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Chapter Text

John Diggle had always believed that most problems could be solved with patience and resourcefulness, but Team Arrow’s most recent “problem” had moved far out of the “most” zone. “The Master” as they had dubbed him, was a notorious drug dealer that had made a quick and brutal rise to power just after Christmas. He’d infected the city with a wicked new concoction—Venom. It was fiercely addictive, and carried the same hallucinogenic qualities of Vertigo. On Monday night, Roy and Oliver had managed to nick a sample of it for Felicity; and she’d been picking away at it since, with no breakthroughs.

The Master was smart, John had to admit. His operation was completely analog; they’d discovered; after combing through all of Starling’s internet and radio traffic for two nights straight and watching the drug double its radius of chaos across the city. On the morning news, three civilians were found dead with it in their system overnight and many more had landed in the hospital after overdosing on it.

It mystified them. How a major crime boss could run his operation with no electric traffic whatsoever. They’d scanned the whole city for excess power usage that might indicate a drug factory, nothing. They’d scanned every traffic camera in the city for shady looking trucks. Nothing. It was Friday, and they’d started this on Sunday. None of them had left the Foundry in the whole week for any other reason but to get food or check on their families and day jobs, briefly. Sleep was a rarity. The drug was an epidemic; the body count rising day after day; the SCPD as baffled as they were.

And as worried as John was about the drug crisis, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Oliver sleep since this began.

——

The lethargic scrape of boots down metal stairs was enough to tip John off that this night of hunting had been yet another bust. Sure enough, when he glanced up, Oliver and Roy both had a defeated slump in their shoulders and the black circles under their eyes appeared even deeper and darker than they had a few hours ago. John had sat this one out, after Team Arrow had made a decision that at least one of them should stay in the Foundry while the other two went out, in the case that they were incapacitated and needed someone to come and get them.

Oliver and Roy share what little there is to share in terms of new information as they peel off their gear and begin wiping it of blood and city grime. It’s a nightly routine for them—Felicity asking questions, John sometimes taking notes, all against a soundtrack of cloth and wiping against leather, arrows clinking together intermittently as they’re laid out on a metal table. An exhausted silence follows their discussion like a tired hound after its master.

Roy mutters something about going to change and heading out to catch what little sleep he can before dawn, and before long he is bidding everyone goodnight and traipsing up the stairs. The team murmurs goodnight back; their tired voices drifting after him.

“I’ll think I’ll head out, too,” John says. “Spend a night in my own bed.”

Oliver nods. “Go home, John.”

So he places one tired foot in front of the other, and moves towards the back of the foundry where the team stores their civilian clothes and other supplies. He is just beginning to pack up when the foundry’s terrible acoustics direct the conversation in the main room to his ears.

“...Oliver, you have to sleep.” Felicity’s worn, frustrated voice is the first thing he hears.

“I can sleep when the Master is behind bars, Felicity!” Oliver sounds ragged, his voice rougher than straw.

“You are no—“ Felicity starts

“—Good to Starling in this state, yeah, you’re not the first person I’ve heard that from, Felicity!” Oliver snaps.

“That’s because it’s true, Oliver!” Felicity fires back. “You are exhausted, I can see it!” She continued. “Well-rested people don’t have fracking Michael Kors totes under their eyes!” She knows just how tired he is when he doesn’t even crack a smile at her joke.

“Well, Felicity, I’d love to be a well rested person, but I have a city dying by drug epidemic, so ‘rest’ isn’t something I can afford right now!” He snaps.

But Felicity knows him too well. Like John, she can hear his voice getting rougher. She takes a deep breath, the clears her throat.

“Oliver.” Her tone is practical, calm. “Is there anything you can do about that right this instant?”

“Felicity—“

“Oliver.”

He sighs. “No.”

“Ok. Then you are going to get out of those pants, and into that bed, right now.” She pauses. “Your Arrow pants, that is.” John chuckles, and can practically see her cheeks turning tomato red.

This conversation will go one of two ways from here, John knows. Oliver will protest further, and he and Felicity will chase each other in circles for even longer, or the world will turn upside down and he’ll listen. He bets himself a Double Belly Buster with cheese that it will be the former.

“I can’t.” Well, Oliver’s just picked his lunch for tomorrow.

“Why?” She isn’t backing down.

“I just—I can’t shut my eyes while I know people are out there wreaking havoc in my city.” He sounds dead.

“It’s almost morning, Oliver. He has to be done for the night. It’d be more than a small disaster if you, overtired, exasperated, and stressed to no end; went after him right now—at three in the morning. There is nothing you can do right now. What’s done is done. And we will face it, we will handle it, when it is the right time to do so. Stress and perseveration over this will do you no good. When you are rested and strong 20 hours from now, that is when the city will need you. Save yourself, so you can save the city.”

And just like that, she’s cracked Oliver’s code yet again. Yet again, she has understood him, gotten through to him when no one else can. She has spoken his language. John’s witnessed moments between the two of them like this before, where they understand each other in a way that goes beyond the springs of friendship and dips it toes into the ocean of something much, much deeper. He can’t see them, but he knows exactly how they’re staring each other down.

John goes back to packing up. He knows how this will end.

