January 7, 2013, evening:
Oliver's running late when Emily Ambler stops him as he heads for the door, crutches dug into his armpits. The new maid (not so new now, he realizes – it's been over half a year since the Undertaking and the miniquake) is quiet, mostly. She hasn't become part of the household yet, the way Raisa has. But she doesn't mind working for a distracted and distant playboy CEO or an eighteen-year-old ex-addict club manager, and she hasn't made any fuss about Moira Queen returning home, and her background check had returned squeaky clean. (And she hasn't said a thing about Oliver's most recent injury, staying out of his business entirely.)
She's no threat, and she stays out of their way, still a bit nervous around the billionaires, so when she approaches Oliver looking nervous he settles his own anxieties and ushers her into the office. He's not technically late for anything. The workday is over, his tasks as CEO have been completed for the day, and the only reason he'd come home was to have dinner with Thea and his mother before heading to the foundry. He can't go out on patrol for a couple more days at least, until his ankle heals up enough that any brace he wears won't be noticeable.
Gold is still on the streets, though, seemingly having vanished off the face of the Earth. He's laying low, for now, but Oliver wants to find him before he surfaces to cause more havoc. Digg's still digging into leads on Tommy's and Thea's kidnappers. There's someone out there planning to make more Mirakuru. And now there's someone killing people with green arrows (and Roy knows the truth; Oliver'd sent him home to Thea, yesterday, but tonight he'll be meeting the rest of the team).
Still, Emily looks nervous and hesitant, and maybe she has decided not to stick around, with Moira's return. His mother had been polite and friendly when Oliver had introduced the two of them, but Oliver knows she can be intimidating, and he's not around at all hours of the day. Moira is. (Emily is coming to him, after all, and even if he'd been the one to hire her, Moira is technically in charge of the household. He's not sure yet what that means.)
"I, I'm sorry Mr. Queen, I don't want to bother you, I just…"
"It's alright, Emily," Oliver says firmly. "What is it?"
"I… some people came to my house, last night. They… they wanted to know about Mrs. Queen. About what she has been doing, since, since…"
Oliver stiffens where he stands on one foot, swallowing. His thoughts, which had been straying to his plans for the evening, sharpen into razor focus on his surroundings. This is a threat to his mother. He gives it his full attention.
"They… they offered me a lot of money, Mr. Queen. But I did not take it. I promise you, I will not spy on anyone, no matter how much they offer." Emily's words are simultaneously defiant and nervous. She was approached as a weak link, the weakest link of Queen manor. She has no real loyalty to them, just the courage to do what is right, apparently. She also thinks that doing the right thing – admitting that someone had tried to bribe her – might have just gotten her fired. Oliver can see it in her eyes.
With another employer, it might have. With another rich one percenter who couldn't afford a weak link. Maybe even his own mother would have, after seeing Emily tremble before her (and maybe that was why Emily had come to Oliver instead). Who was to say that she was telling the truth? Who was to say that she hadn't taken other bribes, and was only revealing this one to hide the others? But there is honesty in her fear, Oliver thinks, and he cannot blame her for being the weak link. (Not that weak, Oliver thinks too. Strong enough for this.)
He drops his shoulders slightly, loosens his muscles and lets a soft smile onto his face. His posture shifts ever so slightly, his palms turn to face outward. Open body language. Friendly. Unintimidating – no matter the irritation he feels himself.
"Ms. Ambler, Emily, how many times have I told you to call me Oliver?" he reprimands gently. Calm and not accusing. Turning attention away from the point of conversation she'd come to speak to him about. He isn't mad – not at her – and sometimes it's more believable to show that rather than tell it.
She glances over at him, fear and anxiety still present in her gaze, but her own shoulders relax ever so slightly. She offers up a tremulous smile.
"Unfortunately," Oliver continues in a joking tone, "we Queens are something of celebrities." He's trying to remind her of his own share of time in the tabloids – not his mother's imprisonment or his sister's drugged car crash – but it doesn't seem to work. He lifts a hand, shifting his body weight as he lets go of one crutch, and places it gently – gently, lightly, capable of being brushed off with little more than a shrug – on her shoulder. "Thank you for telling me," he says sincerely, "I'm sure it's nothing." Raisa had used to tell him stories when he was younger, before Thea had ever been born, of paparazzi hounding her for information about the Queens and the ways she'd fended them off.
Those stories had probably been exaggerated, but Oliver had grown up used to people wanting to know his every move. (He'll put a stop to anyone spying on his mother, and his paranoia will have him investigating this deeply, but that's probably all it is. Reporters have been hounding him for days, every time he leaves or enters Queen Consolidated. Moira Queen is the woman who defied the architect of the miniquake, and before that she'd had a hand in helping it come to be. Of course the media wants to know more.)
But still Emily doesn't relax completely. She swallows and doesn't meet his gaze. "If… if you say so, Mr. Queen." She moves to leave.
Oliver – finally giving in to the paranoia that's been demanding his attention during the entire conversation, finally admitting that dread has taken up its familiar place in his gut and that he's been keeping a careful eye on the exits since Emily first spoken – tightens his grip on her shoulder just enough to get her to stop – a quick squeeze, light and weightless – then pulls his arm off her shoulder so she doesn't feel trapped.
His movement is enough. She pauses.
"It's probably nothing," he repeats, "but if it's not…" He eyes her with concern. He'd known she'd been more terrified than the situation had called for but had simply hoped she'd been overreacting. He'd hoped, but he'd never really believed. "Do you feel like you're in danger?"
She swallows again and this time she meets his gaze. "They came to my house," she says shakily. "To my house. I have two kids and a husband at home, I…"
Oliver's brain narrows in on the statement, and probably not the part that Emily was focused on. "Husband?" he asks, too sharply. Rein it in, he tells himself, she's not the enemy.
