A/N: Hey guys…it's been a long time since I've updated anything. But I've been on a bit of an 'Arrow' kick lately, and after that season finale, I just HAD to write something to get it out of my system. And once I started, I just couldn't stop until I finished at least a chapter.

And yes, for those who can't read without knowing a pairing, this will be a slow-burning Olicity. Gah, even saying that makes me feel like a 12-year-old girl.

And as usual, disclaimer: I do not own Arrow.
Enjoy!

Chapter One

"Say what you will about the mirakuru, but those guys could have come in handy if we ever decided to move some furniture around."

Oliver Queen, ex-billionaire playboy and vigilante crime fighter, couldn't help but chuckle. "Glad to see your affinity for one-liners hasn't lost any ground, Felicity."

To his left, Felicity Smoak, executive assistant and electronic sorceress, tossed her omnipresent ponytail back, golden hair flashing. "You shoot bulls-eyes from a mile away, I make snarky comments." She gave him a sideways glance, blue eyes smirking behind the designer frames she favored. "We all have our superpowers."

"Yeah, well unless mine just happens to turn out to be interior redesign, I'd say we've got a lot of work on our hands," came the voice of the third member of their group, Special Forces veteran and bodyguard John Diggle as he stepped down the last stair to join the other two in surveying the ruins of what used to be the Foundry. In their drug-fueled rampage through Starling City, Slade Wilson's goons had practically torn Oliver's secret base apart. Shattered glass, overturned tables, and broken ceiling tiles littered the floor, while occasional fits of electricity still sparked from the clumps of severed wires that hung from computer monitors and fuse boxes. They had seen the damage before, in passing, but now that they finally had time to come back and inspect the room after their victory, its extent was finally becoming clear.

And that was illustrated most clearly as Felicity gave a little whimper at the sight of her prized workstation torn to smithereens.

"Those animals!" the blonde fumed, heels clicking angrily on the concrete as she crossed over to the set of smashed screens and keyboards that had been her weapon for their crusade just as surely as Oliver's bow had been his. "Do you know how much data I had stored here? How much all this equipment cost?"

"Well, I did pay for all this," Oliver ventured, trying to lighten the mood, "so…"

Felicity gave him a pointed glare, and he wisely closed his mouth as she continued her rant. "Terabytes of information, all my tech, gone! Look at this! They even…" she paused, swallowing as though fighting back tears, gesturing helplessly, "…they even destroyed my chair."

"Your chair?" Oliver stepped forward and saw Felicity staring mournfully at the remains of her rolling office chair.

"It had such great lumbar support," she whispered, and Oliver wasn't sure how serious she was being.

"Maybe I should've killed Slade after all," he said, and he was relieved to see her crack a smile.

"We'll salvage what we can," Oliver continued, turning towards his workbench. "Pack it up, move it out. Digg, you can clear up the furniture, I'll check gear, and Felicity, you can see if there's anything worth saving in the tech department."

"Triage, got it," Felicity nodded, already beginning to pop the casing off a nearby modem.

Diggle had already busied himself with muscling the larger chunks of debris out of the way, and Oliver focused his attention on casting around his work area to see how many arrows or other materials he could scavenge. While he constructed all his own arrows, the materials he used were still expensive, and now that he no longer had access to his company's profits or family fortune, he couldn't simply order more.

Getting the company back had to be their first priority, he reasoned as he shifted aside a chunk of ceiling tiles that had collapsed onto his workbench. While he knew that wealth wasn't what made him the Arrow, it certainly helped a great deal. It was going to be awfully difficult to protect the city if he could scarcely afford to feed himself. While he knew Felicity and Diggle would be more than willing to lend him money short-term, that wasn't a burden he was willing to place on them, nor one his pride would allow him to. Queen Consolidated still bore his family's name, and he would dishonor them all if he simply gave up and didn't attempt to regain control.

He paused momentarily after collecting a pair of arrows that had been trapped under the tile. Who was his family now? His parents were both dead, his sister missing and, judging from Roy's reaction to the note she had left, wasn't going to be coming back for a while.

Oliver sighed. Finding Thea was yet another entry on a to-do list that only seemed to have grown longer after Slade Wilson's defeat. Not to mention the fact that Roy Harper, his often-uncooperative apprentice and Thea's now-ex-boyfriend, had also vanished in the wake of her.

