Summary: With their mother in jail and a potential crisis looming in Central City, Oliver and Thea struggle to get Queen Industries into safe hands before leaving town. Thankfully Walter has a few ideas to help.

Notes: For the N1 prompt on my DCTV Gen Bingo card - Siblings

Series Notes:

1.) Hartley Rathaway and Tommy Merlin were friends and Hartley's life is much more intertwined with the Arrow cast as a result.

2.) While at Tommy's funeral, Hartley was contacted by Cisco, who'd discovered the STAR Labs accelerator was faulty and was fired by Dr. Wells to cover it up. Cisco was able to steal supporting documents and took them to Hartley in Starling.

3.) Oliver immediately offered his help once he found out about the problem with the accelerator. So did Thea. Hartley contacted Laurel for legal help as well.

Taking Care of Business

Oliver climbed into the passenger seat of the car and let out a deep sigh.

"How is she?" Thea asked.

"Regretful," Oliver replied quietly. He still didn't know how to feel about his mother. Moira Queen had been willing to let Malcolm Merlyn commit genocide if it meant protecting her family. What she'd willingly been a part of was abhorrent and unforgivable and... and he still loved her. She was his mother.

"I won't go see her," Thea told him, not for the first time.

"I know." Oliver didn't tell her that Moira had asked to see her. Thea had made her feelings clear and if Thea never wanted to see their mother again, well... then Moira would have to learn to live with that. "I won't ask that of you," he promised.

"Thank you." Putting the car in drive, Thea pulled out of the parking lot and out onto the street. "I dropped Hartley and Cisco off at the train station. Laurel joined them so I think they're going to be spending the ride to Central City discussing lawyer things. This is going to be really bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think it is. The way Hartley was talking, if the accelerator explodes it could take out a pretty big chunk of the city. Worse than what the Glades suffered." Oliver stared out the window, his mind drifting to the destruction he'd witnessed.

It hadn't even been a week yet and the images of damaged and destroyed buildings that splashed across the news channels every few hours. Tommy's funeral had been two days earlier on Saturday, his body rushed to be interred so that those mourning him wouldn't have to deal with misguided anger born of grief. Yet, somehow, his death still hadn't quite sunk in.

Oliver wondered if it ever would.

"So, ready to meet up with Walter for lunch?" Thea asked, interrupting Oliver's brooding.

"Yeah. I think I am." Oliver paused a beat, adding, "do you think we should tell him about what's happening in Central City?"

Thea hummed thoughtfully, then shook her head. "No. He wouldn't be able to help right now and he doesn't need even more stress on top of everything else that's going on. If things change, we can always count on him later on, though."

Fair enough. It wasn't like Oliver quite knew what they were getting themselves into in Central City. He wasn't even sure what he could do to help, short of shooting Dr. Wells with arrows to prevent the accelerator from turning on.

That... should probably be saved as a last ditch, in case the lawyers failed at lawyering plan, however. For one thing, Hartley probably would not approve and pretty much everyone in this small group would know immediately - proof be damned - that Oliver was the Hood.

"Do you think we can convince Walter to come back to Queen Consolidated?" Thea asked. "Neither of us are exactly qualified to run the place."

They'd discussed that some the night before, when the board had sent them notice that Moira was officially out. Unsurprising, considering what she'd done and how fast they'd been to push her into heading up the company when Walter had been kidnapped.

Thea, of course, was right out of high school and had been planning on taking a gap year before going to college. She had neither the education nor the experience to run a multi-million dollar company. Oliver wasn't much better as far as choices went. He hadn't finished his business degree thanks to the five years he'd been missing and he didn't really remember much of his classes anyway thanks to a combination of skipping classes out of boredom, zombie staring without registering the lectures due to hangovers, and generally losing his study time to a haze of drugs, alcohol, partying, and sex. He was turning out to be fairly competent at running Verdant, surprisingly enough, but a night club was one thing. A research and development heavy company was another entirely.

"I doubt it," Oliver told her. "Can't really blame him, either. He's happy where he's at now."

"Yeah... I know. But... we could ask anyway, right? Never hurts to ask." Thea glanced over at Oliver for a moment before returning her eyes to the road.

