s with me, and so is Thea and her boyfriend.”

She thought she heard John release a breath of relief. “I’m guessing he’s seen the news?”

“Not exactly, but he knows what’s going on. We’ll be at the club in ten.”

“Then I’ll be there.” He hung up, and Laurel set the phone down in the cup holder. At Oliver’s questioning look, she nodded.

“We’ll do what we can, Ollie.” She couldn’t promise it would be okay. As they passed by clumps of people watching screens both in windows or on their phones, Laurel truthfully didn’t know how it could be.

---

Athena returned to the top office of Merlyn Global, removing the head covering of her League uniform as she went. She carried the hard drive to Moira Queen’s personal computer under one arm; the rest was unnecessary and had been left behind.

“As you all just saw, the children of Moira Queen were indeed at the downtown precinct just now but left without answering any questions,” a female news anchor spoke on the screen at the desk. “This seems to indicate that they are not under arrest along with their mother, though it is unclear how much they know about what documents have identified as the Markov Device. We’ll keep those of you at the station and at home updated as events unfold. This is Susan Williams, Channel 52.”

Athena took the liberty of shutting off the video feed rather than listen to inane jingles and set the hard drive on the desk. “It is done.”

Thomas turned away from the windows overlooking his city, a city that was just about tipping over the edge into chaos. Athena had to admire it in a way; for all his aversion to killing, the man had a vindictive streak beyond anything she had seen since his father.

As if to reiterate that point, he asked, “Did you have to kill them?”

“No matter how similar my uniform is to your father's, the authorities would have realized their Dark Archer had suddenly shrunk a foot. It was better to remove the witnesses and leave the rest something to remember me by.”

Thomas sighed, but nodded with closed eyes. “Alright.”

“You will soon learn the art of killing or not killing yourself,” Athena reminded him. “You have made an enemy who deals in such extremes. It is time to train you to be ready for him. Have the preparations been made?”

“My father’s things are packed, and an acting CEO has been assigned,” the young man confirmed. “My private plane is ready to leave at my signal.”

“Very good.” She looked forward to leaving the trappings of modern life behind and to re-educating the son of Al Sah-Her in their ways. As much as she regretted the father’s death, Athena was beginning to realize that none of this would have been possible without it. Rather than switching her allegiance from one strongman to another, she would be creating her own in her image.

Thomas got out his mobile device, glancing at the screen. “Just like I thought. An advisory not to go to the Glades tonight. They’re already looting and rioting.” His face twisted with contempt. “These are the people Ollie and Laurel are so determined to save, people who can’t even keep from destroying their own property and livelihoods.”

“Sickness and evil, when faced with nothing else, will consume itself,” she agreed. “And we shall let it burn. There are greater things waiting for you, Thomas. Let us depart.”

He nodded and picked up the hard drive.

“Why did you wish to keep it?” Athena could not help asking. She would have burned it without hesitation if he had asked, to ensure the true nature of Tempest never was revealed.

“Call it insurance,” he said. Then he strode to the elevator.

Athena followed in his wake.

[olicitysecretsanta]

Once Upon a Valentine's

For Cheryl ( @cherchersketch ):

I hope you enjoy this strange mix of fluffy angst as much as I enjoy your fanart :)

- Jesse ( @spaztronautwriter )

###

Felicity sat, legs spread out before her, in an empty aisle at the back of the convenience store, a heart shaped box of chocolate open in her lap.

She took a bite of a buttercream, savoring the cloyingly sweet taste and trying not to think about how miserable her night had been. At least it was almost midnight. Then this awful—like, truly horrendous—Valentine’s Day would be over.

A bell chimed near the front of the store, and then voices rang out, indicating that she was no longer alone with just her chocolate and the unsuspecting cashier. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to get up, though. As pathetic as she no doubt looked, she still couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than take another bite of buttercream. So what if some strangers saw her going full crazy in the candy aisle? It wasn’t like she’d ever see them again. She didn’t know anybody in Starling City and just the idea of having to go out and meet new people, to make friends again… She picked up a strawberry cream and popped it in her mouth whole.

“Hang on, I want to get one of those chocolate boxes for Thea,” someone said.

“Aww, what a good big brother,” someone else—a woman—teased.

A booted foot appeared in her peripheral vision as she chewed her candy, and then, “Um… Are you okay?”

Felicity nodded, shuffling through her box, looking for a caramel. “Physically, at least.”

There was an awkward silence and some shuffling. Probably the guy trying to decide whether or not he needed to call for help.

“This kind is pretty good,” she said, lifting the box in her lap. “In case you were looking for suggestions.”

She figured he’d grab his candy quickly and leave, going back to his friends who were laughing somewhere near the front of the store. Instead he stepped closer, shifting to sit across from her on the cold tiles. Felicity looked up, confused and a little flustered, to see probably the most attractive man she’d ever seen in real life pulling his knees up so he could fit comfortably in the cramped aisle.

“Bad Valentine’s Day?” he asked with a sympathetic smile.

It took Felicity a moment to stop choking on her tongue long enough to speak. “Something like that.”

He nodded, his gaze knowing and constant. His blue eyes dragged her in, making it hard to look away, and her cheeks heated in embarrassment. It was a testament to his hotness, really. Before she’d made eye contact, she honestly couldn’t have cared less if this stranger saw her having a pity party. But now…

“I don’t normally do this,” she started, flustered and tripping over her words. “Eat candy on the floor of a convenience store. That’s not normal behavior for me. But I was supposed to have dinner with my boyfriend… My now ex-boyfriend.” A bolt of hurt—or maybe it was panic—shot through her chest at the thought. “And I haven’t eaten, but I also don’t really want to eat anything. I just want to… I want to…”

She shrugged, helplessly, unsure of what she was even getting at. When she glanced back up at him her eyelashes were wet with tears.

The man’s brow furrowed over those stunning blue eyes, his lips parting in a question. “Your boyfriend dumped you on Valentine’s Day?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she reached down, plucking up another chocolate at random. The texture told her it was one of those crunch bars. Bleh.

“Ollie, man, come on!” another of his friends shouted from the front, but the guy didn’t seem too worried.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked tentatively, then seemed to realize how that sounded, because he rolled his eyes and shot her a smile. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant… my friends and I are going to Poison.”

“To poison what?”

Her confusion seemed to amuse him, because his smile widened and he shook his head. “It’s a nightclub. A few blocks over. You’re not from Starling are you?”

She shook her head. “I only moved here a month ago.”

“Well, I’m Oliver. And if you want to go drink this night away, you are more than welcome to come with me and my friends.”

Felicity bit her lip, weighing the pros and cons of his offer. Pro: alcohol. Obviously pro. Con: having to get up and face people.

“I’m paying,” Oliver offered, sweetening the pot.

“Ollie, let’s go! You’re picking out candy for your sister, not trying to impress a—Oh.”

Felicity glanced up to see another man, also very attractive, round the aisle cap. He had black hair, and, to his credit, his smile only wavered for a second when he saw her sitting on the ground.

“Tommy, this is…”

“Felicity.”

Oliver smiled. “This is Felicity. Felicity, this is my good friend Tommy Merlyn.”

“Best friend,” Tommy interjected with a charming grin.

“Come to Poison,” Oliver offered again. “Make some new friends, forget about your ex.”

Felicity huffed a laugh. “Is that their slogan? It’s catchy.”

Oliver smiled again, the gesture making his eyes crinkle. “So you’ll come?”

For the first time since Cooper walked out of the restaurant earlier that night, Felicity smiled. “Okay.”

With that, Oliver pulled himself to his feet and grabbed a box of chocolates off the shelf at random. Felicity, feeling equal parts embarrassed and shameless, closed up her own chocolate box and followed him to the register. There were two women with them, apparently, both wearing dresses you’d expect to see in a bar. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she was interrupting a double date, but then Oliver reached out, grabbing the box of candies she was clutching to put it beside his on the counter.

“Oh, you don’t have to—“

“Felicity,” he said, turning to her with a soft look. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

She snorted and shook her head, but let him buy her the half-eaten box of chocolates.

###

They walked the two blocks to Poison.

Helena and Carrie—those were the girls with Oliver and Tommy—initially made nice once Oliver told them Felicity would be accompanying them to Poison, but by the time they’d made it twenty feet from the convenience store both girls had gone back to talking amongst themselves, occasionally trying to drag the guys into their conversation. Gossiping about some friend or other who they secretly thought was a bitch.

Oliver hung back mostly, walking by Felicity’s side.

Felicity really wasn’t sure what to make of him. He didn’t seem pushy or creepy or like he was trying to get in her pants. Maybe, somehow, she’d actually managed to meet a stand up guy who just didn’t want her to be alone on Valentine’s. She snuck a glance to her right, catching him unawares as he listened to whatever Helena and Tommy were talking about. He certainly was pretty, whatever his deal was.

Felicity had always found Cooper attractive, but Oliver… Oliver was, like, ruggedly handsome in a way she’d never seen outside of magazines and movies. She hadn’t asked him about his career, but if the answer was male model she wouldn’t be surprised. Tommy was also handsome, in a more refined way. And Helena and Carrie were gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, that Felicity felt a bit frumpy beside them, even though she had dressed up for dinner.

Up ahead she noticed a line of people outside a nondescript brick building. It had no windows, but there was a sleek neon sign above the door that read Poison in fancy—almost illegibly fancy—script.

Tommy led them right up to the door, skipping the line completely. The bouncer merely smiled and let them through.

“VIP treatment, huh?,” she said, as they stepped into the darkened entryway.

“We know the owner,” Oliver said, leaning down to whisper yell into her ear. The music was already so loud she could barely hear him.

“Oh.”

Oliver smiled, nodding for her to go ahead of him.

The club was crowded, bodies taking up nearly every square inch of space. A DJ booth sat atop a dais in the far corner, directly across from the bar.

The bar—the only thing Felicity was interested in—took up an entire wall of the club. It was a gleaming neon blue monstrosity, but it suited the strobe lights and lasers blinking across the dance floor. And it was the only place Felicity wanted to be.

She made a beeline for it, Oliver keeping pace even in the crowd. He touched her wrist as they got closer, then wrapped his finger gently around hers and led her to a couple of vacant seats near the back of the room.

“So what do you think?” he asked, leaning in close so she could hear him.

She glanced back, taking in the room, the darkness shattered by strobing lights and dancing laser beams. “I think it’s a headache waiting to happen.”

Oliver barked a laugh, leaning back in his chair. “That’s what I said. It does make for a good distraction though.”

Felicity shrugged, watching as one of the bartenders, a short brunette who barely looked old enough to drink, made her way over to them. She smiled wide at Oliver, skipping to a stop in front of him.

“Speedy.” He grinned, reaching into the plastic bag from the convenience store and pulling out the unopened box of chocolates. He placed them before her like an offering. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Her smile turned a little mischievous. “Aw, Ollie, did you get me cheap Valentine’s chocolate to make up for forgetting my birthday?”

He huffed. “I didn’t forget your birthday. I told you, there was a problem with the shipping.”

“Mmhmm,” the girl said, clearly teasing. When she noticed Felicity sitting awkwardly beside him, she gave her a quick once over before turning back to Oliver. “So who’s your friend? I thought you were coming with the Bimbo twins?”

Oliver gave her an exasperated look, but seemed at least partially amused be her assessment of his friends. “Thea, this is Felicity. Felicity, this is my little sister, Thea. She owns this place.”

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Felicity’s eyes went wide as she realized what she’d just said. “I mean—“

But Thea only laughed. “Surprisingly, you don’t need to be able to get into a bar to own one.”

“Thea,” Oliver said, taking pity on her. “Felicity has had a terrible night so far and I told her I’d make it up to her with free drinks. Think you can hook us up?”

She narrowed her eyes, then looked at Felicity. “What’d he do?”

“Oh, no! We only just met, like, twenty minutes ago. He hasn’t done anything.” She gulped, twisting her hands together on the glowing bar top. “It was… My boyfriend broke up with me earlier and I…”

She trailed off with a shrug, bracing herself for the inevitable “Your boyfriend dumped you on Valentine’s Day!?!?” followed by platitudes and pity. At this point she just wanted to get as drunk as possible and not have to think about it anymore. And by some miracle, Thea seemed to realize that, because there was no shocked exclamation or cooing over her like she was the most pitiful thing in the world. Thea just bent down, grabbed a bottle and a glass, and poured Felicity a straight shot of tequila. 

“This’ll help,” she said knowingly, sliding the glass across the bar. “On the house.”

Smiling gratefully, Felicity grabbed the glass, throwing it back in one gulp. Tequila wasn’t exactly Felicity’s thing, she was more of a red wine kind of girl, but the warmth of the alcohol making its way through her system was a welcome feeling all the same.

Thea poured out another glass, then moved to get Oliver a glass of whiskey without him having to ask. She left the bottles before excusing herself to take care of some customers at the other end of the bar.

Felicity threw back a second glass and poured herself a third.

“Hey, if you want anything else let me know, okay? Beer, wine, water. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

She appreciated how kind Oliver was being though it wasn’t something she was completely used to. She wondered again if maybe he was just trying to get into her pants—rebounding with him certainly wouldn’t be a hardship on her part—but no, she just wasn’t getting those vibes. And with how nice his sister seemed to be… maybe they’re parents just raised thoughtful children.

“Looks like someone’s getting the party started without me!” Tommy squeezed between her and Oliver at the bar, throwing his hand up. “Speedy! Round of shots when you get a chance.”

Thea waved him off, mixing drinks for a couple of college aged kids.

“So, Felicity,” he drawled, glancing down at her with a smirk. “This boyfriend? What’s the story?”

“Tommy,” Oliver warned. “Leave her alone.”

“No, it’s fine. He… It’s a long story, but I moved out here for a job and he wasn’t exactly happy about it. I thought he was just being stubborn, that he’d come around eventually, but I guess I was wrong.”

“How long were you together?” That was Oliver.

“Since freshman year of college. I thought… hmph.” She shook her head, then took a sip of her drink.

“And he just dumped you? Tonight? Because he didn’t want to do long distance?”

“Tommy!” Oliver snapped.

“Sorry, sorry. But he seems like a douche and you’re probably better off.”

She huffed. It wasn’t so much a laugh, but there was a certain sort of morbid humor to the whole situation. Felicity had really thought Cooper was it. That he was the one. And now, here she was, all alone in a strange city, single, and throwing back tequila shots with a couple of guys she just met.

“Tommy!” a girl yelled from behind them. Felicity didn’t look, but she was pretty sure it was Helena. Or maybe Carrie. Or, who knows, maybe it was someone else. Tommy excused himself and ran off to whoever it was.

She sat there, spinning her shot glass in circles for a moment before Oliver spoke.

“I’m sorry about Tommy.” He tapped his own glass once against the bar. “He isn’t really a relationship kind of guy, so he doesn’t really get it.”

“Are you?”

“What?” Oliver looked at her, slightly puzzled.

“A relationship type of guy?”

Oliver glanced away, down at his drink. He lifted the glass, taking a long gulp, before refilling it.

“I was in a relationship for awhile,” he said quietly. “Unfortunately, I was the douchebag, though. I… I hurt her, and…” He took another drink, then glanced over at her. “Tommy was right. You probably are better off without your boyfriend. I know my ex is better off without me.”

Felicity studied him for a moment, taking in the way guilt turned the corners of his mouth down. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

He huffed a laugh. “As much as your boyfriend’s timing sucks, he at least had the guts to end things when he realized it wasn’t going to work. I cheated on her.”

“Oh.”

He looked down at his drink. “With her sister.”

Oh.

Yeah, okay. As angry as she was with Cooper right now, at least he hadn’t cheated.

“I haven’t been a relationship since.”

He pushed his glass away, then turned slightly in his seat so he could look out over the dance floor. She followed his gaze, finding Tommy and Carrie dancing and laughing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

He spun back to her. “No, no. It’s not you. I always feel guilty about it.”

“Do you…” She reached for the bottle of tequila again. “Do you regret it?”

“Cheating?” He smiled this self-deprecating little smile that Felicity found far too charming on him. “Yeah. But it wasn’t working with us. She wanted things I couldn’t give her. I wish I hadn’t hurt her the way I did, but I don’t want her back, if that’s what you mean.”

“He was the only guy I’ve ever really been with.” At Oliver’s surprised look, she blushed. “I don’t mean like that. I had a couple of boyfriends before him, but he was… I thought it was real with us. We were together for almost five years.”

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Thea carrying over a tray of glowing blue glasses, smoke trailing off of them.

“What are those?” she asked as the girl set the tray down between them.

“House special.” Thea winked.

“A couple of those,” Oliver said, “and you’ll know how this place got its name.”

That didn’t sound especially appetizing, especially considering how the tequila was already starting to affect her, so she politely declined, asking for a bottle of water instead. Tommy and Carrie didn’t seem to have the same qualms. Thea waved them over and between the two of them they wiped out half the tray. Oliver just shook his head, watching them as he nursed his glass of whiskey.

Eventually, Tommy and Carrie made their way back to the dance floor, leaving her and Oliver alone. Well, as alone as they could get in a crowded bar.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes. “I’m probably ruining your whole night.”

At that, Oliver laughed. “Actually I’m probably having a better time here with you than I would have otherwise.”

Felicity gaped at him. “You can’t be serious. We’ve been talking about our exes. On Valentine’s Day. Not exactly the making of a great night.”

“We could find a better topic, yeah. But I like talking to you.” He leaned in, conspiratorially. “Besides, it beats having to fend of Helena from trying to drag me onto the dance floor, which is what I’d be doing if you weren’t here.”

Felicity giggled. “Then I’m glad I could help.”

Oliver smiled at her for a long moment, before leaning back. “Are you hungry?”

“Um…” She hadn’t been feeling up to eating when they got here, but now that the tequila was loosening her up a bit… “Yeah, I could eat.”

He grinned. “Great. There’s a Big Belly a couple blocks down.”

“Big Belly?”

He had been getting off his chair to put his jacket back on, but froze to turn back to her. “You’ve never had Big Belly Burger?”

“Um… no?” She shrugged. “New in town, remember?”

“Oh, I’m about to change your life.”

###

“This…” She swallowed down a bite of burger, following it up with a sip of her soda. “This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”

Oliver made a grunting sound across from her and she glanced up to see him watching her, a fry halfway to his mouth. She would have blushed at the way his eyes had darkened at her words, but honestly? She just didn’t care. She was feeling loose and happy, and the food was just too good to worry about her innuendo. And, secretly, she kind of liked that Oliver seemed to be attracted to her.

It was nice to know she could push things in that direction if she wanted to. That he wouldn’t reject her the way… the way Cooper had.

No. No, she wasn’t going to go there. She was pleasantly buzzed and enjoying greasy fast food with the most attractive—and kind—man she had ever met. She wasn’t going to let thoughts of her ex ruin it.

They’d talked a bit, about non-ex things, as they walked over to Big Belly Burger and currently they were discussing work. Or, she was discussing work. Oliver hadn’t had a chance to get a word in edgewise, but that was only because Felicity was so excited about her new job.

“I’m the youngest person in the whole department, but my supervisor is actually kind of great? She actually respects my ideas and has let me take the lead on this new project we’re working on. We’re rewriting the code for the Palmer Tech’s security systems and it’s a huge deal.”

“It’s great you like your job so much. I’m currently training under my dad to take over his company and I wish I enjoyed it half as much as you seem to.”

“Oh? What do you do?”

He leaned forward, tilting his head slightly so he could see out of the window beside them. “You see that building?” he asked, pointing at one of the skyscrapers in the distance.

“Queen Consolidated?” she asked, following his gaze. “Your dad owns Queen Consolidated?”

She turned back to see him watching her with a gleam in his eye.

“Oliver Queen.” He stretched a hand across the table for her to shake.

She wiped her own hands clean before taking his, a mischievous smirk on her face. “Does that make us rivals then?”

“I hope not.”

The soft, earnest way he said it nearly caught Felicity’s breath. She pulled back, fixing her attention on her burger. They talked some more, finishing up their meals, before Felicity sighed. It was getting late and she really needed to get home.

“Oh,” she said out loud, as something occurred to her. “I really hope Cooper had the forethought to get a hotel room. Or a plane ticket.”

“You think he might be at your place?” Oliver asked, crumpling up his wrappers and cleaning up their napkins.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Coop is… not always the most emotionally intelligent guy. And I’m not sure he was actually planning to break up with me in the middle of dinner, so…” She huffed. “I really hope he isn’t there. I don’t know if I could deal with that tonight.”

Oliver nodded, then picked up her garbage and took it over to the trash can near the door. When he came back he helped her slide out of the booth and put her coat on.

“I can come with you.” He said it tentatively, as if he was afraid she might take it the wrong way. “If you want. Make sure he’s not there, or make sure he leaves if he is.”

It probably wasn’t necessary. Cooper was a jerk, but he was a harmless jerk. If she asked him to leave he would. But there was a part of her, a part she hadn’t known existed until this very moment, that wanted Cooper to see her with Oliver. She wanted him to know that she would be okay without him. More than okay.

Feeling just the tiniest bit guilty about that, she nodded at Oliver. “That would be nice, thank you.”

###

For the first time since she’d met Oliver, an awkward silence settled over them as they drove to her townhouse.

Oliver had ordered a car and they were both sitting in the back, but neither said much. She was nervous about maybe seeing Cooper and Oliver… He was rubbing his fingers together nervously, though what he had to be nervous about, she didn’t know.

She watched out the window as they pulled up in front of her house. The lights were out and she was pretty sure no one was inside.

Something gave way in her chest at that. Something heavy that had been there since Cooper walked away at the restaurant earlier that night. It was really over with him. He was gone.

She was sure she’d have a really long cry about it once she was alone, but for right now she was… okay. Not good, but okay.

Oliver got out of the car and together they walked to her front door. She opened it, flipping on the lights and calling out just to make sure no one was inside. When no one answered she turned back to Oliver.

“Guess he didn’t feel like sticking around.”

“I’m sorry, Felicity.” And the thing was, he really did  look sorry. “Did you want him to be here?”

She shrugged. “No. Not really. Though I wouldn’t have minded rubbing you in his face a little.”

He chuckled at that.

“Sorry.” She shook her head sheepishly. “You’ve been so nice and here I am, a total stranger, taking advantage of your time to get back at my boyfriend.”

He shot her a small smile. “It’s worth it to make a new friend.”

“Just a friend?”

She wasn’t sure where that question came from. And the way she said it, all breathy… What was she doing?

Oliver blinked a little, exhaled deeply as if steadying himself, then reached out to twine his fingers between hers.

“For now.”

He smiled kindly at her, squeezed her fingers once, then let go. He stepped back, pushing his hands in his pockets.

Oh.

“I thought you didn’t do relationships.” She said it teasingly, trying to alleviate some of the intensity that had settled over them. The intensity she’d created when she’d asked that stupid question.

He shrugged. “Maybe I just haven’t found someone worth trying with.”

Something about the way he said it, his unwavering gaze… Tears started to fork in the corners of her eyes.

“I can’t right now.” She sniffled slightly. “I just… I…”

“I know.” He nodded seriously. “I’m not asking for anything, Felicity. But I like you. And I’d like to get to know you better, even if that’s just as friends.”

She nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Friends. I can do friends.”

He grinned and finally some of the tension evaporated. They exchanged numbers and promises of getting coffee over the weekend. There was something there between them, she knew, and maybe someday they could explore that, but for right now she was grateful he was willing to give her that time.

“I’m really glad I met you, Oliver.”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling prettily. “Goodnight, Felicity.”

Then he leaned in, pressing a kiss on her cheek, close enough to the corner of her mouth that it wasn’t strictly platonic, but Felicity found she didn’t mind.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, stepping back into her apartment.

He waited for her to close the door before going back to the car, and she immediately ran over to the window to watch as he got in and drove off.

Somehow on one of the worst nights of her life he’d given her something to… hope for. And, yeah, she probably had a hard couple of weeks in her future. She could feel the tears swelling in her already now that she was alone, but she could also still feel Oliver’s lips against the corner of her mouth. Still picture his incredibly blue eyes and kind smile.

She changed out of her dress and heels and into her favorite comfy sweatpants, crawled into bed, and cried for the man and the relationship she’d spent years believing in. But in the morning, when she picked up her phone to find a text from Oliver, just a simple good morning, she found that she could breathe a little easier.

And, years from now, when she looked into Oliver’s eyes as they exchanged their vows, or as she squeezed his hand while giving birth to their daughter, she’d remember that night. Remember the kindness in his eyes when he found her, a complete mess eating chocolate on the floor of a convenience store, and every time she did, she’d fall a little bit more in love with him.

[ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes]

Burned Part 5

Summary:  Alfie Solomons is in need of a secretary. Tommy Shelby mentions a young woman in need of employment. From there the two step into a dangerous dance together.

Chapter 5: 

//Just so people are aware, this fic is cross-posted under my AO3 account and Wattpad account. 

        It was still raining the next morning so Alfie and Louise drove to the bakery. They stopped at her apartment beforehand to allow her to get a fresh change of clothes and her coat. They didn’t say much on the short drive there. Louise nibbled at a pastry Evelyn had wrapped up for her. Alfie didn’t eat.

           The night before seemed like a fever dream. Both of them acted out of character. She broke down, not afraid to appear vulnerable. He had comforted her and didn’t interrupt once. Time would tell if they returned to normal that day. After all, Alfie had killed her husband. It was perplexing to Louise. She knew the proper reaction would be to run. But it never crossed her mind.

           Louise subtly glanced over at the gangster. He was focused on the rain slipping across the car window and didn’t notice. The brim of his hat tilted down a bit, covering his eyes in a shadow. With his head at an angle, she could view his profile. He’d trimmed his bear recently and she could clearly see the bare strip of skin running down his right cheek. She’d noticed it before, but it was much more prominent when he kept his facial hair shorter.

           Louise was apprehensive. She wasn’t afraid to ask about the scar, Alfie wouldn’t mind. She was more afraid of what caused it. In Alfie’s line of work, it could’ve been anything.

           The car stopped and Alfie snapped out of his thoughts while Louise averted her eyes so he didn’t notice she was looking at him.

           “Watch out there, there’ll be fucking puddles everywhere.” He said as he got out of the car.

           She stepped out and opened the umbrella they’d brought. She caught up to Alfie, skirting around the muddy puddles.

           Alfie pushed open the heavy side doors, allowing her inside. “Morning Ollie.” He greeted the young man who was waiting by the entrance.

           Louise closed up the umbrella, shaking it out near the door. She leaned it against the wall to dry.

           “Mr. Sabini is here,” Ollie said warily.

           Alfie’s face visibly changed. His forehead creased and his mustache twitched. “Mate, I’m gonna need you to fucking say that to me again because I thought I heard you say…”

           “You have an appointment with Mr. Sabini.” Louise stepped into the conversation. She shrugged off her coat and casually lifted her hands to fix the pins in her hair.

           He cocked his head to the side and his eyes flicked to her. “Eh?”

           “I told you yesterday.” She met his gaze. “I told Ollie too so he’d know.”

           Ollie cringed subtly, fearing the worse. It was very hard to stop Alfie in the middle of his ranting. And usually, if someone tried, his anger would just change course to the person who interrupted him.

           Alfie swallowed and regrouped. “Yeah…’course.” He nodded briskly. “I remember.” He didn’t. The day before he’d been too preoccupied to really retain anything.

