The Mechanic

One of life's greatest secrets was the pleasure of fixing something with your own hands.

It didn't used to be. Once upon a time, people used to be able to fend for themselves. Everyone had a tool box stashed in the garage, under the sink, under the stairs. Hiring someone else was always a last resort. You didn't call a plumber until your flooded basement was already ankle deep. You didn't take your car to the shop until the engine was on fire. These days though, everyone was too damned busy to handle their own problems. Kids grew up never knowing how to rewire a plug; hell, some could barely change a lightbulb. People couldn't even change their own damned oil and spark plugs any more; why learn, why get your hands dirty, when you could hand things over to a mechanic? Why upgrade your own computer, or fix a simple fault, when you could just pay for a whole new one? You didn't even need to talk to anyone any more, the whole situation could be resolved with a few swipes on an app, and attended to by robots and computers, without ever needing to take your eyes off your cell phone.

Malcolm would never understand it. That kind of laziness and disengagement just wasn't something he was wired for, and the idea of ever becoming that way, thanks to age, or injury, or apathy, was one of his larger dreads. People were afraid of all sorts of things, rational and irrational; valid as those might be, Malcolm's one and only was the inability to fend for himself.

The rumble of an expensive engine extracted Mal's head from beneath the hood of the car he was working on, drawing his attention to the forecourt outside his modest garage. He wasn't one of those savants who could identify a make and model just from the sound, but he spent enough time around broken cars to hear when one wasn't; and that whispered at something interesting. His garage wasn't exactly out of the way, but it wasn't exactly the sort of place you stumbled across either: tucked into one of those little industrial dead ends with a few modest warehouses and workshops for company, the entrance guarded by one of those quaint little diners where the waitress wandered around with a neverending pot of coffee.

One glance at the vehicle, and the driver stepping out of it, all sunglasses and sex appeal, answered most of the fledgeling questions that had started to form in Malcolm's mind. A wry grin settled across his fingers, hands occupied by wiping off the worst of the engine grease with an equally grimy rag, in case his visitor wanted to do anything as pedestrian as shaking hands. "Oliver Jonas Queen," he uttered with a hint of a deep chuckle, taking his time to relish each of the words as he spoke. His hulking frame hunched a little, not out of bad posture or shyness, but more to avoid the towering behemoth visage that he usually reserved for unruly kids and troublemakers. "Let me guess: you need the seat adjusted, and can't manage to figure it out on your own?"

Oliver had tried not to respond to a Mal Duncan smile with one of his own, once. It had proven itself a Sisyphean task, an effort in ongoing futility, and so he'd resigned himself to simply letting the reactionary smile happened. If you'd told him Mal was a metahuman, he wouldn't have doubted it for a second: the man's radiant warmth was practically a superpower, his emotional state usually setting the tone for everyone else in the room. For all his jovial charm however, Mal Duncan was not some benign teddy bear. Oliver had seen him fight, and seen him angry; all those muscles weren't just for show.

"Actually, the car's fine," Oliver replied, letting the door swing closed and approaching a few steps closer, hands shrugging their way into his jeans pockets. Casual was the stance that he adopted: any attempt at confident or imposing would lose to Mal by default.

He took a moment to drink in the surroundings. He liked it here: not just the garage, but this whole side of Gotham. The city was an entire patchwork world unto itself. One minute you were among the towering skyscrapers of the newer financial district buildings; turn a corner and you were beneath the ailing gothic spires of the old city; hop a train to the other end of the islands and you found the destitute alleyways of crime infested corners like the Narrows; cross a bridge, and you were in the rolling hills and opulence of Bristol and Brentwood; and sandwiched between were places like this, where the ordinary folks of Gotham lived. When most people thought of Gotham, it was some dystopian oligarchy, the sickeningly rich floating atop a sea of crime and poverty. People couldn't imagine why anyone would choose to stay; it was America's secret shame, that one relative you never talked about, whose reputation you hoped you'd never be associated with. There were calls to let it die, to send in the National Guard, or the bulldozers: purge the city from America's shores, and never speak of it again. But there was more to Gotham than just those two extremes. There were real people here, living real lives, just trying to get by in a city at war with itself. Just like any war story, people only cared about the two sides doing the fighting, and not about the innocent bystanders caught in the middle.

Maybe that was why Oliver had felt drawn here. Maybe it was Gotham, not Star City, that was responsible for making him the man that he was. He had seen it on the horizon, during his days at Brentwood. He'd seen the middle ground, the collateral damage, the regular folks just trying to get by. Stories of Robin Hood had fascinated him since his childhood, not just for the archery and the rebellion, but for the reason why he fought. He stole from the rich, not to punish them, not for justice, but for the sake of the poor, the innocent, the victims. Oliver had given many answers for why he'd become the Green Arrow over the years, but perhaps that answer was the one closest to the truth.

He refocused his attention on Malcolm. "It's actually your hospitality, not your repair skills, that I was hoping to take advantage of. I'm -" Oliver hesitated for a brief moment, choosing his phrasing carefully. "- meeting someone, and this seemed like as good a place as any."

Malcolm's eyebrow arched immediately. Oliver Queen was an odd duck at times, one who seemed to have a neverending supply of odd ideas and odd requests, but this was a new one. Maybe it was West Coast weirdness, all those years as a castaway, or a few too many blows to the head, but his garage was not exactly hot date central - something he could attest to with an uncomfortable amount of personal experience.

For a moment, he let himself indulge that sentiment, let himself dwell on just how long it had been. It wasn't something you talked about, or thought about, not when it dragged on this long. Solitude became your default, and everyone you admitted it to had their own brand of helpful advice. Just put yourself out there. Take a chance. Plenty of fish in the sea. As if he had time for fishing: he was barely pulling in enough to cover his own ass, and the odd bit of help here and there; definitely not enough to go taking time off, and if he made it to the end of the day with enough energy left to do more than collapse on the couch with a beer and the game, there were better ways of spending that miracle than wasting his time at some middle aged singles event.

And you know what? He was at peace with that. Better to have loved and lost was what people liked to say; Malcolm preferred to think of it as tried and failed, but the sentiment was essentially the same. At least this way, he had the time to spend his life fixing things. That was man's work. Worthwhile. Made a difference.

"I'm not sure how things worked in the land of Crusoe beards and coconuts," Mal grunted, "But here's some free advice: if you're trying to pull some sort of look how manly I am, fixing my car move to impress your latest squeeze, I'm pretty sure you need to be fixing the thing yourself to pull that off, not standing there watching while you pay some black dude to do it for you."

Malcolm hesitated, considering that sentiment for a moment.

"Or maybe that would work, but if that's the kind of people you're bringing to my door, you, me, and and a shotgun are going to end up having a very short conversation."

A small laugh and a broader grin managed to make their way past Oliver's self control. Mal had deadpanned that last sentiment, but he knew the mechanic well enough to see past the gruff exterior when he needed to.

"It's not, a -"

Amusement and awkwardness faltered Oliver's words. He took a moment to adjust and compose himself, representing himself to Mal with a little more poise and sincerity.

"It's not a date," he assured, carefully presenting the truth one fragment at a time. "I'm not sure what it is yet, but it's definitely not that. I ran across this, this -" He faltered over word choices again. It was hard to explain, hard to quantify, hard to put into words the gut feeling and compulsion that had gripped him ever since meeting Connor Kent. He was strong, dangerous, troubled; but there was something more, something in his gut, something that made that chance encounter feel like something other than chance.

"- this down on his luck kid, at Ted's place a few days ago. A lot of anger, questions, and not a lot going right for him. He actually -"

A surge of laughter crinkled Oliver's features, and he regretted it. Carefully he reached for the sunglasses that he'd declined to remove, carefully chosen for how well they obscured the bruising and swelling still evident from the lucky hit he'd allowed Connor to land.

"- broke my nose," he continued to explain, carefully folding the sunglasses closed and stashing them in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. His expression wasn't what you'd expect from someone describing an assailant who'd inflicted them with that kind of injury; it was more amused, perhaps even touching on proud, born from the kind of feeling Oliver remembered from the first time Mia had managed to knock him on his ass during a sparring session, or when Roy had tossed a baiting try to keep up, old man in his direction as they'd raced each other across rooftops in the older, simpler days.

Oliver let out a small sigh.

"Long story short, the kid knows a lot of the wrong kind of people. I was hoping it might do him some good to meet one of the right kind."

Malcolm shifted a little in discomfort: not because of what Oliver had said, but of what it reminded him of, and what he'd done. It was so easy to look at Oliver Queen and see what the tabloids told you: worlds luckiest son of a bitch; a rich kid who'd wanted for nothing, and never needed to work a day in his life; a man so lucky he'd even gone so far as to cheat death. From the outside, it was easy to see him that way; Oliver even seemed to welcome it, encourage it, feel more comfortable and more in control of the situation when people latched onto that particular persona.

But there was the other side of it, too: the orphan; the soldier; the castaway; the man who'd survived five years alone in solitude and isolation. No one handed Oliver Queen his second chance on life: he'd fought for it, bled for it; earned it, far more than a lot of other people had. Then there was the aftermath, the way that Oliver had invested his homecoming. Sure, he played the part of the socialite heir apparent, and if he'd wanted to he could have resigned himself to the comfort and inactivity that all that Queen money promised. Instead he'd gone and opened a goddamned community center, spent his days giving back to the city that his parents had loved and that their company had abandoned in Oliver's absence; and his nights? Well, that was it's own damn story, wasn't it?

Malcolm let out a sigh of his own.

"Damn it, Time Magazine," he shot back, a lopsided smile tugging at his mouth as he slowly shook his head. "You mind giving that man of the year philanthropist shit a rest while you're down here among the mere mortals? Ain't none of us got the time and means to match all that, and it just makes us all look bad."

Oliver's grin returned, a hand reaching out to clap Mal on the absurd musculature of his Atlas shoulders. Oliver was a man with an abundance of secrets; those biceps and deltoids were Malcolm's dark secret. He was no slouch when it came to a workout routine, but what the hell did Mal do, bench press cars in his spare time?

