WHAT WAS MY DADDY LIKE?

Chapter 5: ROY

A/N: This one was supposed to be just about Mia learning about Oliver from Roy Harper, but I wrote about so much more. It's my idea of how things will go down towards the end of Season 7 - actually, how I want things to go down after 7x16 - which means, from here on, the fic will be canon divergent. I just won't accept any other ending to our favorite show other than that Olicity and their family eventually get their happy ending where none of them dies. So yes, this fic is about me pouring out my heart over my most favorite show coming to an end (without its leading lady in the final season). Whaaahh!

This is the longest chapter in this fic so far. Once I started writing it, I couldn't stop. I blame it on the heartbreak that was EBR's announcement. I'm still in the process of grieving the impending loss, but I'm still happy about how this one turned out. I hope you will be too.

"What was that all about back there?!" Mia screamed, directing her fierce and pointed gaze at an out-of-breath Roy Harper, as the team arrives in their secret lair after an unsuccessful mission.

Roy didn't even turn to look at the younger version of the Felicity he'd known for years, spanning almost three decades – the "blondie" who had become his friend and teammate back in the days when he'd gone out on evening patrols and save-the-city missions with the Arrow, and the one whose loud voice used to echo throughout the foundry when one or all of them had messed up in the field resulting in at least one of them getting injured unnecessarily. Roy didn't dare look Mia in the eye and see this version of Oliver's deathly stare. And it wasn't because he was afraid of it. No. It was because he was ashamed that Mia had seen him lose control for the first time, just like he had felt absolute guilt and shame the first time her parents – his friends and mentors – had seen him kill a man with his bare hands. He'd never been the same since the Pit. Unlike with the Mirakuru, that time there had been no more cure.

It wasn't the first time Roy had gone out of control since his return to Star City. Dinah and Zoe had witnessed him lose it when they confronted that uncooperative, dirty cop to get intel about Felicity's supposed murder. However, it had happened again during their mission barely an hour ago, and this time, the entire team witnessed it. He'd seen how brokenhearted Felicity had been, seeing him taken over by the bloodlust after all these years. She must think that the years of solitude that he'd spent on Lian Yu had done nothing to ease the burden of his soul. She must consider him an utter disappointment, a failure, an embarrassment to Oliver's legacy. With Mia, it was different. The young Smoak-Queen was not broken-hearted; she was infuriated. She must doubt how he could have ever been the Green Arrow's protégé. He definitely was no hero.

The team had been on a covert mission with Agent Hawke in the lead. Connor had covertly obtained information from Nightwatch about where the rumored back-up bombs were being kept by Kevin Dale's evil organization. They were supposed to infiltrate the Eden Corp. warehouse without any casualties on either side. A guard had caught Felicity hacking security and had manhandled her, and as soon as Roy had gotten to her rescue, he had seen red. Connor had gotten hurt trying to stop Roy from killing the guard with his fists. Because Roy had unnecessarily entangled himself in the bloody altercation, the team had narrowly escaped capture by the Glades PD. Mia might never forgive him for all the trouble he'd caused. That much, he could surmise, if the indignant look on her face was any indication.

If he could only take it all back, he would. Just like that time when he had lost Thea because of it.

"You cost us this mission! Don't you have anything to say?" Mia asked angrily as she banged her bow against the rusty, metal table in the team's temporary secret lair.

"Mia…" Felicity cautioned her, placing her hand on her daughter's forearm.

But Mia would not have it. She was furious. She shook off her mom's hand. "He was beating that guard to death! I thought you vigilantes didn't kill."

She turned to Felicity and said, "Arsenal flung Agent Hawkle against a concrete wall! If it weren't for William erasing footage from the surveillance camera, Connor wouldn't just be suffering now from a serious concussion; his identity would have also been compromised!"

Turning to Roy once again, she added, "And now your DNA is all over that guard's bloody, messed-up face! It's only a matter of time before Archer finds you. Finds all of us!"

