Chipped Blocks
An Olicity Flash Fic Story
Flash Fic Prompt #35: A Shot Rang out
Chapter Seven
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Before she could even adjust to the intrusion, before she could even blink, Felicity then felt her left arm being jerked, the momentum of the tug being used to propel her backwards and away from Oliver. "Don't touch her!"
"Connor?"
But the teenager in question ignored his father's reprimand; he ignored all of Oliver's shock and disappointment wrapped up in that one word: his name. Instead of responding to his dad, Connor turned back towards her. "Do you even know who he is?"
Felicity didn't have the time nor the patience for Connor's...tantrum – not when she still had no idea where Mia was, not when she didn't even know if her own daughter was still alive. Yet, in the same breath, she had nothing but time as she waited for word... or for Mia to show up again. Habitually, desperately, Felicity glanced down at her silent, still phone – its dark screen confirming what she already knew... or, more accurately, didn't know. "It's not like I go around kissing strangers, Connor." As she snapped at him, Felicity clenched. She clenched her fist around her cell, and she clenched her jaw, her words coming out from between her set teeth.
But Connor paid her body language no mind, lost in his own selfish ire. Snorting in derision, he snarked, "you'd be better off."
"That's enough," Oliver bit out. He stepped forward both in an effort to shield Felicity and also to highlight how serious he was by looking his son squarely in the eyes. "I get it. You hate me, and I can even admit that you have your reasons, but you do not get to take that anger out on Felicity."
"Why her," Connor exploded. Agitated, he lifted his hands, and spidered them through his hair. It was slightly too long and already messy – the exact opposite cut of his father's, though their coloring matched, and the gesture further displayed just how different the two Queen men were. As Felicity hung back behind Oliver, she listened intently to their argument – not because she cared (she did; their relationship just wasn't very high on her priority list that day) but because, despite the ugliness that was the state of their family, it was better than the dark and fatalistic fears assaulting her thoughts. "You could have any woman in this godforsaken city, but you had to go after the only one who sees me – not your son, not the next Queen heir, not the bastard that Ollie Queen was able to hide away for seventeen years – for me."
"Connor, it's not like that," Oliver tried to protest. Felicity wasn't sure what exactly he was arguing against – maybe everything his son had said, but Connor wouldn't hear it. Any of it.
"I don't care what it's like. Just... stay away from her."
When Oliver didn't respond, when the room fell silent, Felicity found her eyes lifting from her cell to study the men before her. Whereas Connor was practically vibrating with unleashed energy, Oliver was still. His head was bowed forward, and he was taking steady, deep breaths. If it wasn't for the tight line of his back and shoulders – oh, and some strange tick where he rubbed the pads of his index and middle fingers of his right hand against the ball of his thumb, she wouldn't have been able to tell how agitated he was. The older man was pulled taut, a bow string poised to be released. But, when Oliver tipped his head back up to look at his kid, he somehow managed to remain composed, and Felicity was both awed and intimidated by his control.
"You are my son, Connor. While I know you don't believe me, I do love you. And we are a family. But we're both new at this, so we're going to make mistakes. I'm willing to figure this all out with you, though. But there's a line." As he talked, Oliver's words became stronger. They went from placating his only child to warning him. "If a decision I have to make impacts you, impacts our family, then you should and will have a voice. But who I'm friends with, who I date, who I kiss? That is my business – and my business alone – until the point where it becomes serious. Only then will your opinion be asked for... and only in regards to my actions, my choices."
"It's not about you," Connor protested, his exasperation leaking into his voice and causing his volume to rise. "It's about her; it's about Ms. Smoak and the fact that she's too good..."
"Do you even want to know how your father and I met," Felicity interrupted the teenager.
While she expected her question to draw Connor's attention, she never thought he'd mouth back. The student, the young man, she knew had always been respectful. That teenager would have listened to what she had to say without interruption or rudeness. But the Connor before her that afternoon... "Knowing his track record, probably at the bottom of a tequila bottle."
Hurt, Felicity whispered, "I'm not sure who that's more insulting towards."
