Author's Note. Hello, this is just a little short story to acquaint myself with writing those characters. I discovered Arrow this year (Or rather, I decided to give it a try after the first episode failed to catch my attention a few years back. So glad I did, can't remember why I did not get hooked in the first place, sometimes it is all about the state of mind, I guess), and have been reading as many fics as I could since early summer. This is my first attempt at Arrow fanfic, but not at fanfic in general. Hope you like it. It's all fun and light hearted.
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She was going down the stairs when, suddenly, she heard it. The panicked voices, furious typing, and cursing in various languages. Then a "thwak" and a "splash," followed by silence. She hurried down the last few steps and froze. She made looked on, horrified, at the scene before her. A quiet "uh oh" from Diggle could be heard from a corner by the training mats, business otherwise a deadly silence reigned in the Foundry.
Felicity fixed her eyes on Oliver and Roy, both of whom were standing by her chair, a bow in one's hand, an empty cup of soda in the other's. Guilty expression in both men's eyes. An arrow was sticking through her central monitor, the only one left on before she left earlier, and a puddle of Coke on and around her keyboard.
"What is going on?" She asked calmly, probably too calmly if you were to ask Diggle.
Oliver and Roy exchanged nervous glances, and Oliver took a deep breath to center himself, ready to explain. Roy, in his youthful brashness and delusion, beat him to it and with a voice both proud and nervous, explained.
"There was a warning that someone was trying to hack our servers! We tried to keep it from happening, but didn't know how to stop it, so... we sacrificed a soldier to save the realm?"
Felicity saw both John and Oliver shake their heads, with a look of "oh, Roy, when will you learn?"
"You tried to stop the hacked by shooting the screen, and pouring Coke on the keyboard. I see."
Her voice was so even, that all men gulped. Felicity was always bubbly, and her voice always reflected that via inflection and such.
Roy nodded, only now realising that she was not happy, or proud of their fast thinking.
Felicity walked to her desk, and turned on the other screens, which were all displaying the same thing, currently. Namely, a pop up window from her firewall informing her that an attacked was attempted and successfully countered. She checked the info her program gathered, such as the IP from where the hacker had operated, and such, quickly evaluating that all was fine, and the y were not in any danger.
"Cerberus stopped the attack, and unless it starts beeping crazily, it is safe to assume it is taking care of any attack. Now," she turned sharply to face her boys, and poked each of their chest once before resuming talking, "while some computers are have their main unit within the screen, most don't. Especially those that required processing power to run the type of software I do, and especially several of them at once. See that box, there, with the beautiful blinking lights, and the big square power button? That's my baby. If you ever put an arrow through it, or a drink, or whatever, I will kill you. We get hacked, it starts beeping, and I am not here, there is one thing to do. Two, actually. Unplug the data cable, there, or just cut the power. No power, no modem, or computer, no remote access, no hacking. Got it?"
Both men nodded vigorously, while Diggle laughed quietly.
"And you, don't laugh! It's not like you stopped them!"
Diggle swallowed and shrugged, "Sorry."
Felicity shooed the men away from her work station, opened a drawer from under the desk, and procured a new keyboard. She unplugged the Coke soaked one, cleaned up the mess, and plugged in the new one. All the while muttering about Neanderthals, and their technology incompetency. Not for the first time, she wondered how Oliver managed all those first months without her.
She turned her chair around, looking at her boys, back on the training mats, and shook her head affectionately. She could not stay mad at them for long, they were too cute when they were scared of her loud voice. Still, she was sure to have some more fun for the next hour, make them sweat. They did kill a perfectly innocent monitor, after all.
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The End