           She shook her head slightly because she knew he had forgotten. “I’ll be in your office if you want me to be in the meeting as well.” She walked down the hallway through the distillery.

           “He’s downstairs,” Ollie told his boss.

           Alfie grunted in agreement and pulled off his jacket, ready to get into the meeting with Sabini. He lagged behind Louise, watching her walk to his office. Her high-heeled boots clicked across the concrete and drew the worker’s attention.

           Unaware of Alfie’s presence nearby, the younger men ogled at Louise. One of them wolf-whistled at her. He was too new to the bakery to fully realize his mistake.The second the fateful whistle hit his ears, Alfie snapped back into the rampage that had been cut off. He shoved his coat at Ollie and went towards the direction of the noise. He moved like a storm cloud, intimidating and dangerous. Louise heard him approaching and turned around.

           “Right, who was that?” He shouted.

           Some of the men looked caught off guard. But it was never too early or late for a Solomons-style performance review. The warehouse went silent aside from some scuffles and machinery noises.

           In the silence, the pressure was building up, perfect for an explosion. “Right, either someone steps forward or everyone in this fucking place is getting it, yeah?”

           Louise’s eyes widened. “Alfie…”

           “And since this fucking weather has got me in such a bloody fantastic mood, I’ll let you lot choose.” He held his arms out like a ringleader of a circus. “I’ll dock your pay or I’ll fucking break both your hands!” He slammed his cane down on the floor.

           One man decided to point out the culprit, subtly nodding to the young man to the left of him.

           “Seems we’ve got some honest people her after all. Louise, go to me office.” He didn’t look at her but his voice was firm.

           “Alfie, this isn’t necessary, please just leave it.” She urged and stepped toward him.

           “I run this place my own way.” He replied tersely, still not looking at her.

           “Then I’m staying right here.” She crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t budge. She hoped maybe her presence would deter him from doling out any punishments.

           It didn’t.

           “You two.” Alfie snapped his fingers to bring them front and center. The man who catcalled Louise and the man sold him out walked forward. They took their spots in front of their boss, facing judgment.

           Louise’s stomach dropped. “Alfie.” She called again.

           He ignored her quivering voice. There was no way he’d let the men get away with it and he wasn’t about to appear weak in front of his staff. Not even a gentle, concerned woman would make him appear weak.

           Alfie Solomons was a name to be feared.

           “I run this business with men.” The gangster began, his voice threatening to set off at any moment like a grenade. “I don’t employ boys…children, yeah, who can’t behave when they see a woman. Miss Barnes is under my employ and my protection. You lot are fucking disposable, right, you keep that in mind.” He hissed. In a flash, he grabbed the younger man and slammed his head into a support beam. Old blood already stained the wood and the beam creaked from the pressure. The man collapsed, knocked out cold.

           Louise flinched and turned her face away so she didn’t see anything. The sound of something cracking made her sick to her stomach.

           But Alfie wasn’t done yet. He turned to the other man who looked terrified. “And you, yeah, think you did good?” His breathing was off-kilter from the amount of force he’d used. “Think you’re a brave man? Fucking deserve a medal for doing me a service?”

           “I dunno, sir…”

           Alfie didn’t let him finish. He brought his cane down on the man’s head, a crack ringing out in the warehouse.

           The rest of the workers were deathly silent. None of them wanted to be next.

           “I don’t fucking like snitches!” He yelled so loudly, Louise was sure he would wake up the unconscious men. “Have we all learned a lesson? Yeah? Because I’ll fucking do this again to anyone who wants a go!” He clenched his fists, his face going red. “Anyone who so much as looks at Miss Barnes the wrong way again, I’ll fucking bash your thick skull in!” His throat strained as his hoarse shouts were almost powerful enough to make his men crumble. “Understood? Then stop fucking looking at me and get back to work!” He barked and turned to limp to his office. He passed Louise and didn’t slow to see her reaction. He had warned her, there wasn’t much else he could do. But he expected the worst.

           She followed him, trotting a few steps to catch up. “Alfie.” She attempted to get his attention.

           He stopped at the doorway and let her in. Pausing for a moment, he put his hat on the coat rack and slammed the door behind them. He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and went to sit down. His leg hitched and he grimaced in pain before settling down. “Go on, tell me what a fucking evil man I am.” He undid the buttons of his vest and reached for his glasses. He still couldn’t look at her.

           “I didn’t say that.”

           “Were thinking, weren’t you?” It wasn’t a question.

           “I think you need to stop assuming things about me.” She approached the desk. “And to stop putting words in my mouth.”

           Alfie rolled his sleeves up. “I’ve got a meeting.” He muttered.

           Louise made a noise of disbelief. “You just knocked out one of your workers because of me and now you’re going to act as if I’m not here?” She demanded.

           His blue-green eyes briefly met her face. “Weren’t your fault, they were acting like fucking animals, weren’t they?”

           She huffed out a sigh and rested her hands on her hips. “So that was the only reason? You mentioned my name a few times.”

           “Fucking hip hurts.” He ignored her comment. The pain in his hips flared up after the beatings. “Go down the block, will ya? There’s a store that has a salve to help me sciatica, maybe a hot water bottle too.”

           “I'm not going anywhere until you’re honest with me and not swearing every sentence.”

           Not used to being challenged so much, Alfie rested his elbows on his desk and glared at his secretary. “Men who behave in such a way aren’t useful to me. You’re useful to me, I’ve told you that plenty of times. So they disrespect you, they're disrespecting me, yeah?” It was almost painful to keep his vulgar vocabulary off his tongue.

           “You are the most infuriatingly complex man I’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to read.” She replied with a frustrated grimace.

           He leaned back in his leather desk chair, his calloused fingers trailing up and down the chain of his glasses. His eyes narrowed, taking in the face she was making at him. “Keep it up sweetheart, I’d love to hear your analysis on a man like me.”

           Louise chewed on the inside of her cheek. “What is the salve called?” She asked tensely.

           “No, no, no.” He tutted and stood up to stand in front of her. “You don’t get to skitter off after you started this.” He stopped just inches from her. His feet set firmly apart, his weight shifted to his right to ease off his bad hip. “Go on, love, don’t spare me feelings either.” He goaded with an amused look.

           “Don’t you have a meeting?” She retorted, not backing away from him. But her body was trembling slightly.

           “I’m much more fucking interested in what you think of big bad, Alfie Solomons.”

           “You can only go five sentences without swearing.” She looked up at him. Her chin tilted to show him she wasn’t afraid of him. She’d seen the ugliness that people whispered about. The name of Solomons attributed to broken bones, dead bodies fished out of the river, wealth, and, intimidation.

           He chuckled and passed a hand over his beard. “Clever lass.”

           “You already knew that.”

           “Hm…what else then?”

           Louise studied him like she had earlier during the drive over to the bakery. “You like knowing people are afraid of you.” Her voice came out shakily at first. But his amused look coaxed her on, knowing she wouldn’t face punishment if she were honest. “You take pride in that.”

           “How you figure?”

           “You make yourself look bigger than you really are. I mean Daniel was much taller than you.” She remarked.

           He grunted disapprovingly. Of course, he didn’t mind if she made the observation. It bothered him much more when her husband did. But she wasn’t malicious about it.

           “But your form is very…intimidating.” A slight shock of shiver went down her spine when she inhaled his scent. She didn’t realize how familiar it had become. A woodsy scent mixed with the distillery’s distinct rum smell sticking to him. But there was a hint of deep vanilla too. She wondered if that was Evelyn’s doing, perhaps a scent she used in his home.

           Alfie could see her reaction and it stroked his ego a bit. “What else?”

           “You’re a man of very few words…but you’re not at the same time.” Louise tried to steady her heart. But it felt like a racehorse, ready to jump out of the gates. “I mean sometimes you hardly answer me at all. Other times you go off on this nonsensical rant. I don’t know what to make about that.” She admitted. Her eyes kept jumping around, over his shoulder, the open button on his shirt, his collar, the scar on his jaw, his eyes, and down to the floor.

           But his eyes didn’t leave her. “You think I’m a madman, then?”

           “No…you’re intelligent. Perhaps it’s your temper.” Her fingers touched together to keep her busy from other thoughts.          

           “Hm…me temper.”

           “I think you were in the war.”

           His eyebrow cocked. “Yeah?”

           “You sound like an officer when you yell at your men.” The sharp barks of threats echoed in her ears. A militaristic fashion the way he held himself tall while dishing out verbal abuse. “You’re also comfortable with blood and death.”

           “Anything else?” He didn’t explicitly tell her if he was in the war or not.

           Louise shook her head slightly. “I don’t know what I think anymore, Alfie. Your actions keep changing my mind. I do think you have the best of intentions.”

           That was the only thing that really surprised him. He’d already heard her other observations before. His temper was unhinged, he liked his stance of intimidation, he spoke like a lunatic, and he hadn’t yet abandoned his demeanor as a captain. But best intentions? Lots of people would disagree, most notably her husband.

           “But I think you take the worst execution to achieve those intentions.”

           Her elaborate wording didn’t go over his head. He nodded slowly. “You think so?” His tone was a little softer.

           “Do you think I’m wrong?” Her eyes finally stayed on his for more than a few seconds.

           His broad shoulders shrugged and he scratched at his cheek as if he couldn't be bothered. “Most say I’m ruthless and like to kill for fun.” He replied. His voice became detached.

           “I don’t think you do.” Her hand raised, her slender fingers trembling. “You didn’t kill Daniel for fun.”

           Alfie’s breath caught in his throat as she lightly traced the pads of her index and middle finger down the scar on his cheek. The tender contact was completely foreign to him. London whores could try to feign affection but it was nothing compared to the real thing. The calloused man felt like he was knocked down a few pegs just by her fingers touching him ever so slightly. He didn’t want her to see the internal turmoil and his buckling will. But something filled up the hollow space in his chest. She saw both sides of the coin. She saw the man that people whispered about and she saw the man who was fiercely protective.

           “You killed him because he hurt me.” Her fingers reached the end of his scar near his chin. “You hurt those men because they disrespected me. You hurt men because they threaten you or do you wrong. Maybe some of it’s business or personal vendettas.” She twisted her hand and smoothed her thumb over his cheek, passing over his scar. “But you do what you think is right. You thought that…disposing of Daniel would heal me.”

           Alfie was seconds away from completely melting under her touch and falling to his knees for her. Never had someone make him so vulnerable. It was terrifying. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you.” His voice was breathy and lost its edge. No one had ever brought that tone out of him.

           “You handle things the way you need to. It’s not my job to interfere.” She withdrew her hand to his dismay. “But I think you’re more than what you’ve done.” She was unaware of the power she held over him in that moment. “You don’t have to close yourself off when you’re with me. I don’t look at you the way other people do.”

           His blue eyes became hard. “Maybe you should.” He muttered.

           “What good would that do?”

           “Keep you safe.”

           “I feel safe. There’s no going back now is there?”

           “’Course there is.” He argued. “You don’t need to be…”

           She shook her head and touched his shoulder to cut him off. “Never mind that.” Her voice was gentle. “You’re late to your meeting now. I’ve kept you too long.” She stepped back and went to get her coat. “The salve’s name?” She asked again.

           Alfie had to restart his brain to answer her. He was completely and utterly a mess after she’d touched him and told him she saw him differently. The self-deprecating side of him kept spitting venom. She was too good for him. He was a monster who didn’t deserve her. He’d get her hurt or even killed. Weak. He was weak over her.

           She went to leave but paused. “What was your rank in the military?” She asked curiously.

           Alfie stepped back and leaned against the edge of his desk. “Captain.” He answered hoarsely.

           She smiled slightly and nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. I’ll return after your meeting, Captain Solomons.” She shut the door leaving him with his harried thoughts.

           Her parting words went straight to his gut, setting him on fire. “Fucking hell.” He groaned and tilted his head up to stare at the ceiling. Louise certainly wasn’t everything he assumed her to be and would most likely make him bend to her will even if she didn’t mean to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         Weeks passed and Alfie’s relationship with Louise became more complex. He figured it would work itself out but it never did. They kept dancing around each other. Louise acted professionally and Alfie mirrored her behavior. But his gaze always lingered. He craved the little touches they shared throughout the day.

           She’d touch his arm during a greeting or parting ways for the night. If she took notes beside him in a meeting, her elbow would frequently brush up against his arm. It drove him absolutely insane.

           He felt an unbearable itch deep inside him. Frustration built up and he needed a release.

~~~~~~~~

           Not a patient man, Alfie decided to make a move. Even though as he walked to his office, he felt like a demon going to try and seduce a fair maiden. Muttering a prayer for salvation in Yiddish, then in Russian just in case.

           Louise looked up when the door creaked open. The brutal London summer heat made the office feel like a furnace. She sat behind his desk, organizing his papers even though Alfie could make a mess of it within minutes.

           He stuttered to a halt in the doorway. He was being tested. Surely.

           She was the definition of perfectly undone. Her hair was coming out of the up-do that had been pristine that morning. Stray pieces of rich auburn hair stuck to her forehead. Her face was flushed, red cheeks shining with a bit of sweat from the heat. She’d worn a short-sleeved blouse and gathered her skirt up to the top of her thighs. Concealed under his desk, she tried to cool off a bit with no relief.

           “This has got to be the hottest summer on record.” She complained and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. A dash of ink blotted across her forehead.

           Alfie chuckled and reached in his pocket for a handkerchief. He walked around the desk to hand it to her. “Got ink on ya face, silly girl.”

           “Oh…” She huffed and reached for her compact mirror to see the mark.

           His eyes caught a glance of her skirt pooled up on her lap. He caught a good view of her garter belt running down her thighs, attaching to her sheer stockings. Remembering he was enough of a fucking sinful creature already, he looked away.

           “Alfie, you need to get an electric fan in here.” She protested. “I don’t know why you don’t already have one.”

           “Right, fine.” He nodded. Usually, his secretary got whatever she wanted. It was unheard of in the bakery even if they were simple requests to improve her work experience. But he never argued with her on things like an electric fan or a new typewriter because the last one was so badly damaged. Ollie was incredulous because he frequently asked Alfie to replace the machine but the man refused.

           ‘Does is fucking type words? Yeah? Then it’s fucking fine, quit yer whining.’

           But the first time Louise asked, he made Ollie go out and get a new one that afternoon. Yet no one could tell Alfie he was treating her like a princess. He’d just tell them to fuck off. He knew he was and he didn’t care what other people thought. She deserved it, she’d get it.

           “I’ll get twenty fans if you fucking want.” He muttered as if she was bothering him. He would get her twenty though. A hundred even. Anything to keep her happy. He was a pushover for her. “It’ll feel like the Arctic in here tomorrow.” He nudged her out of his chair.

           She got up; only just noticing her skirt was still hiked up. Going even redder, Louise prayed her boss hadn’t noticed. “This was delivered too.” She reached over him to grab an envelope she’d carefully sorted into a pile. Her silky blouse shifted and blessed Alfie with a whiff of her jasmine scented perfume. She straightened up, setting the thick cream envelope in front of him.

           He opened it, anything to get his muddled mind off of what Louise would look like after a long fuck. Generally inappropriate thoughts a boss could have for his secretary. But after a week of longing like a parched man in a desert, he was desperate.

           His eyes scanned the invitation to some event for some cause. Nothing of interest. He tossed it on the recently neatened desk before turning to face Louise.

           “What was it?” She fixed the hem of her skirt that had caught on the top of her stockings.

           “Nothing, a waste of fucking time. Look, Lou,”

           She’d gotten comfortable with the nickname Alfie had baptized her with. It gave her a sense of belonging much like how he addressed Ollie. But it was deeper. When he said those three little letters, she weakened. Such a dangerous man doting such an affectionate name on her gave her chills.

           After many sleepless nights of reflection, Louise came to term with a few things that had been prodding at her for weeks. She was raised to be a polite, quiet, education, but submissive, wife of a wealthy, respected gentleman from a wealthy, respected family. She would then become the mother to a litter of look-alikes, hopefully, strong and healthy sons. But she’d grown up to dread her fate. The idea of being a piece of furniture in a manor made her sick. So when she was old enough, she sought after excitement, not only from men. She would ride any horse no matter how green it was, she liked driving cars much faster than intended, and she raided the liquor to get wasted with friends out in the pastures. But her sexual freedom was something she followed as well. Losing her virginity at seventeen to the handsome stable hand who broke her heart within a week.

           Then when Daniel came along, she saw even more of a thrill. She assumed his abuse was her punishment for acting up. But Alfie’s presence was calling out to her every night and every day and it wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift. He was exciting, albeit confusing at the start. He was dangerous but Louise was confident he would never lay a finger on her. Perhaps it was naïve because she once assumed the same about Daniel.

           But it was the thrill of standing in the eye of the hurricane. While chaos ensued around her, damage and destruction raging, she was cradled in safety. Alfie was a haven but he was so much more than a stiff, uptight man she was destined to marry. He was outwardly flawed and yet kept his beauty hidden. A true enigma compared to others.

           “Yes?” She asked quietly. His voice was tentative as if he were about to spring something important on her. It made her heart skip.

           But the moment wouldn’t last.

           The door flew open. “Sir…”

           Alfie went from zero to a hundred in milliseconds. His pent up sexual frustration was highly flammable and Ollie unfortunately and unknowingly lit it.

           “Fucking hell, you daft boy, what did I fucking say about knocking?” He demanded. “You think you own this fucking bakery, do you?”

           Ollie winced from the verbal abuse. “Sorry sir, it’s important.”

           “Important, yeah?” Alfie rose, grabbing his cane. “It’s so fucking important that it means you fucking can’t spare a few seconds to knock?”

           “Alfie.” Like a douse of cold water to a hot iron, Louise’s voice made his anger slowly fizzle down.

           It made Ollie grateful for her. It was pretty well known around the distillery that Louise had a strong effect over the boss. And although he would dish out punishments in her presence, he was more likely to second-guess his actions in front of her. Still, it didn’t make his workers any less scared of him. In fact, they usually tried to avoid even looking at Louise after what happened to the young man who made the mistake of testing Alfie’s loyalty for her. They didn’t risk setting their boss off. It was too easy to. If he thought they were even thinking about his precious secretary, he’d set off.

           “What?” Alfie snapped at the young man. “Fucking spit it out then if it’s such a pressing matter.”

           “This came.” Ollie held out a sheet of paper.

           He limped over to him and snatched the note out of his hand. “Fucking git, no fucking manners.” He muttered and read through the handwritten message.

           Louise watched his face turn from anger to deep consideration.

           “Yeah, right, fine.” He cleared his throat and tucked the paper into his pants pocket. “Look, you tell ‘em that’ll be fine.” He pointed at Ollie. “But they’re paying me more than that shit amount. Now fuck off.”

           Louise was lost. “Something wrong?” She sat down on the edge of his desk.

           “No.” He shook his head and went to grab the invitation she’d given to him earlier. “Need to make a trip to Birmingham.”

           “Birmingham? Why?”

           He stood beside her, eyes flicking over the gala details. “Tonight.” He didn’t answer her question.

           “Alfie, if something is wrong, please.” She reached up to touch his shoulder.

           He was in work mode but he still felt torn open, ready to bare his soul to her. Tell her anything she wanted. It was dangerous when his occupation dealt in secrecy.

           “You know you can trust me.”

           He exhaled slowly to keep his composure. “S’nothing to worry about, Lou. He assured her.

           She knew he was lying. He was a good liar in general, but he had trouble with lying to her with his usual ease. How could he when she had given him so much? Lying to her wasn’t business, it was personal.

           “Alfie…”

           “Should be back after the weekend.”

           “A full weekend?”

           “When I get back we’ll go to that event. S’in London.” He flicked the card back onto the table.

           “I thought you weren’t interested in it. You said it was a waste of time.” She was thrown off by his sudden change of attitude.

           “I’ll be nice, yeah? Get a night to have some fun.” He turned away from her.

           “What are you planning?”

           “Nothing, love, nothing t’all.”

~~~~~~~~~~

           Alfie returned from Birmingham in a fairly sour mood. He was in good standings with the Shelbys. Tommy didn’t trust him but after Louise, they seemed to be on even ground. But while in Birmingham, Alfie realized something that sent him reeling.

           He’d revealed enough to let Tommy know that Louise was his weakness. She was the only chink in his armor, but if hit it would be devastating to the gangster. In his line of work, weaknesses were unacceptable especially if they were public knowledge. It had been seen more than a few times. Tommy Shelby’s weakness was his kin, most important, his son.

           Alfie prided himself in not having his own Achilles heel like Tommy did. No wife, no family, no children. Nothing someone could use as leverage against him. No one could take something of his and make him dance like a puppet for them. If anything he was most protective over his business.

           Now he had Louise. And his first night in Birmingham was a startling moment for him. It was the first time he’d been that far away from her. He woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare. Alfie Solomons rarely had nightmares. If he did, it was about France. And although he indulged in some of his violent tendencies there, he wasn’t immune to the haunting scars that the majority of men left with.

           But this night terror was different. He saw Louise’s hazel eyes. Terrified. She was bleeding but he didn’t see from where. She called out to him but he couldn’t reach her.

