Chipped Blocks
An Olicity Flash Fic Story
Flash Fic Prompt #47: Past Sins
Chapter Nineteen
"Okay, I must have heard you wrong. I did. I heard you wrong. Because Speedy? Unless that's a play on Mia's past drug use... and I'd hope that she'd have more respect for her own sobriety than that. Besides, speed was never her drug of choice. Heroin. Check. Cocaine, crack, even crank when she was desperate? Sure. But never speed. At least... not that I was aware of, and, obviously, I know nothing about my own daughter, because the only thing fast that has ever been associated with Mia is her reputation."
Felicity would like to say that she gasped then out of realization of what she had just accused her only child of, but she didn't. She gasped for breath. Because whoa. And then she just started talking again. "I know that's a horrible thing to say about my own flesh and blood, but it's true. Mia would tell you that she comes by it honestly. From yours truly. But, Connor, I hadn't had sex in years. Years! Before your father. And I realize that you probably don't want to hear this, but you need to. For reasons. That really aren't important right now. Because of... other reasons." Blinking rapidly, Felicity banished the tears that had been forming in her eyes only moments before... which was a fascinating thing to realize – that it had only been mere minutes since she had been freaking out over the thought that her daughter had relapsed again. Time was wonky like that, though. One minute, you're wracking your brain as to how you're going to pay for Mia's rehab, and the next you're being told..., "Speedy? Really?"
"That's what you're focusing on right now," Connor questioned her. And Oliver stayed suspiciously silent – stunned silent, no doubt – behind her, still holding her, still keeping her from collapsing onto the floor.
If this moment wasn't so surreal already, Felicity would have taken issue with the fact that the teenager was looking at her like she had lost her frakking mind. Well, more of it at any rate. But she could only handle one crisis at a time. "Well, I'm sorry, but the nickname Speedy is easier for me to wrap my head around right now... and considering the Montezuma's verbal revenge I just spewed at you a few seconds ago, I know that's hard to believe. But it is. Because a vigilante? A VIG-I-LAN-TE," Felicity enunciated precisely. Carefully. Slowly. Meticulously. And, yeah, she really needed to move on from this human thesaurus moment she was having. "Why would she...? I mean, really, what would ever...? The idea is just so... preposterous. I mean, sure. There's that Bow and Arrow Dude who's been a rumor practically since Mia and I moved to Starling City, but he's a myth. A legend – an urban legend the cops cooked up to make the bad boys quake in their bad boy boots." For some reason beyond Felicity's patience, concern, and quite frankly intelligence at that precise moment, Connor snickered at that, but she plowed over his spark of amusement. "Just... how? How would my daughter – my lazy; mouthy; frak the police, frak the authorities, frak the man; tiny; petite; third generation gym flunker; Jewish daughter – ever even think of, dream up, come down off a bad trip and decide to become a vigilante?"
His words might have been a whisper behind her, but they took out her knees like Shane Stant wielding a 21-inch ASP telescopic baton. "Because I'm the Green Arrow."
"Oh my god," Felicity hysterically gasped, swallowing down the sudden rise of bile in her throat. "I need to sit down."
"You're already sitting down, Felicity," Oliver told her patiently.
But she didn't want patient. And she really wasn't sitting so much as she was flopped on top of him like a beached whale... which was an unfortunate metaphor and someplace she really couldn't go at the moment. And his calm felt perhaps even more suffocating than his arms wrapped around her waist... which Felicity hated. She hated that this was all happening, but, more than that, she hated that what was happening was making it so that, even for a second, she also hated Oliver's touch. "I meant that I need to sit down on myself. I mean by myself. I mean... not on you. Your lap. But on a piece of furniture. Preferably a chair... so that no one can sit beside me, and I can dig my fingernails into the arms for fortitude. And maybe a little restraint. Or a lot."