——

Sure enough, as he leaves the foundry, he is sent off by the sight of Oliver, sleeping like a dead man. But what surprises him, thought it really shouldn’t at this point, is Felicity curled up on the other side, snoring softly in her sleep. Together, as they should be.

Chapter Text

To put it simply, watching Felicity go had never, and would never be easy for Oliver, no matter the circumstances. Thea knew this better than anyone. She’d watched her brother’s heart bleed as he’d forced himself to let Felicity walk away across the moon lit sands of Nanda Parbat, her shadow in the firelight as long and dark as the days without her would be. Thea hadn’t been there to see it, but she heard from him about how Felicity used her first steps after being shot to walk away from Oliver and their relationship, and it had chilled to her core to see her brother so heartbroken. She’d heard about Oliver’s run in with Vertigo, and how he’d snapped over the vision of his wife leaving him. And while she hadn’t been there in person, she’d witnessed Oliver’s confession and departure on live television; and anyone who knew Ollie would’ve been able to see the pure sorrow and fear in his eyes, even through a TV screen, as they’d been forced to part yet again.

Yes, Oliver and Felicity were both independent, functioning, self-sufficient adults; but Thea couldn’t deny that they needed each other.

She’d been chatting on the phone with Oliver during their customary weekly phone call when the subject of Felicity’s most recent business venture came up.

“She’s headed to Opal City for a week, Thea. A whole week.” His voice sounded rough.

When she’d heard it, Thea’d winced internally. It would the longest stretch of time they’d spend apart since Oliver’s Slabside stint, since they’d fixed their understandably strained marriage after the whole ordeal. And if she knew anything, it was that watching Felicity go had never, and would never be easy for Oliver. Even if it was just a business trip.

Because the last time they’d been separated, his family had almost been killed. He’d been in prison. He finally had his family back, and now one member of it had to leave for a week. Of course he was upset.

“Do you want me to come to town, Ollie?”

The line is dead silent as Oliver ponders. The fact that he doesn’t immediately insist against her proves he’s distressed.

“...yeah.” A tired sigh crackles over the line in accompaniment of his answer.

“Ok. I’ll be on the next flight out. It’ll be good to see Roy, too.”

“Yeah, that’s fine, Speedy.”

“Ok, I’ll be on the next flight to you.”

“See you soon, Speedy. Love you.”

“Love you too, Ollie.”

——

“Ollie!”

At the sound of his sister’s voice, Oliver’s head whipped around to the shining face of his sister.

“Thea!”

He didn’t hesitate to squeeze his sister as hard as he could when she jumped into his arms.

“I missed you, Speedy.” He whispers in her ear.

“The feeling is mutual.” She says as they pull apart.

The Queen siblings pile into the car and drive from the airport to Oliver’s apartment, their intermittent chatter overlapping with the rhythmic patter of Star City’s customary Autumn rain as they catch each other up on their lives.

“William’s so excited to see you, he insisted we do Raisa’s homemade macaroni recipe for dinner tonight. He helped me make it.”

“Oh, well then I’m sure it’ll be phenomenal.”

“Probably, I mean, he used an extra quarter cup of cheese.”

“Oh my God, You’re kidding!”

“Nope. I wasn’t too mad. He’s great in the kitchen. He made cupcakes, too.”

“Ok, that’s it, I’m stealing your kid.”

Oliver laughed. “I don’t know. He’s pretty one in a million. He actually likes homework.”

“I know which of his parents he didn’t get that from.”

Oliver chuckled, their conversation dulling for a moment as they remembered Samantha.

“Where are you with Roy?”

“We’re going to go to dinner this week.” Thea was silent for a moment as she pondered her next words. Sending Roy to Star City last year had strained their relationship, Oliver knew. He’d been on the receiving end of many of her conflicted phone calls about their relationship troubles.

“You sound hopeful.”

“I am. I want to figure out something that works for both of us, you know?”

He nodded. “You two love each other so much, Speedy. You’ll figure it out.”

Thea absorbed and mulled over her brother’s statement as they pulled up to his apartment, and a warm feeling filled her chest.

Almost as soon as Oliver’s key turned in the door, she heard an excited voice call out:

“Auntie Thea!”

Her nephew hugged her almost as hard as his father had, and Thea could’ve sworn in that moment that he’d grown a foot since she’d last seen him.

“It’s good to see you, buddy.” Thea pulls back. “You’ve gotten so tall. It’s not fair.”

William laughs, and leads Thea to the kitchen table, where the table is set and a steaming dish of macaroni sits in the middle with a side dish of roasted vegetables. It smells incredible, and Thea’s stomach growls as she wonders when the last time she had a hot, home cooked meal was. They sit around the table, her sister-in-law’s seat at the head sadly empty. As if William had caught her looking, he leaned over and whispered to Thea,

“That’ll always Felicity’s seat.” There is an adorable note of reverence laced into William’s humorous tone.

