I didn't reread this. Of course, there will be grammatical errors. This is the start of a multi-chapter fic of an alternate Felicity; similar in some ways, but drastically different in others. Things won't be exactly the same, especially dialogue-wise, because that's annoying to read.

Like with most, it's a bit of a slow start.

Oliver's wide eyes were set on her expressionless face before following the motions of her hands separating and lowering at her sides.

She pursed her lips, her head tilted slightly to the side in thought. "Hmm…" she murmured. "You know, I always wondered if I was capable of actually doing it…" She shifted her eyes to meet Oliver's still incredulous gaze. "Looks like curiosity killed the fucking maniac."

"Felicity –"

"Can you move?" she asked.

Her gaze moved carefully down his tall frame checking for the more severe injuries as she brought flipped the safety on the glock in her hand before stuffing it behind her back in the waistband of her jeans.

"I think so," he said wearily.

"Good. Get up; we need to get Digg to the med bay."

"Felicity," he tried again as his ribs protested against his movement.

"Let's go."

Human interaction made her uncomfortable; it was definitely not her strong suit. The idea of being around people and having to interact made her insides squirm and her anxiety skyrocket. Her body would shake, heart rate pick up, and her hands got clammy. But she wasn't sure which she hated more; all the anxiety or the fact that when she started talking, very often she couldn't stop. Being prone to making accidental innuendos and incessant babbling wasn't something she was proud of.

Graduating from MIT with a Master's degree at the age of 19 gave Felicity Smoak a huge opportunity to work at nearly any tech giant she wanted. The biggest corporations had fought for her until she settled down with Starling City-based Queen Consolidated soon after graduating. What she liked most was that she wasn't just fixing computers but the newer CEO Walter Steele had singled her out for various projects of his. She wasn't just doing her regular IT business but also working with the Applied Sciences Division of the company. It was her that Walter had sit in on the big head-honcho meetings and actually valued her opinion.

She had to admit, she liked working and she liked the work that she did. The eight or so hours a day she spent away from home, allowing her to focus her attention on something besides the TV made her feel useful. Although she did prefer being able to be at home in sweats or jeans and a big t-shirt rather than her professional looking dresses and heels. However, walking in heels and plastering fake smiles on her face had become second nature in the three, going on four, years she'd spent at the company.

Her chair in her cubicle in the IT Department of Queen Consolidated made her back sore. It was at times like these when she wished she purchased a few of the infomercial items see always saw on the late night TV. A butt cushion would probably work wonders for the eight hour days like today – one where they were so short-staffed she was stuck with the lower level issues.

The pain in her back and the noisy coworkers was ebbing along the headache she'd been trying to fight off since morning. She pulled her glasses off before setting her face in her hands and sighing in relief as the straining of her eyes momentarily disappeared. It was as she moved her hands from her face to rub her temple that she heard a new voice.

"Hi… Oh, I'm so sorry to have interrupted," the voice said hesitantly.

She opened her eyes to see a man standing before her with an uncomfortable smile, his eyes trained on the screen of her computer. He looked familiar but she couldn't quite place him.

She cocked her head to the side in confusion, both at finding someone at her desk and his "interruption", and turned to see the pornography she was wiping from a higher-up's system. "Ah, yes. I see you've come to see the greatest part of working in IT. Loads and loads of in-your-face porn and its viruses" Her cheeks flushing pink.

He let out a small laugh causing her to curse at herself before turning off the screen and putting her glasses back on. "Bad choice of words," she muttered before taking a deep breath and putting a bright smile on her face and looking up. "How can I help you, sir?"

"I'm Oliver Queen." Right, the face that'd been plastered all over the news networks as of late due to his epic return from being shipwrecked five years ago and heir to the Queen Consolidated throne – no pun intended, of course. Even the IT department, a generally quiet bunch, couldn't help themselves from talking about it constantly. She was taken aback that she hadn't realized who he was rather… instantly. "You're Felicity Smoak, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Please, call me Oliver," he smiled charmingly.

She nodded once, pushing her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose. "Oliver," she repeated, folding her hands together atop her desk.

"I'm having some computer trouble and Walter told me you were the one to see about that." There was a brief flash of a genuine smile from Felicity at the mention of Walter. "I spilled a latte on it and I can't seem to get it back up and running," he continued, lifting said laptop into her field of vision.

Her brows furrowed; her intrigue turning into suspicion when she noticed the many holes. She pursed her lips and turned her attention back to him, his expression innocent as he handed her the laptop.

"Latte, huh?" she repeated slowly, fingering the rather obvious bullet holes.

"Yeah, bad neighborhood, you know? But I was hoping you could salvage what you could from it."

