Continuity: takes place sometime between Satisfaction and Complications.
There are a few references to the events from my other story, DNA; it is recommended to read DNA first, but is not a prerequisite.
She is not Roy, and despite being a professional assassin hell-bent on revenge, she needs a break from her obsessive plan to infiltrate the Manta-Sub. Sometimes, the very small part of her that is a normal young woman needs to be acknowledged. So she lets go of everything for a while and just aimlessly walks the streets of Star City, sightseeing and window-shopping, and trying to absorb the normalcy of the civilian life around her.
She walks into a quiet coffee shop and orders a red eye and a plain croissant- not her preference, but the same boring things Roy ordered every time she had coerced him to go out on a date.
Then she sees him, Oliver Queen: technically her father-in-law, and her sister's fake uncle. He had been mentor and father-figure to three Arrow sidekicks, all of whom meant something to her. He was the only other person who fully understood the pain of there being two Roys and no Artemis. Uncharacteristically, she feels a sort of empathy for him.
She had only interacted with him once before, when she had discovered Arsenal's drug abuse and had taken him to Oliver's for rehab. At the time, they shared a nod of understanding in their mutual entanglement with the three junior Arrows, but there had been no conversation.
Without preamble, and without really knowing why she felt compelled to do so, she sits down in the chair across from him and says, "Your granddaughter is doing well, if you were wondering."
He stares, open-mouthed, and she can see a chunk of half-chewed sticky bun. She finds this amusing- the first little bit of non-negativity she has felt since Artemis' passing. Her amusement fades as his facial expression morphs from surprise to apprehension to understanding, then finally to grief.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," he chokes out. "I should have trained her better, should have been more concerned about her- I should have warned her against it when she so suddenly returned to the life of being a hero. I failed her, and you lost your sister because of my shortcomings. I'm cursed. I've failed all my proteges. I don't have the right to be grandfather to your little girl- I'll fail her, too."
As of late, she keeps realizing that the heart she didn't know she had keeps breaking- and here it is, breaking again for this good man with good intentions, who was cruelly screwed over by life. If she recalls correctly, he is 37- much too young to suffer from the loss of a daughter and the crises of two wayward sons.
"I am the one who failed Artemis first- I am more to blame than you in not protecting her. I am also partly responsible for what happened to both Roys," she tells him. "And you were a better father to Artemis than our real father ever had been. From you, she received the paternal love that she had never known as a child, and it was her admiration of you that enabled her to take a better path and die a noble death. You were the reason she did not end up like me."
He looks shocked to hear these words coming from her, and she's shocked, too, that she said them. She had always aimed to hurt and offend, never to console. But it is nice- in a simple, uncomplicated way- to see him give her a lopsided smile through misty eyes. And it is nice to hear him say, "Hey, you're not so bad."
Any talk of Artemis would be too depressing, and anything involving one or both Roys would be too complicated. But neither she nor Oliver show any inclination of leaving, so they start chatting about bows and arrows, sais and shurikens, and trick weaponry- a topic that both of them, as normal humans trying to fight against superpowers, have an intense interest in.
At some point, she tires of her bland croissant and steals his sticky bun. At some point, he notices the stale pastry sitting in place of his missing bun, and they order two more. While debating the proper dough-to-caramel-to-pecan-topping ratio of the ideal bun, she absently mentions Roy's obsessive cleanliness and hatred of everything sticky, and after an awkward pause, the discussion inevitably migrates to the tale of two Roys.
"Arsenal was always a clean boy," he says. "When he lived with me, I never had to ask him to clean his room. Then when he was 15, his cleanliness and orderliness became increasingly obsessive, and he started telling me to clean my room. In hindsight, that was when I should have noticed that Arsenal became Red Arrow. I think I must have dismissed it as a symptom of puberty- can you believe how stupid I was? OCD as a symptom of puberty?
There was more I should have noticed, but didn't: at 14, he had great interest in girls, and wasn't too concerned about homework. Then at 15, he started getting perfect grades at the expense of having no girlfriends, and also increased his physical training to a level that I couldn't keep up with. He had become a machine.