“I’m not surprised.” She isn’t. It had been apparent from the beginning that Felicity Smoak was the glue that held the Queen men together. It fit with everything Thea knew of them and their relationship that she sat at the head of the table. William sat across from Oliver, his back to the wall; while Oliver’s back faced the door, the most tactically vulnerable position in the room. Protecting them, even in the smallest, almost involuntary undertakings of day to day life. She knew Oliver well enough to notice the little things he did, such as this, and it reinforced what she’d known about her brother since the first time he’d held her when her parents brought her home from the hospital—the center of Oliver’s being was his love for his family and his home.

Thea asks William about school, and can’t help but laugh at William’s ridiculous high school tales, including the one about how the bathroom doors are falling off the stalls and the weird green sludge he sometimes finds on his cafeteria tables when he sits down for lunch. Her heart swells with pride when he tells her about his various science fair accolades, and the sense of family makes her heart feel fuller than it has in a long, long time.

——

It’s late that night when Thea notices it. William is in bed, and she and Oliver have cracked open one of the good reds he keeps hidden away (“My little sister is in town, it’s a special occasion”). They sit on the couch on their pajamas, a mirror image of their childhood, with the exception of the wine and the scar tissue and the lack of monogrammed silk on said pajamas.

Oliver is recounting the details of the recent vigilante business that had been to gruesome for dinner when Thea notices it. Her head has migrated to his shoulder. She takes a deep breath in.

And makes a face. Ever since Oliver had returned from Lian Yu, he’d been relatively low maintenance. Yeah, he dressed nice and stayed clean, but she’d never know him to spring on anything fancy smelling outside of the occasional light cologne.

And she’d certainly never known him to smell like vanilla and coconuts.

He was in the middle of a tale about the team stopping a hostage situation in a bank; and Thea wasn’t one to interrupt people, but at the moment she was a little more interested in why her brother smelled like vanilla and coconuts than Rene almost losing his arm to a piece of glass that had snuck through a gap in his Kevlar weave when he’d jumped through a window to avoid being shot.

“Ollie, that sounds insane, but why do you smell like vanilla and coconuts?”

Oliver froze.

Thea took another whiff.

“Speedy, why are you sniffing me?”

The smell was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She took another whiff. It smelled like that coat she’d borrowed from a friend once, it was the smell that hung in the air around the computers in the Bunker, it was the smell of—

“Why do you smell like Felicity?”

The look on Ollie’s face was identical to the one that used to appear on his face when Moira had caught him sneaking in past his curfew.

“Um...”

“I’m not judging, I just think it’s funny. You’re nowhere near her and yet you smell like her. It’s kind of adorable, actually.”

Oliver swallows quietly. “I kind of...have this habit of...”

“What? Come on, Ollie, I’m your sister, I’ve seen you do some pretty weird shit.”

“I like to use her shampoo when she’s not here.” He’s barely audible.

“Ok, that’s adorable.”

Oliver squirmed. “If you think so. I guess it just makes me feel close to her, even when she’s far away.”

Thea’s heart melted a bit at his statement. “Then I don’t see anything wrong with it. Though the guys may have some questions about it.”

“The guys aren’t missing the loves of their lives terribly.”

Thea just laughed, and kissed her brother on the cheek.

“Go call her. I’m gonna head to bed.”

——

Felicity had returned home that afternoon. As Thea zipped her travel bag shut, she heard a shout from the master bathroom.

“Oliver, why is half my shampoo gone?”

Felicity’s blonde appears in the hallway.

“I wouldn’t know,” Thea says, holding up her travel sized pomegranate scented soaps.

Chapter Text

Sara felt as if small, invisible gremlins were pulling her eyelids down as she flipped through the foundry and Verdant’s CCTV feed. It was something she and Oliver both did when bored. Watching people make fools of themselves in the club upstairs could be quite entertaining. As the years have passed and the media has dissected the Queen family by the nanometers, Verdant has drawn crowds that Sara couldn’t have made up if she tried. So far, she’d seen three wardrobe malfunctions, two hours of drunk karaoke, and even caught a few people sneaking around with people they had no business sneaking around with. Sometimes she’d see the same person on the footage across a few nights, and she’s given all of them creative nicknames.

There’s a girl she’s begun calling the Other Woman, who’s there every night with a different guy; their ring fingers in various states of occupation. There’s a group of girls that she calls the Drastics, a pun on Plastics, as they always seem to be crying about something or other, and a group of frat boys that she’s begun referring to as Ollie Knockoffs.

Her mind wanders to the previous night as she switches to the footage of the Lair. Felicity Smoak, the girl with the Panda flats and the pink nails and silk soft hands had taken a bullet for her last night. It wasn’t as if Sara hadn’t thought she was brave; she’d seen the boundless beauty and grace in Felicity’s character from the minute she’d met the girl. After all, Oliver’s crusade wasn’t for the faint of heart, especially not when you were the one practically running the whole thing. Felicity had earned her respect fast; her intelligence, tact, compassion, boldness and resilience had quickly impressed Sara. Yes, she loved the blonde woman with the glowing personality and the colorful aura, but what she couldn’t understand or explain was her relationship with Oliver.

