"You wouldn't guess, just by looking at him, how muscular he is," Felicity observed in a hushed voice, as she, Roy and Diggle watched as Stiles climbed the salmon ladder, his tattooed chest exposed and his muscles flexing powerfully as he worked his way through the arduous exercise.

"I wouldn't go saying something like that to Oliver," Diggle suggested, although Felicity and Roy both heard the respect in Diggle's tone.

Felicity quirked her eyebrow playfully at Roy, "What about you, now that your little furry werewolf secret is out are you going to show off how strong you really are?"

"Nah…wouldn't want to shatter Oliver's Alpha male ego," Roy replied with a smirk. Diggle snorted in amusement at the joke at Oliver's expense.

"That reminds me…I want to get a sample of your DNA so I can run some tests on it,." Felicity smiled cheerfully, turning her attention to her computers and Stiles began his descent.

"Er, you do realize that my being a werewolf hasn't changed in the last year. I've been a werewolf since well before I met any of you…except for Stiles, obviously."

"I know that, but I didn't know that there was the possibility for your blood being weird. I mean, when you still had the Mirakuru in your system we were looking for it, but now that the mirakuru is all gone I want to have another look and see if there is anything…strange."

Roy shrugged and rolled up his sleeve helpfully, "are you sure you're not actually a vampire?" he asked teasingly as Stiles dropped safely to the ground, brushing excess chalk off his hands, "You seem very into taking blood samples."

"Ha ha," Felicity rolled her eyes, propelling her roller chair over to the drawers where the medical supplies were kept and pulling out a syringe and some vials, "just out of curiosity though...are vampires real?"

Roy simply smirked in response and Felicity glared at him when she realized he was teasing her, pulling out what equipment she needed with a littlem ore forse than was neccesary, before hse walked back over to Roy and slapped him in the arm.

"Seriously?" Stiles moaned as he caught sight of what Felicity was doing, his already pale skin losing a little more color.

"Not a big fan of needles?" Diggle asked

"Not particularly," Stiles replied.

"Even after getting the tattoos?" Felicity asked, cleaning a patch of Roy's skin before inserting the needle and withdrawing her sample of blood.

Stiles swallowed and nodded, "Yeah," he admitted, looking more than a little sick.

"I heard that you were the one that fainted when Scott got his," Roy teased with a smirk.

"Yeah, well, I also had to hold Scott down while Derek did it with a blowtorch…later that very same day, so it's not like I escaped the situation without a certain degree of mental trauma."

"A blowtorch?" Diggle exclaimed in horror.

"A disadvantage to the healing powers," Roy offered, "Even if you want the mark to remain it doesn't unless it was something major that gave it to you in the first place…Why do you think I don't have any tattoos?"

"To be honest I just thought you were too much of a pretty boy to mark yourself like that," Felicity offered bluntly, before her cheeks reddened.

"Please just forget that I even said that," she added.

TW/A

"I'm pretty sure Scott and Derek would have both gone into shock if they saw you doing the salmon ladder earlier," Jackson told Stiles as they sat on the floor in the Arrow cave, both of them holding cartons of Chinese food that they were leisurely eating while Oliver and Sara trained. Diggle was working out nearby, while Felicity was fiddling with the inner workings of one of her computers.

Stiles snorted, "Yeah…I think there would be a lot of things about both of us that would put them in shock," he agreed, "even if it is just the fact that we're both, well, alive."

"True," Jackson conceded, "I mean, they night suspect that I might have made it, but you...I don't think they doubt the fact that you're dead these days."

"Do you wanna be there when I prove them wrong?" Stiles asked. Jackson blinked, needing a few seconds to understand what Stiles had just said.

"Prove them wrong? You're going back?"

"Yeah…I am. I'll probably regret it, but yeah…I think I'm going to leave tomorrow morning, before I chicken out and talk myself out of it."

"Does this have anything to do with what happened at Laurel's last night?" Jackson asked, having been told what had happened by Sara. Stiles' back stiffened slightly, before he rolled his neck and forced his shoulders to relax.