"Maybe he'll have some ideas for us about who we should back to become the next CEO." Oliver certainly hoped that'd be the case, anyway.

Walter had called the night of the Undertaking. First Thea, then Oliver. He'd then showed up early the next morning, coffees and breakfast tacos in hand, and stayed with them basically all day, not leaving until nearly midnight and that only because he didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the manor after the way things ended between him and Moira. He'd held Thea while she cried and helped Oliver deal with lawyers over the phone to coordinate releasing Tommy's body for the funeral - as well as figuring out where they would bury Tommy, which... Malcolm had a burial plot for himself next to his wife's but now Tommy was buried there and Malcolm's body could be covered in cement and dropped in the ocean for all Oliver cared. He helped Oliver find a lawyer willing to take Moira's case too, which was just...

In other words, Walter had been a godsend over the last several days. While he hadn't been there with them every day since that first one - Walter had his own job to deal with, after all - he'd been accessible whenever they'd needed him. Calls were picked up near instantly. Texts returned within minutes of being sent.

They met for lunch a lot. Or dinner. Walter was family; even if Oliver hadn't already begun to feel that way before Walter separated from Moira, this would have cemented that feeling anyway.

So it was no surprise when Oliver and Thea walked into Walter's office and the man immediately got up to hug them. Thea first and then Oliver.

"How is your mother doing?" he asked Oliver.

"She's doing alright. Jean met with us both; I didn't realize when you recommended her that she and mom were college friends." It had been a relief, to be honest. It meant that Jean Loring knew and liked Moira, despite everything, and was willing to be sympathetic. She wasn't in it for the money - though they were certainly going to be paying her very well - and she was realistic. Moira Queen was going to be in jail for quite a few years, but Jean believed that she could get the sentence brought down considerably. "She'd like to see you - mom, that is - but I think she'll understand if you decide not to visit."

Walter pursed his lips a moment, eyes lost in thought, before nodding. "I may visit her, but... it'll be a while before I'm ready to do so. Tell her... tell her I wish her well, the next time you see her."

Oliver nodded. "I'll let her know."

"So, ready for lunch?" Thea's voice was artificially bright as she changed the subject. But Walter smiled and nodded, collected his wallet and jacket, and then followed the Queen siblings out to the parking lot where Thea drove them to a little cafe nearby.

Lunch is quiet at first. They tell him Hartley left and Laurel went with him since the problem Hartley's colleague came to him with is something they could use legal advice on… but also gives them an excuse to point Laurel in her mother's direction. Who can hopefully dry out her daughter before Laurel's suddenly heavy drinking turns into an actual problem.

Walter's amused by their not exactly subtle attempt to help Laurel by distracting her with law problems and siccing her mom on her.

"So what is it you two aren't saying?" Walter finally asked, raising an eyebrow. "I know you two are avoiding something; you both have the same expressions."

Oliver ducked his head, smiling in amusement. "Queen Consolidated is holding an emergency meeting this afternoon to discuss ousting mother as CEO. I know who they're going to appoint interim CEO and he's planning on retiring."

"Jackson," Walter guessed, correctly. "Is he going to put off retirement, then?"

Oliver shook his head. "He's got health problems. He can't put off retiring. He… he wants me to take over as CEO after him, but even if I were to shadow him for a year…" Oliver shook his head. He just did not have the head for running a business of that scale. "And he's only going to stick around six months."

"You've talked to him, then." Walter tilted his head to the side and said, "I'm not coming back to Queen Consolidated."

"Well there goes that idea," Thea sighed. "So who would be a good CEO?"

"To be honest? It'd be good for the company to bring in someone currently outside the company. No connection to your family before the Undertaking would be best; someone capable of taking the business in a new direction." Walter pulled a notepad out of his suit pocket and scribbled down a few names. "Top name is Ray Palmer. He and his girlfriend run a small firm called PalmerTech. Queen Consolidated actually approached them while I was still CEO for a potential buy out. While he did have some interaction with your mother to discuss the buy out and agree to terms, he's not part of the company yet and has a good head on his shoulders when it comes to running a business. He's deceptively nice in that he is extremely friendly, but very focused on doing right by his employees. A bit of a business shark in disguise. You'll need to discuss this with Jackson, but bringing in Palmer as head of R&D and then moving him into the CEO position once Jackson retires would be a very good move for the company. The other two potential candidates I've written down are good people, but Palmer is the one I think could take Queen Consolidated to new heights of technological innovation."

