Title: Titles
Chapter: One - Data Recovery Specialist
Rating: PG-13 - Mild swearing, and well, I don't think it's appropriate for younger viewers.
Word Count: 1641
Disclaimer: If I owned the rights to Arrow, I would be writing screenplays instead of fanfiction. And they certainly wouldn't look like this.
Notes: I know that everyone's glued to their TVs on Wednesday night, and Thursday all the new fic comes out. But, by Tuesday, the new stuff is generally pretty dried out, so I thought I'd start posting my multi-chapter fic on Tuesdays. :) If I do this right, it should give you something to look forward to. And, MysteriousTwinkie, this is for you, because you've been telling everyone to gang up on me to post this. :P Hope it meets expectations.
I wrote this chapter early January and I haven't read it much since, so if you see any errors I missed, please point them out to me. Reviews are much appreciated and loved.
The first time she visits him, she nearly gives him a heart attack.
It's almost ten on a Friday night, and Oliver Queen is doing exactly what he does every Friday night: slaving over a computer screen, trying to update his security protocols. As an employee for Smoak Consolidated, purveyors of some of the best technological advances of the time, there is no shortage of hackers attempting to break in to their systems, and he spends his nights making sure that doesn't happen. When it does, though, he rewrites the necessary protocols, then sends the unsuccessful hacker an ocean of viruses in which to drown. It's an odd hobby, sure, but it's one that tests his skills, unlike the job that he's paid not near enough to perform.
Suddenly, his work is interrupted when the overhead lights go off. If they've flipped a breaker, the gods of electricity are at least kind enough ensure that it's only the lighting—and not the computer systems—that is affected. Despite that, he's still going to have a hell of a time finding his way out of the building from the basement in the dark. The dark sort of gives him the willies, but he's trying to convince himself it's just the janitorial staff doing repairs or something.
It isn't working too well, and—understandably—he jumps a foot in the air when he hears a voice say from behind him, "Oliver Queen," in a very threatening voice.
He swivels in the intruder's general direction instantly, just as he realizes the voice is decidedly female. Still, he's surprised when he sees the Starling City Vigilante, in all her green-hooded glory, standing by the window to his office. That causes his brain-to-mouth filter to temporarily shut off, and he says to her, "If you're here to tell me I failed the city, I think you've got the wrong guy. I just work in IT, okay? I'm actually trying to keep hackers out right now. If anything, I'd like to think I'm helping. So please don't put an arrow through me—or whatever else you're here to do."
He's surprised because he's pretty sure he hears her chuckle. "I'm not here to hurt you," she says, and he notices for the first time that she has laid her bow on the ground at her feet. She could probably still kill him with her bare hands if she wanted to, but it's comforting to know he won't be impaled on an arrow—that's definitely on his list of worst ways to go.
She steps closer, and he can finally make out a wickedly good figure in that green leather, and he can't help but notice that her full lips are covered with green lipstick. Typical girl, he thinks. She has to accessorize even when putting arrows in bad guys and blowing stuff up. Her boots are knee-high, with thick, four-inch heels that impress him when he realizes she's able to run in those things.
She ignores his bewildered stare and continues, "I hear you're very good at your job, Mr. Queen."
He blinks twice. No way she could've heard that unless she's intimately familiar with the Smoak Consolidated building. That alone is enough to send a shiver down his spine. The Vigilante has to have a day job, too, right? What if she's that crazy girl in cubicle thirty-four who lives with a ridiculously massive number of cats? Or the pretty girl in Finance who turned out to be a gun nut and invited him to a neo-Nazi gun rally? That terrifies him more than the idea of an arrow in his throat. Seriously, never meet your heroes.
His filter is broken, so he says, "Who told you that?"
Unsurprisingly, she ignores him, extending a large rectangle in his general direction. After he squints, he recognizes it as a laptop. "I managed to retrieve this laptop from a target," she continues, "and if you could salvage its contents, I would owe you a favor."
Oliver nearly falls out of his chair. A favor—from the Vigilante? This was aiding and abetting he was thinking about doing here—if anyone found out he was even talking to the Vigilante, he would find a SWAT team at his house when he got back. But, even so, he had to admit that the idea did have its charms. It would be nice to know that the terror of Starling City wouldn't be coming after him any time soon, unless she needed technical support. And, he finally admitted to himself, he was sort of a fan—some of those criminals she had stopped had been seriously bad news.
