Chapter 10

"Mr. Diggle? I thought you quit?"

Oliver pauses at the top of the stairs, sinking into the shadows just out of his mother's view, so he can watch their interaction. Digg, who had been patiently waiting for Oliver to meet him, turns in the entryway of the mansion to face the petite blonde matriarch. She's watching him politely, hands crossed in front of her, but her eyes are cool, calculating.

John Diggle musters a smile. "Actually-"

"I rehired him," Oliver calls, jogging down the stairs with a bright smile for his mother. Digg doesn't have to face her disapproval over Oliver's actions.

"What about Mr. Scott?"

He grimaces. "Rob wasn't up to the job."

Digg scoffs at his excuse, like he's not even sure he's up to the job. But then again, Oliver doesn't really need a bodyguard anyway. Digg was a thousand times better at keeping up with him than Rob anyway, forget about getting his friend back. Diggle was the better choice.

Moira turns an icy scowl on her son. "Oliver, I didn't hire a bodyguard for you to ditch him the first chance you get and then rehire them later. What was wrong with Mr. Scott for that matter?"

"He couldn't keep up. Digg was learning, which is why I offered him his job back." Oliver grins at his mother, shoving his hands into his pockets as he shrugs.

"You...Oliver, are you sure you know what you're doing. No offense to Mr. Diggle, but you did slip away from him several times too." She purses her lips, giving Digg a tight smile.

He refrains from commenting at her condescension, turning away to stare at the wall. With his face averted Digg rolls his eyes. Oliver is the only one that notices.

Oliver bites back a sigh of exasperation at his mother's cutting words, especially right in front of the man whose abilities are being questioned.

"I'm not paying your bodyguards to lose you in the middle of the day," She returns, scowling in his direction.

"Well, then it's a good thing you're not paying him," Oliver cuts in, pressing a kiss to his mother's cheek as he adjusts his jacket. "I'll see you tonight."

"Tonight?" She asks. "And what do you mean you're paying him?"

He turns back from the door that Digg is holding open with exasperation written on his features.

"I mean, he works for me now. And I don't need you to hire me a new bodyguard," he calls over his shoulder, Diggle falling into step behind him as he hops down the steps to the waiting town car.

He knows his mom isn't too happy. She's probably frowning and tapping her foot. Oliver knows she had plans today, plans involving him and the new Applied Science division at Queen Consolidated. It's why he made his escape quickly. He doesn't want to deal with that. Instead, he's headed to check out a building a couple blocks from the club.

He's moving fast. He knows that, and it's going to make everyone question his choices, but he's also realizing he can't wait. Yes, he's impatient. And yes, it's risky, but he's decided it's worth the risk, especially with what came of telling Digg earlier...and meeting Felicity. He wants to do more, help more people, sooner rather than later.

He wants Oliver Queen to make a difference.

"So what is this place we're going to?" Digg asks, breaking Oliver's concentration.

He shakes his head slightly, returning his attention to the man in front of him. "Hmm?"

"This address. It's in one of the worst parts in the Glades. It's scheduled for demolition."

"Oh. Yeah. I'm thinking about turning into a shelter or a food kitchen. It needs some work, but I think it can work."

"A charity? Did that work last time?" Digg asks.

Oliver rolls his eyes, at the man's still sarcastic mention of his 'time travel' adventure. "It's not something I did last time."

Digg raises an eyebrow at him in the rearview mirror before turning his attention back to the road.

"Last time I came back, I...I put a lot of distance between me and everyone I cared about, the whole world. I went after my dad's list with a vengeance. It was only when Fe- when our tech signed on that I branched out to do more things. I figured I could get a jump on it like this."

Oliver shakes his head for almost using Felicity's name. Sure, Digg's not stupid, but the longer he can put off the other man's judgment, the better he feels. He's sure John's already connected the dots and knows that their 'tech support' means more to him than he's saying. He just doesn't want to deal with the knowing looks that he would get if Digg knew Felicity was the tech he's talking about.

"And finance it with your trust fund?" Digg asks, pulling him back to the conversation.

"Initially," he consents. "But later I figured, we could cover some of the costs with the profits from Verdant."

"Verdant?"

"The club," Oliver responds.

"Really? Verdant?" Digg doesn't say anything else, but the judgment in his voice is clear.

He chuckles, shaking his head at the reaction. "I know. It's a bit on the nose, but when Oliver Queen opens a nightclub, people show up."

"And the name with the green leather won't be a tip off?"

Oliver cringes. "I've got a contingency in place. It's only a matter of time before someone puts the pieces together. Oliver Queen returns at the same time the vigilante appears? People aren't that stupid."

"Why do I have a feeling the contingency plan involves me?" Digg grumbles, turning down another side street.

