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It wasn’t supposed to go… exactly like this, but, Oliver figures—somewhere in the latent rational portion of his mind that isn’t affected by all of this—that it’s the nature of a panic attack. He can see Thea from across the yacht, dazzling a small group of young yuppies the way she’s meant to, and he feels the urge to scream; he takes a deep breath instead, turns to the porthole to his right, and murmurs to the specter of Felicity in his left ear, “Felicity.”
“Oliver?”
She’s inquisitive by nature, he knows this, but the lilt of her voice betrays an underlying current of concern because this particular mission was supposed to be radio silent. But the moment Oliver heard the first patter of rain on the port-side of the yacht, he knew he wouldn’t make it through without saying something.
“That storm you were tracking when we left; where is it now?”
“Hang on.” He hears the almost-imperceptible sound of her fingers flying across the keyboard, and then: “It looks like it’s just east of your location.” She stops, but Oliver can feel the tension from across the line.
“How fast is it moving?”
She sighs and his breath hitches, his chest feeling tighter than before. “It’ll be on you in full force within the hour, if not sooner.”
He takes a deep breath, lets it out on a 10-count, and takes a surveying glance around the yacht. Everyone seems blissfully unaware of what’s raging outside and simultaneously the anxiety that rages in his own chest. His palms begin to sweat, and he slides his hands—trembling—into his pockets. A waiter passes by and offers him another drink, and he shakes his head with a tight smile.
“Oliver?” Felicity says in his ear, “Are you okay? Wait, sorry, that’s a dumb question. Of course you’re not okay.”
He huffs a short laugh; he wouldn’t have said it, not outright, but she’s astute enough to have realized the nature of the question. He darts another glance around and when he’s certain all eyes are elsewhere he moves a little closer to the porthole. He watches the water swirl and begin to churn outside, rain droplets piercing the surface of the water like so many arrows arcing from the sky.
“What can I do?” Felicity murmurs in his ear.
He frowns and tries to think of what the best thing for him would be in this situation. It’s a party yacht, so it’s not far from land even though he’s on the wrong side of the vessel and can’t see it, and the storm system isn’t anything like what he experienced off of Lian Yu, but looking out at the wide expanse of the sea with nothing dotting the horizon to mark the space as anything other than open ocean and feeling the water press itself insistently, repeatedly against the hull of the yacht, he can’t stop his chest from slowly tightening and his fingers from going numb. He feels the sting of tears at his eyes and the pulse of frustration at himself as his head begins to throb.
“Oliver?” Felicity asks.
“I need to get topside,” he says, quickly, on impulse. Maybe open air… “I need to be able to see the docks.”
“Are you sure you need to go outside for that? You should be able to see—”
“I need air.” He turns sharply from the window and nearly bowls Thea over. She stumbles but rights herself, manicured nails digging into his biceps for stability.
“Wow, okay,” she says. “Something is wrong. What is it?”
Oliver closes his eyes and inhales deep one, two, three… When he exhales on ten and reopens his eyes, Thea is still there looking up at him through her lashes from under a furrowed brow. “Ollie?”
“I need air,” he repeats, darting a glance back at the porthole.
Thea’s look of concern deepens for a few seconds until it clears and she nods, “Okay.” She grips his arm by the elbow and pulls him behind her. “This way.”
Oliver assumes that Felicity updated Thea privately. The rational part of his mind—the one processing behind the panic—wonders if she was able to peg the problem and if she gave the statistics: heart rage, core body temperature, respiratory rate. Panic attack, he thinks.
It’s normal, his rational side responds. You’re traumatized.
Just thinking the word brings his breath in rapid bursts and Thea grips his arm tighter nudging people aside with polite “Excuse mes” and “I’m sorry, my brother’s feeling seasick” on repeat. “Seasick” gets people moving but when they make it to the stairwell out of the cabin the compacted space closes around Oliver and he stops abruptly, jerking Thea back as he braces his arms against the wood paneling. He bends at the waist, choking in breath now and beginning to feel light-headed. Tears have begun to stream down his face and he can’t hear what Thea’s saying over the sound of his own pulse.
He feels a hand against his back and shouts. Dimly he registers Dig’s voice and stands straighter, strains his ears to listen. He wonders who’s sobbing and then realizes that it’s him. His chest constricts and he fights not to sob harder.
“Just a few more steps, buddy,” he can hear Diggle saying. He looks up and sees Thea a few steps ahead of them, rain streaming down behind her and across her back. She reaches out for him and he grips her hand like a lifeline. But he can’t move.
“Just a few more steps,” Dig says again. “A few more steps and you’re out. Come on. You can do this.”
He counts the final stairs as he takes them. One, two, three… until he’s out in the rain. It isn’t torrential by any means—not the way it had been that night—but it’s more than a drizzle or a mist. Thea’s dress will be ruined and they’ll be soaked before they go back under.
Once Oliver makes it to the deck, he takes a few steps and collapses. He feels his shoulders shake with his sobs and desperately tries to find his breath. Thea kneels with him, taking deep breaths and exaggerating the sound. He can’t hear what she’s saying but he knows what she’s doing so he tries to match her. After a few desperate pulls, he feels some of the pressure in his chest lighten and hears himself say, “The mission—” But Thea stops him, pressing a hand to his chest to remind him to keep breathing.
“It’s fine. We’ll get them another day. It didn’t have to be tonight,” Diggle says. “Roy’s on the way. We’ll get you home and in some warm clothes.”
Oliver nods frantically, still trying to match Thea’s breathing. “I’m sorry—”
Diggle lays a hand on his shoulder and leans into his vision. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Oliver. We should have known better. Prepared better. There’s no way you could have known, but we should have known that being in a can of sardines underwater during a storm wouldn’t be a good idea. We’ll come up with something else. Don’t worry about it.”
Oliver nods again, slower this time. He feels his breathing begin to even out and feels the shame of having worried his friends begin to settle over his shoulders. As he hears Felicity report Roy’s ETA in his ear, he fights to keep that shame at bay. If he doesn’t, he knows that a second wave will hit and he would rather avoid it.
He feels Diggle’s hand squeeze his shoulder and hears Thea and Felicity talking to him, talking him through it, and as the exhaustion washes over him, he knows that he’d be okay if it did. That he’s not alone and stranded this time.