Chapter Text
part i - “pilot”, “honor thy father”, “lone gunmen”
Felicity Smoak only made one serious mistake in her whole life. And his name was Oliver Queen. She met him at a party -- one thrown by her high school best friend’s current college boyfriend’s frat -- one to which she’d been dragged. She spent part of the night trying to find a nice quiet, spot away from the crowd and the noise, and the other part of the night chatting with a man who seemed to be still a boy, with eyes so blue she thought they were crystals.
He said he found her interesting. He liked that she made him laugh -- and he did laugh a lot. His kiss tasted like tequila and his hands were fast and practiced. He told her that he was on a break from his long-time girlfriend. He told her about feeling lonely in the crowd, trying to fill up that space with alcohol.
She might have looked back on his lies and manipulations with anger, if she hadn’t seen right through them.
She’d smiled at him, told him he was going to have to do better than that. She said honesty was always a better choice when it came to getting in her pants.
And Oliver Queen took her challenge like no man had before.
“Felicity Smoak,” he said, “I would very much like to fuck you senseless.” And then his lips twitched into a smile. “Please.”
Felicity laughed. She told him that would be quite an accomplishment. And then she followed him to his hotel, and they proceeded to be very… enthusiastic together.
A month later, The Queen’s Gambit was lost at sea. And Felicity was peeing on a stick in a bathroom in her dormitory, praying to every god she could think of that what she knew to be true right down deep in her bones was a lie her body was telling her.
She was wrong. Very, very wrong.
***
When they found him on an island in the South China Sea, Felicity was at home, tucking her children into bed. Stories were read, teeth were brushed, glasses of water placed carefully by the bed. Felicity smoothed the duvet cover of Maddie’s bed with one hand. It was showing signs of wear. Perhaps in a few years she wouldn’t be so enamored of pink butterflies and Felicity could get her something different. Matthew’s comforter was all Spiderman, just like his backpack and his tennis shoes and his favorite sweatshirt.
"We're going to sleep," Felicity said. "No more voices, okay?"
They nodded. Felicity knew better than to trust them, though. As soon as she closed the door she waited for the whispers to start. She sighed and rapped the door lightly with her knuckles. "I meant it, you two. Goodnight."
She walked back to the kitchen, picking up the deterius of a day at home with four-and-a-half-year-old twins. Crayons and shoes, Cheerios and snacks everywhere. Juice and milk glasses on every surface. Kleenexes and Legoes.
She never thought that this would be her life. She hadn't really wanted this for herself. She got through college by the skin of her teeth and through the generosity of her parents. She kept Maddie and Matthew clothed and fed by working all hours of the day and night their first two years of life. And she had felt guilt, every single moment she was away.
A job offer from Queen Consolidated immediately after graduation had seemed like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, she hadn't ever spoken to anyone about the identity of the twins' father. So there was no way for anyone at QC to know that she was the mother of Oliver's children. On the other hand, maybe Oliver had said something to... someone....
But in the end, she decided she was being paranoid, and she took the job, and moved her and the twins from Michigan to Starling City into a two-bedroom apartment. She saved every penny she could towards the downpayment on a house. She'd hoped that she would be able to have the twins out of the city by the time they started kindergarten, but that was only months away and she was thousands away from her goal.
But. She took a deep breath. Her kids were smart, and funny, and kind. They were certainly well behaved. They didn't have everything they wanted, but they had everything they needed.
Her phone rang and she reached for it without looking at the caller ID.
"Are you watching this?"
Felicity shook her head. "No, Barry. I am not watching... whatever. I just got done convincing the kids that nighttime is for sleeping. I am having a single glass of red wine and listening to the sound of silence."
"You should turn your TV on. You won't believe who they found."
"Who?"
"Oliver Queen!”
Her blood froze. She gripped the phone as tight as she could.
“Can you believe it? Dude's been gone, what?"
"Five years," Felicity said hollowly. "He's been gone nearly five years."
"Apparently he's been like, Swiss Family Robinson-ing it on some island in the South China Sea that the Chinese used to use as a prison island? Pretty cool, right?”
“Yeah.” Felicity swallowed and bit her lip. “That’s… pretty cool.”
“Hey, is everything all right there?” Barry’s voice went quiet, concerned. Felicity nearly cursed his perceptiveness.
“Everything’s fine. I’m just tired.”
“Okay. Because you know if you need anything…”
“You’ll be up from Central City in a flash, I know.” Felicity smiled and laid down on the couch, closing her eyes.
“Anything for my three favorite people in the world. You know that.”