Regain control of Queen Consolidated. Find Thea. Find Roy. Rebuild or relocate the Foundry. Ensure a peaceful transition to Starling City's interim mayor. Keep order in the aftermath of Wilson's assault. It was a tall list of tasks indeed for a battered vigilante and his small team of companions, smaller now that Sara had left for Nanda Parbat to pay her debts to the League of Assassins. But as he looked around the Foundry, saw Diggle lifting an overturned table out of the way so that Felicity could scavenge the innards of a drawer of medical supplies, he felt confident. Scratch that, he felt good. For the first time in months he felt like they were ready, in spite of the Foundry's state of semi-destruction and Oliver's temporary poverty. Slade's assault had brought the team together in a way nothing else could have, the tremendous threat unifying them as a single front and erasing the cracks of tension and discord that had begun to surface throughout Oliver's often morally-gray campaign of vigilante justice. When the time had come, all of them had stepped up to the plate. Diggle had practically assaulted ARGUS headquarters to convince Amanda Waller to call off the Starling-bound drone, showing strength of character that few men possessed as he teamed up with his sworn enemy Floyd Lawton, better known as the killer-for-hire Deadshot, to keep Starling City from being turned into a crater. Not that the Special Forces veteran would ever take credit for it, but Oliver knew that he once again owed the former bodyguard his life.

And, of course, Felicity. Miss Felicity Megan Smoak, MIT class of '09, master hacker and the bravest person he knew, who had not only given a despondent Oliver the tongue-lashing he needed to keep fighting when the situation seemed hopeless, but who had volunteered herself for the most dangerous mission he had ever conceived, who had willingly allowed herself to be taken hostage by an insane killer and had personally delivered the mirakuru cure that allowed Oliver to emerge victorious.

And who had placed the mission before her personal feelings, who had born the emotional roller-coaster ride of the past few days, from Oliver's staged confession of love to their conversation on Lian Yu, with an inner strength that amazed him.

Watching Felicity's ponytail bob up and down as she searched through a set of cabinets, Oliver felt another pang of guilt at the thought of what he had done. He had manipulated her, he knew. There was no way around it. True, she had told him that he needed to "make Slade outthink him", but that was no excuse for the way he had savaged her emotions when the situation demanded it.

He could still see it, the memory as bright and vivid as day, burned into his mind by the force of two cobalt eyes that had locked with his own in a way that felt as natural as breathing; her confusion at his insistence that she stay in the deserted Queen mansion, at his sudden desperate concern for her safety, then the shock at his declaration that Slade had taken the wrong woman, the sudden mix of disbelief and hope that filled her eyes and the quiet "oh" that still echoed in his mind.

It had been that moment that triggered something in him, something he hadn't intended, a sudden override of his brain by his heart that had prompted him to go off-script. "I love you," he had breathed, and he had known in that moment that those words hadn't been a lie. They were involuntary, escaping from his mouth with a quiet sincerity that he couldn't have acted if he tried.

And then, the next moment. When he realized his mistake, when the rational part of his mind took over again and he had to surrender to the realities of the present even as his heart raged against what he was about to do.

And the light that died in her eyes when he pressed the syringe into her hand, the way her frame seemed to collapse inwards even as she stood perfectly still, the words, "do you understand?" ringing as clear to her as a death knell.

But even though it seemed like two different parts of him that had experienced that moment, the rational mind and the clamoring heart, it was on him alone that the blame lay. It was he who had crushed her hopes just moments after raising them, who had manipulated her emotions for the benefit of Slade's goons, watching on the cameras, who had used her as a tool to advance his plan.

It was that guilt which weighed so heavily upon him, more so than the weight of all those he had killed, directly and indirectly, over the past six years. Even though what he did had been to defeat Slade and save the city, his heart still raged, still insisted that there had to have been another way, a way that didn't involve savaging the emotions of a girl who cared for him so deeply that she would be well within her rights to never trust him again.

But that was the amazing part about Felicity Smoak. Even after all that, even after realizing that Oliver's confession had been staged and that she was being called upon to perform the most dangerous task of the battle, she had answered that call with no reservations. The way she had performed, had remained so calm and poised with the biting edge of Slade's katana at her neck, had been prepared to willingly sacrifice herself so that the man who had just put an arrow through her heart could put another through Slade's eye, still sent chills up Oliver's spine.

