Chapter Text
The first time Ollie met Richard Wayne was at a gala held in Wayne Manor. The Queens had been invited primarily due to a business deal recently signed between Wayne Enterprises and Queen Consolidated.
When they’d arrived, Mr. Wayne had introduced them to his adopted son, Richard, then nine years old. Ollie, twelve, had immediately decided to stick with the younger boy instead of following all the boring adults like Mom, Dad, and Mr. Wayne. Richard, who whispered conspiratorially to call him ‘Dick’ when Mr. Wayne wasn’t paying attention, had been an overexcited ball of happiness. He’d dragged Ollie out of the ballroom at the first opportunity, insisting they explore the many rooms of Wayne Manor, chattering away the whole time. It was the most fun Ollie had ever had at one of these events, and he was sure they’d be great friends. He thought Dick would like Tommy too. In his mind, the three of them would grow up together at these events, inseparable best friends.
It wasn’t until the end of the night, when the Queens were getting ready to leave, that Ollie saw it. He wouldn’t understand just what he’d seen for years. When Mr. Wayne rested a hand on Dick’s shoulder, the boy gave a tiny, nearly invisible flinch. If Ollie hadn’t been paying such close attention to his new friend, he wouldn’t have seen it at all.
That’s the only time he would see Dick for three years. They lived on opposite sides of the country after all, and the only time they could meet is if their fathers had business together. Which was rare. They won’t grow up together or be inseparable best friends after all.
The second time they meet is a similar gala, and Ollie, fifteen, is excited to see Dick again. He’s not so excited once he actually sees the younger boy though.
Dick is cold now. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and he steadfastly avoids being physically close to anyone. When Ollie approaches him he flinches, this time visibly, before panic hits his eyes and he stiffens up. He relaxes slightly when he sees Mr. Wayne isn’t looking. He doesn’t talk much past a polite greeting to Ollie as he casually walks away.
He avoids Ollie the rest of the night.
Ollie knows these behaviors now, and what they mean. He’s seen Tommy behave the exact same way around Mr. Merlyn after all.
It’s sad and horrifying to realize that Mr. Wayne is abusing Dick.
The real horror is that Ollie knows now, after trying to get Mom and Dad to help Tommy, that there’s nothing he can do.
Bruce Wayne has a lot more money than the Queens, and Dad needs the business connections. If Ollie tells them, Mom will sigh sadly, but do nothing to help convince Dad that Dick needs their help. Dad will tell him that he must have misjudged the situation, as there’s no way such a highly respected businessman would ever do something so awful.
That’s what had happened when he’d told them about Tommy after all. Mr. Merlyn was nowhere near as rich and powerful as Mr. Wayne though, so Dad would be even more aggressive in shutting Ollie down.
So Ollie can do nothing but watch sadly as Dick stands tensely at his adoptive father’s side the rest of the night, his eyes so very afraid of making a mistake and being punished.
He still tries, when they return home to Queen Manor, to tell Mom and Dad about it.
They react exactly as he’d predicted, and he is sent to bed early as well. That’s the worst sort of punishment he’s ever received. Dad would never hit him. Neither would Mom.
He cries himself to sleep thinking about the chatterbox he’d met three years ago, and what he must be going through.
Just like he cries himself to sleep sometimes when he sees Tommy wearing long sleeves to school and wincing if someone bumps into him.
Because there’s nothing he can do for either of them.
___________________________________________________________________________________
The first time Ollie stole a car to go on a joyride, Dad was thunderous.
But he still didn’t hit Ollie. He never did. Never would.
Not after the second time. Nor the third. Not after the underage drinking, or the drunken brawl that followed. He probably won’t hit Ollie this time either, when the teen has been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. And assault.
Again.
No matter what Ollie does, Dad doesn’t hit him. Mr. Merlyn beats Tommy black and blue at the blink of an eye, and presumably Mr. Wayne does the same to Dick, but Robert Queen won’t ever hit Ollie, no matter how hard he tries to make him.
Why does the cheerful young boy he’d met five years ago deserve to be beaten down and broken, but drunken, irresponsible Ollie doesn’t ? Why does Tommy Merlyn, who loves animals and magic tricks and treats everyone with kindness and respect , deserve to hide bruises at school and fear saying the wrong thing at all times, when Ollie the carjacker doesn’t? Dad’s been very clear with his inaction in those two cases. After all, the evidence has certainly stacked up over the years, but he doesn’t ever listen to Ollie about either. Just makes excuses. Like Dick and Tommy deserve the hell they’re living through.