Emily stiffens. "In all but the law," she says defiantly. Then she deflates. "If we were to marry," she admits, tone dripping with reluctance, "he would lose his benefits."
Disabled long-term boyfriend. Father of both of her children. Oliver relaxes again, tells his paranoia to calm down. That matches the background check he'd done before hiring her.
"If you think they're in danger," Oliver says, returning to her original point, cursing himself for questioning her and making her uncomfortable again, "there are plenty of empty rooms in Queen manor. You could even take the guest house on the grounds." It's not really a question of if – Emily is terrified which means this might not just be some paparazzi looking for gossip (or just some really persistent paparazzi) – but he's not going to force her. Not that he's going to let her say no either though.
Emily's eyes widen slightly in surprise before she quickly glances away again. "Oh, no, Mr. Queen, we couldn't –"
"I insist."
"But… Mrs. Queen…?"
Oliver smiles. That guess had been accurate. "My mother is not as cold as she appears to be," he says. "And truthfully, it might actually do her some good to be around children again. How old are your boys?"
Still nervous, Emily relaxes even more at the memory of her children. "Eight and five," she says warmly. "Though Theo does not like to be called a boy." The scornful way she says the word tells him she's mimicking her child's tone and Oliver appropriately lets out a chuckle at the thought.
Keep her comfortable, keep her relaxed, and get her family to safety. That's his goal. This isn't a mission, Oliver, he tells himself. The thought doesn't quiet ring true.
"That's settled then. You can keep to your regular schedule and stay as long as you like."
Emily opens her mouth to argue.
"I insist," Oliver repeats.
Emily blushes and stammers, trying to wave him off, but she is worried about her family, so it doesn't take her much convincing. Oliver makes a mental note to tell Moira and Thea later, then tracks down Raisa as Emily leaves to fetch her family.
Raisa only tisks at him when he questions her.
"I have been part of his household for over twenty years," she says, scornfully. "They know better than to ask."
Oliver can't help but grin. Yeah, anyone who approached Raisa would get a talking to, and they both know it. "If you feel like you aren't safe –" he can't help but say regardless.
"Perhaps you will lend me that bodyguard of yours?" Raisa asks, raising an eyebrow.
The question startles a chuckle out of Oliver, and a more genuine grin.
Raisa reaches up to pat him briefly on the cheek, smiling warmly. "There you are, always so serious these days, Oliver. I will be fine. They know better than to ask me," she repeats.
"Even so," he reaffirms.
It's Raisa's turn to chuckle, and she does so fondly.
The conversation with Emily had unsettled Oliver, but the talk with Raisa has comforted him slightly again. It probably is just overactive paparazzi, and Raisa can take care of herself. In the meantime, he's got a dozen other, more important things on his mind.
"Emily and her family will be staying in the guest house for the foreseeable future," he tells Raisa. "Can you –"
"I will help her get settled in," Raisa agrees. "You leave it to me."
"Спасибо," Oliver says warmly. Like Emily, Raisa hadn't questioned him on how he'd broken his ankle. Unlike Emily, she had scolded him for the injury, telling him to stay safer in the future. Oliver knows perfectly well he can't promise her anything, with his line of work, but the warmth he feels now isn't just in thanks for her help but in appreciation for her concern. Raisa's a part of his family too, he knows now, a thought that never would have occurred to him before the Gambit's sinking.
Only last month, Oliver had had trouble adjusting to the new crowded feeling in Verdant's basement; between his old partners and the presence of Tommy and Thea both at the same time, the group had grown to five, and Oliver had had trouble processing how his attempt at a lone crusade to right his father's wrongs had turned into this. And it's not just a case of Oliver bringing more people into his corner, he knows now, mind straying back to his conversation only a short while ago with Raisa – it's a case of him finally realizing how many people are already there, how many people he already considers to be his family.
Now there are six of them. The conversation with Emily had held Oliver up enough that almost everyone had beaten him to the basement. Roy was the last to arrive, and as Oliver leads him down the stairs now the younger man doesn't seem to be able to stop himself from staring around in astonishment at the team that's decided to commit themselves to the same goal Oliver has. Truthfully, Oliver finds himself staring a bit too.
John Diggle, the first to join him. He'd spent some time thinking about bringing Digg in in the beginning, but he hadn't fully committed to the idea by the time he'd actually had. He'd seen Digg's code of ethics from the start, the calm way he'd seemed to understand that Oliver had suffered serious trauma when no one else had, and his desire to save people, but he's not sure he ever would have involved the other man if Digg hadn't been injured. He'd been too wrapped up in his mission to think about others, even his family. (He hadn't really come home for them, he knows now, no matter how badly he'd missed Moira and Thea and Tommy and Laurel and… and home. He'd come home for his father. He'd come home to try and prove to himself that he'd tamed his monster, that he could save lives with the creature inside him.)
Then the two of them had brought in Felicity Smoak, and that hadn't been terribly planned out either. Oh he'd done his research on her, had contingencies in place, but the night he'd gone to her for help, bleeding from a gunshot inflicted on him when he'd tried to intimidate his own mother… He'd known then that she wouldn't tell anyone, or at least, he'd been as certain as he could have been when he'd made the call, but the fact that she'd stayed… He hadn't foreseen that, especially not after Walter had returned home safe and sound. But she's turned his crusade into her own, and he can see how much she enjoys helping people, even if they still disagree at times.
Tommy had been an accident too, because his best friend's father had been dying in front of him and he hadn't been about to let Tommy suffer through that, not if he could help it. Tommy's reaction had been more what Oliver had expected, fear and disgust and… Well, not hatred. He can see that now, even if he'd thought that had been what it was. It was mostly just fear, he figures now. And even that had changed, Tommy deciding to work with them, to help Oliver, even after he'd killed his father.
