Chapter Text
Moira wasn’t overly concerned with the yelping and growling that had been coming from Oliver’s room for the past half hour. That was, however, only because forty minutes ago, he had walked past her as he hurried up the stairs of the Queen Manor, alone, with a duffel bag in hand. He had tried to sneak in from the back door, but Moira knew his moves by now, and caught him trying to creep past the living room. When she had asked what he was doing, he had squeaked back 'Nothing!'. It was almost as if he was trying to deliberately irritate her.
Moira didn’t exactly want to barge in - now she knew that Oliver was the Arrow, and everything with Thea and Slade had been sorted, and they were all happy-families again, she had agreed to give her son his own space.
But then an angry voice shouting Russian curse words echoed down the staircase, and Moira had had enough. She strode up to Oliver’s closed bedroom door and knocked twice before letting herself in without waiting for a reply.
She probably should have waited for Oliver to answer the door.
“Oh, Oliver,” she found herself sighing, her shoulders slumping.
Oliver was curled up on the floor at the foot of his bed, with some sort of sewing kit laid out in front of him. He had hastily covered up whatever he was working up underneath a towel that he had obviously been using to nurse the many bloody pricks in his fingers. Black thread was strung in his hair and tangled all over his body, and he was glaring down at the floor furiously.
Moira would have laughed… if Oliver hadn’t shot her a completely hopeless, kicked-puppy look, his eyes wide and horrified he had been walked in on.
“Mom!” he said in a rush, his voice coming out in a stunned stammer. He hadn’t anticipated her coming in, clearly. “I can explain -”
“You don’t need to,” Moira rolled her eyes. She grabbed one of his pillows from his unslept-in bed and settled it on the floor for her to sit on. She placed one of her hands gently on his own and questioned gently, “Why on earth would you try and sew when you know you don’t know how, Oliver?”
Oliver grumbled, picking a strand of thread off of his shoulder and trying to find the needle he had dropped on the ground. “Shado always made it look easy,” he scowled.
Moira brushed off that comment, knowing that he was referring to the island somehow, and they had an unspoken agreement that they would never ask about that place. “You could ask Raisa for help; I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
She couldn’t help but smile as Oliver tried to bat another piece of thread away from him with one hand, looking irritated.
Oliver’s face fell at her comment though. Moira hesitated and wondered where she had gone wrong. But then her son humphed to himself, seemingly coming to a decision, and he plucked the towel off of his work to reveal what it was. He picked it up in one hand and passed it over to her.
Moira looked down at his green Arrow jacket with a glazed expression over her face. She ran her hands over the thick fabric, feeling the strong body armour and the smooth leather and finally examining the hood, his famous green hood that looked as if it was worn and had been repaired over and over and over again by the same steady hands.
“Bullet holes,” Oliver said shortly. “Knife tears. Normally Felicity would do it for me, but she says I’ve gotta learn how to sew so if she's not there I can do it myself.”
Moira felt as if she should say she agreed with Miss Smoak and Oliver should learn how to sew his own torn clothes, but Oliver had shrunk into himself and looked so very helpless and vulnerable, as if he hated the fact that one simple task was enough to beat the fearless Starling vigilante.
“We will never speak a word of this,” she finally decided. “Especially not to Miss Smoak.” Then she picked up the sewing kit herself and threaded a needle, beginning to neatly stitch up the holes and tears.
When she finished, she packed the kit up and hung the Arrow jacket on a hanger to carefully check her work. But she didn’t need to; her work was flawless as always. She folded the jacket carefully, aware that her son was watching her from behind, and then packed it into his duffel bag, very pointedly ignoring the bow and small collection of green arrows that lay at the very bottom.
Moira smiled at her son as he remained seated on the floor stoically, leaning back against his bed, and she ruffled Oliver’s short hair. She was about to leave when Oliver managed to silently sneak up behind her and attack her with a tight embrace, burying his head into her shoulder.
“Thanks, Mom,” he whispered, and it was so sincere and full of emotion that it brought the traces of tears to Moira’s eyes.
She gently stroked the back of his neck as she replied, “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Then, when she reached his doorway, she turned back and quirked her lips. “And don’t worry, your secret’s safe me with. Nobody has to know that the mighty Arrow can’t sew a cross-stitch to save his life.”