Late Night Conversations

'Felicity?'

Felicity rubbed at her nose

'Felicity!'

'Hngh,' she opened her eyes and yawned, 'Wha? Coffee?' blinking she looked about the darkened lair, wondering what had woken her.

'– ity.'

It sounded like Oliver, but she knew he and Diggle were out on a patrol, looking for a gun runner by the name of Santos. 'Oliver?' Reaching up she realised that her bluetooth had almost fallen out of her ear. Poking it firmly back in, she tried again, 'Oliver, is everything okay?'

Her words were met with silence.

'Oliver?' she asked again, beginning to get a little nervous.

'Felicity,' Oliver's words were quiet and controlled.

'I'm here.'

'Were you asleep?'

Felicity blinked and looked about the room, 'No, no of course not.'

'You were snoring.'

Felicity sat up in her chair. 'I was not!'

'Well it wasn't heavy breathing, Felicity.'

'I'll have you know I do not snore!'

'Fine, then may I suggest you run a check on our coms because there seems to be some strange noises coming over it tonight.'

'I'll get right on that,' Felicity huffed, 'was there anything else you needed?'

The sound of Oliver sighing drifted over their communication, 'No, just checking in.'

'Oh,' Felicity relaxed and smiled a little. It was unusual for Oliver to be so considerate. She rolled her chair closer to her workstation and nudged the mouse to bring the screens back on. 'Do I take it there is no sign of our perp?'

'Perp?'

Felicity frowned. 'That's the right word isn't it? I've been watching police shows to get the lingo.'

'Yes, that is the right word and no, there is no sign of our perp. It's too quiet out here.'

Felicity gasped and tapped her knuckles three times on the arm of her chair. 'You said the q-word, Oliver. You know its bad luck to say it, as soon as you say it stops being,' she hesitated as she tried to convey the word without actually saying it before resigning herself to repeat, 'q-word.'

'I'm rather counting on that.'

Felicity just shook her head, she could imagine Oliver right now, somewhere out in the city daring anyone to come along and do something just so he could growl and punch them. Fingers skimming across her keyboards, Felicity called up his tracer signal on the map. He was still in the warehouse district, where a source had told them Santos was arranging a large buy with another gun dealer. 'Santos didn't show then?'

'No.'

'Don't you hate it when bad guys aren't punctual?'

Brooding silence was her only answer. Felicity scooted her chair to her left and called up the local news channel on one of her spare screens before doing the same with the police radio. The news was showing some celebrity related scandal involving a super model, her ex-boyfriend and now very ex-best friend; and the police radio only had intermittent squawks about a fight down in the Glades and a possible sighting of the Arrow, luckily nowhere near where the actual Arrow currently was.

'It all seems qui –' Felicity winced before continuing, 'q-word here. Maybe you should call it a night?'

'I want to give it a little longer.'

'Sure,' Felicity muttered, 'its not like we all have to be in our real jobs in,' she blinked and peered at her computer screen, 'in about four hours!'

No wonder she had fallen asleep.

'You could always call in sick. I'm sure your boss would understand.'

Felicity rolled her eyes. 'Do you know how many sick days I have left since I met you? Not all of us can afford to take time off, Oliver, besides,' Felicity found herself beginning to smile, 'my boss is kind of a jerk.'

'A jerk.'

Felicity bit her lip at the flat tone of Oliver's words, wondering if she might have gone too far. 'Yeah.'

'Well billionaire playboys can be like that, want me to have a word with him?'

Okay so he didn't seem too pissed at being called a jerk. 'A word, as in the pointy kind complete with Arrow face?'

'If you like, I can tell him he's failed his Executive Assistant.'

'Aw,' Felicity pouted, 'you're so sweet. But that's okay I kind of have him wrapped around my finger.'

'You do?'

Felicity nodded, 'Yup, I don't even have to make him coffee. Speaking of which,' she looked about the lair. 'Have you ever thought about a coffee machine for down here, it might help me stay awake at night?'

'I have considered it, but I was afraid it might get violently broken.'

'Ooh,' Felicity wrinkled her nose, 'touché, mister.'

~ ~ A ~ ~

Oliver smiled under his hood as he sat in an alleyway across from an abandoned warehouse. He enjoyed these verbal spars with Felicity almost as much as his physical ones with Dig, and it was a good day when he outscored his argumentative IT specialist.

'I'll tell you what,' he shifted his weight to stop his leg from going to sleep. 'Cancel all my morning appointments and don't come in until twelve. I'll show sometime after twelve-forty, as far as I'll know it will look like you've been there all day. Everyone knows that Oliver Queen is a lazy, playboy jerk.'

