Chapter Text
“Okay, we’re in,” Felicity’s voice comes through over the coms while they wait outside the building for her instructions. “Looks like security has already been taken out, as were most of the cameras. Lucky for us, this guy isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. I’ll never understand why criminals think…”
“Felicity,” he says, cutting her off mid-ramble.
“He’s in the basement in the southwest corner.”
“Got it,” he says.
He breaks in the door and immediately pulls up his bow, ready to fire if needed. Dig and Thea follow after, along his flank. They have been at this enough years that they don’t need to discuss their next move, it’s basically muscle memory at this point. They quietly make their way to the basement, stepping over several security guards as they go, but not before making sure they are still alive.
As Oliver steps onto the first step, a gunshot goes off, forcing them into immediate action. He hops over the railing and lands on the floor, pulling his bow back and shooting an arrow at the man shooting at them, knocking the gun out of his hands.
“Oh god,” Felicity’s voice comes over the coms. “Um… guys.”
“What’s up?” he asks, only half listening as they watch in astonishment as the man literally disappears before their eyes.
“He’s a meta,” she says.
“You don’t say,” Digg says, sarcastically. Digg’s never quite gotten used to the supernatural elements that have been showing up over the last several years.
They keep their weapons drawn, turning around anxiously, trying to see where he’ll appear again… if he’ll even appear again.
“I’m pulling up the Central City Police Network. Looks like he’s able to become invisible and walk through walls,” she says. “Though if that’s true, why did he have to make such a commotion breaking in? Seems to me that he could just waltz in without anyone noticing and…”
“How do we stop him?” Thea asks, trying to keep her on track.
“Right,” she says, sounding a bit breathless. He can hear her frantically typing away. “I don’t know,” she admits after a minute, her search clearly turning up nothing.
“How do we know he’s even still here?” Digg asks Oliver.
“We don’t,” he admits, but still not ready to let his guard down just yet.
“I’ll call Caitlin and Cisco, maybe they have some ideas.” Felicity says.
The coms go quiet, which means they’ve been muted and Felicity is working on a solution. For now, they are on their own. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to trust his other senses to guide him through. He moves around in a cautious circle, trying to make as little sound as possible while he waits for any hint of the other man. He’s about to give up and admit that the man has probably left when he hears one of the stairs squeak. He immediately shoots an arrow in the direction the sound came from, Thea doing the same only a split second behind him.
He watches as the arrow hits a seemingly invisible force and a voice cries out in pain. Slowly, the man fades back into focus. They’d both managed to hit their mark and the man has one green arrow lodged in his shoulder and a red one in his thigh.
“Going somewhere?” Thea asks, wearing the sassy smirk that she always does when she’s particularly proud of herself.
“You all think you’re so invincible,” the man growls, pulling the arrows out of himself. The man looks like he’s down for the count, but they all keep their weapons raised just in case he’s got any more surprises up his sleeves.
“Running around with your masks like you’re some kind of heroes,” he continues. “But you’re not, are you? You’re not meta. You’re not alien. You’re nothing. There’s nothing special about any of you and you won’t be able to do anything but sit back and watch while your city burns.”
Oliver has met enough criminals in his day to know that they always talk a big game. Every last one of them. However, he’s come to understand whose talk is just that, and who needs to be taken seriously. He’s fought several of what Felicity calls “super villains” in his day. This guy? He’s so full of it that it’s almost humorous.
“And I suppose you’re the one with the master plan to burn it down?” Digg asks, amused. Apparently they all have collectively come to the same conclusion. This guy is out of his mind, but harmless — relatively speaking.
“Okay, so I talked to Caitlin,” Felicity comes over the coms again. “In theory, if you can hit him with at least 50,000 volts of electricity the energy should shock his cells enough to temporarily stop them from being able to rearrange, stopping him from being able to go invisible or get through walls. That should give SCPD enough time to get him into a cell in the meta wing.”
“So taze him?” he asks.
“Basically,” she confirms.
“Oh, oh, please let me,” Thea says, practically giddy.
Oliver waves her on and watches as she shoots him with one of their special Taser arrows. They watch as the initial tremors from the shock wears off, then he looks at them in horror.
“What did you do?” he asks, moving around, as if that’s suddenly going to bring his powers back.
“What any non-superhero does when encountering meta wackjobs,” Thea says, leaning over him condescendingly. “Got our Geek Squad to science the shit out of you.”
“I heard that,” Felicity says.
“Call SCPD and let them know where to find him,” he tells Felicity, while nodding to Digg, silently telling him to get the man ready for SCPD to take in.
Dig takes out handcuffs that he’d had in his back pocket and handcuffs the man to the metal railing of the stairs, which should be sturdy enough to hold him.
“We’re sure that the Taser worked?” he asks, always weary about leaving a meta unsupervised even if just for a minute, but knowing they really can’t risk being caught by SCPD.
“Well, technically it’s only a theory,” Felicity says. “But it’s a theory from Caitlin so I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s a 99% probability.”
“Alright,” he says, satisfied with her answer. “What’s the ETA?”
“Star City’s finest will be there in 2 minutes with the entire meta task force. You guys should get out of there.”
With one last glance at the man struggling against his handcuffs, Oliver confirms that he won’t be able to get out before the police arrive and signals for the team to move. They keep to the shadows and make their way back to where they parked the van and Ducati several blocks away.
“Felicity?”
“They are taking him into custody now,” she updates them. “The five security guards are being transported to Glades Memorial but appear to have sustained only minor injuries.”
“Well done team.”
“Thea…” he says in a warning tone.
“You know it wouldn’t kill you to celebrate a victory every now and then,” Thea says.
