AN: This is the fifth installment of this little song-fic series I'm working on. We've had Landslide, Devil's Backbone, Side of a Bullet, Lifeboat and Lighthouse. I'm starting to write more in the Arrow universe, and I thought I'd do a character study in that world before updating The Choice, as I'm getting to a point where things are going to be a little more involved and I want to make sure I know the characters before moving forward.
Oliver stood in the rain, watching the city as it passed by from the roof of Queen Consolidated. It was nights like this that he could close his eyes and almost imagine he was back on the island, with the storms blown up from the ocean and the howling winds turned salty by sea spray. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sound of horns and a siren, trying to picture Lian Yu stretching out in front of him from one of their vantage points.
Lian Yu understood him. This city...Starling City couldn't.
There were too many questions, too few answers. Where had he been? What happened on the island? And while those were questions to ask, they didn't make up the sum of him. They didn't even know there were more questions, more answers, to hear. They didn't know because he didn't let them, and no one, not even his mother or Thea or Laurel, bothered to look past his front to see that.
No one had looked past much of anything since Lian Yu. He'd been what he showed the world since the Amazo sank, since he'd killed Slade. Even if they didn't, Oliver didn't know what they'd say to him. There was pity, from the island, from the torture, but the after...Everything that came after would be anger, disappointment, disgust. He knew it all on his own, without their knowing eyes seeing it. So he hid the core of him, what was behind the ripples of the pond, and hid what he truly was, because they'd never see what they wanted to underneath that placid surface.
He'd spent hours watching them watch him. His mother always had that little frown on her face, like she'd hoped that he'd changed but not wanting to see all the ways in which he had. Like he was still that boy playing in a man's body. On the island, they'd seen him for what he was, a man that wasn't yet ready to be one. Lian Yu had stripped away that weakness, that hesitance to grow, and turned him into an adult. It was maddening that people couldn't see that, couldn't see how he'd changed, that they still looked at him and saw Ollie Queen.
Except he didn't show them, so they couldn't know. They didn't look, and all the while they expected him to grow, be better, and yet...they never tried to show him how. If he hadn't been mature enough before the island, in their knowledge, how could he have been mature enough after? A siren sounded below him, and he startled, shaking himself back into the present, away from the routine comfort of the Island. Away from memories that-
"Come on, Kid. You can do better than that! I'm practically geriatric and I'm kicking your ass," Slade said, poking at him with the tip of his boot. Oliver groaned from the dirt, taking a moment to collect himself before grappling onto that boot and flipping the man forward, rolling him to his belly and settling low on his hips, pinning him.
"Didn't break your hip, did you?" Oliver asked, the thrill of taking Slade down rising in his veins.
"Not hardly," the ASIS agent countered, and in a moment, Oliver was looking up at the canopy and Slade Wilson who had a boot on his chest and a smug smile in place. "But you're getting better." A hand came out toward him, and Oliver clasped it, allowing the man to haul him to his feet.
"Mr. Queen?" Felicity's voice jarred him from the memory, and he turned toward the roof access door. She stood there, a little frown on her mouth and confusion in her eyes. She was a sharp girl, he had to admit, but even her technical mind didn't see past the lies she told him. "Are you alright?"
"Fine, Ms. Smoak," he said. "Just collecting my thoughts."
"Well, if you want to collect them inside, where it's not raining, I'll just leave the door propped open." He nodded to her and smiled. She was a sharp woman, kind, and he could see himself liking her in another lifetime. He could, maybe, in this one.
But that would be grasping at things that were impossible. Like he'd been doing since he returned, trying to live half in one world and half in another. With Laurel and Tommy and Thea. He'd wanted them back in his life, when he'd been on the island. He'd ached for them back, and yet...
"Come on, man. There are two beautiful women by the bar, and they are really into gymnastics. Gymnastics, Ollie."
"Let's look at that little apartment, Ollie. The one above Rizzo's Pizza. It's not far from where I want to work after I graduate."
"Ollie! Ollie, where are you going? Is Tommy going with you? I want to go, Ollie."
He didn't know them anymore. He didn't know those people as much as they didn't know him. Five years on Lian Yu and with Waller and the Bratva had changed him. Five years without someone watching his back had changed Tommy. Five years of thinking her sister dead, her boyfriend a cheat, and that she had to change the city herself had changed Laurel.
Maybe they would come together like puzzle pieces. Maybe all of their jagged edges had broken so that they came together closer than ever. Maybe, but Oliver wasn't willing to show them his edges to see. He just wanted to pretend that who he was then was who he was now, that everyone else hadn't changed, that he could fit into their lives. Except...except it was all the same. It was all the god damned same.
"...and all I got was this crappy t-shirt."
"Oliver, Tommy and I don't need your blessing."
"You are not my father."
So, he'd pretend otherwise. He'd look at them and pretend that they were done growing, done changing. That they'd matured as much as he had, and that they hadn't stayed so very much the people he remembered. Because if he'd changed so very much in five years and they hadn't...then it was all the experiences, it wasn't him, at his core. He hadn't become...this because he'd wanted to but because the world had made him.