One of the most valuable things the League of Assassins had taught Sara how to do was read people. From the first time she’d seen Oliver and Felicity interact, she’d picked up on...something. They were close, that much was obvious. They respected each other, liked each other. But that wasn’t all, and Sara knew it. Maybe it was the low simmer of tension that seemed to light up between them when they went back and forth about something or other, maybe it was the way Felicity had thrown herself into his arms after he’d come through on his promise to return to her. They weren’t sleeping together, obviously. Oliver was sleeping with her. And Sara knew enough about how Oliver had changed in the past years to know that he wouldn’t cheat the way he once had. They might not have been dating, but anyone with eyes could see that “just friends” did not apply to Oliver and Felicity’s situation.

After she’d finished Felicity’s stitches that night, and pulled what was for sure one of Oliver’s dress shirts over her shoulders, Sara had gone to dispose of her materials at the back of the foundry and headed out the back door. She knew Oliver had stuck around after she’d left, just to keep an eye on Felicity.

Now, she watches the footage from after she’d left. Oliver stands in front of Felicity. She smiles a dopey smile up at him. Sara knew Dig had slipped Felicity an Oxycodone, and she could almost chalk up what was said next to up to the Oxy. Almost.

“You all right? Diggle had mentioned that maybe you were feelinga little left out.”

Sara felt a pang of guilt at that. She hadn’t meant to make Felicity feel inferior to her in any way. She certainly wasn’t.

“What? No.” Again, maybe the Oxy, but it appeared to her that Felicity Smoak was a terrible liar, at least when it came to Oliver.

“I was just used to being your girl.”

Sara’s never heard so much in eight words. There’s a splotch of the sheepishness of a crush, a drop of territorial jealousness, a touch of an assertion of personal worth, a sprinkle of anxious insecurity, a shimmer of confusion, a dash of the stinging pain of betrayal, and a trace of admiration if she looks hard enough for it. Drugs or not, it is a statement so rich that it puts a lump in Sara’s throat.

“I mean, not your girl-girl.”

She backpedals in her usual Felicity Smoak fashion.

“Your girl.”

Sara watches her pause and weigh her words as best she can with the drugs tipping one side of the scale.

“I know it sounds like the same word, but it means something different in my head.”

Sara has found that the most honest things Felicity Smoak has to say are the things she tries to unsay.

Oliver nods.

“Mmm.” Felicity groans quietly.

She hears the rip of Velcro as he tears one of his green gloves off, and presses his hand into her cheek. Her head drops into it immediately, as if it’s second nature. If Sara hadn’t known what Felicity was to Oliver already, she would’ve known then. There is nothing between the two of them in that moment. In that moment, she feels as if she’s never known less about Oliver.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“You will always be my girl, Felicity.”

As Sara powers down the CCTV and prepares to leave the foundry, she knows that it doesn’t matter if she’s sharing Oliver’s bed; because she’s not sharing his heart just then—at least, not the largest part of it. No, Felicity has that part. Because she’s Oliver’s girl.

Chapter Text

William could remember exactly the moment he’d begun dreading this day. He’d been twelve years old, Felicity only 29. The lines of his memory had since blurred as his hair had grayed, but he knew that it would take a lot to erase this memory from his mind. It consisted of FBI vans followed by pink hair and coffee shops followed by the heartbreaking sound of his stepmother crying herself to sleep in an empty bed. But even that couldn’t sting as bad, because while he’d been thousands of miles away, Oliver had still been alive. 

Yesterday, he would’ve been 87 years old. When William had become a father, Oliver had told him a truth that William knew he’d never tell Felicity. He would live to be 86. Oliver had told him about Eobard Thawne, the man from the future. If William had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have believed it.

He hadn’t wanted to in this last year. He knew that Oliver had taken extremely good care of himself in the years since Lian Yu, but it couldn’t erase years of wild partying and decades of a brutal crusade that had left him with chronic pain and injuries in almost every part of his body. He’d led a life of almost constant extreme stress, and it had worn him both physically and mentally. After a week of concerning behavior from Oliver, complaints of pain and irregular exhaustion, Felicity had admitted him to Starling General, and when she’d called him to tell him where his father was, William had known.

That’d been at the end of April. His 87th birthday had been just around the corner. He’d been at his father’s bedside, his hand joined with Felicity’s around Oliver’s; Tommy, Jonas, and Olivia clutching his other one. It was an unholy hour of the morning; Oliver and Felicity’s grandchildren still curled up in bed, their first great grandchild not even born. If there was one thing that broke William’s heart most about this, it was that Oliver wouldn’t get to see his great grandchildren. Eventually, William had had to go home to Zoe; who was still recovering from a twisted ankle (blame the heels she’d worn on their date the other night, (“Age is only a number, honey. You’re never too old for a nice pair of shoes.”) Tommy, Jonas and Olivia had needed to get to their respective jobs. He’d left the hospital with a hollow heart, knowing that he’d likely had his final conversation with his father the night before. William wasn’t sure what Oliver had told his siblings, but he’d hung on every one of his father’s words to him.

You’re the greatest gift I never thought I would get.

And as William watched his father gather his strength for one last conversation with his wife, he thought his heart might shatter. Because if there was one thing William knew for sure, it was that there were few kinds of devastation than that of a separated Oliver and Felicity. At eight o’clock that night, the hospital had called to tell him that at 7:46 p.m. that evening, Oliver Queen had died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 86.