"It does." He knows Diggle's support is still a little shaky. The man may have agreed, but how this case with Somers turns out will affect a lot of their partnership. He doesn't want to lose this friend and this case will be his first of many changes to his life this time around.

They lapse into silence as Digg navigates the streets, pulling up to a garbage littered street. Without waiting, Oliver slides out on to the sidewalk, stepping over old candy wrappers and bits of newspaper. The building rises two stories above the pavement, bricks chipped on the faded exterior.

"Quite the place," Digg comments as he takes in one door hanging half off the frame and three broken windows. Grime coats every glass panel, the lock is clearly busted, and the smell from the street is nearly intolerable. "You bought this place?"

"It needs some work," Oliver allows, walking up to the broken door and testing the knob. It twists in his hand, which is a relief because he thought it would fall off as soon as he touched it.

"What about the factory? You still need to get that set up." Digg crosses his arms over his chest, surveying the damage as they step inside. "That's a lot of work for a rich playboy and vigilante."

"I already have the plans for the club, and I can hire people to do this. Plus, I'm trying to get Tommy's help." Oliver steps over a dust covered beam, noticing piles of filth where someone was living. It smells terrible, but the bottom floor looks pretty much just as he thought it would: wide and open.

There are a couple holes in the ceiling, and the debris would have to removed. It would probably result in gutting the whole place.

Oliver pushes the swinging door to the back room open. The smell of stale urine and garbage assaults his senses and he has to step back into the main room, waving his hand in front of his face. Eyes watering from the stench, he glances back at Digg who meets his gaze, unimpressed.

"Yeah. Only a little work."

He rolls his eyes at Diggle's sarcasm. "It's got good bones."

The bodyguard glances around again and nods begrudgingly. "I assume you're hiring the work out."

Oliver looks at the room, wishing he had a sledgehammer in his hands so he could take aim at a wall and begin clearing this place out. He actually doesn't mind the hard work. He did a lot of the work on the club last time by himself. He could do this.

Although, time-wise, he should get someone else in to do the work.

"So this is your plan? Help the world and open a nightclub?" Diggle asks, moving a pile of trash with the toe of his boot. "Is there enough time in a day?"

Oliver sighs. "The nightclub is a convenient alibi. Plus, it's expected of Oliver Queen. He's a screw-up, a public drunk, a compulsive cheat..."

"You know, it really freaks me out when you talk about yourself in the third person." Digg pops a stick of gum into his mouth with a wry smile.

Oliver chuckles. "And all of that is true." He checks the watch on his wrist. "We need to get going. I promised Tommy we'd meet him at noon."

Diggle nods, turning for the entrance immediately.

Oliver stays back, turning around the room. There are now footsteps in the dirty floor, but he can see the future. This is something completely new for him to do. He can make a real difference with this.

It's a good choice.

...

"I think you need to rethink your use of the word fun," Tommy comments as he follows Oliver and Digg into the dark interior of the Foundry. The door to the basement is covered so the shiny new metal doesn't declare the recent construction.

The floor is patched so the main level no longer has large gaps leading down to the basement. It's nowhere near clubbing standards – no construction on the actual 'club' part has even started – but the open, clean layout is ready for the next modifications.

"It's the perfect location for a club!" Oliver declares, turning to showcase the space with a flourish of showmanship right from his pre-Island, playboy days. "It just needs a face lift and people will be lining up to get in the door."

Tommy turns around again to get a better look at the space.

Oliver's already started lining up local contractors, especially those who live or work in the Glades. It wasn't a priority last time, but now he wants to hire locals. It's a business move he that never crossed his mind earlier: bringing money back to the neighborhood. It means some tweaking to his former plans for the club. But right now this venture is the only thing between him and his mother pushing the Applied Science position on him.

If he spends all his time working on the plans for the club and the shelter, she can't complain about him being idle and he doesn't have the time to indulge in her Queen Consolidated dream. Plus, he has Walter on his side.

Walter was a bit skeptical about the club, but he agreed it was good business experience. As soon as Oliver brought up the shelter he wanted to open, Walter jumped on the idea, saying he hated that QC didn't do enough to help those in the Glades. He was already talking about expanding them so more shelters were open. Oliver himself was surprised to learn that the soup kitchens in the Glades had dried up in the last five years, although he suspected Merlyn had a hand in that. Even Rebecca's Clinic was falling into disrepair: all of Malcolm's puzzle pieces falling into place.

"Well, if you call is Queen's, I think you're going to get a different clientele than you're expecting." Tommy finally lays down his verdict with a smirk.

Oliver smiles back. "No. I've got something else in mind, but I had a question for you." He glances around at the building, fighting the smile that wants to burst from his face as he turns to face Tommy.

"Of course I'll endorse the club for you," Tommy agrees preemptively. "But it's going to require some major modifications before you open."