It's… it'd been nothing short of miraculous, whatever ups and downs he'd gone through with Tommy over the past few months, to have so many people helping him achieve his goals, working with him, and not running from the violence in his soul.
Thea had been less of an accident. He'd decided to tell her. The timing of it could have been better. As with the others, he'd only acted in the end because of the danger present, but he hadn't needed the threat of death that time. That, too, had gone far better than he'd been expecting it too, and then suddenly Thea had been forcing her way down into the basement.
Now there's Roy. Five other people who know Oliver's secret, who have an inkling of what the island, what his time away turned him into. And no matter that some of them have run from him in the past, they're all here now. He doesn't blame Roy for the awe on his face.
"This is… How many people know?" Roy ends up asking.
Oliver cycles through the names in his mind. Everyone who's present of course, but also technically… Waller. Anatoly. The Yamishiros. Talia. Sara too, and Barry now as well, though that doesn't bother him nearly as much. It can't be helped. All of these people learned the truth long before he'd returned home to avenge his father's actions – they were instrumental in shaping the monster he is today. But these four, Digg and Felicity, Tommy and Thea, they're going to be instrumental in shaping him into the hero he might be able to become, one day in the far future.
"Too many," Oliver answers. "But these are the only ones that matter." Roy already knows Thea of course, and Tommy, however loosely, but Oliver introduces him to Digg and Felicity, filling Roy in on their roles on the team.
Roy's nervous and hesitant, constantly sending guilty glances Oliver's way the whole time, and as the minutes tick by Oliver decides to do something then and there, before Roy worries himself into a panic attack from the guilt. They're all standing, but there aren't enough chairs for all of them to sit so Oliver stays where he is. (He thinks about asking to talk to Roy privately, because this is about Roy's feelings and Roy's guilt and how Roy is managing the Mirakuru, but he can't bring himself to. For one, he's trying to be more open with his teammates. For another, this is Mirakuru, and everyone needs to be as well informed as they can be about it.)
"We need to talk about what happened last night."
Roy tenses immediately, breath drawing a sharp gasp as his gaze quickly moves to anywhere but Oliver. Thea tenses too, reaching over to talk Roy's hand, and even though she already knows the truth of what happened, her own gaze seems to be split between Oliver's new cast and Roy, questions evident in her eyes. (And Digg and Felicity and Tommy, they tense too, if less obviously, if less dramatically, if simply less overall, because the following conversation won't be pleasant and they all know it.)
However guilty he may feel, however much he might think his regret is threatening to consume him, Roy pushes past if after only a moment, managing to glance in Oliver's way. He can't hold Oliver's gaze for long, but he's not looking at the floor at least.
"I, I didn't mean to," he stammers out. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Is it…? Are you…?"
"I'm fine," Oliver cuts in, because that's not what he'd meant, and it's not his injuries that are the problem.
"Small fracture," Digg cuts in quietly. "No surgery needed, but he'll be off his leg for a few weeks."
Six to eight is typical, Oliver knows. He's hoping to stay off it entirely for two, then do some light patrols with a brace for the next two weeks before he's back to full shape, but he knows not to rush things – he doesn't need to fracture his bones worse than Roy already snapped them.
The young man winces at Digg's calm assessment. Oliver's not sure he needed to know, but then, he's done enough horrible things himself. Sometimes he wants to forget all the blood on his hands, but he knows he can't ever let himself. He owes it to those people he hurt, to remember them, criminals or bastards or not.
This isn't comparable – Roy's got Mirakuru in his blood and he'd been lashing out, not aiming to hurt – but Oliver supposes knowing might still help.
I'm not worried about the injury, I got off lightly, he thinks about saying, but he's fairly certain that won't help anyone's peace of mind, and with Tommy and Thea there, he doesn't want to talk about how badly he's been hurt. (This is part of why he hadn't wanted them too involved. Being hurt is one thing – he doesn't care about that – but no matter that it's still surprising sometimes, he's got people who care about him. And him being hurt means that they suffer too. Oliver would spare them from that, if he could.)
(He doesn't mention his ribs.)
He shakes his head instead. "I meant the reason you attacked. Why you called me a murderer. The police seem to be keeping the case quiet – I haven't spoken to Lance about it yet – but we've got the same details they do. Your two neighbors –"
"Robbie and Sarah," Roy cuts in quietly, teeth gritted. "They, they lived across the street."
This is personal, for him, Oliver knows. That's why the Mirakuru had affected him as strongly as it had. Oliver needs to keep this calm, unemotional, or he might be risking another outburst.
He nods at Oliver's words. "We have the details. But I want to know what you saw that night. What you were thinking."
"I… I didn't," Roy bites his lip and looks away for a moment before he manages to look back and continue. "I don't really think I thought you murdered them, but you were just standing there, and you hadn't stopped them from being murdered and…"
Digg gives Oliver a look, one that urges Oliver to reassure Roy, and Thea's hold on Roy's hand is tight enough to whiten the tips of her fingers, but Oliver doesn't say anything. Not yet. Roy needs to get everything off his chest first.
"I don't blame you," Roy continues quickly, throwing a horrified look at Oliver. "I mean I know you didn't, you can't – I, just… I think that's what I was thinking, even though –" he cuts himself off again.
There are a thousand reassuring things he could say right now, Oliver knows. It wasn't your fault. Or about how the reaction was only logical, or that maybe Oliver should have been aware of someone in the Glades who'd wanted to kill under his name. Maybe he should reassure Roy about how he managed to stop himself, or praise him on how he'd managed to keep his cool until he'd reached Oliver, someone who could manage to fight back against him, whether that had been his intention or not.