Oliver pocketed the list, suddenly feeling a lot better about the board meeting he was going to have to attend in a few hours and the conversation he'd been having with Jackson afterwards.

"Thank you, Walter," Thea said, reaching out to squeeze Walter's hand.

Oliver nodded, "really, thank you."

The meeting goes exactly how Oliver predicted it would and he's ever so glad to escape it to the CEO's office with Jackson afterwards.

"I'm putting off my retirement for a while, but I won't do so longer than a year past my original retirement date," is the first thing Jackson says when the doors shut behind them. "Queen Consolidated was your dad's company. He built it up into what it is now and I hate the idea of the company going outside your family's control because of my respect for him. We were colleagues and friends for a long time, Oliver, and I think if you wanted to – if you put your mind to it – you'd find you really would make a good CEO for Queen Consolidated."

"I'm not going to argue with you about that again," Oliver replied. "Ray Palmer. What do you know about him?"

"He's a genius. So's his fiance. We're finalizing a buy out of his company that's beneficial to all his employees and sticks him and Miss Loring pretty high up the totem pole in R&D… assuming the buy out goes through after your mother's bad publicity with the Undertaking."

Oliver grimaced. This was what he hated about businessmen like Jackson… like his mother, too, to be perfectly honest. People died and it was treated like a business transaction gone wrong. Oliver wanted to meet this Ray Palmer guy in person, but if Walter liked the guy and he cared about his employees as much as he seemed to… then Oliver was pretty sure this was the right person to run Queen Consolidated. Hell, QC could be renamed PalmerTech 2.0 and Oliver wouldn't care as long as the company took care of its employees and actually reached out to give back to the community the way it used to before Malcolm Merlyn somehow suckered Robert Queen into temporarily agreeing to destabilize the city in a long game meant to end in class-based genocide.

He knows better than to say anything derogatory about his father to Jackson, though; not after that friendship spiel. He's not exactly a bad person, in that he cares a great deal about his family and absolutely dotes on his grandkids. But people are statistics to him and that's not an attitude Oliver will ever be able to respect.

"Walter suggested him as the next CEO when you retire," Oliver tells him. "Start him off as head of R&D, then boot him upwards to position him to take over for you on retirement. It makes a lot more sense than bringing in someone with no qualifications for the job just because their last name matches the signage."

Jackson snorted in amusement. "I admit, its not a bad plan. Palmer doesn't strike me as the sort of guy who only knows how to deal in startups, either. Usually we buy out a company and the owner takes the money to move on to the next big idea. Loring may still go that way, but Palmer's on the fence. He's pretty interested in our green energy projects and he's got the business savvy to out negotiate our lawyers. Never seen us make an offer this generous before, but we need their patents and technology… now more than ever if we're going to salvage Queen Consolidated's reputation. Still… just because Palmer looks like he can handle a multi-million dollar corporation doesn't mean he won't crack under the pressure, though..."

"Better him than me," Oliver insisted. "Look, right now I'm just a shareholder. And that's how I'd like to keep it. Now, I really need to check in with Thea."

"Can lead a horse to water," Jackson muttered, but shooed Oliver out the door all the same.

Oliver headed to the elevators and down to the first floor lobby where Thea was waiting.

"How'd it go?" she asked when he joined her in the waiting area.

"Surprisingly short and to the point. Still awful and boring, though. Mother is officially out and Jackson has been confirmed as CEO. He was all set to try and convince me to keep the company in the family again, but I think he just doesn't want to admit he likes the logic of going with Palmer. Anyway, we're done here for now, so..."

"Let's go home, order pizza, pop open a bottle of cheap wine, and mock something awful on Netflix?" Thea asked, linking her right arm with his left and leading the way out the door.

"Technically you're too young to drink that cheap wine," Oliver pointed out.

