Chapter Text
This life of ours, it's a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this, hey, that's great. But it's very, very unpredictable. There are so many ways you can screw it up.
-- Paul Castellano (Assassinated by John Gotti, 1985)
Chapter One: The Machinations of a Queen
Oliver Queen perched next to a gargoyle, crouched in the shadow of the snarling demonic menace of a decorative water spout. It gave him a near-perfect view of the rooftop across the alleyway and the meeting taking place there. Rooftops were better for this sort of meeting than alleyways where too many innocent bystanders and passers-by had cell phone cameras a pocket’s-reach away, or conference rooms that were certainly hiding microphones and more cameras. Evidence and blackmail were a thriving businesses.
Most people left rooftops alone. Cold, exposed to the night’s light drizzle of rain, which couldn’t quite make up its mind between being heavy mist with a delusion of grandeur, or proper rain. Oliver, though, found that he liked spending time there . He’d grown used to time spent alone while on the island, and it was difficult to find under his current… circumstances.
The communications unit in his ear crackled. Roy Harper, his sister’s current boyfriend and full-time pain in his ass, spoke. “Hey, Oliver, it’s just like you said. Hopkins is taking a bribe.”
Oliver lifted one corner of his mouth. Of course it was like he said. He could always count on politicians to sleep with the wrong person, to think they could bury the evidence of their misdeeds in paperwork or clever computer hacking. A little old-fashioned spywork and some carefully applied pressure and he could have just about anything he wanted in Starling City.It was almost boring.
“What do you want us to do?”
“Stay in position,” Oliver said shortly, rolling his eyes. Roy Harper was far from his first choice in back-up, but his shadow was out of town on Family business that couldn’t be avoided, so he had to make due with what was available to him. “Gather information. I’ll go see Hopkins tomorrow, as Oliver Queen.”
“Hey, when you aren’t being Oliver Queen, what are you being?”
“Someone who would cheerfully push you off of a bridge.”
“Haha, that’s very funny! I like this joking thing we’re doing with each other now. It’s good.”
Oliver’s eyebrows twitched. It might have been amusement. “No one ever accused me of having a sense of humor.”
“Yeah, I still wouldn’t accuse you of that. But hey, you’re trying.” Silence fell briefly before Roy broke in over the unit again. “So, how long are we ‘staying in position’?”
“Why, do you have somewhere to be?”
“Kind of, yeah. Got a date with Thea tonight, and she’s going to start wondering if I don’t get moving.”
Oliver tamped down on the instinctive irritation. He liked Roy, sort of, but he didn’t like Roy with his sister. He didn’t like any boy with his sister. “You’re not doing a great job of throwing yourself on my mercy here.”
“Hey, it was a last minute kind of deal. You know your sister.”
Oliver nodded, readjusting his hood. He watched Roy leave for several long moments before he headed in the direction of his bike. They were heading in opposite directions -- Roy might be done for the night, but Oliver’s job was far from over. To accomplish what he had to, he would have to be quick, and silent. And subtle.
Leaving his bike unattended, Oliver moved, seemingly without effort, from rooftop to rooftop. Several blocks over, he arrived at a graying, ancient structure, far from the elite business corridors of downtown Starling City. No, this is was the kind of place a middle-man in a corporation might live. A corporation like Queen Consolidated.
Oliver lowered himself down the face of the building and found the window he needed unlocked. He didn’t so much as sigh at the trusting nature of humanity. He’d given up feeling sorry for people a long time ago. He opened the window and slipped inside, his bow and arrow out instantly.
It wasn’t all just clean blackmail and strongarming politicians. Sometimes, Oliver Queen had to put an arrow in someone, for the sake of the Family. Tonight was one of those nights.
**
Most of the Queen mansion stood dark, a few lights burned from being left on, but only his mother’s office and the entryway were lit because someone was awake and using them. Oliver wasn’t lurking, exactly, when Thea’s car finally pulled into the drive. Or, at least he was lurking in plain sight and in jeans instead of a mask and leather. He lounged comfortably on a short column at the top of the stairs, leaning back as he watched the bright white-blue of sportscar headlights approach and brush over him. Thea spotted him almost immediately.