Still not ready to entertain anyone else's opinion but his own, Connor justified his retort, "you're defending a man who has only been in one serious relationship his entire life... and I am the product of a drunken, one night stand he had while cheating on her."
"Shut up," she barked, finally having had enough. "Shut your mouth and just listen, because guess what? I don't care. I don't care about your mom, and I don't care about the past, and I don't care why it took Oliver seventeen years to become a part of your life. Because you told me that he has no interest in being a parent, yet I met him at Parent-Teacher night."
"That was last night," Connor yelled, rolling his eyes. Addressing his father, he accused, "and you're already trying to seduce her!" Before either Felicity or Oliver could counter, the teen added, "plus, why didn't any of my other teachers, the less attractive ones, mention you were here last night, huh?"
"I was late."
"And I threatened him with a portable heater," Felicity picked up the explanation. "Somehow, that led to him asking me to meet with him over a late dinner, and we just..."
"I liked her," Oliver revealed softly. If it wasn't for the fact that her daughter was missing, Felicity would have been blushing with pleasure. "I really like her."
"Yeah, well, you don't deserve her."
"And that's my call to make, Connor, not yours," Felicity corrected her student. When he went to argue further, she decided to break out the big guns. Since Connor had started opening up to her about his father and their new, rocky relationship, Felicity had vacillated back and forth on whether or not she should get involved, but Mia's latest relapse had put some things into perspective – one of which was Connor's grudge against his dad.
"When I was a little girl, I adored my father. He was my best friend, my idol. I didn't just think that he hung the moon; I thought he invented it, made it, and controlled it. But then one day, when I was seven, I came home from school, and he wasn't there. I wasn't worried, though. I knew where the hide-a-key was, so I let myself into the house, and I waited for him to come home. I told myself that he was just at the store, buying us an after-school snack or picking up a missing piece for whatever electronic device he was working on that week. So, while I waited for him to come home, I poured myself a glass of milk, and I started my homework.
"Now, in second grade, you don't get a lot of homework, and, for a genius, it seemed like even less. Once I was finished, I rinsed my glass, gathered up some of my favorite books, and I went out to my dad's workshop to wait for him there... so I'd be ready to help him whenever he got home. I don't know how long I lasted, but, eventually, I fell asleep. It wasn't until many hours later when my mom, frantic after searching the entire house for me, woke me up that I realized he never came back. My dad wasn't just running late, and he hadn't just forgotten me. He had left us, and I never heard from him again.
"When I graduated early from high school, he didn't surprise me by showing up. I didn't look out into the audience and find him proudly listening to my valedictorian speech with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face. He never called while I was at MIT – the school I chose because of him, because of the love of technology and machinery he passed down to me. He wasn't there when my college boyfriend was arrested for using a super-virus I created, when I found out I was pregnant, when the father of my child preferred suicide over being there for his family from afar while in prison, when I had to drop out of my dream school and move back home, when I gave birth to my only child while still a scared little girl myself, when my daughter overdosed for the first time, or this morning when I went to get Mia up for school only to realize that she's missing. Again."
Felicity paused briefly to allow her words to sink in. When she started talking once more, she moved around Oliver so that she was standing toe-to-toe with his son. "So, I'm sorry, Connor, that your father has disappointed you. That sucks. But he's here. He chose to be here, to stay, to be in your life now, and that has to count for something. I don't know why he missed the first seventeen years of your life, but he's not running away, and he's alive. He cares enough about you to fight, and, though it's none of your business what's between your dad and I, you walked in on him showing me that he cares about me and my daughter as well."
"Is there, uh, anything I can do... to help," Connor offered, nodding towards the computers. It wasn't an apology – to either of them, but the offer combined with his now hunched posture – shoulders rolled forward, head submissively lowered – told Felicity that her student was indeed sorry.
"Mia might not be smart enough to stay away from drugs," Felicity answered sadly, "but she is smart enough to avoid CCTV cameras and to dump her phone." Squeezing Connor's hand in thanks as she walked by him and towards her classroom door, Felicity murmured, "I'm going to try the hospitals and the police... again." In doing so, she left father and son alone... and the distraction they provided her behind.