She was still talking, still explaining what she needed, when Oliver stood up from the floor and moved them both, as requested, over towards a chair. He selected well. The arms were made of wood. So, sturdy. She'd really be able to get a good grip with her nails. Plus, it didn't hurt matters that, afterwards, Felicity would leave a few crescents of imperfection behind in what was undoubtedly a priceless, Queen family heirloom. She felt like the damage was justified – hell, even deserved – after... well, everything. Everything revealed to her already, and everything she had a feeling was yet to be revealed. And to think that she had been feeling guilty for her own secrets – little, and teeny, and innocent, and practically nothing... yet... in both the figurative and literal sense.
Felicity wasn't sure how long she was distracted to what was going on around her, but, when she finally returned to her senses and her surroundings, she looked up from her lap to find Oliver seated on the couch across from her – knees spread, elbows bent, head in his hands – and Connor standing stiffly and awkwardly off to the side yet still between the both of them – a hesitant, almost unwilling bridge between them.
For now, it was easier to focus on Oliver's secret identity than it was her daughter's... which was saying something, because no one ever wanted to find out that their very committed boyfriend was rocking a dangerous second life that you were not a part of. Or cognizant of. Addressing Connor, she asked, "how can you be so calm about this... about him. The olive one. Not the Oliver one."
"Because I've known for weeks," Connor quietly answered. The unexpected confession seemed to make Oliver shrink further in upon himself, further away from her. But not Connor... which was telling. It told Felicity that, not only had Connor been aware that Oliver was the Green Arrow for all this time, but Oliver had been aware of his son's awareness. Nausea rolled through her, and Felicity could feel a massive, vigilante sized chip on the shoulder headache taking root in her sinuses. Apparently, she had been the only one ignorant of the truth, and that stung, especially considering... "Mia told me. I confronted her about her attitude towards you and, like Mia always does, she threw it right back at me. She said that I was a naïve little boy throwing a temper tantrum because his Daddy didn't play with him enough. That I knew nothing about my dad. Well, one thing led to another, and, eventually, she told me that Oliver is the Green Arrow."
"How did you go from... learning about me to Mia becoming...? And what about you? Are you her... sidekick?"
If Felicity didn't feel like she was freefalling through a vortex of madness, she might have objected to Oliver automatically relegating the computer expert to sidekick status, but then Connor was answering his father, and his response did absolutely nothing to prevent her further spiral into Crazy Town. "I used all this information... plus what I learned about Mia's training and plans to go after all the dealers... to blackmail her. Into joining her. Her team... well, our team, now. I'm her... tech support, I guess you could say?"
No, scratch that. Make that headache a migraine.
However, Felicity didn't get the chance to think of a proper metaphor or simile to describe just how big of a pain in her... cranium the Queen men were, because Connor kept talking, and Oliver jumped to his feet at attention, and Felicity just about passed out. She was no one's damsel in distress, but, seriously, come on? Could this situation possibly get any more intense? Or unbelievable? Or wackadoodle?
"So, that's how I know that she isn't on drugs, but that doesn't mean that there isn't cause to worry. Because she was supposed to be back a while ago, but I haven't heard from her. She hasn't checked in, and, as surly as Mia is, she knows the rules. She wears her comm, and she tells me where she's going, and she checks in if she's going to be late. But I haven't heard from her in a while. In too long." Cracking his knuckles, Connor's eyes ricocheted back and forth between his father and Felicity's anxious expressions. "I think she might be hurt."
Springing to her feet, Felicity immediately moved towards the occasional table by the door where she had carelessly tossed her purse (which contained her phone, and a backup phone... just in case her regular phone broke, or died, or disappeared, and a tablet) upon entering the room. "Connor!" In her worry for her daughter, Felicity might have yelled at Connor a little too harshly, a little too severely, but seriously. "Way to bury the lead!"
In her intent to get to an electronic device so she could start looking for her daughter, Felicity failed to realize that Oliver and Connor were both right on her heels. Just as her bag was within her grasp, there was a firm hand upon her elbow, pulling her right out of the room, and a firm voice in her ear, directing all three of them. "Connor, I need you to get me Mia's exact coordinates from the last time you had contact with her, a list of her past targets, her future targets, her favorite routes, and any research you've done for her in the past week." With a crisp nod of consent towards his father and without a word of complaint, Connor shot up the manor's grand staircase, his long and youthful legs eating up three risers in one lunge. It wasn't graceful – not like Oliver's movements always were... which, now that she knew he was a vigilante made so much more sense – but it was effective.