Even days later, on Lian Yu, when she'd had the opportunity and the right to tear into him for his machinations, she had done the unthinkable. She forgave him, brushed his sins aside in a rambling, charmingly-awkward conversation that was so completely Felicity it pained him.

He didn't deserve her. He knew that. Someone as dark and broken and damaged as him didn't deserve someone as pure and kind and good as Felicity Smoak.

But he could try. It was for her, he realized, more than his own principles, that he hadn't killed Slade, that he had held back from once again putting an arrow through his former friend's eye. It was Felicity who had inspired him to try another way of bringing justice, who had turned him away from a path of darkness that was slowly consuming his soul.

Out of all the women eager to line up for Starling City's most eligible bachelor, it was the bumbling, babbling IT girl with the heart of gold and the will of iron who had charmed her way into Oliver's heart.

"Oliver?"

The archer recognized Diggle's voice as soon as the man's hand touched his shoulder, but that didn't stop him from reacting instinctively, ducking out from under Diggle's arm even as his own hands latched around the soldier's forearm, ready to heave him over his shoulder.

"Whoa, man, easy!" Diggle protested, twisting out of Oliver's grasp and taking a step back with hands raised. "It's just me."

"Right. Sorry about that," Oliver apologized, hands sliding sheepishly into his pockets. "You startled me."

"Apparently," Diggle chuckled. "I guess that's a point to me, then, huh? How many people can say they've snuck up on the Arrow?"

"I was...distracted," Oliver mumbled.

"I know," Diggle said with a quiet grin. "You've been staring at her for the past five minutes."

Oliver blinked, his face flushing. "What? Oh, I, uh…" he trailed off awkwardly, incredibly thankful that Felicity hadn't turned around to meet his gaze. "I'm just worried about her," he said. "She's been through a lot."

"We all have," Diggle responded. "But you're not doing the clean-up effort any good by sitting there all doe-eyed." Before Oliver could defend himself, Diggle raised a preemptive hand. "Anyways, I figured if we're going to be down here all day, we could probably use some lunch." He passed Oliver his phone, which currently had the menu of the team's go-to pizza place pulled up.

"Tony's is still open?" Oliver wondered. Being located in the Glades, the part of the city that had been hit the hardest by Slade's shock troops and subsequent looting, he was amazed that Tony's hadn't been among the casualties.

"Can't hell nor high water stop an authentic Italian chef from practicing his art," Diggle intoned seriously, and Oliver smiled, a mental picture of Tony standing outside his business and menacing Slade's goons with a pizza slicer forming in his head.

"Heroic as he may be, I think you're forgetting one thing," Oliver said. "I'm broke. When she took over Queen Consolidated, Isabel cut off all my lines of credit, and billionaires aren't usually in the habit of carrying about spare change."

"Relax, Oliver," Diggle said. "This one's on me."

Oliver opened his mouth to protest, but the look in Diggle's eyes silenced him.

"Well, I owe you one," he said instead.

Diggle snorted. "Son, you owe me for so many times I could be a billionaire myself if I called them all in."

Oliver ignored him and turned to face the third member of their team, who was now elbow-deep in the wiring of her station's central monitor. "Felicity," he called. "Digg's ordering pizza; the usual for you?"

"One-quarter of whatever it is you get," Felicity confirmed, and Oliver smiled. Due to her Jewish beliefs, Felicity always reserved a quarter of the team's food to be kosher. In this case, that meant no meat toppings, but in typical form, Felicity put her own unique spin on it by insisting that her portion be decorated with pineapple, which often resulted in very unique creations, as Oliver and Diggle preferred to pile their own portions high with various meats.

"Alright," Oliver said, nodding to Diggle to send the order in. "Pineapple belongs nowhere near a proper pizza," he muttered to himself.

"Excuse me?" Felicity demanded, extracting herself from the tangle of wiring to skewer Oliver with a piercing glance.

Unimpressed, Oliver shrugged. "You know my stance on this. Pineapple and pizza are two things that should not go together."

"Well, Mr. Arrow," Felicity said, hands going to her hips, "you may be an expert in pointy objects, but I actually finished college, which I believe makes me the expert on pizza. And for your information, pineapple is a wonderful and delicious topping whose sweetness perfectly balances a proper savory marinara sauce."