Oliver could say something about how they'll find the killer. About how they'll keep training so that it never happens again. He could wave off his injuries, say they're nothing even though the broken ankle will hold him back for several weeks.
"The Mirakuru was effecting your reaction," he says instead. "We'll pick up with your training tomorrow."
Thea stiffens, opening her mouth to say something. Tommy tenses. Even Digg and Felicity don't look pleased with Oliver's words – whether it's concern about Oliver's injury, about whether or not Roy might injure him again, or concern for Roy, Oliver can't tell without giving them his full attention, and right now, he's looking only at Roy.
Roy doesn't have the hesitation or reluctance the others do. He feels guilty, that much is incredibly obvious, and he's blaming himself, but Oliver sees the drive in him nevertheless, could see it even before Roy straightens at his words. Roy is committed to never letting what had happened last night happen again. Shoulders straight, chin up, Roy meets his gaze for the first time that night without looking like he wants to glance away.
He nods once, filled with determination. Oliver meets his gaze. There's something in Roy purer than he'll ever be. Roy only wants to help people, Oliver… Oliver wants to help people, but more than that, he wants to make up for all the hurt he's put into the world. His motives are selfish. It doesn't matter who Roy was before this, the things he might have done on the streets of the Glades.
Roy only wants to help people. For the first time, Oliver feels an inkling of hope. He'd had a front row seat to Slade's self-destruction because of the Mirakuru. Roy though… If Roy keeps up his determination, some small part of Oliver starts to consider the fact that the young man might actually be able to beat this.
In the end, it's… it's one of the easiest nights Oliver's had in a long while, what with all the threats currently roaming the streets of Star City. Truthfully, though, he's got a recently broken ankle that will take some time to heal, so there's not much he could do anyway, physically. (An easy night physically, for sure, and even in terms of amount of work done, but emotionally… Emotionally Oliver knows his teammates, old and new, are going to need time to process everything.)
They talk about the fact that someone killed with Green Arrows. A copycat, for now, they consider, especially because Robbie was a fledgling gang member. They'll look into the siblings' backgrounds, see who might possibly have known about his induction in the gang and had a problem with it.
They talk about their scant progress on the kidnapping cases. Oliver, Digg, and Felicity are all treating things like the two kidnappings are linked, but truthfully they don't have any real proof of that yet. With all the fuss of the Mirakuru, they haven't had much time to look into it. They talk about, briefly, Mirakuru, about recent crime rates, about the sort of things Oliver usually handles, about the way he tends to structure his patrols.
It's part introduction for Roy, part a way to help Thea continue to ease into helping them, after all her absences in the aftermath of their mother's trial, and part deference to Tommy's desire not to know too many details. (In fact, Oliver's surprised his oldest friend has stuck around as long as he has.)
Honestly, the most open and inclusive conversation they have is about Queen Consolidated. True, that's about the List, and Oliver's decision to commit to being CEO for the foreseeable future, not only to help his family's company survive, but to watch over Rochev, but it's still something only tangentially related to his work as the Arrow.
(Oliver wants to do more, he aches to do it actually, and the basement fills cramped, and he hasn't spoken this much to this many people, so honestly in such a long time that he finds himself having to hold himself back from fleeing so many times, but he knows, for now, this is the best he can do. His ache to do something is mental, but his ribs actually ache, and his ankle's immobile in his cast. Digg and Felicity, they deserve the truth from him, deserve to be involved in his decisions. Tommy and Thea do too, they deserve to know that he wants them in his life. And Roy, Roy needs to know he can fight back against the Mirakuru, needs to know that Oliver doesn't blame him a bit before the guilt overwhelms him. So. This will have to do for tonight.)
Thea and Roy leave first, together. Roy clearly still feels guilty, and is still full of awe (Oliver doesn't want to crush that hero worship, not exactly, but he knows he'll let Roy down eventually, so he needs to find some way to nip it in the bud as soon as he can), but his determination also seems stronger than ever. He's staved off the worst of the Mirakuru for a little while longer, by telling Roy the truth, but he's not sure how long Roy's new quiet awe will hold back the rage the Mirakuru is creating in his heart. (He's hopeful though, a silver of light in the darkness, and that's… that's not nothing. He'll still be keeping his guard up around Roy for a while though, whatever he thinks of his tenacity.)
The original team of three – him, Digg, and Felicity – linger for a while longer, talking things through, but as Tommy lingers with them, despite his reluctance to get involved, Digg and Felicity exchange glances and are the next to leave.
In the end, it's just him and Tommy in the basement, and it's clear Tommy has something to say. That's probably why he's stuck around as long as he has.
"What is it?" Oliver asks.
Tommy hesitates, then doesn't hold back. "You said you'd think about it, Oliver. Now Roy knows too. That's everyone except for Laurel. She deserves to know."
Oliver's mind goes back to the conversation they'd had a few weeks ago. Right. Not quite everyone except for Laurel knows, not really, at least not in terms of everyone in Oliver's life (his mother, Walter) and not in terms of everyone who works with the Arrow (Lance, Hwang), but Oliver understands what Tommy's saying. He has been thinking about it, in between everything else that's been going on, and however much he doesn't like it, he can't help but agree. Or at least, he knows he should agree, and that's near enough to the same thing for him. Thea's helping now. He's letting people make their own choices. He did just tell Roy, if only because Roy had been trying to kill him (and forget that Oliver would be dead – he knows Roy would never have been able to live with himself afterward, provided the Mirakuru didn't warp him entirely).