"I'm so sorry, Felicity." The next thing she knew, she and Oliver were facing each other in the Queen family foyer, his hands somehow holding her by the shoulders with both a force that would not let her go and a gentleness she never wanted him to take away. "When I started training Mia, I never thought... I just... I wanted to give her a sense of purpose, some discipline. Yes, I used the skills I learned on… and off… the island to become a vigilante, but my going after the criminals of Starling City had nothing to do with knowing how to shoot a bow and arrow or how to fight; it was about righting the wrongs my family did to this city. My becoming the Green Arrow was born out of a need to help, to fix, to heal, to avenge. It wasn't the result of my training, and you have to believe me when I tell you that it was never my intention for it to be the result of Mia's."
"I guess she felt like she had some wrongs to right as well."
"I'll make this better. Somehow, Felicity, I promise you. I won't let Mia do this, and she's going to be alright, and I'll make sure that she and Connor stop this foolishness and stay safe." As Felicity listened to Oliver's explanations and apologies, his vows, she realized that, while he was upset about the danger their children had put themselves in and the inadvertent role he had played in their behavior, she was more upset about all of the secrets and all of the lies. Including Oliver's own.
"And I'm sorry for not telling you about me. About starting off as the Hood, and then changing into the Arrow, and then finally becoming who this city now calls the Green Arrow. I wanted to. I tried to. Sort of. I just... I didn't know how, Felicity."
She believed him. Rapidly, her mind went back over some of those conversations they had shared towards the beginning of their relationship, particularly the one in her apartment the morning Oliver met, subdued, and then offered to help Mia. In his own way, Oliver had been warning her not to trust him, but she had been so desperate for help with Mia and already so far gone with her feelings for him that Felicity hadn't wanted to hear what Oliver's words had really been saying.
"If it was just you and me, Oliver, this..." And she gestured between them, the movement of her arms loosening his hold on her. But, instead of letting her go entirely, Oliver just shifted his hands up so that he was cupping her face. In doing so, he brought their bodies even closer together, and she tilted her head back to look him in the eyes. "Your secrets, your lies, they would be easier for me to understand. I'd rationalize them by telling myself that you were trying to keep me safe. But it isn't just the two of us. There are children involved. So, my safety becomes secondary. They're the ones who are important. They're the ones who matter. And, if we're going to do this – be an us, then this is it, Oliver. This is your one and only mistake when it comes to trust. Do it again, and I'll take them all away from you." Distantly, Felicity could hear Connor running back down the stairs and rejoining them, but that didn't distract her from finishing her warning to Oliver. "I'll take them away from you, we'll leave, and we'll go somewhere where neither you nor your alter ego will ever be able to find us."
While Oliver didn't verbally promise her, he did tenderly brush his lips against her forehead before pulling back and letting her go. "Felicity, Connor and Mia are both teenagers. They'll be adults soon. As much as I will never intentionally break your trust again, we won't be able to always protect them, especially not from themselves."
"That might be true, but this blastosphere wreaking havoc on my mood and appetite and soon waistline isn't almost an adult, and I will protect him or her with every last plasma membrane, endoplasmic reticulum, ribosome, mitochondrion..."
"Felicity," Connor interrupted her, got her back on track.
"Right. Yes." Nodding her head once, Felicity finished, "I will protect this baby, our baby, from any and all danger... even if that danger is you, Oliver."
Then, leaving a stunned Oliver and Connor behind her, she moved quickly towards the front door. This time, it was Felicity to give the orders. "Come on, let's go. We have a Speedy to save." As the father and son obediently fell into step behind her, Felicity whispered under her breath, "so that I can kill her myself."
What could she say? Pregnancy (justifiably, especially considering she was carrying a vigilante's unborn fetus) made her violent.
