Malcolm's Favorite Minion

Author: Milady Dragon

Disclaimer: I don't own anything here. Unless you count my crazy imagination.

Author's Note: I wrote this on a serious lack of sleep. It came from a comment someone made on an episode of "Arrow" that said that Malcolm needed minions, and that Gareth David-Lloyd would make a great candidate for Minion Number One and that there needed a spin-off with just Malcolm and his minions. I must agree.

This is crack. Be warned.

Thea was the first one to notice Malcolm's newest shadow, but she didn't think much about it. After all, her dad often was surrounded by his League of Assassin minions. One more didn't much ping her radar.

At that point.

"Was it my imagination," Diggle said, removing his helmet, "but did that one minion of Merlyn's actually rescue the bastard's robes in the middle of that fight?"

"Yeah," Oliver mused. He put his bow away, mentally making a note to refill his quiver. He seemed to be going through a lot of arrows lately. "Guy seemed too preoccupied with Malcolm's clothes than taking out the bad guys."

"I don't think you meant it the way that sounded," Felicity muttered, blushing.

"Until he put down three armed guards on his own with nothing a broken chair leg," Laurel pointed out, sounding impressed, "and that was with the robes tossed onto his shoulder."

"Maybe there's something special going on with the robes," Oliver asked. "Not that Ra's said anything about it to me. I thought it was just the ring."

It was a puzzle, but none of the team really considered it all that important in the scheme of things.

"May I offer you a coffee, Ms Smoak?" a charmingly accented voice spoke in her ear, making Felicity nearly jump out of her skin.

She spun in her chair, reaching for the nearest weapon…which happened to be a ball-point pen. She pointed it threateningly at the dark-clothed assassin that stood just beyond her reach, holding an insulated mug out toward her. Felicity was slightly surprised that this guy wasn't wearing the traditional League of Assassin mask, although he was dressed head to toe in black. He had a pleasant, pale face with dark hair and blue eyes, which were actually fairly pretty.

No, Felicity didn't just think that.

"How did you get in here?" she demanded, once again thinking she really needed to call Cisco and ask him to help her boost security in the lair. If it wasn't Merlyn popping in and out, it was his stealthy minions…

He cocked his head slightly, a small smile curling his lips. "The same way we always do."

It didn't answer her question, but she let it pass...for now. She'd go back over the security footage and try to find the breach…again. And if she couldn't then she had Cisco on speed dial.

"And what are you doing here?" she demanded, pen at the ready. She really needed to learn how to protect herself with office supplies; Diggle had once commented that he'd known this one high-level government agent who could kill with a paperclip and a post-it note. Office Supply-Fu sounded like something right up her alley. Maybe Diggle could arrange private lessons.

"I came to offer you a coffee," the minion answered, as if this made the most perfect sense in the world.

Well, maybe in League of Assassin Land it did.

"While your team is out tracking down whoever had pulled that last armored car robbery," the man went on, "and my boss is off gallivanting to wherever he usually swans off to, I was a bit lonely and thought you might be as well."

That did actually sound reasonable. "How do I know you won't poison me?" Felicity asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

The minion rolled his eyes. "And ruin perfectly good coffee? I may be an assassin, but I'm not a barbarian." He sounded absolutely appalled at the notion.

Felicity didn't know why, but for some reason that sold her. She took the insulated mug from his hand, and then sipped at it carefully.

And, in that moment, Felicity knew without a doubt that someone could, indeed, orgasm from a cup of coffee.

"Do you want to change professions?" she asked, "because I'd pay you equal the gross national product of a small country to get you to make me coffee every day."

The assassin simply smiled and pulled a thermos out from under his tunic.

"We call him 'Alqhwat Alrrab'," Nyssa answered, taking a bite of her linguini. "'Coffee Lord' in your tongue."

Laurel had been surprised when Nyssa, of all people, had shown up on her doorstep and had asked her out for dinner. She really wanted to feel guilty about dating her sister's ex, but Laurel just couldn't. Nyssa was gorgeous. Plus Sara had broken up with her, which made the assassin fair game in Laurel's opinion.

It had also given her a chance to ask Nyssa just who Malcolm's mysterious minion really was. Everyone on the team was curious; not that they'd admit it, of course. Well, except for Felicity, who kept moaning about her new addiction to the guy's coffee. It was making Oliver jealous, which was hilarious to see.

"We don't know where he came from," Nyssa went on. "Only that he showed up in Nanda Parbat two months after Merlyn became Ra's al Ghul."

Laurel could tell her date was still a bit pissed off about that. "And why haven't you killed Malcolm yet?"