           It sent him into such a panic he bolted upright and immediately went for the phone. He rang Ollie’s house until his exhausted and irritated wife answered. Alfie demanded Ollie wake up a group of men to stand guard by Louise’s apartment. He considered calling Louise too but it was well past midnight and she would be asleep. So he sat up trying to get his breath back, slowly rocking with his hands clasped over his mouth. He made a mental list of all the men who would use his adoration for Louise against him. Tommy Shelby didn’t make the list even though he was really the only outsider who knew. The man was cutthroat but he knew what it was like to lose someone he loved. Besides, he seemed to like Louise and wouldn’t involve her in their complicated relationship. But the news could get out and there were more than enough men who had qualms with Alfie. They were twisted enough, angry enough, and greedy enough to easily snatch Louise up off the streets and hold her hostage. It was terrifying because he’d do anything to keep her safe. But it would be a dark day for anyone who even attempted to kidnap her. Alfie was damn sure he wouldn’t sleep until that person, his men, his family, and his future kin paid.

~~~~~~~~~~~

           Exhausted from only a few hours of sleep, Alfie dragged himself out of bed when the phone rang. Thinking it was Ollie reporting to him, he answered gruffly.

           “Yeah?”

           “Why are some of your men watching my apartment?”

           It was refreshing to hear her voice after being in such a frenzied panic over her well being all night. Alfie cleared his throat and sat down at the desk where the phone was sat. “How’d you know they’re my men?”

           “Because I recognize them from the bakery. And you’d be more concerned if I told you there were men outside of my apartment.” Louise replied.

           He grunted and ruffled his hair wearily. “S’protection ‘til I get back, yeah?”

           “Protection from what? I’m fine.”

           He sighed and rested his forearms on his knees, hunching forward. “How’s Cyril, how’s he doing?”

           “You can’t avoid my question, Alfie. You know Cyril is okay, I would call you if he wasn’t.” Her voice was firm. “Is something going on?”

           “No, Lou, nothing’s going on.” He stifled a yawn and pushed away recollections of his nightmare.

           Unconvinced, Louise still decided to change the subject. “I’m having Evelyn fix one of the beads on my dress. The thread was a little loose and I didn’t want it to unravel completely. I’ll be wearing it to the gala.”

           Alfie furrowed his brow. “You’ve already worn that one though.” He was absolutely smitten with Louise in that sapphire blue gown, but he was greedy. He wanted to see her in every color. Every hue. “I’ll buy you a new one, yeah?”

           “I doubt anyone will notice if I’ve worn it before. I want to make good use of it.”

           “How ‘bout red? Or gold?” He straightened up a bit, itching to see her again. Birmingham was depressing enough to him.

           Her soft laugh was like an angel’s song. “Honestly, Alfie.”

           “Think red’ll be nice. You go down to that dress store, right, and find something ya like. Make Ollie accompany you.”

           Louise was still concerned about his sudden paranoia over her protection. “I don’t think Ollie wants to go dress shopping with me.”

           “S’got a wife, he don’t care. Be back late Sunday night, yeah? See you Monday, you call me if you need anything else.”

           A sigh traveled over the telephone wires and Alfie’s stomach twisted up in desire. He closed his eyes tightly and scratched his cheek.

           “See you Monday.”

Tag list: @vehement-care​

Masterpost

Peaky Masterlist

[msbeccieboo]

Arrow 8x01 Brain Dump

So that was....awesome! I’m in shock! Obviously there was a gaping chasm where our precious cupcake used to be, but that’s gonna be the new normal for this last run, so I’m gonna try to not dwell on that too much in these last few reviews. And apparently these aren’t getting any shorter, even without Felicity...

Oliver Jonas Queen: Paragon and bestest hero everrrr (suck it, Larry)

Our beautiful boy 😭😭😭 kicking the episode off with stunning recreations of the very beginnings of the show, first on Lian Yu, then returning to Moira was just *chef kiss*. 

That Oliver is now able to relive these moments, really feeling the feelings and speaking the words that he was previously too broken to, upon his real return from the island, and expressing them to both himself and to those people he can no longer see in his reality, is just heart-breaking and tear-inducing and beautiful and satisfying and all of the feelings. He worked his arse of to get here and to experience it and he fucking well deserves it. Ugh I just made myself cry haha. 

More under the cut...

Stephen’s acting was a beautiful thing to watch in this episode. Oliver’s scenes with all the returning guests were just so perfect; his emotions over seeing Tommy and Moira again 😭, then not-Felicity 😍💔 then Adrian 😂 were all perfect. The scene where he was trying to seek advice or validation from Moira over leaving his family for this mission (even though he couldn’t reveal why) was just heart-breaking. Then when he breaks down (along with us!) and tells Moira he’s sorry, it’s almost like he’s doubly apologising; to Moira for not better understanding her, now that he is a parent himself, and to Felicity, William and Mia, for having to leave them behind.

It was so sad seeing Oliver doubting himself throughout the episode. He tells Diggle that Earth 2 has so many more people alive without him having been there, and then when Moira astutely observes that he is a better man now than before he went on the Gambit, he replies he’s not so sure. How can he still not see this yet?? He’s clearly been away from Felicity for too long! By the end of the episode he seems to be making some headway, at least in realising that he doesn’t need to face this crisis alone, when he delivers an EPIC SPEECH to Tommy “because were only as good as the people in our lives. Every one of those losses brings with it a choice between darkness and light. Make the right choice.” YES MY BOY!!!  I’m totally here for this whole season of Oliver going to other Earths, realising how awesome he is, then imparting this wisdom on everyone by delivering rousing speeches!! The Monitor said it himself in his voice-over, referring to Oliver “the highest [form of heroes] belong to those known as the paragons and they are the only hope of all creation.” YAAAASSSSS!!!! SUCK BALLS LARRY AND LARA!!!

Felicity/Olicity

Just because she’s not there, doesn’t mean she’ll be forgotten! I’m honestly so pleased that the show isn’t going to pretend Felicity doesn’t exist just because Emily left. Her absence is palpable, so the mentions and nods to her character throughout the episode (and the rest of the season, it seems) are very much welcomed!

The fake-out Felicity scene was beautifully done! From Oliver’s initially excited face and “it’s supposed to be red” 😭😭, his “good for her” when he found out that E2 Felicity is a badass mogul, to the OLICITY LOVE FERN on not-Felicity’s desk!!! Perfection!! 

Source: eloquence-of-felicities

Ugh and the scene with Oliver staring lovingly at Felicity and Mia’s photo...HFDSKGHFKJGHDSFKS NOT OK!!! 😭😭😭😭

Source: olicitygifs

Diggle

The Diggle ‘reveal’ was nostalgic perfection:

My live reaction 😂😂

Can I just say that I loved that he’d spoken with Felicity about Oliver, and gone after him. OTA for life!! I’d hoped that that would be the case, but you never can tell with these writers in recent seasons 😬 Dig is a master at advice-giving, and getting Oliver to see the big picture. Oliver needs a friend in this endeavour, and neither Felicity nor Dig would have him doing it alone. Dig’s purpose throughout the whole episode was pretty much to tell Oliver that he’s not alone, his death is not necessarily unavoidable, that he NEEDS TO ACCEPT FRACKING HELP (”that’s the thing about being brothers; you never, ever have to ask”😭😭), and that the whole reason that E2 has gone to crap was because Oliver was not there to protect it! 

In John Thomas Diggle we stan.  

FTA

Our FTA babies were back, and in the lair!! AHKASFHDSDAKF!!!  I loved the power struggle, with the team trying to find the right dynamic, before finally deciding to just make the Olicity baby the leader (duh), or moreover, Mia demanding that things be done her way from now on (apples, falling, tree?). 

Source: oliverxfelicity

William’s little comedic moments just popped. 

Source: olicitygifs

And then his delivery of a Felicity-worthy pep-talk to Mia had me falling infinitesimally more in love with him. This is the spin-off team we need to see!!

We finally met JJ Diggle who appears to be irredeemably (not likely) evil, and very handsome to boot, leading the Deathstroke Crew (baby Sara would have NEVER 😒😒). I was hoping for some Old Man Diggle, but alas we were not so lucky this week.  Much as I actually LOVE the flash-forwards, I did feel like they were a little shoehorned in in this episode. There was so much to unpack in the present story, that I kind of just wanted that to continue? 

Special Guests

From Moira’s first words I was crying.

Susanna Thompson continues to be outstanding as Moira, I love her! E2 Moira married Malcolm Merlyn, meaning we got John Barrowman back 😍😍, in a non-evil role (YAAASSSS!). Although there was no mention of Robert, given that we know on this Earth he returned from Lian Yu, and was later unmasked as the Green Arrow?? Anyway, this new Queen-Merlyn union officially made Oliver and Tommy brothers 😭😭 Oh btw.....TOOOOOMMMYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! AGSHAGFKJSAGFJKAG!!! Back, alive and kicking (literally) and gorgeous as ever. Ugh I just adore my Merlyn men 😍😍😍😍

Source: feilcityqueen

Tommy turning out to be the Dark Archer on this earth is all we had ever wanted to see!! Evil!Tommy is a thing of beautiful fanfiction dreams!! (I also lolled at the OTT, campy, cowering Malcolm, as Oliver realised it wasn’t him!) Not to mention this scene, that re-lit our Toliver flames in the most perfect way 🔥🔥

This moment was so good that I can just about forgive Oliver’s historically inaccurate non-shirtless state 😒😒 (strike 1)

In trying to track down the dwarf star shizzle at Queen-Merlyn Enterprises👀 , Oliver stumbles across the E2 GA who turns out to be ADRIAN CHASE!!  YAAASSSS!!!! It was great to have him back, in the growly S1 Oliver-esque fashion! E2 GA also enjoys the salmon ladder....Stephen really played us all when he told us that we’d see the salmon ladder in episode 1 😡😡 (strike 2 Steve, you’re on your last warning!) I loved Oliver’s little inside joke with himself when he said to Adrian “maybe I’m just 10 steps ahead of you” lolololol!!

Thea OD’d on Vertigo and passed away on E2, which was sad, but meaningful, as it spear-headed Tommy’s war on The Glades, much like Rebecca’s murder did for Malcolm on Earth 1. (Psst, it’s ok though, our Speedy’s back in a few weeks).

Superfluous Cast

Rene and Dinah remain disloyal rats on this Earth, and with no Oliver to mentor them, they turn out evil as well as incompetent and we got to see them taken into custody at the end of the episode...wah-wah-wahhh!! I would definitely be happy with this nice small amount of relevance/screen time for them moving forwards, please and thank you. Let’s let our boys shine for the last few outings!

Black Siren’s presence in the episode was thankfully small, and although she was saved in the end, presumably to go on to help Oliver and Dig (she kinda owes them now), I’m hoping that we continue with this minimal exposure, because, as much as I enjoyed her last season, with no Felicity to make her likeable, I’m not feeling her. I also laughed for a disproportionately long amount of time that her ‘iconic’ Pretty Bird moment that we all heard about beforehand came from Adrian, not her ‘Ollie’ 😂😂

That ending

Following on from the press previews and interviews leading up to the episode, there were comments along the lines of Oliver suffering a devastating loss, and that the Arrowverse would never be the same etc etc, regarding the end of the episode. Well...I have to say I just wasn’t as ‘shooketh’ or as moved by the ending as the previews implied I would be 😬 I mean of course the ending was awful; a whole Earth was erased, and Oliver having to see Moira/Tommy die at the end (especially after managing to redeem Tommy) must have been devastating for him in the moment, but the thing is, I’m not all that invested in Earth 2, so the magnitude of it didn’t really affect me that much. Maybe I’m just a cold-hearted bitch my heart has simply been irrevocably broken by 7x22. Anyway, I’m sure Oliver will be back and fighting fit again next week 😂

When MG, Beth and even Stephen had been throwing around the dreaded term ‘love letter to the fans’ I was more than scared about this season 😬 but the episode really did play out that way in my eyes, something I’m hoping that they are able to continue over the few remaining episodes. So yes, I lost my shit and (begrudgingly) loved this episode 😂😂 It was easier to deal with the lack of Felicity when they had thrown the (brand new, super high-spec) kitchen sink of guest stars at the episode. So it will be interesting to see how we fare over the next few episodes, where the guest stars won’t be such scene-stealers.

Thank you to the amazing gif-makers 💗💗💗 It’s so wonderful to see beautiful new scenes again! Any uncredited gifs are mine.

[ruwithmeguys]

I was asked recently: do you enjoy writing for ll as much as you do for Felicity? You write Felicity like you can hear her thoughts. But then you go and write ll’s character and you manage to keep her IN character without making her bitchy and without pulling her to bits. Do you like writing for her?

Beyond being hugely flattered – SO FLATTERED, MY GOODNESS – and mildly sceptical – I’ve never thought I was anything special in terms of writing ability but I do love keeping characters IN character whilst placing them in new situations – I can answer with complete confidence that, yes. I like writing for LL’s character.

I like knowing just how skewed her perception is. I enjoy writing that perception because in many ways, it’s incredibly indulgent. In reality, no one who wants to be loved and who wants a family should think like LL does. It’s a point of view that’s singular and therefore, interesting. But after writing for her, I truly don’t think the writers knew what to do with their creation, and she was a creation. Just because her name is LL doesn’t make her any less of a creation than Sara. Comic LL? Well, she’s married to a cop; ergo the name Lance. This cop is abusive. Her personality is also very different and she isn’t a lawyer. The writers tried very hard to make LL morally perfect but destroyed it when they realised she’d have to compromise said morals to love Oliver. So they gave her a set of standards that no one could reach and yet had her break them every time Oliver was mentioned. However instead of showing real guilt or shame or SOMETHING that would enable her some character progression, they replaced it wit superiority. It made her a selfish character who were supposed to believe is the opposite.

But you see, well written characters – characters with substance, who aren’t there for a plot purpose but as a defined personality on a show – can be selfless and still do selfish things. They can compromise their integrity and still be morally righteous. They can be good and yet see the virtue in violence.

I give thee Felicity Smoak.

Now KC did her own damage to LL in S1 – she was very determined to make her into something she wasn’t too fast because she clearly believed this show had been created to turn her into a mask wielding superhero who’s better than everyone. But the writers are the main problem – them and the exec’s at CW who threw an actress at the show because she had a contract with them. She was SO not right for the character, but they didn’t care. She’d starred in Supernatural so her name had merit.

(just a hypothetical: if Emily had been cast as LL, would she have possessed the skill to portray the character in a way that could make us like her? I think so, though the writers made this obscenely hard with their contradictory writing. Most would have a lot of difficulty. Still, I’m almost certain that if she HAD been, Oliver would have married the BC: a BC a foot shorter with pretty blue eyes… you know like in the comics *eye roll* Her COMIC BOOK fans ignore even the comic book details.)

ANYWAY!

It’s kind of fascinating really: I made sure to watch the episodes and ingest everything about the characters I write. I don’t always do this and it’s been a while so it’s time for a re-watch (any excuse really) but a few things became incredibly clear once I started. I have a few of Felicity’s habits: I talk to myself in tangents of weirdness and get flustered/blush super easily. I’m not a genius by any definition (mostly I'm a gigantic dumbass) but I wear glasses with my hair in a ponytail and I’m not generally the first person seen in a crowded room so to speak, plus I overthink/second guess everything I say. Like Oliver, I blame myself for everything and worry too much. I’m more solitary than most. I want to save everyone but have no idea how to. I love deeply.

I don’t love easily.

I’m not like Olicity. But when I write, I sort of become them. Or I attempt to. I feel my way through each scene and it becomes quite personal, which would explain the sentence breaks where I intermingle thought and movement with descriptions and speech.

Then I started writing for ll… now, I like to remain unbiased when I analyse a character. I don’t like ll. I don’t appreciate the way she was written in any season – I’m referring to E1 LL, E2 I’ll talk about later – nor did I enjoy KC’s horrific portrayal. It’s no secret, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be fair to her character.

I came up with three literary explanations of her character and this is one of them: the medium between the other two, from ll's point of view (please remember I am at work and therefore cannot write as well as I would like) -

She’s ordinary. Totally ordinary. A normal person who lives, works, eats, sleeps. We can empathise.

She’s part of a nuclear family and she knows her family loves her. She loves them. They’re not a perfect family but they are a good one.

She has an over exaggerated sense of how attractive and intelligent she is, exacerbated by how many people have told her that she’s smart and beautiful. She knows because she’s been told: she’s never questioned her looks or her intelligence and it’s the start of all the bad really. It was reinforced by becoming friends with the two richest kids in the city.

So she’s never had a reason to doubt herself. Not ever. There’s nothing in the world that ever could.

As for how this affects the story:

Through illogical and extremely unlikely circumstances – never explained for two reasons: it wasn’t important enough to the writers and they wrote themselves into many a corner with ll’s character as they tried to fit her into a universe that didn’t want to house their forced creation – she became good friends with Tommy Merlyn and Oliver Queen.

Oliver Queen makes her do the one thing she’s never done: doubt herself.

Surely she’s pretty enough for him to choose her. Smart enough. Good enough. Strong enough. Enough. She’s ENOUGH for him. They fit each other. He’s the Romeo to her Juliette. She’s aiming high and look, he’s right there: her partner along the way to the top. Her partner and her WAY. Her financer. Her ego boost. Her meal ticket. Her proof that she’s ENOUGH. Her proof that she’s relevant. That she’s BETTER-

THAN. HER. SISTER.

Because, gosh: LL’s world is dictated, her entire sense of self validated, by the existence of Sara Lance. I kid you not. I found this in the show… and it should make you feel sympathy for her. Should make you care. But she destroys our ability to give a crap because of how she handles everything with her sister.

Sara, who is daddy’s girl.

Sara who Oliver keeps leering over and not the older, better sister.

Sara who her mother sides with all the time.

Sara with the multitude of friends.

Sara with the better body.

Sara. Sara. Sara.

Why? Laurel does everything right: she follows the rules, does as she’s told, has become the role model. How does Sara keep BEATING her?

Is it… because Sara takes what she wants and gets away with it? She takes other people’s boyfriends - Laurel’s seen her do this (Arrow S1.5 comics) - she swindles her father for more allowance, her mother gives her free reign over the phone line… she’s selfish.

Well then, so shall LL be.

Suddenly Sara’s grounded-

And it WAS the right thing to do, Sara was too young and she didn’t want her heralded as a slut so soon. Ollie wouldn’t want anything to do with her anyway, but the way she throws herself at him is embarrassing, right?

-And the ‘Ollie Express’ is open season. He says yes. They have sex. Now she has him. She’s wanted by Ollie Queen and he’s settling down for HER. No one else and certainly not Sara. She’s beaten Sara and she’s assured a future for herself. His mother adores her. She fits in.

She can breathe freely again.

And Oliver, he’s so much more than people think: he’s sweet and kind- so what if he’s not that smart, she’s smart enough for the both of them. He’s reliable and honest. He makes her feels beautiful and wanted. All is right in the world. No matter what happens, she’ll always be the one who became Oliver’s first real girlfriend, because she’s special to him. She’s SPECIAL. She’s what he-

Except he’s having an affair behind her back.

With Sara.

Sara who she’d beaten.

Sara who isn’t as smart or as pretty or as EVERYTHING as LL.

Sara who’d gotten on a boat with her boyfriend.

She’s humiliated, but more than that… she’s confused. It’s nonsensical.

She’s everything. She’s perfect. She’s the ONE so… Oliver was happy. He was ready to move forwards with her. Why did he do this? Why does Sara keep beating her? She’s BETTER than Sara.

She’s better than all of them.

If they can't see that, see her... then why do they matter?

And then the realisation: she’s hard done to. She’s the scorned woman. She’s the one betrayed. She’s the one who’s grieving. She’s the one who deals with it in the best way. She’s the one who’ll walk out of this on top.

Oliver and Sara lost at sea? That’s nothing. NOTHING. She’s the one who got hurt and she never deserved it. They should have respected her. Should have loved her more. Ollie deserved to die at sea.

And so… an impetus is born: it generates into an unbreakable mind-set, separated from reality, one that we have to put up with until she dies. Literally.

Narcissism. It’s almost a disorder.

And it’s in the most impossible form: she sets a deliberately high standard for the world to attempt to reach and she gets to watch from up high as everyone tries to touch her seat. A standard that everyone must follow EXCEPT her. If anyone fails to meet it for whatever reason (and they always do), then they fail her expectations and therefore they fail her (this was admitted by KC herself, just fyi). They’re no longer good enough.

But she is though. She’s the ONLY one good enough. She loves her family, but she’s better than them. They’re all liars and stealers and selfish – Sara – betrayers – mom – neglecters – dad – cheaters and disappointments – Ollie – and unworthy – Tommy.

She doesn’t need them, not ever. How could she when she’s better? How could they ever meet her wavelength? How could they ever understand her mission, her heart, when they can’t meet her at the top?

But then her father, who can’t appreciate her because he isn’t capable of seeing her the way he should, makes her feel GUILT about her choice to be a DA.

Uh oh. Suddenly; she doesn’t sound righteous. She sounds like she’s becoming a lawyer for money-

NO. no, LL doesn’t do that, right? She’s better, so she can’t. She can’t fall beneath her FATHER’S set of standards because her own are so much better and she doesn’t have to meet her own because they’re for everyone else on the planet who are undeserving and have yet to face her justice. No one can outrun her justice, her standards.

Except herself.

But her father’s seen something in her, something twisted. The call of money and power and status and it’s a filthy thing isn’t it? Greed. Lust. Covetous.

She becomes the expert at coveting what others have, even as she judges them.

But she has to hide the filth: she’s better than her demons because she judges even them. Her father knows nothing. He doesn’t see her, so how could he? She’ll help him see her.

She joins CNRI to prove him wrong. She’s the pure one again whilst her father’s the alcoholic who can’t get over the daughter who left instead of adoring the daughter who stayed. The daughter who fights.

She sleeps with Tommy because she can, because she’s needy, because he’s Ollie’s best friend; the closest thing to the man she loves and hates and no one need ever know the notch she tied that night to her bed post.

Ollie did it with Sara after all. He could have had the bed post instead of just the notch. He died before he could realise that.

But it happens again and again for months and she has to admit, it’s thrilling aiming down. Obeying an urge for once and she needs the release: getting a job with CNRI immediately after law school instead of the requisite two years in a firm is impossible, but not for LL. Still, it’s tiring and it feels unrewarding, which is why she also needs the ego boost. She needs the validation, that it isn't all for nothing.

This way, she’s both fucking her past goodbye and giving it the finger.

She stops once she gets the job. Stepping stones, all of it. She doesn’t need Tommy, doesn’t need her father, doesn’t need law school anymore because she doesn’t obey the rules like everyone else HAS to.

When Oliver returns, she ignores him. He should have died: it was his punishment for forsaking their happiness.

He can’t touch her anymore; he can only watch from afar. She likes him watching. Likes him seeing exactly what he lost and can never have, what he destroyed.

Sara died because of him.

Her father became a drunk because of him.

Her mother left because of him.

She had to sleep with Tommy because of him.

All whilst he sunbathed on some island somewhere. And look, he doesn’t have to work to earn a living: he’s loaded. He doesn’t have to fight for anything, doesn’t have to strive or push like she does-

She’s envious. And she misses him. And if she misses him, he must miss her. They used to be so happy-

Wait… He suffered on the island?

He was punished?

If he suffered… does that mean he learned from his mistakes and that’s why he apologised?

He earned his stay on the island so maybe… he’s earned the right to forgiveness?

Suddenly he’s too tempting. She could have him again: he’s telling her she could. Oliver Queen, playboy billionaire, learned his lesson and wants her.

Of course he does.

She’s the best woman alive.

It’s the biggest ego boost of her life; a wave of chemicals that carries her away, that makes her kiss him. That scares her because she thought she was strong enough to not ant him again. EXCITEDLY because if he’s also the vigilante who went to HER for help-

But then… he reveals that he’s damaged and still a playboy and she has to retract once he fails her standards again.

A damaged man who won’t pursue her? Not her problem. She’s not interested. That man isn’t her Ollie. She'll check in again when he isn't quite so damaged.

Yet, even as Tommy worms into her, she keeps Oliver in mind.

It truly stuns her when he gives them his blessing. He… he was supposed to want her, to show reluctance.

Why does he look happy for them? She’s not.

He’s giving up the chance of them, and he’s SMILING?

How can he be? Doesn’t it torture him? She’s choosing his best friend over him, FEEL SOMETHING. FIGHT.

But he doesn't.

And he is changing, improving. Making waves - she’s taking notice.

So let him date lesser women, they won’t last and they DON’T.

HAH.

In the meantime, she’s fighting crime. The vigilante NEEDS her – he hasn’t asked anyone else for help: there’s only her. Tommy loves HER. Ollie loves her. Her father keeps butting in because he’s afraid for her safety and he’s realised just how prominent a figure she’s becoming, how important she is, but he’s too late to have a say in her life and he must watch her advance.

It all revolves around her now, as it should have before. She's the lead of her own story. They’re all realising how right she was, how they never should have put her second and not first. How they should have never made her feel less, and it’s ridiculous how she ever let them. They were all wrong.

She was made for greatness.

And then Ollie tells her everything she already knew about herself and it’s a king-size aphrodisiac: he thinks the same way she does. He knows she was always the best, always the ONE. He’s reached her level. And together they can soar above all others. They’re in love and will evolve and will lead the city into the future together. It's all slotting into place.

But he’s not her; he’s not righteous so she can ignore him when he gives her solid advice about staying out of the Glades. He’ll learn that she knows better, is better. That the world makes way for her and not the other way around-

Tommy dies.

It’s not because of the way she thinks. It's not because she was wrong. It’s NOT.

It was his choice, not hers. She doesn’t have to listen, but he should have. She never wanted him to come get her, she was waiting for Oliver.

And Oliver does come to her apartment: they reminisce. They’re together and that’s all that matters, so she starts planning. He’ll move in with her, there’ll be a marriage and move into the mansion-

Ollie leaves.

Again.

He left. He LEFT. HE-

No, she IS his ONE and ONLY. SHE IS. But the Hood and Malcolm ruined everything. It’s their fault Tommy died, that Ollie left. It wasn't because she was wrong or that she wasn't/isn't enough.

Their fault, not hers.

So why… does she feel guilty?

She knows really, but she pushes it back, away. Admitting to it would irrevocably damage her belief system.

And… she’s always right. And because she’s right, she leads a righteous charge against the hood, because it’s all his fault. Tommy died, ollie left, she’s feeling guilty and she keeps drinking- it’s all someone else’s fault!

Except it’s not.

It’s hers.

She'd been wrong.

Her world view crashes in on itself.

Nothing happened the way it was supposed to. She has no defence because she should have never needed one. That’s what being superior means.

Drugs and alcohol. How the mighty have fallen. No one can know… but even if they do, it doesn’t matter because she’s allowed to grieve like this. It’s grieving. Not shame. She's allowed to drink and change and be self-destructive. And everyone else doesn’t get it, they aren’t being fair.

Tommy dies.

Ollie left again.

She loses her job.

Her best friend gets a position as DA, well she’s not her best friend anymore: how dare she achieve greater. Johanna was supposed to help her, not step past her. Instead, LL is left behind and if her friend won't help her, then what good is she? She doesn’t need Johanna; she doesn’t need anyone.

She’s stronger. Better.

But then Sara comes back…

Sara died. It was her punishment. She’s not serving her punishment anymore. And she's come back, looking like she'd been on a six year pleasure cruise. That isn't fair at all. She’s unworthy. She ruined LL’s life. Her death was justice. How can the source of all her problems be alive…

And beautiful

Vibrant

Intelligent

Attractive to Oliver

Beloved by her father- her father who turned against her again in favour of Sara

Sara who went through the worst and resurfaced out untouched. Clean. As if SHE IS stronger, better. More.

How can I be like that?

She can’t.

Somewhere, deep down… she knows she can’t.

And she’s humbled by Sara who made her see how much she’d fallen… and for now, Sara can be the better of the two. She can pick up the slack and LL can watch, proud of her baby sister. She can give herself a break and compare others to her sister. Measure them by Sara’s measuring stick.

But it won’t be long at all until she’s BACK. Until she’s just as bright.

Until she’s better than Sara.

Until Sara needs her.

Until her father needs her.

Until Oliver needs her, because he stopped looking at her when she fell from on high.

She wants to return, to be part of that world.

But Sara is killed before she can become as beautiful. And it’s so clear that becoming as beautiful is impossible for LL. It too hard to digest that Sara is gone: Sara, the perfect fruition of a Lance daughter. The perfect her. The version of her that LL wished she'd been. So she’ll take on the mantle to honour Sara…

And in becoming Sara, she’s able to be more again. Be better again. Get back on that high saddle once more and she’s missed it up there. It feels right. It feels REALLY good. She’s been watching and learning… and her covetous nature had never died. She can’t be as bright as Sara.

So she’ll just become darker. A better Canary, never mind that canaries aren't dark.

She’ll wear Sara’s suit but she’ll be more. She’ll own it and make it her own, because this was always meant to be. It was never supposed to be Sara.

SHE is the justice you can’t run from.