She observed him quietly for a moment, her head tilting unconsciously out of habit as she did so. She bit her lip and nodded. She couldn't really decline; he was the boss' son, the heir to the Queen throne for god's sake. But there was no way she wasn't going to get to the bottom of this. A bullet-ridden laptop brought in by Oliver Queen himself? That's a mystery wrapped in a bow set on her doorstep.

Hooking up the laptop to her company computer was no issue. Nor was the simple decryption algorithm of her own coding that she ran to break through any security. It was a fairly quick process but still kept her full attention. So much so that she hadn't noticed Oliver siding up right next to her until she caught a glimpse of him leaning close to get a look at the screen causing her to startle and roll her own chair further in towards her desk and away from him.

He was unaware of her discomfort.

She wasn't surprised at his confusion of what was on the screen. Obviously it wasn't his laptop and along with being a terrible liar, his acting wasn't very Oscar-worthy. Even a Razzie would be too generous.

But it was seeing the blueprints of the building where they were holding the Unidac Industries auction that she really started to question Oliver's intentions with this information.

"Is this your way of trying to get back at your mom and Mr. Steele?" she couldn't help but ask.

"What are you talking about?"

"Listen, I don't want to get into the middle of your rather Shakespearean family drama. Way too many people tend to end up dead by the final act and I'm not counting on being one of those people – or Walter."

"I'm not following you, Felicity."

"These are the blueprints for where they're holding the Unidac Industries auction, the Exchange Building. Mr. Steele is trying to purchase the subsidiary…" she trailed off at his blank look. "This laptop belongs to one of his competitors, Oliver."

"Lawton," he stated simply.

"Warren Patel," she corrected. "Lawton?"

Felicity was beyond frustrated at this point. What kind of idiot did he take her for?

Later that night as she was sitting on her couch eating her dinner, the breaking news story interrupted.

"A shooting at the Exchange Building tonight has left at least two dead at the scene," the news correspondent stated solemnly.

Behind her, the police could be seen ushering a group of screaming people out of the building. Felicity dropped her fork onto her plate in shock. Her first thought was to Walter, desperately hoping he wasn't one of the fatalities. She pushed aside her plate grabbed her laptop from next to her, her fingers typing rapidly on the keyboard to hack into the CCTV feeds. Her attention deviated from between her laptop and her TV which still had a live stream of the outside of the building.

She let out a relieved breath at the image of someone pushing Walter out of the way of the bullet but flinched at the sight of it hitting the waiter. It hadn't escaped her that she'd seen Oliver Queen walk away from Water just moments before. Was it entirely a coincidence, him stopping by her office earlier that day and then the shooting?

She followed his movements, switching cameras as she went. She saw him stop at his mother and little sister before running towards the emergency exit. To be rather honest, she wasn't entirely surprised to not see him leave with his family and enter the neighboring building's stairwell. She scrunched her face in annoyance as she watched him scale two, three steps at a time.

"Show off," she muttered.

She had her finger ready to skip to the next camera when he suddenly stopped at a garbage bin, removing its lid and pulling out a rather military-looking bag.

If she had come to any conclusion in the ten hours that passed since he left her office, it wasn't that she'd see him pulling out a dark colored piece of what looked like clothing from that bag and then continue to scale the steps to the top. That was the end of any sight she had on Oliver. She started working on scrubbing the feeds, removing the evidence of Oliver when she noticed another man running up the stairs with his handgun at the ready. It was the man that she saw with Oliver downstairs, the one who got Mrs. Queen and her daughter out of the building. He stopped at the open garbage bin before continuing his trek.

He, too, disappeared in the same spot Oliver had. As she worked on completely erasing them both, she had the live-time feed of the last camera opened on her tablet so she'd see them out. She crossed her fingers that she'd see them both walk out that door fully intact.

It was several minutes later when she saw a man in dark leather and a hood covering his face walking a doubled-over man back into the stairwell before going out to the roof. She was still working on the stairwell CCTV circuits and didn't have enough fingers in order to follow them elsewhere.

After half an hour, she sat back and let out a deep breath, throwing her head back to rest on the soft cushion of her couch and rubbing the back of her hand over her forehead. As she moved to take her glasses off, she froze.

"Holy shit."

Oliver Queen was the vigilante.

She hadn't gotten much sleep. She didn't have the energy the night before to go back and look for Oliver and his bodyguard through more CCTVs and traffic cameras. Starling City was huge and there was no telling where they would've disappeared to. Especially since cameras weren't at every intersection or at every storefront. But she did look for a John Diggle at hospitals and came up with nothing. (She'd done a little more hacking into who the bodyguard was to get a name – a quick mystery solved).

Sure, the man had gotten shot before and was nearby an IUD when it exploded and apparently embedded shrapnel into his leg, but she couldn't help but wonder if he was okay. His service record was a little tougher to get into…

She was only at work for about an hour before her phone rang.

