Chapter Text
Since Violet Jackson was young she had always known that her life would be a little bit different. Being raised in foster homes and bouncing around Starling City meant that she never had much of a sense of normalcy. However, she felt that she was blessed with a certain optimistic nature that kept her grounded through it all. At every home she went to she tried to find some scrap of good in her foster families, even the terrible ones. Once she found Sheila and Guillermo, she found she didn’t have to try very hard at all.
At age twelve it was getting harder and harder for Children’s Services to find homes that would take her. Most families wanted cute, young bouncing babies who they could raise as their own. Nobody wanted a chubby twelve year old who could potentially have serious emotional baggage. Then Sheila and Guillermo stepped in and Violet was instantly at home. They were as nice as foster parents could be – coming to parent-teacher interviews, signing Violet up for the ballet lessons she had longed for, even buying her a beautiful set of Harry Potter books for her birthday. Yes, for two years Violet had been very happy.
Then everything she had built came crashing down around her.
One week after Violet turned fourteen Sheila received an urgent call from Children’s Services.
“They need you to come to their office. They said that your father has come to visit you”, Sheila wrung her hands as she spoke.
Her father? Violet’s father had given her up as an infant to go and continue his military career in some far-off place. After her mother died in childbirth her father could not be bothered to raise Violet on his own, so he had left her as a ward of the state. No, Violet certainly didn’t want to see her father.
Guillermo and Sheila were less certain. They thought that perhaps Violet’s father wanted to make amends with her, or at least apologize for his actions. After much persuasion and a little bit of pleading, Violet agreed to go. Although she still vowed not to enjoy the afternoon.
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The meeting with her father had turned out to be less of a ‘meet and greet’ and more of an eviction meeting. Violet’s father was an unbelievably unlikeable. He smiled often, and whenever he did Violet could have sworn that she heard a knife being unsheathed.
It turned out that his ‘military job’ had been a bit higher ranking than Violet had initially imagined. He refused to elaborate, but simply said that he had ‘had some connections’ at the department of Children’s Services.
He placed down a small stack of papers that all declared the same thing – Violet was to be put into the permanent custody of her father. Violet’s mouth hung open as she heard an audible gasp from Sheila. She heard nothing else that was said around the table for the rest of the brief conversation. She simply stared at the names on the documents and read them over and over. It was a small voice that eventually broke through her fog.
“Please.” It was Guillermo. Violet looked up and realized that both he and Sheila were crying. “Please, how can you take her away from us like this?”
Her father smiled some more. “Oh no, it’s not going to be just this moment. I understand that Violet must have some things to pack. I won’t be picking her up for another three days, so you will have until Monday to say your goodbyes to her. And truly, I do appreciate you taking good care of my daughter like this. You must be very kind people.”
Her father stood to leave, taking his pile of papers with him.
Sheila cried out, “Please! Please, you can’t just steal her from us, Mr.Darhk!”
He smiled again. “No, no, please call me Damien.”
He strode confidently towards the exit.
“See you on Monday, Violet!” he called over his shoulder.
Then the heavy door slammed, and he was gone.
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Felicity stared at the picture for a long time and willed her hands to stop shaking. She had only wanted to hack into ARGUS to get a recent photo of Damien Darhk so she and the team could at least know what he looked like. Now she was, for one of the first times in her life, grateful that the boys were out in the field and not with her in the foundry. If they had seen the way she leapt from the keyboard like she’d been burned, if Oliver had heard her yelp of surprise at the image on the screen she never would have been able to cover up the truth. As it was, she knew she would find a way to hide this from them. She would have to. Otherwise Oliver would practically lock her up in a tower to keep Damien away from her. She would have to save herself for as long as she could from the version of Damien that she had known – Damien Smoak. Her father.