——

It rained the day of his funeral. As cliche as it was, William couldn’t have pictured any other kind of weather for the occasion. But when he’d looked out beyond the limits of Star City, the skies had been clear and rainless; as if the city itself wept in solitude for its greatest champion.

Now, William stood beside his stepmother at the sun set on the freshly turned earth of his father’s grave.

Oliver Jonas Queen

May 16th, 1985-May 15th, 2072.

The Green Arrow

Beloved husband, father, brother, citizen and hero.

May his legacy live on in his family and the courage and pride he brought to his home.

Oliver had had no problem with his rejection of the Green Arrow mantle. In fact, he’d almost dare to say that he was happy about it. He’d sleep a little better at night. For a few years, John Diggle Jr. had worn the hood; while William ran coms and trained his wife, his cousin, Moira Harper, and a few trusted friends into what would become the second generation of Team Arrow, before the hood passed to Olivia. While unprecedented, a female Green Arrow had made the city proud. Tommy had stayed far from the vigilante life, but Jonas had taken to the coms like a fish to water, and William had happily handed the job to his younger brother. As of that day, Team Arrow had included William’s wife, his children, Oliver’s children, Dinah, Curtis and Rene’s children, Oliver’s grandchildren, and John’s children and grandchildren. The Green Arrow had been a criminal, a public enemy, a prisoner, but today, he was a hero.

William watched Felicity prepare to sit vigil for the night, and as she bundled herself up in Oliver’s old raincoat and scarf, a knitted cap tugged down over her gray hair, William felt fear begin to poke through the haze of sadness he’d been in since leaving the hospital. Fear for Felicity and his family, yes, but also for himself. How would his siblings, his stepmother, live a life without Oliver? William and Felicity had tried it for those horrible months of his incarceration, and it had been one of bleakest periods of both their lives. Too many sleepless nights and bloodshot eyes.

Who would he turn to when would he do when he couldn’t answer his children’s questions? What would he do when he and Zoe didn’t see eye to eye and needed his father’s expertise? What would he do about the tough decisions? How would he manage family Christmas without Grandpa Oliver? How would he soothe Felicity’s shattered heart? Who would watch the latest superhero movies with the grandkids? Who would cook the turkey and the rolls at Thanksgiving? Whose snores would Felicity fall asleep to at night? Who would keep her company in the lonely days of a retired widow? Who would William hug when he was scared? Who would tell his children wild stories of the better days spent on islands and with Russian gangsters? Who would be Felicity’s soulmate?

Once, Oliver had shared a Russian proverb with him.

“The shark that does not swim drowns.”

Move forward. He had to move forward, but how?

William knew he wasn’t lacking in a wise, worldly, supportive family. But now, he was lacking in his father. The one consolation he could think of was that Oliver would get to see his parents again, see Laurel, Quentin, Tommy, John and Lyla.

In that moment, William felt that he’d never needed his Dad more. As a kid, he’d thought that once he reached a certain age, he’d been able to stand without his parents. Then he’d lost Samantha. And while he had his own independent life, it’d taken about three days of college to realize how wrong he was when he’d thought he was past needing his Dad. He could be a thousand years old and still need his father.

The funeral party had since retired, Thea unable to watch for the second time as her brother was lowered into the ground, Sara barely holding back tears as she said goodbye to her brother in arms. Barry, Iris, Cisco, still raw from the loss of Caitlin, clinging to each other. Ray Palmer’s eyes shadowed with sympathy. Kara and Alex standing close together, their arms around each other. Oliver’s children and grandchildren holding a small gathering at Olivia’s house that William and Zoe would join once they left.

It was nearly dark. William’s eyes found Zoe waiting with the car.

“Are you going to be alright, Felicity?” He didn’t want her catching pneumonia in the rain. He’d tried to dissuade her from sitting up all night, but Felicity hadn’t gotten any less stubborn than she was when William had met her.

“I’ll be fine, William.” Her voice was ragged from crying, and William could see that her gloved hands were wrapped around something, what exactly, he couldn’t tell.

“Call if you need anything.” Felicity nods solemnly. William kisses his stepmother’s head, and turns to go.

When he looks out the window back at her, she is curled at the base of his headstone, any aching in her joints pushed away in her grief. From here, William can see her shoulders shake.

But what makes William’s heart hurt the most is when he comes back to get her the next morning, and she’s left something at his grave.

A red pen is wrapped in a length of green ribbon at the base of his headstone.

Felicity places one last kiss on his headstone, takes William’s arm, and follows him into a life without Oliver.

——

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t miss Oliver terribly. He and Felicity lean on each other more than ever, and the good days begin to outnumber the bad. But as his stepmother’s health begins to dwindle, as her heart splinters more every day, something still tugs at William’s heart, a sense of not rightness. His family is not at peace. He can’t let go while she suffers. He knows he needs to move forward, from his father’s death; the rest of the family has, but there’s something in his chest tugging him back. He can’t grow past this as long his stepmother’s heart is breaking. He doesn’t begrudge her mourning, but for a long time it feels as if he’s stuck in limbo between one world and the next, a world with an Oliver shaped wound in it, and a world in which William has stepped up to heal it.