Laurel needs to know she can turn to him if she gets in trouble with her work – she should have known that a long time ago. "Alright," he finds himself agreeing calmly, blankly, forcing all emotions from his tone.
Laurel's been in his corner a long time too. She's family. She'll probably hate him for this. She'll definitely hate him if she ever finds out about Sara. But she deserves to know regardless of what he wants.
Tommy blinks at the single word, seemingly startled. Maybe he hadn't expected Oliver to agree. Part of Oliver still wants to disagree. He'd never wanted anyone to know. But now five others do, and they're all… they're all supporting him. To help others, mainly, but that doesn't change the fact that they're working by his side.
But then Tommy's surprise settles. He meets Oliver's gaze without hesitation. "Thank you," he says, and there's sincerity ringing through every syllable.
Oliver stands, grabbing for his crutches, just so he can look Tommy in the eye properly. "Do you want me to tell her you already know?" he asks. "Or do you need to tell her that yourself?"
Tommy takes a moment to consider the question. "I…" he shakes his head. "I, I'll be waiting. For when you're done. But… if she asks you anything, tell her the truth, okay?"
Oliver thinks of Sara, running across the world somewhere, hiding from her demons, her family. "Okay," he lies, just as calmly as he'd agreed earlier, because he'll tell Laurel the truth about a lot of things, but not that. Not when the only chance that Sara will ever return to her family relies on him keeping her trust. (Not about his five years away either, if he's being honest, because that he just can't talk about, physically has trouble forcing the words to his lips.)
Maybe that night, this morning, was the easiest night he's had as the Arrow in a long while. Oliver finds himself thinking it – he knows it to be true – but somehow, he still feels exhausted when it's all said and done. It's not a lack of sleep, it's not his injuries, and he knows he didn't overexert himself. But for some reason he heads to his secondary base instead of the manor, sitting in the dark for… He doesn't know how long.
It's not to think. He's not processing the events of the night. Truthfully, if pressed, he's not sure he would be able to tell anyone what he was even thinking about by the time he shakes himself from his stupor and returns his mind to the physical world.
It's not the physical that's exhausting him, he realizes. He's just… He's been fighting for so long, and now, now…
He'd spent the night with friends. Strategizing, maybe. Hidden away in a basement, working as the Arrow. But still with friends. Whatever Digg and Felicity, Tommy and Thea and Roy, think of him, Oliver can't deny that he considers them – all of them – to be friends. He doesn't even care that he knows they'd leave him if they knew the truth of everything that he's done. They are… he trusts them. All of them, even though he knows to be physically wary around Roy. They all think highly of him too. They don't necessarily think well of him – he's tense and cruel and brutal, and he knows it perfectly well, and he's frightened all of them at one point or another – but they all seem to think he's capable of being a hero nevertheless.
It's… it's… He doesn't know what it is. He's been fighting for so long, by himself, never knowing who he could trust, never certain that he was safe when he fell asleep each night. And now…
Am I growing complacent? He finds himself wondering. Have I gotten too comfortable?
Thea'd managed to wake him with a few knocks the other day, when he should have awoken by the mere sound of her feet down the hall (socked feet against the carpet or not). Roy'd managed to get the jump on him last night, because he'd let himself grow comfortable in the other man's presence. And now he's going to tell Laurel the truth. Voluntarily. No one's dying, no one's in danger. He's just… going to go up to her and tell her the truth.
Oliver doesn't know what to think about that. It's not just them either. Lance had all but said that the taskforce was half-way counting on him to catch Gold again – the police force had trusted him enough to take Gold seriously in the first place. He's got Sara, somewhere. Laurel came to him expecting that he would be willing to rescue Tommy, even knowing nothing about him. Barry Allen's in Central City, but Oliver knows if he called the kid would catch the first train to Star City. Even Waller had done a favor for him, though Oliver knows she'll make him pay for that one eventually, and the relationship between the two of them is twisted into something no one else would probably consider trust. (Probably because it's not so much trust as it is respect. They each know perfectly well what the other is capable of.)
It's a lot of people in his corner. More people than he knows what to do with. And Walter's still helping him with business decisions, and their new maid had come to him for help, even though Moira is home now, and Moira is home now, so he's got his mother trying to spend more time with him and…
It's a lot. Grabbing for his crutches, Oliver heaves himself to his feet before pausing. Any other night, he thinks, he'd head out on patrol right now, even if every other member of his team (because he has a team now, he can't help but think incredulously) already went home. But he can't, as the twinge in his immobilized ankle reminds him. He can't even pace properly, in this underground lair, not with the crutches under his arms. He's got no real way to expend the restless energy inside him.
Taking a sharp breath, Oliver forces himself to clear his mind. He's being ridiculous. He does trust his friends – he doesn't need to constantly keep juggling their motives in his mind, wondering if they'll betray him, wondering if when they'll leave. He doesn't.
Except.
Except that he needs to be prepared for when they do leave, doesn't he? Maybe he shouldn't be thinking like that, but he's about to tell Laurel the truth and all he can think about – all he can plan for – is what to do when she leaves. Damage control, mediation. Tommy'll probably go with her, even if he hesitates for Oliver's sake, for a short while. Thea… it's harder to say. She's stuck with Oliver thus far. He doesn't think telling Laurel the truth would change her opinion of him in any way. As long as he stays honest about it, Digg and Felicity shouldn't take issue either.
With what he's about to do, it's really only Laurel and Tommy who'll probably fade from his life.
There's Mirakuru and their kidnappings and the false Lists and the actual Listers and the individuals who'd targeted the Queens' maid and all his work at Queen Consolidated and… And he's got an entire team on his side now, helping him through his issues, and Oliver doesn't know how to handle that.
