RETROUVAILLE | oliver queen

09.

09. ➳ REGRETS

     EVELYN SWIFTLY LIFTED HER LEG, heavy weights meant for exercise weighing down at her toned calves as her leg came back down on the ground.

     "Remember you used to hate working out?" Oliver reminded teasingly, watching Evelyn with a cocked brow. It was so strange to him to see the once small and fragile girl now working out and kicking ass.

     "Things change." Evelyn blurted and shrugged, finishing her fifty leg lifts and wrapping the weights that were once on her calves now on her biceps. She got down to do push-ups, counting to herself the push-ups she was doing. Oliver watched her move like lighting, going up and down quite quickly, quicker than he thought she could handle. He had to admit, he was impressed with her transformation.

     "Do you regret it?" Evelyn suddenly asked. Oliver cocked a brow in confusion, unsure of what Evelyn was referring to. Evelyn lifted her head to look at him when she realized he'd remained silent before sighing. "Going on the Gambit that day, I mean." Evelyn reworded as she took heavy breaths, moving her head back to its place to stare at the ground beneath her. Oliver thought about h to e question for a few seconds.

     "No." He admitted and crossed his arms. "It made me the man I am today. I might not be the ideal crime-fighting superhero that the people of Starling City wish for, but I try to keep this city safe. That's all that matters."

     "Fifty..." Evelyn whispered to herself, pushing herself up onto her knees and removing her weights, nodding as she stared at Oliver. "I honestly don't mind being the way I am now. What I regret are some of the things I've done. A lot of people would still be alive if I hadn't been so stupid and emotional during my time with Hydra." She reminded herself, a chill running up her spine at the thought.

      "That's the problem." Oliver huffed as he paced in circles around Evelyn. "People like us, people who do what we do, can't let our emotions get the better of us. Emotion and attachment interfere with the job."

     "I agree." She sighed. "During my time with Hydra, if I hadn't been so god damn emotional, my father would still be alive today." She admitted. Oliver's eyes widened slightly and he cocked a brow.

     "Did you—" Oliver began, but Evelyn shook her head.

     "My so-called boss killed him. He is a very strict man and he always wants things done his way. I refused to follow orders at one point and my punishment for that was my father's death." She recalled. Oliver watched Evelyn pat sweat off her forehead with a hand towel that she had besides her.

     "What did he ask of you?" Oliver asked and tilted his head, searching Evelyn's eyes for any sign of emotion. He found none.

     "He wanted me to murder someone." She explained, "Twenty-five years old. He'd just had his first child. A little girl. He had a decent job, getting decent pay. He was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was friends with Fitzgerald, my boss, but he accidentally let information slip to an enemy and Fitz decided he was a traitor and deserved to die."

     "And you refused to kill him." Oliver guessed. Evelyn nodded.

     "I did. After he told me he would kill my father for not following orders, I said I would do it. I'd kill that young man to save my father. Even though I had never spent much time with my father and I wasn't very fond of him, I still took away another little girl's time with her own father." Evelyn sighed. "He said he'd give me the pleasure of killing the traitor but my father was still to die as punishment."
Evelyn shrugged, picking up her weights and towels and pushing them into a duffle bag.

     "You know it's not your fault he's dead. It's not easy to kill another human being. If you hadn't killed that man, someone else in that place would've. That little girl wouldn't have had her father either way." Oliver said as he picked up Evelyn's duffel bag and placed it on a shelf on the wall besides him, where he kept other stuff to workout in the hideout, where they currently were.

     "I guess one of my regrets is killing that man. He's the first one I ever killed. I honestly don't believe he deserved to die. People I killed after him, they deserved to die. If I could change something about my past, I'd make my first kill the second man I killed and I wouldn't of tried to save my father." Evelyn explained as she removed her sweaty shirt, not minding Oliver seeing her in a sports bra.

     "Do you believe your father deserved to die?" Oliver asked as he turned to face the wall instead of Evelyn, who was changing. Evelyn was quick to change and walked in front of Oliver once finished and leaned against the wall.

     "After learning so much information about people I thought I once knew during my time at Hydra..." Evelyn said and then slowly nodded. "Yes." She said, "My father deserved to die."