No one spoke. The Canaries were silent, William was silent, and so was Overwatch.

Taking a deep breath, Roy spoke in a self-deprecating tone. "She's right. I shouldn't be on this team. I shouldn't have come back. I'm a loose cannon. And a liability. I belong to that island," he said, still not meeting anyone's gaze. He just stood there, gripping the cold, metal bars of the stairwell as if his life depended on it. He was truly sorry for hurting Connor Hawke, the adopted son of yet another of his closest friends. It only added to a long list of things he wouldn't be able to forgive himself for.

"Uncle Roy…" William was the one who responded, calling him by his name instead of his codename. "You are a part of this team. We can help you, whatever it is you're going through." He was being kind and sympathetic, and Mia decided that this was not one of her favorite of her brother's traits in the few weeks that she'd gotten to know him. No one in this troubled city was that nice.

Felicity approached Roy cautiously as she observed his breathing normalizing. "Hey, I know life's been tough without Thea. I know it's been lonely living it, blaming yourself everyday for what happened. But even though you swore some years ago never to come back so that you could protect your family from… from the effects that the Pit had on you, I had to bring you back here for a reason. You're not the only one seeking redemption, Roy. All of us… we all need it."

"I know, I do," said Dinah, stepping forward and approaching her two friends. "We've all made mistakes that we regret to this day. But the only way we can win this fight, the only way we can find ourselves again and find peace after all of this is over, is if we stick together. Like the team that we used to be. Before all hell broke loose in Star City." She spoke not just to Roy but to everyone.

Mia pursed her lips and sighed. She looked down at her bow. At the mention of her father's name, she had calmed down somewhat. "I've really been trying to wrap my mind around this whole Team Arrow and superheroes thing for weeks now, but I… ugh… I still can't… I don't understand… How did a team of supposedly heroic vigilantes become a motley crew of pathetic losers, each with a sad, dark back story to hide?"

"Watch your language, Mia," Felicity warned her sternly. No one in this team is perfect, but I am willing to give my life for any of them if need be, and they sure as hell would give their lives to save me… or you." There was a grain of truth to her daughter's slightly disrespectful commentary, but Felicity wouldn't have Mia insulting her friends, the same ones who continue to make sacrifices for her family and for their city.

"Could you give us the room, please?" Felicity said to the team, her blue eyes never leaving her daughter's blue-green ones. She adored her daughter's eyes. While Mia was growing up, those eyes – not the color, per se, but the expression in them – reminded her everyday of Oliver. They still do, and for a second that felt longer than the past twenty years, she missed him again.

Dinah nodded and began to walk away, gesturing to the others to follow her out of the basement that was the team's temporary base of operations. Zoe was right behind her.

"I'll check on Agent Hawke upstairs," said William, "see if he needs anything for the pain."

"No, you stay," Felicity told her grown son. She turned to Roy and said, "That goes for you, too."

As soon as the others left, Felicity gathered her children around the metal table near the huge computer screen.

Her children.

It was strange and almost amusing how the three persons, whom she considered her children, differed so much in background, personality type, and age. Felicity was not that much older compared to Roy, and yet she considered herself partly responsible for how the gray-haired and wrinkle-faced man before her now had turned out to be. The original Team Arrow had been his only family. They had taken him under their wing. No one could tell her that Roy didn't have the right to consider her his "mother" in a special sense of the word.

William was not her son by blood. He had been Oliver's secret, partly the reason why she had broken off their engagement the first time. Yet eventually, because he was Oliver's, and because he was an undeniable part of his life, Felicity had learned to accept and love him as her own son. His well-being had become her priority, especially during the longest six months of her life when Oliver had been in prison. That was when she discovered that she was willing to do anything to protect him even at the cost of her own life. Taking care of William on her own had made her stronger and braver than she had ever been at that time. So, he was her son. Period.

