Title: Tap Dancing Flamingoes
Fandom: DCTV Arrowverse
Timeline: Post-5x23 (AU)
Characters: Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, Slade Wilson, John Diggle, William Clayton...
Notes: For not the first or last time... plot bunnies attacked me from dialogue cues, when I was doing my level best NOT to incite them. So, while this isn't any of the fandoms I normally write in, and even though I promised myself I wouldn't do it: yep. Doing it. So, so doing it. (A little bit of happy-verse spin for everyone. How much spin? A LOT.)
Disclaimer: Uh-huh... no. Nope. Nada.

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None of them had let William go anywhere unsupervised since returning from Lian Yu... or, rather, what was left of the place after it had been given an explosive makeover by a psychopath that would take the land years to recover from.

Pushing away from her workstation, Felicity looked over to the training area and watched as the boy in question was being led through some kind of technique by Slade Wilson while Thea and Diggle supervised on either side of the mat. It was odd, seeing the man who had tried to kill them all in a murderous rage be so gentle with the boy.

Turning back to her workstation, she jumped, startled at seeing Oliver standing there, leaning against the desk with a slight smile on his lips. His expression seemed almost... wistful. She looked from him, to the training session, and back again, now curious. Very curious. "Oliver?"

"Slade taught me that," Oliver said after a moment. "Violently."

She wanted to ask why that made him smile, but was stopped by a chuckle that emanated from the mat. "We had ten days, Kid."

Oliver rolled his eyes long-sufferingly, glancing down at her with a smile that, for once, actually reached his eyes. "He's not wrong. In fact... Digg? How about you and Thea show William what that move looks like at half speed?"

Felicity turned back and watched the half-speed take down demonstration (with an escrima stick standing in for a gun)... and then her eyes widened in realization at where she'd seen it before. "Oh! That's what you did to Evelyn! And... oh!"

Now Oliver chuckled while Thea picked herself up off the mat and did a different take down move that tripped Diggle and landed him on his back. "Thea!"

"What?! That move hurts, no matter how you do it!" She glanced at Slade, paused. "Wait. How violent?" Slade's only response was a smug grin as he moved to help Diggle up. She paled when the man whispered something in his ear and Diggle smiled in response.

William turned and looked up at them, confusion written clearly on his young face. "Ten days for what?"

"To turn him into something resembling a soldier," Slade muttered as he handed Diggle and Thea escrima sticks. "Marginal success."

"You got shot," Oliver reminded him, startling Felicity at how open he was being. "I did not."

Slade paused, smirked. "No, you just managed to get yourself captured. Again."

"And who didn't tell me the full story for why Yao Fei was compromised?"

Silence descended, and then Slade shrugged. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Kid. Now, you two... show me what you've got."

Thea stared at him. "Why?"

"So I know where the holes are in what you've learned."

Oliver watched as Slade picked up his own set of sticks, winced. "William? Come over here." The boy nodded and joined the two of them at Felicity's computer station. "And Slade?"

"Yes?"

"Thea's rear foot slips, and Digg drops his left shoulder and he's been lack-luster on his endurance."

"Hey!" Diggle protested, and then his attention was taken by both Thea and Slade at the same time.

Oliver bent down closer to Felicity and William, both of whom were staring with wide eyes. "He's actually going easy on them."

"Are we ever going to get the full story?" Felicity wondered.

Oliver's lips twitched. "Ferris Air Flight 637."

"Huh?"

He shrugged. "Though if you do look it up, Lyla might come and ask why you did."

That drew Felicity up short, even as she heard rather than saw Thea grunt in exasperation amid the clinking of the sticks. Lyla? A.R.G.U.S... "Oh." Somehow, that detail explained how he'd ended up in Hong Kong, and now her fingers were itching to hack into an incredibly secure database to find out the rest. She was distracted a moment later when both Diggle and Thea got bested and thrown to the mat at the same time. "Easy, huh?"

"I want to do that!" William exclaimed excitedly and Oliver nodded. "Can I do that?"

"That's what we're working toward," Oliver told him. "The basics first, William. Okay?"

William grinned up at Oliver. "Okay."

Thea glared up at Slade. "How is it that you are worse than Malcolm?"

Slade nodded to William. "There's a child present, Miss Queen. And your brother is correct: we need to work on your footing. You are sloppy."

"Also?" Oliver spoke up, gaining her attention and earning another glare in the process. "Malcolm might have been trained by Ra's Al Ghul, but he was never military, and never, to my knowledge, worked for any kind of intelligence agency." That earned a laugh from Diggle as the man picked himself up off the floor. "You good, Digg?"

Diggle nodded, then frowned when Slade whirled to the elevator, escrima sticks at the ready. "What?"

The doors opened to reveal Samantha, looking at her cell phone in consternation. "Well, that was rude of her." Then she glanced up and frowned at all of them, but mostly Slade's posture. "I come in peace?"

"Mom, they were being violent with sticks!" William called to her. "It looked fun! I wanna do that! Can I?"

Samantha sighed and looked at Oliver. "Is he ready for that?"

"Not yet, no."

"Then no, William. Not today. And really, Mr. Wilson! You can relax."

Slade smirked and moved to very quickly trip Thea right as she bounced to her feet again. "Always expect the unexpected."

"Gah!"

"If you're done being her martial arts master for now," Samantha told him as she beckoned William over. "Dinner is upstairs and waiting."

"He's not my martial arts master," Thea grumbled as she again got to her feet and glared at Slade, who simply smiled creepily back at her. "He's Ollie's! Which explains so much!"

Felicity moved to stand, but Oliver's hand on her arm gave her pause as the five of them moved to get on the elevator. "What?"

"I need a minute," he told her quietly, then louder... "We'll be up in a minute, Sam!"

Samantha smiled back at them as the doors closed. "Ten minutes! Or Slade's coming back down to get you!"

"She's cheerful," Felicity observed with a smile as she turned back to her workstation, only to pause at the sight of a gift-wrapped little box with a bow on it. Picking it up, she frowned, then looked up at Oliver. "What is this?"

"Open it," he urged.

Felicity did so... only to stare at the pink Flamingo earrings. And were they wearing tap shoes? "Um..."

"A small step," Oliver told her as he bent down with a smile to look her in the eyes. "To think about a bigger one. You were right, you know."

"I was?"

He nodded, ran a finger over her cheek. "Anyone would have said they were a tap dancing Flamingo. As much as that hurts to admit."

At the reminder of sitting in the tunnel with him severely injured in the half-light of the chemlaps, she nodded and moved to take off the earrings she'd been wearing and put these on. "What do you think?"

Oliver's answering smile was a rare one that went all the way to his eyes as he took the box from her and helped her stand up. "I think it's time we go have dinner, or Slade really will come back down and embarrass us both. He loves to do that."

"He does?"

"Even more than pulling a variable acceleration on his sparring partner." He pulled her close, kissed her nose. "And I think you look perfect."

She smiled up at him, then took his hand and led him to the elevator. They had a family dinner to attend.