Felicity fingered the necklace he’d given her during their brief and spectacularly failed romance. He was a friend -- a good friend. The kind of friend who would drop everything in a heartbeat to do whatever you needed. And there had been a few sparks, and enough things in common that they had both thought that a relationship was worth a shot. Felicity counted their friendship surviving their amorous relationship among her great blessings in life.
“I do know that. It was good to hear your voice, Barry.”
“Okay. I’ll let you go so you can relax, ‘Licity. Have a good night.”
“Good night.”
**
Oliver Queen was whisked straight from the island to a boat, straight from the boat to a plane, and straight from a plane to a hospital, where the doctors oohed and aahed over the scars his life on Lian Yu had left him with. He knew, of course, realistically, that he was nothing like the prideful, arrogant little boy who had barely survived a shipwreck -- but perhaps he had underestimated how much the time on the island would change him outwardly.
The first time a nurse asked if there was anything she could get him, he’d asked for a razor and a thick bar of soap and some privacy. She’d helped him cut his hair, but he’d scrubbed himself clean until every inch of his body felt almost raw. Five years of sweat, of dust, of earth, fell away from his body and went down the drain.
Then Oliver stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and faced himself in the mirror. Not a little boy anymore -- and sure enough, there was a trace of his father now, where there hadn’t been before. In the cheekbones, in the eyes.
But there was something in him that hadn’t been in his father. Something that the island had taught him about life and death, about a warrior’s spirit and a friendship betrayed. No -- there was little of Ollie Queen left in the man standing in the mirror.
“Your mother’s here to see you,” the doctor said, on the other side of the shower in the private room he’d been examined in. “She brought you some clothes.”
“All right,” Oliver said. “Just -- just a second please.”
“Yes, Mr. Queen, absolutely.”
Though he’d worked out before the island, he’d never had this body -- never needed this kind of strength or agility, so when he slid on the pants, he was grateful for the belt. The sweater sat awkwardly on his shoulders -- just a little too tight in some places, too loose in others.
He stepped out of the bathroom fully dressed, and saw the doctor waiting for him, the ever-present clipboard clasped in front of his waist. “Mr. Queen, you can, of course, leave with your family. But I suggest to you that perhaps it might be best if you seek someone you can talk to, over the course of the next few weeks. Someone who can help you… adjust.”
Oliver thought of the little red book. He thought about his father, blowing his brains out on a life raft before he could do anything to stop it. He thought about Slade, and Shado, and a mentor failed.
“Thank you,” Oliver said, with a smile that he knew he was going to need some more practice at before it looked genuine. “I just might do that.”
**
Felicity walked on eggshells for the next couple of weeks. She hoped against hope she wouldn’t run into Oliver Queen at his parents’ company. NOt that he’d spent a great deal of time in the building before the shipwreck, but big traumatic life-changing events tended to change people’s habits, as well, and maybe he’d decide he’d want to take a vested interest in the family company. Starting with the IT department.
And then, she wondered, what would she say? Oh hi, Oliver, nice to meet you again. I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I’m Felicity Smoak, the mother of your illegitimate children. Which no one else knows about.
Not that she’d started out with these intentions. If she’d had it her way, she would have run to Oliver in the beginning, explained what was going on, given him the chance to be involved in Maddie and Matthew’s life. She’d grown up without a father, and knew how keenly you could feel that loss all of your life.
But Oliver’s boat had gone down, taking his life, his father’s life, and the life of a girl who probably hadn’t thought much of getting on the Queen family yacht to sail around the world with Robert and Oliver. The type of girl that Oliver usually slept with. She’d seen pictures of Sara Lance -- she was leggy and blonde and beautiful and put-together in that indefinable way that said she was the Love Interest.
And anyway, once that had all happened, Felicity felt like the worst thing she could to Moira Queen would be to come to her, pregnant, alone, and without a plan, claiming to be carrying her dead son’s children. Best case scenario, she’d dismiss Felicity, and not believe her story. Perhaps sue her for defamation of character, or something. Worst case scenario, Felicity always figured, she’d believe her story, and be appalled at Felicity’s lack of resources, and perhaps try to take the twins from her.
It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes, late at night when it was just her, trying to get two babies to take bottles and changing diapers and wiping up spit-up and knowing she had to be up in an hour to take an early morning shift at the coffee shop, she’d fantasized about a good relationship with the Queens -- one where they helped her out, financially, visited the children, loved them the way she did. She wanted them to have a relationship with their father’s family.
She just… didn’t know of anyway to give them that.