“It also wouldn’t kill you to hurry back,” Felicity says, out of breath. Had she really been that nervous for them? Even though their target turned out to be a meta, it was still a fairly run of the mill night compared to some of their more memorable fights.
“You okay?” he asks.
“My water broke about a half hour ago,” she says.
“What?!” all three of them exclaim. He hits the gas and speeds ahead of Digg, suddenly desperate to get back to Felicity as fast as possible.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” he asks, annoyed.
“You were in the middle of a fight with a metahuman, I didn’t want to distract you,” she says.
“For the record, if this situation ever comes up again, you distract me.”
“You mean if I’m ever pregnant again and I go into labor while you’re Arrow-ing?” she says, her voice teasing, but now that he’s listening for it, he can hear the pain in her voice. He doesn’t know how he didn’t hear it the entire time she’d been walking them through the mission.
“I’ll be there in 10 minutes, just don’t have the baby yet.”
“You do remember that these things take hours right?” she asks, and he can practically hear her rolling her eyes.
Fifteen hours later — and in his opinion, about 14 hours too many — they welcome Anabella Jade Queen into the world.
****
2026
Felicity stands in front of the television, watching in shock as the news channel shows video footage of the state of Ivy Town. While the scene of the Bay Harbor City Walk completely decimated disturbs her deeply, the image that she can’t get out of her mind is of Ray Palmer — the Atom, as most people know him — flying right into one of the falling buildings. The reporter is saying that he saved the lives of 3 children, but that he didn’t make it.
He’s not the only one. There are currently 38 confirmed deaths and at least 105 injured, with emergency personnel continuing to search for over 500 missing people.
“Felicity,” Anna, her assistant, walks in wearing a concerned look. Felicity knows if she’s walking in, that she must have tried the intercom multiple times. Felicity had been too distracted to hear it.
“What is it?” she asks, barely taking her eyes off of the television.
“Oliver is on the phone for you,” Anna says. She looks at the television and adds, “It’s just awful what’s happening in the world, isn’t it?”
Anna doesn’t wait for an answer, she walks right back out and gets back to work. Felicity sighs deeply. This is the fifth terrorist attack in several months, so Anna isn’t wrong. There’s seriously something wrong with the world if the only way it knows how to solve problems is by attacking innocent people. However, as awful as the other attacks had been, they hadn’t affected her as deeply as this one. She hadn’t known any of the victims before.
“Oliver?” she picks up the phone, knowing that if she doesn’t answer he’ll just show up at her office.
“Are you watching?” he asks.
“Yeah.” She doesn’t know what else there is to say.
“I can’t stop thinking how easily that could have been one of us. Every time you suit up you know it’s a risk but you don’t think…” Oliver trails off. He doesn’t need to finish that thought, she knows where he’s going.
“There’s a reason we quit when we did,” she says, but there’s no conviction behind her words.
When they walked away from the vigilante life, she didn’t think about all the friends she was leaving behind. If she was still on Team Arrow, would she have been able to foresee this? What if this was their fault? When they walked away, they didn’t think about all the friends they were leaving in danger.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “I know you and Ray used to… I just wanted to call and see if you were alright.”
“I honestly don’t know,” she says truthfully. “I think I’m still in shock.”
Ray and her have been over for years. Hell, she’s even married another man since ending her relationship with Ray. Still, they were friends and they’d been through alot together. He’d even entrusted her with his company while he went off to save the world from an immortal time traveler. His death wasn’t affecting her the same way Oliver’s had way back when they’d assumed Ra’s al Ghul had killed him… but she was still deeply saddened by the news. How was it that he’d been able to take down Vandal Savage only to be brought down by a fallen building.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “This whole thing is eerily similar to the Undertaking.”
“Thea’s trying to call Merlyn to see how somebody managed to build the Markov device.”
“Putting the team together again? I didn’t realize Ray meant that much to you,” she says.
“No. If she finds anything, we’ll pass the information along to the Ivy Town Police Department. It’s just… We used to go to that harbor.”
“I know,” she says. She stares at the television as they show the old shopping center, now just a pile of rocks and broken glass. “They had the best mint chocolate chip ice cream.”
“I always thought we’d move back there one day.” The tone in his voice pulls at her heart painfully.
“Oliver… I can’t do this right now,” she says as the TV shows another clip of Ray flying into the building moments before it collapses. She can feel her eyes start to water.
“I understand,” he says sadly. “I’ll let you get back to work. Just let me know if I can do anything for you.”
“I will. Thank you.” she says. She means it. She always appreciates it when he calls to check up on her. “You’re still picking the girls up from school today, right?”
“Of course.”
They say their goodbyes and hang up the phone.
“Felicity,” Anna’s voice comes over the intercom. “Mr. Greenbrier is here to see you.”
“Right,” she says, swallowing a curse. She’s completely forgotten they had a date planned for this evening.
“What would you like me to tell him?” Anna asks. By her tone of voice, Anna knows she’d completely forgotten about it.
Frack. Today is not the day for this, but she knows she can’t reschedule on him again.
“Nothing. I’ll be out in a minute, just ask him to wait.”
****
Tomohiro Kato is an incredibly intelligent man. He was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University at the age of 15 and had a degree in computer science and robotics before his 18th birthday. He went on to get a master’s degree in Information Security Technology and Management and is now the youngest member of the IT team at Palmer Tech. All this to say, he knows things.
He has killer instincts, which makes him great at his day job, but phenomenal at his night job. See, when he isn’t busy repairing damaged hard drives, troubleshooting network problems, or working with the R&D team to get the latest software up and running, he moonlights as the resident technical expert of Team Arrow. As a member of Team Arrow, part of his job is to look into different crimes and track down criminals for the rest of his team to catch.