"I told the kid to meet me in the diner," he explained, digging around in his pocket to retrieve the keys to his car, aiming the fob vaguely over his shoulder before clicking the button, the car chirping and blinking its lights in reply. He jerked ahead in his intended direction of travel, a moment or two passing before he began to walk away, backwards. "Head on over when you're done making yourself less -"

Oliver waved a hand vaguely at Mal's overalls, struggling to find a descriptor that didn't come off with some sort of alternate connotation. Greasy? Dirty? Oiled? None of them worked, and so Oliver gave up, batting the unfinished sentence away with a few flicks of his wrist.

"But not too less," he added, in counter to his own unfinished sentiment, hand turning into a pointing finger, voice a little louder as his reverse steps carried him further away. "I need you rugged and manly, so this kid knows I'm a cool guy, with cool friends."

He finally turned, inverting his direction of travel with a fluidity of step that would have made his old drill sergeants proud - or at least, not directly incensed and annoyed, which was about as close to proud as they'd ever seemed to get. A few more steps carried him further away, before one last loud afterthought was added, without even bothering to look over his shoulder.

"Yes, I will be paying."

Have a lead. Jeff's Diner. Old Bridge Street. 12:00.

When it came to the sacred art of texting, it would be fair to say that Oliver Queen was no Leo Tolstoy (Russian writer, famous for War and Peace, which is long), and that suited Connor just fine. Facts, he liked. Facts, he trusted. There was nothing ambiguous about a name, a place, and a time. Unlike small talk, etiquette, and those weird little X's people left behind at the end of messages, like misplaced luggage. Perhaps Oliver understood that about him, and tailored his messages to suit his needs, or maybe he just didn't like to say more than was necessary, too. It was strange to think of himself having something in common with a rich pretty-boy celebrity, who probably spent his days- No. He had to stop thinking of him that way. It wasn't fair. Oliver Queen was the only person in the world who knew his secret and didn't want to hurt him. He deserved his trust, his time, and his punctuality.

So, it was at 11:59, when Connor stepped inside the small diner on Old Bridge Street, wearing his trademark loose-fitting streetwear, and ever-present cap. At once, he found himself at odds with the muddled congregation of blue collar workers and urbanised professionals who populated the tables all around. But then, if fashion was the only distinction between himself and other people, he could live with that. He took a deep breath, thawing the chill from his nose with the scent of brewing coffee. For a moment, he lingered there, just clear of the doorway, where he was afforded a clear view of the whole length of the diner. As his narrowed gaze drifted over all of the unfamiliar faces, his mood began to sour. If he'd been blown off by that smarmy rich- oh, there he is.

Oliver Queen occupied a table near the back of the room, and he was not alone. Apprehension stabbed, like a knife, turning him rigid beneath all of those needless layers of clothes. From the safety of the doorway, he regarded Queen's companion, and stared. He started at the back of his head - which, in the fresh light of day, boasted the autumnal gleam of a ripe auburn horse chestnut - and tracked downwards, still staring, concentrating, attempting to peel away the layers of this new mystery, to find a wallet, a driver's license, a concealed weapon, anything that would hint at the true nature of this stranger, but... nothing. Connor bit down upon a curse. It seemed like fate had resigned him to being able to see through solid objects only at the most inconvenient of times. Throwing caution to the wind, he advanced up the narrow space, to the back of the diner.

He declared his arrival with a casual, "Hey."

With the attention of both men suddenly turned on him, Connor became aware of something that rooted him to the spot. The new guy was big. Dangerously big. At once, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he fought the instinct to give the diner another once over for anything suspicious. Instead, he met Oliver's gaze. He wanted to trust him; he said he had a lead, but if Cadmus had got to him, or the DEO, or... anyone else, for that matter, what could a man like Oliver Queen do against those odds? Now, his eyes tracked over to his companion. The last thing he wanted to do, in that moment, was to take a seat and put himself anywhere within arm's reach of that man. His every instinct rallied against it. And yet, did he really want to look like a total wuss in front of Oliver and his friend? It was time to play it cool.

His gaze ticked back to Oliver, and, in his best approximation of a totally cordial non-threatening gesture, he gave his chin the slightest of lifts, "This the guy?"

Malcolm responded with a smile; almost too much of a smile, but only almost. It was a smile that commandeered his entire face, eyebrows climbing in amusement, creases pinching at the corner of his eyes; even his ears seemed to climb just a little, all part of some profound transformation from stoic neutral into infectious warmth.

"I prefer to think of myself as the man actually," he quipped back, his attention focusing on Connor for a second, then another, awaiting a reaction. His eyes subtly shifted to Oliver, greatest by the subtlest shake of a head. His expression faltered, but only slightly, finding a new equilibrium that was a little more dialled in. No jokes then, good to know. He was disappointed to have wasted such a good comeback on a non-response, but he chalked that up to experience. Living in this neighbourhood, you spent a lot of time around tough kids, and that was definitely the aura Connor seemed intent on conveying. Kids fell in with bad crowds, the kind who weren't forgiving of deviance, or weakness. The tough exterior was mandatory; constant; exhausting; and here was some stranger, expecting him to lower his guard after a moment of pleasantries. Malcolm could understand that; respect that. A rapport took time and effort. They'd get there.

Mal allowed himself to fidget a little in his seat, loosening some of the muscles that were all too keen on setting like concrete whenever he let himself stop moving for too long. He let a moment pass before he tried again, toning down the warmth, aiming for something a little more soft and conversational.

"So Ollie here tells me you're the one we have to thank for knocking a little of the pretty off that face of his."

A note of a chuckle followed.

"About time someone knocked that ego of his down a peg. Getting tired of the smug look on his face every time he decides to kung fu my ass to the mat."

"It was an accident," Connor said, intent on shooting out of the sky any notions the big guy might have about his impromptu sparring session with Oliver Queen.

In truth, the memory still haunted him; sleepless nights, when he'd lain awake, thinking of what might have been. Sure, this joker could laugh it up now, but would he be joking so much if he was talking to Queen's tombstone instead? That, for Connor, was the grim reality. Just the thought of it made his stomach lurch, and turned his skin to ice. Feeling no longer certain on his feet, Connor resigned himself to taking a seat next to Oliver, and found himself, given the current topic of conversation, unable to look him in the eye. Guilt hovered, like the tip of a dagger, pressed firmly against his chest, and he daren't tempt it with any sudden moves.

Now that he was seated, it occurred to Connor that he was not half as suspicious of the stranger as he perhaps ought to have been. The goofy comedy routine had been disconcerting, to say the least, and only left him wildly theorising at any number of ulterior motives he might have harboured for laying it on so thick. But, it was in the details: the fact that he'd fought with Queen, and felt comfortable both cracking jokes at his expense and referring to him as Ollie, instead of Oliver, that was what put him at relative ease. That told him a lot more than any smile or wisecrack ever could. So, shedding his doubts, he attempted another stab at an explanation:

"It was an accident," he repeated, unfurling his hands with sincerity, "We were just sparring. I landed a.. it was a lucky left-hook, that's all, and the next thing you know, he... well, I... I never meant to break his-"

Connor's words faltered, and he buried his face in his hands. Looking had been his mistake. He'd been fine, all this time, gesturing towards the vague outline of the man sat beside him, but eventually, he knew he had to look. The reality was that he feared what he would see, and when he did see it - a swollen nose, and a perfect mountain range of black and blue, spanning a beautifully serious face - well, it was not shame that consumed him. No. When met with the literal face of his transgressions, Connor Kent folded in a fit of shameless laughter. His shoulders shook, and as every asthmatic burst of amusement started to subside, it was renewed again by a fresh peal of glee. This went on for some time, with feeble attempts to speak interspersed throughout. He ought to be ashamed, he knew this, even as he wiped the tears from his eyes, but the absurdity of the whole thing had finally landed, and he was powerless beneath its weight.

"Sorry," he managed, at last, "Sorry. It's not funny. It's not. I just- well, I just- and you-"

Now, he turned his gaze on Oliver and, by some miracle, he kept a straight face.

"I heard you had a lead?"

Well thank Grodd for that.

Part of Oliver had been worried. Not properly worried, but he was already two for two on this experience. He'd goad and challenge his young wards, show them up in spar after spar; and one day they'd land the lucky hit. They'd take the fight seriously enough, and they'd match the old man who'd been tripping them, and dodging them, and dumping them on their ass time and again. It was never an incidental hit either, never a glancing blow: Oliver always pushed it until the hit they landed was solid. Ollie had enough years of experience to know he could take a hit just fine, but them? They needed to learn that they could deliver one. They needed to know what happened when you went all in, and how easy it was to hurt someone that you didn't intend to.

For Roy and Mia, it had taken a few weeks. For Connor, it happened on the first day. Was it too soon? Maybe. But he'd seen that reaction on Connor's face. Mal had tried to make light of it; Connor had attached gravity back to it with lead-weighted words. True, it had taken only a few moments for it to dissolve into amusement at the sight of Oliver's accidental rhinoplasty; but that too was a good sign, or at least a sign that Oliver chose to interpret that way. Connor understood the significance, but didn't need the reassurance that everything was fine. He'd learn, but wouldn't regret. Those kinds of lessons were rare, and from the scant details Oliver had learned, Connor deserved as many of them as he could get.

He sighed, not quite enough to be described as theatrical, but enough to seem deliberately staged.

"The lead can wait," he countered, reaching towards the window edge of the table, and plucking the slightly sticky laminated menus from their nestling place between the condiments and napkin dispenser. For the person Oliver was supposed to be, for the act he portrayed to the outside world, a place like this was supposed to be beneath him. The first time the tabloids in Star City had snapped a photo of him buying his own take out, rather than sending someone to collect it in his stead, it had somehow spun into a story worthy of widespread media attention. It didn't occur to people that he was essentially a single father, and that the joy of cooking wasn't something he had the energy to indulge in on a daily basis. It didn't occur to them that he worked at a community center, one that couldn't afford fancy frivolities, so if he wanted to buy fifteen pizzas to help the youth basketball team celebrate their regional tournament win, it had to be by his own hand, out of his own pocket. To the media, he was Oliver Queen. Just Oliver Queen. That was the true downside of his double life. Green Arrow's anonymity was essential, to keep himself and those he worked with and cared for safe from the likes of the DEO, but it turned Oliver Queen into a mask, one with as few dimensions as possible. He didn't get to be more than face value. Didn't get to seem like the better person he was trying to be.

He pushed that aside, buried it, along with everything else.