This arrest got kicked off at a Wayne Gala three nights ago, when Dick hadn’t been present at all. Mr. Wayne excused his absence as sickness, but Ollie had known better. He’d slipped away from the ballroom at the first opportunity to make his way to Dick’s room. Somehow he remembered the way from all those years ago when a tiny ball of energy and joy had shown him around. He’d found Dick in his room, and he wasn’t sick. He was battered to hell and back, with a blatantly broken leg and horrible bruising. Ollie didn’t try to wake him from his likely drugged slumber.
Ollie couldn’t imagine the pain that waking must bring.
He’d fled back to the ballroom, and on the jet home, he’d once again tried to tell Dad about Dick’s abuse. He’d thought that this would be the time Dad hit him. Because Dad wasn’t interested in Dick. He was furious with Ollie for sneaking off, and even more furious being asked to do something against Mr. Wayne for Dick’s sake.
But Dad didn’t hit him. Just turned cold and ignored him all the flight home, where Ollie had been immediately sent to his room on arrival.
That had led to the arrest. First was sneaking into a bar and getting absolutely plastered, then was starting a fight and getting kicked out. Finally came the best part, drunkenly attacking a nosy reporter who’d approached looking for a scoop. Ollie had apparently put the man in the hospital, according to the officer who’d brought a glass of water to his cell.
His cell where he is even now sitting, waiting for Dad to arrive and collect him. Maybe this time, the offense will be so severe that Dad will finally hit him. Probably not.
Dad isn’t thunderous when he arrives. If anything, he just looks tired. No beatings tonight then, dammit.
He signs a few forms, and Ollie is released into his custody. He doesn’t speak at all until they’re in the car, Ollie slouching in the passenger seat.
“You just keep doing this, Ollie. No matter what I’ve tried, you just keep doing this. The reporter won’t be pressing charges, since we funded his early retirement, but you went beyond too far this time Ollie. What the hell am I supposed to do with you now?” Dad asks, his voice bleeding frustration.
He actually recoils at Ollie’s dull, careless response.
“Beat the shit out of me like all your rich friends do to their kids?”
Ollie doesn’t say anything else. Neither does Dad. What else is there to say? Dad might not beat Ollie, but by refusing to help Dick and Tommy, he’s no better than Mr. Wayne or Mr. Merlyn.
When they get home, Ollie is sent to his room, as expected.
Dad doesn’t hit him. As expected.
What’s not expected is when Dad tells him the next morning that they’re going on a trip overseas. No jet either. They’re taking the Queen’s Gambit across the Pacific to a business meeting in China. And Dad has gotten Mr. Merlyn’s permission for Tommy to come along. It’s the closest thing to an apology that Ollie’s ever heard from Dad. He doesn’t accept it of course, but it’s a start.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Reminiscing about that night three years later, Oliver (not Ollie anymore. Not after Lian-Yu. Not after… not after Tommy,) is well aware that it wasn’t a start, it was an end. The Queen’s Gambit sank, after all, and Dad drowned. Oliver and Tommy had been marooned for two years in hell. Or, rather, Purgatory, if the Hermit had been truthful about the name. And now Tommy is… well, they’d separated during their escape from the island, so he could be anywhere.
Oliver is in Russia. Working as an enforcer for the fucking Russian Mafia. Not exactly where he’d seen himself at twenty, but when a member of the mob saves your life, you are expected to pay back that debt. He only has about a year of debt left, and if he lives through it, he’ll be able to go home at long last. So, enforcer for the mob he’ll be until then.
Oddly enough, this is where he meets Richard Wayne again. Or rather, Dick Wilson.
Renegade , they call him, and he’s been hired by Anastasia Markarova as protection . Overkill to hire the world’s greatest assassin as a bodyguard, one might think, but it seems that Renegade takes a more proactive approach to protection than most bodyguards. Most of the men sent after her are already dead.
