FF#21: Deputy Mommy – Part Ten

Flash Fic Prompt #21: Three Reasons

"Holy shit!"

Felicity didn't even look up from her computer station; she just automatically, instinctively, reprimanded. "Auditory learner." Most mothers would call out 'little ears' if someone swore in front of their child, but Connor heard everything... and he retained it, too. So, she called it like she saw it, warning the offender that her son would hear, remember, and reuse everything he heard.

From across the room, she heard said son giggle. "Roy said a bad word." It didn't matter how many times Roy swore, Connor still reacted in the same way. Despite Roy's age and the fact that, technically, he was another adult in Connor's life, their relationship was very much that of two brothers, close in age. They bickered, and they tried to get each other in trouble. They competed over everything, but no one else could harass them but each other. If that happened, then they would team up, and it would be Roy and Connor against the world. It both amused and infuriated Felicity depending upon whether or not she was on the receiving end of their antics.

"Holy fucking shit."

This time, she looked up, glaring at the young man. "Roy!," Felicity exclaimed in shock and perturbation. He pushed her limits and boundaries on a daily basis, but he usually didn't flagrantly cross them.

And she wasn't the only one irked by his behavior. Oliver, usually the more easy going of the two of them, spoke up as well. "That's enough. What's wrong with you?"

Roy never apologized; he never turned to Connor and told him that he was wrong and that Connor shouldn't mimic him. Instead, she watched as Roy just... stared straight ahead, his wide gaze – she wasn't sure if he was terrified or flabbergasted – locked on Oliver and Connor where they were sitting side by side, working on the little boy's homework. School had just started up again, Connor was now in the third grade – they now knew his age and birthdate (which was coming up soon, so he'd be turning nine) and, luckily, he had been put in the correct grade the year before when he came to live with her, and it surprised no one more than Felicity how calm and patient Oliver was when it came to dealing with her – their – less than book-enthusiastic son.

"He's... he's your..." Roy's eyes skittered away from Oliver and Connor, jumping around the office where they were all working on their various tasks, moving from Felicity, to Digg, and then back to Oliver in a jerky triangle. He seemed to be pleading for somebody to understand, to agree with him, but, frankly, Felicity had no idea what he was even trying to say. Finally, Roy just gave up, his shoulders slumping as he gasped, "he's your son."

No one reacted; no one responded. After all, what could they say? It had been months since Connor asked Oliver to be his dad. It was old news. Nothing revelatory about Roy's proclamation – certainly nothing worthy of his outbursts. Yet, something was going on with the younger man. Roy had his moments. He was moody, and prickly, and Thea was still a button for him, but he wasn't prone to overreaction. In fact, he purposefully kept a tight leash upon his emotions. Felicity always assumed that control was a combination of the fact that Roy felt too much and was afraid to let those emotions out and a lingering fear after his experience with the mirakuru. He could be boisterous and petulant with Connor, but this wasn't that.

Unexpected laughter broke the stillness of the otherwise silent basement. "Of course I'm his son," Connor was the first to respond. He was amused by Roy's sudden and strange mood. "Because he's my dad."

"Yeah. I know. I really know," Roy emphasized. Felicity wasn't sure if he had blinked since he first swore.

But Connor kept going, talking to Roy like he was an idiot (which he was, Felicity contended), like he had hit his head and was concussed (which, given what they did, wasn't entirely impossible). "And Felicity's my mom, Digg's my uncle, and you're... well, Mom says you're a pest, and Dad says you're a stray... with fleas."

The teasing wasn't anything new. In fact, it was actually pretty tame – cleaned up and sanitized for Connor, but it was enough that it should have spurred Roy into reaction. He didn't banter back, though. Rather, with awe still tinging his voice, he murmured, "you're... exactly alike. Like... your movements, and mannerisms, and... facial expressions. You're like... his mini-me."