"First, we need to eat something. We are not getting stakeout snacks all over the pristine interior of my new Mustang, and Malcolm here needs to put my money where his mouth is. According to him, this joint makes a better burger than they've got back home in Star City, and me and my taste buds need to figure out whether I need to come to blows to defend Big Belly Burger's honour."

"Alright," Connor said, accepting one of the grubby menus, "That is cause worth fighting for."

Not another moment was wasted, as he set about studying the contents of the menu, as if lost inside the narrative of an epic page-turner. Oliver and his friend - Malcolm, was it? He didn't look like a Malcolm - were forgotten about. As was the mystery of Queen's elusive contact; at first, he'd struggled to contain the disappointment that surfaced when Oliver saw fit to delay expounding upon the very reason for their meeting, in the first place. Connor needed answers. Anything to give him some sense of forward momentum in his life rather than further stagnation. Then, in just a handful of words, his unuttered grievances were snatched from his tongue by the promise of something infinitely more satisfying: food.

There was the cheeseburger deluxe: a classic. The double stack with onions, bacon, and mayo: better. Then there was the barbecue pulled pork burger, with pickled red onions, and three cheeses: unconventional, and yet, somewhat insubstantial. And, finally, there was the Supervillain: a double whiskey-glazed extravaganza, complete with Monterey Jack, candied bacon, and caramlised onions. As if there was ever any doubt. Content with his choice, Connor discarded his menu onto the table, and waited, while the old men fretted over the number of calories in the avocado houmous, or whatever it was old men ate.

It occurred to him then, that, outside of his usual brand of controlled hostility, Connor hadn't done much in the way of acknowledging Queen's... associate? Friend? At a glance, Oliver Queen could be mistaken for the kind of man not to associate with the likes of Malcolm, the enormous mechanic from the garage across the road (though his hands were clean, there was a fresh grease stain on his shirt; you tend to notice these sorts of things, when you're a fugitive science project, laying low in the Narrows), but then, neither did he appear to be the kind of man to give a shit about angry freaks, like him. He studied Malcolm, then, curious. Perhaps that was how they knew each other. What was the term Queen used, again? Metahuman. Could Malcolm be another metahuman, like him? Connor concluded his private assessment with a nod. It certainly explained the muscles.

"Hey, excuse me," Connor said, catching the attention of a passing waitress, "Can I order a, uh, grande americano with cream, please? For Connor."

"You want a white coffee?" From beneath a nest of fierce crimson curls, Arlene levelled him with a flat and humourless look.

"Uh... a grande-"

"A large white coffee."

"...Yeah." Stunned by the exchange, Connor almost forgot the most important part, until a timely pang of hunger acted like an impatient prod to his empty stomach, "Oh, and can I have the, uh, Supervillain, with the side salad, the side slaw, cajun spiced onion rings, and an extra side of Warrior Fries."

He had no idea what Warrior Fries were, but they had to be awesome. Arlene remained, poised with pen and paper, "Anything else, sweet pea?"

"Uh, yeah," Connor stumbled, wrestling with his new nickname, "Make that two Supervillains."

An expectant glance was fired at his unlikely dining companions, "Guys?"

Mal had seen this movie; or at least, this scene from it. Someone ordered an obscene amount of food, and then the other people looked at each other, either stunned, or impressed, or dismayed. It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down, an expression of manliness and endurance. It was the kind of mentality that led people to compete in hot dog eating contests at the state fair, as if gluttony and excess was somehow impressive enough in and of itself to make up for the gastric distress that you and the people you were trying to impress were likely to spend the rest of the day and the car ride home mutually enduring. Mal hated it, judged the people who did it; but at the same he found himself gripped by the gnawing desire to escalate that challenge, and eat his way to victory over this random child he'd never met before, and perhaps would never meet again.

"Nice try, Tracksuit," Mal countered, with an expression that conveyed consolatory approval as well as an announcement that Connor should brace himself to see how excess was really done. His attention shifted, not to the waitress directly, but just enough to include her in the conversation. "He almost got it right, Curls, but he'll be having that with Amazon Fries, not Warriors."

His attention shifted back to Connor for a brief moment. "Trust me, you'll thank me for the sweet potato goodness."

Mal's attention returned to the waitress again, more fully this time, and like many a man to cross the threshold of Jeff's Diner, he found himself transfixed by the siren goddess that lurked behind those infinite copper spirals. For a moment, Mal found himself staring, and smiling, but not actually saying anything. With a quiet sigh, Arlene waited just long enough to seem polite, before tapping the edge of her notepad with her pen, a subtle impulse to end Malcolm's apparent hypnosis.

It seemed to work, and coming to his senses, Mal looked away embarrassed, fixating his attention on the menu instead. "Right. Right. I'll, uh, I'll have the same," he tossed out, continuing to browse his options even though he had already decided, and admitted as much, "But I'll take my coffee like Whoopi Goldberg, and, uh, I guess I'll have -"

As Mal's words dissolved into silence again, Arlene took the reins, sparing herself the prolonged agony with a roll of her eyes.

"You'll have a Soder Float, same as always, because It's just been that kind of a day."

Oliver knew Mal well enough to recognise his words, even when they came out of someone else's mouth. Under other circumstances, the verbal put-down might have been amusing, if Mal's reaction to it didn't make him look like someone had just run over his dog. Oliver knew from painful experience what it was like to crash and burn with a cute waitress. Part of him would have liked to have said that was the old Oliver, and that the island had changed him, forged him into a better man; but it was a vice he still struggled with, and was perhaps part of the reason he was living out of a hotel room in Gotham instead of back home in Star City with someone there to keep him warm.

Still, Mal's reaction seemed a little disproportionate. Maybe Mal just wasn't that kind of a guy; maybe he didn't make a habit of setting himself up to get shot down. Maybe he was a little too invested in this waitress; although from what Oliver knew, that didn't quite sound like Mal Duncan. It didn't sound like the man who Oliver had first met from the pointed end of an accusation of hassling the bartenders at the Ace of Spades back in Metropolis. It had been a misunderstanding, fortunately - or unfortunately, in the case of the bartender Oliver had been there to covertly warn - and from there had flourished, well, this. It was that, and a hundred other experiences just like it, that defined Mal Duncan for Oliver: man the size of bear; heart the size of a planet. If Mal was that affected, if something more was going on here, well -

A glimpse of Connor from the corner of his eye reminded him that now wasn't the time. Mal's feelings would have to wait; and Oliver's better judgement probably meant that the waitress shouldn't.

"Just the one Supervillain for me, the Amazon Fries, and whatever fruit juice you happen to have open, I'm not picky."

Oliver kept his words concise, his smile polite, but the waitress didn't even seem to pay that much mind; she looked as distracted as Malcolm, particularly when her attempt at throwing an apologetic glance his way was thwarted by him not looking in hers. Her notepad was tucked away in the front of her apron, and a cloud of conflict and mystery followed her as she retreated across the diner towards the kitchen. Inside his skin, Oliver squirmed and seethed. Too many questions, too much of a mystery; but this one wasn't his to solve.

Instead, he let his attention shift to Connor. "Two burgers, huh?" he challenged, peppering just enough mirth into the faux hostility to hopefully convey that he was teasing. "You just hungry, or is this some secret conspiracy between you and Mal to make the most of the fact that I'm paying?"

Sweet Pea? Tracksuit? The nicknames were rolling in thick and fast now, and Connor wasn't quite sure to make of it all. If he had to choose, well, he had to admit that Tracksuit was nothing if not accurate. He could own that, alright, and it didn't make him sound quite so... sweet. Across the table, he considered Mal, and the nickname he might give him. Something dome-shaped, obviously, or maybe something about growth hormones. It had to be a good one; Barbara would think of something. With a mental shrug, the thoughts were shelved for a later time, allowing him to take stock of the surprising new amendment to his order. You don't fuck with a brother's food. That's what Turk used to say. But he wasn't Turk, and it sounded like Mal liked food as much as he did; his eyes narrowed, contemplating the sum of the big guy's knowledge and experience, and finally, he gave a nod.

Then, eyes down, he listened to Mal match his order, blow for blow, and felt the corners of his mouth tick in amusement. An extra slice of Arlene sassiness aside, the food orders were completed without fuss. Oliver's was decidedly unadventurous, which was a disappointment. Maybe he was counting his calories, after all. His question was met with a shrug.

"I ain't eaten today, so I figured I'd make it count. And, uh, listen..." Connor hesitated, troubled by Oliver's generous presumption. His sudden discomfort translated into restless hands, which fidgeted with his sleeves, and plucked at his jacket, "Queen, I appreciate the offer, but, uh... I pay my own way, ok? I didn't come here to take advantage of your charity."

Inside the beat of silence that followed, Connor decided to plough headfirst into the first subject that came to mind, before things got really awkward:

"So, Mal," he said, deciding immediately that Mal was a much better fit for the big guy, he threw him an inquisitive look, "How does Whoopi Goldberg take his coffee?"

His.

How does Whoopi Goldberg take his coffee?

The slow and steady decline of Malcolm's faith in young people nosedived into a sharp descent as those words tumbled from Connor Kent's lips. Every time you complained about their attention being glued to their cell phone screens, and the slow decline of linguistics and intelligence into an emoji-fuelled scramble of pretentious opinion and pseudo-slang that made no sense to anyone who knew how to spell, they argued back that their smart devices and their streaming services and their 5G wifi made them more connected than ever. Sometimes, that argument seemed compelling enough that Mal was inclined to concede. Today was not one of those days.

Inwardly he seethed, unsure of who to ascribe the blame to. Was it a fault of society? An oversight by neglectful parents? Some rights dispute that turned the cosmos of popular media into galaxies that could be accessed by all, and contrasting dark spaces of void where the true classics faded from light and memory? He would rectify this: it was a silent vow that he made, to himself, to Connor, and to Whoopi herself. He would duct tape Connor to a chair and unbox the whole damn VHS collection of her greatest hits if he had to; but at the very least, before the end of a Biblical forty days and nights was through, he would ensure that Connor no longer walked the wilderness of never experiencing the cinematic masterpiece that was Sister Act.

"Well first, it's she," he challenged firmly.

From there, his brow furrowed into a frown. What to say? How to explain?

"There's this movie, and in it, Whoopi has to go into witness protection in a convent. She's black, so of course, that makes her a black nun - like the coffee order. Black, no sugar."

The slightest of smiles tugged at the corner of his mouth in amusement.