This is the world she was made for. Oliver’s world. It was meant to be. So what if he’s angry at her presence: it’s because he cares about her, because he loves her. She'll fight him for a spot. He let Sara fight with him because he didn’t love her as much, but he loves LL too much. That’s why they aren’t together. Sometimes it’s just too painful to risk.

And it’s the best therapy. No more drugs. It’s addictive and it’s painful, but it’s better than anything else- in fact, it’s better than sex. Better than Oliver-

Oliver… Left?

With Felicity?

Because… he just wants her. HER. Out of everyone. He’s casting aside the hood… for another woman.

He and ll: they're supposed to fighting together, THAT’S how this works.

Then it’s just a phase. He’ll return and fight and realise he can’t live without the hood. He can’t without LL.

Except it’s not working, her fighting. She’s not changing the city so much as watching over it. She’s not moving forward. There’s a void.

There’s no more Sara.

She needs Sara. She needs Sara more than Ollie. The world made more sense with Sara. She might be the BC but Sara showed her the way. Her compass is gone. Her light is gone. And now LL is lost. If Sara’s back, she’ll feel better. There’ll no more void. No more emptiness. And maybe her life can WORK again.

And it’s okay, because she needs it. It’s okay to use Thea, because they’re friends and LL is loved by all. It's okay if disturbing the dead because, she wants it badly enough. It’s okay that Sara kills someone because it’s for the greater good: it’s for LL.

And with Sara alive somewhere, Oliver being with someone else doesn’t feel so bad. They’re soul mates after all, maybe one day…

And then he and Felicity break up and it’s PERFECT: no more Felicity in the basement, they don’t need her for him to stare at and Sara is alive. Oliver is TRAINING her. HE needs HER. Trusts her. LOVES her. WANTS HER.

So she suggests sex and-

He… is totally unreceptive. Isn’t… remotely interested… isn’t even remotely forward.

But… he’s in love with her and no longer tied down to Felicity. This should work. It’s been leading to this, right?

She has it all: she’s queen of the basement, Felicity is elsewhere and it doesn’t matter – so what if Thea isn’t talking to her, if Sara is out of the country. She and Oliver will fight crime together and maybe he’ll learn to love her again. Maybe he’ll-

Never. Love. Her. Not the way she loves him.

Because there’s just NOTHING there for him with her. He's alone even when he's with her and she knows what that's like.

Maybe he never could reach high enough to her again.

Maybe he knows he’ll never be good enough…

Or maybe... she’s just that conceited and Felicity… Felicity is just THAT wonderful,  that necessary to him because she is, isn’t she? She was there when LL wasn’t:

Felicity believed when LL didn’t

Felicity cared when LL didn’t

Felicity led him to places LL couldn’t

Felicity is, in many ways, stronger than LL and Sara combined and that truth stings

Felicity changed him without trying to

Felicity made him better… and ll can already see the cracks in him where Felicity’s absence has hurt him.

Without Felicity, Oliver will fall: LL's presence won't stop that.

Without Felicity, the city will crumble… because in the end, ll’s just a tiny pawn in a huge movement that she hasn’t contributed much to and she admits this finally to herself and to Oliver. The dirty truth.

It was all to feel alive, not to SAVE lives. It was all for her. But that doesn’t mean she’ll just let Oliver live without her because it’s thanks to her that he got on that boat: she helped create him! She’s responsible. She’s the ALBATROSS and she will never leave him. She changed his life forever: she left her indelible hand-print: SHE IS IMPORTANT DAMMIT.

The most important.

FLATLINE.

The end.

O_O

Yeah.

There's a less harsh explanation for LL:

She’s defensive due to the bad way she was treated after believing that her life was perfect, to her own detriment. She doesn’t have the kind of personality others can enjoy and rather than try to gain friends, she decides to simply be herself no matter how she comes across.

And there’s a much harsher explanation:

LL, at heart, isn’t a very nice person. She knows this so she builds an image that opposes the inner her. Addictions make her feel better about who and what she is, but they also help her to manage the stress of being, inside, the kind of person who doesn’t feel the empathy she should. There's an image to maintain so that no one knows the truth. Becoming a vigilante is more about how it feels to break rules and gain the kind of power only a mask can provide, than it is about helping people. In the end, she’s able to gain that vindictive pleasure of knowing that Oliver will never be without her. And every version of a canary has caused Oliver nothing but grief which is fine… because he broke her. Deep down, she just wants to be bad without being judged for it. Without facing consequences, which is why black siren fit the bill so much more than E1 LL ever did.

Again, this is just an opinion and a bit of fun when writing fanfic-

Anyway, Jessica's shutting up now because that’s enough out of me for one day. Back to work.

[spaztronautwriter]

The Proposal: Ch. 6 (an Olicity fic)

Summary: When Felicity Smoak finds herself in a bind, she enlists the help of her assistant Oliver Dearden to help her keep her from being deported and losing her job. The problem is, in order to do so, they kind of have to get married…

A/N: Remember when I was trying to update this every week? Haha, good times. Well it’s not the next chapter of The Donor but at least I finished something today.

Read Chapter: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six

Read on AO3

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Oliver silently led her upstairs to his bedroom. It was a long, awkward walk, but Felicity was too jittery to try to make conversation herself.

She’d just kissed her assistant. And, yeah, sure. She was the one who decided to marry him for a green card, but that was a more theoretical concept. It wasn’t real. It hadn’t been real until she’d felt his lips close over hers, soft but insistent and leaving her dazed in front of his entire family. She hadn’t had a kiss like that in years. Oh, who was she kidding. She hadn’t ever had a kiss like that. She couldn’t seem to stop running the tip of her tongue over her lips in an attempt to chase away the tingles Oliver had left behind.

“Here it is,” Oliver said, opening a door and she hurried inside, careful not to bump into him.

It was a large room, bigger than any bedroom Felicity had ever seen before. It was nearly as big as Felicity’s entire apartment. And, of course, there was only one bed. She’d known there would be, but she’d been trying not to think too hard about what their sleeping situation would look like. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it. She turned, noticing an open door that led to, what she assumed was, the bathroom. She pushed the door wider, flicking on the lights.

“Wow,” she said, spinning on her heel to take in the space. “I think I saw this place on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous once.”

Oliver paid her no mind, just rolled his eyes, then moved across the room to a bar cart that sat near a gorgeous bay window. He poured two glasses of what was probably very expensive whiskey, handing one to her.

“Sorry. No tequila,” he said, avoiding her eyes. Or maybe she was avoiding his.

She hated whiskey. That didn’t stop her from practically guzzling half the glass. The bite of it slid down the back of her throat, but she was just glad to have a distraction from the tingling in her lips. Oliver, meanwhile, was sipping his drink casually, like a normal human being.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Felicity said, over the rim of her glass. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Oliver watched her for a long, uncomfortable moment; eyebrows raised, lips pursed in a half amused, half irritated smirk. “We just kissed, Felicity,” he informed her as if she wasn’t already extremely aware. “I thought maybe you might have some feelings about that.”

Sighing, she brought her other hand up, fingering the glass as she turned towards the bed. “If my feelings are it was awkward and I’d rather not talk about it, then yeah.”

His eyes ran over her, and, even facing away from him, she couldn’t help but feel he was seeing more than she was comfortable with. “Well,” he said eventually. “You really sold it, at least. Pretty sure my family won’t have any suspicions after that.”

“Good,” she said, taking another sip of whiskey before setting it down on the nightstand. “Maybe we won’t have to do it again.” Her eyes widened when she realized what she’d said and she whipped around to face him. “Kiss! I meant kiss, not it, like… you know.”

He grinned at her accidental innuendo, but otherwise left it alone. “We’ll probably have to kiss occasionally. Married people do that sometimes.”

“I know that,” she snapped, her frustration with herself rising. Because she really hadn't thought this plan through. She hadn’t given herself the time, the board hadn’t. Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. This is just… it’s a lot.”

“It was your idea.” It wasn���t judgmental or anything, but Felicity still felt embarrassment rush through her veins, tinting her cheeks, at his words.

“Your parents clearly don’t like me,” she said, hanging her head.

“That’s not true.” She looked up to see him move towards her. He sat on the edge of the bed, then patted the space beside him. She hesitated, but eventually joined him. “My dad likes you,” he went on. “It’s me he’s not a fan of.”

Felicity snorted. “I noticed that.”

Oliver sighed and looked down at his hands. He rubbed his finger and thumb together, a nervous tick she’d noticed back when they first began working together.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” he said, with a small shake of his head. “My mom, though.” He glanced up at her, a tiny smirk lifting the corner of his lips. “My mom doesn’t like you.”

Felicity glared. “Yeah, I noticed that, too.”

He laughed, and some of the tension dissipated. Enough that Felicity felt more like herself.

“Don’t worry, she doesn’t like anybody. And I’m pretty sure she’s mostly mad at me for not introducing you sooner. And for not coming home more often. And for not keeping in touch more.” He shrugged. “She’ll be alright once you get to know her.”

“Yeah, except for the fact that I’m literally using her son for a green card. She’s going to hate me for eternity. Even after we’re divorced.”

He grinned. “Probably.”

“That is not helpful, Oliver,” she said, swatting his shoulder.

“Tommy and Thea like you, at least. As long as you have their approval my mom will come around. Besides, you won’t have to see her much after this weekend.”

She sighed, falling back on the bed. “I didn’t think this plan through, did I?”

“You really didn’t,” he teased, “but it’s too late now. We have to make the best of it. And that will mean making nice with my parents for the weekend and occasionally having to kiss one another.”

“Ugh,” she groaned, throwing an arm over her eyes.

“Ugh?” Oliver repeated incredulously. The bed dipped next to her and she looked over to see him leaning back on one arm beside her. “You thought that kiss was ugh?”

“I mean, if the circumstances had been different and you weren’t my assistant and hadn’t kissed me in front of your entire family then... maybe it would have been better.” She did her best to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks and the fact that she was lying through her teeth. That kiss had been anything but ugh. The fact that she would be expected to kiss him again without completely embarrassing herself was the part she wasn’t happy about.

Oliver just smirked down at her like he could see right through her lies. That’s when she realized the position they were in; her lying on her back across his bed with him leaning down beside her, nearly hovering over her. His smirk faded and she guessed he was realizing it, too. He’d just started to sit up when there was a knock on the door and Thea’s muffled voice broke the silence.

“Ollie, Mom says dinner’s at six. Do you guys want to hang with me and Tommy till then or are you too busy?”

Felicity could hear the innuendo in Thea’s tone and it honestly just made things so much worse.

“You should go,” she said, sitting up and putting some distance between them.

“Are you sure?” Oliver’s expression was wary, but she could tell he wanted to go. She was suddenly aware that he hadn’t seen his sister in a while and it was, at the very least, partially her fault for not allowing him more time off.

“Yeah,” she said waving him off. “I still have a bunch of paperwork to go over before Monday. Go on, tell them I’m tired or something. I’ll be down in time for dinner.”

He nodded and stood up, but said, “I can stay and help if you need me—“

“Oliver, go,” she said, hopping up and walking over to her suitcase which someone had oh so helpfully left beside the closet door. “Hang out with your sister while you can, because I’m probably going to keep you pretty busy for the rest of the night.”

It took her a moment to register what she said, and once she did she slammed her eyes shut. She always managed to find the very worst way to say things, but somehow she was still mortified every single time. She turned just in time to catch Oliver’s amused smile before he turned for the door.

“I’ll be back up to get you for dinner that way you don’t forget and starve.”

She scoffed as he left, just as a matter of principle, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. On a good day she could get lost in her work for hours. Today she was trying decide if she could get away with burying herself in it the rest of the weekend.

[peakyxshelby]

Game on.

Part 1

Finn Shelby x reader 

Request: Hi.Can you something where u are Alfie's sister,Tommy sends Finn to use you for info.u found out when hearing Finn and some blinders talking about it at the Garrison,you're heartbroken cuz he was your 1 and all that.A long fic please or a II parts xx

Author's note: I got so carried away so it is super long and there will be a part 2 very soon. Also i did it from the reader's point of view and Finn’s do you guys like it this way or not? Please let me know thank you :)

“I won’t let you present me like a piece of meat to those fucking gypsy’s” You shout at your brother Alfie as he stands blocking the doorway of your kitchen.

“You’re being  a tad over dramatic (Y/N), William will be at the dinner too. It’s to show peace, finally some fuckin’ peace.” Your brother always struggled with your stubbornness and inability to compromise with him. Since your parents passed Alfie was left in charge of you and Your brother Will, and admittedly he struggled. Especially with you, you were a fiery girl from a very young age and a handful to say, the least.

“So telling me to pick out something distracting is just for peace yeah? Not to use me to lure them into your traps huh?” You were clearly agitated by your brother, this wouldn’t be the first time he had used you as part of his bigger plan. Granted, he would never put you in any harms way but, he did what he had to in order to get the ‘best for the business’. Alfie sighed massaging his temples with his fingers and squinting his eyes.

“This is not up for discussion, you will be going wear whatever the fuck you want,” he said frustrated finally giving in and walking out of the kitchen leaving you by yourself.

You were stood outside the doors of the room the lunch meeting was being held in, underneath the bakery. Ollie was also dressed for the occasion as well as a few other of your brothers men. Then there were the men that were still in those scruffy apron clearly there for some sort of protection. You saw your brothers coming out of Alfie's office and making their way towards you.

“Alf, please do not tell me I am the only female here?” You looked at him, angry, again.

“If i told you that it would have been even harder to get you to come, can’t show these gypsies that we have a weak family bond can we?” You huffed as he lead you through the door with his hand on your shoulder.

And that’s when you saw her, the girl walked into the room and it lit up. Her swayed loosely by her back as Alfie led her into the room. Her black skirt and the bright yellow top was not something you would normally see girls round your end wearing, but my god was she pulling it off. You hadn’t realised how much you were staring until Arthur leant over.

“That’s the one,” he whispered in your ear as you both started over at the girl who was taking a seat just opposite of the table. You gulped as she looked up at you giving you a sweet smile, my god was she pretty. Her eyes gleamed as the light reflected off of them while she scanned the table looking at the men around her, her eyes stopped on yours. Your eyes widened as you smiled at her, she looked down breaking the eye contact and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Well then Shelby’s, this is my younger brother who some of you have met William,” he turned to Will as he waved up at the boys, they all acknowledged him by nodding their heads. “And this, well this is my darling little sister (Y/N).” He placed his hand on the back of his chair and stared at them in his protective stance. You smiled slightly, you don’t normally get intimidated but something about the young boy with the freckles was making you shy. The dinner went on exchanging conversation about their home in Birmingham and in yours here. It sounded like friendly chat but it wasn’t, you knew it wasn’t. Alfie had a plan and they probably did too, the conversation wasn’t personal just polite. As the dinner finished up Alfie grunted clearing his throat.

“Well boys, I will see you at the club in an hour or so, drinks will be on the house if you let them know your name.” Alfie stood up shaking some of the older men’s hands and patting the younger two on the shoulder before placing his hand protectively on your shoulder again and leading you out the room. When you got out into the corridor and out of earshot from any Shelby Alfie asked, “now that wasn’t so bad was it?” You shook your head. Granted, it was boring but nowhere near what the normal meetings were like.

“Why were you so quiet in there anyway? Never thought I'd see the day (Y/N) bloody Solomon’s would finally shut her mouth,” Your brother will teased as you turned around swatting at him for being cheeky.

“Wasn’t in the best mood, A rum down me and a boogie on the dancefloor and I’ll be fine,” You said.

“You aren’t coming to the club, too dangerous tonight with those scummy blinders creeping about. And especially no rum.” You rolled your eyes at Alfie giving you more orders.

“It’s not up for discussion Alf,” you sung as you skipped down the hall and out the door.

You sat at a back booth of the club with Michael and Isaiah, Isaiah was asking what the meeting was about earlier as he wasn’t allowed to attend. It was a strictly family meeting. But you weren’t listening your eyes were too busy darting about to try and find (Y/N).

“The girl Finn or me has to try and seduce is a right looker though,” Michael laughed sipping on his whiskey. Shit. You forgot that the task was going to be given to either you or Michael depending on how she reacts to both of you.

“She’s mine Gray,” You state bluntly giving him a challenging look.

“Oh really?” he said sarcastically back. “Game on.” The two of you were both staring at each other, tensions high as Tommy and Arthur sat down with you in the booth.

“So boys, you remember what you have to do yeah?” Tommy asked seeing the tension between you two but deciding to ignore it. You nodded as did Michael still looking over Arthur’s shoulder for the girl.“We really need her to fall in love remember, we need as much information as possible and she is Alfie’s weakest point.” You felt uncomfortable knowing that she was going to be used for some big plot and plan. We would be using her for information and when we got it she would be left with no one, betraying her brother and the blinders don’t want to be messing around with a jew.

“These two have a little game going on.” Isaiah laughed snapping your attention back to the conversation. “Seeing which one will win her over by the end of the night.” Tommy looked from you and Michael narrowing his eyes at you both.

“Do not fuck this up.” He warned before standing up and disappearing into the crowd again

You walked into Alf’s club, nodding to the bouncers at the door. They knew exactly who you were, in fact, almost everybody here knew who you were. You hopped up onto a bar stool and started tapping your hand against the bar.

“Miss (Y/N), rum is it?” You smiled and nodded your head at the man as he quickly poured you a glass.

“It’s busy tonight isn’t it,” You say looking around and that’s when you saw him again. The same freckly boy from earlier, his eyes locked on yours immediately. You don’t know what it was about those blue-green eyes and that strong jawline but it was leaving butterflies on your stomach. “

“Miss, I was left a message to give to you. Mr Solomons informed me that you weren’t to go near those men until he arrives,” You sighed as Max followed your gaze over to where the young peaky boys were sat.

“Thank you Max, and if he asks I did OK?” Max gave you a concerned look but just nodded in some sort of silent agreement as he knew there would be no stopping you if you really wanted to.

That’s when you suddenly felt someone’s presence beside you. You turned around and saw the other young Shelby boy that was at the dinner earlier, he was grinning at you. What is it with this family and their damn attractive genes.

“(Y/N) right?” he asked whilst waving over trying to get Max’s attention. You raised your hand slightly and Max came right over. “Irish Whisky please.”

“That’s right,” you said slowly sipping at your glass.

“They act like you’re in charge here,” He said first glancing at Max and then looking around the crowded club where people were pretty much steering clear of you. They knew not to approach you unless you approached them.

“And who says I'm not?” This quick comment made Michael grin at you as you stood swirling his glass. Just as he went to reply a strong hand came down on his shoulder.

“Backup Shelby,” Your brother Will grunted at him. Will was tall, very tall and extremely muscly. You could see Michael was slightly intimidated by him, you raised your eyebrows trying to hide your giggle behind the glass. Michael nodded at you then Will before walking away. “Max not give you the message?” He asked.

“He did, not my fault the boy came up to me,” you sighed signaling for another drink.

“Lucky it was me and not Alf that walked in, and slow down on those rums.” He said before turning around and leaving you to it.

You watched her all night, following her with her eyes wherever she went. You thought you fell in love when you saw her take the dancefloor with her friends. That smile and that laugh could break a thousand hearts. When she finally sat down on the edge of the stage where the band was playing you decided it was time to make a move. You had to take a couple deep draws from your cigarette to calm your nerves, focusing on the smoke filling up in your lungs. You downed your drink and pulled yourself up from the chair and making your way towards her. She smiled when she locked eyes with you, this relaxed you slightly as you sat down carefully next to her.

“Miss Solomons’, I’m Finn,” you introduced yourself trying to stop your hands from shaking as you held it out to shake hers.

“What?” She shouted over to you taking your hand and pulling her face close to yours to try and hear what you were saying. You realised she couldn’t hear you over the loud music making you nervous again. You repeated yourself but she still couldn’t hear you. She stood up quickly and you thought you had blew it until she grabbed your hand and pulled you up as well leading you over to some closed of booths with another bouncer in front of the, She smiled at the tough looking man as he stood out the way for her to enter. She sat down at a chair and you sat across from her.

“I’m so sorry i couldn’t hear a word you were saying. My ears are still ringing,” she laughed as she sorted her hair out. That laugh was something else.

“Well, I just came over to introduce myself, I’m Finn,” she smiled at you.

“Finn huh? Youngest Shelby boy I take it?” You nodded feeling a little self conscious now maybe she was looking for someone older. “You are looking at the youngest Solomons so we have that in common.” You talked for a good hour, obsessed with the way she spoke, the way she looked when she spoke, everything about her. She seemed to be genuinely interested in what you had to say too. You kept catching her staring at you when you were telling a story and looking away when you locked eyes blushing. You don’t know how but you were falling for this girl from the rival family. You didn’t want her to be part of some sort of deal. You almost didn’t want her to be part of this plan, you didn’t want to betray her but family always came first.

And that’s when my brother stormed in. Finn and I had been speaking for hours he was funny, smart, kind and you did really like him. But of course, your perfect night was interrupted.

“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you bloody hell,” Alfie scoffed barging in. “What the fuck is going on here?” he almost sighed looking at Finn who was sitting opposite you.

“We were just talking Alf,” You reassured your brother standing up and smoothing down your skirt. You wanted to stay and chat but you knew that wasn’t going to be an option. He lead you out the room looking back at Finn who was still looking at you in awe.

“He’s harmless,” you started when you got out of the room, “and sweet.”

“Nothing sweet about the gypsies,” Alfie scoffed you could tell he was annoyed at you for worrying him.

You sat bored for the rest of the evening you couldn’t stop thinking about Finn, your brother noticed how mopey you were being.

“You better not be in a mood because I took you away from that bloody Shelby,”

“No Alf, was just nice to speak to someone who wasn’t terrified of me,” You sighed as he wrapped an arm round your shoulder giving you a quick hug. “I’m sorry but it's just how it has to be.” “I know.”

As the Shelby’s packed up to leave for the night you stood at the door shaking their hands as they left, Finn was last and when he shook your hand he placed something in it. You locked eyes with him quickly before looking down at the piece of paper he had put in your hand. By the time you looked back up he was gone. You looked down again trying to see what the handwriting said. It was a number. Finn’s number.

[darklygophilia]

Hey thanks for ur in depth response to my ask. Arrow is a new obsession of mine and LL is someone that I've tried to like. Tbh, I am related to a LL in real life and ur meta on personality of a narcissist ticks every box. LL on real life is unlikeable as well. Thanks for the tip on book of life's stpries. Need to pick your brilliant brain again. Do u think LL was a gold digger or a social climber? Her father called her out on that in 3:14. It's the only reason to take back a cheater.

I’m glad I was able to answer your questions vie mini-meta responses. Lol. :)

Narcissism (which is a behavioral disorder) is very personal for me. My grandmother is a diagnosed Narcissist (look up the effects of a Narcissistic Mother, it will shock you), my birth father & step father were both diagnosed Narcissists & considered abusive (don’t worry they’re  not in my life anymore). But the above also showcases the perfect example of the Cycle of Abuse. B/c my mother was raised by a Narcissistic Mother, she was used to the treatment & abuse was normalized in her life which lead to her falling for two abusive men in her life. We broke that Cycle, but effects still stand. So, when I first watched “Arrow” & observed LL as a character as she was written (not as she necessarily should’ve been) it was very personal for me b/c I know Narcissism, I’ve grown up with it in my life b/c of my grandmother, birth-father & step-father. I know the signs & I know the consequences of having that kind of person (people) in your life.

In terms of LL, I could sympathize even more with Ollie b/c of the way LL viewed him. She put him on a pedestal, but she also associated his behavior with hers & when he didn’t live up to her standards (no one can please a proverbial saint) he would lash out or act out b/c Ollie just could never live up to the expectations & fantasy LL had in her head!!! It’s also about the environment one is raised in. Ollie’s parents often bailed him out & prevented him from facing consequences & so did LL in a way (theres the theory that she KNEW, b/c how could she not, that Ollie was cheating on her & she enabled him by never making him face lasting consequences). Now, Ollie could’ve easily become a Narcissist - he was certainly spoiled enough. However, that possibility changed when he did finally face the consequences of his actions, IE: the Gambit sinking, Sara’s death(s), his father’s suicide, his sister running off with Malcolm do to Oliver & Roy’s lies, his mother’s death, etc. Some of these things Oliver’s blames himself for unnecessarily, while others he is either directly or indirectly responsible for. He faced those consequences, which made him learn, feel, suffer, & essentially learn some humility! LL NEVER faced consequences & was far more delusional (Oliver could see the error of his ways, learned, evolved & changed, LL never grew, evolved, or changed as a character - LL was as delusioned the day she died as she was when the pilot episode aired). Ollie was selfish, but it was typical rich dude, human nature selfishness. Narcissism is selfishness in the MOST extreme & that was what Laurel displayed as a character.

“Do u think LL was a gold digger or a social climber?” Hmmm, I personally don’t like that term b/c it has sexist connotations in a societal sense in the way that’s it’s typically women who are portrayed as gold diggers & not men. With that said, I’d say Laurel lived in a fantasy world (her delusional look on reality, her own distorted reality). She fell in love with not just Ollie (or at least the version of him she envisioned for herself) but I think she also fell in love with his high society world. It’s a very seductive world. In dating Ollie she got used to a certain form of living which was a very aristocratic-like ways of life. I would say that LL’s Narcissism is what initially fueled her attraction to wealthy/powerful men. Laurel, in her way of thinking, believed that she could “change” Ollie. Or that he’d change for her, b/c she LL, a special snowflake, of course he’d change for her. Except he didn’t & LL could never face that reality! To reassure her own self worth she needed to once again connect herself to someone who was of equal standing as Ollie & would, in her logic, treat her as special as she saw herself, hence why she associated herself with Tommy (who was not only Ollie’ equal in money & looks, but was essentially an Ollie substitute in behavior & mannerisms, it probably helped even more that Tommy had history with both LL & Ollie, which brings their connection full circle). This sort of also connects back to how LL treated Felicity & Digg. She treated them like they were “the help.” They weren’t worthy of the greatness of LL. Average men who weren’t wealthy were the same, after all, special snowflake LL deserves the best, so IE: Tommy & Ollie. Laurel saw Tommy/Oliver as ideal men that were perfect for he, worthy of her, & never let that go, which is why we don’t ever see her have no other love interests. I think it had very little to do with LL being a typical “gold digger” & had everything with how LL saw HERSELF, whom she deemed was worthy & deserving of her! IT all goes back to her Narcissism!

But both relationship backfired & LL could never admit the role she played in that destruction nor could she see that she didn’t CHANGE either of them, Tommy & Oliver changed into better men all on their own!  I think her delusion was a bit more complex & couldn’t really be explained away by labeling her as a “gold digger” (she clearly had issues). Every girl goes through their “bad boy” faze & every girl thinks she can change them for the better, but typically we grow out of that mindset, LL never did.

[legends-of-direbear]

My Choice || Olivarry: AU P2

Prompt: First Kiss (Part 2)

Setting: Starling City

Summary: Oliver Queen and Barry Allen have been friends for years.  Barry’s been there whenever Ollie needed him, as a friend.  This time shouldn’t be any different, right?     

Notes: m/m kiss, character death

(Continued from Part 1)

When’s Oliver turns thirteen, Dig gets his first girlfriend.  So does Tommy.  Oliver doesn’t want to be the only one without one, so he asks out Laurel Lance at lunch, who’s nice enough, and they start hanging out between classes.  After dinner though, he calls up Barry, who, while only eleven, has understood that girl’s don’t have cooties for a while-- Iris is his best friend, after all.  That weekend, when Barry comes over, the two boys read in silence for a while until Oliver manages to rack up his courage.  Has Barry ever kissed Iris?  Yeah, the boy is two years younger than him, but there’s only one grade between them, and he’s also had a best friend that was a girl for a lot longer.  That should count for something, right?