"Felicity Smoak, IT," she greeted robotically.

"Ms. Smoak." Walter's voice didn't sound right.

"Mr. Steele, good morning. What can I do for you?"

"I need you to come to my office immediately."

It was eerily similar to the "we need to talk" moment between couples that always led to a break up. Was she getting fired?

"Sure, I'm on my way."

For eighteen floors, she ran through everything she's done, mentally backtracking her not-so-legal hacking to make sure she'd covered her steps and left no trace. As the elevator announced its arrival to the executive level, she squared her shoulders and held her head high.

Fortunately for her, she wasn't getting fired. Instead, she got a little project from Walter to look into a 2.6 million dollar investment that failed.

For the next day and a half she tracked the money, investigated databases, and decided there was something very wrong with the Queen-Steele family and their secrets.

When she uncovered that Moira Queen purchased a warehouse under the name Tempest she let out a laugh. "Shakespearean family drama? Oh yeah," she said to herself.

Bad days were… bad. This morning when her alarm went off, she wanted to shut it off and go back to sleep. It was hard enough getting up and being around people on a 'good' day. Not that it was good but that it was a little easier than some days to come up with the energy to play nice, to force a smile, to not make comments and make herself sound like a raging bitch, to ignore peoples' bullshit… To not make it seem like the neurological poltergeist was on a rampage and she was getting her lost in her own head.

Today was one of the days where getting up took a lot out of her and her head wouldn't leave her alone. But she did. She got up, put on her annoying shoes and work clothes before slathering on her bright lipstick (perhaps the bright lipstick was a façade), swallowing her pills, and leaving for another day at work.

She hadn't expected Oliver to show up again and ask for her help. This time he was accompanied by Mr. Diggle who looked to be in top shape. Or perhaps he was just a better actor than Oliver. Well, she considered, it's not that difficult.

Felicity was staring absentmindedly out the window and rolling a pen around between her teeth, her thoughts whirling. She startled at the sound of Oliver's voice.

"Felicity, hi," he smiled, "do you mind if I steal you away for a couple minutes? I have a favor if you're not busy…"

Now with her knowledge of Oliver being the vigilante, she was more amused than frustrated by his lies.

"I should get one of those name plates for my desk. It'll say 'IT / Applied Science' and below that 'Oliver Queen's Personal Tech Geek'," she said causing his bodyguard to choke back a laugh. "Oh, calm down," she admonished at his sigh, "didn't someone famous say we're supposed to embrace our true selves or something like that?" she shrugged and opened the laptop.

"I was hoping you could help find a friend of mine," he started, setting himself down across from her in the empty room while his bodyguard leaned against a table. "One of my close friends who's seemed to have disappeared; his name's Derek Reston."

"No Facebook or online groups for connecting friends who've disappeared while on that island, eh?" she quipped.

"Poor boy didn't even have MySpace," Mr. Diggle retorted.

She didn't miss the look Oliver gave him or how he mouthed "boy?" indignantly. She pulled up his financial records and information under various databases.

"Met him at the factory, did you?" she baited.

"Factory?" Ah, there it was again.

"Your father's steel factory that closed down," she said. "Reston was an employee before it was shut down and all employees laid off with no severance packages."

"No severance packages?"

"Legal loopholes. Reston along with about fifteen-thousand other employees lost everything. But there's been no recent activity on his credit and he doesn't have any bills of any sort," she elaborated.

When she looked up from the screen, she saw the dark look he shared with Mr. Diggle.

She tried to push Oliver to the back of her mind as she typed away at her keyboard. There was something still weird about the Tempest and Moira Queen that left her unsettled. It took a good three hours but she found a single piece of evidence that she was not the only one who'd investigated the transaction. Her extra digging had brought up an image she couldn't recognize.

But nor could her other program that traced images. Very similar to facial recognition software, it was her own development. Though tonight it failed her.

When she brought it to the attention of Walter, he wasn't very impressed. Something about not authorizing the search and having her suspended but she only rolled her eyes when she turned around to leave. Overtime was time and a half anyways and the money didn't hurt.

Not when half of her paycheck went towards her mother, anyway.

Once again she found herself catching the breaking news story of the vigilante's involvement in the takedown of the Reston family's robbing spree and the death of the father Derek; taken out by a bullet, not an arrow. They'd been dubbed the Royal Flush Gang by the media. The picture on the news showed the paramedics standing nearby a body covered in a yellow sheet, a hockey mask with a king card a short distance away.

Felicity was unsure of what her reaction should have been. She didn't trust anyone but she was working hard to give Oliver the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, another insomnia ridden night meant she would do some research on his first little while back in town. She easily broke through into the SCPD server and compiled a bunch of records and files on anything having to do with the vigilante.