Seeing the grins spreading across Oliver and Diggle's faces at her rant, Felicity blinked, arms dropping to her sides. "Fine. Laugh. I don't have to defend my tastes against a pair of pizza troglodytes."

"Troglodytes?" Oliver couldn't help but laugh.

"Just because you majored in dropping out doesn't mean I'm going to dumb down my vocabulary, Oliver," Felicity returned, the slight curl of her lips indicating she meant no offense.

"Actually, I did have a major," Oliver replied without thinking, without thinking. Caught up in the banter, he took her skeptically-raised eyebrow as encouragement. "I took a five-year course in being a badass."

Oliver knew it wasn't his best line, but he had hoped that it would at least get a pitying smile out of her. It was to his utmost surprise, then, that Felicity's eyes widened as if he had just confessed some terrible secret, hand going to her mouth out of shock.

And she wasn't alone. Behind him, he heart a resounding clang as Diggle dropped the I-beam he had been attempting to maneuver away from the Foundry's entrance.

"What?" Oliver said, truly confused. "It wasn't that dumb, was it?"

"No, no, it's not that," Felicity reassured him immediately. "It's just that…"

"That what?" Oliver pressed with genuine curiosity. Felicity paused, as if searching for the right words, but it was Diggle that swooped in to finish her thought.

"That's the first time you've ever joked about your time on the island, Oliver," his bodyguard supplied, crossing his arms.

Felicity nodded. "Ever," she said slowly, as if gauging his reaction.

Oliver blinked and took a step back. "I guess you're right," he said quietly, and for a moment he dared to hope.

And then the images came flooding back.

His father, holding the revolver to his own head and imparting one last command to survive before a flash of light and a crack of gunpowder erased him from the world. Yao Fei, crumpling to the ground with a neat hole from Fyers' bullet between his eyes. Slade, the deranged madness in his eyes betraying the damage the mirakuru had wrought upon his mind even as it gave his limbs the strength to lift Oliver from the ground by his throat.

And Shado. Shado, lying bleeding and lifeless on the cold ground, her eyes frozen open in shock. Oliver shut his eyes tight, trying to block out the image, but it was too late. Shado's eyes were still there, staring into his soul, knowing, accusing.

How could you forget me? Forget us? Because of her? Am I nothing to you?

"Oliver? Oliver, are you alright?"

Oliver snapped back to reality as Felicity leaned in to put a hand on his shoulder. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm fine."

But of course, Felicity would not be so easily deterred. "Are you sure?" she continued. "If you want to talk about it-"

"That won't be necessary," Oliver interrupted hastily, standing up. "I just…I need some time."

Felicity opened her mouth to speak, but Oliver couldn't bring himself to face her in that moment. Instead, he made for the stairs, leaving behind two very confused friends.

Ducking through the doorframe, Oliver continued through the shambles of what used to be the Verdant nightclub, his and Tommy's ill-fated former business venture, which Thea had taken upon herself to turn around.

Tommy. Thea. Oliver shook his head, trying to rid himself of memories, but they kept flooding insistently back. Growing angry now at his inability to retain control of his emotions, Oliver flung open the doors and stepped outside.

It was raining. Of course it was raining, he thought bitterly. The hero leaves to ponder his sins, and so it has to rain. Part of him wanted to turn back inside immediately, refusing to perpetuate the cliché, but a stronger part succumbed, too weary to resist.

And so he stood. Oliver Queen stood alone in the downpour outside the abandoned steel factory-cum-nightclub in the Glades and thought.

He hadn't even realized the significance of his poor one-liner. The joke had come to him so simply, so natural in the midst of his back-and-forth with Felicity, the usual memories of pain and loss that accompanied the thought of Lian Yu nowhere to be found.

Perhaps he was finally starting to forget.

But Shado would not let him.

Oliver shoved his hands into his pockets, narrowing his eyes against the driving rain and expelling a deep plume of air.

It had been almost six years now, six years since the Queen's Gambit went down in the East China Sea, a result of Malcolm Merlyn's sabotage. Six years since he had been sentenced to die on the forsaken island they called Purgatory.

But he had survived. With the help of others, he had survived, and he had come back. He could not forget; to do so would dishonor the memory of those who had saved him.