It’s those instincts that tell him that the attacks that have been happening around the country are connected, even if he can’t prove it with a single shred of evidence. In the span of 3 months, 5 major cities have been hit with a terrorist attack and in each of those, a superhero has died. It started with Fawcett City and the Marvel family. It wasn’t public knowledge that the Marvel family had died in the explosion, but he is very good at what he does and he stumbled upon their identities long ago. So when the news announced that Billy Batson, Mary Batson, and Freddy Freeman were among the 12 people killed, he knew.
Next had been Dakota City. A mass shooting at a baseball game killed 25 people and injured close to 80 others. While Icon and Rocket were able to take the men out and stop any further casualties, Rocket had been killed in the crossfire. Then, inexplicably, because he’d been previously thought to be immortal, Icon was found dead two days later.
Two events could be a coincidence, he knows that. However, he’s watched enough cop shows in his life to know that a third is a pattern. When Supergirl died in an attack on National City, he realized that there was something happening, something that was bigger than just small groups of people getting together to attack a city to make a political statement. Though the attacks had all been executed differently and the guilty parties seemingly have nothing in common, he knows. These are part of something bigger, and whatever the plan is, it spans the country.
Only, he’s been looking for a link since August and he’s found nothing. Worse, two more heroes have died while he’s been unable to find something to work from and he feels like it’s entirely his fault. The world has lost Green Lantern and Atom and he’s been unable to stop it.
“What do you have for me?” Miyo asks, as she and Riley make their way over after finishing up their training session.
“Absolutely nothing,” he grumbles. “I can find zero evidence to suggest that any of these events are related.”
“Maybe that means they aren’t,” Riley says.
The entire team has been reluctant to believe him. He’s not sure if they aren’t taking him seriously because they are scared he’s right or if they are just stupid enough to think they are invincible. The team has been training extensively for years, but he’s not sure they will ever be as good as the Original Team Arrow was, and even they didn’t hold a candle to the abilities that Supergirl or Green Lantern had… and look how easily they were brought down.
“Okay, can you like pause your investigation and quest to solve the problems of the entire world for like two seconds and let us know what you’ve found out specifically about the threat to this city?” Miyo asks, and Tomo has to bite his tongue.
He may love his sister dearly, but he swears sometimes he’s not sure why she was brought into this, let alone who decided she would wear the green hood. She is no Oliver Queen — and yes, he knows the identities of all of the original team; like he said, he’s good at his job. His sister may have some insane skills with a bow and arrow, and she might be able to bring down guys more than twice her size, but she’s also 21 years old and sometimes that’s incredibly obvious.
“Yes, I’m dying to hit something tonight,” Sean says as he and Blayne walk down the stairs hand in hand. “Tell me you’ve got something good for us.”
Tomo sighs and tries not to roll his eyes.
“There was a break in at Kord Industries and they are being pretty tight lipped about what was stolen,” he informs them, closing out of his search to pull up the schematics of the warehouse that was broken into.
“What do you think it was?” Miyo asks.
“I don’t know, but if they weren’t willing to tell the police, I’m sure that whatever it was, probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” He says.
“Guess that means it’s time to suit up,” Blayne says with a wide smile.
****
2021
“She’s perfect,” Thea says.
“She look like a boy,” Grace says, eyeing her little sister curiously while Thea holds her.
“She does not,” Felicity says with a chuckle, leaning back into her pillows. She’s exhausted. Oliver had tried to get her to rest, but she’d insisted on staying awake at least a little bit longer so that she could see everyone’s reaction when they met the newest addition to their family.
“She don’t have no hair,” Grace argues, tentatively poking Ella.
“Careful,” Oliver warns her. “You need to be gentle with your sister.”
“You know, you didn’t have any hair either when you were born,” Thea says. “She’s a baby. It will grow.”
Grace doesn’t look like she believes her aunt, but doesn’t say anything.
“Mom would have loved her,” Thea says, looking at Oliver.
“Yeah, she would have,” he says with a serene smile. She recognizes that smile. It’s the same smile he gets when he’s staring at Grace and doesn’t think that anyone else notices. She wonders if he ever thought that he would get this.
“What she would not have loved is the mother of your children,” Felicity says, trying to lighten the mood before thoughts of Moira Queen cause Thea and Oliver to brood.
“She would have come around eventually,” Oliver says, not even trying to deny the fact that, yeah, Moira Queen had hated Felicity with a passion.
“Well, I think it’s time to get you to preschool, Ms. Grace,” Thea says, handing Ella back to Oliver, but not before placing a light kiss on her forehead. “And I’ve got to get to work.”
“Thanks for bringing Grace by,” Felicity says.
“Of course,” she says with a smile, leaning in to hug Felicity. “Seriously, you two make adorable kids.”
Felicity just smiles and watches Oliver give Thea a hug.
“I’ll get a press release drafted and send it to you for approval this afternoon,” she says to Oliver before turning to Grace. “Say goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.”
Grace attempts to crawl onto the bed and fails, until Oliver leans over and helps her up. She curls up next to Felicity and wraps her little arms around her.
“I love you, Mommy,” she says.
“I love you, too.”
“I like Baby Ella, too,” she says. “Even if she don’t have no hair.”
The adults all laugh and say their goodbyes and soon it’s back to just Oliver and her in the room with Ella.
“Everyone promised to come by later in the afternoon so that you could rest up. Samantha can't come up with William until this weekend,” he says, taking a seat next to her on the bed so that they can cuddle their daughter together.
“Will you ask John to bring my tablet when he comes?” she asks.
“No,” Oliver says, sternly. “We’re not working. You and I are taking some much needed time off.”