Mia was… Mia. Her very own flesh and blood. Mia was tangible, living proof of the love that she and Oliver shared. Once shared. Genetically speaking, Mia was one-half her and one-half Oliver, but really, she was so much more like her dad in so many ways. Still, Mia was her daughter through and through, and Felicity was mighty proud of what she had become, hopeful of what she still could be. She only wished Oliver could see even a glimpse of their daughter's future with her… if only he'd lived long enough.

Felicity's gaze shifted between Mia and William. When her eyes finally locked on to Mia's, she said to her, "What Arsenal did back there wasn't right. He did use excessive force. But you need to cut him some slack, Mia. In order to do that, you have to understand what your Uncle Roy has been through, what the rest of us have been through, because it's the only way you're ever going to appreciate to any degree what being a hero is all about."

Felicity took a deep breath. Looking at William this time, she added, "I think it's time you two understand what happened in the past."

She looked down and closed her eyes, willing herself to find courage to speak of things she'd rather not tell, things she had been keeping from the siblings for years, stories she'd much rather keep buried in the past. When she looked up again, she began to explain.

"About twenty years ago, sometime after you, William, went to live with your grandparents in Central City, we discovered that the masked vigilante running around Star City dressed like the Green Arrow was actually Oliver's… your dad's half-sister. Apparently, your grandfather Robert Queen had had an affair with a Japanese woman, and Emiko Queen was the result. Your grandfather had abandoned them when your grandmother Moira had found out and threatened to take their children and the company away from him. Emiko and her mother had had a really tough time surviving on their own. Believe it or not, living in the Glades back then was a lot like survival of the fittest in an African jungle, a lot like living in Star City right now. Emiko got mixed up with the wrong crowd. She met a terrorist named Dante, who taught her how to fight and turned her into a weapon of destruction. You see, Dante worked for a secret organization called the Ninth Circle, which dated back for centuries. The Ninth Circle believed that it was their mission to purge the world of the diseases that plagued societies, and they did this by playing god, wreaking havoc and mass destruction in order to give humanity a restart, so to speak."

Felicity paused for a breath. She used to be able to ramble on forever. Some things had indeed changed through the years.

"Oliver thought… we all thought that Emiko was an ally, that she could still be turned. But, it turned out that she had been a high-ranking leader in the Ninth Circle all along. Your father was devastated, both by her betrayal and by the fact that she couldn't be redeemed… didn't want to be redeemed. Emiko already knew where the team's bunker was, so we had to upgrade security and we each had to watch our backs night and day. But that was not the worst part. Emiko had seen what Archer could do, and she had set her eyes on using it for herself and her clandestine organization."

"The Archer program? Archer was already operational before I was born?" Mia asked.

"It was on its trial phase, yes. It really took off in less than a year's time, but the prototype was already being used by the team in the bunker, and remotely in our home and in Smoke Tech's… office," Felicity replied, her voice fading out with a wobble in the last few words. It was obvious that the memory was painful for her to recall.

"So, Emiko stole Archer and used it for Ninth Circle's operations?" William asked this time.

Felicity was quick to answer, "Yes and no. She did eventually use it for her purposes and for Ninth Circle's. But no, she did not steal it from Smoak Tech. It was handed to her on a silver platter."

Mia and William frowned, asking almost simultaneously, "How?"

"I used to work with a partner," Felicity began to explain. Her voice and the expression on her face bore evidence of the sadness and bitterness she still felt. "Alena Whitlock. She was CTO of Smoak Technologies. Together, the company was a success. I trusted her, but she betrayed me and the team. Alena had bought into the Ninth Circle's agenda that Emiko had tried to sell her… right under my nose. I guess I should have known better, since she had previously been a member of a disbanded group of hacktivists-turned-cyber-terrorists called Helix."

Felicity shuddered at the bitter memory of Alena's betrayal, as well as of her personal regret of having helped Helix and Cayden James before. She still blamed herself and couldn't forgive herself for those.