Apparently abused children grow up to be homicidal maniacs. Granted, Oliver really only has a sample size of two, but remembering what Tommy did to the Hermit and seeing Dick-the-Assassin come back covered in blood most nights. Well…
Oliver counts himself very lucky that he’s on Anastasia Markarova’s side. Her uncle being his Boss, and all.
So Oliver, enforcer for the Russian Mafia, is currently living in a safehouse in Moscow supplied to Markarova by Renegade. He’s the only Brother currently here, as the famed dancer doesn’t trust many of her uncle’s men. She doesn’t really trust Oliver much either, but he thinks she considers him the least of the irritants she might otherwise have to put up with. She still makes sure he’s well aware that her handgun doesn’t ever leave her side.
He’s fine with this.
Just like he’s more than fine with the fact that Renegade clearly doesn’t recognize him.
The assassin is in and out of the safehouse at all hours of the day and night, never roaming too far on his hunting trips. Markarova asks him one night, when he’s just changed out of his bloodied armour, why he’s letting his targets get so close to their location. Oliver is sitting by the door on watch, trying hard not to appear an eavesdropper. A haunted look appears for just a moment in the assassin’s eyes as he replies in perfect Russian,
“Last time I was too far from someone I needed to protect, I didn’t make it in time. I never make the same mistake twice.”
And the dancer’s eyes soften a bit as she asks quietly, a strange sort of understanding in her voice,
“They weren’t a client, were they, Mr. Wilson?” It’s not really a question.
“No, they weren’t.” Renegade responds, voice tense. He’s keeping his emotions locked down tight, and any doubt Oliver had about this being Richard Wayne disappears. He’s heard that voice at so many galas with that exact same tone.
Markarova glances over at Oliver for a moment, before clearly dismissing him as unimportant. She gently grabs Renegade by the arm, and asks,
“If you’re finished with your hunting for the night, perhaps you’d be able to assist me in preparing dinner? A nice hot bowl of solyanka will warm your bones on this cold, snowy night.”
And now the assassin smiles,
“I’d love to, Anastasia.”
“Please, call me Anya.”
"Then I insist you call me Dick, Anya."
And Oliver tunes everything out as the flirting intensifies. He’s not invited to dine with them later, and he’s not looking forward to a night on watch with thin walls.
To his surprise, Markarova retires to her own room unaccompanied after their dinner, Renegade returning to the living room to clean his guns. The assassin seems to note his surprise, because he gives a wry grin and explains as he disassembles his handgun with military precision,
“Anya is a beautiful woman, and I’m certain I would greatly enjoy a night with her. But I don’t sleep with clients, and I’m not a one-night-stand kind of guy even if I did. I always end up regretting those.”
Oliver just nods, not trusting his voice. He does not want Richard Wayne to recognize him.
Even though he could possibly be a way home early.
Renegade could, technically, ask to assume Oliver’s debt as part of his payment for this job. Markarova would doubtlessly agree to it, and her uncle would do whatever she asked him to. Oliver could be free in just a week or two, when all of Renegade’s targets were six feet under. Or Oliver himself could be six feet under for knowing who Renegade really is.
It’s not a chance he’s willing to take. Not when he’s so close to going home anyway.
So he continues his silent watch as Renegade proceeds from cleaning his guns to cleaning his armor, the splatters of blood on it blending in a little too well with the red trim. The golden ‘R’ seems familiar, but Oliver can’t place where he might have seen it before. It doesn’t really matter.
Watching the man clean his equipment reminds Oliver uncomfortably of the times he and Tommy would sit and clean and oil their bows under the cruel, watchful eye of the Hermit. Another wave of grief at their parting rolls over him, smothering the good times out with the memory of Tommy’s eyes burning with hate as they went their separate ways. Oliver could have looked past the Hermit’s brutal murder, but Tommy couldn’t look past Oliver trying to stop him from doing it.
He feels the gaze on him as he comes out of his memories. Renegade has an odd look on his face, and for an instant, Oliver fears he’s finally been recognized. He hasn’t, but he has been seen.
“You’ve lost someone close to you recently.” Renegade says quietly. Oliver just nods again, eyes down. The assassin doesn’t seem to care that he’s not spoken. Just continues himself instead.