“Of course we are,” she says, not really believing it. “But first, I just want to check in on what the SCPD got off the meta we took down last night.”
“Felicity.”
“Oliver,” she says mimicking his tone. “Seriously. All I need is twenty minutes.”
He gives her a disbelieving look. It’s the exact same disbelieving look that Grace had given Thea only a few minutes ago.
“An hour, tops. Then I promise, pending the end of the world or other equally sucky things threatening the city, I won’t touch my tablet for anything but posting adorable baby pictures for the rest of the week.”
He nods, accepting her deal.
“I love you,” he says. He hands a fussy Ella over to Felicity so that she can feed her, then snuggles up next to her. He’s stroking Ella’s cheek while she eats when he says, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For our two beautiful daughters,” he says. “Thea was right, they are perfect.”
“I think you and your perfect DNA had a hand in that.”
****
2026
Oliver sits at his desk going through some paperwork in order to prepare for the upcoming council meeting later on that afternoon. Most of the stuff that is on the agenda to discuss is fairly mundane, which is good for him. His focus has been off ever since he found out about Ray dying yesterday. He’s worried about Felicity and how she’s handling the news. She’d assured him that she was fine when he had asked her again this morning after dropping the girls off, but he knows that she doesn’t always tell him the truth anymore. When they got divorced, he’d lost the right to know everything about her.
Felicity and he are on good terms with each other, all things considered. They talk often and spend most holidays together so that the girls don’t have to go back and forth. Besides sharing custody of two daughters, they have so many close friends in common that it really would be difficult for them to be anything other than friendly. Friendly as they might be, however, they aren’t together anymore and that worries him. What if she’s really struggling and nobody is there to see through her fake smiles and false reassurances?
He debates picking up the phone to call her, but thinks better of it. Their friendship works because he’s very careful not to cross the line from caring friend to overbearing ex-husband.
Maybe he can get Thea to check up on her.
Almost the second he thinks it, his sister comes walking into his office wearing a serious expression.
“What happened now?” he asks. Thea is almost always wearing a smile these days and has been ever since Roy proposed to her three months ago. He knows if she’s looking serious, that something is wrong.
“We just got a call from Commissioner Lopez,” she says. “There are valid threats against the Glades Memorial fundraiser tonight.”
“What kind of threats?” he asks with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This memorial is important to him and it’s been in the works for months. Why do criminals have to target charity events? Can’t they at least have the respect to target something that wasn’t meant for the city’s needy?
“The kind that make me think we might need to cancel the event,” she admits, taking a seat in front of him. Thea is usually the last one to give into a threat. She’s a fierce mix of bravery, stubbornness, and stupidity that always makes her jump without looking. It’s a trait he both loves and hates about her.
“You think we should cancel the event,” he repeats, his tone disbelieving.
“You’ve seen the riots in Coast City, right?” she says. “The people are demanding half of city council’s head after the attack there because they think that the police chief knew about it beforehand and didn’t stop it.”
“Showing that we are willing to back down at merely a threat is equally as dangerous,” he explains, rubbing his face in frustration. “It sets a bad precedent.”
“So you’d risk a massacre at a hospital?” she asks. “Ollie, half of the people there would be too sick or hurt to help themselves if something happened.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m not saying we won’t cancel it… I’m just saying we need to consider this from all angles. What did Commissioner Lopez say?”
“He said that we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” she says. “But he also commented that if we had another reason to cancel the event, like bad weather, it wouldn’t technically be negotiating.”
“That does sound like him,” Oliver says with a snort. He moves to press his intercom. “Maggie, can you send Digg in here please?”
“Of course, Mr. Queen,” his assistant says.
“Now might be a good time for you to call your friend in the hood,” he tells Thea, giving her a pointed look.
“You know, with everything that’s going on, it might be time for that friend in the hood to be you.”
“Everything being the fact that masks are dying left and right across the country?” he asks.
“Most people call us superheroes.”
He snorts at that. There was never anything super about what they did. Half of the time, they were running around clueless as to how to stop the threats that constantly plagued the city. Try as they might, they were never prepared enough to take on the Malcolm Merlyn’s, Slade Wilson’s, Damien Darhk’s, and Abraham Sokolski’s of the world — not without too many casualties.
“We were never super, and it’s not an us anymore. We retired,” he reminds her, but of course his words fall on deaf ears.
“It’s probably time to get back in the field,” she says.
“We aren’t heroes anymore,” he says, giving her a look that says this conversation is over. “Make a call to Team Arrow and inform them of the threat. They should be able to handle everything on their end.”
“And on our end?” she asks.
“I’ll get Digg to work with SCPD to make sure that nobody that attends that fundraiser gets hurt.”
****
2021
Oliver watches his girls from his spot in the kitchen where he’s cooking dinner. Felicity is on the couch burping Ella. Donna is sitting next to her, folding laundry. Thea is on the floor with Grace playing Pretty Pretty Princess. There is very little, if anything, that could make the scene before him more perfect.
In all the ways he’d imagined his life going, he’d never pictured this is where he’d end up. For a long time, he didn’t think he was worthy of it. When he was younger and still naive to the ways of the world, he had assumed that what he had with Laurel was as good as it was going to get. The two of them would be happy enough. They’d get married and have some kids, and he and Tommy would always have their weekends away to hook up with other women. He’d have his cake and eat it too, and that had seemed like the perfect life to him. He never imagined that he’d be lucky enough to find a girl that would make him stop looking for anyone else. At the time, he figured that kind of love only existed in movies. None of his friends had ever experienced it, nor had any of their parents if the Starling City gossip chain was any indication.