'Oliver, you're not lazy and I was kidding about the jerk comment.'

Oliver shifted his weight again and finally found a comfortable position. 'I know.'

'Good,' a moment's companionable silence before Felicity continued, 'it's a deal on two conditions.'

Oliver shook his head, 'Felicity I'm giving you half a day off with pay and you're giving me conditions?'

'Wait, I'm still getting paid? I take it all back you are the best boss ever.'

He could hear the delight in her voice. 'So what are your demands?'

'What, oh nothing; never mind forget I said anything.'

'Felicity.'

'A big cup of coffee from the bistro across the street, you know the one with the really expensive coffee beans. And I mean the really good stuff with a shot of orange liquor, the fake liquor not the real stuff cause you know' Felicity laughed slightly, 'I'd never actually drink on the job . . . well not most days, did I mention my boss can sometimes be a jerk?'

Oliver hurriedly interrupted Felicity in mid-ramble. 'One expensive coffee, got it, and the second thing?'

'Well . . . I was going to ask for some donuts, not the plain ones but the iced ones with chocolate sprinkles.'

'I think I can swing that but only if you share with Dig.'

A big hefty sigh ghosted through Oliver's earpiece. 'Okay, I guess he could have one, or two. But I'm not sharing my coffee; tell him he can get his own.'

'Deal,' Oliver gave up trying to hide his smile, luckily there was no one about to see it anyway or it might have ruined his Arrow image. 'And here I thought you were going to ask for a raise.'

'Wait that was an option? Now you tell me!'

'Too late, the deals struck.'

'Sneaky little –' Felicity began muttering before changing the subject, 'you know Dig has been really quiet during our threesome, I mean three-way, I mean,' she sighed. 'Oh you know what I mean.'

Oliver cleared his throat to hide the laughter. 'I sent him home hours ago.'

'Wait, what, you sent Diggle home but left me sitting around here?'

'Maybe I preferred your company, besides it was pretty quiet –'

'Q-word!'

' – around here so I didn't see why we should both stay out in the rain.'

'When did it start raining?'

Oliver could hear the faint tapping and imagined Felicity was, as she spoke, hacking into NASA or something to check out the latest weather reports. 'Started not long after we left, surprised you didn't hear it.'

Felicity snorted, 'Oliver I'm in a basement below a nightclub. I'm lucky if I can hear anything.'

Oliver looked out and watched the rain slanting from left to right across his narrow field of vision. 'I'm surprised you can't hear it over the coms.'

'Wow, that looks like a pretty big storm cell. At least tell me you're sheltering under some overhang or something. Criminals aren't going to take time off if you get a cold.'

Oliver looked around the cardboard home he was currently sitting in, it consisted of two or three boxes opened up and joined together then covered with an old tarpaulin, which was doing an almost adequate job of keeping all the rain out. 'Let's just say I acquired some accommodation.'

'Acquired?' Felicity's tone turned suspicious, 'what did you do?'

'Nothing sinister, I paid a homeless guy to use his shelter.'

'You gave money to a homeless guy? Oliver you shouldn't just give money to the homeless . . . well of course you should give money its called charity but not just give, give it to them. He's probably gone and bought himself a bucket load of alcohol and drunk himself into a coma somewhere.'

'Which is why,' Oliver interrupted Felicity, 'I sent Diggle off to the diner with Duncan and a few of his friends to make sure they spent the money on food.'

'Oh, so where is, uh, Duncan now?'

Oliver looked over to the corner of the shelter where Duncan was curled up around two bottles of wine, completely oblivious to the steady drip of water that was seeping through the roof. 'Sleeping off dessert.'

'Oh sleep and dessert, lucky guy.'

As Oliver sat in Duncan's shelter and the minutes ticked by he began to suspect that Felicity had fallen asleep again. He was about to open his mouth and suggest she call it a night and go home when she spoke.

'This is kind of like a stakeout isn't it?'

Oliver blinked at Felicity's words, 'Stakeout?'

'You know, two partners stuck together waiting for the bad guy to appear, swapping stories. I told you, I've been catching up on my cop talk.'

'I know what a stakeout is, Felicity, I'm just wondering when you have all this time to be watching old cop shows?'

'Oh, you know.' Felicity said, vaguely, 'in my spare time.'

What spare time? 'Felicity you go from Queens Consolidated to the Foundry, when exactly do you have any spare time?'

'I have spare time. You'd be surprised how much time I have on my hands between the hours of eight and six on an average weekday since some jerk hired me to be his glorified babysitter.'

Oliver opened and closed his mouth, 'You're watching cop shows while you're working for me?'