Apparently not, Ollie can tell by the bright crimson coloring his friend’s cheeks as he shifts his gaze to stare harder at his book, teeth digging into his lip in embarrassment.  Oliver feels bad for asking, and gives a small, reassuring smile.  It’s not like he’s kissed Laurel yet, and she’s his girlfriend.  He probably will soon though-- he’s sure Tommy and Dig have both kissed their girlfriends.  And Laurel’s having a party at her house next weekend-- he’ll definitely probably kiss her then.

Barry watches his friend closely.  Ollie actually hates it when the younger boy does that-- it means that he’s noticed something making Oliver uncomfortable, and he’s going to try to fix it.  Oliver doesn’t need anyone to fix things for him-- he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself.  But he watches as Barry worries his bottom lip, looking like he’s screwing up his nerve to say something.

If Ollie’s that nervous about kissing… if he just wanted to try it first...he’d-- you know...

The legs of the chair scrape loudly against the hardwood as Oliver backs away from the table-- away from Barry-- in shock, and Barry’s bright red again as he quickly reassures his friend he doesn’t mean anything by it.  Not like that, he tells him.  He just meant...you know, if he was worried about kissing Laurel--  that’s all.  He’s tripping over his words as his wide green eyes watch the older boy, desperately trying to backtrack.

Oliver’s gotten over the initial freak out, enough that he’s not going to bolt from the room.  And he’s not afraid of Barry, god knows.  It’s Barry.  He imagines that he’d probably made the same offer to Iris at some point-- or would, he guesses, if the bossy twelve-year old ever needed it.  Barry just tends to say things without thinking about them, is all.  Obviously, considering how embarrassed and flustered he looks now.  

The older boy feels bad for his reaction, and scoots back toward the table, his face giving a gentle smile to assure the gangly boy that they’re okay.  And Barry’s obviously relieved, and immediately ducks his head down to go back to his book and forget all about the conversation.  

Except  now...well, now the idea’s kind of stuck in Oliver’s head.  Because he doesn’t know how to kiss.  At all.  And he doesn’t have an Iris like Barry does-- he’s got Tommy and Dig, but he sure as hell isn’t asking either of them about this thing.  I mean, Barry won’t make fun of him-- not for this.  Not for just one quick peck-- just to make sure he won’t embarrass himself at Laurel’s party…

He glances over at the younger boy, and he’s surprised that Barry’s sneaking looks at him from the corner of his eye.  Oliver can feel his expression still tight with nerves, and he can tell Barry’s worried.  He fidgets in place, and swallows thickly, taking a deep breath, which draws Barry’s attention enough so that (though his cheeks are still colored) he looks up.

It’s not like this is a real kiss, he states firmly, and Barry nods in affirmation.  And they’re not going to tell anyone?  (The way the younger boy’s hair flies back and forth along his ardently shaking head is adorable in its puppy-like quality).   Oliver swallows again, because he really doesn’t want to embarrass himself in front of all of his friends.

His eyes dart around the room carefully, before he scoots out of his chair, nodding at Barry to follow.  He jogs down the stairs and to the closet, grabbing his archery gear and calling out to Thea that they’re going to the range for a little while (Thea calls back not to let Barry shoot one or someone might get hurt), and he continues to jog out along the path, toward the back of the property.

He can see Barry’s confused by the sudden impulse-- Barry watches Ollie shoot sometimes, but he’s a horrible klutz, so he can really only watch, which makes it an activity they don’t usually do together unless there’s a competition approaching and the older boy needs some extra practice.  Now isn’t that sort of time at all, so what are they doing?

Oliver keeps going though, past the range, to where the targets were pinned against the far wall.  It offers some privacy-- no one from the house, at least, will be able to see them, even if they were looking.  And beyond that there shouldn’t be any landscapers or anyone wandering this far on the grounds.  It should be okay.

He turns back toward Barry, who seems to have picked up on the reason for relocating at least, and nods as he settles onto the grass.  The eleven-year old flops down across from him with significantly less grace, tucking his spindly legs beneath him, fingers splayed flat against his thighs.

Well, they’ve made it this far, and Oliver feels his stomach curling up in knots.  He wonders if it’ll be this bad when he kisses Laurel-- and if it is, then he’s kind of glad that he’s doing this with Barry first, because he kind of feels like he’s going to throw up, he’s so nervous.  Barry, for his part, doesn’t look that much better, which is a little comforting, honestly.

Ollie’s the oldest, he supposes, so he should take the lead.  He scoots a little closer, so that both boys’ knees are touching.  Barry licks his lips nervously, and the older boy’s eyes follow the movement, causing another twitch in his gut.  They’ll do it on three, he tells him, and Barry just nods.

He gets to thr-- when he stops, his face scrunching up as he tries to stifle a laugh but seriously what is Barry doing?  The younger boy opens his eyes from their screwed up squint, dropping the fierce pucker he’s twisted his mouth into, and looks embarrassed and upset that Oliver is obviously laughing at him, and the other boy feels guilty, reaching over to pat his friend’s shoulder.  He’s not trying to make the boy feel bad, and it’s not like he has any experience either-- but jeez, even Oliver knows how to kiss better than that.  Barry harrumphs and curls up in on himself, crossing his arms petulantly as his ears burn and Oliver can tell he’s this close to telling his older friend to forget it and scramble away with what’s left of his dignity.  So he counts again, quicker this time, one two three, three, three, oka--?

Barry leans in mid-word, and it surprises him.  It’s a little rough-- the other boy is clearly still embarrassed about being laughed at, and is trying to make up for it by being assertive, even though he doesn’t have any clue what he’s doing.  Their teeth knock against each other, and at first Oliver feels like this was a terrible idea.

The younger boy breathes though, and relaxes, and Ollie can feel his own hands instinctively slide up along the thin arms, under the sleeves of his tee shirt and holding onto his bare, bony shoulders.  Barry, for his part, keeps one hand on the ground for balance, braced alongside Ollie’s thigh, and the other cupped carefully along the back of his neck.  His lips are softer than the older boy would have thought, if he’d ever thought about it, and he opens his mouth slightly, pressing around the other with a soft gasp, angling closer to Barry so that they were almost chest to chest.

He’s not sure how long it lasts-- it seems like forever and no time at all honestly-- before they pull away.  But it couldn’t have been long-- he’s not practicing making out, after all.   He’d much rather do that with Laurel.  But Oliver’s still a little winded from the experience, and he presses his hands against his legs as he pants slightly, licking his tender lips in the warm sun.

Is that-- was that-- okay?  Of course Barry’d be the first one to speak, voice cracking slightly as he looks over at his best friend, face flushed and lips spit-slick.  Oliver is quick to reassure him that it was fine, even though he’s not really sure himself.  It was his first kiss too, after all-- that was the whole point-- and the blood in his ears is pounding so hard that he can barely hear anything.  Is that normal?  

Being the older of the two, though, Oliver forces himself to recover, offering a casual smile and pushing himself to his feet; a quick thanks for helping him, and he thinks he’ll be okay with Laurel now.  Laurel his girlfriend.  Barry nods, scrambling up as well and offering an uncertain smile with a no problem, and Oliver suggests they head back inside and get some pizza before Barry’s parents come by to pick him up.  That causes the younger boy to perk up slightly, his head quickly bobbing in agreement, and the two boys brush the grass off their pants before shuffling back inside.  Neither really speak, but Oliver keeps sneaking glances back at Barry, whose eyes are studiously fixed on the ground as he steps across the lawn.  He wants to ask what Barry thought of the kiss, but they already said they wouldn’t talk about it anymore-- it was just the once, so Ollie wouldn’t make an idiot of himself when he did it for real.  He’s not sure if he has any other friends that would do something like that, but he’s not going to make it weird by bringing it up again.

And the next weekend, when he and Laurel play 7 Minutes in Heaven, she seems happy with his technique, and it’s nice kissing her, he thinks.  He feels an adrenaline jolt, his pulse quickens, and he can’t help but compare it to the one with Barry.  Kissing Laurel should feel better, right?  Because Laurel’s his girlfriend, and she’s really hot, and she’s got her hands in his hair and her tongue in his mouth.  It’s good-- it’s really good.  It’s just...different, he guesses.  His stomach isn’t really as twisted up right now, before or after, but maybe that’s just because he already knows how?  

He wants to talk to Barry about it-- wants to ask him if maybe they can try again, because he just wants to figure out the difference between the kisses.  But he chickens out, and instead they just hang out and watch movies when the younger boy comes over the next day, Ollie’s skin buzzing slightly when his hand brushes Barry’s as they both reach for popcorn.

Oliver’s fourteenth birthday is three months away when he loses his best friend.  Barry’s mom dies-- is murdered-- and Dr. Henry Allen is arrested for the crime.  Oliver can’t believe it-- how anyone could think Barry’s dad would do that is beyond him.  His first instinct when he finds out, though, is to have the younger boy move in with his family; they’ve known the Allens for years, and Barry’s family was there for them when his dad died.  He couldn’t even remember thanking Barry properly for staying with him that week.  For comforting him during the day and curling up beside him at night, keeping the crippling sadness manageable.  And now Barry doesn’t have either of his parents-- of course he’d need Oliver and his family.  

But Moira’s already distancing the Queen name from all connections to the doctor, his research, and the Central City Medical Center as quickly as possible.  Ollie tries to call Barry, but the cell phone has been disconnected and he finds out that he’s gone to live with Iris’ family instead when he calls the house line.  He doesn’t know where Iris lives, and his mom won’t let him go to Central City-- forbids it.  She even assigns someone from the security staff to watch him and keep him from sneaking off like he did long ago.  Oliver begs, pleads with her that his friend needs him, but Moira Queen has always put her family’s needs first, and she explains to her son how much being Barry’s friend could hurt them-- could hurt Barry too, she tells him.  Oliver doesn’t understand, but he does believe his mother when she points out that Barry lives four hundred miles away, and that Iris’ father is a police detective in Central City, and they’ll take care of him in a place he knows and belongs.  So instead of seeking out the boy that he’d known for years, Oliver Queen hides in his room, and doesn’t cry, but spends the rest of the year feeling helpless against being the biggest piece of chicken shit in the world and just letting his friend go.  He pushes down all of his feelings except for the ones that don’t matter, going to parties with Tommy and dating a bunch of girls and doing all sorts of stupid stuff high school rich kids should.  He just lets himself forget that he ever knew anyone like Barry Allen, much less just chose to abandon him and leave him lost and alone.

[some1foundme]

Fic: Lost in the Memory ch. 18

Title: Lost in the Memory

Author: Some1FoundMe

Summary: Oliver Queen returns to his home in Star City after a five year tour overseas, much to the delight of his friends and family. There’s just one small problem. The injury that effectively ended his military career also erased a part of his memory.  As he struggles to put together the missing pieces of his past, his connection to his best friend’s little sister becomes something he can’t avoid. Who is Felicity Merlyn and why can’t he seem to stay away from her?  Olicity AU, no Arrow, no island.

A/N: Thank you thank you to everyone who is still sticking with me!  We are well past the halfway point in this fic and it seems as if things are beginning to look up for Oliver and Felicity!  I am so thankful to all of you who are taking the time to read this and especially to everyone who has left a comment.  Your kind words are definitely appreciated!  And to my beta westernbeauty, you’re encouragement through this whole process has been amazing. Thank you!

Read on AO3 or ff.net.

Chapter Eighteen

Felicity woke the next morning to the feel of warm sunlight on her face and the heat of Oliver’s body at her back.  His nose was pressed to the curve of her neck, his steady breaths ruffling her hair, and he had one arm curled around her.  His large hand was splayed across her abdomen, anchoring her to him.  She turned in his embrace, carding her fingers through his hair, and pressed her lips to his forehead.  A soft sound of content escaped him but he didn’t stir. She stayed cocooned in his arms until the pressing need for the bathroom forced her to get out of bed.

She snatched Oliver’s discarded shirt from the floor as she went and when she stood before the mirror over the sink a few minutes later, she couldn’t help but grin at her reflection.

Her blue eyes were somehow even brighter than normal against her flushed face and disheveled hair. The pink that stained her cheeks had spread to her neck and the swell of her breasts and she lifted her fingers to prod gently at her flesh.  Some of the color, she realized, wasn’t a blush at all, it was beard burn.  That knowledge made her grin widen and she rolled her eyes at herself.

Stepping back into the bedroom, her eyes fell to her husband.  He was spread out face down in their bed.  He slept on, clearly exhausted, and she definitely didn’t blame him. It had been a long night and Oliver had worked very, very, hard.

Felicity stepped into a clean pair of underwear before padding quietly into the hallway and down the stairs.

She made a beeline for the kitchen, her first stop at the coffee pot, before lifting her eyes to the clock on the back of the stove.  It was nearly ten thirty and she was mid-stretch when the reality of that struck her.

“Shit!”

She had promised Sara that she would have brunch ready for them at eleven.  It was her penance for canceling their girls’ night in favor of going on a date with Oliver and she’d completely forgotten about it.  Her sex addled brain had barely been able to remember her name the night before, there was no way she could’ve been expected to remember making plans with Sara and Nyssa.

Dashing around the kitchen, Felicity gathered the ingredients for a quick breakfast bake that she’d come to rely on in a pinch.  By the time she had the pan in the oven, she was down to less than ten minutes before her friends were due to arrive.  Cursing the fact that she knew they were punctual people, she bolted into the laundry room where she dug through the load of clothes she’d left in the dryer.  There weren’t many choices in the small pile but she managed to find a pair of pajama pants – her favorite ones with the little Matryoshkas on them – and she was grateful that she wouldn’t be forced to answer the door in her underwear.

At exactly eleven o’clock, as she was shuffling back into the kitchen, the doorbell rang and she hurried to the front of the house to answer it.

“Morning,” Sara greeted brightly, crossing the threshold after kicking snow off of her boots.

Nyssa followed her in, shutting the door and shedding her coat.  Felicity hugged each of them quickly and stepped back, frowning as she realized that her friends were eyeing her outfit suspiciously.

“What?”

Sara grinned, “Did you just roll out of bed, Lis?”

“It’s not that late,” Felicity mumbled, “And it’s Sunday.  And Thea’s not home.  I never get to sleep in.”

“Mmhmm.  And am I mistaking or is that Oliver’s shirt?” Nyssa questioned in her soft British accent.

Heat rushed to her cheeks even as she rolled her eyes.

“So what?  So I’m wearing his shirt, it isn’t a big deal. I mean, he’s my husband and it isn’t like I’ve never –“

“Did you two finally sleep together?” Sara asked loudly, laughter dancing in her eyes.

“Shh!  Geez, Sara!  He’s still sleeping!”

The two women exchanged matching grins and Felicity snorted at their enthusiasm.  She hadn’t been aware that her sex life was such a hot topic among her friends.  

She led the way into the kitchen where she poured coffee for each of them.

“I take it that means that the date went well?”

She handed Nyssa her coffee and shrugged.

“Felicity!”

She laughed, shaking her head, “I’m not giving you details.”

Sara shuddered, “Oh god, please don’t.  I still have nightmares about the one and only time I walked into this house without knocking.”

The three of them laughed together and the combination of her laughter paired with a night spent in Oliver’s arms left her feeling lighter than she had in months.  

Her husband appeared then, shuffling into the kitchen as he pulled a shirt over his head, quickly covering his very tempting body.  She was used to his spot-on impression of an angry bear first thing in the morning so when he pulled Nyssa into a quick hug, pecked Sara on the cheek, and dropped a lingering kiss onto her parted lips, Felicity was more than a little surprised. Sara and Nyssa seemed to share in her surprise, all three of them watching Oliver as he moved wordlessly to fill his own cup with coffee.

“Morning, Ollie,” Sara called after him, “How are you?”

He took a sip from his mug and shrugged, “Pretty good, actually, you?”

Sara’s eyes danced over to her and a teasing smile split her face.  She turned back to Oliver, sipping her coffee.

“Pretty good, though not as good as you, apparently.  It’s good to see the two of you so damn happy.”

Oliver only smiled softly at Sara before his eyes fell on her.  Felicity flushed at his look and shifted her bare feet on the cool wood floor.

“I might’ve forgotten to mention that I invited Nyssa and Sara over for breakfast this morning,” she confessed.

Oliver shrugged again, “That’s alright.  You were pretty distracted.”

Her cheeks burned and by Oliver’s grin, it was exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for.  She smacked his shoulder, making Nyssa and Sara laugh.

“Breakfast won’t be ready for another half an hour,” she said tersely, “We can hang out in here or head to the living room or…”

“Here’s fine, ‘Lis. Let’s sit.”

Their group – now capped out at four – sat around the kitchen table.  Oliver occupied the chair beside her, his arm slung across the back of hers, and she relaxed into his hand as he massaged her upper back.  Sara and Nyssa sat opposite them, as close to one another as their chairs would allow, and an amiable silence settled around them.  For a long moment, the only sound to fill the room was that of coffee being sipped.

Sara broke first, her face splitting into a wide grin as her eyes locked on Oliver.

“Do you remember the time you and Tommy, Nyssa and Laurel dove off of that cliff at Rook’s Landing? You guys would’ve been, what? Seventeen, maybe?  It was the beginning of May and Tommy dared you to jump. No one expected you to do it but you didn’t think twice about it.  Then Tommy did it, too.  And my idiot sister thought that she needed to follow you both.  God, I was so pissed at all of you.  I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

Oliver shook his head ruefully.

“Tommy used to dare me to make that jump all the time.  You would’ve thought after the first ten times he would’ve realized that I’d never say no.”

Sara snorted, “You would think, but no.  For some dumbass reason, Tommy thought that jumping that cliff made him a bad ass. It didn’t, of course, but no one bothered telling him that.  God, my parents were so pissed when we got home that day.  Laurel ended up with pneumonia.  It was colder than hell and the water was freezing and she ended up wearing her wet clothes for hours before we finally got back to our house.”

“She spent a couple of days in the hospital, right?”  Oliver offered, “I thought your dad was going to kill Tommy and me.  I got grounded for a month for that.”

Felicity smirked, “Tommy did, too, if I remember correctly.  But he was always getting grounded because of the stupid shit you two did.”

Oliver chuckled, “And we did a lot of stupid shit.  But … but Nyssa, you didn’t jump.  You stayed with Sara.  You were both so pissed that we’d done it.  Mostly that Tommy and I had talked Laurel into jumping, too.  That was the first time you ever called me a ‘bloody bastard’.”

Nyssa’s eyes widened and flew to Felicity’s.  They stared at one another as Oliver continued.

“You slapped Tommy. Left a bright red handprint on his face. You didn’t speak to me for a week after.”

Reaching across the table, Nyssa grabbed Oliver’s hand and held it tightly.

“Oliver, I – you remember?”

He’d been staring intently into his coffee cup and when he lifted his head to meet her gaze, a small smile lifted one corner of his mouth.  He nodded.

Felicity’s breath caught in her throat.  She knew that she should be grateful that some of his memories had returned.  When he’d first come home, he’d had no recollection of Nyssa, of their relationship or the years that they’d spent together as children, and Nyssa had been heartbroken.  They were cousins but with both of them being the only child, they’d been as close as siblings growing up.  But she couldn’t find it in her to be happy for either of them.  He’d remembered Nyssa first.

She did her best to school her features so neither of them would notice the disappointment that she felt.

“I – I’ll be right back. I’ve left something in the car.”

Nyssa stood quickly, rushing out of the room.  Sara stood, too, her eyes resting gently on Felicity’s face.

“I’m going to use the restroom,” she told them, following her wife’s retreat.

Turning in his chair to face her, Oliver thread his fingers into her hair and guided her toward him. Felicity allowed him to draw her in even as she fought the urge to relax.  She hadn’t realized how stiff her muscles were until he tried to move her.

“Good morning,” he whispered against her temple, “It’s a good thing that I heard you guys down here because I was this close to coming to find you without getting dressed.”

She laughed softly, “I’m sure Sara would’ve loved that.  She’s already been traumatized by your nakedness once in her life.  According to her, once was enough.”

At his confused look, she snorted, patting his stubble coated cheek gently.

“I’ll explain some other time,” she confirmed, leaning into him and taking comfort in his nearness, letting his presence chase away the insecurities that attempted to swallow her once again.

His lips grazed the top of her head just as Sara returned with Nyssa in tow, the former now carrying what appeared to be a photo album.  Both women reclaimed their seats at the table and Nyssa slid her chair around so that she was closer to Oliver.  She flipped opened the leather bound book filled with candid shots of their youth.

“What the hell is happening in this picture?” Oliver laughed, eyes raking over a series of successive shots, “Am I – is that a skateboard?”

Nyssa nodded, “It is. You thought that I should learn how to ride one and that, in order to teach me, you would demonstrate.”

Oliver groaned.

“I sucked at riding that damn thing,” he grumbled, “I bought it for myself one summer thinking that I could master it.”

“Mother realized what we were doing and knew that you and a skateboard were an accident waiting to happen so she followed us around with her camera.”

Oliver chuckled again and as they continued to flip through the pages, Felicity eased away from the table. She made a point to clear their breakfast dishes, carrying everything to the sink on the other side of the room, and turned her back on the three of them.

She had promised him that she wasn’t giving up, that she wouldn’t give up, but she felt as if she were trapped in quicksand.  Every time she struggled, every inch that she gained, she only sunk deeper.  She was fighting to hold onto the sliver of hope that she had left.  Oliver had to remember her someday, it had to come back to him.  But as she watched him laugh with Nyssa and Sara, as she listened to him recount details of the childhood he and his cousin had shared, another piece of her splintered. Because he hadn’t remembered Nyssa when he’d returned, he hadn’t known anything about her, and after only three weeks – and having spent very little of that time with her – his memories of her had returned.

So Felicity couldn’t help the worry that wormed its way into her heart once again.  What was it about their life, about their relationship, that was so traumatic that Oliver’s memories just wouldn’t return?  He’d spent nearly every moment with her integrating himself back into the same routine he’d had prior to his deployment and yet they’d made no progress.  At least not in their mission to help him recover from his amnesia.  

Heat slid along her spine as flashes of the night before assaulted her.  It had been incredible.  Consuming and gratifying and overwhelming in the most delicious way. He had done everything in his power to eliminate her doubt and to prove to her how much he truly loved her.  And she had felt every ounce of his love as his weight had pressed her to the mattress, his body molded to hers.

“Hey.”

She started, dropping the fork she’d been washing into the sink basin with a loud clatter.  

“Geez, Sara, do I need to get you a bell?”

Her friend laughed, leaning into the counter beside her, and by the look at the other blonde’s face, Felicity knew her darkening mood had been detected.

“You okay?”

Felicity shrugged, “Fine.”

Sara’s brow hitched towards her hairline, her expression doubtful, and Felicity sighed.

“It’s just that… last night we ran into this woman.  Oliver’s high school girlfriend and he … he remembered her.  And now he’s remembered Nyssa.  But I – but he –“

Sara’s cool hand grasped her forearm.

“But he hasn’t remembered you?”

She nodded, swallowing around the lump in her throat, and focused on the soapy water.

“I had to have done something wrong,” she admitted quietly, “Because there’s obviously something in our past that his brain is determined to forget.  Why… why is it he can remember everyone and everything except for me? It’s like I’m a ghost.  Like I’ve just been completely erased.  Every memory that Oliver has that involved me has been wiped clean and it doesn’t feel like they’ll ever come back.”

The sound of Oliver’s throaty chuckle drew her eyes across the kitchen to where he and Nyssa sat hunched together, laughing over the moments of their childhood that had been captured in the photos Nyssa’d brought.  A weight settled in her chest, twisting around her heart.  The jealousy she’d fought off at the restaurant the evening before swelled dangerously.

“You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, Felicity.”

She shook her head, pulling her arm free of Sara’s grasp.  She stepped into the laundry room just steps from the kitchen.  Sara followed.

“What does Oliver have to say about this?  You’ve talked to him, haven’t you?”

Felicity sighed heavily as she began pulling clothes from the dryer and folding them haphazardly.

“We’ve talked.  He’s hopeful.  And – and he’s in love with me.  Which is wonderful, don’t get me wrong.  But it – it’s not the same, Sara.  I will do whatever I have to do to keep him in my life but I’m so afraid of what will happen if he never remembers.  He says that it doesn’t matter, that he’ll love me no matter what, that he wants to be with me but… I don’t know.  I’m scared.”

Her friend stepped closer and caught her hands, stilling her movements.  She forced Felicity to meet her eye.

“You have every right to be scared.  I can’t say that I understand because I don’t think that anyone can.  None of us have gone through anything like this before. But, Lis, you have to keep your head on and just keep living.  You love him and he loves you.  The two of you want to be together.  I imagine that it’s going to be difficult but you know what?  Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.  So the question is, is being with Oliver worth all of the pain that you’re feeling right now?”

Felicity nodded, tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Yes.  Ab – absolutely.”

She let Sara pull her into a tight hug, pressing her face to the other woman’s shoulder and letting out a single, shuddering sob.  

When she stepped away, wiping her face with the sleeve of Oliver’s shirt, she sighed.

“Sorry.  God, I – sometimes I worry that I’m not strong enough for this.”

Sara laughed, “Lis, you are pretty much the strongest person that I’ve ever met.  You survived the loss of your mom and Laurel and then Tommy not much later.  You take care of your dad’s pathetic ass as much as he’ll let you.  And on top of all of that, you run Verdant while parenting an eleven year old.  You’ve got this.”

Felicity snorted and drug her fingers through her hair.  She knew that Sara was right.  She had handled so many tragedies in her life, had lost too many people, and she’d survived.  And she’d done so with Oliver at her side.  It didn’t matter that he couldn’t remember the details of their past.  It didn’t matter that he couldn’t remember the life they’d had before the amnesia.  What mattered was that he was safe, alive and well and with her again.  He knew that he loved her.  He’d assured her that he wanted her and that he was willing to fight for them.  She could get past this new hurtle that life had thrown at them, she would get past it, because once again, she had Oliver at her side.

[jamaninja]

Olicity fanfic: Fifty bucks says, Chapter 2

Word count: 8,785 Rating: Teen Chapters: 2/3 Summary: Turns out, Tommy, Digg and Thea are a little bit more competitive than is strictly healthy. Then again, hundreds of dollars are on the line, so...

Author’s note: Y'all, the response to this story has blown me away! I had the warm and fuzzies for days because of your kind comments.

Also, it's my birthday today! So to celebrate, I made this chapter a little bit longer. :) Hope you enjoy it!

Read on: AO3 | ff.net

Chapter 2

Nine months

The thing about being in a group wager with hundreds of dollars on the line means that anything goes.

What’s that saying? All’s fair in love and war?

Well this just happened to be both.

“I don’t know about this, Tommy,” McKenna said as she and Tommy walked up to Oliver’s apartment. “I mean, I wasn’t invited.”

“I invited you,” he reminded her. “Besides, Ollie will be excited to see you. It’s been a long time.” Tommy grinned a little and leaned forward to whisper, “Don’t tell him I told you this, but he used to have a huge crush on you in high school.”

McKenna’s eyes widened. “No he didn’t. Oliver Queen? The Oliver Queen?”

“Yes he did!” Tommy winked. “So trust me when I tell you, you have nothing to worry about.”

“But wait,” she called out, grabbing Tommy’s shoulder to stop him from knocking. “Didn’t you say he’s living with someone? A girl?”

Tommy waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, but it’s totally platonic. They’re just living together as roommates. Nothing going on between the two of them.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re telling me that Oliver Queen is platonically living with some woman? Are you sure we’re talking about the same Oliver Queen?”

He turned to McKenna and put his hands on her shoulders. “McKenna, trust me: there is absolutely nothing going on between Felicity and Oliver. You are more than free to flirt with the man. In fact, I encourage it.”

She still looked like she wasn’t quite sure of the whole situation, but she didn’t say anything further. So Tommy took that as an invitation to finally knock on the door.

“Just smile,” he told her. “Smile and be yourself. You’ve got a winning personality, Mac.”

“I’m going to punch you in the face, Tommy Merlyn,” she hissed under her breath.

The door swung open a second later and revealed Felicity in a lovely royal blue cocktail dress and black heels. Her hair was down from its customary ponytail the ends of her golden waves dipping just below her shoulders.

Her painted pink lips spread into a smile and her blue eyes lightened from behind her glasses. “Tommy!” she greeted happily as she stepped forward to give him a hug. “We’re so glad you could make it!”

Tommy smiled and hugged her back. “Of course I made it,” he quipped. “I wasn’t about to pass up on an opportunity to make Ollie cook for me.” When he let her go, he gestured to the woman standing next to him. “And this is McKenna Hall. She went to high school with Ollie and me. Mac, this is Felicity Smoak, Ollie’s roommate.”

“Hi,” Felicity said with a bright smile and a proffered hand. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

“You too,” McKenna said with a nervous smile. “I’m sorry about crashing your dinner party, by the way. Tommy invited me last minute and he said it would be OK.”

“Of course it’s OK! Any friend of Tommy and Oliver’s is always welcome here,” she insisted as she stepped back from the door. “Come on in.”

