Evangeline Womack looked about her at the lobby of Palmer Tech. It had been a while since she was in Starling city. This building had formally been Queen Consolidated but now they were moving things out. Not only had Oliver lost everything but he had lost his company too.
"Evangeline?" called a voice from over by the lifts. Eva turned and beamed at the bottle blond. I t had been a lovely surprise when Bruce had told Eva that he needed her to go to Star City to be a cover for his first adoptive son Dick. The Red Hood was on the move sourcing new drugs from the West coast to smuggle over land rather than fight the multitude of gangs on the East coast. Now all he had to do was battle the Triad.
"Felicity!" Eva cried and moved towards her friend in her Manolo's.
"I didn't know you were coming today?" Felicity said giving her a hug. Eva smiled back at her,
"I didn't either until about five hours ago, I was I'm Metropolis and Wayne calls me out of the blue telling me to go and talk to Palmer about a possible new project together as the merger was still new." Eva replied successfully lying about her true purpose in Star City.
"Oh right then come on up. You can wait in my office rather than down here." Felicity said leading her to the lifts. "We totally need to catch up. I'm so sick of hearing about you in the tabloids than in real life."
"Oh I know, it's awful the time difference is a killer. Speaking of killers how's your vigilante now? Still shooting people?" Eva asked once they had entered the bronze elevator. Felicity frowned,
"He doesn't kill anymore. At least not on purpose." Felicity snapped back and Eva laughed.
"I'm only winding you up. Us Gothamites have to have a little fun one in a while."
Felicity laughed at her friend as the doors to the elevator opened and they stepped out giggling onto the exec floor of the building.
"Oh wow. So much has changed I barely recognise the place." Eva said in a flat voice looking at the blue Palmer Tech logo on the wall to the left of the elevators. Felicity smiled sadly back at her friend.
"How's Ollie taking it?" Eva asked. She had met Ollie before the last time she was here when they were trying to negotiate for a deal with her father's pharmaceutical company through her. Then she had met the Hood, how people had no idea who was behind the mask was actually laughable and a very poor reflection of the education level of the city.
"Not good. He is taking it fairly hard to say the least. After the Undertaking the city hated him, still do for his association with his mother." Felicity explained. Together they moved into her office through plate glass doors that irritated Eva, from a place where hiding could be your last way of surviving the visibility of the West coast design grated on her.
"I'll bet. Family is family though, you can't argue with that." Eva said sitting on the large black couch in the office.
"That's what we keep telling him but losing the name off the door is what gets him the most I know it." Felicity said sadly.
"Has he realised that the best remedy is a good shag yet?" Eva said with a smirk and laughed when Felicity blushed scarlet. "Oh but he's not realised that you would be the best candidate has he?" Felicity fixed her with a stiff gaze,
"Has Dick realised that you would be?" she said candidly hoping to gain some ground in this conversation. Eva smiled and looked out the window at the opposite building, stood listening on the roof was the object of her current affections, Dick Grayson.
"Actually he has." Felicity's eyes widened comically. "Dick has come to his senses and realised that I am the love of his life and that we should never part." Felicity's face fell when she realised that her friend had been being sarcastic all along.
"Will they ever learn?" Felicity asked shaking her head causing her blond ponytail to shake too. Eva laughed and nodded.
"Eva stay on target. I need to get in their system. Batman himself asked for this." Hissed Dick's voice in her ear. "Ask about the red hood."
"So how many villains you got knocking round now? It's almost Shakespearian." Eva pressed, Felicity laughed and got up over too her desk.
"Honestly I loose count. I think we have one of yours though, Red Hood guy." She said turning her monitor round to show Eva.
"Really?" she sighed, "I'll have to tell the Bat then. Lemme see." Eva grabbed at the screen and very discretely placed Nightwing's hacker chip on the base.
"Nice." said the voice in her ear.
"Why do you have to tell him?" Felicity queried. Evangeline shrugged,
"He saved me from the Joker a couple of years ago. I told him I move about a lot and well that I'd keep my ear out for anything that should concern him."
"Oh right. Fair trade." Felicity said turning her monitor back around. "I think his office is empty now by the way, if you want to go in." Felicity smiled sweetly at her friend. Eva smirked back,
"Thought you weren't a secretary now?" she needled laughingly as she walked away.
Hours later Nightwing and Eva were sat in her hotel suite brainstorming over her computer as to why Felicity would have so much security.
"Wait. She got really overly defensive about Oliver. I knew she worked for the Arrow but what if."
"If the Arrow is Oliver Queen. Batman and I had been working on that one since he emerged. Bru-Batman knew he was a part of the League of Shadows so it makes sense." Nightwing finished off for her. They locked eyes,
"I'm going to have to go clubbing aren't I?" Evangeline groaned at her boyfriend of three years. Nightwing nodded grimacing.
Dick was perched on the roof girders inside of Verdant searching the floor below him for anything suspicious. Jason had stated that his favourite colour at the moment was green in his text to Dick. They were still brothers after all even if they had different ways of doing things. Bruce didn't like it but then again it was something that he and Tim rarely spoke of.
"I'm coming in now." Eva said over their comm link. She strode in with a confidence rarely found in women. Her blue designer bodycon dress looked stunning on her, her hair was swept to one side and pinned with jewels and black high heeled shoes with gold accents. In short she looked wonderful. It took Dick a few minutes to stop looking at her.