Gritting his teeth, he limps over to his spare bow. He can't burn up his energy on patrol, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any other outlets to burn it off with. He's… he's got a lot to think about and he thinks…
He'd always meant to do this crusade alone. It doesn't matter their motives, or what they think of him, but he's not alone anymore. And he's about to tell someone the truth of what he does of his own free will, knowing how much Laurel might hate him for it.
Oliver… Oliver's not sure what that means. But it's something.
January 8, 2014, afternoon:
Isabel Rochev is sly and cunning and a ruthless businessperson. She's on the List, so Oliver's been keeping an eye on her, of course, but if she plans to enact whatever immoral plans had landed her on the List in the first place at Queen Consolidated, Oliver hasn't seen any sign of that. In fact, when the board finally decides – when he finally agrees – to make him the CEO for the foreseeable future, she supports the proposition, however coldly. And Oliver has been learning. He's been working nine to five, and the COO Rankin has been a huge help. It's not entirely out of the ordinary for Rochev to support the move. (Especially because he suspects the board is capitalizing on the fact that his mother was declared innocent of all charges. See, they seem to be saying, nothing wrong with the Queens. Not to mention that he feels that Rochev, specifically, might just be expecting him to fail, might just be looking forward to it.)
He suspects she has her own plans but, given that they align with the majority of the board for the moment, he's not inclined to call her out just yet. Which has led him to… this. The fact that he's going to tell Laurel the truth tonight threatens to overwhelm him but he can't drop his focus. He can't think about whether or not he can trust the team that has somehow assembled around him. He needs to focus on the mission (not a mission) in front of him.
Oliver puts on the widest smile he can manage at the moment, trying to fall back into something resembling the playboy he once was. "So, ladies," he says, letting his eyes roam over the group of women seated around the room. "Who's first?"
Most of the would-be-secretaries are professional, but more than a few blush, or look away, and Oliver hears at least one suppressed squeal. Fangirls. Well, at least it will help him keep up his reputation. He prepares a compliment as the first woman stands, and gallantly holds the door open for her as she passes.
This is going to be exhausting. But if he wants to keep his family's company in business, then he needs to play the part.
January 8, 2014, evening:
Knocking on the door in front of him seems difficult, his limbs heavy, but Oliver's made his commitment. He'd promised Tommy. And Laurel already knows he's coming. He's tense and stiff and thinks he might just regret this, but he doesn't hesitate before he raises his fist and raps it against the wood in front of him.
It doesn't take Laurel long to answer. She looks a little uncertain – probably confused why Oliver had requested to speak to her and her alone – but not too apprehensive.
"C'mon in," she says, leading him to the living room. "Is this… what is this about?"
Oliver's been thinking over his words ever since he'd given Tommy his word that he would tell Laurel the truth, but he still doesn't know what to say. At least with Thea, he'd had a backdrop to build off of – the events of their kidnapping, even the footage of the miniquake playing out on the TV in front of them when he'd finally sat down with her.
With Laurel, he doesn't have any of that. For her, this conversation is coming completely out of the blue. She's been keeping an eye on the members of the List, Oliver knows, but other than that, she hasn't had any interaction with the Arrow since Tommy's kidnapping. She doesn't even know that he and Thea had had their own kidnapping attempt.
He sits down on the couch, waiting for him to take a seat as well – not for his sake, because he wants to pace, wants his bow (his fingers twitch at his side) – but because she's going to need to be sitting for this conversation.
"I never intended to tell you," he says solemnly. Slowly – too slowly, because Laurel has time to frown and interrupt.
"Tell me what?"
"At the beginning," Oliver continues, ignoring the question. "I never intended to tell anyone. But, one by one, I kept putting the people in my life in danger. Diggle. Felicity Smoak. Tommy. Even Thea and Roy. They all… they all found out. So now I'm telling you. You…"
The empty middle cushion between him and Laurel feels like an impenetrable gulf. You deserve it, he wants to say, but he can't. She's looking at him like… It's dread in her gaze, and Oliver's words won't make things any easier between them.
"I am the Green Arrow." She might not believe him. Saying it like that, without proof, out of the blue, without any catalyst, after the SCPD – after her father – has already cleared him, she might… But this is Laurel. For better or worse, she's always known him.
She hesitates for a moment, shifts toward him uncertainly before pulling back, and gazes wide-eyed into his eyes. It takes her a moment to process what it all means, to shift her world view, but Oliver can tell she believes him. There's no doubt in her gaze, only… horror? Confusion? Hurt?
"I wanted to tell you Laurel, for some time now. I just… I had to tell Thea first." He pauses, gives her more time to come to terms with everything he's told her. He is the Green Arrow. And Thea, Tommy, Digg and Felicity… they all already know.
"You're… you're really him," she says, no longer question but fact. The look on her face is a complex mix of emotions and she meets his gaze before quickly looking away, unwilling to look him in the eye.
Unwilling to look at her old friend's face and see the eyes of a killer, Oliver supposes. He can understand that. And yet… and yet people keep surprising him, after they find out the truth about him. Maybe Laurel…
"All those times…" she manages to say, barely looking at him. "I… I called you for help. I blamed you for not being there for Tommy."
Oliver doesn't say anything. He doesn't regret not telling her earlier, but he knows he should have. (He'd be lying to himself if he tried to claim that he didn't care what Laurel Lance thought of Oliver Queen – any aspect of him.) She's still processing. This isn't her genuine reaction, not yet.
"I… I need time," she says, still not looking at him. Her voice is strangled, as though she's having trouble speaking. Oliver isn't sure if the tears he hears are fear or hatred or if Laurel just feels rejected as the last one told. All he knows is that he's once more brought suffering to the ones in his life.