But at the same time, he thought with growing frustration, he could not hold on. He had been carrying the pain and grief of those years with him ever since, an invisible millstone hung around his neck every hour of every day. It was holding him back, preventing him from truly returning.

Felicity made it go away. Oliver never felt more at home, more at peace, than when he was with her, whether they were indulging in caloric sin at Big Belly Burger or cooperating to bring down yet another element of the criminal underworld. The island was his past, a past he had lived in for years. It was only with her that he truly felt in the present.

And that frustrated him to no end.

He was still struggling with his feelings for the charmingly-awkward IT girl, and with his infamous stubbornness, likely would be for a while. Regardless of what he may feel, regardless of how her rambling brought a smile to his face even on the worst of days or how her incessant pen-chewing habit littered the Foundry with destroyed writing utensils in a manner he found strangely-endearing, she was off-limits. She had to be. For his sake and for hers, nothing could happen. The life he led and the live she deserved were in two different worlds, and nothing he could do could bridge that gap.

He knew that. He accepted that.

But that didn't mean he had to cling to the past, to the island. If the day should ever come when he could hang up the hood and bow, he wanted to be able to step forward into the light, not remain ensconced in the darkness. Slade too had loved Shado, and that love had clouded his mind and twisted his deeds into madness. Oliver would not allow himself to become like Slade.

He closed his eyes once again, the image of Shado springing back into his mind. But this time, it was not her final moments, her face no longer stained with blood. She was serene, radiant; the way he had seen her at the height of his love.

I have to let you go, he thought. I will never forget you, but I can't carry this guilt anymore. I have to let you go.

And Shado smiled. I know, she said. It's time. To move on. To live and love again. The wind gusted, and she began to fade away. Goodbye, Oliver, she said, her voice growing faint. And farewell.

"Farewell," Oliver whispered into the rain.

When he opened his eyes again, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs. He felt lighter, a burden he had been carrying for so long that it had become a part of him now lifted off his shoulders.

Whatever the damage Slade had wrought, to Starling City and to Oliver's family, he had ironically brought about salvation. Ever since his return to Starling City, Oliver had been living in the past. That past had come back for vengeance, and having defeated it, he now had no choice but to embrace the present.

The sound of an engine pulled Oliver out of his reflection as a battered white sedan swung into the parking lot, "Tony's Pizzas" emblazoned in garish lettering on its side. The door swung open, and a scrawny teen with a mop of blonde hair jumped out, balancing a white box expertly on his hand.

"Order for a Mr. Diggle?" the boy called out, and Oliver nodded, stepping forward to take the box. The kid was just about to hand it to him when he suddenly frowned.

"Wait…you're Oliver Queen!"

Oliver sighed. "You caught me. I'm a friend of Mr. Diggle, he's inside."

Still starstruck, the kid was babbling. "I can't believe you're here in the Glades! My friends'll never believe me. The media said you're broke now, but they can't be right? Right? You've got a trust fund or some secret-"

"Hey, kid," Oliver grunted, taking a step closer and looking the kid directly in the eyes. "You want to know a secret about Oliver Queen?"

Breathless, the teen nodded.

Oliver grabbed the box. "He really wants his damn pizza."

Turning away, Oliver strode back to the club entrance. "Goodnight Mr. Queen!" the teen yelled out, and Oliver shook his head in exasperation. Even after being humiliated, bankrupted, and evicted in plain view of the media, he was still treated as a celebrity. Some things, it seemed would never change.

Pizza box in hand, Oliver made his way back through the club and down the stairs into the Foundry, where a concerned Felicity and an unimpressed Diggle were waiting.

"Told you he'd be back," Diggle grunted, and Felicity folded her hands in front of her. "I was just about to go look for you," she said. "I hope I didn't upset you, or anything, because that's never what I intended. I just-"

"Nothing of the sort, Felicity," Oliver assured her, smiling at the way she sighed in relief. "I just…needed some time to think. That's all."

"Do you usually do your thinking in the rain?" Felicity replied. "Because that's awfully stereotypical of the brooding hero."

Oliver laughed again. "No brooding. Just…reprioritizing."