“Thank you,” McKenna said a little shyly. “I love your dress, by the way. That is a gorgeous color on you.”

Felicity’s grin widened as she took their coats. “Thank you so much. You are the sweetest.”

Tommy and McKenna stepped into the apartment, to see that everyone else had already arrived. Digg was sitting on the loveseat with his wife, Lyla. Thea and Roy, a member of Oliver’s kitchen staff, were sitting on the couch, and the four of them were talking and laughing while holding glasses of wine.

Meanwhile, the sounds from the kitchen made it apparent where Oliver was. And just what kind of mood he was in.

“I see that Roy is here,” Tommy muttered under his breath to Felicity.

She smirked. “Yeah. But at least Oliver’s taking it out on the cutting board. So maybe there’s hope for his growth after all.”

As Felicity went to go hang their coats in the closet, Tommy stepped toward the living room with his hand at McKenna’s shoulder.

“Hey, guys. This is McKenna Hall. McKenna, that’s John Diggle, Lyla Michaels, Roy Harper, and you already know Thea Queen.”

“Mac!” Thea beamed as she got up the couch to hug the other woman. “Oh my goodness, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you! How are you?”

McKenna grinned as Thea led her back to the couch. “I’m good. It’s really great to see you guys again. You’ve turned into such a grownup, Thea!”

“Mac here used to babysit me when she and Ollie were in high school,” Thea told everyone in the living room. “I adored her. I used to follow her around everywhere.”

“That’s so sweet,” Felicity smiled as she walked toward the living room with two glasses of wine she handed to Tommy and McKenna. “When was the last time you all were together?”

“I don’t know,” McKenna admitted. “It’s been so long. I think it might have been graduation?”

“Well that is far too long,” Tommy declared. Then he raised his wineglass toward everyone in the living room and called out, “To reunions.”

Everyone else followed suit and took a sip of their wine.

“So,” Thea began, turning to McKenna. “What have you been up to since high school?”

“Uh, well the usual,” she said. “College, then police academy...I graduated last month, actually. Now I’m a beat cop with SCPD.”

“Wow,” Felicity intoned, her eyes wide and admiring behind her glasses. “That’s so cool.”

McKenna’s smile slowly grew less nervous and more genuine. “Yeah, I guess it is. I like it a lot. Mostly a lot of citation writing so far, but my officers say I have a real future at the department. I really want to be a detective one day.”

Felicity was about to open her mouth to say something, but Oliver chose that moment to pop out of the kitchen into the living room.

“Felicity, I — ”

The presence of a new person in his apartment stopped his words in his mouth. His eyes widened and recognition flashed across them.

“McKenna Hall?” he said in disbelief as he took a step forward. “Is that you?”

McKenna’s lovely tan skin darkened with a faint blush as she stood up to greet her old friend. “Ollie,” she smiled, her arms wide open in a hug. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Wow,” Oliver answered as he stepped into her embrace. “It’s good to see you, too. You look great, by the way. I mean, you always looked great. You just...well, I guess the years really worked for you.”

Tommy smirked into his wineglass. This plan was going much smoother than he anticipated.

McKenna grinned in obvious pleasure. “Thank you. I could say the same for you. I really like your new hairstyle. It suits you much better than that long hair you were sporting for the longest time. Makes you look more mature and rugged.”

“Well that was what I was going for,” he joked.

Felicity’s eyebrows shot up her forehead before she cleared her throat. “Uh, Oliver? Did you need me for something?”

Oliver tore his gaze away from his old friend and turned back to Felicity with a start, like he just realized that she was there. “Uh, right. Right! Yeah, I did. I, um, need your help in the kitchen with something. Could you lend me a hand?”

She frowned. “You’re asking my help? Seriously? Normally you don’t let me set foot in your kitchen.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

With a roll of her eyes, she leaned forward to set her wineglass down and get up from her seat.

“Um, I could help, too?” McKenna said as she stepped forward and Tommy had to stop himself from fist pumping in triumph. “I’m kind of an unexpected addition. The least I can do is help.”

Ollie looked clearly pleased with her offer. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” McKenna smiled.

“Oh, great! Thank you, because Felicity’s a complete disaster in the kitchen.”

Tommy smirked as he watched Felicity’s expression turned into a scowl, but she didn’t say anything. She just followed the two of them into the kitchen.

Once the three of them were gone, Digg and Thea both turned to shoot suspicious glares at Tommy, who all of a sudden was struggling to look as innocent as possible.

“What?” he asked.

“McKenna? Seriously?”

Thea Queen was the only person Tommy knew who could make a name sound like an accusation.

“What?” he repeated. “She’s an old friend!”

“My ass!” Digg hissed. “You’re trying to throw the bet!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he scoffed. “I’m not doing anything to throw the bet. I just thought that Ollie and McKenna would like to reconnect after so many years, and it turns out I was right.”

“Oh, you are so full of shit!” Thea rolled her eyes.

Roy looked between the three of them in confusion. “Hold on, I think I missed something. What’s happening here?”

Thea turned to her boyfriend. “My brother’s in love with his roommate — ”

“Correction,” Tommy interrupted. “Felicity’s in love with your brother.”

Thea rolled her eyes and continued. “OK, Digg thinks Ollie’s in love with Felicity but she doesn’t feel the same way, and he bet us fifty bucks that he makes a move on her and she turns him down. But Tommy thinks that Felicity’s in love with Ollie but he doesn’t feel the same way, and he bet us one hundred bucks that she’ll tell him and he’ll be too scared and run away.”

Roy’s eyes widened in understanding. “So you,” he pointed at Tommy, “brought McKenna to flirt with Oliver to make Felicity jealous and force her to make a move.”

“I did no such thing,” Tommy smirked.

“You’re a dirty liar, Merlyn,” Digg scowled.

“What does it matter to you?” he shot back. “You’re the one who thinks Felicity doesn’t feel anything for Ollie! If you’re right, then it won’t matter, will it?”

“So you are trying to throw the bet!” Thea pointed at him accusingly.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. But if either of you thought I was going to pass up an opportunity to trick you two fools out of a hundred bucks, then you were sorely mistaken. May I also point out to Mr. Diggle that Ollie and Mac are hitting it off beautifully, thus proving my point that he feels nothing for his roommate.”

Digg narrowed her eyes. “Oh. So you want to play it like that, huh?”

Thea shook his head. “You just opened up a whole new can of worms, Tommy. You better get ready.”

He smirked as he took a sip of his wine. “Bring it on.”

Lyla chose that moment to interject.

“So wait a minute,” she insisted. “If Tommy’s line is that Felicity’s in love with Oliver and Johnny’s line is that Oliver’s in love with Felicity…”

She turned to Thea.

“What’s your line?”

“That they’re both in love with each other and they’ll end up together and live happily ever after,” she answered with a sniff.

Digg and Tommy both rolled their eyes. Thea had proven over and over again that she had a good head for business, but in this instance, Tommy seriously questioned her judgment.

“This isn’t a Disney movie, Thea, this is Oliver Queen’s love life,” he reminded her.

She fixed him with a withering glare. “I’m aware of that, Tommy. I just happen to have more faith in my brother than you do.”

He sighed. Thea was entitled to her own opinion, but at this point he just started to feel bad for taking her money so easily.

Ten minutes later, McKenna, Oliver and Felicity emerged from the kitchen and walked toward the dining room, each bearing serving plates and bowls of food. Tommy smiled to himself as he saw McKenna and Oliver laughing together about something while Felicity’s brightly painted lips thinned into a grim line.

“Dinner’s ready,” Oliver called. “Come on, the sooner we’re all seated, the sooner we can dig in.”

The five other guests got up from their seats and made for the dining room, which was laid out beautifully with a huge hunk of pot roast, sauteed green beans and Digg’s favorite maple-glazed carrots.

“This looks incredible,” Lyla said with wide eyes as she sat down to the magnificent feast. “I think I might have to hire you to cook my next Thanksgiving meal, Oliver.”

He shot Lyla a proud smile as he took his seat at the head of the table. Tommy gently directed McKenna to take the seat right next to Oliver’s, while Tommy claimed the seat on her other side.

“Did you really cook all of this?” McKenna asked with an impressed voice.

He chuckled. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

McKenna laughed, warm and soft. “Well it doesn’t exactly jive with the Ollie Queen I remember from high school, you know? You were always too busy getting into trouble to pay attention to anything in home ec class.”

Oliver chuckled. “Oh, I still got into plenty of trouble in culinary school. It was just a different kind of trouble.”

“Oh really?” McKenna said, a definite flirtatious note entering her tone. “And praytell, what kind of trouble was that?”

“The kind that left me without eyebrows for a month,” he joked. “My first attempt at flambe didn’t go all that well.”

McKenna threw her head back and laughed. Out of the corner of Tommy’s eye, he could see Felicity on the other end of the table, keeping her eyes focused solely on her carrots and refusing to look up.

“I wish you’d taken pictures,” Thea piped up.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Oliver will find a way to burn his eyebrows off when we open the restaurant,” Digg chuckled into his wine.

McKenna cocked her head to the side as she looked between Digg and Oliver. “You guys are opening a restaurant?”

“The four of us are,” Tommy told her, pointing between himself, Thea, Digg and Oliver. “Roy here’s on the kitchen staff, and Lyla’s mostly been keeping Digg sane while he goes through all the craziness of the opening. And of course, we can’t forget our tech genius, Felicity. She built our POS system and our inventory programs from scratch.”

“That’s so incredible,” she said. “No offense, Ollie, but I don’t think any of our graduating class would have expected this. I think we all kind of thought you were still dicking around and peeing on cop cars.”

If it hadn’t disappeared as quickly as it came, Tommy would have sworn that he imagined it, but the minute those words left McKenna’s lips, a flash of regret and disappointment flickered in Oliver’s eyes.

But before Tommy could take a second look, someone interrupted him from the other end of the table.

“Oliver’s an excellent chef,” Felicity told McKenna, her tone just a titch cooler than it had been earlier. “He’s one of the best chefs on the West Coast.”

McKenna turned back to the man in question, whose charming grin had come back. “Is that so?”

He shrugged modestly. “I think that’s an exaggeration. But my mentors said I have promise.”

Tommy saw out of the corner of his eye that Felicity’s knuckles had gone white as she gripped her fork, but he hid his smile behind his wineglass.

“So when does this restaurant open?” McKenna asked. “And can I reserve a table for opening night? Or will there be some insanely long waiting list to even get in?”

“Oh, I’m sure we can work something out,” Oliver told her with a wink.

Tommy glanced down at the other end of the table to see Felicity surreptitiously rolling her eyes, and it was all he could do to keep himself from cackling.

The rest of the dinner party went by without incident. After dessert and coffee, McKenna announced that she had to duck out the rest of the evening’s festivities.

“Since I’m a rookie, I still have to work the early shift,” she told her companions with a grimace. “But I’m so glad I came. It was the best food and company I’ve had in a long time.”

“Yeah, it was great to meet you,” Digg answered with a polite smile. “When Merlyn was the one who invited you, I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. But I guess he doesn’t associate with just troublemakers.”

Tommy scowled at the insinuation but everyone else at the table laughed.

Then she turned to Oliver with a coy smile. “And it was really nice to get to reconnect with you, Ollie.”

“Same here, Mac,” he grinned. “It’s good to see you doing so well with your life. Would you like me to walk you out?”

“I would love that.”

The two of them got up from the table and walked out of the living room toward the front door. Once Oliver shut it behind him, Felicity downed the rest of her wine.

“I’m going to get the dishes started,” she announced in a strained voice, as she got up and brought her plate and glass with her.

Tommy shot a smirk at Digg and Thea who both rolled their eyes. “I’ll help,” he announced, grabbing his own plate and glass and following her into the kitchen.

When he crossed the threshold, he saw her standing in front of the sink. The stiffness in her shoulders hinted just what kind of mood she was in.

“You OK, Lis?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered, not bothering to turn around and look at him. “I’m fine.”

“Liar,” he smirked as he set the plate and glass down and leaned on the counter next to her. “You’re bothered about something, so let me guess...Ollie and McKenna?”

She flinched, like the accusation he lobbed at her was a tangible object that hit her square in the back.

“No,” she said, though her stormy expression belied the truth. “What would make you think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Tommy tapped his chin, pretending like he was thinking hard. “Probably because you’d start chugging your wine every time they flirted at dinner. And you looked like you needed something much stronger than wine every time he laughed at something she’d say.”

Her jaw clenched as she took the sponge and started scrubbing out one of Oliver’s pots. “I wasn’t...look, it’s not like that, OK?”

“Not like what?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“It’s not like what you’re implying. I’m not...I’m not jealous,” she scoffed. “I’m hardly jealous.”

What a terrible liar, he thought.

“If it’s not jealousy, then what is it?”

Felicity’s expression fell slightly as she looked down at the soapy pot in her hands. “It’s just...when she made that crack about Oliver being a troublemaker in high school and how she thought he’d still be dicking around, I felt so...so angry.”

Of all the answers Tommy expected, it certainly wasn’t that one.

“I know that it’s been forever since she’s seen him, so I’m not being entirely fair to her,” she continued, her eyes still on the sink. “But he’s changed so much. He’s not that guy anymore. He’s different. He’s actually working so hard to make something of himself, and he’s kind and generous to everyone in his life, even the people who expect the worst of him. And I just get...I get so upset and defensive when people judge him for the person he used to be and not the person he is now.”

For the first time that evening, Tommy felt genuinely shocked.

Felicity didn’t just have feelings for his best friend. She was straight up in love with him. And she had every right to be in love with him, because she genuinely knew him.

“But whatever,” she sighed. “If they start dating, she’ll find out pretty soon that he’s changed. It’s kind of hard to miss.”

And for the second time in less than ten seconds, she’d thrown him for a loop.

“Wait,” he objected. “You’re just going to let him date her?”

Felicity shot him a confused look. “What are you talking about? I’m not ‘letting’ him do anything. Oliver Queen is his own person and he can date whoever he wants. I have no say in that.”

He sputtered. “But you’re not, like — you’re not going to tell him how you feel? You’re just going to let him date McKenna while you’re off to the side, pining for him?”

The blood rushed to her cheeks, but she tried to hide her embarrassment with a roll of her eyes. “Excuse me,” she huffed, “I do not pine.”

“You know what I mean,” he insisted.

She avoided answering for a long time as she scrubbed the pot completely clean. When she was finally finished, she looked up with a sad smile and a shrug.

“You’ve known him your entire life. In high school, do you think Oliver would have given me a second look?”

The pained expression on Tommy’s face was her answer.

“Exactly. And no matter how much Oliver’s changed, I’m pretty sure that part of him hasn’t.”

One year

It was officially three months until Verdant’s grand opening, and all the pieces were falling into place.

To be honest, John expected the last few weeks to be just as hectic as all the other ones leading up to it. But much to his pleasant surprise, it all looked like smooth sailing. The kitchen was already up and running. The decorators just had to put the final touches on the dining room. And he was already developing a very close relationship with all their vendors.

All in all, it was all coming together very nicely and the four business partners felt like they could finally breathe, for once.

They were long overdue for an easy stretch, anyway.

Since most everything had been taken care of, the only task John had left was to come up with the cocktail menu for the grand opening. And since Oliver was the chef, John thought it was best to have his friend be the one to taste test all of the ideas he came up with.

And if Oliver ended up drunk at the end of the night and letting some things slip when he came home to his adorable roommate...well, then that wasn’t John’s fault, now was it?

It’s like Lyla always says: sometimes alcohol isn’t a social lubricant. Sometimes it’s a social laxative.

“All right, I’m thinking of calling this the Verdant Special,” John said as he set down an old-fashioned glass filled to the brim with an alarmingly green drink. “It’s muddled cucumbers, mint and sugar with gin, Midori and a touch of soda water.”

Oliver took a sip through the cocktail straw and immediately made a face.

“God, if that was any sweeter, I’d need a shot of insulin,” he grimaced.

John chuckled. “Well that was what I was going for. If they can’t taste the alcohol, they’ll order more drinks. And we know that most of the profits are going to be from beverages.”

Oliver shook his head and pushed the glass away from him. “Maybe girls like Thea will like it, but it’s definitely not my thing.”

John just shrugged and sucked down the remainder of the drink. “Suit yourself.”

Oliver watched half in awe as his friend drank the rest of it without so much as flinching. “I will never understand people who can tolerate that much sugar.”

John chuckled. “It’s a gift. OK, so this next one isn’t as sweet. It’s a grapefruit gin fizz.”

The gin fizz was far more tolerable and Oliver ended up finishing the whole thing with a nod of his head.

“I could see like a bachelorette party coming to the restaurant just for these,” he said. “They’d order up like six of these and keep them coming until they all get sloppy.”

“Just the kind of clientele we’re looking for,” John deadpanned.

“Turn your nose up all you want, but Tommy said we’ve already got three bachelorette parties booked in the spring, and we haven’t even opened yet.”

John shook his head as he got to work mixing the next drink. “Oliver, you wanted to open a restaurant because you wanted to chase your vision of a perfect dining experience. This place is supposed to be about your creative abilities, not a go-to party destination for the idle rich and drunk.”

He sighed. “I know. But at the moment, the whole city still thinks I’m a drunk playboy partygoer, and they expect this restaurant to be like that. Until we’re open long enough to change their minds, we’re probably going to get a lot of bachelor and bachelorette parties breezing through here.”

It was John’s turn to sigh. “Well, I guess it could be worse.”

“That’s the spirit.”

John poured a golden amber liquid from his shaker over a lowball with a giant square ice cube. “Weren’t you the same guy who was freaking out about your playboy reputation six months ago? What the heck changed since then?”

Oliver shrugged as he took the drink from his friend. “I don’t know. I guess I realized I spent years building up my reputation and it’s going to take an equally long time to get rid of it. That’s what Felicity said, anyway.”

Score. The perfect segue.

“What Felicity said, huh?” John asked slyly.

He nodded as he took a sip of his drink. “This one’s good. Not too sweet and not too bitter.”

John made a note and returned to the subject at hand. “So how are things going between you and Felicity? You two still living peacefully together?”

Oliver nodded. “Yeah. She’s a great roommate, always has been. You know we’re coming up on a year since she moved in?”

He chuckled. “A whole year of putting up with your bullshit? She deserves some kind of award. The poor woman must have the patience of Mother Theresa.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “I’m not that bad,” he insisted.

“I’m sure she would say differently.”

He just shook his head and went back to his drink. “I was actually thinking of making a special dinner to mark the occasion. Like a roommate anniversary or something.”

Jesus Christ, John thought to himself. He wanted to smack his own head against a concrete wall. Or maybe smack Oliver’s head against a concrete wall.

“A roommate anniversary? Is that even a thing?”

“Sure. Why not? People have anniversaries for all sorts of dumb shit.”

John shook his head as he started mixing the next cocktail. Time to go all in.

“Hate to break it to you, man, but people usually reserve anniversaries for significant others. Unless you finally decide to quit lying to yourself and everyone else around you about your not-so-platonic feelings for your roommate, an anniversary celebration is going to look weird.”

Oliver’s jaw clenched and his fist tightened around his cocktail glass.

“You’re wrong,” he said stiffly.

John smirked. “I have not usually found that to be the case. But just out of curiosity, what am I supposed to be wrong about?”

Oliver looked away. “I don’t...I can’t have feelings for Felicity.”

That made him quirk an eyebrow. “Oh? And why not?”

“Because if I did, then she’d move out. And I...I need her to stay.”

John poured the next drink and eyed his friend curiously. “For her rent contribution?”

“No, it’s not just that. It’s...I need her to stay because she’s the first person I’ve met outside the three of you guys who believes in me.”

The minute the glass was full, Oliver took it and knocked the entire thing back. He didn’t bother giving John any time to explain it or even tell him what was in it.

That sent John’s eyebrows sky high.

“You know the other day, she was packing her lunch to take to work and she just reached into the fridge for this tub of leftovers from the dinner I’d made myself the other night and put it in her bag without even checking to see what it was. It was a new dish I’d wanted to try and I was almost one hundred percent sure she’d never had it before. When I warned her that it was new and she might not like it, she just waved it away all nonchalant and said, ‘You made it, Oliver. I’m not worried.’”

John watched as his friend’s eyes got softer and a little wistful as he told his story. The longing was plain on his face, and anyone else who could have been privy to the sight would have agreed: he was in love.

“She just has...she just has this faith in me,” Oliver continued as he ran his fingertip over the rim of his empty glass. “It’s unconditional. She doesn’t have contingencies. She doesn’t make backup plans. She...she supports me without question, like she knows that I’ll do the right thing no matter what. And I’ve never had that before.”

Listening to his confession hit John harder than he cared to admit, and he could feel a faint stinging in the back of his eyes. So he tried to wave away his emotions with some humor.

“If you’re trying to convince me you don’t have feelings for her, you’re doing a really miserable job,” he joked.

Oliver didn’t say anything as he looked down at the slowly melting ice cube in his glass.

John tried again.

“Look, I get that you don’t want her to move out. But what makes you think she would if you told her how you felt? You never know,” he said as he crossed his fingers underneath the bar, “she might feel the same way.”

Oliver scoffed and shook his head. “She doesn’t. There’s no way in a million years.”

“Why not?” John pressed.

“Have you met her, Digg? She’s a genius. A literal, certifiable genius. She’s got a zillion IQ points on the both of of us combined. She’s way too smart to date some billionaire playboy who dropped out of four different colleges he only got into in the first place because his parents bribed the admissions officers.”

God, this whole taste testing session was turning into a gigantic bummer.

“Oliver, you’re contradicting yourself at this point. You just told me that she has an unconditional and unwavering faith in you. That doesn’t sound like the kind of person who sees you as a former frat boy who couldn’t get his shit together.”

He poured another drink and Oliver once again took it without bothering to ask what was in it.

“What could I possibly offer her?” he said with a miserable expression. “She’ll come home from work and she’ll tell me about her day and the shit she says just goes right over my head. I can’t keep up with any of it. Most of the time i just nod my head and pretend like I understand her all while I’m praying that she doesn’t ask me too many questions. I couldn’t keep up with her.”

John shook his head.

“Do you think for a second she can keep up with you whenever you start to talk about cooking techniques? Or when you get way too excited about whatever ingredient you found at the grocery store that’s native to Southeastern Asia? We all have our areas of expertise that other people don’t understand. And none of that is a reason for you to keep your feelings to yourself.”

Oliver gazed contemplatively into his glass before taking a huge swig. After a long, thoughtful silence, he finally said, “I’m thinking of making a prime rib for our anniversary dinner. I figure it can’t hurt to go with the classics.”

He sighed.

John had Oliver try the last two drinks he had on his first draft of the cocktail menu and by then, the billionaire scion was more than a little sauced. With a chuckle and a shake of his head, the former soldier escorted his friend to his car to drive him home.

When they got back to Oliver’s apartment, John opened the door to find Felicity curled up on the couch in her pajamas with a bowl of popcorn nestled in her lap.

“Oliver? John?” she called when she looked up to see the two of them.

Her roommate giggled as he stumbled over the threshold. “Hey, F’licity,” he said, barreling through the syllables of her name the same way he barreled through the room to join her on the couch.

“He might have had one too many during the taste testing tonight,” John warned her.

Felicity’s eyes went from questioning surprise to amusement. “Ahh, OK.”

“What are you still doing up, F’licity?” Oliver asked as he plopped down on the cushion next to her. “I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

John walked to the kitchen for a bottle of water as a cover to surreptitiously listen to their conversation. This was it, he thought to himself. He was drunk. All his inhibitions were down, and he’d also planted the seed in Oliver’s head just hours ago.

He was about to win the bet.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Felicity answered. He could practically hear her shrug.

“Why not?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t sleep well when I don’t know where you are,” she answered. “I mean, I knew where you were tonight, but I also knew it involved alcohol and that had me worried. I just wanted to know that you were OK.”

She said it in a nonchalant voice, and John was pretty sure she was also munching on popcorn as she was saying it. It just tumbled out of her mouth, like what she was saying wasn’t even that big a deal.

But he knew that to Oliver, it meant everything.

“Felicity…”

Oliver’s voice softened and John had to really strain to hear him.

“I...you’re…”

Silence reigned over the apartment for a long stretch of time, and the tension was killing John. So as quietly as he could, he walked toward the wall separating the kitchen and the living room and peeked around the corner.

Felicity was sitting on the couch, her body facing the television but her head turned to look at Oliver. But Oliver’s entire body was angled toward hers, his eyes boring into hers. His hand hovered over her cheek, as if he was battling with his drunk brain to decide whether it was OK to touch her face.

And their lips were just inches away.

John could feel the anticipation coiling in his stomach.

“You’re remarkable,” Oliver murmured.

Felicity blinked a couple of times, like she couldn’t quite connect what he was saying. Then, just when John felt like he was about to burst with all the tension, she turned away with a slight shake of her head and a little chuckle.

“And you’re drunk,” she said wryly as she put the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table and got up from the couch. Then she motioned to him to get up and follow her. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

John hung his head. Goddamn it! It was so close! He was just inches away from winning the bet, but Felicity’s nonchalance had gotten in the way!

“I’m not that drunk,” he muttered. But got up and followed her anyway.

“Uh huh,” she said skeptically. Then she called out, “Digg? Just how much did he have tonight?”

“Seven drinks,” he answered her, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “All within a two hour timespan.”

That made Felicity chuckle. “Not drunk my ass. Go brush your teeth and I’ll force some water down your throat and an aspirin to help head off the hangover.”

Oliver grumbled something under his breath, but did as he was directed.

Felicity joined John in the kitchen a few seconds later. “Did you at least manage to come up with a drink menu?”

“Not a final one, but I’m closer,” he smiled. “It wasn’t a totally useless exercise.”

She laughed. “Well that’s good, at least. I’d hate to think that you got Oliver drunk for no reason.”

He snorted.

“Yeah. I’d hate for that, too.”

Fifteen months

The grand opening of Verdant, the hottest new restaurant in the Glades was finally upon them.

Oliver got to the kitchen early in the morning with the rest of his staff to get started on all the prep work. John and the serving staff spent all day preparing the dining room and stocking the bar. Tommy was doing the final training for the hostesses and taking care of the business side stuff.

And Thea...well, Thea was supposed to be hosting her parents for their first dinner at the restaurant. And considering the fact that Moira and Robert weren’t wild about the idea of their children opening a restaurant in the first place, she knew she had her work cut out for her.

Thea arrived at Oliver and Felicity’s in the early afternoon that Saturday with two garment bags and a whole duffle filled with different products slung across her shoulders. Then she knocked loudly on the door.

“Felicity, it’s me! Open this door, we’ve gotta get this show on the road!”

The door whipped open a couple of seconds later to reveal a very confused woman still dressed in her sweats.

“Thea?” Felicity asked in confusion. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for the opening?”

“I am getting ready for the opening,” she answered, breezing through the door. “In fact, we’re both getting ready for the opening.”

Felicity glanced at the clock on the wall. “The restaurant doesn’t open for another three hours.”

Thea shot the other woman a look that meant to say, I know, I’m not an idiot.

“This is a big moment for all of us,” she said seriously. “It’s perhaps the biggest moment in Ollie’s professional career. You have to be there to support him. To support us.”

“Well of course I’m going, Thea,” Felicity said with a roll of her eyes. “I just don’t see why I’m supposed to start getting ready three hours before it even starts.”

“Because, I’ve decided you’re going to have dinner with me and my parents.”

That definitely stopped her in her tracks.

“You and your parents?” she demanded. “As in the guy who’s technically my boss and the woman Tommy routinely refers to as ‘The Iron Lady?’”

“Yep,” Thea replied as she made her way down the hall to Felicity’s room. She quickly hung the garment bags on the hook on her closet door. “I brought two dresses with me just in case nothing in your wardrobe works out. I also brought all my face and hair products. Your shoes are usually pretty on point and we don’t wear the same size anyway, so I didn’t bother with those.”

“Right,” Felicity said faintly. Her expression looked like she was about to pass out any second.

Thea sighed and set her bag down before crossing over to her friend and placing reassuring hands on both her shoulders. “Look, I know it’s not fair of me to spring this on you last minute. But you know how important this restaurant is to Ollie and me, and you know how much our parents disapprove. We need your help.”