He nods once, lingers a bit longer, then leaves. He might have just lost one of his best friends, and he can feel his heart clench in pain at the thought of that, so he shoves his emotions aside in favor of the more practical side of his brain. He's made his decision, calculated the risks involved. Whatever Laurel might think of him now, he doesn't think she'll reveal his identity. And if she does, he has plans for that too.
Besides, his thoughts whisper, Tommy came around. Thea embraced you, even if she's still struggling to understand. Roy still thinks you're a hero. Optimistic thoughts. That's new, and not unwelcome. Can Oliver let himself hope?
The answer to that is no, the answer to that has always been no, and yet, somehow, he still has a team around him.
It's Laurel's choice now. He'll let her make it on her own.
Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow. Oliver. One of her oldest friends. Her ex-boyfriend. Someone she'd once thought she'd married, someone who'd cheated on her with her sister. Someone she'd hated for leading her sister to her death. She'd thought they'd moved past all the strangled emotions between them. Thought maybe he'd just been coming to apologize for the distance he'd put between him and Tommy after Tommy's kidnapping.
But Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow. Violent. Unpredictable. Ruthless. A killer. A hardened weapon. She's looked into the darkness under the Arrow's hood time after time after time and seen nothing recognizable.
No. Not nothing. There'd been… something. Something she'd seen in the vigilante that had led her to trust him, or at least trust that he had the right intentions, whatever his violence. And there'd been something in Oliver's eyes too, a hardened wariness that had been most obvious when he'd been talking about when he'd been tortured, on that island.
Laurel had just never connected the two. Never connected Oliver's subdued emotions with the Green Arrow's stiffness, never connected Oliver's late nights with the Green Arrow's activities, never connected Oliver's injuries with the Green Arrow's absences.
He's been lying to her since he came home. He'd told her to stay away from her, she remembers that now. But that had been before she'd started talking to the Green Arrow – before he'd approached her, she remembers now too. Oliver really has been lying to her from the start.
But Tommy knows the truth. Thea knows. Oliver's bodyguard. Felicity Smoak, the IT person from Queen Consolidated that Laurel's only met a few times. Roy knows.
Oliver's been lying to her for over a year, and Tommy's been lying to her, and Thea's been lying to her. How long has everyone else been lying? Why is she the last to find out?
There's too much to process, too much to think about.
The violence in the prison, all those months ago: Oliver. The man who'd rescued her when she'd been kidnapped: Oliver. Oliver's scars. The way he'd spoken about being tortured on the island. The polygraph he'd taken and lied through. Tommy's ups and downs with his friend over the months. Walking through Merlyn Manor with Tommy and the Green Arrow, tense and wary, except it had been Oliver there with them, just two friends supporting a third, and neither of them had bothered to tell her.
The Green Arrow killed Malcolm Merlyn.
Oliver was only ever on that island because Malcolm Merlyn had wanted to kill his father. (And Oliver and Sara had just been collateral damage.)
All the times she's collaborated with the Green Arrow, all the times she's been frightened, staring down the vigilante in a dark alley, wondering at the ruthlessness she's seen in him with her own eyes. Oliver's hesitations since he'd come back. His subdued emotions. The hardness in his eyes.
Oliver had given her the List. Oliver had rescued Tommy from his own kidnapping, not avoided him, as Laurel had thought – as they'd let her believe.
Maybe Laurel could reconcile all that. Maybe she could see the trauma in Oliver's eyes and the violence in the Arrow and connect the two, even if she knows for a fact that the Green Arrow's been spotted when Oliver was definitely elsewhere at that point in time. Maybe she could bring herself to understand Oliver's lies – if she wasn't the only one he'd been lying to.
Lying about being a vigilante, that makes sense, and it's a lot to process, and Laurel knows she hasn't processed it all yet, but…
She'd thought Oliver would be the man she'd marry, once. And then he'd cheated on her with her sister, and he'd died, and Laurel had hated him. Then he'd come home, and she can see now why he'd warned her away from him back then, can remember his sincere apology. He really hadn't minded her hating him.
He'd been the vigilante back then, he'd always meant to be the Arrow – she wonders how long he'd been planning that, trapped on that island, but that doesn't matter. She'd worked with the Arrow nearly from the beginning, but Oliver had never told her the truth.
Would she have accepted it? She doesn't know. All she knows is that Oliver met her in shadowed parking lots and dark alleys again and again and again, never attempting to give her so much as a hint as to who was under the hood. But then he'd brought in others, and still lied to her. Then he'd brought in Tommy, and told her boyfriend to lie for him too.
Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow. Oliver Queen has killed people, cruelly, coldly, violently. Oliver Queen has saved thousands of lives. Oliver Queen is….
He's the Green Arrow. There's no adjective Laurel can think of to describe him, to describe the way she's feeling, to describe all the memories she's reevaluating now.
It makes sense, logically, that he'd lie about being the Arrow. The Arrow had been a killer, after all. But then he'd stopped lying, and still she hadn't been told.
That shouldn't be what stings. He's… he's violent, and he's a hero, and she's gone to him for help so many times, and he's come to her for information too, and Oliver has never once let on and…
It's the lies Laurel keeps coming back to. It shouldn't be. There's so much else to process. But it's the lies her mind keeps focusing on.
Laurel isn't sure how long she sits there, brain cycling through all her interactions with Oliver the past year, all her interactions with the Arrow – every time Tommy's mentioned the vigilante, everything the city as a whole "knows" about their resident hero. All the times Tommy avoided talking about the topic with her, or switched the topic whenever the Arrow came up, or was frustratingly vague about his latest fight with Oliver.
She gets the lies, she really does, because she's already been kidnapped once because of her loose association with the Arrow – what would someone do to Thea, to Tommy, if the truth about Oliver came out? So she gets the lies, in a general sense, understands the mask and the hood and Oliver's general secrecy.