Then, four years later, Felicity Megan Smoak-Queen is buried next to her husband.

Felicity Megan Smoak-Queen

        Overwatch

    July 24th, 1989-April 6th, 2076

    Beloved wife, mother, sister, citizen and hero.

The one who lit the way.

When William sits vigil that night, he leaves a green arrow, wrapped in a length of red ribbon, on his stepmother’s grave, and bids his parents farewell in the pink morning light. Finally, they are at peace.

And while there are still questions William can’t answer, shoes he can’t fill, he can finally begin to learn how.

All is right with the world, and William can move forward.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Donna Smoak understood, it was working late. She knew the migraines, the back aches, the circles under the eyes, stumbling home at an ungodly hour, the struggle to drag yourself out of bed the next morning. 

It wasn’t something she’d ever wanted for her baby girl. She’d wanted her baby girl to come home at five o’clock to a husband and two or three beautiful children, eat a home cooked meal, and fall asleep in a king sized bed with her hunky husband and a golden retriever on the floor. 

It was ten o’clock, leftovers were in the fridge, and her loft apartment was quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator. And decidedly dogless.

Well, at least she was on her way to the hunky hubby piece. 

Donna lay awake in Felicity and Oliver’s guest room. The sounds of Oliver milling around in the downstairs kitchen floated quietly up to her ears. She listens to him. Judging by the sounds he’s making, he’s whipping up something for Felicity’s return home. Like Donna, he knows how she forgets to eat real food when she’s wrapped up in a project. 

Snick. The fridge door opens.

Clink. Scuff. Tap. Oliver moves some dishes around to find what he’s looking for and sets them on the counter.

Snick. The fridge door shuts. 

A little while later, the kitchen falls silent, and she hears the sound of a leather couch sighing under two-hundred-some pounds of muscled man. Then, the sound of pages turning and a pen scratching on paper interloping through the silence of a late night. 

So he’s an artist, Donna muses to herself.

She hadn’t been around for the conversation they’d had that had concluded their feud,  but she suspected it weighed heavier in the quality department than the quantity one. In fact, she’d put a night of tips at Caesar’s Palace on it going something like this:

Felicity, the naturally outgoing, talkative had stated her case. She’s sorry for snapping at him, but grateful for his support. She was worried about losing personal direction in a relationship, but she knows they’ll be ok.

Oliver, the quieter, more private of the two, goes second. He says something to the effect of, he’s sorry for not being more attentive to her feelings. This is new to him too, and all he wants to do is make her happy.

Donna wasn’t there, and the words exchanged in that room between them will forever be unknown to her. It reminds her of a story Felicity once told her about a physicist who put a cat in a box. Shoe Dinger, she thinks his name was. Unless she asks, she won’t ever know. But she doesn’t need to. She has faith. 

They complement each other like a pearls and a couture ball gown.

Maybe she’s imaging it, but the click of a key sounds from downstairs. Donna looks at the clock. Eleven o’clock at night. As much as her heart aches for the late nights, Donna can’t bring herself to be too terribly upset, after all. This is Felicity’s passion. 

Shuffle. Click click. Shuffle. Groan. Woosh.

“Felicity?” Oliver calls to her in that tone that people use that is somewhere between a whisper and a spoken word, the one for closeness and comfort. 

“That’s me.” Her voice is sandpaper. 

They talk. Donna listens to the sounds of Oliver in the kitchen. He gets out what he prepared for her, sets it in front of her. The sounds of chewing, murmured conversation filter up to her for a half hour or so. Then, it is quiet again. 

Donna rolls out of bed. She wants to hug her baby girl, make sure she’s ok. She makes it to the door of the bedroom, and stops. Looks down into the lower level of the loft. She hears the murmur of Oliver’s voice asking something she can’t make out. She moves closer to the staircase. 

Oliver stands behind Felicity, his hands kneading her shoulders as she leans back on his chest. Her eyes are closed as he works.

“Oliver, hon, you missed your calling.” 

He’s gorgeous, he cooks, and gives killer back rubs? Not fair. Not fair at all.

Oliver chuckles. “You’re my calling,” he answers, and drops a kiss on her head. Donna thinks she might melt. “Tell me about your day.” He asks.

Felicity groans. “You know, a lot of the world’s problems could be fixed if people just did what they were supposed to do. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for some people to just do their jobs. Those reports had to be filed yesterday, Oliver, yesterday. I’m not sure what’s so hard for people to understand about deadlines. I made it very clear. You can imagine how I felt about calling an emergency meeting at five in the afternoon and spending six hours of time that could’ve been spent eating dinner with my family or watching TV with my boyfriend on our one free night, digging through every server at Palmer Tech for lost reports.” 

Oliver grumbles in agreement. 

“But of course, I’m Felicity Smoak, Ray Palmer’s legendary VP turned CEO, so it’s my job to make everything perfect! All the time! I might as well add ‘Professional Screw Up Fixer’ to my job title. Not gladly, at that.” Donna scoffs at this, at people pushing their mistakes on her daughter as if it’s her job to clean them up. She’s too good for their mistakes. 