But then, eventually, the anxiety faded. When Oliver was in the papers, he was in the papers for mouthing off to the press, eschewing responsibility for his family’s company and opening a nightclub in the Glades. He was rarely seen in the hallowed halls of Queen Consolidated.
Until one day, he stepped into her office.
“Felicity Smoak?”
She knew that voice. Knew it down to the tips of her toes. Remembered what it sounded like under covers, and in the morning. Resolutely, she finished typing, and then she turned.
“Hello.”
The look on his face -- the slow, dawning look of recognition, was almost priceless. If it hadn’t been so sad that he’d forgotten her name, she would have taken a picture of it.
“It’s you.”
“Indeed. I am me, me am I.” Felicity waved her pen, fought the urge to straighten every rumpled thing about her appearance. Her shirt was stained, probably, her hair was a mess, she’d gone with glasses instead of contacts this morning for expediency’s sake, and…
There was a picture of the twins on her desk, embracing each other and looking straight into the camera. Oliver stared at it for a long moment.
“I… remember you,” he said slowly.
“That’s good, at least,” Felicity said, biting her lower lip. “As I remember you.”
“You didn’t have kids when we…”
“No.” Felicity shook her head. “Definitely not. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yeah.” He seemed to snap back to the task at hand, holding out a laptop which had definitely seen better days. “I was at a coffee shop and I uh… spilled a latte on it. Anything you could get off of it would be… very beneficial.”
She knew that tone of voice. Matthew sometimes tried to use it when he thought he was getting away with something. She looked over the computer carefully for a moment. “A latte, huh? Because these look like bullet holes.”
“My coffee shop is in a very dangerous neighborhood.”
Felicity didn’t even dignify that with a response, she just set to work.
“Thanks, Ms…. Well, Felicity.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Queen.” She didn’t look up from where she was removing the casing.
“How old are your… I mean, they’re yours, right?”
Felicity lifted her head. She wanted to tell him, right then. She wanted to say: Yes. They’re mine. And they’re yours. Guess we weren’t as careful or as clever as we thought we were. But I can’t be sorry about it because they turned out beautiful, and perfect. And I took my finals from a hospital bed so that they could come out safe and sound, and only two weeks early. And I was so scared I would do something wrong or break them that sometimes I cried for hours at a time. And Matthew had ear infections, non-stop, it seemed, for three months, but nothing ever fazed Maddie. And they used to sleep with their little fingers all curled together.
And she wanted to say: Everyone tried to tell me I couldn’t do it by myself. Everyone tried to tell me they’d be better off with someone else, but I had carried them in my body. I had loved them all this time. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give our babies up.
But instead, what she said was: “They’re mine. They’re four years old.”
“Just four, or?”
“They turned four about two and a half months ago,” Felicity said evenly. “I’ll be done with the laptop in a couple of hours, Mr. Queen.”
“Ah. Okay.” Oliver turned to leave. Felicity could see his brain at work, the calendar slowly counting back. It wouldn’t be long before he asked the question, and she told herself, as soon as it was discovered he was alive, if he ever asked her, she’d tell him the truth. “It was good to see you again, Ms. Smoak.”
“You too.”
When he was gone, she got up from her desk, walked to the ladies room, found a stall, sat down on the toilet, and cried.
***
“What do you know about Felicity Smoak?”
Walter looked up from his desk. “Oh, hello, Oliver. Nice to see you.”
Oliver took a look around, and realized there were three very-serious looking employees sitting around Walter’s desk, taking notes on whatever he was saying.
“I’m very sorry to interrupt,” Oliver said, as contritely as he could muster. “Walter, can I speak to you for just one moment?”
“Sure, would you mind giving us the room, please?” Walter asked, and all of the employees rose as one and filed out of the door. “You were asking me about Felicity Smoak.”
“Yes. I --” Oliver drew in a deep breath. “I was just wondering why you recommended her, in particular.”
“She’s the very best in the technical division,” Walter said evenly. “But if you’re unhappy with what she was able to do for you, I’m sure Stan can recommend someone else…”
“No.” Oliver’s voice was firm. “Definitely don’t need… anybody else. I’m not unhappy at all. I just -- I knew her before.”
“Oh really.” Walter sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers together. Oliver was unaware people still did that unironically. “I was unaware of that. She certainly didn’t mention it in any of the conversations we’ve had, or the interviews.”
“She wouldn’t. I don’t think she cares over much about… impressing people. Anyway. Do you have a personnel file on her?”
“I’m sure I could pull it for you. I can tell you that she’s overcome quite a bit of adversity over the past few years. You know that scholarship your mother gives out?”
“For young mothers who are getting their degrees.”
