The Legacy Series
is an Arrow Flash Forward Fic created by ash818.
It is 2039, and Oliver and Felicity Queen have been married for more than twenty years. They are happily retired from vigilantism, living in a beautiful house with their two beautiful children, Jonathan and Abigail. Unfortunately, Jon takes after his father a little too closely, and when the story opens, Oliver has just arrived at central lockup to bail his reckless teenager out of jail.
Then their real problems begin.
Told from Jon's point of view, the series follows the Queens into the next generation, as he becomes the hero of his own story. So far it includes a drabble collection, several one-shots, and three main works:
- Legacy
- When Felicity disappears from her fiftieth birthday party and Oliver sets out to bring her home, their son learns more than he ever dreamed about the family history.
- The Man Under the Hood
- Oliver and Felicity's son decides to take up his father's mantle, and they do their best to prepare him for the heartache and loss that they know lie ahead of him. But in this line of work, it is trial by fire.
- Blood On My Name
- When a serial killer appears in Starling and targets someone close to the Queens, the Arrow finds himself outmatched. He must decide how far he is willing to go to take down the killer.
Legacy contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: At the end of Legacy, Terry suggests making a team of vigilantes. This idea never comes up again.
- Action Dad: Oliver. So very Oliver. Dig certainly counts as well.
- Action Mom: When bullets start flying, Lyla has it covered. In a pinch, Felicity will pick up a weapon without hesitation too.
- Affably Evil: The mass murdering, human trafficking cartel leader known only Galen is scrupulously polite as he threatens everyone and everything you love.
- Alternate Universe: In this series, several canonically dead characters are still kicking and vice versa. Some crucial events - especially from season three of the show - have been significantly changed or dropped entirely.
- Arc Words: In The Man Under the Hood, most originate with Captain Lance.
- "As close as we get, this side of the grave."
- "Tell me what you should have done different."
- Badass Family: As Jon remarks, on learning about the family business - “The whole family was vigilantes? Like, everybody? Jesus Christ.” As various villains find out over the course of the series, it is an absolutely terrible idea to go up against the Queens.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Jonathan sees that Abby is in her room with a boy and the door closed, he worries to his parents that the boy might pressure her into something she's not ready for. Like holding hands.
- Battle Couple: Roy and Thea, in the backstory. When they suited up as the Arrow and Canary 2.0, witnesses said watching them fight "was like watching the principal dancers of the Moscow ballet."
- Big Bad: One per story. The Queens have gone up against mob bosses, hitmen, and crazed serial killers.
- Big Brother Instinct: "Since the very first time Dad left me alone in a room with infant Abby with instructions to 'watch your sister for a minute, Jonny,' I have known how this big brother thing is supposed to work. I’d do a lot for that kid. Anything that was right and a lot of things that were wrong."
- Big Brother Worship: Hard as he finds it to believe, Jon is his little sister's knight in shining armor. She even stands up for him to her longtime crush.
- Bilingual Bonus: When Jon tells Tish to imagine herself somewhere safe, she says "Je suis ici"-"I am here."
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Even in his fifties, Oliver is the broody type. Both his wife and daughter have a knack for smoothing away his grumpiness, and Jon is "always kind of relieved when [they] jump in like little rays of sunshine and turn his gray skies blue, or whatever it is they do."
- Christmas Episode: Almost an entire chapter of The Man Under the Hood is dedicated to the holidays.
- Coming of Age Story: The whole series, but especially the first installment.
- Cultured Badass: Averted for Jon, who doesn't enjoy Shakespeare, even missing a fairly obvious Romeo and Juliet reference from his mom.
- Daddy's Girl: Jon doesn't like when people call his little sister this, but it's clear that Oliver and Abby utterly adore each other.
- Data Pad: In the future, fancy souped-up tablets called glassbooks are everywhere.
- Deal with the Devil: In the backstory, Oliver and Thea both have a complicated relationship with Ra's al Ghul.
- Dies Wide Open: Roy dies with his eyes open.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Joseph Risdon is seriously pissed off that Team Arrow put him behind bars sixteen years ago, and he intends to make Oliver and Felicity pay by visiting everything he suffered in prison on their children.
- Exact Words: When Big Bad Joseph Risdon holds the Queen family captive, he looks right at Abby and promises, "I won't leave a mark on her."
- Everyone Can See It: Oliver, Felicity, and the rest of the family all assume that Jon and Tish are a couple.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Ana Desilva is five-two with freckles. "She can't be a mob boss," Jon says. "She's adorable." Then she psychologically tortures Tish after murdering her father.
- Fan-Created Offspring: The story focuses on the canon heroes' children some twenty-five years in the future.
- Greater-Scope Villain: In The Man Under the Hood, the leader of The Cartel is a much more powerful and dangerous man than The Big Bad himself.
- Groin Attack: In Legacy, Jon kicks a Mook "in the most unsportsmanlike place imaginable."
- Handicapped Badass: Thea Queen has used a wheelchair since a terrible accident fourteen years ago. But come for her family, and she will put three rounds at center mass without blinking.
- Happily Married: Oliver and Felicity have been married for over twenty years, and their kids still catch them having tickle fights in the kitchen. Dig and Lyla are also going strong. Roy and Thea may have a bumpier ride, but their affection for each other is still obvious for anyone to see.
- He Knows Too Much: Oliver takes a harder line against killing than his son does. Jon complains about leaving a villain alive after he learns their identities.