She familiarized herself with the information until she finally was able to fall asleep for even the short time before her alarm would go off.

When Walter called her to his office again the next day, she wasn't fazed.

Tired? Hell yeah.

When she stepped into his office once more, he started speaking.

"Do not worry, Ms. Smoak, I am not firing you," he assured.

"Oh, I know," she said confidently.

His brows lifted in curiosity. "And how is that?"

She stopped right in front of his desk and looked him straight in the eyes. "Because you know and I know that it'd be a huge mistake on your part."

He was silent for a moment, appraising her before he sighed. "Yes, Ms. Smoak, it would indeed."

"Besides, if you were going to fire me I'd quickly find a job elsewhere whereas, here, I am not as easily replaceable. You should already know, Mr. Steele, that I do not half-ass my job, my work. Empty threats stemming from your emotional upheaval of recent discoveries about your wife do not scare me. My loyalty lies here with you at Queen Consolidated," she continued.

Walter smiled and nodded. "Again, very true. And I do apologize for my shortness yesterday. But I've brought you here for a reason. It concerns my wife and what you brought me last night, that image," he slid a small brown book across his desk to her. "I would like you to find out anything you can about this. I found it in her possession, but, Ms. Smoak, I must inform you that our head of security investigated it and he was found dead under questionable circumstances."

Felicity ran her hand along the book before opening it and flipping through the pages which appeared blank. She noticed the now familiar circle with various lines both curved and straight printed on the inside of the cover.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

She snapped the book shut, the small pressure wave moving the few strands of hair that escaped from the hair tie, and looked at him seriously.

"Absolutely. Mysteries are meant to be solved and I hate mysteries.

Being after hours of normal operation, Felicity immediately went to the new Applied Sciences building which would only have the guards present. Scanning her ID card, she quickly observed the number of guards present. Four in total. Two posted at both doors while the other two walked the floors in fifteen minute intervals.

She wasn't worried about them. She's a frequent visitor but due to the matter of the secret book, her privacy would be rather nice.

Felicity started by looking at the cover under a dissecting microscope, looking for anything that might be hidden. Not to mention, a thick hardcover would not be observable under a compound microscope. She was unable to find anything.

She tried to see any pressure marks that would appear when someone wrote on the page or even ones before it. She couldn't see any with the naked eye or when she tried to use the side of a regular pencil and a regular sheet of paper to see if anything would appear.

Testing a sample of the paper was no lead either. There was nothing fancy about it. It was just like regular paper you'd find in a book. The grain was similar to that of what one would find Harry Potter printed on. Not identical, but not suspicious.

Surely she wasn't the only one who carried one of them around at all times… She was impatient and a rather fidgety person.

She moved on from the paper to what could have been used to write. She struck using solely pressure out already and decided on invisible ink.

Not just invisible ink like lemon juice but ink that is completely invisible to the naked human eye.

First, she placed the book underneath an ultraviolet light with no success. If it wasn't the short wavelengths that can completely fuck up your DNA and give you skin cancer, maybe it was the longer wavelengths in the infrared spectrum.

Applied Sciences had developed a pair of glasses with yellow lenses and a red that allowed one to see more than just the visible spectrum. She threw her fist up in the air when she saw the writing.

Names.

On every page there was a list of at least six names. She quickly flipped through the pages and noticed every single one was filled.

"Wow," she murmured.

When she heard the slow, rhythmic footsteps, she quickly tore off the glasses and stashed the book. The guard gave her a quick smile like he had the first four times he passed her and continued on.

She got to thinking again. There was no way that Moira Queen or anyone else with the same book would be able to get ahold of these glasses be it their company or not. There had to be another way to see the ink. She drummed her fingers on the metal bench for a moment before it dawned on her.

Heat.

The reason things glow when hot or on fire is because that is the end of the visible spectrum for humans.

White hot.

The infrared waves don't have the same effect as UV waves; instead they make people feel warmth.

She went through instruments in her head. A lighter? It may work but it wouldn't produce enough heat and would have an easier chance of catching the paper on fire. She down on the table and saw it. A Bunsen burner.

She grabbed the flint and turned on the gas, grinning when she spark lit the flame. It easily produced enough heat.

She flipped to the back of the book and waved it nearby the flame and watched as the names appeared.

"Genius."

She turned the gas off and grabbed the infrared glasses and the book, opening it to the first page. She quickly copied down the names into her tablet.

There were a few that made her stop when she recognized them. Adam Hunt, Martin Sommers, Jason Brodeur… They were some of the names in the police records she'd dug up the previous night.

These men weren't just on this list – they were on Oliver Queen's hit list.