"So, tell me," Robert began, shouting to be heard over the whirring roar of the angle grinder, as Oliver was hard at work making sonic dampening arrows with which to stop Black Siren and had been for the past several hours since Robert had shown him how to do so. When he switched it off and turned to look at him, Robert went on, "What was my counterpart on this Earth like?" Oliver glared at him.

"I told you I didn't want to talk about that," he growled.

"Indulge an old man his morbid curiosity," Robert replied smoothly, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. "He must have done something pretty terrible for the sight of his face to make you want to smash your fist into it."

"He didn't do anything," Oliver said, still growling and still glaring. "That's the problem. He was a coward. He worked side by side with the people who were poisoning his city, knew exactly what they were doing, and he did nothing to stop it. And in the end, he decided that it was easier to place the weight of his sins on my shoulders was easier than to fix what he helped break himself. He sacrificed himself for me, gave his life for mine, and I'll always be grateful to him for that, and I'll always love him because he's my father, but I have to wonder if I ever really knew him. If he was ever, even once, the good man that I thought he was." Robert listened to all of this in silence, sensing that Oliver had been keeping it bottled up for a long time now and needed the catharsis he was getting from sharing it now. In Oliver's words, Robert recognized himself, recognized the man he had been before he had shipwrecked on Lian Yu and the need for survival had forced him to change. It seemed that the more some things changed, the more others stayed the same.

"I'm sorry," he said, and in the back of his mind he wondered if the Robert Queen that this Oliver had known had ever once taken the time to apologize for his actions. Considering that that would have involved taking responsibility for them in the first place, somehow he doubted it.

"Why are you sorry?" Oliver asked, and though his voice had softened a little, he still spoke in a growl. "You didn't do anything."

"I know, I know," Robert replied. "But the thing is… before Lian Yu, before the need to survive forced me to change, I was just like your father. And I realize that I… I failed my son, the same way your father failed you. And it's too late for either of us to make up for that- your father is dead, and so is my son. That's why I'm sorry." Oliver nodded stiffly, his jaw clenched. He took a moment to gather up the dozen or so sonic dampening arrows he had made and strode over to where he kept his gear. Lifting his quiver free of the hooks from which it was hanging, he placed the new arrows inside it, running their fletching through his fingers for a moment as if to familiarize himself with their feel so that he could find them quickly when he needed them. Robert had followed him from his work table to here and had watched him at this simply because he hadn't known what else to do, and he could clearly see the tension in Oliver's frame and the stiffness of his movements. He was clearly fighting an internal battle to keep a handle on his emotions.

"I hurt you," Robert murmured. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing!" Oliver snapped suddenly, rounding on him. His voice echoed through the bunker, and Robert was suddenly grateful that they were alone. "This isn't about you, alright? It has nothing to do with you. It's just…" He trailed off and took a moment to get control of himself, then continued, "The stuff I told you, about my father… I've never shared it with anyone. Not Thea, not Felicity, no one. And I've been carrying that anger around for so long that it's proving difficult to let go of. That's all." Robert nodded.

"I understand," he said softly. Before he could say anything else, however, their conversation was cut short by the sound of the elevator doors sliding open, and a moment later Felicity's voice called out "Guys? Where are you?"

"We're over here!" Oliver called, and a moment later Felicity appeared around the corner, her approach preceded by thump of her boot heels against the concrete floor.

"Hey," Oliver mumured in greeting when he saw her. It didn't escape Robert's notice how her presence made Oliver instantly relax, the tension disappearing from his posture as if it had never been there at all. "Where'd you go?"

"To dinner with Laurel and Thea," Felicity replied. "I figured I should give you guys some space."

"Hmmm," Oliver mumbled, then fell silent.

"I didn't realize how late it was," Robert remarked after a moment of quiet.

"I don't blame you," Felicity said. She seemed to have warmed up to him rather quickly, but so far that seemed to be par for the course for this Felicity. "It can be hard to keep track of time down here sometimes, underground with no natural light. But yeah, it's almost"- She glanced at Oliver's watch- "midnight. Wow. Even I didn't realize it was that late."

"We should probably call it a night then, if it's that late," Oliver put in. Turning to Robert, he asked "Are you going to be okay down here by yourself tonight?"

"I believe so, yes," Robert replied, nodding. "I've spent the night in far worse places." Oliver didn't respond to that, though Robert sensed that he understood it because of his own similiar experiences. He took a few minutes to show Robert where to find the things he would need for the night, then left with Felicity, leaving Robert alone with his thoughts.