“It… doesn’t get any easier. But eventually the pain just fades into this dull, background ache. I learned that years ago, and I keep telling myself it will be the same this time. Anya understands it too. It was her sister. For me, it was my family, years ago. More recently it was a couple kids I thought of as my little brothers. Who was it for you? Family? Friend? Lover? You don’t have to answer, of course, but if you’ll take a bit of advice from an expert in loss, don’t try to smother the memories. Good or bad. You’ll never be able to move on if you don’t move.”
He seems to be satisfied with Oliver’s final nod, as he nods himself and heads to his room. The sound of the lock clicking is the last thing Oliver hears all night.
As he pours himself another cup of crappy coffee and settles in for the long night watch, he takes the assassin’s advice and stops trying not to think about Tommy. Strangely, it seems to work, as the memory of hateful eyes falls behind the memories of their hands entwined on the beach, watching the stars and dreaming of going home.
The coffee still tastes like shit though.
___________________________________________________________________________________
They say you can’t go home, and Oliver has never understand this until now.
Of course you can go home. It’s still physically there after all.
It’s not until he’s standing in front of the abandoned Queen Manor that he realizes what the phrase actually means. Things don’t stay static while you’re gone. They change. It’s not that you physically can’t go home, it’s that it won’t really be the same place you left.
Mom is gone. Not dead, so far as Oliver can tell, just vanished.
Fleeing from the circling vultures she had once considered friends.
Because apparently, when they’d scented blood, and Queen Consolidated stock was tanking due to the disappearance of its CEO, they swooped in and picked the carcass clean.
Malcolm Merlyn and Adam Hunt had led the flock, but there were dozens of other vultures too.
Oliver is legally dead, and his inheritance is long gone. He’s alone, unnamed, and destitute.
He hadn’t cried when he got off the plane in Star City with just the clothes on his back and the crate containing his bow, though it was a near thing. Standing in front of the ruins of his past, he also doesn’t cry. Just hopes wherever Mom had ended up, she’s safe. He’s not going to try and look for her. He doesn’t have the resources, and if working for the mob had taught him anything, it was that sometimes people who disappeared were safer disappeared than found. Perhaps that’s also the reason he doesn’t try and tell anyone he’s alive. He doubts that they’d try to kill him, but it’s just not worth the risk.
When he first realized that he had nothing left in Star City, only an hour or so after arriving, he nearly turned around to fly back to Russia. The Boss would take him back in a heartbeat.
He’s not proud of himself for considering it.
He’s not proud of himself for much of anything though, so this doesn’t really bother him.
He doesn’t fly back to Russia.
Instead, he goes and gets a job. Star City is no Gotham, but it has its fair share of darkness nonetheless, and the least of this is a crappy little pub that is willing to pay a dishwasher under the table. He doesn’t give them proof of ID, and they don’t ask. Or care.
It’s not great money, and he’s sleeping in an abandoned warehouse until he either finds a landlord who doesn’t ask questions or else saves up enough to purchase a new identity. The pub doesn’t feed him when he’s off, so he eats at the shelter on 9th Street sometimes. He’s lived with less, so he can handle it. Dishwashing may be one of the most miserable things he’s ever done though, even considering Lian-Yu.
Long hours of scrubbing greasy bar food off of cheap melamine plates while getting splashed and sprayed with the ungodly muck the silverware is left to soak in. The actual dishwashing machine breaks down every couple of days, and backs up everything until it gets ‘fixed’ again. The roof leaks, so every time it rains, the already-slick floor in the dish-pit becomes a skating rink of danger. And the rain gets in the walk-in cooler and the freezer, turning those already miserable places into ice rinks of danger. He’s also responsible for cleaning the bathrooms.
The less said about the bathrooms, the better.
The waitresses like him, probably because he’s quiet and keeps to himself. Maybe a bit because he doesn’t say anything whenever he finds one of them with one of the cooks or other dishwashers out by the dumpster in the alley. He doesn’t get paid enough to care what, or who, his coworkers are doing by the trash. He still hasn’t even learned their names, after all. He does feel bad for the dumpster though.
All in all, working as a dishwasher is hell. But he’s lived through worse and he needs the money, so he grits his teeth and bears it.
Then the bartender calls out sick, again , only this time they don’t have anyone to take over.
Hey, you know that one lone-wolf antisocial dishwasher who just calls everyone sir or ma’am and that’s if he says anything to them at all? Let’s stick him behind the bar!