“What are you doing?” She climbed out of the driver’s seat and kept the car between them, her expression warring between confused and suspicious. Oliver smiled and pushed himself off of his perch.
“Waiting to make sure you got home alright.”
“This protective older brother thing you’re doing?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s super cute and it can stop immediately.”
Oliver chuckled. “Sorry. I trust you. I was just…. restless. Sitting out here looking for you seemed like a good thing to do with all of my excess energy.”
Thea sighed in that dramatic way she still had. “I completely and totally understand that.”
“Something bothering you?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t know. Is something bothering you?” Thea asked.
Oliver had a flash, of wiping his arrow head clean, wiping the apartment down… He pushed it aside. “Nothing worth noting.”
“Hm.” Thea climbed the stairs, plopped down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. He tried to ignore the alcohol he could smell on her breath. “Ollie?”
“Yeah?”
“Has Mom talked to you?”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Recently?” He’d reported finishing up Adam Hunt to his mother earlier that night, but Thea wouldn’t mean that. She knew perfectly well what he did, the kind of person he was, but she did her best to remain ignorant of the particulars.
“Yeah, recently.” Thea chafed her hands up and down her jacket arms, though the night’s drizzling rain had stopped, and cleared up to be barely even chilly. She was looking at him, but she was looking at him like she wasn’t entirely sold that it was him. Her hands dropped abruptly and she moved to walk past him, tossing her keys at him. “Y’know what? Never mind. Put my car in the garage for me, okay?”
“Hey. Thea. Stop.” He was only half-surprised when she did, and he reached up to grab her arm. “Stay. Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help, Oliver,” Thea said, her voice cracking. “I don’t think there’s anything anyone could do to change her mind. Mom wants to leave everything to me. Everything, Oliver.”
His blood ran cold and he felt a shiver go up and down his spine. Some part of him had known this was coming just from the look on her face. “Everything?”
“Yes. I know what goes on in the dark, Oliver. Behind my back. And maybe I’m an awful human being but I can live with it as long as it’s not right in front of my face, you know? But I’m not Mom. I’m not you. I can’t be the head of the Dearden family. I can’t … be the person I would need to be to do that.”
Oliver swallowed. Moira putting pressure on Thea meant that it was time for certain cogs to start turning. Plans that he had had for years were suddenly set in motion. But he needed to be certain. “Did you… I mean, did you tell her? Maybe -- she can’t leave it to you if you don’t want it.”
“She says it always goes to a woman. And I’m the only one left.” Thea shook her head. “It’s my birthright. Or my destiny.”
Thea started off again, but Oliver held her still. “Thea… wait. Do you trust me?”
She sighed. “Always, Ollie.”
“Good. Then -- just -- give me a few days. I’ll make this go away.” For you.
“I don’t think you can.”
“Speedy, for you I could do far more impossible things, okay?”
Thea bent and kissed his cheek. “That’s really sweet, Oliver. Thanks for trying to cheer me up.”
“I’m not trying. I’m making you a promise. Hey. You remember when I got on the boat? And I promised you I would come back? I didn’t know the storm was coming, and it took me five years and a lifetime of hell, but I got back to you, Thea. I am making you a promise right now that you will not have to do anything in this life that you do not want to do with your life. I will help you fix this.”
Thea’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded before she ran back up to her room.
Oliver sighed and carded his fingers through his short hair. Fix it. Once he opened this can of worms, there would be no undoing it. What he was about to do would either spell his death or his salvation. Oliver looked up at the office window still lit up on the second floor. He knew where to at least start: his mother.
Moira Dearden-Queen was the scion of a fine, upstanding family of Irish immigrants, who had roots going back centuries to highwaymen and cutthroats that had, over the last century, turned a tendency of being ne’r-do-wells into a lifestyle. From rum-running, to arms dealing, to extortion, and a fair bit of assassination, the Dearden family held court in them all, and it held certain traditions as dearly as it held family.
The dearest of which seemed to be that the Dearden clan was not beholden to men. Oh, his father, Robert Queen, hadn’t been lily-white. Queen Consolidated owed more than a bit of its success to illicit means. Illicit means that Robert had turned over to his new bride in reverse dowry, which Moira wove into the Dearden ventures, emerging with a comfortable split between Queen Consolidated and the Dearden clan’s matriarch. The two moved together like dark mirrors, or maybe more like a married couple. Oliver suspected the combination of power had been a sufficiently large part of why his parents had married in the first place.