“You make everything perfect for me.” Why, oh why, is he so good?

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Oliver’s hands pause on her shoulders. “Bedtime?”

“Yessssss.” Felicity sighs. 

“Shower, or bath?” 

“I’ll go anywhere with you, as long as you wash my hair.” 

“Shower then? It’ll be faster.” 

Donna watches as Felicity exhaustedly lifts her arms towards Oliver. “Carry me?” She asks him. 

And when Oliver swings her into his arms, she can’t help but get flashes of Felicity in a white dress and Oliver in a tux, doing exactly the same thing. Donna wouldn’t call herself a psychic, but the vision is clear as day, painted in glowing color, long, sweeping brushstrokes flowing together for one masterpiece. If she had any doubts, Donna knows now. 

She knows because she has seen Oliver smile for cameras, shake hands and kiss babies, give speeches, organize rallies. She has seen him take Felicity to dinner, bring her flowers, sing her praises. 

But now, she has seen him take care of her. She has seen him stay up all night for her, have food for her when she comes home, then carry her to bed. She has heard the shower water turn on and off. She hears him ask which pajamas she wants. The next morning, she watches them stagger downstairs together for coffee, watches Oliver brew it and pour it for her as she wakes up slowly on a Saturday morning.

Yes, Donna thinks, that’s how it’s supposed to be. 

Chapter Text

145, 144, 143...

Adrian was bored of this game. Or, at least, this level. He’d been at this little puzzle for three days now with minimal success. The more he thought about it, Adrian wasn’t sure why he’d thought waterboarding Oliver Queen would do anything to help his case. It’d only taken a few 145 counts for it to dawn on Adrian that Oliver Queen probably knew how to handle almost drowning. No, he’d have to work harder.

Confess, or you get the same three arrows.

This would do it. He would turn Oliver’s own weapon on him, make him feel the fear his victims felt at the end of his arrows. Adrian has studied the way Oliver holds that bow, studied it to the same degree he has all of the other fundamental pieces of Oliver Queen. He’s not kidding when he says that he knows Oliver better than Oliver knows Oliver. It’s not about the bow for Oliver. It could just as well be a sword or a bazooka or a baseball bat, Adrian hypothesizes. It’s about what the bow represents. Identity. Purpose. Protection. Precision. Calculation. Adrian sees it everyday in the office. Every decision, every idea, every proposal. Precise, clean, calculated. Like firing an arrow. It’s precisely why, Adrian knows, that Oliver’s notion of separation between man and monster is so preposterous: the monster is Oliver, even when he isn’t looking. It’s in every breath he takes. 

But even when Adrian turns the psychological make up of Oliver Queen against Oliver Queen, he won’t crack, though Adrian thinks that that he may have see a little flinch in his broad shoulders. 

He’s been going about this the wrong way. Pressing the wrong buttons. In hindsight, it was stupid of him to assume Oliver would care much for whatever Adrian would connive to scrape away at his physical resolve. The man was covered in scars. Breaking his bones and filling his lungs and tearing his skin would take longer than Adrian Chase had time for. 

She didn’t even know I was in her apartment.

It had been a quick errand. A dash up the side of her building while she’d been otherwise occupied with her ex-fiancé’s killing spree. Adrian had to give it to her, she was smart. He’d had to put more than a little effort into cracking her security system, unlike every other challenge he’d faced in this little game of his. Ten steps ahead...always. He chuckles as he pads silently across her living room. He doesn’t want to kill Felicity Smoak, no, he can’t kill leverage. But he is a master at exploiting it.

He peruses the loft apartment for something small enough to steal yet large enough to pack a punch to Oliver Queen.

The place reeks of heartbreak, if he’s being honest. It’s buried under a thin film of take out and designer perfume, but it’s there. The leather couches crisp and cold, the fireplace interior stark white. It reminds him of their bunker, sparse and cavernous. He’d enjoyed planting his toys there the other day. There is a small bowl of glass stones on the coffee table, cloudy with dust. Time to move on.

Her bedroom is much the same. The right side rumpled, the left untouched as if diseased. He swipes his hand over her bedside lamp, the glass of the bulb emitting no heat. She’s been gone for a little while. He scans the room. A whole walk in closet of objects that Queen had doubtlessly seen her in. No, heels were an odd shape to conceal. Besides, there’s something about a pair of pink Jimmy Choos that would probably take away from his grandeur a bit. A toothbrush, yuck. Lipstick? No, she has too many of those. He leaves the bathroom. 

On the dresser, he sees them. Her glasses. Adrian smirks viciously in sick satisfaction; Felicity Smoak had worn her contacts today. He is careful with them, oh so careful. These’ll do it, he knows. Some ill and twisted creature inside Adrian purrs at the idea of Oliver Queen cringing whenever he goes to look his soulmate in the eyes. Yes, he’ll take the glasses. 

Adrian is a about to leave when he sees it. A small white box, its corner just barely peeking out from under the bed. Any ordinary visitor wouldn’t have noticed it. But Adrian knew to look. Carefully, as if he’s handling glass, he slides the box from under the bed. Lifts the lid.