And so Oliver is now a bartender as well.
The first night starts out as a special kind of hell, and he kind of misses the irritating metallic whine of the soon-to-break-again dishwasher as it does a piss-poor job of being a dishwasher. That machine and him have been through a lot of shit together by now. They’ve bonded.
Working directly with the customers… Well, it’s not fun.
But he does have a bit of bartending experience, oddly enough from his time with the mob, and it carries him through the night. That and his experience in dealing with unpleasant people while keeping a cheerful smile on his face. It doesn’t stop him from fantasizing about putting arrows in half the people who order, but it does help him stay polite and professional the whole time. He even starts to enjoy the chaos towards the end. It actually is kind of fun, no matter how many cement mixers the asshole frat boys in the corner booth order.
Then it’s over, and the tips at the end of the night are worth every handsy drunk groping his ass throughout the shift. After all, he’s just made more in one night of bartending than he would all week as a dishwasher.
Apparently, he also did better than the normal bartenders, because any time one of them calls out sick, or just plain doesn’t show, he’s the one that gets moved over. Eventually, the boss just starts scheduling him as a bartender after the regulars keep asking about him. They don’t want ‘generic bored asshole number three’ mixing their drinks, they want the smiling, cheerful Oliver. Who, even though he is neither smiling nor cheerful most of the time, can certainly put on a good enough show of it. He’s even started remembering people’s names. And their sad stories.
Harry’s wife left him for a younger man. So now he’s dating Sarah, whose boyfriend left her for Harry’s wife. They can’t actually stand each other, but somehow their shared bitterness is keeping them together. He drinks cheap, shitty beer, and she chugs vodka cranberries. They usually head to the alley for some private time after the third round, and when they come back, they both tip extra well for the fourth round.
Marco is a former athlete who lost his leg and his wife in the same car crash. Shots of vodka, and keep them coming until his adult son comes to drag him home. The son is getting tired of this, and Oliver doubts it will be long before he stops coming at all. Marco probably won’t make it long after that, the damage he’s inflicted on his liver too severe.
Quentin’s an ex-cop who doesn’t talk about his past, just drinks bottom shelf scotch until he decides he’s had enough and stumbles out. He also frequents the alley, mostly to throw up or piss.
John was a soldier along with his brother. Only John came home. Glass of whatever cheap whiskey Oliver recommends tonight. He likes to sit in the corner and stare at the drink for nearly an hour before he even takes a sip. Oliver imagines that he can still hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions in his head.
Oliver can still hear the sound of arrows flying on Lian-Yu. Still feel the kick of the various firearms he’d used in Russia. Still see Renegade calmly cleaning oceans of human blood off his armor.
Some nights, Oliver wants to be one of the drunken regulars.
But he’s not. He’s the bartender.
And with the tips flowing in, he’s finally got enough for a new ID.
If there’s one thing about his time in Russia that he’s grateful for, it’s the underworld contacts. Star City is a major travel hub on the Pacific, so there are resources available to him as a Brother that wouldn’t be available if he was in, say, Gotham.
So, with a few careful code-phrases, confirmation of his membership and rank, and a quick flash of his tattoo for the sake of formality, he has access to shiny new (il)legal documents proving that he exists as a living, breathing person.
He obviously can’t use the name Queen, and after so long as just Oliver, he doesn’t really care what his surname is listed as. So when presented with a list of names, he chooses one at random. Harper, apparently. It’ll take a while to get used to that.
A few days later, he’s moving his meager possessions out of his home-sweet-warehouse and into a crappy two bedroom apartment that has air conditioning, heat, electricity, and running water. No more taking showers at the decrepit and dirty public pool before work. No more huddling under donation-box blankets in front of a trash fire to stave off the cold at night.
It’s the best he’s felt in months.
Years, really.
There’s just something about looking at this apartment, run down and in a bad neighborhood though it is, and realizing just how much work had gone into acquiring it. He was at rock-bottom, and he’s pulled himself up. For a man who had been born into wealth and privilege and handed everything he could possibly want, up until the shipwreck at least, it’s a strange feeling to be completely independent now. On the island, he’d had Tommy with him, and they both had the Hermit to show them how to survive. In Russia, he’d been working, but all his needs were being taken care of by the Boss. Here, now, this is all him . Sure, it had required forged papers, but he worked damn hard to afford those.