"Then of course, Sound of Music gives you Julie Andrews, that's a white nun. And there's Mary Poppins; that's just Julie Andrews with a spoonful of sugar."

"Huh."

Connor's response was decidedly succinct. Not the utterance of a great thinker, perhaps, but an honest note of contemplation, nonetheless. He contemplated this Whoopi Goldberg (a black woman, in a film about nuns), and the convoluted thought process that was involved in incorporating her name into a simple coffee order. It made sense - black nun - he got it, but at the same time, he could not escape the all-important question: ...why? His response was also deliberately non-committal; Connor was not interested in offending Mal and his strange ways with his opinions, while, at the same time, he felt a need to stall for time, enough to find the kind of words that implied at least a tenuous grasp of the conversation at the table.

But this Andrews person? Poppins? A spoonful of sugar?

Holding onto the pretence for dear life, Connor allowed his gaze to track sideways, seeking out Oliver Queen for some hint of direction, but it seemed, if Oliver did have an opinion on the matter, he was playing his cards close to his chest. Why couldn't Mal make poker references, like a normal person? When Oliver glanced his way, half a second was about as long as he could manage to stare, before he had to look away. To his credit, Connor did not smile this time, or laugh, courtesy of the piercing guilt that accompanied his amusement like some relentless evil twin. It fell to him, then, to salvage whatever was left of the conversation:

"You sure like movies, don't you? I ain't seen anything about nuns..." As words were just about to fail him, once again, Connor's face brightened, with sudden inspiration, "But, I did catch this great movie about this kid, and he's, uh, he's like alone, but at home. And he does this thing with his face: aaaah!"

His impression done, Connor continued, unperturbed, "Anyway, he stops these two thieves from robbing all of his family's possessions and shit. And there are traps, like, all over the house. Man, there's ice on the stairs, an iron hits this guy in the face, the other guy has his head set on fire, and winds up looking like a goddamn chicken - he's great, when he gets shot in the nuts, he sounds like a boiling kettle - and when his boy gets a spider on his face, he lets out the best scream ever. Now, that's a classic! You fellas seen that one?"

There were people in the world who could spend hours dwelling on the cadence of a man's voice, the beauty of the smallest details, the artistry that lay in the normalcy of the world around them. One of those people would have had a field day with the sight that Oliver currently beheld, watching Mal Duncan try to react to the implication that he might not have seen Home Alone. Oliver Queen had been legally dead for five years, and even he wasn't that out of touch with movies and popular culture; and while Mal was older than he looked, and certainly more set in his ways when it came to what he liked and didn't, Oliver was pretty confident that Macaulay Culkin's magnum opus had graced movie screens long before Mal had finished growing into a fifty foot tall grumpy old behemoth of a man.

Sadly, Oliver Queen was not one of those poetic individuals. He had quite the mouth on him, that was true, but he reserved it for quips, sarcasm, and those benign little jokes that he found so hilarious, but that made everyone around him groan. Mia called them 'dad jokes'. Oliver deliberately pretended not to know what the term meant, just so she'd use that word to describe him again.

Anyone who had observed Oliver Queen though, anyone who had heard or watched him speak - particularly when behind a podium, or in front of a camera - would notice that while he spoke much, he said little. To Oliver, words were like arrows. A stray sentence, a loosed metaphor that didn't strike true; those were wasted words, shot wide and lost forever. It was a fine line that he walked, one that he had practised: to say exactly enough, not too little and not too much, so that people treated your words like a rare commodity rather than something to be ignored or left unnoticed. The rest was just a matter of pauses and charm, knowing how to turn that modest lexicon into a simple melody that people would hear and remember. Not a weapon in Green Arrow's arsenal, true; but it was the one that Oliver Queen favoured, the one that lofted his words and carried them off as sound bites to radio stations and local news outlets. It was how he ensured that his message would be heard.

It was with that arrow-point linguistic modesty that Oliver selected the concept that described Malcolm's expression best: it looked as if he was attempting to scowl, but kept getting sidetracked by an irrepressible sneeze.

"You know what?" Oliver replied, fighting down a smile, letting it creep through like sunlight past clouds, just enough to beam into the corner of Malcolm's vision and subtly nudge his annoyance levels a little higher before it disappeared from view. "I think I might have."

Slowly, Connor's eyebrows descended from beneath the rim of his cap. After acknowledging the response with a steady contemplative nod, he watched Oliver, and waited. When it became apparent that he was done speaking, he felt his flicker of a smile diminish, pulling his face back to its natural state. With a gentle tug on the peak of his cap, his entire posture changed, sinking him into the seat.

There was tasteful family-friendly rock music coming from the other end of the diner, just enough to keep the silence from becoming an awkward silence. But, in the expanding vacuum between speech, Connor squirmed, first, under the scrutiny of Mal's unfathomable gaze, and secondly, from the memory of the word vomit he'd spewed across the table at him. Connor was not given to flights of verbose indulgence at the best of times. That he'd just made a complete fool of himself, prattling on about actors getting hit in the face with irons and having their heads set ablaze - and, oh god, the impression, he actually did the impression - it made his skin crawl. Oliver was being polite, electing to answer the question while tactically avoiding the mess; Mal, on the other hand, was still reeling.

Wait. This wasn't right! Since when was Connor the appointed dork of a social gathering? He was going to make this right. Steeling his nerves, he summoned his closest approximation of a confident smile, and said, "You know, there was this other, much cooler, movie that I saw the other day called-"

"Okay, boys," Arlene reappeared, with a loaded tray, "That's one OJ, one black coffee, one Soder float, and a grande americano with cream for Connor."

Connor glanced up in time to catch a wink from Arlene as she deposited the last of the drinks on the table. Not only had she stolen his chance to redeem himself, but now she was mocking him, too? His jaw clenched tight enough to bite through steel, and, in place of a retort, he fired her a mirthless sneer.

"Oh, honey, that is not a good look on you."

Without so much as a second glance, Arlene sauntered off, leaving Connor to stew in his own juices.

"Okay, Tank Top," he fired up, turning his frustrations on Oliver's friend, "What's the deal? I came to this place because Queen, here, said he had a lead. I figure you're not it. And I know you're not the muscle because that's my job. And, no offence, but I ain't in need of a new buddy, so what exactly are we doing here?"

That was when he turned his incredulous gaze on Oliver, leaving the invitation to answer wide open for both of them.

It was Mal's turn to watch Oliver react, subtle shifts in the man's posture and expression that might have gone unnoticed if you weren't already calibrated to pick up on the very little that Oliver Queen usually gave away. That pinch of his brows, that clench in his jawline; Malcolm knew what that all translated into. Frustration. Disappointment. A slight shift in Oliver's gaze, seeking out Mal's, added a little regret to the mix.

An unspoken conversation passed between them, propagated through the commonalities that the two men shared. Both of them cared about people, and about their communities: both seeking to give chances to those who ordinarily had none. For Oliver, he was big on support and sympathy. His Community Center back in Star City was about access, about building support structures and giving down on their luck kids the opportunity to meet peers, to have people to share and understand the weighty burdens they found themselves carrying around; to expose them to someone who gave a damn, who'd sympathise, tell you that all your concerns and struggles were valid, and offer a hand so you could pull yourself back to your feet.

Mal Duncan had no patience for that shit. All he had was his garage, and he didn't have the time nor the inclination to indulge in that sympathetic big brother crap. He was something else that a lot of these kids didn't have: he was confrontation, disapproval, a foot put down when it needed to be. Understanding their problems? Making them feel their concerns were valid? Screw that. Sure, whatever, everyone needed a little understanding and empathy in their lives; but what these kids also needed was to be confronted with the reality that all their shit and baggage didn't give them a free pass to be an asshole. To Oliver, attitudes and actions were a reflection on the struggles these kids were going through; to Malcolm, he cared more about everyone else getting caught in the crossfire of the expressions and outbursts that Oliver was busy telling them was justified and understandable. That was a problem with society these days: the delusion that justifications made the consequences go away. Rehabilitation was valuable, sure, and investing in dismantling the root causes to prevent repeat performances in the future was noble and all that; but at the same time, sometimes you just had to call out a little shit for being a little shit, and make them understand why that behaviour wasn't okay.

He remained quiet for a moment; but neither a still nor silent moment. There was something in the air around him, like the crackle of atmosphere before a storm, the swell of energy before a discharge; a silence that built, and intensified; and then Mal spoke, not a shout, and not with harshness, but with a ruthless clarity that carved through the air at the table like a hot knife like butter.

"What are we doing here?"

The echoed question prompted a small note of ironic laughter.

"Oliver's here because he needed somewhere to meet up with you, and he figured it might be worth something for you to get out of whatever shithole you call home. I'm here because my buddy offered to buy me lunch, and the two of us are conversing like adults, like human beings, while waiting for our food to arrive. You, on the other hand?"

His head shook slowly.

"You know what, kid? I get it. I get what you are. Oliver thinks you might actually be worth a damn, worth a chance, whatever; but me, I don't get hung up on sentiments like that. You're just a sentient attitude in a baseball cap, and you've gotta keep up appearances. You burned up your civility quota for the day with that little Home Alone recap, and now you've gotta set the cosmos back in balance by acting like a dick, and swinging it around for everyone to see. Hate to break it to you though, The Muscle, but Oliver and me? This shit won't impress us. We aren't the moron thugs you spend the rest of your days with. We don't care how tough, or cool, or edgy you think you are - we're just here to eat a goddamn burger."

A hand reached out, retrieving the tall drink that Arlene had placed in front of him, sliding the weighty glass of cherry ice cream suspended in gently fizzling brown cola. He adjusted the straw, not taking a sip, but definitely prepared to.

"If you can manage to fake being a half-way decent human being for another fifteen minutes or so, you're welcome to stay; but if not? I don't have the patience for that level of douchebag in my neighbourhood. You know where the door is - don't let it hit you in the tracksuit pants on your way out."

Connor weathered the steady but unyielding downpour of words with electric tension. If he moved, something was going to break. Or someone. Motionless, then, he remained while the sum of his outburst was captured, given hideous shape and form by Mal's cruel eloquence. He'd expected... something. If he was honest with himself, he'd known, from the moment the venomous backlash flew from his lips, he'd gone too far. Anger came easily. It was a reflex action, like raising an arm to intercept an attack. He bit down on his anger, now, turning his jaw into a vice, fighting his every instinct to lash out and exact retribution upon a man who didn't deserve it. He'd made that mistake before; he was sitting beside its consequences.