Felicity shook her head frantically. “What in the world do you expect me to do that you haven’t been able to? I’m just going to end up babbling up a storm and embarrassing all of us!”

“No you won’t,” she insisted. “It’s a proven fact that any member of the Queen family will automatically like you within seconds of meeting you. Happened to Ollie and happened to me. It’ll be the same with my parents.”

Felicity still didn’t look too sure. She bit her lip and stared hesitatingly at Thea.

“I promise,” the younger woman said with a smile. “You’ll be fine.”

With a sigh, she nodded and let Thea get on with her preparations.

Exactly two and a half hours later, both women were ready. Thea had chosen a lacy red halter dress that clinged to her every curve, paired with a simple pair of black stilettos and gold accessories.

But she ended up spending far more time on Felicity, and the effort paid off in spades, she thought admiringly as her friend stepped out of the bathroom.

“So?” the older woman asked nervously. “How do I look?”

The simple answer was stunning. Thea put Felicity in a dark green, single-shoulder satin dress, with a skirt that flared out at her waist and ended just a few inches above her knee. She also wore a pair of glittering silver pumps, to accentuate the toned length of her legs. The rest of the styling was kept on the simple side: her hair fell over her shoulders in soft, golden waves and her ears sparkled with diamond studs.

“You look incredible,” Thea smiled. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

Felicity smiled back tentatively. “Good enough for the opening of the hottest restaurant in town?”

“Better,” Thea promised. And with that, she took Felicity’s hand and led her out of the apartment.

There was a small crowd outside the building once they reached the restaurant, and Thea’s stomach somersaulted at the sight.

It was here. The day they’d worked toward for more than a year was actually here. This was finally happening.

Felicity reached over the console to grab her friend’s hand. “You ready?” she asked.

Thea nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.

The two women climbed out of the car and Felicity handed her keys to the valet. Then they walked past the winding queue straight inside.

“Ms. Queen, Ms. Smoak,” the hostess greeted with a professional smile once she saw them. “Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Please follow me. Your table is ready. Mr. and Mrs. Queen have already arrived and are waiting for you.”

Thea grinned. Tommy had done a stellar job with the training.

“Holy cow,” Felicity breathed to her friend as they followed their hostess through the crowded dining room. “This place looks amazing. It looks like an actual restaurant.”

Thea raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, I know it was always supposed to look like a restaurant,” Felicity hurriedly added, “but...you know. For months it was just this empty industrial space and now...now there are tables. And people. And food.”

That made Thea laugh. “I sincerely hope you won’t be the one writing the review.”

“I can, if you want,” she winked. “I could hack Yelp, maybe a few foodie blogs and write gushing, five-star reviews.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Their hostess led them to a sectioned off room in the very back of the restaurant, clearly reserved for the VIPs. The booth they stopped at was the largest one in the room, and Robert and Moira Queen were both already seated, the former in a black suit and the latter in a glittering cocktail dress.

“Your server will be right with you,” the hostess told them pleasantly before giving them a gracious nod and backing away.

Thea inwardly braced herself as she slid into the banquette. “Mom, Dad,” she greeted them warmly as she reached forward to wrap her arms around them. “Thank you so much for coming. This is my friend, Felicity Smoak. She’s also Ollie’s roommate.”

Both sets of eyebrows shot up at the word “roommate.”

“Ah,” Robert said with thinly veiled surprise. “Well it’s certainly nice to meet you, Felicity. Thank you so much for joining us for dinner tonight.”

Felicity fidgeted in her seat. “Thank you for having me,” she said in a voice with the faintest quiver.

Their server came out with a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 1990 and a tray of glasses. He told them Chef Oliver had prepared their menu tonight using the wine as inspiration and hoped they would all enjoy their meal. After the wine was poured, he left the open bottle on the table with a flourish and disappeared.

“I’m really glad you could make it,” Thea told her parents once their server was gone.

“Of course we made it,” Moira said lightly, though her eyes were sharp and calculating. “This restaurant is obviously very important to you and your brother. We weren’t going to miss it for the world.”

To an outsider listening in on their conversation, Moira Queen would have sounded like the perfect, supportive mother. But Thea knew better. She could hear the condescension in her mother’s voice: of course she would show up to the grand opening, but she still didn’t expect much.

Thea was trying to form a response to her mother with equally barbed language, but Felicity chose that moment to step in.

“Oh, it’s important to a lot of people,” she said. “Tommy and Digg, for starters. But not just them, all of the people they’ve hired. Did you know that Tommy only looked for people from the Glades? I mean, it’s widely known that this area has the lowest employment rate in Starling City, so they wanted to make sure they were pulling from local talent.”

Moira and Robert both blinked in quiet surprise.

“Really,” Robert said. Though the word sounded more like a statement than a question.

“Yeah,” Felicity continued. “Plus, all the buzz this restaurant is getting is really great news for local development, you know? If people see that we’re re-investing in the Glades, others will follow. It’s just a restaurant now, but who knows? Maybe another will join soon. Then another and another and soon businesses will start popping up all over the Glades, giving people more jobs and higher property values.”

Thea’s heart flipped over in her chest as she listened to Felicity’s mini-monologue, and she felt a renewed rush of warmth and gratitude toward her best friend’s roommate.

Moira, on the other hand, was still staring at Felicity like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. Like she was some sort of interesting puzzle that she was trying to figure out.

“So you think my son’s restaurant is what will save the Glades?” she asked in slight amusement.

Felicity blushed a faint red. “Well, no. I mean, no one thing can save a city. It’s pretty ridiculous to try and say that a single restaurant can lift an entire area out of poverty. But I think it’s the first domino.”

Robert chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

A few minutes later, their server returned with their first course, which was a roasted beet salad with a pomegranate vinaigrette.

Thea looked around the table as she ate, carefully measuring her parents’ reactions. Moira’s classic poker face gave nothing away, but Robert looked at least a little pleasantly surprised at the food.

Then the Queen matriarch frowned as she fixed her gaze at something across the table.

“Felicity, is your salad different than the rest of ours?”

Thea glanced down at her plate, then looked at her friend’s. Huh, she thought in puzzlement. It was different.

But it only made Felicity smile softly. She looked down at her plate with a kind of affection Thea never would have expected a woman to have toward a salad, of all things.

“Yeah, it looks like it is,” she murmured to herself. Then she cleared her throat and looked up. “I’m allergic to nuts, and it looks like your salad has crushed pecans. This one doesn’t. Oliver must have remembered.”

Much to Thea’s unending surprise, Moira’s poker face finally cracked, and the formidable woman displayed an expression of astonishment.

“That’s...that’s very considerate,” she said after a long beat.

“It is,” Felicity nodded as she speared a few more spinach leaves. “Oliver’s a very considerate guy.”

And that, it seemed, was the hole in the dam that broke the rest of it wide open. The server brought by the second course (foie gras mousse served on crostini with port cherries, truffle goat cheese and a brandy reduction), and Moira nodded in approval.

By the time they reached their third course (seared Chilean sea bass with a blood orange tarragon beurre blanc), she was smiling. Actually smiling. Moira Queen, of all people.

“That was the best fish I think I’ve ever had,” Robert said as he set his fork down over his empty plate.

“Yes,” Moira nodded as she delicately patted the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Absolutely delicious.”

The final course was the dessert course, and Thea practically jumped in excitement when she saw it.

“It’s the s’mores creme brulee he made me for my birthday,” she told her parents. “I begged him to put it on the menu tonight and he rolled his eyes and told me forget it. I guess he must have been bluffing.”

Felicity chuckled as she picked up her spoon and cracked open the caramelized sugar crust of her creme brulee.

Once the last of the dessert had disappeared, Oliver chose that moment to step out of the kitchen to visit their table. He was dressed in an impeccably white chef’s coat, though the towel tied at his waist proved that he’d been hard at work all night. There was also a slight sheen of sweat all over his face, but the shine was nothing compared the brilliance of his happy smile.

“Hi, guys,” he greeted his parents, leaning forward to kiss them both on the cheek. “How was your meal?”

Moira grinned at her son. “Sweetheart, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that that was the best meal I have ever had.”

Most children would have dismissed their parents’ glowing praise as nothing more than bias. But most children didn’t grow up with Moira Queen as a parent.

It made her compliment all the sweeter, and Thea watched with pride as her brother’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Thank you,” he said in a voice wavering with emotion. “Thank you guys so much.”

After he hugged his parents, he turned to Thea and swept her up in a hug.

“We did it,” he whispered in her ear.

She squeezed him tight and buried her face in his shoulder. “You did it. I’m so proud of you, big brother.”

When they finally released each other, he turned to his roommate with a smile wider than the Amazon. “And how was your meal?”

“I suppose it was all right. Not anything to write home about,” she responded in a nonchalant tone, but her grin was anything but.

Oliver laughed as he reached forward to give her a hug. Their embrace lingered a little and he whispered something in Felicity’s ear that stained her cheeks bright red when they pulled away.

Thea looked away to hide her smile.

“OK, well I need to get back to the kitchen, but seriously, thank you so much for coming out tonight,” he told them. “It means the world to me.”

“Congratulations, Oliver,” Robert beamed. “We’re really proud of you, son.”

With one last grin, he waved goodbye and ran back to the kitchen.

Though the meal was over, the four of them felt no hurry to leave and lingered over their last glass of wine as they talked. The conversation flowed much more freely than before, and Thea watched as her parents warmed up to Felicity almost exactly as she had predicted. It certainly didn’t hurt when Robert discovered that Felicity worked at Queen Consolidated, though she was far too talented to work in the IT department. By the end of their conversation, he told her that he would try to find her promotion as soon as he could, which only made her beautiful smile even bigger.

When the last of the wine had finally disappeared, they all reluctantly stood to leave. Felicity ducked out for a brief moment to use the restroom, and Moira chose that moment to pull Thea aside.

“Darling,” she whispered to her daughter conspiratorially, “tell me the truth. What’s going on between Felicity and your brother?”

Thea giggled. “Nothing...yet.”

Moira’s sharp blue eyes twinkled. “I assume you have some sort of plan in place to make sure that changes, yes?”

“I have a few ideas, yes.”

“Well,” the Queen matriarch smirked, “should you need help, just know you can always count on your mother.”

Oh yeah, Thea thought smugly to herself as she hugged her mom. Tommy and Digg were going down.

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Bird in a Storm 15/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, John Diggle, Quentin Lance, Captain Stein, Lucas Hilton, Frank Pike, Moira Queen, Thea Queen, Roy Harper Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

Laurel was still having trouble processing what had happened at the memorial.

On some level, she knew Tommy’s dislike of the Hood wouldn’t mean good things if he ever found out Oliver’s identity, but to hear the words that had come out of his mouth that day had been another thing entirely. Where had that boy with the devil-may-care smile gone? Had she done this to him?

Laurel wasn’t naive enough to assume she was the only reason for Tommy’s new outlook and attitude. Her friend had always had an anger under the surface for what had happened to his mother, what his father hadn’t been able to be for him. There wasn’t anything she could have done to change those things, and so she had let it be. But maybe that had been wrong. She and Oliver had failed to be there for him, no matter their reasons for it, and now he apparently didn’t want or need their help. Who did they have to blame for it but themselves?

She was tackling Oliver’s salmon ladder today. The nice thing about his setup down here was that there was plenty of new things for her to learn that weren’t in the classes she had taken in self-defense, from Ted or with Anita. She was going to keep learning whatever she could get access to, because if she couldn’t help her friend then she would do everything she could to be ready to help others.

Oliver and Diggle sparred down below on the mats. After giving her a demonstration and watching her get up onto the first rung by herself, Oliver had left her to it. She liked that about them. One good thing about the distance they had had the last few months and her suiting up on her own was that he’d already realized she could handle things. For her part, Laurel knew that if she couldn’t, he and John were ready and willing to help out.

Laurel breathed in and out once on the top rung, her legs swinging back and forth in a slow, controlled manner, before she prepared to head back down. A beep from the computers distracted her, even more so when Oliver called out a halt to Digg and headed over.

She exchanged a look with the other man before hurrying to get back down, almost missing the last rung with the bar. She grabbed her water and towel and walked over. 

“Something about Athena turn up?”

“No,” Oliver said with a frown. She could tell it was bothering him, the lack of information on this woman who had replaced them both as Tommy’s confidant. “It’s the worm I sent into the SCPD’s computer system.”

Laurel felt both eyebrows raise. “You infiltrated the police’s computers?”

“Not the first time we’ve hacked them,” Diggle informed her.

“In my defense, this time was on your father’s orders,” Oliver added. “He’s worried about corruption and asked me to look into things.”

She was torn between laughing or screaming. “Okay, so my father, who had me surrounded by a SWAT team for asking you to help me on a case… wants you to help him on a case.”

Oliver blinked. “Uh… yup.”

“I can’t believe him!” Okay, maybe the anger was winning out. “He is such a hypocrite!” Even if she was at peace with how her life turned out, it wasn’t like it had been fun to get shot with a rubber bullet and lose her job, all for the exact thing her father was doing right now. It wasn’t like she wanted those things to happen to him, too, just some acknowledgement that maybe she hadn’t been wrong to do it. That there was a need in this city for vigilantes.

That he might not be angry if he ever found out what she was doing now.

“Trouble is, looks like he’s right,” said Diggle, who had taken possession of the mouse and was clicking through some of the data this data worm of Oliver’s had been collecting. “Look at this stuff from Nudocerdo’s time. Missing or deleted files on police misconduct, no records of disciplinary action, which means they either didn’t discipline anybody or they don’t want people to know if an officer’s been disciplined.”

“Lucky for us, it looks like Nudocerdo’s personal devices were connected up to the police systems at some point before he was fired. The worm got into them, too. Let’s take a look at his campaign finances.”

Laurel stopped pacing in order to come stand at Oliver’s side. He rubbed a hand up and down her back once in a show of comfort which she appreciated, especially since she was sweaty so it couldn’t have been very pleasant.

“You seeing what I see?” John asked a minute later.

“Yep,” Oliver answered grimly. “Tempest.”

“And what is Tempest exactly?” Laurel asked.

Oliver blanched, and Diggle sighed and looked down. “We should’ve told you this…”

“Told me what?”

“The reason Oliver agreed to interrogating his mother as the Hood,” Digg stated. “It was cause we found out she’d recovered the Queen’s Gambit wreckage, and it proved the boat wasn’t destroyed in the storm. It was sabotaged.”

Laurel felt her mouth drop open. “Sara wouldn’t have died out there?”

“Not if the boat hadn’t been targeted, no,” Oliver said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

She stepped back, trying to reconcile this was the anger and grief and the slow sense of a new normal she had been building for herself. Her sister had been murdered. Not intentionally — in fact, she probably hadn’t even been a thought in the perpetrator’s mind. But she could have come home. They could have had it out, the betrayal and all it had done. So much could have been different; maybe her whole life. Sara would have had a life.

“Laurel?” Oliver was hanging back, clearly unsure what he should do given the subject.

“It’s fine,” she said out loud, even if it wasn’t. But they were here to work. She could deal with her feelings in her own time. “What’s this got to do with Tempest?”

“It was the name of the shell company she used to pay to have the boat moved and stored somewhere. It’s been destroyed since,” John added before she could ask. “And it looks like Tempest also made regular contributions to Nudocerdo while he was Commissioner.”

“So he wasn’t just bad at his job, he was dirty,” Laurel concluded. “What about the other cops? The detectives, captains? How many of them can we tell are on the take?”

“I’ll have to comb through the files the worm grabbed. It’s gonna takes while,” Oliver said with a grimace. “I don’t think I can patrol tonight.”

He had gone out the last couple with her as she had been showing him her own method. Looking for crime as it happened rather than setting out for a predetermined target. Laurel couldn’t tell if he liked the imprecise nature of it or not, but she didn’t think he was saying this to get out of it.

“Maybe we could see if Felicity wants back in now that we know Tempest is still involved,” Diggle suggested.

“It’s not about Walter, so I don’t see why it would interest her,” Oliver replied. “And I’d rather not risk her feeling pressured.”

He’d been touchy about the amount of people who knew his identity and what they might do with it since the memorial. Laurel couldn’t blame him. It had to feel like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s okay, I can do a solo one tonight.”

She started to walk over to her bag where she’d stored the black, gray and dark blue clothing she typically fought in, though Oliver called out to her.

“Laurel, are you gonna be okay?”

She looked back at him. “Yeah, Ollie. Just as soon as we figure out what Tempest really is and what they’re up to.”

Just how Mrs. Queen was mixed up with them? Was she Tempest or was she under their thumb? Laurel couldn’t get a read on Oliver or what he might be thinking about his mother. Did they need to question her again? And if they did, should Oliver really be the one in charge of it? She didn’t doubt he wanted the answers as much as she or John, but this was his mother. It would be hard for anything to think objectively in that situation.

She went into the back to change and headed out for the streets. Oliver had indeed upgraded her motorcycle, which had been quicker for him to do than the suit he claimed he was getting her custom made from a few different sources in order to avoid it being tracked. In some ways, she felt a little miffed that her version of things was being deemed inadequate, but Laurel knew that was pride over practicality. This was dangerous work, and it was better to have the best quality tools and materials available. 

And it wasn’t as if the stuff she had put together on her own was going totally to waste. She had kept the bike she had bought for cheap for her day job, which made getting to work quicker and also opened up the possibility for her to make deliveries. Pam had been delighted by the suggestion; a couple of her older customers couldn’t always find someone to drive them to the store, and this way new seeds, pots or plants could be delivered straight to them.

She refocused on the present as she came across a mugging, quickly driving off the attacker with the roar of her bike and her collapsible staff.

“Where were you trying to get to?” She asked the boy who had been held up. He was pale with dark blonde hair kept fairly long, sort of a bohemian-type.

“My apartment. It’s just up that way,” he said with a nod. “But thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Laurel kept up her patrol, sending a couple men running from a car parked on the street they’d been trying to jack. She was finding that with her swift approach on the bike, it tended to increase her intimidation factor. That or her reputation was growing. Maybe it was a little of both, and that thought made her grin. She had gotten her own police sketch, after all, she’d been amused to find out when John told her. That made her pretty official.

It also made her her dad’s problem to target. Assuming he was even doing that thing anymore. Dirty cops or no, this sort of thing he was doing with the Hood was so beyond what she ever would’ve thought him capable of.

Or what if it wasn’t? What if it was just another ruse, an attempt to lure Ollie into a trap? That sounded more like her father. He would never ask a vigilante for help; he’d deal with the dirty cops situation on his own. What had even caused him to realize it? Maybe he’d been making it up, only for Oliver’s computer virus to lend credence to it.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp whistle. Laurel glared at the mirror before catching sight of the red hoodie in its reflection. Her annoyance disappeared as she pulled the bike around and followed Roy Harper into an alley.

“Nice ride,” he commented. “Pretty sure it’s out of your price range.”

“Yes, well the Hood and I have come to an agreement of sorts.”

Roy’s eyes widened. “You’re not just working for him now.”

“We’re working together. I thought you’d be happy about this,” she remarked. “The more the Hood and I work together, the better chance I have of bringing you in on things.”

“Yeah, I mean, I do want in,” Roy agreed, scuffing his shoe on the ground. “But people need you here, you know? Stopping the small stuff. The things he doesn’t always notice.”

Laurel hesitated. She had heard more than once from people in the Glades that while they may have no objections to what the Hood did, that it wasn’t really reaching them where they lived. They weren’t exactly wrong, but there was so much about the situation they couldn’t know, that she and Oliver and John didn’t even fully know yet.

“I think he’s noticing more all the time,” she finally answered, which was the truth. Whatever her own indignation towards her father, Laurel couldn’t have imagined the Oliver of two months ago let alone last year getting involved with systemic corruption in their city’s police force. “But don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. And I did ask him about you. He’s thinking about it.”

“Thanks,” Roy said. “Guess I should get out of here before anyone spots me with you.” He pulled his hood down further over his eyes and slipped back out into the main street. Laurel sat back on the bike seat to wait a while before heading back out there herself.

Roy’s words remained on her mind, however. What did she look like to the people who had noticed her in the Glades, zipping around on her top-of-the-line bike? Some kind of sellout? As much as she appreciated Oliver giving her access to better equipment and gear, she didn’t want people to think she was losing sight of what she had set out to do.

“That’s really what people think about me?”

She jumped, one arm already pulling back to deliver a punch before her mind caught up to the familiar voice. Laurel blinked at Oliver in surprise. “I thought you weren’t coming out tonight.”

“I ended up showing John what to look for in the files. He said he could handle it.” Oliver walked closer to her. “He also thought I should see how you were really feeling about everything.”

Laurel sighed, leaning forward on the handlebars. “What do you want me to say? I already knew my sister was dead. Now I know someone was indirectly responsible. Are you ever going to ask your mother who?”

He looked down, the hood he wore hiding his eyes. “I should. I just… something has been off about her ever since I came home. And especially since we got the news about Walter. I guess I’ve been afraid to find out what that is. I already know my father wasn’t who I thought he was. If my mother…”

Laurel reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. In a way, she understood. After losing her mother all those years ago, she had been desperate to keep the peace with her father and probably put up with more warning signs than it was worth instead of forcing them both to acknowledge his problems. “Our parents are going to disappoint us at times. Sometimes in a bigger way than most people go through.” She doubted many people had to deal with their father using them as bait for a SWAT operation gone wrong, after all. “But it doesn’t mean the things you know about them suddenly stop mattering. Whatever else, your father loved you. Your mother loves you. And if you still want her in your life, I think you can make that happen. But ignoring the problem isn’t how to do it.”

He nodded with a sigh. “Soon as I help your father, I’ll take care of it.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

His lips pulled up in a half-smile. “Maybe not, but it isn’t exactly a part of your mission.”

“My ‘mission’, if we’re calling it that, is to help people. And you fall under that category,” she reminded him with a prod to his shoulder. “You’ve been doing things my way the last couple of nights. It’s only fair I return the favor. And that starts with my dad’s thing.” If he thought she was sitting on the sidelines while her dad got involved in all this, he had another thing coming.

Oliver was silent for a moment, which had her narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“Your father… he’s hoping by resolving this issue, it will mean the city won’t need people like you or me. That things can go back to normal.” He frowned. “But seeing how widespread the corruption is, everything with Tommy and my mother, I don’t know how it can.”

“And normal isn’t exactly a good thing,” Laurel pointed out.

They both looked up at the sound of a scream from what sounded a few blocks away. A depressingly normal sound in the Glades.

“No, it isn’t,” Oliver agreed grimly. He raised his bow and fired a grapple arrow. Laurel gunned the engine of her bike, and they each took off toward the sound.

Whatever came next in their personal lives, acting in the face of injustice had become their new normal. And as far as Laurel was concerned, that was definitely a good thing.

---

Quentin started in his chair early that morning when a phone in his desk drawer started buzzing. It was the vigilante phone, which meant he really shouldn’t answer it inside. He quickly stood, doing his best to avoid Hilton’s questioning look as he headed out of the bullpen and out into the back alley. He was lucky enough to find it free of anyone on their smoke break. Finally, he answered the call.

“Yeah?”

“I have the information you requested, Detective,” the archer’s modulated voice spoke. “When and where can I deliver it to you?”

He had a feeling the vigilante wouldn’t react well to an immediate request, considering how light it was outside. Harder to hide in the shadows when they weren’t nearly so deep. “Uh… tonight. Down by the docks. Eleven?”

“I’ll be there.” With that, the line disconnected.

Quentin let out a breath. Tonight. He would know just which members of the force he was part of were dirty and which weren’t. He could take the information to Pike — at least, he hoped his gut was right that Pike was one of the good ones — and they could start cleaning house and getting this city back on track the right way.

He went back to his apartment to sleep off the night shift, showered and got some food in him. Then it was all down to waiting, which felt like an eternity rather than the few hours he knew it logically was.

Quentin took his own car rather than one of the squad cars, seeing as it would attract less attention. He kept his badge tucked away for that reason as well as he made his way down to the docks. He found a stack of crates to wait by that kept him mostly shielded from the lane trucks traveled up and down picking up or dropping off shipments. Not that there was much of that going on just now, but better to be safe than sorry.

Quentin kept checking his watch. He’d shown up early, sure, but it was already five past and no sign of him. What exactly was going on here?

“Seems your friend isn’t showing, Quentin.”

He startled as a flashlight beam hit him and straightened up. “Captain Stein.”

His superior raised a hand, the signal, he realized, for a number of SWAT lead by Warner to move in, surrounding him. Quentin raised his hands; he’d be a fool to reach for his gun now.

“Just what is this?” He knew he hadn’t been followed, so where had all of them come from?

“Ever since one of the copycat’s arrows disappeared from evidence, I knew we had a leak,” Stein stated, an underlying smugness in his tone. “And given your possession of a phone with a direct line to the Hood, you were the most obvious candidate. So I ordered Brock to take it out of your desk to have Crosby in CSU put some additional spyware on it. You could say your maneuver with your daughter inspired me,” the man added with a smirk.

Quentin’s blood ran cold as he noticed Brock standing there with his weapon raised alongside Hester, Lopez and — least surprising of all — Daily. These weren’t really his people, not besides Warner, and given the harsh glare she was directing his way, he didn’t think he’d see any leniency from her. The lack of Hall, despite her recruitment to the anti-vigilante task force nearly two months ago now, told him that this was Stein’s own hand-picked crew.

“We weren’t able to crack the encryption to follow the calls back to their source, unfortunately,” Stein continued on. “But I’ll consider bringing you in just one step closer to bringing down these vigilantes.”

Denying what he had been doing would get him nowhere, so Quentin didn’t even bother. “Look, I am trying to do the same thing. By tackling the problems that created the Hood and those like him in the first place. Bringing him in by force wasn’t working.”

“Because you lacked the conviction to do what was necessary. It’s why I had Daily join the Winick Building raid.”

Quentin’s breath stuttered in his chest. “You put him there so he’d shoot my daughter?” The younger officer was smirking where he stood, and if there weren’t a dozen guns pointed at him, he might have gone for the cocky bastard.

“You’ve failed to handle the situation objectively, Detective. Things were running just fine before this vigilante menace showed up, and I intend to see it return to that no matter who gets in the way!”

“Because your backers at Tempest have an interest in seeing it return to business as usual.”

Quentin had never been so relieved to hear the vigilante’s altered voice. Apparently the guy hadn’t pulled a no-show after all.

Two flechettes were thrown into the wrists of Warner and Hester, both of whom dropped their weapons. There were a couple grunts as Quentin caught movement near the back-left of the group; two of the men had fallen down. A few more of them turned, and it was this break in the formation that allowed him to glimpse a woman standing up from a crouched sweep kick, her fists raised. Dressed in black and dark blue with a mask and long, blonde hair, Quentin knew this could only be the Woman of the Glades.

This break in the formation gave the Hood time to rappel down from the roof of the warehouse he’d been waiting on top of, though Quentin didn’t watch to see where he landed as he was busy ducking around the crates to avoid Stein’s gunfire.

He quickly got out his own handgun and raised it, peering around the side to locate his enemy. Stein had moved back, out of reach of the Hood’s blows as he engaged both Daily and Lopez at once. 