“Yes. She was a recipient three years in a row. She’s cracker-jack smart and she does her best by her kids.” There was a note of warning in Walter’s voice.
“Listen, if that’s what you’re worried about, don’t be. Single mothers were never my thing. I’m just… checking up on a friend.”
“I think,” Walter said, his voice cutting into the memories playing in Oliver’s head, “if you want to check up on a friend, perhaps you ought to ask her these questions yourself.”
Oliver nodded, vaguely, and rose to his feet. “Did she ever say who… I mean, is the father involved?”
“It’s always been my understanding that the father of those children has passed, unfortunately.”
“Okay.” Oliver got to his feet, tried to remember what smiling genuinely looked like, and rearranged his face to something approximating that. “Thanks for your help, Walter.”
“You’re welcome.”
**
“It’s just the expectations. Somebody’s constantly disappointed in you, you know? You aren’t a genius like your father. You aren’t… congenial and charming like your mother. Whatever it was that made them so magical, you don’t have it, so you just -- eventually, you give up trying. And then you’re left wondering: if I’m not my parents, then who am I?”
The girl, young and blonde, the way he liked them, crossed one leg over the other and stared at him for a minute. “Do you actually get girls with that line of crap?”
“Excuse me, what?”
“I mean, I guess I can see the appeal. They think you’re baring your soul to them, but you really aren’t, are you? I mean, it’s true enough but it’s not the kind of truth that keeps you up at night, is it Oliver?”
Oliver lifted his mouth in a smile and dodged the question. “So if my usual lines won't work for you, what does, Felicity Faith Smoak?”
“Well, Oliver Robert Queen, you might try some actual honesty.”
“I broke up with my girlfriend. It sucks. But then it doesn’t suck, sometimes.”
“Ah, the post break-up dichotomy. Blessed freedom. Crushing aloneness. All in one swirly-whirl ice cream cone of suckitude.”
“I think you’re hot,” Oliver said, and laid a hand on Felicity’s thigh. “I mean, really, incredibly hot.”
***
By the time four forty-five had rolled around, Felicity was done. She needed to pick Maddie and Matthew up at the QC daycare before 5:30 and getting data off of the computer had been no walk in the park. There was a screaming headache behind her eyes.
And then Oliver Queen walked through her door.
“I have your data for you. But I have to tell you, I want no part in whatever… corporate espionage thing you’ve got going on right now.”
That seemed to genuinely puzzle him. And so she explained: about the stock auction, about who the laptop really belonged to. All of her Spidey-senses were tingling, but she tamped down on the urge to ask him to explain himself more. One, it wasn’t really her business: if Oliver Queen wanted to be less-than-truthful to one of his employees, it wasn’t really a crime. And two: she really wanted him to leave.
But she could see in his eyes that he had questions. He’d done the math. He’d seen their eyes -- the brilliant Queen eyes staring at him in the picture frame.
He took his laptop, and was about to leave again, before he turned and faced her. “I need you to tell me the truth.”
“I’ve never lied to you yet,” Felicity said evenly.
“Four years and a few months -- that would line up about right from when we…”
“Yes. It would,” Felicity said.
“So?”
“So what?” Felicity reached for her pencil and gripped it as hard as she could.
Oliver crossed the room, and sat down in the chair across from her desk, resting his forearms on its dark surface. “Felicity. You know what I’m asking you.”
Panic rose in her throat, for once cutting off the words that she would have otherwise spoken. She took a deep breath and steadied herself for the explosion she knew was coming. “If you’re asking if Madelyn and Matthew are yours…”
“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”
“Then yes. They are.”
Something flickered in his eyes, and then they shut down, as cold and impenetrable as a steel wall. “Oh.”
Felicity pushed her chair back from her desk. All of a sudden he was too close. “I don’t want you to think I -- I expect anything. I mean, obviously, you weren’t around when I was making all of the decisions, so you didn’t really get a say, but I mean….”
“I have… children.” Oliver leaned back in his chair and flung his arm over his face. Felicity thought, for one horrible moment, that he was going to cry, but then he started to laugh. “I’ve got kids.”
“Well, technically speaking, I have children,” Felicity said. “You, I mean, do… as well… but not in the sense of….”
“Felicity. I -- “ Oliver stopped laughing, stood up and started to pace. “I just don’t know what to do with this information. Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly.”
Felicity shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t… fully made up my mind. I had vague thoughts of like -- walking up to Queen Manor and knocking on the door and seeing if you recognized me, which presupposed me actually being able to get to Queen Manor…”
“Felicity, you don’t honestly think I’d forgotten you, do you?”