'Police procedurals,' Felicity corrected him. 'Like you're working every minute in that glass cage of yours.'

'I'm working!'

'Is that what you call brooding these days?'

'I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to get around the firewalls in the building to illegally download shows.'

'Who do you think installed those firewalls, Oliver.' Felicity replied, smugly.

Oh course, he should have known better. But now a subject had been bought up they had argued over before; Oliver hesitated a moment before asking, 'Do you really not like your new job, Felicity?'

'Of course I do, Oliver! I understand why you moved me upstairs; I just wish you'd asked me first.' She laughed a little, 'I was only venting, as an Executive Assistant, I'm pretty sure that's in my job description.'

Oliver felt some relief at Felicity's words. 'If it isn't, I'm sure you could hack your way into HR and add another clause.'

'And while I'm there I might add a memo for shirtless CEO Thursdays.'

Oliver swallowed a snort of laughter; it never paid to encourage her. He looked around for a change of subject, 'I think the rain is easing.'

'Might be a good time to call it a night and come home then.'

Oliver felt strangely comforted by Felicity's words. 'Home?'

'I meant back to the Foundry and then home.'

Of course she did. Oliver rose into a crouch and quietly exited the shelter. Standing up he took one long look about, tonight's mission had been a bust. At least Dig had gotten home at a decent hour.

'Speaking of which if I start out now I might get a few hours sleep before having to head back out for work.'

Oliver passed his bow from one hand to the other, 'I don't want you driving home, not if you're that tired.'

'Oliver –'

'I mean it, Felicity, it's not safe.' He began walking briskly to his bike.

'But it's safe for you to be tired yet ride a bike in the wet?'

'I'm not that tired,' Oliver lied, 'besides a little bit of rain doesn't worry me.'

'So what am I supposed to do?' she asked, 'sleep here?'

Breaking into a trot Oliver headed towards a nearby alleyway where he had stashed his bike between two dumpsters. 'I've got an old fold-away bed hidden behind the workout area, you can use that.'

'You sleep here?' Oliver could imagine Felicity shaking her head in mock surprise. 'You really are aiming for hermit status, aren't you?'

'Not every night,' Oliver rolled his bike out and slipped his bow over the handlebars. 'Besides you're the one who keeps insisting I have a cave.' He pulled on his helmet and swung a leg over the Ducati.

'I didn't think you'd take me seriously.'

The bike roared into life and Oliver eased it out into the empty street. 'I'm fifty minutes away; you'd better be there when I arrive.'

'Or what you'll get all angry face at me?'

'No, I'll forget our deal and not bring you donuts.'

Felicity huffed, 'You wouldn't dare.'

'Try me.'

Felicity mumbled around a yawn, 'Maybe you just want to tuck me into bed.'

The bike swerved slightly and Oliver put down his sudden increased heart rate to fighting the bike on the slippery road. 'I need to concentrate on my riding,' he growled, 'just be there when I get back.'

~ ~ A ~ ~

The Foundry was dark and quiet when Oliver entered the basement.

'Felicity?' he called quietly.

Laying his helmet, bow and quiver on a nearby bench Oliver shook himself to get rid of the last of the rain. Using the faint glow of Felicity's computer monitors Oliver moved silently through the room towards where he hoped Felicity was sleeping.

Sure enough there was a small shape curled on her side, lying under a couple of blankets on the old army cot. Knowing she was here, safe, Oliver finally felt he could relax as he pulled off his gloves and unzipped his jacket. He could tell by her breathing that Felicity was only pretending to be asleep. Even though they hadn't talked the rest of the trip back, Oliver knew she had stayed up on the coms, just in case anything was needed. Not leaving her precious computers until she knew he was safely home. Oliver shook his head there was that word again. Home was supposed to be the mansion, wasn't it? Not some high tech lair, hidden under a nightclub . . . unless home wasn't a place.

He was about to turn away when the faint reflection from one of the overhead nightlights caught Oliver's eye. Sighing Oliver walked over; leathers creaking slightly as he knelt down by the bed. Felicity hadn't bothered to take off her glasses. Reaching out he gently lifted them off her face, folding them up and placing the glasses on the floor within easy reach. Felicity scrunched her noseand squirmed a little deeper into the mattress. Oliver hesitated a moment then reached out and pulled the blankets up higher, tucking them around Felicity's body.

Lips twitching slightly, Oliver placed both hands on either side of Felicity and leaned over. He bought his lips up close to her ear and whispered, 'If I see even a hint of a shirtless Thursday memo, I'll fire you on the Friday.'

The squeak of the springs as he pushed himself up off the bed couldn't hide Felicity's snort of amusement.