He had, of course, known about the tradition his whole life. He had vague flashes of memory of his grandmother, who had been just as formidable as his mother, commanding the men who went in and out of the Dearden family home. His grandmother had passed on the family responsibilities to his mother, who had taken to it like a duck to water.
But Thea was a different sort of animal… a different sort of person. She could be ruthless, he thought, provided the right incentive, but… he didn’t want that kind of incentive anywhere near his baby sister. He wanted her to be able to be a fashion designer or a nightclub owner or an engineer or whatever it was she wanted to do, and what she wanted to do seemed to change every minute of the day. He’d never felt he had any choice about who he was to become, and he didn’t want that for his sister.
If the family business had to pass on to a woman, then the answer to his problem was simple. He just needed another Dearden woman.
He jogged up the stairs to the second floor. He didn’t let himself stop long enough to think before he knocked on his mother’s door. It took a moment, but she opened the door herself.
“Oliver,” she said with a note of surprise in her voice. “I didn’t expect to see you again today. Did you forget something?”
“I came to check on Thea,” he said. “And it turns out we have something we need to talk about.”
One corner of his mother’s mouth rose. Of course she hadn’t been surprised to see him, he thought, and of course she knew exactly what he wanted to talk to her about. Nothing got by his mother. That was part of the reason why his hands were shaking so badly. “Of course,” she said. “Come in.”
“Mom--” Oliver started, cut off when his mother raised a slim hand between them.
“I know, dear. Thea was not … enthused with my announcement earlier.” Moira smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Those looked sad, with a hint of regret and a solid glint of steel. A fair approximation, Oliver thought, of someone who gave a shit. “It’s not really up to her, though. As it wasn’t up to me, and it wasn’t up to you, either. We are blessed to be head of this family -- truly blessed. But it involves a certain amount of sacrifice.”
His mother turned away from him and walked further into her office, picking up a tablet from the polished surface of the desk, and leaving the tacit invitation behind for him to enter. Oliver shut the door behind himself, keenly aware of his sister’s room on the next floor up, and his mother’s room at the end of the hall.
Walter was probably somewhere in the house, and Oliver didn’t particularly want to have any conversations about the family business that wasn’t Queen Consolidated in earshot of Walter or Thea. Walter did a stand up job pretending he didn’t know about his wife’s Dearden affairs, and Thea had looked ready to snap into small pieces if she thought any more about them.
“She’s scared out of her mind, mom. Really scared. We can’t do this to her. Thea’s not a good fit for the life. If something must be sacrificed, then… let me be the one to make the sacrifice.”
“I would have said the same of you a few years ago, Oliver,” Moira responded, tapping a few things out on the tablet’s surface and walking around her desk to sit in an oversized leather chair. “Sit down before you start pacing, dear.” Oliver shoved his hands into his pockets and dropped into one of the chairs across the desk from his mother. She looked up from the tablet, setting it back on the desk and lacing her fingers in front of her. “Thea will adapt. I moved heaven and earth to bring her into this world and I’m a bit old to have another daughter, and you would never be accepted.”
“Over an old tradition.”
“Over you being completely unsuited to run and organize an operation like this, which is something Thea excels at when she wants to apply herself. You have several wonderful gifts, Oliver, but you are not particularly good at seeing the big picture, moving pieces around on the board. Thea could never do the kinds of things you do -- never be the strong arm the family needs to ensure our continued place in the city. I need both of you if the family is to survive into the next century.”
Oliver clasped his hands and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He thought for one long moment. “What would it take for me to get Thea out of this?”
Moira raised her eyebrows. “Thea hardly needs you to rescue her, Oliver. Certainly no one rescued me from this life.”
“You wanted it, though.” Oliver stood again, crossed his arms over his chest. “You wanted to run the family, you maneuvered the merger with Dad’s company, you do it all, and it’s because you love it, Mom. I had to go through hell to get to the point where I could stomach the things I do in the name of the family you love. I want to spare my sister that, so…”
“So, what?” Moira asked, her eyebrows quirked up. “What’s your solution, Oliver? Clearly you have one.”