“I always figured I was one slightly abnormal encounter in a lifetime of… encounters.” She could see from the tilt of his lips that she wasn’t completely wrong.
“I have …” Oliver sighed. “Madelyn and…”
“Matthew.” Felicity supplied. “I want to be clear here: I am not expecting anything out of you, Oliver. I’ll let you figure out what you want to do. If you want to have a relationship with them, we’ll have to talk about it.”
Oliver took the picture off of her desk, and stared at it for a long moment. “Can I…”
“Do you want a copy?” Felicity asked, her heart in her throat. “I can -- I can get you a copy. And of course, if you want, I can… supply you with their hair so you can run all the tests to make sure I’m not lying to you, although, again -- I’m not expecting anything, least of all money, okay?”
“Yes. I want a copy.” Oliver straightened his shoulders. “And… I suppose… we had better… I believe you, of course. But…”
“Not everyone will,” Felicity said, with a smile. “It’s okay, Oliver. Just -- let me know what you’re thinking, all right?” She reached in her desk, took out a sheet of pictures from a local school picture company, and removed a wallet-sized photo of the twins wearing closely-matched green outfits, and gave it to Oliver, along with her business card, with her cell phone number written on the back.
“Thanks, Felicity.”
“You’re welcome.”
**
In the afterglow, Oliver found himself lingering -- not something he was prone to. It wasn’t unheard of for him to want to stick around for round two, but it wasn’t, exactly, his usual modus operandi.
“Is this the part where you tell me you’ve got a very important business meeting in the morning and we put our clothes back on and you very gently tell me that maybe it’s better if this was a one-time thing?”
Oliver looked up from the lock of her hair he’d been playing with. “Why? Is that what you’re used to hearing?”
“No. But then, I don’t normally do… stuff like this.”
“Stuff like what?”
“Sleep with older guys I just met. Or guys I met at a party. Really. Actually, I don’t do much sleeping with… guys at all. Or girls. Or anything in-between, you know, because gender’s not really a binary thing, and…”
“Felicity.” Oliver bent and kissed her collarbone. “Calm down. I don’t have a business meeting in the morning. I do, however, have a… craving.”
“A craving for what?”
Oliver bent and whispered in her ear something truly filthy and delightful. Felicity blushed and chuckled, and indulged him.
**
All through the next few days, as Oliver did his best to keep his family alive and breathing, his conversation with Felicity ran in the back of his mind, and the memories of their one night together played on a loop.
He couldn’t sleep. Insomnia was an old friend. Only this time, the demons of his time on the island weren’t the thing keeping him awake. Or they weren’t, mostly. It was a picture in his wallet.
He’d looked at it so often now he practically had it memorized -- the folds in Madelyn’s dress, the silly grin on Matthew’s face that was so much his sister Thea at that age that it was uncanny. They were beautiful children. They had hair the color of honey in a jar, and bright blue eyes. The boy’s face was narrow and then -- so much Felicity. And Madelyn had more rounded features. They were embracing each other happily, laughing into the camera.
He wondered what their voices sounded like. What they would think of him. He’d not spent much time around kids, ever, with the sole exception of Thea, and even then, that had been years ago. Some of his classmates had gone on to have children, of course, but they were kept carefully separate, trotted out to perform on instruments occasionally, or to look cute in family photos. Not something he’d enjoyed as a child.
Or wanted for his own children, actually. The few times he’d thought about ever having children with anyone, it had been Laurel, of course. Distantly. Hazily. The mere thought of sharing an apartment with her had been enough to lead to him self-destructing that relationship. How was he supposed to handle… fatherhood, exactly, without self-destructing?
“Hey!” Tommy knocked on the door frame. “Your mom let me in, told me you were up here.”
“Were we supposed to be going out tonight?” Oliver asked, looking at Tommy’s outfit, a slick suit with a button-up shirt.
“No, we weren’t supposed to, but I thought you might want to get out and see the sights a bit with me tonight. I know the past few days have been kind of stressful, what with getting shot at and all.”
“Ah.”
“And Laurel told me she uh -- she might have been a little bit harsh with you the other night.”
Oliver waved a hand. “It’s nothing I don’t deserve, really.”
“What’s that?” Tommy asked, pointing to the picture in Oliver’s hand.
“It’s uh --” Oliver thought for a minute. “It’s a picture.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Without asking, Tommy lifted the picture from Oliver’s hand. “Huh. Cute kids. Whose?”
Oliver weighed his options. He could lie, of course, but he was lying to Tommy about so much already. “Mine.”
Tommy took a step back. “What? Are you sure?”