He chuckles, shaking his head. "Actually...I was wondering if you wanted to help with more than just the advertising." He pauses, unsure how Tommy's going to accept the proposition. When Tommy came to him last time, it was because he was cut off and needed to earn money. He was in a tough spot, but he had loved the job until he found out Oliver was the Hood.

And he would be the first to admit that Tommy was damn good at his job. Now, he suspects he had Felicity's help balancing the books, which isn't to say he doesn't think Tommy could do it on his own, only that Felicity would want to ensure his success and had probably offered to double check everything for him. It makes sense.

"Sure. I can be one of your backers!"

Oliver snorts. Yeah, this is definitely not working. "I don't need your money. I need a partner, someone who can be here overseeing the work when I can't. I'm also opening a shelter down the street with Walter's backing and I can't be two places at once as things are going down. And who knows the club scene better than the two of us?"

"Wait. You want me to work on this with you...like a job?" Tommy blinks at him, incredulity spreading across his features, like he never considered this scenario in his life, which is probably accurate.

"Exactly."

"So I would work for you?"

Oliver runs a hand along his jaw. Of course, that's how it worked last time, but pulling Tommy in like this would be something different. "No. We'd be partners."

"But you don't want my money? If we weren't best friends, and you wanted all my money, I would accuse you of trying to con me," Tommy jokes, but Oliver hears the unease and apprehension in his voice. Things aren't adding up for him, a fact that Oliver can't ignore or explain because how do you tell your friend his father will cut him off without arousing suspicion.

"I figured, going into business by yourself is daunting and there's no one I'd rather start a club with than my best friend. And the building already belonged to my family. I'm technically renting the space from Walter. I don't think my mom's thrilled with the idea. She's just happy I'm trying something for myself."

He takes a deep breath. This is probably the longest speech he's made since he got back. Felicity's rambling might be getting to him. "I know your dad. I figured he might be on your case, too. And, look, neither of us wants to work for our parents, at least not right now. I figured this could be a good solution."

Oliver finally looks back at Tommy, bracing himself for whatever meets his eyes. Surprisingly, Tommy watches him, assessing, jocular attitude vanished in light of the conversation. This. This is the meaty conversation he needs to have with his friend, a conversation he's terrified to have and completely unprepared for.

"I'd like that, but I think we first need to talk about Hong Kong."

He sighs, glancing at Diggle lurking in the shadows of the room like an exemplary bodyguard. In his mental plan, he had mapped out this conversation, figured out exactly what he wanted to say when it came to revealing what happened in Hong Kong to Tommy, but here – in the building that housed his base of operations, the building that became more like home than the mansion – here, he has to tell the whole story. He sees the opportunity for what it is: the chance to tell Tommy everything.

"Okay."

...

After that quick, decisive response, Tommy hadn't expected Oliver to turn around, heading to a dark corner of the club. Actually, that was pretty much the last thing he could have seen happening. He figured they would leave the steel and concrete box of his soon-to-be club and find somewhere to sit down for lunch and talk.

He glances over his shoulder to find John Diggle still there, strangely at ease with his client walking into dark, shadowy corners where killers might lurk. Shrugging, he follows Oliver, frowning when he reaches a shiny metal door with a state of the art keypad.

Nonchalantly, Oliver punches in the code and the door unlocks with a click.

A thousand thoughts flash through his mind ranging from bizarre (Oliver's James Bond) to terrifying (Oliver's a drug overlord), but, despite his misgivings, Tommy follows him down the metal steps only to come up short at the bottom of the steps.

Because that crazy idea, the whole James Bond thing, now seems like a completely plausible explanation.

The basement of Oliver's club is very clearly a base of some sort. There's an area of training mats, what Tommy will swear looks like a med station, a computer area, and most shockingly, a neatly arranged wall filled with arrows, a bow casually displayed in the middle.

It's not until his eyes land on the green hood that Tommy finally connects the dots. The man in the green hood, the Robin Hood Detective Lance was looking for when he broke up Oliver's Welcome Home bash.

"You're Hood guy," Tommy whispers, turning to face Oliver and Diggle, who rests against a concrete pillar just behind his boss. "Laurel can't stop talking about how you returned that money. You're freaking Robin Hood."

Oliver winces then, shaking his head emphatically at the name. "I'm not Robin Hood. Believe me."

"But you stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Isn't that the schpeal?" Tommy asks, stepping into the basement, eyes darting over the whole room. "What I don't get is why this is under your new club? Or why you're telling me this now..." Or where this sudden altruistic attitude came from.

His friend sighs, walking into the room, to a work bench. He picks up a little black book – and the humor in that isn't lost on him – and turns to face Tommy again. "Because this connects to Hong Kong."