The lines were drawn with the opening salvo; they were just two guys, sitting in a diner, waiting for their burgers to arrive. When Mal fired the question back his way, he was, to his shame, unable to hold his gaze. Instead, something was glowered at across the street. And Mal, undeterred, resumed fire. The assumptions he started to make about Connor, and his supposed friends, stoked the fires of indigence; he straightened up to contest the bald preacher's points, when he loosed an arrow that managed to pierce his armour. So he had seen Home Alone! Connor was wounded. If Mal knew all along what he was talking about, why had he looked at him like he was some kind of freaking alien? It wasn't fair!

By the time the challenge was thrown down, Connor was ready. The peak of his cap lifted just enough for a clear line of sight, his eyes fired lasers, shooting Mal's accusations out of the air, reducing his challenge to ash.

"You don't know me," he stated, simply, "I ain't here to impress you. And I'm going nowhere."

It occurred to him then that there was a very real risk that Oliver's outspoken friend was either going to resume his lecture, or spring into action. A knife of fear turned in his gut, forcing him suddenly out of his seat. His cool was salvaged with a lethargic shrug.

"The music sucks in this place."

Without a single glance to Oliver or his friend, Connor went for a stroll to the other end of the diner, where he found a large and obnoxiously bright jukebox. It was newer than it looked, with a fully digital library of music, but through the glass it maintained the old-school illusion by playing fake records on a fake turntable. Staring into the glaring lights, Connor started to idly cycle through the menu, seeing the words on the screen without reading them.

"Stupid," he muttered to himself, "Stupid."

Oliver remained quiet as Mal unleashed his stern rebuke against Connor; and as the teenager awkwardly extracted himself from the conversation to cool off in the private vicinity of the jukebox, Oliver caught himself wondering if he'd wanted this; expected this. Or perhaps he had been oblivious, and shouldn't have been. He new Mal, knew how he'd react to someone whose attitude affected such an extensive radius. Was Oliver simply immune to such things, vaccinated against it by his prolonged exposure to Roy and Mia; or had he simply been a coward, steering Connor into Mal's path and into an inevitable confrontation, letting Mal play antagonist so that Oliver could remain the hero?

The silence lasted long enough for Oliver to feel Mal's discomfort with it. Within moments of Connor's exit from their booth, Mal's irritation had subsided - not that it had even been raised, not really. Oliver had seen Malcolm angry - been on the receiving end, in fact. This had barely registered as stern; but it was a breed of resolute opposition that Oliver had suspected Connor had little experience with. Perhaps Mal had fallen victim to an elaborate experiment on Oliver's part to see those suspicions proven.

"Do you do house calls?"

Oliver kept his face neutral, but a few flickers of emotion and sentiment crept into his words. Humour. Sympathy. Apology. Small glimmers rather than anything fully fledged, enough for Mal to know they were there, without the embarrassing extent of exposing them for all the world to see.

"There's no way that Mia would ever back down that quickly, but I'm pretty sure it would make for a watch with popcorn sort of experience."

Whatever amusement Oliver was managing to find in this situation, Mal didn't share it. He liked to think of himself as someone who was stern, but fair. He never set out to be cruel, never set out to anger or upset; but at the same time, he understood that certain people of a certain age explored the world by trying to push and see how far they could get, and Mal took it upon himself to be the immovable object that put that irresistible force squarely in its place. He wasn't someone who pushed back: just someone who refused to be moved.

Or at least, that was the theory. He'd thought he had a read on Connor. An attitude in a tracksuit. Rough home life at a guess; daddy issues, more than likely. Someone who didn't feel at home with family, so they found a surrogate on the streets. For the most part it would be attitude and solidarity, a little petty crime here and there; but it was a foundation, one that was cemented by the belief that the world was apathetic to their existence, their needs, their concerns. The belief that no one cared what you did eroded so much. You broke the rules, pushing your luck as far as you could, just to see how long you could go before you finally earned notice. It wasn't attention seeking - not in the petty, infantile way that everyone used that term. It was more fundamental than that; and easier to understand than that.

That had been Mal's assumption, at least. He had met so many kids like that in Gotham; and he took it upon himself to be the person who noticed, the person who cared, the person who took exception long before the police ever needed to. He wasn't going to go around holding hands the way that Oliver did; he was more of a slap up the side of the head kind of guy, and for a lot of kids it worked. The world looked very different when you had someone to disappoint.

Connor's reaction hadn't fit that profile. The armour that Mal had expected wasn't there; the salvo he'd thought he might need to break through had been overkill, and Connor had acted almost wounded by them. He hadn't responded in kind the way that Mal would have expected, and that he was prepared for. He'd seen the flare of anger, but it had been subdued; quashed. Connor was something different; there was something beyond the norm lurking beneath his layers of brooding. A metahuman, Oliver had said. Perhaps that was it.

"Don't start with me, Queen," Mal grunted back. When Mal Duncan started using real names, you knew the situation was getting serious; and he delivered Oliver's surname with all the resounding force of a right hook. "What are you even doing introducing me to this kid, anyway? Clearly, I am not the right fit for whatever charity case shenanigans you're planning."

Oliver considered the question, his own thoughts on the topic reframed as he sought to form an answer not for himself, but for Mal. His intentions, and his own dissection thereof, faded in the face of a much simpler truth.

"This isn't my city."

His voice had a strange quality to it as he uttered those words; as if they were fleetingly close to a familiar sentiment, but different enough to turn them bittersweet. Perhaps he hadn't considered it, or admitted it until now, but it was an uncomfortable truth: Gotham wasn't his city. It had been, once, for a few years of schooling at Brentwood Academy; but even then he'd been a visitor, an outsider; and that was where he found himself again. This city belonged to the Batman, to Bruce Wayne, and - to his further discomfort - to Queen Consolidated to some degree. He was here on a mission, a crusade; but he did not belong, and in time he would succeed or fail, and return to the streets of Star City.

Malcolm understood that. Not the specifics, perhaps, but enough that Oliver could leave most of it unsaid.

"Sooner or later, I'm gone; and when I am, what then? Connor is -"

Oliver trailed off, struggling to find words to describe the abstract sentiment he felt regarding his charity case shenanigans, as Mal had called them. There was something about Connor that he couldn't shake: some sort of familiarity, or obligation, or something else, that was made all the more complicated by the strength and who knew what else that set Connor apart from his peers. That was the word, wasn't it?

"He's complicated. He has a lot of strength, a lot of anger, and not a lot of trust. When I leave, that circle of trust gets smaller; and for his sake, and mine, I'd rather not see that circle shrink all the way to a zero."

His eyes glanced briefly at Connor's direction, watching him brood quietly by the jukebox.

"Most kids like him are just one mistake away from prison. If Connor makes that one mistake -"

Mal's mouth drew into a thin line, his thoughts picking up where Oliver's trailed off.

"- DEO, Supermax, and never seen again."

It was grim, and pessimistic, an absolute worst case scenario; but not an unrealistic one. Metahumans weren't some urban myth, and the United States government made no secret of their efforts to contain and detain them. In theory, there was nothing illegal about being born with an active metagene, or an unexpected mutation in your DNA, or whatever the hell it was that gave folks crazy super powers; but the law sure as hell didn't give you much breathing room if you were. A regular kid loses their temper, and you get a few broken windows, a few broken toys; maybe a few broken bones, depending on the circumstances. A kid like Connor loses their temper, and suddenly there's destruction of property, reckless endangerment, and all sorts of other disproportionate overreactions. Sure, it was the government's job to keep the people safe; but far too often it came at the cost of forgetting that folks who were different were still people.

Mal grunted out a small laugh.

"Good work on the guilt trip there," he muttered, the sentence collapsing into a sigh as it finished. "So, what, this is your way of asking me to keep an eye out for the kid after you're gone?"

Oliver fell quiet again, more sombre than thoughtful this time.

"I don't know, Mal," he admitted, fingers idly twisting his glass clockwise and back, clearing waving lines through the condensation with no real purpose. He mustered a sigh of his own, but it lacked the conviction that Mal's had carried.

That was the biggest problem: the fact that he didn't know. Oliver wasn't addicted to control, didn't crave it or obsess over it, but he did strive towards it; worked to stay on top of a situation, ahead of a curve, and whatever other idioms pointed towards him being someone who wasn't caught by surprise or off guard. His life often depended on it. Roy and Mia's lives depended on it. His city depended on it. But his time here in Gotham, this expedition of curiosity and investigation, was driven not by a plan but by a mystery, and Oliver's choices were subject to the whims of whatever discoveries he happened across. It could be resolved by the end of the week, or stretch for years, or lead him off to Metropolis, or Opal City, or any of a thousand other places. This was white water, and the best Oliver could hope for was steering himself towards the safest path he could see.

Before Connor, he had been at peace with that. Gotham was a deviation, a temporary excursion before he returned to where he belonged. It was Batman's city, his populace to save; Oliver was merely keeping his head down, embarking on his personal mission, leaving the rest to the Dark Knight. Then Connor had come along, and literally hit him in the face with the truth of the matter. Here was a man who ran around at night dressed as Robin Hood, out of choice. It was a deliberate choice; a statement, not that he was planning on robbing from the rich, but that he was looking out for the poor, for those being exploited and neglected. He'd dismissed them all as Gothamites, the protectees of some other hero, and thus not his concern; but everyone was supposed to be his concern - it was supposed to be what the Green Arrow stood for.

That was hard to rationalise with the other obligations that filled his mind. Pragmatically, the people of Gotham seemed to need saving more than any other; and so a question presented itself: should he stay? Was that the right choice; the best choice; the smart choice? What of Star City, the home that he loved and that loved him; the home that he would abandon if he followed through on his thoughts of staying?

Oliver wrestled, pulled and torn in all directions; and Connor stood there at the middle of it all. Perhaps that was the kernel of the boy's familiarity: an embodiment of Gotham, a personification of the people Oliver had the choice to stay and protect. It was too much: too much to fathom, too much to process.

He offered Mal a shrug.

"I just wanted to buy the two of you a burger, and go from there."