“Timing’s right. Woman’s right.” Oliver shrugged. “I’m having the biolabs at Queen Consolidated run all of the tests, but… I’m pretty sure she’s not lying to me. Just look at them.”
“Holy crap. The boy looks a lot like your father, doesn’t he?”
Oliver shrugged. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Hell of a welcome-home present, friend.”
Oliver laughed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s what I was just sitting here thinking about.”
“Well, those kids deserve a father. Is there another man in the picture?”
“No. Felicity --”
“The mother?”
“Yeah. She said if I wanted to have a relationship with them, we could talk about it.” Oliver closed his eyes. “I’m just not sure -- Tommy, hell. You know I’m not cut out to be a father right now.”
“Those kids aren’t going to wait around until you’re ready to be a father,” Tommy said with a shrug. “Listen -- you and I both said, if we ever… found ourselves in this situation, we were going to do better than our fathers, right?”
“Yeah.” Oliver sighed.
“Hey -- I’m pretty sure I’m the first one to do this, right?”
“What?”
Tommy pulled Oliver into a one-armed hug. “Congratulations, man.”
Oliver smiled grimly and returned the hug. “Thanks, Tommy.”
***
Felicity’s phone rang late in the evening several days later, when the twins were sound asleep. She didn’t recognize the number, so she answered formally. “This is Felicity Smoak.”
“Hey, Felicity, it’s Oliver Queen.”
Felicity sat up straight. “I heard your family was involved in the shooting the other day. Are you all right?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Ah, yes, thank you. We’re all fine.”
“Good. I was worried,” Felicity said, and then bit her tongue. “What… I mean, I assume you’re calling about…”
“The tests came back from QC,” Oliver said.
“Wow, that was quick,” Felicity said, and pressed her palm to her chest, trying to calm its racing pattern.
“I had them put a rush on it,” Oliver said. “I didn’t want to…”
“I understand,” Felicity said quickly. “Well?”
“I was wondering -- I mean -- I would like to have a relationship with my children.” Oliver’s voice nearly cracked. “Please.”
Felicity wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t want to keep you from them, Oliver. I just need to figure out how… I mean. We need to figure out how we go about this. I don’t want the kids to get hurt if…”
“If I wake up tomorrow and decide that Oliver Queen, playboy, doesn’t have time for being a dad?” Oliver asked.
“Well, yes. To be blunt,” Felicity said.
“I seem to recall that you like that kind of honesty,” Oliver said softly. “I don’t know what to say to you to make you think that I’ve changed, but…”
“I know,” Felicity said. “Listen, tomorrow’s Saturday, right?”
“Right.”
“We usually go to Starling City Celebration Park in the afternoon. If you’re free around one, you could stop by. I’ll introduce you to the kids as my friend. We’ll… see how it goes from there.”
The door to the twins’ room opened and Maddie stepped out. “Mama?”
“Yes, baby?” Felicity asked. “Just one second, Oliver.”
“Can I have some water?”
“There’s a glass in the bathroom. You may fill it up and have a drink and go back to bed.”
“Which uh -- which one was that?” Oliver asked.
“Madelyn. I call her Maddie. She does this quite a bit -- dozes, and then wants to go to the bathroom or get a drink, and then she goes back to bed. It just takes her a couple of hours to go to sleep all the way.”
“Oh,” Oliver said. “I guess -- I’ve probably got a lot to learn, huh?”
“One step at a time,” Felicity said.
“I do want to get to know them. And I do want to get to know you,” Oliver said, firmly. “I want to try and do my best at this. I know -- I know for sure it’s what my father would want. It’s what I want. But I’m also --”
“You also just got back from an island. And apparently you’ve got a lot going on,” Felicity said. “I get it, Oliver. Like I said -- I don’t want anything from you that you don’t want to give. But if you’re going to do this, if I’m going to bring you into our children’s lives, then I need to know that you’re doing it with your eyes wide open, Oliver. These kids don’t deserve to have their hearts broken.”
“I know.” There was a long pause, then Felicity could hear Oliver expel a long breath. “Well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Felicity hung up the phone and looked down at her hands. She hoped she was making the right decision.
**
John Diggle stared at Oliver from across the basement. “Where are you going?”
Oliver slipped his shirt back on and glanced down at his watch, calculating whether he still had time to shower or not. “The park.”
“To meet a girl?” Diggle lifted one corner of his mouth. “I thought you were still all about Ms. Lance.”
A pang hit Oliver in the stomach. Laurel. He… was going to have to tell her, eventually, and add a brand new offense to the long list of ways he had betrayed her all of those years ago. He was going to have to tell everyone. His mother, his sister…. He was going to have to figure out a way to keep them safe.
