Author's Note: Based on the scene of Roy asking if they call themselves "Team Arrow".


We don't call ourselves that.

I do. Occasionally.

Stop.

It was in that moment that he'd realized something about their partnership, relationship, complication: they had grown into more than just people passing by as they worked, and become people who understand nuance and tone.

Of course he had learned her tones, the voices she would use when happy or sad or pushy (her "angry voice" reserved for his more idiotic moments), and he found that he could follow her mood by her words alone. He'd known when she'd started on her "occasionally" trail that it would be a long and convoluted one, and he had needed it to halt before it ever began.

So he'd told her - in his best authoritative voice - to stop.

She had.

Everyone had moved on.

But there hadn't been any resentment in her after the (harsh) word, as though she had known he wasn't being short with her, but the situation itself. He'd brought in a new member on a faithless leap, and the subsequent questioning had already begun to grate on his ragged nerves. She'd turned back to her work, and they'd all moved on (after a dig by his black driver), continuing their planning; she had been her normal self, but he'd caught the brush of a candy-pink smile flashed in only his direction. It had drifted away as soon as it came, but he'd known then, it was only for him.

She'd stopped.

He'd been relentlessly grateful.