Oliver Queen was a man of simple thoughts. He didn't try to complicate things with extra thoughts, but sometimes that led to him under thinking things.

To many Oliver Queen was insensitive, as a man of simple thoughts.

To many Oliver Queen was self absorbed, as a man of simple thoughts.

And to be sure, all of this was true. However, everyone has their faults. Oliver just tended not to see his until it was too late. He tended not to realize that he was being insensitive or self absorbed until a friend or family member gave up on him. And still even then sometimes it took a week or so for hm to realize they were missing and absent from his life.

So, maybe taking Roy Harper on as a sidekick when he was still working on this and trying to become more aware of others and their relations to him, was not the best idea in the world. Especially since this is Roy Harper we are talking about. Hot-headed Roy Harper who gets torn up over the little things.

But things had seemed so convenient at the time. Oliver had been in some serious need of help feeling overwhelmed trying to deal with family issues and the vigilante thing… It was just terribly hard, and then Roy had come to him. Sure he had had his reservations about the entire thing, sidekicks might have been more trouble than they were worth and due to some of his lacking social skills. And anyway he had seen news of Batman getting a Sidekick. A nine year old one at that. Roy was some years older than nine. And he'd be dammed if he couldn't take care of a kid as well as Batman.

That had been the deciding factor.

The years had been well with Roy since then. He had been a bit of a trouble at the beginning of it all, but he had learned and adapted quite well. He was quick on his feet and could make a shot nearly as good and quickly as Oliver. Oliver would have been proud if he had taken time to actually observe Roy. But he didn't, and when he did it was only in a critical view in hopes to better improve him and keep him safe if he ever did decide to branch off without him.

Roy had been perfectly okay with the term sidekick up until he was about seventeen. The word sidekick had made him think of Dick and Wally. Two people who were at least four years younger than him.

He wasn't a kid anymore, he was at least Oliver's equal, and in some ways he did much better than Oliver. Not to say that he was better at Oliver in every single thing he did, but what Oliver didn't do well with Roy did great with. And what Roy didn't do well with Oliver picked up the slack.

The problem was that Oliver never noticed that Roy tended to pick up slack for Oliver and some areas and only noticed that Oliver picked up slack for Roy in the other areas.

It was always "Speedy do this" "Speedy hurry up!" "Speedy, if I hadn't been there tonight you would have died. Keep your eyes open."

Frankly, Roy was tired of hearing the name speedy. He was especially tired of being referred to as a sidekick. He was Oliver's partner, and Oliver needed him on the field sometimes. They worked together to achieve a common goal.

He had expressed this for about a year when he finally started to play with he idea of going solo. He was tired of Oliver nagging him. Batman even trusted his twelve year old partner better than Oliver trusted Roy. It was humiliating.

It had been one year of trying to get Oliver to acknowledge that he wanted to be called partners and not sidekick.

Oliver had been wandering around the watch tower trying to help out with something or another with Batman, he couldn't recall what had been so important at that exact moment, brewing quietly to himself as Batman discussed some technical problems with him. Him and Roy had been in the middle of a rather intense yelling match, something about how Roy wasn't being properly appreciated by Oliver, when Oliver had been summoned by Batman. Oliver had been eager to take leave of the stupid argument, but what had gotten him so angry was the biting remark Roy had snapped at him.

"Run off in the middle of conflict! That's what you always do! Run away! Coward!"

Oliver hadn't dignified that with a response and had made his leave bow gripped tightly in his hand as he was "beamed up" to the watch tower just out of sight of Roy.

Brewing as he shuffled through the watch tower he saw it and the most clever idea ever struck him.

Coke was doing the thing where they put nifty little names on the Side of their cans right? Things like friend, brother, hero, and maybe sidekick? Oh! How clever he had felt in that moment.

It was perfect because the last time Oliver checked Roy's favorite drink was coke a cola. He had begun plotting then and there. It was to be a grand apology. Grinning now he worked quick to help Batman with what needed to be done and then he would show his sidekick how much he really truly appreciated him.