The music coming from the jukebox was mellow and bright, like walking down the street on a summer's day. Connor couldn't wait for summer, so he could go for a stroll and enjoy the sun while listening to the machine gun drums of Slayer's Raining Blood or the racing riffs of Motorhead's Ace of Spades, instead of this innocuous crap. Who the hell was Sheryl Crow, anyway? He rested his hands on the rounded glass, and weathered the vibrations, listening carefully to the guitars working in effortless harmony together, to the perfunctory rhythmic drumming, and the sweet voice sailing over it all. But, beyond that, there was the uneven grinding of the fake record player, and the piercing scratch of the fake needle. Neon lights buzzed like flies, and from behind the counter came the V12 growl of the coffee grinder; he winced, and closed his eyes to drown out the waterfall crash of a restroom faucet, the battlefield clash of knives against forks, and the apocalyptic boom of Arlene's shuffling plimsolls.

Beneath the din, he discovered the low murmur of conversation, of words uttered in earthy undertones, tumbling over each other like freshly-tilled soil. It was the rich foundation of human interaction, the bedrock of Jeff's Diner itself. There were so many voices; words collided, fell apart, reduced to a thick stew of senseless syllables. And, deeper still, he heard a sound, it was a deep rumble, but it fell upon his ears with softness and warmth, parting the relentless clamour like gentle thunder.

"What are you even doing introducing me to this kid, anyway?"

It was Mal's voice. He used the words 'charity case,' and the jukebox glass cracked. Rather than becoming distracted by the mishap, however, Connor focused, latching onto his voice, like a buoy on a turbulent sea. And sure enough, there was Oliver's voice, too. The news that he wasn't going to be around for long should not have come as any sort of surprise - Connor knew he was from Star City, after all - nevertheless, the thought remained, stubborn, like a splinter lodged in his mind. It was stupid to dwell on it: Queen had a life beyond Gotham, a life of his own, with his family, and friends, and a place he could call home. Just like Barbara. Just like Mal. Connor had no place in all of that. He was...

"He's complicated. He has a lot of strength, a lot of anger, and not a lot of trust. When I leave, that circle of trust gets smaller..."

Connor braced himself against the strange sinking feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach. He held on, clinging to the conversation until mention of the DEO sent his thoughts into freefall. His stomach churned in protest to the sudden spike of fear, sending his heart into a frantic gallop, and phantom icy fingers of dread crawling up his neck. He took a long breath. And another. When his eyes opened, he distracted himself with the task of feeding the jukebox quarters until he was ready to select new tracks. This was where he existed, in the place between anger and fear, each keeping the other in check. He was living on borrowed time, he knew it, and all it took was one mistake. Cadmus? DEO? They were just different brands on a cage. But which was worse? The scientists of Cadmus gave him life, they raised him, made him into the person he was - in a way, perhaps they were his family, after all, and Cadmus was the place that he could call home. For a foolish instant, he felt content in his ignorance, he felt safe. Then the fiction came undone.

"I just wanted to buy the two of you a burger, and go from there."

Who even were these guys to care about what happened to him, anyway? Conflicted, Connor stabbed at the buttons on the jukebox, and with narrowed eyes drank in the names of unfamiliar bands and their unfamiliar songs. It was so strange. Is that what people did? Worry about kids they'd never met before? He didn't know what to make of it all. It should've felt good, he supposed. But it was all a tease. A taster of what other people have. Oliver would be gone, soon, and Mal was only helping out a friend. He had no real connection to these people. He knew it was stupid to get close. And yet...

"I hope you like the Rolling Stones," he said, returning to his seat, "And I Love Rock n' Roll, by the Black Jets. Figured it was a safe bet. And, uh, there's a band called Take That? They have a song called Rule the World. I don't know it, but it sounds..."

At a loss for words, Connor concluded his assessment with a covert showing of devil's horns. In the renewed silence came the cynical sneer of Keith Richards' guitar. Connor drank his not-Americano and sunk low in his seat. Yeah. Whatever this was, it felt safe.

Take That.

Mal stared blankly in Connor's direction, trying to figure out whether the kid was naive, stupid, or making some sort of misguided attempt to be funny.

He supposed it was conceivable that Connor had no idea who the British boy band were. Mal Duncan of ten years ago sure as hell hadn't; back in the blissful times before his favourite daytime radio station had begun their fatal love affair with the English export. It wasn't that the music was bad; it wasn't. Objectively, the music was fine. He might even have gone as far as to call it cachy, when he'd heard it the first couple of times. Pretty soon though, it had gone from catchy to infectious, and not in the good way. Infectious in the way that plagues were infectious; or an STD; or an embarrasing fungal growth. Infectious in the way that, even when he'd thrown a socket wrench through the radio after hearing one of their damned songs one time too many, he still caught himself humming Shine under his breath as he'd polished up the chromework on the vintage Charger he'd been servicing. It wasn't just the infection either, it was the betrayal. It wasn't right for that prissy Brit crap to be ladeedahing its way around pure American muscle - meaning both the car, and the mechanic.

He let it all tumble aside. Whatever Connor's intentions, they'd reveal themselves in time, the kid's reactions giving him the answers he needn't bother asking for now. Besides, the arrival of their food helped make that decision for him, and by the time Arlene had distributed the plates, drinks, and fries baskets in front of the appropriate people - noticably avoiding Mal's occasional embarrassed glances in her direction as she did so - the moment had passed.

Instead, he turned his mind to other things; to the conversation that Oliver and he had just been sharing. There were delicate ways of bringing the kid into the fold for such a thing; subtle ways; gentle ways. Hell with that. Mal didn't have the time, inclination, or disposition for hugs and hand holding.

"So. Queenie tells me you're a meta."

At that moment, as well as many others, Mal was glad that Oliver wasn't Kryptonian. Even without that physiology though, he was pretty sure he could still feel heat vision burning it's way into the side of his face. Mal ignored it, reaching for his soder float instead, a long and ponderous sip extracted thoughtfully from the straw.

"You figured out what you can do yet? Or is nose punching the extent of it?"

The question had been sprung on him just as he was about to stuff another of the Amazon fries into his mouth. It had been a good call, on Mal's part, to swap out the Warriors for the Amazons. They were bright, orange, crispy, and sweet, and delicious. In fact, he was on the cusp of complimenting the burly mechanic for his choice, when he said something that might as well have slapped the taste from his mouth. A moment passed while he stared, dumbstruck, the one uneaten Amazon fry held erect in pitiful objection. He then followed Mal's gaze to Oliver, whose expression all but confirmed that Mal had not been given permission to say such a thing. But then, Connor couldn't recall ever granting Queen permission to discuss his secret with anyone else. It was a double betrayal, then.

First, a cautionary glance to survey their immediate surroundings. He stooped low, shrinking the gap between himself and Mal, who, he was discovering, possessed all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

"Keep it down, will you?" he said, gruff with annoyance. Once more he glanced back to Oliver, this time in unspoken request. Their eyes met, but there was nothing, no warning, no apprehension, just patience. It seemed like this Mal guy was safe enough. He shrugged.

"I'm strong. I can punch through walls, bend metal; I tossed a Honda Civic into Gotham Harbour once. Only once. I can jump... like really high." A small smile crept through the po-faced summary, just a glimmer before the nervous tension resurfaced. Another glance around the diner. He continued:

"I'm tough, too. I can't be hurt. Or, at least, not so far. I've fallen from a tall building, I've been hit with a baseball bat, a crowbar, a hammer, several hammers, a truck. Knives don't cut me, either. Big ones, small ones, serrated, straight. Doesn't matter if they're hacking at me, or stabbing. Nothing. The knives and baseball bats break before I do."

Finally, the lonely Amazon fry was bitten in half with a satifying crunch.

"Oh, and I can see through walls. Sometimes."

Strong and tough was a combination that Mal could cope with. A man could spend time at the gym and wind up that way, or at least a fraction of the way there. Mal understood the science and mechanics of such things to wrap his head around the possibilities, as well. Exosuits, high-tech materials, there was science that made those kinds of things possible, and comprehensible; the kid's metagenes were just a biological hand-wave that sidestepped the realistic logistics of it all.

See through walls, though?

"Sometimes?" he echoed, quietly. "You mean, when there's a window or something?"

Mal would have shaken his head, if he wasn't investing so much effort on trying not to. That was some crazy science fiction bullshit right there. Sure, he'd heard about it. Everyone had heard of x-ray vision. Everyone had worn those dumb plastic x-ray specs from the comic book store. Everyone knew that the Big Man in the cape was supposed to be capable of it, too. But as for how? That kind of thing hurt Mal's mind. It wasn't just that a person could see x-rays - if that was even how the damned thing actually worked - it was the idea of it being targeted. Focused. Notions of someone firing high-energy photon beams from their eyes floated through Mal's mind, and he was suddenly deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of being glared at by Oliver's new stray.

"Huh? No. Not windows."

After a few seconds of vacant confusion, Connor's face creased with disbelief, and he took a moment to regard Mal and the way he was labouring over this latest curious detail. Part of him wondered if he was lining up a punchline to a terrible pun, but when nothing happened, he struggled to keep a cruel smirk of amusement from taking shape. In Mal's defence - not that Connor thought for one second that he needed defending - x-ray vision wasn't exactly normal. Besides, it wasn't exactly x-ray vision, and if he didn't know what the hell it was, how could expect anything different from someone else? Still... windows, though.

"What I mean is I don't see through walls all the time. And I can't exactly control it. And it's not only walls I see through. It's plants, machines, flesh, bone; if I focus, I can peel them away the layers, like onion skins. Anything except lead."

Now, he took a bite of his Supervillain burger, and melted in his seat. When his eyes opened again, he considered the men at the table, and found himself unnerved by their silence.

"That's pretty cool, right?" He said, prompting them for comment, before conceding, "I mean it's weird. But it's cool."

Given the circumstances, the prospect of peeling flesh and bone away, layer by layer, wasn't exactly the sort of thing that Mal wanted to be hearing. He hesitated, eyes focusing on the burger halfway towards his mouth, the layers of bacon and beef and cheese and whatever else suddenly looking a lot less appetising.

Mal let out a sigh, depositing the burger back onto the plate, distracting himself by turning his thoughts instead to what Connor had semi-rhetorically asked. It's weird, but it's cool. That was the premise, the status quo that Oliver's new pet project sought to assert. Mal wondered if he was in a position to make that kind of call. After all, cool was the domain of the young. It took effort, attention, and giving a damn - a combination that Mal was a long way past willingness to involve. Even if he wasn't, his thoughts didn't really matter. The situation was what it was. Cool or not, this kid could see through walls - or so he claimed.