"Where you were told to kill me?" Tommy offers, quirking an eyebrow because that's something he's been thinking over since the night before, something that makes absolutely no sense.

Oliver drops the book again, moving jerkily, like he wants to do something but can't figure out what exactly he needs to do. Tommy's seen him agitated like this before, and it's relieving to see that not that much has changed. Granted, the last time he saw Oliver this out of it, Laurel had asked him to move in with her and this situation was nothing like that.

So he just waits for Oliver to speak.

...

Oliver knows Tommy's waiting, but he's still not sure how to approach this. He can't take the same tactic as with Digg. Tommy won't understand the implications of his scars, the torture he endured, the situations he found himself in. He can't just show Tommy the book and say, 'your father wants to destroy the Glades.' No. He has to go about this rationally.

So he takes a different tactic, turning on his heel and grabbing his bow and a dull arrow. He places them both on the table closest to Tommy.

"The Gambit was sabotaged. No one was supposed to survive, and I was the only one to make it to that Island. But I wasn't there alone. I had to fight for my survival, and to do so I learned how to use this."

He's not sure Tommy's getting it as he stares at him instead of the bow.

"I've killed people with this bow, Tommy, killed people, and not always just for my own survival." He wants to make this absolutely clear to the man who wouldn't talk to him after that revelation last time.

"That. That bow is why they took me off the Island," he says, stepping back. He focuses solely on Tommy as he finally focuses on the weapon on the table, ignoring Diggle as he gets the new information.

"It was an organization called A.R.G.U.S. They wanted me to use my skills," he spits the word, disgusted with himself still for what he had to do during that year, what he chose to do, "to torture people for information. When you came to Hong Kong after that email, they wanted me to kill you."

His hands curl into fists. "I was across the street with a rifle aimed at your head when I realized you were the target. It was either kill you, or get you to stop looking."

Suddenly, something clicks with Tommy and his head whips back around to pin Oliver in place. "You...you kidnapped me?"

"It was better you thought I was dead."

Tommy turns away at the information, eyes wide as he processes the new information.

"They threatened to kill you and my family if I stepped out of line." He can't hand Tommy a name to cling to, despite how much he wants to pin everything to Amanda Waller. In the end, she was despicable, but she wasn't the ultimate villain, the orchestrator that turned him into the torturous monster Waller had wanted him to be.

When Tommy looks at him there are tears in his eyes. "I can't believe you had to go through that."

Oliver closes his eyes. It was so much worse than Tommy thinks it was. He can't see that sympathy. It's not what it was like. "Tommy, going through something like that...I turned into the monster they wanted me to be. I turned into a soldier in their war. I turned into a killer."

He opens his eyes to Tommy's set face. "And now you're playing Robin Hood to make up for that."

"I told you, I'm not Robin Hood." He runs a hand across the back of his neck. "But yes, I'm trying to be something better...a hero."

"And the club...that's your alibi?"

Oliver nods, grinning when Tommy throws his head back in a genuine, full-bellied laugh.

"That's good." He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, shaking with laughter still. "Don't worry, buddy: your secret's safe with me." He claps Oliver on the back.

He wants to be happy, to revel in his best friend's acceptance of his path, and he could, if his eyes weren't drawn to the little book that damns the elite, the book that Tommy's father created, the book that lists everyone involved in his plans to level the Glades.

...

"Why are you so bummed?"

It's been hours since they parted ways with Tommy, and apparently his anxiety on how to deal with telling Tommy about Malcolm Merlyn is still evident enough for Digg to comment on it as they wait for China White to attack.

From his perch across the street where he has a perfect look into Laurel's living room, Oliver sighs, eyes darting to Diggle in the side alley. "It's nothing."

"Bull. You've been like this since you told Merlyn, and that went better than I thought it would."

"Me too," Oliver admits. He had been ready for the yelling and name calling. He'd been prepared for the worst case scenario: losing his best friend.

"So, what's the problem?"

"The pro-" Movement in the street catches his eyes. He draws the bow, ready to take out the Triad agents before they can kill the police officers, but the lone figure walking down the street isn't a member of the Triad. "Shit."

"What?" Diggle asks. "What is it?"

Oliver closes his eyes, wishing he had some way to ensure their safety because the stakes just got a hell of a lot higher. With only Laurel in the apartment, he was sure if one of the Triad got past them, she was smart enough to run for cover until they got there. He knows she's got at least one gun in her apartment. She can take care of herself well enough that the risk to her was minimal.

But now.

"It's Tommy."

He's really starting to wish Tommy didn't keep showing up at people's apartment's at the most inopportune moments.

There's more movement on the street, because this mission couldn't get any worse, and Oliver tightens his grip on the bow. It looks like they have to deal with the changed circumstances. "Look alive, Digg. They're here."