“A substitute,” Oliver said. “A woman who would be just as well-suited to the job of running the Dearden family as Thea is, but who would actually enjoy it. Someone the family would listen to, respect. Someone politically advantageous.”
“I’m afraid I have to keep the family business in the family, Oliver,” Moira said. “We can’t just outsource the Dearden family matriarchy.”
Oliver sighed. His mother was being deliberately obtuse. She wanted him to say it. “I’m suggesting I -- marry this person. She would be a Dearden, then, someone the family would accept. Thea’s off the hook, and you can rest easy at night knowing the family would be in good hands.”
Moira smirked. “Do you happen to be in love with a woman who fits such a bill? That would be quite the development.”
Oliver lifted one corner of his mouth. It was nearly amusing that his mother thought he would consider love a prerequisite for marriage. “No, but I know and respect a woman who would fill those parameters nicely. I don’t think Felicity Smoak would object to a marriage if it was put to her in the proper context.”
“Ah,” Moira said. She leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers, thinking through the suggestion. “Felicity Smoak. An interesting choice. I’ve always liked her. Of course, you’ll have to pry her away from the Russians.”
“Well,” Oliver said. “What about it?”
Moira waved a hand. “The idea has some merit, and I am, of course, all for you settling down. Convince Felicity that a marriage would be advantageous to you both. Get a ring on her finger. Then we’ll talk.”
Oliver nodded. “Okay.”
He walked the length of the corridor away from his mother’s office, down the stairs, and out the back of the house. He flipped his phone out of his pocket and pulled out his most-frequently contacted list. He selected the entry at the top of the list and waited while the phone connected.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “We’re out of time. I’m getting on a plane right now.”
“Be safe.”
Oliver nodded. “You too. See you soon.” He disconnected and left to pack.
**
The streets of Moscow flickered past the window of the rented sedan Oliver was driving, boxy buildings of the outer districts giving way to more boxy buildings - though taller boxy buildings - as they neared the center of the city. The Khamovniki District was different, somewhat. Relentlessly similar high rises - inheritances of the communist glory days - gave way sometimes to ornate buildings and manicured gardens. This part of town, sandwiched between the Boulevard Ring and the Garden Ring, housed more expensive houses - some actual mansions - set along the canal along with a fair number of old wooden houses. The car pulled up to a relatively unassuming walk up, and Oliver let himself out of the car. The driver left him with a nod and silence.
Oliver straightened his suit jacket as he walked up to the door and knocked, shoving one of his hands into a pocket and fiddling with a narrow box as he rang the bell. It took a moment before footsteps approached on the other side and the door opened with a click. Oliver found himself staring up at a man who would be taller - and imposingly broader - even if he weren’t standing up a step higher. He gave Oliver a hard look before stepping aside and pulling the door open wider with him. “Heard we were expecting company.”
“I’m Oliver,” he said, extending his hand with his bright playboy smile firmly in place.
The man, who, if he hadn’t been a linebacker had truly missed his calling, narrowed his eyes. “John Diggle. You got a last name, Oliver?”
“Ah, you are here!” Yuri was enthused, at least, Oliver thought, absorbing him in a hug. The stocky Russian wore a heavy gold ring on one hand and had inky lines of tattoos creeping from beneath his suit jacket and shirt. “I thought for sure you got caught up, it took you so long to get here.”
“I thought I made excellent time.” Considering he’d left Starling City that morning and made it to Moscow in less than nine hours, it likely felt longer for Oliver than it did for the Bratva boss.
“I am an old man. I may die any time. Nothing happens soon enough.”
Oliver raised both of his eyebrows. “You’re… not… old.”
“My father died of a heart attack at forty. I live on borrowed time. And the antioxidants my niece keeps shoving down my throat. I see you met my new security guard.”
“He appears to be very good at his job.”
“He is indeed. But we are not here for annual employee reviews, no. Come inside, have a drink!”
Oliver nearly groaned. He’d been up for almost nineteen hours straight, and parts of his body were beginning to ache that he didn’t normally even notice, and now, for sure, he would be drinking vodka until the sun came up again.
Yuri waved him further into the house and called up the stairs, “Felicity! Join us! Tell Oliver of your recent excitement.”