He could pretend that he was back home. That he was with his family, with the people he loved and would protect with his life, with the skill that the world made him learn. Pretend. Oliver did a lot of pretending. He pretended that he was Ollie Queen. He pretended that the wold had not changed him. He pretended that he wasn't still on that Island, wasn't still in the Amazo with electricity singing in his veins, that he wasn't still taking orders and ending lives with the Bratva.
Pretend he was still there. Sometimes, he didn't know which was pretend.
They couldn't see it, and sometimes he struggled just as much as they did.
You're a brother.
You're not a brother!
I've seen girl scouts with more fight in them.
There might be a fighter in you yet.
Slade saw him. Saw through every part of him, into every part of him. Chased down his weaknesses and helped him make them strengths, turned him into something that was still Ollie Queen but stronger. He'd pushed and struck and beat Oliver into the shape that he wanted him into, and Oliver, Oliver could be what he wanted. He could be strong. He could survive. He could be a hero.
Slade had helped him see that, because Slade had seen it. He didn't waste his time on people that were useless, and no matter how many times he told Oliver he was exactly that, they both knew the truth. If Oliver had been useless, if Slade had looked into the heart of the man and saw nothing worth saving, he'd have killed him that first day in the fuselage. So, Oliver had taken the abuse. He'd swallowed his pride for the first time in his life, and he found that what Slade wanted, Oliver wanted.
Because Slade just wanted Oliver to be a man, be the man he could be, and Oliver was willing to take that instruction, to follow Slade's instruction and his header. On the island, on Lian Yu, in those few months they were together, Slade Wilson learned more about Oliver Queen than even he knew, and by watching Slade, Oliver learned exactly who he was, who he could become.
Sometimes, Oliver just wished he'd been on the island for five years, even after the Amazo, even if Slade had survived and he'd spent every moment of his time between then and now in pain and agony, it would have been worth it. Worth it because at least, in that world, in that reality, he was still Oliver Queen.
Still like he pretended to be. Stronger, yes. More able and capable, yes. But not a killer. Not someone that could end life without remorse or hesitant thought. Sometimes, Oliver thought that past that didn't happen was more real than this one. He could feel the pain in his limbs from where Slade would waste his anger, the scarring on his skin from Mirakuru strength. In that possibility, sometimes Oliver saw redemption in that face in the end, when he'd stripped away the last of the weakness, made Oliver a man down to his core, lost the irresponsibility and the failure.
Sometimes...
"Why is it every time it's raining you disappear up here?" Felicity's voice was always one of those things that cut through whatever memory he found himself within. He turned away from the city, forced a smile to his lips, and followed her into QC.
"I'm sorry I worried you," he said softly as they walked. She smiled at him over her shoulder, waving a hand absently.
"Who was worried about you? That bow's going to rust if you stay out there any longer." She glanced down at his bow, at the release in his hand. He nodded, shaking it once firmly to dislodge the rain.
"It's survived worse," he said. She knew, though. She knew it had because she'd seen worse. She'd seen bay water and blood coating the mechanisms. She'd seen blade marks and blast burns and even a neat little through and through bullet hole.
He smiled as she made grabby hands toward his release. He let her take it without question. The security cameras would find themselves missing several long minutes the next day, but that was no more than a whim for the girl...woman. She groused at him as she dried the small piece of metal and strapping. He let her for a long while, pleased with himself and her. It was only as they got to the lobby, nearing Diggle, who stood there in his jeans and t-shirt and leather jacket, a wry smile on his lips, that he took the release back.
"Gonna drown out there, Oliver," Diggle said, though they both knew otherwise.
"Its better to remember in the rain," Oliver offered. Dig just nodded. Felicity looked at him as if she wanted to argue something but wouldn't. "Let's go."
The car ride was comfortable with Diggle at the wheel making a crack about Oliver's black driver and Felicity babbling on about proper coating for metal that was going to be exposed to water for long periods of time. Oliver just sat in the back, listening to them make casual exchanges.
Sometimes, Oliver thinks that maybe he'd been chasing something in the wrong people.
The memory of Tommy was of a best friend, a brother. The memories he kept of Slade were of a brother and a mentor.
The memory he kept of Laurel were of a safe place, a lover. The memories he kept of Shado were of a touchstone, a lover.
He smiled and stared out the side window, trying to hide the realization from his eyes.
The memories he would keep of Diggle would be of a best friend, a brother, a mentor.
The memories he would keep of Felicity would be of a safe place, a touchstone, and a lover.
The world could keep on changing, or it could stay the same. It didn't much matter anymore, because he wasn't on Lian Yu. He wasn't with Waller. He wasn't with the Bratva. He was simply there, in that car on a side street in Starling City, with the people who could see him.
AN2: Ok. This HARD core started off as an Oliver/Slade bromance piece. It did. I swear there was going to be longing and heartfelt speeches and everything, but...then it just sort of...demanded to be written like this, and you know what? I don't hate it.