William sat on the couch, two action figures in his lap. He clutched a tablet in his hands, thumbs moving as he played a video game, the sound on mute.
Oliver watched his son just sit. William hadn’t moved in more than an hour, just stared at the television. All attempts to talk were met with sullen stares or grunts for answers. Part of him wanted to grab the tablet and turn it off, to make William talk to him, to confront the problem head on.
But he knew that was just his trigger response to almost any situation. His default setting was confrontation, and had been for years. First as an angry young man, then stranded on Lian Yu, and finally solidifying once he returned home and donned the mantle of the Green Arrow. He solved problems head on, charging in, using his own power and strength to overcome whatever stood between him and his goal.
Every tool he had to solve problems was the absolute worst way to solve the problem of a traumatized son he barely knew.
Part of him was also happy that William seemed to find even a passing peace by watching whatever he was watching.
He wanted to talk to his son, but couldn’t, so he watched him from across the room.
William flinched when the doorbell rang.
“I’ve got it, son,” he said, keeping his voice as gentle as he could while moving to the door. He opened it, and smiled. Standing there was a dark-haired woman with large, kind eyes.
“Hello, Oliver,” she said.
“Hello, Raisa,” he said. “I am so glad you could come.”
“You called, and I could not say no.”
He stepped back to usher her inside. “Welcome to my home.” She entered, looking around at the fully furnished apartment.
“When are you going to decorate?”
Oliver glanced around, unsure of what she meant.
“It is lovely, Oliver,” she said. “But this is all someone else. You should add your own personality to it, make it feel more like home.”
Her words startled him, cutting to the center of something he had already been feeling. The apartment wasn’t truly his, and now he realized it wasn’t truly William’s either.
“I will do that very thing… tomorrow,” he promised.
“Good boy,” she said, moving toward the couch. “And who is this handsome young man?”
Oliver waited for William to introduce himself, but instead his son just stared at the television. Finally Oliver spoke up.
“This is my son, William. William, this is Raisa.”
William said nothing, and simply turned ever so slightly away, his eyes still on the screen.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, “he—”
Raisa cut him off with a quick hand motion, moving until she was in front of William. She sat on the coffee table in front of him and just stayed still for a moment, waiting for some signal only she would be able to interpret.
William ignored her.
Oliver wanted to step in, to say something, to break the silence in the room, but instead he stood and watched. He’d done enough hunting to recognize it as such, even if the prey at stake was the attention of a young boy, instead of food for survival.
He didn’t see what William did, and he knew that William may have done nothing, but Raisa reached out, her hand moving very slowly between them, until she touched the tablet. Leaving her fingers on the edge of it for a long moment she waited. After a full minute passed, she carefully lifted the tablet and put it beside her.
William didn’t move, but he also didn’t object.
“Do you know how long I have known your father, William?” Raisa asked.
The boy said nothing, but his head moved a scant inch.
“I have known your father since he was in short pants, much younger than you are now.” She put her hand on the couch between them, the edge of it barely touching his leg. “Do you know how old your father is now?”
William shook his head, not even enough to make his hair move, but it was just enough.
“He’s old!” she cried. “Ancient, as old as dirt.” Her laugh sang across the apartment.
William’s lips twitched, just barely, at the corners.
“So, you know I have been here a very long time, even though this is the first time we are meeting, and I will be here for a long time from now.”
The words came, just barely loud enough to hear.
“How long?”
“As long as you need me.”
William’s head bobbed in a tiny nod.
“Now, I think you need me to make dinner,” Raisa said.
“Do I get to pick?” The question was a little louder this time.
“You can pick from two choices, but you have to come to the kitchen with me to do that.” She stood. “Okay?”
William used his legs to pull himself forward to stand from the couch.
“Let’s go then, young William.” She turned and moved toward the kitchen, with William following. After a few steps she stopped. “Your father has to go to dinner with friends, William. Tell him goodbye, and we will consider dessert of some kind.”
William turned around and looked up at Oliver.
“Goodbye, Oliver.”
Oliver knelt beside him. “Goodbye, William, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“I—I love you, son.”
William nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said, turning back to Raisa and the kitchen.
Oliver stood and mouthed thank you to Raisa. Then he left with the first glimmer of hope for his son he’d had in a long time.
* * *
Felicity pushed past a group of fresh-out-of-high-schoolers and stepped into the middle of Big Belly Burger’s lobby. She looked around until she saw Diggle waving at her. Moving quickly, she arrived at the table for four. Diggle pulled a chair out for her and she sat across from Lyla.
“Oliver is running a few minutes behind,” she announced once Diggle settled in next to his wife.
“Of course he is,” Diggle said with a smile on his face.
“I think the only thing Oliver is ever on time for involves a hood and arrows.” Lyla’s smile matched Diggle’s.
“No comment,” Felicity said, “but I concede your point. Not this time, though. He’s still having issues with William.”
Diggle and Lyla shared a knowing look.