It was a subject of extensive debate, the same as every other deviation from the norm. Politics, sexuality, race, religion, gender, genetics - didn't matter what it was, society danced its way through the exact same motions. People were afraid. Afraid of what was different. Afraid of what they couldn't understand. Afraid of what others had, and they did not. Mal could imagine the debate and discussion. Forget the fact that the kid was strong. Forget that he was invulnerable. The seeing through walls thing, that alone would drive society crazy. People would be afraid of what Connor might do. What he might do, what he might see, what he might look at, who he might look at. They'd construct a scenario, projecting their own worst impulses to construct a hypothetical scenario that matched and justified the fear that they felt, and then would expect and demand that they be safeguarded and that those capable of it be controlled and penalised for that laundry list of imaginary actions. Connor didn't need that; and even if the kid deserved that, he was sure to find it from literally anyone else. Mal couldn't, and wouldn't indulge in that. It is what it is, he asserted to himself once again.

Mal managed to muster a contemplative expression on his face for a few moments, adjusting it slightly into a gruff scowl as he reached for his drink. "I'd better not catch you undressing me with your eyes, kid," he grunted, as much of a reaction to Connor's question as he was willing to offer.

Despite the gravity of Mal's warning, Connor stifled a snort. For a second, his face was a picture of warped amusement, the corners of his mouth tense, preventing the thin-lipped smile from blossoming into an outright grin. It was not the validation he had perhaps been hoping for, but then, having known Mal for a whole 15 minutes, he knew well enough not expect from him any kind of hand-holding, or gentle words of encouragement. Hell, it was probably exactly what he would've said, had their places been switched.

"Don't sweat it, old man," he said, prodding the fries around his plate with a certain self-satisfied detachment, "You're not exactly my type."

Now he met the mechanic's gaze across the table, and allowed his eyebrows to jump in time with his fork, to crunch into another one of those delicious sweet potato fries.

In the beat of silence between words, Connor recognised something within himself that he'd not noticed before. It felt like melancholy, like a small wound in his chest in need of treatment. An emptiness. What exactly had he expected? For someone to drape an arm around his shoulders, tell him it was alright that he was different, that it was cool to be different, and that he was not alone? No. People only did that sort of thing in the movies, or in poorly-acted TV shows. Connor didn't want any of that. What he got was a perfectly natural response from one guy to another, it was funny, and it was, above all things, normal. Normal, when it could've been so much worse.

Connor smiled to himself, and toyed with his food. Beyond Cadmus Labs, there were now two people who knew who he was and what he could do, and they didn't want to put him in a cage. He exhaled, and sunk comfortably back into his seat.

"Good call on the Amazon fries, by the way."

Oliver wrestled with a small smile of his own, though succeeded a little better than Connor in his efforts to conceal it. There was depth to that, reasons why his face so naturally fell into a stoic mask whenever the playful smile beneath it was allowed to relax too far. Reasons that he clung to jokes, to wit and sarcasm, as if they were a life raft carrying him away from the deserted island he claimed to have spent five years stranded upon. But they were his reasons; his demons, in his closet. He took a silent moment to grab a mental shovel and pat down the earth beneath which those reasons were buried, and clung instead to the subtle positive that they had stumbled across. Banter. The briefest instant, yes, but it was better than nothing, a sign of progress, and Oliver was keen to take the win.

Perhaps that was selfish of him. Perhaps all of this was. Dress it up how you like: this introduction was a contingency plan, a foundation established to lessen any guilt that Oliver might feel when his affairs in Gotham were over, and his crusades drew him back home to Star City. True, there were others in Gotham who he could perhaps convince to take an interest in Connor, a web that he could build that would make for a more effective support structure than Oliver could ever provide alone. There were factors in Gotham that could have the opposite effect as well, factors that Connor needed to be steered away from, for his own sake and for the sake of those around him. Criminals. Exploitation. Bats. It was a sad but common tragedy whenever Gotham's network of criminals stole the life and potential of one of the city's sons or daughters; a, fortunately, rarer but more worrisome one when that son or daughter could see through walls, punch like a freight train, and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

The obvious correlation had not escaped him. There was no monopoly on super strength and invulnerability, but x-ray vision? Oliver wasn't clear on the metaphysics behind the seemingly impossible feats that Kryptonians were capable of, but he understood enough to know that it had something to do with light. Sunlight, x-rays, infrared; and wasn't radiation, like the kind that pulsed out of kryptonite just a form of light too? He might not understand how a bunch of photons or waves or whatever could make someone bulletproof and capable of flight, but thanks to a chance encounter with the glowing green pyjamas guy, he'd learned that light was capable of a whole heck of a lot more than they'd taught him in science class back at Brentwood Academy.

It was probably nothing. Probably a coincidence. Probably that thing that palaeontologists were always talking about, convergent evolution or whatever, where two completely unrelated species figured out the same evolutionary solution to the same kind of problem. After all, Kryptonians were an endangered species: there were probably more mountain gorillas left in the wild than Kryptonians; as well as more nature documentaries on the TV in Oliver's hotel room than one might expect. This was just a coincidence, a metahuman stumbling into the right genetic combo to result in a few of those familiar abilities. Either that, or the big blue Boy Scout had been whipping it out of his little red trunks and knocking up the Gotham populace, and Oliver was pretty confident that Lois Lane would have his balls in a jar if anything like that had ever happened - something that those very same little red trunks gave Oliver an uncomfortable ability to be confident was not the case.

Even so, the faintest possibility of it lingered in his thoughts. He studied Mal, looking for some sort of clue that the titanic mechanic was thinking along similar lines. Mal was his usual unreadable self: the only time you could ever see what Mal was thinking was when disapproval was painted across his face, and usually, by that point, you were mere seconds away from being told exactly why in explicit detail.

"Don't worry, buddy," Oliver offered, clapping Mal on the shoulder. "We'll just find you a lead planter to stand behind so that Connor can't see your pink and lacies."

It was subtle, and obscure, a reference to a certain article that pretty much anyone of a certain age was sure to be familiar with. Assuming, of course, Mal Duncan was the kind of person to use the Daily Planet for something other than just soaking up oil spills in his garage.

It took longer than it should have for the notion to penetrate. At first Mal's eyes widened, and then narrowed, fixating on Oliver's questioning glance. He understood what Time Magazine was trying to suggest, and could guess the kind of places his mind was likely to go in the wake of that. Mal wasn't sure what pre-shipwreck Oliver Queen was like, but this new version who'd returned home all those years ago seemed like the kind of person who'd never met a challenge he didn't want to try and solve on his own. By himself. With no help from anyone. Especially not anyone who knew what in the damn hell they were doing.

"Not sure that's an experiment I want to risk taking part in."

His words were chosen carefully; his tone not so much. For the most part it was civil, but there was an undercurrent of warning that Mal couldn't manage - and didn't want - to strip away. He hoped it was enough to drive home the innuendo and implication. He threw in a chuckle for cover, but the note of humour didn't undercut the sincerity of the sentiment.

"The word exposure applies in too many different ways, and that's not something I like the sound of anywhere near me and my junk."

* * *

After a rocky start, lunch at Jeff's hadn't been a complete disaster. Connor took what limited time he had to build upon the sorry scrap of civility he had inside of him, and salvaged his reputation. To a point. For the most part, he left the talking to Oliver and Mal, while he enjoyed a much needed double-helping of burgers and fries. He tried, though. Tried to be interested, and interesting; he even mustered a small smile, now and then, when someone said something uncharacteristically lighthearted. He had to be careful with that, though. It wasn't so much that he had a tin ear for comedy, but rather, there wasn't much for Connor Kent to laugh about. So he looked to Oliver and Mal for the right cues. It went ok, not that he dwelled on it much: the important part was the food, and that was great.

With a full and satisfied stomach, he traipsed behind the old friends, granting them some space to talk on the way back to Mal's garage. It certainly seemed like his kind of place, somehow. Connor tempered his curiosity enough to not be intrusive, and dealt with the farewell with trademark simplicity; why make a fuss, when a curt nod, and a "See you around," would do? It was not the last he was to think about Mal, even as he watched the small unassuming garage vanish into the distance in the mirror, he found himself wondering about the quirks of fate that brought a man like that into the orbit of a man like Oliver Queen.

A fresh growl from the engine derailed his thoughts, he could feel it travel up through his feet and rumble in his belly. Oliver's car was... black. From the paint work, to the wheel trims, to the seat leather, and the rest of the interior, everything was black. Even the windows were tinted for added blackness. Connor didn't know anything about cars, and hadn't given them any thought, before today. But there was something about this particular car, with a sleek design that contrasted its stocky shape, and an angry snarling grill, that just appealed to him on some inexplicable level. Even nestled inside, his eyes were drawn to the smallest of features, like the fine stitching on his seat, and the shimmer of silver detail on the stick. And the smell. What was it about the smell? It was... seductive. No, intoxicating. And when the engine first stirred with such a guttural roar, it made his hair stand on end.

"Nice car," he conceded, using it as an excuse to reach out and stroke the dashboard like a pet dog, whereupon he gave an appreciative nod, "It's soft. Tasteful. I bet it's expensive."

Remembering who the driver was, he tossed Oliver a knowing look, "Let me guess: it was your birthday and you couldn't decide between a new car, or a small island."

Something tugged at the corner of Oliver's expression, something part way between a smile and a wince. He noticed and noted Connor's attempt at humour, and might otherwise have been amused by it, were it not for the unpleasant memories that his choice of contrast brought up. The official story, one which Connor seemed to be only vaguely familiar with at best, was that Oliver Queen had spent five years stranded on an island in the Pacific. The reality was, well, distinctly more complicated, and distinctly less pleasant.

"I'm not really a fan of islands."

He could have left it at that, the conversational equivalent of a cross court back-hand: but they were on the way to a stakeout, not the US Open, and Oliver wasn't out here trying to score points. Whether deliberately or not, Connor had initiated a potential conversation, and Oliver was starting to learn that such voluntary small talk was a rare commodity from the young meta. Instead he leaned into it, trying to strike up a verbal rally.