After the Gambit, he never thought he’d make it home alive. He lived day to day, always surprised when he survived another night. At that time, hooking up with the few girls he’d come across during his 5 years of hell was as good as it got. He didn’t think about forever, because he could barely think about tomorrow.
Once he was home, he knew that the last thing any decent girl should do is connect themselves to him. That was why, when he first realized he had feelings for Felicity the night he’d hooked up with Isabel Rochev, he had done nothing about it. If anything, he’d pushed her away with constant speeches about how he couldn’t be with somebody he cared about. He’d been so scared that he would be the destruction of Felicity.
He was an idiot. That’s really the only explanation for it. Standing in the kitchen watching his girls… it doesn’t get any better and he doesn’t know why he denied himself this happiness for as long as he did.
“No, Auntie Tia!” Grace’s giggles echo in the quiet space, making his heart fill with joy. “You wear on your fin-er.”
Oliver looks over to see his sister attempting to put a ring in her hair, making Grace fall over as she laughs uncontrollably.
Felicity meets his eyes over the back of the couch and they share a secret smile. He knows that Felicity never pictured her life ending like this either, but they are both so incredibly happy that it has.
He puts the roast in the oven and is making his way over to the living room when there’s a knock at the door. They all look at each other in confusion. The building they live in has a doorman and a floor that can only be accessed with a keycard that only Felicity, Oliver, and the doorman have. Any guest that comes to visit them has to check in with the doorman and they get a phone call informing them of said visitor. There had been no phone call, so there should not be any knock at their door.
They all seem to realize something is wrong at the same time, as Thea leaps to her feet, her carefree demeanor instantly replaced with a cold one.
“Thea, take everyone into the bedroom,” he directs her walking cautiously towards the door.
He doesn’t know what’s about to happen, but if something is going to go down, he sure as hell is going to make sure that they are all far away from it and with somebody that can defend them.
Felicity hands Ella to Thea who takes both girls into the bedroom, followed by Donna.
“Felicity,” he whispers in a warning tone.
“I’m not leaving you out here by yourself,” she says, and her voice is firm.
“This isn’t up for discussion,” he argues.
She doesn’t listen to him. Instead, she picks up her tablet and pulls up the feed for the security camera they’d installed outside the door for the unlikely occurrence anything like this ever happened.
“Oh my god,” she gasps when the screen loads. “How is this even possible?”
“Who is it?” he asks, glancing over the shoulder. He doesn’t recognize the man.
“Dad?” she says aloud, but he can tell that she’s lost in her own thoughts and not really responding to him.
His eyes dart towards the door, wondering what is going on. He knows about Felicity’s dad. Well, as much as it's possible to know about a man who’d abandoned the Smoak women when Felicity was only 7. Felicity and he have had long discussions about how her father leaving had upset her deeply and caused her to have serious abandonment issues that still affect her even now.
The man knocks on the door again, this time louder.
“It’s rude to keep your guests waiting, Klara,” the man says loudly.
“Klara?” he asks, looking at Felicity in confusion as she moves quickly to the door. Her face is terrified, but he can’t tell if it’s just the emotional pain of seeing somebody who’d once caused her pain, or if there was a legitimate threat to their safety.
The door opens and the man steps into their home without so much as an invitation.
“Hello darling,” the man says, leaning in to give Felicity a kiss on the cheek. He steps around her, right into their home where he immediately moves to take off his jacket.
“Can we help you?” Oliver asks.
“Abraham Sokolski,” the man — Abraham — introduces himself, holding out his hand. Oliver tentatively takes it, giving Felicity a questioning look while he does. What is going on here?
“Surely my Klara has told you all about me,” he says, then looks amused between the two of them. “No? Well, this is awkward. So where are my grandbabies?”
“What are you doing here?” Felicity asks. Her voice is small, smaller than it’s been in years. She’s one of the bravest people he knows, she doesn’t let fear control her, not anymore. Yet, this man has reduced her to a trembling mess in a matter of 30 seconds.
He moves to stand beside her, placing a hand at the small of her back. It’s both for emotional support and a strategic move. If something is about to happen, he’s sure as hell going to be close enough to protect her from any physical attack.
“Well, I was watching the news this morning and was shocked to see a picture of my daughter and her husband. Granted it took me a moment to recognize you with that blonde hair.” He sounds disgusted and Oliver’s hands instantly turn into fists, ready to hit him.
Felicity reaches out and squeezes his hip, silently telling him to calm down. He relaxes, but only slightly. He needs to know what is going on and he needs to know now.
“How did you get past our doorman?” Oliver asks, suspicious.
Abraham looks sheepish for a second and it’s a look that he’s seen before — a look Felicity sometimes gives him when she knows she’s done something she shouldn’t have. It hits him hard. This is really her father.
“I wanted to surprise you, so I paid off your doorman to let me up.”
“Well he’s fired,” Felicity says, voicing Oliver’s thoughts exactly. What the hell is the point of paying so much money to live here if anybody can bribe their way into their home?
“Abraham?” He hears Donna’s surprised gasp. She comes out, her face a mixture of shock and rage. “You’ve got some nerve showing up here.”
“Aleksandra,” he says. “I had no idea that you would be here.”
“My name is Donna,” she says. “I haven’t been Aleksandra in a long time.”
“Donna,” he repeats. “Felicity.”
He says their names like he’s testing them out, looking both women up and down in a way that makes Oliver squirm.
What is this man talking about? Were Donna and Felicity’s names really Aleksandra and Klara? How is that even possible. He would know if that were true. He’d done background checks on both women before he’d even approached Felicity for the first time. He realizes that there’s a very big piece of the puzzle that Felicity has never told him about and that concerns him.