-.-.-.-.-.-

It was all set up. Oliver had gone through twenty four dozen boxes of coke and picked out all of the appropriate ones for Roy. He had intentionally gotten put a ton of sidekick ones out on the table, along with friend, brother, and hero. He was possibly more excited than he had ever been. And nervous too. He had written this little note for him, because despite he fact that he was oblivious he had noticed that Roy was progressively getting more irritated around him, and according to their argument earlier it was because he didn't feel appreciated.

He wanted Roy to know that, even if he didn't always show it, he truly appreciated having Roy by his side as Speedy meant a great deal to him. The note read to the best sidekick to ever be. Thanks for being by my side Speedy.

He snickered to himself as he picked up his phone and dialed Speedy's number. Eager to see his reaction. "Hey, Roy. I could use some help at HQ be here as quick as possible. It's urgent, and probably sure dangerous." Okay, so maybe that little lying part hadn't exactly been necessary. But he would be so happy when he got down here that it wouldn't matter at all that he had lied about the urgency.

"uhh… Okay. I'll be there in five seconds tops." Click.

A few seconds later Wally West zips in with none other than Roy clutched to his side and robin piggybacking it.

"Sounded urgent, so I brought backup." Roy said in an irritable voice, as an explanation.

A snicker sounded from Wally as he let go of Roy and Robin climbed off of his back. Robin murmuring, "I don't know how you do that dude. All the time with all that food in your stomach? I would throw up for sure."

Wally "pshhhawd" him, "if you were a speedster you wouldn't worry about it. I don't have to. It's kind of like I'm joust speed walking all the time and everyone else is just being super slow."

Robin shook his head at Wally and rubbed his head as Oliver kind of awkwardly stood there.

Silence settled over the room for a moment before Roy muttered, "so, what's so urgent?"

"Well, uh, I just kind of wanted to surprise you. I, well I know that you haven't been feeling appreciated recently and I just wanted to –to show you that I do appreciate you." He gave a smile and gestured to to the table he had so extravagantly set up. He grinned expectantly feeling even more self conscious as the other sidekicks looked awkward at being caught in this little- whatever it was.

There was a pause as Roy stared at the table, it was impossible to tell what he was feeling from his face, he had gone to his natural facial expression around Oliver which always screamed, pissed off.

Not a good sign? Oliver wasn't quite sure yet.

Finally after several moments of awkward silence, Roy finally spoke up, "I hate coke, Oliver."

Oliver stood there baffled for a second, okay so maybe not as largest as he thought, but it was thought that counted right? "No- but, I thought Coke was your favorite?"

"It was. Like three years ago." Roy spat. Okay, okay, not going so well.

"After the party where Roy and Wally got into a Coke drinking contest and Roy threw it all up, he's hated it." Robin tried to be helpful.

"Oh. Yeah. I remember now." Oliver mutter bashfully, "it's the thought that counts though, right?"

Oliver handed him the Coke that said Sidekick and had the little note taped to it. Kind of smiling at Roy.

Roy stared at it, his face slowly turning colors to match his flaming red hair. He took the Coke, gripped it in his hand until his knuckles turned white. His eyes were focused on the coke, and he refused to make eye contact with Oliver. His eyes had slowly narrowed into slits.

Another moment of silence, before the hissing sound of Roy's voice filled the room, "This is probably your biggest insult yet." He said, and without bothering to read the cute little letter that Oliver had written him, threw the coke at the table full of other cokes, making a loud smashing sound fill the recently silent room. Robin, Wally, and Ollie all flinched a d Roy quickly stamped out of the room.

And that is when Oliver realized his very big, very vital, mistake. Roy had been coming at him with this idea for about a year that being called a sidekick was some sort of insult.

It really got underneath Roy's skin when Oliver called him that, but two years of habit didn't just wear off instantly. Apparently, it took quite a bit for the idea to get across.

Wally darted after Roy after a moment of more awkward silence, Robin stood there starring at Ollie beneath shaded eyes and finally just shook his head and left to find his friends.

Shit. This ones gonna be real hard to fix.

I don't own any of the DC characters, or legally own the Coke brand name.