“It wasn’t that exciting,” Felicity called down, a door opening and shutting behind her. She was dressed as she would be for any business meeting, in a very expensive dress, one he recognized from the magazines Thea was constantly reading, her eyes sparkling with amusement behind her rectangle glasses. “Just an overly-enthusiastic disgruntled former employee. Oliver,” she said, extending her hand at the bottom of the stairs. “It’s very nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you too,” Oliver said, trying to hide his nerves behind what had been his most charming smile, in a former life, when charming girls had been something he had time to do. His whole plan hinged on Felicity Smoak having the degree of affection for him that she used to have, and her good nature and willingness to help.
“Come! We drink! We shoot the shit, as you say in America, we discuss business, we conquer the world,” Yuri said enthusiastically.
“Clearly the party started without me,” Oliver said on a chuckle.
“Or me,” Felicity said, rolling her eyes, but she took the proffered shot of vodka and downed it with an almost-professional grace.
Oliver did the same, the strong liquid burning all the way down and settling in the pit of his stomach. Yuri offered him a seat, and so he took it, settling into the chair with a sigh.
“You tell us, now, how it goes with your mother and your sister,” Yuri said, waving a hand. Oliver lifted one corner of his mouth.
“Uh, good, I guess. Mom’s pretty busy. Thea’s got her future on her mind, I think,” Oliver said, clearing his throat. “Which, uh…”
“What’s she considering?” Felicity asked, settling next to her uncle. She patted his thigh fondly and pushed the vodka bottle away from him before he could pour more shots for everyone.
“Fashion, I think?” Oliver said. “She’s got a talent for it.”
“Indeed. She’s always very well put together,” Felicity agreed. “Or so she looks in the tabloids.”
Thinking that the conversation couldn’t get more banal if he tried to push it in that direction, Oliver set his glass aside. “Forgive me for being so blunt, but I’ve come to ask Felicity for a favor.”
“Ah, it is the help of Felicity you wish,” Yuri said, nodding. “Well, then, out with it.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and tried to keep his cheeks from flushing. “I… would prefer to do it in private.”
Felicity’s lips quirked in amusement. “Oliver, if you want to me to delete something off the internet, something embarrassing, you should know you can just call….”
Oliver felt his palms go clammy, a sensation that hadn’t happened to him since he’d killed his first man on Lian Yu. “Please.”
Felicity tilted her head at him, blue eyes sharp with curiosity and calculation. She put puzzles together - and took them apart for anyone connected or interesting enough to bring them to her. Something about him must have interested her. Maybe the fact he hadn’t slept in 24 hours, Oliver thought ruefully, tamping down the urge to rub against his tired eyes, or over the slight scruff he was acquiring outside of a long-running mission.
“Sure. Let’s go into the …” she looked around, catching her uncle’s eyes for a moment before looking up the stairs behind her and finally settling on a shadowed door half blocked by a stocky potted plant. “Library, okay?”
Oliver nodded and followed her around the plant into a room he’d never spent any time in. No one in the house really used the library much - not evident by dust covering anything because there wasn’t any. The spindly Russian woman Yuri employed to clean would never have tolerated dust accumulating in any room. She’d have dealt with it with many a toe-curling, under-her-breath muttered curse, spoken in a growling mix of Russian and Ukrainian.
The library was immaculate. Immaculate and completely lacking in Yuri’s oft-left pipes, or Felicity’s tablets or absently-scribbled notes. Oliver didn’t even see anything that he could tentatively associate with Diggle in the room. The room’s sterility made it neutral territory. And the locked door - which Felicity snapped into place as soon as she flicked on a few lights and he walked in behind her - made it private.
“I have to admit,” Felicity said wryly as she gestured to a cushy couch with antique lamps on either side, “I was curious when Yuri told me that you were on your way. It’s not like you to come such a long way for nostalgia’s sake, and I was under the impression that you were quite busy in Starling City, given that it’s been some time since you picked up the phone.”
Chagrined, Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, things have been… intense. Things are changing.”
They sat, Felicity crossing one leg over the other, and Oliver with his legs spread, elbows on his thighs. “You know,” she said, “once upon a time, telling me what was on your mind would not have caused such an expression to cross your face.”