He’d never thought about doing this when he had this much to lose. But he couldn’t deny himself this, couldn’t force himself to walk away from Felicity and the kids he’d only ever seen pictures of.
“To meet Felicity Smoak.”
“The IT girl.”
“Yes. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Why are you going to the park to meet the IT girl?”
“Because she’s…” Oliver sighed. “It’s complicated, okay?”
“Oliver, I’ve known you less than a month and a half, and I’ve got say, nothing with you is ever simple.”
“I’m going to grab a quick shower and then you can drive me over,” Oliver said.
“Oh I can, can I?”
“Yeah, this is definitely an Oliver Queen meeting.”
A few minutes later, Oliver was showered and dressed in clean clothes. He found himself staring in the mirror again, the way he had just a few weeks prior. He thought he’d figured himself out on the island, firmed up all of the weak parts of himself.
How wrong he’d been. He was scared in a way he’d not been scared since the very beginning on the island.
“Oliver, are you ready to go?” Diggle’s voice cut through the bathroom door.
“Yeah.” Oliver pushed away from the mirror. “Let’s go.”
He was situated in the backseat of the black sedan before Diggle resumed his interrogation. “Oliver, you want to tell me what this is all about?”
Oliver looked out the window, and watched Starling City pass by in flashes of grey and green. “About three weeks before the boat when down, Laurel and I… broke up. For about two days. She wanted our relationship to move forward -- I was an idiot. I thought I was too young. I thought we were moving fast enough, even though we’d been dating for years. I liked things the way they were. But I was also in love with her. So I’d lie to her about how I felt. I’d tell her I was ready for us to move in together, to start looking at rings… But then every time we would start to do those things…”
“You’d wimp out, wouldn’t you?” Diggle’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. Oliver’s mouth lifted in a smile.
“Yes, exactly. I’d wimp out. I’d run for the hills. Laurel was getting really tired of it.”
“For good reason,” Diggle said.
“I went to a party at Starling City University thrown by a friend of a friend of a friend. It was getting… crazy, the way parties in those days did. But I caught sight of this beautiful blonde girl. She was watching everyone lose their minds and it looked like she thought it was hilarious. But not like she thought she was better than everyone there…. it’s hard to describe. There was just something about her.” Oliver shrugged. “I wanted her. I was single. I went over and I tried all of my best moves on her.”
“And she fell for it,” Diggle said, smugly.
“Nope. She didn’t at all. She told me she was interested in sleeping with me, if that’s what I wanted, but she had no interested in playing any games. Looking back on it, I think maybe she wasn’t as… secure as she sounded back then, but I just found it… incredibly hot.” Oliver coughed. “Anyway. We slept together. Then I got back with Laurel. And then I started sleeping with Laurel’s sister. And then the boat went down and by the time I got back to Starling City I hadn’t thought about Felicity in… a long time.”
“Oh.” Diggle was beginning to see what was going on, or so he thought. “So are you two attempting to rekindle whatever it was that made that night so… magical?”
Oliver shook his head. “No. We slept together one night, five years ago. And apparently what they tell you in health class in middle school is very true. It only takes one time.”
“She’s got your kid?” Diggle asked, his eyes widening.
“She’s got my kids. Plural. Two of them.”
“Oliver,” Diggle said sternly. “How long have you known about this?”
“She told me two weeks ago. We ran the DNA tests and I got them back yesterday. They confirmed her story.”
“And knowing that didn’t slow you down?” Diggle turned into the park’s parking area and turned the car off. “Knowing you’ve got kids didn’t make you rethink this… crusade you’ve got going on at all?”
“No,” Oliver said firmly. “If anything, it makes me want to press the accelerator. Digg, my children are living here. Going to school here. Walking the streets here. I need this place to be better for them.”
Digg sighed. “So what are we doing here? Playing at being a Dad for an afternoon?”
“No,” Oliver said. “I’m just…. meeting them. Felicity thinks we should see how it goes.”
“Well, at least one of you has got a brain in your head,” Diggle said under his breath, and he followed Oliver down the pathway to the playground.
“Keep an eye out, okay?” Oliver said under his breath as they neared the swingset. “I don’t want a lot of attention, so let me know if we need to make a quick exit.”
“Sure, Oliver.”
It was a warm afternoon in Starling City, and a Saturday to boot, so the park was crowded with children running and screaming, vaulting off of playground equipment and playing the kinds of games Oliver remembered playing all throughout elementary school. Oliver caught sight of Felicity almost immediately. She was seated on a park bench, a cup of coffee in her hands. At the office, he had noticed, she dressed nicely, but here at the park, she wore a faded pair of jeans and an MIT hoodie, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail.
