So I finally watched the finale, and all I can say is… wow. That was totally not what I called happening (my money was on Moira or Diggle, personally), but I'm very curious to see how next season will pan out after all this.

This was actually yesterday's word, but I went to a graduation party and forgot but it was halfway done but I figured I should complete it anyway.

Tag to The Undertaking (1.21).

$4$

Motza (n.): a large amount of money, especially a sum won in gambling.


It had all started with a joke.

They had needed it, need some levity in their lives to break up all the pain they experienced each day. And, for whatever reason, they had never gotten around to filling Diggle in on all the details of their night at Alonzo's underground casino. There had been so much else to do at that point, sitting down to discuss the blow by blow just seemed a little trivial by comparison. And then they had to work on the Undertaking, and Malcolm Merlyn, and what felt very close to the end of the world. In short, it was a lot to take in, even for the city's one and only vigilante team.

Months later, when the hurt died down and rebuilding was starting, they had more or less gotten back to their version of normal. The conversation had started off rather innocuously, and in the course of their night off the story of her second foray into the world of undercover work came up. It wasn't exactly a success, but she considered an improvement over her first outing. Hey, any nights that did not end in a bomb collar were a bonus in her book. Her rule of thumb used to be a lot less violent before she started working with them.

The event itself hadn't kept Diggle's attention for very long, but her knowledge in cards sure as hell caught it. She knew they were both fully aware of her intelligence, but somehow that never translated to her ability to count cards. She was a tech geek at heart, but math was always one of her favorites, particularly statistics. Her brain just had a knack for understanding complex patterns, and that translated well to poker. Really, she never used that skill often—it's not like she set out to be a card shark or anything—it was just something she kept in her back pocket, in case she was ever in a situation that called for it.

It turned out that Diggle was something of a card player himself, having spent some time in various deserts learning the intricacies of the game. And that practice led to some skepticism. He was skeptical of her skill, something that hadn't happened to her in years. Then again, she hadn't really admitted that she could count cards in years, either. Nonetheless, her pride gets in the way a bit when Diggle makes a crack about her attempting to play them out of her money.

If it had been a different day, she might have let it slide. But that night, they had decided to split two bottles of wine, and she had skipped dinner, so it was completely possible that those three glasses of merlot went to her head a little bit more than usual. Before she could think twice, the words were out of her mouth and she was announcing that she could kick both their asses with both hands tied behind her back.

She probably shouldn't have said that.

She didn't know where Oliver pulled that deck of cards from, but then he was shuffling and Diggle was chuckling to himself and she was praying to God that she wasn't tipsy enough to forget how to play. But really, only she would be dumb enough to get herself into a poker game with a soldier and a vigilante.

But they were already sitting at the cheap little folding table they bought a while back, so it wasn't like she could go anywhere, and then Oliver was sloppily dealing her hand—seriously, his form was terrible—and she hoped for the best. They decided on Texas hold 'em, and while her preference was Blackjack she was still more than proficient at the game. But she glanced at her cards and had to stop a smile when she saw the queen and jack of hearts. Filling the suit wouldn't be easy, but she weighed the odds and determined the risk to be worth it.

"So what are we betting on again?" she asked, blinking rapidly behind her glasses as glanced back and forth between her two unofficial coworkers. "Pretzels? Wine? Cash?"

Oliver and Diggle shared a look. "Dinner," they agreed at the same time. Men.

Laughing, she rolled her eyes as she replied, "Fine. Whoever loses buys dinner."

"For a week," Diggle added.

With that agreed, they continued playing. When Oliver revealed that pretty red king on the flop after the first burn it was all she took not to cheer. She spotted Diggle's grimace seconds before he folded. Oliver pulled a ten of hearts on the turn and eyed her speculatively. While under normal circumstances she could ramble on about the statistical likelihood of pulling a king and a ten of the same suit, but instead of doing so, she simply arched an eyebrow and said, "Don't look at me, you shuffled the cards. Badly."

Diggle chuckled to himself as he leaned back in his chair, content with watching how the rest of the game played out. Oliver smirked, replying, "I didn't say anything."

"Then deal the next card," she replied, holding back a laugh as she tilted her head towards the deck in front of them. Laughing, Oliver burned the top card and revealed the river. Ace of hearts.

Needless to say, she didn't have to pay for dinner.