A silence fell across the conversation for a moment, but Felicity, never one to be intimidated by silence, began to open her mouth to speak. However, Oliver wasn't quite ready to discuss the nature of his reprioritizing with her, and so he held up the box. "Pie?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Diggle said, snatching the box and carrying it to the closest horizontal surface he could find, the hollowed-out remains of a metal filing cabinet. He popped open the lid, and immediately the Foundry was flooded with the mouthwatering scent of fresh pizza. Oliver's stomach growled, and as he thought back, he realized that he hadn't had a proper meal since before Slade's attack.

"Dibs," he called, brushing past his bodyguard to snag a slice from the non-pineapple portion. Before Diggle could even protest, Oliver had sunk his teeth into the delicious creation, burning his tongue on the still-piping-hot cheese and toppings but regretting nothing as he chewed.

"Well," Diggle said, "I guess I should just give you the box. Are you going to put an arrow in me if I don't?"

"Considering it," Oliver replied around the mouthful. "Forget the city, I was fighting to save Tony's Pizzas."

That brought a laugh from all, and Oliver was thankful that for now, at least, the team appeared to be back to normal.

They ate in companionable silence for a while, alternating between grabbing a slice and continuing to scavenge the Foundry. But as the remaining pieces dwindled, they gravitated back towards the box, and each other.

"So, boss," Diggle said as he leaned back against a counter. "What's the plan?"

Oliver swallowed, brushing his hands together to rid them of crumbs. "First order of business is to get the company back. I can't very well save the city if I'm begging on the street corner, now can I?"

"And how, exactly, are we planning to do that?" Felicity asked. "Just because your name's on the door, that doesn't mean you can just waltz back in and expect them to hand you the reins again."

"Well, seeing as Ms. Rochev turned out to be an accomplice to Slade and insane, I think the board would be willing to rethink their faith in her," Oliver stated.

"No, Oliver, it's not just that," Felicity insisted, taking a step closer. "The board isn't going to reinstate you as CEO just because you're not Isabel; let's face it, even before she usurped and bankrupted you, you weren't exactly a favorite with the board members. You know, what with all the missed meetings and missed…days." Seeing Oliver raise an eyebrow, Felicity hurried to continue. "What I'm saying is that there's probably dozens of potential CEO candidates out there, just dying to take control of a company as large as Queen Consolidated. You're going to be compared to graduates from Harvard and Wharton and Oxford with glittering Wall Street resumés and your five-year degree in being a badass probably isn't going to weigh much in that discussion."

Oliver blinked. He hadn't thought of that, but once again Felicity was doing what she did best and poking holes in his grand ideas.

"I'm just saying that if you're going to really make a case to the board, you'll need more than charm and a nice suit. You'll need ideas. You'll need solutions. And above all, you'll need to convince them that you're not going to be a delinquent trust-fund brat anymore." Her speech concluded, Felicity crossed her arms and leaned back.

"Delinquent trust-fund brat?" Oliver repeated, his tone both amused and insulted.

Felicity shrugged, tossing her ponytail back. "You pay me to speak the truth. Well, actually, you don't pay me. You should—I mean, let's face it, I pretty much do all the work around here—but even though you don't, I still speak the truth. Because that's just what I am." She paused, the river of words once again having outrun her brain. "Truth-y," she finished with a wince.

Diggle chuckled. "Truth-y indeed." Cracking his knuckles, he turned towards Oliver. "Rambling or not, the lady has a point," he said. "I think we should prepare for the possibility that it's going to be a long battle to get Queen Consolidated back. And that you'll probably have to wear a lot more suits than hoods in the near future."

Oliver bit his lip, not relishing in the slightest that future. "Noted," he finally said. "In the meantime, though, we have other tasks to attend to as well."

Diggle nodded knowingly. "Thea and Roy."

"We need to find them," Oliver stated unequivocally. "For their sakes and ours. Felicity, I want you scanning everything you can. Passport activity, traffic cameras, rental cars; anything that might give us a lead on where either of them have gone. Digg, if you can get in contact with Lyla, maybe put ARGUS on it-"

"Easy there buddy," Diggle protested, holding up his hands. "I'm just about out of favors to ask from ARGUS. Remember that whole 'assaulting their headquarters and threatening their director with help from an international assassin' thing? I'm not exactly the most popular guy in their minds right now."