Felicity didn’t say anything. She knew her friends meant nothing by it, but the smug exclusion really chafed at her. She didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about kids—well, lately she had, not kids in general though, but one kid in particular. She’d thought long and hard about William, not just worried over him because he was Oliver’s son, but considering what William might mean to whatever she and Oliver had.
Felicity already felt bad about her feelings, no matter which way they fell at any given moment. Thinking about William didn’t help.
The waitress appeared with a tray of cups and began setting them on the table.
“We ordered a round of orange sodas,” Lyla said by way of explanation. Felicity picked hers up and took a sip, the carbonation making her nose tickle.
“I love orange soda.”
“Did someone say ‘orange soda’?”
Felicity turned to find Oliver pulling his chair out and sitting down. She leaned close to him and said, “How did things go?”
“It went well, very well. Raisa will be as good for William as she was for me.” He looked over at Diggle and Lyla, “Sorry I’m late.”
They both waved away his concern.
“Have we ordered?” he asked.
“No,” Lyla said, waving over the waitress. “But we can now.”
The woman appeared, and it only took a moment for everyone to order their regular favorites. The waitress left and they were back to being by themselves in the busy restaurant.
They laughed around the table, enjoying each other’s company. The same as the other patrons of Big Belly Burger were doing that very evening around them. No, they weren’t accountants, or software analysts, or welders, or retail clerks. They were two vigilantes, a chaotic good hacker, and the head of a secret government agency that dealt with meta-human crime and terrorism. Yet their easy laughter was the same as the people around them.
It felt… right.
And then the conversation did what conversations inevitably do when adults spend time together. It turned to work.
“John tells me you have a copycat,” Lyla said.
Oliver frowned.
“He’s not happy about it,” Felicity said.
“I can see that.” Lyla laughed. “You should never play high stakes poker, Oliver.”
Diggle put his arm around his wife. “Didn’t Dinah talk to the vic?”
Oliver nodded.
“What did she say?”
“Apparently the copycat is looking to do something with the drug trade in the city,” Oliver said.
“Taking it over?” Diggle asked.
“She doesn’t think so. She thinks he’s targeting the upper-level distributors. I trust her judgment, but…” Oliver let the sentence trail off.
“She definitely has the experience to know,” Felicity said. “That’s why you sent her in.”
“True.” Oliver shifted in his seat. “She said he attacked this Mr. Chavis to get information.”
“Did he get any?” Diggle asked.
“He gave up someone named Manny Cross.” Felicity and Lyla shifted in their seats. Oliver looked from one to the other. “You know that name?” he asked both.
“It’s come up when I was researching the influx of drugs in Star City,” Felicity said.
“Manny Cross has been on A.R.G.U.S.’s radar for a hot minute,” Lyla added. “We don’t have cause to take action, but it’s only a matter of time.” She looked sideways at Felicity. “I’m surprised you don’t know more about him.”
Felicity began tearing at her napkin, looking down as she did.
“Why would you think that?”
“I just assumed you read our files.”
“Um…” Felicity’s cheeks grew warm. “I try not to hack our allies’ systems.”
“That’s very… polite of you.”
“I said try,” she said. “Remember that, if your cyber-security guys do a deep check on your systems.”
Lyla smiled. “Well, if you find anything too easy to get past, let me know so I can send a message to IT.”
“What did Dinah recommend we do about the copycat?” Diggle asked.
“Nothing,” Oliver said. “She thinks like you.”
Lyla looked over at her husband. “How do you think the copycat should be handled?”
“I think he should be left to do his work,” Diggle said. “Maybe even brought in to work with the team.”
Felicity turned to Oliver. “You don’t think that’s a good idea?” She shook her head. “Wait, of course you don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Wouldn’t a new vigilante just help the cause?” Lyla asked. “If he’s skilled and needs discipline, perhaps A.R.G.U.S. should scoop him up. I can always use an effective agent, and you know he will be disciplined.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Oliver said.
Diggle leaned toward his wife, but spoke loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.
“Oliver is mad that someone’s biting his style.”
“No,” Felicity responded, and she shook her head again. “He’s bothered by the fact that he inspired someone else to go all Dirty Harry.”
“Death Wish is a more apt analogy,” Oliver said.
“Is that the one with the guy in the hat?”
Oliver smiled. “That’s Billy Jack.”
“Then the one with the ponytail?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Felicity said. “You get my point.”
“What I don’t understand,” Lyla said, “is why being an inspiration would bother you. You did it for the team you have now. You’ve done it in the past. This just seems like another in a long line.”
Oliver leaned forward. “Something about this one just seems almost… sinister. I don’t know why, but I don’t think this guy is on the same side of the law as us.”
“He was pretty brutal in dealing with the victim,” Diggle said, reaching for his drink. His hand shook, splashing orange soda up onto the back of it and over to the table. He set the cup down quickly.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asked.
“It’s just caffeine,” he said, moving his hand off the table to his lap. “I had an extra-large Flash with double-speed force shots at Jitters.”
Oliver was about to question his friend when Lyla’s phone began to vibrate. Within seconds, all their phones began sounding alarms.
Felicity was the first one to say it.
“I guess we should get this food to go.”