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"What are we going to do?" Roy asked, looking around at the rest of Team Arrow as they all sat along the side of the road.
Oliver and Felicity had gotten into a battle of words after a mission went wrong, and both just left. Each one in the opposite direction, leaving the rest of the team alone. Roy, Thea, John, Sara, and Laurel were left completely clueless as to what they were supposed to do now.
They were confident that if they went back to the bunker, either Felicity or Oliver would be there, and then they would be forced to rehash the situation once again. No one wanted to experience that. It was bad enough listening to it the first time and in person.
"I guess we could go back to our apartments," Theo sighed, shrugging her shoulders. "Pretend that nothing happened tonight, and no one almost died, then sleep for a few hours and report to the bunker to start the adventure over."
"Ignore the fact that half of us almost died because the coms went out tonight?" Sara scoffed, shaking her head furiously. "Absolutely not. Someone needs to take responsibility for that shit because I don't appreciate almost dying. Been there done that, don't ever want to do it again."
Laurel rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Quit being overdramatic, Sara. No one could have predicted that the coms were going to go out in the middle of the mission. How could they predict it?"
"We were going into a secluded building that was barely able to be seen on radar," Sarah snapped, glaring at her sister out of the corner of her eye. "The fact that we thought the coms were going to work perfectly was our first mistake. Not taking all of the necessary precautions before going in there was just careless. If we wanted to be careless, then we should have sent Malcolm in first."
"Keep Malcolm out of this," Thea hissed, turning to look at Sara. She felt Roy place a hand on her back. He knew why she was getting so riled up over the entire situation, but the rest of the team was unaware of Thea's connection to Malcolm. Now wasn't the time to tell them, and that hand on her back was his gentle reminder to stop her from doing something she was going to regret.
"Arguing with each other doesn't solve what we are going to do now that they both stormed off," John chimed in, crossing his arms over his chest and stepping between Thea and Sara. He could see the tension between the two starting to thicken, and the last thing he wanted to do was have another set of Team Arrow members storm off.
"John's right," Laurel said. "I know no one wants to go talk to either of them, but at least one of us should go check on Oliver, and someone else should go check on Felicity. Maybe suggest that they were both at fault and that they need to hug it out."
Roy tossed his head back with a laugh. "I don't think they are going to be able to hug this one out. That fight was pretty heated, and it was definitely about way more than just the coms failing."
"So we should just sit here on our hands and do nothing?" Sara huffed, rolling her eyes as she collapsed on the ground and crossed her legs. "You don't want to try and figure out what the hell happened out there tonight. And you're certain that their fight is about more than just tonight's failed mission, so I guess nothing is our only option."
"Stop being so sarcastic," Laurel grumbled, looking down at her sister. With a sigh, she joined her on the ground. "Obviously, something is going on with them, and we are about as useless as Tommy Merlyn without his charm in a bar full of single and desperate women willing to sleep with him."
"His charm worked on you, so are you calling yourself desperate?" Sara teased, leaning into her sister with her shoulder.
"Shut up," Laurel replied, leaning back against Sara and tossing her head back with a laugh. "It was a sad time in my life. Oliver and I had broken up, and you were gone, so I could only be mad at him. The best thing I could think of was to sleep with his best friend."
"Who was better in bed?" Roy asked, pulling Thea down to sit in his lap as he joined Laurel and Sara on the ground.
John looked around and noticed that he was the only one still standing, and with a shrug, he decided to join them on the ground. He couldn't think of anything better for them to do than just hang out. If they were lucky, Felicity or Oliver would realize that no one followed them after their spat and would be calling on them soon. Hopefully, with a new mission that could distract them from tonight's disaster.
"I don't want to hear about my brother's sex life," Thea groaned, burying her head into the crook of Roy's neck. She sighed as she heard Laurel burst out in laughter before chiming in with an answer.
"They were both equally good," Laurel said, giggling uncontrollably. "Do you have anything to chime in with, Sara?"
Turning to her sister with the look of surprise on her face, Sara smacked her in the arm. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Tommy and I may have talked about his previous partners, and your name may have come up a few times," Laurel replied.
"I can't believe you two talked about that kind of stuff," Sara groaned, rolling her eyes. She looked around the circle and laughed at the face that Thea was making.
"It was during the get to know you stage of our relationship. That part that you normally skip," Laure replied, elbowing her sister gently in the arm.
Sara glared at Laurel and opened her mouth to retort, but was quickly cut off by John changing the subject.
"Before we start getting too personal about our lives, let's talk about something else. What was your initial reaction to finding out that Oliver was the Green Arrow?" he asked, interlacing his fingers and placing his hands in his lap.
"I wasn't surprised," Roy said. "I had been chasing the Green Arrow for months because I wanted to help him take care of the bad guys that were hurting people in the Glades. There would be times that I was tailing him, and all of a sudden, I'd lose him for like ten minutes. The next thing I knew, Oliver would be there, and the Green Arrow was gone. I knew there had to be some connection between the two, just with how suddenly one would disappear and the other would appear."
"Try being hired as his security guard," John said, tossing his head back slightly with a laugh. "I'd have eyes on him one minute and then all of a sudden he was gone, and the police radio would say that they were chasing the Green Arrow. I swear every time I knew where he was supposed to be, he'd be late or showing up just as his name was being called onto the stage for the event that they were at."
"I was angry," Thea chimed in. "I hated that he was keeping a secret like that from me for so long. I knew the only reason he was keeping the secret was that he wanted to keep me safe, but he'd show up with bruises or cuts all over his body, and when I'd ask him where they came from, he'd lie to me. It killed me to know that there was something he wasn't telling me."
Roy wrapped his arms tightly around Thea's waist and kissed the side of her head. He understood her hatred for people lying to her, especially after she found out the truth about her dad. Oliver was still coping with the fact that their dad knew about Malcolm, and it seemed like he was doing okay. But Thea, on the other hand, wasn't okay, but she didn't want to talk about it with any just yet either.
"I can understand being angry. You had every right to be," Laurel reassured her. "I don't remember feeling anything when I found out he was the Green Arrow. I remember being saved by the man in the mask and being starstruck, but after he ran away from me so many times, I just stopped feeling anything towards the Green Arrow."
Sara remained quiet about her feelings, just listening to everyone's stories. Her experience with the Green Arrow was so different that it couldn't compare to what they had experienced. It wasn't fair to them because they didn't see the transformation. Knowing what Oliver had seen on Lian Yu and experienced in Japan, Sara couldn't imagine him becoming anything else.
The friendly banter continued well into the evening. It wasn't until the sun had set that anyone even realized how late it was — decided that it was best for them to go their separate ways and gather back together at the bunker in the morning. Hopefully, the dramatics between Felicity and Oliver will have subsided, and things could return to normal.