Oliver laughed. “I’m not used to thinking this hard. It’s fatigue that you’re seeing.”
“Don’t do that,” Felicity said quietly, but sharply. “You’re not stupid, and you never have been. You don’t have to play games with me.”
Oliver lifted one side of his mouth in a smile. “I don’t know. We were pretty good at games not that long ago.”
Felicity snorted. “That was pretty playboy-lame, even for you. Spill it, Queen. What’s up?”
Oliver ducked his head and rubbed his hands through the short bristly hair at the back of his head. What to say … my mother is planning to ruin my sister’s life, and I was hoping you’d be her substitute because you’re actually good at this life, and oh right, that means we’re getting married… Oliver imagined Felicity’s reaction would fall somewhere before tossing him out into the Moscow night, or tossing him out and shooting him in the hand. Both ended with a locked door, and lost dignity. He’d a lot of time to think about how to start this conversation and he still hadn’t come up with a way to get it started.
“Oliver?” Felicity prompted, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Is Yuri still trying to introduce you to a line of ‘nice young men’ from ‘good families’?” Oliver asked. It sounded abrupt in his mind, like dropping rocks in a pond, but he remembered a handful of complaints from Felicity, and a comment or two from his mother, in the past. He latched onto them, grasping at the straws they were.
Felicity laughed. “Don’t tell me Moira wants you to come over here and pick out a Russian bride. I’m not sure Dyadya knows any the Deardens would approve.”
Oliver propped his chin on his interlaced hands and smiled a bit despite himself.
“Oh no. You’re smiling.” Felicity sat up straight. “Is there something you need to tell me? Who’s the lucky girl?”
Oliver coughed. “Okay, there’s really no easy way to do this, so I’m just going to jump in, okay?”
“Okay. Sure, Oliver. That’s what friends are for. I didn’t think you hopped on a plane and flew across the ocean to ask for something little, so… spit it out.”
“You have to know that I -- I think the world of you. And there’s absolutely no one in our business that I respect more.”
“Don’t let Yuri hear you say that.”
Oliver smiled and ducked his head. “Well, it’s the truth. And that’s why I’m here, basically, to uh… propose a merger. Which would be, you know, between the two of us. And our families.”
Felicity blinked. “Wow, Oliver.”
“I know it’s a lot but…”
“Wow, Oliver.” Felicity repeated, standing up. “First of all -- least romantic marriage proposal ever, for the record.”
“I’m sorry, I thought about -- but then…”
“Secondly, wow. This… has potential, but this could also go horribly wrong.” Felicity abruptly sat back down. He could see the moment it all snapped in place for her and he nearly grinned. He adored how clever she was. “This is about Thea, isn’t it?”
Oliver shrugged and studied his hands. “She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want the life, doesn’t want the blood on her hands. She asked for my help and to be honest, I don’t want it for her, either.”
“Oliver.”
“It’s too late for either one of us,” Oliver said. He lifted his eyes and met hers. “We both had our choices to make, and we made them. But Thea -- the spot she’s in now, she’s got no options.”
Felicity nodded. “You know, I don’t recall you having a lot of choice in your initiation into the life, either.”
“It was necessary,” Oliver said. “Thea…. Thea taking the clan under her wing isn’t necessary.”
“Okay,” Felicity said.
“Okay you’ll do it? Or…”
“Okay, I’ll think about it. No matter what happens, there will be pushback. From Bratva, from the Deardens. Not everyone would take such a merger as a good thing.”
Oliver nodded. “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to secure your safety in Starling and your position in my family.”
Felicity lifted her brows. “That could mean a river of blood.”
“Or not.” Oliver shrugged. “It would be a small price to pay for my sister’s freedom, don’t you think? Felicity, I need you. There is no one in the world the Deardens would be more likely to accept. There is no one in the world more qualified to take over, and there is no one I want by my side more than you.”
“Why don’t you just take the reins yourself? You could do it. Screw tradition.”
“No,” Oliver said firmly. “I’m not… I can’t see the web the way that you can. I will be your muscle, your strong right arm, and your partner, but I can’t keep the family alive and together in a town like Starling City.”
“I do have a craving for a good American cheeseburger,” Felicity said. “Oliver, this is a huge thing you are asking of me. That you are asking of Yuri.”