"I never found out that Alena had been helping Emiko for months," Felicity added, shaking her head. Looking straight ahead at nothing in particular, she half-whispered, "I never thought she would turn, just like that." The pain of the betrayal stung once more. After all these years, it still stung, right at her heart where it hurt the most. If she hadn't built Archer, if she hadn't trusted Alena blindly, Oliver might still be with them.

"Sounds like someone else I know," Roy remarked, clearly disgusted at the thought. His words brought Felicity back from her bitter musing.

"Rene?" William guessed, and Felicity and Roy nodded.

"With Rene, it was a bit different, though," Felicity explained. "Emiko had convinced him that she and her organization only had the best interests of the Glades in mind. They had both grown up in that crime-infested and poverty-stricken part of the city. Rene could identify with her, and he had a long history of resentment against Star City for neglecting the Glades. I don't know how Emiko did it, but she had Rene believe that the fall of Star City was the only way that the Glades could rise. Rene broke with the team and allied himself with Emiko and her organization based on the promise of prosperity for the Glades that he loved so much. Zoe was heartbroken and disillusioned. Her relationship with her dad was never the same after that."

"And Dad was okay with Rene leaving the team just like that?" William asked.

"Of course not," Felicity answered sharply. Then with a calmer voice she continued, "Oliver tried to win him back. Dinah did, too. But it was too late. By that time, Alena had already given Emiko control of the Archer program. I tried to shut it down from my end, but Alena… she had upped her game." Felicity paused for a while, struggling with the disappointment that she still felt whenever she was reminded of the battle that she'd lost that one time. The one time that it mattered most.

Roy sensed her difficulty and decided to pitch in. "Emiko began using Archer to eliminate vigilantes one by one, starting with Team Arrow. Black Siren, who was pretending to be District Attorney Laurel Lance, was targeted first even though she was never really part of the team. Emiko exposed her secret to the public and she was framed for a murder. Dinah had no choice but to arrest her and commit her to ARGUS. No one really knows what happened to her after that. Emiko targeted Dinah next, framing her for the murder of then-mayor Pollard, which Ninth Circle actually masterminded to take control of Star City. With Dinah out of the way, the partnership of the SCPD with Team Arrow as a legally sanctioned and deputized special unit was dissolved. Her trial was a joke, and without fake Laurel on the team's side, there was no way out of an unjust conviction. Your Aunt Dinah went to prison. She never found out you existed, Mia." Roy shifted and glanced at Felicity briefly before saying, "Neither did I… or Thea."

"Sorry about that, by the way," Felicity apologized to Roy. "Like I said, Oliver and I decided that the less people who knew about our child, the better our chances were of keeping her safe."

She cleared her throat and picked up from where Roy left off. "The team got splintered. Oliver, John, and I tried to do what we could to fight back, but we had targets on our backs. Emiko was after us. The SCPD was after us. Ugh, even ARGUS came after us. Lyla later found out that her own organization had been infiltrated by the Ninth Circle for decades; trumped up administrative charges were filed against her and she was fired. Needless to say, we were fighting a losing battle on various fronts." Tears began to pool in her eyes, but she was able to hold them back. "Then there was another poison gas threat, which we thought we were able to stop when the team was still a team. Armed with Archer, Emiko was determined to realize her dreams for the Glades, even if it meant that the rest of Star City had to be collateral damage."

"That was when Thea and I came back to help," Roy interjected. "We learned that the team was down to three and that the threat to the city was real. The five of us tried to prevent the attack with Lyla's help. Felicity worked night and day to try to regain control of the program, because we couldn't go out in the field without being detected by a DNA search. But we couldn't stop Emiko and Dante from gassing the business district, not with Archer and Alena working for them, instead of us. Hundreds of people died that day."