If it had been just Oliver, she thinks she would have been okay with that. She'd be focusing on the violence instead, on all the good the Arrow's done, on the fact that he'd killed Tommy's father (Sara's killer). Instead she realizes that everyone she knows has been lying to her for months. Well, everyone except Jo, and her coworkers at CNRI.
Oliver. Tommy. Thea. Even Roy, even Oliver's bodyguard Diggle, even that IT girl Felicity Smoak she's run into a few times.
Laurel doesn't have a big friend group. She knows that perfectly well. She's driven, some have called her. A workaholic, Jo and Tommy sometimes joke. She's got Jo, and she's got Tommy, and Oliver's been there, hovering on the edges as a friend lately, and Thea's been hanging out with her and aside from Jo they've all been lying to her. Just her. Everyone else gets to know the secret apparently, everyone except for her.
Tommy enters the apartment not long after Oliver leaves it, and it doesn't take him long to locate her in the living room, still seated on the couch. There's uncertainty and hesitation written all over his face. Laurel doesn't know what he sees on hers. She doesn't know what she's feeling.
He only stares for a moment, concern entering his gaze, before he takes up a seat at her side, closer than Oliver had been, thighs brushing against each other. Laurel lets him take her hand, but she doesn't squeeze back. He doesn't speak, doesn't try to defend his decision. She doesn't know if that makes things better or worse.
"How long?" she manages to ask, a minute or two later.
"Too long," Tommy answers, voice heavy and full of regret. Before Laurel can get angry – before she can tell him that that isn't an answer, dammit – he continues. "Do you… do you remember when someone tried to assassinate Malcolm?"
He's stopped hesitating over his name. Stopped calling him his dad, Laurel notes distantly. Once, she would have been happy about that. Now, she can barely think it. Instead her mind searches backward through the months – all the way before the miniquake, and months before that as well. Sometime in the spring? Winter? Her mind's not quite clear, but it was almost a year ago now, and that's all that matters to her.
"Yes," she says.
Tommy tenses for a moment, probably picking up on the unhappiness in her tone (anger?), but then he squeezes her hand again and relaxes. "He didn't – Oliver didn't know everything back then. Telling me… it was the only way to save Malcolm's life."
Oliver told Tommy to save a life. Laurel can understand that. She can respect that. She can't understand why that means she wasn't allowed to know, all these months. (Would Oliver have let Malcolm die, back then, if he'd known the truth? she can't help but wonder. He killed him in the end, after all.)
Laurel shakes her head, pulling her hand from Tommy's. Okay, fine, so the initial reason was logical, and maybe she and Tommy hadn't been nearly so close back, but…
"I've been working with him," she manages to get out.
"Laurel…"
Here it comes – the excuses that Laurel's been waiting for. Suddenly, she doesn't want to hear them.
"No," she interrupts, standing, taking a step back from the couch, staring down at her boyfriend. (He stares back unflinchingly calm. She thinks it's regret she sees in his eyes.) "No. We… we went to your house, Tommy, and I, I was so worried for you. We were… I thought you were confronting your father's murderer. I spent hours worried about you, worried he might do something, and the whole time –" The whole time it was Oliver and neither of them had bothered to tell her. (Oliver is a murderer.)
Tommy stands, his arm making an aborted movement, as though he wants to reach for her hand again but thinks better of it.
"You should have known," he says simply. "You should have known from the beginning. I don't have any excuses. But Oliver asked me not to tell you, so… I couldn't lose him again Laurel. I can't."
There's heartache in Tommy's tone and she wants to go to him, wants to soothe it away. They've dealt with his father's actions together. She's helped him through the aftermath of his kidnapping, something that still has him waking in the middle of the night sometimes, shaking from a nightmare. She'd told him about her own kidnapping, and he holds her in bed sometimes when the darkness gets to be too much. She wants to help him through this too – she remembers how much of a wreak he was when the Gambit had sank, even if she'd been so wrapped up in her own grief at the time.
But she can't move. Her feet stay where they are. They'd been through all of that together and still she'd been kept out of half of Tommy's life. All his hesitations whenever he talked about Oliver, all his reluctance to talk about the Green Arrow with her… Laurel feels like she's finally seeing Tommy for who he is. A drastic reaction, sure, but suddenly she's rethinking every interaction the two of them have had for months. She can't…
"I need… I need time," she says, the same thing she'd said to Oliver, because Tommy's been lying to her too. She needs… she needs to process all this, and she can't do that with Tommy right there. She just… she can't.
Tommy nods once and yes, that's definitely regret in his eyes, and Laurel's sorry, she is, but she needs to come to terms with this on her own before she feels like she can talk to him again. "Whatever you need," her boyfriend promises. "I can spend a few nights somewhere else." (With Oliver, Laurel's mind provides, but she's grateful Tommy hadn't actually said that out loud.)
She loves her boyfriend so, so much sometimes, but she can't bring herself to tell him not to leave. She just stays in the living room as he packs a bag, as he returns a few minutes later, duffle at his side.
"I mean it, Laurel," Tommy says sincerely, sorrowfully, meeting her gaze. "Whatever you need."
She nods, tears at the corners of her eyes, and she doesn't know why, only that she's overflowing with emotions that she doesn't understand yet. "Thank you," she manages to say, and she manages to mean it, but she still doesn't ask Tommy to stay.
The door closes almost silently behind him, but the sound of the latch clicking echoes through Laurel's mind until she manages to drag herself to bed for the night.
AN: Didn't get much of a chance to edit this, so apologies for any errors. Chapter 32: Shrapnel, should be posted January 14th. Thanks for reading!