So this is what it feels like to actually earn your way in the world.
It’s amazing, he thinks that evening at work. His genuine pride and happiness even seems to be infectious, because his regulars all tip him extra.
Walking home, his mood crashes back down when he hears the scream.
All his instincts of self-preservation are telling him to keep walking. Just ignore it. People get hurt every damn day in this part of town.
But he can’t just ignore it. For all that life has beaten him down, the child who had once cried because he couldn’t help his friends is still alive somewhere in Oliver.
So rather than turn and keep walking, Oliver runs straight into danger.
The danger being a mugging that looks like it’s about to be something far worse.
Three men, bulky and armed with knives, have backed a couple into the alley. The man is desperately trying to shield his obviously pregnant wife from their attackers, but Oliver can already see how things will go. The man will be stabbed, and all his valuables taken. The woman will also be stabbed and have any valuables taken. Eventually.
Oliver doesn’t have his bow on him, or there’d be arrows in all three thugs already. But he’s got the strong arm and back muscles of an archer, a reasonable bit of skill in hand-to-hand, and the element of surprise.
The first thug goes down quickly, not expecting to be hit from behind with the lid of a trashcan. That same lid makes an excellent shield against the knife thrust from the second thug even as the third circles. With his knife stuck in the lid from the force of his thrust, the unarmed idiot yells and charges directly at Oliver.
Which leads to the hilt of his own knife smacking into his forehead as the lid is smashed into his face. Thug number two is down for the count.
Unfortunately number three is much smarter, and keeps his knife away from the makeshift shield. He and Oliver circle each other, neither willing to make the first move yet. The decision to move is taken away from both of them when the thug gets a little too close to his original intended victims, and suddenly finds himself on the ground, having been tripped by the pregnant woman. Oliver darts in before the man can recover, and cracks his head against the ground, leaving him to join his friends in dreamland.
Then he’s being thanked, profusely , by the couple he just saved. The woman is hugging him, tight enough to be painful, and the man keeps trying to offer him cash as a payment. He turns it down. He’s making plenty to get by and they’ll need everything they’ve got for their approaching little one.
Later, when he’s laying in bed, staring blankly at the alarm clock’s reading of 3:52 AM, he thinks of how much quicker he could have helped with his bow and some arrows.
He thinks about how many other people he could help with his bow and arrows. The various muggers and rapists in this part of town might think twice before preying on innocents if they knew they’d take an arrow to the knee for their trouble.
When he was a rich kid, he’d cried at the realization that all the money in the world couldn’t help his friends. All the money in the world, and teenage Ollie had burned it on booze and bail in a pathetic attempt to earn the pain his friends suffered for no reason.
Now he’s got nothing in the bank. He makes ends meet, and when he manages to sleep, it’s with a roof over his head, but he’s just as poor as everyone else around him. Except now he can help .
He couldn’t save Dick or Tommy, but tonight he saved lives just as precious.
Next day off, he’ll take his bow back to the warehouse and set up some targets. He’s a bit rusty, but it won’t take long to get back to the skilled archer from the end of his time on the island.
He knows how to make arrows from just about anything, and there’s a lot of scrap metal and wood pallets around. They’ll be junk arrows, but they’ll do the job. Not like the people he’ll be shooting at are likely to complain about the quality of the arrows sticking out of them.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Star City newspapers rarely give front-page status to stories from the wider world these days. The people of the city don’t care about much besides their vigilante’s latest exploits.
Yesterday’s paper had a picture of the disgraced City Councilman that Oliver had exposed as an embezzler. When most of the man’s money found its way into the free clinics it had been redirected from initially, no one really had to read the story to know that Star City’s very own Robin Hood had been responsible for the whole thing.
He didn’t pick the name. Initially, the papers had just called him ‘The Hood,’ and he hadn’t cared. They can call him anything they want, it won’t change what he is. Then someone realized that the vigilante had a tendency to steal from the various criminals he put in the hospital. When they noticed that the local shelters and clinics were receiving anonymous cash donations, they put two and two together and decided their resident ‘Hood’ was actually ‘Robin Hood.’ Stealing from thugs and giving to the needy.