“The world is changing,” Oliver said, leaning back on the couch, more confident now that he had sold her on the idea. “Connections between families could be more important than ever. The Bratva salivates at the idea of our digital reach, and the Deardens… well, we could use more on-the-ground presence. This merger… could be a good thing.”
“A merger, hm?” Felicity crossed one leg over the other. “That’s what you want your marriage to be? A merger?”
Oliver followed the move with his eyes, unable to stop the smile, or the flood of memories assaulting him. “Felicity, I think we both know from experience that this type of merger is…. exceedingly pleasant. For both of us.”
“And you’ll be expecting an heir from me, I assume.” Her lips were pursed, her arms crossed over her chest.
“If that’s your choice,” Oliver said. “The family name could die with me, for all I care.”
“That can be worked out later. I’m going to need some more vodka,” Felicity said, lowly. She uncrossed her arms and her legs, dropped some of the artifice. “I…. I am tentatively saying yes.”
Oliver’s heart nearly stopped in its chest. “You are?”
“Yes. Clearly, since this is primarily a business transaction, the details will have to be worked out between Yuri and Moira,” Felicity said, “and between you and I. I want there to be no miscommunication, no hurt feelings.”
“Get everything written down,” Oliver agreed, “so we know exactly where we stand.”
“Yes,” Felicity said. “That’s exactly it.”
**
Felicity took her hair down and ran a comb through it while she stepped out of her shoes. Her hands were shaking and her heart was racing in her chest. When they had walked away from each other three years ago, Felicity had accepted that their friendship would likely remain long-distance. It wasn’t like the Irish and Russian mobs never did any business together. She just wasn’t expecting him to show up in the middle of the night and propose marriage, of all things.
It was so unlike him, so unexpected, that she almost couldn’t trust it, except that she’d known some of what he was going back to, because she’d risked her own life to get him back to Starling some years ago. Oliver, for all of his faults, had one true virtue, and that was his deep and abiding love for his sister. She remembered that he would often speak of her fondly during the short time they were together, and he talked most frequently of how he longed to go home and see her -- that Thea and his best friend were the only things he longed for and missed about home.
It wasn’t, Felicity thought, that she disliked Moira Queen. She just didn’t trust the woman who would send her only child to a deserted island, and then Russia, to turn him into the kind of cold-blooded killer she needed in Starling City. Still, she had business dealings with the Deardens, and they had interacted in the past. It wouldn’t be completely out of line for Felicity to make a personal phone call.
Felicity dialed the international number and waited patiently while it rang through. After she’d spoken briefly to a housekeeper, she didn’t have to wait long for Moira Queen herself to pick up the phone.
“Felicity Smoak,” she said, her voice tinged with put-upon surprise. “I wasn’t expecting a phone call from you.”
Bullshit. Felicity thought it, but she didn’t say it. “Well, it appears we are to be family,” Felicity said, sitting down at her vanity and crossing one leg over the other, a position that always made her feel more powerful, more comfortable. “I thought I had better reach out to you first.”
“So Oliver has arrived, I see,” Moira said. “Congratulations are in order. Best wishes to you and my son.”
“Mm,” Felicity said. “I was just thinking that I might, as your son’s fiancee, want some of the family history explained to me.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Whether Moira had been expecting this angle or not, she took a beat to figure out what to say. “Certainly, my dear.”
“Oliver has taken the time to explain the situation to me,” Felicity said, “but I would like to hear more about it from you. You know, after all, how deeply Oliver cares for his sister, and how easily he can be pressed into doing things without considering all of his options.”
It was a risk, making so bold a statement about Oliver. Felicity didn’t quite know Moira well enough to know whether she would be offended or not.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Surely there have been times in the past when one of the sons of the Dearden family took over the mantle of patriarch,” Felicity said. “Or perhaps it’s time to break the tradition.”
“My ancestor, Maeve Dearden, married a man she loved very much, Ms. Smoak. But he made his living the best way that he knew how -- stealing from travelers along the highway in County Clare. Now, he died in the way that such men often die, violently, at the hands of one of his victims. Maeve was enraged. She took control of her husband’s men and soon was running the County. When the English drove us out to America, my great-great-great grandmother Ailing went up against Al Capone and won. It has always been a woman, Ms. Smoak, and it always shall be. If it is not you, then it will be Thea.”