Felicity doesn’t keep secrets from him. 100% honesty, that’s what they promised each other when they got married. Too many lies had come between them in the past for them to allow it in their marriage. Still, Oliver knows his wife well. If she’s lied to him about her father, it’s because there’s something she’s ashamed of him finding out.
“I can’t say I like it,” Abraham says with a deep sigh.
“Well you don’t have to,” Donna says, bitingly. “My new husband likes it just fine.”
Oliver is impressed. Donna’s never been anything but overly sweet to him. The woman he knows is energetic, optimistic, at times too excitable and ditzy, but always, unfailingly caring. He’s never seen this side of Donna, though he knew it had to exist somewhere. You don’t raise a child on your own in the neighborhood Felicity grew up in without one hell of a backbone. You don’t raise a kid as brave and bold as Felicity is without your own strength.
“I’m not here to argue with you… Donna,” he says her name with disgust, but Oliver can see that the man is trying.
He doesn’t know what to make of the situation. Clearly, neither does Felicity, if her silence is anything to go by.
“Why are you here at all?” Donna asks. “You lost all rights to this family when you walked away twenty-five years ago.”
“If I remember correctly, you’re the one that gave me the ultimatum,” he says.
“Yes, and you made your choice,” Donna says. Her voice is full of venom, and Oliver suddenly understands just where Felicity gets her angry voice from. Donna’s even more terrifying than Felicity when she gets going. “I suggest you leave before I call the police and have you arrested for trespassing. You’re still on parole, I’m guessing?”
“What?” Oliver asks. Parole? He steps in front of Felicity, protectively. He’s not sure he wants to know why this man has been in jail, knowing he’s a criminal and Donna hates him is reason enough for Oliver to know he doesn’t want him in his house.
“I think it’s pretty clear that you are not welcome in this home,” he says using his Arrow voice.
Abraham looks unimpressed.
“Klara.”
“Her name is Felicity,” Oliver says before Felicity can say anything.
“Klara,” he repeats, his voice softer this time. “I know you have no reason to trust me. Lord knows the things your mother has told you about me over the years.”
Donna scoffs at his, but Abraham keeps talking.
“I know that I’ve missed out on 25 years of your life. Hear me when I tell you that I never wanted to leave you and have missed you every day since I’ve been gone.”
Felicity crosses her arms and squares her shoulders, Oliver can see her pulling herself together. She looks like she’s about to give in when Ella starts crying from the bedroom. They all look towards the closed door where Thea has been with Grace and Ella the whole time.
“I saw their picture in the paper,” Abraham says with a smile. “They really are beautiful children.”
If Abraham thought that talking to Felicity about her daughters would warm her to him, he’d made a poor calculation. Oliver can see the exact moment that her features grow cold. Her eyes snap to her dad’s with the same glare she gives to Malcolm Merlyn whenever she sees him. It’s a look of pure hatred with no hope of redemption.
“As my husband said, you are not welcome in this house,” she says. “I don’t know why you ever thought you would be.”
“I’m just asking for a chance to get to know you,” Abraham says.
“You had your chance. When I was seven years old and begging you to stay? That was your first chance. You had 25 years of chances after that to come back at any time, but you didn’t.”
“You both moved away and changed your names, how was I supposed to find you?” he argues.
“One, by not leaving in the first place,” Felicity yells. “And even once we had, you can’t tell me you couldn’t track us down. Sure, maybe you could argue that once I turned 14 and was able to erase our past from any known database that we became ghosts… but you had seven years to to figure out where we’d moved to and what our new names were.”
“You don’t understand,” he says. “Give me a chance to explain it to you.”
“No,” she says, her voice full of conviction. He’s heard that tone before — though it’s usually a tone she reserves only for him, and even then it’s only when she’s really pissed off. There’s no changing her mind.
“Klara.”
“Felicity,” she says. “You need to leave now. I do not want you around my children. I do not want you around my husband or my mother.”
“I notice you left yourself off of that list,” he says with a hopeful expression.
Felicity sighs deeply and her shoulders slump, she’s lost the steam she’d had.
“Baby, you don’t have to do this,” Donna says. “You don’t owe him anything.”
“I know,” Felicity says. “But he owes me an explanation.”
Abraham smiles and Oliver honestly just wants to punch him right in the jugular, but he’s not sure how that would go over right now. He can’t quite figure out what Felicity is feeling. Is all of her anger coming from the shock of her father suddenly showing up on their doorstep and she’ll forgive him with time, or is she genuinely angry at the man? As much as he wants to suit up and pay the man a visit in as the Green Arrow for all the pain he’s caused Felicity over the years, he isn’t sure that Felicity would appreciate it.
He doesn’t want this man anywhere near his family, but he realizes that ultimately that isn't his decision to make. It’s Felicity’s.
“Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night,” Abraham says.
“No,” Felicity says. “Dinner is much too long of a time commitment and I’m not even sure I’ll be able to go five minutes without killing you.”
“I would like the chance to explain myself… just the two of us,” he says.
“Not a chance in hell,” Oliver interrupts.
There’s no way that he’s letting Felicity go out with a criminal on her own — father or not.
“Oliver,” Felicity protests.
“Her security will be there,” he says, looking at Felicity while he says it. He gives her a look, letting her know that he won’t budge on this and she nods, letting him know that she understands.
“Whatever you need to do to put your mind at ease,” Abraham says. “But you should know that I would never hurt her. She’s my daughter.”
“That would be a lot more convincing if you hadn’t already hurt her as badly as you have,” he says.
“Coffee,” Felicity says. “Tomorrow at one at the corner of Main and Sheerman. I reserve the right to leave whenever I want.”
“Of course,” Abraham says. He moves to put his coat on, then digs into his pockets to pull out a business card to hand to her. “In case you want to get in touch with me.”