"Maybe," he admitted. Last night I realized…I realized how much I was still being affected by…everything that's happened, and I know that I need to stop running from it. For me it all started in Beacon Hills. That's where…that's where everything turned to crap for me. I need to go back and face what happened with the Nogitsune. Seeing Quentin and Laurel again…it showed me how much us… Sara, Oliver and I being dead impacted them. I…I can't let my dad keep living like that…grieving. I've been a selfish ass, and I need to fix it."

"I'll go with you," Jackson offered, "It's past time that I came clean about everything too. Besides, with both of us coming back at the same time Lydia might hopefully only kill one of us. It'll give the other one a chance to escape.

"If Lydia wanted us both to be dead then we'd both be dead," Stiles pointed out. Jackson nodded, letting out a sigh of agreement.

"Yeah…I guess you're right."

A/TW

"Are you sure you don't want one of us coming with you?" Oliver asked as he stood in the alleyway out the back of Verdant, leaning against the front of Roy's car, while Felicity and Sara were hugging Roy and Stiles goodbye. Roy rolled his eyes over Felicity's shoulder.

"Oliver, we'll be fine," Stiles shrugged, "I mean, Jackson is a werewolf, and I'm a trained assassin. We're just going on a road trip back to Beacon Hills for a bit. We'll be back soon. The real question here is are you going to be ok keeping Starling City in one piece until we get back old man?"

Oliver bristled at Stiles' teasing, but he ignored the playful jest. If he was honest he was glad that Stiles was poking fun. It was a trait that the younger man only rarely showed, even before he was taken in by the League, although Sara and Laurel had both told him that, in his youth, Stiles had been well known for his wisecracks and joking nature.

"Yeah, Dad," Roy added with a smirk, "Chill a bit, would you. Between us I'm pretty sure that Stiles and I can look after ourselves for a few days."

"I know that," Oliver rolled his eyes, "I'm sure that you two can look after yourselves…it's your ability to not try to kill each other that has me more than a little concerned."

"We'll restrain ourselves," Stiles promised, pulling away from Sara and shaking hands with Diggle. Roy shook hands with Oliver himself, before he got into the driver's seat of his car, while Stiles scampered around to the passenger's seat.

"Make sure you share the driving a bit," Oliver cautioned. It was a long drive to Beacon Hills from Starling City, and he didn't want to hear that Roy had gotten tired and crashed into a tree or something.

"Do I have to?" Roy protested.

"Aw, come on, Dude, you let me drive your Porsche," Stiles protested loudly.

"Once...and only because you knew the road out Hale's house better than me, and you stole my car keys. Besides…my parents paid for that car…I paid for this one," Jackson argued, "and it's already been through enough without you getting behind the wheel."

"Have a nice trip," Oliver chuckled, shaking his head at the younger pair and their arguing. It would be good for both of them to get away for a bit and just be normal guys their age, even if it was only for a few days. Oliver knew that sometimes he forgot how young both Roy and Stiles were, and with what he'd recently learned, combined with what he knew already, it was painfully obvious that both of them had been forced to grow up far too quickly.

Stepping away from the car and putting his arm gently around Felicity's shoulder, Oliver watched as Roy started the car and accelerated down the alleyway, before turning out onto the main street and disappearing from sight.

"It's going to be weird with Roy not around," Sara observed thoughtfully. Oliver shrugged and turned to head back into the basement.

"We'll manage," he told them, "They've both earned a break."

"Something tells me that, somehow, their trip back home isn't going to be as restful as you think it's going to be," Diggle offered. Oliver had to concede that Diggle had a valid point. Who knew what was going on in Beacon Hills at that precise point of time? They might have just sent Roy and Stiles into a storm far bigger than anything that might have happened in Starling City.

"I'll keep an eye on them, don't worry," Felicity offered, and Oliver smiled at her thankfully.

"Felicity…you are remarkable," he told her playfully.

Felicity shifted slightly and blushed, "Thank-you for remarking on it."