Felicity continued, "That's when the entire city turned against us. They blamed us for everything that had happened. People had forgotten what the Green Arrow and his team had done in the past. The city council ordered our arrest. It's unbelievable how ungrateful people can be, after all you do for them, but… that's life." She paused, sniffing a bit and trying to control her tears. "Oliver didn't want me to go to prison like Dinah did, because I was pregnant with you. So, the team… we were on the run. Oliver and John thought it was best for us to go our separate ways and plan to regroup later on, not just to protect ourselves but also our families. Roy and Thea fled the city first. As soon as John and Lyla were able to make arrangements for their family and ours, we too escaped Star City. At the time, I was almost five months pregnant with you, Mia. Naturally, our priority was to keep you safe. Your dad thought it was the best time to leave the city and hide, and I agreed."

"How come you never told me any of this? You never came for me," William said, downcast.

William could not believe that he was hearing the inside story of what really went down in Star City. He had gotten his information mostly from the news and was just now realizing how slanted and incomplete they were. He had almost bought all the lies that people were reporting about the Green Arrow, but he had seen several times before how his father had fought for what was good and right, so he had held on to what he knew to be true. He had always been bullied all throughout high school for bearing his father's name, which was why he had asked his grandparents to help him petition the court to change his last name to Harris when he reached legal age. It was the only way he could realize his dreams of making it big in the tech industry some day. The Queen family name had been a stigma he could not afford to live with, even if he still loved Oliver and Felicity in his heart.

"William…" Felicity replied sadly, "we sent you message after message since the first week you left for Central City, but you didn't message us back. We missed you so much, and we wanted to know how you were doing. We tried calling multiple times, but you never answered. We assumed you needed the space, but after a few weeks of nothing, we just assumed you chose not to communicate with us, and we respected that, whatever your reasons were."

"But I never got any messages… or calls," said William.

"I know. I mean, Oliver and I already knew after I did some digital digging," replied Felicity. "I resented your grandparents big time back then. The phone number they gave us for reaching you was bogus. They must have wanted you to think that we really didn't care, or for us to think that you didn't want to have anything to do with us anymore. We wanted so badly to reach out to you, and we definitely were capable of doing that. But that was when all the problems with the team and the city started, so we thought it best to leave you alone with your 'wicked' grandparents for the time being, especially since not making contact with you was the best way to keep you safe."

William was quiet, teary-eyed. He regretted all the time they had lost. He regretted all the years he had kept a grudge, believing the lie that his dad and step-mom never really wanted him in their lives and had moved on without him. The estrangement had allowed him to focus on his ambitions anyway.

Seeing his reaction, Felicity pushed on, "I kept an eye on you, though, even after we left Star City, even after Oliver disappeared, and even after you and your grandparents moved to the east coast. As far as I was concerned, you were still very much my son, even when we already had Mia. I might have had something to do with how your college applications got mixed up. You deserved that slot in MIT." Felicity grinned at William, even if her eyes were glassy with tears.

William nodded once in acknowledgement. "Mia might have mentioned that you might have been behind the anonymous company that invested significantly in Harris Consolidated," he said with an affectionate smile.

"I might have been," Felicity responded, giving him a cute wink. "The Wizard of Oz was my favorite."

"Thank you," he said.

Mia had been mostly silent, listening to their exchange and taking in the untold history of what had gone down about two decades ago. She was mulling over the facts when her mouth went ahead of her brain and she unknowingly blurted out what was bothering her. "I still don't understand what all of this has to do with why Arsenal is a ticking time bomb, and why he nearly killed a civilian and seriously injured my boyfr— Agent Hawke." She stopped to clear her throat and give herself an imaginary face-palm.

Felicity had not seen her daughter's face blush in a very, very long time, and it made her smile. Mia was beautiful, even with her unkempt blonde waves and make-up free face. Pink cheeks only made her prettier. It must be the genes, she thought. And it wasn't the only thing that delighted her at the moment. It was the thought that there was evidently something going on between her daughter and John Diggle's adopted son. It was probably the best news she'd heard in years.