First, there’s a beach photo. Her arms tangled around his neck, his eyes alight with joy. There’s one on a mountain side, his arms caging her in. He wonders briefly if it had possibly crossed Oliver’s mind in that moment that he could’ve killed her in a single motion. Another one, his lips pressed to her cheek. She’s smiling, and Adrian can’t help but chuckle at how oblivious they were. Not after today. No, they’d all know after today. 

He slides the box away. Enough meddling. 

He has a confession to extract. 

Chapter Text

For all his secrets, Moira Queen had always thought she that she knew her son as well as any other mother would there son. For a long time, she’d thought that there wasn’t any conceivable thing her son could do that would truly surprise her. 

That was, until she’d seen him with Felicity Smoak. And as for Ms. Smoak, the woman was full of surprises. And if you were to ask Moira when she’d known that Felicity was the right woman for Oliver, she would tell you that it was when the woman had confronted her about the lie of a lifetime and had been the only one between the two of them to have the courage to come clean about it. 

Oliver needed someone brave. 

The Queens had never been a deeply religious family, and Moira had given little credence to the debate of what came after death in her lifetime. Until she’d actually died, that was. It was a strange thing, the afterlife. It was undefinable, murky. Yet pleasant. Liberating. But if she focused long and hard, she could see them. Her son. Her daughter. God, her grandson. Moira had come to realize a great deal of her mistakes in her afterlife, and she knew now that keeping William from Oliver had been perhaps one of the worst. She saw it in every look they exchange, her son and grandson. Happiness, pride, yes, but also crushing sorrow. Of a father who would never truly know all of his son. Nevertheless, watching Oliver become a father had been the greatest joy she could remember. As tragic an entry as William had had into Oliver’s orbit, she wouldn’t have wished it any other way. She supposed it made it all that much sweeter, though. Oliver, a man whose life had been marked by kinds of pain and heartbreak most people could scarcely imagine, getting to be a father. To share his love and wisdom with a child and watch them grow—perhaps it would help. If all he’d endured could help him better guide his son, perhaps the sting of it all may lessen slightly. The desire to reach a guiding hand to her children had never been as strong as it had been since death. 

She remembered Christmas of 2015 as if it had been yesterday. When the blurry silhouette of Ms. Smoak had appeared in her periphery. She’d been watching so intently that night. Never had her heart risen so high only to fall so fast. Her son gets to marry the woman he loves more than life, gets a chance to be happy—and almost loses it all not ten minutes later. That summer, she’d watched this woman piece her son’s soul back together after a year of insecurity and tragedy. Go back, she’d told Felicity. My son needs you. He can’t lose you too. Go, please. 

And she had. 

Now here they were. November 28th, 2018. Her son’s wedding reception. She watches as he receives congratulations from throngs of people, faces new and old. 

“ARGUS missions do not stop for weddings.”

“Well, I was hoping they would stop for this one.”

John Diggle. Moira chuckled. There was a reason Robert had always had her sit in on job interviews in the days of QC. She never hired wrong. Anyone who could hang on to Oliver throughout the course of six years was a marvel. 

Such was the case of Felicity Smoak, it seemed. 

Moira watches her son go star struck when Felicity enters the room. Watches them kiss for the millionth time surrounded by their family and friends, the family they’ve picked up together when all else was lost. 

“Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.” 

Oh, Quentin. No matter how many worlds exist beyond that of the living, some debts will never be paid. He owed Oliver nothing, yet had given him everything. 

“C’mon, Quentin, it’s Oliver tonight. As a matter of fact, it’s always Oliver.” 

“Well I’ve got a little something for you, Oliver.” 

And all the breath leaves Moira’s lungs as Quentin presents Oliver with the very same watch that was on the man’s wrist the first time he arrested him. 

“I know it doesn’t look like much, but my dad gave this to me on my wedding day.”

“Quentin, I can’t accept this.” 

“It’s not like I got anyone I can give it to. Besides, it’s not right that you don’t have a parent here tonight.” 

Oh, but he does. The tears are streaming down her face now. Quentin. God bless him. There are no words. For once in her existence, Moira Queen is speechless. 

——

Oh, please, please, please shove it in his face! It’s not like Moira to be so inelegant, but there’s something satisfying about the idea of Oliver’s face covered in pink and yellow frosting. Indeed, Felicity does the first hunk of cake with care, Oliver plucking it softly from her outstretched fingers; but when he turns back to her after laughing, she has another bite ready; but she doesn’t wait for him to be ready. Oliver gets pink frosting on his nose. He reciprocates in kind, both of them grinning like the fools everyone knows they are for each other.

——

They’re cheesy. Horribly so. But Moira can’t deny them that. They’ve earned the right to be as cheesy at they want, for as long as they want. They sway to the quiet crooning of Etta James, and visions of their children, her grandchildren, run through her head. She sees them when they’re old and gray, beaten and worn, happy and proud. She sees them through everything. As hard as she looks, she can’t see half of what she sees in them in herself and Robert. The admission doesn’t scare her as much as it used to. 

Moira Queen has already made the ultimate sacrifice for her children. She doesn’t have much left to give them, up here. But when Quentin interrupts them to with Jean Loring’s news, she wishes she could give them anything but what they have in that moment.