Slade watched Moira leave the room. The silence left between alpha and omega was near tangible, the weight of years apart and things unsaid heavy between them. It was only when Oliver released a soft whimper that Slade turned to look at him.
Little by little, Slade felt the rage and hatred the mirakuru filled him with abate, Shado's vengeful whispers in his ear falling silent, as he took in the omega's distress.
Oliver stood a few paces from him, fists clenched tight against the tremors that were wracking his body, his back ramrod straight with tension. But it was his face that made Slade's breath catch. Tears were welling in Oliver's eyes as he stared at Slade, his expression constantly shifting in a mix of sorrow-disbelief-anger-fear-hope.
Slade could read the kid's face painfully well: those same feelings were now rising up within him, having lain dormant for so many years as the mirakuru warped and twisted all he knew.
For the first time in years, Slade found himself unsure of himself and what to do, having carried his vendetta for this man for so long. The drug coursing within him demanded Oliver's blood to run free in retribution for Shado's death, but here, finally standing before the omega he'd once wanted to claim for himself, he found his resolve weakening, indecision spreading like cracks in a broken mirror, closer and closer to shattering his lust for vengeance as long-forgotten emotions surged forth.
On the island - even before Shado entered their lives - never once had Slade allowed himself to make overtures towards Oliver. And then the female alpha had captured his attention, turning Slade's desires on their ear, indecision warring with want as his attraction to two different people left him in an awkward limbo, only made worse when he watched Shado hover around Oliver, trying to court the pretty omega. After the mirakuru had entered his damaged, dying body and Shado was dead on the ground, in the end all he knew was that he was alone and Oliver was the cause of his pain.
The years passed, a haze of memory and rage wrapping around his broken heart as the mirakuru and Shado's whispers guided him to take measures to revenge himself upon Oliver Queen, who had taken everything from him.
Only…
Here he stood, mere feet from Slade, tears finally coursing down his face, looking like he was about to fall apart.
A scent filled the air that Slade instinctively recognized and his rage cracked apart further, soothed involuntarily by the distress pheromones of a suffering omega, bringing forth a desire to protect and defend.
The same pheromones had originally convinced Slade to take Oliver in and train him, but everything else about Oliver had endeared the man to him to the point of considering Oliver a possible mate - before everything became complicated and fractured…
Old memories and emotions clashed with what Slade had come to believe as he slowly walked towards Oliver, unsure of his own intentions even now was he stopped well within Oliver's personal space, reaching out to gently thumb-away a new wave of tears across his cheeks.
Oliver's breathing was labored and unsteady as he stared at Slade, looking about as overwhelmed and uncertain as Slade felt, but the kid had always worn his feelings on his sleeve.
Or so he thought.
This close to the omega, he could scent something else upon him: heat.
Despite the suppressants Slade knew Oliver had taken (the astringent note to his scent a dead giveaway), this heat was being spontaneously forced to surface. When under a combination of intense emotion, stress, and nearby worthy alpha, an omega could spontaneously go into a heat contrary to their normal cycle.
Oliver, against chemical efforts to suppress his dynamic, was going into heat because of him.
Oliver had had heats on the island, irregular and unpredictable ones, but Slade had always chalked them up to the stress of surviving on the island and finally being off his suppressants (only in secret did Slade want to believe that he was the cause of Oliver's heats).
But here was proof Slade never really had of Oliver's reciprocal desire.
And that proof effectively shattered the remains of Slade's mirakuru-fueled hatred.
Over Oliver's shoulder, the hallucination of Shado vanished, her malevolent smirk disappearing with her, and a weight lifted from Slade's heart.
His lips twisted in a tiny smirk of his own as the omega leaned into Slade's hands.
"Miss me, kid?"
"S-Slade," Oliver whimpered and the alpha was suddenly sure of what he wanted, bringing Oliver down a little to meet him in a passionate kiss.