Felicity nodded. “I see.”
“Yuri and I often spoke with great hope of the fondness you two had developed for each other over the course of Oliver’s time in Russia. Nothing pleases me more than to welcome you to the family,” Moira said, finally. “I hope to greet you and Oliver back to Starling City soon.”
“Of course,” Felicity said. “It will be nice to finally return home.”
When the phone call was over, Felicity put her cell down and closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths. Interacting with in-laws was always a tricky business, she knew -- or she guessed, from the many conversations that went on around her day after day, but she didn’t know that they were always this… fraught with politics.
There was a knock on her door. Glancing at her phone, she sighed and went to answer it. Apparently she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
“I saw the light was on,” John Diggle said. “I can go if you were just finishing up.”
“No, it’s okay,” Felicity said, smiling. “A nice, friendly familiar face is just what I need before I try to sleep. Would you like some tea?”
“No thanks.” John shifted his weight uneasily. “Uh, I was wondering if you would do me a favor.”
“That seems to be a theme tonight,” Felicity said, smiling to take the bite out of her words. “What can I do for you?”
“Let me come with you to Starling City.”
“Your allegiance is to the Bratva, not to me,” Felicity said firmly. “When I leave Russia, I could very well be leaving the Bratva behind.”
“Maybe,” John said, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Officially, but we all know why I signed on for this tour. Surely Yuri doesn’t want you going over there without someone to watch your back.”
“You can’t tell me Yuri hasn’t been a part of this plan since the beginning,” Felicity said crossly.
“What?”
“Oliver might not see it, well -- not at this moment, anyway, he’s smart, he’s just -- can’t see the forest for the trees, sometimes, but nothing, nothing happens in the Starling City Dearden gang that Moira Queen doesn’t personally intend to happen.”
“Sounds to me like you’re walking into a nest of vipers.”
Felicity shrugged. “With my eyes open, though.”
“Let me have your back.”
Felicity tapped the vanity with her fingernails. “It’s not really my choice.”
“I’ll deal with Yuri. Felicity….”
“All right.” Felicity nodded. “I wanted you to come, anyway. I haven’t been back to the States in a while. I’m sure to get homesick and awkward, like I always do.”
John found a seat in one of the armchairs on the outside edge of the room. “If you’re this nervous about it, I guess I’m wondering why you’re going at all.”
Felicity bit her lip. “You know I owe Uncle Yuri everything.”
John nodded, but his face was carefully blank. “So you say.”
“But here --” Felicity sighed. “Here, Yuri does his best, but he can’t fight old world attitudes for me, you know?”
“You want to be running the show.”
Felicity raised one corner of her mouth. “It has…. a certain appeal.”
“Mm. And that certain appeal wouldn’t be one Oliver Queen, who just happens to be the man who broke your heart three years ago.”
“He didn’t break my heart.”
John scoffed.
“Honestly. He didn’t. I knew he had to leave. He knew he had to leave. We had… a moment of weakness.” Felicity very carefully studied her nails. Their moment of weakness had been three blissful weeks of forgetting their obligations to the outside world and getting lost in each other.
“A moment of weakness. Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” Nobody, Felicity often thought, could raise their eyebrows quite so articulately as John Diggle did.
“Hah. Very funny.”
“Well, I ought to let you try and get some sleep,” John said, nodding at her. Felicity met him at the door, and laid a hand on his forearm.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s probably… going to be a bit messy. Those old world attitudes I talked about? There’s no guarantee how this goes over with the Bratva, or with the Deardens. It’s been almost a hundred and fifty years since someone married into the matriarchy.”
“Your point is?”
“I’m going to do what I can to protect Oliver and Thea, to make the transition as smooth as I can.”
John nodded. “You’re going to have to make some tough calls. People might get hurt.”
“It’s not optimal.”
“That’s this life, Felicity. I knew that when I signed up. I knew exactly what you are and who you are. And I’m still here.”
She felt her mouth lifting in a smile, unbidden. “Thanks, John. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
The door closed to John, to the outside world. Felicity took off her glasses, climbed into her bed and descended into sleep.