His rebelliousness and brash attitude got worse, and he grew up really quickly. But he was very responsible- between the two of us, he was the more serious and mature, even telling me I shouldn't see Black Canary, as she was too young for me. So I considered him an adult and thought he knew what he was doing. And I'm not a good parent by any stretch of the imagination, so I didn't know what else to do than just to let him be. If only I had paid more attention..."
"It wouldn't have been much better," she says. "So if you discovered early on that Red Arrow was a clone programmed to betray, you would have found Arsenal sooner and would have delayed the Light, but you still wouldn't have stopped them. And what would you have done with Red Arrow? You would have had to delete his programming without mentally damaging him, and you'd still have two Roys- one of whom would still have an identity crisis, and the other would still only have one arm. Those are things you cannot have changed.
And don't think you're stupid- it's not often people are replaced with clones, and you would have to be insanely paranoid to suspect such things. And even for someone who knows both Roys, it's hard to tell the difference. Arsenal, as he is right now, is so very similar to the Red Arrow I once knew."
Oliver raises an eyebrow. "You know Arsenal? I had wondered how you discovered him on painkillers before bringing him to me."
She hesitates for a brief moment before admitting, "I had an affair with him."
He stares at her again, speechless.
She shrugs. "Like I said, it's a little hard to tell the difference between Arsenal and the Red Arrow I fell in love with- but not hard to tell the difference between Arsenal and the shell of a man that Red Arrow is today. I miss him, you know. I miss my Roy."
He is still speechless. She is mildly annoyed.
"I am a ruthless assassin. I have no morals. An affair is nothing scandalous compared to what I do for a living. And Arsenal is legally 23, so what's the issue? And biologically, he is 15, making him 9 years my junior. Black Canary is 8 years your junior. Not much difference between your situation and mine."
Oliver finally finds his words. "She was 24 when I started dating her! Well beyond legal age!" he splutters. "I, unlike you, am not a pedophile!"
"Are you sure about that?" She smirks at him. "Artemis had a crush on you," she teases in a sing-song voice.
And despite the tragedy of Artemis' death, somehow, they are able to overcome their grief and emotions, and they both burst out laughing at the memory of the brave and feisty girl who did, indeed, once harbor a puppy love for Green Arrow.
For the rest of that day, the atmosphere continually shifts from grim to funny to heartbreaking to silly to wistful as she retells the story of Artemis' life, and he retells the stories of both Roys, and she confesses her thoughts and feelings associated with the loss of her sister and the complication with the Roys.
Oliver is a great listener and an engaging speaker, and she thinks that despite his opinion of himself, he would make an excellent dad. She is surprised at the ease with which she, a highly secretive and unempathetic person, is able to openly share her innermost thoughts with someone who she has previously never spoken to before, and is also surprised at how for once, she feels that she understands someone else's pain.
Empathy, she thinks, is a formidable entity. Oliver, she thinks, could possibly have become her only friend.
They sit in silence for a few moments, somewhat reeling from the heavy discussion, and she absently stares out the window and notices the orange glow of the setting sun. How long had they been here? It is very unusual for her to lose track of time like this. Oliver notices the sunset, too, glances at his watch, and motions that they should go.
She walks him to his apartment, and he jokes that between the two of them, she is more 'man' than he is. At his doorstep, there is a slight pause, but he extends his hand and they shake. It is not like a handshake between assassins, in which they try to crush each other's hands. It is certainly not like a handshake with Arsenal. And Red Arrow had never offered her such a gesture. The handshake is simply a polite acknowledgement of the truce they had formed that day, and it is different in a nice way.
As she walks back alone to her complicated assassin's life of revenge and hatred, and leaves behind the most 'civilian' day she ever had, she thinks that if she survives her mission, she might enjoy spending another day with her new friend in a coffee shop, conversing over sticky buns.
Maybe that time, should it happen, she would introduce him to Lian and trust that he will not fail his granddaughter. Lian needed a grandfather- if anyone was deserving of that title, she thinks it would be Oliver.