When she had asked John to help her keep an eye on Mia in Star City a year ago, she knew that John would ask Connor to do it. Connor was a good kid. The thought had crossed her mind – the possibility that if Connor and Mia were to become friends, they might more than hit it off. Felicity knew her daughter well; she knew that Mia would someday fall for someone who was close to being the badass that she was, or better. (Mia's standards were high, like the woman that raised her and the woman that trained her.) Felicity didn't mind Mia and Connor becoming a couple, a badass power couple. Like she and Oliver used to be.

When Felicity did not answer, Roy did it for her. It was his secret to tell anyway.

"It happened years later. We found out that Thea was… expecting. We didn't want anybody to know, because of the dangers we were constantly in. But she miscarried, and she was depressed after that. She wanted Felicity to know, so we tried to reach out for the first time in years since Oliver disappeared. Only, we had stayed off the grid for so long that for some reason, we slipped up. Archer traced our location, and Dante came after us. Felicity knew that something had gone wrong because we did not check in when we made it to the rendezvous point, which, by the time Thea and I realized it, had already become a trap to capture her. So, she sent the Spartan and the Black Canary instead. John and Dinah got there in time to save Thea, but I was the casualty."

"Wait. Wasn't Dinah in prison?" Mia asked, confused with the timeline.

"She got out before that," Felicity answered this time, "but that's another long story. You'll have to ask her to tell you about it some other time." She gave Mia a pat on her arm and continued the story. "Anyway, Thea refused to let Roy bleed out and die of the knife wounds that Dante had given him, so she convinced Dinah and John to help her get Roy to the only remaining Lazarus Pit that she knew to find."

"The what Pit?" William asked.

"Another long story," Felicity replied. "For now, just know that there are places on this earth with pools of mystical waters that could heal fatal wounds… and bring dead people back to life."

Mia's and William's eyes grew wise in astonishment. "And one of those Pits saved Roy's life?" asked William.

"Yup," Felicity answered. "There was a hitch, though. The Pit can heal, but it changes a person, and I mean, CHANGES a person."

"I'm assuming you are referring to the kind of change that makes a person lose control and want to murder someone? Like what happened tonight?" Mia asked again, this time looking at Roy for confirmation.

Roy nodded, grinding his teeth. The tension on his body returned.

Everyone was quiet for a while.

"Mia," Felicity began to speak again, "Roy and Thea have had to live with his bloodlust since then, but it had gotten worse over time. One day, when you were maybe… twelve years old, Thea and Roy intervened in a random mugging in Bludhaven. Thea tried to stop Roy from killing the mugger, but he'd been so angry and overcome by the bloodlust that he… accidentally hurt Thea, real bad. When she… and the mugger… passed away due to their injuries, Roy made the difficult choice to leave."

"I went as far away as I possibly can," Roy interrupted Felicity's storytelling, "as far away as Lian Yu, so that I won't end up hurting anyone ever again… until William showed up." He bowed his head, clearly ashamed and remorseful about what had happened in the mission earlier. "And now, I'm back here, doing damage again."

Mia didn't think she was capable of empathizing with someone like her brother could. But there she was, standing in front of the vigilante her father had trained and mentored, feeling something in her chest that was foreign to her. She'd known William only for a few weeks, but he was already rubbing off on her. She would never admit it to anyone just yet, but she thought that compassion felt good deep inside.

Mia reached out and touched Roy's hand that was gripping the side of the metal table they all stood around. "Hey, don't worry about it. Agent Hawke will bounce back in no time. He's a tough guy, inside and out," she said. She had meant to make Roy feel better, but she hadn't realized that her words didn't quite come out right.

Felicity's eyebrows shot up to her ever-so-slightly wrinkled hairline and her jaw dropped in surprise. Had she just heard an innuendo coming out of Mia's mouth? Growing up, Mia did have some moments when she would babble like her mother, but this was the first time that Felicity ever witnessed her daughter's brain-to-mouth filter malfunctioning. She never thought Mia was capable of faux pas. It definitely was genetic.