The Woman had gotten possession of one of the SWAT shields and was using it as a battering ram on one side while she swung a staff with her free hand, throwing men twice her size to the ground. Quentin watched, however, as Cutter — the department’s first ever female SWAT member, battered the Woman back with her own shield. The Woman stumbled but kept her feet, her head giving a dazed shake for a moment. The two then circled each other before each charged.

Quentin circled around the other side of the crates, doing his best to crouch low in the hopes of getting the drop on Stein. The captain noticed him at the last second, forcing Quentin into a drop and roll as he fired on him.

“Attacking your own, Lance?”

“Trying to put a stop to this before anyone’s seriously hurt!” He called back. These people would have had enough evidence on him to arrest him at the station, but they’d waited to stage a sting operation with the clear intent of getting him and the Hood, and he doubted they’d stop at the Woman, since she’d been good enough to show. There weren’t rubber bullets in those guns, either, and judging by Stein’s attempt on his life just now, the order was shoot to kill.

An arrow sailed through the night and hit Stein’s gun, making him drop it. Quentin charged forward, knocking the older man to the ground and rolling him onto his chest. He wrenched Stein’s arms behind his back and got out his cuffs.

“If you’ve been listening to that phone since the Winick Building, then you could’ve shown up to catch him at Merlyn Global. But you didn’t, because it wasn’t personal yet, was it? You got nervous when I asked him for help rooting out corruption. Well, I’m gonna look through the evidence, find out just what this Tempest is and then it’ll be over for you and them!”

He looked up to take stock on the situation. Officers were either knocked out or tied up with those cable arrow things. The Hood was lifting Cutter up and away from the Woman, who had a split lip. She hauled back and punched the SWAT officer right in the face.

Quentin stood up. “Hey!” He didn’t need them doing that!

The Woman startled and looked away from him, her shoulders hunched. There was something almost sheepish in the gesture. He could also see a small tear in the shoulder of her jacket.

The Hood placed Cutter back on the ground considering she was knocked out cold. Then he walked over towards Quentin, his head ducked to avoid showing much more than his chin.

“This flash drive contains everything you’ll need.”

Quentin took it with a nod of thanks. He couldn’t help noticing that the Woman was already retreating back towards where he could just see the handlebar of a motorbike sticking out from the shadow of a building. Even less talkative than the Hood, apparently. Though that didn’t match the scant reports about her they’d gotten.

Before the Hood could take his leave as well, Quentin gestured towards her retreating form. “So is this, uh, a regular thing now?”

“It won’t be easy cleaning up the corruption and its effects on this city, Detective. You’ll need people like me and her for a while yet.”

It was the opposite of what he had wanted to hear tonight. But the one comfort he could draw was that the Hood sounded far from smug about it. He likely longed for the days when this city wouldn’t need him, too.

“Alright. I better call this in.” He turned away to get out his radio and heard the Hood depart. Now what the hell was he going to say about all this exactly? Best thing to do, request Hilt and see what he thought.

Predictably, his partner felt Quentin had landed them in a whole heap of trouble. “Even if what’s on that flash drive is a hundred percent genuine, you did agree to meet with a vigilante to get it, Quentin. What are we supposed to say to Pike about that?”

“Pike’s gonna have to accept that cops on some special interest group’s payroll is a bigger problem.”

Sooner than he would have liked, they had more officers on the scene to help get the injured parties treatment and to bring Stein, at the very least, in. It turned out he hadn’t put this little raid on the books, so it wasn’t only Quentin who would be answering some awkward questions.

To his great relief, Kelton took the flash drive. He made the CSU promise to guard it with his life. Quentin didn’t doubt that Crosby or someone else in on all this would love to make it disappear.

He sat waiting inside Pike’s office for the rest of that night, waiting for his direct superior to go through all of the evidence and question who he needed to. Quentin knew this probably didn’t look great for him, but he also knew he had done the right thing, and if he could just convince Frank of that, then maybe he might walk out of here a free man.

His real phone buzzed with a text just as the early light of dawn was creeping in through the window. Quentin glanced at it, saw Laurel’s name, and sat up to rub at his eyes. It read how’s everything?

He felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Somehow his girl always knew when to check on him. He considered it a good thing Laurel was actually reaching out considering they’d still only made a few halting attempts each to patch things up. Quentin wrote back, long night, but fine. At least he hoped it would be. But considering he hadn’t been hauled into a holding cell yet, he had hope.

Like a summons, the thought was immediately followed by Pike opening the door to his office and coming around to his side of the desk. A large folder was under his arm that he set down and opened.

“Quentin,” his long-time superior sighed. “This would’ve been easier if you would have just come to me.”

“Maybe, but sir, I did point out my concerns about Daily in particular to you, which you said you couldn’t do anything about. Now we both know why. Stein was protecting his man.”

“But a vigilante? The same vigilante you told me you didn’t want to give up hunting even when I scaled back the taskforce!”

He winced. “Things… changed. I realized I needed someone independent to look into what was going on here. What did Kelton find on that flash drive? Did it say what this Tempest is?”

“I already know what Tempest is,” Frank answered.

That caused his mouth to snap shut for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?”

“I mean I was informed about this Tempest just this past evening,” the Lieutenant clarified. “If I’d known it related to the vigilante case, I would have called you in.”

Quentin sat back. “Well, hang on, what is it really about?”

“It appears there is a group of the city’s most wealthy who got together to form a bloq,” Pike explained. He passed over the file, and Quentin took it, flipping through. The bribes were there, though not just to the SCPD. As he continued reading, he also came upon a record of property purchases in the Glades. “They’ve been behind a lot of the decisions made in the last several years, deciding what they think is best. And I have to warn you, Quentin, their end goal is… I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it.”

He flipped another page and came upon schematics. Bomb schematics.

“What the… what the hell were they doing with this?”

“Nothing, yet. We were informed about this with enough time to do something. Now that you and, well, the vigilantes, have taken care of the people on the inside here that were working for them, we’ve got the upper hand. Now my source has identified the ringleader of this high society club, and I’m sending you and Hilton with backup to make the arrest.” Frank leaned forward. “You pull this off, Quentin, and no one’s going to care who you’ve been enlisting off the books. We’ll be heroes.”

He opened his mouth to tell his superior to get on with it and tell him who they were bringing in, but then he turned the final page. Quentin froze, his eyes widening.

“I’ll be damned…”

He should have known.

---

Thea relaxed on her bed, taking full advantage of the day off from community service. She was enjoying CNRI more now that Joanna was back and they occasionally actually did stuff, but she wouldn’t be a normal teenager if she wanted to work every single day. Besides, she had a kind of special event planned.

Thea was finally introducing her newly-christened boyfriend Roy to her mother. Thea had never bothered running her previous relationships past her mom, partly because she’d thought she hadn’t cared and partly because Thea hadn’t wanted it to be anyone’s business but hers. But if Walter’s loss had reminded her of anything, it was that you never knew how long you had with family. And truthfully, she thought it might bring her mom some comfort to know that Thea had someone special in her life.

She’d bullied Ollie into promising he would actually show for this since he had a bad habit of ditching family functions at the last second. It had helped that she had pointed out he and Laurel had ditched them at Mr. Merlyn’s memorial, and thus she and their mom hadn’t had the chance to catch up with what appeared to be a rekindling of their own relationship. So Oliver was supposed to be bringing both Laurel and Roy over to the manor.

Thea heard the sound of tires on the drive, so she quickly got up, checked her hair in the mirror and then raced out of her room and down the steps. Just as she reached the foyer, she heard a knock on the other side of the front door. That was weird, unless Ollie was making Roy knock in some stupid big brother intimidation routine.

She wrenched open the door, the smile freezing on her face when she found not her boyfriend, brother and his girlfriend waiting for her, but Detective Lance and his partner Hilton. Both officers grimaced at the sight of her.

“Is something wrong?”

“Where is your mother, Miss Queen?” Detective Hilton asked calmly. Thea couldn’t help noticing, however, that there was another car and two more officers waiting further down the drive.

“She’s, uh—”

“I’m right here.” When she turned around, she saw her mother descending the stairs in an outfit she called her ‘casual best’. Thea had already told her Roy had never had much money. “Can I help you with something, officers?”

Thea watched as Lance gave a shake of his head. “Let’s not drag this out in front of your daughter, alright? You’re coming downtown with us.”

“Wait, what?” Thea asked, only to be forced back as both Lance and Hilton pushed their way through the door, Hilton taking out a pair of handcuffs.

“You must be very mistaken,” her mother said gravely, though Thea couldn’t help noticing how very pale she looked.

“Not unless the thing we found them building at Unidac was actually a piñata,” Lance quipped. “Moira Queen, you’re under arrest for kidnapping, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, hiring an assassin, and conspiracy to commit mass murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“Murder?” Thea echoed, somehow both hoarse and shrill at the same time. “No, no that’s crazy.”

“Miss Queen, if you could stay back,” Detective Hilton requested, gently buffeting her aside when she tried to move towards her mother, who had frozen in shock and only started moving when Lance marched her along with one hand under her arm.

“Mom!”

“Stay- stay in the house, baby,” her mother called over her shoulder.

Thea followed them out to the front stoop, her hands pressing to either side of her head as she watched them put her unresisting mother into the back of a squad car and drive away. The other two officers came inside and went up the steps, heading in the direction of her mother’s office.

How could this be happening again? Was she going insane with her life just repeating itself in circles? Her dad dying, Walter dying; Oliver being arrested for murder, her mother being arrested for murder. And how did that make any sense?

What was she supposed to do? Did she call Jean? Ollie? Thea sunk down onto the front step, her knees to her chest as cries were choked out of her.

How could everything have changed so fast and so horribly?

[raywritesthings]

In the Dead of Night 7/9

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Nyssa al Ghul, Malcolm Merlyn, Thea Queen, Tommy Merlyn, John Diggle, Sara Lance, Maseo Yamshiro Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen (Eventual) Summary: Oliver Queen returns to Starling City after five years away, three years after Sara Lance was found and rescued by her mother. More troubling to him is Laurel’s abrupt and unexplained absence from the city for the same length of time that her sister’s been home. Three years into the past, Dinah Lance makes a terrible choice. *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN (links to both accounts are in bio)*

Present day

Laurel could feel nothing but shock for a moment. Ra’s was dead. Oliver had killed him. He had come to free her, and now was dying in her arms.

She ripped the covering from her head, pressing it to the wound that still bled. “No, no, no. Please, Ollie, you can’t go yet. Not yet,” she commanded. Her voice was steady, and there were no tears. She’d trained herself long ago not to shed them.

Her free hand traced along scars she’d never seen before, scars that had shocked even her when he had first removed his coat and shirt. What had he been through all this time, and why had it led him here to die?

There was a terrible scream in a voice she thought she had to be dreaming to hear. But Thea Queen burst through the ranks of silent League observers, throwing herself down by her brother’s other side.

“Ollie! No, no, Ollie!”

Laurel’s eyes caught additional movement as others hurried in. Tommy, his father dressed in a League uniform save the head covering, and a stranger with a gun.

“Laurel, oh my God, Laurel.” Tommy looked on her like she was a ghost. “What- What are you doing here? What the hell is going on?”

Behind him, she could spot another lurking, and Laurel’s eyes widened. Sara. What did she think she was doing here, after all these years? Did she even realize she was trying to hide behind the others now, and how futile that was?

The stranger holstered his sidearm and stepped forward. Laurel withdrew her knife. He held up both hands.

“Easy! I’m his bodyguard. I have some field medicine training.”

Warily, she lowered the knife and allowed him closer. He listened at Oliver’s mouth and checked his wrist.

“Breathing and we got a faint pulse. If I can stitch him up, we might get him to a hospital or a doctor of some kind down there.”

“He won’t last down the mountain. There’s only one thing that can save him,” Mr. Merlyn argued. “The Pit.”

“What Pit?” Thea practically wailed.

“The Lazarus Pit,” Laurel said. “How do you know about it?”

“Because he is Taer Saher,” Nyssa pronounced with venom. She was standing just by Laurel’s shoulder. “The Magician.”

Laurel’s eyes widened. The one Ra’s had once allowed to go free. She had known him all this time? What could have ever brought Mr. Merlyn to train with the League?

“Hello, Nyssa. You’ve grown since we last met. My condolences for your recent loss.”

“You cared nothing for my father. And here you return along with this- this usurper—”

“Careful how you speak of the new Ra’s al Ghul,” Mr. Merlyn warned, his tone going cold. “He won the challenge. Now it is the League’s responsibility to see him healed.”

Everything Nyssa had said about the Magician told Laurel she should not trust Tommy’s father any longer. But Oliver needed the Pit before it was too late and they lost his soul. She stood, hefting his limp form into her arms with only a little difficulty. She had plenty of strength, but he had clearly built up his own muscle since she had seen him last.

Laurel turned away from Nyssa’s betrayed look. “Sarab, inform the Priestess to prepare the Pit.”

Oliver’s old friend from Hong Kong nodded and departed from the main hall. Laurel began to walk after him, Thea and Tommy both tagging along at her sides while Oliver’s bodyguard stuck close behind. She could hear the rustle of Malcolm’s uniform nearby as well, and a final set of footsteps further back. Sara, again. Laurel grit her teeth and kept walking.

“I don’t understand. How is a Pit supposed to help Ollie?” Thea asked, her voice wavering badly.

“Nanda Parbat sits on the site of the Lazarus Pit, the waters of which have mystical properties. It can heal the worst of wounds,” Mr. Merlyn explained. “Your brother will be fine, Thea.”

“And what then?” The bodyguard asked.

“Laurel,” Tommy said, softer than the others. “Are you — you haven’t said much.”

“Our first priority is to keep Oliver alive,” she stated simply. It felt bizarre to watch Tommy Merlyn walk the halls of Nanda Parbat. She wondered if this was some fever dream, some last gasp of hope for a rescue that had turned nightmarish with Oliver’s injury.

The Priestess was ready when they arrived. Laurel checked a final time; Oliver was still breathing, and, though it was far too slow, a heartbeat was present. She bent over and lowered him into the waters.

“Whoa, whoa, he’s gonna drown!” Tommy exclaimed. His father held him back.

The Priestess paced along the other side of the Pit, murmuring her Arabic chants under her breath. After a tense few minutes, Oliver’s head broke the surface of the water as he coughed and gasped for air.

Laurel hauled him around by the shoulders, helping him to find the edge of the Pit so he could pull himself up onto the stone. Sarab approached with a towel.

“What’s going on?” Oliver rasped.

“You won, I think,” his bodyguard told him. “They let us use this hot spring to heal you.”

Oliver shivered in the cool air of the cavern. He wrapped the towel around himself tighter, but one hand snuck out to cup Laurel’s cheek. For some reason, she did not resist.

“Laurel.” There was far too much to decipher in his eyes. Too much she didn’t know how to feel about. He seemed to realize he wasn’t going to receive a response from her, and his eyes drifted over the rest of the group. He grimaced. “Tommy. Thea.”

“You have got so much explaining to do,” Thea informed him. Then she approached and hugged him. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Like how we weren’t supposed to know you’re the Hood?” Tommy asked. Oliver tensed and looked up at him. “My dad told us.”

Oliver looked Mr. Merlyn up and down, taking in the League uniform, and he stood, moving Thea behind him. “You?”

“I’m afraid so, Oliver. Believe me, I was just as surprised as you are to realize the truth. But now there are decisions that have to be made,” Mr. Merlyn stated. “You have earned the right of becoming Ra’s al Ghul. I imagine that interferes with certain plans of yours.”

No one looked more surprised by this outcome than Oliver. Whatever had caused him to launch this challenge in the first place, he clearly hadn’t thought through all the unintended consequences. And Laurel knew she didn’t understand enough about the events that had led to so many from her old life turning up here to be of much use. Not yet, anyway.

“You’ll need to change before the ceremony,” she said. Laurel stood to leave, and Oliver was quick to follow her lead, Thea remaining plastered to his side.

The rest of the group parted as she walked through them to get to the corridors. Sara had kept her gaze lowered, and a fissure of irritation was starting to build in Laurel. She tried to focus on other things while she led them to an unoccupied room.

Oliver stood to become the new Ra’s, bypassing Nyssa’s inheritance. That wasn’t what anyone wanted, though, as far as she could tell. He could abdicate in favor of Nyssa — but then what did the Magician seem to have planned? Why did he and Oliver appear to have a history that went beyond their families knowing each other? And what had Tommy meant when he had called Oliver a Hood?

They all entered, and Laurel nodded over to a partition that Oliver could stand behind to change. Tommy led Thea over to sit on the bed. Mr. Merlyn hovered nearby with the bodyguard covering him, and Sara stood far back against a wall. The silence was tense and no one seemed to know how to break it.

Sarab arrived with ceremonial garb befitting the Demon Head and presented it. Oliver reached out, but stopped, staring at the man.

“Maseo?”

“Maseo is dead. My name is Sarab, and I have pledged my service to Ra’s.”

“Right.” Oliver looked from him to her, uncertainty in his eyes. Laurel stared back blankly. She had never known Sarab’s former name, even if she’d been aware of his connection to Oliver.

“Anybody else we know in the murder squad?” Tommy asked snidely.

Sarab faced her. “Blackbird, you should change your uniform for the ceremony as well.”

Laurel looked down at herself and noticed the blood staining the front of her uniform for the first time. She had lost her head covering somewhere along the way as well, and her hair, normally tied back, was escaping to fall down her back. In any case, it was far from the League’s standards.

“Of course.” She turned and made for the door.

“Laurel,” said Oliver, and she stopped and looked back. “Gather anything you need to take with you.”

She was really leaving. Or she would be. It was so close it seemed unreal, but her freedom had seemingly arrived. So much else with it, too.

She had never thought of much beyond her freedom. Where she would go, who would be in her life. The idea that those she’d known were aware of everything that had happened...why had they even come?

Her room was occupied when she entered it. Nyssa stood at the window.

“So. This is to be goodbye.”

“You hoped this day would come. You said so yourself,” Laurel reminded her. She walked to the side of her bed and picked up her jacket where it lay folded on the pillow. Nyssa must have gotten it out for her.

“Yes, once I succeeded my father.” Nyssa turned around to face her. “Your rescuer takes the Magician as his counsel.”

“I’m not sure what’s going on there.” Things had seemed uncomfortable between Oliver and Mr. Merlyn, but their families were old friends. They probably were talking over their options right now.

“Oliver can’t stay and be Ra’s. He has a family.” A family that had to be beside themselves seeing as how he’d nearly thrown his life away for her.

Nyssa approached her. “Then this goodbye will be a permanent one.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Oliver abdicates as you say, he will have to choose a successor. The Magician knows this.”

Laurel stared hard at her friend’s solemn expression. “Nyssa...what will happen to you?”

“What happens to any heir during regime change, I’m afraid.” Her friend and mentor’s look hardened. “Not that I will make it easy.”

---

Two years ago

As a year went by she was no longer the newest addition to the League. She had to wonder what made people so eager to join of their own will, but she kept those thoughts to herself. She was expected like the others to begin training the recruits, and was assigned a man renamed Sarab.

She led him to one of the many training rooms with its two racks of weapons, and like Nyssa had done, gestured to the one nearest to him.

“You will select a weapon, and then we will put your mastery of it to the test.” She walked to her own rack, then turned to see that their newest recruit had not moved. He was staring at her quizzically. “Sarab.”

“I know your face.”

She froze. “Excuse me?”

Sarab glanced around the room, then said in a hushed voice, “Your face. I have seen it. Before I came here, my wife and I knew a young man in Hong Kong. American, like you. He carried your picture.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Ollie. He was alive.

The instant after that realization came both a towering rage and a wave of relief that fought each other. He had lived, but he was why she was here. Not directly, no. But then, was blaming him absolving her family of their own crime?

Nyssa entered the room, and she shoved the mess of emotion Sarab’s words had caused her aside.

“Your weapon, Sarab.”

In her room that night, she tried to parse out her feelings. Anger, grief, hurt, concern, so many things she wasn’t used to processing so intensely. But Oliver had always done that to her.

She wanted to hate him, and a part of her did. All of this had happened because of his selfish decisions. But was it right to blame someone for the totally unforeseen and unintentional? Much as he’d wronged her, she doubted he would have ever wanted something like this to happen.

And what had to be happening to him? If Sarab had known him before fleeing to the League, what could have been so terrible in Hong Kong? If it was anything like this, she couldn’t remain that angry with him. No one deserved this kind of life, especially when they hadn’t chosen it.

He still carried her picture. Three years and he still had it. He didn’t have the right to have it, considering what he’d been doing when she gave it to him, but—

Did that mean he was sorry? Did that mean somehow he still…?

No. It was foolish to even let her mind go there. Oliver was God knew where if he was even still alive since Sarab saw him, and she was trapped with the League. The wonderful life she’d once envisioned for them had always been an impossible dream. Happy endings didn’t exist, not for the kind of person she had become.

At night she had dreams of trailing a target and striking the killing blow, only to turn them over and see Oliver’s lifeless face gazing unseeing up at her. Other times, the light would just be fading from his eyes as he whispered, “Who are you?”

She wasn’t sure she knew anymore.

---

Malcolm knew he had a very brief window of opportunity. Circumstances were changing. Just when his end goal had started to come within reach, he found himself presented with more than he could have ever dreamed of. But only if he could make the deal.

“Oliver, let’s talk.”

His rival from Christmas looked over the partition at him. “Okay. Why did you use the League uniform to become the Dark Archer?”

“Because I needed a way to confront the Hood. To make certain he wasn’t interfering with my plans.”

“Plans?” Tommy gave a humorless laugh. “Why do you have plans? What the hell is going on with either of you?”

Malcolm barely refrained from rolling his eyes at his son. He’d always known Tommy was weak, and that he clearly didn’t understand the situation was no surprise. “This doesn’t concern you, Tommy.”

“Uh, I think it does,” Thea Queen countered. Malcolm sighed. “Can we just back up for a minute? You joined a crazy league of killers when all of us were kids, Oliver came back from his island and decided he wanted to be a cray killer for some reason—”

“The Hood isn’t just about killing,” John Diggle spoke up.

The girl threw her hands up in the air. “Then what is it?”

“Robert’s legacy,” Malcolm said. He caught Oliver’s eye as the younger man emerged in the lush robes he’d been provided. “He did tell you the truth before he died.”

“Yes,” Oliver admitted.

“What truth?” Tommy asked.

“Our fathers weren’t the men we thought they were, Tommy. You can see that for yourself,” Oliver answered, never taking his eyes from Malcolm. “What my father didn’t get to tell me was who was in charge, and of what. Why did you write the list?”

Malcolm shook his head. “The list was an old idea, abandoned before you even set sail on that yacht. I’ve had much bigger plans for our city in the works.”

“Whatever it is, we’re not letting it happen,” John Diggle said, his hand hovering over his firearm.

“Then perhaps we can come to an arrangement. Oliver, you find yourself at the head of an enterprise you have no interest in running. Managing a business like this is my strength.”

Oliver studied him for a long moment. “You want to be the next Ra’s al Ghul.”

“What? Dad, no.” Tommy stood up. “Come on.”

“Don’t interfere, Tommy.”

“But you’re sick or not well or- or something!” His son gestured around the room. “Why would you want this?”

“Because with the League, I have the power to change the world. To make it a better place.” He looked into his son’s eyes. “The place your mother would have wanted.”

Tommy fell silent.

“Why should Ollie give it to you?”

He hadn’t forgotten Sara Lance’s presence, but he’d wondered if the young woman was even paying attention what with the conflict between her and her sister clearly weighing on her mind.

“Because if he does...I will ensure Walter’s safe return to his family.”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed, but Thea stood up, her fists clenched. “It was you? You had him abducted?”

“It was the only way to ensure your mother’s cooperation.”

“Cooperation in what?” Oliver demanded, though his voice was hardly louder than a murmur.

“An Undertaking.” He allowed himself to pace the room. “One that Robert hoped to stop all those years ago. The measures I have had to take in regards to your family have been regrettable — but it can all end here, if you give me the title of Ra’s.”

“Better idea,” said the bodyguard. “I shoot you here and we end your Undertaking ourselves.”

He smirked. “The men watching Walter were given specific instructions about what to do should I not contact them within a certain length of time upon leaving for this trip. I am the only one who can call them off. Kill me here, and he’ll be dead before you touch back down in the states.”

“Dad, listen to yourself!” Tommy begged. “This is blackmail!”

“No, it’s just good business.” His eyes never strayed from Oliver. “Do we have a deal?”

The door opened, revealing the man called Sarab once more. “The ceremony is ready, Ra’s.”

The group was shown back to the main hall, not that Malcolm needed a guide. Tommy was staying about as far away from him as possible, but what was important was Oliver. He could see the gears turning, contemplating his options. But there was only one option for someone like him. That was the problem when you allowed yourself to care about people; they became liabilities.

Oliver was led up to the dais and given the ring that signified the holder of the title of Ra’s al Ghul. The Priestess retreated, and Oliver turned to face the room. All members of the League kneeled in recognition of their new leader. As he was technically one of them no longer — for the moment — Malcolm remained standing. He wasn’t about to show weakness to his rival at this crucial point.

Near the back of the room, Malcolm noticed the arrival of Laurel Lance and Nyssa, who joined in the kneeling.

“Thank you,” Oliver said to the room. Malcolm tried not to sigh; the young man was in over his head. He was doing Oliver a favor taking this out of his hands. “My first act as Ra’s al Ghul is to call on the Blackbird.”

Laurel Lance stood and walked to the front of the room, removing her head covering in one motion. Gone were most of the traces of her innocent youth; he could see that clearly from where he stood. The planes of her face were sharper, thinner though not quite to the point of being sickly. Her eyes spoke of weariness, the kind that was set deep in a person. Malcolm had little doubt she would have lasted here much longer. Nanda Parbat was not for those who wished no longer to live.

She stepped onto the dais and kneeled in front of Oliver.

“What is your will, Ra’s?”

“You have served the League well these last three years. But I see your contract with the previous Demon Head as void upon his death. Therefore, I release you from your obligation to the League of Assassins.”

A shaky breath left her, and Laurel Lance rose onto her feet. And then, in an unexpected, almost jerky movement, she stepped forward and hugged him.

No one looked more surprised by it than Oliver, who took a moment to return it. Then his look changed. Malcolm caught the slightest movement of her lips by his ear. What was she planning?

Laurel Lance released Oliver and backed off of the dais. She remained standing there amongst the other League members rather than off to the side with her old friends and sister. Interesting.

Oliver kept his eyes locked with hers for a moment and then looked to the back of the room again. “Nyssa, come forward.”

Malcolm raised both eyebrows as the former Heir to the Demon approached, eyeing Oliver warily. She stepped onto the dais and bowed her head but did not kneel.

“You have served the League well, acting as trainer and second in command,” Oliver began. “And for that, I release you from its service.”

Nyssa’s head snapped up. “What?” She looked around at Laurel Lance, whose gaze was on the stone floor.

Using Oliver to get her friend to safety. Clever, he had to give her that.

“You would dare—”

“It is my will as Ra’s, Nyssa. You are dismissed from Nanda Parbat.”

Nyssa got up, eyes flashing, and stormed from the room. She never had learned to temper her passions. He would have had to teach her a lesson about that were she still in the service of the League. It would have been a good show of strength to any members who were not familiar with his time as one of the Horsemen of Ra’s. A pity, but Miss Lance had always been the clever one in Tommy’s social circle.

Oliver let out a breath and looked around the room again. His eyes landed on Malcolm.

“With that concluded, I choose to renounce my claim to the title of Ra’s al Ghul. I nominate the Magician in my place.”

All eyes turned to him. Malcolm allowed himself a smirk as he walked up onto the dais. Oliver had already removed the ring and set it in his palm.

“I am honored, Oliver. You will see Walter very soon,” he added in an undertone. Malcolm turned to face the crowd of assassins who still remained kneeling and then the small group by the wall.

Tommy was shaking his head slowly, like he was choosing to believe none of this was real. Were he stronger, Malcolm might ask him to remain and be his right hand the way Nyssa had been for her father. But Tommy was hardly a worthy heir to Merlyn Global, let alone the League of Assassins.

“Sarab,” he pronounced. “Escort the outsiders from the premises.”

His new subordinate moved to do just that, and Malcolm smiled. After years of planning, his vision for Starling City would not come to fruition.

But he had even bigger plans for the world.