“I won’t,” she says, but she takes his card anyway, letting Oliver know that she may be more bark than bite.
“Thank you, Klara,” Abraham says, stepping out into the hallway. “No matter what you may believe, I do love you.”
“You don’t even know me,” she says quietly, shutting the door and locking it.
“So we are most definitely going to need to talk,” Oliver says as soon as the door is closed. Felicity falls against the door, exhausted. The entire encounter obviously took a lot out of her.
“Later,” he adds, realizing that if he pushes her now, he’s likely not going to get very far. “I’ll go grab the girls. Dinner should be about ready.”
She nods as he makes his way down the hall to let Thea know that it’s safe to come out. When he comes back into the room, Donna and Felicity are both crying on each other’s shoulders.
Oliver never thought that anybody would be able to hurt them as badly as some of the villains they’ve faced. After all, if they could survive Damien Darhk and all the pain that had come along with that, they could survive anything. Clearly, he was mistaken. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He, better than anybody, should have realized the utter betrayal of being hurt by your own family.
****
2026
“Are you sure about this?” Thea asks as they walk into the main lobby of the hospital.
He’s impressed with Thea’s work. She’s been coordinating with the party planners for months to make this event happen. Despite the fact that the party planners had suggested multiple times that they hold the event downtown in one of the city’s more lavish ballrooms, he and Thea had been adamant. It’s important for the city’s elite to come to the Glades and see how most of the city lives. The event is about more than opening up checkbooks, it’s about opening up minds as well.
Still, Thea has managed to turn the lobby into an elegant spot for a black tie event, without making it over the top or completely covering up the obvious need of the hospital for donations. He’s not surprised. Thea always does great work for him, which is why he puts her in charge of the charity events they plan.
“Digg has all of our security team as well as half of SCPD here. They’ve been doing sweeps of the building all day,” Oliver says. “We are as safe as we are going to get.”
“Which is still not saying we are safe,” she says, giving him a pointed look. “But I agree with you. Cancelling the event probably would have set a bad precedent.”
He nods in agreement. He isn’t any more comfortable tonight than she is. He’s terrified of something happening on his watch, but he’d promised this city when he first ran for mayor that he would not cower to the multitude of threats it faces, and he won’t start now.
That doesn’t mean he won’t take every precaution to make sure that the people of this city are safe. As he glances around the room, he can already spot Team Arrow in place. Blayne Wittmore and Sean Tenner are on the dance floor together, using their vantage point in the center of the room to keep an eye out. To the untrained eye, they just look like two young kids in love, but Oliver is hardly untrained. He can see the way their eyes scan the room, their bodies held in anticipation of a fight.
In the corner of the room, he spots Tomohiro Kato holding a tray of appetizers. His right hand keeps moving to fidget with something in his pocket. Oliver wonders if this is his first time out in the field instead of behind his computer screen and he really prays that’s not true. They need a confident Team Arrow if something goes down, not a nervous group of children.
Oliver takes a deep breath and tries to remind himself that none of them are kids. They’ve all been working on Team Arrow long enough to no longer be considered ‘in training.’ He has to trust them to do their job like they always do. He doesn’t see Miyo Kato or Riley Sharp anywhere, but he assumes that means they are already suited up and working on dismantling the threat.
As he scans the room one more time, he catches Roy at the bar, cornered by Mrs. Smith. Oliver elbows Thea.
“Looks like you might want to rescue your fiance,” he says with a chuckle.
“Jesus,” Thea grumbles. “That woman has no shame.”
He gives the room one final scan to make sure he doesn’t see any immediate threats, then takes a deep breath and puts on his best smile. The city doesn’t need him to be the arrow anymore, it’s time for him to be its loving mayor.
****
“Big Russian guy just made his way upstairs,” Riley says, her voice coming over the coms. “Looks guilty as hell. You’re up, Green.”
Miyo smiles, sometimes Star City’s criminals just make things far too easy.
“Canary, you’re in position?” she asks, drawing her bow.
“Guarding your brother’s back you mean?” Riley says. “Yeah, we’re clear down here.”
“What’s the ETA?” she asks, slinking down the hallway, careful not to make any noise, lest any hospital staff hear her and decide to come looking. The last thing she wants is a civilian caught in the crossfire.
“3 minutes,” Tomo answers.
“Good,” she says, turning the corner and scanning for threats. The Russian man they spotted should be coming her way any minute. “The second you’re done, I want you out of here.”
“You and me both,” he says. He’s always hated field work and she’s always hated him out in the field. Sadly, it’s not always avoidable as none of them are able to do the kind of things Tomo can with a computer.
She hears footsteps headed her way. They are faint, somebody that knows how to keep their movements quiet, but they are there. When the man rounds the corner, he’s already got his gun raised and doesn’t look surprised to see her.
“What? Going to tell me I’ve failed this city?” he asks.
“Wrong Arrow,” she says, and doesn’t wait to release her arrow.
She’s learned not to give her opponents enough time to come up with counter attacks. The best move she has is to hit them as fast as she can, as hard as she can. She draws and shoots off another arrow before the first one can even land it’s mark. It’s a good thing she does. The man is able to dodge her first arrow, but in doing so, he makes himself vulnerable to her second, which lands it’s mark right in his arm, severing his nerve making it impossible for him to shoot.
“You’re a woman,” he says in shock.
“And you’re an idiot.” She shoots off one of her specialized arrows, watching as it hits him in the chest and a metal wire wraps itself around him.
“You’ll be happy to know that your new toy worked,” she says into the coms.
“I’ll save my happy dance for when we’re all back safely,” Tomo says, causing her to chuckle.