- Heroic Lineage: Both Jon's parents are heroes in their own right, and he credits both of them with inspiring him to take up the hood.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Roy dies shielding an extremely valuable data library containing medical research that could help millions of people, including his wife.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Jon is 6'1", and the other characters can't seem to stop remarking on how heavy he is. The girl he ultimately falls for is so much shorter than him, he has to sit her on a counter to kiss her.
- I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: If his son has been breaking and entering, beating up suspects, or shooting up police cars, mayoral candidate Oliver Queen doesn't want to know about it.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Jon ends up sobbing on the floor with snot running down his face after Roy's death.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: In the burning ruins of an exploded building, a badly wounded Oliver gives an unconscious Felicity to their son to carry to safety. "You can't carry us both, kiddo," he says. "I'll be right behind you."
- Jumped at the Call: Jon can't turn that bid down. After all, he's a legacy.
- Locked Out of the Loop: No one tells poor Abby anything about the Arrow or the family business.
- Love at First Sight: Averted with Jon and Tish. He does not make a good first impression. Or second.
- Mad Scientist: Abel Cuvier is doing some nasty, nasty things in his basement lab.
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Laetitia Cuvier is quite lovely, and she's appalled to find out what her father has been up to.
- Mama Bear: Felicity decides to take down the local cell of the The Cartel, mostly because they threatened her kids, and she's pissed. We rarely hear her curse, but when Risdon is about to torture her son: "...don’t you touch him, I said don’t touch him, don’t you fucking dare!"
- Momma's Boy: A positive example. Felicity and Jon work together closely as Team Arrow, and their relationship is much less fraught with conflict than Oliver and Jon's. She is his vigilante backseat driver, just as she was for his father.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Oliver and Jon deliver one together when their family is in danger.
- Non-Powered Costumed Hero: The heroes are all ordinary mortals in funny outfits.
- Official Couple: Oliver and Felicity's relationship is the foundation on which the series is built.
- One-Man Army: Oliver, naturally.
- Papa Wolf: Bad things happen to people who threaten Oliver's kids. Risdon doesn't physically hurt Abby at all, but when he says something creepy within arm's length of her father, a broken larynx shuts him up real fast.
- Pink Means Feminine: Abby is quite a Girly Girl, and as Jon notes, "this girl’s favorite color is bright-ass pink, and subtlety isn’t really her thing." She tends to wear a lot of it.
- Precocious Crush: Poor Abby turns pink in the presence of her brother's best friend Terry, who is nine years older than her.
- Protectorate: Team Arrow past and present guard their city and the people in it with their lives.
- Psycho for Hire: Joseph Risdon was known for taking contracts no one else would take. Oliver has to spell it out for Jon: "Most hired killers draw the line at children." In the course of one hit, Risdon killed the target and his entire family. When Captain Lance asked him why, he said, "Because they were home."
- Pummeling the Corpse: Jon keeps hitting Joseph Risdon long after he's already killed him pretty thoroughly.
- Real Men Hate Affection: Jon himself internalized this. As a teenager, he kept ducking out of hugs, until Oliver stopped trying.
- Retired Badass: Oliver and Felicity lay down their weapons of choice long ago to raise a family, run a business, and live peacefully.
- Secret Legacy: When the series picks up, Jon has no idea his dad used to swing off rooftops with a bow and arrow, his godfather backed him up, and his mom ran mission control.
- Security Cling: After getting shot at in her own backyard, twelve-year-old Abigail padlocks herself around her brother's neck and then her father's. She's really too big to fit on Oliver's lap, but he makes it work.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Tish Cuvier
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: One character starts to suspect the Arrow's true identity in part because, "He really liked the f-word."
- Sleep Cute: Jon falls asleep on Tish's lap. She even hums to him.
- Sophisticated as Hell: "So let us march on our enemies, strike fear into their hearts, and drink our fill of their bitter tears or whatever."I am the shadow that stalks the night. The danger that haunts the whatever from deep within the thing."
- Spin-Offspring: Jon has his own adventures as Arrow 3.0.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Jon makes a habit of this: He insists that "Arrowing" is cool and glamorous, not cold and messy, and that he slides on wooden floors like James Bond, not a puppy dog.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Barry Allen is mentioned a few times as a friend of the family, but is never asked to help with any of the gangsters, even though he could do so in a flash.
- Take Me Instead: Bolted to the floor and at his mercy along with the rest of her family, Felicity begs Joseph Risdon to hurt her instead of her son.
- Taking the Bullet: When a hitman takes a shot at Abby, Jon-as-the-Arrow grabs her in a flying tackle.
- Talking to the Dead: At the end of The Man Under the Hood, Jon breaks down at Roy's grave.
- Tears of Joy: Oliver mists up when he learns that Thea's treatment is working, and she has regained partial use of her legs.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The series begins in 2039, in a very recognizable world except for tech like holos and glassbooks.
- Twerp Sweating: When introduced to Abby's geometry tutor (a boy her age), Jonathan introduces himself as a mixed martial arts instructor.
- Unreliable Narrator: Jon frequently reads situations wrong, jumps to conclusions, or mischaracterizes events in a way that will have sharp-eyed readers shaking their heads.
- Unstoppable Rage: Once Oliver and his son get free of their bindings, things go rapidly to hell for Risdon and his men.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jon wants Oliver's approval so badly.
- Would Hit a Girl: Discussed.
- Evil knows no gender, and some women are sociopathic criminal scumbags who need their asses kicked. But... every time someone with boobs tries to take my head off, I have to flip the switch from Woman: Do Not Hit to Bad Guy: Apply Face to Floor.