"I guess I could see what I can do," he offers finally. "But..." He hesitates, because he doesn't want to seem like a wuss, even though he is. "Could you turn the lights back on?" he asks after a long moment. "I need to be able to see in order to tell you what you need to know."
In response, her lips curve into a smile. "Give me a minute," she agrees, and then picks up the bow and fires an arrow in a direction that Oliver can only guess.
Then, quickly as she came, she's gone. Approximately thirty seconds later, the lights come back on, and, in another thirty, she's back in his office, dropping the bow and crossing her arms over her chest. This time, he can see more of her face; the hood still obscures part of it, and a black mask covers all but her eyes and her mouth. She might actually be pretty underneath that getup. Who freaking knew.
Now that he can actually see the laptop, he can tell it's not in the best of shape. "What happened to this poor thing?" he asks her. The broken laptop makes his soul hurt; he's spent his career fixing them, and he still doesn't think he's ever seen anything in this state of disrepair. Even he can't fix this one.
"I spilled a latte on it," she remarks dryly, and he knows that she's being sarcastic. Still, who would've thought the Vigilante had a sense of humor?
He examines it, further and notices that... "Are these bullet holes?" he can't help but ask. He winces as he realizes he asks that out loud, and that he probably shouldn't be asking the Vigilante too many questions.
He doesn't expect her to answer, but she does. "My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood," she tries this time, and Oliver decides he likes her dry, sarcastic sense of humor. She might actually have a personality under there, go figure.
He sighs sadly at the poor laptop; it hurts his soul to see it so damaged. "Pull up a seat, I guess," he says awkwardly. "Well, I mean, if you want to. You're the Vigilante, so I probably shouldn't be ordering you around. I mean, you put arrows in people that do that, so you know..."
She cuts his babble with a stern, well-timed, " Oliver," as she pulls a chair close enough to see the screen. She practically sinks down in the chair, crossing her legs and arms while watching him work. Even then, she's intimidating.
"Right," he says, shaking his head to clear it. "Sorry," he says as he starts typing code and plugging in wires at an impressively fast pace, "I'm not used to having the Vigilante watching me work. It causes me a whole new type of stress, but I should..." He smiles triumphantly as a blue screen appears in front of him. "Looks like blueprints," he says after a moment.
The Vigilante leans forward, studying the plans. "Do you know what of?" she inquires.
"The Exchange Building," he answers immediately. "It's where the Unidach Industries auction is scheduled to take place. Smoak Consolidated is actually competing for it, as is the guy who owns this laptop."
"Floyd Laughton," she says immediately, completely confident in her answer.
Oliver blinks. "Um...no, Warren Patel," he says, hesitant to correct her. Finally, he asks the question: "Who's Floyd Laughton?"
"An employee of Mr. Patel, evidently," she replies quickly, her tone darkening. "The Exchange Building is surrounded by three buildings that would be good enough for Deadshot to use for cover," she adds, and she says it like she's deep in thought.
"Wait, there's a sniper involved?" Oliver asks immediately. He reaches for the office phone. "I should call the police."
A delicate, gloved hand falls over his. "No," she says fiercely. "They would ask how you found this information." She doesn't elaborate, and he can only guess it's because she knows he's not an idiot and can put two and two together to make the obvious conclusion: he would either have to lie—which, admittedly, he doesn't do very well—or he would have to admit to helping the Vigilante and get his ass sent to jail—where computer nerds don't survive well. Neither option looks good.
She continues, "I'll talk to the police," in a tone that suggests she's probably going to corner an unsuspecting cop, put the fear of God into them, and leave the laptop so that they can fact-check. He will later find this interesting because it's precisely what she does. She disconnects the laptop for him, gathering it up to take, and lays a smartphone down on the desk next to his arm. "So you can reach me," she says by way of explanation, "when you need that favor."
Without another word, she's gone, leaving him with a more interesting task than rewriting protocols and warning would-be hackers by riddling their system with viruses.
After all, he's not going to use that favor until he can crack the Vigilante's phone. "Challenge accepted," he mutters to himself as he hooks it up to his state-of-the-art computer systems.
If you follow my Little Talks series of one-shots, please note there's a poll on my profile about which one I'll post next. :) Other than that, thanks for reading!