"Nature versus nurture," Diggle supplied. He had long since gone back to the scouting reports he was reading in preparation for a mission, but that didn't mean he wasn't able to still respond to Roy's sudden lunacy. Like the badass he was, John could multitask. He was a man after Felicity's admiration.

"Or nurture and nature," Roy argued, apparently not satisfied with Digg's dismissal. "It's not just how he acts. The kid looks like him, too."

"All kids look like everybody and nobody at the same time," Felicity entered the fray, standing up and walking towards the younger man. While he could annoy her like no one else, Roy was also her friend, and she was starting to worry about him. She had made light of the idea of him being hurt earlier, but, now, she was wondering if perhaps something was really wrong. "It's because their features are still developing, their bones growing, shifting. Plus, they both have blonde hair, and Connor has been insisting lately that his be cut like Oliver's."

Roy turned to her, spinning around on his stool so that he could face her. "So, then, how do you explain what that bitch said about his father?"

"Roy!" A person would have to be deaf to miss the lurking threat underneath Oliver's censure. "Cool down. Go take a walk, spar. Go patrol if you have to. I don't care, but you need to stop."

Maybe they all shared Roy's opinion about Connor's birth mother, but they never voiced such thoughts out loud. No matter what, she was still the woman who gave Felicity's son life. He had memories of her – both good and bad, and she never wanted to influence either his opinion of his birth mother or warp those memories in anyway.

"No, I'm sorry," Roy apologized to Oliver, but he was already standing up. He was already walking towards Felicity, his hands out in supplication. He wanted her to believe him; he wanted her to understand. "I'm not trying to upset the little dude or... or make you mad, but this is important. I can't just... let this go."

Taking pity on him, Felicity asked, "what are you trying to say, Roy? Just... keep it clean, okay? If you can do that, I'll listen; I'll hear you out."

He nodded – agreeing, swallowing thickly and then taking a moment to gather his thoughts. "When you first told me what Connor said about his mother, I just thought... what a bitter woman, you know? But I was just sitting here, watching the two of them together, and..." Shaking his head to regather himself, Roy changed tactics. "She said that his father died, and then she told him that his father was as good as dead. That wasn't angry ranting; that was the only way a mother could explain to a child that his father had come back from the dead but had no idea he even existed, so it wasn't some great miracle that would bring him into their lives."

Gently, Felicity said, "Roy, you have to admit that's a stretch... and not my kind of stretching but Sting's."

"There's more," he contended.

"Roy," she started, tried once again, but he cut her off.

"No, you said you'd hear me out, so listen. I said there's more, and there's more. I realize that none of this on its own is that damning, but, when you put it all together..."

"Fine," Felicity sighed, twisting around to grab her chair and tow it towards where she was standing. After sitting down, she crossed her arms over her chest, prepared to listen until Roy had said his peace. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Digg had put his work aside and was watching them closely, and Oliver and Connor were still sitting side by side – pensive looks wrinkling their brows, heads tilted at identical angles towards their right shoulders. The sheer similarity of their stances, of their expressions, made Felicity pause, but then Roy was talking once again, so she turned back to give him all of her attention.

"So, not only do they look and act alike, and Oliver's past matches the vague explanation the kid received about why his father wasn't around, but she also used to tell him that he wasn't worth it – worth two million dollars. That's both really random and really specific at the same time. And I looked it up. Kids are ridiculously expensive. I know I'm never having one. But they don't cost two million bucks to raise either. So, what was his birth mother talking about when she said that? It's been bothering me for a while now, but then I started thinking about who Oliver is... or, at least, was. Two million for the Queens ten years ago? That would have been chump change. And Moira wouldn't have had any qualms about paying some chick off if she came to them and said that Oliver knocked her up."