Meanwhile,
"We have a problem." Felicity croaked as she stared at the security feed. A man in all black with a blue bird emblazoned upon his chest was hovering in the rafters of the club. A man that she recognised.
"What problem?" Oliver demanded coming down from the Salmon ladder. "Is it the Red Hood?"
"No, it's worse. Nightwing is here." Felicity had every right to be worried, in the other cities that he had visited looking for the Red Hood he left a trail of pain and destruction in his wake second only to the might of Batman.
Oliver looked at the screen.
"Hack into their comms. I want to know who he's talking to."
"You look beautiful tonight Cassandra." Nightwing told Eva over the comm link, she had chosen that codename because of the myth behind it. Nobody believed her prophesy until it was too late.
"Thank you. Any sign?" she replied looking around the room. It was then that she heard a static over the link. Immediately they knew what it was as the Bat had trained them to recognise the sound of somebody hacking a comm link that they were using.
Eva pulled her link out and dropped it into her drink moving away to the dancefloor to better see her partner.
It was a tense few minutes as Eva danced with a random dark haired boy who was looking at her like she was a piece of meat. She could practically feel Dicks gaze upon her. But this was all part of their training together. She would blend into civvie life and he would talk to the hacker. But this time it didn't go quite to plan when Mr Queen himself appeared next to her.
"Come with me." He demanded gripping her upper arm and forcefully pulling her along to the back of the club.
"Hey, get off me!" Eva cried in her best ditsy rich girl voice, but when he levelled her with a look so severe she was reminded of the Bat she stopped struggling. Oliver opened the door and pushed her through it pulling her down the steel stairs beyond. He failed to notice that as she gripped the door jamb she placed a small device on it. She had made them with Dick one night; it allowed the door to remain opened until it was taken off.
Nightwing was right behind her, but that was what Oliver was counting on.
"Ooo, this is cosy." Eva sassed at the sparse and partially lit place, "Reminds me of somewhere else, but not much. It's too green."
"Shut up. We know you work for the Bat, so what are you doing here?" Oliver demanded. Eva smiled.
"You hacked our comms." She stated,
"No actually I did." Felicity said quietly from behind Eva.
"Hello honey, I had a check, tomorrow for lunch looks good. Oh and I don't work for the Bat." She stared Oliver down. "I might be from Gotham but I don't work for the Bat."
"So, who do you work for Cassandra?" Oliver said threateningly.
"Honey. This whole intimidation thing only works if I'm scared. But see, my partner up there may not be Batsy but he is still able to do all he does."
"Including hide from you." Nightwing's deep powerful voice rang out from behind Felicity, who squeaked loudly and span round.
"Put her down." He commanded Oliver who quickly obliged.
"What are you doing here?" Oliver demanded in his Green Arrow voice.
"A friend from Gotham has gone walkabout. I'm tracking him down." Nightwing explained coming round from behind the desk of technology. Eva knew that his arm computer had all of the arrow systems by now. "She is helping me."
"The Red Hood? He is your friend? Who else is your friend in Gotham? The Riddler? The Joker?" Oliver demanded slowly moving closer to him too.
At the comment about the Joker Nightwing's gaze hardened. Oliver knew full well what had happened in the past with the Joker and here he was throwing it in his face. It was no surprise to Dick that Eva grabbed the nearest thing and threw it at Oliver Queen, that thing was one of his training sticks and it hit him in the back of the head.
"Don't you dare." She spat at Oliver. He turned on her,
"Did I hit a nerve there? Good." Evangeline seethed before him her medium frame almost vibrating with anger.
"Oliver." Felicity said softly effectively pulling him back from becoming Al-Sah-Him once again.
"Just so happens that we are also looking for him ourselves." Diggle said from where he leant against the medical table on the other side of the room.
"Congratulations." Nightwing growled. His fury had not abated. It had almost killed him to lose his little brother to the joker so when it was thrown into his face in such a manner it was nothing to forget.
"You forget where you are, boy." Oliver spat at Nightwing.
"You forget yourself." Nightwing replied shifting slightly. They were two arm lengths away from each other now and behind them Felicity sent Evangeline a pleading look. Eva caught it and sighed,
"If. You stay out of our way. We will not bother you." Eva tried.
"It's too late for that now. You can't leave till we know who you are?" Oliver told Nightwing. "It's only fair, you know who we are."
"Not a chance." Evangeline laughed and turned to leave only to have her arm once again caught by a member of the Arrow team, this time Diggle. Growling she caught his hand and twisted. The howl of pain from the Special Forces man would have been comical under any other circumstances but in this instance it sparked a flurry of motion which ended with a knife at Oliver Queen's throat and his bow aimed at Eva.
Evangeline laughed and waltzed away up the stairs back to the club for a drink. The situation behind her not even bothering her.
She lay happily upside down on her bed in the hotel suite she was staying in waiting for her man to arrive. It had been several hours since the altercation at Verdant but she was confident in her boyfriend's ability to handle himself.
"You know that really wasn't very nice back there." Said a deep male voice from her balcony. She froze, it wasn't Dick.
Evangeline sat up quickly causing a head rush and upon the sight of the man before her said,
"Hiya Jason, long time no see."