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Footage of Hong Kong played on the muted tv behind the bar.
“I went there once. A few years after your ship went down. Got it into my head that you were there, alive.”
“I know.”
If Tommy hadn’t teed it up so perfectly that Oliver could let the words fly without thinking, they would not have come at all.
It took Tommy a moment to hear them. The glass stopped halfway to his lips; his brow creased.
“You know?”
Lie! The voice in Oliver’s head screamed. You’re good at lying. Look at all the secrets you’ve kept. All the people you’ve convinced to trust you. Tell him that your mom told you. She could have known that. Anything, just don’t open that door. Lie.
Oliver reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. He also refilled Tommy’s glass which had found its way back to the bar.
“What do you mean you know?” Tommy pressed.
Oliver wanted to tell him. He really did. Tommy had a right to know what had happened there. But his mouth wouldn’t move. Keeping his mouth closed, staying silent, felt natural. More than natural. Like an indelible instinct—keeping your jaw shut tight as the water pulls you down and your lungs scream and burn because to open it means to let the water rush in and fill you up until there’s nothing left. No, you don’t open your mouth, just continue to burn so that you don’t drown.
He swallowed the drink. That wasn’t like him. He didn’t usually turn to alcohol for strength. At least not anymore. Maybe because of who he was before it all. Maybe because it hadn’t really been an option when he’d needed strength the most, so he’d learned to find his strength elsewhere. In adrenaline. In rage. In discipline. In action. But right now, he had this glass and this drink.
“You were right. I was there.” His voice was level. Casual. As if Tommy’s shock would come as a surprise to him. If only Tommy could know the effort those six words took.
“You were on Lian Yu.”
Was it a question? An accusation?
Oliver thought better of the vise grip he had on the empty glass. Might break it. He could see the words he had to say, all lined up, clear and simple, like an action report in an ARGUS file. But they felt so distant. He could walk for miles and still not be able to grasp them.
“I was shipwrecked on Lian Yu,” Oliver affirmed. “For two years. I got to Hong Kong a few months before you did.”
Tommy waited, the same furrow on his brow. Oliver scanned for some reaction. But no, Tommy would hold on to that for now. He would wait to hear what Oliver said.
“ARGUS.” Oliver answered the question that Tommy had not asked. “They picked me up off Lian Yu and took me to Hong Kong. Kept me there. I tried to get away, tried to send an email, but they stopped me. That’s when you came.”
Oliver’s eyes roved the bar instinctively. No one within ear shot. Less than a half dozen other patrons. Two exits—probably another out the back. Plenty of bottles that could be used as weapons, at least one knife behind the bar, the bar stool itself. A rote survey. Tommy was waiting.
“Why would they do that.” It was a question, but it was flat. Like Tommy had intentionally pressed all intonation out of it.
“They’d been watching me. And they wanted to use my skills.” Oliver wore that mask that he’d had during his first few days back in Starling City. The one that watched and waited and politely didn’t react and politely never quite smiled and always meet your gaze with something a little too like a challenge.
“Use them how?”
“As an assassin.” The word tasted coppery. With a tinge of smoke. And that taste clung to his tongue, thickening it, filling his mouth and choking him.
Oliver had told some of those five years to people before. A few details for Diggle and Felicity to pick up like breadcrumbs. Some “yesses” and “nos”. Full facts as they became absolutely necessary, not before. And that was all he could choke out. But maybe if he could get this out. Maybe if he could tell something to Tommy who could make a joke out of anything. Maybe then he could relieve just a little of that constant pressure that crushed his chest and made it so hard to breathe.
“They forced you to?”
He lingered over the words. Yes. He’d said he’d escape or die trying. He’d told them to go ahead and kill him because he wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t have cared if they did. But he couldn’t say that. What would be the point? It was all splitting hairs anyway. But he did say, “they threatened Thea. And the family of my handler.” It was true, but it tasted of excuses.
He pressed on before Tommy could ask another question. “And then the first person they asked me to kill was you.”
Tommy flinched. “Me? Why?”
“You were there asking questions, looking for me. You would have gotten in their way. So they wanted you out of the picture.” A conversation from a year ago echoed in Oliver’s head. Do you actually think that I could hurt you? Truthfully, I have no idea what the hell you would do. He kept his eyes fixed on Tommy’s face.
Tommy didn’t react. Didn’t probe.
“But if I could make you go away, if I could make you believe that I was dead, then you wouldn’t be a problem, and they wouldn’t care about you. So I staged a kidnapping.”
“...it was you I was talking to that night.”
“Yes.”
“The police officer who saved me-“
“Was my handler- my friend, who helped me.”
A pause. He was searching for something. Olive couldn’t tell what. “How long were you in Hong Kong?” Something concrete. Something he could build on.
“About a year.”
“And then?”
“I got stuck back on Lian Yu.” For now, more was too much. For now, he wouldn’t say anything about Tommy’s birthday party, or Hub City, or Russia. Maybe one day.
“You didn’t kill me. But the others they asked you to-“
“Yes.” Yes, he’d killed them.
“How many?”
“I- I don’t know.” Do you count just the planned hits? The ones who’d died in shootouts? The ones he hadn’t killed but had tortured? The ones who died every time he failed? Shrieve, even though he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger? Akio? How do you keep that tally?
Tommy nodded and turned away. It was a careful movement. Still holding back whatever he was feeling. He rested his weight on his elbow, pressed his fist against his mouth and stared down at the bar, trying to read something there. Something about Oliver. There was a long scratch in the wood gouged into the wood. Two people left the bar. A group of four came in, laughing loudly, and sat at a table on the opposite side of the room. A glass dropped. A broom rasped across the floor to sweep up the shards.
Oliver waited. Hate me. Hit me. Walk out. Call me a murderer. Call me a liar. Ask me why I didn’t come home sooner. He waited for the gunshot and the mortal blow.
Finally, Tommy looked up. He grabbed the drink Oliver had poured for him and drained it.
Then he spun to face Oliver, expression clear. “Well. Now we know that we have a great ‘that one time we were in Hong Kong and you kidnapped me’ story. A story we can never tell to, like, anyone. But a great story nonetheless.”
He clapped a hand on Oliver’s shoulder and grinned. That might have been Tommy’s greatest skill. Right then he smiled with that quick wide grin and that irrepressible gleam in his eye, and you could believe the lie that it wasn’t forced. You could let it wash over you, let the bloodstained memories fade to the background and all the words still unspoken return to waiting, feel the warmth come back into the world as Tommy ordered another round and then began to boast of his outrageous exploits in younger days, and you could just sit back in the fullness of the moment and laugh and live. So Oliver did.