Nyssa twisted just a little uncomfortably in her chair. "Because I don't want to make Alqhwat Alrrab mad at me," she confessed. "The last time I tried to kill Merlyn I ended up on instant decaffeinated until I apologized and promised never to do it again." She shuddered. "It was three days of hell I never want to go through again."

Oliver wasn't jealous.

Okay, he was.

But it was Felicity's fault; she wouldn't keep going on about Malcolm's minion and just how good that damned coffee had been.

"Jealousy doesn't suit you," Malcolm teased.

"You don't get to come into my house and accuse me of being jealous," Oliver growled.

Because Malcolm was right: Oliver was jealous.

"You don't need to be," the newest Ra's al Ghul said, "because I can assure you that Alqhwat Alrrab isn't trying to seduce Ms Smoak with his coffee…although, come to think of it that's what he did with me. And I won't even mention the pteranodon…"

Oliver wasn't sure if he'd been the only one to go around the bend or if Merlyn was dragging him along, kicking and screaming. "Just who is he anyway?"

"He's Alqhwat Alrrab. He looks after me, gets me where I need to go…and he really looks good in black leather." The leer on Malcolm's face would haunt Oliver's dreams for years.

"Careful Sir," the unmistakable accent of Malcolm's minion drifted over Oliver's shoulder, making him jump, "that's harassment."

The black-clad assassin took his normal spot at Malcolm's left shoulder as Oliver was cursing at himself for letting the man startle him that easily. He wondered how someone had gotten so stealthy…and then cursed himself again because the guy was an assassin. Of course he was going to be sneaky!

Malcolm's expression was so smug Oliver wanted to punch him in the face. But if he did that Felicity might lose her source of coffee, and that would mean he'd be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future.

The firefight wasn't going the way Diggle had planned.

They'd gotten separated almost immediately, and while each member of the team could take care of themselves, that hadn't been what they'd discussed going into the warehouse. There were far more bad guys than they'd taken into consideration and Diggle was running out of bullets.

"Mister Diggle!" a voice called out, making him look to his left. Behind his mask Diggle's jaw dropped.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded over the sound of the sub-machine gun rattling off in front of him.

Malcolm's minion simply smiled. He was under cover behind a pile of rusted piping not far from Diggle's position, managing to look as if this was just a normal day for him. Hell, maybe it was. "I was in the neighborhood and heard the gunfire," the man explained. "I can assure you, there are many more pleasurable ways I could spend this evening than being shot at." He dug around in his black tunic, producing something he tossed over. "This might help a little."

Diggle caught it, and in his surprise he almost dropped it again. It was more ammunition for his gun. "Thanks!" he couldn't help but say.

"Not a problem," the guy answered. He gave Diggle a small salute, and then promptly left cover.

Diggle knew that the League of Assassins only had the best, but this guy was amazing. He proceeded to take down every bad guy he could find…with what resembled some sort of fancy taser. He couldn't help but just squat there, looking out from his cover, and watch this Alqhwat Alrrab dude work his way through their antagonists as if it was something he did every day.

It was freaking beautiful.

Diggle found himself feeling just a tad bit insignificant.

Afterward, when asked why the taser and not the sword that was conspicuously hanging from his belt, the assassin merely quirked an eyebrow and said, "You need some people to interrogate, correct? And, just because I belong to the League of Assassins doesn't mean I have to go around and kill everyone I see…"

It sounded silly, but Diggle thought he might just have a point.

Thea figured she was the first one to notice just how her dad was acting around Stealthy Minion #1.

It wasn't because her teammates were oblivious; it was just that it most likely didn't make any sense to them that the terrible Malcolm Merlyn might have actually been smitten with someone. After all, Malcolm had been married, and he'd loved his wife even after she'd been viciously murdered, so much so that he'd planned on destroying a large part of the city on her behalf. And Thea didn't have any doubt that he'd had some feelings toward her mother at some point even if he was an asshole. So, she wasn't totally blinded by what was going on.

There was just one thing she could do about it.

"If you hurt my dad," she threatened, "I will kill you."

Malcolm's favorite Minion smiled under that threat. "And I'll let you."

Thea pulled back from the man. She'd had him against the wall, her arm across his throat, and yet he'd been the one to make her back down. It hadn't been at all what she'd expected, and Thea couldn't help but return the expression.

Maybe this guy would be good for her dad, after all.

"Well then," she said, "I think we should get acquainted. But I can't call you that…" she waved her hand, "whatever it is that everyone else calls you. It's just too much trouble, and it would be hard to yell all that in the middle of a fight if someone's coming at you from behind."

The smile grew. "You can call me Ianto, Ms Queen."

"Ianto." She liked the way that sounded. She tucked her arm through his. "And you should call me Thea. We're practically family, after all…"