Connor repeated the words, "knocked up," obviously asking what the new phrase meant, but it was Oliver's choked inhalation that made Felicity shift her gaze from Roy to her boyfriend. But Oliver wasn't looking at her. Rather, he was staring at Connor like he had never seen him before... but also like he knew him better than anyone else in the whole world. Felicity didn't have a chance to process the reaction before Roy was already steamrolling ahead, pressing forth with his reasoning and his conclusion.

"Those three things combined with the idea that, after his mom saw you on TV with Oliver – happy, successful, well-adjusted, and everyone knew even back then that you weren't just another fling, she gave her kid to you? He's his son. Connor is Oliver's biological son."

Sounding completely astonished, Digg whispered, "you're either a genius or the dumbest son of a bitch I've ever met."

When no one reprimanded John, Roy complained, "hey! Why does he get to swear?"

But his whining was ignored. Pushing up from her chair, Felicity crossed the office, rounded the table where Oliver and Connor were sitting, and kneeled down between them. Connor's little brow was all scrunched up in confusion but yet hope as well, and Oliver was just shell-shocked – face slack with wonder and incredulity. He was completely dumbfounded. Unsure of how to help either of them, at a loss for what to say or what to do next, Felicity just sat there, looking between the two people who meant the most to her, the two people who meant more to her than anything and everyone else.

As it had been for the entire evening, it was Roy who once more shattered the quiet. "At least with this one, we won't have to wonder about who its biological parents are."

Felicity felt the color drain from her face. Her hands started to tingle, and she had to reach both hands out, steadying herself by holding onto Oliver's right thigh. But it was Diggle who responded, Diggle who spoke. "What did you do," he chastised Roy, standing up and leaning over his workspace in an intimidating, threatening manner. "I swear, if you got some girl pregnant..." The threat was left hanging, but it's implications were clear.

"What," Roy shouted, holding his hands up and backing away from even the thought of being a father. "Me? No!" He was talking fast, and the panic was ever-so-clear in his voice. "I just told you that I'm never having a kid. Ever." Then, vaguely and with a scowl burying his features, he gestured towards Oliver and Felicity. "He's the one who's having a kid. With her." Diggle stood up straight, his head rocketing towards her and Oliver. "Felicity's pregnant."

Underneath her hand, she felt Oliver stiffen before he shifted slightly, turning to face her. Felicity couldn't address him yet, however. First, she needed to know, "how the hell do you...?"

But Roy interrupted her – all of his earlier uncertainty and apprehension replaced with a smug bravado that she just wanted to punch off his face. "Please, I'm your driver. I spend more time with you than I do anyone else, so I memorized your... cycle – that's what it's called, right?... a long time ago. Trust me, you're either pregnant or going through menopause, and I think we both know which one of those two options is more likely, especially since you're dating Big Papa over there."

"Call me that again," Oliver rasped out, "and I'll make sure you're incapable of having those kids you don't want."

Felicity still couldn't react. She had suspected. Okay, so she had pretty much known. She wasn't an idiot, and she knew her body, but she was surprised. This was not planned. At all. In fact, three months earlier, the idea of a kid with Oliver had been a distant possibility neither of them were even thinking about until Connor asked if they were having babies because Roy told him...

Her thoughts were interrupted when her son asked, "pregnant," his tone far more knowing than she was pleased to hear. It was like he already knew the answer to the question but was just posing it for clarity.

Before she could respond, before Oliver could talk to him... like a father should in such a situation, and even before Digg, ever the amazing uncle, could step in, Roy was flapping his extremely loose jaws one more time. "Like I told you, OJ, your parents made it rain. It's raining babies, my man."

That's it. She was going to eviscerate him. As Felicity launched herself towards Roy – practically diving over the table, a strong set of arms banded themselves around her waist, holding her back. Oliver. And then he was whispering in her ear, "I've got this," before taking off himself, Roy immediately sprinting for his life.

Collapsing into the chair Oliver had just vacated, Felicity looked down at her still flat stomach and warned, "so help me, if you're not a girl..."

And then she couldn't help it; she smiled.