Oliver gave him a look, and Diggle sighed. "I'll see what I can do," he grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Thank you," Oliver said, then took a deep breath. "There's one more thing." He glanced back at Diggle. "Seeing as the mansion no longer has the name 'Queen' on the mailbox, I am going to need a place to crash. You know, just until we can get the company and all my assets back."

Felicity burst out laughing. "Oliver Queen bumming a couch? I never thought I'd see the day."

"You're not the only one," Oliver grumbled, before turning back to Diggle. "What do you say?"

Diggle worked his jaw from side to side. "You know, I wish I could say yes," he said, "I really do. But now that Lyla and I are…well, it's just that we…"

Oliver smiled. "I understand. No hard feelings."

"Thanks, man," Diggle said. "I appreciate it."

And so Oliver turned slowly to face Felicity, one eyebrow arched up.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," she said.

Oliver shrugged. "Just for a few weeks?"

Silence.

"Please?" he added.

Felicity rubbed the bridge of her nose with her index finger, the same habit she had when she ran into a particularly vexing firewall. Finally, she gave a long-suffering sigh. "You'll do all your own dishes."

"Agreed."

"And you'll leave all your Arrow stuff here."

"Agreed."

"And you won't change the channel during the Doctor Who marathon this weekend."

Oliver gave a bewildered smile. "Agreed. Not quite understood, but agreed."

Felicity groaned and leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. "I am so going to regret this decision."

"Agreed."

000

Thea was tired.

Since getting into the car with Malcolm Merlyn in the wake of the chaos that had descended on Starling City, she had lost track of the amount of time they had been traveling. First it was flying, a private jet taking them across the ocean. From there they caught another car, which took them to another airfield, where they boarded yet another flight. The cycle continued, the locations slowly getting more and more remote, the planes getting smaller and older, the cars changing from the limousine she first entered to the scuffed and dented Land Rover that now bounced along the rutted dirt and gravel path that passed for a road in the forsaken, frozen wastes of Tibet.

Malcolm had told her everything. How her mother had been lying to her for her entire life. How her brother had been lying to her since his miraculous return from the dead. She had to admit, now that she knew, it all seemed to make sense, Oliver's weird habits and infuriating absences so clearly explained she didn't know how she had missed it.

"That's your weakness, Thea," Malcolm had said. "You see the best in people. And those people use that to take advantage of you."

Thea knew it was true. Roy. Oliver. Her mother. All of them, she had tried to fight for, tried to believe in, only to have them stab her in the back.

Malcolm had promised to make her strong, to make her powerful. And he had promised her revenge.

Thea wanted all of those things.

The bouncing and rattling of the Land Rover diminished as the vehicle began to slow, finally rolling to a stop.

Thea glanced out the windows, confused. They were in the middle of a vast mountain valley. Far to the east, what looked to be a glacier carved its way through the mountains, and beyond it, a massive peak thrust skywards up through the clouds.

"Where are we?" Thea asked, turning to face Malcolm. "Why are we stopping?"

"Get out," he said.

"What?"

"I said, get out," Malcolm repeated bitingly, and Thea recoiled, obediently throwing open the door and stepping out.

She immediately regretted the decision as a blast of freezing glacial wind buffeted her, knifing through her jacket and cutting to the bone. Teeth chattering, she pulled the flimsy jacket tighter around her body in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked again, raising her voice to be heard over the wind.

"Do you want to be strong, Thea?" he responded. "Do you want revenge? Justice?"

"You know I do," Thea replied immediately. "But what does that have to do with-?"

Malcolm cut her off with an upraised hand before transfixing her with his gaze. "If you truly desire vengeance, you must do this. There is a rare blue flower that grows on the eastern slopes. Pick one of these flowers. If you can carry it to the top of the mountain, you may find what you are looking for."

"What?" Thea sputtered, convinced that the man had gone insane.

Malcolm tossed her a bundle, and looking down, she saw that it was a heavy winter cloak, with a pair of boots.

"Pick the flower, carry it to the top," Malcolm repeated. He smiled. "I'll be waiting, daughter."

With that, the door slammed shut and the Land Rover sped away. Thea winced as she was pelted with a hail of gravel and dirt, but soon the vehicle faded into the distance and she was left alone, a single, solitary figure standing in the shadow of the mountain.

A/N: I apologize for the blatant Batman reference.

JK I apologize for nothing.