“Who do you work for?” she asks, the voice modulator making her voice a hundred times more intimidating than it would usually be.
“You think I’m scared of you?” he asks.
“I think if you’re not, you soon will be,” she says.
“You think you’re so invincible,” the man growls at her as she grabs a hold of him and drags him into an empty hospital room. “There’s nothing special about any of you and you won’t be able to do anything but watch while your city burns.”
****
Tomo stands in the basement of the hospital, waiting for his computer software to upload to the mainframe so that they can stop the virus that’s been implanted there. Earlier this afternoon, while they were investigating the threat to the Glades Memorial event, Tomo had come across it. The virus that had been implanted into the system was scheduled to cause the computers to malfunction by 10pm tonight. While this might not have sounded that threatening in light of things like earthquake machines, biological attacks, or explosives… malfunctioning computers in a hospital is actually pretty terrifying. The virus could make its way through the entire electrical system of the building, shutting off power during surgeries, turning off life support in the ICU, deleting allergy information, changing medical charts so patients overdosed… worse, the virus is virtually untraceable so it could take days for the hospital to realize what was going on.
Thankfully, his software can kill the virus, so long as it gets uploaded to the mainframe in time. Which, pending anyone showing up, it should. They have five minutes until the virus goes live and he only needs two minutes for the upload to finish.
As he waits for the software to upload, he continues to work on tracing the virus back to where it came from. It’s tricky. Trickier than any other thing he’s tried to trace before, but he feels like he’s close. If he could just get past the…
“Oh shit,” he says as he finally breaks past the firewall.
“What?” Riley asks.
“This is just the distraction.”
He sets the tablet on top of the server, confident that the upload will complete itself and takes off running back up the stairs. Riley follows after him, but they are too late. There’s a loud explosion and the entire building shakes with the impact.
****
Felicity is at her desk in the study, trying to get some work done now that the girls are finally asleep. The desk is set against a giant window overlooking the city. From here, she can see the Star City Bay as well as the Glades.
She’s engrossed in the latest proposal from R&D, trying to determine if their newest prototype is worth the $45 million dollars it would take to put it into development. She has research, reports, and spreadsheets thrown all over her desk in a system that likely only makes sense to her. She’s staring at the latest email from Curtis, trying to figure out if he’s being sarcastic or if he truly thinks that they should go ahead and greenlight the project when she sees it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches the explosion. She looks up in shock towards the Glades. She had lived in the Glades for many years when she first moved to Star City - back when it was still called Starling City. She knows exactly the area of town the explosion comes from, and it’s right near the hospital.
“Oliver…”
She doesn’t even think, her hands grab her phone and call before her mind can even catch up to itself. Oliver is at a charity event for Glades Memorial. That's why the girls are spending the night with her, even though Fridays are his night.
“Are you okay?” Is the first thing he asks when he picks up the phone.
“I’m fine, what happened?” she asks.
If this were five years ago, she would already be on her way to the lair. He’d be suiting up and finding whoever was responsible. Only, it’s not five years ago, and they aren’t responsible for solving the city’s problems anymore. At least, not in the way they used to be.
Still, her fingers itch to hack something. To do something.
“A plane flew into an apartment complex,” he says, sounding like he’s in shock.
She can hear the chaos on his end of the line. There are sirens going off, people screaming, and what sounds like a fire.
“A plane?” she asks, having a very visual flashback to a different terrorist attack that had happened over 25 years ago.
“A two passenger one,” Oliver says. “We don’t know anymore at the moment. Police are busy trying to evacuate the building in case it collapses.”
“And what are you going to do?” she asks suspiciously.
“I’m the mayor,” he says pointedly.
She knows that he can’t say anything else with how many people he’s around. She understands what he means though. He’s the mayor now, not the Green Arrow. It’s not his job to go after whoever did this. It’s his job to reassure the terrified city that they will get through this, and make plans to rebuild whatever is broken.
“I’m going to stay here until we can get everything sorted out. It’ll probably take all night.”
“Okay,” she says, still staring out the window at the black smoke that’s rising up.
“I know I said that I’d pick the girls up in the morning, but with me probably being here all night…”
“It’s alright. I don’t have any plans tomorrow anyways,” she says. “Just promise me you’ll be safe.”
“Of course,” he says. “And Felicity?”
“Yeah?”
“Please let the police handle this,” he says, his tone knowing.
She hadn’t even realized that she’d already hacked into the SCPD scanners until Oliver said this. He must have heard her typing.
She doesn’t say anything, so he adds, “For the girls.”
Well, frack. They’d promised each other that they wouldn’t get involved anymore to ensure the safety of their children. She couldn’t go back on that promise, as tempted as she is to do something. She hates feeling useless. Hates that somebody else has taken up her mantle as Team Arrow’s tech support, but she knows he’s right. She can’t help.
She shuts her laptop, and in that way that always annoys her, he somehow just knows she’s given in without even seeing her do so.
“Thank you,” he says, and hangs up the phone.
She turns on the TV to watch the news coverage, needing to see how bad the damage is. All work is forgotten as she gets lost in the news report. When her phone rings, shocking her out of her trance, she’s surprised to see that three hours has passed.
“Hello?” she answers, always suspicious of unknown numbers.
“Felicity Smoak? You don’t know me. I’m Tomo Kato. I…”
“You work in my IT department,” she says. “Is there a reason you’re calling my personal cell phone at 1 in the morning?”
“It’s not about work. Well, not about Palmer Tech,” he says. She instantly knows what he’s about to ask. She’s not an idiot. She made it her business to know every member of the New Team Arrow. In fact, she hired him on at Palmer Tech specifically because of his extracurricular activities.
“You need my help,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question.
“Desperately,” he says.