She was engaged in a conversation with one of the other moms, gesturing with her hands while her eyes tracked her children throughout the park. As soon as she caught sight of him, though, she stopped and waved at him.
“Oliver!” She sounded genuinely pleased to see him as she said goodbye to her friend and said goodbye, meeting him halfway. Some part of his nerves calmed slightly. Apparently this wasn’t going to be awkward right from the start.
“Hey, Felicity.” Oliver turned to check on Diggle, who had stopped some distance away and stood, with his arms behind his back, somehow blending in with the rest of the crowd.
“Who’s that?” She asked.
“John Diggle. He’s my driver and sort of my bodyguard. It’s a long story, but he’s a good guy. I thought it might be a good idea to have him here, in case someone puts two and two together and calls the paparazzi four.”
“Hey, John,” Felicity said easily, waving her hand. “Thank you for this.”
“It’s not a problem, Ms. Smoak,” Diggle said with a warm smile. “Happy to help.”
“Well, I appreciate it. I didn’t even think….”
“I imagine you had quite enough on your mind already,” Diggle said easily. Oliver stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.
“Well, Maddie and Matthew are excited to meet you,” Felicity said, turning to look at them. “I don’t introduce them to people very often so…”
“Mama!” The little girl who ran over had hair that was longer than the picture Oliver had of her. It had been braided, although some of it was falling out. The knees of her jeans were black with mud. “Matthew pushed me over!”
“Well, you tell him to come here, and we’ll talk about it,” Felicity said evenly.
“Okay!”
Maddie ran off and then returned with her brother in tow. Oliver found himself breathless. He couldn’t find the words to speak. He wasn’t expecting to feel a connection to his children like this. He wasn’t expecting the way seeing them with Felicity would impact him.
He had, of course, mourned for the time he missed with his family. Coming back and seeing Thea so changed, so grown up, had been quite a trip. He’d known that she would be seventeen, that she would be different, but actually seeing it had thrown him.
But nothing like this. It hit him, all of a sudden, how much he’d missed. Tears threatened his cool demeanor. He’d had one extremely pleasant night with Felicity. But he’d missed the pregnancy. He’d missed seeing them as babies. He’d missed bathtimes and mealtimes and putting them to bed. He’d never cared for them while they were ill. They were meeting him for the first time, and they wouldn’t know to call him Dad.
While he steadied himself, Felicity negotiated the twins’ disagreement until they were both apologizing and hugging each other.
“Maddie, Matthew, I want you to meet my friend Oliver.”
Matthew, it seemed, was the shy one. He hid behind Maddie and waited until she shyly said hello.
“It is… very nice to meet you two,” Oliver said softly, extending his hand. Maddie looked up at him, a grin overtaking her face. She reached out and slammed her hand down on his in the most enthusiastic high-five he’d ever received.
Not to be outdone, Matthew did the same, and Oliver made a show of pulling his hand back and shaking it like they’d really hurt him.
“You are both very strong,” he said.
“I’m the strongest!” Matthew shouted. “I’m so strong, look!” He flexed his arm muscles for Oliver to see.
“Look at me!” Maddie demanded, doing the same. Oliver obligingly reached out and felt each of their bicep muscles, looking very impressed. “Your turn!” Maddie shouted, and reached her hands out to touch Oliver’s arms before he’d got them flexed. “Whooooooooa,” she said.
Felicity covered her mouth with her hand. “Would you two like to walk around, see if we can’t find the ice cream man?”
“For reals?” Matthew shouted.
“Yes, absolutely, for reals,” Felicity said.
**
They spent the next few hours in the park. Oliver was a huge hit. He climbed the monkey bars with them, he took their talk about superheroes and bugs very seriously. Never once did his attention waver from them.
It was stupidly attractive.
Felicity reminded herself over and over and over again that this was not a Disney movie. Oliver had come back from the dead. That much was true. Her children would finally have a father. That was also true. Mostly.
But they had never been in love. Her one night with Oliver, other than the conception of her children, had not been the most romantic experience. He’d been in love with someone else. She’d been a little bit lost and they’d had fun together. There had definitely been attraction there, and some heat.
Oliver had been then, and probably still was now, though, in love with someone else.
Still, Felicity thought, she could appreciate the view of Starling City’s returned pretty bad-boy playing enthusiastically with two four-year-olds. She could find it attractive, she told herself, and separate herself from the fantasy of a more traditional family.
She really and truly could.