"This is a little more understated than what I usually drive -"

Understated was an understatement, Oliver realised in instant hindsight, fighting against the flicker of a smile as he contemplated the sleek green profile of his Arrowcar back home. Despite appearences, the two vehicles were remarkably similar: both gas-guzzling monstrosities on the outside, but utterly transformed within, the negative aspects of their past design stripped out in favour of something more benevolent and conscientious. In the case of the vehicles, conventional internal combustion gave way to electric motors, hybrid engines, and environmentally conscious biofuels: but Oliver liked to think it made for an apt summation of himself, as well, an eye-catching misconception that belied something better - or at least less terrible - beneath. If the Arrowcar was Green Arrow - flashy, eyecatching, and painfully on-brand - then this car was the Oliver Queen of the dichotomy. On the surface it was a Dodge Challenger: American-made and a long way from cheap, but not as overtly attention-grabbing, more apt to blend in on the streets of Gotham. If the Arrowcar was costumed and quivered, then the Dodge was plain clothes. Perhaps silver or a graphite gray would have been even more benign and uninteresting, but the black was a concession to Oliver's own inner monologue that, obviously, everything in Gotham needed to be painted black.

"- back home in Star City. I'm no Bruce Wayne, I don't have an entire annex on my home that's just for cars or anything like that, but people out there seem to care about what I spend my money on, and so I figure, why not do something useful with that attention? I have a thing for hybrids, and electric cars. Not the crappy little city runabout ones, but the swanky things, the ones that look like proper cars instead of overgrown RC toys. The technology is getting better all the time, and with the world the way it is, we kinda need that. But, stuff like that doesn't get developed or invented unless there's a market, and a demand. So, I buy into that. Draw some attention. Add my name to their list of celebrity customers. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, but -"

He let out a small sigh, his hands fidgetting into a slightly different position on the wheel.

"I am who I am. I am what I am. There's not much I can do to change that, but maybe I can leverage that to do a little good. Charities. Causes. Publicity. Whatever."

This time Oliver did smile, slightly, a faint chuckle tumbling out of his lips.

"I promise it's not nearly as pretentious as I just made it sound."

"Nah. It's not pretentious," Connor shrugged off Oliver's attempt to be self-deprecating, and, pausing to find the right word, he concluded, "It's considerate."

He was beginning to notice the way Oliver Queen made light of serious things, as if to somehow rob them of their weight. Maybe he was reading into it too much, of course. Maybe Queen just had a really strange sense of humour. But he wasn't about to deny him the credit he deserved, after all, there was something he said - and Queen had said a whole lot - that somehow resonated with him.

"All of that attention," he mused aloud, eyes resolutely on the road ahead, "Having your every move scrutinised, every word debated, every purchase judged. Sounds like hell to me. It's a decent thing, trying to take the attention, and use it for something good."

There were things Oliver Queen said that were of little consequence; matters of opinion, about hybrid cars, crappy runabout cars, and proper cars. Lacking any personal experience of his own, Connor had nothing of value to add the conversation, but Queen's words were scattered like seeds, taking root in the fertile soil of his uninformed mind. From an economical sense, his argument in favour of hybrid and electrical vehicles carried weight, and more importantly, from an ecological point, too. Even he was aware of climate change. Now, the next time someone casually brought up the topic of cars, he was armed with a knowledge and a vernacular, ready for the challenge.

But it had not been the car talk that resonated, but rather the all-too-familiar subject of unwanted attention. Since their first encounter, Connor had summed up Oliver Queen as a privileged rich boy with a tragic history - it had been a stupid misstep to mention islands in front of him, and he should've known better - someone with whom he shared nothing in common, for they each came from completely different worlds. And yet, the fame which he had always disregarded as quirky byproduct of his rich boy privilege, seemed suddenly like a cage. And cages were something with which he was only too familiar.

"And a damn sight better than what I would do," he muttered, darkly. Then, remembering himself, he added, "I, uh... I value my privacy."

They existed like dream fragments, lingering in the dark recesses of his mind, broken images, but always the same: the frosted glass, the faceless men, warped voices, lights, blinking, the blinding white, then darkness and silence again. Silence, much like the ominous void filling the limited space inside Queen's proper car. Connor exorcised the ghosts of distant memories and punctured the quiet with a question he'd been holding onto for too long:

"Okay, so... how does a guy like you know a guy like Mal?"

I value my privacy.

Those words resonated with Oliver, and he allowed himself to dwell on them for a few moments as the car rumbled on down the Gotham streets. Connor's tone framed the attitude as a failing, but Oliver felt otherwise. To value privacy was to understand that it was precious, something often forgotten in this modern world of social media and outspoken opinion. Oliver was not the kind of entitled celebrity to complain about his fame: born into it or not, by choice or not, it was the privilege that he had, and he could no more surrender it or wish it away than he could his nationality or ethnicity or gender. Yet, he couldn't help the pang of sadness he felt for those so eager to sacrifice their privacy wholesale alongside the obscurity they were desperate to lose. Throwing the baby out with the bath water, his mother would have said, one of the many quirky sayings that used to purr from her in a gentle brogue that transformed into quite the horrifying notion if you thought about it too long.

Oliver did think about it too long, and the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips carried with it a hint of sadness.

"A guy like me?"

He injected enough amused indignation into his voice to flush away the residual hints of anything else.

"I'm not sure how to take that, Connor. Should I feel insulted, or should Mal?"

"Something tells me you ain't old school buddies."

It was an evasion delivered with the same hint of levity as the question itself. Queen was being deliberately obtuse, he could tell; the implication that his words harboured insult either for Oliver or Mal left him short on options, and he wasn't about to let himself get cornered so easily. Connor sunk further into his seat, partly an instinctive display of relaxed defiance in the face of the new line of questioning, but also because the seat was so damn comfortable.

"It's like you and me, Queen. The wealthy playboy slash philanthropist," he was quick to add, to give him his due and all, "Riding around Gotham with some... moody meta. Right? What I'm saying is things like that don't just happen. There's a story there, we know there is, and I bet there's a story with you and the big guy, too."

Already, the landscape around them was beginning to change, rising and falling like an indecisive tide; the swell of grey high-rises as they cut through downtown diminished into the scruffy dwarven warehouses of the docklands. Connor gazed out of the window, drinking in the sights; there was so much of the city that was still completely alien to him.

"But we all have our secrets, I guess," he said, idly, before shaking off the cobwebs of thoughts, "And speaking of which, where the hell are we going?"

Oliver sucked the inside of a cheek between his teeth, mostly in an effort to stop an amused smile from fully forming as Connor dug himself deeper into a whole. All manner of opportunities for Oliver to deliberately act offended presented himself, on his own behalf or on Mal's. Was Connor suggesting that Oliver saw himself as too good to associate with the rest of humanity? Was he implying that Mal wasn't worthy of moving in the same vaunted circles? Could he twist things so it seemed like Connor was applying the label of 'moody meta' to the towering mechanic?

In truth, the speculation and deliberate misunderstanding was far more entertaining than the actual truth. The story of Mal and Oliver was the same as any other: an acquaintance who had become a friend. Oliver had sought him out, an expert in applied physics who had parted ways with his former employers at STAR Labs, after Queen Consolidated approached him with a job offer and Mal had - in his own words - told them where to shove it. Oliver had already begun to harbour suspicions about his family's former company, and Mal's shared animosity had made him a resource at first; his skills with technology, and the services he'd ultimately rendered to the Green Arrow had made him an ally.

Perhaps it would have been difficult to convey the sentiments of that progression without Oliver revealing more than he would have wanted to, but Connor quickly excused Oliver of the need to, abandoning his line of enquiry and shifting his questions to focus elsewhere. Oliver spent a moment contemplating the boy's reasons. Was it courtesy, a respect for Oliver's privacy and secrets from someone who would at some point hope to receive the same? Or was it surrender, or disinterest, the sign of someone whose attention span wavered quicker than Kid Flash at a free buffet?

Oliver allowed himself to complete a turn before he answered, steering them onto one of Gotham's smaller streets. Burnley, and Mal's garage were far behind them, as was the city's uptown island, and the residences of Coventry were giving way into the industrial structures of Red Hook. This was Bratva territory: the the Whisper Gang, the Ivgene Clan, the Odessa Mob, organised crime out of Russia and Ukraine who controlled the Red Hook docks, trafficking in guns, explosives, heroin, stolen goods, and sometimes stolen people, in part or in whole, to an extent that would make even the Triads and Yakuza feel a little squeamish. It was one of Gotham's most grim neighbourhoods, and yet it hid it well, behind the protective shell of warehouses and shipping depots, and in the shadow of the comparative pleasantry of the Gotham Village and Robinson Park.

They weren't here for the crime though, not exactly.

"Tyler Chemicals," Oliver offered, in answer to Connor's question. "They're a pharmaceutical company, founded in the Seventies, that Queen Consolidated acquired in a hostile takeover a few years back, and then almost immediately shuttered. That's not as weird as it sounds: probably just means that Tyler Chemicals had a patent or impending breakthrough that QC wanted, and buying the whole company wound up being a better deal than paying licence fees piecemeal."

He fell quiet again as the car drew to a halt, eased carefully into a hopefully inconspicuous parking spot alongside a worn and grubby abandoned warehouse.

"What is weird is that building over there," Oliver continued, with a gesture through the windshield. "According to city records, that building was an 'ancillary storage facility' for Tyler Chemicals, which I guess is just a swanky way of saying 'warehouse'. It should be abandoned, and Queen Consolidated doesn't list it as a line item on their facilities budget, and yet?"

Oliver dug into his pocket, pulling out what on the surface seemed to be a smartphone, albeit a somewhat clunky and boxy variation on the theme, rather than the sleek profile that a QPhone or Waynecom product might cut. A fingerprint scan and a pin code later however, and the screen that sprang to life was something very different: a map of Gotham City, covered in a web of colour coded lines and regions that intersected and overlapped. A few clicks, and most of them faded, leaving behind a thin red line and a modest area of effect superimposed over what presumably - if the little black you are here triangle was any indication - was the building that warranted their attention. Oliver presented it to Connor, almost triumphant.

"Someone has been paying the electric bill for the last few weeks, and they're using it to run wifi."

He shrugged, shifting a little in his seat to get more comfortable.

"Now, it could just be that Queen Consolidated has a security guard in there who spends his days watching Netflix and porn, or that they're redecorating the eleventh floor and needed somewhere to shove all that stuff... or it could be something else. Sorta seemed like a stakeout situation to me."