It was certainly true. Though some of the criminals’ money had also gone to improving his equipment. Some basic body armor to go under the green vest he’d stitched together and attached a hood to.
The cut he’d taken from Councilman Ballard’s embezzled funds will be enough to put together a proper set of armor and some better arrows. Maybe get a mask instead of the green greasepaint.
He doesn’t feel guilty for stealing from criminals, but he still only keeps enough of the funds to maintain and improve his equipment. Working is sufficient to cover his living expenses.
The papers don’t know this detail, and he doesn’t plan on telling them.
He’s been seen by police and reporters both, but never up close, and he never says anything to them. This, in part, is why the news loves him so much. There’s a scarcity of information that leaves them free to speculate on who he is and what he really wants. As a result, he’s used to seeing the speculative stories on the front page of all the papers he sees while walking to and from work.
So he’s understandably distracted by today’s paper, which actually has news from Gotham instead.
Namely, the fact that Bruce Wayne has been assassinated.
He knows, of course, that Richard Wayne is almost certainly responsible. There’s a small chance that he’s not, of course, but Oliver wouldn’t take that bet. The only real question is ‘why now?’
Probably has something to do with the existence of another orphan Bruce Wayne had taken in at some point. Jason Wayne is now in Richard’s custody, according to the paper. Oliver is not a particularly religious man, but he still says a small, quiet prayer for Jason Wayne. Abuse is usually cyclical, passed down from generation to generation. As much as Oliver hopes that Richard won’t continue the cycle, he’s also a realist. Richard is Renegade, the world’s greatest assassin, with a very bloody reputation built over a very short amount of time. Best case scenario for the kid is probably that his new guardian wants to teach him to be an assassin too. Worst case is that Richard has become far worse than Bruce was.
It’s this distracted musing that allows someone to pick his pocket.
If he hadn’t been distracted, they never would have gotten close. Even distracted, he still notices the theft. A flash of red hair is all he has to go on as he runs in pursuit of the thief.
He follows the slight figure, a teenager probably, for two blocks before he sees the red hair dart into an abandoned building. If he was anyone else, the thief likely would have gotten away at this point. Just like if he was anyone else, he’d have never noticed the thief to begin with.
He darts into the same building, startling the redhead, definitely a teen or younger. The kid races off again, deeper into the building, with Oliver in pursuit. The panting he can hear from just ahead is indication enough that this chase is nearly over. The kid’s tired from running, and will probably try and hide in some dark corner, hoping his pursuer will give up. Sure enough, that’s what he does. Except there’s no dark corner, and he’s just trapped himself in a room with no other exit.
He’s backed into the corner, arms wrapped around his knees as he pants. When he glances up at Oliver standing in the doorway, he starts to cry, burying his face in his knees as he rocks back and forth. The reason he came into this room is immediately apparent by the blankets and pillows piled up in the other corner. He lives here.
As the kid is sobbing apologies and begging for mercy, Oliver takes note of the small form in greater detail. He’s painfully thin, and dressed in barely more than rags, torn and threadbare. He’s about the most pathetic thing Oliver has ever seen, and the sight causes his heart to clench in his chest.
He crouches down next to the kid, careful not to touch him or get too close, and speaks slowly, as though to a wounded animal,
“It’s alright kid. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The boy doesn’t respond, simply pulls in on himself further, as though he’s trying to melt through the wall from sheer willpower.
Oliver knows what the kid must be thinking. Trapped by a grown man all alone in a building with no one around to hear anything that happens. He’s probably hoping Oliver will just kill him, instead of the only alternative he can probably think of.
Neither of those things will be happening.
“You did a good job on my pocket kid. If I was anyone else, it would’ve worked too. What’s your name?”
He’s still talking slow, still not touching, still keeping just enough distance that the kid has a way out.
If he runs, Oliver isn’t going to chase him this time, and maybe he senses that, because he uncurls a bit and chokes out,
“Roy. My name’s Roy.”
Roy’s accent is Star City streets all the way. This kid has been out here a long time.
“Well Roy, I’m Oliver. It’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry for chasing you, if I’d known you were living like this, I’d have just let you have the wallet. How about you let me make it up to you by buying you some dinner?”
Roy finally seems to be calming down. He’s still tense, but there’s a sort of quiet hopefulness to him that maybe Oliver really won’t hurt him. Good. The streets haven’t managed to crush his spirit completely yet.