Felicity grinned. Connor Hawke was Mia's type after all, whether she admitted it or not, and Felicity was thrilled about it. She never would have thought that after twenty years of darkness, she'd still turned out to be a lot like her mother when it came to being interested in a daughter's love life. She suddenly missed her mom, whom she hadn't spoken with since her father, Noah Kuttler, was murdered by the Ninth Circle.

Mia saw the mischievous look on her mother's face and the glint in her eyes. Before Felicity could utter a word to tease her for her slip-up, she asked Roy a familiar question to redirect the conversation. "What was my Dad like?"

Roy looked up, startled by the unexpected question. "Why do you ask?"

"I understand you were his mentee. What was it like learning from him how to fight?" Mia asked again.

"Pain. Definitely pain," Roy responded. "Oliver shot me with an arrow through the leg. That was how my training started."

Felicity smirked, remembering the incident. She remembered those days when Roy was slapping water in a bowl for hours and getting beat up by Oliver on the training mats in the foundry. The poor guy.

"What?!" William exclaimed. "Dad did that?"

Roy replied, "He was a slave driver, the old Oliver. He had a lot of baggage, carried a huge burden on his shoulders back then, which was why he could identify with me. But he was growing, changing. He taught me how to channel all the pent-up emotions so that I could become someone better than just a petty thief. He taught me how to fight, how to subdue an enemy without killing him. He taught me that fighting to protect people and put away bad guys was all about finding a better way, instead of taking justice into one's hands. He said he had learned that from a very good friend." Roy paused, glancing Felicity's way. She smiled back at him to acknowledge that he was referring to her.

"You see, Mia, fighting wasn't the only thing I learned from Oliver. I think that the best thing your Dad had taught me was how to be a better man – how to be a hero to my community, to my family, to the people I love. It's not about muscle or machismo. You, of all people, should know that. I hear you are undefeated in these parts." Roy paused again, smiling at his mentor's daughter.

After a couple of seconds, he added, his gazed locked on to Mia, "Being a hero means sacrifice. It's about putting the needs and welfare of others before your own. In all the years that I've known Oliver, he had always put others first, even when it hurt, physically or otherwise. That's what made him a hero, whether people recognized it or not."

Felicity's heart soared upon hearing his words. William was tearing up. Mia was speechless.

Roy took a deep breath and continued. "I've tried to honor him by following his footsteps. There was a time when the League of Assassins had pushed Oliver to a corner, forcing him to join them or have his secret identity exposed. It was an impossible decision to make, but Oliver had the guts to reveal his secret just to protect the rest of us, especially Thea. He was stubborn, yes, thinking that he was the only one who had to make sacrifices all the time. But I manned up and volunteered to take the fall for him, as John, Felicity, and I agreed. He deserved the sacrifice I chose to make. I went to prison for a while, after confessing to being the Arrow. But in the end, it all worked out."

"The Green Arrow always found a way," Felicity remarked, smiling.

"I had to go through a lot in order to do something heroic. I needed to learn. But it's different with you, Mia. Hero blood flows through your veins. You better believe it," said Roy. "You should be proud of your parents, as William is. Oliver and Felicity have sacrificed everything for their family and for this city. It's their purpose. I hope that you, too, can find yours."

Mia swallowed hard. The revelations were all too overwhelming for her at the moment. She felt everyone's gaze on her, expecting her to respond, but she couldn't find the words. She was proud of her father, and her mother, but she still couldn't say it out loud. Not just yet.

"Agent Hawke is awake," Dinah's voice echoed from upstairs. "He's asking for you, Mia."

Felicity took that as the cue that this conversation was over. She knew that Mia was smart enough to understand. She could see it on her face. "Go," she told Mia, nodding in the direction of Dinah's voice. Felicity watched a corner of her daughter's lips turn up for a small, shy smile before turning away towards the stairway. It was all the encouragement she needed in the midst of all the chaos they were up against.

A/N: This time I'm really curious about what you think of this chapter, or maybe of this fic. Care to share? Kind comments and constructive criticisms politely written are welcome. :-)

How do you think the show will end? I wonder how much of my version of the story makes it to canon...