"Only one glass, promise," she wheedled.

"I'll think about it. The rest of that plan sounds good, though."

"I thought we were going to be watching something awful?" Thea frowned. "How'd we end up watching MacGyver?"

"Sometimes its awful," Oliver objected. "Like that one episode where they cribbed the plot of the John Wayne's Hellfighters movie. Or the one with the footage from the really bad deadly ants movie. I remember getting very stoned and freaking out watching that episode with..." Oliver paused a beat, swallowing hard. "With Tommy," he finally finished. "Late night reruns in college."

"I miss him too," Thea said, leaning against her brother's shoulder.

"I screwed up things pretty badly with him this last year. Hartley thinks he would've forgiven me, though." Oliver let out a shaky breath. "What do you think?"

"He would've. Tommy would've done anything for you, Oliver. He'd have forgiven you for anything too. Maybe would've demanded bribes and the like once he was ready to forgive you, but..."

But they'd never know. Not for certain.

"I hope so," Oliver said quietly. "So MacGyver. There's an episode with footage from the original Italian Job movie in there too. The iconic mini-cooper chase scene."

"Seriously? How'd they get away with that?" Thea's eyes widened.

Oliver opened his mouth to answer, but the doorbell rang. "Pizza's here," they chorused with grins, scrambling to get off the couch and get their food. A few minutes later they had a fresh pizza with breadsticks and mini cinnamon apple turnovers with icing for dessert.

"So… one glass of wine?" Thea asked, all faux innocence.

"Only one," Oliver told her. "No refills, for either of us, okay?"

"Look at you, being the responsible older brother." Thea smiled fondly. "It actually suits you pretty well."

He scrunched his nose. "If I were being responsible, it'd be no wine at all." Not that Thea was listening, as she was already out the door to the kitchen.

"So, about the car chase," Thea asked when she came back into the room with a wine glass for each of them.

"The company that made the show owned the rights for the movie, so they reused the footage. It was more common at the time, though reusing non-MacGyver footage in the show was phased out by the… third season I think. Or maybe the fourth." Oliver hit play on the episode while Thea grabbed a slice of pizza.

"You know an awful lot about this show, huh?"

"Tommy and I used to watch it and Red Dwarf and a few other shows on late night tv. We'd pretend we were like MacGyver, resourceful and able to get out of even the toughest scrapes with a gum wrapper and a paperclip."

"Oh, yeah…" Thea lit up with a grin. "I remember you guys complaining a few times that I'd given your positions away to the enemy, or something like that. Playing MacGyver, I guess?"

"Probably. Or Stargate. We went through a phase where Stargate SG-1 was just the coolest thing. Which since it had the same lead actor as MacGyver, it makes sense. Not that we'd admit to liking any of those things at school. Science fiction and a show staring a man with a mullet were not the way to look cool the other kids." Oliver grinned. "Those were for nerds and we weren't nerds."

"Except that ya'll were totally nerds." Thea snickered.

Oliver reached over and clicked his wine glass against Thea's before taking a drink. "So… there's something I want to talk to you about. Concerning Verdant."

"Uh, okay..." Thea straightened up and gave him a questioning look.

"So, originally the club was supposed to be mine and Tommy's. That was our dream, in high school and college. Running a club together. But things didn't work out that way, in part because Tommy didn't want to be equal owner in something he wasn't equally financing and in part because I just wasn't in the right head space to balance being his employer and his friend. Now he's gone and… I can't fix Verdant so that he and I finally get what we always wanted. But… if you want, I could share that with you? Would that be something you'd be interested in? Co-owning the club and running it with me?"

"I… wow, Ollie, I don't know. Can I think on it?" Thea's eyes were wide in shocked surprise.

"Take all the time you need, Thea. I just… I wanted to put that out there. I want to spend more time with you. This last year… it took a long time for things to feel real again and now… I don't want to waste time and lose someone else."

"You're not going to lose me," Thea promised, snatching up a bread stick and waving it at him for emphasis. "You're stuck with me."

"Good." He reached over and ruffled her hair, snickering when she scowled at him. "I love you, Thea."

"I love you too, Ollie."