Oliver’s seen kids destroyed by the streets before. Star City’s no Gotham, but it still has more than its fair share of drugs and depravity. Thankfully, this boy doesn’t seem to have fallen to either yet.
If Roy will let him, Oliver would like to make sure he doesn’t fall to either.
Roy pulls himself up into a proper sitting position now, and looks over Oliver carefully. There’s still fear there, but also that same sort of quiet hope. Hope that maybe he’ll eat today without getting hurt over it. Hesitantly he says,
“I like tacos.”
“Great, I know a place right around the corner from here.” Oliver says, slowly standing up, deliberately telegraphing his movements. He offers a hand. Close enough for Roy to take if he wants, far enough that he doesn’t feel trapped into taking it.
He takes it.
As they leave the building together, Roy speaks, still a bit nervous,
“You volunteer at the shelter, don’t you?”
“The one on 9 th Street, yeah.”
The shelter had fed him often enough when he was homeless. The least he can do in return is help out in his free time.
No one knows that Oliver Queen is alive. He’s not a celebrity, and any paparazzi he sees outside of costume wouldn’t know him from Adam.
But he is known around this part of town. He’s known as Oliver the Barman, the former homeless guy who volunteers at the shelter on 9th and takes random homeless people to lunch or dinner at the local restaurants.
So when he walks into the taqueria with a small, dirty child holding his hand, none of the staff bat an eye. They just show him to a booth and bring him a glass of water.
“Order whatever you want.” He tells Roy, who looks delighted at those words.
Oliver budgets aggressively, and he makes good tips as a bartender. He’s not rich anymore, but he can afford to feed this starving kid.
And Roy is starving, because as soon as he finishes his first platter of tacos, he’s looking at Oliver pleadingly. A quick wave to the waitress, and another order of tacos is on the way. And now the kid is staring at him like he hung the moon and stars in the sky. It’s both heartwarming and depressing.
After Roy finishes the second platter, he seems full. He also seems like he might follow Oliver to the ends of the Earth for feeding him. Which neatly leads into the next topic, the one Oliver is still hesitant to broach. It’s as he’s contemplating how to approach it that Roy takes it out of his hands,
“So, what happens now?” He asks, hope and nervousness and fear all warring in his eyes.
“That’s up to you, Roy. If you want, I can walk you to the shelter, make sure you’ve got a roof over your head tonight besides that drafty old place you’ve been sleeping. Or…”
“Or?” Roy asks nervously. Gotta approach this delicately, but also be very clear with the offer.
“I have a spare room at my place. The door locks from inside, and it has its own bathroom attached. You can crash there tonight if you want. Decide what you want to do tomorrow.”
Roy had tensed up at the mention of Oliver’s apartment, but relaxes at the mention of the lock. He looks torn, and Oliver can imagine the struggle going on in Roy’s head. On the one hand, he’d be going with a relative stranger to his home, where he could easily be trapped. On the other, Oliver had already had a perfect opportunity to hurt him where no one ever would have known, and had instead brought him here and fed him.
The struggle is over quickly, the kid obviously deciding it’s worth the risk.
“I’ll crash at your place. The shelter is…” He trails off uncomfortably before continuing with more certainty.
“I’ll crash at your place.”
And that settles it. Oliver pays for the meal and leaves a generous tip, then offers his hand to Roy again. Roy takes it with a lot less hesitance this time.
When they get to his apartment and Oliver shows Roy to the spare room, he’s almost surprised when he doesn’t hear the lock click. It’s not hard to figure out why though.
Oliver could have done anything he wanted in that abandoned building. Instead, he fed Roy. He could have simply brought the boy back here immediately, but he offered to take him to the shelter instead.
Not locking the door isn’t an act of trust though, since they both know the lock can’t really keep Oliver out if he wants in. It’s an act of hope. Hope that the lock isn’t necessary, and Oliver won’t try anything. The kid, and he really needs to find out how old he is, is desperately hoping that this is real.
It is.
He can worry about the future tomorrow. Tonight he leaves his own bedroom door open, so that Roy can see where he is for sure if he gets nervous in the night.
Of course, he probably should have remembered that his costume and bow were in a crate under the bed in the spare room…